Reflections

ARCHERS’ MOUNT AT UḤUD

Many may wonder, “How could 40 men leave their post when the Prophet’s direct command was, إن رأيتمونا تخطفنا الطير فلا تبرحوا مكانكم هذا حتى أرسل إليكم ‘Even if you see birds pluck us up into the air, do not leave this post of yours until I send word!'” Let me be the first to confess that I leave my post every day. Yes, I am responsible for Ḥamzah and the seventy slain that day, for not a day finds me holding down this post of mine as though their lives depended on it. May God grace and sanctify the Advocate for my soul and yours, who will plead every excuse for us at eleven stations of Intercession, on a Day wherein only sound hearts will avail us anything before the Throne of God.

BEAUTY AND FIRST PRINCIPLES

Oftentimes, we may feel as though our understanding of reality vacillates between the objectivity of truth as understood by traditional peoples across the world for millennia, and the subjectivity of the self under the influence of the moral relativism of modernity; meanwhile, beauty and virtue hang in the imbalance. It is only after Descartes that assertions such as, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” or “Beauty is skin deep” make any sense at all as intelligible propositions. This individualistic and materialistic predisposition permeates our approach to art, architecture, music, culture, and even our economics. It also affects how the individual interprets himself. Modern man fulfills his purpose more faithfully the more he can paint the sacred with the colors of profanity, until the distinction between the two are sufficiently blurred as to strip both of any meaning. Beauty, however, is an entirely different matter. Though its experience may be subjective, its reality is objective, and it beckons to virtue, for it is the very splendor of truth!

BEAUTY AND THE BEAUTIFUL

The spirit روح (rūḥ) inclines toward Beauty. The first glance at Beauty is spiritual, the second is carnal. One’s first glance equates to Beauty capturing his spirit for her own sake, while one’s second glance equates to his capturing Beauty for the sake of whatever is stirring in his soul نفس (nafs) at that moment. When ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib عليه السلام glanced twice at a beautiful woman in the marketplace, the Prophet ﷺ said يا علي لا تتبع النظرة النظرة فإن الأولى لك والثانية عليك “ʿAlī, let not one glance follow another, for the first glance is for you, but the second glance is against you.”

CALLOUT CULTURE

Callout culture is going to be the death of us. There’s a world of difference between calling people up and calling them out. FYI: Phones these days still have the dialing option, not just keyboard functionality. فليكن أمرك بالمعروف معروفا ونهيك عن المنكر لا منكر فيه “So let your bidding of what is good be, itself, good, and your warding off what is harmful be not, itself, harmful.” Anything short of doing the right thing in the right manner is stray wisdom and, nowadays, simply ingratiates the ego. If there isn’t a new controversy to occupy the social justice parasites every two weeks or so, many of their accounts would have been deactivated a long time ago. But one thing is certain, they do keep us all entertained.

CULTURAL IMPERATIVE OF DHŪ AL-ḤIJJAH

After the Prophet ﷺ arrived at Medina, he found his Jewish neighbors fasting. He asked them what they were commemorating, and when told, “The Exodus,” he adopted and adapted their fast, effectuating a cultural norm among Muslims to fast. The Sons of Arfidah danced with their spears in his masjid during the days of Eid, and he urged them to prolong their dance, thus breaking a cultural norm that deprecated public dance.

Likewise, after ʿUmar b. al Khaṭṭab set the number of rakaʿāt in devotional vigils to twenty in order to shorten the length of standing, generations of Muslims institutionalized a communal practice of reciting the Qur’an in its entirety in those twenty rakaʿāt, engendering a worldwide cultural norm for a ritual of worship. And every year, during the month of Dhū al-Ḥijjah, Abū Hurayrah and ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar would go out to the marketplace on each of its first ten days for no other reason than to publicly extol the praises of God, and all the merchants and their patrons would join in the chant, making the marketplace resonate with song. Hence, they occasioned a cultural reception and celebration of the religious holiday in the public domain.

The first time I ever heard of the merits of the first ten days of Dhū al-Ḥijjah was at Howard University, my alma mater. Until today, a good number of Muslims happen to “discover” that the ten days are actually meritorious, having never themselves experienced it in mosques, much less in their homes. This owes, in part, to the fact that we have forsaken the “cultural imperative,” to quote our teacher, Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah, to honor the Days of God, despite the verse that reminds us: “Whoever honors the symbols of God, that is from the consciousness of God in the hearts” (al-ḥajj 22:32), which actually concerns the first ten days of Dhū al-Ḥijjah!

Yet while American Jews have distinct cultural observances of Hannukah and Passover; while American Christians have distinct cultural observances of Christmas and Easter; American Muslims after more than seven decades in the United States are still dunkin’ donuts in parking lots! Our Prophet and his companions were forgers of cultural norms to contextualize our religious holidays, and we must devise how, as a community, to infuse our religious observances with cultural expression that shines and is just as American as Hannukah and Christmas!

The first ten days of Dhū al-Ḥijjah deserve that we ornament the houses of God, adorn our own homes, have our children partake in mini pilgrimages where they learn the supplications of ḥajj, construct Ka`bahs in our homes bearing gifts only to be opened on the day of Eid, donate one of these gifts in commemoration of the sacrifice of Abraham, and for the sake of God invite a different neighbor over each night to break the fast! Dhū al-Ḥijjah must outshine and outdo Hannukah and Christmas in the minds of our children, who otherwise run the risk of just happening to find out when they are well into their college years, as was the case with me, that these ten blessed days are crucial for their spiritual growth. The first ten days of Dhū al-Ḥijjah constitute a symbol of God, and faith communities all around the world cherish their symbols. Let us innovate as our Prophet and his companions innovated, let us ascribe to creativity as generations have in the Muslim world, let us become the producers of culture and its ambassadors in this land of ours, let us reflect as individuals, families, and communities the beauty of each of these Symbols of God, that we ourselves become Symbols of God.

DEFENSE OF JESUS

A Christmas message to the imams, activists, chaplains, community leaders, and interfaith workers in the Muslim community, as well as laypeople like myself: As we near the annual commemoration of the birth of Jesus–may God continually bless him and Lady Mary, the purest woman of this world and the most eminent in the next world–it is imperative that we reach out to Catholics and Protestants in mutual celebration of his life and legacy. Reach out to your local churches and campus organizations; contact the priests and ministers in your local neighborhoods with words of support and solidarity by voicing your outrage regarding recent depictions of Jesus in the new Family Guy episode portraying him as a perverted adulterer after being a sex-deprived virgin for 2000 years; criticize it openly in your Friday sermons; build coalitions with national religious bodies that seek to restore the health of families and communities; and so forth. The Prophets and Messengers of God are all one, we prefer none of God’s Messengers over others, and unto Him do we submit. A mockery of one of them is a mockery of all of them. And as for those of us who are keen on celebrating the birth of the Prophet Muhammad daily or weekly or monthly, might I suggest that your December gatherings focus on the birth, life, message, teachings, ascension, and the Second Coming of Jesus, the Messiah, the Spirit of God, and to host our Catholic and Protestant friends, brethren, and neighbors to partake in your singing, feasting, and celebration. It is not at all ironical that the Fox network is the voice of the conservative Christian right in this country while the network simultaneously contracts shows like Family Guy! Meanwhile, charlatans like Glenn Beck are challenging Family Guy to portray the Prophet Muhammad as a test of “true bravery.” But perhaps a braver solution is in order. In prime time, ratings constitute the dowry that capitalism pays to free speech, and as members of moral communities across this country (including atheists tired of bigots speaking in their name), we have the power and moral force to drive their ratings into the ground! This trash will always be out there for our consumption because too many of us sit back and consume it. I would write more, but I’ve got thirty some churches I need to call.

DR. SULAYMAN NYANG, BIDDING FAREWELL

My dearest Shaykh Sulayman S. Nyang,

We send our heartfelt condolences to both your angels, whose amazement at your accomplishments in this world is virtually unsurpassed in this our realm. You were the first to mystify me, the first to inspire me, the first to encourage me, the first to show me what was possible. You once told me that you delivered your talk on “Islam and the West” nearly fifty times and that no two talks were ever the same! I have been in the company of many a scholar along with Shaykh Hamza, and it was only in your presence that he would take out a notebook to capture phrases that only your brilliance could coin, insights that only your perception could behold, wisdom that only your heart could place. You never once spoke publicly or privately, professionally or personally, except behind the light of your smile, always arresting. I remember how as students at Howard we used to stare at one another utterly astounded with jaws dropped as you would deliver your lectures. “How on God’s earth did he come to know what he knows!” Then on one occasion, you confided to me that at the age of 17, you pledged to read a book a week, and that you always wore an overcoat with a pocket on the inside so you would always have said book near your blessed heart, ready to resume reading at a moment’s notice! Yesterday, a candle that lit up our world was extinguished. Today, we lament our lack of foresight in recording your life for the sake of posterity. Tomorrow, we commit you to the aperture of Heaven that awaits your blessed spirit.

يَا أَيَتُهَا النَفْسُ الْمُطْمَئِنّةُ . ارْجِعِي إِلَىٰ رَبِّكِ رَاضِيَةً مَرْضِيّةً . فَادْخُلِي فِي عِبَادِي . وَادْخُلِي جَنَّتِ

Tranquil soul! Return nigh unto thy Lord, well pleased, well-pleasing.
Then enter among My devotees; yes, enter My Heaven! (al-Fajr 89:27-30)

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DR. SULAYMAN NYANG, IN LOVING MEMORY

As I finish brushing the last traces of mud off my shoes from Shaykh Sulayman S. Nyang’s burial ground, my spirit is still haunted by the indictment in what was said over his blessed soul minutes before we committed his remains to the mud from which God created him. His devoted wife and greatest disciple, a Christian woman by the name of Yukay, spoke for ten minutes about the legacy of her husband and my first love. She spoke of how he championed peace and celebrated humanity, and how he yearned for people to pursue the selfless path of justice. She spoke of his love for others, his desire for the faithful to devote themselves to the pursuit of justice, a timeless justice that centers humanity in what is mutually beneficial and spiritually centered, and a call to a moral code that is Abrahamic in nature. I remembered as she spoke how he once told us in our Pan-Africanism class at Howard, more than twenty five years ago, that one of his friends from the Gambia, soon after reaching the United States in the 1960s, was beaten mercilessly by a gang of supremacists. Recovering in his hospital bed, he said that only at that point, and for the first time in his entire life, his friend realized he was actually Black! He always infused his classes with such anecdotes to wake us up to the inward experiences of those who suffer injustice throughout the world, and it tore into his heart to relate such stories, for he always seemed to carry the narratives of millions of people on his conscience when he spoke. He taught us in his humility what it means to be awake, while we now in our pride parade about being woke.

Praise was lavished throughout the rushed morning where it belonged to fall, and Yukay expressed her gratitude to the hundreds of people in attendance on a workday and on a moment’s notice, many of whom flew or drove in from out of state. But what haunts my thoughts still, a week later and for as long as I shall continue to pray for his soul, is her mentioning in passing that she had once asked him in the long period of his sickness, “Where are all your friends?” And though she withheld his response, I can only imagine him smiling back at her and forging some excuse for the community he so loved and served for the entirety of their lives. A knife could not have thrust into my heart more painfully than the sharp edge of those words, but of course, I’m lying as I claim that. Yes, I was one of those who showed up for the funeral, but never prioritized visiting him! Admittedly, it occurred to me several times to do so, but I was always out of state or out of the country, or I heard that his health was restored and his condition stable. Never once did it occur to me to visit him whenever I found myself nearby. That is the sorry excuse I plead with his soul today, and anyone who knew him can vouch for his magnanimity, for Shaykh Sulayman Nyang was a man of God. But he deserved better.

The Prophet once asked after a random congregational prayer, “Who has visited the sick this day?” Abu Bakr responded, “I have.” He knew that God had fallen ill, and so he visited Him before the day’s end. This is because he was wont to find God wherever He was among His people. He always found Him among the forgotten, the forsaken, the fallen. I swore after the passing of Imam Warith al-Din Muhammad and then again of Muhammad Ali, that I would not allow myself again to memorialize my heroes after they’re gone. Shaykh Sulayman deserved better from me. The sick have a bonafide right of visitation; it is one of the five rights that every Muslim holds above every other Muslim, let alone the right of a teacher above his students. The Arabs say ًمَنْ عَلَّمَنِي حَرْفاً صِرْتُ لَهْ عَبْدا I am the slave of anyone who teaches me a single letter! ‫“Master, forgive me, for I have failed to serve you in your hour of need, but preferred the distractions of my own pathetic life to basking in the final moments of yours!” But more than lament you today, and more than lament my not lamenting you before this day, rest assured in peace that your deeds continue on my tongue and the tongues of all those whose lives you deeply touched. That is what you need from us today, and I will not deprive you of that as I deprived myself of your nearness while you were but a phone call or a few miles away. Never again cannot be declared again.

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EULOGY FOR THE CHAMP

قُلْ إِنَّ صَلَاتِي وَنُسُكِي وَمَحْيَايَ وَمَمَاتِي لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ وَبِذَٰلِكَ أُمِرْتُ وَأَنَا أَوَّلُ الْمُسْلِمِينَ

“Say: ‘My prayers, my acts of sacrifice, my life, and my death, are for God, the Lord of creation. He has no partner. With this am I commanded, and I am the first to submit.” This last part of the verse, “I am the first to submit,” was alternatively translated as, “I am the greatest!” by one Muhammad Ali-Haj, a man who was larger than life, so he had to surpass his own legend, and when his legend proved to be too limiting, he became a mythic figure before our very eyes. And now that he has passed onto the next life, he will prove himself more powerful than ever, just as his mentor, Malcolm X, is still calling people to God from his grave today! But at this solemn moment, on this blessed Friday, the first in Ramadan, and a week after he passed on that blessed Friday, the last of Sha`ban, the most recognized man all over the world, the most acclaimed sports figure of the twentieth century, the most important ambassador and voice for Islam throughout all of American history, Muhammad Ali-Haj, is being asked in the grave by Munkar and Nakir: “Who is your Lord?”

We pray that Allah will help him to recall what he said to Michael Parkinson in 1981 when he asked him if he had a bodyguard: “I have one bodyguard. He has no eyes though He sees. He has no ears though He hears. He remembers everything without the aid of mind or memory. When He wishes to create a thing, He just orders it to be and it comes into existence, but this order is not conveyed in words which takes the tongue to formulate it, or which sound carries to ears. He hears the secrets of those under quiet thoughts. Who’s that? That’s God, Allah. He’s my bodyguard. He’s your bodyguard. He’s the Supreme, the Wise.”

And when they ask, “What is your religion?” we pray that Allah will help him to recall what he said in 2001, after Will Smith introduced him at a telethon for the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks: “I’m here because of the terrible thing that happened the other day. I’m a Muslim. I’ve been a Muslim for 20 years. I’m against killing and violence, and all Muslims are against it. I think the people should know the real truth about Islam. You know me; I’m a boxer. I’m called the ‘Greatest of All Time,’ people recognize me for being a boxer and a man of truth. And I wouldn’t be here to represent Islam if it was really like the terrorists make it look. I think all the people should know the truth and come to recognize the truth because Islam is peace, and against killing and murder, and the terrorists and the people doing it in the name of Islam are wrong. And if I had a chance, I’d do something about it.”

And when they ask, “Who is your Prophet?” we pray that Allah will help him to recall that in 2002, he was offered a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The only star out of the 2500 stars engraved onto a wall instead of on the ground is that of Muhammad Ali-Haj. He accepted the honor on one condition, “I bear the name of our beloved Prophet Muhammad, and it is impossible that I allow people to trample over his name.”

O Allah, grant him strength in this hour to answer with resounding success and accept his soul with an honorable reception, and raise him in the ranks of the prophets, the saints, the martyrs, and the virtuous, a most blessed company, indeed.

Today is a day of eulogizing, mourning, condoling, solacing, reflecting, and prayer the world over. Many of us will be asked by our children and grandchildren, “Where were you the day that Muhammad Ali died?” But after reading all the articles, viewing all the footage, sharing all the clips, liking all the posts, hearing all the poems, you and I as individuals and the Muslim community at large will have to ask ourselves some very serious questions, none of which can be left as hypothetical. What is the greatness of Ali? What exactly does he inspire in me individually? What does his life mean about being Muslim in America? What is the proper response he deserves from us for the years of service and sacrifice? Michael Jordan once called Muhammad Ali-Haj “the hand” and black athletes who followed him “the fingers.” And just as he set the stage for black athletes to celebrate their blackness with every ounce of pride, he paved the way for Muslims in America to be proud of their faith without apology. In the words of Dr. Sherman Jackson, “Ali emphatically put the question of whether one can be a Muslim and an American to rest. Let that question now be interred permanently with his noble remains.”

But to be honest with you, these questions are a bit late. This has been a difficult week for me, for the death of Muhammad Ali-Haj caught most of us by surprise. We have yet to realize the real magnitude of his loss. I found myself looking for tickets and planning to be there the day of his funeral and back here to deliver this sermon, and in the middle of the frenzy, I asked myself: “Why now? Why now am I so intent on visiting him, when I could have easily done so anytime in the past twenty years.” Was he not the People’s Champ? Don’t many of you have pictures with him as children sitting on his lap or as adults standing shoulder-to-shoulder or exchanging jabs? Where was the urgency in visiting this righteous man of God while he was alive, and why now that he is dead and gone do I suddenly feel the need to connect to him? Is he not more deserving of my visit when sick than when dead? Or at the very least, a letter of gratitude and support? And it dawned on me that I’m not all that different from the flurry of people who never took much interest in him before last Friday, but rushed to buy their tickets and travel halfway across the country to pay their respects, but among 14,000 beautiful attendees who paid their respects so that the obligation of the community was met, hundreds of them did so with utter disrespect!

Muslim paparazzi crowded together with their cell phone cameras and tablets, as if somehow they could live vicariously through a photograph under some false pretense that they are now connected to the man or his family. They can now tag those pictures and bask in the euphoria of “I was there”; now they have something worthwhile to share on social media; now they can show off every photo and every video clip to friends and family as a cherished autograph signed by the Champ, himself, while he lay in his coffin, for he never refused an autograph. Admittedly, I never fully appreciated the wisdom in the legal ruling espoused by so many of our jurists that renders pictures and picture-taking unlawful, until I watched the funeral prayer of Muhammad Ali-Haj. Hundreds of Muslims walked about the room taking selfies, socializing, texting, talking on their phones, laughing, greeting one another, embracing; meanwhile, Sh. Hamza was translating the Word of God, Dr. Jackson was addressing Muhammad Ali personally about how much he loved him, Dalia Mogahed was giving her heartfelt condolences to the family and to the world, and Imam Zaid was sending his final prayers upon his soul. The atmosphere was more akin to an ISNA bazaar than a funeral ceremony, and one non-Muslim commented saying: “This looks so disorganized, wow, and very disrespectful. I didn’t know Muslims allow phones to be used in service like that. And you don’t even see that in Christian prayer service. I’m not Muslim but this is shameful to Islam.”

That aside, most of us find ourselves scrambling to connect to him someway, somehow, as well. I am speaking for my generation, mostly, who did not grow up with Muhammad Ali, did not experience him enough to be inspired in real time. I’m speaking to a generation of people who are not predisposed to honoring the essence of a living, breathing phenomena among us, but would much rather capture whatever they can of it in the debris after it’s all said and done.

So one of the lessons I’m struggling to understand after the passing of Muhammad Ali-Haj is that a generation is dying off, and our link to their history is gone with them. In the recent past, our community has buried Dr. Fathi Osman, Dr. Hassan Hathout, Dr. Maher Hathout, Dr. Ahmad Sakr, Dr. Jamal Barzinji, Dr. Taha Jabir Alwani, Sidi Abdul Hayy Moore, Imam Warith al-Din Muhammad, and now the lives of so many hang in the balance. We are losing an aging generation of pioneers, people of great stature and immense virtue, whose connection to the past we will never get back because we do not have the wherewithal to value people until after they are gone from us or to record or catalogue their histories.

Do we really value their narratives? Do we know anything about them except the few lectures we may have heard from them here or there? Each one of them is a volume in the Encyclopaedia of Islam in America spanning an entire century! I’m talking about Dr. Sulayman Nyang, Sh. Hamza Yusuf, Imam Zaid Shakir, Imam Siraj Wahhaj, Dr. Sherman Jackson, Lady Aishah Gray Henry, Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah, Sidi Hakim Archuletta, Anse Maha Hamoui, Sh. Misbah al-Durayni, Dr. Umar al-Alfi, Dr. Jamal Badawi, Dr. Abdullah Idris Ali, Sh. Abd al-Hakim Murad, Sh. Muhammad Majid, Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl, and among the most important of them, Dr. Muzzammil Siddiqui, not to mention myriad others spread throughout this country, well-known and hidden. If not now, then when will we sit at their feet and connect ourselves to their legacies, seeking the blessing of their company and guidance. If not now, then when will this community insist on a series of nightly talks in which Dr. Siddiqui tells us about his journey from boyhood to becoming one of the most important Muslim leaders in America.

In a rather obvious sense, this is what Ramadan is all about: being present, having a heightened sense of awareness, seeking the abundant blessing of something before it is gone, taking full advantage of every hour, minute, and second and relishing it in our hearts, and being well with God long after its departure. Muhammad Ali-Haj captured the essence of this month with some of his most famous spiritual aphorisms when he said, “Don’t count the days, make the days count!”; and when he said “My toughest opponent has always been me!”; and when he said “If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it—then I can achieve it!”

Allah strengthen our champion, our prince, our brother, the beloved of our hearts, in this his hour of need; Allah forgive him his faults, count him in Your light, enter him into the loftiest realm of paradise, and raise him among those servants nearest to You; Allah give us the resolve and the fortitude to represent ourselves with the same confidence, boldness, and courage that You instilled in Your servant, Muhammad Ali-Haj; Allah grant patience and shower his family with Your care and compassion, and allow them to respond to this trial with the same grace and dignity that he exemplified trial after trial; Allah reward him with the full measure of his intention to fast Ramadan, and count him among those who honored the Night of Power; Allah deprive us not of monumental and life-changing experiences throughout this blessed month; and grace, dear Lord, and sanctify our beloved Prophet Muhammad and his family and companions.

GOD DOES WHAT GOD DOES

It is only from the perfection of His Lordship that He tests our faith in Him by rendering some of what He says difficult all at once to embrace. Such magnitude can only befit God as irresistibly compelling and exclusively worthy of submission in every aspect of the lives He gifts us then sustains. Behold! How wondrous it is that He has not endeared Himself to us by appeasing our desires! Notice how He commands and prohibits us giving no consideration to our sensibilities! Neither has He made His religion thoroughly palatable to our tastes! Rather, He calls us unto Him through vanquishing the ego and then accuses our motives when He finds us coddled in the assurances of our own ideologies- ideologies that in a whole lifetime the obdurate among us will endeavor to pass off as His religion! Anything otherwise would be less than absolutely perfect.

“Enter entirely into submission!” (al-Baqarah 2:208)

HONOR THY FATHER AND MOTHER

I have always been in awe at how many Muslims I know who are not at all practitioners of religion, but who honor their parents lovingly, never allowing a day to pass without calling them, never allowing a phone call to end without invoking their laughter. Yet many practitioners who find themselves convention hopping or even teaching at those conventions are either habitually neglectful or outright abusive to their parents. The Messenger ﷺ once taught that a sinner was forgiven all his infractions for the single act of quenching a dog’s thirst with water he drew from a well. If that shall be his fate, then what of Muslims who have almost nothing to their name, but have mastered the art of compassion toward their parents; and what of Muslims who have a resume full of Islam, but were not dutiful toward their parents!

ISLAM IS NOT A WAY OF LIFE

When Islam is a noun, it’s a person, place, or thing; it’s an organization, it’s a convention, it’s a book, it’s a body of scholars, it’s a mosque, it’s a movement, it’s a university degree, it’s a legal code, it’s a box you check, it’s a “way of life.”

When Islam is an adjective, it describes a noun; it’s “Islamic,” it’s cultural, it’s an affiliation, it’s the desire to “islamicize,” it’s sectarian, it’s an accessory, it’s posturing, it’s an ideal, it’s an ideology, it’s an identity.

Islam, however, being a verbal noun, is a gerund or infinitive; it’s “submitting” or “to submit,” it’s an intention, it’s a process, it’s practice, it’s tribulation, it’s success and failure, it’s discovery, it’s endeavoring, it’s serving, it’s living.

قل إن صلاتي ونسكي ومحياي ومماتي لله رب العالمين لا شريك له وبذلك أمرت وأنا أول المسلمين “Say, ‘My prayer, my rites, my entire life and my death, are for God, the Lord of creation- He is without partner. And by this have I been commanded, yes I am the first person to submit'” (al-anʿām 6:162-3).

JESUS AND MARY

God brought Jesus into existence from Mary. Hence, Mary settled in the station of Adam, while Jesus settled in the station of Eve. For just as a female came into existence from a male, so a male came into existence from a female. Hence, God finished with the like of that through which He began, by bringing into existence a son without a father, just as Eve came to be without a mother. Hence, Jesus and Eve are two siblings, while Adam and Mary are their two parents.

—Ibn al-ʿArabī

LOVE OF THE PROPHET ﷺ

Allah says in His majestic Book, النبي أولى بالمؤمنين من أنفسهم “The Prophet is more entitled to the believers than their very souls” (al-aḥzāb 33:6), and this faith can only be perfected by a deep love for the Messenger; and that love only grows from an intimate familiarity with him; and that intimate familiarity with him becomes all the more intimate the more one immerses himself in the attributes of the Prophet, and the more he keeps the company of those who have, likewise, immersed themselves. Otherwise, one’s love for the Prophet risks being a cursory and perfunctory notion never exceeding what is known about him superficially. So when ignorance is the mortar of this love, then one’s beloved is but an object of ascription or affiliation or a mere subscription to an ideology or conceptualization or identity; when ignorance is the mortar of this love, then one’s beloved is but an amalgamation of interpolations in his mind’s imagination; when ignorance is the mortar of this love, then one’s beloved is but an image he conjures up as the reflection of his own infatuation; when ignorance is the mortar of this love, then one’s beloved is but a mutated justification of crimes perpetrated and perpetuated in his name or for his sake; when ignorance is the mortar of this love, then one’s beloved is but a mere mental projection of his own idiosyncrasies, weaknesses, caprices, and fancies; when ignorance is the mortar of this love, then one’s beloved is but a mere pretense of security affording him a degree of assurance as he polices others in how best to lay their claims to piety in orthopraxy, zealous imitation, and compulsive regurgitation; when ignorance is the mortar of this love, then one’s beloved is ultimately irrelevant, for he only sees himself while impervious to the reality of the beloved and while resistant to any detail of the beloved contrary to the version he has forged or supposed for himself; when ignorance is the mortar of this love, there is no beloved. The right of the Beloved upon the lover, then, is knowledge, and the threshold of knowledge ushers to the door of intimacy, and the door of intimacy opens to the courtyard of love; otherwise, any claim of love is, essentially, a leap of faith, and what good is faith if not founded and grounded in knowledge, and what good is knowledge if not draped in the garb of yearning!

MUSLIM ENGLISH

As a Muslim, I proudly hail my community’s virtual monopoly over the following terms and phrases.

NO MORE CONTRACTIONS

Allah (swt) cannot be described as “sweet”; the Prophet (pbuh) once said that anyone who invokes grace upon him shall have them returned to him as “pbuyt” (peace be upon you too), and this is certain because the Messenger of Allah (saw) “and heard” a lot of things; the other Prophets (as) are always being compared in “similes” to God knows what; and remember that none of the Companions (ra) were cheerleaders.

Enough with the acronyms, already! These blessed prayers are never contracted in Arabic, but always fully written, even in calligraphed ligatures. This is an English innovation that may have served us well in the past, but the cycle now just needs to end, and we have to stop writing to each other in code as though no one else is reading our posts. No one but the fam’ even knows what we mean, and the beauty of each prayer is lost when we strip each word of its due.

mary (may Allah reward you)

___________________________

For those among you who have no idea what this is all about, it has been the orthographical convention of Muslims in America for decades to abbreviate certain prayers after the names of God, His Prophets, His final Messenger, his Companions, et al. These prayers are as follows, in Arabic, with transliteration, contested abbreviations, and heartfelt translations, respectively:

Allah سبحانه وتعالى subḥānahu wa taʿ ālā [swt]: hallowed in glory and transcendence;

the Prophet صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم ṣallā l-lāhu ʿalayhi wa ālihi wa sallam [saw]: may God grace and sanctify him and his family;

the Companions رضي الله عنهم raḍiya l-lāhu ʿanhum [ra]: may God be pleased with them;

the Prophets عليهم السلام ʿalayhimu s-salām [AS]: may God sanctify them.

For those among you who understood the rant, the fact that the above explanation is even needed for all our clueless readers is case in point. Let us deprive them not of the blessings inherent in these prayers, the very least of which is understanding what they mean.

PROPHET’S GRIEF ﷺ

I was once reasoning with one of the youth who were given to violence and so I asked him: “Is it lawful to blow up a gathering in any Muslim country where people are entertaining themselves?” He answered, “Of course, it’s lawful, and killing them is permissible.” I asked, “And were you to kill them while they were disobeying God, what would be their fate?” He answered, “Hell, for sure.” I asked, “And where would Satan want them to end up?” He replied, “Hell, certainly.” I said, “In that case, you and none other than Satan are partnering for the same objective: taking people to Hell!” Then I mentioned the hadith of the Messenger of God–may God bless and sanctify him and his family–in which a Jewish funeral procession of someone who died rejecting his Message passed before him, so he began to weep. They asked him, “What makes you weep, O Messenger of God?” He confessed, “Behold, a soul that is slipping away from me into Hell.” I added, “Notice the difference between you and the Messenger of God–may God bless and sanctify him and his family–who was intent on guiding people to free them from Hell, for you are in one valley, and he is in another valley.

~ al-Shaykh Muḥammad Mutwallī al-Shaʿrāwī (may Allah have mercy on his soul)

REACHING THE AGE OF 40

A man reaches his forties and begins to ask legacy questions, Malcolm questions. What is God’s work? What is my assignment? What is my bequest? Greying heads owe their wisdom to the quest for the answers, until wisdom reveals that that the answers lie in the quest. The quest becomes the bequest.

RELIGIOUS OR SPIRITUAL

“I’m not religious, I’m spiritual.” Most concepts pertaining to religion in today’s usage stink of an egoism that has utterly disfigured the beauty of divine discourse. Instead of secularizing the sacred meanings of our vocabulary, so as to make it more palatable for modern ears (this is the age of feelings, last time I checked), we must reclaim its sacredness and rid its modern connotations of the ego that renders it all archaic. In sooth, religion and spirituality are entwined, and their alleged exclusivity in our minds is strictly a modern dichotomy. Imam Malik once declared, “Whoever is religious and not spiritual is iniquitous; and whoever is spiritual and not religious is a heretic” [religious, here, meaning law-abiding, which is usually the objection that “spiritual” people have to religion]. For more on how spirituality is the perfection of religion, see ḥadīth jibrīl.

REMEMBERING MALCOLM

Dearest Malcolm,
I pray this message reaches your soul in the shade of the furthermost periphery of the Lotus Tree, at the point where East meets West, beholding divine epiphanies of supernal wisdoms and embraced by Subtlety’s caresses in the sacred space of timelessness and in the sacred time of spacelessness. Your traces still grace us long after your sojourn here and with awe and gratitude do we reminisce your memory on this solemn day. From the grave did you call the likes of Dr. Umar Faruq Abdullah-who postulated a theory for what is culturally imperative for Islam in these lands based on the foundation you lived and died to establish-and the likes of Rami Nashashibi and Saad Omar. Altogether, they set in motion the practice of that theory in forging a Muslim culture indigenous to this land through scholarship, service, and song, respectively. It is my ardent prayer that the fruits of this work ripen and flourish in the African American community first and foremost-which gifted you to the world-as a continuation and culmination of your work, dearest Shaykh, and that we are raised in your army when action faces judgment before the altar of intention, for your heart was a prison for the secret of sincerity from the moment you came into the world till the moment you stared down that bullet with a martyr’s smile on your blessed countenance.

Love,
Hisham Mahmoud

PS: My wife just finished reading her third book on your life and legacy.

REMOVE YOUR SANDALS

“And when he reached it [the fire], it was called out, ‘Moses! I, I am your Lord, so put off your sandals, for you are in the sacred valley of ṭuwā.'” (ṭa ḥa 20:12). Removing one’s shoes is an act of worship in Islam, but only one of these two images captures the essence of God’s command to Moses. Behold, a mosque and a Buddhist temple. If we want to climb the mountain with Moses, the first step entails putting off our shoes as an act of drawing nearer unto God.

STAFF OF MOSES

“And what is that in your right hand, Moses?” He answered, “It is my staff. I lean on it, I steer my sheep with it, and I have other uses for it as well.” Think back to a time when you were utterly overwhelmed in awe before God, bewildered by Him, captivated, enraptured, when you spoke to Him and made time stand still but for a few precious moments. In ecstasy, nothing you say makes much sense, for the lover is utterly intoxicated by the words of the beloved, in the embrace of the beloved, and every word will, in his heart’s yearning, hopefully tease out more words. Nor should it all have to make sense, no, it does not all have to mean something. The hope in ecstatic speech is only to prolong it. And so we wonder, dearest Prophet, to whom God spoke from behind a veil, in this unprecedented moment wherein you are conversing with your Beloved, what other uses for your staff, pray tell, could you have possibly had!

وما تلك بيمينك يا موسى قال هي عصاي أتوكأ عليها وأهش بها على غنمي ولي فيها مآرب أخرى

SŪRAT AL-NAJM

God captivates me with the literal signs of Surat al-Najm every time He invites me to where its Star might fall. Behold, each mystic letter suffusing itself into a symbol of utter mystery, supernally recited by the Holy Spirit through an aperture of light–beyond which the cadences of an angelic ensemble coalesce with the resplendence of the Prophet’s Ascent unto and into the farthest reaches of Heaven. May God bless and sanctify him and his family! Every letter chants its secrets to the enchanting letters of every verse in this sublime revelation, and we bask in its effulgent majesty! I welcome you to edit my rendering, for in attempting to dye accuracy with a hue of eloquence, perforce, I fall short in the balance:

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ ٠ وَالنَّجْمِ إِذَا هَوَى ٠ مَا ضَلَّ صَاحِبُكُمْ وَمَا غَوَى ٠ وَمَا يَنْطِقُ عَنِ الْهَوَى ٠ إِنْ هُوَ إِلَّا وَحْيٌ يُوحَى ٠ عَلَّمَهُ شَدِيدُ الْقُوَى ٠ ذُو مِرَّةٍ فَاسْتَوَى ٠ وَهُوَ بِالْأُفُقِ الْأَعْلَى ٠ ثُمَّ دَنَا فَتَدَلَّى ٠ فَكَانَ قَابَ قَوْسَيْنِ أَوْ أَدْنَى ٠ فَأَوْحَى إِلَى عَبْدِهِ مَا أَوْحَى ٠ مَا كَذَبَ الْفُؤَادُ مَا رَأَى ٠ أَفَتُمَارُونَهُ عَلَى مَا يَرَى ٠ وَلَقَدْ رَآهُ نَزْلَةً أُخْرَى ٠ عِنْدَ سِدْرَةِ الْمُنْتَهَى ٠ عِنْدَهَا جَنَّةُ الْمَأْوَى ٠ إِذْ يَغْشَى السِّدْرَةَ مَا يَغْشَى ٠ مَا زَاغَ الْبَصَرُ وَمَا طَغَى ٠ لَقَدْ رَأَى مِنْ آيَاتِ رَبِّهِ الْكُبْرَى

With the Name of Allah, Compassionate in His essence, Compassionate with His creation. By the falling star! Your companion has not deviated, he has not strayed. And he speaks not aught of his own volition, for it is but a revelation, revealed! One endowed with power taught him, endued with wisdom, who stood poised, being in the loftiest horizon. Then, he approached and drew nigh, until he was but two bow-lengths away—or nearer still. Then did He reveal to His servant what He revealed. His heart in no wise distorted what he beheld. Will you, then, contend with him as to what he sees? For he even beheld him at a second descent, near the Lote Tree of the Utmost Periphery, nigh unto the Haven of Heaven. Lo! The Lote Tree–enshrouded in ineffable splendor! His eye swerved not, nor swept astray. Verily, he beheld some of the greatest signs of his Lord! (al-najm 53:1-18)

SYNOPTIC PROBLEM

The Jesus of John was a theologized lamb, but the Jesus of Mark, Matthew, and Luke was a realized lion through and through. The same man who taught us to turn the other cheek also went into the Temple to overturn the money-changers’ tables with a whip in his hand! God’s grace and blessings be upon our lord, the Messiah, the Word of God, Jesus, the Son of Mary.

ṬĀʾIF PRAYER

Allah! I complain to You my lack of strength, my scarcity of means, my insignificance in the eyes of others. O most clement of those who show compassion, You are the Lord of the meek, and You are my Lord. To whom shall You give me over: to some distant person to look upon me with contempt, or to some enemy to whom You shall give authority over my affair. So long as You are not displeased with me, it concerns me not, but Your relief is easier upon me. I seek refuge in the light of Your countenance—by which every crevice of darkness is illumined and by which every affair of this life and the hereafter is made whole—that Your wrath overtake me not, nor your displeasure descend upon me. I confess to You my shortcoming until You are content. There is no strength or power except with You.

اللَّهُمَّ إِلَيْكَ أَشْكُو ضَعْفَ قُوَّتي وَقِلَّةَ حِيلَتي وهَواني عَلى النّاسِ يا أَرْحَمَ الرّاحِمينَ أَنْتَ رَبُّ الْمُسْتَضْعَفِينَ وَأَنْتَ رَبِّي إِلى مَنْ تَكِلُنِي إِلى بَعِيدٍ يَتَجَهَّمُنِي أَمْ إِلى عَدُوٍّ مَلَّكْتَهُ أَمْرِي إِنْ لَمْ يَكُنْ بِكَ عَلَيَّ غَضَبٌ فَلا أُبالِي غَيْرَ أَنَّ عافِيَتَكَ هِيَ أَوْسَعُ لِي أَعُوذُ بِنُورِ وَجْهِكَ الَّذِي أَشْرَقَتْ لَهُ الظُّلُماتُ وَصَلُحَ عَلَيْهِ أَمْرُ الدُّنْيا والْآخِرَةِ أَنْ يَحِلَّ عَلَيَّ غَضَبُكَ أَوْ أَنْ يَنْزِلَ بِي سَخَطُكَ لَكَ الْعُتْبَى حَتَّى تَرْضَى وَلا حَوْلَ وَلا قُوَّةَ إِلاّ بِكَ

Allāhumma ilayka ashkū ḍaʿfa quwwatī wa qillata ḥīlatī wa hawānī ʿalā n-nās; yā arḥama r-rāḥimīna anta rabbu l-mustaḍʿafīna wa anta rabbī; ilā man takilunī ilā baʿīdin yatajahhamunī am ilā ʿaduwwin mallaktahu amrī; in lam yakun bika ʿalayya ghaḍabun falā ubālī ghayra anna ʿāfiyataka hiya awsaʿu lī; aʿūdhu bi nūri wajhika l-ladhī ashraqat lahu ẓ-ẓulumātu wa ṣaluḥa ʿalayhi amru d-dunyā wa l-ākhirah an yaḥilla ʿalayya ghaḍabuka aw an yanzila bī sakhaṭuk; laka l-ʿutbā ḥattā tarḍā wa lā ḥawla wa lā quwwata illā bik.

TEN PRAYERS TO COMMENCE EACH DAY

Dear Lord, grace and sanctify Your Messenger and his family.

Dear Lord, reflect Your names and attributes upon the mirror of my spirit.

Dear Lord, delight me in the laughter of my parents.

Dear Lord, make me a meadow of heaven for my (future) spouse.

Dear Lord, allow my (future) children to see in me whom You want them to be.

Dear Lord, help me to be stronger than the world is terrible.

Dear Lord, alleviate through me the suffering of one of Your servants.

Dear Lord, bless my time with what is pleasing to You and nudge me to procrastinate tomorrow.

Dear Lord, destroy any hope Lucifer has renewed this day against me.

Dear Lord, allow me to live what You have taught me and guide me to flee from You unto You.

Dear Lord, clear my vision such that I may only behold You in all that was, is, and shall be.

Dear Lord, greet the Prophet Muhammad on my behalf, that he may mention me to You.

_____________________

PS: There are 12 prayers here. One of the scholars said that if you begin and end your prayers by invoking blessings upon the Messenger, Allah will accept all that is between those invocations.

TEN RIGHTS OF EVERY WORD

“His heart must be engaged in his greatest concern, and his greatest concern is with his Lord, and his Lord is in his heart. So he beholds Him through His speech, and he speaks to Him with His words, and he endears himself to Him by fervently calling upon Him, and he knows Him through His attributes. Every divine word indicates the meaning of a noun, quality, virtue, ruling, decree, or act, for words are descriptive, they indicate what they describe. And every utterance of the divine address faces ten aspects, say those who know their Lord, and each aspect has its respective station and prospects. The first aspect is affirming it, then comes submitting to it, then repenting to it, then patience with it, then contentment with it, then fear of it, then hope in it, then gratitude for it, then love toward it, then reliance upon it. These ten stations are the stations of certainty, for the word is the very truth of certainty, and all these meanings are folded into every word, beheld by those who endear themselves by calling upon their Lord, and known to those possessed of knowledge and life, for the speech of the beloved is the very life of the heart. It is heeded only by those who are alive, and life is granted to those whose prayers have been answered. Allah, the Exalted, said, ‘It is no more than a reminder and a clear recital, to warn those who are alive!'”

—Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī in Qūt al-Qulūb

وينبغي أن يكون قلبه في همّه وهمّه مع ربّه وربّه في قلبه فينظر إليه من كلامه ويكلمه بخطابه ويتملقه بمناجاته ويعرفه من صفاته فإن كل كلمة عن معنى اسم أو وصف أو خلق أو حكم أو إرادة أو فعل لأن الكلم ينبئ عن معاني الأوصاف ويدل على الموصوف وكل كلمة من الخطاب تتوجه عشر جهات للعارف من كل جهة مقام ومشاهدات أول الجهات الإيمان بها والتسليم لها والتوبة إليها والصبر عليها والرضا بها والخوف منها والرجاء لها والشكر عليها والمحبة لها والتوكل فيها فهذه المقامات العشر هي مقامات اليقين لأن الكلمة هي حق اليقين وهذه المعاني كلها منطوية في كل كلمة يشهدها أهل التملّق والمناجاة ويعرفها أهل العلم والحياة لأن كلام المحبوب حياة القلوب لا ينذر به إلا حيّ ولا يحيا به إلا مستجيب قال الله تعالى إِنْ هُوَ إِلاَّ ذِكْرٌ وَقُرْآنٌ مُبينٌ لِيُنْذِرَ مَنْ كَانَ حَيّاً

كتبه أبو طالب المكي في قوت القلوب وكان له على أبي حامد الغزالي تأثير معتبر

YIN-YANG

Behold, Yin and Yang, at the foot of the Pedestal, in the courtyard of Divine Love, in relentless rotation along the axis of infinity, while revolving around the Lotus Tree, beyond the utmost periphery. Behold, Yin and Yang, arrested in eternal embrace, dancing before the Lord of Song, to the hymns of this angelic ensemble. Listen, the psalters of David, whose flute reverberates with the breath of ecstasy, into a supernal symphony of prayer. Behold, the ring of Yin set in Yang, and the ring of Yang set in Yin—rings cut from the recesses of their own hearts. Heaven’s denizens assemble, to witness the ceremony of a cosmic covenant. Yin vows: “I am the receptacle of your act, the reflection of your resolve, the surrender to your sway, the yielding under your sovereignty, the shadow surrounding your gait, the imagination before your manifestation, the canvas for your art.” Yang vows, “I am the light in your darkness, the expansion of your constriction, the orientation of your direction, the strength of your softness, the glistening of your silhouette, the breeze of your stillness, the eloquence in your silence.” With the exchange of these seven vows, the marriage of Yin and Yang is consecrated, in the hearts of every pair of lovers. And as Yin took the ring of Yang, she advanced زوجتك نفسي “I wed myself to you,” and as Yang took the ring of Yin, he surrendered قبلت “I accept.” Then the Perfect Human anointed the nexus, sayingبارك الله لكما وبارك عليكما وجمع بينكما في خير “May the Lord of the Throne bless you both.” And with their rings now set in the cavities of their hearts, the bosom of Sempiternity throbbed. Behold, Yin and Yang, as they form their primordial ring, and enter the Circle of Oneness to dance, for it is written: “We created you all from the soul of unity, and, therefrom, its mate, lavishing you with passionate compassion: a sign among marvels, a mystery among miracles, into an abode of utter serenity, as garments one to the other, hereby infused with the breath of life, and ruled by the Names of God! So prostrate before them. Welcome to this place! Here, in this sphere, Ego trespasses the sanctified jurisdiction of witnessing, for the cosmos of boundless potentiality hovers above, transcending the consuming abyss of the ego.” Behold, Yin and Yang, and the genesis of their perpetual pursuit in sublime synergy, chasing one another relentlessly, like Forever’s children, in the meadows of Paradise, chasing after their immortal childhood.

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