What Future Holds

There is a new World Order which demands a completetly different intervention - no intervention at all but a the greatest pristine revolutionarly narrative of brave men and women liberating themselves.

Since I came back to Egypt I sensed a change in the air, palpable change. It is with great pleasure I report on Egypt coming back from the dead, rising from ashes. First in national phsyche, putting behind it years of humiliation, defeat and corruption. People are happy and relived but concerned.

Hope it will lead to a better tomorrow, where it will lead to real changes in economics, soceity and politics. It must take a long time and will not be without set-backs but leader of the Arab world has now arrived. Egypt is a true star and along Turkey and Iran is the country which defines what Middle East will be like in next decades. As they said, future of the region is not decided in Tripoli or Tel-Aviv or Riyadh, it is being made in Cairo.

Democracy has been delayed in the Middle East for years due to several reasons but history should become normalized now - as Friedman puts it - the Arab world will return to history. I will not list these well known reasons, but just note how critical this change is.

"No leaders should think that they could rule forever" - this is another new idea, dawning on Muslim world for probably the first time.

All the while, western myths - and I for years argued and described them as such - about Middle East were put to dustbin of history. Europe now stands humiliated and confused, paralyzed by fear of the post-crisis future and incipient racism, United States also stands compromised and indecisive. Both of them will be unable to master a responce to the Arab spring, neither raising to the challenge nor able to fight the outcomes. And yet the values these regions represent to the world, others still hold dear - not western phenomena, really.

So who will lead the Arab spring from beginning into fruition. What is the journey to be undertaken, a journey which FOR THE FIRST TIME in 100 years will be wholly unique.


There are several key elements to how this can play out:

1. Democracy and advance of human social rights across region must push the policies of regional integration. It can not be that the potential of region is stifled, it can not be that they trade with Europe more than each other. Arab block was a sham, now it must become a region of common trade and visa-free travel.

2. Liberalization of economies of the region and free trade between countries in the region.

2. Flow of ideas and people across the region must be unhindered, this process must include translations of foreign books en masse, many educational projects and nurturing civil and religious activism into a force for good different in tone from western concepts, but related to them.

3. Infrastructure, education and science projects financed by rich Arab surplus money - this money has to be wrestled out of the useless Gulf monarchies.

2. Turkey, now banished from European Union. must play a key role in shaping the new middle East. Iran must not play this part, unless it stars playing constructively

3. And finally Israel must abandon its protector and attempt reconciliation and join regional integration in good faith. It must do so by abandoning its current protector and putting trust into her current enemies. No more unwinnable wars- just trust, or otherwise it will be left out of the region forever.

The unity which will reconcile such irreconcilable entities will be another bold step which I term New Eurabia. This will- with a leap of faith - involve integration of Europe and Muslim Middle East into a single entity.

How? We will talk about it in due time.

US should stop supporting extreme Islamist states

By

Nir Rosen
Best Defense guest media critic

Saudi Arabia fears "the U.S. is opening the door for Islamist groups to gain influence and destabilize the region"?

Saudi Arabia? The most extreme Islamist state in the world (now that the Taliban are removed), the sponsor of extreme Islamist movements from Africa to Europe to Asia? The opponent of Arab and Muslim progressive and liberal thought for decades?

The Saudis are worried about Islamist groups? No. The Saudis used to import Muslim Brothers from Egypt to teach in Saudi Arabia, and that was only after the Wahhabis relaxed a bit and were willing to accept the more moderate Muslim brothers.

This is not about Islamism; this is about regional alliances. Whether it's the Muslim Brothers or the Communist Party of Egypt who takes over after Mubarak, we can be certain that the new regime will be less of a puppet and less part of the American, Saudi, and Israeli alliance in the Middle East than Mubarak was. This is what the Saudis fear, that the architecture they have carefully crafted with the Americans is crumbling -- with Iraq ruled by the hated Shiites, Fatah in Palestine a joke, Iran ascendant, the Saudi proxies in Lebanon a failure. This has nothing to do with Islamism. The authors have it all wrong.

Montazeri

Reprinted from Weekly Standard) Reuel Marc Gerecht is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When I first encountered the Persian word mofangi, I struggled to grasp its meaning. It implies a certain timidity, physical weakness, and awkwardness. Seeking to put some flesh on that definition, my language tutor told me to envision Grand Ayatollah Hosein Ali Montazeri. "He's more than a little mofangi," remarked the tutor, expressing the condescension that well-educated, leftwing Iranians often have for the clergy who stole their revolution.

That was in the mid 1980s, and Montazeri was the number two cleric in Iran, a mullah who once passionately believed in exporting Iran's revolutionary tumult and was instrumental in building the institutions of Islam's first theocracy. Yet, unlike his former teacher and friend, the formidable Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Montazeri didn't scare anyone. With his big owlish glasses, squeaky voice, and sartorial dishevelment, Montazeri was clearly a man of the people--to the extent that any accomplished Shiite jurist can be an ordinary man.

Yet in the end Montazeri, who died last week at 87, caused, and will continue to cause, untold trouble for the regime. By the end of his life, he had come to represent the fusion of three unstoppable ideas: that the Islamic Republic as built by Khomeini and led by Khamenei is illegitimate; that only democracy can redeem the republic and save Islam as a vibrant faith capable of shaping society's mores; and that clerics who support Khamenei are intellectual dullards and moral reprobates. It was Montazeri's religious passion, his argumentative rigor, his common-man roots, and his courage that drove the regime nuts. His disciples are everywhere.

No outsider can precisely date an inner change of such consequence, but it appears that Montazeri began to lose his faith in what he'd built when the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88) started consuming tens of thousands of young men--the faithful for whom Khomeini never once wept. After Iran's defeat, Khomeini "defrocked" Montazeri for having the temerity to question his execution of thousands of jailed Iranians. Under house arrest, Montazeri became the leader of the dissident clergy.

Fallen from power, Montazeri wrote a six-volume critique of the velayat-e faqih, the "regency of the jurisconsult," or "office of supreme leader," which allowed first Khomeini, then Khamenei, dictatorial control of the state. Although Montazeri never took issue with the idea that clerics should have an important role in government, he relentlessly pursued Khamenei for his lack of religious qualifications and for the very idea that the supreme leader is unelected and not subject to law and tradition.

For Montazeri, the Islamic Republic was born in sin because the velayat e faqih was not prescribed by Shiite tradition. Montazeri put forth the notion, later refined and lethally sharpened by Mohsen Kadivar, a dissident cleric and probably the greatest orator of the opposition, that only religious leaders who are elected possess legitimacy. Iran's religious political system, accordingly, must be transformed into a velayat-e entekhabi e moqayyadeh, an "elected, limited regency of jurists," where ultimate political power rests with the people and their parliament, and not with mullahs. Montazeri is best seen as an iron prow, crashing into and splintering Khomeini's state. And in Montazeri's wake, democratic dissidents of all stripes--from the religiously inclined to the religion-hostile--have grown strong.

Montazeri's most lasting achievement may prove to be the deepening marriage between religious -democrats and increasingly nonreligious, Western-style democrats. He didn't intend this when he first started challenging the regime's legitimacy. But Montazeri evolved, as has the entire Iranian democracy movement--now easily the dominant intellectual force in the country. Indeed, this rapid evolution is perhaps what is most striking about Iran's leading religious democrats--Montazeri, Kadivar, former president Mohammad Khatami (in office 1997-2005), and the lay philosopher/sociologist Abdul Karim Soroush. They have become much more explicitly democratic as they have reflected on the revolution. And they have become more tolerant of dissident ideas and people. On his deathbed, Montazeri remained deeply traditional, yet he was not the man he had been even in 1988 when he expressed his outrage at the casual killing of Iranian "political" prisoners. He had become, in his own very clerical way, a progressive.

And those to the left of Montazeri, which includes almost everyone in Iran's
democratic movement, have in turn moved farther left. ("Left" and "right" are tricky terms to apply to the Islamic Republic, but their Western meaning is increasingly apt.) What Khomeini feared most--the satanic whispering of Western ideas that transforms good Holy Law-abiding Muslims into inquisitive, disrespectful devils--is happening. Thirty years of theocracy has been a powerful teacher.

It was just six months ago--on June 11, 2009, the day before the Iranian presidential election--that American officials, government analysts, and a good slice of the journalistic and academic community downplayed the idea of a powerful anti-regime democratic movement in Iran. For these folks, Montazeri was a has-been, if not something of a crank. They saw an Iran where opposing regime loyalists argued essentially about little pieces of the pie, and the population went along for the ride, accepting the regime's inadequacies as it had the failure of Khatami to change the system.

But this analysis was ten years out of date. Behind the scenes, among intellectuals, academics, and an ever-larger slice of the educated youth, the advocates of democracy actually grew stronger as President Khatami got politically stuffed. Montazeri knew this and played on the growing dissatisfaction--which is why he became even more influential in the second decade of his opposition than he had been in the first.

Iran is an odd place, where old men can become beloved by the young, where youths who don't have a religious bone in their bodies and wouldn't give clerics the time of day, can nevertheless be deeply respectful, even impassioned about, a grand ayatollah who fought the good fight against tyranny.

Montazeri's humanity and religion came together to create in him a profound respect for popular government, with all its enormous flaws (which Montazeri himself bitingly enumerated). What the regime perhaps detested most about Montazeri is that he made arguments and emotional appeals aimed directly at well-educated clerics and peasant believers alike, encouraging their spiritual migration away from Khomeini's state to an imagined new Shiite republic where basic decency could be seen in the conduct of officials.

Inspired by experience, inspired by Montazeri, millions of faithful Iranians have put their affections and hopes beyond the reach of the regime.
The massive turnout for Montazeri's funeral, and the palpable nationwide sense of loss, are likely to be just the first tributes that a democratizing Iran will pay to Khomeini's most beloved student. In Iran the dead live on through their disciples, through the honor and duty that the young owe to the old, that the untested owe to the fearless. Once provoked and outraged, Iranians, who often dismissively refer to themselves as sheep, can turn into lions.

Montazeri was one of the lions of modern Iranian history. With his writing and his oratory, he unrelentingly challenged what he'd once held holy. His disciples--the army of Iranian intellectuals who've been for twenty years quietly obliterating the legitimacy of Khomeini's state--and the democratic dissidents who've poured into the streets since June 11, now command the high ground. Though the regime continues to rule because the Revolutionary Guard Corps hasn't (yet) cracked, Khamenei and his office have permanently lost their religious credentials.

With his unrivalled stubbornness and scholarly reach, Montazeri deserves much of the credit for the regime's predicament. Americans, who generally don't have an acute appreciation for Islam's religious authorities or the tumultuous debates about popular sovereignty inside Iran's clergy, owe Montazeri a great debt. Not a lover of the United States, its all-consuming popular culture, or its indefatigable ally in the region (Israel), he would not expect a word of thanks. Nevertheless, we should pay homage where homage is due. He earned it.

Logic

There are too many intellectuals who are enamoured with logic. They become confused in doubts and misgivings arise concerning the evidence, and they are scarcely able to free themselves from such doubts.

As a mater of fact, the natural means for perception of the truth is man’s natural ability to think, when it is free from all imaginings and when the thinker entrusts himself to the mercy of God. Logic merely describres the process of thinking and mostly parallels it. Take that into consideration and ask for God’s mercy when you have difficulty in understanding problems. Then the divine light will shine upon you and give you the right inspiration.

Nationalism Explained

Some might refer to otherwise quite liberal me as a nationalist, which might have some truth to it, although i view things through a different prism.

While modern concept of nationalism is a European invention (or distortion), the old concept of family, clan, and blood loayalties and resulting sentiment of what one would call "soil nationalism" existed from the time immemorial and will always be with us. To deny your roots, your language and religion is a grave sin in the eyes of a nationalist.

What nationalism is remains a hotly contested subject on which there is little general consensus. The clearest example of opposition to nationalism is cosmopolitanism, with adherents as diverse as liberals, Marxists, and anarchists, who hold all people equal and strive to eliminate cultural and ethnic differences. On the other hand, main universal religions - Islam and Christianity, in particular - also to certain degree restrict modernist nationalism, while unwilling to restrict ethnic one.

Reliance on ethnicity to spread religion is a major boon. Nations that have fused religion into the sense of nationhood are almost unassailable - like Jews, Armenians or Iranians. They will have less internal conflict but will receive double reinforcement from the two powerful ideas: ideas of sanctity of blood and sanctity of Revelation. Nations where religious affiliations divide, generally fare worse - like Yugoslavia or Northern Ireland. So called post-religious Europe is in fact still very culturally Christian anywhere from a small hamlet to a big city (although maybe in denial of it).

In this sense true non-expansive and non-chauvinist nationalism is still a parochial force, for it does not strive for imposition of international values and is content to maintane values specific to a certain tribe or ethnicity. It carries no universal values and therefore does not clash with whatever other values a person can hold dear.

Recent non-western example of confusion between specific ethnic and religious sentiment is Pushtun problem hapless Americans now finding themselves in. The reason it may not be possible to fight Taliban in Pakistan or elsewhere it is because in a sense Taliban are Pathans, who are fighting for and within the bounds of Pushtunwali code and in this sense they are "freedom fighters", however barbaric they may be for Europeans. All should remember that Afghanistan is a gravesite for all of its invaders and occupants, irrespective of their might.

Curious Case of Novruz

Novruz is a holiday celebrating the arrival of sping. Nowruz marks the first day of spring and the beginning of the year in Iranian (Muslim Solar) calendar. It is celebrated on the day of the astronomical vernal equinox, which usually occurs on March 21 or the previous/following day depending on where it is observed. It is believed to be Zoroastrian holiday of most significance amongst the Zoroastrian ancestors of modern Iranians.

A Turkic purist, upset by such Iranian-centric interpretations will tell you that Ulugh-Kun (or "Great Day" in Old and Middle Turkic) was the spring festival of Turkic shamanism. It was celebrated on or about March 22, and marked the first day of the Turkic month of Oshlaq-ay. The name of the holiday appears in the medieval dictionary Divan-i Lughat-it-Turk by Mahmud Kashgari, written in the 1070s.

It is widely celebrated in Iran, Azerbaijan and Central Asia, who fight over its significance. I will not get into details of this great war of words between a Turk and Persian.

But the fact that Novruz transcends nationalities, cultures and religions is most remarkable. For, while in Iran, where the Zoroastrian heritage is well forgotten it is believed to be a Muslim holiday (and even educated folks belive firmly it while jumping through fires and dancing around green wheat). This is perhabs is not so remarkable coming from a rustic folk. But Novruz is so much wider than the village ritual, and it is a soul of every nation that celebrates it. The fact that Shia Islam had adopted, nurtured and saved this great day, with all its traditions intact is most amazing. While Christianity had changed pagan holidays and made them their own, like Christmas or Easter, Islam could not and would not do that. When Shia - eternally vilifed and forgotten by the Arab - made Iran their spiritual refuge the marriage of help and support was born. And now it is that despite Salafi shrill cries, one can proudly proclaim oneselef a pious - or even most radical - Muslim and celebrate most Novruz rites is a great achievement.

Eid Mubarak

Blessed Ramadan to all! All the Glories of the World I wish to my friends and brothers, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, for indeed in the "eyes" of God (Allah forgive me for assigning attributes to You) shall we be judged according to our thoughts not our words and actions.

Not to be too offensive to modern sensibilities i have found a more acceptable veiled image of the Prophet (saw)

This sixteen-century Persian painting depicts the Night Journey and shows Muhammad seated on Buraq horse, flying from Mecca to Jerusalem with the Angel Gabriel, a mythical event which bounded forever Jerusalem to a Muslim imagination. From the Haram in Jerusalem, Muhammed, according to hadith tradition is said to have ascended the heaven, a perfect act of surrender to God, which became a paradigm for a Islamic spiritual journey

The Night of Power

In the name of God, the Benevolent, the Merciful.1 Lo! We revealed it on the Night of Predestination.2 Ah, what will convey unto thee what the Night of Power is!3 The Night of Power is better than a thousand months.4 The angels and the Spirit descend therein, by the permission of their Lord, with all decrees.5 (The night is) Peace until the rising of the dawn.

Laylat al-Qadr (Arabic: لیلة القدر) (also known as Shab-e-Qadr), basically the Night of Decree or Night of Measures, is the anniversary of two very important dates in Islam that occurred in the month of Ramadan. It is the anniversary of the night Muslims believe the first verses of the Qur'an were revealed to Prophet Muhammad.


One of the many devotional pictures showing unusually the face of the Prophet and Family. This picture represents the prophet Muhammad in the middle, with his veiled daughter Fatima on his left hand side, his cousin and son in law on his right hand side, and his two grandsons, Ali's og Fatima's sons, Hasan (in green) and Husayn (in red). "The holy family" or "the Holy Five" has a high position among all Muslims, but particularly among Shia Muslims. Behind Muhammad stands an angel (Gabriel) with the Quran in his hands. for the angel Djibril was the one who brought the first revelation to Muhammad on that very night, the night of Power. In this picture, like in many other representations of Ali, he holds in his hands one of his characteristics, the double pointed sword Dhu 'l-Faqar.

Dismas and Gestas

Since we are talking Russia and religion here is an interesting factoid:

The names of the thieves crucified with Christ appear in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, the Acts of Pilate.

Book IX:5 reads
5 Then Pilate commanded the veil to be drawn before the judgement-seat whereon he sat, and saith unto Jesus: Thy nation hath convicted thee (accused thee) as being a king: therefore have I decreed that thou shouldest first be scourged according to the law of the pious emperors, and thereafter hanged upon the cross in the garden wherein thou wast taken: and let Dysmas and Gestas the two malefactors be crucified with thee.

They are very well known in the Orthodox tradition, where larger icons of the Crucifixion can show two crosses flanking Christ's. According to tradition, Dismas, on Christ's right, repents and eventually joins Christ in Heaven, while Gestas blasphemes and ends up in Hell. At the moment of Christ's passing, he writhes in agony and his feet jerk, pulling the lowest crossbar askew. On the traditional Russian Orthodox cross, the lowest crossbar is at an angle, with the right side up (Dismas went to Heaven) and the left side down (Gestas went to Hell).

However another most likely explanation is that the crossbar symbolizes the main saint of Russia (the most likely explanation), St. Andrew, who was crucified on a torture rack of diagonally crossed beams

Thus spake Voland

From Master and Margarita, which I have revisited;

Oh, I am sorry – sighed the stranger, looking Bezdomni in the eye, and continued: - But what I am concerned the question: If there is no God, then dare I ask who manages human life and all the general things on this planet and beyond?
-- People are managers of their fate – we are the best there is on this planet, - rushed angrily Bezdomnyj answer to this, confessing to himself he does not understand things well.
-- Again an objections - softly applauded the stranger - to manage, you need to, after all, have a precise plan for a period of time, any decent period. Let me ask you, how can a person control anything, if he is not able to compile any plan except for a ridiculously short period of time, well, years, say, a thousand; but can not vouchsafe for their own evening?
And, in fact – then he turned to an Berlioz - imagine that you, for example, begin to plan ahead and have people running around you in this large office of yours, so to speak, only gaining a taste of your future successes, and suddenly you discover... hm ... hm ... that you are terminally ill with sarcoma of lungs ... -- Here foreigner smiled sweetly, as if an idea of Berlioz having sarcoma brought him pleasure - yes, cancer, cancer – stretching as cat, he repeated the sonorous call - and here is your administration ends!

-And sometimes, it can get even worse: only now you think that you will travel in Kislovodsk, - here the foreigner pierced Berlioz with his menacing gaze – an easy bit, but this you can not commit because suddenly you stumble and fall under a tram! Do you say that it is communist government declared so? Maybe it is not the government of People Republic that ordered you to die, just maybe? -- And here he laughed….

Having said so he whispered to both the poet and the writer: -- Keep in mind that Jesus existed. -- You see, Professor, - with a forced smile retorted Berlioz - we respect your great knowledge, but Soviet citizens on this issue have a different perspective. --
We do not need any points of view! -- responded strange professor - he just existed, and nothing else.
-- But we require evidence ... -- began Berlioz.
-- I do not need any evidence - and the professor responded softly with his German accent disappearing: - I was there....

Ramadan Image

[50.22] Certainly you were heedless of it, but now We have removed from you your veil, so your sight today is sharp A view into the old, from the really old. For some reason I think this image captures my Ramadan spirit more than others. The Mosque is the earning of the soul to purify itself during this blessed month - when all feelings become more acute - the soul is wretched, old and weathered - deep cracks appear on the facade, but they go much deeeper. Right through the heart they pierce my soul. The wall is there to protect the castle keep, but equally, walls divide and separate - hence it will not be in my power to scale them, unless I hold fast to Him, One and Only Reality. I will see then, how things really are with veils of Unreality removed. Being too weak, how one can scale even a small obstacle like this. Better to stay in one peace, but forever distant. Or shall I try?

Confession

I imagine myself a part of a great army of Tung Yabgu – khagan of Turks – ready to lay siege to a great Sassanian town of Derbent, sword in my hand and murmuring my prayers to Tengri – a great God of Blue Sky and Ruler of all Spirits. I am a Son of Grey Wolf, from the Valley of the Wolves. I am a mighty Turkut.

How can any of these smelly brown people understand the sounds of my beautiful language, how can they cherish blooming valleys of Orhon where streams come to form the mighty Ulugh-Khem which flows north into the Unknown Northern Ocean.
How can I not be a Turk then, and not marry one?

I imagine myself as a warrior of the Great army of Islam during the first siege of Constantinople, just few decades after Prophet’s death. I am serving Ayyub– the flag-bearer of the Prophet, and I am to be the one to take the Green Banner from his hand and to hear his last words about the walls of Constaninople to scaled by a Conquering Turk.
How can I not be a Muslim and not marry one?

But then my thoughts sadden and darken and I imagine myself as a part of small band of hangers on with Imam Huseyn (a.s) on the field of Karbala. I am bloodied and wounded and hiding in a tent. After the battle, when Yazeed's army is looting the tents, they fnd me and place my head on a spear. Umar ibn Sa'ad sends Imam Husayn's head to ibn Ziyad on Ashura afternoon and orders to sever heads of his comrades to send them to Kufa. I am one of them. How can I not be a Shia and not marry one?

And then my thoughts sadden yet again and I see myself on the bridge over Ganja river in May 1920, commanding a small band of survivors from Azerbaijani Army. Russian Bolshevik horde and its Armenian backers are coming to take the bridge and I am – like in Ali and Nino book – waiting for my martyrdom, knowing that there is no way back into the beautiful but short-lived dream of our nation. I will be dead for seventy years.
How can I not be an Azeri and not marry one?

Then I smile again and think about all the good things people had said to me and done to me, the people who knew and cared nothing about sanctity of blood, far away from my land and people, and were inherently good or even better than some of my compatriots.
How can I not be a human and not marry one?

Forever

The time has come to declare that the modern society will never get rid of religion as practiced in any forms. We just have to distinguish between tradional and novel forms of it. People will pray, will live and continue to expect salvation for generations to come. Science and pure cold reason will never threaten most of humanity; humanists and fundamentalist atheists. have to beware they are going against basic human needs and desires. You will take one idol, and we believe in another. Globalization is no exception as this quoute says it all:

The greatest religion, the one which generates our whole way of life and – ncreasingly – death, is consumerism, the system by which we invest meaning and purpose in our purchases, center our dreams around them, measure our success by them. Interestingly, the capitalist acquisitiveness that we think of as materialistic has exploited our spiritual natures very effectively, albeit in a perverse way, and exploting our capacity for addiction at the same time.

The Age of Reason

It is always pleasant to learn something new in any area, but especially pleasant if it concerns Islamic history, onto which many in the West, so arrogantly pronounce judgements by assuming to know everything. Recently I have made an unexpected discovery while searching for the sources of Islamic Fundamentalism.

Islamic Reformism was a significant movement occupying minds of almost all ruling and clerical classes who clearly saw muslim countries lose superiority, economies and finally independence itself to the West. All leading voices of the 19 century argued for reform. The challenge of 19 century was crucial – how to compete with the West and yet stay independent, but the stakes went higher. It was obvious that Europeans would invade and rule directly, if urgent solutions were not found. While Ottoman Empire survived and staved off defeat, its Egyptian vassals under heirs of moderniser Muhammad Ali did not. After it had build the Suez canal, Egypt found itself – after heavy and indiscriminate borrowing – directly in depth to French and British banks and became insolvent. A military coup instigated by officers of newly modern Egyptian army was also the first attempt at nationalization to save Egypt from foreign creditors. It had failed and in 1882 British occupied Egypt under pretext of protection of Suez.

Basically it was becoming clear that despite its lip service to liberty for all, the West had no intentions to give liberty to other races and was on the road to enslaving them all. In these conditions there had to be two solutions: either to fight a losing battle of the sword or reform internally to be able to compete later. At the time answer was the latter, and beyond local battles with the West, there was no “jihad”-inspired backlash. Terror as the method of war was not yet born.

Two figures loomed large on the Sunni Islamic Reformism side in Middle East, and at the time quite known in Europe – like Tariq Ramadans of their day– Jalal-ad-Din Afghani and Muhammad Abduh.

Reformers like them said that Muslim societies had fallen behind the west because they had strayed from the core strength of Islam which celebrated science and reason and abhorred superstition. They had become antagonistic to change ossified and did not innovate with the result of the West racing ahead. There was generally little resistance to the idea that things had to change among all ruling classes and progressive clergy.

Abduh – who after being exiled and arrested by British eventually returned to become a Grand Mufti of Egypt – was also a consistent believer in the triumph of reason and berated a rigid ideology based on uncritical interpretations of hadiths, and went even further indicating importance of scrutiny and free speech to question many tenets. Both men strongly opposed irrational tendencies in Islam and opposed mystical Sufism which they saw as not scientific and full of ossified rituals. They have probably despised the folk religion with its cult of saints and holy places and thought of ways to challenge it through modernized education.

Now you might thing that the Islamic Reform movement was not opposed to the West, but it was not so. It was Sharia bound traditionalist headed by mainstream ulema, who in their stupor were ready to not only oppose but support foreign rule, provided their traditions were respected. Reformists invariably sided with nationalist cause. It was true in Russia (including my native Azerbaijan, whose Muslim democrat leaders eventually formed a republic in 1918), India and Egypt. Reformism in India created Iqbal and Ali Jinna and Turkish one Young Turks and their heir – Ataturk.

Reformists ultimate goal was the Islamic renaissance akin to the Arabic Golden age where spirit of scientific inquiry flourished; their future did not have not skimpily dressed women and binge drinking - they still saw the West as flawed in many respects. Afghani was also called a father of Pan-Islamism, which was a pro-Caliphate movement that can be constructed as a early version of Islamic “Fundamentalism” and Hizb-ut-Tahrir party. He toured many Muslim and European countries and served as an advisor to Ottoman Sultan and king of Afghanistan in their reforms.

Because some Reformists used to advocate a return to pious practices of Salafis – the early followers of the Prophet who, the Reformists believed, were guilded by Reason – these Reformists called themselves Salafis too, just like today’s West adversaries.

So in a twist of fate modernizers of 19 century became heirs to puritanical Salafis of today. Of course, on any Jihadi website the Reformists of 19 century are criticized as Jewish sell-outs – in one, Afghani is called a Judeo-Mason for example - but links between later Muslim Brotherhood and early Islamic Reform movement are obvious. Both were born out of desire to understand reasons for failure and derived their strength from critical and untraditional interpretation of the scriptures. However, the answers they have provided were different. There was the reason for the change of emphasis – it was because 20 century was a disaster and disappointment for Muslims, especially its second half, where it became clear that reforms had not worked and the West firmly and unconditionally established itself as the ruler of the World. Slowly but surely those who supported the modernism and innovation were tainted by association with the oppressors. This was the beginning of a new and more difficult chapter.

Humans and God

Karen Armstrong in her History of God makes – amongst many others I shall list later – a very interesting observation on religion nature of human beings:

Humans started worship gods as soon as they had become recognizably human.
It was not tacked to a primordially secular nature by manipulative kings or priests but was natural to humanity. Indeed current secularism is an entirely new experience unprecendented in human history. We have yet to see how it will work. Our ethical secular ideal has its own disciplines of mind and heart and gives people faith in ultimate meaning of life that were provided by more conventional religions. It is impossible not to have a religion in this sense.

Thus religion is something innate in humans at one level - and also something cultivated at a different level, which is rather like art or poetry. At one level everyone can proclaim a belief, but real iman (faith) has to be cultivated – and not by therapy or new age yoga sessions. It takes a person greatest effort to achieve this strong and all-encompassing faith; this is not achieved by idle speculation about Holy Books – for this is irrelevant for a true mystic.



The greatest error of those who assume that God is an objective reality – a Being to be supported and fought against – is that they fight or support something that does not really exist. Here both sides of the argument are rather irreligious or faithless for they attach attributes to God, attributes that are human and emotional.

As Hadith Qudsi says “ I was a hidden Treasure and I yearned to be known. Thus I created people to be known by them”. There is no rational proof of God’s sadness; it can only be deduced from our perpetual longing for the embrace with the Absolute. Each human being is a unique epiphany of a Hidden God, manifesting him in a particular and unrepeatable manner.

Two Dark Days

There is a certain feeling that makes Ashura a special day here – black flags, atmosphere of subdued conversation and lack of shallow entertainment on TV. This year in Azerbaijan, Ashura takes on another meaning as it coincides with a recent tragendy – Baku massacres of 1990.

Kerbela and the martyrdom of Imam Hussein posesses a great power in the psyche of some Muslims- the Shia community, specifically. The death of Prophet's grandson takes an almost cosmic significance of an eternal struggle of Good and Evil, which takes place everyday inside and outside of any human soul. In a way – as Shia say - the whole World is Kerbela and everyday is Ashura – which is not taken to mean literally that everyday is a day of mourning, but only that everyday this eternal struggle is being waged. A struggle between Day and Night, Ahuramazda and Ahriman, God and Satan.

Some consider Ashura - an eternal mourning for a person who died 1300 years ago - a meaningless event and threatening in a very barbaric way. But in reality it is very static; despite an opportunity to mobilize crowds and take them towards revenge on Yazid, and - like in modern Iran - to relate it to yodays conflicts waged against Muslims in Palestine and beyond, Ashura stays strangely apolitical. Ashura mourners are passively resigned to the fate of eternal defeat and of perpetual injustice, which had been dealt on them and would stay this way until the day of Reckoning. They weep instead, madly, hysterically - just like they danced on a wedding a month before. What starts from a passion play moves to float in a river of tears, to culminate in chest-beating, ululations and self-mutilation amongst most fanatical (though strictly prohibited). Some of these events are frenzied outpourings of uncontrollable emotion which is beautiful to watch. No acid, drink or drugs – just people letting themselves reach an emotional crescendo of humility and self-effacement.

Mourning is usually a time for a reflection and to see how a thousand years of it can affect a nation. Our Shia psyche elevated what most certainly was a grave tragedy of Black January (I still remember blood on the streets and Russian soldiers taking people to be shot) into a cosmic nation-defining catastrophe. A sort of secular Ashura, with Armenians and Russians being our Yazids. We have to mourn twice this week.

Imadeddin Nesimi - Engish translation is mine

My translation of Imadeddin Nesimi from Azeri.

Both worlds within me coexist , but this one World cannot contain me.
An omnipresent pearl I am and both those Worlds cannot contain me.

Because in me both Earth and Heaven and Creation's “BE!” were found,
Be silent! For there is no language which contains me.

Through doubt and fear no one is a friend of God and the Truth.
The man who fears dishonours God, and fear does not contain me.

Pay due regard to form, acknowledge it, because the Body and the soul I am,
but soul and body, both, do not contain me.

I am both shell and pearl, the Doomsday scales, the bridge to Paradise.
With such a wealth of wares, those worldly goods do not contain me.

I am “the hidden treasure” that is God. I am his open Eye.
I am the jewel of the Land. The sea , the Land tey don't contain me.

Although I am the boundless sea, my name is Adam, I am a Man.
I am Mount Sinai of this greeat Earth. This wretched Earth cannot contain me.

I am both Soul and Word as well. I am an Era and an Epoch, too.
Remember this : The Place and Time cannot contain me.

I am the stars, the sky the angel, revelation come from God.
So hold your tongue and silent be! There is no tongue that can contain me.

I am the atom, sun, four elements, five saints, dimensions six.
Go seek my attributes! All explanations cannot contain me.

I am the core and attribute, the flower, sugar and sweetmeat.
I am the Night of Power, Great. No tight-shut lips can contain me.

I am a burning bush. I am the rock that rose into the sky.
Observe this tongue of flame. There is no tongue of flame that can contain me.

Ramadan Post 6: Expression of an Absolute Monotheism

What is ' Kalima Tayyiba' in words of Maududi? Kalima Tayyiba is an expression of Absolute truth. Something like Absolute Truth to express in Absolute and encompassing God to Who nothing can compare and to Whom nothing is equal . The rejection of this statement is impossible for anyone for it is an Absolute and unshakeable truth, that exists by itself and beyond any reasonable argument.

It is Truth, because it is the Truth. So truthful that there cannot possibly be anything more genuine than this in the world. 'The Master of the whole universe is one Allah.' Each and everything on this earth and in the heaven bears witness to it. These Stars, Galaxies, human beings, these animals, these trees, these stones, these particles of sand, these flowing streams, this bright sun......is there a single thing out of these which has been created by anybody except Allah, which can survive by anyone's kindness except Allah's, which can be nnihilated by anybody except Allah? So when this whole universe has been created by Allah nd its life and sustenance depend on the mercy of Allah, and Allah alone is its Master nd Ruler, then when you will declare: "In this world there is no one else to wield upreme power except the One Allah," everything on the earth and in the heaven will cry out: "You have expressed an absolute truth. We all testify the veracity of this maxim". hen you will bow before Him, everything in this universe will bow with you because all these things too are obedient to Him.When you will walk on His way, you will not be alone. In fact, this countless army of the whole universe will accompany you because from the sun in the sky to the most insignificant particle on the earth, everything is moving on His way only. When you rely on Him, you will not be relying on a small power but on that gigantic power which is the Master of all the treasures of Heavens and Earth. In short, when you keep this reality in view you will realize that all the forces of the earth and heaven will support that person who will affirm faith in Kalima Tayyiba and will mould his life in accordance with it. He will continue to flourish right from this world up to the world of the Hereafter, and not for a single moment will failure or defeat ever touch him.

This is just what the Almighty Allah has stated in this verse that this Kalima is like a tree whose roots are firmly entrenched in the earth and whose branches are spread over the heaven bearing fruit perpetually under the command of Allah.

Ramadan Post 4: Zoroastrian eschatology

[15.10] And certainly We sent (apostles) before you among the nations of the past

The Middle East, that cradle Civilization gave us a first concept of End of the World, in what was originally a monotheistic religion. By 500 BC, Zoroastrians had fully developed a concept of the end of the world through a divine devouring in fire. According to Zoroastrian philosophy, redacted in the Zand-i Vohuman Yasht, "at the end of thy tenth hundredth winter...the sun is more unseen and more spotted; the year, month, and day are shorter; and the earth is more barren; and the crop will not yield the seed; and men ... become more deceitful and more given to vile practices. They have no gratitude."
"Honorable wealth will all proceed to those of perverted faith...and a dark cloud makes the whole sky night..and it will rain more noxious creatures than winter."
Saoshyant (Messiah), the Man of Peace, battles the forces of evil. A resurrection will then occur, and the righteous will live in peace for eternity while evil will be condemned to an eternal existence within molten metal. The righteous will, "wade through the metal as if warm milk," while the evil are scalded.
At the end of the Battle between the righteous and wicked, a Final Judgement of all souls will commence. Sinners will be punished 3 days, but are then forgiven. The world will reach perfection as poverty, old age, disease, thirst, hunger and death are halted.

Parallels to Christian and Islamic eschatology are obvious. Another interesting similarity in Islamic ahadith is tha the concept of Bridge of Judgement, As-Sirāt (Arabic: الصراط), also called Sirat al-Jahim which is is, in Islam, the hair-narrow bridge, which every person must pass on the Day of Judgement to enter Paradise. It is said that it is as thin as a hair and as sharp as a sword. Below this path are the fires of Hell, which burn the sinners to make them fall before they get to the gates. The guardians of the Chinvat bridge in Zoroastrian eschatology are Sarosh (Obedience), Mithra (Covenant) and Rashnu (Justice).

Ramadan Post 3 Original Sin

Adam is an archetype of humankind, the progenitor, the first Prophet of Humanity, an the viceroy put to rule the Earth. In many Middle Eastern languages, Turkish included, Adam in fact means "man". As a medium therefore he is the very principle of the polar relationship and who knows all the Names of God and was orderered to teach them to angels. Adam is that single soul, that spirtual essense form which humankind has been created, as He says:

O Men, fear your lord Who created you from the single soul and created from its
mate, so that from them both will issue forth many men and women.

Many views (Ibn-Arabi in Fusus-Al-Hikam or Mansur Hallaj) but specifically tasawwuf, will consider Adam not only the first Insan-i-Kamil' the posessor of the spiritual essense, but alsoThe Greateast Prophet - the initiator of silsila tradition that will end in Mohammed (pbuh). Thus, spiritual role of Humanity as an ultimate centre of Universe is affirmed in Adam. Quite apart from the insignificant speckle of dust, Man (e.g Adam) is the greatest gift intoduced by God into Universe. Without Man the Universe has no sense - or in fact it may not exist physically, and God has created it for our own sake.

As for the fall:

Then began Satan to whisper suggestions to them, bringing openly before their
minds all their shame that was hidden from them (before): he said: "Your Lord only forbade you this tree, lest ye should become angels or such beings as live for ever. And he swore to them both, that he was their sincere adviser. So by deceit he brought about their fall: when they tasted of the tree, their shame became manifest to them, and they began to sew together the leaves of the garden over their bodies. And their Lord called unto them: "Did I not forbid you that tree, and tell you that Satan was an avowed enemy unto you?" [Qur'an 7:20]

The Qu'ran also mentions that Adam was misled by deception and was in fact pardoned by God after much repentance. Therein lies critical difference in my view between Christian and Islamic concept of Man.

"Then Adam received (reassuring) words from his Lord, so He turned to him mercifully; surely He is Oft-returning (to mercy), the Merciful." [Qur'an 2:37]

In Islam a human is born sinless creature of God (a Muslim, therefore) and in fact, will be forgiven by God before birth. In Catholic Christianity - if I uderstand its tenets correctly, and I may not - a man's nature is full of sin, because of the Fall. The people however can be saved by turning to Christ, who atoned for the original sin (the fall) by dying on the cross. Islam indicates that because Adam was the first human, his role as the first prophet of humanity is on the ascendance even after the fall. In fact the fall is the blessing in disguise in the Qur'an as the prophethood in fact starts after the fall from "Grace". Humanity is doomed to suffering but at the same time will enjoy happiness in the equal measure.

All other accounts in ahadith are apocryphal and mythical; they are not in he Qur'an and therefore represent tales of human imagination. As an examble of this apocryphal tradition I can cite the following:

Al-Qummi records the opinion that Eden was not on earth but in heaven. After disobeying Allah, Allah sends Adam and Eve to earth, arriving first at mountain peaks outside Mecca; Adam on Safa, and Eve on Marwa. In this account, Adam remained weeping for 40 days, until he repented, at which point Allah rewarded him by sending down the Kaaba, and teaching him the hajj. Other Islamic traditions hold that Adam was moved to Sri Lanka, as the next best thing to Eden, and, viewing Adam as having been a giant, human size having shrunk drastically before the great flood, Adam's Peak is said to contain his giant footprint. (Buddhists say that the footprint mark is the left foot of the Buddha, left behind as he strode away, the right footprint being (depending on legend) in Amphoe Phra Phutthabat, Saraburi Province, located about 150 kilometres northeast of Bangkok, Thailand. This place is called in Thai Phra Bat or Phra Phutthabat)

Also interestingly, The Qur'an also does not describe by name sones of Adam (named Qabil and Habil in Islamic hadith tradition) that correspond to Cain and Abel.