Sunrise of the Age

S.I.Chisti

(Boulder, May 1975)

Shifts of sand like waves

of a vast ocean crawled upon each other

as fingers of a hand reaching desperately

for some point of safety – of peace - of hope,

prodded now hurriedly now gently by

the wind which hinted at an awareness of its own:

of an event for which it made preparation

then ceased all: soundless motionless wise

still and refined the wind seemed like a dervish

to concentrate its gentle breath on the

mounting chariot in the east

which silently gave break to dawn

shedding its effervescence over Palestine and the world

as though with a wordless call to worship it had come

to waken the world from its centuries of slumber . . .

Cutting through the haze of morn

three forms majestically appeared

each from a direction which had its

origin in the same place.

Approaching closer now

they brought the

triangle of their

paths to a halt

as they

dismounted.

From the north

with all the humility of one who is aware

of his true purpose the Jew walked

silently toward the point of encounter

as had been appointed in the spheres.

From his deep furrowed brow counting the pains

of some long felt separation

(from an ideal more precious than land)

slowly sprang forth the smiling forehead -

he approached the other two with palms open

receptive.

In similar fashion came the Christian

his back to the west and with radiant countenance

faced he his brothers from the east;

his mildly upturned lips like a crescent moon

received the first shower of rays from the sun

as he removed his hands from over

his weeping heart

and raised them high in greeting.

The nostrils quivered with checked emotion

on the tawny face of him that came

from the southern desert lands

but his breath was cool

gentle as the hands which clasped those

of the two who joined him in a

prolonged embrace . . .

As petals opening to a new day

they drew apart from one another

and while the patient moon faded off into the distance

these three lovers in one body

quietly emptied their cups

to await the passage and entry of the

breath . . .

Caftans and course robes were all that moved

in the silent breeze while the air all about

grew still.

Then with one great surge of clarity and spontaneity

the three in one voice penetrated the air

with sounds which burst forth from their hearts

and resounded from their mouths

creating barely perceivable ripples

throughout the desert atmosphere . . .

Walking in a star formation circularly

with three hands becoming their pivot

lids closed eyes focused on the Beloved:

From out of Jewish lips rang Ya-Hu-Vah! slowly with

a formidable determination as Aba! or Abwoon! joined in

formed on the tongue of the lover of Christ.

Completing the harmony with an intoxicating tone

the sound of Allah!

emanated from the soul of the Muslim

rocking the entire Being in its three parts.

The separate sounds of each member could not remain so

for long – and with the sun watching

from the peak of its arc

the three Names of the Beloved slipped deftly

from one mouth to the next

so that the forms of distinction became

shattered images and there remained

no longer the cluster of ideals

dancing with one another – for all that was left

was Love dancing alone to the vibration

of one sound: Ya-Hu! . . . the inner sound

which opens all gates permeates the worlds

music of the spheres; 'O He!'

The sun hovered reluctantly over the western horizon

blazing with ecstasy

hoping to to stay time for just one more hour

to see the dance completed . . .

As it lay peering from behind distant hills

the human nucleus slowly disbanded itself

and again became divided in form:

The hands of one clasped over his heart;

another's in a position of upward directed prayer;

and a third with hands resting on shoulders -

the salt water produced from their necks

and foreheads

now was flowing from their eyes

for no longer could they restrain the tears

of Union – and reunion.

Nodding quietly in the dim light of dusk

they turned in Silence

and mounting their patient beasts

returned toward their respective directions

while the sun, quenched and satisfied,

retired.

“THIS IS THE NEW AGE.“

Cinderallah, a Dervish Folktale

told and illustrated by Sam Inayat-Chisti

(March 1984)

Tosun Baba sat in the great stuffed chair and opened a box of surprises: Turkish Delight, taffy, figs, nuts, halwah – this was a perfect uncle! And as each child settled down for the traditional story, Tosun Baba lit his cigar. While he drew in the aroma, blowing smoke rings thoughtfully over his head, he opened the evening to requests.

“Cinderella!“ cried one. Tosun allowed a significant pause, his severe eyes glinting with mirth, then began, “Cinderallah, I believe, is the correct version.“

And thus he related:

In a little hamlet near near Anatolya there lived a girl named Cinderallah. She lived with her proud step-mother and two vain sisters who set her to work day and night at every kind of chore they could dream up.

For all her fourteen years, Cinderallah never knew her father, and she'd lost her mother at a very early age to some dire political circumstances of the time.

In fact, she never could recall just how her present family came about, and whenever she inquired all she received were sarcasm and ill retorts.

“Yer hardly worth yer bread 'n' butter – go earn yer keep,“ they'd shout, or, “Why, you little Armenian, you have no roots, you sprang from the gutter.“

Always a cruel jibe, and always overlooked by their mother. The two sisters, Figstein and Muldoon, were as vain as they were beautiful (to behold), and as insensitive as they were vain. It was a fact quite unknown to the humble Cinderallah, that the frivolous and petty riches they flaunted before her had fallen into their greedy hands from her own real inheritance left her by her mother and hidden from her by her wily step-mother, Um Mathilde.

Cinderallah had none of the delicious halwah and Turkish figs that her sisters consumed in quantity. Occasionally on returning form the market with fresh coffee and baklava, she was allowed a few flakes of the filo off the mouth-watering pastry. There never was enough Turkish coffee for the little missy, she had to content herself with the dregs.

The mice pitied her, though, and she fancied they were dancing for her as she worked alone into the night on any typical evening when her sisters were off to the gambling houses or a social banquet, with Um Mathilde as chaperone.

But think not that Cinderallah was bitter. Petty thoughts were beneath her, for she was nobly born, she just didn't know where. And the little mice were not her sole consolation. She had a little song she sang while busy with her chores.

She had heard the words in a dream once and never understood their meaning, but it had a nice tune – and, well, she had rather a nice voice. The reason she was gifted with such a voice was because she imagined in her heart that every young girl should have a beloved – so perhaps one day she would have one too, and all the housework became for her a preparation for the day she would marry her beloved and please him.

And how she sang these silly little words, a simple heart-felt phrase:

SUB-HAAN-AL-LAH CINDERALLAH.......SUB-HAAN-AL-LAH CINDERALLAH...

...SUB-HAAN-AL-LAH CINDERALLAH.......SUB-HAAN-AL-LAH CINDERALLAH...

And then she would give a deep sigh.

She would sweep to the rhythm she created with the words, wash dishes to the rhythm, sort laundry, scrub floors, bake bread, churn butter – all to the rhythm. And all for her precious Nobody, her undiscovered beloved, her Someday person.

She also kept a little pear-shaped medallion, her only possession, on a string around her neck. She could not make out the strange scrawling on the medal, but as it was all she had to her name, she kept it and polished it frequently 'til it shone like a star over her gentle little heart.

“Tonight is a fest-night,“ chided her step-mother, Um Mathilde. Startled out of her thoughts, so far away had they transported her, the girl stumbled over the basket of laundry she was just mending.

“Idiot wretch of an urchin!“ snapped Um Mathilde. Then her face relaxed into a sweet maternal countenance, sweet as eels in a smooth pond, of course. “Now, darling, be a good girl and finish your work, we need those garments for the fest. If you have everything done in time you will be spared a beating for your laziness, and you may have what is left of supper after we have left.“

“Will there be … festivities, ma'am?“ Here Figstein and Muldoon entered, bodices undone and barbs on their tongues. (Cinderallah had always admired thier comeliness, considering herself quite plain, as they'd have her believe.)

“Festivities! You runt, wouldn't you like to know! The best halwah!“ Figstein smacked her lips mockingly.

Muldoon pitched in. “And baklava by the bushel! Ha – and handsome men from good families. They'd hardly notice you. But we will dance away the night!“

Cinderallah's eyes grew wide. Halwah, sweet dish! And – baklava by the bushel! She almost swooned with ecstasy. Surely her secret beloved, when he comes for her, will own a bakery. (She'd write it in, on the petition inscribed on her tender heart.) “And so there will be … music?“

The sisters cackled. “Oh, what an innocent! Drums, little one, and rebab!“ Um Mathilde clapped her hands. “Now, darlings, it's time to get on with our preparations. Cinderallah has work to do, her break is up – she has much to complete for tomorrow night's festivities which we are holding here.“

All three girls were excited over the surprise, not the least Cinderallah. “Ah, Um Mathilde, then I shall be able to see my first celebration!“ She was so elated.

But the matron only turned a cold glare on the girl. “Cer-tainly not!“ So harsh was that response, Cinderallah nearly fell off her stool. Left alone to her mending, she suddenly felt an impulse to weep.

And weep she did. She fell straight to her knees, her palms outstretched and pleading. Through her flowing tears, all that the girl could force from her throat were those two words to her beloved.

“Sub-haan-al-lah, Cinderallah … Sub-haan-al-lah, Cinderallah ...“ And only the mice paid heed, and gathered in a circle about her.

Tosun Baba took a long draw on his cigar, and closed his eyes in contemplation as though lost altogether in memories far away. Abruptly coming to after a melancholy pause, he cleared his throat and tugged at his mustaches. “Well! To jump ahead ...“

Um Mathilde and her daughters headed out for the festive event, with all of its promise of wine, song and dainties – and perhaps romance.

“Looks as though we'll all of us be up all night,“ sneered Um Mathilde, as a parting remark, accompanied by the snide giggling of her two daughters. “Just have those slips finished for tomorrow, or you'll hear something!“

SLAM! Went the door.

And Cinderallah was quite alone, save for the mice.

The old mouser-cat, Vespa, had seen his days chasing mice and was now reduced to a household fixture. He got up from his nap and waddled his stiff bones and shredded fur to his only mistress, rubbing a figure-eight in and out of her ankles.

She reached down to lift him in her arms, but as she touched his fur she received such an unusual shock from him, she jumped backward and landed in the basket of laundry, her ears shaken by a thunderclap and the sound of a drum being struck.

When she came to her senses, there stood in the room with her a tall and powerful figure, a woman of the noblest bearing by far that Cinderallah had ever imagined. She came no closer than the doorway, yet obviously the door had never opened.

In her astonishment she had missed altogether the transformation of the mice into handsome and noble dervishes, lovers of the most beautiful and glorious Truth. And Vespa? Vespa was one too, of incalculable age but of equally potent manner.

As Vespa began handing out instruments to the former mice, a rebab here and a drum there, cymbals to this one and a ney to that, and as each instrument was reverently received with a kiss and a touch to the brow, the girl turned and beheld the woman – who beheld the girl with a most affectionate gaze.

Before Cinerallah could offer her a stool, a dervish-mouse had already produced a sheepskin on which this lady sat and motioned for Cinderallah to take her place by her side.

The girl modestly did as she was told. The lady held her hands in one hand while her other arm enfolded Cinderallah so, so mildly and caressed her all the while that the musicians played. Only the blaze in the fireplace lit the most serene smile on the lady's lips.

The noblewoman whispered to the girl, who now was enchantingly soothed by the sway of the music and the deep effect it had on every particle in the house. “We have heard your prayer, O pure one,“ she began, “and have come to you, to take you to the Beloved.“

“Ah!“ gasped the girl. “Then you love him too? … I – uh – mean, you know him? Uh … who is … where is he?“ She looked in every direction for someone.

The lady laughed. “Show me your medal, dear one,“ was all that she answered, but oh, how her eyes sparkled. Her laughter was like bells. Wide eyed in disbelief, Cinderallah showed it to her. Without even taking her eyes off the girl's to look at it, she asked, “Do you know what it says?“

“I – can't make anything of it … is … is it writing?“ stammered the girl.

“Read.“ commanded the woman.

The girl's glance darted nervously from the lady's eyes to the medal, to her own lap, back to the medal, then the lady's face, which now appeared illuminated all of itself. Suddenly the girl's confusion stopped. All sound stopped. She lost her sense of her own face, as it were, in the lady's face before her. And as if the whole space around were speaking to her, inside and out, she was all at once compelled to hear and to utter these words:

“What is being looked for – is what is looking.“

The lady merely nodded and turned Cinderallah's attention to a blind dervish-mouse who began to sing. After the song, more music, and dervish-mice formed a circle, each in turn greeting the lady with a bow.

“This is a night of Remembering,“ began the lady, without turning her eyes from the ceremony now taking place. “I am called Um al-Qadr, Mother of Power, also Mother of Dervishes. By remembering the Beloved, the beloved of all of us, you have remembered us right into your living room. We have always been together. ...“

Cinderallah was in a daze. Now old Vespa-dervish went to the center of the circle and turned round and round, his gray whiskers catching the firelight. When he had finished his Turn, Um al-Qadr rose majestically and, taking her young novice by the hand, led her to the center of the ring. But for these two, all voices softly chanted, “Subhaanallah, Cinderallah...“ And the chant grew louder and faster, whereupon Um al-Qadr took hold of both Cinderallah's hands and leaned back a bit, and made her lean back a bit, and round and round they turned!

Cinderallah was altogether dizzy, but Um al-Qadr held her pretty tight, and instructed her to just look at her face and forget all the rest. The girl was only too happy to comply, and never once did they stumble or bump anyone. Then eveything stopped quite suddenly. The two just stood there, eye to eye – Cinderallah was so full she could hardly stand it. The blind one sang and the others joined in. The chanting got stronger again, and she just closed her eyes, as the voices rang out huskily, like the sound of sawing wood:

“Hal – wah, hal – wah,“

swaying with each syllable, side to side, back and forth as a circle. In the excitement, one or another single voice would shout above the rest:

“Bak – lava! Bak – lava!“

Then all came to a finish, and only the blind one sang, and after that, the ney-flute with its reverberating overtones.

Cinderallah opened her eyes to find herself once again beside her newfound “mother“ on the sheepskin, who now addressed the girl with fond familiarity. “Daughter,“ (oh! How wonderful the sound of it to the child's ears!) “long have you sung that name – Cinderallah. So we heard, so we responded. We heard 'send her Allah' when you longed for your beloved. So we came. Now we are all here, you know with whom you belong, your real family. And it is time you receive a new name: Rahima. For you have known mercy.“

Cinderallah was so elated she was numb. As all prepared to rise, Um al-Qadr placed a kiss on Cinderallah-Rahima's brow and said, “It is time to come home. Leave behind what is old and follow your heart. You will be shown where to find us.“

And in a twinkling Vespa the cat lumbered out of the circle, and as he moved closer to Rahima he grew and grew in size, covering her entire view of the room and overwhelming her. For the moment she felt the fur of that gray beast against her cheek, the thunderclap shock overtook her as before.

When she came to, her only company was an old useless tomcat and some mice. She sat there a while and looked at them, trying to see the handsome fellows, her brothers-in-the-Beloved. “Nope,“ she shook her head. “I don't believe it.“

At dawn, which followed shortly after, she heard the footsteps at the door. “They're back!“ she leapt up and pushed back some loose strands of hair. Looking at the uncompleted tasks, she saw that it was hopeless. A beating and more scolding were inevitable.

The sisters came rolling through the door exhausted. For the first time, Cinderallah saw how pathetic and ugly they really were. For their outer beauty was far outweighed by the nastiness they had cultivated within. The garden overrun by the weeds, as it were. Their mother was left behind in thier haste to return. When she finally arrived Cinderallah took pity at her wretchedness and helped her into a chair. She looked dreadful.

What had happened? Nothing had happened. Cinderallah's eyes had only opened and now she saw her “sisters“ and step-mother as they really were, without dignity and without comeliness.

And she remembered Um al-Qadr's words: leave the old, follow your heart. She felt a number of strong feelings pulling at her heart. She felt angry at having spent so long in such unfortunate company, she wanted to kick them out and tear the place down. And, she felt merciful toward them, for they were indeed an unhappy lot, without knowledge or kindness or sympathy, without any true refinement. They were fat and grotesque to behold.

But most of all, Cinderallah-Rahima longed to be with Um al-Qadr. As that thought settled in her the best, she felt very sensible about it, and without further delay put on her thin, shabby overcoat, pocketed some bread for the journey and started out the front door.

She turned to say goodbye only once, thanked them for giving her a roof, and announced that she was taking to the open sky and roads unknown, to join her real family.

“Who do you think you are!“ they demanded, trying to be fierce. But she no longer believed it, and neither did they. “Who'll do the work around here?“ they clamored.

“I dunno,“ called Rahima over her shoulder. “I've finished my task here.“ And on she walked. The din of cries and abuse and cajoling and threats and more weeping grew faint behind her. As far as she knew, they'd just as well eat each other up. And of course, they did.

Rahima just kept right on walking.

The End

* * *

Translation into German by author (illustrated):
http://samuelinayatchisti.blogspot.de/2014/06/derwisch-marchen-oder-wie-cinderallah.html

"If you must know . . . "

I am the Jew no congregation would have a place for, I am the Christian no church could rein in, I am the Muslim no mosque would know what to do with. I am free to worship where I Am.

I am my only pupil. I am alone in the all-pervasive community of those like myself who worship and celebrate God on their own two feet, consciously and creatively and in joy.

My form of expression reflects East and West both, without the least contradiction.

What I do I've been doing already for thousands of years, I am very old. And I am very young, even newborn, I am a child. Like you, I am here to learn and to develop consciously.

I am your servant.

I am here to remind you that God is our Lover, not our Jailer.

I don't believe in some “God-of-Other“ much less try to love that.

I love God, only therefore do I believe in God, for I have faith in That which I love; this relationship only confirms and strengthens and increases my faith and my love. Belief is only an opinion – you can believe in something now and drop it later.

He is closer to me than my own jugular vein, closer to me than my own breath. Therefore I sense my pulse and stay fixed and concentrated on or in my breath, call it breathing practice if you will, the practice of conscious breathng.

Concentration here and now on pulse and on breath, the awareness of His presence, this alone makes me present. Conscious singing is also a form of breath practice, with voice – such are its qualities: it is celebratory and increases joy, or it is healing, or it is creatively enabling for me and for those on whom it works in the surrounding reaches of the atmosphere which it charges. This is a matter of factual practice, not philosophy or discussion. Nor is what is being sung discussed right here. That always depends on what is needed. Sometimes it is to ground, sometimes to elevate and produce more joy.

Imagine someone you love – someone not living with you, but someone you know and see often or rarely – someone you love ever so much. Imagine that that person was everywhere you turned, ever present for you wherever your thought was with or of that person. You wouldn't need to go to their house to find them. Likewise do I have no need of a church, a synagogue, a mosque. Nor do I reject them.

Someone landed in Heaven after living a life hell-bent on getting to Heaven – so she got there, and was ceremoniously ushered in to “Jesus“ - but after getting all excited over this figure who was cut right out of her Sunday-school idea of how He'd always appeared, she noticed it didn't move, it was made of cardboard. She got upset and asked where Jesus was, this is not what she'd quite bargained for all her life.

She was told, “Oh, He's hardly ever here, that's why this is up. Actually, He doesn't even look like this, no image could actually hold Him or depict Him, He's pretty indescribable. Where is He? Oh, He's probably in Hell, goes there a lot, spent His first 3 days there, you know, after His...well, you know. What's He doing in Hell, you ask! Well – what's He supposed to do up here, hand out candy? He passes through all the Hell realms, dear, He brings the highest light into the deepest darkness and...well, you know, transforms outer Being. Oh my, you don't know. Well, you'll have to go ask Him. So if you want to find Him, and be near to Him and give your hand into His hand - go to Hell, if you'll pardon my saying so – go there where He is, not here where you can take it all easy. But please, if that is what you want, if it's Heaven you want, then by all means stay here, you'll be sweetly taken care of, you can chat and gossip with all your fellow believers over coffee and cake. No telling when He may drop by, so stick around, it's very nice here you know.“

So I have no longing to go to Heaven to meet a cardboard Lord, I'll go meet my Lord wherever He is and wherever He'll have me meet Him, and if that's Hell, I can manage that with Him, my Beloved, beside me, my place with Him is there wherever I am needed.

Love of religion is not love of God, the latter has nothing to carry on its sleeve, there is no ego in it. And it carries no aggression or need of recognition or to “prove“ something, therefore it supports no missionizing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YcOQY-n-EWs

Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?

Just read a synopsis of  "The Tree of Life," with Pitt'n'Penn., I may see it when it comes out.

It gave a jog to what I'm always trying to point out.  No one has "left."  We still hold up "God" as "Other" and there's the rub.  It's not that He has "forsaken" us in our suffering.  That IS the suffering, this "Otherness" which we've bought into, the "Otherness" of the "God" of religion.  It's not even that we're "a part of" Him.  A part of something can be severed, cut away.  Then you are apart.  This is ALL in the mind, not in Reality at all.  In the mind that may be real indeed, and out of this bizarre Ignorance massive destruction can be visited by people on other people.  Yet "in Him we live and move and have our Be-ing."  We're not forsaken, we've only forgotten.

If God Alone exists, either "you" don't (correct), and you are the illusion or dream or fantasy - or else, you are in and of Him, neither a part nor apart (also correct) - the rest is developing your Relation-ship with That.  Be that through your religion or whateveryoucallit, you are divine in your humanity.

Now I just read again where the great (physicist par excellence) Steven Hawkings is not afraid of his eventual death and is a declared scientific atheist.  Well and good, he says of course we have to stand on our own two feet (neither of which he has, but that's beside the point) and take responsibility for our own destiny.  Good advice, no argument there, but the problem is that with all their certainty people who hold to a notion (it is only a notion) of "a-theism" run aground sooner or later on those very existential issues which they cannot escape.  No one on earth is born without parents.  And God is our Mother and our Father (fine, call it my notion).

Or it's like being in a room full of oxygen and claiming you don't need that to breathe, sounds silly but fitting - it is like that.

Yet even Hawkings, I read in the article, grants at least a "God-Something" as being behind the ordered chaos of the Grand Combustion we see in the Universe and all these heavenly bodies and principles coming into manifestation.  So where's that leave one?

It's exactly the religious or believing who get bent out of shape over being "forsaken" when tragedy occurs, when lives fall apart, when unbearable loss is forced upon one, when murder and mayhem reign.  Everyone can forsake you and leave you out in the cold, God cannot do that, where would He "go"?

What all the "Divine Messengers of Humanity" (who were all mystics, which only simply means they had direct and conscious, unbroken experience of God) said in one form or another, and what I find most beautifully expressed in Qur'an or by Muhammad or both, whatever:  is that God is nearer to one than one's jugular vein, nearer to one than one's own breath.

Not that you'll find a Muslim who believes that, any more than you'll find the average Christian who grasps Jesus Christ, or a Jew who knows this any better.

Consider a light bulb.  You have a thin, tender little wire in there, you could snap it by just shaking or dropping the bulb without even breaking the glass.  Bummer, shit happens.  But when the juice is turned on there's an electric current permeating that wire.  That gives out a light which fills the bulb, and this being glass, illuminates the whole room.  So you can find those keys you left laying around somewhere.

I would gladly, gently remind any who wants to know "Where was God when..." - Go into that bulb of yours, study that wire, give it your loving consideration, and don't "think" about the electricity in the house, that's been taken care of, just hit the switch and leave it on.

Forsaken?  Switch on the juice, it was always there and never left you.

Love is the key.

Dawn / Angelina Turning Six

Dawn

(this while training the better part of a year
at Ft. Huachuca, southern Arizona)

The little crimson blossom as it shoots forth

from the tip of a leafy branch

and full-lipped roses unchaffed by the sun,

cooing in the sparkling air,

and the chorus of finch and swallow

as they herald in the dawn outside my window;

and truly the singing mountain ridge which speaks

and speaks to them and to me ceaselessly   ceaselessly,

whose robust arches and gorges, embracing lakes

branch out to draw me into their embrace:

All of this testifies that we are loved where we stand.

As I see, and as I hear,

so also do I love in return, ceaselessly.

And everywhere I turn my beloved turns to me.

Angelina Turning Six
(Berlin, ca. '89, after watching the Moscow Circus)

The green leaves of summer turn to red or flaming yellow

or dusty orange or woody brown;

then drop to the November autumn quiet, mellow

Nature's carpet windswept ground.

With every leaf's appointed curling, circus clowns to other callings

take with them their prancing poodles, pranks, pianos . . .

Each season brings us, in its whirling, closer still to

birthday scrawlings

Crayons, play-doh, pens, computers; camels, hippos, cats and rhinos

march across the stage of childhood dreams and whims and fancy, roaring

out their song of life as five rolls into six.

You turn the page and join the screams of wildness celebrating, soaring

high on swings and swinging high in playground monkey tricks.

Khadija

Mother of orphans, refuge of women denied their nobility,

had Mary herself been dressed in Arab finery

she'd not have been more merciful.

A widow's wealth more measured in heart than coin or cravans -

God's grace in her! she slept with the troubles of others

in the confort of her house mending broken lives.

Noble Khadija, jewel of Mecca! in your arms

you cradled even him your spouse,

the master of a great legacy.

Bearing the unbearable for his sake, at his side, mirror of his soul -

he carried in himself the destiny of a great people

as you carried in yourself the weight of his own.

Khadija!  I hear you within,

Kha . . . rising straight and forceful, piller of strength;

Dij . . . diving into the very depths of love;

and Ah . . . bearing up joy and favor for those who have none.

Khadija!  Mother of potential wealth, satisfier of need,

God's gift to a man who was a gift to the world.

Khadija the Great, rarely heard of,

But known, known well in the hearts of those who recognize

what a miracle is womankind.

S. Inayat-Chisti, July 1986

Open Letter to the "Muslim" World (Berlin, Oct. 2010)

"In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful."

This is the way the world is reached and the Word preached and hearts and minds won toward the furtherance of Humankind.

When "God is Most Great" is used as a sword or a truncheon, it is diabolical and real blasphemy.  Its true purpose is as a shield, and I invoke its God-given blessing as such against the Darkness which calls itself The Religion of Submission yet offers no light.

I will not directly address the attitudes of an archaic Shari'a (bordering on primitive superstition) here or the archaic and likewise primitive view toward - and treatment of - women, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, as these are entire subjects to themselves and are already being handled (albeit very late) in the public forum.  Still less often does one hear of Islamist, if not generally Muslim, bigotry and racism being confronted and exposed for what it is, and its self-serving double-talk of victimhood and superiority.

Hitler did not have a Jewish problem on his hands, the German Jews had been here since the Romans founded Augsburg, and the Jews from Eastern Europe were just barely able to make a foothold in Germany, they were struggling with day to day matters.  Neither were they in a position to, nor had any inclination, to take over Germany, much less Europe, establish a Jewish Reich, or for that matter resort to the smallest form of violence to achieve any end whatsoever.  They were very very integrated.  Very.  And we know what befell them - under Hitler.  Since then we have a social-democratic Federal Republic with a Constitution worth defending, whose foremost Basic Law is about the non-negotiability of human rights for every human being.  That includes, by the way, homosexuals, who in the Muslim world are still denied rights, are persucuted and murdered for just being what they are.

Many Muslims, both (most visibly) Turks and those from Arab lands, have over the past two generations sooner or later integrated.  Out of cultural and/or to greater extent ideological, let us even say political, reasons many have not and will not, and have no intention of integrating.  Jews never used violence, Muslims certainly.  Jews have not killed Jews in the name of Judaism, nor have Germans killed Muslims, but Muslims certainly kill Muslims, all the while claiming to follow him who said, "Muslims - kill not your brethren Muslims" and, "Faith is a restraint against all violence. let no Mu'min commit violence" and , "There is no compulsion in Islam" - well, we know from a long history of it, how far that went.

Jews, widely and generally speaking, do not hate Muslims.  So long as the latter are not bombing one's subway or busstop or café.  Jews are typically oriented (may I use that word?) toward bridge building and reconciliation, in fact moreso with other groups than within their own, sadly enough - but that's another story.

Muslims to a large extent, when they're open about it or among themselves, hate the Jews.  And I don't mean Israel, that's a granted for a "good Muslim".  I mean Jews, and this goes way back.  While Hitler was persecuting and murdering Jews in the millions, no Muslim lifted a finger to protest - with perhaps the one exception being the King of Morocco, may God be pleased with him - Jews however have spoken out for the rights of Muslims in the West, and I have yet to see Muslims returning the favor.

I am primarily addressing the ideology of Islamism which horrendously calls itself Islam.  Shari'a is placed as a partner to Allah, if not in fact above God, and I mean this.  (Abstain from pork and dress warmly, that's "Islam", that's it!)  When fundamentalists work their poisonous evil and nothing is undertaken by those of their population who are moderate to counter this, then the latter share in the culpability.  The only true enemy of Islam are the Muslims themselves.  They have proven Islam is dead, folks.  Islam is dead, it died with its Prophet, and lives on secretly in the hearts of those who know and address Allah directly and have the light and the joy and the unconditional love to show for it.

Envy, self-pity and a thirst for power (read: conquest, not empowerment) are the severe cancers which still affect the Muslim world, East or West.  So with Germany under Hitler, so with the Muslims.  If this does not apply to Muslims worldwide, then please stop referring to yourselves as "Ummah".  We can throw in hypocrisy and cowardice - the one, every time Allah and His Prophet are invoked, the other when it comes to confronting the alarmingly growing fascistic movement extending from its fundamentalist ideology.  Only through love is God made a reality in one's life and proved in this world.  As with all fatalistic, fundamentalist ideological trends, when hope of "paradise" and fear of "hell" pass for "religion" - there is only a business deal, primitive arrogance, ignorance, bigotry, war.  "The most excellent Jihad is that for the conquest of self."  Hadith, of course, but who cares?

Compare the few editorial cartoons in the Danish press with the countless cartoons in the Arab press all over the Middle-East depicting exclusively Jews:

a) The Danish can be called editorial, they addressed a specific outrage with irony befitting such cartoons' purpose; the Arab cartoons have an historic persistence in strictly anti-Jewish hate-propaganda modeled after the Nazi Streicher's "Der Stürmer" - so all the knee-jerk accusations of Western "racism" are of course gravely misplaced.

b) However uncalled for the Danish cartoons may have appeared (which I doubt), they could not possibly measure in tastelessness to the gratuitously graphic insinuations and venomous Jew-baiting and hate-mongering one sees regularly in the cartoons coming out of the Arab world.  "It is not worthy of a speaker of truth to curse people."

You also never miss a chance to bash the Germans, the social-democratic Federal Republic with charges of racism, at the merest onset of criticism - because doing so is cheap and irresistable, it is easy, and unfortunately it works on the German politicians - and you spare yourselves the trouble of reflection and introspection while grabbing a free ride.  Then you defend your (dubious) "honor" in doing so!  Where is the honor in the murder or in the crassest disfigurement of wives, girlfriends, sisters, daughters; in the disenfranchisement of your women; in forced and arranged marriage (and this at very young ages)?  "God enjoins you to treat women well, for they are your mothers, daughters, aunts; the rights of women are sacred."

Germany doesn't seem to practice "racial" profiling when it comes to Asians, Indians, Africans - from these quarters come no such accusations.  Based on one's encounters, Turkish Muslims however, view the Arabs as beneath them culturally, and both alike typically view Africans - especially the darker the skin - as still lower culturally and racially.  How the Asians are viewed I have never asked. But so much for brotherhood under Islam.  "Do you love your Creator?  Love your fellow Beings first."

While bashing the Germans for "racism" of course, you never miss an opportunity to compare yourselves to the Jews under Hitler while in the same breath baiting when not openly denying their factual history under the Third Reich's Holocaust - so you can have it both ways.  Jews have neither ever bombed nor murdered (much less used their own children for suicide propaganda or sent them to die), and then on top of that blamed the surrounding culture - so where's the comparison?

And under the Nazi regime they were Stateless - they were always Stateless until Israel was founded.  Ironically they'd always seen themselves as very much belonging to the nation or State of residence - certainly the German Jews, until Hitler redefined that for them.  They had never demanded ever more synagogues, each one more imposing than the last, and they always financed their own way.  They contributed to the dominant culture creatively and generously, benefitting every Western land they inhabited.  They never murdered other Jews or bombed each other's houses of worship.  When will Muslims for once in 1500 years be able to say the same?

By the way, how many churches are allowed to be built in, say, Turkey, or Iran, or Saudi Arabia?  I can hardly count all the mosques in Germany, some of the most recent monuments to Islamist presence rivaling al-Aqsa itself!

In the West, the give and take of constructive criticism is practiced and respected, self-criticism all the more so.  Jews are well known for both, whereas Muslims neither practice nor respect either.

No one in the West - no one - has a problem with Islam, rather Islam has a problem with itself, and projects that onto the world, unwilling to face itself and mature.  No one has a problem with the democratic system in principle, of whichever land, with values placing human rights above every abusively ideological scheme, political or religious.  Jews have no problem with this, in fact they have always been a force in developing it.

The mistrust toward "Muslims" cannot be surprising in view of the Islamist intention of non-integration, non-development - and eventual conquest of Europe if not the world.  This is no mere exaggeration, as I'd once thought.  The elements of the Muslim world - and they are just that, elements - who actively seek this are the ones armed to the teeth with arsenals and a network of outreach and propaganda.  The majority of respectively integrated and still genuine Muslims have to check their own attitudes and ask themselves why they won't put a stop to those elements, why they remain silent or ineffectual.

If you are not influenced by fatalistic, fundamentalist Islamism, you might find this disturbing - I would as a Muslim.  Why don't you open your mouths and change that?  Instead of pathologically and pathetically blaming "The Other".

Apropos racism:  "Muslims" find especially fertile ground in old "Leftists" as well as the extremist Right, both of whom already long share a combatively entrenched antisemitic attitude.

Here in Berlin where I live, so many take me for a Turk.  The Turks even take me for a Turk.  They are sometimes dismayed when I don't respond in their tongue - which is okay, we're in Germany after all, I don't normally speak English here either.

What shall I say when asked if I am a Muslim?  If I am truthful, neither yes nor no will fit.  So I shall have to confess:

"I drink wine and I eat pork products.  I bear no one ill will, but greet those I pass with open gladness, associating no fault.  I hear myself repeating 'la ilaha illa'llahu' on every breath all day long and in the night.  For I know for a fact - and not a belief, but with sheer joy - that Allah is my Source and my Destiny, and is closer to me than the vein in my neck.  And I know for a fact that even if I don't see Him, verily He sees me.  And that He is Love itself and the Source of it.  And I know all this because I am united with ALL the illuminated souls He has given the world, known and unknown, who form the embodiment of the Master, the Spirit of Guidance."

And this in plain German.  With a non-intrusive Star of David visibly dangling from my neck.