'Meditation practised... by the Sufis, and by the Quakers assumes that there is something within the human heart that connects us to our Divine Source.' Photo: istock composite.
‘Working together will not mean creating a mishmashed, one-world religion.’
Daniel Thomas Dyer, a Sufi Muslim, found interfaith events to be well-intentioned but lame affairs. Then he met Quakers in Kendal.
Being part of a Sufi Muslim community in Kendal, at the threshold of the Lake District, I deeply appreciate the mysticism and spiritual nonconformity that this part of the country has nurtured over the centuries. Wanting to meet like-minded souls from other faiths, I have been drawn in particular to the local Quakers, and have been warmly received there. Sitting in a Quaker Meeting recently, it occurred to me that if Muhammad (peace be upon him) were alive today he, too, would feel very comfortable worshipping with these Friends. He was, after all, a man who had a daily practice of meditating in silence. He first received revelation after long hours meditating in a cave on Mount Hira, and, after ritual prayer, it was his custom to turn around and face the congregation, at which point they would sit together in silent meditation for some time.
Silence is evoked by Shaikh Kabir Helminski in a talk concerning the friendship of the Sufi Muslim mystics, Rumi and Shams: ‘The simplicity of Mevlana and Shams sitting together, and that in itself just being enough. They weren’t speculating on the nature of sin, or rewards of heaven, or on anything. They had entered another state. The sohbet, the companionship, of Shams and Mevlana was a great silence that revealed not only the beauty and meaningfulness of silence but also the beauty and the meaningfulness of words which can only be appreciated in contrast to silence, and those meaningful words that emerge out of that silence.’
The kind of meditation practised by Muhammad, by the Sufis, and by the Quakers assumes that there is something within the human heart that connects us to our Divine Source. It is therefore worth sitting in receptive silence before the heart and possibly allowing it expression once a connection has ripened. Sufis understand that doing so allowed Muhammad to receive and communicate revelation. Revelation may be reserved for the prophets, but a heart relationship to the Divine is surely a birthright of all human beings.
Outside Sufi circles, how many Muslims today are even aware of Islam’s meditative tradition (muraqabah), let alone the concept of presence (huzur) that it seeks to cultivate? If ritual prayer lacks presence, then it is merely empty ritual. But would Muhammad encounter presence in today’s mosques? Would he find safe spaces where men and women could, after sitting in silent meditation, express themselves from their hearts without fear of judgement?
Add to this the following thought: In his own time, Muhammad was a great social activist, and today he might find the trajectory of his progressive activism continued by the likes of the Quakers. The dominant Muslim mentality, on the other hand, too often idolises the time of the Prophet, as if the intervening 1,400 years have seen no cultural or ethical advances. The assumption is that if the Prophet were to return he would hope to find nothing changed – a tragic mistake, as he would surely be pushing us on towards greater equality than was possible in his own time.
Of course, Jesus (peace be upon him) might likewise struggle to find the spirit of his teaching in mainstream churches, Quakers being exceptional rather than the norm. Perhaps religious labels like ‘Muslim’ and ‘Christian’ are increasingly less meaningful to us today. While I self-identify as a Muslim, sometimes silence may be the best response when asked about my religious affiliation. Sometimes the term ‘Muslim’ triggers too many misconceptions about who I am and what I stand for, even among fellow Muslims. Matthew Wright, a fellow traveller on the Sufi path of Mevlana Rumi, who happens also to be an Episcopal priest, expresses it beautifully: ‘Might dervishhood, this path of the lover, speak uniquely to the pluralistic (and often post-religious) world we live in? – a world where traditional religious forms often seem to divide more than unite? It could be said that in these times we do not need more Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, or Jews – but rather, more mature or completed human beings. On the Mevlevi path, growth in love – human maturation – is our primary concern.’
An open-hearted Muslim has far more in common with an open-hearted Christian than with a Muslim whose heart is closed or whose approach to faith is rigid and dogmatic. And whether or not we believe Jesus was divine (or other doctrinal beliefs) is of less significance than whether or not we can live in the spirit of his teaching (in essence the same as Muhammad’s). Rumi understood this. Despite being a devout Muslim, he never asked his Christian followers (or followers of other faiths) to convert to Islam.
Yet the labels ‘open-hearted’ and ‘closed-hearted’ are only useful if we can see the distinction at play firstly within ourselves, and only secondarily at play in the world outside. In one moment I may be present with an open heart, in the next my heart may have closed and I may have slipped into a judgemental, mechanical mindset. We have our inspired states and our blind spots, as well as our superficial postures. Where we fall on the spectrum in any given moment can vary, but this much we can say: We will tend to be drawn to those people who are magnetised by the same end of the spectrum as we are, no matter their religion.
Perhaps, then, interfaith worship is going to be of increasing importance in the years ahead, especially if humanity is not to sink into the soulless sleep that global consumerism and corporate greed seem to wish for us. Working together will not mean creating a mishmashed, one-world religion, but perhaps a bringing together of what Shaikh Kabir calls ‘the weapons of beauty’: poetry, music, movement, art and prayer from different traditions, so that they can mirror and cross-pollinate to some degree while retaining their diversity and uniqueness. And perhaps such shared worship will be most effective when its foundation is silence, that formlessness from which the beauty of forms emerges. If there is one thing that consumer culture – with all its inane distractions – has an agenda to separate us from, it is this silence.
Today, interfaith events are all too often well-intentioned but lame affairs. People arrive distracted and full of chatter, there is a round of readings from each faith (often uninspired choices, but few people are really listening anyway), and then there’s tea and cake where we vaguely talk of ‘doing something’ to promote understanding and compassion. Everybody goes home underwhelmed. We are all guilty of such sleepwalking, but something else is possible.
Sitting in a Quaker interfaith meeting, my sense of what is normally missing from such events was brought into sharper focus. The Quaker event was much more of a success because the readings from various faith traditions were interspersed in a deep, expansive silence. They also included appropriate music, which occasionally arose out of that silence. It was clear the Quakers understood that first and foremost the event needed to cultivate awakened being (though they may not have expressed it in those terms).
Being cannot be cultivated in just any silence. The silence experienced by a mind immersed in inner chatter, or a heart clouded with negative emotion, is very different to the silence experienced in a state of presence. Those leading the silent meditation need to have done some inner work on themselves, because their state entrains those around them. Likewise, they ideally need to know how to hold space: to be attentive to visual aesthetics, to be mindful of noise and grace of movement, to be conscious of how to give others the outer and inner space to find themselves. Aren’t these the qualities that the spiritual leaders of tomorrow will need, and the fruits of enlightenment that Muhammad or Jesus would quietly seek in today’s religious spaces?
Comments
Thank you. That gives me a lot of food for thought and is opposite to so much of the negativity that is printed about muslims today.
By suehumble on 1st March 2019 - 19:36
There are time when I meditate in Meeting for Worship, usually in response to a previous Ministry. But Meditation is not worship. What is worship? that I now think I will never answer! I come into the room and I sit, and I wait, and I look into the faces of those with me in the room. I sense the presence of those who are not in the room. Then I wait some more. What is it that I wait for? I don’t know, but sometimes I am raised up.
By john0708 on 4th March 2019 - 22:43
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