Living in Allah’s Presence

Holding degrees in economics, politics, and law from Bombay University, Abdur Rashid Siddiqui had been, until his retirement in 1997, a highly appreciated librarian at the University of Leicester. In addition to Our Relationship with Prophet Muhammad, Tazkiyah, Lift up your Hearts (2 vols.) and Man and Destiny, he published several “key” books, namely Key to al-Fatihah, Al [Imran, al-Kahf and a Reference Guide to 140 Qur’anic keywords – all published by the Islamic Foundation. The 24 sermons (khutabah) reproduced in this volume were delivered originally by the author at the University of Leicester mosque and, subsequently, at the Markfield Islamic Foundation. Khurshid Ahmad’s truly beautiful introduction gives credit to this valuable work. The sermons, two of which reproduced in the Appendices, are models for immediate use in British mosques (p. xvi). They contain no less than 293 Qur’anic quotations and, with great wisdom, deal with subjects of selfpurification (tazkiyah), like akhlaq, amanah, du[a’, ikhlas, niyyah, sabr, shukr, taqwa and zuhd, i.e. subjects dealing with universally appreciated human characteristics (fitrah).