Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
1 On Being with Allah 9
Can Allah be Supremely Indifferent? 11
Between Allah and a Neurotic Self 17
Allah: More than an Ideological Appendage 20
Words and Works for a Window 23
More to the Rituals than Motions? 27
Don't Forget to Marinate the Meat! 30
Ramadan: When Boats are Safe in the Harbour 33
2 On Being with Myself 38
Freedom Isn't Free 40
Dying by the Inches 45
And the Truth Shall Set You Free 51
Who Says I'm not Important? 54
Life! Life! (Or is it 'Wife! Wife!'?) 58
3 On Being with You 63
Beyond the Masks 64
Why Two Ears and One Mouth? 67
Why Does He Take so Long with the Meat? 72
To Dump or Not to Dump? 75
Though Poverty Became their Lot 78
My Brother's Flesh on the Menu? 82
4 On Being a Social Being 87
Revelation or Revolution? 89
The Reader's Digest Islam 93
Who's in Charge Around Here? 98
On Building Burdens 102
Wanna Have Some Power? 106
5 On Being with the Gendered Other 111
On Mandela and Women 113
The Gender Jihad 118
It's Just a Dark Blob Out There 122
The Fall of Man 126
Calling all Married Couples! 130
The Courage to be Mad 133
6 On the Self in a World of Otherness 137
Knock, Knock - It's the Malboet (and He's Knocking for Me!) 139
Go Slowly With the Mud! 142
On Ants and Elephants 147
Long Live Mrs Batista! 149
Access to our Waterholes? 152
The Jews! Watch Our For the Jews! 156
7 On Being a New South African Muslim 162
On the Brink of Freedom? 164
Tell Us About Your Glasses 168
Switch Off If You Get Turned on! 172
Crime Out There? Or in Here? 176
On Murdering Murderers 181
Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers? 184
Conclusion189
Notes 198
Select Bibliography 203
Index 205
