The light of the day · Wednesday 28 October
The surgeon whose instruments you would recognise
Around the year 1000 in Cordoba, al-Zahrawi illustrated some two hundred surgical instruments: forceps, scalpels, specula, surgical needles. He also used catgut for internal stitches, having noticed the body absorbs it, which is why the thread inside a modern patient still does not need removing.
Al-Zahrawi · Cordoba, c. 1000 CE
Wednesday 28 October 2026 · 16 Jumada al-Ula 1448 AH
The word · Law and life
رِدَّة
Riddah
Apostasy: abandoning Islam after having accepted it.
Classical law treated open apostasy as a capital offence, drawing on prophetic reports rather than on the Qur'an, which mentions apostasy several times without prescribing any worldly penalty and states plainly that there is no compulsion in religion. Hanafis did not apply the death penalty to a woman who apostatised, and jurists across the schools required that repentance be invited first. Many contemporary…
The Path · chapter 61 of 71
الخسوف الثلاثة
Three Landslides: Al-Khusuf
Swallowing of the earth in the East, West, and Arabia.
The ground is a permission, not a possession
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