“Modernity is characterized by the questioning of everything, of all that we once held dear and inviolable. It opens the way to plurality and diversity, but it can also be seen as a challenge to the worldview of the past.” (AbdolKarim Soroush)
I wish there were some truth in this definition - if there truly were […]
This was taken on a trip to Yosemite National Park. It’s a view of Half-Dome from high up on the Glacier Point side of the valley - a truly spectacular view - that’s my daughter in full hiking gear taking in the view.
Literacy that goes beyond the simple ability to read and write, that is connected with the ability to comprehend a text, involves hermeneutics. It involves decoding the symbol world of texts to gain access to the source meanings which underlie the text - of which there may be many, multiple, layered meanings.
Literacy, in this sense, […]
We prefer the idea of God to God in actuality. The idea generated in our own mind bends and conforms to our wishes - then what need is there for us to bend our own selves. We remain unbowed, unbent, unchanged, unaffected, and so…untransformed….
This was my response (in a discussion forum) to a statement claiming Christianity’s exclusive access to truth and the negation of all other alternative religious paths as indicated by Jesus’ apparently “clear and unequivocal” statement that he is the only way to God: “No one approaches the Father but through me.” (John 14:6)
For Muslims, the […]
If you seek your religion,
Lower your forehead into dust (in prayer).
If you seek to witness Him,
Place your forehead in the dust (in sajdah)
And distance yourself from your low nafs,
And erase yourself in salat.
Then witness the presence of God in prayer,
And like Husayn at Karbala make your sacrifice -
Lose your head (lose your self, your nafs) […]
“God created Adam in His own form (surah).” (Hadith)
Not the material form, not this body of matter driven by chemical interactions and electrical impulses. Not this form which changes with time and circumstance falling finally into decay and ruin, into death and dust, into its elemental components. Not this animal form so similar to that […]
The shell of a seed protects its kernel so that it may have an opportunity to gestate and grow. So too thoughts need to gestate and grow. In this manner we can perhaps create and shape an inner world of depth and texture arising from a struggle to acquire real understanding, to truly expand and […]
Reflection is the domain of a mind at rest, it requires stillness and an outer fortification against worldly din, media, worries, anxieties, interruptions, distractions - a temporary quelling of the desire to pronounce our opinions - a silencing of our inner fountain of preset habits, thoughts, assumptions, suppositions, attitudes, inferences, conjectures, and interpretations. With a […]
Relationships of political and economic expediency, hierarchies of power and dominance dominate international relationships. Tensions exist because injustice, imbalance, and unfair advantage are the natural outcome of such relationships. Conflict occurs when players in this game seek to strengthen their positions and undermine others - expansion and gain for one often spells loss, instability, and […]
When I wrote the post “Jesus - I and the father are one“, Yunis from the website Katib raised an interesting question concerning the use of the word “Father” in the text of the Gospels. He wanted to know the original Aramaic term which is translated as father. The ensuing discussion in turn led […]
The Qur’an is composed of words and some approach it as words like other words - but some approach it as “a revelation from the Lord of all worlds” (Qur’an 26:192) - as God’s commanding and guiding words that entered in substance into the heart of the Prophet, expressed themselves encoded into the form of […]
The artists of a society are often an early indicator of the direction and values that the society as a whole will adopt and reflect - they’re the social equivalent of a canary in a coal-mine - setting trends, extrapolating into the future through art, testing boundaries. And art has the potential to push into […]
People look to the world around them and derive a significant portion of their concepts of value and worth, benefit and harm, from their interaction with society and from the images of their society and the wider world that are endlessly paraded before them through all the various forms of media by which they draw […]
In times of conflict, language and image are spun to shape perceptions of reality and it is through the characterizations and emotional coloring of the media’s visual language and their choice of terminology that events are interpreted, explained, and experienced. Just as symbolic religious language gives meaning and an interpretation to the world, so also […]
“Alas for the servants! there comes not to them an apostle but they mock at him.” (Qur’an 36:30)
According to the Christian gospels, when Jesus was arrested the Roman soldiers charged with his capture were at once amused by and spiteful towards him. Their spite was tinged with a sense of the superiority they felt through […]
Since the dominant paradigms of our time are scientific, rationalist, technology based ones, it is natural for us to seek out the how of any process, to seek to learn the technology behind it, the mechanics which govern it. But with metaphysical realities we can only attempt to align the mechanisms and observable processes glimpsed […]
This was in response to a question from a Christian (writing in a comments forum) on how Islam could possibly deal with Jesus’ claim that he is God as manifested in the statement “I and the Father are one.”
It’s a fair question because it is a feature of every religion, every set of doctrinal beliefs, […]
The Prophet’s internal reality is connected to the source from which the revelation descended - to seek him only in history and circumstance is to neglect his metaphysical nature, to give little weight to his “sublime character”. (Qur’an 68:4) The revelation is the indicator, both clear and encoded, that points to the source. It is […]
A book is not simply words on a page - it is one mind crafting an effect upon other minds - it does not assume its true form unless through the action of reading, by this it creates a world of image and story within our minds.
The Qur’an is not words on a page - […]
A while back, a right-wing Christian blog featured several posts which purported to be an attempt to understand Muslims and the Muslim “mindset” by linking to videos depicting a fundamentalist, extremist, political interpretation of Islam. Then the “extremist Islam” interpretive net was cast over Muslims in general - if it wasn’t Muslims’ actions (as depicted […]
We play at religion, intoning seriously the most achingly beautiful verses of the Qur’an, reciting with serious faces and careful pronunciation - the verses drop from our lips like honey but they slip past our hearts and spill instead upon the earth, vanishing into the dust…and the attributes of our nafs rise like obscuring vapor […]
The Qur’an’s verses contain open, apparent meanings and simultaneous inner, deeper meanings - the inner allusions layer one upon the other all simultaneously combined and concealed in the external arrangement of words upon a page. The words enter the mind and begin to come to life, displaying refractions of nuance and purport, showing the concealed […]
Here religion is viewed as irrelevant - church, mosque, and temple may exist as physical buildings but their metaphysical structure is crumbling, decaying - matter is powerfully asserting itself and spirit is obscured, veiled, eclipsed. It is not that the ties between heaven and earth have been cut, so that religion decays into either fanaticism […]
By it’s nature an ideological approach is a reductionist approach since the wide sweeping panorama of reality is reduced to fit set ideological directions. The ideology becomes the filter through which reality is viewed and it reduces vastly complex interactions to simplified statements and judgments that are more reflective of the mental state of the […]
The Qur’an is a transformative document - its power evident in the fact that it impacts significantly all who come across it - whether they consider it in a negative or positive light, whether they are hostile to it or devoted to it. And so it also becomes a battlefield, it’s words a vast, expansive […]
We quote verses to display the Qur’an’s relevance to what we do, to how we see the world, and in defense of the specific direction of our particular beliefs, our leanings, our ways and methods - and we quote to justify to ourselves and to justify ourselves to others. We take our own limited perspectives […]
Some quote Qur’anic verses to correct or inspire or admonish. Some quote them as ammunition for their viewpoints, as support for cherished philosophies, some as adornments for vague sentiments, as buttresses for ideological perspectives, or as crutches on which to hang ferocious politics. Some wield verses as weapons to counter disliked viewpoints, to punish or […]
Like flotsam in a flood we are too frequently carried along by the overpowering flow of ideological currents, modalities of thought and expression of our times. Those who play at politics with deadly earnest, act, and the rest of us only react. Without firm and deep knowledge and connection with higher principles, our environments will […]
Political instability and turmoil, war, conflict, oppression - all contribute to shape individuals who act and react in desperate ways and who in that desperation are susceptible to the manipulation and influence of those who see, in conflict, an excuse and opportunity to pursue suppressed ambitions - sometimes through unbalanced (one-sided), tilted, slanted interpretations […]
Wrapping oneself snugly in the garments of a particular ideology allows one to be uncritical of their own assumptions. While a person, group, or nation may be enviably efficient and rational about process and instrumental, technical knowledge and methods, they could simultaneously be blind and unreasoning about inhuman ideological methods and goals. Witness the holocaust, […]
Islam from inside (recent posts)