What It Means - Day 43

"S.H.N.: . . . What is needed today is to make available, first of all, translations of Rumi which are close to the original while being in a contemporary medium, and also ti explain what this poetry really entails. Among the recent-day translators, a few are well known.  There is Kabir Helmiski, who is the head of a branch of Mawlawi devishes. He received his instructions and initiation in Turkey from Sulaiman Dede, the famous Maalawi shaykh and spiritual teacher. Helminski has his own group and they preform actually the Mawlawi rites, that is, the prayers, the invocation, and the sacred concert (sama). They are Muslim, they perform their daily prayers, and then do their turning. He also translates Rumi, but unfortunately it is not from Persian but from the Turkish translation of the Persian of Rumi. The other translators who are well known include Coleman Barks, Robert Bly, Andrew Harvey, and others like them who might be poetically gifted but do not know any Persian. They usually go to the Nicholson translation and they try to paraphrase his words from his style of English to modern American English to be able to reflect the flavor of contemporary American poetry. Sometimes they receive the help of a Persian or an Afghan whose mother tongue is Persian. But the great scholars of Rumi in the West, such as Annemarie Schimmel and also my old friend William Chittick who wrote the book The Sufi Path of Love on Jalal al-Din Rumi, have been very much opposed to this kind of translation. Yet, at the same time, as I said, the wide reception of these popular translations represents the reality of the thirst that exists in America at the present moment . . .

R.J.: For spirituality.

S.H.N.: Exactly, for spirituality, a thirst that is unavoidable, seeing the condition of human society in America today. This is something that is going to continue to exist. . ."

Seyyed Hossin Nasr with Ramin Jahanbegloo, In Search of the Sacred, pp. 164-165

Continuing on from our discussion yesterday, here is Nasr discussing the American propensity for spiritual consumerism. The Coleman Barks works on Rumi are very popular, and I know I've used them myself. Years ago I edited a world civilization document reader for McGraw-Hill and I'm pretty certain the Rumi section I included was the Barks translation. I made the point the other day to a student that as much as I love Nasr there are times that he definitely makes he feel like a complete poser, both as a scholar and as a Muslim. Still, as we know from Mencius, the Heart of Shame is essential for human intellectual and moral improvement, so i guess I should thank God for Nasr on that front as well. In addition, the question of the American thirst for spirituality is a fascinating and key concept, and one that will doubtless run throughout this year.  I know am determined to pick up the Rumi translations that Nasr suggested (Schimmel wrote the book on the Mughals that we used this semester in my Indian travel course).

What It Means - Day 42

"There is nothing wrong with the popularization of Sufi poetry in the West as we find in the Islamic world itself, and in fact the impact that Persian Sufi literature has made and was bound to make globally is unavoidable.  Look what happened when this poetry was first translated in the 19th century in Europe. At that time there was no pseudo-Sufis and gurus who could make a great deal of money from them, but it influenced people such as Goethe and Rilke, who were great poets. And also in England many poets such as Tennyson were influenced by it and that was unavoidable. What I mean is that once the poetic art and poetic depth of someone like Rumi or Jami is made available, people will want to read them. The tragedy in America today is that in many cases this has become commercialized and has become part of a kind of, you might say, spiritual consumerism in a society in which there is so much consumerism and everything in the society encourages consumerism.
   For many Americans, not everybody, but many people in America, there is the feeling that everything must be available in such a way as to be easily consumable and digestible, like taking a pill. Then people grow weary of one product and throw it away to go to something else."
Seyyed Nasr with Ramin Jahanbegloo, In Search of the Sacred, p. 164

And since I was just singing his praises, here's a lovely passage from In Search of the Sacred, which is an extended interview with Seyyed Nasr. I think you clearly have something to say when your interview stretches to three hundred pages. This reminds me of our Skype session from the other day, except in this case he wasn't self-editing his answers in response to questions from a group of non-major undergraduates and instead is talking with another philosopher. I purchased this book the other day and it is a beautiful book that I'm just starting. The topics range from the sports he played at university to the balancing act between the esoteric and exoteric worlds of faith, so I definitely will have my hands full (quite happily). In this passage he discusses the popularity of the Sufi poet Rumi, who, as we know, is always one of the top, if not the top, selling poets in America every year.  Nasr certainly has no problem with people reading Rumi, but rather how they are approaching reading Rumi or any of the other Sufi poets. Instead of studying Rumi we consume Rumi, in nice little bite size chunks. And I'm often as guilty of this as anyone else so don't think that I'm placing myself in some separate intellectually and morally purified category.  Years ago my sister Beth asked me to speak at her wedding and I chose passages from Rumi as inspiration, and I know that I selected them from the most popularized, friendly translation possible without any sense of studying the deeper meaning.  Now, going back to Nasr's original point, I wasn't doing anything nefarious and my words were well-received, and maybe I introduced Rumi to an audience who had never heard of him, but I was also clearly trading in a consumer friendly version of one of the most beautiful and complex thinkers of all time.

Reflecting back on all this I do think it's funny that years ago when this occurred, long before I ever converted to Islam or even thought about converting, I was drawn to Rumi. Many mainstream Muslims have sort of a tortured relationship with the Sufis, and they, like the Ahmadiyya I discussed earlier, also are sometimes persecuted by extremists inside of the faith.  When I was talking to our old Imam about my interest in converting and he asked why, naturally.  As part of an extended answer I mentioned my long love of the Sufi poets, and he smiled and said, "Yeah, about that . . ." He wasn't critical, just making a subtle and funny reference to the faith's peculiar relationship with Sufism. Maybe even back in the days of my sister's wedding I was searching, but that's tomorrow's topic.

Teaching

This seems like a great picture to tie together my recent posts about our Skype sessions with Seyyed Nasr and Qasim Rashid.  This is a picture that I shamelessly swiped from a Facebook post from my student Ines de Haro, who arranged the entire Nasr talk by herself.  She wrote the following lovely words: "Our class that traveled to India this past spring break had the ultimate honor to Skype with the noted Seyyed Hossein Nasr.  His literature on Sufism and Islam as a whole has shaped the way I view and appreciate Islam.  While we had the privilege to talk with Nasr briefly, we get to have the honor and privilege to work with Gary Scudder Jr. each week.  Here is a photo of me with two people I greatly admire!" When we were chatting with Qasim Rashid he proposed that if the students wanted to make a difference they should remain close to their teachers in the years to come because no one other than their parents would ever be more invested in their success. These are remarkably true words, and it's such a pleasure to teach - and to in turn learn from - amazing young people like Ines.

Of course, when I first saw this picture all I could think was, "Does Sufism make my butt look big?"

What It Means - Day 41

And now I want to talk about the other Skype session from Friday, the one we had with Qasim Rashid. If you follow me on Twitter, and no one should follow me on Twitter, then you know Qasim Rashid; seriously, I must retweet 90% of his Tweets.  It was through our interaction on Twitter that I was able to reach out to him and, gently, ask if he'd consider Skyping with my Dar al-Islam: India class. He graciously, and instantly, said yes.  Qasim Rashid is a member of the Ahmadiyya community, who are often, sadly and unfairly, discriminated against by some Muslim extremists. His book, The Wrong Kind of Muslim, tells the story of this oppression through the lens of his trip to Pakistan. We're reading the book in class and the students found it both moving and troubling, and, naturally, they were very excited to get the chance to talk to him.  In addition to being an author (he's also working on a children's book on Ramadan) Rashid is also a human rights lawyer and is running for Senate in Virginia.  Clearly, he has a lot on his plate, but he still found time to spend with us. The students asked how they cold make a difference and he gave them some wonderful advice: there are a million problems in the world and don't be shocked into inactivity by the enormity of the challenge; think in the long term, pick out what you're passionate about, study it, become an expert, write some op-eds for the newspaper, publish some articles, write a book, make yourself an authority and get to work.

In addition to everything else Qasim Rashid is an unrepentant teller of bad Dad jokes. This is a picture of him smiling when I put him on the spot and asked him to tell us the worst bad Dad joke he ever told.  Before providing one he did kick back and point out that there is really no such thing as a "bad Dad joke." 

The students were excited to talk to him, and left even more motivated to make a difference.

What It Means - Day 40

This past Friday my Dar al-Islam: India class was honored to Skype with Dr. Seyyed Nasr, one of the world's leading scholars.  I'd like to say that my prestigious position in the academic universe played a role in putting this together, but I think we all know that I'm essentially a near lifeless small fish in a stagnant small pond.  Rather, my most excellent student Ines de Haro got it into her mad brain to contact Nasr directly to ask if he would Skype with us.  I had told the students a story about how, a year earlier, Nasr had very graciously answered an email that I had sent to him, and apparently this was all it took to inspire Ines to act.  I've frequently quoted Nasr in the past, and doubtless will do so repeatedly in the future.  He's the author of The Heart of Islam, along with fifty others books (many of which I own), as well as the editor of the Study Quran. Even if I were not devoting a year to discussing, clumsily, my thoughts on faith, there simply aren't too many days when I'm not reading something by Nasr.  Happily, beyond being a brilliant scholar, Nasr is also a kind and generous man, who gave us an hour out of what was certainly a very busy day. No matter the question he would carefully consider it and then launch into a brutally nuanced ten minute answer.  It wasn't simply that the student had the opportunity to talk to a Muslim scholar, it was also that they had the opportunity to talk to a scholar. Towards the end of the chat I told him that earlier in the day we had Skyped with Qasim Rashid (the next blog post), a member of the Ahmadiyya community, and Nasr, not surprisingly, gave a wonderful discussion of their complicated status in relation to Islam, even throwing in "that's a tough one" at the end. We definitely had one of those classic Core moments when Nasr proposed that the Ahmadiyya "are orthoprixically Muslims but many would argue that they aren't orthodoxically Muslims." It was definitely one of my favorite moments during my time here at Champlain. And Nasr also took time out to reflect upon the time he had spent in Vermont and the natural beauty of the state.

At the end I told Dr. Nasr that I only had one more question, which was about Sufism (which, I'm certain, he's the world's leading authority).  After I finished the question he smiled and said, "Actually, that was two questions." I could only reply, "Yeah, I cheated." 

Since we had read so much of his work Nasr had already risen to the level of folk hero to the students, and the Skype session only reinforced it.  As you can tell from the looks on their faces they had a wonderful time. In the end center of the picture is the occasionally excellent Ines de Haro who put the entire thing together.

What It Means - Day 39

"Truly man was created anxious; when evil befalls him, fretful; and when good befalls him, begrudging, save those who perform prayer, who are constant in their prayers, and in whose wealth is an acknowledged due for the beggars and the deprived, those who affirm the Day of Judgment, and who are wary of the punishment of their Lord - truly there is no security from the punishment of their Lord, those who guard their private parts, save from their spouses or those whom their right hands possess, for then they are not blameworthy; but whosoever seeks beyond that, they are the transgressors; those who abide by their trusts and their pact, who uphold their testimony, and who are mindful of their prayers, those shall be in Gardens, honored."
Quran 70:19-35

I have several folks with whom I talk about faith, although I don't normally go out of my way to broach the subject with others. A few of my friends like to ask me questions because they're either puzzled by my conversion (though it's been several years now), simply interested, or are a person of faith themselves who find it difficult to find other POF to chat with (at least ones who won't judge them). I've often proposed that the aspects of Islam that I appreciate the most are the ones that are the most like Buddhism (which begs the question of why I'm not a Buddhist, but ever since I had that fight with the Tibetan monk it just doesn't seem like a viable option). By this I mean that I'm drawn to the aspects of the faith, and naturally enough related surahs, that speak to how we're supposed to treat each other on a daily basis.  As I've proposed previously, I don't devote one second of one day to worrying about my immortal soul, mainly because I think that if you devote sincere, consistent effort to treating others well then all that will take care of itself (essentially, I can't believe in a vengeful, angry God).

With that as backstory, I've always been drawn to surah 70, sometimes referred to as "The Ascending Ways". It seems to me that this short surah, and, as we know, the surahs get shorter as the Quran progresses, lays a simple (to understand, not necessarily to achieve) path.  In the Study Quran Nasr discusses them as Responsibilities, and identifies eight of them here.

1) "  . . save those who perform prayer, who are constant in their prayers . . . " This one is pretty straight forward, although, as I've discussed previously, and doubtless will again, I think prayer is a more complicated subject than simply prostrating (or bowing your head). I'll talk more about this later, but the key, as Nasr reminds us, are "those who are mindful of their prayers."

2) " . . . and in whose wealth is an acknowledged due for the beggar and the deprived . . ." The Prophet was a tremendous critic of inequality, and a champion for looking after the disadvantaged in society. As Nasr tells us, the importance of Muslims "recognizing the rights of the other in regard to one's wealth." Charity is one of the Five Pillars. This is a huge issue with me, especially since we live in a country which increasingly seem disinterested in the suffering of others.

3) " . . . those who affirm the Day of Judgment, . . . " While this relates, certainly, to a recognition of the Resurrection, it also reflects an emphasis on what Nasr calls "the weighing of deeds, and therefore leading a life focused on the Hereafter rather than this world." I don't know if I'm ready to say that the idea of an actual day of judgment is simply a metaphor, but I do think that what's key is the life you're leading, and the decisions you make and the actions you take, to get you to that point, rather than hoping against hope that something good happens that day.  Essentially, I think you should always be trying to treat others kindly and compassionately because they, and you, are humans, not simply because you expect to get something out of it.

4) " . . . and who are wary of the punishment of their Lord - truly there is no security from the punishment of their Lord . . ." Again, I don't believe in an angry, vengeful God, or at least I can't believe in an angry, vengeful God. So, to me this relates to the points I've just made above. I think you should always be mindful of the consequences of your actions and the greater responsibilities you owe, whether it is to God or to the other occupants of the planet (which I think are one and the same if we consider that what God really wants is for us to be kind to each other).

5) " . . . those who guard their private parts, save from their spouses or those whom their right hands possess, for then they are not blameworthy; but whosoever seeks beyond that, they are the transgressors . . ." As the Prophet proposed in a famous hadith, "Whosoever is able to guarantee what is between his jawbones and what is between his legs, I will guarantee him Paradise." So, why is this important?  As you might guess, I think God is much less concerned about illicit sex than He/She/It is to the fact that in carrying out this act you might very well be hurting other people: the person you're having sex with if you're not serious, as well as your wife is you're cheating on her or the woman's husband. And, of course, you might very well be hurting yourself.

6) " . . . those who abide by their trusts and their pact . . ." Obviously, this a huge rule with me as well, whether or not I was a Muslim or not.  My friends will often propose that the world will end before I'll break a promise. This may be a Hoosier thing or a generational thing, but in the end you make promises and while we don't/can't always keep them we should move heaven and earth to do so.

7) " . . . who uphold their testimony . . ." While this mainly relates to keeping your word to God, in the broader context I think this also relates to keeping your word.  So, in some senses this is doubtless a continuation of point six, it also speaks to the seriousness associated with telling the truth, making a vow and keeping your word. As Nasr writes, "It can also be relates to d\testifying ot the truth in all matters, even if it is against one's kin."

8) " . . . and who are mindful of their prayers, those shall be in Gardens, honored." Cycling back to the first point, it speaks to the obvious importance of praying.  Again, from Nasr, "The manner in which this extended pericope  on the responsibilities of Islam begins with prayer in vv. 22-23 and ends with prayer in this verse indicates the centrality of prayer to all other religious acts."

What It Means - Day 38

"The Middle East-North Africa region is predominantly Muslim, but as of 2010, only one-in-five Muslims lived in that part of the world."
Pew Research Center Study

Since I'm dealing with statistics, and Pew studies for that matter, I guess I'll keep going. In the popular imagination Muslims are Arabs and Arabs are Muslims, but, of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Only about twenty percent of the world's Muslim population live in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Actually, almost two-thirds (61.7%) off all Muslims live in the Asia-Pacific area, featuring Indonesia, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. If you look out towards 2050 the percentage of Muslims living in MENA is not really going to change much, going from 19.8% to 20.0%.  The numbers for Asia-Pacific will actually drop, from 61.7% in 2010 down to 52.8%.  The biggest jump will be in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the percentage of the world's Muslims will increase from 15.5% to 24.3%. The other numbers are pretty small and aren't moving much, with Europe dropping slightly from 2.7% to 2.6% and North America increasing from .2% to .4%.  Latin America and the Caribbean will remain at less than .1%. Again, these are percentages of the total global Muslim population.  For example, in North America the numbers will increase from around 1% to a little less than 2% of the total North American population.

What It Means - Day 37

"There were 1.8 billions Muslims in the world as of 2015 - roughly 24% of the global population - according to a Pew Research Center estimate.  But while Islam is currently the world's second-largest religion (after Christianity), it is the fastest-growing major religion. Indeed, if current demographic trends continue, the number of Muslims is expected to exceed the number of Christians by the end of this century."
Pew Research Center Study

I suspect this will be a topic which I'll revisit several times during the next year, but I wanted to at least throw it out now.  So, why will Islam, if the predictions hold true, be the world's largest religion by the turn of the century?  A lot of it relates to factors that have nothing at all to do with the nature of the faith itself.  For example, Islam is the main religions of a lot of areas that have much higher birth rates than areas where Christianity is the main religion.  Similarly, there are areas in Western Europe and the US where the number of Christians are stagnant or dropping, so in this case Islam is sort of adding by subtracting.  OK, so what about the allure of the faith itself? I can talk about my own personal path, and have, and will again, but are there bigger issues at play here that make the faith more appealing?  Obviously, much more on this later as I consider the implications of this complicated question.

Oh, and if you want to make a devoted Islamophobe's head explode (essentially anyone in the present administration - or who voted for the present administration) just point out that in eighty years there will be more Muslims than Christians in the world.

Crime and Punishment

This is what you combine a Heroines & Heroes class, Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, sluggish students, and an impatient professor: aesthetic excellence and a teachable moment. Actually, the students are enjoying Crime and Punishment quite a bit.  As always, my colleagues are much cooler than me, so while they're having their students read Harry Potter or graphic novels in Heroines & Heroes I'm having them read Dostoevsky.  This follows in the tradition of me having them read the Ramayana, the Shahnameh and the Arabian Nights.  I think I chose Dostoevsky out of vanity and spite, which are the inspirations for most of my decisions.  I picked up a cheap copy of Crime and Punishment last year and re-read in for the first time in over thirty years, and I was blown away (as all right-thinking individuals are) by how great it was.  While talking to some of my colleagues I proposed that I might select it for Heroines & Heroes, and the response was something akin to: "There's no way to teach Dostoevsky to Champlain students," and my response, not surprisingly, was something like, "Well, I'm sure you couldn't teach Dostoevsky to Champlain students, but I can." The students figured out pretty quickly how iconic Raskolnikov is, and I think they view his as the inspiration for so many messed up characters in video games and film. As has been proposed, if I have a talent as a teacher it's the ability to somehow make incredibly nerdy things cool, or, as one student wrote on a student eval, "I don't know what black magic you use to make me care about stuff I know I shouldn't."  Now, I can see the next logical step: Heroines & Heroes: Proust.

As you might guess, the impatient professor is on the right.

What It Means - Day 36

"Richness is not having a great deal of wealth; rather richness is richness of the soul."
Muhammad, Hadith

There are countless examples of this philosophy in the Quran and the Hadith, but I chose one from the latter.  Equality and fairness were huge issues to the Prophet.  Beyond being revealed many times in the Quran it was also the subject of many ahadith.  It's also shown metaphorically in the fact that every Muslim on the Hajj wears exactly the same garment. Sadly, we've drifted as far away from this basic concept as followers of other religions have.  I've spent more time in the UAE than in any other foreign country and the gross disparity of wealth there is only increasing, as is its corrosive influence on society.  As I've discussed earlier I always have my students watch a Vice video on the Hajj, and one of the profound moments is when he lifts his camera up from the Kaaba and looks at the five star hotels that now surround the mosque. This emphasis on equality and looking after all members of society is also why Jesus remains so central to Islam. In America we live in a society that is almost contemptuous of the poor, and even of simple human kindness.

What It Means - Day 35

"Bear patiently that which they say and take leave of them in a beautiful manner."
Quran, 73:10

In the Quran we are reminded again and again (and again) not to judge.  To me this passage spells that notion out briefly and wonderfully eloquently.  Of course, and sadly, so many Muslims (as with all practitioners of all religions) manage to forget this. Naturally, I'm not actually any better, if I were being honest with myself (and that's one of the reasons why I'm taking on this year-long quest).  If I'm adversely judging my fellow brothers and sisters for judging people then I'm just judging them myself, if only basing it on a different, although equally unfair set of criteria.  One of our ex-Imams, who I often found myself in conflict with, would encourage the members to critique each other.  His rationale was that since we are instructed to compete in excellence we really needed to work harder at our faith, and thus we should bring in the entire community.  It bothered me it seemed like we were being asked to focus on exactly the part of the faith, the external, that it's awfully easy to get fixated on while ignoring the more profound internal search for the divine.  It seemed that we were creating a community of busy-bodies rushing around to look down our noses at the other members for not starting their fast on time or potentially missing a week.  Obviously, I was being just as judgmental, and overlooking a part of the faith which is important, but which didn't agree what I found most interesting. This is a passage that I find myself repeating quite a bit, because I both think it's crucial but it's also all too frequently one of my shortcomings.  I guess if you were going to translate it into regular secular jargon it would be a reminder to count to ten.

What It Means - Day 34

"And thou wilt find the nearest of them in affection toward those who believe to be those who say, 'We are Christians.' That is because among them are priests and monks, and because they are not arrogant."
Quran, 5:82

Since it's Easter I was planning on  focusing on this passage anyway, but then I woke up to the terrible tragedy in Sri Lanka. Like 99% of Muslims my first two thoughts were: 1) heartbreak at the  horrific and unjustifiable loss of life, and 2) please don't let this be the result of Muslim terrorists acting on some incredibly misguided reading of the faith.  It's sad that we live in a world that our thought process as Muslims is so predetermined.  Now, it's way too early to know exactly what is going on in Sri Lanka, and that is a complex country with a long history of terrorism.  It could be a resurgence of the Tamil Tigers, although that would be an odd reappearance after a decade of quiet, or Buddhist extremists or, sadly, yes, even Muslim extremists.  Whenever there is a terrorist bombing anyplace in the world caused by a Muslim extremist, or even if it's only suspect of being caused by a Muslim extremist, you will hear someone from inside the faith point out that they couldn't really be Muslims.  It seems like a hollow argument, but there are definite rules inside of Islam that delineate when you can take action to defense of what is right (and doubtless this will inspire posts in the future) which make it clear that a Muslim can only act in defense, essentially, if directly and violently provoked, and it cannot be an attack on the innocent and it can never be carried out as an act of suicide (again, we'll revisit this in the future).  So, when the point is made that the act could not have been carried out by a Muslim it's more than simply wishful thinking, it's based on the logic that it is an act in direct opposition to the Quran.  That said, the victims are still dead or damaged.  Beyond the rules of fighting, however, there are passages like the one above that reminds Muslims that Christians are not our enemies; that even if we disagree with them we can only contest with them in excellence, that is, we should only compete with them in devotion to our faith, in performing righteous deeds (and that never includes terrorist acts).

What It Means - Day 33

"And walk not exultantly upon the earth; surely thou shalt not penetrate the earth, nor reach the mountains in height."
Quran, 17:37

One of the key attributes stressed in Islam in being humble, and it's one of the things that drew me to the faith.  Yes, I know, this seems like a strange things for me since I've been the poster child for hubris. However, as I've often opined, you should never choose a religion or a philosophy that you can CLEP out of. Rather, aren't the best aspects of any religion the most aspirational?  That said, I've also talked to people over the decades who have described me as humble, although they are clearly in the small minority; either they are the most delusional people I know or they are the ones who see beyond the passion play that is Scudder.  It seems to me that one of the many things that all religions have in common is the call for humility, although it seems all the adherents fail at that with equal universality. This generation of Trumpian Evangelicals seem to be the worst, although me proposing that also shows how far I have to go.

Paanwalla

The adult in the room is never me, obviously. On our recent trip to India the students wanted to know about the innumerable paan stands (paanwallas) that they saw on every street corner.  I tried to explain the difference between regular paan and sweet paan, but in the end experience is the best teacher. Chewing paan, even the generally innocuous sweet paan, is not good for you, but the occasional one-off (as in probably once in a lifetime) isn't bad, and I can assure you that none of the students liked it enough to search it out again any time soon. Still, the experience itself was priceless.

The purveyor of paan at the paanwalla.

I knew that Sally would definitely be up for paan.

Same with Ines.

Janela da Atalaia

This is the answer to a question posed by Elijah, a graduating senior who may or may not have ever visited this establishment, and Mike, a professor who may or may not have ever visited this establishment, from me, who may or may not have ever visited this establishment, to the question of: what was the name of that bar at the end of that side street in Lisbon, the one run by Fred and which featured the Aba Aba, the drink consisting of absinthe, egg white and cucumber? I wish I could say that I remembered the name of said establishment, but I had to reach out to the good folks at the WLFT Hostel in Lisbon for the answer.  I have no pictures to post of said establishment because none of us were ever there, and I don't think it actually exists, if we were there, which we weren't.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

What It Means - Day 32

"Say, 'O My servants who have been prodigal to the detriment of their own soul! Despair not of God's Mercy. Truly God forgives all sins. Truly He is the Forgiving, the Merciful.'"
Quran, 39:53

As Nasr in the Study Quran, "Many scholars consider this to be among the most hopeful verses of the Quran . . ." The popular perception outside of Islam is that it's a very harsh faith featuring a very angry, vengeful God, although Allah is the same God as the God the Jews and Christians worship so it's hard to imagine him/her/it being more angry or vengeful than other iterations.  There was a study once about the prevalence of angry or war-like language in the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Quran, and the Quran actually possessed a smaller percentage, so in this case, I guess, the Islamic God is less angry or vengeful.  More seriously, and importantly, why would we assume that God is angry, and if angry what would be the appeal? If you personify or anthropomorphize God, as the  Christians do, I would argue that it's easier to imagine angry paternal God, but it seems like it should be more difficult to do that if God has no gender or no form, although obviously many of us do so, sadly. When referring to this verse the Prophet once said, "I would not wish to have the entire world and all that is in it [in exchange] for this verse."

Other similar passages from the Quran:

"Whomsoever does evil or wrongs himself, and then seeks forgiveness of God, he will find God Forgiving, Merciful." 4:110.

"Truly God forgives not that any partner be ascribed unto Him, but He forgives what is less than that for whomsoever He will . . ." 4:48

"And let not the men of bounty and means among you forswear giving to kinsfolk and the indigent and those who emigrated in the way of God.  And let them pardon and forbear.  Do you not desire that God forgive you? And God is Forgiving, Merciful." 24:22

"God is kind unto His servants. He provides for whomsoever He will, and He is the Strong, the Mighty." 42:19

"And surely thy Lord shall give unto thee, and thou shalt be content." 93:5

What It Means - Day 31

"In the United States, the vast majority of Muslims celebrate Ramadan, with eight-in-ten saying they fast during the holiday."
Pew Research Center

Ramadan will be here before we know it, and while I have mixed feelings about the month-long fast I'll be fasting once again.  It's difficult to believe that this is already my fourth Ramadan. Pew produces a wealth of great material about the perceptions of American Muslims about this country and also the perceptions of non-Muslims Americans about Islam and Muslims.  I'm not going to say a a lot about Ramadan today, mainly because it is hard upon us and I'll doubtless have a lot to say during the month.  Today I was thinking about Ramadan and I found myself wondering how many American Muslims actually fast during Ramadan, and thus this excursion into the world of Pew.  Truthfully, I'm surprised that the percentage is that high, especially here in the US.  The figure of 80% is much higher than the 42% of US Muslims who say that they pray five times a day or the 43% of American Muslims who attend their local mosque at least once a week. The numbers are pretty consistent: American Muslim men who fast sits at 77% while it is 82% for American Muslim women; similarly, 79% of US born Muslims fast while 80% of foreign born Muslims fast.  On a personal note, I am among the 80% who fast during Ramadan, I'm not among the 42% who pray five times a day, and I am among the 43% who attend my local mosque at least once a week.  Not surprisingly, among American Muslims who say that Religion is Very Important in their lives 92% fast.  Among American Muslims who say that Religion is Somewhat Important 65% fast.  I think it's very interesting that 41% of Muslim Americans who think that Religion is Not Too/Not At All Important fast, which, I would argue, speaks to the social pressures inside of the Muslim community. Once again, turning the lens on myself, I probably fall into the category of the 65% of Muslims who consider Religion Somewhat Important who fast.  I'm serious in my faith, but I'm also honest in that most of my fellow Muslims certainly devote more time to the faith than I do. Although, this also brings us back to how one defines the faith, because a lot of this discrepancy shows up in the external side of the faith and I would argue not so much the internal aspects of the faith.

What It Means - Day 30

"Truly those who believe, and those who are Jews, and the Sabeans, and the Christians - whosoever believes in God and the Last Day and works righteousness, no fear shall come upon them, not shall they grieve."
Quran 5:69

Here's another of my favorite passages from, as I proposed yesterday, one of my favorite surahs, The Table Spread. It is very similar to surah 2:62, which I'll doubtless talk about in its own right. It's one of those passages which, at least in my mind, makes it clear that in the end it doesn't matter what specific religion you practice.  Rather, breaking it down, what matters is that you 1) believe in God, 2) believe in the Last Day (and I'll talk more about this later, certainly, and whether the key metaphoric meaning is that your actions have meaning), and 3) work righteousness (bringing us back again to performing righteous, that is good, deeds). How one gets there is of much less important than where you end up, but, of course, and sadly, how much time and effort and misery do we cause by focusing on the path to get there.

Once again turning to Nasr's Study Quran: "This particular verse, however, situated as it is within a surah largely devoted to the People of the Book, and within a long section that discusses the People of the Book critically, represents one of the most important Quranic affirmations of the potential of those outside the Muslim community to achieve salvation. Although Jews, Christians and Sabeans are mentioned specifically, the verse also refers more broadly to whosoever believes in God and the Last Day and works righteousness, thereby opening the possibility of salvation even beyond the Abrahamic faiths."

What It Means - Day 29

"And We have sent down unto thee the Book in truth, confirming the Book that came before it, and a protector over it.  So judge between them in accordance with what God has sent down, and follow not their caprices away from the truth that has come unto thee. For each among you We have appointed a law and a way. And had God willed, He would have made you one community, but [He willed otherwise], that He might try you in that which He has given you. So vie with one another in good deeds.  Unto God shall be your return all together, and He will inform you of that wherein you differ."
Quran, 5:48

This is another one of my favorite passages, drawn from one of my favorite surahs.  This is from surah 5, sometimes rendered as The Table Spread or simply The Table. I'll doubtless talk more about it later in other contexts, and it's certainly one of the most interesting in regards to the relationship between Islam and Christianity.  In this passage God emphasizes that connection between Jews, Christians and Muslims.  Moreover, it is made clear that diversity is a gift from God, not simply a punishment for trying to build a tower so big that reached the heavens.

My favorite part is the simple statement, "So vie with one another in good deeds." We've talked a lot - and will probably talk a lot more - about the importance of good deeds.  Here the point is made that you should not vie with other religions, especially Peoples of the Book, except, as it is stated in another surah we'll discuss later, "in the fairer manner." Here we are instructed to only compete against them in good deeds, or essentially in goodness.  Compete in helping as many people as possible and being of service.  It's hard to imagine a more important or true admonition.

As Nasr points out in the Study Quran, "This verse carries enormous importance for the question of religious pluralism from an Islamic perspective. Since it is one of the key verses confirming the essential truth of different religious forms and indicating that the formal differences between religions have been Divinely sanctioned, it has played a central role in contemporary Islamic discussions of religious pluralism."

For My Funeral

Well, I'm not planning on passing onto the great beyond any time soon, but when I do please take this picture, blow it up, and prominently display it.  During last spring's trip to Jordan (and I still have many posts to write on that trip) I was tethered to two of my lunatic students, Ines de Haro and Liza Ryan, as part of a three camel armada crossing the Wadi Rum.  It was a wonderful day, and according to Ines it was her all-time favorite.  Here's a picture of Ines talking to some wizened Bedouin crossing on the desert.  Thanks to Liza for taking it, and sharing it.  I obviously don't hate my students as much as I claim since it's difficult to imagine a professor who spends more time with them.

I'd love to know what we were gabbing about at that moment.  I was probably explaining that once my leg went into full cramp and I fell off the desert that she should ride on and save herself.

Hello Clarice

There's nothing profound going on here, other than the fact that I laughed out loud when I saw this picture.  My epic friend Andy sent me this the other day.  Long-suffering readers of this blog might recognize that as the horrible glass clown which serves as the prize for finishing dead last in the Twin Peaks Football League, our fantasy football league.  It is currently owned by Andy's most excellent wife Heidi, who inexplicably lost every game in convincing fashion last year, thus winning the Wixon Trophy - and since she finished with a win-less record she's actually the holder of the Ultimate Wixon Trophy.  There's are those, either much braver or foolhardy than me, who have suggested that we should now rename the trophy as The Steiner, but I am definitely not going there.

For anyone who doesn't get the reference go back and watch The Silence of the Lambs. The Steiner-Burkhardts clearly have the most frightening kitchen in the Midwest.  Sylvie Maple is going to grow up to be a scary chick.

What It Means - Day 28

"Every act of kindness is a charity." and "Do not regard any act of kindness as insignificant, even meeting your brother with a cheerful countenance.
Muhammad, Ahadith

These are two of my favorites ahadith, the sayings of the Prophet.  Obviously they are related in theme. As I've discussed way too often, and will doubtless continue to discuss way too often, I think the main point of the faith is fairly simple - or at least the part that appeals to me is fairly simple.  As Muslims we don't believe in an eye for an eye, rather we are repeatedly instructed to return the worse with the better. There are so many things about the faith that I don't understand and that I can't control, but I can control my response to the people I meet and the obstacles I encounter, even if I don't often initially handle them gracefully. Charity is one of the Five Pillars and it's to think of it only in relation to giving 2.5% of your worth to the poor or building a mosque, but this hadith makes it clear that many things constitute charity.  Simply being kind is charity, and that kindness can be nothing more than "meeting your brother with a cheerful countenance."  Years ago my dear friend Jim Gonzalez, who I taught with a Georgia Perimeter College, used to chide me for my habit of yelling at administrators but saying "yes, ma'am" to every waitress, so maybe I'm actually a nicer person than I assume I am (unless, naturally, your're an administrator), but I know that since my conversion I concentrate even harder on how I greet other people and respond to them.

What It Means - Day 27

In my Dar al-Islam classes this semester, especially in the 8:00 a.m. section, the topic of Hajj proved to be a popular topic.  I always show them a Vice video of a guy who went on the Hajj and it's fascinating.  It's shot by someone who works at Vice and he was dragooned to go on the Hajj by his elderly Pakistani parents.  It's got the appropriate amount of attitude and wonder.  As I've discussed before my 8:00 class knows I'm a Muslim but my 9:30 class doesn't, which makes for an interesting switch in mindset in between the two classes (especially for my student Ines who somehow ended up in both classes). I don't publicize my religious beliefs, but I also don't deny them.  The earlier class figured it out on their own because it was my travel section and so many of them had traveled with me previously. For this reason they're likely to ask me personal questions which I'm happy to quickly answer if I think it's not distracting.  Anyway, after we watched the video one of the students asked me if I was planning on going on the Hajj. The question caught me off-guard, although not really because it was a personal question. Rather, while I had kicked the idea around in the back of my mind I had never tried to articulate it to anyone else.  I asked for a couple minutes to get my thoughts together before answering (one of the things you learn as you gain my experience teaching is that it's OK to ask for a little time before answering, either to sit in quiet or to move on to another topic for a little bit while your brain processes in the background; not every question has to, or should be, answered immediately and spontaneously). In the end I said no, and, of course, they wanted to know why.I responded, truthfully, that there were several reasons and that I would respond with the mundane.  First, it's awfully expensive and I don't have $8000 lying around at the moment which isn't needed someplace else.  Since the Hajj is a requirement for every Muslim who has the means to go I suppose this isn't a particularly good reason, but it doesn't make a valid reason. Secondly, this brings me back to my perpetual struggle between the more external and internal aspects of the faith, and in the end I simply believe that God is more concerned with us treating everyone and everything in our lives kindly and compassionately on a daily basis than heading to Mecca (the two aren't mutually exclusive, obviously).  Thirdly, I told the students that the skeptical Marxist in me does believe that most things are actually politically motivated and this admonition has a lot to do with the Prophet's desire to knit the early Muslim community together and remind them that they were one people; this, of course, doesn't make it a bad thing, but it, at least in my mind, places it in a different category than a religious obligation (although, clearly, it is). Fourthly, I find the present regime in Saudi Arabia so abhorrent that I'm having trouble getting past that view, and that if I went would I be showing them some tacit approval (I'll have to tell you about my Lonely Planet Twitter explosion some time). Finally, and I proposed most importantly, if I went now I think I'd be going for the wrong reason.  I've had this discussion with my friend Steve a couple times and he think I should go because then I could write Hajji after my name, which, I always tell him, is why I shouldn't go.  Essentially, I think I'd be going out of vanity, whereas I think you should go out of humility (if that makes any sense). Part of my own personal journey of faith is the recognition of my incredible vanity and one of my goals is to realistically analyze my actions and why I do them.  I then added, let's keep in mind two things: 1) reasons two through five may just justification for reason one, and 2) ask me again next year.

Here's a flyer that popped up on Facebook the other day.  My FB feed is always odd (sort of like my Netflix queue) because I have my friends, current colleagues, too many students, many Muslims from around the world, and some people I went to high school with who are borderline if not actual racists/Islamophobes (sometimes I drop them, but mainly I'm hoping that dialogue is best).

What It Means - Day 26

"Verily Allah does not look at your outward form and wealth; rather He looks at your hearts and deeds."
Muhammad, Hadith

I always warn my students about the dangers of cheery-picking information, and this is as true (probably more so) in regards to reading religious texts as it is in doing research for a scholarly paper.  That said, I'm sure in the process of devoting myself to this, inshallah, year-long discussion I will doubtless be guilty of doing just that with regularity.  I've talked about my own personal struggles over the internal vs the external aspects of my faith. Consequently, either consciously or unconsciously I'll end up cherry-picking Quranic passages or stories from the Ahadith that support my own view.  All I can tell you is that I'll try and be balanced, although if history teaches us anything it's that I'll fail a goodly amount of the time. With that backstory in mind, here's one of my favorite Ahadith (the sayings associated with the Prophet). On the most basic level it's a reminder that youth or beauty or wealth don't matter nearly as much as what we hold in our hearts or what we actually do with our lives. This, of course, should be true no matter your faith.  At the same time, I think this also speaks of the precarious balancing act between the external and internal aspects of the faith. Can't the more external aspects of the faith exist solely on the level of vanity if we don't think of them in relation to their role in getting us to the more profound internal elements of the faith.  Could God possibly care as much about you praying five times a day as He/She/It cares about you being kind to every one and every thing in your life?

What It Means - Day 25

A couple days ago I discussed the times that I've taken the opportunity to pray when I was overseas.  I've always been received graciously and kindly overseas, although sometimes I get funny looks.  Factoring in my brutishly bad Arabic I'm certain that all too often I look like the stupid American tourist who has stumbled into the wrong building. One of the advantages of performing Wudu, the ritual ablution, in Islam is that beyond preparing you to pray it also, in a purely practical sense, shows that you're actually supposed to be there. On our trip to Zanzibar in January we were fortunate to visit a Shia mosque, which was my first opportunity to do so.  It's known as the New Mosque, although that speaks more to the age of Stone Town than the newness of the mosque itself. It was a beautiful structure housed in a unique long, rectangular space. Usually the front of the mosque faces toward Mecca, the direction is known as the qibla which is usually marked by a niche in the wall known as the mihrab (although sometimes, as in our Islamic Society of Vermont, it's just marked by an outline painted on the wall). In this specific instance the front of the mosque did not face towards Mecca, although this had to do more with adapting to the unique structure of the building as compared to anything peculiar to a Shia mosque. Essentially, after the sermon was over the followers would then have to turn to their left and begin the group prayer, requiring the Imam to walk around to the facing wall. Anyway, after we had finished the tour I gave the high sign to Steve that I was going back in to pray, which we always do as quietly as possible because it's a personal thing and I don't want to impose my beliefs on students. So, he herds them out and I conveniently forget something behind which requires me to go back in.  As we've discussed, I'm happy with my faith and quite content, but I'm also a very firm believer that we're there for their class and not for my own personal religious beliefs, so I try as much as possible to always keep them separate.

The informational sign outside the New Mosque.

The front of them masjid where the sermon would be given, although the qibla was actually to the left.

What It Means - Day 24

Normally this is where I'd be featuring a Quranic passage of something from the Ahadith, but I'm also going to devote this process to talk about more general issues of being a Muslim. This posting will be short, but also meaningful in its own way.  Ever since the New Zealand mosque attack there has been even more fear inside of the Muslim world about attacks from Islamophobic extremists or just your basic run of the mill white supremacists (since they're essentially running the government now).  Immediately after the attack I was talking to my students I told them that I was anxious to get to the mosque later that day because, one, I had been out of town and missed a couple Friday prayers, but also because in the light of the shooting I felt that need to spend time with my brothers and sisters at the ISVT.  Truthfully, I was also interested in what I would find waiting for me upon my return. I told a student that I thought there'd be a police presence and maybe even some representatives of other religious organizations to lend their support or maybe even to ceremonially surround the mosque to act as a human shield (even if only a symbolic one). As it turns out I was right on the former prediction and less so on the latter.  That said, there were a lot of cards and flowers in the front from other churches and synagogues in the state, which was greatly appreciated.  It was reassuring to have some police both inside and outside of the mosque, although obviously also heartbreaking. By the next week that was reduced to one officer sitting in his patrol car outside, but that's still a nice gesture.  Every time it happens I go out of my way to go thank each of the officers personally, although I tend to do that anyway; while I'm always one of the first person to call out instances of police brutality or to point out that militarization of the police I do still appreciate the times that they go above and beyond. Since then we've also changed the doors on the mosque.  We were told it was because of a couple break-ins where someone plundered the donation box of a grand total of around $20.  While that's no doubt true, I wonder if there are greater security concerns present as well.  It's a scary age when you have to be afraid to go pray at whatever your religious institution is. Trump has so unabashedly and so unashamedly appealed to racism and Islamophobia in his increasingly radicalized base that this is only going to get worse.

What It Means - Day 23

"Each soul is the hostage of its own deeds."
Quran, 74:38

While prepping for class tomorrow I was thumbing with my absolutely beat-up old Quran (my copy of Nasr's jazzy hardcover Study Quran, which, truthfully, is getting a little beat-up as well is at school).  Like all beloved books it is falling to pieces and if I don't open it gently pages fall out.  It also has notes written all over it; as I tell my students, if you haven't written all over your books then you don't love them.  Sadly, this is not a generation of readers.  It's sad not only because it makes my job more difficult, but also because I feel sorry that they haven't grown up with the joy of reading.  Anyway, as I was thumbing through it and stumbled across this passage that I had highlighted from surah 74, which is sometimes referred to as "The Cloaked One." This specific passage is also translated as, "Each soul will be held in pledge for its deeds."

I frequently tell my students that on a basic everyday level Islam is, I guess naturally enough, very much like Buddhism and also like Marcus Aurelius's Meditations. And, truthfully, this is probably the part of the faith that I enjoy the most.  This particular passage emphasizes the fact that you are solely responsible for your own deeds, and, truthfully, that's the way we should view the world.  What do we actually control other than them?  I remember giving a talk at our mosque and I made that point.  We really can't control God or often even understand God, but we can hopefully control our own actions.  One of the reasons why Muslims don't believe that Jesus died for the sins of the world is that we don't believe anyone can die for the sins of the world.  You own your deeds and sins and no one else can be judged for them or erase them. One the one hand I guess this relates to the notion of you being judged at the end of all ends, but, truthfully, I think that is more of a metaphoric way of explaining the importance of owning your deeds.  What we say and do has meaning, and we need to think about everything that we say and do, not simply because of their relation to our ultimate fate (or enlightenment, hearkening back to the Buddhists) but rather their relationship the people we interact with every day. In Nasr's The Heart of Islam he talks about our fascination with human rights, but our failure to consider human responsibilities.  In the end, I think we owe kindness to every living soul.  It sounds cheesy, I guess, but if we truthfully followed that approach most of the world's problems would be over in about a day and a half.

What It Means - Day 22

My Muslim friends have always told me that unless you can read the Quran in Arabic you'll never "get it," meaning that you'll never truly grasp the beauty of it.  What they're getting at is that by reading it in English (or probably any other translation) you won't pick up the poetry. This is a key point, and not simply because a lot of the beauty will be lost - and also because the Arabic world has a long, proud poetic tradition.  It's also true because the beauty and majesty of the poetry is part of the miracle. As Muslims we accept that Muhammad was, at best unlettered, but also essentially illiterate.  why would we assume that he was an educated man?  It certainly doesn't mean that he wasn't intelligent, but rather that he never received much schooling. Plus, he was a man, an extraordinary man, but also only a man. I think this view is more difficult to reconcile in Christianity because Jesus is considered the son of God, something that we don't believe. It's not that Jesus isn't revered in Islam because he certainly is, and I would definitely propose that the average Muslim is more likely to follow Jesus's name with "peace be upon him" (or PBUH) than the average Christian would to do so; although probably less likely than the average Christian is to follow his name with a profanity (not being holier than thou here, because when I'm in a temper I'm certainly quite guilty of that more frequently than I would like to think). So, for Muslims, the power and the sophistication of the poetry coming from an unlettered merchant can only be seen as miraculous.

With all of this in mind, I'll share some of surah 55, sometimes referred to as "The Merciful," keeping in mind that Muslims don't normally refer to the titles because there is not complete agreement on them. This is especially true when you're writing it out.  You'd never write something like John 3:16, but rather simply 2:156.  Now, having said that, I remember asking a previous Imam a question about a Quranic verse and I said the number, and he asked for the name. I would argue that this surah provides the surest feel of how the poetic flow, even translated into English:

"He laid the earth for His creatures, with all its fruits and blossom-bearing palm, chaff-covered grain and scented herbs.  Which of your Lord's blessings would you deny?

He created man from potter's clay, and the jinn from smokeless fire. Which of your Lord's blessings would you deny?

He has let loose the two oceans: they meet one another. Yet between them stands a barrier which they cannot overrun. Which of your Lord's blessings would you deny?

Pearls and corals come from both. Which of your Lord's blessings would you deny?

His are the ships that sail like mountains upon the ocean. Which of your Lord's blessings would you deny?

All that lives on earth is doomed to die. But the face of your Lord will abide for ever, in all its majesty and glory. Which of your Lord's blessings would you deny?

All who dwell in heaven and earth entreat Him. Each day some mighty task engages Him. Which of your Lord's blessings would you deny?

Mankind and jinn, We shall surely find the time to judge you! Which of your Lord's blessings would you deny?

Mankind and jinn, if you have power to penetrate the confines of heaven and earth, then penetrate them! But this you shall not do except with Our own authority. Which of your Lord's blessings would you deny?

Flames of fire shall be lashed at you, and molten brass. There shall be none to help you. Which of your Lord's blessings would you deny?

When the sky split asunder, and reddens like a rose or stained leather (which of your Lord's blessings would you deny?", on that day neither man nor jinnee will be asked about his sins. Which of your Lord's blessings would you deny?"

What It Means - Day 21

And here's some more pictures of the Jama Masjid in Delhi, India, which I was talking about last time. It is an extraordinary structure. The first three pictures are from my first visit there years ago, with the others from the visit two weeks ago.  This also got me to thinking about my response walking into that beautiful mosque (and for that matter any mosque) from before I converted and after. It's an odd question for which I don't know if I have a good answer.  When talking about my decision to convert I've often discussed the topics that are somewhat easier to quantify (certain theological views, lack of any great structure between the believer and God, etc.) and the issues that are more difficult to quantify (such as a feeling).  Essentially, every time I've ever walked into a mosque over the years I've always felt I belonged in a way that has never been true of any other religious structure.  If I've been in town (which obviously isn't always the case) I've gone to the ISVT every Friday and never felt that I was being dragged there against my will.  I guess the point I'm trying to get at is that I don't know if I felt that differently visiting the Jama Masjid the second time as compared to the first, mainly because I felt welcome and at home there years ago. Of course, I was also leading thirteen students there the second time, which meant that I had a lot of things on my mind that day.

What It Means - Day 20

As I've said from the beginning, in this year-long reflection I suspect I'm going to be all over the map.  Essentially, I'm going to be talking about whatever is in my mind when I'm working on the blog; so don't expect any overarching structure other than one individual reflecting upon his faith.  With that in mind I'm posting a picture today that was snapped during the recent student trip to India.  During our time in New Delhi we had arranged a visit to the Jama Masjid, sometimes referred to as the Pearl Mosque, in what would actually be Old Delhi. It is reputed to be the largest mosque in southeast Asia, and I spent a lovely afternoon there years ago during my second visit to India with my father (and my half-sister Annie). They had decided to spend the afternoon resting, but there was no way I was going to waste valuable exploration time so I made my way to the mosque.  Obviously, this was years before I converted.  When I'm overseas, like most people of faith I suppose, I try and spirit away to a local mosque to pray.  I've only actually attended one Friday prayer, however, mainly because of logistics.  My great friend Seif took me to Friday prayer at his mosque in Zanzibar once, which is a memory I'll always cherish.  Of course, it meant that it gave me the opportunity to not understand in two languages instead of simply one.  If you go to a Friday prayer in the US (and you're always welcome to join us at the Islamic Society of Vermont) the sermon would be in a combination of English and Arabic, the latter for when a Quranic passage or a Hadith (the sayings of the Prophet) are being read (usually then followed by the English translation).  In the case in Zanzibar the sermon was a mixture of Swahili and Arabic, two languages of which I have a brutally limited understanding of. When I'm travelling with students I keep these visits very brief and on the down low for any number of reasons, the biggest reason being that we're there on an educational mission and not my own personal spiritual one. I don't share my personal faith with my students because I don't think a teacher should, although if they figure it out on their own I'll happily answer questions as long as they don't take up time from the main point of the class. The students on this India trip knew because most of them had traveled with me before and had noticed it, so there was no reason to pretend it wasn't true.  That said, the non-travel version of the same class (two different versions of my Dar al-Islam class, which is more about themes inside of the Muslim world than a true class on Islam) didn't know.  In this specific case, I want the students to appreciate the subject matter without liking it or hating it simply because they like or hate me. I'm sure at times the 9:30 non-travel course probably thought I was bordering on Islamophobic in my criticism of certain aspects of the faith, whereas my 8:00 travel section just viewed it as the natural criticism of someone living inside the faith. I think a Professor would be much more likely to critique their own faith than another one (at least I would hope). Anyway, during our visit I left the students with the guide for ten minutes and I went inside to pray.  My excellent student Sally surreptitiously snapped this picture, which quickly has become one of my all-time favorites.  After praying I was sitting down talking to the Imam of the mosque.  I like the fact that right behind us a kid was snapping a selfie of him and the strange dude. I'll have more to say about the experience later.

I wish I could say that we were discussing something utterly profound and that the Imam was sharing the secret of the universe, but mainly I think his translator was trying to hit me up for a donation.

Me Winning Would Warrant Cryptozoological Study

And yet another picture of me.  Wow, I'm even more self-absorbed than I thought (which is really saying something).  Once again, I blame my friends for snapping good/funny pictures of me.  In this case it was the truly excellent Kevin Andrews, who snapped this during the draft kicking off the 27th year of the Irrational League. To my right is friend Mike Bergman, who smugly looks like he's just realized that he's locked up another championship, whereas I look like I just figured out that the Houston Astros aren't actually in the National League anymore.

My International Cryptozoology Museum t-shirt is doing double duty: my team is the Pemba Popobawas and I'm wearing my Vermont Lake Monsters jersey (the authentic Diomedes Lopez one).

Hobnobbing

I've posted way too many pictures of me lately, which I normally do for the obvious reason.  I'll blame it on my friends, who have surreptitiously taken too many pictures of me on the sly. Here's a selfie that my student Ines de Haro snapped on the back of one of our long bus rides in India. It got me thinking about student trips, not surprisingly.  I had dinner with my friend and student John last night, so, inexplicably, is graduating (after setting the North American record for most Scudder classes taken with 5). Reflecting back upon those classes, and the two overseas trips he took with me, he told me that one of the things he liked about me was that I would sit in the back of the bus and talk to students for hours on end. And I do suppose there's a lesson in there somewhere.  I always figured that by now I'd be sick of my students, and they would certainly be sick of me, but somehow that hasn't happened yet.  This alone probably explains why I've never seriously considered retirement. On a less metaphysical level, the picture also made me thinking of one of my favorite trip traditions: sharing Digestives ("mmm, so digestive") and Hobnobs ("mmmm, so Hobnobby") with my students.

Ines and yours truly (this is a rare picture, and even rarer good picture, of me).  I mainly take the pictures on the trip, which also allows me to control the narrative.

Ines and Ashley enjoying some delicious Hobnobs in the back of the bus.

What It Means - Day 19

"And when they Lord took from the Children of Adam, from their loins, their progeny and made them bear witness concerning themselves, 'Am I not your Lord?' they said, 'Yea, we bear witness' - lest you should say on the Day of Resurrection, 'Truly of this we were heedless,'
Quran, 7:172

There are many reasons why I really appreciate investing in Nasr's Study Quran, including the fact that I actually emailed him once and he responded kindly.  I'm always amazed/pleased when someone who has no reason to be kind is, and saddened/disheartened when someone who has no reason to be unkind is.  Essentially, Nasr is a very big deal and doubtless very busy and thus, I would argue, probably has the right to not respond to academic non-entities such as myself.  Instead, he could not have been kinder.

Anyway, another reason is that it allows for deep study, and, truthfully, what's the point of faith if you're not working on it, and that includes study and questioning.  For example, Nasr makes this point about verse 7:172: "This verse is in many ways the cornerstone of Islamic sacred history and anthropology . . ." Essentially, who knew?  It would have been very easy to gloss over this passage, as with many passages in any sacred text (or any text for that matter) if you didn't have the scholarly context.  Nasr continues, and explains that the verse "establishes that the fundamental relationship between God and all human beings is premised upon the simple, unmediated recognition of His Lordship at the moment of their pretemporal creation. The vent recounted in this verse is widely referred to as a pretemporal covenant (mithaq) or pact ('ahd) - although these terms do not appear in the verse itself - made by God with all of humanity prior to their earthly existence."

Anyway, it's fascinating and I'll talk more about it in the future, but my point today is simply that we should never simply be mouthing the words, whether we're struggling with Arabic or saying them in English (or any language in any faith) when there are worlds inside of worlds beneath the surface, but without the context we often miss the point because we don't know there's a point.

What It Means - Day 18

"Unto God belong the Most Beautiful Names; so call Him by them, and leave those who deviate with regard to His Names.  They shall be recompensed for that which they used to do."
Quran, 7:180

I'm still working my way through Surah 7, and focusing on passages that I find fascinating or insightful or moving. This passage relates to the Names of God, which I've discussed previously in an unrelated fashion; I was commenting upon the fact that I found the Names of God written on paper plates and attached to the walls of a dirt floor school on Pemba more moving than the ones in gold in the Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi.

In the Study Quran Nasr notes: "God's Names are described as the Most Beautiful (al-husna), a word also related to goodness and virtue, and are said to be beautiful to the ear as well as the heart. On the basis of a widely reported hadith (see 59:24c), God is traditionally said to have ninety-nine Beautiful Names.  While the list of those Names varies slightly in different reports, and several lists contain more than ninety-nine, the Names attributed to God in Islamic tradition are sanctified by the Islamic scripture in that they are based upon or derived from the many terms used to describe Him in the Quran, including those repeated frequently throughout the text such as Compassionate, Merciful, Sovereign, Holy, One, Hearer, Seer, Knower, and Powerful. In some cases a particular Name of God does not appear in the Quran, but is recognized as a Divine Name on the basis of related Divine actions described in the text."

"That God has many Names is not considered to compromise His Onesness or to indicate that He has parts of qualities that would compromise His Oneness; rather, the Names are considered to represent Attributes or Qualities of His undifferentiated Essence, which are differentiated through the Self-manifistation of the Essence and then preceived in the mind of the one who is calling Him by them. They also reveal different attributes of God, some pertaining to His Essence, and others to the different ways in which He relates to His creation. Nonetheless, each Name is understood to possess Divine Presence or Quality, for as al-Tabrisi notes there are no empty titles for God. In fact, in Islamic metaphysics, the whole of the cosmos is considered to be in reality nothing but reflections or theopanies of the Divine Names and Qualities."

"Goid's Names have also been commonly divided into those of Beauty (jamal), such as Compassionate, Merciful, Gentle, Kind, and Pardoner, and those of Majesty (jalal), such as Judge, Compeller, Reckoner, and Possessor of Vengeance. Along those same lines, the Names have been also divided into those that could be manifested in human beings (Kind, Generous) and those that belong to God alone (Sovereign, Sublime, Holy). In the Islamic world, human beings are allowed to have as their names those Divine Names that represent qualities that can be manifested in human beings, such as the Karim (Generous), but not those that belong to God alone, such as Quddus (Holy). There are also names belonging to both categories to both categories, such as Ali, which can also be used as human names."

Thanksgiving in the Wadi Rum - Shukran

As I'm always fond of saying, there's always another trip.  It's true metaphorically, but it also seems to be true logistically.  Recently I found myself reconciling Zanzibar receipts, putting the final touches on the India trip, and holding interviews for next fall's Jordan trip.  The Zanzibar receipts are put to bed and I'm back from India (although still a little paperwork to do on that front) and the Jordan interviews are complete.  It looks like my excellent friend, colleague and titular little sister Cyndi and I will be bringing 22 students to Jordan over Thanksgiving break, which will be the biggest Champlain trip ever. It's even more amazing when you consider that 19 of the 22 students are women, from a college which is something like 62% dude.  The Champlain female students are almost universally kick ass so this is shaping up to be a great trip.  I do love Jordan and it's all I can do to hold out until we can get on a plane next November.

We're going to be spending two days, including Thanksgiving, camping out in the Wadi Rum.  How about this for Thanksgiving day: six hour camel ride, touch football game (the Champlain Bowl), a turkey dinner cooked by the Bedouins who run the camp, and then reading Arabic poetry around a camp fire in the desert.  That is pretty epic.