Take an event in the news like a Cabinet reshuffle, with no apparent connection to any religious theme at all, and use it as a basis for a Thought for the Day. It's not necessarily that difficult if you can find one tiny hook on which to hang a discussion of first principles. After all, first principles is what religion is all about.

Finally the frenzied speculation is over, and we see the long expected Cabinet reshuffle. Now some political commentators clearly viewed the event as a kind of fun-filled public blood-sport (even if the unlucky ones didn’t quite get thrown to the lions in the arena), and if you look at politics as the manipulation and execution of power, the language of long knives and inter-cabinet warfare may well be appropriate. We should consider whether we might not be better served, however, by a political language that speaks more in terms of responsibility and trust.

No leader of a complex and extended community can be expected to know everything and do everything themselves. They need those to whom they can delegate responsibility, and those on whose advice they can rely. They need to be surrounded by those in whom they place trust - in their knowledge, judgement, competence, diligence and motivation, and rare the humble human blessed with such a store of virtues. Humans are such varied things. We all have different interests, opinions and talents. It’s a skill all its own to know who to trust.

Muhammad had no cabinet, as such, but took advice from community leaders, as well as listening to anyone desirous of his attention. He had no defence minister, but knew the need for strategists in battle. He had no policy enforcer, but trusted his community to have the integrity, and the will, strength and courage, to stand for the common good against the more fractious and self-seeking elements of society.

Muhammad had no minister for women, but set aside a time each week specifically to listen to the advice and questions of the women of the community. And certainly he listened to their advice. Indeed, when signing a famous treaty, with the army balking at his orders, it was by trusting and following the advice of his wife Umm Salama that the situation was saved. He knew that Trustworthiness and Wisdom have no gender differentiation.

And Qur’an says: “those who preserve their trusts and their pledge, and who attend to their prayers, will be the heirs who shall inherit Paradise.”