Knowing the Imam (On Imam Ali)
Added Sept 10, 2003
When I was asked to say some words about Imam Ali (a.s.) for this occassion, I found it very difficult to find the appropriate words or topic to present. Not because there is little to say about our Imam, but because I do not know how to say it – I do not feel adequate to the task – I do not feel that I truly know our Imam, but rather that I know only a few surface details, some scattered facts, some historical events, some sayings of his – dispersed bits of knowledge. And I do not feel satisfied that merely enumerating and relating a few facts is to know the Imam – it is to know about the Imam, but this is not more than a surface knowing. And this is a real difficulty faced by all who wish to truly know him.
But the imam knows this difficulty and he says, in a hadith, that to know him, to know his nature, his soul, his spirit, we must discern and travel the sirat al-mustaqeen (the straight path). And the sixth imam, Imam Jaffar al-Sadiq (a.s.), makes an extraordinary statement concerning the Imams. He says, about Imam Ali (a.s.) and all the Imams, in no uncertain terms, that the Imams “...are the straight path” – He says: “We are the sirat-ul-mustaqeen.”
Now we can respond to such a declaration in several ways – we can decry it saying it is too much - it goes too far – it is gross exaggeration.
Or we can accept it on (blind) faith saying it is from the Imams and so we must simply take it and believe it, and then not give it much more thought but simply file it away as interesting information.
But our Prophet (s.a.) cautions against such an attitude. He said that a time will come when hearing the name of the man who speaks with knowledge (in other words, praising the man) will be considered better than actually hearing the knowledge he speaks, and hearing the knowledge will be considered better than doing the thing oneself and thereby experiencing and verifying and imbibing its truth for oneself.
So what are we left with? If we praise a man, we admit to his high level of knowledge and that recognition indicates some iota of awareness in us – but it does not allow us to know that man.
If we listen to him and study what he teaches us, and remember it, then we begin to approach knowledge of him, but we still do not truly know him. If we imbibe and comprehend that knowledge which he gives us and make it part of ourselves, and act upon it, and walk the path he walks, not in blind imitation but with understanding, then we can say that we truly know something of the substance of that man.
Now the Imam has identified himself with the straight path. So to know him we have to first recognize that path, then we have to gain knowledge of that path, and finally we have to comprehend that knowledge and walk that path – not in imitation, but with understanding.
The explanation and guide to this path is the Qur’an. It unveils the necessity, the details, the difficulty, the beauty, the grace of this path. It describes the fruits of following this path. It says, “And those who follow the straight path, He (Allah) increases them in guidance and brings them to taqwa (awareness of God).” (47:17) The Qur’an describes how Allah raises in stages those who follow this path. They rise in degree from ilm al-yaqin (102:5) (certainty in knowledge) to ayn al-yaqin (102:7) (certainty through vision, through experience) to haqq al-yaqin (absolute certainty of the Truth, the Reality which underlies existence). At that point the person contemplates with direct perception the realities that were previously understood through words, symbols, and reflection. This is the stage Imam Ali (a.s.) alluded to when he said: “If the veil were lifted I would not be more certain.”
There is an amazing verse in the Qur’an that says: “I put my trust in God, My Lord and your Lord! There is not a moving creature, but He has grasp of its forelock. Verily, it is my Lord that is on a straight Path.” (Qur'an 11:56)
There is a group of people that has reached a stage where all personal movement is renounced. Their selves (their nafs or souls) are free of the distractions, cravings and desires of one who is bound and attached to this world and its attractions. They put their trust entirely in God and movements of their ego vanish. The image is of a stone which never stirs of its own accord. This person is a pebble in the hand of God. They are therefore carried and their perpetual invocation is "La hawla wa la quwwata illa bi'Llah". "There is no strength and no power save through God." They give their total being over to God who takes them totally in charge. (pg.111-112, "Seal of the Saints" - Michel Chodkiewicz)
They are not those who wander distracted and aimless through their lives, or who are driven by compulsions of the ego, or are driven by myriad fears, or by the compulsions of society, or by the compulsion of their appetites and desires, or by the compulsion for power and control, moving blindly step by step under the illusion of progress, under the illusion that they are walking of their own volition. Rather, they are those who give their selves entirely over to God. And God pulls them towards Him. He draws them along His straight path. And it is said that a single attraction from God outbalances all the efforts of Jinn and men.
The straight path leads to many degrees, many levels, many marvels, it is a path that is ihsan – full of beauty and grace - a path described with power and eloquence in the qur'an.
Now each human being, each human soul is on a journey to a destination - the hereafter. So every soul is, in some respect, on a path to the other world and may also be said, to itself be a path to the other world. So men's souls are paths to the hereafter. Some go haltingly, some slowly, some speedily. Some are direct, some wandering, some straight. (Mulla Sadra, "Wisdom of the Throne" - tr. by James Morris) The most perfect of these "straight paths" is the soul of the Prophet and of Ali. If we take them as an example, the straight path will be clarified for us, we will find a tafsir (an explanation) of the qur'an in their lives. And as we walk the sirat-ul-mustaqeen and become acquainted with its beauties and marvels, we will begin to truly know our Imam rather than simply knowing about him.
- Irshaad Hussain
Doshiza
Doshiza
Saturday, 25 June 2011
Time in the Qur'an
Time in the Qur'an
Added Aug 14, 2003
History as memory
When the Qur'an talks of past events it often speaks of them as if these events exist within our own memories or in a collective human memory as an integral part of our own selves and of our human heritage and nature. It has a unique methodology in that it asks us to recall some past historical occurrences in the same manner with which we remember events from our own lives, as if they exist in our own individual, personal storehouse of experiences. "And remember We gave Moses the Scripture and the Criterion (between right and wrong) (Qur'an 2:54).... And remember Abraham and Isma'il raised the foundations of the House (Qur'an 2:127)....And remember We divided the sea for you (Qur'an 2:51)....And remember We took your covenant (Qur'an 2:63).... Remember Your Lord inspired the angels (Qur'an 8:12)....This is a word of remembrance to those who remember (Qur'an 11:114)....And remember Jesus, the Son of Mary, said....(Qur'an 61:6)." It uses a language and a direct mode of expression that encourages us to erase the distance between ourselves and these past events, these historical events, by pulling them to the forefront with a compelling immediacy of attention. It seems to be telling us, through its technique of expression, that this historical distance does not exist in any real, metaphysical, essential sense.
The Qur'an asks us to be present, in our own era, wherever truth requires us to be present and it requires that presence to be a deeply rooted presence, not a superficial, ineffective, fleeting presence. It asks us not to regard humanity's past as merely "tales of the ancients" (Qur'an 83:13), or as quaint historical footnotes that are irrelevant to our times and our own modern notions about the nature of things, about the nature of society, of humanity, of morality. It presents the world as more than just matter, as more than a chronological string of occurences. Rather, it posits an essence and reality to certain events that lifts those events out of time, giving them a presence in a higher reality, in a deeper, more substantial layer of existence, and thereby makes their essential truths accessible to all times and places. So when the qur'an speaks of Moses and Aaron, of Zachariaha and Maryam, of the various prophets and men of knowledge that have walked the earth it raises their stories out of historical time and into a universal time. It presents them almost as universal memories and then it asks us to remember, to recall.
Then it tells us that these memories are family memories - the family is that of Adam (s.a.), and Abraham(s.a), Moses (s.a.) and Aaron (s.a), Jesus (s.a.) and Muhammad (s.a.) and all the other messengers and their supporters recalled in the pages of the Qur'an. Between us and them there is to be no distance in love, respect, or honour. All distances are erased - the chronological time that separates us and them vanishes, like an ephemeral veil that dissolves at our touch. With the Qur'an's methodology we are with Moses (s.a.) when he confronts Pharoah, we are with Abraham (s.a.) when he destroys the idols, we are with the Prophet (s.a.) as he struggles to deliver the message. We are with him as he tells the story of mankind and awakens the memories and lessons and truths of our own past within us.
So the Qur'an teaches us a new way to look upon history. It is not "ancient stories" but living truths. It teaches us to erase the distance between ourseleves and the past and to call forth the past like memories, till a total picture of the history of truth is formed - a history which spans all times and all places, a history whose essence is imprinted in the substance of reality and which is not restricted by any earthbound chronology.
Memories are not distinct from us, they are an integral part of us, of our knowledge, of who and what we are. They define and shape us, they are not intellectual abstractions but are a living part of us, shaping our consciousness and our personalities. The Qur'an asks us to extend our memory beyond our individual selves and so unites our separate histories with the total history of humanity with the aim of giving substance to our ephemeral, fleeting lives and uniting us with the common thread of truth that weaves its way across the centuries.
Meta-historical religion
In the Qur'an, the key "events" which determine man's metaphysical makeup all take place outside the flow of time as we know it. They take place in a different plane of existence than this material plane - in a "trans-historical" or "meta-historical" plane, where time has a different flow and flux so that the relation of that world to this must be viewed as a hierarchical rather than a linear relationship.
One of these events is the creation of Adam and the teaching of the names to him. The Qur'an says, "...Thy Lord said unto the angels: lo! I am about to create a mortal out of mire, And when I have fashioned him and breathed into him of My Spirit, then fall down before him prostrate....And We taught Adam the names (realities) of all things...." (Qur'an 38:72...) These events take place outside of the flow of history as we understand it. They are metaphysical, rather than exclusively physical in nature. They are metaphysical answers to the question "What is man? What is contained in his essential nature and what is his potential?"
Islam is not a religion rooted in a single historical event through which God enters history - instead all the key events take place outside history, in pre-eternity in a different hierarchy of existence. Then a "descent" to this world takes place through which these timeless events enter into the realm of cause, effect, and chronological, linear time.
Another event spoken of in the qur'an is the pre-eternal covenant made between God and the human spirits (all of the descendants of Adam). This is expressed in the form of a question which God asks all of the human spirits before allowing them to enter into the physical plane of existence. He asks, "Am I not your Lord?" (Qur'an 7:172). They all answer in the affirmative, the implication being that everyone who is born into this world has agreed in substance (in the essence of their soul) to this covenant, and that although we may have no conscious knowledge or memory of this pact, its reality is woven into our very nature. This world is a place of distraction and forgetfullness but at our core lies the metaphysical truth of this covenant and one of the purposes of religion is to awaken to consciousness an awareness of this bond between God and man as well as all the concealed potentials that flow from this bond. All of the Prophet's have come throughout the entirety of history to remind men of their promise of fidelity to this pact. The Qur'an also often refers to itself as "a reminder", as a call towards taqwa, towards an awakened, aware consciousness.
A third event spoken of in the qur'an is mankind's acceptance of the "trust" offered to them by God. "We did indeed offer the trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains; but they refused to undertake it, being afraid thereof. But man undertook it (the trust)...." (Qur'an 33: 72,73).
These key events all deal with the metaphysical nature and capacity with which man is created. A concurrent event, the teaching of the names (or realities) of all things to Adam, is an indicator that within man (within his metaphysical makeup) exist vast storehouses of knowledge, or a capacity for knowledge, through which he can comprehend mysteries that perhaps even the angels are unaware of (signified by their bowing down before Adam).
The Qur'an constantly urges mankind to "remember" - to become aware of their inner nature through this remembrance and to awaken that nature. These "pre-eternal" events are events that are perfectly real without taking place in historical time. If time is considered as a horizontal progression, these events take place along a vertical axis, one which stands hierarchically above all times and all places. Man's essence, because of his origin and nature, participates in this hierarchy. His actions, his movements (mental and physical) in this world, and the state of his nafs (essential self) that results from those actions has an impact on the full substance of his being - throughout its vertical axis. The Qur'an attempts to awaken us to this hidden aspect of ourselves - it is a reminder to a humanity that is "sleeping" and a call for us to awaken from our amnesia, our "forgetfulness" regarding the essential nature of our being. It is a reminder that beyond the horizontal aspect of our existence is a truly vast vertical dimension, an unseen ocean of possibilities and nascent potentials.
Added Aug 14, 2003
History as memory
When the Qur'an talks of past events it often speaks of them as if these events exist within our own memories or in a collective human memory as an integral part of our own selves and of our human heritage and nature. It has a unique methodology in that it asks us to recall some past historical occurrences in the same manner with which we remember events from our own lives, as if they exist in our own individual, personal storehouse of experiences. "And remember We gave Moses the Scripture and the Criterion (between right and wrong) (Qur'an 2:54).... And remember Abraham and Isma'il raised the foundations of the House (Qur'an 2:127)....And remember We divided the sea for you (Qur'an 2:51)....And remember We took your covenant (Qur'an 2:63).... Remember Your Lord inspired the angels (Qur'an 8:12)....This is a word of remembrance to those who remember (Qur'an 11:114)....And remember Jesus, the Son of Mary, said....(Qur'an 61:6)." It uses a language and a direct mode of expression that encourages us to erase the distance between ourselves and these past events, these historical events, by pulling them to the forefront with a compelling immediacy of attention. It seems to be telling us, through its technique of expression, that this historical distance does not exist in any real, metaphysical, essential sense.
The Qur'an asks us to be present, in our own era, wherever truth requires us to be present and it requires that presence to be a deeply rooted presence, not a superficial, ineffective, fleeting presence. It asks us not to regard humanity's past as merely "tales of the ancients" (Qur'an 83:13), or as quaint historical footnotes that are irrelevant to our times and our own modern notions about the nature of things, about the nature of society, of humanity, of morality. It presents the world as more than just matter, as more than a chronological string of occurences. Rather, it posits an essence and reality to certain events that lifts those events out of time, giving them a presence in a higher reality, in a deeper, more substantial layer of existence, and thereby makes their essential truths accessible to all times and places. So when the qur'an speaks of Moses and Aaron, of Zachariaha and Maryam, of the various prophets and men of knowledge that have walked the earth it raises their stories out of historical time and into a universal time. It presents them almost as universal memories and then it asks us to remember, to recall.
Then it tells us that these memories are family memories - the family is that of Adam (s.a.), and Abraham(s.a), Moses (s.a.) and Aaron (s.a), Jesus (s.a.) and Muhammad (s.a.) and all the other messengers and their supporters recalled in the pages of the Qur'an. Between us and them there is to be no distance in love, respect, or honour. All distances are erased - the chronological time that separates us and them vanishes, like an ephemeral veil that dissolves at our touch. With the Qur'an's methodology we are with Moses (s.a.) when he confronts Pharoah, we are with Abraham (s.a.) when he destroys the idols, we are with the Prophet (s.a.) as he struggles to deliver the message. We are with him as he tells the story of mankind and awakens the memories and lessons and truths of our own past within us.
So the Qur'an teaches us a new way to look upon history. It is not "ancient stories" but living truths. It teaches us to erase the distance between ourseleves and the past and to call forth the past like memories, till a total picture of the history of truth is formed - a history which spans all times and all places, a history whose essence is imprinted in the substance of reality and which is not restricted by any earthbound chronology.
Memories are not distinct from us, they are an integral part of us, of our knowledge, of who and what we are. They define and shape us, they are not intellectual abstractions but are a living part of us, shaping our consciousness and our personalities. The Qur'an asks us to extend our memory beyond our individual selves and so unites our separate histories with the total history of humanity with the aim of giving substance to our ephemeral, fleeting lives and uniting us with the common thread of truth that weaves its way across the centuries.
Meta-historical religion
In the Qur'an, the key "events" which determine man's metaphysical makeup all take place outside the flow of time as we know it. They take place in a different plane of existence than this material plane - in a "trans-historical" or "meta-historical" plane, where time has a different flow and flux so that the relation of that world to this must be viewed as a hierarchical rather than a linear relationship.
One of these events is the creation of Adam and the teaching of the names to him. The Qur'an says, "...Thy Lord said unto the angels: lo! I am about to create a mortal out of mire, And when I have fashioned him and breathed into him of My Spirit, then fall down before him prostrate....And We taught Adam the names (realities) of all things...." (Qur'an 38:72...) These events take place outside of the flow of history as we understand it. They are metaphysical, rather than exclusively physical in nature. They are metaphysical answers to the question "What is man? What is contained in his essential nature and what is his potential?"
Islam is not a religion rooted in a single historical event through which God enters history - instead all the key events take place outside history, in pre-eternity in a different hierarchy of existence. Then a "descent" to this world takes place through which these timeless events enter into the realm of cause, effect, and chronological, linear time.
Another event spoken of in the qur'an is the pre-eternal covenant made between God and the human spirits (all of the descendants of Adam). This is expressed in the form of a question which God asks all of the human spirits before allowing them to enter into the physical plane of existence. He asks, "Am I not your Lord?" (Qur'an 7:172). They all answer in the affirmative, the implication being that everyone who is born into this world has agreed in substance (in the essence of their soul) to this covenant, and that although we may have no conscious knowledge or memory of this pact, its reality is woven into our very nature. This world is a place of distraction and forgetfullness but at our core lies the metaphysical truth of this covenant and one of the purposes of religion is to awaken to consciousness an awareness of this bond between God and man as well as all the concealed potentials that flow from this bond. All of the Prophet's have come throughout the entirety of history to remind men of their promise of fidelity to this pact. The Qur'an also often refers to itself as "a reminder", as a call towards taqwa, towards an awakened, aware consciousness.
A third event spoken of in the qur'an is mankind's acceptance of the "trust" offered to them by God. "We did indeed offer the trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains; but they refused to undertake it, being afraid thereof. But man undertook it (the trust)...." (Qur'an 33: 72,73).
These key events all deal with the metaphysical nature and capacity with which man is created. A concurrent event, the teaching of the names (or realities) of all things to Adam, is an indicator that within man (within his metaphysical makeup) exist vast storehouses of knowledge, or a capacity for knowledge, through which he can comprehend mysteries that perhaps even the angels are unaware of (signified by their bowing down before Adam).
The Qur'an constantly urges mankind to "remember" - to become aware of their inner nature through this remembrance and to awaken that nature. These "pre-eternal" events are events that are perfectly real without taking place in historical time. If time is considered as a horizontal progression, these events take place along a vertical axis, one which stands hierarchically above all times and all places. Man's essence, because of his origin and nature, participates in this hierarchy. His actions, his movements (mental and physical) in this world, and the state of his nafs (essential self) that results from those actions has an impact on the full substance of his being - throughout its vertical axis. The Qur'an attempts to awaken us to this hidden aspect of ourselves - it is a reminder to a humanity that is "sleeping" and a call for us to awaken from our amnesia, our "forgetfulness" regarding the essential nature of our being. It is a reminder that beyond the horizontal aspect of our existence is a truly vast vertical dimension, an unseen ocean of possibilities and nascent potentials.
Marriage (Nikah) in Islam
Marriage (Nikah) in Islam
Added Aug 10, 2003
So... marriage....What is it? What does the Qur'an say about it?
The Prophet (s.a.) was once asked, "What is more important than prayer?" He replied, "The spirit of prayer" - the spirit that animates the prayer. He was asked what is more important than fasting - he replied, the spirit of fasting. For each question concerning an Islamic practise the answer was the same - because the spirit brings the action to life and unfolds its potentials. Without this animating spirit, the prayer is only movement, and the fasting only hunger. But when spirit enters, when a pure and concentrated intention enters, the action is transformed - the prayer gains the potential to become a miraj (an elevating spiritual journey), and the one fasting approaches towards the potential to witness laylatul qadr (the night of destiny - a night when blessings from the spiritual world descend to this world).
So what is more important than marriage? It is the spirit of marriage, the intention which underlies it, the treasures which it contains hidden within it but which must be brought out and realized by the married couple themselves.
The qur'an provides the signposts and waymarks for learning about this potential. It says:
"It is He who created you from a single soul, And made its mate of like nature in order that you might dwell with her in love...."(7:189) So the male and female complete each other - together they make a single self and this is how they must strive to make their lives together - as if they are one being, one person, one spirit.
The Qur'an says: "Your wives are a garment for you, and you are a garment for them." (2:187) So a husband and wife complete each other - each one takes on a new aspect of their humanity, a new facet and depth to their personality by entering into marriage and this is symbolized in this verse. Garments also conceal the body and protect the wearer so that a husband and wife are each other's protectors and helpers and each of them safeguards their partner's honor shaping the state of marriage into a haven and a sanctuary where each should feel safe and secure, sheltered in one another's care and guardianship.
The qur'an also says "And of everything we created a pair, that happily you may remember." (Qur'an 51:49) The word for spouse, "zawj", (this is the word that is used in the marriage ceremony, the Nikkah ceremony) - the word zawj literally means one part of a pair - and when the pair come together and act in concert with one another, then concealed potentials within them, potentials that were impossible to realize while they were apart make themselves evident. This is true throughout creation. And human marriage in the Qur'an is considered a reflection of a nature and tendency that exists at all levels of creation. When something is created as one part of a pair it is clearly incomplete without the other - as the Qur'an states, "He himself created the pair, male and female." (Qur'an 53:45)
The term nikkah which is used for marriage is also used figuratively to describe the coming together of various aspects of creation. For example it says, in the Qur'an, that "the rain married the soil" and then it describes how, from this intimate mingling, something new springs forth - that the earth brings forth flowers and herbage, it opens to new creations, new life, new potentials. So the act of marriage, the mingling through nikah, according to Islam, courses through all things, through all of creation. Each pair of the marriage brings something necessary and something unique to the marriage. The pairs are not identical but complimentary to one another and their unique qualities when they are mingled together produce that which neither one alone could produce.
So each individual of the pair undergoes change and transformation when they come together in marriage because marriage is an intimate mingling of the selves, the souls, the personalities and the beings of two individuals.
In human marriage the change takes place at many levels - from a change in lifestyle, to changes in behavior, to changes in the very soul of the person. And there must be that willingness, on the part of both individuals, to allow this unifying transformation to take place. To accept the self the way it is, is to lock oneself into stagnation and narrowness and to remain an individual - not part of an intimately joined pair. It is to limit and lock up the potential, the beauty and strength that is capable of emerging from the intimate unity made possible through marriage.
Since "God created everything in pairs", as it states in the Qur'an, and since He "created the male and the female from a single nature, from a single self", it is God that is the point of reference for the married pair. "He has set up the balance..." of all things, so He is to be looked for to set all things in the right equilibrium. If the two partners of a marriage set themselves in correct relation to God then certainly a perfect balance will be realized within their lives together.
Love is a movement towards unity, towards oneness, and since God is One, "the closer the heart is to Oneness, the stronger the power of love is within it."
Love is a movement towards unity, towards oneness. "God made their hearts familiar" (8:63) through the light of Oneness that yields spiritual love and familiarity in the heart. For love is the shadow of Oneness, familiarity the shadow of love, and balance the shadow of familiarity."
Let this married couple be helpers and protectors of one another, let them be a refuge and a comfort to one another, let them be beautiful garments for one another, and let them together experience the many treasures and beauties of marriage.
- Irshaad Hussain
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Added Aug 10, 2003
So... marriage....What is it? What does the Qur'an say about it?
The Prophet (s.a.) was once asked, "What is more important than prayer?" He replied, "The spirit of prayer" - the spirit that animates the prayer. He was asked what is more important than fasting - he replied, the spirit of fasting. For each question concerning an Islamic practise the answer was the same - because the spirit brings the action to life and unfolds its potentials. Without this animating spirit, the prayer is only movement, and the fasting only hunger. But when spirit enters, when a pure and concentrated intention enters, the action is transformed - the prayer gains the potential to become a miraj (an elevating spiritual journey), and the one fasting approaches towards the potential to witness laylatul qadr (the night of destiny - a night when blessings from the spiritual world descend to this world).
So what is more important than marriage? It is the spirit of marriage, the intention which underlies it, the treasures which it contains hidden within it but which must be brought out and realized by the married couple themselves.
The qur'an provides the signposts and waymarks for learning about this potential. It says:
"It is He who created you from a single soul, And made its mate of like nature in order that you might dwell with her in love...."(7:189) So the male and female complete each other - together they make a single self and this is how they must strive to make their lives together - as if they are one being, one person, one spirit.
The Qur'an says: "Your wives are a garment for you, and you are a garment for them." (2:187) So a husband and wife complete each other - each one takes on a new aspect of their humanity, a new facet and depth to their personality by entering into marriage and this is symbolized in this verse. Garments also conceal the body and protect the wearer so that a husband and wife are each other's protectors and helpers and each of them safeguards their partner's honor shaping the state of marriage into a haven and a sanctuary where each should feel safe and secure, sheltered in one another's care and guardianship.
The qur'an also says "And of everything we created a pair, that happily you may remember." (Qur'an 51:49) The word for spouse, "zawj", (this is the word that is used in the marriage ceremony, the Nikkah ceremony) - the word zawj literally means one part of a pair - and when the pair come together and act in concert with one another, then concealed potentials within them, potentials that were impossible to realize while they were apart make themselves evident. This is true throughout creation. And human marriage in the Qur'an is considered a reflection of a nature and tendency that exists at all levels of creation. When something is created as one part of a pair it is clearly incomplete without the other - as the Qur'an states, "He himself created the pair, male and female." (Qur'an 53:45)
The term nikkah which is used for marriage is also used figuratively to describe the coming together of various aspects of creation. For example it says, in the Qur'an, that "the rain married the soil" and then it describes how, from this intimate mingling, something new springs forth - that the earth brings forth flowers and herbage, it opens to new creations, new life, new potentials. So the act of marriage, the mingling through nikah, according to Islam, courses through all things, through all of creation. Each pair of the marriage brings something necessary and something unique to the marriage. The pairs are not identical but complimentary to one another and their unique qualities when they are mingled together produce that which neither one alone could produce.
So each individual of the pair undergoes change and transformation when they come together in marriage because marriage is an intimate mingling of the selves, the souls, the personalities and the beings of two individuals.
In human marriage the change takes place at many levels - from a change in lifestyle, to changes in behavior, to changes in the very soul of the person. And there must be that willingness, on the part of both individuals, to allow this unifying transformation to take place. To accept the self the way it is, is to lock oneself into stagnation and narrowness and to remain an individual - not part of an intimately joined pair. It is to limit and lock up the potential, the beauty and strength that is capable of emerging from the intimate unity made possible through marriage.
Since "God created everything in pairs", as it states in the Qur'an, and since He "created the male and the female from a single nature, from a single self", it is God that is the point of reference for the married pair. "He has set up the balance..." of all things, so He is to be looked for to set all things in the right equilibrium. If the two partners of a marriage set themselves in correct relation to God then certainly a perfect balance will be realized within their lives together.
Love is a movement towards unity, towards oneness, and since God is One, "the closer the heart is to Oneness, the stronger the power of love is within it."
Love is a movement towards unity, towards oneness. "God made their hearts familiar" (8:63) through the light of Oneness that yields spiritual love and familiarity in the heart. For love is the shadow of Oneness, familiarity the shadow of love, and balance the shadow of familiarity."
Let this married couple be helpers and protectors of one another, let them be a refuge and a comfort to one another, let them be beautiful garments for one another, and let them together experience the many treasures and beauties of marriage.
- Irshaad Hussain
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Going around the Kaaba
Going around the Kaaba
Added Aug 01, 2003
We often encounter the world with a mind overflowing with media images and our own imaginative projections - a sort of mental ecosystem which provides a psychological environment into which we can fit our experiences. These images, these landscapes of information, contour our outlook, adjust thoughts, and have a determining effect on how we perceive the world. They are the subtle technology of our brains, the hidden mechanism of the mind through which experience is made 'safer' and more digestible, and through which we avoid being overwhelmed by the 'new', or changed by the powerful impact of raw, unprocessed reality.
Raw: unaltered from its original state, not filtered or diminished in effect, exerting a forceful power and impact. This is the closest I can come to describing the intensity of the mental collision that occurred when I plunged from the cold of a Canadian winter into the powerful heat and movement of Mecca, the city at the heart of the Islamic world.
Sometimes an experience goes beyond preset expectations. It piece by piece dismantles aspects of one's mental landscape or pierces through it, and overwhelms with the force of its presence. It causes a shift in perception, a rearranging of the terrain of the mind.
From a society in which religion and religious symbolism exist tenuously, vaguely, on the periphery of daily existence, I fell headlong into a concentrated centre of piety, where religion and its most potent symbols exist with the compact density and power of a black hole humming at the core of a galaxy. Where the raw symbolic and attractive power of religion are laid bare, divested of dross, concentrated into essence - into pure, palpable substance.
Even the landscape around Mecca is best described as raw. Mountains lie in piles of crushed rubble as if pulverized by blows from a giant hammer. Vegetation is so sparse that only the closest inspection reveals small desiccated clumps of ragged bushes the same reddish brown hue as the rocks scattered along the rubble strewn slopes.
The mountains encroach into the heart of the city itself. Buildings emerge directly from the hills, their foundations following the craggy angles of steep slopes. No matter the inclination of the hills, there are jagged streets lined with dwellings rising along the rough contours nearly to the summits. The area immediately around the Kaaba (the cube shaped building in whose direction all Muslims face when praying) and the mosque surrounding it is encircled by sizable hills - hills encrusted with shattered boulders and ragged stones. Upon these hills sits an uneasy mixture of modern steel and glass buildings intermixed with rough poured-concrete dwellings. Meandering stone walkways rise at difficult inclinations through their narrow alleys. In the flat pan of the valley that lies between the encircling hills sprawls the massive structure of the "Grand Mosque", and in the centre of the mosque's courtyard the simple form of the Kaaba.
Around the mosque is a wide ring of hotels for housing the millions of pilgrims who come each year for the hajj and the umrah. Sprawling markets radiate in every direction, lining the streets between the hotels.
My first encounter with the grand mosque was a slow recession backwards into time. As I entered through the mammoth doorway and walked across the cool marble floors I left behind the dissonance of congested traffic and the commotion and agitation of Mecca's busy streets and markets. Endless rows of pillars and high archways floated past as I made my way through vast, warmly hued halls, lined with row upon row of thick, yielding, richly textured rugs. The timbre of the colors and textures was overwhelming. I was reminded of a hike through an old growth forest in Canada, where towering tree trunks rose to make an arched canopy of intertwined branches and the forest floor was a soft, silencing carpet of fallen leaves.
On the mosque's carpets families were seated, relaxing together. Old turbaned men reclined leisurely against immense pillars - children wearing traditional arab thawbs (floor length shirts) played between the columns, students leaned earnestly over papers, pens in hand, busy with schoolwork, the mosque their quiet study hall. I walked past devotees bent over qur'ans, tasbeehs (prayer beads) turning endlessly between their fingers. Except for the occasional incongruity of a person dressed in a modern business suit and the ever-present Saudi security police in their drab khaki uniforms, I was now in a long ago world of flowing robes and beards, long thawbs (floor length shirts), turbans, chadors (women's head and body coverings), and white ihrams (the simple two piece sheets worn by pilgrims to Mecca). I walked past people praying, their foreheads pressed firmly against the cool floor. Others had rolled up the ends of the thick carpets to fashion pillows and were resting in the pleasant shade of the mosque's interior. An easy breeze flowed constantly between the multitude of pillars, through the high arches and under the domed ceilings removing the heavy heat of the day. And everywhere, pilgrims from every scattered corner of the world, of every complexion and ethnic variety, were busy with their devotions.
Finally my eyes fell upon the roofless central courtyard where, rising like a black monolith out of a circular plain of polished white marble, stood the Kaaba. Here was the compass point of Muslim prayers - a large cubical structure clothed entirely in a deep black cloth-covering embroidered with verses of the qur'an (a black that appeared impossibly intense against the sunlit courtyard's white marble floor). It was a magical image, an ancient image, framed between contoured pillars. And like a waking dream it shimmered in the heat of the day, appearing to slowly pulse like a heartbeat as the dense heat induced the air to vibrate and rise in invisible currents. Surrounding it was an effortlessly turning human wheel - the endless circumambulation (tawaf) of the Kaaba by the pilgrims.
There was just too much to take in, too much newness, too much rich detail all around me, too much movement as I stood on the outskirts of the throngs of people engaged in worship around the Kaaba. It was all unfamiliar - my Canadian bred senses had no domestic perceptions they could latch onto to give them comfort. There was only the inadequate and incomplete jumble of impressions, images, and preconceptions I carried with me from books read, videos viewed, pilgrimage stories heard, pictures seen. I struggled to quieten my mind but my thoughts were hyperactive - kinetic. So much to process, to take in and digest. I gave up trying to marshal my thoughts into any coherent order and simply allowed the astounding visual panorama around me to flow into my consciousness.
I was immersed in an ocean of religious symbols. Everything around me seemed to possess depth and weight, everything emanated an impression of great substance. The architecture, the Kaaba, the masses of pilgrims, their movements, the sounds of uttered prayers and verses - it flooded in through the limited portals of my senses like floodwaters through a narrow chasm. Gradually, the very materiality of the things around me receded and it seemed as if I was watching only forces in motion, symbols that tugged at my mind but whose meaning I could not yet penetrate.
I stood and watched the tawaf for a long time. The tawaf consists of walking around the Kaaba seven times. Each circuit begins with raising the right hand in a salute of acknowledgment towards the black stone (called the hajar-al-aswad) embedded in one corner of the Kaaba. The raising of the hand is a substitute for kissing this stone since it is almost impossible to get close enough to accomplish that - there is forever a tight knot of people around the stone, all pressing inward in an attempt to touch or kiss it. If you approach too close to this endlessly forming and reforming knot you are squeezed so forcefully that your feet leave the ground and you have no control over where you are carried.
Then, the gravitational presence of the Kaaba tugged at me and I was drawn into the tawaf. Immediately, I was caught in the press and flow of bodies. Heat and sweat engulfed me and the physical presence of the crowd of pilgrims pressing in around me became the direct focus of my concentration. I wiped at the rivulets that streamed off my forehead and walked forward swept along by the inundating flood of humanity in which I was immersed.
The crowd shifted and flowed around me - an organized chaos of particles they bumped along in a curved path around the Kaaba like electrons in orbit around a nucleus. Everyone was focused inwardly on their own individual recitations and concentrating on their own tawaf. In front of me an aged blind man, his pure white hair and beard glowing in the sun, leaned on a wooden staff as he performed his circuits unguided except by the sounds of the crowd and the movement of bodies around him. His free hand would rise occasionally, palm upwards in supplication as he would speak a prayer. What was it like to do this tawaf in darkness, with no visual cues, no images to process. Did he sense the looming presence of the Kaaba by his side, was he able to turn his consciousness completely inward without the incredible spectacle of the tawaf to distract him? I closed my eyes and for a few steps walked blind.
A swirling eddy of sounds came and went as people passed by or as I passed by them. Some traveled in groups loudly reciting quran'ic verses in unison, some whispered to themselves - others moved in silence and I knew their presence only by their touch as they brushed past. The sounds ebbed and flowed in my consciousness as if I was a leaf floating on a river of prayers - currents and eddies of supplications tugging my consciousness this way and that.
When I opened my eyes the blind man was far ahead, moving confidently through the thick crowd, his staff seeming more like the staff of Moses than a crutch to lean upon. I looked about me as I moved forward. Some pilgrims were in wheelchairs, some frail and weak with age were being carried on rough bamboo litters or on hospital stretchers, some went around in tight groups, arms linked together so as not to separate in the crowd. Some shuffled along in their tawaf, others dodged in and around the crowd as if in a race to complete their circuits. New people continuously entered the tawaf, while those who had finished theirs cut across the crowd and exited the circle.
Each time I approached the corner where the black stone lay it was like approaching a zone of agitated turbulence - a tangle of bodies struggled to reach the stone as if drawn by a powerful magnet. Others only paused momentarily, lined up in a straight row radiating out from the stone as if they were iron filings caught on a magnetized strip angling away from the corner of the Kaaba. Then they would wave an acknowledgment towards the stone and continue on with their tawaf.
Through all the circuits, the attention-commanding cube of the Kaaba loomed impressively at my left side. It's presence was powerful, intense, imposing - the extreme simplicity of it's shape adding to its stature. There was a kind of bewitching beauty to the Kaaba - here was a building stripped to it's most basic fundamentals - four walls and a roof - yet it captivated the eyes more forcefully than the architectural marvels of the mosque surrounding it. There was a wall of unmoving bodies encircling it - devotees clinging prayerfully to its cloth covered surface, their cheeks pressed firmly against its sides. It was as if those who drew too near were simply overwhelmed by its gravity and then frozen static at some timeless event horizon. And indeed, inside the Kaaba's walls was a singularity where the outward rules of religion crumbled and only the essence remained, where prayer could be performed in any direction since there lay the innermost heart of the great wheel of the Islamic galaxy, the pole within which the believer's compass spins, bewildered.
My eyes took in the faces swirling around me - a vast spectrum of complexions and hues contrasting yet complementing each other, lines of great age and experience alongside the smooth faces of youths. A young woman holding her husband's hand came past me. He intoned prayers in a beautiful rhythm and tears spilled down her face. Then they were past and his recitation faded in the generalized murmur of the crowd. I grew aware of the plenitude of tears around me - some only moistening the corners of eyes, others inundating and softening deep lines in weeping faces. In these faces there was a complete absorption in the present moment. As their bodies went around the Kaaba, it seemed the real tawaf was accomplished by their hearts. When my seven circuits were complete, I felt reluctant to leave the circle and it took an active force of will to break out of the curving path and move away from the Kaaba.
When I was in the tawaf it had seemed somewhat chaotic, a complex, shifting interplay of human traffic as the masses of pilgrims sought individual routes through the crowds, their attention focused inward, each following their own meandering orbit around the Kaaba.
But when later I observed the tawaf from above - from the second floor balconies of the mosque - it appeared as a smoothly turning wheel - a masterpiece of co-ordination. All the close-up complexity, the seeming chaos of individual behaviours vanished and a beautifully meshed rotation appeared - a slow revolution around an unmoving, immobile axis. There was such a gracefulness, such a superfluidity to the motion that the individuals in the crowd receded from my consciousness and I imagined I was gazing at some vast otherworldly symbol - the slow pivot of existence itself around a single fixed, immovable principle. It was as if the outward movements of the rituals provided a form, a structure that reflected, through the ritual's physical movement, a stunning spiritual geometry.
It reminded me of a verse in the Qur'an in which all the human souls, from the first to the last are brought into the presence of God in a realm of pre-material existence. Each acknowledges God as Rabb (as their Sustainer) before entering into their earthly existence, before being born into this world. The tawaf was like a symbol of these human souls circling God's presence, acknowledging Him as Rabb at each passing of the hajar-al- aswad (the black stone). Each circuit was like a descent through the different layers of existence until we leave the tawaf and enter the life of this world (the place of separation) after one final acknowledgment of God as Rabb. The hajar al-aswad seemed to me like the signet ring of a King - touched or kissed to acknowledge His Lordship.
Or perhaps the tawaf is like the names of all things in existence (the names or realities taught to Adam before he emerged on the earth - as mentioned in the Qur'an). These realities circle in God's knowledge until the proper moment arrives for them to manifest in the material world. And then they descend through the layers and levels of existence till, entering the realm of time and space and cause and effect, they emerge into earthly existence. As a result it is said that everything in existence (every reality, every "name") is a messenger from the unseen world.
As I left the tawaf, as I left the Kaaba, as I left the mosque, and as I left Mecca for other destinations, I felt both a powerful pang of separation and a comforting closeness towards what I left behind. The separation arose from being cut off from that which had so intensely attracted and impacted my consciousness. The closeness emerged because my direct experience of an ancient transcendental rite had inwardly magnetized me. I knew that even after I flew back to the comfort of home, some essential part of my consciousness, some essential part of my heart, would always turn, unbidden, like a compass needle to face the simple structure of the Kaaba.
- Irshaad Hussain
Added Aug 01, 2003
We often encounter the world with a mind overflowing with media images and our own imaginative projections - a sort of mental ecosystem which provides a psychological environment into which we can fit our experiences. These images, these landscapes of information, contour our outlook, adjust thoughts, and have a determining effect on how we perceive the world. They are the subtle technology of our brains, the hidden mechanism of the mind through which experience is made 'safer' and more digestible, and through which we avoid being overwhelmed by the 'new', or changed by the powerful impact of raw, unprocessed reality.
Raw: unaltered from its original state, not filtered or diminished in effect, exerting a forceful power and impact. This is the closest I can come to describing the intensity of the mental collision that occurred when I plunged from the cold of a Canadian winter into the powerful heat and movement of Mecca, the city at the heart of the Islamic world.
Sometimes an experience goes beyond preset expectations. It piece by piece dismantles aspects of one's mental landscape or pierces through it, and overwhelms with the force of its presence. It causes a shift in perception, a rearranging of the terrain of the mind.
From a society in which religion and religious symbolism exist tenuously, vaguely, on the periphery of daily existence, I fell headlong into a concentrated centre of piety, where religion and its most potent symbols exist with the compact density and power of a black hole humming at the core of a galaxy. Where the raw symbolic and attractive power of religion are laid bare, divested of dross, concentrated into essence - into pure, palpable substance.
Even the landscape around Mecca is best described as raw. Mountains lie in piles of crushed rubble as if pulverized by blows from a giant hammer. Vegetation is so sparse that only the closest inspection reveals small desiccated clumps of ragged bushes the same reddish brown hue as the rocks scattered along the rubble strewn slopes.
The mountains encroach into the heart of the city itself. Buildings emerge directly from the hills, their foundations following the craggy angles of steep slopes. No matter the inclination of the hills, there are jagged streets lined with dwellings rising along the rough contours nearly to the summits. The area immediately around the Kaaba (the cube shaped building in whose direction all Muslims face when praying) and the mosque surrounding it is encircled by sizable hills - hills encrusted with shattered boulders and ragged stones. Upon these hills sits an uneasy mixture of modern steel and glass buildings intermixed with rough poured-concrete dwellings. Meandering stone walkways rise at difficult inclinations through their narrow alleys. In the flat pan of the valley that lies between the encircling hills sprawls the massive structure of the "Grand Mosque", and in the centre of the mosque's courtyard the simple form of the Kaaba.
Around the mosque is a wide ring of hotels for housing the millions of pilgrims who come each year for the hajj and the umrah. Sprawling markets radiate in every direction, lining the streets between the hotels.
My first encounter with the grand mosque was a slow recession backwards into time. As I entered through the mammoth doorway and walked across the cool marble floors I left behind the dissonance of congested traffic and the commotion and agitation of Mecca's busy streets and markets. Endless rows of pillars and high archways floated past as I made my way through vast, warmly hued halls, lined with row upon row of thick, yielding, richly textured rugs. The timbre of the colors and textures was overwhelming. I was reminded of a hike through an old growth forest in Canada, where towering tree trunks rose to make an arched canopy of intertwined branches and the forest floor was a soft, silencing carpet of fallen leaves.
On the mosque's carpets families were seated, relaxing together. Old turbaned men reclined leisurely against immense pillars - children wearing traditional arab thawbs (floor length shirts) played between the columns, students leaned earnestly over papers, pens in hand, busy with schoolwork, the mosque their quiet study hall. I walked past devotees bent over qur'ans, tasbeehs (prayer beads) turning endlessly between their fingers. Except for the occasional incongruity of a person dressed in a modern business suit and the ever-present Saudi security police in their drab khaki uniforms, I was now in a long ago world of flowing robes and beards, long thawbs (floor length shirts), turbans, chadors (women's head and body coverings), and white ihrams (the simple two piece sheets worn by pilgrims to Mecca). I walked past people praying, their foreheads pressed firmly against the cool floor. Others had rolled up the ends of the thick carpets to fashion pillows and were resting in the pleasant shade of the mosque's interior. An easy breeze flowed constantly between the multitude of pillars, through the high arches and under the domed ceilings removing the heavy heat of the day. And everywhere, pilgrims from every scattered corner of the world, of every complexion and ethnic variety, were busy with their devotions.
Finally my eyes fell upon the roofless central courtyard where, rising like a black monolith out of a circular plain of polished white marble, stood the Kaaba. Here was the compass point of Muslim prayers - a large cubical structure clothed entirely in a deep black cloth-covering embroidered with verses of the qur'an (a black that appeared impossibly intense against the sunlit courtyard's white marble floor). It was a magical image, an ancient image, framed between contoured pillars. And like a waking dream it shimmered in the heat of the day, appearing to slowly pulse like a heartbeat as the dense heat induced the air to vibrate and rise in invisible currents. Surrounding it was an effortlessly turning human wheel - the endless circumambulation (tawaf) of the Kaaba by the pilgrims.
There was just too much to take in, too much newness, too much rich detail all around me, too much movement as I stood on the outskirts of the throngs of people engaged in worship around the Kaaba. It was all unfamiliar - my Canadian bred senses had no domestic perceptions they could latch onto to give them comfort. There was only the inadequate and incomplete jumble of impressions, images, and preconceptions I carried with me from books read, videos viewed, pilgrimage stories heard, pictures seen. I struggled to quieten my mind but my thoughts were hyperactive - kinetic. So much to process, to take in and digest. I gave up trying to marshal my thoughts into any coherent order and simply allowed the astounding visual panorama around me to flow into my consciousness.
I was immersed in an ocean of religious symbols. Everything around me seemed to possess depth and weight, everything emanated an impression of great substance. The architecture, the Kaaba, the masses of pilgrims, their movements, the sounds of uttered prayers and verses - it flooded in through the limited portals of my senses like floodwaters through a narrow chasm. Gradually, the very materiality of the things around me receded and it seemed as if I was watching only forces in motion, symbols that tugged at my mind but whose meaning I could not yet penetrate.
I stood and watched the tawaf for a long time. The tawaf consists of walking around the Kaaba seven times. Each circuit begins with raising the right hand in a salute of acknowledgment towards the black stone (called the hajar-al-aswad) embedded in one corner of the Kaaba. The raising of the hand is a substitute for kissing this stone since it is almost impossible to get close enough to accomplish that - there is forever a tight knot of people around the stone, all pressing inward in an attempt to touch or kiss it. If you approach too close to this endlessly forming and reforming knot you are squeezed so forcefully that your feet leave the ground and you have no control over where you are carried.
Then, the gravitational presence of the Kaaba tugged at me and I was drawn into the tawaf. Immediately, I was caught in the press and flow of bodies. Heat and sweat engulfed me and the physical presence of the crowd of pilgrims pressing in around me became the direct focus of my concentration. I wiped at the rivulets that streamed off my forehead and walked forward swept along by the inundating flood of humanity in which I was immersed.
The crowd shifted and flowed around me - an organized chaos of particles they bumped along in a curved path around the Kaaba like electrons in orbit around a nucleus. Everyone was focused inwardly on their own individual recitations and concentrating on their own tawaf. In front of me an aged blind man, his pure white hair and beard glowing in the sun, leaned on a wooden staff as he performed his circuits unguided except by the sounds of the crowd and the movement of bodies around him. His free hand would rise occasionally, palm upwards in supplication as he would speak a prayer. What was it like to do this tawaf in darkness, with no visual cues, no images to process. Did he sense the looming presence of the Kaaba by his side, was he able to turn his consciousness completely inward without the incredible spectacle of the tawaf to distract him? I closed my eyes and for a few steps walked blind.
A swirling eddy of sounds came and went as people passed by or as I passed by them. Some traveled in groups loudly reciting quran'ic verses in unison, some whispered to themselves - others moved in silence and I knew their presence only by their touch as they brushed past. The sounds ebbed and flowed in my consciousness as if I was a leaf floating on a river of prayers - currents and eddies of supplications tugging my consciousness this way and that.
When I opened my eyes the blind man was far ahead, moving confidently through the thick crowd, his staff seeming more like the staff of Moses than a crutch to lean upon. I looked about me as I moved forward. Some pilgrims were in wheelchairs, some frail and weak with age were being carried on rough bamboo litters or on hospital stretchers, some went around in tight groups, arms linked together so as not to separate in the crowd. Some shuffled along in their tawaf, others dodged in and around the crowd as if in a race to complete their circuits. New people continuously entered the tawaf, while those who had finished theirs cut across the crowd and exited the circle.
Each time I approached the corner where the black stone lay it was like approaching a zone of agitated turbulence - a tangle of bodies struggled to reach the stone as if drawn by a powerful magnet. Others only paused momentarily, lined up in a straight row radiating out from the stone as if they were iron filings caught on a magnetized strip angling away from the corner of the Kaaba. Then they would wave an acknowledgment towards the stone and continue on with their tawaf.
Through all the circuits, the attention-commanding cube of the Kaaba loomed impressively at my left side. It's presence was powerful, intense, imposing - the extreme simplicity of it's shape adding to its stature. There was a kind of bewitching beauty to the Kaaba - here was a building stripped to it's most basic fundamentals - four walls and a roof - yet it captivated the eyes more forcefully than the architectural marvels of the mosque surrounding it. There was a wall of unmoving bodies encircling it - devotees clinging prayerfully to its cloth covered surface, their cheeks pressed firmly against its sides. It was as if those who drew too near were simply overwhelmed by its gravity and then frozen static at some timeless event horizon. And indeed, inside the Kaaba's walls was a singularity where the outward rules of religion crumbled and only the essence remained, where prayer could be performed in any direction since there lay the innermost heart of the great wheel of the Islamic galaxy, the pole within which the believer's compass spins, bewildered.
My eyes took in the faces swirling around me - a vast spectrum of complexions and hues contrasting yet complementing each other, lines of great age and experience alongside the smooth faces of youths. A young woman holding her husband's hand came past me. He intoned prayers in a beautiful rhythm and tears spilled down her face. Then they were past and his recitation faded in the generalized murmur of the crowd. I grew aware of the plenitude of tears around me - some only moistening the corners of eyes, others inundating and softening deep lines in weeping faces. In these faces there was a complete absorption in the present moment. As their bodies went around the Kaaba, it seemed the real tawaf was accomplished by their hearts. When my seven circuits were complete, I felt reluctant to leave the circle and it took an active force of will to break out of the curving path and move away from the Kaaba.
When I was in the tawaf it had seemed somewhat chaotic, a complex, shifting interplay of human traffic as the masses of pilgrims sought individual routes through the crowds, their attention focused inward, each following their own meandering orbit around the Kaaba.
But when later I observed the tawaf from above - from the second floor balconies of the mosque - it appeared as a smoothly turning wheel - a masterpiece of co-ordination. All the close-up complexity, the seeming chaos of individual behaviours vanished and a beautifully meshed rotation appeared - a slow revolution around an unmoving, immobile axis. There was such a gracefulness, such a superfluidity to the motion that the individuals in the crowd receded from my consciousness and I imagined I was gazing at some vast otherworldly symbol - the slow pivot of existence itself around a single fixed, immovable principle. It was as if the outward movements of the rituals provided a form, a structure that reflected, through the ritual's physical movement, a stunning spiritual geometry.
It reminded me of a verse in the Qur'an in which all the human souls, from the first to the last are brought into the presence of God in a realm of pre-material existence. Each acknowledges God as Rabb (as their Sustainer) before entering into their earthly existence, before being born into this world. The tawaf was like a symbol of these human souls circling God's presence, acknowledging Him as Rabb at each passing of the hajar-al- aswad (the black stone). Each circuit was like a descent through the different layers of existence until we leave the tawaf and enter the life of this world (the place of separation) after one final acknowledgment of God as Rabb. The hajar al-aswad seemed to me like the signet ring of a King - touched or kissed to acknowledge His Lordship.
Or perhaps the tawaf is like the names of all things in existence (the names or realities taught to Adam before he emerged on the earth - as mentioned in the Qur'an). These realities circle in God's knowledge until the proper moment arrives for them to manifest in the material world. And then they descend through the layers and levels of existence till, entering the realm of time and space and cause and effect, they emerge into earthly existence. As a result it is said that everything in existence (every reality, every "name") is a messenger from the unseen world.
As I left the tawaf, as I left the Kaaba, as I left the mosque, and as I left Mecca for other destinations, I felt both a powerful pang of separation and a comforting closeness towards what I left behind. The separation arose from being cut off from that which had so intensely attracted and impacted my consciousness. The closeness emerged because my direct experience of an ancient transcendental rite had inwardly magnetized me. I knew that even after I flew back to the comfort of home, some essential part of my consciousness, some essential part of my heart, would always turn, unbidden, like a compass needle to face the simple structure of the Kaaba.
- Irshaad Hussain
Sura 43: verses 36 - 37) - Remembrance (dhikr) and the path of mercy
(Sura 43: verses 36 - 37) - Remembrance (dhikr) and the path of mercy
Added January 10, 2009
When remembrance (dhikr) of Allah is connected with the aspect of His mercy, that quality of mercy begins to manifest within one's own character - it gains a real, living presence and the heart expands with it's growth....
Added January 10, 2009
When remembrance (dhikr) of Allah is connected with the aspect of His mercy, that quality of mercy begins to manifest within one's own character - it gains a real, living presence and the heart expands with it's growth....
Podcast - The Role of Love in the Qur'anic Worldview
Podcast - The Role of Love in the Qur'anic Worldview
Added January 31, 2010
This is from a recording made by a close friend at a recent public lecture given by William Chittick at Carleton University. The subject of the lecture was love in the Qur'anic worldview and is based on material Chittick has collected for a new book he is working on.
The lecture centers around a ubiquitously well known verse in the Qur'an, a verse described by Sam'ani as a "body-melting, heart-burning" verse.... You can listen to it here or subscribe/listen to it as a podcast in iTunes....
Added January 31, 2010
This is from a recording made by a close friend at a recent public lecture given by William Chittick at Carleton University. The subject of the lecture was love in the Qur'anic worldview and is based on material Chittick has collected for a new book he is working on.
The lecture centers around a ubiquitously well known verse in the Qur'an, a verse described by Sam'ani as a "body-melting, heart-burning" verse.... You can listen to it here or subscribe/listen to it as a podcast in iTunes....
Friday, 4 March 2011
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