i want to become a smoker. acquire a habit that's physically destructive. alcohol smells awful and endangers the lives of others. i've grown out of my hawaiian punch addiction. fasting leaves me alone with my thoughts. my frightening, cacophonous, shrieking inner thoughts. purification seems out of reach. i read Qur'an but nothing stirs the heart. because i havent had the environment to recite aloud in a long, long time. recite with melodious melancholy. i'm self conscious. i doubt my worth. my purpose. every day. my mother drives a school van full of 5 year olds. she loves her job because, she says, she is surrounded by innocence. purity. i want to be surrounded by innocence.

what's wrong with me? why don't i fight back? there's not much to believe in. so little hope. i'll never achieve yaqeen. i barely have eeman. it used to be that the test for the strength of eeman was placing myself in hasan al-banna's shoes. would i believe in islam as much as he did at the lowest point our ummah has seen in its history? when everyone is against you, do you still believe? what's lifted my eeman in the past is that the answer has always been "yes." It was harder then, so must easier now, went the logic. "Do not hesitate to reap the rewards of being able to practice your faith." And I bounced back.

But now, I respond, "he never saw the ummah rise to strength in such an ignoble way, casting fear in the hearts of innocents. the Prophet (P) said, "A True Muslim is one in whose hands mankind feels safe." We are ascending to power but I doubt we are true Muslims. I fear for humanity. I am ashamed that I belong to these people, who cannot see the hideous injustices they permit through their romanticization of themselves. With noble intentions they strive for brotherhood. Unity. But they shrug off our brothers' crimes with "I'm not responsible for them. I don't even know them." We know our brothers enough to send families on tours to discover the wonders of muslim china. But we don't know our brothers enough to send families on tours to the suburbs of Paris where women are burned for being "dishonored".

We are so caught up in our own victimhood that we cannot empathize with europe's increasing sense of victimhood. maybe it's a subconscious, collective desire for revenge. if so, we are immature and not ready for the responsibility of leading humanity. You can't lead humanity and want to destroy large sections of it at the same time. More and more I want to take the side of non-Muslims. We expect them to understand us, but we do not want to understand them. Because western Muslims don't even realize how much of their Islamic interpretation is colored by western ideas, they feel they have more to offer non-Muslims than the other way around. But western culture has offered us tremendous opportunity for rebirth. We barely acknowledge it, let alone feel grateful for it, let alone feel a sense of solidarity with our cultural brothers.

We focus on the tally. Who's wronged who the most. Who's most misunderstood and deserves the most attention. That's what we care about. I would just like to be part of a more nurturing ummah. This is the root of much of my confusion in purpose. I can't trust my ummah, so I want to act alone. But I feel so handicapped alone. So ineffectual and worthless. Yet I still love the Muslims I know. Even though I disagree strongly with their rose-colored perception of - or at least indifference toward flaws in - our ummah. We are only as strong as our weakest one.