Category: Archives

Under the Minaret

by Jan Shoemaker

Under the Minaret is a compelling essay about an American woman experiencing the mystical dimension on the streets of Istanbul.

“…my mind wandered again to the woman in the road and I felt the tug of eternity.  Was it possible my mother had traveled along?  I felt the recognition of it open in me.  Under the minarets, below the dome of Hagia Sophia, outside the synagogues tucked behind fortified gates, I’d found but failed to see her in a a stranger’s gaze.” (Photo by Timothy O’Brien.)

(Photo ©Timopthy O’Brien)

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Wrestling with God

A CONVERSATION WITH RABBI TIRZAH FIRESTONE

Interview by Llewellyn Smith and Kelly Thomson

Author, psychotherapist and lecturer, Rabbi Tirzah Firestone is the founding rabbi of Congregation Nevei Kodesh of Boulder, Colorado.  Today her energies are devoted to the re-integration of ancient mystical wisdom into contemporary Jewish life.  Her book, The Receiving: Reclaiming Jewish Women’s Wisdom (Harper 2003), gives us stories and teachings of forgotten female sages and mystics from the Jewish traditions.  Rabbi Firestone’s interview reveals an intimate account of the honest-to-life God -wrestling throughout her spiritual journey.

(Photo courtesy of Rabbi Tirzah Firestone.)

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Daughter of Sufism

THE PASSION OF NOOR INAYAT KHAN

by Yousef Daoud

Hazrat Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan, from an esteemed family lineage in India, has in recent decades merged as one of the most illuminated practitioners of the Sufi path of chivalry (javanmardi in Persian or futuwwa in Arabic).  Recognized decades after her death as a Sufi saint, she has been afforded an honor rarely given to Sufis who have not served as a master of a Sufi order. Daughter of Sufism is a biographical account of Noor Inayat Khan’s early life, British Secret Intelligence service and her imprisonment and death in Germany during World War II. (Photo courtesy of International Sufi Order.)

(Photo of Noor Inayat Khan courtesy of Sufi Order International)

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The Experience of Nothingness

by Alireza Nurbakhsh

“In one of his last interviews, my father said that the goal of Sufism is nothingness, and then added, “because it is only when one is zero that one experiences the infinite.”  To paraphrase what he meant in this context: it is only when we do not experience our own individuality that we experience the divine in ourselves and in others.”

(Original Enso by Kazuaki Tanahashi)

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Archives Issue #79

THIS ISSUE IS PART OF AN EARLIER SET OF ISSUES #1 – #79

THE MASTER-DISCIPLE RELATIONSHIP REVISITED – Discourse by Alireza Nurbakhsh

SUBSTITUTIONARY PRAYER AND THE STIGMATA OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI by Dorothy Buck

STUDENT-SELF AND TEACHER-SOUL by Mark Nepo

THE QUESTION OF SHIBLI’S INSANITY by Kenneth Avery

SPEAKER, VOICE AND AUDITION IN THE KORAN AND MATHNAWI by Ahmet Karamustafa

WHAT GOD WANTS YOU TO PONDER – A CONVERSATION WITH PROFESSOR JOHN MCGUCKIN Interview by Llewellyn Smith and Christine Herbes

POETRY from Dr Javad Nurbakhsh, Joy Ladin, Jeni Couzyn, Shamshad Khan, Elizabeth Peacock, Hafiz, and Peter Valentyne

ARTWORK Featured cover photo Detail of wood caring, Jameh mosque, Yazd, Iran, 12th Century ©iStockphoto.com/syagci

BOOK REVIEWS An Emerald Earth: Cultivating a Natural Spirituality and Serving Creative Beauty in Our World by Felicia Norton and Charles Smith

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From History to Her Story

Women in Sufi Discourses

by Safoura Nourbakhsh

The history of women in Sufism has not been written yet.  The problem with our historical understanding of women mystics of the early period and even the later generations is that none of them left any writings. We therefore have to piece together their portraits from the writings of male Sufi historians and biography compilers, who had their own views of womanhood and whether or not it was possible for women to embark on a spiritual path alongside their male counterparts.  This article explores the competing narratives of women in emerging Sufi discourses.

 

(Photo by Mena Momeni.)

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Fly First Class

SJ78-FlyFirstClass by Anonymous

Psss..t! Want to learn an odd secret? Let me show you how to buy economy, but Fly First Class!

This is not a joke or a prank, and for sure it isn’t sales copy. I’m serious! Lots of people bump into this secret daily, but they don’t get it. So open your ears and listen for once!

I’ve an inquisitive mind, and once it notices something worthy of investigation, it will not let go till the mystery is solved.  I couldn’t figure out why I was relishing every morsel with this almost total stranger.  I began to wonder whether I was being drugged or even hypnotized!  I’m not exaggerating; there was something magical in operation which I could not figure out.

If you live to be eighty, you’ll probably go through 29,219 breakfasts! How many of your breakfasts conjure up feelings like that?  Well, I certainly cannot recall many in my case.

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On the “Path of Love” Towards the Divine

SJ78-OnThePathofLoveA Journey with Muslim Mystics

by Omid Safi

 

You!

Always traversing the world

Searching…

Tell me:

What benefit has come of it?

 

That

Which you are seeking

Is with you;

And you seek

Elsewhere? (‘Ayn al-Qozat)

Consistent with seeking the Divine inside their own being, the Sufis of the Path of Love consistently valued spiritual experience  over theoretical knowledge.  It is important to point out that they did not wish to abolish theoretical knowledge; indeed, they themselves have left some of the richest theoretical works in all of Islamic history.  Rather, they wished to emphasize that ultimately it is personal experience that will lead one down the path, not theoretical knowledge.

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