Article’s out! Memoirs and travelogues as genres should be revived, so as my own contribution, I wanted to write on my recent travels and my discovery of «home»—here’s the outcome. LMK what y’all think. https://t.co/rZ2OeN9m92
Part of it owes to the racialization of Muslims—in the Middle Ages, Islam was equivalent to being Arab and then, with the Ottomans, being a Turk. With Mamdani, the factor is competence and media training, so other avenues for insults are ignored. Vivek is the case of the classic Indian-American—born to immigrants, never got rid of his inferiority complex, and allied with the worst of the right-wing even after, on live TV, he was insulted for his color. He never retorted.
Advocated heavily for a war against an already ruined country to an indecisive idiot, only to make that country a regional power, destroy all allies in the region, accelerate the collapse of America’s order and the economy within and make citizens suffer. Well done.
What I’m interested is in seeing what Trump will do now—if he’ll back down like the indecisive idiot he is or if he’ll take the other route and simply wreck everything. Should be an interesting few weeks.
@Afinetheorem Lobbying for automobiles & no investment in public transportation-> wider streets -> buildings much more spaced out -> suburban sprawl to move people to the outskirts -> dead cities. Sad what they’ve done in the name of freedom and independence.
How can we make lovable cities? If you had asked a European architect this question in 1900, they would probably have referred you to a slender, lively book by the Austrian writer Camillo Sitte, translated as ‘The Art of Building Cities’. Published in 1889, ‘The Art of Building Cities’ swiftly came to be revered around the world.
https://t.co/qwVmTrPTGV
Sitte was repudiated by the modernists and fell into obscurity, but his ideas are beginning to be revived. My cousin @PMArslanagic and I have distilled nineteenth century's finest work on urbanism into five principles:
- Create enclosed spaces
- Keep squares small
- Symmetry is overrated
- Move monuments to the edges of spaces
- Nestle monuments in vernacular fabric
The world’s always been like this. The New Atheist movement intended to cull the “group in the middle,” given that both the elites and the lowest stratum have always been inclined towards religion or cultism—for good or evil. That momentary illusion faded as the world is once again headed towards an ideological distinction with Islam as the counter-culture, as the technocratic elite defines the culture with Trump’s cult of personality. “Glad tidings for the strangers.”
It was clear that a lot of American elites hate Islam (duh) but this election is making it clear that they see Judaism as the anti-Islam, a better guardian of Western Christian values than even Christianity.
The marriage spectrum:
Traveled too much, so never married: Evliya Çelebi.
Traveled and married, both too much: Ibn Battutta.
Wrote too much but never married: Ibn Taymiyyah and al-Nawawi.
Wrote much and married, but mentioned only his earlier loves: Ibn Hazm.
Happens often at spiritual sites. I remember during my first time at the Haram, after praying Maghrib in the courtyard, I stared up to see the full moon next to the minaret—it was ethereal. This year, I’d slightly wished to see the same so as to have a feeling of the years coming in “full circle”—and this I was to receive in my visit to the Aqsa. It’s beautiful how even the smallest of prayers are never ignored.
When scholars talk about “tasting” the ecstasy of noumenal experiences… it’s too real
You’ll spend the rest of your life chasing the feeling you had in one prayer and think about it for a long time