When Extremism Follows Itself to Its Conclusions: An Interview With Essayist, Poet, and Novelist Haroon Moghul

Haroon Moghul graduated from New York University with a degree in Middle Eastern Studies and Philosophy and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at Columbia University. He sits on the editorial board of Islamica Magazine and is a regular contributor to Eteraz.org.

In 2004 his blog, Avari-Nameh won the Brass Crescent Award for Best Writing, Best Post, and Best Overall Blog. The blog is concerned with issues of Muslim identity, politics, and society. Moghul went on to receive the Brass Crescent Award for Best Thinker in 2005, for his contribution to the discourse on Islam.

In addition to writing essays, short stories and poems, Haroon Moghul is the author of two novels: My First Police State (2003), a self-published travelogue; and The Order of Light (Penguin India, 2005).

In a recent interview, he spoke about his writing and his concerns as a writer.

What is your latest novel, The Order of Light about? What sets it apart from the other things you have written?

The book is about what happens when you take a look at the Muslim world, and what happens when extremism follows itself to its most extreme conclusions. What happens when a young, impressionable, spoiled, naive Muslim kid goes to Egypt, to learn about Islam, with all the money and resources his privileged Western upbringing provides him, but finds that religion, as he understands it, doesn't fill the gap he feels? Who should he blame, himself or society? And what happens if he finds a group of people whose answer to that question includes violence? What happens when his own logic leads him to very dark places of the human heart, and human history, and contemporary affairs?

Most of the time, I write short essays, political commentary, satire, or history. The Order of Light blends a lot of those genres into itself, but ultimately, The Order of Light is a work of fiction, a snapshot of a very troubled young man at a very impressionable age, and that makes it different. I haven't tried that before. I don't know if I'll do it again, but I do know that it was worth it.

How long did it take you to write the novel?

Several years, on and off. I started in the summer of 2001, while actually in Cairo, and continued to write it for some time afterwards. I get obsessed with revising and rethinking and actually found it hard to say, "You know what? I'm done. No more."

Article Author: Ambrose Musiyiwa

Ambrose Musiyiwa has worked as a freelance journalist, book reviewer, and a teacher. One of his short stories has been featured in an anthology of contemporary Zimbabwean writing, Writing Now: More Stories from Zimbabwe (Weaver Press, 2005.) He is a regular contributor to OhmyNews International. …

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