Seduction

A fixed destiny weighs on seduction. For religion seduction was a strategy of the devil, whether in the guise of witchcraft or love. It is always the seduction of evil - or of the world. It is the very artifice of the world. Its malediction has been unchanged in ethics and philosophy, and today it is maintained in psychoanalysis and the 'liberation of desire.' Given the present-day promotion of sex, evil and perversion, along with the celebration of the off times programmatic resurrection of all that was once accursed, it might seem paradoxical that seduction has remained in the shadows - and even returned thereto permanently.

The eighteenth century still spoke of seduction. It was, with valour and honour, a central preoccupation of the aristocratic spheres. The bourgeois Revolution put an end to this preoccupation (and the others, the later revolutions ended it irrevocably - every revolution, in its beginnings, seeks to end the seduction of appearances). The bourgeois era dedicated itself to nature and production, things quite foreign and even expressly fatal to seduction. And since sexuality arises, as Foucault notes, from a process of production (of discourse, speech or desire), it is not at all surprising that seduction has been all the more covered over. We live today the promotion of nature, be it the good nature of the soul of yesteryear, or the good material nature of things, or even the psychic nature of desire. Nature pursues its realization through all the metamorphosis of the repressed, and through the liberation of all energies, be they psychic, social or material.

Seduction, however, never belongs to the order of nature, but that of artifice - never to the order of energy, but that of signs and rituals. This is why all the great systems of production and interpretation have not ceased to exclude seduction - to its good fortune - from their conceptual field. For seduction continues to haunt them from without, and from deep within its forsaken state, threatening them with collapse. It awaits the destruction of every godly order, including those of production and desire. Seduction continues to appear to all orthodoxies as malefice and artifice, a black magic for the deviation of all truths, an exaltation of the malicious use of signs, a conspiracy of signs. Every discourse is threatened with this sudden reversibility, absorbed into its own signs without a trace of meaning. This is why all disciplines, which have as an axiom the coherence and finality of their discourse, must try to exorcize it. This is where seduction and femininity are confounded, indeed, confused. Masculinity has always been haunted by this sudden reversibility within the feminine. Seduction and femininity are ineluctable as the reverse side of sex, meaning and power.

Today the exorcism is more violent and systematic. We are entering the era of final solutions; for example, that of the sexual revolution, of the production and management of all liminal and subliminal pleasures, the micro-processing of desire, with the woman who produces herself as woman, and as sex, being the last avatar. Ending seduction.

Or else the triumph of a soft seduction, a white, diffuse feminization and eroticization of all relations in an enervated social universe.

Or else none of the above. For nothing can be greater than seduction itself, not even the order that destroys it ...

... Seduction too would have had its ritual phase (duel, magical, agonistic); its aesthetic phase (as reflected in the "aesthetic strategy" of the seducer, whose domain approaches that of the feminine and sexuality, the ironic and the diabolic - it is then that seduction takes on the meaning it has for us: the possibly accursed distraction of appearances, their strategies, their play); and finally its "political" phase (biking up Benjamin's term, here somewhat ambiguous). In this last phase the original of seduction, its ritual and aesthetic form, disappears in favour of an all-out ventilation whereby seduction becomes the informal form of politics, the scaled-down framework for an elusive politics devoted to the endless reproduction of a form without content. (This informal form is inseparable from its technical nature, which is that of networks - just as the political form of the object is inseparable from the techniques of serial reproduction). As with the object, this "political" form corresponds to seduction's maximum diffusion and minimum intensity.

Is this to be seduction's destiny? Or can we oppose this involutional fate, and lay a wager on seduction as destiny? Production as destiny, or seduction as destiny? Against the deepstructures and their truth, appearances and their destiny? Be that as it may, we are living today in non-sense, and if simulation is its disenchanted form, seduction is its enchanted form. Anatomy is not destiny, nor is politics: seduction is destiny. It is what remains of a magical, fateful world, a risky, vertiginous and predestined world; it is what is quietly effective in a visibly efficient and stolid world.

The world is naked, the king is naked, and things are clear. All of production, and truth itself, are directed towards disclosure, the unbearable "truth" of sex being but the most recent consequence. Luckily, at bottom, there is nothing to it. And seduction still holds, in the face of truth, a most sibylline response, which is that "perhaps we wish to uncover the truth because it is so difficult to imagine it naked."

... Seduction, Jean Baudrillard

Structured Procrastination

I have been intending to write this essay for months. Why am I finally doing it? Because I finally found some uncommitted time? Wrong. I have papers to grade, textbook orders to fill out, an NSF proposal to referee, dissertation drafts to read. I am working on this essay as a way of not doing all of those things. This is the essence of what I call structured procrastination, an amazing strategy I have discovered that converts procrastinators into effective human beings, respected and admired for all that they can accomplish and the good use they make of time. All procrastinators put off things they have to do. Structured procrastination is the art of making this bad trait work for you. The key idea is that procrastinating does not mean doing absolutely nothing. Procrastinators seldom do absolutely nothing; they do marginally useful things, like gardening or sharpening pencils or making a diagram of how they will reorganize their files when they get around to it. Why does the procrastinator do these things? Because they are a way of not doing something more important. If all the procrastinator had left to do was to sharpen some pencils, no force on earth could get him do it. However, the procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.

Structured procrastination means shaping the structure of the tasks one has to do in a way that exploits this fact. The list of tasks one has in mind will be ordered by importance. Tasks that seem most urgent and important are on top. But there are also worthwhile tasks to perform lower down on the list. Doing these tasks becomes a way of not doing the things higher up on the list. With this sort of appropriate task structure, the procrastinator becomes a useful citizen. Indeed, the procrastinator can even acquire, as I have, a reputation for getting a lot done.

The most perfect situation for structured procrastination that I ever had was when my wife and I served as Resident Fellows in Soto House, a Stanford dormitory. In the evening, faced with papers to grade, lectures to prepare, committee work to be done, I would leave our cottage next to the dorm and go over to the lounge and play ping-pong with the residents, or talk over things with them in their rooms, or just sit there and read the paper. I got a reputation for being a terrific Resident Fellow, and one of the rare profs on campus who spent time with undergraduates and got to know them. What a set up: play ping pong as a way of not doing more important things, and get a reputation as Mr. Chips.

Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they will quit procrastinating and get them done. But this goes contrary to the basic nature of the procrastinator and destroys his most important source of motivation. The few tasks on his list will be by definition the most important, and the only way to avoid doing them will be to do nothing. This is a way to become a couch potato, not an effective human being.

At this point you may be asking, "How about the important tasks at the top of the list, that one never does?" Admittedly, there is a potential problem here.

The trick is to pick the right sorts of projects for the top of the list. The ideal sorts of things have two characteristics, First, they seem to have clear deadlines (but really don't). Second, they seem awfully important (but really aren't). Luckily, life abounds with such tasks. In universities the vast majority of tasks fall into this category, and I'm sure the same is true for most other large institutions. Take for example the item right at the top of my list right now. This is finishing an essay for a volume in the philosophy of language. It was supposed to be done eleven months ago. I have accomplished an enormous number of important things as a way of not working on it. A couple of months ago, bothered by guilt, I wrote a letter to the editor saying how sorry I was to be so late and expressing my good intentions to get to work. Writing the letter was, of course, a way of not working on the article. It turned out that I really wasn't much further behind schedule than anyone else. And how important is this article anyway? Not so important that at some point something that seems more important won't come along. Then I'll get to work on it.

Another example is book order forms. I write this in June. In October, I will teach a class on Epistemology. The book order forms are already overdue at the book store. It is easy to take this as an important task with a pressing deadline (for you non-procrastinators, I will observe that deadlines really start to press a week or two after they pass.) I get almost daily reminders from the department secretary, students sometimes ask me what we will be reading, and the unfilled order form sits right in the middle of my desk, right under the wrapping from the sandwich I ate last Wednesday. This task is near the top of my list; it bothers me, and motivates me to do other useful but superficially less important things. But in fact, the book store is plenty busy with forms already filed by non-procrastinators. I can get mine in mid-Summer and things will be fine. I just need to order popular well-known books from efficient publishers. I will accept some other, apparently more important, task sometime between now and, say, August 1st. Then my psyche will feel comfortable about filling out the order forms as a way of not doing this new task.

The observant reader may feel at this point that structured procrastination requires a certain amount of self-deception, since one is in effect constantly perpetrating a pyramid scheme on oneself. Exactly. One needs to be able to recognize and commit oneself to tasks with inflated importance and unreal deadlines, while making oneself feel that they are important and urgent. This is not a problem, because virtually all procrastinators have excellent self-deceptive skills also. And what could be more noble than using one character flaw to offset the bad effects of another?

... Structured Procrastination, John Perry

A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow-

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand-

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep- while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

... Edgar Allan Poe

The Crucible

“These people had no ritual for the washing away of sins. It is another trait we inherited from them, and it has helped to discipline us as well as to breed hypocrisy among us.” 

“They believed, in short, that they held in their steady hands the candle that would light the world. We have inherited this belief, and it has helped and hurt us.” 

“Let you not mistake your duty as I mistook my own. I came into this village like a bridegroom to his beloved, bearing gifts of high religion; the very crowns of holy law I brought, and what I touched with my bright confidence, it died; and where I turned the eye of my great faith, blood flowed up.” 

... The Crucible, Arthur Miller

Song of the Flower

I am a kind word uttered and repeated 

By the voice of Nature; 

I am a star fallen from the 

Blue tent upon the green carpet. 

I am the daughter of the elements 

With whom Winter conceived; 

To whom Spring gave birth; I was 

Reared in the lap of Summer and I 

Slept in the bed of Autumn. 

At dawn I unite with the breeze 

To announce the coming of light; 

At eventide I join the birds 

In bidding the light farewell. 

The plains are decorated with 

My beautiful colors, and the air 

Is scented with my fragrance. 

As I embrace Slumber the eyes of 

Night watch over me, and as I 

Awaken I stare at the sun, which is 

The only eye of the day. 

I drink dew for wine, and hearken to 

The voices of the birds, and dance 

To the rhythmic swaying of the grass. 

I am the lover's gift; I am the wedding wreath; 

I am the memory of a moment of happiness; 

I am the last gift of the living to the dead; 

I am a part of joy and a part of sorrow. 

But I look up high to see only the light, 

And never look down to see my shadow. 

This is wisdom which man must learn.

... Song of the Flower, Kahlil Gibran

Rain

If it rains during the night, no one sees the rain,

for then every soul and breath is asleep;

but the freshness of every beautiful rose garden

is clear evidence of the rain that was not seen.

... Mathnawi VI: 2724-2725, Mevlana Rumi

The Picture of Dorian Gray

"Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. 

It merely intensifies it. 

We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible."

... The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

Photographies

Photography is our exorcism. Primitive society had its masks, bourgeois society its mirrors. We have our images. We believe we can overpower the world with technology. But through technology, the world has imposed itself on us and the surprise effect generated by that reversal has been considerable.

You think you photograph a particular scene for the pleasure it gives. In fact it's the scene that wants to be photographed. You're merely an extra in the production. The photographing subject is just the agent of the ironic appearance of things. The image is the prime medium for this gigantic advertising campaign which the world lays on for itself, which objects lay on for themselves - overwhelming our imaginations, forcing our passions out into the world, breaking the mirror we held up - hypocritically as it happens - to capture them.

The miracle today is that appearances, which were long reduced to voluntary servitude but have now gained their independence, are turning around on us, turning against us, through the very technology we use to drive them out. They now come from somewhere else, from their own place, from the heart of their banality; they are bursting in on us from everywhere, joyously multiplying on their own. The joy of taking photographs is an objective delight. Whoever has not experienced the objective rapture of the image one morning in town or desert will never in any way understand the pataphysical refinement of the world.

If something wants to be photographed, that is precisely because it does not want to yield up its meaning; it does not want to be reflected upon. It wants to be seized directly, violated on the spot, illuminated in its detail. If something wants to become an image, this is not so as to last, but in order to disappear more effectively. And the photographing subject is a good medium only if s/he joins in the game, exorcizes his/her own gaze and judgement, revels in his/her own absence...

The desire to take photographs may perhaps arise from the following observation: looked at in general, from the angle of meaning, the world is distinctly disappointing. In detail, taken unawares, it is always perfectly self-evident.

The dizzying impact of the perpetual detail. The magical eccentricity of the detail. In photographs, things are conjoined by a technical operation which matches the way they interconnect in their commonplace reality. An image for another image and a photograph for another photograph are simply this: a contiguity of fragments. There is no „view of the world" here, no „approach" to things: merely the refraction of the world, in its detail, on equal terms.

The absence of the world in each detail, like the absence of the subject which shows in every feature of a face. You can achieve such an illumination of detail by mental gymnastics or by a subtle use of the senses too. But, here, technology brings it about as smoothly as can be. Perhaps it is a trap.

Objects are such that, in themselves, their disappearance changes them. It is in this sense that they deceive us, that they generate illusion. But it is in this sense too that they are faithful to themselves, and we must be faithful to them: in their minute detail, in their exact figuration, in the sensuous illusion of their appearance and connectedness. For illusion is not the opposite of reality, but another more subtle reality which enwraps the former kind in the sign of its disappearance.

Every photographed object is merely the trace left behind by the disappearance of all the rest. It is an almost perfect crime, an almost total resolution of the world, which merely leaves the illusion of a particular object shining forth, the image of which then becomes an impenetrable enigma. Starting out from this radical exception, you have an unimpeded view on the world.

It isn't a question of producing; it's all in the art of disappearing. Only what comes into being in the mode of disappearance is truly other. And yet that disappearance has to leave traces, has to be the place where the Other, the world or the object appears. This is indeed the only way for the Other to exist: on the basis of your own disappearance.

"We shall be your favorite disappearing act!"

The only profound desire is object desire (including desire for the sexual object). Not, in other words, desire for what one lacks, nor even for that which (or the person who) lacks me (which is more subtle), but for the person who does not lack me, for that which can quite happily exist without me. It's the one who doesn't lack me who is the Other. That is radical otherness. Desire is always the desire for that alien perfection at the same time as the desire to wreck or destroy it. You only get excited about those things whose perfection and impunity you want both to share and to destroy.

To take photographs is not to take the world for an object, but to make it an object, to exhume its otherness buried beneath its alleged reality, to bring it forth as a strange attractor, and pin down that strange attraction in an image.

It is, basically, to become again "a thing among things" - all foreign to each other, but collusive, all opaque, but familiar. To become this rather than a universe of subjects who are opposed, and transparent, to each other.

It is photographs which bring us closest to a universe without images, or in other words to pure appearance.

The dramatic quality of the photographic image comes from the struggle between the subject's resolve to impose itself in its discontinuity and immediacy. In the best case, the object wins and the photographic image is an image of a fractal world which has no summation, which is contained in no equation. In this way it differs from art and cinema, which, by way of ideas, vision or movement, always tend towards a totalizing pattern. Against the philosophy of the subject and the contemplating gaze - of stepping back from the world in order to grasp it - the anti-philosophy of the object, of the disconnectedness of objects, of the random succession of part-objects and details. Like musical syncopation or the movement of particles.

... Photographies, Jean Baudrillard

Jean Baudrillard

Baudrillard: It would be a fantasy to cryogenize culture, in order to resurrect it in a hundred years, like Disney in his cryogenic grave. Why not do the same with human beings? They are about to become consumer goods, too, and maybe if we freeze human beings maybe there's a chance in a century they can be resurrected as "real" human beings… Now, why do you try to save culture? As an anthropological reality it generates itself and it perishes by itself. It is a singularity, it has its birth and death, you don't need to attempt to save it. It has its own way. For me it's useless to attempt to artificially perpetuate a system, because culture became a system of values, it's no more an organic, symbolic organization of sociality, now it's a system of market values, but of aesthetic values, not so much economic values. As a system of aesthetic values it is a very antinomic proposition, because culture perishes from this mixture of the symbolic and of values. The symbolic order of culture is not value, value is an economic structure. With infiltration or contamination of signs by an aesthetic circulation, and the rise of cultural goods as aesthetic goods, that's the beginning of the end.

Schirmacher: Exactly because you stockpile it, it's not culture. Culture should die. That's its honor. It's an anthropological event and should not be preserved for eternity, even if it sometimes happens.

Baudrillard: I'm only pessimistic, but you are a murderer. [laughter and applause]

Audience: Isn't difference the key to culture?

Baudrillard: No, we are in a culture of difference, of culture as difference, a multicultural organization. Culture as singularity is more than difference. Difference can be easily organized into a system which generates structure and meaning. Culture as such has no finality, no meaning, it's a symbolic act and in this sense it's beyond differences which are only oppositional structures. Singularity is a symbolic acting, a collective acting. Primitive societies and cultures are not different, they're very singular, it's not the same. Today, all cultures of the world are in multicultural ensembles as differences, together as the megaculture of difference, which is very opposed to the original singularity of culture...

Schirmacher: How do you see subjectivity coming to being? Is it possible still to have an authentic form of subjectivity?

Baudrillard: Why not, but today it would be a perversion. We are in a virtually positive, immanent world, where all is implicated in functional operations, and so on. This arrangement doesn't need a subject anymore, on the contrary, it must destroy subjectivity, and we can see that in this shifting from the subject to the individual. Today we speak always of the individual, the rights of the individual and so on. The individual is not the subject, the subject is over. The individual has no originality, it is a particular molecular fragment of an ensemble, and when you are in this system you are not a subject anymore, you can be individual as an abstract configuration, but you are a pure operation, deducted from the functioning of a system. You are a by-product of the system as individual, instead of a subject with thoughts that generate actions. As a subject you were divided and alienated, of course, a subject is alienated, it is another subject. It effaces the other subjects. The individual has no other, everyone is individual. The other individual is not an other, it has no otherness, no alterity. We try to save subjectivity through intersubjectivity, interaction, but I don't believe in this escape...

Schirmacher: This kind of answers two questions I have here, concerning "What happens in a simulated world where we have freedom from radical uncertainty, is there still a need for questions? After the orgy do we still need to ask questions? What kind of questions would these be?" You say that the content is not important, but the form can help you, you use the form of questioning.

Baudrillard: You take the example of the orgy, "What are you doing after the orgy?" That is a question. There is no answer. The seduction, the paradox, the challenge is in the question itself. But we presuppose that the orgy is over, we are at the end, or beyond the orgy, the orgy as a model of total liberation and integration. After that, there is no more a question of freedom, liberation, and so on, That's all achieved, we are all liberated, liberated of needs, of language, of sex, but what is new after that? Maybe it needs no answer to this question. The orgy was an acting-out of all finalities, it was a model of the liberation of all things, it is a vanishing point. As a vanishing point it is very interesting, because after that we don't know what we are, but it's not very dangerous, to not know what we will and what we want and so on were the categories of Enlightenment and modern man. We are beyond that and maybe it's a chance. We are free from freedom, free from liberation, That's over. Maybe now there's another chance, not for a new servitude... but maybe, maybe unknown models of servitude. We cannot have a radical moral judgment about these alternatives.

Schirmacher: So it's not that we are, as one question has here, "just changing one set of truths for another."

Baudrillard: We are changing our system of values, changing all our identities, our partners, our illusions, and so on. We are obliged to change, but changing is something other than becoming, they are different things. We are in a "changing" time, where it is the moral law of all individuals, but changing is not becoming. We can change everything, we can change ourselves, but in this time we don't become anything. It was an opposition put forth by Nietzsche, he spoke about the era of chameleons. We are in a chameleonesque era, able to change but not able to become. This is our challenge. By an excess of potential changing, any possibility is there, but becoming is not a choice, becoming someone is another fatal strategy. For Nietzsche it would be the sovereign hypothesis. He speaks of four hypotheses. The first one would be inertia, motionless, and so on. The second would be changing, the third one would be history, and the last one is the sovereign one, it is becoming. We are far away from becoming as a symbolic metamorphosis, as the symbolic return of things.

... From Difference And Singularity, Jean Baudrillard

Merleau-Ponty

The visible about us seems to rest in itself. It is as though our vision were formed in the heart of the visible, or as though there were between it and us an intimacy as close as between the sea and the strand. And yet it is not possible that we blend into it, nor that it passes into us, for then the vision would vanish at the moment of formation, by disappearance of the seer or of the visible. What there is then are not things first identical with themselves, which would then offer themselves to the seer, nor is there a seer who is first empty and who, afterward, would open himself to them—but something to which we could not be closer than by palpating it with our look, things we could not dream of seeing “all naked” because the gaze itself envelops them, clothes them with its own flesh. Whence does it happen that in so doing it leaves them in their place, that the vision we acquire of them seems to us to come from them, and that to be seen is for them but a degradation of their eminent being? What is this talisman of color, this singular virtue of the visible that makes it, held at the end of the gaze, nonetheless much more than a correlative of my vision, such that it imposes my vision upon me as a continuation of its own sovereign existence? How does it happen that my look, enveloping them, does not hide them, and, finally, that, veiling them, it unveils them? 

... The Intertwining - The Chiasm, Maurice Merleau-Ponty

A Moveable Feast

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.

... A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway

Soul Mate

"People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. 

A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave. 

A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master..." 

... Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, Elizabeth Gilbert

Quietly, To Borrow It

"You don't take a photograph. You ask, quietly, to borrow it"

... Author Unknown

The Famished Road

In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road and the road branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river it was always hungry. In that land of beginnings spirits mingled with the unborn. We could assume numerous forms. Many of us were birds. We knew no boundaries. There was much feasting, playing and sorrowing. We feasted much because of the beautiful terrors of eternity. We played much because we were free. And we borrowed much because there were always those amongst us who had just returned from the world of the living. They had returned inconsolable for all the love they had left behind, all the suffering they hadn't redeemed, all that they hadn't understood, and for all that they had barely begun to learn before they were drawn back to the land of origins.

There were not one amongst us who looked forward to being born. We disliked the rigours of existence, the unfulfilled longings, the enshrined injustices of the world, the labyrinths of love, the ignorance of parents, the fact of dying, and the amazing indifference of the Living in the midst of simple beauties of the universe. We feared the heartlessness of human beings, all of whom are born blind, few of whom ever learn to see. Our king was a wonderful personage who sometimes appeared in the form of a great cat. He had a red beard and eyes of greenish sapphire. He had been born uncountable times and was a legend in all worlds, known by a hundred different names.

It never mattered into what circumstances he was born. He always lived the most extraordinary of lives. One could pore over the great invisible books of lifetimes and recognize his genius through the recorded and unrecorded ages. Sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, he wrought incomparable achievements from every life. If there is anything in common to all his lives, the essence of his genius, it might be the love of transformation, and the transformation of love into higher realities.

With our spirit companions, the ones with whom we had a special affinity, we were happy most of the time because we floated on the aquamarine of love. We played with the fauns, the fairies, and the beautiful beings. Tender Sibyls, benign sprits, and the serene presences of our ancestors were always with us ,bathing us in the radiance of their diverse rainbows.

There are many reasons why babies cry when they are born, and one of them is the sudden separation from the world of pure dreams, where all things are made of enchantment, and where there is no suffering. The happier we were, the closer was our birth. As we approached another incarnation we made pacts that we would return to the spirit world at first opportunity. We made these vows in fields of intense flowers and in the sweet-tasting moonlight of that world. Those of us who made these vows were known among the living as abiku, spirit-children. Not all people recognized us. We were the ones who kept coming and going, unwilling to terms with life. We had the ability to will our deaths. Our pacts were binding.

Those who broke their pacts were assailed by hallucinations and haunted by their companions. They would only find consolation when they returned to the world of the unborn, the place of fountains, where their loved ones would be waiting for them silently. Those of us who lingered in the world, seduced by the annunciation of wonderful events, went through life with beautiful and fated eyes, carrying within us the music of a lovely and tragic mythology. Our mouths utter obscure prophecies.

Our minds are invaded by images of the future. We are the strange ones, with half of our beings always in the spirit world. We were often recognized and our flesh marked with razor incisions. When we were born again to the same parents the marks, lingering on our new flesh, branded our souls in advance. Then the world would spin a web of fate around our lives. Those of us who died while still children tried to erase these marks, by making beautiful spots or interesting discolorations of them. If we didn't succeed, and were recognized, we were greeted with howls of dread, and the weeping of mothers.

In not wanting to stay, we caused much pain to mothers. Their pain grew heavier with each return. Their anguish became for us an added spiritual weight which quickens the cycle of rebirth. Each new birth was agony for us too, each shock of the raw world. Our cyclical rebellion made us resented by other spirits and ancestors. Disliked in the spirit world and branded amongst the Living, our unwillingness to stay affected all kinds of balances.

With passionate ritual offerings, our parents always tried to induce us to live. They also tried us to reveal where we had hidden the spirit tokens that bound us to the other world. We disdained the offerings and kept our tokens a fierce secret. And we remained indifferent to the long joyless parturition of mothers.

We longed for an early homecoming, to play by the river, in the grasslands, and in the magic caves. We longed to meditate on sunlight and precious stones, and to be joyful in the eternal dew of the spirit. To be born is to come into the world weighted down with strange gifts of the soul, with enigmas and an inextinguishable sense of exile. So it was with me.

How many times had I come and gone through the dreaded gateway? How many times had I been born and died young? And how often to the same parents? I had no idea.

So much of the dust of living was in me. But this time, somewhere in the inter space between the spirit world and the Living, I chose to stay. This meant breaking my pact and outwitting my companions. It wasn't because of the sacrifices, the burnt offerings of oils and yams and palm-nuts, or the blandishments, the short-lived promises of special treatment, or even because of the grief I had caused. It wasn't because of my horror of recognition either. Apart from a mark on my palm I had managed to avoid being discovered. It may have simply been that I had grown tired of coming and going.

It is terrible to remain forever in-between. It may also have been that I wanted to taste of this world, to feel it, know it, love it, to make a valuable contribution to it, and to have that sublime mood of eternity in me as I live the life to come. But I sometimes think it was a face that made me want to stay. I wanted to make happy the bruised face of the woman who would become my mother.

When the time arrived for the ceremonies of birth to begin, the fields at the crossroads were brilliant with lovely presences and iridescent beings. Our king led us to the first peak of the seven mountains. He spoke to us for a long time in silence. His cryptic words took flame in us. He loved speeches. With great severity, his sapphire eyes glowing, he said to me:"You are a mischievous one. You will cause no end of trouble. You have to travel many roads before you find the river of your destiny. This life of yours will be full of riddles. You will be protected and you will never be alone."

We all went down to the great valley. It was an immemorial day of festivals. Wondrous spirits danced around us to the music of gods, uttering golden chants and lapis lazuli incantations to protect our souls across the inter spaces and to prepare us for our first contact with blood and earth.

Each one of us made the passage alone. Alone, we had to survive the crossing - survive the flames and the sea, the emergence into illusions. The exile had begun.

These are the myths of beginnings. These are the stories and moods deep in those who are seeded in rich lands, who still believe in mysteries.

I was born not because I had conceived a notion to stay, but because in between my coming and going the great cycles of time had finally tightened around my neck. I prayed for laughter, a life without hunger. I was answered with paradoxes. It remains an enigma how it came to be that I was born smiling.

... The Famished Road, Ben Okri

A Story

I was strolling in the gardens of an insane asylum when I met a young man who was reading a philosophy book.

His behavior and his evident good health made him stand out from the other inmates.

I sat down beside him and asked:

‘What are you doing here?’

He looked at me, surprised. But seeing that I was not one of the doctors, he replied:

‘It’s very simple. My father, a brilliant lawyer, wanted me to be like him. My uncle, who owns a large emporium, hoped I would follow his example. My mother wanted me to be the image of her beloved father. My sister always set her husband before me as an example of the successful man. My brother tried to train me up to be a fine athlete like himself.

And the same thing happened at school, with the piano teacher and the English teacher - they were all convinced and determined that they were the best possible example to follow. None of them looked at me as one should look at a man, but as if they were looking in a mirror.

So I decided to enter this asylum. At least here I can be myself.’

One Half Of The World

One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.

... Emma, Jane Austen

The Meaning Of Freedom

At first glance, the resolution on “religious defamation” adopted by the UN’s Human Rights Council on March 26th, mainly at the behest of Islamic countries, reads like another piece of harmless verbiage churned out by a toothless international bureaucracy. What is wrong with saying, as the resolution does, that some Muslims faced prejudice in the aftermath of September 2001? But a closer look at the resolution’s language, and the context in which it was adopted (with an unholy trio of Pakistan, Belarus and Venezuela acting as sponsors), makes clear that bigger issues are at stake.

The resolution says “defamation of religions” is a “serious affront to human dignity” which can “restrict the freedom” of those who are defamed, and may also lead to the incitement of violence. But there is an insidious blurring of categories here, which becomes plain when you compare this resolution with the more rigorous language of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948 in a spirit of revulsion over the evils of fascism. This asserts the right of human beings in ways that are now entrenched in the theory and (most of the time) the practice of liberal democracy. It upholds the right of people to live in freedom from persecution and arbitrary arrest; to hold any faith or none; to change religion; and to enjoy freedom of expression, which by any fair definition includes freedom to agree or disagree with the tenets of any religion.

In other words, it protects individuals—not religions, or any other set of beliefs. And this is a vital distinction. For it is not possible systematically to protect religions or their followers from offence without infringing the right of individuals.

What exactly is it the drafters of the council resolution are trying to outlaw? To judge from what happens in the countries that lobbied for the vote—like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan—they use the word “defamation” to mean something close to the crime of blasphemy, which is in turn defined as voicing dissent from the official reading of Islam. In many of the 56 member states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, which has led the drive to outlaw “defamation”, both non-Muslims and Muslims who voice dissent (even in technical matters of Koranic interpretation) are often victims of just the sort of persecution the 1948 declaration sought to outlaw. That is a real human-rights problem. And in the spirit of fairness, laws against blasphemy that remain on the statute books of some Western countries should also be struck off; only real, not imaginary, incitement of violence should be outlawed.

Good manners, please; not censorship

In much of the Muslim world, the West’s reaction to the attacks of September 2001, including the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, has been misread as an attack on Islam itself. This is more than regrettable; it is dangerous. Western governments, and decent people everywhere, should try to ensure that the things they say do not entrench religious prejudice or incite acts of violence; being free to give offence does not mean you are wise to give offence. But no state, and certainly no body that calls itself a Human Rights Council, should trample on the right to free speech enshrined in the Universal Declaration. And in the end, given that all faiths have undergone persecution at some time, few people have more to gain from the protection of free speech than sincere religious believers.

... taken from The Economist

Losing My Way

What wisdom was this, that the Object of all desire

caused me to leave my home joyously on a fool's errand,

so that I was actually rushing to lose the way

and at each moment being taken farther from what I sought--

and then God in His beneficence made that very wandering

the means of my reaching the right road and finding wealth!

He makes losing the way a way to true faith;

He makes going astray a field for the harvest of righteousness,

so that no righteous one may be without fear

and no traitor may be without hope.

The Gracious One has put the antidote in the poison

so that they may say He is the Lord of hidden grace.

... Mathnawi VI: 4339-4344, Jalalludin Rumi

The Reader

"The Odyssey is the story of motion both purposeful and purposeless, successful and futile. What else is the history of law?"

... The Reader, Bernhard Schlink

The Wonder Years

"When you're a little kid you're a bit of everything: Scientist, Philosopher, Artist. Sometimes it seems like growing up is giving these things up one at a time."

"All of our young lives we search for someone to love. Someone that makes us complete. We choose partners and change partners. We dance to a song of heartbreak and hope. All the while wondering if somewhere, somehow, there's someone perfect who might be searching for us."

 ... Kevin Arnold, The Wonder Years

Living Life & Being Happy

First Day Of My Life

Do Schools Kill Creativity?

A Vision Of Students Today

Attended the Religion And Pedagogy panel at the AAR Conference yesterday and was shown this short clip. I think it is awesome.

"If walls could talk, what would they say?"

"If students learn what they do, what are they learning sitting here?"

"Of course walls and desks cannot talk, but students can."

Where Art Thou, Islam: From Interfaith Dialogues To Sufism (Part 4)

Moving Forward

The Qur’an set forth perennial principles of humane interfaith behavior. For example, in the Qur’an (5:48) ends with the following words: “For every one of you did We appoint a law and a way, and if God had pleased, God would have made you a single people, but that God might try you in what God gave you, therefore strive with one another to hasten to virtuous deeds; to God you will all return, so God will let you know that in which you differed.” 

The notion of being different and to thrive in that difference has been embedded in Islam. Muslims have always seen themselves as engaging in dialogues as related through its history evidenced in the paper. Whether the relationships have been productive or disastrous, Muslims have defined themselves in dialogue. They have always understood – and constructed – their “Islam” in a context of pluralism. The move to suddenly express themselves in a particular construct post-September 11 bedazzled Muslims and put them at a crossroad. Never before have they been asked to explain themselves to the world, but the productive effect within the community is that they are made to critically examine themselves and their existence in this world community.

In many ways, Muslims being in the spotlight since September 11, have a huge role to play in the promotion of this peace. Muslims living in a country where Islam is a minority religious tradition are in a better position to create discourses and influence the rest of the Muslim world. In countries where Muslims are the majority, there are often restrictions and sometimes persecutions of other religious traditions – for example the Baha’is in Iran or the Christians in Pakistan. As an illustration, Muslims in Singapore can exist safely and are free to practice as Muslims in a multi-religious and multi-cultural society, and show the world that religion is not a thing which should divide humanity. In order to make interfaith dialogues a success, one must have not only a deep understanding of one’s own faith, but an understanding and appreciation of the faith of the dialogue partner(s). In that vein, Muslims committed to pluralism can also be an example to other Muslims in dialogue amongst various Muslim groups (for example, between the Sunnis and Shiites, or between the major sects of Hanafis, Malikis, Syafies and Hambalis) – all too often, a neglected aspect of religious dialogue.

These examples illustrate what Jonathan Z. Smith meant when he said that debates of religion revolve around experience and language – that they are inseparable: there is no experience without language because language ‘creates’ the world and does not merely reflects it (Smith 2004). Such sacred experiences only exist in its articulation through language – hence any human translation is necessarily inadequate as it is reductive in nature. But as translation is a relentless social activity, it is always opened to rectification, modification and improvement – a useful tool in enriching religious pluralism.

Where Art Thou, Islam: From Interfaith Dialogues To Sufism (Part 3)

The Constitution of Love And The Community

In this world community, the existence of one community is always affected by the presence of another. If not for a constitution of oneself within one’s community (for example, how Muslims constitute themselves as a single unit despite sectarian differences), there is always a constitution of one’s existence based on another. During a roundtable discussion entitled "Love and Community" where Nancy Jean-Luc discussed the limitations of thinking about love on the community, he states that a “community does not have a common being, a common substance, but consists of being-in-common” (Jean-Luc 2001). He argued that a community is always a community of ‘being-with” – the “with” is characterized by “touch” which is further characterized by proximity and distance. He takes the notion of community away from a spiritual ideal to a physical concept and then examines how these communities exist together. Such co-habitation within a community, according to Nancy, is an embodiment, and such embodiment cannot be violent for a community to survive. To him, there is therefore the impossibility of “penetration” into a community as that means there is something outside of that community that force itself into it – establishing the violence.

The language of “love” within Islam has also shifted. As opposed to the initial sufi concept on love as discussed earlier, love as being portrayed by sufis in these recent dialogues has been criticized as being secular as notions of love are seamlessly tied to political, social and cultural agendas. It would be very tempting to say that Islam and the traditional notions of Islam, as understood in the concept of that “love”, is a secularizing movement. However, the relationship between what is secular and what is religious is not that clear. But as soon as that love becomes a “love thy neighbor” concept, it divorces itself from the notion of a Muslim’s love for Allah, as it is now predicated by a certain notion of how love is constituted on a Christian concept. Quite contrary to what Nancy stated, that to me, is the “penetration” on the Islamic community.

The effects vary to some extend in different parts of the world. In the Middle East, the discussion on the notion of love in interfaith dialogues is not as intense as the discussions that are being made in the European west – for culturally, they are not embedded in the practice of communicating love in the same manner and passion as the Europeans. The differences in treatment and the confluence of culture, race, politics and physical geography reminds one of Thomas Tweed’s theory of religion as “confluences of organic-cultural flows that intensify joy and confront suffering by drawing on human and suprahuman forces to make homes and cross boundaries” (Tweed 2006). His argument for increased sensitivities in such diversity and plurality makes one sees such symbols and products as meaning differently when located at different time and place. In these differential outcomes, according to Tweed, it allows for religion to make its homes (dwelling) and cross boundaries (crossing). 

Culturally, such confluence of language and culture are strongly evident. The Arabic language (especially via Spanish and French) has contributed to the vocabulary of English. Common English words such as “coffee,” “sofa,” “genie” and “alcohol,” technical words such as “algebra,” or “alkaline,” and even archaic words such as “lute” and “alchemy” all have their roots in the Arabic language. Arabic words such as hajj, jihad or hijab have become commonplace enough so as not to require translation. The pastime of smoking hookah is now a favorite pastime all the way from Singapore to America.

There is also another interesting element at play. Michel Foucault in "Power/Knowledge" puts the matter in this way: “Power must be analyzed as something which circulates, or as something which only functions in the form of a chain … Power is employed and exercised through a netlike organization … Individuals are the vehicles of power, not its points of application” (Foucault 1980). There are several important points here: first, that power is conceptualized as a chain or as a net, that is a system of relations spread throughout the society, rather than simply a set of relations between the ruler and the ruled. Second, individuals should not be seen simply as the recipients of power, but as the ‘place’ where power is enacted and/or the place where it is resisted. Thus, Foucault’s theorizing of power forces us to re-conceptualize not only power itself but also the role that individuals play in power relations – whether they are simply subjected to oppression or whether they actively play a role in the form of their relations with others and with institutions. 

Interfaith dialogues do not operate in a vacuum. This is not to belittle the efforts made by individuals in sharing the beauty of their faiths. As Asad alluded to earlier mentioned in this paper, power relations are an important component that needs to be examined. In most instances, the political authority, being the holder of such power, organizes and mobilizes the organization of such dialogues. To this end, I wish to highlight an example of Singapore, where such relationships are being manifested as described by Foucault above: through the legal enactment of the Maintenance of the Religious Harmony Act (1992), the setting up of the Inter-Religious Organization and the Inter-Religious Confidence Circles (2001), the pumping of over-generous financial resources and trainings of its community leaders by the authorities, sponsored overseas visits to study multicultural societies and communities, the buying-in of religious institutions and voluntary grassroots organizations into the national interfaith program and agenda. All these developments were organized, set up and sponsored by the political government. There is that exercise of power and authority in dictating the agenda for the masses. However, as “vehicles of power”, the people were later actively engaged into the agenda and eventually, the running of such organizations and interfaith dialogues were carried over by the people. The government subsequently takes the role of an advisor. This is another interesting move in which interfaith dialogues, when it was first done, was constituted in a certain way for a particular agenda. The language, the mode and the manner of interfaith conversations in Singapore has, up to this day, remained faithful to that agenda – and this illustrates the affect of such political construction on the framework of interfaith dialogues. 

Despite Islam’s long history of interfaith dialogues, it is indeed strange that post-September 11, Muslims and other scholarships are vigorous in trying to make the same point. It is as if Muslims were never engaged in dialogues and that they are defensive about Islam. Muslims are surprised that they have to stand up and make an argument for interfaith dialogues when even in history, Islam has been rich in that tradition. 

The more interesting question would be: do Muslims dialogue in the same language as the rest of us? The answer would be that there is no need to. My argument is that because Muslims do not articulate themselves in the same language as the “others” (for example, in the language of love), their dialogues were not acknowledged. A subjectivication of what a Muslim should be and how it should communicate would be a “penetration” on that community of Muslims. It would be a communication that is constructed from outside that community, forcing its perspectives on another. It would be a colonization of its culture, history and socio-historicity of Muslims by the “other”. This principle plays itself on all levels: on a societal level, a Muslim needs to speak in the same language and manner with non-Muslims to be considered “normal” and therefore accepted. At the international political level, a Muslim country needs to find extensive commonality (culture, politics, economics, military defense and its worldview in general) and extensive generosity with other non-Muslim countries to be considered “mainstream” and not belonging to the “axis of evil”. There is always a double-need to prove themselves as good Muslims, and hence, good world citizens, in order for Muslims to feel belong. This is not to advocate the rejection of the world that we live in, but the protection of a community’s identity, which is slowly eroded through its slow evolution caused by the “other”.

Where Art Thou, Islam: From Interfaith Dialogues To Sufism (Part 2)

Islam and Dialogues Now – The Language of Love

Interfaith dialogues are as prominent as they were before. Islamic history has established the importance of dialogues and that Muslims have been conversing not only with themselves but with others. This spectrum was dramatically changed since September 11. There is suddenly a colossal call for Muslims to prove themselves as peace-loving people, and the need for sharing Islam and conversing with others became the order of the day. I have asked myself these questions: What are the conversations which are required of Muslims? Who are asking these questions and making them have these conversations, and why? Importantly, who are the Muslims conversing with?

There is a marked difference in the way Islam was presented prior to September 11. What has been made prominent since then is the spiritual and mystical aspect of Islam that was hardly put to the forefront – even to some Muslims. If we browse through the list of academic scholars teaching in universities, Islamic books being published, the expansion of Islamic mysticism/sufism section at the American Academy of Religion and the speakers at any interfaith dialogues, we will find an expanding focus on sufism through its speakers. Many scholarships are also given to the study of mystical saints in Islam.

Let us turn now to the concept of Sufism. The root meaning of the word Sufi is from the Arabic suf or its meaning as wool, and they are white symbolizing purity. Many earlier sufis donned coarse wollen garments to protest the silks and satins of the sultans. Alarmed by the worldliness they saw overtaking Islam, they sought to purify and spiritualize it from within. They wanted to recover its liberty and love, and to restore Islam to its deeper, mystical tone (Smith 1991). 

There are many ways of the Sufis but the main method is through the mysticism of love – love of God primarily, but also love for everyone and everything else. Zikr, or chanting by invoking God’s name is a daily feature of the sufis way of purifying themselves and to bring them closer in love with God. They believe that God’s love was at the core of the universe and the pangs of physical separation from God deepen their love and thereby draw them close to God. Hence, the daily zikr is a physical call by sufis towards God, in reaching God. Many of us are familiar with the famed mystical poet Jalalludin Rumi whose poem “Song of the Reed” is a typical example of this philosophy - the desire to unite with God is not a bodily or materialistic longing: it is the longing of the soul. The spiritual path constantly reminds sufis of this “homeland” through the opening verses of the poem:

“Listen to the reed as it tells its tale – complaining of separation;

Eversince I was parted from the reed-bed, my lament has caused men and women to moan;

I want a bosom: torn apart by such separation, so I may unfold to such a one - the pain and longing of love desire;

Everyone who stays far away from his origin wishes to get back to the time when he was united with it.” (Banks 1997)

Limited by the focus of this paper, we will proceed to examine why the representation of Islam has been focused heavily on spiritual context. It is instructive to look at Asad’s work and his comments on translations in culture, which we can then extrapolate its application in communicating about religion. “My point, is only that the process of cultural translation is enmeshed in conditions of power – professional, national, international … Given that this is so, the interesting question of inquiry if not whether, and if so to what extent, anthropologists should be relativists or rationalists, critical or charitable, toward other cultures, but how power enters into the process of ‘cultural translation,’ seen both as a discursive and as a non-discursive practice” (Asad 1993).

Essentially, we need to examine who the general audience of such interfaith dialogues are and for what intend. They can be divided into two general categories, Muslims and non-Muslims, but by and large, such interfaith dialogues are meant to address the latter as a form of reassurance that Islam is not a religion of terror and that it can co-exist peacefully with the “others”. It is in this language that Sufism has flourished since. Under that condition, Islam is put on the stage against the “others” to defend its values and principles. Speaking a certain language in common is therefore important, particularly if we understand this to include sharing not just language per se, but a repertoire of commonality which includes stories, proverbs, jokes, formulaic expressions or even a textualized canon (Lincoln 2003). As we understood from the quote on Asad earlier, Islam, one against the rest, has no choice but to realize the subtle play of powers and pressures stacked against it in portraying itself as a member of the world community. This was essentially the move that has shaped Islam since September 11, 2001 in the public arena. As Jonathan Z. Smith has articulated in his theories on religion, religion can best be viewed as a network of relationships between social and other factors that can be translated over and over for one’s own purpose (Smith 2004), and in this particular case, Islam being mediated by the language of love – a language, in a specific construct, which is understood by the “others”.

Where Art Thou, Islam: From Interfaith Dialogues To Sufism (Part 1)

Introduction

Over the last seven years, interfaith dialogues across nations have mushroomed with great speed, and perhaps in great haste. Conceivably the main reason for this lies not in an ideological commitment to religious diversity, tolerance or acceptance, but in an attempt to deal with practical problems raised primarily by the events of September 11, 2001. Whilst this is not a paper on the mechanics of interfaith dialogue, I will attempt to trace a brief genealogy of inter-religious relationships within a specific Islamic historical perspective before examining its selected application to our modern context.

However, a more interesting affect and articulation also developed on the side: never before have elements of Sufism been at the forefront in shaping the study of Islam – and popular public acceptance (by both Muslims and non-Muslims) attest to this. Sufism thus becomes the representative “Islam”, not only because taking position with the other spectrum (that being of terrorism) is untenable, but also because suspiciously, it communicates and is understood most effectively with grounded concepts within the language of Christianity. Inevitably, this development resulted in a certain construct of what constitutes Islam, and who Muslims are, in the public sphere. My paper will examine a fundamental problem of who and what defines Islam, and why Muslims are now at a confusing crossroad. In doing so, I will examine the position from 4 different perspectives: historical, theological, translations of language, and from the viewpoint of power relationships. The length expected of this presentation will not allow me to examine all these aspects in detail. It does, however, attempt to provide a brief framework.

The Search For Dialogues

September 11, 2001 is a major turning point in the discursive development of the social sciences. The first knee-jerk response to that fateful event was the need to “reach out” in educating the people of the appropriate form of their religious beliefs (particularly of Islam) and in bridging the gap of understanding between those various beliefs. Interfaith dialogues were organized in the hope of achieving these aims and enhancing the common cause of our existence. Theoretically, it brings people of different religious faiths together for conversations. These conversations can take an array of forms and possess a variety of goals and formats – addressing audiences at various levels – the technical aspects of which are beyond the scope of this paper.

In tracing any particular genealogy, we are looking at history from the active voice: everywhere, local people are “making their own history,” “contesting” it, “borrowing” meanings and “reconstructing” their own cultural existence. This notion of history emphasizes not only the unceasing work of human creators but also the unstable and hybrid character of their creation (Asad 1993). This is because the study of human social sciences deals with people in dynamic situations which are continuously developing. The issue is not whether a local and particular set of circumstances is pure or derivative, unitary or contested – it is about examining the mode of human agency which produced an embodied affect of the events surrounding them (Asad 1993). It is with this view that I found it important for me to sketch a brief genealogy of interfaith dialogue from the viewpoint of Islamic history.

History of Dialogues in Islam

Islam began as a minority tradition in a non-Muslim setting and would not have developed had it not been for dialogues. I will illustrate this with two distinct examples – one from an event during the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad and another example where this notion was carried through by his caliph.

Most people are familiar with the emigration of Prophet Muhammad and his earliest followers from Mecca to Medina in the year 622 CE. However, there was an earlier emigration to Abyssinia which underscored the value of interfaith dialogue to Prophet Muhammad. As people began to accept Islam in Mecca, they were met with increased opposition and some even turned to physical persecutions. Prophet Muhammad gathered a group of those most vulnerable, and instructed them to go across the Red Sea to Abyssinia, a Christian country ruled by a Christian king. The king of Abyssinia welcomed the Muslim refugees from Makkah into his kingdom. He gave them sanctuary, and they enjoyed peace, security and freedom of worship under his aegis. The ruler of Mecca sent endless convoys seeking for their extradition – with many famous theological debates recorded in history books – the contents itself do not form the core argument of this paper. Suffice to note that there were many of such dialogues occurring between the Muslims and the convoys from Mecca, with the Christian king acting as a judge denying the requests for extradition. The Muslim emigrants stayed in Abyssinia under the king’s protection until they rejoined the larger Muslim community in Medina (Guillaume 2002, Rosenthal 2006).

Prophet Muhammad’s act represented for the first time, the engagement of Muslims with Christians as a community through dialogues – who were viewed as a people that would protect members of the nascent Muslim community. This is an early example in the history of Islam of the importance of pluralism and interfaith dialogue.

The spirit of dialogue and understanding was carried through Caliph ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second successor to Prophet Muhammad, who ruled the Muslim community from 634 CE to 644 CE. In a contrasting historical and political perspective to the example provided earlier, the Muslims arrived at Jerusalem in 638 CE. Far from being a ruthless imperial conqueror, Caliph ‘Umar actually walked into Jerusalem instead of riding his camel because it was his servant’s turn to ride the camel that they shared. While in the city, Caliph ‘Umar was given a tour of the existing religious sites by the Christian Patriarch of Jerusalem. As the time approached for prayer, Caliph ‘Umar asked for a place where he might offer his prayers and was offered the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of the most important of Christian sites. He refused it, as he knew that wherever he (being the first Muslim ruler in Jerusalem) was to offer his prayers, his followers would build a mosque over it, and would not consent to that place be inside an important location to Christians. Instead, he prayed on the steps outside the church. True enough, one can find the Mosque of ‘Umar situated there today – commemorating his prayers on that day. Clearly, for ‘Umar, respect was due to Christians and their places of worship.

These two examples portray the respect that Islam has for other faiths, in this particular example, Christianity, and the realization that people need to co-exist peacefully. There have been ongoing conversations between them since Islamic traditions began. In fact, it may be safe to say that Islam existed and grew due to such conversations. When Prophet Muhammad received revelations from God, he had to engage in dialogues with those who are opposed to his ministry. It may be examined in another paper that the objective then was more missionary than is now, but the concept of dialogue was put into place then. Even when the Islamic political empire expanded and the hold of power were reversed, those very same principles were practiced by his successors, as related in the story of Caliph ‘Umar above.

Turning to a primary text and examining it from a theological perspective, the Qur’an is clear of the sole criteria which distinguish a human being from another. It states: “O humanity! Truly We created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes that you might know each other. Truly, the most honored of you in the sight of God is the most God-conscious of you. Truly, God is Knowing, Aware” (Qur’an 49:13). There are four main points in this verse. First, the passage is addressed to all of humanity instead of limiting it just to Muslims. Second, the creation of humanity into distinct groups is God’s intentional design and is a positive value. Third, it encourages people to transcend their differences and learn from each other as a result of that difference. Finally, the best of people are those who are aware and are conscious of God.

From that theological perspective, it is interesting to note that the creation of this diverse world was an intended divine plan. Looking at it from this way, there is no way therefore that man could work towards making one the same as another, whether it be in matters of faith, culture or politics. In my view, the existence of such difference is for men to learn more of himself, of others, for him to build on that relationship and in the process, to discover the beauty of God’s creation through those differences.

When You Were Young

They say the devil's water, it ain't so sweet
You don't have to drink right now
But you can dip your feet
Every once in a little while

Shattered

In a way, I need a change
From this burnout scene
Another time, another town
Another everything
But it's always back to you

How many times can I break till I shatter?
Over the line can't define what I'm after
I always turn the car around
Give me a break let me make my own pattern
All that it takes is some time but I'm shattered
I always turn the car around