Posted in Family, Spiritual Stations, The Struggle on May 6, 2024| Leave a Comment »
this journey seems long
but it has an end
after years of struggle
we will meet the Friend
الله
sadness and toil
will seem like a dream
where once there was loss
alive will be Reem
الله
may Amu Khaled
hold her again in his arms
as the light goes out
on this world’s charms
الله
for our Creator has promised
those who plant the seed
at the end of our lives
will be eternal Eid
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
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
Posted in Ahl al-Bayt, Family, Layla, Spiritual Stations, The Struggle on July 18, 2023| Leave a Comment »
a bit of arm here
some blood over there
strewn across the battlefield
is God amongst the broken things
we build and build
homes and marriages and companies and machines and books
but they all have a shelf life
they all expire
everything always falls apart
we cannot resist the rising tide
that swallows our constructions whole
until all that is left
are the bits and pieces and traces and vestiges
of what once was
torn apart
by reality
and yet
in the brokenness
she saw beauty
for God is there too
and all the intentions of woman and man
remain
waiting for a Day
when our stories will finally be told
by the only One who saw it all
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
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)
Posted in Ahl al-Bayt, Family, Spiritual Stations, The Struggle on November 17, 2022| Leave a Comment »
It was a long and difficult day, as I am sure it was for many.
It was the first day in my life that the news said a Shi’i Muslim American was killed by a Sunni Muslim American because he was Shi’i. Whatever the outcome of this specific court case, it was the perception that mattered. The feeling that the bloodshed that happens so regularly in Pakistan, Nigeria, Saudi, and other nations far away has finally crossed the Atlantic.
I did not tell my son about any of it.
Right before he fell asleep, he said he wanted to tell me something.
Usually, I would say, “no, it’s time to go sleep.”
But for some reason I didn’t.
He started telling me about this story he heard at school, about a fish that granted wishes. Since he was so tired, he wasn’t telling it in a way that was clear. Again, normally I would just let him trail off and say something like, “interesting,” until he fully passed out. But this time, for some unknown reason, I started asking him questions to clarify what he was trying to say. Eventually it became clear that it was a story with a moral not to be greedy with your wishes. And I thought that was it, and he would go to sleep.
But then he said, “Abba, so I thought about what I would do if I had 3 wishes.”
“Oh, what are they,” I said.
“I would wish to go back in time 1400 years, be 40 years old, and fight for Imam Husayn.”
Yes, my son, I wish that too.
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
Posted in Family, Layla, Spiritual Stations, The Struggle on September 20, 2022| 1 Comment »
Marry one Muslim woman.
Try to make her happy.
Have kids.
Try to be a good father.
Serve your parents and your wife’s parents if they are still alive. Also honor all the aunts/uncles/cousins on your side and your wife’s side, so that you are a source of benefit to both extended families.
Do what is obligatory (farḍ/wājib).
Avoid what is forbidden (ḥarām).
If you have any energy and time left over after doing all this consistently, maybe do some extra fasting (ṣawm), or memorize some more Qurʾān, or pray the recommended night prayer (ṣalāt al-layl), or if you have extra wealth give recommended charity (ṣadaqa) to the best organizations you can find.
It’s not that complicated.
But it isn’t easy.
This is your struggle (jihād).
الله
“The best of you is the one who is best to their family, and I am the best of all to my family.”
Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ
Posted in Ahl al-Bayt, Family, The Struggle, Uncategorized on August 3, 2022| Leave a Comment »
ya Husayn
my baby is asleep
the night is quiet
a little warm
but there is no thirst here
blessing upon blessing
uncountable
my mind wanders to desert sands
burning and pain
tears and longing
how history treated you differently
there was no quiet for rest
there was where innocence was lost
the young who witnessed the slaughter
had no earthly hope for redress
trauma met only with certainty
tribulation met only with perseverance
i can only hope that my children
use their comfort and ease
to light Husayni fires
and invite all to share
in the light and warmth
you have given us
the undying hope
that dispels all darkness
ya Husayn
Posted in Ahl al-Bayt, Family, Other Religions, Spiritual Stations, The Struggle on May 23, 2022| Leave a Comment »
i thought i had something then
but i didn’t have you
i thought i was something then
but where were you
our Lord’s Mercy made it possible
so i could enjoy for many years
the hero of my own story
then i was told of Karbala
and my heroics were washed away
in blood and tears
nothing but a child i was
lost in his own fantasy world
dreaming of courage and insight
better to be nothing more
than a dying body riddled with arrows
to keep you safe
noble grandson of humanity’s peak
blessings and peace upon you both
A Mercy Case 