Category Archives: Comparative Religion

Comparative Religion, Metaphysics, Modern Living

“Judge Not, That Ye Be Not Judged”

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Judge not, that ye be not Judged”

The Heresy of Moral relativism!

Triggering Event: I was in a local commercial establishment discussing the relationship problems a faithful Christian was having with her Muslim ethnic partner. I began to describe the characteristic peculiarities of that particular ethnicity when she interrupted me with the famous:”we shouldn’t be judging and Judge not that ye be not judged” from the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus.

I knew something was wrong with that reaction but didn’t know how to frame it .And then it came to me(Despite never having been a Christian I do know a fair amount about that religion and it’s history lol).”Wait a minute. What about when Jesus knocked over the tables of the sellers at the Temple and said: “It is written, ”My house shall be called a House of prayer but you are making it into a robber’s den” “Was he not judging?! And how about when he saved the harlot from being stoned saying;” He who is without sin throw the first stone( judging all the people around).But better still in the follow-up that most people are unaware of he added” You are free to go but sin no more”! Is that not judgment?! She was stunned into silence. No one had ever questioned that statement to her before. And many, many others are in the same situation!

As I was returning home I realized there was much more. What he had said to his principal opponents the Pharisees.” “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean” (Matthew 23:25-26). Is there no judgment there.?!

We have a similar problem in Islam. People turn the Islamic idea “Husn al Dhann”(Having a good opinion ) into a prohibition of thinking bad or correcting others. But we know at the same time that a central principle of our religion is “Amr bil Maroof wa Nehi al Munkar” (enjoining the good and prohibiting evil).How can we do that if we cannot even notice and affirm the evil of something?!

So what is going on here?! On the most rudimentary level of explanations, we can say that “religious” people are cherry-picking their scriptures .So the Christians are choosing one statement of Jesus and ignoring many aspects of his behaviour. And the Muslims are ignoring all the faults of human beings that Allah underlines in the Quranitself..Allah says that man is disputatious, often corrupt, impatient,weak,  blind deaf and dumb etc., etc. Are we to ignore all of that in favour of one statement about “having a good opinion” that mostly refers to Allah himself, not man.

So contrary to that cherry-picked “judge not that ye be not judged” we MUST develop judgment and discernment. Otherwise how can we decide what is good and evil-how we must behave. Without judgment,we find ourselves in a moral wasteland-like much of the modern world!”It’s all good ,man”. ”Chill out.Don’t hassle it”. That is the language of modernisn-of moral relativism. If the person wants it and likes it, then it must be good. Everyone needs to develop their own code of ethics. Really?!

A telling anecdote.Many years ago, when dinosaurs were still roaming the Earth lol,I was a camp counsellor One of my associates who I became friendly with, let’s call him Paul for now, was a young fellow with a cheerful personality who played guitar and looked like Bob Dylan.We lost contact after camp and I didn’t hear from him for awhile .Later,I met a friend of ours who said to me: ”Did you hear, Paul is daed” I was in shock! “What happened?” I asked. He then relayed the following story.Paul got caught selling drugs and was facing trial for the offense .His father was a Superior Court Judge in Quebec so he was hugely emabarassed! At the time he was living in a Buddhist collective. I think you get the type by now.

So one day he went and bought a large knife. And in the spirit of the Samurai,I guess, he plunged it into his heart and bled to death.The father was called to the scene to witness his dead son surrounded by his own blood.One of the Buddhist students there,surely in the throes of youthful foolishness ,then said:” Don’t hassle it man .It’s only corporal existence?! Talk about misinterpreting scriptures?! I guess you can do it with any tradition!

So what is this judgment that we so are in need of? It is, in fact,the basis of ALL moral and spiritual development. It is our moral and behavioural compass.It is what Adam and Eve were taught from thev tree of the knowledge of good and evil(Biblical version).Necessary for earthly existence-but not in heaven.Without it we are reduced to the level of animals-probably worse as our sadistic and perverse elements are beyond the animals capacity.We pray that God/Allah give us good judgment and the strength to exercise it in all areas of our lives! Salaams,Sufi Ibrahim

 

 

Comparative Religion, Modern Living, Politics

Middle East Synthesis

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The Middle East-Synthesis

As emotions are running high and opinions are rigidifying, I felt the duty to communicate what I am seeing about the current crisis in the Middle East.I hope this can contribute to peoples understanding and even to an eventual peace although at this point in time,I am not very optimistic about humanity lol

  1. Free Palestine!

1-Free Palestine from the worst governance on the planet! Even Putin’s Russia and Imperial Japan (WW2) had more concern and compassion for their own people! Not good company for sure!

2-Free Palestine from the mindset of hatred, bigotry and narrow-mindedness that has developed over the years  .None of this can lead to a good result. And none of this is from the sunnat of our Prophet saws

3-Free Palestine from the Woke attitude of victimization and return it to the Islamic attitude of accountability. Remember Sheikh Ali Jemal of Fes r.a. “Everything to you is from you”!

4_ Free Palestine from the blindness of NOT seeing the hand of God (metaphorical of course) in everything. Thinking that the only powers at play are America and Israel is a form of shirk. If Muslims need a reference from the sunnat, re-read the dua of our holy Prophet saws after the events at Taif-that he sal called the worst day of his life. In it you will find accountability and humility and NOT vengeance

PS Does this mean I am taking the Israeli side. Not at all. I can and will formulate the critique of its behaviours just as well as any Muslims-better I think lol. But if you re-read the Quran, you will see that we are only accountable for our own actions-not the actions of the other side . If the Palestinians could be free of any or all of these contaminants, my belief is that peace would occur  almost immediately! Think about it

 

Free Israel!

1-Free Israel from religious and spiritual nationalism( the reason I left Judaism in the first place)

2- Free Israel from the lack of empathy ( a characteristic of BOTH Semitic tribes!) for the suffering of the Palestinians

3- Free Israel from the arrogance of “The Chosen People” narrative

4-Free Israel from the fear of another holocaust-which leads to over-reaction!

 

PS If they did all of that or any of that, we would have Peace within short order. But it is no simple matter to achieve that, for sure.

 

 

Myths that need to be dispelled

1-That the Zionist movement is about a group of white Europeans who have occupied Arab lands in a colonialist fashion!

Actually this conflict has been going on for at least 4000 years-ever since the two partners of Abraham-Sara and Hajar separated( we will not speculate here why that may have occurred nor what the marital status of Hajar was,as this is not germane to this discussion1).Sara remained in Hebron with Isaac  while Hajar moved with her son Ismail to Mecca .The Children of Sara became the Children of Israel and the children of Hajar became the children of Ismail. And the two lineages have been fighting with each other ever since.

So David fighting with Goliath of the Philistines ( 1000 B.C.) was one instance of this conlict. And when the Israelites under Musa a.s. were ordered in the Old Testament to kill the Cananites( the ancestors of the Palestinians) on entering the promised land, this was also a manifestation of the conflict.

In 70 A.D. the Romans ordered the Jews to leave Palestine.. But after the Muslim conquest under Umar Ibn Al Khattab they came back and have been there ever since. By the mid 19th century more than half the inhabitants of Jerusalem were Jews and 300 years  before that they had established the holy city of Safed which was a centre of Jewish mysticism and Kabbala.

So, calling the return of Jews to Palestine a colonialist occupation is either  short-sighted vision or simply intellectual dishonesty!

2- Israel as an apartheid state is not really an accurate representation of Reality. This does not mean that Israel has not done and continues to do a lot of wrong and oppressive things. Like chasing Arabs out of their villages before the 1948 war.(It did not help that the Arab leadership encouraged many to leave, believing that they could return after the Arab armies had gained victory).But that doesn’t justify the behaviour. Nor is the REAL occupation by settlers in the West Bank(saying it is the ancient Jewish land of Judea and Samaria). and seizing property in East  Jerusalem correct behaviour. All of that has just added fuel to the fire.

One of the arguments against considering Israel an Aparthed state if that the Arabs that remained in Israel are doing better, economically that is, then any of the Arab states around them or those in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel has also given some autonomy to the Arab populations of Gaza and the West bank but the latter’s obsession with fighting Israel has not allowed them to benefit from this autonomy.

On the notion of apartheid ( and I credit the Imam at our local mosque for this information) when Umar Ibn Al Kattab allowed the Jews back to Jerusalem there was a condition that they could not be permanent residents nor own property! I get the reasoning. The Jewish tribes had made a lot of problems for the Muslims in Madina. But I think this was a mistake-something that commonly happens when we base our decisions on history- which never repeats itself exactly! This ruling seems to have continued in the Ottoman Empire-up to the Balfour Declaration in 1918.That explains why the founder of Zionism, Theodore Herzl, went to visit the Ottoman Emperor to buy land in Palestine. Otherwise thay could have bought it on the open commercial market. The Sultan refused citing loyaly to another Muslim community. What the consequences would have been,if he had accepted,is a whole other matter.The point here is that if the Arabs are now second rate citizens in their homeland the Jews were also such in pre-Balfour Palestine!

5- The notion in large parts of the Muslim world that the Jews have no place in this land in the first place.

This question was partially answered by point number 1 but let us continue the discussion. It appears that Theodore Herzl ,the founder of Zionism, had a childhood vision of Moses taking him up to see his Lord and saying “this man may affect a lot of people by his words”.Herzl did not reveal this information until he was close to death!- because he did not want to be seen as a religious fanatic.But for the Muslims in the audience, we have been taught that if a Prophet appears in a dream it is really him as Satan cannot take on the form of Prophethood. So there is the fulfillment of some kind of Destiny in the Jews coming back to Palestine. The Christians are convinced of this, as well, which is why there is a lot of support for Israel amongst Evangelical Chjristians!

Then there are the “signs” (referred to as “ayat” in the Quran).The 1948 victory against established armies of Arab states ,the 1967 war, the Yom Kippur war(1973) and all the skirmishes before and after. The Palestinians and the Arabs have lost every one! Is that not enough of signs?! Do the Muslims not believe that nothing happens in this world without the permission of Allah?! Read the life of the Prophet saws. He won almost every battle and the one the Muslims lost(Uhud) was because of the disobedience of the soldiers involved.

To change the orientation slightly, even the Germans and the Japanese ( No slacker peoples there lol) accepted defeat. But not the Palestinians. They negotiate as if they were victors! Wa la howla wala quwatta.

3- The argument that the bad behaviour of groups like Hamas is a reaction due to the intolerable conditions of their lives. And there is truth to this argument,no doubt ! What is rarely said is that the Israelis are also in reaction! Let me explain further.Over the years there have been many propositions from various sources for land-sharing and peace. Let me enumerate a few!

:1937 U.N. proposal of land-distribution( in favour of the Palestinians

:1947 A second land distribution proposal ( more or less 50-509).Response: Arab armies organize a war

1951 King Abdullah of Jordan and Golda Meir are on the verge of a historic agreement.Response:He is assassinated by Palestinians And btw,the Arab street still believes he was a traitor.But whayt I have seen is the opposite.The kings of Jordan are sincerely concerned with their people.But who needs the welfare of the people when you can have never-ending wars to defend your pride?!.

;1967 U.N. Resolution 242 (land for peace after the 67 war)

;1980 Camp David with president Carter (Palestinians didn’t attend)

:2000 Camp David with president Clinton…Arafat left

2003 The Geneva Initiative negotiated between Yossi Bellin, previous Minister of Justice in Israel and Yasser Abed Rabo, former Palestinian Authority Minister.A very interesting report that went into all kinds of details to cross the t’s and dot the I’s!

And these are only some of the many attempts to arrive at peace. The Jews accepted most of themat least as a basis to negotiate .The Arabs refused every one!

So Israel, as well, is in reaction-reaction to an “all or none” intransigence of the Arabs.So when they claim that they don’t have a partner in negotiation, it is not purely propaganda.

 

       

 

 

 

 

The Psychology of the Peoples Involved

Modern people don’t like us talking about Collective Psychology.T hey call it “Racial or National Profiling” and it is considered “politically incorrect”. On top of that, Muslims and religious people in general have no taste or understanding of psychology. So if you find yourself being in either of these categories lol you are going to have to bear with me.But if you listen carefully, I believe you will learn something important that will improve your understanding of the events that are unfolding!

When I first came to Islam, in East Jerusalem, in 1978, I was given a Quran translated into English to read. I recognized immediately the authenticity of the book! However, at the same time, I met the Palestinian people around me. Our sheikh, himself a Syrian/Palestinian had warned us of the people around us and prohibited us from going to the famous Al Aqsa mosque for the first six months after our shahada. He said, otherwise, that we could easily lose our faith if we did so.

Given those realities I had in mind the question: ”Why did Allah give this sacred book to these people?!” I made dua about it and one day sitting on the road of the Mount of Olives, the answer came! “Because these are the people who would most tightly hold to this book and these teachings” Hamza Yusuf likes to quote the historian ,Herodotus,I believe, that the Arabs were the people most loyal to their oaths. That is the perfect quality for the mission of preserving the religion.

However, this same quality of tenacity and intransigence, when it comes to working out a deal with another people and another way of thinking, becomes a definite liability! And we can see that playing out over the last 100 years. .( Just above we have a short list of all the peace arrangements that have been refused Case in point!)

On the other hand the Jews represent another enigma. Jackie Mason, perhaps the greatest Jewish comedian of all times puts it this way: ”I don’t understand these Israelis.They are not at all like the Jews I knew in NewYork City and Brooklyn.They are like Puerta Ricans”(known as some of the toughest gangsters in New York lol).So how did that happen?! The reasonable explanation would be that they are reacting to a rough environment. But Robert Pirsig, one of my favourite authors, in his book “Laila” has another, more intriguing answer. He claims, and I believe it wholeheartedly ,that our environmental penetrates into our psyche.So he explains how the Americans that came to America with Christian values of piety and compassion became so violent.He believes they imbibed the violence of the indigenous tribes around them. Intriguing.But once again politically incorrect.In that vein ,the Jews who came to Israel became Arabized.They were no longer the passive, shtetel Jews but refound their way back to the warriors of the Times of King David and King Saul.

And so what we have in the Middle East, in essence, is tribal warfare disguised in the terminology of human rights and national affirmation. ”How does that help?” you may ask. Well, if we understand what is really going on, we are in a better position to fix it.If we live in the world of denial and comfortable ideals we end up being impotent, which is exactly what has been happening for the last 100 years!

Conclusion: The Task at Hand

What is going on in the Middle East is horrible. What happened on October 7th was horrid. So is the Israeli response. But if we remain at the surface, as most of the activists are doing, we will go nowhere.

So ,bottom line,what is the task at hand. I believe Allah has presented a challenge to these two peoples: the Jews and the Arabs. The challenge is “How to share this land between the two of them, in a way that works for everyone”. Although our Prophet saws was up to this kind of challenge amongst the Arab tribes like the Aws and the Hazraj, no-one has ever done this in Palestine between the Jews and the Arabs. And they do not have a common leader like the Arab tribes in Madina did.The U.N. and America are both failing miserably at this task. As are the Arabs and the Jews, both trying in one way or another to maximize their advantage and their holdings without properly considering the other. As they showed up in my Istikhara prayers, they are both scavengers and it is leading to self-destruction on both sides!

There ARE examples of this being done successfully elsewhere. I believe , without prejudice lol, that Canada is one of them.The French and English, despite having fought wars in Europe for 100’s of years have managed to accommodate each other in Canada, not without certain frictions for sure, in a way that has given both communities a decent lifestyle. Now the naysayers might point out that it didn’t work out that well for the indigenous people?! But that is another matter. As I thought about it, both Islam and Judaism themselves gained prominence at the expense of the pagans and idol-worshippers in their area.so the parallel is even better than I originally thought!

In all fairness, I don’t think the Arabs and the Jews can do it on their own. But, the Abrahamic accords were a promising start. That is some of the leaders in the Arab world( the UAE, Bahrain and soon to come Saudi Arabia? and Morocco?)  are beginning to see that it would be in their interest to make peace with Israel and work together for prosperity in the region. Wouldn’t that be great?!

Obviouly, there are certain parties not pleased with that prospect-most specifically Iran with its proxies and other Islamist groups like Hamas ,Hizbollah and the Ikhwan Muslimeen(Muslim brotherhood) wherever they may be.For more explanation about this obstacle, the reader can go to my article on our blog entitled:”Islamism:The Scourge of the Muslim ummat”.In brief we can understand as Joshua Phillips of Epoch Times pointed out so perceptively,that Islamism is a form of left-wing,Marxist thinking(Remember the Dictatorship of the proletariat lol? Well in Islamism it becomes the Dictatorship of the Ulema as the Iranian principle of “Vilayat a Faqi’ points out so succinctly. And we know well how these theocracies without a proper Prophet or rightly guided one turns out?! And no, neither Ismail Hanniye nor Ayatollah Khameini fill the bill lol

So that is where we find ourselves. On the precipice! All out war or a final Peace Deal.  May God help us!

 

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Comparative Religion, Islam, Politics, Psychology

Middle East Oct.2023

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Middle East Statement

This should hopefully be the last of three statements on the Middle East (the others are on the Sufi Ibrahim Kreps Youtube channel) and the most concrete one. I would advise people against taking sides in this conflict! There is more than enough blame to go around-including the faults of America, of the U.N., of England and Turkey historically -let alone what the two parties involved have been up to!

Taking a strong position on one side or the other thus becomes a manifestation of ignorance! Now I understand that Muslims feel the need to be loyal to the Palestinians. And loyalty IS an Islamic virtue. But the true loyalty is to the Truth not to the tribe!

Feeling the pain is one thing. It is human. But assigning blame and acting from that analysis requires wisdom and discernment and unfortunately that is in short supply nowadays.

Salaams, Sufi Ibrahim

Comparative Religion, Modern Living, Politics, Psychology

Nationalism Re-Examined

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Nationalism Re-Examined

Nationalism is a very sensitive subject. As soon as you start generalizing about national traits you are accused of “racial profiling” and racism. -especially if you talk about negative traits. Yet nations are really quite distinct- just as genders are quite distinct- despite current narratives.

People generally have a lot of emotional investment in their nation. Some are unduly proud like the Americans who keep repeating in their discourse on public media that they are “the greatest nation ever on Earth”. There are a few discounting facts to that narrative- like the fact that they rank the lowest on almost every social variable amongst the developed nations. But who cares about facts when you have pride lol.

There is also an even more sensitive area which has to do with shame about our national characteristics. So, for example, Jews will regularly give their children gentile -sounding names like Tiffany and Elizabeth for example lol. Some will shorten their last name so it sounds less Jewish. So Bergman becomes Berry and Glouberman becomes Glidden. Muslims, as well, will shorten their name from Mohammed (a truly honorable name) to Moe so they sound like the owner of a delicatessen. Black people, most obviously athletes, will shave their heads as if there is something wrong with God-given curly hair. I don’t get it! Two of my childhood heroes were Angela Davis and Jimmy Hendriks. I really admired their natural Afro hairdos!

Then there was one of my clients-an indigenous man from the north of Quebec- who pretended to be a Québecois pure laine and hid his identity for years in therapy. It ended up catching up with him in his relationships- because his Québecois partners didn’t appreciate his taciturnness-an indigenous characterstic (OOPs! Is that “racial profiling?) It might have been easier for him if he had stated in advance that he doesn’t talk too much lol

In my first book: “Snakes and Ladders:Aphorisms for Modern Living” I make the following statement:” We are each caricatures of our national origins” ! That may sound extreme especially for those with a serious dose of Western education lol. We were taught over and over again the nature/nurture hypothesis. And even there the emphasis was on the individual and the family genetics as opposed to the collective national ones. Yet, over and over again, travelling all around the world and interacting with many different societies, I could see the national characteristics so clearly!

I remember my first trip to Europe with a fellow medical student named Alan. We first came to London. It was cold and rainy. Everything was really expensive. We could not find a hotel within our budget and we ended up sleeping on the floor of a YMCA with a large group of German tourists. It was less than twenty years from WWII and the idea of sleeping in a room of Germans was still an intimidating prospect-especially being raised in a secular Jewish family.

So we decided to move to France. There was an immediate change in the environment. The hotels were a lot cheaper (this was before the European Common Market!) It was sunny and the charcuteries allowed us to eat easily within our budget . We sat out in the beautiful groomed parks and felt like we were almost in paradise ( France has since gone downhill considerably and when I visit it now it feels more like pre-Civil War Syria -but that is a whole other subject! )

When we got tired of the hedonism of Paris, we moved on to Germany. As we got to the border, I immediately noticed the militaristic aspect of the Germans ( btw we had a great time as well in that country).But that militarism of the customs agents triggered something in me. I then looked at my friend Alan and said: ’You know Alan we have been sold a crock. A bunch of B.S. Our educational system, liberal as it was at the time, taught us that all peoples are essentially alike. Only individuals are different.That is clearly not what we are seeing”  And on top of that, these were three ”advanced” Western peoples. Imagine the differences if we compare them to Asian and African nations?!That may have been one of my earliest Aha experiences. The liberal viewpoint was misleading at best-at worst more ideological denial from the bleeding-heart liberals lol

On a personal note, I have always been adamantly opposed to nationalism-seeing it simply as a collective form of egotism and selfishness. Which it is! But there is another side to all of this. Just as we must come to terms with our individual ego (nafs in Arabic) we need to come to terms with our national origins-in all its dimensions. Each nation has its strengths and its weaknesses. Yet most people can only see the good qualities of their national origins and have difficulty imagining its shadowy aspects.

A case in point. In the early 2000’s I was studying Arabic in Amman and living with a few other students in a shared apartment. One of the students I got close to was of Palestinian descent-with all of the baggage that entails! One day I was discoursing  on religion and made the statement that each religion had its particular strengths and weakness. Now, just from a theological point of view, this is difficult for any religious nationalist (and yes, there is nationalism based on religious practice as well!) to hear. The vast majority of people are convinced that their religion is best and there is a large percentage of those who believe that their religion is the only means of salvation-even if their scriptures, properly interpreted, say the opposite!

So when I got to the issue of the good qualities of each religion, I was somewhat surprised , which I shouldn’t have been because actually it was quite predictable, to hear my Palestian friend ask: ”So where does Judaism excel, in that vein”. His bias was clearly obvious. But after getting over the initial shock, I responded from an inspiration that I get from time to me in these situation. ” In its humanism”

Now, I can see that if you identify Judaism with how the Israeli government behaves, you could hardly be blamed for concluding otherwise. But if you look at Jewish history, if you study the Arts and Sciences and philosophy produced by Jewish people, you can see what I was getting at. I have a particular fondness these days for remembering vocabulary in the Yiddish language from my youth-vocabulary that highlights the inevitable foibles of humanity both on an individual and collective level. Actually identifying these foibles helps us accept them! Much more so than those coming from a mindset of nobility and dignity! (I’ll let you guess who those may be lol)

So when I see what is going on in American politics,”kurveshe”(whoorishness) is the most precise term I can find to describe it. When I listen to overly abstract woke intellectuals I think: ”mishegene”(literally crazy) and when I hear my clients stories of intrusive mother-in-laws the word “schvigger” comes to mind – a word that literally means mother-in-law but in Yiddish becomes almost a swear word! Much more on this at a later time. But for now, I feel proud to dredge out some of this ancient vocabulary from my past that helps me identify and deal with what is going on nowadays.

The troubling aspects of nationalism and racism goes back a long way. I still remember an episode where I was asked to give the sermon at the youth sabbath at our local synagogue. I don’t even think I was 13 at the time. Being my usual controversial self, I took on the subject of Jews’ bias towards others. There were two dépanneurs(  handy stores) near us. One was Jewish owned. The other was owned by a Greek man. But all the Jews bought from the Jewish store. So I brought this out and told them” You complain about antisemitism but you are acting in the same manner towards this Greek shopkeeper”. Somehow the message got through. The next time I met the Greek man, he thanked me profusely. His business picked up in the weeks following my talk! Sometimes, people DO listen lol!

Ok So let’s get back to the central point here. How do we deal properly with nationalism. There are many improper ways, as we have seen throughout history but managing this domain ethically and responsibly is a whole other matter! In one of the visitations of the Virgin Mary (I believe it may be the one at Medugorge) she said to the young girls who saw her: “Mankind is on the wrong track. If they don’t change their ways of materialism and nationalism, there will be more and more natural disasters”. So when I see the floods and fires and heatwaves of climate change I don’t think “carbon imprint”. Rather I think “man’s misbehaviour around deeper issues than carbon use”!

The initial trigger for writing this article was an interview on Epoch TVof an author named Rick Richman (forgot to change his last name to Rich lol). He wrote a recent book called: ”And None Should Make Them Afraid” about eight people who contributed to the Zionist project, Clearly not a popular topic in my current Muslim community lol And the first person he talked about was Theodore Herzl. Not usually my cup of tea! If I wanted to talk about great Jewish personalities I would start with the Ball Shem Tov, Reb Nahman of Bratislava and Maimonides. Perhaps Martin Buber. But this was about a person I really didn’t have much sympathy for. And I am sure there are people around, especially in the Arab world, who dislike him much more than I do,

Nevertheless, Richman painted a relatively positive picture of a man committed to an ideal that he spent his life on. But most interesting, only towards the end of his life, did he reveal that at 12 years old, he had a dream/vision of Moses bringing him up into the presence of God! Now in the Islamic tradition, we are taught that if a Prophet appears in a dream it is really him. The devil cannot take the form of a Prophet. So…the founder of Zionism was Divinely instructed to work towards a state of Israel.Ajib!

Now for many pious Christians, this a a no-brainer. They believe that the Jews had to return to the Holy Land in order to set the stage for the return of Jesus! And after all Jesus and all of his Apostles were all Jews, something it has taken Christians a long time to swallow! But for Muslims this is anathema.

And yet, the deeper thinkers amongst Muslims, realize that nothing happens in this world without Divine permission. I have even heard Jordanians thinking that Israel was a punishment for Muslims not holding tightly enough to their own religion. However, this story line is more positive I would say. The Jews returning to Israel is part of the unfoldment of Divine destiny. As said the great Sheikh Hashimi of Damascus “fi kooli shay khayran”(in everything is goodness).Even in Zionism lol!

As to Muslims- concerning the question of nationalism- Allah has told us in the Quran 49;13 “O mankind. We created you from a male and a female. and made you into peoples (shououb) and tribes so that you may get to know each other. “There are a lot of meanings in this short ayat but for our current purposes, it is enough to point out that nations are not an invention of man as some sociologists and anthropologists might like to postulate. They are natural creations of our Lord. Besides this Quranic quote, we have the well-known hadith of our Prophet saws which says” The love of the homeland comes from Faith” Another support for the positive aspects of nationalism. So it is incumbent upon us to accept that reality.

Thus we realize that we have to come to terms with our own nationhood and that of others-no mean feat actually. Because this is deep in our coding, yes even in our genetic coding. And much of it is unconscious.

I will proceed to highlight one case where these differences have created an enormous amount of conflict. Then we will go on to some final general conclusions.

Let’s start with the Middle East- a problem that has defeated many politicians and diplomats. I have no pretensions about solving this problem! But I, may be able to shed some light on the psychological aspects involved. Jews and Arabs. Why are they unable to come to terms and make a peace treaty. This is a very difficult and complex problem. But let us start at the base-their different psychological makeups. The defining fault of the Jewish nation is “doubt”. Some of the rabbis I met in Jerusalem were well aware of this! One of them said to me;” If you are committed to doubt, and most doubters are lol, Ashem (God) will supply you with all the data you need to keep doubting. So the Jews who doubted Moses in the dessert, the Apostles who doubted Jesus, the Jews in the Quran who couldn’t decide what kind of cow to sacrifice, were all true to form-they were Jewish doubters. When the Muslims run into these stories they react saying: ”You see. They are really unbelievers”. They don’t factor in the Jewish mind-set.

The Arabs, on the other hand, have no such problem. They are sure they are right-always lol. The equivalent to Jewish doubt is Arab pride! And both are problematic.  ”My way or the highway” think the Arabs. .There is no room for second opinions. They are invalid by definition. So how do people with such different approaches get together to negotiate. They have clearly not been able to do so, so far!

Early on, during my stay in Jerusalem, and just before accepting Islam, I was introduced to the holy book of Islam-the Quran. I immediately recognized its authenticity! And yes, in English translation lol I then looked around me at the behaviour of the people in East Jerusalem and the West Bank and thought: “Why would God send this authentic Revelation to these people?! “My Sufi teacher-who was a highly knowledgeable Hafiz Quran and Qadi (judge in the Islamic court) at the time had warned me about this. He told us not to go to the famous al Aqsa mosque for 6 months after conversion. He was afraid we would lose our faith!

So, sitting on the side of the road going up to the Mount of Olives, I asked Allah again why these people (the Arabs) had received this book. And the answer came back loud and clear: ”They are the ones who will hold it most tightly”! And so it has been throughout history! So Allah himself is NOT a black and white thinker!  He could and can see that these people, as faulty as was and is their behaviour, also had a particular quality of perseverance and tenacity ( the deniers would say “stubbornness” lol) that was uniquely suited to this purpose!

On the other hand the Jews who had been the previous recipient were not as perseverant in holding to their way. But their doubt and reflection has led them to be great scientists, musicians and artists.” To each his own” as they say. And ALL of it is from our Lord!

So what do we do with this conundrum? The answer is the same as in many other situations- “Develop Awareness”. We, all, need to be aware of how much we conform to our national characteristics. Then we have to learn to affirm and express our strengths and fight against our weaknesses-on an individual and a collective level. This is the jihad-a-nafs of Sufism (the struggle with the ego) but, in this case, we are struggling with the collective ego. No mean feat given that all the like-minded people around us (our nation) are telling us we are fine just the way we are. But we aren’t!

Once we accept our tribal limitations and work against the weaknesses, it is then incumbent upon us to accept these limitations and strengths of other nations and treat them with dignity and respect- rather than “othering them” to use a current Americanism.

May God help us in this sacred enterprise because it is a holy work! Salaams, Sufi Ibrahim

 

Comparative Religion, Metaphysics, Spiritual Practice, Uncategorized

Theology?!

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Theology is the entry of the philosophical mind-set (i.e “mind productions”) into the domain of religion. It’s cost /benefit ratio is probably nil i.e. the costs( over-riding the need for actual spiritual experience and mysticism in favour of mental gymnastics) is at least as onerous as its benefits- at least when well-done (providing clarity in one’s formulation of beliefs- on which to base one’s behaviour.) Much unnecessary confusion and conflict has been generated by this form of activity!For best effect, it needs to be detoxified by actual spiritual experience-of one sort or another. Salaams,Sufi Ibrahim

Comparative Religion, Metaphysics, Spiritual Practice

Bullet-Points: from Swedenborg

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Emmanuel Swedenborg was a philosopher and Christian esotericist (that’s the way I would describe him)of the 18th century. With the current revival of interest in the after-life, at least in part stimulated by the copious literature of n.d.e.(near-death experience) accounts, the interest in his works has dramatically increased. He claims to have easily travelled into the heaven and hell worlds and had discussions with angels and spirits over a thirty-year period. You can make up your own mind as to the relative validity of these experiences, but I will present here some of the Truths he uncovered that as far as I am concerned are indisputable.

N.B. We will exclude, for the sake of brevity and usefulness, all the areas in which Swedenborg got it wrong( for example that heaven and hell are simply states of mind?!) due to his copious “mind-productions”. Oy, those European intellectuals?! They have contaminated the entire planet with their hyper-cerebrality. Instead we will focus in this brief article on his valid contributions to spiritual clarity. 

♦ God is Love AND Wisdom. (N.B. Not love alone which would move us into the ‘”Peace and Love” movement which was basically a disaster!.We need the wisdom/discernment as well!)

♦All who do good in accordance with the Truth of their religion will be accepted into heaven (Take that on the chin all narrow-minded Muslims and Evangelical and other fanatical Christians! Our Quran says as much Surat2:62 and elsewhere but many scholars choose to distort the  meaning to promote Muslim nationalism!)

♦Suffering is necessary for transformation. Ultimately God will bring good out of it! God is optimizing things for your benefit. It’s better than you think! God is working things out for the best! 

♦Religious teachings have to make sense(i.e. have to agree with your intuitive sense of how things must be. Nicean-creed Christians may have a problem here lol)

♦Free will is a God-given right. More good, in terms of personal transformation, will come out of it than evil.

♦Spiritual crises help free you from your ego. 

♦It is in this world that we can do the best spiritual work. That is why we are here!

♦In the after-life there is nothing you can hide. Your good and your evil are apparent to all. Islam says more or less the same thing in numerous ways, talking about how your limbs and your tongue will betray you.

♦The theory of Reincarnation represents a misunderstanding. In fact,our consciousness is both permeable and moveable in time and space.So we can occupy someone else’s consciousness without that being us. Hazrat Inayat Khan said more or less the same thing. The Advaita Vedantists, some schools of Buddhism  and Krishnamurti go even further, stating that individual consciousness itself, is a myth!

There is an important corollary to this point about the permeability and displacement of consciousness. And that is around the troublesome theological issue of Divine Incarnation. We see this in Christian theology where many Christians believe that Jesus IS God; we see it in the Hindu idea of the avatar(a Divine incarnation) and we see it in the story of Mansur al-Hallaj in Sufism.The confusion is in the “dimensional” area-for lack of a better term. We can assume that Jesus a.s. and the authentic Hindu avatars  as well as Mansur al Hallaj had the experience of Divine Consciousness. That is in the experiential (the philosophers call this the “phenomenological” area).However they do not therefore become God in the “ontological” dimension-the dimension of “being”. So for Muslims, who are very adamant on this point, and rightfully so, Mansur al Hallaj was not God. He just experienced himself as such. His confusion cost him his life. Yes, the stakes are very high! Sorry for all the Greek terms but they do help us to avoid confusion in these theologically important areas. I hope that is helpful!

♦We should be working to be in the stream of providence (i.e consistent with the will of God. “Thy Will be done” The secularists would call this “being in the flow” but it is actually more holy than that!)

♦The Bible is about correspondences. Everything in this world has correspondences in the other world and vice-versa. Think Garden and gardens. Think the Divine Light, in the other world, and the light of the sun in this world! But don’t get confused and worship the sun! That is heresy!.

♦Philosophy is a discipline that” darkens the mind, blinds us and wholly rejects faith”. Amen! 

♦God chooses our life( and Islam tells us we agreed on the Day of Promises!) not us- as many modern occultists would have us believe.

♦Swedeborg disputes 1).the Nicean doctrine of Trinity(as do Muslims).He states that God is One( tawhid) not three personalities..He calls that Apostolic Christianity ( i.e. the Christianity of the early Church before the theologian bishops gained dominance over basic Christian  beliefs.) He also rejects Vicarious Redemption( Jesus took on all of man’s sins on the cross) in favour of individual repentance and redemption. Again Muslims would concur .Remember, religion has to make sense, in his viewpoint!

Comparative Religion, Metaphysics, Modern Living, Spiritual Practice

The Mechanics of False Epistemology!

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Once again, don’t get scared by the Greek term epistemology lol.It just means how you get to the Truth or Reality of a situation-“The Theory Of Knowledge “according to the Philosophers.

In an “ordinary” conversation, when someone hears a statement made by another person, they immediately compare it to what is already in their head and respond accordingly. If it conforms to what is in their mind, they say: “You are right” and if it doesn’t they say: “You are wrong” or “I disagree”. Sometimes they don’t say it out-loud   out of politeness and diplomacy. Wrong, wrong and wrong! This is the totally wrong epistemology! Unfortunately the most popular type lol. It can go quite far. The more clever, sophisticated people will then go do some research to cherry-pick the literature or the media to prove the point that is in their heads. They then claim not only are they right but science is on their side. Tsk,tsk,tsk. Dishonest brokers of the Truth?!

“So what is the right way?” you may and should ask. Remember the triad of perception-hearing, seeing and feeling .That is hearing with the Ear of Truth, seeing with the inner eye and feeling with the subtle heart. Doesn’t matter what is in your mind. It is all “batil”(falsehood-either untrue or so theoretical that it is detached from Reality.)Once you learn to use and develop the three tools of Epistemology, the world starts looking very different! The people you thought were good begin to manifest their evil, the people you criticized now seem to be speaking the Truth and the people you admired are now creating discomfort in your heart. Welcome to the world of reality! Salaams, Sufi Ibrahim

Comparative Religion, Islam, Metaphysics, Spiritual Practice, Uncategorized

Husn Al Dhann and Radical Positivity!

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Husn Al Dhann (having a good opinion) is a much vaunted Islamic virtue. It is based mostly on the Quranic ayat 49:12 where we are encouraged to “avoid suspicion” and to not back bite. However, most of the scholars go well beyond the text and encourage us to have a good opinion both of our Lord and our fellow man. Noble aspiration, no doubt! In this article, we will go into the idea of Husn Al Dhann regarding our Lord. As I mentioned in my previous article on this subject having universally and systematically a good opinion of man seems to fly in the face of much life experience and even of the Quran and hadith themselves. So let’s stick to our Creator for now.If we return again to the Quran 2:30 we find the angels, who are created to be obedient, objecting to Allah’s creation of man. “Wilt thou place therein one who will make mischief therein and shed blood?’ They are truly clairvoyant! Ever noticed the veracity of their prediction lol?! They see what is going to happen on Earth, as we also can now see it, and protest! So what does Allah respond? “I know what you know not”. And as opposed to most people they do not argue back lol. They submit! Wouldn’t it be nice if men wee like that-submitting immediately to the Truth?! But don’t hold your breath. For the Quran itself tells us that ‘insan’ is disputatious. He keeps arguing his opinion no matter what Truth is put forward-most of the time anyway.

Most of us, unfortunately, are still in the state of the angels before Allah’s clarification. So there is a serious level of hypocrisy going on-even in the hearts of the believers?! They say they have a good opinion of Allah and His creation but as soon as things go wrong, they assume that Allah has made a mistake! Estagfirullah. The examples of this are legion: “This child should not have died so early”; “This car accident should never have happened”; “This war is a mistake”. The examples in our minds and hearts are multiple. We want to be the correctors of Allah. WE know better! Allah should conform to our beliefs rather than to HIS Wisdom. The believers, at least, don’t formulate it that way since it sounds wrong but once you get into the nitty-gritty you will see that is what they are thinking!.

So what is the opposite point of view? It is that Allah is in charge. Everything is happening from  His Will and with His permission. No exceptions! Then we must submit. But instead our nafs rebels “This( (the war in Ukraine, the killing of American children in their schools, the establishment of the state of Israel, the American invasion of Iraq-take your choice. It’s all a big mistake! It shouldn’t be” it screams mostly inside our heads.

Btw one of the groups that understands this point well are the Advaita Vedantists. We do not agree with most of their theology but on this point they are spot on. Here is a quote from one of their great teachers, the American Robert Adams -who was a direct disciple of Ramana Maharshi, a remarkable Hindu saint “Nothing is wrong. Everything is right just the way it is.(“I know what you know not” says Allah) Do not try to figure it out Leave it alone(tawakuul in our language) And also.” Be aware of yourself, always(muraqaba).The world goes through its own karma(the Divine plan) It has absolutely nothing to do with you. You belong to God( ina lillahi) Everything you see is God (wahadat al wujud).What a ‘hal’ this man possessed. We need to learn from this!

So let me begin to lay out an alternative approach beginning with a few anecdotes. The first involves a defrocked psychoanalyst who gave up on his practice, finding that the results were few and far between. Instead he developed a very successful program for schizophrenics called “Case Management” In that program instead of using expensive, over-trained mental health professionals, people with a simple university bachelor’s degree were hired to be available(read humans as opposed to the professionals lol) on a  full-time basis, a bit like parents)and to respond as needed instead of during office hours with long-delayed appointments-the usual M.O. of health care systems. They were assigned to have 6-8 people to watch over and help in a practical way over a period of time. The results were so remarkable that this program became the standard of care in most mental health systems-at least those that were front-line and competent!

But the real point of this story is what the psychoanalyst responded when asked by a member of the audience whether his psychoanalytic experience had been of any use whatsoever. And he responded: “What I learnt from my psychoanalytic therapy was to be brutally honest with myself” Can we, as believers, say the same thing? Do we have the same capacity for self-observation as this psychiatrist. If we do, then we will acknowledge that we are regularly opposing the actions of Allah .i.e. Reality!

Before we address some possible remedies to this situation let me tell you another story-the story of Sheikh Hashimi. Before he passed on the great sheikh and Sufi Ahmad Al Alawi named muqaddams(representatives) to be assigned to most of the surrounding Arab countries. Representatives were sent to Morocco and Tunisia a nd Syria amongst others. And the representative he sent to Syria was an Algerian  man named Muhammad al Hashimi. For those who are cognizant of the world of Sufi silsilas(chains of transmission) Sheikh Hashimi was the sheikh of Abdur Rahman Shaghouri who was the sheikh of Sheikh Nuh.

Sheikh Hashimi was well beloved of the Syrians. When he died after 40 years of teaching them and serving them, they were missing him and so they went to his “khadim*(servant) and asked him what he remembered of Sheikh Hashimi’s teachings. He responded: “I only learnt one thing from the sheikh but it sufficed me for my entire Life”! “Only one thing .During fourty years of service?!” They were astounded but asked the inevitable follow-up question: “Alright, So what was that one thing?” “Fi kooli shay khareen”(In every thing there is goodness).A fitting explanation if not a complete one, to the ayat where Allah tells us that He knows what we do not. That there is goodness in everything-A Divine Plan and Divine Wisdom!

Before we get to the solution to this dilemma, let me tell you one more story-from my pre-Islamic days. I got into my real spiritual search somewhere in the early seventies while I was still a Marxist -albeit an unconvinced one(discernment even then lol).I read a lot and visited where I could. One of my earliest visits(1973 I believe) was to Ojai ,California to see Krishnamurti, I was hoping to connect with a fellow psychiatrist named Shainberg I believe but Allah had other, more relevant plans in mind.

Instead, I met with an “ordinary Joe” American. I asked him what he was doin g there (seemed so out of place) and then he told me his story .He was a Korean war veteran.(It is 1973 so the Korean war had finished 20 years earlier.)It was the worst possible situation. In the trenches- filled with mud and dead bodies and blood and gore. You can just imagine or maybe you can’t! And then he was hit by an artillery shell of the Communists. At that moment the sky opened up and he saw another scene of battle but that one was Luminous and Glorious and Ecstatic! In that dimension everything made sense and more. Then he lost consciousness.

When he awoke, he was in intense pain from the wound he had incurred. He required constant pulmonary drainage and opiates and round the clock nursing! But he survived. It was now 20 years later and he was still looking to retrieve his “hal”(spiritual state) that he had experienced in Korea. That is why he came to see Krishnamurti. Amazing, eh?

So now, after all that preamble ,we get to the heart of the matter. How do we stop disputing with our Lord and begin accepting His Will- not in theory but in actual practice. I have a few recommendations and perhaps together we can discover more. Inshallah. So this is the program I propose for arriving at Husn Al Dhann which is also “rida” (acceptance) and “tawakuul” (trust in Allah.

1- First let us remember the famous statement of Ali Jemal r.a. of Fes “Everything to you is from you” i.e. it is a specific response to your situation, your actions, your educational needs, your merits and defects. Nothing is random! Everything is purposeful! That is what Allah is saying when he states that He knows what the angels do not!

When the horrible tsunami hit East Asia in 2004 I saw an Islamic scholar on public television saying: “this is just a geological event(tectonic plates moving) not a theological one”! I couldn’t believe my ears! Does he not understand in any way the workings of our Lord?! Clearly not.

As is my habit, I then started researching what was going on in those areas.The worst hit places turned out to be Aceh province in Indonesia and the Tamil areas of Sri Lanka. Aha! In both places there were civil wars going on. Clearly not pleasing to Allah who encourages us in the Quran itself to accept all peoples and nations. Then the Earthquake hit Pakistan in Muzaffarabad and Belokot in 2005.What do you know?! Al Qaida was organizing in those areas. According to the Indian army sources, they still are! Could that be the reason for these disasters? Only Allah knows but it would be reasonable to arrive at those conclusions. Just remember, nothing is random.

The same is true on a personal level. But most people don’t want to go there. The “bala”(misfortune) is either a consequence of some bad behaviour or a stimulus to growth through the purification effect of suffering. Admittedly not always obvious which of the two it is!

When Muhammad Ali may Allah be pleased with his efforts and sincerity was asked if he thought his Parkinsonism was a consequence of his boxing career he answered humbly: “No. I made a grave mistake in saying ‘I am the Greatest’ when the only great One is my Lord. This is the consequence!” Humble man. Mashallah. So whenever something “negative” occurs to you, look deeply into yourself. Is there anything you did wrong? If so, ask forgiveness and  begin correcting it. If not, praise the Lord for elevating you still higher.

2-Ask yourself “What is good in this apparent evil?” What is the silver lining in the cloud?” How can I see this as the glass half-full rather than half-empty?” Hamza Yusuf tells the story of a Moroccan man who had a stroke and was paralyzed on one side of his body. When people would meet him, he would point to the side that was still working and say something like: “Look how merciful is Allah. He left me with this entire side that works” Or the story of the great wali of the Tablighi people, Maulana Zakariah, who was dying of terminal stage 4 cancer and saying on his deathbed: “Ya Karim’, Ya Karim” These are very high levels of faith but we can take learnings from these examples.

3-Think about how it could have been worse. A few years ago, I had a knee injury. When I finally got to a competent orthopedist, he diagnosed me with an “insufficiency fracture”- something I had never heard of in medical school. He told me I had to take all pressure of the knee(i.e. I needed to sit for salat) and it would cure itself over several months .Which is exactly what happened! I thought to myself: “Thank God it wasn’t progressive osteoarthritis as the G.P. had thought because then I would be looking at a knee-replacement(very painful!) down the road. Don’t feel too bad! I am not always that good about my Husn Al Dhann  lol.

My father when he was still alive would taunt people with the statement:” We have the best weather in the world here in Montreal”. People would think he was crazy! “What?! – the terrible cold and snowstorms in the winter and the hot ,muggy days of the summer! How could you say that?” He would answer” We don’t have hurricanes, we don’t have volcanoes. Tornadoes are very rare and we have almost no earthquakes. What’s a blizzard in the winter. You hunker down for a day. Then you take out your shovel the next day and you’re good to go”.

As you watch the weather trends nowadays, you can’t help thinking that he had a point. The massive heat waves in southern USA, the hurricanes in Florida and the West Coast, the drought in the mid-West and the wildfires in California and the West Coast! We are doing pretty well in Montreal lol.( For the nit-pickers and naysayers and contradiction detectors -the people I love to hate lol-yes there was an ice-storm in 1998 that did considerable damage-not many deaths however. The exception that proves the rule.

So my father was practicing Husn Al Dhann about the weather. He would have been shocked to learn that he was performing  an act of piety lol. Like the time I caught him resonating with the Hare Krishna crowd at Philip’s Square! “But Dad I thought you don’t believe in religion” I said. “I Know. But I like this music. It gets to me” Too bad he didn’t go further in his spiritual quest!

4- Seeing the compassion in the pain. You have a chronic pain condition. But it comes and goes. Your skin is burning and itching. But then it disappears enough for you to get a decent sleep. Your money is running out. And suddenly a source of ‘risq’ occurs. None of this was predictable. None of it even makes sense! If you have no cartiledge at the knee joint or between the vertebrae why does the pain come and go?! Shouldn’t it be there all the time. No doctor can explain that. It is from the Mercy of Allah. And He is micromanaging our experience on a moment by moment basis. See if you can observe it!

5-What is this difficult experience designed to teach you. There is almost always a heuristic component to every hardship. I remember a social worker who told me about ending up in the hospital with acute appendicitis. Only then did she realize she was in an abusive relationship and needed to get out. Or the Kashmiri businessman from Sri Nagar who found out that his partner was emptying the cash register every night which led to the bankrupcy of their enterprise. He came running to the Naqshbandi Mujaddid sheikh in Gutlibagh(Mir Alam) and said that was the best decision of his life.

So “hold your horses” before saying “this shouldn’t be”, exercise self -restraint and above all remeber:”fi kulli shay khairin(in everything is goodness) and praise the Lord. Alhumdulillah Rabbil Alamin. May Allah help us all in this challenging task of having a good opinion of His actions-always!

Addendum: The “elephant in the room” here is doubt! “Shakk”-the fifth klesa if you wish. The doubt comes from us believing in what is in our minds rather than in what Allah is doing. It is the cause of much of our errors and most of our anxiety! The only way to deal with it is to become acutely aware of it and to defuse it with tawakuul as soon as it comes up.

As Muslims we know the story of our Prophet saws with Abu Bakr Siddiq in the cave as they are fleeing to Madina. Abu Bakr r.a. is worrying(i.e. doubting), for one of the few times, about the safety of our Prophet saws who responds;” Are you not aware that Allah is with us on this journey” the Noble One explains. If Abu Bakr.one of the great ones, the Siddiq has doubts ,what about us.

The opposite of doubt is certitude -“Yaqin” but that is a very high state in Reality. As mentionned in the article most believers have that certainty in theory. But in Reality ,especially when being tested, that is another matter.So let us continue working on it.! Inshallah. Sufi Ibrahim

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Comparative Religion, Metaphysics, Spiritual Practice, Sufism

The Greeks, Oy!

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Someone else*(first ever!) has understood the limitations and potential harm of the adoption of Greek Philosophy by the Muslims! Mashallah. There is hope in the Universe lol!
Aanand Krishnan posts:
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Vedānta, and the Advaita kind in particular, is a fountain of wisdom and looks at reality from within and offers an alternative to the Greek way of philosophy, which focuses on the study of the external universe primarily.
Islamic metaphysics developed under the light of Greek Philosophy primarily due to historical factors. If Islam had conquered the lands to the east before turning westward, things might have been different.
There is no particular reason why an Islamic metaphysics guided by Vedānta could not be developed more fully. And I think it could provide an even more comprehensive system of metaphysics that is consistent with the Qur’ān and the Sunnah of the holy prophet.
He is after all not just al-Zāhir but also al-Bātin. The Greek system enabled Muslims to develop a metaphysics of external manifestation but layers about what lies inside of us perhaps haven’t been fully developed.

P.S. The author goes on to say that the Vedanata makes a distinction between pramata(what I call Epistemology!) and prameya(logical proof).Finally someone else is getting it!

Comparative Religion, Metaphysics, Modern Living, Psychology, Uncategorized

Challenging Elements of Jewish Law

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Asalamu aleykum, i.e wishing peace to everyone lol.All religions begin with a noble,highly evolved spiritual being like Moses or Jesus or Mohammed saws who delivers a message from the Divine! Then the scholars get to work to operationalize and theorize about the religion and that’s where the problems begin! As an  end result of this process, we find ourselves,in Islam, with burqas and extremists who find justification for killing innocent people;in Christianity with God depicted as an old man with a white beard or as a dead body on a cross or in Judaism wearing paiess(sidecurls) and being careful not to mix dairy with meat! It is the latter aberration that I wish to address here! It has actually been bugging me for decades lol and I decided to look into it this morning at Fajr time! It may seem somewhat banal relative to the two previous mentionned aberations but there is the same corrupting intellectual problem involved.It all comes from “mind-productions” -a very different entity from Revelation and inspiration!

1-So let’s take them one-by-one.Firstly , the issue of not mixing milk and meat.I always sensed there was something quirky and unnecessary  about this rule. And that is usually where I start-my initial reaction.Here is the official version if you want to check it out!

https://www.thetorah.com/article/prohibition-of-meat-and-milk-its-origins-in-the-text?fbclid=IwAR3RRlnmwhiGO5_pevoYv-Ua4As5Jfnq9mD2uiZ3mU6Wcp_32gKdPGxF1tI

So we find in the Torah three times the phrase: ” Do not seethe(cook) a kid in its mother’s milk”.Unfortunately the rabbis and scholars who interpreted this did not have the benefit of certain Quranic teachings that came later.But Allah tells us in the Quran that He speaks to us in two ways-either literally (muhakamat) or metaphorically(mutashabihat).Ajib! So in this case, it seems very likely that this is a metaphor of some kind.Even if it were literal all it tells us is to not cook a child animal in its mother’s milk.This is a far cry from having an obsessive need to keep dairy and meat separate-to have two sets of dishes and two sets of electrical appliances in every Jewish kitchen! In fact if you take this statement literally you could cook the kid in the milk of another similar specied mother or in that of another species- like cooking a goat kid in cow’s milk.No problem.Then why can you not have cheese in your meat lasagna lol or milk in your coffee after a satisfying kosher steak lol.This all smacks of obsessionalism-a well-known Jewish characteristic!

On the level of metaphor there may be a few interesting possibilities.One of the things that came to mind was the famous Zidane incident in World Cup Soccer.The Italian player insulted the mother or sister of this Algerian French soccer player who proceeded to head-butt him and get kicked out of the game.So could this statement be a warning not to insult someone about their origins(their mother, their tribe,their nation) because it could cause them to seethe-to boil over.Or could this be a precursor of the psychoanalytic understandinfg of parental internalizations(soaked in the mother’s milk) that cause so much grief in this world?!If you have ever been married,you would know what I mean lol.Or then again we could say it would incite us as children to seek out other inputs beyond the nuclear family environment(the mother’s milk) in order to grow and develop.

The possibilities here are almost endless.However, one of the least likely of all is that God wanted us to have two sets of dishes and two sets of electrical appliances and above all not to put milk in our coffee after dinner  lol

2-The wearing of paiess or peiot in Hebrew.That always seemed ugly and ridiculous! And I am convinced that anything that is ugly and unnatural cannot be from God!

Here is the official version:

Why Do Orthodox Jewish Men Have Sidecurls?

Again,this weird practice comes from a Biblical reference.Leveticus 19:27 says”Do not round the corners of your head”.So how do we get from “rounding the corners of your head” to paiess?Well,the first change is to have men with really short hair-not the custom of any of the Old Testament Prophets btw.So first you Westernize Jews as they have done with Muslims.Then you decide that below a certain level the hair is not to be cut.And voila,you have these odd paieseem! You will not find these odd curls in any of the pictures of Jesus or the Apostles all of whom were practising Jews! so it must be a modernist innovation.

Actually I suspect that this prohibition is the same one as we have in Islam-not to shave the sides of our head-because that is a pagan practice.In any case,this unnecessary oddity of grooming is only essential in the minds of its creators lol.I am totally convinced that this was not nor could have been ordained by God.

So there we are.All religions have a tendency to corrupt their original sources.We need to be vigilant at all times and go to the root of the matter-what is essential to our piety,rather than what is arbitrary.

Salaams,Ibrahim