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 over what 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...

Muhsin Ibrahim muhsin2008@gmail.com The North is stasis largely 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, migration of discussion fora from physical to virtual space began in the mid to the end of the penultimate decade - 1995 to 1999. Haus a people of Nigeria are some of the first to utilise th e new platform in Africa with the creation of Ka no O nline , Dantata Online, Gamji, etc. websites. The South followed up a little later, I think, with si...

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, one boy of about 17 to 19-year-old 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 asked me time and again to deliver the same message until one day I got it all enough and warned him off it. The lad is my brother’s student in a 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 request you to be friends and then, upon acceptance, leave you a thankful message either on your timeline or inbox. Forget the mostly disquieting English used for the message; I ...

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 after in 2005/2006 when it w as 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 webs then were Yahoo! Messenger, Meebo , and hi5 . The latter was more a hit, so I patronised it above the rest. Not long after, the star of Facebook shined 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 I faithfully fanc...