The Learner

Too many people desperately seek cheap popularity on social media (SM). They include socialites, self-identified religious scholars, and ordinary people. The first category, such as Murja Ibrahim, doesn’t surprise me; their followers astonish me. But the second and third categories astound me. The “religious scholars” mindlessly chase fame (and fortune) on SM today. It’s common to see a benighted person countering an established scholar on a subject he barely understands. I came across one a while ago, trying to debunk a theological discourse using baseless claims. He struggled to recite the Qur’an before him. The third category hides behind “catching cruise,” whatever that means. Yesterday, someone shared that viral tweet by parody accounts of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. People called his attention to the fact that they were parody accounts. He admitted knowing that but added that he was only “catching cruise.” What is that, for God’s sake? Fame can be a heavy load to carry, but it...

Muhsin Ibrahim muhsin2008@gmail.com The North is largely in stasis because of our doing. We are too disorganised, unorganised, divided, and disenchanted with one another. Almost everything is either sectionalised (remember the Northeast Development Commission saga?) or interpreted based on one’s sectarian or political affiliation . Year in, year out, we debate on Maulud . In recent months, we argued over Sheikh Usman Bn Fodio, the dresses of Malam Kabiru Gombe and Bala Lau in Europe, the place of Stephen Hawking in the hereafter, and today, on the-yet-to-be-interred, late Sheikh Isyaka Rabiu. How sad and unfortunate! Known to many, the migration of discussion fora from physical to virtual space began in the mid to late 1990s , 1995 to 1999. The Hausa people of Nigeria were among the first to utilise the new platform in Africa, with the creation of websites such as Kano Online, Dantata Online, and Gamji . The South followed up a little later, I think, with sites like Naija Pa...

The Dilemma of a Plucky Philosopher-Wannabe Muhsin Ibrahim muhsin2008@gmail.com The world has never been short of the irresolvable arguments of and on philosophy as a field of study. While many people cherish the beast, many more others hate it like they abhor their death. The social media, especially Facebook, has become a platform where raging rows often break out on the relevance or otherwise of studying Philosophy. This argument is nothing that new, unexpected or shocking, at least to me, in this 21 st century. What is astonishing is the way some Muslim brothers and sisters perceive the whole drama, treated by others, while many are left baffled and muted. However, scholars should speak out because not doing so leads many ignorant Muslim youths to reject the religion. This postmodern world is full of challenges posed by the (Western) media peddling post-truths, depicting Muslims as the embodiment of everything evil, Islam in acrimonious light and so on and so forth. ...

Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim muhsin2008@gmail.com  @muhsin234 After exchanging greetings, a boy of about 17 to 19 years asked me, “You are Mal. Mubarak’s younger brother, huh?” I answered in the affirmative. “Greet him for me”. I said okay and called it a day. Unbeknownst to me, that was only the beginning; he kept asking me to deliver the same message until one day I had had enough and warned him off. The lad is my brother’s student in college, as he told me. He likely meets with him every day, while I have not seen him for over a year, as I have been outside Nigeria since June 2013. Whatever, he doesn’t care; I am his friend on Facebook and the younger (and  junior ) brother of his fave lecturer, hence the right person for his ‘delivery services’. Many others will ask you to be friends and, upon acceptance, leave you a thankful message on your timeline or in your inbox. Forget the mostly disquieting English used for the message; I am against linguistic imperial...

Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim Bayero University, Kano muhsin2008@gmail.com A few other selected students in my college and I were, for the first time, introduced to the Internet as a reward for acing exams of the previous term in 2003. It was a thrilling experience for all of us. I joined Facebook 2 or 3 years later, in 2005/2006, when it was still in its childhood.  I had just started tertiary studies then. That was a particular point in my life; I longed so much for education, to learn the English language and to interact with intellectuals. The few popular social networking websites at the time were Yahoo! Messenger, Meebo , and hi5 . The latter was more of a hit, so I patronised it above the rest. Not long after, the star of Facebook shone up, and many people migrated to the latest vogue. I followed the bandwagon. However, I deactivated my Facebook account after a while for mainly two reasons. First, it was steadily withering my commitment to my favourite sites, which...