Jesus descending Damascus at Umayad Eastern Minaret

Damascus, Sufi heart of the world, is where Prophet Jesus (Isa) Allayhi al-Salam, will appear towards the end of time, according to Sufi literature.

Ibn Arabi, the famous Sufi Sheikh whose tomb is located at the foot of Jebal Qasyoon, makes numerous references to this narrative in his book The Meccan Revelations (Al-Futoohat al-Makkiyya).

The belief that Prophet Isa is going to appear in Damascus during the reign of Sayyidna al-Mahdi Alayhi al-Salam, is based on many Ahadeeth (narratives) by Prophet Mohammad Salla Allahu Alayhi wa Sallam.

The end of time according to Sufis – and some Christian sects – is just around the corner. There are “signs” that are observed that are believed to announce the beginning of the end: such as great turbulence in the world, injustice, lack of ethics on a wide universal scale, materialism, bloodshed, etc.

Heart is the place of Light (Noor). It is the knower. That’s why Ibn Arabi says, “Ask your Heart,” because Heart can tell Truth from Illusion. The clash happens when “mind” gets in the way and disturbs the knowledge of the heart.

When it comes to belief, one’s heart needs to be purified from the clouds of mind

Materialism in this age and time makes it difficult for people to believe without physical evidence. That’s why believers are usually those who think outside the box. They don’t follow mentally-accepted parameters to decide on whether something is real for them or not. They follow the difficult, uncharted route of Heart… where there are no land posts, no signage, no maps.

Hats off to the believers who suffer on the path to Allah… those who cry their nights looking for a sign to calm their hearts’ fiery desire for Truth, who wait for Yaqeen (knowingness) to knock on their door and lend them peace… for they walk the untrodden paths, learn the untold knowledge, and stick to what Prophet Mohammad described -  in a Hadeeth that roughly translates into:

“The holder of religion at the end of times, is like the grabber of hot coal.”

May our vision be of Truth, may our Heart see with the light of the Prophet, and may we rest in peace in Divine Knowingness.

Learning from the Damascene Sufi

The Damascene Sufi is both bitter and sweet, he salutes you with a lot of love and understanding, but when you cross him, he breaks you in two.

Sufism is a path of pain and delight, mostly referd to by the Sufi tradition as al-Jalal wal Jamal. A seasoned Sufi Shiekh can inflict both on his mureeds to rid them of the rubble in their Nafs (ego). There are 5 stations for Nafs, the last of which is the most enlightened. The lowest form is al-Nafs al-Ammara bil soo2 (ego that tells its owner to commit wrong-doing). To reach the 5th level, one would have had to walk on broken glass and coal in defiance of Nafs’ desires.

Those desires transcend mere love for carnal pleassures and chocolate, desire is a very complex matter, it involves desire to harm, desire to be seen, desire to want, desire to be recognized as a seasoned Sufi, desire to control, desire to steer, desire to defy God’s Will, desire to desire, desire to go astray.

There are times when I close my eyes and so desire I never got here, if I had known life without all the trials I have been through, without having gotten into Sufism. Do you feel guilty when you reach this rock-bottom self monologue? Oh, well, you reach it many times along the way, that’s when your Nafs (a level of it) is dying. It is giving out its last breath, so it starts regretting whatever got it to this point where it is forced to let go of the things it has been carrying around for so long.

Becoming selfless, becoming “nothing” is what the Sheikh (Sufi mentor) wants you to be, and when you become nothing you become everything, because instead of your will, there’s God’s Will, and instead of your life goals, there is God’s mission for you to complete.

I cry nights from the pains of tests that shred me to peices; I cry out for Allah as my Nafs grips hard on desires long overdue, and lets go only when it has consumed its last bit of energy, its last bit of fight. I have died a million deaths, a million times, and everytime you think you’re done, and then find out the road to purity is steep, it is dotted with filters of every kind, starts out with filters with big holes and ends with miniscule ones that the eyes can barely see. The pain is one, though.

Pain comes from hanging on, clinging, getting attached… It’s not the test that pains us, its our inability to let go of concepts in our heads, expectations, wantings…

As I let go of you my Damascene Sufi, “I” enter my coffin and bid my dreams good-bye. Oh, my Shiekh Nazim, I am tired and worn out, this testing breaks my bones.

Thursday rushing into Friday’s arms

Thursday is a man that is in a rush to marry Friday. Friday is a confident woman who knows that Thursday will come rushing into her arms every week end. Every week, Thursday casts a spell on people so that they don’t do what they need to do to keep them  focused on Thursday’s love story.

On Thursdays, you wake up with less energy and you can tell Thursday is using everything in its power to convince his beloved Friday that he is not busy with anything but her. She, Friday, is the center of Thursday’s universe, that’s why Thursday never feels complete, he is always half a person, a man always on the lookout for his other half.

Friday knows her beauty comes from the passion Thursday has for her and his anticipation to unite with her as mid night approaches. Without Thursday’s full focus on her, Friday won’t be so alluring; without him she won’t shine.

That’s why the midnight that brings Thursday into the arms of Friday is a special midnight, always and forever, it feels like peace.

Finding the perfect recipe for short lived happiness

It’s not the chocolate Witabex bits, nor is it the Gitanes cigarette kick that just happened, it’s detachment that brings about the dizzy sense of happiness.

The little pleasures life can offer are intensified by our ability and readiness to savor the moment, uninterrupted by life. To enjoy a long night of waking up every few hours to gulp down a few chocolate bits, one needs to come from a place of absolute surrender to Fate, an extremely difficult thing to do when one is used to wanting to be in control of one’s life.

Control is a myth. We control nothing. If one realizes that, one becomes high on life. This feeling gets enhanced with chocolate and cigarettes. The sensation of “high” intensifies when one is detached.

Detachment makes you see life from a bird’s eye view. You start seeing people and places with a different sense of enjoyment. Maybe a little bit of flue and coughing can add to the amounts of serotonin that your mind is producing. You actually veer over the verge of craziness when days like this kick in; craziness in the sense you feel like doing and saying crazy things.

I stood outside watching the pigeons fly over Damascus old city center, most of them were white. I never thought it was possible to watch white flocks of pigeons, but it happened. I smoked my cigarette and asked Allah for guidance: What shall I do with this day? And then I realized, there is no such thing as doing. Just float, take a break, be serotonin.

Detachment, stick around buddy!

To Gaza, soul of my father

I hate politics. But this one is for you, father. he called last night, an unemotional man who has always mastered the art of self control. This was the first time his voice revealed pain, I almost cried. Well, I did, after he hung up, of course!

• How are things in your homeland, daddy?
• Many died in the air raid [on Gaza]. Your uncle held a wake for them a few days ago.
• Where were they?
• Some where praying in the mosque. Some where in their houses. May God help them. Do you remember Gaza? You must remember it, I took you there many times as a child.
• Yes, I do. I didn’t like it much when I was a kid. I’m sorry, but I didn’t.
• [mumbles]… Gazans are a great people. What they are enduring is… heart breaking.

So… my dad’s heart is broken. So is mine. We love what our loved ones love. He spent many years fighting for a proper higher educational system in the university he presided over for so many years in Gaza. We barely saw him as kids, as he commuted frequently between our residence and his beloved, Gaza. One time he was away for I don’t know how many years, locked up in Gaza, since Israelis refused to grant him pass back home on the other side of the Bank. I remember running to the door to greet him, he looked so distant, I didn’t know him, he didn’t quite know me.

He was born there, I wasn’t. I spent most of my childhood relating more to my mother’s roots in Damascus, and hated going to Gaza. We used to get VIP treatment at the bridge every time we went owing to dad’s academic position. In old times, academicians were treated with respect… until the day came and we were told no more VIP room for us, we were all potential terrorists. My dad threatened to fax Harvard University, all the academicians he knew in the world, if they dared insult us. An Israeli officer with a beard told him: Dr…. I am a professor too, sir, but those are my orders.

Like everyone else, we took off our clothes and shoes. My father and brother went to the men’s section, I was led away from them. I remember panicking over the fact I was left alone with a female Israeli soldier. She was trying to be nice to me, but I felt so ashamed and exposed standing there half naked and crying: where is my father? where are you taking me?

What kind of a “state” that strips people of clothes to enter territories it has occupied! As a kid I started hating going to Gaza. But we continued going there, until one day my grandmother called my father and told him:

• You are no longer my son if you refuse to bring the kids and sleep over at my house tonight.
• Ya 7ajjeh, what’s wrong with you?
• I had a bad dream and I want you to leave your house (the uni president’s house near the sea in Gaza), and come spend the night over here.
• It’s just a dream, ya 7ajjeh, the children are OK.
• I swear to Allah the Almighty if you don’t come spend the night here, you’re not my son and I don’t know you.

My father is grandmother’s eldest, she used to swear on his life, and so with that kind of threat, he couldn’t ignore her irrational request.

So, we took our pajamas, and went to sleep at grandmother’s house inside the city of Gaza, a bit off the sea (a beautiful blue sea it was).

Next morning, we went back home, to find shrapnel, bullets, hand grenades… the house was a mess, the windows were shattered, everything inside was burnt. Neighbors gathered around dad, they were screaming details of what had happened the night before… they told him a helicopter flew over at night, several masked soldiers went down on hanging ladders and worked their machine guns, leaving holes in the wall… they threw hand grenades inside, creating havoc and panic around the neighborhood.

My dad, being a freedom fighter who feared God only, wanted to send a message that said: I am not afraid (apparently he was used to this kind of stuff).

He brought in new furniture, put up new windows, and once the house was kind of livable, my brother and I were kept inside as a sign of defiance. We were locked up inside the only room that didn’t breathe smoke, guarded by my many male cousins for a month.

For a month we didn’t see sun light; food was brought to us by a cousin I grew up to hate (kids don’t know the difference between being protected, or being locked up, it was jail all the same to us). I remember our lunch was 7alaweh & bread every single day of the month (they were afraid we might get poisoned – I still think it’s lame). We had people from friends, family & the university sleeping in the garden at night to guard the house. They all cringed every time a helicopter whizzed by.

Dad had received a letter saying we were going to be kidnapped if he continued his non sense with the university, the university which triggered the 1st Intifada and lost many martyrs (knew about this in recent years only). I remember we weren’t allowed to go to the bathroom only very occassionally, I didn’t see my dad, only that cousin who heard us scream inside: Get us out!!! MAMAAAAAAAAAAAA.

My mom was on a UN mission around that time around Gaza, so somehow she gained access to us after 2 weeks. She came in and helped me up for my 1st bath in 2 weeks. I don’t know how old I was back then, but since I needed mom for a bath I guess I was pretty small. I kept on weeping as she gave me the best bath in my life, telling me that everything is OK. She told me she was in interrogation somewhere but her UN passport made things easier for her and she managed to come over to stay with us.

Forever scarred. I grew up to hate Israel and that Gazan cousin who slept outside our door and didn’t let us out when we spent days and nights crying out loud: Get us out of hereeeeeee… I want mamaaaaa! The shutters were always down. Once we were crying so loud that our cousin came in & opened the shutters for half an hour so we could see sunshine.

As family, we never spoke about that incident. Did they think I will forget? Anyhow, a few years ago, I sat with my father and told him… “Remember the assassination attempt?” He smiled embarrassingly. “Why didn’t you take us to therapy afterwards? No one spoke about it to us as if it never happened. Have you any idea how many nights I spent in nightmares? I was one of the smallest kids around with insomina!”

• He said: “That’s the nature of the struggle. That wasn’t the first time, but I thought it was better not to burden you with it all. I thought you will forget.”
• Burden me? I was there. I still hate that cousin who only fed us 7alaweh and bread.
• He is a good hearted man, he still asks me about you. He loves you so much. He was so careful because he feared for your life.
• Well, I don’t love him & he over did it. No one explained to us why we were locked up for a month. A month!!!
• 3 weeks.
• All the same. I am glad we finally spoke about this, though. I think you can understand why I’m not such a fan of Gaza. You know my brother remembers nothing of what had happened?
• I know. Don’t remind him. Let’s not talk about this again.

I am sorry Gaza for all your pains. On first day of this year, I spent a whole day at the Sufi Zawya praying for you, my relatives, uncles, aunts, and most of all, my father; the man I would die for. If he loves you Gaza, then I love you too, for you are his soul.

So… when people talk about peace. When people talk about forgiveness, they speak from their… because when a “state” decides to kill a university professor along with his family, it is a state of evil. I shall die with this conviction. May God burn you in hell Israel, and may all the false peace treaties and trickery and darkness you spread around come back to haunt you.

Ila Jahanam wa bi2sa al maseer.

* This is a true story. The narrator of the above is still alive & continues to hate talking about patriotism & politics.

Slow burning & the ironing of ribs…

This body we carry around is such a vehicle. It has its own set of really sophisticated detectors; it produces tears when our heart is touched by something sorrow-brining or joy-filling, two emotions on opposite ends of the spectrum. It gives us burning sensations when we feel great joy, or great annoyance, or great anticipation. What is really impressive is that it uses the same set of symptoms to indicate a host of contradicting emotions. Our knees can become jelly-like when we win a prize, go on stage to sing, receive really bad news, or get an unexpected bouquet of roses.

The burning sensation that eats away at our nerves, making us cough nervously and ready to shoot ourselves, can be brought about by many stimuli… it can be triggered by intense locked up emotions that you fight all day long so you won’t express them impulsively, colossally, crazily. I know people with great ability to bear the heat of anticipation, love, emotions, joy, sorrow; they aren’t the “burnt onion” kinda folk.

On the other hand when one’s onion is the type that can turn into charcoal the instant love starts forming in the horizon… expect a lot of suffering. Suffering is not limited to bad things in life, suffering is a word that signifies an over-activity of emotions taking place around the body, the ribs included (Um Kalthoum was right when she sang: Yakwee Adlo3ee – ironing my ribs). When suffering hits the heart that’s when we enter the red zone, but if it’s still in the ribs, bones and flesh, then it’s orange, or yellow, depending on the intensity.

We suffer when we fall in love because we aren’t trained to take high temperature. If we were built from something other than flesh (like Light, for instance), I think our ability to sit calmly inside the fire of love, like Prophet Ibrahim, would have been double fold (“Ya naru kooni bardan wa Salaman 3ala Ibrahim”). I admire people who burn and brace themselves and carry on with life without any sign of fatigue. The “khroo2” (weak) type, like this writer, melt under such pressure and start walking into walls (fooot fil 7eetan).

When fire starts burning the flesh of the impulsive type of woman with onion-ready-to-turn-into-charcoal temperament, then expect a lot of suffering. You try to relieve yourself from some of the internal steam by filtering through some messages here and there, not as an attempt to win over your beloved as much as an attempt to stop yourself from exploding.

I don’t know if the slow ironing of ribs can be captured on x-ray… Ya Mogheeeth.

Wood-plank sleeping!

Days like this should be spent in solitude! I’m glad I fell upon this quote. It puts things into perspective. Eid is approaching, a lot of work needs to be done before we sleep for a week… energy reservoirs are running thin.

Can’t write something more focused than this. I just finished working on two documents that depleted every last cent of energy I had. I’m even using expressions I never used before. I love the stream-of-consciousness kind of writing. You just write what pops up in your head without steering it towards a specific shore. Speaking of shores. My shore is ignoring me these days (lol). No prob, there is plenty of time. One can afford spending a couple of extra few days on the wooden plank floating over the waves. Good thing is, I can see the shore, so wood-plank sleeping isn’t a bad idea after all.

Sometimes being human is boring. Pain is boring, drama is boring. You feel like you want to shed your skin and just leave for eternity. Love is boring, social life is boring. On the other hand, wood-plank sleeping, while you wait for nothing, is enjoyable. You wait for nothing to happen. That’s a good day. When you wait for something to happen, you are chained. You wait, floating on the waves, you look around and see no one, you see no one, feel nothing, and expect nothing.

Ah, ain’t that the beautiful taste of freedom!

Kibbeh hallucinations & the world before 9/11!

Image by 50% Syrian, created this morning on Photoshop, mimicking the art of Hundred Waters of Veinna - with an Arabian, Kibbeh-dotted theme

This Kibbeh-saga image is inspired by the art of one of Vienna’s greatest architects, called Hundred Waters (HundertWasser). I got to know about his art the second time I paid Vienna a visit, one day after 9/11 turned the world into a gloomy place. The first time I visited Vienna, I was 9 years old, so I don’t think I “saw” much of the things adults pay attention to, including HundertWasser’s art.

The second visit was a bit weird. The world was still “alright” back then. I was part of a delegation that toured Austria. We took off on September 12, 2001. No one thought much of 9/11 back then; the media blizzard that turned the incident into the world’s biggest tragedy was still dormant.

We were a delegation of happy Arabs touring a “safe” world, we had no “war on terrorism” cloud hanging over our heads, no self-suspicions about our own motives, no fear of being misunderstood (at least not more than the naive image of the camels and tents they thought we left back home). We were warmly welcomed by Viennese tourism officials. Over dinner at one of Vienna’s top restaurants (can’t remember its name, but it overviews a chapel that got burnt in world war I or II), we didn’t speak about terrorists, or the West v.s East, we didn’t dwell on the divide, nor did we eye each other suspiciously. No one asked us if we could travel everywhere without facing visa troubles, no one cared about gloomy issues like that. We spoke about food, culture, and art – excessively. Well, four of us spoke about these issues, in a desperate attempt to camouflage what was going on elsewhere on the table.

We were a delegation of 14 women. Four of us, including this writer, were “normal” people with normal psychological problems, the rest were deranged females on their first-time trip ever outside the country. They looked hormone-driven with all the sexual innuendos, the harassment they gave men on the street, the things they told men. Even for us, the liberal bloc, some of the things we heard them say were shocking, especially that they were single & married, Christian & Muslim, veiled & unveiled women who decided they had a common goal: Let’s harass the men and vent all our sexual and social frustrations. The women looked like a mishmash of cultures, coming from every possible background you could think of. There was the hair-dyed, make-up painted women, walking side by side with veiled, body-odored females, and the mini-skirt kinda folk, in perfect harmony with Christian, short-haired ladies (stereotypes, stereotypes).

Honestly, some of them were ready to devour that half Egyptian, half Austrian tourism official who took us all out for dinner. They revived the Arabian tradition of the Harem around the guy (in a female-dominating kinda way, which made the guy cringe. He once called out for me – since I looked at him in a way that suggested: “They’re gonna eat you alive, poor you” – and said: “Ya sa7afa (media people), what are you doing over there?” – meaning – “girl with the compassionate look on her face, come rescue me Dakheel 3alaiki ana!”). Yes, the four of us, girls who didn’t want to rape the guy, sat on the sidelines of the most aggressive competition to win that man over for husband-ship. I could swear some of them were eye-ing him as a second husband!

Although that trip was culturally shocking, seeing my own country women turn into beasts around one another, I still remember it as the last of the “nice and fluffy” trips into the West. Light-headed traveling & light-weight conversation never took place from that trip onwards; once the 9/11 saga spiraled into very very dark directions. The cloud of a terror-fearing world has successfully formed by the 2nd week of our Austria visit.

9/11″mentality” kicks in !!

On our way back (it was somewhere around September 27, 2001), I was reading through the Quran (as usual) at the Vienna airport, when 3 security people entered the passenger’s waiting area.

A man sat behind me and kept on peering over my shoulder to see what I was reading. It hit me that he must think I’m a terrorist since one of the deliverers of 9/11 “conveniently” left a copy of the Quran with maps and airplane manuals in the car that was found around the scene. I was a journalist, and we were trained to spot conspiracy theory and adopt it at light speed. I can claim I was one of the 1st people who saw where the world was going a few days from 9/11 (lol). I hate the West for injecting copies of the Quran in their media spins!

Anyhow, shortly after, an alarmed-looking woman approached and stood a few yards away, trying to think of a good excuse to talk to me. A third man with walky talky stood at the room’s other end. I saw what they were doing – but since I believed I had every right in the world to read the Quran wherever I was without being suspected of being anything other than a person reading Quran, I stayed put and continued reading while the tension built up in the hall.

A few passengers were asked to change their seats, while I was still reading. Then the man sitting in the seat row behind me stood up, the security woman approached, and the other guy closed in while others ran across from another hall. I thought that was the most ridiculous thing that ever happened to me! I couldn’t believe how extremely brainwashed people were and how stereotypes played a great role in forming people’s attitudes towards one another.

So, I kept reading on, and the woman (since I looked Middle Eastern) spoke to me (of course security people chose to overlook the fact I was wearing a nose ring, a knee-torn pair of jeans, and had my hair all over the place. Stereotypes that usually surround the bohemian kind failed me that day). The woman was very nice. She told me that she’d like to escort me to help me with my bag, since my bag looked a bit heavy for me. My bag was a fixation of hers. She tried to sound as VIP-ish as possible so I won’t feel I was suspect. I kept holding the Quran, and she offered to carry my bag for me.

On that trip I had one bag only, the type and size you could carry on the plane (and the whole idea was that I won’t have to stand at the belt when I arrived home, so I can bolt out of the airport as quickly as possible. I think I was traveling a lot back then and was getting sick of wasted time at airports).

El mohem, the woman insisted to carry my bag, faaa in order not to drill in her conviction of my terrorist inclinations, I allowed her to do so and acted as if I didn’t notice the army of agents walking on both our sides and behind us, I also acted oblivious to the fact that all the passages to other halls on the way were blocked by security people and that we were (excluding the security guys and gals flanking us) the only people heading towards the gate. At the gate, an officer – who looked like someone who had great authority – received me with a cold smile. He said something to the girl, and she looked at me and smiled warmly and said “Maam, let’s take your bag to put it in the baggage area in the plane, it’s heavy and we want you to be comfortable.” At that point, I threw away my composed posture, my I’m-innocent-and-have-no-idea-what’s-going-on looks, and decided those people aren’t making me wait at the baggage belt in my home country! The purpose behind traveling light will not be squandered just because the media machine decided to destroy the image of Quran carriers!!!

You can say I went crazy. Yes, I went crazy. I told them I had rights and I wasn’t stupid, and that they suspected I was a terrorist because I was reading the Quran, and that I noticed how they closed in on me, that I was journalist and I was going to efda7 them (scandalize them) in my own country and in the media, and that no way in hell that bag was going to Baggage (back then threats of this kind were plausible. I guess now if one says something like that, 3adi, they’ll bomb the offices in an accidental raid).

Faaa… I was so crazy with anger that they were actually afraid. The woman told me that they were sorry if I suspected anything, that they “closed in on me” because she thought the bag was a bit heavy for a lady like me – with torn up old jeans on (of course, the bag was feather-heavy and easy to carry) – and that it was airport policy to see to MY comfort. I told her, I didn’t want to feel comfortable and that my bag goes with me on the plane or I won’t be flying that day. She said a few words to the senior-looking man, who was inspecting my passport, and then told me yes, yes, the bag goes with me on the plane.

They inspected the bag, scanned it, opened it, played with it – and obviously ran a security check on me – then suddenly the mood changed. Of course el jama3a found out that my Quran-reading did not carry all the new significance the media had attached to it. They were smiling again, treating me with great ease, their eyes looked at me like I was just another passenger, and to make me feel “trusted” they let me “touch” my bag. Someone else carried it for me, but they let me touch the bag without making me feel like I was going to pull a string and detonate a bomb.

Of course, all of this happened while the security guys were opening chocolate wrappers that belonged to little children whose father wore Afghani-looking clothes!

This whole story was ignited by this morning’s Kibbeh cravings. Why is Kibbeh part of this story? Because my cravings reminded me of life’s little pleasures, and I tried to remember times in my life when I woke up this light-headed. I found out that ever since 9/11, mornings became heavier, life a lot gloomier. That Vienna trip was the last of my Kibbeh-spirited sprees. After which, the opening of light in the world was put out by myths of every kind, media sagas of every shape and fear-infested world dramas.