A healthy dose of self-criticism is a good thing. God knows I’ve engaged in my fair share on these very pages. But scholars writing in Arabic have differentiated between self-criticism (naqd al dhat) and self-flagellation (jald al dhat).

A number of emboldened voices, frequently of second generation Arab and Asian émigrés to western countries, continue to vie for a hearing in western periodicals and news media, boldly telling fellow Muslims just “what they really had better start understanding”, and dispensing marching orders, irreverently pronouncing on what Islam ought to be: usually some pale mimesis of Western liberal sensitivities.

It’s really beginning to get tiresome. Who are they talking to, anyway? The Muslim public doesn’t read the periodicals they write in. Are they trying to save the integrity of a beloved heritage or merely carve out a place of inclusion for themselves at the head table?

For a people who never had time for more than a thin relationship with Islam before September 11 2001, they sure do have a lot to say now. As a western convert to Islam this type of self-loathing really mystifies me. What is the motivation, then, to become the self-styled hero of offended western sensibilities?

Is it an attempt to reconcile a passion for all things western with an inescapable link in name or ethnicity to things “foreign”? Or does cashing in on this very affiliation promise a shot at relevancy as an “area expert” in the valley of the uninformed? Otherwise, were it not for the accident of ethnic circumstance, the Muslim social scientist would be relegated to competing with a vast and level playing field of his or her peers: a potential recipe for obscurity.

Or is it just that the incessant accusations of right-wing fear-mongers have at long last begun to penetrate the insecure psyche of shallow self-awareness? Whatever it is, it’s weak, uninteresting and borderline embarrassing. Well, maybe beyond borderline.

However, once these darlings of the cable media circuit or liberal information outlets have fulfilled their mission, establishing the utter banality of Islam, they too will be marginalised and forgotten.

But my challenge to these self-appointed spokesmen for Islam is this: You’ve told us everything that is wrong with Islam and Muslims, can you tell us now what is right and good about Islam? No, they cannot; because they themselves really know nothing of any depth about their own tradition.

But just you all wait and see. The end will be for those with confidence, hope, patience and fortitude. For those who envision a reading and living of the Way of Islam that adds value to the global conversation and contributes authentically and significantly to solving the dilemmas that challenge the human community as a whole.

From http://abudhabikhutbas.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/it-is-really-starting-to-get-tiresome/