The Sharing Group Discussion on being Muslim without being Muslim

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ 

Brother Tim posted this, on The Sharing Group, on the 19^th August 2015: “In Buddhism, there is a kaon, ‘If you meet the Buddha, kill him.’  And in Taoism, ‘The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao.’  What is the equivalent in Islam that enables one to be muslim without being a Muslim?” 

Brother James Harris: Do you mean how to be Muslim without having to deal with Muslims? 

Brother Tim: Yes, I think that is included.  Being muslim towards God but not people.  I am developing an extreme allergy towards Muslims. 

Brother James Harris: That is a sign of sincerity. 

Brother Tim: Fr. Meister Eckhart expressed something similar: “Man’s last and highest parting is when, for God’s sake, he takes leave of God.” But I've not met many Muslims that can handle that kind of negative theology. 

إدريس مطلب: I am not sure Islam has an equivalent of Pratyekabuddha or Lone Buddha.  Perhaps the closest is the practice of zuhd, asceticism.  An exception is in times of fitnah where sectarianism is rife among Muslims and an imam or amir is absent, then it is permissible to isolate. 

Brother Tim: My observation is that we are knee deep in fitnah, so taking that kind of leave maybe the only authentic way. 

Brother Colin Turner: I think we should stop thinking about how we are affected by other people, and think about how we are affected by ourselves.  We spend too much time dealing with other people's frames of reference.  It is an escape.  As for “being muslim without being Muslim”, that is reserved for the elect. 

Brother Justin Taylor: If you see the Buddha cut him down is there because if we imagine the Buddha that imagining will encroach on our actual seeing, and will hamper our development, possibly cause our ego is satisfied and aggrandised, and we will focus on the Buddha, and therefore cause more and more delusion, spiralling down, to the levels of an English cricket team. 

Brother Tim: I can handle being of the elect if you can handle me being so, Brother Colin. 

Living according to other people’s frames of reference and one’s own religious projections go together, Brother Justin.  Although, I am not enamoured of you blaspheming the English cricket team! 

Brother Nathan Hill: Fr. Eckhart was following a Christian parallel form of Neoplatonism that was permissible in his tradition, although Church fathers and councils did attempt to clarify the boundaries between Christian theology and that of Neoplatonist philosophy.  There we can find the link, since Neoplatonists contributed directly to the beginnings of philosophy and science in Islam too.  At Harran, the Neoplatonist teachers reputedly took on Sabaean identity to avoid being regarded as pagans and eventually contributed to Harun ar-Rashid’s House of Wisdom, the university at Baghdad.  Whether this eventually had anything to do with Sufism, I do not know. 

I will add another level.  Besides the thinker Numenius of Apamea, who was familiar with Jewish and possibly Christian thought in the third century, the most important proximal predecessor to Plotinus in the genesis of Neoplatonic thought was his teacher, Ammonius Saccas, not to be confused with the later philosopher Ammonius who came two centuries later.  This Ammonius may have been Indian in origin and some scholars think “Saccas” may be a Hellenisation of the term “sakyas”.  In other words he may have been influenced by Buddhism. 

Brother Kazi Abdus Samad: Buddha is not only a name, it is an stage.  A higher stage of consciousness. 

Brother Paul Salahuddin Armstrong: A person who does not want for others what he wants for himself is not a real Muslim? 

Brother Yusuf Abdulrahman: To be frustrated by the actions of others indicates the remnants of separation, the opposite of unity or tawhid.  The awakened one would most likely be unable to feel frustration with the misdeeds of others, and would only see God Creating an opportunity for appropriate action.  Dislike of something suggests dislike of how God has Created the universe.  Sometimes, we witness things that we did not expect or desire, or that we perceive to be unjust, and the appropriate thing to do is to challenge them.  Yet, the awakened one responds to these from a position of absolute peace, safe in the knowledge that God has Created this moment exactly as it is, for a merciful purpose.  Our task is not to dislike others, but to consider how to respond to the moment appropriately. 

The Muslim community has been Created by God in the way it is, for a purpose, to teach us all something about ourselves.  Those lessons may be challenging and uncomfortable, but they are ever-present if one looks for them.  It may be our responsibility to contribute to the transformation of them, and if we can, we should, but we should not be angry or upset with the community, as that ultimately means we are angry with how God has Created it.  Anger is a toxic emotion, and harms the holder of it far more than the subject. 

Brother Tim: By that somewhat defensive and moralising logic should we not then embrace ISIS and Wahhabism, and any other idiocy or evil calling themselves Muslim?  But so also, apostates should be accepted as part of God’s plan for the good of the community too, rather than an aberration that needs to conform or be extinguished. 

Brother Hajj Ahmad: In Buddhism it is kill the Buddha, in Islam it is kill our nasty, bestial, ungrateful, insincere, arrogant, greedy, selfish, unbelieving, doubting ego-self.  We kill the ego, and then  we will be a true muslim.  Being a true Muslim helps us get rid of the offending thing. 

Brother Abdulkareem C Stone: We all have to find our own escape from the mistakes we have bound ourselves in.  No one can really untie what for them is most certainly a Gordian knot.  Only we have the Alexander’s sword. 

But if we use that sword we will kill our selves so we need to keep it with us to our dying day.  We keep walking on without ever arriving so if someone says we have arrived, never listen to them, and keep on a head.  Never be satisfied with certainty because that certainty will always be imperfect. 

Never drop the sword but never use it either, keep it sharp and ready.  Ready for inaction.  Submit to death but be ready for life submit to life but be ready for death.  Live between doubt and certainty. 

There is too much praise for certainty; he should be slain.  The conviction of the mind is like walking sure footed out on ice.  Forward with the head where angels fear to tread.  Certainty should be as walking other cracking ice.  Certain of uncertainty. 

Live on the precipice.  Prepare to embrace death to the fullest extent, by living to the fullest extent.  Death should enhance life as life should enhance death.  Let the limited die, slay him dead.  The enlightened accept the darkness.  The sage that says all is light, all is clarity should be shunned, metaphorically killed.  That is how I understand the kaon.  Kaons enable us to deal with excesses of rationalism, the entrapment in the black and whiteness of our worldview.  The pagan Arabs did not have to deal with such so we are better adapted to dealing with absolutes.  The kaon trips us up to land us lying face up or even down.  For there we can appreciate walking upright without the conviction that such a vista is the only way to see the world. 

Brother Yusuf Abdulrahman: No, Brother Tim.  Embracing and accepting are two very different matters.  Can you deny that ISIS exists, however unfortunate that reality is?  Anger towards them is purposeless, as they exist independent of whether you are angry with them or not.  Your task is to respond appropriately to them.  Anger clouds one’s understanding of what is appropriate.  What is an appropriate response to ISIS?  Permit your primordial excellence guide you to that. 

Brother Justin Taylor: There is a huge difference between the man, Gautama Siddharta Buddha, and Buddha. 

Brother Tim: Ah, the poem of the butterflies.  That is living indeed. 

Brother Terence Helikaon Nunis: Coming back to the original post, what does it actually mean when it is said, “If you meet the Buddha, kill him”?  I understand that this “Buddha”, as Brother Justin Taylor stated is not a reference to Gautama Siddharta, but to Buddha as a maqam.  And the maqam of Buddha is absolute detachment from Creation and desires.  Perhaps, it is, as the zahidun state, this is to remove the between in between. 

Brother Colin Turner: Being a muslim is the goal.  Being a Muslim helps towards that goal because it gives you a culture.  Whatever we do is culture, so it is best that we do things which have a transcendent meaning.  The shari’ah has precisely that.  The directives of the shari’ah, the everyday do’s and do not’s of fiqh - all of these are, in and of themselves, meaningless.  But as Mawlana Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi (q.s.) said, we cannot just do nothing.  And since we have to do something, it is better that this something be the shari’ah, thus enabling us to be Muslim in order to be muslim. 

Brother Yusuf Abdulrahman: True Colin, until one’s desire to be a Muslim obstructs one’s ability to be a muslim, and one ignores the Primordial Authority within us in favour of identity politics and an obsession with legislation. ISIS are a prime example of that.  A fine balance is required, a balance usually termed “wisdom”. 

Brother Terence Helikaon Nunis: And as for the second point, that, “The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao,” the entire passage in the Tao Te Ching is essentially about how Reality cannot be understood and defined merely by the intellect.  This is what Sufism is all about. 

Brother Justin Taylor: And here we are, on the edge of straight lecture and parable, we are at the place of touching but not knowing what it is exactly. the crab retreats just before we can touch it. there is nothing to grasp. 

Brother Abdulkareem C Stone: In terms of our situation as muslim today, we do not envisage complete detachment as a desired state but one of fana’ fi Allah, where we see nothing but Allah (s.w.t.), but even this state has to be slayed and retreat back to existing in existence. baqa’. 

Brother Colin Turner: Very true, Brother Yusuf.  When “being a Muslim” is seen as an end rather than a means, there is a huge problem.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of Muslims are unaware of the difference between being a Muslim and being a muslim, or the difference between iman and islam.  Consequently, most of us fixate on the externals and foster an understanding of islam that is monocentric, superficial and totally dysfunctional to the kind of worshipfulness that God asks of us.  It is perhaps the major obstacle that we face at the present time. 

Brother Yusuf Abdulrahman: I am in whole-hearted agreement with your words. 

Brother Terence Helikaon Nunis: As for the third part of the original post, anyone who recognises that there is a God, and that He is One, is muslim.  Or, it could be argued that we all submit, willingly or unwillingly, to Divine Decree.  In that case, we are all muslim.  But to be a Muslim is to take the shahadah and accept Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.), meaning to follow the Scripture that was Revealed through him. 

As for the community, as Brother Colin Turner rightly put, we are not here to be subjected to them.  The Qur’an Speaks only of the community of believers, not the community of Muslims.  The onus on us, then, is to find people are on that same spiritual journey and be their strength and be strengthened by them. 

Brother Tim: The mystical fellowship of believers sounds good to me. 

Brother Terence Helikaon Nunis: My opinion on why people confuse this community of believers Mentioned in Scripture with the wider ummah is based on own of two things: presumption and hope.  We all presume, at one time or another, that we are believers.  And we all hope we are.  However, since God is Absolute, our spiritual journey can take us nowhere else but Him.  Therefore, some take the scenic route, and some take the direct one.  And it would be best that we find companions who are like us for a pleasant journey. 

This was a post that arose after one such conversation with a spiritual traveller.  Ultimately, her vehicle was not Islam.  It was about the lessons from the Life of Pi: A Muslim Convert Once More: Cars & Religious Truth: Lessons from the Life of Pi. 

Brother Tim: I do remember finding this motif in the Life of Pi both poignantly endearing and incredibly affirming of my natural disposition.  Good article, Brother Terence, if I can quote the conclusion: “The essence of the teaching is from Islam, an Islam that most Muslims do not even realise.  But this is not something palatable for most Muslims for they are people uncertain in their faith. It would create pandemonium for them.  People love their illusion that they are better than others.  This is the Islam of the Knowers of God; of Shaykh Muhyi ad-Din Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad ibn ‘Ali ibn ‘Arabi (q.s.), Shaykha Rabi’ah al-‘Adawiyyah al-Qaysiyyah al-Baswri (q.s.), Mawlana Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi (q.s.), Shaykh Abu Sa’id ibn Abu al-Hasan Yasar al-Baswri (q.s.), Shaykh Bayazid Thayfur ibn ‘Isa al-Bisthami (q.s.) and so many others who are absent with the absent and present with the Present. People quote the great scholars without understanding them.  What did the Prophet (s.a.w.) teach?  He taught us that we are one and he was Sent for all.   He never denied the Christians and the Jews their faith.  Islam is simply the most purified, concise understanding of God. 

Yann Martel, in ‘Life of Pi’, said, ‘I challenge anyone to understand Islam, its spirit, and not to love it. It is a beautiful religion of brotherhood and devotion.’ 

Nowadays, people see Islam but they do not see it.  Who are we to defend God and His Prophet (s.a.w.)?  People who claim to do so are only defending their way of life and claiming it to be better.  They are only defending their narrow understanding of God and their narrow view of the Prophet (s.a.w.).  They are essentially defending only their egos.  Because we cannot be Muslims as long as we are all too busy being right.” 

This also explains my insight into the Abrahamic Enneagram as a symbol of prophetic unity between the three great monotheistic faiths, each faith specialising in three aspects of spirituality.  These three aspects or dimensions are distinctive features of that particular faith in a way which is inclusive of the others and makes space for all nine if it is to avoid distortion.  But basically the Abrahamic faiths provide distinctive paths that contribute to the whole. 

Judaism specialises above all in one - the righteous order of divine creation living according to the Torah, four - the exile from home and yearning to return to the promised land, seven - the celebration and enjoyment of abundant good things in life whatever the challenge and regardless of tragedy. 

Christianity, coming next historically and out of the Jewish cradle, specialises in three - hope for the oppressed and improvements for the poor, six - faith as the means to Salvation for all and not just the chosen people, nine - unconditional love as the meaning of existence and Ultimate Reality of God. 

Islam, coming last but resonating with far flung Arabian forms of Judaism and Christianity on the fringes of empire, specialises in two - good deeds earning barakah through blessing others, five - the quest for knowledge and wisdom discerning the signs within and on the horizons, eight - justice and remembrance flowing from the ultimate oneness of divine reality and holy war defending against aggression. 

It cannot be suggested that any of these paths are mutually exclusive in any way and where they become so defined against each other only leads to major distortion and enmity.  All nine are probably found in each in different forms which is a sign of balance and wholeness of a particular path. 

It might even be suggested that they are embedded in each other there being a Jew inside every Christian, a Christian inside every Muslim and a Muslim inside every Jew.  But each has been called to provide a triadic emphasis which is historically and spiritually distinctive in reaching peoples with different needs and purposes.  In this way the Enneagram might be a useful model for appreciating the inner harmony of Abrahamic religions whilst still preserving each from a reductive syncretic integration of their outer forms.  Food for thought. 

Brother Abdulkareem C Stone: In this day and age in which even Muslim notions of God can be conceptual and restrained within a mental framework it is possible to sincerely find oneself in an agnostic almost atheistic camp.  If theism is the conceptualising of God then it is possible to reject all concepts as products of mind.  To disbelieve in concepts of God is not the same as disbelieving in Allah (s.w.t.).  Allah (s.w.t.) Makes Himself known to His Creation.  The attitude of Abrahamic faiths that merely having a notion of something called God equates believe can be open to question.  So being a Muslim with only a mental concept of God may actually be some to whom Allah (s.w.t.) has never truly revealed, and that may account to me.  This is why doubt has a certain values to it; to doubt whether I am a real mu’min. 

Brother Tim: Making a virtue of doubt for the sake of faith in case one might not be mu’min is the epitome of ego-belief as mental assent, Brother Abdulkareem. 

It is an astonishing ground-shaking phrase, dislocates our ideas of God even the ideas of God we believe God has Revealed but then you realise anything less is shirk.  This is only hidden if we have forgotten the truth of apophatic theology that anything that can be said positively about the Divine cannot be the divine - the via negativa, the way of unsaying which all mystics speak, then silence. 

Brother Abdulkareem C Stone: Apophatic theology is the mainstay of Ash’ari ‘aqidah and also most of Surah al-Ikhlasw.  But even oneness does not exist naturally. 

Brother Tim: Even oneness does not exist naturally? 

Brother Abdulkareem C Stone: He Says He Created everything in pairs. 

Brother Tim: Pairs are one. 

Brother Abdulkareem C Stone: Pairs have unison but not complete unity.  Ahadiyyah is something stronger as a word, the Oneness.  The entirety of ‘aqidah revolves around the contrast of His Absolute Oneness and Creation’s multiplicity.  His Oneness, in reality, is incomprehensible despite its seeming simplicity. 

Brother Tim: Yes the signs of oneness are still signs, even those within us.  One of my favourite poems by the Welsh priest Fr. Ronald Stuart Thomas, Via Negativa, springs to mind: 

“Why no!  I never thought other than

That God is that great absence

In our lives, the empty silence

Within, the place where we go

Seeking, not in hope to

Arrive or find.  He Keeps the interstices

In our knowledge, the darkness

Between stars. His are the echoes

We follow, the Footprints He has just

Left.  We put our hands in

His Side hoping to find

It warm.  We look at people

And places as though He had Looked

At them, too; but miss the reflection.” 

Brother Abdulkareem C Stone: Sayyidina ‘Ali ibn Abu Thalib (k.w.) once said, “I truly recognised the power of Allah (s.w.t.), when despite my best efforts at making something happen, it did not happen”. 

Brother Tim: I appear to live in the space between the muslim / Muslim distinction and although being a Muslim is a means to become muslim for many, I still worry that when Muslims insist this is the only way this easily becomes reductionist and injurious to the embracive heart of Islam, indeed the divine.  Being muslim for me has enabled me to access the richness of Muslim practice and experience but I also instinctively abhor religious monopolies.