The author is considering to retire this blog.
The older posts look like they were written by someone else. Then there are reactive posts expressing frustration with the community’s star leaders and sometimes ordinary Muslims, which represent the author’s not-so-distant past.
Many of these posts were written with indignation and frustration that people weren’t doing Islam right. And it was getting in the way of winning people over to Islam. 😬
There was concern about the growing number of muslims who no longer resonate with the ideals and concerns of traditional Islam but do not have a clear alternative in front of them either. People’s relationship with God was at stake.
There was continued belief in the promise of the qur’ān and Islam. There was a desire to articulate things in a manner that spoke to people of our time and place, especially those on the margins who are often treated like witches in medieval Christian Europe. To them the star shaikh does not speak, but fears them. And the mobs cheering for the celebrity shaikh on social media despise them too, because these people on the margins are party poopers. They ought to be attacked and lynched with words, if not on the street, for the threat they pose to the hegemonic majority.
For feeling the pain of these people on the margins and beginning to identify with them, the author sometimes screamed. He was advised, counselled and attacked. Because he was no longer speaking for and to the majority. What was wrong with him, people wondered. Why is he agitated. Why does he bite. Hush. Go away. Behave yourself.
While the author questions the reactive nature of his writing and the indignation, he also feels that he could not be radical enough on this platform. Because he was policed by friends and foes. He could not be his emerging true self. The orthodox don’t like unorthodox talk.
But he needs to ask new questions. He needs to engage in newer inconvenient conversations. He needs to push the boundaries – for his own growth and possibly the benefit of others who are concerned with similar questions. This blog is likely not the forum for that purpose.
It is perhaps the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.
The older posts look like they were written by someone else. Then there are reactive posts expressing frustration with the community’s star leaders and sometimes ordinary Muslims, which represent the author’s not-so-distant past.
Many of these posts were written with indignation and frustration that people weren’t doing Islam right. And it was getting in the way of winning people over to Islam. 😬
There was concern about the growing number of muslims who no longer resonate with the ideals and concerns of traditional Islam but do not have a clear alternative in front of them either. People’s relationship with God was at stake.
There was continued belief in the promise of the qur’ān and Islam. There was a desire to articulate things in a manner that spoke to people of our time and place, especially those on the margins who are often treated like witches in medieval Christian Europe. To them the star shaikh does not speak, but fears them. And the mobs cheering for the celebrity shaikh on social media despise them too, because these people on the margins are party poopers. They ought to be attacked and lynched with words, if not on the street, for the threat they pose to the hegemonic majority.
For feeling the pain of these people on the margins and beginning to identify with them, the author sometimes screamed. He was advised, counselled and attacked. Because he was no longer speaking for and to the majority. What was wrong with him, people wondered. Why is he agitated. Why does he bite. Hush. Go away. Behave yourself.
While the author questions the reactive nature of his writing and the indignation, he also feels that he could not be radical enough on this platform. Because he was policed by friends and foes. He could not be his emerging true self. The orthodox don’t like unorthodox talk.
But he needs to ask new questions. He needs to engage in newer inconvenient conversations. He needs to push the boundaries – for his own growth and possibly the benefit of others who are concerned with similar questions. This blog is likely not the forum for that purpose.
It is perhaps the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.
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