the introspections serve largely in this piece as an insight into your experience, your travels and maybe that’s enough for us readers. it was really interesting to read about your journey living in the US and how different your experience is over there in comparison to here in the UK. it reminds me we have to be more aware of each others lived experience.
when you mentioned the visit to Merkato, i tried to see how i would feel in such a space, if the difference would be the same to me. but i grew up in an extremely diverse area, i think it’s the 5th most diverse in the country, so when you visit markets here the majority is usually made up of different ethnicities. for example, a place called Whitechapel, the market spaces are predominantly Bengali. there’s no point to this point, just a branch of thought from where your writings took me.
thank you for writing and sharing such an in-depth piece. it’s the first of yours i have read and i wondered if you heard of Omar Ibn Said before? if not you should read his story. unfortunately his story is a direct cause of the trans-atlantic slave trade. but his deep routed faith in his story is inspiring and holds deep importance to topics you touched on in this piece!!
What is identity other than just self worship. I used to be a person who was very attached to this concept of identity and then Alhamdulilah I experienced something that I can only describe as a spiritual awakening. This series of experiences made me wake up to the fact that the physical world and all the things that exist in it including our physical bodies are not real. They are illusions. Identities are the same. They of course exist in the social world and will shape your life and as a result we must contend with them daily but clinging to them on some emotional or psychological level is worship of the self. Nationalism, tribalism, racialism, ethnocentricity these are all false idols. In this world so deeply attached to the self even the word Muslim has become an identity. When in reality it is the act of practicing Islam and worshiping Allah that should take precedence. Until our ummah throws away these false idols of nationalism, racialism etc we will remain divided and in my humble opinion will not be true practitioners of Islam.
the introspections serve largely in this piece as an insight into your experience, your travels and maybe that’s enough for us readers. it was really interesting to read about your journey living in the US and how different your experience is over there in comparison to here in the UK. it reminds me we have to be more aware of each others lived experience.
when you mentioned the visit to Merkato, i tried to see how i would feel in such a space, if the difference would be the same to me. but i grew up in an extremely diverse area, i think it’s the 5th most diverse in the country, so when you visit markets here the majority is usually made up of different ethnicities. for example, a place called Whitechapel, the market spaces are predominantly Bengali. there’s no point to this point, just a branch of thought from where your writings took me.
thank you for writing and sharing such an in-depth piece. it’s the first of yours i have read and i wondered if you heard of Omar Ibn Said before? if not you should read his story. unfortunately his story is a direct cause of the trans-atlantic slave trade. but his deep routed faith in his story is inspiring and holds deep importance to topics you touched on in this piece!!
What is identity other than just self worship. I used to be a person who was very attached to this concept of identity and then Alhamdulilah I experienced something that I can only describe as a spiritual awakening. This series of experiences made me wake up to the fact that the physical world and all the things that exist in it including our physical bodies are not real. They are illusions. Identities are the same. They of course exist in the social world and will shape your life and as a result we must contend with them daily but clinging to them on some emotional or psychological level is worship of the self. Nationalism, tribalism, racialism, ethnocentricity these are all false idols. In this world so deeply attached to the self even the word Muslim has become an identity. When in reality it is the act of practicing Islam and worshiping Allah that should take precedence. Until our ummah throws away these false idols of nationalism, racialism etc we will remain divided and in my humble opinion will not be true practitioners of Islam.