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Welcome to Episode 43 of the Middle Ground Podcast. Today I want to discuss the current paradox we’re living in: the paradox of “infinite” digital options. This paradox has left many (if not most) us more distracted, less fulfilled, and suffering from a kind of spiritual malnutrition. Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19th Century philosopher, presaged the age of the “smart”-phone by warning of the dangers of losing our will to exert ourselves against external forces. What he foretold of nihilism now manifests as endless scrolling: a flood of content that means nothing, an curated attrition.

Our minds and more specifically, our hearts, overwhelmed by choice and a dearth of serendipity, have succumbed, resigning us to a doom of passive consumption. We confuse abundance with freedom, but true freedom requires boundaries. Algorithms, despite the ubiquitous presence, are neither neutral or natural; they inform our desires and corral us into predictable patterns like lambs for the slaughter.

But Nietzsche’s vision of the Übermensch is not the answer. After all, he is famously attributed to the statement, “Gott ist tot/God is dead”. What we need today is not the Übermensch but the muḥsin, the one who creates values and lives by them, striving for God’s pleasure as if he sees God, though in spite of not being able to do so, the muḥsin knows God sees him. In todays context this will undoubtedly include a reclaiming of our attention. We must strive to align our habits, digital, analog, and otherwise, with our highest values, namely Islām, not our lowest impulses.

What I’m advocating for here, with all due respect to Cal Newport, shouldn’t be misconstrued as a kind of digital minimalism; it's precisely an Islāmic and spiritual resistance. The Qur'ān isn't an echo chamber; it's a resonance chamber. Echoes repeat cacophonously. Resonance transforms you.

We must build a digital philosophy grounded in Islām: rooted in submission (Islām), faith (Īmān), and excellence (Iḥsān). This means creating principles for tech use that serve our goal of achieving Jannah (Paradise), not endless, short-lived dopamine hits.

In an age where every scroll is tracked, then perhaps the revolutionary act is to stop and choose. Real freedom is not infinite content; it is deliberate attention, guided by purpose.

Recommended Actions:

* Digital Intention Journal: Before opening any app, write down your purpose and time limit. Reflect after.

* Algorithmic Sabbaticals: One day a week, consume only human-recommended content.

* Information Sanctuaries: Designate time for deep, distraction-free engagement with one source.

* Digital Containers: Set fixed times (e.g., 30 mins a.m./p.m.) for digital use.

* Create Islamic Digital Principles: Define three tech-use rules aligned with Islām, Īmān, and Iḥsān.

* Weekly Discovery Day: Seek novelty outside the algorithm: libraries, friends, strangers, random tools.

* Choose Content in Advance: Decide what to watch/read before opening apps.

* Reframe Tech Use as Worship: Ask: does this tool help me emulate the Prophet?

* Reclaim Will to Power: Choose what nourishes you—not what hooks you.

* Embrace Constraints: Boundaries don’t limit creativity; they make it possible.

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Welcome back to the Middle Ground Podcast with Episode 42. Here, Imam Marc Manley takes into an important—and uncomfortable topic—that continues to stir headlines and town hall debates across America: Sharī’ah law. The issue here is not the fears and concerns of non-Muslims; as Imam Marc states, it’s not the obligation of Muslims to make non-Muslims comfortable with Muslims and Islām. Instead, the problem is the caricature of sharī’ah that’s being presented as factual in political campaigns and viral fear-mongering social media videos. This episode endeavors to unpack what Sharī’ah really means for Muslims, especially Muslims living in a non-Muslim society and how Sharī’ah shapes the personal lives of Muslims (and maybe even influencing not public laws), challenging the caricature and assumption that Sharī’ah is something always to be “imposed” upon others (a misconception even some Muslims have bought into).

Imam’s Corner is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

You’ll hear a candid conversation on the difference between divine and secular law, as well as how fear of Islam shapes not just social opinions but public and governmental policy, and what it means to confidently assert your faith without compromise. Whether you’re Muslim, Christian, or just trying to make sense of religion in modern America, this is one you don’t want to miss.

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Before starting my Saturday Qur’ān class, Understanding the Qur’ān, where we read from Ibn Juzayy’s tafsīr, I shared a reflection on what it’s like to give a khuṭbah on the minbar, week after week. That there’s a weighty feeling of responsibility that comes with opening your mouth in not just a public space but most importantly a sacred one. Even after having given a khuṭbah nearly ever single Friday for over a decade, I still wrestle with the weight and the significance of standing in the place where the Prophet Muḥammad ‎ﷺ stood and preached. This is compounded now with the ever increasing tendency, at least in America (if not in the greater West) of the “speakerfication” of religious sermons in our community and not for least because when someone listens to one of my khuṭbahs—and takes what I say to heart—and then acts on those words, it leaves me feeling inadequate and hesitant to speak. Every time.

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As I said, we live in an age where the word “speaker” has come to replace khaṭīb or preacher. This shift may have been understandable in the early years of the Muslim community in America, when many came from cultural Muslim backgrounds with little to no formal training. But after decades of growth, and with a new generation of Western Muslims who have pursued formal study both at home and abroad, this terminology—and the mindset behind it—feels outdated.

Yet the old mentality persists. Along with reducing the khaṭīb to a “speaker,” the khuṭbah itself has been downgraded to motivational talks, TED-style sermons, or worse: political pandering and incoherent rambling. As someone raised in the ’70s, the word “speaker” meant Cerwin Vegas or JBLs—equipment, not people. Today, the criteria for assuming the mantle of the Prophet ﷺ can be as superficial as having a large social media following or the right connections to the masjid board.

I don’t say this to be harsh, but because of some recent experiences that both I and another brother were witness to. This brother shared with me disturbing feedback from a khuṭbah he attended where the khaṭīb made deeply troubling remarks. I also recently attended one myself that left me questioning where we are as a community. Who is being allowed to shape the minds and hearts of Muslims every Friday? Has our reverence for what it means to speak with authenticity and accountability fallen this low?

Giving a khuṭbah isn’t just a speech. It’s not “content” and furthermore, it’s a responsibility, an obligation to know what the khuṭbah is, something which the Qur’ān is not silent about. Allāh says in the Sixty Second Chapter,

يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓا۟ إِذَا نُودِىَ لِلصَّلَوٰةِ مِن يَوْمِ ٱلْجُمُعَةِ فَٱسْعَوْا۟ إِلَىٰ ذِكْرِ ٱللَّهِ وَذَرُوا۟ ٱلْبَيْعَ ۚ

O believers! When the call to prayer is made on Friday, then proceed with haste to the remembrance of Allāh, leaving off all business matters.

The khuṭbah and the prayer are jointly referred to as dhikr Allāh, “the Remembrance of Allāh”. Many have the skewed view that the khuṭbah is some kind of weekly alternative to the normal prayer which is conducted silently. But Friday (Yawm al-Jumu’ah) has its own uṣūl, its own foundations, of which the khuṭbah is foundationally a part of, not alternatively.

My point is that I’ve seen an attitude develop amongst this generation of Muslims where the khuṭbah is not regarded with the same reverence and regard as the prayer. This, along with other factors, has led to a degrading of the khuṭbah. This is of special concern in that what young Muslims are seeing—online or in-person—isn’t knowledge-based. Arguments about abstract theological debates from centuries ago or political grievances, especially those that have no real bearing on our lives today, have no place on the minbar.

We need to ask ourselves: Are people bored of serious scholarship and spiritual effort because the people who represent it seem more interested in spectacle than sincerity? And have we contributed to that, creating a culture where nobody wants to get up for Fajr and study, not because they’re lazy, but because they’ve never been invited into something worth sacrificing for?

This is why the minbar matters and why I feel its prophetic weight every Friday.

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Modern life pushes us into two extremes: a hamster wheel of "progression" or paralyzing fatalism. Islam offers a different paradigm. We discussed, as part of our Saturday morning Fajr Club, how believers can hold space for both divine decree and improvised action, rooted in sincerity and gratitude.

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Many of us focus on repentance, but did you know there’s a reward simply for avoiding major sins? Allāh says in Sūrah al-Shūrā,

وَمَا عِندَ ٱللَّهِ خَيْرٌۭ وَأَبْقَىٰ لِلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَعَلَىٰ رَبِّهِمْ يَتَوَكَّلُونَ - وَٱلَّذِينَ يَجْتَنِبُونَ كَبَـٰٓئِرَ ٱلْإِثْمِ وَٱلْفَوَٰحِشَ وَإِذَا مَا غَضِبُوا۟ هُمْ يَغْفِرُونَ

“What is with Allah is far better and more lasting for those who believe and put their trust in their Lord; who avoid major sins and shameful deeds, and forgive when angered…” – al-Shūrā v. 36-37

This is an excerpt from Sunday Arabic class, The Arabic Reader, where we were studying a passage from Ibn Abī Zayd al-Qayrawānī’s al-Risālah that shows how the deliberate and intentional efforts to stay away from major sins can lead to Allāh forgiving our minor ones.

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The following is an excerpt from my Sunday Arabic class, The Arabic Reader. I wanted to illustrate how pre-modern scholars of the Qur’ān, in this case Ibn Abī Zayd al-Qayrawānī, the author of the famous al-Risālah, commented on how everything “flows into existence according to the decree of Allāh”, itself a commentary on the Qur’ānic motif of "flowing rivers" in paradise. I illustrate how this resonates with ideas in quantum physics. So what can classical Islamic thought teach us, or rather, physicists!, about the nature of existence?

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You can also watch on YouTube:

Imam’s Corner is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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Inadequacies – we all have them. And Shayṭān, the Accursed Devil, uses these to discourage us from repenting to our Lord, Who is Merciful, and demoralize us from persevering through our faults, sins, and mistakes, making us think that we’ll never make it. But our beloved Guide and Messenger ‎ﷺ warned us from thinking just our deeds alone could save us when he said,

“The deeds of anyone of you will not save you" They said, "Even you will not be saved by your deeds, O Allah's Messenger?" He said, "No, even I unless and until Allah bestows His Mercy on me. Therefore, do good deeds properly, sincerely and moderately, and worship Allah in the forenoon and in the afternoon and during a part of the night, and always adopt a middle, moderate, regular course whereby you will reach your target ( meaning Jannah/Paradise)”. – See Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (English and Arabic).

So know that what you do in worship to your Creator is appreciated, accounted for, and weighed and considered. And that it just may to you and I our entire lives, striving mightily, no matter how week we get, to achieve the ultimate goal:

“And whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger, has truly achieved a great triumph – وَمَن يُطِعِ ٱللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُۥ فَقَدْ فَازَ فَوْزًا عَظِيمًا ٧١” – Sūrah al-Aḥzāb v. 71.

May Allāh accept from us and forgive us our shortcomings, overlook our sins and mistakes, and make us from the People of Paradise. Āmīn.

You can watch the full khuṭbah here:

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Welcome to Episode 38 of the Middle Ground Podcast. Hosts Imam Marc Manley and brother Dawud Aleman. In this episode we reflect on the duality that on one hand Allāh tells us that Shaytan (Satan) is our "clear enemy" (عُدُوٌّ مُبِيْنٌ) and yet he remains hidden to us, at least directly. We also talk about the effects of “blue light” and what it means to be “alternative” as it relates to medical practices.

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You can also watch the episode on YouTube:

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Welcome to Episode 37 of the Middle Ground Podcast. Hosts Imam Marc Manley and brother Dawud Aleman.

In this episode we what's ahead for Muslims in America now that the election is over. Will Trump fulfill his promises, for good or bad, or is he a lame duck president?

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You can also watch this episode on YouTube: