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Archive for the ‘Epistemology’ Category

The day Biden gloated about sending $15 Billion to keep killing Palestinian Children…

Posted in Ahl al-Bayt, Capitalism, Epistemology, Layla, Other Religions, Rohingya, Spiritual Stations, The Struggle on April 24, 2024| Leave a Comment »

“In order to understand this better, you may compare the relation of the divine agent to the Divine Principle with that of the rays of the sun to the sun. This is not an exact comparison, but it is true insofar as the rays of the sun have no independence with respect to the sun, and the divine agent similarly lacks independence with respect to that principle of absolute good from which its existence is derived -that is, it cannot come into existence or remain in existence independently. If the rays of existence depart from a being for a single instant it will not be able to subsist for a single instant, for just as it depends on the principle in order to come into existence, it also depends on it in order to remain in existence. Having no standing of its own, then, it is reabsorbed into the principle.

This being the case, the manifestation of God’s Names is, in a sense, identical with the names themselves. ‘God is the light of the heavens and the earth (الله نور السماوات و الأرض)’ – the light is the manifestation of God, not God, but the manifestation has no existence apart from the principal from which it derives. It is reabsorbed in it since it possesses no independence. It is in this sense that we are to understand: ‘God is the light of the heavens and the earth.’

Returning to ‘praise (الحمد),’ we see that the definite article has a generic sense and connects it with the expression ‘In the Name of God (بسم الله)’ which precedes it, so we concluded that every instance of praise, by whomever it is uttered, takes place by means of that which is praised; from a certain point of view, they are one and the same, the instance of manifestation and the general principle of manifestation.

When the Prophet (صلى الله عليه و آله و سلم) said, ‘You are as You praise Yourself (أنت كما أثنيت على نفسك)’ or “I take refuge in You from You (أعوذ بك منك)”, then the path of what is indicated is that the one who praises is effaced in the One Who is praised. It is as if God is praising God. No one else enjoys any real existence that enables them to say, ‘I am praising God,’ but it is God who praises God.”

[From the Lectures on Sūrah al-Fātiḥa]

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between the academy and the masjid

Posted in Capitalism, Epistemology, Spiritual Stations, The Struggle on April 7, 2024| Leave a Comment »

This is a note for myself, part of the archive of my subjectivity that I can look back at in future years to remember moments of clarity (or lack thereof).

Shahr Ramadan is coming to an end.

I think I maxxed out yesterday, after day in day out consistent struggle to grasp the sacred moments.

And this morning I finally talked to God about my “career.”

I put career in quotes because it is not like others.

Because al-Razzāq has blessed me to not have to worry about income – like aṭ-Ṭabarī from whom I have benefitted a lot even though he died over 1000 years ago – I have not followed a traditional path to a stable career, whether academic or masjid-related. My adult life has been a constant toggle between the academy and the masjid, and it still is.

And that is not easy. People want to known “what” I am and “what” I do – it is a central part of American culture. Talking heads on TV have something beneath their name to indicate it. I was watching a documentary the other day and beneath the guy’s name it said “Editor.” I chuckled to myself – surely as a multi-faceted human being he was so much more than just an editor. But c’est la vie. I was once “Chaplain” but now no more. I was once “Ustadh” to some, but that is gone too. And now I am not quite “Professor,” so it seems the marketplace of consumers for my products has settled on “Dr. David” for the time being.

And recently that tension has really gotten to me, in unexpected ways. My friends Zareena and Trent helped me to think through it before Shahr Ramadan, as well as my wife. But surprisingly when the month hit, it disappeared almost completely right away. Which to me is a sign that Shayṭān was attacking me on this precise point.

But this morning I finally talked to God about it, and it was 100% clear.

I am after the secret of sincerity within, in both my teaching and writing.

As the ḥadīth in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim states:

Then a man will be brought forward who learned Sacred Knowledge, taught it to others, and who recited the Qur’an. Allah will remind him of His gifts to him and the man will acknowledge them, and then Allah will say, “What have you done with them?” The man will answer, “I acquired Sacred Knowledge, taught it, and recited the Qur’an, for Your sake.” Allah will say, “You lie. You learned so as to be called a scholar, and read the Qur’an so as to be called a reciter, and it has already been said.” Then the man will be sentenced and dragged away on his face to be flung into the fire.

Even if everything I have ever taught or preached or wrote about is 100% doctrinally correct, that is still not a guarantee that those efforts will bring me happiness after my death. There is something deeper, more personal, that one must grapple with. It is seeking sincerity.

I don’t know the answer, but when I spoke to God I acknowledged that a dars taught to a small group in an unknown masjid can potentially be more pleasing to Allah than a popular undergraduate course at a famous university. And a blog post can potentially be more pleasing to Allah than a book published by a top academic publisher. Surely, if academic fame is a guide to where Allah’s riḍwān lies, then Max Weber and Charles Darwin are awliyāʾ Allāh!

These are the thoughts that I think, and the feelings that I feel. I don’t know to what extent others have them, but I am not others. I am me. And they emerge in my du’as as a product of my subjective struggle to experience the realities of my faith.

The Qur’an speaks evocatively about coming to know with precise clarity in the world beyond this one:

“Now We have lifted this veil of yours, so Today your sight is sharp!” [50.22]

“Again, you will surely see it with the eye of certainty.” [102.7]

“Are these people waiting for God to come to them in the shadows of the clouds, together with the angels? But the matter would already have been decided by then: all matters are brought back to God” [2.210]

One Day it will all make sense.

But until that Day arrives to impinge its realities upon my consciousness awareness, I must wait while my first academic book is going through peer-review with Routledge.

yā Allāh, if in Your infinite knowledge, publishing this text with Routledge brings Your Eternal Mercy ever closer to my limited being, then make it successful!

and if in Your infinite knowledge, publishing this effort with someone else will bring Your Eternal Mercy, then make it so!

I have tied my camel, tried my best to trust in You, and know that You are sufficient for me and the best arranger of all my affairs!

Thank you for sending me friends like Zareena and Trent, and for sending me a thoughtful wife like Sumaiya, and help me do that which is most beneficial for humanity, and that which pleases You the most!

You created me, sustained me, and have always been with me on this wonderful journey of existence!

One day I will return to You, and this world will be nothing more than a passing shadow of morning.

So on these final days of the month of Ramadan, I thank You for all that You have given me, and ask You by Your Mercy to accept the good that I have done, to forgive the wrong that I have done, to correct me when I err, and to guide me when I misstep.

There is no god but You, transcendent are You above this Earth, surely I am from those who have committed dhulm!

And please bless Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, and do with me as You have every right to do.

Hanging with Sayyid Kashmiri while trying to get a secular book deal at the AAR

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a theology for laylat al-qadr

Posted in Epistemology, Layla, Spiritual Stations, The Struggle on March 28, 2024| 1 Comment »

I was born in a hospital in Chicago in 1978.

It has been a wonderful journey.

Truly, I marvel at existence as such, and the fact that I am a part of it.

I know that I did not make myself.

Billions of human beings have believed in reincarnation, mostly in Asia.

I do not.

This life is all that I have ever known, and nothing has been able to convince me that I once inhabited a different human body, let alone an animal body. Because that belief is so far from my experience, it would require a radically powerful proof to convince me otherwise. I have never come across such a proof.

So here I am, this dude. This American dude.

I didn’t choose to be born a dude. I didn’t choose to be born with blue eyes. I didn’t choose to be born in Chicago in 1978.

But the fact of the matter is that at some point in time, perhaps somewhere between 6th-11th grade, I realized I had to choose.

I cannot but choose, as Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ṭabāṭabāʾī has argued so effectively.

And I choose every day.

I have been choosing for decades now.

So I try to make the right choices.

Like Ḥurr b. Yazīd al-Riyāḥī.

In doing so, I am seeking to secure and amplify the mercy that I already feel envelops me.

With the blessings of al-Raḥmān seeking the blessings of al-Raḥīm.

Seeking refuge in You from You!

This blog is called A Mercy Case, after all.

Since 2008, I have used this as a place to speak freely.

As a place to lay my thoughts on (electronic) paper for others to see.

Hoping that they will catch something that I have missed.

Or correct me when I err.

But they are not there when I choose.

No matter what I do, I am alone when I choose.

And so the awareness of my choice leads me to a desperate need.

Because how can this American dude who was born in Chicago in 1978 actually know what the Creator of billions of planets – that I will never see in this life in which I am writing these words right now – actually wants me to do?!

Little old me.

What can I do but hope in uncreated mercy?!

What can I do but try each day, and have the good opinion of the Creator – of everything you and I know about – such that said Creator is fair and understands I am trying.

And so when I read in the Qur’an about another life after this one, I can believe in it. Because I already came once from nowhere to here. I have already experienced my own resurrection, so it is not illogical at all to believe that it can happen again. Of course it doesn’t have to happen again, but the Qur’an says that it will, and that seems like a trustworthy promise from the Creator.

So just as tomorrow I hope I do not undergo painful tribulations in my body, mind or heart, so too do I feel the same way about whatever will happen after my death. I want that life to be at least as good as this life, but hopefully better.

Everything else seems like details right now.

So on these nights, when hours become like years, I will hope for what lies beyond Earth.

For beauty, truth, pleasure and love that cannot be taken away.

For hopes that are not possible in my remaining years in this body.

For dreams that cannot even begin to rival the reality of my Lord’s generosity.

For everything.

Thank you, Allah, for making me.

There is nothing I can do to ever repay You.

But thank You.

Forever.

لا إله إلا الله

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the comfort of a mother

Posted in Ahl al-Bayt, Capitalism, Epistemology, Family, Other Religions, Spiritual Stations, The Struggle on December 18, 2023| 2 Comments »

Dear Sayyida Fatima

peace be upon you

do the children of Gaza come to visit you

do you comfort them

and let them know

that everything will be ok

that soon they will see their parents again

just as Husayn returned to you at Karbala

and that one day your grandchild will rise

and the whole world will be free

from the Atlantic to the Pacific

and that when all is said and done

and history is over

you and your father will gather

everyone who has built their home

in a world beyond fear and grief

that right now just seems so distant

do you comfort them in this way

because I need comforting too

I need to know

that one day it is going to be okay

ya Zahra

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Supplicating for Contentment: Updated translation of Ṣaḥīfa Sajjādīya #35

Posted in Adhkar, Ahl al-Bayt, Capitalism, Epistemology, Spiritual Stations, The Struggle on November 29, 2023| Leave a Comment »

All praise is due to Allah, fully content with the decree of Allah.

I have witnessed that Allah divides the livelihoods of Allah’s servants with full justice, and given blessings to all of the creation.

Dearest Allah, bless Muhammad and his family!

And do not test me with what You have granted to them, nor test them through what You have denied me, such that I would envy Your creatures and hate Your decision.

Dearest Allah, bless Muhammad and his family!

Bring me joy through Your determinations, and open my heart by the manifestations of Your decision.

Please grant me the trust to affirm in those moments that Your determinations are nothing but the best.

Make my gratitude to You for what You have diverted away from me more abundant than my gratitude, that is only for You, for what You have conferred upon me.

Guard me from thinking that someone who has nothing is worthy of contempt, or that someone who has everything is blessed, for the truly noble person is the one made noble by obeying You, and the truly powerful is the one made powerful by worshipping You.

So bless Muhammad and his family!

Give us everything we want in eternity, support us through a powerfulness that will never be lost, and let us roam in the everlasting kingdom.

For surely You are The One, The Unique, The Everlasting Refuge, Who begets not nor is begotten, for there is nothing comparable to You!

[Translation by me. Translation by Dr. Chittick and original Arabic here.]

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The First Day of the Rest of My Life

Posted in Ahl al-Bayt, Ahl al-Sunna, Capitalism, Epistemology, Layla, Other Religions, The Struggle on October 20, 2023| 2 Comments »

This is an inflection point, and deserves writing down.

Earlier today I went to the Qur’an for answers, feeling so alienated from my American society on the 25th anniversary of my conversion to Islam.

I just started reading from somewhere in the middle, and this is what hit me most:

“They will answer: Hallowed be You! It was not proper for us to choose any guardian other than You. But You gave them and their fathers the comforts of this life, so that they forgot Your reminder and thus brought destruction upon themselves.” (25.18)

and then,

“It may be that you will destroy yourself with grief because they will not believe. But if We had so willed, We could have sent down to them a sign from the heavens so that their heads would be bowed down before it in utter humility. Whenever there comes to them any fresh warning from the Merciful, they always turn their backs on it. They have indeed rejected the message. But the truth of what they laughed to scorn will dawn upon them before long.” (26.3-6)

I can’t argue with God. I asked for an answer, and I got one clear as day.

The open call to Islam in the United States of America has been going on for decades. We are just 1% of the population, and our country is still controlled by war mongers who enjoy dropping bombs on Muslims. I grew up around billionaires, and I looked over the list of the 400 richest people in the USA earlier today, and not one of them reflects nor supports my most deeply held beliefs and values. I am a stranger (gharīb) in a strange land, where those with deep pockets and nuclear missiles think they are a gift to the Earth.

How did it come to this?

My Lord, I have no one but You.

I do not know what tomorrow will bring.

All I know is that You have always been with me, and I need You.

Every day I need You.

I am so tired of this.

But if continuing the struggle is what I must do, then that is what I will do.

If Prophet Noah عليه السلام called his people for hundreds of years, then how can I deny the favors of my Lord.

“Say: My prayer, my sacrifice, my living and dying are only for Allah, Lord of all the worlds.”

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From Finland to Eternity

Posted in Epistemology, Family, Spiritual Stations, The Struggle on July 12, 2023| 1 Comment »

This is going to be an unusual post.

Because I do not know what I am going to say until I type it.

Why?

Because I am trying to articulate something that I have never read.

I cannot think of a book that already says what I think I want to say.

It is right at the precipice of my consciousness and I need to type in order to discover what it is.

In June, we went to Finland for a week.

Before we went, I read a whole history of Finland. I watched dozens of YouTube videos and read many news articles. I roamed over Google Maps imagery of Finland.

While we were there, I tried to absorb every moment of it, paying attention to every detail I could.

Why?

Because I wanted to witness Allah’s actions (afʿāl) in the world.

You see, I am not really a player in Finnish history. Generations upon generations of Finns have lived and died and fought and struggled to bring about what I witnessed firsthand in June 2023. I wasn’t there to be part of that history. Before that, Allah covered the landmass of Finland with the massive glaciers of the last Ice Age. I wasn’t there either. Whatever my agency is in the world, it literally has nothing to do with Finland. No historian is going to write the history of Finland 100 years from now and have a chapter on the week that David Coolidge spent in Helsinki and how it changed the course of Finnish history. I am, to make a long story short, completely irrelevant to Finland. And yet, Finland is just as much a part of Allah’s creation as I am, and just as important, I assume.

So by being in Finland, I could tease out some of the differences between my experience of the world (as a subjective individual) and the world as such. And from that, I could reason more clearly about what truly matters in my life from Allah’s perspective.

For example, our kids came too. While I had no major social obligations to any Finn, I was responsible daily for the well-being of our children. In an entire nation of 5.5 million human souls, there were 2 that I really needed to focus on. As is reported from the Messenger of God صلى الله عليه و آله و سلم: “the best of you are those who are best to their families.” You can travel around the world, but Allah will still inquire as to how you dealt with all your relations.

Another example is prayer. For a man, no matter where they are in the world, they are never exempted from al-ṣalāh. So I had to make fajr, dhuhr, ʿaṣr, maghrib and ʿishāʾ every day, no matter where we were. Thus, I needed to know the qibla and have ṭahārah at the proper times.

But it is more than that. Now, Finland feels like a long dream. What I experienced in each moment is gone and will never come back. Only some photos remain, some internet data that says my IP address was connecting through Finland, and whatever I can recall in my memory from those moments. But each moment, and its value with Allah, is known by Allah. If Allah wants to remind me of any moment on the Last Day, that is Allah’s right. All I really carry forward with me is my intention (niyya) from those moments.

For example, one might say that my prayers while I was in Finland were expressions of my faith. But perhaps in some of my prayers I was totally distracted. Allah could remind me of that on the Last Day, and say that even though my body was moving in obedience to the teachings of Allah and the Messenger of Allah صلى الله عليه و آله و سلم, in reality my intention (and attention) was only really there at the beginning of the prayer. Or perhaps I had some hidden motive to pray that was not purely for Allah. Only Allah knows. Even though I know I prayed all my farḍ/wājib prayers there, I cannot remember the details of them. What was I thinking in the 2nd rakʿah of maghrib on Thursday? I have no idea, but Allah knows.

Which reminds me of a cd I used to listen to regularly of a Sufi shaykh who said that the only thing that we do that remains for eternity is our intentions. The prayers I made with my body in Finland are gone. There is no video of them. There are no pictures of my body performing them. What remains is whatever of my intention was in doing them – from before I started each prayer until after I finished it – that was pleasing to Allah. And only Allah knows that. May Allah be gentle with me, yā Laṭīf!

Sometimes we become overcome with delusions of our own agency in the world. We think we can really change our country, for example. But did we ever realize that the United States of America that we inherited from those who are all dead now is exactly the product of all their struggles? Whatever is good and bad in our country are the results of hundreds of millions of struggling, choosing, striving, and planning bodies driven by heart-minds whose intentions are known only to Allah. How will God judge Abraham Lincoln, some unknown rebel soldier, and some unknown slave? Only Allah knows, but each matters to Allah because each was created by Allah. And each had a tiny effect on our country that makes it what it is today. And so will it be when people of the future look back on 2023.

The USA is only one small chunk of the Earth, and its population is approximately 3.75% of the total human population. I am completely irrelevant to Finland, and only slightly less so for the USA.

But I was created by Allah, and if you are reading this then you too were created by Allah.

And we are on the road to our destinies, and the possibility of, in Qur’anic language, “a garden as vast as the heavens and the Earth.”

What a truly wondrous thing.

One day this whole life will feel like a dream, or as the Qur’an states, “like an evening or a morning.”

I hope to see you there.

May Allah be gentle with us, yā Laṭīf!

The Cathedral of Helsinki

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Islamic Law in America: A Peer-Reviewed Academic Article

Posted in Ahl al-Bayt, Ahl al-Sunna, Capitalism, Epistemology, Spiritual Stations, The Struggle on March 5, 2023| Leave a Comment »

I distilled some of my observations on trying to live Islamic Law (sharīʿa/fiqh/al-aḥkām al-islāmī/etc.) in the United States of America into an academic article.

Some of my main points are the following:

  • Islamic law in the USA is choice, whereas American law is not. To give one of many possible examples, I am forced to pay income tax by the Federal government based on worldly threats for disobedience, but if I pay zakāt and/or khums it is purely voluntary.
  • Muslims in the USA do not reflect very much on the myriad ways in which they accept the legal and economic foundations of daily life, which I have termed the “civic.” Only occasionally does an issue arise that causes Muslims to question the civic. A good example is the ubiquity of interest (ribā) in home financing, which has given rise to an entire industry of sharia-compliant home finance products. But most of the rest of the legal structure of American real estate law is completely ignored.
  • Muslims in the USA do not have the ability to force non-Muslims to do anything based on Islamic law. The Islamophobic notion of “creeping sharia” is ridiculous when the truth is that American religious freedom means that any Muslim in the USA can renounce Islam altogether at any given moment.
  • Muslims in the USA are default capitalists, because they are consumers and producers in the world’s pre-eminent capitalist economy. Unlike a mid-20th century theorist like Bāqir al-Ṣadr, who could actually contemplate how to deal with the encroachment of USA-led Capitalist models and USSR-led Marxist models on Iraqi society, 21st century American Muslims are already participants in a system not of their own creation and in which they have minimal agency.
  • If all of this is true, then Islamic ethics in the USA needs to begin to develop a more robust engagement with and critique of American law and economics to create maximum space for Muslims to live their sharīʿa convictions to the fullest extent possible.

If you would like to read the entire article, it is available both online and in pdf format:

One Out of Many: The Civic and Religious in American Muslim Life (Religions 2023, 14(2), 170)

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Am I a Muslim?

Posted in Adhkar, Epistemology, Family, Spiritual Stations, The Struggle on February 14, 2023| Leave a Comment »

What is Muslim about me?

That I have a beard?

That I cover my ʿawra (that area of the body deemed “private” by Islamic law)?

Sure, that’s important. But what else?

Is it because I have eyes?

أَلَمۡ نَجۡعَل لَّهُۥ عَیۡنَیۡنِ

“Did we not make for him two eyes?!” (Qurʾān 90:8)

Fingertips?

بَلَىٰ قَـٰدِرِینَ عَلَىٰۤ أَن نُّسَوِّیَ بَنَانَهُ

“In fact, We can reshape his very fingertips!” (75.4)

Hearing?

وَٱللَّهُ أَخْرَجَكُم مِّنۢ بُطُونِ أُمَّهَـٰتِكُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ شَيْـًۭٔا وَجَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلسَّمْعَ وَٱلْأَبْصَـٰرَ وَٱلْأَفْـِٔدَةَ ۙ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَشْكُرُونَ

“And Allah brought you out of the wombs of your mothers while you knew nothing, and gave you hearing, sight, and intellect so perhaps you would be thankful.” (16.78)

Is not my very being itself Muslim?

Does not the time in which I exist belong to Allah?

Was not the place on which I stand fashioned by Allah?

Is not every atom in my body controlled by Allah?

I did not make myself.

I did not make this world in which I exist.

My existence is submission to the Lord of all that is.

Voluntary actions like not drinking alcohol, obeying my parents, and facing Makkah 5 times a day in al-ṣalāt (ritual prayer) are how I try to remember that.

Perhaps your day was spent in a large masjid surrounded by thousands of Muslims. The day this picture was taken I was spending two weeks in a gated American community for almost exclusively White Christians. It is the life that Allah has decreed for me. Please make a du’a for me, for it is not always easy.

May Allah forgive our sins, accept our voluntary actions done in conformity to the sharīʿah (sacred law) of the Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه و آله و سلم, and raise us up amongst martyrs, the truthful, the righteous and the prophets, āmīn!

وَمَن يُطِعِ ٱللَّهَ وَٱلرَّسُولَ فَأُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ مَعَ ٱلَّذِينَ أَنْعَمَ ٱللَّهُ عَلَيْهِم مِّنَ ٱلنَّبِيِّـۧنَ وَٱلصِّدِّيقِينَ وَٱلشُّهَدَآءِ وَٱلصَّـٰلِحِينَ ۚ وَحَسُنَ أُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ رَفِيقًۭا

“Those who obey Allah and the Messenger are with those whom Allah has blessed, namely, the prophets, the truthful, the martyrs and the righteous. And excellent are they as companions.” (4.69)

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another american day

Posted in Adhkar, Capitalism, Epistemology, Family, Layla, Other Religions, Spiritual Stations, The Struggle on November 15, 2022| 1 Comment »

I spend every day as an American the same way I spend every other day.

With the choice to obey God or not.

With the choice to believe in God or not.

With the choice to believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins or not.

With the choice to believe whether Muhammad is a Messenger from God or not.

With the choice to believe whether Krishna is waiting for me in Goloka Vrindavan or not.

With the choice to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster or not.

With the choice to believe that the world is flat and George Soros has funded the Great Reset and Q has exposed the Clintons or not.

Whether this is better or worse than the daily reality of other countries is a moot point, because if I truly believed that somewhere was better for me, then wouldn’t I be obliged to move my family there for the sake of Allah (like the Sufi Auntie who gave me the unsolicited advice to move my family to Istanbul and everything would take care of itself)?

America is my country by God’s Decree. God could have created me in the womb of a woman in Botswana or Indonesia, but that was not God’s choice.

I am simply trying to be where God has established me (كن حيث أقامك الله).

Over the years I have learned a lot from studying about and visiting Saudi, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, India, Kuwait, Turkey, Bangladesh, Spain, France, Iraq, Kenya, UK, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Sweden, Syria and Norway. There are places I have yet to visit that I believe it is important for me to learn more about, such as Iran, Vietnam, Afghanistan, South Korea, Chile, Japan, China, Philippines, Bahrain, Lebanon, Russia, Peru, and Brazil.

But none of them are my country.

I understand this sort of connection to a nation is not how some feel, but it is how I feel. It is my daily reality.

Islamic law is just another choice I face every day, and I choose to follow the best of what I have found, and that currently means I am a muqallid of Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Taqi al-Modarressi of Karbala. In that choice, I am in solidarity with other Americans, Britishers, South Africans, Iraqis and more.

But I can always change my mind. I used to be a Hanafi, and then a Maliki, and now I am a Ja’fari. With each choice, I feel I have moved closer to what God wants from me. But only God knows and only God can judge. May Allah accept from me the deeds I have done trying to be in conformity to Allah’s laws, ameen.

Life is a journey, and if there is anything I have learned, it is to expect the unexpected. I believe Allah constantly tests the sincerity of my belief, often in ways I never foresaw, and I have found Qur’anic proofs for that, such

“Do people think once they say, ‘We believe,’ that they will be left without being put to the test? We certainly tested those before them. And Allah will clearly distinguish between those who are truthful and those who are liars.” (29.2-3)

Whether or not you believe that about yourself is up to you to decide. May Allah make me from the truthful (الصادقون), ameen.

I share this because this is my reality. Every post you have ever read from me has been articulated against this socio-political backdrop. I recognize now very few of my readers share this experience, and often my readers expect me to articulate positions that mirror their realities. But I can’t do that. All I can do is be sensitive to the realities of others, and then act accordingly from the point in space and time in which I exist.

But it is also important that my readers are sensitive to my reality, and the inescapable conclusion that faith/belief/knowledge has always been a choice for me. No one put a Qur’an in my hand and said, “believe or perish!” I chose to read the Qur’an with my own freedom, to determine if I believed that God had spoken to humanity or not. At the same time I was first reading the Qur’an, I was reading the Baha’i scriptures for the same reason.

“Whenever Our Revelation is recited to them they say, ‘We have heard all this before – we could say something like this if we wanted – this is nothing but ancient fables.’ They also said, ‘God, if this really is the truth from You, then rain stones on us from the heavens, or send us some other painful punishment.’ But God would not send them punishment while you [Prophet] are in their midst, nor would He punish them if they sought forgiveness.” (8.31-3)

And so every day I invoke blessings upon the Prophet and seek forgiveness:

أستغفر الله وأتوب إليه

اللهم صل على محمد وآل محمد

It is my choice and my tongue, and I try to use it for the sake of the One who gave it me.

Not for my parents, whom I love dearly.

Not for my country, which is a part of me.

But for my Creator (الخالق), the One who made my existence possible (المحيي), the One from whom I seek benefit (النافع), the One in whom I seek protection from harm (الضآر), the One in whom I hope to the utmost extents of hope (الوهاب), the One who I fear more than coming to the end of my own existence (الجبار).

May my Lord accept from me, āmīn.

a book published 90 years ago about our family’s first 300 years in North America

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