I dont usually do this, but it needs to be said. Maybe just for myself. I blame the age of confession. Ive received some heartfelt and some harsh messages in recent days about my involvement in critiquing MLI/SHI. These messages resemble residue in a petri dish in numbers, but what they have contained is heavy in weight. Mostly, Ive been accused of trying to break up the community - an accusation that falls into the deepest pit of my stomach. Ive never had a community. Ive always been a drifter and have been able to become a part, even if for a moment, of any community I find myself in the presence in. Ive never had, in particular, a Muslim community that I could just call my community. I dont have the youthful experiences with Masjid Uncles and Aunties. I dont have funny Sunday school stories; I don’t have anecdotes about masjid social events. I didn’t grow up in a Muslim community, but still have always felt very much so a part of any Muslim community by the simple virtue of sharing the same testimony made before the Almighty. A testimony that remains the greatest truth to power I’ve ever spoken and ever will speak. Not too long ago, I came across a journal entry I had written years ago. I usually cringe whenever I return to old entries, but this particular entry left me silent in thought. In the entry, somewhere between the woes of love and the triumphs of learning a new hijab style, I had written that what I wanted most in this life, for the sake of the hereafter, was to be of use to my community – which was any and every Muslim community. I wanted to serve and I wanted to serve with my pen and with my mind. Like so many other young Muslims living in Euro-American societies, my most transformative years were the years following 2001. From that year forward, there seemed to be very little choice afforded to me, by forced circumstance, in what purpose there was to my material life. That purpose wasn’t to be a Muslim “voice”. It wasn’t to be a Muslim “leader”. It was just to be, to remain, in a context that wouldn’t allow me to just be, to just remain. Because that’s our struggle summed up: we cannot just simply exist. We do not stand divorced from what it is that makes us particular. Our lives, our existence and our identities by virtue of that shared testimony are political. And when the political upsets the status quo, the status quo makes us into a project that it must bring into itself. So, I use my words and my mind. Not to cause fissures in the communities I’ve never had, but to keep together the one community we’ve all had for over fourteen hundred years. It sounds melodramatic, it sounds ambitious and maybe even teetering on a mistaken sip from that savior-complex Kool Aid writers so often seem to pass around. But this is all we have in this world - each other.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 20:34:57 +0000
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