Savvy Readers
Blog Post 7
Published April 24, 2018
Young and new adults don’t have time to waste. You’re the fast-paced generation. Information is instant, efficient, easy and bite-sized. Waiting for anything seems like an eternity. The whole world’s at your fingertips with a click or a swipe. You’re wired!
But it’s important to look at what’s being poured into your mind.
Is it moral, healthy and useful stuff or just ploys
to work on your mind, heart and soul,
turning you into a copy of everybody else?
Media churned out by folks whose bottom-line is money should give you a clue to the answer. They’ve jumped over the universal truths of love, truth and justice and launched you into the world of instant gratification, impatience, half-truths and me-first.
That’s where Inked Resistance comes in.
We’re all made from the same stuffing. Everybody yearns for the guts of life, what makes us tick, where we’re headed after death, how to live authentically here in real relationships with purposes that matter. Ever since the first woman and man were created and placed on this Earth, that’s been the scene. Everybody feels it, some easier than others, some faster than others. But what happens is we’re fed something else and we end up gorging on it. It’s difficult to swim upstream, much less over garbage, scum and bull.
The whole point of being alive is to recognize Who created us and revel in the wonders of the universe, the heartfelt emotional charges that surge through us, briefly, flittingly, but, nevertheless, real-ly. And once we understand Who made all the beauty and our feelings – our reality – we must, naturally, worship and thank that Ultimate Cause. Living without connection to Allah, Subhanahu wa ta’ala, our family and friends, humanity and nature results in emptiness. The secular world is rewiring us for short-term gains. But our short-term gains should be leading us all toward a successful everlasting long-term reality.
You can’t live in two worlds. Being Muslim is a breeze. But not when the anti-God, materialistic, do your own thing hype seeps under your skin. It’s enough to cause a spiritual emergency. And I know people who suffer through it.
A Solution
One solution is sticking close to Islamic reading material. Not just those never-ending quips about how to be a better Muslim or all the death and destruction on the news feed. I mean fiction. Inked Resistance has appeared just in time to offer you wholesome, thoughtful and entertaining downtime.
Picking up a book about characters living without purpose, without Allah, without morals, can’t be satisfying. Constantly reading about harmful activities, whether it’s drinking, picking up girls, or boys, doing drugs or gambling, has got to do something bad to your soul. Muslim readers today want books that deal with the real life issues they face and hear about. The political nature of the world, how Muslims are oppressed and demonized, is at the top of committed Muslims’ minds. Reading about some utopia, where everyone lives happily ever after, or dystopia or stories with witches, vampires and monstrous other-worldly beings can be thrilling. But it’s not reality.
Muslim existence is replete with examples of all that. But it’s not life in some other world. Those who are out to take what’s not theirs and assimilate you into their way of thinking and lifestyle are human beings. Get with the program, they say. The system we live in is a keep your religion in your personal life and out of our faces – at least here in the west.
Don’t Give In.
Be a Powerful Difference.
In our global go, go, go world, everybody needs a minute to relax with a book that’ll take you away and let your imagination soar. Relating to Islamic characters, themes and the political scene – the truth in fiction – can help you discover yourself, charge you to walk powerfully wherever you are, provide reassurance of why you were born,
and keep you on the straight and narrow,
inshallah (Allah willing).
