THE SYARIA AND HUDUD, The Prose (Part 1)

The Syaria (The Journey, the Garden and the Fruit)

I saw a journey,

Where I saw you, and I saw myself,

And along the path there were

Beautiful places to rest,

Restful places to ponder God,

As Love, as Life, as the Sustainer

And the Only Nourisher,

I saw goodness and kindness,

Compassion for humanity,

For the birds and the animals,

For even the rocks and water

That filled the mountains and valleys,

And above us in the journey,

Is a constant sky of guiding stars,

As we discover along the many stations,

More and more knowledge of the universe,

But always, subservient in its synchronicity

With the Universal Truth of God...

Thou Most Beautiful, Most Lovely!

And the road on which the journey

Begins and ends...

It was known as the Syaria.

I saw a garden, a paradise,

Wonderous in its colours,

Glorious in its breadth,

As if the Creator Himself

Has taken the trouble 

To paint each petal of flower,

Each pebble in a glistening stream,

With His own beauty and wisdom,
Each creature and creation,
Competing in fierce rivalry,
To best praise God...
Thou Most Compassionate, Utmost in Mercy!

And around the garden stood fences,

White as light, bright as a thousand suns,

And the fences were also known

As the Syaria,

I saw in the blessed garden a fruit,

And the fruit was nourishing,

It was delightful and tasteful

Whatever your taste may be,

It was good for you,

And it was good for me,

The inside of the fruit changes in colour

According to your needs and fancy,

Its texture can be hard or soft,

And according to your need, crumbly or fleshy,
Nourishing you from the beginning to the end,
An assurance from garden of the Almighty...
Thou Most Companionable, Thou Best of Hosts,
Thou Friend of Friends!

And the protective skin of the fruit,
Keeping the flesh pure and pristine,
Shining in the garden like a beacon
Guiding our wavering, floundering conscience,

That too was known as the Syaria.

.................

This is a longish tale, so forgive the sinner if he spreads his wings over a couple of postings. But I think it is worthwhile expanding our contemplation a little... Hope you are all having an awesome Ramadan Kareem...

wa min Allah at-taufiq

-Notrumi Embun, 14th July 2014

Hate has no place in Islam
Love will show the Way

The House of al-Akhir - the syariat, the tarikat and the fairest deal of them all

 The 2^nd Obligation

Obedience to the Syariat

Is an obligation.

The Tarikat is the presumption

Of a second obligation,

That of love for God.

Love for the Prophet.

Love for the Saints.

Love for Man.

Love for the mightiest suns, and

The smallest grain of sand.

..........................

The Syariat (the Law) will bring you to the House of God, a Shaykh said. But it is the Tarikat (the Path) that will give you leave to enter the House of God and into the Divine Presence.

I am thinking about this... thus the Syariat is like a road map, with dead-ends, one-way streets, traffic lights, highways, bridges, overhead pedestrian crossings, junctions and roundabouts that channel the continuous traffic of human interaction with God and indeed, with ourselves.

It is the best way to avoid mishaps and accidents in our spiritual journey from Alpha to Omega, from Awal (the First) to Akhir (the Last). But arriving at the House of al-Akhir (House of God, Akhir being one of the known 99 names of God), there the road map ends. There you are in the Absolute End of human conjecture and presumptions. You furtively knock on His door, pleading like a homeless beggar, "Oh Lord... let me in..."

Were you knocking at any other door, what a waste and ruinous journey you have undertaken!

For at the House of al-Akhir there is the Door of Love, the Door of Compassion and the Door of Mercy - These divine attributes that can barely be imagined by our human mind, and is only recognizable in the expanse of Godly infinite quality and quantity through the prism of our heart. It is the Door beckoning all humanity, and calling unto the Nation of Muhammad to guide with exemplary conduct of Love, Compassion and Mercy! Woe unto us if we do any less - for the non-believers will have right to claim, "Oh Lord, these virtues You commanded Your Muslims to exemplify... this they did not do." Yup, you got that right, sunshine. Oh boy... are we in trouble.

Pray that I shall meet you somewhere along the Way, and together, as brothers and sisters united in the worship of the One God of all humanity, we will make our stumbling error-prone journey to God, in the name of Muhammad Habibullah (pbuh), the manifest map to the Divine Presence and mercy to all the world(s). Aye... mercy even unto the smallest invisible grain of sand. This is the standard we are called to live by. Tough? But you Muslims are granted the Best of Creation in the person of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). So if it is tough... it is still the fairest deal of them all!

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

Bernie Ecclestone is Awliya Saint ......if somethings mean something else

The Sufism of F1

If life is an F1 Race,

The Syaria (the Law) is the racing car,

A work of sublime engineering designed

To bring the F1 driver (that's you) from

The starting line (your birth)

To the Checkered Flag (your death)

Pursuing a perfect racing line (the Sunnah of the Prophet)

And avoiding the barriers and hard walls

That ring the circuit (that's your Ego),

With the hope of winning a podium finish (the Divine Presence)

With the brolly dolly girls (that's the Huris (angelic companions) of Heaven)

And popping of the champagne (after all, wine and spirits are permissible there).

The fuel especially designed in God's Lab to run the Horsepower

Of your engine is the Tariqa (The spiritual path often known as Sufism),

Your years of training as a novice driver and test driver before earning your racing spot

Is your daily solat and awrad (prayers, remembrance and praise of God),

The Team Manager is your Murshid (Spiritual Master),

Your pit crew consists of your family and friends,

All the colourul brands that you sport on your racing car,

Your racing suit and cap are the Divine Attributes of God,

The race marshals and safety cars are His Angels,

The spectators at the circuit being all of creation witnessing

Your winning runs (good deeds) and spectacular crashes (bad deeds),

And of course, lastly... Bernie Ecclestone is the Awliya Qutubul Zaman (Saint and Polar of the Epoch) overseeing the overall running of F1 (your life and every other life on the planet), and within whose heart resonates the Power of the Prophet Muhammad(pbuh).

.......................................

I don't think I really have anything to add to this 'prose'. Have a fantastic Friday, sunshine, on this blessed month of Ramadhan.

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

Between the Two Mirrors of an Adam and an Eve - confession of a sweet-talker

Bukit Kiara Cemetery

50. His Big Bang

One day, he was with his love,

And shared with her this prose,

"Sometimes, I feel unstoppable,

And the world is but a game to me,

A toy to amuse and distract me.

At times, I feel helpless utterly,

Drowning in an ocean of yearning.

In this curious happenstance,

The Syariat becomes my support,

A rest from my unending pleading,

“O’ Lord, if not now, then when?!”

Then she asked him what

Made him feel and write so,

And this was his reply.

“The way of the Tarikat

Is being in servitude to Love,

And the flaming core would

Burn us all to an end without end...

... Take for instance the Big Bang,

Had the Lord not intervened,

Whatever would stop the blazing energy

From abating, expanding further and further

With no end in sight, nor any purpose or will?

It was for He to halt and guide the energy

From the Big Bang, to allow the atoms and smallest

Molecules to stay awhile, to form the suns, moons and planets,

To rest the celestial bodies into its proper orbits,

The moons circling the planets, and the planets orbiting the suns,

So you see, I need to pray, I need to remember,

Because if I do not, my Big Bang would have

Me speeding to the furthest ends of my soul,

Impelled by the fire forged in the furnace of my heart…

So…”, the man concluded with a wicked grin,

“…how do you like

Being described as a Big Bang?”

And she answered not.

........................

Beware of falling in love with a lover. For such person is a habitual sweet-talker. And if you ask him why he talks so, he will say, "I cannot be blamed if the Truth (God) is sweet."

Be careful that you do not take credit that he is speaking of you. For often enough he will be praising the Loveliness that God has planted in every Eve. The coaxing eyes, the desiring smile, the gentle voice and the commanding 'I'. 

Hehehe. Come to think of it, Adams should be cautious too in their dealings with Eves. Good, it is settled then, let us all be cautious and circumspect with one another, for we know not when it is not merely two love-birds chatting but an occasion where a divine reflection is speaking to another divine reflection - Like two mirrors facing one other...

God was a Hidden Jewel and He wanted to be Known

Thank you for dropping in today, sunshine.

Pax Taufiqa

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

VICTORY FOR THE US of A. The New Jersey Governor and the Muslim Judge - Prose of Ramadhan Part 66

I like American politics. It is just like Malaysian politics - bipartisan, mad and full of interesting characters. I have been following American politics since 2008 and am full of admiration for the good people (and even some politicians) who are fighting the good fight and trying their level best to keep America in her best traditions of multiculturalism, enterprise, freedom of religion, free speech and secular form of governance. So in the course of my understudy, I therefore have very little nice things to say about the Republican Party, and the right wing nuts that appear to infest its hive.

So today I was happy to bump into Chris Christie, the current incumbent Governor of New Jersey. Christopher James "Chris" Christie was born in Newark in 1962, a lawyer, a lobbyist, a former District Attorney and clearly in the Bush team for the duration of the former President’s tenure in the White House (he was a top fundraiser for Bush’s 2000 presidential election). He was a pal of Carl Rove and a mover and shaker in the rarified heights of Republican party organisation. So there is (normally) no reason why I should sing his praise. Until I watched this YouTube video …

He looks like a cast member in the Sopranos, don’t you think? So now I have two things I admire coming out of New Jersey - the Sopranos and Governor Chris Christie. You see, the Governor earned the ire of the right wing fundo-nuts when he appointed Sohail Muhammed, an American of Indian Muslim descent, as a Superior Court judge in New Jersey. By defending Sohail Muhammed and speaking so candidly against the ‘crazies’ in his own party and the right-wing movement, he has painted a political bull’s eye on his back. But by God, how I admire his courage. I don’t care what his antecedents are, but for this brief moment in time, he is one of the stars that are shining brightly in these dark nights that we are living in.

Another fine New Jersey export.

I have been preparing this posting the whole day. And each time I get back to it (I do actually work, you know) I ask myself this question, - Am I being overly enthusiastic about this little piece of American drama? But when I re-watch the video, my sentiment about this story is still the same. There are just so few good stories coming out of American politics that it affects me in places only goodness and love can reach - Chris’s constituency is not just New Jersey anymore, it is now the world. Simply because he decided to speak from his conscience.

God bless his Christian heart.

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Please do a good job, Mr. Sohail. You will be judged
even though you are the judge now. God bless you...

After this, I don't know how his political career will develop,
But boy, I wish the Governor the very best...

This is a victory for the US of A. I hope the Americans
will realise this. 

The Road, the Journey, the Fence and the Garden - Prose of Ramadhan Part 61

75. Beauty III

I am addressing

Seekers of Love and Beauty.

You are seeking neither, you say?

Oh seekers of religion,

Think! Reflect! Contemplate!

How will you ever find a garden

If you don’t even know how it looks like,

Nor are you familiar with its blooms and perfume?

I say this to you because

If the world is a garden wonderous,

It is also crawling with weed,

Clawing and twisting vines,

And berries black and poisonous.

So know that which you desire

Before you start clambering around here.

Have you found religion? I hope that if you have, it shall not stand in the way in your pursuit of love, beauty and happiness. In the course of my short existence I have tried looking for religion about three times, if my memory serves me right. And each time was an abysmal failure. Too much of a sinner, I guess. A never-do-well in the rating posted weekly by the Celestial Billboard 100.

For some, religion is working from within then outwards. Or shall we say that spirituality is growing its religious borders bigger and bigger, so that religion is encompassing more and more of your perception of the Universe. It makes sense when you believe that religion is not a heavenly oddity, a mere alien visitor to earth from heaven. It makes sense when you accept that religion-spirituality is part of nature. To quote some grand old men of mysticism when they describes Islam thus - "The syaria (the law of the religion) is the road while the tariqa (the spiritual way) is the journey itself. Alternatively, the syaria is the fence/border that encompasses the tariqa."  That works too. There are many, many other analogies which you can use.

So look for religion by all means. But know what you are looking for. Do you want the fence or do you want the garden? You can have the fence alone, if that is what you desire. But I think you want the garden too, and the journey. Isn't that why you are reading this?

Have a lovely day, sunshine.

Pax Taufiqa.

The Whole of Creation is their Playground of God, Tariqa & Syaria - Prose of Ramadhan Part 34

If your idea of the Syaria leaves you groping
in the dark, why don't you switch on the light of the tariqa?

Islamic State of Mind (Ramadhan Verses 20)

They want the Islamic State

But they are not in the Islamic

State of Mind...

- Writing laws into law books

And saying "This is God's law!"

When I see that it is a human hand

Still holding the pen.

- Disconnecting the law from the love,

Demanding obedience without discretion,

Thinking only they must be right -

Building the fences of law so high,

That we cannot see the garden inside.

- Following the religion of hubris,

These fancy God-botherers,

Acting like tourists, coming and

Going as they please.

TARIQA SYARIA. A wise man once described the connection between the tariqa (the spiritual path) and the syaria (the law) of Islam thus - 'The syariah is like a fence, it protects a beautiful garden which is the tariqa." And that, in a nutshell is the symbiotic relationship between the two essence of the faith.

ISLAM WRONG? If the pronouncements of the syaria, if the canons of law themselves, as interpreted by man does not reflect the inner beauty of Islam, then frankly, I don't think that the law, the lawmakers and the lawgivers are Islamic. If they say that this fence is to protect a glorious garden of paradise which is Islam, but from outside the fence I see no garden, I see no beautiful trees or flowers, well, what are you talking about, then? Either you are wrong or Islam is wrong, and to be honest, I believe in Islam but I disbelieve in you.

I think Sufis exist. Because all Sufis love cats. Purrrr...

SUFIS? BAH, THEY DON'T EXIST! It is of course even worse when the lawmakers and lawgivers don't even recognise that tariqas and Sufism have a role to play in Islam. They will say that Sufism, if it ever existed (which they doubt), is long dead, buried with the Prophet and his Companions. But if the tariqa, the inner spiritual path towards divine servanthood and taqwa (the pacific heart) does not exist anymore, then what on earth is the law protecting?

I am an angel, but the coldness of their hubris
have turned me stone cold to them.

HUBRIS. So I hope these 'defenders of the faith' will come to heel before God, the Owner of the faith. But I am afraid that unless a divine intervention happens, they shall not submit. They shall continue to pray in the religion of hubris and by their love-less and rude 'declarations of law', they shall continue to exhibit their personal insecurity over their own faith, and their despair to openness, transparency and truth. They are running from shadow to shadow, bleating like paranoid sheep, "We are being oppressed! We must fight! We must fight!" - These are the men who think they represent the Nur (Light) of Islam? This is so funny, I could cry. I do actually. Too often. sigh.

HEROES. The Sufis fear no oppression, so they do not oppress. And the Sufis love frankness and openness, so they do not run from interfaith meeting. For to them, it doesn't matter where they are or whom they are with, if the purpose is to explore and extol the Divine Attributes of God and how He manifests His Love and His Plan over mankind, then it is always a good place. In that way, the whole of creation is their Playground of God.

Have a thoughtful Friday, sunshine. 

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Islamization of Morality Laws - But I want to choose... God told me I could!

In my beloved country, and I guess in other muslim majority countries which like to call themselves 'Islamic countries', we always read the hue and cry of non-Muslims complaining about 'creeping' Islamization. This is especially true in respect of Islamic morality legislation. After all, for the non-Muslims, what is permissable according to their morale code is not permissable according to Islam (like drinking alcohol for instance), and what is morally and legally accepted by Muslims (polygamy, to name one hyper hot topic), may be abhorrent to some non-Muslims (and some Muslims too, truth be told).

But people rarely write about the Muslims themselves being worried about the codification and legislation of 'Islamic Moral' laws (the open and closed inverted commas are intentionally used here). Well, as a Muslim I am worried about the Islamization of my country's morality code of law. I think that we ought to be very careful how far we wish to legislate morality, especially when the prohibited activities (like going to karoake lounges and pubs) are only indirectly related to criminally prohibited activities like vice and drug-use.   

I do not know where to draw the line. Happily, it is not my job... and neither am I bound to appear politicially correct nor do I need to pander to the more 'conservative' elements of my brethren. But just to share with you - these are some basic ideas that have been swimming in the heads of sinners like me -

1. Religion (or as some people like to call it nowadays, 'spirituality') is not about stopping people from commiting bad things. It is about persuading people to see that doing bad things just isn't sensible, especially in the long term.

2. Folksy old sayings (much beloved by the chattering tabloids) like 'if a boy and a girl is sitting together alone, the third invisible person with them is the Devil' just tells half the truth. I have seen Devils impersonating man in mosques, whether in the congregation or preaching from the mimbar (pulpit) spewing hate and hubris like a giant evil armadillo.

3. As a human being. With brains (a little) and some sense of right and wrong (a little too) - I would like to keep the right to choose that God Almighty Himself has given me. I resent having to do anything for any reason other than my love and awe for Him - our Lord and Creator. And I certainly resent having to obey some misguided social dogma dressed in theological terms.

There is no beauty to the Law of Islam, if you divorce it from the Path of Islam. They are complimentary to each other, but are essentially different. Bad moral legislation is often because people have separated the Law from the Human Soul, which is the sole province and writ of the Path of Faith, the Path of Love, Truth and Incomparable Mercy. This is the complete reality of Islam, and any abdridged-hubris-centric version of the faith is an abberation. 

I hope things will get better. But tonight I am going to get a really good night's sleep - Who knows if tomorrow they will try to ban sleeping too...

Have a thoughtful day, sunshine. God bless you!

Pax Taufiqa.

Majnun, Love and Love's Crowning Glory

21. Majnun # 3
God is the Surety of the Prophet’s Love for me,
The Prophet is the Surety of my Love for God,
And I am the Surety of God’s Love for the Prophet.

God is the Surety of my Love for the Prophet,
The Prophet is the Surety of God’s Love for me,
And I am the Surety of the Prophet’s Love for God.

And although I admit to the existence of God and the Prophet,
Beyond that I shall speak no more,
Lest you say that I have abandoned religion
And the trappings of your tedious ceremonies.

This is what I would call a technical prose. Of course, it evokes emotion and perhaps passion, but the meaning is beyond that and is seeking to establish some key points, especially in the first two paragraphs. The last paragraph is one of those teasing endings which a wordsmith leaves for the reader to wonder, "What the heck does he mean?" After all, does he mean that he doesn't believe in any religion? Or that he doesn't believe in Islam?

I believe the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, which of course means that I believe in the religion of Islam. The first two lines of the last paragraph is only hinting to the Sufis' veneration of the Prophet as the second named in the Islamic syahadah, ergo, the declaration / witnessing by a Muslim that There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God. It really is a simple statement - but for those mystics, the meaning in its most delicate sense can be sliced into a trillionth of an atom - and deeper still. Some people are dipping their toes into the Ocean of Mercy... but others are swimming far into it. And a few others have become fishes in the sea and they do not wish to return to the shore. Which one are you? It doesn't matter really. Since we all play our own part to glorify the infinite aspects of God's beauty and loveliness.

There is no quarrel between the Tariqa (the Way or the Path) in Islam and the Syaria (the Law). Gurindam (my Saribas trip companion), added another interesting comparison between the two (I have quite a few) for my collection, and this was what he said, "If you compare the religion to a fruit, then the Tariqa is the inside of the fruit, sweet and savory with a beautiful texture to the taste. The Syaria is then the skin which protects the inner flesh. If the fruit is without the sweetness of the Tariqa or if it tastes bitter, no one would be attracted to it at all. But if the fruit is without the skin, the flesh tend to easily rot and no one would eat it also.

But what is the Law? And this is where we must part ways with the bigots, narcissists and hubris-addicts. For in this almanac the highest writ which reigns in the Kingdom of God is Love, which is is the Highest Law of the land. And even higher still is the crowning glory of God's Perfection in His Divine Attributes as the Most Compassionate, Most Merciful. The heart-breaking, heart-healing ocean which flows from His Fountain of Divine Mysteries - in the love between a man and a woman, between father, mother and child, between two villages, between neighbours, between the ruler and the ruled, between the lover and the loved, it is He, Who is the Necessary third...

Remind me of this day

When you love me in the best way I have ever felt,

When you hold me in the gentlest touch I have ever known,

When you say words so sweet that I am drowning in honey,

When you look at me with that look,

When you kiss me with such passion,

When you tell me that I am the one that you love,

And that there is no other...

Sometimes, I wonder.

Who is doing all this?

Is this really you.?

Or is this a manifestation of God's love for me?

Dear love,

If ever I turn back, if ever I stray,

Lost in the the world and all its chaos,

Remind me of this day...

And why, in Truth,

None can love me in a way better

Than you.

Whoever you may be,

Dressed as you are

As Love and Love's

Crowning Glory.

Have a wonderful Friday, sunshine. Whoever you may be, and whoever you are loving. You are my greatest hope for a better tomorrow. Don't you know?

Pax Taufiqa.