A spiritual Ishmaelite

Category: Interfaith dialogue

  • Mind body dualism and balanced sirat mustaqim

    It is Christian monasticism and the idea of a non-sensual heaven which are criticized by Quran which actually led to rise of mind body dualism in modern Christendom, while Muslim seminaries to this date teach ancient greek logic in seminaries. So, unless the churches and synagogues do not deal with Quranic criticism of their sacred texts, the mind body dualism will keep away humanity from the balanced sirat mustaqim.

  • I accidentally hurt the feelings of a Vietnam veteran

    ISHMAEL ABRAHAM·THURSDAY, 11 JANUARY 2018
    Ishmael Abraham Was Vietnam war just according to Torah?
    Man I do not know. But do not disrespect the memory of our fallen heroes of Viet Nam. They were my brothers! I am a Viet Nam veteran. And it pisses me off that you take a piss shot at the expense of Our Fallen Viet Nam veterans. Man respect the memory of this man. I will block you if you continue with this self righteous bullshit
    Ishmael Abraham I apologize for hurting you and the soul of this human brother. I also apologize for appearing self righteous.
    Peter Bell I am not a veteran but I appreciate your sincere apology here. Thank you for your teachableness and humility! God bless you.

  • Sacred ink of the Recited Logos and the sacred tears of five prayers

    To an American sister marrying a Pakistani guy: I met the American converts in interfaith fb discussion groups. I think Pakistani men never cheat unless they are too secular. So, it is a good choice for a life partner. I have also offered Sufi counseling to couples in past so if you feel the need to understand traditional psychology, I will help. Islam is a life long journey in the ocean of sacred ink and sacred tears. Quran the Ishmaelite Logos is sacred ink and five daily prayers are the sacred tears. You can start from weekly Friday prayers or bi annual Eid prayers. In America, they have Sunday although Jesus prayed on Saturday. Then God changed it to Friday with easier rules. We take a bath before Friday prayers because the feeling of purity makes us feel holy.

     

    Great I like small steps. Cheating is a problem but my approach has been to address it with the individual rather than addressing the issue in general.
    What is Sufi counseling?

     

    Psychology is a modern invention by a secular but Abrahamic scholar Freud, but before psychology, Sufi saints used to give advice to couples in our cultures.

     

  • Poetic rhetoric and Scriptural accuracy: The case on an Iqbal verse about resurrection

    The angel of resurrection complained to God: O God I fear if this man raises the dead before you. Iqbal

     

    Cátia Lins No one would have such power. How can an angel who knows his Creator so well, ask him such a question? Because doubt precedes the question and angels do not doubt God.

    Ishmael Abraham You are right. This is only poetic rhetoric telling God about the wish to raise people from spiritual slumber 🙂

  • Quran, Pope and a rabbi on temptations

    About Pope trying to change a prayer about temptations: Quran teaches that God CAN allow temptations to mislead us if we stop going back to God often.

    Peter Bell I wrote a comment for Ishmael Abraham on the original post he is referring to here: Thank you! I appreciate and value your prayers. I have been giving a lot of thought lately to the prayer we pray every day, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” I am not a Catholic, but the pope recently said he wanted to change the modern form of this ancient prayer to make it seem less like God is doing the tempting, because the Scripture states that God cannot be tempted as we are. I share in your prayer and look forward to a year of holiness before God.

    Ishmael Abraham Quran teaches that God CAN allow temptations to mislead us if we stop going back to God often.

    Peter Bell Well, I think the point Pope Francis is making is that there is a difference between God “allowing” temptations to come our way and God “sending” the temptations to harm or mislead us. God is always good and does no evil, and is not himself tempted by evil. I also agree with your statement that “going back to God often” can help keep us from falling into temptation.

    Alperovich Anatoly Without temptations we cant grow stronger in faith and character . Evolve . Thus the last Rabi von Lubawitz told : i have no temptations left , i am jealous of People , who have malevolent feelings ( sitna ) to overcome

  • Islam has a more social and universal approach compared to celibate Catholicism, monastic Buddhism and tribal forms of Protestantism

    To a sister who admires Muslim families and societies: This is because previous religions were oriented towards personal development(tazkiya) or at most tribal supremacy(asabiyyah) while Islam also includes social engineering through focus on congregation(jamat).

    Peter Bell This is a fine thing wherever it is consistently true in practice. Of course, tazkiya and jamat go together and reinforce each other — overemphasis on either one produces a society (and individuals) in imbalance and disorder. But your description here is accurate in that it is quite possible for a religious group to focus on the individual development and fall short of the logical progression of the tazkiya into jamat. Fully functioning jamat will not happen unless the individuals are spiritually strong and healthy.

  • Exploring a Scriptural approach to evolutionary theism after failed deism

    Muslim evolutionary theism is still in infancy  but future of theism depends a lot in developing it at a more nuanced level, that’s why I love BioLogos foundation although when I chatted them, they did not like my Scriptural approach because deism is seen by some arguably as the forerunner of atheism due to lack of a Scriptural approach.

    Peter Bell I like BioLogos too, but I don’t see how deism leads to atheism. Deism as a philosophy or theology has been around for a long time, and deists don’t always turn into atheists but often stay deists for a very long time, even for a lifetime. I find deism deficient in that its impersonal nature keeps us a long distance from union with God (contrary to the teaching and experience of Sufis and others), but it is not the paved road to atheism. Is this what the folks at BioLogos are thinking? Thank you for the interesting and intelligent discussion.

  • First good discussion with an Orthodox Christian

    Shalom on truth seekers. Have you studied Seraphim Rose. He admired the Muslim pro-Ishmaelite faithful Rene Guenon and also constructively criticized him.
    David Hawthorne Yes, before he was Orthodox he was a disciple of Guenon and the Perennialist school.
    Ishmael Abraham I love when Eastern Orthodox constructively criticize Roman Catholics and neo-Roman Protestants. Because Quran has a chapter on Roman Catholicism, as Syrian Orthodoxy assimilated into Islam. The wife of third Caliph was a Syrian Orthodox Christian and her husband died while reciting Quran.
    David Hawthorne Which sura is about RCism?
    Ishmael Abraham Chapter 30 predicted that Byzantine empire will defeat Persian Zoroastrianism.
    David Hawthorne I think Islam brought down the Sassanids. Ishmael Abraham Yes. But Islam was still in infancy when Byzantines struggled with Sassanids. Like US and Soviets in modernity.
    Ishmael Abraham An Orthodox Christian monk also blocked me ( an orthodox Muslim) when I asked him, if God loves Satan/Antichrist?
    David Hawthorne God loves all of His creatures, even the worst, otherwise the Scriptures would not say He desires that none perish but that all come to a knowledge of the Truth to be saved.
    We also hear from the Apostle John that “God is Love”. If He stopped loving when He came to some individual He would change and no longer be God. But it is common to all classical theisms including Christianity, Judaism and Islam that God is impassible so He cannot not love.
    Any deficiency of love is always from our part and it is this that can separate us from being in relation to God as we should be.
    So, yes, I would say God does love Satan and the Antichrist but their refusal to repent keeps them from being the good beings God calls them to be so that they are continually at odds with Him and for that reason under judgement.
    Ishmael Abraham Psalm 5:5 David Hawthorne A good insight that helped me comes from Origen’s Commentary on Jeremiah.
    He said that when we speak of God’ love or justice or “God got angry” or “jealous” or whatever we should remember we are only speaking by analogy.
    If I get mad or jealous then it is imperfect and mixed with sin most of the time but God has these perfectly without any impurities.
    So when we describe God as “jealous” we should remember it is not like a person being jealous but the word is just a homonym. It sounds the same but is fundamentally different.
    We just use such words because of our own limitations in understanding. Ishmael Abraham That’s why Quran 4:40 says that God never commits even an atom of injustice(zulm). David Hawthorne On that all classical theists can agree.

  • Yemeni Jews and Peganum Harmala: How Islam preserves Semitic culture?

    My mother told me about this today to make our homes more angelic. How Islam preserves Semitic culture.

    In Yemen, the Jewish custom of old was to bleach wheaten flour on Passover, in order to produce a clean and white unleavened bread. This was done by spreading whole wheat kernels upon a floor, and then spreading stratified layers of African rue (Peganum harmala) leaves upon the wheat kernels; a layer of wheat followed by a layer of Wild rue, which process was repeated until all wheat had been covered over with the astringent leaves of this plant.

    “The beta-carboline alkaloids present in medicinal plants, such as Peganum harmala and Eurycoma longifolia, have recently drawn attention due to their antitumor activities. Further mechanistic studies indicate that beta-carboline derivatives inhibit DNAtopoisomerases and interfere with DNA synthesis.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peganum_harmala

     

  • Egoistic or curious questioning: Is God masculine or feminine?

    To a modern critic of supposed masculinity of Abrahamic God: Interestingly, the Ishmaelite theology talks about the hebrew word rachum/compassion which has etymolgical roots in the word for a mother’s womb. So, Islam while criticizng the concepts of fatherhood and sonship, emphasizes the feminine dimensions of divinity. I have a personal and fallible conjecture that the divine attributes of beauty(jamal) express feminine tenderness ( absent in modern feminism) and the divine attributes of awe-inspriation(jalal) express masculine charisma ( absent is modern males especially the clean shaven males resembling lions with manes)