Celebrated Sufi Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan once sang these lines based on a poem written by Guru Nanak himself.
Listen, reflect and enjoy.

Some call the Lord ‘Ram, Ram’, and some ‘Khuda’.
Some serve Him as ‘Gusain’, others as ‘Allah’.

In any case, He is the Cause of causes, and Generous.
He showers His Grace and Mercy upon us.

Some pilgrims bathe at sacred shrines, others go on Hajj to Mecca.
Some do devotional worship, whilst others bow their heads in prayer.

Some read the Vedas, and some the Koran.
Some wear blue robes, and some wear white.

Some call themselves Turk, and some call themselves Indian.
Some yearn for paradise, and others long for heaven.

Says Nanak, one who realizes the true command of God’s Will,
knows the secrets of his Lord Master.

According to the traditional Muslim lunar calendar we have the 18th day of the month of Shaban today and many Pakistani Muslims consider this day to be the festival of a saint called Lal Shahbaz Qalandar.
Today the town of Sehwan, where the tomb of this wandering dervish is found, hosts many visitors from all over Pakistan, even from all over the world, partaking of both very spiritual and very worldly celebrations.

Lal Shahbaz Qalandar once roamed the Indian province of Sindh (now a part of Pakistan) as a missionary of Islam. Most historical details about his life and his teachings have been lost and gave room to numerous legends but what seems to be certain is that Lal Shahbaz Qalandar preached that the very essence of Islam is love:
Love for God, love for God´s prophet and his family, love for the friends of God and love for each fellow human being.

He gained a reputation of offering heartfelt sympathy and practical help to the ostracized and downtrodden of society and his tomb became a special place of reverence for the poorest of the poor, for members of the lowest castes, for trannies, for prostitutes and for others with a “bad reputation” in mainstream society.
It is also said that he preached the unity of all spiritual paths and therefore his tomb is not only visited by Muslims but is revered highly by Pakistan´s Hindu minority as well.

For the remembrance of this unique personality I want to introduce you to two Pakistani filmi songs, celebrating the miraculous help that Lal Shahbaz Qalandar and his dervishes give to opressed women.
Songs like these used to be very popular in Pakistan and they still are with many people but nowadays the social and religious establishment does not like them too much and there have been repeated tries of eliminating their existence.
You probably guess why: “Pagan saint worship”, “superstition”, “uncovered women dancing in lewd ways” etc. ….

The Damascene judge Muhammad Akmal Al-Din (d.1603) related at first hand a story that occurred in Damascus in 1545-46: a man loved a beardless bookbinder by the name of ‘Ali.
The latter actually turned out to be a hermaphrodite and was judged by physicians to be more a female than a male. A local judge subsequently declared the bookbinder to be a woman.
‘Ali promptly became ‘Alya (or ‘Aliyya) and could thus be married to his (or rather her) admirer.

At the very dawn of the reported codification of both Sunnism and Shiism we find as the spiritual and cultural centre of early Islam the city of Madina, and within its boundaries the mosque at the tomb of Prophet Muhammad.
The Madina of that time was a spiritual centre far away and quite independent from the centres of political power and emerging politicized imperial Islam in Syria and Mesopotamia.

During those years and in that city taught individuals highly respected by both todays Sunnis and Shiis, men bearing names like Muhammad Baqir and Jafar as-Sadiq.
As their students we also find the eminent founders of Sunni jurisprudence, like Abu Hanifah or Malik Ibn Anas.
And in their circles we even meet the first masters of what was later to become Sufism, medieval Philosophy and medieval Natural Sciences.

Something that fascinates me very much with regard to this Madina of early Islam is that in quite reliable reports concerning the luminaries teaching and studying in that city we also come across Atheists living and breathing freely within the city`s boundaries, expressing their ideas freely, frequenting the teaching sessions that the mentioned luminaries held in the mosque of the Prophet and having extensive intellectual discussions with them.

Can you imagine a modern Islamofascist state in which Atheists walk around freely, expressing their thoughts without fear and having intellectual discussions with the social and spiritual leaders of Islamofascism?
The pure idea of it is impossible, of course.
How different must the world of early Islam have been from what modern Salafis and the like want it to be!

One report, today especially known amongst Shiis, mentions a student of Jafar as-Sadiq once harshly rebuking an Atheist due to the latter`s expressions of disbelief.
The Atheist answered:

We would discuss this issue if you can marshal well founded cogent arguments, which we will admit, otherwise you have no right to interpolate without a ken for polemics. If you are of the company of Jafar Ibn Muhammad, it does not behove you to talk in the strain that you do, for his is not this mode of address, nor does he argue with us in such impropriety. He has heard more of our words than you have done, but he has never used any impropriety, nor has he ever retorted aggressively. He is very forbearing, dignified, reasonable and of mature intellect. He is never harsh nor touchy. He listens to our talk very attentively. He invites our arguments, so much so that when we have exhausted our armoury and we think to have silenced him, he, with a brief resume, stultifies all our reasoning and dumfounds us, so that we are left without a plank to answer the arguments of the revered personage. If you are of his company, then talk to us in the same strain.

I just ate two wonderful German pretzels for breakfast.
And then I wondered where pretzels came from and had to look that up on wikipedia.
Some few lines there seemed interesting to me:

In the 16th century, the German tradition of eating pretzels during Good Friday dinner is introduced. It is said that the shape of the pretzel is like that of praying hands.[6] Within the Catholic church, pretzels are regarded as having religious significance for both ingredients and shape. Pretzels made with a simple recipe using only flour and water could be eaten during Lent, when European Christians were forbidden to eat eggs, lard, or dairy products like milk and butter. As time passed, pretzels became associated with both Lent and Easter. Pretzels were hidden on Easter morning just like eggs are hidden today and are particularly associated with Lent, fasting, and prayers before Easter.[7] The classic pretzel’s three-hole shape begins to take form. The three holes represent the Christian trinity of “Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” and pretzels are thought to bring luck, prosperity, and spiritual wholeness. The wedding phrase “tying the knot” got its start when a pretzel was used to tie the knot between two prominent families. The pretzel’s loops stood for everlasting love.

Given the latest fad of (highly qualified?) “Muslim scholars” pronouncing fatwas against such things as Yoga I now wonder if we will soon see a fatwa against pretzels.
It would just be logically consequent.
I guess I should start worrying about my soul while making my choices for breakfast … .

On the other hand some of us might still recall that former (equally highly qualified?) U.S. president George W. Bush once was almost killed by a pretzel and therefore at least some of the prominent fatwaists may intertpret pretzels as sanctified tools of jihâd.
Hmmm … .

Catholics, by the way, should better stop drinking coffee for breakfast. They should definitely follow Mormons and the like in prohibiting it, in my humble opinion. Coffee came to Europe from the blessed soil of the Ottoman Caliphate and, as you can read here, it has some very dubious Sufi connections.
Unfortunately, Pope Clement VII (1536-1605 CE) once officially declared coffee a Christian beverage and I assume that in this case his opinion will count for more than mine.

A friend was so nice to send me the following quote. It is from the work of a Chinese man called Ong-Tae-Hae, written after his ten years long stay on the island of Java and describing the religious and cultural ideas and customs of the Javanese of the 18th century CE.
The book was translated into English and was published under the title “The Chinaman Abroad: or A Desultory Account of the Malayan Achipelago, Particularaly of Java”

MECCA, CALLED ALSO THE RESIDENCE OF BUDDHA:

On the shores of the western sea, is the residence of the true Buddha: the
hills are extremely high, and the whole ground is replenished with yellow
gold and beautiful gems; which are guarded by a […] hundred genii, so
that the treasures cannot be taken away.
The true cultivators of virtue may ascend to Mecca, and worship the real Buddha, when after several years of fasting they return, and recive the title of dukun, or doctor;
they can then […] bring down spirits, and […] subdue monsters, […] drive
away noxious influences, and […} behead demons. These dukuns carry rosaries in
their hands, and are very compassionate; so that all who see them
acknowledge their virtue.

Some evenings ago, sitting on my bed and reading a book, I had an epiphany. Due to some reason unknown to myself the true significance of what I was doing right there dawned on me.
I suddenly realized that I was parttaking in a great wonder that was only possible thanks to the unity of existence and thanks to the existence of God.
I realized what it truly means “to read”.

Someone some time ago had in his consciousness formulated abstract thoughts on the reality he lived in and he had decided to put these words into an immanent form – a specific system of signs – that would preserve these thoughts for future generations.
This form, this specific system of signs was creative language, made manifest in a book.
And I was able to perceive these thoughts from his consciousness through the medium of the language of this book and to transform it into a part of my consciousness and to relate it to the reality that I live in.

For a split second this realization dragged me away into a strangely illuminated state that is difficult to describe. After the split second had passed and I felt home again on my bed, the book in my hand, I understood that “to read” means, a Christian would say, to take part in an eucharistic act. It is an ingestion of spiritual substance that is only made possible through Allah and through His attributes.

If my individual consciousness, the individual consciousness of the writer of the book, the specific system of signs that he chose and that I perceived, his reality and my reality would not be grounded in One Single Being, “to read” and to know would be impossible.
Even more so, if this One Single Being would not be fully endowed with individuality, consciousness and perception, then “to read” and to know would be likewise impossible.

If my individual consciousness, the writer´s individual consciousness, the material realities of our life and the systems of signs by which we describe them would be but singular and isolated existents with no root in an ontologically and teleologically related true being, then no transmission of knowledge would ever be possible between these singular and isolated existents.

Therefore it should not surprise us at all that the Quran gives a tremendous importance to the act of reading. According to the Quran “to read” directly relates to very important metaphysical concepts.

The name of the Quran itself can be translated as “reading” and it can be interpreted as “the reading of the universal divine book, the kitâbullah.
The first verse of chapter 96 of the Quran commands us iqrâ bismi rabbika alladhî khalaq, meaning “read in the name of your Caretaker who created” or “read, endowed with the attributes of your Caretaker who created”.

The use of the verb “to read” directly points towards a very huge semantic net of phenomenologically related terms that have a central place in the quranic philosophy.
Besides the verb “to read” itself and the name al-Qurân these terms include kitâb (book), lawh (tablet), qalam (pen), kalima (word), qaul (speech) and the specific isolated letters – the huruf muqattaat - which precede some of the chapters of the Quran

The Arabic verb for “to read” itself, giving us the name of the Quran, also carries some more interesting shades of meaning which may give us some more hints on its primordial content.
The Arabic root Q-R-A can not only refer to “reading” or “recitation” but it likewise refers to “becoming pregnant or full of something” and to “retaining the seed of a male in the womb of a female”.

We may relate this to another important quranic key term:
The word dhikr, usually translated as “remembrance” and more encompassingly refering to the activation of the divine attributes in our mind and existence, shares its origins with the word dhakkar which refers to the generative organs of the male.

As initiators of that history we find certain intellectual circles around some remarkable Muslim thinkers of the 17th, 18th and 19th century. No matter which “line” of Fundamentalism we follow (Jamaat-i-Islami, Salafi or Wahhabi), it will always lead us back to the same remarkable individuals.

Amongst the most influential of these individuals we find in the 17th century Ibrahim al-Kurani (whose school had a profound influence on both Ibn Abdal Wahhab and Shah Waliullah in the 18th century) and in the 19th century the two friends Muhammad Abduh and Jamaladdin al-Afghani (who formed the basis of the tought of Rashid Rida, Hassan al Banna and the Ikhwan ul Muslimeen).

When we look at the circles around al-Kurani, Abduh and al-Afghani and delve into the thought of these individuals (and even, to a more limited extent, into the thought of Shah Waliullah, Ibn Abdal Wahhab and Hassan al Banna) we have to discover that while we can on the one hand certainly find therein certain fascistoid elements that finally made modern Fundamentalism and Extremism possible, on the other hand we will also find therein a very profound spirituality of the heart and a positively liberating approach to Islam and its sources.

Having made these observations we start to wonder:
What did todays Fundamentalists discard of the thought of al-Kurani, Abduh and al-Afghani so that they could become what they are?
What is it that was still known to the mentioned individuals and the circles around them that informed the spiritual and liberating aspects of their thought but which is totally missing in the current circles that now constantly give birth to new forms of Islamic Fundamentalism?

To find an answer to these questions we need to know that al-Kurani, his direct teachers and most of his pupils, as much as Abduh and al-Afghani owed a lot to a (these days) not too well known Muslim thinker – Jalal-al-din al-Dawani (d.1502)- who himself was part of a wider philosophical tradition that once flourished in the Persian city of Shiraz.
They had learned from pupils of this school of thought and they had quoted from his works or commented on them.

When we look at this philosophical tradition of Shiraz and compare it to both the thought of the mentioned early reformers and todays Fundamentalisms we see that it had two very decisive basic characterisics that it was able to present as very much in line with the philosophy of the Quran.
Two very decisive characteristics that still had a certain influence on the mentioned early reformers of the 17th, 18th and 19th century but which todays Fundamentalists resent as “un-islamic”.

——————————————————————————————————–

1. An open attitude towards “wisdom as such”:

Following the Quran, Dawani and his teachers held that Divine revelation shows itself in the wisdom and knowledge of all of humanity and it can not be reduced to a specific cultural or historical form.

Dawani and the other Shirazi philosophers therefore drew from a large amount of traditions of wisdom and respected all of them as being able to transmit truth.

Shirazi philosophy of the 15th and 16th century claims to finally derive from the revelation of the Quran but it has no problem with appreciating the insights of Greek Aristotelianism and Platonism, from ancient Persian philosophy and from Hermeticism.
It struggles to find the common core of revelation, philosophy and mysticism and to combine the knowledge found in the works of Avicenna, Suhrawardi al-Maqtul and Ibn Arabi (wo themselves had once struggled to find the common divine truth in several philosophical and spiritual traditions).

2. True philosophy and true ethics can not be developed without a true knowledge of existence:

Following the Quran and its interpretation by Suhrawardi, Ibn Arabi and the avicennan Nasir-al-Din Tusi, the Shirazi philosophers were of the opinion that to come to true knowledge of anything one has to develop a direct and unmediated experience of it. This led them to conclude that the final basis for a true philosophy and for true ethics has to be a direct spiritual realization of the true character of existence.
This also means that an ideal leader (whether a political, religious, ethical or social one) has to strive for such a realization.

Pure abstractions, pure tradition or pure dogma do not suffice to uphold specific philosophies, ethics, religions or political programs as true.
To be true, philosophies, ethics, religions and political programs HAVE to be rooted in a true knowledge of the character of existence.
——————————————————————————————————-

What these two characteristics ask for is a unity and balance of action, wisdom and spirituality informed by a true and direct knowledge of the unity of existence.

I think it is not difficult to see why the rejection of these two characteristics turned the Muslim reform movements of the 18th and 19th century into modern Islamic Fundamentalism:
It led some Muslim thinkers and activists to develop an epistemological shirk (“polytheism”, “idolatry”, “fragmentalism”) that separates action, wisdom and spirituality from their common relation to the true significance of existence and consequently also separates them from each other.

Those who break Allah´s covenant after it was ratified, and who separate what Allah ordered to be joined (yûSala) and who cause violence on earth – those are the losers. (Quran 2/27)

Turkish transsexual diva Bülent Ersoy has by some been called the best voice of Classical Turkish music. In recent years, though, she produced more scandals (political and private) than songs.

Here one of her older videos from the 90ies, celebrating her love for the ancient Ottoman capital, employing a good amount of islamicate romanticism.