"Hang On" or "Antonia's Dream" (a brief foray into fiction)

Based on a true story...

I knew this old woman by the name of Antonia who was my neighbor when I lived in Rogers Park on the north side of Chicago. She was a lovably eccentric but strangely wise soul. She used to come to my apartment on Saturday mornings, to say hello, in her awkward but disarming way, bringing some store bought pastries, a tradition she began soon after I moved into the apartment on Ashland. I invited her in; we would usually sit and she would simply ask after me and my life. After exchanging greetings that day, she made tea and sat at my table, regarding me with a quizzical but slightly humorous gaze, or so I thought.

She told me she had been raised Baptist and I related to her my experience of various sects and denominations of both Christian, Buddhist and Muslim belief. We often spoke of the days news, and the books we were reading. She had unusual reading habits and an extremely large library with books pouring out into her whole house, in a state of organized chaos. Sometimes in our conversations, she would ask me if I had ever dreamed of flying and would often stare at me with the most dispassionate yet serene gaze as I stuttered that I hadn't. I also frequently poured out my heart to her, about my failed relationships, my struggles with faith, and my relationships with my family.

This has been nearly ten years ago now, but I still remember the remarkable story she told me that day. In one of the comfortable silences that often pervaded our conversations, she told me matter-of-factly: “Donnie Hathaway came to me in a dream when I was 12 years old.”

We both shared a love of this amazing musician, who had tragically taken his own life in the midst of a brilliant career.

Still it was an unexpected thing to hear. I didn't know what to say, so I simply said, "what happened in the dream?"

She continued, “Well, I only knew him from my parents record collection. But one night in late April 1980, I was listening to "A Song For You", with my father on his record player, before bed. Later I fell asleep easily."

Antonia continued, "I found myself on the edge of a canyon in a dry landscape dotted with green. Looking around, I began to climb to the top of a large pine tree on a ledge midways above an enormous canyon. Sheltered in the pine's branches, I emerged eventually into a sky of intense blue. The wind whistled by my face and I looked down over an enormous green valley filled with trees. As I looked around, I saw to my surprise, Donnie Hathaway appearing out of the trees of the valley below, flying upwards without visible effort or support, while playing a chord on an instrument seemingly made of a living plant. I sat transfixed.

He held my throat in hand, cradling it. I opened my mouth and he spoke directly into my gullet. It was as if I was digesting his utterances into my stomach. He spoke the following words:

""There is no such thing as ‘religion. There is only something called ‘knowledge of the world’ which encompasses that which is seen and unseen."

He then spoke the following in an instant, almost as a download into my brain:

"We know we are made up of chemical compounds, molecules, atoms, and neutrons interacting in highly complex ways that enable our brain to function. You must integrate the full sensory and motor apparati of the body, including the brain, to learn to 'taste' and subtly evaluate your own experiences of yourself and others. The most relevant context for achieving true wisdom is an understanding of the patterns of behavior of human communities, developed through this evaluation. In college settings, the pedagogical approach to this pattern evaluation is called ' the humanities'. But you can and must also learn such things from navigating the college experience itself. You can also learn it outside of college. You can learn these patterns in a variety of ways, first and foremost by listening closely to what people say, observing what they do and developing a basic empathy for their experience as you naturally have for your own.

Most people have a carefully calibrated mix of 'theist' and 'atheist' assumptions about reality, based on what they think is sinful or shameful. These ideas are frequently in flux. This flux can seem like the arbitrary and inconsistent wind of the fickle mind, but it is in reality an appropriate response to the complexity of existence, though often seen by extremists on both sides as being either insufficient faith or too much superstition. No one can appoint themselves an ultimate guarantor of an unseen reality, nor an arbiter of conscience of the ultimate validity of the sometimes abortive processes of faith and doubt in the individual.

Most important for children is to instill a deep sense of security and love in the child by setting boundaries for it, that must also evolve to meet the growing capacity of the child's sensory, motor and higher brain functions. Ideally parents provide a degree of stability that will allow the child to forms and inform their identity while incorporating flexibility, questioning and a rational autonomy that helps insulate the child from vulnerability to cults, which often prey on misplaced but sincere faith.

The messages we need to live together, to extend the life of the human species in a sustainable manner, and to live in balance with all the seen and unseen forces, is transmitted all around us by reality itself. There is no need to debate who is and isn’t correct about such abstractions like theological conceptions of God. It is strange and contradictory that the messengers of a supposedly all powerful God come every thousand years or so and to a limited swath of humanity, in a particular language. Some civilizations actually do not appear to have a theistic conception of the ULTIMATELY REAL at all. Study the messages of the tradition of your parents, as well as other traditions, whether theist or non-theist, but do not only rely on words spoken or written by someone else in the past to make your judgements. You must also independently evaluate the character of the adherents of these traditions through the power of your own sensory apparatus and intuition. You must purify this intuition to use it well; it can also be a deeply creative source. How do you think I made the song "Giving Up"?

But you must remain humble of your own inherent limitations. Please learn early on and deeply that your experience is a combination of many different inputs, including that which goes by the name of ‘tradition’. You are also a mammal, and a complex organism with many unconscious desires. If you choose the language of God to understand this truth, then: God speaks in words, but more importantly God generates new experiences and new reality every moment. Listen to the world in silent contemplation, listen to humans in compassion, and you will eventually find the wisdom you need to survive a variety of challenges.""

In her dream, the old woman told me she was surprised to find herself speaking the following words to Donny Hathaway, as if in a trance. Actually, she said, it was as if she was singing the words together with him, as if it was a duet:

""Human life and human history is largely just a string of pointless miseries, fruitless endeavors, and civilizations that failed because of human hubris, greed and unsustainable inequality. There is beauty there too, amid the detritus of our repeated and arrogant ruin, of history repeating itself. In their ultimate failures humans managed to form social units and communities to cooperate for common good, and have at times treated each other with remarkable sensitivity and real love, which in turn contributed to a humanly obtainable model of excellence and human flourishing. Some say, if you want wisdom, do not endeavor. But do not neglect to fulfill the obligations immediately in front of you. Often larger truths emerge from this prosaic mosaic.

Look around you at what the people believe; they are mired in ignorance. Do not be too harsh with anyone, except for those who come to you and engage in obviously bad faith. Among all peoples of the world, there are those who have a deep and beautifully profound faith in a good God or a good Force that governs, guides and sometimes rewards their life and accomplishments.

The concept of God is often treated psychologically as a fetish object by some monotheists, in spite of their denigration of its material manifestation as idolatry. This is not only a 'theist' family affair; non-theist 'religions' such as Buddhism also condemn practice, of the other from their limited psychic viewpoint.

God is neither good nor bad, in any conventional moral sense with meaning to human social life. God is sometimes referred to, misleadingly, as our ‘father’. But a father is supposed, even obligated, to protect his children from danger. God knows the future and so allows human evil to happen to these so-called children, including mass killing. He listens to the cries of today’s starving in Yemen and weeps, or laughs, but doesn’t intervene in any rationally comprehensible way we can understandor communicate about. And on goes the killing, fueled by human greed, not Godly punishment.

There are many Gods, there is only one God, there is no God. All of these statements are true and false at the same time. Don’t accept any of these contradictory statements as ontological. Debating whether non-theism or theism is true is like debating whether light is a wave or a particle. The fervency of the true believers ontological preference bears very little relation to the ULTIMATELY REAL or to the hearts of those who hold fervently to it.

‘Belief' is not measurable or ultimately definable in any consistent unitary doctrinal fashion. Although there have been many attempts. it is frequently so subtle that an orthodox believer will totally lack faith, in spite of his rhetorical affirmations of the same. Meanwhile the most ignorant “kaffir” or unbeliever may have iman enough to move mountains. The ways of this quality are indeed ultimately mysterious. Avoid judging in spite of a preponderance of evidence one way or the other. For non-theists, faith would be closer to an idea of an 'unveiling' of the senses', which drills a deep insight and deliberation into one's daily practice and existence.

Atheists will sometimes put on airs of superiority, rooted in the faith they have in limited human rationality. Yet take away their material comforts, take away their faith that the world is rationally ordered, and you will see their true character many times emerge. Religious leaders and atheists share one main quality and that is hubris.

To judge anyone, look at how they treat children, orphans and widows. Pay less attention to words and more to human action. which are easily ‘prettified’ by the intelligent.

Education can be a path to truth or a path to ignorance. Many words do not always bring clarity.
Don’t be in a hurry to express truth in words, for the more this something is talked about, the further the experiential intuition gets from it.

There are many spiritual teachers today, promising an easy path to prosperity or knowledge. They may have the right words, the right robes, the right instruments of mystical communion, and yet their heart may well be as hard as a mountain of granite.

There are many political leaders today, promising the kingdom of God on earth. Remember that material inequality always generates the conditions for social upheaval. But do not expect a political messiah. Power is something humans have inherent difficulties handling in large quantities.

Our species has demonstrated at times a remarkable ability to live together and spontaneously organize itself with ingenuity and originality. One doesn't need a Harvard degree or any other fancy piece of paper to know how to do this.

Beware of painting the self-organizing tendency in human communities as primitive or chaotic and beware of those who label it so. Many times the proposed western alternative is the exertion of violent coercion to carve out an arbitrary and damaging concept of sovereign ownership so as to be able to impose a usually highly abstract and violent notion of order. The wealthy will try to use the barrier created by this violence to insulate themselves from uncertainty. Eventually the quest for total security rots the hearts and brains of these people.

Don’t be in a hurry to make a name for yourself. Be in a hurry to listen to everything and everyone.
Reading is the habit of listening to the dead. Use it to relate empathetically with the living. Engage in it daily."

Antonia said at this point her whole body began pulsating with some heartbeat that appeared to be within the intricate structural body of the sky itself. She could hear the chittering sound of sparrows somewhere below her in the tree. Donnie Hathaway spoke again: 

""Remember if there isn’t a God, then anything is permitted to humans in an ultimate sense. This is the most monstrous idea imaginable. Therefore we need God. Human beings as a species cannot live totally without some concept of the ultimately real. It informs our actions and generates both useful prohibitions and a vital survival energy.

But if there is a God, this raises probably the thorniest and most irrational problem in theistic thought. God is good, but God permitted/allowed/intended for millions of humans to die at the hands of diseases, millions of others by the instability of the planet he created, and millions more by their fellow humans. He threw his 'children' to their own devices in the most cruel and calculated manner imaginable. If there is a God (and herein lies the controversy, he is truly a sadistic monster of the worst kind. Instead of imprinting a guide to conduct in his creation, he divided humanity into languages, taught them contradictory philosophies, and then set them against each other to debate and fight about the meanings of words he allegedly spoke 1000s of years ago and which are frequently not even in their first language. God cannot be 'good' and still be God, unless God intends and also creates and actually is the source of, evil itself.

To hold these two contradictory ideas in one’s head at the same time is the path to a profound and indescribable truth. This is why it is better to root the idea of good and evil in the consequences of human conduct, in individual terms, but also in terms that minimize the destructive tendencies of hubris and hierarchy, that in turn give birth to material inequality that generates violence and instability.""

The old woman said that by the time the musician had finished saying this portion, his head was glowing like polished brass, so that she could see her own reflection in pure outline in the shape of his brow. He was smiling gently at her.

Her head was spinning and her palms were sweating onto the fragrant needles of the pine tree. She was aware of her heart beating rapidly in her chest. High in the sky overlooking the verdant valley of her dream, she suddenly felt more deeply grounded and at peace with her own body and self than she ever had before.

Donnie stopped playing the plant-like instrument, and was gradually now surrounded by millions of shimmering spheres, seemingly made of clouds, and looping around him like double helixes. She began to hear the following words--"Allahu La ilaha Ila Huwa al-Hayyul Qayyum"--recited from the mouth of a glowing Donnie Hathaway as he seemed to float away from her on the updraft of some powerful current from the valley below, though she could feel no wind. The phrase of what she only later learned was the Quran resonated and echoed for some time off the walls of the canyon.

"And then I woke up," she told me. She fell silent as I sat totally absorbed by her remarkable story. Slowly the profound and mystical impression of the narrated dream faded from the atmosphere of the room. She pulled something from a small black backpack next to her chair. "I wrote everything down that we had said together." She produced a plain blue spiral notebook and laid it on the table next to me. "You can read it if you want."

She passed me the book, and I saw her neat handwriting, in elegant thin lines of dry ink curling across the page, a written account of the dream she had just related.

As I perused the notebook, Antonia received a call from another friend and had to excuse herself. As I read her words from the notebook, I still had so many questions. Her story of her dream seemed quite surreal, and yet it was a dream, so what else did I expect? As I turned further in the notebook I saw more entries, many of them quite ordinary for a twelve year old girl, like her excitement going on a field trip to Brookfield zoo and seeing giraffes for the first time. There were also lists: like goals she had for herself by age 50, or all of the different kingdoms and phylae of life. She had also written down other dreams, though in no other one was she ever visited by anyone else.

When she came back from her call, I asked her If could make a copy of the dream from her notebook and she told me that I could, but that if I wanted to publicize the dream-advice, she did not want to have her name associated with it. She told me, "write it in a fictional story, change my name, and wait ten years before sharing."

The next day, as I copied the dream notebook into a Word document, a feeling of unease flickered back into view after the pleasant shock of discovery of the remarkable dream. I was mired in debt and my job was stressing me out. I had been feeling on edge, and my grad school routine, with long hours of solitary study, had left me feeling ever more frequently isolated and lonely. Yet the old woman’s words had lodged deep within my body and I turned them over in my mind constantly over the next few days.

...
Ten years later, as I re-write this into the emerging space of social media networks, I have still never dreamed of flying. But I never forgot the wisdom of Antonia's dream. Whenever I get into a state of deep anxiety, whenever I feel overwhelmed, whenever I doubt, whenever my spirit is troubled I think of the lyrics of the timeless song, “Someday we’ll all be free”, by Donnie Hathaway:

“hang onto the world as it spins around, just don’t let the spin get you down."

the end.
(written by Nathaniel M, March 2019)

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Donald Trump and the Nafs

Scholars of Islam, Christianity and Judaism have all provided us with excellent models for discerning the inner character of individuals through their actions. Sadly, as we well know, many of those who bear the identity of these religions fail to live out their teachings.

In the Islamic paradigm, what Christians would call the soul is called the 'nafs'. One goal of Islam, which it shares with Christianity, is to lift the nafs out of its preoccupation with the world.

Many very pious religious people voted yesterday. Many of them voted for Donald Trump. Some of them voted out of a desire to see abortion overturned. Others wanted a strong leader. Still others, in the words of Franklin Graham, voted to "stop the march of the atheist progressive agenda."

It behooves believers, Christian and Muslim, to look at the state of our next president's soul. Since he will be someone a new generation of Americans will grow to age under, it is worth asking: what can we know about the state of President elect Donald Trump's nafs, or his soul?

Donald Trump is 70 years old. He has lived a life filled with widely publicized bragging about his allegedly enormous wealth. Anyone who has seen his television shows and celebrity appearances over the past decades knows Trump's persona, and who we are getting as president. He has consistently surrounded himself with other famous wealthy people. He has been unfaithful to his wives, and divorced several. He has been plagued by lawsuits and scandals throughout his life.

The Islamic scholars of old classified the lowest level of the nafs as 'nafs al-ammara bisu. This type of nafs resides in the world of the senses, is dominated by earthly desires and passions, and is subject to the fickle whims of the emotions. This is the nafs that urges us to, among other things, get on twitter at 3am to insult those who we feel have wronged us. It is the self that gratifies itself through seeing its enemies shamed and humiliated. It is a self relentlessly forgetful of its own past shortcomings and mistakes. It is a self eager to shift blame for its actions.

Perhaps there is a side of Donald Trump that I have not seen, a tender, reflective, and self-aware side. If so, he has camouflaged it well underneath his public persona. From what I have seen, we have elected a president who is not only engulfed in his nafs al-ammara, but is completely INFATUATED with it. To be engulfed in the nafs is an understandable condition that many of us share. We all get angry at others, we all sometimes wish ill for other people, we all get cranky. To be infatuated with the nafs, on the other hand, is a sign of a deep instability and imbalance. Western psychologists have commonly referred to this condition as narcissistic personality disorder.

Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration and a lack of empathy for others. Often behind this mask lies a fragile self-esteem, vulnerable to the slightest criticism.

Trump is not the first leader to suffer from this condition, nor will he be the last. Perhaps he will do some good along the way, along with much evil. My wish is that we recognize his true nature and plan/respond accordingly.

The Creator knows best.

#election2016 #DonaldTrump

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Habib Saleh and His Influence on Islam in East Africa (Spiders and Pigeons)

The excellent blog Spiders and Pigeons has an amazing post on the Comorian/Kenyan Sufi teacher Habib Saleh.

The article asks: To what extent does the Maulidi Festival of Lamu represent the wider culture of the region? It goes on to explore the relationship between Yemen and East Africa, the dawah of Habib Saleh in Lamu among the enslaved and lower classes, and the controversial practices of maulid (Sw. maulidi). I learned a lot from reading and I highly recommend checking out the site.

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Mawlid al-Habshi Mambrui, Kenya 2006

More people need to see this! SubhanAllah, so beautiful.

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Sufis and Scholars of the Sea (book review)

by Rahma Bavelaar. Originally published in Islamica magazine, 2007. Used by permission of the author.

Anne Bang's objective in Sufis and Scholars of the Sea is to explore the history of Islam in the northwest Indian Ocean during the 19th and early 20th century, focusing on the scholarly exchange of ideas between Hadramawt, Yemen, and the East African Coast by looking at the life and works of Ahmed b. Abi Bakr b. Sumayt (1861-1925), the son of a Hadrami immigrant to the Swahili coast and respected scholar and Sufi in the Yemeni and East African intellectual traditions.
Through an empirical study of his travels to and from his ancestral Hadramawt, the family and scholarly links he fored and maintained and his work as a Shafi'i qadi in Zanzibar under the patronage of the British-Omani state, Bang seeks to elucidate several interrelated questions which have as yet received scarce attention in Western scholarship: why did members of the Hadrami tariqa 'Alawiyya become such important exponents of a new, more literate Islam in East Africa? What did they teach and what inspired their teachings? How did they maintain and expand their scholarly network across time and space? Did changes in these networks occur, and if so, why? How did the content of their teachings relate to simultaneous developments in the wider Islamic world? And what was their relationship to the British-Omani colonial authorities in Zanzibar?
The great strength of Scholars of the Sea lies in its convincing use of what are often considered purely "religious" documents, such as scholarly geneaologies (silsilas) and certificates (ijazas), as valuable historical sources that can help elucidate processes of religious change and revival.
Although the overall emphasis of the work is on change, Bang challenges the previously common perspective in Western academia that 19th-century 'neo-Sufism' represented a fundamental break with the classical, supposedly more quietist, mystical tradition of Islam. Her highly detailed description of the historical origins and teachings of the 'Alawiyya brotherhood--which closely follows the 'canonical' version taught within the tariqa itself--she emphasizes the continuity of its theological and spiritual tenets (vested in its members' dual geneaological and spiritual claim to descent from the Prophet), in spite of the far reaching institutionalization of its educational practices in the late 19th century. She also points out the continued centrality of classical mystical and legal writings to 'Alawi education in the Hadramawt and East Africa.
If institutional changes in educational practices were hardly revolutionary in Yemen, they certainly were in East Africa, Bang argues with reference to the 'Alawi scholarly class in Zanzibar, where the Hadrami's emphasis on scriptural Islam and Arabic literacy severely eroded the authority of the Swahili upper class (the Waungwana) and their monopoly, until then, on the primarily oral transmission of Islamic knowledge.
New religious practices, such as public dhikrs (rememembrance) and mawlids, (celebration of the Prophet's birth) which were introduced by the 'Alawis and other new Sufi brotherhoods, greatly widened the general population's opportunities for religious participation but seriously diminished the authority of the Waungwana who had previously monopolized popular religious practices. Bang persuasively argues that new ideas and practices may have radically divergent consequences according to the specific nature of the Muslim community in which they are introduced.
Along the same lines, Bang argues that the association of the 'orthodoxy' with 'Arabness' in the East African context needs to be reconsidered: what were considered highly 'orthodox' devotional practices by the 'Alawi scholars were obviously perceived as highly 'unorthodox' by the Waungwana, who had considered their own mawlid celebrations to be representative of 'proper' Islamic behavior.
Bang's argument for the relativity of such loaded concepts as tradition and reform is further elaborated in her exploration of the influence of modernist and Islamist thought on Hadramawt, and consequently East Africa. Ibn Sumayt's netowrk connected him with scholars in Hadramawt, its diasporas in Mecca, Indonesia and Istanbul, as well as prominent modernist thinkers such as Mohammed 'Abduh and Rashid Rida' in Egypt.
An analysis of the scholarly exchanges taking place through these contacts shows that although modernist thinkers and exponents of the tariqa 'Alawiyya shared a strong interest in social and educational activism (da'wah), their intellectual foundations were entirely different. The activism of the 'Alawiyya in Hadramawt and Zanzibar was primarily and internal development, deriving its inspiration from late 18th-century Hadrami revivalists. It was expressed in the institutionalization of religious education and an increased drive toward da'wah among non-'Alawis and in the countryside, but otherwise remained firmly within the parameters of 'Alawi Sufism. Modernist thought, on the other hand, as expounded by scholars like Mohammed 'Abduh and Rashid Rida--as embraced by a large group of 'Alawi scholars in Indonesia--had its roots in a much more thorough intellectual transformation, formulated in a context of colonial expansion and severely critical of the more esoteric aspects of Islam.
Pointing to examples of educational, agricultural and medical reforms proposed by Ibn Sumayt, challenges overtly static notions of reform, arguing that reform should not be understood as a mere theoretical ideal that is necessarily rooted in ideology (as with the Egyptian reformers) but is primarily about the will to change concrete aspects of society: action which may be rooted in social, political and personal circumstances without implying an intellectual shift. Ibn Sumayt may have shared certain reformist tendencies with modernist thinkers, but this does not mean that he shared their intellectual foundations.
Some critical footnotes may be placed here regarding the theoretical framework in which Bang places reform within the 'Alawiyya tradition which she defines, following previous scholarship, as a shift from the imposition of an external moral code to an internally motivated code for life conduct, i.e. a shift from doctrine to praxis, rather than a shift from apathy to activism. This change of emphasis may circumvent the problematic political implications of the term activism but does nothing to explain why this shift took place, apart from the tenuous implication that previous generations of Muslims did not 'internalize' or 'practice' Islam to the same extent. The well-traveled Hadrami sayyids were doubtlessly aware of the expanding influence of the Western world (an entire generation of Hadramis studied with Zayn ad-Din ad-Dahlan in Mecca, who taught subjects in European History and was a supporter of Ottoman pan-Islamism). Could it be, then, that the expansion of da'wah and popular education had more to do with external influences than Bang concedes to? Could the shift also reflect a new need for self-affirmation in the face of the rapid penetration of foreign and non-Islamic influences into the Muslim heartlands? The consolidation of Sufi tariqas was central to the spread of Islamic teachings among the 'masses' and in many places pursued highly political (often anti-colonial) objectives during the late 19th century, regardless of the non-political nature of their essential teachings.
Furthermore, Bang's conclusion that the shift that took place was not an intellectual one may be premature. The long-term effects of the expansion and institutionalization of education may not have been evident in the early 20th century, but they certainly are today. Unprecedented popular access to religious knowledge has today led to radical shifts in the distribution of religious authority and increasingly eclectic attitudes towards Islamic knowledge. Many other drastic changes on the local and global level have obviously played a role in the increasing 'democratization' of religious knowledge, but expanded access to Islamic education from the late 19th century, as exemplified by the ribats in Hadramawt, certainly formed part of the groundwork for future shifts of a more intellectual nature.
Nonetheless, Bang's research presents powerful illustrations of the complex and intricate dialectics of political social and intellectual developments.
The example of Ibn Sumayt, who was utterly steeped in Hadrami scholarly and Sufi tradition but did not hesitate to ask legal advice from Mohammed 'Abduh, promoted the translation of the Qur'an into Swahili and shared the judge's bench with Ibadhi scholars, shows the infinite complexity of the modes of intellectual evolution across space and time and poses a powerful rebuttal to those who would like to compartmentalize Islamic thought and practice according to sharply defined ideological categories.
Overall, the themes raised in Sufis and Scholars of the Sea offer many leads for future inquiry. In the 20th century the revolutionary expansion of modern communication technology and mass media have both empowered and fragmented religious discourse, generally undermining the traditional authority of scholarly classes such as the 'Alawis. Yet new technological tools also present entirely new avenues for the propagation of their 'brand' of Islam. In fact, the tariqa 'Alawiyya seems to have greatly expanded its global network since the early 20th c., growing branches into European and American Muslim communities as well as building a considerable presence in Islamic broadcasting and cyberspace. Many of the questions posed by Anne Bang can be newly asked about the continued role of the 'Alawiyya in the modern world: How have the networks described in Sufis and Scholars of the Sea evolved and changed since the early 20th century? What have been the effects of modern communication technology, mass media, and new global audiences on the content of 'Alawi teachings and the methods of its transmission (da'wah)? How is 'Alawi Sufism indigenized (as it once was in East Africa) in the Western world, where its discourse is now informing new Muslim identities, political opinions, and ideas about what constitutes normative Islamic 'tradition'?
To conclude, Sufis and Scholars of the Sea offers all that is expected from an historical study of intellectual history: profound knowledge of the classical canon of Islamic scholarship, highly relevant research questions, and thorough engagement with pertinent theoretical approaches to Sufism. It certainly deserves attention from scholars and laymen alike.

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Islam in Nineteenth-Century Wallo, Ethiopia (Book Review)

In this impressively published tome from Brill Press, Hussein Ahmed has taken on some of the original assumptions of scholars of Ethiopian Islam such as J.S. Trimingham and tested them against a detailed study of the highland region of Wallo, Ethiopia. Ahmed argues, among other things, that Trimingham's model of conversion, in which converts essentially adopt the outward signs of Islam without practicing it or comprehending its doctrine, is inadequate to account for the diversity of ways in which the Islamic message was propopagated in central Ethiopia. Ahmed also argues for a greater role for the ulama in spreading Islam, working in concert with traders and merchants.

Ahmed does a superb job handling some difficult material, and the book is well written, if at times aimed at the specialist rather than the general reader. Of special interest is Ahmed's biographies of the major Sufi sheikhs of Ethiopia. Accounting for Sufism's popularity and importance, Ahmed emphasizes the account of one of Sheikh Muhammad Taj al-Din, who observed:

"the tariqa teachers, while recognizing the importance of academic excellence, also emphasized the obligation of carrying out one's religious duties as laid down in the Qur'an and the Sunna. They argued that instead of studying exotic and prestigious subjects, a Muslim must recite the dhikr, read the Qur'an and perform the intercessory prayers. A believer must submit his entire body and mind to the rigours of intense reflection and meditation in order to demonstrate his submission to the will of God. They also instilled in the minds of the affiliates a profound sense of brotherhood and communal lifestyle...one of the factors for the success of the mystical orders was the tact and skill with which their local propagators were able to introduce and establish them, and their recognition of the deep roots and persistence of traditional values and customs."

Wallo is unique precisely because it stands at a geographical and political crossroads between faiths and peoples. Wallo became a center of Oromo migration in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. For the Oromo, According to Ahmed, Islam played an important role historically for the Oromo, helping them to shape their identity vis-a-vis Amharic nationalism. However, this point goes largely unexplored.
If I have one critique of the book I felt Dr. Ahmed missed a chance to compare and contrast the impact and development of Christianity and Islam and their attitudes toward each other in theoretical terms.There is some great material in Chapter Six on this point, but it is confined to a discussion of the mid-nineteenth century and the attempts by the Christian emperors Tewodoros II and Yohannes IV to subdue Wallo.

If you are interested in more contemporary issues of Islam in Ethiopia and Muslim Ethiopians, here is a website for Ethiopian Muslims in Europe. If you click through there is a biography of Shaykh Talha bin Ja'afar, one of the principal figures, who waged an armed struggle against the armies of emperor Yohannes and did much to propogate Islam in Wallo.

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Junoon Ocean of Love

This ocean of love breaks into another wave.
And blood pours from my heart in all directions.
-Rumi

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Dhikr (Remembrance of God) From Around the World

London


Senegal


East Africa


Sudan


Pakistan


Somalia


Not sure where


Morocco via Lancashire


Also, check this out below. I can't embed it but you can still watch it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mWvv8PSntk
It is coming to us out of Pakistan....very beautiful....also somewhat unusual to see what is basically spiritual dancing in the masjid.

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The Black Sidis of Gujarat

full article here

The Black Sidis of Gujarat are a tribal Sufi community of East African origin which came to India eight centuries ago and made Gujarat their home. They carried with them their exceptionally rich musical tradition and kept it alive and flourishing through the generations, unknown to the rest of the world. Their history is rooted in the slave trade of the 13th century and beyond, when Arab and later European slave traders systematically captured thousands of African men, women and children and took them across the seas for sale to the highest bidders. Many Sidi arrived in India as slaves to the Maharajas and Nawabs of the day, whilst others came as merchants, navigators, sailors and slave kings, settling in Gujarat. Their Nubian features attracted the Arab slave traders because of their huge demand in many Indian households as trusted servants and status symbols. That remains true in the Parsi community and several Sidi royal family lineages also continue to thrive to this day in India.

A traditional occupation of African-Indian Sufis in Gujarat has been to perform sacred music and dance as wandering faqirs, singing songs to their black Sufi saint, Bava Gor. Sidi men and women perform sacred music and dance during rituals in the shrines to Bava Gor, and have lived on accepting alms for touring these devotional genres from villages to shrines for centuries. The Sidis are the most musically inclined, who recognise music as a tool for becoming closer to God. Many Sidis also perform as muezzins as they feel closely related to Hazrat Bilal, a black African man who was the first person chosen by Prophet Mohammed to recite adhan (call to prayer). Over time, the Sidis' native African music styles, melodic and rhythmic structures, lyrics and musical instruments mingled with local influences in Gujarat to form this unique and symbolic representation of African-Indian ness.

Sidi Goma perform in a group of twelve: four lead musicians (drummers/singers) and eight dancers. The program presents an overview of Sidi ritual performance, from the traditional muezzin call to prayer to a staged ritual performance. It centres around a danced zikr (remembrance), consisting of joyful, satirical praise dances to their Saint, who is attributed with giving them the joy they express in their dances. Intoxicating drum patterns that "speak" the zikr prayers in rhythm support the dancers who perform virtuosic feats of agility and strength, gradually reaching an ecstatic climax. While the music gradually gets more rapid and excited, the dances unfold with constantly evolving individual and small-group acts of animal imitations, climaxing in a coconut-breaking feat. The programme features solos on the malunga, an instrument resembling the Brazilian berimbau, as well as prayer calls and seated ritual songs (baithi, dhamal andqawwali). Included in the show is a certain type of circle dance, with people coming into the centre to perform more exhibitionistic dancing, indicative of the slave dances of Zanzibar.

The Sidi speak word perfect Hindi and Gujarati, but have remained an oppressed class in India. Because they are black, from Africa, and Muslim, this has kept them at a lower socio-economic and educational level, but recently their situation is finally beginning to change for the better. Yunus Babu Sidi, one of the group's leaders speaking in a recent interview with ethnomusicology professor Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy in UK's fROOTS magazine, says:

"The general population in India think of us as Africans, although we are Indians, pure and proper and Swahili is the language of our forefathers and we should not forget it. I am the only one learning Swahili in the group, so I can teach my fellow brothers and sisters in the future. We use the Swahili language in some of the songs during our performances, but we don't know the true meanings behind these words. If someone asks me what have you sung, I don't have an answer for them and that becomes a problem for me, because this issue is not just about the performance but it lies in the roots of our culture… All I know is I come from Africa, and I would like nothing better than to sit around with my Sidi brothers and sisters one day and have a conversation with them in Kiswahili....

More information can be found at http://www.everyculture.com/South-Asia/Sidi.html

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Sufism: Veil and Quintessence

Completed an interesting if rather wordy exposition of Sufi doctrine. The author, Frithjof Schuon, was a mystic and famous author of many works on world religion. He was initiated into the Shadhili tariqa in North Africa by Shaykh Ahmad al-Alawi. I cannot do justice to the book here, but following in the critiques of rationalism and materialism I have advanced in earlier posts, I find many useful points in Schuon, not the least of which is below:

"When Plato maintains that the philosophos should think independently of common opinions, he is referring to intellection and not logic alone; whereas Descartes, who did everything to restrict and compromise the notion of philosophy, maintains this while starting from systematic doubt, to such an extent that for him philosophy is synonymous not only with rationalism but also with skepticism. This is a major suicide of the intelligence, inaugurated moreover by Pyrrho and others as a reaction against what was believed to be "metaphysical dogmatism." The "Greek miracle" is in fact the substitution of reason for intellect, of the fact for the principle, of the phenomenon for the idea, of the accident for the substance, of the form for the essence, of man for God; and this applies to art as well as thought. The true Greek miracle, if miracle there be--and in this case it would be related to the "Hindu miracle"--is doctrinal metaphysics and methodic logic, providentially utilized by the monotheistic Semites."

In other words, there is a distinction to be made between rationalism and intellect; intellect necessarily includes a sense which is beyond rationalism. This idea is expressed in the book's title, which expresses how the most profound inner truths can be 'veiled' as it where, by hyperbole, ellipsis, and apparent contradiction. Schuon offers numerous Quranic examples of this technique.
The book also has the great virtue of expounding Sufism in the context of other mystical doctrines, showing points of agreement and departure and bringing out the mystical uniqueness of tasawwuf. Good to read in companion with Seyyed Hossein Nasr's The Garden of Truth.

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Refutations of a Pure Materialism

Ghazali's Proposition for a State of Experience Beyond Ordinary Perception and Logical Reason
Then I said, "My reliance on sense-data has also become untenable. Perhaps, therefore, I can rely only on those rational data which belong to the category of primary truth, such as our asserting that 'Ten is more than three' and 'One and the same thing cannot be simultaneously affirmed and denied and 'One and the same thing cannot be incipient and eternal, existent and nonexistent, necessary and impossible.'

Then sense data spoke up: "What assurance have you that your reliance on rational data is not like your reliance on sense data? Indeed you used to have confidence in me. Then the reason-judge came along and gave me the lie. But were it not for the reason-judge, you would still accept me as true. So there may be, beyond the perception of reason, another judge. And if the latter revealed itself, it would give the lie to judgments of reason, just as the reason-judge revealed itself and gave the lie to the judgments of sense. The mere fact of that nonappearance of that further perception does not prove the impossibility of its existence."

For a brief space, my soul hesitated about the answer to that objection, and sense-data reinforced their difficulty by an appeal to dreaming, saying: "Don't you see that when you are asleep you believe certain things and imagine certain circumstances and believe they are fixed and lasting and entertain no doubts about that being their status? Then you wake up and know that all your imaginings and beliefs were groundless and unsubstantial. So while everything you believe through sensation or intellection in your waking state may be true in relation to that state, what assurance have you that you may not suddenly experience a state which would have the same relation to your waking state as the latter has to your dreaming, and your waking state would be dreaming in relation to that new and further state. If you found yourself in such a state, you would be sure that all your rational beliefs were unsubstantial fancies."

Knowledge as Experience: al-Ghazali on phenomenology
Then it became clear to me that their (the Sufis) most distinctive characteristic is something that can be attained, not by study, but rather by fruitional experience and the state of ecstacy and the exchange of qualities. How great a difference there is between your knowing the definitions and causes and conditions of health and satiety and your being healthy and sated! And how great a difference there is between knowing the definition of drunkenness and actually being drunk! Indeed a drunken man while he is drunk, does not know the concept and definition of drunkenness and has no knowledge of it.

Beyond Intellect
Beyond the stage of intellect there is another stage. In this another eye is opened, by which man sees the hidden, and what will take place in the future, and other things, from which the intellect is far removed as the power of discernment is from the perception of intelligibles and the power of sensation is from things perceived by discernment. And just as one able only to discern if presented with the things perceptible to the intellect, would reject them and consider them outlandish, so some men endowed with intellect have rejected the things perceptible to the prophetic power and considered them wildly improbable. That is the very essence of ignorance! For such a man has no supporting reason except that it is a stage he himself has not attained and for him it does not exist, so he supposes that it does not exist in itself.

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Habib Saleh, Sheikh of Lamu Town

Wow...what can I say about Lamu that hasn't already been said. While I was here I was determined to track down the history of Habib Saleh, another Sufi who had an enormous impact on the history of coastal Islam, and much like Sheikh Ramiya of Bagamoyo, was well-loved and revered by his students, other scholars, and especially Africans. Habib Saleh is perhaps best known for the way he introduced a more egalitarian and open form of worship into the five daily prayers, as well as for his dissemination of a new maulid recitation on the occasion of the prophet Muhammed's birthday. He was notable for the way in which he explicitly spoke out against Arab anti-black racism (all the more so, since he himself was an Arab) and the arrogance of power. The mosque he helped to build still stands in Lamu today; it is called the Riyadha mosque and it is currently undergoing renovations. It is surrounded by a secondary school and a college both funded, according to my guidebook, by money from Saudi Arabia. However, when I asked my informant, the great-great grandson of Habib Saleh, about this, he explicitly stated that no Saudi Arabian money comes to Riyadha mosque. Rather the word riyadh refers to 'Riyadha al-Jana' or the 'Meadows of Paradise.' The Prophet related an allegory to impress on the early Muslims the value of knowledge. He emphasized that if you pass through these gardens of paradise, don't rush through. Instead stay and eat of the fruit (knowledge).
Anyway, H.S.'s great-great grandson Hussein Badawi took pains to establish Lamu's opposition to the ideas emanating from the branch of Islam currently in power in Saudi Arabia. "The Wahabbis," he said, "believe in the conditional acceptance of gifts. If you receive something from them, you must also accept their ideology."

But back to Habib Saleh, or Swaleh Ibn Alwy Jamaliliel. Born in 1269 A.H. in the Comoros, he moved to Lamu at 15 or 18 (depending on the source you consult) to live with his uncle Sharif Seyyid Ali. (you can see part of his uncle's grave to the left of Habib Saleh's (big and black) in the picture. His mother's name was Maryam and his father's name Alawi. He began teaching soon after arriving, and eventually Sheikh Abu Bakr Manswab al-Hussein, no doubt impressed with the young man's erudition and piety, gave him a piece of land to build the Riyadha mosque on.
Habib Saleh's family were Comorian Arabs originally from Yemen. They also laid claim to descent from Ali, the grandson of the prophet Muhammed. The geneaology goes something like this, with apologies if I get it wrong: I was writing notes in English from a Swahili interview. It seems that Habib Saleh's 6th grandfather Haroon came from Yemen to Pate in the 10th century in one of the many migrations that Arabs from the Hadramat made to East Africa. His fourth grandfather, Abdullah bin Ahmed, then migrated from Pate to the Comoros, for reasons I don't know. He died at sea and the story goes, that his grandson, with him on the boat, wrapped his body in a white sheet to be thrown in the sea. As the men heaved the body overboard, they were amazed to see two large birds grab it and fly away with it.
Stories like these also proliferated around Habib Saleh. There were three related to me, all symbolically involving jahazis (a type of dhow). I say symbolically because the dhow represents one of the things that gave Islam in East Africa its unique flavor...by bringing scholars from all over the Indian Ocean. In one of the stories, Habib Saleh brings a jahazi safely back to port during a storm, by praying for it from land. In another, he sends his sons to meet a jahazi docking at Lamu, telling them it will bring a visitor for them. The visitor, another scholar from Yemen, is amazed, because he gave no notice to Habib Saleh of his coming. And in yet another story, Habib Saleh prays during the maulid because there is no food for the many visitors to eat. That day, a jahazi is forced to dock at Lamu because they are overloaded with food.
Now the skeptical mind will not read too much into these stories, and would be likely to dismiss them as circumstance. But their importance lies in how they position Saleh as a man of immense piety and learning, whose humility gave him power. For instance, I was fortunate enough to tour Habib Saleh's house (its normally only open during the maulid) and see the very simple way he lived, despite being quite affluent. It made me understand something again of the power of Sufism as an organizing principle in East Africa. Habib Saleh's children continued his legacy--his grandson Said Ali Badawi even became the chief qadi of Kenya for a time.
All in all, I felt extremely fortunate to probe deeper into the life of this remarkable scholar. I am wondering if perhaps some sort of comparative perspective of these Sufi personalities might fruitfully illuminate not only the common threads that made them so popular, but also whether or not they had any knowledge of each other. This is one question that I was going to put to Hussein Badawi's brother, author of the book, Ariyadh baina madhihi wa hadhirihi. Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to meet him before I had to leave Lamu.

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