This was left as a comment (by Shuja Mirza) on the article “Danish cartoons and the sacred” at Islam from inside. However, being such a comprehensive (traditionalist) comment and conveying so expressively the fall away from metaphysical connectedness that the article only touches upon, I felt it deserved to be highlighted in a separate forum. […]
“Contemporary philosophical anthropology does not have the capacity to speak of a “fall” because it does not accept any reality beyond man himself – so there can be no talk of a fall from, or ascent to, that reality. In the mythological view of things and due to the levels of existence that it […]
A number of readers, both of this blog and of “Islam from inside” have requested information on the availability of “Existence and the Fall” by Hamid Parsania - snippets from the book appear scattered through many of the “Islam from inside” articles. The full book title is: Existence and the Fall: Spiritual anthropology of Islam”. […]
“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 […]
“God is He who created seven heavens and of the earth a similar number. Through them all descends His Command: that you may know that God has power over all things, and that God comprehends all things in His knowledge.” (65:12)
Every higher level surrounds, envelops and comprehends the levels lower than it. Every lower level […]
“Surely the people are two sorts with regard to wisdom. One makes it firm by his word, and spoils it by his bad work, and one makes it firm by his word and confirms it by his work. What a difference between them! Blessed are those who are scholars in their actions, and woe to […]
“Do not look at the faults of others as if you have been appointed to spy over them, but attend to the emancipation of your own selves, for you are slaves, possessed. How much water flows in a mountain without its becoming soft, and how much wisdom you are taught without your hearts becoming soft.” […]
“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 […]
“The dispensing of mercy brings down divine mercy….I am astounded by the person who hopes for mercy from One above him, while he is not merciful to those beneath him.” (hadith qudsi)
We cannot be fully human if we touch upon our humanity when looking inward (to our own peoples) but place it aside when we turn to face outwards.
The Qur’an places the responsibility and moral burden of sadaqa (and of compassion towards those who suffer) upon individual Muslims - it makes each of us responsible for acting to relieve the suffering of those in difficulty. This is perhaps because it does not want to transfer such duties entirely to institutions, to lock it […]
“Use the intellect that examines, that penetrates into matters…and not just the intellect that repeats what it hears, for surely there are many that repeat the knowledge that they hear, and there are precious few who examine it deeply.” (Imam Ali - Nahjul Balagha)
Their energy and effort, their time and the bulk of their thought, inventiveness, and mental energy goes towards their worldly pursuits. That is the portion of their life they act upon with utmost seriousness (as it is the (apparent) source of their wealth and influence) - they allow its fluctuations, its ups and downs to […]
When there is no connecting thread that ties information together the way is opened for someone to overlay a story (a way of viewing the information) onto events and in this way to color and shape perceptions. Rather than looking for patterns which naturally emerge from events and which best explains all the information, a […]
“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 […]
All truths in this world are partial truths since as limited beings we are (through our limitations) restricted to seeing things from one perspective or the other. We have trouble reconciling opposites and differences since our perspective is limited by the ever-present reality of our many limitations. Total illumination in which there is no error […]
“Say…Who encompasses the hearing and the sight?…” (Qur’an 10:31)
Man rises to knowledge only through the faculties given to him by God, that is, the various senses, the ability to think and reason, and the potential for subtle and deep insight. Even the ability for these senses, such as the sense of sight, to function, is […]
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 […]
“Even if one does not attain everything, one does not abandon everything….Do not abandon what is easy because you have not been able to achieve what is difficult.” (Ali ibn Abu Talib)
“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 […]
Again, a condensed excerpt from Murtaza Mutahhari’s “Fundamentals of Islamic Thought: God, Man, and the universe”. This is taken from the section on science and faith:
“Does our science carry us in one direction and faith in another? Or do science and faith fulfill and complement one another?…. Science shows what is; faith inspires insight into […]
“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 […]
Here is Mutahhari’s condensed presentation of the “argument from attributes” - the definition of Divinity and its properties leads to recognition of the necessity for God’s unity and uniqueness and the impossibility of multiple divinities. I’ve edited it down to a few lines - the full text can be found in “Fundamentals of Islamic Thought“.
From […]
I was recently re-reading my heavily underlined and dog-eared copy of Murtaza Mutahhari’s excellent “Fundamentals of Islamic Thought: God, Man, and the Universe” (a book which should be more widely used as a fundamental primer text on Islam) and thought I ‘d post a few bits and pieces taken from its contents. This particular section […]
Symbols, texts, iconic personages, and rituals are the architecture, the geometry, the symbolic worldly aspect, the formalized representation of metaphysical realities and of the human connection to these realities. For Muslims, the Prophet is the human representation of the writing of the Divine pen. He is the one on whose heart God wrote His revelation […]
Those whose actions arise from truly profound readings of the Qur’an are in every age in the minority. Those who play at politics or play with ideological interpretations of religion are in vast abundance. In between are many who stand confused - without firm knowledge we are sometimes swayed this way, sometimes that - waving […]
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 […]
“Unlike the traditional ulama, who never go beyond the texts that they read, the modern intellectual will be able to read deeper into the text in a critical, imaginative manner.” (AbdolKarim Soroush)
Actually, among the traditional ulama there are many who “read deeper into the text” albeit more cautiously and using different tools than “modern intellectuals” […]
“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 […]