By Abdalle Ahmed, *Somalia: Al Shabab Group of Somalia Arrests Prominent Sheikh* - RBC Radio/Raxanreeb Online - Mogadishu, Somalia
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Local residents in southern Somalia have confirmed that Al Shabab group arrested a prominent religious man in Basra district near Bal’ad, 75 km from south Mogadishu, RBC Radio reports.
Sheikh Abdul Rahim Sheikh Hassan, 102, and his wife had been taken to the custody by Al Shabab militia yesterday evening, relatives of the Sheikh told RBC Radio.
Sheikh Abdul Rahim and his wife had been taken to unknown location where the Al Shabab’s militia are holding for questioning local sources said.
The group has launched an attack on the city of Basra in the Middle Shabelle province, which was held the annual event for the visit of Sheikh Hassan Mo’alim as one of a pole from the Sufi imams in Somalia.
Sheikh Abdel Rahman Abu Yusuf Al Qadi, spokesman for Al Shabab had confirmed what he said is an operation agains illegal meeting held in the area, but declined to comment on the arrest of Sheikh Abdul Rahim.
This attack comes after the Somali government declared on Saturday that it had agreed with Ahlu Sunna, a moderate group in Somalia to cooperate with the prevention against armed opposition led by Al Shabab.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
From Different Communities
By ANI, *Devotees from different communities throng Bulle Shah's shrine* - Sify Video - IndiaMonday, December 7, 2009
Ferozepur, Punjab, India: Devotees from different communities throng Bulle Shah's shrine. A humanist and a philosopher Bulle Shah is considered as one of the greatest Sufi saints.
Born in 1680 in a family directly descended from the Prophet Muhammad he is known for practicing the Sufi tradition of Punjabi poetry established by poets like Shah Hussain and Sultan Bahu.
Though Bulle Shah was born in a small village of Uch Bahawalpur Punjab now in Pakistan, one of his shrines is located in the small village of Kandhwala Hazarkhan in Ferozepur.
Click on the title of the article to a video of the Fair at the Shrine
[Picture from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulleh_Shah]
Friday, December 18, 2009
Sufi Power
By Staff Writer, *‘Sufism’ effective offset to socio-cultural degradation* - The News International - Karachi, Pakistan
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Islamabad: At a time when ‘Sufism’ is being promoted as an antidote to religious fundamentalism, Dr. Fatima Hussain’s new book titled ‘The War that Wasn’t; The Sufi and the Sultan’ comes as an answer to all queries regarding ‘Sufi’ school of thought and its power over the masses.
‘Sufism’ played a considerable role in bringing humane teachings of the religion to the forefront during the Middle Ages and it is now considered to be an effective offset to the socio-cultural degradation threatening the very roots of our social values and system.
Dr. Fatima Hussain’s latest book analyses the subtle nuances of the dynamics of ‘Sufi’ power in the social politics of the Delhi Sultanate, and how this power affected the relations between the ‘Sufi’ and the ‘Sultanate’, the two most powerful institutions in medieval sub-continent. Dr Fatima’s book on ‘Sufism’ brings forth a vibrant picture of ‘Sufi’ school of thought in the contemporary world amidst growing concerns regarding the massive threat of religious extremism to global peace.
Dr Fatima Hussain is a profound scholar and teacher of history in Delhi University.
Sufism is a topic on which she already has published a number of articles and books. The book contains numerous anecdotes from medieval Persian sources, while dealing with incidents related to these ‘Sufis’.
Author’s object in this book has been to examine the broad bases of ‘Sufi’ history in the ‘Sultanate’ period to adduce sufficient evidence to suggest the need for a new approach.
This highly research based work contains vital aspects of the ‘Sufi’ movement, i.e., philosophy and practices of ‘Sufism’, development of ‘Sufism’ in the region, dynamics of ‘Sufi’ power and the multi-dimensional role of the ‘Sufi’ hospices, especially, as an impetus to urban expansion, such as ‘Khanqahs’ during the ‘Sultanate’ period.
Dr. Fatima Hussain is known in South Asian academic circles for her book ‘The Palestine Question: A Historical Perspective.’
‘Classic,’ of Lahore, and recent publication ‘Sufism & Bhakti Movement; Contemporary Relevance,’ that has been compiled by Dr. Fatima Hussain.
Dedicated to Benazir Bhutto, the volume carries papers presented at a seminar held at New Delhi’s Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Some articles of Pakistani authors, too, have been included in this 351-page book.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Islamabad: At a time when ‘Sufism’ is being promoted as an antidote to religious fundamentalism, Dr. Fatima Hussain’s new book titled ‘The War that Wasn’t; The Sufi and the Sultan’ comes as an answer to all queries regarding ‘Sufi’ school of thought and its power over the masses.
‘Sufism’ played a considerable role in bringing humane teachings of the religion to the forefront during the Middle Ages and it is now considered to be an effective offset to the socio-cultural degradation threatening the very roots of our social values and system.
Dr. Fatima Hussain’s latest book analyses the subtle nuances of the dynamics of ‘Sufi’ power in the social politics of the Delhi Sultanate, and how this power affected the relations between the ‘Sufi’ and the ‘Sultanate’, the two most powerful institutions in medieval sub-continent. Dr Fatima’s book on ‘Sufism’ brings forth a vibrant picture of ‘Sufi’ school of thought in the contemporary world amidst growing concerns regarding the massive threat of religious extremism to global peace.
Dr Fatima Hussain is a profound scholar and teacher of history in Delhi University.
Sufism is a topic on which she already has published a number of articles and books. The book contains numerous anecdotes from medieval Persian sources, while dealing with incidents related to these ‘Sufis’.
Author’s object in this book has been to examine the broad bases of ‘Sufi’ history in the ‘Sultanate’ period to adduce sufficient evidence to suggest the need for a new approach.
This highly research based work contains vital aspects of the ‘Sufi’ movement, i.e., philosophy and practices of ‘Sufism’, development of ‘Sufism’ in the region, dynamics of ‘Sufi’ power and the multi-dimensional role of the ‘Sufi’ hospices, especially, as an impetus to urban expansion, such as ‘Khanqahs’ during the ‘Sultanate’ period.
Dr. Fatima Hussain is known in South Asian academic circles for her book ‘The Palestine Question: A Historical Perspective.’
‘Classic,’ of Lahore, and recent publication ‘Sufism & Bhakti Movement; Contemporary Relevance,’ that has been compiled by Dr. Fatima Hussain.
Dedicated to Benazir Bhutto, the volume carries papers presented at a seminar held at New Delhi’s Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Some articles of Pakistani authors, too, have been included in this 351-page book.
Security Problems
By Abdi Guled and Abdi Sheikh/Reuters, *Somalia fires heads of police force and military* - The Washington Post - Washington, DC, USA
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Somalia's government fired the head of its police force and its military chief on Sunday two days after a suicide bomber killed three ministers and several others in the capital of the lawless Horn of Africa nation.
Ministers had already been debating for several weeks about replacing the two men to bolster security before a government spokesman announced the sacking of police commander Abdi Hassan Awale and military commander Yusuf Hussein.
"Ali Mohamed Hassan, a former ambassador was appointed as the police commander while Mohamed Gelle Kahiye, a senior military colonel was also appointed as Somali military commander," Abdi Haji Gobdon told Reuters.
Hassan was sacked in 2007 and replaced by Awale. Hussein had been at his post for close to a year.
"The prime minister and his cabinet have agreed to make these changes to tackle the security problems in Somalia."
Neighbouring Kenya has stepped up police patrols in Eastleigh, a Nairobi suburb, which is predominantly populated by ethnic Somalis, residents said. Thursday's hotel bombing in Mogadishu heightened concerns about the Somalia's ability to destabilize the whole region.
"Police have arrested more than 80 people in the last two days, Somalis and non-Somalis. They are arresting everyone who does not have immigration papers," Hussein Mohamed, deputy head of Eastleigh Business Association told Reuters.
"It seems there is a fear that fighters from Somalia may infiltrate the people and attack Nairobi."
Somalia's U.N. -backed government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed is battling an insurgency by two rebel groups seeking to introduce their own strict version of Islamic law.
At least 10 people died and a dozen others were injured in the early hours of Sunday after the country's main rebel group, al Shabaab, attacked Basra, a town to the north of the capital.
Residents said al Shabaab attacked early in the morning with dozens of heavily armed vehicles and engaged scores of armed Ahlu Sunna fighters in a fight with machine guns and rocket propelled-grenades.
Ahlu Sunna is linked to Sufism, a moderate branch of Islam, allied to President Ahmed's administration. Al Shabaab has targeted Sufi holy sites and religious leaders in the past, saying their practices go against the insurgents' strict interpretation of Islamic law.
"I have counted 10 dead sheikhs (preachers) lying in the roads of Basra. About 20 injured sheikhs were also carried in a boat through the Shabelle River," Sheikh Hussein Farah said.
Fighting in Somalia has killed 19,000 civilians since the start of 2007 and driven another 1.5 million from their homes.
(Additional reporting by Abdiaziz Hassan in Nairobi; Writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Louise Ireland)
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Somalia's government fired the head of its police force and its military chief on Sunday two days after a suicide bomber killed three ministers and several others in the capital of the lawless Horn of Africa nation.
Ministers had already been debating for several weeks about replacing the two men to bolster security before a government spokesman announced the sacking of police commander Abdi Hassan Awale and military commander Yusuf Hussein.
"Ali Mohamed Hassan, a former ambassador was appointed as the police commander while Mohamed Gelle Kahiye, a senior military colonel was also appointed as Somali military commander," Abdi Haji Gobdon told Reuters.
Hassan was sacked in 2007 and replaced by Awale. Hussein had been at his post for close to a year.
"The prime minister and his cabinet have agreed to make these changes to tackle the security problems in Somalia."
Neighbouring Kenya has stepped up police patrols in Eastleigh, a Nairobi suburb, which is predominantly populated by ethnic Somalis, residents said. Thursday's hotel bombing in Mogadishu heightened concerns about the Somalia's ability to destabilize the whole region.
"Police have arrested more than 80 people in the last two days, Somalis and non-Somalis. They are arresting everyone who does not have immigration papers," Hussein Mohamed, deputy head of Eastleigh Business Association told Reuters.
"It seems there is a fear that fighters from Somalia may infiltrate the people and attack Nairobi."
Somalia's U.N. -backed government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed is battling an insurgency by two rebel groups seeking to introduce their own strict version of Islamic law.
At least 10 people died and a dozen others were injured in the early hours of Sunday after the country's main rebel group, al Shabaab, attacked Basra, a town to the north of the capital.
Residents said al Shabaab attacked early in the morning with dozens of heavily armed vehicles and engaged scores of armed Ahlu Sunna fighters in a fight with machine guns and rocket propelled-grenades.
Ahlu Sunna is linked to Sufism, a moderate branch of Islam, allied to President Ahmed's administration. Al Shabaab has targeted Sufi holy sites and religious leaders in the past, saying their practices go against the insurgents' strict interpretation of Islamic law.
"I have counted 10 dead sheikhs (preachers) lying in the roads of Basra. About 20 injured sheikhs were also carried in a boat through the Shabelle River," Sheikh Hussein Farah said.
Fighting in Somalia has killed 19,000 civilians since the start of 2007 and driven another 1.5 million from their homes.
(Additional reporting by Abdiaziz Hassan in Nairobi; Writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Louise Ireland)
A Mowlavi Symposium
By TE/HGH, *Turkey to honor Persian poet Mowlavi* - Press TV - Tehran, IranSunday, December 6, 2009
Turkey is planning to hold a ceremony in commemoration of the world-renowned Persian poet Mowlavi in his eternal resting place in Konya.
The 10-day event will include mystic musical performances and various symposiums about the Sufi poet.
Visitors will also have the chance to watch Whirling Dervishes dancing the Sama, the traditional trancelike meditation of Sufism.
The Mowlavi symposium will host prominent Mowlavi experts from around the world including Dr. Mohammad-Ali Movahhedi from Iran.
Jalal ad-Din Mohammad Balkhi known as Mowlavi was a 13th century Persian poet, mystic and theologian, better-known for his six-volume poem Masnavi considered to be one of the greatest works of both Islamic mysticism and Persian literature.
UNESCO named the year 2007 as the year of Mowlavi in honor of the Persian poet's outstanding achievements.
World And Self
By K. Srilata, *Wordless as the flight of birds * - The Hindu - India
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Two poetry collections, embodying two different approaches to the world and self.
A Face that Does Not Bear the Imprints of the World, Usha Akella; The Buddha and Other Poems, Jiban Narah, Monsoon Editions, p.82 price not stated.
“A poem should be wordless,” says Archibald MacLeish, “as the flight of birds”. There is a quietness to much of Usha Akella's verse, a quietness between words, that soothes us like chamomile.
Usha writes in the Sufi tradition, a tradition marked by a turning away from all else but God, a tradition based on the letting go of duality.
The poems in her anthology A Face that Does Not Bear the Footprints of the World are essentially songs for the beloved. But in the Sufi scheme of things, who is the beloved if not God? And who is God if not the beloved? The Sufi spirit dances like a dervish, especially in the nine-odd poems Usha has classified under the theme “Beloved”, the strongest in the collection. The poet-narrator becomes “a divining fork tuned to only one thing”.
“Come back to me old and gray/ Do away with the pounding of the blood, Let Time trace wrinkles on your face,” the poet writes. She goes on to describing her beloved as one whose “failures sit on [his] shoulders as irreverent monkeys”. There is a wiped-clean mirror feeling to the verse in this section. Usha writes of “a face that bears not the world's footprints/Nothing has touched it except my Love”. There are some amazing images. Usha likens the succumbing to love to “a fish lying in the sun ready to die”.
Rhythmic cadence
A few of the poems — “Yes! Yes!”, for instance and “Love has forgotten her heart” — are meant to be read aloud, performed, sung. Clearly, there is a certain rhythm that the poet intended, a certain pace and beat but the printed word, as always, fails to convey that.
On the other end of the spectrum, some poems such as “Love is so busy” and “From the Rooftop” suffer from an excess of words and an absence of crafting. “I am tired of being you/ I am tired of being rebellious/ I am tired of second-guessing…” writes Usha in the latter poem, repeating one tired, unmusical phrase over and over again at least half a dozen times. It is the poems that do not “bear the footprints of the world” that are the most evocative.
Characterised by a lyricism and economy, Jiban Narah's poems, translated from the Assamese by Pradip Acharya, Krishna Dulal Barua and Niren Thakuria, draw extensively on Mishing myths. Steeped as they are in folk themes, the poems in the anthology The Buddha and Other Poems pose a challenge to the non-Assamese reader. But for that very reason, they also provide an interesting entry into another culture. Quite sensibly, the translators have not smoothed all the bumps for us and the reading remains awkward, pushing us beyond the poem to its footnotes. We learn (thanks to the footnotes) that the first man on earth is “abotani”, the god of water is “Jalakhai” and the god of land “thalakai”. We go back and forth a lot. Something is lost, no doubt, in the process. But we also gain another world.
There are other poems that resonate well in English, perhaps for the reason that their canvas is larger than the Mishing one Narah uses in so many of his poems or perhaps because the poet has successfully internalised and re-woven the folk into his personal canvas. “The Gourd Blossom” is one that travels lightly:
A rain drenched flute kept playing
One by one dreams kept falling
like leaves
I am a small sailboat
the note of the flute
makes me reach out to the banks
like a river
I would rather not spend this night alone
I am the lone first blossom
of the Flame of the Forest
In “Poetry” too the images sparkle and speak to us personally: “Knowing trees to be with bliss-hued leaves as birds/ yet you take the leaves for birds/ Aware that the birds aren't trees/ yet you plant birds”.
Narah uses colours to sensuous effect. In “Colours” he writes: Right after birth/ grandmother had ducked me in the green/ My mother picked me up/ from among the yellow….” Colours are central to Mishing culture and in Narah's poems they work both metaphorically as well as literally.
Narah's route to the world may be the Mishing route but it is a route that takes him both back to himself and out to the world beyond, to readers from other spaces.
The reviewer is a poet, fiction writer and faculty at IIT Madras. Email: sree@iitm.ac.in.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Two poetry collections, embodying two different approaches to the world and self.
A Face that Does Not Bear the Imprints of the World, Usha Akella; The Buddha and Other Poems, Jiban Narah, Monsoon Editions, p.82 price not stated.
“A poem should be wordless,” says Archibald MacLeish, “as the flight of birds”. There is a quietness to much of Usha Akella's verse, a quietness between words, that soothes us like chamomile.
Usha writes in the Sufi tradition, a tradition marked by a turning away from all else but God, a tradition based on the letting go of duality.
The poems in her anthology A Face that Does Not Bear the Footprints of the World are essentially songs for the beloved. But in the Sufi scheme of things, who is the beloved if not God? And who is God if not the beloved? The Sufi spirit dances like a dervish, especially in the nine-odd poems Usha has classified under the theme “Beloved”, the strongest in the collection. The poet-narrator becomes “a divining fork tuned to only one thing”.
“Come back to me old and gray/ Do away with the pounding of the blood, Let Time trace wrinkles on your face,” the poet writes. She goes on to describing her beloved as one whose “failures sit on [his] shoulders as irreverent monkeys”. There is a wiped-clean mirror feeling to the verse in this section. Usha writes of “a face that bears not the world's footprints/Nothing has touched it except my Love”. There are some amazing images. Usha likens the succumbing to love to “a fish lying in the sun ready to die”.
Rhythmic cadence
A few of the poems — “Yes! Yes!”, for instance and “Love has forgotten her heart” — are meant to be read aloud, performed, sung. Clearly, there is a certain rhythm that the poet intended, a certain pace and beat but the printed word, as always, fails to convey that.
On the other end of the spectrum, some poems such as “Love is so busy” and “From the Rooftop” suffer from an excess of words and an absence of crafting. “I am tired of being you/ I am tired of being rebellious/ I am tired of second-guessing…” writes Usha in the latter poem, repeating one tired, unmusical phrase over and over again at least half a dozen times. It is the poems that do not “bear the footprints of the world” that are the most evocative.
Characterised by a lyricism and economy, Jiban Narah's poems, translated from the Assamese by Pradip Acharya, Krishna Dulal Barua and Niren Thakuria, draw extensively on Mishing myths. Steeped as they are in folk themes, the poems in the anthology The Buddha and Other Poems pose a challenge to the non-Assamese reader. But for that very reason, they also provide an interesting entry into another culture. Quite sensibly, the translators have not smoothed all the bumps for us and the reading remains awkward, pushing us beyond the poem to its footnotes. We learn (thanks to the footnotes) that the first man on earth is “abotani”, the god of water is “Jalakhai” and the god of land “thalakai”. We go back and forth a lot. Something is lost, no doubt, in the process. But we also gain another world.
There are other poems that resonate well in English, perhaps for the reason that their canvas is larger than the Mishing one Narah uses in so many of his poems or perhaps because the poet has successfully internalised and re-woven the folk into his personal canvas. “The Gourd Blossom” is one that travels lightly:
A rain drenched flute kept playing
One by one dreams kept falling
like leaves
I am a small sailboat
the note of the flute
makes me reach out to the banks
like a river
I would rather not spend this night alone
I am the lone first blossom
of the Flame of the Forest
In “Poetry” too the images sparkle and speak to us personally: “Knowing trees to be with bliss-hued leaves as birds/ yet you take the leaves for birds/ Aware that the birds aren't trees/ yet you plant birds”.
Narah uses colours to sensuous effect. In “Colours” he writes: Right after birth/ grandmother had ducked me in the green/ My mother picked me up/ from among the yellow….” Colours are central to Mishing culture and in Narah's poems they work both metaphorically as well as literally.
Narah's route to the world may be the Mishing route but it is a route that takes him both back to himself and out to the world beyond, to readers from other spaces.
The reviewer is a poet, fiction writer and faculty at IIT Madras. Email: sree@iitm.ac.in.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Restoring Tekkes
By Gül Demir - Niki Gamm, *Local Istanbul municipality restores tekkes* - Hürriyet Daily News - Istanbul, TurkeySaturday, December 5, 2009
Though few dervish lodges remain in Istanbul as meeting places for Sufi orders, a visit to any of their locations throughout the city can reveal much about the background of the various orders
Though the 1925 ban against Sufi orders meant the closing of all their properties, recent efforts have seen the restoration of many orders’ tekkes, or dervish lodges, throughout Istanbul.
Though few dervish lodges remain in Istanbul as meeting places for Sufi orders, a visit to any of their locations throughout the city can reveal much about the background of the various orders
Though the 1925 ban against Sufi orders meant the closing of all their properties, recent efforts have seen the restoration of many orders’ tekkes, or dervish lodges, throughout Istanbul.
For centuries, the architecture of the sects’ lodges was often dictated by the practices of the sects themselves. The more elaborate the tekke, the wealthier the people who subscribed to that sect – even though many of these mystic sects called for the renunciation of worldly goods in order to become one with God or the ultimate Truth. The main lodge was usually built where the founder of the mystic sect was buried or vice versa.
Tekke architecture
Generally speaking, tekkes were made of wood and sometimes stone, depending on the amount of money and materials available. Even when quite large, they were not especially imposing buildings, yet all had a large room that formed the central portion of the lodge where the members would gather for various ceremonies. This large hall might be round, octagonal or even multi-sided to represent any of the numbers the group held holy.
There would be standing room or possibly sitting space to observe the participants. When a sect combined music with its ritual ceremonies, there would be space for the musicians. Leading off the main room would be a series of other rooms devoted to various practices, including a kitchen and a refractory, a library and rooms for the leader of the sect or the person in charge of that particular lodge and his family. In addition, there were often also rooms for those studying to become full members of the lodge, or for sect members who were traveling in the area.
Few of the tekke buildings were as elaborate as the one devoted to Rumi in Konya. Because of the veneration for Rumi, the founder of the Mevlevi sect, the original mosque and school greatly expanded over the centuries to incorporate nearby buildings and cemeteries. A better example of a normal Mevlevi tekke is the one found in Istanbul’s Tünel neighborhood.
The building was closed with the banning of Sufi orders in 1925, but from time to time, permission was given for the upkeep of the building. The center in Konya became a museum, as did the one in Tünel. Eventually the Mevlevis were allowed to perform their whirling ritual as a theatrical performance in the Tünel tekke.
If other sects still in existence, albeit unofficially, meet, it is certainly done very discretely.
There was usually no prohibition against women becoming members of the mystic orders. The result was a separate place where women would be segregated, where they could watch the ongoing rites and participate among themselves.
The one sect that included women publicly is the Mevlevis; today, in spite of opposition from more conservative members of the sect, women can be seen participating in the whirling ceremony.
The Eyüp municipality and its tekkes
Generally speaking, tekkes were made of wood and sometimes stone, depending on the amount of money and materials available. Even when quite large, they were not especially imposing buildings, yet all had a large room that formed the central portion of the lodge where the members would gather for various ceremonies. This large hall might be round, octagonal or even multi-sided to represent any of the numbers the group held holy.
There would be standing room or possibly sitting space to observe the participants. When a sect combined music with its ritual ceremonies, there would be space for the musicians. Leading off the main room would be a series of other rooms devoted to various practices, including a kitchen and a refractory, a library and rooms for the leader of the sect or the person in charge of that particular lodge and his family. In addition, there were often also rooms for those studying to become full members of the lodge, or for sect members who were traveling in the area.
Few of the tekke buildings were as elaborate as the one devoted to Rumi in Konya. Because of the veneration for Rumi, the founder of the Mevlevi sect, the original mosque and school greatly expanded over the centuries to incorporate nearby buildings and cemeteries. A better example of a normal Mevlevi tekke is the one found in Istanbul’s Tünel neighborhood.
The building was closed with the banning of Sufi orders in 1925, but from time to time, permission was given for the upkeep of the building. The center in Konya became a museum, as did the one in Tünel. Eventually the Mevlevis were allowed to perform their whirling ritual as a theatrical performance in the Tünel tekke.
If other sects still in existence, albeit unofficially, meet, it is certainly done very discretely.
There was usually no prohibition against women becoming members of the mystic orders. The result was a separate place where women would be segregated, where they could watch the ongoing rites and participate among themselves.
The one sect that included women publicly is the Mevlevis; today, in spite of opposition from more conservative members of the sect, women can be seen participating in the whirling ceremony.
The Eyüp municipality and its tekkes
The Eyüp area is known for its centuries-old buildings erected around the mosque and shrine of Eyüp Sultan, the companion of the Prophet Mohammed who died during one of the early Arab attempts to conquer Constantinople. It was a place where many members of the imperial family lived and were buried, as well as the place where crown princes were girded with a sword that officially made them sultan.
As a religious center, it attracted many mystic sects who set up lodges in and around Eyüp Mosque. Today, many of the old tekke buildings remain, even though they are often found in ruins.
Eyüp’s municipal government has taken advantage of these structures to restore them and use them for other purposes. The first such place was Husrevpaşa Tekke, which was converted into a historical research center. At present, there are seven tekkes in Eyüp that are being restored or are scheduled to undergo renovation.
One of these tekkes is the Vezir Tekke, which was damaged in a fire and is now set for reconstruction as a library. The Balcık Tekke was originally built as a school for learning traditions and is expected to become a handicrafts center. The Kara Süleyman Tekke was originally known as the Haci Ali Tekke. When restored, it will function as a rest home. The Sertarikzade Tekke belonged to one of the most popular Sufi sects following its establishment in the 17th century. Four sultans are said to have belonged to the sect and Sultan Ahmed III was responsible for the construction of its first lodge.
Bahariye Mevlevihanesi used to be located in Beşiktaş, but was moved to Eyüp. Only its small prayer hall remains today. The property belongs to the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, which wants it turned into a cultural facility. As for the Hatuniye Tekke, only the minaret and cemetery remain. A project has been developed to restore the tekke, but the work has not yet been completed.
One future project is the Afife Hatun Tekkesi, of which only the main hall, or semahane, remains today. This tekke belonged to the Naqshbandi sect and bears the name of the mother of an influential leader of that group. The Foundations Directorate turned it over to the Eyüp municipality, which plans to use it for cultural events. It is expected to be finished by 2010.
Of course Eyüp is not the only municipality that restores tekkes. Two years ago, the Beyoğlu municipality restored and opened the two-story Turabibaba Tekke Library in the Kasımpaşa neighborhood. The tekke building, built in the early 19th century, today houses some 13,000 publications and is well-equipped to provide resources to the people of Beyoğlu.
Not all tekkes have been restored at the hands of local municipalities. One outstanding example is that of the Özbek Tekke at Sultantepe on the Asian side of the city. Founded in the second half of the 18th century, this tekke was built to serve as a center for Uzbek Naqshbandis who undertook the pilgrimage to Mecca every year via Istanbul. On the way, Uzbeks would visit Eyüp, also considered a place of pilgrimage, and pay homage to the sultan reigning at the time.
The last time it was restored, in 1983, it was through the efforts of the late Ahmed Ertegün, the grandson of one of the most important sheiks to lead the Özbek Tekke.
One wishes that more was being done along these lines.
Tekkes in Istanbul belonging to 17 mystic orders*:
As a religious center, it attracted many mystic sects who set up lodges in and around Eyüp Mosque. Today, many of the old tekke buildings remain, even though they are often found in ruins.
Eyüp’s municipal government has taken advantage of these structures to restore them and use them for other purposes. The first such place was Husrevpaşa Tekke, which was converted into a historical research center. At present, there are seven tekkes in Eyüp that are being restored or are scheduled to undergo renovation.
One of these tekkes is the Vezir Tekke, which was damaged in a fire and is now set for reconstruction as a library. The Balcık Tekke was originally built as a school for learning traditions and is expected to become a handicrafts center. The Kara Süleyman Tekke was originally known as the Haci Ali Tekke. When restored, it will function as a rest home. The Sertarikzade Tekke belonged to one of the most popular Sufi sects following its establishment in the 17th century. Four sultans are said to have belonged to the sect and Sultan Ahmed III was responsible for the construction of its first lodge.
Bahariye Mevlevihanesi used to be located in Beşiktaş, but was moved to Eyüp. Only its small prayer hall remains today. The property belongs to the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, which wants it turned into a cultural facility. As for the Hatuniye Tekke, only the minaret and cemetery remain. A project has been developed to restore the tekke, but the work has not yet been completed.
One future project is the Afife Hatun Tekkesi, of which only the main hall, or semahane, remains today. This tekke belonged to the Naqshbandi sect and bears the name of the mother of an influential leader of that group. The Foundations Directorate turned it over to the Eyüp municipality, which plans to use it for cultural events. It is expected to be finished by 2010.
Of course Eyüp is not the only municipality that restores tekkes. Two years ago, the Beyoğlu municipality restored and opened the two-story Turabibaba Tekke Library in the Kasımpaşa neighborhood. The tekke building, built in the early 19th century, today houses some 13,000 publications and is well-equipped to provide resources to the people of Beyoğlu.
Not all tekkes have been restored at the hands of local municipalities. One outstanding example is that of the Özbek Tekke at Sultantepe on the Asian side of the city. Founded in the second half of the 18th century, this tekke was built to serve as a center for Uzbek Naqshbandis who undertook the pilgrimage to Mecca every year via Istanbul. On the way, Uzbeks would visit Eyüp, also considered a place of pilgrimage, and pay homage to the sultan reigning at the time.
The last time it was restored, in 1983, it was through the efforts of the late Ahmed Ertegün, the grandson of one of the most important sheiks to lead the Özbek Tekke.
One wishes that more was being done along these lines.
Tekkes in Istanbul belonging to 17 mystic orders*:
Kadiri 65
Bedeviyye 8
Bayramiyye 9
Uşaki 6
Gülşeni 6
Sinani 3
Mevlevi 5
Bektaşi 9
Cerahiyye 12
Naqshbandi 95
Rufai 40
Halveti 69
Celvetiyye 31
Şazeli 3
Sünbüliyye 26
Sadiyye 34
Şabaniyye 24
445 total tekkes in Istanbul
*Sufi Istanbul Institute
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
A Call To Stand Together
By Agence France-Presse Staff Writer, *Somalis stage rare protest condemning deadly attack* - Mail & Guardian - Johannesburg, ZA
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Mogadishu: Hundreds of Somalis held a rare street protest after Friday prayers to condemn a suicide bombing at a graduation ceremony in Mogadishu in which at least 23 people were killed.
The demonstration took place in the central town of Dhusamareb, close to the Ethiopian border, and was organised by Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa, a moderate Sufi organisation opposed to hardline Islamists.
"Today we are here to show solidarity with the innocent civilians killed in Mogadishu yesterday," a spokesperson for the group, Sheikh Abdullahi Abdurahman Abu Yusuf, told the demonstrators. "They did nothing wrong except trying to enjoy a rare happy moment celebrating the end of their education. That happiness didn't last long."
Witnesses told Agence France-Presse that several hundred residents heeded the Sufi movement's call to protest against the attack, in which many students were killed, as well as three Cabinet ministers and three journalists.
The president of the internationally-backed transitional federal administration, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, blamed the suicide attack on the Islamist insurgency. But the two main insurgents groups -- the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab movement and its Hezb al-Islam allies -- both denied anyi nvolvement, charging instead the carnage was the result of a rift in the government's security apparatus.
Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa, a group representing Somalia's most traditional brand of moderate Sufi Islam enjoying broad popular support, last year took up arms to counter the threat of anationwide takeover by al-Shabaab.
"We condemn this barbaric act and call upon the Somali people to stand together to fight those enemies who attacked their children," Sheikh Abdullahi said.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Mogadishu: Hundreds of Somalis held a rare street protest after Friday prayers to condemn a suicide bombing at a graduation ceremony in Mogadishu in which at least 23 people were killed.
The demonstration took place in the central town of Dhusamareb, close to the Ethiopian border, and was organised by Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa, a moderate Sufi organisation opposed to hardline Islamists.
"Today we are here to show solidarity with the innocent civilians killed in Mogadishu yesterday," a spokesperson for the group, Sheikh Abdullahi Abdurahman Abu Yusuf, told the demonstrators. "They did nothing wrong except trying to enjoy a rare happy moment celebrating the end of their education. That happiness didn't last long."
Witnesses told Agence France-Presse that several hundred residents heeded the Sufi movement's call to protest against the attack, in which many students were killed, as well as three Cabinet ministers and three journalists.
The president of the internationally-backed transitional federal administration, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, blamed the suicide attack on the Islamist insurgency. But the two main insurgents groups -- the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab movement and its Hezb al-Islam allies -- both denied anyi nvolvement, charging instead the carnage was the result of a rift in the government's security apparatus.
Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa, a group representing Somalia's most traditional brand of moderate Sufi Islam enjoying broad popular support, last year took up arms to counter the threat of anationwide takeover by al-Shabaab.
"We condemn this barbaric act and call upon the Somali people to stand together to fight those enemies who attacked their children," Sheikh Abdullahi said.
Baba Farid's 729th Urs
By Staff Writer, *Baba Fariduddin Ganjshakar’s Urs begins today* - The News International -Karachi, PakistanSunday, December 13, 2009
Pak Patan: Great Sufi saint Baba Fariduddin Ganjshakar’s 15-day Urs kicked-off in Pak Patan on Sunday.
The 729th Urs of Baba Farid was instated by Shrine’s sajada nasheen Dewan Modud Masood Chishti. Other family members of Dewan family were also present at the occasion.
The Urs program is divided into three sections. The first and second parts will be held from first to fourth Moharram-ul-Haram during which Sajada Nasheen will carry out rituals all day and night.
The third part is called ‘Nuqta-e-urooj’ in which the Bahishti Darwaza is opened on fifth of Moharram.
Tight security measures have been put in place by the administration.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Impetus To The Play
By Surajit Borkotokey, *Kashmiri folklore adorns classic* The Telegraph - Calcutta, IndiaFriday, December 4, 2009
Adapted from Shakespeare’s King Lear by renowned actor and director M.K. Raina, Badshah Pather was staged by a group of both young and veteran Kashmiri actors at the India Club in Dibrugarh recently.
The play was jointly organised by noted cultural organisations Akhara Ghar and India Club, Dibrugarh.
It revolves around the two elder and most loved sons of the king, who indulge in sycophancy, while the third, the youngest, speaks the truth.
The elder sons, when asked how much they loved their father, utter superlatives to impress the latter so as to gain access to his assets. On the contrary, the third son only says that he loves his father as much as a son ought to. This infuriates the king and he throws him out.
The badshah soon discerns the reality from illusion when his two older sons dethrone him while the youngest comes to his rescue and gives him refuge. However, by then it is too late to rebuild their destiny. Two wars are fought and the king loses all his kin. He breaks down on the death of his youngest son and finally succumbs to his sorrow.
The director explores the relevance of honesty, disbelief, love and hatred in present society against the backdrop of Kashmiri tradition and culture. He amalgamates local folklore with an equally interesting texture of Indian classical form.
A tasteful blend of Sufi music, chorus, choreography and body language, along with dialogues in Kashmiri lends impetus to the play.
The stagecraft was well thought out. The lighting, however, was inadequate. Use of music and body language could have been meaningfully incorporated.
Gulam Mahammad Bhagat in the role of the badshah was excellent, while Gul Mahammad Bhagat and Basir Ahmed Bhagat, as the two elder sons, deserve special mention.
Picture: A scene from Badshah Pather. Photo: Eastern Projections
Adapted from Shakespeare’s King Lear by renowned actor and director M.K. Raina, Badshah Pather was staged by a group of both young and veteran Kashmiri actors at the India Club in Dibrugarh recently.
The play was jointly organised by noted cultural organisations Akhara Ghar and India Club, Dibrugarh.
It revolves around the two elder and most loved sons of the king, who indulge in sycophancy, while the third, the youngest, speaks the truth.
The elder sons, when asked how much they loved their father, utter superlatives to impress the latter so as to gain access to his assets. On the contrary, the third son only says that he loves his father as much as a son ought to. This infuriates the king and he throws him out.
The badshah soon discerns the reality from illusion when his two older sons dethrone him while the youngest comes to his rescue and gives him refuge. However, by then it is too late to rebuild their destiny. Two wars are fought and the king loses all his kin. He breaks down on the death of his youngest son and finally succumbs to his sorrow.
The director explores the relevance of honesty, disbelief, love and hatred in present society against the backdrop of Kashmiri tradition and culture. He amalgamates local folklore with an equally interesting texture of Indian classical form.
A tasteful blend of Sufi music, chorus, choreography and body language, along with dialogues in Kashmiri lends impetus to the play.
The stagecraft was well thought out. The lighting, however, was inadequate. Use of music and body language could have been meaningfully incorporated.
Gulam Mahammad Bhagat in the role of the badshah was excellent, while Gul Mahammad Bhagat and Basir Ahmed Bhagat, as the two elder sons, deserve special mention.
Picture: A scene from Badshah Pather. Photo: Eastern Projections
Monday, December 14, 2009
Faith At The Summit
By Mary Dickey, *Odyssey to Deliver Exclusive Videos of 'Faith at the Summit' from Copenhagen* - Christian News Wire - Washington, DC, USAThursday, December 3, 2009
New York: Odyssey Networks, the nation's largest coalition of Christian, Jewish and Muslim faith groups promoting the causes of tolerance, peace, and social justice through media production, is providing video coverage of the world's interfaith community in action at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP-15).
Odyssey's "Faith at the Summit" is believed to be the only video news coverage focusing solely on the activities of religious leaders and organizations at the crucial climate conference.
From December 8 through December 15, Odyssey will deliver daily video reports from Copenhagen, with a special wrap-up report on December 19 from London. The videos will be available for viewing at http://www.odysseynetworks.org/.
Odyssey is sharing highlights of the daily video reports with over 100 major climate change organizations and religious institutions. Lead producer/presenter of "Faith at the Summit" is the award-winning documentarian Mark Dowd, formerly of the BBC and Channel 4 and the UK's "Religious Broadcaster of the Year" (2006). He is currently campaign strategist for Operation Noah.
Notables from virtually all the world's faiths will be in Copenhagen to advocate for decisive action on climate change. The list of attendees who will be interviewed by Odyssey includes Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Richard Cizik (New Evangelicals), Michael Kagan (Jewish Climate Change Initiative), Roman Catholic Sister Joan Chittister (Benetvision), Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell (Chautauqua Institution), Andrew Harvey (Sacred Activism), Venerable Bhikku Bodhi (Buddhist Global Relief), Sufi Rehman Muhaiyaddeen and Sraddalhu Ranade .
Odyssey will also be producing video diaries by key leaders and youth delegates from various faiths and nations, and covering highlights of the major faith-related gatherings. Additional videos and other resources on the intersection of faith and climate change are now available on the Odyssey website, along with a special preview of "Faith at the Summit."
"This year no event will unite the planet like the climate change summit in Copenhagen," said Nick Stuart, President and CEO of Odyssey Networks, "and no issue is capable of uniting the world's religions like climate change. The world's media will be focused on Copenhagen and religious leaders from around the world will be there to share the insights their faiths bring to the most important challenge of our age -- stewardship of God's creation. One issue, one place, one time -- there could be no more crucial event for Odyssey Network's cameras to show how religions can work together to change the world."
About Odyssey Networks: Odyssey Networks is the nation’s largest coalition of Christian, Jewish and Muslim faith groups dedicated to producing and distributing media that promotes causes such as peace, tolerance and social justice. Established in 1987, Odyssey Networks is a service of the National Interfaith Cable Coalition, Inc.
For more information visit http://www.odysseynetworks.org/
[About Rehman Muhaiyaddeen: Sufi Rehman Muhaiyaddeen is a disciple of Sufi Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, a Sufi mystic from the island of Sri Lanka. Around 1940 Sufi Bawa Muhaiyaddeen established an ashram on a farm in Sri Lanka, teaching a traditional Qadriyyah Sufi doctrine. Now the branches of his school of thought are found in many countries. Sufi Rehman Muhaiyaddeen can be reached at: srmuhaiyaddeen@gmail.com
Read an article of him about *How To Achieve The Great Objective Of Global Peace?* at Countercurrents.org]
New York: Odyssey Networks, the nation's largest coalition of Christian, Jewish and Muslim faith groups promoting the causes of tolerance, peace, and social justice through media production, is providing video coverage of the world's interfaith community in action at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP-15).
Odyssey's "Faith at the Summit" is believed to be the only video news coverage focusing solely on the activities of religious leaders and organizations at the crucial climate conference.
From December 8 through December 15, Odyssey will deliver daily video reports from Copenhagen, with a special wrap-up report on December 19 from London. The videos will be available for viewing at http://www.odysseynetworks.org/.
Odyssey is sharing highlights of the daily video reports with over 100 major climate change organizations and religious institutions. Lead producer/presenter of "Faith at the Summit" is the award-winning documentarian Mark Dowd, formerly of the BBC and Channel 4 and the UK's "Religious Broadcaster of the Year" (2006). He is currently campaign strategist for Operation Noah.
Notables from virtually all the world's faiths will be in Copenhagen to advocate for decisive action on climate change. The list of attendees who will be interviewed by Odyssey includes Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Richard Cizik (New Evangelicals), Michael Kagan (Jewish Climate Change Initiative), Roman Catholic Sister Joan Chittister (Benetvision), Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell (Chautauqua Institution), Andrew Harvey (Sacred Activism), Venerable Bhikku Bodhi (Buddhist Global Relief), Sufi Rehman Muhaiyaddeen and Sraddalhu Ranade .
Odyssey will also be producing video diaries by key leaders and youth delegates from various faiths and nations, and covering highlights of the major faith-related gatherings. Additional videos and other resources on the intersection of faith and climate change are now available on the Odyssey website, along with a special preview of "Faith at the Summit."
"This year no event will unite the planet like the climate change summit in Copenhagen," said Nick Stuart, President and CEO of Odyssey Networks, "and no issue is capable of uniting the world's religions like climate change. The world's media will be focused on Copenhagen and religious leaders from around the world will be there to share the insights their faiths bring to the most important challenge of our age -- stewardship of God's creation. One issue, one place, one time -- there could be no more crucial event for Odyssey Network's cameras to show how religions can work together to change the world."
About Odyssey Networks: Odyssey Networks is the nation’s largest coalition of Christian, Jewish and Muslim faith groups dedicated to producing and distributing media that promotes causes such as peace, tolerance and social justice. Established in 1987, Odyssey Networks is a service of the National Interfaith Cable Coalition, Inc.
For more information visit http://www.odysseynetworks.org/
[About Rehman Muhaiyaddeen: Sufi Rehman Muhaiyaddeen is a disciple of Sufi Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, a Sufi mystic from the island of Sri Lanka. Around 1940 Sufi Bawa Muhaiyaddeen established an ashram on a farm in Sri Lanka, teaching a traditional Qadriyyah Sufi doctrine. Now the branches of his school of thought are found in many countries. Sufi Rehman Muhaiyaddeen can be reached at: srmuhaiyaddeen@gmail.com
Read an article of him about *How To Achieve The Great Objective Of Global Peace?* at Countercurrents.org]
Sunday, December 13, 2009
The Landscape As Mecca
By Jennifer, *Fareen Butt: Mirage Landscapes* - Art Info - USAFriday, December 4, 2009
Mirage Landscapes: Paintings by Fareen Butt; Exhibition Dates: Friday December 4, 2009 – Sunday January 24, 2010
Crossing Art is pleased to announce the opening of Mirage Landscapes: Paintings by Fareen Butt. The Mirage Series is a collection of metaphysical landscapes inspired by the spiritual and mystical concepts of Jerrahi and Ishraqi Sufism, as well as Buddhism.
The works explore the perceptions of truth and enlightenment unique to each human being.
The rich textures that engulf the artist's large canvases are created through a unique process of combining the Japanese painting technique of Nihonga with Pointillism. Fareen Butt fuses eastern and western methodologies that are reflected in her painting process where she combines Southeast Asian methods and classical European fine art.
The two methods used in the Mirage Series are Nihonga, which includes the process of using precious and semi-precious stones as pigment, and Pointillism, a method made famous by Seurat in the 1800s and more recently by Pousette-Dart.
Butt harmoniously merges Nihonga with Pointillism to create the complex colors and textures of her works. Her hybrid technique also lends itself to that of the meditative through the time and discipline it takes to cover the vast amounts of surface in such a feverous but controlled style.
The Mirage Bamboo Series is based on photographs taken of serene forest landscapes in China and the Himalayas. The inspiration of the natural is translated onto the canvas with stones such as ruby, diamond and sapphire, derived from the artist's native region of the Himalayas. It is the birthplace of the Buddha, the place where he meditated over mysteries, and sought enlightenment.
The paintings produce a meditative effect on the viewer as he or she steps from the painting to watch the disconnected “points” of color merge to form vibrant landscapes. Butt perceives the landscapes to be visions of “places rendered sacred by many: the earthly manifestation of the pervasive cosmological landscape; the earthly manifestation of the Universal consciousness in the form of the Human collective consciousness.”
Expressed through these “moving” points of color amidst the solid, stagnant sections of stone, she explains that the works “pursue the vital energy embodied, ebbing, in these spaces amidst the roots of omnipresence. It is a representation of the landscape as a fertile spiritual Mecca, in its entirety.”
Fareen Butt is a Pakistani painter who lives and works in New York. She received her BA from The New School in New York and is a PhD candidate for University of London, Goldsmith College. Butt has future exhibitions planned for Canada, Beirut, Qatar, Oman, Paris, Berlin, New York, Dubai, Dhaka and India.
The exhibition Mirage Landscapes visually presents a dialogue between humanity’s historical desire for a concise cosmogony and the perpetual pursuit of enlightenment.
For additional information please contact Jennifer at 212-359-4333 or Jennifer@crossingart.com.
Visit the Gallery: http://www.crossingart.com/
Saturday, December 12, 2009
To Coexist Justly
By Amy Kotlarz, *Is Holy Land peace possible?* - Catholic Courier - Rochester, N.Y., USATuesday, December 1, 2009
In December, three interfaith leaders will travel to Israel.
They’ll get to explore what it means to be Christian, Jewish and Muslim in the Holy Land. In that sense, the trip is academic, worthy of its "Walking in the Footsteps of the Prophets" title from its sponsor, Nazareth College.
But the trip also is symbolic: The three are close friends even though they have very different outlooks and faiths.
"I hope it says volumes in terms of who we can be together as distinct religious entities who have deep friendship -- not despite our differences but in celebration of those," said Sister of St. Joseph Susan Nowak, who will represent the Catholic and Christian perspective on the journey.
Sister Nowak is a professor and chair of the religious-studies department at Nazareth College and has a doctorate in religion. The local Jewish community will be represented by Isobel Goldman, community-relations director for Rochester's Jewish Community Federation, who in 2006 helped establish the Brennan-Goldman Institute for Catholic-Jewish studies at St. Bernard’s School of Theology and Ministry in Pittsford. Dr. Muhammad Shafiq, imam of the Islamic Center of Rochester and a professor of religious studies at Nazareth and executive director of the college's Center for Interfaith Studies and Dialogue, will represent the area’s Islamic community.
The three friends will be led by tour guide George Eisen, Nazareth College’s associate vice president for academic affairs and executive director of its Center for International Education. Eisen, who has doctorates in history and social psychology, is a native of Budapest, Hungary, and lived in Israel for a decade.
One aim of the journey is to lay the groundwork for a trip in May 2010 with more members of the three faith communities. Nazareth College also is starting a new interfaith studies minor, and coursework will include future visits to the Holy Land as a culmination of students' education.
Another goal of the December trip, according to Sister Nowak, is that it may serve as a symbol to Israelis and Arabs that interfaith dialogue and religious pluralism are attainable and have been successful in the Diocese of Rochester. It also may guide future interfaith discussions, Imam Shafiq said.
"This will give people a common experience of how Abrahamic religions have a close tradition," added Imam Shafiq, who holds a doctorate in religion.
The travelers will visit the cities of Galilee, Masada, Jerusalem and Istanbul, and a host of holy sites including the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Via Dolorosa (Way of the Cross), the Western Wall and the Mount of Olives. The group also will meet with representatives of a variety of religions and ethnicities, including the Islamic Druze sect, the desert-dwelling Bedouins and followers of Sufism, a form of Islamic mysticism.
"The visit will be a very in-depth understanding of the three religions’ intersection, and the commonalities between the three religions," Eisen said.
He noted that the group hopes to meet again with a delegation of Israelis and Palestinians that they met at Nazareth College in September during a visit sponsored by the U.S. State Department. At the college, the interfaith group discussed the college’s Center for Interfaith Studies and Dialogue as a model for peace building in Israel.
Dialogue needed
Some, including a Vatican official who recently spoke to the United Nations, believe such interfaith dialogue may be the key to promoting a lasting peace in the Middle East. As plans are made for a synod of Middle East bishops in October 2010, some political observers noted that this is a critical time for dialogue.
One focus of tension is Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip. Following Israel's withdrawal from the area in 2005, that territory fell under the control by the radical group Hamas following Palestinian parliamentary elections. Since 2003, more than 8,000 rockets have been fired from Gaza onto southern Israel, with most rocket attacks taking place during past two years, said Larry Fine, executive director of the Jewish Community Federation.
Israel has sporadically retaliated by bombing the territory, and war broke out in December 2008 and January 2009. Israel was cited by a United Nations commission for using disproportionate force during the conflict, which resulted in many civilian casualties. Israel, meanwhile, has said the civilian casualties occurred because Hamas was using people as human shields, Fine said.
Another area in crisis is the West Bank, parts of which are occupied by the Israeli military, and other parts which are administered by the Palestinian Authority. Deacon John McDermott, who took a nine-day trip to Israel and the West Bank in May and June 2009, said he saw critical humanitarian needs firsthand, including a 60-year-old Palestinian refugee camp filled with 13,000 people.
Deacon McDermott also met with several people whose lives had been torn apart by violence. One sign of the deteriorating political situation was that Christians living in the Holy Land were leaving in droves due to worsening conditions, blockades and mobility restrictions imposed by the Israeli government, he said.
During his junket, Deacon McDermott said he also witnessed how new settlements of Israelis across East Jerusalem and the West Bank pose economic and political obstacles for the formation of a stable Palestinian nation in that region. For instance, a parish priest told the deacon’s group how the Palestinian community in which he lives was devastated by Israeli settlers' confiscation of valuable olive trees.
If a Palestinian nation were formed, Israeli settlers living in the Palestinian territories would either have to be relocated or become Palestinian citizens, Deacon McDermott said.
"They are not going to be very happy with that solution," he said of the Israeli settlers.
Although settlements are often brought up as an issue, Fine pointed out that Israel has made several offers to end occupation of the West Bank in exchange for official recognition of Israel from all other Arab countries. Yet some Arab leaders continue to call for the end of international recognition of Israel and have rejected the offer, he said.
"Israel believes it has a right to exist in secure and safe borders with its neighbors, and many of its neighbors don’t believe that," Fine said.
He pointed to the relationships Israel has forged with Egypt and Jordan as evidence that peace is possible if both sides commit to it. He urged people to pray and to pressure the U.S. to use its alliance with Israel to work for peace.
"Gaza’s a problem, but in terms of negotiations about the West Bank, everybody knows roughly how it could turn out," Fine said. "It’s absolutely solvable."
Fine said humanitarian conditions in the West Bank did not have to degrade to their current level; he pointed to corruption in the Palestinian Authority, which he said has diverted billions of dollars intended for infrastructure improvements and humanitarian aid.
He noted that in January 2010, elections for control of the Palestinian Authority are scheduled, which could result in a change of leadership at the authority. The future is uncertain for moderate Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, a U.S. ally who has rejected violence against Israel. As for Gaza, word emerged in late November 2009 that Israel and Hamas also may be brokering a prisoner swap that could help thaw relations between the two sides.
"Give and take is absolutely the only thing that can be saving us from another armed conflict," Eisen noted.
The question of how to promote peace is one that people of faith need to reflect on, Imam Shafiq noted.
"We need to understand the situation and realize that both sides have to coexist justly," he said.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Floral Wreaths
By Staff Writer, *Altaf Parwaz’s death anniversary today* - The News International - Karachi, Pakistan
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Islamabad: The 17th death anniversary of leading Urdu and Punjabi poet of the Sub-Continent, writer, journalist, broadcaster and a prominent worker of Pakistan Movement will be observed today (Wednesday).
Various literary organisations will place floral wreaths and offer ‘Fateha’, on the grave of the deceased at Islamabad’s graveyard at H-8, near Zero Point.
Aiwan-e-Karkunan-e-Tehrik-e-Pakistan honoured him with the gold medal for his selfless and meritorious services rendered during the Pakistan Movement, in the fields of journalism, literature and social services.
He had more than 75 published books in the various disciplines of literature to his credit, including, poetry, prose and the major work of translating the poetic collection of Pashto Sufi poet Rehman Baba, Balochi poet Mast Tokali and Khalil Jibran poems into Punjabi, published by Pakistan Academy of Letters.
Altaf Parwaz’s Naat collection, ‘Noor-e-Hira’ has recently published.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Islamabad: The 17th death anniversary of leading Urdu and Punjabi poet of the Sub-Continent, writer, journalist, broadcaster and a prominent worker of Pakistan Movement will be observed today (Wednesday).
Various literary organisations will place floral wreaths and offer ‘Fateha’, on the grave of the deceased at Islamabad’s graveyard at H-8, near Zero Point.
Aiwan-e-Karkunan-e-Tehrik-e-Pakistan honoured him with the gold medal for his selfless and meritorious services rendered during the Pakistan Movement, in the fields of journalism, literature and social services.
He had more than 75 published books in the various disciplines of literature to his credit, including, poetry, prose and the major work of translating the poetic collection of Pashto Sufi poet Rehman Baba, Balochi poet Mast Tokali and Khalil Jibran poems into Punjabi, published by Pakistan Academy of Letters.
Altaf Parwaz’s Naat collection, ‘Noor-e-Hira’ has recently published.
Magic With Love
By Staff Writer, *Rumi in Performance by Shahram Shiva in New York * - Payvand News - USAWednesday, December 2, 2009
Friday, December 11th, 8 pm
Open Center, NYC
The Open Center is very pleased to welcome back Shahram Shiva, the renowned Rumi translator and performer, accompanied by a trio of accomplished musicians, for another luminous event.
Shiva, who is known for his passionate recitations and performances of Rumi, will perform his own English renditions as well as Rumi's Persian verses.
This special event will be featuring flutist and multi-instrumentalist John Ragusa in original and improvisational accompaniment with Rob Silvan on piano. This union of spoken verse and live music melds magic with love. Following tonight's concert, Shiva will guide the group into an ecstatic whirling experience through his unique and proven four-step method.
Shahram Shiva is an author and longtime award-winning translator and performer of Rumi's poetry. His works include: Rumi, Thief of Sleep; Rending the Veil; A Garden Beyond Paradise; and a new CD entitled "Rumi: Lovedrunk." In addition, Shiva is an innovative workshop leader in Sufism, including its famous "whirling" practice.
Shahram Shiva is a performance poet, award-winning translator and scholar of Rumi and author of several books. He is known for his rich and entrancing concerts of Rumi, the 13th Century Persian mystic poet.
He was born to a Persian Jewish family in Iran and migrated to the US at the age of 16. Shiva is the only major presenter in the West who performs Rumi's poetry in his own English renditions as well as the original Persian verses.
His bilingual English-Persian concerts are Rumi events where the great mystical poet is celebrated with Shiva's unique and passionate recitations of the timeless poetry performed with musical groups of various genres.
Tickets are: $20 (No Member Discount). The New York Open Center 22 East 30th Street, NYC
Read more at http://www.rumi.net/
The Open Center is very pleased to welcome back Shahram Shiva, the renowned Rumi translator and performer, accompanied by a trio of accomplished musicians, for another luminous event.
Shiva, who is known for his passionate recitations and performances of Rumi, will perform his own English renditions as well as Rumi's Persian verses.
This special event will be featuring flutist and multi-instrumentalist John Ragusa in original and improvisational accompaniment with Rob Silvan on piano. This union of spoken verse and live music melds magic with love. Following tonight's concert, Shiva will guide the group into an ecstatic whirling experience through his unique and proven four-step method.
Shahram Shiva is an author and longtime award-winning translator and performer of Rumi's poetry. His works include: Rumi, Thief of Sleep; Rending the Veil; A Garden Beyond Paradise; and a new CD entitled "Rumi: Lovedrunk." In addition, Shiva is an innovative workshop leader in Sufism, including its famous "whirling" practice.
Shahram Shiva is a performance poet, award-winning translator and scholar of Rumi and author of several books. He is known for his rich and entrancing concerts of Rumi, the 13th Century Persian mystic poet.
He was born to a Persian Jewish family in Iran and migrated to the US at the age of 16. Shiva is the only major presenter in the West who performs Rumi's poetry in his own English renditions as well as the original Persian verses.
His bilingual English-Persian concerts are Rumi events where the great mystical poet is celebrated with Shiva's unique and passionate recitations of the timeless poetry performed with musical groups of various genres.
Tickets are: $20 (No Member Discount). The New York Open Center 22 East 30th Street, NYC
Read more at http://www.rumi.net/
Picture: Shahram Shiva with John Ragusa (on flute) and Rich Goodhart at Deepak Chopra's Event in Palm Springs, California.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Refreshing And Informative
By Muhammad Khan, *Life and thoughts of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali* - The New Nation - BangladeshTuesday, December 1, 2009
Books - Al-Ghazali's Philosophical Theology, by Frank Griffel, New York: Oxford University Press, pp408, 2009, HB, £34.00.
- Ghazali and the Poetics of Imagination, by Ebrahim Moosa, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, pp349, 2005, PB, $22.50
In his Muslim Intellectual: A Study of al-Ghazali (1962), the renowned British Islamicist W. Montgomery Watt wrote, "al-Ghazali has been acclaimed as the greatest Muslim after Muhammad, and is certainly one of the greatest." If
Watt's assessment of al-Ghazali was an exaggeration (as the late Professor Muhsin Mahdi clearly thought it was), then it is difficult to disagree with late Dr Margaret Smith's view that "…at the present time al-Ghazali's works are still read and studied (and their teaching accepted as authoritative), more widely than those of any other Muslim writer, throughout the length and breadth of the world of Islam." (Al-Ghazali the Mystic, p. 236, 1944).
Today, almost nine centuries after his death, al-Ghazali remains one of the most widely read, researched and equally controversial scholars to have hailed from the Muslim world (I have around a dozen Ph.D. theses on him in English alone, not to mention those in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Turkish, Bengali, etc). Given al-Ghazali's important contribution in a range of Islamic disciplines [most notably in theology (kalam), philosophy (falsafah), mysticism (tasawwuf) and jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh)], books on his life and ideas/thoughts will no doubt continue to proliferate, both in the East and the West.
Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Tusi al-Ghazali was, according to the majority of his biographers, born in 1058 in Tabaran, which at the time was one of two main towns in the district of Tus. Despite being a famous scholar and writer, little is known about al-Ghazali's early life. So much so that even his date of birth is hotly contested by his biographers. Thus Frank Griffel, the author of the book under review, argues that he was actually born in 1056. The basis for Griffel's view is a letter al-Ghazali wrote to Sultan Sanjar in order to explain to the ruler why he was unable to appear before him, suggesting that he may have been born at least two years before his widely accepted date of birth. However, unlike Griffel, Ebrahim Moosa, author of the book under review, states that al-Ghazali was born in 450AH, corresponding to 1058-9CE, which is the majority view.
According to al-Subki's account, al-Ghazali lost his father when he was a youngster and was cared for by a Sufi friend of his father. Subsequently, he received training in Islamic sciences under several scholars including al-Radhakani, Ismail ibn Mas'ada al-Ismaili and al-Juwayni. As a talented student, al-Ghazali soon attracted the attention of al-Juwayni, who appointed him as his teaching assistant. During this period he received advanced training in Islamic sciences and aspects of philosophy, and also composed his al-Mankhul min Ta'liqat al-Usul (The Sifted Notes on the Methods of Fundamentals).
Al-Ghazali's intellectual brilliance, coupled with his polished oratory skills and powerful pen, soon attracted the attention of local scholars and lay people. As his popularity increased, Nizam al-Mulk, the powerful Seljuk vizier, appointed him professor at Madrasah al-Nizamiyyah in Baghdad when he was still in his mid-thirties. During his tenure at Nizamiyyah, al-Ghazali claimed to have written about seventy books. However, Griffel argues that most of these books, though published during his tenure at Nizamiyyah, were in fact written prior to his arrival in Baghdad. Be that as it may, al-Ghazali left Baghdad after teaching at Nizamiyyah for about four years.
Prior to his departure, he began to closely study the works of eminent Sufis like al-Junayd, al-Shibli, al-Muhasibi, al-Bistami and al-Makki and he became thoroughly familiar with the mystical dimension of Islam. This was followed by a crisis in his life and worldview which, as Moosa points out, forced him to resign from his professorship and he travelled around prominent Islamic centres "craving for the mystical realm and identified spiritual experience as the only path through which he could slake his thirst for certainty and inner peace. Throughout this intense struggle with his self, Ghazali continued to write large and small treatises on a range of topics. The achievement that crowned Ghazali's sufi phase was the writing of his magnum opus, Resuscitation of the Sciences of Religion; he also wrote notable texts on gnostic piety, legal theory, and theology." (p.6).
After more than a decade of travel and seclusion (uzla), al-Ghazali was asked by Fakhr al-Mulk, a son of Nizam al-Mulk, to teach at Nizamiyyah in Nishapur, which he did for around three years, before returning to his native Tus where he passed away in 1111 at the age of fifty-three although, according to Griffel, he was around fifty-five at the time.
Al-Ghazali completed his last book, Iljam al-Awamm an Ilm al-Kalam (Restraining the Masses from Speculative Theology), only a few days prior to his death. As Griffel points out, little is known about al-Ghazali's family or children although one report suggests he only had female descendants. Others say he had no prominent male successor to champion his work and legacy.
As it transpired, al-Ghazali's ideas and thoughts as formulated in more than fifty books soon became a monument in the annals of Islamic thought and scholarship, and this, more than anything else, has helped to immortalise him. In Griffel's own words, "Al-Ghazali was the most influential teacher of Islamic law and theology during the fifth/eleventh and the sixth/twelfth centuries. He had a particularly monumental impact on the intellectual of the century after his death. Indeed, his writings on the relationship between the philosophical sciences and Muslim theology profoundly affected all Muslim thinkers until the early twentieth century and still carry weight in the Muslim discourse on reason and revelation today." (p.61).
It was al-Ghazali's profound intellectual legacy and relevance to Muslim thought which prompted both Griffel and Moosa to pursue their research on his life and thoughts. Griffel's book seeks to critically explore al-Ghazali's philosophical theology. Although this aspect of his thought has already been analysed by several prominent scholars (such as Michael Marmura, Fadlou Shehadi and Richard M. Frank, among others), however, the value of Griffel's book lies in the fact that he was prepared to question many 'facts' about the life and thoughts of al-Ghazali. More importantly, I found the first two chapters of this book dealing with the life and works of al-Ghazali as well as his prominent students and early followers to be refreshing and informative.
Having said that, writing on al-Ghazali's philosophical theology is never an easy task given the fact that he, in the words of Richard M. Frank, "never composed a complete, systematic, summary of his theology" in the first place. Although it is true that al-Ghazali did not formulate his philosophical theology in a systematic way in one book, Griffel argues "when one considers his corpus as a whole, a quite cohesive picture of his theology emerges." (p.275). From this standpoint, Griffel, a Professor of Islamic Studies at Yale University, then proceeds to develop a coherent and integrative analysis of key issues in Ghazalian philosophical theology, focusing primarily on the latter's views on the role of falsafah in Islam, the relationship between reason (aql) and revelation (wahy), and a detailed discussion of al-Ghazali's acclaimed Tahafut al-Falasifah (Incoherence of the Philosophers), concluding with a survey of his theological views as expressed in his post-The Revival works.
In the Conclusion, Griffel argues, "Al-Ghazali teaches God's Omnipotence and His control over each event in His creation, and he still finds a way to reconcile fully these positions with the cosmological principle of creation through casual chains… Throughout his oeuvre, al-Ghazali constantly reminds his readers how easily humans can fail in their judgements." (p.286).
If Griffel seeks to present a comprehensive picture of al-Ghazali's cosmology, then Moosa (who was trained at an Islamic seminary in India and is now a Research Professor in the US), attempts not only to enter the heart of Ghazalian worldview to develop a comprehensive understanding of Ghazali's thoughts but he also seeks to re-engage with the latter's ideas so as to formulate a methodology (at once Islamic and yet modern) to enable Muslims to make the Islamic intellectual tradition relevant to modern and post-modern thoughts and vice versa.
Moosa's entire thesis revolves around the notion of threshold, or dihliz, an intellectual space which, contends Moosa, enabled al-Ghazali to engage with different schools of thought and philosophy in his life time without undermining his own Islamic worldview.
Starting from the premise that al-Ghazali was a multifaceted personality, Moosa argues, "He was a person committed to many political and intellectual causes. But his embrace of law, politics, mysticism, and philosophy did not follow a uniform path. His was a complex psychology, a life pattern that did not yield to the Homeric orderly succession and alternation of emotions. It was more akin to the 'simultaneous existence of various layers of consciousness and the conflict between them.' If the unpredictability of life shapes the career of a great person, then it is significant that Ghazali's life was radically unpredictable and followed no logical pattern." (p.8).
This view is only true if one were to observe all the ups and downs of al-Ghazali's life in isolation. However, if his life, career and worldview were to be analysed, as Moosa seeks to do, from the threshold, then it could be argued that behind the form of all radical unpredictability and apparent lack of logical pattern there resides the thread of uniformity which enabled al-Ghazali to look at events and activities as well as different systems of thoughts in a detached manner without becoming a part of them. Far from being elusive, ambiguous and difficult to pin-down, al-Ghazali, according to Moosa, was an original thinker who, instead of creating synthesis and reconciliation, imagined new forms of knowledge which enabled him to uphold often contradictory views from the dihliz.
Consisting of nine chapters and an illuminating Introduction and Conclusion, this book is one of the most original and provocative study of al-Ghazali yet to have been produced by a Muslim. One may not agree with everything Moosa has to say but I would like to thank him for sending me a copy of his book.
Source: MusliM news. M. Khan is author of the widely acclaimed book, *The Muslim 100* (reprinted 2009) and *Against the Tide: Thoughts on Islam and Contemporary Issues* (forthcoming).
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
One Containing Everything
By Mustapha Marrouchi, *Arabic Traces In Ridges of Sand* - Countercurrents.org - Kerala, India
Monday, November 30 , 2009
For the uninitiated, the flowing of lines and seemingly idiosyncratic spattering of dots and dashes that characterize the Arabic script can appear an inscrutable enigma.
That it is a cursive system with few clues as to exactly where discrete elements find their borders only adds to the puzzle.
Without an overly onerous measure of study however, the mystery is breached and the tangled jungle of vines gives up its fruit, and its secrets, that the right to left procession of ascending peaks and receding troughs is regular, logical, and rigidly ruled.
When one learns how to tease apart the sound sequences encoded in the script, meaning emerges, but the cracking of the code is bittersweet; what was once tantalizingly obscure devolves into the simply mundane–written words doing what they do–mere signs signifying something out there in the world, but what thing and which world?
Even as the first great mystery fades, another comes into being: that ineffable quality in the arrangement and execution of these sound symbols that is more than the sum of its parts and the source of its captivating beauty.
Of all the so-called Islamic arts, al-khatt (or trace) holds a privileged position. Combining function with perfect form, the hyper-stylized and fantastically ornate expressions retain a suppleness and a subtlety unmatched in other cultures. They are at once stirring and deeply soothing. Adapt scribes, whose masterworks can be seen adorning mosques and monuments, ancient coins and illuminated manuscripts, take the written words and weave them together not quite as poets do–into a tapestry of ideas and imagery that flood the mind–but rather into a blank canvas upon which one cannot anticipate what might emerge.
The effect is a paradox. The work is in its nature one of arabesque (generally of highly spiritual matters), the form in which it is rendered allays the impulse to simply read–beginning at the beginning and ending at the end–one finds himself instead caught up in the unbounded net of loops and hooks, eyes wandering forward and backward over the field, infinitely fine in its detail, distinct, atomic; yet revealing the harmony and symmetry of the whole at a further remove. This tidal shifting of perspective transforms consciousness, offering a glimpse into what lies beneath and beyond our senses.
The transcendent beauty of the Arabic trace is well recognized and often heralded as the greatest and most well developed of the fine arts in Islamic civilization. That this should be so is often explained, particularly in the West, by early Islam’s censure of anthropomorphic figures and images–particularly in a religious context–as a safeguard against idol worship slipping in through the backdoor, as it were. In the absence of drawing and sculpture, stylized writing became the preferred mode of artistic and religious expression simply by default.
This explanation, while credible, seems somewhat stingy. The fact is that the Arabs, to whom Islam was first revealed, have and have always had an especially profound reverence for the spoken and written word since well before the Islamic period.
Pre-Islamic or Jahili poetry best represented in the epics of Al-Khansa, Asma bint Marwan, Antara ibn Chaddad, and Imru’l-Qays, to name but a few, was extremely well developed and widely celebrated as an art form.
The trace in Islam, assiduously cultivated over millennia, owes its genesis less to a prohibition against certain other art forms than to the serendipitous revelation of Al-Qur’an, unprecedented in form and unsurpassed in beauty, to a people who would recognize it as such. As the verbatim word of Allah, it existed outside time–eternal, unchanging, and uncreated–the transcribed emissions of a celestial wavelength, as it were. It was poetry of the most ineffable intensity and beauty to Arabs hearing it recited for the first time. It was believed to speak in an Arabic more majestic, more euphonious, more mesmeric that had been known in the time before Islam, al-Jahiliyya.
To hear its surats (verses) intoned or, for the able few, to read them was to know language that was a gift from the supreme source: “Who has not begotten, nor is He begotten, and there is no one comparable to Him.” The entrancing music of the message compelled attention that removed all doubt as to belief and obligation.
Hearing it recited under the hot sun in a town square or shivering by an oasis in the cold night, the camel driver, the souk merchant, and the slave were uplifted by Allah’s new commandments and commitments. Ancient tribal loyalties became loyalty to the greatest tribe of all–Islam and all those whose jihad (struggle in the path of Islam) proved true at the end of their time were wondrously rewarded.
So Allah will ward off from them the evil of that day, and cause them to meet with splendor and happiness.
And round about them will go youths, never altering in age; when
thou seest them thou wilt think them to be scattered pearls. And when
Thou lookest thither, thou seest blessings and a great kingdom.
Yet, as much as the eudaemonia experienced in the hearing and the reading of its scriptures, as much even as the confidence-building of their clarity and rigor, the unique balm of Muhammad’s message was that it lifted the Arabs out of an aged inferiority complex. Ishamel’s people had languished in their Jahiliyya of error and ignorance for centuries while other peoples of the Fertile Crescent boasted in writing of God’s special favor.
At last, after more than a millennium of axial revelations, Ishmael’s progeny had been chosen to recite the truths that superseded the gospels of Zarathustra, Abraham, Moses, Mani, and Jesus. The “UnCreated Creotor” chose the Arabs as custodians of mankind’s final covenant, for the “only true faith in God’s sight is Islam.” Surat Al-Hijr assures Believers that the “day will surely come when those who disbelieve will wish that they were Muslims.”
The truth of that prophecy was about to be tested when ‘Uthman, the third Caliphe who reigned from 644 to 656, ascended the throne. It was under his guidance that the gathering and authentication of materials bearing the transmitted word of God, bits of which had already been assembled by Abu Bakr, the first Caliphe who ruled from 632 to 634, were pressed to a conclusion by a bevy of scribes who owed a considerable debt to A’isha, the Prophet’s child bride, Zayd ibn Thabit, the multilingual secretary, and ‘Uthman himself.
The definitive Qur’an of 114 surats, or chapters, arranged more or less according to length, materialized in 650. The finished version was ‘Uthman’s singular legacy to his faith, but it also played a part in causing his violent death. He, too, like ‘Umar before him and Ali after him, was stabbed to death by a fanatic, who was none other than A’isha’s brother, Muhammad, son of Abu Bakr. By the time Ali ascended the caliphate in 656, many Muslims had already memorized the entire Mushaf.
There were also several Arabic scripts in circulation. The Iraqi city of Kufa, founded in 640, eventually became a religious and cultural center, attracting scholars from across the newly established empire. The Kufic script, which evolved from even earlier forms, is distinguished for its being non-cursive and geometrical. Its angular character made Kufic particularly suitable for use in adorning architecture, but was also the main script for transcribing Al-Qur’an for several centuries. However, newly developed cursive scripts (Thuluth comes to mind), more fluid and elegant in form, had unseated the Kufic style by the 11th century as the preferred mode of Qur’anic writing.
The demands of the state likewise furthered the evolution of the Arabic cursive script via the massive number of documents generated by the Islamic empire’s vast bureaucracy. Probably the most important of all scribes, Abu Ali Muhammad Ibn Muqla (886-940), is credited with regularizing the geometries and rules of proportion for calligraphic writing, for which he invented and developed several new styles. Ibn Muqla’s script became the de facto official script for secular writing, variations of which remain the main Arabic script used today.
While the Arabic script and its subsequent developments were certainly meant to convey a message, the medium took on a form of its own. The more penmanship was used as ornamentation, the more abstract its form became, often rendering the resulting work almost completely opaque to many readers. This did not detract from the work’s aesthetic appeal and, indeed became a legitimate function of writing. Qur’anic verses and sayings of the prophet could be contorted into fantastic shapes–a bird; a tiger; a lamp; a five-pointed star; a man prostrate in prayer. The divinely inspired words taking the form of a material object enjoins the observer to consider that which underlies all reality–that which is eternal and infinitely intricate.
The complexity of the language would later manifest itself in the prose of writers such as al-Mutanabbi and Abu’l Ala al-Ma’arri in the East and Ibn al-Arabi and Ibn Rushd in the West, all of whom in their odes soared to rhapsodic heights and drove their huge audiences into rapture. They used prose as a razor-sharp Aristotelian instrument to convey their message. Their knowledge of the language was so immense and natural that they could be eloquent and clear; they did not need fillers, verbosity, or display for its own sake.
It is true that the ‘Abbassid dynasty (750–1258), followed by the Mamluks in Egypt, and later, the Fatimid, Mughal, and Ottoman Empires in the East as well as al-Andalus in the West were all great patrons of the arts, and schools of calligraphy flourished during their respective reigns, when on the other had the scribes in Timbuktu (Mali), who practiced Sufi Islam, not only refined the existing styles but also created numerous novel forms. This can be seen in the fine, lean, and most steely prose of the manuscripts that were written at the time. The development of this style as an art form was called Maghribi. It coincided with the proliferation of the holy book in The Maghreb in the 8th century, following the defeat of the Jewish Priestess al-Amira al-Kahina by Hassan ibn Noman in 690.
Nowhere is this reality more obvious than in the inscriptions one finds in the 8th-century mosque in al-Kairawan (Tunisia) and in manuscripts hosted in the 12th-century Great Mosque of Qutubiyya in Marrakesh (Morocco).
Painstakingly transcribed by hand in exacting detail, a single copy of Al-Qur’an could take several months to complete in the Maghribi style. The reverence for their labor’s object and the sense of divine purpose the scribes must have felt in transmitting the perfect words of God’s message to mankind, transformed their effort into a sacred act of devotion, and the Maghribi script that was its vehicle was exalted and rendered ever more beautifully.
The ductus developed by Mahmud bin Umar (1463-1548), Grand Cadi, (Islamic leader) of Timbuktu and one of the greatest jurists in the history of the city, is a case in point. The curly writing of Ahmed Baba (1556-1627), the last Chancellor of Sankore University in Timbuktu, is another.
At the same time that copyists in al-Mashraq were refining a fleshy script, their counterparts in al-Maghreb were developing a bony style. As in the East, the round skinny script used in the Islamic West came in different sizes and forms. Perhaps on analogy with the three pairs of majuscule/minuscule scripts that make up the Six Pens, Maghribi script is often juxtaposed as a pair of opposite sizes: Andalusi, from al-Andalus, the Arabic name for the Iberian peninsula, is often used for a small, compact variant that is the counterpart of a larger and looser style known as Fasi (literally from Fez in Morocco).
By the 16th century the two are said to have merged into one average-sized script. The style that one finds in manuscripts dating back to the Early Modern period assembled in the Ahmed Baba Center for Research and Documentation (CEDRAB) in Timbuktu is closer to the Fasi script than to its al-Andalusi half-brother.
It is visually distinct thanks to the descending letters with large bowls and swooping curves. The shafts of the letters often swell at the top, and they, like most initial strokes, begin with a left serif. The strokes on fa’ and (kaf) are generally diagonal and contrast with the rounded bodies of these letters. Final alif ends with a spur or point at the bottom. Sad is a smooth lozenge, without any initial bump.
In addition to the distinctive script, several features of pointing, vocalization, orthography, added in red ink, are characteristic of the style. And if the materials are dense, the difference in illumination is much less pronounced. Suffice it to add that the stroke appears uniform and this may well be due to the way the scribe cut his pen, which was carved out of a thinner cane that came originally from the swamps in Senegal, and which was much softer than its counterpart in Fez or Tunis.
Here, the mythical past of Timbuktu, which was for centuries a desert crossroads, a major center for trading and for learning where thousands of manuscripts were written and stored, re-emerges to supply wonderful details of a forgotten golden age of Islamic history. The famously remote mud-walled city has been keeping a secret. In the past few years thousands of ancient manuscripts have been discovered there, mostly at the Sankore University-Mosque, a major center of intellectual life from the 12th to the 16th centuries.
These rare documents are enormously important to the story of Africa. Some 15,000 have been located and filed under the aegis of the United Nations educational, scientific, and cultural organization (UNESCO). Perhaps 80,000 more lie untouched in chests, attics, and corners of the city.
The precious manuscripts were the glory of the Niger river valley from the 12th to the 19th century but are now threatened by decay and illegal traffickers who take them, written in Arabic or sometimes Fulani by scholars from the old Malian empire and beyond, to Switzerland where they are enhanced before being sold to private collectors.
Ali Ould Sid, head of the Timbuktu cultural mission, is alarmed: “The manuscripts found in homes need to be identified, protected, and restored. Otherwise, Timbuktu will be stripped of a written heritage whose importance can hardly be overestimated.”
Doing away with the neglect and illegal export is something Ould Sidi is determined to uphold. For him (and for us) reclaiming a legacy, and a fabulous one at that, tells us by some other way of telling, that black Africa had and continues to have a literary history that goes beyond the mere notion of Africa as a continent of “song and dance.” It includes poetry by men and women, legal reflections, and scientific treatises. It also reveals that Africa has not only an oral but also literate culture–a corrective to the statement made by Hugh Trevor-Roper in 1963: “Perhaps in the future, there will be some African history to teach. But at present there is none. There is only the history of Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness.”
The claim brings to mind Derrida’s concept of over-representation: that history in Europe is dead not because it has nothing new to offer to the world but because it neglects the history of vast lands and peoples it once occupied.
Until recently, Timbuktu was seen as a holy, mysterious, and inaccessible place; a three-syllable-word, in the Western popular imagination at least, that leads to the end of the earth. Both the cliché and the “real thing” gave the city a reputation that fascinated explorers such as the Scotsman Mungo Park, France’s René Caillé, and the German Heinrich Barth. “Timbuktu is” wrote Charles de Foucault, “a waste land in the middle of another waste land, namely, the Sahara.”
We may want to put it another way by saying that Timbuktu is a city of citadels and castles made of mud and sand in what is now northwestern Mali, on the edge of the Sahara desert, near the left bank of the Niger river. It began as a Tuareg encampment in the 11th century and came into its own in the 14th century as a trading post on the route between the old West Sudan and The Maghreb.
Salt from Taoudenni in the north, gold from the mines of the Bouré region in the southwest, and slaves from Ghana passed through it. Later, Arab and Persian merchants were joined by travelers and Muslim philosophers acting as missionaries. The Sahel (the savannah area south of the Sahara) split between those peoples who accepted Islam as a way of life and those who did not. The Mossi people in what is now Burkina Faso resisted conversion whereas the Songhay empire, which succeeded the Malian empire at the end of the 14th century, embraced the new religion.
The production of manuscripts in Timbuktu was linked with the spread of Sufi Islam, which was and is still widely practiced in the region. As a result, the three largest cities in the region, Timbuktu, Gao, and Djenné, became centers of an Islamo-Sudanese civilization the influences of which can still be felt today. In the 15th century the population of Timbuktu was an astonishing 100,000 (today it is 30,000), including 25,000 students, members of the Sankore University-Mosque. Ulema (scholars) lectured and scribes recorded their words on bark, camels’ shoulders, sheepskin, papyrus or paper from the east and later from Italy via Tunisia.
Over centuries they built up a priceless body of philosophical, legal, and religious writings. There is a vast variety of knowledge within these manuscripts, from the positions of the planets to the tonality of musical instruments, the prices of textiles to kola nuts.
Caravans on the route from Agadez (now in Niger) to Tichit (now Mauritania) via Sokoto (now in northern Nigeria) carried quantities of information between enlightened merchants as well as blocks of salt, sacks of tobacco, and paper. For nearly 300 years trade and knowledge developed mutually. These manuscripts prove that it was never true that African civilizations relied solely on oral traditions, as scholars, including the late Hamadou Hampâte Bâ, suggested.
Yet even as this cache is being discovered, it is in danger of disappearing, as sand and other grit are abrading many of the aging texts causing them to disintegrate. There is also a danger that these precious findings might fall into the hands of people who are more interested in making money than understanding the past of a proud people who left an incredible legacy. It is in this sense that the following set of questions is de rigueur: How can this rich vein of written wisdom be safely and sensibly tapped before time destroys it? Are we able to safeguard a key element of Africa’s historical consciousness? What should be our role as scholars to protect and restore an incredible portion of Islamic and/or Jewish history?
The Jewish community played a positive role in bringing not only gold from the Sudan to Christian Europe but also jealously guarded the culture of the time. They were well established in the ports of The Maghreb by the Middle Ages–the Cresques family, represented by Abraham Cresques (1325–1387), the father of cartography in Timbuktu, settled there in the 12th century–so trade routes linked them to the interior.
The celebrated Arab trader Hasan ibn al-Wazzan, nicknamed Leon the African, wrote of a Jewish presence in Gao in the 15th century. Ismaël Diadé Haidara, is a descendant of the Kati dynasty of Ulema goes, into detail explaining the history of his family’s collection of rare manuscripts, kept in a restored house near the Jingereber mosque. “This trove began in 1468 when my ancestor, the Islamicized Visigoth Ali bin Ziyad al-Kuti, moved to West Africa from Toledo. After that it didn’t stop growing for several generations of Kati. We decided to get the texts out in 1999.”
The Kati library is a rich lot of medieval knowledge, with writings ranging from manuscripts that deal with good governance, food, medicine, love, death, and the dangers of tobacco. Law, theology, medicine, grammar, music, and mathematics are all covered in works by scholars from Gao, Timbuktu, and Djenné. For now at least, the tomes are stored on shelves protected from sand and dust. Legal documents pertaining to the Jews and Christians of Timbuktu testify to the tolerance and intense commercial life of the city. Slaves sold and freed are recorded, together with the prices of salt, spices, gold, and feathers, on parchments attached to gold-illuminated letters from sovereigns from both sides of the Sahara.
The heritage that Timbuktu holds has a powerful lesson to teach us. Take the calligraphic works as an example and the case will be clear enough. The scale, proportion, and context guide our consciousness to a contemplative place, offering us in the process a chance to glimpse something profound. The sublime beauty of an illuminated manuscript, its pages adorned with scripts of various sizes and different colored inks, overlapping and interweaving into a composition that is white marble of the Taj Mahal or Cordova’s Great Mosque, so captivating and hypnotic are these that the individual words from which they are composed seem to fade in and out of resolution.
These works entreat us to not merely see the finite word, the singular concrete object among a multitude of others, but to step back and take a wider view, to observe how the many merge into one, again a singularity, but one containing everything.
[Pictures:
Doors of the Sankore Madrash, Timbuktu, Mali;
The Library of Congress, Online Exhibition: "Ancient Manuscripts from the Desert Libraries of Timbuktu", Islamic Mysticism. This text explains the basic principles of Sufi practice, pointing out the various stages of knowledge that mystics pass through as their knowledge of God increases through their strict application of devotional discipline. The author further discusses the relationship between belief, Sufi doctrine, and knowledge of God.]
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
The High Road
By Dr. Robert D. Crane, *Fort Hood and Swiss Minarets: The Existential Problem of Scorpions in a Bottle* - The American Muslim - Bridgeton, MO, USASunday, November 29, 2009
Tom Friedman is quite right in his New York Times op-ed piece of November 29th where he exclaims to Muslims: “Whenever something like Fort Hood happens you say, ‘This is not Islam.’
I believe that. But you keep telling us what Islam isn’t. You need to tell us what it is and show us how its positive interpretations are being promoted in your schools and mosques. If this is not Islam, then why is it that a million Muslims will pour into the streets to protest Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, but not one will take to the streets to protest Muslim suicide bombers who blow up other Muslims, real people, created in the image of God? You need to explain that to us — and to yourselves.”
The reason why Muslims instinctively attack those who attack Islam but hesitate to attack Muslims who by their actions are un-Islamic is a sickness that I would call a monist identity crisis. This is a denial of multiple identities, whereby a person can have several identities based on a core common to all of them.
In my view, the major weaknesses of any person, community, or civilization in the world today is modern tribalism, which I define as an identity crisis derived from arrogance and from an underlying fear of the other, which leads to blind support of one’s own group. This clearly explains Neo-Conservatism and its failure to promote an environment favorable to its own goals of peace, prosperity, and freedom in the world.
This same existential fear motivates many Muslims, who are too insecure to conceive of any expanded identity beyond one’s own tribe, whether it be Pakistani or merely Muslim.
When some Muslim commits a horrendous crime, the instinctive reaction of most other Muslims is a lame attempt to justify the motivation behind the crime or merely a lame excuse by saying “Don’t blame me.” The reaction should be to condemn the crime and the criminal as a threat to all of humanity, including themselves as Muslims. This, however, violates the tribal instinct to defend one’s own, regardless of right or wrong.
Another development in the war against Islam and Muslims was highlighted, also today, November 29th, 2009, in the AP report from Geneva, Switzerland, by Alexander G. Higgins, entitled “Swiss Ban Mosque Minarets in Surprise Vote.” Its introductory paragraph reads: “Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban on minarets on Sunday, barring construction of the iconic mosque towers in a surprise vote that put Switzerland at the forefront of a European backlash against a growing Muslim population.”
This constitutional prohibition automatically adopted by the landslide vote yesterday against building minarets in Switzerland poses three problems.
The first is that this makes it difficult for the efforts by the Vatican and others involved in the Common Word dialogue movement to demand freedom for crosses (and churches) in Saudi Arabia. This barrier to the Common Word dialogue is a setback, because any kind of religious extremism promotes more extremism in response until, as the old saying goes, we are all blind.
Secondly, the Swiss are not alone in their fear of Muslims and may be merely in the forefront of a rising global problem. The biggest mosque in the Washington area, Dar al Hijra, enlisted my support to lobby for permission to build a minaret in the early 1990s. Unfortunately, we had to settle for a tiny minaret hidden by newly planted trees so that no-one could see it from the main highway (Route 7, near Seven Corners). This was a no-win situation, because the local Muslims seemed to be exactly what the local residents feared, namely, narrow-minded foreigners who should have “gone home to where they belonged”. When a neighborhood leader across the street wanted to greet the Muslims while they were building the mosque, the imam refused to let her in, because the Wahhabi religion prohibits non-Muslims where they do not belong, namely, in anything reserved exclusively for Muslims.
Unfortunately, to compound the problem, the local Muslims claimed to be not Wahhabis but representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, who oppose the Wahhabis. In the eyes of most “informed” Americans at the time, the Ikhwan or Muslim Brotherhood represented a revolutionary form of Muslim political activism that arose as a modernist reaction to the secularist West but claimed to represent traditional Islam.
The Muslim denial that the mosque was a Wahhabi encroachment was regarded as typical Muslim hypocrisy supposedly justified by the Shi’a doctrine of taqiya or dissimulation, which, in turn, supposedly is designed to infiltrate and overthrow the government wherever Muslims have decided to take over a country.
At the time, I supported the local neighborhood leader in addressing parking problems in order to persuade her to drop her suit against further construction of the mosque, and I even went further by offering to buy her property and house across the street and give her a cut in the parking fees from the construction of an office building and five-story parking facility on her former property. She accepted this enthusiastically, even though I had no authority to make the offer, which I dreamed up out of thin air on the spur of the moment. The mosque was built, but we never bought her property, because eventually she just wanted to get away from the Muslim threat.
This was almost twenty years ago. Most Muslims have wised up since then and now understand what it means to be an American, but the old history and the environment since 9/11 and Fort Hood and now in Europe still dominates politically.
I would estimate that a vote against building minarets in America would succeed even more so than it did in Switzerland and might even win in a campaign to add a similar prohibitory amendment to the American Constitution, as is the case now in Switzerland.
The third problem, so far only a potential one, is that Muslim outrage over the ban on building a minaret next to a mosque might trigger similar votes in other countries and result even in the prohibition of building mosques altogether.
The challenge both by and to Muslims is indicated by the response to my advocacy of a Fourth World War against extremists, including Muslims. This is highly unpopular among Muslims, because I thereby appear to be joining the Islamophobes who invented the term “Fourth World War.”
In fact, I am inviting them to join Muslims in fighting Muslim extremists whose actions are understandable but un-Islamic and therefore are a threat to everyone, including themselves. The low road of condemnation, however, does not get us very far and is inferior to the high road, which is to emphasize the positive in Islam and every world religion as the best way to counter extremism.
The Prophet Muhammad, salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa salam, as I remember, once shocked his listeners by saying, in true Sufi style, that one should support the wrongdoers.
When his listeners were shocked, he explained that one should support the wrong doers by showing them what is right. This is what the Fourth World War should be all about.
Our challenge is to recruit Muslims and others to join us in a Fourth World War against the extremists of every tribe who are now caught in a bottle like scorpions with no alternative but to destroy each other.
[Picture: Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, Washington DC]
Monday, December 07, 2009
Embrace It!
By Ceylan Yeginsu, *Look inside before looking outside to face challenges* - Hürriyet Daily News - Istanbul, Turkey
Friday November 27, 2009
Solutions proposed for gender equality are often generic clichés, vague and empty. The recent visit from a “corporate Sufi” to the Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey, or KAGİDER, however, brought great inspiration to dozens of powerful Turkish businesswomen who were asked to gather the power within them to start tackling greater problems.
According to Azim Jamal, an inspirational speaker and self-acclaimed “corporate Sufi,” every human being has a unique power within them, but it is a great challenge to locate this power and many people go a lifetime without ever finding it. A corporate Sufi applies timeless Sufi principles to the modern corporate world, examining the uncommon connection between an age-old philosophy for living and working in the 21st century.
“Externally, many human beings exert power, but this is ego, it is not real power,” Jamal said, speaking at the KAGİDERBiz headquarters last week. According to Jamal, real power comes from within. “It is a light that when found can shine and empower other people, where as external power merely overpowers people,” he said.
Jamal defines this inner power as a birthday gift, one that many go through a lifetime without opening. “People get distracted, they do what people tell them to do and lose their authenticity and mold themselves into something that they are not.”
Jamal said it is the people who maintain their authenticity and are comfortable with who they are that make a real difference in this world. “Look at Oprah Winfrey for example, she never hid her troubled past, she is overweight but comfortable in her own skin. She found the light within herself and by reflecting it on the outside and on others she has become one of the most powerful women in the world,” Jamal said.
Jamal said he accepts that society presents many hurdles, especially for women, but he is a believer that these hurdles can gradually be overcome when women start to ask themselves, “Do I allow that to happen to me?”
The Daily News reporter present at the meeting challenged this question, pointing out that there is a large percentage of women, especially in Turkey, who do not have the courage to question the authority over them, and there is a large percentage of women who believe it is right that they are treated as subordinates to men.
Jamal acknowledged that this was a wide-spread and global issue and one that a handful of individuals cannot change single-handedly, but he pointed out that it alls starts with the individual. He said this was because the focus on a small influence can have a ripple effect and end up creating a bigger influence.
“Women bring a lot to society, by leaving them behind societies try to go forward with half of their resources,” Jamal said.
Jamal proposed that women ask themselves, “What can I do to be a role model?” He said the more role models there were the more potential there was to make changes to society as a whole. “This outlook is geared towards making solutions, because once you start seeing the potential change within, you start to look at changing the world around you,” he said.
When Jamal asked the floor what they thought was their greatest challenge as women in Turkish society, KAGİDER Chairwoman Gülseren Onanç said it was polarization. “Turkish women are increasingly becoming polarized, there are so many that believe that it is not their right to assert themselves in society, it is really sad,” she said.
Another woman in the audience, who did not give her name, said it was frustrating to see such little change for women over the years. “You still go on business trips and introduce yourself as the owner of your company and a man asks you, ‘Who is your boss?’” she said.
Many women in the audience also highlighted the problem of time management as businesswomen in Turkey, saying it is increasingly becoming difficult in this demanding age to run a business and a family and put time aside for yourself. “These types of pressures placed on women make them extremely masculine,” said Tulin Özbek, another businesswoman at the meeting.
In response, Jamal said all these obstacles are a part of the process to create change. “Struggles and challenges are our biggest gift, they allow us to progress,” he said, adding that what is important is to not stand still and dwell on the problem, but instead embrace it.
A key part of Jamal’s belief toward progress is that people practice a positive one-hour in their day where they read something positive, do some exercises and meditate in order to connect with themselves. “People also say to me that we don’t have this time, but I say go to bed an hour later, or wake up an hour earlier, because this is the most precious time,” Jamal said.
The women at KAGİDER received Jamal’s presentation extremely positively, saying they would try to implement some of his suggestions in their daily lives; however, many commented that these types of presentations would be more effective with the presence of men. Onanç said men were invited to the event but only a couple showed up.
Jamal said the more women who find their inner light, strength and power, the more men will shift in their perspectives and start to move away from their patriarchal approach to women and work. He said this could happen hand-in-hand and would overall betterment of the world.
Friday November 27, 2009
Solutions proposed for gender equality are often generic clichés, vague and empty. The recent visit from a “corporate Sufi” to the Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey, or KAGİDER, however, brought great inspiration to dozens of powerful Turkish businesswomen who were asked to gather the power within them to start tackling greater problems.
According to Azim Jamal, an inspirational speaker and self-acclaimed “corporate Sufi,” every human being has a unique power within them, but it is a great challenge to locate this power and many people go a lifetime without ever finding it. A corporate Sufi applies timeless Sufi principles to the modern corporate world, examining the uncommon connection between an age-old philosophy for living and working in the 21st century.
“Externally, many human beings exert power, but this is ego, it is not real power,” Jamal said, speaking at the KAGİDERBiz headquarters last week. According to Jamal, real power comes from within. “It is a light that when found can shine and empower other people, where as external power merely overpowers people,” he said.
Jamal defines this inner power as a birthday gift, one that many go through a lifetime without opening. “People get distracted, they do what people tell them to do and lose their authenticity and mold themselves into something that they are not.”
Jamal said it is the people who maintain their authenticity and are comfortable with who they are that make a real difference in this world. “Look at Oprah Winfrey for example, she never hid her troubled past, she is overweight but comfortable in her own skin. She found the light within herself and by reflecting it on the outside and on others she has become one of the most powerful women in the world,” Jamal said.
Jamal said he accepts that society presents many hurdles, especially for women, but he is a believer that these hurdles can gradually be overcome when women start to ask themselves, “Do I allow that to happen to me?”
The Daily News reporter present at the meeting challenged this question, pointing out that there is a large percentage of women, especially in Turkey, who do not have the courage to question the authority over them, and there is a large percentage of women who believe it is right that they are treated as subordinates to men.
Jamal acknowledged that this was a wide-spread and global issue and one that a handful of individuals cannot change single-handedly, but he pointed out that it alls starts with the individual. He said this was because the focus on a small influence can have a ripple effect and end up creating a bigger influence.
“Women bring a lot to society, by leaving them behind societies try to go forward with half of their resources,” Jamal said.
Jamal proposed that women ask themselves, “What can I do to be a role model?” He said the more role models there were the more potential there was to make changes to society as a whole. “This outlook is geared towards making solutions, because once you start seeing the potential change within, you start to look at changing the world around you,” he said.
When Jamal asked the floor what they thought was their greatest challenge as women in Turkish society, KAGİDER Chairwoman Gülseren Onanç said it was polarization. “Turkish women are increasingly becoming polarized, there are so many that believe that it is not their right to assert themselves in society, it is really sad,” she said.
Another woman in the audience, who did not give her name, said it was frustrating to see such little change for women over the years. “You still go on business trips and introduce yourself as the owner of your company and a man asks you, ‘Who is your boss?’” she said.
Many women in the audience also highlighted the problem of time management as businesswomen in Turkey, saying it is increasingly becoming difficult in this demanding age to run a business and a family and put time aside for yourself. “These types of pressures placed on women make them extremely masculine,” said Tulin Özbek, another businesswoman at the meeting.
In response, Jamal said all these obstacles are a part of the process to create change. “Struggles and challenges are our biggest gift, they allow us to progress,” he said, adding that what is important is to not stand still and dwell on the problem, but instead embrace it.
A key part of Jamal’s belief toward progress is that people practice a positive one-hour in their day where they read something positive, do some exercises and meditate in order to connect with themselves. “People also say to me that we don’t have this time, but I say go to bed an hour later, or wake up an hour earlier, because this is the most precious time,” Jamal said.
The women at KAGİDER received Jamal’s presentation extremely positively, saying they would try to implement some of his suggestions in their daily lives; however, many commented that these types of presentations would be more effective with the presence of men. Onanç said men were invited to the event but only a couple showed up.
Jamal said the more women who find their inner light, strength and power, the more men will shift in their perspectives and start to move away from their patriarchal approach to women and work. He said this could happen hand-in-hand and would overall betterment of the world.
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Saturday, December 19, 2009
Prominent Shaykh arrested
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politics
By Abdalle Ahmed, *Somalia: Al Shabab Group of Somalia Arrests Prominent Sheikh* - RBC Radio/Raxanreeb Online - Mogadishu, Somalia
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Local residents in southern Somalia have confirmed that Al Shabab group arrested a prominent religious man in Basra district near Bal’ad, 75 km from south Mogadishu, RBC Radio reports.
Sheikh Abdul Rahim Sheikh Hassan, 102, and his wife had been taken to the custody by Al Shabab militia yesterday evening, relatives of the Sheikh told RBC Radio.
Sheikh Abdul Rahim and his wife had been taken to unknown location where the Al Shabab’s militia are holding for questioning local sources said.
The group has launched an attack on the city of Basra in the Middle Shabelle province, which was held the annual event for the visit of Sheikh Hassan Mo’alim as one of a pole from the Sufi imams in Somalia.
Sheikh Abdel Rahman Abu Yusuf Al Qadi, spokesman for Al Shabab had confirmed what he said is an operation agains illegal meeting held in the area, but declined to comment on the arrest of Sheikh Abdul Rahim.
This attack comes after the Somali government declared on Saturday that it had agreed with Ahlu Sunna, a moderate group in Somalia to cooperate with the prevention against armed opposition led by Al Shabab.
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Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Local residents in southern Somalia have confirmed that Al Shabab group arrested a prominent religious man in Basra district near Bal’ad, 75 km from south Mogadishu, RBC Radio reports.
Sheikh Abdul Rahim Sheikh Hassan, 102, and his wife had been taken to the custody by Al Shabab militia yesterday evening, relatives of the Sheikh told RBC Radio.
Sheikh Abdul Rahim and his wife had been taken to unknown location where the Al Shabab’s militia are holding for questioning local sources said.
The group has launched an attack on the city of Basra in the Middle Shabelle province, which was held the annual event for the visit of Sheikh Hassan Mo’alim as one of a pole from the Sufi imams in Somalia.
Sheikh Abdel Rahman Abu Yusuf Al Qadi, spokesman for Al Shabab had confirmed what he said is an operation agains illegal meeting held in the area, but declined to comment on the arrest of Sheikh Abdul Rahim.
This attack comes after the Somali government declared on Saturday that it had agreed with Ahlu Sunna, a moderate group in Somalia to cooperate with the prevention against armed opposition led by Al Shabab.
From Different Communities
By ANI, *Devotees from different communities throng Bulle Shah's shrine* - Sify Video - India
Monday, December 7, 2009
Ferozepur, Punjab, India: Devotees from different communities throng Bulle Shah's shrine. A humanist and a philosopher Bulle Shah is considered as one of the greatest Sufi saints.
Born in 1680 in a family directly descended from the Prophet Muhammad he is known for practicing the Sufi tradition of Punjabi poetry established by poets like Shah Hussain and Sultan Bahu.
Though Bulle Shah was born in a small village of Uch Bahawalpur Punjab now in Pakistan, one of his shrines is located in the small village of Kandhwala Hazarkhan in Ferozepur.
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saints and shrines
By ANI, *Devotees from different communities throng Bulle Shah's shrine* - Sify Video - IndiaMonday, December 7, 2009
Ferozepur, Punjab, India: Devotees from different communities throng Bulle Shah's shrine. A humanist and a philosopher Bulle Shah is considered as one of the greatest Sufi saints.
Born in 1680 in a family directly descended from the Prophet Muhammad he is known for practicing the Sufi tradition of Punjabi poetry established by poets like Shah Hussain and Sultan Bahu.
Though Bulle Shah was born in a small village of Uch Bahawalpur Punjab now in Pakistan, one of his shrines is located in the small village of Kandhwala Hazarkhan in Ferozepur.
Click on the title of the article to a video of the Fair at the Shrine
[Picture from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulleh_Shah]
Friday, December 18, 2009
Sufi Power
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review
By Staff Writer, *‘Sufism’ effective offset to socio-cultural degradation* - The News International - Karachi, Pakistan
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Islamabad: At a time when ‘Sufism’ is being promoted as an antidote to religious fundamentalism, Dr. Fatima Hussain’s new book titled ‘The War that Wasn’t; The Sufi and the Sultan’ comes as an answer to all queries regarding ‘Sufi’ school of thought and its power over the masses.
‘Sufism’ played a considerable role in bringing humane teachings of the religion to the forefront during the Middle Ages and it is now considered to be an effective offset to the socio-cultural degradation threatening the very roots of our social values and system.
Dr. Fatima Hussain’s latest book analyses the subtle nuances of the dynamics of ‘Sufi’ power in the social politics of the Delhi Sultanate, and how this power affected the relations between the ‘Sufi’ and the ‘Sultanate’, the two most powerful institutions in medieval sub-continent. Dr Fatima’s book on ‘Sufism’ brings forth a vibrant picture of ‘Sufi’ school of thought in the contemporary world amidst growing concerns regarding the massive threat of religious extremism to global peace.
Dr Fatima Hussain is a profound scholar and teacher of history in Delhi University.
Sufism is a topic on which she already has published a number of articles and books. The book contains numerous anecdotes from medieval Persian sources, while dealing with incidents related to these ‘Sufis’.
Author’s object in this book has been to examine the broad bases of ‘Sufi’ history in the ‘Sultanate’ period to adduce sufficient evidence to suggest the need for a new approach.
This highly research based work contains vital aspects of the ‘Sufi’ movement, i.e., philosophy and practices of ‘Sufism’, development of ‘Sufism’ in the region, dynamics of ‘Sufi’ power and the multi-dimensional role of the ‘Sufi’ hospices, especially, as an impetus to urban expansion, such as ‘Khanqahs’ during the ‘Sultanate’ period.
Dr. Fatima Hussain is known in South Asian academic circles for her book ‘The Palestine Question: A Historical Perspective.’
‘Classic,’ of Lahore, and recent publication ‘Sufism & Bhakti Movement; Contemporary Relevance,’ that has been compiled by Dr. Fatima Hussain.
Dedicated to Benazir Bhutto, the volume carries papers presented at a seminar held at New Delhi’s Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Some articles of Pakistani authors, too, have been included in this 351-page book.
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Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Islamabad: At a time when ‘Sufism’ is being promoted as an antidote to religious fundamentalism, Dr. Fatima Hussain’s new book titled ‘The War that Wasn’t; The Sufi and the Sultan’ comes as an answer to all queries regarding ‘Sufi’ school of thought and its power over the masses.
‘Sufism’ played a considerable role in bringing humane teachings of the religion to the forefront during the Middle Ages and it is now considered to be an effective offset to the socio-cultural degradation threatening the very roots of our social values and system.
Dr. Fatima Hussain’s latest book analyses the subtle nuances of the dynamics of ‘Sufi’ power in the social politics of the Delhi Sultanate, and how this power affected the relations between the ‘Sufi’ and the ‘Sultanate’, the two most powerful institutions in medieval sub-continent. Dr Fatima’s book on ‘Sufism’ brings forth a vibrant picture of ‘Sufi’ school of thought in the contemporary world amidst growing concerns regarding the massive threat of religious extremism to global peace.
Dr Fatima Hussain is a profound scholar and teacher of history in Delhi University.
Sufism is a topic on which she already has published a number of articles and books. The book contains numerous anecdotes from medieval Persian sources, while dealing with incidents related to these ‘Sufis’.
Author’s object in this book has been to examine the broad bases of ‘Sufi’ history in the ‘Sultanate’ period to adduce sufficient evidence to suggest the need for a new approach.
This highly research based work contains vital aspects of the ‘Sufi’ movement, i.e., philosophy and practices of ‘Sufism’, development of ‘Sufism’ in the region, dynamics of ‘Sufi’ power and the multi-dimensional role of the ‘Sufi’ hospices, especially, as an impetus to urban expansion, such as ‘Khanqahs’ during the ‘Sultanate’ period.
Dr. Fatima Hussain is known in South Asian academic circles for her book ‘The Palestine Question: A Historical Perspective.’
‘Classic,’ of Lahore, and recent publication ‘Sufism & Bhakti Movement; Contemporary Relevance,’ that has been compiled by Dr. Fatima Hussain.
Dedicated to Benazir Bhutto, the volume carries papers presented at a seminar held at New Delhi’s Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Some articles of Pakistani authors, too, have been included in this 351-page book.
Security Problems
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politics
By Abdi Guled and Abdi Sheikh/Reuters, *Somalia fires heads of police force and military* - The Washington Post - Washington, DC, USA
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Somalia's government fired the head of its police force and its military chief on Sunday two days after a suicide bomber killed three ministers and several others in the capital of the lawless Horn of Africa nation.
Ministers had already been debating for several weeks about replacing the two men to bolster security before a government spokesman announced the sacking of police commander Abdi Hassan Awale and military commander Yusuf Hussein.
"Ali Mohamed Hassan, a former ambassador was appointed as the police commander while Mohamed Gelle Kahiye, a senior military colonel was also appointed as Somali military commander," Abdi Haji Gobdon told Reuters.
Hassan was sacked in 2007 and replaced by Awale. Hussein had been at his post for close to a year.
"The prime minister and his cabinet have agreed to make these changes to tackle the security problems in Somalia."
Neighbouring Kenya has stepped up police patrols in Eastleigh, a Nairobi suburb, which is predominantly populated by ethnic Somalis, residents said. Thursday's hotel bombing in Mogadishu heightened concerns about the Somalia's ability to destabilize the whole region.
"Police have arrested more than 80 people in the last two days, Somalis and non-Somalis. They are arresting everyone who does not have immigration papers," Hussein Mohamed, deputy head of Eastleigh Business Association told Reuters.
"It seems there is a fear that fighters from Somalia may infiltrate the people and attack Nairobi."
Somalia's U.N. -backed government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed is battling an insurgency by two rebel groups seeking to introduce their own strict version of Islamic law.
At least 10 people died and a dozen others were injured in the early hours of Sunday after the country's main rebel group, al Shabaab, attacked Basra, a town to the north of the capital.
Residents said al Shabaab attacked early in the morning with dozens of heavily armed vehicles and engaged scores of armed Ahlu Sunna fighters in a fight with machine guns and rocket propelled-grenades.
Ahlu Sunna is linked to Sufism, a moderate branch of Islam, allied to President Ahmed's administration. Al Shabaab has targeted Sufi holy sites and religious leaders in the past, saying their practices go against the insurgents' strict interpretation of Islamic law.
"I have counted 10 dead sheikhs (preachers) lying in the roads of Basra. About 20 injured sheikhs were also carried in a boat through the Shabelle River," Sheikh Hussein Farah said.
Fighting in Somalia has killed 19,000 civilians since the start of 2007 and driven another 1.5 million from their homes.
(Additional reporting by Abdiaziz Hassan in Nairobi; Writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Louise Ireland)
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Sunday, December 6, 2009
Somalia's government fired the head of its police force and its military chief on Sunday two days after a suicide bomber killed three ministers and several others in the capital of the lawless Horn of Africa nation.
Ministers had already been debating for several weeks about replacing the two men to bolster security before a government spokesman announced the sacking of police commander Abdi Hassan Awale and military commander Yusuf Hussein.
"Ali Mohamed Hassan, a former ambassador was appointed as the police commander while Mohamed Gelle Kahiye, a senior military colonel was also appointed as Somali military commander," Abdi Haji Gobdon told Reuters.
Hassan was sacked in 2007 and replaced by Awale. Hussein had been at his post for close to a year.
"The prime minister and his cabinet have agreed to make these changes to tackle the security problems in Somalia."
Neighbouring Kenya has stepped up police patrols in Eastleigh, a Nairobi suburb, which is predominantly populated by ethnic Somalis, residents said. Thursday's hotel bombing in Mogadishu heightened concerns about the Somalia's ability to destabilize the whole region.
"Police have arrested more than 80 people in the last two days, Somalis and non-Somalis. They are arresting everyone who does not have immigration papers," Hussein Mohamed, deputy head of Eastleigh Business Association told Reuters.
"It seems there is a fear that fighters from Somalia may infiltrate the people and attack Nairobi."
Somalia's U.N. -backed government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed is battling an insurgency by two rebel groups seeking to introduce their own strict version of Islamic law.
At least 10 people died and a dozen others were injured in the early hours of Sunday after the country's main rebel group, al Shabaab, attacked Basra, a town to the north of the capital.
Residents said al Shabaab attacked early in the morning with dozens of heavily armed vehicles and engaged scores of armed Ahlu Sunna fighters in a fight with machine guns and rocket propelled-grenades.
Ahlu Sunna is linked to Sufism, a moderate branch of Islam, allied to President Ahmed's administration. Al Shabaab has targeted Sufi holy sites and religious leaders in the past, saying their practices go against the insurgents' strict interpretation of Islamic law.
"I have counted 10 dead sheikhs (preachers) lying in the roads of Basra. About 20 injured sheikhs were also carried in a boat through the Shabelle River," Sheikh Hussein Farah said.
Fighting in Somalia has killed 19,000 civilians since the start of 2007 and driven another 1.5 million from their homes.
(Additional reporting by Abdiaziz Hassan in Nairobi; Writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Louise Ireland)
A Mowlavi Symposium
By TE/HGH, *Turkey to honor Persian poet Mowlavi* - Press TV - Tehran, Iran
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Turkey is planning to hold a ceremony in commemoration of the world-renowned Persian poet Mowlavi in his eternal resting place in Konya.
The 10-day event will include mystic musical performances and various symposiums about the Sufi poet.
Visitors will also have the chance to watch Whirling Dervishes dancing the Sama, the traditional trancelike meditation of Sufism.
The Mowlavi symposium will host prominent Mowlavi experts from around the world including Dr. Mohammad-Ali Movahhedi from Iran.
Jalal ad-Din Mohammad Balkhi known as Mowlavi was a 13th century Persian poet, mystic and theologian, better-known for his six-volume poem Masnavi considered to be one of the greatest works of both Islamic mysticism and Persian literature.
UNESCO named the year 2007 as the year of Mowlavi in honor of the Persian poet's outstanding achievements.
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saints and shrines
By TE/HGH, *Turkey to honor Persian poet Mowlavi* - Press TV - Tehran, IranSunday, December 6, 2009
Turkey is planning to hold a ceremony in commemoration of the world-renowned Persian poet Mowlavi in his eternal resting place in Konya.
The 10-day event will include mystic musical performances and various symposiums about the Sufi poet.
Visitors will also have the chance to watch Whirling Dervishes dancing the Sama, the traditional trancelike meditation of Sufism.
The Mowlavi symposium will host prominent Mowlavi experts from around the world including Dr. Mohammad-Ali Movahhedi from Iran.
Jalal ad-Din Mohammad Balkhi known as Mowlavi was a 13th century Persian poet, mystic and theologian, better-known for his six-volume poem Masnavi considered to be one of the greatest works of both Islamic mysticism and Persian literature.
UNESCO named the year 2007 as the year of Mowlavi in honor of the Persian poet's outstanding achievements.
World And Self
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art and arts
By K. Srilata, *Wordless as the flight of birds * - The Hindu - India
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Two poetry collections, embodying two different approaches to the world and self.
A Face that Does Not Bear the Imprints of the World, Usha Akella; The Buddha and Other Poems, Jiban Narah, Monsoon Editions, p.82 price not stated.
“A poem should be wordless,” says Archibald MacLeish, “as the flight of birds”. There is a quietness to much of Usha Akella's verse, a quietness between words, that soothes us like chamomile.
Usha writes in the Sufi tradition, a tradition marked by a turning away from all else but God, a tradition based on the letting go of duality.
The poems in her anthology A Face that Does Not Bear the Footprints of the World are essentially songs for the beloved. But in the Sufi scheme of things, who is the beloved if not God? And who is God if not the beloved? The Sufi spirit dances like a dervish, especially in the nine-odd poems Usha has classified under the theme “Beloved”, the strongest in the collection. The poet-narrator becomes “a divining fork tuned to only one thing”.
“Come back to me old and gray/ Do away with the pounding of the blood, Let Time trace wrinkles on your face,” the poet writes. She goes on to describing her beloved as one whose “failures sit on [his] shoulders as irreverent monkeys”. There is a wiped-clean mirror feeling to the verse in this section. Usha writes of “a face that bears not the world's footprints/Nothing has touched it except my Love”. There are some amazing images. Usha likens the succumbing to love to “a fish lying in the sun ready to die”.
Rhythmic cadence
A few of the poems — “Yes! Yes!”, for instance and “Love has forgotten her heart” — are meant to be read aloud, performed, sung. Clearly, there is a certain rhythm that the poet intended, a certain pace and beat but the printed word, as always, fails to convey that.
On the other end of the spectrum, some poems such as “Love is so busy” and “From the Rooftop” suffer from an excess of words and an absence of crafting. “I am tired of being you/ I am tired of being rebellious/ I am tired of second-guessing…” writes Usha in the latter poem, repeating one tired, unmusical phrase over and over again at least half a dozen times. It is the poems that do not “bear the footprints of the world” that are the most evocative.
Characterised by a lyricism and economy, Jiban Narah's poems, translated from the Assamese by Pradip Acharya, Krishna Dulal Barua and Niren Thakuria, draw extensively on Mishing myths. Steeped as they are in folk themes, the poems in the anthology The Buddha and Other Poems pose a challenge to the non-Assamese reader. But for that very reason, they also provide an interesting entry into another culture. Quite sensibly, the translators have not smoothed all the bumps for us and the reading remains awkward, pushing us beyond the poem to its footnotes. We learn (thanks to the footnotes) that the first man on earth is “abotani”, the god of water is “Jalakhai” and the god of land “thalakai”. We go back and forth a lot. Something is lost, no doubt, in the process. But we also gain another world.
There are other poems that resonate well in English, perhaps for the reason that their canvas is larger than the Mishing one Narah uses in so many of his poems or perhaps because the poet has successfully internalised and re-woven the folk into his personal canvas. “The Gourd Blossom” is one that travels lightly:
A rain drenched flute kept playing
One by one dreams kept falling
like leaves
I am a small sailboat
the note of the flute
makes me reach out to the banks
like a river
I would rather not spend this night alone
I am the lone first blossom
of the Flame of the Forest
In “Poetry” too the images sparkle and speak to us personally: “Knowing trees to be with bliss-hued leaves as birds/ yet you take the leaves for birds/ Aware that the birds aren't trees/ yet you plant birds”.
Narah uses colours to sensuous effect. In “Colours” he writes: Right after birth/ grandmother had ducked me in the green/ My mother picked me up/ from among the yellow….” Colours are central to Mishing culture and in Narah's poems they work both metaphorically as well as literally.
Narah's route to the world may be the Mishing route but it is a route that takes him both back to himself and out to the world beyond, to readers from other spaces.
The reviewer is a poet, fiction writer and faculty at IIT Madras. Email: sree@iitm.ac.in.
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Sunday, December 6, 2009
Two poetry collections, embodying two different approaches to the world and self.
A Face that Does Not Bear the Imprints of the World, Usha Akella; The Buddha and Other Poems, Jiban Narah, Monsoon Editions, p.82 price not stated.
“A poem should be wordless,” says Archibald MacLeish, “as the flight of birds”. There is a quietness to much of Usha Akella's verse, a quietness between words, that soothes us like chamomile.
Usha writes in the Sufi tradition, a tradition marked by a turning away from all else but God, a tradition based on the letting go of duality.
The poems in her anthology A Face that Does Not Bear the Footprints of the World are essentially songs for the beloved. But in the Sufi scheme of things, who is the beloved if not God? And who is God if not the beloved? The Sufi spirit dances like a dervish, especially in the nine-odd poems Usha has classified under the theme “Beloved”, the strongest in the collection. The poet-narrator becomes “a divining fork tuned to only one thing”.
“Come back to me old and gray/ Do away with the pounding of the blood, Let Time trace wrinkles on your face,” the poet writes. She goes on to describing her beloved as one whose “failures sit on [his] shoulders as irreverent monkeys”. There is a wiped-clean mirror feeling to the verse in this section. Usha writes of “a face that bears not the world's footprints/Nothing has touched it except my Love”. There are some amazing images. Usha likens the succumbing to love to “a fish lying in the sun ready to die”.
Rhythmic cadence
A few of the poems — “Yes! Yes!”, for instance and “Love has forgotten her heart” — are meant to be read aloud, performed, sung. Clearly, there is a certain rhythm that the poet intended, a certain pace and beat but the printed word, as always, fails to convey that.
On the other end of the spectrum, some poems such as “Love is so busy” and “From the Rooftop” suffer from an excess of words and an absence of crafting. “I am tired of being you/ I am tired of being rebellious/ I am tired of second-guessing…” writes Usha in the latter poem, repeating one tired, unmusical phrase over and over again at least half a dozen times. It is the poems that do not “bear the footprints of the world” that are the most evocative.
Characterised by a lyricism and economy, Jiban Narah's poems, translated from the Assamese by Pradip Acharya, Krishna Dulal Barua and Niren Thakuria, draw extensively on Mishing myths. Steeped as they are in folk themes, the poems in the anthology The Buddha and Other Poems pose a challenge to the non-Assamese reader. But for that very reason, they also provide an interesting entry into another culture. Quite sensibly, the translators have not smoothed all the bumps for us and the reading remains awkward, pushing us beyond the poem to its footnotes. We learn (thanks to the footnotes) that the first man on earth is “abotani”, the god of water is “Jalakhai” and the god of land “thalakai”. We go back and forth a lot. Something is lost, no doubt, in the process. But we also gain another world.
There are other poems that resonate well in English, perhaps for the reason that their canvas is larger than the Mishing one Narah uses in so many of his poems or perhaps because the poet has successfully internalised and re-woven the folk into his personal canvas. “The Gourd Blossom” is one that travels lightly:
A rain drenched flute kept playing
One by one dreams kept falling
like leaves
I am a small sailboat
the note of the flute
makes me reach out to the banks
like a river
I would rather not spend this night alone
I am the lone first blossom
of the Flame of the Forest
In “Poetry” too the images sparkle and speak to us personally: “Knowing trees to be with bliss-hued leaves as birds/ yet you take the leaves for birds/ Aware that the birds aren't trees/ yet you plant birds”.
Narah uses colours to sensuous effect. In “Colours” he writes: Right after birth/ grandmother had ducked me in the green/ My mother picked me up/ from among the yellow….” Colours are central to Mishing culture and in Narah's poems they work both metaphorically as well as literally.
Narah's route to the world may be the Mishing route but it is a route that takes him both back to himself and out to the world beyond, to readers from other spaces.
The reviewer is a poet, fiction writer and faculty at IIT Madras. Email: sree@iitm.ac.in.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Restoring Tekkes
By Gül Demir - Niki Gamm, *Local Istanbul municipality restores tekkes* - Hürriyet Daily News - Istanbul, Turkey
Kadiri 65
Bedeviyye 8
Bayramiyye 9
Uşaki 6
Gülşeni 6
Sinani 3
Mevlevi 5
Bektaşi 9
Cerahiyye 12
Naqshbandi 95
Rufai 40
Halveti 69
Celvetiyye 31
Şazeli 3
Sünbüliyye 26
Sadiyye 34
Şabaniyye 24
445 total tekkes in Istanbul
*Sufi Istanbul Institute
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By Gül Demir - Niki Gamm, *Local Istanbul municipality restores tekkes* - Hürriyet Daily News - Istanbul, TurkeySaturday, December 5, 2009
Though few dervish lodges remain in Istanbul as meeting places for Sufi orders, a visit to any of their locations throughout the city can reveal much about the background of the various orders
Though the 1925 ban against Sufi orders meant the closing of all their properties, recent efforts have seen the restoration of many orders’ tekkes, or dervish lodges, throughout Istanbul.
Though few dervish lodges remain in Istanbul as meeting places for Sufi orders, a visit to any of their locations throughout the city can reveal much about the background of the various orders
Though the 1925 ban against Sufi orders meant the closing of all their properties, recent efforts have seen the restoration of many orders’ tekkes, or dervish lodges, throughout Istanbul.
For centuries, the architecture of the sects’ lodges was often dictated by the practices of the sects themselves. The more elaborate the tekke, the wealthier the people who subscribed to that sect – even though many of these mystic sects called for the renunciation of worldly goods in order to become one with God or the ultimate Truth. The main lodge was usually built where the founder of the mystic sect was buried or vice versa.
Tekke architecture
Generally speaking, tekkes were made of wood and sometimes stone, depending on the amount of money and materials available. Even when quite large, they were not especially imposing buildings, yet all had a large room that formed the central portion of the lodge where the members would gather for various ceremonies. This large hall might be round, octagonal or even multi-sided to represent any of the numbers the group held holy.
There would be standing room or possibly sitting space to observe the participants. When a sect combined music with its ritual ceremonies, there would be space for the musicians. Leading off the main room would be a series of other rooms devoted to various practices, including a kitchen and a refractory, a library and rooms for the leader of the sect or the person in charge of that particular lodge and his family. In addition, there were often also rooms for those studying to become full members of the lodge, or for sect members who were traveling in the area.
Few of the tekke buildings were as elaborate as the one devoted to Rumi in Konya. Because of the veneration for Rumi, the founder of the Mevlevi sect, the original mosque and school greatly expanded over the centuries to incorporate nearby buildings and cemeteries. A better example of a normal Mevlevi tekke is the one found in Istanbul’s Tünel neighborhood.
The building was closed with the banning of Sufi orders in 1925, but from time to time, permission was given for the upkeep of the building. The center in Konya became a museum, as did the one in Tünel. Eventually the Mevlevis were allowed to perform their whirling ritual as a theatrical performance in the Tünel tekke.
If other sects still in existence, albeit unofficially, meet, it is certainly done very discretely.
There was usually no prohibition against women becoming members of the mystic orders. The result was a separate place where women would be segregated, where they could watch the ongoing rites and participate among themselves.
The one sect that included women publicly is the Mevlevis; today, in spite of opposition from more conservative members of the sect, women can be seen participating in the whirling ceremony.
The Eyüp municipality and its tekkes
Generally speaking, tekkes were made of wood and sometimes stone, depending on the amount of money and materials available. Even when quite large, they were not especially imposing buildings, yet all had a large room that formed the central portion of the lodge where the members would gather for various ceremonies. This large hall might be round, octagonal or even multi-sided to represent any of the numbers the group held holy.
There would be standing room or possibly sitting space to observe the participants. When a sect combined music with its ritual ceremonies, there would be space for the musicians. Leading off the main room would be a series of other rooms devoted to various practices, including a kitchen and a refractory, a library and rooms for the leader of the sect or the person in charge of that particular lodge and his family. In addition, there were often also rooms for those studying to become full members of the lodge, or for sect members who were traveling in the area.
Few of the tekke buildings were as elaborate as the one devoted to Rumi in Konya. Because of the veneration for Rumi, the founder of the Mevlevi sect, the original mosque and school greatly expanded over the centuries to incorporate nearby buildings and cemeteries. A better example of a normal Mevlevi tekke is the one found in Istanbul’s Tünel neighborhood.
The building was closed with the banning of Sufi orders in 1925, but from time to time, permission was given for the upkeep of the building. The center in Konya became a museum, as did the one in Tünel. Eventually the Mevlevis were allowed to perform their whirling ritual as a theatrical performance in the Tünel tekke.
If other sects still in existence, albeit unofficially, meet, it is certainly done very discretely.
There was usually no prohibition against women becoming members of the mystic orders. The result was a separate place where women would be segregated, where they could watch the ongoing rites and participate among themselves.
The one sect that included women publicly is the Mevlevis; today, in spite of opposition from more conservative members of the sect, women can be seen participating in the whirling ceremony.
The Eyüp municipality and its tekkes
The Eyüp area is known for its centuries-old buildings erected around the mosque and shrine of Eyüp Sultan, the companion of the Prophet Mohammed who died during one of the early Arab attempts to conquer Constantinople. It was a place where many members of the imperial family lived and were buried, as well as the place where crown princes were girded with a sword that officially made them sultan.
As a religious center, it attracted many mystic sects who set up lodges in and around Eyüp Mosque. Today, many of the old tekke buildings remain, even though they are often found in ruins.
Eyüp’s municipal government has taken advantage of these structures to restore them and use them for other purposes. The first such place was Husrevpaşa Tekke, which was converted into a historical research center. At present, there are seven tekkes in Eyüp that are being restored or are scheduled to undergo renovation.
One of these tekkes is the Vezir Tekke, which was damaged in a fire and is now set for reconstruction as a library. The Balcık Tekke was originally built as a school for learning traditions and is expected to become a handicrafts center. The Kara Süleyman Tekke was originally known as the Haci Ali Tekke. When restored, it will function as a rest home. The Sertarikzade Tekke belonged to one of the most popular Sufi sects following its establishment in the 17th century. Four sultans are said to have belonged to the sect and Sultan Ahmed III was responsible for the construction of its first lodge.
Bahariye Mevlevihanesi used to be located in Beşiktaş, but was moved to Eyüp. Only its small prayer hall remains today. The property belongs to the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, which wants it turned into a cultural facility. As for the Hatuniye Tekke, only the minaret and cemetery remain. A project has been developed to restore the tekke, but the work has not yet been completed.
One future project is the Afife Hatun Tekkesi, of which only the main hall, or semahane, remains today. This tekke belonged to the Naqshbandi sect and bears the name of the mother of an influential leader of that group. The Foundations Directorate turned it over to the Eyüp municipality, which plans to use it for cultural events. It is expected to be finished by 2010.
Of course Eyüp is not the only municipality that restores tekkes. Two years ago, the Beyoğlu municipality restored and opened the two-story Turabibaba Tekke Library in the Kasımpaşa neighborhood. The tekke building, built in the early 19th century, today houses some 13,000 publications and is well-equipped to provide resources to the people of Beyoğlu.
Not all tekkes have been restored at the hands of local municipalities. One outstanding example is that of the Özbek Tekke at Sultantepe on the Asian side of the city. Founded in the second half of the 18th century, this tekke was built to serve as a center for Uzbek Naqshbandis who undertook the pilgrimage to Mecca every year via Istanbul. On the way, Uzbeks would visit Eyüp, also considered a place of pilgrimage, and pay homage to the sultan reigning at the time.
The last time it was restored, in 1983, it was through the efforts of the late Ahmed Ertegün, the grandson of one of the most important sheiks to lead the Özbek Tekke.
One wishes that more was being done along these lines.
Tekkes in Istanbul belonging to 17 mystic orders*:
As a religious center, it attracted many mystic sects who set up lodges in and around Eyüp Mosque. Today, many of the old tekke buildings remain, even though they are often found in ruins.
Eyüp’s municipal government has taken advantage of these structures to restore them and use them for other purposes. The first such place was Husrevpaşa Tekke, which was converted into a historical research center. At present, there are seven tekkes in Eyüp that are being restored or are scheduled to undergo renovation.
One of these tekkes is the Vezir Tekke, which was damaged in a fire and is now set for reconstruction as a library. The Balcık Tekke was originally built as a school for learning traditions and is expected to become a handicrafts center. The Kara Süleyman Tekke was originally known as the Haci Ali Tekke. When restored, it will function as a rest home. The Sertarikzade Tekke belonged to one of the most popular Sufi sects following its establishment in the 17th century. Four sultans are said to have belonged to the sect and Sultan Ahmed III was responsible for the construction of its first lodge.
Bahariye Mevlevihanesi used to be located in Beşiktaş, but was moved to Eyüp. Only its small prayer hall remains today. The property belongs to the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, which wants it turned into a cultural facility. As for the Hatuniye Tekke, only the minaret and cemetery remain. A project has been developed to restore the tekke, but the work has not yet been completed.
One future project is the Afife Hatun Tekkesi, of which only the main hall, or semahane, remains today. This tekke belonged to the Naqshbandi sect and bears the name of the mother of an influential leader of that group. The Foundations Directorate turned it over to the Eyüp municipality, which plans to use it for cultural events. It is expected to be finished by 2010.
Of course Eyüp is not the only municipality that restores tekkes. Two years ago, the Beyoğlu municipality restored and opened the two-story Turabibaba Tekke Library in the Kasımpaşa neighborhood. The tekke building, built in the early 19th century, today houses some 13,000 publications and is well-equipped to provide resources to the people of Beyoğlu.
Not all tekkes have been restored at the hands of local municipalities. One outstanding example is that of the Özbek Tekke at Sultantepe on the Asian side of the city. Founded in the second half of the 18th century, this tekke was built to serve as a center for Uzbek Naqshbandis who undertook the pilgrimage to Mecca every year via Istanbul. On the way, Uzbeks would visit Eyüp, also considered a place of pilgrimage, and pay homage to the sultan reigning at the time.
The last time it was restored, in 1983, it was through the efforts of the late Ahmed Ertegün, the grandson of one of the most important sheiks to lead the Özbek Tekke.
One wishes that more was being done along these lines.
Tekkes in Istanbul belonging to 17 mystic orders*:
Kadiri 65
Bedeviyye 8
Bayramiyye 9
Uşaki 6
Gülşeni 6
Sinani 3
Mevlevi 5
Bektaşi 9
Cerahiyye 12
Naqshbandi 95
Rufai 40
Halveti 69
Celvetiyye 31
Şazeli 3
Sünbüliyye 26
Sadiyye 34
Şabaniyye 24
445 total tekkes in Istanbul
*Sufi Istanbul Institute
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
A Call To Stand Together
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society
By Agence France-Presse Staff Writer, *Somalis stage rare protest condemning deadly attack* - Mail & Guardian - Johannesburg, ZA
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Mogadishu: Hundreds of Somalis held a rare street protest after Friday prayers to condemn a suicide bombing at a graduation ceremony in Mogadishu in which at least 23 people were killed.
The demonstration took place in the central town of Dhusamareb, close to the Ethiopian border, and was organised by Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa, a moderate Sufi organisation opposed to hardline Islamists.
"Today we are here to show solidarity with the innocent civilians killed in Mogadishu yesterday," a spokesperson for the group, Sheikh Abdullahi Abdurahman Abu Yusuf, told the demonstrators. "They did nothing wrong except trying to enjoy a rare happy moment celebrating the end of their education. That happiness didn't last long."
Witnesses told Agence France-Presse that several hundred residents heeded the Sufi movement's call to protest against the attack, in which many students were killed, as well as three Cabinet ministers and three journalists.
The president of the internationally-backed transitional federal administration, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, blamed the suicide attack on the Islamist insurgency. But the two main insurgents groups -- the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab movement and its Hezb al-Islam allies -- both denied anyi nvolvement, charging instead the carnage was the result of a rift in the government's security apparatus.
Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa, a group representing Somalia's most traditional brand of moderate Sufi Islam enjoying broad popular support, last year took up arms to counter the threat of anationwide takeover by al-Shabaab.
"We condemn this barbaric act and call upon the Somali people to stand together to fight those enemies who attacked their children," Sheikh Abdullahi said.
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Saturday, December 5, 2009
Mogadishu: Hundreds of Somalis held a rare street protest after Friday prayers to condemn a suicide bombing at a graduation ceremony in Mogadishu in which at least 23 people were killed.
The demonstration took place in the central town of Dhusamareb, close to the Ethiopian border, and was organised by Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa, a moderate Sufi organisation opposed to hardline Islamists.
"Today we are here to show solidarity with the innocent civilians killed in Mogadishu yesterday," a spokesperson for the group, Sheikh Abdullahi Abdurahman Abu Yusuf, told the demonstrators. "They did nothing wrong except trying to enjoy a rare happy moment celebrating the end of their education. That happiness didn't last long."
Witnesses told Agence France-Presse that several hundred residents heeded the Sufi movement's call to protest against the attack, in which many students were killed, as well as three Cabinet ministers and three journalists.
The president of the internationally-backed transitional federal administration, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, blamed the suicide attack on the Islamist insurgency. But the two main insurgents groups -- the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab movement and its Hezb al-Islam allies -- both denied anyi nvolvement, charging instead the carnage was the result of a rift in the government's security apparatus.
Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa, a group representing Somalia's most traditional brand of moderate Sufi Islam enjoying broad popular support, last year took up arms to counter the threat of anationwide takeover by al-Shabaab.
"We condemn this barbaric act and call upon the Somali people to stand together to fight those enemies who attacked their children," Sheikh Abdullahi said.
Baba Farid's 729th Urs
By Staff Writer, *Baba Fariduddin Ganjshakar’s Urs begins today* - The News International -Karachi, Pakistan
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Pak Patan: Great Sufi saint Baba Fariduddin Ganjshakar’s 15-day Urs kicked-off in Pak Patan on Sunday.
The 729th Urs of Baba Farid was instated by Shrine’s sajada nasheen Dewan Modud Masood Chishti. Other family members of Dewan family were also present at the occasion.
The Urs program is divided into three sections. The first and second parts will be held from first to fourth Moharram-ul-Haram during which Sajada Nasheen will carry out rituals all day and night.
The third part is called ‘Nuqta-e-urooj’ in which the Bahishti Darwaza is opened on fifth of Moharram.
Tight security measures have been put in place by the administration.
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By Staff Writer, *Baba Fariduddin Ganjshakar’s Urs begins today* - The News International -Karachi, PakistanSunday, December 13, 2009
Pak Patan: Great Sufi saint Baba Fariduddin Ganjshakar’s 15-day Urs kicked-off in Pak Patan on Sunday.
The 729th Urs of Baba Farid was instated by Shrine’s sajada nasheen Dewan Modud Masood Chishti. Other family members of Dewan family were also present at the occasion.
The Urs program is divided into three sections. The first and second parts will be held from first to fourth Moharram-ul-Haram during which Sajada Nasheen will carry out rituals all day and night.
The third part is called ‘Nuqta-e-urooj’ in which the Bahishti Darwaza is opened on fifth of Moharram.
Tight security measures have been put in place by the administration.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Impetus To The Play
By Surajit Borkotokey, *Kashmiri folklore adorns classic* The Telegraph - Calcutta, India
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By Surajit Borkotokey, *Kashmiri folklore adorns classic* The Telegraph - Calcutta, IndiaFriday, December 4, 2009
Adapted from Shakespeare’s King Lear by renowned actor and director M.K. Raina, Badshah Pather was staged by a group of both young and veteran Kashmiri actors at the India Club in Dibrugarh recently.
The play was jointly organised by noted cultural organisations Akhara Ghar and India Club, Dibrugarh.
It revolves around the two elder and most loved sons of the king, who indulge in sycophancy, while the third, the youngest, speaks the truth.
The elder sons, when asked how much they loved their father, utter superlatives to impress the latter so as to gain access to his assets. On the contrary, the third son only says that he loves his father as much as a son ought to. This infuriates the king and he throws him out.
The badshah soon discerns the reality from illusion when his two older sons dethrone him while the youngest comes to his rescue and gives him refuge. However, by then it is too late to rebuild their destiny. Two wars are fought and the king loses all his kin. He breaks down on the death of his youngest son and finally succumbs to his sorrow.
The director explores the relevance of honesty, disbelief, love and hatred in present society against the backdrop of Kashmiri tradition and culture. He amalgamates local folklore with an equally interesting texture of Indian classical form.
A tasteful blend of Sufi music, chorus, choreography and body language, along with dialogues in Kashmiri lends impetus to the play.
The stagecraft was well thought out. The lighting, however, was inadequate. Use of music and body language could have been meaningfully incorporated.
Gulam Mahammad Bhagat in the role of the badshah was excellent, while Gul Mahammad Bhagat and Basir Ahmed Bhagat, as the two elder sons, deserve special mention.
Picture: A scene from Badshah Pather. Photo: Eastern Projections
Adapted from Shakespeare’s King Lear by renowned actor and director M.K. Raina, Badshah Pather was staged by a group of both young and veteran Kashmiri actors at the India Club in Dibrugarh recently.
The play was jointly organised by noted cultural organisations Akhara Ghar and India Club, Dibrugarh.
It revolves around the two elder and most loved sons of the king, who indulge in sycophancy, while the third, the youngest, speaks the truth.
The elder sons, when asked how much they loved their father, utter superlatives to impress the latter so as to gain access to his assets. On the contrary, the third son only says that he loves his father as much as a son ought to. This infuriates the king and he throws him out.
The badshah soon discerns the reality from illusion when his two older sons dethrone him while the youngest comes to his rescue and gives him refuge. However, by then it is too late to rebuild their destiny. Two wars are fought and the king loses all his kin. He breaks down on the death of his youngest son and finally succumbs to his sorrow.
The director explores the relevance of honesty, disbelief, love and hatred in present society against the backdrop of Kashmiri tradition and culture. He amalgamates local folklore with an equally interesting texture of Indian classical form.
A tasteful blend of Sufi music, chorus, choreography and body language, along with dialogues in Kashmiri lends impetus to the play.
The stagecraft was well thought out. The lighting, however, was inadequate. Use of music and body language could have been meaningfully incorporated.
Gulam Mahammad Bhagat in the role of the badshah was excellent, while Gul Mahammad Bhagat and Basir Ahmed Bhagat, as the two elder sons, deserve special mention.
Picture: A scene from Badshah Pather. Photo: Eastern Projections
Monday, December 14, 2009
Faith At The Summit
By Mary Dickey, *Odyssey to Deliver Exclusive Videos of 'Faith at the Summit' from Copenhagen* - Christian News Wire - Washington, DC, USA
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By Mary Dickey, *Odyssey to Deliver Exclusive Videos of 'Faith at the Summit' from Copenhagen* - Christian News Wire - Washington, DC, USAThursday, December 3, 2009
New York: Odyssey Networks, the nation's largest coalition of Christian, Jewish and Muslim faith groups promoting the causes of tolerance, peace, and social justice through media production, is providing video coverage of the world's interfaith community in action at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP-15).
Odyssey's "Faith at the Summit" is believed to be the only video news coverage focusing solely on the activities of religious leaders and organizations at the crucial climate conference.
From December 8 through December 15, Odyssey will deliver daily video reports from Copenhagen, with a special wrap-up report on December 19 from London. The videos will be available for viewing at http://www.odysseynetworks.org/.
Odyssey is sharing highlights of the daily video reports with over 100 major climate change organizations and religious institutions. Lead producer/presenter of "Faith at the Summit" is the award-winning documentarian Mark Dowd, formerly of the BBC and Channel 4 and the UK's "Religious Broadcaster of the Year" (2006). He is currently campaign strategist for Operation Noah.
Notables from virtually all the world's faiths will be in Copenhagen to advocate for decisive action on climate change. The list of attendees who will be interviewed by Odyssey includes Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Richard Cizik (New Evangelicals), Michael Kagan (Jewish Climate Change Initiative), Roman Catholic Sister Joan Chittister (Benetvision), Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell (Chautauqua Institution), Andrew Harvey (Sacred Activism), Venerable Bhikku Bodhi (Buddhist Global Relief), Sufi Rehman Muhaiyaddeen and Sraddalhu Ranade .
Odyssey will also be producing video diaries by key leaders and youth delegates from various faiths and nations, and covering highlights of the major faith-related gatherings. Additional videos and other resources on the intersection of faith and climate change are now available on the Odyssey website, along with a special preview of "Faith at the Summit."
"This year no event will unite the planet like the climate change summit in Copenhagen," said Nick Stuart, President and CEO of Odyssey Networks, "and no issue is capable of uniting the world's religions like climate change. The world's media will be focused on Copenhagen and religious leaders from around the world will be there to share the insights their faiths bring to the most important challenge of our age -- stewardship of God's creation. One issue, one place, one time -- there could be no more crucial event for Odyssey Network's cameras to show how religions can work together to change the world."
About Odyssey Networks: Odyssey Networks is the nation’s largest coalition of Christian, Jewish and Muslim faith groups dedicated to producing and distributing media that promotes causes such as peace, tolerance and social justice. Established in 1987, Odyssey Networks is a service of the National Interfaith Cable Coalition, Inc.
For more information visit http://www.odysseynetworks.org/
[About Rehman Muhaiyaddeen: Sufi Rehman Muhaiyaddeen is a disciple of Sufi Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, a Sufi mystic from the island of Sri Lanka. Around 1940 Sufi Bawa Muhaiyaddeen established an ashram on a farm in Sri Lanka, teaching a traditional Qadriyyah Sufi doctrine. Now the branches of his school of thought are found in many countries. Sufi Rehman Muhaiyaddeen can be reached at: srmuhaiyaddeen@gmail.com
Read an article of him about *How To Achieve The Great Objective Of Global Peace?* at Countercurrents.org]
New York: Odyssey Networks, the nation's largest coalition of Christian, Jewish and Muslim faith groups promoting the causes of tolerance, peace, and social justice through media production, is providing video coverage of the world's interfaith community in action at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP-15).
Odyssey's "Faith at the Summit" is believed to be the only video news coverage focusing solely on the activities of religious leaders and organizations at the crucial climate conference.
From December 8 through December 15, Odyssey will deliver daily video reports from Copenhagen, with a special wrap-up report on December 19 from London. The videos will be available for viewing at http://www.odysseynetworks.org/.
Odyssey is sharing highlights of the daily video reports with over 100 major climate change organizations and religious institutions. Lead producer/presenter of "Faith at the Summit" is the award-winning documentarian Mark Dowd, formerly of the BBC and Channel 4 and the UK's "Religious Broadcaster of the Year" (2006). He is currently campaign strategist for Operation Noah.
Notables from virtually all the world's faiths will be in Copenhagen to advocate for decisive action on climate change. The list of attendees who will be interviewed by Odyssey includes Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Richard Cizik (New Evangelicals), Michael Kagan (Jewish Climate Change Initiative), Roman Catholic Sister Joan Chittister (Benetvision), Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell (Chautauqua Institution), Andrew Harvey (Sacred Activism), Venerable Bhikku Bodhi (Buddhist Global Relief), Sufi Rehman Muhaiyaddeen and Sraddalhu Ranade .
Odyssey will also be producing video diaries by key leaders and youth delegates from various faiths and nations, and covering highlights of the major faith-related gatherings. Additional videos and other resources on the intersection of faith and climate change are now available on the Odyssey website, along with a special preview of "Faith at the Summit."
"This year no event will unite the planet like the climate change summit in Copenhagen," said Nick Stuart, President and CEO of Odyssey Networks, "and no issue is capable of uniting the world's religions like climate change. The world's media will be focused on Copenhagen and religious leaders from around the world will be there to share the insights their faiths bring to the most important challenge of our age -- stewardship of God's creation. One issue, one place, one time -- there could be no more crucial event for Odyssey Network's cameras to show how religions can work together to change the world."
About Odyssey Networks: Odyssey Networks is the nation’s largest coalition of Christian, Jewish and Muslim faith groups dedicated to producing and distributing media that promotes causes such as peace, tolerance and social justice. Established in 1987, Odyssey Networks is a service of the National Interfaith Cable Coalition, Inc.
For more information visit http://www.odysseynetworks.org/
[About Rehman Muhaiyaddeen: Sufi Rehman Muhaiyaddeen is a disciple of Sufi Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, a Sufi mystic from the island of Sri Lanka. Around 1940 Sufi Bawa Muhaiyaddeen established an ashram on a farm in Sri Lanka, teaching a traditional Qadriyyah Sufi doctrine. Now the branches of his school of thought are found in many countries. Sufi Rehman Muhaiyaddeen can be reached at: srmuhaiyaddeen@gmail.com
Read an article of him about *How To Achieve The Great Objective Of Global Peace?* at Countercurrents.org]
Sunday, December 13, 2009
The Landscape As Mecca
By Jennifer, *Fareen Butt: Mirage Landscapes* - Art Info - USA
Friday, December 4, 2009
Mirage Landscapes: Paintings by Fareen Butt; Exhibition Dates: Friday December 4, 2009 – Sunday January 24, 2010
Crossing Art is pleased to announce the opening of Mirage Landscapes: Paintings by Fareen Butt. The Mirage Series is a collection of metaphysical landscapes inspired by the spiritual and mystical concepts of Jerrahi and Ishraqi Sufism, as well as Buddhism.
The works explore the perceptions of truth and enlightenment unique to each human being.
The rich textures that engulf the artist's large canvases are created through a unique process of combining the Japanese painting technique of Nihonga with Pointillism. Fareen Butt fuses eastern and western methodologies that are reflected in her painting process where she combines Southeast Asian methods and classical European fine art.
The two methods used in the Mirage Series are Nihonga, which includes the process of using precious and semi-precious stones as pigment, and Pointillism, a method made famous by Seurat in the 1800s and more recently by Pousette-Dart.
Butt harmoniously merges Nihonga with Pointillism to create the complex colors and textures of her works. Her hybrid technique also lends itself to that of the meditative through the time and discipline it takes to cover the vast amounts of surface in such a feverous but controlled style.
The Mirage Bamboo Series is based on photographs taken of serene forest landscapes in China and the Himalayas. The inspiration of the natural is translated onto the canvas with stones such as ruby, diamond and sapphire, derived from the artist's native region of the Himalayas. It is the birthplace of the Buddha, the place where he meditated over mysteries, and sought enlightenment.
The paintings produce a meditative effect on the viewer as he or she steps from the painting to watch the disconnected “points” of color merge to form vibrant landscapes. Butt perceives the landscapes to be visions of “places rendered sacred by many: the earthly manifestation of the pervasive cosmological landscape; the earthly manifestation of the Universal consciousness in the form of the Human collective consciousness.”
Expressed through these “moving” points of color amidst the solid, stagnant sections of stone, she explains that the works “pursue the vital energy embodied, ebbing, in these spaces amidst the roots of omnipresence. It is a representation of the landscape as a fertile spiritual Mecca, in its entirety.”
Fareen Butt is a Pakistani painter who lives and works in New York. She received her BA from The New School in New York and is a PhD candidate for University of London, Goldsmith College. Butt has future exhibitions planned for Canada, Beirut, Qatar, Oman, Paris, Berlin, New York, Dubai, Dhaka and India.
The exhibition Mirage Landscapes visually presents a dialogue between humanity’s historical desire for a concise cosmogony and the perpetual pursuit of enlightenment.
For additional information please contact Jennifer at 212-359-4333 or Jennifer@crossingart.com.
Visit the Gallery: http://www.crossingart.com/
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art and arts
By Jennifer, *Fareen Butt: Mirage Landscapes* - Art Info - USAFriday, December 4, 2009
Mirage Landscapes: Paintings by Fareen Butt; Exhibition Dates: Friday December 4, 2009 – Sunday January 24, 2010
Crossing Art is pleased to announce the opening of Mirage Landscapes: Paintings by Fareen Butt. The Mirage Series is a collection of metaphysical landscapes inspired by the spiritual and mystical concepts of Jerrahi and Ishraqi Sufism, as well as Buddhism.
The works explore the perceptions of truth and enlightenment unique to each human being.
The rich textures that engulf the artist's large canvases are created through a unique process of combining the Japanese painting technique of Nihonga with Pointillism. Fareen Butt fuses eastern and western methodologies that are reflected in her painting process where she combines Southeast Asian methods and classical European fine art.
The two methods used in the Mirage Series are Nihonga, which includes the process of using precious and semi-precious stones as pigment, and Pointillism, a method made famous by Seurat in the 1800s and more recently by Pousette-Dart.
Butt harmoniously merges Nihonga with Pointillism to create the complex colors and textures of her works. Her hybrid technique also lends itself to that of the meditative through the time and discipline it takes to cover the vast amounts of surface in such a feverous but controlled style.
The Mirage Bamboo Series is based on photographs taken of serene forest landscapes in China and the Himalayas. The inspiration of the natural is translated onto the canvas with stones such as ruby, diamond and sapphire, derived from the artist's native region of the Himalayas. It is the birthplace of the Buddha, the place where he meditated over mysteries, and sought enlightenment.
The paintings produce a meditative effect on the viewer as he or she steps from the painting to watch the disconnected “points” of color merge to form vibrant landscapes. Butt perceives the landscapes to be visions of “places rendered sacred by many: the earthly manifestation of the pervasive cosmological landscape; the earthly manifestation of the Universal consciousness in the form of the Human collective consciousness.”
Expressed through these “moving” points of color amidst the solid, stagnant sections of stone, she explains that the works “pursue the vital energy embodied, ebbing, in these spaces amidst the roots of omnipresence. It is a representation of the landscape as a fertile spiritual Mecca, in its entirety.”
Fareen Butt is a Pakistani painter who lives and works in New York. She received her BA from The New School in New York and is a PhD candidate for University of London, Goldsmith College. Butt has future exhibitions planned for Canada, Beirut, Qatar, Oman, Paris, Berlin, New York, Dubai, Dhaka and India.
The exhibition Mirage Landscapes visually presents a dialogue between humanity’s historical desire for a concise cosmogony and the perpetual pursuit of enlightenment.
For additional information please contact Jennifer at 212-359-4333 or Jennifer@crossingart.com.
Visit the Gallery: http://www.crossingart.com/
Saturday, December 12, 2009
To Coexist Justly
By Amy Kotlarz, *Is Holy Land peace possible?* - Catholic Courier - Rochester, N.Y., USA
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
In December, three interfaith leaders will travel to Israel.
They’ll get to explore what it means to be Christian, Jewish and Muslim in the Holy Land. In that sense, the trip is academic, worthy of its "Walking in the Footsteps of the Prophets" title from its sponsor, Nazareth College.
But the trip also is symbolic: The three are close friends even though they have very different outlooks and faiths.
"I hope it says volumes in terms of who we can be together as distinct religious entities who have deep friendship -- not despite our differences but in celebration of those," said Sister of St. Joseph Susan Nowak, who will represent the Catholic and Christian perspective on the journey.
Sister Nowak is a professor and chair of the religious-studies department at Nazareth College and has a doctorate in religion. The local Jewish community will be represented by Isobel Goldman, community-relations director for Rochester's Jewish Community Federation, who in 2006 helped establish the Brennan-Goldman Institute for Catholic-Jewish studies at St. Bernard’s School of Theology and Ministry in Pittsford. Dr. Muhammad Shafiq, imam of the Islamic Center of Rochester and a professor of religious studies at Nazareth and executive director of the college's Center for Interfaith Studies and Dialogue, will represent the area’s Islamic community.
The three friends will be led by tour guide George Eisen, Nazareth College’s associate vice president for academic affairs and executive director of its Center for International Education. Eisen, who has doctorates in history and social psychology, is a native of Budapest, Hungary, and lived in Israel for a decade.
One aim of the journey is to lay the groundwork for a trip in May 2010 with more members of the three faith communities. Nazareth College also is starting a new interfaith studies minor, and coursework will include future visits to the Holy Land as a culmination of students' education.
Another goal of the December trip, according to Sister Nowak, is that it may serve as a symbol to Israelis and Arabs that interfaith dialogue and religious pluralism are attainable and have been successful in the Diocese of Rochester. It also may guide future interfaith discussions, Imam Shafiq said.
"This will give people a common experience of how Abrahamic religions have a close tradition," added Imam Shafiq, who holds a doctorate in religion.
The travelers will visit the cities of Galilee, Masada, Jerusalem and Istanbul, and a host of holy sites including the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Via Dolorosa (Way of the Cross), the Western Wall and the Mount of Olives. The group also will meet with representatives of a variety of religions and ethnicities, including the Islamic Druze sect, the desert-dwelling Bedouins and followers of Sufism, a form of Islamic mysticism.
"The visit will be a very in-depth understanding of the three religions’ intersection, and the commonalities between the three religions," Eisen said.
He noted that the group hopes to meet again with a delegation of Israelis and Palestinians that they met at Nazareth College in September during a visit sponsored by the U.S. State Department. At the college, the interfaith group discussed the college’s Center for Interfaith Studies and Dialogue as a model for peace building in Israel.
Dialogue needed
Some, including a Vatican official who recently spoke to the United Nations, believe such interfaith dialogue may be the key to promoting a lasting peace in the Middle East. As plans are made for a synod of Middle East bishops in October 2010, some political observers noted that this is a critical time for dialogue.
One focus of tension is Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip. Following Israel's withdrawal from the area in 2005, that territory fell under the control by the radical group Hamas following Palestinian parliamentary elections. Since 2003, more than 8,000 rockets have been fired from Gaza onto southern Israel, with most rocket attacks taking place during past two years, said Larry Fine, executive director of the Jewish Community Federation.
Israel has sporadically retaliated by bombing the territory, and war broke out in December 2008 and January 2009. Israel was cited by a United Nations commission for using disproportionate force during the conflict, which resulted in many civilian casualties. Israel, meanwhile, has said the civilian casualties occurred because Hamas was using people as human shields, Fine said.
Another area in crisis is the West Bank, parts of which are occupied by the Israeli military, and other parts which are administered by the Palestinian Authority. Deacon John McDermott, who took a nine-day trip to Israel and the West Bank in May and June 2009, said he saw critical humanitarian needs firsthand, including a 60-year-old Palestinian refugee camp filled with 13,000 people.
Deacon McDermott also met with several people whose lives had been torn apart by violence. One sign of the deteriorating political situation was that Christians living in the Holy Land were leaving in droves due to worsening conditions, blockades and mobility restrictions imposed by the Israeli government, he said.
During his junket, Deacon McDermott said he also witnessed how new settlements of Israelis across East Jerusalem and the West Bank pose economic and political obstacles for the formation of a stable Palestinian nation in that region. For instance, a parish priest told the deacon’s group how the Palestinian community in which he lives was devastated by Israeli settlers' confiscation of valuable olive trees.
If a Palestinian nation were formed, Israeli settlers living in the Palestinian territories would either have to be relocated or become Palestinian citizens, Deacon McDermott said.
"They are not going to be very happy with that solution," he said of the Israeli settlers.
Although settlements are often brought up as an issue, Fine pointed out that Israel has made several offers to end occupation of the West Bank in exchange for official recognition of Israel from all other Arab countries. Yet some Arab leaders continue to call for the end of international recognition of Israel and have rejected the offer, he said.
"Israel believes it has a right to exist in secure and safe borders with its neighbors, and many of its neighbors don’t believe that," Fine said.
He pointed to the relationships Israel has forged with Egypt and Jordan as evidence that peace is possible if both sides commit to it. He urged people to pray and to pressure the U.S. to use its alliance with Israel to work for peace.
"Gaza’s a problem, but in terms of negotiations about the West Bank, everybody knows roughly how it could turn out," Fine said. "It’s absolutely solvable."
Fine said humanitarian conditions in the West Bank did not have to degrade to their current level; he pointed to corruption in the Palestinian Authority, which he said has diverted billions of dollars intended for infrastructure improvements and humanitarian aid.
He noted that in January 2010, elections for control of the Palestinian Authority are scheduled, which could result in a change of leadership at the authority. The future is uncertain for moderate Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, a U.S. ally who has rejected violence against Israel. As for Gaza, word emerged in late November 2009 that Israel and Hamas also may be brokering a prisoner swap that could help thaw relations between the two sides.
"Give and take is absolutely the only thing that can be saving us from another armed conflict," Eisen noted.
The question of how to promote peace is one that people of faith need to reflect on, Imam Shafiq noted.
"We need to understand the situation and realize that both sides have to coexist justly," he said.
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spiritual ecology
By Amy Kotlarz, *Is Holy Land peace possible?* - Catholic Courier - Rochester, N.Y., USATuesday, December 1, 2009
In December, three interfaith leaders will travel to Israel.
They’ll get to explore what it means to be Christian, Jewish and Muslim in the Holy Land. In that sense, the trip is academic, worthy of its "Walking in the Footsteps of the Prophets" title from its sponsor, Nazareth College.
But the trip also is symbolic: The three are close friends even though they have very different outlooks and faiths.
"I hope it says volumes in terms of who we can be together as distinct religious entities who have deep friendship -- not despite our differences but in celebration of those," said Sister of St. Joseph Susan Nowak, who will represent the Catholic and Christian perspective on the journey.
Sister Nowak is a professor and chair of the religious-studies department at Nazareth College and has a doctorate in religion. The local Jewish community will be represented by Isobel Goldman, community-relations director for Rochester's Jewish Community Federation, who in 2006 helped establish the Brennan-Goldman Institute for Catholic-Jewish studies at St. Bernard’s School of Theology and Ministry in Pittsford. Dr. Muhammad Shafiq, imam of the Islamic Center of Rochester and a professor of religious studies at Nazareth and executive director of the college's Center for Interfaith Studies and Dialogue, will represent the area’s Islamic community.
The three friends will be led by tour guide George Eisen, Nazareth College’s associate vice president for academic affairs and executive director of its Center for International Education. Eisen, who has doctorates in history and social psychology, is a native of Budapest, Hungary, and lived in Israel for a decade.
One aim of the journey is to lay the groundwork for a trip in May 2010 with more members of the three faith communities. Nazareth College also is starting a new interfaith studies minor, and coursework will include future visits to the Holy Land as a culmination of students' education.
Another goal of the December trip, according to Sister Nowak, is that it may serve as a symbol to Israelis and Arabs that interfaith dialogue and religious pluralism are attainable and have been successful in the Diocese of Rochester. It also may guide future interfaith discussions, Imam Shafiq said.
"This will give people a common experience of how Abrahamic religions have a close tradition," added Imam Shafiq, who holds a doctorate in religion.
The travelers will visit the cities of Galilee, Masada, Jerusalem and Istanbul, and a host of holy sites including the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Via Dolorosa (Way of the Cross), the Western Wall and the Mount of Olives. The group also will meet with representatives of a variety of religions and ethnicities, including the Islamic Druze sect, the desert-dwelling Bedouins and followers of Sufism, a form of Islamic mysticism.
"The visit will be a very in-depth understanding of the three religions’ intersection, and the commonalities between the three religions," Eisen said.
He noted that the group hopes to meet again with a delegation of Israelis and Palestinians that they met at Nazareth College in September during a visit sponsored by the U.S. State Department. At the college, the interfaith group discussed the college’s Center for Interfaith Studies and Dialogue as a model for peace building in Israel.
Dialogue needed
Some, including a Vatican official who recently spoke to the United Nations, believe such interfaith dialogue may be the key to promoting a lasting peace in the Middle East. As plans are made for a synod of Middle East bishops in October 2010, some political observers noted that this is a critical time for dialogue.
One focus of tension is Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip. Following Israel's withdrawal from the area in 2005, that territory fell under the control by the radical group Hamas following Palestinian parliamentary elections. Since 2003, more than 8,000 rockets have been fired from Gaza onto southern Israel, with most rocket attacks taking place during past two years, said Larry Fine, executive director of the Jewish Community Federation.
Israel has sporadically retaliated by bombing the territory, and war broke out in December 2008 and January 2009. Israel was cited by a United Nations commission for using disproportionate force during the conflict, which resulted in many civilian casualties. Israel, meanwhile, has said the civilian casualties occurred because Hamas was using people as human shields, Fine said.
Another area in crisis is the West Bank, parts of which are occupied by the Israeli military, and other parts which are administered by the Palestinian Authority. Deacon John McDermott, who took a nine-day trip to Israel and the West Bank in May and June 2009, said he saw critical humanitarian needs firsthand, including a 60-year-old Palestinian refugee camp filled with 13,000 people.
Deacon McDermott also met with several people whose lives had been torn apart by violence. One sign of the deteriorating political situation was that Christians living in the Holy Land were leaving in droves due to worsening conditions, blockades and mobility restrictions imposed by the Israeli government, he said.
During his junket, Deacon McDermott said he also witnessed how new settlements of Israelis across East Jerusalem and the West Bank pose economic and political obstacles for the formation of a stable Palestinian nation in that region. For instance, a parish priest told the deacon’s group how the Palestinian community in which he lives was devastated by Israeli settlers' confiscation of valuable olive trees.
If a Palestinian nation were formed, Israeli settlers living in the Palestinian territories would either have to be relocated or become Palestinian citizens, Deacon McDermott said.
"They are not going to be very happy with that solution," he said of the Israeli settlers.
Although settlements are often brought up as an issue, Fine pointed out that Israel has made several offers to end occupation of the West Bank in exchange for official recognition of Israel from all other Arab countries. Yet some Arab leaders continue to call for the end of international recognition of Israel and have rejected the offer, he said.
"Israel believes it has a right to exist in secure and safe borders with its neighbors, and many of its neighbors don’t believe that," Fine said.
He pointed to the relationships Israel has forged with Egypt and Jordan as evidence that peace is possible if both sides commit to it. He urged people to pray and to pressure the U.S. to use its alliance with Israel to work for peace.
"Gaza’s a problem, but in terms of negotiations about the West Bank, everybody knows roughly how it could turn out," Fine said. "It’s absolutely solvable."
Fine said humanitarian conditions in the West Bank did not have to degrade to their current level; he pointed to corruption in the Palestinian Authority, which he said has diverted billions of dollars intended for infrastructure improvements and humanitarian aid.
He noted that in January 2010, elections for control of the Palestinian Authority are scheduled, which could result in a change of leadership at the authority. The future is uncertain for moderate Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, a U.S. ally who has rejected violence against Israel. As for Gaza, word emerged in late November 2009 that Israel and Hamas also may be brokering a prisoner swap that could help thaw relations between the two sides.
"Give and take is absolutely the only thing that can be saving us from another armed conflict," Eisen noted.
The question of how to promote peace is one that people of faith need to reflect on, Imam Shafiq noted.
"We need to understand the situation and realize that both sides have to coexist justly," he said.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Floral Wreaths
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people
By Staff Writer, *Altaf Parwaz’s death anniversary today* - The News International - Karachi, Pakistan
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Islamabad: The 17th death anniversary of leading Urdu and Punjabi poet of the Sub-Continent, writer, journalist, broadcaster and a prominent worker of Pakistan Movement will be observed today (Wednesday).
Various literary organisations will place floral wreaths and offer ‘Fateha’, on the grave of the deceased at Islamabad’s graveyard at H-8, near Zero Point.
Aiwan-e-Karkunan-e-Tehrik-e-Pakistan honoured him with the gold medal for his selfless and meritorious services rendered during the Pakistan Movement, in the fields of journalism, literature and social services.
He had more than 75 published books in the various disciplines of literature to his credit, including, poetry, prose and the major work of translating the poetic collection of Pashto Sufi poet Rehman Baba, Balochi poet Mast Tokali and Khalil Jibran poems into Punjabi, published by Pakistan Academy of Letters.
Altaf Parwaz’s Naat collection, ‘Noor-e-Hira’ has recently published.
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Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Islamabad: The 17th death anniversary of leading Urdu and Punjabi poet of the Sub-Continent, writer, journalist, broadcaster and a prominent worker of Pakistan Movement will be observed today (Wednesday).
Various literary organisations will place floral wreaths and offer ‘Fateha’, on the grave of the deceased at Islamabad’s graveyard at H-8, near Zero Point.
Aiwan-e-Karkunan-e-Tehrik-e-Pakistan honoured him with the gold medal for his selfless and meritorious services rendered during the Pakistan Movement, in the fields of journalism, literature and social services.
He had more than 75 published books in the various disciplines of literature to his credit, including, poetry, prose and the major work of translating the poetic collection of Pashto Sufi poet Rehman Baba, Balochi poet Mast Tokali and Khalil Jibran poems into Punjabi, published by Pakistan Academy of Letters.
Altaf Parwaz’s Naat collection, ‘Noor-e-Hira’ has recently published.
Magic With Love
By Staff Writer, *Rumi in Performance by Shahram Shiva in New York * - Payvand News - USA
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Friday, December 11th, 8 pm
Picture: Shahram Shiva with John Ragusa (on flute) and Rich Goodhart at Deepak Chopra's Event in Palm Springs, California.
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events
By Staff Writer, *Rumi in Performance by Shahram Shiva in New York * - Payvand News - USAWednesday, December 2, 2009
Friday, December 11th, 8 pm
Open Center, NYC
The Open Center is very pleased to welcome back Shahram Shiva, the renowned Rumi translator and performer, accompanied by a trio of accomplished musicians, for another luminous event.
Shiva, who is known for his passionate recitations and performances of Rumi, will perform his own English renditions as well as Rumi's Persian verses.
This special event will be featuring flutist and multi-instrumentalist John Ragusa in original and improvisational accompaniment with Rob Silvan on piano. This union of spoken verse and live music melds magic with love. Following tonight's concert, Shiva will guide the group into an ecstatic whirling experience through his unique and proven four-step method.
Shahram Shiva is an author and longtime award-winning translator and performer of Rumi's poetry. His works include: Rumi, Thief of Sleep; Rending the Veil; A Garden Beyond Paradise; and a new CD entitled "Rumi: Lovedrunk." In addition, Shiva is an innovative workshop leader in Sufism, including its famous "whirling" practice.
Shahram Shiva is a performance poet, award-winning translator and scholar of Rumi and author of several books. He is known for his rich and entrancing concerts of Rumi, the 13th Century Persian mystic poet.
He was born to a Persian Jewish family in Iran and migrated to the US at the age of 16. Shiva is the only major presenter in the West who performs Rumi's poetry in his own English renditions as well as the original Persian verses.
His bilingual English-Persian concerts are Rumi events where the great mystical poet is celebrated with Shiva's unique and passionate recitations of the timeless poetry performed with musical groups of various genres.
Tickets are: $20 (No Member Discount). The New York Open Center 22 East 30th Street, NYC
Read more at http://www.rumi.net/
The Open Center is very pleased to welcome back Shahram Shiva, the renowned Rumi translator and performer, accompanied by a trio of accomplished musicians, for another luminous event.
Shiva, who is known for his passionate recitations and performances of Rumi, will perform his own English renditions as well as Rumi's Persian verses.
This special event will be featuring flutist and multi-instrumentalist John Ragusa in original and improvisational accompaniment with Rob Silvan on piano. This union of spoken verse and live music melds magic with love. Following tonight's concert, Shiva will guide the group into an ecstatic whirling experience through his unique and proven four-step method.
Shahram Shiva is an author and longtime award-winning translator and performer of Rumi's poetry. His works include: Rumi, Thief of Sleep; Rending the Veil; A Garden Beyond Paradise; and a new CD entitled "Rumi: Lovedrunk." In addition, Shiva is an innovative workshop leader in Sufism, including its famous "whirling" practice.
Shahram Shiva is a performance poet, award-winning translator and scholar of Rumi and author of several books. He is known for his rich and entrancing concerts of Rumi, the 13th Century Persian mystic poet.
He was born to a Persian Jewish family in Iran and migrated to the US at the age of 16. Shiva is the only major presenter in the West who performs Rumi's poetry in his own English renditions as well as the original Persian verses.
His bilingual English-Persian concerts are Rumi events where the great mystical poet is celebrated with Shiva's unique and passionate recitations of the timeless poetry performed with musical groups of various genres.
Tickets are: $20 (No Member Discount). The New York Open Center 22 East 30th Street, NYC
Read more at http://www.rumi.net/
Picture: Shahram Shiva with John Ragusa (on flute) and Rich Goodhart at Deepak Chopra's Event in Palm Springs, California.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Refreshing And Informative
By Muhammad Khan, *Life and thoughts of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali* - The New Nation - Bangladesh
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Books - Al-Ghazali's Philosophical Theology, by Frank Griffel, New York: Oxford University Press, pp408, 2009, HB, £34.00.
- Ghazali and the Poetics of Imagination, by Ebrahim Moosa, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, pp349, 2005, PB, $22.50
In his Muslim Intellectual: A Study of al-Ghazali (1962), the renowned British Islamicist W. Montgomery Watt wrote, "al-Ghazali has been acclaimed as the greatest Muslim after Muhammad, and is certainly one of the greatest." If
Watt's assessment of al-Ghazali was an exaggeration (as the late Professor Muhsin Mahdi clearly thought it was), then it is difficult to disagree with late Dr Margaret Smith's view that "…at the present time al-Ghazali's works are still read and studied (and their teaching accepted as authoritative), more widely than those of any other Muslim writer, throughout the length and breadth of the world of Islam." (Al-Ghazali the Mystic, p. 236, 1944).
Today, almost nine centuries after his death, al-Ghazali remains one of the most widely read, researched and equally controversial scholars to have hailed from the Muslim world (I have around a dozen Ph.D. theses on him in English alone, not to mention those in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Turkish, Bengali, etc). Given al-Ghazali's important contribution in a range of Islamic disciplines [most notably in theology (kalam), philosophy (falsafah), mysticism (tasawwuf) and jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh)], books on his life and ideas/thoughts will no doubt continue to proliferate, both in the East and the West.
Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Tusi al-Ghazali was, according to the majority of his biographers, born in 1058 in Tabaran, which at the time was one of two main towns in the district of Tus. Despite being a famous scholar and writer, little is known about al-Ghazali's early life. So much so that even his date of birth is hotly contested by his biographers. Thus Frank Griffel, the author of the book under review, argues that he was actually born in 1056. The basis for Griffel's view is a letter al-Ghazali wrote to Sultan Sanjar in order to explain to the ruler why he was unable to appear before him, suggesting that he may have been born at least two years before his widely accepted date of birth. However, unlike Griffel, Ebrahim Moosa, author of the book under review, states that al-Ghazali was born in 450AH, corresponding to 1058-9CE, which is the majority view.
According to al-Subki's account, al-Ghazali lost his father when he was a youngster and was cared for by a Sufi friend of his father. Subsequently, he received training in Islamic sciences under several scholars including al-Radhakani, Ismail ibn Mas'ada al-Ismaili and al-Juwayni. As a talented student, al-Ghazali soon attracted the attention of al-Juwayni, who appointed him as his teaching assistant. During this period he received advanced training in Islamic sciences and aspects of philosophy, and also composed his al-Mankhul min Ta'liqat al-Usul (The Sifted Notes on the Methods of Fundamentals).
Al-Ghazali's intellectual brilliance, coupled with his polished oratory skills and powerful pen, soon attracted the attention of local scholars and lay people. As his popularity increased, Nizam al-Mulk, the powerful Seljuk vizier, appointed him professor at Madrasah al-Nizamiyyah in Baghdad when he was still in his mid-thirties. During his tenure at Nizamiyyah, al-Ghazali claimed to have written about seventy books. However, Griffel argues that most of these books, though published during his tenure at Nizamiyyah, were in fact written prior to his arrival in Baghdad. Be that as it may, al-Ghazali left Baghdad after teaching at Nizamiyyah for about four years.
Prior to his departure, he began to closely study the works of eminent Sufis like al-Junayd, al-Shibli, al-Muhasibi, al-Bistami and al-Makki and he became thoroughly familiar with the mystical dimension of Islam. This was followed by a crisis in his life and worldview which, as Moosa points out, forced him to resign from his professorship and he travelled around prominent Islamic centres "craving for the mystical realm and identified spiritual experience as the only path through which he could slake his thirst for certainty and inner peace. Throughout this intense struggle with his self, Ghazali continued to write large and small treatises on a range of topics. The achievement that crowned Ghazali's sufi phase was the writing of his magnum opus, Resuscitation of the Sciences of Religion; he also wrote notable texts on gnostic piety, legal theory, and theology." (p.6).
After more than a decade of travel and seclusion (uzla), al-Ghazali was asked by Fakhr al-Mulk, a son of Nizam al-Mulk, to teach at Nizamiyyah in Nishapur, which he did for around three years, before returning to his native Tus where he passed away in 1111 at the age of fifty-three although, according to Griffel, he was around fifty-five at the time.
Al-Ghazali completed his last book, Iljam al-Awamm an Ilm al-Kalam (Restraining the Masses from Speculative Theology), only a few days prior to his death. As Griffel points out, little is known about al-Ghazali's family or children although one report suggests he only had female descendants. Others say he had no prominent male successor to champion his work and legacy.
As it transpired, al-Ghazali's ideas and thoughts as formulated in more than fifty books soon became a monument in the annals of Islamic thought and scholarship, and this, more than anything else, has helped to immortalise him. In Griffel's own words, "Al-Ghazali was the most influential teacher of Islamic law and theology during the fifth/eleventh and the sixth/twelfth centuries. He had a particularly monumental impact on the intellectual of the century after his death. Indeed, his writings on the relationship between the philosophical sciences and Muslim theology profoundly affected all Muslim thinkers until the early twentieth century and still carry weight in the Muslim discourse on reason and revelation today." (p.61).
It was al-Ghazali's profound intellectual legacy and relevance to Muslim thought which prompted both Griffel and Moosa to pursue their research on his life and thoughts. Griffel's book seeks to critically explore al-Ghazali's philosophical theology. Although this aspect of his thought has already been analysed by several prominent scholars (such as Michael Marmura, Fadlou Shehadi and Richard M. Frank, among others), however, the value of Griffel's book lies in the fact that he was prepared to question many 'facts' about the life and thoughts of al-Ghazali. More importantly, I found the first two chapters of this book dealing with the life and works of al-Ghazali as well as his prominent students and early followers to be refreshing and informative.
Having said that, writing on al-Ghazali's philosophical theology is never an easy task given the fact that he, in the words of Richard M. Frank, "never composed a complete, systematic, summary of his theology" in the first place. Although it is true that al-Ghazali did not formulate his philosophical theology in a systematic way in one book, Griffel argues "when one considers his corpus as a whole, a quite cohesive picture of his theology emerges." (p.275). From this standpoint, Griffel, a Professor of Islamic Studies at Yale University, then proceeds to develop a coherent and integrative analysis of key issues in Ghazalian philosophical theology, focusing primarily on the latter's views on the role of falsafah in Islam, the relationship between reason (aql) and revelation (wahy), and a detailed discussion of al-Ghazali's acclaimed Tahafut al-Falasifah (Incoherence of the Philosophers), concluding with a survey of his theological views as expressed in his post-The Revival works.
In the Conclusion, Griffel argues, "Al-Ghazali teaches God's Omnipotence and His control over each event in His creation, and he still finds a way to reconcile fully these positions with the cosmological principle of creation through casual chains… Throughout his oeuvre, al-Ghazali constantly reminds his readers how easily humans can fail in their judgements." (p.286).
If Griffel seeks to present a comprehensive picture of al-Ghazali's cosmology, then Moosa (who was trained at an Islamic seminary in India and is now a Research Professor in the US), attempts not only to enter the heart of Ghazalian worldview to develop a comprehensive understanding of Ghazali's thoughts but he also seeks to re-engage with the latter's ideas so as to formulate a methodology (at once Islamic and yet modern) to enable Muslims to make the Islamic intellectual tradition relevant to modern and post-modern thoughts and vice versa.
Moosa's entire thesis revolves around the notion of threshold, or dihliz, an intellectual space which, contends Moosa, enabled al-Ghazali to engage with different schools of thought and philosophy in his life time without undermining his own Islamic worldview.
Starting from the premise that al-Ghazali was a multifaceted personality, Moosa argues, "He was a person committed to many political and intellectual causes. But his embrace of law, politics, mysticism, and philosophy did not follow a uniform path. His was a complex psychology, a life pattern that did not yield to the Homeric orderly succession and alternation of emotions. It was more akin to the 'simultaneous existence of various layers of consciousness and the conflict between them.' If the unpredictability of life shapes the career of a great person, then it is significant that Ghazali's life was radically unpredictable and followed no logical pattern." (p.8).
This view is only true if one were to observe all the ups and downs of al-Ghazali's life in isolation. However, if his life, career and worldview were to be analysed, as Moosa seeks to do, from the threshold, then it could be argued that behind the form of all radical unpredictability and apparent lack of logical pattern there resides the thread of uniformity which enabled al-Ghazali to look at events and activities as well as different systems of thoughts in a detached manner without becoming a part of them. Far from being elusive, ambiguous and difficult to pin-down, al-Ghazali, according to Moosa, was an original thinker who, instead of creating synthesis and reconciliation, imagined new forms of knowledge which enabled him to uphold often contradictory views from the dihliz.
Consisting of nine chapters and an illuminating Introduction and Conclusion, this book is one of the most original and provocative study of al-Ghazali yet to have been produced by a Muslim. One may not agree with everything Moosa has to say but I would like to thank him for sending me a copy of his book.
Source: MusliM news. M. Khan is author of the widely acclaimed book, *The Muslim 100* (reprinted 2009) and *Against the Tide: Thoughts on Islam and Contemporary Issues* (forthcoming).
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By Muhammad Khan, *Life and thoughts of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali* - The New Nation - BangladeshTuesday, December 1, 2009
Books - Al-Ghazali's Philosophical Theology, by Frank Griffel, New York: Oxford University Press, pp408, 2009, HB, £34.00.
- Ghazali and the Poetics of Imagination, by Ebrahim Moosa, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, pp349, 2005, PB, $22.50
In his Muslim Intellectual: A Study of al-Ghazali (1962), the renowned British Islamicist W. Montgomery Watt wrote, "al-Ghazali has been acclaimed as the greatest Muslim after Muhammad, and is certainly one of the greatest." If
Watt's assessment of al-Ghazali was an exaggeration (as the late Professor Muhsin Mahdi clearly thought it was), then it is difficult to disagree with late Dr Margaret Smith's view that "…at the present time al-Ghazali's works are still read and studied (and their teaching accepted as authoritative), more widely than those of any other Muslim writer, throughout the length and breadth of the world of Islam." (Al-Ghazali the Mystic, p. 236, 1944).
Today, almost nine centuries after his death, al-Ghazali remains one of the most widely read, researched and equally controversial scholars to have hailed from the Muslim world (I have around a dozen Ph.D. theses on him in English alone, not to mention those in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Turkish, Bengali, etc). Given al-Ghazali's important contribution in a range of Islamic disciplines [most notably in theology (kalam), philosophy (falsafah), mysticism (tasawwuf) and jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh)], books on his life and ideas/thoughts will no doubt continue to proliferate, both in the East and the West.
Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Tusi al-Ghazali was, according to the majority of his biographers, born in 1058 in Tabaran, which at the time was one of two main towns in the district of Tus. Despite being a famous scholar and writer, little is known about al-Ghazali's early life. So much so that even his date of birth is hotly contested by his biographers. Thus Frank Griffel, the author of the book under review, argues that he was actually born in 1056. The basis for Griffel's view is a letter al-Ghazali wrote to Sultan Sanjar in order to explain to the ruler why he was unable to appear before him, suggesting that he may have been born at least two years before his widely accepted date of birth. However, unlike Griffel, Ebrahim Moosa, author of the book under review, states that al-Ghazali was born in 450AH, corresponding to 1058-9CE, which is the majority view.
According to al-Subki's account, al-Ghazali lost his father when he was a youngster and was cared for by a Sufi friend of his father. Subsequently, he received training in Islamic sciences under several scholars including al-Radhakani, Ismail ibn Mas'ada al-Ismaili and al-Juwayni. As a talented student, al-Ghazali soon attracted the attention of al-Juwayni, who appointed him as his teaching assistant. During this period he received advanced training in Islamic sciences and aspects of philosophy, and also composed his al-Mankhul min Ta'liqat al-Usul (The Sifted Notes on the Methods of Fundamentals).
Al-Ghazali's intellectual brilliance, coupled with his polished oratory skills and powerful pen, soon attracted the attention of local scholars and lay people. As his popularity increased, Nizam al-Mulk, the powerful Seljuk vizier, appointed him professor at Madrasah al-Nizamiyyah in Baghdad when he was still in his mid-thirties. During his tenure at Nizamiyyah, al-Ghazali claimed to have written about seventy books. However, Griffel argues that most of these books, though published during his tenure at Nizamiyyah, were in fact written prior to his arrival in Baghdad. Be that as it may, al-Ghazali left Baghdad after teaching at Nizamiyyah for about four years.
Prior to his departure, he began to closely study the works of eminent Sufis like al-Junayd, al-Shibli, al-Muhasibi, al-Bistami and al-Makki and he became thoroughly familiar with the mystical dimension of Islam. This was followed by a crisis in his life and worldview which, as Moosa points out, forced him to resign from his professorship and he travelled around prominent Islamic centres "craving for the mystical realm and identified spiritual experience as the only path through which he could slake his thirst for certainty and inner peace. Throughout this intense struggle with his self, Ghazali continued to write large and small treatises on a range of topics. The achievement that crowned Ghazali's sufi phase was the writing of his magnum opus, Resuscitation of the Sciences of Religion; he also wrote notable texts on gnostic piety, legal theory, and theology." (p.6).
After more than a decade of travel and seclusion (uzla), al-Ghazali was asked by Fakhr al-Mulk, a son of Nizam al-Mulk, to teach at Nizamiyyah in Nishapur, which he did for around three years, before returning to his native Tus where he passed away in 1111 at the age of fifty-three although, according to Griffel, he was around fifty-five at the time.
Al-Ghazali completed his last book, Iljam al-Awamm an Ilm al-Kalam (Restraining the Masses from Speculative Theology), only a few days prior to his death. As Griffel points out, little is known about al-Ghazali's family or children although one report suggests he only had female descendants. Others say he had no prominent male successor to champion his work and legacy.
As it transpired, al-Ghazali's ideas and thoughts as formulated in more than fifty books soon became a monument in the annals of Islamic thought and scholarship, and this, more than anything else, has helped to immortalise him. In Griffel's own words, "Al-Ghazali was the most influential teacher of Islamic law and theology during the fifth/eleventh and the sixth/twelfth centuries. He had a particularly monumental impact on the intellectual of the century after his death. Indeed, his writings on the relationship between the philosophical sciences and Muslim theology profoundly affected all Muslim thinkers until the early twentieth century and still carry weight in the Muslim discourse on reason and revelation today." (p.61).
It was al-Ghazali's profound intellectual legacy and relevance to Muslim thought which prompted both Griffel and Moosa to pursue their research on his life and thoughts. Griffel's book seeks to critically explore al-Ghazali's philosophical theology. Although this aspect of his thought has already been analysed by several prominent scholars (such as Michael Marmura, Fadlou Shehadi and Richard M. Frank, among others), however, the value of Griffel's book lies in the fact that he was prepared to question many 'facts' about the life and thoughts of al-Ghazali. More importantly, I found the first two chapters of this book dealing with the life and works of al-Ghazali as well as his prominent students and early followers to be refreshing and informative.
Having said that, writing on al-Ghazali's philosophical theology is never an easy task given the fact that he, in the words of Richard M. Frank, "never composed a complete, systematic, summary of his theology" in the first place. Although it is true that al-Ghazali did not formulate his philosophical theology in a systematic way in one book, Griffel argues "when one considers his corpus as a whole, a quite cohesive picture of his theology emerges." (p.275). From this standpoint, Griffel, a Professor of Islamic Studies at Yale University, then proceeds to develop a coherent and integrative analysis of key issues in Ghazalian philosophical theology, focusing primarily on the latter's views on the role of falsafah in Islam, the relationship between reason (aql) and revelation (wahy), and a detailed discussion of al-Ghazali's acclaimed Tahafut al-Falasifah (Incoherence of the Philosophers), concluding with a survey of his theological views as expressed in his post-The Revival works.
In the Conclusion, Griffel argues, "Al-Ghazali teaches God's Omnipotence and His control over each event in His creation, and he still finds a way to reconcile fully these positions with the cosmological principle of creation through casual chains… Throughout his oeuvre, al-Ghazali constantly reminds his readers how easily humans can fail in their judgements." (p.286).
If Griffel seeks to present a comprehensive picture of al-Ghazali's cosmology, then Moosa (who was trained at an Islamic seminary in India and is now a Research Professor in the US), attempts not only to enter the heart of Ghazalian worldview to develop a comprehensive understanding of Ghazali's thoughts but he also seeks to re-engage with the latter's ideas so as to formulate a methodology (at once Islamic and yet modern) to enable Muslims to make the Islamic intellectual tradition relevant to modern and post-modern thoughts and vice versa.
Moosa's entire thesis revolves around the notion of threshold, or dihliz, an intellectual space which, contends Moosa, enabled al-Ghazali to engage with different schools of thought and philosophy in his life time without undermining his own Islamic worldview.
Starting from the premise that al-Ghazali was a multifaceted personality, Moosa argues, "He was a person committed to many political and intellectual causes. But his embrace of law, politics, mysticism, and philosophy did not follow a uniform path. His was a complex psychology, a life pattern that did not yield to the Homeric orderly succession and alternation of emotions. It was more akin to the 'simultaneous existence of various layers of consciousness and the conflict between them.' If the unpredictability of life shapes the career of a great person, then it is significant that Ghazali's life was radically unpredictable and followed no logical pattern." (p.8).
This view is only true if one were to observe all the ups and downs of al-Ghazali's life in isolation. However, if his life, career and worldview were to be analysed, as Moosa seeks to do, from the threshold, then it could be argued that behind the form of all radical unpredictability and apparent lack of logical pattern there resides the thread of uniformity which enabled al-Ghazali to look at events and activities as well as different systems of thoughts in a detached manner without becoming a part of them. Far from being elusive, ambiguous and difficult to pin-down, al-Ghazali, according to Moosa, was an original thinker who, instead of creating synthesis and reconciliation, imagined new forms of knowledge which enabled him to uphold often contradictory views from the dihliz.
Consisting of nine chapters and an illuminating Introduction and Conclusion, this book is one of the most original and provocative study of al-Ghazali yet to have been produced by a Muslim. One may not agree with everything Moosa has to say but I would like to thank him for sending me a copy of his book.
Source: MusliM news. M. Khan is author of the widely acclaimed book, *The Muslim 100* (reprinted 2009) and *Against the Tide: Thoughts on Islam and Contemporary Issues* (forthcoming).
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
One Containing Everything
By Mustapha Marrouchi, *Arabic Traces In Ridges of Sand* - Countercurrents.org - Kerala, India
Monday, November 30 , 2009
For the uninitiated, the flowing of lines and seemingly idiosyncratic spattering of dots and dashes that characterize the Arabic script can appear an inscrutable enigma.
That it is a cursive system with few clues as to exactly where discrete elements find their borders only adds to the puzzle.
Without an overly onerous measure of study however, the mystery is breached and the tangled jungle of vines gives up its fruit, and its secrets, that the right to left procession of ascending peaks and receding troughs is regular, logical, and rigidly ruled.
When one learns how to tease apart the sound sequences encoded in the script, meaning emerges, but the cracking of the code is bittersweet; what was once tantalizingly obscure devolves into the simply mundane–written words doing what they do–mere signs signifying something out there in the world, but what thing and which world?
Even as the first great mystery fades, another comes into being: that ineffable quality in the arrangement and execution of these sound symbols that is more than the sum of its parts and the source of its captivating beauty.
Of all the so-called Islamic arts, al-khatt (or trace) holds a privileged position. Combining function with perfect form, the hyper-stylized and fantastically ornate expressions retain a suppleness and a subtlety unmatched in other cultures. They are at once stirring and deeply soothing. Adapt scribes, whose masterworks can be seen adorning mosques and monuments, ancient coins and illuminated manuscripts, take the written words and weave them together not quite as poets do–into a tapestry of ideas and imagery that flood the mind–but rather into a blank canvas upon which one cannot anticipate what might emerge.
The effect is a paradox. The work is in its nature one of arabesque (generally of highly spiritual matters), the form in which it is rendered allays the impulse to simply read–beginning at the beginning and ending at the end–one finds himself instead caught up in the unbounded net of loops and hooks, eyes wandering forward and backward over the field, infinitely fine in its detail, distinct, atomic; yet revealing the harmony and symmetry of the whole at a further remove. This tidal shifting of perspective transforms consciousness, offering a glimpse into what lies beneath and beyond our senses.
The transcendent beauty of the Arabic trace is well recognized and often heralded as the greatest and most well developed of the fine arts in Islamic civilization. That this should be so is often explained, particularly in the West, by early Islam’s censure of anthropomorphic figures and images–particularly in a religious context–as a safeguard against idol worship slipping in through the backdoor, as it were. In the absence of drawing and sculpture, stylized writing became the preferred mode of artistic and religious expression simply by default.
This explanation, while credible, seems somewhat stingy. The fact is that the Arabs, to whom Islam was first revealed, have and have always had an especially profound reverence for the spoken and written word since well before the Islamic period.
Pre-Islamic or Jahili poetry best represented in the epics of Al-Khansa, Asma bint Marwan, Antara ibn Chaddad, and Imru’l-Qays, to name but a few, was extremely well developed and widely celebrated as an art form.
The trace in Islam, assiduously cultivated over millennia, owes its genesis less to a prohibition against certain other art forms than to the serendipitous revelation of Al-Qur’an, unprecedented in form and unsurpassed in beauty, to a people who would recognize it as such. As the verbatim word of Allah, it existed outside time–eternal, unchanging, and uncreated–the transcribed emissions of a celestial wavelength, as it were. It was poetry of the most ineffable intensity and beauty to Arabs hearing it recited for the first time. It was believed to speak in an Arabic more majestic, more euphonious, more mesmeric that had been known in the time before Islam, al-Jahiliyya.
To hear its surats (verses) intoned or, for the able few, to read them was to know language that was a gift from the supreme source: “Who has not begotten, nor is He begotten, and there is no one comparable to Him.” The entrancing music of the message compelled attention that removed all doubt as to belief and obligation.
Hearing it recited under the hot sun in a town square or shivering by an oasis in the cold night, the camel driver, the souk merchant, and the slave were uplifted by Allah’s new commandments and commitments. Ancient tribal loyalties became loyalty to the greatest tribe of all–Islam and all those whose jihad (struggle in the path of Islam) proved true at the end of their time were wondrously rewarded.
So Allah will ward off from them the evil of that day, and cause them to meet with splendor and happiness.
And round about them will go youths, never altering in age; when
thou seest them thou wilt think them to be scattered pearls. And when
Thou lookest thither, thou seest blessings and a great kingdom.
Yet, as much as the eudaemonia experienced in the hearing and the reading of its scriptures, as much even as the confidence-building of their clarity and rigor, the unique balm of Muhammad’s message was that it lifted the Arabs out of an aged inferiority complex. Ishamel’s people had languished in their Jahiliyya of error and ignorance for centuries while other peoples of the Fertile Crescent boasted in writing of God’s special favor.
At last, after more than a millennium of axial revelations, Ishmael’s progeny had been chosen to recite the truths that superseded the gospels of Zarathustra, Abraham, Moses, Mani, and Jesus. The “UnCreated Creotor” chose the Arabs as custodians of mankind’s final covenant, for the “only true faith in God’s sight is Islam.” Surat Al-Hijr assures Believers that the “day will surely come when those who disbelieve will wish that they were Muslims.”
The truth of that prophecy was about to be tested when ‘Uthman, the third Caliphe who reigned from 644 to 656, ascended the throne. It was under his guidance that the gathering and authentication of materials bearing the transmitted word of God, bits of which had already been assembled by Abu Bakr, the first Caliphe who ruled from 632 to 634, were pressed to a conclusion by a bevy of scribes who owed a considerable debt to A’isha, the Prophet’s child bride, Zayd ibn Thabit, the multilingual secretary, and ‘Uthman himself.
The definitive Qur’an of 114 surats, or chapters, arranged more or less according to length, materialized in 650. The finished version was ‘Uthman’s singular legacy to his faith, but it also played a part in causing his violent death. He, too, like ‘Umar before him and Ali after him, was stabbed to death by a fanatic, who was none other than A’isha’s brother, Muhammad, son of Abu Bakr. By the time Ali ascended the caliphate in 656, many Muslims had already memorized the entire Mushaf.
There were also several Arabic scripts in circulation. The Iraqi city of Kufa, founded in 640, eventually became a religious and cultural center, attracting scholars from across the newly established empire. The Kufic script, which evolved from even earlier forms, is distinguished for its being non-cursive and geometrical. Its angular character made Kufic particularly suitable for use in adorning architecture, but was also the main script for transcribing Al-Qur’an for several centuries. However, newly developed cursive scripts (Thuluth comes to mind), more fluid and elegant in form, had unseated the Kufic style by the 11th century as the preferred mode of Qur’anic writing.
The demands of the state likewise furthered the evolution of the Arabic cursive script via the massive number of documents generated by the Islamic empire’s vast bureaucracy. Probably the most important of all scribes, Abu Ali Muhammad Ibn Muqla (886-940), is credited with regularizing the geometries and rules of proportion for calligraphic writing, for which he invented and developed several new styles. Ibn Muqla’s script became the de facto official script for secular writing, variations of which remain the main Arabic script used today.
While the Arabic script and its subsequent developments were certainly meant to convey a message, the medium took on a form of its own. The more penmanship was used as ornamentation, the more abstract its form became, often rendering the resulting work almost completely opaque to many readers. This did not detract from the work’s aesthetic appeal and, indeed became a legitimate function of writing. Qur’anic verses and sayings of the prophet could be contorted into fantastic shapes–a bird; a tiger; a lamp; a five-pointed star; a man prostrate in prayer. The divinely inspired words taking the form of a material object enjoins the observer to consider that which underlies all reality–that which is eternal and infinitely intricate.
The complexity of the language would later manifest itself in the prose of writers such as al-Mutanabbi and Abu’l Ala al-Ma’arri in the East and Ibn al-Arabi and Ibn Rushd in the West, all of whom in their odes soared to rhapsodic heights and drove their huge audiences into rapture. They used prose as a razor-sharp Aristotelian instrument to convey their message. Their knowledge of the language was so immense and natural that they could be eloquent and clear; they did not need fillers, verbosity, or display for its own sake.
It is true that the ‘Abbassid dynasty (750–1258), followed by the Mamluks in Egypt, and later, the Fatimid, Mughal, and Ottoman Empires in the East as well as al-Andalus in the West were all great patrons of the arts, and schools of calligraphy flourished during their respective reigns, when on the other had the scribes in Timbuktu (Mali), who practiced Sufi Islam, not only refined the existing styles but also created numerous novel forms. This can be seen in the fine, lean, and most steely prose of the manuscripts that were written at the time. The development of this style as an art form was called Maghribi. It coincided with the proliferation of the holy book in The Maghreb in the 8th century, following the defeat of the Jewish Priestess al-Amira al-Kahina by Hassan ibn Noman in 690.
Nowhere is this reality more obvious than in the inscriptions one finds in the 8th-century mosque in al-Kairawan (Tunisia) and in manuscripts hosted in the 12th-century Great Mosque of Qutubiyya in Marrakesh (Morocco).
Painstakingly transcribed by hand in exacting detail, a single copy of Al-Qur’an could take several months to complete in the Maghribi style. The reverence for their labor’s object and the sense of divine purpose the scribes must have felt in transmitting the perfect words of God’s message to mankind, transformed their effort into a sacred act of devotion, and the Maghribi script that was its vehicle was exalted and rendered ever more beautifully.
The ductus developed by Mahmud bin Umar (1463-1548), Grand Cadi, (Islamic leader) of Timbuktu and one of the greatest jurists in the history of the city, is a case in point. The curly writing of Ahmed Baba (1556-1627), the last Chancellor of Sankore University in Timbuktu, is another.
At the same time that copyists in al-Mashraq were refining a fleshy script, their counterparts in al-Maghreb were developing a bony style. As in the East, the round skinny script used in the Islamic West came in different sizes and forms. Perhaps on analogy with the three pairs of majuscule/minuscule scripts that make up the Six Pens, Maghribi script is often juxtaposed as a pair of opposite sizes: Andalusi, from al-Andalus, the Arabic name for the Iberian peninsula, is often used for a small, compact variant that is the counterpart of a larger and looser style known as Fasi (literally from Fez in Morocco).
By the 16th century the two are said to have merged into one average-sized script. The style that one finds in manuscripts dating back to the Early Modern period assembled in the Ahmed Baba Center for Research and Documentation (CEDRAB) in Timbuktu is closer to the Fasi script than to its al-Andalusi half-brother.
It is visually distinct thanks to the descending letters with large bowls and swooping curves. The shafts of the letters often swell at the top, and they, like most initial strokes, begin with a left serif. The strokes on fa’ and (kaf) are generally diagonal and contrast with the rounded bodies of these letters. Final alif ends with a spur or point at the bottom. Sad is a smooth lozenge, without any initial bump.
In addition to the distinctive script, several features of pointing, vocalization, orthography, added in red ink, are characteristic of the style. And if the materials are dense, the difference in illumination is much less pronounced. Suffice it to add that the stroke appears uniform and this may well be due to the way the scribe cut his pen, which was carved out of a thinner cane that came originally from the swamps in Senegal, and which was much softer than its counterpart in Fez or Tunis.
Here, the mythical past of Timbuktu, which was for centuries a desert crossroads, a major center for trading and for learning where thousands of manuscripts were written and stored, re-emerges to supply wonderful details of a forgotten golden age of Islamic history. The famously remote mud-walled city has been keeping a secret. In the past few years thousands of ancient manuscripts have been discovered there, mostly at the Sankore University-Mosque, a major center of intellectual life from the 12th to the 16th centuries.
These rare documents are enormously important to the story of Africa. Some 15,000 have been located and filed under the aegis of the United Nations educational, scientific, and cultural organization (UNESCO). Perhaps 80,000 more lie untouched in chests, attics, and corners of the city.
The precious manuscripts were the glory of the Niger river valley from the 12th to the 19th century but are now threatened by decay and illegal traffickers who take them, written in Arabic or sometimes Fulani by scholars from the old Malian empire and beyond, to Switzerland where they are enhanced before being sold to private collectors.
Ali Ould Sid, head of the Timbuktu cultural mission, is alarmed: “The manuscripts found in homes need to be identified, protected, and restored. Otherwise, Timbuktu will be stripped of a written heritage whose importance can hardly be overestimated.”
Doing away with the neglect and illegal export is something Ould Sidi is determined to uphold. For him (and for us) reclaiming a legacy, and a fabulous one at that, tells us by some other way of telling, that black Africa had and continues to have a literary history that goes beyond the mere notion of Africa as a continent of “song and dance.” It includes poetry by men and women, legal reflections, and scientific treatises. It also reveals that Africa has not only an oral but also literate culture–a corrective to the statement made by Hugh Trevor-Roper in 1963: “Perhaps in the future, there will be some African history to teach. But at present there is none. There is only the history of Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness.”
The claim brings to mind Derrida’s concept of over-representation: that history in Europe is dead not because it has nothing new to offer to the world but because it neglects the history of vast lands and peoples it once occupied.
Until recently, Timbuktu was seen as a holy, mysterious, and inaccessible place; a three-syllable-word, in the Western popular imagination at least, that leads to the end of the earth. Both the cliché and the “real thing” gave the city a reputation that fascinated explorers such as the Scotsman Mungo Park, France’s René Caillé, and the German Heinrich Barth. “Timbuktu is” wrote Charles de Foucault, “a waste land in the middle of another waste land, namely, the Sahara.”
We may want to put it another way by saying that Timbuktu is a city of citadels and castles made of mud and sand in what is now northwestern Mali, on the edge of the Sahara desert, near the left bank of the Niger river. It began as a Tuareg encampment in the 11th century and came into its own in the 14th century as a trading post on the route between the old West Sudan and The Maghreb.
Salt from Taoudenni in the north, gold from the mines of the Bouré region in the southwest, and slaves from Ghana passed through it. Later, Arab and Persian merchants were joined by travelers and Muslim philosophers acting as missionaries. The Sahel (the savannah area south of the Sahara) split between those peoples who accepted Islam as a way of life and those who did not. The Mossi people in what is now Burkina Faso resisted conversion whereas the Songhay empire, which succeeded the Malian empire at the end of the 14th century, embraced the new religion.
The production of manuscripts in Timbuktu was linked with the spread of Sufi Islam, which was and is still widely practiced in the region. As a result, the three largest cities in the region, Timbuktu, Gao, and Djenné, became centers of an Islamo-Sudanese civilization the influences of which can still be felt today. In the 15th century the population of Timbuktu was an astonishing 100,000 (today it is 30,000), including 25,000 students, members of the Sankore University-Mosque. Ulema (scholars) lectured and scribes recorded their words on bark, camels’ shoulders, sheepskin, papyrus or paper from the east and later from Italy via Tunisia.
Over centuries they built up a priceless body of philosophical, legal, and religious writings. There is a vast variety of knowledge within these manuscripts, from the positions of the planets to the tonality of musical instruments, the prices of textiles to kola nuts.
Caravans on the route from Agadez (now in Niger) to Tichit (now Mauritania) via Sokoto (now in northern Nigeria) carried quantities of information between enlightened merchants as well as blocks of salt, sacks of tobacco, and paper. For nearly 300 years trade and knowledge developed mutually. These manuscripts prove that it was never true that African civilizations relied solely on oral traditions, as scholars, including the late Hamadou Hampâte Bâ, suggested.
Yet even as this cache is being discovered, it is in danger of disappearing, as sand and other grit are abrading many of the aging texts causing them to disintegrate. There is also a danger that these precious findings might fall into the hands of people who are more interested in making money than understanding the past of a proud people who left an incredible legacy. It is in this sense that the following set of questions is de rigueur: How can this rich vein of written wisdom be safely and sensibly tapped before time destroys it? Are we able to safeguard a key element of Africa’s historical consciousness? What should be our role as scholars to protect and restore an incredible portion of Islamic and/or Jewish history?
The Jewish community played a positive role in bringing not only gold from the Sudan to Christian Europe but also jealously guarded the culture of the time. They were well established in the ports of The Maghreb by the Middle Ages–the Cresques family, represented by Abraham Cresques (1325–1387), the father of cartography in Timbuktu, settled there in the 12th century–so trade routes linked them to the interior.
The celebrated Arab trader Hasan ibn al-Wazzan, nicknamed Leon the African, wrote of a Jewish presence in Gao in the 15th century. Ismaël Diadé Haidara, is a descendant of the Kati dynasty of Ulema goes, into detail explaining the history of his family’s collection of rare manuscripts, kept in a restored house near the Jingereber mosque. “This trove began in 1468 when my ancestor, the Islamicized Visigoth Ali bin Ziyad al-Kuti, moved to West Africa from Toledo. After that it didn’t stop growing for several generations of Kati. We decided to get the texts out in 1999.”
The Kati library is a rich lot of medieval knowledge, with writings ranging from manuscripts that deal with good governance, food, medicine, love, death, and the dangers of tobacco. Law, theology, medicine, grammar, music, and mathematics are all covered in works by scholars from Gao, Timbuktu, and Djenné. For now at least, the tomes are stored on shelves protected from sand and dust. Legal documents pertaining to the Jews and Christians of Timbuktu testify to the tolerance and intense commercial life of the city. Slaves sold and freed are recorded, together with the prices of salt, spices, gold, and feathers, on parchments attached to gold-illuminated letters from sovereigns from both sides of the Sahara.
The heritage that Timbuktu holds has a powerful lesson to teach us. Take the calligraphic works as an example and the case will be clear enough. The scale, proportion, and context guide our consciousness to a contemplative place, offering us in the process a chance to glimpse something profound. The sublime beauty of an illuminated manuscript, its pages adorned with scripts of various sizes and different colored inks, overlapping and interweaving into a composition that is white marble of the Taj Mahal or Cordova’s Great Mosque, so captivating and hypnotic are these that the individual words from which they are composed seem to fade in and out of resolution.
These works entreat us to not merely see the finite word, the singular concrete object among a multitude of others, but to step back and take a wider view, to observe how the many merge into one, again a singularity, but one containing everything.
[Pictures:
Doors of the Sankore Madrash, Timbuktu, Mali;
The Library of Congress, Online Exhibition: "Ancient Manuscripts from the Desert Libraries of Timbuktu", Islamic Mysticism. This text explains the basic principles of Sufi practice, pointing out the various stages of knowledge that mystics pass through as their knowledge of God increases through their strict application of devotional discipline. The author further discusses the relationship between belief, Sufi doctrine, and knowledge of God.]
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art and arts
By Mustapha Marrouchi, *Arabic Traces In Ridges of Sand* - Countercurrents.org - Kerala, India
Monday, November 30 , 2009
For the uninitiated, the flowing of lines and seemingly idiosyncratic spattering of dots and dashes that characterize the Arabic script can appear an inscrutable enigma.
That it is a cursive system with few clues as to exactly where discrete elements find their borders only adds to the puzzle.
Without an overly onerous measure of study however, the mystery is breached and the tangled jungle of vines gives up its fruit, and its secrets, that the right to left procession of ascending peaks and receding troughs is regular, logical, and rigidly ruled.
When one learns how to tease apart the sound sequences encoded in the script, meaning emerges, but the cracking of the code is bittersweet; what was once tantalizingly obscure devolves into the simply mundane–written words doing what they do–mere signs signifying something out there in the world, but what thing and which world?
Even as the first great mystery fades, another comes into being: that ineffable quality in the arrangement and execution of these sound symbols that is more than the sum of its parts and the source of its captivating beauty.
Of all the so-called Islamic arts, al-khatt (or trace) holds a privileged position. Combining function with perfect form, the hyper-stylized and fantastically ornate expressions retain a suppleness and a subtlety unmatched in other cultures. They are at once stirring and deeply soothing. Adapt scribes, whose masterworks can be seen adorning mosques and monuments, ancient coins and illuminated manuscripts, take the written words and weave them together not quite as poets do–into a tapestry of ideas and imagery that flood the mind–but rather into a blank canvas upon which one cannot anticipate what might emerge.
The effect is a paradox. The work is in its nature one of arabesque (generally of highly spiritual matters), the form in which it is rendered allays the impulse to simply read–beginning at the beginning and ending at the end–one finds himself instead caught up in the unbounded net of loops and hooks, eyes wandering forward and backward over the field, infinitely fine in its detail, distinct, atomic; yet revealing the harmony and symmetry of the whole at a further remove. This tidal shifting of perspective transforms consciousness, offering a glimpse into what lies beneath and beyond our senses.
The transcendent beauty of the Arabic trace is well recognized and often heralded as the greatest and most well developed of the fine arts in Islamic civilization. That this should be so is often explained, particularly in the West, by early Islam’s censure of anthropomorphic figures and images–particularly in a religious context–as a safeguard against idol worship slipping in through the backdoor, as it were. In the absence of drawing and sculpture, stylized writing became the preferred mode of artistic and religious expression simply by default.
This explanation, while credible, seems somewhat stingy. The fact is that the Arabs, to whom Islam was first revealed, have and have always had an especially profound reverence for the spoken and written word since well before the Islamic period.
Pre-Islamic or Jahili poetry best represented in the epics of Al-Khansa, Asma bint Marwan, Antara ibn Chaddad, and Imru’l-Qays, to name but a few, was extremely well developed and widely celebrated as an art form.
The trace in Islam, assiduously cultivated over millennia, owes its genesis less to a prohibition against certain other art forms than to the serendipitous revelation of Al-Qur’an, unprecedented in form and unsurpassed in beauty, to a people who would recognize it as such. As the verbatim word of Allah, it existed outside time–eternal, unchanging, and uncreated–the transcribed emissions of a celestial wavelength, as it were. It was poetry of the most ineffable intensity and beauty to Arabs hearing it recited for the first time. It was believed to speak in an Arabic more majestic, more euphonious, more mesmeric that had been known in the time before Islam, al-Jahiliyya.
To hear its surats (verses) intoned or, for the able few, to read them was to know language that was a gift from the supreme source: “Who has not begotten, nor is He begotten, and there is no one comparable to Him.” The entrancing music of the message compelled attention that removed all doubt as to belief and obligation.
Hearing it recited under the hot sun in a town square or shivering by an oasis in the cold night, the camel driver, the souk merchant, and the slave were uplifted by Allah’s new commandments and commitments. Ancient tribal loyalties became loyalty to the greatest tribe of all–Islam and all those whose jihad (struggle in the path of Islam) proved true at the end of their time were wondrously rewarded.
So Allah will ward off from them the evil of that day, and cause them to meet with splendor and happiness.
And round about them will go youths, never altering in age; when
thou seest them thou wilt think them to be scattered pearls. And when
Thou lookest thither, thou seest blessings and a great kingdom.
Yet, as much as the eudaemonia experienced in the hearing and the reading of its scriptures, as much even as the confidence-building of their clarity and rigor, the unique balm of Muhammad’s message was that it lifted the Arabs out of an aged inferiority complex. Ishamel’s people had languished in their Jahiliyya of error and ignorance for centuries while other peoples of the Fertile Crescent boasted in writing of God’s special favor.
At last, after more than a millennium of axial revelations, Ishmael’s progeny had been chosen to recite the truths that superseded the gospels of Zarathustra, Abraham, Moses, Mani, and Jesus. The “UnCreated Creotor” chose the Arabs as custodians of mankind’s final covenant, for the “only true faith in God’s sight is Islam.” Surat Al-Hijr assures Believers that the “day will surely come when those who disbelieve will wish that they were Muslims.”
The truth of that prophecy was about to be tested when ‘Uthman, the third Caliphe who reigned from 644 to 656, ascended the throne. It was under his guidance that the gathering and authentication of materials bearing the transmitted word of God, bits of which had already been assembled by Abu Bakr, the first Caliphe who ruled from 632 to 634, were pressed to a conclusion by a bevy of scribes who owed a considerable debt to A’isha, the Prophet’s child bride, Zayd ibn Thabit, the multilingual secretary, and ‘Uthman himself.
The definitive Qur’an of 114 surats, or chapters, arranged more or less according to length, materialized in 650. The finished version was ‘Uthman’s singular legacy to his faith, but it also played a part in causing his violent death. He, too, like ‘Umar before him and Ali after him, was stabbed to death by a fanatic, who was none other than A’isha’s brother, Muhammad, son of Abu Bakr. By the time Ali ascended the caliphate in 656, many Muslims had already memorized the entire Mushaf.
There were also several Arabic scripts in circulation. The Iraqi city of Kufa, founded in 640, eventually became a religious and cultural center, attracting scholars from across the newly established empire. The Kufic script, which evolved from even earlier forms, is distinguished for its being non-cursive and geometrical. Its angular character made Kufic particularly suitable for use in adorning architecture, but was also the main script for transcribing Al-Qur’an for several centuries. However, newly developed cursive scripts (Thuluth comes to mind), more fluid and elegant in form, had unseated the Kufic style by the 11th century as the preferred mode of Qur’anic writing.
The demands of the state likewise furthered the evolution of the Arabic cursive script via the massive number of documents generated by the Islamic empire’s vast bureaucracy. Probably the most important of all scribes, Abu Ali Muhammad Ibn Muqla (886-940), is credited with regularizing the geometries and rules of proportion for calligraphic writing, for which he invented and developed several new styles. Ibn Muqla’s script became the de facto official script for secular writing, variations of which remain the main Arabic script used today.
While the Arabic script and its subsequent developments were certainly meant to convey a message, the medium took on a form of its own. The more penmanship was used as ornamentation, the more abstract its form became, often rendering the resulting work almost completely opaque to many readers. This did not detract from the work’s aesthetic appeal and, indeed became a legitimate function of writing. Qur’anic verses and sayings of the prophet could be contorted into fantastic shapes–a bird; a tiger; a lamp; a five-pointed star; a man prostrate in prayer. The divinely inspired words taking the form of a material object enjoins the observer to consider that which underlies all reality–that which is eternal and infinitely intricate.
The complexity of the language would later manifest itself in the prose of writers such as al-Mutanabbi and Abu’l Ala al-Ma’arri in the East and Ibn al-Arabi and Ibn Rushd in the West, all of whom in their odes soared to rhapsodic heights and drove their huge audiences into rapture. They used prose as a razor-sharp Aristotelian instrument to convey their message. Their knowledge of the language was so immense and natural that they could be eloquent and clear; they did not need fillers, verbosity, or display for its own sake.
It is true that the ‘Abbassid dynasty (750–1258), followed by the Mamluks in Egypt, and later, the Fatimid, Mughal, and Ottoman Empires in the East as well as al-Andalus in the West were all great patrons of the arts, and schools of calligraphy flourished during their respective reigns, when on the other had the scribes in Timbuktu (Mali), who practiced Sufi Islam, not only refined the existing styles but also created numerous novel forms. This can be seen in the fine, lean, and most steely prose of the manuscripts that were written at the time. The development of this style as an art form was called Maghribi. It coincided with the proliferation of the holy book in The Maghreb in the 8th century, following the defeat of the Jewish Priestess al-Amira al-Kahina by Hassan ibn Noman in 690.
Nowhere is this reality more obvious than in the inscriptions one finds in the 8th-century mosque in al-Kairawan (Tunisia) and in manuscripts hosted in the 12th-century Great Mosque of Qutubiyya in Marrakesh (Morocco).
Painstakingly transcribed by hand in exacting detail, a single copy of Al-Qur’an could take several months to complete in the Maghribi style. The reverence for their labor’s object and the sense of divine purpose the scribes must have felt in transmitting the perfect words of God’s message to mankind, transformed their effort into a sacred act of devotion, and the Maghribi script that was its vehicle was exalted and rendered ever more beautifully.
The ductus developed by Mahmud bin Umar (1463-1548), Grand Cadi, (Islamic leader) of Timbuktu and one of the greatest jurists in the history of the city, is a case in point. The curly writing of Ahmed Baba (1556-1627), the last Chancellor of Sankore University in Timbuktu, is another.
At the same time that copyists in al-Mashraq were refining a fleshy script, their counterparts in al-Maghreb were developing a bony style. As in the East, the round skinny script used in the Islamic West came in different sizes and forms. Perhaps on analogy with the three pairs of majuscule/minuscule scripts that make up the Six Pens, Maghribi script is often juxtaposed as a pair of opposite sizes: Andalusi, from al-Andalus, the Arabic name for the Iberian peninsula, is often used for a small, compact variant that is the counterpart of a larger and looser style known as Fasi (literally from Fez in Morocco).
By the 16th century the two are said to have merged into one average-sized script. The style that one finds in manuscripts dating back to the Early Modern period assembled in the Ahmed Baba Center for Research and Documentation (CEDRAB) in Timbuktu is closer to the Fasi script than to its al-Andalusi half-brother.
It is visually distinct thanks to the descending letters with large bowls and swooping curves. The shafts of the letters often swell at the top, and they, like most initial strokes, begin with a left serif. The strokes on fa’ and (kaf) are generally diagonal and contrast with the rounded bodies of these letters. Final alif ends with a spur or point at the bottom. Sad is a smooth lozenge, without any initial bump.
In addition to the distinctive script, several features of pointing, vocalization, orthography, added in red ink, are characteristic of the style. And if the materials are dense, the difference in illumination is much less pronounced. Suffice it to add that the stroke appears uniform and this may well be due to the way the scribe cut his pen, which was carved out of a thinner cane that came originally from the swamps in Senegal, and which was much softer than its counterpart in Fez or Tunis.
Here, the mythical past of Timbuktu, which was for centuries a desert crossroads, a major center for trading and for learning where thousands of manuscripts were written and stored, re-emerges to supply wonderful details of a forgotten golden age of Islamic history. The famously remote mud-walled city has been keeping a secret. In the past few years thousands of ancient manuscripts have been discovered there, mostly at the Sankore University-Mosque, a major center of intellectual life from the 12th to the 16th centuries.
These rare documents are enormously important to the story of Africa. Some 15,000 have been located and filed under the aegis of the United Nations educational, scientific, and cultural organization (UNESCO). Perhaps 80,000 more lie untouched in chests, attics, and corners of the city.
The precious manuscripts were the glory of the Niger river valley from the 12th to the 19th century but are now threatened by decay and illegal traffickers who take them, written in Arabic or sometimes Fulani by scholars from the old Malian empire and beyond, to Switzerland where they are enhanced before being sold to private collectors.
Ali Ould Sid, head of the Timbuktu cultural mission, is alarmed: “The manuscripts found in homes need to be identified, protected, and restored. Otherwise, Timbuktu will be stripped of a written heritage whose importance can hardly be overestimated.”
Doing away with the neglect and illegal export is something Ould Sidi is determined to uphold. For him (and for us) reclaiming a legacy, and a fabulous one at that, tells us by some other way of telling, that black Africa had and continues to have a literary history that goes beyond the mere notion of Africa as a continent of “song and dance.” It includes poetry by men and women, legal reflections, and scientific treatises. It also reveals that Africa has not only an oral but also literate culture–a corrective to the statement made by Hugh Trevor-Roper in 1963: “Perhaps in the future, there will be some African history to teach. But at present there is none. There is only the history of Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness.”
The claim brings to mind Derrida’s concept of over-representation: that history in Europe is dead not because it has nothing new to offer to the world but because it neglects the history of vast lands and peoples it once occupied.
Until recently, Timbuktu was seen as a holy, mysterious, and inaccessible place; a three-syllable-word, in the Western popular imagination at least, that leads to the end of the earth. Both the cliché and the “real thing” gave the city a reputation that fascinated explorers such as the Scotsman Mungo Park, France’s René Caillé, and the German Heinrich Barth. “Timbuktu is” wrote Charles de Foucault, “a waste land in the middle of another waste land, namely, the Sahara.”
We may want to put it another way by saying that Timbuktu is a city of citadels and castles made of mud and sand in what is now northwestern Mali, on the edge of the Sahara desert, near the left bank of the Niger river. It began as a Tuareg encampment in the 11th century and came into its own in the 14th century as a trading post on the route between the old West Sudan and The Maghreb.
Salt from Taoudenni in the north, gold from the mines of the Bouré region in the southwest, and slaves from Ghana passed through it. Later, Arab and Persian merchants were joined by travelers and Muslim philosophers acting as missionaries. The Sahel (the savannah area south of the Sahara) split between those peoples who accepted Islam as a way of life and those who did not. The Mossi people in what is now Burkina Faso resisted conversion whereas the Songhay empire, which succeeded the Malian empire at the end of the 14th century, embraced the new religion.
The production of manuscripts in Timbuktu was linked with the spread of Sufi Islam, which was and is still widely practiced in the region. As a result, the three largest cities in the region, Timbuktu, Gao, and Djenné, became centers of an Islamo-Sudanese civilization the influences of which can still be felt today. In the 15th century the population of Timbuktu was an astonishing 100,000 (today it is 30,000), including 25,000 students, members of the Sankore University-Mosque. Ulema (scholars) lectured and scribes recorded their words on bark, camels’ shoulders, sheepskin, papyrus or paper from the east and later from Italy via Tunisia.
Over centuries they built up a priceless body of philosophical, legal, and religious writings. There is a vast variety of knowledge within these manuscripts, from the positions of the planets to the tonality of musical instruments, the prices of textiles to kola nuts.
Caravans on the route from Agadez (now in Niger) to Tichit (now Mauritania) via Sokoto (now in northern Nigeria) carried quantities of information between enlightened merchants as well as blocks of salt, sacks of tobacco, and paper. For nearly 300 years trade and knowledge developed mutually. These manuscripts prove that it was never true that African civilizations relied solely on oral traditions, as scholars, including the late Hamadou Hampâte Bâ, suggested.
Yet even as this cache is being discovered, it is in danger of disappearing, as sand and other grit are abrading many of the aging texts causing them to disintegrate. There is also a danger that these precious findings might fall into the hands of people who are more interested in making money than understanding the past of a proud people who left an incredible legacy. It is in this sense that the following set of questions is de rigueur: How can this rich vein of written wisdom be safely and sensibly tapped before time destroys it? Are we able to safeguard a key element of Africa’s historical consciousness? What should be our role as scholars to protect and restore an incredible portion of Islamic and/or Jewish history?
The Jewish community played a positive role in bringing not only gold from the Sudan to Christian Europe but also jealously guarded the culture of the time. They were well established in the ports of The Maghreb by the Middle Ages–the Cresques family, represented by Abraham Cresques (1325–1387), the father of cartography in Timbuktu, settled there in the 12th century–so trade routes linked them to the interior.
The celebrated Arab trader Hasan ibn al-Wazzan, nicknamed Leon the African, wrote of a Jewish presence in Gao in the 15th century. Ismaël Diadé Haidara, is a descendant of the Kati dynasty of Ulema goes, into detail explaining the history of his family’s collection of rare manuscripts, kept in a restored house near the Jingereber mosque. “This trove began in 1468 when my ancestor, the Islamicized Visigoth Ali bin Ziyad al-Kuti, moved to West Africa from Toledo. After that it didn’t stop growing for several generations of Kati. We decided to get the texts out in 1999.”
The Kati library is a rich lot of medieval knowledge, with writings ranging from manuscripts that deal with good governance, food, medicine, love, death, and the dangers of tobacco. Law, theology, medicine, grammar, music, and mathematics are all covered in works by scholars from Gao, Timbuktu, and Djenné. For now at least, the tomes are stored on shelves protected from sand and dust. Legal documents pertaining to the Jews and Christians of Timbuktu testify to the tolerance and intense commercial life of the city. Slaves sold and freed are recorded, together with the prices of salt, spices, gold, and feathers, on parchments attached to gold-illuminated letters from sovereigns from both sides of the Sahara.
The heritage that Timbuktu holds has a powerful lesson to teach us. Take the calligraphic works as an example and the case will be clear enough. The scale, proportion, and context guide our consciousness to a contemplative place, offering us in the process a chance to glimpse something profound. The sublime beauty of an illuminated manuscript, its pages adorned with scripts of various sizes and different colored inks, overlapping and interweaving into a composition that is white marble of the Taj Mahal or Cordova’s Great Mosque, so captivating and hypnotic are these that the individual words from which they are composed seem to fade in and out of resolution.
These works entreat us to not merely see the finite word, the singular concrete object among a multitude of others, but to step back and take a wider view, to observe how the many merge into one, again a singularity, but one containing everything.
[Pictures:
Doors of the Sankore Madrash, Timbuktu, Mali;
The Library of Congress, Online Exhibition: "Ancient Manuscripts from the Desert Libraries of Timbuktu", Islamic Mysticism. This text explains the basic principles of Sufi practice, pointing out the various stages of knowledge that mystics pass through as their knowledge of God increases through their strict application of devotional discipline. The author further discusses the relationship between belief, Sufi doctrine, and knowledge of God.]
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
The High Road
By Dr. Robert D. Crane, *Fort Hood and Swiss Minarets: The Existential Problem of Scorpions in a Bottle* - The American Muslim - Bridgeton, MO, USA
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Tom Friedman is quite right in his New York Times op-ed piece of November 29th where he exclaims to Muslims: “Whenever something like Fort Hood happens you say, ‘This is not Islam.’
I believe that. But you keep telling us what Islam isn’t. You need to tell us what it is and show us how its positive interpretations are being promoted in your schools and mosques. If this is not Islam, then why is it that a million Muslims will pour into the streets to protest Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, but not one will take to the streets to protest Muslim suicide bombers who blow up other Muslims, real people, created in the image of God? You need to explain that to us — and to yourselves.”
The reason why Muslims instinctively attack those who attack Islam but hesitate to attack Muslims who by their actions are un-Islamic is a sickness that I would call a monist identity crisis. This is a denial of multiple identities, whereby a person can have several identities based on a core common to all of them.
In my view, the major weaknesses of any person, community, or civilization in the world today is modern tribalism, which I define as an identity crisis derived from arrogance and from an underlying fear of the other, which leads to blind support of one’s own group. This clearly explains Neo-Conservatism and its failure to promote an environment favorable to its own goals of peace, prosperity, and freedom in the world.
This same existential fear motivates many Muslims, who are too insecure to conceive of any expanded identity beyond one’s own tribe, whether it be Pakistani or merely Muslim.
When some Muslim commits a horrendous crime, the instinctive reaction of most other Muslims is a lame attempt to justify the motivation behind the crime or merely a lame excuse by saying “Don’t blame me.” The reaction should be to condemn the crime and the criminal as a threat to all of humanity, including themselves as Muslims. This, however, violates the tribal instinct to defend one’s own, regardless of right or wrong.
Another development in the war against Islam and Muslims was highlighted, also today, November 29th, 2009, in the AP report from Geneva, Switzerland, by Alexander G. Higgins, entitled “Swiss Ban Mosque Minarets in Surprise Vote.” Its introductory paragraph reads: “Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban on minarets on Sunday, barring construction of the iconic mosque towers in a surprise vote that put Switzerland at the forefront of a European backlash against a growing Muslim population.”
This constitutional prohibition automatically adopted by the landslide vote yesterday against building minarets in Switzerland poses three problems.
The first is that this makes it difficult for the efforts by the Vatican and others involved in the Common Word dialogue movement to demand freedom for crosses (and churches) in Saudi Arabia. This barrier to the Common Word dialogue is a setback, because any kind of religious extremism promotes more extremism in response until, as the old saying goes, we are all blind.
Secondly, the Swiss are not alone in their fear of Muslims and may be merely in the forefront of a rising global problem. The biggest mosque in the Washington area, Dar al Hijra, enlisted my support to lobby for permission to build a minaret in the early 1990s. Unfortunately, we had to settle for a tiny minaret hidden by newly planted trees so that no-one could see it from the main highway (Route 7, near Seven Corners). This was a no-win situation, because the local Muslims seemed to be exactly what the local residents feared, namely, narrow-minded foreigners who should have “gone home to where they belonged”. When a neighborhood leader across the street wanted to greet the Muslims while they were building the mosque, the imam refused to let her in, because the Wahhabi religion prohibits non-Muslims where they do not belong, namely, in anything reserved exclusively for Muslims.
Unfortunately, to compound the problem, the local Muslims claimed to be not Wahhabis but representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, who oppose the Wahhabis. In the eyes of most “informed” Americans at the time, the Ikhwan or Muslim Brotherhood represented a revolutionary form of Muslim political activism that arose as a modernist reaction to the secularist West but claimed to represent traditional Islam.
The Muslim denial that the mosque was a Wahhabi encroachment was regarded as typical Muslim hypocrisy supposedly justified by the Shi’a doctrine of taqiya or dissimulation, which, in turn, supposedly is designed to infiltrate and overthrow the government wherever Muslims have decided to take over a country.
At the time, I supported the local neighborhood leader in addressing parking problems in order to persuade her to drop her suit against further construction of the mosque, and I even went further by offering to buy her property and house across the street and give her a cut in the parking fees from the construction of an office building and five-story parking facility on her former property. She accepted this enthusiastically, even though I had no authority to make the offer, which I dreamed up out of thin air on the spur of the moment. The mosque was built, but we never bought her property, because eventually she just wanted to get away from the Muslim threat.
This was almost twenty years ago. Most Muslims have wised up since then and now understand what it means to be an American, but the old history and the environment since 9/11 and Fort Hood and now in Europe still dominates politically.
I would estimate that a vote against building minarets in America would succeed even more so than it did in Switzerland and might even win in a campaign to add a similar prohibitory amendment to the American Constitution, as is the case now in Switzerland.
The third problem, so far only a potential one, is that Muslim outrage over the ban on building a minaret next to a mosque might trigger similar votes in other countries and result even in the prohibition of building mosques altogether.
The challenge both by and to Muslims is indicated by the response to my advocacy of a Fourth World War against extremists, including Muslims. This is highly unpopular among Muslims, because I thereby appear to be joining the Islamophobes who invented the term “Fourth World War.”
In fact, I am inviting them to join Muslims in fighting Muslim extremists whose actions are understandable but un-Islamic and therefore are a threat to everyone, including themselves. The low road of condemnation, however, does not get us very far and is inferior to the high road, which is to emphasize the positive in Islam and every world religion as the best way to counter extremism.
The Prophet Muhammad, salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa salam, as I remember, once shocked his listeners by saying, in true Sufi style, that one should support the wrongdoers.
When his listeners were shocked, he explained that one should support the wrong doers by showing them what is right. This is what the Fourth World War should be all about.
Our challenge is to recruit Muslims and others to join us in a Fourth World War against the extremists of every tribe who are now caught in a bottle like scorpions with no alternative but to destroy each other.
[Picture: Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, Washington DC]
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By Dr. Robert D. Crane, *Fort Hood and Swiss Minarets: The Existential Problem of Scorpions in a Bottle* - The American Muslim - Bridgeton, MO, USASunday, November 29, 2009
Tom Friedman is quite right in his New York Times op-ed piece of November 29th where he exclaims to Muslims: “Whenever something like Fort Hood happens you say, ‘This is not Islam.’
I believe that. But you keep telling us what Islam isn’t. You need to tell us what it is and show us how its positive interpretations are being promoted in your schools and mosques. If this is not Islam, then why is it that a million Muslims will pour into the streets to protest Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, but not one will take to the streets to protest Muslim suicide bombers who blow up other Muslims, real people, created in the image of God? You need to explain that to us — and to yourselves.”
The reason why Muslims instinctively attack those who attack Islam but hesitate to attack Muslims who by their actions are un-Islamic is a sickness that I would call a monist identity crisis. This is a denial of multiple identities, whereby a person can have several identities based on a core common to all of them.
In my view, the major weaknesses of any person, community, or civilization in the world today is modern tribalism, which I define as an identity crisis derived from arrogance and from an underlying fear of the other, which leads to blind support of one’s own group. This clearly explains Neo-Conservatism and its failure to promote an environment favorable to its own goals of peace, prosperity, and freedom in the world.
This same existential fear motivates many Muslims, who are too insecure to conceive of any expanded identity beyond one’s own tribe, whether it be Pakistani or merely Muslim.
When some Muslim commits a horrendous crime, the instinctive reaction of most other Muslims is a lame attempt to justify the motivation behind the crime or merely a lame excuse by saying “Don’t blame me.” The reaction should be to condemn the crime and the criminal as a threat to all of humanity, including themselves as Muslims. This, however, violates the tribal instinct to defend one’s own, regardless of right or wrong.
Another development in the war against Islam and Muslims was highlighted, also today, November 29th, 2009, in the AP report from Geneva, Switzerland, by Alexander G. Higgins, entitled “Swiss Ban Mosque Minarets in Surprise Vote.” Its introductory paragraph reads: “Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban on minarets on Sunday, barring construction of the iconic mosque towers in a surprise vote that put Switzerland at the forefront of a European backlash against a growing Muslim population.”
This constitutional prohibition automatically adopted by the landslide vote yesterday against building minarets in Switzerland poses three problems.
The first is that this makes it difficult for the efforts by the Vatican and others involved in the Common Word dialogue movement to demand freedom for crosses (and churches) in Saudi Arabia. This barrier to the Common Word dialogue is a setback, because any kind of religious extremism promotes more extremism in response until, as the old saying goes, we are all blind.
Secondly, the Swiss are not alone in their fear of Muslims and may be merely in the forefront of a rising global problem. The biggest mosque in the Washington area, Dar al Hijra, enlisted my support to lobby for permission to build a minaret in the early 1990s. Unfortunately, we had to settle for a tiny minaret hidden by newly planted trees so that no-one could see it from the main highway (Route 7, near Seven Corners). This was a no-win situation, because the local Muslims seemed to be exactly what the local residents feared, namely, narrow-minded foreigners who should have “gone home to where they belonged”. When a neighborhood leader across the street wanted to greet the Muslims while they were building the mosque, the imam refused to let her in, because the Wahhabi religion prohibits non-Muslims where they do not belong, namely, in anything reserved exclusively for Muslims.
Unfortunately, to compound the problem, the local Muslims claimed to be not Wahhabis but representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, who oppose the Wahhabis. In the eyes of most “informed” Americans at the time, the Ikhwan or Muslim Brotherhood represented a revolutionary form of Muslim political activism that arose as a modernist reaction to the secularist West but claimed to represent traditional Islam.
The Muslim denial that the mosque was a Wahhabi encroachment was regarded as typical Muslim hypocrisy supposedly justified by the Shi’a doctrine of taqiya or dissimulation, which, in turn, supposedly is designed to infiltrate and overthrow the government wherever Muslims have decided to take over a country.
At the time, I supported the local neighborhood leader in addressing parking problems in order to persuade her to drop her suit against further construction of the mosque, and I even went further by offering to buy her property and house across the street and give her a cut in the parking fees from the construction of an office building and five-story parking facility on her former property. She accepted this enthusiastically, even though I had no authority to make the offer, which I dreamed up out of thin air on the spur of the moment. The mosque was built, but we never bought her property, because eventually she just wanted to get away from the Muslim threat.
This was almost twenty years ago. Most Muslims have wised up since then and now understand what it means to be an American, but the old history and the environment since 9/11 and Fort Hood and now in Europe still dominates politically.
I would estimate that a vote against building minarets in America would succeed even more so than it did in Switzerland and might even win in a campaign to add a similar prohibitory amendment to the American Constitution, as is the case now in Switzerland.
The third problem, so far only a potential one, is that Muslim outrage over the ban on building a minaret next to a mosque might trigger similar votes in other countries and result even in the prohibition of building mosques altogether.
The challenge both by and to Muslims is indicated by the response to my advocacy of a Fourth World War against extremists, including Muslims. This is highly unpopular among Muslims, because I thereby appear to be joining the Islamophobes who invented the term “Fourth World War.”
In fact, I am inviting them to join Muslims in fighting Muslim extremists whose actions are understandable but un-Islamic and therefore are a threat to everyone, including themselves. The low road of condemnation, however, does not get us very far and is inferior to the high road, which is to emphasize the positive in Islam and every world religion as the best way to counter extremism.
The Prophet Muhammad, salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa salam, as I remember, once shocked his listeners by saying, in true Sufi style, that one should support the wrongdoers.
When his listeners were shocked, he explained that one should support the wrong doers by showing them what is right. This is what the Fourth World War should be all about.
Our challenge is to recruit Muslims and others to join us in a Fourth World War against the extremists of every tribe who are now caught in a bottle like scorpions with no alternative but to destroy each other.
[Picture: Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, Washington DC]
Monday, December 07, 2009
Embrace It!
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By Ceylan Yeginsu, *Look inside before looking outside to face challenges* - Hürriyet Daily News - Istanbul, Turkey
Friday November 27, 2009
Solutions proposed for gender equality are often generic clichés, vague and empty. The recent visit from a “corporate Sufi” to the Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey, or KAGİDER, however, brought great inspiration to dozens of powerful Turkish businesswomen who were asked to gather the power within them to start tackling greater problems.
According to Azim Jamal, an inspirational speaker and self-acclaimed “corporate Sufi,” every human being has a unique power within them, but it is a great challenge to locate this power and many people go a lifetime without ever finding it. A corporate Sufi applies timeless Sufi principles to the modern corporate world, examining the uncommon connection between an age-old philosophy for living and working in the 21st century.
“Externally, many human beings exert power, but this is ego, it is not real power,” Jamal said, speaking at the KAGİDERBiz headquarters last week. According to Jamal, real power comes from within. “It is a light that when found can shine and empower other people, where as external power merely overpowers people,” he said.
Jamal defines this inner power as a birthday gift, one that many go through a lifetime without opening. “People get distracted, they do what people tell them to do and lose their authenticity and mold themselves into something that they are not.”
Jamal said it is the people who maintain their authenticity and are comfortable with who they are that make a real difference in this world. “Look at Oprah Winfrey for example, she never hid her troubled past, she is overweight but comfortable in her own skin. She found the light within herself and by reflecting it on the outside and on others she has become one of the most powerful women in the world,” Jamal said.
Jamal said he accepts that society presents many hurdles, especially for women, but he is a believer that these hurdles can gradually be overcome when women start to ask themselves, “Do I allow that to happen to me?”
The Daily News reporter present at the meeting challenged this question, pointing out that there is a large percentage of women, especially in Turkey, who do not have the courage to question the authority over them, and there is a large percentage of women who believe it is right that they are treated as subordinates to men.
Jamal acknowledged that this was a wide-spread and global issue and one that a handful of individuals cannot change single-handedly, but he pointed out that it alls starts with the individual. He said this was because the focus on a small influence can have a ripple effect and end up creating a bigger influence.
“Women bring a lot to society, by leaving them behind societies try to go forward with half of their resources,” Jamal said.
Jamal proposed that women ask themselves, “What can I do to be a role model?” He said the more role models there were the more potential there was to make changes to society as a whole. “This outlook is geared towards making solutions, because once you start seeing the potential change within, you start to look at changing the world around you,” he said.
When Jamal asked the floor what they thought was their greatest challenge as women in Turkish society, KAGİDER Chairwoman Gülseren Onanç said it was polarization. “Turkish women are increasingly becoming polarized, there are so many that believe that it is not their right to assert themselves in society, it is really sad,” she said.
Another woman in the audience, who did not give her name, said it was frustrating to see such little change for women over the years. “You still go on business trips and introduce yourself as the owner of your company and a man asks you, ‘Who is your boss?’” she said.
Many women in the audience also highlighted the problem of time management as businesswomen in Turkey, saying it is increasingly becoming difficult in this demanding age to run a business and a family and put time aside for yourself. “These types of pressures placed on women make them extremely masculine,” said Tulin Özbek, another businesswoman at the meeting.
In response, Jamal said all these obstacles are a part of the process to create change. “Struggles and challenges are our biggest gift, they allow us to progress,” he said, adding that what is important is to not stand still and dwell on the problem, but instead embrace it.
A key part of Jamal’s belief toward progress is that people practice a positive one-hour in their day where they read something positive, do some exercises and meditate in order to connect with themselves. “People also say to me that we don’t have this time, but I say go to bed an hour later, or wake up an hour earlier, because this is the most precious time,” Jamal said.
The women at KAGİDER received Jamal’s presentation extremely positively, saying they would try to implement some of his suggestions in their daily lives; however, many commented that these types of presentations would be more effective with the presence of men. Onanç said men were invited to the event but only a couple showed up.
Jamal said the more women who find their inner light, strength and power, the more men will shift in their perspectives and start to move away from their patriarchal approach to women and work. He said this could happen hand-in-hand and would overall betterment of the world.
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Friday November 27, 2009
Solutions proposed for gender equality are often generic clichés, vague and empty. The recent visit from a “corporate Sufi” to the Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey, or KAGİDER, however, brought great inspiration to dozens of powerful Turkish businesswomen who were asked to gather the power within them to start tackling greater problems.
According to Azim Jamal, an inspirational speaker and self-acclaimed “corporate Sufi,” every human being has a unique power within them, but it is a great challenge to locate this power and many people go a lifetime without ever finding it. A corporate Sufi applies timeless Sufi principles to the modern corporate world, examining the uncommon connection between an age-old philosophy for living and working in the 21st century.
“Externally, many human beings exert power, but this is ego, it is not real power,” Jamal said, speaking at the KAGİDERBiz headquarters last week. According to Jamal, real power comes from within. “It is a light that when found can shine and empower other people, where as external power merely overpowers people,” he said.
Jamal defines this inner power as a birthday gift, one that many go through a lifetime without opening. “People get distracted, they do what people tell them to do and lose their authenticity and mold themselves into something that they are not.”
Jamal said it is the people who maintain their authenticity and are comfortable with who they are that make a real difference in this world. “Look at Oprah Winfrey for example, she never hid her troubled past, she is overweight but comfortable in her own skin. She found the light within herself and by reflecting it on the outside and on others she has become one of the most powerful women in the world,” Jamal said.
Jamal said he accepts that society presents many hurdles, especially for women, but he is a believer that these hurdles can gradually be overcome when women start to ask themselves, “Do I allow that to happen to me?”
The Daily News reporter present at the meeting challenged this question, pointing out that there is a large percentage of women, especially in Turkey, who do not have the courage to question the authority over them, and there is a large percentage of women who believe it is right that they are treated as subordinates to men.
Jamal acknowledged that this was a wide-spread and global issue and one that a handful of individuals cannot change single-handedly, but he pointed out that it alls starts with the individual. He said this was because the focus on a small influence can have a ripple effect and end up creating a bigger influence.
“Women bring a lot to society, by leaving them behind societies try to go forward with half of their resources,” Jamal said.
Jamal proposed that women ask themselves, “What can I do to be a role model?” He said the more role models there were the more potential there was to make changes to society as a whole. “This outlook is geared towards making solutions, because once you start seeing the potential change within, you start to look at changing the world around you,” he said.
When Jamal asked the floor what they thought was their greatest challenge as women in Turkish society, KAGİDER Chairwoman Gülseren Onanç said it was polarization. “Turkish women are increasingly becoming polarized, there are so many that believe that it is not their right to assert themselves in society, it is really sad,” she said.
Another woman in the audience, who did not give her name, said it was frustrating to see such little change for women over the years. “You still go on business trips and introduce yourself as the owner of your company and a man asks you, ‘Who is your boss?’” she said.
Many women in the audience also highlighted the problem of time management as businesswomen in Turkey, saying it is increasingly becoming difficult in this demanding age to run a business and a family and put time aside for yourself. “These types of pressures placed on women make them extremely masculine,” said Tulin Özbek, another businesswoman at the meeting.
In response, Jamal said all these obstacles are a part of the process to create change. “Struggles and challenges are our biggest gift, they allow us to progress,” he said, adding that what is important is to not stand still and dwell on the problem, but instead embrace it.
A key part of Jamal’s belief toward progress is that people practice a positive one-hour in their day where they read something positive, do some exercises and meditate in order to connect with themselves. “People also say to me that we don’t have this time, but I say go to bed an hour later, or wake up an hour earlier, because this is the most precious time,” Jamal said.
The women at KAGİDER received Jamal’s presentation extremely positively, saying they would try to implement some of his suggestions in their daily lives; however, many commented that these types of presentations would be more effective with the presence of men. Onanç said men were invited to the event but only a couple showed up.
Jamal said the more women who find their inner light, strength and power, the more men will shift in their perspectives and start to move away from their patriarchal approach to women and work. He said this could happen hand-in-hand and would overall betterment of the world.
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