DefSufi

Shana Tovah to my Jewish friends!

Ramadan Mubarak to my Muslim friends!

May the lessons and insights of our holy days bring us closer to the Reality of God, and immerse us in His wisdom, peace and blessings.

I received an email newsletter today from a writer who was the leader of the Open Source Religion project at Assignment Zero. This is something that I participated in over the summer, and I greatly enjoyed it.

This gentleman, David Crumm, has been a religion writer for many years, and from 1986 until this month, he had been with the Detroit Free Press. I've had the chance to read many of his articles via the Internet, and have enjoyed them all.

And so I was excited to get news about his new venture, Read the Spirit.

Below is a quote from the site:

"Later this fall, the www.ReadTheSpirit.com Web hub will become the global home of this effort, including David Crumm's Top 10 recommendations of spiritual books in several categories, news about important new religious voices and online opportunities for readers to tell us what they think - and share their ideas and news about their own regional discussion groups with the rest of the world.
    Read the Spirit also will be the home of the Spirit Scholars Writers Community, a global, online circle of creative voices producing books, Web sites and films that will explore important, emerging themes like the spirituality of aging, eco-theology and the roles of women in religious communities, to name just a few.
    For Lent 2008, starting in early February, Read the Spirit will host the U.S.'s first day-by-day dialogue on biblical themes of the season between David Crumm and two of the country's leading pastors - one an innovator in urban ministry and the other a founding pastor of one of the fastest-growing suburban megachurches in the country. Watch for that - ask your congregation to take part during Lent (you'll find details right here) -- and join in this unique experiment in spiritual connections yourself!"

It's always exciting to see people making an effort to to build bridges with religion rather than using religion to burn them.

So go on, click on the link and have a look. See how you can get involved! I know I have a pretty diverse crowd out there (the emails tell me so!...well, they may be a bit sparse, but I haven't heard from the same corner twice!), so take a chance and build something that lasts ....community and understanding!

As for me.....I'm getting out a couple of book ideas from the moth balls..... 

Blessings!

Oh...and visit Spirit Scholars as well. Lots of stuff there! 

...be careful where an open heart will lead you.

Recently, I was reading first-hand stories from converts to Islam. Many came to Islam because the Bible made no sense to them, or their religion could not provide the answers they were looking for. Some came to Islam because of the beauty they encountered when seeing a Sufi ritual like the Mevlevi sema, or when they encountered a group of Muslims at prayer.

I became a Muslim because I wanted to prove someone wrong. And it backfired. :)

I have a cousin who converted to Islam about 2 years before I did. When she told me what she'd done, I was horrified. HORRIFIED! I couldn't believe that someone so intelligent could make such a huge mistake. After all, hadn't she read the Qur'an? Didn't she know about those horrible Muslim men? How oppressed Muslim women are?

And so, in a quest to prove how misguided she was by using her own adopted scriptures as proof, I set out reading the Qur'an (in English at the time). And in an effort to be honest about it all, I approached the Qur'an the way I tried to always approach the Jewish and Christian Bible, with an open mind and an open heart.

And it was my undoing. Thank God!

Instead of a harsh, law-heavy, repressive religion, I discovered a simple, straightforward path to Allah. I discovered a religion that tells you to build a personal relationship with Allah, and that you don't need a priest, a rabbi, an interpreter. Allah, the Qur'an, prayer and common sense are all that are truly required. And when you need extra help, you go to the community for answers. I found a religion that when practiced according to Qur'anic principles deals out social justice in the way that the book of Deuteronomy cries out for it to be dealt out...as a plank of the foundation of society and not simply as a remedy after the injustice. I found a religion that gave women freedom, and dignity, the right to inherit, the right to bear witness, the right to conduct their own lives on their own behalfs. This is only a part of the Open Heart of the Qur'an.

This was a far cry from the priests who told me precisely what God wanted, or the rabbis who took ages to interpret a principle and its application based on Torah and the millennium of rabbinics since. It's not that I resented their "This is THE answer" approach....it's that they constantly told me that I needed someone between me and God to get the "right answer". The Qur'an makes it clear that this is not the case.

When I made shahadda I finally felt free from all the fetters of man-made religion. 

I also had the wonderful fortune to have "reverted" in the city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I see many of you scratching your heads until the hair falls out, wondering why I would say that. Because there, in the early 1990's, I had the good luck to have access to some of the best examples of being Muslim that I have yet to come across again: Imam Farooq Aboelzahab and his family (who are now in Ohio), and Imam Taha Tawil and his family, at the Mother Mosque of America in Cedar Rapids. Both of these men and their families were incredibly kind and welcoming to me, as was the entirety of the Muslim community in Cedar Rapids. The community there is actually pretty old. It began back in the 1880's, and by the 1930's, there was a substantial Muslim community. In June 1934 the first mosque in America was dedicated, and it is now known as the Mother Mosque of America. The Muslim National Cemetery is also in Cedar Rapids.

Yeah, I know....I'm wandering. But it all has a tie back to the original sentence, which is where an open heart will lead you.

I was and am blessed that I first came into contact with Muslims with OPEN hearts. I was not judged, I was not left to fend for myself, I was not made to feel inferiour because I did not wear jilbab and hijab when I was not at mosque, I was not told "you only can eat hallal certified this and that". Instead, I was encouraged, educated and guided, corrected when I was clearly lost, fed an incredible amount of food from all over the world, given a chance to participate in the life of the community from the start of my conversion. I have read a few accounts like mine, and I am glad.

This is so not the case for many new Muslims. They come to Islam with open hearts, and are left to flounder on their own, drowned in a sea of "why don't you/why aren't you/you should know that", and harsh, disapproving looks from those around them. I have read those accounts too, and they greatly sadden me. Thank God I was spared such treatment when I was newly Muslim.

It is only recently that I have encountered first hand the attempts to close the Heart of the Qur'an, to filter it through nationalistic sharia and twist it into a demand for mindless obedience to those in power (although I've seen it and known about it second-hand and from the news of course long before). There are many who seek to close its Heart so that women will be chattel once again, and the poor and hungry will only know what the wealthy and power mad will teach them when it serves their purposes for greed and war and death. This "re-nationalisation" of Islam, this reversion to "us and them" principles, is something that returned into the view of the West in the 1970's with the Shah of Iran/Ayatollah Khomieni, although it has gone on much longer in Saudi, with the wahabi movement, and been a minority trend for even longer. It is still a minority trend, but with media coverage and political maneouvering it is whipping up into something larger and more dangerous. And it is like plaque in the Heart. It chokes the life from Islam even as it says it will revive it. Since when did choking anything allow it to live?

A closed heart will poison everything around it. For the organ that beats within your chest, if the paths of vitality become hardened and do not let blood flow through it, then it and its host will die. If your spiritual heart becomes incapable of letting the Love of Allah flow in and out, then it too will die. Each one of us is part of the Heart at the centre of creation. Each one of us pumps the Life and Love of God through all of existence. If one of us stops, then there is less life and love able to circulate. And if we all stop.....

It is up to all of us who still feel and live and breathe and draw our nourishment from the Open Heart of the Qur'an to breathe life back into Islam. Reopen ijtihad. Realise that many of the rights the Qur'an gives to all of us are minimums, not the only choice, as in the matters of inheritance and rights for women. Remember that the Qur'an compels us to toloerance for others, to freedom of choice (including religion), invites us to the right Path.  We must remind each other that those who act with kindness, who err on the side of forgiveness, these are the best of us. The Prophet (pbuh) has said so. When you look at the Prophet (pbuh) and his example, time and again you see his actions fall on the side of compassion. On the side of mercy. On the side of forgiveness. He had an open Heart. And look where it led him. And so many after him!

An open Heart leads you (and others!) to God.

Only Love can Polish the Heart.

Share the Love, and start scrubbing.

Blessings 

I have pasted a link here to this week's edition of Newsweek Magazine. The topic is Islam in America.

I would consider it required reading. In a short, concise fashion, it attempts to set a long list of misconceptions about Islam to right. If you live somewhere where Newsweek Magazine is on your local racks, buy one for yourself and one for a friend. If you don't live somewhere that it's easily stocked, read the set of articles on the website. I promise you'll be surprised at some points, troubled at some point, and relieved at most points.

If you read it and have questions, you can email me. I'll answer what I can and refer you to someone who can answer what I can't.

Blessings,

DefSufi 

What if all it took to save the world was:

One more prayer
One more act of kindness
One more smile
One more kiss
One more hug
One more blessing
One more act of charity
One more statement of truth
One more act of justice
One more act of protection rather than agression
One more act of eco-friendliness
One more act of courage
One more act of strength
One more expression of gratitude
One more tear of joy....

Why not find out?

Kindness and blessings harm no one....

And it may only take one more to save the world.

Blessings to you all.