Thread by @HusseinAboubak

The mainstream Islam I grew up with in the post 9/11 era in Egypt was very ugly. It was increasingly anti-women, antisemitic, xenophobic, hateful, supremacist and violent. Like millions of other Muslims and non-Muslims I thought thats truly what Islam was. I first accepted it /1

uncritically, then I came to resent it and fear it. I now believe that this was a cultural wave that was long time in the making and already reached its peak and may now be subsiding. Many Muslim societies are currently on the move towards new unknown destinations. /2

Not everyone is happy about this state of flux, including ironically some immigrant Muslim communities whom they are like any immigrant community hold to a static frozen in time image of the societies they came from. There is also a the challenge of the breakdown of communal /3

collective actions and that increasingly, Muslim societies wont move collectively anymore which means we will have asymmetrical levels of progress and development in different Muslim societies. This is already happening with extreme polarization around the Muslim Brotherhood, /4

and whether one supports or hates the MB. Israel is another point of such polarization. Its interesting to see entire societies moving without knowing where will they end. One thing is clear, an increasing number of Muslims are now facing the reality they have only two choices /5

, either push for a radical reformation of Islam or radical subversion and moving on in the tracks of liberal religiouless modernity. The latter is a luxury only self sufficient individuals can afford, the former seems to be the strategic choice of many Arab governments. /6

I strongly believe the issues of women and gender equality remain the most important and crucial goal for social reform while addressing antisemitism is the most crucial for political reform. If both goals can be achieved, there will be no going back to the Islam of my childhood.