Endings and Beginnings

The title of my khutbah today is “Endings and Beginnings”. I chose this theme because today’s khutbah marks an end of an era- it will be the last khutbah at this location. J and O are moving, so this home is no longer available and the format of the Friday jummah will also be changing in 2019. We can talk about this more in the discussion portion, but suffice to say, today for me, feels like an ending.

Before I dig deeper into the khtubah, I would like to take the time to say thank you to J and O, and also B and H and S and J, who have shared their homes with us in fellowship and allowed us to worship in our own particular style with equality of prayer space. Thank you for giving us safe spaces to express our thoughts and opinions in freedom. May God in His generous wisdom reward you for your generosity. Also, I am reminded to thank God for allowing us to live in a country where we have the freedom to worship how we please, the freedom to gather with people we choose , and to express ourselves free from violence. Many of our fellow Muslims around the world are not able to enjoin many or most of these kinds of freedoms because of the government and society under which they live. Thank you God for the United States of America.

When we see an ending approaching, it is a good time for us to sit back and stake stock of what we have learned, what we have struggled with, and what we hope to see in the future-a starting point to set new goals.

Every ending marks the start of a new beginning. We know this from our personal experience, and from Quran. The first thing that might spring to mind when I talk about “ending’ in the Quran is dying and what happens after we die. J gave a very nice khutbah about that a few ago, so I’m not going to use that metaphor today. Instead, I’d like to talk about the process of religious conversion. What happens when we change our minds about what we believe?

I’m going to define religious conversion as the process of switching from one belief system to a different belief system. In the time of the Prophet, the old belief system was based on worship of many gods and goddesses and the world was organized around appeasing these entities with sacrifices and rituals. Mirroring the fragmentation of the deities, society was organized around tribal loyalties. The new religious system which the Prophet gave to his followers was organized around the belief of a single God, Allah, with very different  rituals and sacrifices. Similarly, followers of this new belief system were asked to organize into a single group and if not reject, then at least have weakened tribal allegiances. With this unification of God’s oneness, there must have been tremendous mental pressure on the new converts. Instead of bundling all of life’s unpleasant challenges into the workings of disgruntled gods and goddesses, all the contradictions of life on this planet had to be reconciled into the plan of one divine being Not only were they renouncing the belief system of their tradition and families, but they were also organizing themselves into a community of like minded believers (as opposed to the genetic  basis of tribes). It is perhaps not surprising that this ending of old beliefs and springing up of new ones can make many people undergoing religious conversion prone to psychological dissonance and discomfort. 

One way to deal with this mental pressure is to engage in”end of days” thoughts. The apocalypse of the mental world in their heads is projected out to the belief of an apocalypse of the physical world.  If you read the early Mecca surahs, many of them have a lot of end of days, end of the world imagery.

Surah 100 The Chargers (Al-Adiyat)

In the name of God, The Merciful, the Compassionate- by the chargers, panting, by ones who kindle fire, striking fire, by the raiders in the morning, when they plowed it to a trail of dust and they penetrated the center with it, a multitude. Truly the human being is unthankful to his Lord. And truly he is a witness to that. And he is more severe in cherishing of good. Knows he not that when all that is in the graves is scattered about and shown forth is what is in the breasts, truly their Lord on that Day will be aware of them.

Surah 101 The Disaster (al Qari’ah)

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate- the Disaster! What is the Disaster? And what will cause you to recognize what the Disaster is? On a Day humanity will be like dispersed moths and the mountains will become like plucked wool clusters. Then for him whose balance is heavy will be one whose life is pleasant, well-pleasing. Abut he whose balance is made light, his abode of rest will be the pit. What will cause you to recognize what it is? It is a hot fire.

The later surahs have far less of these apocalyptic references, many of them focused on the day to day problems facing a community of like minded believers. For instance, Surah 49 Al Hujurat (Private Apartments) was revealed in Medina year 9 and is a “how to” primer of how to get along.

49:6 “O You who have attained to faith! If any wicked person comes to you with a tiding, use your discernment, lest you hurt people unwittingly and afterwards be filled with remorse for what you have done.”

49:10 “ Only the ones who believe are brothers, so make things right between your brothers. And be Godfearing of God so that perhaps you would find mercy.”

49:12 “ Avoid suspicion much. Truly some suspicion is a sin and spy not nor backbite some by some other. Would one of you love to eat the flesh of his lifeless brother? You would dislike it. And be Godfearing of God. Truly God is Acceptor of Repentance. Compassionate!”

While the old way of doing things and thinking about the world may be ending, these old belief systems are replaced with new perspectives and beliefs. This is a time of transition, which can be scary, because it is a chaotic time of death and renewal. It can be hard to predict what will remain, and what will be cast off.  Eventually, things settle down.

PAUSE

From Ibn Sa’d’s book The Book of the Major Classes (Arabic: Kitab Tabaqat Al-Kubra), we learn that when Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) died, his companions were thrown into confusion and fear. 

Hazrat Umar shouted in the masjid,  “The Messenger of Allah did not die. He is alive. He was struck by lightning like Moses. If anyone says, ‘Muhammad died’, I will split him into two with my sword.”

However, after leaving the house of the Prophet, Hazrat Abu Bakr went to the Mosque. He heard Umar say, “The Messenger of Allah did not die.” Abu Bakr stopped him and said, “Whoever worships Muhammad (pbuh) should know that Muhammad (pbuh) died. Whoever worships Allah should know that Allah is Hayy (immortal).”

He then recited from Surah Imran ayah 144:

“Muhammad is only a Messenger. Surely Messengers have passed away before him. Then if he should die or be slain, will you turn about on your heels? And he who turns about on his heels will not injure God at all; and God will give recompense to the ones who are thankful.”

Abu Bakr calmed the crowd, and then started organizing.

All the companions learned so much from their time with the Prophet and this served them when they came to take leadership positions. After the Prophet’s death, all of the Khalifah Rashedeen were called upon to do things which were not part of the community’s expectation of their character. Abu Bakr, considered the meek and mild companion, was forced to act as an authoritarian tax enforcer during the Ridda Wars because many tribes would not pay zakat. Umar ibn Khittab, the fierce warrior, exercised compassion and mercy during a terrible drought that struck the Arabian peninsula. Uthman, the refined aristocrat, learned that tribal nepotism had no place in the new Muslim meritocracy, and Ali, the rigid knight, had to negotiate and compromise with his enemies.

While our Friday jummah will be dramatically changing and in some sense, coming to an end, I think the experience of being in this fellowship has changed all of us and I am confident that we will carry many of these lessons forward into other aspects of our lives.

I know for myself, I have learned so much. As one example, I was asked to speak at a recent school board meeting and I presented, what I considered to be, some uncomfortable truths about why a recent referendum had failed. The next day, as I drove my daughter to school, I said to her, “You may get some funny looks from your teachers because I had to speak some uncomfortable truths at last night’s meeting.” My daughter replied, “I think you deliberately seek out situations where you have to bring up your uncomfortable truths.” Maybe she is right. Maybe I am able to bring up uncomfortable truths because  I have had a space here to bring them up, discuss them, and I’ve learned that my friends will still talk to me the following week.

Thank you all for participating in this Khutbah Project. Thank you for your patience and understanding. May God bless you and help you as you carry forth the lessons we have learned here.

My closing du’a is from 2:286, last ayah of Al Baqara: Our Lord! Do not punish us if we forget or make a mistake. Our Lord! Do not load on us a severe test as You did burden on those before us. Our Lord! Do not impose upon us that which we have not the strength to bear; and pardon us and forgive us and have mercy on us, You are our Defender, so help us against the ungrateful people. Ameen

Communication in Color

The title of my khutbah today is “Communication in Color”.  While you might think this was inspired by the oncoming fall foliage, it was actually inspired by a line from the Quran and octopuses- as well as cuttlefish (cousins to the octopus).

The line from Quran is found in 2:138 “Colors from Allah! And who could give a better color than God, if we but worship Him?” Sibghatal-lahi wa man ‘ahsanu minal-lahi sibghah. Wa nahmu lahu ‘abidun.

It is a curious ayah. Sometimes “color” is translated as “Hue” or “Dye”.  The translators have a bit of a problem with it.  The root letters – suad ba ghyn- - signify savour or relish. As an artist I love that, but that is not much help to a translator.  Since the ayah comes in the middle of the theological debate with Jews and Christians, many commenters have said that the “color” or “Dye” is a colloquial expression for “Baptism”, the ayah then means that it doesn’t matter who baptizes you, the fact that you worship God is baptism enough. That is certainly one way of interpreting the ayah and you can leave it at that.

However, when I was reading a philosophy/natural history book called “Other Minds: The octopus, the sea, and the deep origins of consciousness” by Peter Godfrey-Smith, I thought again of this ayah as I came across passages of the octopus and cuttlefish.

Why write a book about octopuses and what does this have to do with consciousness? Godfrey-Smith wrote the book because he is a philosopher interested in consciousness, and he was wondering what it would be like to encounter an alien from a different planet and what that consciousness would look like. If you’ve seen the science fiction movie “Arrival”, that is a similar thought experiment, and interestingly, the aliens from that movie look like octopus or squids. Since he didn’t have access to an alien, he looked at our evolutionary tree. Octopuses and humans share a common ancestor, but our paths diverged millions of years ago. Octopuses live in the sea, we carry the sea within us.  We are related to primates and mammels, octopuses are related to molluscs and clams. Over millions of years, as cephalopods (octopuses, squids and cuttlefish) shed their shells and opted for mobility, they developed a very complex neural network which Is very different from ours. Their brains are organized in a way that looks nothing like ours. Instead of one central brain controlling and directing all action, they have a brain that coordinates discrete activies (i.e. their arms). The analogy Godfrey-Smith uses is human brains are like Paul Revere and the sexton. The sexton lights a candle (one if by land, two if by see), Paul Revere sees the candle and acts. Cephalopod brains are more like a rowboat with eight oarsmen and a coxswain. The coxswain navigates the boat and calls out the time to coordinate the rowers, but each of the rowers is a fairly independent agent. 

We are used to our own consciousness, where environmental stimuli streams are integrated into one single picture. But for many species, this is not the case- the left side doesn’t know what the right side is doing. Particularly for animals with eyes on the sides of their head (not in front like us), the eyes have separate visual fields, and the information is not always passed on to the other side of the brain. For some species, they may be better positioned to evade predators or find food on one side of their body versus the other. Scientists think that if different tasks require different kinds of processing, it might be easier for a brain with specialized sides and not tie them too closely together. I am reminded of studies done in Russia on dolphins (which can’t be done nowadays), but they showed that dolphins sleep on one side of the brain, and then switch- alternating sleep patterns (one side awake, other side asleep). Humans that have had their corpus callosum severed (an early treatment for severe epilepsy) behave fairly normally, unless they are put under special experimental conditions where different halves of the brain are exposed to different stimuli.

“The left side of the brain usually controls language (though not always) and when you talk to a split-brain person, it is the left side show speaks back. Though the right side cannot usually speak, it can control the left hand. So it can choose objects by touch, and draw pictures. In various experiments, different images are provided to each side of the brain. If the person is asked what they have seen, their verbal response will follow what was shown to the left side of the brain, but the right side-controlling the left hand- may disagree. The special kind of mental fragmentation seen in split-brain humans seems a routine part of many animals’ life.” P 86

“To some degree, unity is inevitable in a living agent: an animal is a whole, a physical object keeping itself alive. But in other ways, unity is optional, an achievement, an invention. Bringing experience together- even the deliverances of the two eyes- is something that evolution may or may not choose to do.” P 87

So how does this relate to color? Most cephalopods (not all, but most) are very good at camouflage. They can change their color within seconds to blend in with their surroundings. Remember, these are animals without bones, teeth, or fangs,  who wander along the ocean floor looking for food and evading a huge variety of predators. Furthermore, most of you are familiar with the ink that cephalopods squirt at predators to avoid being eaten. The ink jet is often accompanied with a dramatic color change to scare the predator- or at least get him to open his mouth to release the arm.

Godfrey-Smith describes an encounter with a cuttlefish:

“This animal is three feet long with a skin that can appear just about any color at all and can change in seconds, sometimes much faster than a second. Thin silver lines wander over its head, as if the animal is visibly electrified. The electric lines make the cuttlefish look like a hovering spacecraft. But the disruption to one’s impressions, to all attempts to make sense of the animal, is continual. As you watch, bright red trails lead from its eyes. A spaceship crying tears of blood? …IN the case of large cuttlefish, the entire body is a screen on which patterns are played. The patterns are not just a series of snapshots, but moving shapes, like stripes and clouds. These seem to be immensely expressive animals, animals with a lot to say. If so, what is being said, and to whom?” p 108

“Colors from God! And who could give a better color than God, if we but worship Him?”

What makes the color change capacity of cephalopods so interesting is that they are rather solitary creatures, they tend to be loners and do not tend over their young. They are said to be color blind.

PAUSE

In order to tell the difference between brightness of light  versus color of light, you need to have photoreceptors. Photoreceptor cells have molecules that change shape with different frequencies of light. Most humans have three kinds of photoreceptors, most color vision systems need at least two. Cephalopods have only one.

In behavior test where cephalopods are asked to distinquish between two stimuli that only differ in color, the ones who have been tested, fail.

How can you match color if you cannot see? One explanation is that you use reflecting cells, mirrors in the skin, to reflect back the color from outside. Cephalopods do have these reflecting cells in their skin. But if the animal is matching color behind its back and the color from the front is different, then the cephalopod would need to actively produce the right color- which it can also do using chromatophores it its skin.

What researchers have learned is that the octopus skin can both sense light and produce a response  that affects the skin’s color. The octopus can see with its skin.

Godfrey-Smith writes,

“What could it be like to see with your skin? There could be no focusing on an image. Only general changes and washes of light could be detected. We don’t yet know whether the skin’s sensing is communicated to the brain, or whether the information remains local. Both possibilities stretch the imagineation. If the skin’s sensing is carried to the brain, then the animal’s visual sensitivity would extend in all directions, beyond where the eyes can reach. If the skin’s sensing does not reach the brain, then each arm might see for itese, and keep what it sees to itself.” P 121

“I think that these animals have a sophisticated system designed for camouflage and signaling, but one that is connected to the brain in a way theat leads to all sorts of strange expressive quirks- to a kind of ongoing chromatic chatter.” P 128

By now you are probably thinking, Ok this is interesting but what does this have to do with God?

When we learn about how other organisms live and perceive the world around them, we gain a sense of humility. There are animals that can take the same thing I perceive, light for instance, and they can see it absorbed as a color, or know how it is polarized, or use it to determine what season it is or navigate a thousand mile migration pattern. I can’t do those things, I am not built that way. In appreciating the diversity of others, I am reminded that my perception is limited. I am not omniscient and I am not omnipotent. I am not a god.

In the Quran, 21:28-30

“(God) knows all that lies open before them and all that is hidden from them; hence, they cannot intercede for any but those whom (God) has graced with His goodly acceptance, since they themselves stand in reverent awe of Him. And if any of them were to say, ‘Behold, I am a deity beside Him’- that one We should requite with hell; thus do We requite all such evildoers. Are, then they who are bent on denying the truth not aware that the heavens and the earth were once one single entity which We then parted asunder? And that We made out of water every living thing?. Will they then not believe?”

It is also my hope that as we gain knowledge of the world around us and we see the amazing and beautiful creations God has rendered, that we will become more appreciative of the air, the earth, and the water and all the creatures that dwell therein. If we are grateful and filled with wonder, then we will be less prone to destroy and exploit our world. We will become better khalifas of this planet and strengthen our accountability to God who has charged us with this task of caring for our world.

REFERENCES:
Quran translations: "The Message of the Qur'an" by Muhammad Asad

"Other Minds: the Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness" by Peter Godfrey-Smith 2016  (Fararr-Strauss and Giroux: New York)

Cosmos - Back to School August 2018

From Surah 10, Yunus (Jonah):

Huwal-ladhi ja’alash-shamsa diyaa-anw-wal-qamara nuran-

The One is who made the sun a radiant light and the moon a light reflected,

wa qaddarahu manazila lita lamu adadas-sinina wal-hisab.  

and has determined for it phases so that you might know how to compute the years and to measure time. 

Ma khalaqal-lahu dhalika illa bilhaqq. 

None of this has God created without an inner truth. 

Yufassilul- Ayati liqaw-miny-ya lamun [5]

Clearly does He spell out these messages to people of knowledge:  [5]

Inna fikh-tilafil-layli wan-nahari

For, truly, in the alternating of night and day,

wa me khalaqal-lahu fis-samawati wal-ardi

and in all that God has created in the heavens and on earth

la Ayatil-liqawminy-yattaqun. [6]

there are messages indeed for people who are conscious of Him [6]

In the summer of my 16^th year, my family drove from Maryland to my  Uncle Juke’s house in Detroit.  Those were the days when Detroit was still a booming town, an exciting place to visit.  The auto industry  - Ford, GM, Chrysler – were unrivaled in producing cars for Americans.  Uncle Juke and Aunt Bunny would take us and my four cousins on the Boblo boat to Boblo Island, visit Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum and theater, and drive through a thriving downtown.  It was all very exciting for a bunch of farm kids.  But the excitement of that visit in the summer of 1969 went way beyond the attractions of Detroit.  In fact, it entered the realm of the surreal, when the unfathomable became a reality.  Even my Uncle Juke – whose expressive sense of joy and wonder in living made him the center of attention wherever he went – even Uncle Juke was rendered speechless by the events of that day.

July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 mission landed two men on the moon.  We were glued to the television for hours, listening to Walter Cronkite try to give us the technical details of the various procedures involved – entering the moon’s orbit, the blackout period when the space capsule went behind the moon, the next day the transfer of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin from the command module Columbia to the lunar module, the Eagle, the separation of the lunar module from the command module, descent toward the moon’s surface, and then holding our breaths - seemingly with the rest of humankind - while Armstrong tried to maneuver the lunar module to a safe landing in a field of boulders while the fuel gage dropped and computer alarms were sounding.  And then we heard the words, “Houston, Tranquility Base here.  The Eagle has landed.” 

And then another long wait until finally, at 10:56 EST, Neil Armstrong, climbed down the Eagle’s ladder and said “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”  They left behind a plaque that said:

•   HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH
FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON
JULY 1969 A.D.
WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND

A later Apollo mission sent back pictures of earthrise from the surface of the moon that changed our image of ourselves forever. 

From Surah 21, Al-Ambiyaa (The Prophets)

Are, then, they who are bent on denying the truth not aware that the heavens and the earth were [once] one single entity, which We then parted asunder?  - and We made out of water every living thing?  Will they not then believe? [30]

And [are they not aware that] we have set up firm mountains on earth, lest it sway with them, and [that] We have appointed on them broad paths, so that they might find their way, [31] and [that] We have set up the sky as a canopy well-secured?

And yet, they stubbornly turn away from the signs of this [creation], [32] and [fail to see that] it is the One who has created the night and the day and the sun and the moon – all of them floating through space!  [33]

Eight years after Apollo 11, in August and September, 1977, two space probes were launched by NASA to study the outer Solar System. Operating for 41 years now, the Voyager 1 spacecraft and it’s sister craft Voyager 2 communicate with the Deep Space Network to receive routine commands and return data.   Those probes are now over 13 billion miles from Earth.  Voyager 1 is in "Interstellar space" and Voyager 2 is currently in the "Heliosheath" -- the outermost layer of the heliosphere.  NASA has fascinating information and a tracking system on its website, “NASA’s Eyes Visualization.”

In 1990, Voyager 1 had completed its primary mission of studying the planets and was leaving the Solar System.  At the request of the famous astronomer Carl Sagan, NASA commanded it to turn it’s camera around and take a picture of the Earth across the great expanse of space.  This is that picture:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot

Carl Sagan wrote these words on seeing that picture:

“That’s here, that’s home, that’s us.  On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was lived out their lives.  The aggregate of our joy and suffering, Thousands of arrogant religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer, every king and peasant every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every sinner in the history of our species, on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam. 

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.  Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in a moment of glory and triumph they can become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. 

Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner.  How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.  Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.  Our planet is a lonely spec in the great enveloping cosmic dark.  In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that hope will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. 

The earth is the only world known so far to harbor life….

There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image.  To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

When Apollo 11 landed on the moon, we thought anything could be possible.  We had such faith in the future of humankind, that progress toward a peaceful and self-sustaining existence for humankind on earth was not only possible, but our manifest destiny. 

But here we are, 49 years later, and the president of the nation responsible for planting those noble words on the moon has called for our country to launch a “Space Force” – to militarize the space beyond the “well-secured canopy” of our sky.  We face the prospect that we have the power to make outer space a war zone.  Indeed it increasingly seems that we do not have the power not to make our planet uninhabitable.

As Muslims, we are warned in the text we take as divine revelation, not to succumb to that fatalistic vision.  Our holy text reminds us that the universe holds signs for us, if we will only see them:

From Surah 16, The Bee:

Wa ‘alqa fil-ardi rawasiya an-tamida bikum

And Allah has placed firm mountains on earth, lest it sway with you,

wa anharanw-wa subulal-la ‘allakum tahtadun. [15]

and rivers and paths, so that you might find your way, [15]

Wa alamatinw-wa binnajmi hum yahtadun. [16]

As well as other means of orientation: for it is by the stars that men find their way. [16]

When that passage was revealed, it reminded the Arabs of how they used the stars to navigate their way across the deserts.  In our time it takes on a whole new meaning.  In August 2012 Voyager 1 entered interstellar space, the region between stars, filled with material ejected by the death of nearby stars millions of years ago.  It is now sending us information about that star stuff that is transforming our understanding of the universe.  The Voyagers are expected to continue their mission until 2025, when their generators will no longer supply enough power to operate any of their instruments.  We are indeed learning new things, directly from the stars.  One thing is for sure – they have given us a new perspective on our place in the universe. 

We are living through a time that seems very, very dark.  We have many challenges.  Bishop Desmond Tutu has said “We are meant to live in joy.  This does not mean that life will be easy or painless.  It means that we can turn our faces to the wind and accept that this is the storm we must pass thorough.  We cannot succeed by denying what exists.  The acceptance of reality is the only place from which change can begin.”  [The Book of Joy, p. 224]  In other words, path to joy lies in facing and working through our challenges.  We can take comfort in the revelations recorded in Quran that assure us that Justice, Compassion and Mercy will ultimately prevail in this universe.   Joy comes from working on the side of Justice, Compassion and Mercy.

As you return to school this fall – or if you are an adult, contemplate how you will spend the extra time you have when your kids go back to school - think about what it means that Allah called us human beings “Vice-regents on Earth.”  Devote yourselves to studying the realities that exist – scientific and political.  But open yourselves to exploring new ways of looking at things, and to discovering the new answers that will allow us, in the words of Carl Sagan, “to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot,” and in the words of Sagan and the Quran, “to deal more kindly with one another.”

From Surah 7, Al-Araf

Inna Rabbakumul-lahul-ladhi khalaqas-samawati wal-arda fi sittati ayyamin-

Verily, your Sustainer is God, who has created the heavens and the earth in six aeons,

thummas-tawa alal ‘arshi. 

and is established on the throne of Almightiness. 

Yugh-shil-laylan-nahara yatlubuhu hathithan

The One Who covers the day with the night in swift pursuit,

wash-shamsa wal-qamara wan-nujuma musakhkharatim-bi’amrih.

with the sun and the moon and the stars following that Command: 

Ala lahul-khalqu wal-amr. 

Truly -  all creation and all command. 

Tabarakal-lahu Rabbul-alamin. [54]

Hallowed is God, the Sustainer of all the worlds.  [54]

Learning through history by gentle persuasion

Part 1: Learning from History

Recently, I went on a solo trip through Frankfurt, Cologne, and Strasbourg to experience traveling on my own and also to learn from the history of these cities. One of the lessons that stood out to me in particular was that social progress comes with challenging hurdles. 

This lesson was especially apparent in a Frankfurt house of worship,  the St. Paul’s Church or Sankt Paulskirche. For those of you who do not know, the St. Paul’s Church was the site of the first parliament in Germany during the 1848 Revolutions. This was the first time in German history that any sort of parliament had ever convened, and it was about time too. France, England, and the Netherlands had already established parliaments, personal freedoms, and constitutions. Germany was lagging behind its neighbors and needed to catch up in what we now consider to be fundamental human rights.

Shortly after their first meeting, the Germans soon learned that democracy was far from easy to maintain. The parliament was plagued with endless debates, constantly shifting political parties, and confusing bureaucracy. Despite all of the barriers and obstacles the delegates faced, they were ultimately able to accomplish one of their greatest goals: a German constitution that guaranteed inalienable rights of all German citizens and outlined a new comprehensive German government, with the Prussian king as emperor of a constitutional monarchy.

Unfortunately, the two most powerful empires in the German speaking regions, Austria and Prussia, refused to recognize the constitution and the Prussian king refused the crown, fearing the constitutional monarchy of a large empire would result in less personal power than what he had as an autocratic king of a smaller kingdom. Democratic constraints are an anathema to autocratic rulers, as we are learning in contemporary American politics. Without the approval of either Austria or Prussia the first German parliament collapsed within only two years of its inception, and Germany remained a collage of loosely affiliated autocratic kingdoms. In fact, some argue that the rulers became even more reactionary and regressive perhaps as a reaction to the progressive spirit that had nearly unseated their autocratic rule.

However, the parliament at the St. Paulskirche was not all in vain. The German constitution that was drafted in 1849 became the foundation for the current German constitution that was written 100 years later. Although everything must have seemed hopeless to those champions of democracy in 1849, the work that they did would have a profound effect on the course of German history.

Within Islamic history, this theme of hope and salvation during times of hardship is also very common.  We see examples of despair in human society such as the persecution of the Israelites by the Egyptians followed by the revelations received by Prophet Musa - peace be upon him , and perhaps most memorable within the Islamic tradition, the time of ignorance and oppression in Mecca until the time of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). It is easy to imagine a sense of hopelessness perhaps similar to how the Germans felt in 1850, when their dreams of self-determination were crushed.

However, it is important to remember that in many of these cases, people were able to rise above societal setbacks by learning from the attempts of their forefathers. The Quran seems to suggest that learning from history can perhaps remind us of not only the glory of Allah(Subhanahu wa ta'ala), but also the ups and downs in human society.

Quran: “It is not a guidance for them (to know) how many a generation We destroyed before them, amid whose dwellings they walk? Lo therein verily are signs for men of thought” 20:18

History is a valuable lesson for us and God reminds us to embrace the knowledge of history in order to become better individuals and better societies. I definitely learned a lot of history on my trip and I feel that these lessons of history make me a more grateful person because they help me realize the blessings we enjoy and how people before us struggled to provide them for us today.

Part II: Gentle Persuasion

The last city I visited on my trip was the now French city of Strasbourg, the location of the European Union Parliament. While it was most certainly a beautiful city with a rich culture, it also became a grim reminder of the dangers of aggressive assimilation. Before we delve into that though, let me give you some context for my arrival into Strasbourg.

As an occasionally over-confident German American who can get by on both English and German, I thought I would have no trouble navigating Strasbourg, a center of European politics and formerly German city. Therefore, I felt no need to try to pick up any French phrases or expressions prior to my arrival. I thought I knew my history of the city and I truthfully believed that my German could perhaps get me by if my English failed. This was far from the truth.

When I first arrived in Strasbourg, the first thing I noticed in the train stations was that they gave all information in French, English, and then German. I thought this was a bit strange because as I soon found out, at least half of the tourists were from Germany, and they were travelling via train. When I later checked into the hotel, I first tried German and was met with blank stares by the concierge. Soon, I discovered that all street signs, menus, and news channels in the city were in French. German wasn’t even the secondary language of the city; that honor was given to English, the official language of the European Union.

I thought perhaps by learning more about the city’s history, I could solve this peculiar conundrum, and figure out why Strasbourg was seemed to be striped bare of its German roots. At first though, I ended up getting even more confused.

Strasbourg, as I learned, was a Free Imperial city under German rule from roughly the 1400s to the late 1600’s. This was very significant because it allowed the city to levy their own taxes, mint their own coins, and determine the official religion of the city. These were privileges that only German cities of the time could have access, making Strasbourg the quintessential German city.

The paradigms shifted in the late 1600’s when Louis XIV, also known as the Sun King, captured Strasbourg, and claimed it for France. Even though Strasbourg was now under French rule, the French monarchy never tried to overtly impose French authority upon city. This changed with the French Revolution. By the 1790’s France, not Germany, was championing the ideals of self-determination and freedom. As a result, the city’s residents soon began to favor France and embrace the French nationality. The lesson here is that ideals - not political or military power - shape the culture of a people.

Yet just 80 years later, Strasbourg would once again return to Germany and the Germans decided to infuse Strasbourg with “Germanness” if you will. They rapidly constructed entire new quarters, taught German in school curriculums, and invited Germans from all over the country to move to Strasbourg. It seemed as if Strasbourg would once again become a German city, again won over by the ideals of education and modernity.

The hope was ultimately fruitless after World War I when the city was once again in the hands of the French. Soon though, I came to realize why the city seemed to be so barren of its German ancestry: the Nazis.

When the Nazis defeated France in 1940, they aggressively sought to make Strasbourg German. Speaking French in public from 1940 to 1945 was a crime. French was completely stricken from all education curriculum, and all French youth clubs were replaced with the Hitler Youth. Even whistling the French national anthem could be enough for a jail sentence. 

Through all of this hyper aggressive assimilation, the Nazis ultimately achieved what no group had done before: they had stripped away the German of Strasbourg. They failed in the most spectacular way simply by using aggression instead of persuasion and they violated the mot core belief of the people of Strasbourg: self-determination.

The prophet understood the value of gentle persuasion and negotiation, which is evident when he negotiated the truce of Hudaybiyyah, which lasted two years with the Meccans. According to Muhammad Asad, “As soon as perennial warfare came to an end and people of both sides could meet freely, new converts rallied around the Prophet, first in tens, then in hundreds, then in thousands. So much so that the Prophet could and did occupy Mecca almost without resistance.”

The lesson from the Prophet’s life and the history of Strasbourg is that ideals, education, dialogue ultimately win, whereas aggression and persecution is doomed to fail.

The Quran and the Aramaic Gospels, Part II

I gave a khutbah in April about the work of two scholars – Neil Douglas Klotz and Emran El-Badawi - who have focused on the relationship between language and meaning – especially the Aramaic language that was commonly used in the Middle East during the time of prophets Jesus and Mohammed.  I had first become interested in the idea of translation as a distorter of original meaning through reading Klotz’s work.  He offers a much more nuanced, non-didactic interpretation of biblical texts like the Lord’s Prayer (Prayers of the Cosmos) and the Gospels, (The Hidden Gospel:  Decoding the Spiritual Message of the Aramaic Jesus).  Klotz’s interpretations reinforced for me the notion that the foundational texts of the monotheistic faiths – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – are indeed a continuum of a single faith trajectory.  But Klotz is a Sufi scholar (The Sufi Book of Life:  99 Pathways of the Heart for the Modern Dervish, is a meditation on the 99 names of Allah), not an academic researcher. 

Emran El-Badawi’s work has taken the “continuum” hypothesis to the level of focused academic research.  The book that followed from his doctoral dissertation, The Quran and the Aramaic Gospels, is a comparative analysis of the Quran’s Arabic text and the Aramaic text of the Gospels, a scientific study of linguistics.  I consider this work to be a seminal contribution to our understanding of Quranic revelation and it’s place in the evolution of human spirituality. 

By studying both meaning and linguistic structure in the Quran and the Aramaic Gospels, El-Badawi was able to discern the main verses that form the backbone of the interface, or “dialogue” between the two scriptures.  He described four categories of meaning that apply to both scriptural traditions:  1/ the prophets and their righteous entourage, 2/ the evils of the clergy, 3/ the divine realm, and 4/ divine judgment and the apocalypse. 

In his linguistic analysis, El-Badawi looks at whole passages, clauses or phrases, and short phrases that share multiple relationships.  El-Badawi’s study provides a detailed analysis of the concentration, distribution and frequency of these types of relationships, and summarizes the findings in several graphs.  Short phrases form 71 % of all the relationships that he found.   He also looks at words that are derived from the same root words or borrowed words; these comprise 27 % of the relationships.  Finally, he examines rhymes and repetitions that are related between the scriptures.  These are comparatively miniscule, however the repetition of the curse formula against the ‘scribes and hypocrites’ in Matthew 23 (and Luke 11:44) and its parallel against the ‘disbelievers’ in Q 77 puts those texts in dialogue.

El-Badawi concludes that “Quran is in close dialogue with the text and context of the Gospels through their transmission in the Syriac and Christian Palestinian dialects of Aramaic….  This dialogue was mediated through a literary and hermeneutical (interpretive) strategy that he calls ‘dogmatic re-articulation.”  His conclusion is that “the Quran does not demonstrate a superficial awareness of the Gospel texts.” 

His evidence shows that the Prophet and his companions were familiar with the prophetic tradition of the Jews and the Christians around them, especially texts from the Bible like the books of Psalms, Isaiah, Acts, Romans, Revelations, and related Aramaic traditions of Rabbinical commentary and Christian preaching.  The Quran is familiar with the events in the Acts of the Apostles, the doctrines of Paul’s epistle to the Romans and the apocalyptic imagery of the book of Revelations.  In other words, the Quran reveals a “broader conception of al-injil beyond just the Gospel Traditions to include the New Testament as a whole.” 

El-Badawi found parallels between the experiences of Muhammad and his community of believers, and the Old Testament prophets.  Prophet Muhammad and his followers experienced expulsion, fear, and hunger, after which they were rewarded with a (new) ‘secure sanctuary’ (haram amin) and many fruits (Q 24: 53-57; 28:57; 106) – just like Abraham and his people. 

         Surah 106  Quraysh

         So that the Quraysh might remain secure [1]

         Secure in their winter and summer journeys [2]

         Let them, therefore, worship the Sustainer of this Temple [3]

Who has given them food against hunger, and made them safe from danger. [4]

They received ‘mercy after hardship,’ fleeing upon land and sea (Q 10:21-23; Q 17:70) – just like Noah and his family, and not unlike Jonah in the belly of the fish.”

         Surah 17:70  Al-Isra  The Night Journey

Now indeed, We have conferred dignity on the children of Adam, and borne them over land and sea, and provided for them sustenance out of the good things of life, and favored them far and above most of Our creation…

El-Badawi found that, contrary to the predominant focus of contemporary Muslim preaching, the Quran’s main focus is not with the pagan cults of cities and towns in or near the Prophet’s surroundings (Mecca, Yathrib, Taif, and so on).  These cults, maintains El-Badawi, were – unlike the image portrayed in the Sirah – probably in serious decline by the time of the prophet Muhammad.  El-Badawi contends that the Quran’s reference to the so-called ‘names’ (asma) of the daughters of Allah (Manat, Lat, and Uzza; Q 53:19-23; 37:149-50; further Q 12:40) likely reflected only one trend of the diversity in the Quran’s time and culture in any case.

The predominate conversation in Quran is with surrounding Christian dogma and Jewish law.  Rival camps of Jewish, Christian, and Hanafite monotheists seem to have constituted the standard form of religious practice in the Quran’s milieu, and polytheistic pagan cults its exception. 

The evidence from El-Badawi’s study “makes it clear” that traditions from the Aramaic Christian sphere intersected with the Quran’s environment early, on multiple occasions, and from different individual sources.  [This is]… best illustrated in the opening verses of the so called ‘Meccan Surahs,’ including Q 51:1-9 which integrates terminology from Syriac, and [other dialects] of Aramaic into the Arabic grammatical constructions (maf’ul mutlaq) that are a hallmark of the … prophetic speech employed in the Quran.” 

         Surah 51:  Adh-Dhariyat  The Dust Scattering Winds

Bismil-lahir-Rahmanir-Rahim 

Wadh-dhariyati dharwa [1] - Consider the winds that scatter the dust far and wide

Fal-hamilati wiqra [2] – and those that carry the burden [of heavy clouds]

         Fal-jariyati yusra [3] – and those that speed along with gentle ease

Fal-muqassimati amra [4] – and those that apportion [the gift of life] at [God’s] behest

Innama tu’aduna lasadiq [5] – Truly, that which you are promised is true indeed

         Wa innad-dina lawaqi [6] – and truly, judgment is bound to come!

Was-samaa ‘i dhatil-hubuk [7]- Consider the firmament full of starry paths!

Innakum lafi qawlim-mukhtaliff [8]- Truly you are deeply at variance as to what to believe

Yu faku anhu man ufik. [9] – perverted in view is the one who would self-deceive.

El-Badawi shows that Qur’an itself is part of a prophetic continuum. 

“The Qur’an may be appreciated as both a collection of divine revelations as well as a product of religious cross-pollination.  Therefore, it is not the finality of an individual prophetic tradition nor its written legacy – scripture – but rather the continuity of prophetic tradition and scripture that bestows upon us the broadest perspective from which to appreciate them both.”

“The broadest appreciation of Qur’an – which goes beyond the confines of classical exegetical literature (Tafsir) and contributes truly original insights to the genre of Qur’anic Sciences (Ulum al-qur’an) is to perceive its dogmatic re-articulation of the scriptures coming from earlier prophetic traditions as well as its contribution to later prophetic traditions.  It is to appreciate a complicated text whose inspiration from the divine realm and articulation onto the plane of human history make it one of the greatest manifestations of scripture, both in the world of late antiquity and in our world today.  Wa allahu a’alam.” 

El-Badawi’s work provides support and concrete evidence that the monotheistic faith traditions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – cannot be separated, and can best be understood when viewed in relationship with each other. 

Innal-ladhina amanu wal-ladhina Hadu wan-Nasara was-Sabi’ina man ‘amanu billahi wal-Yawmil-Akhiri wa ‘amila salihan-falahum ajruhum inda Rabbihim wa la Khaqfun ‘alayhim wa la hum yahzanun.  [2:62]

Truly, those who attain to faith, as well as those who follow the Jewish faith, and the Christians, and the Sabians – all who believe in God and the Last Day and do righteous deeds – shall have their reward with their Sustainer; and no fear need they have and neither shall they grieve.  [2:62]