actually no akhi, it's not a proper atheist setting up the site with a Muslim name.
it's a homo sapien who was probably born to Muslims. that's his facebook page -
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mohamed-Ghilan/347684525261845, and this is what he says about himself
Writer, neuroscience PhD candidate, student of Islamic jurisprudence, theology, and philosophy
this homo sapien is supposedly an "intellectual" who is living the american dream
he bizarrely believes in taqlid -
http://mohamedghilan.com/islam/following-a-madhab/
the thing with all these misguided western "Muslim" "scholars" and "intellectuals" and their sheeple following can be summed up in 3 main scenarios:
1) the minute you 'make it' in dunya with the american dream, you have the license to run your mouth on any topic of deen, and dumb sheeple who couldn't 'make it' as big as you would gleefully follow you or chant masha Allah at your lunacies. so you're a certified public accountant at deloitte & touche? that means you have the God-given right to voice an opinion on anything even remotely related to Islam, EVEN IF you aren't even remotely related to Islamic knowledge.
2) you could emigrate to the west from some province or
pind in the east, and claim to have sat with this and that wali there or have attained education in this or that traditional institute there, and the sheeple from that particular area back home (now living in the west) would pledge their allegiance to you, no questions asked. this happens all the time with more ethnicities than you think. Desis, Somalians, Arabs, Turks etc.
3) you could just come out of the woodwork and claim you spent some years or months gaining a traditional Islamic education in some exotic locations of Islamic heritage - the Arab Maghreb, Yemen, Samarkand, Damascus, Bukhara, etc.... copy and paste a few geometric patterns of Ottoman or safavid art onto some posters, some pictures from the un-industrialized, in touch with nature countryside of an eastern destination, and advertise a "lecture" or "conference" or "seminar" or "workshop" with you as the super exotic raised-in-the-west-trained-in-the-east "expert" completely in touch with both sides of the ocean, who can feel the pulse of the western Muslim -
and you're in business. bring in a bought and paid for wide-eyed Arab stooge to support your cause (and you support his), and that will pretty much stamp and seal your credibility. i know of people who haven't spent a day at an Islamic school and can't read and write their names in Arabic, who claim to have studied under all sorts of shuyukh in all sorts of locations, and they call themselves as imam, and shaykh, and hoca, and 'experts' on the works of Imam Ghazali, etc. but who's checking
this is the little that i've seen from Muslim life in the west.
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of course there are also many many genuine Muslim scholars and good people too, both imported and home grown, who aren't misguided.
