It has become rather unnatural to be an ordinary, caring, socially conscious human being. So here are twelve postnormal plagues, some already with us, some anticipated as lurking over the horizon, for you to contemplate.
Ziauddin Sardar
Superpowers. Of all the possible superpowers in this best of all possible worlds, which one would you most like to possess? We sought the counsel of a four-year old girl. Without hesitation she replied that she wished she could ‘make everything pink’.
Muslim attitudes to power are like everything else about the contemporary ummah: complex; contradictory and chaotic.
Qatar does not have a rich football history, and I must admit, I did not think it had a chance. But when Qatar won the bid, I jumped for joy. At last, I thought, a Gulf state is going to do something that will be seen around the world as good. But moments later, my delight evaporated as some disturbing thoughts came to the fore.
Why should freethought, and freethinkers, be deemed dangerous? After all, thought or our ability to reason is integral to what makes us human.
‘Taz’, a new channel on the Pakistani Geo TV network, is dedicated to twenty-four-hour news. There is a rapid-fire news bulletin every fifteen minutes: hence the name, Taz, or fast. But even after an endless stream of stories about sectarian violence, terrorist atrocities, suicide bombings, ‘target killings’, ‘load shedding’, political corruption and the defeats of the Pakistani cricket team with mundane regularity, there is still ample time left in the schedule.
The sign at the entrance to St George Street is unexpected. In a culture given over to the automobile, where atomised individuals in their private, insulated space, drive up to cash dispensers, fast food counters, and to the heart and top of perpendicular offices and dwellings, a sign discouraging the car is unique. But then St Augustine, Florida, itself is quite a unique town.
A confession. In case you did not know I am a man. A generic, universal entity about which the seventeenth century French aristocrat Madame de Sevigne knew a thing or two. ‘The more I see of men’, she declared, ‘the more I admire dogs’. Knowing myself as well as I do, I appreciate her preference.
I watch the sunset. It does not take much time: one moment the sun is there, and it is day, and the next it has disappeared. The floodlights of Kelab Darul Ehsan come on, synchronised with the sunset. The Asian work ethic predominates here, meaning long hours at the office and a five and half day working week.
Al-Ghazzali, the Muslim theologian and jurist, considered the Muslim society of his time to be so deeply afflicted with social sickness, ‘an epidemic among the multitude’ as he calls it, as to be virtually insane. The only cure was a ‘moral therapy’, a heavy dose of religious devotion and piety. Religion, it seems, was not unlike Erasmus Darwin’s rotating chair: it would spin those persistently ‘straying from the clear truth’, those insistent ‘upon fostering evil’ and ‘flattering ignorance’, at great speed, thus rearranging their brains into pious order, while, as an added benefit, forcing them to spew out their heresies.