How to bridge the gap of understanding?

Bismi'llah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim...for the sake of Prophet Muhammad saws and Sheikh Nazim may Allah protect his secret.

Once more, after an inability to communicate some simple ideas from Sheikh Nazim to non-Muslims, I found myself frustrated, but trying again in more simple and less "Islamic" language.The following are the results of that.

14th July 2005. La Herradura.Granada.Spain.

10.17.Hrs.

Run into incomprehension on Blog Ladder, trying to explain some traditional Islamic stuff from Sheikh Nazim. I'm surprised, I expected disagreement, but not incomprehension. Granted I did put hadith at the beginning .. I suppose that was a bit off-putting...All that they really said was that when the Prophet pbuh is in heaven recieving people at his fountain he will go to give some people refreshment from it but they will be knocked back by Allah.On expressing his surprise, the prophet pbuh will be told, these were people that changed your religion after you.

The next few hadith (authenticated sayings of the Prophet pbuh) were to show that the Prophet (pbuh) advised people to follow leaders even if they were doing things that they did not like,so long as they were not doing forbidden immoral things against Islam,on the basis that it is the duty of followers to follow and their responsibility is to the leader in this respect and their account is with him. Whereas the leader is not only responsible for his followers but will be accountable to God for his actions. i.e. It is not the duty or the place or the worry of a follower to judge every single thing a leader does because this would in effect stop him being able to lead.

The main point that I am trying to make is that the root cause of all the problems in the world today is that people have forgotten God. If they are not believing in God, life itself just becomes a meaningless accident without the context of an eternal and spiritual world from which everything came mand to which everything returns.

From this root cause people then are reduced to the context of material life and a short life span and of course they then think to solve all the problems and sufferings of man through material means.

When one believes in A First Cause of all things, everything else becomes secondary causes. The main job of the sufi is to try to remember all the time that there are no secondary causes without the First Cause, and that the important thing is to try to remember the First Cause as much as possible.

Modern man as scientist and as politician thinks he is very clever to have found how things work but he has forgotten why things work! An example of this might be that if scientists discover the "gay gene", then they will say,"Oh, you see, he was just made that way.He can't help it, that's natural.so it's O.K." and that apparently is a justification for being gay.

(I have,and have had, plenty of gay friends, I have nothing against them personally,but I still don't think it makes it right or wise or natural to put your willy up another man's bottom.)

That's a secondary cause.The First Cause was God,and if He says it's wrong to practice homosexuality then that person has a test on themselves to control that nature. If discovering the secondary cause is justification for being gay,how long 'til they discover the pederast gene and then say that is O.K. too? If we must all have our rights, then won't we soon be seeing marches for the rights of pederasts?

Understanding something or someone does not make it right.It can help us to help them to correct a wrong attitude or a wrong mentality but it shouldn't lead us to justify wrong.

These days every one has to be "equal" and given equal rights .. and in the end that means that they have to be seen to be the same..so now we all proudly proclaim that men and women are equal..which has come to mean the same..that blacks and whites are equal which has come to mean the same..and that jews and gentiles are equal,which has come to mean the same.

No one can hardly dare to say that homosexuality is wrong.No one can hardly dare to say that abortion and contraception is wrong.No one can ever say that blacks and whites are at least different (let alone name any actual defining characteristics) no one can say that men and women are different because that may imply injustice .. or that jews and gentiles are different because that would be anti-semitism ..etc etc etc ..

How long do we have to remain in this illusory madness where it is frowned upon to speak obvious truths?

What Sheikh Nazim has tried to point out is that this attitude where every voice must be heard and there is no defining right and wrong except what the ego demands had it's seeds in the French Revolution,which is the first time that the whole societal heirarchy got stood on its head and that was considered acceptable and right.

Recently we can see a very good example provided by one of Blog Ladder's staunch members in an article from the Nation where one of Bush's aides provocatively and shamelessly told reporters that they had been voted in by the majority..which majority did not have time to read good newspapers as they were too busy earning a living and now the Bush regime could do what it liked because of their vote.

A classic example of how democracy can be and is abused .. it is simply not intelligent to allow leadership based on a majority vote .. because the majority are not the best informed or adequately prepared to decide such things. This is what makes way for the shameless and the power hungry to get to the positions of power.

This is what got introduced (wether as a reaction to poverty and abuse or not) at the time of the French Revolution and, it's results are worse than what went before,even if what went before was unjust in many ways.

Everywhere in the world we see that people are free to indulge their egos .. so long as they work and pay their taxes .. Everywhere in the world we see freedom for the low and base desires of man and rampant greed for material goods and posessions.This basic animal nature of man is being exploited to enslave him and it is easily done with lending money.

What we see these days as Empire building is often done without any soldiers or at least no military action. Democracy is promised .. government is changed..money is lent and enslavement ensues.

I've watched them do it in Spain and it has been a very smooth operation.At the beginning they were all so happy with their new found freedom in the era of Felipe Gonzalez when everyone could smoke dope in the streets... and all the old moral limits were being shucked off. What a relief from Franco and the Catholic Church!
Now they have families of one point five children instead of five or eight or ten.Everyone lives in different places instead of all in the same town or village. Every woman has a degree and goes to work, husbands are left, wives are deserted, children have one parent families, and psychological illnessses appear that were never seen before.
Everyone has a new car, if not two, everyone has a new house if not two. Everyone is up to the eyebrows with loans and mortgages and enslaved to the banks and the old, happy family, relaxed Spain..is now destroyed and replaced by little automatons following their desires..! Ay!There is still some respect for 'abuelos' and 'abuelas' .. but the old peoples homes are being introduced because sons and daughters are too busy earning money and enjoying themselves to care for them at home any more ... just like their European cousins who they seem so proud to ape.

No,I'm not saying that Franco or the Catholic Church were or are great .. but even that was better than what we are seeing now.

However I am saying that real Islam is much better and that it has the best of the left and of the right in political structure.That it has the best of religion wether Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or Hindu, it has all that they have and more... and it has an extraordinary mystical tradition which has produced some of the best poetry and metaphysics the world has ever seen. c.f. Rumi and Ibn Arabi.

Of course it is useless to try to speak of any of these topics if there is not even any agreement upon the existence of God as our Creator and of all that exists and that the purpose of human life on earth is to try to remember Him Almighty and get to know Him Almighty .. and even to please Him Almighty with our actions and thoughts.
Despairingly ,frustratedly, but never giving up hope .. Salaams,Uthman