irfan's review
4.0
A great selection of short essays, my favourite chapters being 'Identity, Race and Gender' and 'Inter- and Intrafaith Diversity'. Although the quality of the essays varied, there were some real gems in there!
tain_hu's review
informative
reflective
fast-paced
The essays are short and accessible and cover Islamic reform, education, socioeconomic inequality, racial capitalism, media and literary representation, regional history. The quality was a little inconsistent. I’ve read more widely on sociopolitical issues and some of the essays like they were skimming the surface, but I learnt a lot about Islam (or Islam Nusantara?). There’s a wonderful essay by WP’s Abdul Shariff Aboo Kassim, too.
zeeezy's review
4.0
Small book, many short essays with big words and interesting ideas. My favourites are the chapters by Dr Nuraliah Norasid, Halijah Mohamad and Faris Joraimi. Not all the ideas are new to me, so several essays are very readable and skimmable, but it's a nice compilation of all these ideas and I like that a lot of the sources are listed for further reading. (Minus one star for the number of editing/proofreading errors - but I've noticed this seems to be a thing in most library copies of books. 🤨)
pagesofelly's review
5.0
Great collection of essays that highlight the importance of critical thinking in our world today. It is definitely a timely read for me, and it cleared up some thoughts that were muddled up in my head. With a fairly wide range of topics, this collection sheds light to pertinent issues that Malay and/or Muslim communities in Singapore need to think about, and hopefully, discuss further. I definitely recommend this read and I look forward to having many more meaningful discussions on the said topics!
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