The House of Islam

by Ed Husain

  Who

  Can I tell

  The secrets of love?

  Who has not confined their life

  To a padded cell?

  Look at

  The nature of a river.

  Its size, strength, and ability to give

  Are often gauged by its width

  And current.

  God

  Too moves between our poles, our depth.

  He flows and gathers power between

  Our heart’s range of

  Forgiveness and

  Compassion.

  Who

  Can I tell,

  Who can Hafez tell tonight

  All the secrets of

  Love?3

  Sometimes viewed as the Sufi poet Rumi’s spiritual younger brother, and writing at the same time as Geoffrey Chaucer in England, Hafez penned about 5,000 poems. Of the 700 or so that remain extant, many are still to be found on the lips of today’s Iranians, not least because of the simplicity and depth of the lines that survive from six hundred years ago. Alongside Rumi’s writings, Hafez’s works form part of the classic literature of Muslim Sufism. His poems were introduced to the West by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and admired by Friedrich Nietzsche, Alexander Puskhin, Thomas Carlyle and even the fictional Sherlock Holmes, who quoted Hafez in a story by Arthur Conan Doyle. To this day, many use Hafez’s poetry as an oracle, opening compilations of his poems at random in the hope of finding guidance. England’s Queen Victoria was said to refer to Hafez’s works in this way.

  Like his spiritual predecessor Rumi, Hafez was both fully Muslim and also fully critical of Islam’s more extreme believers. He was called ‘Hafez’ because he had memorised the entire Quran; his actual name was Shamsuddin Mohamed. While working as a baker’s apprentice by day to help his parents, Hafez studied theology, grammar, mathematics and astronomy by night. Again like Rumi, he was an insider among the clerical class of Muslims, so he knew full well what he was breaking away from, and what he instinctively flew towards: intimate love with the One, to become a free Sufi.

  Here, Hafez draws analogies between animal and human love to reinforce his message about a greater love:

  All the crazy boys

  Gather around their female

  Counterpart,

  When her canine beauty announces to the air

  ‘My body is ready to play its part

  In this miracle of Birth.’

  Look what dedicated young men will do

  For their chance moment

  Of dancing ecstatic on their

  Hind legs.

  They will forget about food for days and

  Feverishly pray in their own language.

  They will growl, make serious threats,

  Even bite each other saying:

  ‘She’s mine, all mine – watch out,

  You skinny fleabag.’

  Listen, human lovers:

  When did you last keep a vigil

  Beseeching

  Light?

  When did you last fast, lose twenty pounds,

  In hopes of embracing

  God?

  Hafez will give you unedited news today:

  You will need to outdo all the noble acts

  Of

  Dogs’ love.4

  Lovemaking was, for Hafez, truly about love – and God. The above poem illustrates what he perceives as the sacrifices demanded by love. And then this, to his lover:

  Like

  A pair

  Of mismatched newlyweds,

  One of whom still feels very insecure,

  I keep turning to God

  Saying:

  ‘Kiss

  Me.’5

  In Hafez’s mind and soul, and in his verses, God and his lover become almost interchangeable; the divine and sexual lover are intertwined.

  I sit in the streets with the homeless,

  My clothes stained with the wine

  From the vineyards the saints tend.

  Light has painted all acts

  The same colour

  So I sit around and laugh all day

  With my friends.

  At night, if I feel a divine loneliness

  I tear the doors of Love’s mansions

  And wrestle God on the floor.

  He becomes so pleased with Hafez

  And says:

  ‘Our hearts should do this more.’6

  But it is not always kisses, touches, love wrestling. Here is Hafez complaining to God, again in deeply sexual terms:

  You have fathered a child with me.

  You had your night of fun.

  If You no longer want the love my

  Beautiful body can yield,

  At least take care of that

  Holy infant my heart has become.

  God, You sired an heir with me

  When You gave birth to my soul.

  I thought of complaining to all the angels

  Last night

  About Your treatment of this

  ‘Homeless child’,

  But then I remembered they too

  Have a long list of love-complaints

  Because

  They also know You so

  Well.7

  So much heart-aching love. What have the puritans done to the House of Islam?

  PART FOUR

  Islam’s Global Staying Power

  Why and how is God central to Muslim societies around the world?

  How do we reconcile freedom of speech and blasphemy?

  Does modern family life work inside the House of Islam?

  What sustains a strong Muslim belief in an afterlife?

  17

  God is Alive

  When the Prophet Mohamed entered the city of Yathrib (later renamed Medina) in July 622, the Muslims of the city, the Ansar, or Prophet’s helpers, all wanted to welcome him. Rather than offend his generous hosts by accepting hospitality from any one of them, the Prophet simply indicated that his camel was being directed by God to the location of His choosing. Where the camel stopped, the Prophet purchased the land. His first act was then to allocate a plot to be the gathering place for believers to pray. The Arabic word for ‘mosque’, masjid, literally means ‘place of prostration’, the place where Muslims prostrate themselves and place their foreheads on the floor. This place, where the lowest met the highest in devotion to the Divine, became the centre of the city (‘Medina’) of the Prophet.

  Within the precincts of the masjid, the Prophet made his home. There was an energy and language linking the very private – the home – and the very public – the mosque – that continues to resonate among Muslims everywhere. Consciously or not, every observant Muslim recognises the symbols of this language and feels at home in the mosque of any Muslim city or community.

  In many ways the Muslim home is similar to a masjid. In most Muslim countries, shoes are removed before entering a house, or at least were until very recently. As with the mosque, the right foot is used to enter the house. In most Muslim houses, as with mosques and synagogues, no figurative art is on display. In Arab countries, even the more Westernised, such as Egypt and Syria, men and women wear the same comfortable long, loose-fitting clothes for prayers at home as they do when they go to the mosque. The Qiblah, the direction of Mecca, to which Muslims turn in prayer, is known in the Muslim household. The inhabitants of the home do not sleep with their feet pointing in that direction, as that would be considered disrespectful, nor place toilets facing Mecca. The food in the home will be Halal, procured and prepared in accordance with sharia guidelines. As in the mosque, there will be a copy of the Quran in the home, given a place of prominence. There will be some symbols of thanksgiving at the door of the house – an amulet from a Sufi sheikh, pictures of Mecca, Medina or Jerusalem, or often some combination of these.

  Unlike the mosque, it is here in the home that the women of contemporary Muslim society feel fully at ease, able to remove their veils and abayas and wear stylish, even shocking clothes. Westerners
visiting a mall in Cairo or Damascus are often amazed by the daring lingerie on display for use at home.

  The home is not the only extension of the mosque, the central feature in a Muslim city. Traditionally the orphanage, hospital, library, bazaar, craftsmen’s quarters and the university were all adjoined to the mosque. Homes grew organically out from the centre, and when residents could no longer easily reach the mosque, another, smaller mosque was built. Sufi shrines and gathering places (zawiyas) were all normal features to find among the mosques. The calligraphers, craftsmen, artists and muezzins were all engaged in external activity, but they replenished their inward spirituality, the Batin, in the Sufi brotherhoods.

  In public and in private, behind the energy and symbolism of the city or community of Muslims, was the presence of the Divine. The environment was designed by people who were internally aware of God and sought to glorify Him in their architecture and embed reminders of Him in their cities.

  In Córdoba and Granada, among the earliest of Islam’s cities changed under Muslim influences in Andalusia, I saw gardens and water everywhere. Systems of water channels were also built in Damascus, Fez, Cairo and Baghdad, because the flowing water was music to the ears, and reminded the believers of verses in the Quran that refer to streams and rivers in the gardens of Paradise. The channels were linked to the water fountain in the centre of the mosque, and carried water past the houses of the believers, bringing coolness and cleanliness. In Turkey, the last home of the caliphate, Muslims are still careful about staying clean – the Turks have hand cleansers in taxis and on their desks to kill off any germs.

  Beyond hygiene and aesthetics, for Muslim households the requirements of the five daily prayers necessitate the constant availability of water. The cities of the Muslims were designed to respond to this divine daily call. In addition, Muslims have always been fastidious about washing after responding to the call of nature, and after sex they have a ritual bath. The crusaders were astonished by the standards of hygiene among the Muslims, and brought the concepts of urban water supplies, bathing and gardens back to Europe with them. Today, however, the new Muslim cities of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha are being developed along European lines, with toilets where men have to urinate while standing in the presence of others. The concept of Hishmet, modesty, is missing; and the water is hidden away in the toilet cistern. The whole city is designed to respond to the needs of the car, not those of the believer.

  Yet despite all this, the essence of God is alive and present in the Muslim public space, and God’s word is read aloud daily. In shops, households and mosques, there will be copies of the Quran for blessings and recital. The sacred text, documented at the time of the Prophet Mohamed, has not undergone edits and changes, unlike other religious scriptures.

  Be it in Sokoto in Nigeria, Dhaka in Bangladesh, Damascus in Syria or Istanbul in Turkey, most Muslim shop owners will start their day with a broadcast recitation of the Quran. For the first hour or so of the morning, and in the Gulf countries (where music is banned in public) for much longer, the Quran will be heard being recited by a renowned qari or reciter, inspiring and reminding the Muslim proprietor and his customers, even in supermarkets, of the word of God. Ordinarily, the Quran then stops and popular singers take to the airwaves – Fairouz in Syria or Lebanon, Tarkan in Turkey, Umm Kulthum in Egypt – until the time comes for the midday prayer call to sound out from minarets across cities, towns and villages. The music will halt in shops and taxis for a few minutes, while respect is shown once again for God alone.

  In Muslim societies across the globe the day starts with the muezzin calling out the adhan. The public call to prayer, using the human voice (now assisted by microphones) rather than the church bell of Christians or the horn of the Jews, is a practice started by the Prophet, with Bilal as his first muezzin, that continues to this day. The words of the call are ‘Allahu Akbar’, ‘God is great’, then an affirmation that Mohamed is the Prophet of God, an invitation to believers to ‘come to goodness, come to felicity’, and, in the morning, a reminder that prayer is superior to sleep, before the adhan closes with God’s greatness again echoing – ‘Allahu Akbar’ – across the atmosphere. To no Muslim is this divine call strange or unwelcome, and Muslims from the East who travel to the West often become nostalgic for it.

  Regrettably, the order and discipline of the Ottomans, who trained muezzins, have now been lost. I once had the honour of being invited by the muezzin of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul to climb the minaret to where he normally gave the call. I had not anticipated the lung power needed; I was only twenty-five years old at the time, but I was quickly out of breath. The schools that produced muezzins are no more, and the melody is changing from the Ottoman style, which used classical musical notes and training, to the rougher ways of Najd now influencing Muslims who imitate the prayer calls of Mecca. But still, the divine remains present in the Muslim public space daily.

  The modern West has lost the inner spirit that gave rise to the great cathedrals of Chartres, Winchester, Coventry, St Paul’s and Notre Dame. Such sublime edifices are outer manifestations of an inner awareness of God. The dilution of faith through secularisation has produced architects who have lost the sense of the sacred in geometry. What is the theme or symbolism of Canary Wharf in London, or Freedom Tower in New York? What great truth or mystery do these structures call to mind? What will future generations think of Dubai or Kuala Lumpur?

  The Taj Mahal, built by the Muslim Mughals with lavish use of calligraphy and craftsmanship, was dedicated to God by the emperor Shah Jahan in thanksgiving for the love of his wife Mumtaz. At such shrines across the Muslim world, from Morocco to Yemen to the Caucasus, a new music emerged, praising the saints and remembering God. In Turkey, this music took the form of the Sema of Rumi’s whirling dervishes, and in India the Qawwali of the Chishti Sufis popularised by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Those who wanted to retreat from the world took comfort in the succour of the Sufi saints and the dervishes who sang mystical songs at their tombs. These songs are top hits to this day, featuring millions of viewings on YouTube as Qawwali contests in Pakistan increase. In Turkey, Elif Shafak’s bestselling books remind a new generation of Shams, Rumi, and the mystical ways of Muslims of the past. In songs, literature, art and calligraphy the divine permeates and is accepted by Muslims as a normal part of the human condition.

  The various architects who built Córdoba and Fez, adapted Damascus and Baghdad, and rebuilt Delhi in the sacred tradition of Islam, never met, yet their designs and thinking were in such harmony that a Muslim today from Fez or Casablanca instantly recognises the spoken and unspoken language in all these cities’ homes, bazaars, mosques and shrines. The esoteric and the exoteric are connected. He or she can join in the public prayers anywhere with ease, and eat without seeming a stranger, knowing the etiquette, the right prayers to say, and the appropriate modesty code.

  The Muslim attachment to God is instructive and edifying in a predominantly Westernised world culture in which God has been (publicly) marginalised. But with the increasing Arabisation and radicalisation of contemporary Muslims, thanks to the Saudi-influenced Salafism now rampant across the Muslim world, it is vital that we do not forget the other, older, more rooted Muslim approach to faith in God.

  ‘The God you worship is under my feet,’ said the Sufi as he stood at the mosque door. How dare he utter such blasphemy? This was Damascus in 1240, then a centre of regional trading, political intrigue and public displays of religious observance. It was the done thing to be commonly seen in a mosque – and why not? It was where men met, networked, gossiped, prayed, rested and often studied, too. As an established commercial centre with a host of ancient mosques from Islam’s earliest days, Damascus did not take kindly to freethinkers, let alone Sufi mystics who uttered inconvenient truths that upset the social order and pricked the conscience of the merchant class.

  It was prayer time, and the mosque was filled with worshippers. The imam at the front was preparing to lead prayers. �
�The God you worship is under my feet,’ the Sufi said again. They knew this man already – it was Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi, someone who wrote far too much, they thought, and questioned too many shibboleths. And now, to claim that the God they worshipped was underneath his feet – how dare he? And to make this claim directly to a congregation preparing to kneel, bow and prostrate themselves to God?

  Mob instinct combined with religious fervour almost always brings out the worst in people. The crowd turned on the lone Sufi. Without his students, disciples and defenders at his side, he sustained fatal injuries from the horde’s assault. Soon afterwards, on 8 November 1240, Ibn Arabi succumbed to his injuries and died.

  Like Ibn Hazm, Ibn Arabi was originally from Andalusia in Spain. Like Rumi, his esoteric statements were lost on the people of his time. And like Shams of Tabriz (who had met, admired and written about Ibn Arabi during his travels in Syria), Ibn Arabi was loathed and despised during his lifetime.

  From a long line of noble Arabs, he was born and raised in Murcia in Andalusia in 1165, but due to his Arab ancestry became known as ‘Ibn Arabi’, or ‘son of an Arab’. His vast literary output has ensured that we know much about him from his own writings. In Córdoba, as a child, Ibn Arabi encountered the great philosopher Averroes, an admirer of the Sufis. In recalling this visit, Ibn Arabi reveals much about his spiritual insight and grace from a tender age: