There are a number of references to the punishment of heads being smashed (repeatedly) and to the boiling of brains in the Prophetic narrations. For example, narrations concerning the Miraj and Isra refer to the Prophet seeing angels smash people’s heads with rocks. These heads would return to the shape they had been, and then [...]
Archive for July, 2011
Head Smashing in the Deen of Allah
Posted in Cosmology on July 31, 2011 | 5 Comments »
The Core
Posted in Cosmology on July 28, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
New pieces from my father.
Bidah
Posted in Uncategorized on July 28, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Bidah is the Life and the Truth: its adversary is death and illusion. Bidah is the fissure of Love, through which the Speech before Speech runs. And she graces the novation compute: blessings upon the trader in the marketplace, who exchanges old contracts for new.
The First Time I Prayed with Muhammed
Posted in Prophetology on July 27, 2011 | 3 Comments »
It was some time in 2009. I spent the night praying in what is now the girls’ room. At some point during my recitation, reality shifted, so that the Qur’an coming from my mouth became like a kind of tunnel, so that I was praying with (or within) Muhammed. Not a concept, but the man, [...]
Amy Winehouse and the Norway Tragedy: Being More Like God
Posted in The path on July 24, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Two tragedies are read out this Sunday, across the headlines of papers and the status update feeds of social media: the death of a pop singer and the terrorist attack in Norway. It is interesting to compare my immediate reaction to both these events. 1. Norway. In the case of Norway massacre, I was first [...]
Random Hadith Commentary: Distances and Jummahs
Posted in Cosmology, Tailorite Tafsir on July 23, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Tailorite Devotional Exercise: clear your mind, open the Sahih Bukhari on a random page and write down what is immediately apparent. Narrated Aisha: The people used to come from their homes and from Al-Awali (the outskirts of Al-Madina). They used to pass through dust and used to be drenched with sweat and covered with dust, [...]
Suficore versus Islamic Piety
Posted in Teaching, tagged not islam, not sufism, suficore on July 22, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
(Really need to get Sally to sing this song, it’s a weak draft from 2 years’ ago that might make its way onto the second album.) Islamic Piety: How is this Islamic? Music is haram, right? The Tailor: Correct, there is a strong opinion within the Fiqh of Islam is that music is haram. This [...]
Death, du’as and my wife
Posted in Tailorite Tafsir on July 21, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Someone asked the Tailor’s wife for du’a on his relative who was ill at Mecca. She replied with a laugh, in her inimitably tactless manner: “He will go immediately to jannah, it’s a blessing to die at Kaba.” He was offended and said: “Why does your husband, who preaches ‘how to read life correctly’, why [...]
My last Ramadan as a Muslim
Posted in Love poems on July 20, 2011 | 4 Comments »
My last Ramadan as a Muslim began with a video we at the Vanguard were commissioned to make for the Fast Not Feast campaign: The video’s style was a deliberate attempt to combine the sort of tone of “The Story of Stuff” and the RSA shorts with the Laitman Kabbalah videos — of course on [...]
1000 donkeys
Posted in Tailorite Tafsir on July 17, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
There was once a mausoleum of a great Muslim saint that was a focus of pilgrimage. He was famed for many miracles. Muslims would come from far and wide to pray at the grave and ask for their child to be healed or that so and so… would marry them and would tie prayers to [...]
