Somalispot book club?

[MI]

You guys want to commit to reading a book a week (or two weeks if you prefer) & then we come back here to discuss our thoughts? Hard rule: No two weeks in a row of fiction (otherwise it will devolve into us reading Harry Potter or some dumb multi-volume sci-fi novel, I’ve seen it happen) Perhaps we can alternate between fiction and non-fiction every week? I’ll start it by nominating either Metaphysics of War by Julius Evola or Dune by Frank Herbert. Let me know if that sounds fun to you guys!

 

[486th President]

Sounds good but I haven’t finished reading a book since mid 2019

 

[MI]

Sounds good but I haven’t finished reading a book since mid 2019

You know how that old proverb goes; the best time to start planting a tree was 20 years ago the second best time is yada yada. Cool that you’re in, feel free to recommend something else if you want!

 

[486th President]

You know how that old proverb goes; the best time to start planting a tree was 20 years ago the second best time is yada yada. Cool that you’re in, feel free to recommend something else if you want!

Hmmm I like your sense of style

 

[Revolutionary]

Let's start reading Fahrenheit 451, I've never read the book before but from what I've seen based off of this video it seems really good



great graphics from this channel

 

[Hodan from HR]

OmG!!!!
This is a very good idea. Thanks @MI

I feel like I've outgrown fiction lately. I'm down for any non-fictions, especially anything dealing with philosophy or psychology.

 

[Sloane Ranger]

Maybe someone can upload a free ebook and users will read said book and discuss it a week later. That way everyone will be on the same page.

 

[MI]

Nice, now we’ve got a few people that are interested. I’ll wait until the end of the day (my time) and then post a poll with the book recommendations thus far

 

[Sloane Ranger]

Nice, now we’ve got a few people that are interested. I’ll wait until the end of the day (my time) and then post a poll with the book recommendations thus far

What about my idea ?

 

[MI]

What about my idea ?

Uploading an e-book you mean? Just go into google and type the books name followed by “epub” or “pdf” and I’m sure you’ll find it.

I was just gonna use the books app on my phone but I’ll put a link up for the book once we’ve decided what it’ll be.

 

[Duchess]

This sounds interesting.

 

[Omar del Sur]

I like the idea but I think we should not do fiction.

"Some people claim that this is just entertainment and a way of passing time, but entertainment is not permitted if it is haraam, and the Muslim’s time is too precious to be wasted on such trivial things."

Reading fiction and watching science fiction movies - Islam Question & Answer

islamqa.info

 

[Omar del Sur]

What about my idea ?

it is a good idea. not everyone would be able to buy the book.

 

[Omar del Sur]

You guys want to commit to reading a book a week (or two weeks if you prefer) & then we come back here to discuss our thoughts? Hard rule: No two weeks in a row of fiction (otherwise it will devolve into us reading Harry Potter or some dumb multi-volume sci-fi novel, I’ve seen it happen) Perhaps we can alternate between fiction and non-fiction every week? I’ll start it by nominating either Metaphysics of War by Julius Evola or Dune by Frank Herbert. Let me know if that sounds fun to you guys!

Evola would not be appropriate. I read part of a book by him and he promotes stuff like Hinduism.

 

[Omar del Sur]

My suggestion is 40 Hadith of Imam Nawawi. We could discuss the hadith and their meaning.

 

[MI]

I like the idea but I think we should not do fiction.

"Some people claim that this is just entertainment and a way of passing time, but entertainment is not permitted if it is haraam, and the Muslim’s time is too precious to be wasted on such trivial things."

Reading fiction and watching science fiction movies - Islam Question & Answer

islamqa.info

Whoever wrote that has good intentions, but reading fiction is not haram. Saying so is baatil and should be avoided since on the other hand making what is lawful, unlawful, is a grave sin. However, I agree we should try to avoid fiction for entirely different reasons!

 

[MI]

Evola would not be appropriate. I read part of a book by him and he promotes stuff like Hinduism.

Haha, Evola’s opponents sometimes call him a secret Muslim ironically. He borrows from Hinduism (more so in his later work) but also from Islam, Christianity, Judaism and European paganism. His school of thought, Perennialism (more narrowly called Traditionalism, capital t), does engage in a lot of comparative religion and trying to weed out what is salient and common between them as a source of higher truth common to all spiritual tradition.

But as Muslims we shouldn’t avoid their philosophy because of that, on the contrary I think it’ll only strengthen the faith of Muslims to see how well Islam corresponds to that ‘universal tradition’ (could also be described as fitrah) which isn’t so strange considering we Muslims believe all peoples had a prophet sent to them, and even if they fall back to jahiliyya they might conserve some of that wisdom as did ahlul kitab. Many prominent philosophers of the Traditionalist School actually converted to Islam like Rene Guenon (who served as a mentor and inspiration for Evola’s own writings but also a titan of Traditionalist philosophy in his own right) & Frithjof Schuon.

 

[Omar del Sur]

Whoever wrote that has good intentions, but reading fiction is not haram. Saying so is baatil and should be avoided since on the other hand making what is lawful, unlawful, is a grave sin. However, I agree we should try to avoid fiction for entirely different reasons!

Reading fiction is a waste of time. An hour reading fiction is like an hour playing a video game.

Books like Farenheit, 1984 or Brave New World are a little different because they have informative aspects but it's better as a general rule to avoid fiction. Fiction is like movies and video games.

 

[Omar del Sur]

Haha, Evola’s opponents sometimes call him a secret Muslim ironically. He borrows from Hinduism (more so in his later work) but also from Islam, Christianity, Judaism and European paganism. His school of thought, Perennialism (more narrowly called Traditionalism, capital t), does engage in a lot of comparative religion and trying to weed out what is salient and common between them as a source of higher truth common to all spiritual tradition.

But as Muslims we shouldn’t avoid their philosophy because of that, on the contrary I think it’ll only strengthen the faith of Muslims to see how well Islam corresponds to that ‘universal tradition’

No, I don't think we should be promoting occultism.

Evola was not a Muslim. He was an occultist.

Is our book club going to be reading his how-to book on witchcraft?

Will we also be reading Aleister Crowley?

No, I do not think it is appropriate for our book club to be promoting occultism.

 

[MI]

No, I don't think we should be promoting occultism.

Evola was not a Muslim. He was an occultist.

Is our book club going to be reading his how-to book on witchcraft?

View attachment 162395

Will we also be reading Aleister Crowley?

No, I do not think it is appropriate for our book club to be promoting occultism.

He had some beliefs that ventured into the occult but that isn’t the primary purpose or content of his work as the piece you suggested we read instead by Mr. Crowley.

By the way, Do you only read works by Muslim authors? Mashallah sheikhul Islam Omar der sul, your piety surpasses the sahabaah themselves in this regard.