Poem on Repentance and Returning to God
The time has come for me to see after the darkness of ignorance. My old age is a morning that calls me to its dawning rays. The night of youth is short, so proceed deliberately. The morning is the end of the road for the night traveler. How have I been deceived by the world and its adornment, building my [...]
Review of Wahhabi Islam (Natana DeLong-Bas)
Natana DeLong Bas’ Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad is not a bad book, but it is not a particularly helpful book either. One of its strong points is how adroitly DeLong-Bas eases the reader into topics. This is no small feat since the protagonist is Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab (d. 1792) [...]
The inward voyage and the fate of Islam
There is a scene in the French film, Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran, in which Moise, a Jewish boy, holds up the Quran and confesses: “I don’t understand anything.” To which his friend, a Muslim, answers: “When you want to learn, you don’t pick up a book. You talk to someone.”
Similarly, [...]
Why Wahhabism fails in Southeast Asia
Most Indonesians- and Southeast Asians, for that matter- are not afraid to identify the threat that confronts them. I am speaking, more specifically, about the source of extremist behavior within their societies. In the west, Wahhabism is often seen as a devious concoction by so-called Western Islamaphobes. A lot of Muslims believe that. In numerous [...]
The truth about the material world
If I stepped outside my body and observed my actions for a day, I would not be surprised to discover that for all of twenty-four hours, I am committed to only one thing- satisfying myself. In fact, it would be difficult to point out any truly un-selfish action I had made in the past week. [...]
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