The Gathering

Today we can travel between different locations faster than ever before, whizzing along in our cars. Journeys that once took weeks, months, even years, can now be covered in hours. Indeed, it takes me four hours to reach Istanbul from London. When I arose this morning I did not have to go out of my house to draw water for the day. In mid-winter I do not need to venture outdoors for fuel. At night there is no running around getting lamps lit. I arrive at work just after eight and leave again just after four. I have more time on my hands than the generations of the previous millennium, and yet I complain that I do not have enough time to do everything I need to do. I do not have children who eat up my time as they demand my attention. I do not need to struggle for anything. And so what will be my excuse before my Lord on that awesome Day when I will complain that I tarried on the earth for but a matter of hours, for that will be as it seemed on a day lasting fifty-thousand years? That the internet evaporated my evenings? That I was too busy to seek knowledge? My life is ease and I have no excuse.

Jihangir’s Beacon

At the end of the summer last year, we spent our days between visits to a clinic in Jihangir, Istanbul. While its views over the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn beyond were stunning, I was not too keen on those streets. In this secular quarter and haunt of expats, wine shops outnumbered grocery stores. In the rising heat there was often an unpleasant smell, for the area’s pet owners would not clean up after them. These streets had a continental European feeling to them and indeed conversations in French, German and English were often within earshot. Pehaps Jihangir’s most famous resident is the writer, Orhan Pamuk, whose apartment I always passed on my way to the mosque. My heart in Istanbul lies in a place inland called Gunesli – it is not beautiful, it does not have grand views and its residents are far from rich – but in its huge mosque in its centre into which pour local shop keepers for every prayer, there is a sense of iman. Jihangir is a place without spirit, a pale imitation of a Parisian street, losing itself in Efes Pilsner.

But on Fridays, a beacon lights on that hillside overlooking the Bosphorus and the Marmara Sea. The adhan calling me from Jihangir’s eroding minarets, I would wander down the road to join my jamat. Nobody ever looked at me and stared, for in this land of different hues, nothing indicated that I was an Englishman. Sitting on the carpet, the sun streaming through the open windows, the voices of foghorns down on the water below would greet us. Seeing young men entering in droves through the antique doors was a true delight, having recently returned from Artvin Province where the toothless, grey-haired ones dominated the mosques, though even they were small in number. These youthful faces were not locals, but came here for employment: my visits for Asr and Maghrib met with an elderly jamat numbering no more than five.

With every period of darkness, when my life seems so distant from the Prophetic ideal, I recall that beacon on the hillside. In the midst of despair there can still be light. And where did that beacon lead me? Warmed by dhikr after jummah, refreshed and renewed, we packed up and moved on to Gunesli, where salams are exchanged on its streets.

My Heart

On Friday evening I came across an article which really resonated with me. I wanted to contact the author, but I decided to sleep on it first, to mull over my thoughts. This was an article in which the author wrote about what traditional Islam meant to him. Part of that description included this sentiment: “It is the Islam of the quaint villages…”

It resonated with me because for weeks now I have been thinking of a faraway place I passed through last summer. It also touched me because there is a part of me which does not sit well with the modern age. Throughout my teenage years I was something of an eccentric. While my friends were interested in mountain bikes, football, Nintendo and Baywatch, I was a dreamer. I yearned after a romantic past, of a wood-framed house surrounded by the cottage garden, of self-sufficiency, spring-fed waters, of the homestead farm. I would sketch out my rough architectural diagrams of my self-build Tudor house. My favourite book as a child was Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Farmer Boy: I imagined I was Almanzo and I dreamed of living my life as he had all those years ago. Later – this probably led to my eventual arrival as a student of development studies – my attention turned to sub-Saharan Africa. An article about life in Burkina Faso inspired me in a way you could not imagine.

With the wisdom of age, of course I now realise that all those dreams were indeed for a romantic past. The reality of life is that it is hard: inoculated from birth against mumps and rubella, and against tetanus, living in an age protected from TB, and able to access an education from the age of five to twenty-one, we forget the realities of existence in different times and different places. Still, that was my dream and an element of it remains with me even today. Something has been bothering my heart of late and that article I read on Friday gave me an inkling of what it was: a kind of discomfort with the age we are living in.

Last summer I spent a couple of weeks up in the highlands of eastern Turkey with my mother-in-law, up above the clouds. My wife’s family originate in Hopa on the Black Sea, close to the border with Georgia in Artvin province. Every year, to escape the summer heat, my mother-in-law packs up her possessions like the nomads of old and ascends the mountains for the refuge of that usually cooler air. Life up there is quite primitive: the houses are simple stone-walled structures without cement, covered with the tarpaulin these travellers bring with them. The evening meal is prepared on wood burning stoves, which in turn warms the shelter as the cold evening draws in.

So last August my wife and I began the journey in the early morning one Friday, looking forward to our reunion with her mother after such a long time. There is a vast dam building project underway in the valley between our village just inland from Hopa and Artvin, so we had to leave at first light so we could travel while the road along the bottom of the valley was still open. We travelled inland rising steadily higher and higher into the mountains. At around 11am we stopped in Ardanuc to get some vegetables and have a rest, but not for too long. Soon we were winding up a dirt track through this beautiful landscape which reminded me of my holidays in Switzerland as a child. It was a steep landscape of meadows, streams and log chalets. Alas, we forgot our camera so there are no photographs I could share with you, but take my word for it: this was a landscape which almost made me cry tears of joy. We were heading for a Yayla about two hours short of Ardahan, but I could have stopped just there, so magnificent was that scenery.

But we continued onwards, until we came to a camping ground on the side of a valley where we stopped for lunch. There was a shack on the edge in which a group of men were preparing to barbeque cubes of lamb meat. I sat down on a bench with the lady-folk close to an ice-cold spring, for we had just discovered that the men were chilling bottles of Turkish spirits beneath the bubbling surface. After lunch, leaving my male travelling companions to their Reki and the ladies to their conversation, I caught a lift with an old Muslim man back to the mosque for Jummah prayer. I speak very little Turkish, but that ride was an immense blessing: we exchanged salams and I watched as those I had left behind appeared as dots across the valley.

It was this trip to the mosque that has been in my thoughts for these past many weeks, which made that article strike such a chord with me on Friday. I should think that mosque has never seen an English Muslim enter its doors before in all its ancient history. We parked our car just off the road, because the mosque could only be reached on foot. Together, communicating with one another only by hand gestures and that brotherly fondness in our hearts, we walked up the hill through that village that seemed to be caught in a time warp. There was a water-trough fed by a stream out in front of the mosque – what a beautiful sight. But what touched my heart was the sight in the small garden in front of that place of prayer. All of the men were gathered in a circle, awaiting the call of the adhan, expressing such affection for one another, conversing with kind words. We exchanged salams, but I did not join them, entering the mosque instead with my old companion. That building seemed centuries old inside. It was dark, and yet it seemed light. The walls were stone, not decorated like those fine mosques of Istanbul. There were some pieces of calligraphy, and old worn out rugs on the floor. There was a spirit in that mosque which warmed my soul. That place has been in my thoughts.

The tale of the remainder of my journey up into the mountains is for another time. This post is about that place in my heart. It is not a geographical place, but an emotional place. That place that the author described: “It is the Islam of the quaint villages…” Yes, this is the yearning of my heart. That place of true brotherhood outside the mosque, that place of a simplicity that does not care for our modern-day obsessions with labels and debates. That place where Allah is remembered, where life stops for the prayer, where brothers respect one another and welcome the stranger passing through. That place of beauty.

Allah knows best my heart. This weekend I have made a resolve. Allah knows best my heart. I cannot articulate yet what this is: not to you the reader. But its origin lies in that experience that has been on my mind all these weeks. Inshallah, with time I will explain. In time I will explain.

13.7 billion years

According to contemporary scientists, it is thought that the universe came into being around 13.7 billion years ago. The basic characteristics of the very early universe have been described in the big bang theory, but scientists are still only able to make educated guesses about the details. High energy physics has been used to describe the evolution of the universe in the period that followed, explaining how the first protons, electrons and neutrons formed. They talk of the formation of the first nuclei, then the formation of atoms and of neutral hydrogen. A third period describes the formation of structure: matter coming together to form stars, quasars, galaxies, galaxy clusters and super clusters. I find this structural period fascinating.

Some of the most beautiful images I know are those showing deep space as generated by the Hubble Space Telescope. Those images always warm my soul, reminding me of the grandeur of our Creator, putting everything into perspective. One of the most exciting developments of recent times was the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image, which was derived from data accumulated between September 2003 and January 2004. Although this has been described as covering a small region of space, it is estimated to contain ten thousand galaxies. As the deepest image of the universe ever taken using the visible spectrum, it takes us back in time more than 13 billion years, showing us how the universe looked in the early Stelliferous age.

While the images of deep space in themselves are always heartwarming, their significance is also profoundly felt when one considers the words of the Qur’an about Allah’s creation. Sura 41, ayat 11, fails to provide us with a wooly, open description that the post-enlightenment age has taught us to expect from scripture. Far from it: the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image could be used to illustrate this verse. The non-Muslim, Arthur J. Arberry, translated it as follows in 1964:

Then He lifted Himself to heaven when it was smoke, and said to it and to the earth, "Come willingly, or unwillingly!" They said, "We come willingly." *

This need not comes as a surprise for the Muslim who believes that the Qur’an is the Word of God. Of course the Creator can describe His creation in truthful terms. From His Throne, He is witness to all things. For the disbeliever who considers the Qur’an to be the fourteen hundred year old work of man, however, it could be nothing but a miracle: it would even have been so had it originated in 1964, twenty-nine years before Hubble was operational. Allah is magnificent.

One of my favorite websites is http://hubblesite.org. For me it is a reminder of what we really mean when we say ‘Allahu Akbar’ – God is Great. In these days of conflict, it is wonderful to remind ourselves of these things. If we set our short lives beside the fourteen billion years of Allah’s creation, it helps put everything into perspective. It reminds us of our place. It reminds us of why we are here and our part in this great scheme of things. It is right that we reflect upon these things, because it is what Allah asked of those us who were not brought up as Muslims. This is how that same Arabist translated sura 21, ayat 30:

Have not the unbelievers then beheld that the heavens and the earth were a mass all sewn up, then We unstitched them and of water fashioned every living thing? Will they not believe?

For my part, I have beheld and thus I am one who witnesses that none has the right to be worshipped except Allah alone without partner and that Muhammad is his Messenger. Allah is magnificent. Visit that site and reflect. It is well worth it. Notice how it strengthens your du’a.

* A. J. Arberry (1964), The Koran Interpreted, Oxford University Press, p.491

Words before the Hour

A good soul reminded me of these things this very evening. As Allah wills, the advice we receive is always timely. So what excuse now do we have? I have quoted the ahadith and Qur'an directly from that advice:

Abu Musa said, “I said, ‘Messenger of Allah, whose Islam is best?’ He said, ‘The one from whose tongue and hands the Muslims are safe.'” (Hadith)

The Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and give him peace) said: “From the excellence of a man’s Islam is leaving that which does not concern him.” (Hadith, Tirmidhi)

Abu Hurayra reported that the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) said, “It is enough of a lie for a man to talk about everything he hears.” (Hadith, Muslim)

“Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day, let him speak good or remain silent.” (Hadith, Bukhari)

“And those who abuse believing men and woman, when they have not merited it, bear the weight of slander and clear wrongdoing.” (Qur'an, al Ahzab, 58)

Anas reported that the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) said, “Do not hate one another nor envy one another nor act in a hostile way towards one another nor cut one another off. Be slaves of Allah, brothers. It is not lawful for a Muslim to cut himself off from his brother for more than three days.” (Hadith)

The Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him said, “The gates of the Garden are opened on Mondays and Thursdays and every slave who does not associate anything with Allah is forgiven except the man between whom and his brother there is rancour. It is said, ‘Wait until these two make it up! Wait until these two make it up!’” (Hadith, Muslim)

“Have taqwa of Allah and put things right between you, obey Allah and His Messenger if you are believers.” (Qur'an, al Anfal, 1)

“Let not some men among you laugh at others: It may be that the (latter) are better than the (former): Nor let some women laugh at others: It may be that the latter are better than the (former): Nor defame nor be sarcastic to each other, nor call each other by (offensive) nicknames: Ill-seeming is a name connoting wickedness, (to be used of one) after he has believed: And those who do not desist are (indeed) doing wrong.” (Qur'an, al Hujrat, 11)

Abu Hurayra reported that the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) said, “No slave veils another slave in this world without Allah veiling him on the Day of Rising.” (Hadith, Muslim)

“The believers are brothers, so make peace between your brothers.” (Qur'an, al Hujraat, 10)

“And when they (the righteous) hear vain talk they turn away therefrom and say: ‘To us our deeds and to you yours; peace be upon you. We seek not the ignorant.” (Qur'an, al Qasas, 55)

If there is anyone amongst those of you who read this weblog whom I have offended, whether in an article or responding to comments, I apologise. Please forgive me. If I have spoken out of turn, then remind me and I will apologise. Please, even if I have irritated you, find some compassion in your heart and make amends with me. If I die tonight or tomorrow it will be too late. If I have any debt with any of you or you with me, whether from words I wrote, a comment not replied, an appointment I missed or otherwise, let us settle it before it is too late. Let us remind ourselves of what binds us.

I turn my face to Him who created the heavens and earth, a pure monotheist, in submission, and am not of those who associate others with Him. My prayer, worship, life and death are for God, Lord of the Worlds, who has no partner. Thus I have been commanded and I am of those who submit.

And my final request is this: make du'a for me. Pray that I do not die other than as one who has earned His pleasure and that I return to Him only with a pure heart.

Thank you for reading my weblog. Over and out.