Inspirations and Creative Thoughts had these two pieces recently:

The Sufis’ Religion and Religionless Religion

Salaam and Greetings of Peace:

RAMADAN KAREEM! – Below are 30 Daily Ramadan Prayers (Duas) that will, inshallah, make the fast easier, enlighten the mind, and ennoble the heart.

Ramadan Dua: DAY 1

ALLAH, on this day make my fasts the fasts of those who fast (sincerely), and my standing up in prayer of those who stand up in prayer (obediently), awaken me in it from the sleep of the heedless, and forgive me my sins , O God of the worlds, and forgive me, O one who forgives the sinners.

Ramadan Dua: DAY 2

... lives.

That’s the first reaction I had to a piece a young friend of mine who lives and works in Hyderabad sent me. I have been wondering what I can say about recent events in that city, and just as when "my city" was burning, or when a sister city burnt across the sea, I was in pain, this young writer has had to deal with what he has always described as a stab to the heart of the place he loves dearly. And now, he has captured his feelings in a way that is too beautiful not to reproduce in full here; it is the same spirit that has led to great and noble things in that region of the world—from the Taj Mahal, to the deepest, most profound sufi poetry in the world. And it is uplifting to see it alive in those younger than oneself. Here is Manzoor‘s piece:

The Sultan’s Prayer
Hyderabad is a multi-religious and multi-cultural abode for millions of people, and this is not any recent phenomenon. Multiculturalism is the very foundation of this great city. It is said that some 400+ years back, Prince Quli Qutub Shah of the Qutub Shahi dynasty fell for the beautiful Bhagyamati and rebelled against his father, the King, to marry her. On becoming King himself, he bestowed upon his beloved Bhagyamati the title of ‘Hyder Mahal’. It was this romantic and chivalrous king who—like the emperor who created the more famous monument to love in Agra—built a whole city on the banks of river Musi, and named it after his beloved wife.

That is how Hyderabad happened.
...

Salaam and Greetings of Peace:

The following is a question a brother asked in an email, and my answer. It is about love on the Sufi path, and is reprinted here with his permission.

Question:

Salaam Irving:

I usually post entries here directly, but I have not been able to do that lately, so I thought I would provide a round-up of things on my own blog for folks to be able to follow up. Here's a little list:

Giving One's Life in the Holy Land
Centered around a very small news story in an Saudi Paper and it's evoking a spiritual poem from "back home"...: http://ifaqeer.blogspot.com/2006/11/giving-ones-life-in-holy-land.html

Thanksgiving
If one is going to commemorate Thanksgiving, the following ceremony seemed to be the most appropriate I have seen in a while--and it is not even in the US...
http://ifaqeer.blogspot.com/2006/11/thanksgiving.html

Rumi. And Hafez. And Khayyam. And Of Whence They Spake.
All the positive feedback on my post in a spiritual mood has been very gratifying.
http://ifaqeer.blogspot.com/2006/11/rumi-and-hafez-and-khayyam-and-of.html

Racial Profiling...Diallo was a Muslim, Too
I wish I could write a long and beautiful article about this, so it could be read and re-read and circulated and published...but what I HAVE written is at:
http://ifaqeer.blogspot.com/2006/11/racial-profilingdiallo-was-muslim-too.html

Women's Islamic Initiative for Spirituality and Equity -- Follow-Up at:
http://ifaqeer.blogspot.com/2006/11/womens-islamic-initiative-for.html

Allow Me to Join in this Call
I'd like to call upon Muslims and organizations of Muslims to join this call from the Turkish press: "It is true that Benedict XVI made disagreeable statements about Turkey and Islam. However, the Pope is visiting as our guest..." http://ifaqeer.blogspot.com/2006/11/allow-me-to-join-in-this-call.html

I posted something on my blog yesterday that seems to have gone down with at least some readers. It was something I wrote, so to speak, and I posted it on my blog (and Urdu ke Naam), with the disclaimer that I knew some will be touched by it--in whatever way--but if you're put off by either metaphysics, tasawwuf (Sufism), abstractions, or weird, personal transliteration schemes, PLEASE, PLEASE, do not read on. I really don't want to get into detailed discussions of any kind.

The feedback since has been gratifying. It is my desire to bring the poets and qawwals of South Asia to as wide an audience as "Rumi-o-Hafiz-o-Khayyam". We all read these elders, and we all need to. But especially in this day and age we (all of us; South Asian or not; Muslims and not, Sufi-leaning or not, Westerners and not) need to connect and reconnect with the living tradition they represent--one very importand and rich part of which is rooted in South Asia. We need to connect with the zawiya, or angle, facet, of Islam that was, and still is, rooted so deep in the lands from where all we hear nowadays is "Deobandi", "Taliban", "Maududi", "Terrorism", and on and on.

An interesting piece from Dr. Nyla Ali Khan, an Indian American English professor at U Nebraska, was picked up in the indian papers:

The Tragedy of Secular Socialism in the Indian Subcontinent

Interesting read. Complicated problem for a socially secular small country to survive between Indian and Pakistani influences.

I was reading a comment on Eteraz's site which struck me because of the Sufi author's repitition of a certain concept. This concept was that of submitting oneself continuously to others: to a tariqa, to a shiekh, to a wali and so on. Is this not the same binding to other humans that Islam came to overturn? What is the intrinsic difference between being bound as Abu Jahl’s slave and being bound as a sheikh’s disciple?

I’m certain that people will say that the goals are differenent and they are, but the model is still the same: sacrifice oneself to the will of another human. Call me a rebellious Western Muslim, but I for one can’t accept returning to any bondage that negates the self <strong>to a human</strong>. And, I cannot see how bondage to a human can lead one to Allah. I see everything in the Quran as contradicting this, which is why as attractive as Sufi spirituality looks and feels to me, I will not take the next step and submit to any shiekh, pir or so-called walis…

My first memory is of my grandfather, Dandy, frying me chicken in the early hours of the morning. I am sitting on his hip watching the chicken fry in the iron skillet. I remember crawling down the back stairs backwards to get to his room. I could not go down the stairs standing yet. I opened the door to the guest bedroom, walked over to his bed and said "Make me fried chicken." He tried to pull me into bed to go back to sleep, but I was having none of it. Nobody makes fried chicken like my Dandy did, Allah yarhamhu. He died when I was nine. I miss him. i grew up in a hard way. Dandy took good care of me.

Shaykha Fariha of the Nur Ashki Jerrahi order giving a tele
-communicated talk to the women's conference in Pakistan.

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