Picture Perfect Paradise

S.I.Q. Series 6

It is generally agreed that from sura 21 onwards the beauty and poetic genius of the Koran truly becomes apparent. I have no doubt that this is so. Even while reading from an English translation, the rhythm has begun to hypnotize me unlike before.

"And the moon-- We have determined it by stations,/ till it returns like an aged palm-bough. It behoves not the sun to overtake the moon, neither/ does the night outstrip the day,/ each swimming in a sky." (36: 35)

The words recited have also come to take on new depth and imagery. However, none as true as the word "paradise". What was before an abstract concept, faint and distant in my understanding, has unfolded itself as a mirage of desert luxury. And this image is what I would like to share with you.

I realize that it's hard to paint a picture without brush strokes, but I figure that a few well chosen words could suffice a few thousand (interpretive) pixels. I have gone through my notes and highlighted the descriptions of Paradise as found in the Koran. What I describe below is basically what God has related in truth, except as a complete picture rather than small excerpts of heaven painted here and there and in between. I hope that this picture will be enough to convince you that Paradise is worth a life of judgement.........

Paradise Painted:

Imagine that you are in a desert land. The sun is hot. The earth is dry. People are people, and are dyeing.
A trumpet sounds.
You look up to the sky and beyond the clouds.
Up to Heaven, You go.
From afar the heat blurs hues of greens, blues, and purples. As you approach this distant mirage you realize that the dead and cracked earth that was once under your feet is now transformed. Your weight is cushioned by luxurious carpets. Lining your way are palms for shade and reclining couches for rest.
You are walking into a green meadow-- an island of refuge from the intense sun and bustle of life. Rivers flow underneath the land and gush out in fountains as pure as water that rains down from above. Cattle roam quietly, in abundance. Fruits hang above your head, in arms reach from your seat of rest. Beside you is your loved one, your pair. You both wear clothes of finest linens in green.
Everything that you call for is given to you.
And most importantly, what you find in the comfort of the shade, flowing rivers, and fruit platters is Peace. God's promise fulfilled, alas. No more test, no more odds, no more temptations. Just a basic, beautiful, and warranted life.

This is Paradise Painted.

"Surely in that is a sign..."

Let it be said that Dawkins would have swallowed his tongue long ago concerning God’s prooves of existence. Actually, most any one of us would. How can you dispute someone who lays claim over ALL that exists, AND the ingenious functionality of it all?

Essentially, everything that is, is because God created it so. The good, the bad; the necessary, the unnecessary. 

“God is He who raised up the heavens/ without pillars you can see, then He sat Himself upon the Throne./ He subjected the sun and the moon,/ each one running to a term stated./ He directs the affair; He/ distinguishes the signs;/ haply you will have faith in the encounter/ with your Lord.” (13:1)

The doubter would rightfully ask God: how do we know you are real?

God would say: look around you. Everything is a proof of His Truth.

“Hast thou not seen how that whatsoever is in the heavens/ and in the earth extols God,/ and the birds spreading their wings? …

Hast thou not seen how God drives the clouds, then composes/ them, then converts them into a mass,/ then thou seest the rain issuing out of the midst of them?” (24: 40)

God’s proves of existence are found in nature; In our life; In the way of life.

It sure as hell isn't an argument that would win over the court; but it is an argument that persuades the soul-- which we all know is folly to faith. Modern science couldn't even settle this case because it is limited when it comes to questions of "Why".

So, judgement is ours to make. His Truth is yours to believe, or not. 

Is this a created universe by Him, for us?

“It is He who produced for you hearing, and eyes and hearts;/ little thanks you show./ It is He who scattered you in the earth, and to Him/ you shall be mustered./ It is He who gives life, and makes to die, and to Him/ belongs the alteration of night and day; what,/ will you not understand?” (23: 80)

Wine, Beer, Techno... and Allah

S.I.Q. series 4

Today signaled a new turning point in my reading of the Quran; I officially reached the half-way point.

I do consider this a small victory of sorts. For one, the passages are only getting shorter as I read on! Which means it should only take me about half as much time to finish it as it took to get this far. (Brilliant idea courtesy of Those Who Edited the Final Version of the Quran). Secondly, upon reaching half-point I had also happened to reach the end of much of my patience and curiosity. Sorry God, but at this point I’ve heard your arguments, counterarguments and proves of existence one too many times.

So, in honour of reaching half-way and in search of a new attitude towards my Quran studies I decided to do two ungodly things while reading:

1.     1.  Down a bottle of wine. Plus a couple beers.

2.     2. Put on loud techno.

It’s not that I had planned for my bible study to turn into a midweek festivity (not that the thought hadn’t already crossed my mind on a couple occaisions…). It just happened that way. First it was the wine with friends. Then, when every one went their separate ways I faced the night with two options: find new friends or spend some good old time with God and Beer. No need to say who won. The music naturally followed.

I suppose I was hoping, sufi-like, that some where in between the beer gulps and musical interludes I would magically see God’s words in a new light. Unfortunately, I guess the Sufi’s were on some different magic potion when they journeyed to God because my journey was nothing mind blowing, nothing world altering, nothing even worth relating. Instead it was sloppy. It was choppy. And, worst of all, it was argumentative in a nit-picky way. (Miz. Have I just described my drunken self?).

Essentially, I found myself approaching The Book with a new attitude of cynicism written all over my disbelieving face (I blame allergies to red wine). In short, I began to do what I had consciously avoided all along: bickering with God.

For example, where God would say:

“And it is God who brought you forth/ from your mothers’ wombs,/ and He appointed for you hearing,/ and sight, and hearts/ that haply so you will be thankful.”

I would reply: “Thankful? Who the hell asked for ANY of that in the first place!?”

Note to reader: I love life. I do. 

And then, when God went on to remind us of the sins of the Jews I kept thinking to myself, God too had it in for them! 

(But in all honesty, I hope to address this point near the end of my study because God seems to disproportionately pick on Jews as compared to Christians—but there may be valid reasons for this).

From phrases to arguments I was unabashedly at odds with God.

Then, when in sura 16 God delivered the word “intoxicant” – for the first time I had seen mention of—I began thinking God was speaking to me in small nuances; That maybe I could be accepted in His world; And that I could accept Him. Here God is saying that He gave us intoxicants for us to (ab)use!
But then a few verses later I was reawakened to the eternal battle at hand when God continued his list of gifted items to humanity. Apparently, women have also been gifted. In fact, everything has been created for man. Cattle. Trees. Water. Kids. Olives. Fruit. Vines. Day. Night. Moon. Sun. Me. Urgh. Lame. Beer 3. Techno up.

But in the end, the thing that got me most in all of my “intoxicated” reading-- because the fact that I was created for the (ab)use of boys is negligible-- was God’s reference to a very biological fluid: sperm.
As He says, “He created man of a sperm-drop…” (16: 5).

No, I’m not a two-year old. I can hold my own in reference to private matters. But it’s just that one sura before, God said this:

“We created man of a clay/ of mud moulded…” (15: 25).

I guess if there is anything to learn from my intoxicated study of The Book it’s that interpretation really matters. Some may read The Book literally, and those we may call various degrees of fundamentalists. They take what they see at face value. Others are more liberal in their study, searching for so-called metaphorical nuances of God’s message.

If I were to classify myself, of yet I have tried to be somewhere in between a literalist and metaphorical-ist(?). Tonight, however, I am throwing out all “ists”. I can’t be bothered to place myself on a line-- let alone walk one straight. I saw what I saw. And I can't rectify it, metaphorically or literally. We are made of mud. And. Or, sperm-drops.

I’ll leave the rest to you.

Good night! (God, not Beer)         

a passage worth recounting

``The Death of Isaac Babel``

Only after they charged him with the crime of silence did Babel discover how many kinds of silences existed. When he heard music he no longer listened to the notes, but the silences in between. When he read a book he gave himself over entirely to commas and semicolons, to the space after the period and before the capital letter of the next sentence. He discovered the places in a room where silence gathered; the folds of curtain drapes, the deep bowls of the family silver. When people spoke to him, he heard less and less of what they were saying, and more and more of what they were not. He learned to decipher the meaning of certain silences, which is like solving a tough case without any clues, with only intuition. And no one could accuse him of not being prolific in his chosen mÉtier. Daily, he turned out whole epics of silence. In the beginning it had been difficult. Imagine the burden of keeping silent when your child asks you whether God exists, or the woman you love asks if you love her back. At first Babel longed for the use of just two words: Yes and No. But he knew that just to utter a single word would be to destroy the delicate fluency of silence. 
Even after they arrested him and burned all of his manuscripts, which were all blank pages, he refused to speak. Not even a groan when they gave him a blow to the head, a boot tip in the groin. Only at the last possible moment, as he faced the firing squad, did the writer Babel sense the possibility of his error. As the rifles were pointed at his chest he wondered if what he had taken for the richness of silence was really the poverty of never being heard. He had thought the possibilities of human silence were endless. But as the bullets tore from the rifles, his body was riddled with the truth. And a small part of him laughed bitterly because, anyway, how could he have forgotten what he had always known: There`s no match for the silnce of God. 


- Nicole Krauss, ``The History of Love``, 114-15