Isn't It Time We Caught Up?

Here's something wild: there are teenagers right now who can code an app, debate climate policies, and navigate TikTok's and Instagram’s algorithms—but feel completely lost when they open a classical Islamic book. If they even manage to get a good one in their hands.

And honestly, can anyone blame them?

Picture this: You're a 22-year-old Muslim trying to figure out if your cryptocurrency investments are halal. You want authentic guidance based on the Qur’an and Sunnah. So, you crack open an old Fiqh book. A few pages in, and you're reading detailed rulings about trade caravans and the proper way to handle disputes over camels.

Camels.

To a 21st-century mind, what do rulings about camels and trade caravans even mean? There’s probably not a single person around us who knows how camel caravans used to run, without doing a Google or ChatGPT search.

Now, don't get me wrong—those very camel rulings contain brilliant legal principles about fairness, contracts, and property rights. They’re derived from legal frameworks rooted in the Qur’an and Sunnah. But here's the thing: you have to be a scholar just to extract those principles and apply them to your Coinbase account.

And is there a book written by a learned, informed Islamic scholar on how to manage your Crypto wallet? Probably not.

There’s something clearly not right here.

The Elephant (or Oversized Camel) in the Room

Before anyone gets triggered, let's address what we're NOT saying here: Nobody's suggesting we rewrite the Qur'an or alter hadith collections just so the young, short-attention-span generation that lives and breathes technology can understand them. Those are sacred, preserved, untouchable. Canonised as the source of Islamic Law, and as Muslims, we submit to them with body and soul.

We're talking about everything else—the commentaries, the Fiqh manuals, the explanatory texts, the educational books that are supposed to help us understand and apply Islamic rulings.

Because here's the uncomfortable truth: a lot of Islamic literature was written by brilliant scholars for their specific time and place. And while their wisdom is eternal, the packaging? Not so much.

Many of these books, studied in traditional Islamic seminaries, were written for their time and place. Written for the people of that time, based on how their minds worked.

Nowadays, most of us have gone to public schools, educated in systems at least influenced by (if not directly from) the West. We think differently from how 10th-century Muslims in Baghdad thought.

Heck, our brains even operate differently because we’re raised and running on technology. Quick. Quick. Quick. With anything that has a slight lag, irritating us badly.

How can such a mind truly comprehend the layout and knowledge of books written in, what is basically a different world?

This is the problem with our books. And most “modern” Islamic books are copying the styles of centuries gone by, not writing for the 21st-century reader.

When the Gap Gets Real

Here's where it gets interesting (and a bit scary).

When young Muslims can't find their questions addressed in Islamic literature, they don't just shrug and move on. They make one of three choices:

Option A: They Google it or use ChatGPT and find some random answer from someone with almost no qualifications who gives a "ruling" based on vibes and a half-remembered hadith, without consulting 14 centuries of Islamic scholarship to verify it.

Option B: They decide Islam must be outdated and incompatible with modern life. (Spoiler: it's not, but if the books don't speak to them, how would they know?)

Option C: They stop asking altogether and just... drift. Doing what they want to their heart’s content.

If we look at them, all these options are pretty terrible.

Meanwhile, there's this massive treasure trove of Islamic wisdom—centuries of sophisticated thought about justice, ethics, community, spirituality, and human nature—just sitting there. But it's locked behind language barriers, historical context, and frameworks that assume you already have a PhD in Islamic studies or an Alimiyyah degree.

It's like having a fortune in Bitcoin but forgetting your password.

I’d say this isn’t the fault of those books or our tradition. But the work being done on this tradition is the problem. Updating our approach, or the lack of it, is destroying the Ummah daily. Compounding into disasters in faith and expression of the Deen.

What "Updating" Actually Means (And It's Not What You Think)

Okay, this is where some people get nervous. "Update Islamic books? That sounds like changing Islam!"

Relax. Deep breath. And maybe a sincere dua to Allah for guidance (genuinely).

Updating Islamic literature isn't about watering down the faith or making Islam "palatable to the West" or whatever fear-mongering phrase someone wants to throw around. Looking at history with an open mind, we see it’s actually the most traditional thing ever.

Here's the secret that nobody tells you: Muslim scholars have ALWAYS done this. Always. They’ve always “updated” Islamic knowledge.

Every generation of scholars took the principles from previous generations and explained them in ways that made sense for their time. That's literally how the tradition works.

Imam al-Suyuti, truly a heavyweight in Islamic scholarship, wasn’t just copying knowledge from the past 300 or so years before his time—he developed Islamic knowledge for his own time and pioneered new approaches to the sciences.

Imam al-Ghazali, a true legend to the East and the West, wasn't just regurgitating earlier works—he was addressing the intellectual crises of his era.

Neither was Mulla ‘Ali al-Qari—a prolific author and ascetic scholar of the 1500s—neither was he just copying scholars from eight centuries before him. He was engaging with the intellectual issues of the vast 16th-century Ottoman Empire and writing for his time.

This is how Islamic scholarship has stayed alive and relevant for over 1400 years. The scholars took the heritage and developed it—building on the foundations of their forefathers in knowledge.

This same attitude to knowledge gave birth to numerous Islamic intellectual golden ages, even influencing the European Enlightenment that birthed modern Europe and America!

So, the million-dollar question (or Jannah-sized question, as that’s what's at stake when being knowledgeable/ignorant): what would modern updating look like?

The Cool Part: What This Could Actually Be

Imagine opening an Islamic book and finding:

REAL questions and answers. "Hey, so I'm a data scientist, and my company wants me to build an algorithm that might discriminate against certain groups. What does Islam say about that?" And instead of radio silence or a far-fetched fatwa based on a somewhat irrelevant narration, you get a clear, applicable response backed by classical sources—that directly apply to YOUR situation.

Language that doesn't require a decoder ring. No disrespect to classical Arabic—it's beautiful, precise and the lingua franca of scholars. But most Muslims don't speak it or read it fluently. Even modern Arabs often can’t read classical Arabic works. That means they’re barred from rich Islamic knowledge. Also, the many English works that do exist rarely carry deep, relevant points for the modern person and their problems. What if we had books that maintained scholarly rigour but used the language most people actually think in? Simple, easy English, with layouts and designs they’d enjoy looking at?

Examples that land. Instead of "the ruling on trade caravans," what about "the principles of fair commerce when running a TikTok shop from your apartment" or “training your trading bot to trade your Crypto assets in a halal way?” Real-world examples experienced today. If our books had that, Islam would feel so much more alive and relevant to people.

Honest engagement with hard topics. Mental health. Gender dynamics. Pluralism. Porn. Physics and faith. What is a woman. What is a man. LGBTQ+ family members. Someone becoming “ex-Muslim”. These conversations are happening whether we like it or not. Wouldn't it be better if Islamic literature engaged them with the same wisdom and nuance found in classical books?

The Scholars Are Already On It (You Just Haven't Heard About Them)

Here's the exciting part: this is already happening.

There are contemporary scholars writing books that bridge classical wisdom and modern life. Organisations that translate and annotate texts with helpful context. Podcasts, YouTube channels, and platforms making Islamic knowledge accessible without dumbing it down.

But we need way more.

We need scholars who understand both the Islamic intellectual tradition AND artificial intelligence. We need writers who can make Islamic theological texts (i.e. books on aqidah) as engaging as a Netflix documentary. All with a beautiful design. We need educators who recognise that today's students don't learn the same way students did in the madrasa system of the 12th-century CE.

Why This Actually Matters (Like, Really Matters)

Still with me? Good. Because here's why this isn't just an academic concern.

Islamic literature shapes how Muslims understand their faith. Muslims have always been a reading people. Then, if their literature feels irrelevant or inaccessible, they will either abandon it (and potentially the faith itself) or create their own DIY Islam based on whatever they find online. Neither option is great.

But when Islamic literature speaks to people's actual lives—when it addresses their real problems with depth and wisdom—something beautiful happens. People discover that Islam isn't a relic from the past or confined to a masjid’s walls, but is a living tradition with profound insights for contemporary life.

They realise that Islam has something compelling and conclusive to say about technology, morality, justice, economics and human flourishing at large. They find that the tradition is richer, more sophisticated, and more relevant than they ever imagined.

The Bottom Line

Updating Islamic literature in no way means we betray our tradition. It's about honouring it—by doing what every generation of Muslims has done: taking truths and principles inspired by the word of Allah and His Messenger ﷺ and expressing them in ways that speak to the moment.

Your great-great-grandmother's Islamic books were perfect for her time. They addressed her questions, spoke her language, and used examples from her world. That's exactly what made them valuable.

It’s the 2020s now. We need that same relevance today. Not because Islam changes—it doesn't. But because we do. Our questions evolve. Our contexts shift. And the way we learn, communicate, and understand transforms with each generation.

The goal isn't to abandon classical texts, the ‘Ulama and classical Islamic scholarship and go all-in on Western academia to redefine Islam through some secularist lens—no.

The goal is to build a bridge between those classical texts and contemporary life. To create a Muslim library that includes both foundational works AND modern applications. To ensure that a teenager in the 2020s CE can access Islamic wisdom as readily as scholars in Baghdad did in 920s CE.

We have such a big heritage handed to us, but it’s locked away in Arabic books, only accessible to scholars. More work needs to be done on this.

Because Islam's guidance is timeless. Revealed in the Arabian desert towns of Makkah and Madinah, but it has withstood the test of time, the Mongol invasions, European colonialism, the gripe of Western secularism, and is relevant even now in today's AI-advancing, globalised world. But that guidance needs people who can translate it for today's world.

And honestly, that’s not radical at all. That's just smart.

The real question isn't whether Islamic literature needs updating. It's whether we care enough about the next generation to make it happen.