Essays & reflections

Ideas for thoughtful public life.

Writing on AI, education, Islamic economics, science innovations, and the responsibilities we share.

Islamic Economics

Islamic Economics: Beyond Interest-Free Banking

Explore how responsibility, fair exchange, and social welfare connect Islamic economic principles to everyday decisions.

Islamic Economics

Zakat, Dignity, and Accountable Distribution

Why effective zakat administration needs clear eligibility, respectful delivery, and evidence that support reaches people.

Islamic Economics

Waqf: Building Lasting Community Benefit

How charitable endowments can support long-term services, and why maintenance and governance determine their usefulness.

Islamic Economics

Musharakah and Mudarabah: Understanding Business Risk

A practical introduction to two partnership structures, with examples showing why profit and loss terms need careful attention.

Islamic Economics

Sukuk: Understanding Assets and Investor Rights

Why an asset connection is only the beginning of understanding a sukuk structure and its economic risks.

AI

How Language Models Turn Context into Text

An accessible look at tokens, attention, and why fluent generated text still needs evidence behind its claims.

AI

RAG: Connecting AI Answers to Documents

How retrieval-augmented generation uses external information, and how to evaluate whether an answer is actually supported.

AI

Evaluating AI Beyond an Impressive Demo

A practical framework for testing useful performance, difficult cases, and the cost of mistakes before adopting an AI system.

AI

AI Bias: The Questions Behind the Score

Why responsible AI assessment needs to examine data, decisions, and the people affected—not just an overall accuracy figure.

AI

Using AI to Support Learning

How students and teachers can use AI for explanation, practice, and feedback while keeping understanding at the centre.

Science Innovations

How Solar Cells Turn Light into Electricity

The science behind photovoltaic panels, from light absorption to useful electricity and the limits of a nameplate rating.

Science Innovations

Energy Storage: Power, Duration, and Trade-offs

Why storage capacity and power output answer different questions, and how that distinction clarifies energy-system design.

Science Innovations

How Astronomers Find Distant Planets

How tiny changes in starlight reveal planets, and why a detection is the beginning of understanding a distant world.

Science Innovations

Climate Evidence: Seeing the Long-Term Pattern

How temperatures, oceans, and ice provide complementary evidence, and why a single day cannot describe a changing climate.

Science Innovations

Fusion Energy: From a Reaction to a Power Plant

The physics of fusion and the engineering questions that separate an experimental milestone from useful electricity.