In the field of religious studies, the word "religion" is commonly understood to designate a worldview along with the various cultural phenomena that embody it, such as doctrine, ritual and art. In this broad sense of the term, everyone has a "religion," whether acknowledged or not.
By studying the religions of others we can hope to gain a bit of distance from the unquestioned worldviews that underlie our own thinking. Such study is much like learning a new language -- we gradually come to see the strengths and weaknesses of our own way of talking and writing. So also each religion, including the atheistic versions, has its own genius and its own limitations.
It seems fairly clear that most thoughtful people nowadays think that we live in interesting times. Some look to other worldviews precisely to gain insight into their own lives. This is a major factor in the great popularity of religious studies in North American universities. The fact that Rumi has become a household name points in the same direction.
Part of Islam's intellectual heritage is a vast literature exploring and elucidating the nature of love, that most precious of human experiences. Now that I have been offered this forum and told to write about anything I feel like, well, I feel like talking about love. My two previous posts and the responses to them have highlighted the fact that most people have already made up their minds as to the nature of "true Islam." So let me turn to something that most people, Muslim or not, typically leave out of their understanding of Islam, not least because of their obsession with the world of politics and catastrophes.
Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya was a famous theologian from Baghdad who died in 1350. Part of his fame lies in the fact that he was the leading disciple of one of the most cantankerous theologians of Islamic history, Ibn Taymiyya, a favorite of Sunni ideologues. Surprisingly for those who think that people of this ilk were narrow-minded bigots, Ibn Qayyim dedicated a large part of his prolific output to love, compassion, forgiveness and other such mild-mannered themes.
In one of his many books, written late in life -- Ighathat al-lahfan, "Aid for the Sorrowful" -- Ibn Qayyim says that the root of Islam is "love for God, intimacy with Him, and yearning to encounter Him." He also says, "The revealed books of God, from the first to the last, revolve around the commandment to love."
Remember that Muslim scholars traditionally spoke of "124,000 prophets," beginning with Adam and ending with Muhammad. What Ibn Qayyim is trying to say is that every true religion -- that is, all the religions established by the 124,000 prophets -- are founded on love. It makes no difference who these prophets were or where they lived. When Muslims settled down in China, for example, they soon recognized that Confucius had been a prophet.
Claiming that "love" is the heart of Islam or of religion generally is not unusual in the Islamic context. Another example is provided by the major Sunni scholar Rashid al-Din Maybudi, who completed the longest pre-modern Persian commentary on the Quran in 1126. In explaining why the Quran calls itself "a book from God" (verse 2:89), he says that the book deserves to be titled "the eternal love" and that its content is "the story of love and lovers."
One hundred years after Maybudi and as many years before Ibn Qayyim, Rumi's famous teacher, Shams-i Tabrizi (who disappeared in the year 1247), said that the Quran is "a book of love," or "a love letter" from God. He explained that if lawyers, philosophers and theologians fail to see it this way, that is because they are too preoccupied with their own specialties. First, you need to love God rather than law or theology or philosophy (or politics). Then, you should read the book. It is worth noting here that Shams, despite his reputation as an unlearned rascal of spirituality, was a professional Quran-teacher.
No one is surprised to hear that Rumi saw the Quran as a book of love, but most seem to think that Rumi was out of kilter with the Islamic mainstream. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is no accident that his six-volume epic poem in celebration of love, the Mathnawi, has often been called "the Quran in the Persian language."
Shams al-Din Muhammad, the greatest and most beloved of Persian poets, provides another example. He is known by his chosen pen name, "Hafiz," a word that designates someone who has memorized the Quran. Anyone familiar with his poetry knows that it is permeated with love and beauty, so much so that native-speakers can become intoxicated simply by listening to it. Hafiz holds that all religion and indeed, all human striving, is rooted in love. One verse will have to suffice:
Everyone, sober or drunk, is seeking a beloved,
everywhere, mosque or synagogue, is the house of love.
Muslim scholars who talk about love as the heart of Islam and of religion generally take the position that God's love and compassion motivated him to create human beings so that they could love him in return. The goal of creation is to bring lovers into existence, and the goal of lovers -- that is, you, me and everyone else -- is to escape false loves and return to what we really love. This, for them, is the key message of the Quran, "the story of love and lovers."
For a survey of the role of love in religion generally, including my own essay on Islam, see the volume edited by Jeff Levin and Stephen G. Post, Divine Love: Perspectives from the World's Religious Traditions.
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Beshak Mandir Masjid todo, Bulleh Shah yeh kehta |
Par pyar bhara dil na todo, isme Dilwar rehta ||
( demolish a Temple or Mosque, but don't break a heart full of love, because that is where He resides).
As far rest are concerned, most of the religions are tribal in nature ! Love the members of the tribe;
anybody not belonging to the tribe is not worthy of love.
they are one and the same.....believe in sufism and the auliya has alwyas been and remains the mainstream of Islma.....when the Salafis remove love from Islam it is like a corpse, it is an empty husk....Bulle Shah was not attacking Islam, only those who would see only the surface and deny the ocean of love below....It is interesting that the Salafis and the Islamophobes agree on only one thing--the contempt for the Sufi path....
Peace/Salaams/shalom
It loves en masse death of others. Muslims instigating vioplence against Ahemediaas, after bombing their moslques. Read this:
"The Ahmadi leadership had hoped the attacks in Lahore would prompt an outpouring of sympathy among British Muslims. Instead, they say, it has emboldened a minority of extremists to openly target them in an upsurge in intimidation.
Rafiq Hayat, national president of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community UK, told The Independent: "Through leaflet distribution, posting of hate material on websites and via programmes on satellite TV (often in Urdu and other south Asian languages) our community is being made a target of hatred and hostility by preachers of hate. The perpetrators of this act are Muslims and whilst they are certainly not representative of the vast majority of Muslims in this country, they are creating hatred in society."
Police in Kingston-upon-Thames have opened a hate crime investigation earlier this summer when an Ahmadi woman was handed a leaflet by a man which stated: "Kill [an Ahmadi] and the doors to heaven will be open for you." In Tooting, meanwhile, some mainstream Sunni preachers have urged follower to boycotts Ahmadi businesses."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/hardliners-call-for-deaths-of-surrey-muslims-2112268.html
Peace/salaams/Shalom
Peace/Salaams/Shalom
Oh wait, that's all religions.
The problem is different. You can say all religions have treated women badly; the Swiss, the most cultured society, gave women voting rights only fifty years back. But in other communities, there is a built in system of reforms and socities evolve, shedding undesirable practises. Hinduism recognised the cruely of untouchability and attempt to end the practice by legal means and through propaganda by eminent reformers. You have to recognise and acknowledge the problem. The problem in Islam is they refuse to either recognise and acknowledge the problem; hence no corrective actions are initiated. They also blame others or claim victimhood. They blame America, colonial powers, India and of course Israel. They also claim poverty, lack of education and discrimination for the violence they unleash. Never they take responsibillity for their actions nor do they accept that the verses are the root cause of terrorism. They will endlessly argue that the Bible contain violent verses; knowing that Christians are not causing terror attacks. What they need is family planning, education and women empowerment. I have not seen a single muslim emphasising these but will demand First Amendment. Have you ever seen a single article on these three issues during the last eight months? Islam will be existential threat for others for long time in the future.
Here is a link:
http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/tam/categories/C24/
Peace/Salaams/Shalom and Happy Diwali
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because like [many before], they will awake one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun. Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Bosnians, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others, have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. We must pay attention to the only group that counts; the fanatics who threaten our way of life." - Paul E. Marek
But He loves you.
But the professor is a little light on what might be termed "love of neighbor," the commandment to "love thy neighbor as thyself." Chittick's theme hews close to a concept of love that really ignores how any loving relationship between God and humankind might lead to an exhortation to love one's fellow human beings. To the extent Chittick suggests there is a history of a Muslim theology of love, he reveals a novel side of Islamic culture that is interesting. Too bad his article does not disclose an Islamic theology calling Muslims to love their neighbor. That story would be even more interesting.
Perhaps you, and others, would prefer that Muslims just lay down and die willingly when attacked and oppressed.
I wonder if that's what you'd do in any similar situation - seeing as, in your opinion, self defence is akin to terrorism.
By the way, the four New Yorkers convicted today of conspiring to destroy synagogues -- from what were they trying to defend themselves?