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It is a sentiment that several of us have noticed being repeated with increasing frequency on the world-wide-web: that the Muslim blogosphere is dying a death, that all the good blogs have disappeared, that the Muslim blogging phenomenon has run its course and all that remains is tired, uninspirational, repetitive dross.

As a so-called blogger with the seed of La Illaha Il Allah in his heart, I am tempted to say thank you very much. But I did not sit down to write this post because I have a high opinion of myself and feel slighted by the despairing words of social commentators. Instead I had in mind the very many wonderful blogs that continue to inspire and delight the wanderers of the electronic wayfares by day and night.

I have never been convinced that there’s anything particularly special about a blog that differentiates it from a traditional website. My first encounter with the blogosphere was in 2005, but I had been publishing articles on a little-known GeoCities website entitled My Journey since 2001. When I discovered Blogger, I simply migrated the old content across and carried on, impressed by a platform that allowed me to edit a site inline without fiddling with HTML and CuteFTP.

A blog, for me, is merely a website by another name, and a website is merely a tool. Like a newspaper, book or television programme, it is the tool used to convey a message. When I first started writing in the early 1990s, I combined two tools to get my message out: DTP software and a photocopier. Right now, one of my tools of choice is WordPress, but the output is the same. It may be presumptuous for me to attempt to speak for other so-called bloggers, but surely this is true of all of us. The tools we choose to use are only relevant in functional ways.

Personally I don’t much care whether the medium of exchange is a book, a magazine, a blog, a podcast, a video or graffiti on the wall. What matters to me is whether what is conveyed adds something to my life, whether it inspires me or increases me in understanding or knowledge. The lamentations for the alleged demise of the Muslim blogosphere seem to make more of the medium than the message, whereas we ought to take the good from wherever we find it.

I don’t share the view that the Muslim blogosphere is fading into obscurity. We have perhaps lost—and in many ways this is a good thing—the blogging equivalent of the Mega-Church, which drew in vast audiences, but also a sheepish following. The days of the pop-star blogger may be behind us—alhamdulilah— and the great blogging hub that set the agenda for all others may have quietly fizzled away, but left behind in the after-glow stands a scattered community of writers still inspiring the wandering wayfarers. On the quiet backwaters of the internet, far from the noisy conurbations of the mass media, sail some of the loveliest of blogs and websites, brimming with real pearls of wisdom and guidance for those in need.

Some such writers do not post daily—some only once or twice a year—but it does not matter. When they do finally sit down to write, their impact is almost immediately felt. Some others write prolifically for an absent audience, conversing mostly with themselves, but this does not matter either; sometimes we stumble upon a gem via Google three years late which feeds the soul for days.

Their blogs may not feature in the newsfeeds of the coolest website of our sectarian-compliant portion of the web, in chaotic, neglected blogrolls or in intellectual conversation, but they trundle on. So what if they have a regular audience of just ten, including two web-bots? I once wrote a novel that was read by just four people. There are posts on this site that have never been opened. Does it matter? Not to me.

To say that the Muslim blogosphere is dying out, that all the good blogs have disappeared or that the Muslim blogging phenomenon has run its course strikes me as somewhat disrespectful to the many writers that benefit the likes of me. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, of course, but where some see only worn-out, lacklustre, monotonous drivel, I find myself blessed to discover great beauty, diversity and much-valued stimulation.