Archive for October 2021
Mossland
If anyone’s been wondering what I’m doing these days, I have an essay in Critical Muslim’s 40th issue which tells you what. The theme of the issue is Biography, and the essay is called Mossland.
It’s about gardening in Galloway, mutual aid, radical agnosticism, a dog called Sudfeh (or ‘coincidence’) and a compost heap, all in the shade of the Syrian disaster.
I recommend the rest of the issue, which marks CM’s 10th anniversary. Highlights include Ziauddin Sardar’s moving tribute to his collaborator Merryl Wynn Davies, writer and proponent of ‘Islamic anthropology’, Taha Kehar’s account of short story writer Aamer Husain, and an excellent polemic on the unexamined legacy of Muhamad Asad, the convert from Judaism who translated the Quran and acted as Pakistan’s first ambassador to the UN, but still suffered anti-semitic slanders from his co-religionists, as well as benefitting from their deference to his ‘whiteness’. Great writing from Boyd Tonkin, intellectual rigour from Faisal Devji, poetry from Ruth Padel. And more.
Here it is at the publisher. Also available from Amazon, etc.
Qunfuz 