It's the Jihad, Charlie Brown!

Very important article

This should be on the front page of every newspaper in the U.S. Don't hold your breath.

"Most Iraqis regard the toppling of Saddam Hussain, the dismantling of his machinery of war and oppression and the introduction of pluralist politics to Iraq as an historic success. It is precisely because the stakes are so high that new Iraq faces such a determined challenge from its two arch enemies: Baathism and radical Islamism."

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More Rumi

FOURTEEN QUESTIONS

What if I broke off a whole branch
of roses? What if I lost myself in

the Friend? How would it be to have
no faith? What if I picked a pick-

pockets pocket? Does it mean any-
thing when a single basket is lost

in Baghdad, when one wheat grain is
missing from the barn? How long will

this illusion last? What remains
when a lover sits quietly with the

beloved for one second? Will it
involve you at all if I say some

unsayable things? Will my heart feel
relieved doing that? Something has

passed between lover and beloved.
Are you part of these goings-on?

What does the soul feel when Jesus
heals the body? This is the night

when life decrees can change. If
the moon came to visit me, would

that affect other people? Shams
Tabriz, if I gave workers a holiday

and if I turned the marketplace
upside down, would that be a kind of

image for how you loved the world?

FYI -- All of these poems come from Coleman Barks' translation of Rumi's poems called "The Soul of Rumi, A new collection of ecstatic poems," Harper San Fransisco 2001.

Who is this "Friend" Rumi speaks of? I've read the Koran, and I see no Friend there. I see a petty tyrant named "Allah," who demands servitude and adherence to a ridiculous, outdated set of tribal cultural standards.

There is a Friend in the Bible, of course.

He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8. Likewise

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

John 15:13-15

Rumi knew the God who is Friend. That is not "Allah." Peace be upon him.

Fuck Islam and Fuck Allah

What a ridiculous religion:

Why Islam must die

More Rumi

SICK OF SCRIPTURE

My head turns around my feet,
one of which is fixed to the ground

like a compass, mad
with the wandering moon and slow-

burning with Mars. Bored, ashamed,
floating in a gold sky, in deep

ecstasy, all secrets told, the son
of a lion is out looking for heart-

blood to drink. You think I’m sick,
so you read the first sura, but

scripture is what I’m sick of.
When Hallaj spoke his truth, they

crucified him for the words. If
Hallaj were here, he’d point them to

me. Unlike this teacher here who
will not bow, I don’t wash corpses

or carve markings on stone. The
universe itself recognizes Shams

Tabriz, but not you. I am tired
of being around such blindess.

Note: Hallaj was the Sufi crucified for his message that God was available to all equally, with or without Muslim law. Shams Tabriz was a Sufi poet, student, and love [in the Platonic sense, probably] of Rumi’s who was “disappeared” suddenly under circumstances no one knows.

Rumi's disregard for the Koran over against personal love and relationships is apparent.

Rumi

Rumi

Here is a man who me Jesus.  

“Climb to the Execution Place”

Grief settles thick in the throat
and lungs: thousands of sorrows

being suffered, clouds of cruelty,
all somehow from love.  Wail and be

thirsty for your own blood.  Climb
up to the execution place.  It is time.

The Nile flows red: the Nile flows pure.  
Dry wood and Aloe wood are

the same until fire touches.  A
Warrior and a mean coward stand here.

similar until arrows rain.  Warriors
love battle,  A subtle lion with

strategy gets the prey to run toward
him, saying “kill me again.”  Dead

eyes look into living eyes.  Don’t try
to figure this out.  Love’s work

looks absurd, but trying to find a meaning
will hide it more.  Silence.

I don’t understand all of that, and Rumi’s poem was written for a prior Sufi who was crucified by Islam and not for Jesus.  But there’s no denying that Jesus is in this poem, and that Rumi met the Spirit writing it.

Plus, this poem kicks the living bejesus out of anything in the Koran.

God loves you

I have very little to say today but realized I hadn't posted in awhile, which I'm sure disappoints me and the other reader of my blog.

I had promised to talk about Rumi, and I will. Rumi was a Sufi Muslim, a "whirling dervish," and depending on the times the Sufis were variously admired or labeled heretics. Today, Al Queda, the Taliban and the Muslim Brotherhood no doubt would call the Sufis heretics.

Why? Because, as you will see when I get to Rumi, the Sufis celebrated the Love of God. Rumi, I fully believe, met Jesus -- he didn't understand it for what it was because of his theology -- but he did, because God (Jesus) is humble enough to meet any lover of God wherever he is.

I wonder what difference it would make in Islam if it were taught that God loves you. There is no basis in the Koran or the Hadiths for such an assertion. Oh, I don't mean, "Allah loves a subservient Muslim." I'm sure it says that somewhere. I mean, "God loves you regardless whether you believe or not." Ain't there. It is, however, there in the Gospels.

What difference might it mean to a young Muslim to hear that "God loves you," whether you adhere to the teachings of the maniac in front of you or not.

I think it would transform Islam to teach such things.

Anyway, not much to say today. Rumi soon.