Assalamu ‘alaikum. I wrote this article when I was fifteen years old. Since then, my views of things, especially in regards to Islam, have changed and developed.

Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error. These were wise words, spoken by Marcus Tullius Cierco. Based on these words, every man is an idiot. In fact, humanity itself is characterised by idiocy, for after centuries of opportunities to learn from our endless mistakes, we find ourselves in a new age, continuing to make the exact same errors as our long-deceased ancestors. 

John Keats, Simone de Beauvoir, William Shakespeare, Sylvia Plath… All of these wonderful writers of old have one thing in common: they write about the Plight and Pain of humanity- about the dangers of greed, power, jealousy and love. Every book that has ever been published since the beginning of our existence as a species has sought to teach us at least something, but we persist in repeating these errors. How many more books must be published in order for us to comprehend that pain is an intrinsic component of certain pursuits?

We are a rebellious kind- we are willing to risk everything for certain things, and certain people. That is the unalterable flaw that we all share- it is the nature of the human condition. We make a mistake, and then

We make it again.

Sadia Ahmed, 2016