All across the Muslim world, blogging is on fire. Malaysia and Iran are leading states where the political structures are constantly challenged by bloggers. Egypt often has to arrest and jail its dissident bloggers. Other Arab nations are slowly coming to grips with blogging as a check on state power.

Among the Muslims in the the Western world, blogging has an altogether different dynamic. Blogging has mostly been a way for Muslims to congregate, befriend, and challenge one another. Political blogging – challenging or questioning the state – among Muslims is sorely lacking (except when it comes to foreign policy). Identity blogging seem to rule the day. The Islamsphere (as Aziz Poonawalla, one of the founders of Western Muslim blogging calls it) is a strange mix of house-wives (and husbands), recent college graduates, and professionals browsing from work. They are then broken down in their various groups. One of the major distinctions seems to be along the Traditionalist/Salafi/Sufi divide, with independents, reformists, progressives, punks, hippies, poets, quranists, all fitting in wherever they are accepted.

When I started blogging in early 2006, I found myself at the Sufi-Progressive side of things, but had good relationships at a couple of traditional and salafi blogs and was able to make my mark in the Islamsphere (even as I was largely critical of the traditionalist and salafi positions) very quickly. I flirted with turning into a progressive for some time but found the space too limited – and the political acumen too apathetic – and stayed independent.

By this time, in October, my personal blog was humming along quite nicely, making its way through all kinds of mainstream left and right wing blogs. In that time I had also gotten my hits-whoredom out of the way, and had started to focus on real world issues, most particularly, stonings in Iran, the Women’s Protection Bill in Pakistan, and the prevalence of Wahhabi literature among American Muslims. Looking at the Daily Kos method of dealing with things i.e. turning into a virtual community, I made an offer to a few of the traditionalist-salafist-moderate bloggers to join forces and come together at a place called States of Islam where the pre-eminent goal would be to make real world challenges against injustices committed in the name of Islam while also creating a positive narrative which would demonstrate that liberal and conservative Muslims could work together to improve the religion. We made it a closed community, put it on the Scoop system, and soon were being referred to as “the Daily Kos of the Islamsphere.” Just like Kos, it had a place for reader diaries and frontpagers.

The first few months were an astounding success in terms of exposure and hits, and we were covered by MSNBC, Salon, and a few other places. The blogosphere was all over us – Instapundit from one side, Crooks and Liars from the other. I was also able to make a working partnership with Soros’ Avaaz.Org and we were connected to international political activism. Hundreds of users registered and became members.

Our reader diaries were able to lure some of the best and brightest among Western Muslims. Professor Fadel, an Islamic jurist from the University of Toronto, wrote regularly on the site, as did Yahya Birt, a well-respected British-Muslim thinker. The Guardian wanted to do a story on us. Our correspondent in Egypt broke two stories before anyone else in the West: about Al-Azhar University declaring female genital mutilation impermissible in Islam, and the creation of a jihadist news-station in Iraq.

One of our registered users was able to get in touch with the Afghan government and have them assure to us via email that they would protect one of their most outspoken female MP’s. When an Iranian cleric issued a death fatwa against an Azeri editor for publishing the Muhammad cartoon, we challenged him utilizing Shi'i Law. When an Indian cleric called for taking the law into his own hand we challenged him utilizing Deobandi Sunni Law. When Irshad Manji wanted to start doing affirmative reform activities – instead of mere critique – she came and made reader diaries. One of our frontpagers began a interviewing high-minded scholars of jihadism (starting with the excellent Feisal Devji). We were invited to give speeches at universities and top ten schools of law. We engaged in debates where we were able to expose Islamophobes and rehabilitating the names of people they smeared. We were getting opportunities to come on small radio stations across the country. One of our registered users, an international barrister, acquired a copy of Pakistan’s Women’s Protection Bill – which then got us cited by Harvard trained lawyers. These were the minor successes. We launched a Quran Distribution Project – with the aim of raising $30,000 to distribute a better quality (and non-Wahhabi) translation of the Quran to American mosques and Islamic schools. I dreamt up a Muslim Legislation Project – a live database of reformist legislation in major Muslim countries, translated and transmitted, which would eventually link itself up with a Western university.

Then reality struck. The first realization was that each of us in charge had real life problems – writing dissertations, getting married, family-complications, feeding children, finding jobs. The second realization was that our Western Muslim community did not have in it benefactors or philanthropists who would look positively at our work and help us do it full-time – well, a few might have, but the price they would exact would be our independence (or conformity to a certain brand of fake external morality which I would not put up with).

The third realization was that even though there were offers for help from certain shall-we-say, conservative-leaning personalities, we could not accept Islamic reform becoming appropriated by anyone. It had to be an utterly and conclusively Muslim thing, and if it couldn’t survive being that, then it wasn’t meant to be. The last thing I wanted was to be used by someone with ulterior political motives.

The fourth problem was an emotional one. Reformist work – constant hands on activism, which is a mixture of diplomacy and aggression – sucks the living spirituality out of you. As a Muslim my first predilection is toward mysticism, and as a humanist, towards literature. Being a polemicist is immensely difficult for me, and that was true for the other people involved in the site as well.

The final problem was that of universality – there seemed to be a sudden realization among a significant part of the States of Islam community, that bad things, evil things, inhuman things, needed to be condemned not just when they occurred to Muslims, but when they occurred to anyone. In other words, if Islam taught us to love humanity – instead of just Muslims – then why was our focus just on Muslims? I remember it was the shooting at Virginia Tech which really hammered this home. One reader came by and wrote a diary asking the community to pray for the slain Muslims in the shooting. Suddenly myself and a few others wondered why our prayers were so limited? At that moment I knew States of Islam was done (though it lingered a bit longer). See, the issue was that we weren’t reformists because we hated conservative or extremist Muslims for the sake of hating them. I think if the site’s organizing principle had been to hate X or Y, and do anything to oppose X or Y, we would still be humming along. No, we were reformists because we wanted to advance harmony and reconciliation and love (though in a tough minded way, I confess). There was actually a moment when, on the phone, I asked one of the frontpagers: “should we create an ‘other’; should we demonize someone?” We both knew the answer, and as such, the site was retired.

A very interesting case study that warned me about the dangers of demonizing was Little Green Footballs, which is now considered one of the most rabid anti-Muslim blogs. At one point, Charles Johnson was an independent. He had very acute, critical and interesting things to say about George Bush. Then, after his site hit a sort of lull there was a sudden explosion of anti-Muslim and anti-CAIR rhetoric. Update: I don't mean to imply that Islam and CAIR are interchangeable as I have criticized CAIR on this point previously. To some extent, a number of left-wing sites started out in the middle and then moved progressively towards dogmatic partisanship. I for one simply do not believe that one advances liberal thinking through sheer stubborn aggression.

That, my friends is the story of the first major Islamic netroots project. Though I do carry with me some of the projects undertaken at the site, I roll alone now. I certainly don't have any intention of stopping to write about reform. To me, it is as essential a subject as checking US imperialism, seeking economic justice, or monitoring the human rights abuses of dictatorships.

I think there are a number of lessons here for those who want to learn. The first is that the potential activists must ask themselves: do they realize the difference between an activist and a thinker? An individual thinker’s writing does not have to maintain an ideological position, but a community does require one – maintaining such a position requires producing propaganda. Are you able to accept that? If not, you are not cut out to be an activist, so go back to your own blog, make collages, write poetry, feel existential angst. The second is, do you know the difference between an artist and a politician? Someone who likes creative thinking, has aspirations for originality and freshness, needs the freedom to experiment, and not be in a position to be beholden to others. Producing propaganda and being an activist do not permit space for experimentation; one slight mistake and you’re finished, which means that you have to be shrewd and slippery – to spin your errors in the manner of a Bill Clinton, Benazir Bhutto, Abraham Foxman or Ibrahim Hooper. If your natural tendency upon doing something wrong is to say “yes, I did make a mistake” its going to be hard to survive when player haters and ad hominenemies pour on you. At the least, be able to fake not acknowledging your mistakes (I frankly can’t even do that much).

In any event, it will be interesting to see if a reformist Islamic netroots ever emerges again. I suspect that I will welcome its entry, and then subject it to the same critical evaluation I subject conservatives and fanatics (though, yeah, I will be a bit nicer and send much traffic its way).

Here is an archive of all the reader diaries produced on the site.

Here is an archive of frontpager Willow's writings.

Here is an archive of my writings.

When navigating through the site, don't hit the header, because of a glitch it will take you to another website.