What God Wants You to Ponder

A Conversation with Professor John McGuckin

Interview by Llewellyn Smith and Christine Herbes

“Yes, God reveals himself through the heart more than the head. And so when you read the scripture, read it as prayer. You know until, as they say, something strikes you in the heart and you feel the warmth, and then stay with that. Now that’s a very, very different approach. Its like a practitioner going to a tool shed with inspiration leading him or her to the tools needed for the spiritual work of the moment, as opposed to a theologian who sees scripture as a whole set of texts, legal constitutions. That’s the difference.” – John McGuckin

 

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Speaker, Voice and Audition in the Koran and the Mathnawi

by Ahmet Karamustafa

It is well known that there is a special relationship between the Mathnawi and the Koran. The bond between the two is most popularly epitomized in the lines that are affixed to the title pages of lithograph copies of the Mathnawi:

How can I describe that eminent personage?

Not a messenger is he yet he has a message

The spiritual Mathnawi of Mawlavi

Is the Qur’an expressed in Pahlavi.

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The Question of Shibli’s Insanity

by Kenneth Avery

Shibli was an example of a holy man who feigned madness or was occasionally mentally disturbed, thus escaping persecution. Dols argues that Hujwiri’s report should be rephrased to say that Shibli’s intelligence saved Shibli but Hallaj’s madness destroyed Hallaj. If Shibli was genuinely deranged, he was not legally accountable for his behavior: “Madness was an excuse, perhaps the only possible excuse, for the unmeasured expressions of divine love and the unitive experience that the early Sufis were expected to conceal, while maintaining an esoteric prudence.

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Student-Self and Teacher-Soul

by Mark Nepo

Very often, the anxious self will lean into a problem, looking for how to juggle, maintain, or solve what has been set in motion, while the teacher within will stand back and questions our very assumptions, even our very definition of what constitutes a problem. When we can endure the disorientation and discomfort that our inner teacher opens us to, we can step, however awkwardly, into a greater authenticity.

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Substitutionary Prayer and the Stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi

by Dorothy Buck

The encounter in the life of St. Francis and the Franciscan movement is a story whose time has come. Recent scholarship exploring this event and its meaning bring to light its implications for our contemporary efforts at dialogue between Christians and Muslims. Indeed it speaks to our need to heal the wounds among all three Abrahamic faith traditions and to see all people everywhere as our brothers and sisters, as did Francis.

 

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The Master-Disciple Relationship Revisited

by Alireza Nurbakhsh

The relationship between a master and a disciple has often been characterized in Sufism as that of unwavering trust, where the disciple follows the master without asking questions or raising objections in his or her journey towards the truth. It is a heart-felt relationship where the disciple’s love of the master will be the force enabling him or her to follow the master towards the truth. 

A mother does not teach her children to act lovingly towards others by asking them to rely on her words only. She acts lovingly towards others and the children follow her example. In the same way, a master cannot persuade the disciple to act with loving-kindness towards others simple by giving a speech on the subject. The master acts with loving-kindness and the disciple follows his or her lead.

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