Surrender is the Source of Life....

Surrender is the Source of Life. It is not, and cannot be a concept. It must be a complete acceptance of God and Self as a manifestation of Divine Will. It is not the goal of the Work but the beginning. After spending time with God as God is, alone, we will eventually return to our "senses" so to speak, cleaned, refreshed and inspired. This 'return is the reality of self-realization. We cannot truly know ourselves without knowing God first. So how do we get to know God? By learning, accepting and being guided by His revelations. And through knowing God, we know ourselves. And we cannot know the Reality of God without including ourselves.

- Ali Ansari

A Glorious Way to Go...

One cold winter day a group of us were crossing the Mississippi River, and it was frozen solid. Someone brought up the inevitable question when crossing bridges, "What if the bridge collapsed and we all fell in?" Another person replied, "Wow, that would be an ugly way to go. That'd be real bad." I retorted, "No it wouldn't! It wouldn't make any difference. How you die has nothing to do with how 'ugly' it is or it's not. It is the 'way' you die that matters."

An ugly way to go is the following: Having regrets. Dying in fear. Having shame. Wishing that you could have done things differently, but you didn't. Wishing you had more time, but you don't. Laying on your death bed while underneath your carpet is all of the crap of your life that got swept under there that you don't want anybody to know about, you don't want anybody to see, you're embarrassed that you did, and you never came to terms with it. Dying in a state where you haven't forgiven and have not been forgiven - that's an ugly way to go. It has nothing to do with whether you fall off a bridge, or if someone picked you out of a crowd.

On the contrary, a glorious way to leave this world would be when there is nothing left of you. You lived life to its fullest. You did it. The firewood of your life has all become ash. "Here I am Lord. I used my life for what you gave it to me. There's nothing left. I made my mistakes, and I offered them to you. I had my successes, and they all came from you." In this state, every corner of all of your rooms and closets, every recess from the attic to your basement is clean and open to examination. Having lived a fully integrated spiritual life means that there no longer remains anything of you left swept under the carpet. All four corners have been turned up.

You should be able to look into the mirror of your own conscience and know without doubt, "There is nothing left for me that I could do, want to do or could have tried. I used all my sincere effort. I used every faculty, every breath, every thought, every word, and every action to fulfill myself for the purpose of why I was given this life. I took care of my life just as I would have a rare gift, a trust." That's a glorious way to go.

- Sheikh Din Muhammad Abdullah al-Dayemi

Islam as the Creation of Synergy

In Islam, salaat is the prayer-exercise of the surrendered who are aware of the effects and benefits of a synergistic alliance or commonality with the Prophet. We might see the purpose of Islam as being to create synergy toward the common goal of a heavenly life for all. And we might see the (violent) history of Islam (i.e. Wahhabism) as being all about the creation and destruction of this synergy.

- Ali Ansari

The Highest Person

The highest person is he who is of most use to humankind.

-'Ali bin Abi Talib (ra), "Masters of the Path"

What is Justice?

What is justice? Giving water to trees.
What is injustice? To give water to thorns.
Justice consists in bestowing bounty in its proper place,
not on every root that will absorb water.

-Mathnawi [V, 1089-1090]

Awe and Intimacy

The effect of awe is the disappearance of self; the self which is in a state of awe, disappears. Levels of awe may be measured by the degree to which the self has disappeared; some people are at a higer level of awe than others.

The effect of intimacy, by contrast, is alertness; those who are intimate, are alert. A person who is fully intimate, could be thrown into a fire, and the intimacy would not be disturbed.

-Qushayri, "Risalah"

British and Saudi Intelligence Recruit Terrorists In British Mosques

December 10, 2008 (LPAC)--The British think-tank Policy Exchange produced an exhaustive and fair-minded report, "The Hijacking of British Islam; How Extremist Literature Is Subverting Mosques in the UK," in 2007. An initial review shows how the whole framework of facts-on-the-ground in Britain, proves in the starkest terms that the British Muslim terrorists found in Chechnya, Bosnia, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan are no coincidence, but the result of the fact that British and Saudi intelligence are up to their elbows in cooperation in recruiting and deploying them in Britain.

First of all, the great majority of British Muslims, over two thirds of an estimated 1.8 million (half born in Britain), are of South Asian origin, mostly Pakistani, Bangladeshi or Indian. But the outside financing and control of mosques, is much more Saudi than it is South Asian. Indeed, under Saudi financing and control, the complexion of religious belief of Britons of Pakistani origin has been shifting rapidly since 1970 and later, with the rapid growth the Saudi-allied Deobandi movement, which was previously a minority of perhaps 20%. In September 2007, the London Times claimed that "almost half of Britain's mosques" were by then under Deobandi control.

Most of the South Asian Islamic terrorist movements are Deobandi-linked; the others are linked to various other Saudi-financed sects.

For this study, teams of Muslim researchers visited almost 100 representative British mosques, to see whether "extremist" literature, preaching hate or violent jihad, was available there. It was available in 26 mosques, or almost one-quarter. But what is more interesting is that a large part this hate literature had actually been shipped over from Saudi Arabia. If you include pamphlets produced with Saudi subsidies, it would be a clear majority.

Hate literature of this sort is an integral part of the recruiting of terrorists, as case studies have repeatedly shown.

The report's authors, who are scholars of Islam, place primary responsibility on Saudi Arabia for the growth of Islamic extremism and therefore terrorism in Britain, but omit to mention that all this is taking place under the nose, and therefore with the complicity, of British secret domestic intelligence MI-5, and by extension British secret foreign intelligence MI-6.

Forty-eight percent of the hate pamphlets were in English, 45% in Arabic, and 7% in Urdu, a Pakistani language. But one single institution of many such in Saudi Arabia, the Islamic University of Medina, publishes texts in no fewer than 47 languages. "This is an institution within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," the authors report, "dedicated to Islamic propagation (da'wah). It was founded in 1961 when members of the [London-hatched] Muslim Brotherhood who had been exiled from Egypt, persuaded the Saudi king to found a Wahhabite institution that might become a rival to Cairo's famous al-Azhar Mosque and University."

Most revealing is that it is precisely those Islamic institutions which are most extremism-ridden, which official British government bodies have chosen to "partner" with, and thus to support and sponsor. These include the Islamic Foundation and its associated Markfield Institute of Higher Education. The Muslim Safety Forum, which described itself as the "key advisory body ... on issues concerning British Muslims," with which the Metropolitan Police Service and the Association of Chief Police Officers were working unreservedly, had as affiliates three of the worst offending mosques and institutions.

In their conclusions, the authors demand that the Saudis come clean on what they're doing with their money and their extremist literature, and even ask them whether all Saudi clergy sent to Britain are given diplomatic status, in view of the fact that those recently approached by British police on any matter turn out to have diplomatic status, and therefore immunity.

The Destroyer of All Other "gods"

Love is the flame which, when it blazes,
consumes everything other than the Beloved.
The lover wields the sword of Nothingness
in order to dispatch all but God:
consider what remains after Nothing.
There remains but God: all the rest is gone.
Praise to you, O mighty Love, destroyer of all other "gods."


-Mathnawi [V, 588-590]

Londonistan Becomes Talk Of The Town In Arab World

December 5, 2008 (LPAC)--The British harboring, using and controlling of so-called Islamic terrorists is once again on the agenda in many Arab countries. It is not, however, because of the Mumbai terror attacks, but another case of flagrant British dirty tricks. One of the leading Al-Qaeda spiritual leaders who has played a crucial role in recruiting new members for Al-Qaeda in Britain and Europe since 1993, Omar Mahmoud Abu Omar, aka Abu Qatada, was rearrested in London for violating his bail conditions. The British Interior Ministry stated that Abu Qatada was hiding in preparation for fleeing to Lebanon to join another British-asset, Omar Bakri, leader of the London-based terrorist group Hiz-bu-Tahrir, who left Britain for Lebanon in 2006. Needless to say that in Lebanon, both Bakri and Abu Qatada would be performing new missions in the service of Her Majesty's BAE-Prince Bandar Wahhabi destabilization operations.

The question which is being raised is not why he was rearrested, but why he was set free in Britain in the first place, when all evidence pointed to the fact that he played a key role in recruiting terrorists, including Zakaria Mousawi (the only indicted terrorist in the USA for the 9/11 attacks), and Richard "shoebomber" Reid.

The Jordanian leading daily Al-Rai provides the answer to the question. Abu Qatada is Jordanian by origin and has two life-sentences awaiting him in Jordan for planning and conducting terrorist acts there. In spite of major efforts by the Jordanian government in the past years, the British government has refused to extradite him.

Saleh Al-Qallab writes today in Al-Rai today: From the first day of his arrival in Britain escaping Jordanian justice, Abu Qatada joined terrorist activities. Despite that, the British turned a blind eye to what he was doing. The reason is that they needed his services, the same way the U.S. intelligence needed the services of Sheikh Omar Abdulrahman. When he was still performing dirty security operations in the service of British interests, Abu Qatada was a man of opinion, who was to be protected, and all the Jordanian demands for extraditing him were met with absolute refusal. Then, when he has been exhausted and no longer able to perform these dirty services, the British suddenly discovered that he was posing a grave danger to their security.

The Arabic section of the LaRouche movement have prepared a special report on the British role in the Mumbai terror attacks, putting together the different EIR press releases. It is posted on the Arabic website (http://nysol.se/arabic/media/mumbai.html) and has been sent to all relevant Arabic media and government institutions in Arab countries

Healing: The Art of Correcting False Assumptions

Most of healing is dealing with the consequences of unconscious behavior.
The art of healing is the art of correcting the underlying assumptions that are the causes of unconscious behavior.
It is complete when understanding and forgiveness set in.

- Ali Ansari

On Purity...

Since man is made of clay, he can never be completely pure.
Since clay is basically foul, how can humans escape their basic nature?
Purity does not lie in rituals, nor can human nature be changed by effort.
Those who love God and remain conscious only of their Beloved attain purity.

-Al-Hujwiri, "The Kashf al-Mahjub"

Understanding the Face of Fascism in the Midst of a Financial Meltdown

Leaving out the Keynesian Sixth 'C'

November 3, 2008 (LPAC)--While invoking the honored name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, yesterday's Sunday Telegraph--a.k.a. the 'Torygraph,' proposes a series of decidedly non-FDR, pro-Keynesian measures a new President of the U.S. should take. The proposal focuses on "the five Cs: capital, credit, confidence, change (of the regulatory variety) and closure," while managing to leave out the all-important sixth "C". Now that the bailout is under way, the new President should create "a climate of confidence" in the financial markets, and restructure the "outdated and outmoded" regulatory system by creating "one super-regulator" attached to the Fed.

These measures are explicitly fascist, which leads us to the unspoken sixth "C", for CORPORATISM. John Maynard Keynes, later Baron Keynes, explicitly endorsed fascist economics in the preface to his 1937 German-language edition of his "General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money." Keynes wrote in his foreword that his theory were best "adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state," an admission which was not included in the English-language versions of his book. It is this overtly fascist Keynesian view that the British are pushing under the guise of a New Bretton Woods, in direct opposition to a return to the nation-building philosophy of FDR. One could truthfully argue that the British approach is actually the three Cs, corruption, criminality, and corporatism.

For more on the 6th C, check out LPACTV: What is Corporatism?

Remedy for the Global Financial Crisis: Tell the British to Sit Down and Shut Up

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

For those totally confused by the cause of the world's financial problems but wanting a solution, John Hoefle of the LaRouche news weekly, Executive Intelligence Review (Washington), gets straight to the point in this 28 second video:

http://www.larouchepac.com/news/2008/11/01/tell-british-sit-down-and-shut.html

and forward it to to your friends, relatives and colleagues and get it onto the Blogs. It will help the population see the 'big picture'

It appears on www.larouchepac.com which gives daily updates of the financial meltdown and the LaRouche movement's long struggle to replace this bankrupt and inhuman system internationally.

Kind regards,
Mohd Peter

Cast Aside the Jug and Seek the Water

The outward form of things passes away, but the essence remains forever.
How long will you be besotted with the shape of the jug?
Cast aside the jug, and seek the water.
If you look too closely at the form, you miss the essence.
If you are wise, you will always pick out the pearl from the shell.

-Rumi, "Mathnawi"

The Beauty and Mercy in the Crying Eye....

Sometimes in order to help He makes us cry.
Happy the eye that sheds tears for His sake.
Fortunate the heart that burns for His sake.
Laughter always follows tears.
Blessed are those who understand.
Life blossoms wherever water flows.
Where tears are shed divine mercy is shown.

-Rumi, "Mathnawi"

Remember Allah for Allah to Remember You

Allah says, "I am with My servant when he remembers Me and his lips move in My service."

- Prophet Muhammad, as reported by Abu Hurairah

This Religion is Easy....

This religion is easy.
Do not make it a rigor, or you shall be overcome.
Be steadfast, seek the closeness of Allah, grow in virtue, and implore His appeasement day and night.

- Prophet Muhammad (SAW), as reported by Abu Hurairah

Colin Powell on Religion in the U.S.

"...He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is (i.e. a Muslim)? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America," Powell said. "Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?"

- Former U.S. Sec. of State Colin Powell, responding to a question about Barack Obama's religion

Love is Selfless Not Selfish

Title Love is Selfless Not Selfish Question Two married felt true love for each other. Over the years their love flourished as pure as it can be -- without any physical or sexual desires - a real soulmate love. Although you can come with all different opinions about how bad this is, the two are so much in love that they believed in the Akhirah (the Hereafter) so strongly that they can envision being there together. Both of them pray to Allah to make them be together in the Hereafter. However during one meeting they somehow did commit zina (fornication) and now they are in repentance. Now they don't have sexual desires, but then no one would believe this kind of love existed. Anyway, they think the only way out (which they tried to avoid in the first place in order not to destroy the two homes etc..) is to get divorced and then marry each other, because they just can not stop talking to or seeing each other, but they do not want to continue this life. Can each get divorce or khula` (wife's request for divorce) from their spouses and get married? They did not inform their spouses about the bad part, which happened all of sudden but the spouses from both parties know they these two love each other. The option of not talking is not there as most likely it will cause them to die for sure or be like the living dead. Question -, is the path explained valid, and how can one repent with what happened? Please do not reply with a typical judgment as the matter is very, very complicated, we need your guidance not a fatwa please.. Date 08/Oct/2008 Name of Counsellor

Answer

In the name of Allah the Most Gracious the Most Merciful.

May He bestow His peace and blessings on His messenger, Muhammad, his family, Companions, and all of those who follow them sincerely.

As salamu `alaykum,
Dear brother, thank you for writing to us with your question. It is a bit difficult to make out the situation as you explain it, but I will try my best to answer the question as best I can given my level of understanding as to what you are asking.

It is always important, in this type of forum, that we ask questions with sincerity and openness, and not try to qualify our questions with, “well, I’m interested in what you have to say as long as long as it’s not A,B or C.” You mentioned in your question that you do not want us to answer you in a judgmental way, that you want us to provide you with ‘guidance.’ The way you pose your question indicates that you are looking for a particular response, or, more bluntly, that you would like us to ‘endorse’ your actions due to their ‘complexity’ and because of the intensity of emotions experienced between the two parties involved. Well, unfortunately, we cannot provide ‘guidance’ in such a manner. We must be honest and tell you what we think based on our knowledge and experience, as well as our understanding of the situation as you have explained it.

That’s all we have to go on.
Quite frankly, some of the things you say in your question make little sense. For example, you say that the two parties have no sexual desires for one another, but did commit adultery, and then after they committed adultery, they again had no sexual feelings for one another. This makes no sense. The whole point of the Islamic teaching of people of opposite sexes keeping safe distance from one another, both physically and socially, is to avoid this very thing – temptation. This is not a mere cultural practice, but rather a practical method for keeping our human temptations and desires in check.

It’s called preventive medicine. Many so-called intelligent people like to say that this is ridiculous, that grown men and women are mature enough to have social relations with one another without it necessarily turning into sexual relations. If so, why are there so many extra-marital affairs going on in the world, leading to divorces, domestic violence, broken homes and the like? How many such affairs start at places like the office, where so-called ‘harmless’ social contact can so easily blossom into a full-blown extra-marital love affair? Does Allah not know us better than we know ourselves? We think we are so smart, yet the facts and numbers are proof that we are not.

The situation you are in now is a difficult one. As you have requested, I will not give you a fatwa because I am not qualified to do so, however, your question – can these two people now both request divorce due to their love affair with one another – requires a fatwa of some sort. You are asking a question that is related to legal matters, i.e. can they legitimately ask for divorce given the circumstances. That particular question I cannot answer. As such, it is difficult for me to answer your question, other than to say that regardless of how much these two people love each other, the bottom line is that their love for one another appears greater than their love for Allah, as they have already committed adultery yet insist on moving forward with the illicit relationship. That’s not being judgmental, that’s the simple fact of the situation.

Reality is reality. You say that the two are afraid to destroy their respective homes, but based on what they have done already it seems as though that’s going to happen regardless. Especially since the two insist that their desperate love for one another must continue. Their homes are already in trouble, brother, first by being involved in this kind of relationship and secondly by committing adultery. Unless something dramatic is done quickly, I fear that further damage to the homes will ensue.

True love is not destructive, brother. True love is selfless, it’s sacrifice for the other - it’s wanting the best for another. It’s a state where individual desires disappear and one’s life becomes a vehicle for service of the other. There is no more wanting for ourselves, only for others for the sake of God. Thus the adage, “If you love somebody, set them free….” That is true love and it is only love of God that can bring us that love. Love is not “I gotta have this person at all costs and no matter who and what I destroy in the process…” Love is, “I want whatever is best for this person, regardless of what I GET out of it!” And whatever is best for another includes their life in this world and the life to come. There is no true love, however, that destroys homes and souls by committing capital crimes in God’s eyes. That is not true love.

The first thing I think that needs to be done before any action should be taken is sincere tawbah/repentance for what has taken place between these two people. Only with sincere repentance and then asking Allah for guidance can there be any honest attempt to resolve the situation in a way that is healthy. Otherwise, these two people will be merely following their nafs/desires’ wishes, causing more destruction in their wake. Right now, I sense that these two people are blinded by their love/lust for one another and are not capable of making clear judgments as to what is best. They need to, though, before they do any more harm to their families and themselves.

If they are sincere, as you say, in their desire to be together in the Akhirah, then they have to come to their senses now in this life and realize that the path they are on is certainly not going to bring them together in the Akhirah in any desirable state. They need to realize this and put their lives and their actions in perspective. Their prayers to be together in the life to come will be answered, in sha-Allah, if they are able to control themselves and act within the bounds of God’s laws and guidance. Only by doing so will they realize their dreams of being together in the life to come.

How Hard it is to be Human!

Angels were created without lust and evil, the worst obstacles of humankind.
Those who, despite their evil nature, remain pious excel angels in rank.

Enthused by their purity angels denounced the human race, so God chose three angels to go to the earth and reform its inhabitants.
One angel, espying the corruption, begged God to let him return.
The other two, in their earthly form, gave in to lust and fell from grace.
Thus God revealed to the other angels the superiority of the devout.

-Al-Hujwiri, “The Kashf al-Mahjub”