Creatures of the Beardyverse - An Anthropology of the Net-based Muslim.

The Freebeard is back and is wondering happened to the online Beardyverse?

I step away for a few months (alright - years) and the place is over run by more face fuzz than waxing convention. It’s mildly disconcerting seeing all this multi-faceted multi-faith cyber delinquency going on while I have been languishing at the Mummy’s service bashing through an advance thesis on follicle studies.

There has been one fantastic side effect to the journal bothering, however. I now have super powers. Yes, The Freebeard has acquired a force field. Not one of those fancy schmansy invisible ones reserved for pneumatic looking young people with names like Hurricane, Raptor or Milliband.

Nope, compared to those amateurs the FB has a real force field, manifesting itself in four inches of flesh-table parked around a centimetre below my chest and arriving before the rest of me by a few milliseconds. It’s a multi-purpose force field, repels potential wife candidates and serves as a handy resting place for a cup of tea. The Mummy is not pleased and is torn between not-cooking (thus banishing said force field and acquiring wife) or cooking ( the natural Mummy instinct). Trust a Yorkshireman to go for a two-for-one deal.

Returning to The Internets and the Beardyverse, I have realised I need to reacquaint myself with the species known as Muslimanicus Internetibus (yes this bloke would be unhappy with that standard of latin). There seem to be many of these characters around. Not that the Freebeard is jealous/bitter/annoyed in anyway of the freeloading upstarts that have taken his rightful place in the pantheon of Fuzzy-glory, or anything.

First a warning: the following descriptions may include gratuitous references to 1980s/ early 1990s pop culture and an attention span greater than a squirrel on acid.

Let’s begin with Muslimanicus Fidelis. The online brothers (or sister) from another mother (or father) who remind the Freebeard of the halcyon days where one would hang around the undergrad Common room searching for the meaning of life, giving up, and going for sandwich around two o’clock. In those innocent days, Muslimanic Fidelis was restricted leafleting very confused Japanese Students with instructions of Wudhu, small talk about Super Mario on the SNES and how Sony PS1 was the Dajaal.

These days we have Fidelis v2.0. The Freebeard would call it an evolution of the species but that might result in an angry facebook group popping up at some point. This demonstrates the change in Fidelis, the power of the internet and the ability to pay the capitalists-muslim-hating west for iPhones has increased the reach of Fidelis.

S/he is no longer limited to running after you on the number 73 bus to make his/her point, slipping on a wet big issue and wiping out two pensioners. No. Now a distributed form of delivery is open to my brothers. Verily they now have access to the longest and shaggiest of beard and invariably they have declared my face fuzz inadequate and worth of approbation.

Next on the list is Muslimanicus Profectus. If the Fidelis is the kind of Muzzie that keeps his/her beard long then the Profectus is the Muzzie with a flock-of-seagulls mop on her/her/its head and raffishly appointed stubble. They love to vogue (use wiki young people) around the place with the haste of Ben Johnson , skipping from glorious open minded cause to other glorious open mined cause. If they feel the heat from Fidelis they just blank them like Beverly 902010 and dig in for a Rumi inspired sufitastic love fest. The lack of beard allows much air kissing and Paris style “discourse” taking account , of course, of the post- colonial-pre-post-modern-milieu with defiant sheesha breaks thrown in.

If Muslamanicus Fidelis has the intellectual complexity of repeatedly head butting an anvil; then Profecti are an enigma wrapped in a cipher, launched into a 512 DES encryption algorithm, pumped into a particle accelerator, sent in to an alternate reality and then teleported back in time to play cards with your Gran. Whatever happens either you or they will require chemicals by the end of it. Usually illegal ones.

Though both Fidelis and Profectus were hanging about a decade or so ago, an entirely new species has also emerged - Muslimanicus Vetus Fonzicus. These gents, and invariably they tend to be gents, are men of distinguished beard. A decade ago the internet would not have made it into their lives, however time and the mobile phone put paid to that. In his day the Fonzicus was cutting edge cool, with signature rumbling call and distinctive hairstyle, one could even consider them an older version of the Profecti.

If the Profecti Muslims are Ben Johnson, the Fonzicus is Ben Johnson after rehabilitation and serving out a ban. This shows up when the intention to run with the mad young things is usually undone by a snap or a tweak where the brain failed to snap into place. There’s a fine line between the Fred Astaire and dad dancing, though this doesn’t stop Fonzicus skipping forth over it with abandon.

Finally we have Muslimanicus Totalis who are truly the greatest incarnation of the online Muslim. For all the types of half/full/twisted/patchy bearded Muzzies on the interweb – one Totalis can provide the karmic balance. You can’t help but love them. They peruse the web and shower it with salaams, rainbows, muffins, flowers, nausheeds., more salaams and lots of love. If one was describing them as photograph it would be kittens, with babies, painted in gorgeous calligraphy with a waterfall background. Yes, they’re that good. Literally.

It’s easy to be cynical about Totalis. The constant RSS/twitter/facebook feeds of “Jazakallhah”, “I love Ramadan” and “EID ..YAY!” may have enough sugar content to give Mount Everest diabetes, but you know this Freebeard is genuinely grateful for their presence in the BeardyVerse.

Now I’m off to get some tea to rest on my force field and listen to Zain Bikha...

P.S Latin names Fidelis, Profectus and Vetus.. Google translate is your friend and I have no idea what they mean either ;)