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Speaking @ Google

Posted in On The Road on Sep 27, 2007

One of the central features of this site will be my blog. It’ll consist of various themes - from your feedback about my work, to my thoughts about current headlines, religious reform, social change, geo-politics, and, of course, Islam. I’ll also be posting dispatches from my travels. Here’s the first of them:

I’m speaking today at GOOGLE headquarters in California. In my talk, I’ll explain that digital technology plays a huge role in the mission to reform Muslim societies. I know this first-hand: The Arabic edition of my book, posted free of charge on this site, has been downloaded more than 250,000 times. A New York Times Magazine writer recently emailed me to say that the online translation is being circulated among youth in various parts of the Middle East. And check out this email from Lorena, an anthropologist, who wrote me through my myspace page:

“I’m an anthropologist doing research with Muslim women living in the slums of Kolkata, India. During my last trip there, I showed some of the women your website and the started reading The Trouble with Islam Today in Urdu.

One woman, Amina, runs a small NGO that operates a free school for slum children, and she immediately incorporated your work into her classes on Islam. Her comment on reading your ideas: ‘This is exactly what I have been saying!’ They now read and discuss your work together.”

I cringe at the label “slum children,” but when children living in slums have access to a critique of Muslims and are free to discuss ideas like mine openly, you’ve got to applaud digital technology. And the idea of global interdependence. Love it!