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The making of a kafir

Posted in Q & A on Aug 11, 2008

I recently received this email from Azhar in Melbourne, Australia. It’s proof positive that reading The Trouble with Islam Today corrupts good Muslim boys and girls. I’m only sorry that I needed the help of a lousy airline. You’ll see what I mean. Enjoy:

“You are rude, arrogant, in-your-face, insane for doing it all, blunt, bitchy and how I love you!

You have brought to light realities that everyone including myself has always wanted to ask but never did. I am a ‘brown’ Muslim male from Kenya who recently finished studies in Australia.

It is really sad that I only got to read your book on my vacation back home and on the way back to Australia. (Can I just say that Kenya Airways sucks with common TVs and faulty headphone, so the book captured me throughout the flight with next to no sleep as I consumed page after page on that 13-hour trip from hell to Hong Kong.)

I must confess that at times I felt like you were the CIA who had found some way of reading my mind as you continuously raised questions (and gave answers) to ‘forbidden’ agendas that have tormented my mind for years. People like you and Salman Rushdie have inspired me to step up and ask questions that I have feared all my life and for this I shall forever be endowed to you.

The ignorance, the blame game, the irrationality, the Desert Islam infestation and, most of all, the fear has poisoned this faith for far too long. It is people like you who breath new hope for the future…

On reading your book, I raised a debate back home and was actually shocked to find that educated men and women were outraged by my questions and support of the book. Needless to say, I went from ‘welcomed son’ to ‘kafir’ in no time!!!” - Azhar, Melbourne

Irshad replies: Then my work here is done.