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‘They had sacrificed the deadly comfort of the nuclear family and made the reason for their existence the deen.’ HRR

A whitey shot dead eight blackies and two persons of indeterminate colouring in Buffalo a day or two ago at a full supermarket with further witnesses present in the street and buildings outside: the ‘suspect’ was suspiciously guilty on this account.

One of the benefits of being a stranger in a foreign land, and by that I mean a Muslim in the dunya, is that you can dance out of the row and not be deemed eccentric.

Sh. M. bin al-Habib remained hidden beneath the ignorant Frog-rule of violence – without this SDAQ would never have met him, if you are a seeker after causes.

The verb فطر, fatara, means to cleave, to split and by extension to find out or begin anything; and it also refers to Allah’s act of creation.

Among its associated meanings is the qur’anic term fitra, the natural, healthy, balanced state on which Allah has created mankind – but which is subject to unnaturalness, sickness and imbalance when the parameters and rules of the Author of this fitra are no longer adhered too; among them too is the iftaar, the breaking of the fast, the splitting, cleaving or discrimination between eating and not-eating, between drinking and not drinking and between sexual activity and refraining from it; among them too the fateera which refers to the dough which bursts into life when baked; among them too the futr, the fungi which suddenly breaks open the earth to appear after the rains.

The zakat al-fitr, ‘the purification of al-fitr’, refers to the giving of basic foodstuffs given after Ramadan in recognition of the fitr, the breaking of the fast and is an act which issues from the fitra, the natural disposition of a man or woman, in order to purify.

Just as Imam Malik’s judgement is that the zakat of wealth is to be distributed among the local people, so too is his judgement regarding the zakat al-fitr: sending an electronic message thousands of kilometres to the land of one’s parents or forefathers via the third-party, numerical, payment system is not the same – and certainly illegal under normal circumstances – as the sultan’s representative handing over actual edibles personally, face to face, to people in the community. As the fuqaha – and those who are in need of reasons, have explained: the here and now , the existential, is the nub, the crux, of the matter – better to strengthen and affirm those around one than conceptually help the far and distant; this in turn aids those who have migrated or fled their homelands to become resident, to realize that Allah in fact has brought them to their new home and that they may well die parted from their ancestral birthplace; then in turn it shall become easier for them to fathom why the phenomenon of islamic charities is more often than not counterproductive: the people in fact who are most in need of help are the muminun from the so-called rich countries; the people who are least in need of help are the muminun from the so-called poor countries who in fact are negatively impacted by most of the charity products and often encouraged to abandon their local farmlands and become dependent on ‘white’, processed foodstuffs.

Moreover the electronic transmission of numbers to pay for zakat deprives the person paying of the dua which the collector makes for him in his presence: as Allah taala has said: ‘Take zakat from their wealth to purify and cleanse them and pray for them. Your prayers bring relief to them. Allah is All-Hearing, All-Knowing’; to argue that those in far off lands may also pray for such a person is theoretically correct, but beside the point: just as real knowledge must be acquired directly from someone who acquired his knowledge directly from a real person, so the zakat-connection by internet of two persons who probably do not even know each other is not of the same rank as the meeting of two persons face to face.

The People are always in the baadiya, the sahra, the now polluted wastes, wherever they may be, thankful to Him, ta’ala, for a handful of water, in remembrance of him, on whom be peace and blessings, who made the ghusl with four mudd, and the wudu with one.

Das römische Denken hatte die griechischen Wörter übernommen – ohne die entsprechende gleichursprüngliche Erfahrung dessen, was sie sagen, ohne das griechische Wort. Die Bodenlosigkeit des abendländlichen Denkens beginnt mit diesem Übersetzen.

Roman thought had adopted Greek words without any lived experience of them, without an experience which corresponded to what they originally denoted. The groundlessness, the abyssmalness of western thought began with this transference, this translation.

Roman thought had adopted tens of thousands of Greek words without any lived experience of them, without an experience which corresponded to what they originally denoted. The groundlessness, the abyssmalness of western thought began with this transference, this translation. Then the abyss was deepened when European thought adopted christian-orientalist words for Arabic terms without having experienced what they actually meant, often avoiding a transliteration which might well have been an impulse to understanding.

(Lightly expanded with thanks to MH, from his Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes, pp.13-14).

Although things are beginning to change.

Said he, ‘If he was so close to tawhid, then how was it that it could not make the leap, not open the door and enter?’

Said she, ‘Well, clearly Islam was not written for him; but if you require reasons and causes, then perhaps the following:

He inherited a language burdened with luggage from the past as the article above this one makes clear. He also got caught up in the subject-object/rationality-iman dichotomies, and had no access to Arabic: Thomas Aquinas got the goods from Ibn Rushd – who did pose these questions – but only to still the unease of certain low-brow ulama; he himself had no problem; it became Aquinas’ problem which in turn became Europe’s problem’.

He said, ‘Que?’

She said, ‘Put it like this: in the first instance: there is often no need for the sein-verb in Arabic, and so the subject-complement issue does not arise: Qul huwa Allah ahad – literally ‘Say: ‘Allah One’, there being no verb necessary; why? you might ask – perhaps because kaana, the verb for ‘to be/sein‘, also contains the meaning ‘to create’, and so any understanding is inconceivable without the mukawwin, the Bringer into being of the kawn, i.e. creation.

He said, ‘Ah ha, and what about rationality-iman?’

She said, ‘Let me read you something MH said – just to point out the weight of religious baggage encumbering [European] languages:

“The inclination to hold that the material-form-composition of things is the constitution of every existent being gains additional impetus on the basis of a prior belief, namely the biblical, that the whole of being is conceived of as something created, i.e. fabricated”.

The philosophy of this belief can, it is true, aver that all creative working of god is to be conceived of as different from the action of the artisan. If however at the same time, or even in advance, as a consequence of an understanding of the Thomist philosophy of pre-determination regarding the interpretation of the Bible, the ens creatum is conceived of as issuing from the oneness of material and form, then a belief arising out of a philosophy may be inferred whose truth rests in a revealing of Being which is of a different sort than that of a world that is conceived of in belief.

This concept of Creation, based on a belief, can now of course, lose its dominant strength with regard to knowledge of Being as a whole. Only the once employed theological interpretation of all beingness, the view of the world according to material and form, borrowed from a foreign philosophy, can nevertheless remain. Its metaphysic too rests on the medievally characterized form-material composition which only recalls in mere words the buried nature of εἶδος (form) and ύλη (matter). Thus the understanding of a thing according to form and matter, be it still medieval or transformed into Kantian-transcendental, has become something common, a matter of course. However for this reason it is no less than the other mentioned interpretations of the thingness of a thing an assault on the being inherent in the thingness of a thing.

She continued, ‘I think it shall now be clear to you that if we ditch the Thomist baggage of European thought and recommence from where the Greeks left off as MH has indicated – or more simply, reconnect to what Ibn Rushd actually said and did – then the jump becomes feasible for all who are bold.

One of the miracles of the deen in this age is its inherent, natural protection from virtual reality:

The initial shahada must spoken in the presence of and be witnessed by real people.

The salat consists of bodily movements, a clean space and is to be performed at specific times, in the company of others and be led by an imam.

Zakat is paid on tangible stuff – gold or silver, agriculture products or livestock, in the presence of a tax-collector who makes a dua for the person purifying his wealth.

The sawm is made at a specific time and the suhur and iftar are to be taken communally, except in unusual circumstances.

The hajj must be made to a specific place, at a specific time, and the standing at Arafat is along with the jamaa’a.

Minutes of the closing committee meeting, headed by Bishop Brag Matikus:

The following conclusions were reached and recommendations made:

All efforts to convince the Muslims to follow us christians and create a headlocated religion consisting of ideals and concepts have been fruitless; their insistence on calling their way a deen, and not a religion, i.e. a straight path to the Garden based on right living in every aspect of daily life has proved impossible to undermine – on account of their love of Allah and His Messenger Mustafa.

As is well known all canon laws have long since been abrogated; total freedom has been accorded to the lower nafs, the hungry, base self. As pointed out by Bishop Ataloss it has now been over fifty years since the See in effect legitimized suicide – and so it would only seem reasonable and logical that those who did not want to join the Muslims should take their own lives; this could be organized by the kerbalists who had already signalled their enthusism for this.

Given the staunch holding to aqida and amal of the common people in ‘backward territories’, i.e. trust in the Unseen and consequent action based on the latter, the Baba sees no alternative but to recognize the deep wisdom contained in the Way of Submission, accept a one-off payment of zakat from the Bayt al-Mal in the spirit of mu’allafat qulubuhum, become Muslim himself and encourage other christians to do.

As for the de-facto rulers-by-force in the gated mega-cities, the self styled ‘Protectors of the Masses’, who had succeeded in reducing the teachings of ‘Isa to a conceptual haze these are to be recognized as the de-facto rulers-by-force with the recommendation that they continue to temper their violence with the teachings of the Buddha which had also long-since been reduced to an idea.

All church goods shall be made over to the Khalif in Burkino Faso. Members of the Jesuit order conversant with Islam should try and arrange other zakat payments for potential renegades.

Official translation:

‘He has no formal education, but in Zanzibar and Oman, he studied the Quran, religious sciences and Arabic under a number of Islamic scholars’.

Corrected translation:

‘He had no exposure to state doctrination, but in Zanzibar and Oman, he studied tafsir of the Quran, sciences of shariat, i.e. the laws governing all aspects of daily life, and fiqh, and Arabic – directly, face to face, i.e. not by mere reading, from a number of Islamic scholars’.

‘In my day the folks were caught up with the halaldom or not of chewing-gum’; ‘in my day’ said his younger companion, ‘it was the obsession with and the reduction of the deen to the head-scarf’; ‘Now its more subtle’ said his son – in his own language: ‘we’re not allowed to share our food in the kinder-garden’; and ‘why not?’, ‘cos the friend we share with might be allergic to what we give him.’

There is a wind in Cape Town that periodically visits and blows the town clean of dross and miasmas; such a breeze is blowing through the paths of Rumi freeing his words of sufi-woofyism.

It blew away Steingass who hides his naughty words in latin, took off for him his shawl of prudery.

It visited Nicholson and cleared his breast of ‘on certain topics Rumi is too outspoken for our taste and many pages are disfigured by anecdotes worthy of an Apuleius or Petronius but scarcely fit to be translated …’

Only through the efforts of these and several other victorian-minded gentlemen do the vast majority of the global public know of Mawlana; if the Persian of the pre-Safawids is too much for them, then may they pause before visiting a colourful spectacle of dancing-dees financed by unesco and reflect on the words of the following commentator: only then shall the reader realize that not a moment passes but that Rumi moves along the path of the outward shariat in order to make manifest the profound meanings of his stories.

Let us study then how Dr Sulaiman Hikmatyar reveals the inner landscape of the opening story of the Mathnawi. But first a literal translation:

There was once a king who was a King in the dunya and a King possessed of the deen….

In the commentary of Dr Sulaiman Hikmatyari we find:

Important here is to retain the word dunya, which while indicating this earthly world, has its semantic, Quranic, root in ‘base’, ‘low’: i.e. this world of darkness as opposed to the akhira, the world of the Garden and light.

That he was a King with regard to the deen, demonstrates that he was a skilled in the science of the fuqaha, concerned with the knowledge of and application of the outward laws of the shariat governing every aspect of human life; this story, as all of Rumi’s stories, is not mystic, but rather the opposite, utterly evident, its figurative aspect merely a means of pointing to clarity and truth.

By fortunate occurrence, while the King was out riding on a hunt with his closest courtiers he caught sight of a slave girl on the King’s avenue…

Dr Sulaiman Hikmatyar:

By fortunate occurrence is to stress that Allah’s blessing accompanied the King: the word in Persian indicates that the activity of the King was in harmony with His will, cf. tawfeeq, from the same root, often translated as ‘success’

Hunting is the preserve of Kings who by their love of this sport are concerned for the welfare of the deer and ensure that the health of the woods and meadows they inhabit is maintained.

his closest courtiers i.e. the elite of the court, those in tune with the King – who as King and Muslim, would speak with the royal ‘We’, the ‘we’ of society, by which current social norms are established, who is never alone, except when with one of his wives.

a slave girl – but not to be confused with christian slavery or the slavery of refugee camps, the point here being that she may be sold – and as is well-known, slaves girls were purchased as much for sexual enjoyment as service and enjoyed the same standard of living as their masters; it may be of help in overcoming any linguistic hurdles to reflect that prostitution is accepted globally, indeed legally in many countries – and that the state ensures that tax is paid on the proceeds.

the King’s avenue points to a hunting reserve particular to the King, a reserve containing perhaps houses and villages where the slave girl lives; or: in a figurative sense – that all roads were his when he travelled them.

The King himself became enslaved by his love for the slave-girl, his heart palpitating wildly like a bird trapped in a cage…

Dr Sulaiman Hikmatyar:

Rumi uses the word ghulam, i.e. a young male slave, to denote the King’s state – which puts him on a level with the object of his desire; his heart is overcome with longing and feels entrapped: the King does not however misuse his power but rather seeks a legal means to free himself; i.e. his overpowering love is tempered by the dictates of the shariat by which he knows himself to be bound: this is in fact the love for which Rumi is so falsely trumpeted: just as a real lover of ‘Isa knows that the tinsel of the fir-tree or the chocolate eggs of easter has little to do with the man who was a Prophet, so we know that Rumi’s love issued from heart enslaved to the dictates of its Lord; Rumi was after all a faqih, the head of and professor at his father’s madrassa, a loyal subject of the Seljuk Sultan Kai Qubad I, who had installed his father in the madrassa, a man with whose social rank came noblesse oblige – his responsibility for the execution of the deen being the noblesse; in short an extreme islamist as he would be termed nowadays – in the sense that he combined both iman and ‘amal, and was by no means caught in his head within mere concepts.

And here the legal means:

So he bought the slave girl, but when he had tasted of her fruit, that slave girl fell ill as a result of [Allah’s] judgement [from before endless time]...

Dr Sulaiman Hikmatyar:

Nikah, marriage, is connected to buyu’, the laws governing sales, and just as mahr, the money paid to the bride, renders intercourse licit with her, so payment for a slave-girl renders her licit.

Rumi then reminds as that life and death, health and sickness are in the hands of Allah and that anything that afflicts or is bestowed on a person has been written for him; this the King understands, being a man of Allah: the King would have had the last word with regard to any difference of opinion among his judges but would also be aware that Allah is the final Qadi.

There was once a man who owned a donkey but not a saddle, then when he found a saddle, a wolf made off with his donkey; a pitcher was there but no water could be got and when water became available the pitcher broke.

Dr Sulaiman Hikmatyar:

The King had attained his heart’s desire but then, by Allah, she fell ill: the mumin is in constant alternation between hope for Allah’s blessings, and fear for His curtailment of these blessing, lest they become blighted; however he recognizes that both are from Allah, are tests, as does the King, being aware of His ayat, ‘If I become ill then it is He who cures me’.

The King gathered toubibs around him from everywhere, saying the life of both of us is in your hands.

Here the french word toubib has been used which retains to some degree the original meaning of the Arabic, i.e. a physician who in keeping with the root meaning of the word, takes care of his patient skilfully, gently, kindly and by personal, physical contact, someone aware of the Prophet’s saying to the man who claimed to be a toubib and offered to ‘cure’ him of the mark of prophecy between his shoulder blades, ‘He who has knowledge in its respect is He who created it’ – corresponding closely to the past physicians, bound by the hippocratic oath, not the state drerg-pushers beholden to shareholders who in turn are beholden to their bank accounts.

My own life is slight of importance but hers is the life of my life, pain and exhaustion are mine and she is the cure.

Dr Sulaiman Hikmatyar:

All of the dunya is defined by opposites, life in death, sickness in health, as the son of Umar said, ‘…take from your health for your sickness, and from your life for your death’.

Whoever finds a cure for the life of my life shall receive treasure, pearls and coral from me. Together they declared, ‘We shall venture our utmost, come to together and share the task. Everyone of us is an ‘Isa, an expert. Every sickness is curable at our hand.’

Dr Sulaiman Hikmatyar:

Their intent is sound but their claim is overweening – that they, like ‘Isa, on whom be peace and blessings, who could heal the blind, raise people from the dead, can cure everything.

As they did not say in their arrogance, ‘Unless Allah wills otherwise’, Allah showed them the weakness of man – I mean, this is the case if omitted deliberately, from the hardness of one’s heart, not if it happens from a state of forgetfulness. How many a person has not mentioned the exception i.e. ‘Unless He wills otherwise’ but whose heart is nevertheless in tune with the meaning of the exception.

Dr Sulaiman Hikmatyar:

This is based on the Quranic ayat, ‘Never say about anything, “I am doing that tomorrow,” without adding “If Allah wills.”’ However what we have nowadays is the liberal addition of inshallah to any intention or wish but without any resolve to do anything connected with it; a clear understanding of this ayat results in a person being careful to state unequivocally what he intends to do before saying inshallah – in order to avoid the popular meaning of these words in many persons’ minds, namely, ‘perhaps’ or worse still, a mantra to avoid stating explicity what one is resolved to do.

Thus the more we read Rumi without the soufi-woufism of the christian orientalists the more we realize that the mystic love the latter prattle about so much is actually the author’s passionate love of Allah and His Messenger – which manifests on the tongue and in the actions of all the characters who figure in his stories. The real tasawwuf of the work can only be understood if it is treated as a tafsir of the Quran, a sharh of the life of the Rasoul, on whom be peace and blessings and a confirmation of the sunna of the jamaa’a. Then the reader has no escape, nowhere else to go – but ever closer to the Messenger and Allah. This can only be unsettling for the kafir and sweet for the mumin.

The slave girl’s sickness rendered her as thin as a rake, the eyes of the King ran with tears of blood; with the application of honeyed vinegar, bile increased, with almond oil, dryness resulted, cherry plum caused constipation and all ease vanished; water only fed the fever like flammable oil.

Dr Sulaiman Hikmatyar:

Here we are reminded of a method of treatment which had served for thousands of years, at least since the time of Homer – prior to the imposition of pharma-medicine and the harsh outlawing of traditional medicine based on the four humours during the reign of the last Pahlavi Shah. The consequences of the chemical side-effects – listed in great detail with every item of pharma – of the current methodology in place since a couple of generations are already apparent, especial in ‘undeveloped’ countries like Iran which are often used as testing ground for new drugs. The reason why their efforts were to no avail has already been mentioned: arrogance. Real medicine, as Rumi knows, is based on trust in Allah, handing over the matter to Allah before proceeding with treatment: he is alluding to the words of Ibrahim in the Quran, ‘when I am ill, it is He who heals me’, and further to the words of the Messenger, on whom be peace and blessings, ‘There is a lump of flesh in the body which if sound, then the whole body is sound, and if rotten, then the whole body is rotten – it is the heart’. In other words true medicine is not merely removing the outward symtoms of disease but restoring harmony to a root imbalance whose origin is ‏traceable to the heart – which is the locus of this trust, namely iman.

The incapacity of the physicians to treat the slave-girl becomes clear; the King turns his face to the Presence of Allah and he sees a wali in a dream.

When the King saw that the incapacity of the physicians he ran bare foot to the mosque; on entering he made for the mihrab – the place of prostration became wet with the tears of the King. On coming to himself after being overwhelmed by fana, his tongue poured out sweet praise and du’as.

Dr Sulaiman Hikmatyar:

Again clear proof that the King was a slave of Allah: his first response to realizing that the physicians would be of no use and that the matter was in the hands of Allah is to make haste to the nearest mosque – to perform the salat, aware that a man is closest to Allah when prostrating; his going barefoot is to emphasize his state of humility. As a result of need – being deprived of the slave girl – he is reduced to an intense state of grief, but then quickly finds proximity to Allah and is accorded the gift of fana: his self and its desires disappear and in gratitude he gives thanks to Him. That all this occurs in a mosque and in public, further demonstrates the nature of the King’s experience of tasawwuf: he is no majnoun, no mad dervish immersed in a permanent state of divine attraction, but rather a sober wayfarer in the outward, momentarily overcome by divine passion. Moreover his choice of the pre-eminent part of the mosque, the place where the imam stands to lead the salat, namely the mihrab – literally the ‘locus of war [on the nafs]’ – attests not only to his passive submission but also to his active resolve to deal with the state he is confronted with.

His dua took the following form:

[When one asks oneself] ‘Who has bestowed the gift of the kingdom of the world – this most paltry of things?’ then what could I possibly have to say? given You are aware of all that is concealed.

Dr Sulaiman Hikmatyar:

The King is again affirming his submission to the Lord of the worlds who has created everything – by way of this declaration of His overwhelming power and the incapacity of himself.

The little boy taught me the uses and benefit of the hard keratin at fingers’ end when he asked, ‘What are nails for?’ – for ignorance of gratitude for them had hitherto dominated – perhaps Horus or Oedipus used them to gouge out their eyes; and Sh. M. i. al-Habib the centrality of the heart in ordering the function of the limbs and organs, as did He ta’ala its supersensory task when He says of many of the jinn and mankind, ‘They have hearts which they do not reflect with’.

She, a vitriolic kafira, taught me the wisdom of the deen in affirming that He has created everything in unequal pairs, each of the twosome complementing the other: ‘[Women] are clothing for you and you for them’.

He, the academic, the author of the King Olaf drama, taught me to polish my shoes, a military touch.

Er, auf dem roten Weg, der das 'Asr salat machte, stehend ohne Ruku',und wahrscheinlich auch ohne Wudu, in einem zentralen Londonen Parklein, lehrte mich die Nahtlosigkeit des Seins zwei Minuten vor Maghrib.
It, the one time 'Meadows', now a one hundred and twenty by eighty kilometer zone of concrete and cars, sometimes racing, sometimes jammed, but always roaring, blaring or a din, taught me the meaning of His words, taala, 'Fa-ayna tadhhaboun?'. Quite unlike the as yet tranquillity of the Rawda of the Rasoul, peace and blessings be upon him. But for how long?: as the slave of the Powerful One has pointed out, tourism is the quickest method to teach a people kufr; the main concern of the app, tawakalnaa, is that you have been twice jabbed, not whether you are among the submitted. The inviolability of the two harams is as always in His hands: said ‘Abdul-Muttalib to Abraha: 'I am owner of the camels, my purpose in visiting you is to get my property back. Regarding the Ka‘ba, it has its Master, He ta'ala will take care of it Himself. I need not to worry about it.'

He of the endless past-history reruns of anxieties taught me it takes all sorts to make a world; how different from he who explained that all fears are ultimately seated in the thought of death.

The regulated assigning of half-hour fixed time-slots to renew an inländer passport at the Ordnungsamt taught me why the thirty or so strong queue of men, women and children were standing for an hour or two in the rain outside the Ausländeramt; however, resentment was not the issue for the rain was gentle and the social mood genial.

He of the 'Journey to the King' taught me that if he's comfily fit, then all is well for others, not unlike 'un seul etre ne vous manque et tout va bien'.

The plump akhund with the okhra fingers taught him to rinse the tap before turning it on.
He taught the wench from Swanage how to pack her bag, and so by extension the tricks of the whole packaging industry. 

And Allah ta’ala sent the crow to teach Qabil how to bury his brother.

Eagle eyed, sayyid-turbanned, courageous without a doubt for standing up to the Peacock Pahlavi, swirled around by akhunds and civilians alike, he bad a rich bazaari remove a gold ring before he would speak with him.

The centre had moved from Persepolis to Qum, maintaining initially powerful personal persian rule: ministers without ministerial buildings came to be ministered to, leaving with their oral instructions, without paperwork, on trust.

But short was the time before the man of finance had found his building and brandished triumphantly his gold visa card to the two emissaries from the west who had showed him the freshly minted gold and silver dinars and dirhams.

And silent was the response to the other delegation from the west who delivered by hand to the eagle eyed, turbanned one a missive explained the manifest proximity of likeness between the seizing of the hostages from the great shaytan’s embassy in Tehran and the hostage taking of Bin Yamin in the story of Yusuf, on whom be peace and blessings: both sought the father.

So it came to pass that the great shaytan father across the waters refused recognition and in defiance a mirror-parliament was set up in a mirror-frame of demokracy with mirror-fiat-chits.

The inqilaab, the revolution, had turned full turn. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.