Perhaps the greatest American Muslim thinker of the 20th century was Malcolm X. Even when he was with the NOI, his speeches that did not attempt to define himself negatively – i.e. against others – were brilliant. After his Hajj experience, what he offered American Muslims resonates today. His letters were almost lost, but thankfully, they were saved.
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Last of Faith in Public LIVE
Last of my posts over here.
Hindu followers of Imam Husayn
Yoginder Sikand, a scholar whose transnational work on Islamist movements is what I’m most familiar with, has an interesting article on Hindu followers of Imam Husayn. The piece is mostly historical, but the last paragraph is interesting: The Hussaini Brahmins, along with other Hindu devotees of the Muslim Imam, are today a rapidly vanishing community. The younger generation abandoning their ancestral heritage, often now seen as embarrassingly deviant. No longer, it seems, can a comfortable liminality be sustained, and ambiguous identities seem crushed under the relentless pressure to conform to the logic of neatly demarcated ‘Hindu’ and ‘Muslim’ communities. And…
I Wish I’d Been There: The Mind of Yazid, the Faith of Hussein « Simerg
There are so many moments in history that I would love to be a part of. To be near the Prophet (SAWS) when he received the first revelation; at Ghadir-e Khumm; at the battle of Siffin; at Karbala; when Imam Jafar (AS) refused to be an Abbasid figurehead; with Hasan-i Sabbah at Alamut; to witness Imam Sultan Muhammad Shah’s (AS) move to consolidate the community again. I think that eventually these stories will be told better. That is the job of the historian. Continued at: I Wish I’d Been There: The Mind of Yazid, the Faith of Hussein « Simerg.