“Verily, you (O Muhammad) guide not whom you like, but Allah guides whom He wills. And He knows best those who are the guided.” Quran 28:56 Philosophers have been trying to understand free will for ages. Do we have free will? And if so, how do we know that we have free will? How do we really know that the decisions we make are not influenced by our environment or some invisible force? The concept of free will is so elusive that some philosophers think it’s an illusion. Here a

“Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence—whether much that is glorious—whether all that is profound—does not spring from disease of thought—from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.” Edgar Allan Poe Someone once asked me how the Somali diaspora deals with other Somalis who have forsaken the faith or the culture sin

Tonight in North America we are having a lunar eclipse and I am so bumped out that I can't go. Why can't I go? Well, 1) I'm coming down with a cold for the fourth time in four months (that's what I get for working with kids eleven hours a day). 2) We're snowed in and the roads are not yet fully plowed—though that's starting to sound more like an excuse than a reason. And 3) the temperature tonight around the eclipse time will be five degrees Fahrenheit (that is minus fifteen