It is that time once more, when my website domain name comes up for renewal and I force myself to evaluate whether to pay for another two years or not. It is never about the money, but about the tongue — or rather my typing fingers — about words, and the adab due to them …
In the two years before I first uttered my shahada, I came to fancy myself as a fine writer, although my only real talent was to have the patience to hammer out a million words on a keyboard in the middle of the night for months on end. I had two self-printed novels to show …
While editing my novel Satya, I took the decision to leave it fairly intact in order to preserve where I was then, in 1997, when I originally penned it. I wanted to stay true to the original, without imposing too much of who I am now on the story. I didn’t have in mind that …
In 1996 I wrote a novel entitled The Beauty of the Lion. From a literary point of view, it was a disaster, but for me as the writer it was remarkably influential. There was nothing remarkable about the book itself, except for its particularly sloppy style and poor punctuation. Indeed, I suppose the same story has …
The past two weeks have seen this blog go through the full mid-life crisis. First going into maintenance mode, then reappearing for a couple of days, then being deleted and replaced with the finale from a Walt Disney cartoon, then momentarily restored, only to be shunted into a sub-directory, to be abandoned in favour of …
Weblogs have come under quite some fire recently in the newspaper I regularly buy. Janet Street-Porter‘s comment last week was followed a day later by an article by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. In both cases their generalisations are quite amazing. For me and many others this medium is a mere tool.
It is interesting where my frequent digressions lead me. I have a tendency to see in other people’s writing what they did not intend, or never could have intended: the little snippet, the sentence or the word, which leads me off in an altogether new direction. Late last night I was thinking about that article …
I have been asked to write something about my love of writing, where it started and so on. It is an interesting question, especially when I look back. I am not well read nor am I learned. I did not have this interest throughout school – or at least I don’t think I did – …
Exactly a decade ago I spent every day, between the hours of about two in the afternoon and three in the morning, tapping out a novel called The Beauty of the Lion. I had just finished a short contract testing mapping software on the Science Park in Cambridge and had returned to my parents’ home. …
It is a question which I have written about many times before, but one which seems to recur almost in a cycle, returning every three weeks or so: to write or not to write? The latest turn—having only just reconciled myself—arose when I read a comment on this site about the role of the people …
Following my recent post ‘To blog or not to blog?’ some additional complexities surrounding the question of censorship occurred to me. Namely the question of censorship in the contemporary Muslim world and, secondly, how freedom of speech plays against the Islamic emphasis on the preservation of knowledge (think of the science of isnad verification, for …
Our blessed Prophet said, “He who truly believes in God and the Last Day should speak good or keep silent.” For those of us who love to write, the implications of this are clear. To “Blog” brings with it responsibilities. Although I don’t consider myself a “Blogger” – simply a writer who finds the dynamic …
Textbooks make up ninety percent of Africa’s total book production. Whilst the continent’s population makes up twelve percent of the global figure, it produces only one percent of the world’s books. As a result, the remaining ten percent of Africa’s book production, which includes liturgical materials, academic books and gray literature, makes up a tiny …
