Jay Colak | SOAS University of London (original) (raw)
Uploads
Islam burst forth in the form of an epic: now a heroic history is written with the sword, and in ... more Islam burst forth in the form of an epic: now a heroic history is written with the sword, and in a religious context this sword assumes a sacred function; combat becomes an ordeal. The genesis of a religion amounts to the creation of a relatively new moral and spiritual type; in Islam this type consists of an equilibrium—which is paradoxical from the Christian point of view— between contemplativeness and combativeness on the one hand and between holy poverty and hallowed sexuality on the other. The Arab—and the man Arabized by Islam—has four poles, as it were: namely, desert, sword, woman, religion. For the contemplative the four poles are interiorized: desert, sword, and woman become so many states or functions of the soul. On the most general and a priori outward level, the sword represents death—the death one deals and the death one risks; its perfume is always present. Woman represents a similar reciprocity; she is the love one receives and the love one gives, and thus she incarnates all the generous virtues; she compensates for the perfume of death with that of life. The deepest meaning of the sword is that there is no nobility without a renunciation of life, and this is why the initiatic vow of the Sufis—to the extent it relates historically to the " pact of the divine Acceptance " (Bayʿat al-Ridwān)—includes a promise to fight to the point of death, bodily in the case of the warriors (= " martyrs " , shahīd, shuhadāʾ) and spiritually in the case of the dervishes (= the " poor " , faqīr, fuqarāʾ). The symbiosis between love and death within the framework of poverty and in the face of the Absolute constitutes all that is essential in Arab nobility; indeed we do not hesitate to say that here lies the very substance of the Muslim soul of the heroic epoch, a substance Sufism tends to perpetuate by sublimizing it. To say that Islam was born in the form of an epic means that it possesses essentially a political dimension that was foreign to early Christianity and that Christianity possessed only as a profane appendage even when it became a state religion. Now politics is divisive by its very nature because of the diversity of possible solutions and individual qualifications: the Companions of the Prophet were politically divided by force of circumstances, and what was at stake was nothing less than the final and lasting victory of Islam; they lived alongside one
One of the most important debates in Islamic ethics is the place of human ethics and its priority... more One of the most important debates in Islamic ethics is the place of human ethics and its priority or posteriority in relation to the jurisprudence which deals with acts of worship. Given the diverse approaches towards Islam, there are different ideas on this problem. Some Muslims overlook human principles in the name of religion in their approach to Islam. Some others try to interpret Islam in such a way as not to contradict the principles of human ethics. In spite of some Muslim scholars' view on the priority of jurisprudence over the ethics, this article is a try, by appealing to certain Islamic evidence, at showing the priority of ethics over the jurisprudence and insisting on the importance and even the dominance of human ethics and intrinsic value of human being in Islamic ethics. And it will conclude that according to the Islamic teachings, one can either have human dignity and at the same time not be a Muslim, or be a Muslim and at the same time lack human dignity. So, neither superficial Islam necessarily leads to honor nor does not being a Muslim repudiate honor, and what is emphasized in Islam is that human dignity is included in Islam and a real Muslim tries to earn it.
The following is a transcript of a lecture given in the autumn of 1994 at the Prince of Wales Ins... more The following is a transcript of a lecture given in the autumn of 1994 at the Prince of Wales Institute in London and sponsored by the Temenos Academy. As regards the early part of the life of René Guénon our knowledge is very limited because of his extreme reticence. His objectivity, which is one aspect of his greatness, made him realize the evils of subjectivism and individualism in the modern world, and impelled him perhaps too far in the opposite direction; he shrank at any rate from speaking about himself. Since his death book after book has been written about him and the authors have no doubt felt often extremely frustrated at being unable to find out various things and as a result, book after book contains factual errors. What we do know is that he was born at Blois in France in 1886, that he was the son of an architect; he had a traditional Catholic upbringing and at school he excelled in philosophy and mathematics. But at the age of 21 he was already in Paris, in the world of occultism, which was in full ferment at that time, about 1906-08. And the dangers of that world were perhaps counteracted for him by the fact that it was more open to wider perspectives. It seems to be about this time, in Paris, that he came in contact with some Hindus of the Advaita Vedanta school, one of whom initiated him into their own Shivaite line of spirituality. We have no details of time or place and he seems never to have spoken about these Hindus nor does he seem to have had further contact with them after one or two years. But what he learned from them is in his books and his meeting with them was clearly providential. His contact with them must have been extremely intense while it lasted. His books are just what was and is needed as antidote to the crisis of the modern world. By the time he was nearly 30, his phenomenal intelligence had enabled him to see exactly what was wrong with the modern West, and that same intelligence had dug him out of it altogether. I myself remember that world in which and for which Guénon wrote his earliest books, in the first decade after the First World War, a monstrous world made impenetrable by euphoria: the First World War had been the war to end war. Now there would never be another war; and science had proved that man was descended from the ape, that is, he had progressed from apehood, and now this progress would continue with nothing to impede it; everything would get better and better and better. I was at school at that time and I remember being taught these things with just one hour a week being taught the opposite in religious lessons. But religion in the modern world had long before
'Nothing is more pleasing to Me, as a means for My slave to draw near unto Me, than worship which... more 'Nothing is more pleasing to Me, as a means for My slave to draw near unto Me, than worship which I have made binding upon him; and My slave ceaseth not to draw near unto Me with added devotions of his free will until I love him; and when I love him I am the Hearing wherewith he heareth and the Sight wherewith he seeth and the Hand whereby he graspeth and the Foot whereon he walketh.' 1. The whole of Sufism—its aspirations, its practice, and in a sense also even its doctrine—is summed up in this Holy Tradition, which is quoted by the Sufis perhaps more often than any other text apart from the Qur'¯ an. As may be inferred from it, their practices are of two kinds: rites which are binding on all Muslims, and additional voluntary rites. When a novice enters an order, one of the first things he or she has to do is to acquire an extra dimension which will confer a depth and a height on rites which (assuming an Islamic upbringing) have been performed more or less exoterically since childhood. The obligations of Islam, often known as 'the five pillars', are the Shah¯ adah , the ritual prayer five times a day, the almsgiving, the fast of the month of Ramad. ¯ an, and the pilgrimage to Mecca if circumstances allow, this last obligation being the only one that is conditional. We have already seen the difference between the Shah¯ adah as fathomed by the Sufis and its superficial meaning 'none is 1 Bukh¯ ar¯ ı, Riqaq, 37
Recommended Videos by Jay Colak
Personal Interest by Jay Colak
Books [NOT Authored!!] by Jay Colak
Islam burst forth in the form of an epic: now a heroic history is written with the sword, and in ... more Islam burst forth in the form of an epic: now a heroic history is written with the sword, and in a religious context this sword assumes a sacred function; combat becomes an ordeal. The genesis of a religion amounts to the creation of a relatively new moral and spiritual type; in Islam this type consists of an equilibrium—which is paradoxical from the Christian point of view— between contemplativeness and combativeness on the one hand and between holy poverty and hallowed sexuality on the other. The Arab—and the man Arabized by Islam—has four poles, as it were: namely, desert, sword, woman, religion. For the contemplative the four poles are interiorized: desert, sword, and woman become so many states or functions of the soul. On the most general and a priori outward level, the sword represents death—the death one deals and the death one risks; its perfume is always present. Woman represents a similar reciprocity; she is the love one receives and the love one gives, and thus she incarnates all the generous virtues; she compensates for the perfume of death with that of life. The deepest meaning of the sword is that there is no nobility without a renunciation of life, and this is why the initiatic vow of the Sufis—to the extent it relates historically to the " pact of the divine Acceptance " (Bayʿat al-Ridwān)—includes a promise to fight to the point of death, bodily in the case of the warriors (= " martyrs " , shahīd, shuhadāʾ) and spiritually in the case of the dervishes (= the " poor " , faqīr, fuqarāʾ). The symbiosis between love and death within the framework of poverty and in the face of the Absolute constitutes all that is essential in Arab nobility; indeed we do not hesitate to say that here lies the very substance of the Muslim soul of the heroic epoch, a substance Sufism tends to perpetuate by sublimizing it. To say that Islam was born in the form of an epic means that it possesses essentially a political dimension that was foreign to early Christianity and that Christianity possessed only as a profane appendage even when it became a state religion. Now politics is divisive by its very nature because of the diversity of possible solutions and individual qualifications: the Companions of the Prophet were politically divided by force of circumstances, and what was at stake was nothing less than the final and lasting victory of Islam; they lived alongside one
One of the most important debates in Islamic ethics is the place of human ethics and its priority... more One of the most important debates in Islamic ethics is the place of human ethics and its priority or posteriority in relation to the jurisprudence which deals with acts of worship. Given the diverse approaches towards Islam, there are different ideas on this problem. Some Muslims overlook human principles in the name of religion in their approach to Islam. Some others try to interpret Islam in such a way as not to contradict the principles of human ethics. In spite of some Muslim scholars' view on the priority of jurisprudence over the ethics, this article is a try, by appealing to certain Islamic evidence, at showing the priority of ethics over the jurisprudence and insisting on the importance and even the dominance of human ethics and intrinsic value of human being in Islamic ethics. And it will conclude that according to the Islamic teachings, one can either have human dignity and at the same time not be a Muslim, or be a Muslim and at the same time lack human dignity. So, neither superficial Islam necessarily leads to honor nor does not being a Muslim repudiate honor, and what is emphasized in Islam is that human dignity is included in Islam and a real Muslim tries to earn it.
The following is a transcript of a lecture given in the autumn of 1994 at the Prince of Wales Ins... more The following is a transcript of a lecture given in the autumn of 1994 at the Prince of Wales Institute in London and sponsored by the Temenos Academy. As regards the early part of the life of René Guénon our knowledge is very limited because of his extreme reticence. His objectivity, which is one aspect of his greatness, made him realize the evils of subjectivism and individualism in the modern world, and impelled him perhaps too far in the opposite direction; he shrank at any rate from speaking about himself. Since his death book after book has been written about him and the authors have no doubt felt often extremely frustrated at being unable to find out various things and as a result, book after book contains factual errors. What we do know is that he was born at Blois in France in 1886, that he was the son of an architect; he had a traditional Catholic upbringing and at school he excelled in philosophy and mathematics. But at the age of 21 he was already in Paris, in the world of occultism, which was in full ferment at that time, about 1906-08. And the dangers of that world were perhaps counteracted for him by the fact that it was more open to wider perspectives. It seems to be about this time, in Paris, that he came in contact with some Hindus of the Advaita Vedanta school, one of whom initiated him into their own Shivaite line of spirituality. We have no details of time or place and he seems never to have spoken about these Hindus nor does he seem to have had further contact with them after one or two years. But what he learned from them is in his books and his meeting with them was clearly providential. His contact with them must have been extremely intense while it lasted. His books are just what was and is needed as antidote to the crisis of the modern world. By the time he was nearly 30, his phenomenal intelligence had enabled him to see exactly what was wrong with the modern West, and that same intelligence had dug him out of it altogether. I myself remember that world in which and for which Guénon wrote his earliest books, in the first decade after the First World War, a monstrous world made impenetrable by euphoria: the First World War had been the war to end war. Now there would never be another war; and science had proved that man was descended from the ape, that is, he had progressed from apehood, and now this progress would continue with nothing to impede it; everything would get better and better and better. I was at school at that time and I remember being taught these things with just one hour a week being taught the opposite in religious lessons. But religion in the modern world had long before
'Nothing is more pleasing to Me, as a means for My slave to draw near unto Me, than worship which... more 'Nothing is more pleasing to Me, as a means for My slave to draw near unto Me, than worship which I have made binding upon him; and My slave ceaseth not to draw near unto Me with added devotions of his free will until I love him; and when I love him I am the Hearing wherewith he heareth and the Sight wherewith he seeth and the Hand whereby he graspeth and the Foot whereon he walketh.' 1. The whole of Sufism—its aspirations, its practice, and in a sense also even its doctrine—is summed up in this Holy Tradition, which is quoted by the Sufis perhaps more often than any other text apart from the Qur'¯ an. As may be inferred from it, their practices are of two kinds: rites which are binding on all Muslims, and additional voluntary rites. When a novice enters an order, one of the first things he or she has to do is to acquire an extra dimension which will confer a depth and a height on rites which (assuming an Islamic upbringing) have been performed more or less exoterically since childhood. The obligations of Islam, often known as 'the five pillars', are the Shah¯ adah , the ritual prayer five times a day, the almsgiving, the fast of the month of Ramad. ¯ an, and the pilgrimage to Mecca if circumstances allow, this last obligation being the only one that is conditional. We have already seen the difference between the Shah¯ adah as fathomed by the Sufis and its superficial meaning 'none is 1 Bukh¯ ar¯ ı, Riqaq, 37