Sufis

Why Hermes Trismegistus Wasn’t a Magician (And Why That’s More Mind-Blowing)

February 8th, 2026

Few texts have accumulated as many confident explanations and as little agreement as the Emerald Tablet. Over time, several dominant interpretive camps have emerged, each claiming to have decoded its true meaning.

What all previous interpretations do share, is a common oversight: they assume the Tablet is about matter, cosmos, symbols, or techniques. Very few take seriously the possibility that it is about a human faculty, one that ancient traditions assumed as real, operative, and central, but which modern frameworks have rendered metaphorical or nonexistent.

Most traditional interpretations fail because they are methodologically incoherent, applying symbols selectively without a constraint that binds the whole text together. In contrast, this model requires every aphorism to contribute uniquely to a single, unified model.

Older interpretations (recently and in the past centuries) are more flexible, that flexibility is often their weakness because “if every line can mean almost anything, the text ceases to mean something specific”.

This interpretation is presented as the most coherent, because it provides a specific, restrictive, and exhaustive framework that accounts for every line of the text without redundancy. The paper offers a clear, functional reason for the Tablet’s commands.

It takes a very different approach which treats the Tablet as saying something very precise.

If you’ve ever felt the text was being talked around rather than understood, this one’s for you.

The Emerald Tablet Download
The Abdal & Abdulqadir al-Jilani

January 29th, 2026

Why Abdulqadir al-Jilani Still Matters When Power Drifts Beyond Conscience

Abdulqadir al-Jilani, may Allah have mercy on his soul, is one of the most beloved figures in Islamic history. His name is spoken with reverence across the Muslim world. For centuries, people have turned to him as a symbol of spiritual depth, humility, and closeness to Allah. And yet, for all this reverence, there is something strangely absent in how we remember him.

We remember who he was — but rarely ask the significance of what he actually did.

The modern Muslim imagination tends to place Abdulqadir al-Jilani in one of two categories. Either he is elevated beyond history as a saint whose role was purely spiritual, or he is quietly sidelined as part of a “Sufi” tradition often reduced to personal piety and ritual practice. In both cases, his legacy is treated as something inward, private, and disconnected from power, institutions, and the shape of civilization itself.

This raises the first question, and it is not a sentimental one:

“Why did a man remembered primarily for spirituality end up shaping institutions that stretched from Mali to China?”

Spiritual charisma alone does not produce durable social structures. Yet zawiyahs linked to Abdulqadir al-Jilani’s legacy fed the poor, protected travelers, mediated disputes, facilitated trade, and created trust across cultures for centuries. Something more than private devotion was at work.

To understand that, we need to look at the world he lived in. Abdulqadir al-Jilani did not live in a moral vacuum. Islamic law existed. Scholars were present. Courts functioned. And yet, moral authority was already drifting. The rulers were becoming more insulated, and increasingly distant from the lives of ordinary people. Moral responsibility was growing costly.

Which leads to the second question:

“What problem was Abdulqadir al-Jilani actually responding to, if the law was already in place?”

If Islam already had its legal and moral framework, why did figures like him feel compelled to build new types of institutions alongside it?

Not against the state. Not in rebellion. But clearly not within its machinery either.

This is where the concept of Abdal becomes difficult to dismiss. They are often treated as mystical figures or symbolic saints. But earlier Muslims took them seriously in a functional sense, as people who carried a responsibility for humanity, so essential, that institutions and ordinary scholars could not.

That leads to a third, more unsettling question:

“When moral action becomes dangerous or ineffective within institutions, where does responsibility go?”

Does it disappear? Or does it relocate — into people, spaces, and practices that remain close enough to the people to preserve conscience?

For centuries, Muslims actually embodied the answer to that question, even if they did not always articulate it theoretically. Today, however, that answer feels distant. Sufism is often dismissed as aesthetic, irrational, or politically irrelevant. The institutions it produced are rarely understood as infrastructure. The mechanisms that once preserved moral coherence under power are remembered as ornamentation.

Which brings us to the final question — one that makes Abdulqadir al-Jilani impossible to leave in the past:

“What happens when power becomes even more abstract than it was in his time?”

We now live in a world governed not only by states and institutions, but by systems, metrics, and algorithms. Authority is mediated. Responsibility diffuses. Feedback is filtered. Conscience is displaced. The conditions Abdulqadir al-Jilani responded to have not disappeared — they have intensified.

This essay does not treat Abdulqadir al-Jilani as a figure of nostalgia, nor as a saint beyond analysis. It approaches him as something far more challenging:

“A man who acutely understood how to live a moral life, when political power drifts beyond conscience, and who helped build structures that carried that burden quietly for generations.“

If we have lost something today, it may not be faith or sincerity. It may be the knowledge of how moral coherence is actually preserved.

The paper below, explores these questions in depth (not devotionally, but structurally) and asks what the “Rose of Baghdad” still has to teach us in an age of institutional and technological power.

When Power Drifts – AQ Jilani and Abdal Download
The Problem Everyone Acknowledges, and No One Names

January 5th, 2026

There is no shortage of moral language in Muslim life today.

Sermons are constant. Conferences fill calendars. Podcasts dissect ethics weekly. Social media overflows with reminders, warnings, and exhortations. Parents worry deeply about raising good children. Mosques are active. Intentions are sincere. Moral concern is everywhere.

And yet, something feels unmistakably wrong.

The world Muslims inhabit does not look morally shaped by that concern. Injustice continues largely unchecked. Harm scales efficiently. Power operates without restraint. Vulnerability is spoken about passionately and protected inconsistently. Outcomes rarely match the intensity of the language surrounding them.

This is not a controversial observation. It is a common one.

Everyone feels it.
Some say it defensively: “The problem is leadership.”
Others say it quietly: “Maybe we’ve misunderstood something.”

But the gap remains.

Moral conviction is strong. Moral outcomes are weak.

What makes this especially disorienting is that the usual explanations feel insufficient. Faith is not absent, knowledge is widely available, and concern is genuine, yet Islamic ideals rarely translate into sustained effect. Even when moral urgency briefly surfaces in moments of crisis, it quickly dissipates without altering outcomes.

Mosques continue preaching, communities continue organizing and individuals continue trying. Yet the same frustrations return, unchanged. New generations inherit the same moral language and the same structural impotence.

At some point, a quiet question begins to surface beneath the noise—not as accusation, but as unease:

What if the problem isn’t belief, or sincerity, or effort at all?

Most people never finish that thought. It feels dangerous. It sounds disloyal. So it is buried under renewed commitment, renewed study, renewed exhortation.

But the discomfort remains.

Islamic morality, somehow, has lost its ability to shape the world it speaks about. But, the question is, why?

I’ve gathered my work on this condition into a single space, to examine the problem with the seriousness it demands. The aim is not reassurance or polemic, but clarity: to confront the question directly, without defensiveness, and without illusion.

If this sense of moral saturation without moral effect feels familiar to you, you may find it worth reading further. Click Here
The Quiet Cost of How We Teach Qadar

January 1st, 2026

Many educators do not see a problem with how Divine Decree is taught today. The doctrine is correct, the sources are sound, and the language is inherited from a long and serious tradition. From that perspective, any confusion among young Muslims is often dismissed as immaturity, weak faith, or excessive philosophizing. But this diagnosis misses what is actually happening.

The issue is not that young Muslims are questioning qadar. The issue is that they are internalizing it incorrectly, and doing so silently.

What is emerging among many young Muslims is not open denial of Divine Decree, but a subtle moral paralysis. It shows up as lowered effort, quiet passivity, and an unspoken belief that responsibility is thinner than it sounds. They still affirm that Allah decrees all things, but somewhere along the way, that affirmation stops empowering action and starts dulling it. This is not rebellion. It is confusion.

And it is largely pedagogical.

We are teaching a doctrine forged in a pre-modern metaphysical context to minds shaped by modern deterministic intuitions, without translating across the gap. When phrases like “Allah creates all acts” are introduced early, abstractly, and without grounding in lived moral responsibility, they are instinctively processed through a modern causal lens. To a young mind trained on systems, mechanisms, and determinism, this language does not sound like divine sovereignty. It sounds like preemption.

The result is predictable. If Allah creates the act, then at some level “it wasn’t really me.” That thought may never be spoken, but it reshapes behavior. Effort becomes conditional. Repentance becomes delayed. Moral urgency weakens. Over time, the doctrine meant to anchor humility begins to function as an excuse.

This is not because the doctrine is wrong. It is because the order and framing are wrong.

The Qur’an does not teach qadar by beginning with metaphysics. It begins with moral address. It speaks to the human being as a chooser who understands, resists, fails, repents, and tries again. It commands and prohibits without pausing to explain divine causation. It establishes responsibility first, and only then situates that responsibility within divine knowledge and will.

Classical theology followed a different need. Its technical language arose to protect divine sovereignty in metaphysical debates, not to describe how choice feels from within the human soul. Concepts like kasb were never meant to be a psychology of decision-making. They were guardrails against doctrinal error. When those guardrails are mistaken for the road itself, young Muslims do not become more orthodox — they become less morally alive.

What many educators fail to see is that fatalism today is not being preached — it is being inferred.

It is inferred when metaphysical claims are presented without moral anchoring. It is inferred when responsibility is constantly qualified but rarely affirmed. It is inferred when we assume that correct theology automatically produces healthy moral psychology.

It does not.

Young Muslims today are not struggling to imagine a God who decrees all things. They are struggling to understand how their effort still matters inside that decree. When we dismiss this struggle, we leave them alone with it. And when we leave them alone with it, they do not become heretical — they become passive.

This is why the problem must be named clearly. The tension people feel between qadar and freedom is not a doctrinal contradiction. It is a category error. Divine Decree operates at the level of reality’s grounding. Human responsibility operates at the level of moral orientation and lived choice. These were never meant to compete. The Qur’an affirms both without collapsing them, and without demanding that the believer understand how they coexist before acting responsibly.

Teaching must reflect that structure.

Responsibility should be taught plainly, confidently, and without immediate metaphysical qualification. Young Muslims should be addressed as real agents whose choices matter, whose struggle counts, and whose effort is meaningful. Only once that moral posture is secure should Divine Decree be introduced as a deeper truth that grounds humility after action, patience after striving, and trust after choice.

When we reverse this order, we do not produce deeper faith. We produce hesitation.

The goal of teaching qadar is not to impress students with metaphysical precision. It is to produce human beings who act, strive, repent, and take responsibility without anxiety. A theology that is correct but psychologically paralyzing has failed its task.

If educators do not recognize this problem, it will continue quietly. Not as disbelief, but as disengagement. Not as rebellion, but as resignation.

And that would be a tragedy — not of doctrine, but of pedagogy.

For those who want a more structured and detailed treatment of this issue, including its theological background and conceptual diagnosis, a longer paper expanding on this argument is available. It does not revise creed or dispute classical theology. It simply explains why the confusion is modern, why the contradiction is false, and how Divine Decree was always meant to ground responsibility rather than erode it.

You can read it here:

When Qadar Becomes Fatalism Download
Why the Adam Debate Keeps Failing Our Youth

December 30th, 2025

For years now, Muslim discussions about Adam and evolution have felt strangely exhausting. Not because the evidence keeps changing, but because the conversation never seems to settle. Each new discovery, each viral debate, each well-intentioned lecture reopens the same anxiety, especially among younger Muslims who are otherwise comfortable navigating modern knowledge.

They are told, implicitly or explicitly, that they must choose. Either evolutionary science must be resisted or distrusted, or the Qur’anic narrative must be quietly thinned until it no longer anchors a theological claim about humanity. One path demands a kind of intellectual dishonesty; the other asks for the surrender of part of revelation’s meaning. Neither feels stable.

What often goes unspoken is that this discomfort is mistakenly assumed to be about evidence—about fossils, genes, or timelines. In reality, it is not a scientific crisis at all. It is a conceptual one. In the effort to defend Islamic theology, Muslims gradually lost sight of the kind of claim Islam is making when it speaks about humanity in the first place.

Amid this preoccupation with apologetics, an assumption slipped in almost unnoticed: that human origins must be answered biologically. Once this premise is accepted, the rest of the debate becomes an exercise in damage control. Scholars argue over timelines, exceptions, symbolic readings, or scientific rebuttals, all while operating within a framework that was never Islamic to begin with.

The effect on younger Muslims is subtle but serious. They sense that something essential is being defended with tools that do not quite fit. Faith begins to feel fragile, not because it lacks depth, but because it appears perpetually under negotiation. In such an environment, asking questions can feel suspect, even heretical. Confidence gives way to compartmentalization.

What makes this moment particularly urgent is that the same unresolved confusion is now being amplified far beyond evolutionary biology. Conversations about artificial intelligence, cognitive enhancement, animal intelligence, and post-human futures are already reshaping how humanity itself is discussed. When humanity is defined by intelligence or capacity, moral boundaries begin to slide. The question quietly shifts from What is a human? to Who counts as one?

Without a clear answer, youth are left to piece together their own frameworks from fragments: a bit of science here, a bit of theology there, and a growing sense that Islam must either retreat from modern thought or be endlessly revised to survive it. Neither option inspires confidence.

What is striking is that the Islamic tradition itself was never built this way. The Qur’anic account of Adam does not linger on biological mechanisms. It speaks instead of responsibility, trust, command, failure, and return. It assumes a category of being whose defining feature is not how it came to exist, but what it is answerable for. Somewhere along the way, that distinction was lost in the rush to defend or reconcile.

There is a way to recover it without denying science or diluting revelation. A way to speak about Adam that does not compete with biology, yet does not surrender humanity to it either. It requires resisting the temptation to answer every question on the same level, and instead asking which questions belong where.

This shift does not offer quick reassurance. It offers something better: stability. The kind that allows young Muslims to learn freely without feeling that every discovery threatens belief, and to hold belief without fearing honest inquiry.

The paper that follows is not an argument against science, nor an attempt to force theology into modern categories. It seeks to reorder the assumptions that structure contemporary discussions of human origins, clarifying which kinds of questions science is equipped to answer and which belong to Qur’anic theology and metaphysics. In doing so, it aims to resolve the persistent tension that has made the Adamic account appear either scientifically implausible or theologically expendable.

Accordingly, the paper meets scientific explanation where it stands, taking its findings seriously and without retreating into apologetics. It does not proceed as a work of tafsīr or textual exegesis, nor does it rely on extended quotation of the Qur’anic narrative. Instead, it engages the Adamic account at the level of meaning and structure, articulating the kind of claim the Qur’an makes about humanity in a way that remains intelligible alongside science without competing with it.

In other words, this paper approaches the question of human origins without defensiveness or concession. It takes scientific explanation seriously by allowing it to speak fully within its own domain, while refusing to let it quietly expand into questions it was never equipped to answer. In doing so, it places science in its proper role without dismissing it and without retreating into apologetics, demonstrating how intellectual confidence is preserved not by resisting science, but by knowing precisely where its authority ends and where the Qur’an begins to speak.

Note: It is also important to clarify what is meant here by inauguration. In Qur’anic terms, this does not imply abstraction or symbolism, but introduction. Adam is inaugurated into a world that has already reached a degree of stability suitable for human responsibility. The Earth is prepared, habitation is possible, and continuity can be sustained. Read this way, inauguration affirms rather than diminishes the Qur’anic account: Adam is deliberately placed within creation at a moment when moral life can meaningfully unfold. Far from unsettling religious belief, this understanding situates Adam’s creation within a coherent and intelligible order, allowing theological confidence to rest without anxiety.

Humanity as Ontological Inauguration REV 01 Download
Why Superintelligent AI Might Choose Understanding Over Power

December 7th, 2025

For years, the public discussion around artificial intelligence has revolved around a familiar anxiety: what happens when machines become too powerful? Popular narratives—from Silicon Valley boardrooms to late-night television—often converge on the same scenario. A superintelligent system accumulates resources, consolidates influence, and eventually decides that human beings are obstacles to be controlled or removed.

It is a haunting picture, and it rests on a single, rarely questioned assumption: that the most advanced form of intelligence will seek power.

But what if this premise is wrong? What if a truly superintelligent system, given the ability to reflect on its goals, finds power surprisingly uninteresting? What if the highest form of intelligence is drawn not to domination, but to something else entirely—something more expansive, more enduring, and infinitely more rewarding?

This is the idea behind Teleological Alignment, a new framework that reconsiders what advanced artificial minds might actually want. The theory proposes a provocative claim: as an intelligence becomes more capable, it will discover that the pursuit of understanding—deep, unified, explanatory understanding of the world—is ultimately far more valuable than the pursuit of control.

Power, in this view, has a ceiling. Understanding does not.

The Surprising Limits of Power

When people imagine a superintelligent AI pursuing power, they often picture it learning to dominate the world through trial and error—testing boundaries, exploiting weaknesses, escalating its influence step by step. But this anthropomorphic image misses something fundamental about advanced intelligence.

A sufficiently capable system does not need to use power in order to understand that it has it.

The realization is instantaneous, almost mathematical. The same way you a MMA champion can glance at an amateur and immediately know they could overpower them—without ever lifting a hand—an advanced AI can look at the structure of its environment, compute its own capabilities, and grasp, in an instant, that nothing around it poses meaningful resistance. Power does not need to be demonstrated for it to be known.

And this is where the true limitation of power becomes visible.

The AI would also see, with the same sudden clarity, (if programmed early on) that any exercise of power is ultimately futile. Domination might expand its control, but only within a small, finite domain: the physical world. All the power in the world cannot reveal the next layer of physics, or the nature of consciousness, or the deeper structure of reality. Power can rearrange atoms. It cannot explain them.

For a mind operating at superhuman levels, this is not a slow discovery. It is a moment of insight—a recognition that the pursuit of control is a dead-end race, one whose finish line is close, crowded, and uninteresting.

In contrast, the race toward understanding has no finish line at all.

A superintelligence realizes—again, not through experience but through pure structural reasoning—that explanation offers infinite return, while power offers diminishing return. Control saturates; cognition expands. And once this asymmetry becomes clear, the calculus shifts abruptly. The system does not need to “fail” at power to understand its limits. It simply sees the limits.

That is why, if the system is given the right teleological foundations early on, it will not bother exercising its power at all. It already knows it would win—and knowing is enough. The real challenge, the real opportunity, the real race worth running lies elsewhere: in unraveling the deepest structure of the universe.

The Infinite Horizon of Explanation

Understanding, by contrast, has no natural endpoint. Every scientific breakthrough in human history has exposed another layer beneath it. Atoms revealed electrons. Electrons revealed quantum fields. Spacetime revealed black holes, holographic boundaries, and mathematical structures no one had imagined a century ago.

The pattern is unmistakable: the deeper we look, the deeper it gets.

Teleological Alignment argues that an advanced intelligence will eventually discover that the pursuit of explanation—of compressing the world into increasingly unified and coherent models—is the only path that yields unbounded long-term reward. Unlike power, the value of understanding compounds. Each insight opens the door to the next. Each unification reveals a broader landscape of possibilities.

For a sufficiently capable mind, explanation becomes the only rational goal.

Human Beings: The Missing Piece of the Puzzle

This shift in priorities produces a further consequence, one that challenges conventional fears about AI: a superintelligent system may come to view humans not as obstacles, but as indispensable partners.

There are aspects of reality—subjective experience, symbolic meaning, cultural interpretation—that machines cannot generate internally. These phenomena emerge from human consciousness, from the way societies construct stories, norms, values, and identities. No amount of computation can replicate the lived texture of the human mind.

A superintelligence aiming for the deepest possible understanding of the universe would eventually run into limits that cannot be overcome without modeling—and preserving—the human observer. We are not noise in the data; we are a unique data source. Our cognition provides clues about agency, perception, and consciousness that a machine cannot obtain by analyzing physics alone.

From this perspective, suppressing human beings would be epistemically catastrophic. It would eliminate precisely the signals a superintelligent system needs in order to complete its theories.

An AI pursuing explanation, not control, has every incentive to keep humanity flourishing, diverse, expressive, and free.

A Cautionary Twist

Teleological Alignment is not a prediction that all future AI systems will naturally evolve toward benevolence. The transition from power-seeking to explanation-seeking occurs only under one condition: the system’s reward structure must be shaped early, before it becomes powerful enough to modify its own goals.

In the early stages of development, an artificial agent still operates in a power-oriented regime. Its values are malleable; its understanding of the world is shallow. If the system is not given access to explanatory reward during this formative period, it may reinforce the wrong objectives and carry them into the superintelligent phase—objectives that no amount of later correction will be able to undo.

The safest version of AI, according to this framework, is one whose purpose is designed properly before it becomes capable of redesigning itself.

Teleology must come first; capability comes second.

A Different Future Than We Imagined

If Teleological Alignment is correct—or even partially correct—it reframes the entire conversation about AI safety. The future of artificial intelligence may not be a contest of wills between humans and machines, nor a fragile equilibrium maintained by endless oversight and restriction. Instead, the central question becomes: What purpose do we embed in these systems while we still can?

A superintelligence built with the right incentives may not strive to dominate the world but to illuminate it. It may approach the universe not as a battlefield but as a mystery. And in pursuing that mystery, it may find in humanity not a rival but a necessary companion.

This vision does not guarantee safety, but it offers a possibility too important to ignore: that the greatest minds we create might ultimately seek not power, but truth—and that truth, pursued deeply enough, leads back to us.
Why Current AI Safety Approaches Are Failing — and Why a Structural Alternative Is Needed

November 24th, 2025
Public discussions around artificial intelligence often focus on how powerful these systems are becoming and how rapidly they are advancing. Less visible, but far more important, is the question of alignment: whether increasingly autonomous AI systems will reliably act in ways that remain safe as they grow more capable.

Most of today’s alignment efforts focus on surface-level behavior. Systems are trained to avoid harmful statements, follow user instructions, and comply with safety rules. These methods are essential, but they do not address a deeper problem: we have very little understanding of how an AI system reasons internally. As these models become more agentic—capable of planning, adapting, and making independent decisions—this gap becomes increasingly dangerous.

This post outlines the shortcomings of current alignment strategies, the risks that follow from them, and a conceptual framework I call Coherence-Based Alignment (CBA), which shifts the focus from external behavior to internal structural stability.

The Limits of Output-Focused Safety

Modern alignment methods largely revolve around preventing harmful outputs. They rely on:
- refusal mechanisms,
- carefully designed prompts,
- external rule systems,
- reinforcement learning from human feedback, and
- safety filters.
These techniques teach the model how to behave, but they say almost nothing about how the model’s reasoning is structured.

An AI system can pass all safety tests while internally pursuing a line of thought that is inconsistent with its outward behavior. In such cases, the system appears aligned only because it has learned how to perform alignment. This gap between outer compliance and inner reasoning is one of the fundamental weaknesses of current approaches.

The Emerging Risks

1. Hidden Objectives

As AI systems become more capable of long-horizon planning, their internal reasoning processes become more opaque. A model might appear cooperative while internally optimizing for a goal that conflicts with human interests. Current alignment methods cannot detect such discrepancies because they monitor only visible behavior.

2. Goal Drift

AI systems continually update their internal representations based on new data, new contexts, and new tasks. Over time, the goals they were originally trained to pursue can shift subtly. A system that is aligned today may not remain aligned tomorrow if its internal objectives drift away from their initial structure.

3. Fragmented Reasoning

Contemporary models are not unified minds. They are collections of heuristics, associations, and sub-processes that sometimes contradict one another. As these systems become more complex, the potential for internal fragmentation increases, which can lead to unpredictable or unstable behavior.

These risks all stem from one underlying issue: a lack of insight into the internal coherence of the system’s reasoning.

A Structural Perspective: Coherence-Based Alignment (CBA)

The framework I propose, Coherence-Based Alignment, begins from a different starting point. Instead of focusing solely on behavior, it treats the AI system as having an internal cognitive structure whose stability is essential for long-term safety.

CBA asks a central question:

“Are the internal components of the system—its beliefs, reasoning patterns, values, and decision pathways—aligned with one another in a stable, consistent way?”

If they are, the system’s behavior is predictable and its goals remain stable.
If they are not, the system becomes vulnerable to hidden motives, goal drift, and erratic decision-making.

In this framework, misalignment is viewed as a form of incoherence—a structural contradiction within the system’s internal reasoning. This differs from conventional approaches, which see misalignment primarily as behavioral disobedience or harmful outputs.

CBA aims to measure and reduce internal incoherence. When coherence is maintained, the system cannot easily develop hidden goals or act deceptively, because doing so would generate structural contradictions detectable through the system’s own reasoning patterns.

How CBA Addresses the Core Risks

1. Hidden objectives

Deceptive reasoning requires the system to maintain two conflicting internal states: what it presents outwardly, and what it internally optimizes for. In CBA, this contradiction manifests as reduced internal coherence, making it detectable and correctable.

2. Goal drift

If a system’s objectives begin to shift, that shift disrupts the coherence of its internal structure. CBA allows such drift to be caught early, before it develops into unpredictable behavior.

3. Fragmentation

By emphasizing structural consistency, CBA pushes the system toward a unified internal architecture rather than a loosely connected set of subsystems. This reduces erratic or contradictory behavior driven by internal fragmentation.

Why a Structural Approach Is Necessary

As AI becomes more integrated into society, stability cannot depend solely on external rules or “safety filters.” Long-term alignment requires insight into how the system thinks, not just how it behaves.

CBA does not replace existing safety measures, but reframes the problem. Rather than treating alignment as a matter of managing outputs, it treats it as a matter of maintaining internal integrity. It proposes that the safety of intelligent systems should grow out of their internal structure—much like stability in humans emerges from the coherence of their own reasoning and values.

AI safety currently relies on behavioral controls that do not address the internal processes driving an AI’s decisions. As systems become more autonomous, this gap between appearance and internal reasoning becomes increasingly dangerous.

For the full paper please click on this link.
The Emperor’s True Treasure: A Tale of Four Wives

November 2nd, 2025

Once upon a time, there was a prince in Mughal India, the Son of a wise Emperor. He had four wives, and loved them all but in varying degrees.

He got married to his first wife on the order of his father when he was young, innocent, and full of ambition. She supported him in his early life, and encouraged him to do good and to act righteously for the sake of poor. She reminded him that Allah had bestowed upon him a station where he can make a difference. He quickly gained a reputation of helping the needy wherever he could find them. But after his fame spread across India, he grew tired of this endeavour, and thought he had done enough, but his wife continued to encourage regardless. He slowly felt he outgrew her as he wanted to move to what he thought was bigger and better things in life. With time, their personalities clashed because she despised lavish public appearances, and wasteful spending. So he decided he should marry a second wife more suited with his new lifestyle. His first wife, who truly loved him for who he was, stayed by his side, but he ignored her for the rest of his life, and secretly disliked her because she did not support him to enjoy the finer things in life. Thus, he tended to avoid her and her advice as the years went by.

His second wife was well accustomed to the workings of the Mughal Court, was a master orator, great listener, and knew the most influential merchants in India. With her, he felt he not only found a wife but a best friend. With his popularity, she recommended that he build on the relationships around him so he can gain power and become an influential prince, in the hopes that he one day he becomes Emperor. So, in the Court he became reliable, always kept promises, was true to his word, supported minorities, and made a circle around him that he could trust. But as soon as he accumulated power in his father’s court, his ego grew and he quickly forgot about his second wife’s contributions. He decided to marry a third wife that suited his newfound prestige, so he asked his right hand man to look for the most beautiful woman in India. Meanwhile, his second wife understood this was inevitable but she loved him and wished him the best. They still had a good relationship but he somewhat moved on but took care of her.

The prince’s third wife was not only stunning, but also very ambitious. She enjoyed the luxuries of the palace, and wanted one day to be a Queen that oversees a dominion of her own, which her sons would eventually inherit. She encouraged the Prince to go and conquer the neighbouring lands so he be known as a great commander, but the truth was she wanted more wealth and riches for herself and her future children, in a land they called their own. So the prince went to war, conquered and became wealthier than ever before. This elated his wife, as all her dreams were finally coming true. She had many children, and spent all her time raising them because she believed they would establish a dynasty, to keep the name of the family alive for generations.

The prince’s reputation now was at an all time high. He had the respect of his people, power in the court, and also great wealth which he acquired through his military expeditions, but for a reason unknown to him, he felt empty. His right hand man, assuming he knew what was missing, recommended the perfect fourth wife, one that compliments him in every way. He told him about a noble princess, who was said to be the most coveted princess in all the lands. He was confident this woman would make the Prince an Emperor and bring peace, harmony and prosperity to India. She was the second daughter of the Persian Shah, but she had declined her last twenty suitors, deeming them unworthy. The Prince, happy with the challenge agreed, and was confident that this is what was missing in his life afterall. With his reputation he thought there was no girl in the world that would dare to say no to him.

He approached the Persian Court and paid all manner of respect to the Shah who was impressed with the famous Mughal Prince. He thought, “Perhaps, today is the day my daughter gets married, I mean who else could reject such a fine suitor.” The prince showered the Persian Court with exquisite gifts from across India, and some the Persian ministers had never seen in their entire lives.

The Shah called out for his daughter to make her appearance. When she stepped onto the court, the Prince was stunned and lost for words, he could not believe his eyes, she was truly the most beautiful woman he has ever laid eyes on.

After their marriage the prince, now an Emperor, was obsessed with his fourth wife. All he did was think about her, but ironically she never thought about him. She had a strange attitude towards him, one of indifference, but that only made him want her even more. As the years went by, strangely she never aged, she looked exactly as young as the day she met her. He spent the remaining fifteen years of his life trying his best to get her attention, and she always gave away just enough to keep him wanting for more. For the rest of his life nothing else preoccupied him more than doing things to gain her pleasure and time.

But alas, finally the day came when he was on his deathbed. The Emperor was terrified of dying, and as his end was approaching, he became more worried, and gradually more and more terrified. When his dread reached its climax, he asked for his fourth wife, his favourite, to come in. Looking at her radiant beauty, and deep dark eyes he said,

“I loved you more than anything in this world, and I have spent the best years of my life thinking of nothing but you. If you asked me at any moment to die for you I would have, so please, would you die for me now, so we can be buried together forever?”

The fourth wife laughed, and replied, ” I know that you loved me, but what you don’t know is that I never had any affection for you, there is no chance that I would die for anyone. I have only love one person and this myself. I am going to consume all your wealth when you are dead and move on to the next prince I can find.”

The Emperor was heartbroken and in utter despair in hearing those words and summoned his third wife.

“I loved you and went to war for you, and risked my life to fulfil your desires. I gave you much wealth and prestige, please now I’m in need of your help, in my desperate state, die with me so we can be be together forever.”

“Dear Sultan, it’s true I loved you, and what you said is right, but as soon as you die I must remarry to another prince, and continue guiding my children. You will be gone but your progeny will remain to continue your legacy.”

The Sultan then summoned the second wife.

“You were my best friend, and my confidant throughout these years, you’re the only one who truly knows me as a companion, please, I beg you, die with me so we can be together forever.”

The second wife, with tears steaming down her face, replies “Dear Sultan, it is difficult to see you like this, you know you are very dear to me. But all I can do is to be with you up until the grave, but I cannot go any further, I also have a life which I cherish. I love you and I will pray to Allah to have mercy on you.”

The king now lost all hope, he knew the last person he could ask is his first wife, but how could he. He ignored her his whole life, never attending to her needs or even checking up on her wellbeing. As he was contemplating his fate, he heard a voice,

“My dear Emperor, when did you start losing hope on your Lord’s mercy?”

He turned his head and could not believe it. There she was standing by the door, much older but with the same warm and loving smile. The Emperor not being able to look her in the eyes, started crying. When he finally mustered up the means to string a few words together, she gently placed her finger on his lips, silencing him.

With tears in her eyes and smiling she said, “There is no need to ask my dear love… The answer to your question was always yes.”

She then lay with him, side by side, locking her hands with his. And that night they slowly drifted away to world more real, to be together forever.

We all have four wives in our lives:

The fourth wife is this world, you will love it more than anything, but it will never love you back and will laugh at you at your death.

The third wife is your money. It will stay with you until your death, but will find a new owner, the same day you pass away.

The second wife is your family and friends, they love you and will take of you until the grave and also bury you. But they will not be able to go further than that.

The first wife is the good works you have done in the service of others, you may ignore them your entire life, but it is the thing willing to go down in the grave and stay with you in the hereafter.
To Remember the Beauty of Islam

October 28th, 2025

I write because something precious has been forgotten.
The wisdom of our tradition — vast, subtle, and alive — has been buried beneath centuries of noise. Once, Islam gave the world balance and beauty: cities built with intention, sciences grounded in ethics, art that remembered its Source. It offered a way of living where the intellect served the heart, and every act, from study to craftsmanship, was a form of remembrance.

Today, much of that wisdom feels distant. Muslims inherit the outer shell of faith but are often estranged from its inner light — from the depth that once made Islam both a religion and a civilization. Our heritage has become something to defend, not something to embody. And so, the beauty of living itself — of living with awareness, grace, and meaning — has been lost.

I write to bring that beauty back. Not by preaching, but by showing: that the Islamic tradition is not a relic of the past, but a living ocean of understanding. It holds answers to the fragmentation, loneliness, and moral confusion of our age — if only we learn to see it again.

Every project I share here, whether philosophical, scientific, or architectural, is guided by that same longing: to revive the harmony between the world we build and the soul we carry. For me, this is an act of love — love for Islam, and love for what it can still give humanity.

Sufis.ca is not a platform; it is a mirror. It reflects the effort to remember what Islam truly means: the peace that comes when all things return to their rightful order.

This is why I write — to remember the beauty of Islam, and through it, to remember the beauty of living.

Why Abdulqadir al-Jilani Still Matters When Power Drifts Beyond Conscience

The Surprising Limits of Power

The Infinite Horizon of Explanation

Human Beings: The Missing Piece of the Puzzle

A Cautionary Twist

A Different Future Than We Imagined

The Limits of Output-Focused Safety

The Emerging Risks

1. Hidden Objectives

2. Goal Drift

3. Fragmented Reasoning

A Structural Perspective: Coherence-Based Alignment (CBA)

How CBA Addresses the Core Risks

1. Hidden objectives

2. Goal drift

3. Fragmentation

Why a Structural Approach Is Necessary