BARAKA BASHMENT

SHARI’A: Commonly translated as “law,” however, here experienced as SUCHNESS since we recognize law to be man-made. Shari’a is therefor the suchness of existence preceeding, following, and enveloping human involvement. There is no law other than being and occurrence. Things are and be. “Man”-made law is a simulation of suchness. It is corruption and the ultimate expression of a failed society.


TARIQA: Commonly translated as “path,” but here understood to be LIFE as every microcosmic expression of the life-living-dying etc is part and parcel of the path itself. The fulfillment of tariqa occurs both self-aware and ignorant since all beings “go” willingly or unwillingly.


HAQIQA: Usually translated as “Truth,” however here translated as THE MERGING OF DIRECT AND PRE-SOCIALIZED EXPERIENCE WITH “IT” IN A SIMULTANEOUS IMPLODING OF BOTH SHARI’A AND TARIQA WITH OR WITHOUT HUMAN PARTICIPATION. It is Chogyam Trungpa’s “blue pancake” and the clap of the zen wood block. It simply is and your Kali-severed head.

Some of these next few are repeats but updated as I am putting together a manuscript. A number are brand spankin’ newbie.

Do you not see that all creatures
in the sky and on earth glorify God—
even the bird on a wing?
Each one knows its prayer and manner of praise.
Qur’an 24:41

The outline of the human figure is often hard to perceive. The farther one stands the more blurred our once pristine reference becomes as it merges into innumerable Others. And yet, approaching the Other gives us a similar lack of outline. The closer we investigate—the deeper we dig—the human skin once again loses interest in its definition and dissolves into a deviant migration from one atom to the next. Tendon yields to wormhole yields to the unnamed. The human being! The assumed form of context and experimentation.

However, the irreducible rarely remains as such. Always a work in process, this culmination of interest, ecology, language, salt water, and breath constantly defines and is instantaneously defined. The senses relay to the totality a category of responses. Upon utterance the deliberately almost-constitution—now a human-thing—walks with a (not always) invisible burden. This human-thing, no longer a work in process, is idolized and immersed in the corporate plasma of social admen. The continuous unfolding becomes frozen in time.

Do they seek something other than the religion of God,
to Whom all in the heavens and on earth
have submitted, willingly or unwillingly,
and to Whom they will be returned?
Qur’an 3:83

If God is (not just) the uncontainable totality of is-ness, and Islam is a peaceful surrender to the already immersed nature of the human being into this is-ness, and to be muslim (not necessarily a Muslim) is to be a person who willingly or unwillingly submits to these conditions, how than and to what does the plasma stick?

Rock. Tar sticks easily to rock. Feathers stick easily to tar. On the road to Mecca there is rock, tar, possibly feathers, and a number of road signs. One sign in particular dictates that all Muslims may stay the coarse while all non-Muslims must exit to the right. The questions one must ask are: does this sign describe anything real—anything possible? Who in the desert must really veer to the right? If a person exits to the right, does the road continue to turn right until it places the human-thing where it previously veered? Does the exit from the road to Mecca even exist? Can a person really veer in any direction? Are we not all willingly or unwillingly enveloped by the perpetual manifestations of Truth?

The world as experience exists as an infinite number of potentials. In the constructed social realm (how social this realm truly is has yet to be seen) people do in fact turn right—people whose identity does not coincide with the dominant identity construct. All non-Muslims must exit, which ironically enough includes muslims who do not bare the title Muslim™. At its best, radical monotheisms consider all beings partial to the same divine motivation, thus challenging egocentric sectarianism and categories beginning with “non.” Radical monotheism recognizes a common breath that manifests in as many ways as there are people to in fact breathe. To restrict this breath is to provide only a straw through which to suckle air, over time converting raw brainpower into a lethargic brain damage.

However, this strangling of the process-human is by no means limited to religious affiliation. The human-thing is a perpetual manifestation of the linear narrative that careens through the mind upon noticing an Other of notable interest. Atheism may strangle. Pantheism may strangle. Communism may strangle. Monotheism may strangle. Anarchism may strangle. Post-postmodernism may strangle. The common thread is the common narrative where ideological borders solidify and condemn those outside the gates to subjugation. This narrative typically plays out as such: Two people are walking towards one another at which point the mind begins to construct a flawless personal identity that in turn maintains an Other’s flawless personal identity. Here is a person doing the “business thing.” S/he is an asshole. I probably wouldn’t be able to talk to him/her about anything. They are against all that I believe and therefore is an enemy and needs to be avoided. At best I will ignore this person.

One way to even begin to recognize a subversion of this common scenario is to possibly follow this person (to whatever degree this objectifies her/him and makes him/her a goal I am not sure) and proceed to engage her/him in the most lengthy conversation possible-making sure to ask many questions. With a sense of humility the conversation may yield a transcommodified experience—one in which the minute orchestra of cellular activity is (sub)consciously appreciated. Mind you, this is not a goal. And this is certainly not an attempt to have us “get along.” Rather it is a simple practice of moving away from engaging with the representation of the Other (via film, TV, newspaper, etc.) towards engaging the Other directly, taking notice of the subtle body language. Smelling the breath. Hearing the voice among other voices. Remarking about someone’s cough. I don’t expect us to like this so-called Other, however, I expect us to recognize its humanity. It’s a very preliminary and small step with possible radical implications.

The questions still remain, however. Is talking to a stranger revolutionary? Will it lead to a global or even local dialogue? Are we using strangers for our own therapy? Have we merely fashioned them into golden calves? Is the exit from the road to Mecca an expression of samsara, a blessing, both, or neither? Maybe we should first get in touch with our loved ones. Have we listened what they have to say? Have we asked? And when they answered have we heard?

“Community is no longer constituted starting from intimate relations of kinship, from closeness with others, but from outside, starting from rules, from goods, from borders that are more or less foreign to the subject(s).

An enclave resists this conception of the community: the family. In it certain features of aboriginal archaic cultures live on: familiarity, a settled way of life, oral sharing, natural and common law. The State, it is true, strives to substitute its norms here: demanding children, labor, goods, the submission of singularity to an abstract and artificial conception of the individual. The family, like woman, moreover, is simultaneously overvalorized and devalorized, colonized. It is subjected to values that are foreign to it and that, little by little, destroy it.”

Take note of the openness as to what constitutes a “family.”

Praise the undefined!

State & reigious Law attempting to define the natures of organized communities—be they familial or artistic—is violence.

Tell States(TM) and Religions(TM) to get the fuck out of your meaning-making today.

Praise the cacaphony that is God!
Praise the undoing of done!
Praise the naked God!
Praise God!

I have always tried to make a distinction between the socially constructed IDENTITY of Islam and its Muslims, and the thread of submission or surrender (islam) that permeates all paths (so it seems), be they monotheist, polytheist, what have you. I actually believe this was the original understanding of Islam by Muhammad and only shifted as “systems” (i.e. Mecca) began encroaching and torturing people. (See below for what I mean by systems). Because this distinction I make between the social and the personal is often blurry (especially to a reader) I think I end up talking with people, the two of us coming from very different places and with different intentions.

These distinctions between the social and the always already impulse to surrender are beyond important to me, as I see the socially constructed identities not as identities at all, but rather as strategies. They are methods and means by which we work or manipulate a (the) system. The social (i.e. the culmination of American policy foreign or domestic) IS a system and only understands and can relate to other systems. (Which is why the US cannot confront terrorism as it is–a decentered no-thing composed of loose non-systems–because it only understands a state structure, notably Iraq).

So in order to partake in the system, we need to become systems ourselves. For instance: I want funding. Well where’s your system? Where does your organization meet? I want tax breaks. Well are you married? I want to go to school. What system have you inplace to pay for going to school? I want food. Are you a part of a system that gives you money after you perform a series of tasks?

Systems themselves are fairly closed structures that are simultaneously protective and violent. Protective in the sense that they are necessary as support for an identitfied group. Violent in that they are predicated on the idea that some are in and some are out–the haves and have not syndrome.

Working with systems, however, has manifested a most curious non-working binary (for me curiously pleasurable in its end-of-the-world flavor where nothing makes sense anymore, and for others it’s just hypocritical): us & them where “us” is necessary for solidarity, and “them” is perceived as an aggressive act of marginalization and/or essentialism. The obvious example is one where a person self-identfying with(in) a marginalized group (i.e. transgendered, African-American, et al…) may refer to “us” as a group that needs to work together. “We need to get our shit together and speak out.” The slippage occurs when someone perceived as outside this at times loose alliance at other times strict allegiance states, “They are getting their shit together and are speaking out.” The problem lies in the “they” of the statement. For some this perceived inequality of language “Hey how come you get to say ‘nigger’ and we can’t?” is actually merely a manifestation and the necessary sum total of an “Other-ing” society where two levels of existence are often misunderstood as one level of experience.

1. There is the social with its strategies, alliances, and methods.
2. There is the animate (the proto-human, pre-social) with its desire to be none other than a conglomerate of body-minds existing within a mutually assisted lifestyle.

Both are necessary and in effect co-exist, however Level 1 is often misunderstood to actually be Level 2, where the strategic is thought to be the essential, as if to say my “male-ness” precedes my human-ness. This is of course false, since male-ness is reconstituted with every age. So too is female-ness, color, the shape of the eyes, the language of the mouth, the dick in the ass, and the tongue in the kooch.

But this merely ups the ante. The struggle is now on two fronts. We embrace the methods by which we subvert the grand narrative (AKA gov’t administrations or petty wannabe gov’t administations in the guise of religions) by alligning ourselves with groups and identities that make sense to us. Simultaneously we recognize that these are merely methods by which we subvert other systems, to be dropped and faded out as the oppression of grand narratives is usurped.

This can be gradual or immediate. I think this is largely out of our hands.

And yet, how does this tie into Islam?

Islam is a model I use to demonstrate how “The System” (for example, Islam organized around a codified set of beliefs established by a male elite and maintained by an institutionalized mimicry of the Prophet pbuh) is mistaken for the always-already impulse to submit to the crushing is-ness of Reality (AKA lower-case “islam” as it is presented in the Qur’an before Muhammad pbuh was forced to establish stategic Islam to confront opression). However, the crushing is-ness of Reality will always mutilate a codified system simply by the very nature of it’s being–be it the subtle sneeze of an infant, or the reestablishment of once pristine coastline in Thailand by way of a tsunami. However, Islam in no way has a monopoly on codification. Sikhism has also seemed to go through a similar event where the original guru Nanak establishes a thoroughly UNcodified, UNidentity obsessive path, only to be regimented by “the five K’s” (including uncut hair, blade, comb, underwear, and bracelet). [However, I simply can’t accept that the Blessed Nanak, the man who attracted bth Muslim and Hindus as “sikhs” or disciples who still retained their identities as Muslims and Hindus, would have wanted to codify the discipleship into yet another religion.]

In the end, if the prophets were just talking about religion, it’s bullshit and uselfull only to power-hungry asshole men. If they were attempting to explode the systems in order to readdress our attention to the uncontainable, than I say Amen!

Otherwise, your dress code awaits. You can purchase your beliefs from the local imam. If you’re lucky enough, you might be able to codify your friends too!

And so-called faggots? Don’t worry. They won’t be allowed in your religious system. It’s a shame . . . so many assholes and not a man to fit.

• FREE: a state of being comprised of always already potential and possibility; to let go; able to act at will; not hampered; not under compulsion or restraint; to relieve from
• ORDER: a formal association of people with similar interests; a system or organization; a command or decree
• INTENTIONAL: deliberate; by conscious design or purpose; done by design
• LIVING: the activity of engaging, maintaining, and manifesting life; still in active use
• FOIL: thwart; hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans, or desires) of an oppressive manipulative force; anything that serves by contrast to call attention to an other thing’s qualities

Today, the first sound of the Free Order of Intentional Living is “AH.” The last sound of the Free Order of Intional Living is “HU.” Tomorrow, we are not sure. As beginning and end are aspects of blessed, though limited, human consciousness, this is not entirely true or Truth. It is a potential piece of the Great Uncontainable Consciousness and therefore useful. Every aspect of life is useful. Every action and reaction, every crossroads and decision is use-worthy in realizing the pre- and manifest divine un- and reality. In this there is a value.

The limited concepts of beginning and end are also useless, in that there are opportunities to use less. In this there is a value.

• “USEFUL” ACCORDING TO THE FOIL: Engagement through appreciation and with future consideration. The perpetual seven generations of native peoples. Learning. Mutual assistance.
• “USEFUL” ACCORDING TO BABYLON: The raping and life-excavating pillage of an objectified Earth, matter, being, and cosmos.

KILL YR IDOLS

1. The idol is the thing, manufactured or otherwise, that stands in place of its sign/ificance, its “nature,” its is-ness, its nothing special-ness, its in and of its self-ness, as well as its context and history. As such, the idol is the medium of separation. It is the brick wall. It is the frozen definition.
2. Contrary to what many believe, an idol’s idolness can not be fully known by anyone other than the idolater his/herself. As such, a person can not be accused of idolatry with complete and total certainty. This is because idolarty occurs wholly inside a person’s mind, and as one can never truly know another’s thoughts, one must concede to the knowledge of the collected being AKA God.
3. For instance, hoola-hoops are not idols in and of themselves, however, a person could certainly make a hoola-hoop an idol if the hoola-hoop itself was the sole divinity rather than a piece. That is, the physicality of the hoola-hoop, was the beginning and the end of total consciousness. The same goes for a statue. Even though it is fashioned by humans, the statue does not necessarily become an idol simply by the nature of its creation. The same must also be said about Hindu iconography. Simply because a person may sing in front of, meditate or pray before a conception does not an idol make. We are not necessarily in the presence of idol worship.
4. Idol worship is discouraged, because it is understood that the realization of Allah is without end. It is essentially endless. So that anything that makes finite the experience of Truth is considered a hindrance. As, according to the Qur’an and hadith, God necessitates God-consciousness in order to be known, there is a great emphasis placed on removing this hindrance from a person’s spiritual path.
5. It seems . . .

In an effort to make room, step aside, for a truly authentic relationship with the divine impossibility of uncontainable totality made possible, I have begun recording my voice on tape as I freely describe my body in an environment.

For instance, if I am sitting I try to describe as many details as I can about the experience. How my hand looks as I stretch it out in front of me etc. The tradition of Islam comes in Arabic. I’m not going to learn Arabic (even though I began) and don’t want to forever feel like I’m missing something if I don’t. So enough of that. At least the attachment to it being “my path.” Since I came to Islam with the understanding that it was first and formost not a religion, but an impulse (a pulse) I guess I’m stepping back from it (the religion) with the same understanding.

So, I’m starting at zero.

Zero is the eyes. Zero is taste. Zero is noticing an arm outstretched.

I don’t “believe” in God. Never really did. But I embrace the unseen and all its possibility. The unseen has yet to be codified. It is (temporarily?) a no-space with a no-dogma.

My language in all its quirks will simply have to do. God-ness supposedly comes to each in their own language “so that you might understand.” I buy that, but let’s just see about that.

The semi-autonomous and deliberate re-interpretation of the world is always already.

What the Free Order of Intentional Living will facilitate I am not sure.

Let’s see if we can’t stretch this language of ours to the point of snapping. The conceptualization of God will find no safe haven. We’re coming for ya! All entities are suspect. The non-entity of Fakhruddin ‘Iraqi will guide us into a cool summer ditch. Take shade little book binder. Say “ah.”

Happy Birthday.

1.
Today the Sun. Tomorrow Fear.

2.
Today the sun rests on a ledge and is crushed by the hovering shock of this is not it.
Today the sun pales.
Today the sun makes its way slowly across the covering.
Today the sun answers not one call, but a series of speechless beckons from the formless.
The formless already a name.
The formless already a vision.
The formless already a constant separation.
The formless already a member of its family.
Its family the destruction of crumbling.
Its family the removal of obstacles.
Its family the extension of the human fingertip.
Its family the open skull.

This mouth a cave.
This mouth a condition to be vehicles.
This mouth a monster’s half-child.

The push to sever. The approach to split space by a hand hung from arm chest neck hung from head hung from a skeleton’s forgotten sky. The air a fossil. The air a formula to build again a sky forgotten. The air a fermentation banned. A concotion.

Crude.

Crushing.

Crucible.

A light hung from the mixture of bone-human, screen-human, scream-human, describe-human, notated-human. Another other.

3.
When the God combusts to free God, the God envelopes itself as a white dwarf envelopes the cosmos along with a child’s fascination. The enveloped fascination traps itself in itself, having finally completed the total identification with the replica. The replica replaces the original. The original replaces the unnamed. The unnamed hiccup when noticing the protégé having itself forgotten the Archangel of death spanning the cosmos and covered in eyes wide. Death follows Life. Life precedes Death. Life the Living. Death the destruction of Life’s form. Death protects Life from life. Life protects Death from form. Form protects the mundane from the sacred veiled by the rotting flag of carcass and allegiance. Institution is mechanical rot.

4.
What than of the glance?
What than of the breath against breath?
What than of the rebellion of bodies against slavery?

The skin excuses itself from the muscle and tendon of partnered body-sex to destroy the oppression coming from the lens of a most cumbersome and spying rotunda encapsulating the culture of the Free Order of Intentional Living. The Great Excuse. The Clarifier. The Song Sung Singing. The Clapping. The Crushing Love. The Automaton of Freedom. The Appreciation of the Boundless Question. The Beautiful That Loves Beauty. The Natural. That Which Exposes. That Which Mothers Co-Existence. That Which Helps. The Humble Path. That Which Helps the Humble Path. Yes/ &/ But/ Is/ Not. YA BISN!

5.
A foil is both a noun and a verb. It is that which by the nature of it’s own character exposes the character of another. It is itself and the means by which itself. It is the various means by which one usurps the hegemonic power of another. Itself is its nature—a continually (re/de)created culture of pro-conversation and good intentions. The foil is the intention is not the foil but always already awareness.

It is the laughing rebellion. It is the appreciation of diversity. It is the acceptance of difference and the attack on tolerance. Tolerance necessitates a source of power that is in a position to tolerate (AKA ignore for a period of time) an Other. The foil is the disruption of this saving face nice-ism. It is the shade in summer.

It is an attempt to deliberately engage the Spectacle. It is an attempt to make room for the perpetual conversation (AKA God-consciousness manifest) of the great collective—LIFE!

Not quite in the shower, but getting into the shower is when I often find myself having these This is going to be it! thoughts. By now I am old enough to realize that these are little pieces to a greater complexity of thoughts and movements (little, not flag waving) or repositionings. As such, however, I find it best to engage these ideas as if they were in fact IT so as to give them the attention they deserve, or at least necessitate to flower.

With that in mind, I want to offer something to you. Something that I have been looking into over the past year or so. It’s a somewhat forgotten, totally marginalized, more or less vehemently declared to be heretical aspect of the Islamic tradition. And yet, such is the case with me concerning most marginalized aspects of culture, it is the aspect of Islam that I find most promissing. Not for its “decadence” (or maybe deca-DANCE), but because it presents itself as alltogether anti-arrogant. It is not that I want to be heretical. It just seems that that which is often deemed heretical is often the most interesting and offers the most umpff in moving towards a personally radical/engaging lifestyle/reality construct. The little rule of thumb seems to more often than not hold true: if the “majority” reviles it, and the “majority” is boring, than that which is reviled should at least be looked into, if only out of curiosity. It’s not a hard and fast law, but sometimes something interesting pops up. Sometimes an entirely new way of engaging the world presents itself.

Introducing the Murji’ah. My first introduction to the Murji’ah was through a relatively unbiased statement that said they were those early Muslims who refused to condem either Uthman or Ali to hell fire, because frankly, how could anyone know except God. Thus they received their nom de plume “Those that postpone judgement.” I acquired this information before I quickly found out that this group has since been deemed heretics and anything they have to say is more or less irrelevant to Islamic discourse. The case being made that Murji’ah in the end had to say that a person’s “Islamness” could not be judged by their actions but only by their iman, their faith. As such, even the most reviled of humans may have a place in heaven. Imagine that!?!?!?! This basically takes the rule of intention to its logical conclusion, that if a person is acting out of love and in accordance with what they feel is best for themselves and humanity that someone like Osama bin Laden or George W. Bush could no doubt end up in the land of milk and honey. Blasphemy!!!

Not for me.

To me, and I am guessing a number of people out there, this seems the most obvious conclusion that can be made, especially in light of Divine statements like “I forgive whomever I forgive” and “I know though you know not” etc etc etc… For those of us who have actually internalized at least a fraction of the vast implications of Allahu ‘alam, God knows better, it seems only natural to align ourselves with others who understand that we are in no place to judge another person’s Islamness, especially in relationship to the laws that will govern that person’s rights. I.E. who is in the club and who is out. So for me the murji’ah are a perfect platform from which to move forward in creating a new paradigm in which the limitless nature of Allah is embraced rather than rejected and a new approach is to be developed.

It comes as no surprise to me that a movement like the Murji’ah has been completely hereticized. At the core, Murji’ah values undermine the fascist impulse to codify and regiment the borders of identity. If a person’s place within Islam can not be clearly defined, how can that person be punished when they step outside of those limited definitions? The move to not only postpone judgement of another human being, but to “defer to one’s expertise” (i.e. defer to the greatest knowledge of them all, Ya Allahu!) is an act of kindness and humility. An act of charity to humanity and a nod to the fact that in the end, we simply can not know, and those who profess that they do know the nature of another person’s complexity is by far the worst idolater of them all. For they worship their own judgement. What a pity. What boredom!

The immediate question one may ask, however, is what would a society based on these principles look like? Surely it will crumble into murder and mayhem some will say. For others perhaps only civilization a la Derrick Jensen (scroll the name for double links!) will crumble and possibly not into murder and mayhem. Are we really that base? For now I ask that we put all that aside. We are not even remotely there yet, nor are those scenarios inevitable. But may I suggest as an aside and off the top of my head (Off with his head!) that the rules governing small enclaves of mini-communities could be based on the Golden Rule AKA The Ethics of Reciprocity and mutual aid AKA not being a hoarding jerk. Maybe a law or two regarding the unacceptablity of limiting a person’s engagement with the world so long as it does not limit another person’s engagement of the world, etc etc, but I digress. Did a semi-self-proclaimed “anarchist” just speak of laws?! Come now, we’re just talking. Who knows? We’re not there yet and Allahu ‘alam.

So I am officially putting it out there. I would like to develope a Murji’ah Think Tank. I can’t do this on my own, and information on the Murji’ah is limited at best. Whether its two pages out of the 1200 pages of Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s mammoth tome History of Islamic Philosophy, or a little blip here and there in some other “The Concise History of Islamic Theology,” most of what you will find will run the likes of:

They advocated the idea of “delayed judgement”. Only God can judge who is a true Muslim and who is not, and no one else can judge another as an infidel. Therefore, all Muslims should consider all other Muslims as true and faithfull believers, and look to Allah to judge everyone during the last judgement. This theology promoted tolerance of Ummayads and converts to Islam who appeared half-hearted in their obedience. from Wikipedia

An aspect that doesn’t jibe with me is their take on the allegiance to rulers regardless of their faith. While, I don’t think a persons faith should be taken into account (ever be taken into account?) as much as their actions, I obviously contest the entire notion of a leader and allegiance to thereof and offer the envisioned essence not (indescriminate?) violence of the Hashashin (Assassins) as a possible antidote or check to Murji’ah complicity. The crime of course being the heralding of unquestioned authority.

Which brings me to another impetus for even bringing this up, which is to suggest something much more personal and mundane, but no less revolutionary. That is, the construction of a personal silsila or lineage.

More on that tomorrow insh’ Allah

A Negative Depth Experience (-NGE) of any magnitude requires a dictionary. A dictionary requires a reader. A reader requires a breath. A breath requires a wind. A wind requires a rotation. A rotation requires a cosmic push. A cosmic push requires a transcosmic impulse. A transcosmic impulse requires an imperceivable requirement—a post measurement—a yes/ and/ but/ is/ not—YA BISN!

From the top!

rahima — to have mercy; to have compassion; to spare or let off

Rahima assumes a relationship. One cannot show compassion without a “for”—a some (thing) to show compassion to. Rahima necessitates intimacy.

rahim, rihm f., pl. arham — uterus; womb; relationship; kinship

An intimacy in utero. A relationship within the womb—not gender specific, but basic—the non-singularity, the non-static perpetual possibility and negotiation.

rahma — pity or compassion; human understanding; sympathy; kindness; mercy

Rahma assumes a relationship. One cannot show compassion without a “for”—a some (thing) to show compassion to. Rahma necessitates intimacy. Understanding requires a subject or one that is subject to another. A subject maintains a heirarchy only before “I was a hidden treasure and wanted to be known” at which point the subject enacts the reader. The reader enacts the subject.

1.
Follow a bird’s course.

2.
You can not.

3.
What a pleasure.

The beauty in magic is not in the witnessing of someone who *can* but witnessing how someone who cannot, does!

Degrammatic Inversemantics (DI) is a tool one uses in order to undo the hegemonic knot created and sustained through the concretization of language and its “products” (i.e. singular meanings). DI is a writing method that contests all forms of linguistic construction in an effort to disrupt the ways in which members of society corral other members of society into a singular and biased definition of the world. Degrammatic Inversemantics is the umbrella under which reside many different techniques, all of which work towards the development of an environment based on the findings of intimate semi-autonomous meaning-makers, as opposed to the mass passive reception of social code. Some of the techniques in alignment with DI are the Deliberate Almost (currently in print only), as well as the Negative Depth Experience.

We work from:

to:

Degrammatic Inversemantics is a method. It is a way of enacting and engaging the world, as well as a means to disrupt the hypnotic effects produced by the representation of the world. It is not anti-hypnosis, though rather troublesome to hypnosis. To make a distinction: The world as experience is not hypnotic, though perhaps it is hypnautic, and the oceanic mass of people-brine are 7am placid and glassy-eyed with sleep. However, the Greek god Hypnos does not reign supreme here. Hypnos governs the representation, “The World,” or so our scouts have told us. “The World” is hypnotic in that it is a representation. This is basic Baudrillard. We will act from this though we will not remain here.

Though it may be beneficial to not accept the longing for an “original” as revolutionary . Perhaps this tale is a lie—a big ado about nothing. Maybe this is yet again the carrot on the stick hung just out of reach for us to place our hope in. Could it be that the longing for something “authentic” is yet another prize? Baudrillard’s perceived nihlism may really be a disguise for another unattainable goal. The idea of an original preceeding the hyperreality certainly smells a lot like heaven. It certainly sounds a lot like heaven. Are we really to believe that there is some “original,” some Platonic Ideal, preceeding the ever enveloping hyperreality that is our daily experience? Who, dare we ask, benefits from such a premis?

Degrammatic Inversemantics takes it’s cue from these questions, for there is no idea that should not be contested. Especially itself! From this, DI finds validity in methods clearly understood to be methods and systems clearly understood to be systems. We are attempting to produce no fluff here. The grand narrative isn’t even a question. We emerged from wombs having already internalized the postmodern ethos of context rule. Methods we say. Mathematics. Means. The embracing of via, by way of…. Postmodernism means only in as much as it can be used to embrace contradictions. Nay, embrace the Great Contradiction(s)! Nay? And blessed is that which does not resolve! And blessed is that which resists resolution and embraces the great turn of revolutions pluralized upon pluralized! The universe is our proof!

As a method of writing/reading, Degrammatic Inversemantics takes a cue from the popular-anarchism of reader-response criticisms. From wikipedia:

“Reader-response criticism is a group of approaches to understanding literature that have in common an emphasis on the reader’s role in the creation of the meaning of a literary work…. Since the theorists who make up reader-response theory were not consciously creating a school of thought, it is very difficult to say when and with whom the movement began. Also, since reader-response criticism is a reaction to perceived excesses of New Criticism, it did not emerge as a total system…. Reader-response theory recognizes the reader as an active agent who imparts “real existence” to the work by reading it and completes its meaning “by applying codes and strategies”. It is concerned with the reader’s contribution to a text. It stands in total opposition to the text-oriented theories of formalism and the New Criticism, in which the reader’s role interpreting literary works are not taken into account.” (emphasis ed.)

It is this radical approach to reading Islam, either through its texts (Qur’an, etc.) or it’s praxis (salat, etc.), where I find most contemporary Muslim thinkers (I have read) lacking. To me, Muslim thinkers informed by the postmodern (that is writers and practicioners of a postmodern ethic) seem restricted in their willingness to attempt a leap beyond the confines of a fabricated tradition (a tradition that perceives itself as singular) and therefore lack in, for all intensive purposes, sexiness. By sexiness I am referring, quite seriously, to the ability of a particular conglomeration of cues to arouse a person. Sexiness is the perpetual shifting field of triggers unique to every person that taps into the seat of being. It can be daring, or it can be safe when daring becomes passe. It calls a fish a flan when the evening has become just too stale. Is there anything sexy about Arkoun’s Rethinking Islam: Common Questions, Uncommon Answers? I could be wrong, and not to sound elitest, but to me this work reads like Islam through the lens of “Postmodernism 101,” without any enactment of the theories proposed. Again, this is not to say “Postmodernism 101″ is not necessary, but rather that condensations is blasphemy.

Maybe I have wrongfully glamorized Deleuze & Guattari sitting on each other’s lap. Maybe my knowledge of Foucault’s proclivity for men and leather has clouded my vision. Maybe I am much too interested in the practice of the human theorists, for I find it is the only way to tell if this stuff works. Maybe I want to appreciate them as reader-writers far too much, where they too appreciate the reader-writer, and as such we one day find ourselves eating lampshades by the banks of coconut rivers.

Farid Esack hints at an appreciation of the reader (sans writer?), and is the closest I have read to inviting a reader-response approach to the reading of Islam, notably through his hermeneutic of liberation investigations. However, I have found little to suggest a complete and commited approach to investigating the ways in which we read the wor(l)d Itself (the greater always already present submission to Allah willingly or unwillingly). For instance, what happens when we realize that our engaging the Qur’an, first and formost a text, our reading the Qur’an completes the process of “I was a mystery and wanted to be known”? What happens when we realize that to “be known” is to engage and interact with the text. What happens when we realize that the meaning is not sitting complete in some distant land waiting to be found, but rather is always in a process of development through the co-creative process of reading the world? The impulse for this co-creative meaning-making being a desire to be known—as if to say: the knowing of me allows you to be you. Without the knowing, Reality Itself remains incomplete.

It is my feeling that when we finally accept the idea that Islam through it’s books and actions is a co-creative, yet autonomous process of fluctuating occurences of meaning-making (identity constructions, ethical and moral “truths,” etc.), and that because of this we can understand how Islam can be read to both support people flying planes into buildings, AS WELL AS read to support all those trying to stop planes flying into buildings, only then will be in a place to once again see the world we seem so bent on representing back to ourselves for easy consumption. We mustn’t kid ourselves by being so arrogant as to say that those who fly planes into buildings are not Muslims. This is simply too easy. (The same goes for referring to George W. Bush as Adolf Hitler. It’s merely a way of Othering he and his actions.) We need to accept that TO THEM, they were the best of Muslims, and as such are now a blemish in the history of Islam, as well as a blemish in the history of hyper-capitalism/globalism. They found support in Islam to kill and we find support in Islam to protect.

What I propose and have always proposed on this site, is that this seeming conundrum is not a hindrance, but rather a blessing. That, the mirror-like qualities of the Qur’an (in that it reflects a person’s current conciousness back to them) places the emphasis squarely on human agency (as much as we may make the claim that we possess agency). You look for someone to take your hand and guide you, and you are met only with yourself. The hidden imam is not coming and the last Prophet has walked the Earth. We can now get on with our (THE) work and stop rushing to our front doors every time a car drives by thinking it’s the latest savior.

As you can see, we are developing a Degrammatic Inversemantics that encompasses much more than a few word games. This is more than an Islam spoken through the commodified language of postmodernism. DI is actually a method by which we read the world in such a way as to embody the radicality of Allahu alam God knows best. You can’t just say it. You’ve got to live it. This is a scary suggestion, for it would truly necessitate submission (Islam) to the Knower/Known. One would be forced to concede to the always greater than… The scholars (traditional or otherwise) would be forced to admit that no matter how close they feel they have come to understanding the so-called intentions of Allah (an anthropomorphic concept if ever there was one! Idolatry I say!) that all falls short of Allahu alam, and as such the risk of imposing religious laws (secular or otherwise) on another human being is too high, for Allahu alam.

Humble ourselves. Just imagine you takfired the wrong person. As the clubs say to the bump bump bump: “It’s gettin’ hot in here. So take off all your clothes.” (1)

1. (Ladies, please refer to 24:31 in your Noble Qur’an for a list of all those before whom you may “take off all your clothes.” Not to be rude, but it’s a rather long list. Ha-zaaaaah!