313_Waiter

Thoughts on Sheikh Imran Hosain’s views on Russia and China? Or Aleksandr Dugin’s views on Russia , China and Iran?

Agreed. It shouldn’t just be about feelings or experience, which is not enough to convince anyone. As Schuon says: However, there is a modern tendency to reduce philosophy to skepticism or rationalism, part of it due to Rene Descartes. Characteristic of modern philosophy is this “excessive doubting” without paying any attention to the intuitive ‘aql (inclusive of, but going beyond, pure reason). German philosopher Hermann Türck, a 19th-Century critic of Nietzsche calls this “misosophy”, the hatred of wisdom rather than the love of it. Naturally, this has led to sacred knowledge becoming largely inaccessible. Philosophy, theology and gnosis must be integrated and must go together to prevent extremes: “To be truly human is to transcend the human. To be satisfied with the merely human is to fall ultimately below the human state.” - Nasr. Essentially what is being said is that the modern world has placed in the centre of the scheme of things earthly man, whereas the centre or the heart is where Allah alone resides. The ‘aql can steer a sincere seeker towards the right direction. But it is a means and not an end. It relates to His Infinitude. The forms are “ayāt” (signs) pointing to something beyond themselves. The wasilah (means) that we use to approach Allah must necessarily be one of form or conceptualisation, as that which is beyond form and conceptualisation is Allah. If these were “irrelevant”, then Allah would never breathe them into existence. The forms as being mazāhir contain traces of the Real, and so are not irrelevant. But they are a means and not an end. Not quite, under Mulla Sadra’s tashkik al wujud philosophy the false or incorrect forms would represent privations of the Real, whilst the more Tawheedi forms would be closer to the One. Wsalam.

Allahumm salli Ala Muhammad wa ‘aali muhammad Allahumma ajjil waliyekal faraj

@Northwest You are correct that heart could be clouded by ego or desire, but your approach of “facts over feelings” seems too rationalistic and modernistic. The goal is to purify the heart through remembrance (dhikr), spiritual practice, and contemplation. The highest truth (al Haqq) can only grasped by the heart. In order to understand what we mean by the heart, see the below: One of the duas that is recommended by many of our great scholars including Ayatollah Bahjat, and found in both Sunni and Shia sources is the below: The ‘intellect’ in early Shiism is not simply “reasoning”, it is a key to understanding the secrets of Allah, a light which Allah has placed in the heart. Good question. You’re right that Allah already knows Himself. Only He is al Alim. Nothing is added or taken away from His essence by creating the world. So why did He create? Creation is a “natural” unfolding of His perfection. An infinite being expresses itself infinitely. The nature of Absolute Being is to overflow into being. Like the Sun radiates light not out of need, but because it is its nature. So the treasure hadith is saying that God creates to see His names through a different modality, the modality of finite beings, which Seyyed Nasr calls metaphorically “apparent self negation”. Again, this is not meant to be deducted, rationalised, reasoned. You’re meant to taste it. Through dhikr, through love, through purification of the heart. Let’s first establish that what I have said is the correct understanding as per the Ahlulbayt, when it come to tanzih or apophatic theology (after that I will mention tashbih). See the below quotes: Even the name of Allah, is not Allah (we are told to worship what it is pointing towards). Because even a Name is a kind of category. It creates a distinction. But God, or Wujud, is beyond. distinctions, comparisons, genus, definition, or boundary. The goal is to nudge you beyond words. When it comes to tashbih, cataphatic theology, the goal is to allow our hearts to be receptive to His Light and to see His Names (and indeed the entire cosmos and your own self - the microcosm), as signs pointing to Him. The below statement by Imam Ali ((عليه السلام)) in sermon 1 of the Nahj summarises what we are saying: “He is with everything, but not in physical nearness. He is different from everything, but not in physical separation.” Which means don’t lose God in the forms (idol worship, incarnation), but at the same time don’t lose God in the formlessness (Deism, nihilism, agnosticism), the latter is what you are doing. Everything is thus a veil (there is none like unto Him) and a window (He is the Seeing, the Hearing). A veil if you stop at it and just see it as mahiyya (what-ness of something). A window if you look through it and see Wujud (Quiddity or Being) Dhikr, Dua and Submission can help, but ultimately Allah is known through Allah. The Shi’a view is as follows. - Pre-Islamic revelations were valid when revealed. They were from God and conveyed guidance appropriate to the context / culture / place / time they were revealed. - They contained the same essential Tawhid, but not in its complete or final form, which the Ahlulbayt show especially through their duas (see Dua Kumayl, or makarimul akhlaq or jawshan kabir). 3. Their outer forms may be “abrogated”, but their inner meanings still reflect aspects of al Haqq (the Truth and the Reality) 4. Overall, the straight and final path is Islam, as revealed in the Qur’an, and shown by the Ahlulbayt (the walking Quran) I believe perennialists like Schuon, Nasr, and Guenon would echo parts of this but would downplay Islam’s finality or exclusivity. They would still nonetheless emphasise the importance of a path rooted in Sacred Tradition. See the below ahadith. The Hadiths above show the importance of a sincere weeping heart. Nonetheless, they do not mean that shariah is not important. Shariah, tariqah and haqiqah must go hand in hand. Form has no power on its own. A prayer, a dhikr, a mantra without the Real is just sound which has no purpose beyond itself. It would be a lifeless shell. But not all forms are equal: - Some forms are divinely revealed (like Islamic duas) - Others contain partial truths - Others may be accepted due to Allah’s mercy which encompasses all things. I’m not too familiar with Babel. All I am saying is the below: Doesn’t Tawhid necessitate all apparent multiplicity being rooted in the One? Wallahu A’lam

It’s good to see some of my posts are still going after the years. Jeez I’m getting old

They cannot be likened because creation in and of itself is non-existent, and from another perspective is the self-disclosure of God under a veil of multiplicity, nothing exists except by God’s continuous act of Being Only Allah has Wujud. Have you researched within your heart (not to sound pretentious)? The Islamic tradition emphasises that Allah is contained within the heart of a believing servant “neither the Heavens nor the Earth containeth Me, but the heart of a believing servant”. The heart is also called the “Throne” of the All-Merciful The All-Sufficient doesn’t create out of need, but because the Real is the Source of all perfections, and perfection includes the ability to manifest (“apparent self negation”) or the overflowing of Being. God doesn’t become less by creating. He affirms His own Names and discovers Himself through manifestation. Quote Rasulullah (saw)’s Hadith Qudsi: “I was a hidden treasure and I loved to be known, so I created creation.” That’s because He lies within your heart and communicates to you through Himself (His tajalli). Ultimately it was all a grand communication. Whatever you witnessed. Don’t think any of it is accidental or separate. This is the great apparent paradox. It’s a matter of zooming out vs zooming in. Mulla Sadra speaks of a servants journey to God as encompassing four journeys: 1 From creation to God 2 In God by God 3 From God to creation by God 4 In creation with God Abd al Razzaq Al-Qāšānī: “The end of the first journey is: lifting the veil of multiplicity and seeing uniformity. The end of the second journey is: lifting the curtain of uniformity and seeing multiplicity [...]. The end of the third journey is the monism of the essence of unification. The end of the fourth journey is the monism of unification and separation [...] in order to see the one essence in the multiple appearances and the multiple appearances in the one essence “Beholding the essence of reality, we see only one thing that really exists, and that is God. Yet the world as we know it is comprised of a great multiplicity. The mystic should be able to see the essence of God when he beholds the world’s multiplicity, and vice versa, to see the multiplicity of the world when he contemplates God. The belief that all things in the world can be seen as both, as united with God and as individual components of the world, allows the mystic to experience a unification with God while he preserves his own separate, individual identity at the same time.” That’s exactly what the Quran articulates: “There is nothing like unto Him, and [yet!] He is the Hearing, the Seeing.” (Q 42:11) Transcendence and immanence are not opposed. God is beyond comparison “laysa ka-mithlihi shay’” and yet He is not absent. He is also closer than your jugular vein (50:16), with you wherever you are (57:4), and the Light of the heavens and the earth (24:35). This verse isn’t saying “God is sorta like creation and sorta not.” It’s saying: God transcends all categories, including the category of transcendence itself which means He is immanent at the same time . Not all religious traditions rely on song, music, or dance (orthodox Islam arguably does not), and philosophy’s role varies wildly, so some of your examples seem inapplicable. Moreover, some communities may treat them as possible deviations from a primordial faith. The very fact that cultures are so variable and distinctive, if anything, points to the absence of a personal God (not the absence of God per se). Religious conceptions diverge more than they converge among cultures, hence diverse forms, rituals, and so on. The multiplicity is a reflection of His infinitude the unity of all religions (rooted upon al Haqq instead of being veils) on Tawhid (true Absolute Oneness) is a reflection of His Absoluteness. Again. It’s a matter of perspective. Every true revelation is shaped by the particular time, culture, and language in which it descends, yet all are rays from the same Sun. Practices like Hindu mantras, Christian rosaries, or Islamic dhikr are forms that carry spiritual functions, their efficacy lies not in the form itself, but in what the form points toward- the Real (al-Ḥaqq). All Divinely originated religions converge on Tawhid. There is the One speaking in many tongues, but you have to See through His light to see this. The Qur’an and the Ahlulbayt are the final, most complete mirrors (and thus the best guides to Tawhid), but the same Light has been reflected in other sacred forms across human history. Research the Logos, Muhammadan Light, Insan Al Kamil, Universal Man, Tao, etc. To quote Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s lecture “In the beginning was consciousness”: One alone is the Dawn beaming over all this. It is the One that severally becomes all this. Rg­Veda, VIII, 58:2 The nameless [Tao] is the beginning of Heaven and Earth, The named [Tao] is the mother of ten thousand things. Tao Te Ching, ch. 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Gospel of John, 1:1 But His command, when He intendeth a thing, is only that He saith unto it: “Be!” and it is. Quran, 36:81 ^ I find the situation as frustrating as you do (re: the absence of independent sources confirming religious claims), given that I think there is much evidence of an immaterial Reality that lies behind the universe. I am rather confident that reductionist materialism is simply false: NDEs alone are confirmatory. I have also firsthand experience with lucid dreaming, synchronicity, foreknowledge, and/or telepathy, as well as access to relatives who have had out-of-body experiences while sleeping. I think (the nature of) matter is far more complex than scientism intimates. All this makes the impasse a misfortune. My heart has ‘prayed‘ about this very matter for much of my life, and so far I have not received an unambiguous clue. Revelation works from outside (Kitāb or Prophet) or inside (fitra and inner Book- we are indeed the Book by whose tablet the Hidden becomes manifest. The Quran says “We will show them Our signs in the cosmos and within their own selves…” 41:53. Kufr (disbelief) isn’t ignorance, it’s arrogance, a refusal to uncover and submit to the Truth. Islam, is the state of “one” who yields everything to the One, without giving any weight to any “thing” but Him.

Side note. How can we as Muslims best benefit from this tech? And bring innovation i may create a new post on this

I would recommend all interested in philosophy or irfan to watch this lecture series by Khalil jaffer - it’s brilliant @PureExistence1 I think you will enjoy his lectures, they are foundational but always enjoyable (delve into irfan)

It’s free just google chatgpt and use your google account. There’s a paid version which is a bit better From a cursory look what it spat out makes sense is it trustworthy? no it must be verified, especially religious matters it is getting better and better though. Or more according to what the populace deems fit. it has a bias towards the data it is fed. but its a great tool and saves all time TLDR: needs to be verified

Download Surah_Al-Fatihah_Word_By_Word_UTF8_Fixed.pdf from chatgpt

You are your own biggest source “Your sickness is from you, but you do not perceive it, and your remedy is within you, but you do not sense it. You presume you are a small entity, but within you is enfolded the entire Universe. You are indeed the evident book, by whose alphabet the hidden becomes manifest. Therefore you have no need to look beyond yourself. What you seek is within you, if only you reflect.” - Quote attributed to Imam Ali (عليه السلام) دوَاؤُکَ فِیکَ وَ مَا تَشْعُرُ وَ دَاؤُکَ مِنْکَ وَ مَا تَنْظُرُ وَ تَحْسَبُ [تزعم] أَنَّکَ‏ جِرْمٌ‏ صَغِیرٌ وَ فِیکَ انْطَوَى الْعَالَمُ الْأَکْبَرُ وَ أَنْتَ الْکِتَابُ الْمُبِینُ الَّذِی بِأَحْرُفِهِ یَظْهَرُ الْمُضْمَر

Suffering is necessary and not necessarily bad. It’s a given. an example is how a blacksmith makes a sword that allow it to grow or how people go to the gym and put themselves through suffering to get better and better without suffering, how will one understand pleasure? Evil is privation, does not exist Privation of the Good that is Allah is a natural consequence of creation which implies separation from Allah Stop putting humans at the centre of your worldview. Allah is the centre which resides in the heart of the Mu’min. All good is from Him and all evil (privation) is from our selves “Perhaps you dislike something which is good for you and like something which is bad for you. Allah knows and you do not know. “ (2:216) Because they are part of His plan, and His plan is beautiful Bibi Zaynab ((sa) - “I saw nothing but beauty” wsalam

Unrelated topic asking a question on behalf of someone via email and also a personal question directly via phone

JazakAllah. the dear sheikh stopped responding to me I believe. Maybe he is busy or I said something that was wrong. May Allah forgive me

Anyone know where I can find this video by Dr farrokh Sekaleshfar? for those who want to go beyond the usual discussions and expositions or have an inclination towards irfan… look into his work @PureExistence1 Any idea sister?