Islam is NOT a political ideology, a political theology, a political system, a political venture, or a political empire. It is concerned only with the way Muslims practice their particular communal politics just as it is concerned with the way every Muslim practices his own particular politics in her own personal life.
Islam is a religion, a way of pursuing one’s personal life, continuously asserting while simultaneously acquiring deeper insights into ethics, principles, standards, morals, values, and qualities to attain in life.
A Muslim is one who witnesses the Shahadah, the assertion that God is One and Mohammad is His Prophet. After that he need not do anything more to remain in the fold of Islam. Whatever else he does or does not do is between him and God.
Shariah and Tariqah mean the same in Arabic i.e. "the way". The word Shariah has now come to denote Islamic Law but because Islam is meant for the Muslim for all time THEREFORE there is no fixed law in Islam. And THEREFORE, the Shariah changes not only with time and place but also with culture, knowledge, circumstance, belief, and intellect. And, THEREFORE the Shariah of one Muslim is NOT the Shariah of another Muslim. Pluralism is a cardinal ethic of Islam so that all people are free to choose their own ways,their own Shariah under Islam. THEREFORE, as the Tariqah (the Belief) so the Shariah (the Law).
However, the word Tariqah has come to denote the beliefs and traditions of the non-orthodox sects, the so-called heretic sects, in Islam. Well then know that I am a heretic, a non-believer in the so-called "Shariah-Islam" of the Muslim ulama, the so-called Muslim scholars, born and bred over a thousand years of medieval ignorance. Islam is indeterminate and no Muslim should be so arrogant and intolerant as to uphold his own particular Islam as the only Islam that must be followed by all Muslims leave alone all people everywhere. Indeed, there are ethics to be upheld in Islam but these are broad, general issues and their specificity is determined by the Muslim community concerned in time, place, culture, knowledge, circumstance, belief, and intellect.
Love is a frail thing so easily ripped by a harsh word. And yet love is so robust, working day after grinding day to shelter and feed family, to nurse the sick, to nurture the young. Love does not complain. It patiently waits. In a dance, in conversation, or encircled in my arms, I love you simply because you are. You are beautiful. In love’s reflection, I am.
There is no guarantee at all in life except existence until we are no more. So what is the point in crying over any untoward circumstance? Life can be so wondrous, so fulfilling and so exciting if I but do not despair over past mistakes or future imagined traumata.
I do not say, ‘Live only for the now and leave everything else aside.’ No, that is a path to folly. However, I do say, 'Live the very, very best you can today and only then tomorrow will take care of itself.'
I have intelligence and therefore I must provide for my changing fortunes. But, I must not be so fearful of life that I walk on this earth in perennial fear of my livelihood, my health, and the uncertainty of circumstance when my very birth itself was a miracle with only love as my sole protection for a long, long time.
Consider this. Am I to harbor such fear of tomorrow that I must of necessity live as a miser today so as to hoard a grand fortune as my security for the days when my frail body will need the assistance of others? That is to be chained to fear - forever! If there be no God then there is no need to be 'good' and then euthanasia is the only way out. But, harken, if there is a God then there is also the 'Good' that will not forsake one of its own! So BELIEVE - and live!
Indeed I pray, "Oh God, please let tomorrow come, again and again, so I can live out this glorious creation of mind and body in your Universe, savoring music, dance, and song! Daily I celebrate sunshine and rain, the wind, the shoreline. What do I lack in life with Thou as my Maintainer that I should so fear ‘Tomorrow’?"
To worry overmuch is to lack faith in The God. The less faith, greater the worry. And, The God will not allow it of me. So I believe, so I have experienced, and thus, of a certainty, I know!
Ha, nothing frightens me. I am the fearless panther on the prowl. Every circumstance is the best that can ever have happened to me! It is all learning in this my visit to The God's Earth. I but want only to improve upon the past. And I, too, am the lovebird on the wing pursuing companionship. Not because I am a lonesome me, but because it is the reality of love for is it not said that 'In twosome we live but singly we die'?
And, if I do not dare how will I ever know if she loves me, loves me not? It does not matter what she might say. It only matters what she does say. And, if the answer is, “No,” then all I need do is cock my hat and look anew. After all, I was given the name, ‘Man’!
Did she look to me?
Methinks she smiled at me
My heart fluttered
As I walked to where she waited
I swept her into the dance
And let her perfume conquer me
I pressed my lips to her cheek
And heard her soundless need
I held her tight
Her softness blended into mine
There was no more ‘you’ and ‘I’
Only sweet union
I whispered in her ear
I know your name
It is ‘Woman’
And, I love, you!
The wisdom in her warns her: “To curb desire is the greatest good.” She arouses me and then leaves me aching. Thus she silently wields power over me forcing my surrender to her demands that I seek her in marriage: cherish her, my equal partner in the battle of life.
How easily a woman can tame a man! Is it any wonder that Adam could not resist Eve? It is the woman who takes the man to husband her, a father to her children - not vice versa!
And beware for she will even give up her man if he is unable to care for her little ones. A woman's priorities change with time. A mother's love for her children is more ferocious than the whole world weighing upon her. Gladly she will die that they may live! Therefore, humankind survives with woman as the cement that binds the disparate into a whole. And the married man, now no longer on the prowl, becomes the servant-guardian of the family providing food and protection willingly because he cannot anymore live without his family.
From up above, Love looks down upon His schemings: And Smiles.
How resilient is the heart! It incessantly longs to love - and be loved. No matter how often it gets hurt, it never ceases to believe in love, forever seeking. That is the greater reality, greater than self and selfishness. It is the reality of the Spirit and its abode is the heart. It knows what the mind itself does not know: To love is to give without count because only in the giving lies the source of all happiness.
The highest intelligence is neither aptitude nor skills. It is simply the will and the actions to live a good life. You ask: What determines a good life in a constantly changing world where even the good and the bad are relative to time, place, culture . . . also creed, convention, contention, compliance, control, communication . . . even CIRCUMSTANCE!? Thought. Thinking. Reasoning. To think is to separate facts from assumptions to better opine on the world and to better predict the world to come. Objective thinking elevates one in life, in love, in work, in parenting, in leadership, in times good and bad. To think is to undertake voyages to the lands of logic, language, ethics, religion, science, anthropology, jurisprudence, politics, economics, mathematics, indeed to all areas of knowledge. There is but only one prerequisite to thinking. It is the simple desire to know the answers to your own questions.
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