Are you bent mutaharira or muhafza? Not sure what does this question mean? Not even sure if I am this or that? I don't really know. I am extremely both. Or is it both extremely?! Well, I am extremely conservative and extremely open, both at the same time. Funny! Not really, but confusing actually, to me and to others. And with confusion comes sadness, and with sadness comes the urge to just disappear. Last night, I returned to M.'s apartment around 2 in the morning. I was attending this gathering at A.'s place. I was supposed to leave with M. but the conversation got more and more interesting and I just decided to stay till the end of the conversation. No sooner had it started than it glided to talking about religion in general, morals, human nature, and all these juicy stuff that I love tremendously. Of course, talks about islamic history came was hit upon more than once, critique to hadith, koran gathering, and the like were all touched upon. I don't have a solid opin...
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That brings us back to the question we were discussing at Hellme's a while back about whether there really is one Islam that you can talk about.
I think some Muslim nationalities have this identity crisis for a lot of political/cultural reasons. For Arabs this void used to be filled by Arab nationalism. During that period religion was very much in the private sphere. But Arabism failed in 1967 & started to recede so the search began for a new political/cultural identity & so political Ikhwan Islam is now the new identity.
Muslims from India & Pakistan have this issue also because they are a minority in the subcontinent compared to Hindus. They feel their identity as Muslims is constantly under threat so they respond by making it as pervasively public as possible.
Or it could be that Muslims still have this perception of themselves as one great Islamic nation or Caliphate. Since this global 'umma' was defeated & divided Muslims feel weak & under seige even if they happen to be a majority within their local community.
What I feel is that when religion moves from being a private relationship between you, your conscience & God the purity or the niya of is completely corrupted. When you start doing things to feel you belong to some religious/cultural/political club you're not doing them for God anymore.