First of all, I’m afraid the Understanding Islam project is too huge to write as a book, and especially in isolation. I will be posting snippets of the book(s) on the blog to get feedback from readers, so that I can improve its structure and argument.

I haven’t been solely occupied with the book, but with making a living

And much to your dismay, but I will be cutting down on the size of my posts in order to be able to update my blog on a more frequent basis (and, yes, in order to make it more accessible to lazy people )

As for private education: I don’t think a transfer of money degrades the value of knowledge. At the end of the day, when you receive an education, you are receiving a value from a teacher, and that teacher should be compensated for his efforts (unless he chooses not to be paid).

Many academic fields do not receive the attention they deserve because people do not appreciate their value. Rather than pay for the classes to continue, you should educate people on their value. Otherwise, no matter how much money you spend in maintaining the classes, society will not reap their benefits.

I understand that government ought not be in charge of education, but in order to combat this evil, must you advocate turning your university into an ‘education factory?’ I do not believe so. You must understand that the difference between Big Government and Big Business is incredibly vague, and the often work towards each other’s mutual benefit. In fact, they cannot exist without one another. You are stealing from the right hand to give to the left hand of the same entity.

I would think you would be a proponent of de-centralized education. This also includes ‘privatizing’ education to an extent, without granting certain corporations a monopoly on the education process, which would be the case if Kuwait U were changed, via legislation, from a public institution into a private one.

—The dismay of not seeing your usual rate of articles is only lightened by my hopes that your ‘Understanding Islam’ project is devouring all of your free time (light joke). Honestly, though, churn that thing out, the world needs it.

For me, the reason why I’m finding it difficult to update the blog is that many of my posts depend on presenting an alternative understanding to Islamic epistemology to the one accepted by the vast majority of Muslims. Therefore, to avoid being misunderstood, and to put my ideas in perspective, I have to deal with Islamic epistemology first, hence, writing “Understanding Islam.”

But since I have a weakness for writing a lot, I think I’m going to try and discipline myself to write short blog posts that serve the purpose of having a blog.