Al-Fatiha - The Opening

Ibn Arabi on al-Fatiha

2011-08-05T22:41:00.000-07:00

We are fortunate to find in The Qur’an and its Interpreters, Mahmoud Ayoub’s rendition of Ibn Arabi’s detailed theophanic commentary of al-Fatiha. Ibn Arabi observes that the names of God, as a mode of self-disclosure, are manifestations (mazahir) of the Divine attributes or actions by which the Divine is known. Of the first verse, Ibn Arabi writes:

“‘Allah’ is the name of the divine Essence as it is in Itself absolutely. ‘Al-Rahman’ is He Who causes existence and perfection to flow upon all things in accordance with the dictates of [divine] wisdom and according to the capacities of the receivers to bear it in their primary stages. Al-Rahim is He Who causes ideal perfection [in the Platonic sense] to flow upon the human species, which is proper to it in its final stages. For this reason it is said [in invoking God], ‘O Rahman of this world and the next and Rahim of the hereafter!’ This means, in the perfect human all-encompassing form, general and specific mercy, which is the manifestation of the divine Essence as well as of the Truth of supreme exaltation with all His attributes. It [the name of Allah] is the greatest name of God; it is to this name that the Prophet referred when he said, ‘I have been given comprehensive speech [jawami’ al-kalim – The Qur’an, which is of a finite number of words but infinite number of meanings}, and I was sent to complete the excellences of morals.’ For words are the realities of existents and their concrete substances. That is why Jesus was called ‘a Word from God’ [see example Q. 3:45]. The excellence of morals are the states of existents and the special properties which are the sources of their actions and which are all contained in the comprehensive human microcosm. Prophets placed words side by side with the ranks of existence. I found things at the time of Jesus and that of the Prince of the Faithful ['Ali] and some of the Companions which point to this truth.” (1984, p. 50)

Ibn Arabi argues that the Divine Word is the source of all being and contained in the basmallah through the eighteen pronounced letters is the reference to the eighteen thousand worlds. This is a reference to the all the realms of existence. Depending on our human capacities and spiritual faculties, all of these attributes, actions and realms are potentially apprehensible:

“He to whom attributes manifest themselves with the removal of veils of created universes trusts [in God]. He to whom attributes manifest themselves with the removal of the veils of actions submits and is content. But he to whom the essence manifests itself with the removal of the veils of the attributes becomes annihilated in the unity and thus becomes an absolute proclaimer of divine oneness no matter what else he does or recites.” (1984, p. 51).

Ibn Arabi concludes that in the first verse alone of al-Fatiha, the unity of the Divine essence is manifested in the name ‘Allah’, the unity of Divine attributes is manifested in the name ‘Al-Rahman’ and the unity of Divine actions is manifested in the name ‘Al-Rahim.’

In the second verse, the verse of praise, Ibn Arabi defines praise as a function of word and deed -- no matter what condition one finds oneself in -- because the act of praise is a manifestation of higher perfections. He argues that praise is the teleological direction of all creation: “All existents with all their properties and special stations glorify and praise Him as they seek to fulfil their ends and bring forth their perfections from the state of potentiality to that of actuality” (1984, p. 52).

How different are these spiritual and deeply proprioceptive experiences from Maslow’s notion of self-transcendence and self-actualization or Jung’s notion of individuation.

For Ibn Arabi, the fourth verse’s reference to the Sovereign of the Day of Reckoning is a spiritual certitude “that all things shall return to Him” because no other power is able to recompense each soul than the One who is worshipped. It is through a process of self-effacement and self-annihilation that one can surrender fully to divine attributes and divine actions. In the fifth verse which is related to worship of the One and our plea for divine succour, this is taken to its logical conclusion: “Were they to be in the divine presence [that is, the mystical presence of the servant of God] then all their movements and quietudes would be acts of worship of Him and in Him. They would be constant in their prayers, praying with the tongue of love as they behold His beauty on every countenance and in every mode” (1984, p. 53).

The Straight path in the sixth verse is for Ibn Arabi the path of unity, “which is the way of him upon whom You bestowed the special favor of mercifulness, which is gnosis and love and the guidance of the divine [haqqani] essence” (1984, p. 53). It is the way of the prophets, the martyrs, the righteous and the friends of God “who behold Him as the First and the Last, the Outer and the Inner, and therefore disappear in their beholding of the radiance of His eternal countenance from the existence of the perishing shadow” (1984, p. 53). Here, the shadow for Ibn Arabi is but the world of creation which is merely a shadowy reflection of the Divine Face of God.

Finally, in that context, Ibn Arabi is forthright in his interpretation of Q 1:7. Surprisingly, he agrees with the traditional commentators that there is an implied reference to the Jews as incurring God’s wrath and the Christians as being astray, but he goes beyond the innuendo of religious bigotry and the full text of his commentary bears recording:

‘Not of those who have incurred Your wrath’ means those, such as the Jews, who remained simply with appearances, veiling themselves with the favour of mercifulness [rahmaniyya], corporeal bliss, and sensory pleasures from the realities of the spirit, the inner bliss of the heart, and intellectual pleasure. This is because their call was to appearances such as gardens, houris, and palaces [These words are not to be taken literally because hur and qusur are commonly used in rhyme to indicate wealth and pleasure.] Thus God became wrathful with them. Because wrath demands expulsion and removal, remaining at the level of appearances, which are the veils of darkness, constitutes the greatest distance away [from God].

‘Or those who have gone astray’ refers to those such as the Christians, who remain at the level of inner dimensions which are veils of luminosity, thus veiling themselves with the favour of compassionateness [rahimiyya] from the favour of mercifulness. They therefore become oblivious to the manifestation of the truth and go astray from the straight way. They are deprived of beholding the beauty of the Beloved of all things. This is because their call was only to their inner dimensions and to the lights of the realm of holiness. The call of the Muhammadans who profess divine oneness is to both; it is combining love of the beauty of the essence with love of the beauty of the attributes. (1984. Pp. 53-54)

This is clearly a call for a path of unity balanced between the zahir or exoteric dimensions of the way and the batin or esoteric dimensions of the Siratal Mustaqim. It is not surprising that the two prior Abrahamic traditions are considered as incomplete representations of the Divine Will by Ibn Arabi, because for him Islam is the completion and the perfection of both traditions. What is significant is that for Ibn Arabi the perfection of the way requires both the Inner and the Outer dimensions. This points to an integral approach.

~Excerpted from the doctoral dissertation by Jalaledin Ebrahim titled:
"Al-Fatiha - Towards an Integral Psychology of Islam"

Al-Fatiha News Network

2011-03-17T09:26:00.001-07:00

In the Name of Allah, Infinitely Compassionate and Infinitely Merciful,

Guide us to the Straight Path,
and help us to imagine a new future...

Al-Fatiha is only 28 words

2010-12-17T22:42:00.000-08:00

Listening to Lesley Hazelton's presentation about the Qur'an on TED, it was fascinating to discover that there are only 28 words in the Arabic version of Al-Fatiha.

Here's the link to the TED presentation:
http://www.juancole.com/2010/12/on-reading-the-quran-hazleton.html

Heavenly Journeys, Earthly Concerns

2010-11-17T08:15:00.000-08:00

In keeping with the theme on al-Miraj, Brooke Olson Vuckovic's book "Heavenly Journeys, Earthly Concerns - The Legacy of the Mi'raj in the Formation of Islam" based on her doctoral dissertation at the University of Chicago, unintentionally places the relevance of the Prophet's ascension story within the context of al-Fatiha because it refers to "the favor" of Allah that seems to be intimated in our seven sacred verses:

"THE LEGACY OF THE MI'RAJ: AN ONGOING STORY

In the preceding chapters, I examined how an elite group of historians and theologians shaped Muslims'perceptions of the Prophet, their community, and their behavior by retelling and interpreting the story of the Prophet's ascension to heaven. Although the facts surrounding this event are lost to historians, the legacy of Muhammad's journey remains, and it has greatly contributed to the construction of communal history, memory, and meaning for Muslims over the centuries. Buried within these narratives are questions about prophetic authority, religious legitimization, and the construction of a confessional community. Medieval Islamic scholars addressed these issues through metaphor and through portraits of a world beyond human experience in order to address profound, often political, questions about the nature of God, faith and prophecy. Through this, they defined correct and righteous behavior for Muslims and the bonds that tie a community of believers.

The mi'raj accounts reveal the historiographical process through which a single event becomes a symbol or a touchstone for those struggling to define the past and to establish a communal, confessional, and political identity by reporting the apparent facts about a particular moment in time. By examining four distinct subnarratives in the mi'raj accounts (readying the Prophet for his mission, meeting previous prophets in heaven, facing the early community's reactions to the journey, and describing the souls in heaven and hell), I have shown how specific pieces of the mi'raj narratives focus the power of this story and highlight specific concerns. At times, these concerns are immediate, such as justifying Muhammad as a prophet and his believers as a distinct confessional community (Chapter One). However, the mi'raj accounts also embody more subtle concerns that include the status of different believers, evaluation of different behaviors within the community, and understanding of other religious traditions (Chapters Two through Four). Therefore, the accounts of the Prophet's journey not only include clues to how people perceived his status vis-a-vis God, the angels, and other prophets, but they also address the dynamics between males and females, humans and beasts, and Muslims and non-Muslims. Until scholars understand that these narratives were inexorably tied to the cares and concerns of medieval Muslims, they will miss a crucial component of their production and repetition.

The approach of legacy provides a way of examining religious literature that recognizes and honors modes of memory, imagination, and interpretation that take seriously into account ongoing issues of theology, politics and social interaction. An approach focused on legacy allows contemporary scholars to get beyond questions regarding the character and authenticity of the "facts" that are being described in order to explore more interesting and immediate concerns that are associated with communal order, conflict and identity. "Legacy" engages the history of interpretation and focuses on how particular historical actors in particular historical moments construct meaning and use the mi'raj as but one way to create, confirm, and redefine community and ideology. These retellings of a single story in the Prophet's biography show how religious history - like any history - is part of an interested, earthly, and embodied discourse, and that religious history can be used to grant authority to, challenge, or create a confessional community replete with political, ideological, and theological concerns.

IMPLICATIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

Though there are many ways this work could be extended, the one of most immediate interest involves delving much more deeply into the Islamic context to unearth other occurrences and accounts of the mi'raj in the Islamic context. The primary limitation of this book is its relatively focused scope (covering only the genres, source materials, and themes considered), particularly in light of the mi'raj's impact throughout the centuries. In this study, I have focused on Arabic hadith, tafsir, and ta'rikh from the second/eighth to the eighth/fourteenth centuries; however, one can fruitfully study a much larger body of literature to examine a whole host of issues, such as: how the story of the mi'raj is used in adab or belles lettres throughout the centuries; how the mi'raj becomes an inspiration to and outlet for complex Sufi symbolic systems; and how the mi'raj continues as a familiar trope to legitimate leaders of splinter groups throughout Muslim history. These studies would involve exploring the narratives from various time periods and religious commentaries and interpretations from "the edge" of Islamic society to discern differences as the legacy evolves." (2005, pp. 123-124)

~ Excerpted from "Heavenly Journeys, Earthly Concerns - The Legacy of the Mi'raj in the Formation of Islam" by Brooke Olson Vuckovic, who was on a Fulbright scholarship in Morocco in 1995/6.

Al-Fatiha in the context of al-mi'raj

2010-08-02T10:06:00.000-07:00

I have been researching the various Mi'raj narratives to understand the relationship between al-Fatiha and the "favors" bestowed upon Rasulillah. In addition to the gift of revelation, the Holy Prophet (s.a.w) had a profound celestial transpersonal experience which was perhaps the greatest of the favors bestowed upon him by Allah, as described here by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the eminent scholar of Islam, in his book, "The Heart of Islam." Not only is there a specific ayat related to this event but the Divine Guidance received by the Prophet resulted in one of the pillars of the faith: Salat.

"Shortly, before the migration, an event of supreme spiritual and religious significance took place in the Prophet's life, an event that is also mentioned in the Quran. According to Islamic tradition, he was taken on what is called the Nocturnal Journey, or al-mi'raj, on a supernatural horse called al-Buraq, by Gabriel from mecca to Jerusalem. Then, from the place where the mosque of the Dome of the Rock is now located, he was taken through all of the heavens, that is, all the higher states of being, to the Divine Presence Itself, meeting on the journey earlier prophets such as Moses and Jesus. The mi'raj is the prototype of all spiritual wayfaring and realization in Islam, and its architecture even served as a model for Dante's Divine Comedy. The experiences of this celestial journey, moreover, constitute the inner reality of the Islamic daily prayers and also the bringing to completion the performance of their outward form.

It was during this journey that the Prophet reached the Divine Presence, beyond even the paradisal states at the station that marks the boundary of universal experience; beyond this station, which the Quran calls the Lote Tree of the Uttermost End, there is only the hidden mystery of God known to Himself alone. It was in this most exalted state that the Prophet received the revelation that contains what many consider to be the heart of the credo of Islam: "The Messenger believeth, and the faithful believe, in what has been revealed unto him from his Lord. Each one believeth in God and His angels and His books and His messengers: we make no distinction between any of His messengers. And they say: we hear and we obey: grant us, Thou our Lord, Thy forgiveness; unto Thee is the ultimate becoming." (2:285)" (2002, pp.31-32).

~ Excerpted from "The Heart of Islam -Enduring Values for Humanity" by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University and President of the Foundation for Traditional Studies.

Reflections on Al-Fatiha

2010-07-13T08:51:00.000-07:00

Irfan Ahmad Khan, Ph.D received his doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Illinois and has taught Western and Islamic Philosophy at various US institutions. His book "Reflections on the Qur'an - Understanding Surahs Al-Fatihah and Al-Baqara" was published by the Islamic Foundation of the UK in 2005. He provides an interesting reflection on Sura 1:6-7:

"15. RELIGION AS A PATH

It is very important to note that the Qur'an repeatedly speaks of religion as a path. Life itself is a journey. In asking for the straight path we are asking Him for light which shows us the right path leading us straight to Him. As we will see, the next surah opens with the words "Here is the Book", i.e. here is the guidance which you were seeking. Thus the Qur'an is the answer of our prayer for guidance. The question may still arise that the book has already come, then what sense does our repeating the prayer, "Guide us to the straight path", make now? Again, we should not forget that life is a journey, and religion is a path. Living the Book is a striving - a journey which an individual continues throughout his life, and the believing community continues it till the Last Day. While we continue the task of understanding and living the Book we need Divine Help all the time. Through the last twenty-three years of his life's journey, the Prophet himself was living the Book under Divine Guidance. His twenty-three years' effort is also a journey on the straight path which he continued with his Companions in a step-by-step process.. Sunnah (the way, the tradition) of the Prophet was a journey which was carried out in concrete life situations. And the journey still continues. In very different life situations we have to continue the task of understanding and living the Book. Though in a sense we are moving forward, the early part of this journey remains before us as a Model. While we read the Book for our guidance we also keep before our eyes how the Book was lived by the Prophet, and, under his directions, by his Companions. The Prophet was leading the journey under Divine Supervision, and we are required to keep his model before our eyes.

16. WHERE DO WE BELONG? IDENTITY WITH ALL VIRTUOUS PEOPLE OF THE PAST

This is why we say "guide us along the path of those who received Your favours and blessings." These are the people who walked on the straight path, worshipping only One God, seeking His help at every step. God guided them at every stage of their journey, helped them to a better understanding of Religion, in living a more pious life, and helped them in carrying out their mission. And, in the Hereafter too they will receive God's Special Mercies.

(Please have a look at note no. 3 where we briefly explained God's Rahimiyah. Also try to find out from the Qur'an how God blessed His faithful servants.)

It is important to note that by making this prayer we are identifying ourselves with all good and pious people of the past. Through this du'a' we are expressing our belonging to all the faithful servants of God. In the beginning we were thanking God for being so kind to the human world. At that place we were expressing our belonging to the whole human family or even the totality of 'ibad. But now we observe that some members of the family went off the track. They barred themselves from the special Mercy of God since they failed to correct themselves in spite of His guidance and warnings. Therefore, we express our separation from them. Our true forefathers are the good people of the past and we want to walk on their path.

17. Of course, the real punishment will follow in the Hereafter. But some people were punished by God even in this life. The Qur'an again and again tells us the stories of such people, so that we learn from their history. See, for example 7:59-167; 10:71-92; 11:25-102.

While we are making du'a' that we do not have the same fate, it is also required that we try to understand why they deserved God's Wrath, and then seriously try not to be like them.

These were the people who deviated from the straight path. Instead they of following the way of God's messengers and having God alone as their Lord, they had based their life, in one way of the other, on lordship of Man over Man. They did not correct themselves in spite of God's repeated warnings.

18. But it is also important to note that before the punishment of God comes, God reminds His servants. In fact, God gives the unjust people a fixed period of time (which as a general rule is known only to Him) to correct themselves. The Wrath of God does not come before its appointed time.

Therefore if some peoples were not punished in this life it is not a sure sign of their being correct. Some people may act as rebels, and still prosper in this life, because the time of their being punished has not yet come.

Reference is to groups and not only to individual persons - who had Divine Blessings or Divine Wrath, or who were misguided. We, with all the righteous people of the past and present, dissociate ourselves from all the groups of wrongdoers. We will study their detailed stories as we proceed further. The Qur'an discusses the rise and fall some civilizations. It explains how victory and support of God came to the supporters of the prophets, and how ultimately the unjust were punished.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF UNDERSTANDING THE SURAH AS A WHOLE

Read the surah over and over again, and try to understand it as a systematic discourse. Ask yourself: what is being said and how is it organized?

If you are well versed in classical Arabic you are in a better position to understand the surah. If you do not know Arabic, you can try to compensate for this deficiency by making a comparative study of different translations. In our literal translation, we have tried to help build the readers' relationship with each word.

Remember the greatest help in understanding the Qur'an comes from the Qur'an itself. One part of the Qur'an explains another part. Those who keep reading the Qur'an are in a more advantageous position to understand it.

We have elaborated some points related to the understanding of the surah. These emerge from our own study of the Qur'an. These notes as well as other available commentaries may be helpful. But we would suggest, apply your own mind to the Qur'anic text before you seek the help of others. Mufassirs (the commentators) are our teachers. Teachers help better when you do your homework - trying to develop your own relationship with the Text, understanding it with your own mind. Remember, your focus should remain the Text, which the commentator is also trying to make us understand through his explanations. Do not get lost in his/her explanations. What is most important, try to understand the surah as a whole - as a systematic discourse in Divine Words.

AN OVERALL LOOK AT SURAH AL-FATIHAH

We have two formulations of essentially the same insight of the inner structure of the surah.

The first ayah is bismillah. We start reading the Book with the name of our Lord, "God, the Compassionate, the Merciful". It is the introduction. The main body of the surah is made up of three parts:

A. The first part presents God's servants thanking and praising the Lord of the Worlds.

The consciousness of God's blessings which we experience everywhere, and the way He has been taking care of humankind, fills our hearts with gratitude and we say what the surah states from ayat 2-4. Our Lord is compassionate to all, but for those who try to do good deeds and seek His Forgiveness He has His Special Mercies.

This reminds us of the Day when His faithful servants will receive His Special Mercies. The Day of Judgement also reminds us of His Justice, and His Punishment of those who do not repent and do not ask for His forgiveness.

B. (This brings us to the middle of the surah, i.e. ayah 5.) At this point His 'ibad revive their covenant with Him.

We promise Him that we worship Him only, and we will seek His Help alone, and we actually worship Him and pray to Him that He helps us in fulfilling our covenant.

C. We pray to Him that He guides us along His Straight Path, the way he Guided those who received His favours, and saves us from being misguided, so that we do not deserve His Wrath." (2006, pp. 48-52).

~ Excerpted from "Reflections on the Qur'an - Understanding Surahs Al-Fatihah and Al-Baqara" by Irfan Ahmad Khan, Ph.D

The Sacred and the Profane

2010-07-10T13:31:00.000-07:00

Dr. Sim Liddon's thoughts on the sacred and the profane have some profound implications for our understanding of psychological reality and our deeper comprehension of a world view as it relates to Islamic Humanism. He draws on the thoughts of Rudolf Otto and Mircea Eliade:

"THE SACRED, THE PROFANE, AND BIMODAL MENTAL PROCESSING

In 1917, Otto published Das Heilige (The Sacred), which has been acclaimed even to this day for its description of the frightening experience of feeling the presence of "the sacred" or "the holy." In this situation one experiences something totally different from that of the reality reflected through the senses, for one "knows" or experiences one's self to be in the presence of something "supernatural." The experience is characterized by Otto as (a) terrifying to an extreme degree and (b) giving the individual the impression that he is the presence of something wholly separate from himself, called by Otto the wholly other." For people living in the modern world of "natural" events, this process of "knowing" the reality of something unseen and supernatural is difficult to grasp. However, the accounts in the previous chapters on the beliefs of the primitives can give an appreciation of this phenomenon. From an examination of this literature it is clear that for those experiencing the "wholly other," the unseen and "supernatural" world is as real as the experience of the reality of the "natural" world, and yet it is totally different.

Otto described the feeling of trembling, awe, mystery, and fascination when feeling one's self to be in the presence of 'the Divine," and he interpreted this experience as being induced by a divine power (more precisely, the experience is induced by the revelation of divine power). Otto maintained that this experience is at the very heart of religion and has been its essence throughout history.. This is true not only for religion as we know it today but also during its evolutionary stages.

"It must be admitted that when religious evolution first begins sundry curious phenomena confront us, preliminary to religion proper and deeply affecting its subsequent course. Such are the notions "clean: and "unclean," belief in or worship of the dead, belief in or worship of "souls" or "spirits," magic, fairy tales, myths, homage to natural objects, whether frightful or extraordinary, noxious or advantageous, the strange idea of "power' (Orenda or Manali), fetishism and totemism, worship of animals and plants and demonism and polydemonism. Different as these things are, they are all haunted by a common (element) which is easily identifiable." (Otto 1982, p. 116)

The common element is of course the terrifying and awful experience of the "wholly other," the "sacred." Moreover, this experiencing of an unseen power (or witch or god) as wholly separate and distinct from one's self is, Otto maintained, evidence of the "actual existence" of an unseen "holy" presence, the Divine. Just as one's feeling of beauty arises in part as a reflection of the actual existence of something beautiful, this feeling of the presence of a Divine power is for Otto a reflection of the "actual existence" of an unseen but Divine reality. Such an interpretation is of course open to question, for the phenomenon could just as easily be seen as an experiential phenomenon of the believer himself, as an aspect of the "state of believing," needing no other reference point as such. In this case the emphasis would be placed upon the act of believing in the same way that, in the previous chapter, one might understand the native's "belief" in the reality of witches not to be supportive of the existence of the witches per se, but due to the inability of the primitive to distinguish between "objects" and ideas, "things" and images, so that an idea or image is experienced as real and as an object.

Otto himself recognized this, in a sense. In fact, he argued that the belief in the actual existence of demons and witches was a result of experiencing "the demonic." It was, he maintained, a "rationalization" of the feelings of awe and dread related to experiencing the "wholly other." However, he failed to use the same logic to conclude that the modern belief in God is likewise a "rationalization," perhaps of love, concern, and affection for those who deity is a loving God. Instead, for Otto the experience of feeling one's self to be in the presence of the "Supreme and Sublime Deity" was evidence of the actual existence of the Divine and was no mere "rationalization," no mere mental phenomenon due to the nature of a particular mode of believing. Furthermore, individuals capable of such experiences, as was true for Otto himself, possessed the faculty of "divination."

It is precisely at this point where religion diverges from psychology as a science. This is important if one is to understand "believing" (including religious "believing"), in terms of the human being instead of Something or Someone "out there," instead of something "wholly other." Such an approach must conclude that one's belief in God is in fact a rationalization, an objectification of those feelings one attributes to God. This is the kind of language psychology must use, and the individual is the kind of reference point upon which a psychology must be based. However, it would seem to us a bit reductionistic to leave it at that, for a psychology must be open to new and different possibilities, even the possibility that there is more to "God" than merely the rationalization of feelings.

Psychology itself cannot disprove that there is Something or Someone "out there," but as a branch of science it must assume a different perspective. While religion finds it in the nature of the "supernatural" experience itself that one need look no further for understanding, psychology must focus on the experience of the individual and place this phenomenon into a context of understanding that does not assume supernatural realities. Moreover, even if religion's assertions are assumed to be true, it will only gain from psychology's efforts, for the comfort and reassurance that religion has to offer will only be enhanced by its integration with a broader and more flexible understanding.

Be that as it may, one cannot minimize the importance of Otto and his description of the individual's experience of "the sacred," for it is clear that this experience has been of utmost importance throughout the history of religion. For religious scholars this comes as no revelation; but for most of us who have lived a "profane" life and have not been familiar with the experience of the "sacred," the identification of this experience as the sine qua non of religions offers a new insight and a new way of understanding at least some aspects of religious phenomena. For instance, another religious scholar, Eliade, in his book The Sacred and the Profane, echoed the same point made by Otto.

"It could be said that the history of religion - from the most primitive to the most highly developed - is constituted by a great number...of...manifestations of the sacred in some ordinary object, a stone or a tree - to the supreme (which for a Christian, is the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ) there is no dissolution of continuity. In each case we are confronted by the same mysterious act - the manifestation of something a wholly different order, a reality that does not belong to our world, in objects that are an integral part of our natural "profane world."

The modern Occidental experiences a certain uneasiness before many manifestations of the sacred. He finds it difficult to accept the fact that, for many human beings, the sacred can be manifested in stones or trees, for example. But...what is involved is not a veneration of the stone in itself, a cult of the tree in itself. The sacred tree, the sacred stone are not adored as stone or tree; they are worshipped precisely because they...show something that is no longer stone or tree but sacred ("wholly other")." (Eliade 1959, pp. 11-12)

Eliade then goes on to elaborate on the idea that throughout the ages the hallmark of religion has been this phenomenon of experiencing something "wholly other" as an unseen reality, the experience of the sacred or Divine as manifesting itself in the natural world. Whereas modern individuals consider such acts as eating, having sex, hunting, crossing a stream, planting corn, etc, as only behavioral acts, for the primitive these acts became "a sacrament...a communion with the sacred" (Eliade 1959, p. 14). The primitive lived in a "sacralized cosmos." According to this view, the essential difference between the mind of modern man and that of the primitive is this existential mode of being in the world. Thus "the sacred" and "the profane" become two modes of "being in the world," two modes of believing and viewing reality. And the same mode of "being in" and viewing the world that was true of the primitive can be seen as characterizing religious experience throughout the course of history.

This point, which Otto and Eliade make, is pivotal in examining the relationship between bimodal mental processing and at least some aspects of religion; so let us look at it more closely. First Otto and Eliade observe, from examining written and oral accounts, that the history of religion is the history of experiencing the feeling of being in the presence of sacred, unseen realities or entities. Second they assume the existence of the latter.

The radically different approach of psychology can agree with their observation but not endorse their assumption. From a psychological perspective, the observed phenomenon can be seen as an expression, not of some assumed deity but of the individual's state of believing. A feeling is symbolized by an image, as a feeling of fear is symbolized by the image of a witch, and in this mode of believing no distinction is made between the image and the external reality. We have termed the inability to separate the symbol from that for which it stands as "adifferentiation," and we have used the term "objectification" for the experience of feeling a mental image to be thee "outside," objective world.

I suggest that because of adifferentiation and objectification the symbolized feelings are experienced not as mental phenomena but as objects in the objective world. Conceptualizing this as a psychological process rather than as evidence of a supernatural entity turns us toward the individual and away from speculations about unseen realities. It allows us to examine some aspects or phenomena of personal religion, not in terms of supernatural entities but as products of a particular mode of believing, and in terms of reasoned concepts acceptable to psychology and science in general.

In spite of the fact that a modern psychological perspective might interpret Otto differently, his work remains a landmark in the examination of religious experience. He considered himself to be working within the psychology of religion, and in this capacity he was unique for his time. Working at a time when psychology was beginning to look more carefully at the phenomenon of the human religious experience, Otto's work was important in that his was the first to look carefully at the different parameters of experiencing "the sacred" and to identify clearly "the wholly other." As such his work is important, for it allows us to identify what has been the hallmark of religious experience throughout the ages. If we focus on his observations and descriptions instead of his conclusions, we become aware that a predominance of the gestalt mode of processing and the experiences of adifferentiation and objectification has been characteristic of personal religious experience throughout history, resulting in the sine qua non of religion, the feeling of being in the presence of unseen powers and entities, the experience of feeling the reality of the "wholly other." Liddon, 1989, pp. 132-138).

~Excerpted from "The Dual Brain, Religion and the Unconscious" by Sim C. Liddon, M.D.

Islam and the Environment by HRH the Prince Of Wales

2010-06-27T18:25:00.000-07:00

A speech by HRH The Prince of Wales titled Islam and the Environment, Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford
9th June 2010

Vice Chancellor, Your Royal Highnesses, Director, Ladies and Gentlemen.

It is a very great pleasure for me to be here today to help you celebrate the Oxford Centre's twenty-fifth anniversary. Whereas bits of your Patron are dropping off after the past quarter of a century, I find quite a few bits of the Centre still being added! However, I cannot tell you how encouraged I am that in addition to the Prince of Wales Fellowship, the number of fellowships you now offer continues to grow and also that this Summer you will welcome the fifth group of young people on your Young Muslim Leadership programme which is run in association with my charities. This is a vital contribution to the process of boosting the self-esteem of young Muslims – about whom I care deeply.

It has been a great concern of mine to affirm and encourage those groups and faith communities that are in the minority in this country. Indeed, over the last twenty-five years, I have tried to find as many ways as possible to help integrate them into British society and to build good relationships between our faith communities. I happen to believe this is best achieved by emphasizing unity through diversity. Only in this way can we ensure fairness and build mutual respect in our country. And if we get it right here then perhaps we might be able to offer an example in the wider world.

I am slightly alarmed that it is now seventeen years since I came here to the Sheldonian to deliver a lecture for the Centre that tried to do just this. I called it “Islam and the West” and, from what I can tell, it clearly struck a chord, and not just here in the U.K. I am still reminded of what I said, particularly when I travel in the Islamic world – in fact, because it was printed, believe it or not, it is the only speech I have ever made which continues to produce a small return!

I wanted to give that lecture to address the dangers of the ignorance and misunderstanding that I felt were growing between the Islamic world and the West in the aftermath of the Cold War. Since then, the situation has both improved and worsened, depending on where you look. Certainly the sorts of advances made by the Oxford Centre have helped to build confidence and understanding, but we all know only too well how some of the things I warned of in that lecture have since come to pass, both here and elsewhere in the world. So it is tremendously important that we continue to work to heal the differences and overcome the misconceptions that still exist. I remain confident that this is possible because there are many values we all share that have the powerful capacity to bind us, rather than what happens when those values are forgotten – or purposefully ignored.

Healing division is also my theme today, but this time it is not the divisions between cultures I want to explore. It is the division that poses a much more fundamental threat to the health and well-being of us all. It is the widening division we are seeing in so many ways between humanity and Nature.

Many of Nature's vital, life-support systems are now struggling to cope under the strain of global industrialization. How they will manage if millions more people are to achieve Western levels of consumption is highly disturbing to contemplate. The problems are only going to get much worse. And they are very real. Whatever you might have read in the newspapers, particularly about climate change in the run up to the Copenhagen conference last year, we face many related and very serious problems that are a matter of accurate, scientific record.

The actual facts are that over the last half century, for instance, we have destroyed at least thirty per cent of the world's tropical rainforests and if we continue to chop them down at the present rate, by 2050 we will end up with a very disturbing situation. In fact, in the three years since I started my Rainforest Project to try and help find an innovative solution to tropical deforestation, over 30 million hectares have been lost, and with them this planet has lost about 80,000 species. When you consider that a given area of equatorial trees evaporates eight times as much rainwater as an equivalent patch of ocean, you quickly start to see how their disappearance will affect the productivity of the Earth. They produce billions of tonnes of water every day and without that rainfall the world's food security will become very unstable.

But there are other facts too. In the last fifty years our industrialized approach to farming has degraded a third of the Earth's top soil. That is a fact. We have also fished the oceans so extensively that if we continue at the same rate for much longer we are likely to see the collapse of global fisheries in forty years from now. Another fact. Then there are the colossal amounts of waste that pollute the Earth – the many dead zones where nothing can live in many major river estuaries and various parts of the oceans, or those immense rafts of plastic that now float about in the Pacific. Would you believe that one of them, off the coast of California, is made up of 100 million tonnes of plastic and it has doubled in size in just the last decade. It is now at least six times the size of the United Kingdom. And we call ourselves civilized!

These are all very real problems and they are facts – all of them, the obvious results of the comprehensive industrialization of life. But what is less obvious is the attitude and general outlook which perpetuate this dangerously destructive approach. It is an approach that acts contrary to the teachings of each and every one of the world's sacred traditions, including Islam.

What surprises me, I have to say, is that, quite apart from whether or not we value the sacred traditions as much as we should, the blunt economic facts make the predominant approach increasingly irrational. I imagine that few of you are familiar with the interim report of the United Nations study called The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity Study which came out in 2008. It painted a salutary picture of what we lose in straightforward financial terms by our destruction of natural systems and the absence of their services to the world. In the first place they calculated that we destroy around 50 billion dollars worth of a system that produces these services every year. By mapping the loss of those services over a forty year period, their estimate is that, in financial terms, the global economy incurs an annual loss of between 2 and 4.5 trillion dollars – every single year.

To put that figure into some sort of perspective, the recent crash in the world's banking system caused a one-off loss of just 2 trillion dollars. I wonder why the bigger annual loss does not attract the same kind of Media frenzy as the banking crisis did?

This should demonstrate the flaw in the sum that does not need an Oxbridge mathematician to understand – that Nature's finite resources, divided by our ever-more rapacious desire for continuous economic growth, does not work out. We are clearly living beyond our means, already consuming the Earth's capital resources faster than she can replenish them.

Over the years, I have pointed out again and again that our environmental problems cannot be solved simply by applying yet more and more of our brilliant green technology – important though it is. It is no good just fixing the pump and not the well.

When I say this, everybody nods sagely, but I get the impression that many are often unwilling to embrace what I am really referring to, perhaps because the missing element sits outside the parameters of the prevailing secular view. It is this “missing element” that I would like to examine today.

In short, when we hear talk of an “environmental crisis” or even of a “financial crisis,” I would suggest that this is actually describing the outward consequences of a deep, inner crisis of the soul. It is a crisis in our relationship with – and our perception of – Nature, and it is born of Western culture being dominated for at least two hundred years by a mechanistic and reductionist approach to our scientific understanding of the world around us.

So I would like you to consider very seriously today whether a big part of the solution to all of our worldwide “crises” does not lie simply in more and better technology, but in the recovery of the soul to the mainstream of our thinking. Our science and technology cannot do this. Only sacred traditions have the capacity to help this happen.

In general, we live within a culture that does not believe very much in the soul anymore – or if it does, won’t admit to it publicly for fear of being thought old fashioned, out of step with “modern imperatives” or “anti-scientific.” The empirical view of the world, which measures it and tests it, has become the only view to believe. A purely mechanistic approach to problems has somehow assumed a position of great authority and this has encouraged the widespread secularisation of society that we see today. This is despite the fact that those men of science who founded institutions like the Royal Society were also men of deep faith. It is also despite the fact that a great many of our scientists today profess a faith in God. I am aware of one recent survey that suggests over seventy per cent of scientists do so.

I must say, I find this rather baffling. If this is so, why is it that their sense of the sacred has so little bearing on the way science is employed to exploit the natural world in so many damaging ways?

I suppose it must be to do with who pays the fiddler. Over the last two centuries, science has become ever more firmly yoked to the ambitions of commerce. Because there are such big economic benefits from such a union, society has been persuaded that there is nothing wrong here. And so, a great deal of empirical research is now driven by the imperative that its findings must be employed to maximum, financial effect, whatever the impact this may have on the Earth’s long-term capacity to endure.

This imbalance, where mechanistic thinking is so predominant, goes back at least to Galileo's assertion that there is nothing in Nature but quantity and motion. This is the view that continues to frame the general perception of the way the world works and how we fit within the scheme of things. As a result, Nature has been completely objectified – “She” has become an “it” – and we are persuaded to concentrate on the material aspect of reality that fits within Galileo’s scheme.

Understanding the world from a mechanical point of view and then employing that knowledge has, of course, always been part of the development of human civilization, but as our technology has become ever more sophisticated and our industrialized methods so much more powerful, so the level of destruction is now potentially all the more widespread and un-containable, especially if you add into this mix the emphasis we have on consumerism.

It was that great scientist, Goethe, who saw life as the masculine principle striving endlessly to reach the “eternal feminine” – what the Greeks called “Sophia,” or wisdom. It is a striving, he said, fired by the force of love. I am not sure that this is quite the way things happen today. Our striving in the industrialized world is certainly not fired by a love of wisdom. It is far more focussed on the desire for the greatest possible financial profit.

This ignores the spiritual teachings of traditions like Islam, which recognize that it is not our animal needs that are absolute; it is our spiritual essence, an essence made for the infinite. But with consumerism now such a key element in our economic model, our natural, spiritual desire for the infinite is constantly being reflected towards the finite. Our spiritual perspective has been flattened and made earthbound and we are persuaded to channel all of our natural, never-ending desire for what Islamic poets called “the Beloved” towards nothing but more and more material commodities. Unfortunately we forget that our spiritual desire can never be completely satisfied. It is rightly a never-ending desire. But when that desire is focussed only on the earthly, it becomes potentially disastrous. The hunger for yet more and more things creates an alarming vacuum and, as we are now realizing, this does great harm to the Earth and creates a never ending unhappiness for many, many people.

I hope you can just begin to see my point. The utter dominance of the mechanistic approach of science over everything else, including religion, has “de-souled” the dominant world view, and that includes our perception of Nature. As soul is elbowed out of the picture, our deeper link with the natural world is severed. Our sense of the spiritual relationship between humanity, the Earth and her great diversity of life has become dim. The entire emphasis is all on the mechanical process of increasing growth in the economy, of making every process more “efficient” and achieving as much convenience as possible. None of which could be said to be an ambition of God. And so, unfashionable though it is to suggest it, I am keen to stress here the need to heal this divide within ourselves. How else can we heal the divide between East and West unless we reconcile the East and West within ourselves? Everything in Nature is a paradox and seems to carry within itself the paradox of opposites. Curiously, this maintains the essential balance. Only human beings seem to introduce imbalance. The task is surely to reconnect ourselves with the wisdom found in Nature which is stressed by each of the sacred traditions in their own way.

My understanding of Islam is that it warns that to deny the reality of our inner being leads to an inner darkness which can quickly extend outwards into the world of Nature. If we ignore the calling of the soul, then we destroy Nature. To understand this we have to remember that we are Nature, not inanimate objects like stones; we reflect the universal patterns of Nature. And in this way, we are not a part that can somehow disengage itself and take a purely objective view.

From what I know of the Qu’ran, again and again it describes the natural world as the handiwork of a unitary benevolent power. It very explicitly describes Nature as possessing an “intelligibility” and that there is no separation between Man and Nature, precisely because there is no separation between the natural world and God. It offers a completely integrated view of the Universe where religion and science, mind and matter are all part of one living, conscious whole. We are, therefore, finite beings contained by an infinitude, and each of us is a microcosm of the whole. This suggests to me that Nature is a knowing partner, never a mindless slave to humanity, and we are Her tenants; God's guests for all too short a time.

If I may quote the Qu’ran, “Have you considered: if your water were to disappear into the Earth, who then could bring you gushing water?” This is the Divine hospitality that offers us our provisions and our dwelling places, our clothing, tools and transport. The Earth is robust and prolific, but also delicate, subtle, complex and diverse and so our mark must always be gentle – or the water will disappear, as it is doing in places like the Punjab in India. Industrialized farming methods there rely upon the use of high-yielding seeds and chemical fertilizers, both of which need a lot more energy and a lot more water as well. As a consequence the water table has dropped dramatically – I have been there, I have seen it – so far, by three feet a year. Punjabi farmers are now having to dig expensive bore holes over 200 feet deep to get at what remains of the water and, as a result, their debts become ever deeper and the salt rises to the surface contaminating the soil.

This is not a sustainable way of growing food and maintaining the well-being of communities. It does not respect Divine hospitality. The costs it incurs will have to be borne by those who will inherit what is fast becoming the ruined and frayed fabric of life. So for their sake, we have to acknowledge that the immediate, short-term financial benefits of our predominant, mechanistic approach are too expensive to continue to dominate our way of life.

This happens when traditional principles and practices are abandoned – and with them, all sense of reverence for the Earth which is an inseparable element in an integrated and spiritually grounded tradition like Islam – just as it was once firmly embedded in the philosophical heritage of Western thought. The Stoics of Ancient Greece, for instance, held that “right knowledge,” as they called it, is gained by living in agreement with Nature, where there is a correspondence or a sympathy between the truth of things, thought and action. They saw it as our duty to achieve an attunement between human nature and the greater scheme of the Cosmos.

This incidentally is also the teaching of Judaism. The Book of Genesis says that God placed Mankind in the garden “to tend it and take care of it,” to serve and conserve it for the sake of future generations. “Adamah” in Hebrew means “the one hewn from the Earth,” so Adam is a child of the Earth. In my own tradition of Christianity, the immanence of God is made explicit by the incarnation of Christ. But let us also not forget that throughout the Christian New Testament, Christ often refers to Himself as “the Son of Man” which, in Hebrew, is “Ben Adam.” He, too, is a “son of the Earth,” surely making the same explicit connection between human nature and the whole of Nature.

Even the apocryphal Gnostic texts are imbued with the same principle. The fragments of one of the oldest, ascribed to Mary Magdalene, instructs us that “Attachment to matter gives rise to passion against Nature. Thus, trouble arises in the whole body; this is why I tell you; be in harmony.” In all cases the message is clear. Our specific purpose is to “earth” Heaven. So, to separate ourselves within an inner darkness, leads to what the Irish poet, WB Yeats, warned of at the start of the Twentieth Century. “The falcon cannot hear the falconer,” he wrote, “things fall apart and the centre cannot hold.”

The traditional way of life within Islam is very clear about the “centre” that holds the relationship together. From what I know of its core teachings and commentaries, the important principle we must keep in mind is that there are limits to the abundance of Nature. These are not arbitrary limits, they are the limits imposed by God and, as such, if my understanding of the Qu'ran is correct, Muslims are commanded not to transgress them.

Such instruction is hard to square if all you do is found your understanding of the world on empirical terms alone. Four hundred years of relying on trying and testing the facts scientifically has established the view that spirituality and religious faith are outdated expressions of superstitious belief. After all, empiricism has proved how the world fits together and it is nothing to do with a “Supreme Being.” There is no empirical evidence for the existence of God so, therefore, Q.E.D, God does not exist. It is a very reasonable, rational argument, and I presume it can be applied to “thought” too. After all, no brain scanner has ever managed to photograph a thought, nor a piece of love, and it never will. So, Q.E.D., that must mean “thought” and “love” do not exist either!

Clearly there is a point beyond which empiricism cannot make complete sense of the world. It works by establishing facts through testing them by the scientific process. It is one kind of language and a very fine one, but it is a language not able to fathom experiences like faith or the meaning of things – it is not able to articulate matters of the soul. This is why it consistently elbows soul out of the picture.

But we do have other kinds of “language,” as Islam well knows, and they are much better at dealing with the realm of the soul and matters of meaning. Each is a different aspect of our language, in fact. Each deals with different aspects of the truth and if you put empiricism, philosophy and the spiritual perception of life together, just as the Islamic tradition at its best and richest has always done, then they tend to complement each other rather well.

Take the difference this made in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, as an example, during the so-called “Golden Age of Islam.” It was a period which gave rise to a spectacular flowering of scientific advancement, but all of it was underpinned by an age-old philosophical understanding of reality and grounded in a profound spirituality, which included a deep reverence for the Natural world. Theirs was an integrated vision of the world, reflecting the timeless truth that all life is rooted in the unity of the Creator. This is the testimony of faith, is it not, embodied in the contemplative implication of the formless essence of the Qur'an's haqîqa? It is the notion of Tawhîd, the oneness of all things within the embrace of the Divine unity.

Islamic writers express it so well. Ibn Khaldûn, for instance, who taught that “all creatures are subject to a regular and orderly system. Causes are linked to effects where each is connected with the other.” Or the great Shabistâri in Fourteenth Century Persia, who talked of the world being “a mirror from head to foot, in every atom a hundred blazing suns where a world dwells in the heart of a millet seed.” Words that resonate, don't you think, with William Blake's famous lines, “to see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower.”

Other Western poets have captured this truth too. William Wordsworth, perhaps one of the greatest of all our Nature poets, describes “a sense sublime of something far more inter-fused… a motion and a spirit that impels all thinking things, all objects of thought and rolls through all things.” I quote the poets because they help us identify this “sense sublime” and inspire reverence for the created world.

Reverence is not science-based knowledge. It is an experience always mediated by love, sometimes induced by it; and love comes from relationship. If you take away reverence and reduce our spiritual relationship with life, then you open yourself up to the idea that we can be little more than a chance group of isolated, self-obsessed individuals, disconnected from life’s innate presence and un-anchored by any sense of duty to the rest of the world. We are free to act without responsibility. Thus we turn a blind eye to those islands of plastic in the sea, or to the treatment meted out to animals in factory farms. And it is why the so-called “precautionary principle” is so often thrown out of the window.

This is the principle that would make us think twice if, say, we were to climb into a vehicle that happens to have a ninety per cent chance of crashing. Instead, because the danger is not proven beyond doubt, we think it is safe to embark upon the journey. This is how we proceed in many significant fields – in matters like genetic modification or climate change. We go on denying that there may be side-effects, even if our intuition warns us to be cautious, or even if there is some related evidence. Recently, for instance, the news emerged that, for the fourth year in a row, more than a third of honey bee colonies in the United States failed to survive the Winter. More than three million colonies in the U.S. and billions of honeybees worldwide have died. Scientists say they are no nearer to knowing what is causing this catastrophic collapse, but there is plenty of evidence that modern pesticides have played their part. Given that bees, like nearly every other bug, are insects, I would have thought it was rather obvious. And yet we carry on with a narrow-minded, mechanistic approach to industrialized farming with all its focus on high yields at whatever price. So we lace the fields with pesticides that kill insects. It is quite bizarre how we continue to entrust our food security to the very substances that are destroying the harmonic cycle which produces our food. It really is a form of collective hubris and I often wonder if those who practise such well-exercised scepticism in these matters will ever see that “the Emperor is wearing no clothes?”

This, then, is why the wisdom and learning offered by a sacred tradition like Islam matters – and, if I may say so, why those who hold and strive to preserve their sacred traditions in different parts of the world have every reason to become more confident of their ground. The Islamic world is the custodian of one of the greatest treasuries of accumulated wisdom and spiritual knowledge available to humanity. It is both Islam’s noble heritage and a priceless gift to the rest of the world. And yet, so often, that wisdom is now obscured by the dominant drive towards Western materialism – the feeling that to be truly “modern” you have to ape the West.

To counter that tendency I have done what I can with my School of Traditional Arts to nurture and support traditional and sacred craft skills – not least those of Islam – because they keep alive a perspective that we sorely need, even though short-term fashion deems them to be irrelevant. The geometry and patterning that are taught at the School are the basis of the many crafts that have been all but abandoned in many parts of the world, including the Islamic world. It is a tragedy of monumental proportions that they are being forgotten because they reflect the spiritual mathematics found everywhere in Nature. As Islam teaches very specifically, it is a patterning that reflects the very ground of our being. It is the Divine imagination, so to speak; the ineffable presence that is the sacred breath of life. As the Seventeenth Century mystic, Ibn Âshir, puts it, by the practice of these arts you “see the One who manifests in the form, not the form by itself.”

For many in the modern world this is hard to understand because the view of God has become so distorted. “God” is seen as being, somehow, outside “His” creation, rather than part of its unfolding – what the Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, called “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower.” Being the principle that underlines the Cosmos, the Cosmos is the result of God knowing it and of it knowing the uncreated God. Notice the emphasis there on “un”-created. It is of profound importance. The basis of all existence is in this relationship.

I suspect the reason why this is such an unfashionable view is that the deep-seated experience of participation in the living, creative presence of God is offered to us in all traditions not by empiricism, but by revelation. This is a rare and precious gift and only given to those whose supreme humanity and capacity for great humility achieves a mastery over the ego. It comes at the moment when “the knower and the known” become one – the moment when the mind of Man comes into union with the mind of God.

This, of course, is not deemed possible from an empirical point of view, but revelation is a very different kind of knowing from scientific, evidence-based knowledge, and I cannot stress the point strongly enough; by dismissing such a process and discarding what it offers to humankind, we throw away a very important lifeline for the future.

I must say, once you do blend the different languages – the empirical and the spiritual together as I am suggesting, and as I have been trying to say for so long – then you do begin to wonder why the sceptics think the desire to work in harmony with Nature is so unscientific. Why is it deemed so worthwhile to abandon our true relationship with the “beingness” of all things; to limit ourselves to the science of manipulation, rather than immerse ourselves in the wider science of understanding? They seem such spurious arguments, because, as Islam clearly understands, it is actually impossible to divorce human beings from Nature’s patterns and processes. The Qur’an is considered to be the “last Revelation” but it clearly acknowledges which book is the first. That book is the great book of creation, of Nature herself, which has been taken too much for granted in our modern world and needs to be restored to its original position.

So, with all this in mind, I would like to set you a challenge, if I may; a challenge that I hope will be conveyed beyond this audience today. It is the challenge to mobilize Islamic scholars, poets and artists, as well as those craftsmen, engineers and scientists who work with and within the Islamic tradition, to identify the general ideas, the teachings and the practical techniques within the tradition which encourage us to work with the grain of Nature rather than against it. I would urge you to consider whether we can learn anything from the Islamic culture's profound understanding of the natural world to help us all in the fearsome challenges we face. Are there, for instance, any that could help preserve our precious marine eco-systems and fisheries? Are there any traditional methods of avoiding damage to all of Nature’s systems that revive the principle of sustainability within Islam?

To give you an idea of what I mean, let me offer a few examples drawn from the work done by my School of Traditional Arts, where project workers have shown that re-introducing traditional craft skills brings a coherence to peoples' daily lives, perhaps because they fuse the spiritual with the practical.

Since I founded it, the School has helped restore these skills in places as far afield as Jordan and Nigeria. It also helps to build bridges within communities in this country which have suffered the worst fractures. In Burnley in Lancashire, for instance, project workers have been teaching children from many backgrounds an integrated view of the world using the patterns of Islamic sacred geometry. This has not just inspired the imagination of the children taking part, but their teachers too. They tell me they have discovered a much more integrated approach to education, where maths and art are not alien to one another, but are seen as two sides of the same coin and directly rooted in Nature's patterns and processes.

In Afghanistan, I have only recently managed to see the work being done under the umbrella of what we have called “the Turquoise Mountain Foundation” – an initiative I launched some four years ago – which is running similar education programmes and craft training courses. It is also helping with the urban regeneration of the old historic quarter of the city by guiding people to start businesses using the craft skills they have learned.

For example, in the building of schools, people are being shown how to use mud-bricks which are a quarter of the price of the concrete blocks used by other agencies. They are also resistant to earthquakes, whereas concrete is not. And they cope much better with extremes of temperature – mud-brick buildings are cooler in the Summer and warmer in the Winter. What is more, they use local labour and local, natural materials. So these schools are a good example of how traditional wisdom blends with modern needs. After all, you can still use computers and other modern technology in a mud-brick building! And more comfortably, too, given it is more suited to local conditions.

When I finally did manage to reach Kabul earlier this year – after several years of trying – what I saw was truly remarkable. It proved to me that teaching and employing traditional crafts is an effective way of re-introducing the kinds of techniques that are benign to the natural environment. They are also capable of restoring a cultural balance in peoples' minds. By encouraging a wider celebration of the traditional, ancient culture of Afghanistan, these skills help in a very practical way to counteract the oppressive effects of extremism in all its forms, both religious and secular. This is how traditional wisdom works. It is not a theory or a science written down. Its wisdom is discovered through practice and in action.

These are schemes that are close to my heart, but the Oxford Centre keeps me informed of many others. Working in Muslim countries, the World Wildlife Fund has found that trying to convey the importance of conservation is much easier if it is transmitted by religious leaders whose reference is Qur'anic teaching. In Zanzibar, they had little success trying to reduce spear-fishing and the use of dragnets, which were destroying the coral reefs. But when the guidance came from the Qur'an, there was a notable change in behaviour. Or in Indonesia and in Malaysia, where former poachers are being deterred in the same way from destroying the last remaining tigers.

And it is not just such interventions that are important. It is mystifying, for instance, that the modern world completely ignores the time-honoured feats of engineering in the ancient world. The Qanats of Iran, for example, that still provide water for thousands of people in what would otherwise be desert conditions. These underground canals – unbelievably 170,000 miles of them – keep the water from the mountains moving down the tunnels using gravity alone. And the water in every village is then kept fresh by the way the storage towers keep the air flowing freely, moved by the wind.

In Spain, the irrigation systems constructed 1200 years ago also still work perfectly, as does the way in which the water is managed by the local population – a way of operating devised before the Muslim rule in Spain disintegrated. The same sorts of Islamic management schemes operate in other parts of the world too, like the “hima” zones in Saudi Arabia which set aside land for use as pasture. These are all examples of how prophetic teaching, in this case framed by the guidance of the Qu'ran, maintains a long term view of things and keeps the danger of a self-interested form of short-term economics at bay.

I am sure that if an organization like the Oxford Centre could help to establish a global forum on “Islam and the Environment” many more very practical, traditional approaches like these could become more widely applied. They may range from science and technology to agriculture, healthcare, architecture and education. Think what could be achieved if mothers and fathers, the teachers in madrassas and Imams, all sought to demonstrate to children how to translate Islamic teachings into practical action – how to blend traditional knowledge and awareness of Nature's needs with the best of what we know now.

This is certainly something I feel we have to do in the one final issue I have to mention as I close. Perhaps a few facts and figures might demonstrate why.

When I was born in 1948, a city like Lagos in Nigeria had a population of just three hundred thousand. Today, just over sixty years later, it is home to twenty million. Thirty-five thousand people live in every square mile of the city, and its population increases by another six hundred thousand every year.

I choose Lagos as an example. I could have chosen Mumbai, Cairo or Mexico City; wherever you look, the world's population is increasing fast. It goes up by the equivalent of the entire population of the United Kingdom every year. Which means that this poor planet of ours, which already struggles to sustain 6.8 billion people, will somehow have to support over 9 billion people within fifty years. In the Arab world, sixty per cent of the population is now under the age of thirty. That will mean, in some way or other, 100 million new jobs will have to be created in that region alone over the next ten to fifteen years.

I am well aware that the very long term prediction is that population may go down. 150 years from now the trends suggest there may be as few as four billion people, maybe even just two billion, but there is no getting away from the fact that in the short term, in the next fifty years, we face monumental problems as the figures rocket. No mega-city can ever hope to catch up with the present expansion in their numbers to provide adequate healthcare, education, transport, food and shelter for so many. Nor can the Earth herself sustain us all, when the demands and pressures on her bounty worldwide are becoming so intense.

I know it is a complicated issue. The experts suggest that, in theory, the Earth could support 9 billion people, but not if a vast proportion is consuming the world’s resources at present Western levels. So the changes have to be essentially two-fold. It would certainly help if the acceleration slowed down, but it would also help if the world reduced its desire to consume.

I have been following carefully the findings of my British Asian Trust in India which has been helping to run a women's education project in a drought-prone region of Maharashtra called Satara. They have noticed that a real difference can be made when women are able to become more involved in the running of the community. This is also the experience in Bangladesh. I have long been fascinated by Muhammad Yunus’s Grameen Bank of Bangladesh. It operates micro-credit schemes that offer loans to the poorest communities through a bank which is now ninety per cent owned by the rural poor. Interestingly, where the loans are managed by the women of the community, the birth rate has gone down. The impact of these sorts of schemes, of education and the provision of family planning services, has been widespread. Whereas in the 1980s, the average family in Bangladesh had six children, now the average figure is three. But with mega-cities growing as they are, I fear there is little chance these sorts of schemes can help the plight of many millions of people unless we all face up to the fact more honestly than we do that one of the biggest causes of high birth rates remains cultural.

It raises some very difficult moral questions, I know, but do we not each one of us carry the same responsibility towards the Earth? It is surely time to ask if we can come to a view that balances the traditional attitude to the sacred nature of life on the one hand with, on the other, those teachings within each of the sacred traditions that urge humankind to keep within the limits of Nature’s benevolence and bounty.

Ladies and gentlemen, you have endured all this with patience and fortitude. You have also given a very good impression of listening to my own personal thoughts on the perspective opened up by Islamic teaching. I have wanted to convey them to you because it always moves me to be reminded that, from the perspective of traditional Islamic teaching, the destruction of the Earth is represented as the destruction of a prayerful being.

Whichever faith tradition we come from, the fact at the heart of the matter is the same. Our inheritance from our creator is at stake. It will be no good at the end of the day as we sit amidst the wreckage, trying to console ourselves that it was all done for the best possible reasons of development and the betterment of Mankind. The inconvenient truth is that we share this planet with the rest of creation for a very good reason – and that is, we cannot exist on our own without the intricately balanced web of life around us. Islam has always taught this and to ignore that lesson is to default on our contract with Creation.

The Modernist ideology that has dominated the Western outlook for a century implies that “tradition” is backward looking. What I have tried to explain today is that this is far from true. Tradition is the accumulation of the knowledge and wisdom that we should be offering to the next generation. It is, therefore, visionary – it looks forward.

Turning to the traditional teachings, like those found in Islam that define our relationship with the natural world, does not mean locking us into some sort of cultural and technological immobility. As the English writer G.K. Chesterton put it, “real development is not leaving things behind, as on a road, but drawing life from them as a root.” I would also remind you of the words of Oxford’s very own C.S. Lewis, who pointed out that “sometimes you do have to turn the clock back if it is telling the wrong time” – that there is nothing “progressive” about being stubborn and refusing to acknowledge that we have taken the wrong road. If we realize that we are travelling in the wrong direction, the only sensible thing to do is to admit it and retrace our steps back to where we first went wrong. As Lewis put it, “going back can sometimes be the quickest way forward.” It is the most progressive thing we could do.

All of the mounting evidence is telling us that we are, indeed, on the wrong road, so you might think it would be wise to draw on the timeless guidance that comes from our intuitive sense of the origin of all things to which we are rooted. Nature's rhythms, her cycles and her processes, are our guides to this uncreated, originating voice. They are our greatest teachers because they are expressions of Divine Unity. Which is why there is a profound truth in that seemingly simple, old saying of the nomads – that “the best of all Mosques is Nature herself.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hermeneutics and the Dual Brain

2010-06-12T11:28:00.000-07:00

In thinking about the two kinds of Islamic hermeneutics, the Zahiri and Batini, I have been wondering if there was a neuroscientific basis for this aspect of the hermeneutic tradition in Islam and whether the zahir/batin division reflects the reality of dual brain mental processes. A fascinating text on this topic is "The Dual Brain, Religion, and the Unconscious" by Dr. Sim C. Liddon:

"TWO MODES OF PROCESSING INFORMATION

The experiment with split-brain subjects do have drawbacks: they are few in number, they deal with subjects who already have pathological processes going on (i.e., epilepsy), and the operation interrupts the normal functioning of the intact brain. However, the results of these experiments are supported not only by animal experiments and studies of patients with unilateral brain lesions, but also by experiments with normal subjects using a variety of other techniques. While more study surely needs to be done, some judgments have been made by those working in the field. First there is the obvious thought that the two hemispheres are specialized for different cognitive functions. Second, it has been concluded that the primary factor in hemisphere specialization is not the type of information considered (i.e., words or shapes or sounds) but how the brain processes information.

In trying to interpret this data, however, there is controversy. The anatomical distinctions between the left and right hemispheres are not as clear-cut as they appeared during the first few years of the split-brain research. Indeed, it seems that the way the lay public and popular press "explain" an infinite variety of lifestyles in terms of left/right differences is "simple minded" and a distortion of good scientific research. Let us assume that there are anatomical distinctions that must yet be clarified and that the left/right distinction does represent an oversimplification. With this in mind, and for heuristic reasons, let us go on to look at the differences and distinctions as they appeared during the first years of this research. No matter how anatomical questions are eventually answered, there are distinctions in human mental (or psychological) functioning that are both legitimate and important. In what follows I will speak of left/right differences because that is the easiest way to present the psychological material, but the reader should recognize that the anatomical distinctions are not so clear-cut. The point is, it is vital to distinguish between psychological matters and anatomical matters, and we are primarily interested in the former. Keeping this in mind, let us go on to review some of the results from the split-brain research.

It appears that the left hemisphere processes information in a way that is superior for relating and comparing separate items and for processing information in a linear or sequential mode. It is a far superior mode for language; for the appreciation of time, number, and logic; for the expression of analytic thought; and for the precise discrimination of details and differences. In short, it serves the analytic and scientific "purposes" of humankind. This I shall call the linear mode because it allows us to examine relationships in a linear way. For instance, the equation A + B + C is essentially a way of understanding in a linear form the relationships between the symbols A, B, and C. Its two outstanding characteristics are, first, the appreciation of separateness and discreteness of individual items or facts and, second, the recognition of linear relationships between these distinct items.

Continuing with the "simple-minded" approach of left/right differences, it seems that the right hemisphere synthesizes rather than analyzes. It appears to process information by instantaneously bringing together or integrating different parts into a unified form, or "whole," and is superior in dealing with simultaneous relationships and global properties. It is suited for producing our sensory images of the world as well as the images of our imagination and dream life, and is more suitable for the symbolic expression of the emotional component of our subjective experience. I call the mode of processing associated with the right hemisphere in this "simple-minded" approach the "gestalt" mode, which has two outstanding characteristics. First, there is an instantaneous or simultaneous bringing together of different data or facts into a unified whole, best exemplified by the figures of the Gestalt psychologists. They demonstrated that one perceives a form as a whole and that at the same time there is a lack of awareness of the parts when one focuses on the whole form. The second characteristic is the lack of ability to compare or differentiate which naturally follows from the fact that when one's attention is focused on the whole gestalt, there is a lack of awareness of the parts. While the left hemisphere serves humankind's scientific needs, the right is superior for artistic and religious expression.

For heuristic reasons, I have been talking in anatomical terms about "left" and "right" brain, but let me reiterate that the anatomical distinctions are not so clear as I have suggested. For my purposes, the focus is on identifying the functional aspect of these two modes of mental processing, not their exact anatomical correlations. In other words, each hemisphere shows at least some evidence of both modes of processing, but the split-brain research experiments have made it possible to identify the two functionally different modes of processing information. Thus the important distinction is not so much between the left and right hemispheres as it is a functional distinction between the two modes of mental processing. I shall collectively refer to these two functionally different modes as "bimodal mental processing." (1989, pp. 49-52)

~Excerpted from "The Dual Brain, Religion and the Unconscious" by Sim C. Liddon, M.D.

Some thoughts on hermeneutics by Arkoun

2010-05-06T08:30:00.000-07:00

Professor Mohammed Arkoun, a progressive Muslim thinker offers some thoughts on the approach to Islamic scholarship which bears serious consideration in the depth psychological research methodolgy I am undertaking in my attempt to formulate an Integral Psychology of Islam. These comments are made in the Introduction to "The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought":

"This cognitive strategy has never been used before in interpreting the types of discourse produced by Muslims to express their Islam, or in approaching them as a subject of study, alongside the Western literature on Islam and Muslim societies. From this perspective, historical epistemology has a priority over the purely descriptive, narrative presentation of what ‘Islam’ teaches, or what Muslims say, do or achieve as social and historical protagonists. To what extent are these protagonists aware of the ideological dimensions of their discourse and historical actions? Which cognitive structures do they use for the purpose of interpreting their religion, applying it to their actual life or reshaping it on the basis of historical pressures? To what extent do they develop a critical relationship with their past and their present in order to have better control over their future, and how relevant, effective and creative would such a relationship be? These questions constitute the itinerary of this self-interrogation. Such an itinerary can be proposed and achieved only by those who accept the need to combine respect for the rules of scientific research with the capacity to submit to philosophical criticism every stance of reason, every intellectual initiative and every question arising therefrom.

For a time, during the late 1970s, I called this approach ‘applied Islamology’2 following the example set by a group of anthropologists who started the practice of ‘applied anthropology’. During the 1980s and 1990s, political scientists focused on political Islam, and in particular, fundamentalist movements, to such an extent that they succeeded in marginalizing classical Islamology, ignoring the methodological breakthrough offered by Applied Islamology. This situation applies both to classical Islamicists, long confined to the philological, historicist application of the most ‘representative’ classical texts, and to the new wave of Islamicists who have had no philological training in the main Islamic languages (Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Urdu) and who have confined their research to socio-political issues considered from a short-term perspective. Applied Islamology insists on the need to practise a progressive-regressive method, combining the long-term historical perspective with the short-term perspective, because all of the contemporary discourse emerging in Islamic contexts, inevitably refers to the emerging period of Islam, and the ‘Golden Age’ of its civilization used as mythological references to reactivate ‘values’ — ethical and legal paradigms — which need to be reassessed according to what I call a ‘Critique of Islamic Reason’. Not only do political scientists occupy key positions in academic institutions, they also have a strong relationship with the political decision-makers as well as a tacit solidarity with the most powerful media. As far as Islamic studies are concerned, the move from classical Islamology, dominated by the classical Orientalist épistémè and epistemology, to the pragmatic, factual, too often ideological practice of the social sciences by the political scientist, has had little material effect in improving the intellectual short-comings of scholarship applied in the Islamic sphere of influence in research and teaching. It is my contention that Islam as a religion, a world vision perpetuated by a still living tradition, with a great variety of cultural, social and political expressions, remains, like all religions other than Christianity, a challenge to the social sciences. In the same way, social sciences, if applied properly, are a challenge to Islam, especially as a living tradition. For many reasons, the most decisive one being geopolitical, it can clearly be seen that the challenge has not yet been fully taken up by the opposing side. The intellectual and scientific reasons for what has been a recurrent failure since the nineteenth century will, I hope, be clarified, in this book.3

Although I often refer to the dialectic, creative tension between the thought and the unthought, the thinkable and the unthinkable, I feel there is still a need to explain this terminology which has always been unusual and remains so in current parlance and even in philosophical discourse. The question arises as to why there is such a focus on the achievements of reason, on the critical control of the rationalities it elaborates within the spatial limits assigned to the thinkable. What does a tradition of thought allow us to think in a particular period of its evolution, concerning a particular subject, within a particular domain of human existence? When we speak today about the modes of communication required by political correctness, we are clearly referring to limits imposed by political and social pressures on the innovative and critical faculties of reason. A number of ideas, values, explanations, horizons of meaning, artistic creations, initiatives, institutions and ways of life are thereby discarded, rejected, ignored or doomed to failure by the long-term historical evolution called tradition or ‘living tradition’ according to dogmatic theological definitions. Voices are silenced, creative talents are neglected, marginalized or obliged to reproduce orthodox frameworks of expression, established forms of aesthetics, currently received rules of judgement, evaluation, communication, transmission, teaching, relating to others … When social, economic, and political conditions change and new possibilities for creative thought and action open up, a struggle begins between the defenders of the living sacred and sacralizing tradition and the supporters of reformist or revolutionary change. This dialectic tension is at work, with differing intensity, in all societies, from the most conservative and traditional to our democratic, dynamic, ‘free’ societies. We know how horizons and themes of discourse change depending on whether a leftist or rightist majority accedes to power; not only are some laws changed, but the philosophical rationale underlying the creation of law shifts to a different thinkable.

When the field of the unthinkable is expanded and maintained for centuries in a particular tradition of thought, the intellectual horizons of reason are diminished and its critical functions narrowed and weakened because the sphere of the unthought becomes more determinate and there is little space left for the thinkable. The unthought is made up of the accumulated issues declared unthinkable in a given logosphere. A logosphere is the linguistic mental space shared by all those who use the same language with which to articulate their thoughts, their representations, their collective memory, and their knowledge according to the fundamental principles and values claimed as a unifying weltanschaung. I use this concept to introduce the important dimension of the linguistic constraints of each language on the activities of thought. When a language such as Arabic or English is currently used by different peoples, with different cultural backgrounds, it becomes a common logosphere which will affect the configuration of the faculties of the human mind and, consequently, will contribute to the creation of frontiers between the thinkable and the unthinkable, the thought and the unthought. This is evident in the case of the Arab philosophers who introduced the Greek philosophical thinkable into the Arabic language, thereby creating friction with the religious thinkable defended by the traditionalist builders of Islamic orthodoxies. Similarly, the concept of the logosphere assists in the understanding of how Islamic values taught in Arabic to Indonesian, Bangladeshi or Tajik peoples, for example, share the same unthinkable about religion with the rest of the world's Muslims. The impact of the unthinkable and the unthought is immediately identifiable in the discourse articulated in a given language; language is the authentic memory of what thought has achieved, or failed to achieve, in each logosphere. From this perspective, an hypothesis could be attempted to explain why the terminology that I am trying to produce on the subject of thinkable/unthinkable, thought/unthought, has so far been neglected by the historians of thought. Historiography has always been linked to a political focus, such as a king, a prince or other leader; it reports what is relevant in order to illustrate the glory of the ruler, the authority of a spiritual leader; only positive achievements and the related outstanding cultural, and intellectual works achieved by thinkers, artists, jurists and orthodox religious authorities are quoted, celebrated and regularly taught as classical references for the living collective memory. The modern nation-state has been built and is supported by the selective creation and reproduction of the glorified national identity. A highly convincing illustration of this ideological practice, in contradistinction with the free, open, creative quest for meaning, is provided in Les lieux de mémoire, edited by Pierre Nora, which discusses the strategies used by the French Third Republic to unify the nation in accordance with the principles of the Republic. All the post-colonial states that emerged in the late 1950s, used the same strategy, with a much more authoritarian, obscurantist, intolerant will-to-power. In Muslim countries, this policy helped to expand the space of the unthinkable and the unthought because a dual censorship has been and still is imposed on intellectual and cultural activities, censorship from above exercised by the state and censorship from below imposed by public opinion, especially on matters related to religion. Many intellectuals came to interiorize this dual control in the name of the Nation, or the religion, adding self-censorship to that already imposed from outside.

An important remark is in order here. I have explained in my various writings how my Algerian origins, and my involvement in Algerian contemporary history since the late 1950s (especially in the War of Liberation) imposed on me, as a scholar and professor of the History of Islamic Thought, the obligation to rethink and rewrite this entire history within the dialectic framework of the thinkable/unthinkable, thought/unthought. As an historian, I have been struck by two major historical facts, namely the spectacular success of Greek philosophy and sciences in the Arabic logosphere under the political control of an Islamic regime from the eighth to the thirteenth century, and in the same period, the expanding of the horizons of religious reason through dynamic schools of theology and law. The Mu'tazilite school contributed to having thinkable issues — such as the issue of God's created speech — declared unthinkable afterwards by the Caliph al-Qādir. Many schools of thought started to be weakened and disappear after the thirteenth century. Philosophy, as inherited from Classical Greece, disappeared after the death of Ibn Rushd (1198), though it survived in Iran in the form of theodicy and theosophy; the Mu'tazilī school was banned by the well-known decrees of al-Qādir in 1017–18 and 1029 and to this day, the ‘ulamā’ officially devoted to the defence of orthodoxy, refuses to reactivate the thinkable introduced and developed by original, innovative thinkers in the classical period.

Historians report these facts without opening up new fields of historical research devoted to the interaction between the changing sociological frameworks of knowledge and the emergence, or disappearance, of fields of intellectual and scientific endeavour. The same sociological, political, linguistic, economic and demographic factors that eliminated Ibn Rushd in his own logosphere helped to tremendous and enduring success of the same Ibn Rushd in Latin Catholic Europe until as late as the sixteenth century. Historical research reveals the consequences generated in Islamic thought by the elimination of the philosophical standpoint of reason, while we know the decisive role played by this standpoint in the development of scientific reason as well as the democratic regimes in modern Europe.

It is not sufficient to describe the increasing gap that has emerged between modern Europe and the so-called Muslim societies since the sixteenth century; we need to determine whether this evolution is related to internal forces and mechanisms operating independently in each historical sphere, or whether it is also subject to correlative factors. The development of ‘material civilization’ in Europe since the eighteenth century, accelerated the collapse and the conquest of all the non-European societies in the world. In other words, material modernity has been used to enhance the political and economic expansion of the European capitalist bourgeoisie; it prevented, deviated or perverted the simultaneous transmission of intellectual modernity in non-European cultures and traditions of thought. This ambiguous process, often described as the clash between tradition and modernity, conservatism and progress, religious fundamentalism and historical change, led to the ideology of liberation with its radical political and social opposition to colonial domination from 1945 until today. During the Cold War, the struggle against ‘Western imperialism’ was inspired by the dialectical materialist option of the Socialist-Communist vision of human liberation. The philosophical dimension of political liberalism had been rejected as the weapon of the imperialist bourgeoisie. The dogmatic totalitarianism of the nation-state controlled by a single political party has dominated the intellectual and cultural life of all the countries emancipated from colonial domination. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and its ideological support of third-world countries, an ‘Islamic’ vision of the historical process of emancipation replaced the previous secularized socialist model in the so-called Muslim societies. Both visions share the will to eliminate the struggle of reason to autonomously perform the specific function of enabling unrestricted criticism of the initiatives of social protagonists through historical development (discourse, behaviour, political and economic options, cultural and intellectual achievements). From this perspective, more attention should be paid by historians to making explicit the historical correlation between the expanding European hegemony and the reactions, the ideological responses and the regressive changes seen more in the unthought, than in the thought in contemporary Islamic thought.

As a member of a society which went to war to liberate itself from colonial domination and had to ‘welcome’ a ‘democratic popular republic’ based on the model of the Soviet Socialist Republics, I felt more keenly than scholars without this revolutionary background, the intellectual responsibility to rethink in terms of social sciences and historical epistemology, the whole legacy of Arabic culture in what I came to call the ‘Maghrebian space’.4 The Algerian one-party state tried to legitimize its ‘socialist’ collectivist option in a strong, formal political will to protect and recover the ‘Arab-Islamic personality’ of the Algerian nation. Morocco followed suit, defended by the Istiqlāl party, but under the supreme authority of a king opposed to any kind of socialist revolution as defined and imposed by the leadership of Nasser, Tito, Nehru and other ‘historical’ leaders who met at the famous Bandung Conference of 1955. The spirit of Bandung was an significant reference point for all those who embraced the socialist model of economic and political action as a way of quick deliverance from historical backwardness. The great majority of leading intellectuals, scholars and artists supported the socialist revolution with their works, teaching, militant rhetoric and their strong desire to reach high positions as political decision-makers. Historians, sociologists and political scientists have not yet assessed the negative intellectual and cultural consequences of this massive adhesion to a dogmatic, totalitarian ideology imposed on societies in which peasant cultures, traditional modes of thinking and oral communication were still the norm. That is why I have chosen to concentrate on this neglected aspect of the history of thought in contemporary Islamic contexts. To do this, I had to create methodological and epistemological options in order to conquer new territory not only to explore new fields of meaning, but primarily to initiate new levels and types of understanding of many inherited issues which remain unexamined. Religion, and all matters related to religious life and expression, is one of the most important fields where political and social forces generate a confusing and obscurantist thought which requires the problematisation suggested in my title The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought. Islam everywhere has been put under the control of the state (étatisé); but the religious discourse developed by the opposing social forces shifted to a populist ideology which increased the extent of the unthought, especially in the religious, political and legal fields." (2002, pp.10-15).

The Psychology of Gratitude in Al-Hamd

2010-04-10T14:34:00.000-07:00

To follow up on the excerpt from Hillman's "The Thought of the Heart," it may be useful to ponder some of the ideas mentioned in the Introduction by Robert A. Emmons and Michael E. McCullough, editors of an anthology on "The Psychology of Gratitude":

" A number of contemporary trends have emerged that have helped to make this a propitious time for a volume on gratitude. First, the positive psychology movement (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000) has directed attention toward human strengths and virtues - those inner traits and psychological processes that most cultures, philosophies, and religions have commended as qualities that fit people for living in the world. Gratitude is a virtue, the possession of which enables a person to live well, and therefore must receive a hearing in any comprehensive treatment of the topic. The positive psychology movement has also called increased attention to pleasant emotional states or to what Ben Ze'ev (2000) has referred to as the "sweetest emotions": happiness, joy, love, curiosity, hope, and gratitude. German theologian Dietrich Bonhoffer (1967) wrote, "In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich" (p. 370). Psychologists who have aligned themselves with positive psychology are quite interested in those psychological propensities that lead to a rich life, and several contributors to this volume maintain that gratitude is one of those propensities.

Second, there is a renewed interest among social scientists in people's religious and spiritual lives. The roots of gratitude can be seen in many of the world's religious traditions. Thus, interest in personal manifestations of religion and spirituality may transport the scientist into the realm of gratitude. In the great monotheistic religions of the world, the concept of gratitude permeates texts, prayers, and teachings. The traditional doctrine of God portrays God as the ultimate giver. Upon recognition of God's outpourings of favor, humans respond appropriately with grateful affect, and gratitude is one of the most common emotions that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam seek to evoke and sustain in believers. The Hebrew Bible is replete with the motif that man owes God gratitude for life, health, and sustenance. There are numerous thanksgiving psalms and other prayers in which the person or the community that is praying pours forth expressions of gratitude. In one of the earliest psychological studies of religion, Leuba (1912) characterized gratitude as a religious emotion and a distinguishing mark of religious experience.

Even though gratitude has a clear religious connotation, a distinction can be made between transpersonal gratitude and theistic gratitude. Transpersonal gratitude may be gratefulness to God, or to a higher power, but may also be directed toward the cosmos more generally (Nakhnikian, 1961). It is the gratitude one feels when contemplating a starry sky or a majestic mountain peak. Such a vast thankfulness, Nakhnikian contends, cannot be directed toward a person or even a supernatural agent and occurs in the absence of a belief that a favor has been intentionally conferred upon a person by a benefactor. The spiritual quality of gratitude was aptly conveyed by Streng (1989): "In this attitude people recognize that they are connected to each other in a mysterious and miraculous way that is not fully determined by physical forces, but is part of a wider, or transcendent context" (p.5).

A third factor that makes this a propitious time for gratitude is the resurgent interest in virtue ethics, a subfield of moral philosophy (Hursthouse, 1999; Taylor, 2002). Philosophers have counted gratitude among the most important of the virtues, and as a necessary ingredient for the moral personality. Viewed through the lens of virtue ethics, gratitude is a purely person-to-person phenomena, apart from any reference to the divine. Ingratitude, on the other hand, is seen as a profound moral failure." (2004,pp. 6-7).

~ Excerpted from "The Psychology of Gratitude" Edited by Emmons & McCullough

Al-Hamd and Alhamdulillah

2010-03-02T20:31:00.000-08:00

Renowned archetypal psychologist James Hillman, in his monograph entitled "The Thought of the Heart" offers his reflections on the contemplations of Henri Corbin on this topic. With a deeper appreciation for the wisdom of Ibn al-Arabi, Hillman and Corbin may be offering a profound psychological penetration into the mystery of Sura 1:2 of Al-Hamd, which is another descriptor of the Opening Chapter of the Holy Qur'an. Hidden in the experience of Al-Hamd are Love and Beauty:

"If beauty is inherent and essential to soul, then beauty appears wherever soul appears. That revelation of soul's essence, the actual showing forth of Aphrodite in psyche, her smile, is called in mortal language, "beauty". All things as they display their innate nature present Aphrodite's goldenness; they shine forth and as such are aesthetic. Here, I am merely restating what Adolf Portmann has elaborated at Eranos for forty years: the idea of Selbstdarstellung (self-presentation) as the revelation to the senses of Inner-lichkeit (interiority). Visible form is a show of soul. The being of a thing is revealed in the display of its Bild (image).

Beauty is not an attribute then, something beautiful, like a fine skin wrapped round a virtue; the aesthetic aspect of appearance itself. Were there no beauty, along with the good and the true and the one, we could never sense them, know them. Beuaty is an epistemological necessity; it is the way in which the Gods touch our senses, reach the heart and attract us into life.

As well, beauty is an ontological neccessity, grounding the sensate particularity of the world. Without Aphrodite, the world of particulars becomes atomic particles. Life's detailed variety is called cahos, multiplicity, amorphous matter, statistical data. Such is the world of sense without Aphrodite. Then sense must be made of appearance by abstract philosophical means - which distorts philosophy itself from its true base.

If, as we said in Part I, philosophy takes rise in philos, it also refers to Aphrodite in another way. For sophia originally means the skill of the craftsman, the carpenter (Iliad: XV, 412) the seafarer (Hesiod, Works: 651), the sculptor (Aristotle, Nic Eth., vi:1141a. Sophia originates in and refers to the aesthetic hands of Daedalus and Hephaistos, who was of course conjoined with Aphrodite and so is inherent to her nature. With Aphrodite informing our philosophy, each event has its own smile on its face and appears in a particular mode, fashion, style. Aphrodite gives an archetypal background to the philosophy of "eachness" and the capacity of the heart to find "intimacy" with each particular event in a pluralistic cosmos (Wm. James).

Now, the organ which perceives these faces is the heart. The thought of the heart is physiognomic. To perceive, it must imagine. It must see shapes, forms, faces - angels, demons, creatures of every sort in things of any kind; thereby the heart's thought personifies, ensouls, and animates the world. Petrarca sees Laura:

...in pathless forest shades,
I see the face I fear, upon the bushes
Or an oaken trunk; or from the stream
she rises; flashes on me from a cloud
Or from clear sky; or issues from a rock,...

The lines are not to Laura, a love lyric, but a description of Laura, the soul personified, the figuration in the heart by means of which aesthetic perception proceeds. It brings to life things as forms that speak.

As we saw above, it was Aristotle's psychology that laid the basis for the connection between aisthesis and the heart. It may be strange to hear me speak in his praise, but there are many Aristotles, and my delight is in Aristotle the biologist who took the world of sense and shape to heart. In Aristotelian psychology, the organ of aisthesis is the heart, passages from all sense organs run to it; there the soul is "set on fire". Its thought is innately aesthetic and sensately linked with the world.

This link between heart and the organs of sense is not simple mechanical sensationalism; it is aesthetic. That is, the activity of perception or sensation in Greek is aisthesis which means at root "taking in" and "breathing in" - a "gasp", that primary aesthetic response.

Translators have turned aisthesis into "sense-percpetion", a British empiricist's notion, John Locke's sensation. But Greek "sense perception" cannot be understood without taking into account the Greek Goddess of the senses or the organ of Greek sensation, the heart, and the root in the word - that sniffing, gasping, breathing in of the world.

What is it to 'take in' or breathe in the world? First it means aspiring and inspiring the literal presentation of things by gasping. The transfiguration of matter occurs through wonder. This aesthetic reaction which precedes intellectual wonder inspires the given beyond itself, letting each thing reveal its particular aspiration within a cosmic arrangement.

Second, 'taking in' means taking to heart, interiorizing, becoming intimate with in an Augustinian sense. Not only my confession of my soul, but hearing the confession of the anima mundi in the speaking of things.

Third, 'taking in' means interiorizing the object into itself, into its image so that its imagination is activated (rather than ours), so that it shows its heart and reveals its souls, becoming personified and thereby lovable - lovable not only to us and because of us, but because its loveliness increases as its sense and its imagination unfold. Here begins phenomenology: in a world of ensouled phenomena. Phenomena need not be saved by grace or faith or all-embracing theory, or by scientific objectiveness or transcendental subjectivity. They are saved by the anima mundi, by their own souls and our simple gasping at this imaginal loveliness. The ahh of wonder, of recognition, or the Japanese shee-e through the teeth. The aesthetic response saves the phenomenon, the phenomenon which is the face of the world. "Everything shall perish except His face," says the Koran (xxxviii: 88) which Corbin can understand to mean "Every thing...except the Face of that thing" (CI: 244&n; ML:112-13). God, the world, everything can pass into nothingness, victims of nihilistic constructions, metaphysical doubts, despairs of every sort. What remains when all perishes is the face of things as they are. When there is nowhere to turn, turn back to the face before you, face the world. Here is the Goddess who gives a sense to the world that is neither myth nor meaning; instead that immediate thing as image, its smile, a joy, a joy that makes 'forever.'" (1981, pp. 29-33).

~ Excerpted from "The Thought of the Heart" by James Hillman, author of "Revisioning Psychology" and "We've Had A Hundred Years Of Psychotherapy".

British Islamic Scholar issues fatwa condemning terrorism

2010-03-02T19:49:00.000-08:00

I have been contemplating the relationship between Jihad and Sirat al Mustaqim. In my view, Jihad is about the spiritual struggle on the path of the direct experience of Allah. So, it was interesting to read the following article on a new 600 page fatwa condemning terrorism in Islam:

Published in: Aljazeera
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
17:07 Mecca time, 14:07 GMT

A leading British Islamic scholar has issued a fatwa condemning "terrorists" as the enemies of Islam, in a bid to deter young Muslims from extremism.

Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri, head of the Minhaj ul-Quran religious and educational organisation, said suicide bombers were destined for hell as he released his 600-page edict in London on Tuesday.

"They can't claim that their suicide bombings are martyrdom operations and that they become the heroes of the Muslim Umma [the wider Muslim community], no, they become heroes of hellfire, and they are leading towards hellfire," he said.

"There is no place for any martyrdom and their act is never, ever to be considered Jihad," he said.

'No place in Islam'

At a news conference, ul-Qadri said Islam was a religion of peace that promotes beauty, "betterment", goodness and "negates all form of mischief and strife".

"Terrorism is terrorism, violence is violence and it has no place in Islamic teaching and no justification can be provided for it, or any kind of excuses or ifs or buts," he said.

A number of edicts condemning extremism have been made by Islamic groups since the September 11 attacks on the United States, but ul-Qadri insists his is the most wide-reaching.

"This is the first, most comprehensive fatwa on the subject of terrorism ever written," he told the Reuters news agency.

"I have tried to leave not a single stone unturned on this particular subject and I have tried to address every single question relevant to this subject."

Pakistan-born ul-Qadri, 59, has written about 350 books on Islam, and is a scholar of Sufism, a Muslim branch that focuses on peace, tolerance, and moderation.

The Quilliam Foundation, a UK counter-extremism think-tank, said the fatwa was "arguably the most comprehensive" theological refutation of Islamic extremism.

Tim Winter, a lecturer in Islamic studies at Cambridge University, said while ul-Qadri's step of declaring "miscreants as unbelievers" was unusual, it was unlikely extremists would take notice of his edict.

"Those who are already hardliners will pay no attention at all. But 'swing voters' - poorly educated and angry Muslims, who respect mainstream scholars, will probably take note," he told Reuters.

Ul-Qadri said he felt compelled to issue the edict because of concerns about the radicalisation of British Muslims at university campuses and because there had been a lack of condemnation of extremism by Muslim clerics and scholars.

The Minhaj-ul-Quran movement, founded in Pakistan in 1980, works around the globe to promote peace and interfaith dialogue.

Scapegoating in Tafsir Al-Jalalayn & Shahrastani

2010-02-03T19:33:00.000-08:00

Both the late 15th century Tafsir Al-Jalalayn and the earlier 12th century exegesis by Shahrastani of the verse in al-Fatiha:

Ghayr al-maghdubi 'alayhim wa lal'-dallin

reference various sources which claim that those against whom is wrath implies
the Jews and those who have gone astray implies the Christians. Without correcting these limited interpretations with Shahrastani's esoteric commentary which claims that those against whom is wrath implies those who oppose the ones who know and guide such as the Prophets and the Saints, while those who go astray implies the adversaries of those who have received instruction and the believers, it is useful to examine the more restricted interpretations from a psychological perspective. Why would these two groups have been identified specifically by the commentators when the verses do not specifically mention these groups. The answer is best articulated by Ann Belford Ulanov, Professor of Psychiatry and Religion at Union Theological Seminary in New York in her book entitled

"Religion and the Spiritual in Carl Jung:"

"What then is scapegoating, psychologically? This mechanism is well known to us. It forms a distinct chain of reactions that leads from personal repression to social oppression. Its defined sequence begins when we repress contents we dislike and dread. We disown them. We keep consciousness from such contents, and we eject such contents from consciousness. Our ego recoils from connection to contents we feel are destructive to our ego position and from the disordered chaos from which such contents spring. We refuse consciousness to the annihilating forces we call evil. We either throw such contents out of consciousness into unconsciousness, or we leave them blocked in unconsciousness, refusing them admittance to our awareness. Such refusal brings relief to our egos; we get rid of, we think, disturbing contents.

But such contents do not go away. They go unconscious. They remain in us as live bits of being, as volatile forces now out of reach of our ego and its restraining, civilizing effects. These contents regress and achieve still more powerful form, as a hungry dog we lock in a closet becomes a savage beast bent on killing to satisfy its hunger. A repressed content is like a tiny alligator we bring back from a Florida vacation that becomes increasingly inconvenient as it keeps on growing. We flush it down the toilet into our sewers. There it not only continues to grow, but now, out of sight and out of reach, it joins all the other alligators flushed away by the neighbors. What we repress accumulates more life to itself, growing stronger, bigger, contaminating whatever else is in the unconscious. pressure builds up that demands release into conscious life. Such contents burst out finally in projections onto others - usually those different from us, alien, because of physical appearance or sex or background, or distant from us because deem them inferior or superior to us. All that our egos judge unacceptable hurls itself in projection onto our alien or distant neighbors. We identify our neighbors with that bit of ourselves we put onto and into them. Thus we inaugurate a relationship of projective identification with our neighbors. We feel we must control them because we carry a feared bit of ourselves, and we fear them because we cannot control them. They carry the package of unconscious contents we dread in ourselves. Rather we want to see ourselves as identified with the values and ideals we hold most precious. We contrast our good to our alien neighbors' bad. We draw a boundary around the good with which our egos identify, outlawing the bad with which we identify our neighbors.

We can understand that the initial function of such repression and projection is to differentiate good from bad, to become conscious of what we hold as good and to bind our group into a community, distinguished from other groups. Such initial differentiation and group consciousness might be all right, even furthering consciousness, if it did not go further, but it always does. For the repressed material, the howling dogs and snapping alligators, press to get out, press for contact. What begins as differentiation only too soon leads to a wide gap between our conscious ego identification with the good and our projective identification of our alien neighbor with the bad.

The line is drawn, from repression to regression and contamination of unconscious contents to projection and projective identification onto our alien neighbor, to attitudes of prejudice from which grow acts of oppression, persecution, and finally, scapegoating. Like one or the other of the original scapegoats, the alien neighbor is seen as the carrier of sins we must get rid of to keep intact our commitment to the good. In the ironies of opposing consciousness and unconsciousness, we can indulge, even act out in frenzy, all the badness we disown in the name of defending the good. The disease attacks those who attack the disease. In the name of our ideal we attack, violate, persecute, and kill those on whom we have projected our badness." (1999, pp. 44-45).

~ Excerpted from "Religion and the Spiritual in Carl Jung" by Ann Belford Ulanov

Sura 1:7 in the Islamic Republic of Iran

2010-01-24T15:53:00.000-08:00

Reading Azar Nafisi's book "Reading Lolita in Tehran," I was disturbed to find that the superiority/inferiority complex of the guardians of the revolution representing the Shia faith in Iran extends to its Armenian population, at least as late as the late 1980s:

"Another urgent meeting was set up, for late afternoon in a favorite coffee shop. It was a tiny place, a bar in its pre-revolution days, now reincarnated as a cafe. It belonged to an Armenian, and forever shall I see on the glass door next to the name of the restaurant, which was in small letters, the compulsory sign in large black letters: RELIGIOUS MINORITY. All restaurants run by non-Muslims had to carry this sign on their doors so that good Muslims, who considered all non-Muslims dirty and did not eat from the same dishes, were forewarned." (2004, p. 180).

~ Excerpted from "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Professor Azar Nafisi of John Hopkins University.

The Feminine in Islam - Arkoun

2010-01-08T08:53:00.000-08:00

Mohammed Arkoun's book "The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought" challenges Muslims to think about many aspects of our faith. His comment on the feminine is poignant:

"Women represent a particularly disadvantaged social body; it is they who have to suffer the oppression of regimes that instrumentalize religion to compensate for their own lack of political legitimacy; the resistance of the popular mentality to any questioning of the status of women as fixed by God Himself in the Qur'an; and the weight of beliefs and customs they have themselves internalized through the rearing process handed down by their mothers and grandmothers in the lineage of an ancient feminine memory. I was able to verify all these mechanisms recently in a broad debate taking place in Morocco around the 'Plan for the integration of women in the development process' launched by the present government (April 2000). The fault line dividing society on the plan is not easy to trace; the simplistic terminology of opposition between progressives and conservatives, left and right, modernists and traditionalists, secular and religious, etc., is unsatisfactory. The use of these trivial, obsolete categorizations in political sociology is both an unavoidable ideological necessity and a backward conceptualisation damaging to proper critical thought: in politics, one has to be effective manipulating the social imagination with words and slogans that elicit immediate adhesion or rejection, while this manipulation avoids the intellectual need to introduce a more relevant emancipating critical discourse." (2002, pp. 22-23).

~ Excerpted from "The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought" by Mohammed Arkoun, the renowned scholar of Islam in France of Algerian descent.

Religious sanction for female circumcision in Islam?

2010-01-02T18:00:00.000-08:00

As part of my doctoral research on the place of the feminine in the psychology of Islam, I was shocked to find a religious sanction for female circumcision in "Women and the Fatimids in the World of Islam:"

"The fact that, on the imams' authority, Fatimid Law defined sex as the 'meeting of two circumcised parts', where by 'two circumcised' the early imams meant the penis and vulva, makes us infer that, by Fatimid law, women were expected to be circumcised. On the matter of female circumcision, al-Qadi al-Nu'man thus reported a tradition ascribed to 'Ali b. Abi Talib:

'O women, when you circumcise your daughters, leave part (of the labia or clitoris). For this will be chaster for their character, and it will make them more beloved by their husbands.' Finally, not unlike Islamic law in general, Fatimid Law permitted love play with a ritually impure or menstruating woman, provided that she wore an undergarment below the navel down to the knee.'" (2006, p. 222).

~ Excerpted from "Women and the Fatimids in the World of Islam" by Delia Cortese (Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at Middlesex University, London) and Simonetta Calderini (Senior Lecturer in Islamic Studies at Roehampton University, London).

The First Ayatollah!

2010-01-01T14:23:00.000-08:00

Since Iran is consistently in the news, I thought it would be useful to understand a little about the origins of the Ayatollahs. Heinz Halm, from the University of Tubingen, provides a sound historical background to the development of "Shia Islam - From Religion to Revolution:"

"His true name was al-Hasan ibn Yusuf ibn Ali ibn al-Mutahhar, though even many Shi'ites do not know him by this name. He is known to all Shi'ites by his honorific epithet al-Allama al-Hilli - "the most learned one of al-Hilla." He was also the first scholar to bear the title Ayatullah (sign of God). At that time it was merely an honorary name; only later was it introduced to denote a certain status within a hierarchy.

The Allama was born in 1250, shortly before the Mongol invasion. He studied in al-Hilla under his father and uncle and later went to Tabriz in Azerbaijan to the court of the Mongol Khan...Oljeitu. He even succeeded in winning the trust of the khan and converting him to shi'ism....Oljeitu had the names of the twelve imams embossed onto the coins, but this remained an isolated episode; succeeding Mongol rulers of Iran converted back to Sunnism. The Allama died in 1325 and was buried near the grave of the eighth imam in Mashad, where he is honored today as a saint.

The most significant theoretical accomplishment of Allama al-Hilli was the development of the principle of ijtihad legal ruling based on rational considerations. The foundation of the rule of mullahs in present day Iran lies in this principle.

The starting point of all theoretical considerations is how to answer questions of a religious, juridical nature if they are not definitively clarified by the Quranic revelation or a saying of an imam (a modern example discussed below is that of birth control). We recall that in Shi'ism, only fourteen persons are considered infallible: the Prophet Muhammad, his daughter Fatima and the twelve imams. Thirteen of them are dead; one is hidden and thus inaccessible. All other people are subject to error. No one can claim infallibility. What procedure must be taken if a problem cannot be solved by referring to the transmitted statements - which are limited? This is where human reason comes in: God gave human beings reason to be used to discover His will. If no answer is offered by tradition (naql) then one must gain help from the intellect (aql). A solution so reached, however, like all human decisions, is fallible and therefore subject to revision any time.

This rational effort to solve problems is expressed through the Arabic word ijtihad, a verbal noun denoting "making of an effort." The word is related to the familiar term jihad (effort, action), used to denote the struggle for the attainment of God's purpose on earth. The participle of ijtihad is mujtahid, translating approximately as "the effort-making one." This is a central term; the influence of present-day ayatolllahs lies in the fact that they are mujtahids." (1999, pp. 102-103).

~ Excerpted from "Shi'a Islam: From Religion to Revolution" By Heinz Halm.

The Feminine in Islam

2009-12-17T18:39:00.000-08:00

In response to Fethi Benslama's questions about what happened to impede gender parity in Islam, here is an excerpt from Leila Ahmed's book "Women and Gender in Islam:

"'Umar's reign (634-44) is regarded as the period in which many of the major institutions of Islam originated, for 'Umar promulgated a series of religious, civil and penal ordinances, including stoning as punishment for adultery. He was harsh toward women in both private and public life: he was ill-tempered with his wives and physically assaulted them, and he sought to confine women to their homes and to prevent their attending prayers at the mosques. Unsuccessful in this last attempt, he instituted segregated prayers, appointing a separate Imam for each sex. He chose a male imam for the women, another departure from precedent, for it is known that Muhammad appointed a woman, Umm Waraka, to act as imam for her entire household, which included, so far as can be ascertained, men as well as women (Ibn Sa'd, 8:335). Moreover, after Muhammad's death 'Aisha and Umm Salama acted as imams for other women (Ibn Sa'd, 8:335-56). Contrary to Muhammad's practice, 'Umar also prohibited Muhammad's wives from going on pilgrimage ( a restriction lifted in the last year of his reign). This prohibition must have provoked the discontent of the Mothers of the Believers, although "history" has not recorded any opposition on the part of Muhammad's widows to 'Umar's attempt to prevent women from attending prayers at the mosques (Ibn Sa'd, 8:150). The consistent silence on such issues now speaks eloquently." (1992, pp. 60-61).

~Excerpted from "Women and Gender in Islam" by Leila Ahmed, PhD. She was professor of women's studies and Near Eastern studies at the U of Massachusetts, Amherst and is currently on the faculty at the Harvard Divinity School.

The Feminine at the birthplace of Islam

2009-12-12T12:34:00.000-08:00

Fethi Benslama's book "Psychoanalysis and the Challenge of Islam" does due diligence to the role of Woman in Islam. Benslama is a psychoanalyst who, although a secular thinker, identifies himself as a person of Muslim culture who rejects ready-made explanations of Islamic fundamentalism. Benslama teaches at the University of Paris VII and is the editor of the psychoanalytic journal Intersignes. Can we really have any doubt from this analysis of Khadija's role in the confirmation of the Prophetic vision that she was a full partner in birthing Allah's final revelation? The book is translated from the French by Robert Bononno:

"The Nights' Word

The first test of truth for Islam took place on a woman's lap. Although this statement seems unthinkable today within the Islamic order of discourse, there was a time when there was nothing shocking about it, for the scene of demonstration was transmitted and repeated by several generations of chroniclers, a chain that can be followed back to the seventh century. No doubt this is one of the symptoms of the torment I referred to earlier, which made origin unavailable in a fictional mode. Research efforts in the humanities on Islam and "Islamic thought," as we have been accustomed to calling it for some time, have contributed more than a little to making the fiction of origin inaccessible. In conventional research such scenes of demonstration are considered to belong on the scrap heap of history and are "barely good enough for literature." According to this research, we should look for reason in the machinery of concepts, in the major theological constructs; that is where the system's gold is hidden, its pure originary truth.

From the Angel's Greeting to Disrepute

Nonetheless, isn't the scene of the first, or initial, faith an important representation of a form of reason that refuses to hide its metaphysical side and accepts its power to affect us by presenting us with a scene of sharing and healing? Here, the founder, the man of the word of law, hallucinating, terrorized, repeatedly visited by an invisible being, wonders if he is possessed by a demon. Like someone comforting a child who suffers pain, a woman holds him on her lap to prove to him that the angel is an angel and to free him of his fear of madness. The scene clearly reveals that the representation of the origin of the Law in Islam needed the body of a woman to remove any doubt concerning man's reason and to help the angel place him on the path of the word. It is in this sense that we understand the angel's greeting to Khadija.

But what happened between this moment, when the woman mediates between man and the angel - in other words, when she assumes a posture of mediation between two mediators - and the moment when she becomes an auxiliary of the demon "whose wiles are great"; between the moment when she, through her unveiling, verifies the truth of the vision and the moment she must be veiled to protect the faithful from the sight of her charms; between the moment when she appears to possess a knowledge that predates the prophetic knowledge of the founder and the time when she will become the woman who "lacks reason and religion" (hadith); between the moment when she frees the Prophet from the suspicion of possession and the moment when she becomes the troubling creature who must be possessed, appropriated, and monitored, and whose submission will be stringently organized; in short, between the angel's greeting and woman's disrepute in Islam? It is with this question in mind that we must scrutinize the future of women in Islam. This is necessary if we are to have any chance of understanding what transpired over a brief period of time (roughly twenty years) that determined women's destiny until today, perpetuating a position that can only be described as extreme. This excess, its origin and its many justifications, indeed the entire network of humiliating attitudes and assertions concerning women, must be analyzed without indulgence, with the greatest precision, for the mechanisms of alienation are far more complex than they appear.

This scene seems to accredit the notion that there was a time when woman was the witness of truth, in the twofold sense that she acknowledged what took place and was the proof and the test of the truth of vision. Then there was another time when woman became deceitful, a trap and a ruse, an artifice (this is the meaning of the word kayd in Koran 12:28) that had to be masked, unmasked and controlled."
2009, pp. 143-145)

~ Excerpted from "Psychoanalysis and the Challenge of Islam" by Fathi Benslama

Mansur al-Hallaj and al-Fatiha

2009-10-10T21:00:00.000-07:00

I was stunned to read the following description of the execution of Mansur al-Hallaj which appeared in one of three lectures delivered at the School of Oriental Studies, the University of London in the summer of 1922 by Reynold A. Nicholson, Lecturer in Persian in the University of Cambridge, formerly Fellow of Trinity College:

"Ibrahim ibn Fatik relates as follows: When Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj was brought to be crucified, and saw the cross and the nails, he laughed so greatly and violently that tears flowed from his eyes. Then he turned to the people and seeing Shibli among them said to him, "O Abu Bakr, hast thou thy prayer-carpet with thee?" Shibli answered, "Yes, O Shaykh!" Hallaj bade him spread it out, which he did. Then Hallaj stepped forward and prayed two rak'as on it, and I was near to him. In the first rak'a he recited the Fatiha, and a verse of the Koran, namely,

Every soul shall taste of death. Ye shall
be given your full rewards on the day of
Resurrection, and whoso shall be put far from
Hell-fire and caused to enter Paradise, happy
is he! The present life is but the goods of vanity.
(Sura 3:182)

In the second rak'a he recited the Fatiha and a verse of the
Koran, namely,

We will surely try thee with somewhat of
fear and hunger and loss of wealth and lives
and fruits. And bring a message of joy unto
the patient who say, when an affliction befalls
them, "lo, we belong to God and to Him we
shall return" Those are they upon whom
are blessings from their Lord and mercy, and
those are in the right way.
(Sura 2:150-152).

And when he had finished, he uttered a prayer of which
I remember only these words:

...O Lord, I beseech Thee to make me
thankful for the grace Thou hast bestowed
upon me in concealing from the eyes of other
men what Thou hast revealed to me of the
splendours of Thy radiant countenance which
is without a form, and in making it lawful
for me to behold the mysteries of Thy inmost
conscience which Thou hast made unlawful to
other men. And these Thy servants who are
gathered to slay me, in zeal for Thy religion
and in desire to win Thy favour, pardon them
and have mercy upon them; for verily if Thou
hadst revealed to them what which Thou hast
revealed to me, they would not have done
what they have done; and if Thou hadst
hidden from me that which Thou hast hidden
from them, I should not have suffered this
tribulation. Glory unto Thee in whatsoever
Thou doest, and glory unto Thee in whatsoever
Thou willest.

Then he remained silent for a time, communing with his Lord,
until Abu'l-Harith, the executioner went and smote him on the
cheek, breaking his nose with the blow, so that the blood
gushed out. Thereat Shibli cried aloud and rent his garment
and fell in a swoon, and so did Abu'l-Husayn al-Wasiti and
a number of well-known Sufis. And it almost came to riot."
(1964, pp. 45-47)

~ Excerpted from "The Idea of Personality in Sufism" by
Reynold A. Nicholson.

Sigmund Freud on Sura 1:7 and Nabi Musa

2009-10-08T19:44:00.001-07:00

After returning to Santa Barbara from my visit to the Freud Museum in London on 09-09-09, I was compelled to read "Moses and Monotheism." This was on the heels of reading Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi's book "Freud's Moses - Judaism Terminable and Interminable" which I had bought at the Freud Museum gift shop. "Moses and Monotheism" was to be Freud's last book. In it he considers the role of Moses in the history of Judaism and the possible causes for the lasting influence that Moses had on his people. This might be considered Freud's commentary on Sura 1:7:

"Let us agree, therefore, that the great man influences his contemporaries in two ways: through his personality and through the idea for which he stands. This idea may lay stress on an old group of wishes in the masses, or point to a new aim for their wishes, or again, lure the masses by other means. Sometimes - and this is surely the more primitive effect - the personality alone exerts its influence, and the idea plays a decidedly subordinate part. Why the great man should rise to significance at all we have no doubt whatever. We know that the great majority of people have a strong need for authority which they can admire, to which they can submit, and which dominates and sometimes even ill-treats them. We have learned from the psychology of the individual whence comes this need of the masses. It is the longing for the father that lives in each of us from his childhood days, for the same father whom the hero of legend boasts of having overcome. And now it begins to dawn on us that all the features with which we furnish the great man are traits of the father, that in this similarity lies the essence, which so far has eluded us, of the great man. The decisiveness of thought, the strength of will, the forcefulness of his deeds, belong to the picture of the father; above all other things, however, the self-reliance and independence of the great man, his divine conviction of doing the right thing, which may pass into ruthlessness. He must be admired, he may be trusted, but one cannot help also being afraid of him. We should have taken a cue from the word itself: who else but the father should in childhood have been the great man?

Without doubt it must have been a tremendous father imago that stooped in the person of Moses to tell the poor Jewish labourers that they were his dear children. And the conception of a unique, eternal, omnipotent God could not have been less overwhelming for them: he who thought them worthy to make a bond with him promised to take care of them if only they remained faithful to his worship. Probably they did not find it easy to separate the image of the man Moses from that of his God, and their instinct was right in this, since Moses might very well have incorporated into the character of his God some of his own traits, such as his irascibility and implacability. And when they killed this great man they only repeated an evil deed which in primeval times had been a law directed against the divine king, and which as we know, derives from a still older prototype." (1939, pp. 139-141).

~ Excerpted from "Moses and Monotheism" by Sigmund Freud.

On the Meaning of the Straight Path

2009-09-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

Nasir Khusraw was a leading Shia Ismaili poet and theologian-philosopher of the eleventh century (1004 to circa 1088 CE). In an English translation of his Gushayish wa Rahayish by Faquir Hunzai, Khusraw explains his understanding of the Siratal Mustaqim:

On the Meaning of the Straight Path

(168) O brother! You asked: 'What is the sirat (lit. path, way, bridge)? It is said that the sirat is stretched over hell, that it is thinner than an hair and sharper than a sword, and all people have to cross it. The fortunate ones cross it and reach paradise, whereas the unfortunate ones fall from it into hell. Explain, so that we may know.'

(169) Know, O brother, that (the word) sirat (in Persian, rah) means a path or a way. The path is of two kinds: one is the external path that the people walk upon the surface of the earth, and the other is the path which people follow with their souls in goodness and badness. Had the path stretched over hell been the only one which people have to cross, God in His book would not have mentioned it in the Surat al-hamd and commanded us to remember Him so that He would show us the path, as He says in the verse: 'Guide us to the straight path (al-sirat al-mustaqim)'. (1:5) Since He has commanded us to seek the straight path, it is a proof that on the path which is not straight but crooked is found that which is other than God. If God had made only one path on which we had to walk and traverse, He would not have commanded us to say this prayer. (The straight path is the way of those upon whom God has bestowed His favours, and they are the prophets,the truthful, the witnesses, and the righteous.) As He says: ('All who obey God and the Messenger are in the company of those) upon whom God has bestowed (His) favours: the prophets (nabiyyin) the truthful (siddiqin), the witnesses (shuhada), and the righteous (salihin). (4:69)

(170) Thus, it is established that the sirat is not (a path for the body) but the path of the soul which it should traverse, because God obliged (this path) first for the prophets, then their legatees (wasis) and the true Imams, and then their (proofs (hujjats)), as mentioned. These are the ones whom God has obliged: the prophets who are the Messengers, and they are so called because they convey the news of that world to the people; 'the truthful' by which He means the legatees who (expounded) the ta'wil of the shari'at and the book to the people, and by so doing disclosed the reality of the parables which they contained and provided to the wise that the Messengers are truthful; by 'the witnesses' are meant the true Imams as they are witnesses of God among the people; and by 'the righteous' are meant their (proofs) because of the betterment of the souls of people is due to them.

(171) When we come to know that the sirat is the path of the soul and not a path for the body, and with regard to what has been said that it stretches over hell, that it is thinner than an hair and sharper than a sword, that people have to traverse it in order to reach paradise, and if they fall from it they reach the eternal fire - all this is correct, but it is necessary to know its esoteric meaning (ta'wil), not (merely) the exoteric description. Thus we say that the sirat has the status of man (who is positioned) between animality and angelicity, and is required to walk on it straight because unless he traverses it he will be unable to reach paradise. Paradise is the higher (spiritual) world and hell is the fire which surrounds this lower (material) world. The ta'wil of this statement is that paradise means our liberation from the world of animality, and hell means to remain in that (animal) nature. If man practices the shari'at without understanding its ta'wil, then he makes himself into an animal, he inclines towards the left hand and falls into hell from the sirat. If he acquires (esoteric) knowledge, but does not practice the shari'at while claiming angelicity, he inclines towards the right hand and falls into hell from the sirat. However, when man walks on the path of humanity, in which he has a share from both animality and angelicity - that is, he does the work which is the share of his body and acquires knowledge which is the share of his soul - he walks on the straight path (sirat-i mustaqim); then when he traverses the sirat he is said to have reached paradise. This is so because having walked on the straight path using both knowledge and practice, when his soul leaves the body which is his sirat, he reaches the higher world, the place of angels and the true paradise." (1998, pp. 104-106).

~ Excerpted from "Knowledge and Liberation - A Treatise on Philosophical Theology" by Nasir Khusraw, edited and translated by Faquir M Hunzai.

Depth Psychology and Imaginal psychology in Islam

2009-09-02T10:38:00.000-07:00

Depth psychotherapy was clearly not unfamiliar in the Muslim world. Dr. Ihsan Al-Issa,Ph.D, editor of "Al-Junun: Mental Illness in the Islamic World" describes two depth psychotherapeutic interventions including one by the renowned physician and polymath,Ibn Sina(d. 1037):

"In the same vein, Ibn Sina treated a deluded prince who imagined himself to be a cow. He would low and urge that he should be killed so that his flesh would be cooked in to a stew. He stopped eating and his life was in danger. The patient was told that a butcher was coming to kill him. With a knife in his hand, Ibn Sina entered the patent's room with two attendants saying, "Where is this cow that I may kill?" The patient made a noise like a cow. Ibn Sina ordered that the patient's hands and feet be bound. Putting his hand on the patient's side, he said, "He is very lean and not fit to be killed; he must eat fodder until he is fat." The patient ate in the hope that he might become fat and they might kill him, but within a month he was completely recovered (Browne, 1921). Ibn Abi Usaybia cited by Burgel (1973) reported a similar delusional case treated by Ibn Malka. The patient believed that he carried a precious vase on his head and feared its being knocked off. Ibn Malka arranged so that one of his assistants threw a similar vase down from the roof at the same m oment when another assistant pretended to knock down the imagery vase off the patient's head. This was a shock to the patient who believed that it was his vase that was broken and in this way he lost his delusion. It is important to note that both ancient and medieval physicians tended to reinforce the patient's delusion as an initial point in the process of therapy instead of denying the "reality" of these delusions as it is usually practiced in modern psychiatry." (2000, pp.60-61).

Clearly, Islam was able to adopt this Galenic approach to psychological treatment in the Medieval period to obtain the necessary results for effective treatment. This approach is fully validated by contemporary theory in imaginal psychology.

Al-Fatiha in Prophetic Medicine

2009-07-09T08:08:00.000-07:00

Peter Pormann and Emilie Savage-Smith write about the healing power of al-Fatiha in their book "Medieval Islamic Medicine:"

"Treatises on Prophetic Medicine also advocated in varying degrees folkloric and magical remedies in addition to numerous invocations for warding off afflictions and protecting from jinn and the Evil Eye. The early tract based on Shi'ie imams had, for example, the following prescriptions:

He (the Prophet) said: 'Keep many domestic animals (dawajin) in your houses so that the demons are occupied with them instead of your children.'

(The imam Ja'far ibn Muhammad) al-Sadiq said to him (one of his clients whose fever would not subside): 'Undo the buttons of your shirt and put your head in it. Recite the call to prayer (adhan) and the introduction to prayer (iqamah), and recite seven times the 'surah of praise' (Al-Hamd, that is, the 'Opening', al-Fatihah, no.1).' The man said: 'I did that and recovered as quickly as a camel loosened from its cord.'

He (al-Sadiq) said to him (someone suffering from colic (or intestinal obstructon, qawlanj): 'Write for him the opening (surah) of the Qur'an (al-Fatihah, no.1), the surah 'Purity' (al-Iklhas, no. 112), and two surahs for seeking protection (al-ma'udhatan, the last two surahs of the Qur'an, 'Dawn', al-Falaq, and 'People', al-Nas, nos. 113 and 114). Then write underneath: "I take refuge in the presence of God, the Great, and in His might, which is unceasing, and in His power, which nothing can resist, from th evil of this pain, and the evil within it." Then swallow it with rainwater on an empty stomach. You will be cured of it, God the Exalted permitting.' " (2007, p. 150).

~Excerpted from "Medieval Islamic Medicine" by Peter E. Porman and Emilie Savage-Smith.

Renowned clinical intervention in Medieval Islamic Society

2009-07-08T20:49:00.000-07:00

Dr. Taha Baasher recounts the following story in "World History of Psychiatry". The modern reader is reminded that the Abbasid court of Harun al-Rashid (786-809) represented an era that was patriarchal and from the modern perspective, probably sexist. However, the court physician was the most trusted and reputable medical practitioner in the land:

"An often quoted example is the story of Harun el Rashid's maid, who developed what appeared to be a state of hysterical conversion, involving her right upper limb. The maid lifted her hand up and could not bring it down. Massage and other physical treatments were of no avail. Gabriel (Gibreel Ibn Bakkhta Yashue), the court physician, in the presence of the Caliph and his entourage, pinched the maid from behind, and unconsciously the up-lifted arm dropped down. Though the explanation given by Gabriel was based on humor pathology, his therapeutic approach was obviously psychological." (1975, p. 557).

~ Excerpted from "World History of Psychiatry" edited by John G. Howells

Sura 1:5's healing force

2009-07-08T20:31:00.000-07:00

Dr. Taha Baasher, a Sudanese psychiatrist writes this in "World History of Psychiatry:"

"Obviously the whole Koran is endowed with sacred blessing (baraka), but there are certain passages or chapters which are more concerned with healing holiness. The passage in the first chapter which states "to thee we worship and into ye we take refuge" is of central importance in incantation and treatment in general, because of its particular submission to God. References are also to the prophet's consideration of the emotional side of treatment. Muslims were urged to relieve patients of their emotional tensions when visiting them."(1975, p.555).

~ Excerpted from "World History of Psychiatry" edited by John G. Howells

Mental Illness in Islam

2009-06-30T13:55:00.000-07:00

I came across an interesting journal article, entitled "Egyptian contribution to the concept of mental health" which was published in the Egyptian Mediterranean Health Journal, Volume 7, No. 3, May 2001, pp. 377-380 by A. Okasha, professor of Psychiatry at Ain Shams University in Cairo:

"Islamic era

The approach of Islam to mental illness can be traced most importantly to the Holy Quran. The most common word used to refer to the mad person, i.e. insane or psychotic, in the Quran is majnoon. The word is originally derived from the word jinn (the word jinn in Arabic has a common origin with words with different connotations and can refer to a shelter, screen, shield, paradise, embryo and madness). The Islamic concept of the insane that the sufferer is possessed by a jinn should not be confused with the concept of possession in the Middle Ages. In Islam, a jinn is not necessarily a demon, i.e. an evil spirit. It is a supernatural spirit, lower than the angels, that can be either good or bad. It has the power to assume human and animal forms. Some jinn are believers, listen to the Quran and help humans. Moreover, Islam is not only concerned with human beings but also with the spiritual world at large. In the Quran the jinn and the human being are almost always mentioned together. This has altered the concept and management of the mentally ill; although a person may be perceived as being possessed, the possession may be by a good or a bad spirit. Consequently one cannot generalize punishment or condemn unconditionally [5].

Apart from the concept of the mentally ill person being possessed, Islam has another positive concept where such an individual is seen as the one who dares to be innovative, original or creative, or attempts to find alternatives to a static and stagnant mode of living. This is to be found in various attitudes towards certain mystic philosophies such as Sufism, where the expansion of self and consciousness has been taken as a rationale to label some Sufis as psychotic. The writings of various Sufis do indeed reveal the occurrence of psychotic symptoms and much mental suffering in their quest for to self-salvation.

A third concept of mental illness is that there is disharmony or constriction of consciousness, which non-believers are susceptible to. This concept holds that there is a denaturing of our basic structure and disruption of our harmonious existence by egotism, detachment or alienation [5].

Islam also identified the unity of the body and the psyche. The psyche (elnafs) is mentioned 185 times in the Quran as a broad reference to human existence, meaning at different times body, behaviour, affect, and/or conduct, i.e. a total psycho- somatic unity.

The teaching of the great clinician Rhazes had a profound influence on Arab as well as European medicine. The two most important books of Rhazes are El-mansuri and Al-hawi. The first includes the definition and nature of temperaments and a comprehensive guide to physiognomy. Al-hawi is the greatest medical encyclopedia produced by a Muslim physician. It is the first clinical book presenting the complaints, signs, differential diagnosis and effective treatment of an illness. One hundred years later, Avicenna wrote Al qanun fi al-tibb, which was a monumental, educational and scientific book with better classification [5].

The first Islamic mental hospital appears to have been established in the early ninth century in Baghdad and to have been modelled on the Eastern Christian institutions, which seem to have been mainly monastic infirmaries. Among the hospitals that appeared throughout the Islamic world, perhaps the most famous one was the 14th century Kalaoon Hospital established in Cairo by the Sultan al-Mansour Kalaoon in 683 AH/1284 AD [6]. It had sections for surgery, ophthalmology, and medical and mental illnesses. Contributions by the wealthy of Cairo allowed a high standard of medical care and provided for patients during convalescence until they were gainfully occupied. Two features were striking: the care of mental patients in a general hospital and the involvement of the community in the welfare of the patients; these foreshadowed modern trends by many centuries [3]."

~ Excerpted from an article by Professor A. Okasha, Faculty of Psychiatry and Director of WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Mental Health, Institute of Psychiatry at Ain Shams University in Cairo.

Islam's contribution to Psychology

2009-06-27T00:51:00.000-07:00

As part of my doctoral dissertation research, I had to go back and find out if and how Islam made any contributions to the field of psychology.

In fact,Islam has received sparse attention for its contributions in the field of psychology, even though one of the first known texts on the interpretation of dreams was done by a Muslim from Basra, Muhammad Ibn Seerin (d. circa 729), whose work on dream interpretation appeared in a text published a few years after his death. Peter Adamson, in his detailed analysis on the thought of al-Kindi (d. 860), identifies the renowned philosopher as one of the first Muslim thinkers to reflect on the faculty of imagination: “Al-Kindi explores imagination most deeply in a treatise devoted to the phenomenon of prophetic dreams, entitled On Sleep and Dream.” (2007 p. 135). Adamson also notes “that al-Kindi consistently speaks of humans as possessing a power of “choice (ikhtiyar)” and “volition (irada).” But it would be too quick to conclude from this that that he makes human actions exempt from celestial causation. Perhaps the stars causally determine the choices we make, even though we are still choosing in a meaningful sense.” (p. 200).

Majid Fakhry writes that Al-Farabi (d. circa 950) attempted to explain phenomena “such as dreams, prognostication (kahanah), vision (ru’ya) and the prophetic office (nubuwwah), which is for him the highest stage attainable by humankind, through the use of the imaginative faculty.” (2002, pp. 90-91). Al-Farabi explored the topic where al-Kindi left off.

Lenn Goodman (2006), in his updated biography on Ibn Sina (d.1037) the physician renowned in the West as Avicenna, for his Canon on Medicine, explains Ibn Sina’s treatise on the substance of the soul. Ibn Sina was also one who viewed the brain as the seat of cognition and perception. Ebrahim Moosa’s biography (2005) of Al-Ghazali (d.1111), recounts that the famous theologian acknowledged the brain as an organ of sensory perception but identified the intellect as the critical faculty for the perception of inner reality. “Ghazali pointed out that the intellect is actually more intimately related to the heart than to the brain.”(2005, p. 225). Al-Tirmidhi (d.912) had much earlier identified the heart, and its inner four stations, as the most important human organ, as described by Robert Frager in “Heart, Self & Soul”(1999). Fakhry (2001) in his biography of Ibn Rushd (d.1198), known in the West as Averroes, recounts that the physician and jurist, expounded on a theory of knowledge, the faculties of the soul including memory and recollection, and the faculty of imagination.

According to Pormann & Savage-Smith in “Medieval Islamic Medicine,” the first hospitals were built in Baghdad in the 10th Century and “the care for the insane in hospitals was unprecedented and an important part of even the earliest Islamic hospitals.” (2007, p. 101). Michael Dols in his classic text: “Majnun: The Madman in Medieval Islamic Society” suggests that “the earliest evidence for the institutional care of the insane is the report that mentions the mentally disturbed patients in the hospital that was founded in al-Qatai, which was in the south-western quarter of present-day Cairo, by Ahmad ibn Tulun, the Abbasid governor of Egypt, in AD 872-3” (1992, p. 117). According to Dols, Al-Kindi opined that “homosexuality was not unnatural because it was practiced by animals” (1992. p. 98) and realized the therapeutic value of music: “Concerning its therapeutic value, al-Kindi integrated music thoroughly with the humoral theory: all notes, melodies, and rhythms had a humoral value.”(p. 169).

The first work on psychopathology was written by al-Tabari (d. 870), who, according to Dols, “used the tripartite division of the brain to locate psychic disorders” (p. 91). Dols reports that “Islamic physicians followed Galen in attributing a wide range of conditions to the malfunctioning of the brain.” (p. 91). Al-Razi (d. 925), the great Baghdad clinician, known as Rhazes, described symptoms and treatments for mental disorders especially melancholia. Pormann & Savage-Smith explain that in his “treatise On Spiritual Medicine”, Al-Razi makes the “case for the pursuit of pure knowledge and avoidance of the ‘afflictions of the soul’.” (2007, p. 48).

Finally, two great Sufis contributed to our understanding of Imaginal psychology through their notion of ‘alam al-mithal’ the imaginal realms. Suhrawardi (executed in 1191), the Persian theosopher, whose experiences of suprasensory reality are recounted in his Book of Conversations, inspired Henri Corbin’s posthumously published essay entitled “Mundus Imaginalis” in “Swedenborg and Esoteric Islam” (1995), and Ibn al-Arabi, (d. 1240) the inspired Andalusian Sufi Master personally experienced and wrote profusely about the world of imagination and its imaginal realms, as described by William Chittick in “Imaginal Worlds.” (1994).

The term psychology may not have been used by these Muslims of the past but the work of knowledge of the self and its regressive instincts and the knowledge of the refinement of the human soul have received consistent and steady attention since the birth of Islam to the present day. However, the notion that Islam has, or could have, its own psychology, per se, has not been a part of mainstream tradition. With the exception of the Sufis who pursued the mystical dimension of Islam and its alchemical transformations of the soul, resulting in the emergence of a Sufi psychology, no other corpus of a contemporary psychology of Islam exists.

In stark contrast, over the past one hundred years, in the Western tradition of the psychology of religion, the most prominent thinkers from William James, Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung to Abraham Maslow, Roberto Assagioli and Eric Fromm, from Murray Stein to Edward Edinger and others, have all engaged in diverse psychological inquiries within the context of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. The same cannot be said of the psychology of religion as it pertains to Islam, either by Western thinkers or by Muslim intellectuals and physicians.

In evolving a contemporary psychology of Islam, any reliance on or influence from non-Muslim sources may, in certain important quarters, be considered objectionable or unacceptable to many Muslims. However, to suggest that the psychology of religion, as a Western epistemology, has nothing to add to the understanding of contemporary Islam merely limits the faith to a myopic perspective both for practitioners of Islam and for Muslim practitioners of modern psychology. This myopia also limits access to those who seek to appreciate not only the rich spiritual heritage of Islam but also its relevance and potential universal application to the well-being of humanity. Moreover, to suggest that Islam lacks the capacity to embrace Western knowledge systems debases the original message of Islam. The Qur'an and the Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him) have always claimed that it was to be a universal message for humankind. The Prophet himself exhorted the faithful to seek knowledge even in China. An entire civilization evolved, expanded and flourished because Islam was once an open epistemological system.

The other side of Siratal Mustaqim

2009-06-20T14:37:00.000-07:00

Truth is a Pathless Land

The Dissolution of the Order of the Star

The Order of the Star in the East was founded in 1911 to proclaim the coming of the World Teacher. Krishnamurti was made Head of the Order. On August 2, 1929, the opening day of the annual Star Camp at Ommen, Holland, Krishnamurti dissolved the Order before 3000 members. Below is the full text of the talk he gave on that occasion.

Truth is a Pathless Land
by J Krishnamurti

We are going to discuss this morning the dissolution of the Order of the Star. Many people will be delighted, and others will be rather sad. It is a question neither for rejoicing nor for sadness, because it is inevitable, as I am going to explain.

You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, "What did that man pick up?" "He picked up a piece of Truth," said the devil. "That is a very bad business for you, then," said his friend. "Oh, not at all," the devil replied, "I am going to let him organize it."

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others. This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountain-top to the valley. If you would attain to the mountain-top you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices.

So that is the first reason, from my point of view, why the Order of the Star should be dissolved.

In spite of this, you will probably form other Orders, you will continue to belong to other organizations searching for Truth. I do not want to belong to any organization of a spiritual kind, please understand this. I would make use of an organization which would take me to London, for example; this is quite a different kind of organization, merely mechanical, like the post or the telegraph. I would use a motor car or a steamship to travel, these are only physical mechanisms which have nothing whatever to do with spirituality. Again, I maintain that no organization can lead man to spirituality.

If an organization be created for this purpose, it becomes a crutch, a weakness, a bondage, and must cripple the individual, and prevent him from growing, from establishing his uniqueness, which lies in the discovery for himself of that absolute, unconditioned Truth. So that is another reason why I have decided, as I happen to be the Head of the Order, to dissolve it. No one has persuaded me to this decision.

This is no magnificent deed, because I do not want followers, and I mean this. The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth. I am not concerned whether you pay attention to what I say or not. I want to do a certain thing in the world and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies. Then you will naturally ask me why I go the world over, continually speaking. I will tell you for what reason I do this: not because I desire a following, not because I desire a special group of special disciples. (How men love to be different from their fellow-men, however ridiculous, absurd and trivial their distinctions may be! I do not want to encourage that absurdity.) I have no disciples, no apostles, either on earth or in the realm of spirituality.

Nor is it the lure of money, nor the desire to live a comfortable life, which attracts me. If I wanted to lead a comfortable life I would not come to a Camp or live in a damp country! I am speaking frankly because I want this settled once and for all. I do not want these childish discussions year after year.

One newspaper reporter, who interviewed me, considered it a magnificent act to dissolve an organization in which there were thousands and thousands of members. To him it was a great act because, he said:

What will you do afterwards, how will you live? You will have no following, people will no longer listen to you.” If there are only five people who will listen, who will live, who have their faces turned towards eternity, it will be sufficient. Of what use is it to have thousands who do not understand, who are fully embalmed in prejudice, who do not want the new, but would rather translate the new to suit their own sterile, stagnant selves? If I speak strongly, please do not misunderstand me, it is not through lack of compassion. If you go to a surgeon for an operation, is it not kindness on his part to operate even if he cause you pain? So, in like manner, if I speak straightly, it is not through lack of real affection -- on the contrary.

As I have said, I have only one purpose: to make man free, to urge him towards freedom, to help him to break away from all limitations, for that alone will give him eternal happiness, will give him the unconditioned realization of the self.

Because I am free, unconditioned, whole -- not the part, not the relative, but the whole Truth that is eternal -- I desire those, who seek to understand me to be free; not to follow me, not to make out of me a cage which will become a religion, a sect. Rather should they be free from all fears -- from the fear of religion, from the fear of salvation, from the fear of spirituality, from the fear of love, from the fear of death, from the fear of life itself. As an artist paints a picture because he takes delight in that painting, because it is his self-expression, his glory, his well-being, so I do this and not because I want anything from anyone.

You are accustomed to authority, or to the atmosphere of authority, which you think will lead you to spirituality. You think and hope that another can, by his extraordinary powers -- a miracle -- transport you to this realm of eternal freedom which is Happiness. Your whole outlook on life is based on that authority.

You have listened to me for three years now, without any change taking place except in the few. Now analyze what I am saying, be critical, so that you may understand thoroughly, fundamentally. When you look for an authority to lead you to spirituality, you are bound automatically to build an organization around that authority. By the very creation of that organization, which, you think, will help this authority to lead you to spirituality, you are held in a cage.

If I talk frankly, please remember that I do so, not out of harshness, not out of cruelty, not out of the enthusiasm of my purpose, but because I want you to understand what I am saying. That is the reason why you are here, and it would be a waste of time if I did not explain clearly, decisively, my point of view.

For eighteen years you have been preparing for this event, for the Coming of the World Teacher. For eighteen years you have organized, you have looked for someone who would give a new delight to your hearts and minds, who would transform your whole life, who would give you a new understanding; for someone who would raise you to a new plane of life, who would give you a new encouragement, who would set you free -- and now look what is happening! Consider, reason with yourselves, and discover in what way that belief has made you different -- not with the superficial difference of the wearing of a badge, which is trivial, absurd. In what manner has such a belief swept away all the unessential things of life? That is the only way to judge: in what way are you freer, greater, more dangerous to every Society which is based on the false and the unessential? In what way have the members of this organization of the Star become different?
As I said, you have been preparing for eighteen years for me. I do not care if you believe that I am the World-Teacher or not. That is of very little importance. Since you belong to the organization of the Order of the Star, you have given your sympathy, your energy, acknowledging that Krishnamurti is the World-Teacher -- partially or wholly: wholly for those who are really seeking, only partially for those who are satisfied with their own half-truths.
You have been preparing for eighteen years, and look how many difficulties there are in the way of your understanding, how many complications, how many trivial things. Your prejudices, your fears, your authorities, your churches new and old -- all these, I maintain, are a barrier to understanding. I cannot make myself clearer than this. I do not want you to agree with me, I do not want you to follow me, I want you to understand what I am saying.

This understanding is necessary because your belief has not transformed you but only complicated you, and because you are not willing to face things as they are. You want to have your own gods -- new gods instead of the old, new religions instead of the old, new forms instead of the old -- all equally valueless, all barriers, all limitations, all crutches. Instead of old spiritual distinctions you have new spiritual distinctions, instead of old worships you have new worships. You are all depending for your spirituality on someone else, for your happiness on someone else, for your enlightenment on someone else; and although you have been preparing for me for eighteen years, when I say all these things are unnecessary, when I say that you must put them all away and look within yourselves for the enlightenment, for the glory, for the purification, and for the incorruptibility of the self, not one of you is willing to do it. There may be a few, but very, very few.

So why have an organization?

Why have false, hypocritical people following me, the embodiment of Truth? Please remember that I am not saying something harsh or unkind, but we have reached a situation when you must face things as they are. I said last year that I would not compromise. Very few listened to me then. This year I have made it absolutely clear. I do not know how many thousands throughout the world -- members of the Order -- have been preparing for me for eighteen years, and yet now they are not willing to listen unconditionally, wholly, to what I say.

As I said before, my purpose is to make men unconditionally free, for I maintain that the only spirituality is the incorruptibility of the self which is eternal, is the harmony between reason and love. This is the absolute, unconditioned Truth which is Life itself. I want therefore to set man free, rejoicing as the bird in the clear sky, unburdened, independent, ecstatic in that freedom . And I, for whom you have been preparing for eighteen years, now say that you must be free of all these things, free from your complications, your entanglements. For this you need not have an organization based on spiritual belief. Why have an organization for five or ten people in the world who understand, who are struggling, who have put aside all trivial things? And for the weak people, there can be no organization to help them to find the Truth, because Truth is in everyone; it is not far, it is not near; it is eternally there.

Organizations cannot make you free. No man from outside can make you free; nor can organized worship, nor the immolation of yourselves for a cause, make you free; nor can forming yourselves into an organization, nor throwing yourselves into works, make you free. You use a typewriter to write letters, but you do not put it on an altar and worship it. But that is what you are doing when organizations become your chief concern.

How many members are there in it?” That is the first question I am asked by all newspaper reporters.

How many followers have you? By their number we shall judge whether what you say is true or false.” I do not know how many there are. I am not concerned with that. As I said, if there were even one man who had been set free, that were enough.

Again, you have the idea that only certain people hold the key to the Kingdom of Happiness. No one holds it. No one has the authority to hold that key. That key is your own self, and in the development and the purification and in the incorruptibility of that self alone is the Kingdom of Eternity.

So you will see how absurd is the whole structure that you have built, looking for external help, depending on others for your comfort, for your happiness, for your strength. These can only be found within yourselves.

You are accustomed to being told how far you have advanced, what is your spiritual status. How childish! Who but yourself can tell you if you are beautiful or ugly within? Who but yourself can tell you if you are incorruptible? You are not serious in these things.

But those who really desire to understand, who are looking to find that which is eternal, without beginning and without an end, will walk together with a greater intensity, will be a danger to everything that is unessential, to unrealities, to shadows. And they will concentrate, they will become the flame, because they understand. Such a body we must create, and that is my purpose. Because of that real understanding there will be true friendship. Because of that true friendship -- which you do not seem to know -- there will be real cooperation on the part of each one. And this not because of authority, not because of salvation, not because of immolation for a cause, but because you really understand, and hence are capable of living in the eternal. This is a greater thing than all pleasure, than all sacrifice.

So these are some of the reasons why, after careful consideration for two years, I have made this decision. It is not from a momentary impulse. I have not been persuaded to it by anyone. I am not persuaded in such things. For two years I have been thinking about this, slowly, carefully, patiently, and I have now decided to disband the Order, as I happen to be its Head. You can form other organizations and expect someone else. With that I am not concerned, nor with creating new cages, new decorations for those cages. My only concern is to set men absolutely, unconditionally free.”

© Copyright 2000 -- KFA™; All Rights Reserved Krishnamurti Foundation of America™.
END

President Obama on the Ethics of Islam

2009-06-05T12:11:00.000-07:00

In an inspiring speech made by President Barak Hussein Obama at the University of Cairo on June 4, 2009, in an attempt to jump start a "new beginning" between the USA and the Muslim world, he reminded his audience that:

"The holy Quran teaches that whoever kills an innocent is as — it is as it if he has killed all mankind.

And the holy Quran also says whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind.

The enduring faith of over a billion people is so much bigger than the narrow hatred of a few. Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism; it is an important part of promoting peace."

Psyche and the Sacred

2009-05-23T20:35:00.000-07:00

Dr. Lionel Corbett, M.D, professor of Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute offers some remarkable insights into a Depth Psychology of Evil in his book "Psyche and the Sacred."
Perhaps these are some of the notions we might consider when formulating an Integral Psychology of Islam in pursuing a psychological hermeneutic of al-Fatiha, particularly Sura 1:7 on the Siratal Mustaqeem:

"Each of us has his or her own way of dealing with our sense of our darkness, even though traditional religions have a great deal to say about good and bad behavior and require us to comply with the moral standards they set. These dictates are not difficult to follow if they coincide with our personality. But most of us have to struggle with our impulses and desires when we attempt to adhere to the standards of traditional morality. We may have to suppress them - that is, we consciously use our willpower to inhibit our less acceptable impulses, albeit at the cost of a vague feeling of guilt, which must constantly be assuaged. In order to comply with what is considered socially acceptable, we have to repress our desires, with the result that we prevent ourselves from even becoming aware of the negative impulse. While this enables us to keep our guilt out of consciousness, we then often project our badness onto others. When we find a scapegoat to carry our darkness, we are able to put on a moralistic and self-righteous front. The result is racial, ethnic, or gender prejudice, or some other kind of intolerance. The projection of one's own unconscious darkness onto others is at the root of wars, witch-burnings, genocide, progroms, Crusades, and the many massacres of heretics that pepper the history of Christianity. Alternatively, instead of projecting the shadow, we may simply dismiss it as unimportant; that is, we may be aware of it, but we do not admit its emotional significance. In the long run, these splitting mechanisms do not work; the shadow, that part of the personality that we would like to repudiate, leaks out, even from the saintliest of containers.

The use of splitting and projection onto others to maintain a sense of personal righteousness means that some aspect of our self has to be sacrificed as opposed to being faced consciously and worked through. When the shadow is denied, we may see a persona of goodness, a facade that hides the shadow but does not deal with it. It is dangerous to maintain such a radical split between good and evil. Some preachers of traditional Judeo-Christian morality are so identified with goodness and the official vales of the tradition that they are completely unconscious of their own shadow. But the denied aspects of the personality do not go away, and they may grow all the darker for being ignored. The shadow contents of the personality make periodic demands on the person. when the shadow breaks through, as it inevitably does in the form of sexual or financial misbehavior, those who once appeared to be paragons of virtue are often plunged into despair, because they are no longer able to use their preaching at others as a way of concealing their own difficulties.

THE UNCONSCIOUS UNDERPINNINGS OF EVIL BEHAVIOR

Preaching, teaching, prayer, confession and other traditional methods of dealing with the personal shadow are only partially successful because they focus exclusively on conscious attitudes. In the last one hundred years, depth psychology has discovered that there are powerful unconscious motivations for evil behavior. This discovery is important, because it is easier to deal with evil that we understand than with behavior that seems incomprehensible. The more clearly we understand what is driving evil behavior, the better able we will be to help people deal with it, and the less likely we will be simply to tell people not to do it. One of the insights of depth psychology is that the same behavior carried out by different people may have quite different unconscious sources. We cannot understand behavior without a grasp of these underpinnings. Therefore, in a depth-psychological approach to spirituality, it is not sufficient simply to label certain behavior as "sinful" without trying to understand its origins. Universal prescriptions for good behavior may be of little value in the individual case; it is not always helpful to tell people that they must grapple with their impulses and improve the flaws in their character; good advice alone may not be enough to deal with powerful complexes. We cannot get rid of the unconscious simply by making rules, so there is not much point in merely defining the "seven deadly sins" and declaring them forbidden. (Our legal system also recognizes that there are powerful emotional forces within the personality that may diminish the possibility of self-control.)

Human evil is at times more tragic than blameworthy. Sometimes people behave in evil ways in an attempt to master the evil that was inflicted on them. We often see destructive behavior resulting from childhood deprivation so severe that the person is unable to resist the forces that drive him or her to evil." (2007, pp. 145-147).

~ Excerpted from "Psyche and the Sacred -Spirituality beyond Religion" By Lionel Corbett, M.D.

A Reformist Translation of al-Fatiha

2009-04-21T08:35:00.000-07:00

The translators of the Reformist Translation of the Quran, Edip Yuksel, American-Turkish founder of Islamic Reform (www.yuksel.org), Layth Saleh al-Shaiban (founder of Progressive Muslims and co-founder of Islamic Reform) and Martha Schulte-Nafeh (Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in Near Eastern Studies - Arabic language and Linguistics 2004), claim that it

"offers a non-sexist understanding of the divine text; it is the result of collaboration between three translators, two men and a woman. We use logic and the language of the Quran itself as the ultimate authority in determining likely meanings, rather than previous scholarly interpretations. These interpretations, though sometimes useful as historical and scholarly reference resources, are frequently rendered inadequate for a modern understanding and practice of Islam because they were heavily influenced by patriarchal culture, relied heavily on the hearsay teachings falsely attributed to the prophet Muhammad, and were frequently driven by hidden or overt sectarian and political agendas. We therefore explicitly reject the right of the clergy to determine the likely meaning of disputed passages."

Their translation of al-Fatiha is rendered accordingly:

1:1 In the name of God, the Gracious, the Compassionate
1:2 Praise is to God, Lord of the Worlds.
1:3 The Gracious, the Compassionate.
1:4 Master of the day of Judgment.
1:5 You alone we serve; you alone we ask for help.
1:6 Guide us to the straight way;
1:7 the way of those whom you blessed; not of those who received anger, nor of the strayers.

The endnotes on 1:7 are interesting:

"001:007 Traditional commentaries attempt to restrict the negatively described groups to Christians and Jews. This self-righteous attitude has led the Muslim masses to ignore their own corruption and deviation from the straight path.

The Quran mentions communities as well as individuals who received retribution such as the people of Noah (26:25), the People of Thamud (7:78; 11:61-68), the People of Lot (26:160-175), the People of Madyan (11:84-95), Ayka (26:176-191), Aad (11:59-60); 26:123-140), and Pharoah (3:11; 11:96-99); 20:78-80)."

~ Excerpted from "Quran - A Reformist Translation", (2007, pp. 40-41)

Neurobiology and the Wrath of God in al-Fatiha

2009-04-15T10:46:00.000-07:00

According to Michael Gerson of the Calgary Herald in an article published today, Andrew Newberg is perhaps America's leading expert on religion's neurological basis. His book, "How God Changes Your Brain," coauthored with Mark Robert Waldman, summarizes years of ground breaking research on the biological basis of religious experience, with plenty to challenge skeptics and believers alike:

"Neuroscience cannot tell you if God does or doesn't exist," Newberg states with appropriate humility.Neurobiology helps explain religion; it does not explain it away. But Newberg's research offers warnings for the religious, too.

Contemplating a loving God strengthens portions of our brain where empathy and reason reside. But, contemplating a wrathful God empowers that part of the brain "filled with aggression and fear." It is a sobering concept: The God we choose to love changes us into his image, whether he exists or not. For Newberg, this is not a critique of fundamentalism, a phenomenon varied in its beliefs and motivations. It's a criticism of institutions that ally ideology or faith with anger and selfishness.

"The enemy is not religion," writes Newberg, "the enemy is anger, hostility,intolerance, separatism, extreme idealism, and prejudicial fear - be it secular, religious, or political."

Newberg employs a vivid image: two packs of neurological wolves, he says,are found in every brain. One pack is old and powerful, oriented toward survival and anger. The other is comprised of pups, the newer parts of thebrain, more creative and compassionate, "but they are also neurologically vulnerable and slow when compared to the activity in the emotional parts of the brain." So all human beings must ask: Which pack do we feed?

How God Changes Your Brain has a few limitations. In a practical, how-to tone, it predicts "an epiphany that can improve the inner quality of your life. For most Americans, that is what spirituality is about." But if this is what spirituality is all about, it isn't about very much. Mature faith involves self-sacrifice, not self-actualization; anguish, not comfort. If the primary goal of religion is escape or contentment, there are more practical ways.

"I didn't go to religion to make me happy," said C.S.Lewis, "I always knew a bottle of port would do that." Religious discussion must come down to truth. Can we escape the wheel of becoming, or hear God's voice in a wandering prophet, or meet a man once dead? Without such beliefs, religion is mere meditation. Newberg's research shows an amplified influence of religious practices on those who "truly believe." But Newberg himself has difficulty sharing such belief.

His research on the varieties of religious experience leave him skeptical about the capacity of the mind to accurately perceive "universal or ultimate truth." Yet, he told me, "To this day, I am still seeking and searching." And that is the most honest kind of science."

~ Excerpted from "Neurons at work in the mind's God-shaped gap" by Michael Gerson.
15 Apr 2009
Calgary Herald

Miraculous powers of the Basmalla

2009-03-29T13:34:00.000-07:00

"All power is from Allah Almighty, and we must always ask for His support, because we are in need, we are weak ones.Allah Almighty ordered His Beloved Prophet Muhammad (sal) to inform his Ummah that anything that is not begun with His Holy Name : "Bismillahir-Rahman-ir-Rahim", will never be supported by Allah; it means it will never give fruit, and it must fail.

If you say Allah's Holy Name, you will take benefit from that action, and any harm that may be in it will leave you. Whoever is feeling weak should say it, and power will come to his physical body and to his heart. The Basmalla is the most important key for opening all treasures in the Heavens and on earth, and for opening all forms of knowledge. Allah Almighty has put three thousand of His Holy Names in it: 1000 Names that are known only to the Angels, 1000 Names known by the Prophets, 999 Names contained in the 4 Holy Books, and His Greatest Name.

All of these Names are contained in the Basmalla. Whoever is able to reach to the secret power of the Basmalla should be dressed in miraculous powers. We, as servants of Allah, should say it at least 100 times daily. If a person continues for 40 days, he should find some power, some changes in himself, especially if he says it one thousand times between Fajr and sunrise. From unseen worlds, from Malakut beautiful views will appear to him. According to the thickness of the veils of his heart, from 1x 40 days, up to 7x 40 days, there should be an opening. If not, it means that his heart is too occupied with Dunya, and he should try to put Dunya last, and then try again.

It is a rule which can't be wrong. Even in one day it may be opened, because it is so powerful. Every time you say: "Bismillahir-Rahman-ir-Rahim", it means that you are remembering the Lord: "Oh My Lord, I am remembering You!" And then Allah says: "Oh My servant, I am remembering you!" Don't forget! If you forget, you will be forgotten."

Source:- Sohbet/Spiritual Talk by As-Sayyid Shaykh Muhammad Nazim al-Qubrusi ar-Rabbani al-Haqqani al-Hassani al-Husseini

Al-Fatiha's spot in the brain?

2009-03-11T09:45:00.000-07:00

Scientists searching for brain's 'God spot' find belief circuits

Scientists searching for the so-called "God spot" have identified parts of the brain which control religious belief.

By John Bingham Last Updated: 1:00PM GMT 10 Mar 2009

A study involving practising Christians, Muslims and Jews found that some areas of the cortex "light up" in response to religious statements.

Scans carried out on volunteers as they processed a series of remarks about God showed how areas of the brain which evolved more recently and not present in other animals were often more heavily involved – suggesting that faith is uniquely human.

"We're interested to find where in the brain belief systems are represented, particularly those that appear uniquely human," said Prof Jordan Grafman of the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, Maryland, who led the research.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, undermined the idea that a single area of the brain – nicknamed the God spot – controlled religious belief.
Instead, the scientists found that several different pieces of cerebral circuitry are used to process different aspects of religion.

A group of 40 volunteers, drawn from the main monotheistic religions, were asked to listen to a series of statements about God and asked to say whether they agreed or disagreed while having their brain scanned.

When statements about God being involved in the world were read, the lateral frontal lobe areas – one of the part of the brain which enables us to empathise with other people – were engaged.
But when it came to comments such as "God is wrathful", activity was centred on the medial temporal and frontal gyri.

And when more abstract or doctrinal questions were raised, it was the right inferior temporal gyrus – the circuitry which helps us understand metaphor – which was most engaged.

"Our results are unique in demonstrating that specific components of religious belief are mediated by well-known brain networks, and support contemporary psychological theories that ground religious belief within evolutionary adaptive cognitive functions," said Prof Grafman.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/4966118/Scientists-searching-for-brains-God-spot-find-belief-circuits.html

Alchemy in Islam

2009-03-03T15:28:00.000-08:00

Marie Louise von Franz, close collaborator of Depth psychoanalyst, C.G. Jung in his work on Alchemy offers this observation in her book "Psyche and Matter:"

"European alchemy therefore gradually died away. Its traditions moved to the North African realm, which remained pagan, especially to Mesopotamia, where later it flourished under Islamic rule. The Islamic culture has brought forth several important creative alchemists, such as Mohamed ibn Umail (tenth century), who became famous in later Western alchemy under the name of Senior (which is the translation of sheikh).

Jung has pointed out that Islam is a religion of pure eros. Accordingly, coniunctio symbolism, the hierosgamos of the sun and moon, plays a great role in the writings of Senior. In itself, the motif of the sacred coniunctio also springs from the Egyptian ritual of the dead and again comes up in the Komarios text, which I mentioned before. From then on, the motif of the hierosgamos, the sacred marriage, remained the central theme of alchemy. It denotes on the one hand chemical affinity and on the other the union of psychic opposites in the process of individuation, which Jung has so deeply interpreted in "The Psychology of Transference" and Mysterium Coniunctionis." (1992, p. 152).

~Excerpted from "Psyche and Matter" by Marie Louise von Franz, distinguished analyst and founder of the C.G Jung Institute in Zurich.

You Alone do We Worship

2009-02-25T21:20:00.000-08:00

Written by Fethullah Gülen, Wednesday, 13 February 2008 21:00

You alone do we worship. (Fatiha 1:5)

In this phrase, the object pronoun "You alone" (iyyaka) is placed before the predicate. This implies a very subtle point: "O God, we wholeheartedly proclaim, acknowledge, and confess that it is only You, and none but You that we turn to, bow before, and seek comfort in. We believe that by Your side alone we can attain serenity and peace." Another point to note here is the tense; instead of abada, which is the past tense, in this verse God uses na'budu, the same root in the present. In the past, abada connotes "we did, we made, we performed, etc." Such a tone, however, would in a way be contrary to the nature of worship, for it sounds like an accomplishment, which implies pride, as if the worshipper fulfilled something all by himself or herself.

The present tense form of na'budu implies that the task is not yet finished, which renders such a misinterpretation impossible. Meaning "we worship," na'budu refers to the intention and determination to acknowledge the eternal impotence and poverty of humankind before His Presence. This can also be paraphrased as follows, "O Lord! I am determined that I will not sacrifice my freedom to anyone but You and I will not fall in humiliation before anyone or anything. I turn to You fully intent on servanthood and worship; my eyes are fixed upon You and no other. I am filled with a desire for submission and prayer. Resolute to distance myself from anything other than You, I wish to always stand opposed to all that You do not like or want. My intention is my greatest worship; I hope that You will accept my intention as my worship. I plead for Your favor, not in proportion to the number of things that I have done, but to those I have intended to do."

In this phrase, na'budu, "we worship," also emphasizes that the worshipper is not alone with such thoughts. Hoping that all others are thinking in the same vein, the worshipper proclaims, "In making this request, I am in full concord with all my fellow worshippers." Through such an indisputable alliance, the worshipper is empowered with confirmation and testimony, and thus he or she turns to the presence of the Almighty Lord Who meets all needs. In this manner, they can relieve themselves of evil involuntary thoughts, and they can enact a complete form of worship toward the Perfect Divinity.

~Excerpted from http://en.fgulen.com/
Fethullah Gulen is a controversial Sufi teacher from Turkey. Founder of the Gulen Movement, he has authored 60 books and is a leader in the world of interfaith and ecumenical engagement.

Abu Hatim Razi on "Those Upon Whom Thou Hast Bestowed Favors"

2009-02-22T21:03:00.000-08:00

Abu Hatim Ahmad ibn Hamdan Razi (d. 934) was a renowned Dai and physician who wrote a major treatise on the nature of a prophet's knowledge of the world in A'lam al-nubuwwah, translated by Everett K. Rowson as "Science of Prophecy." From what he writes it would appear that Razi had a particular appreciation for the favor of knowledge and wisdom that were revealed to the prophets:

"But as for the true ancient sages who composed these valid works on astronomy, medicine, geometry, and other natural sciences, they were the sages among the people of their eras, the leaders of their ages, and God's proofs to His creatures in their times, whom God supported with revelation coming from Him and whom He taught this wisdom. Thus each of them contributed a particular kind of wisdom. One contributed the science of medicine, while other contributed other mathematical and natural sciences. They presented them to the people, who took them from them, since God wanted to make His creatures aware of the wisdom in these principles, to manifest the ranks of these prophets in their times, and to display God's proofs to His creatures by means of their tongues. So, for example, it has been handed down that the principles of astronomy come from the prophet Idris. Some people have interpreted God's words in the story of Idris that 'We raised him to a high place' as meaning that God raised him up to the mountain which is at the navel of the world, and sent him an angel to teach him the things connected with the celestial sphere, its terms and zodiacal signs, the planets and the periods of their orbits, and other aspects of the science of astronomy.

Furthermore, they say that the Hermes mentioned by the philosophers is Idris, his name among the philosophers being Hermes but in the Qur'an Idris - both these names resemble those names like Galenos, Aristoteles, and so forth, which end in 's' - and in the other revealed books Enoch. This, then, is an indication that such men used to have these names as aliases. The same pattern can be seen, among the names of prophets mentioned in the Qur'an, in Elias as well as Idris. Among those prophets and sages mentioned by the People of the Book there are Simon, the disciple of the Messiah, who was called Petros; his brother, one of the twelve, whose name was Andreios; among the twelve apostles, Philippos; Marcos, one of the four; and Malghus, the apostle who obeyed among them. Among the prophets they mention are Saraqsis, Agabos, Lucios, Paulus, and Philadelphius. So there are many such names among the prophets and sages, which resemble the names of the ancient philosophers, who composed the books of medicine, astronomy and geometry, using such names as aliases. " (2008, pp. 149-150)

~Excerpted from "Ismaili Thought in the Classical Age", edited by S.H. Nasr & M. Aminrazavi

The Cross and The Crescent

2009-02-18T11:11:00.000-08:00

Phil Parshall is one of the leading authorities on ministry to Muslims. He has lived among Muslims since 1962, first with the International Christian Fellowship (Now SIM) in Bangladesh and most recently in the Philippines. His book "The Cross and the Crescent - Understanding the Muslim Heart and Mind" aspires to inform and educate Christians about Islam so that they can minister to them. Despite this agenda, Parshall does manage to capture the essence of Islam:

"Millions of Muslims have testified to the impact of the Quran on their lives. My intimate Muslim friend, Dr. Ali, about whom I have written in previous books, has testified to a life-changing experience when he began to read the Quran in his own language. Reading and reciting Scripture in Arabic, which he did not understand, made minimal impression on his daily life. But when he was able to comprehend the teachings of Allah, his life was brought to a full point of dedication. Even though he is a busy layman, he still finds time to search the Quran for guidance.

An experience like the following is not at all uncommon in the Muslim world:

They waited now with emotion for that old voice, melodious and worn with age, to utter the opening strophes of the Holy Book, and there was nothing feigned in the adoring attention of the circle of faces. Some licked their lips and leaned forward eagerly, as if to take the phrases upon their lips: others lowered their heads and closed their eyes as if against a new experience in music. The old preacher sat with his waxen hands folded in his lap and uttered the first Sura, full of the soft, warm coloring of a familiar understanding, his voice a little shaky at first, but gathering power and assurance from the silence as he proceeded. His eyes now were as wide and lusterless as a dead hare's. His listeners followed the notation of the verses as they fell from his lips with care and rapture, gradually seeking their way together as they fell from and into the main stream of the poetry like a school of fish following a leader by instinct out into the deep sea (Durrell 1958, 256).

It may be of interest to note that John 3:16 is not the most frequently quoted Scripture in the world. The above-mentioned first Sura of the Quran holds that distinction. Five times a day Muslims bow in prayer while facing Mecca and recite these first words of the Quran:

Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds,
The Beneficent, the Merciful.
Owner of the Day of Judgment,
Thee (alone) we worship; Thee (alone) we ask for help.
Show us the straight path,
The path of those whom Thou has favored;
Not (the path) of those who earn Thine anger
nor of those who go astray." (2002, pp. 61-62).

~Excerpted from "The Cross and the Crescent - Understanding the Muslim Heart and Mind" by Dr. Phil Parshall, who holds a doctorate from Fuller Seminary and has had fellowships with Harvard and Yale universities.

Sirat al Mustaqim of Abraham

2009-01-26T20:36:00.000-08:00

Bruce Feiler's sincere inquiry into the heart of the world's three monotheistic faiths in search of the role and meaning of Abraham results in an astounding conclusion that offers healing to all men and women of faith:

"When I first set out on this journey, I believed Abraham existed in some mysterious place. The Great Abrahamic Hope was out there, an oasis somewhere in the deepest deserts of antiquity, and all we had to do was track him down, unveil him to the world, and his descendants would live in perpetual harmony, dancing "Kumbaya" around the campfire.

That oasis, I realized, is just a mirage.

But Abraham isn't. Abraham is like water. I came to to believe, but not the oasis I had originally thought. He's a vast, underground aquifer that stretches from Mesopotamia to the Nile, from Jerusalem to mecca, from Kandahar to Kansas City. He's an ever-present, ever flowing stream that represents the basic desire all people have to form a union with God. He's a physical manifestation of the fundamental yearning yo be descended from a sacred source. He's a personification of the biological need we all share to feel protected by someone, something. Anything.

This perpetual stream of Abrahamic ideals has existed just under the surface of the world for as long as humans have told themselves stories. And every generation - at moments of joy and crisis - tapped into the same source. Each generation chose an Abraham for itself.

And we can, too. We can tap into the same underground stream and draw out a figure for our times. We can summon our own savior from the sands, and in so doing bring ourselves closer to God. We can, like Abraham, leave behind our native places - our comfortable, even doctrinaire traditions - and set out for an unknown location, whose dimensions may be known only to God but whose mandate is to be a place where God's blessing is promised to all.

In short, we can create Abraham Number Two Hundred Forty-one.

And we must.

So what should our`Abraham look like? For starters, he should look like us. He should be a creature of the modern world, informed by our number-crunching mentality - the number of people killed, the number of people under occupation,, 1948, 1967, 56.6 K, 9-11. He should be a student of our time, knowing like a savvy, modern day Zelig that a lot of other people bearing his name are running around the world wreaking havoc in his honor.

But most of all he should embody the timeless values he's represented for four millennia. The Abraham I crave is God-fearing but also God-not-fearing. This Abraham is a wanderer, a man of the frontier, who's prepared to leave the comfort of his family for the sake of the family he wants to create, and who admits that he can't do this alone but needs a partnership with God in order to realize himself more fully. And this Abraham, having given his life over to God, is then prepared to challenge God, in order that God might more fully realize himself and renew his commitment to protect humankind.

The Abraham I long for would be a bridge between humanity and the divine, who demonstrates the example of what it means to be faithful but who also delivers to us God's blessing on earth. And this Abraham conveys God's grace through his children, through Ishmael, through Isaac, and who then has so much hallowedness left over that he doles some out to all members of his household, and then to the children of his second wife. And this Abraham is perceptive enough to know that his children will not always embrace the fullness of God's blessing, they will not always endlessly dance "Kumbaya" around the campfire, they will fight, murder, fly planes into buildings, send bombs into schools, and generally try to squander God's generosity.

But this Abraham believes - against all belief - that his children will crave God. They still need the comfort of something greater than themselves, still hold on to some gleam of humanity, still dream of a moment when they stand alongside one another and pray for their lost father and for the legacy of peace among the nations that was his initial mandate from heaven.

This Abraham is not Jew, Christian, or Muslim. He is not flawless; he's not a saint. But he is himself, the best vessel we've got, the father of all.

This Abraham won't be the only Abraham. He won't be the last Abraham. But he is an Abraham for today.

I choose him." (2002, pp. 215-218).

~ Excerpted from "Abraham" by Bruce Feiler.

The Correct Path of Abraham

2009-01-22T22:17:00.000-08:00

Bruce Feiler's book "Abraham - A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths" goes to the heart of the interfaith issues between the Abrahamic faiths. This is an excerpt of his interview with Sheikh Abu Sneina, an Imam at the al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem:

"As our meeting was drawing to a close, I mentioned the interfaith conversation in the world and asked whether he believed Abraham was a uniting figure or a dividing figure.

"If Muslims, Jews, and Christians follow what is mentioned in the Koran, then Abraham can be a uniting figure," he said, and I felt we might be heading down a path similar to the night before. "But even if Jews and Christians just follow what's mentioned about Abraham in the Bible, then we can reach unity."

Now this was a new idea. "But we have two different texts," I said.

"But the principle is the same, " he said. "You have a true heart, you have to believe there is one God. Maybe we have different approaches, but the destination is the same."

This was so radical in its openness that I didn't quite believe it at first. I mentioned that the previous Friday I had stood on a perch overlooking El-Aksa as he spoke. I could see Jews praying, Muslims praying, all the churches with their bells ringing. "And everybody could hear everybody else."

He laughed. "So what is your question?"

"Was that the sound of conflict or the sound of peace?"

"As Muslims we have the order to pray, to believe according to Islam, and God asks us very clearly to protests against other groups who have other beliefs. We want to spread Islam, to have a jihad. But that doesn't mean we have to fight. Jihad does not mean to fight people, it means to invite people to Islam, which is highly misunderstood, both historically and now. But this can be done peacefully."

"I would like to believe that," I said. "But people are dying. I live in New York."

"The situation is very difficult. There are problems in Palestinian society. People are deprived from coming to El-Aksa. Every family knows people who are prisoners, or who were killed. This political domination threatens religious tolerance. So religion is mixed with politics, you see."

"So, when I look at the situation, should I feel sad, or concerned? Or should I feel that in the future the spirit of Abraham can prevail?"

"You should feel sadness," the imam said, "not just for the Muslim world but also for Jews and Christians."

We nodded.

"But despite this sadness, " he continued, "hope must endure. We all sacrifice. We all have people killed. It's the same for Palestinians and Israelis, for Christians and Jews, for Americans, for people all over the world. We must find a way."

For the first time all morning I felt the imam emerging from his defensive posture. He was sitting on the edge of his chair now. His arms were stretching wide, his hands upstretched. His eyes burned. He was a preacher. He was a leader.

I lifted my voice in response. I moved to the edge of my chair, too. I swung my arms out wide. "So I give you a microphone," I said. "You can speak to the whole world. And I ask you to speak about Abraham. What is your message?"

We were sitting face-to-face now. The gap between us had disappeared. "Abraham was a man of faith," he began. "He worshiped God, and was thankful for God. He invented monotheism. He had high values. If all people - not just Muslims, Christians, Jews - follow the correct path of Abraham, I'm sure life would be better. But we are not doing that. The situation we are facing is that people are living their daily lives far away from the truly faithful, and from Abraham. if we look beyond the details, which we may disagree about, and follow the principles of Abraham - truth, morality, and co-existence - then most of our problems will disappear." (2002, pp. 182- 184).

~ Excerpted from "Abraham" by Bruce Feiler.

The Straight Path - a Shia perspective

2009-01-20T16:54:00.000-08:00

I asked the author of the Temple of the Living Imam blog for permission to re post one of his posts on Siratal Mustaqim. I also asked him for a brief bio. Here's his response in his own words and the text of the post:

Ok, let's see, what's important? I am a high school English teacher in rural Pennsylvania, father of three, grew up near Reading, PA, a good Catholic boy. A chance encounter with Islam during college sparked my spiritual interest and launched a ten-year trek through the Muslim world in search of the Imam. The Imam is a reality that constantly gives way to ever deepening understandings, and the blog is a way of recording personal encounters with this reality, whether through text or through spirit. Does that help? Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you! Brian

Monday, January 19, 2009

In reference to the entry of a couple days ago on the sirat al-mustaqeem, from the batini Twelver Shia exegesis of Sharaf al-Din Astrabadi called Ta'wil al-Ayat al-Dhahira fi Fadha'il al-'Itrat al-Tahira: "The path [mentioned in Surat al-Fatiha] is actually twofold. The path in this world and the Bridge in the Hereafter. As for the path in this world, that is Amir al-Mu'mineen, may peace be upon him. The one who is led to his wilayat in this world succeeds upon the Bridge in the Hereafter, and the one who is not led to his wilayat in this world does not succeed upon the Bridge in the Hereafter."

The interpretation of the verse reveals the dhahir-batin dichotomy present in so much of Islamic esoterism. According to this view, the Imam is the referent of most of the verses of the Holy Qur'an, even those that appear to be referencing something mundane and non-spiritual in nature. One can ask, "What is this path?" or "What is this Bridge?", and the answer will come,
"It is the Imam." But then the next question must be, "What is the Imam?"

That is a much more challenging question to answer, and that is the batin of the batin.

Note on translation: The words "path" and "Bridge" here are translated from the same Arabic word, sirat. By convention, the word sirat in the context of al-Fatiha is expressed as "path", while in the specific context of the description of the trials of the Hereafter is expressed as "Bridge".

Baseline on Clinical Psychology of Islam

2009-01-11T11:05:00.000-08:00

Clinical and medical approach (Courtesy of Wikipedia)

Unlike medieval Christian physicians who relied on demonological explanations for mental illness, medieval Muslim physicians relied mostly on clinical psychiatry and clinical psychology, and clinical observations on mentally ill patients. They made significant advances to psychiatry and were the first to provide psychotherapy and moral treatment for mentally ill patients, in addition to other new forms of treatment such as baths, drug medication, music therapy and occupational therapy.[32]

[edit] Al-tibb al-ruhani and diseases of the mind

The concepts of al-tibb al-ruhani (translated as "spiritual health" in Arabic) and "mental hygiene" were introduced in Islamic medicine by the Persian physician Abu Zayd Ahmed ibn Sahl al-Balkhi (850-934), who often related it to spiritual health. In his Masalih al-Abdan wa al-Anfus (Sustenance for Body and Soul), he was the first to successfully discuss diseases related to both the body and the soul. He used the term al-Tibb al-Ruhani to describe spiritual and psychological health, and the term Tibb al-Qalb to describe mental medicine. He criticized many medical doctors in his time for placing too much emphasis on physical illnesses and neglecting the mental illnesses of patients, and argued that "since man’s construction is from both his soul and his body, therefore, human existence cannot be healthy without the ishtibak [interweaving or entangling] of soul and body." He further argued that "if the body gets sick, the nafs [psyche] loses much of its cognitive and comprehensive ability and fails to enjoy the desirous aspects of life" and that "if the nafs gets sick, the body may also find no joy in life and may eventually develop a physical illness." Al-Balkhi traced back his ideas on mental health to verses of the Qur'an and hadiths attributed to Muhammad, such as:[3]
"In their hearts is a disease."
— Qur'an 2:10
"Truly, in the body there is a morsel of flesh, and when it is corrupt the body is corrupt, and when it is sound the body is sound. Truly, it is the qalb [heart]."
— Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab al-Iman
"Verily Allah does not consider your appearances or your wealth in (appraising you) but He considers your hearts and your deeds."
— Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal, no. 8707

[edit] Mental hospitals

As a result of the new positive Islamic understanding of mental illness, the first mental hospitals and insane asylums were built in the Islamic world as early as the 8th century. The first mental hospitals were built by Arab Muslims in Baghdad in 705, Fes in the early 8th century, and Cairo in 800. Other famous mental hospitals were built in Damascus and Aleppo in 1270.[4][33]

[edit] Al-‘ilaj al-nafs and tibb al-qalb

Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari's Firdous al-Hikmah written in the 9th century was the first work to study 'al-‘ilaj al-nafs (translated as "psychotherapy" from Arabic)[10] in the treatment of patients. His ideas were primarily influenced by early Islamic thought and ancient Indian physicians such as Sushruta and Charaka. Unlike earlier physicians, however, al-Tabari emphasized strong ties between psychology and medicine, and the need for al-‘ilaj al-nafs and counseling in the therapeutic treatment of patients. He wrote that patients frequently feel sick due to delusions or imagination, and that these can be treated through "wise counselling" by smart and witty physicians who could win the rapport and confidence of their patients, leading to a positive therapeutic outcome.[14] In his chapter on mental illness, al-Tabari first described thirteen types of mental disorders, including madness, delirium, and Fasad Al-Khayal Wal-Aqo ("damage to the imagination, intelligence and thought").[34] He also clearly highlighted mental illness as a speciality of its own.

The Tunisian Arab Muslim physician,[35] Ishaq ibn Imran (d. 908),[36] known as "Isaac" in the West,[37] wrote an essay entitled Maqala fil-L-Malikhuliya, in which he first described psychosis, and also described a type of melancholia: the "cerebral type" or "phrenitis". He described the diagnosis of this mental disorder, reporting its varied symptoms. The main clinical features he identified were sudden movement, foolish acts, fear, delusions, and hallucinations of black people.[36] This work was later translated into Latin as De Oblivione (On Forgetfulness) by Constantine the African.[35]

The Persian physician Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (Rhazes) (865-925) wrote the landmark texts El-Mansuri and Al-Hawi in the 10th century, which presented definitions, symptoms, and treatments for many illnesses related to mental health and mental illness. Razi's texts made significant advances in psychiatry. Razi also managed the mental ward of a Baghdad hospital. Such institutions could not exist in Europe at the time, because of European fears of demonic possession.[32]

In the centuries to come, Islam would serve as a critical waystation of knowledge for Renaissance Europe, through the Latin translations of many scientific Islamic texts. Razi, al-Tabari and Ahmed ibn Sahl al-Balkhi were the first known physicians to study al-‘ilaj al-nafs.
Ali ibn Abbas al-Majusi (d. 982) discussed mental illness in his medical text, Kitab al-Malaki, where he discovered and observed a type of melancholia: clinical lycanthropy, associated with certain personality disorders. He wrote the following on this particular mental illness:[36]
"Its victim behaves like a rooster and cries like a dog, the patient wanders among the tombs at night, his eyes are dark, his mouth is dry, the patient hardly ever recovers and the disease is hereditary."

Avicenna (980-1037) often used psychological methods to treat his patients.[23] One such example involved a prince of Persia who had melancholia and suffered from the delusion that he was a cow. He would low like a cow, crying "Kill me so that a good stew may be made of my flesh," and would not eat anything. Avicenna was persuaded to undertake the case, and sent a message to the patient, asking him to be happy, as the butcher was coming to slaughter him, and the sick man rejoiced. When Avicenna approached the prince with a knife in his hand, he asked, "Where is the cow so I may kill it." The patient then lowed like a cow to indicate where he was. By order of Avicenna in his role as the butcher, the patient was also laid on the ground for slaughter. When Avicenna approached the patient, pretending to slaughter him, he said, "The cow is too lean and not ready to be killed. He must be fed properly and I will kill it when it becomes healthy and fat." The patient was then offered food, which he ate eagerly and gradually "gained strength, got rid of his delusion, and was completely cured."[38]

[edit] Music therapy

Al-Kindi (801–873) was the first to realize the therapeutic value of music. He was the first to experiment with music therapy, and he attempted to cure a quadriplegic boy using this method.[39]
Later in the 9th century, al-Farabi also dealt with music therapy in his treatise Meanings of the Intellect, where he discussed the therapeutic effects of music on the soul.[15]

[edit] Cognitive therapy

Al-Kindi developed cognitive methods to combat depression and discussed the intellectual operations of human beings.[14]
According to the psychologist Amber Haque, the medieval Islamic scholar Abu Zayd Ahmed ibn Sahl al-Balkhi (850-934) was "probably the first cognitive and medical psychologist to clearly differentiate between neuroses and psychoses, to classify neurotic disorders, and to show in detail how rational and spiritual cognitive therapies can be used to treat each one of his classified disorders."[40]

Al-Balkhi classified neuroses into four emotional disorders: fear and anxiety, anger and aggression, sadness and depression, and obsession. According to Haque, al-Balkhi further classified three types of depression: normal sadness (huzn) which is "today known as normal depression", "endogenous depression" which "originated within the body", and "reactive depression" which "originated outside the body".[40]

Al-Balkhi also wrote that a healthy individual should always keep healthy thoughts and feelings in his mind in the case of unexpected emotional outbursts in the same way drugs and First Aid medicine are kept nearby for unexpected physical emergencies. He stated that a balance between the mind and body is required for good health and that an imbalance between the two can cause sickness. Al-Balkhi also introduced the concept of reciprocal inhibition (al-ilaj bi al-did), which was re-introduced over a thousand years later by Joseph Wolpe in 1969.[40]

[edit] Physical and psychological disorders

The Muslim physician Abu Zayd Ahmed ibn Sahl al-Balkhi (850-934) was a pioneer of al-‘ilaj al-nafs, and the first to compare "physical and psychological disorders" and show "their interaction in causing psychosomatic disorders." He recognized that the body and the soul can be healthy or sick, or "balanced or imbalanced", and that mental illness can have both psychological and/or physiological causes. He wrote that imbalance of the body can result in fever, headaches and other physical illnesses, while imbalance of the soul can result in anger, anxiety, sadness and other mental symptoms. He recognized two types of depression: one caused by known reasons such as loss or failure, which can be treated psychologically through both external methods (such as persuasive talking, preaching and advising) and internal methods (such as the "development of inner thoughts and cognitions which help the person get rid of his depressive condition"); and the other caused by unknown reasons such as a "sudden affliction of sorrow and distress, which persists all the time, preventing the afflicted person from any physical activity or from showing any happiness or enjoying any of the pleasures" which may be caused by physiological reasons (such as impurity of the blood) and can can be treated through physical medicine.[3] He also wrote comparisons between physical disorders with mental disorders, and showed how psychosomatic disorders can be caused by certain interactions between them.[40]

In the early 10th century, Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi reported a psychotherapeutic case study from a contemporary Muslim physician who treated a woman suffering from severe cramps in her joints which made her unable to rise. The physician cured her by lifting her skirt, putting her to shame. He wrote: "A flush of heat was produced within her which dissolved the rheumatic humour."[32]

Ali ibn Abbas al-Majusi (d. 982) elaborated on how the physiological and psychological aspects of a patient can have an effect on one another in his Complete Book of the Medical Art. He found a correlation between patients who were physically and mentally healthy and those who were physically and mentally unhealthy, and concluded that "joy and contentment can bring a better living status to many who would otherwise be sick and miserable due to unnecessary sadness, fear, worry and anxiety."[3] He also first discussed various mental disorders, including sleeping sickness, memory loss, hypochondriasis, coma, hot and cold meningitis, vertigo epilepsy, love sickness, and hemiplegia. He also placed more emphasis on preserving health through diet and natural healing than he did on medication or drugs, which he considered a last resort.[15]

Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (980-1037), considered a father of modern medicine,[41] was a pioneer in neuropsychiatry, physiological psychology and psychosomatic medicine in The Canon of Medicine, and contributed to the nature versus nurture debate with his theories of empiricism and tabula rasa.

Avicenna (980-1037) recognized "physiological psychology" in the treatment of "illnesses involving emotions" and develop "a system for associating changes in the pulse rate with inner feelings" which is seen as an anticipation of "the word association test of Jung." Avicenna identified love sickness (Ishq) when he was treating a very ill patient by "feeling the patient's pulse and reciting aloud to him the names of provinces, districts, towns, streets, and people." He noticed how the patient's pulse increased when certain names were mentioned, from which Avicenna deduced that the patient was in love with a girl whose home Avicenna was "able to locate by the digital examination." Avicenna advised the patient to marry the girl he is in love with, and the patient soon recovered from his illness after his marriage.[32]

Avicenna also gave psychological explanations for certain somatic illnesses, and he always linked the physical and psychological illnesses together. He described melancholia (depression) as a type of mood disorder in which the person may become suspicious and develop certain types of phobias. He stated that anger heralded the transition of melancholia to mania, and explained that humidity inside the head can contribute to mood disorders. He recognized that this occurs when the amount of breath changes: happiness increases the breath, which leads to increased moisture inside the brain, but if this moisture goes beyond its limits, the brain would lose control over its rationality and lead to mental disorders. He also wrote about symptoms and treatments for nightmare, epilepsy, and weak memory.[23]

[edit] Nosology and psychopathology

In nosology, the Arab Muslim physician and psychological thinker Najab ud-din Unhammad (870-925) described in detail nine major categories of mental disorders, which included 30 different mental illnesses in total. Some of the categories he first described included obsessive-compulsive disorders (anxious and ruminative states of doubt), delusional disorders (which "manifested itself by the mind's tendency to magnify all matters of personal significance, often leading to actions that prove outrageous to society"), degenerative diseases, involutional melancholia, and states of abnormal excitement.[42]

Unhammad made many careful observations of mentally ill patients and compiled them in a book which "made up the most complete classification of mental diseases theretofore known." The mental illnesses first described by Najab include agitated depression, neurosis, priapism and sexual impotence (Nafkhae Malikholia), psychosis (Kutrib), and mania (Dual-Kulb).[32]
Unhammad also listed nine classes of psychopathology. This included the earliest description of Souda a Tabee (febrile delirium), which was in turn subdivided into Souda where patients showed impairment of memory, loss of contact with the environment, and childish behaviour; and Jannon (agitated reaction) which occurs when Souda reaches a chronic state and is characterized by insomnia, restlessness and sometimes "beast-like roars."[43]

Baseline on Medieval Islamic Psychology

2009-01-09T23:13:00.000-08:00

Intellect and consciousness studies (Courtesy of Wikipedia).

Further information: Avicennism - Thought experiments on self-consciousness

In the philosophy of mind, certain hadiths indicate that dreams consist of three parts, and early Muslim scholars also recognized three different kinds of dreams: false dreams, patho-genetic dreams, and true dreams.[10]

One of the earliest Muslim psychological thinkers was Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn Sirin (654–728), who was renowned for his Ta’bir al-Ru’ya and Muntakhab al-Kalam fi Tabir al-Ahlam, a book on dreams. The work is divided into 25 sections on dream interpretation, from the etiquette of interpreting dreams to the interpretation of reciting certain Surahs of the Qur'an in one's dream. He writes that it is important for a layperson to seek assistance from a an Alim (Muslim scholar) who could guide in the interpretation of dreams with a proper understanding of the cultural context and other such causes and interpretations.[13] Al-Kindi (Alkindus) (801–873) also wrote a treatise on dream interpretation entitled On Sleep and Dreams.[14]

Al-Farabi (Alpharabius) was a pioneer of social psychology and a pioneer in music therapy and dream interpretation.

In consciousness studies, al-Farabi (Alpharabius) (872-951) wrote the On the Cause of Dreams, which appeared as chapter 24 of his Book of Opinions of the people of the Ideal City, was a treatise on dreams, in which he was the first to distinguish between dream interpretation and the nature and causes of dreams.[15]

Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (980-1037), while he was imprisoned in the castle of Fardajan near Hamadhan, wrote his famous "Floating Man" thought experiment to demonstrate human self-awareness and self-consciousness and the substantiality of the soul. He referred to the living human intelligence, particularly the active intellect, which he believed to be the hypostasis by which God communicates truth to the human mind and imparts order and intelligibility to nature. His "Floating Man" thought experiment tells its readers to imagine themselves suspended in the air, isolated from all sensations, which includes no sensory contact with even their own bodies. He argues that, in this scenario, one would still have self-consciousness. He thus concludes that the idea of the self is not logically dependent on any physical thing, and that the soul should not be seen in relative terms, but as a primary given, a substance.[16] Avicenna also wrote about the potential intellect (within man) and active intellect (outside man) and that cognition cannot be produced mechanically but involves intuition at every stage. As an analogy, he compares the ordinary human mind to a mirror upon which a succession of ideas reflects from the active intellect. He writes that a mirror can be rusty at first (i.e. before acquiring knowledge from the active intellect), but when the mirror is polished (i.e. when one thinks), the mirror can then readily reflect light from the Sun (i.e. the active intellect).[17]

H. Chad Hillier writes the following on the contributions made by Averroes (Ibn Rushd) (1126-1198) to the field of psychology:[18]

"There is evidence of some evolution in Ibn Rushd's thought on the intellect, notably in his Middle Commentary on De Anima where he combines the positions of Alexander and Themistius for his doctrine on the material intellect and in his Long Commentary and the Tahafut where Ibn Rushd rejected Alexander and endorsed Themistius’ position that "material intellect is a single incorporeal eternal substance that becomes attached to the imaginative faculties of individual humans." Thus, the human soul is a separate substance ontologically identical with the active intellect; and when this active intellect is embodied in an individual human it is the material intellect. The material intellect is analogous to prime matter, in that it is pure potentiality able to receive universal forms. As such, the human mind is a composite of the material intellect and the passive intellect, which is the third element of the intellect. The passive intellect is identified with the imagination, which, as noted above, is the sense-connected finite and passive faculty that receives particular sensual forms. When the material intellect is actualized by information received, it is described as the speculative (habitual) intellect. As the speculative intellect moves towards perfection, having the active intellect as an object of thought, it becomes the acquired intellect. In that, it is aided by the active intellect, perceived in the way Aristotle had taught, to acquire intelligible thoughts. The idea of the soul's perfection occurring through having the active intellect as a greater object of thought is introduced elsewhere, and its application to religious doctrine is seen. In the Tahafut, Ibn Rushd speaks of the soul as a faculty that comes to resemble the focus of its intention, and when its attention focuses more upon eternal and universal knowledge, it become more like the eternal and universal. As such, when the soul perfects itself, it becomes like our intellect."

"Ibn Rushd succeeded in providing an explanation of the human soul and intellect that did not involve an immediate transcendent agent. This opposed the explanations found among the Neoplatonists, allowing a further argument for rejecting of Neoplatonic emanation theories. Even so, notes Davidson, Ibn Rushd’s theory of the material intellect was something foreign to Aristotle."

[edit] Empiricism, tabula rasa, nature versus nurture

Further information: Avicennisn - Avicennian epistemology and psychology
One of Avicenna's most influential theories in psychology and epistemology is his theory of knowledge, in which he developed the concept of tabula rasa, a precursor to the nature versus nurture debate in modern psychology. He argued that the "human intellect at birth is rather like a tabula rasa, a pure potentiality that is actualized through education and comes to know" and that knowledge is attained through "empirical familiarity with objects in this world from which one abstracts universal concepts" which are developed through a "syllogistic method of reasoning; observations lead to propositional statements, which when compounded, lead to further abstract concepts." He further argued that the intellect itself "possesses levels of development from the material intellect (al-‘aql al-hayulani), that potentiality that can acquire knowledge to the active intellect (al-‘aql al-fa‘il), the state of the human intellect at conjunction with the perfect source of knowledge."[19]

In the 12th century, the Andalusian-Arabian philosopher and novelist Ibn Tufail (known as "Abubacer" or "Ebn Tophail" in the West) first demonstrated Avicenna's theory of tabula rasa as a thought experiment in his Arabic novel, Hayy ibn Yaqzan, in which he depicted the development of the mind of a feral child "from a tabula rasa to that of an adult, in complete isolation from society" on a desert island. The Latin translation of his work, entitled Philosophus Autodidactus, published by Edward Pococke the Younger in 1671, had an influence on John Locke's formulation of tabula rasa in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,[20] which went on to become one of the principal sources of empiricism in modern Western philosophy, and influenced many Enlightenment philosophers, such as David Hume and George Berkeley.

[edit] Sensory perception

Ibn al-Haytham's psychology in his Book of Optics (1021) may have also possibly been influenced by Buddhist philosophy, echoes of which can be in some of his views on pain and sensation. He writes that every sensation is a form of 'suffering' and that what people call pain is only an exaggerated perception; that there is no qualitative difference but only a quantitative difference between pain and ordinary sensation.[21]

Avicenna was the first to divide human perception into five external senses (the classical senses of hearing, sight, smell, taste and touch known since antiquity) and five internal senses which he discovered himself: the sensus communis (seat of all senses) which integrates sense data into percepts; the imaginative faculty which conserves the perceptual images; the sense of imagination which acts upon these images by combining and separating them, serving as the seat of the practical intellect; Wahm (instinct) which perceives qualities (such as good and bad, love and hate, etc.) and forms the basis of a person's character whether or not influenced by reason; and intentions (ma'ni) which conserve all these notions in memory.[22]

Al-Ghazali (Algazel) (1058-1111) stated that the self has motor and sensory motives for fulfilling its bodily needs. He wrote that the motor motives comprise of propensities and impulses, and further divided the propensities into two types: appetite and anger. He wrote that appetite urges hunger, thirst, and sexual craving, while anger takes the form of rage, indignation and revenge. He further wrote that impulse resides in the muscles, nerves, and tissues, and moves the organs to "fulfill the propensities."[23]

Al-Ghazali was also one of the first to divide the sensory motives (apprehension) into five external senses (the classical senses of hearing, sight, smell, taste and touch) and five internal senses, which he was able to describe more accurately than Avicenna. The five internal senses discovered by al-Ghazali were: common sense (Hiss Mushtarik) which synthesizes sensuous impressions carried to the brain while giving meaning to them; imagination (Takhayyul) which enables someone to retain mental images from experience; reflection (Tafakkur) which brings together relevant thoughts and associates or dissociates them as it considers fit but has no power to create anything new which is not already present in the mind; recollection (Tadhakkur) which remembers the outer form of objects in memory and recollects the meaning; and the memory (Hafiza) where impressions received through the senses are stored. He wrote that, while the external senses occur through specific organs, the internal senses are located in different regions of the brain, and discovered that the memory is located in the hinder lobe, imagination is located in the frontal lobe, and reflection is located in the middle folds of the brain. He stated that these inner senses allow people to predict future situations based on what they learn from past experiences.[24]

In The Revival of Religious Sciences, al-Ghazali also writes that the five internal senses are found in both humans and animals. In Mizan al Amal, however, he later states that animals "do not possess a well-developed reflective power" and argues that animals mostly think in terms of "pictorial ideas in a simple way and are incapable of complex association and dissociation of abstract ideas involved in reflection." He writes that "the self carries two additional qualities, which distinguishes man from animals enabling man to attain spiritual perfection", which are 'Aql (intellect) and Irada (will). He argues that the intellect is "the fundamental rational faculty, which enables man to generalize and form concepts and gain knowledge." He also argues that human will and animal will are both different. He writes that human will is "conditioned by the intellect" while animal will is "conditioned by anger and appetite" and that "all these powers control and regulate the body." He further writes that the Qalb (heart) "controls and rules over them" and that it has six powers: appetite, anger, impulse, apprehension, intellect, and will. He states that humans have all six of these traits, while animals only have three (appetite, anger, and impulse).[24] This was in contrast to other ancient and medieval thinkers such as Aristotle, Avicenna, Roger Bacon and Thomas Aquinas who all believed that animals cannot become angry.[25]

How can you see the Siratal al-Mustaqim?

2009-01-06T09:42:00.000-08:00

The human being is like the water of the river:

when it becomes turbid, you can't see to the bottom.

The bottom of the river is full of jewels and pearls:

pay attention, don't stir up the water,

for originally it's pure and free from pollution.

The human spirit resembles the atmosphere:

when air is mixed with dust, it veils the sky,

and prevents the eye from seeing the sun;

but when the dust is gone, the air once again becomes pure.

Despite your complete darkness,

God may offer you visions,

that you might find the way of deliverance.

Mathnawi IV: 2482-2486
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Threshold Books, 2000, p. 75

Al-Fatiha reveals the identity of an authentic Islamic citizen

2008-12-26T23:15:00.000-08:00

In a critical review of the work of Sadiq Nayhum (1937-94) the renowned populist literary figure from Libya, Dr. Suha Taji-Farouki offers the following insights on his text Sawt al-nas:

"Nayhum posits al-Fatiha (recited several times a day during the obligatory prayers) as the encapsulation of a hidden expression of the identity of the authentic Islamic citizen, who upholds Islam's collective law. It survives in this 'protected fortress' like 'the soul in the breast of a bird in a cage on a remote island', where it is safe from falsifications dictated by the whims of politicians. The constituent elements of this identity are elucidated through his commentary, translated below, with the Qur'anic text reproduced as it appears in his elaboration:

PRAISE BELONGS TO GOD, THE LORD OF ALL BEING

There is nothing here about the Shi'a, the Sunna (i.e., the Sunnis), the Christians, the Jews or the Communists. This is because the Arab citizen who has been educated by Islam is a world citizen, whose exclusive affiliation is this universal, human doctrine. Such a citizen does not permit himself to be put to the service of partisan or disputatious doctrines. Neither is he legally prepared to serve such doctrines.

THE ALL-MERCIFUL, THE ALL-COMPASSIONATE

The world citizen's doctrine is compassion (rahma), because this is the only doctrine that is directed at the people, and not their institutions. Every slogan - apart from the slogan of compassion - can be put, philosophically speaking, to the service of the interests of institutions, at the expense of the people themselves.

THE MASTER OF THE DAY OF RECKONING

Religion is not politics, and it does not address the state, but the people.

THEE ONLY WE SERVE; TO THEE ALONE WE PRAY FOR SUCCOUR

This is a community (jama'a) that openly speaks with the conscience of the community. It is not just a solitary Muslim citizen.

GUIDE US IN THE STRAIGHT PATH

Someone who asks for guidance knows that the decision, first and last, rests with him. He knows that whatever befalls him in his life (and in the lives of his children after him) is not the responsibility of some administrative or ideological agency. Rather, he is himself personally responsible for this: specifically, he is responsible for every atom's weight of it.

THE PATH OF THOSE WHOM THOU HAST BLESSED,

The distinguishing feature of this path is that it leads to goodness and happiness, in a society that guarantees the right of the community, encompasses its outward differences, and brings it together in an efficient administrative system, erected on compassion and mutual human understanding, love and respect.

NOT OF THOSE AGAINST WHOM THOU ART WRATHFUL,

There are many other laws, apart from the collective law, which are also capable of bringing people together. However, these do not show compassion towards the people, because they are not able to protect them from the tyranny of the powerful.

NOR OF THOSE WHO ARE ASTRAY.

The mark of someone who is astray is that they are a solitary person, far away from their world. For without the collective law, the people are captives in cities, at the mercy of feudalism. Without any administration, they are tribes wandering aimlessly in the desert." (2004, pp. 318-319)

~ Excerpted from "Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Qur'an", edited by Dr. Suha Taji-Farouki, lecturer in Modern Islam, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter.

Imagining Islam... time for an Imaginal hermeneutic?

2008-12-24T14:41:00.000-08:00

Algerian-born, Prof. Mohammed Arkoun is viewed by many students of religious studies as a leading thinker in an effort to articulate the Islamic message in global contemporary terms. This can only mean that he is seeking to imagine a worldcentric perspective on Islam, much as I envisage in my doctoral dissertation. In his book "Re-Thinking Islam - Common Questions, Uncommon Answers," Arkoun is asked:

Can one speak of a scientific understanding of Islam in the West or must one rather talk about the Western way of imagining Islam?

This is a part of Arkoun's response:

"The notion of "imagining" evoked in the question is new; the nonspecialist is not likely to grasp it, for even the experts have not succeeded in mastering the shape, function, and operation of this faculty we call imagination. To be brief, I will say that the "imaginary" of an individual, a social group, or a nation is the collection of images carried by that culture about itself or another culture - once a product of epics, poetry, and religious discourse, today a product primarily of the media and secondarily of schools. In this sense, of course, individuals and societies have their own imaginaries tied to their own common languages. There are thus French, English, and German ways of imagining Islam - imaginaries, as they have come to be called - just as there are Algerian, Egyptian, Iranian, and Indian imaginaries of the West. Since the 1950s the powerful, omnipresent media, drawn daily to report on the violent happenings of the moment - national liberation movements, protests, and revolts in the numerous and diverse countries inhabited by Muslims - have fed the Western imaginary of Islam.

The misperceptions inherent in this imaginary go beyond current events. Although the problems of Muslim societies have indeed become knottier and more numerous since the emergence of national states in the 1950s and 1960s, another serious confusion - one that has contributed directly to the shaping of the Western imaginary of Islam - has also emerged in this short time. That is, all the political, social, economic, and cultural shortcomings of Muslim societies are hitched together and to Islam with a capital "I." Islam then becomes the source and the prime mover of all contemporary history in a world that extends from the Philippines to Morocco and from Scandinavia, if we take account of Muslim minorities in Europe, to South Africa.

It is true that the sort of Islamic discourse common to fundamentalist movements, especially those engaged in the most decisive political battles, proposes the powerful image of a single, eternal Islam, the ideal model for historic action to liberate the world from the Western, imperialist, materialist model. The media in the West seize upon this monolithic, fundamentalist view of Islam that dominates the contemporary Muslim imaginary and transpose it into a discourse suitable to the social imaginary of Western countries without any intermediate critique from the social sciences. The field of perception is open to the confrontation of two imaginaries overheated by accumulated confusions about each other.

This everyday labor of stimulating and amplifying the two imaginaries is complicated by a much older and more serious issue, one that reaches to the most sacred origins of the three monotheistic religions. Ever since the emergence of Islam between 610 to 632, there has been continuous rivalry among three religious communities - Jewish, Christian, and Muslim - all striving to establish a monopoly on the management of symbolic capital linked to what the three traditions call "revelation." The issue is enormous and primordial, yet it has nonetheless been buried by secularized, ideological discourse: the ideologies of nation building, scientific progress, and universal humanism in nineteenth- twentieth-century Europe. Then, beginning with the Nazi catastrophe and the wars of colonial liberation, the question of revelation was buried under the no less deceptive rhetoric of decolonization, of development and underdevelopment (in the 1960s), and of nation building in the Third World countries that had just recovered their political sovereignty.

To this day, no one has studied revelation in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arab manifestations and as a function of the historical and anthropological conditions for the emergence of these three traditions. That constitutes a failure of the comparative history of religions, of social science, and of the human sciences, which have left the task of "managing the goods of salvation" to the theologians of each community. That is to say that they have perpetuated theological discourse in its function of legitimating the drive for power of each community. This fact condemns discourse to the confines of a cultural system that excludes all others who have the sacrilegious pretension to draw upon the same symbolic capital." (1994, pp. 6-7).

~ Excerpted from "Re-Thinking Islam - Common Questions, Uncommon Answers" by Mohammed Arkoun, Ph.D, translated and edited by Robert D. Lee. Prof. Arkoun obtained his doctorate from the Sorbonne in Paris, France, and is one of the most influential scholars in Islamic studies today. In a career of more than 30 years, he has been a critic of the tensions embedded in his field of study, advocating Islamic modernism and humanism.

Carl G. Jung's Alhamdulillah...and Siratal Mustaqim!

2008-12-12T20:58:00.000-08:00

Edward Edinger cites a passage from Jung's autobiography to elaborate on the notion of the Psalm on Praise as an affirmation of life:

"Let me conclude with something more sane. This is Jung's affirmation of life in his autobiography. He talks about the illness he had in 1944 and then goes on to say:

'After the illness a fruitful period of work began for me. A good many of my principal works were written only then. The insight I had had, or the vision of the end of all things, gave me the courage to undertake new formulations. I no longer attempted to put across my own opinion, but surrendered myself to the current of my thoughts. Thus one problem after the other revealed itself to me and took shape.

...

Something else, too, came to me from my illness. I might formulate it as an affirmation of things as they are: an unconditional "yes" to that which is, without subjective protests - acceptance of the conditions of existence as I see them and understand them, acceptance of my own nature, as I happen to be. At the beginning of the illness I had the feeling that there was something wrong with my attitude, and that I was to some extent responsible for the mishap. But when one follows the path of individuation, when one lives one's own life, one must take mistakes into the bargain; life would not be complete without them. There is no guarantee - not for a single moment - that we will not fall into error or stumble into deadly peril. We may think there is a sure road. But that would be the road of death. Then nothing happens any longer - at any rate, not the right things. Anyone who takes the sure road is as good as dead.'

...

That passage touches most of the themes that have come up during our discussions of the various Psalms. One might see it as a kind of subdued "Praise the Lord." I don't think it quite meets the criteria, however. Not quite. I think this final image of the Psalms - five times underlined - involves an attitude of total affirmation of existence, fully conscious of the opposites and yet to beyond them that the affirmation is unimpaired by that full realization. It involves a total affirmation of the ego and Self and all the tragedy of their interplay. Even though the full reality of evil in all its depth and breadth is completely perceived, the affirmation is of such an order as to be undamaged by that awareness." (2004, pp. 140-141).

...

~ Excerpted from "The Sacred Psyche" by Edward F. Edinger, M.D.

Alhamdulillah! - Alleluia! in the Hebrew Bible

2008-12-09T22:51:00.000-08:00

Dr. Edward Edinger, M.D. (1922-1998) was well known for his lectures and writing on Jungian psychology, including his psychological commentaries on the Bible. In "The Sacred Psyche - A Psychological Approach to the Psalms," Dr. Edinger comments on a number of Psalms which are rich in psychological content including Psalm 150 which is called "Praise the Lord." Here are some excerpts that Muslims and Islamophiles should find illuminating:

"I feel I know something about the Psalms I've talked about so far, but with Psalm 150 I must confess I do not know what I'm talking about experientially. I could have chosen another Psalm to discuss and left this one out, but I didn't feel that was the right thing to do. I started with Psalm 1 and I want to end with Psalm 150. This final Psalm is one of a series of five that have exactly the same content; the final statement of the Psalms is really one line - "Praise ye the Lord" - underscored five times. In view of that, how could I omit it? So I'll read it and give you some thoughts about it - but my thoughts are not based on the same degree of experience as is everything else I have said. Its a brief Psalm so I'm going to read it in both versions:

1. Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power.

2. Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness.

3. Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp.

4. Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.

5. Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.

6. Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.

And the Jerusalem Bible translation:

Alleluia!

Praise God in his Temple on earth,
praise him in his temple in heaven,
praise him for his mighty achievements,
praise him for his transcendent greatness!
Praise him with blasts of the trumpet,
praise him with lyre and harp,
praise him with drums and dancing,
praise him with strings and reeds,
praise him with clashing cymbals,
praise him with clanging cymbals!
Let everything that breathes praise Yahweh! Alleluia !

Well, I think you'll agree there's just one idea in this Psalm: the praise of God. Now, all we have to do is determine what "Praise the Lord" means psychologically. I'm not sure I know, but I'll do a little work on it. The first thing to consider is the etymology. My approach to a mystery is to start with the word that is used to express it. So I'm going to read you a passage from Nelson's Expository Dictionary of the Old Testament; it's a fine book for needs of this sort. Here is what it says about the Hebrew word "to praise":

halal, "to praise, celebrate, glory, sing (praise), boast." The meaning "to praise" is actually the meaning of the intensive form of the Hebrew verb halal, which in its simple active form means "to boast"....The word is found in Ugaritic in the sense of "shouting" and perhaps "jubilation."
Found more than 160 times in the Old Testament, halal is used for the first time in Gen, 12:15, where it's noted that because of Sarah's great beauty, the princes of Pharaoh "praised" (KJV, "commended') her to Pharaoh.

While halal is often used simply to indicate "praise" of people, including the king (2 Chron 23:12) or the beauty of Absalom (2 Sam, 14:25), the word is usually used in reference to the "praise" of God. Indeed, not only all living things but all created things, including the sun and moon, are called upon "to praise" God (Ps. 148:2-5), 13; 150:1). Typically, such "praise" is called for and expressed in the sanctuary, especially in times of special festivals (Isa. 62:9).

The Hebrew name for the Book of Psalms is simply equivalent for the word "praises" and is a bit more appropriate than "Psalms," which comes from the Greek and has to do with the accompaniment of singing with a stringed instrument of some sort...

The word halal is the source of "Hallelujah," a Hebrew expression of "praise" to God which has been taken over into virtually every language of mankind. The Hebrew "Hallelujah" is generally translated "Praise the Lord!" The Hebrew term is more technically translated "Let us praise Yah," the term "Yah" being a shortened form of "Yahweh."

Well, that's the first leg of our journey in trying to understand the psychological meaning of "Praise the Lord." It gives us a bit of data anyway and enlarges the implications of the term "praise" to include celebrating, glorifying, singing - and boasting!" (2004, pp. 134-136).

~ Excerpted from "The Sacred Psyche - A Psychological Approach to the Psalms" by Edward F. Edinger, M.D.

The Source of the Sacred Qur'an

2008-12-06T17:36:00.000-08:00

Who Wrote the Koran?

By MOHAMMAD AYATOLLAHI TABAAR
New York Times, December 5, 2008

For more than two decades, Abdulkarim Soroush has been Iran’s leading public intellectual. Deeply versed in Islamic theology and mysticism, he was chosen by Ayatollah Khomeini to “Islamicize” Iran’s universities, only to eventually turn against the theocratic state. He paid a price for his dissidence. Vigilantes and other government-supported elements disrupted his widely attended lectures in Iran, beat him and reportedly nearly assassinated him. In a country where intellectuals are often treated like rock stars, Soroush has been venerated and reviled for his outspoken support of religious pluralism and democracy. Now he has taken one crucial step further. Shuttling from university to university in Europe and the U.S., Soroush is sending shock waves through Iran’s clerical establishment.

The recent controversy began about eight months ago, after Soroush spoke with a Dutch reporter about one of Islam’s most sensitive issues: the divine origin of the Koran. Muslims have long believed that their holy book was transmitted word for word by God through the Prophet Muhammad. In the interview, however, Soroush made explicit his alternative belief that the Koran was a “prophetic experience.” He told me that the prophet “was at the same time the receiver and the producer of the Koran or, if you will, the subject and the object of the revelation.” Soroush said that “when you read the Koran, you have to feel that a human being is speaking to you, i.e. the words, images, rules and regulations and the like all are coming from a human mind.” He added, “This mind, of course, is special in the sense that it is imbued with divinity and inspired by God.”

As Soroush’s words spread thanks to the Internet, Iran’s grand ayatollahs entered the battlefield. In their rebuttal, the clerics pointed to the Koranic verses that state “this is a book we have sent down to you (O Muhammad).” They ask, Don’t these verses imply that God is the revealer and Muhammad the receiver? They also point out that there were times when Muhammad waited impatiently for the revelation to come to him and that in more than 300 cases the prophet is commanded to tell his people to do one thing or another. This demonstrates, the argument goes, that the commands are coming from elsewhere rather than from the heart or the mind of the prophet himself.

Soroush, in turn, responds by saying that the prophet was no parrot. Rather, Soroush told me, he was like a bee who produces honey itself, even though the mechanism for making the honey is placed in him by God. This is “the example the Koran itself sets,” says Soroush, citing the Koran: “And your Lord inspired to the bee: take for yourself among the mountains, houses . . . then eat from all the fruits . . . there emerges from their bellies a drink . . . in which there is healing for people.”

Soroush has been described as a Muslim Luther, but unlike the Protestant reformer, he is no literalist about holy books. His work more closely resembles that of the 19th-century German scholars who tried to understand the Bible in its original context. Case in point: when a verse in the Koran or a saying attributed to Muhammad refers to cutting off a thief’s hand or stoning to death for adultery, it only tells us the working rules and regulations of the prophet’s era. Today’s Muslims are not obliged to follow in these footsteps if they have more humane means at their disposal.

Soroush’s latest views have not endeared him to the powerful conservative wing of Iran’s establishment. Some have accused him of heresy, which is punishable by death. There have been demonstrations by clerics in Qom, the religious capital of Iran, against his recent work. But Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, unexpectedly warned against feeding the controversy. He said those who are employing “philosophy or pseudo-philosophy” to “pervert the nation’s mind” should not be dealt with “by declaring apostasy and anger” but rather countered with the “religious truths” that will falsify their arguments.

In Iran today, many opponents of the government advocate the creation of a secular state. Soroush himself supports the separation of mosque and state, but for the sake of religion. He seeks freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. Thus he speaks for a different — and potentially more effective — agenda. The medieval Islamic mystic Rumi once wrote that “an old love may only be dissolved by a new one.” In a deeply religious society, whose leaders have justified their hold on power as a divine duty, it may take a religious counterargument to push the society toward pluralism and democracy. Soroush challenges those who claim to speak for Islam, and does so on their own terms.

Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar is an adjunct lecturer at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University.

The Bibi Miriam Within

2008-12-04T17:56:00.000-08:00

As in some of my earlier posts on the significance of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Islam, and her hidden presence in al-Fatiha, I came across a similar vein of expression in a book by Dr. David Richo, ordained priest, licensed marriage and family therapist and Depth Psychologist:

"Mary can be contemplated as the woman described in the Gospels. In this view the importance of Mary is based on her motherhood of Jesus. This is the literal view. Mary can also be viewed as the most recent personification of the great mother goddess, her predecessors being Demeter, Tara, Isis, Astarte, Inanna, Cybele, Kali, and all the goddesses of light and shadow. In this view Mary is important in her own right and the accent is not on her as a person but as an archetype, a living component of the human psyche. This is the perspective of Mary that we will follow in this book. It is not a new approach. In the eighth century St. Andrew of Crete wrote: "Mary is a statue sculpted by God as an image of a divine archetype." No mature religious consciousness in human history has ever been literal in its understanding of stories or persons in scriptures but rather respects them for the spiritual truths they represent.

The name of the mother of Jesus is Miriam, the daughter, traditionally, of Anne and Joachim. Her name hearkens to an archetypal tradition. In the Hebrew Bible, Miriam is the older sister of Moses. She is a major figure in the movement to feminize Judaism today. Miriam placed Moses in a basket and sailed him down the Nile. In Talmudic tradition, she convinced her father to continue building a family when he was frightened by the Egyptian law ordering the death of male Israelite new-borns. Miriam is looked upon as a prophetess since she foretold Moses as the savior of Israel. Reminiscent of Mary and the Magnificat, Miriam sang a song of victory with the Israelite women after the crossing of the Red Sea (Exodus 15:20).

We know hardly anything about Mary's earthly life. The historical Mary, like the historical Jesus is not clearly accessible in the New Testament. They are described in idealized ways as prototypes of the life of faith, exemplars for us. The Mary of the New Testament and of miracles and apparitions is the Mary of the Ave Maria, the Blessed Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, our Lady. She is the threefold archetypal goddess energy of young virgin, loyal mother, and wise queen. Those three dimensions characterized the great goddess in every tradition throughout history. The mystic philosopher Pythagoras reflected that the threefold goddess represented the phases of a woman's life: virgin, mother, wise old woman. The ancient threefold woman goddess, like Mary, was simultaneously the mistress of the underworld (virgin), the earth (mother), and the heavens (queen). The three dimensions also reflect the phases of the moon: new, waxing, and dying in preparation for renewal.

The excesses of devotion and of theology over the past two millennia regarding Mary become completely intelligible once we apply them to the perennially venerated great goddess and not to the historical Mary. What may seem like idolatry when applied to the woman from Nazareth is entirely appropriate when applied to her archetypal meaning in the life of faith. In fact, no one has yet praised her enough. There can be no excesses for the Source of and guide to the mystery of the divine life in us and in all of nature.

Our exalted titles and beliefs in these past centuries were living indicators of an intuition that survived that survived in us, and were preserved in Catholic tradition particularly. We knew implicitly we were venerating Mary as the divine mother not as a literal physical woman who gave birth to Jesus.If Jesus is the only incarnation of God then the literal/historical Mary is the object of our devotion. But if the incarnation of Jesus is an archetypal metaphor - as opposed to a merely literary metaphor - of our own human destiny to bring divine consciousness into time in our unique lifetime of faith, then the mystical Mary is the one we honor." (2007, pp. 7-8).

~ Excerpted from "Mary Within Us - A Jungian Contemplation of Her Titles and Powers" by David Richo, Ph.D., M.F.T

Exploring Ecological Hermeneutics

2008-12-03T22:25:00.000-08:00

Norman Habel, Professorial Fellow in Biblical Studies at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia, has been the driving force behind introducing an ecological hermeneutic to scripture, which resulted in an Earth Bible. As the editor, he identifies six principles in a publication by the Society of Biblical Literature, entitled "Exploring Ecological Hermeneutics" which could well inspire a profoundly ecological exegesis of al-Fatiha. Perhaps we can imagine those who have earned the Displeasure of Allah or those who have gone astray, in a very different way. These six principles

"were refined in consultations and workshops concerned with ecology in general, and ecological concerns linked to theology and the Bible more specifically.

1. The principle of intrinsic worth: The universe, Earth and all its components have intrinsic worth/value.

2. The principle of interconnectedness: Earth is a community of interconnected living things that are mutually dependent on each other for life and survival.

3. The principle of voice: Earth is a subject capable of raising its voice in celebration and against injustice.

4. The principle of purpose: The universe, Earth and all its components are part of a dynamic cosmic design within which each piece has a place in the overall goal of that design.

5. The principle of mutual custodianship: Earth is a balanced and diverse domain where responsible custodians can function as partners with, rather than rulers over, Earth to sustain its balance and a diverse Earth community.

6. The principle of resistance: Earth and its components not only suffer from human injustices but actively resist them in the struggle for justice.

The writers of the Earth Bible project explored a given biblical passage focusing on one or more of the ecojustice principles enunciated above. The five volumes in that series provided the basis for the development of an ecological hermeneutic for reading the Scriptures and interpretative traditions. (2008, p. 2).

What does an Ecological Hermeneutic look like? The Earth Bible

2008-12-03T20:20:00.000-08:00

When I reflect on the deepest meaning of Rabbi'l 'Alamin (Lord and Sustainer of all the Worlds), I have to ask myself, as a Depth Psychologist, what aspects of our Human Existence are we unconscious of when we pray al-Fatiha? Surely when we recite "All Praise is due to Allah" that such praise does not originate solely from the human species. Is it not with the entirety of Creation which we join as humans that we surrender in Praise of Allah? Are we not praying on behalf of all species and all beings, and for all species and all beings in the Universe, not just on this planet Earth? The notion that such praise is due only from humans is an anthropocentric bias in the interpretation and understanding of al-Fatiha. An ecological hermeneutic would follow in the footprints of those who are attempting an ecological hermeneutic of the other Scriptures, and this has resulted in the Earth Bible. Here is a template of what an Ecological Hermeneutic looks like in the words of Bishop Desmond Tutu, and a review by Peter Lockwood. My next post will more specifically outline the work of Norman Habel in this field.

Selection from the Foreward by Desmond Tutu

"It is significant that the Earth Bible project has chosen to take the Earth crisis seriously and to re-read our biblical heritage in the light of this crisis. The Earth Bible team has listened closely to ecologists and developed a set of principles to re-read the biblical text from an Ecojustice perspective. The concern of Earth Bible writers is not to defend the biblical text blindly, but to identify those passages which may have contributed to the crisis and to uncover those traditions which have valued Earth but been suppressed.

I commend the Earth Bible team for including representative writers from around the globe, including the Southern hemisphere. I commend the writers for confronting the biblical tradition honestly and openly in dialogue with ecologists. And, in particular, I commend the writers for daring to read the biblical text afresh from the perspective of Earth. Feminists have forced us to confront the patriarchal orientation of much of the biblical text. Earth Bible writers are now confronting us with the anthropocentric nature of much of the biblical text. We now ask: does the text de-value Earth by making the self-interest of humans its dominant concern?

I recommend you read the Earth Bible series with a critical but empathetic eye. As a critical reader you will want to assess whether writers make their case for or against their interpretation of the text in terms of the principles employed. As an empathetic reader, however, you will need to identify with Earth and the suffering Earth community as you read the text."

Selection from Review by Peter Lockwood

"Ecojustice Bible readings cannot come soon enough. It has been argued, implicitly here, explicitly there, that if humans have been made in God’s image with authority to rule, in fact to subdue, the Earth, and if heaven and earth are bound to pass away at the final consummation, surely the Earth stands at the disposal of humans, to be devalued, exploited and oppressed to our heart’s content. Such opinions cannot go unchecked. Environmental degradation has reached crisis proportions, and the future of planet Earth is in serious danger. Has the Bible itself contributed to the crisis, or is it simply misguided interpretations of the Bible? By re-reading the text from the perspective of the oppressed Earth, it is the Earth Bible team’s fervent desire that they will do far more than assist at the birth of an additional method of reading the Bible, destined to take its rightful place in the complete Bible scholar’s exegetical repertoire. In Habel’s words, they are intent on making a contribution to resolving a crisis that affects all members of the Earth community’ (Volume 1:27).

Following a series of consultations between biblical scholars and environmental scientist, six principles were formulated for reading texts from the perspective of Ecojustice. They are the principles of intrinsic worth, interconnectedness, voice, purpose, mutual custodianship, and resistance (Volume 1, chapter 2). Those who embrace Ecojustice principles will no longer regard Earth as an object of human gratification, or a resource for people to exploit, but as living and life-giving, possessed or her own intrinsic value and the right to be regarded as a subject that can celebrate and suffer alike.

Feminism has given rise to feminist readings of the Bible (and The Women’s Bible), sociology and political science have given rise to socio-political readings of the Bible, and the environmental movement has been the driving force behind Earth, or Ecojustice, readings of the text (and now The Earth Bible). Each approach is liberationist in that its exponents read and reflect on biblical texts in the light of questions addressed to it from the perspective of women, the oppressed, and the Earth, whose stories and voices have been silenced, or at best marginalised.

The prime mover behind the Earth Bible project is Norman Habel. With his unflagging imagination, courage and energy, Norm initiated the interdisciplinary conversation between Bible scholars and ecologists, and between students drawn from both disciplines. Norm has kept the discussion alive at successive meetings of the American Society for Biblical Literature and the Australian and New Zealand Society of Theological Studies. With the other contributors, Norm invites us to readjust our angle of vision, address a totally new set of questions to the text, and thereby discover the remarkable new vistas opened up on Earth when viewed through the lens that the Ecojustice readings apply."

~ Excerpted from http://www.webofcreation.org/Earthbible/earthbible.html

Former President Khatami on the aim of prophethood.

2008-11-29T08:48:00.000-08:00

After former President Khatami made his international debut at the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly in 1998, he explained why he had called for a dialogue of civilizations at an informal press breakfast, as reported by Robin Wright in "Dreams and Shadows:"

"At the end of the twentieth century...what is the legacy of humanity? In his famous book The Republic, Plato says, 'What is justice?'" Khatami opined to a group of journalists who had all come to talk about issues a bit more pressing than ancient Greek philosophy.

"The Koran says that the aim of the prophethood was defense of justice and equality. One can interpret the same meaning from the Bible and the Torah. But twenty-five hundred years after Plato, two thousand years after Jesus, and fourteen hundred years after Mohammed, we still ask: What is meant by justice? The very fact that humanity has not reached a united definition means we are still in a period of trial and error. We need to have a dialogue among civilizations about the issue of justice. We must make efforts to have greater equality and justice for all humanity." (2008, pp. 304-305).

Is there not an inference in Surah 1:7 that the Siratal Mustaqim -the path of those upon whom God has bestowed Grace - that all 124,000 prophets of the past were proactively engaged in defining and in seeking Justice and Equality in order to re-create a moral society?

The Mufti of Australia weighs in on gender parity

2008-11-28T13:09:00.000-08:00

This was reported in the New Straits Times Online on November 23, 2008

MELBOURNE, Sun:

The Mufti of Australia wants men and women to worship together in mosques, it is reported.

Sheikh Fehmi Naji el-Imam said he would end segregation of men and women in mosques, in response to Muslim women’s anger at "entrenched discrimination", The Age newspaper said.

He said he would put his proposal to the next meeting of the Australian National Imams Council and consider how women could share the room with men during prayers.

At most mosques in Australia, everyone prays in the same room in rows, with men at the front, then children, then women.

Sheikh Fehmi said segregated worship was introduced long ago, as a cultural change, not a religious one, and he would argue to end it. He said it was good to hear the complaints, and to try to find some solution to these concerns in an exclusive interview.

“My duty is to propose, to discuss and try to convince. I can’t guarantee the outcome.”
Sheikh Fehmi said that in the time of Prophet Muhammad 1,400 years ago, women were not segregated.

In some mosques overseas, there are no physical barriers between men’s and women’s areas but in Australia almost every mosque have separate sections for men and women, the newspaper said.

Sydney lecturer Jamila Hussain on Thursday told a conference at the National Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies here that women found facilities at some mosques "insulting" and that they were treated as second-class citizens.

Jamila yesterday welcomed Sheikh Fehmi’s promise to try to end segregation.

“It’s an excellent start. But I’m a bit hesitant about when or whether it will happen — it will be a while,” she is quoted by The Age as saying.

Islamic Council of Victoria vice-president Sherene Hassan told the newspaper Sheikh Fehmi’s plan was a fine initiative, and it was good to see imams being proactive. “It is in line with true Islamic teaching.” Several Muslim women spoke out about discrimination and disadvantage this week at the conference.

In particular, a report by the Islamic Women’s Welfare Council of Victoria highlighted problems with imams, claiming some were condoning domestic violence, rape in marriage, welfare fraud and exploitation of vulnerable women. Sheikh Fehmi, who is also secretary of the Victorian Board of Imams, acknowledged there were problems.

“Imams are human beings, and every human being is fallible. So, if one imam errs on a point we should not generalise and say all imams are the same,” he said.

Jamila, who studied Sydney mosques, said that in some, women had to pray in the yard under a blazing sun while men enjoyed the cool interior, or to pray in a kitchen between stoves and sinks, or to pray in a tent in full view of a pub across the road.

The chairwoman of the Islamic Women’s Welfare Council, Tasneem Chopra, said Sheikh Fehmi’s response made her optimistic that better outcomes could be negotiated. — Neville D’Cruz, BERNAMA

An Iranian ex-revolutionary on Siratal Mustaqim, Love & Reason.

2008-11-27T18:05:00.000-08:00

I came across Abdolkarim Soroush's 'engagement' in Robin Wright's book entitled "Dreams and Shadows - The Future of the Middle East." Soroush, in his interview with Wright, references the Iranian Shia interpretation of Siratal Mustaqim within the context of a discussion with Wright on ijtihad:

"Soroush also challenges the core idea - on which Iran's Islamic government was based - that there is a single right path for the faithful to follow. Tehran's clerics believe that they are the only ones who can define it.

Soroush argues, however, that there is no single right path in Islam - and no single right religion.

"Every day, Muslims recite a prayer ten times entreating God to guide us to the right path," he explained to me. "Some say the only right path is Islam, and the rest stray or are on a deviant path. But I argue that there are many right paths. I try to justify a pluralistic view of religions - the internal sects of Sunni, Shia, and others, and also the great religions, like Christianity, Judaism, and the rest."

"We think they go to hell, and they think we go to hell," he said, a smile crossing his face,as if the idea were amusing in its smallness.

"But I am trying to say that Christians and members of other religions are well guided and good servants of God. All are equally rightful in what they believe. To some this sounds like heresy," he said, the smile widening. "But this, too, has found listening ears in our society. " (2008, p. 271)

Abdolkarim Soroush

The following article by Soroush appears in http://www.eurozine.com/, published on March 30, 2007

On Reason

Religious intellectuals in Iran are striving to redefine the relationship between reason and revelation, and, despite Pope Benedict's belief to the contrary, consider Islam to consist precisely of multiple interpretations, writes Abdolkarim Soroush. Reason's greatest rival is not religion, then, but revolution. Speaking from personal experience of Iran's Cultural Revolution, which he supported, Soroush warns: "The first resource that is squandered in a revolution is rationality and the last thing that returns home is rationality. If it ever returns."

A good deal of truth is contained in Richard Rorty's comment that, in the Middle Ages, God was god; that in the Age of Enlightenment and modernity, reason became god; and that today, in the postmodern age, there is no God. The idol or the god of reason has been shattered. Today, the beloved notion of "rationality", once one of the most lofty and sacred of terms, conveys little more than a suspect, ambiguous, and modest meaning. Aristotelian reason, Cartesian reason, Kantian reason, Hegelian reason, religious reason, historical reason, dialectical reason, theoretical reason, practical reason, and all the other varieties of reason, have smashed the mirror into a thousand pieces, so as to make it impossible to see any whole and undistorted image reflected in it.

Today when someone speaks of reason, they are referring either to the logical methods of deductive and inductive reasoning, proof and refutation, and so on, or to the products of reason, including philosophy, language, morality, science, and the like. Since these products are all fluid and mutable, it is considered axiomatic in our times that reason changes (or evolves and is infinitely perfectible). Modern reason and classical reason are different because the products of these two reasons, in other words their science, philosophy, morality, politics and economics, are different. Since this is the case, submitting to a kind of relativism is unavoidable. This is exactly the situation in which we live and breathe today.

Some Muslim philosophers view theoretical reason as a set of theoretical, self-evident truths, and practical reason as a set of practical, self-evident truths. Regarding this definition, it has to be said that self-evident truths have changed; what seemed self-evident to people in the past no longer seems self-evident today. The existence of God was something akin to a theoretical, self-evident truth in the Middle Ages, whereas today it has lost this standing. Conversely, human rights are considered to be self-evident truths in our times, whereas in the past they were not. The Age of Enlightenment believed itself to be enlightened and described the Middle Ages as the dark ages. And, of course, people in the Middle Ages would have taken the opposite view: they would have said that they were enlightened and that the holders of any rival views were living in the dark.

The fact that hardly anyone uses the expression "the dark ages" anymore itself testifies to a major change of stance on knowledge. It has become clear that both the Age of Enlightenment and the Middle Ages were caught up in and delimited by their own paradigms or self-evident truths; that the inhabitants of the two (epistemic) paradigms could hardly have raised their heads above their own ramparts to criticize themselves. It was only when these ramparts fell away that eyes were opened and tongues could speak. Our situation in the postmodern age is similar. The point we have learnt from Thomas Kuhn and Michel Foucault, among others, is that we do not have one single rationality but rationalities.

The lesson for us in all of this is rational modesty. In the past, it used to be said that arrogance and selfishness were impediments to rationality; now, we have to say that arrogance equals irrationality and that modesty is one of the essential virtues of rational people and seekers of learning.

Extracting general, universal, ahistorical rulings from the heart of "absolute, ahistorical reason" and considering them applicable to all people in all ages has become more difficult today than ever before. Humanity has arrived at a healthy and beneficial pluralism and relativism, the fruit of which is modesty and the rejection of dogmatism. We must be thankful for this and see it as a good omen. But reason has not only been faced, internally, with a host of shattering, reason-crushing forms; it has also had to contend with many external rivals. I will mention three of these rivals, of which I have personal experience.

Reason and revelation

Pope Benedict XVI, in his controversial Regensburg speech, boasted of the collaboration between Christianity and Greek philosophy, describing their reconciliation and alliance as auspicious and epoch-making. He criticized Islam and Protestantism for not having established as strong a link as they should have done with rationality, particularly philosophical and Greek rationality. He even described the God of Islam as an irrational God or even an anti-rational God.

This is not the place at which to assess the Pope's at times inaccurate and ill-judged remarks. The point is that the relationship between reason and revelation has never been smooth and altogether friendly. Revelation-independent reason has always been viewed as a rival of revelation and prophets never liked being called philosophers. Theologians, who made religious belief reasoned and rational, and saw themselves as serving religion in this way, were considered traitors by religions' orthodox followers. The latter were of the opinion that rationalizing religion meant subjecting religion to reason and measuring its truth and veracity on the scale of rationality, and that this was, at the very least, a suspect and useless thing to do. Believers maintained that revelation had come to assist reason; how, then, could this relationship be turned on its head by having reason assist revelation? Some would go even further and say that the candle of reason was useful in the gloom that preceded revelation; once the sun of revelation dawned, that candle had to be snuffed out.

Cooperation between reason and revelation was, of course, another option. The basis for this cooperation was the idea that the God who created reason was the same God who sent us revelation. Many great Christian and Islamic philosophers, such as Avicenna, Farabi, and Thomas Aquinas, belonged to this line of thought. Sadreddin Shiraz, the seventeenth century Iranian philosopher, went so far as to say: "Woe betide any philosophy that is not confirmed by God's religion!" The Mu'tazilite school of theology, which unfortunately suffered a devastating historical defeat at the hands of its Ash'arite rival, was founded on the basis of the compatibility of reason and religion and was also on good terms with Greek philosophy. The God of the Mu'tazilites was a just and moral God, whose conduct was in keeping with rational criteria. This was also the Mu'tazilites understanding of the prophet Mohammed and his teachings. Reason in this school was so corpulent as to make religion seem emaciated by comparison; unlike the Ash'arite school of theology, which had a corpulent religion and an emaciated rationality. The Sufis, for their part – who were a different creed altogether – had attained a corpulent love, alongside which both religion and reason seemed emaciated.

At any rate, the discoveries of empirical reason in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe, and the conflict between science and scripture, suddenly awakened the dormant battle between reason and revelation and sent perilous waves crashing through this ocean again. I believe that the conflict proved auspicious for both sides, in other words, for both science and religion. It taught both to become more modest, to make fewer claims, and made them more sensitive to the sophistication of the truths that are discovered in different realms. Of course, the battle – alongside the emergence of Protestantism and the bloody conflicts between the different Christian sects – paved the way for the onset of full-blown secularism. When states began proclaiming independence from religion, the hegemony of one religion over all others was broken.

Although Islamic revelation has on occasion been on good terms and on occasion on bad terms with non-religious reason (and especially philosophical/Greek reason), it was never confronted by empirical reason, simply because modern empirical science did not develop among Muslims. Therefore they neither suffered the perils of this battle, nor did they benefit from its blessings.
When science arrived victorious in the Islamic countries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Muslims, far from quaking in their boots, rejoiced that the victor that had vanquished Christianity would now be befriending Islam. It is interesting to note that modern science and philosophy met almost no resistance in Islamic countries. First, the doors of universities and then the doors of seminaries were thrown open to the new disciplines and they became the subjects of study and discussion. This was also the case in Iran after the Islamic Revolution. I remember how, as a member of the Cultural Revolution Institute after the revolution, an Italian reporter asked me whether the theory of evolution would be eliminated from university curricula. I told him that it would not and then thought to myself that such a notion had never occurred to me or my colleagues. Of course, Marxism should be bracketed off in this respect: clerics have always seen it as a materialist and anti-religious theory.

Today, religious intellectuals in Iran are striving to redefine the relationship between reason and revelation; basing their approach on the interpretation of the Quran in particular, they are seeking assistance from modern hermeneutics and the experience of Christianity. Despite what Pope Benedict seems to think, far from fearing multiple interpretations of the Quran, or deeming these to be a violation of the Quran's status as divine revelation, these religious intellectuals believe that Islam consists precisely of such multiple interpretations, and that it is virtually impossible to reach religion's pure kernel.

Reason and love

The lofty and sturdy tradition of Islamic Sufism was a reaction to two things: first, to the unrestrained corruption, materialism, and pleasure-seeking of the courts under the Umavid and Abbasid caliphates; and second, to the terrifying, tyrannical, and omnipotent God described in the Ash'arites and the Mu'tazilites relentless philosophical digressions into God's attributes and actions, particularly his justness. The first reaction produced ascetic Sufism, the second, the Sufism of love. The Sufism of love drew a line under both reason and fear. It wanted to love God, not to fear God. And it wanted to be enchanted by God, as a lover is enchanted by the beloved, not to unravel God, as a philosopher solves a puzzle. Mansour Hallaj, the renowned ninth century Sufi, conveyed the condensed essence of this approach as follows: "The beloved is brimming with allures, not secrets." In other words, God is an object for lovers. And love was such that it went to war with reason. Perhaps the word "war" seems too strong, but perusing the works of Sufis conveys nothing less than this.

Love became the rival of both theoretical reason and practical reason. For one thing, Sufis claim that love grants a lover eyes to see vistas that are beyond the realm of reason. Jalal-al-Din Rumi, the greatest Iranian-Afghan mystic and poet, born in 1234, says to his master and friend Shams-e Tabrizi: "Shams-e Tabriz, love can know you, reason cannot." In other words, love grants knowledge. It is capable of making discoveries and its findings have cognitive import. Another aspect of Sufism is the belief that reason is a selfish, profit-seeking, and conservative creature not prone to selflessness, benevolence, and self-sacrifice. Love, on the other hand, reduces selfishness to zero, "kills the self", makes the lover generous, good-natured, hardy, and gallant, and heals all the lover's spiritual ills.

Although this love is the kernel of religiosity, it in fact lies beyond the believer's duties. Most believers seek some benefit and reward from their religiosity; although there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this, it is far from the lofty heights attained by the lover, who leaves behind the realm of benefits and rewards and takes the course of a lover's gamble. A Sufism built on this kind of love is cheek by jowl with revelation and more or less views prophets as great mystics who placed the products of their contemplations at people's disposal. Mystics who are not prophets have no such mission.

At any rate, the relationship between Sufism and philosophy or love and reason – like the relationship between reason and revelation – has not been smooth. Muslim philosophers have benefited from mysticism just as they have benefited from revelation, and have understood neither as being contrary to pure reason. The least that can be said is that philosophers have taken on board those mystical findings that have lent themselves to reason and have opted for silence on the rest. But mystics preferred minds that were unencumbered by philosophy and considered philosophical musings and "attachment to causes" to be incompatible with a lover's position. Moreover, although the pre-conceptual and pre-theoretical understanding of mystics could be poured into philosophers' conceptual moulds, in doing so they lost their novelty and authenticity –- this made mystics steer away from philosophy.

Having taught both philosophy and mysticism, I have dwelt in the heart of this duality all my life and have watched my students well to see which way they would jump. I have rarely come across anyone who can endure this tug-of-war and continue to hang on to both ends. Ultimately, either reason or love has triumphed; more often than not, love has proved stronger.

Reason and revolution

Revolution is a blistering explosion of hatred and the discharged energy of this ruinous emotion. It has no affinity with the coolness of analytical reason. What affinity can there be between a hatred that wants to destroy tradition, monarchy, property, and so on, and a reason that wants to know and understand?

In revolutions, love and emotions are invariably given their due, but reason is not so well served. Much time passes before a revolution's leaders rein in the destruction and turn to rationality and construction. To be fair, revolutions are not without rationality, but their rationality mostly manifests itself as the rejection of the outgoing rationality. Revolutionaries know what they oppose, but they are a long way from knowing what they favour.

Revolutionaries are fiery idealists who are deluded about what they can achieve. They imagine that they can change traditions and human beings quickly and replace them with new traditions and new human beings. All revolutions are anarchist to some extent – if there is no component of anarchism within revolution, it is not a revolution. In revolutions, the colourful spectrum of reality pales into monochrome and everything is reduced to black and white: the past is bad, the future is good; a counterrevolutionary is bad, a revolutionary is good; and so on.

In this way, the door is shut to analytical reason, which seeks more subtle and realistic categorizations. In revolutions, there is just one single measure for good and bad: the revolution itself. And this is tantamount to abandoning all measures: not only is the revolution good, but the revolution equals good! When something becomes its own measure, irrationality has arrived.

The task of rational people in the middle of revolutions is not to turn back the revolutionary wave; this is beyond their abilities. Their task is to reduce the destruction and to guide energies away from chaos and destruction and towards rebuilding. Having experienced a revolution myself and been charged with responsibilities within it, I have seen this truth first hand. Anyone who has witnessed a revolution recognizes the culpability of those who leave the people no option but to resort to a revolution. The first resource that is squandered in a revolution is rationality and the last thing that returns home is rationality. If it ever returns.

Of these three-fold rivals of reason – revelation, love, and revolution – it is the third that is the most merciless. Revelation has more or less conducted a reasonable historical exchange with reason, which can be beneficial to both sides. Love, for its part, has always been a rare good, in the possession of a small minority. While it stirs up excitement, it has not stirred up wickedness. But, when faced with all-embracing revolutions, which have neither love's beauty nor revelation's sanctity, people can only seek refuge in God; for revolutions rob people of both life and reason. The wise ones in any community have a duty to steer political, social, and economic policies towards a rational and just system, so that the need never arises for revolutionary destruction and irrationality. It behoves them to spread justice to keep the revolution at bay.

Feminine Rock Music of the Soul?

2008-11-25T10:09:00.000-08:00

I could not resist this story because it speaks to the inevitability of gender parity in Islam in the 21st Century. Not only will music become a fully accepted part of the every day Muslim lifestyle but new art forms and expressions are bound to thrive. If this can happen in Saudi Arabia, we're in for some huge quantum leaps in Muslim self-expression.

By Robert F. Worth NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
November 24, 2008

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia – They cannot perform in public. They cannot pose for album cover photographs. Even their jam sessions are secret, for fear of offending the religious authorities in this ultraconservative kingdom.

But the members of Saudi Arabia's first all-girl rock band, the Accolade, are clearly not afraid of taboos.

The band's first single, "Pinocchio," has become an underground hit here, with hundreds of young Saudis downloading the song from the group's Web site. Now, the pioneering young foursome, all of them college students, want to start playing regular gigs – inside private compounds, of course – and recording an album.

"In Saudi, yes, it's a challenge," said the group's spiky-haired lead singer, Lamia, who has piercings on her left eyebrow and beneath her bottom lip. (Like other band members, she gave only her first name.) "Maybe we're crazy. But we wanted to do something different."

In a country where women are not allowed to drive and rarely appear in public without their faces covered, the band is very different indeed. The prospect of female rockers clutching guitars and belting out angry lyrics about a failed relationship – the theme of "Pinocchio" – would once have been unimaginable here.

But this country's harsh code of public morals has slowly thawed, especially in Jiddah, by far the kingdom's most cosmopolitan city. A decade ago, the cane-wielding religious police terrorized women who were not dressed according to their standards.

Today, there is a growing rock scene with dozens of bands, some of them even selling tickets to their performances. Hip-hop is also popular. The religious police – strictly speaking, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice – have largely retreated from the streets of Jiddah, and they are somewhat less aggressive even in the kingdom's desert heartland.

The change has been especially noticeable since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when the Saudis confronted the effects of extremism both outside and inside the kingdom. More than 60 percent of Saudi Arabia's population is under 25, and many younger people are pressing for greater freedoms.

"The upcoming generation is different from the one before," said Dina, the Accolade's 21-year-old guitarist and founder. "Everything is changing. Maybe in 10 years it's going to be OK to have a band with live performances."

Dina said she first dreamed of starting a band three years ago. In September, she and her sister Dareen, 19, who plays bass, teamed up with Lamia and Amjad, the keyboardist.

They were already iconoclasts: Dina and Dareen, both strikingly attractive, wear their hair teased into thick manes and have pierced eyebrows. During an interview with the band at a Starbucks, they wore black abayas – the flowing gown that is standard attire for women – but the gowns were open, showing their jeans and T-shirts, and their hair and faces were uncovered. Women are more apt to go uncovered in Jiddah than in most other parts of the country, though it is still an uncommon sight.

The band gets together to practice every weekend at the sisters' house, where their younger brother sometimes fills in on drums. Early this month, Dina, who studies art at King Abdulaziz University, began writing a song based on one of her favorite paintings, "The Accolade," by the English pre-Raphaelite painter Edmund Blair Leighton. The painting depicts a long-haired noblewoman knighting a young warrior with a sword.

"I liked the painting because it shows a woman who is satisfied with a man," Dina said.
She had thought of writing a song based on "Last Supper" by Leonardo da Vinci but decided that doing so would be taking controversy too far. (In Saudi Arabia, churches are not allowed, and Muslims who convert to Christianity can be executed.)

Dina held out her cell phone to show a video of the band practicing at home. It looked like a garage-band jam session anywhere in the world, with the sisters hunching over their instruments, their brother blasting away at the drums and Lamia clutching a microphone.
"We're looking for a drummer," Lamia said. "Five guys have offered, but we really want the band to be all female."

Although they know they are doing something unusual, in person the band members seem more playful than provocative. Unlike some of the wealthier Saudi youth who have lived abroad and tasted Western lifestyles, they are middle class and have never left their country.

"What we're doing – it's not something wrong, it's art, and we're doing it in a good way," Dina said. "We respect our traditions."

All the members are quick to add that they disapprove of smoking, drinking and drugs.
"You destroy yourself with that," Lamia said.

Yet rock 'n' roll itself is suspect in Saudi Arabia in part because of its association with decadent lifestyles. Most of the bands here play heavy metal, which has only added to the stigma because of the way some Western heavy metal bands use images linked to satanism or witchcraft. In Saudi Arabia, people are sometimes imprisoned and even executed on charges of practicing witchcraft.

The first rock bands appeared here about 20 years ago, according to Hassan Hatrash, a 34-year-old journalist and bass player who was one of the pioneers, and their numbers gradually grew. Then in 1995, the police raided a performance in Jiddah, hauling about 300 young men off to jail, including Hatrash. They were released a few days later without being charged. (There is no actual law against playing rock music or holding public performances here.)

Hatrash, who has graying shoulder-length hair, recalled how the religious police used to harass young men who advertised their interest in rock 'n' roll. He was once taken to a police station where his head was shaved.

In recent years, with the religious police on the defensive, bands have begun to play concerts, and a few have recorded albums.

The Accolade plans to move slowly, Dina said, with "jams for ladies only" at first. The band members' parents support them, though they have asked them to keep things quiet.

Eventually, Dina said, they hope to play real concerts, perhaps in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
"It's important for them to see what we're capable of," she said.

Rumi seeks the Tawhid of Siratal Mustaqim in the Silence

2008-11-25T08:30:00.000-08:00

Only Breath

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu,

Buddhist, sufi or zen. Not any religion

or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up

from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,

am not an entity in this world or the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any

origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.

I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,

first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being.

There is a way between voice and presence

where information flows.

In disciplined silence it opens.

With wandering talk it closes.

The Essential Rumi, translations by Coleman Barks (p. 32. 1995).

Anonymous raises questions that need answers

2008-11-24T22:38:00.000-08:00

Salam U Alaikum brother,

Thank you for the response to my question, I see what you're trying to say, however I am wondering that the Quran has also made a lot of references to the point that the Jews were subject to the wrath of God (since they didn't believe in Jesus as a prophet of God) and the Christians were the ones who had gone astray (who claimed Jesus to be a God). So since these references have been made through out the Quran, the implication seems reasonable. I ask you, is it incorrect that the Quran has made references to the aforementioned points? Thanks

Thank you for the question because clearly there have been such references but they have to be seen in a historical and theological context. The Qur'an seeks to clarify certain distinctions between the three Abrahamic faiths. The Qur'an also makes it very clear that although there may have been misinterpretations or "corruptions" in previous scriptures the diversity and plurality of various faith expressions are the very manifestations of the Divine Will, as per Sura 5: 51 in the translation by Yusuf Ali (in other translations, this sura is found in 5:48):

"To thee We sent the Scripture
In Truth, confirming
The scripture that came
Before it, and guarding it
In safety: so judge
Between them by what
God hath revealed,
And follow not their vain
Desires, diverging
From the Truth that hath come
To thee. To each among you
Have We prescribed a Law
And an Open Way.
If God had so willed,
He would have made you
A single People, but (His
Plan is) to test you in what
He hath given you: so strive
As in a race in all virtues.
The goal of you all is to God;
It is He that will show you
The truth of the matters
In which ye dispute;"

The renowned South African scholar of Islam, Farid Esack elaborates on this theme in his book
"Qur'an, Liberation and Pluralism - An Islamic Perspective of Interreligious Solidarity against Oppression:"

"The Qur'an regards Muhammad as one of a galaxy of prophets, some of whom are mentioned specifically in the Qur'an while 'others you do not know' (40:78). The same din, the Qur'an declares, 'was enjoined on Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus' (42:13) 'You are but a warner', the Qur'an tells Muhammad, 'and every people has had its guide ' (13:08, see also 16:36 and 35:24). The fact that the Qur'an incorporates accounts of the lives of these predecessors of Muhammad and makes it part of its own history is perhaps the most significant reflection of its emphasis on the unity of din. These prophets came with identical messages which they preached within the context of various and differing situations of their people. Basically, they came to reawaken the commitment of people to tawhid, to remind them about the ultimate accountability to God and to establish justice. 'And for every ummah there is a messenger. So when their messenger comes the matter is decided between them with justice, and they will not be wronged' (10:47)." (2002, p. 116).

~ Excerpted from "Qur'an - Liberation & Pluralism" by Farid Esack.who did his undergraduate studies in Islam at Jami'ah Ulum al-Islamia and graduated from Jami'ah Alimiyyah al-Islamia with a Bachelors Degree in Islamic Law & Theology. He did post-graduate research in Qur'anic Studies at Jami'ah Abu Bakr (all in Karachi) and completed a doctoral degree in Qur'anic Hermeneutics at University of Birmingham (UK). In 1994-95 he was a Research Fellow in Biblical Hermeneutics at Philosophische Theologische Hochschule, Sankt Georgen, Frankfurt am Main.

Siratal Mustaqim within the context of pluralism?

2008-11-23T22:46:00.000-08:00

Aga Khan holds up Canada as model for the world

Don Cayo
Canwest News Service
Sunday, November 23, 2008

TORONTO - What may often sound to Canadians like a discordant cacophony of voices from our diverse cultures and interest groups is apparently music to the ears of the Aga Khan.
In an exclusive interview on Sunday with Canwest News Service, the hereditary leader of the world's 15 million Shia Ismaili Muslims held up Canada - a country he has visited often and has maintained a close relationship with throughout his 50-year reign - as a model with much to teach the world.

Not that the Aga Khan, long a champion of the urgent need for pluralism in every society, thinks the rest of the world can be, should be or wants to be just like us. The lesson is not to export a cookie-cutter replica of our society, but rather it's in our method - the way Canadians have learned to craft workable accommodations for the huge diversity of our citizens.

The absence of pluralism is, in his view, a root cause of much of the world's discord. About 40 per cent of the countries in the UN are what he calls "failed democracies" - countries where ethnic or tribal concerns routinely trump the greater good.

The idea of including those who are outside a core group doesn't come naturally to the human species, he said. It is learned.

Canada, he said, "can do an enormous amount" to impart the lesson of its success.
"You have, as far as I can tell, made a wise divide between the economics of the country and the politics of the country," he said. "There is a respect for the notion that economic management today is a science. It's not a political football."

In addition, "You have created a democratic context in which various groups feel comfortable. You have created a genuine pluralist society, and you have looked for leadership in all your groups. That leadership, which is very diverse, gives all these groups a sense of comfort."

Conversely, "If you look at African states or Asian states you can see that there are communities that have been totally marginalized, whether they have competent individuals or not."
There is, perhaps, no better modern-day example to illustrate both sides of that coin than the story of his Ismaili followers replanting their roots in Canada.

In 1957, when he inherited the title of 49th Ismaili imam from his grandfather, Canada had but one Ismaili citizen - Safar Ali Ismaily, who had immigrated here just five years before. This number scarcely grew, with only a tiny trickle of newcomers until 1972 when a flood of about 6,000 refugees arrived from East Africa after their expulsion from newly independent Uganda and the seizure of their assets in Tanzania and Kenya.

But as much as their departures were driven by strife, their arrival has proved to be an uncommon success. Canadian Ismailis have grown to an economically successful community of nearly 100,000, which has maintained an abiding attachment to its members faith and institutions while also engaging vigorously in broader society.

Their initial success was facilitated by the intervention of the Aga Khan himself with his friend, then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau, who helped pave the way for the diaspora.
It was also helped, he said, by the fact that they spoke English and most were well educated - advantages not enjoyed by many other immigrant groups who have fled to Canada from other parts of the world.

As a Muslim leader, the Aga Khan took care to explain, his role differs from religious leaders in the Judeo-Christian tradition in that his duty includes addressing quality-of-life issues for his followers, not just spiritual matters.

In his role as a temporal leader, he moves as an equal among world leaders, but he has no country.

His followers are spread among 25 countries, many of them fragile or in turmoil. As a minority in the Shia tradition, which is itself a minority in the Muslim faith, Ismailis have often been persecuted and many remain vulnerable in some of the countries where they live.
The success enjoyed by Canadian Ismailis - landing in an open, pluralistic country where they are free to practice their faith and to prosper - isn't in the cards for most who remain in these difficult circumstances.

"If you look at the Ismaili community, or any other community that's as diverse, it's unrealistic to expect that hundreds of thousands of people will ever be able to move from a country like Pakistan, or India, or Afghanistan to the West. That's not realistic.

"Therefore, we are actually committed to try to improve what happens there."

That commitment is manifest through the Aga Khan Development Network. This is a complex web of affiliated non-profit agencies and profit-seeking (but, he stressed, not profit-driven) companies that seek to establish stability and progress in places where there is little or none. Although these agencies focus on countries where Ismailis live, they work with people of all faiths and ethnic backgrounds.

The network is funded in part by the Aga Khan's personal wealth, both inherited and built through his business acumen, as well as the tithes of its followers. But it also has non-Ismaili supporters, and it collaborates extensively with other agencies. They include CIDA, the aid arm of the Canadian government, which he singled out as a particularly significant and long-standing partner.

The Aga Khan was in Toronto as part of an eight-day visit to Canada in celebration of his 50th jubilee. The visit includes high-level meetings with a variety of Canadian leaders as well as celebrations with his followers. He started the visit in Ottawa, he will visit Calgary on Monday, and he will end the tour in Vancouver on Tuesday.
Vancouver Sun
dcayo@vancouversun.com

© Canwest News Service 2008

Gender Parity in Al-Fatiha

2008-11-23T11:08:00.000-08:00

As I have noted in my prior posts on Bibi Miriam, until tradition-bound Muslims can accept that a woman also has the capacity for Prophet hood, sainthood and hence spiritual leadership, it will be difficult to accept the notion of gender parity in certain parts of the Ummah. However, there is hope on the horizon and this is as a result of creating equal opportunities for women in the field of education. As Hooman Majd reports in his book "The Ayatollah Begs to Differ," the issue is quickly emerging so that we may even see some progress in our lifetimes:

"A nation that churns out hundreds of thousands of college graduates each year - 60 percent of them women - many of whom end up either jobless or working in fields below their qualifications (such as running a taxi service or even driving a cab), will have to deal with the question of gender equality sooner rather than later, and Bojnourdi's pronouncements on female presidents, distraction or not, are seen to be a step in the right direction. For if a woman can be president, it surely follows that she can also be a judge (a position denied the Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi), and if she can be a judge, then perhaps more liberal interpretations of the law, on issues such as divorce, child custody, and spousal rights, might soon gain favor. And if a woman can be president, then surely she would no longer need her husband's or her father's permission to travel abroad - a law that dates from the time of the Shah, who despite his Western ways and progressive reputation, was as sexist and misogynist as some of the Ayatollahs - unlike Bojnourdi, who is a voice of reason in an often unreasonable debate.

The Shah, who had divorced two women he claimed to love for their inability to produce a male heir, when asked by Barbara Walters in an interview in 1977 about his earlier sexist comments to the journalist Oriana Fallaci, didn't deny them, and in fact went further in dismissing equality of the sexes and betrayed his misogyny by saying that women hadn't even been able to produce a famous and great chef (he must not have heard of Alice Waters, whose reputation and restaurant were in their infancy at the time). Walter's follow up question, with the Shah's wife, Farah, looking on, was whether he believed that Mrs. Pahlavi could govern as as well as a man, and he replied that he "preferred not to answer." I remember feeling sorry for the empress, whose tear-filled eyes were clearly visible even on my small portable TV. But in the context of the kinds odd questions on women's rights that have been debated in Iran since before the revolution, it is easy to see why the issue of the hijab, a flashpoint for liberals in the West but an inconvenience that pales in significance compared with other gender issues in Iran, is not a battle that women are keen to fight, at least not yet." (2008, pp. 215-216).

~ Excerpted from "The Ayatollah Begs to Differ" by Hooman Majd.

The Ayatollah Begs to Differ

2008-11-22T22:45:00.000-08:00

Iranian-American author, Hooman Majd's recently published memoir "The Ayatollah Begs to Differ - the Paradox of Modern Iran" offers rich insights into the culture and religious expression of the country of his birth. Here's a taste, and it goes to the heart of sexism in the culture of Iran and its expression of Islam:

"I met with Ayatollah Bojnourdi for the second time in Tehran after Ahmadinejad took office and the reformers he was close to had suffered a stinging loss at the polls. Bojnourdi, who with visible pride told me of his audience with Pope John Paul II, is known for his progressive views on women's rights in Islam, although his front office was staffed with women fully enveloped in black chadors, not scarves. One of them served us tea and Persian sweets while we sat and chatted, or, more accurately, while I sat and he chatted, but at least women were present, I thought, even if they didn't shake hands with men - unlike in Qom, where senior Ayatollah offices are all- male enclaves. Bojnourdi himself doesn't have a strong feeling on men shaking hands with women and believes it to be a nonissue, although he himself would not shake the hand of a woman not his wife, sister, or daughter (mahram to men in Islam, which means women who can be uncovered and one can physically touch, while all other women, even cousins and aunts, are na-mahram, and therefore even their hair mustn't be seen).

An endearing and disarmingly laid-back rotund man, the Ayatollah launched into a spirited defense of Khatami and his policies, policies that he claimed had the full support of the people. Barely giving me time to comment, he then jumped to a defense of Islam: his Islam. Islam, he said, is based on logic, Islam is based on friendship and love, and Islam's ideology is the ideology of freedom. "The twelfth Imam will come (it appears that all Shia roads lead back to the Mahdi), and he will bring the Islam of dialogue, not of blood!" he exclaimed. But what about the lack of certain freedoms in the Islamic Republic? "In Shia Islam, anyone has the ability to disagree. In the West, and even in Iran, things are done in the name of Islam that are not Islamic," Bojnourdi said, implying but bot specifying his view that many of the freedoms curtailed in his country have no basis in his religion. "Islam made a point of a peaceful dialogue fourteen hundred years ago," he pointed out. "Islam teaches character and morality. There is no ambiguousness about that," he continued. What about the role of women in Islam? I asked. "Women have all the God-given rights. A`woman can certainly be president." Bojnourdi added, referring to the argument before every presidential election when women are automatically disqualified from running, despite registering freely as candidates in the initial stages of the process. That opinion on women's rights alone puts him at odds with many fellow Ayatollahs, has enhanced his stature among Iranian females (and activists quote him), and perhaps accounts for the all-female staff in his front office.

It could be argued that Bojnourdi's stance on female presidents is a clever distraction from the larger issue of gender equality in Islam, for although women in the Islamic Republic enjoy rights that women in some Arab countries can only dream of, they are hobbled in achieving parity with their male counterparts by interpretations of Islam that vary widely among the clerics of Shia Islam, and "God-given rights" is, after all, a rather ambiguous phrase. How to challenge Islamic law that states, for example, that a woman's testimony carries half the weight of a man's, or that a woman can inherit only half of what a male sibling can, is an issue on the minds of feminists who are generally careful to not be seen as un-Islamic, and opinions from Ayatollahs such as Bojnourdi are crucial to the advancement of their cause." (2008, pp.213-215).

~ Excerpted from "The Ayatollah Begs to Differ" by Hooman Majd, the grandson of an eminent Ayatollah and the son of an Iranian diplomat. www.hoomanmajd.com

Al-Hamd in the way of Rumi and Hafiz

2008-11-17T22:01:00.000-08:00

THE FRAGRANCE OF THE FRIEND
Interview with Iraj Anvar

"I have known Rumi all my life," Iraj Anvar says. "When I was a baby my father would sing me to sleep with the Mathnawi. It was part of my household. "Born in Iran, Anvar's first career as a theater director in Tehran brought him to America, where he soon found himself estranged from his country by the Iranian Revolution. He found another career as a professor of Persian Literature at NYU and eventually worked with Elizabeth Grey on The Green Sea of Heaven, her book of translations of Hafiz. But despite his dismay at the translations of Rumi available in English, he was reluctant to attempt his own until a friend insisted, telling him, "America wants to know what Rumi really says!" Now Iraj completes the cycle that began when he was a child, singing and reciting Rumi in the Persian language and reciting his inspiring translations, some of which have been published in a bilingual edition entitled Divan-i Shams-i Tabriz, excerpts from which are included here. He is also teaching a course in Rumi at Sufi Books, where his intimate experience of Sufism enhances the appreciation of this most inexhaustible of mystical poets. —Anne Twitty

Parabola: Rumi is now known worldwide, and it seems that the effect of his words — even in translation — awakens a deep response within his readers. According to Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the beauty of Persian poetry attracts the soul, melting "the hardness of the soul and the heart. "He also refers to an Arabic and Persian word husn that means both "virtue" and "beauty." In Western culture, we often think of virtue in terms of the soul, but not necessarily of virtue and beauty being together. In fact, we sometimes think of them as antithetical.

Iraj Anvar: No, in Islam, they are almost the same. Beauty is virtue and virtue is beautiful. Love is the highest and most beautiful virtue. There is a saying of the Prophet: "If Love had a material face, it would be the most beautiful creature."

The face of God is the most beautiful of all, and in the mystical poetry of Rumi and other poets, there are many lines about the beauty of Joseph, which is actually representative of the beauty of God. They refer to it so often!

This beauty is also represented by the saqi who appears in many Persian poems. The cupbearer is beautiful, must be beautiful.

P: He brings the wine of spiritual love.

IA: There is another story: When God created Adam, he made this body which was soulless, and he wanted to send the soul into the body, but the soul said, "No, I'm not a fool, I'm not going to get trapped in there." So God cheated it. He sent some angels into the body, with musical instruments, to play beautiful music, and that's how they lured the soul into the body.

P: Rumi speaks of two kinds of soul in his Discourses. He cautions us that you can't really know the soul unless you have some experience of the other world; otherwise you will confuse that soul with the lower self.

But it seems that there is more than one word in Arabic and Persian that is translated into English as "soul" or occasionally, "spirit." We can easily become confused by them. In one of Rumi's poems, he says that in dreams the soul travels and experiences another world. Is that the ruh, the soul, or spirit, that God originally breathes into the human being?

IA: We have the word ruh in Persian and in Arabic, and we also have a Persian word, Jan. Jan is the soul, but it means "life," as well, and jan-i jan is the soul of the soul. Sometimes jan is ruh, used in the same way.

There is another word, nafs. When we say nafs in general, we always, mean the lower self. Actually, there are five, and you have to have the adjective to distinguish them.

Once Ali was asked, "What is the nafs? Which one are you talking about?" In Arabic, the nafs al-ammara is the imperious self, the one that commands. Then you have nafs al-lawwama. That is the one that scolds you, tells you that this is not right. And then there's the nafs al-mulhima, the one that inspires you. The nafs al-mutmainna gives you certainty and peace.The highest, nafs an-natiqa, means the divine soul, the breath of God.

P: That way of distinguishing them sometimes gives the impression of a ladder that has to be climbed, rung by rung, but perhaps they can also be perceived as different states or qualities of the human being.

It sounds very much as though this description of the soul includes a warning conscience and aspects that assist, enable, help, inspire. These soul-selves show you the way. So the higher educate the lower ones ? And then all of them become unified under the command of the highest?

IA: In reality, the three higher work together under the nafs an-natiqa to tame the lowest one.

P: I have read that al-Ghazali calls that struggle jihad an-nafs, which has been translated as "Fighting the Ego." That nafs is sometimes referred to as the animal nature, but at one point you said in your Rumi class that the lowest nafs is more like what we mean by the ego, in the spiritual sense.

IA: Yes, I think it is. In the old way, you had to kill it. Even Rumi says that we should kill that nafs. Now we understand that we need it, otherwise we cannot survive. But when it goes out of balance, it causes problems. Therefore, it must be tamed and controlled. It is our vehicle to perfection.

P: One of the images of the soul that you have talked about in Rumi and in other Persian poets is the imprisoned bird in the cage, which longs to return to its home.

In your translations, for example, Rumi says: "I was a divine bird, I became an earthly one. I did not see the trap and was suddenly captured in it."

IA: And Hafiz's way of saying it is: "The dust of my body veils the face of the soul. How can I fly if I am imprisoned in the body?"

In fact, we descend and become one with this body in order to evolve, and by reaching a certain level of consciousness we can actually free ourselves from the material body in this life, even if it is only temporary. At that point, Rumi says, "The heavy soul became weightless and took flight."

P: This great poet and teacher also told his listeners that our souls are originally like fish, utterly at ease in the Ocean of Life, and when they come to earth they are like fish thrown onto dry land, yearning to return to their element.

IA: Here he emphasizes the suffering of the soul in a very harsh way. The agony of a fish out of water is quite visible. The difference is that eventually the fish dies, but the soul continues to exist in a stale of constant agony. However, the word most often used for the desire to return to the source is "longing," which is a milder way of describing it.

P: How does he speak about this longing?

IA: In the beginning of the Mathnawi he talks about the reed cut from the reed bed, which becomes a flute and sings the song of separation. It says: You have to have felt the pain that I have fell to understand what I am saying. Those who look at Rumi only from the material point of view say: "Well, he's really talking about the fact that he was cut off his homeland; he had to leave Balkh with his father before the Mongols attacked Persia, and he had to stay somewhere else, very far away, and always longed for' back there'." But from the spiritual point of view, everyone agrees that he's talking about the soul. This material body, made of matter and mud, becomes a prison for the pure soul, and the soul longs to go back to its origin, to the reed bed.

P: Rumi offers us so many ways to see the body: as dust, as a donkey, a staff, serpent, a mountain, a nutshell, a seed pod. He even describes God as a tailor, tenderly fashioning the human body as a robe for the soul. In that view, the body becomes a gift. And while it may be only an outer husk or a pod, the seed can't be planted without it. Then life becomes a matter of growing back in some way.

IA: The soul is created pure — pure and ignorant. It is sent down to be mixed in with this material world, so that it can evolve and reach perfection. The metaphor for the soul is gold, and when gold is pure, although it is very precious, you can't make things with it. It has to be mixed with some other metal as an alloy so it can be worked into something useful.

According to Nour Ali Elahi, there is evidence in the Quran that in fact the soul, when it descends to earth, has 50,000 years to perfect itself in different successive lives, but the Islamic theologians and most of the Sufis don't talk about it. In some of Rumi's ghazals, you see that he hints about it, about coming back.

In one of the ghazals I have translated, he refers to it in this way:

The one who appeared like a moon
in a crimson cloak last year,
this year he came in a brown robe.
The Turk you saw plundering that year
is the same one who appeared as an Arab
this year.
Even though the garment is changed, the
beloved is the same.
He changed the garment and reappeared.

In another poem Rumi says, "I died as mineral and became a plant," which is pretty close to the doctrine of Ahl-i Haqq which talks about the collective force of the mineral that reaches perfection and goes into plant life, and is then transferred into the animal and the human. Not the soul, not that essence, not the higher self, but the jan or life force that is formed from a group of animals. When finally the human soul is formed in a body, the divine soul joins in. It comes from the breath of God, and by descending into the body it begins the process of perfection.

P: Another image Rumi offers us is of the body as Mary, pregnant with the soul, who is Jesus. But he adds that sometimes the birth pangs never come, and the soul is never born. Presumably, then, the person dies without ever having realized the soul?

IA: Yes. That is when we do not struggle toward perfection. Without struggle, there is no improvement, so the soul remains undeveloped.

Whenever Jesus is mentioned, he is given the title of Ruh Allah after his name. Ruh Allah means the Soul of God. So when Rumi says that the body is like Mary and the soul is Jesus, it makes perfect sense because of this attribute. He is the symbol of purity. Nevertheless, Muslims believe that he is not the son of God. God doesn't give birth, but Jesus is considered the most perfect Sufi.

P: Although the body exists as an outer form, it seems that it, too, is capable of transformation. In one poem Rumi addresses his soul as Moses, in reference to the story of Moses among the Egyptian sorcerers. What does he mean when he says that for Moses, the body is a staff when held and a serpent when thrown?

IA: While the body is held by the spirit, by the soul, it is controlled. Like the staff, it is good and useful. When it is separated from the soul, it becomes wild and violent. The nafs that escapes from control is sometimes pictured as a snake.

P: Our issue is called "Body and Soul," but are these one or two? Is the body separate from the soul? It sounds in a way when you're talking about Rumi that it's one. Once it's been lured into the body and becomes entangled with matter, it becomes inseparable.

IA: Well, it's more like the shell and the fruit inside. They are one, but they are not one. The soul definitely needs the body to develop and evolve, but they are two different things that couple for the short span of earthly life.

You can compare the appearance, the outside, to a shell, that you can touch and see, but the shell without an inside is just a shell. It has no life, no reality.

P: One is perishable and one is imperishable?

IA: Exactly. When a soul leaves the body, the body is nothing, you just give it time and it becomes part of nature. "Let our fragile spirit have eternal life. / The soul lives, the body wears out like a cloak."

P: The celebration of the night of Rumi's death, in Konya, is called the Wedding Night, isn't it? And in the beautiful lines from one of your translations, he speaks of rejoicing at the moment of death: "Tripping on a stone he finds a pearl. /His soul leaves his lips to kiss lips sweeter."

IA: Yes. And there is this other line from Rumi: "When you are left behind, when you cannot walk anymore, travel anymore, your soul continues the journey."

P: Though the body is an instrument for the journey, there's a stage in the journey when it is no longer necessary. But the journey continues. ...

"The day the soul flies in the rapture of your scent / the soul and only the soul will know the fragrance of the friend."

IA: There is a temporary link between soul and body, yet there is also a division. At the beginning of the Mathnawi, we are told: "The body is not hidden from the soul, nor the soul from body. Yet no one, no body, has permission to see the soul."

P: Rumi often reminds us that the form is the outward part, and the essence or soul is the inward. "Soul" and "body" become ways of looking at the world. At one point, before retelling an old story, he declares that the traditional story is the husk and by reinventing it, he is giving his listeners the kernel, its soul. In the Discourses, he refers to the word as the body, and its meaning as the soul. And he describes the outer form of ritual prayer as its body, while its soul is absorption and unconsciousness, which are beyond the scope of the outer form and even exclude it.

IA: Yes, you're talking about surat and ma'na; surat is the appearance or the face and ma'na is the essence. There are other words that also refer to this concept: zahir, what is apparent, and batin, what is hidden.

P: So the soul is concealed from us... ?

IA: Well, in a way, when we don't develop properly and we don't have the ability to see our true nature, we can't see it. An undeveloped person is like a child. Originally, the soul is like a child, and it has to grow.

P: In that process there are "temptations," and at first they are very obvious; the blaming self identifies them right away—whether or not we choose to listen to it. But it seems that as the soul's evolution progresses, temptations become more subtle and harder to detect. That means that we have to become more and more sensitive to the inner meaning of a situation.

IA: Yes, my teacher said that sometimes the nafs may appear as a very wise man, somebody very respectable, and it gives you advice that is ultimately not very good for you, but it is so camouflaged in a cloak of religiosity and spirituality that if you are not careful, you will do what it suggests.

P: In another sense, according to Rumi, the soul is infinite. In its essential nature, it has no boundaries, no limits, and yet as we experience it, going through life, it has stages and limitations.

IA: Time, and space, and that other dimension. We say that, but we don't understand it. We don't know what we are saying when we say there is no time and space. We cannot conceive it with this mind and this rationality.

P: While Rumi sometimes speaks of the body as a sheath or support for the soul, at one point he calls the soul itself a cup. We keep moving into more and more subtle realms, where even the soul, which seems so ethereal, so immaterial, serves as a vessel for the wine of love.

IA: The soul is a cup that can hold the wine of love, which can be interpreted as the essence of God, but this cup is still immaterial.

P: This wine is often associated with the subtle heart, but sometimes Rumi seems to be using "soul" and "heart" almost interchangeably.

IA: The image is that you have to empty your heart. Your heart can be considered a cup full of other things. You throw out everything, you clean it, and then it will be filled with the wine of love. And yes, sometimes heart and soul are interchangeable.

P: One thing that has come through this talk with you is the idea of evolution, that the soul comes down and doesn't return in the same state.

IA: No, if it succeeds in doing what it is here to do, it returns fully aware.

P: Ideally. Or less aware? Is there also a downward movement, a devolution rather than an evolution? You don't go up every time?

IA: While we can regress by creating immense pain and suffering for others and ourselves and even hinder the general evolution of mankind, I think we are forced toward this evolution. All we can do is to slow it down.

P: We're drawn. That's wonderful, that we find our way through an evolution on another scale.

IA: These are the actions of God's love. It is felt in, echoed in, the human being. Rumi says: "The voice of this reed flute is fire, it is not air / and whoever does not have this fire is lost..."

P: The fire, then, is the fire of love, and that is the only thing that carries you.
... You were saying that God is love, and the soul is drawn like the moth to the flame. ...

IA: That is used very often in Persian: the moth that is drawn to the light. And it comes so close that it is burned and becomes part of the flame.

P: In that moment all of the concepts we have been alluding to are annihilated: "Why even think of heart or mind, when the soul itself has fled."

IA: Khamush, meaning Silent, is one of Rumi's pen names. It is ironic that the poet who composed such an immense quantity of poetry calls himself that. But he uses the imperative Khamush! Silence! at the end of many of his ghazals. For him, there is a point past which language cannot go. We are left in silence.

~ Excerpted from Parabola, Volume: 30.3 Body and Soul
Fall Issue, 2005

Saudi King must be rethinking Sura 1:7

2008-11-17T21:52:00.000-08:00

I cannot imagine that the Saudi King has been reading my blog, but I am sure glad to read that he is rethinking the meaning of Sura 1:7 and not blindly accepting the traditional interpretation of the Tafsir al-Jalalayn. Eboo Patel, a fellow wayfarer, is asking all the right questions these days:

Saudi Hypocrisy or Saudi Tolerance?
by Eboo Patel

What's the proper response to the Saudi King's speech about religious pluralism at the UN?
President Bush and Secretary of State Rice greeted his words with cautious optimism, as did President Shimon Peres of Israel who said, "I wish that your voice will become the prevailing voice of our region, of all people."

Other responses ranged from cynical to critical. One Saudi Shia in exile said it was like South Africa decrying racism during the apartheid era.

Imam Moustafa al-Qazwini, an important Shia American leader, wrote in an Open Letter to the UN gathering: "Since the inception of the kingdom, it has institutionalized a systematic and deliberate process to discredit and marginalize its own citizens who follow the Shia belief. From the educational institutes, to the state funded media outlets, and employment the Saudi government has continued its religious prosecution, distortion, and denigration of the Shias."

I am a Shia Muslim, and have heard my fair share of personal stories of Shias being persecuted in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, the Saudi government has supported a culture of ill will towards Jews and Christians, really towards anyone who is not a Salafi Muslim. None of these things make the Saudi King the most likely messenger of interfaith cooperation.

But I am choosing to approach this at a slight angle. Sometimes the external articulation of a message sets of a string of internal changes.

Consider America during World War II, fighting across Europe to free the Jews while its own swimming pools and water fountains were segregated. Americans were too smart to stomach their government's hypocrisy for long. The American external message of freedom during World War II played a crucial role in catalyzing our internal Civil Rights Movement.

Maybe King Abdullah, by articulating the central Muslim value of religious pluralism on the world stage, will find the citizens of his Kingdom demanding that he implement it at home.
Please e-mail On Faith if you'd like to receive an email notification when On Faith sends out a new question.