We prefer the idea of God to God in actuality
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…. twitter(X): @i_from_i Another blog: islam from inside
Labels and definitions allow containment…
Definitions are important especially since we tend to be a society that analyzes, categorizes, objectifies, and enforces legal and social control through labels and definitions. Labels and definitions allow containment and shepherding of ideas and concepts. It facilitates communication in some ways but also allows propagandizing and manipulation or politicization of shared mind spaces. There […]
In times of conflict
In times of conflict, language and image are spun to shape perceptions of reality and it is through the characterizations and emotional colouring 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 […]
A prayer
This live-streamed genocide is hard to bear. But far harder to bear is the indifference of so many towards it. It breaks my heart. So many children suffering and dying before the eyes of the world and yet there is, across the West, a conspiracy of obstinate silence, or worse, obstinate approval of the relentless […]
There is no existential threat to Israel
There is no existential threat to Israel or to the Jewish people or to Judaism. There is, however, as there should be, a very real threat to political Zionism. Its time is done. Judaism is a faith, a religion, a way of life, and it is to be respected, honoured, and protected. Political Zionism is […]
Gaza – a lamentation
This fall the harvest of the olive trees became doubtful. The F-16s roared overhead as we went to pick fruit from slim trees newly rising from the bulldozed soil of the old groves. Their desert flowers were scattered here and there, but their blossoms were now replaced by the incandescent blooms that flared endlessly, brightly, […]
The template of their fiction
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 […]
Mocking principle, mocking truth, mocking Prophets
“Alas for the servants! there comes not to them an apostle (with truth) but they mock at him.” (Qur’an 36:30) According to the Christian gospels, when Jesus was arrested and held in Jerusalem, the Roman soldiers charged with his capture were simultaneously amused by and spiteful towards him. Their spite was tinged with a sense […]
Gaza, Palestine, Israel – The Simple Way Forward
Today, my daughter and I attended a protest calling for the end of violence in Gaza, in Palestine. It was a cloudy, gloomy day, with rain drizzling on and off. But the overwhelmingly positive spirit and energy that pervaded the march infected all of us. The crowd was huge and we could feel the energy […]
Hamas is guilty. Is Israel also guilty?
A combination of ideology and effective propaganda has the potential to make people apathetic, cold, indifferent, or even pleased at the plight of others – those others who hold conflicting viewpoints. No longer able to see each other’s humanity, they instead see ideological ciphers. This allows a state or group to undertake unsavory or repugnant […]