Eloquence and Calligraphy

TT Art Desk, "Historical manuscript bearing Imam Ali’s devotions published in Iran" - Tehran Times - Tehran, Iran
Saturday, July 26, 2008

A book carrying devotions attributed to Imam Ali (AS) was published by the Astan-e Qods Razavi Center for Artistic Creations last week.

An addition of the historical book, which has been calligraphed by Master Mir Ali Heravi in 1533 CE, was unveiled during a ceremony at the Imam Ali (AS) Religious Arts Museum in Tehran on Thursday.

The original version of the book, which is also known as “Heravi Devotions”, is keep at the Astan-e Qods Razavi Museum and Library in Mashhad.

Master Gholam-Hossein Amirkhani, who has done the calligraphy for the book’s preface, and Mohammad Jafar Yahaqqi, professor of the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad who has written the preface, some officials from Astan-e Qods Museum, and a number of Iranian cultural figures attended the ceremony.

“This is the first time a book from a manuscript in the museum has been published by Astan-e Qods Razavi Center for Artistic Creations,” Hossein Abedi a member of Astan-e Qods Museum board of directors said.

In the future, according to Abedi, the center plans to publish three versions of the Holy Quran written by Safavid-era calligrapher Alireza Abbasi, a selection of verses from the Holy Quran with calligraphy by Ibrahim Sultan (1394–1435), and the Divan of Hafez written by the 18-century calligrapher Abdolmajid Taleqani.

“‘Heravi Devotions’ is a complex of arts,” Yahaqqi said. “The eloquence of Imam Ali’s words and nastaliq calligraphy of an artist like Mir Ali Heravi have turned the book into one of world’s most valuable manuscripts,” he added.

The ceremony went on with a film clip depicting the printing process of the book. Afterward Amirkhani criticized the Astan-e Qods Museum and Library for not providing public access to manuscripts kept the museum and library.

“The museum has restricted public access to its treasury for years. Publishing the precious manuscripts is a cultural action that should have been carried out long ago,” he noted.

“Heravi was an artist, who was the epitomy of Persian calligraphy who distanced himself ahead of other forerunners of the art,” Amirkhani explained.

“Although Heravi wrote the book when he was a tyro, the calligraphy of the book well illustrates the novelty of his art,” he added. Two editions of the book were presented to Amirkhani and Yahaqqi during the ceremony.

[Photo: Master Gholam-Hossein Amirkhani holds an edition of a book carrying devotions attributed to Imam Ali (AS) during a ceremony at the Imam Ali (AS) Religious Arts Museum in Tehran on July 24. The original version of the book has been calligraphed by Master Mir Ali Heravi in 1533 CE. (Mehr/Majid Asgaripur)]

God Is Loving / وهوالودود

Yale Center for Faith and Culture Reconciliation Program - Yale Divinity School - New Haven, CT, USA
Thursday, July 31, 2008

Loving God and Neighbor in Word and Deed: Implications for Christians and Muslims

News Conference Live Webstream begins at 11:30am, EST
Click on the title of this article

Videos of the conference are posted online on the Yale Divinity School webcast page
Click on this link http://www.yale.edu/divinity/video/commonword/video.shtml

[Pictures (from left to right): Senator John Kerry; H.R.H. Prince Ghazi Bin Muhammad Bin Talal with Prof. Dr. Miroslav Volf; Grand Mufti Mustafa Ceric. Photos: Yale Divinity School - Yale University]

It Contradicts the Fundamental Message of Islam

By M. Serajul Islam, "Religious terrorism and Bangladesh" - The Daily Star - Dhaka, Bangladesh
Saturday, July 26, 2008

A Bangladeshi journalist working for a foreign radio station warned me recently against being complacent about Islamic fundamentalists in Bangladesh.

I argued that despite its overwhelming Muslim population, Bangladesh has historically rejected political parties that have used Islam in elections.

Jamaat-e-Islami, the best known among such parties, has never won even a handful of seats in elections, achieving the best of 14 seats in the 2001 elections as a result of its alliance with the BNP.

I also argued that despite being predominantly Muslim, Bangladesh is the most liberal South Asian country where Islam has been influenced by Sufism with the least incidence of communal violence that are so endemic in other parts of this sub-continent.

Its liberal traditions notwithstanding, the two mainstream political parties earned for Bangladesh the label of a country that supports Islamic terrorism during the last BNP term. The BNP played the major part by allowing Jamaat-e-Islami indulgence to put a terrorist infrastructure in place as a payback for its votes that helped it win a 2/3 majority in the 2001 elections.

The Jamaatul Muhahadeen Bangladesh (JMB) terrorists, who earned the maximum notoriety, was nurtured by BNP top leadership to help its leaders in northern Bangladesh win territorial control over the extreme leftist elements there and also to please Jamaat-e-Islami.

The Awami League did its part by publicising abroad this evil nexus, labeling Bangladesh as Taliban that countries and interested groups abroad used to identify Bangladesh as a supporter of Islamic terrorism.

The Indian media also played a role in projecting Bangladesh in a bad light, identifying it as a “locus of Islamic terrorism”.

The former US Ambassador Harry Thomas had spared no efforts to warn the Government about the growing Frankenstein. India watched developments with understandable concern and conveyed these to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on her visit to New Delhi in March 2005.

Rice told the press during the visit that Bangladesh could become the next Afghanistan and that India and USA would look after Bangladesh. The BNP Government remained unmoved and termed the concern over the Islamic fundamentalist forces as “media hype”.

Encouraged, these forces carried out nearly 500 simultaneous bomb blasts all over the country in August, 2005 that proved that these terrorists had a terrorist infrastructure in place and had also infiltrated the country's intelligence although the blasts caused little damage and just two deaths.

Khaleda Zia cut short an official visit to China and returned home but did little to contain these forces except issue arrest warrants against leading JMB terrorists that were not pursued seriously.

The BNP finally acted only after the US Assistant Secretary Christina Rocco visited Dhaka in January 2006 and delivered a harsh ultimatum to the Government to rein in the JMB terrorists.

Within weeks, Sheikh Abdur Rahman and Bangla Bhai with 4 others were incarcerated in a make believe manner that left little doubt that they had escaped being arrested earlier due to state sponsorship. In jail, these JMB terrorists were treated as VIPs, leading to speculation that they would be released at an appropriate time.

The politics of the country then slipped into anarchy, leading to 1/11 when fate intervened.

The JMB terrorists were executed by the Caretaker Government after due legal process but no act of revenge followed that went to prove that AL accusations and Indian media reports that Bangladesh was infested with Al Qaeda and Islamic terrorists was exaggerated and largely untrue.

During this period, United States also did not find any evidence that Bangladeshi Islamic fundamentalist parties had Al Qaeda connections. Their concern was to contain the Islamic terrorism at home that was growing due to BNP Government's sponsorship.

Islamic terrorism has become benign with the fall of the BNP Government at a time when internationally Islamic terrorist groups are weakening. Newsweek in its June 9th edition under the caption “New Face of Islam” writes that within the Islamic world, a critique of radicalism is growing.

Moderate Islamic scholars who were silent before and after 9/11 are now beginning to speak out against Islamic terrorism. Clerics who had supported Bin Laden are now distancing themselves from him. Countries that have tolerated Islamic radicalism like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are now encouraging moderation.

In Saudi Arabia, 10,000 Government paid imams have been asked by King Abdullah to restrain their zealous excesses.

A new realisation is now afloat in the Islamic world that the “apocalyptic notion of holy war” that Laden had promoted contradicts the fundamental message of Islam, which is peace.

Al Qaeda is now on the run in Iraq, its haven after US invasion of Afghanistan, where the US forces are winning. As a result of worldwide hunt, Al Qaeda is no longer in any position to encourage international terrorism as its finances and infrastructure have been considerably weakened.

These positive developments offer Bangladesh a great opportunity to re-establish its liberal traditions.

The mainstream parties have the most critical role to play. The BNP must not repeat its past mistakes and must rein in Jamaat, with whom it is again very likely to form election alliance. It should also not allow Jamaat to nominate anyone for the next general elections with blood on its hands for its role in 1971, knowing how much the people detest the war criminals.

The AL must fight Islamic radicalism in the country politically and refrain from giving the international media wrong impression about Bangladesh by talking of our internal politics abroad as it did during the BNP era.

It must also be consistent in dealing with Islamic fundamentalist forces. It has not fully explained to the people its election alliance with Khelafat-e-Majlish, a fundamentalist Islamic party that supports the fatwa, just before the postponed 2007 elections as well as its alliance during the first BNP term with the Jamaat to force the BNP out of power. It also needs to explain why during its tenure it did not deal with the war criminals.

The role of the civil societies and sector commanders of our liberation forces is critical here. Those who committed war crimes in 1971 should be tried under law as murderers and rapists, remembering that there is no statute of limitation here.

Those in Jamaat-e-Islami who are war criminals must be brought under the law. Jamaat's opposition to Bangladesh's independence is a political issue and must be dealt politically.

Unfortunately, in pursuing the war criminals, these groups have called for banning Jamaat as a political party, only indirectly labeling it as a party of war criminals. They have also used the secularism card in seeking to ban Jamaat because of its belief in Islam, claiming secularism as fundamental to our statehood.

In doing so, they have overlooked that democracy gives all political parties the right to address their beliefs to the people directly who as sovereign authority accept or reject them.

They have also insensitively set aside the importance of Islam as a way of life both in literal and spiritual sense to majority of Bangladeshis. Furthermore, the belief in Islam that helps people retain mental sanity in the face of extreme poverty and unbearable natural and manmade calamities that they face regularly has also been over-looked.

Islam based parties, particularly Jamaat, may thus be getting the benefit of over-kill with the secular card because a lot of people feel that those attacking the Jamaat are also targeting Islam.

Sadly, the detested war criminals may also be getting the reprieve by moves to ban Islam based parties from politics. The fact that the groups seeking to ban Jamaat are also supporters of the Awami League is also taking the wind out of the sail for trial of the war criminals with which few people differ.

Just as the West has made the mistake of putting Islam in the dock, because of Al Qaeda, those seeking trial of war criminals have similarly erred by bringing Islam into the equation. This could eventually lead to sympathy for Islamic parties arising from the perception that Islam is in peril.

For tackling Islamic fundamentalism, these groups must therefore ensure that they do not put Islam and secularism in conflict for there is no reason to do so.

Because of Bangladesh's liberal traditions and that in case of a conflict, Islam is going to get the majority nod over secularism.

History, internal politics and recent developments in the Islamic world do not therefore place Bangladesh in imminent danger of a takeover by fundamentalist Islamic forces. These notwithstanding, the next elected Government must bear in mind that there are 9000 Government registered madrasas and 15,000 Qawami madrasas and Islamic fundamentalist parties like Jagrato Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), Shahadat-e-al-Hikma, Al-Harakat-ul-Islamia, Harkat-ul-Jehad Islami and Al-Khidmat.

These institutions and parties would need strict surveillance by the intelligence agencies to keep them on track which should not be difficult if the next Government is sincere about it.

Whether Bangladesh becomes a haven for international Islamic terrorists and whether Islamic fundamentalism plagues our politics will thus depend largely on the mainstream political parties and the civil societies.

The Islamic parties by themselves have the ability to cause disturbances but little possibility of doing much more. It is time that the mainstream parties and the civil societies work together in the interest of the nation and ensure our liberal Islamic heritage.

There is no reason for complacency about Islamic terrorism in Bangladesh but no reason to cry wolf either.

The author is former Bangladesh Ambassador and Director, Centre for Foreign Affairs Studies

A Critical Juncture

By Asim Javed "Spiritual leader for combating extremism" - The Post - Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Saturday, July 26, 2008

Chairman Sufism Pakistan and Sajjada-Nashen of Draga Hazrat Syed Jalal Din Sorkh Posh, Syed Nafees-ul-Hassan has said that extremism and terrorism should be eliminated through teachings of spiritual leaders.

Syed Nafees-ul-Hassan was talking to The Post in a Forum on Thursday. He said that Pakistan is passing through a critical juncture and it is need of hour to combat terrorism and extremism in the light of teachings of Hazrat Data Gunj Buksh, Hazrat Moeen Din Chishti, Hazrat Bakhtair Kaki, Hazrat Mian Mir, Baba Bullhai Shah, Waris Shah Hazrat Mian Mir, Shah Jamal, Mooj Dirya and Hazrat Shahbaz Qalandir.

Dilating on the history of Uch Sharif, he maintained that it was the land of old civilization after Harappa and Moinjo Daro.

According to international archaeologists' report it existed 5000 years ago. Due to it's historical importance, UNESCO included it in World Heritage in 2004. But it had become a place to reckon with after setting up Jammia Ferozia for spiritual education in the subcontinent.

A large number of religious and spiritual scholars obtained education from there.

Some elements of the society were earning bad name to Jihad by committing suicidal acts of terrorism. Islam abhors any type of activities which caused destruction and take life of innocent people, he added.

When asked about Mushaikhs and Sufis who did not seem to be united, he sharply reacted saying that the different sects of Muslim should show unity and harmony to eliminate the extremism and sectarianism.

He maintained that Auqaf department was busy just for earning money but not to facilitate the devotees during Urs ceremonies.

Replying to a question, he strongly condemned so called Peers and swindlers who were misleading the people.

The Airport’s “Guardian”.

TT Correspondent, "Mauritius flight has close shave" - The Telegraph - Calcutta, India
Friday, July 25, 2008

New Delhi, July 24: The wheels of an Air Mauritius plane caught fire when the pilot slammed the emergency brakes seconds before take-off at Delhi airport today.

A full emergency was declared and fire tenders rushed to the runway. The blaze was put out in 15 minutes.

The 241 passengers and 11 crew members came out through a chute. “They were very lucky. As the pilot aborted just before take-off, the plane was in full thrust,” an airport official said.
Thirty passengers received minor injuries.

The official quoted the pilot as saying the take-off was aborted because of a bird hit. “The pilot has reported it was a bird hit but this has to be investigated.”

As a debate raged over whether the emergency drill saved the day, talk among officials veered to “divine intervention” by Pir Baba.

A mazar [shrine] of two Sufi saints is considered by many officials as the airport’s “guardian”. Prayers are offered there on Thursday. “It is opened to the public for a few hours each Thursday,” an official said.

The shrine was to be shifted but after today’s close shave, there might be second thoughts.

The Eye of the Heart

By Dr. Muhammad Maroof Shah, "The Perennial Relevance" - Greater Kashmir - Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India
Wednesday, July 23, 2008

On the everlasting and never fading importance of Perennial philosophy

If asked to name two or three best book on Islam in the 20th century one can reply, with good reasons, Frithjof Schuon’s (the great perennialist Sufi Isa Nuruudin) books such as Understanding Islam and Islam and the Perennial Philosophy, the works which most of professors teaching Islam don’t care to read many would not even comprehend because of “obscurity” and dense, allusive and demanding philosophical content and style.

If there is an approach that can defend Islam and attract people of the highest intellectual calibre to it, it is perennial philosophy.

Most of the most important scholars in contemporary Islam have appropriated perennialist insights. Sufism or inner dimension of Islam provides the basis for perennialist worldview in Islamic context. Muslim authorities are unanimous in recognizing the batin or inner dimension of Islam and most of them identify Sufism as this dimension.

Religion without esotericism or inward dimension is empty formalism in which modern man has little, if any interest. And those who oppose all Sufism divest Islam of all its vitality and make it irrelevant and defenseless against modernity.

Revolt against traditional philosophy began with the father of modern philosophy, Descartes though some fancy him to be in the service of religion and juxtapose his name with great traditional authorities such as Ghazzali betraying their ignorance of secularizing force of modern philosophy.

It is with Descartes that revolt against traditional epistemology and metaphysics set in to culminate in disguised or sometimes frank atheism of modern philosophy. His cogito principle, his method of doubt, his severance of reason from intellect and rejection of intellective intuition and revelation in philosophy, his soul/body dualism and his other devations from traditional background make him a key figure in modern philosophy’s turning away from traditional roots in religion.

He, along with Newton, despite their concern to defend their own constricted understanding of Christianity epitomizes negation of an epoch in history and are architect of modern desacralizing scientistim and secularization.

Here we may contrast Descartes with Ghazali, who stemmed the tide of faith denying rationalism and metaphysically problematic Aristotelianism in Islam and prevented the development of great aberration in philosophy that was to characterize the post-Descartes’ West.
Ghazali, in contrast, stood for intellect and revelation and didn’t subordinate theology to rational philosophy and was in important respects polar opposite of Descartes. There is little correspondence in their respective methodological doubts or between methodological and existential doubts of Descartes and Ghazzali respectively.
The fruits of their doubting methodologies being so different so we can’t characterize both of them with reference to single conception of “skepticism” or doubt.

If skepticism is a virtue in modern philosophy, it has no place in Muslim philosophy.

Traditional metaphysics doesn’t start from doubt, has nothing to do with synthesizing knowledge of sciences that are never absolutely certain and search for causes of phenomena.

The question is: did Ghazali ever doubt existence of God in his so-called skeptical phase? If he didn’t, how can we assert that he fell under the spell of “skepticism in all its connotations” for some time, as asserted by orientalists and those who read philosophy from Western historians of philosophy. He did become doubtful about the possibility of knowledge by means of reason and senses for sometime but did not turn a skeptic who denies the possibility of finding some means through this impasse and who doesn’t implore God to guide him out of this impasse.

That was more a dark night of soul than the darkness of impasse of other skeptics. Skepticism is a loaded term in modern discourse though if we restrict it to its original sense as inquiry then it is a virtue and all philosophers are skeptics, at least to begin with.

There can be no presuppositionless philosophy despite the claim to the contrary of those who claim otherwise and privilege methodology of doubt.

To accuse perennialists of pantheism shows one doesn’t care to read even the first sentence of perennialist writings on God that asserts the notion of Beyond-Being which is transcendent and pantheism means rejection of divine transcendence.

It is a typical orientalist fallacy to accuse Sufism of pantheism.

Even such a perceptive philosopher as Iqbal fell under the spell of this orientalist misreading (in his Reconstruction he labeled Sufism as pantheistic), not to speak of lesser mortals who have yet to emerge from the spell of modern Western thought which banished Intellect and don’t appreciate that intellective intuition and gnosis is possible by virtue of Intellect.

Intellect is what the Sufis, including Ghazali, call the eye of the heart. It is another face of what the Quran calls Ruh, the Spirit.

Without it man is not man, man in the image of God. Rejecting it in the name of Islam is to reject the intellectual/spiritual foundation of Islam.

The source of revelation in Islam is Gabriel or the Universal Intellect. It is Intellect that makes man immortal and makes man vestigio Dei.

All perception is dependent on intellect though Descartes didn’t appreciate this and up to the present day perception has been an unsolved problem in Western thought.

Gnosis or religious experience on which experimental proof of existence of God and thus possibility of religion is based is an attribute of Intellect.
Intellect and NeoPlatonic hikmah philosophy can be opposed in the name of modern philosophy only and not in the name of Islam and Muslim philosophy.
Aristotle deviated in certain measure from hikmah philosophy and Ghazalian criticism primarily applies to rationalizing Aristotlenism and he did so in the spirit of Neoplatonic mysticism despite his differences with emanationist view.

Bringing Ibn Taymiyah’s authority to refute NeoPlationic Muslim philosophers and perennialists, as is done by exotericists, is to confound separate prerogatives of theology and metaphysics and privilege the former.
It is metaphysics which is equipped to teach theology what polytheism or shirk is in its deepest or most real sense rather than the vice versa. Theology or exotericism for its dualism is inherently unable to taste unity or tawhid and thus a subtle form of shirk.
It argues in propositions and doesn’t see first hand its object.

It is only in the light of perennial philosophy that we can understand Islam most
comprehensively as civilization – its sciences, its arts, its architecture, its philosophy and its theology.

Symbolism of mosque, of cap or turban, of veil, of ritual prayer- indeed of anything associated with Islam, is best deciphered by perennialists.

Perennialists are able to convincingly own Sufis and most philosophers. They accommodate the generality of ulema as well though they are able to move beyond most of these categories.

Maulana Thanvi, one of the towering personalities - jurist cum theologian cum metaphysician cum Sufi- was Hasn Askari’s Murshid.
There is no orientalist influence in the writings of perennialists. They are 100 percent orientalism/Westernism/modernism free.

There can be no unIslamic source at metaphysical plane but only at theological plane. When one transcends theological plane one transcends all talk of “Islamic” and “unIslamic” sources.

The God of the Quran is Truth, Reality (al-Haqq).

Everything in the universe (aafaq) and soul (nafs) is the province of the inclusive truth of which Islam speaks. Wherever wisdom (hikmah) is or truth is, that is appropriated by the M’umin as his own possession.

Adopting perennialist perspective means one leaves aside all human constructions, all merely rational speculative systems, all doubt based and (modern) empiricist modes of thought, all complicity with (modern) science and its notions of causality and rests securely in the timeless truths of revelation and wijdan that metaphysics expresses in consistent format.

Dervishes in Tehran

TE/HGH, "Iran to hold 'Persian Gulf Sun' concert " - Press TV - Tehran, Iran
Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Iran's Sa'ad Abad Palace is slated to host a traditional music concert by the Shams ensemble accompanied by international musicians.

The Persian Gulf Sun concert will feature Sama, the trancelike dance practiced by Sufi dervishes.

Five songs adapted from the works of Mowlavi will be played by the traditional Persian instrument Tanbour in the first part of the concert.

The second part of the concert will feature performances by the Shams ensemble accompanied by musicians from Armenia, France, England, India, Netherlands, Iraq and Turkey.

The concert will be held from Aug. 13 to 16, 2008 in Tehran.

10 Books on Islam

Robert Irwin, "Robert Irwin's top 10 books on Islam and Islamic culture" - The Guardian - London, UK
Wednesday, July 18, 2008

1. The Koran Interpreted, translated by Arthur J Arberry
Strictly, Muslims hold that a translation from Arabic of the Koran is not possible. However, this is the best attempt at a translation into English.

Not only is this one the most accurate, it also captures the rhythm and poetry of the original. Arberry was a devout Christian who nevertheless identified strongly with the mystical strain in Islam.

2. The Koran: A Very Short Introduction by Michael Cook
However good the translation you read (or even if you can read it in Arabic), the text of the Koran still needs a lot of glossing and some context. Cook is erudite, witty and incisive and he packs a huge amount into his 150 pages.

Even specialists in Koranic studies are likely to learn something from this amazingly efficient account of how the Koran was put together, what it contains and how it is studied and recited today.

Apart from anything else, this book should serve as a model of how to write a very short account of anything whatsoever.

3. The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran by Roy Mottahedeh
There is no other book quite like this. Mottahedeh, a brilliant Princeton professor, based his account of spiritual life in Iran on a series of lengthy interviews with an Iranian mullah, tracing the holy man's career from childhood in the holy city of Qom to a senior position in the ranks of the Iranian clergy.

This searching exploration of the spiritual and intellectual life of Shi'i Islam is effectively an insider's account of an educational curriculum that has not significantly changed since the middle ages. Modern political and social tensions in the region are also explored.

4. A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century. Shaikh Ahmad al-'Alawi by Martin Lings
This book changed my life. It is an inspiring account of the career and teachings of a great Algerian Sufi mystic master.

Al-'Alawi, a holy man and profound thinker, founded one of the most important North African Sufi orders.

Lings is a convert to Islam and his account of al-'Alawi's teachings manages to convey something of authentic Sufism, (as opposed to the ersatz new age stuff that is otherwise so widely available in the west).

This is a book that may give you some sense of why and how Muslims believe in Allah.

5. The Shambhala Guide to Sufism by Carl Ernst
This is an outsider's account of Sufism written by an academic specialist in Islamic studies. Ernst lucidly sets out the mystical elements in the Koran and provides a potted history of the great Sufi orders from medieval times onwards.

He is very good on the great Sufi poets, Hafiz and Rumi, but the most interesting chapter is the last, on contemporary Sufism.

6. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization (3 volumes) by Marshal GS Hodgson
Hodgson died before he could quite finish this massive cultural history of Islam but, even so, it remains a great monument of learning and cross-cultural empathy.

Hodgson attempted to rethink the way Islamic history was traditionally written about and he wanted to ditch Orientalist cliches. Since he was largely successful in these enterprises, his book has been hugely influential.

It is particularly good on the achievements of Persian, Turkish and Indian Muslims.

7. Atlas of the Islamic World by Francis Robinson
This beautifully produced atlas is one of the books influenced by Hodgson's rethink of Islamic culture. The pictures (of Persian miniatures, Mughal architecture, African mosques, modern political posters and much else) are lovely.

The accompanying text is intelligent and entirely reliable. Robinson reminds us, if the reminder is necessary, that Islam is not the monopoly of the Arabs and that high Islamic culture did not come to a screeching halt some time around the 11th century.

8. A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani
Although Islam is not the monopoly of the Arabs, they have played rather a large part in its propagation. Hourani was a fastidious stylist and this book, a glowing and sympathetic account of Arab achievements, was his last masterpiece.

The narrative has a fine sweep and is not clogged with detail about people with unpronounceable names marching off to fight in unspellable places.

Anyone thinking of going to the Middle East should read this first. So should Kilroy Silk.

9. Islamic Art and Architecture by Robert Hillenbrand
Hillenbrand is the top man on Islamic art in Britain today and in the past he has ranged extremely widely in his more specialist studies on Islamic art and architecture.

His general book on this topic is compact and attractively illustrated. The quality of his prose and its effectiveness in evoking the appearance and aesthetic effect of the objects he is describing is marvellous. His description of the Alhambra, for example, is simply breathtaking.

10. Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices by Andrew Rippin
This is probably the best general account of what Muslims believe.

Rippin instructs his readers in the elements of Islamic history and the evolution of theology and law, as well as meaning of such things as the hajj, salaat, Ramadan and jihad. He explains the differences between Shi'is and Sunnis.

He is particularly strong on the challenges and opportunities facing modern Muslims, so that contemporary Islam's encounter with modernity, feminism and democracy are all thoughtfully explored.

Writer and broadcaster Robert Irwin is the author of The Alhambra, recently published by Profile. He is also the author of The Arabian Nights: A Companion and The Desert: An Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature as well as six novels. He has just finished writing a history of Orientalism.

[For reviews on books and music on Sufism, visit The Sufi Book and Music Blog http://sufibookstore.blogspot.com/ and the Sufi Book Store http://astore.amazon.com/wilderwri-20]

His Pioneering Role

Ljbc, "The Leader met with members of General Secretariat of World Islamic People's Leadership, members of World Sufism Office2008-7-22" - Libyan Jamahiriya Broadcasting Corporation - Libya
Tuesday, July 22, 2008

The Leader of the Revolution, the Leader of the World Islamic People's Leadership met with members of the General Secretariat of this Leadership, who are taking part in its 15th meeting, currently held in Tripoli.

The Leader also met with the members of the World Sufism Office, who are also participating in this meeting, besides Mufti of Chechnya, the Secretary-General of the Muslim Youth in Senegal, the Advisor to Philippine's President, and the chief editor of an Indonesian magazine.

At the outset of the meeting, the Secretary-General of the World Islamic People's Leadership, Dr. Mohammad Ahmed al-Sherif, briefed the Leader of the Revolution on the agenda of the meeting, which is held once a year to discuss situations of the Islamic world, Muslims' affairs and intercommunication with other the cultures; and to follow-up decisions of the General Conference of the Leadership, which is held once each four years; and also to follow up programs and activities of the executive office in the different arenas, expressing delight for being honored to meet the Leader and listen to his advices.

The Syrian Mufti, Dr. Ahmad Badruddin Hassun, delivered a speech to welcome the Leader of the Revolution, in which he hailed his concerns for Islam and Muslims, his courage in settling the Muslims' causes and his pioneering role in calling for dialogue with the other cultures and religions to diffuse Islam, valuing the Leader's prediction of the future of the Arab Ummah, which came in his speech in the Arab Summit in Syria; the prediction that came into reality represented in the ICC's decision against Sudan.

The World They Lived In

TP Correspondent, "People throng to pay homage to Waris Shah" - The Post - Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Saturday, July 26, 2008

Jandiala Sher Khan: On the third and last day of the annual Urs celebrations of great Sufi Poet and Saint Pir Waris Shah, thousands of devotees including children and women thronged the shrine to pay their homage to the saint.

Waris Shah was born in Jandiala Sher Khan, Sheikhupura in 1719 or 1730.

After completing his education in Kasur, he moved to Malka Hans where he lived in a small room adjacent to a historic mosque, constructed in 1340.

The room is still there, though devoid of any furniture or articles that could be related to Waris Shah in attempts to commemorate his being. The only sign remains a rather crudely written plaque with sketchy details about the poet.

A man of greet wisdom, understanding and experience, Waris had delved deep into his characters while, except for the famous Heer and Ranjha, he had penned down satirical sketches, through whom he showed the people the reality of the world they lived in.

[Picture from APNA (Academy of the Punjab in North America): http://www.apnaorg.com/]

To Promote Understanding

By Dorie Baker, "Muslim and Christian Leaders Meet at Yale for Historic “Common Word” Conference" - Yale Bulletin, Yale University - New Haven, CT, USA
Tuesday, July 15, 2008

More than 150 Muslim and Christian leaders, including some of the world’s most eminent scholars and clerics, will gather at Yale University July 28 –31 to promote understanding between the two faiths, whose members comprise more than half the world’s population.

Prominent political figures and representatives of the Jewish community also will speak at the conference, which launches a series of interfaith events planned around the world over the next two years.

These gatherings respond to the call for dialogue issued in an open letter, A Common Word Between Us and You, written by major Islamic leaders, to which Yale scholars responded with a statement that garnered over 500 signatures.

(...)

Notable leaders expected at the conference include Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan; former Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi of Sudan; top Evangelical leaders Leith Anderson and Geoff Tunnicliffe; prominent Ayatollahs from Iran; Sheikh Tayseer Tamimi of Palestine, Grand Muftis of several Middle Eastern countries; Antonios Kireopoulos of the National Council of Churches; and John Esposito of Georgetown University.

Senator John Kerry as well as other senior U.S. government officials also are expected to attend.

(...)

For additional conference information — including online streams of the conference panels and keynote addresses and other up-to-date information — visit the conference website
http://www.yale.edu/divinity/commonword/

Not To Think in Terms of Blocks

dpa/Trend News, "Arts festival next year to link Weimar and Shiraz" - Trend News - Baku, Azerbaijan
Saturday, July 19, 2008

A new arts festival now taking shape in Germany may help avert a "war of civilizations" by highlighting a shared reverence in the Islamic world and the West for classical poetry and fine art, dpa reported.

The Divan Festival is to be staged in successive weeks next year in two fabled towns: Shiraz, the Iranian city of poets, wine and flowers, and Weimar, the central German home of the great German poets and writers.

The idea is to build bridges between European culture and the Islamic nations.

" Shiraz will be the first host in June 2009," explained the event's artistic director, Klaus Gallas, in an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. A 15-day Iranian culture programme will then take place in August 2009 in Weimar.

The programme will comprise concerts, literary readings and art exhibitions.

Gallas intends to hold the Divan Festival every year thereafter in both Weimar and a changing partner city in Iran or the Arab world. He said talks were already under way with the United Arab Emirates on a venue there in 2010.

The word "divan" has passed into several western languages meaning a collection of poetry. This was inspired by the Divan of Hafez.

Its author, Hafez, was a Persian mystic and poet born about 1325 in Shiraz. Sams ud-Din Mohammed Hafez lived till 1390 and his Divan collection of subtly ambiguous poetry is admired in many countries.

The title was mirrored by the West-Eastern Divan, the title of an 1819 collection of poems in a quasi-Persian style by Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) who lived in Weimar and is revered as Germany's greatest poet, dramatist and novelist.

"We are calling the event the West-Eastern Divan Festival to commemorate both Goethe and Hafez," said the organizer.

A 1999 West-Eastern Divan monument in Weimar, in the form of two high-backed chairs carved out of stone and facing one another, already represents the two great national poets in virtual dialogue and recalls Goethe's cross-cultural interests.

The Argentine-born conductor Daniel Barenboim has also used the name, separately setting up a West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in Weimar.

The city, which has given its name to the 1919-1933 pre-Nazi Weimar Republic in Germany, is a magnet for intellectual tourists because of its links with Goethe and other leading German poets.

"We aim to hold a cultural festival in Weimar that will be influential in the whole of Europe," said Gallas. "It will oppose the tendency to think in terms of blocks, east and west, occidental and oriental.

"The objective is to expose how we are mutually reluctant to be friends, how we are bound by our prejudices and misconceptions," said Gallas, who describes himself as a historian of culture. He has visited Iran several times, the first time more than 30 years ago.

Gallas said he had won government encouragement from the German Foreign Ministry, the Goethe Institute which promotes German culture abroad, the Federal Culture Fund which promotes culture within Germany and the municipality of Weimar.

"Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has agreed to be the patron," said Gallas, who has now taken the step of legally incorporating the West-Eastern Divan Festival Weimar as a non-profit society.

"The next step is to apply for public subsidies," said Gallas, who adds that he has set up a board of cultural advisers. Its membership would include Mumbai-born classical music conductor Zubin Mehta, who has twice conducted the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Weimar.

Two German orchestras will be led by Iranian conductors in concerts at the opening and closing of the Festival under Gallas' plan.

"In between those dates there will be public readings from the works of Goethe and Hafez, exhibitions by contemporary artists and concerts of Iranian classical and popular music," said Gallas, 66, who has been working on the project for more than a year.

He denied in the interview that he was encroaching on Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. "I am in dialogue with Barenboim," he said.

[Picture: The Goethe-Hafez monument in the city of Weimar. Photo from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafez]

Cello Invocations

By Serkan Kara, "Uğur Işık brings together world religions on Anatolian soil" - Today's Zaman - Istanbul, Turkey
Sunday, July 20, 2008

Cellist Uğur Işık is an internationally acclaimed Turkish musician not yet recognized by the Turkish audience as he engages in no political rhetoric

The most prominent quality of his music is his performing instrumental and sometimes vocal pieces from Turkish culture using his cello, a Western instrument.

Having reached a considerably large European audience with his first album, in which he performs Anatolian folk songs with his cello, Işık appears to be continuing the upward trajectory in his career with his recently released second album, "Cello Invocations," with which he says he has "gathered world religions on Anatolian soil," also bitterly complaining that people are predisposed to pigeonholing his albums only by looking at the origin of the pieces he performs.

He says some branded him an Alevi after his first album and as religious following the second one, though he does not consider himself religious.

We spoke with Işık, who says, "My album dwells on religious music, not the religion itself," about his art, well received in the world but disregarded in his homeland. We also spoke about criticism that has been directed at his style and finally spoke about the things he wants to achieve.

We first heard Anatolian music from your cello. How did the idea of delving into religious music originate? Was it already present during the making of the first album, or did it develop afterwards?
You should begin learning the religious music of whatever society you are researching. If you are studying Western music, you cannot become a classical music performer without learning Bach. Eventually Bach, too, performs religious music.

If you are training to be a classical Turkish music performer, you have to learn the musical compositions of the Mevlevi whirling rite, Sufi hymns, qasidahs (Sufi poems spontaneously sung in a certain maqam [mode], mostly to accompany a Sufi remembrance ceremony) and the maqams (the hundreds of modal structures that characterize the art of Turkish classic music).

I'm not a practicing Muslim, but I have learned the Mevlevi rites and have also learned how to whirl. Unless you go deep down into music, as deep as its roots, you can't build anything on top. This is music.

We live with religious music, but when the word "religion" is mentioned, people start looking at the whole thing unfavorably because of prevalent prejudices.

My latest album is a grand invocation of all religions. When you mention the word "invocation" ("dhikr" in Turkish and Arabic), people are scared, whereas invocation, that is, remembrance ceremonies, makes for an outstanding musical show.

They portray invocation as something bad in films and series: They employ people who perform the audible dhikr as if fighting or making love. These people have nothing to do with invocation; the divine remembrance is completely something else.

Who performs the audible dhikr in the album?
It is performed by, so to say, real "invokers" who have grown up in a real Sufi environment and culture. They perform it the way it should be performed and use their bodies like a musical instrument.

I have played the cello to fill the background of the remembrance music, and I did that according to the authentic structure of remembrance ceremonies. I did not use "free-style" music, pushing the dhikr into the background; I never thought, "Hey, I could improvise on that one…"

What were your standards in choosing the pieces you have included in your album? What in those pieces attracted you?
The actual number I had considered was far higher. For instance, the tekbir, which pronounces the oneness of God, (composed in the segah maqam by the legendary Turkish music composer Mustafa Itri) had to be on the album.

When I perform the tekbir with the cello during my concerts in Europe, I see that the European people in my audience are spiritually moved to a great extent; they almost enter into a state of trance.

After I got the idea of the cello praying using the tekbir, I then tried the salawat -- asking God to shower his blessings and peace upon the Prophet Mohammed -- (again composed by Itri in the segah maqam).

Approaches to religion in the world are very different; that is why I have combined the differences on this album. If I had used (music composed by the followers of) Sunni Islam only, the album would have had a melancholy tone to it because in the country we live in there is gloom as well as fear, whereas the religion is only a means to reach God, the only Holy One.

When you perform a piece by Ellayl Zahi Fas with tambourines apart from religious pieces, the audience stands up and starts dancing along. I have mixed the strict Islam and the cheerful Islam together. When they all transcend one another, what comes out is a totally different combination.

Are there pieces which you left out at the last moment?
I thought of a very mournful and sorrow-inspiring sala [a kind of salawat, recited in certain maqams from the minaret to tell the neighborhood that somebody has died and his funeral prayer will be performed after the normal prescribed daily prayer], which I was to improvise over a Sufi hymn (ilahi).

Two religious musicians were to perform the sala. This project is ready and I will carry it out. It will not appear on my CDs, but it may end up being used as part of a soundtrack. The pieces I had to take out, even though I had deemed them suitable with the concept, will definitely get recorded.

(...)

The most important quality of the album is that the pieces that belong to different religions have similar sounds. Why did you perform them in the same style?
I memorized a Catholic piece from Italy like an Italian, but did not play it like an Italian. If I had played like them, a disconnect would have occured in the album.

In that case, "Lamento di Tristano," which comes after a Turkish folk song, would sound like a piece being played from some other CD. But in its current state, the listeners cannot differentiate the transitions between the tracks.

All the religious pieces on the album belong to the same sincere feelings. They are all music composed for God.

The album contains Greek Orthodox sounds, African hymns or Italian Catholic hymns, and I feel all of them are the same. Ultimately, the target of all of them is the same.

That you have performed the music of different religions with the culture of Anatolia as a backdrop makes Muslim listeners think that they are all Islamic melodies. Do your audiences abroad feel the same, that what you play belongs to their religion? In what way do they react?
When I perform the pieces that contain invocation, European listeners close their eyes and automatically start swaying. They are mostly the followers of another religion and also know that dhikr is a type of religious music that belongs to Islam; but knowing this doesn't prevent them from enjoying this music.

Respectively, I perform a Spanish Catholic hymn Jezebel, the Mevlevi rite in the hijaz maqam, followed by the Jewish hymn Yad Anuga.

Even if the people who listen to these back to back are Jews, Christians or Muslims, they all say that all the pieces belong to them. When a Christian listens to the ezan, the Muslim call to prayer, he says it belongs to him. The ezan awakens religious feelings in them.

Did anyone react negatively to you for making religious music?
People from my immediate surroundings showed a few negative reactions… What I feared most about this project was to be seen as "trying to appeal to a certain segment" and to be branded accordingly.

No segments exist for me! These are pretty ugly things to say. I'm a person who looks at everything with an open mind. An invocation performed by the most devoted Muslim or a Christian hymn sung by a most radical Catholic are both the same to me. All of them are the same in essence.

You keep insistently saying in your statements that you are not religious…
Some called me "religious" after the release of this album. And I said, or rather was forced to say, that I was not a religious man; this is not something good.

I'm not an atheist, I'm a believer; but I was forced to make that statement. Why the pressure? To me, everyone is equal, everything is the same; at least, that's how I see things.

Some people are proud to declare that they are atheists, whereas I'm indirectly coerced into stating that I'm not a religious person. I would have included pieces only from the Islamic culture, and it would have had a greater appeal to the European ear, but I couldn't.

(...)

You had one particular bad concert experience in Turkey. Will you be giving concerts as part of this album?
Oh, yes! I played to an audience of 5,000 people in Greece and the other day I played the same pieces to only 50 people in İstanbul, which put me off music.

I'm not pushing for it, but people have been demanding concerts from me. I might organize concerts by combining the two albums and by employing some visual aids.

For instance, I may have scenery from our country displayed or I might use dancers, but definitely not a big group of instrumentalists. It should always be elegantly simple -- maybe a couple of percussions and some sufis for the invocation parts.

I'm planning to open up to African countries and Muslim countries. I'd like to work on some projects with the people there also.

Bridges Across Faiths

Second Editorial: Peace in mysticism - The Daily Times - Lahore, Pakistan
Sunday, July 20, 2008

A meeting organised by the University of Gujrat to discuss the topic of “Resurgence of Sufism as a Universal Movement for Peace and Development” on Friday came to the natural conclusion that mysticism removed barriers of hard faith and led to peace which is the translated meaning of Islam.

However, the same day a TV channel discussed Sufism and found fault with the great mystics of the past in their claims of direct communication with God.

In these days of punishing orthodoxy, the stock of mysticism is low. Anyone inclined to follow the path of our saints can be killed, as shown by the murderous ongoing clashes in the Khyber Agency.

Mysticism is an internal phenomenon which can’t even be expressed but it permeates our culture through poetry.

It loosens the hold of the orthodox clergy and brings people together without their agency in an atmosphere of festivity at the various melas.

The world outside is becoming aware of this trend in Islam and is reaching out to it simply because the orthodox clergy will not communicate except through jihad.

So we should constantly reassert our Sufi heritage and build bridges across faiths.

[Picture: University of Gujrat and World Punjabi Congress on Saturday organized a Mehfil-e-Mushaira (Poetry reading) to entertain the Indian delegation and national participants of the International Conference “Resurgence of Sufism as a Universal Movement for Peace & Development” at Hafiz Hayat Campus, UOG. Internationally renowned poet, Anwar Masood presided over the event.]

Read more at the University Website http://uog.edu.pk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=182&Itemid=1

'Persian Nightingale'

NA/MK, "Greece to host Iranian vocalist" - Press TV - Tehran, Iran
Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Shahram Nazeri, one of the most prominent Persian vocalists, is scheduled to perform classical and mystic pieces in Athens, Greece.

The Hellenic Festival will witness a 90-minute performance by Nazeri. He will perform songs adapted from the works of outstanding Iranian poets Mowlavi and Hafez.

Nazeri will be accompanied by fellow Iranian artists, the virtuoso Tanbur player Ali-Akbar Moradi, percussionist Pejman Haddadi and Daf player Kourosh Moradi.
Three-stringed Tanbur and Daf (frame drum) are traditional Persian music instruments.

Greek lyrist Matthaios Tsachourides will also collaborate with the ensemble.

In September 2007, Nazeri received the French Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres Medal for his significant role in advancing traditional Persian music.

Nazeri, also known as the 'Persian Nightingale', is slated to perform in Athens' Scholeion Theatre on July 25.

Al-Mujadid

[From the French language press]:

Le Cheik Uthmân dan Fodio (1754-1817) est une figure mythique de l'histoire de la pensée islamique en Afrique de l'Ouest.

par Matthieu Vernet, "S. Moumouni, Vie et oeuvre du Cheik Uthmân dan Fodio 1754-1817 de l'islam au soufisme" - Fabula - France; vendredi 18 juillet 2008

Shaykh Uthmân dan Fodio (1754 - 1817) is a mythical figure in the history of Islamic Thought in West Africa.

While his life and work have been widely studied, his work about Sufism is relatively little known.

The contribution to Sufism in the work of the Shaykh stands out at three levels: technical literature for internal use for murids; texts describing his experiences and spiritual initiation, and, finally, the texts of controversy and speculation between Sufism and other Islamic doctrines.

This book traces, through unpublished manuscripts, the life and work of this great mystic, "al-Mujadid" (the Renovator), as he is known in West Africa.

Seyni Moumouni is a teacher and researcher at the Institute for Research in Human Sciences at the University of Abdou Moumouni Niamey [Niger].

Vie et oeuvre du Cheikh Uthmân Dan Fodio (1754-1817) De l'islam au soufisme
Seyni MOUMOUNI
Préface de Souleymane Bachir Diagne

Editions L'Harmattan http://www.editions-harmattan.fr/index.asp

An Icon of Sufism

[From the French language press]:

Jbel Alam, capitale mondiale du soufisme: un colloque du 25 au 29 juillet. Chercheurs et dignitaires religieux parmi les invités.

Promouvoir l’image de tolérance de Moulay Abdeslam et de son disciple Chadili, tel est l’objectif d’un colloque international de la Tarika Mashishiya-Chadilia.

Par Ali Abjiou, "Jbel Alam, capitale mondiale du soufisme" - L'Economiste - Casablanca, Maroc; mercredi 16 juillet, 2008

Jbel Alam, world capital of Sufism: a symposium from July 25 to July 29. Researchers and religious dignitaries among the guests.

Promoting the image of tolerance of Moulay Abdeslam and his disciple Chadili: this is the objective of an international symposium of the Tariqa Mashishiya-Chadilia.

This first meeting on the personality and spiritual message of the saint of Jbel Alam will provide an opportunity to meet, in Tangiers and Tetouan, various spiritual dignitaries, researchers and historians interested in this icon of Sufism.

Other guests include Moroccan academics and experts.

Announced also Bariza Khiyari, a French Senator, particularly active in terms of bridging cultures; Eric Geoffroy from the Marc Bloch University (Strasbourg), a specialist in Sufism and sanctity in Islam; and Shaykh Khaled Bentounes, spiritual leader of the Alawiya Mostaganem.

Moulay Ben Abdeslam Mchich Alami (born in 1140 CE) and his disciple Chadili are surrounded by an aura of mysticism in the collective subconscious of Morocco.

Moulay Abdeslam is called "holy of holies", so much so that visiting his mausoleum seven times amounts to a pilgrimage to Mecca.

The ultimate goal through the organization of this symposium is to set the foundations for a global forum on the Mashishiya-Chadiliya.

For Those in Love

TP Correspondent, "Waris Shah Urs from tomorrow" - The Post - Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Jandiala Sher Khan: The 210th Urs celebrations of renowned Sufi Saint Waris Shah will be started here from July 23 which will continue for three days.

Thousands of devotees of Waris Shah from various parts of country and abroad have started reaching to attend the annual Urs celebrations.

The Urse will be started with the recite of versus from the Holy Quran after which District Coordination Officer (DCO) Suleman Ejaz will perform the bathing of the tomb of the great Sufi Saint with rose water.

District and City Journalists Association's President Ilyas Gujar, Muhammad Yaqoob Sandhu, Mudassar Irfan, Akhter Rasool Janjua, former SP Syed Ahmad Khan, Manager Waris Shah Complex Ahsanul Malik and Ahmad Zia Khan will take part in the ceremony.

Vendors have started setting up various kind of stalls including of literary books while Circus and Theater will be featured during the celebrations.

On the second day of the Urs, a singing competition of 'Heer Waris Shah' will also be held in which people from across the country will take part. The Punjab Arts Council and Khabrian Group of News Papers will organise the competition and prizes will be distributed among position holders at the end of the competition.

Meanwhile, dance of horses and Kabaddi competitions will be held during the Urs.

The Punjab minister for youth will be the chief guest during these competitions. All the guests will be served with traditional dish "Chori of Desi Ghee."

Sheikhupura DPO Zeim Iqbal Sheik and DSP Traffic Haji Khalid Javied have prepared a special plan for smooth traffic flow during the celebrations.

On the other hand, Wapda Sub Divisional Engineer Shafqat Ullah Virk said that electricity to Waris Shah Complex would be provided without any interruption for three days.

Meanwhile, all markets, shops and commercial centres will remain close in connection with the Urs celebrations in the district on July 24.

[Picture from http://www.apnaorg.com/poetry/heercomp/. Visit the Site for a short Bio, a summary of the Heer in English, and more]

The Patched Cloak of the Celestial Sphere

By Karen Rosenberg, "An Emperors’ Art: Small, Refined, Jewel Toned" - The New York Times - New York, NY, USA
Friday, July 18, 2008

Muraqqa is the Persian term for a patched garment traditionally worn by Sufi mystics as a sign of poverty and humility.

Yet it is also the word for a gilded and lavishly calligraphed album.

This type of muraqqa, a luxury object from the Mughal empire in India, is a patchwork of imagery: portraits of emperors and courtiers, Eastern mystics and Western religious figures; examples of plant and animal life.

For just two more weeks muraqqa commissioned by the Mughal emperors Jahangir (ruled 1605-1627) and his son Shah Jahan (ruled 1627-1658) will be on view at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of theSmithsonian Institute here [Washington DC].

“Muraqqa: Imperial Mughal Albums” showcases 82 rarely seen paintings from six albums. These muraqqa are indeed patchworks, of the most elegant and refined variety.

Accompanied by an informative (and, at 528 pages, intimidating) catalog, the show inaugurates a yearlong festival of India-related programming at the Sackler and Freer Galleries of Asian art that will include performances, films and an exhibition in the fall titled “Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur.”

The works in “Muraqqa” were collected by the American-born industrialist and philanthropist Alfred Chester Beatty (1875-1968), who established a library in Dublin for these and other treasures.

One imagines that Beatty, a mining magnate, was drawn not only to the jewel tones and gilded surfaces of Mughal paintings, but also to their intimations of empire.

Formal and informal portraiture, naturalism, spirituality, worldly extravagance and history are condensed into images no bigger than a notebook. (The museum has thoughtfully provided magnifying glasses.)

A typical album is composed of folios, or double-sided sheets, made up of several layers of paper pasted together. Each folio pairs a painting with a section of calligraphy, both surrounded by decorative borders; the relationship of image and text varies from illustration to loose association.

While the paintings in “Muraqqa” are by many different artists, much of the text can be credited to the famed calligrapher Mir Ali of Herat, who often signed his works in abject fashion, “the sinful slave Mir Ali the scribe” or “the poor Ali.” His voice, sometimes plaintive and sometimes mocking, is as distinct as his handiwork.

(...)

Bridging the reigns of Jahangir and Shah Jahan are 19 folios from the Minto album, a collection of 40 folios currently divided between the Chester Beatty Library and the Victoria and Albert Museum [in London, UK]. Among the most lavish in the show, these folios are distinguished by elaborate, gilded borders of flowering plants.

(...)

In a portrait that hangs in the final gallery of the exhibition the Sufi shaykh Shah Dawlat wears a short patched shawl. The garment’s colors echo the red-and-yellow border of the painting, linking one type of muraqqa to another.

A preface by Mir Ali, reproduced in the catalog, comes to mind: “As long as the patched cloak of the celestial sphere contains the sun and moon, may this album be the object of your perpetual gaze.”

“Muraqqa: Imperial Mughal Albums From the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin” continues through Aug. 3 at the Smithsonian Institution, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 1050 Independence Ave., SW, Washington; (202) 633-1000, asia.si.edu.

[Pictures: left, "Mu'in al-Din Chishti Holding a Globe" from the Minto album. Painting by Bichitr and calligraphy by Mir'Ali; right, "Majnun in the Wilderness" from the album of Shah Jahan (circa 1640-45).
See more images at http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/07/18/arts/0718-MUGH_index.html]

In Word and Deed

Yale Center for Faith and Culture, "Loving God and Neighbor in Word and Deed: Implications for Christians and Muslims" - Yale Divinity School - Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
Press Release, Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Professor Miroslav Volf and the Yale Center for Faith and Culture are planning a series of top-level interfaith workshops and conferences, the first of which is scheduled for July 24-31, 2008, on the Yale University campus

Background
In our increasingly interdependent world, religion remains a powerful force with the potential to either foster peace or provoke conflict.

A unique and potentially history-changing opportunity has arisen with the publication of A Common Word Between Us and You in October 2007, an open letter to Christian leaders and communities from 138 influential Muslim clerics representing every school and sect of Islam from around the world.

Compellingly, even if somewhat surprisingly, it states that what unites Christians and Muslims is their common commitment to love God and neighbor.

Among the most influential of the many Christian responses to the Common Word was a letter drafted in November 2007 by a group of scholars at Yale Divinity School, headed by Miroslav Volf, professor and director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture, and coordinated by Joseph Cumming, director of the Center’s Reconciliation Program.

Endorsed by more than 300 of the most influential Christian leaders from this country and abroad, “Loving God and Neighbor Together: A Christian Response to 'A Common Word Between Us and You'” stressed that the dual commandment to love God and neighbor has the potential to reorient Muslim-Christian relations away from a “clash of civilizations.”

This reply, in turn, led His Royal Highness Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan, the primary drafter of A Common Word and President of the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought in Jordan, to engage enthusiastically with Professor Volf and the Center’s staff in planning a series of top-level interfaith workshops and conferences, the first of which is scheduled for July 24-31, 2008, on the Yale University campus, to be followed by others in October (Cambridge University), November (the Vatican), March 2009 (Georgetown University), and October 2009 (Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute, Jordan).

We are hopeful that these meetings have the potential to redefine Christian-Muslim relations in the 21st century.

The Yale Workshop and Conference
The conference, “Loving God and Neighbor in Word and Deed: Implications for Muslims and Christians,” includes both a scholarly workshop and a broader conference.

The larger conference, July 28-31, involving more than 60 Muslim participants (mostly from the Middle East), a similar number of Christians, and nine Jewish guests, will extend the discussions of the preceding scholarly workshop to a larger group of scholars and leaders.

The workshop, closed to the press and public and scheduled for July 24-28, will involve approximately 60 Christian and Muslim scholars, along with three Jewish observers.

The objective of the Yale workshop and conference is built on the foundation laid by the two widely embraced documents.

Together with H.R.H. Prince Ghazi, who is coordinating the participation of Muslim signatories, we have set as our goal the exploration of ways in which the common commitments can help rectify distorted perspectives Muslims and Christians have of each other and repair relations between the Middle East and the West.

If Muslims and Christians, who together comprise more than half the world’s population, can acknowledge mutual commitment to loving God and loving neighbor, the boost to a dynamic and peaceful interdependence in our globalized world would be immense.

[Click on the title of the article for the Event Schedule]

[Picture: Miroslav Volf, director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, and Sheik al-Habib Ali al-Jifri of the Tabah Foundation at a 2007 press conference in Dubai. Photo: Yale University]

An Important Opportunity To Win Hearts and Minds

By Sumes Milne, "Promotion of clients and stooges will get us nowhere" - The Guardian - London, UK
Thursday, July 17, 2008

The political knives are out for Shahid Malik, Britain's first Muslim minister. For years poor Malik has bent over backwards to toe the New Labour line and be the epitome of an acceptable, moderate Muslim.

But Malik also knows his own community and, when a ministerial edict went out to boycott the largest Islamic cultural and political event ever staged in Britain, he balked.

By any reckoning, he argued, the IslamExpo extravaganza, which attracted 50,000 people over the weekend, was a mainstream gathering and an important opportunity to win hearts and minds. Only when his departmental boss, the international development secretary, Douglas Alexander, cracked the whip did Malik relent.

Now he is paying the price in time-honoured style. First, he was taken to task in the Times by Dean Godson, research director of the rightwing thinktank Policy Exchange, which was last year found to have relied on faked evidence for an inflammatory report into extremism in British mosques.

Then, as if by magic, a knocking story appeared, complete with a withering comment from a "Whitehall source" about Malik's "seriously poor judgment", detailing the minister's failure to realise that a peace meeting he was due to address with his department's knowledge was linked to the Moonie cult.

Anyone who attended IslamExpo will know that it was, as Boris Johnson's champion Andrew Gilligan put it, an "impressive and serious" celebration of the diversity of Muslim art and culture.

The political debates brought together a broad range of voices - from the US Nixon Centre's Robert Leiken to Rached al-Ghannouchi, who played a key role in reconciling mainstream Islamism with democratic principles in the 1990s - as well as many more women than attend most mainstream British political events.

They would have been broader still if some of the harshest critics of British Muslim leaders had not joined the government and Tory frontbench boycott, which took in Stephen Timms, the employment minister, and Conservative community spokeswoman Sayeeda Warsi, as well as the unfortunate Malik.

The trigger for their abandonment of a rare chance to engage with thousands of British Muslims seems to have been an article by the increasingly extreme anti-Islamist campaigner, Ed Husain, comparing the event to a British National party rally.

His case for such a patently absurd claim was that some of the organisers had had links with Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood, though the details are contested. But it was enough for Hazel Blears, whose communities department has been taking an ever-harder line against the most politically active sections of the Muslim community, to insist on a boycott.

Note that there is no suggestion of involvement in current terrorism in this controversy, in Britain or Israel. The issue is the government's growing hostility to dealing with anyone connected with the highly diverse movement that is Islamism.

This is a political trend that has violent and non-violent, theocratic and democratic, reactionary and progressive strands, stretching from Turkey's pro-western ruling Justice and Development party through to the wildest shores of takfiri jihadism.

But it's largely on the basis of this blinkered opposition that the government is now funding Husain's Quilliam Foundation, promoting other marginal groups such as the Sufi Muslim Council and turning its back on more representative bodies such as the Muslim Council of Britain.

This is a dangerous game, whether from the point of view of reducing the threat of terror attacks on the streets of London or narrowing the gulf between Muslims and non-Muslims in the country as a whole.

As opinion polls show, most Muslims around the world are broadly sympathetic to Hamas as a movement resisting occupation of Palestinian land - and British Muslims are no exception. If such attitudes become a block on engagement with official Britain, or are ignorantly branded "Islamofascist", then the government and Tory opposition are going to end up talking to a very small minority indeed.

It's a risk well-recognised by some inside government. As one minister argues: "This cannot continue, it's completely counterproductive. You have to engage with those with influence over those you want to influence."

Some Muslim activists trying to work with government blame Blears' Sufi Muslim advisers, Azhar Ali and Maqsood Ahmed; one senior local authority specialist despairs that by refusing to deal with Muslim organisations the advisers crudely brand Islamist, ministers are "isolating themselves from the majority".

Blaming advisers is too easy. The British government, which is taking part in the military occupation of two Muslim countries, is hardly in a position to throw up its hands in horror at sympathy with political violence abroad.

But blurring the lines between support for those fighting foreign occupation and backing for violent attacks on civilians at home helps get the government off the hook of its own responsibility for the terror threat.

Part of the explanation given for pulling out of IslamExpo was that one of the organisers had expressed sympathy for suicide bombings in Israel. That was also the basis for banning the radical cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi from Britain.

However, both David Cameron and the government-backed Quilliam Foundation have strongly praised another cleric, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Ali Gomaa, even though he is also on record as supporting Palestinian "martyrdom operations". The crucial difference is that al-Qaradawi is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, the most popular opposition movement in the Arab world, while Gomaa is appointed by the pro-western Mubarak dictatorship.

This is also the key to official policy towards Muslim organisations in Britain. The groups currently regarded as beyond the pale - such as the organisers of IslamExpo - are those keenest to promote Muslim involvement in British society and politics.

But they are also the most actively opposed to western policy in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine - an important point of common ground, incidentally, with most non-Muslim Britons.

The organisations the government backs, on the other hand, are those who keep quiet about the wars the US and Britain are fighting in the Muslim world.

If the priority is really community integration and prevention of terror attacks, this sponsorship of clients and stooges is going to have to stop.

[Picture from IslamExpo 2008, The Islamic Garden http://www.islamexpo.com/attractions.php?id=10&art=14]

Some Are Dead in Life and Some Are Alive in Death

By Pr, "Wasif's urs on 26th" - The Post - Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Tuesday, July 15, 2008

The 16th annual urs of renowned Sufi intellectual, Hazrat Wasif Ali Wasif will begin from July 26, Saturday.

As per the program, the urs celebrations will start at his tomb at Bahawalpur Road after Asr prayers on July 26.

A Mehfil-e-Naat will also be organized; Srdar Nasrullah Dreshak will be the chief guest on the occasion.

On July 27, a seminar will be organized at Aiwan-e-Iqbal to highlight the life and teachings of Hazrat Wasif Ali Wasif.

The celebrations will end with special prayers on July 28.

[Image from his biography on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasif_Ali_Wasif]

The Place They Deserve

By Ali Pektas, "Yarkın’s new album archival work, preservation of musical tradition" - Today's Zaman - Istanbul, Turkey
Tuesday, July 16, 2008

With the release of their debut album, "Ten" (Skin), the Yarkın brothers expanded the horizons of Turkish music

The Yarkın Percussion Group, the first of its kind in Turkey, was established in 1994 by Fahrettin and Ferruh Yarkın and has managed to show that rhythm is not just a background factor, but can be appreciated on its own.

The group's primary goal was to "make drum players independent from horn players."

With later albums "Ten'de Ten" (Skin on Skin) and "Kervansaray" (Caravanserai), the group expanded its audience, and now their newest album, "Hayy," released recently under the Kalan Müzik label, has brought them once again to the musical agenda, giving today's voice to prominent works of Sufi music and at the same time serving as a rare archival work.

Contributors to the album include Bilal Demiryürek, Ahmet Şahin, Mehmet Kemiksiz, İlhan Yazıcı, Hamdi Demirci, Osman Ziyagil and Osman Erkahveci on vocals and Yavuz Akalın, Derya Türkan, Gökhan Filizman, Uğur Işık and Ferruh Yarkın playing music.

Fahrettin Yarkın spoke to Today's Zaman about the album, the commercially motivated albums of Sufi music that surface every Ramadan and the popularity of percussion music.

What was your goal when you first started to work on "Hayy"? Can it be described as an intentionally archival album?
There are hundreds of Sufi music albums on the music market. Until now, those who released these albums have tended to be either clerics or musicians only, and therefore there has always been something missing in these albums. I guess we have successfully fused both of these sides.

My brother, Ferruh, and I have been engaging in religious music since 1980 and had the opportunity to work together with many distinguished masters, such as Kani Karaca, Bekir Sıtkı Sezgin, Nezih Uzel and many more.

For a long time, we've had the intention to produce such an album. We have worked on the repertoire for about two years and we have also done meticulous work on the vocals.

We wanted to bring to the foreground the rhythm factor in this album and use some percussion instruments that have never been used before [in this musical genre]. Overall, we minimized the usage of melodic instruments.

Yes, we can possibly describe it as an archive work or an attempt to preserve the tradition. Apart from being an album with such a repertoire, it is a good work in that it is loyal to the original compositions and adapts them to the contemporary sound.

In the past, there were frequent discussions about whether there was religious music in Turkey or a need for it. What's your opinion on this?
We, as the Yarkın brothers, consider such discussions as out of context and unnecessary. In our opinion, there is indeed a religious music and any attempt to train, study or compose in this form of music is evidently very difficult.

In general, we can say that the area where religious music is used today can only represent the tip of the iceberg. There are tens more to what we now see and hear.

In particular, a number of Sufi music albums mushroom every Ramadan, and a section of these tend to be low quality, as they are produced with commercial goals in mind. Based on this fact, some argue that Sufi music is degenerating.
We are not interested in the commercial aspects of the work. We like to produce what we like to do. Of course, the primary purpose of releasing a Sufi music album in and for Ramadan is to earn money, and we cannot expect commercially-oriented minds to produce quality work.

We recorded this album in January 2008. We did not produce an album that can be listened to only at Ramadan. We regret that Sufi music is being degenerated. But it is not easy to prevent.

You set off as a percussion ensemble. Yet in your latest works, there are melodic elements. Are you going through a process of change?
We are happy to be a percussion ensemble. However our training and perspective do not keep us from utilizing from melodic elements, provided that we still give weight to percussion.

I hope 'Hayy' will be loved as much as and even more than 'Kervansaray.' We had conducted studies for months for some of the compositions in 'Kervansaray.'

We always perform long studies and then start the recording phase. In this respect, there has been no change. In our recent work, we have just given more room to melodic elements, but we still continue to use rhythmic structures and instruments as we wish.

What was your inspiration in saving percussion from being used just a factor accompanying other musical elements, making it an independently existing music element?
We won't be modest about this issue. Since 1995, we have been laboring to give percussion and percussion players the place they deserve. I guess we have shown that percussion can be both soloist and accompaniment.

As I said in our first album, we just wanted to make drum players are independent from horn players. At that time, there were mixed reactions. Yet it is good to see that percussion players are now getting the positions they long deserve.

‘We will establish a school of percussion if we find a sponsor'
"To remain and survive as an ensemble is very difficult. Although there are seemingly many percussion groups around, there is no true percussion band in the market.

Other than us, there's Engin Gürkey and his ensemble. They work more on Latin music and have managed to remain an ensemble. There are also good percussionists who work alone, such as Mısırlı Ahmet.

If you ask me about the current state of affairs in the market, I would say that I wish some groups that give preference to quality over commercial concerns would emerge and make contributions to music.

Time and music fans always eliminate the bad. We are waiting for good and original work. And if we can find someone to sponsor it, we intend to establish a percussion school."

A Sea of Humanity

By Dr. Eugene D’Souza, "Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti – A Saint of the Downtrodden " - Daiji World - Mangalore, India
Tuesday, July 15, 2008

The annual ten days Urs commemorating the death anniversary of one of the most revered Sufi Saints of India, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, who is also referred as the ‘Garib Nawaz’, which means 'the one who shows kindness to the poor', comes to an end on July 15 at his magnificent mausoleum (dargah) at Ajmer.

During these ten days millions of devotees visit and pay respect and offer floral tribute to the saint for the favours that they had received or seeking favours of different kinds.

Eminent political leaders make it a point to present ‘cheddars’ amidst fanfare and media glare to be offered at the tomb of this medieval saint whose spirituality and love of humanity has been attracting thousands of devotees not only during his lifetime but even after his death year after year for the past 772 years.

This shrine is also known as the ‘Dargah Sharif’ (Holy Tomb).

Not only during the ten days Urs, but throughout the year, devotees, pilgrims and tourists throng the mausoleum of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti. People of all walks of life and faith from all over the world, irrespective of their caste, creed and belief, visit this great shrine to offer flowers and devotion.

The rich and the poor stand side by side to pay homage and respect to this divine soul.

The mystic saints in Islam known as the Sufis were instrumental in spreading the ethical and spiritual values of Islam. Through spiritual attainment, piety and humanism they won over the hearts of hundreds of thousands of people.

They preferred to live among the masses of people, especially among the poor and downtrodden rather than living aloof from the society in mysticism and penance. Their service and love inspired the people and enabled them to realize the Eternal Truth.

Among the Sufi saints of medieval times, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti not only gained great spiritual and moral power but also manifested through practice his love and dedication to humanity without any worldly resources.

Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti was born in Sajistan, East Persia, in the first half of the twelfth century (around 1139).

Right from his childhood he manifested a spiritual bent of mind. At the age of 16, following the death of his parents, Moinuddin came under the influence of a spiritual leader and gave up his worldly belongings, distributed the money among the poor and took up the life of an ascetic.

He visited great centers of Islamic learning at Samarkand, Bokhara and other places and sought the guidance of a spiritual guide (Pir). Thereafter, he proceeded to Mecca and Medina on religious pilgrimage (Haj).

From Medina Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti proceeded to India and passing through Bokhara, Heart, Lahore and Delhi and meeting a number of Sufi saints arrived at Ajmer in Rajasthan at the age of 52 in 1290. At that time Ajmer was under the rule of Prithviraj Chauhan.

At Ajmer, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti attracted a large number of followers and acquired a great deal of respect amongst the residents of the city. Those who came in touch with him, especially the poor and downtrodden received kindest treatment and blessings from him and many became his disciples.

His simple teaching made great impact on common masses and his message of universal love and peace transcended the entire humanity without the distinction of creed and caste.

His strong faith in the unity of God provided the necessary ideological background to his mission of bringing about an emotional integration of the people amongst whom he lived.

Apart from the common people even the rulers and kings, both Hindu and Muslim used to visit the Khwaja and seek his intervention to solve their problems. However, he neither sought any favour nor any land grant from these rulers.

He lived a simple life relying on cultivation or alms.

Generosity to others, especially through sharing of food and wealth and tolerance and respect for different religions were the cardinal points of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti’s teachings.

Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti interpreted religion in terms of human service and asked his disciples “to develop river-like generosity, sun-like affection and earth-like hospitality.” The highest form of devotion, according to him, was “to redress the misery of those in distress – to fulfill the needs of the helpless and to feed the hungry.”

In order to continue his mission of service to humanity, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti founded the so called Chishti Silsila (Order of Sufis) in India and sent his disciples to different parts of India to carry on his mission.

After living a simple and dedicated life in the service of common people, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti passed into eternity at the ripe age of 97 in 1236. After his death a mausoleum (dargah) was erected on his tomb at Ajmer by Iltutmish, the Sultan of Delhi. It was beautified and enlarged later by the Mughal Emperors Humayun and Akbar.

The tomb is a square white marble structure with a domed roof and two entrances.

The mausoleum of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, popularly known as ‘The Dargah Sharif’ (holy tomb) has been a center of pilgrimage for both Muslims and Hindus. However, the terrorists did not even spare this shrine that represents communal harmony and universal brotherhood.

On 11th October 2007, when thousands of Muslim devotees were breaking their day-long Ramzan fast, the terrorists triggered a bomb inside the dargah complex that killed three persons and injured seventeen.

In spite of this the spirit of the pilgrims to this shrine of the most revered Sufi Saint of Medieval India has not dampened and the stream of devotees has become a sea of humanity during these ten days of Urs.

Beyond Literal

By Ramaa Sharma, "Is there room for music in Islam?" - BBC London - London, UK
[Old News] Thursday, December 20, 2007

Some Muslims believe music is "haram," forbidden in Shariah Law, but one East London Sheikh believes Sufi music can be a passage to God

The use of music in Islam is not as obvious as it appears in most other religions. Buoyant choirs, classical instruments and ceremonial processions do not accompany prayers as they do in many eastern faiths for example.

This could be due to the fact many Muslims interpret the use of melody and musical instruments as "haram" or forbidden in Islam. Some believe the Hadeeth scripture (words of the Prophet) states that the sounds of bells, in particular, have the devil behind them.

Other reservations include the belief that there is only one possible way to reach God, and that would be on judgement day. However, Sufis believe it is possible to reach God during ones life and that’s through musical meditation.

Sheikh Alley, a Malaysian priest based in East London says there is room for music in Islam and that you just need to have an understanding of its relevance. He says: - “We are living in an age of confusion, a very complicated age where people have diverted from their own tradition. They may understand the tradition that they have, but not at its core.

People tend to focus on the literal and not beyond literal. They have a shallow understanding of that aspect.”

On Thursday evenings in Leyton, many devout Muslims get together for “Dhikr.” A session whereby the group chant recitations from the Qu’ran and also sing "Naseeds" or praises of the Prophet.

Nazia Abbasi attends the Sheikh's sermons and Dhikr regularly, she says the sessions help her to pray. Nazia Abbasi says:

“The recitation of the Dhikr has helped me to focus more internally. It has allowed me to meditate and think about the state of my heart and mind."

The Sheikh's followers believe his lineage stems back to the Prophet himself. So his appreciation for Sufi Musicians is permeating as a result.

Sufi Musicians
Historically, Hazrat Inayet Khan and poet Jalaluddin Rumi first drew attention to this mystic tradition. The late Ustad Nusret Fateh Ali Khan was and still is considered a highly accomplished Qawalli artist. His passionate renditions were known to engage people of all faiths.

The Sufi Daf
The ‘daf,’ is a deep sounding bass drum, traditionally used by Sufis in the Middle East. Many artists believe the sound of the daf simulates the sound of a heart beat.

[To listen to the full interview with Shaykh Alley, click on the title of this article in order to go to the original article, then click on to the audio links on the right side of the article. Should it require a password, just press the "enter" key on your keyboard, and it should start]

About the Journey of Life

Music Editor, "Rock on... the Sufi way"- The Times Of India - India
Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Sufism, Islam’s mystical tradition, has always been popular in South Asia, where it sought to reunite people with love, peace and goodwill

Music played a large part in popularising Sufism like the Qawwali genre, which originated in 14th century India.

Through the 20th century, western and sub-continental musicians experimented by fusing these two very different strains.

The process peaked in the 90s, when Indian and Pakistani musicians mixed conventional rock with traditional sufi music. The resultant genre has been christened as ‘Sufi Rock’.

Conventional wisdom has it that Sufi rock began in 1996, when the Pakistani band Junoon released its third album, Azadi, featuring an eclectic mix of Sufi poetry and imagery, backed by hard rock rhythms.

However, cultural historian and musician, Madan Gopal Singh, feels otherwise: “Sufi rock is not an entirely Pakistani creation. In India, post-1991, the process of reviving Sufi music was going on.
It was a period of turmoil. The Punjab militancy had ended, Kashmir was boiling. Post-Babri Masjid, many NGOs organised Sufi concerts to stress communal harmony’s importance.
Then there were bands like Indian Ocean and artistes like Shubha Mudgal, who used a lot of Kabir in their songs.”

Agrees Palash Sen, lead singer of Euphoria, “We always assume that only Pakistani bands play Sufi music. But, we have a lot of Sufi elements in our music.”

So, what are Sufi rock’s distinct traits? “Spirituality. A lot of Sufi qalam (poetry) is about the love of God. Since Sufi rock fuses qalam with rock strains, the result is unique,” feels popular Sufi rocker, Rabbi Shergill.

Sufi imagery feel some is why Sufi rock is such a rage with the youth.

“The Sufi tradition is about pain, the search for happiness, and the journey of life, which makes Sufism attractive to the youth as they are asking similar questions in their lives,” says singer Zubeen Garg.

But, is Sufi rock the best way of bringing the wisdom of the revered Sufis to to-day’s youth? Filmmaker Muzaffar Ali, the man who introduced us to Sufi festivals like ‘Jahan-e-Khusro’, feels that it is both, good and bad.

“It is bad since these songs are more about titillation and don’t touch exactly where they should. Also, these bands remix lyrics which are a Sufi composition’s spine. But, as most people are not fully aware of Sufism, for now, this is an effective way of putting the message across to audiences.”

Singh puts it best when he says nobody denies such bands to brand their music as Sufi.

“Sufi music was never dogmatic, monolithic or homogenous. The various Sufi Tariqas and Silsilas differed vastly in their approaches to music and other aspects of life. Some, like the Naqshbandiyyah Tariqah even frowned on music. Others advocated music as a means to achieving God.

Most orders frowned on women and under-age males singing qalams. But, Abida Parveen and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan defied this injunction.

Sufism always has involved interpolation and has never been puritan,” he adds. And it never will be, dare we say.

[Picture: Kailash Kher. Photo by TOI (The Times Of India)]

To Be the Captain of Your Ship

By Mark Silver "The Five Surprisingly Necessary Qualities for Small Business Owners" - The Huffington Post - NY, NY, USA
Sunday, July 13, 2008

It's no joke, many small businesses end at a young age. Their owners, burnt out, broke, or simply preoccupied, give them up for good.

It can be a long, winding, rough path to get a business going. I've heard the same stories you have about the overnight sensations. But, for the vast majority of small business owners, it can take a lot of elbow grease and a lot of time before there seems to be any solidity.

When someone does move the sewing machine back into their home office, dusts off the resume, and heads back out into the job market, sometimes my heart aches for the missed opportunity and broken dreams. Other times I just nod, thinking it's the best choice.
What determines where a business owner ends up?


A Baseline Assumption Before We Begin
There are obvious questions: Are you providing a quality product or service? Do people need, use, and pay for things similar to what you're offering? I'm going to start with the assumption that these are already established.

The real issue is that business comes, but not easily. You've been working really hard at it, and you're exhausted and wondering if you should give up.

What Does It Really Take To Raise A Business?
It doesn't take an MBA from Harvard, or anywhere else. It doesn't take spiritual enlightenment (although a grounded spiritual practice helps tremendously). And, it certainly doesn't take a once-in-a-era miracle.

The usual things we hear about- determination, confidence, courage, know-how, sure, they all help. But there are some surprising spiritual qualities that seem to truly separate the "A" players from the rest.

Five of them, in fact.

The Top Five Qualities
Everyone I've seen who's gone from struggling to successful in business has been able to access these qualities, perhaps imperfectly and inconsistently, but they've got 'em, and they cultivated them. And it pays off.

1. Vulnerability
It's okay to take off that armor, Lancelot. It's too heavy and hot, anyway. Vulnerability is when you are open to letting things in.

Want more money? You need to be vulnerable. Need help from others? Vulnerability. Learning about your blind spots, or something new about marketing... yup, vulnerability.

It's the ability to say "I don't know." It's the willingness to risk falling in love, and opening your heart. It's when you say: "I can't do it on my own. Can you help me?"

On this entire list, I rate vulnerability as the single most important success indicator for small business owners. Without it, you're alone in the world, and can't receive what you need. And, it's hard to access the other four qualities without it.

2. Creativity
Here's how I define creativity: the ability to see how unlike things go together. Kinda like Sufism and Business, right?

Creativity isn't the power to create something out of nothing- it's the insight to see what odd, strange, unlike things can be combined to be useful.

This helps in creating unique offers. This helps in finding a place to fit your home office when there isn't a spare bedroom. This helps in spotting opportunities and niches.

It's actually a poetic quality- and successful business owners cultivate this ability to fit odd pieces together in (sometimes) useful ways.

3. Trust (or Faith)
The stereotype is working seven days a week, late into the night, getting it all done. Yet, you can't work ten to twelve hours every day and be truly productive.

Things start to break down. You miss opportunities, fall blind to miracles. You need spaciousness.

And to get that spaciousness, you have to have trust. Without the deep trust in your heart that you are going to be okay, you can't wrestle your to-do list to the ground and leave things, sometimes important things, undone, so you can access your creativity and aliveness.

4. Sovereignty
You are in charge. It's important, with vulnerability, to get advice, to learn, to let other sources of wisdom and experience guide you. But, when it comes down to it, you set the course.

Your business is a precious being, a vehicle for hopes, dreams, and transformational work in the world. It can provide a living for you, and perhaps others, and can help many people with some problem that's creating struggle for them.

Finding inside yourself the willingness to act, sometimes with less care and more boldness. To take actions and make decisions, even if they are at times messy and imperfect.

To be the captain of your ship. Without Sovereignty, you don't have a business, you have a job.

5. Patience
Wait for it... wait for it... Actually, the quality of Patience isn't about waiting for your ship to come in.

Patience is described by Sufi author and scholar Neil Douglas Klotz, in his book *The Sufi Book of Life*, as a pathway:

"This pathway can also help us work with projects or relationships where progress is likely to be slow, over a long period of time. The heat of patience and discomfort may, like a cooking compost pile, produce amazing future effects, ones we couldn't dream of..."

You aren't going to make (six figures, a million, insert your lofty goal here) by New Year's. Or by next New Year's. But maybe three or five New Year's hence, you just might.

If you have Patience.

Can You Order These Qualities on Amazon?
Uh... no. You can't. (Although you can get Mr. Klotz's book there.) That's the troubling thing with these kinds of intangibles, you can't buy them, you can't create them, you can't quantify them.

So, how do you get them? Let's do the quick one-two-three.

Keys to Cultivating the Top Five Qualities

• Start with Vulnerability
As I said above, the keystone quality is Vulnerability. Although all the qualities tend to help develop each other, that initial willingness to open up and let things in is the first step.

There are many ways to cultivate that vulnerability in yourself and the most effective I've found personally is some kind of spiritual practice, because it connects me to a larger Reality.

Whether it's devotional prayer, silent meditation, study of sacred texts, yoga or other movement, connecting to Source is a wonderful way to soften your heart, without flopping over and collapsing into powerlessness.

Our free workbook, *Getting to the Core of Your Business*, involves a simple, powerful, ancient Sufi practice called Remembrance that can be done in moments.

• Identify the quality you're needing in the moment
Rather than trying to get them all at once, all the time, notice what you're trying to do, and see if you can use the vulnerability of "I don't know" to ask your heart which quality is really needed in the moment.

Your heart may surprise you- you may have thought you needed Sovereignty to force something through, when in fact you needed Patience, or Trust.

Identifying which Quality allows you to proceed with focus and intention.

• Bring that softness of heart to the Quality in question
We tend to have assumptions about what 'creativity' or 'sovereignty' really is. And those assumptions come up most strongly when we are needing them and wishing we had them.

By bringing Vulnerability to your approach of Patience, for example, you can ask in your heart: "Please help me experience Patience in this situation. I'm curious what it looks like here?"

Again, allow the vulnerability and a willingness to be surprised.

These Qualities are intangibles and hard to grasp mentally, especially when you've got a long a to-do list and you feel stuck.

And yet, by giving them some attention and space, rather than trying to to push through anyway, you'll find that you begin to cultivate them, and your business will start to shine with success, too.

And you? What's your relationship to these Qualities in your business? Especially vulnerability?

[To receive the free workbook from the Author, click on Getting to the Core of Your Business
To buy Mr. Klotz's book, click on The Sufi Book of Life]

Something Akin to a Sufi Order

By Hamid Golpira, "Kicking" - Tehran Times - Tehran, Iran
Sunday, July 13, 2008

Kicking the drug habit is one of the most difficult things to do in life.

Any recovering drug addict will tell you that this is true. Fortunately, most people will never have to go through this experience personally.

There are basically four ways to kick drugs: (1) you can call on God for help and seek out the assistance of a support network of friends or professionals; (2) you can call on God for help without seeking out the assistance of a support network; (3) you can do it with a support network but without calling on God for help; or (4) you can try to do it all on your own without calling on God for help and without a support network.

(...)

Another problem faced by drug addicts is the fact that most of these individuals have addictive personalities.

A person with an addictive personality has an even harder time quitting than people who don’t have this condition. Perhaps they could be encouraged to become infatuated with stamp collecting, modern art, or other interests which are less harmful than drugs.

Thus, their addictive personalities could be channeled in a more positive direction.

Narcotics Anonymous is a group that has many branches around the world that have helped thousands and thousands of people kick the drug habit and begin to lead clean lives.

NA uses group meetings and the 12–step program, in which the recovering addicts are encouraged to believe in a “higher power” -- which is a non-denominational expression that NA uses so that they can be more inclusive.

Narcotics Anonymous has been criticized for the fact that only 25 percent of all the people who have attended meetings are able to stay clean for a long time, but this criticism is unfair since some people only join for one meeting and then disappear. And a 25 percent success rate is a lot better than a 0 percent success rate.

You can see the glass as one-quarter full and not three-quarters empty.

Narcotics Anonymous even has branches in Iran now, and they are doing excellent work by most accounts. In fact, some of Iran’s recovering drug addicts have a quasi-religious reverence for NA, as if they view it as something akin to a Sufi order.

So some positive things are happening amidst all this gloom. But there is an even darker side to the drug world.

The drug trade is a multi-billion dollar business worldwide, and some shadowy elements are trying to get people hooked on illicit drugs in order to control the masses and reap huge profits.

So where do we go from here? Well, clearly, a comprehensive international strategy must be formulated to address the world’s drug problem and all of society must play a role in implementing this strategy.

[Picture: NAIran logo. Image from: http://www.nairan.org/index.asp

To visit NA World click on this link http://www.na.org/]

With the Marvellous Dignity of Sufism

By Ahmad Mustafa, "Loss of a towering personality" - Gulf News - Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Thursday, July 10, 2008

Long before Francis Fukuyama published his famous article by the end of last century, an Arab thinker coined the term "End of History" in a different context.

As it was in Arabic, it did not attract a lot of attention and the author was not much credited. That was one of the early books of Dr Abdul Wahab Al Messiri, who died in Cairo in the early hours of last Thursday, aged 70.

In the book, End of History: An Introduction to Structural Study of Zionist Thought, published in 1972, Al Messiri suggested that the notion of "end of history" is a sort of Western hegemonic theory imposed on the world.

An outstanding professor of English literature, Al Messiri was predominantly known for his Encyclopedia on Jews, Judaism, and Zionism. Though some dogmatic propagandists accused him of anti-Semitism, Al Messiri was the most enthusiastic proponent of Semitism, yet staunchly against Zionism as a fascist outcome of Western imperialism.

In the Encyclopedia, which took 25 years of hard and continuous work, Al Messiri establishes the difference between Jews, their religion, and Zionism.

He refutes the misleading demagoguery linking Zionism to Judaism, and in all his other writings he was for the peaceful co-existence of Jews, Christians and Muslims in the region.

But he was always clear about the nature of the Zionist entity in occupied Palestine, created as a spearhead for Western powers to keep the region under their influence for good.

In his last year, while suffering from cancer, he led the opposition movement Kefaya (Enough) calling for political reform in Egypt. That was part of the spirit of that great thinker - determination and leading by example.

Besides the Encyclopedia, Al Messiri wrote tens of books, hundreds of articles, and gave as much lectures on wide range of subjects.

He was a model of the comprehensive intellectual, though the main contribution was his unrivalled, in-depth analysis of Zionism and its relevance to the Arab-Israeli struggle.


Intellectual foundation
Al Messiri spent years in the US early in the second half of last century, where he completed his post-graduate studies and worked on the early seeds of his literary project.

His exposure to Western culture enriched his experience, without deforming his genuine intellectual foundations.

The most important example, for the wider public aside from his academic colleagues and apprentices, Al Messiri will be remembered with is being genuine, consistent and principled.

Devotion and dedication to a cause were the mantra of the time, and he kept inspiring those who worked with him by the same principles.

He was one of the knights of a generation of great people that included economist Dr Ramzi Zaki, and politician and writer Adel Hussain, who left our world before him. There remains a few of this brand such as the socio-economist Galal Ameen and writer Mohammad Hasanin Heikal.

One of the things not that well-known is Al Messiri's contribution to the renewal of Islamic thought, in a more rational yet fundamentalist way.

Like many of his generation, he started as a Marxist. Then, like many others also, he moved closer to political Islam - without sacrificing the critical mentality and the scientific way of thinking.

I knew Al Messiri through his books before I met him two decades ago. Since then we met in Egypt and abroad, and every time I got that impression of a man who lives what he thinks and says - without any pretence or hypocrisy.

Personal integrity, like intellectual genuine consistency, was a common feature among that generation of pioneers.

I did not work closely with him in academia, nor was one of his students, but I learnt a lot from him.

One precious thing about the great Arab thinker we lost is the humility of a great scholar mixed with the marvellous dignity of Sufism.

Besides his philosophical work, he was a great literary critic, a poet and novelist. I remember one of his recent analysis a few years ago was a comparison between Lebanese singer Nancy Ajram and her Egyptian colleague Ruby, and how he concluded that Nancy is more real than Ruby.

His solid belief that Palestine will one day be for the Palestinians was never shaken, and it was no coincidence that he spent his last week of his life in Palestine Hospital in Heliopolis, where he died.

Al Messiri will live, not only through his literary creativity but also through the example he was living all the time.

Dr Ahmad Mustafa is a London-based Arab writer

No Space for ‘Hatred’

MNA, "Imitation leads to superficial productions: vocalist Nazeri" - Mehr News - Tehran, Iran
Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Iranian vocalist Shahram Nazeri is convinced that imitation leads to superficial productions.

In a press conference held here on Tuesday at the Iranian Artist Forum, Nazeri said that Iranian music is heading toward imitation by some masters of music, and that, “we are encountering an unpleasant situation for music these days.”

“Following a spectacular decade of music that we experienced right after the Islamic Revolution, some masters began to train students to imitate their own styles. This has spoiled ‘creativity’ which, of course, is the major essence of any artist,” he added.

He went on to say, “The old masters used to train their students in such a way that each one would find his own style and feeling and as a result would create something new, leading to variety in the art of music.”

Nazeri remarked that he considers himself a musician first, then a singer. As a musician he has always been trying to study and to do research work, saying “I never liked to be an imitator and always liked to exalt my art and music.”

“I believe in change and I hope these changes will lead to great results and that I can carry new messages about my homeland to the rest of the world,” he explained.

In Nazeri’s opinion, one of the major messages of art and music is “peace” and that there is no space for ‘hatred’ in an artist’s heart.

Nazeri who has been making use of ‘blank verse’ poetry in his songs, continued, “I mainly focus on poetry by Rumi, Ferdowsi as well as Persian blank verse.”

Nazeri and his band “Molavi” are resuming concert tours after a lapse of five years, with a two-night performance in Qazvin on July 15 and 16.

They will travel to other cities including Yazd, Isfahan, Shiraz, Kerman, Rasht, Sari and Tehran.

Nazeri was presented with the Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur medal, one of the most coveted trophies in the world of art and culture, by the French government during a ceremony in Paris in September 2007.

It was given to him in recognition of the meticulous attention he has paid to the musical interpretation and vocalization of the transcendent lyrics of the Iranian poet and mystic Molana Jalal ad-Din Rumi.

[Picture: Iranian vocalist Shahram Nazeri attends a press conference at the Iranian Artist Forum in Tehran on July 8 for his upcoming tour concert in Iran. Photo: Mehr/Azin Zanjani]

On a Ride to Another World

By Shoeb Khan, "An affair with Sufiana art" - The Times of India - India
Tuesday, July 8, 2008

The Sufi message of peace and harmony is being propagated through an exhibition of paintings called 'Sufi art exhibition' organized by Salman Chishti, a Sufi Scholar and a curator of art paintings

He is displaying his collection of 100 paintings on handmade khadi paper at the Chishti Manzil here.

The theme of exhibition revolves around calligraphy and paintings depicting Sufi values.

At the exhibition, the Sufi paintings of Najmul Hasan Chishti, a khadim of the Khwaja and a calligraphy artist. The unique feature of this exhibition is the representation of the saying of Sufis in calligraphy, along with its meaning illustrated through a painting in the background.

The principal essence of Najmul's works is portraying life in 'Sufi Islam' and especially on 'Sama, a form of mediation, widely practiced by the Sufi 'dervish'.

One can observe Rumi poetry in many of his paintings. He had beautifully portrayed the whirling 'dervishes' in ecstasy.

The most prominent painting of an artist has been named 'Vajd', the meditating 'dervish', this painting captivates the mood of a 'dervish', swathed in a multi-coloured clock, although their eyes are open by their gaze, it is directed inward away from the world.

Another painting which is receiving appreciation is depiction of 'Basant' on the verses of Amir Khusrau, the famous Sufi poet of thirteenth century. The painting portrays 'dervishes' traveling to the shrine on Basant clad to offer garlands of yellow flowers while singing Qawwalis.

The paintings appear to be miniatures at first sight, but a closer look reveals the artist's beautiful use of watercolors. Artist Najmul began his affair with brush and paint years back when he was a student of fine arts. His deep love and faith in Sufi values helps him in coming up with ideas.

Salman, the organizer of the exhibition, have successfully created a Sufi ambiance at the venue of exhibition. The art lovers can be seen lost in themselves, when they encountered with the aroma of scented incense and in a background the Turkish Sufi music takes them on a ride to
another world.

"The objective of this exhibition is to encourage the dying art of calligraphy as well as to revive the tenets of Sufism, that preaches universal brotherhood," said Salman.

The exhibition, which was inaugurated on Saturday morning and will continue till July 14, is attracting a lot of attention from the devotees coming to the dargah to participate in the 796th annual Urs.

Apparently exhilarated by the paintings, Fahim Hussain from Mumbai said, "It's a soothing experience, which will take you to a different world."

The Core of the Sufi

By Pranav Khullar, "The magic of Ajmer Sharif" - The Times of India - India
Tuesday, July 8, 2008

To enter the sanctum of Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti to offer the customary ‘chadar’, the ornamental spread, is to touch the core of the Sufi, the one for who the heart is the true shrine of God.

You enter a sacred space where all distinctions dissolve, where the “power of now”, as Eckhart Tolle puts it, seems to draw into its vortex all other outer preoccupations of the mind.

Such is the magnetic call of the heart of the Khwaja that seekers and pilgrims alike have sought inspiration and blessings from Ajmer Sharif through centuries.

The spectacle of the nazrana or offerings at the tomb is symbolic of human ego bowing down to the austere and compassionate spirit of the Khwaja. You can feel your heart expand as you experience liberation suffused with a mystical love even as the mehfils and the qawwalis rise to a crescendo, creating the right ambience.

The Urs of Ajmer serves as an annual reminder of the need to humble the individual self in the presence of the divine. For such was the faith of the Khwaja himself in the need to surrender to God through service to others while leading a strict spartan life himself, that this became the Sufi way of transcending the ego.

The stress on generous sharing and serving is embodied in the cooking and serving of large quantities of kheer. The milk pudding is prepared in two large cauldrons to be distributed later as ‘tabarruk’, the blessed food.

His uncommon love for the common man, his defining religion in the context of service to all, has earned the Khwaja the epithet of Garib Nawaz, the benefactor of the poor. While his own simple life was a living example of all that he believed in, his teachings reflect a rare compassion for all, transcending all barriers.

He would say: “Develop river-like generosity, sun-like affection and earth-like hospitality.”

His message was carried forward by Chisti Silsilah disciples like Bakhtiar Kaki, Baba Farid and Nizamuddin Auliya.

A true friend of God must learn to be as generous as the river that does not discriminate between good and bad, belief and disbelief. A true friend of God must develop sun-like affection for all. Doesn’t the sun bestow its light and warmth on all, irrespective of divisions made by man?

Unless we’re generous and compassionate, we would continue chasing shadows, getting deluded all the time. Mother Earth cradles us all in her lap, generous to a fault, giving all to her children. Only when we emulate this quality can we curb our acquisitive nature and become loving and giving, believed the Khwaja.

Only then would the “Wahdut-ul-Wujud” — Unity of Being — be realised here. This can happen only when the heart is immersed in silent remembrance — dhikr-i-khafi — of God, not merely through recitation but with remembrance.

Compassion is cultivated not merely by the swirling of the body but by the swirling of the soul, for only then would the dance of the dervish be truly understood.

It is the selfishness and ego of man which has to be swirled out, and cosmic love swirled in through surrender.

The Urs (death anniversary) of the Khwaja is but an occasion to seek and restore one’s faith in humanistic values by reaching out to all, just as the Khwaja has beckoned one and all through the passage of time.

[Picture: Entrance. Photo from: http://www.chishtihijazi.com/Teachings.htm]

How Many Raka'ah?

By Yulia Latynina, "Painting All Muslims With a Broad Brush" - The Moscow Times - Moscow, Russia
Wednesday, July 9, 2008

On behalf of all Muslims living in Russia, Geidar Dzhemal, head of the Islamic Committee of Russia, has called for an end to the persecution of Muslims in the country.

Otherwise, he warned, Russia will lose the Caucasus. It is untrue, however, that Muslims are persecuted in Russia, much less in the Caucasus. Visit a Friday service in any of the hundreds of mosques in Makhachkala, for example, and you will see thousands of people praying freely.

The persecution is directed at those who profess Wahhabism. It is also untrue that you can't distinguish Wahhabis from Sufi Muslims, the traditional branch of Islam in the Caucasus.

It is just as easy to find the difference between these branches of Islam as you can between Catholics and Protestants.

Ask a Muslim how many raka'ah -- a set of 11 ritual procedures when reciting prayers -- he reads on Friday services. If he answers "two," he's a Wahhabi; "six" and he's a Sufi. It's a basic question, like the difference between Communion in Catholic and Protestant churches.

It is true that those who give up drinking and smoking and who are engrossed in their thoughts of God are not rebels plotting against the state. It is ridiculous to interpret their prayers as a subversive act aimed at Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's overthrow.

After all, look at where Putin is compared to Allah.

But it is also untrue that Wahhabism is a peaceful religion for those who merely "pray differently." First, too many of its Russian adherents -- beginning with the founder of the Russian movement, Bagaudin Kebedov -- have openly declared that their mission is to kill "infidels."

Second, while there is generally a surprising tolerance between Islam's various branches, this is not so with Wahhabism. In the North Caucasus, nobody ever heard that members of the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam claimed that adherents of the Shafi'i movement were not true Muslims, or that the various orders of the Sufi faith did not recognize each other's legitimacy.

Followers of the great Chechen ulema Kunt-Kadzhi whirl while reading prayers, but the Avartsi believers do not. And what of it? They don't call each other munafiq, or religious hypocrites, over it.

This is not the case with the Wahhabi. Take even the most peaceful of them, and they will inevitably say that the traditional ribbon tied onto the tombs of the sheiks is a heathen practice, that reading six raka'ah during the ritual prayer instead of two is unacceptable and that everybody who prayers differently is an apostate and a hypocrite.

Nonetheless, the followers of traditional Islam wield far greater administrative power. They also enjoy the support of the authorities.

The Kremlin-installed Chechen president, son of a mufti and fanatical Muslim, Ramzan Kadyrov, persecutes the Wahhabis in the same way that Saint Ignatius of Loyola persecuted the Protestants.

Unfortunately, the Kremlin has chosen to side with the traditional Muslims in this theological dispute. But this is indefensible. A secular government should not take a position on how many raka'ah Muslims should read during their ritual prayers.

People who read two raka'ah should not be blacklisted and convicted unless it can be proven in court that they have engaged in illegal activity, such as taken up arms against authorities.

But this is not a case of persecuting Muslims. This is a case of one group of Muslims -- for example, the fanatical supporters of Kadyrov -- persecuting a different group of Muslims, the Wahhabi.

Similarly, you can't say that Henry I, Duke of Guise, persecuted all Christians during the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572, because he targeted only one branch -- the Huguenots.

Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio

A Third Image Of Islam

By Bramantyo Prijosusilo, "What can NU offer to mitigate prejudice against Islam in the West?" - The Jakarta Post - Jakarta, Indonesia

Monday, July 7, 2008

A group of Ph.D. students affiliated with Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) declared on June 28, 2008, in Boston, Massachusetts, the formation of their U.S.-NU community (KNU-AS). The community aims to mitigate the prejudices between the Islamic world and the West and strengthen the NU to help solve the problems Indonesia is currently facing.

KNU-AS declares that Islam and the West need not be mutually antagonistic, for both worlds should enrich one another. The curious thing was that the press release distributed by the KNU-AS did not specify just how Islam and the West could be mutually enriching.

The benefits and hazards of the West to the world are obvious. The West offers ever-developing sciences and technologies that alleviate suffering and open possibilities.
The West also offers a free and tolerant society that equally protects its minorities, including Muslims. The down side of the Western civilization is that it depletes resources and encourages runaway greed.

While science, technology, democracy and the rule of law make the human experience richer and safer, capitalism and the free-market concentrate power and access to resources in the hands of an elite, making the rich richer and the poor more wretched in a world that has ever less resources to share. Ultimately, Western civilization might devour the whole world.

The hazards of certain interpretations of Islam are also blatantly obvious: Terrorism and religious totalitarianism.

Terrorism is the weapon of the weak in their imagined jihad, materialized to match the perceived and real onslaughts against Islam and Muslims. Theocratic totalitarianism is the political system offered to the world by groups from the violent al-Qaeda to pseudo-intellectual Hizbut Tahrir, as an alternative to capitalism and democracy.

The violent, anti democratic image created by the actions of militant fundamentalists and projected by the media obscure the benefits that Islam might offer to the world. Even so, the fact that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the West, testifies that more and more people find something they need in the religion of Muhammad.

There must be something less obvious and more appealing in Islam than the severity of the harsh, patriarchal Sharia, even though that particular morbid image is widely broadcasted by the media. The newly established KNU-AS must take upon itself the task defining and demonstrating to the West the benefits that Islam has to offer.

Westerners who embrace Islam often cite that the materialism and consumerism of the West has resulted in spiritual malaise, boredom and alienation. In response to this condition, the spirit of free enterprise in the West has successfully packaged and marketed spirituality.

Since the Beatles visited Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India in 1968, the pursuit of spirituality as an alternative to the Western lifestyle has become ever more popular. In a way, the West's fascination with the positive aspects of Islam is part of this thirst for exotic spiritualism.

The successes of Sufi orders such as the Naqshbandi or the Qadiri Rifai in the U.S. and Europe reflect this very thirst. The recent facility to take bayyath (oath that connects the disciple with the master) into a Sufi order through a website, as well as the use of the internet in recruiting, planning and executing terrorist attacks, illustrates how deeply current Western technology has penetrated into the Islamic world.

KNU-AS is not a pioneer of Islam in the USA. The NU community founded in Boston is in an America that already houses at least two opposing images of Islam.

The violent suicide bomber represents the first, while otherworldly whirling dervishes represent the second. Both use the latest information technology to broadcast their diametrically opposed interpretations of Islam.

Because of its unique position as a part of the biggest Islamic organization in Indonesia that happens to follow traditionalist interpretations of Islam, a successful KNU-AS should be able to establish a third image of Islam in the U.S -- an interpretation of Islam that is neither otherworldly nor violent but down to earth and welcoming, as most Indonesians imagine themselves to be.

If it succeeds in this, KNU-AS efforts to fertilize the growth of an inclusive, tolerant Islam in Indonesia will be much more successful.

So, back to the main question: what does the KNU-AS have to offer the West?

KNU-AS's main attraction to the West is its potential to influence Islam in Indonesia, which lately has shown unsettling tendencies towards militant fundamentalism. To bring the potential to influence the NU and thus Islam in Indonesia to fruition, KNU-AS must firstly muster energy vital enough to influence the perception of Islam in the U.S.

To rise to this formidable challenge, KNU-AS might look into the possibilities of engaging in cultural diplomacy.

NU communities in Java have many amateur but excellent music, theater and martial arts groups that given the opportunity could easily capture a Western audience for a breathtaking hour or two. The very rich and sophisticated but relatively unknown performing arts of Banyuwangi (a traditional NU stronghold) for example, would be a safe bet to help shift perceptions of Islam in the U.S.

The same goes for the beautiful but devastating, obscure martial art of pencak silat. NU and its Pagar Nusa schools of pencak silat have many young and old masters who cannot only apply punches, kicks, takedowns, throws and joint locks, but can also, to an extent, defy gravity and demonstrate invincibility to fire and sharp blades.

Managed creatively NU's artists could put together a show as entertaining as the famous Chinese State Circus, guaranteed to inspire and capture people's imagination.

The only obstacle to doing this would be funds, especially as the members of KSA-NU are mostly students. However, considering many of the Indonesian elite have been caught giving and receiving bribes of large sums, there must be cartloads of that elusive stuff floating idly around, just waiting for a worthy cause.

The writer is an artist and former journalist. He can be reached at bramn4bi@yahoo.com

[Picture: Myristica fragrans (nutmeg). Image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia]

Hands Raised in the Air

By Sohail Chaudhry, "Summer Art Show" - Daily Times - Lahore, Pakistan
Sunday, July 6, 2008

Work of 16 artists goes on display at Nomad

Islamabad: The Summer Art Show, comprising works of 16 artists portraying their feelings about the society, social issues, nature and spiritualism, started at Nomad Art Gallery on Saturday.

The works of these artists have been displayed side-by-side to establish a close link between the artists and the art lovers, said Nageen Hayat, Nomad Art Gallery curator while talking to Daily Times.

She said these artists included from the emerging ones to leading names in the field of art in the country. “Nomad has been offering the platform to artists to exhibit their works for the last 15 years, which has proved quite helpful in exploring the young talent in the field of arts,” she added.

Artist Mehmood Ali in his works has depicted the culture and daily life of Rawalpindi using acrylics as a medium. He has painted these images in a very strong composition, which grasps the attention of a viewer at the first sight.

Nadeem Ahmed, who is associated with Nomad for the last fours years, has depicted political and social issues, especially the underprivileged, deprived and vulnerable segment of the society. He has used acrylics as medium to portray the decline of the society from the individual to institutional levels.

Ahmed has used different symbols to depict his feelings. The symbols of hands raised in the air depict the trend of beggary prevailing in the society in one or the other way.

He has pointed out that despite beggary at the governmental level no special change has occurred for improvement in the life of common man. He has used bold colours to highlight the gravity of the issue.
Sufism is another theme of his paintings displayed in the exhibition.

Hamid Alvi has wonderfully depicted landscapes with dissolved images using mix media and acrylics as the mediums. In his landscapes he has used subtle and bold colours.

Transformation of spiritualism to practical visualisation on canvas can be seen in Zia Zaidi’s abstract synthesis. Zaidi is a serious painter of modern concept. He avoids illustrating and imitating nature. His endeavour to depict the depth of mystery in spiritual theme with classic elements of painting compositions is no doubt a living example of creative reflection.
He has used strong and bold images wonderfully in his paintings displayed in the gallery.

Omar Khan, a graduate from National College of Arts (NCA), has masterly presented the traditional calligraphy in modern form. He has depicted verses of Holy Quran and names of God in a delicate and vibrant way. He is a good painter besides being perfect at calligraphy.

Nahid Raza, a leading artist, has chosen the feminine issues as her theme. In her paintings she has used very dark and rich colours to depict the undeniable role of women in society. She has masterly depicted different moods of women to describe their emotions and feelings.

Her works advocated that due status and rights should be given to women. Raza has used bold colours to depict the integrity of women through acrylics and mix medium.

Salma Mnazoor is an idealistic in her work. She has depicted aspiration of a woman using butterflies as symbols.

Najmul Hassan Najm’s works are a simple reflection of his inspiration and fascination, which he always derived from endless raw beauty of nature around him. He has presented landscapes in oil and strong brush strokes. Tranquillity of sea, calmness of empty spaces, wideness of the sky are his subjects.

Anjum Ayub has depicted the helplessness of the masses in front of power of state. She has presented people many times smaller in front of pillars symbolically used for the power of state. She has used mix media to depict her work on canvas.

Nasreen Aurangzeb has depicted landscapes of Northern Areas in oil and water perfectly.

AQ Arif with history as his theme, Moazam Ali with women of Tharparkar and Zarah David with dream like paintings are the artists whose works have been displayed in the show, which continue till July 30.

A Strong Plea For Love

Staff report, "Bulleh ki jana mein kaun" - Daily Times - Lahore, Pakistan
Saturday, July 5, 2008

Islamabad: Paying tribute to legendary mystic Bulleh Shah, Ajoka Theatre on Friday staged the most celebrated play ‘Bulleh’, based on the story of his life.

Written by Shahid Nadeem and directed by Madeeha Gauhar, the play portrays Bulleh’s poetry, reflecting events of his life as communicated through historical records and popular myths.

His search for truth, devotion to his mentor Shah Inayat, conflict with the intolerant clergy, opposition to wars and violence in the name of religion - all were highlighted in the play.

The performance had a strong plea for love, peace and an indictment against intolerance, violence and hatred.

Mian Shaharyar composed music for the play and Uzra Butt did the choreography. The set design was simple and effective, featuring one of the most exemplary theatre groups performing to an appreciative audience.

Bulleh is personification of the rich and vibrant culture of Punjab while Ajoka strives to revive the dying culture of folk theatre in the country.

The play was presented by Pakistan National Council of Arts (PNCA) in collaboration with Sungi Development Foundation at the auditorium of National Art Gallery.

Ajoka aims at promoting theatre in Pakistan. It presents plays with references to socio-political situations and highlights various issues in strong scripts and simple sets, says Madeeha Gauhar.

Alian Aamir, a viewer, said the Bulleh’s poetry meant to educate general public so that they could differentiate truth from lie. Rizwan Ruanaq, another viewer, said Sufism could contribute towards elimination of exploitation, religious biases and social injustice.

He said peace and tolerance was the main message of Sufism, and it should be adopted if the nation wanted to come out of crises.

Ghazala Najam said the government should support companies like Ajoka Theatre so that they spread the message of Sufism widely.

A Wild Lover Of God

Bureau Report, "'Rumi’s a bridge between east & west'" - The Times Of India - India
Tuesday, July 8, 2008

The maker of the all-time classic Umrao Jaan is all set to end his over-a-decade-long hiatus from filmmaking.

Muzaffar Ali, the filmmaker-turned-fashion designer has turned a movie maker again, and is planning an epic on the life of the 13th century mystic poet Rumi – often regarded as the epitome of Sufi tradition.

Being widely read, the Persian poet is the Oriental world’s apt ambassador in the West, believes Muzaffar, who is yet to decide on the lead actors.

“Rumi is a bridge between East and the West, and is the right person to dispel the incorrect notions that West harbours for the other side of the world,” says he, adding, “he is also the most widely read poet in America.”

Describing his concept of the protagonist in Rumi – The Fire of Love, Muzaffar says the poet was a scholar who went on to become a “wild lover of God”.

“My film traces the journey from his initial life to the making of a poet who wrote about the oneness of God,” says Muzaffar. “It will also explore the mystic friendship he shared with the dervish Shams-e-Tabrizi,” he added.

Ali, says he arrived at the final script for the historical after setting aside 25 initial drafts, and that he has done intensive research on the subject, sifting through the history of 13th century Persia, what now comprises Turkey.

The filmmaker also studied in detail the rise of the Seljuk dynasty, which ruled the region from the later part of the eleventh century till the onset of the fourteenth century. The Seljuk period, which brought Muslim rule at the doorstep of Europe by defeating the Byzantine empire thereby spawning a new era, was central to the period in which Rumi lived, the director said.

“I read about the Seljuk period intensively – its art and culture, the architecture and textiles. I also read a lot of literature belonging to that period,” he said. “Come to my house to see the quantum of research I have carried out on the subject,” he added.

The film, which will be produced in collaboration with the Qatar Foundation run by the wife of the Gulf state’s Emir, will take another year to go on the floor, revealed Ali, who has been assisted on the script by American Sufi expert Kabir Helminsky and noted scriptwriter, Shama Zaidi.

“The moment the financial issues are settled we will put in place casting directors,” the director said, when asked whether the actors who will play the lead roles have been decided upon.

The director, whose critical acclaim rests on films like Umrao Jaan and Gaman also confessed to be a lover of period dramas. “I love making period films because they enable me to create magic on screen. It is the idea of being possessed by a particular period through its imagination,” he said.

The director, however, believes Indian film makers have not done justice to historically important events of the country, including independence and the first war of independence. “Despite 1857 and 1947 being water-shed years in the history of our country, films based on the periods are so few, they can counted on fingertips,” Ali said.

“There should have been hundreds films on the subjects, the medium of cinema should have been better used to make people aware of the history of our independence and the massive tragedy it brought in its wake,” he added.

Compassion

ANI, "Dalai Lama offers prayer at Ajmer Sufi shrine" - Thai Indian News - Bangkok, Thailand
Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Ajmer: Tibetan Spiritual leader the Dalai Lama visited the revered Ajmer Sharif shrine in Rajasthan this morning to offer prayers on the occasion of ”Urs”, the 796th death anniversary of Sufi saint, Khwaja Moin-ud-Din Chishti.

The Tibetan Spiritual leader offered prayers at the Dargah Sharif during his two days visit to Rajasthan.

The Dalai Lama said promotion of harmony for lasting world peace has been his life-long commitment.

“All major religions of the world present the same potential to promote wholeheartedness or compassion. Through that way, genuine and lasting world peace can exist. You know for that reason, harmony among different traditions is very essential. This is my life-long commitment,” said the Dalai Lama.

Thousands of devotees congregate at the Ajmer Sharif shrine every year to offer prayers on the occasion of Urs, which began on July 5 this year.

The shrine is a symbol of religious convergence as people of all religions throng here in large numbers with the belief that all their wishes would be fulfilled once they offer prayers at the shrine.

An estimated one million devotees from India and abroad visit the saint’’s shrine during the six-day long Urs. The shrine also brings devotees from neighbouring countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The annual gathering is considered to be second largest congregation of Muslims at one place after Mecca.

[Picture from Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center Lehigh University: http://www3.lehigh.edu/dalailama/index.html]

A Higher Level Of Consciousness

By John Payne, "Homay and the Mastan Group at Walt Disney Concert Hall" - Los Angeles Times - Los Angeles, CA, USA
Saturday, July 5, 2008

Presenting traditional sounds of Persia, the musicians astound their audience at Walt Disney Concert Hall

The rapturous reception given Iran's traditional music ensemble Homay and the Mastan Group in their debut U.S. performance at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Thursday night was well-deserved, not just for their dazzling innovations on old musical forms, but for the inspiring audacity shown by the group's very formation.

The seven-member ensemble was founded by Parvaz Homay, a young man (still in his 20s) carrying on the Persian tradition of chameh soraei, in which a musician composes, writes his own lyrics and sings.

His ensemble comprises handpicked experts on the customary Persian instrumentation, including the four-stringed tar, the reedy, flute-like ney, the upright fiddle called kamanche and the multistringed hammered zither, santoor.

Calling their performance "A Forbidden Journey" -- also the name of the ensemble's latest album -- Homay and his colleagues, inspired by the Sufi poets Rumi and Hafez, aimed to reestablish the old Persian practice of creating music that can make the listener reach a higher level of consciousness.

Their nearly three-hour performance at Disney Hall achieved this effect via Homay's heartfelt lyrics and groundbreaking music, which builds on the older folklorical styles with bold new structures, rhythms and melodic schemes.

These 18 pieces were performed in exhilarating style, with each player functioning as both soloist and ensemble member. The pieces generally were worked out in formats that accommodated substantial personal interpretation by the individual players.

The opening "Man az Jahani Degaram" presented the basic outline of the evening's works, which were characterized by lengthy elaborations on the traditional song-shape. Other pieces used a set-up of introductory duet by the vocalist with various instruments -- such as the lute-like oud or the tombak.

The entire group would then play a more orchestrated version based on themes and/or rhythms alluded to in the preliminary duet.The modernity of the group's approach to this mainly non-harmonic music (i.e., it's not built on chords) became even more evident by its emphasis on a textural harmony that resulted from the blending of tones emanating from the particular instrumentation Homay had selected.

While many of these pieces were of extended length and of unpredictable pattern and pulse (which created a few amusingly failed attempts by the audience to clap along), they were nevertheless highly engaging and often even quite simply presented.

The words of revered Persian poets Parvin Etesami and Saghir Esfahani were interpreted by Homay himself in a high-pitched, richly nuanced vocal style as he conducted the band with bold strokes on twin clay drums.

These were mesmerizing performances that produced a euphoric goodwill in the listener, a feeling that lingered long after departure from the concert hall.

[Picture: Homay sings during his U.S. debut on Thursday evening. Photo by Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times]

At the Heart of "Sufi traditions"

By Arjimand Hussain Talib "NC's Sins, PDP's Lies" - Kashmir Observer - Shrinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India
Sunday, July 6, 2008

What we have seen so far is probably just a ripple on the surface. There is much more behind the diabolic curtain

It is like a false wirlwind after a real storm. The Jammu & Kashmir cabinet's land revocation order seems to have stirred a new wave of paranoia among Hindu fanatics. Suddenly over all they are up in arms – accusing J&K government of "surrender". But has J&K government really surrendered?

The people in J&K are today rejoicing, for they feel they have got their prized land back. On the other hand, the Sangh Parivar has rallied up, unleashing a wave of xenophobia against Kashmiri Muslims throughout India. But could the land revocation order of the State cabinet in any way hinder or undemine the Amarnath Yatra?

(...)

One of the most important aspects that is being missed around the whole debate on the forest land transfer of Baltal is India's new environmental laws and its National Environmental Policy (NEP). The whole area around Amarnath cave falls under what internationally is called Environmentally Sensitive Zone (ESZ). An ESZ has to be protected through proper laws.

That is why the first thing the current government needs to do is to frame an Environment Policy for the State. It must go beyond the old-fashioned discourse of the Pollution Control Board (PCB). I believe if we use the term "environmentally affordable number (EAN)" to argue why we want the number of people going to the cave to remain under control, our argument would make better sense.

In the absence of an Environmental Policy in J&K, NEP by default applies on J&K state as well. It is strange that neither the erstwhile National Conference government at the time of drafting the SASB Act [Shri Amarnath Shrine Board] nor the present coalition at the time of transfer of the forest land at Baltal obtained the mandatory Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) clearance.

It is possible that in the future facing further pressure government might undertake an EIA. Going by the past experience with EIA done at governmental levels, it is a foregone conclusion that such assessment would be a sham. We must demand an EIA, which must have international expert involvement from agencies like UNEP, World Conservation Union (IUCN) Green Peace and Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF).

Without international involvement no environmental impact assessment would be credible.

(...)

One of the most significant aspects of the NEP is that it calls to regulate tourist inflows into mountain regions. In section 5.2.6 on Mountain Ecosystems it says, "[governments must] Take measures to regulate tourist inflows into mountain regions to ensure that these remain within the carrying capacity of the mountain ecology and consider particular unique mountain scapes as entities with "Incomparable Values", in developing strategies for their protection."

The promotion of the idea of "Sufi syncretism" in Kashmir over the years – mainly by the Governor's office - has committed a grave folly: it has sought to subscribe religious brotherhood, pluralism, tolerance to "Sufi ethos", rather than Islamic principles. This approach has been self-defeating.

As a spin off, this approach has resulted in misunderstanding about Islam and its demonization, closing the doors on understanding Islam's ethos of pluralism. It has also sought to vilify Islamic teachings - as drawn from the Holy Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet of Islam (PBUH) - as unaccomodative and ambiguous.

Resultantly, most non-Muslims fail to appreciate that it is Islam as a religion that has given this world the concept of human equality as never practised before. It is basically the universal message of brotherhood of Islam which lies at the heart of what are today called "Sufi traditions".

To vilify Islam as "intolerant" and "radical" closes the door of understanding of Islam and its universal appeal of human brotherhood. There has been a serious aversion by certain Hindu groups to accepting that the ethos of compassion, tolerance and accommodation among Kashmiri Muslims, which are ascribed to Sufism, are basically rooted in Islam.

And it is this approach of sidelining Islam - while promoting Sufism as an antithesis to Islam - that has given rise to a situation where Kashmiri Muslims find their faith under attack.

That is one reason that explains the groundswell of public anger and outcry on Kashmir's streets today. Kashmiri Muslims are today, by virtue of their struggle for justice, most vulnerable to be labelled as "intolerant communalists."

The occasion might even be used to show case to a section of the international community susceptible to Islamophobia "the radical danger in Kashmir." This has the potential, in turn, of even turning the sympathisers of Kashmiri political cause away. That should not be allowed to happen.

We must begin with an Environment Policy and lobby with international environment agencies to argue why we are calling for an EAN for Amarnath yatra. Afterall, every human imperative – including religion - must reconcile with the imperatives of environment for the larger well-being of humanity.

Faith Over Fear

By Rajan Mahan, "Faith overrules terror as Urs arrives" - NDTV - New Delhi, India
Monday, July 7, 2008

The annual Urs in memory of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti is now attracting a huge turn out.

A prime symbol of India's composite culture, the Ajmer Dargah had suffered a terrorist blast in 2007, raising worries that the Urs this time may be a low-key affair.

But in a triumph of faith over fear, countless devotees are now pouring into Ajmer. Ignoring safety worries and security hassles, thousands of devotees are now flocking to the Ajmer Dargah.

Given the terrorist blast at this Sufi shrine in October 2007, many had predicted that the turn out for the annual Urs may be rather dismal. But faith in Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti has helped pilgrims to overcome all fears.

''Khwaja Gareeb Nawaz gives us courage and fills our hearts with faith. We will never sit at home because of fear of terrorists. No matter what they do, we will always come to this Dargah. Nothing will ever stop us,'' said a devotee.

For nearly 800 years, people of all castes and religions have been to Ajmer to seek the Khwaja's blessings.

And the Khadims, the traditional servers of the Dargah, say the Khwaja will never allow terrorists to succeed in their divisive designs.

''Despite the plans of terrorists, the bomb blast at this Dargah did not lead to a big tragedy. In that way, Khwaja Sahab had already responded to the terrorists. And now by turning up in large numbers, the devotees have given a fitting reply to terrorists,'' said Irfan Rizvi, senior Khadim of the Ajmer Dargah.

And as the Khwaja's favourite Qawaali echo in all corners of the Dargah, it is clear that faith has scored a resounding victory over terrorist fears.

My Life To This Quran

By Shoeb Khan, "Biggest hand-written Quran on display at Ajmer" - TNN/The Times of India - India
Monday, July 7, 2008

Ajmer: The annual congregation at the Sufi saint Khwaja Moinudin Chishti's mausoleum brings millions of devotees from around the world to Ajmer every year.

This year, apart from the usual spiritual pursuit, the devotees have something more to look forward to - the biggest hand-written Quran in the world, which was put on display at the dargah premises on Sunday.

The man behind the record-breaking Quran, Najmul Hasan Chishti, 56, said it was the result of unwavering spirit and nine years of hard work. "It's the biggest Quran in terms of size and font, which was compiled in one volume," Chishti said, adding, "It has 63 pages and the size of each page is 60x88 inch[m 1,5x2,23]."

Chishti, a Sufi research scholar and a khadim at the dargah, said the Quran represents the true essence of Quranic calligraphy. "I feel honoured after accomplishing the gigantic feat," he said, adding that every page has an average of 40 lines.

"Each page has a colourful border around the text, featuring flowers of different sizes and seasons," he said, adding, "At the beginning of each surah (verse), the word ‘Bismillah' (in the name of God) is written in a different calligraphic styles, which go back to the Prophet Mohammed's time," he said.

He said the Guinness Book of World Records has also expressed interest in the Quran. "A Guinness team is likely to reach Ajmer soon to verify our claim," he said.

Chishti said he began his professional life as an Urdu teacher in a government school, but gave it up in 2003 for the devotional endeavours.

"Thereafter, I dedicated my life to this Quran," Chishti, who is also a Urdu poet and writer, said.

He said the moral support of his family was crucial in accomplishing the extraordinary feat.

"My family supported me with creative ideas to enrich the style of writing. Valuable suggestions from my daughters helped me in coming up with innovative styles of calligraphy," he said.

Like Bricks In A Spiral

By Ruzik Tuzik, "Perspectives: Y.Z. Kami" - Huliq PR / Gagosian Gallery - Hickory, NC, USA
Friday, July 4, 2008

The Perspectives series of contemporary Asian art resumes with an exhibition of new works by artist Y.Z. Kami.

Born in Tehran, Y.Z. Kami draws from Eastern and Western aesthetic and mystical traditions to create large-scale works that explore the movement between the physical world and the inward spiritual journey.

A student of philosophy, he developed a particular interest in the human face and its relationship to the divine which has inspired several groups of portraits.

The exhibition will be on view through October 13, 2008.

This exhibition presents two monumental portraits from his current series depicting individuals in meditation. Each subject, rendered with a soft focus and simple palette, emanates a sense of peace and introspection.

In the third and largest work on view, poetry and religious architecture also give form to the divine.

Using collage and verses from the Mathnawi of Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273), the artist arranges words like bricks in a spiral of calligraphy that invokes the feeling of looking through a dome or the ecstatic movement of a ritual dance.

Y.Z. Kami at Freer Gallery of Art / Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

[Visit the Freer & Sackler Galleries http://www.asia.si.edu/default.htm
Visit the Gagosian Gallery Website http://www.gagosian.com/news/2008_3_20_yz-kami-at-the-arthur-m-sac/]

This Window Of Opportunity

By Hassan Abbas, "Pakistan needs more democracy to transcend Musharraf" - The Daily Star - Beirut, Lebanon
Friday, July 4, 2008

Following its recent free elections, Pakistan is rebounding politically.

But the euphoria that came with the end of the Musharraf era is wearing off, as the new government faces stark choices.

Unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, democracy is not new to the 60-year-old state, but ethnic cleavages, weak institutions, and religious extremism in the North are perennially destabilizing.

And, while the new government settles in and establishes its priorities, the West, especially the United States, must reassess the impact of its past dealings with Pakistan.

Pakistan's new prime minister, Yusuf Gilani, is a seasoned politician and, more importantly, has Sufi family roots, which is a good omen because of the Sufi tradition of tolerance.

Gilani unequivocally declared in his inaugural address that fighting terrorism was a top priority, and his first decision was to release from house arrest judges deposed by PresidentPervez Musharraf.

The respite from the horrendous spate of suicide bombings since the new government assumed power is similarly heartening. But the honeymoon period is coming to an end.

(...)

The revival of democratic politics in Pakistan will undoubtedly effect Pakistan-US relations. Pakistan's military links with the United States appear to remain on a sound footing, so the strategic alliance with Washington is likely to continue, perhaps with some nuanced differences over how to fight the "war on terror".

But Pakistani politicians are bound to be influenced by domestic public opinion, which is generally critical of American policies.

Nevertheless, long-term US interests in the region will be better served if Pakistan's democratic forces successfully establish themselves. A proposal in the US Senate to increase development and education aid to Pakistan could help in winning hearts and minds.

(...)

Pakistan's government appears to be preparing to talk to some of the extremists in the tribal areas, introduce political reforms, and redouble development efforts. But reference to "talks" makes the West uncomfortable.

American officials have likened this strategy to negotiating with terrorists, and point to a previous round of negotiations that did nothing to stop violence in the tribal areas.

But the new leadership wants to distinguish between Al-Qaeda terrorists and religious conservatives and disillusioned Pashtun youth within Pakistan. After all, the victory of the secular Awami National Party in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province is a strong indication that people there have rejected religious political forces and violence.

This window of opportunity can be expanded through dialogue and reconciliation with those who are ready to disavow extremism and militancy. The new Pakistani government needs to explain this to the West in order to keep its support.

The US, meanwhile, should end direct military strikes in the area, even if these are conducted with the knowledge and cooperation of Pakistan's military.

Force has never worked with the Pashtun tribes, and there is no evidence that this has changed. There are real signs that the new government is considered a credible partner in the tribal areas. It needs to be given time to find a way out of the endless cycle of violence.

Hassan Abbas, a fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, is author of " Pakistan's Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army, and America's War on Terror".

Visit the Dargah

Press Trust Of India, "Pak PM invited to visit Ajmer Sharif" - Hindustan Times - India
Thursday, July 3, 2008

Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has been invited to visit the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishty in Ajmer by a member of the management of the dargah.

Syed Sarwar Chishty, a 'khadim' of the Indian shrine, called on Gilani at the State Guest House in Karachi on Thursday.

He felicitated Gilani, a descendent of Hazrat Musa Pak, a leading spiritual figure of Multan in Pultan who hailed from Gilan in Iran, on becoming Prime Minister and prayed for his success.

Chishty also invited Gilani to visit the dargah in Ajmer.

[Click to the Urs Information: http://www.chishtihijazi.com/Urs.htm

click to Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Hasan Chishty bio http://www.chishtihijazi.com/BirthNEarlyLife.htm]

A Master Plan

TP Correspondent, "Waris Shah Urs from 23rd" - The Post - Lahore, Pakistan
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

Jandiala Sher Khan: The Urs of sufi poet and story writer Syed Waris Shah will be held from July 23 to 25 here.

A meeting was held with Executive District Officer Community Development Committee in the chair which reviewed arrangements of the Urs. He said all necessary facilities would be provided to the pilgrims.

Sheikhupura DSP Traffic Haji Khalid Javaid Papi said: "We have prepared a master plan for the smooth flow of traffic. If any traffic official is found involved in taking bribe from any visitor we will take strict action against him.

"If any transporter is found taking excessive fare he will be punished on the spot," he added.

[Picture: Warris Shah's Mausoleum, Floor Plan; Image ID: IAA8080. Photo from: Arch Net http://www.archnet.org/front/front.html. More images of Waris Shah's Mausoleum can be seen at the Arch Net Digital Library]

Je T'Aime De Deux Amours

By Daniel J. Wakin, "Spoleto Italy: Poetic Love Songs With Mideastern Roots" - The New York Times - New York, NY, USA
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

Spoleto, Italy: In around A.D. 800, as Spoleto was being subsumed into Charlemagne’s empire, a Sufi mystic in Iraq was writing poems extolling the purest kind of love for God.

The mystic was Rabi’a al-Adawiyya, and the poems — at least works attributed to her — wafted through the air Monday night at the Roman Amphitheater, site of some of the more arresting scenes at the Festival of Two Worlds.

The renowned ney player Kudsi Erguner, a Turkish-born Parisian who lives in Paris, appeared with an ensemble — two singers, a percussionist and the player of a qanun, a zither-like instrument.

They ney is a long end-blown flute. Mr. Erguner is a master who has collaborated with filmmakers, opera directors and Western musicians. Adding to the cultural layers of this arresting performance was the fact that the melodies were those originally sung by the mother of all Arab divas, Egypt’s Um Kulthum, to al-Adawiyya’s verse.

Waed Bouhassoun, a Syrian, sang directly and with feeling, her lines swirling sinuously with Mr. Erguner’s breathy ney. She also played the oud.

Ms. Bouhassoun was sometimes joined by Yunus Balcioglu, who is Turkish, and sang with an urgent tenor. A Frenchman, Bruno Caillat, produced a myriad of sounds on Middle Eastern drums. Ghassan Ammouri was a nimble qanunist.

The show was titled, “Je t'aime de deux amours" (I love You with two loves), from one of al-Adawiyya’s poems: one love is self-interested, the other only worthy of God.

Aside from a few drops, the rain threatening all day held off. But some things can’t be helped: occasional whistles from a nighttime soccer game nearby rang out.

[Picture: Ghassan Ammouri and Waed Bouhassoun. Photo: Andrea Kim Mariani]

[Read more about this show on the Spoleto Festival English Webpages: http://www.festivaldispoleto.com/interno.asp?id_dettaglio=67&id=8&lang=eng
Go to the English/Italian Home for the full Programme:
http://www.festivaldispoleto.com/]

A Tradition of Moderation

By Rama Lakshmi, "India's Moderate Muslims See Peril In Growth of Stricter Form of Islam" - The Washington Post - Washington DC, USA
Sunday, June 29, 2008

Umred, India: On his way out of the town mosque, through a green archway, Ghulam Sarwar Sheikh was handed a copy of the community newspaper. Quietly glancing over the front page, he sighed. The article that had caught his attention was about a series of bombings in an Indian city last month that killed 80 people and injured more than 150.

A previously unknown group, calling itself the Indian Mujahidin, claimed responsibility for the attack. It blamed the government for deliberately delaying justice for Muslim victims of religious riots.

"These are dangerous times. We cannot trust anybody," Sheikh, a 28-year-old taxi driver, whispered as other worshipers around him nodded in agreement. "We are holding on to our teenage boys by a very fragile thread. We have to protect them from outsiders who come to change our moderate ways."

Sheikh's concerns reflect the growing anxiety among Indian Muslims, a minority in this country of more than 1 billion people, following a series of bomb blasts carried out by radical Islamic groups over the past three years. Many in his community are proud of their moderate tradition and wary of straining the social fabric of this multi-religion nation. As a result, they and other Indian Muslims are starting to guard against Islamic groups that advocate stricter interpretations of the religion.

The modest prayer hall of Sheikh's mosque, for instance, has posted a painted sign warning outsiders to stay away. The sign lists the names of stricter Islamic groups, whose members are not welcome in the mosque.

In the past two years, several mosques here in the Indian state of Maharashtra have taken similar measures.

About two-thirds of India's 130 million Muslims are Barelvi Sunnis. In addition to attending mosques, they follow the mystical strain of Islam known as Sufism and attend shrines of Sufi saints -- seen by more conservative Muslims as blasphemous.

Shabeeb Rizvi, a professor at Rizvi College in Mumbai who is researching Islamic ideologies in India, said the Barelvis have increasingly felt besieged by Islamic groups with stricter interpretations of Islam, particularly Wahhabism, a conservative school of Islam that originated in Saudi Arbia.


"Most of the Barelvi Sunni mosques are in a dilapidated condition, and the groups loosely connected to Wahhabi ideology donate money for repairs, appoint their own priest and slowly begin to take over," Rizvi said. "About 30 percent of their mosques have been taken over by front organizations of Wahhabi ideology in 10 years. This brings a new aggressiveness to the Indian Muslim landscape."

Two years ago, a violent clash broke out at a Barelvi mosque in the town of Chimur, also located in Maharashtra, over ideological differences among the worshipers. Those with more conservative views took over the mosque, and the others are now building a new one, replete with a sign warning that not all are welcome.

The group now in charge of the mosque does not advocate violence of the sort that has inspired fears among moderate Muslims. Rather, the head cleric said in an interview that his group simply did not approve of Muslims who visited Sufi shrines and wanted to enlighten them.
"We do not belong to any group. We are just good Muslims," Abid Husain said. "But our doors are open. We do not put up signs."

Most Islamic groups that embrace Wahhabism or other strict versions of Islam do not support violence. And not all religious-based violence in India is carried out by Muslims. Last week, for instance, two Hindus were arrested in connection with a pair of explosions in suburban Mumbai. A Hindu nationalist tabloid, meanwhile, has urged Hindus to form suicide squads.
Still, Indian officials fear that members of more radical Muslim groups are seen as prey by organizations that do support violence.

"Muslims in India have always followed a moderate tradition. There have been no calls to violence in the mosques. But we can no longer remain complacent. A few have begun giving shelter to terrorists, helping put together the explosives and pressing the timer device," said a senior intelligence officer who has investigated several of the bombings in Indian cities over the past three years. The officer spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

He said about 300 Indian Muslims have been arrested or detained in connection with about a dozen bombings that have ripped through India since 2005.

In various interrogation sessions, the officer said, the radicals confessed to being driven by two specific episodes in recent Indian history: the 1992 demolition of a mosque by a Hindu mob, and sectarian killings in the western Indian state of Gujarat that left more than 1,000 Muslims dead in 2002.

"Terrorism is born out of the womb of injustice," said Akhtarul Wasey, the head of Islamic studies at Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi. "In spite of all this, Indian Muslims still have faith in the secular and democratic Indian state."

The violence, along with the police scrutiny, has led Indian Muslims to react in different ways. Some, like those at Sheikh's mosque, have closed their doors to outsiders. Others have publicly denounced terrorism.

One of the most pronounced responses came from the Deoband school, an influential 19th-century Islamic seminary that issued a religious edict against terrorism. The seminary has held nearly a dozen anti-terrorism conferences over the past several weeks.
"It is our religious duty to tell people that terrorism cannot be jihad. It is not a holy war," said Mahmood Madani, a member of the Indian Parliament and a prominent leader of the school. "There are so many bomb blasts in India today. Innocent people are dying. We are doubly concerned because Islam is being used to carry them out."

Many Indian Muslims say that a tradition of moderation is the strongest deterrent against terrorism.

In Sheikh's town, a small grave said to belong to a Sufi saint attracts about 50 people a day, many of them Hindus. Next to the grave, there is a portrait of the saint placed on a rickshaw covered with flowers and golden glitter. In thousands of similar Sufi grave-shrines in India, devotees offer embroidered sheets, incense sticks and coconut oil, and tie threads on intricately carved walls. They also sing and sway in a trance at these shrines.

"We believe that we cannot dare to approach Allah directly. No direct dialing for us. The prophet and these saints are our intermediaries," said Mohammad Hamid Engineer, who founded a small group called Iman Tanzim eight years ago to preserve the Barelvi Sunni way and identity in India. The group urges many mosques to hang signs at their doors warning conservative groups to keep out and publishes a community paper.

"We follow rituals that were born here on this land."

Good Government and Brotherhoods

[From the French language press]:

"Le rôle des confréries religieuses dans la stabilité économique et sociale du Sénégal". C’était le thème d’une conférence publique animée par le guide religieux et intellectuel sénégalais, Mansour Sy Djamîl, ce jeudi, à la salle de conférence de la librairie Clair Afrique de l’Ucad à Dakar.

Par Khalifa Ababacar DIOP, "Démocratie et bonne gouvernance : la solution par les confréries" - African Global News - Dakar, Sénégal; vendredi 27 juin, 2008

"The role of religious brotherhoods in the economic and social stability of Senegal." It was the subject of a public lecture hosted by the Senegalese religious guide and intellectual, Mansour Sy Djamîl, on Thursday, in the conference room of the library Clair Afrique of Ucad in Dakar.

For Serigne Mansour Sy Djamîl the leadership of religion in the world is such as to justify the debate on the role of religious brotherhoods in Senegal today.

This is all the more true that he himself has already been invited to Columbia University in New York (USA) to deal with the theme: "Tolerance, democracy and religious brotherhood or Sufi order."

That conference, said the Shaykh, registered 11 papers from eminent personalities among whose the Senegalese Souleymane Bachir Diagne and focused on Senegal.

The interest stemmed from the fact that Senegal is one of the few countries with a large Muslim population (over 90%) governed by democratic institutions where it is accepted that religious brotherhoods play a crucial role in the establishment of a tolerant and democratic society.

For him, therefore, since the Americans spent two days on the topic, it was crucial to organize this conference in an African university or in any case in Senegal.

Having raised the debate in these terms, Mansour Sy has addressed several topics during the conference.

Through the Path of Music

By Jyoti Nisha, "The dance of universal peace in Lucknow" - The Times of India - India
Friday, June 27, 2008

It isn’t everyday that city-folk get to experience the dance of universal peace – otherwise referred to as Sufi dancing.

Held at Ravindralaya and organised by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) this was definitely one of the most memorable cultural experiences in recent times.

The evening was a sojourn to meet God through the path of music and it was a sight to behold as a 12-member Sufi troupe from Syria kept the audience captive for over two hours.

The Sufis, sometimes joyful and expressive, other times meditative and inward, made sure that no one present was left untouched.

Clad in a bewitching white dress, the child in the troupe, Mohammad Haddad – also its youngest member along with Rajaa Mohamed Balankou, swirled like the wind itself in the dance named Malawi.

The other members included Mohammad Kadri Dalal, a lute player; Ghassan Mohamad Amouri on Zither (a rare string instrument of West Asia); Youseef Ibrahim Mohamad Al-Youseef on flute; three violin players – Abdulhalim Moustafa Fariri, Abdulbaset Mohamed Albakar and Mahmoud Abdulkader Chaghale.

Ahmad Arfan Mahmoud Hayek played a variety of drums and Mahmoud Shaghaleh on tambourine.

Celebrated religious singers – Hussam Libnani and Ame Kahiri famous for singing Alfatleh filled the ambience with a spiritual aura. The music was kind of a body prayer – the crooners sung it and the audience danced to it.

Well, if not literally then certainly emotionally.

An Enormous Legacy of Sufi Islam

By Maghdi Abdelhadi, "Fez music festival builds bridges" - BBC News - Fez, Morocco
Friday, June 27, 2008

I want the event to shed light on Islam as a civilisation, not only an ideology, but as a civilisation that has philosophical, artistic, urban, architectural and humanistic sides
Fawzi Sakkali, Former president of festival

(...)

"Religion is too important to leave to clerics alone," says the president of the festival, Mohamed Kabbaj, echoing a famous phrase by Napoleon Bonaparte about war not being left to the generals. "Writers and philosophers should also have their say on the role of religion in society."

Throughout the 10-day long festival and alongside the daily concerts, Western and North African writers, artists and academics met every morning to debate various aspects related to the role of the sacred in society and the arts.

When I ask Mr Kabbaj whether Morocco is in a better position than other Arab or Muslim countries to host such event, he answers with an unqualified yes.

He argues that not even Turkey - a part of which is in Europe - has had Morocco's long history of close ties with Western Europe.

The Moroccan coast on the Mediterranean is only a short distance away from Europe's southern borders. Both geography and history qualify Morocco to play the role of a bridge between the East and West. The city of Fez in particular speaks with the weight of history behind it.

This year's festival coincided with Fez marking its 1,200th anniversary. The old town - were the main shows of the festival took place - is designated a world heritage site by Unesco.

Fez was for centuries the spiritual and cultural capital of Morocco and the Islamic empire that flourished in Andalusia, today's Spain, for centuries.

The city has the oldest university in the Arab and Muslim world, al-Qarawyeen. Luminaries of the golden age of Islamic civilisation, such as the Jewish philosopher Maimoindes and Ibn Khaldoun, once lived and studied here.

Against the magnificent backdrop of one of its ancient gates, Bab al-Makina, artists from Africa, Asia and America performed.

The programme included for the first time joint performances of Muslim and Christian devotional music, thus underlying the fundamental message of the festival.

Sufi chants from Pakistan by Faiz Ali Faiz and his ensemble - known as the Qawwali - shared the stage with one of America's best known Gospel music artists, Craig Adams of New Orleans.
It was a thrilling performance that brought together some of the most vibrant devotional music from both faiths.

On a similar but less sparkling note was another joint performance the following night by Greek Orthodox choir, the Athens Tropos Byzantine Choir, with a Syrian Sufi ensemble, al-Kindi, led by Swiss convert to Islam Julien Jallaledine Weiss.

The sonorous tones of the Greek choir offered a sombre contrast to the powerful and lush Syrian orchestra in a show dubbed as Muslim and Christian homage to Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ.

But despite the lofty goals of the festival and the impressive shows put on by foreign and local groups, the event has its critics.

Some say that far from being a wide open dialogue between faiths, it is in fact a narrow exchange between the liberal Moroccan elite and its Western counterpart.

But organisers say that extremists are not interested in dialogue. They also point out that efforts have been made to make the festival more inclusive by organising free concerts for Moroccans who can not afford the evening performances at Bab al-Makina, where tickets cost around $80.

Moroccan singer, Abdelwahhab al-Doukali, voiced a similar kind of criticism.
Speaking to journalists ahead of his concert, Mr Doukali said local and visiting artists never get the time to really know one another and exchange views simply because of lack of resources. Visiting artists usually arrive for their performance then head home.

But a more serious criticism comes from the former president of the festival and its chief architect, Professor Fawzi Sakkali of Fez University.

He fears that commercial interests are driving the agenda, turning the festival into yet another tourist attraction.

Throughout the festival, a free Sufi concert is held every night - a very popular event for both Moroccans and foreign tourists.

Dr Sakkali acknowledges that cultural tourism can play a role in promoting world peace, but fears that commercial interests can reduce Sufism - which he believes is a more tolerant and open interpretation of Islam - to folklore, a touristic curiosity.

This would divest the festival of its original objective of promoting better understanding between faiths, according to Dr Sakkali.

To counter this tendency Dr Sakkali has launched a new initiative, the Fez Festival for Sufi Culture. "I want the event to shed light on Islam as a civilisation, not only an ideology, but as a civilisation that has philosophical, artistic, urban, architectural and humanistic sides," Dr Sakkali says.

"All of this comes from what is in fact an enormous legacy of Sufi Islam in Asia, black Africa and the Arab world. The aim is to offer a better understanding of Islam as a civilisation with its own profound ideas, its own literature and music."

The city of Fez, he says, is a microcosm of that form of civilisation, where Christians, Jews and Muslims once lived and worked together during the golden age of Islamic civilisation in the Andalus.

(...)

But despite the criticism it is hard to underestimate the festival's enormous potential for being a venue where creativity and faith can meet and exposure to new ideas can take place.

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On the sixth night of the festival, a Tunisian group put up a stunning performance in the form of a Sufi Hadra (a recital with powerful drum beats that can leave participants in a trance) mixing oriental and Western instruments such as the piano and the saxophone.

Led by Tunisian Lutfi Bushnaq the group included female performers, thus breaking with the traditional male-only ensemble for devotional music in Muslim societies.

Between Reason and Revelation

By Ehsan Masood, "A modern Ottoman"- Prospect Magazine - London, UK
July 2008/148

The Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, winner of our intellectuals poll, is the modern face of the Sufi Ottoman tradition

At home with globalisation and PR, and fascinated by science, he also influences Turkish politics through links to the ruling AK party.

Is it possible to be a true religious believer and at the same time enjoy good relations with people of other faiths or none? Moreover, can you remain open to new ideas and new ways of thinking?

Fethullah Gülen, a 67-year-old Turkish Sufi cleric, author and theoretician, has dedicated much of his life to resolving these questions.

From his sick bed in exile just outside Philadelphia, he leads a global movement inspired by Sufi ideas. He promotes an open brand of Islamic thought and, like the Iran-born Islamic philosophers Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Abdolkarim Soroush, he is preoccupied with modern science (he publishes an English-language science magazine called The Fountain).

But Gülen, unlike these western-trained Iranians, has spent most of his life within the religious and political institutions of Turkey, a Muslim country, albeit a secular one since the foundation of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s republic after the first world war.

Unusually for a pious intellectual, he and his movement are at home with technology, markets and multinational business, and especially with modern communications and public relations—which, like a modern televangelist, he uses to attract converts.

Like a western celebrity, he carefully manages his public exposure—mostly by restricting interviews to those he can trust.

Many of his converts come from Turkey’s aspirational middle class. As religious freedom comes, falteringly, to Turkey, Gülen reassures his followers that they can combine the statist-nationalist beliefs of Atatürk’s republic with a traditional but flexible Islamic faith.

also reconnects the provincial middle class with the Ottoman traditions that had been caricatured as theocratic by Atatürk and his “Kemalist” heirs.

Oliver Leaman, a leading scholar of Islamic philosophy, says that Gülen’s ideas are a product of Turkish history, especially the end of the Ottoman empire and the birth of the republic. He calls Gülen’s approach “Islam-lite.”

Millions of people inside and outside Turkey have been inspired by Gülen’s more than 60 books and the tapes and videos of his talks. Why? A combination of charisma, good organisation and an attractive message.

What Gülen says is that you can be at home in the modern world while also embracing traditional values like faith in God and community responsibility—a message which resonates strongly in Turkey.

Gülen insists that he is not a Sufi leader, but his thinking is certainly influenced by Sufi ideas: he says, for example, that a reader who wants to truly understand the Koran needs to invest his heart as well as his intellect.

Another belief he shares with Sufism is the idea that God, humanity and the natural world are all linked, and might even be part of a single entity, a sort of cosmic trinity. This idea has practical consequences.

For example, it suggests that a believer will love and respect humanity and the natural world as they would God. It also means that no one should be seen as an outsider. Hence Gülen’s insistence on friendship among people of all faiths and none.

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Fethullah Gülen was born in 1941 in a village near Erzurum in eastern Anatolia, near the border with Iran and Armenia. After a period of Islamic education, in 1959 he began work for the religious ministry as an imam—imams in Turkey are public servants—a post he held until 1981 when, shortly after a military coup, he struck out on his own.

The life of a government imam will not have suited someone with his creativity and charisma—those who have heard his sermons say he frequently reduces audiences to tears—and Gülen did well to last over 20 years.

While still an imam, Gülen joined the Light movement, a Sufi-inspired network for followers of the Turkish thinker Said Nursi, who died in 1960.

Gülen later broke away, but continued to be influenced by Nursi’s ideas on accommodating Islam to modernity and finding harmony between scientific reason and religious revelation.

Science and technology are important to Gülen for two reasons. First, he attributes the underdevelopment of many Muslim nations to a neglect of modern knowledge. For Gülen, a failure to study science is a dereliction of Islamic duty, as learning is repeatedly emphasised in the Koran.

More controversially, he says there can be no conflict between reason and revelation, and that science should be used as a tool to understand the miracle of the Koran.

Gülen does not follow those Muslims who believe the Koran contains all that is necessary for scientific understanding. He knows that scientific discoveries are mostly provisional and that science is an incremental business.

But he also believes that as researchers refine their understanding of physics or biology, they get closer to revealed Koranic truths, such as the existence of a creator. His approach has a parallel in the west in the Templeton Foundation, with its generous grants and prizes to scientists sympathetic to religion.

Sufism is integral to Ottoman as well as wider Islamic history, and in spite of attempts at repression, it remains popular and powerful in many Muslim countries.

In its most traditional sense, it is marked by a master-disciple relationship in which a Sufi master is linked through a chain of living and dead Sufi masters to Muhammad himself. These days, however, Sufi leaders are more mentors than svengalis, particularly in the west.

Two of Turkey’s leading Sufi networks are the Mevlevis and the Naqshbandis. The Mevlevis were founded by the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi, and they include among their network the famous whirling dervishes.

The Naqshbandis, founded in 1389 in central Asia, retain Sufism’s hierarchical structure but adhere to a more orthodox brand of Islam. The Naqshbandis were the leading Sufi order in the Ottoman empire’s last years.

Many in the ruling AK party are members of Naqshbandi lodges. Some, however, have a higher regard for Gülen than for their Naqshbandi co-religionists.

Gülen has not involved himself directly in Turkish politics, and has always set his face against political Islam. Religion for him is about private piety, not political ideology.

He was a stern and public critic of Necmettin Erbakan, the leader of the Welfare party—the forerunner to AK—who in the late 1990s briefly led a coalition government with the conservative True Path party. Gülen even backed the army’s “soft coup” of 28th February 1997, which forced Erbakan to resign.

(...)

About 32 per cent of Turkish boys and 43 per cent of girls leave education after primary school. Polls indicate that five in ten women cover their hair, and the government argues that girls are put off staying on in education by hijab bans.

In February, parliament voted by a large majority to amend the constitution and repeal the headscarf ban in universities, which had been in place since 1989. Yet on 5th June, this decision was annulled by Turkey’s constitutional court.

(Turkey has a grand tradition of legislating for headwear: the turban was outlawed in 1829 and the fez introduced, only to be banned in turn by Atatürk in 1925).

(...)

Even in the event of EU-enthusiasm returning in Turkey, there remain many objections in Brussels to Turkey’s political norms. One of them, of course, is the continuing involvement of the military in politics.

There is also the issue of minority rights, only now being tackled.

The republic has hitherto functioned on the basis that all Turks are Turkish-speaking Sunni Muslims. All other expressions of faith, language and culture have been suppressed. Even AK, in favour of more religious freedom, has been slow to promote the rights of Turkey’s Kurdish and Alevi minorities.

Gülen has always publicly supported the establishment and its organs of state, including the National Security Council. He has had the backing of both former centre-right president Süleyman Demirel and Bülent Ecevit, hero of the Turkish left in the 1970s.

However, many Kemalists do not trust him, and see his support for the AK government as vindication of their stance that he is a Trojan horse for political Islam. Gülen has been indicted on anti-secularism charges, but was acquitted in 2006.

For the past several years, he has lived in self-exile in the US, where he has not been in good health. Rumours persist that he is ready to return to Turkey, though in the current climate, with talk of political bans in the air, this seems unlikely.

Meanwhile, he has used his time abroad to build his overseas support and his network of schools—the latest has just opened in Pakistan.

Traditional Sufi leaders anoint a successor before they die. Gülen has not done so. Perhaps there is no need, as his ideas will live on through his books, DVDs, MP3 recordings and websites in 21 languages.

Whether or not he returns to the country of his birth, Gülen’s legacy as a thoroughly modern Sufi is secure.

[Picture: current issue of The Fountain magazine: http://www.fountainmagazine.com/]