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Hungarian postcard. Photo: Radius. Victor Varconi in A kuruszló (Mihály Kertész aka Michael Curtiz, 1917).
Handsome Victor Varconi (1891–1976) was a highly successful matinee idol of the Hungarian-Austrian and German silent cinema in the 1910s and early 1920s. Later he was the first Hungarian actor to become a Hollywood star until the sound film completely altered the course of his career.
Victor Varconi was born Mihály Várkonyi in Kisvárda, Austria-Hungary (now Hungary) in 1891. He was born into a farming family on the Hungarian/Romanian border. He attended classes at Budapest's commercial college and at the dramatic school. The young good-looking actor thrived for a time on the Transylvanian stage, where he played leads in such productions as Liliom at the Hungarian National Theatre in Budapest. His rising popularity as a matinee idol led to film roles, and he made his debut in Sárga csikó/Son of the Pusta (Félix Vanyl, 1913). Other of his silent Hungarian films were Bánk Bán (Mihály Kertész aka Michael Curtiz, 1914) based on the play by József Katona, Mágia/Magic (Sándor Korda aka Alexander Korda, 1917), Szent Péter esernyöje/St. Peter's Umbrella (Alexander Korda, 1917) and Fehér rózsa/White Rose (Alexander Korda, 1919) starring Maria Corda, the director’s wife. Unfortunately nearly all these early films got lost. After World War I, under the Horthy regime, Korda and many other film makers fled to Vienna, and Varconi followed them. He changed his marquee name to the more internationally friendly Michael Várkonyi and branched out into German and Austrian films. He showed impressive performances in Aus den Tiefen der Großstadt/ From the depths of the big city (Fred Sauer, 1920) and Nachtbesuch in der Northernbank/Night visit in the Northernbank (Karl Grune, 1921). Then followed such films as Arme Violetta/Camille (Paul H. Stein, 1921) a silent version of La Traviata starring Pola Negri, Herren der Meere/Masters of the Sea (Alexander Korda, 1922), Versunkene Welten/Sunk worlds (Siegfried Philippi, 1922) with Ria Jende, and Namenlos/Nameless (Michael Curtiz, 1923) with Mary Kid. A huge success was the biblical epic Sodom und Gomorrha/Queen of Sin (Michael Curtiz, 1922) with Lucy Doraine. IMDb reviewer Nora Nettlerash writes about his performance in this film: “with his devilish good looks he doesn't really need to act here, and with his commanding presence he makes a great angel of the Lord”.
In 1924, because of the ever-shifting political climate of Europe, Michael Várkonyi moved to America to try his luck in Hollywood. First he played a supporting part in Poisoned Paradise (Louis J. Gasnier, 1924) starring It-girl Clara Bow. Then he was signed by Cecil B. DeMille's company on his exceptional performance in Sodom und Gomorrha (1922). DeMille cast him as a wealthy American tin factory manager in Triumph (Cecil B. DeMille, 1924) opposite established star Leatrice Joy. He was billed now as Victor Varconi. For DeMille's company, the smoothly handsome Varconi then played in the comedy Changing Husbands (Frank Urson, 1924) again opposite Leatrice Joy, had a character role as a bookkeeper in the afterworld in Feet of Clay (Cecil B. DeMille, 1924), later he was a Russian prince in The Volga Boatman (Cecil B. DeMille, 1926) starring William Boyd, and finally, a disgruntled Pontius Pilate in the biblical epic The King of Kings (Cecil B. DeMille, 1929). Temporarily he returned to Europe. In Germany he reunited with director Alexander Korda and his wife Maria Corda for the comedy-drama Der Tänzer meiner Frau/Dance Fever (Alexander Korda, 1925). With Corda he also acted in the two Italian productions L'uomo piu allegro di Vienna/The happiest man in Vienna (Amleto Palermi, 1926) and the lavish spectacle Gli ultimi giorni di Pompeii/The Last Days of Pompeii (Carmine Gallone, Amleto Palermi, 1926) starring Italian diva Rina De Liguoro. Back in Hollywood, the elegant and impeccably mannered Varconi went on to share the screen with some of the loveliest and talented ladies of silent Hollywood, including Agnes Ayres, Marie Prevost, and Jetta Goudal. Notable is his portrayal of cuckolded husband Amos opposite Phyllis Haver's wild jazz-loving and boozing Roxie Hart in the silent Chicago (Frank Urson, 1927). His last major silent role was that of Lord Horatio Nelson in The Divine Lady (Frank Lloyd, 1929) co-starring Oscar-nominated Corinne Griffith as Lady Emma Hamilton.
At the peak of his career as a romantic leading man, Victor Varconi had to face transition from the silent movies to the talkies. It completely altered the course of his career. He had a nice decent voice for sound film but his accent was noticeably thick. He no longer did become offers for leading parts. Temporarily he worked in European silent films, such as the Polish Kult ciala/The Cult of the Body (Michal Waszynski, 1930) and the German Mein Herz gehört Dir.../My heart belongs to you (Max Reichmann, 1930) with Camilla Horn. Back in Hollywood, he regressed slightly to suave ethnic character roles, such as in the Charlie Chan mystery The Black Camel (Hamilton MacFadden, 1931) starring Warner Oland. He often played foreign or royal dignitaries, European adventurers or roguish gigolos. He also starred in English-language versions of Anglo-German co-productions, such as Der Rebell/The Rebel (Luis Trenker, Edwin H. Knopf, 1933) starring Luis Trenker. The forced move to character roles probably added years to his Hollywood life. During World War II Hollywood utilised his talents playing nefarious Axis commanders in spy intrigue and war dramas. In The Hitler Gang (John Farrow, 1944), he was quite skillful portraying Nazi Deputy Rudolf Hess. Varconi also appeared in many of his old boss Cecil DeMille's sound epics such as The Plainsman (Cecil B. DeMille, 1936) (as Indian chief Painted Horse), Reap the Wild Wind (Cecil B. DeMille, 1942) starring Ray Milland, Unconquered (1947, Cecil B. DeMille) with Gary Cooper, and Samson and Delilah (Cecil B. DeMille, 1949) starring Hedy Lamarr. After 1949 Varconi scaled down his workload. He also worked on the New York City stage and wrote for radio. Among his Shakespearean theatre endeavours were roles in Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra and Richard III. He also moved occasionally into TV in the 1950s. Varconi did another film part in the Sci-Fi movie The Man Who Turned to Stone (László Kardos, 1957) starring Victor Jory. The plot was about a group of 18th-century scientists, who have remained young after all these centuries by using electricity to suck the life out of young women. After a supporting part in another Sci-Fi thriller, The Atomic Submarine (Spencer Gordon Bennet, 1960), he retired. Victor Varconi had appeared in 120 films. He published his memoirs It's Not Enough to Be Hungarian, just before his death. In 1976, Victor Varconi died from a heart attack in Santa Barbara, California, at the age of 85. He was married twice. His second wife was stage actress Anna Aranyosy.
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
I've been up in Auld Reekie for a couple of days and took this shot from half-way towards the summit of the Scott Monument, with about 300 steps an old man needs a rest along the way! And what great views, its all there, the old and new towns, Arthur's Seat, Calton Hill, the sea beyond...who could tire of Edinburgh? I've come to a new book event at the Saltire Society where Douglas Dunn, Vicky Feaver and Diana Hendry will be reading from a new poetry collection called 'Second Wind' an appreciation of the ageing process as perceived by these three top Scottish poets, even if the subject matter is a wee bit close for comfort.
I spent quite a bit of time on literary tourism with a particular concentration on researching the importance of the role that the licensed victuals trade has made in the long honourable and creative literary traditions of Edinburgh. And so it came to pass that I found myself gracing a bar-stool in The Abbotsford in Rose Street, forever associated with Hugh MacDiarmid, Norman MacCaig, George Mackay Brown and the group of poets driving the Scottish Renaissance that marked the second half of the twentieth century Scottish poetry. From there a short walk to Milne's bar another famous 'poets pub' shared by the same crowd. Today Milne's is, I believe, a favoured haunt of the crime novelist Ian Rankin but if he was in today he must have been in disguise. I was delighted to pay a first visit The Blind Poet pub in West Nicolson Street. The sightless poet was Dr. Thomas Blacklock a clergyman whose blindness forced his early retirement from the cloth to concentrate his energy on poetry. His work is not much remembered these days but his great distinction lies in his role in inviting Robert Burns to Edinburgh which in turn brought the Ayrshire plowman sufficient fame (if not fortune) to cause him to abandon advanced plans for emigration to Jamaica. Without that intervention Robert Burns might be no more than scholarly footnote in the bibliography of his native land.
But life is not all pubs and carousing so to the credit side of my account I can lay attendance at the daily service of worship in St.Giles Cathedral on the Royal Mile. A beautiful building where the tourists far outnumbered the small congregation. A very interesting place is St.Giles, containing as it does many literary associations. to Burns, (a large stain-glass window) and Robert Louis Stevenson among others. There's an excellent life-size statue of John Knox standing by the entrance to one of the side chapels. Knox was the Minister of St. Giles following the reformation in the sixteenth century, a firebrand of a preacher whom I have always thought would probably have got on well with Ulster's Dr. Ian Paisley, if they have linked-up in the afterworld I'll bet they're still at it. Knox is not especially remembered as a writer though he produced a famous pamphlet with the provocative title 'The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women' which I think gives his measure adequately..
So looking forward to my next visit to Auld Reekie, If I had to live in a city this would be it.
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Pettalus kills Lampetides. The poet fell, his dying fingers plucking the strings of his lyre, and as he fell, sounded a mournful strain.
Metamorphoses - Ovidius (Book V).
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In Greek mythology, Styx is a deity and a river that forms the boundary between Earth and the Underworld, often called "Hades", which is also the name of its ruler. The rivers Acheron, Cocytus, Lethe, Phlegethon, and Styx all converge at the center of the underworld on a great marsh, which sometimes is also called the Styx. According to Herodotus, the river Styx originates near Feneos. Styx is also a goddess with prehistoric roots in Greek mythology as a daughter of Tethys, after whom the river is named and because of whom it had miraculous powers.
The deities of the Greek pantheon swore all their oaths upon the river Styx because, according to classical mythology, during the Titan war, Styx, the goddess of the river, sided with Zeus. After the war, Zeus declared that every oath must be sworn upon her. Zeus swore to give Semele whatever she wanted and was then obliged to follow through when he realized to his horror that her request would lead to her death. Helios similarly promised his son Phaëton whatever he desired, also resulting in the boy's death. Myths related to such early deities did not survive long enough to be included in historic records, but tantalizing references exist among those that have been discovered.
According to some versions, Styx had miraculous powers and could make someone invulnerable. According to one tradition, Achilles was dipped in the waters of the river by his mother during his childhood, acquiring invulnerability, with exception of his heel, by which his mother held him. The only spot where Achilles was vulnerable was therefore that heel, where he was struck and killed by Paris's arrow during the Trojan War. This is the source of the expression Achilles' heel, a metaphor for a vulnerable spot.
Styx was primarily a feature in the afterworld of classical Greek mythology, similar to the Christian area of Hell in texts such as The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost. The ferryman Charon often is described as having transported the souls of the newly dead across this river into the underworld. Dante put Phlegyas as ferryman over the Styx and made it the fifth circle of Hell, where the wrathful and sullen are punished by being drowned in the muddy waters for eternity, with the wrathful fighting each other. In ancient times some believed that a coin (Charon's obol) placed in the mouth of a dead person would pay the toll for the ferry across the river to the entrance of the underworld. It was said that if someone could not pay the fee, they would never be able to cross the river. The ritual was performed by the relatives of the dead.
The variant spelling Stix was sometimes used in translations of Classical Greek before the 20th century. By metonymy, the adjective stygian came to refer to anything dark, dismal, and murky.
Goddess
Styx was the name of an Oceanid nymph, one of the three thousand daughters of Tethys and Oceanus, the goddess of the River Styx. In classical myths, her husband was Pallas and she gave birth to Zelus, Nike, Kratos, and Bia (and sometimes Eos). In these myths, Styx supported Zeus in the Titanomachy, where she was said to be the first to rush to his aid. For this reason, her name was given the honor of being a binding oath for the deities. Knowledge of whether this was the original reason for the tradition did not survive into historical records following the religious transition that led to the pantheon of the classical era (Wikipedia).
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See also the album: www.albelli.nl/onlinefotoboek-bekijken/3af1427e-1eae-4620...
A haunting, almost proto-Surrealist image by German Romantic painter, Casper David Friedrich (1774-1840). Its meaning has been much debated by art critics, the suggestion being made that the ageing Friedrich was in a reflective mood, perhaps contemplating what lay beyond his mortal life. Is that he holding on to his cane, looking out to sea as a small boat comes ashore to convey him to the Afterworld? No-one knows, Friedrich never revealed.
So when u call up that shrink in Beverly Hills
U know the one - Dr Everything'll Be Alright
Instead of asking him how much of your time is left
Ask him how much of your mind, baby
'Cuz in this life
Things are much harder than in the afterworld
In this life...You're on your own
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Anubis was a jackal-headed deity who presided over the embalming process and accompanied dead kings in the afterworld. When kings were being judged by Osiris, Anubis placed their hearts on one side of a scale and a feather (representing Maat) on the other.
Mummies of Ancient Eggypt: Rediscovering 6 Lives
From July 14 to October 26, the CaixaForum Madrid cultural space hostsed an exhibition made up of a collection of objects on loan from the British Museum in London, which explores the idea of mummification and analyzes the testimony of six people who lived in the Ancient Egypt.
This sample contains six mummies of people who lived between 900 and 150 BC. C. in Egypt. Thus, through a non-invasive investigation carried out with the most modern technology, the discoveries that have been achieved by the hand of these specimens are exhibited.
Through scientific and historical evidence, it is possible to observe what life was like in these lands, the tools and techniques used for mummification, the medicinal recipes with which they were cured, the diet of those people, cosmetics and adornments, music, cultural exchanges and even the role of women and children in the Egypt of the pharaohs.
Mummification became a common practice in ancient Egypt, believing that the body had to be preserved in order to reach the afterlife. For them death was just the beginning and this represented the separation between the body and the soul.
The first mummies are dated between 4000 and 3000 BC. C. and it is thought that this practice could have come from accidentally unearthing some corpses, which had dried due to the heat of the desert. By keeping much of their physical appearance, they tried to manually mimic this preservation. In this way, they dried the deceased by extracting the viscera from the body and then dehydrated them with natron and embalmed them.
This Christian tract by Chick publications was widely distributed at anti-Vietnam War rallies in the late 1960s and early 1970s in an attempt to turn young people away from activism.
In the small 2 x 4 inch booklet, the good Christian dies for his beliefs while the revolutionaries perish in battle or after being betrayed when the revolution succeeds. The revolutionaries go to hell and the good Christian goes to heaven.
The overall theme is that it is useless to struggle for a better life on Earth and that people should instead simply accept their fate and God.
Some local Washington, D.C. area activists countered this pamphlet with a tongue-in-cheek response directed at the distributors of the tract.
They said the Christian God was an arbitrary, despotic, white supremacist God and that they were seeking to form a Third Coalition to overthrow both God and the devil to establish a “people’s afterworld.”
For a PDF of the full 24-page “Poor Revolutionist” booklet, see washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/1970-ca-poor-...
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHskcoQznH
Donated by Robert “Bob” Simpson
Really liked how this came out from the Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away parade in the Magic Kingdom.
Here you have Moana with Pua and Gramma Tala as her afterworld self, a Manta Ray. Might even see Hei Hei peaking out from behind Moana.
Do you have photos of Walt Disney World? I invite you to post them to the Focus on Disney World flickr Group which I help to moderate.
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This larnax from Armenoi shows a hunter pursuing a deer on its left panel, and a goat and her young on the right panel.
The hunter, wearing a sword and holding a leashed dog at his heel, carries a spear and chases a deer that flees toward an arcade pattern which may represent a forest. A small floating octopus, or argonaut, at the bottom of the composition probably indicates that this event is taking place beyond the water, that is, in the Afterworld.
Therefore , this larnax not only depicts visions of the Afterworld but how the deceased would enjoy himself there, and the hunting is a prime pastime to look forward to.
On the right-hand panel a wild goat and her kid are provided with a flower and argonaut, motifs.
Painted clay larnax
Postpalatial period: LM IIIIA2
About 1370 – 1340 BC
From Armenoi, Crete
Rethymno, Crete, Archaeological Museum
Anubis was a jackal-headed deity who presided over the embalming process and accompanied dead kings in the afterworld. When kings were being judged by Osiris, Anubis placed their hearts on one side of a scale and a feather (representing Maat) on the other.
Mummies of Ancient Eggypt: Rediscovering 6 Lives
From July 14 to October 26, the CaixaForum Madrid cultural space hostsed an exhibition made up of a collection of objects on loan from the British Museum in London, which explores the idea of mummification and analyzes the testimony of six people who lived in the Ancient Egypt.
This sample contains six mummies of people who lived between 900 and 150 BC. C. in Egypt. Thus, through a non-invasive investigation carried out with the most modern technology, the discoveries that have been achieved by the hand of these specimens are exhibited.
Through scientific and historical evidence, it is possible to observe what life was like in these lands, the tools and techniques used for mummification, the medicinal recipes with which they were cured, the diet of those people, cosmetics and adornments, music, cultural exchanges and even the role of women and children in the Egypt of the pharaohs.
Mummification became a common practice in ancient Egypt, believing that the body had to be preserved in order to reach the afterlife. For them death was just the beginning and this represented the separation between the body and the soul.
The first mummies are dated between 4000 and 3000 BC. C. and it is thought that this practice could have come from accidentally unearthing some corpses, which had dried due to the heat of the desert. By keeping much of their physical appearance, they tried to manually mimic this preservation. In this way, they dried the deceased by extracting the viscera from the body and then dehydrated them with natron and embalmed them.
Less backlighting in this shot, makes it much better than the previous eagle post as far as color and detail in my opinion, but I also liked the veil of bokeh in the other one. It's all good, and wow, did I enjoy shooting this eagle.
A note on symbolism and inspiration: I love this country and her people. I tear up when I hear or sing The Star Spangled Banner. I also cry when I hear "Only The Good Die Young" by Billy Joel, and for some reason "Let's Go Crazy" by Prince. I get tears in my eyes over the intro:
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life. Electric word, life. It means forever and that's a mighty long time. But I'm here to tell you there's something else - the afterworld. A world of never-ending happiness. You can always see the sun, day or night. So when you call up that shrink in Beverly Hills, you know the one, Dr. Everything'll-Be-All-right, instead of asking him how much of your time is left, ask him how much of your mind, baby. 'Cause in this life, things are much harder than in the afterworld. This life you're on your own. And if de-elevator tries to bring you down, go crazy - punch a higher floor.". =o) Hear it here...
www.lala.com/#song/360569449467840068
Maybe that was TMI (Too Much Information), LOL! But I am here to share...photos, and also stuff that makes me think, laugh, cry, etc. Hugs and thanks for viewing!
***All rights to my images are STRICTLY reserved. Please contact me if you are interested in purchasing my images or if you are an educator or non-profit interested in use. copyright KathleenJacksonPhotography 2009***
A time for remembrance of beloved family members.
Paper-made offerings, like dollars used in the afterworld, were burnt in a metal barrel on the street. This ritual is seen as a charity as the burnt items can be used by spirits who linger in the world. Some offerings were used to reduce the karma of spirits who cannot leave this world.
Diligent Dog made Mini-Humphrey out of felted wool. His ears are darker, and so is his back, just like Hys were. Attention to detail. I love him, and I love her and her big, generous heart.
It's rumored that Hys busy in the afterworld communicating from the great beyond and referring me to some dogs to care for. I came across one named Theo (which was going to be Humphrey's name) and another named Hugo (which was also on the shortlist, until I saw Hys face and knew his name should be Humphrey). I'm in love with a couple of old timers with crooked teeth whose human has Stage 4 cancer and could no longer take care of them, and a few other 'inseparable' buddies 'in love with each other' and needing homes. Also, I am drawn to a 'laid back dude' who has superlong legs and sad, sad eyes and potential star quality*. For now, I am beeping the above nose and thinking of my old and new friends.
*Wyatt.
built with Day of the Dead in mind. This window display lives at Global Exchange on Noe Valley's 24th Street.
After the guest display their presents of pigs and buffaloes, the traditional Ma'badong song and dance is performed. This is a ceremonial re-enactment of the cycle of human life and the life story of the deceased. It is also a farewell to the soul of the deceased, and relays the hope that the soul will arrive in the afterworld safely. This is considered by many Torajans to be the most important component of the funeral ceremony.
Egyptian painted works in tombs, temples and palaces were painted on a flat surface. Stone surfaces were prepared by whitewash, or if rough, a layer of coarse mud plaster, with a smoother gesso layer above; some finer limestones could take paint directly. Pigments were mostly mineral, chosen to withstand strong sunlight without fading. The binding medium used in painting remains unclear: egg tempera and various gums and resins have been suggested.
It is clear that true fresco, painted into a thin layer of wet plaster, was not used. Instead the paint was applied to dried plaster, in what is called "fresco a secco" in Italian. After painting, a varnish or resin was usually applied as a protective coating, and many paintings with some exposure to the elements have survived remarkably well, although those on fully exposed walls rarely have. Small objects including wooden statuettes were often painted using similar techniques.
Many ancient Egyptian paintings have survived in tombs, and sometimes temples, due to Egypt's extremely dry climate. The paintings were often made with the intent of making a pleasant afterlife for the deceased. The themes included journey through the afterworld or protective deities introducing the deceased to the gods of the underworld (such as Osiris). Some tomb paintings show activities that the deceased were involved in when they were alive and wished to carry on doing for eternity.
Egyptian paintings are painted in such a way to show a profile view and a side view of the animal or person at the same time. For example, the painting to the right shows the head from a profile view and the body from a frontal view. Their main colors were red, blue, green, gold, black and yellow.
Paintings showing scenes of hunting and fishing can have lively close-up landscape backgrounds of reeds and water, but in general Egyptian painting did not develop a sense of depth, and neither landscapes nor a sense of visual perspective are found, the figures rather varying in size with their importance rather than their location
A patient is delivered by helicopter to Berlin's Accident Hospital: More seriously wounded patients might survive if they were put into a state of suspended animation before they got transported
Medicine
Round-Trip Journeys to the Afterworld
By Jörg Blech
Researchers allow pigs and dogs to bleed to death, fill their bodies with cold saline solution, and then bring the dead animals back to life a few hours later. The ability to switch living beings off and then on again could revolutionize medicine -- especially treatment of bleeding victims or heart-attack patients.
First the heart begins to beat, and then the pig starts breathing. Finally, it stands up and looks curiously at the man in the lab coat standing outside its cage.
"This animal was dead for several hours," says Hasan Alam, 39, a surgeon at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital. "But we brought it back. And now it's here again."
The same magic forces seem to be at work in the animal research facility of the General Hospital of the City of Vienna. Pigs are suddenly opening their eyes after their hearts were stopped with electric shocks and they lay dead for half an hour. "The miracle," says Wilhelm Behringer, 39, a physician specializing in emergency medicine, "is that the animals return to life without neurological damage."
In the last few years, the two research groups have sent a hundred pigs on round-trip journeys into the afterworld, using variations on the same trick in each case. The physicians flood the animals' bodies with several liters of a saline solution that's been cooled to about two degrees C (36° F). This puts the animals into a mysterious state of suspended animation that prevents the cells of their lifeless bodies from dying off. None of the animals feel pain, because the experiments are done under full anesthesia.
Until now, we've left it to science fiction writers to describe what it might be like to take a break from life and then return at some point in the future. Only in science fiction can an astronaut sink into a Rip van Winkle-like sleep that lasts centuries, only to wake up -- wrinkle-free -- in some distant time or galaxy. And only in science fiction can people with incurable diseases have themselves placed into suspended animation until science catches up and discovers a cure.
Dozens of people have felt such a tremendous yearning for a second life that they spent a lot of money to have their bodies frozen in liquid nitrogen after death. Awaiting resurrection, their heads and bodies float in tanks in Arizona and California operated by companies that specialize in this practice.
The spectacular animal experiments performed in Boston and Vienna make these utopias seem not quite so bizarre. The researchers don't talk in terms of years, but they're convinced -- for the first time -- that sending humans into an hours-long deathly sleep will be possible.
"It may sound futuristic, but we now have the ability to deliberately bring the body to a standstill," explains Hasan Alam, who recently moved his laboratory from Maryland to Massachusetts so that he could take advantage of fresh research funding to move ahead with his project.
Alam hasn't even unpacked his moving boxes yet. Instead, he prefers to sit in his corner office, wearing a dark blue suit, interviewing the kinds of ambitious doctors and scientists he needs to work on his project.
"We are preparing initial clinical trials with human beings," explains Alam. He isn't the only one conducting this kind of research. In hospitals in Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Houston, other doctors are pursuing similar plans to essentially switch off the human body and then switch it on again. The data from these experiments will then be included in a joint analysis.
The candidates Professor Alam envisions for these trips to death and back are people who are admitted to emergency rooms with the most serious of gunshot wounds or injuries from accidents. Although their wounds may be relatively easy to suture, "surgeons need time," says Alam. He says that 19 of such patients out of 20 bleed to death before emergency doctors can finish their work.
But, as Alam and his associates hope, deliberately placing the dying bodies into a state of suspended animation can provide precious time needed to bring the victims to the hospital and perform surgery.
This is the scenario they envision: Instead of following the usual procedure of pumping banked blood into a trauma patient, emergency physicians allow the patient to bleed to death within minutes while recapturing the patient's blood. At the same time, the patient is quickly filled up with a cold saline solution. Only when his wounds have been sutured is the patient revived by returning his own warm blood to his veins and arteries.
The Boston group plans to try this procedure in human subjects within the next 12 to 18 months. Hasan Alam believes the relevant ethics commission will approve his request, because the first of these experiments would be performed on injured patients who normally couldn't be saved with conventional emergency medicine.
The idea that in certain situations it can be a good idea to refrigerate a human being goes back to Peter Safar, a doctor who was born in Vienna and died in 2003, at the age of 79. Safar was interested in developing a new method of emergency medical care for the US military. In the Vietnam War, many GIs suffered serious wounds in battle and lost so much blood that they went into cardiac arrest. But with a little more time, many could have been taken to field hospitals and stitched back together.
At the University of Pittsburgh, Safar sent dogs into a state he called "suspended animation." To do this, he allowed the dogs to bleed to death and then flushed ice-cold saline solution into their aortas through a tube (at a rate of one to two liters a minute). Within a few minutes, the dogs' body temperatures plunged to 10° C (50° F). The pallid canines were dead, at least according to the laws of medicine: no heartbeat, no breathing, no brain activity.
The dogs' blood was collected, kept warm, enriched with oxygen and later pumped back into their bodies. Then the white-haired professor used mild electric shocks to bring the lifeless creatures back to life. After Safar's death, his colleagues fine-tuned the process by adding tiny amounts of sugar to the cold saline solution. This, the Pittsburgh researchers announced in June, enables them to revive the dogs after as long as three hours.
In other experiments, scientists have already shown that the principle of suspended animation could revolutionize emergency medicine. Professor Behringer's research team in Vienna, for example, has focused its research efforts on saving people who collapse after a heart attack and then often die of cardiac failure. The Vienna researchers have replicated this process in animal experiments. Pigs are fully anesthetized and then given an electric shock to the chest, stopping the heart and replicating a heart attack.
After 15 minutes of complete cardiac arrest and 20 minutes of resuscitation using such conventional methods as heart compression massage, electroshocks and medication, the Viennese are able to revive very few of these pigs. And those that do make it end up having severe neurological damage.
The results are vastly superior when the researchers, before attempting resuscitation, flush three liters of saline solution into the main arteries of the lifeless pigs, thereby deliberately cooling down the brain and heart (in contrast to the experiments in Boston, these animals are not allowed to bleed to death). After a 20-minute waiting period -- simulating the time it might take to transport a trauma patient to a hospital emergency room -- the animals are connected to a heart-lung machine, reanimated, and then, using medication and ice cubes, kept in a recuperative state of semi-narcosis at a body temperature of 33° C (91.4° F) for 24 hours. Only then, says Behringer, are they "permitted to wake up again." Eighty-five percent of the pigs wake up, without significant consequential damage.
Hasan Alam's group, whose research is directed at saving people who would normally bleed to death, has reported similar results. In their experiments, the scientists used scalpels to inflict potentially fatal injuries on the pigs, then waited half an hour before beginning to suture the wounds. All the animals that received no cooling fluid died. Other pigs were quickly cooled from a body temperature of 37°C (98.6° F) to 10° C (50° F) in 28 minutes. Eighty-seven percent of these animals were saved with emergency surgery and revived after more than an hour.
The surviving pigs were given behavioral tests, which they passed with flying colors. They were able to find hidden raisins and apples just as effectively as normal control animals. Analyses of their brain tissue revealed that the pigs had survived their death-excursions without neurological damage.
All of this seems incompatible with the rules of biology. Until now it was considered incontrovertible that the brain will if it's deprived of oxygen for only a few minutes (four to five minutes in human beings). Heart cells and other tissue are also irreversibly destroyed if the oxygen supply drops below a critical level.
But it seems the shock of cold temperature can interrupt these processes. For every 10° C (18° F) drop in human body temperature, the metabolic rate drops by 50 percent. This reduction also slows down the process of dying, explains Hasan Alam. At a body temperature of 30°C (86° F), the brain can survive without oxygen for 20 minutes. Decrease the temperature to 10° C (50° F) and the brain can survive for as long as 90 to 120 minutes.
This phenomenon explains those legendary cases in which people have survived extremely long periods of oxygen deficiency. In the spring of 2000, for example, a three-year-old girl in a stroller rolled down an embankment and sank into the cold water of the Neckar River in southern Germany. The water temperature was 10° C (50° F). Even though the girl was under water for 45 minutes, emergency personnel were able to revive her. Scientists also know that heart attack patients' chances of survival increase when their bodies are cooled.
Researchers don't understand the details of why cold temperatures protect the body against death. They do know that metabolism continues in the body's cells for a short period of time after a person is already dead; but the remaining oxygen in the blood is no longer sufficient to produce energy. Instead, the cellular respiratory chain produces toxic free oxygen radicals at a higher rate than normal, killing the cells. In other words, the cellular metabolism continuing in a cell after death is in fact the cell's own downfall.
Apparently, the cool saline solution puts a stop to this process. First, the cold temperature dramatically reduces metabolic activity. Second, the solution completely flushes the blood and, along with it, the remaining oxygen out of the body tissue. There is nothing left to fuel the respiratory chain, and free radicals can no longer be produced to kill off the cells. The result? The body glides into a state of suspended animation.
Using the same logic, this sleep of death should also set in if cell respiration is interrupted by other means. This is precisely what 47-year-old cell biologist Mark Roth of the University of Washington in Seattle has demonstrated in a series of elegant experiments. To conduct the experiments, he used gases like carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide, which interfere in oxygen-consuming metabolic processes, binding to the same proteins and enzymes in the body and thus destroying cellular respiration.
When Roth administered a gaseous mixture of hydrogen sulfide and normal air to laboratory mice, the animals sank into an artificial hibernation. Their heart rates declined from 120 to 10 beats per minute. Their body temperatures dropped from 37° C (98.6° F) to as little as 15° C (59° F), which was slightly higher than the temperature in the room. After six hours, their metabolic rate had dropped by 90 percent. The resuscitation of these deep sleepers was remarkably simple. After being kept in fresh air and at normal room temperature, the mice woke up on their own and were as healthy as before. Roth plans to repeat his experiments with larger animals, and is ultimately aiming for human tests.
Just how long these excursions into the afterworld can be drawn out remains unknown. In any case, no one is likely to be booking trips to faraway galaxies anytime soon. It may be that the records achieved so far -- three hours in dogs and six hours in mice -- already represent the upper limit.
Freezing entire bodies in liquid nitrogen is not an alternative. In fact, scientists are now convinced that this approach is mistaken. Although human metabolism comes to an abrupt halt at -196° C (-320° F), ice crystals forming in the cells at this temperature destroy the tissue.
Of course, this discovery comes a bit late for those trusting souls who had their remains put to rest in nitrogen. "All those whose bodies were deliberately frozen," says Viennese physician and scientist Behringer, "will never be thawed and brought back to life."
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
Lokomata’s claim to fame is its huge rock face just before the village, in which over sixty mausoleums have been carved. An impressive sight, especially realizing that the higher chambers can only be reached on flimsy bamboo structures that have been placed against the rock. Many of the graves have been elaborately decorated, and contain photos of the deceased, as well as (plastic) flowers, bottles and lots of other things – the Toraja believe that goods can be taken to the afterworld, and the more are being offered, the easier the passage will be. Other graves seem to have been abandoned long ago. Tau tau – effigies of the dead – accompany some of the graves.
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life. Electric word, life. It means forever and that's a mighty long time. But I'm here to tell you there's something else - the afterworld. A world of never-ending happiness. You can always see the sun, day or night. So when you call up that shrink in Beverly Hills, you know the one, Dr. Everything'll-Be-All-right, instead of asking him how much of your time is left, ask him how much of your mind, baby. 'Cause in this life, things are much harder than in the afterworld. This life you're on your own. And if de-elevator tries to bring you down, go crazy - punch a higher floor.
A world between here and the afterworld. Some of dead live in the houses of the shadows and cannot find their way over the threshold. They live in their picture book and it often takes a long time for them to understand that. Living and dead work more closely together than one might think, and together they build this and that world. Described in the novel "The Three Candles of Little Veronica" by Manfred Kyber. First published 1929 in German. Switzerland, March 5, 2022.
God Thoth in one of his forms??!!!
The ancient deities are still a mystery until today after thousands of years.
Egyptian god Thoth has many function and many powers. He is the moon god, the inventor of writing and science , the protector of scribes , the master of knowledge,the divine messenger and book keeper.In the afterworld, he is responsible for the proper weighing of hearts and he writes down the verdict on the sacred scriptures.He is sometimes depicted as an ibis and sometimes as a babon.
Cult Center: Eshmunen or Hermopolis.Other Names: Tehuti.
Benben is a stone resembling a pyramid, representative of a sun ray and associated with the idea of eternal rebirth. A representation of the primordial mound.
ps. My perception is based on my personal abstract imagination and vision.
I'm on my time with everyone...
I have very bad posture...
Sit and drink Pennyroyal Tea...
Distill the life that's inside of me...
Sit and drink Pennyroyal Tea...
I'm anemic royalty...
Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld...
So I can sigh eternally...
I'm so tired I can't sleep...
I am a liar and a thief...
Sit and drink Pennyroyal Tea...
I'm anemic royalty...
I'm on warm milk and laxatives...
Cherry-flavored antacids...
Sit and drink Pennyroyal Tea...
Distill the life that's inside of me...
Sit and drink Pennyroyal Tea...
I'm anemic royalty...*Nirvana*
All Souls Day
In a similar spirit to All Saints Day, the celebration of the previous day, this Catholic mass-celebration commemorates the souls of all the departed in one go, in this case with the hope that the devotions of the living will enable them to escape the chains that bind them to the Earth and their past sins.
The doctrinal basis of the observation is that departed souls who are for some reason imperfect, i.e. not perfectly cleansed of sins, are barred from entry into the celestial afterworld. The living can assist these disembodied penitents on their journey through the Pearly Gates through prayer and sacrifice, as well as with special Masses, read on this particular day.
The feast of this day is closely linked to the one preceding, the Day of All Saints, and represents a shift in perspective, as the living turn their attention away from those already in Heaven, the Saints, to those in Purgatory, the sinners.
Larnax from the Armenoi necropolis showing variations of the same theme: goat, flower, and argonaut in the left-hand panel, and bull, flower, and argonaut in the right-hand panel.
The motifs on the lid, floral petals, horns of consecration and a double ax, may imply that the deer and bull are present in the Afterworld as sacrifices.
Painted clay larnax
Postpalatial period: LM IIIIA2
About 1370 – 1340 BC
From Armenoi, Crete
Rethymno, Crete, Archaeological Museum
Continued from Part II of The Upside of Humiliation: www.flickr.com/photos/42093313@N00/52273833091/in/datepos...
...As my attention upon the words in the namaz intensified, I began to wonder that was actually being said by me in the part called the Tashahhud.
التَّحِيَّاتُ لِلَّهِ وَالصَّلَوَاتُ وَالطَّيِّبَاتُ،
The Prophet of Allah (peace be upon him and his family) said to God Almighty,
“All kinds of greetings, prayers and goodness belong to Allah.”
السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكَ أَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ،
Upon this greeting, God Almighty said to His Prophet (peace be upon you and your family),
“Peace, the Mercy of Allah and His Blessings be on you, O Prophet (peace be upon you and your family).”
السَّلَامُ عَلَيْنَا وَعَلَى عِبَادِ اللَّهِ الصَّالِحِينَ
Thereupon the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family) said,
“Peace be upon us and the Saliheen servants of Allah.”
أَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ، وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُه
Gibrael (as) witnessed this exchange at Sidrat ul Muntaha when Allah ordered him
to be a witness by saying,
“I bear witness there is no God but Allah. And I bear witness that Muhammad is His Servant and Messenger.
I called Qari Sahib even though he was on his Hajj. I wanted to say something about this part in my last lecture to the kids. But I didn’t know what it meant. I knew it was important because it was the dialogue at the Night on Ascension. I wanted to know what the first words spoken by Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him and his family) were to His Lord were when they were face to face. What did they mean?
Qari Sahib told me this: “This is where Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him and his family) is presenting his gift to his Rabb. As do we when we go to see someone for the first time. Nabi Pak (peace be upon him and his family) has already seen Allah Subhanahu in the Alim e Lahoot, the Realm of the Divine Light, but this is the first time he is going as the perfect man, as a human being from this world, the Nasoot.
The first word he speaks, Attahayaatu, it means that all my worship in words by my tongue are for you my Lord. So that includes our recitation of the Quran, namaz, tasbeeh, speaking the truth etc. Wa salaawatu, the second offering, is of worship offered in the form of deeds. This requires physicality. So he is saying, All of my deeds are for you O Lord!” The third present is tayyabaatu. That is “My worship in giving of my possessions, everything is for you, my Lord.”
Qari Sahib’s words from thousands of miles away brought me to a snail’s pace when I came upon those words. No wonder Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him and his family) only did each single thing with the utmost beauty and perfection, so that each time Allah Subhanahu cast His Love upon them so they were enveloped by it. They only did an action as was worthy of the action.
That was why when Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him and his family) worshipped God, Allah took oaths upon the excellence of that manner of worship and not just once in the Quran, by saying “Fa Wa Rabba-ka, “I take an oath by thy Sustainer, O Beloved (peace be upon you and your family).” Not an oath on Himself or King the Universe but Your Sustainer, Your Lord, Your Rabb!
Qari Sahib even pointed me to another verse, of many expressing honor for Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him and his family) in the Quran. It was a major find for me for it was line I uttered in my prayers in every ruku’ of every raka’t.
فَسَبِّحْ بِٱسْمِ رَبِّكَ ٱلْعَظِيمِ
So glorify the Name of your Lord, the Most Great.
Surah Waqia’, Verse 74
Tafseer e Jilani
And overall:
Fasibbih: And praise, O Messenger who perfects the Messengers (peace be upon him and his family)…
Bi ismi Rabbika Al Adeem: the Name of your Lord, The Most Exalted, who is The Most Honorable and The Most Majestic, free from everything which may be called defective or hovers over it, Allah Subhanahu’s Orbit of Majesty, anything which is erroneous or has a shortcoming.
All of his deeds was rendered in perfection so Allah Subhanahu said Himself:
وَإِنَّكَ لَعَلَىٰ خُلُقٍ عَظِيمٍۢ
Indeed, surely, you are of an excellent moral character.
Surah Al Qalam, Verse 4
Tafseer e Jilani
Wa Innaka: And indeed, you, the one whose manner is the perfection of the Attributes of Allah Subhanahu, takhalluqe-ka bil akhlaq Allah and your being is in a state of conviction in the Station of Friendship and Vice-regency…
La’ala khuluq-in adeem: you are of an excellent moral character. No one’s excellence of character is more superb than your character because you hold and have gathered the characters of the ones before you and the ones after you as per the totality of your rank.
I was forced to consider my own offering of words, deeds and material possessions. Most often than not they left me tinged with regret. It was almost always because my tongue wasn’t as soft as it should have been. Leaving my qalb, the station of ma’rifat, veiled, despite “its natural propensity towards it” because I denied it that connection. It was shackled by my nafs to react and respond in certain ways.
Then I was constantly missing out on deeds that stood before me as I passed them by. My giving could always be more than it was. Although knowing that it went straight into the hand of Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him and his family) had certainly changed it. The verse had become one of my absolute favourites.
Every time I quoted the tafseer, I don’t know what impact it had on the other person but it certainly blew me away. I think the words that drew me into it was who it was that was doing this giving. I was front and center among them: the sinners, the regretful, the repentant!
But it was what his prayer in return held for the one giving that held the magic; sakana, tranquility.
خُذْ مِنْ أَمْوَلِهِمْ صَدَقَةًۭ تُطَهِّرُهُمْ وَتُزَكِّيهِم بِهَا وَصَلِّ عَلَيْهِمْ ۖ
إِنَّ صَلَوٰتَكَ سَكَنٌۭ لَّهُمْ ۗ وَٱللَّهُ سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ
Take from their wealth a charity, purifying them and cause them increase in it and bless them.
Indeed, your prayers are a comfort for them.
And Allah is The Hearer of All, The Knower of Everything.
Surah Tauba, Verse 103
Tafseer e Jilani
Khud: Accept, O Messenger who completes Messenger-hood (peace be upon you)…
Min amwalihim: from their possessions of those who are Al Mudnibeen, sinners and Al Tai’been, the repenters and Al Nadimeen the ones who are regretful, of that which has happened from them because of their going against you, when they asked for your permission that you leave this matter…
Sadqatan tuttahirruhum: (Accept) alms so you purify them from the filth of their nature that they are crazy about, which is love of possessions and the greed of gathering them and increasing them…
Wa tuzzakihim biha: by which you cleanse their batin, inner beings, from distractions that hinder them from the taste of spirituality…
Wa salle alaihim: and pray for them and ask for their maghfirat, forgiveness for their sins, and pray for them the prayer of all goodness.
Inna salaataka: Indeed your prayer and your caring for their states…
Sakana al lahum: brings
1.inner peace for their hearts
2.and dignity
3.and calmness
4.and the means of their being steadfast
5.and firmly footed in the Realm of Allah’s Tauheed, His One-ness and Imaan, faith.
Wallahu: And Allah, Al Muraqib, The One who watches over them in all their states is…
Samee-un: All Hearing of their sincerity and their secret conversations with him…
Aleem-un: All Knowing of their intentions and their needs.
Still, even in the days my ghaflat left me forgetting everything as it happened, I would ultimately express my regret before my Nabi (peace be upon him and his family) so I could be acquitted solely through it. As was promised in the Quran. Even though I had translated the verse word by word, I kept thinking of it incorrectly. For some reason, I had assumed that Allah Subhanahu had said, when they transgress upon their own selves, they should first ask Allah for forgiveness, THEN come to you, O Beloved (peace be upon you).
But He wasn’t saying that.
وَلَوْ أَنَّهُمْ إِذ ظَّلَمُوٓا۟ أَنفُسَهُمْ جَآءُوكَ فَٱسْتَغْفَرُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ
وَٱسْتَغْفَرَ لَهُمُ ٱلرَّسُولُ لَوَجَدُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ تَوَّابًۭا رَّحِيمًۭا
And if they, when they wronged themselves, come to you and asked forgiveness of Allah,
and the Messenger (peace be upon him) asked forgiveness for them,
surely, they would have found Allah Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.
Surah An-Nisa’, Verse 64
Tafseer e Jilani
Wa lau annahum: And if they, without doubt, due to the intensity of their ghaflat, ignorance and hypocrisy…
Id zalamu anfusahum: that which befalls you of affliction, (which is) harmful, not submitting to you… that which befalls you of affliction, (which is) harmful, not submitting to you…
Jaa’uka: they must come to you as the ones who repent, the one who are apologetic because of that which happened from them…
Fastaghfarullah: then they ask for forgiveness from Allah (being) sincere and regretful…
Wastaghfara lahum Ar Rasoolu: and The Messenger (peace be upon him) also asks for forgiveness for them through intercession and praying before Allah, asking for the acceptance (of the person by Him) after they have come as the ones who are apologetic…
Lawajadullaha: surely, they will find Allah (to be) and they will testify to Him being the One who grants Bounty and Mercy…
Tawwaban: (and find Allah to be) The One who accepts their repentance…
Raheeman: The One who is Merciful to them and grants them ability to do this (go the The Messenger (peace be upon him).
The starting point for the nafs to gain a guaranteed forgiveness before God was an appearance before His Beloved (peace be upon him and his family).
As the 10th of Muharram approached and I heard lecture upon lecture on the Shuhuda e Karbala, I came upon a narration that unveiled how, in this world, the knowing of that sacrifice was brought in to the consciousness of the blessed Imam (as) as a toddler. Not when his father, Maula e Kayinaat (as), most reluctantly, was the Khalifa. It was not when his elder brother, Imam Hassan (as) declined it entirely. It was not when Yazid took over and declared himself to be the spiritual leader of the Caliphate and demanded his submission. It was when he was a child of three.
When the incident was brought to the ears of Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him and his family) by the angel Gibrael (as), Imam Hussain (as) was with him.
The little boy came running to his mother and said, “This is what my grandfather is saying is going to happen to me. I will be killed in a field without having any water and food for days. I will be killed by those who follow him and say his name in their prayers and send blessings upon us. Everyone with me will be killed before me, except the women. And then I too will be killed.”
His mother Bibi Fatima Az Zahra (as) quietly said, “If he is saying it, then that is what will happen.”
“Will you be there,” he asked her.
“No,” she replied.
“Will my father?”
“No,” she replied.
“Will my brother?”
“No,” she replied.
“Then who will cry for me?” he asked.
Hazrat Bibi Fatima (as) softly wept. “There will be a group of people who will mourn your death forever and express their sadness with tears will the Day of Judgement comes.”
“So what will you give them?” the child asked. “For crying for me without knowing me. What will you give them?”
Bibi (as) kept crying and said, “Your grandfather says that Heaven belongs to me. So on that Day when accounts will be taken and dwelling for an eternity determined, I will let my hair down and sit at the gates of Heaven and say to my Lord, ‘I will not enter it until every single person whose eyes spilled a single tear for Hussain enters Heaven before me.’”
The layering of this incident between the mother and child became etched in my memory. We don’t tell our children anything, I thought, thinking they will be traumatized. Imam Hussain (as) knew as a child what he would experience and awaited it. He didn’t fear it or feel sad about it. He didn’t pray for it to not happen.
Bibi Fatima (as) was the woman, who when a single strand of her hair appeared on her forehead out of her veil by accident, the angel Gibrael (as) descended and said to her father (peace be upon him and his family), Allah Subhanahu tells Fatima (as) to cover her hair. That woman who was preserved by Allah Himself would sit unveiled to finally ask her Lord for something, which wasn’t even going to be for herself.
These are the devout Hazrat Abdul Qadir Jilani (ra) describes in his book Sirr al Asraar, (The Secret of the Secrets), as the extraordinary ones:
“Those who are close to Allah devote the spiritual rewards of their good deeds to sinners. God most High manifests His Mercy, pardoning sinners in proportion to the prayers, the praises, the fasts, the alms and the pilgrimages of His servants who intend to sacrifice the spiritual rewards they may hope for as a result of their worship and devotions. Allah in his Mercy covers and hides the sins of sinners as a reward of the devotion of His Good Servants.”
Then the notion that came from Nabi Pak (peace be upon him and his family) himself; those who believed without seeing him would receive a reward, a recompense unmatched, beyond imagination. A single tear shed for Imam Hussain (as) brought its own treasure; the intercession of Khatoon e Jannat, the Lady to whom Heaven belonged (as).
I came to understand that the sacrifice of Imam Hussain (as) was not in fact a sacrifice offered to Allah Subhanahu by his mother, Bibi Fatima (as) or his father, Maula e Kayinaat, Imam Ali (as). The origin, mubda’, of the sacrifice was Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him). It was to him that the revelation was sent that the event would happen. It was he who witnessed it in the future. It was his willful surrender to His Lord’s Pleasure that came first.
And then even after Imam Hussain’s (as) martyrdom that brought the redness to the sky at sunset for the first time, the sacrifices continued. By his sister, Bibi Zainab (as) who endured the unspeakable, his son Hazrat Zain ul Abideen who grief poured from his eyes every second of every single day that he lived. All the Imams after him were first imprisoned then poisoned, one by one, by the Muslim rulers of the time.
Each presented himself to everything in life and death in willing surrender.
People are often confused with the Imam’s (as) mourning, not knowing how to make sense of it in the context of the verse: “there is no fear upon them nor do they feel grief.”
Qari Sahib explained it to me like this:
“Grief is exactly what he feels throughout his life but that grief is not a result of loss of possessions which is what causes it for us. It is not from the ‘effects of the tabyat.’ It is simply an expression of the mercy one’s heart feels only from Allah Subhanahu and its manifestation is always secondary to His Pleasure.”
The he directed me to the incident of the passing of Nabi Kareem’s (peace be upon him and his family) child, Ibrahim which we had translated in The Softest Heart.
As narrated by Hazrat Anas Bin Malik (ratu):
We entered with the Prophet of God (peace be upon him) the house of Abi Saif whose wife had breastfed (his son), Ibrahim, the Prophet’s (peace be upon him and his family) son. He took him to Ibrahim and the Prophet of God (peace be upon him and his family) kissed him and smelt him. Then we went to him and Ibrahim was taking his last breaths and the eyes of the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) were flowing with tears.
Harzat Abdur Rahman (ratu) said to him, “You (are crying), Ya Rasool Allah (peace be upon you and your family)?
He said, "O Ibn e Auf, This is mercy” and he started crying again.
Then he said, “Verily the eyes send their tears and the heart is saddened, but we do not say anything except that which pleases our Lord. Indeed, O Ibrahim, we are bereaved by your departure from us."
Indeed, they were in a category that was made exclusive like no other by Allah because it was He who purified them Himself!
إِنَّمَا يُرِيدُ ٱللَّهُ لِيُذْهِبَ عَنكُمُ ٱلرِّجْسَ أَهْلَ ٱلْبَيْتِ وَيُطَهِّرَكُمْ تَطْهِيرًۭا
Indeed, Allah wishes to remove from you the impurity, O People of the House (peace be upon you all)!
And to purify you (with thorough) purification.
Surah al Ahzab, Verse 33
Innama yureedullahu: Indeed Allah Al Musleh, The Reformer of the states of His Worshipper, wishes for those who are chosen by Him, teaching them such advice and reminders which enter the heart and giving them warnings strange, unlike any other…
Liyudhiba ankum ar-rijsa: removing impurities from you, unattractive, loathsome by both the mind and by Jurisprudence (which can be in contradiction to one another), O…
Ahl e Bait: the people of the house of the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family), Al Majbooleen, who are raised upon honour and nobility..
Wa yutahhirakum: (and it is also His Will) to make you absolutely pure from the dirt of one’s nature and things that are hateful imperfections that exist from the beginning (from birth like the Shaitan attached to each person), and which are hurdles in the cleansing of personal nature (like menstruation or emissions)…
Tat-hirah: (to make you absolutely pure) in absolute purity.
Such purity that nothing remains in you, any doubt of disfigurement and the disgrace of any shortcoming.
Ghaus Pak (ra) adds: “Allah uses the verb for male plural in the middle of the verse, even though the verb before and after addresses only the female plural (kunna), because Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him and his family) and Maula Ali (as) and his sons, Imam Hassan and Hussain (as) are a part of those addressed in it so the verb changes. And it includes Hazrat Bibi Fatima (as) and the wives of the household of the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family).”
In the hardship for the nafs lies also its ease. No fear, no sadness were the overt stated rewards. The hidden ones from Allah An Nafi, The Benefiting One, appeared throughout life. When my mother died, my career derailed and never got back on track again. Instead I discovered I could write. That writing today becomes my meditation.
My nature, from being in a boarding school, was shaped by Allah Al Musawwir, The Flawless Shaper, so as to not feel loneliness. The thing I slowly killing people around me throughout each day whilst being surrounded by people. Perhaps that’s why when I utter the words of Surah Ikhlas in my sala’t, my voice stays on the first and last Name that Allah Subhanahu uses to tell His Beloved (peace be upon him and his family) to describe Himself – The Sole One, The One who was, is and will forever remain alone.
“Say to them, Allah is One…
Ahad.”
And then again..
“Kufuwan Ahad.”
There are only two extensions of the truth, haqq, say the scholars in the know; Khair, goodness and husn, beauty. And the maada, the marrow, of the word insaan, the human being is to be either manoos, the one who loves or naseeya, the one who forgets.
In one of his lectures Sheikh Nurjan (ra) expounds on the latter point beautifully. He says that every interaction in life holds within only one of two possibilities; humility or humiliation. For the mindful person, who Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him and his family) calls the Mo’min, one evokes gratitude, the other patience.
عن صهيب قال رسولُ اللهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم:
عَجَبًا لأمرِ المؤمنِ إِنَّ أمْرَه كُلَّهُ لهُ خَيرٌ
وليسَ ذلكَ لأحَدٍ إلا للمُؤْمنِ
إِنْ أصَابتهُ سَرَّاءُ شَكَرَ فكانتْ خَيرًا لهُ
وإنْ أصَابتهُ ضَرَّاءُ صَبرَ فكانتْ خَيرًا لهُ
Said the Prophet of God (peace be upon him), “Amazing is the state of the Believer (Mo’min). In all his matters is goodness and this is for no one except the Believer. If happiness reaches him, he expresses gratitude so that is good for him. And if comes to him adversity, he is patient so that is good for him.”
Sheikh Nurjan (ra): “When people walk safely upon the Earth, they say ‘I don’t remember feeling that type of fear.’ And they go about their life as if a situation that happened had never occurred. And the Station of Sincerity is for those people that never forget. They forgive but they never forget.
Human nature is to be forgetful. People do something bad, the next day they forget. And by means of that forgetting, they try to continue with their lives in their state of heedlessness, forgetfulness.
Forgetting, forgetting, forgetting. Saying, ‘I won’t backbite.’ Then they backbite…So the nature of humanity is to be forgetful. Sincerity is when Allah opens within their soul so that don’t forget and don’t enter into a state of forgetfulness because becoming heedless and the state of heedlessness is a danger and catastrophe.
So sincerity is what opens the reality of their souls. Then they don’t forget what they did and they don’t forget what they promised and their life is trying to accomplish and ask for and repent for all that they’ve done and all that they do. And they live a life of maghfira, asking for forgiveness and tauba, repentance.”
The Sheikh unveiled a secret. The opposite of ghaflat, heedlessness, was ikhlas, sincerity.
“And the sincere, Allah Azzo Jal opens within their heart the ability to forgive. It’s one thing to forget. Someone might do something to you, then the next day they do the same thing to you and you continue on with the difficulty because you forget. But sincerity opens for them to know all the wrongs that people have done. And it is what Allah Azzo Jal has written for their lives to be tested. So as a result they forgive.
For one to be raised, one needs to be sacrificed. So if this life of ours is just two people, one is sacrificed and one is raised. Both can’t be raised otherwise he would have kept you in Paradise. By means of that sacrifice, a bad action, something wrong done by the other, the one being raised will be reach the station that Allah Azzo Jal wanted to grant to the servant. So when something bad is done to you, something angers you, (know that) Allah wanted to raise you.
He’s teaching that I wanted to give you a station when this test came to you. You’re praying for it. You’re praying for this station…So when someone is yelling at you and attacking you, think inside, ‘I’m being raised.’ Not that you beat that person (back). Because the one who came to do that to you is the one who is being sacrificed.”
In the test lay hidden the ease!
It is patience which allows for forgiveness in the first moment of any infraction, exactly as Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him and his family) instructed. I found it is in that order that the words appeared in the Quran, sabara wa ghfara. Patience precedes forgiveness:
وَلَمَن صَبَرَ وَغَفَرَ إِنَّ ذَلِكَ لَمِنْ عَزْمِ ٱلْأُمُورِ
And whoever is patient and forgives, indeed, that is surely of matters of real resolve.
Surah Al Shu’ara, Verse 63
Tafseer e Jilani
Wa laman sabara: And the one who adopts patience, those who are from amongst the Madlomeen, who have been wronged and oppressed with unfair treatment, and he did not ask for help and he did not seek revenge from his oppressor, suppressing his anger and bearing it (the maltreatment)..,
Wa ghafara: and forgives and lets go, returning his attention to Allah, desirous of reward only from Him, Subhanahu.
Inna dalika: Indeed that (act) of forgiveness and letting go, despite having the power to do otherwise…
La min azmir umoor: is of the affairs which are preferred by those who have determination and correct resolve, who are especially favoured by Allah, and they are the ones who see by the Grace of God everything they experience as a gift or as a tribulation, and they keep their nafs, the self, contented upon Allah’s Pleasure no matter what comes upon them from His Decision.
Perhaps that’s why patience was what created the other exception from khusr - state of loss, immense and humiliating failure, as the verse from Al Asr continued:
وَتَوَاصَوْا۟ بِٱلْحَقِّ وَتَوَاصَوْا۟ بِٱلصَّبْرِ
… and enjoin (each other) to the truth and enjoin (each other) to patience.
Surah Al Asr, Verse 3
Wa: And in this condition…
Tawasau bil Haq: they enjoin each other towards the Path of God and His One-ness…
Wa tawasau: and they also enjoin each other…
Bis sabr: 1. towards patience for the practice of matters that require obedience
2. and (patience towards) their tiredness from striving hard
3. and (patience towards) from what they suffer as a result of cutting themselves off from their love of the world
4. and (patience towards) leaving their animalistic desires which are attached to human nature.
Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him) forgave everyone everything. That is what he then commanded us to do. Every time I was disobedient to that order, I brought pain upon myself. Definitely distress. Every time I obeyed it, I felt peace. The verse 64 from Surah An Nisa became my mantra.
Through my blessed Prophet’s (peace be upon him and his family) teaching, I learnt to invoke it immediately after a transgression instead of festering in my misery for hours or days. I knew the forgiveness came instantly because however badly felt before, I felt totally calm after.
The words of the lecture echoed in my mind:
“Ma’roof is that which my fitrat knows and recognizes as good and munkir is that which my iftrat knows is sinful and wrong. So the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) sent does not command anything that the fitrat dislikes and only commands that which it already knows as good.”
For the one who was the perfect manifestation in his manner of Allah’s Attributes was only showing in his own practice what was Allah’s Way in His; merciful.
وَرَحْمَتِى وَسِعَتْ كُلَّ شَىْءٍۢ ۚ
My Mercy encompasses everything
Surah Al Araaf, Verse
Tafseer e Jilani
Wa rahmati wasi’at kulli shayan: My Mercy encompasses every single thing from the Al Muta’een, the obedient ones and the Al A’sieen, the sinners and others from them.
When we translated the words, the sinners, Qari Sahib was reminded of a story!
“Once Hazrat Musa (as) asked Allah Subhanahu, “in which way do you respond to your Servants?”
Allah Ta’ala said, “If they are doers of good deeds, I say Labaik – I am here. If they are wrongdoers, I say it thrice. Labaik, Labaik, Labaik!”
Hazrat Musa (as) was surprised.
“Thrice for the sinner and only once for the obedient?”
Allah Subhanahu responded, “Musa, My Servant who tries to do good deeds, they have hope that those deeds will count for something before Me. But the sinner, who has no deeds to offer, they only and only count on my Mercy.”
Subhan Allah!
When I told Qari Sahib the only person I might choose in a new life was my mother, he said knowingly.
“It’s because you never found sincerity in any other relationship in this world.”
But the “enemy” is also the mirror who makes appear one’s own self in the clearest reflection. That and a true friend! Which is why Maula e Kayinaat (as) says, “A friend is better than all the treasures in the world.”
Pain is acknowledged as the impetus for the most momentum in a spiritual journey. The Path of Qurb, Closeness, is paved with humiliation. Not just closeness to Allah Subhanahu but all human beings as well. The upside is that the Path itself, for those who surrender willingly to Allah’s Will and try to submit to His Beloved (peace be upon him and his family) tread each step of it, clinging on to The Rope of His Names, cradling the hope that the Quran captures in a single line most perfectly:
وَلَلْءَاخِرَةُ خَيْرٌۭ لَّكَ مِنَ ٱلْأُولَىٰ
For indeed, the life to come will be better for you than this earlier part (of your life)
Surah Ad Duha, Verse 4
Tafseer e Jilani
Wa lil akhiratu: And the life which is yours to come in the Lahoot, Realm of Noor, Divine Light…
Khair ul laka: is better and more suitable and befitting for your state…
Min: than your life …
Al ula: earlier, which is your life in this world of the Nasoot, the physical existence.
“And how can it not be, the Afterlife better for you than the world, when it is everlasting in the Permanence of Allah Subhanahu, eternal due to His Eternity. While this world is an appearance of falsehood, perishing everything which is in it because of its perishable nature and its belongings and the things which are taken from it.”
Ghaus Pak (ra) says we are the shadows of Allah again and again in his tafseer of the Quran.
وَنَحْنُ أَقْرَبُ إِلَيْهِ مِنْ حَبْلِ ٱلْوَرِيدِ
and We are nearer to him than his jugular vein.
Surah Qaf, Verse 16
Nahnu aqrab ilayhi min habl al wareed: We are nearer to him than his jugular vein i.e. it is the example of the utmost closeness as said the Prophet (peace be upon him), “Death is closer to me than my jugular vein” and the mention of the jugular vein is for the purposes of illustration and overall: “We are closer to him than his own self.”
“And overall: We according to Our Spirit which is blown in him from the Realm of the Lahoot where matter ceases to exist, are closer to him than his Nasoot, his physical existence in the world. There is no doubt about the distance (between Us and him) yet there is no mixing in this path and there is no union and there is no dissolving and no co-joining.
But it is like the closeness of a shadow and a reflection and it is the highest form of Allah’s Closeness and most perfect encompassing of a human being.”
Then again in the verse that I utter most often in my prayers, that culturally we have locked in for death alone, he says it most explicitly and magnificently: We are shadow in a constant state of returning towards The One who created the shadows.
Inna: Indeed, We are a shadow…
Lillah: of Allah Al Wahid The One and Only, Al Ahad The Only One, Al Mutajjali, The One who reveals and unveils with His Perfect Names and His Exalted Attributes in this world…
Wa inna: and indeed we are, after our returning in the afterworld…
Ilayhi: towards Him and not towards anyone other than Him from the shadows (of association)…
Raji’oon: the ones returning, the ones who make the returning of the shadow towards The One who created the shadows.
The possibility of beautifying deed so as to be loved by one’s Creator becomes real for anyone who Nabi Pak (peace be upon him and his family) sends a prayer upon by name in the namaz; the Saliheen!
When I starting saying my namaz knowing that, whenever the verse emanated from my tongue, my heart expressed a gratefulness to my Nabi (peace be upon him and his family) for saying the prayer, for saying the word and creating a possibility of inclusion for me.
السَّلَامُ عَلَيْنَا وَعَلَى عِبَادِ اللَّهِ الصَّالِحِينَ
Thereupon the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said,
“Peace be upon us and the Saliheen.”
It was the only category of people in the sala’t of all the ones mentioned in the Quran: the Shakireen, the Sabireen, the Mu’qineen, the Muttaqeen and so on. It was the ask of Prophets to be counted amongst them and be connected to them.
تَوَفَّنِى مُسْلِمًۭا وَأَلْحِقْنِى بِٱلصَّلِحِينَ
Cause me to die as a Muslim, and join me with the righteous."
Hazrat Yusuf, Verse 101
Tafseer e Jilani
Then prayed Hazrat Yousuf (as) for himself and he said softly to his Lord, a prayer, that uttered from him only with wisdom, intellect and reasoning, with his invocation:
Tawwafini: Make me die and take my soul…
Muslim-an: surrendering, entrusting all my matters to you…
Walhiqni: and join me, with Your Special Favour…
Bi saliheen: with the righteous ones who are the ones who reformed their selves in this life and the Hereafter until they achieved success from You with the honour of meeting You.
The meaning of the word appeared: the ones who reformed themselves!
Then came the word in a prayer by another Prophet, Suleman (as), when he heard the ant speak what was revealed to it by God:
وَأَدْخِلْنِى بِرَحْمَتِكَ فِى عِبَادِكَ ٱلصَّلِحِينَ
And admit me by Your Mercy among Your Servants Righteous."
Surah An Naml, Verse 19
Tafseer e Jilani
Wa: And after You cause me to die…
Adkhilni bi rahmatika: make me enter by Your Mercy and Your Expansive Bounty and Your Extensive Nobleness…
Fi: in the group of…
Ibadika as Saliheen: the ones who please You, the ones who are accepted by You and count me amongst them and raise me among their set. Indeed, You do what You want, You are Qadeer, All Powerful and You are Worthy of the hope that the hopeful place upon You.
“The ones who please You, the ones who are accepted by You.”
The word reminded me of another verse where those in a constant state of striving, which is how I had come to understand those who were perpetually in a state of reform, created for themselves the possibility of being exceptional as a human being. In the context of deed again being saleh!
A verse extremely well known from Surah At-Tin. Man was first created the most perfect, then stripped from that rank because of deed – “chains of desires, shackles of endless hopes.” Then allowed the possibility of re-entry through the same; deed!
لَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا ٱلْإِنسَنَ فِىٓ أَحْسَنِ تَقْوِيمٍۢ
And We created Man in the best mould
Surah Teen, Verse 4
And after Allah takes oaths all great, He says…
Laqad khalaqnal insaana: Indeed, We created all Mankind…
Fi ahsan e taqweem: in the best form and the most balanced proportions because no other Creation is created more perfectly in form than them and they are perfectly formed in terms of their zahir, overt and batin, inner being. For this reason, We chose Man for our Vice-Regency from amongst all of Our Creation.
ثُمَّ رَدَدْنَهُ أَسْفَلَ سَفِلِينَ
Then We returned him to the lowest of the low,
Surah Teen, Verse 5
Summa: Then after this We willed differently, because of his wicked deeds…
Radadnahu: and returned him to the lowest of the low and we displaced him from that highest rank and that highest honour…
Asfala safeleen: to the lowest of the low and this is the set-up of the world, which causes them to to enter the valleys of fire and which is their chains of desires and which is their shackles of endless hopes.
إِلَّا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَعَمِلُوا۟ ٱلصَّلِحَتِ فَلَهُمْ أَجْرٌ غَيْرُ مَمْنُونٍۢ
Except those who believe and do righteous deeds, then for them is a reward never ending.
Surah Teen, Verse 5
Illaladina amino: Except for the ones who are certain of the One-ness of God…
Wa amilo salihaat: and do good deeds that are deeply sincere, free from all the entrapments of the world. Deeds that will bring them close to Allah’s Essence.
Fa lahum: So for them, after that when they reach (again) the highest ranks towards the Alim e Lahoot, the Realm of Allah…
Ajrun ghairu mamnoon: are endless blessings that will never finish and nor will Allah mention His Favour ever for giving them.
“Wa salaawatu, the second offering, is of worship offered in the form of deeds.”
After my first Umra when I saw Muslims from different countries praying in the same place at the same time, I used to think that everybody’s prayer was different because of how they placed their bodily parts in each posture. Feet together, feet apart, hands at all levels of the upper body, the manner in which the hands were clasped, the angles of the prostration, everything was unique. But that was just the overt.
The way in which each namaz is actually different is in the words the qalb chooses and the tongue speaks. Or the other way around, I don’t know! There were Companions of the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) who just repeated the salam upon him hundreds of times. Sitting there, saying that one line over and over – As salamu alaika Ayyoha an Nabiyyo wa Rahmatullahe wa Barakatuhu - because they knew the salam was returned and they hoped one day their ears would hear the sound of that return. And they did!
I guess it made sense. If no two things otherwise in the Universe were alike, why would the utterance of the prayer between The Worshipped and the Worshipper be. After 51 years I was beginning to see why the one who shared every single thing he was bestowed by His Lord only for himself (peace be upon him and his family) said; “The sala’t is the Mairaj of the Mo’min.” Each could make of it what they want.
One of Allah’s Names is Al Adl, The Just.
“From the root ayn, laam, daal, which has the following classical Arabic connotations: to act justly, fairly, equitably, to adjust properly, to make even, to straighten, to rectify, to establish justice or balance. To make equal, uniform, to turn one away from something, rightly, direct, to make comfortable with what is right.”
I was blown away by the last possible meaning of the word: to turn one away from something, to make comfortable with what is right. The Name had come to my mind after the I translated the last verse for this piece, which I couldn’t otherwise bring myself to end. I chose the verse because of its possibility of a life without sadness and grief, not just for Allah Subhanahu’s Friends but a base human being like me!
بَلَىٰ مَنْ أَسْلَمَ وَجْهَهُۥ لِلَّهِ وَهُوَ مُحْسِنٌۭ فَلَهُۥٓ أَجْرُهُۥ عِندَ رَبِّهِۦ
وَلَا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ
Yes, whoever submits his face to Allah and he is a good-doer, so for him is his reward with his Lord. And no fear will come upon them and not will they grieve.
Surah Al Baqarah, Verse 112
Tafseer e Jilani
Say to them, O Akmal Ar Rasul, O Messenger who completes the Message, (peace be upon you and your family), in speech arising only from wisdom and sincerity, “There is no reason that makes Heaven exclusive for anyone amongst you or among us (the Muslims versus people of other faiths).
Bala: In fact the reality is that…
Man aslama wajhahu: the one who submitted his face and surrenders his entire self…
Lillahe: which is belonging to Allah in actuality…
Wa huwa: and he is in himself…
Muhsin-un: the one who is Aarif-un Mushaahid-un, the one who has Our Recognition and witnesses Our Presence…
Fa lahu ajruhu: so for him is a reward, his destiny and his purpose…
Inda: (with) a rank, near…
Rabbihi: his Lord, especially for him…
Wa la khauf-un alayhim wa la yahzanoon: and they feel no fear upon them nor do they grieve so they are above and beyond the acceptance of fear and sadness and the demands of nature and they are forever with a special rank with their Lord.
Sheikh Nurjan (ra) explained why the verse on forgiveness commands us to go to Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him and his family) and ask in front of him:
“You didn’t do anything against Allah Azzo Jal but when you realize later in life that your soul came from the Ocean of Muhammad Ar Rasool Allah (peace be upon him and his family) you understand. Every time you do something bad, it’s as if you are trying to harm the reality of the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family).
You don’t harm Allah Azzo Jal because He is in La ilaha illallaha but since you are in Muhammad Ar Rasool Allah (peace be upon him and his family). Every time you do something bad, Allah Azzo Jal says, “Go to him and ask for forgiveness.”
For he is closer to you than your own self!
النَّبِيُّ أَوْلَىٰ بِالْمُؤْمِنِينَ مِنْ أَنفُسِهِمْ ۖ
The Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) is closer to the believers than their own selves.
Surah Al-Ahzab, Verse 6
Tafseer e Jilani
Then showed Subhanahu the teaching of the manners of His Nabi (peace be upon him and his family) to all nations, he who has the full support of his Subhanahu in all kinds of aid and miracles beyond ordinary routine, who was sent towards them for their guidance and their perfection and to command them to have excellent manners with all the Prophets and be in their service and honor them forever.
So how will they not have the best manners with the Prophets and the Messengers (as) because every Prophet for his nation is like an affectionate and kind father for them. In fact, he, Nabi Kareem (peace be upon and his family), is the best of all these fathers, who leads them (these Prophets) towards those things that are better for them in their religions which is the actual life for them.
So it is compulsory for them, everyone, to be in the station of subservience and completely bent in humility and being respectful in everything, even more so than what Allah as ordered upon them (in the Quran), more than the rights of their own sons (like Hazrat Ismail (as), the sons of Hazrat Luqman (as), Hazrat Isa (as)), because the effects of the training of the Prophets are since forever and everlasting.
And the effects of the ancestors’ training dissipate from generation to generation. And if their training to be respectful with humility with him, Nabi Pak (peace be upon him and his family), is passed on it it will their reward for the Hereafter. So training them in this way (to be respectful to him) is in actuality the teachings of their Prophets.
And there is no doubt that our Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) is afdal al anbiya, the most honoured of the Prophets and perfects them in nourishing and in guidance. So his being a father is also perfect and so his tenderness and his mercy for his nation, which is the best of the nations in completeness and in number.
That is why Allah Subhanahu says:
An Nabi: This is the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family), the Communicator of the hidden news, the one who is fully supported and sent to all the nations to perfect the excellence of manners and the good habits, who is the completer of the knowledge of the religion and who completes the way of A Ma’rifa, Recognition of Allah, and Al Yaqeen, certainty…
Aula bil Mo’mineen: is closer to the believers and has more rights over them than their own selves so that they give him preference over themselves and they choose his happiness and delight…
Min anfusihim: over their own selves because their overt beings are a function of his tarbiyat, teachings just like it is a result of the teachings of a father, tender and caring, who safeguards his son from every useless thing. He is Al Muraqib for him, watching over him in all his states so that he connects him to the everlasting life and infinite and eternal existence.
In a sense I realize I too lived in a cave. Treading the path of humiliation from one end of it to another without an exit in sight. And I too became used to that darkness.
But I am not in love with my darkness. I yearn to shirk it. When a ray of light pierces my being, I embrace it. I follow it hoping for more rays. All light finds its way to me by way of Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him) and his blessed family. The Spiritual Masters, all the silsilas, are from the lineage of Imam Hassan (as) and then Ghaus Pak (ra) and all the Imams, including the one who is to come, are the blood of the Ahl e Bait who emerge from Imam Hussain (as). There has always been only one origin, one fountainhead, Allah’s Habeeb (peace be upon him and his family).
On the 8th of Muharram, Qari Sahib went to visit my aunt who had been unwell. When I went to see her later, she remarked, “He says, your teacher, that your parents must be wearing crowns of noor because of you.”
I smiled. “Because of Ghaus Pak (ra)," I said lowering my eyes. “Because we translate the Tafseer e Jilani. Yes, he said the same to me.”
“Your parents, they must be so happy,” she said smiling.
“Even my father?” I laughed, surprising myself with the slight bitterness that edged my tone. I didn’t mention him much since he passed away a year and a half ago. Nobody I knew did. He was absentee to begin with and after my mother’s passing, not easy is the best I can do to avoid speaking unkindly of the dead.
It felt strange that something I might do, only by virtue of being granted ability by Allah Al Muwaffiq, would benefit him so wonderfully. In the only way one wants to be benefitted in the other world.
On the 9th, Qari Sahib and I had translated the verse about Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him and his family) being closer to the Mo’mineen than their own selves. Later when I was editing the piece, I kept stopping at the places where Ghaus Pak (ra) uses the word “father.”
The best of all the fathers…perfect…tender…merciful.
And then in the verse itself: He is…
Aula bil Mo’mineen: closer to the believers and has more rights over them than their own selves so that they give him preference over themselves and they choose his happiness and delight…
Min anfusihim: over their own selves because their overt beings are a function of his tarbiyat, teachings just like it is a result of the teachings of a father, tender and caring, who safeguards his son from every useless thing. He is Al Muraqib for him, watching over him in all his states so that he connects him to the everlasting life and infinite and eternal existence.
When I broke the fast and prayed Maghrib that evening, I cried throughout the sala’t. I didn’t say any Name of God. I just let the tears stream down my face and when I came to the part of the salam upon his being, I sobbed.
All days end and new ones begin. Pain dissipates over time unless it is clung to willfully. That is the evidence of the Mercy of the Divine which overwhelms everything. Hazrat Muhyuddin Ibn e Arabi (ra) said his namaz with a single sentence as his intention:
أريد أن أصلي قربة لله
Ureedu an ussali-a li qurba tal lillah
I want to pray to gain closeness to Allah Subhanahu!
I amend that invocation for myself adding two words: wa Rusoolahu – And I want to pray to gain closeness to His Prophet (peace be upon him and his family).
If the path of qurb is paved with degradation, I know one day I will only learn through him to bear it in excellence, a manner worthy of bearing it. Till then I welcome the guises in which humiliation appears. For in all of them, when it doesn’t emanate from me, will be, like the pearl in a shell, the upside that it carries within it.
Ka-Figure of Khenu.
Saqqara (in Lower Egypt).
5th Dynasty, circa 2450 B.C.
Like most Egyptian statues, this one is not a true portrait, but the act of inscribing Khenu's name on the base was regarded as sufficient to establish his identity.
The striding attitude corresponds to the idea of the ka of Khenu entering the tomb-chapel - and hence the world of the living - through the false door included in the tomb's structure, as a link to the afterworld.
Upper Egyptian Gallery - University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
www.penn.museum/long-term-exhibits/263-upper-egyptian-gal...
the angel
"you believe your boy was born in the churchyard, your baby boy was never ever even born at all"
(Joshua James)
inspiration: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bylR-47TJL0
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 4.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com.
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Continued from Part I of The Upside of Humiliation: www.flickr.com/photos/42093313@N00/52272860962/in/datepos...
From a lecture on his person: “The grief of the event, his witnessing of it, never left him for a single second his entire life. Not for an instant. So let’s look at grief for a moment. What is it? It is an emotional and psychological experience that we undergo after some loss. It applies to all kinds of losses. But then there is a term bereavement. Which is a specific type of grief. It is what you undergo when you lose a loved one.
We will still use the word grief for the purpose of this lecture. Grief is an individualized process. You cannot generalize it. Everybody’s reaction and endurance of it is unique. There can be no time limit set for how long it should be felt. The stages defined by psychology in the West are denial, anger, bargaining (with God), depression, and finally acceptance.
There are two kinds of grief, acute and prolonged. Acute is a shock, the pain is sharp but transient. The Sufis call it a meaning making tone. When you start making sense of things. Prolonged grief is an emotional crisis, almost like a paralysis.
It’s a numbness, a social withdrawal, total pain. It causes dysfunctionality. Grief has four components; separation distress, traumatic distress, guilt and remorse and social withdrawal.
But Hazrat Zain ul Abideen’s (as), the unmatched social reformer of his time, a political reformer, his reaction and way of dealing with pain, for him the answer lay in three verses in the Quran. For what someone might face as a test once in a while over a lifetime, he underwent it all in nine days.
وَلَنَبْلُوَنَّكُم بِشَىْءٍۢ مِّنَ ٱلْخَوْفِ وَٱلْجُوعِ وَنَقْصٍۢ مِّنَ ٱلْأَمْوَلِ وَٱلْأَنفُسِ وَٱلثَّمَرَتِ ۗ وَبَشِّرِ ٱلصَّبِرِينَ
And surely We will test you with something of fear and hunger and loss of wealth and lives and fruits, but give good news to the patient ones.
Surah Al Baqarah, Verse 155
Tafseer e Jilani
Wa lunabluwannakum: And We test them, Allah takes an oath on Himself, We will test you and we will place you in a trial, testing your steadfastness and your reach in Allah’s Tauheed, His One-ness…
Bi shayin: just a little, which will tell of most of it (your steadfastness) and the duality (of your reach in Tauheed)…
Min al khauf: from something of fear that comes from things that you hate that are external for e.g. fire, drowning, an enemy etc…
Wal joou’: and from something that comes from the things that you despise that are internal like greed and (excessive) hopes and miserliness and such…
Wa naqsim minal amwaal: and a little bit of loss of possessions which make your hearts incline towards them naturally…
Wal anfus: and a little bit of loss of something that belongs to your self which make you feel strength and pride because of them, from your children and your siblings and your relatives and your clan…
Was samaraat: and something of fruits, which are dependent on possessions and children, which grant honour and your showing off of your domination upon the enemy.
Wa bashirr: And give them glad tidings, O Akmal Ar Rasool, The Messenger who perfects The Messengers (peace be upon him and his family)…
As Saabireen: the patient ones among the ones who are certain in Tauheed and they…
ٱلَّذِينَ إِذَآ أَصَبَتْهُم مُّصِيبَةٌۭ قَالُوٓا۟ إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّآ إِلَيْهِ رَجِعُونَ
Those who, when strikes them a misfortune, they say, "Indeed, we belong to Allah and indeed we towards Him will return."
Surah Al Baqarah, Verse 156
Alladina ida asabathum museebatun qalu: are the ones who when affliction touches them, they say with collective union in their tongue…
Inna: Indeed, We are a shadow…
Lillah: of Allah Al Wahid, The One One, Al Ahad, The One and Only, Al Mutajjali, The One who reveals and unveils with His Perfect Names and His Exalted Attributes in this world…
Wa inna: and indeed we are, after our returning in the Afterworld…
Ilayhi: towards Him and not towards anyone other than Him from the shadows (of association)…
Raji’oon: the ones returning, the ones who make the returning of the shadow towards The One who created the shadows.
Subhan Allah!
أُو۟لَٓئِكَ عَلَيْهِمْ صَلَوَتٌۭ مِّن رَّبِّهِمْ وَرَحْمَةٌۭ ۖ وَأُو۟لَٓئِكَ هُمُ ٱلْمُهْتَدُونَ
Those are the ones, on them are blessings from their Lord and Mercy.
And those are the guided ones.
Surah Al Baqarah, Verse 157
Ulaika: They are the ones, happy, steadfast in the place of Tauheed, who are cleansed from the imprisonment of time and space, being and not being.
Alaihim: Upon them, not upon other than them from the people of ranks, is…
Salawaat: His Inclination and His Focus, which rise from the Ocean of His Essence, flowing from the streams of Attributes and Names towards the Cosmos of Appearance to grow Divine Recognition and Truth which make one reach towards the Giver of the Eternal Blessings and towards an enjoyment that lasts forever, pouring upon them forever…
Mir Rabbihim: from their Lord who brought them to the Place of Honour…
Wa rahmatun: and Mercy which covers them, and no one other than them, in abundance.
Wa ulaika: And they are the Al Wasiloon, the one who reach..
Hum ul muhtadoon: as the guided ones towards the True Origin and the True Abode.
I was left speechless.
There was an incident in the lecture about Imam Zain ul Abideen’s (as) blessed person which created a reflection. As if I could see the verses through his being. At one point the Imam (as) was imprisoned by his arch enemy Marwan. Zuhri, the Supreme Justice of the court of the time went to see him. Seeing his condition, shackled in chains, hardly any food and water, he fell on his feet and crying, expressed how something like this could happen to one of the sons of the one who brought the faith to this world.
Imam Zain ul Abideen (as) only said this: “It is enough for make me feel proud that in Karbala my father was beheaded and left without a burial, without even clothes, his body trampled by horses. It is enough to make me feel proud that my aunt and my sisters were made to sit bareback on camels for a thousand miles without a veil, when no one even set eyes on their shadow before and I was dragged behind them in markets through cities.”
It was the word he used in Arabic, fakhar, that I knew. It exists in Urdu but I still had to look it up to make sure I was translating it right: something that makes you proud!
And I thought about what Allah Subhanahu had said to Hazrat Bayazid Bastami (ra) when the means to gain what he had been told: his ilm, knowledge, his taqwa, restraint, piety and mindfulness, and his sakhawat, generosity had not granted him his heart’s only desire, Nearness, closeness, qurb!
“Bayazid, Come to me by way of that which I am not,” Allah Subhanahu had said.
“But what is it that you are possibly not?” The saint had asked, baffled.
He received the answer, “Humility and humiliation.”
Everything the Imam (as) was describing sounded like nothing but the purest and deepest humiliation a human being could possibly experience. Yet he was proud of it. I wondered, just like the martyr sees Allah in his final moment of life in this world, hence his title shaheed, the witness, was the Imam (as) and his blessed family seeing Allah Al Baseer, The Seeing One, throughout the time of their pain? Like their father, Imam Ali (as) who never prayed a sala’t where he didn’t see his Lord?
Perhaps that was why even in those 10 days of Karbala, never did any person of the household of Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him and his family) miss a single raka’t of the 1,000 they prayed every single night. When I, if I haven’t eaten properly the night before, find myself tired and making excuses to shorten my dawn prayers, which are hardly of length to begin with.
Imam Zain ul Abideen (as) said to Zuhri, “You believe me to be helpless?”
He looked down and Zuhri narrates, ‘I looked at the Imam’s (as) hands and the shackles were broken and he said to me, Put them back on again.’
Zuhri said I placed the chains around his wrist and asked,
“What was that Ya Imam (as)?”
He replied, “This is surrender to the Pleasure of your Lord God. We only do that which is His Pleasure and nothing else.”
Was it any wonder they were the ones Chosen Ones whose capacity was deeper than oceans?
يَخْتَصُّ بِرَحْمَتِهِۦ مَن يَشَآءُ ۗ
He chooses for His Mercy whom He wills.
Surah Aal e Imran, Verse 74
Tafseer e Jilani
Yakhtassu bi rahmatihi: He chooses for His Mercy, a Mercy Expansive, All Encompassing, a Mercy which is a collection of Excellence and Perfection…
Mayya sha’u: whom He wills from His Chosen Worshippers, honoring them with His Bounty from Himself, according to their capacity, whose (that Mercy’s) depth cannot be known and its boundary cannot be estimated.
I realized then that my humiliation, it could never make me feel fakhar. It was a courtesy of my nafs. I chose it every time. Almost always, it misguided me by making me believe I was softer and kinder than others, hiding from me all the while that it was just proud. It thought in secret for me to only discover later, I was imagining I was better than the other. Like Iblis!
I ticked all the boxes of transgressors; wicked, disobedient, hypocritical, angry, ruled by my tabyat, impatient. The only thing I had going for me was that I always felt deep regret. I instantly apologized. I yearned to be forgiven so repentance poured forth from me.
The lecture on Muharram continued: “Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him and his family) said that in the first instance of the difficulty, patience must be exercised. Not hours or days later. Not thinking one needed time to “process.” In the first instant. Meaning what? That the family of the Prophet (peace be upon him and them) understand that every relationship is through and from Allah alone. It is never yours to lose. Nothing is yours. It all belongs to only Him.”
When I had first started feeling confused about the coldness of the behaviour of someone who seemed to be walking on air days ago around me, it was Qari Sahib who happened to say something in a class that made my heart calm.
“Before you rely on someone,” he was quoting Ghaus Pak (ra), “Kissi pe bharosa karne se pehle uss se dosti karo. (Before you rely on someone, make sure they are your friend!) And how do you know anyone for sure? Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him and his family) says through three things; either live next to them as their neighbor so you know how their days and nights are timed, travel with them so their character is revealed or engage in business with them to see their morals.”
The verse from my last video appeared before my eyes: it was always easy to rely on God. He had already said He was my Friend. And His Beloved (peace be upon him and his family).
And Imam Ali (as) for whom specifically, the verse descended.
إِنَّمَا وَلِيُّكُمُ ٱللَّهُ وَرَسُولُهُۥ وَٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ ٱلَّذِينَ يُقِيمُونَ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ وَيُؤْتُونَ ٱلزَّكَوٰةَ وَهُمْ رَكِعُونَ
Your only Friend is Allah and His Messenger, and those who believe,
and those who establish prayer and give zakat and they are those who bow down in prayer.
Surah Al Maida’, Verse 55
Tafseer e Jilani
Inna walliyyukum Allah: Indeed, Allah is your Friend, The One who is in charge of your matters as related to all kinds of ordinary love…
Wa Rasooluhu: and so is His Messenger (peace be upon him and his family), who is His Vice-regent second to Him, also in charge…
Walladina aamino: and those who brought faith in Allah with a special love (extraordinary) because of their following the Prophet (peace be upon him) and they…
Alladina yuqeemoona: are the one who are forever…
As salat: in prayer that brings one close to Allah’s Essence…
And yu’toona az zakata: and they give charity which cleanses their batin, inner being, from focus on anything other than Allah…
Wa: in the state of…
Hum rak’ioon: bowing in their prayer.
Huzoor Ghaus Pak (ra) says the verse is revealed for Maula Ali (may Allah gives honour to his countenance), when a beggar asked him (for alms) while he was in ruku’, bowing in prayer, and he loosened his ring so that it dropped (for him to take).
No wonder all my friendships fizzled into thin air one by one. How else was I going to learn that Innama, only three were my friends!
At first when I started to apply the rule of Wahjurhum hajran jameela, my nafs only brought me further humiliation in every encounter. The rule had been given. The key word was “avoid” and then it appeared again, “with gracious avoidance.” My nafs decide to ignore exactly that word. It would say to me on random days, “Well if we’re having a lunch and inviting four people, can’t we invite a fifth?”
It would sound reasonable enough so I would. Then would come the slap of humiliation from the other end. On another day it would say, “If we’re going to the same place an hour away, might as well driver together.” I would agree and a harder slap would come. “We’re in the area,” it would suggest, “let’s stop by and say hi.” And the humiliation would further intensify.
Until I understood why only because of the kindness of my guide who guides all guides!
In those days, one night I would read Al Fath Ar Rabbani and in it Ghaus Pak (ra) would say: Knowledge without the application of deed will only take you back to creation again and again.
Basically towards humiliation instead of towards dignity.
I realized what I was doing or rather was made to realize it because I was constantly reiterating the verse of avoidance in the lectures with the kids. I would circle back to it all the time. But I was tweaking the rule. Hence, the rest of its application was rendering it void. It wasn’t even that it was without result. It was having the exact opposite effect. Instead of bringing me into safety, my nafs was forcing me into harm.
So I reminded myself:
Wahjurjum: leave them and turn your attention away from them…
Hajran jameela: with beautiful avoidance, smiling, cheerfully,
without inclining towards their false delerium (confusion and reduced awareness)
and without consideration for them or looking after them
and without speaking to them
and with tawakkul, reliance upon Allah and entrust the matter of avenging them to Him. For indeed, He is Enough for you regarding their supply of misdeeds and ridicule.
It took me two weeks to apply the rule correctly. For 14 days I burned in the hell of my own creation. But each time I brought the blame upon myself because of another verse that lives with me every single day of my life to the point that I memorized it to utter in the prostrations of my namaz:
وَلَوْ أَنَّهُمْ إِذ ظَّلَمُوٓا۟ أَنفُسَهُمْ جَآءُوكَ فَٱسْتَغْفَرُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ
وَٱسْتَغْفَرَ لَهُمُ ٱلرَّسُولُ لَوَجَدُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ تَوَّابًۭا رَّحِيمًۭا
And if they, when they wronged themselves, come to you and asked forgiveness of Allah,
and the Messenger (peace be upon him) asked forgiveness for them,
surely, they would have found Allah Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.
Surah An-Nisa’, Verse 64
Tafseer e Jilani
Wa lau annahum: And if they, without doubt, due to the intensity of their ghaflat, forgetfulness and hypocrisy…
Id zalamu anfusahum: that which befalls you of affliction, (which is) harmful, not submitting to you (O Beloved)…
Jaa’uka: they must come to you as the ones who repent, the one who are apologetic because of that which happened from them…
Fastaghfarullah: then they ask for forgiveness from Allah (being) sincere and regretful…
Wastaghfara lahum Ar Rasoolu: and The Messenger (peace be upon him) also asks for forgiveness for them through intercession and praying before Allah, asking for the acceptance (of the person by Him) after they have come as the ones who are apologetic…
Lawajadullaha: surely, they will find Allah (to be) and they will testify to Him being the One who grants Bounty and Mercy…
Tawwaban: (and find Allah to be) The One who accepts their repentance…
Raheeman: The One who is Merciful to them and grants them ability to do this (go the The Messenger (peace be upon him).
I was ghafil, forgetful, (of the rule). I was a hypocrite. I had lied to my nafs so I trained it to lie to me. Except now when it spoke I believed it and those lies only harmed me. I believed them just like once it believed me.
Sigh!
I had quoted the above verse on forgiveness countless times. But this time different words were hitting me like arrows as I read it in repetition:
My affliction came upon me from my own self because I didn’t submit, not to Allah Subhanahu, but His Beloved (peace be upon him and his family).
When I appeared before him then, tired, sad, needing release from what I had done which had imprisoned me, I needed to be
1.apologetic
2.regretful
3.repentant
4.sincere
5.then again feeling regret
6.then again being apologetic
A common friend had asked me when I finally started refusing invites, “Will you not ever meet again?”
“No,” I said, “We might. But I’m not thinking about it.”
I knew I would never take any steps to initiate contact. My friend became silent. She asked if I needed an apology for a shift to happen, hinting that it seemed unlikely. I smiled.
“I’ve had this experience many times before,” I said, “I hold no grudge. You will only find me smiling and cheerful,” I laughed, feeling again that pang of gratitude that I did not have to act cold. My heart still liked them. I did not need to distress it with a false sense of dignity.
Pir Naseeruddin Naseer (ra) says the person who does something wrong and does not apologize or express regret, their heart is sealed. Since it is the exercise of a choice, the person, perhaps unconsciously, becomes defiant. Disobedient. The Quran defines such a person as a fajir and Maula e Kayinaat (as) said to his son just before his passing;
و ایاک و مصادقۃ الفاجر فانہ یبیعک بالتاقۃ
And avoid the Fajir, the one who is defiant about his disobedience and insistent upon it,
for, without doubt, he will sell you for nothing.
The elusive “sell me for nothing” line was now crystal clear. Anyone entirely governed by their tabyat, acquired nature, was in a constant state of fear or sadness. Whereas the Friends of God never felt either because they controlled their tabyat while we were controlled by ours.
أَلَآ إِنَّ أَوْلِيَآءَ ٱللَّهِ لَا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ
Verily, the Friends of Allah, there will be no fear upon them and not they will grieve.
Surah Yunus, Verse 62
Tafseer e Jilani
Ala Inna auliya Allah e: Al Munkhalaeena, the ones who are detached from the demands of being human in total, Al Munsalekheena, the one who are far from the requirements of desires of their selves in totality...
La khauf-un alayhim wa la hum yahzanoon: there is no fear upon them nor do they feel grief because fear and sadness, they only come from the effects of the tabyat, (the secondary nature that is acquired from outside), and the pursuit of that which fulfills it.
Not to mention the layer of forgetfulness, likely the top layer of the tabyat. My being existent or non-existent for them, it was the same.
And suddenly I was free! Not from one relationship or two but all that held no sincerity towards me. Smiling and cheerful!
And of all things I was the one in a place, courtesy of the hadith of my Nabi, who is Rauf and Rahim (peace be upon him and his family), where I might be rendered love from my Lord for executing a command perfectly.
إنَّ اللهَ تعالى يُحِبُّ إذا عمِلَ أحدُكمْ عملًا أنْ يُتقِنَهُ
Indeed, Allah The Exalted One loves when one of you does a deed exactly as it should be done.
The hadith brought home the point of the verse that when every single person was in the same boat of khusr – loss. The only possibility of separation from that state, any distinction, was a deed, salih, good.
وَٱلْعَصْرِ
إِنَّ ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ لَفِى خُسْرٍ
إِلَّا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَعَمِلُوا۟ ٱلصَّـٰلِحَـٰتِ
(Allah takes an oath) upon time,
that the human being is surely in a state of loss,
except those who believe and do righteous deeds…
Surah Al-Asr, Verses 1-3
Tafseer e Jilani:
Wal Asr: Then Allah Suban Ta’ala takes an oath upon time and the ages, the meaning of which is about the Eternal Essence of Allah, from the beginning till the end, Timeless and Everlasting.
Innal Insaana: Indeed, the human being, created such to have a natural propensity towards the nature of ma’rifa, the Recognition of God and imaan, faith according to his share of the Lahoot, the Realm of the Divine, where there is no time and space…
Lafe khusr: is in a state of loss, immense and humiliating failure, as a result of their busyness in that which is useless due to the requirements (and needs) of his physical being, as related to his share of the world of Nasoot, the life in this world.
Illa: Except the Muqinoon, those who possess inner certainty…
Alladina Aamino: about the One-ness of Allah Subhan Ta’ala and are conscious, through their steadfastness, in their behaviour continuously in His Kingdom and about His Authority.
Wa: And with this faith and certainty…
Amilos Sualihaat: they do good deeds which points towards their ikhas, sincerity and their yaqeen, absolute conviction, and niyyat, intention.
“When someone makes a particular action beautiful, Allah falls in love with that person,” a friend who is a scholar told me. “But the problem lies in us humans defining beauty itself. As long as my fitrat, the core being of a human being as created by Allah remains saleem, pure, then I will have a proper consciousness of beauty. I will call a beautiful thing beautiful and an ugly thing ugly.
But if my nature gets corrupted, then things become the opposite. If my tabyat, which is acquired by my habits and environment, overpowers the fitrat, ugly things become beautiful for me and beautiful things become ugly. What is beautiful loses its worth. That is the problem with the corruption of the soul. That is why one of the meanings of Islam is keeping the fitrat safe. That is why in the Hereafter Allah says what will save you is your qalb, your heart within the heart which recognizes Him, if it is saleem.”
I looked up the verse he quoted:
إِذْ جَآءَ رَبَّهُۥ بِقَلْبٍۢ سَلِيمٍ
Remember when he came to his Lord with a pure heart.
Surah As Saffat, Verse 84
Tafseer e Jilani
Remember, O Messenger who completes the Messengers (peace be upon you and your family), the time when…
Id ja’a Rabbuhu biqalbin saleem: when he, the Prophet Ibrahim (as), came to his Lord with a heart perfect, intact from all of the inclinations false and opinions untrue.
In another lecture I came upon the most interesting definition of freedom from within my faith, of being free as a human being.
“What is freedom?” the scholar asked his audience. “The first question one has to ask is freedom for what and freedom from what. If you cannot answer these questions, you don’t understand what freedom is.
Freedom is defined as removing the obstacles from my path of prosperity and evolving. But removing others from my path of freedom is easy. The problem arises when I am the block in my own path of freedom. That is the challenge. What if I am the hurdle in my spiritual or socio-economic or moral progress.
The Quran addresses both social freedom and individual freedom through the context of sending Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him and his family).”
The he quoted the verse:
لَقَدْ مَنَّ ٱللَّهُ عَلَى ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ إِذْ بَعَثَ فِيهِمْ رَسُولًۭا مِّنْ أَنفُسِهِمْ
يَتْلُوا۟ عَلَيْهِمْ ءَايَتِهِۦ
وَيُزَكِّيهِمْ
وَيُعَلِّمُهُمُ ٱلْكِتَبَ
وَٱلْحِكْمَةَ
وَإِن كَانُوا۟ مِن قَبْلُ لَفِى ضَلَلٍۢ مُّبِينٍ
Indeed, Allah has bestowed a favour upon the believers, when he raised in their midst an apostle from among themselves,
to convey His Messages unto them,
and to cause them to grow in purity,
and to impart unto them the Divine Writ as well as wisdom,
where as before that they were, indeed, most obviously, lost in error.
Surah Aal e Imran, Verse 164
I had translated its tafseer so I went back to it.
Laqad Mannallahu: By the Name of Allah, He bestowed a great Favour…
Ala al Mo’mineen: upon the ones who are sincere…
Id ba’atha fi-him: when he raised him, the Prophet (peace be upon him)), from amongst them for their guidance…
Rasool an: as a Messenger to be their Murshid, guide, who was brought up…
Min Anfusihim: in them to guide them with different types of guidance.
Yatlu alihim: First of all, he recites to them (the Quran) and makes them listen…
Ayati hi: to Allah’s Verses, which indicate towards the One-ness of His Essence.
Wa Yuzzakihim: Secondly, he purifies them from the evils whisperings of Satan and those desires that lead one astray from the Path of Allah’s One-ness.
Wa Yuallimuhim: And thirdly, he teaches them…
Al Kitab: the Book, which explains and clarifies to them the means to cleanse the overt, the zahir, as well as everything which is related to the apparent world.
Wa: Then fourthly he teaches them…
Al hikmat; the wisdom that purifies their inner being, the batin, from the inclination towards anything other than Allah, (both people and things), and which connects them to Sidrat al Muntaha, the Lote Tree, near which is Jannat ul Mawa, Heaven.
Wa in Kanu Min Qablu: And they were before the unveiling of these four stations…
Lafi Dalalin Mubeen: in clear waywardness and severe humiliation.
At the end then Ghaus Pak (ra) prays: “Ya Allah! By Your Bounty, save us from the sleep of those who are heedless.
I re-read each word carefully. Through the perfect being of Ajmal Ar Rusul alone, the most beautiful Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) because he is the noor who brings, reveals, unveils and clarifies it, the Book cleanses the overt. Through the wisdom he alone teaches, the inner is purified.
But before both he does the tazkiya, the purification of thought.
As Qari Sahib says, “For purity to enter, the vessel must be pure!”
I counted the number of times the verb hada’, to guide, appeared in the verse. Only through his guidance, seeking it, staying in it, came the safety from the whisperings of Satan and one’s own desires, unending and dictated by the nafs.
In another verse, I saw an additional meaning of what malice in the breast is: selfishness, duality.
I was noticing how Mankind was entirely blanketed in self-centeredness courtesy of the addiction to technology. For the first consequence of any addiction, be it sick love, eating, watching tv or holding a phone 24/7, is selfishness. The second cause of wickedness of the heart, was duality. Which Ghaus Pak (ra) defined as hopes and expectations associated with others.
وَنَزَعْنَا مَا فِى صُدُورِهِم مِّنْ غِلٍّ تَجْرِى مِن تَحْتِهِمُ ٱلْأَنْهَـٰرُ ۖ
وَقَالُوا۟ ٱلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ ٱلَّذِى هَدَىٰنَا لِهَـٰذَا وَمَا كُنَّا لِنَهْتَدِىَ لَوْلَآ أَنْ هَدَىٰنَا ٱللَّهُ ۖ
And We will remove whatever is in their breasts of malice.
Flows from underneath them the rivers.
And they will say, "All the praise (is) for Allah, the One Who guided us to this, and we were not to receive guidance if not (had) guided us Allah. Certainly, came Messengers of our Lord with the truth."
Surah Al-Araaf, Verse 43
Tafseer e Jilani
Wa: After they have entered the Heaven of Tauheed, One-ness…
Naza’na ma fi sudoorihim min ghill-in: after We erased from their breasts, duality and selfishness
Tajri min tahtihal anhaar: (the Heaven) under which flow rivers of Ma’rifat, Knowledge of God and Haqaiq, Realities of the Essence of God, sprouting from the Ocean of the His One-ness.
Wa: After their unveiling due the dissolving of their identity and they triumph in the Everlasting Existence of Allah…
Qaalu: they said, with the capability of their tongues as inspired by Allah, that they may become steadfast on gratitude…
Alhamdo: praise and admiration that rises from tasleem o raza, surrender and acceptance…
Lillah alladi hada-na li hada: for The One who made us reach the status of contentedness and the Place of the Honour of meeting Him…
Wa ma kunna li nahtadiya: Which we would not have reached if we had stayed in the company of our desires and the darkness of our selves…
Lau la an hada-na: were it not for his Lutf, Kindness and Endless Generosity and Vast Mercy.
I memorized the second verse instantly to utter in my prostrations.
The lecture continued: “The Rasool (peace be upon him and his family) has been sent to cleanse your overt and inner beings. So in fact he has been sent to free you from your own self that shackles you.”
I went back to my notes from my lecture for the kids and looked up the list of what emanates from my self to remember exactly the definition of those “shackles:”
وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ وَنَعْلَمُ مَا تُوَسْوِسُ بِهِۦ نَفْسُهُۥ ۖ
And certainly We created man and We know what his self whispers to him.
Tafseer e Jilani
Wa: And We…
Na’alamu: We know him from that point…
Ma tuwaswisu: (as to) what whispers and makes up a rambling story…
Bihi nafsohu: from his own self and sways his heart (from that point) until now from
1.those kinds of delusions and false imaginings
2.and those things that descend upon him as animalistic desires
3.and those thoughts that are imprisoned by the chains of rituals
4.and shackles of inherent habits that are inherited
5.as a result of useless ponderings which are mixed with unthinking paranoia.
I began to look up the verses the scholar had quoted to emphasize that there was only one original source of tazkiya, purification. There was only one human being that Allah Subhanahu had chosen, appointed, named in all His Other Books and announced that he in turn, determined and then commanded, solely, what was intrinsically beneficial and what caused harm for the self.
The lecture continued: “Ma’roof is that which my fitrat knows and recognizes as good and munkir is that which my iftrat knows is sinful and wrong. So the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) does not command anything that the fitrat dislikes and only commands that which it already knows as good.
For the Quran repeatedly uses the words “transgression of boundaries” in the context of the injustice we do to our own selves. Not the injustice we perpetrate on others. Not the injustice others impose on us. The focus is always brought to one’s own nafs al Ammara. Similarly he only forbids that which the fitrat already knows is harmful for it. Nothing else! There is no conflict in his instruction and order for the soul.”
Then he quoted the verse which I translated with Qari Sahib:
ٱلَّذِينَ يَتَّبِعُونَ ٱلرَّسُولَ ٱلنَّبِىَّ ٱلْأُمِّىَّ
ٱلَّذِى يَجِدُونَهُۥ مَكْتُوبًا عِندَهُمْ فِى ٱلتَّوْرَىٰةِ وَٱلْإِنجِيلِ يَأْمُرُهُم بِٱلْمَعْرُوفِ
وَيَنْهَىٰهُمْ عَنِ ٱلْمُنكَرِ وَيُحِلُّ لَهُمُ ٱلطَّيِّبَـٰتِ
وَيُحَرِّمُ عَلَيْهِمُ ٱلْخَبَـٰٓئِثَ وَيَضَعُ عَنْهُمْ إِصْرَهُمْ وَٱلْأَغْلَـٰلَ ٱلَّتِى كَانَتْ عَلَيْهِمْ ۚ
فَٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ بِهِۦ وَعَزَّرُوهُ وَنَصَرُوهُ وَٱتَّبَعُوا۟ ٱلنُّورَ ٱلَّذِىٓ أُنزِلَ مَعَهُۥٓ ۙ أُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ هُمُ ٱلْمُفْلِحُونَ
Those who follow the Messenger, the Ummiyy Prophet (peace be upon him) whom they find written with them in the Torah and the Injīl ,
and who bids them what is fair and forbids what is unfair,
and makes lawful for them good things,
and makes unlawful for them impure things,
and relieves them of their burden, and of the shackles that were upon them.
So, those who believe in him and support him, and help him and follow the light sent down with him, - those are the ones who are successful.
Surah Al Ara-af, Verse 157
Tafseer e Jilani
Wahum: And they are…
Alladina yatti’buna As Rasool: the ones who follow the Messenger (peace be upon him), the one who was sent with the Essence of One-ness (Al Mursil bi Tauheed)…
An Nabiyya: the Prophet, Al Mutammim li mukarim il akhlaq, the one who was sent to complete the nobleness of manners (upon Allah’s Akhlaq, His Attributes)…
Al Ummiya: the one who is Al Muttahaqiq, the one who was made inevitable, Al Makhsoos, the one who was made uniquely special with Ilm il Luduni, the Divine Knowledge, which was taught to him from his Lord without acquisition (from other means), without effort, without any formal training from any teacher, and he is…
Alladi yajidoonahu: who they find in all of the books of the faiths…
Maktooban: written about in those books, about his being sent and his religion and his name and his appearance and all of his attributes…
Ayndahum fi Torat wal Ineel: in the Torat and in the Injeel, Bible, that when he will announce his Prophet-hood…
Ya’monohum bil ma’roof and yanhahum ayn al munkir ya
yahillu lahum tayyebaat: who bids them what is fair and forbids what is unfair, and makes lawful for them the good things, which they forbid upon their own selves…
Wa yuharrimu alaihum al khabais: and makes unlawful for them impure things, which they made lawful for themselves…
Wa aidan: And also…
Yada’u anhum israhum: relieves them of their loads i.e. the burdens which they carry by leaving the world and detaching from it, which was more than their strength to bear, just like they cut their bodily parts by which they sinned and just like they cut the cloth they wore if it became soiled and other than this…
Wa; he also made them free…
Al aghlaal: of their shackles i.e. the painful difficulties…
Allati kanat alaihim falladina aamino bihi: which came upon them. So those who believed in him, (the Messenger peace be upon him), when he was sent and gave his invitation (towards the One-ness of Allah)…
Wa azzaruhu: and they honoured him in the way that he was deserving of honour and glorification…
Wa nasaruhu: and they helped him, supporting him in his religion…
Wstaba’u an Noor: and they followed The Light, which is the Quran…
Alladi unzila ma’hu: which is sent with him from Allah to help him and to testify…
Ulaika: these are the ones who are the fortunate and radiant and accepted by Allah. They are the Al Muwwafiqoon, the ones given the ability to follow him.
Humul muflihoon: It is they who are the successful ones i.e. Al Muqassaroon, the ones who are confined by Him in success and triumph with victory.
Subhan Allah!
It was exactly what the scholar said. There was no conflict in what he ordered and what was intrinsically a source of ease. The hurdle was indeed one’s own self every single time that pulled on in the opposite direction of what was naturally good for it. In the form of hesitation, reluctance, delay, refusal, denial!
The lecture continued: “Imam Ali (as) says it most beautifully in the exact opposite manner of the mantra of the West which is ‘We are all born free.’ Because Islam gives one the right of social and individual freedom like nothing else for it is a freedom given by God Himself.
لا تكُن عبدا لغيرك، وقد خلقك الله حُرًا
Don’t be a slave to any other because indeed, Allah Subhanahu, has created you free.
Those who themselves are as individuals enslaved by their nafs, they are the ones who try to enslave others as well. Only the likes those who are free, like Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him and his family), free others. Like Hazrat Bilal (ratu), Hazrat Anas (ratu), you, me. If I am free from my nafs I want everybody to be free. And if I am enslaved by it, I want everybody to be enslaved by it as well. And then become enslaved to me.”
I realized that once I decided I would adhere to a rule, my nafs surrendered itself never because of my own “determination.” I had written once before, because I learnt it from Maulana Rum (ra), that the nafs holds the aql prisoner. Reflection, consideration, they’re all impossibilities because the nafs does not bow to that which it imprisons. On top of it the ghaflat, perpetual state of forgetfulness, allows for a permanence of the dire state.
Masnavi Shareef: “Your nafs has made itself your lord and master. The one who slaughters it is your aql, the power to reflect. But it becomes hostage to the ego and prays for blessings from the Divine without struggling for them. But the price of receiving that blessing without trial is the killing of the ego, for it is the root of all wrongdoing. And that is impossible without a guide.”
رزق جانی کے بری با سعی و جست
جز با عدل شیخ کو داؤد تست
How can you ever gain blessings from your own struggles and endeavours?
Without the assistance of the Spiritual Master who intervenes for you like Hazrat Dawood (as)?
نفس چوں با شیخ بیندگام تو
از بن دندان شود او رام تو
When your nafs, your ego, sees you in the footsteps of your guide, it will have no choice but to become obedient to you.
عقل گایے غالب آید در شکار
بر سگ نفست کہ باشد شیخ یار
The aql, your powers to reflect, will only conquer the enemy, your ego, in this battle
when you are accompanied by your Sheikh.
My nafs allowed me to follow the rule of the verse of avoidance only because of the attention of someone upon me. A Master, A Master of Masters. A Master of the Universe!
As I wrote the piece and translated from the Arabic word by word the exegesis of the verses, I started honing in on Allah’s Names and Attributes to deepen my understanding of them. So that when my heart uttered them in my namaz, my qalb felt something. That Station of Ma’rifat, Recognition of The Divine, if not saw, then at least heard something. If not from the Realm of the Unseen, then from my own tongue.
And I remembered that the Prophet who perfected the Message (peace be upon him and his family) saying:
لا یستقیم ایمان احدکم حتی یستقیم قلبہ
و لا یستقیم قلبہ حتی یستقیم لسانہ
و لا یستقیم لسانہ حتی تستقیم اعمالہ
“None of you can persevere in your imaan, faith, till his qalb, the Seat of Recognition of Allah, becomes steadfast.
And his qalb cannot be unfaltering until his tongue becomes correct.
And his tongue cannot be correct until his deeds become unwavering.”
Ghaus Pak (ra) says; “Anything that I have been bestowed in my life as a blessing only came to me by way of the Ahl e Bait – the blessed household of Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him and his family).”
This comes from someone who is in fact one of the most extraordinary members of that household himself. The one who is the unquestioned conduit of spirituality for the Universe till the end of its existence. After Damascus I knew with certainty that the same held true for me. Everything I was ever bestowed in my entire life only came to me by way of the Ahl e Bait (as).
My heart was flooded by that love in the city called Paradise by Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him and his family) himself. The first time, the second, every single time. Upon each return I felt like I entered a womb, the only word to describe my feelings. I was loved and cared in a way I had never experienced in my life. Hence if that life were to hit reset, if I was also allowed one thing that wasn’t a part of the first one, I would request that I be born in Damascus and live there forever.
Iqbal said, and I have quoted him umpteenth times in my pieces, that heaven and hell are here in this world. Ghaus Pak (ra) says the same. His definition of hell is unforgettable: deprivation, humiliation, doubt, desires, endless hopes. All due to the nafs causing paranoia and delusions.
Fi naari jahannuma (Surah Tauba, Verse 109): in the fires of Hell i.e. a deep valley, very wide, full of the fire of deprivation and humiliation.
And doubt!
لَهُم مِّن جَهَنَّمَ مِهَادٌ وَمِن فَوْقِهِمْ غَوَاشٍ ۚ
وَكَذَٰلِكَ نَجْزِى ٱلظَّـٰلِمِينَ
For them Hell (is) their resting place and their covering as well. And thus We recompense the wrongdoers.
Surah Al-Araaf, Ayaat 41
Lahum min jahannama: Hell is the torture of imkaan, possibility which is doubt.
Mihaad: They will burn in these fires of their false desires…
Wa min fauqihim ghiwash: covered with the fires of their power and wealth and claims of being great and possessing abundance.
Wa ka daalika najzi ad-dualimeen: The zalimeen are the ones who transgress the boundaries of Allah due to their nafs which are drowning in the addiction of their senses, their paranoia and their delusion.
In a lecture on a day, Qari Sahib quoted the iconic line in the Quran about the faith that all Muslims know; La ikrahu fi-deen.
“There is no compulsion in embracing Islam and none in practicing it. Pray, don’t pray. Give zaka’t, don’t give it. Forgive or hold a grudge. Lie or tell a truth. It is all up to you. Be clear on the influence of your own nafs upon your own self.”
We studied the tafseer of the verse by Ghaus Pak (ra). I wanted to understand what it meant. And of course I was rewarded for the effort. For when translations called Taghut, “false deities and gods,” Ghaus Pak (ra) called the nafs al Ammara, bringing the matter from the “other” back upon one’s own self.
لَآ إِكْرَاهَ فِى ٱلدِّينِ ۖ قَد تَّبَيَّنَ ٱلرُّشْدُ مِنَ ٱلْغَىِّ ۚ
فَمَن يَكْفُرْ بِٱلطَّغُوتِ وَيُؤْمِنۢ بِٱللَّهِ فَقَدِ ٱسْتَمْسَكَ بِٱلْعُرْوَةِ ٱلْوُثْقَىٰ لَا ٱنفِصَامَ لَهَا ۗ
وَٱللَّهُ سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ
There is no compulsion in the religion. Surely has become distinct the right (path) from the wrong. Then whoever rejects false deities and believes in Allah, then surely he grasped the handhold - firm, which will not break for him.
And Allah (is) All-Hearing, All-Knowing.
Surah Al Baqarah, Verse 256
Tafseer Jilani
La ikraha: There is no force and there is no threat and there is no compulsion...
Fi deen: in compliance in the religion of Islam and being obedient of it, after the appearance of the ultimate truth because…
Qad tabayyana: indeed, it becomes clear and indeed, it is made distinct…
Ar rushd: the right path and guidance…
Min al gayye: from allurement and misguidedness.
Fa man yakfur bit taaghute: So anyone who denies the truth by believing in false idols, which is the nafs al Ammara which misguides from the Path of Truth…
Ya yu’min billah: and brings faith in Allah Al Hadi, The True Guide, towards the Straight Path…
Faqad-is-tamsaka: surely he attached himself to, and in fact, grasped and clung…
Bil urwatil wusqa: to the strong rope which is the Rope of Allah Subhanahu, hanging from the Permanence of His Essence to the Everlasting-ness of His Names and Attributes…
Lan fisama: It (the rope) will not break and it will not disconnect…
Laha: from itself ever.
Wallahu: And Allah Al Hadi, The Guide, is for all…
Samee’un: The All Hearing with His Essence the words of everyone…
Aleem-un: All Knowing of everything and the interests of all which have been placed inside them.
“So reflect,” says Ghaus Pak (ra), “O you are perishing, where do you place yourself in this?”
The marker of distortion and disruption in faith was the nafs. And the savior: connection of Allah Subhanahu’s Names and Attributes woven inside the rope that brought attachment to Him.
While I wrote the piece, my reflections were all concentrations upon the namaz. I began to write down each line in it to understand the sequence of the meaning.
The beginning is a seeking of refuge in Allah Subhanahu:
Audobillah e min as Shaitan ar rajeem – I seek refuge from Satan the accursed.
Then comes Bismillah Ar Rahman Ar Rahim – the first invocation of Allah’s Names.
It was followed by the Surah Al Fateha, the preface of the Quran. In it the first three lines of the Surah were praise of Allah Subhanahu. The first line also being the expression of gratitude:
Alhamdolillah e Rabbil Aalmeen – All praise is for Allah, the Lord of all the Universe.
The second and third verses both invoked His Names, the same ones:
Ar Rahman Ar Rahim – The Entirely Merciful, The Especially Merciful.
Then Maalik e Youm iddin – The King of the Day of Judgement.
After came the submission; We only worship you and We only ask You for help.
And finally the prayer, which was for guidance!
But in that ask was a secret. The Sirat e Mustaqeem for which guidance was sought, that Straight Path, the verse reveals, was the one walked upon by those someones who were blessed by Him – siraat alladaina an’amta alayhim.
From the verb, I learnt a new Name of Allah: Naeem.
I heard a scholar say once: “Allah Subhanahu did not come to Earth and walk that path Himself. He sent others to show it and those who followed them and those after who followed them until in a meadow of grass, footsteps became outlined. A path leads to the Path.”
The greatest conflict within the faith today exists because people refuse to follow anyone else. But they don’t know, their aql imprisoned by their nafs will never surrender to anything except precisely when they follow another.
As my attention upon the words in the namaz intensified, I began to wonder that was actually being said by me in the part called the Tashahhud.
Part III Continued on: www.flickr.com/photos/42093313@N00/52274085984/in/datepos...
On the way to Chichen Itza, we stopped at the Ik Kil cenote', or sink hole, one of many in the Yucatan, we were told. Undoubtedly, this is one of the bigger, prettier ones, and one of the most popular.
According to what we're told, some cenotes were considered to be sacred links to the underworld for the Mayans, and sacrifices were tossed into the water. Weapons, gold, virgins.. Whatever the situation demanded, I suppose. My guess is when they tossed sacrificial virgins in, it was from the top, and not from the platform these kids are jumping from..
Now it is just one more beautiful place to swim and cool off, but one really should stop and think about the history of a place like this..
EDIT: We didn't know it at the time we visited, but the cenotes are actually a result of the impact of the asteroid that ended the reign of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. From space (or perhaps Google Earth..) it becomes clear that they define the southern rim of the crater / rock impact from the shock of the impact. Interesting, I think. Of course, it's impossible to see any of that from ground level..
I think what they believe is that the limestone bedrock of the Yucatan Peninsula was shattered by the shock, and water penetrated cracks in the limestone, and eroded huge underground caverns and these sinkholes that we see as cenotes. The Mayans believed they were portals into their underground afterworld, so they at least had a deep appreciation that they were special, as well as being the only reliable sources of fresh water on the peninsula.
Asmat Bis Pole
late 1950s
Asmat people, Omadesep village, New Guinea, Papua (Irian Jaya) Province, Indonesia
Wood, paint, fiber; H. 216 in. (548.6 cm)
The most spectacular sculptures of the Asmat people of southwest New Guinea are the ancestor poles known as bis. Made in only a limited area of the Asmat region, bis poles were, and are, created as the focal points of a memorial feast honoring individuals who have recently died and become ancestors. Each figure on the poles represents and is named for a specific deceased individual. In the past, the poles also served to remind the living that the dead must be avenged. In Asmat cosmology, death was always caused by an enemy either directly in war or by malevolent magic. Each death created an imbalance that had to be corrected through the death of an enemy. After a number of individuals in the village had died, the male elders would decide to stage a bis feast. In the past, the feast was held in conjunction with a headhunting raid. Today, the Asmat no longer practice warfare and a bis feast may be staged to alleviate a specific crisis or in connection with male initiation.
Despite the enormous time and effort that goes into their creation, bis poles are made for one-time use. At the conclusion of the bis feast, the poles are taken down and transported to the groves of sago palms, on which the Asmat depend for their primary food, where they are left to rot or are ritually destroyed. As the poles slowly decay, their supernatural power seeps into the ground, strengthening the palms and ensuring an abundant harvest of sago.
Each bis pole is carved from a single piece of wood. To create the pole's distinctive form, carvers select trees with planklike buttress roots. During carving, all but one root is removed and the tree inverted, so that the remaining root forms the winglike projection (cemen) at the top. Bis poles consist of several components. The main section (bis anakat), with the carved figures, portrays the individual for whom the pole is named and other deceased relatives. The cemen represents the pole's phallus and incorporates motifs symbolic of headhunting, which is also associated with fertility in Asmat cosmology. The lower portion of the pole is called the ci (canoe) and, as in this example, at times depicts a canoe, which served to transport the spirits of the dead to the afterworld (safan). The pointed base (bino) was often inserted into the ground.
The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Bequest of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1979 (1979.206.1611)
**
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's permanent collection contains more than two million works of art from around the world. It opened its doors on February 20, 1872, housed in a building located at 681 Fifth Avenue in New York City. Under their guidance of John Taylor Johnston and George Palmer Putnam, the Met's holdings, initially consisting of a Roman stone sarcophagus and 174 mostly European paintings, quickly outgrew the available space. In 1873, occasioned by the Met's purchase of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriot antiquities, the museum decamped from Fifth Avenue and took up residence at the Douglas Mansion on West 14th Street. However, these new accommodations were temporary; after negotiations with the city of New York, the Met acquired land on the east side of Central Park, where it built its permanent home, a red-brick Gothic Revival stone "mausoleum" designed by American architects Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mold. As of 2006, the Met measures almost a quarter mile long and occupies more than two million square feet, more than 20 times the size of the original 1880 building.
In 2007, the Metropolitan Museum of Art was ranked #17 on the AIA 150 America's Favorite Architecture list.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art was designated a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1967. The interior was designated in 1977.
National Historic Register #86003556
Pomegranate juice from Turkey.
Exactly 3,500 years ago in the city of Thebes there lived a man called Ineni, with a garden renowned far a wide, much like Luis Borja. Except he wasn't exactly like Luis, because he happened to be the overseer of the building works of the GOD-EMPEROR of the World; the Pharaoh Tuthmosis I. Ineni made sure that in the Hereafter his garden would be just as glorious as in life, for in his tomb his garden was painted in detail, so as that Anubis would make sure to incorporate it in the strange dark eternity that comes to the deserving spirits of the dead in the Afterworld. All the species were neatly inventoried next to the painting, so Anubis wouldn't accidentally forget anything! And so we know how an ancient garden looked like and which species grew within.
Ineni the Builder thought 5 pomegranate trees would just about do the trick (he likes palms the best, he needs 321 of those; afterwards his favourite is Ficus species. Another difference between Luis and Ineni is that although Aloe (pronounced 'ht-'w3') was well known to the ancient Egyptians, Ineni didn't seem to think they were interesting enough to garden for the rest of eternity (Ineni is probably thinking: 'dammit! I knew I forgot something!' right now)).
Akkadian:
---Old Akkadian [~2500-2000BC]: Possibly* ? pronounced 'armannu', but this may mean 'fruit tree' in general.
---Assyrian Neo-Akkadian [~1300BC]: '...' pronounced 'nurmû', alternatively sometimes called ? pronounced 'lurimtu'.
Amharic: ሩማን transliterated 'ruman' (pronounced 'roman' according to some)
Ancient Egyptian: see here, pronounced 'in-hmn'
Arabic: رمان, pronounced 'ram-an' (Old Andalusian Arabic), ﺎنمـر, pronounced 'rummân' (Modern Egypt)
Aramaic: ...?**, ? pronounced 'rummānā'
Armenian: Նուռ transliterated 'nowo' (ISO9985 (divergent from older schemes))
---Classical Armenian [405-1800AD]: Նուրն pronounced 'nurn' (?, bad source, re-transliterated by me using Hübschmann-Meillet)
Avestan [~1000BC]: ? pronounced 'hadhânaêpatayå' (for tree), ? pronounced 'baresman' (for twigs); (?, unclear, names 'in Zand', may be 12-13th century Pazend or Avesta): رورمنا pronounced 'rormanā', رومنا pronounced 'romnā'
Azeri: Nar Kolu (fruit), Nar Ağacı (tree)
Coptic: Ⲉⲣⲙⲁⲛ, pronounced 'irman'
Corsican: Mela granata
Farsi: انار pronounced 'anār' (fruit) or pronounced 'ana'ra' (tree), نار pronounced 'nār' (fruit), درخت انار pronounced 'nār-pestan' (tree), ناربن pronounced 'nār-bon' (tree), رمان pronounced 'romman' or 'rummān' (fruit), رانا pronounced 'rānā' (fruit, rare (eastern?) synonym), ناردان pronounced 'nār-dan' (seeds, dried arils), فرند pronounced 'firind' (seed), ارمنین pronounced 'armanīn' (wild pomegranate), ضبر ẓabr' (pomegranate, among many other meanings), انحفطینا pronounced 'anḥaft̤īnā' (flower), اونانیس pronounced 'aunānīs' (bud)
Ge'ez: ኣሩራን pronounced 'ʿarurān' (for tree; may also mean a field, a big tree, or wild date palm. Traditionally believed to be derived from Greek ... ('arouran'= field), however, this may not be the root for all meanings of the word, see Coptic, Akkadian). The word ጵርዮን (pronounced 'pəryon') has been misunderstood to mean 'pomegranate', but actually means 'saw' or 'holm oak' (Quercus ilex).
Greek:
---Attic: Ῥοἀ, sometimes Ῥοιἀ (tree), Κύτινος pronounced 'khootinos' (flower). From Theophrastus [~340–290BC], who admittedly was from Lesbos and has been criticized on his use of Attic (Leontion).
---Koine Greek: βαλαύστιον pronounced 'balaústion' (for flower of wild plant). Attested in Dioscorides, Galen and papyri [1-130AD];
------Egyptian Koine [130-200AD, names from Egyptian papyri]: Ῥόα pronounced 'rhóa' (tree), Κύτινος pronounced 'khootinos' (flower), Σίσιον pronounced 'sísion' (rind of fruit).
------Byzantine Koine [1020's, names from the Suda]: Ῥοιά (tree, fruit), Σίδειος Καρπός (fruit)
---Modern Greek: In modern Greek the plant is known as Ροδιά, pronounced 'rothiá'.
Harari: ? pronounced 'rummán', ?ማን pronounced 'roman', ?ማን? pronounced 'romanách' (pl.) (Arabic, á, as in "father.", or Adaric)
Hebrew:
---Modern Hebrew: רימון מצוי , pronounced 'rimun m'u'? (tree), הרימון נגזר, pronounced 'h'rimun ngzr'? (fruit).
Hittite: The logogram orthography is more attested in the corpus than the syllabic equivalent. Pomegranate is only attested in later writings.
---New-Hittite [~1430–1180BC]:
------Logogramic: 'giš-NU-ÚR-MA', or 'giš-NURMA' pronounced 'nurati' ('giš' is a 'determinant' used in the cuneiform script to denote the word is a fruit from a woody tree/shrub, and is not pronounced). An akkadogram.
------Syllabic: '...', 'nu-ra-ti-i-in' or 'nu-ra-ti-in', pronounced 'nurati' (stem?) or 'nuratin' (sing.?)
Hurrian [~2100-1300BC]: ? pronounced 'nuranti'
Italian: Melograno
---Venetian: Malgaragno, also Magragno, Pomoingranà, Pomogranà
Kurdish:
---Kurmanji: Hinar, Henar, Énar***
---Sorani: ھەنار pronounced 'h'nar'
Latin: Malum Punicum, Malum Granatum, Balaustium (for flower)
Mazanderani/Tabari: انار
Oromo: Romaanii
Pashto: انار
Portuguese: Romã, Romãzeira, Romanzeira, Romanzeiro
Sidetic/Pamphylian [~500BC]: '...' (Sidetic script is as yet undeciphered) pronounced 'side'
Tigrinya:? pronounced 'remmān' (from Schwienfurth [1880's-90's] as 'Abyssinian', very possibly Tigré, but based on demographics and dominant languages in Italian administered areas and the relatively restricted extent of Schweinfurths travels in Abyssinia (he only visited northwest Eritrea) most, if not all, the plant names he recorded were almost certainly in Tigrinya).
Turkish: Nar
*Apparently known by Hopf, Maria and Zohary, Daniel. in 'Domestication of plants in the old world: the origin and spread of cultivated plants in West Asia, Europe, and the Nile Valley' (3rd ed.); Oxford University Press; 2000, pp. 171. ISBN 0-19-850356-3. The source I have used is rather bad
**In the Babylonian Talmud.
***? from 1910's German work
Note: The writing of names/words in non-Akkadian/Sumerian languages using cuneiform, such as Hurrian or Hittite, can be tricky in that they may be written either phonetically/syllabically or as ideograms/logograms. In this latter case the Akkadian/Sumerian spelling of a word is substituted for the native one, these are known as 'akkadograms' or 'sumerograms'. It is like one would write "I have an POMME" in English, but read this as "I have an apple": The sequence of letters P, O, M, M & E have combined into a symbol for "apple". "&" is actually an ideogram used in English for "and". Huzvarishn are analogous ideograms based on Aramaic found in pahlavi script used to write middle Persian. Furthermore, words are written with the addition of a further 'determinant' or 'determiner', another logogramic symbol. This is not pronounced but used to denote the type of word. These determinants are themselves a subset of ancient sumerograms. What one reads is thus often completely different from what one pronounces. In modern transliterations of cuneiform into the Latin alphabet, logogram words are written in capitals -normal for sumerograms or italic for akkadograms, while determinants are written in superscript in front of the word.
Note 2: These names came with the qualifier "in Zand" in the Persian dictionary I used. The word 'pazend' is now known to mean the 1,800-1,350 years old commentary in Middle Persian upon the Avesta written in the same script used to write the (dead) Avestan language some 1,800 years ago. However, when these works were first transcribed into western European languages 200 years ago the term was confused= 'zand' was used to mean Avestan language itself and 'Pa-zand' was used as the name of the Middle Persian language. Although the dictionary I used here was written 100 years ago, after the mistake became apparent, it is most likely written according to the old paradigm, thus these words are supposed to be Avestan. I must still corroborate these words with the actual text. The words are problematic; I do not see them in my copies of newer Avestan dictionary, and the clear later Semitic nature of the names makes it unlikely to actually be Avestan, but more likely Middle or New Persian, or even Pahlavi ideograms (in Aramaic). Zand in the Persian context might also refer to the (brief) Zand dynasty or the region of Zand, where the Luri language is spoken to some extent, thus these words might conceivably be Luri words from Zand, but this seems unlikely in respect to the rest of the text of the dictionary (it doesn't explain the occurrence of 'in Zand' so often in entries, nor the occurrence of the word 'Pa-zand').
Note 3: Flickr won't display unicode for cuneiform...
Note 4: Pronunciation and orthography for Ancient Greek is all wrong. I transliterated using Modern Greek, and Ancient Greek script lacked minuscules, having only capital letters. Also check Latin orthography (no letter 'U', right?).
Native Distribution: Thought to be native to Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, & India (Kashmir, Himalayas).
Nepal? Turkmenistan?
The plant was probably first brought into cultivation in what is now Iran (based on land-race/cultivar diversity), at least some time before 4,500 years ago, when it was first mentioned in Sumerian cuneiform tablets in modern day Iraq. From Mesopotamia it seems to have spread west into the Levant, where it was eaten in the city of Jericho (now in the West Bank, Palestine) 4,000 years ago and north into the southern Caucasus by 3,000 years ago. It is first attested in Egypt about 3,900 years ago, but 3,500 years ago it was still seen pretty novel in Thebes (the Pharaoh Tuthmosis III is said to have introduced the fruit from Palestine after he conquered the lands of the Canaanites 3,400 years ago, although that story is untrue), so Ineni was a collector of some sort!
Alternatively, according to the Talmud, spies sent by Moses to explore the land of Canaan brought clusters of grapes, pomegranates and figs back with them.
According to Theophrastus (c. 371 – c. 287BC), in Egypt new and sweeter varieties were bred.
Phoenicians traders possibly spread the fruit further across the Mediterranean area by 3,000 years ago.
Note that a similar diffusion occurred towards the east to China and Siam, the pomegranate arrived in China from Central Asia in about the second century B.C..