Selam Alaykum! How is it Going?

BismillaharRahmanirRahim

Selam Alaykum! How is everyone? I have received a few letters and some casual comments from friends wondering about the activity on this blog or about me in general. So I just wanted to reach out to the readers of this blog and let you know that everything is alright, I’m fine, just working on a few projects right now that have my hands a bit tied. As a result of a lapse is available time I chose to slow the frequency of posts periodically while I clear my desk so to speak.

I felt this was better than posting poor quality blog posts. Those of you who have been following this blog throughout the years you know that from time to time I take a moment and have come back with loads of new and fresh topics to read and discuss, inshaAllah this will be no different.

Well thats about all I have for now, but before I go make sure you all bookmark, digg, del.cio.us or facebook the latest sohbets from Shaykh Abdul Kerim Hazretleri. He is back from his journeys to Cyprus and other countries in Europe, the Middle East and Mediterranean and you may find his latests sohbets in HDTV on Viddler.com courtesy of Yursil at the Mind, Body, Soul blog. InshaAllah, I will be back to post regularly soon.

Allah hafiz

-Saifuddin

Spirituality: Pearls and Roses

In today’s environment we increasingly find a new kind of believer. This believer is not religious and not exactly an atheist. They may or may not, however, be an agnostic but believe in something “greater than themselves”. This kind of believer is, for all intensive purposes, considered “spiritual”. Which essentially means that a person does not practice or partake in one particularly religion but believes there is a “transcendental reality” beyond the material world. These believers are often attracted to mysticism, often seeking the emotional  experience of religious awe or reverence.

The Western world has been scared by doctrinal and dogmatic religious systems and thus many of the would be Believers coming out of the Western world are skeptical of the mature methods of faith. Often times the intention of these kind of seekers is to find plurality in faith, thus penetrating some kind of perennial or objective truth. You can find this happening daily throughout America.

In the film, My Mom’s New Boyfriend, which debuted in Spain on April 30, 2008, writer and director George Gallo portrayed a scene which is becoming all too familiar in the religious landscape of America. The setting has three of the characters sitting at the dinner table sipping wine after a meal. Meg Ryan plays Martha who after a life altering experience lost weight and became beautiful, changed her name to Marty and adopted a new outlook on life. The other two characters: Colin Hanks, plays Martha’s son and Selma Blair his fiance Emily. And when sprituality becomes the topic of discussion it mirrors the reality that is fast growing in American society, that being, “more spiritual than religious” as the screen play narrates,

Marty: It just took me a long time to realize that there was something missing inside.

Henry: Missing from inside the house?

Marty: No Henry, missing inside here, spiritually.

Henry: Oh…

Marty: So started my quest for enlightenment, inner peace; inner joy. The person who’d gotten buried alive in a sea of nicotine and packaged cakes. 

Emily: Yeah, this is so great.

Henry: Yeah… yeah (eyes skeptically reading the scene while nodding the affirmative).

Emily: So what did you do?

Marty: I went to India!

Henry: You went to India?

Marty: Yeah!

Henry: You used to never leave the house.

Marty: Then I went to Tibet and I studied Buddhism and I read the Koran and then studied Kabbala and then, I understood!

Emily: What?

Marty: That the whole world is one truth-seeking organism and so it doesn’t matter if your science is religion or your religion is science. Because we all seek meaning; we all seek our reason for being.

Emily: That is so beautiful.

Henry: And the reason that we’re here is?

Marty: To have fun, because its all over too frickin fast (as the two women toast their wine glasses in agreement).

Although this may be a story-line for the purpose of entertainment, it is reflecting a growing culture and mentality in our society. A culture which has its good and its harm. On one hand it is waking people up to themselves but it is a path that is not sustainable for long periods of time. And the wakefulness one once found seeking the plurality of faith ends in a similar mentality as Marty’s conclusion, that the meaning of life is to have fun and enjoy yourself before you die.

Wisdom and Intellect

Recently, I have delved into the profound wisdom of Yusūf Balasağuni (qs) taken from his masnavi entitled, Kutadğu Bilig or The Wisdom of Royal Glory. Yusūf the Khāṣṣ Ḥājib (qs), an honorific which translates roughly to “Chancellor”, was an 11th century writer and poet; a contemporary to Mahmud al-Kashghari and is the author of the oldest known literary work of what is known as Islamic Turkish literature, the Kutadğu Bilig. Its original form is a “long didactic” poem in what is known as the mirror-for-princes tradition and it was prepared for and presented to the reigning prince of Kashghar in 1069 CE, Tavghach Bughra Khan.

There are two connecting parts of the Kutadğu Bilig that I would like to cite. These segments of Yusūf Khāṣṣ Ḥājib’s (qs) masnavi are concerning three sets of pairs. These particular pairs are integral, and they meet, joining at a point. The first of the pairs are “wisdom and intellect”; the second “merit and demerit” and the third, “benefit and harm”. That joining component, the centerpiece that acts as the interconnecting item is, “the tongue”.

The reason this item stood out is because, not only did Yusūf Khāṣṣ Ḥājib (qs) address wisdom and intellect as it relates to speech prior to the main body of his mesnevi, but it is a topic which my own shaykh addresses regularly during his talks, often quoting the Holy Prophet (may Peace and Blessing be upon him) and warning against the folly of foolish speech. Likewise Yusūf Khāṣṣ Ḥājib (qs) expounds on man’s chief glory, wisdom and intellect saying,