I seem to be reaching out into a void that thrusts hoards of doubt into my heart about what I feel or believe to be important or real about my faith. Naively, I believe that there’s others out there that think it worthwhile to consider principles instead of rituals. Some that may be inclined to question the status quo through the realisation that just because everyone subscribes to a specific version of Islam doesn’t make that authoritative. Especially when the blurring of the lines between cultural practices and the Sunnah is such that the two cannot be clearly distinguished any longer. 

I’ve always been an outsider. Despite knowing that accepting the mainstream views about most things would bring me the acceptance that I crave, my idealism won’t allow me to. So I’ve chosen a solitary path that forces me to dabble between sanity, and insanity. Sincerity and hypocrisy. Faith and disbelief. And every single time, as if addicted to the pain of isolation, I’ve consciously chosen the more difficult path. The unpopular one. The one that most shy away from because they’re afraid to question self-proclaimed authoritarians and would much rather be safe and go with the flow without questioning. 

I’ve tried many forums to share my views or express my thoughts, and each time the only commonality in response has been the vacuous silence that offers no comfort nor alternative views. Just a silent restrained complacency that boils my blood in search of the truth. When I see how blindly so many accept the statements of the Ulama, it reminds me of the Christian church that forbids any questions to be asked about their belief system and threatens to excommunicate anyone that dares ask for logic behind the Trinity, or the second coming, or the miraculous birth of Jesus (pbuh). 

Is this what we have become as Muslims? Ritualists without purpose except that purpose that the learned ones allow us to have? Have we forgotten how to seek the original truth rather than pursue the regurgitated truth of generations of cultural contamination? Or am I a borderline infidel that believes that principles are more important than practices and that context is more important than unquestioned imitation?