Mind, Body, Soul

Points 3,4,5 are really the same thing said in three different ways.

3. Getting them to Condemn Homosexuality is Like Pulling Teeth

Blah. Obviously every single group of Shariat abiding Muslims condemns homosexuality. Anyone who doesn’t do this is not only a “Rand Institute Muslim” but someone who has deviated from 1400 years of traditional Islamic practice and law.

4. Rewriting Islam to Comply with Feminism

Here we start entering the area of legitimate criticism. It is true that a number of Muslim organizations do tend to focus on some traditions and viewpoints about women and not others. The desire to overcompensate and be apologetic about Islamic views of women have caused Muslim nation states to have more women heads of state than America, land of feminism.

5. A Hatred of Masculinity

As one teacher and friend of mine stated they seek an Islam “without testicular fortitude”. The Sunnah and history of Islam is rewritten and the likes of Khald Ibn Waleed (r.a.) are downplayed and the Prophet (s.a.s.) and the Sahabah are made to be non-violent hippies who sat around gawking at butterflies all day. Northing could be further from the truth. The Prophet {s.a.s.) was a warrior and many of the Sahabah that he loved were straight-up killers. Others were robbers (robbing the caravans of the kufar). Others took women and young girls as the booty of war. Islam spread through jihad and was sustained by the sword of very masculine men. Romantically, the fairy tale “fluffy” version of love that is the norm today was also strange to the Sahabah and in the history of Islam, outside of Rumi (who many if not most consider to be a deviant) there is very little in terms of a history of romance being glorified by learned religious men. There is love in Islam, and a love between man and women, but it is something entirely different then what we have come to understand it in the West.

This is a convenient way for someone who spends time discussing his street background to understand the Prophet (S) and the Sahabi (R). But the companions were not killers and robbers after Islam. Battle was fought with honor on a field, with training and discipline. It was not murder. When discussing caravan raids, it’s clear that the Sahabi were taking the value of confiscated wealth and property back, this is not robbing, its fighting for your own rights. When dealing with prisoners of war and widows, they were operating on a level above and beyond those around them and beyond soldiers of today, they weren’t Abu Ghraib rapists (astaghfirullah). They did this all while bringing justice, peace and rights to women in general.

Yes, indeed, it takes a certain kind of man to participate in all of the above. And nothing, nothing, that Umar Lee mentions here offers Muslims a coherent solution in order to create men who could follow in these footsteps. To demonstrate the schizophrenia, one need not look far, his latest post is about running for peace.

Ugh, what would Umar Lee of yesterday say to this?

It is correct that much of what makes Islam powerful has been lost. But trying to bring the American ghetto into Islam isn’t the answer.

Masculinity is a reflection of the combination of numerous manners. When to be severe, when to be gentle, how to be a generous, wise, and self-aware, are all things taught through example. And it is impossible to transmit manners through books, this is why we were given a living example in the Prophet (S).

Modern institutions of “Islamic Learning” focus on learning texts of a few great thinkers out of Islamic history. Those are their ideals and their models. But while they have a place in the discussion, we have excluded all people of action as role models. This is a product of the Salafi influence on Muslim society, which has distanced ourselves from our own history.

You can’t learn masculinity from a text or recitation. Umar Lee’s understanding of it is completely affected by his upbringing. And since he has completely disconnected from Islamic history he has no way to understand how Muslims have understood masculinity for 1400 years. Alternative teaching institutions are not the answer, but rather having real living guides who live as men and die as men is the example.

In modern Islamic ‘halaqas’, there is no consideration given to absorbing the character traits of real leaders and accomplished saints. Since Islam has been reduced to the textual, the ‘highest example’ of Muslim men are nerdy academics and hence are untrained in action but well trained in debates and discussion of ideas.

The mention of Maulana Rumi only demonstrates where the real viciousness of this attack comes from. Wahabi/Salafism. This is why Umar Lee is unaware of the fact that Maulana Rumi was not only a completely legitimate Hanafi jurist, read by even the Deobandis, he was also a mujahid. He wielded the sword just as well as the pen. And his work is not about romantic love but one of a completely different nature altogether, just like when Umar Lee mentioned that Islamic love is unique from Western love. The only reason he has been understood in this light is due to Western ‘translators’ who have mangled his works to unrecognizable levels.

This sort of love was hardly alien to the Sahabis who were willing to die due to their love of the Prophet (S) and wrote poems and odes to him.

Let us take the example of a real man, The Ottoman Sultan, Mehmet II, who conquered the Byzantines and took Constantinople by the age of *20*. While he was able to write and appreciate poetry, he was equally comfortable taking command and leading his trained armies to success. He was a Sufi too.

In what way are we training ourselves and our children to be taking characteristics that led to his development and those like him? What did we accomplish by the age of 20?

If his example is too high, then what are we doing to be like those who followed him?

If even their example is too high, what are we doing to be like those who were the children of those who followed him?

A quote to put things in perspective about the Sufi view of Jihad and its necessity and power:

“Bir tek mumin hanimin etegine dokunulsa Islam aleminin irzina gecilmis sayilir. Butun Muslumanlar cihada hazir olmak icab eder.”

“If a single believer woman’s dress is touched it will be as if the Islamic world is raped. All Muslims must be ready for jihad.”
-Sheykh Mawlana Nazim Adil al-Hakkani (Grandshaykh of the Naksibendi Sufi Order)

But again, we will do it on our own terms, our own way, and with permission of the inheritors of the Prophet (S).