Introduction

Welcome and as-salaam alaykum,

This group blog is still a test version, but the first few posts should give readers and prospective contributors some idea of what we are trying to do here. The blog title is makeshift and the full slate of contributors has yet to materialize: until the cart arrives, here's the horse.

The intended audience of this blog is cerebral Muslims and non-Muslims who are looking for fresh contributions from contemporary Muslims on common but nontraditional subjects. I mean contemporary not only to indicate people who aren't dead yet, but also in the stronger sense of individuals who speak in (or modify their speech to) the contemporary idiom of Western liberal thought. This is tricky for those of us (including myself) who don't share many of the assumptions of this language, but I think in the final analysis it is an essential task.

By common but nontraditional subjects, I mean observations about our everyday experience that are not limited to politics or religion. I don't mean to exclude these areas, but there is so much more to the world we inhabit. Where blog contributors do get into religious politics, it will be with the caveat that (and this is one of our few ground rules) no post explicitly target a particular religious or ideological community, whether inside or outside Islam. "What is wrong with Group X" rants will not be posted. Again, this is not because I think such talk should be stifled, but simply because there are already plenty of forums for it.

For contributors, this is an opportunity to develop ideas in manageable chunks. It's easy enough to post, and an audience provides both incentive and feedback. And at least in my case, staking out and testing your claims in public provides a certain discipline that private writing doesn't.

In order to manage the scope and nature of the blog, contribution is by invitation only.

And success is with Allah alone.