Kate Walsh (the singer, not the actress mind) has been the dominant choice on my playlist these days. She has this distinct Lene Marlin-esque style I like, in gentler tones. Can Your Song be my song, please? Tiada kaitan dengan yang hidup atau mati, it’s just been a while since I heard something that made me really feel. (Quranic recitations are a different matter altogether. They don’t count.)
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“…An Islamist is a political activist. He has but one ambition: to establish a theocratic state in his country and take full advantage of its sovereignty and independence. A fundamentalist is an extremist jihadi. He believes neither in the sovereignty of Muslim states nor in their autonomy. In his view, these are vassal states that will be called upon to dissolve themselves and form the one, sole Caliphate. The fundamentalist dreams of a single, indivisible umma, the great Muslim community that will extend from Indonesia to Morocco, and which, if it cannot convert the West to Islam, will subjugate or destroy it. We’re not Islamists, Dr Jaafari, and we’re not fundamentalists, either. We are only the children of a ravaged, despised people, fighting with whatever means we can to recover our homeland and our dignity. Nothing more, nothing less.”
- Taken from The Attack, a novel set in Israel/Palestine by Yasmina Khadra, read in 2008.
I didn’t know that terms coined (or at least used) by parties intent on stoking the fire on Islamophobia had such specific definitions. Islamists, fundamentalists, jihadists…I had no idea we had so many factions in a faith that’s supposed to unite. As if having different sectarians isn’t enough.
And where did all these terms come from anyway?
Have you ever heard the saying that to understand Islam, look at the faith, not at the people? Look at Islam, not at Muslims.
What does that say about us?
I read somewhere, a very long time ago, a muallaf saying he was grateful to have found Islam in a non-Muslim country. If he had been introduced to it in a Muslim country, he might never have found it.
Just how far gone are Muslims from Islam?
These aren’t only rhetorical questions, dear readers.
On one hand, I genuinely want to know, but on the other, I’m genuinely afraid to find out.
Enough said here.
Ps - youtube The West Turns To Islam.
