The scenic route gets you there.

I haven’t posted anything in forever, and every time I write something it’s on a diskette somewhere and never lands on here. Usually nonsensical ramblings in my mind and so perhaps better that way. But today is different. Today I have something to share other than my ever-present nonsensical whirlings of thought.

I went to a conference on the weekend with a girlfriend of mine that I hoped, as the name mentioned, would “Revive my Islamic spirit”. I’ve never actually been to one of these events in all my years in Canada and will admit that I’ve had a bias towards them that wasn’t entirely based on experience but largely on prejudice. I’ve always just assumed that such events like this would be a lot more hardcore than I could handle and that I’d come home feeling worse about myself and my practice than I did going in but, I was more than pleasantly surprised. It was refreshing to see so many Muslims gathered in one place in the most wonderful way. Lots of salaams, loads of smiles and best of all no chaos. The website was updated throughout the weekend, the sessions were on time, the bazaar was full of reading material from Rumi to Ghazali and hardcover picture books of ancient Islamic architecture to children’s stories lined the tables. The washrooms were magnificently maintained and the audio levels alongside the visual displays were impeccable. You could hear the speeches wherever you sat and could clearly see the speakers on the big screens. I also finally managed to land myself a CD with solely the nay on it. I’ve been hunting for this sort of thing for my Sunday bubble bath for ages now to no avail. Even better still, not only did I make the acquaintance of an incredibly sweet Turkish uncle who makes the funkiest jewllery but I also discovered that he could hook me up with some nay lessons! I ran into almost every single Muslim I’ve ever met since I moved here, I chuckled at the mc’s introduction for Ihab tawfik’s asma2 allah il husna performance. Cuz there is absolutely nothing funnier than an mc struggling with the words “sa7rany”, “tetraga feya” and “ya salam” as he pretends to be an announcer for the wrestling federation moments before Ihab busts out into anasheed deneeya. The screaming higabi and niqabi teenagers at Outlandish’s performance was also a refreshing flash of reality and helped me realize that perhaps we’re all in the same boat. A boat where it’s not so easy to keep the faith the way each and every one of use would like and that everyone slips here and there surrounded by temptations that are way more accessible than is sometimes good for the average human. And though the speakers were wonderfully eloquent and delivered speeches about modesty and finding a middle ground between assimilation and integration it was the rabbi that gave me something to think about. First and foremost, I thought it was incredibly clever for the organizer’s to invite this gentleman to speak at the conference along side one of the most influential shaykhs in North America. The visual image of them sitting side by side alone projected a message that for the most part the world does not get to see. They both spoke about the same topic but each in their individual respect and from both their speeches I think I was able to draw my own conclusions. The rabbi‘s speech tickled my fancy and gave me just enough to make me see that I know close to nothing about Judaism and that perhaps It was time to unveil the shroud of ignorance. I crack me up with my extreme sense of drama! Who says that? Unveil the shroud of ignorance? It’s too good… its got nuts and cheese written all over it. Anyways back to business. The rabbi spoke of the word YHWH, better known in English as Jehovah, four letters that are not to be pronounced in Jewish tradition. This concept on its own has profound meaning and in it extreme wisdom as well. It is typically human to want to label things. Our need to identify and point a finger is what gets a lot of us into trouble seeing as how it is the basis for stereotypes. Place a label on something and you limit it to the capacity of that name or more specifically people’s ability to comprehend the full scope of the idea or the object. Take away the right to put things in a box and doing so you allow the idea or object to retain its meaning or attributes. I think I’m onto something here….

Labels limit that which is being labeled to the scope of how those who identify it understand or define that label.

And so the letters in the word Jehovah, written YHWH, are symbols. The first letter indicates the future tense and the last three denote the present. The idea, as this rabbi put it, is that the word for God is a power capable of transforming that which is now into that which it should be in the future. There is sheer brilliance in such a definition, it is abstract in nature yet extremely expressive. It allows room for each to draw their own specifics not limited or constrained to things that limit the soul and imagination. And after reflecting on the nature of the word and its lack of constraints I came to the conclusion that this too is how I relate to Islam. All these rules that sometimes seem stringent are generally those placed on ourselves through the projection of what these rules mean to others. The arrival at this thought was strangely liberating for me. Seeing the guidelines as means of empowerment as opposed to a means of suppression or repression has me walking on air. The rules are what I make of them. I create my own reality. And as long as I don’t go around killing or stealing then I figure I’m fine and that it’s all relative. It’s strange that it was the rabbi that indirectly helped me see this fact. Another interesting thing I learned through my follow up reading was that the word Elohim used instead of Jehovah is a Hebrew word that expresses concepts of divinity. In a grammatical sense it is a plural noun governing a singular verb in essence a plural that refers to a single deity. A concept that I could best relate to the many names of Allah. And in all this comparing and contrasting between religions and beliefs I’ve just reiterated and made tangible in my own head the fact that we are all the same. Much like the unique branches of a tree each filled with leaves swaying in the wind at their own leisure but all quintessentially from the same root.