A "Republic" that Stones Women?

Sakineh Mohammedie Ashtiani has waited since 2006 in jail, and after confessing to adultery when she receives 66 lashes, looking forward to death by stoning, due to occur at any time in the coming weeks at this moment. Her son released a plea to the world to save his mother, whom her children declare to be innocent. As a result he has been called into the prosector's office and threatened. Sakineh's lawyer has been forced to flee and is in a holding cell in Turkey, while Iran demands his extradition. The authroities have arrested his wife and placed her in the worst of the presons, Evin, in Tehran as collatoral to get him back. She has a baby. It gets worse. There apparently have been -- and probably are pending -- more cases of judicial barabarism involving this uniquely cruel form of capital punishment.

Sakineh's children and lawyer indicate she is innocent of the "crime" of adultery and petitions signed by by hundreds of thousands have now caused the Iranian government to issue a statement to say she actually had been guilty of "murder" which couldn't be revealed due to the "sensitivity" of her case during her trial. Brazilian President Lula de Silva' offer of amnesty has been turned down. But beyond all this is the principle that women can be executed by stoning: a especially severe and cruel death, nothing is worse, and it is reserved for women.

The act of stoning has traditionally implied that somehow that Satan is present -- and the fact that it is reserved mostly for women -- as was witch burning during the Inquisition -- indicates a special fear of women. It is a form of terror meant to keep them in their place. The Koran indicates repeatedly that it builds upon the previous "revealed books." That would include the gospels. So one must recall the key teaching: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." (In the Qur'an, that would be referred to as a teaching of Isa Ibn Mariam, one of the single most important prophets along with Moses and Abraham before Muhammad in the Islamic canon.) Are these judges, shock troops, prison "interrogators" and politicians without sin? Hardly.

The current authorities in Iran need to be purged of prison torturers, rapists (in both the Basij and revolutionary guard) and judges who have been complicit in intimidation and murder. These are the men -- and make no mistake, these stones will come from the same sort of men who got a confession from Sakineh a few years back by giving her 66 lashes. This remnant of ancient barbarism in a so-called republic must end. As long as it engages in such practices, Iran's government is not a republic of any sort. It is an inquisition.

____________
For more information on Sakineh Mohammedie Ashtiani and her sentence to stoing for adultery, go to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/04/the-free-sakineh-mohammad_n_670540.html

In Strindberg’s Exquisite Hell | The New York Review of Books

In Strindberg’s Exquisite Hell The New York Review of Books

THE LASTING VOICE OF MAHMOUD DARWISH

Joe Martin Cultural comment

Mahmoud Darwish's passing two years ago left a gap in world culture--for he was doing something extraordinary. His poetry never leaves the tradition of Love which the centuries of mostly Sufi poets bequeathed the Islamic world, though to many he appeared modern and somewhat secular. He was a voice calling for justice, but that voice was imbued with love. It was a love that could live in the mysteries of romance and eros, but which resonated in a way that transcended physical and even emotional love. So his sense of justice was imbued with the passion of that love.

As a child, Darwish's family village was destroyed during the establishment of the state of Israel, and like many they were forced to flee. Yet as a young adult he decided to find his way back, and live within Israel. Seeking a way of living in Israel, but to be able to express opposition, in 1961 he took the only route available that included Arabs and Jews, he joined the Communist Party of Israel. This, in historical retrospect, troubling decision puts him in the company of other artistic giants who doubled as proponents peace and justice in the twentieth century--Pablo Neruda, Diego Rivera, Pablo Picasso, Bertolt Brecht, James Baldwin, Nazim Hikmet and many others. But unlike some of them, the deep seated mystic sense of Love never seems to have left his work. Though it is unclear how much he himself acknowledged the influence of the ancient gnostic tradition of poetry, he writes of a love that fits with the love called "eshq"--borrowed by Arab poets from the Persian word for a love that was both passionate and spiritual.

The following description of Darwish's role comes from The Academy of American Poets (Poet.org), though Darwish was a resident of Ramallah on in the West Bank when he died. It is written by the poet Naomi Shihab:

"Mahmoud Darwish is the Essential Breath of the Palestinian people, the eloquent witness of exile and belonging, exquisitely tuned singer of images that invoke, link, and shine a brilliant light into the world's whole heart. What he speaks has been embraced by readers around the world—his in an utterly necessary voice, unforgettable once discovered."

One need only listen to, and read, the "Wait for Her," to understand his message, and the reason that Darwish's sense of Justice opens the heart, and gave the Arab world and the Palestinian people an opposition a humanistic voice they could feel inspired by, perhaps to the same degree they felt pride in the intellectual voice Edward Said. This poem shows how deeply "eshq" penetrated his work.

"Wait for Her"

RUMI ON VEILING (After a Debate on "Amanpour")

Political and spiritual comment
Yousef Daoud

After viewing the highly intolerant exchange between Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Infidel) and Tariq Ramadan on PBS' "Amanpour" concerning the moves by Europe to proscribe extreme veiling in France and Netherlands via the burkha or nikab, I was disturbed by the inability to listen displayed by the two parties. I must say both of these experts protest too much--literally. Ayaan is right, but she paints Islam with a broad brush -- reminiscent of US socialists who hated Stalinism, and so joined forces with McCarthy and the ultra right. She clearly escaped a terrible environment, and endured threats from a vicious minority in Europe. She has been through hell to find freedom and self-expression as a woman. However, all her energies seem to go into being an advocate for the supposedly unavoidable "clash of civilizations."

On the Amanpour interview (Feb 2, 2010, PBS) this became clear. Ayaan Hirsi Ali's severe problems with letting someone with an opposing view speak, reveals her deep frustration. It equally reveals that the degenerate "political" Islam that she has her fight with, has led to an inability to keep a broad perpective on other currents within Islam. She has been rewarded for this with a desk at a well-funded US right-wing think tank -- a phenomenon that is not known to cause people to become more subtle or sensitive in their positions. Meanwhile, Mr Ramadan let the implications and message of the Burkha off too lightly, especially when it is introduced in the European context.

Whatever twisted form of Islam Ms. Hirsi Ali was brought up in – it was surely oppressive and distorted - she has a compulsion to label everyone who adheres to Islam with the same descriptions. They are, to her, ignorant of rational thought and a sense of either justice or freedom. On the other hand, Ramadan feels obliged to treat total body coverings as something with no semiotic "message," but only a freedom of speech issue. That is, the former maintains her right to vent anger and even hatred of the sort which is feeding terrible conflict in the world. The latter apologizes for a fossilized patriarchal version of a religion which was not even part of the picture during the lifetime of its founder. The following passage by an Islamic author 750 years ago, during Islam's Golden Age, gives a much fresher perspective than either of these two "moderns."

_________________________

A 750 YEAR OLD MUSLIM PRONOUNCEMENT ON VEILING

"God has some servants who tell a veiled woman, 'Lift your veil so that we may see your face and know who and what you are. So long as you pass by veiled, we cannot see you, and there is confusion in my mind as to who and what this person is. I am not such as to become infatuated by you if I see your face. For a long time God has made me pure and innocent of you. I am secure enough not to be tempted by the sight of you. On the other hand, if I do not see you, I am confused as to what person this is' " ... "Before 'people of the heart' it is better to unveil the face in order to escape temptation."

Mowlana Jelaluddin Rumi, Fihi ma Fihi, Chapter 42.
(Trans. WM Thackston: Signs of the Unseen)http://joemartinauthor.blogspot.com

THE INQUISITION IN IRAN

Political comment: Joe Martin

Iran’s form of Islamic government is in free-fall, morally, ideologically and structurally. While for decades there was lack of clarity and actual disagreement as to whether the idea of an Islamic Republic was one of semi-democracy guided by religious principles, or authoritarian rule by state religion, the definition has become more stark. Former supporters of the revolution who are influential clerics turned against it in recent years. These include the late Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, the highest authority in religious matters in Shia Islam, and former President Khatami, especially after the substantiated fraud in the last elections. The extent of the fraud was ignored and even whitewashed by a Majlis, or parliament. That Majlis, is one in which the elected members had to be approved by the government. After the days of Khatami’s presidency, thousands of candidates were excluded by the Guidance Council due to their ideological impurity.

Now 4,000 people who were among the millions who have protested the imposition of a President (who comes across as a fanatic ideologue) by the groups supporting the unelected Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, have been arrested and have been, or will be, placed on trial. The trials continue, despite disclosures that numbers of those were arrested were tortured, and both men and women often raped under the eyes of or with the participation of either the Revolutionary Guard and the governments militias designed to facilitate mob rule, in classic “Brown Shirt” fashion. These disclosures came from opposition clerics.

Today comes the news that two young men have been hanged, and the media and government spokesmen have been unable to identify what they were hanged for. There seems to be no indicator that there was even an attempt to prove they had committed violent crimes. Reza Ali Zamani, 37, and Arash Rahmanipour, 20, “who had been convicted of being enemies of God and plotting to topple the Islamic regime” according to the official Iranian Student Broadcasting Agency (CNN.com, Jan. 30 2010). According to his lawyer, Rahmanipour was both sentenced and hanged without any notification of his family, who saw the hanging on the daily news. Thus, in classic totalitarian fashion, the government seeks to torture the families too. This method causes the aguish and terror to spread in concentric circles in society like a boulder dropped into the water.

This case is the tip of the iceberg, and seems to reveal how “justice” is being meted out. Rahmanipour’s lawyer has also revealed that the judicial authorities brought his pregnant sister before him, who had been imprisoned, and told him that in exchange for her release he would have to say what he was asked to say at his televised confession.

The fact of the matter is we do not know how many have been executed, and we have only the government’s official figures for how many demonstrators have been killed in the streets or in prison. These show trials employ the methods of the worst of 20th century totalitarianism like those of Stalinist Communism, an ideology the Iranian government has claimed to revile.

Here is another crime deemed worthy of the death penalty: As of this writing five of the hundreds of defendants, three men and two women, are charged with "moharebeh," or defying God which merits the death penalty, according to the ISNA.

These all too human ruling groups who want to destroy their enemies to maintain their power in a military dictatorship, have committed a rather clear form of hubris in saying that defying a their government is the same as defying God. In doing so they cannot but further tarnish dirty the reputation of their government, which would be better advised to open a dialogue with their critics and negotiate, rather than exterminating them. If the foundation of law of the Islamic Republic was supposed to be the Qur’an and the traditions that were handed down by the founder (hadith), surely on cannot ignore the clear pronouncement: “To kill a single human being is like destroying a world.” On that basis the violators of “moharebeh” would not be these innocents at all, but those who order their executions – with no reason proven or given. Therefore what we have is not an Islamic Republic, or a Republic of any kind. It is not even a government. It is the Inquisition, which overrules government: like the one that terrorized Europe for hundreds of years: this time in Islamic garb.

TIBET AND REALPOLITIK

Political comment, revised January 25

Joe Martin

Revised January 30
_____________

On January 25th a friend posted some comments on my Facebook posting concering a film on Tibet, which had provided a link to excerpts from a new film about the Tibet autonomous region. His comments in many ways atempt to look at the Tibetan situation from the Chinese point of view, though I am sure there are many points of view in China, and the recent arrest of yet another Chinese dissident intellectual who wants the PRC to reconsider its treatment of Tibet is a case in point. However, my friend is an expert on China, so I moved the exchange to Peace and Pieces along with my response.

I have now removed my response to his critique of my comment on the Tibetan film. I have come to feel I cannot use my dominant position on my own blog to debate friends or close associates. That is how I will proceed with this blog. Anyone, may of course, submit a posting or response to what they read here. My friend's original comments, are below.

I hope soon to share my thoughts on Peace and Pieces, on the teachings of the Dalai Lama, which might one day do much good for social consciousness and spiritual well-being in a China: a China that he has repeatedly stated will include Tibet. -- JM

_____________________

ORIGINAL POSTING BY AUTHOR ON FACEBOOK

The grinding oppression of the people of Tibet under occupation -- being overwhelmed by calculated Sino-ization, a wave of Chinese immigration and Chinese control of all governmment and infrastructure, has not slackened. The unwillingness of the Party and the bureaucracy to negotiate autonomy and self-determination as a part of China -- the Dalai Lama's proposal -- reveals an astonishing lack of conscience, and an intolerance for large and coherent ethnic groups in China outside of the Han majority by the government. Courageous films like this one, for which the director must remain in prison for 6 years while his family has received no notification concerning his disappearance or location by the Chinese authorities, represent one of the few means of getting the truth out. There is less free media coverage in Tibet than other occupied peoples get -- even the Palestinians. To occupy a people and dominate their culture corrupts the spirit of great nations, whether it be China or the US or Russia: it asks for an increasing numbness to b... [Cut off by Facebook]

http://www.nomadsland.com/video/leaving-fear-behind-save-tibet/


 ________________

From the film website: “Leaving Fear Behind” is a heroic film shot by a Tibetan inside Tibet, to bring Tibetan voices to the Beijing Olympic Games. The filmmaker spend five months traveling in Tibet on a motorcycle and interviewing hundreds of ordinary Tibetans about their views about the Dalai Lama.
Filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen, the Tibetan filmmaker is currently in Chinese detention, has been sentenced to six years imprisonment by the provincial court in Xining (capital of Qinghai province). The sentencing took place on 28 December 2009 but his relatives in Xining were neither informed about the trial nor the verdict.

http://www.nomadsland.com/video/leaving-fear-behind-save-tibet/

CHINA AND DEVELOPING WORLD "EXCEPTIONALISM"

Political comment

Joe Martin

As is customary, Chinese policy in the areas of climate change, summary justice in capital punishment, the jailing of writers, and the use of violence and torture in Tibet and against non-violent spiritual movements and religions is not based upon any form of logic, morality, or consistency in the law. This behavior is based upon two principles. The first is that China is too big and its momentum on the way to being a superpower too strong to have to bend to international norms. The second is that all criticism against Chinese policy from anyone in the West or developed world is irrelevant precisely because China is not yet a “developed nation” – and other nations polluted and suppressed indigenous peoples to become developed.

There are a few basic presumptions in this that are in fact widely accepted but based on dubious premises. The most common of these is the argument put forward by many so-called progressive and "pragmatic" advocates of third-world exceptionalism ever since the end of the colonial empires. This argument suggests that developing countries are unable to establish "thick" human rights norms— that is the term that is being bandied about. This terminology should invite ridicule in light of the moderate successes in building democracies in many developing countries, which have led to increased economic development. Brazil and India are examples that are hard to ignore.

One of the greatest historical proponents of this exceptionalism, in writings, speeches and interviews in the 1980s was Robert Mugabe, once a hero rather than the pariah he now is. His argument back then: Rather than striving toward democratic norms—one should strive "to have a one party state" if possible, as developing countries don't have the luxury of implementing "cake frosting" like human rights. It goes without saying, went the Mugabe argument, that strong human rights enforcement would drive development downhill. This is the same argument that has justified the MO of many African dictators. We have watched Mugabe over time turn into a monster—Bishop Tutu has said he had become a "Frankenstein"—as he methodically tried to follow the logic of this ideology until his economy went berserk, and he did too. Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka from Nigeria has taken much time off his literary work to criticize, in books and essays, this way of excusing the entrenchment of authoritarian law and tradition in the developing world.

The opposite argument is that it is never too early to keep moving toward structures that will bring increasing respect of human rights and democratic methods. India was a good example of this, perhaps because of the visions of Nehru—who leaned left, but believed in pluralistic Democracy –and Gandhi. Less unified than China, less militaristic, and extravagantly diverse, with a wildly free media India has had parallel success with that of China's (parallel but different, for sure). From a middle class which as late as 1980 was only 10% of the population, all the statistics point to a middle class that is no 50% of the population.

Granted -- that leaves up to 500 million poor and desperately poor in India. But the direction is right in economics, as well as individual rights. Military over-reactions aside—as in Kashmir, where the non-local military has in the past become engaged in the usual torture and assaults on a population which they see as collaborators with the enemy—the structures are in place for people to fight and win in the courts, to create new legislation promptly where abuses occur, and to at least challenge local bosses who engage in human rights abuses in a very public way.

So let's compare the two countries in the area of environmental issues. India has not posed nearly the same number of selfish roadblocks to the environmental treaties such as the Copenhagen as China has (Except for the US back in the day of the Kyoto conference). Aside from its pigheaded exploitation national pride to create a nuclear arsenal, the Indian government is at least open to refurbishing the economy with environmental industry if they can find the wherewithall. It is astonishing that, with a population that has burgeoned in tandem with China's, that it has continuously improved its difficult human rights issues, or at least showed the active will to do so.

The advocates of Third World exceptionalism in areas of human rights, democracy, and climate change, in general, are usually patronizing. They may raise interesting questions—but it has been a murderous ideology in practice. They have not been doing the people of these countries any favors.

Another interesting comparison we can make might be Egypt and Turkey. Both are "fallen" seats of powerful civilizations, even after the advent of Islam. Under Mubarak's "exceptionalist" rule—reinforced by a martial law that has lasted decades—the economy is as much a basket case as Egypt’s democracy and human rights record. Meanwhile, Turkey, in fits and starts, has shown tolerance for a multi-party system and has many savagely critical media outlets. The moderate Islamist Party which was allowed to take power, has finally brought a Prime Minster to sit down with the head of State in Armenia—after a century of denials about the Armenian genocide (Compare this with China on Tibet). The economic state of the population is well below most of Europe, but light years above Egypt.

The fact is, the world has changed since the now-developed world sloughed through the industrial revolution without a map, and the borders of nation states were drawn with blood. There are now many resources around for creating a lucrative industry that promotes sustainable development and supplies jobs. Most national borders in the world are established and mapped.

A new sort of Chinese farce will soon be replacing the Beijing Opera as the primary traditional performing art—if the Chinese ruling party insists on allying with genocidal regimes like that of Sudan at conferences designed to rescue the planet to stymie commitment to change that will prevent depletion of many countries water supplies, sink entire island nation states into the oceans, and keep entire nationalities such as the Tibetans and Uighers in a state of permanent repression and poverty.

IBN AL'ARABI AND GOVERNING THROUGH SPIRIT IN TIMES OF THREAT

Yousef Daoud
Spirituality

[Revised from a previous blog]

1.

Ibn al ' Arabi, perhaps the greatest philosopher of Sufism and the greatest Sufi Master of his time (1165-1240) is read more by intellectuals, and scholars of religion and mysticism than is Rumi, who has a broader following. Yet the Moroccan memoirist and feminist Fatima Mernissi has told me that Ibn Al'Arabi is her "darling," among the Sufi writers. Two garrulous aging journalists in Orhan Pamuk's enigmatic novel The Black Book insist that the Existentialists were way behind their time, as Ibn al'Arabi had transmitted their message eight hundred years earlier. "It's all there," one of them snorts, in condescension toward the European intelligentsia.

I am going to suggest that the so called "greatest master" also had a thing or two to teach us about the most dangerous obsessions haunting us today. And that is whether we belong to the anti-humanism of so-called jihadist political Islam, or the anti-intellectuals of the War-on-Terror fanatics. (Both groups have symptoms of both diseases.) Tolerance and good governance, in the human spirit and in the human realm were outlined in one of the early works Ibn al-Arabi al-Andalusi was commissioned to write: Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom (At-Tadbirat al -ilahiyyah fi islah al mamlakat al-insaniyyah)

The great Andalusian Shaikh began his prodigious career of writing and teaching in his native Spain. As a young man he had two elderly female Sufi instructors, to whom he was very dedicated. In his twenties his abilities to communicate the teachings of Sufism and Islam (especially through the study of the traditions or "hadiths") and his high level of illumination had won him recognition. It was only in the latter half of his career, that he journeyed through the Middle East, wrote his Meccan Revelations and the cryptic Bezels of Wisdom-finding different keys to Wisdom in all the Biblical and Koranic prophets. (In Mecca he had also become infatuated with the daughter of a Shaikh, who was herself a fine teacher of Sufistic interpretations of scripture. The impossible match led to an outpouring of writing, including the long poem The Interpreter of Desire (Tarjuman al-Ashwaq).

The key idea found in his philosophy--or theosophy--in the estimation of almost every authoritative commentator, is termed the "Unity-of-Being" (wahdat al-wujud). This is all the more striking perhaps because his works numbered in the hundreds, and not all have been discovered, let alone translated, no one has found the term used in any of his works. It may have been passed along by his disciples in Baghdad or Konya. Nevertheless, strangely, it is agreed: the Unity-of-Being, as a philosophy, comes to fruition in the Ibn al-Arabi's work. Its implications are immense. But in this mode of thinking, the idea of a quest for realizing divine illumination is a paradox -- as the divine Essence flows through all things at all times. God is never gone, in other words. "There is no wayfarer, and no way upon which to fare," wrote the master, in his Meccan Revelations. (I 183) That is to say: Though I must reach out to embrace it, it is already within me. And I am within it.

Furthermore Ibn-Arabi suggests a paradox: I cannot seek God, for that is something which exists eternally, and I have no existence at all. How can something like me, with no real existence—a passing form which transforms and dies, and is never the same one day after another as I move about as a flux of molecules toward final dissolution—possibly grasp the ground of existence? Instead, I should look to see where that spiritual Essence lies within myself, as I continue my growth and transformation in this life. Furthermore, what is in me is in all other "engendered things"—temporal things which arise due to cause and effect from the ground of Being. Sentient beings, and for the Sufis like Ibn-Arabi, even rocks, sand, and (these days) subatomic particles are all imbued with that Essence.

2.

Ibn Arabi sometimes criticized the mystics who thought that the ego must be annihilated, as well as the concept of annihilation, as all concepts must be annihilated, to allow God -- the Light – to illumine the emptied self, soul or mind. For, like the Mahayana Buddhists, he believed there was no ego to annihilate. The extinction of the ego (nafs) was, in his teaching, an absurd concept. For there is no ego to extinguish. It is a delusion, with no inherent existence – however delicious it is to us to worship it. Yet he agreed it was so powerful within human beings it could cause, through the greed, habits, and lusts it generated, damage, destruction and suffering.

Indeed, it is the most concretely dangerous illusion to ever "exist!"

And this is where Ibn Arabi, through his often complex and esoteric style, has much to tell us today, if we are patient and take his writings to heart. He wrote in a time when Sufism was an ascendant tradition throughout the Islamic world, after the great theologian and philosopher Mohammad al-Ghazzali succeeded, with the support of many scholars, in binding Sufism inextricably with Islam (a famous moment in Islamic scholarship. conveniently ignored by the self-aggrandizers of political Islam today, who abhor "inner" readings of the holy Book).

Ibn Arabi returns over and over to an Islamic oral tradition, known as a hadith qudsi: "To know thy Lord is to know Thyself." Our search, absurdly, leads us far afield into groves of illusion and more illusion, creations of the imagination. He quotes the Qur'an: "What you seek is in your own selves. Will you not then see?" (Zariyat, 21.)

3.

Let's examine some of the wisdom Ibn al-Arabi has to offer us in the grim times we are currently confronting. Rendered in pristine English by Shaikh Tosun Bayrak al-Jerrahi al-Halveti (Fons Vitae 1997) Divine Governance gives advice in which the human spirit is viewed as a kingdom which must be governed. It is of course a spiritual metaphor. For Intellect given to us from the Source must be in "our" service, not that of our "ego." He write of the good Prime Minister, who must constantly call upon intellect, and keep it from being seduced by the cravings of the nafs-al ammara, the commanding self (in common parlance today, the ego.)

Opt for freedom, and with this new freedom, fight the tyranny of your ego. Sit on the throne of intellect. Put the crown of service on your head. Judge, not with preconceptions, but by the reality of the Now. The truth is in the present." (21)

Nine times out of ten, conflicts are the result of preconceptions, due to ignorance of realities, and by locking the mind in anger about the past or anxieties about the future. One chapter Ibn al-Arabi entitles: "On the Qualities to be sought in the Prime Minister and the Definition of his Deputies." As a metaphor, we are speaking of a Self higher than the ego. That which can impose order and productivity on the recklessness engendered by greed, lusts and habits in the human self as it rises above itself, shapes itself, and tries to create a realm of increasing growth and productivity. If you are to rule your land with such results, you must have the right people about you. Incorruptible ones:

O one whom God has chosen as His Deputy, realize that it is an obligation for you to cooperate with your minister, "Intellect," to support him and protect him, as you have to co-exist. Your peace and order and prosperity in fact, the existence of your kingdom--depends upon his ability to serve you.

If the mind attaches itself to anyone but you, then it can only work against you, which will cause incalculable disasters. Haven't you see n the destruction of men who have lost their minds, and the inability of the spirit to cure this ill? Thus, as long as the Intellect is safe, you are safe. He is he hand with which you hold and the eye with which you see. (92)

It is clear to most Sufis that here the writer is finding parallels: that the Prime Minister is the higher Self which must rely on his/her minister and key advisor (Intellect) to organize that lower "self" or ego productively. However, putting his metaphor back on its head -- there are many who would agree that those in charge of governance in our land "have lost their minds" to the greed, lust and habits - of wanting power, of wanting to slay their enemies, of economic compulsiveness, for oil, for outsourcing big war contracts to their own companies. Of a desire to create more power through creating oppressive new institutions. Of egoistically blinding themselves, to impose a "better order" upon others. For the ego, the "commanding self" - many Sufi teachers agree, is not just a phenomenon within this or that individual. It can be kindled through individuals into a wild fire, moving from one mind to another.

There is in fact, a universal nafs, which sucks in all those who live without mindfulness, that is, in ignorance. Unchecked, this leads to Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq. It also leads to the Twin Towers, fundamentalist woman-battering regimes, and car bombs in the market place of innocents. "Haven't you seen the destruction of men who have lost their minds" writes the Shaikh – and here we can answer Ibn al-Arabi's simple inquiry with a resounding "Yes, this year, this minute, this week – and it goes on and on." Here is some more admonishments that our leaders have never received, about letting the subservient, the obedient (to power, not God), and the obsequious fire up the imagination of leaders to dangerous, grandiose or paranoid levels:

Hold on to reality, and protect yourself from distortions in imagination's sight. Otherwise you will be tyrannizing yourself- for there is no God in a realm where rationality does not rule." (93)

Our leaders, in this sense, tyrannized themselves before they did it to others. The Colin Powell phenomenon, a clear sighted warrior, allowed the overwhelming power of negative imagination to sweep him into its net, and he then contributed yet more to the great fantasy before the world's highest deliberative body. Due to the climate, one might say the CIA became the Central Imagination Agency. Intelligence was not what this was about (And we are reminded once again of the gift of Intellect which we ignore at our peril.)

This is not to say imagination is egotistical. Ibn al-Arabi himself explores the "imaginal realm" in great detail, and had no objections to works of literary or musical imagination that those self-twisted alleged Muslims who feast on the egotism of religion ("My religion is the answer, yours is the devil") reject in knee jerk fashion. But that is a subject for another essay. Here we speak of the form of imagination which is dark: delusion.

On leadership and scholarship in the area of Law, Ibn Arabi suggests to the ruler an "Imam" that is justice incarnate - and he defines justice as a middle path: one in which there are never extremes, neither cruelty and the iron fist, nor chaos allowing criminals to go free, leaving people to be victims of crime.

The wise of olden times said, "Don't be too sweet, you will make people's mouths water. Don't be too sharp, you will turn peoples' stomachs." The principle of justice is balance, equality, the middle course. It must be applied to all things. Let justice rule in the inner meaning of what you say and what you do. Apply it first to yourself, then to those who are closest to you - your ministers and the officials governing the realm of your being - and then to all those over whom you have authority. (85)

4.

In What the Seeker Needs, an essay from the same period, he writes: Anger is a result and sign of the ego not being under control, like a mean wild animal untied and uncaged." Here the Sufi's interest in the dynamics within the individual, once again speaks to the world of many individuals - the polis.

As you hold your temper, it is as if you put a bridle on its [the ego's] head and barriers around it. You begin to tame it, teach it how to behave, to obey, so that it cannot hurt others or itself, because it is part of you. (214)

As for those suffering in the hell of their delusions among the so-called "jihadists," the esteemed Sheikh had much to say. He was appalled by reports that the followers of the two legal schools of Islam were fighting bloody battles with each other in Iran and trans-Oxiania, present-day Afghanistan. All to see who would have the right to control over people's lives! He writes in The Meccan Revelations, that the true seeker "doesn't depend on any [legal] school," and those who try to impose the "external forms" of religion through the state:

[D]o not have [a high spiritual level], because of having devoted themselves to their love for prominent social position, the domination of others, furthering their precedence over God's servants .... "Hence they do not prosper" (Qur’an 16:16) with regard to their souls, nor shall one prosper through [following] them. This is the inner position of the jurists (fuquha') of [our] time. As for those of them who cunningly hide themselves in [the guise of] religion - those who hunch their shoulders and look at people furtively, with a pretense of humility ... they are dominated by the weaknesses of the carnal self and '"their hearts are the hearts of wolves," so that "God does not speak to them nor look at them." (Meccan Revelations, 183-84)

The final quote, of course, comes from the Qur'an, which relentlessly admonishes those who serve the ego and call it religion. In another chapter on the "collecting of taxes" and the business of "governing," (we are still in the realm of metaphor, and yet it works for politics as well) the sage once again makes use of a hadith of Islam: "Whoever makes a tyranny of my religion, and whoever in the future will do the same, will be defeated by that religion."

Ibn Al-Arabi raised the stakes on the matter eight hundred years ago. He speaks to Muslims –and he speaks to all who would govern themselves with wisdom, and govern others with justice.


Works Cited Above

Ibn al'Arabi. Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom (At-Tadbirat al-ilahiyyah fi islah al mamlakat al-insaniyyah) Louisville: Fons Vitae, 1997.

_________. The Meccan Revelations. Michael Chodkiewicz, Ed. Vol 1. New York: Pir Press, 2005.