Abdal Hakim Murad – The Fifth Pillar Sacrifice, Wagner & the Eid
AI: Summary ©
The Christian story begins at the beginning of knowledge and progresses through the third act, including a woman who finds her way to a castle in Mont promise and is slowly finding her way to a castle in the holy spring. The story touches on the gender dimension of dams and the image of a woman who is a woman who is a love of desires, God has made her. The holy spring is a place of pride, with workshops happening in the churches and the holy church in the final. The importance of the holy church in the holy spring, the holy month, and the holy church in the final is emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
Stay here Rahmanir Rahim Al hamdu lillahi rabbil aalameen or salat
wa salam O Allah Ashraf al Anbiya el mursaleen Satan a Muhammad wa
ala alihi wa sahbihi H mine, a Mubarak everyone either who lava
to Allah Alikum Yoni will fit Hey, well Baraka T will Apphia well
COBOL
so we've come to the end of this little journey that some of CMCS
lecturers and experts supporters have kindly led us through the
last 10 days, these Lail in Asscher, we have reached now the
combination of the aid, and it's a good time to look back to see
where this journey has taken us. It's a journey, I suppose about a
journey. A hygiene is a journey of a lifetime. And as we've seen, it
has layers within layers. It's not a simple thing to understand. In
many ways, it's unfamiliar and enigmatic, but we know that the
more we reflect on it, and we listen to what our great scholars
have said about the depths of it, the more we move into a greater
respect. And this is a man Bab that was in sha Allah, whoever
honors and magnifies Allah's rituals. This is from the taco and
Kulu from the party of the hearts. So hopefully there has been some
touch we're encouraging people to make the near to do to do hajj and
umrah insha Allah because it is an extraordinary, unique,
transformative event.
And we've been to various cultural places I liked the
journey to character and her presentation of the traditional
understanding of the Hajj from Bosnia and the two
venturesome leaders in the 1960s I think it was who went on their own
and slept in the desert. And one of them said, it was like having
the whole world behind me as I approached the car. But there was
more and more of dunya behind me, which I think sums up very well
how one is supposed to feel, internally. Also, Dr. Ingrid
Mattson with our understanding of the piety of mothers and the role
of mothers because there's a strong maternal dimension, of
course, with hydrogen Ismail in the foundation of the city, the
the validation of childbirth, the validation of the embryo, there's
something quite characteristically Islamic about that. And I want to
get back to this gender to topic later on, if only because it tends
to be the first thing that everybody asks Muslims because
it's superficial age, and they see their hijab, and they immediately
think that's the essence of our religion, and we need to be clear
where we stand.
So we did talk a bit about the fact that the five basic pillars
of the religion are equally incumbent upon both of the genders
which is in terms of ancient religious practice and unusual
thing. There's almost daily conversations on the western wall
of Jerusalem with this Women of the Wall group of Jewish women who
want access to that bits of what they take to be the Temple of
Solomon so they can pray where the men pray, and it's an issue that's
been to the Israeli parliament, and it's a kind of
free zone,
because the Orthodox rabbis won't allow it and also the
controversies in India recently, last year in particular 2019 The
IARPA Temple, which is in Kerala is one of those Hindu temples that
does not allow women of childbearing age to enter their
precinct at all. Now, the Kerala authorities are more or less
communist and the BJP Hindu nationalists don't have any say
there. So the the authorities said actually women shouldn't be
allowed in if they behave respectfully under syndrome
interpretations that could be cited. But then Modi's government
the BJP with sort of conservative Hindu said absolutely not, and
they've been riots. And people have been killed. Just because the
women want to enter the sanctuary and it's a big pilgrimage about 5
million people a year but at Hamdulillah this is not an issue
for us. Women can and do enter the cabinet itself the holy of holies
if they wish, and we saw the story of Hajj or so we see that even
from a contemporary perspective, there's
very interesting gender dimension to this and inshallah we'll get
back to this at the end of today's little session.
What we saw and adopted Samir, in his presentation was very good on
this is that the the Haram, the great sanctuary in Macau is the
beginning of the Israa on the Mirage the night journey
and
the beginning of the
That is as it were the Holy Prophets accepting the name of
Amina the trustworthy. And this is one of the characteristics that
the * has to acquire as he passes through the various stages
of the Hajj, ritual and the Hajj, or deal. The person who is a mean
is somebody who is of the fitrah human beings being naturally
honest and naturally recognizing that honesty, and uprightness are
good things. Even if we don't acknowledge this, we feel guilty
when we are confronted with the evidence of our own moral
failings. It's from the fitrah. So the Muslim is the one man selima,
nurse, woman, Yeti, he well he sang, the Muslim is the one from
whose
hand and whose tongue people are safe. And this is the essence of
Amana.
And this relates also to what we could say, the day of aid is kind
of the the culminating consequence of a properly performed Hajj,
which is a healing.
One of the two hours which we recommended to see on the Day of
Arafah, which is basically just prayers
is a lot on the inner circle Afia that Allah asked you for Apphia
which means well being healthiness, in other words, being
the right kind of thing in God's creation, being in right relation
to other human beings and to the rest of creation. And it's very
important that we recognize when we run out of it, the need to feel
reconfigured, and readjusted, because that's the best day for
payroll to add to our Yomi Arafah is in the sun. The best are
artists, the DA said on the Day of Arafah. And even for those of us
who have been fasting on the day of rfl, which is our way of
vicariously participating in, in the Hodge, it's a day of, of, of,
of Apphia and of healing.
So, we've noticed that behind each of these apparently enigmatic
outward forms, there is an indispensable lesson about how we
need to be inwardly transformed. It's not just an outward journey,
from everywhere to the one place, which is the axis mundi, the
center of everything, and ticking off various little boxes in the
Hodge manual so that we know we've done it, right. Allah insha Allah
will accept that, that kind of hedge but it's not getting the
most out of it.
And the depth of it has often inspired some, some quite
wonderful poetry and as we've seen on this journey, often it's the
poetry rather than the prose that gives us a sense of the
qualitative aspect of the hedge and of a good hedge and entrancing
nature of Allah's house and the great sanctuary. One of my
favorite recent poets in the Middle East
is Schiff, Jamal
city, Mohammed Al Jamal, who unfortunately died very few years
ago, who was the Imam of Al Oxon, who has this wonderful collection
of poetry rather than have a Sharia garden of poetic truths.
And which, and it has, there's an English translation, and he has
this long poem, and * Akbar the greater pilgrimage and here the
greater means that there's an inward as well as an outward
journey. So just to remind ourselves of the essential nature
of this the Hajj is not something flat, but it's contoured. It's not
at the surface, but it does deep things to us.
Just a nugget, I answered the call of my beloved, the face of the
pole of guidance always in front of me. truly love carries the
consciousness of guidance. I stood there in the presence of truth,
when a breeze touch me on the mountain of mercy. Jebel Rama
ardent desire drove us to the sanctity of truth. There I was
present my tears keeping me awake till the break of day,
whence I spared to mana in love. So he's talking about artifacts
and was Delhi for holding on to the image of my original face.
Back to the fitrah back to how I need to be the Hajj as reparation.
I went on to the casting of stones, aiming at Mercy in my
beginning. So through throwing the stones, the seven deadly sins come
out of us in this cathartic way. After that, we hope for mercy.
How beautiful is this beauty that shines from what I hold, I
completed my pilgrimage as the sun arose, sensing that from that now
my form is true to its origin. So he too has the sense of the Hydras
a journey to the center but also journey to the origin, which is
one of the meanings of the Blackstone, I descended to Makkah
to give the Pilgrims a drink. I drank from Zamzar until I was
intoxicated.
By heart did the turn around the house of Allah increasing its
yearning to return to its original color. I kissed the Yemeni corner
in which my truth is, and now whenever I turn, I see that I see
him. At the Blackstone, I lay my hands. This is a ritual for
others. But for me, it is a renewal of the covenant,
and so on. So it's an indication poetic rather than formally
doctrinal of the inward transformation, the washing clean
that happens as we go through the outward forms. And it's important
to grasp this. The hydra is not just a kind of theatrical series
of symbols that remind us of how we ought to change, but it
actually helps us in the process of changing. There is something in
the toe, often the size and the artifact and the stoning that
actually doesn't just symbolize a transformation, but is a cathartic
contribution to that transformation. And to the extent
where we're sincere and we're real in the hajj, we will be
transformed. And one of the most interesting things you can see on
the Hajj
is how people change from the beginning to the end.
I used to do the hajj when I was living in Judah,
with a group of bankers.
And on the way from Judah to Makkah,
everybody was kind of arguing and who's got water? And did I pack
this and why haven't you got that and which madhhab and it was kind
of Muslims arguing.
And then a shattering experience of the Hajj and a one tawaf that
takes an hour and it's like running the marathon, except you
have to finish not allowed to drop augments your Hajj.
And all of the rest of it and the crowding and the shuffling and the
stamping and huge Nigerians with sharp umbrellas. And the Turkish
women from the villages who are so kind of tough, that if you bump
into them, you get bruised and the bruise stays there for for a week.
It's an ordeal and it's meant to be like that. There's not tourism,
it's supposed to be hard. And then at the end of all that the bus
takes us back and if you died 100 alive, we were all there. And
people were offering each other things to drink. And we're taking
an interest in other people's stories, and we're finding out
about it, they will really transform even bankers. Pretty
good. I knew a
non Muslim guy, lawyer in Jeddah, who converted in order to marry a
muslim girl but drink in his house and dogs not really into it. But
he said one year well, I've got Muslim in my karma, my documents,
I'll do the Hajj that'll be really cool. To see Mecca, I'll go to
Mecca. And so he goes and his wife thinks she's not religious,
particularly
when he comes back.
He's got the Tasbeeh he's learning Quran he's changed
his life has horrified you so secular, I don't want to
fundamentalist Ross divorce, but it was it was very interesting to
see that very sophisticated high level Western
barrister,
really shaken up by the hedge and how that works. Who knows. But the
point of the hedge is it doesn't just teach you about religion, but
it changes you with religion. And that's one of the most beautiful
and moving things that that that you can see. So the Hajj is the
enactment of renewal, of rebuilding and of healing. And
what's important about this is that it isn't just an ascetical
exercise. How many times can my toes take being stomped on?
Ledger, moderate or kind of lethally dangerous, it's scary. It
doesn't just teach us renunciation and patience suburb but also
compassion and empathy so that you don't get angry with the people
who are jostling you or think ill of them, or think ill of the
people of Makkah, or of anything or anyone, you have a duty to show
patience, and to respond excellently. And this is the real
meaning of an hijama abroad, which is an odd expression, but it's in
the sun that we asked for the hajima broad beer is goodness. So
the Hajj to which goodness has been shown.
It's the Hajj in which goodness better to others has been made to
triumph. Lenten addled better referred to on fecal matter
hipbone, you won't achieve this better this goodness until you
spend
Have something of what you love. And in one of the dictionaries I
found that this morning hajima broad is one characterized by the
giving of food and by sweetness of speech. It's one of the medieval
dictionary. So it doesn't just mean ticking the boxes of the FIP
you have to do that, but it means something ethical. So the Hajj
presents itself as a spiritual journey that is necessarily an
ethical journey as well and all of the jostling and stuff is part of
that. It's not something that it's meaningful, really to complain
about. Hajj has always been shattering. And Allah helps people
to go through with it because it is an ordeal.
One year I was on Hajj with this young American convert he was 20
years old, skinny.
And we went for the TOEFL frdr which is like all 3 million people
in there at once and going around on it takes an hour to go once
around and
it's shattering. And we were on the outs a bit and kind of walking
nicely. Not going into the the pressure of the center. And I said
whatever you do, don't try and kiss the Blackstone okay, I know
it's your first kiss the Blackstone because that means you
have to get past the rows of the Turks and then the Afghans and
then it's you won't you won't make it.
So eight hours later
he turns up against I guess what I guess the Blackstone
so I kind of shut up after that. It's an obligation Allah says you
should try to do it and tell people not to do it that how that
was possibly so just kind of opened up. Kind of easy. What's
What's the issue.
So offering people advice, because you've done the hydrate before is
another thing that you need to be careful about because the ego can
get off on that and allow takes care of the guests of his house.
So
there is the element of purification. You sweat it out,
you throw away the stones.
You purify your will of anything that really is interesting about
dunya and you are faithful for Jakub doll.
Formally up to tuffa home while you fall Medora home Malia taba
for Bill bait and Arctic let them then this is on the day of the
eighth put an end to their unkempt *, Oh God, I can brush my hair
again.
And let them fulfill their promises their pledges because
people make pledges on artifact or free or slave I will whatever.
And let them go around the ancient house. So there's a sense in which
there was a purification. And the day of the aid which is the
sacrifice is also
a time where the purification comes to its conclusion. And the
Iran really is a kind of consecration. And it's one of the
tough aspects of the Hydra. It's not easy to get around for day
after day.
So
what I want to do today
is to look at things from a slightly different angle, not the
way in which the Hajj and the sanctuary have impacted the
cultures of the Muslim world in so many, deepen and delightful ways.
But to consider ways in which it has, as it were anonymously
impacted the culture in which we live in the modern West.
Western Christendom, historical youth thought wouldn't have
anything to do with the Meccan sanctuary, despite Adam and it's
the de Mathare battalion nurse, a place of resort for mankind, a
sanctuary, the West didn't look at it. And they had these weird
images. They thought in Macau, you could see the coffin of the Holy
Prophet suspended by magnets and everybody in the Middle Ages
thought that was what it what it was about very profound ignorance.
Because after all, whatever they came across Muslims in Sicily,
Spain, wherever they were just the Inquisition, were just
ethnically cleanse everybody and they didn't get a chance to learn
anything. Nonetheless, so enormous spiritual vortex so powerful. A
fountainhead of blessings, as the Mecca and Sanctuary inevitably is
so powerful that it it transforms beyond the formal limits of the
data of Islam and goes into other offers as well.
And there's a number of ways in which this the fact of Mecca the
Kaaba, the Blackstone, Ishmaelites Sanctuary has been in European
culture, and one of the best known is of course,
In Danti, greatest of the medieval European Christian poets, who is
Divina Commedia is one of the monuments of world literature,
which is about Danti visiting heaven and * in the company of
an angel or
Beatrice is a
muse.
And then in the 1920s, along comes an obscure Spanish priest Magewell
acini. Palacios is an Oriental Studies person. And he publishes a
book called gluttony scheduled off here Muslim manor in Divina
Commedia, Muslim eschatology in Dante's Divine Comedy, in which he
says, this story, going up through the seven heavens isn't in the
Bible or in early Christian literature. It comes from Islam of
the narratives of the Mirage.
And here it is in Sahih, Muslim and will carry and they you can
see Dante's picking up their stories. outrage, of course, you
can imagine, Italians in particular, in the age of
Mussolini, not being very happy to be told that their key story the
the foundation of their national literary pride, actually comes
from Arabia from Mecca from the prophet from exactly the opposite
of what your is claiming to be. non white non Christian Israelite,
unchosen, but Palacios did His work very meticulously by working
in
manuscript libraries. And so, he
this is the English translation of his book and
in the introduction,
which is written by somebody else after the polemic
began
the balance of opinion
did did this poetic story come from Mecca originally, is strongly
in his favor. Apart from a score or so of adverse critics, mainly
of Italian nationality, whose attitude is to be accounted for on
the grounds of national or pro denty prejudice, and immense
majority of critics of all nations whose competence whether it's
romance or Arabic scholars and whose impartiality or beyond all
question has opted in favor of ASEAN Palacios is theory. So
we don't need to go into Danti today. But it's important to
recognize that the baraka of the Haram in Makkah is so enormous
that the rays shine even into Europe and produce through various
refractions. Who knows what the intermediaries were. Palacios
thinks probably through Spanish Muslim accounts, but maybe through
Sicily, hard to verify that the light shines and uplifts medieval
Christian literature to hear the two unachieved heights.
So that's one example. And of course, this is the Middle Ages
when Islam really is the global superpower and the Dar Al Islam is
10 times as big as Christendom. And all the best things come from
Islamic world, the Islamic world, textiles and the best honey and
sugar comes from the Islamic world and even Morris dancing in England
is Moorish dancing and medicines and it's the Islamic world is is
the center of civilization. But on the spiritual level, this is also
necessarily percolating the blessings of the Holy Prophet in
the blessings of the Mecca and sanctuary and the Mirage
transforms European literature.
But what I want to look at today, as we bring this little series to
a close is another story that's perhaps less well known,
which is
the impact of the neck and sanctuary on the opera as of
Richard Wagner.
That sounds very bizarre. Wagner's student of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer
50. All of the bad German philosophers and nationalists
somebody is pushing away Christianity and trying to go back
to ancient Germanic Gods Odin and Thor tan and all of those hairy
Gree deities with hammers and
and of course, that becomes an important strand in the evolution
of German post Christian nationalism. So how could the
light of the Kappa have gone? There? Is the question, well,
Wagner's I'm not going to be talking about the music. In case
you think that I'm suggesting that all Muslims should immediately buy
tickets for Covent Garden and Bioworks and go and listen to
Wagner's Ring. It wouldn't recommend that I'm not talking
about music. And those Masekela I'm talking about the libretto the
story, the words, that the meaning of
The Opera.
But we know that one of his favorite operas, Tristan, and
Isolde, which is a rather dark love story, clearly comes from the
medieval Persian Sufi romance of vCenter Amin. And by this time
things are being translated and half is available and is ready
influenced gutter and that's not particularly startling.
But what was
what was a controversy in Germany in the 20th century? It shows you
how politicized scholarship readily becomes is that when the
Nazis are around, and they use vogner, as the symbol of the
essence of the German spirit,
and they like his anti semitism and his paganism.
When they find that there are Middle Eastern stories in his
operas, of course, the fewer and gerbils are going to be
uncomfortable seeing something that isn't actually from the dim
forests with various hairy Gods throwing hammers at each other,
but from the Middle East, from from the Orient. They create a new
branch of scholarship in order to show that well, yes, we can't. We
can't deny that there are Middle Eastern stories behind many of
Wagner's operas. But they are Persian. They're not Arab. Because
in their mindset, Arab men Semitic, so it doesn't come from
Muslim Spain or certainly becomes the Persians were Aryans. So you
have these theories that look for all of this place names and
gardeners operators in obscure hills and Afghanistan becomes
very, very frantic. But it's indicative, again, as with the
Danti question How, how grumpy Europeans become when told that
their greatest monuments of art
actually, a bathed in the light through various refractions of the
muck and Harlan
Wagner in many ways, a kind of modern person who is ambiguous
about the future. In his
chromaticism and imperfect cadences, you get a sense that,
unlike the medieval sounds, where everything comes to a happy
cadence, and a close, and you can sit down with the musical stories
come to a happy ending, with vogner. It's always an
incompleteness that's then followed by something new, which
he took to be the nature of modernity of which is still our
reality. Our values on sexuality and various identity identities
are different to what people thought in the liberal West 30
years ago. And in 30 years time, it will be different. Again, it's
a kind of constant process, there's no closure, there's no
resolution, and he saw that as being the essence of the modern
identity, which again, makes it hard to think, how does Mecca and
the Kaaba get into this?
So, incidentally, Wagner's music is used quite a bit. In one of the
most amazing films about the tragedy of modernity that's been
made recently, which is a film by Lars von Tria, the Danish
director, most of his stuff is quite appalling, really, really
troubled person knows the importance of religion,
which is his film melancholia,
which is about the modern condition, the modern world, where
are we.
And the story is about two sisters, who are from a very
wealthy family, and one of the sisters is having her wedding,
because she's suffering from depression. And she thinks that if
she gets back to some sort of tradition, even if it's just the
output forms of the wedding, that wedding dress, cutting the cake,
she'll feel better because she's connected to something in our
postmodern world. And so she represents the principle of
depression. And the other represents anxiety, which are the
two kind of goddesses of contemporary pantheon of moods and
depression is out of control, anxiety out of control. And the
basic story is that
the world is coming to an end, and inventory a story. It's about a
asteroid impact.
And everybody knows, well, this is a great wedding party, but
everything's coming to an end. Of course, what it's really about is
climate change, and the awareness of a materialistic civilization,
which had promised through the churning and the exploitation of
matter through clever technologies, some kind of Utopia
would be produced but in fact, we wrecking everything. And this is
the condition of the elites nowadays enormously wealthy in a
kind of Belshazzar us feast kind of way, but either anxious or
depressed. So it's not the kind of film to watch if you're feeling
down yourself, but it's one of the greatest recent statements of the
the sad paradox of secular modernity trying to find hope
without God. Anyway, back to Wagner and
The Opera. The one I want to talk about is his last opera, which is
kind of religious opera, which is Parsifal
which is looks like a kind of Game of Thrones Dungeon and Dragons
thing with knights and which is and Magic Castle.
But turns out to be hugely significant for our purposes and
inshallah you will be patient with me as I explain why this narrative
is important because it represents really the last great artistic
moment in Western European civilization when a secret story
is taken seriously, and advocated as a kind of solution. And the
basic plot is the search for the Holy Grail. Nowadays, that's out
of anybody's cultural horizons.
One of the most holy ideas and ideals of pre modern European
humanity was to search for the secret which is represented by
this mysterious object and Arthurian legends and so forth
hinge around it. Now, of course, you just think of Eric Idle and
John Cleese and Monty Python, and it's been deliberately profaned.
One of the unfortunate things that Python and that generation did was
to take the things that are traditionally represented duty,
sacrifice, dignity, the church, the monarchy, the Gospels, the
Grail, and to turn them into a kind of
object of ridicule, very counter, counter initiatic counter
initiative.
Now Wagner is not like that. He's actually recommending this idea of
pilgrimage, a sacred journey, overcoming obstacles, finding the
sanctuary.
And he gets his story from a German as you would expect a 12th
century poet vo fan von Eschenbach and that's really the great
Fountainhead at least of the Germanic tradition of the Grail.
Legends. voltcom,
of course, in his poem, says, Well, where do I get the Story of
the Grail from day Carl? And it's not in the Gospels? That's a bit
embarrassing. It's not in the church fathers. Where does it come
from? And then he offers the giveaway, he says, I got this
story from a guy from pa vos, some wandering traveler, troubadour
who read it in an Arabic manuscript in Toledo.
So he says this, this is where the Grail story comes from. And in
that manuscript, it explains how a stone came from heaven. And in its
sanctity, transformed the world and represents a kind of spiritual
vortex. And that's the Grail fame. It's not a kind of Kapoor, kind of
Monty Python or later medieval image that comes comes later. And
it's some other narratives but for him, it's a stone that falls from
heaven. And that's the basis of the Grail as vogner seems to
understand it.
So
more embarrassment, this is going to be the greatest German opera.
And there's a nationalist Wagner who sees German unification is to
be lived until 1883. So it's going to age of Bismarck and the guys
with screwed in molecules and the crew cups and spikes in their
helmets and everybody is watching. They're talking about Greta
German. And he's he sees that as part of that culture. So he's not
very happy that this holy grail thing comes from the Arabs.
But he acknowledges it so he has a letter to somebody called ma TT,
that vison bulk who is quoting at the time.
One notices, I'm going to do the German accent one notices,
unfortunately, that all our Christian legends have a foreign
pagan origin.
As they gazed on an amazement, the early Christians learned namely,
that the Moors in the Kaaba of Mecca, venerated a miraculous
stone, a sandstone or meteoric stone, but at all events, one that
had fallen from heaven.
However, the legends of its miraculous power, were soon
interpreted by the Christians after their own fashion by their
associating the secret object with Christian myth
that Wagner himself admits that the story that is building up as
being the last gasp, of a sacred narrative in European culture
is from the Meccan sanctuary.
It's obvious so Toledo can we speculate about what might have
been in that manuscript? Can we see reading between the lines of
Wagner's greatest opera that outlines perhaps the the Sufi
story,
almost all of the manuscripts and Lawson was produced in Spain were
burned by the Inquisition. Unfortunately, those that we have
tend to be ones that found their way to the Middle East, or put in
monastic libraries for various reasons, or hidden by Muslims,
from the Inquisition often cemented into a
void in wolves and they're still finding these things. So what did
the Spanish Muslims make of the Hajj?
It was obviously a long journey for them and difficult after 1493
Because they were living under
the Inquisition, the Catholic Monarchs. It was a kind of police
state.
And really difficult. It had always been a long way. No, it was
harder than ever. Well, we do have some hedge narratives in the
surviving stories that Spanish Muslims have bequeathed to us a
certain Rosella Calderon, who is from Avila has a story which is
actually in a manuscript and in the Cambridge University Library,
in which she talks about her trip from Avila which is in northern
Spain, to the Hajj, and she uses some very interesting vocabulary
so that aid she calls on a Pasqua the Spanish Muslims tend to use a
lot of Christian vocabulary in order to articulate their Muslim
beliefs. So Passcard means Easter, but the Spanish Muslims called the
Eid Easter.
Do you find this quite a lot. Romania is a Morisco Spanish
Muslim word for the hydro the pilgrimage, but raw Maria
literally means a journey to Roma, a Catholic pilgrimage. So it ends
up being very confusing and strange, but
this is what they do say that Poblacion they say it's an
obligation.
Poblacion is actually ombre, because Amara has this sense of
building up population, so they turn it into Poblacion it is
interesting to see how the vocabulary of Hajj is managed in
these
manuscripts. So we have somebody called Play Manthan, who's also
from Central Spain from Castile, who has caught plastic and he
chanting Allegiant is somebody who's performing the hajj. And he
describes in this Muslim Spanish, that beauty of the harem, and how
its
lights are quite extraordinary in turn night into day, he says, in
his period, I guess this is the 16th century, you people show the
relics of the prophetic house in Makkah. So he saw the mill, which
Fatima used to grind corn in and he records this. So clearly,
Spanish Muslims, like any other part of the Ummah have a
relationship to the hedge. But exactly what the manuscript was
that provides the basis for the policy file story.
We're not we're not going to know that.
The etymology is also important. What's this word? Grail? Karl?
There's various Latin and Greek possibilities, but they're fairly
far fetched. The nearest etymological basis for it is that
it is actually an Arabic word. When you look in Lane's Arabic
lexicon, you'll find that it means a long spear or a nonce
doesn't sound right. But if you look at all the gray legends,
you'll see the grill is associated with a spear. And we'll come to
explain the symbolism of that in due course, which which also
becomes very Islamic. So it does seem that at some point, this
singer from France, as he reads the manuscripts, had seen this
word carry, meaning a nonce and assume that it gets confused and
it becomes the Grail itself. But in essence, the nonce and the grid
are two aspects of a single phenomenon which Wagner shows at
the end of his opera. So the opera starts.
And it is a genuine explanation of the process of spiritual growth
and the spiraling from ignorance to truth,
from multiplicity to unity, from nafs, to raw.
It's a very remarkable thing, actually, to come from the late
19th century. And the medieval story is actually being respected,
but it's not Christian.
As we'll see, at the end, there's kind of resonances of Eucharistic
things here and there, but it's really not a Christian story,
because vogner didn't consider himself to be a Christian. So
the curtain rises at one.
And this becomes policy files first, initiation. So there's
three acts and each one is an initiation.
And the first one you could describe as the knowledge of
certainty LML Yaqeen. Pacifier is presented as this beautiful youth
who's been apparently separated from his parents and is brought up
in the wild in a forest and he becomes an archer. But you could
see echoes of the Ishmael story there if you really wanted because
that's associated with Ishmael in the book of Genesis at any rate,
So, the first initiation, as we would expect, is to do not even
with human beings but with animals.
So, this again, is what happens in the logic of the Hajj.
This is my nice Koran again, and you can actually order them
from tread digital dot d live in Stuttgart, to digital dot d. I
don't have much to do with them these days. But I think the
website wants to tell you how to get hold of these amazing things.
They also publish other things such as
a very beautiful one volume collection of the hotbeds of the
Holy Prophet cylinder while he was in in which I've never seen a book
with Holy Prophets put those in for some reason that they've done
it. And you know, they're all really short. So if you want to
give a present to your local movie sob, with a very discreet polite
message is spoken in sha Allah.
He will take heed. Anyway. Let's look at
this principle of a haram, which is seems to be a code at the
beginning of policy file
Surah Tenma ADA. Yeah. Are you Hello Adina Amendola tuck to the
side our interim Horam
you have Eman do not kill animals in a hunt while you are in the
State of Iran.
Woman Katella woman co Mata Amidon for Jezza or miss Luma button
Amina naam and whoever amongst you kills one of them deliberately,
his recompense His Atonement shall be an equivalent value to the
animal which he slew
okay so you already have to pay a price but the verse goes on
yacon will be though our ugly men come to upright witnesses amongst
you should
bring it back that judgment and should make sure it's done. Head
yeah and barely hull caliber as a gift for the presence of the kava
Alka Farah tone, or alternatively, a co Farah a penance to arm or
miss her keen feeding the poor Oh ad luda, le Casa Yama or the
equivalent of that in fasting, Leah Durga, Bella Emery, so that
this person does naughty pilgrim should taste the wickedness of
what he has done. Off Allahu Annemasse LF
Allah forgives that which went before so in the Jaya Helia we
don't need to atone for that that's gone. Woman IDFA and Ducky
Mala hoomin and whoever does it again, Allah will take revenge on
him while Allahu Aziz on Dante calm, Allah is Mighty, and
possessed of
the capacity to take revenge.
Quite a strong verse about punting in the Haram and in the State of
Iran. Now, as you go into the away from the profane world towards the
sacred city, you go through three stages.
The first stage is when you put on her arm, which is traditionally
quite a long way from the city, maybe even 100 miles away.
The Khalifa, your lamb, lamb Rabil and those places
and then you recognize that the rules were different, you couldn't
cut your nails or brush your hair or kill animals. For us, you know,
you're sitting in your plane and the stewardess says don't put your
arm on now and we'll be landing in 45 minutes is not the same
experience. But back then, when animals are all around and you're
on a huge caravan, not being able to touch them to hunt them to eat
from them
becomes an issue and there's just five or six categories you're
gonna feel Haley well haram in the Hadith was like a dangerous dog or
COVID, lacor and scorpions and so forth, which which
need to be killed and some of the PS from some of the automatic
means that will align and so forth. You don't really want them
prowling around the Hajj tents when there's children about but
basically, the principle is, they are sacrosanct, and therefore you
have created the world's first wildlife sanctuary
to some extent around Medina as well but certainly around Mecca.
So here is something
from one of my favorite books. One of my favorite Hajj books,
certainly one of the first British Muslims to do the Hajj. Headley
church would or Barack church would really interesting guy who
studied to be an alum and he became a teacher in the goddess
College in in us her used to be a teacher of Sierra and he does the
hygiene 1909
And back then there's no buses or planes or anything and he does the
traditional thing of going in a donkey. It takes about 30 hours
from Jeddah up to Mecca.
So this is
His description
as he gets closer to what he calls the Hiram or the sacred ground, a
circle running several miles beyond the limits of Mecca is holy
soil. And on entering it here, my guide signed to me that we should
say the proper proud, touching his heart and forehead. He muttered
the 30 hurt and held his hands together as if to receive Heaven's
blessing. Then he said, No haram, here is the holy ground. I
followed his salute, and purposely in turned the Quran verses with
particular loudness, so that he could see or understood the
ritual.
And then, some pigeons, wild doves and other birds were the first
specimens of desert fauna I came on, they appeared perfectly tame,
and fluttered a few inches from our faces. Some sat on the hard
stones and allowed the donkeys to go right upon them. Very
cautiously, the word Kegel, let his beast round the little
creatures, for no man will dare to kill a living thing here
is a very interesting nuance that even as late as the end of the
Ottoman period, this has been absolutely maintained as part of
the ethos of the heart. And once you go past those towers in the
desert, you can't even
treat a sparrow on the road badly as far as in the middle of the
road. And it's used to being there, because for 1000 years,
people have respected the creatures, you have to go around
it. So that's when you really get the impression that you're in a
different space. Now in the upper back to pass the file. This is
again, what happens at the beginning of his journey. It's the
animals and ethics towards animals. So Parsifal appears on
the stage and is this young man with his bow and arrow.
But something terrible has happened?
Because somebody has shot an arrow and killed a Wild Swan and gotten
them as who has gotten an answer as the head of the Knights of the
Grail
is shattered and horrified that anybody near one salavat to the
secret place, could do such a terrible thing.
And he has this argument, singing with Parsifal Percival doesn't
have anything. He's just a natural spirit.
And he says, can't you see what you've done? Is it Yeah, it was
got a headache with one shot. It was flying and I got it is he
can't imagine that there's anything wrong. Then governance is
the kind of shape here and is the guide for policy fall says?
Well, the birds seem to gently from the branches. Didn't they
welcome you tenderly. What is this faithful Swan done to you? It was
flying to its family blessing the winds Didn't you notice? You just
wanted to shoot your arrows like a child. And then in many of the
stagings,
governments puts that the dead swan on Parsi falls lap. So he
looks at it and he sees the blood and he says it's dead.
And then the light of moral discernment dawns and Parsifal is
horrified and gets up and he breaks his his bow. And the point
of this is that that's the beginning of moral discernment.
And it's like that in the journey of life.
So what Wagner is telling us which is what the Hajj is telling us is
that the beginning of the spiritual journey is ethical
discernment when we really little children, little kids really love
animals. But little kids are pretty selfish when they cry, it's
because they want something not because the next baby in the pram
wants something, they didn't do that. They want something so they
yell for self involved. But that can't go on into adulthood. Very
often, the first initiation is where they see that animals
suffer. So they see a bird with a broken wing. And a two year old is
completely shattered by this and looks at it and starts to
empathize. And empathy for animals is particularly important in the
Sunnah. And they say that this because this is because it's a
pure empathy. When you sympathize with other people, or do them
favors, very often, consciously or unconsciously, it's with the
expectation that they'll do something in return. But if you
nurse a pigeon back to health, and it flies off, not going to do
anything for you,
if you throw a fish back in the sea, rather than eat it, when
you've caught it, it's not going to help you out one day. So the
idea here is that the beginning of moral discernment comes to our
engagement with the forest animals, the birds and, and the
Beast. So gurnemanz looks at passive owl has just started to
wake up. This is the first step towards the harem, and says, do
you understand your sin?
Wherever you come from Parsifal says I don't know. Who's your
father? How did you get here? What's your name? Pascal said
Well, I think I had a lot of names but I forgotten them.
So at the beginning of our journey back to hawk,
we had all kinds of things, but it's forgotten. We're in a state
of waffleh forgetfulness.
And this is what do you know you must know something? And he says
yes, I remember I had a mother. I definitely remember that I had a
mother and then go tournaments brings in
one of the weirdest characters in all of opera quandary.
A kind of wild woman who seems
human but damaged. We'll see how that works. And Condor actually is
a Persian word cuando means lame or damaged in one leg, or Ill
Omand. This is
the dictionary definition. So again, we feel here that Wagner is
working to a Wolfram back to some kind of Sufi story. Now in the
symbolism here.
This woman represents dunya
dunya helps us along the pilgrimage of life and provides us
with food, the stars rise and set and dunya is essential, we're part
of it. But on the other hand, dunya is a two edged sword,
because it also tempt us. So in Rumi's poetry, very often the
world is described as periodization, the old woman
looks really great from a distance and you get closer, maybe not
toolbars in hospital, the thought of Asahi pyrithione, you were
a royal Falken held fast by an old woman, which just means dunya in
its sort of gravitational aspect. And one of the things that the
Hydra is constructed to do and that comes up very subtly in, in
the Parsifal story is the ambivalence of the dunya in which
we find ourselves.
In other words, it is the source of it's our life support system.
And it's full of beauty. On the other hand, it also presents us as
dunya in the other sense with the possibility of the seven deadly
sins and wandering in the wilderness rather than finding our
way to the Grail, the Blackstone, whatever.
Parsifal then says,
because it's trying to figure out ethics,
not what is the good is not there yet, but who is good, just like a
little child, who are the good isn't the bad is before you really
know what that could imply. And governments to help him says, your
mother, she was good, she misses you. And this again, the child's
moral awakening, and the beginning of its awareness of the need of
others, is to do with the maternal relationship.
And then Kundry says, your mother,
your mother is dead.
And Parsifal doesn't understand this tries to attack her and is
restrained, and begins to flee from her. But then he says, I'm
really thirsty, I'm dying of thirst, give me a drink, and
culinary is the one who gives him a drink.
And the night says,
The Grail says, Whoever does good.
Thus, whoever does good shall always vanquish evil. But dunya
says, I never do good, I just want to rest. Because the nature of
dunya in itself is that it's kind of gravitational. It just wants
things to be easy. Everything in the forest just follows natural
laws, and there's no upward aspiration, no possibility of
transcending natural processes in order to be heroic, or what we
would understand is the principle of your order.
And then we're introduced to another figure, the wounded Knight
and for TAs, who has a tremendous wound in his side, and his
groaning, the reason why he is in this state, is because he's
allowed himself to commit a mortal sin. And because of his loss of
the principle of self control, and we'll, the point here again, is a
pilgrimage is a collective effort. It's through witnessing others and
experiencing the tribulations of others, helping others learning
from others. Not going down the wrong road, the others have taken
that you actually learn, you don't learn if you're on your own
pilgrimage is always a collective efforts. The thing of Amfortas is
the sinner, the one who has fallen, and who is suffering, this
wound can't be healed. And it's been caused by the rail as we
would say that Arabic Lance,
which is the symbol of irata of will, so the Grail, which is kind
of circular, represents the matar
The harm itself, which is the angels, just doing nothing but
praising God and the perfect circularity of eternity, whereas
the lance represents the linear, in other words, the need for,
for effort, which is why the angels bow down to Adam, and the
knight is the one who holds the lots of eerder because he can kill
the dragon of the ego.
So,
the story continues, and that the meaning of this first
act is that pity, the basic human capacity for empathy is what makes
us good, we don't learn about ethics, randomly, in a kind of
dry, ethical textbook, but through the journey of life, so we're
getting dusty in order to serve other pilgrims. So pity makes us
good.
Act Two
is the time of fatawa.
So passive has started to move towards the heroine, as it were,
and is learned the necessity of pity compassion on his way, and
not to be self involved. But what he now needs is to overcome his
lower tendencies.
And at this point, the shaytaan is introduced.
called Clean saw, he has his own magic castle, and it's very gothic
klingspor used to be one of the Grail knights, but has kind of
fallen out of pride and is now out somewhere, saying that we are
known as mine, I shall lead many Adam astray Illa I imagine coming
home and Macula seen, except those of your servants who are purified.
And as we've seen, the hydrogen is about the enactment of, of
purification and the journey from self to spirit.
So clean saw is the master of culinary. So the shaytaan is the
master of dunya. In this negative, seductive, beguiling sense.
And he is in a kind of abusive relationship, he's basically
pimping her
shaytaan pimps the dunya out in order to seduce people to get
trapped into sin, so they can be as wounded as the night and 40s.
And he can kind of vicariously enjoy seeing them falling the way
that he felt. It's a very
sinister, and evil situation.
And he says,
your next job quandary will be to seduce Parsifal is heading towards
the sanctuary, that you have to stop him from doing that and when
you seduce him, he will be my slave.
And then Connery goes to him. In all her finery she's beautiful.
And this is where she names him with a Persian name. It's
explicitly in Wagner's libretto fallow policy where she's telling
him what his name is. Father policy, according to Wagner, who
didn't really know Farsi means kind of simpleton actually fairly
policy would mean something like the Persian auguri maybe that was
the original name of whatever text it is that's behind the Opera,
we're not going to know that.
And she's trying to
she wants to seduce this boy who has now begun his journey back to
the center, and she has to do it because otherwise the curse will
will continue.
So she uses her womanly wiles, Cade and she doesn't flirt with
him directly, but goes in a kind of very gentle way to get his
confidence and to say no about your family. Your father died in
Arabia, Gomorrah it, and he was the one who named you policy file.
And then she describes how much party files mother loved him in
order to make him Listen, she's already kind of displaying herself
but he has to listen to his parents.
And she says before your mother died and she died of sorrow
because she couldn't find you. You ran off into the forest. She
couldn't find you and she died of grief.
So Persephone is completely discombobulated by this. And
disoriented so she couldn't make her move.
And before your mother died, she told me to give you one thing one
gift from her, which is just a kiss.
And so dunya gets its arms around the pilgrim, kissing him and what
could be more innocent than the mother's kiss for her son's party
foul, confused goes along with it.
And then halfway through the kiss vogner changes the music and it
goes into inharmonic key. And it's the same tune, but it's really
different. Instead of being the mother's kiss, it's the kiss of
seduction. And the point that he's making here is dunya always gets
us by beginning us on our journey, away from the Haram and towards
darkness in a way that seems to be natural and good.
All of the deadly sins begin with something seems to be fine, we
desire food, so but it can end with gluttony, we need to take a
rest sometimes that's halal, that can end in sloth. So the boundary
between sin and virtue is often wafer thin.
But at this point,
he cries out, and 40s He remembers what happened to the other night.
And this again is how we learned morally we see the misery of
sinners, and how they're constantly nursing this wound
within them. They know I cheated sound serve his inheritance. And I
really feel bad about that. I sold that person a car knowing that
it's gearbox was rubbish, I cheated on my tax return tent, we
accumulate these, these dark spots in our heart, as Imam Ali said,
and eventually it becomes this wound that can't be healed except
to the the sphere which is in order and fatawa, nothing else is
going to work. So because policy file has seen the suffering that
this
night has experienced, he doesn't want to go the same way. So he's
able to resist resist the seduction.
And then the shaytaan klingspor, appears in a kind of window in his
castle, thinking that is one and throws the lights in order to get
Parsifal to take him away from the harem forever Parsifal reaches up
and catches it. So the symbol of irata Will is now in his hand. And
that's the end of the second act and the second of the three stages
towards towards the harem. So we're nearly done. Act three, if
Act One, I guess it's about
the beginning of knowledge will pass about self self awareness.
Many people never even get to that stage. And then it's about fatawa,
which is the nightly chivalric virtue.
And then act three is about a philosopher
about being the one to whom the angels can bow down.
So act three begins at this kind of desolate place. pasty fella has
been wandering and is slowly finding his way to the to the
castle of Montsalvat.
And this is where we realize that just wondering and following our
impulses will not take us anywhere good. We have to have this irata
This will we have to save the bake, we have to put on the ROM
and we have to follow those prohibitions and those
commandments we have to overcome what the ego wants to do. And the
more we do that, the better it'll be. Well, Liliana Jaha, Delfino,
Linetti, and the homeschool and those who struggle for our sake,
we shall guide them to our paths. That's kind of the slogan of the
100 if you like, the inward, Hajj becomes good to the extent that
you really struggle. But there's amazing people who walk to hedge
from Dhaka or somewhere that still happens, presumably a lot gives
them a good hedge. So this eerder the strength which is the nightly
virtue of fatawa
is
now represented by the fact that policy file holds the irata in his
hand, and then,
unfortunately, comes and is still bleeding is still remembering the
Zina that he committed with Connery so long ago, he's still
kind of bleeding at the memory of it is, is damaged.
And the the hero places that Lance near him and his cure to when he
has the capacity through errata to make a genuine Toba. That's when
that pain finally goes away, but it won't go away through following
other pleasures. It only goes away through Toba and through a
determination because he told me is only valid if there was the
determination not to return to sin. So the curse which has fallen
on these nights, because the harm is kind of in a state of disarray
is lifted.
At this point, we are at a state where the world nourishes us and
supports us rather than tries to lead us astray, which is the
meaning of the fifth on why this isn't really a kind of Christian
story about transcending the flesh and living in a massive monastic
situation. What is important is to see the world correctly.
So
quandary who has been transformed by the
Actor she is subject to his authority, and shows that Dunya is
a positive thing. She is not evil after all, despite what she has
attempted, washes his feet and heals him with the medicine from
Arabia dries his feet with her hair in order to indicate that the
dunya is completely the servant of the Khalifa.
And the world itself can cleanse us. And so
he raises up quandary and points out how beautiful nature has
become. They're not leaving Nietzsche behind when they get to
the castle, but it becomes beautiful and, and nourishing. So
a lot of people complain about this feminist readings of the
novel and the use of the Pyrenees and the old woman trope. But it's
not but remember that here, it's being shown that in her
seductiveness dunya is really dangerous and leads to all of our
wounds and our, our distance from from the sanctuary and from God
and from being at the place of the LSB Rubicon. But at the same time,
dunya is celebrated in the Quran and it's something beautiful and
has its own integrity. And there's a gender dimension to this. So,
one of the great poems in
Rumi
is exactly about this
she has beautiful face mix man her slave, how will it be indeed how
when she begins acting like his slave,
she has haughtiness causes your heart to tremble? What will happen
to you indeed, what when she comes before you weeping, she whose
disdain fills your heart and soul with blood, what will it be like
when she comes to you in need?
She who ensnares us to her tyranny and cruelty. What will be our plea
when she comes before us pleading?
Zoo iannelli Nursey hub Bucha Huwa demeanor Nisa made attractive to
men is the love of desires women, God has made her attractive. So
how can men escape from her
since he created Eve so that Adam might find repose in her be
Tuscano elaida How can Adam cut himself off from her?
Even if a man is Rustem and greater than Hamza? Still, he is
captive to the old woman's command.
The Prophet whose speech the whole world was enslaved, used to say
speak to me Oh, Asha.
Water prevails of a fire because fire dreads it. But when the fire
is veiled, it brings the water to a boil. When a pot comes between
them, oh king, the fire notes that water and changes it to air. If
like water you outwardly dominate over a woman inwardly, you are
dominated by her and seek her. Mankind possesses such a
characteristic, but the animals lack love because of their
inferior place.
The Prophet said that women totally dominate men of intellect
and possessors of hearts, that ignorant men dominate women, for
they're shackled by the ferocity of animals. They have no kindness,
gentleness or love since animality dominates their nature. Loving
Kindness, a human attributes, anger and sensuality, belong to
the animals. That's a famous
section in the Masnavi of Rumi, which reminds us that the
traditional characterizations of the femme fatale are the kind of
zuleikha phenomenon. The apparent superficiality of her charm is
just one way of seeing it and that traditional hierarchies between
men and women represent a kind of mutual superiority not really the
the total * of one by the other unless you know the man is
not in keeping with the veterans very interesting passage. So the
opera is coming to an end.
Parsifal says to quandary I saw them that once mocked me with it.
Do they long for redemption today your tears to our ADO of blessing,
you weep and see the meadow smile. So when dunya submits properly to
Benny Adam, not abusively the way we use the world today and produce
the outcome that last Andrea is talking about in his film, weeping
of dunya causes
radiants and at this point is another case he kisses her on the
forehead, because balance has been restored. So government says the
tears of repentance that bless the world.
So and then very often right at the end of the opera, it's the
convention for the lance and the Grail to be reunited. So the lance
is placed on top of the Grail and they become a kind of unity which
symbolizes the
interiority the feminine circular inclusiveness of the sacred sacred
sanctuary with the linearity of the principle of, of moral worth.
And again, this is a perfect representation of what we have in
in our sanctuary, where the Mataf, the place of the tawaf, where the
Blackstone is the middle is circular.
And the nature of the ritual means that you can't really do it in any
non circular way. And then there is ZamZam, the purification. And
then this other principle, which is just a sacred according to the
story, which is the site within suffer and marijuana. So the
circle is adjacent to the straight line, the Grail and the lance. And
it's the same symbolism, and the seven fold tawaf, which is around
the prisons, inclusiveness, the veil, the feminine, and then the
linear, the masculine, which doesn't end where it begins,
because not about eternity, it's about world and irata begins that
suffer and ends up borrower suffer means purity. It just comes from
the temple, from the holy spring, suffer purity. And you end at
Manoa, which is precisely Moreover, manly virtue and the end
the tip of the Lance is the point at which you go out into the
world, not as a kind of random shooter of swans but as somebody
who has been completely transformed by by this, so the
sanctity on the day of Arafat, Holy Prophets, I don't know who it
was had an indicator to his hedges, the Sahaba in his great
final hotbar. What is happening here that because of the principle
of chivalry, the pilgrimage is not just about a crowd of people being
alone in the sort of Neoplatonic sense the flight of the loan to
the loan, but it's a collective thing. And an Arafat there is the
sign of this, that just as they were together at the helm of LSD
rock become just as they will be together at the resurrection. So
the Hydra is the sign that the Muslims are together a single Amma
all standing together united in prayer, and you do get that
extraordinary sense in the plane of Arafat of everybody being
together of a single Alma, race sect. You can't really tell what
sector person is if all they're doing is don't up. It's impossible
to to make the differentiation It's very moving. So he says in
the de mercon were unwelcome haram on Aleikum, Kahala to Yomi comb
Heather is pointing up the fact of Muslim Brotherhood now that
they're purged and they're in the plane of Arafat knowing by the
amount of Nursey is standing this is your beloved and your property
are haram. sacrosanct taboo just as this Day of yours is sacrosanct
fee Shari calm Heather wifey Bella decom, however, in this holy
month, and in this holy city, so the bond between the Muslims at
the end of the whole Hajj story as they move into the final sacrifice
and dispersal into their different clothes back to their countries is
the reality of the unity of the Ummah, which is a reenactment of
human unity, because we were all together the day of allow us to be
radical. And that's, that's the ultimate meaning of our effort,
which the hajis do feel in their hearts. And I think, if only the
whole Ummah could always be like this, always about Allah, slaves
of Allah just praying to Him, broken by the heat and the
difficulty of the Hajj after these days, just pray to Him. And this
is where the tears flow is very moving. If you walk around
artifact and see how many people are actually in tears,
particularly as the sunset comes closer, people stop playing with
their phones, whatever they're doing, they stand and they pray
and it becomes the best prayer of their lives. And it's the most
beautiful thing that you'll see on the Hajj even though people just
do not act. That's what you do on on Arafat. And that's the reality
of the end of the pilgrimage, which is not a kind of single
person's private discovery of hoc.
But the discovery of the other, the Muslim other, the believing
other, the believing equal, and the importance of the unity of the
bene is now a the actual enactment of that thing in the extraordinary
plain Plain of Arafat. So
there does seem to be a parallel is to get back to my little bit of
comparative literary criticism between the Muslim understanding
of the meaning of the height and the policy fall legend. So it's
fairly clear that there is a strong Islamic Sufi, and Moroccan
baraka and fit in this work.
And it's a reminder again of the power of the sanctuary in the
Part of the hajj that is transformed not just Europe's
greatest poem, but also Europe's greatest opera and funded the
research probably you'd find other things as well. The Haram is a
real vortex a real place of, of limitless lights, and those lights
don't stop anywhere. So
the journey then from neffs to row, and therefore from
selfishness to selflessness and therefore human brotherhood and
togetherness, and that's part of the knowledge that Arafat conveys.
And on this little CMC journey that we've had over the past few
days, unfortunately, we can't go to the Haram but our intention
really has been to remind people of the greatness and the
profundity of this ritual. We haven't gone through the film very
much of the practice. But if there has been in what my colleagues
have said, some energizing principle that has made people
think I like to go further. I'd like to see the carpet again. I'd
like to touch it. I'd like to be in that unique place of closeness.
I'd like to leave all my dunya anxieties behind just be with the
presence of a hawk to Baraka Tala that longing, which is the longing
for the watan the homeland, then inshallah they will have been
blessing in this and this will not have been an effort in vain. So
may Allah subhanaw taala give to the Muslims everywhere, the
forgiveness and the unity that he grants them at Arafat and
inshallah continue to increase the number of hajis and mock tamarine,
from today in a Yamaha piano in Sharla, and forgive all of them
their sins. Insha Allah, Barak and Alfie Kohn was salam o aleikum wa
rahmatullah wa eid mubarak. Support the next generation of
Muslim thinkers by donating today at Cambridge Muslim college.ac.uk