Assoc. Prof., Dept. of Pol. Sci. and IR, International University of Sarajevo and
Research Associate & Symposium Coordinator at The Ummatics Institute.
I don't entertain emotionally driven rants that don't make a sensible point on my feed; I just block.
Please keep that in mind before wasting your and my time.
Thanks
When I first converted to Islam, I never understood how so many Muslims would one day be fooled by dajjal when all the signs will be so obvious. Witnessing the 'shock' that so many Muslims have expressed over Elon's unprincipled hypocrisy, now it all makes sense. It really does.
As I said earlier this week, “decolonization”, “from the river to the sea” and similar euphemisms necessarily imply genocide.
Clear calls for extreme violence are against our terms of service and will result in suspension.
And pundits wonder why much of the Muslim world continues to reject liberal institutionalism and the notion of "universal human rights." You don't exactly need a PhD in IR to see what an obvious double standard these Western-made institutions hold non-Western people to.
So let me get this straight: a French cop murders an Arab teen, people riot all over the country in protest, and the conclusion reached by the far Right is that 'Sharia law' is the problem?!
These people would blame their baguettes being stale on 'Sharia law' if they could.
I genuinely wonder if any other religious studies area (Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, etc.) has as many non-believers become experts in the field whose main purpose is to trash the entire tradition and its orthodox followers as Islamic studies has of non-Muslims who do this?
I'm really tired of secular liberal academics, especially those who focus on the Middle East, tossing around the term "Islamism" as a floating signifier with the expressed aim of stoking liberal fears at any type of Islam-centered political order. 1/2
This is a great example of how the term "Islamism" is used by militant secularists like
@Nervana_1
simply to signify something bad and scary. Everyone knows Ilhan Omar is hardly an 'Islamist' by even the loosest usage of the phrase. However, repeating the trope that, 1/
Many Westerners, understandably, struggle to see the difference between Islam ( a faith) and
#Islamism
( a political ideology).
Here is one glaring example:
#IlhanOmar
-a member of US Congress
She cries Islamophobia 24/7, but when the Congress voted for the Mahsa Amini Human
Weak people will fool themselves into believing something that is false if it gives them hope. The same logic applies to all the foolish Muslims who were fanboying Jordan Peterson; people lacking direction will follow any trend or dajjal even if it leads them straight to the fire
You know what this actually is: its power move. Efforts have been at hand for decades now to reconstruct Islam as a cultural identity rather than a coherent belief system. This has been at the heart of the Soros Foundation's approach to questions related to Muslims. 1/
Yes, of course there are Muslim atheists.
This doesn't take any fancy academic "postmodernism," "deconstruction," whatever you want to call it.
There are just actual people who exist in the world and this is what they are.
I just can't picture some non-Jewish scholar getting a PhD in Jewish Studies and making a career picking holes in the tradition and brazenly arguing that Jewish followers who observe halakha are backwards and need to be reported to Elon Musk.
How do we expect Muslim audiences to take our scholarly works on Islam seriously if we ourselves don't even follow basic Islamic etiquette? Decolonizing academia requires small but concrete steps like using the salawat whenever possible. We need to play by our rules, not theirs.
Since this problematic term isn't going away, we need to start challenging all the secularist & Kemalist journalists and scholars who insist on playing this power game in order to marginalize Muslim political agency. Start calling them out; we know what you really are doing. 2/2
Rank in order the top 5 groups (excluding the Democrat/Republican binary) that are the most difficult to have a meaningful discussion with. Here's mine:
1. Hindutva fascists
2. Iranian diaspora monarchists
3. Serb fascists
4. "Decolonial" Putin/Assadists
5. Zionist activists
Why doesn't this angry man child stick to his poetry and stop LARPing as a Political Scientist? His obvious disdain for Muslims disqualifies him from having a worthwhile opinion on matters related to them.
Imam Tom is one of *the* elite thinkers today when it comes to understanding the relationship between Islam, secularism, and liberalism. I don't say stuff like that lightly either since this is 'my area' so-to-speak. What a tremendous asset to the Ummah Imam Tom is!
This is the new trick -- argue without actually directly saying it that those who embrace traditional Islamic gender norms (i.e., the 'Islamists') are all now card carrying Republicans and supporters of Andrew Tate, et al. & leave it at that. 1/2
Context: This grifter 'decolonial' grad student is trying to link the Navigating Differences document to some non-Muslim incel stabbing someone in a gender studies class. But sure,
@YasirQadhi
is the 'unhinged' one for denouncing such slander. May Allah protect our scholars.
Now that this Bin Laden letter, a piece of early 21st century geopolitical history at this point that can be found anywhere online as well as in numerous edited academic volumes, has made the rounds on TikTok, we are really going to see who the real 'free speech warriors' are.
Let's all make this "Human Rights Lawyer" famous; share widely. The best part is how the "Readers added context" section below notes how this mirrors the antisemitic Nazi propoganda of yesteryear. You figure that would've been enough for this racist to delete this, but alas...
Why would a recent convert lacking any real knowledge of Islam debate a professional grifter like Nick Fuentes about Islam? Why do these new converts always think they are the chosen ones meant to defend Islam's honor?
One thing is clear now: Hindutva trolls & Iranian monarchist atheist cultists are more resolutely anti-Palestinian & anti-Islam than the Israeli gvt. Both aforementioned groups are genocidal in mindset; most people know this about the former but remain clueless about the latter.
Someone should do a serious genealogy of 'postmodern Islam.' How did we get from 'Abduh & al-Afghani to Amina Wadud & Scott Kugle? Which processes transpired that rendered tafsir and the historical scholarly tradition so anathema to the postmodernist Muslim enterprise?
I'm also getting really tired of these barbarous animals whitewashing Assad's Hitleresque crimes. You can't be pro-Palestinian and pro-Assad unless sectarianism is your real dīn.
I am glad more attention is paid to Syria and the horrible Assadists that cover up the crimes of the regime, with Russia and Iran.
But why are they still being supported within our communities and given platforms? Just because they ‘are good’ on Palestine?
The RSS should be declared a terrorist organization, its members issued visa bans & the assets of leading BJP figures should be frozen as a start. However, we know nothing will happen. Modi is a pliant autocrat & Western powers love these types; he'll get off just like MbS did.
BREAKING | PM
@JustinTrudeau
confirms today in Parliament that Canadian intelligence believes that the Indian state was involved in the unprecedented assassination of Canadian Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil.
Trudeau called extrajudicial actions by India a serious
@de_radicalise
@Farid_0v
As
@de_radicalise
noticed, I take this serious in my writing. While academic journals sometimes frown upon this since they usually have stricter formatting/stylistic rules, with academic books, the author usually has more freedom to do what they want.
I'm tired of the "Why didn't Muslims protest in the streets of London or NYC when Assad & ISIS were killing people! You just hate Jews." Seriously, get real. The American and British governments weren't defending and enabling Assad or ISIS, so what was there to really protest?
I never really thought about it before, but now, as a first-time father of a 10 month of daughter, I now finally appreciate the wisdom behind carefully vetting those who intend on marrying your children. Otherwise you might end up with vile filth like this as a son-in-law.
On a side note, let us married men with young children make intention that we will work hard, build successful businesses and once our kids are grown we will marry again to another younger (legal age of course) and prettier woman.
linking any form of politics to Islam equals this scary thing called "Islamism" which, of course, equals "bad" is what allows for militant secularists to claim the space of "normal" & "good". We need to recognize what this kind of framing really is about call it out forcefully.
@BinhamidAli
Translation: "I don't have to believe in any historical or scientific facts that aren't explicitly mentioned in the Qur'an, and therefore I can push any wild conspiracy theories I want, and you're required to at least try and take them seriously or you're showing bad adab."
Let me translate that for everyone: "Young Muslims: stop concerning yourself with politics, let us adults do the thinking, and quietly obey your rulers." Indeed, this is what a good loyal subject looks like and this *is* what happens when one is 'cynical enough about politics.'
It’s interesting to watch so much cognitive dissonance on MT. We went from:
- “Hamas is winning” to “We demand a ceasefire”
- “We don’t any help from the terrible West” to “We need international intervention to stop this slaughter.”
- “We’re not afraid to die because
Important to remember: Obama not only undermined Morsi but actively supported Sisi's coup. The US has no problem with autocrats in the Middle East, so long as they play by the rules. It's those rulers who are accountable to the people who are hard to control.
Today is the 10th anniversary of Egypt's coup. In my new
@foreignpolicy
essay, I reconstruct the final months and days leading up to the army's takeover, including never previously reported details.
I really wonder what the future for the academic subfield of international law looks like now that even the dullest dullard ought to recognize that when push comes to shove, it ultimately is little more than the will of the strong. 1/3
The idea is to guilt people into thinking that if they support traditional Islamic gender norms, by default, they are Trumpers. Therefore, the only way to avoid being a Trumper is to embrace intersectionality and secular left wing politics at the expense of the religion. 2/2
Muslims need to reject 'intersectionality' as an organizational strategy. Its not going to work; all discourses are seek hegemony; any 'intersectional' alliance that Muslims join in the US will result in domination. We stand alone and speak on our own behalf.
Seeing juxtapositions of Taylor Swift happy dancing in her 6 figure Super Bowl suite w/ that picture of the mutilated girl hanging off a wall in Rafah all over my soc. media has profoundly impacted me. I'm mentally ready for whatever steps in the eschatological process come next.
More "Islamism" nonsense talk from another ignorant American. You really know you're dealing with an expert on the topic when they claim that "Islamism" is a "Middle Ages ideology." Like, it's literally the opposite, but keep on keepin' on I guess.
This really is a fight between Islamism and the free world. It’s a fight between a Middle Ages ideology and the modern world of freedom, tolerance, & secularism. Israel is on the front lines of this fight, but all of us who share these Western values are in this fight as well.
"Free speech" is a lie; the ability to exercise "free speech" is a function of power, not right. Any Muslim with a 5th grade education should know this. Try calling for the Caliphate, and you'll quickly find out what the limits of free speech are.
Muslims saying "I'm going to vote for Trump to teach Biden a lesson" is narcissism par excellence. Only a narcissistic jahil actually thinks Biden is 'listening' to their anonymous vote; he isn't. The morally responsible thing to if you hate Biden & Trump is to vote for neither.
It's about refraining Ummatic struggles in terms of race and other secular identity categories. Read the document yourself if you don't believe me. Of course there is no 'Muslim atheists'. Intellectualized gaslighting isn't going to change this. However, 2/
In the midst of Israel's ethnic cleansing campaign, the Pakistani gvt has decided to join suit & expel 1.7 million Afghans, many of whom have lived in Pakistan their entire lives. Yet another damning indictment against the inherently anti-Ummatic logic of the nation-state.
I strongly disagree w/ the claim that it's best to sober and negative. This is an unIslamic mindset. I get extremely frusterated reading some of the things I read from Muslims on social media too (like *really* annoyed...) but the Prophetic example is one of patience and hope.
When people are intoxicated by childish positivity, it's best to be sober and negative.
What is preferable? That I engage in such ridiculous fantasies?
We need a harsh look at our situation. Enough with the childish chest thumping and big talk.
With all due respect, ustad.
The hateful authoritarian hedonism that Iranian monarchist atheist cultists represent must be defeated, completely and totally. Their ideology is that of Abu Jahl and the people of Lut. They seethe when they see acts of prayer because they are rotten to the core.
White American students at university of Texas doing namaz (prayer). I’ve hit my limit of pretending this is remotely normal. This is the peak of mass delusional brainwashed perverse cosplay. Please make it stop. I can’t take another day of it.
We're not falling for this false binary. Isn't it ironic that these people are actually the one's creating the exclusionary binary, aiming to guilt Muslims into blindly supporting left wing politics, no questions asked... OR ELSE...
Good. Political theory positions are hard enough to come by these days even for the most prolific scholars. This clown who has accomplished little professionally (especially considering the multiple elite post-docs he's held) most certainly does not deserve one of them.
This is so absolutely disgusting. I refuse to have an association with anyone on social media with any connections to the Heritage Foundation; block me NOW before I block you. I consider you an open enemy and a terrorist.
Most converts I know, including myself, went through a period of self-imposed silence and lifestyle reprogramming for *years* after they converted before they even though about taking a public stage to 'debate' Islam. This is the way it should be for ALL converts.
If the US government is this open about muzzling press freedom abroad, what makes you think they don't already quietly do it at home? Blinken's open request is shocking if you think about it; it literally goes against America's most basic 2 values; free speech and a free press.
The 1st article I ever published while a grad student was on opium production in Afghanistan. Basically, US occupation was a massive boon for opium production, while the Taliban showed they could virtually eradicate it within 1 year. Little has changed it seems.
This article is amazing. The US leaves Afghanistan, and--surprise!--opium production collapses. Oh no!
This also happened in SE Asia after the Vietnam War and in Afghanistan after the Soviet-McJihad War.
people like this who detest any type of normatively grounded understanding of Islam, fully understand that by deconstructing what being a Muslim means, they can reconstruct it to mean whatever they want 3/
Im excited to announce that I am now an on-going Research Associate cluster leader in a 3-year, $1,999,000 project titled “Islamic Public Value: Theory, Theology, and Practice of Indigenous Cooperative Governance Institutions,” funded by the John Templeton Foundation.
You can 'identify w/ Muslim culture' or be 'a bad Muslim' but you cant be a Muslim atheist. It is a contradiction. The move by M.M. Knight is a power move aimed at reshaping a very basic meaning. Read post-structuralists like Chantal Mouffe.
No. If the people "stay out of politics" and let autocrats do the thinking for them, you end up with a brain-dead, listless society that morally rots out from the inside. You have a society of subjects, not citizens. Civil society is the key to prosperity, not apathetic silence.
You have a safe, stable, prosperous life and all you have to do is stay out of politics.
Sounds like a better deal than having your country implode in a revolution.
Wrote this in 2022: 'Ghannouchi and Ennahda tried to play nice and now are paying the price. If Islamic political movements really want to succeed, they will need to control at least some of the key organs of the state, including the courts and military.'
Remember: anyone who parrots the pseudo-profound sounding cliche that: "The right hates Muslims while the left hates Islam" is a moron. The vast majority of the right hate Islam w/ a genocidal crusader fervor that is lacking on the left. These people hate you as a matter of dogma
And for those wondering, I vote for politicians that protect my family's access to affordable healthcare and social services. This does not mean I am also obliged to vocally pledge my undying loyalty & obedience to whatever social agenda these same politicians push.
Call For Mentee and Mentor Applicants | Ummatics Mentorship Program
Many students aspire to pursue PhD studies and academic careers in the humanities and social sciences. However, some of these motivated students have the skills and aptitude but lack the resources and
@Terodotus
Wow, what a dishonest requote! I did NOT say trashing the entire field of I.S. and its believers was "the primary aim of non-Muslim scholars in Islamic studies." I won't to respond to anything else you said in this rant b/c your opening sentence doesn't represent what I said.
whatever they aim to build it as. We either control our own discourse, and call out the BS, or they set the new terms for us and we end up having to justify why a Muslim means someone who believes in one God.
If you don't know
@jaanislam
yet, you should. He is young and his contributions are going to be significant. I just pray that the Western academy doesn't try and grind him down; thinkers like Jaan pose a real threat to their established orthodoxy.
An important thread on Wael Hallaq and Khilafah-skepticism🧵
1. I’ve noticed a trend among students of ‘ilm+politics of celebrating Hallaqian, Decolonial, & Marxist critiques of modernity and the state. Having been a passionate grad student & reader of Asad, Hallaq, Sayyid, etc.
At this point, one should be entirely skeptical of *anything* the IDF says about anything. They really aren't even trying anymore. You're just expected to believe whatever they say otherwise you're antisemitic.
Read this whole thread and learn what actually happened here. Only by the sheer grace of Allah does this country even exist. There certainly is an Ummatic lesson to be learned here regarding what happens when we trust our affairs to those who seek our destruction.
[Thread] The Srebrenica genocide was not because of UN failure, nor was it an 'honest mistake', it rather was a cynical decision by Western powers to settle the Bosnian civil war. Srebrenica, Gorazde and Zepa were the remaining Muslim enclaves, besieged by Serb forces.
I find it interesting that the same people who are claiming that *all* pro-Palestinian protesters are antisemites are the same people now arguing that due to some Tik Tok videos that went viral in the last 24 hours, *all* of Gen Z are bad too. Notice a trend here?
France's goal clearly is to make Muslims feel as uncomfortable as possible and hope they just leave. Where is that US envoy for religious freedom... I'm waiting for their statement. I'm sure it's coming soon. 🤔
Our first annual
#Ummatics
conference starts in just 5 days in Istanbul. Register online and join us in person. I think you will find the quality of our venue choice, the historic Bahariye Mevlevihanesi, to be... well... I'll let it speak for itself:
Read closely..."and other Islamic centers." You really think that only means Shi'a one's?? I will keep shouting this: Iranian dissidents (both monarchist atheist cultists & this lady who are now at each other's throats) are a much greater threat to Sunni's than you think.
Had a constructive meeting with
@cem_oezdemir
, former Greens foreign affairs spokesman and current Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture. I voiced concerns shared by many Iranian activists and dissidents living in Germany about the Blue Mosque and other Islamic centers. These
Israel thinks it's the United States now. How insane: a foreign police force greeting you at your own airport in your own capital city? Just imagine how Americans would feel landing at Dulles & then being greeted by the Chinese police "just to make sure everything's safe".
🗣Vedat Muriqi: "Once we arrived at
@AirportPristina
, the Israeli Police controlled us. This is strange, this has never happened before. This is football, not a war."
Honestly, this is scandalous! What are they doing in our country in the first place?
#KOSISR
I 🇽🇰🇮🇱
It's going to be really hard to outdo this year's conference venue, the Bahariye Mevlevihanesi, for next year's Ummatics Conference. I think we might have set the bar too high for ourselves... just look at this place! How does it get better than that?!!
It's sorta sad seeing Cornel West join Noam Chomsky in Team Anti-Imperialism Super Troopers fantasy land. There ain't a Russian or Syrian disinformation campaign out there that either of these guys won't repeat on their own volition, free of charge. Pathetic.
Cornel West: "I want to head the US empire in order to dismantle it. We need to be a nation among nations. We don't need to be the grand empire that every nation has to bow down to. I am anti-imperialist. NATO is an instrument of US global power."
@yarbatman
It's not curious at all. Him and his wife hate all things Islam and are making a pitch to the pro-Israel right that he is 'their guy' and if they manage to put him in power, he's completely on their side. This whole was a PR disaster for gaining legitimacy among normal Iranians.
is quite odd. I’m not sure who approves of their answers, but many people rely on it. They should be made aware that their answers can be very unscholarly.
Here’s an example:
Wearing high heels is 𝘩̣𝘢𝘳𝘢̄𝘮 because Allāh says “do not kill yourselves.”
@arash_tehran
Nationalist aspirations have poisoned the Middle East. There are real possibilities that exist beyond the Westphalian nation-state model. Most people are simply too afraid to even consider thinking outside the box; big money grants in academia lie in promoting the status quo.
Great point. American citizens have to jump through countless hoops & "gotchas!" when trying to get Medicaid (& the GOP wants to add even more), but Israel is entitled to my tax money w/ 'no strings attached.' Why does childrens Medicaid come w/ strings but Israel's aid doesn't?
@RepJoshG
Why is any type of social assistance full of strings for your constituents, but Israel can take our tax money with no conditions and commit genocide in our name? Who do you answer to, your constituents or AIPAC?
They recognize that all discourses, even poststructuralist ones, aim at hegemony. These people are no different than anyone else. They want to impose their own hegemony on what it means to be a Muslim. However, they first need to deconstruct before they can build it back to
This is a great thread. Rampant acts of vigilante justice are tell-tale signs of a failing or failed state. Real justice requires due process. An Ummatic alternative to whatever we have today must ensure due process and punish those who take the law into their own hands.
- A Muslim woman was nearly lynched for wearing a dress with Arabic letters spelling "hulwa".
- Non-Muslim Sri Lankan factory manager was beaten, killed, & set on fire for removing posters with religious content. He had removed them due to renovation works.
I have some very exciting news. I would like to announce that this afternoon I signed a contract with Oneworld Publishers for my next book. "Deliberating within the Fold" will offer a novel model of perfectionist public reason for Muslim-majority societies.
@OneworldNews
The more this war drags on, and the more I learn about how laws in the UK work, the more I realize the UK is not the kind of place I'd ever want to live in.
There is a D-Notice in place to stop UK media reporting on SAS role in Gaza.
But we know SAS has deployed to UK base on Cyprus. We also know 33 RAF transport flights have flown from Cyprus to Tel Aviv in past month.
All media acceding to the D-Notice are complicit.
No, no. Its totally normal for a new convert, a day or two after converting, to make sure they are the center of attention with videos like this. I mean, what new convert *didn't* post a video of themselves with lewd music & half-naked women in it the day after making Shahada?
This was posted yesterday. In the video are Andrew Tate, Tam Khan (the guy he’s in the video praying with), and UK boxer, Amir Khan. Disclaimer: The music is lewd and there are numerous barely-clad women dancing.
@WalshFreedom
What nonsense this post is. "Islamism" is like the opposite of a "Middle Ages ideology"; its a distinctly modern construct, especially the particular iteration of it that you have in mind.
Very interesting conversation; well worth your time. This is the type of critical engagement we need more of.
@jalalayn
is the best Muslim Podcaster out there. His interview with
@SALHACHIMI
was just as insightful.
I had an enjoyable interview with
@thinking_muslim
entitled "Pragmatism, Politics and Power."
Those who are interested in political engagement can listen to my opinions here, since I was able to give more detailed answers about some sensitive topics.
Is this for real? Not only is it comically stupid, but it's a wholly unIslamic approach to halal sexual relations. We all know this, but we don't want to hurt the celebrity convert's feelings. He's new to Islam and is "still learning."
Sex is for making children.
Any man who has sex with women because it "feels good" is gay.
Oh my pee pee feels good this is great!
In fact if you are 40 with less than 5 children you're probably gay.
All that feel-good pee pee sex and hardly any genetic legacy?
If you check the profiles, the vast majority Twitter's 'Iran 2022 Revolution' crowd- especially the most vulgar, pro-monarchist types who spew the most anti-Islamic bile, have like 40 followers, follow 20 people, have been active for like 2-3 months and & 1000s of retweets. 1/2
So have there been any official statements from the US State Dept. about Kuwait's parliament being dissolved and put under a 4 year State of emergency? I'm guessing no. I think we are in the midst of a dangerous seismic shift in global policy towards the Muslim world... 1/
I'm guessing that most Americans really are not as devoted to free speech as they think and in reality only support 'free speech' when its speech that suits their interests, (which is not support free speech at all).
It's really disappointing that so many people are trying to speculate from the advertising Tweets (that I didn't write) promoting my Ummatics nation-state essay what the actual essay is about. Just read the essay dammit, lol. Then feel free to call me whatever 'X-ist' you want!
All the bigoted identity politics masquererding as progressivism is getting really old. Seeing self-identifying Muslims say, "You can't talk about race X unless you are X" or "Keep your opinions about country Y's election to yourself; you're not from Y" is embarrassing.
@islamicize
Ghada is always a good reminder that for many people, nationalism and 'identity' are the sacred while Islam is the 'oh yea, that other part too.'
It's embarrassing that Sunnis are acting like Iran's carefully choreographed kayfabe last night was done for the Palestinians. It literally had nothing to do with the Palestinians. And of course Jordan doesn't want foreign drones flying over its airspace, who would?
Day 1 of the
@ummatics
Conference here at ISTAC. Mustafa Salama talking about the importance of good social science research within an Ummatic context. It's not just about asking the right questions; it's also about having the right research design.