The Importance of Being Rugged

In 2008, the same year as the Beijing Olympics, an American presidential election, and a global financial crisis, the world marked a far more momentous, though less recognized, development: for the first time in human history, over 50% of the world’s population resided in urban areas. Such rapid change over the course of scarcely a century poses monumental challenges for society in general, but particularly for Muslims, who face the loss of many ancient traditions deeply rooted in our faith as believers worldwide exchange their traditional lifestyles for urbanized living. For Muslims residing in the West, increasingly members of the professional-managerial class boasting college degrees, the tradition of masculine and outdoors pursuits has severely atrophied. Understandably, given the unwanted publicity Muslim women attract in the West as wearers of the hijab, there is a great deal of English-language literature discussing femininity and the role of women in Islam, but a dearth of similar resources discussing masculinity and appropriate male pursuits from an Islamic perspective. InshaAllah, this article is an attempt to level this discrepancy, and reintroduce the long-forgotten artifacts of our rugged tradition into the Western Muslim consciousness.