“Abu Basir has related that he said to Abu Abdallah (Imam Jafar-al-Sadiq) - upon whom be peace: “Tell me about God, the Mighty and Majestic Will believers see Him on the Day of Resurrection?”
The Imam answered, “Yes, and they have already seen Him before the Day of Resurrection.”
Abu Basir asked, “When?”
The Imam answered, “When He […]
“The dog of the ego has bared its teeth and nipped the spirit’s foot. Since your ego predominates you are a beast. Your properties are determined by that which predominates, oh self-worshipper! This ego…it drinks down the seven seas. It makes a morsel out of a world and gulps it down. Its belly keeps shouting, […]
“O Ali, Since mankind seeks to come near to their Creator through all kinds of piety, bring yourself close to Him through activities of the intellect, so that you may arrive there before all of them.” (hadith of the Prophet)
Many follow religion as a formula, a series of ceremonies that have been handed down to them and which are followed without full depth of understanding. There is comfort (and a benefit) in performing rituals but the goal of a ritual is not the ritual itself. Ceremonies and rituals are symbols, they are indicators, or […]
“A single attraction from God outbalances all the efforts of men and jinn” (Prophetic hadith)
One glance….
“I put my trust in God, My Lord and your Lord! There is not a moving creature, but He has grasp of its forelock. Verily, it is my Lord that is on a straight Path.” (Qur’an 11:56)
There is no one that God has not taken by the forelock. The forelock was sometimes used as an […]
We can witness the light of the sun only by means of the light of the sun…. so God says, “When My servant draws near to me, I become the means by which he sees….” (Sayyid Haydar Amuli)
“…there has never been any dispute amongst the prophets and messengers with regard to the foundations and pillars of religion, then one should realize too that if differences do occur in the details and branches of the law, then these differences are of quality or quantity and do not indicate any difference in the essence […]
“He named man ‘insan’ (from the Arabic word…whose root implies intimacy and friendship) because of the possibility of intimacy between him and the rest of creation. He also placed within him…an inner reality and an outward form which… enables him to act in both the earthly and spiritual worlds. His inner reality is the Greater […]
“He connected the body to dark clay and the spirit to the breath of His own Spirit, so that the light and divine Breath would make the dark clay its instrument for… guarding God’s Trust; so that it might be a means of …elevation, and high degrees. The purpose was not that the dark clay, […]
“As long as you cannot jump free of your own embrace
Your worship is bound to a temple of devilish idols…
Do not trade on (a show of) piety - the coin is debased.
How long will you stand dry - lipped on the shore of desire?
Hurl yourself - now! - into the infinite sea….
And behold the secret […]
“Man is compounded of form and meaning, of satanic and divine; every instant the houris of paradise and the devils of hell show their faces from his inward reality, so that it may be seen which vein and which attribute dominate over him. His desire takes him to that form with which he has […]
They were the tongues of God…speaking, through their actions, His words.
Here is the path of approach, here the markers, the signposts, here the guide - so strive - we came to lead you to the goal, not to ourselves - wipe the sweat of effort from your eyes and follow the ascending way - this […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 - […]
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 […]
Islam from inside (recent posts)