Ramadan Reading: a Few Notes on the Third Juz

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100, 4, 4x7, 7, abraham, al baqarah, anticipation, ark of the covenant, birds, conclusion, hajar, jihad, juz 3, Kabbalah, nafs, qalb, reading, ruh, sakina, samuel, saul, semiotics, shekhina, sirr, Sufism, third juz, two sisters

Note 1: Saul and Sakina (from Juz 2)

The second juz ends with the story of Saul’s Kingship and David’s conquest.

Verses (2:246-249) concerns the prescription of jihad given earlier in the surah in verse (2:216).

To comprehend the enjoining of jihad is the self-referential essence of waging jihad.

These verses predicate upon that verse, on our reading of that verse, “unpacking” our reader’s reaction to finding God command us to jihad and, as a consequence, enter us into jihad and from Poverty of Saul to the Kingdom of Saul, from the tension of the People’s call to the release of their distillation.

Explorer kits at the Natural History Museum

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childhood, Islamic parenting, jabarut, malakut, Mi'raj, nafs, nasut, nikab, nikab ban, Reason, science, seven

The other day I brought my daughter and her cousin (visiting us from Kazakhstan) to the Natural History Museum. They hire out “Junior Explorer packs” for children under 7, fun backpacks full of activities to encourage investigation of the museum, spot the object games, colouring in booklets and so on. They come with a cute little safari helmet. We hadn’t been for a while, but she remembered the packs from last time so asked me to collect one for her. “The ones with the explorer hat, Daddy”

But when I asked the man at the desk, he looked the children over and suggested that both are probably old enough now for the 7+ activity set, a more serious and studious collection of scientific facts, museum routes, experiments and research activities. Minus the safari helmet. They accepted this new set happily.

And I became filled with that peculiarly parental combination of deep melancholy and overwhelming anticipation, at what beautiful innocent forms her sweet soul has passed through, forms that I have been blessed to witness beside her, and at what she moves into presently, into such glorious grown up worlds: she shall enter them brilliantly and, soon enough, alone.

No longer a little explorer, but forever the explorer, inshallah.

Lashings and the Four Witnesses

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adultery, four witnesses, lashing, nafs, punishment, qalb, reincarnation, ruh, stoning, Sufism, zina

The weakest state is one that does not implement the shariah for zina, the weakest state is one that cannot produce four witnesses for acts of adultery. Because four witnesses can always be found, for the strongest states.

Before we proceed, let it be known: the Tailor has adultery within himself. I provide four witnesses against these acts, and call upon He-Who-is-Without-Sin to cast the first stone. I have responsibility for this. I do not have responsibility for this. What was it, all along, that I was seeking? I am seeking nothing more than sexual, physical pleasure. And I am now seized by absolute desire, with all-consuming want, with the madness of need for her body. But pursuit of this need has led me into adultery. My forces — my rulers — are charged solely with her capture and they launch into pursuit. But she evaded their capture and hid herself, beoming a tree, and they turn, instead, onto nothing more than mere painted facsimile. So now I am trapped, and that need denied because their capture denies my body: until the punishment came down upon them and until the punishment releases me back into pleasure, to her Reality at last. By the Grace of that Light: for that was her name all along.

Surat An Nur (“The Light”) contains one of the most beautifully mysterious and esoteric verses describing our relationship to God (24:35). For the modern reader, a confronting aspect of the surah is that, immediately prior to this, it outlines the shariah for treatment of adultery and for visiting houses. This is confronting on two accounts: first, the punishment is harsh and seemingly devoid of love or mercy (for adulterers and for those who falsely accuse), which is uncomfortable for those whose intuitions are that God is infinitely merciful; second, even if you accept a harsh God, the verses on adultery and hospitality seem quite disjoint from those that follow — which involve both the verses on the Light of God and peculiar rulings concerning the permissibility of movement between houses. Our intuition often dictates that the perfect revelation should hold perfect coherence. Moving from the fine grained granularity of social shariah and interpersonal sexual relations to the cosmic, personal order of God and Creation is the nature of the Qur’an: but in this instance (adultery, houses, light, houses again) it appears to be just plain weird.

Four witnesses

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adultery, four witnesses, nafs, qalb, ruh, sirr, Sufism

And by the agency of the self, there exists that which is adulterous and unfaithful to the mouth of truth.
And there is that which, in reverse, slanders accusations of adultery lacking the four witnesses, a mouth receiving falsity.

The four witnesses stand above this.

First there is the observer of daily life, the civilian of matter, who passes by and witnesses.

There is the king who begs forgiveness for the sins and receives purification,
who carries the burden of his city, answers for its faults and is relieved of them.
The witness who regulates the channels of wealth
and receives bounty and receives relief,
who interprets his way through to his Queen.

There is the ghost who moves from house to house, according to the adab of invitation and greeting.
He surveys what is written, what I have justified, what I have claimed to have seen and how I have expressed myself to others and says: “But that is not me who says this: that was me in another life.”

Then there is the undifferentiated witness.
The slaves gain permission for attendance, apart from the three secret moments, when his garment of skin is transcended.
His eyelash runs across his body, from his left side to his right,
and it resonates now along the waveform of the Real in harmony with his cosmic context
rising, at the crest of his beauty, that woman’s laugh.

And this itself occurs four times over, cycles of resonance from day to night.