Harassment of Islam

The extremist soldiers of Islam make our lives miserable even in cyberspace

For most mumin brothers, their relationship with Allah is just like that of close buddies. Neither can function without the other. Just as the mumin brothers must take Allah’s name while pooping, peeing, sleeping, sitting, walking, moving, standing, running — constantly reminding Him that He is the greatest, that there is no god but Him, that they are grateful to Him — similarly, Allah too becomes helpless in maintaining His existence without the mumin brothers. He constantly needs their time, labor, money, and lives. Allah is far more dependent on the mumin brothers, even though He claims He depends on no one.

I am just an ordinary human being. My Allah, Bhagwan, Ishwar are my few computers and laptops (5 + 3). Allah has millions of hands through the mumin brothers, while I have only two. Along with me are the hands of my well‑wishers and freethinking friends — even that is not many.

I am a working person, someone who has spent his whole life “feeding the house while chasing buffaloes in the forest.” I have never harmed anyone; I have only helped. People of many religions and identities have benefited from me and my work, because I have never looked at someone’s face or identity before extending my hand. That list is long — school scholarships, orphanages, mosques, temples, churches, madrasas, Milton Samadder, oxygen cylinders during COVID, helpless people, food distribution — many things. I myself live hand‑to‑mouth, and only because I don’t live luxuriously can I manage. Those who know me closely know these small traits of mine.

I have a few websites, all of which are useful for people; none of them are about religion. These are experimental projects — for learning and for maintaining the servers. The amount of money I’ve spent so far could easily have bought me an apartment in Dhaka. But you could call these my addiction. I used to publish literary magazines in school and college; those who are involved with my work know that I earn nothing from these — instead, I spend a lot. But that’s who I am: someone who spends from his own pocket to chase buffaloes in the forest. No matter how much the mumin brothers claim that I get paid to write, I know how much discount I give, how much time I spend, and how much of my own money I burn just to write.

Since yesterday, Allah’s soldier mumin brothers have started attacking one of my websites with thousands of bots. DDoS and brute‑force attacks. It hosts open‑source content that people download and use as needed. Until recently, this site was publicly listed on my profile. Some news outlets like Prothom Alo had also shared reports about my work. Someone I know must have leaked the information. Suddenly the site’s traffic has increased twentyfold. Where it used to get 100–200 visits per hour, now it’s getting 2,000–4,000. I have a few other sites on two low‑budget servers. All of them have become slow. Sometimes they even go down.

Since these are not managed services — I can’t afford that — I have to handle every attack or disaster myself. I spent the whole night sleepless trying to mitigate these attacks. And here, life runs by the clock — I still have to work to eat. This is how Allah’s curse becomes effective. The mumin brothers operate in syndicates. I’ve seen them in hacker groups and IT groups, calling for coordinated attacks using my ID and other information. Each of them has a hundred or so accounts. You’ve seen how they run coordinated attacks on progressives on Facebook, especially on women.

The mumin brothers are fortunate to have many university‑educated people as Allah’s soldiers — many of whom are skilled in IT. For example, a large portion of BUET supports them. You’ve seen how they have strong support in Dhaka University too. All of them are Allah’s soldiers. Allah is helpless without them. They carry out Allah’s anger, vengeance, and torment. Among them live potential extremists who behead freethinkers, atheists, humanists, and nonbelievers. And collectively, they support those extremists.