"Many prayers are declined because of the rank odor of a corrupt heart rising through the beautiful words. Let the words be wrong, but the meaning right. That flawed utterance is dearer to God."
- Rumi
Absolutely beautiful.
It reminded me of how a lot of non-Arabic speaking Muslims seem worried about mispronouncing prayers/Arabic words. I don't think anyone should worry too much about that; the fact that you are praying and doing it for God is what matters, not whether you get the pronunciation right. Similarly, someone could pronounce all the words perfectly, but if they're a bad person I'm sure the prayer won't count for much.
This quote reminded me of how amazingly simple God has made Islam. It's so beautiful in its simplicity. That's why it really, REALLY bothers me when people try to complicate it/make it difficult/take everything to an extreme. Of course Islam has its challenges: praying 5 times a day, fasting, Hajj - these things are not easy. But they're simple! The meaning behind them is simple, the message of the Qur'an is simple, and I really think God wants us to be happy in this life, and so has given us a religion that is beautiful and that compliments our common sense and conscience. I realized everything that is seen as "Islamic" and doesn't make sense to me comes from the Hadith, not the Qur'an, which is why I don't really trust the Hadith that much.
When I think of the spiritual message of the Qur'an I get very emotional. Peace, justice, compassion, forgiveness, happiness, love - we Muslims could be the happiest and most peaceful people on earth if we listened to what the Qur'an is telling us. Mashallah for this amazing book! It really is a miracle. Think of the way God describes Himself. Think of the Prophet. Where are these qualities in Muslims today?
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
leila ahmed's islam
Leila Ahmed is one of my favourite feminists and authors. I initially discovered her when I became interested in women and Islam, and decided that I wanted to do my MA on that topic. She's written one of the most definitive books on the subject called "Women and Gender in Islam". I borrowed her autobiography from a friend recently ("A Border Passage") and absolutely loved what she wrote on Islam (excerpts are in italics):
Now, after a lifetime of meeting and talking with Muslims from all over the world, I find that this Islam is one of the common varieties of the religion. It is the Islam not only of women but of ordinary folk generally, as opposed to the Islam of sheikhs, ayatollahs, mullahs, and clerics. It is an Islam that may or may not place emphasis on ritual and formal religious practice but that certainly pays little or no attention to the utterances and exhortations of sheikhs or any sort of official figures. Islam as a broad ethos and ethical code and as a way of understanding and reflecting on the meaning of one's life and of human life more generally.
I completely agree with seeing Islam as not only about the ritual and formal practice (praying, fasting etc) but also about the spirit and broad message, which most Muslims these days seem to be ignoring. If you're a judgmental, malicious person, will praying 5 times a day completely make up for that?
Ahmed goes on to distinguish between aural and oral Islam, and textual Islam, saying that textual Islam has been developed by a minority of men who over the centuries have come to wield enormous power. This type of Islam is men's Islam, according to her.
The Islam that developed in this textual heritage is very like the medieval Latinate textual heritage of Christianity. It is as abstruse and obscure and as dominated by medieval and exclusively male views of the world as are those Latin texts. Imagine believing that those medieval Christian texts represent today the only true and acceptable interpretation of Christianity. But that is exactly what the sheikhs and ayatollahs propound and this is where things stand now in much of the Muslim world: most of the classic Islamic texts that still determine Muslim law in out day date from medieval times.
Aurally what remains when you listen to the Qur'an over a life-time are its most recurring themes, ideas, words, and permeating spirit: mercy, justice, peace, compassion, humanity, fairness, kindness, truthfulness, charity. And yet it is exactly those recurring themes and this permeating spirit that are for the most part left out of the medieval texts or smothered and buried under a welter of obscure "learning". One would scarcely believe, reading and hearing the laws these texts have yielded, particularly when it comes to women, that the words "justice", "fairness", "compassion", "truth" ever even occur in the Qur'an.
Again, this goes back to the point of the spirit of Islam, which tends to get ignored. The Qur'an is a very positive text, and yet centuries of male misinterpretation has left Islam with a very negative image. Personally, this negative image of Islam is what made me think twice about becoming an active Muslim. It was only when I read the Qur'an and some other texts that I realized how badly Islam has been projected by Muslims themselves.
Leila Ahmed goes on,
I am sure then, that my foremother's lack of respect for the authority of sheikhs was not coincidental. Generations of astute, thoughtful women, listening to the Qur'an, understood perfectly well its essential themes and its faith. And looking around them, they understood perfectly well, too, what a travesty man had made of it.
Women in Islam have, it can be said, even more rights than men. Why then do most sheikhs and Muslims in general treat (or at least see) women as second-class citizens? Why marriage laws that put the minimum age at 9? Why are outdated practices that need to be changed still widespread? Why are honour killings and female circumcision still attributed to Islam? We cannot deny that women in Muslim countries tend to have less rights than non-Muslim countries. However, this is not due to ISLAM. It is due to centuries of misinterpretation and centuries of misrule across the Arab and Islamic world.
To finish off, a quote from the lovely Rumi:
If a day won't come
when the monuments of institutionalized religion are in ruin
...then, my beloved,
then we are really in trouble.
Now, after a lifetime of meeting and talking with Muslims from all over the world, I find that this Islam is one of the common varieties of the religion. It is the Islam not only of women but of ordinary folk generally, as opposed to the Islam of sheikhs, ayatollahs, mullahs, and clerics. It is an Islam that may or may not place emphasis on ritual and formal religious practice but that certainly pays little or no attention to the utterances and exhortations of sheikhs or any sort of official figures. Islam as a broad ethos and ethical code and as a way of understanding and reflecting on the meaning of one's life and of human life more generally.
I completely agree with seeing Islam as not only about the ritual and formal practice (praying, fasting etc) but also about the spirit and broad message, which most Muslims these days seem to be ignoring. If you're a judgmental, malicious person, will praying 5 times a day completely make up for that?
Ahmed goes on to distinguish between aural and oral Islam, and textual Islam, saying that textual Islam has been developed by a minority of men who over the centuries have come to wield enormous power. This type of Islam is men's Islam, according to her.
The Islam that developed in this textual heritage is very like the medieval Latinate textual heritage of Christianity. It is as abstruse and obscure and as dominated by medieval and exclusively male views of the world as are those Latin texts. Imagine believing that those medieval Christian texts represent today the only true and acceptable interpretation of Christianity. But that is exactly what the sheikhs and ayatollahs propound and this is where things stand now in much of the Muslim world: most of the classic Islamic texts that still determine Muslim law in out day date from medieval times.
Aurally what remains when you listen to the Qur'an over a life-time are its most recurring themes, ideas, words, and permeating spirit: mercy, justice, peace, compassion, humanity, fairness, kindness, truthfulness, charity. And yet it is exactly those recurring themes and this permeating spirit that are for the most part left out of the medieval texts or smothered and buried under a welter of obscure "learning". One would scarcely believe, reading and hearing the laws these texts have yielded, particularly when it comes to women, that the words "justice", "fairness", "compassion", "truth" ever even occur in the Qur'an.
Again, this goes back to the point of the spirit of Islam, which tends to get ignored. The Qur'an is a very positive text, and yet centuries of male misinterpretation has left Islam with a very negative image. Personally, this negative image of Islam is what made me think twice about becoming an active Muslim. It was only when I read the Qur'an and some other texts that I realized how badly Islam has been projected by Muslims themselves.
Leila Ahmed goes on,
I am sure then, that my foremother's lack of respect for the authority of sheikhs was not coincidental. Generations of astute, thoughtful women, listening to the Qur'an, understood perfectly well its essential themes and its faith. And looking around them, they understood perfectly well, too, what a travesty man had made of it.
Women in Islam have, it can be said, even more rights than men. Why then do most sheikhs and Muslims in general treat (or at least see) women as second-class citizens? Why marriage laws that put the minimum age at 9? Why are outdated practices that need to be changed still widespread? Why are honour killings and female circumcision still attributed to Islam? We cannot deny that women in Muslim countries tend to have less rights than non-Muslim countries. However, this is not due to ISLAM. It is due to centuries of misinterpretation and centuries of misrule across the Arab and Islamic world.
To finish off, a quote from the lovely Rumi:
If a day won't come
when the monuments of institutionalized religion are in ruin
...then, my beloved,
then we are really in trouble.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
a rant
so one big reason i started this blog was to share some of my frustrations re. religion. my dad is muslim and so i am too technically, but i never really thought of myself as religious growing up in zambia (it was such a multicultural environment). anyway, when i moved to cairo i have to say i was completely turned off Islam. completely. what i saw shocked me: men sexually harassing women as they walk to the mosque to pray; sheikhs talking about things i (till now) have not found in the qur'an or hadith; people yelling and shouting at each other constantly; sexism; racism; driving like convicts on death row; and the list goes on. now, there are negative things to be found in every country. but what shocked me was how religious everyone proclaimed to be, and how negative they acted towards someone who wasn't "religious" enough. the point is i felt really negatively towards Islam and muslims and could never see myself being a muslim, or praying, or any of that.
fast forward to early 2008, when i suddenly got the urge to pray one morning. so i asked someone to teach me, and since then i've been praying, fasting, reading the qur'an...basically i've become a muslim.
but i still don't call myself that; and i still get pissed off at the majority of muslims that i meet here. one thing i've been thinking about lately is the growing rise in fundamentalism/extremisn here in egypt. we've gone from being one of the most liberal middle eastern countries (the 50s-70s) to one of the most fundamentalist (today). i wonder why? is it the masses of egyptians who returned from saudi arabia in the 90s full of wahhabi ideas? is it the identity crisis? is it a reaction against westernization, western imperialism (esp. post9/11) and the imagined loss of "our true culture"?
i really see it as a negative; as first of all i believe religion is PERSONAL - it doesn't matter what i wear, who i see, what i do - my religion is between me and God and has nothing to do with you. if you think i'm wrong, then rest assured God will punish me for it, no? apparently people here don't think like that, and think it's safer for them to judge me first.
i will be talking about islam and my own religious experience a lot on this blog, and would love to hear from other people.
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