Albeit a bit late, here goes the second anniversary post of Indian Muslims Blog. Allow me to quote a couplet of Ahmed Faraz that sums up my feelings on this occasion.
ham duhrii aziiyat ke giraftaar musaafir
paaNv bhii shal haiN, shauq-e-safar bhii nahiiN jaataaWe travelers, prisoners of afflictions doubled
Weary are our feet but wanderlust doesn’t seem to ebb.Ahmed Faraz
Looking back at the first anniversary post, I am amazed (and happy) at the success we have achieved over the past one year. Obviously there has been a big increase in the number of posts (269 posts and 3,756 comments in the year 2007 compared to 134 posts and 421 comments in 2006). More importantly, the quality of discourse has improved a lot and we have had some great discussions.
We were fortunate to attract so many new writers over the course of the year and their insightful writings have been a major plus for the blog. And the comments have spiraled with more than 10 comments on average every day of the year. The biggest challenge of running a blog like this is to maintain a sense of perspective in posts as well as featuring diverse voices in the comments section. I would not say that we have hit bulls-eye in this respect but we certainly tried our best and would continue doing so in future.
We were nominated in the Best Group/Community for Indibloggies 2006 and also in the 4th Annual Brass Crescent Awards in the Best Group Blog category which we eventually won. Thank you all!
To celebrate our second anniversary we have compiled the best posts of the year and a few selected comments. The compendium is available in pdf format for download and it would be great if you could mail it to interested friends. Click on the following image to download:
It has been fun traveling with you on this exciting and enriching (at least to me personally) journey. Looking forward to a great 2008. Comments and suggestions are always welcome either here or at feedback[at]indianmuslims.in. Thanks again!
Way to go !! Keep writing !!
Really a fantastic journey. The compliation, ‘The Best of 2007′ is highly readable,
neatly designed and ought to be published in print also.
Well, going by the authors’ bio at the end, it looks like the appropriate name for this blog should be “US-Indian Muslims Blog”
Congrats, and all the best for the future.
@Mukesh:
“Well, going by the authors’ bio at the end, it looks like the appropriate name for this blog should be “US-Indian Muslims Blog.”
Mukesh, you can take a man out of India. But can you take India out of him?:)
Dear Asad,
“Mukesh, you can take a man out of India. But can you take India out of him?:)”
Well said! Reminds me of the poet Josh Malihabadi -
“Haddiyan apne buzorgon ki teri khaakh me hai”
Congrats!!!!! .
I hope we will see more traffic in this year and so on.
Congrats Indian Muslims. This website did give me a new insight. However some of my insights keep getting washed as I move around in the real world. Hope things change.
This website is a great initiative and has spiralled up to the top of my favorite websites.
To all of you authors and commentators out there,
Good work, Keep it up!
This blog will enlighten all Indians about the different shades of opinion in the Muslim community. Good work!
@ your blog is like a window to the outside world, not only to see, view and watch outside,
but time to time, put the ‘neck- in’ to see whats going on inside India, good and bad surprises !!
Congratulations on the second anniversary of Indian muslims.
I was pleasantly surprised to observe the improvement of IM myself! Some of the new writers are really good!
Congrats,
hope we have more discussion on serios issues, like fatwa being issued in india agaist Taslima/rushdie ect who are not indian citizen, ect ect
like self appointed who speak agaist what sania is wearing ect and at the same time being blind and deaf to injustice done to young muslim girls in hyderabad, where they are married to old arabs ect by mulvis, with the help of family and friends, agaist whch every indian should speak against, especially muslim as change should preferably come from within
this blog should be used to discuss serious issue, at the same time issues like cricket, movies ect
would also like some discussion about religion and customs ect, so we non muslims can understand Islam better,
all in all a good blog keep it up
Dear Editor/founders,
Congratulations and a big thank you to all of you. It means much more to me than being just the post office. I have the satisfaction to know that there is a medium for us – the second largest followers of Islam – that would address the various issues lamenting the community.
Please try to engage and motivate more social and dynamic groups, who would come forward with plans to improve the socio economic condition of the community. The issues like education of girl child, economic independence of woman and progress of men folk are taken up in the right earnest.
Moin Sattar
Dubai – UAE