Yaser M. Haddara

Jazaakumullahu khayran and thank YOU to all those that have been visiting the blog and leaving comments. It is indeed much appreciated.

A few quick responses are in order.

Abeer: thank you so much for the links. The pictures and the drawings are beautiful. Now I have to decide how to use them :)

Farah: thank you for looking for photos. For me to come up with the same photo you would have picked is a great compliment indeed :)

Suleiman: jazaakallahu khayran for all the work you’re doing to keep us all going and for your friendship and encouragement. In particular, thank you for fixing the broken links :D

Jaffer: thanks for the pointers. As I mentioned tonight I did try to apply them but it sounds like you would have a much easier time than me, so I’m gonna hold you to your offer :> Oh, and the EANACS reference? Inspired. Definitely Stanford!

Sha: It’s wonderful to reconnect with old friends. And how appropriate that it would be over LMotP ;) I will email soon inshaa Allah.

Ayman, Nazir, and Yusuf: Thank you for thoughtful analyses and discussion. I really appreciated the diverse thoughts on this. I’ll wait a bit to see what others may have to say inshaa Allah. I’ll probably weigh in again after the 3rd episode. It airs up here on Wednesday, but I may have to wait again till Monday to watch it. We’ll see inshaa Allah.

One important thing I do want to bring up right now. We should not doubt other people’s intentions. It’s one thing to disagree with the show, its contents, style, crossing the boundaries, etc. It’s another thing altogether to assume that there are “secular Muslims” behind it trying to undermine the rest of the community. Zarqa is well-known in the community. She has been part of the community her entire life. She is respected and she has contributed significantly over the years. Disagreeing with her on the content or style or even the message of the show is not an excuse to doubt her intentions or her “hidden agenda”.