[1] William C. Chittick’s, Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul The Pertinence of Islamic Cosmology in the Modern World [re-read]. [2] The Book Of Illumination Sign Of Success on the Spiritual Path by Shaykh Ahmad Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah Al-Iskandari. [3] Jamaluldeen Abdullah Ibn Hisham al-Ansari’s, Sharh Shudhur al-Dhahab; [4] Sherman Jackson’s, On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam Abu Hamid Al Ghazali’s Faysal L Tafriqa; [5] Seyyed Nasr’s, Science and Civilization in Islam; [6] Awdhah al-Masalik ila Alfiyat Ibn Malik Ibn Hisham al-Ansari; [7] Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s, Knowledge and the Sacred [re-read]; [8] Mystical Dimensions of Islam by Annemarie Schimmel; [9] A History of Islamic Legal Theories An Introduction to Sunni Usul Al-Fiqh, by Wael B. Hallaq; [10] also by Wael B. Hallaq, The Origins And Evolution Of Islamic Law; [11] Sufi Essays from Seyyed Hossein Nasr; [12] The Sacred Foundations of Justice in Islam The Teachings of Ali Ibn Abi Talib by Reza Shah Kazemi, M Ali Lakhani, and Leonard Lewisohn; [13] The Art of Reciting the Qur’an by Kristina Nelson; [14] Muhtar Holland’s Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship - Al Ghazali; [15] The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr edited by William C. Chittick; [16] Daniel Abdal Hayy Moore’s Ramadan Sonnets/Poems; [17] Al-Ghazali’s Path to Sufism; [18] Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya on the Invocation of God from Al-Wabil Al-Sayyib Min Al-Kalim Al-Tayyib Muhammad Ibn Abi Bakr Ibn Qayyim Al Jawziyah; [19] Al-Ghazali’s Letter to a Disciple (Ghazali Series) Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali [re-read]; [20] Mulla Sadra’s The Elixir of the Gnostics Muhammad Ibn Ibrahim Sadr Al-Din Shirazi; [21] Ebrahim Moosa’s Ghazali And The Poetics Of Imagination [continuation]; [22] The Self-Disclosure of God Principles of Ibn Al-’Arabi’s Cosmology from William Chittick; [23] also from Chittick, Fakhruddin Iraqi Divine Flashes; [24] Hadith study: Sunan Abu Dawud; [25] Ira M. Lapidus’ A History of Islamic Societies [continuation]; [26] Ibn Ishaq’s al-Sirah al-Nabawiyyah; [27] The Sufi Path of Knowledge by William Chittick; [28] The Practice of Everyday Life by Michel De Certeau; [29] After the Death of God by John D Caputo and Gianni Vattimo; [30] Tommie Shelby’s We Who Are Dark; [31] The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization by Richard W. Bulliet; [32] Imam al-Ghazali’s Ihya’ uluwm al-Deen [Arabic version]; [33] The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State by Noah Feldman; [34] al-Ghazali on the Manners Relating to Eating Book XI of the Revival of the Religious Sciences, translation by Denys Johnson-Davies; [35] David C. Lindberg and his The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to A.D. 1450; [36] al-Ghazali’s On Disciplining the Soul and on Breaking the Two Desires Books Xxii and Xxiii of the Revival of the Religious Sciences Nakamura; [37] White by Richard Dyer [continuation]; [38] Deliverance from Error and Mystical Union With the Almighty Al-Munqidh Min Al-Dalal by al-Ghazali; [39] Martin Lings’s Muhammad His Life Based on the Earliest Sources [continuation]; [40] Hadith Qudsi; [41] The Connectors in Modern Standard Arabic by Nariman Naili Al Warraki and Ahmed Taher Hassanein [review].

And while this may seem a bit ambitious, I will do my best to wade through this impressive stack this summer. I am going to try to adhere to the order as much as possible.

I was honored last night to be asked to attend the Town Square Meeting at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Center City Philadelphia. The meeting was presented by Philadelphia Green and was about the merging of faith-based organizations and the stewardship of those religious groups and how they are or can be engaged in environmental activities. It quickly came to my attention that Muslims at least in this area have been woefully absent. Absent either due to ignorance of such activities or because it’s simply not on the radar. For the concerns of this post, I will address the latter.

Like so many topics and events today, Muslims seem to either be swept along by the Zeitgeist of the day or bypassed all together. This is an issue that we as a Muslim community need to address more seriously if we wish to have our voice taken seriously - otherwise, it will be taken away. By Zeitgeist I am referring to the trend that many Muslims allow popular consensus or dominant voices dictate to us what is or is not important. One example that comes to mind is a conversation I had with a Muslim brother who said we needed to take a tougher stance towards homosexuality. When I inquired as to what he meant, he was referring to the unions of gay couples and homosexual marriages. He was quite passionate about the topic and felt that Islam was somehow being eroded by this lapse in what he saw as social immorality. I calmly reminded the brother to consider the following: homosexuality is not permissible in Islam. God has made this readily apparent and therefore he should take comfort in this incontrovertible truth. In other words, the question has been answered by the Highest Authority, therefore why approach the topic as if it could be reopened for discussion [and ultimately, permissibility].

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Today was an odd turn of events that had the building which houses my office on UPenn’s campus, play host to a talk on Islam by one of today’s most darling Muslim pundits, Irshad Manji. A self-proclaimed Muslim reformist, activist, human rights lobbiest and lesbian, Irshad gave a talk to an attentive audience which was comprised of both Muslim and non-Muslim, old and young alike. Dr. Leonard Swidler, from Temple University, was also on hand to add to the discussion. But, unfortunately, like her book, The Trouble With Islam Today, the talk was filled with nothing more than drivel. And that’s just the good part.

So much of the dialog today regarding Islam is in how it can fit into the master narrative of Western discourse. This encompasses everything from morals, ethics, to aesthetics, such as standards and concepts of beauty. When Islam fails to authenticate a narrative that falls within the margins of the dominant culture, it and vis-a-vie, the Muslims, are condemned as being backwards, barbaric, and even morally, ethically, and intellectually bankrupt. And when a people are deemed barbaric or morally bankrupt, the slippery slope to subjugation, whether it be figuratively, psychologically or physically can never trail far behind. This process of brutalization bears striking resemblance to the types of psychological terror that have been visited upon various minority groups in the West, especially in America, when they failed to meet the criterion of a dominant force that often have a pattern of “moving the goal post” when it suited itself opportune.

A major portion of my critique on Manji’s arguments and positions as well as comments that Dr. Swidler gave, were that neither Manji nor Swidler are scholastically equipped to answer any such questions regarding the intellectual tradition of Islam. Manji is a journalist of questionable objectivity and Swidler’s expertise lies outside the fold of Islam. Manji often relies on crude reductionism coupled with a woefully absent basic familiarity with the Islamic Tradition. Buzz words like ijtihad, fatwah and of course, the crowd pleaser, jihad, are tossed out to lend to her some Islamic academic credibility. In fact, Swidler’s presence is somewhat questionable as Temple University could have certainly offered up someone who would have been far better suited to the task at hand. In light of access to scholars like Khaled Blankinship, it remained a curiosity as to why Manji chose a non-Muslim religious professor to engage in talks about Muslim reform.

But to take things a step further, Manji’s book, The Trouble With Islam Today, is guilty of the same crime that many of its contemporaries are: making the personal experience an ontological narrative. To help further explain my point, let me offer this explanation: because of the trials and tribulations that Manji faced as a child, because of the personal experiences that Manji had and the choices she’s made, she has taken the sum of those experiences and built the foundation of her argument around them such that they take on a scope that is completely inappropriate. That because they were or are issues for Manji they must be equally important issues for all Muslims in all times and in all places. A great deal of Manji’s contemporaries, such as Ayan Hirsi Ali to name one, frame their arguments in the same manner. But to reiterate, these criticisms of Islam do not simply stop at personal narrative, they apex again at how Islam falls short on a laundry list of items such as equality, human rights, tolerance and progression. In where Islam fails to be equal, tolerant or progressive in the “Western” paradigm that Manji offers up, Islam is deemed to have a problem. So this left me asking some simply but pertinent issues. Are any of these issues true? And if so, how, and in what way? And again, if so, what would be the best way of looking for resolutions.

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The following is an article about the Sudanese bassist and composer, Ahmed Abdul-Malik, that was originally published in Down Beat Magazine, July 4th, 1963. The article was written by Bill Coss. Beyond an excellent insight into the workings of a master musician, Abdul-Malik ties the thread between knowing the Creator and knowing one’s world. Given Modernity’s fractured vision on the relation of things, Abdul-Malik’s words are erudite and moving. He was also a stellar musician of world-class calibre. Hat tip to Doug Benson for the resource. May Allah have mercy on his soul.

In some degree, all music is about something. But what it is about, its contents, differs widely and generally determines its essential worth.

For composer Ahmed Abdul-Malik the content encompasses all the sciences. particularly the sociological, ethnic, and theological. The easiest thing to say would be that Abdul-Malik is different from most jazz musicians, and both his brief biography and the development of his thought immediately show that difference, while at the same time serving as a primer for youngsters who might aspire to be what Abdul-Malik considers the complete musician.

All his conscious development has come from religious convictions. “People think I am too far out with religion,’ he said. “But it is so necessary to know the Creator, to know the rules of being - what it means - to know the commandments, to know you are commanded to use your intellect and will… That allows you to advance in all subjects. How else can you know about life? And music is life.

“You must do subsidiary study. All music has its own history, of course, and you need to know that, but it is also important to know the non-musical side of a people. That way you learn more about their music. By studying a people’s habits, you find their musical expressions.

“That you are commanded to do. The whole health of the world is based on each contributing to one another: doctors, bakers, musicians. If musicians want to co-operate, they must be masters of all scales which will broadcast to the receiver of the mind.”

“Really, a musician should be in excellent condition, physically, mentally, professionally, and scientifically,” Abdul-Malik continued. “I have studied all the elements: animals, insects, plants, space – the universe - old and new jazz but most importantly the Creator.

“How can you play beauty without knowing what beauty is, what it really is? Understanding the Creator leads to understanding the creations, and better understanding of what you play comes from this. How can you understand fully without knowing the start, the continuation, and the ending?

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