The Nightingale

Were it not for books and historical record, it would be hard to fathom the lengths human beings have gone to eradicate not just the lives of individuals but whole ethnic and religious groups. And we have to know this because it keeps happening.

Reading is much more than mere literacy: it is a cultural accomplishment through which meaning is gained.

An increase in the public display of Muslim identity (not just in uniform groups) need not be cast as something to be feared, or indeed as something trivial, rather it could instead be a pathway towards healing Muslim self-hate as well as healing stigmatisation.

People share articles they don’t read, they enjoin ‘praying for’ something even as they continue to scroll their social media feed, they comment without understanding or context; because there is no time for reading, no time for ‘prayer’, no time for context in the all-consuming attention economy.

If you spend less time for beauty, truth and reading, your valuing of beauty and truth will diminish. It’s that simple. Multiply this by the number of people in our population, and it is no surprise that the practice of skim-reading texts on social media has been implicated in the rise of the post-truth media environment — with all the ugliness and anarchy it brings.

When I look at maps of Singapore from the 80s and the 90s, I see that the Changi wood and the Bedok Reservoir wood were actually tiny. But they meant so much, and their value incalculable. These slivers of wood are gone now. Also gone are the ecosystems they sustained and the life force they reverberated.

The covenants clearly outline that the lives, property, wealth, and faith of the non-Muslims are all to be revered. Non-Muslims living in Muslim societies must always be treated with kindness and abusing their rights is a big sin before God.

The Wardah Books Calendar