Eastern Vagabond

Essays on travel, cities, memory, and the unnoticed textures of the world.

Tag: faith

Mevlana

I’ve an unresolved affinity for Maulana Rumi (Mevlana in Turkish) – an intuition that he might be the only saviour I will ever have. I taught myself basic Persian 3 years ago only to read his Masnavi and I still haven’t read it.

What if he doesn’t live up to my expectations of him? What if I fail to live up to his?

Konya is home to Rumi therefore, it was hard to come to Istanbul and forget Konya. Though I couldn’t visit it during my first layover in Istanbul while traveling to Italy, I made sure I see it on my way back. If you’re traveling to Europe from Pakistan and are interested in visiting Mevlana, Turkish Airlines will be your cheapest bet. After landing in Istanbul, you’ll have to take domestic flights for Konya and back because it is not an international airport.

Landing in Konya on an overcast day. Taurus mountains can be seen in a distance.

Besides being a small public airport, Konya is also a military base so I could spot Turkish Air Force’s C-130s on the tarmac while my plane taxied to the terminal. I had already booked a motel room near Mevlana Türbesi (Rumi’s tomb) earlier while departing from Milan. Soon after I had landed in Konya, i realized my European sim wasn’t exactly functional here and the natives wouldn’t understand English. I could very well see a disaster unfold – how on earth was I going to navigate my way to my motel and then to Mevlana’s tomb if not with the internet or a local guide understanding my language? Thanks to Mevlana though; he became my guide, my host. All I had to say to the passport control at Istanbul airport, the bus driver, the pedestrians, the random strangers, the beggars and the prostitutes of Konya, was the word “Mevlana”. It seemed to be a word from some universal language. A word powerful enough to warm up a stranger to another, a host to a guest, a guide to a lost traveler. Not long after, I was in my motel with Mevlana just 400 meters east.

I spent that night in conflicting emotions. It was not exactly spiritual, to say the least. The room next to mine was occupied by a couple who started to let off their steam right after I unlocked the door to my room. I flipped open the Masnavi in my phone to distract myself and tried to read it over the loud thrusting and moaning but eventually had to give in, put my phone aside and wait for them to finish.

Next morning, I set off early before sunrise. Remember I had no internet so I navigated my way in the morning twilight like ancient wayfarers and caravan guides with the rising pinkish hues on the horizon being my sole sense of direction for east. I went about my usual way, preferring narrow streets over wide roads every time I had a choice. This might have taken me long but led to some hidden treasures too.

Nar-i-Ask – a small streetside art gallery I came upon. Nar-i-Ask is a Persian word, written here in Latin and Arabic script, meaning “The fire of love”

Eventually one of the streets left me at a wide traffic-less intersection and a huge structure stood in the middle of it. I knew I had reached somewhere important. My heart skipped a beat – it could be Mevlana Türbesi.

The western front of Cami Selimiye – a minaret of Rumi’s tomb can be seen at it’s back (to the right)

I soon realized it was not. I walked past the intersection and around the building to reach the courtyard in its front. The wall inscription beside the door read “Cami Selimiye”. The architecture was similar to the mosques of Istanbul and the tiled space stretching in front of it seemed more like a public square due to its vastness.

I was confused. Though magnificent it was in its own right, i was too close to the Rumi’s tomb to be happy for finding Cami Selimiye. Mevlana was nowhere to be seen. Or so I thought. Upon my inquiry, the street selling woman sitting on the stairs outside the Cami, told me what I saw to my left was in fact my destination. I zoomed out and yes, there it was. I had probably mistaken it to be an extension of Cami in spite of its very distinct architecture.

It was a moment of epiphany, regret, happiness, sadness – quite a turmoil of emotions. I wanted a close up of Mevalana’s final resting place.

My return flight was 1000 hrs and the tomb was to open for visitors at 0900 hrs so this is the closest I got to Mevlana. I could see a series of small minarets of Mevlana’s tomb from the courtyard and wondered what life would be like for dervishes in the cells underneath them.

Perhaps I was too impure to be let inside. Mevlana might have wanted me to read his Masnavi first before visiting him. So be it. I turn back.

I’ll see you again, Mevlana.

I took some steps then turned instinctively, one final time, perhaps to etch the memory of this place forever in my mind.

October 21, 2019
Baal-e-Jibreel I

Baal-e-Jibreel, put simply, is Iqbal’s monologue with God except that the persona they both take on is not the traditional, master’s and slave’s; but somewhat mystic, lover’s and beloved’s (though Iqbal is not to be confused with Sufi poets). The verses ooze with fierce, unintimidated love instead of respectful, humble worship. The first few odes that basically set the tone for the entire collection come out as quite aggressive. You feel the raging passion of a daring, cocky lover addressing his Beloved, telling Him that the obstacles in the way of love suit his adventure-thirsty nature just fine. If you wish to see how perfection borns out of the imperfect, you need to read the following couplets wherein a weak man can be seen to be begetting strong love. The stark contrast drawn between the guilty self of a man and yet the unapologetic love he is capable to experience is simply awe-inspiring. Understandably, the references to the biblical narrative of Adam and Eve, and good and evil, are numerous throughout the thread.

قصور وار ، غریب الدیار ہوں لیکن
ترا خرابہ فرشتے نہ کر سکے آباد

خطر پسند طبیعت کو ساز گار نہیں
وہ گلستاں کہ جہاں گھات میں نہ ہو صیاد

مقام شوق ترے قدسیوں کے بس کا نہیں
انھی کا کام ہے یہ جن کے حوصلے ہیں زیاد

As you read on, you know Iqbal is not an ordinary lover who is too wasted by passion to acknowledge reality. His extensive use of hyperbole and visual imagery, which is comparable to the ancient epics, does in no way make him depart from the subject which is exploration of self and God. Instead they empower him far beyond this by enabling him to take quick, pithy jabs at philosophical conundrums of his time. For instance, the wonderfully poetic way he addresses the contemporary problem of Zaat (Essence) Vs Siffaat (Attributes) is mind blowing. No wonder his daring takes (بت کدئہ صفات) have oft landed him in hot water with the religious establishment of his time.

میری نوائے شوق سے شور حریم ذات میں
غلغلہ ہائے الاماں بت کدئہ صفات میں

When it comes to ‘yearning’, Iqbal has a lot to say. Man’s yearning, as he sees it, has led to the creation of churches and synagogues and the same yearning has destroyed the idols of Kaaba and Somnaat. In a way, Iqbal is not-so-tacitly coining a similitude between God and Man – each engaged in a passionate cycle of creation and destruction to find the other.

گرچہ ہے میری جستجو دیر و حرم کی نقش بند
میری فغاں سے رستخیز کعبہ و سومنات میں

And here goes one of my most favorite couplets.

متاع بے بہا ہے درد و سوز آرزو مندی
مقام بندگی دے کر نہ لوں شان خداوندی

The universal tragedy of the inhabitants of the gray world that they don’t belong anywhere, could not be better put.

اپنے بھی خفا مجھ سے ہیں ، بیگانے بھی ناخوش
میں زہر ہلاہل کو کبھی کہہ نہ سکا قند

When yearning suffices the yearner, there’s hardly anything of substance that can be snatched of him, least of all, his happiness.

ہر حال میں میرا دل بے قید ہے خرم
کیا چھینے گا غنچے سے کوئی ذوق شکر خند!

And a sweet end to the daring opening part of the book.

چپ رہ نہ سکا حضرت یزداں میں بھی اقبال
کرتا کوئی اس بندہ گستاخ کا منہ بند!

February 24, 2018
The Grey World – II

I’ll pick up from where I left in my last blog.

The grey world, I’m beginning to realise, is more like a black hole – As vast as a universe in itself yet invisible to the external eye. Those who enter it, never come out. And somewhere along the way, they lose regard for what’s white/ one/ light/ virtue because it holds no proprietary right on the Golden Rule which is quite fair; only too far from what’s conventional and orthodox.

It sometimes puts me in awe how brimming with meaning our world is, or can be if we really choose to notice. There are small truths floating all over in space, conforming or denying each other yet remaining truths in their own right. Think of all the religions as small, contradicting truths, for example, or libertarian vs authoritarian ideologies, republicans vs democrats, darwinism vs creationism, or science vs religion etc. So many of them to put us in awe. So much contradictory to put us in awe. Where do we find the golden rule that weaves them all together. More and more people are realizing that the uncharted spaces between non-conforming truths need to be explored. We can see efforts being made. I just discovered Broadly’s documentary ‘Inside the Weird World of an Islamic Feminist Cult’ which is basically a group of Islamic creationists led by Mr Oktar who claims to be the first Imam to introduce his followers to feminism. People are scared of him; some find him rather ‘weird’ (as the title of the documentary suggests); even I find his kittens unusual but I appreciate him for exploring the no-go area between traditional Islam and modern feminism, trying to modify each to bring them into harmony.

Clearly Oktar has lost association with and regard for traditional Islam so much as for modern feminism, in hope of finding the middle ground. It can’t be said as of now if he has discovered the golden rule yet but one thing is for sure: he is never going to lapse back to either. So I guess he is a man trapped in a black hole. Kudos to him and everybody else exploring the grey world.

Reference:

‘Inside the Weird World of an Islamic Feminist Cult’ documentary link: https://youtu.be/7bH21w2R0hc

February 8, 2018
Mother God

Though God is an ethereal spirit with no sexual connotations to its gender, the debate over His “actual” gender has passionately raged in the recent decades particularly in the wake of the rise of radical feminism in reaction to the timeless patriarchy that had reigned supreme. The reason i am writing this is that this debate is not distant, irrelevant or academic, it rather dictates how we perceive God in our day to day lives, defines our faith and how we act under its influence.

The most prevailing understanding of the gender of God is that God is predominantly a powerful masculine figure. This understanding possibly originated and strengthened over centuries in attempts to explain the attributes of God being Strong (Qawi), Subduer (Qahhar), Avenger (Muntaqim) and Compeller (Jabbar). Though there are other equally important attributes like Jamal (Beauty) that are the prototype of femininity but since these scholarly attempts were made in patriarchal societies so it is not very surprising for male-chauvinistic interpretations to have made their way into the sacred religious texts passed on to later generations. This partially explains why today, we refer to, and more importantly understand, God as a watchful man-guard over the universe though theological descriptions leave sufficient room for alternative explanations.

The question remains: Is God REALLY a watchful man-guard or is He more of a compassionate mother – the love of whom envelops the universe?

Islam has a distinctive edge over other religions of the world in that its Holy Book i.e. Quran has survived literally intact for centuries under conflicting and sometimes, even battling Muslim governments after the Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.). Karen Armstrong brings to our notice a commonly recited but strikingly overlooked piece from Quran i.e. the very Bism-illah-irrahman-irrahim.

…Nor was God distinctively male. Each recitation began with the invocation: “In the name of Allah, the Compassionate (al-Rahman) and the Merciful (al-Rahim). Allah was a masculine noun, but the divine names al-Rahman and al-Rahim are not only grammatically feminine but related etymologically to the word for womb(!)

It must be a shocking revelation for anybody who recites Quran on a regular basis. In the very tasmiah, God uses one masculine and two feminine names for Him(?)self, which although does not prove that God is predominantly feminine, in the very least points to the fact that God doesn’t want this side of Him(?) to be taken any lightly.

I was scrolling down a forum when i found this gem posted by MariaS.

Some people may say when huwa means “he” and “it” and hiya means “she” and “it” then why is God using huwa if hiya and huwa both mean “it” as Allah says : Qul huwAllahu ahad [Say he is One and Alone]? Answer: In A’rabic grammar, there are certain rules and criteria for feminine gender: 1) If it is feminine in nature like ummun [mother], ukhtun [sister]. 2) If the word ends with an A’rabic word ‘ta‘ like mirwaahatun [fan]. 3) If the word ends ‘badha Alif‘- an A’rabic letter. 4) Pairs of the body like yadun [hands], a’inun [eyes]. As the above criteria are not getting satisfied, by default Allah uses huwa-it.

I am not concluding this piece because i understand that people have different opinions. I do not intend to “establish” anything here neither do i feel the need of doing it nor do i find myself qualified for that. It’s just that i am going through a spiritual crisis where invoking God is, as i see it, the only way out and invoking a mother God feels much easier and more natural. Besides, I feel it’s really important for us to see God in the universe. The watchful man-guard is hard to see, the compassionate mother is hard not to.

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P.S. In case this article interests you, there are some links that i would like you to check out.

Islam and the Divine Feminine

God’s Feminine Side Is Plain to See (slightly offensive but makes the point anyway)

Shekhina: The Feminine Aspect of God

Also, in case you are into literature, Paulo Coelho, in his book “By the River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept”, makes an overwhelmingly beautiful case for the feminine God.

November 10, 2015