Changing and Re-tweaking the Blog for the Future and Beyond

This is going to be tricky. Three and a half years ago, I did something with the blogger template to get a great layout without any coding whatsoever. The software changed when I wasn’t paying much attention. I’m not entirely sure I can navigate the blogger to make the necessary changes. I’m almost certain I’ll break something if I try to remove the headers, labels or move things around ..etc. I should proceed with caution when tempering with the layout.

On the content: I’ve finally decided topic of interests which I’ll be pursuing (as of now):

As you can see, I’m big on writing about politics, current events, and social issues. And that’s because as humans, we are always interested and attracted to what other human are doing with their life.

Book reviews: I’m not much of a book reader. I’ve no time to read books especially when everything you need to know can be googled easily, but still, a book review segment may be helpful in identifying good books that could potentially be read by others (not me personally). I could envision how this could easily become a community service where I tell my visitors about interesting books; they in turn read the book and share what they have learned with others who might benefit and I don’t have to waste my precious time.

Article reviews: Hopefully, I’ll be doing more of this in the future. Academic articles are shorter, straight forward and to the point so they can be digest easily and have proven to be very useful, at least to me.

Women. This is a fairly interesting topic. Women in most part of the world are still seen and treated like a second class citizen. In the Islamic context, I’m interested to see how they are viewed, historically and also in the modern time, socially, culturally and religiously.

Philosophy in general has added another perspective/dimension to most religion in the world. The use of philosophy in the Islamic faith has proven to be very useful and seen as an inseparable part of the religion.

Al-Quran: The only Islamic literature that many consider reliable and trustworthy. Widely read in the Islamic world but very little is understood or acted upon. While the book is in an unfamiliar language not spoken by many, the faithful believers have found solace and guidance and the unfaithful/ evil-doers have found justification for their cause and to act sinfully. The book has also been used by many to deal with social ills and to heal a wide range of physical and mental disorders and demonic possessions.

Comparative Religion: Religious people tend to view their faith as the best and the most correct version of the truth. I find this mentality of ‘us-vs-them’ exists across all faiths via what we officially call religious sects. When someone doesn’t like or agree with your interpretation or version of anything (ideas, events, practices) they then provide an alternate ideology and band together with similar minded individual. They gain traction and become an established sect and get more followers and become even more influential. I started this blog to investigate the origin of some of the Islamic sects. I don’t see why the good work has to stop just because I’m changing the overall direction of the blog.

Rationality: Does rationality exist in the Islamic faith? Yes? No? Is rationality useful or not really?

Psychology: This should be a topic of interest for many and not just a branch of study for the experts. Unfortunately we don’t spend enough time studying other human who are just like us. Religion sometimes creates artificial barriers that keep us even more insular and divided: You go to different places of worships, dresses differently, mingle only with people of your own race/religion and avoid others simply because they worship a different god which happens to be the same god as yours via different practices which don’t seem to be any less useful than yours.

Science-vs-creationism: I hardly ever post on this. I’ve sat down and tried writing something but this is not an easy task. I can see why religion takes a very simplified approach to explain mystery of the creation or natural occurrence and makes everything easy for us; Adam was created from clay, Eve burst out from Adam’s rib, they ate something and got thrown out from the heaven, there’s demon that’s attached to your soul whose only mission in life is to misguide your soul, the angels control the air, wind and rain, natural disasters could be seen as a punishment, the world is not supposed to be that old if we came from Adam and Eve. Nowadays, we know more about the creation of the human and the universe than our ancestors. We now know that we are not the only race of human to ever live on earth. We also know that the creation of everything is not a simple as we are lead to believe and that the weather pattern is a little more complicated and that every living being is self-sustaining without ever needing interference from angels or higher power.
The next question would be on how to integrate our new found knowledge with our faith. Is that even possible?

These are all the topic of interests I have as of now. I’m going to think about them, sleep on it and start working when I’m ready ...after I figure out how to work the template.

This is taking longer than I originally planned

I have written a lot of posts for the past 11 months. So I am not even half way done with my pages.  It will take another day or two. You can check out how it looks now. I have added some content in the Shia Sunni and Ismailis section.

Restructuring the blog

I am in the process of restructuring my blog. 


I am creating blog pages. As of now, I have the following pages
- Shia, Sunni, Salafi, Zaydi, Zahiri
- Ismaili, Bohra, Batini, Yazidis
- Ghulats, Alawi, Nusayris, Druze
- Mandaeism, Sabians, Zorastrianism


I'll probably create another page for all the minor sects that don't belong anywhere. The next step is to go through all my blog posts. I'll type out the title of the post and link it under each category/section. The process is very slow because there are just to many posts. Once the pages are completed, I'll get a better idea of the content here. It would also be easier to navigate through the site since the pages can serve as Index.


I'll get rid of the poll since it's closed now. The other thing that I am not happy with is the search box. It is completely useless. You cannot find anything with it. It is slow and not very effective.

Poll Closing in 17 hours

The poll on my blog will be closing in less than 17 hours. I'll get rid of it once it expired.


The purpose of the poll was to find out what people wish to see on my blog. 81 votes are evenly distributed among all the options.

A great majority of the votes, 48 %, wish to see/read more Shia contents here followed closely by people who wish to see more Sunni material, about 23%.

Then, 14% and 13% of the votes wish to learn more about the Zaydi and Alawi sect respectively, 12% for Ismaili, 9 % for Bohra and Druze, 8% for obscure sects. And 9% of the votes goes for Ghulats.

I am trying to

improve the outline of my blog.

I eliminated a bunch of categories, such as,

the obscure sects. Now, the labels will appear as sects name Sabians, Mandaeism, Manichaeism
the non-sects and other-sects because they are pretty vague.

I really like the cloud labels for more categories. It is taking far less space than the labels configured on the top of the blog.

I am also going to work on blog Pages. I have a page for the Shia-Sunni posts. And maybe another page for the non Shia-Sunni. Still haven't figure out a name.

Early Sunni Doctrine Concerning Faith

I will try to read this article in the next few days, Insha Allah.

Early Sunnī Doctrine concerning Faith as Reflected in the "Kitāb al-Īmān" of Abū 'Ubayd al- Qāsim b. Sallām (d. 224/839)
Author(s): Wilferd Madelung
Source: Studia Islamica, No. 32 (1970), pp. 233-254
Published by: Maisonneuve & Larose
URL

88 more days to go

I thank everyone who has voted in my poll. If you have not yet voted then please do so. The poll will give me a sense of my visitors like (see/read). As of now, most people voted in the Shia and Sunni category (39%) and (26%) respectively.

There are also some interests in the following sects: Alawi/Alevi, Ismaili, Bohra, Druze, Obscure Sects, Zaydi and Ghulat

The poll will end on December 31, 2011. 88 more days to go! I will try to use the voting information to improve my blog in the next year, InshaAllah.

Google has upgraded the Blogger

We have some new templates now with more configuration options.

I have changed blog’s template. I am still trying to get the font and color right. The right and left margins are huge. I am still looking for a way to shrink those. The links and the title of posts don’t blend nicely.

I am going to keep the blue theme, the white background, the header and maybe the font.

Al-Darazî and Ḥamza in the Origin of the Druze Religion

The following article is about the two individuals who have the most influence in the Druze religion

Hodgson, Marshall G. S., Al-Darazî and Ḥamza in the Origin of the Druze Religion. Journal of the American Oriental Society Vol. 82, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1962), pp. 5-20 URL

I am back

My blog was inactive for the past three weeks. So, now that I am back from vacation, hopefully I will be able to write more.

Finally!

Goggle fixed the blogger. It was broken for a few days. Some even suggested moving to wordpress ...

I don't have experience with WordPress but their templates look really good. Blogger templates are very limited. My major complaint about blogger is that their html editor is quite annoying. In Addition, what you see is not what you get.

Hijri or Gregorian?

I am no longer going to use Hijri date on my blog (sorry mom!). They are just redundant. Everything will be defaulted to a Gregorian date. Please use the Gregorian Hijri Converter for alternate date format.

However, the Hijri format will be used if the underlying text is relevant to Hijri calendar system.

Please vote

I created a simple poll to see what visitors like to see (more of) on my blog. The poll is located on the right side of the page (below the categories and search).

You are allowed to select more than one option. Thank you for voting!

Looking for an article

I am looking for the following article

Madelung, “The Development of the Term Ghulāt in Muslim Literature with Special Reference to the Kaysāniyya”

If someone has the article, can you please let me look at it?

I am looking for a better structure for my blog

I use to think that people have blogs to serve their narcissist tendency (within all of us)....but obviously I am wrong here because I don't write stuff about myself... 

A Blog or a Website?
I think having a blog is nicer than having a website because you don’t need to do website maintenance or write raw html code. All, you need to do is write something and click “publish”.  

But there are a few negative aspects of blogging,
i) You can’t structure your content well. It is sorted by date
ii) You can’t pretty up a blog the way you want
iii) Unpleasant navigation experience

How to structure a blog?
I am trying to find a better structure for my blog. Initially, I started with posting entries with some of my existing materials. I expanded the post, added additional materials and references. Then, I began to solicit views and opinions from others.

I thought of doing it in a chronological order (by birth of sects/date). If we go by chronological order (of sects) then it would be easier to see the big picture. However, chronological order can be uninteresting for the readers and the blogger themselves.

I will maintain the randomness of the posts/topics in this blog. I enjoy reading materials presented in the FAQ (Frequently Asked Question) format. I will probably use this format (in the near future) to structure the content of the blog.

Do we have a list of Shia Sects?

I am interested to create a list containing Shia sects (both existing and extinct) but I don’t have time to work on one. I found a write-up about extinct Shia sects (those Shia sects that no longer have any followers or practitioners).

These sects are broadly classified into i)Ghulat, ii)Ismaili, iii)Zaydi and iv)Uncategorized. I like the one liner description about each sect. It is succinct and to the point.

Hurufites, who believed God is incarnated in every atom.