In the end, I have tried tackling a subject that is admittedly broad and divisive, as a result of which, I am likely to be turned into a target by: lone-wolf individuals and groups with Muslim names who embrace extremism or Islamophobes whose livelihood depend on frothing Islamophobia, as well as many divergent groups of people in between. The caveat “you have to face the heat if you face the furnace” perhaps says it all.
Then there are non-Muslim critics and their respective army of trolls who will not let a second go to waste and callously label this book, a work from an “apologist of radical Islam” or “activist on the left”, or to delegitimize me or this book by using the “Muslim Brotherhood” label as shorthand for anyone who they disagree with – disregarding the peace-seeking facts and evidence presented transparently with pinpoint sources cited throughout the book, to whom I am and will remain wholeheartedly grateful until time’s end.
On the other hand, and given how we are so disparate as Muslims the world over, there will be a fringe of self-professed Muslims who will puzzlingly paint me a “sellout” or a derivative of that phrase, for daring to criticise those in “the emperor’s clothes” or the misbehaving Muslim-majority countries who don’t get criticised anywhere enough.
The onus now in my humble opinion, is for every ordinary Muslim (young and old, male and female, devout or otherwise) to take on the challenge head-on and collectively produce the anti-venom to the poison affecting ordinary Muslims, – as the “greatest form of Jihad is to speak up against tyranny”, (Source: Sunan Abi Dawud 4344), paraphrasing the words of none other than whom every ordinary Muslim sees as an absolute role model, Muhammad (Peace be Upon Him).
Siddiq Bazarwala 