My Learnings

 Ek sawaal, jiske saath main ek Muslim hone ke naate aur ab dheere-dheere ek father hone ke naate kaafi waqt se joojh raha hoon — Islam mein ek aurat ki asal position kya hai? Na woh position jo Muslim society use deti hai, na woh jo hamare culture mein uske liye tay kar di gayi hai, aur na woh jo humne bachpan se apne aas-paas ke logon se sunte aur dekhte hue maan li hai. Balki woh position jo Quran use deta hai, aur woh position jo Huzoor (PBUH) ne apne zamaane mein auraton ko di aur unke saath jis tarah ka bartao kiya. Main is sawaal ko ab sirf ek Muslim ke taur par nahi, balki ek father ke taur par bhi samajhna chahta hoon. Kyunki jitna main is sawaal ke baare mein sochta hoon aur padhta hoon, utna hi mere mann mein ek aur sawaal uthta hai — kya ek Muslim aurat ko apne aas-paas ke mardon ke neeche, unki subordinate bankar rehna hai? Ya phir woh ek independent moral insaan hai, jiske apne faisle hain, apni zimmedari hai, aur jo sabse aakhir mein khud Allah ke saamne jawabdeh hai...

I've been thinking a lot about Maulana Abul Kalam Azad lately. Not simply the Azad we know as a freedom fighter, scholar, Qur'anic commentator and one of the founding figures of modern India, but Azad the young man who questioned almost everything he had inherited. What makes his story particularly interesting to me is that I find some resemblance between his intellectual journey and the kind of questions that many Muslims of our generation quietly go through. Of course, my own journey is nowhere near as intellectually sophisticated or historically significant as his. But the direction of the questions feels familiar. Azad was born into a deeply traditional religious household. His father, Maulana Muhammad Khairuddin, was a respected religious scholar and Sufi. Azad received an intensely traditional education and absorbed the beliefs and practices of his family almost unquestioningly. And then he started reading. He encountered Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and other modern intell...

I've been thinking about a question that goes much deeper than whether one particular interpretation of Islam is right or wrong. The question is: If Islam is meant to guide human beings toward justice, morality and a good society, what should the most just Islamic society actually look like? And when I say "Islamic," I don't mean simply reproducing every rule found in a medieval fiqh manual. Nor do I mean taking modern liberalism as the standard and then trying to make Islam fit it. I mean something more fundamental: If we begin with what we can reasonably establish as Allah's revelation and the Prophet's guidance, distinguish that from later interpretation and historical practice, and then ask how those principles should be understood and implemented in our circumstances, what kind of society follows? This question matters because I increasingly see a gap between the Islam many Muslims are taught and the kind of society that many Muslims actually have to live...

Something unusual is happening across South Asia. In Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, young people have taken to the streets against governments they saw as corrupt, unresponsive and disconnected from their lives. In Bangladesh in 2024, a student movement that began over government job quotas grew into a broader uprising that brought down Sheikh Hasina's government. In Sri Lanka in 2022, young protesters helped force President Gotabaya Rajapaksa from office after an economic collapse. In Nepal in 2025, Gen Z protests over corruption, nepotism and a social-media ban helped force Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli to resign. And now something much less dramatic—but potentially very revealing—is happening in India. The Cockroach Janta Party, which began partly as a satirical response to a controversial remark about unemployed youth, has attracted a large youth following around issues including examination failures, paper leaks, unemployment and frustration with the political establishmen...

One of the recurring problems in diverse societies is the relationship between identity and political power . When a community is a minority, it naturally becomes concerned about: equal rights; protection from discrimination; freedom of religion or culture; political representation; security; and the ability to preserve its way of life. But when that same community becomes the majority, something can change. It may begin asking: If we are the majority, why shouldn't our values shape the state? That transition is not unique to any particular religion, ethnicity or community. It is a broader problem of majoritarian power . When numerical strength becomes political ownership Give almost any identity enough political power and there is a temptation to convert numerical strength into political privilege. A religious majority may want the state to reflect its religion. A linguistic majority may want its language to dominate public life. An ethnic majority may define...

When India became independent in 1947, it inherited a problem that was much older than Partition. How could people belonging to different religions, languages, castes, regions and cultures live together in one political community without allowing the largest community to permanently dominate the smaller ones? The Muslim League had offered one answer. It argued that Muslims were not merely a religious minority but a separate political nation. If Muslims were to be secure, they needed political safeguards based on their identity—and eventually, in the League's view, their own state. But there was another answer. It was the idea that ultimately became the foundation of the Indian Republic: You should not need to belong to a political majority in order to be an equal citizen. That idea was extraordinarily ambitious. And if India can make it work in practice, it offers something much more powerful than separate political representation for every religious community. It offers a way out ...