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Archive for the ‘Spiritual Stations’ Category

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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Shahāda/’Urs: whether happy or sad, i choose You

Posted in Layla, Spiritual Stations, The Struggle on January 8, 2023| Leave a Comment »

yā Laylā

i saw You dancing one day

in Chandni Chowk

and i was never the same again

i knew my father would not approve

You are not important to his business

his culture

his family

his empire

but i didn’t care

because i loved You

the kind of love that keeps one up late at night, burning for connection

and so when push came to shove

we were married

in a ceremony unattended by those from my world

and we had to go far away from where i came from so we could discover deeper levels of our love and commitment to each other

because i chose You

and i would do it all over again

and rededicate my life once more to making You happy

because i can never forget You dancing in Chandni Chowk

for You were the most beautiful

and always will be

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preserving a memory

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.

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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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On Anthony Bourdain

Posted in Capitalism, Epistemology, Layla, Spiritual Stations, The Struggle on October 29, 2022| 1 Comment »

Like many people, I enjoyed watching the shows of Anthony Bourdain. I can’t speak for others, but for me, I lived vicariously through his adventures. It would be nice to travel that much, and see the world Allah has created, and all of its people. It is not that I wasn’t blessed to have that possibility, but rather that I chose to focus on other things. But he was a reminder that, “dear humanity, we most certainly created all of you from a single male and a single female, and made you into peoples and tribes so that you may know one another.”

A darker side of me, left over from my days before Islam, subtly wished I could just eat and drink anything like he did. If a people’s food represents something of themselves, he was willing to try almost anything, and thus experience all of what humanity had to offer. I had been that way before Islam, but Islam put a number of restrictions on that process that I sometimes struggled to embrace. Late at night, when I was tired from another day of struggling to address my spiritual wounds, it was fun to fantasize about having “no reservations.”

And so I, like many others, was shocked and hurt by his suicide. How could someone who lived such an interesting life, who was appreciated by so many around the world, take his own life?! For a long time, it didn’t make any sense to me. From what I have read, it seemed that his search for something higher, as expressed through deep love for another human being, fell apart and the pain was just too much to bear.

In a way, the pre-Islamic version of myself feels like it can intuit what he was going through. Perhaps he really felt there was nothing left to live for – he had already done everything he could think to do, and the one thing that filled his heart with joy was being ripped away and there was no hope left and no refuge. But the version of my self that has been shaped by Islam recoils in horror at such a worldview, and thinks of the Qur’an stating, “and the Earth, despite its vastness, seemed to close in on you.”

I am reminded of him now, and my private grappling with his death for the last 4 years, after reading this passage tonight:

“The heart of a believer is like a garden. A believer has to face material difficulties in the world. But he is not aggrieved of these problems. These thorns only prick the body and are confined within the boundaries of the garden. However, the garden of the heart has no place for these thorns. Even in this material world the soul of the believer is safe from all calamities. ‘for such there shall be safety, and they are the rightly guided.‘

The sole desire of a believer in this world is that his Lord should be pleased with him. Such a person does not despair due to failures and material setbacks. He considers only Allah as his guardian and the guardian of others. He recognizes the power, wisdom and mercy of Allah. He considers Allah his Master and considers himself His slave. ‘That is because Allah is the Protector of those who believe, and because the unbelievers shall have no protector for them.’

Thus a believer does not become sorrowful and aggrieved by the difficulties of this worldly life. They do not even make him angry. Allah keeps the hearts of the believer peaceful in this world also. ‘He it is Who sent down tranquility into the hearts of the believers.’

A believer always faces adversity with determination. He does not stumble, nor do his feet tremble. He does not fall down on this path. He knows that behind every calamity is hidden wisdom and he alone shall be eligible for the benefit of this hidden wisdom. All that he hopes from Allah is that He removes this difficulty or in this way recompenses it so that even the physical pain does not remain for him. ‘If you suffer pain, then surely they too suffer pain as you suffer pain, yet you hope from Allah that which they do not hope in.’

That is, you hope for salvation from problems, forgiveness and rewards, but the unbelievers have no such hopes. They remain forever in the darkness of hopelessness.”

I suggest listening to the recitation of each verse, available through the links. It reached my heart, and it reminded me of how much hope Islam gives me in the face of so much sorrow on this Earth, even from the sorrows that have nothing to do with war, disease, poverty, and oppression.

This hope doesn’t erase the sadness I feel when I think about Anthony Bourdain, but it does clarify why I never took him as a role model. And more than that, it makes me realize that Islam can address the realities of all Americans. The person I was becoming before I became a Muslim was more like Anthony Bourdain than Malcolm X. In fact, with the exception of Islam, I identify far more with Anthony Bourdain than I do with Malcolm X. I was never in an actual prison, needing redemption. I didn’t grow up facing structural oppression that limited my life choices. I was, like so many other White American men, in the prison of my own self, in what another White American Male suicide David Foster Wallace calls a “tiny skull-sized kingdom, alone at the center of all creation.” And it was there that I heard the call of a caller calling towards faith in a Garden whose expanse is vaster than both the heavens and the Earth, and that has made all the difference.

So when all is said and done, thank You God for sending me the Qur’an to guide me out of darknesses and into light, and please provide hope to all those whose hearts feel heavy when they think of Anthony Bourdain.

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Advice for Muslim Men

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

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Hail, Maryam

Posted in Adhkar, Ahl al-Bayt, Other Religions, Spiritual Stations on June 20, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Hail, Maryam, full of grace,

peace be upon thee.

Blessed art thou amongst women

and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, ʿĪsā.

Holy Maryam, Servant of God,

pray for us sinners,

now and at the hour of our death,

ameen.

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growing up

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

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my dear friends

Posted in Epistemology, Spiritual Stations, The Struggle on May 12, 2022| Leave a Comment »

my dear friends

seth, usama, sohaib

where are you now

what is life like for you

we are still here on earth

and your names still cross our lips

and i can still see your faces

in my minds eye

but i feel so distant from you

i cannot hear you

i cannot see you standing over there

i cannot put my arms around you

so that we can embrace

as we once did

there is no body left for you

that i can perceive

and so i type these words onto the screen

and i hope you just received

the Fātiḥa and Āyat al-Kursī I sent

as a gift

we are still debating and building and giving

worshipping our Lord in community

deeds without recompense

but you are where

there is only recompense and no deeds

so i hope your past deeds give you comfort there

but i also hope my gifts make a difference

and the day that i enter the world where you are

i will know

just as you have known

what i did right and what i did wrong

but you must know now more than you ever did before

and so it would be great if you could come teach me

a little bit about what you have learned

i learned from all of you while you were alive

it would be great to learn from you again

now that you are dead

for Allah is al-Mumīt

and Azrael has scheduled my appointment

so if you can

beseech our Lord

to help me make the most of the time i have left

i would deeply appreciate it

love you all

see you soon

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