To What Extent are Islam and Mysticism Compatible?

It seems that the most prevalent characterization of 21^st century Islam nowadays, is through fundamentalist ideologies deeply rooted in political agenda. Consequently, the image of Islam as a faith that has primarily been based on spirituality and an oneness with God has been heavily shaken. Fortunately, that hasn’t always been the case for the Arab-Muslim world. There was a time when scholars and intellectuals encouraged discussions of religion classifying it into these three hierarchal orders: Theology, Philosophy, and Sufism. Sufism or “Tasawwuf” is a recognized branch of Islam that is concerned with achieving the highest form of spiritual perfection and purification of the soul. The aim here is to examine certain facets of traditional Islam vis-à-vis mystical Islam, and deduce whether the two are in fact compatible. The main questions which will be raised are: How does Sufism regard man’s relationship with the Lord? What is the status and significance of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in Sufi Islam? Do Sufis practice spirituality and communication with God at the expense of set Islamic laws and regulations? Hopefully, there will be a logical and concise attempt at answering these questions.

I.                   Unity with God

     

      The first and foremost pillar that differentiates any believer or non-believer from a Muslim is the shahada; to attest that “There is no deity save God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God” (Katz, 1983). What was fascinating about the Sufi movement, was that this affirmation of faith not only stressed the oneness of God, but later on went to conclude that “There is nothing existing save God” ( Katz, 1983), implying that this world and the creations in it shouldn’t and wouldn’t hold any magnitude to a Sufi. However, as part of the selfless love of God, they gradually abandoned the view of the world (Duniyya) as a “rotten carcass” and came to appreciate God’s creations as a part of Him. “This approach includes the careful and meticulous following of the Koranic prescriptions and the Prophetic tradition: To love God means to love obedience to Him.” (Katz, 1983). In traditional Islam, this view of an “absolute unison with God” (Saeed, 2006) and selfless love for the Creator was not so heavily stressed upon when the spread of the divine message first began in 610 A.D However, the deeper the mystic scholars delved into the Quranic verses and pondered their meaning, the clearer it was that the Quran encouraged (to some degree) spiritual freedom and questioning of the origins of Islam. Albert Hourani wrote in A History of the Arab Peoples:” The Qur’an contains potent images of the nearness of God to man, and the way in which man can respond.” Indeed here it can be understood that this proximity and mutual love between the Creator and the slave must have been largely stimulated by copious scriptural reference, otherwise it wouldn’t have paved the way for the Sufi tradition to grow and prosper at the turn of the 13^th century.

II.                Prophet

     

      Mysticism did not only considerably prioritize the remembrance of Allah (dhikr), but it also relayed a great deal of celebration and glorification unto the Prophet of Islam himself, Muhammad (PBUH). Naturally, traditionalists frowned upon this, since Muhammad was just an ordinary man, and to bestow upon him such distinct accolades in Sufi tradition, contributed to the idea of diminishing his humanity and amplifying his sainthood (Meier, 1976). This need to honor the prophethood, of course, was largely influenced by Quranic and extra-Quranic revelations. First, in the latter part of the shahada, recognizing Prophet Muhammad as a messenger of God is compulsory to enter the faith. Second, a good number of verses confer supreme authority to the Prophet and urge his followers towards complete submission to his orders: “Whatever the Messenger gives you take it and whatever he forbids you abstain from it. And be mindful of Allah; Indeed, Allah is severe in punishment.” [Q. 59: 7] Hence, for the Sufis, the prophethood symbolized an equivalent immaculate paradigm of holiness just as Allah did. “The prophet was transformed into a luminous spiritual power....the great hymn in honour of the Prophet served as a model for many later Sufis who never ceased expressing their love and veneration for the “beloved of God”.” (Katz, 1983).

" The Story of Rumi, the founder of the Mawlawi order of dervishes, and one of the most powerful Islamic poets,  goes back to the early VII/13th century, when his father Baha Walad emigrated from Balkh. After visiting Mecca he reached Asia Minor and settled in Konya. This detail from a Turkish manuscript of the late x/16th century illustrates a miraculous story in which a cow bowed down to the ground at the sight of him"

III.             Islamic Law (Shar’ia)

     

      Around 900 A.D, orthodox Islam began morphing into a source of fear rather than solace, and it was around that period that Sufism grew to be embraced by many as it was perhaps considered a safe haven from the puritanical throes of orthodox religion. Prior to that, the widespread embrace of Islam in Central Asia and Northern Africa was primarily attributed to Islamic mystics as they used to roam the continents in search of divine truth and knowledge. Despite that, the movement had its share of detractors who viewed it as a distraction from the worship of Allah, a deviation from Islamic law, and some even conjectured that “the spiritual journey which the mystic could carry out in his own room, might be taken to imply that literal fulfilment of the obligations of religion was not important” (Hourani, 1991) Although Sufism emerged mainly as an extrapolation of the Islamic faith, that did not mean that its disciples were not thoroughly committed to the obligations and duties dictated by the creed. On the contrary, mystic Islam was almost inextricable from the religion it had stemmed from. This statement is better explained in this analogy: “As the Sufi masters would say: the shari’a, the Divine Law, is the highway, shar’, out of which the tariqa, the narrow path, can branch off- but there can be no path when there is no highway” (Katz, 1983), meaning that no mystical state can ever be achieved if the binding clauses of the shari’a are not followed devotedly. Also, according to the same author, some early Sufi masters had likened a Sufi who did not memorize the Qur’an by heart to a lemon without a fragrance, indicating that knowledge of the Holy Text was imperative to preserving the legitimacy of various Sufi orders.

     

      So in conclusion, Sufism is a recognized branch of Islam that aims to achieve a unity with God, through frequent remembrance of His name and unselfish love for Him which is not devoid of love of obedience to Him, as well. Just like traditional Islam, mystical Islam acknowledges the pivotal importance the faith has placed on the status of the Messenger of God, whereby certain Sufi rituals were solely dedicated to revere him. It should also be noted that this particular order of Islam underwent a great deal of hostility, much like traditional Islam, so as to finally be embraced by the masses. Lastly, Sufism cannot be practiced and preached without completing the preliminary obligations and duties of Islam. In no way does Sufism contradict Islamic law, as attainment of the Path of truth is fully dependent on Shari’a in every way. If one were to describe Sufism in a few lines, then the following prayer as recited by the first Sufi woman, Rabi'a Al-Adawiyya (d. 185/801) serves as a solid paradigmatic resonance.

References

Hourani, A. (1991). The Articulation of Islam. In A History of the Arab Peoples (pp. 72-78). Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Meier, F. (1976). The Mystic Path. In The World of Islam: Faith, People, Culture (pp. 117-128). London, UK: Thames And Hudson.

Saeed, A. (2006). Mystical Thought: Sufism. In Islamic thought: An introduction (pp. 74-83). London, UK: Routledge.

Schimmel, A. (1983). Sufism and the Islamic Tradition. In S. Katz (Ed.), Mysticism and Religious Traditions (pp. 131-143). London, UK: Oxford University Press.

The Holy Qur’an. (n.d.).

Sufism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (n.d.). Retrieved July 11, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufism#Islam_and_Sufism

  

C'est Quoi Un Père?

Written to: Broken by Fabrizio Paterlini

A father is the first living relative a child forms an immediate bond with next to the mother who bore it for 9 months.  If you're a boy, a father to you is your partner by anatomical make-up first and foremost, and that initial partnership paves the way for other forms of  deep-rooted relations. If you're a girl, a father to you is the first man you fall in love with. The first man who teaches you what it is to be a man and how to treat a lady. The man whose actions and presence will later on shape your future encounters with other men. If your dad went out of his way to be a hero in your eyes, then you will surely see the good in every man that is to come after him, and compare that to a golden standard of love and affection. If your dad left your side, whether by choice or fate, then how can you ever know what that primal bond between a father and daughter is? If it was never granted, you start to search for it elsewhere. You start to ask for it from men who can't give it to you, because that is not their role in your life. Whether their current role is that of a friend or a lover or a teacher, you can't ask for that kind of elevated unrequited affection from these men. It is too heavy a burden to place on them. It is too difficult and painful for them to fill a void that has been empty for several years. Where do they begin? Or moreover, how do they begin? Is that why those relationships are doomed to fail? Because they can't give you the pseudo-paternalistic care that you need, or rather because you require too much of their ongoing presence in your life to feed your cycle of round the clock emotional instability?

A father is someone who won't mind you needing him all the time. It is he who welcomes your attachment with open arms, and then it is up to you to choose whether you want to thrive on that attachment or retract from it. In the Arab/Muslim world, children who lost both parents are called orphans. Children who lost only their fathers are also called "orphans", but not children who lost their mothers. Why is that? Why are we, the children of widows, considered along with those who have never known a loving touch from a father or mother? It became clear to me recently that it's because the child orphaned of a father is deprived from such a vital type of attachment, one that is sturdy and unshakable. It doesn't matter if it's an aggressive attachment or a delicate one, it is one that remains with you wherever you go, and imprints on your behavior and regard towards others.The same challenges will always face those who grow up without a father or a mother, but not having the former, means no one will readily step up to fill those shoes and be your hero. Men in general already have a hard time accommodating any kind of emotional vacancy, let alone an emotional vacancy of such magnitude. I recall feeling so angry when people called me an "orphan", since to me, the word had such a negative connotation. Ironically, it had an emasculating effect on me. It meant that such a person had no one, was unloved and unwanted, and I knew that wasn't my case when my mother always gave me the care and protection I needed. She was both the father and the mother, and I always thought I could rely on my uncles from both sides as accessories. As I grew older, I learned to belligerently accept that degrading attribute unto me. One reason for that was that I would glimpse a light twinkle in my uncles' eyes whenever they would speak about their daughters, and the pang of hurt and jealousy that accompanied those stares. Despite all the care and support they've given me hitherto, I always lacked one thing: Uniqueness. I would always have to share that twinkle with someone, hence I was not unique and I certainly did not belong to anyone. I just desired my own twinkle and a protector of my own. I wanted to be selfish because a basic right of mine had been snatched away from me. Selfishness was the mildest reaction anyone could have towards such an injustice. As a result of this selfishness and unwillingness to share, I was paving the way for resentment and aloofness from these pseudo-fathers. I always considered myself like everyone else, even though I was not the product of an orthodox family structure. But after seeing a friend of mine being held in a tight embrace by her father who was not regarding any of the other girls in the room but his own, I knew I would forever remain ostracized from that feeling, and thus I was different by default. That gesture made me feel something unfamiliar. At that moment, I wished for nothing more than to be in her place and to be held like that even for just a split second. I guess I just wanted to be aware of the difference between the nature of that embrace and an embrace that will inevitably lead to shame and regret. A father is someone who would rather be slaughtered than to see his own flesh and blood exploited. A father is someone who will be your platonic male friend and confidant and number one supporter so you wouldn't try to compensate such esteem by other means. What is unconditional love stemming from a man? Why do I have such a skewed perception of men now? I think they all have ill intentions and mean no good. I had just begun to develop a tiny crush on one of my professors, and the first time I went to see him in his office, he was raving on and on about his 4-year-old daughter, and that nauseated me more than it should have appealed to me. From that moment on, I despised him to the very core, but at the same time I also envied his daughter for the fucking amazing hero who took pride in her.

"My dear little girl, know that all souls are meant to be gone. So do not be overwhelmed with
beautiful forbearance for the great one who has been stricken.
Say, if you call me from behind your conserved veil
and I failed to answer you
Just know that, Abou Firas [Al Hamadani] the finest of all men
Also had his youth stripped from him"

Can the dead really communicate with their loved ones even after they depart this earth? We can hear and feel and see memories of them ingrained within, but is it possible to be able to connect with their world and make a new memory? I came to have faith in that, after I found this letter bearing these morose lines of poetry several years after my father's passing. By the illegible handwriting, I know they must have been written by father on his deathbed. I read them every night, and I marvelled at the ink that bled these lines of pain and love. I wondered about the hand that wrote them; the creases on its palm and the texture of the skin enveloping it. How did he know I would be in such pain? How did he know I was going to long for him and call his name to no avail? Did he express a wish for me to be veiled because he knew that his absence meant my judgment would be impaired in my frantic search for someone like him? Did he compare himself to a poet who lost his life at the peak of his youth because he knew this wasn't his time yet? How was he right about all these things? I was making rosy-eyed speculations on what it means to be a father, when all along I had this piece of paper as the most genuine and sincere of testaments. To be a father to your daughter, is to experience the pain she will experience when you are not there anymore. To be a father is to succeed in making her feel loved and looked after through the sole power of your potent words. To be a father means to recognize her neediness and attachment and turn a blind eye from it because your hands are tied, your time has come, but still shame overcomes you for not fulfilling your duty. You don't have to be to be a father to me. I'll never know your embrace or your scent or your voice, but I am left with your resolve, and that is good enough for the time being. I'll still be on my search to find the closest living thing to you, and if he should reject me as well, I will pray to God to reunite us in the hereafter. So until then, why would I need cheap substitutes and fleeting replacements when I am promised the real thing?...When I am promised you?

How We Went from Carpe Diem to YOLO: The Downfall of Consciousness

Oscar Knows...

With more people listing YOLOOOO as their life mantra while falling under the illusion that Carpe Diem is a kind of Italian pasta, the need to say something about it struck me as somewhat necessary. 

To provide you with some perspective on the abysmal direction which our society is heading in: A couple of days ago I found out Jason Silva was giving a seminar in Abu Dhabi for IBM Software Day and was staying in Dubai afterwards. In an attempt to explain Silva's magnitude think Richard Dawkins meets Ashton Kutcher . That kind of places him on the same pedestal as any huge celeb out there, seeing as he has 30k followers on twitter. But of course I only found out he was in town through his personal twitter account and not thanks to any trivial media coverage. For some reason though, media coverage starts to resemble a 3-day Indian wedding festivity when Kimmie or Paris grace us with their presence which is almost always tied with how much revenue their  widely publicized sojourn generates for the UAE. If that isn't enough, you'll also probably see the same story appearing in three different sources, of how well Kardashian wore that local Emirati dress and how she could totally pull off her own Aabaya fashion line. Again, this is just an example of how blindly people follow a trend. It is none of my concern if you are a legit follower of celebs and all their news. It is my every concern, however, to point out that even indifferent people find themselves coerced into this trivial cyclone of "trending" news just by the exaggerated media hype. Just typing this is giving me an aneurism. I think you all get the point I'm attempting to drive home so I'll just stop here. 

That being said, if I have to see one more Harlem Shake video being shared on Facebook I'm going to lose my mind!! Sure it was fun the first couple of times watching people manically humping air which made me feel like I was part of some orgy on LSD. However, the degree to which our idiotic species manage to saturate and completly drain a certain a trend makes me not only abhor that trending phenomenon but also the very individuals responsible for it going "viral". In turn, such frustration leaves me wondering how to make the outbreak of a new plague seem like an accident. 

Yes, that crazy gangnam dance was cute in a way that showed song lyrics don't really matter as long as there's a fab Korean guy doing fancy footwork in a Korean horse stable. So what if Honey Boo Boo Child's mom has a boyfriend and I'm still single as f***? Ok, and maybe I would have actually appealed to the Harlem Shake if my pathetic excuse of a campus partook in the madness... And lo and behold, all these acknowledgments still leave this question unanswered: Where do we go from here? 

What does it mean when an Internet phenomenon manages to awe and impress 1/7th of the worl'd population? Not only did we become so entirely consumed with discussing these global phenomena and actively "trending" them online, but more importantly we lost sight of the events that weren't as popular but which were more deserving of our attention and cyber activism. For instance, how many people knew that World Cancer Day was just 4 days into February? How many people actually gave a shit that Valentine's Day marked the first day of Palestine Awareness Week? What about the meteorite that hit Saudi Arabia a few days ago? or the fact that Abu Dhabi is now granting blue-collar workers a proper weekend? Human beings that are a part of this society, planet, and universe, can either be one of three things: A. Happy-go-lucky kind of people who would rather go with the natural flow of things because they're already overwhelmed with their own problems to divert their attention to other wordly matters OR B. Secretly informed, but they choose to be non-chalant  because they have a certain image to uphold, in which case they are hypocrits OR C. Fully aware of what's going on outside that circle of trending pop songs, videos, fluff news, and TV shows, but they think of such matters as a waste of time, and whoever dare diverge from whatever has gotten the majority's stamp of approval must be a loser, in which case I'd like to say to these people: CONGRATULATIONS! You are at the very bottom of Mother Nature's hierarchy of organization.

Ultimately, we live in a dog-eat-dog kind of world where one doesn't stand a chance if there's no feature other than an olive-shaped mole on a calf to distinguish him/her from a throng of atypical beings. Years from now, do we really want our future children to remember the uniqueness of our glorious youth with the story of that one time when we were so torn apart with which Instagram filter to apply on this one picture of food which then ended up getting 100+ likes, regardless? No one is asking you to join a cult or highten your eccentricity to the point of agressiveness. Just be aware. Be multi-faceted. Don't follow unless it is with the power of your own free will. One doesn't have to read volumes of books on philosophy or Darwinism to achieve that. As the self-explanatory Jamaican proverb says " Small small catch monkey". One Facebook page here, a retweet of a powerful quote from there, and one's consciousness becomes sensitized to the point where anything ordinary or banal no longer satisfies hungry curiosity. We should have utter faith that this strategy will serve our own wellbeing in the long-run. Each person will have a brimful to offer in terms of gregarious personality and witty discourse. Those with elevated consciousness won't panic all of a sudden when thrown into an unfamilair social/professional setting because they actually took the time to master the specific set of skills required to improve their understanding and perception of the world beyond its visible peripheries. They won't merely survive because they've learned to quickly adapt to change, but they will thrive in every aspect imaginable! Trust that those souls that merely exist without living, that talk without speaking, that hear without listening, that look without seeing, that feel without moving, are all doomed to perish in an evolutionary sense. But believe with every fiber in your being, that after waking up no one ever goes back to sheep. 

It's been said that modern humans nowadays
have an underdeveloped temporal lobe
Can you guess which area that represents?

Why is Depression a Thing?

Before reading this, make sure you WATCH this

Listen to: Cut Copy- Hearts on Fire

What inspired me to actually have the courage to write this was a phone call I received from my friend earlier today. She probably will detest the fact that I've decided to use her story as an allegory, but oh well this is what she gets for being stubborn and not letting me reach out to her sadness. I really hope she reads this, for words are really the most powerful weapon to mankind. But this isn't just about her, this is about those people who complain it pours the hardest on them and that they are not worthy of such a fate, while truth be told, it is they that insist on walking under the cloud. Now, before I come off as some know-it-all self-righteous smug bitch, I would actually like to think I know what I'm talking about, and that I have been in the camp of those who view the glass as half empty for too damn long. Frankly I wouldn't have had the incentive to be a "happy camper" if it wasn't for a particular incident that changed my perspective.

About three weeks ago, I was going through some hard shit as usual and of course when Majdoline is going through shit the entire household has to join in a lament with her. As usual, my dear mother was lecturing me on Emotional Intelligence, and as usual I wouldn't have any of it.  In retrospect, I now realize I used to always obstinately refuse my mom's advice, cry my sorry eyes out, and add the melodramatic exit phrase "You don't know what it's like to be me. You haven't gone through what I've been through *exit*". Much to my surprise and dismay, my said friend was behaving in the same exact manner. Hence, the uncontrollable sudden urge to blog about this big revelation I've had. So on that day, I was crying away to her in the living room and then I took a break and walked into the kitchen to stuff my face with some comfort food. At that moment my 16-year-old brother,who is just a hormonal bundle of teenage angst, came into the kitchen. Upon seeing me in that state, he burst into laughter (I did not expect his reaction to be any different) He turned to me and said very plainly, very sardonically " Majdoline, you're pathetic". For some reason, this sarcastic statement from a teenager with acne and an afro hit a little too close to home and unleashed the waterworks even harder. Thankfully, however, he did not relent and added:" You notice how every stupid little thing that happens to you, you go crying to mom about it, and then I have to hear about it from her, and then you stay in bed all day and you stuff your face with food because you think that's going to help...You know what? I'm more mature than you. Did you even know that all my friends haven't been talking to me for two weeks now because we got into a fight and look at me..do you see me acting like a homeless person bawling my eyes out? Do I look like I give a shit?..." Now I don't exactly remember his entire reproachful  monologue but it was what he ended it with that really struck a sensitive nerve, and which I stayed up thinking about later that night. As he walked out of the kitchen with his dinner, he paused, and looked at the corner where I was slouching and said:" You're a living proof of why men will always be better than women. You're a loser." and he left. Just like that. And I stared back in his direction long after he was gone, with my head cocked to one side and my jaw semi-dropped. Bader, is that you? I was scarred by his words yet healed. I was traumatized yet mesmerized. I was indignant yet grateful. Who knew that getting bullied by a 16-year-old was going to be the end of the old me. I hadn't noticed it up until now, but I guess that was the night the real transformation happened. It was the night the brand new kind of me was born.

Lately, I've been acting as a psychiatrist to many troubled and distressed people, since apparently I have acquired the reputation of a "good listener", and all throughout their complaints I always hear how hard change is, how they can't just open a new page all of a sudden without the memories coming back to haunt them. Some of them actually want the painful memories to linger. They keep thinking of "good change" as this huge feat that requires great effort and endurance and which can't be attained overnight. Well guess what: You're wrong and pathetic, and what you're reading now is a testament that overnight change is not only possible, but successful and extraordinary. After that fateful conversation with my brother, a much needed radical change happened to me and it was effective from the very next day. It's been about three weeks now, and I've accomplished so much! I downloaded more cheery-up music ( like this mind-blowing tune!) and deleted the depressing emo crap. I was jogging on a daily basis. I joined a Zumba class which I now look forward to every Monday and Thursday more than anything. I cut the weed out of my life, un-followed the negative and suicidal people from Twitter and Tumblr, and subscribed to more fitness and motivational blogs. I began reading a lot about Taoist and Sufi philosophy and implementing it in my daily life. I became more extroverted, started meeting new people, and became more intimate with individuals who turned out to have the same sense of humor and mentality. Not only did these actions bring positive and effective change into my life, but they also reshaped it in terms of spirituality and selflessness. I became more inclined to offer a helping hand, to listen, to advise, to care, to motivate, to support, and that just strengthened me even more. I derive my self-fulfillment and pleasure from that... Seriously, I mean how many people can really say "I made someone smile today"? Did you ever take time to think about that? What if I promised you that in making this mission your goal from now on, everything else will fall into place? Because for me, everything did indeed. Adopting this as my daily cause completed the cycle of fulfillment and happiness.

So I guess this is what I wanted my said friend to know, and anyone else who might be in the same predicament for that matter. Whether your parents are forcing you to transfer to a university back home, or someone has made you lose faith in love and trust, or your friends won't talk to you, or society has alienated you and classified you as eccentric, or your jeans won't fit anymore, and well I could list all the triggers that can piss all over your view of the world but still NONE OF IT MATTERS! Why? Because in all these circumstances you're basically turning over your fate and your emotional state to someone else. You are literally allowing another person/thing/circumstance decide whether you can be happy or not, when YOU truly are the only person to decide that. Get out of your dirty pjs, go shower, quit smoking, put on your sneakers and run like Forrest Gump, donate blood, intern at an art museum, do yoga at the park, teach someone how to do maths, dress up and go to a bar or a club and don't drink ( or get plastered, whichever is your preference, you know) just to prove that you can, take a surrealist painting class or writing workshop and pay an absurd sum of money to have a middle-aged white guy tell you how to write a topic sentence. Just Carpe Diem the shit out of this thing called life and victory will be yours! Ultimately, you will stand over and look down upon the faces of pain and sadness, and you shall feel nothing at all because you are a gorgeous human being. And because you're just so beautiful when you smile. You see, the universe is not outside of you, but rather the universe is concentrated within you. Take a look around, then reflect on your inner-self. You ARE the universe embodied. Everything your heart desires is what you already are! You're the only one with all the answers to your own questions. Have you ever heard of anyone who was indifferent and all like "yea yea whatever" towards the fact that their house/land might be sitting on top of a hidden treasure? On the contrary, they get super crazy and excited about finding it even if it completely depletes them of energy. THAT IS YOU! Your own brilliance and excellence is a treasure that must be dug up with patience and persistence from the abysmal hollows of your soul. Go absolutely crazy in your hunt for the treasure! Be passionate and articulate and outspoken and confident and flirtatious and kinky and intelligent and bold and simply amazing and rejoice plenty! Once you do that, you'll soon realize nothing is missing, and in that definitive moment, the entire world is yours.