As they say, all good things must come to
an end, but I don't want to think of it as an end.
It's an intermission until our paths cross again. Again, thank you, for being a
faithful tribe. As the students like to say. you rock.
Now, tonight--Oh, tonight. Our task is a huge one, and I'm glad that
we have had these last couple of months to get ready for it, because we talked
about the necessity, the crucial necessity for being open-minded in all
things, really, but particularly when it comes to religion, because religion so
often involves very strong feelings. It is set in a history of relationships
between people and cultures and governments, and I think, this evening,
that will be more important than it has been with any other religious tradition,
because tonight we need to talk about Islam. Now, since 9/11, the topic of Islam
has been a rather controversial topic. Would you agree with me about that? Yes.
And, to this day, it is controversial, right? I mean, there is an ongoing... "debate" would be a kind word for it... about the proposed community center / mosque at or near Ground Zero in New York City, right? If you have followed that at all, you
have heard a lot of people saying a lot of things about Islam. Some of those
things have been, shall we say, more educate than others, right? You don't have to look far to see controversy in this country
about the religion of Islam. If you are not already, would you imagine for a
moment, what it must be like to be Muslim in this country? What it must have been
like on 9/11, not to mention 9/12, 9/13? Oh yes, oh yes, absolutely crucial that we
remain open-minded, right? Let us approach this religious tradition in the same
spirit of openness that we have attempted to approach every single one
of the others. Are you with me? I thought you might be. See "faithful tribe" above.
Yes. First question: the Arab peoples-- first of all, not all Arabs are Muslim,
not all Muslims are Arab, right? Not all Arab countries are Muslim. In almost
every Muslim country, there are Jews, there are Christians, often Hindus, members of other religious traditions. But when we talk about the Arab peoples, to whom
do they trace their ancestry? Because there's a familiar name, there's a
familiar name from a couple of weeks ago: Abraham. Now, who can help us remember
that story? How is it that the Arabs-- We know that the Jews trace their lineage
to Abraham through the son of Abraham and his wife Sarah, Isaac, right? What
about for the Arabs, do we know? Ishmael. Now, where Ishmael come into the picture? Mm-hmm.
Common practice in the ancient world, even today, you know, there's adoption.
Here's the thing. Abraham and Sarah were elderly and could not conceive
children. As the Jewish Christian scriptures put it, because Sarah was
barren. This is millennia before Viagra, people.
Do you think, if Sarah and her sisters had written that story, that it might
have gone a little differently? Do you think maybe so? Okay. Not being facetious
here, right, it's important to look at it through the lens of gender. Well, they
can't have kids, so what do they do, they bring--again, common practice--they bring
in Hagar. That's not Sammy Hagar, for you rock and roll fans, okay.
They bring in Hagar who is a "handmaiden" for Sarah, and she and Abraham conceive a
child, Ishmael. Which means, interestingly enough, that the promises that God made
to Abraham, if they are passed on in the way that was accepted in those days, they
go to the firstborn son, so, right? Hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm. Right, exactly, if it was a male child, if it was a male child. And then, of course, Abraham and
Sarah miraculously have a child, Isaac, right?
At which point there's some domestic squabbling going on, right? Sarah becomes
jealous--as the story goes--of Hagar and her son Ishmael, and they are cast out,
which, in those days, in that climatic environment, was basically a death
sentence. And so the miracles continue, right? Ishmael and Hagar managed to survive, and Ishmael goes on to father, if you will,
the Arab peoples. Now, I want us to think about this for a moment because it seems
to me that in both Christianity and, especially, in Judaism, it is very
important that they trace their lineage to Abraham, right? And, in spite of so much
of the history between those two religious traditions, right, and we have
seen they haven't always gotten along, right, the Christians in the Jews, that is
such a point of commonality, is it not? I mean, it's like having the same
great-great-great-great-great grandpa. Well, here it is, Islam, which grows
out of the Arabic peoples. Same roots! Commonality, commonality. Jews, Christians, Muslims--so much in common. Now, you wouldn't know that to hear a lot of the
rhetoric that goes around. But if you look at the history, however mythological
it might be, you can see that there is already a basis to build on. There's
already a basis to build on. Who is considered to be the historical founder
of the religion of Islam? Muhammad, okay, and let me point this out it might not
be necessary, but just in case, the religion is called, Islam the followers
are called Muslims, so don't call them Islams. Don't do that, okay, that would
not be right. It pops up in a student paper from time to time. [laughs] Mohammed. Born sometime in the 6th
century, now, you remember we talked about a first axial age, when all those major
figures were born in the 6th century BCE? That's not, this is not the same
century, okay, this is the 6th century CE, which makes Islam the youngest of these
major religious traditions. And he's born in Arabia, right? And he is born into a--
very common--a polytheistic environment. A polytheistic environment, right? And that
is how he is raised, that is the understanding he comes to in the world.
He eventually becomes a merchant living in the city of Mecca, which, even to this
day, is a major city, right, very cosmopolitan in its own way. And even
then, especially then, right, traders, merchants, were passing through, right, and you can tell, if you read Muhammad's teachings, that he is very familiar with
Judaism and Christianity. Again, commonality, commonality, right? In fact,
he seems to be much more cognizant of the teachings of Christianity and
Judaism then is true for most Jews and Christians about the teachings of Islam.
Now, we're going to try to straighten that out today, but. You can tell that
he is influenced by these two religious traditions, which are monotheistic,
right? What's are monotheistic. Though, you know, some would be a little
skeptical about whether or not Christianity is truly monotheistic, that
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit thing, right, but that's a conversation for another
time. Part of what I'm getting at here is that
Muhammad, the Quran, that the scriptures of Islam did not just drop
out of the sky in the whole cloth, as it were.
They come from somewhere. Every religious tradition comes from somewhere. You look
at Buddha, you look at Jesus, you look at any of these major religious figures, they
have a history, they have a social context, right? And you see it here as well, and I
think that's very important too. Understand, now, there are a few parallels
between the life of Mohammed and the life of Siddhartha Gautama, who
eventually became the Buddha, right? It seems that in his 30s, I don't know what
it is about that decade, in his 30s he had something of a religious crisis, and
so he goes off into the desert and begins to hang out in a cave where he's
praying, meditating, again, there's that classic shamanic move where
you go away from the tribe, added to the wilderness, where you collect the truth,
right? The medicines, whatever it is that your tribal people need, and you bring
them back. While he's there, he has a vision, and quite frankly, he wondered a
little bit about his sanity. Come to find out, his understanding is that an
angel of God had spoken to him, and brought him a special revelation, a
special revelation. He begins teaching this revelation, his disciples write it
down, that is how we come to have the Quran, and if you look at those teachings,
if you look at those teachings as an outsider, you will see that Muhammad is
an apocalypticist. What does the term apocalypse mean? The end of time, right? The end of time,
and Mohammed, if you read his teachings, right, believed that the world was coming
to an end soon, and very soon. Do you know any other major religious figures who
talked pretty much the same thing? Well, John, but where did John get it, from
Jesus, right? And where did Jesus get it? From his religious background, right?
Again, commonality, commonality. The world is coming to an end. Let me read a
portion of the Quran "When the Sun shall be darkened, when the Stars shall be
thrown down, when the mountains shall be set moving, when the pregnant camels
shall be neglected, when the savage beasts shall be gathered, when the seas
shall be set bawling, when the souls shall be coupled, when the buried infants
shall be asked for what sins she was slain, when the scroll shall be unrolled,
when heaven shall be stripped off, when Hell shall be set blazing, when paradise
shall be brought nigh, then shall a soul know what it has produced. I told you, I'm
a recovering the Baptist preacher. Thank you, nobody does hell fire and
brimstone quite like the Muslims, but I will say that the Christians
give them a good run for their money. One difference between, not so much the
teachings of Jesus and Muhammad, but their approach to teaching, to preaching
especially, is that Muhammad seems to have preached ecstatically, he would be
in a trance, right? it's as if he were possessed by the Spirit of God, right? And
Muslims will tell you it really was not just Muhammad speaking, it was Allah
speaking through him, right? Jesus, as far as we can tell from what we have, was not
a mystic, if you will, not a mystic. In this tradition, though it has been
suppressed throughout Muslim history, this mystical tradition, still survives
today in the form of Sufism, and I hope that we get to come back around to
Sufism at the end, if we have time today. I'm going to need to skip over some
history here, okay, what do we know about Islam?
What would you say is the most important teaching of Islam? Thank you, that was almost a direct quote.
That was almost a direct quote from the Quran: "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His prophet. There is no god
but Allah, and Muhammad is His Prophet." That is a statement, a central statement
of faith ,in this religious tradition not unlike, for the Jews, "the Lord our God is
one Lord," right? For the Christians, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker
of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ His, only Son our Lord, and the Holy
Spirit," right? Central, and I want you to think about that for a moment. There is
no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His Prophet. And I want you to think about
the circles we've been talking about every week. I would suggest to you these
are the separate circles, right, not the concentric circles, right? Allah is above
all, he enters into history, right, and in this case he has stepped into history to
speak through Muhammad. For the Muslims, God did the same thing through Jesus. For
the Muslims, Jesus is considered to be a great
prophet of God. Commonality. Elijah, Moses, that long line of great Jewish prophets,
for the Muslims, yes, speaking the truth of God, right? Each generation bringing a
newer revelation a fuller revelation of God, right?
And then there's Muhammad, who is considered by Muslims to be the the seal, S-E-A-L, the seal of the prophets. In other words, he has brought the fullest
revelation of the divine. Here's where I have to stop for a moment,
as an outsider, and ask what I asked last week, the last time we were together. Has
the revelation of the Divine been sealed? Do we indeed have the fullest revelation
of the divine, 1,300 years ago? Might there be more? Perhaps even more to come?
I wonder if this is not a human thing. Part of it is that competitive spirit
among humans, "We got the best," right? "We got the newest, we got the latest," But
also, the divine, if we go back to that very first week, okay,
I'll remind you of that term, "mysterium, tremendum, and fascinosum," right? "The
mystery that is tremendous," right? That is so much bigger than we are, and yet
endlessly fascinating. God is scary, or certainly can be. And I think that may be
one reason why at least some within each religious tradition want to put
that God in a box, so that it's not so scary, right? So that we feel like maybe
we have a little bit of control, and we aren't just so vulnerable, right? So
utterly vulnerable. I don't know, but I wonder. God is God Muhammad is His Prophet.
No good Muslim would ever claim that a man can be God, just like the Jews, 'course
a human cannot be a god! No! Christians, well, one exception to the
rule, one exception to the rule, right? Yeah. And that is how, for Christians,
those circles are rejoined, through the god-man, alright? That's the gateway. For
the Jews, you have to follow the teachings of Moses, that is how you
return to the Garden of Eden, as it were, that intimacy with the divine. And
similarly, for the Muslims, you follow the teachings of the Quran, and that puts you
back in touch. It seals the the wound, if you will, the wounded relationship
between the divine and humans. There are, among Muslims some who consider to be--
many, actually--who consider the Quran to be the perfect, inerrant,
mistake-free Word of God, absolutely without error. There are some Christians
who claim the same for the Bible, right? There are some Jews who would claim the
same for their own scriptures. As a believer I--When I look at these
believers, let me put it that way, when I look at these believers, I have to
respect that. I have to respect that, right? in fact, it has a beauty to it, and I remember when I myself believed the same thing. Oh, what a comfort! What certainty, what
authority, right? I get it, I get, again, it's that need, we
you know, we live in a world where we were vulnerable, where truth is so
difficult, and if you don't believe me watch a session on c-span of Congress,
okay? [laughs] Or sit in a courtroom, just sit in a courtroom, oh where's the truth, right?
Where is the truth, so squiggly and squirmy. If you step
outside this religious tradition, or any of the others, that teaching about the
inerrancy of Scripture becomes problematic. It becomes problematic. I
attempted to look at in some detail at the Gospels last week, you can do the
same with the Quran, Muslim scholarship is beginning to catch up, it hasn't been
going on as long, this kind of objective study of the religious tradition, quite
as long as it has with Christianity and Judaism, many of the same findings occur.
Again, it's one thing to be inside a religious tradition, right? Looking out,
and another one all together to be on the outside looking in. But again, see, to
me, a part of the conversation that needs to take place, and not everyone agrees,
but to me this is crucial, whether you are inside or outside, I
think you have to do your best to understand the other side, and, in fact, I
would suggest that it is only when you can step into those shoes, right, that you
really fully own your own position, whether it be inside or outside. And I
say that as one who, with Christianity, I am both, right? One shoe is Christian and
the other one is, what, right? That other thing, that person standing on the
outside of the church, looking through the stained-glass window, right? And
there's, it feels a little schizophrenic, sometimes, but, oh! The understanding that it has
opened up to me, right, both insiders and outsiders, not just in the Christian
tradition, but in others, and in my classroom, and in public life, I see time
and time again conversations shipwrecked, right, by this inability to
step outside one's perspective to think critically about one's beliefs, right?
Whether that is a heartfelt belief in religion or a heartfelt belief in
science, right? And it's not just the conversation that gets shipwrecked. There
are consequences in public life, and again, if you look at the major political
and military struggles in the world today, you will always find a strand
of religion in what is going on, right? But not just a strand of religion, but a
river of misunderstanding, of misunderstanding. And maybe I have too
rosy-eyed of a view of humans, you know, I don't believe humans are
basically evil, I just don't, you know? Call me a hippie, but there it is, and the
longer I live on this planet, more and more I see that it's not that people are
bad or mean, so often it's simply that they are short-sighted. We can't see past
the end of our own noses. We don't we don't recognize the consequences of our
actions, and I think that it's why these prophets are such hugely important
figures in the religious traditions, because they stood in front their people
and they said, if you keep doing what you're doing, right, look farther down the
road, you're screwing up. This will come back to bite, you this will come
back to bite you. And again, I brought this up earlier, when I think about
the days, weeks, months, and years after 9/11, when that war fever gripped this
country, not the first time I've seen it, pray God it's the last, right. Some revenge,
man, we want some revenge! Somebody's gotta pay, right, we've been
hurt, we've been hurt. Just knowing what was coming, knowing what was coming, and not a thing I could do to stop it. O,h young people are going to die,
civilians by their thousands are going to die! And, at least in part, because of
shortsightedness, because we can't see farther down the road, that to injure
another only injures ourselves, to return injury when we have been injured only, it
just turns to that karma wheel again, and again, and agai,n and again, and again. When will we ever learn? When we will we ever learn? Oh. Well, let's talk a little bit
about Muslim doctrine, the basic beliefs, right, the basic beliefs. They're known as
the five pillars, now, that's not the "pillars" you lay there, you lay your head
on at night to go to sleep, okay, that's not that--that's not, no, that's a pillow--
the five pillars, what is a pillar? P-I-L-L-A-R. A supporting pole, right, you see them
out in front of the building, right, oh yeah. The five pillars, right, the five
things that hold up this religious tradition. The very first one we've
already spoken about, it's called the Creed. Let me give it a shot in Arabic,
okay, let me just give it a shot, okay, work with me and hope I don't embarrass
myself too bad. "la ilaha illa Allah Muhammad Rasul Allah." There is no god but God and Muhammad is His Prophet." A straight-up confession of faith that
expresses so much. That is the peephole through which you can see this entire
religious tradition, their understanding, right, their construction, if you will, of
the world. The second of the five pillars is prayer. How many times a day do
Muslims pray? Devout Muslims, I should say. There are some Muslims who are not very
good, right, just like there are some Jews that aren't really, you know, that devout.
Some Christians as well, right. Now, but devout Muslims pray five times a day in Muslim countries, oftentimes. Now, it varies from country to country, right,
just like if you look at Christianity on a map, some Christians are going to be
much more about in terms of the entire, um, the majority, the larger and larger
majority of the populace, but in in devoutly Muslim countries, I mean things
pretty much come to a stop. And have you ever heard the call to prayer from the
minarets of mosques? Oh! Oh, if you don't appreciate anything else about Islam,
give that a listen. You find on YouTube. Oh, some of it, it's just, it's so--it is, in
its own way, as haunting as the Gregorian Chants of medieval Christianity, right? Or those marvelous songs that our Jewish brothers
and sisters are singing today, on the day of remembers the Holocaust. Five times a day. I heard a Muslim say
once that we pray at those moments when nature calls our name. We pray at those
moments when nature calls our name. Yeah, you're going through the day, and aren't
there certain points in the day when nature, like, "Hey!" [knocks] Right? How many photographs of sun-ups have you seen, right? A beautiful dawn like "Wow!"
all right, that's one of those times. That's one of those times. Same with sunset, oh, that's nature saying "Hey, whatever you're doing, pause a moment," right, "put down
your cellphone. Look, listen," right? I think that is, that is beautiful. Okay, let me give you an example of a
prayer, a Muslim prayer, okay? It actually I think you'll agree it reads a little
bit like Lord's Prayer or it is like "The praise belongs to God, the Lord of all
being, the all-merciful the all-compassionate, the master of the day
of doom." Did you catch that? "To thet only we serve, to thee alone we pray for comfort,
guide us in the straight path, the path of those whom thou has blessed, not of
those against whom thou art wrathful, nor of those who are astray." That reads a lot
like a Christian or a Jewish prayer I have to tell you, and in part it is
because of the way that they view the world and its relationship with the
divine, right? God's here, we're here, God is righteous, we are not, right? The world
is black and white, either you are in the straight path or you are wandering
astray, right? Either God is blessing you, or woe unto thee, right? Very black and
white, this or that, right? Where's the grey area? Well, not here. Okay. The third
of the five pillars is alms--alms for the poor, right, basically we, you know, we think of it as charity, charity. Originally, I think,
originally it was known as a loan to Allah, which I like a lot, right? Hey, buddy
could you spare a dime? Or ten percent, as the case may be. And it varies from
country to country, and situation to situation, oftentimes it's a tax that is
levied, but basically it boils down to this: And when you see the real urge here, it's, it's just something I wish that
every human practiced, right? It boils down to this: if you have, you give, and if you don't, you receive. It's that simple. Work it out however you want, I mean, come on, come on, I think we could learn something here. If you have, you share, right? You share. And if you don't, somebody's gonna share with you.
Somebody's gonna shoot with you. I mean, that's it's not just religious, as far as
I'm concerned, that's just basic humanity, right? It's just human. Now,
fasting is the fourth pillar. Fasting. Particularly during the month of Ramadan,
right? That is the month in which Muhammad received the first of his
revelations from God. Now, during what month of our calendar
does Ramadan fall every year? Exactly. We're on the lunar calendar,
they're on the s--No, we're on the solar calendar, Muslims are on the lunar
calendar, right? So Ramadan is going to fall in a different month
each year, it varies year to year. It is a month not unlike the season of Lent,
right? Where you go without, as a way of, not, you know, not to punish yourself, not punishment for punishment sake, but to help you understand better, and perhaps
appreciate better, what it is that you have. You basically go throughout the day
without eating, right? And come evening you're going to eat just enough to get
you through the next day, right? And again, it depends on where you are, and the Muslims that you are with, as to how strictly this is observed, right? And I would
suggest that in Islam, as in the other religious traditions, the more urban the
area is where you find this religious tradition, the more liberal it will be,
the less conservative. The farther out into rural areas you go, the more
conservative folks tend to be, yeah. And again, not 100% the case, but that's
definitely a trend, and unfortunately part of the problem in the United States
of America, particularly since 9/11, is that the Muslims to whom we have been
exposed, by and large, are not just the conservative ones, but the fundamentalist
ones, absolutely strict in their beliefs to the point where, as we have talked
about before, one loses sight of the humanity of one's fellow humans. I think
that is part of what happened on 9/11, right? I think it is. And unfortunately I
would suggest that some of our response as a nation to 9/11 was very much the
same thing, to lose sight of the humanity of another, particularly when you baptize
it in religion? Oh, you can do anything you want, because God told you to. God
told me to skin you alive. How're you gonna argue with that? He didn't really so it's all good, it's all good,. But, yeah, oh, no, you baptize your
prejudice, your hatred? No, but, again, oh, it's not just Muslims who have
fundamentalists, right? I mean, you think about some of those crazy hate groups,
right here in this country, and many of them consider themselves to be Christian,
and they'll show you in the scripture that they are doing God's holy will! Go to Israel today, and here's a minefield, literally and metaphorically,
go to Israel, and talk to some of the Jews, right? The more conservative, even
fundamentalist, Jews, right? And they will show you in the scripture that what they
are doing, that wall between them and the
Palestinians, right, it's God's will, blessed by God, and see, to me, that's
part of the problem. Because once you start talking in that kind of rhetoric,
and you have that sort of view, you, one of the things you lose, right--you gain
something--but one of the things that it seems to me you lose is the ability to
converse with other people, particularly people
who disagree. Where does that fit into the will of the divine, right? If God gave
us brains and hearts, why would we ever let anything get in the way of using
them, right? Particularly when it causes other people pain. Oh, life's too
short, and it's just too short. Well, the fifth of the five pillars is pilgrimage.
Pilgrimage. And you find this practice in pretty much every religious tradition. I
teach a course during our winter term, and you know we're big on study abroad,
it's a marvelous opportunity, one of my favorite things about Elon, to see the
effect that studying abroad has on students, because they literally step
outside their cultural bubble, right? And have a chance to look back in, and they
don't usually realize it, just like I didn't, until they get back here and
somehow it doesn't look quite the same, right? The course is about sacred space,
and I find it fascinating that people down throughout history have chosen
these--or feel like they have been chosen by these--particular places that they
consider to be sacred. I think we talked about this we when we were talking about
indigenous peoples, right? Yeah. It's a place where there's a lot of mana, right?
Where the mysterium is really strong, right. And I think we each have these,
there's that place that you want to go to, right, when you need to get yourself
together, right? You can walk into a place I don't know, I think it's one
reason why people vacation at the beach. I mean, sure, it's recreational, but one of
the reasons it's recreational is, that first time you see the ocean, you top
that last rise and there it is, I can feel myself shrink, and my problem
suddenly take on some kind of more proper perspective, I think, right? That's
the mysterium, that's the mysterium. And in a place like the Cathedral of Notre Dame,
which is really fascinating to me, because on the one level, it is a
holy shrine, but I remember the first time I went in, I don't know what I was
expecting, well, I know what I wasn't expecting, I
wasn't expecting it to be so full of people like me! [laughs] The "Tour-ons" as I
call them, right? And they're just shuffling through, and it, you know, it
might as well be, I don't know, the Smithsonian, right, huh?
"Oh, look at that, isn't that lovely?" right? And I don't know, it's just, I couldn't
get beyond that. Second time was a different story, you know, if you get
off to yourself, and get quiet, find a corner somewhere, and a particular window to look at, and that, something about that cobalt blue that you find in so many of
those windows, I don't know why, but that's the one that always gets me. But a
sacred space, nonetheless. Tomorrow, one of my students who went with us to France
over winter term is doing a presentation during our our student undergraduate
research forum on the table, the dinner table, as a sacred space for the French. Fast food? Oh, No.
Slow food? Oh, yeah, right? Is your Thanksgiving like mine? Like six hours in
the kitchen, and 20 minutes at the table, and hey let's get back to the ball game?
You know what I'm saying? It, that is so American, I didn't realize how American
it was till I saw, oh, you go to a French restaurant, and the waiters are not
staying there like "Are you gonna leave? We got more people seat." No, it's like
you're here, you know, relax, enjoy, and there's something about that, there is
something--I mean eating with other people, and I know I'm chasing a
rabbit, but this is a cool rabbit, let's go with it, okay? The very act of
sitting down. There's, talk about vulnerability, there's some vulnerability
in sharing food with another person. It tends to open things up a little bit,
right? Think about the first time you went out with your spouse, or the first
time you had dinner with them, or a meal, right? Something changes,
something changes, right? There's an intimacy, there's an intimacy, that we
lose when we're driving down the road eating a cheeseburger, right? I mean, it
has its time in its place [laughs], I've been guilty of that a time or two. But, no, no no no. And I love what the student is doing because it doesn't--just because it
doesn't fit our traditional understanding of what is religious, of
what isn't, again, think black and white, it's either that this or that, right--doesn't mean it doesn't, it can't carry some deep spiritual significance, right? And, you
know, toss in a little red wine and you really have something going, right? Yeah.
Pilgrimage. Pilgrimage. Every devout Muslim is expected, if at all possible, at
least once in their lifetime, to travel to the holy city of Mecca, right? The very
center, geographical center--there it is, for some reason, that city is so special,
right? Interestingly enough, early in the history of Islam, Muhammad did not say,
"you need to pray facing towards Mecca, you need to travel to Mecca. He said
Jerusalem. No way, Jerusalem is a holy city for a couple of other religious
traditions, isn't it? Commonality, commonality, right? Oh! That city, that city
in that volatile region could be the secret to the future. To a more peaceful
future. Because it is a city where Jews live, and
Christians live, and Muslims live, right? They do! They do. If they learn how to do
it there, why can't we learn how to do it somewhere else? And everywhere else? I mean, come on, why not. Oh, Jerusalem! And you know what the name means, right? Yeru Shalom, city of
peace, the city of peace. The city of peace. Oh, may it be so, or to say it in the
Arabic, "Inshallah," right? Inshallah. Travel to Mecca. Now, I've never been on the Hajj,
as it's called, the pilgrimage to Mecca. I'd love to go, but I'm not Muslim. I know
people who have, and to a person, they tell me it's a life-changing experience.
Have you ever seen the Spike Lee movie "The Autobiography of Malcolm X"? Or read
that book? You should see that. I mean, Denzel Washington, come on! That's enough, right? Yeah, playing Malcolm X. Malcolm X--and I don't know, speaking of the media, right--
he had a tough time of it at when he was alive. It's the 60s, it's a volatile time,
right, and he'd grown up poor, inner-city, black, and he was angry. He was angry. Judge him all you want, but if you look
at his situation, if you step into his shoes, if you step into his shoes, right,
you might understand. And I want you to think about that next time you hear a
hip-hop tune, okay? Well, he's in prison, okay, he's in prison when he meets a
Muslim. It's a particular brand of Islam, the black Muslims, right?
And he is taught--he is told, for the first time, that he is equal to any man.
Any man. Now, this is a young man who, his whole life, had been referred to by
others his "boy, boy, boy, boy." Never be a man. Never, in his life, would he be a man
under those circumstances, and here for the first time, he hears "you are equal
to any man." I think you can understand why that might appeal to him. He actually
becomes a Muslim and rises up in the ranks, right? And it's in his autobiography, and in that movie, when he goes to Mecca on the Hajj, he comes back
a different person. Now, up until this point, he is very he is a very angry
young man, especially at the white folks who had always called him and treated
him like a boy, right? He goes to the Hajj where everyone dresses alike. No
distinction between socioeconomic class, right? For the first time, he sees people
from every continent on Earth living together, eating together, in peace.
He is transformed! He is transformed. When he comes back to the United States, you
can see it in his message, his message begins to change, and it's less about
division of the races, and more about reconciliation, right? And then, of course
what happened to him? Who knows what we lost? We'll never know,
right? Because of that that ignorance, lack of understanding. Oh, oh, there it is again.
There it is again. I mentioned Sufi Muslims. Sufi Muslims, the mystical
tradition. There is a poet named Rumi, R- U-M-I. Google Rumi.
R-U-M-I. Great medieval Sufi poet. I love this guy because he's writing with
a religious sensibility but he hasn't lost that worldly touch.
For instance, one volume of his poetry is entitled "The Tavern,' and the first line
is, "Whoever brought me here will have to take me home."Wwhich i think might be
history's first example of a designated driver, right? [laughs] I love this guy because he sees the divine in and through nature, which is to say he's a Muslim,
right, in a religious tradition where the divine is understood to be separate
from humans and nature, and needs to step in, right? But he actually is shifting
over into this other way of understanding things, that you find the
divine in the world, and not outside it, right? And for him,
it's all about love, it is all about love. And he uses the imagery--and this may
strike you as racy, I don't know, if it does, then read the Song of Solomon, right,
the Song of Songs, (how that book ever got into the Bible, I don't know, but I
certainly never heard a sermon preached on it, okay)--but he uses this, he uses
what can come across, sometimes, as rather racy language, but what he's doing
is he's doing what a lot of religious folks in different religious
transitions have done. You know, there are certain metaphors, and again, it's
metaphorical, right? It's metaphorical for our relationship with the divine. There's
the father and we're the children, right?
There's the Lord and we're the, well, we use the term servants, but in the ancient
world, and still all too often today, the word would be slaves, right? Again, do you
see that hierarchical relationship either way, right? Well, there's this
tradition that you find of a different kind of love: it's the love of a couple.
It's the love of a couple. And it isn't just all, you know, sanitized and
spiritualized to the detriment of the physical, no, no! It embodies itself in the
physical. So that for Sufi, Sufis--and Rumi, in particular--as with other religions. You think of the Kama Sutra, right, from Hinduism? And again it's in the Jewish and Christian scriptures,
but it doesn't get a lot of attention, right? That we live in these bodies, God
created these bodies, and we can consider them to be filthy and sinful and carnal
if we want, but I would suggest that's just one reading of the situation, and
there might well be others, right? When God appears to his ardent lover--that
would be you and me--the lover is absorbed in him, and not so much as a
hair of the lover remains. You ever felt like that about somebody? "Oh, baby,
I'm lost in you!" All right? That's what he's talking about. True lovers are as shadows,
and when the sun shines in glory, the shadows vanish away. He is a true lover
of God to whom God says, "I am thine and thou art mine," right? Wedding vows, wedding vows. "Love exalts our earthly bodies--" not just our spirits, our earthly bodies, "--to
heaven. And makes the very hills to dance with joy. Oh lover, 'twas love that gave
life to Mount Sinai when it quaked, and Moses fell down in a swoon." And then there's this, and I cannot think
a more fitting way to bring this journey, at least this leg of our journey
together, to a close: "There was a time when I blamed my companion if his
religion did not resemble mine. Now, however, my heart accepts every form. It
is a pasture for gazelles. A monastery for monks, a temple for icons, and a Kaaba
for pilgrims. Love alone is my religion." Amen.
