Hee(n) munjo deen ai Post 1 - lessons from rubbish

It was a picture book with a dark green cover. The title was in white: "Prophet Muhammad and the unkind woman." There was a stylised drawing of a woman on the front cover, in a square frame. I was young, maybe four, and proud of my ability to read by myself. I must have read it hundreds of times. Some stories seep into the bones, into the blood, and remain there to be drawn upon and lived into. This is my retelling of that story:

It is said that when Prophet Muhammad was still in Mecca, and when Meccan society had set its face against him, and persecuted him for disrupting the town with his talk of one God, of peace with all, of a divine reckoning for human action, he would walk down this one particular street, past this one particular house, and a woman would throw rubbish down upon his head and shout accusations at him. Every day, if he passed that street on his way to who knows where, the ka'aba, perhaps, or the market, or to meet his tiny, marginalised, band of followers, there would be the same woman, the same accusations, the same descent of rubbish.

It is said that the Prophet never reacted. He just continued on his way.

One day, the same street... but no woman, no rubbish, no accusations. Just silence. He stops. He stares up at the window, wondering. He makes gentle enquiries. The neighbours tell him that she is ill, that she has taken to her bed, and she has no one to look after her. They have their own lives, they cannot help.

It is said that the Prophet himself nursed her back to health. Perhaps he brought food, or water - a precious commodity in the desert. Perhaps he provided whatever passed for medicine in the desert in the 7th Century. Perhaps he just sat beside her, offering his presence and his kindness. It is said that when she realised who had been taking care of her, she broke down and wept with remorse, asking his forgiveness then and there, and, so it is said, accepting Islam.

It was the woman's tears of remorse that affected me as a four-year-old. It's the first time I can remember feeling empathy. In the intervening years, it was the Prophet's actions that inspired me. A steady, patient kindness, with no arrogance or "I-told-you-so." How far it so often seemed from my volatility and need to be right! But I knew then and know with even more conviction now that it is exactly this kindness that we need.

Writing it now, I find myself empathising with the unnamed woman again. How sharp that pain must have been, to see so clearly her own blindness and prejudice, confronted with the humanity and the love that faced her. Those tears of repentance are my own.

There is of course a narrative neatness to the fact that she embraced Islam - and I find that very neatness uncomfortable. But it struck me tonight, for the first time, that at the time that must have been a very courageous action, even if it was impulsive.  I'm not sure if this took place after the rulers of Mecca declared a boycott of Muslims, such that Muslims were denied even the basic necessities, and to be caught helping or even speaking to a Muslim was a punishable offence. But even if it was before that, she would have been giving up all of her worldly status, even to the point of being cast out of her tribe - almost unthinkable in a tribal society, as Mecca was then. But she must have seen a truth in the Prophet's being and his actions - the sort of truth that you can't un-see - and knew she had to honour it, whatever the cost. Could I be similarly courageous, I wonder?

Hee(n) munjo deen ai (This is my religion) - Introduction

Two days ago, I was all set to write a ranty blog post about all the "Islam is the problem" rhetoric that I've seen since the Paris attacks. And then I went to jamatkhana, and the piece of guidance that was read out was about how to respond to misconceptions of Islam. It was clear and uncompromising: explain, explain again, and then leave people to their judgements, but do not get angry.

I realised then that I wasn't so much angry as hurt and bewildered. How can this religion that I love, this tradition with so much richness and beauty and wisdom, be turned to such hate and destruction? I feel as though something I love has been violated. But loving it does not mean that I am blind to the faults of parts of the tradition - parts of the Qur'an and the way that it has been lived out, and I also want to be uncompromisingly honest with myself, and you, about that.

I want to share with you the parts of the Islamic tradition that I love, that have spoken to me over the years, that have helped me to love others better, to become kinder and wiser and more thoughtful, to have insights into how things are. And I want to share with you the parts of the Islamic tradition that I have struggled with over the years, that I still find it hard to understand. All this, in the hope that it might be a way of shedding some light on Islam, and of illustrating how much our Islam is shaped by our history, our geography, our temperament, our family, the books we read, our place in the world.

Finally, a note on the title: my dad once told me a story about my Bapaji - my maternal grandfather. Bapaji never learned the ritual prayer, the Du'a, and went to jamatkhana at my Nanima's request. He must have been talking to Dad about it at some point, and my dad remembers him saying, in Kacchi, our mother tongue, "This is my religion. Do not harm anyone, do not cheat anyone out of money, do not lie to anyone." A simple creed, perhaps, but one that resonates with my childhood memories of a man doing his utmost to live up to these uncompromising principles. I often do not.

Peace until the rising of the morn

I am still landing from the LBC's Women's Intensive meditation retreat. So many insights, and many that I am sure will find their way into this blog. I am still absorbing it and may be for some time.

But this piece of writing - not sure if it's prose or poetry - came almost fully formed on Wednesday, the middle day of the retreat, while out on a walk. It is an extended reflection on two lines from a poem read out that morning, which seemed to rip through me emotionally. May it bring you a taste of peace as you read it.

"The human body at peace with itself
Is more precious than the rarest jewel."
And rarer still, for such instants of peace
Come seldom, and swift.
Un-grasp-able.
Like a flash of blue -
A diving kingfisher's wing
Caught by the sun.
Or a darting swallow,
Or a rabbit running for home.
Or the bloom of a rose,
Or the sun breaking through cloud,
Or a raindrop on a green leaf.
Hold them lightly.
Let them come,
Let them go.
Let the earth bear witness.
Offer them up to the shrine, to be received
And pass away.
For a flash, a taste, is enough.
Like the light from a flickering candle,
A breath of incense,
A sip of tea
From a warm mug
Cradled in the hands.
A smile, a kind glance, a brief touch.
More precious than the rarest jewel -
This human body,
Received kindly,
Just as it is with its many faults,
At peace with itself.
May there be peace
Om shanti
Shanti
Shanti.

On "home"

"But one day we woke to disgrace; our house
a coldness of rooms, each one nursing
a thickening cyst of dust and gloom.
We had not been home in our hearts for months."

From Disgrace, by Carol Ann Duffy

As I return back to my room in my temporary Reading flatshare, having spent the weekend sleeping on the sofa in a friend's living room in London, and having had various conversations on the concept of "home," I find myself wondering what "home" means in my current semi-nomadic state. Having not long returned from six months away, I keep telling people that it's "good to be home." But do I mean Reading? London? The UK? Or something else entirely?

One friend of mine talked about putting down roots (metaphorically), planting trees (literally), that she can't see herself moving away from where she now lives. Her "home" has a clear sense of place, and room for others to share it but no single other person that makes it a home. For another friend, also currently semi-nomadic, home is "with the person you love." Yet for her, and for me, "the person you love" no longer has a reference. There is no longer one single person to whom that refers.

I think it was once true for me that home was with the person I loved. I clung to him as to a refuge, a port in the storm, a sense of safety that had been missing. It was a visceral, physical thing, this feeling of being safe in someone else's presence, in his arms. A breath released, a letting go of tension in the shoulders. And one day we woke to disgrace. We had a flat, but no longer a home. Bewilderment. Disorientation. Suddenly feeling once again a stranger in a hostile world, with nowhere that felt safe. Kind friends told me then that I had to create my own sense of safety, to carry it with me. I didn't know what that meant, or that such a thing could be done.

And yet sitting here in this temporary sanctuary I realise that some years later I do carry with me a sort of portable home, both in the sense of tangible items and memories that I take refuge in (sometimes perhaps a false refuge) and, increasingly, in the sense of having just enough comfort in myself to feel at home even in unfamiliar places. So where is "home" now?

Home is a room of my own, a private space where I can close the door on the world for a while.
Home is standing on stage with one of the choirs where I belong, where my voice, however fallible, both blends in and keeps its uniqueness.
Home is a particular spot by the lake in Regent's Park, watching the ducks.
Home is letting the door close behind me in the foyer of the Ismaili Centre in London, hearing the water trickle from the blue granite fountain, and those rare moments of sensing a Presence in the prayer hall... or anywhere...
Home is those precious email exchanges, phone and Skype calls with people I love, scattered all over the world.
Home is groups of fellow meditators and practitioners of Insight Dialogue, and the immediate and powerful feeling of safety and connection.
Home is not having to do or be anything other than just as I am in the moment, with those few people who accept whatever that is.
Home is standing on the earth, feeling it under my feet, breathing deep.

Dowsing for Sound: "Unpredictable" four years on. Some hazy memories and cliched reflections.

January 29^th, 2011. Great St Mary’s Church. I think I remember it being freezing cold. I certainly remember being a bag of nerves and going to the loo three times in the half hour before we were due on stage. I remember the deeply unpleasant experience of tasting a Vocalzone for the first time. I remember huddling in the vestry and vanilla schnapps and whiskey being passed out in tiny plastic shot glasses. I vaguely remember a mad scramble to get Andrea a tin whistle in the right key.

I remember the start being delayed because there were so many more people than we expected, filling the ground floor of the church and extending up into the balcony, and my mounting excitement as I waited. I remember the opening chords of “White Sky” giving way to the joyful, exuberant “hello, hello” in “Alive” before I could so much as blink. I remember sitting in the pews, shivering but excited as an intrepid rower talked about her solo Atlantic crossing. I remember singing “The Book of Love” and it being the last time I truly believed in it. I remember the dropped guitar at the beginning of “Hoppipolla” and the feeling of losing myself and soaring on the melody as that wonderful piano and string line swelled out. I remember the mounting excitement throughout “One Day Like This” and the incredible sense of togetherness as we cheered each band member at the tops of our lungs. I remember the sense of how bloody fast it had all gone. I remember the applause and the chants of “more” and the absolute disbelief that these were for us. I remember my euphoric, dizzy happiness all through “Radioactive” even though we had no idea what we were doing, and to this day I need only hear a few bars of it to be brought straight back to that moment. I remember bouncing off the stage, jumping up and down all the way to the back of the church squeaking “We did it! We did it!”

Four years and a number of gigs later, the memories have faded into something of a haze. But that feeling of euphoria, the tremendous buzz and rush of having actually performed on stage, for the first time, that doesn’t fade. Closing my eyes for just a moment, I can feel it as vividly as ever.

I think I can only express the significance of that moment in clichés. It was the moment a new world opened for me. It was the last moment of perfect happiness before my world slowly fell apart over the course of the ensuing eight months (and has been put back together since, with the help, love and friendship of the Dowsers, among others). It was the moment I realised I could be myself and belong to something greater without sacrificing either. It was the moment I understood the value of doing something for the joy of it without having to be perfect or be the best. It was the moment that the Dowsing magic to which so many in the Dowsing Sound Collective casually refer, took hold of my soul and has not yet let go.

The Dowsing Sound Collective may have gone on to bigger and better things, but to use another cliché, you never forget your first time. And despite all the tremendous and wonderful experiences that Dowsing has given me since, that moment when less than forty of us, on three months of rehearsals, took on Great St Mary’s and did so with joy and flair and fun, is one never to be forgotten.

Pushed too far: a liberal and proudly British Muslim responds to the ink spilt over the Charlie Hebdo attacks

I thought this time it would be different. I read article after article of thoughtful, nuanced commentary. I applauded writers, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, who referenced Islam’s rich history and diversity. I nodded gravely at the equivalences that some writers and cartoonists were drawing between the latest spate of cartoons and the racist and anti-Semitic cartoons of the past (http://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2015/jan/09/joe-sacco-on-satire-a-response-to-the-attacks?CMP=share_btn_fb). I cheered at those who pointed out the inconsistencies of our stance on free speech. I grieved for the cartoonists – he who takes a life, it is as if he has killed all of mankind. And I thought, maybe we’ve grown up. Maybe we can deal with complexity. Maybe we can examine ourselves and acknowledge the complicity of our nations, corporations and political leaders in horrific events taking place in the world – that we see and do not see. And then I read the comments below Pankaj Mishra’s latest Guardian article and I finally snapped. (http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/jan/20/-sp-after-paris-its-time-for-new-enlightenment)

 

Because after hearing yet another person mock religion as being a childish sky-God fantasy of no value, and hearing yet another person naively champion the Enlightened West against the Backward Other of Islam, and hearing yet another person confidently state that Islam is inherently conservative, inherently violent, and so dismiss 1400 years of a complex history, I have had enough. Enough being told what I believe by complete strangers. Enough mockery of a tradition by whose wisdom I do my best to live, even as I challenge and critique it and sometimes even rail against it. Enough implications (no matter how subtle) that no matter how white I look, or how middle-class and law-abiding my lifestyle, or how liberal and pluralistic my values, or how straight-up BBC my accent, I do not belong simply by virtue of my religion. Enough valuing of some lives more than others. Enough looking the other way as the political leaders for whom I did not vote are complicit in the mass killing of innocents in the guise of stopping terrorism.

 

I am not opposed to the careful critical analysis of the doctrines and history of the different interpretations of Islam. I am not opposed to speaking truth to power, even (especially) when that power is conservative religious clerics who take their partial, punitive, historically myopic interpretation of Islam and try to impose it by their military and economic might. But I don’t think the Charlie Hebdo cartoons were either of those things. There were a million other ways of satirising some of the more ridiculous, or oppressive, interpretations of Islam. The cleric who condemned the building of snowmen as idolatry is a pretty soft target. Western journalists could even have taken a leaf out of the books of the Persian and Central Asian cultural traditions and told Molla Nasreddin jokes, many of which poke fun at the presumptions of the religious establishment. By targeting the Prophet, by demonising Islam rather than those who oppress others in its name, the so-called upholders of free speech do no more than alienate their potential allies, those Muslims who are deeply critical of the oppressive policies of many Muslim states and who see themselves as proud citizens of the countries in which they make their homes. I count myself in that.

 

I am on the liberal fringe of an already-liberal Muslim community, one that has assimilated into British life without much fanfare and got on with the business of being productive citizens and giving back to society through volunteering, a community that places emphasis on human dignity, has built girls’ schools in remote regions of Northern Pakistan, and is often persecuted in Muslim-majority countries. I am deeply grateful for the freedoms that I have in Britain and deeply appreciative of the rich artistic, scientific, literary, academic and cultural heritage I have grown up with living in London. And even I have had enough. I would suggest that when even your most liberal, proud-to-be British, Muslim citizens are trying to tell you that there’s a problem with the way that some people demonise and mock Islam and Muslims, maybe there’s a problem.

 

I did not expect that I would be this angry. I will channel my anger into fighting back with the pen (or the keyboard), into showing at least my small corner of the world how much wisdom, how much richness, there is in this religion that I love and live by, while not being blind to the oppression and injustice carried out in its name. I will continue to speak truth to power. I will channel my rage into seeking to listen and learn and understand and find better ways of living together. But I now understand, in a way that I did not before, that were I less privileged, more marginalised, more excluded, less hopeful, this same anger would have found more destructive outlets.

 

We cannot afford to go on mocking, marginalising and provoking our minorities, be they “benefit cheats” or “sky-God fanatics.” We may not agree with each other, indeed, we may think that the other is fundamentally wrong or misguided or even dangerous, but that does not take away the other’s humanity and dignity. And while words may not be sticks and stones, they have power – to hurt or heal, to dehumanise or uphold. So I find underneath my anger a resolve to be more sensitive to my own language and to use words to seek to understand, rather than to denigrate. It’s not much, it’s hardly a drop in the ocean in the face of these seemingly insurmountable problems, but it’s what I have. 

On fear and fearlessness: two ways of being

Fear always stopped my every wish to give.
I opted out, broke hearts, but most of all
I broke my own. I would not let it live
Lest it should make me lose control and fall.
Elizabeth Jennings, Words from Traherne

I have noticed recently the prevalence of fear in my experience of life. Fear of letting people down, fear of failure, fear of being “found out” as less than I appear to be, fear of getting it wrong in some non-specified way, fear of losing the friendships and other relationships that mean so very much to me. So I have been paying attention to the experience of fear and how it drives my behaviour.

The physical experience of fear is very powerful, almost overwhelming. Tightness in my chest, heart pounding, tension across my shoulders, the proverbial sweaty palms. And there is too a sense of narrowing, of the world constricting and space closing down, closing in. And I often react by opting out, breaking my own heart in the process of trying to avoid that painful feeling of fear. I don’t give my all to a project, or I don’t stay open and present in a conversation. Sometimes I can go whole days being so driven by fear, without realising it, that I am absolutely unable to be in the present moment, and I distract myself by playing games or reading on my phone, or living in memory, or doing anything other than face whatever it is that I fear. I condemn myself to a curious half-life, meeting the world at a distance, joylessly.

And yet I know it doesn’t have to be this way. I have tasted another way to be – a way of being which is joyful and expansive and deeply engaged, where it feels as though I have stepped through a narrow gate into an open field with the sun shining and the grass green and I can run and dance to my heart’s content. I’m a terrible dancer, but in that state of being every movement feels like dancing, as though there is both complete freedom and complete inevitability.

It’s a stark contrast. I know I want to live more of my life in that second way of being, so how do I do that? The answer is at once blindingly obvious and completely counter-intuitive – and far easier said than done, of course. It is to approach my fear with kindness rather than running away from it, to expand the space around it so that my heart can hold the fear and everything else at the same time. It is to open up rather than close down, to step in towards the fear and to let it be as part of the ever-flowing stream of life. And in the moment that comes down to noticing it, noticing the thoughts and the physical sensations and breathing into them, telling myself that it’s okay, this is just what’s here right now – and not trying to change it but not fixating on it either.

It feels as though I have come to a watershed moment, a turning point. There is a line in the sand – this far and no further. I am no longer willing to allow myself to be held back by fear. I no longer want to continue to break my own heart by opting out. I want to give, open-heartedly and fearlessly. I want to live, to lose control and fall and trust that I will fly.