Notes from
the workshop.
Translator's notes, essays, and reflections from the Joyful Muslims editorial team. Published when there is something worth saying — not on a schedule.
- MethodologyMission · April 15, 2026 · 4 min
Why we translate
A small note on the weight of moving a thousand-year-old Arabic text into a modern English audiobook.
The classical scholars did not write in English. They wrote for a civilization that took Arabic as the lingua franca of the religious sciences. A billion Muslims today do not have that Arabic. Someone has to carry the books across.
Read the full essay → - New MuslimsJourney · April 15, 2026 · 6 min
A letter to new Muslims
If you have just said the shahādah, or are thinking about it — this is for you.
You are not behind. You are not failing. The classical scholars treated new Muslims with a specific tenderness, because they remembered that they too had been beginners. Here is what they would have wanted us to say.
Read the full essay → - Al-GhazaliThe Iḥyāʾ · April 15, 2026 · 7 min
Reading the Iḥyāʾ in 2026
Imam al-Ghazali wrote the Revival of the Religious Sciences nine centuries ago. It has never been more relevant.
A note on why al-Ghazali's forty-book masterwork — often treated as a relic of medieval scholasticism — actually reads like it was written last week. For the burnt out, the overstretched, the half-faithful, and the over-certain.
Read the full essay →
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