Omid Safi is a Professor of Islamic Studies at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, specializing in contemporary Islamic thought and classical Islam. He leads educational tours to Turkey every summer, through Illuminated Tours: http://www.illuminatedtours.com
Rumi enjoins upon the reader to serve as a gracious host to each of these guests of the heart.
Welcome grief, allow it to feel at home, and then bid it farewell.
Welcome joy, treat it as a gracious host would, and then kiss it on its way.
Reggae is at its most revolutionary force when it is prophetic, emancipatory, raw, justice-oriented, anti-colonial, imbued with love and life-affirming.
And very much like Hip-Hop in this case, what a tragedy to see such powerful prophetic medium commercialized to enable awful, awful drunken dancing.
Happy Redemption, O Holy Bob.
Remember, Jesus didn’t become Christ till he was 30. Muhammad did not become the Prophet till he was 40. And you all are not any cooler than them.
It took Jesus and Muhammad a while to figure out who they were, and what they were going to “do.” If you haven’t figured it out by the time you’re 22, it’s alright. Be generous with your selves.
As I look back on my own life, I see a few periods of dark storms, even thunder and lightning. There were periods where the storms of life came, events that shattered me, or at least shattered my sense of who I was. At the time they seemed to last forever, and it was hard to tell the difference between myself and the suffering. Then they were gone. Those pains were always followed by merciful rain.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the latest weapon for the Muslim take…over…of…the world: Justin Bieber. In a recent concert in Istanbul, Justin Bieber stopped his concert twice for the Islamic call to prayer (adhan/azan).
Yes, there is need for a liberatory form of criticism against every form of tyranny. And that critique has to be rooted in a deep and abiding love, even when the critique is rooted in a disappointment with how things are now (compared to how they should be). That combination of critique, love, and community is what is needed to bring about meaningful and lasting transformation.
The purpose is not (merely) to expose and ridicule—ok, maybe there is a touch of that—but rather to shine the light on areas of shortcoming that we, all of us, will have to deal with if we are to get to a more beautiful place than we are right now.
It’s not about Islam, or Chechnya. It’s about America. What happens now matters. How we as a nation move forward is critical. Do we turn our attention where it belongs, on comforting and healing the victims of Monday’s attacks, or do we turn into an angry mob accusing all Muslims of a crime that two men committed?
In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon, President Obama stated: “Any time bombs are used to target innocent civilians, it is an act of terror.”
Mr. President, I wonder if you realize how right you are.
Mr. President, I wonder if you realize what that means when we are the ones dropping bombs on civilians in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Pakistan.
Here was a lesson that Martin Richard, the wise 8-year old, had already learned:
If you can, bring joy and love to humanity.
If you cannot, and you can, at least cause no harm.
