(my replies to two spiritually-elevating messages from Dr Musharraf Hussain, = very happy, very pleased to read) == Please Keep Up the Good Work. Best Wishes, Aummm..
Thirumala Raya Halemane
From: Thirumala Raya Halemane <trhal...@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Dec 7, 2025 at 11:17 AM
Subject: Re: A Moral Revolution in the Time of Monsters ☠️
To: Dr Musharraf Hussain <in...@thought4friday.co.uk>
Cc: Shilpi Halemane <shi...@gmail.com>, Kavi Halemane <khal...@gmail.com>, Usha Halemane <uhal...@gmail.com>, Halemane Usha <usha.h...@diag.bracco.com>, Rajendra Halemane <hale...@gmail.com>, Ravi Bhat Halemane <ravibh...@gmail.com>, Ravi Bhat Halemane <madhur...@gmail.com>, keshavaprasad s <mithaja...@gmail.com>, Vijaya Subrahmanya <vijikar...@gmail.com>, Udaya Bhanu Halemane <udaya.bhan...@gmail.com>, Keshava PRASADa Halemane <K.Pra...@gmail.com>, Thirumala Halemane <raya...@yahoo.com>
14 Jumada Al-Akhirah 1447
A Moral Revolution in the Time of Monsters ☠️
By Prof. Dr. Musharraf Hussain OBE Al Azhari
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Every year, BBC Radio 4 broadcasts the Reith Lectures. In the 2025 Reith Lectures, historian Rutger Bregman delivers a powerful message that helps us understand the polarisation in our society, the growing gap between rich and poor and the spectre of fascism looms. I found them really fascinating, so I decided to review them from an Islamic perspective. He uses the Quran’s vocabulary. Let’s listen to this rational and moral voice of a brave son of the West.
Decline from the Inside Out
He likens the moral decadence of America to the fall of Rome and that of Europe to the decline of Venice. He argues, there is no shortage of intelligence, wealth, or technology, but a lack of moral values. The crisis is not technical but ethical; not economic but spiritual. We are not short of solutions, we are short of conviction.
Bregman begins with Rome. The Roman Empire did not collapse overnight, nor was it defeated by a single enemy. It corroded slowly from within. Public office became a commodity, loyalty was purchased, truth was manipulated, and leaders served themselves before their people. The institutions remained; integrity vanished. When Bregman tells us our times are like Rome, it’s frightening to hear. We have leaders who perform instead of governing; billionaires who avoid tax while workers are burdened with tax. Mainstream media thrives on bad/fake news rather than the truth.
Education without Ethics
I have argued for years that, unfortunately, our schools, colleges and universities have lost their moral compass. Moral values of kindness, patience, gratitude, justice and courage are taught no more. Character formation is a thing of the past. Consequently, students who once dreamt of curing disease, ending inequality, and saving the planet emerge with debts exceeding £50,000 and see little prospect of owning a home. So, they want to be transactional and are just concerned with how they can get rich quickly. So, they go into consultancy, finance, and corporate law.
These professions may be respectable and well-paid, but society cannot thrive if its brightest minds are trained to generate profit rather than repair communities, heal the sick, or teach the young. Our young people are ambitious but lacking in moral and spiritual values. Success is their mantra. When I was at university during the seventies, we prioritised shaping a ‘meaningful life’. Today, student surveys show that most just want wealth. This change is not fitrah, the natural human disposition rather it is bred from a culture of greed.
When Power Replaces Integrity
Bregman speaks about Politicians who are either shameless or spineless, unashamedly corrupt or paralysed by fear. Institutions no longer defend truth; they manage reputations. Corporations, universities, law firms and media organisations bow to power not because they have fallen from principle, but because their allegiance was never to principle at all. Clear evidence that our educational institutions did not do their job of developing strong character.
History shows that when there is a moral and spiritual vacuum, then extremists step in to fill it. They offer certainty instead of truth, identity instead of justice, and power instead of wisdom. Fascism, Bregman warns, rarely arrives suddenly. It enters when people stop believing that leaders can be virtuous, pious and moral; they settle for those who are merely loud or strong. Isn’t this what many believe about our modern leaders?
It’s time for a Moral Revolution
Bregman is not a pessimist; he advocates a moral revolution. In history, this was achieved by small groups dismissed as unrealistic. Like the abolitionists before slavery ended. The suffragettes before women voted. The civil rights activists before segregation collapsed. None began with authority; all began with courage. The beloved Prophet (peace be upon him) described his mission as ‘perfecting strong character.’ His was a moral revolution. Notice how he started with a tiny band of followers willing to bring about change and challenge the oligarchs of Makkah.
Moral action, he concludes, is the way forward. Here, The Majestic Quran speaks powerfully to our moment. “When We decide to destroy a society, we allow its wealthy elite to violate all bounds; corruption spreads, and the judgement becomes inevitable” (Al-Isra 17:16). Civilisations do not collapse from poverty. They collapse when moral vices become rampant, like arrogance and greed. There is too much power without responsibility, so you see corruption. Leisure replaces service. Luxury replaces law. This verse is not history; it is a diagnosis. Rome yesterday, America today; Venice yesterday, Europe today shows the same pattern. We have leadership that lacks conscience, ruin is only a matter of time.
Conclusion
Bregman’s remedy is not dissimilar to the Quranic ideal. Submit to Divine moral and spiritual virtues and apply social and ethical values for renewal. What we need is not merely policy reform, but what he calls moral ambition, the courage to seek goodness, not status, service, not applause. The Quran echoes this: “Allah does not change the condition of a people until they change what is within themselves” (Al Raad,13:11). No renewal comes from the outside. Societies change only when the hearts change.
In an age that measures honour/status with material objects and progress without purpose. Let’s use the Quran to reframe it: “The most honourable among you, in God’s sight, are those most conscious of Him and mindful of duty” (Al-Hujarat, 49:13). Bregman doesn’t ask: “What is happening to the world?” but “What am I becoming within it?” A moral revolution does not begin with governments. It begins with teachers, parents, business leaders, and Namazis.
That is why, today more than ever, we need a renewed moral and spiritual rearmament, a conscious effort to rebuild character, cultivate values, and live with purpose. My books Seven Steps to Moral Intelligence and Seven Steps to Spiritual Intelligence offer practical guidance for those ready to take that first step of inner change.
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Friday Reflections · 512 Berridge Road West · Nottingham, England NG7 5JU · United Kingdom
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From: Thirumala Raya Halemane <trhal...@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Dec 12, 2025 at 9:06 AM
Subject: Re: Hearing the Divine Voice 📖
To: Dr Musharraf Hussain <in...@thought4friday.co.uk>
Cc: Shilpi Halemane <shi...@gmail.com>, Kavi Halemane <khal...@gmail.com>, Usha Halemane <uhal...@gmail.com>, Halemane Usha <usha.h...@diag.bracco.com>, Keshava PRASADa Halemane <K.Pra...@gmail.com>, Udaya Bhanu Halemane <udaya.bhan...@gmail.com>, Usha Ammankallu <ushaamm...@gmail.com>, Rajendra Halemane <hale...@gmail.com>, Ravi Bhat Halemane <ravibh...@gmail.com>, Ravi Bhat Halemane <madhur...@gmail.com>, keshavaprasad s <mithaja...@gmail.com>, Vijaya Subrahmanya <vijikar...@gmail.com>
21 Jumada Al-Akhirah 1447
Hearing the Divine Voice: Quran Recitation in Prayer Brings Us Closer to Allah 📖
By Prof. Dr. Musharraf Hussain OBE Al Azhari
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Today I want to talk about the secret of Quranic nearness, why the Awliya, friends of Allah, loved long-standing in Prayer. They regard the Quran as a pathway to the Divine presence.
In a letter to his disciple, Khwaja Muhammad Masoom Sirhindi (d. 1660) explained that Quran recitation during prayer is the most effective way of getting closer to Allah. He stresses that during the prayer, the most intense spiritual experience is found in Quran recitation, especially prolonged standing.
Every Sunday morning, I present a show on Radio Dawn for twenty minutes where I narrate some letters written by an amazing friend of Allah, a master of inner wellbeing and health, a doctor of moral and spiritual beauty, a counsellor of psychological conditions. They were written nearly four hundred years ago.
Here I want to share a dose of the master’s medicine. I hope you are ready to gulp it.
A pious disciple once asked the master to explain an experience that he had during salah. So, the Shaykh Khwaja Muhammad Masoom Sirhindi wrote back:
“The spiritual advancement you found in reciting the Quran is rarely found in other activities, especially the recitation during the prayer while standing. When a person rises above mundane practices, then distinctions fade away, and progress at that level happens through Quran recitation in prayer. As the Quran is the speech of Allah, His Divine attribute, an attribute that is never separate from its source. To join oneself to this attribute, to adopt it, becomes a cause of nearness and closeness to Allah.
The Prophet ﷺ said: “The people of the Quran are the people of Allah and His chosen ones.” It is possible that ‘people of the Quran’ here refers to those who reach this state and have passed beyond outward principles, reached annihilation and subsistence, and become purified of all else besides Allah. Annihilation is to have full control of one’s ego, subdue worldly desires so they are quiet, no lust and hunger for material things. Truly free, liberated from the jaws of the greedy and selfish self.
Until a person is purified from everything other than Allah, he is not among the people of the Quran nor fit for recitation. Any recitation performed before this state belongs to the deeds of the righteous (Abrar), not the deeds of the near ones (Muqarrabin). At this stage, repetition of the pure word (Kalimah-e-Tayyabah) is beneficial and elevating. When the inner self is purified through this blessed phrase, one becomes worthy of recitation. The noble verse “None touch it except the purified” points to this meaning that ‘the Quran is recited only by the clean, free of attachments to anything besides Allah’. In this verse, recitation is metaphorically referred to as “touching” due to its intensity.
The Prophet ﷺ said: “Whoever yearns for Allah should listen to His word.” Another hadith says: “Whoever wishes to speak with his Lord should recite the Quran.” And another: “The memorisers and scholars of the Quran are the friends of Allah. Whoever opposes them opposes Allah; whoever befriends them befriends Allah.” Another hadith states that ‘every verse Allah revealed has an outer and an inner meaning; every letter has a limit, and every limit has a deeper horizon to be explored’” (Letters of Khwaja Masoom Sirhindi).
At higher spiritual stages, distinctions and ordinary ‘rules’ fade; progress occurs through deep engagement with the Quran during the prayer. Because the Quran is a Divine attribute, the speech of Allah, and an inseparable Divine attribute connecting oneself to this attribute leads to spiritual intimacy with Allah.
The Rank of ‘Ahl al-Quran’, they have reached purity, detachment from everything besides Allah, and deep union with The Majestic Quran, is described as the “People of Allah” based on Prophetic sayings: ‘One cannot truly be from the people of the Quran until the heart is cleared of worldly attachments’. Hadiths emphasise: Listening to the Quran expresses longing for Allah. Reciting the Quran is akin to speaking with one’s Lord. Those who carry and understand the Quran are the true friends of Allah.
Only the purified can access the Quran; the verse “None touch it except the purified” is interpreted spiritually: only those spiritually cleansed “touch”, i.e. fully receive the reality of the Quran. The Quran is a means of nearness and Divine conversation. Let us enjoy Quran recitation in prayer. Whilst I always urge students to read the Divine writ with meanings, there is power in Divine words that is palpable, touching and transforming.
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Friday Reflections · 512 Berridge Road West · Nottingham, England NG7 5JU · United Kingdom
