Bakhtiyar and Begum

Who am I and where am I from?
Who are all these people trying to tell me who I am? Why don't they all just Ff Ff Ffade away?
Is there any value in what they keep sloganeering about?
Can't I just be happy that they are happy, and because they are happy, just be happy by proxy and just get on with it?
Should I worry about the newly Captive Minds, being captured by our governors and our brothers in East and West with varying degrees of taste?

Diaspora? Immigrant? 2nd Gen? Asian? Black and Ethnic Minority? Member of the Diverse Communities? Combustible Muslim Yoof? BrAsian? British Muslim? Muslim Britisher? Aligharian Modernist? Muslim Nationalist? British-Bangladeshi? Bengali Musalman? Progressive Muslim? All India non Indian? Neo-Fundamentalist? Taqwacore? Madanite? Wannabe Hadharami? Harami? Nimuk Haram? Nouveau Manarist? Wannabe Ikhwan uSaffa? Ahlal Sunna wal Jamat? Ijmali? Islamist? Post-Islamist? DeobandoMutazili? Jamati? Tablighi? Ikhwani? Ninjabi? Wahabi? Ouahabi? Salafi? Sufi? Psychosalafi?

I think theres a golden arrow, a Nuron, a particle of inspiration that can help.

Preservation of lineage and dignity is one of the higher objectives of the Path to Water. Not to bang on about and feel superior with, but essentially to connect with the rest of the human race as it is now and as it was before. Being a stranger in a strange land isn't so bad. But not knowing your roots is a situation that we shouldn't encourage. Imagine not knowing who your father is, or not knowing much detail of which part of Africa your ancestors were stolen from.

Its important that the gold touch you ancestrally and avoid dodjy Nationalist contagion, that was instrumental at the time and continues to change sporadically. The gold can bypass a lot of posturing and get to the kernal of what its all about. Its necessarily different for each individual. Anyway, back to the ..topic.

Bakhtiyar - (lit.) Freind of Fortune
Begum - (lit.) Mother of Warriors

Bakhtiyar Khilji is credited with the first Muslim conquest of Bengal, capturing the town of Nadia in 1203 in an audacious raid with 18-odd horsemen. He was a chancer and his plans didn't always work. For example his expedition to Tibet after opening the Ganj kinda went pear shaped. Begum is an honorific title for a woman, not a mother of stagnation, fools and corrupts.

The intention is to present the obvious case that so long as we nurture qualities of akhlaq, learning and fellowship, and keep pushing out the boat of adventure, creativity and innovation, we will be able to take whatever comes our way. A bridging and laddering concept. There's man and woman in these words, not necessarily contained by a single one.

As the great one sang,

"If you know your history, then you will know where you're coming from. Then you wouldn't have to tell me, who the hell do I think I am."

Emphasise quality, adventure and the longer term, downplay petty emotional political gaming, mass media and short term vision. It is foolish to fall for fake forms of prestige.

Maybe our murabbis, and their murabbis did not have a fleet of BMWs and huge properties, but they were rich in dignity. A dignity brought into danger when you hear of yoots mugging murabbis for money to do Allah knows what with. Brought into danger every time someone, somewhere does something stupid and the rest are induced to apologise for people they do not even know.

There is a lot that can be said for B&B, it rolls off the tongue with a nice ring, simply explaining it involves the invocation of honour and bravery. I wonder if it works, i think its rudeboyproof.