Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

09 Jun 2005, 17:55 p.m.

Still No Punchline

Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2005 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.

I still have no punchline for the set-up "Asra Nomani is standing alone in Mecca..." But you can read my review of her book.

It seems unfair to judge Standing Alone in Mecca as a memoir when it's clearly unfinished. It tells us the history and the recent dispatches of battles within Islam, but the story's barely begun.