Notes On the Twin Cultures and the Future

Nasrian Perennialists

What is it to be Muslim? For better or worse, the Perennialist camp has penned the most convincing elaborations on this - see Chittick, Nasr Hossein, Gai Eaton and Lings. Despite the obvious grave theological errors (specifically around soteriology) in their discourse, which has now been meticulously covered in various places such as here and here, these works remain foundational in articulating a distinctly Islamicate aesthetic sensibility in terms of how to act in the world.

What I mean by this is, that these works offer insight into grounding a specific moral psychology, sentiment and feeling of spirit that allows one then to proceed to the substantive commitments within the Sharia. They aim to articulate what is distinctively Islamic about acting in the world which I find ironic given that it is coming from a group of thinkers that practise an esoteric form of soteriological pluralism¹

Timing is also relevant, the Nasrian Perennialist wrote at an opportune moment. Just before the dawning of the Digital Age, just before the War on Terror - this allowed them to compose their works in the peace and relative tranquillity of the Unipolar Age without much baggage and distraction. Post War on Terror, we had an entire cultural industrial complex emerge, accelerating and building on the foundations of Deedat and Naik. Concurrently running aside we had astroturfed, Five Eyes funded "grassroots" Islamoleftism which only now we are starting to fully realise and recognize was an ambitious project of covert technocratic religion building.

I mention the Perennialists because I think despite their errors that in reality take them outside the broad expanse of normative Sunnism, there remains in it a type of depth that is lacking in the twin cultures of our time. The twin cultures are Dawah Inc and Islamoleftism - these two subcultures capture the total sum ambition of Anglophone Muslimness and have indeed dominated the conversation over the last twenty years.

The Twin Cultures

Now in this current time of Fukuyaman political decay and social breakdown, what does it mean to be a Muslim? The discourse of the last twenty years in the Anglosphere has revolved around largely two themes. The first is to be a Muslim means to give "dawah" in the style of an influencer or Youtuber - a giant incestuous lecture circuit recycling the same personalities through the wringer of the Algorithm. Secondly, to be a Muslim means to be a law-abiding and engaged citizen who of course must vote for the correct political party (some bland flavour of corporatized top-down Leftism) because the Maqasid says so otherwise you are racist.

Civilization cannot be renewed, culture cannot be produced by owning some Anglo pensioner in Hyde Park for a few million views or by campaigning for Sadiq Khan to be mayor. Yet between these two strange subcultures oscillated the total of engaged Anglophone Muslim ambition.

Sovereignty and Technology

The question of Sovereignty however is premised on the question of Technology. Are the algorithms of tech media corporations Sovereign? Are the dictates of an entrenched technocratic order within the nation-state which is now yearning to accelerate towards Cybernetic Statehood (Godhood?) Sovereign? All of this hinges on Sovereignty. We live on the cusp of great change, and amidst this tremendous change and uncertainty, there are people from all walks of life looking for something beyond the alienation and despair of Technocratic Statehood. There is a hunger for some great spiritual, ethical and artistic explosion to bring life back to souls who are the walking dead. Someone must do it - someone will, so I simply ask why not let it be us? Why not let it be the Ishmaelite who lives amongst the impending ruins of the Euro-American empire?

In the coming years, the Cybernetic State will march on trying to first create a new financial panopticon with the introduction of CBDCs and programmable money culminating in a regime of social credit that is all-encompassing, and all-knowing. There will be a greater push for a biometric security state, the harvesting and exploitation of genetic material and technologies for all manner of things ungodly. There will be the technognostics who will fanatically worship the coming of the Cybernetic State and spread it through the culture through their considerable resources and infrastructure.

There will need to be an Islamicate discourse - with contributions from a rebooted public Islamic Secular freed from the shackles of astroturfed Islamoleftism, the media savvy operators of Dawah Inc, the ulema and more. Despite the oddity of the twin cultures, I believe there is tremendous spirit still yet amongst the Ishmaelites, who can potentially provide spiritual nourishment and ethical anchoring to some of those who wish to confront the coming Cybernetic State.

Ibn Maghrebi

And truly God knows best