Abdussamad Clarke.
So you are a new Muslim, and you may be such even if you have a lineage of Muslim ancestors that stretches back for generations, for each person who genuinely discovers Islam, confirms it and determines to live by it is always new.
You are beginning to find your feet in this strangely topsy-turvey world that is Islam today and that is especially upside-down in our already upside-down world here in the West.
You are assailed on one hand by the serious squad and their differences, a topic we dealt with at some length in the first part of this letter. On the other hand, there is the assault of the celebrities, nasheed singers and the whole burgeoning ‘Islamic’ entertainment industry. Reading the early history of the Muslims, it is very hard to find a match for this strange new culture of pop Islam, or the exotic panoply of superstar scholars and lecturers who fill our screens and the platforms of our conferences.
How did we get from ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, to this endless procession of celebrities, expert scholars and orators? As you are a new Muslim, we dare to think that you might question all this, that you really yearn for the authentic, that you would like somehow to live and die in Islam, not merely trying to prove to the world that you are exactly the same as them in every way, except that you are ‘Islamic’. No, you have decided that you are a Muslim, and not merely ‘Islamic’, if I dare express your thoughts for you.
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[Image coutresy: The Jamoker]