Beyond Dogma

Thursday, February 9th, 2012

Javed Mojaddedi has written an excellent study about the tension between Rumi’s Islam, a “religion of Love,” and the more legalistic religious system that gradually gained authority in the third and fourth Islamic centuries. Beyond Dogma, Rumi’s Teachings on Friendship with God and Early Sufi Theories, soon to be published by Oxford University Press, is an original and welcome contribution to the understanding of Sufi history in general and Jalaluddin Rumi in particular. Rumi is the embodiment of the essence of Islam, but not an Islam that defers to a dry legalism determined by man-made concepts, but rather an Islam imbued with mercy, compassion, flexibility, and love.  The noble character of Muhammad and the beautiful revelation of the Quran are to be found with those who valued sincerity above all and sought the experience of the divine with their whole hearts.  ~Kabir Helminski  Excerpts from that book follow: (more…)

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2 Poems by Mansur Al Hallaj

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

By Mahmoud Mostafa

Underlying his fearsome courage was a beautiful tenderness that was forgiving, loving, and filled with wisdom. His deep spirituality was expressed in the most exquisitely poetic way that at the same time is filled with powerfully raw and naked power. His words were imbued with the perplexity that overwhelm a heart drowned in the ocean of love. He spoke in ways that shocked ordinary people but awakened and were understood and cherished by his fellow travelers. (more…)

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Becoming Real: Realization and Revelation in Rumi and Ibn ‘Arabi

Thursday, December 22nd, 2011

James Winston Morris

The aim of this essay is simply to point to certain guiding concerns and perspectives that are shared by both these artists, perspectives which are happily subsumed in the multifaceted Arabic technical term tahqīq or “realization” that was particularly favored by Ibn ‘Arabi and the long line of his later interpreters, or muhaqqiqūn.  And in examining this subject, we can hopefully suggest something of the unique comprehensiveness and proven effectiveness of Rumi’s and Ibn ‘Arabi’s writings in supporting that wider human task of realization. (more…)

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The Science of the Greater Jihad

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

Few people writing in America today have as deep a grasp of  metaphysics as Charles Upton. We commend his new book to anyone interested in spiritual psychology, Sufism, and Islam. It is a well-written in depth study of the spiritual psychology inherent in traditional Sufi practice.

The spiritual life must obviously take psychology into account; if we want to do good and know truth, we will have to understand what in us supports this intent, and what stands in the way of it. But after Jungian Psychology, Humanistic Psychology, Transpersonal Psychology, and Ken Wilber’s Integral Psychology, the reader may wonder what remains to be said vis-à-vis psychology and the Spiritual Path. In the author’s opinion, what remains is to present a psychology rooted in traditional metaphysics, one that he has termed “Principial Psychology”. This psychology is not essentially new; elements of it are to be found in every traditional path; but it has rarely been so explicitly defined. (more…)

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ISLAM AND HUMAN VALUES

Tuesday, March 1st, 2011

Islam and Human Values by Kabir Helminski (with input from leading scholars) was written to address the urgent questions, misunderstandings, and distortions of Islam that are all too prevalent today. The need for a document like this seems to grow daily in the face of Islamophobic propaganda and extremist versions of Islam. Islam and Human Values makes the case that there is an intrinsic Islam with the Qur’an as its reference point that stands for religious pluralism, freedom of conscience, human dignity, social justice, and the spiritual transformation of human beings. It is our hope to raise funds to print a small booklet, illustrated by photos of Western Muslims by great photographers like Peter Sanders, to distribute widely in the English speaking world. This current document may be downloaded and freely distributed.   Download the document.

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BARAKA: RECONNECTING WITH OUR SPIRITUAL LEGACY

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

Kabir Helminski

Many spiritually inclined people, and especially those from a Muslim background, face a double alienation in today’s world.  On the one hand, they are alienated from the mad rush of contemporary society with its commercialization, its ugliness, its pandering to the ego, and its lack of meaning. On the other hand, they are equally alienated from various expressions of Islam that fail to inspire them. Too often, the teachings of Islam as they are presented seem irrelevant, authoritarian, dogmatic, and one-dimensional. (more…)

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