How Do You Propose To Discuss?

How do you propose to pursue a discussion
with someone who's identifying – much or little,
with a nearly three billion population of believers
in a 14 centuries-old doctrine which proposes
that you are kuffar and thus unworthy; or dhimmi,
and therefore second-class and taxable for it –
unless you should decide to forgo and identify as well?

How do you propose to approach a discussion
with one who either perpetrates, aids, or abets
the practice and implementation of unspeakable abuses
on an unspeakable level at an unspeakable frequency,
with an ever double-sided habit of speaking, whose
stated agenda is to make you and the world bend to its image
or else bow to its all-encompassing domination?

How do you propose to begin a discussion
with those who demand your "tolerance" but have none themselves,
who mis-use the multi-culture you already had and press it into mono-,
who will not conform to the modern jurisdiction of lands they've entered
but demand you and every land conform to the archaic court of the bedouin;
who shun the clothing you wear and the meat you eat while demanding
that you break your neck to suit the design of their environment?

How do you discuss coexistence with one who is not only
incompatible with but entirely against the very notion of democracy,
who withdraws his hand from any Western female encountered in greeting,
or who withdraws herself behind her niqab and insists
                                                                                   it's her choice and right,
who hold Jews to be apes, Christians to be pigs, Hindus to be worse,
                                                                                                 gays to be less,
and generally despises animals and nature anyway – emphatically insisting
that this is about a religion of peace, asserting this argument most aggressively?

My “Sura of the Cow” – or, When Did A Muslim

Islam gives us a radiant example

of how a religion – or ideology parading as one –

is like a cow:

The Sufi takes the udders in hand

and brings forth milk,

nourishing all;

the Muslim lifts the tail

and makes loud his proud claim

of authority.

If you plainly tell him

what that end of the cow only brings forth,

he will slit your throat and return to the mosque

with your blood on his hands.

The Sufi takes plain earth,

makes a garden of it,

feeds the world;

the Muslim sees earth,

finds it dirty and unclean, beneath him –

which doesn't mean his head is in the clouds

but up somewhere else.

The Sufi travels, seeks knowledge “unto China,”

befriends and appreciates everywhere

Christians, Jews, Sikhs, Parsis, Hindus, Buddhists.

The Muslim remains provincial though he travel,

knows everything better “unto China” –

and seeks to conquer.

(Driven much by fear and loathing,

obsessed with pork and pious clothing),

he knows his insatiable craving for recognition

will be gratified by dominating “the Other” into submission.

The Sufi has no axe to grind,

no policy or any baggage to sell;

the Sufi is no slave to mind

and wastes no thought on “heaven” or “hell.”

Sufis are not the mystics “of Islam,”

they are the Muslims' own worst nightmare –

if you really know God, they will stone or hang

you in the square!

When did a Muslim last speak to you of Love?

A Sufi speaks of nothing else but.

Sometimes I Drink Water

Sometimes I drink water from a brook, a stream,
sometimes I drink from a river, a fresh pond or a lake,
sometimes I may drink from the sweetwaters of an ocean -
after all, it's just a notion.

So it is with religion(s), as water is for all its variation, one:
religion is one, and truth is one.
Where you draw your water from is your own concern, not mine -
if it makes of you a lover, then alone is it divine.

Best expressed through Sufism, accepting all, all waters -
this is no sales pitch, dear Friend, merely a fact -
Sufism is not the "mystical side of Islam" as you've read,
Islam has none, Sufism has covered for that, let it be said:

Of others, they do indeed, for Jews the Kabbala and Zohar,
Christians a long tradition of it, Hindus and Buddhists needn't
bother, theirs are overflowing with the inner Teaching!
Without the waters of Sufism, Islam is so much dead preaching.

That This Beauty Shall Prevail

In the humble expression of this poor servant,

let this be known:

Better to fall on the battlefield

than choke on my steak in the War Room.

For it is my intention, in this my lifetime,

here-now and in reality, as in eternity,

that Sufism shall defeat Islam, prevail over and replace it entirely

with knowledge of God, with love of God.

That the Sovereignty of Love shall prevail over

and replace Muslim bigotry, racism, misogyny, hypocrisy.

That the prayers of the Great Ones and faith of the Heart

shall prevail over and replace Muslim arrogance, ignorance,

aggression, and its most primitive brutality.

That music and dance, creative literature, reason,

beauty in all its variations, shall prevail over and replace

the Muslim's native bent toward pronouncing death-fatwas,

toward pathologically underdeveloped, grossly self-conscious

phobias against any nonconformity, as against all freedom

of self-expression, against any notion of critical self-reflection,

of maturity in relation to the rest of the world:

over this shall prevail the nectar of Rumi, the fragrance of Hafiz;

the madness of Kabir and of Rabi'a shall prevail over and replace

a Muslim mentality which shuns pork but evidently not cannibalism.

That the creative openness of Sufism which embraces all faiths

and all paths toward God shall prevail over and replace this Islam

of domination, delusions of supremacy, of bludgeoning with Shari'a

every Muslim who is "other" and every culture which is not of itself.

Verily, the song and movement of Dervishes,

the Movement and the Message of Sufism through the Ages

cannot be annihilated, it is here in spite of historic repression,

and shall prevail over an Islam which never could appreciate

Sufis, Sikhs, Hindus, Christians, Jews, Buddhists - and murders them

century for century.

O Beloved Lord and Cherisher of the worlds:

let these words not prove empty, no -

let this love be active, this harmony penetrate through hearts:

that this beauty shall prevail.

Let it so Be as I, Sheikh Samuel Inayat-Chisti, have said,

who shall raise the banner of Love on that battlefield

in whichever form that comes,

and shall not fall, after so many lifetimes of this, but shall prevail.

Insha'llah.