Intifada, spiritual and otherwise

Today I did a search to see if there were any upcoming concerts by my favorite Iranian musician, Shahram Nazeri. But I searched with the Turkish Google and came across a Web site with 36 of his albums. Most of them are unavailable outside of Iran. I highly recommend that you download an album or two. If you are unfamiliar with his work, start with Through Eternity.

My time in Turkey is drawing to a close. Rumeysa and I will be in the US starting on Monday. I'm excited to visit the US again, but today as I walked out of the Blue Mosque after the evening prayer it really hit me how much I will miss it here. Of course, we'll be back in August, but then we will hopefully be leaving again to study Arabic.

The Arabic plan seems to have changed. Rumeysa is concerned that spending a year in Damascus may cause problems for her moving to the US. I tend to be an optimist on such issues, but she does have a point. So now we're considering... Tatooine.



OK, well Tunis, actually.


Specifically, the Bourguiba Institute of Modern Languages. As far as I can tell so far it will be cheaper than Damascus, but we still have to do some more investigation. The downside is that the Arabic spoken in Tunisia is very far from Modern Standard Arabic, having both French and Berber mixed in. So we won't be able to practice as much in day-to-day life. But hopefully we can make up for that with more studying. Also problematic is the heavy-handed secularism in the country. I may even have to cut my beard. But, of course, this was also a potential problem in Syria.  

O Morning bird, sadly sing and remind me
Of my pain afresh with a burning sigh
Break this cage and turn it upside down
Wing tied nightingale, leave the corner of this cage
Compose the song of freedom for the mankind
And with a breath, set fire to the battlefield
Of the mass of this earth
The cruelty of tyrants and the injustice of huntsmen
Have broken my nest to the winds
O God, O turning globe, O nature
Turn our dark night into dawn.

(written by Bahar, unknown translator)

You can hear a (rather low-quality, but in that old folk music kind of way) recording of this here, performed by one of Iran's most famous classical musicians, Mohammed Reza Shajarian. Apparently he has called for the Iranian state music channel to never broadcast his songs again after Ahmadinejad refered to supporters of Mousavi as "brushwood and thorns." He told BBC Persian, "My voice is like brushwood and thorns, and it will forever remain brushwood and thorns!”

publius_aelius beat me to dedicating a poem from Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi for the people of Iran in these important times, but I found this one and thought it appropriate:

I have returned, like the new year, to break the locks of the prison and smash the claws and teeth of these man-eating spheres.
The seven waterless planets are devouring the creatures of earth -- I will throw water upon their fire and still their winds.
I have flown from the beginning-less King like a falcon in order to kill the parrot-eating owls of this ruined monastery.
From the beginning I made a covenant to sacrifice my spirit to the King. May my spirit's back be broken should I break my pledge and covenant!
Today I am Asaf, Solomon's vizier, sword and firman in hand -- I will break the necks of any who are arrogant before the King.
If you see the garden of the rebellious flourishing for a day or two, grieve not! For I will cut their roots from a hidden direction.
I will break nothing but injustice or the evil- intentioned tyrant -- should anything have a mote of savor, then I am an unbeliever should I break it
Wherever there is a polo ball, it is taken away by the mallet of Oneness -- if a ball does not roll down the field. I will smash it with the blow of my mallet.
I now reside in His banquet, for I saw that His intention is Gentleness. I became the least servant of His way in order to break Satan's legs.
I was a single nugget, but when the Sultan's hand grasped hold of me, I became the mine -- if you place me in the balance, I will break the scales.
When you allow a ruined and drunken man like myself into your house, do you not know at least this much: I will break this and break that?
If the watchman shouts, "Hey!" I will pour a cup of wine on his head; and if the doorman seizes hold of me, I will break his arm.   
If the spheres do not rotate round my heart, I will pull them up by the roots; if the heavens act with villainy, I will smash the turning heavens.
Thou hast spread the tablecloth of Generosity and invited me to lunch -- why doest Thou rebuke me when I break the bread?
No, no -- I sit at the head of Thy table, I am the chief of Thy guests. I will pour a cup or two of wine upon the guests and break their shame.
Oh Thou who inspires my spirit with poetry from within!  Should I refuse and remain silent, I fear I would break Thy command.
If Shams-i Tabrizi should send me wine and make me drunk, I would be free of cares and break down the pillars of the universe.
(trans. William Chittick)

I've been enjoying some free time around the city these past few days, in addition to practicing reading (pronouncing) and writing Arabic. Today we saw a new mosque that has received some press here for being the first in Turkey to have its interior designed by a woman. The new mosques in Turkey have a tendency to be terribly drab and unoriginal, particularly on the inside. There are exceptions, but this is an exceptional exception. I thought I'd share some pictures, which you can see here.

Letter from Mir Hossein Mousavi on the results of the presidential election in Iran.

I am saddened by the outcome of the election, not because I am opposed to the Islamic Republic in principle (quite the opposite), but because I think Mousavi would have been a step forward in the refinement of the ideal of that very republic. I tended to defend Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the past because the attempt to play him up as some kind of Nazi bent on the slaughter of the people of Israel was absurd and dangerous.

But he was certainly a fool and now it seems he is a fool with no legitimate right to lead the people of Iran. This means he is an even bigger fool than I thought, because this is precisely the kind of behavior that risks undermining the foundations of the Islamic Republic. I wish the Iranian people patience, faith, clarity and determination in their struggle.

"This is my first visit to Saudi Arabia, but I've had several conversations with His Majesty," Obama said. "I've been struck by his wisdom and his graciousness."

I was tempted to write something up about Obama's speech, but this really says it all. Are we supposed to take him seriously? Praising the Saudi king for his wisdom and graciousness before going to Cairo to ask for partners on a quest for progress?

The actors in the absurd comedy that is American foreign policy may change -- and they may even add a few token quotes from the Qur'an to their repertoire (edit: not even) -- but the story remains the same.

So it seems that one of my favorite bands, Dredg, has joined the nü-atheist bandwagon. Their new album is inspired by Salman Rushdie's essay "Letter to the 6 billionth person." I only learned this after having purchased tickets to their concert in Anaheim in July. This was very saddening for me, as I really love their earlier albums and I even like the music on the songs I've heard from their new album. But I have a problem supporting such a message. So I've written my own letter, one which they will probably never read, but at least I've tried to do my part. Any commentary or suggestions before I send this off?
( To whom it may concern, )
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I probably would have held my tongue on the subject of the recent conviction and sentencing of leaders of the Holy Land Foundation for providing financial support for Hamas if I didn't have to read people gloating about it on the Internet.

I cannot find particular fault with the court in question. I don't know enough about the evidence in the case to argue that these men were not supporting Hamas. My objection is to the very nature of a government that criminalizes providing financial support for the democratically elected representatives of the Palestinian people on the grounds of "terrorism" while simultaneously providing millions upon millions of dollars in direct military support for a military that slaughters civilians with impunity. Hundreds of civilians are dead in Lebanon. Hundreds more are dead in Gaza. All with the full financial blessing of the United States government. And this same government has the gall to declare Hamas a terrorist organization? What lesson can we draw here but that the lives of Israeli civilians are simply more valuable than those of their Arab neighbors -- at a more than ten to one ratio?

And the Muslims, Arabs and supporters of justice around the world are supposed to just sit around and watch it all happen. Oh, yes, we could maybe send some money to support the collaborationist puppets of the Palestinian Authority, who simply do the bidding of the occupying power. But not Hamas. They are terrorists. Anyone who actually fights the occupation is a terrorist. We are expected to just watch the Gazans despair in their open-air prison. We are expected to watch the Israeli wall devour the West Bank in silence. We are expected to stay still as settlers and soldiers abuse and attack Palestinians in the West Bank.

My wife and I are moving out of our apartment the weekend after next. We'll be moving our belongings into an appropriately named in-law apartment at her family's house.

There are few things I dislike as strongly as moving. This may have something to do with my having moved no less than six times in my two-and-a-half years at university. But, more than that, it's always a reminder of just how overburdened we get with things.

It's not so bad having 30 books on your bookshelf. But when you've got to box them up and haul them across town, you are reminded that you haven't read half of them and the half you have read you haven't bothered to put to any true use in your actual life. In truth, I should be content with a Qur'an and five dialogues by Plato or perhaps some poetry by Rilke or Eliot. But always something new grabs my attention and I add it to my bookshelf. And that's life, really. We're in the most wonderful bookstore of all, the world, but we never manage to make it more than a few chapters into any given book. If we got to the end of just one, perhaps, we'd learn the secret.

As Angelus Silesius says:

"Friend, it is now enough. Wouldst thou read more, go hence,
Become thyself the Writing and thyself the Sense."

Today we ventured out to Kastamonu. It was very nice, but our tour group is not very interested in religion, so we didn't get to see as many of the mosques as we would have liked. But it was still a very nice day, and the weather was perfect. Pictures are here.

Today we saw some of the region surrounding Safranbolu and then went to Amasra. Here are some more pictures.

My wife finally convinced me to take some time off of work for a vacation (now that I only have two months left to use up my leftover vacation days). I'm not sure why I've been so reluctant. Partially I suspect it's just the intense environment at my job that makes the idea of asking for time off kind of intimidating. But we're now in Safranbolu, in Turkey's Black Sea region. It's beautiful and peaceful. At night there is no sound of traffic whatsoever. We're on a tour and we will be visiting a number of different towns and cities, so stay tuned for more pictures. Here's round one.

I recently discovered the work of the modern Persian poet Sohrab Sepehri. It is quite beautiful.

 

( Here are some selections )

This article is depressing. It points out the little-discussed fact that Muslims in America long supported the Republican Party and goes on to give the author’s view on why this is no longer the case. It’s incredibly self-serving. Essentially, they liked the Republicans’ liberal economics and social conservativism. But then the Republicans’ started to say bad things about Muslims, so they picked up their toys and left.

Never mind the fact of Reagan’s support for Saddam Hussein’s regime while it was using chemical weapons against Iran and the Kurds in the ‘80s or for the terrorist contras in Nicaragua (paradoxically funded in part by arms sales to Iran -- apparently consistency isn’t very high up on the American Muslim political agenda). What concerns me is the fact that economic liberalism and social conservativism were, and perhaps are, seen as the top priority.

It is undeniable that Muslim social values are conservative and it shouldn’t be surprising that they are generally aligned with those on the Christian right. But the fact that we hold these values does not mean that our purpose in America, or any other country, is to make sure that they are imposed on other people to whom they are becoming increasingly incomprehensible. The message of Islam, and thus the message that Muslims are to share with the world, is: “There is no god but God.”

The first revelation of the Qur’an was not “don’t drink and make sure gay people can’t get married.” The first revelation of the Qur’an was: “Recite: In the Name of thy Lord who created, created Man of a blood-clot. Recite: And thy Lord is the Most Generous, who taught by the Pen, taught Man that he knew not. No indeed; surely Man waxes insolent, for he thinks himself self-sufficient. Surely unto thy Lord is the Returning.”

First and foremost, the message of Islam is for a people that has forgotten God. But when the early Qur’anic revelations mention sin, other than covering over God’s truth, it is of a different kind: It is about greed and injustice. One of the most concrete sins mentioned in the early revelations is the pre-Islamic practice of burying daughters alive. These are the early warnings that were sent down for the Prophet -- salallahu alayhi wasalaam -- to communicate to his fellow men and women. If the message of Islam is to be summed up to those we intend to convince of our cause, it cannot be “economic liberalism and social conservativism.” No, it is: God and justice. That is what Muslims should represent in this world.

Step 1: Put your MP3 player or whatever on random.
Step 2: Post the first line(s) from the first 50 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.
Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from.
Step 4: Italicize the songs when someone guesses correctly. Whoever gets it first gets their name next to it.
Step 5: Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING!


( brain virus beneath cut )

I was running woefully late on this meme and had pretty much decided to drop it, but thankfully

wc_helmets , who gave me my task, just made his own late posting and so I don't feel so bad anymore. Comment here and I will give you five topics I associate with you to talk about. 

Intifada: A couple of years ago (following this absurd incident) a friend of mine told me he wanted to make intifada t-shirts to show that the word, which simply means uprising or literally “shaking off,” is not something alien to Western culture.  This was my idea.

Marriage: The Prophet taught that marriage is half of one’s religion. Now that I’m married, I can understand why. Marriage is like a microcosm of all the essential aspects of religion. Mercy, forgiveness, patience, attentiveness -- marriage requires and -- at least potentially -- teaches all of it. I think of it as a manifestation of the principle of judgment. Judgment gives an infinite weight to our actions and you get a fleeting glimpse of this weight in the effects your mistakes have on your spouse.

 

Home and travel: One of the great regrets of my life is that when I first traveled in Europe, as a relatively stupid 19-year-old, I spent three weeks in southern Spain -- within a bus ride of the Alhambra -- but I didn’t even know the Alhambra existed, nor about anything in the Muslim history of Spain.

Travel is a great luxury, but I must say that actually living in another country is so much more educational. While traveling it is far too easy to just stay in your own world, despite whatever physical location you may be in. Living in another country makes it much harder to do this (though it is still possible, as you can see with many migratory English teachers here in İstanbul). I am looking forward to living in Damascus and hopefully even more countries in the future, God willing.

 

Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity's Rainbow: I first tried reading this in community college and only made it 200-or-so pages. But when I moved to Berkeley I tried it again, and this time I was hooked. I stayed up until four in the morning every day for a week reading it.

Perhaps the greatest part of Pynchon’s writing is the movement of time and of the stories’ characters within time. In a sense, the actions of the characters in Gravity’s Rainbow, which seem so minuscule relative to the epic contexts in which they are placed, define and transcend history at the same time. These individuals wrapped up in plots and systems more complex than they can grasp just are history. There is nothing more to it than that. But, precisely because history is nothing more than tiny, lost individuals like them, they can be radically free of history and of all these plots and plans. I’m not sure I'm being at all coherent here, so here is Pynchon himself, in the section of Gravity's Rainbow on the love affair between Jessica Swanlake and Roger Mexico:

And past the exhaustion with it there is also this. If they have not quite seceded from war’s state, at least they’ve found the beginnings of gentle withdrawal . . . there’s never been the space or time to talk about it, and perhaps the need — but both know, clearly, it’s better together, snuggled in, than back out in the paper, fires, khaki, steel of the Home Front. That, indeed, the Home Front is something of a fiction and lie, designed, not too subtly, to draw them apart, to subvert love in favor of work, abstraction, required pain, bitter death.

They have found a house in the stay-away zone, under the barrage balloons south of London. The town, evacuated in ‘40, is still “regulated” — still on the Ministry’s list. Roger and Jessica occupy the place illegally, in a defiance they can never measure unless they’re caught. Jessica has brought an old doll, seashells, her aunt’s grip filled with lace knickers and silk stockings. Roger’s managed to scare up a few chickens to nest in the empty garage. Whenever they meet here, one always remembers to bring a fresh flower or two. The nights are filled with explosion and motor transport, and wind that brings them up over the downs a last smack of the sea. Day begins with a hot cup and a cigarette over a little table with a weak leg that Roger has repaired, provisionally, with brown twine. There’s never much talk but touches and looks, smiles together, curses for parting. It is marginal, hungry, chilly — most times they’re too paranoid to risk a fire — but it’s something they want to keep, so much that to keep it, they will take on more than propaganda has ever asked them for. They are in love. Fuck the war.

Dervishes: I’ve visited two Sufi tariqahs here in İstanbul and it has only confirmed what I expected all along: that actual Sufism probably isn’t for me. It’s just all so emotive and passionate. I greatly value the teachings of Sufi masters, but the practices on the ground don’t sit so well with me. That being said, I’d still like to investigate the Naqshbandi tariqah, as they are known for quiet dhikr (remembrance or invocation of God). I prefer the early Sufis, who seem to have simply wandered around, caused trouble, and pushed people to rethink their understanding of God.

My plans for the next year or two now seem to have gotten concrete enough to be worth mentioning. Rumeysa just got back from a trip to Damascus, which she really liked and where she found an affordable Arabic course for us. So it looks like we will be heading to Damascus in the fall, in early or mid-September, God willing. We will likely be there for at least a year.



But first we will be visiting the US for a month in July. My best friend is getting married, so we will hopefully be attending that as well visiting family and friends in California, Michigan, New York and wherever else we can get to.

Of course, this means I'll be leaving my job, and this is a wonderful, wonderful thought. I pray I will have the concentration and willpower to put my time to good use. Going to the US also means I'll have a chance to switch out some of my books, and I would like to make a pretty strict philosophy program for myself for my time in Syria.

Something you may not know about me: I have never, ever been good at keeping up to date with computer games. Heck, I just discovered Risk two months ago, and that's not even a computer game. I always just kind of assume my computer can't handle the load. Anyways, today I have installed on my computer Age of Empires II, and I am extremely excited about it. My first game hasn't gone so hot, since the computer enemies all seem to have discovered explosives before me. But I'll get there.

My wife and I watched Pan's Labyrinth last weekend. After watching really good movies, my wife likes to look up reviews and analyses of them online. She came across this remark in one review:

"It's in its sophisticated politics that "Pan's Labyrinth" qualifies as Del Toro's most mature work; he depicts fascism not just as a failed political or philosophical system (taking well-aimed swipes at clerical complicity along the way), but primarily as the failure of imagination."

Given what I have said, and what can be clearly observed, about the neo-atheist movement and its relationship to imagination, this seems entirely relevant.