Iconoclastic Potential

The spirit of Islam is iconoclastic, it moved through symbol and in the hearts of its faithful created abstractions beyond the material and profane. It relied on inner realities to move men, shape minds and save hearts. Exemplars abounded of course, but in memory they faded into hagiographical mist - transferring from mundane historical record, to legend and ultimately to myth.

This created a distinct form of parasocial culture, relationships were anchored to spiritual poles that in time had accrued layers of myth and embellishment to the point that the person in question had been eclipsed by the legend that had grown around them. These legends and myths pointed to a larger transcendent reality - a form of communication between generations and souls spanning across time and space. In stark contrast to the parasocial patterns today that form around the mundane, the profane and are inextricably tied down to a specific instance and circumstance of iniquity. Parasocial patterns today thrive on an openly transparent hermeneutics of slop. Degraded surface-level mimetics that ends up corrupting the soul and mind.

If however, this same mimetic force could be marshalled towards a spirituality of obfuscation and self-effacement it could be explosive. The mimicry of mediocre celebrity that sought to scavenge off the dregs of peasant capital would be decimated, by emphasizing self-effacement in the hyperdigital there would be the potential for creating new Islamicate myths and legends. Dawah Inc thus would be vanquished not through brute force but by shadow war - by nameless, faceless neo-Malamatiyya who would never confirm or give in to the fragile illusory promise of e-celebrity.

The keys to unlocking the mimetic potential of the hyperdigital lie within the archives - there were always souls suspicious of the sunlight, the easy promise of transparent success and public adulation. There have always been those who remained distant from the corrupting influence of a hermeneutics that all too often played to the whims and passions of the masses. Yet, they nonetheless felt compelled to spark transformation through deploying a different form of communication, a different form of art that sought to eclipse the flesh of status and social standing. Islam through its initial iconoclastic spirit lends itself as fertile terrain for this enterprise.