Why are you a Muslim? Why is it Islam for you and not something else?
07.06.2025 01:58
Like a candle, I was melting in His fire:
Source: Ibn al-`Arabi, Tarjuman al-Ashwaq, in The Mystics of Islam, translated by Reynold A Nicholson
The Beloved says, "The broken ones are My darlings."
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Observing His existence, reach annihilation!
A few pages into the prologue, which I can’t find anywhere on the E-book copies implying that I got my hands on a great translation, and I was bored. The poetry was decent, despite no longer being in its original phrasing or language, a true testament to the translator’s skills, but it did not fry my brain or override my senses. Those days were pelted with sandy storms, leaving my mind and heart devoid of a mystical experience, as if an empty desolate land stretched into the infinite expanses of my being.
But when I looked with God's eyes--only God I saw.
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In the religion of the Prophet--only God I saw.
May they emerge hot from the furnace
My heart has become capable of every form:
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and He whom I love is I:
that shines like the moon.
Crush your heart, be broken.
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I passed away into nothingness, I vanished,
That’s what I had, a state of fulfillment lost completely in my adolescence. As I’ve discussed before, I alienated myself from Islam, enough that I found punishment to not be a worthy motivator, and lying as an effective counter and excuse. Then I came to Quora, where I spent the golden days of the pandemic-induced lockdown reading mangas and writing answers I thought were worthy of recognition; I sought attention, validation, and a part of me still does. And then perchance I came upon Nyx. I was still fond of mythology, I loved the concept of there being supernatural gods as they appeared in Percy Jackson. Ever the opportunity grabber, I incorporated the concept of these powerful yet flawed beings (extremely flawed given Riordan’s retelling) into my stories.
and a temple for idols and the pilgrim's Kaa'ba,
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Say “Oh He and You who is He”.
Source: Baba Kuhi, in The Mystics of Islam, translated by Reynold A Nicholson
I grew up forming my private ishtadevata you know. Whenever I thought of God — and these are piecemeals of the scant memories I retain of those early six years I spent ogling almost everything I saw — a weird image of a plus-sized chalk-white man with jet-black hair, wearing a green top with orange-brown sweatpants (or pants in general) and white Mickey Mouse gloves with eyes that would make Mortimer, the predecessor to Mickey, jealous. I didn’t know where he came from or who he was, a part of me assumed that he was a cartoon character I had seen (can’t know for sure), but he always came to my mind when I thought of God, though I didn’t worship him.
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Beyond the pedestal and beyond the throne
Sweeping you along the way to the Friend
Sometimes I wondered if Islam truly was mystical, whether I could even find such a thing here. “Don’t ask, don’t question, and don’t you even dare try to presume you can contact the Divine.” Here I was lamenting a lack of craziness, a jolt of lightning to shake my sophisticated soul, yet there were others who retained a far more concise record of their episodes — Belgrave, Melinda, Nyx, and Dimitris all made me red with envy. I could’ve gone for something else, I would’ve gone for anything, but deep down, I simply couldn’t.
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I am He whom I love,
Source: Sultan Bahu, translated by J.R. Puri and K.S. Khak
The answer to the first one is that I shouldn’t, and for the second: I can. It’s a matter of me realizing that a bit too late; first having visualized that fact this Summer. Signs would pop up, as if in response to whatever I asked. I’d phase out, occasionally feeling, observing, and comprehending myself in ways I’ve never done before — there have been times when I’ve seen my body in a third-person perspective, as if looking down on it from afar, yet so close. More than anything, I now stare at the skies again. I see the world around me, sensing it, living in it. And I retain my sanity, with a tint of madness.
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That the Beloved may appear before you
Source: Sufi Dance, by Lamona42
thou seest Him,
How good do you sing and how do you know this?
It’s possible that it was my childhood rendition of a deity — he did pop up whenever I looked at the sky or clouds — based on how I never understood what God was; an anthropomorphization of Divinity that took form after the concoctions of a young boy’s mind. He didn't talk, though he did move his hands around, despite the fact that he retained the same pose all those years. Over time, I began to associate him with mian, an old Mughal-era word meaning prince or lord, which I used to associate with Allâh, using colloquially mannerisms (it was also cute, I don’t know why), by calling Him Allâh Mian. I wasn’t the only one, all kids did so, and some are still taught to say it this way.
Take yourself up to the heavens
In prayer and fasting, in praise and contemplation,
What causes you to be tired all the time and major headaches?
Neither soul nor body, accident nor substance,
The Lord is an ocean of oneness
That the bringers of good tidings may greet you
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Say “Oh He and You who is He”.
If thou seest me,
Unbeknownst to little ol’ me, Nyx wrote about mysticism and I don’t know when or how, but I came across her answers on gods. Fascinating, mind you, just beyond my understanding. What are egregores? What’s mysticism? What is this henosis? All of these concepts were beyond me, much less something I would’ve liked to discuss. By chance I managed to make one post that introduced me to Ibn ‘Arabi’s wahdat-al-wujud (= “Unity of Being”), which introduced me to the whole debacle; coupled with the next posts I made, it was clear that I didn’t have a proper comprehension of whatever I was talking about.
Pass beyond the universe, this [unfurled] carpet
Leave behind body and soul
it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,
Let sorrowful longing dwell in your heart,
dwelling in one body.
Pass on, without looking aside
Source: Folios from a Qur’an manuscript, ca. 383 AH/993 CE
Say “Oh He and You who is He”.
Say “Oh He and You who is He”.
That theophanies may appear
Oh Uftade! Find your soul
In all the eye discovered--only God I saw.
It did give me some good ideas, however, be as it may, I sought giddiness, a mind-frying event that would lead me puzzled; I coveted the mystic madness or episodes that I’ve seen others talk about. That madness, an all-consuming insanity, something physical, something tangible, that I could remember. Irrespective of the result, that was my purpose, and the fear of societal pressure or ostracization, the endless accusations of heresy didn’t scare me. With that thought in mind, I attempted to read Fariduddin Attar’s Mantiqu’t-Tair (= “Conference/Speech of the Birds”), a literary masterpiece and arguably the most entrancing piece of Sufi poetry, comparable to Rumi’s Mathnawi-e-Manaawi.
Him I have seen beside me oft in tribulation;
Remove your you from you
And if thou seest Him,
I went to fights with anyone who denied me the right to say mian with Allâh’s Name. How dare these people, these so-called “big kids” call me wrong, claiming that it isn’t His Name? He’s… my friend.
Among the pearls is a gem --
Source: “Oh He and You who is He”, Mehmed Muhyiddin Uftade
in which lovers swim as they please, free of care.
If you desire the Beloved, my heart,
In favor and in fortune--only God I saw.
thou seest us both.
I opened my eyes and by the light of His face around me
Worshipping out of fear, out of obligation, is no fun. Life at that point decays to a compressed state wherein you’re held at gunpoint, continually, unable to live out as you would want to. Loving God, truly loving Him, without an ounce of fear or a shred of shame is a gift, a never-ending blessing. Contrast that with the mindless pursuit of my peers, the ephemeral fear they talked about was an illusion they themselves had grown tired of. Why was I to bow down when I didn’t enjoy doing so? Why couldn’t I love God?
I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love's camels take,
Say “Oh He and You who is He”.
I have friends here, acquaintances; mentors, who I deeply admire. Not for how well they write, how they spend their lives, there was something I always felt that I lacked and they had: a connection, an otherworldly supra-rational connection to whatever they were worshipping, irrespective of what I thought of the deities or entities that they submitted to, talked to, or understood in words I could hardly ever think of. I could make comments, either questioning or suggesting, and perhaps even hold a conversation by using what I thought of as my theoretical understanding of the topic at hand; all I did was splice it in some STEM language I barely understood, to sound smart.
During my initial pursuits, I came up with another anthropomorphization of the Penultimate Nature: the word Allâh would appear in between thoughts and prayers, however, I interpreted it to be an expression of the Ultimate, not Allâh, simply an approximate appropriation of Him, who helped me connect to Islam, acting as a counter mechanism to my environment, society and culture that enforced fearing God. In retrospect, I probably never feared God; I loved Him. And perhaps that’s what I wanted to feel, for those around me to feel.
Meet the angels
We are two spirits
to dive deep into that ocean, to gather pearls.
Source: Osman Hamdi Bey's “Young Woman Reading”, oil on canvas, circa 1880
Say “Oh He and You who is He”.
Let love come that you may have a friend
Amidst the flames outflashing--only God I saw.
that is my religion and my faith.
And lo, I was the All-living--only God I saw.
Say “Oh He and You who is He”.
In the valley and on the mountain--only God I saw.
We are all in the employ of the Lord, O Bahu;
If you desire union with the Beloved
And fulfill your desires
To answer your question, it’s because Islam, or at least the version I follow [i.e. my personalized construct], completes me. I can be downright bad for God, with no worry about what others think. Yes, there are other religions out there, but I doubt I could have this much fun, this much selfishness, and this much love elsewhere, even if I were to change myself. Newsflash: I didn’t. I’m the same as I’ve ever been, it’s just like how Dionysus came to Nyx, Aleister to Melinda, Christ to Belgrave: Allâh accepted me, cherished me, and before I ever considered Him a Beloved of mine, He taught me that He treated me as I was, loved me. I won’t leave that for anything.
To tackle that problem I picked up Ibn’s Arabi’s Fusus-ul-Hikam (= “Bezels of Wisdom”), hoping that it would introduce me to a new, interesting, and unique field… and it did, just not like I thought it would. Going in, I expected to receive an extraordinary revelation, a reality-shattering experience. Much to my dismay, I got neither: all the book offered me was a hundred and sixty pages on Islamic cosmology, theology, nabuwat (= “Messengership), and risalat (= “Prophethood”) — in a tone that exuded quaintness with the demeanor of an aged man recounting his favorite books, not too distinct from the “I expect you to understand and yet I still don’t” attitude you sometimes find in Friday sermons.
and the tables of the Torah and the book of the Quran.
That you may drink the pure waters
What I figured out was that I probably do experience a connection with God, just not in the manner I wanted. I talk to myself, quite randomly, and as I do, there are instances where I slip up and focus on the smallest of things — that’s when I feel it. There’s something articulating its words through me, almost like auto-writing, but in verbal form, fully aware of who I am. It allows me to see the minutia of everything, acting as my inspiration and a method for me to learn more about it. Ironically, I’ve felt it the strongest when I comment underneath answers, especially when I take to describing my views on the world, the nature of the Monad, and mysticism.
Truth be told, had you asked me this very thing a few months ago, I would’ve been unable to articulate a proper answer. I never had something that felt reasonable as a stance, in any form, through which I could argue in favor of my personal faith. Was I attached to Islam? Undoubtedly. Did I like it? Indubitably; there was no other religion or belief system that I enjoyed learning about as much as I did with Islam. However, there wasn’t anything in it that I couldn’t find elsewhere: Islam would still exist within me, persisting through my culture and traditions, the daily rites and habits I’ve developed over time, but it never manifested as something that so strongly affected me passively, concomitantly; persistently.
Let tears of blood pour from your eyes
let us pay homage to him through our prayers.
Without your heart pouring forth to another
Say not that he is one of you or one of us
Myself with mine own eyes I saw most clearly,
Reflecting back on why, it’s the insufficient amount of practicality in my life, coupled with how well I can cram topics and paraphrase them to presumably act as I can and do comprehend stuff. That’s how we’re taught, that’s how most of my teachers, peers, and professors expect us to live. Take what you read, tweak it a little, and form something of your own idea, that only superficially passes off as unique, while being inherently a copy-pasted variant of the original. Melinda tells me that it’s imposter syndrome, that I have felt things, irrespective of whatever trail of thought said otherwise. Maybe she’s right, maybe I really have, and maybe… I haven’t.
Your distresses are a torrent
Source: al-Hallaj, Kitab al-Tawasin, in The Mystics of Islam, by Reynold A Nicholson
Say “Oh He and You who is He”.
Do not cease to pour out lamentations.
unique in value, unmatched in lustre --
O Marvel! a garden amidst the flames.
Qualities nor causes--only God I saw.
In the market, in the cloister--only God I saw.
In their own turn, they appear in the world
Source: Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir, "Nobody, Son of Nobody", Vraje Abramian
never give up, never losing hope.