Forming Good Intentions
Text from the Bible: book of Isaiah, chapter 61 verse 1. I pray that I can be even a tiny fraction of what this Prophet was inspired to bring forth to the world. May God forgive my inconsistencies.
Foundations of the Spiritual Path
An illustrated and visually mapped rendering of the original by Ahmad Zarruq, as translated by Hamza Yusuf. I explore the use of imagery, symbolism and spacial orientation to draw out meanings and relationships in the text.
The Truth is evident. We know it in our hearts and it is radiant like the sun. There is a key to putting it all together though. May God guide us unto all truth. Seek and ye shall find, knock and the door shall be opened unto you.
Each individual will meet her or his Lord and it’s not a journey of a million miles, but it takes place right here in your heart. The key to that journey being one of bliss and returning home is in your desires. And it’s a secret between you and God. And God promises that if we just start out towards Him that He rushes towards us. Go to God.
Who is God
A definition for God has proven notoriously difficult and controversial. This is not a definition but rather a mapping of meanings over which a consistent expression can be made. The question of whether God is real or true is answered separately. The attributes of which the truth is to be assessed are given here. The criteria for truth is established elsewhere.
A Taxonomy of Knowledge (Quran 2:255)
God! There is no god except He, the Living, the Everlasting. Neither slumber overtakes Him, nor sleep. To Him belongs everything in the heavens and everything on earth. Who is he that can intercede with Him except with His permission? He knows what is before them, and what is behind them; and they cannot grasp any of His knowledge, except as He wills. His Throne extends over the heavens and the earth, and their preservation does not burden Him. He is the Most High, the Supreme.
& prays……
“I Love You” - A Letter to Myself
We were created for a reason. How do we allocate our life in the best way? This is an intimate meditation on my own shortcomings so that I don’t regret my life when I come to face my Lord and so that I can aspire to achieve the best in this life and the life to come.
Approaching certainty
“The natural state of the human being is a percipient state, because one thing we know about ourselves is that we do perceive things and not just form but also meaning. Unlike anything else in Creation we can conceive of abstractions, we can derive conclusions from the evidence around us. We have the capacity to look at the painfully diverse fact of being **the fact that it’s just there** the existential pain of there being something at all. We have the ability to look into it and look beyond it, which is where religion begins. And I mean here ‘real religion’ not just something inherited, something you do to not feel bad about yourself, something you do in order to feel superior to others - real religion, which is about self knowledge and the journey within” ~ Abdal Hakim Murad (Living With Our Selves ~ 15:45s)
Introducing concepts about how one can be certain of God and in the hereafter. The question of whether or not God is true is answered in our hearts and comes by an opening that only God Himself is sufficient to provide. This is only intended to set up the right categories of how we think about God and religion. The words and ideas we use are what determines our ability to think. Our categories should therefore be very intentionally chosen.
Your Instructions in Response to the Call to Serve
Close rendering of Imam Ali’s letter to Malik al-Ashtar the governor of Egypt but transposed into a modern workplace setting. Translation by Rasheed Turabi at al-islam.org. Transposition my own.
This is the start of our journey back home. We will make a record of our deeds and our decisions that got us there. With God’s permission and by His Grace we will have a sufficient response. The consequence otherwise is the Abyss.
Muhammad, the Messenger of God.
May God extol him and grant him Peace, and his family and his companions. This section is insufficiently developed by me, but this is the rightful place of God’s Messenger. This is where we check our hearts in with the Best of Creation, to see how we’re measuring up and if we are aspiring to be a Mercy to the Worlds and a Light from God that illuminates hearts and uplifts the downtrodden.
This is where we check in with our intentions to see if we’ve been working to achieve what we set out to do. If so, then we affirm our resolve and commit ourselves again to service and love.
OPEN HEART
The religion of Islam
Written for my children. It is a simplified telling of a well known story about the angel Gabriel coming to explain the religion, through four viewpoints. Islam reveals sin and virtue to us and calls us into a right relationship with our Lord, through repentance and calling upon Him. Islam is the answer to our need to personally understand how to navigate life in the best way. It’s a tremendous gift for humanity to save us from ourselves by making the straight path clear. With Islam is ease. And Islam answers our need to know about the bliss of the Garden and about God’s Love for each human and the meaning of the Final Hour, including the Day of Judgment and our standing before our Lord to account for our lives.
Islam is yours. It’s your own personal thing. It has the property that only true religion possesses. It unites us in what we share together. In true religion we share the reality of God. That is what unites us.