Tag Archives: In Honor of Ramadan

The New Anti-Muslim Wave, Eid al Fitr, and 9/11 – What Will YOU Do?

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Reprinted from elephantjournal.com. Original publication date; 9/7/2010Kill Muslims Image

Crazy fact:
The Jewish Holy Days move from year to year, the Muslim Holy Days move, and 9/11, of course, stays right where it is.
This year:
Rosh Hashanah: September 9, 2010
Eid al Fitr (the three-day feast/celebration at the end of Ramadan): September 10, 2010
And, 9/11.
Interesting line-up.

And a very frightening one for the Muslim community in the US. Especially with the Park51 situation being what it is.

For Muslims, the end of the holy month of Ramadan is typically cause for celebration, with three days of feasting and socializing after a month of daytime fasting.

This year, though, many American Muslims are greeting Ramadan’s end with a measure of worry, as the holiday coincides with the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations is doing what it can to counter the Park 51-inspired inspired wave of hatred, blame, and violence, it’s not enough. As we stand idly by, American Muslims are once again* the target of hate crimes across the country.

The following is current – and linked through out the article above, if you click through.

Four news stories from the CURRENT, 2010, wave:
UPDATE: Holley teens charged with targeting mosque
CARLTON — A Holley teen-ager was charged with a felony count of criminal possession of a weapon after allegedly firing a shotgun outside a mosque in Waterport on Monday night.

Racial slur and profanity spray-painted on mosque
Abdus Miah, a member of the mosque, is also a city Alderman.

“I thought… maybe somebody hates us. I was thinking that way. Or something like that. I don’t know. We never faced any kind of problem after 9-11. This is the first time,” said Miah.

Opponents of the Murfreesboro mosque say it’s not about religion. Their Muslim neighbors aren’t buying it.
An excavating crew broke ground on the site Aug. 20, 12 days after the Rutherford County Planning Commission provided final clearance. Pre-construction here has already begun — or at least it had, before an arsonist (or -ists) doused four excavators in accelerant and lit one on fire on Aug. 28.

Muslims in America increasingly alienated as hatred grows in Bible belt
On the anniversary of 9/11, Chris McGreal reports from the Tennessee town where Muslims have lived in harmony with Christians for decades – but where they now feel under threat

They came first for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

- Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)

Are you for against religious tolerance? If you believe in religious freedom, do something. Do something TODAY. Do it now.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Extremist Makeover – Homeland Edition
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

* The PREVIOUS Anti-Muslim backlash — This article is from 2002, during the first post-9/11 wave of Islamophobia: On August 30, 2002, an anti-Muslim hate-rape took place in California. An 18 year-old man raped a 15-year old girl inside a Palo Alto Longs Drugs store while making anti-Muslim comments, according to the Palo Alto Police Department.
– http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/09/01/BA140210.DTL

Seven Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Islam

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Reprinted from elephantjournal.com, first publication date 9/4/2010

Bismillah, ar Rahman, ar Rahim. (In the name of Allah, most beneficent and merciful.)

Ramadan kareem!

1. Mystical Oneness with God
In a mystical sense, Islam is a non-dualist religion. When I first read these words by ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib and Fatima bint Muhammad, I was overwhelmed with a sense of, “Oh my God! Exactly!”

Thus whoever attaches attributes to [God] recognizes His like, and who recognizes His like regards Him two; 
and who regards Him two recognizes parts for Him;
 and who recognizes parts for Him mistook Him;
 and who mistook Him pointed at Him;
 and who pointed at Him admitted limitations for Him;
 and who admitted limitations for Him numbered Him.
Whoever said in what is He, held that He is contained;
 and whoever said on what is He held He is not on something else.
~ Ali ibn Abi Talib

Ali ibn Abi Talib was of the house of Muhammad—peace be upon him. Ali was the first Muslim to convert after the Prophet was said to have been visited by the angel that brought God’s words to Muhammad. Those words were the Qur’an (the recitation). Fatima bint Muhammad—peace be upon her—was the daughter of Muhammad.

Ali and Fatima were two of the earliest Muslims. So the mystical fibre of Islam is root-deep.

2. Who is Allah?
Allah has the same roots as the Aramaic “El” and the Hebrew Elah. Allah literally means “The God.” “al” means ‘the,” and “elah” (or some variation of it) means “god.” God does not have a gender in Islam, though is referred to as “He” out of respect.

Yeah, I know, kinda messed up, but at least Muslims don’t actually think God is some guy sitting in the clouds. It is considered a grave violation and failing to give attributes to Allah, because as with anything, defining Him/It limits It/Him.

3. Islam and Peace
The Arabic words “Islam” (for the religion) and “salaam” (peace) are from the same Semitic roots; S-L-M. The word Islam means submission, and is taken to mean submission to God (similar perhaps to the expression “God-fearing”). It could as easily mean peace, purity, safety.

In common understanding, to be Muslim means to have surrendered your will to God; to have submitted one’s will to the grace of Allah.

4. Jihad
The word jihad has come to be synonymous with “holy war” in the American vernacular. It has been used by the Palestinian people to mean “uprising.”

Jihad actually means struggle.

“The best jihad is (by) the one who strives against his own self for Allah, The Mighty and Majestic,”
~ the Hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad—peace be upon him).

5. Honoring Your Mother in Islam
There are many Hadiths (loosely; stories that offer the teachings of The Prophet) that beautifully address the role of the mother in Islam.

One such says: I said to the Holy Prophet, “O Messenger of Allah, I desire to go on a (military) expedition and I have come to consult you.” He asked me if I had a mother, and when I replied that I had, he said, “Stay with her because Paradise lies beneath her feet.”

Another says; I asked the Prophet who has the greatest right over a man, and he said, “His mother.”

One of my favorites goes like this: I asked, “Messenger of Allah, to whom should I be dutiful?” He replied, “Your mother.” I asked, “Then whom?” He replied, “Your mother.” I asked, “Then whom?” He replied, “Your mother.” I asked, “Then whom?” He replied, “Your mother.” I asked, “Then to whom should I be dutiful?” He replied, “Your father, and then the next closest relative and then the next.”

6. Marriage in Islam
While arranged marriage is still common in many Muslim cultures, any woman has the right to refuse a marriage match. And, while polygamy is considered lawful in Islam, a polygamous marriage may only occur where both (or all) women are in accord with the choice to be co-wives.

Divorce is legal in Islam, and a woman is guaranteed a divorce settlement even before marriage. Additionally, in marriage a man’s property becomes communal property by law, but a woman’s property remains in her own claim.

7. Sex in Islam
“Permitted to you on the night of the Fasts is the approach to your wives. They are your garments and you are their garments.”
(Qur’an, 2:187)

Obviously, Islam has a long way to go in regards to creating a healthy relationship with sex. (Still, don’t we all?)

Yes, it’s a homophobic religion, and one with strict regulation of sexuality beyond even that.

However, when sex happens within the container of the laws of Islam, i.e.; between a lawfully wedded woman and man, Islam (on the whole) has fewer sex-negative or sex phobic views than you would think.

Contraception is allowed, as is first-trimester abortion. In addition, sex has many extra-procreative purposes in Islamic faith, including deepening companionship between husband and wife.

“The Prophet himself, while not divulging all aspects of his own sexual life, was known for his nature as a loving husband who was sensitive and physically demonstrative. In several hadith, he speaks about the importance of foreplay and speaking in loving terms during sexual relations. Again, the concept of mutual satisfaction is elucidated in a hadith which advises husbands to engage in acts that enable a woman to achieve orgasm first. …Sexual dissatisfaction is considered legitimate grounds for divorce on the part of either wife or husband.”
- Source.

There’s even the suggestion that sexual intimacy between man and wife is a gift of worship, and something a Muslim will be rewarded for by Allah.

Female circumcision is not an Islamic practice, but an African tribal one, that predates the introduction of Islam to the areas that practice female circumcision (aka FGM, or female genital mutilation). The vast majority of Islamic countries and cultures do not practice female circumcision at all.

In honor of Ramadan, the most holy month in Islam, I hope we can all take a moment to honor the diversity of faiths that hold the world together, as much as they might tear it apart.

Clinging to anything causes suffering, and there is no exception to the rule here. But while we share the air, we share breath. Let’s be inspired by each other. And allow the outer jihad to give way to the greater jihad; the jihad of one’s own soul.

Islamic and Sufi Mystical, Metaphysical, and Religious Quotes

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In honor of Ramadan, 2010

In the name of Allah, most beneficent, most merciful.

“The foremost in religion is the acknowledgement of Him,
the perfection of acknowledging Him is to testify Him,
the perfection of testifying Him is to believe in His Oneness,
the perfection of believing in His Oneness is to regard Him Pure,
and the perfection of His purity is to deny Him attributes,
because every attribute is a proof that it is different from that to which it is attributed and everything to which something is attributed is different from the attribute.

Thus whoever attaches attributes to [God] recognizes His like,
and who recognizes His like regards Him two;
and who regards Him two recognizes parts for Him;
and who recognizes parts for Him mistook Him;
and who mistook Him pointed at Him;
and who pointed at Him admitted limitations for Him;
and who admitted limitations for Him numbered Him.

Whoever said in what is He, held that He is contained;
and whoever said on what is He held He is not on something else.
He is a Being, but not through phenomenon of coming into being.
He exists, but not from non-existence.
He is with everything but not in physical nearness.
He is different from everything but not in physical separation.
He acts but without connotation of movements and instruments.
He sees even when there is none to be looked at from among His creation.
He is only One, such that there is none with whom He may keep company or whom He may miss in his absence.”
- The Oneness of God, according to ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib (of the House of the Prophet, peace be upon his soul.)

“I testify that there is no Deity [Lord] except the sole and matchless Allah [God]. And the testification of the singleness of Allah is a word that Allah has declared sincerity (as) its reality, and made the hearts the centre of its contact and union. And has made the specifications and research of the oneness of Allah’s station obvious and evident in the light of meditation. The Allah Who can not be seen by the eyes and tongues are unable and baffled to describe His virtues and attributes. And the intelligence and apprehension of man is helpless and destitute from the imagination of his how ness.”
- Fatima bint Muhammad (Peace be upon her soul.)

“In this journey the seeker reacheth a stage wherein he seeth all created things wandering distracted in search of the Friend. How many a Jacob will he see, hunting after his Joseph; he will behold many a lover, hasting to seek the Beloved, he will witness a world of desiring ones searching after the One Desired. At every moment he findeth a weighty matter, in every hour he becometh aware of a mystery; for he hath taken his heart away from both worlds, and set out for the Ka’bih of the Beloved. At every step, aid from the Invisible Realm will attend him and the heat of his search will grow.
One must judge of search by the standard of the Majnun of Love.* It is related that one day they came upon Majnun sifting the dust, and his tears flowing down. They said, “What doest thou?” He said, “I seek for Layli.” They cried, “Alas for thee! Layli is of pure spirit, and thou seekest her in the dust!” He said, “I seek her everywhere; haply somewhere I shall find her.”
Yea, although to the wise it be shameful to seek the Lord of Lords in the dust, yet this betokeneth intense ardor in searching. “Whoso seeketh out a thing with zeal shall find it.”

(Editor’s note: Literally, Majnun means insane. This is the title of the most celebrated lover of ancient Persian and Arabian lore, whose name was Qays ibn al-Mulawwah. The beloved of Qays was Layli, daughter of an Arabian prince. When Qays was denied Layli’s hand in marriage, he was driven mad by his devotion. Symbolizing true human love bordering on the divine, the story of Layli (or Layla) and Majnun has been made the theme of many a Persian romantic poem, particularly that of Nizami, written in 1188-1189 A.D.)

- Excerpted from The Seven Valleys, by Baha’u'llah.

“O My Brother! A pure heart is as a mirror; cleanse it with the burnish of love and severance from all save God, that the true sun may shine within it and the eternal morning dawn. Then wilt thou clearly see the meaning of “Neither doth My earth nor My heaven contain Me, but the heart of My faithful servant containeth Me.” And thou wilt take up thy life in thine hand, and with infinite longing cast it before the new Beloved One.”

- Excerpted from The Seven Valleys, by Baha’u'llah.

“My heart has become capable of every form; it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks, and a temple for idols and the pilgrim’s Ka’ba, and the tablets of the Torah and the book of the Koran. I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love’s camels take, that is my religion and my faith.”
- Ibn al-Arabi

Love is a veil betwixt the lover and the loved one;
More than this I am not permitted to tell.
- Jalal-ud-Din Rumi

In Honor of Ramadan

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Reposted from Ramadan, 2007

Another part of my journey in Islam

Credit: http://arabiccalligraphy4u.blogspot.com/2009/04/zahra-and-mohammed.html

Ramadan kareem!

Yes, I am observing the fast of Ramadan. I never could have foreseen this, but I don’t know why. It makes perfect sense. Beginning after my first trip to the Holy Land, I started studying Islam. My most recent trip ended just as Ramadan began. My first day home was the first day of Ramadan.

While in Bethlehem, the excitement level was rising. I was invited by many to extend my trip and to spend Ramadan in their homes. (Yeah, the whole month. I have never met with such utter hospitality.) I couldn’t, though if I had been able to I certainly would have. Leaving was difficult as it was, and I would have loved to have spent this holy time in a Muslim community.

Instead, I came home, and have taken Ramadan by myself. I am studying deep into Islam, and have found many elements that speak directly to my heart. The spiritual side of Islam appeals to me more than any other religion I have studied. (Notice I didn’t say spiritual path, I specifically said religion.) The spiritual aspect is Mysticism. Direct relationship with God, no mediation, the awareness that God is both imminent and transcendent.

The law and politics side is more sticky, tricky, trigger-happy for me.

And for both these things I am exceedingly grateful. The part that makes sense with no need for translation. The part that is my home already, is my heart, my love, my life, my surrender, my path. The part where God is, and i am.

And, the part that is so alien that I can’t look directly at it without engaging in separation.

How does all of it “make perfect sense?” I could not have thought of a better way to pull “my self” outside of myself; outside of the known, outside of the assumed, outside of the easy, the comfortable, the illusory. Sometimes it’s too easy to fall into ease, and not even realize that Truth Eternal has been sacrificed in the offing.

Ego rebuilds itself moment to moment, assuming new shapes to hold, contain, divide, define itself by. Even the idea of enlightenment can stand in the way of our relationship with It.

Circle of Women, Tomb of the Patriarch, Al-Khalil/Hebron

Circle of Women, Tomb of the Patriarch, Al-Khalil/Hebron

So, the perfection lies in being stretched beyond my own edges in a way that I ask for again and again. Through the frame of Islam, I can see God unchanged, unchanging. The way I have come to know It. I can also see where my ego is attached to the way I encounter God, approach God, conceive of God.

One of the big jokes of it all (and there are many, many Big Jokes for me in the terrain of my dissembling soul), is that God cannot be approached. God is. Eternal. Everywhere present, but in no one place localized. Beyond our comprehension. So, even on the mental level, God cannot be approached.

As a Mystic, I can say that all paths to the Divine are equal, while knowing that “path” is a misnomer, and “to the” a misleading statement. Even naming It,  whether “Divine” or “God” is a veil.

“love is a veil between lover and loved
more than this I am not allowed to say.”
Jalal-ud-Din Rumi

Even the idea of love is separation. In claiming a beloved, earthly or divine, we put ourselves into separation. Through this separation we have the chance to seek reunion.

Just as delineation limits by virtue of fixing “some thing” in place, love and aversion limit by placing things outside of ourselves, which creates something outside of The Other, as well. There is a sense of “the thing I am”, or “the thing I am not.” Both reinforce division.

But where better to see my assumed flaws, faults, assumed strengths? Where better to see my attachments?

In this, the healing of the world.

As my sense of self lies shattered into pieces on the ground around me, I laugh, and I cry. Some shards melt into the earth and become cells of the ageless soil. Some wisps of vapor, becoming the unchanging air. Some become sparks of light and join with the unwavering light of the sun.

And even beyond the joining with the geological and universal, each element in its time fades and joins the eternal, returning to the first home, the last home, the home that is now, and always will be; the heart of The One.

In the midst of the agonies and the ecstasies of mergence, emergence, mergence…I come back to the moments of peace where there is no separation.

What if “that I am,” were true of everything. What if inside and outside were an illusion? What if there were no line between work and life. Relationships with people and with God. Spiritual path and life, just as it is.

Cessation. At the heart of it all is surrender. The moment where lover and beloved are not two, but one. Nay, are none.

Ma salaam,

-LaSara (Fatima ‘Abd-Rahim)

“The foremost in religion is the acknowledgement of Him, the perfection of acknowledging Him is to testify Him, the perfection of testifying Him is to believe in His Oneness, the perfection of believing in His Oneness is to regard Him Pure, and the perfection of His purity is to deny Him attributes, because every attribute is a proof that it is different from that to which it is attributed and everything to which something is attributed is different from the attribute. Thus whoever attaches attributes to Allah recognises His like, and who recognises His like regards Him two; and who regards Him two recognises parts for Him; and who recognises parts for Him mistook Him; and who mistook Him pointed at Him; and who pointed at Him admitted limitations for Him; and who admitted limitations for Him numbered Him.
Whoever said in what is He, held that He is contained; and whoever said on what is He held He is not on something else. He is a Being but not through phenomenon of coming into being. He exists but not from non-existence. He is with everything but not in physical nearness. He is different from everything but not in physical separation. He acts but without connotation of movements and instruments. He sees even when there is none to be looked at from among His creation. He is only One, such that there is none with whom He may keep company or whom He may miss in his absence.”
-The oneness of god, according to Ali ibn Abi Talib

“I testify that there is no Deity (Lord) except the sole and matchless Allah. And the testification of the singleness of Allah is a word that Allah has declared sincerity (as) its reality, and made the hearts the centre of its contact and union. And has made the specifications and research of the oneness of Allah’s station obvious and evident in the light of meditation. The Allah Who can not be seen by the eyes and tongues are unable and baffled to describe His virtues and attributes. And the intelligence and apprehension of man is helpless and destitute from the imagination of his how ness.”
-Fatima bint Muhammad