I took the time to listen to #sanatuzambangcaféExperience | #RamadanEdition (Iliyas Abdul Aziz). May Allah Azzawajal continue to bless brother Aziz with the knowledge that is beneficial to him and the entire ummah!
I am very impressed and inspired by his talk and obvious Islamic knowledge. I agree with a lot of his points and as you can recall my talk with you on women empowerment/ Feminism, our thinking aligns well.
I am not a scholar and not even a good Islamic student at this time, but I do know that Islam is not in contradiction to TRUE feminism.
However, I beg to differ on the bold statement that “ we can no longer preach abstinence “ I realize brother Aziz did not get a chance to elaborate on that point. Nonetheless, regardless of how we envision Islamic development to go with current times, we cannot deviate from certain core principles.
The Sunnah and Quran are with our current times and will always be as promised by Allah till the last trumpet is blown. All this is to say, our interpretations of Islam are perhaps problematic and not aligning well with current issues.
I agree with brother Aziz that we need a fundamental shift in Islamic education. Don’t get me wrong, I am not against family planning. However, we have to promote family planning in the true context of Islam.
Yes, our young people know a lot these days. It is the responsibility of parents to imbibe certain values in children before they learn and copy un-Islamic values from the world.
Then, as mentors and teachers, we also have responsibilities and these can be realized through Islamic counseling and other Islamic / halal-based fun adventures. I would love to meet the brother someday Insha Allah. I am sure I can learn a lot from him bithinillah. May Allah use us all in many ways to advance Islam beautifully in tamale and beyond.
