BARAKA BASHMENT

I’m making a booklet.

It’s gonna be an extension of this page.

I am still baffled how people become so into airing their “feelings” and making their diaries public. It’s weird to me. I never liked keeping a journal. So I never did. The thought of being like “I feel like [this] today” and waiting to here a bunch of strangers confirm it is weird to me. SOOOOOO weird. I just don’t get it. In a way I’m doing it right now. WEIRD.

Aliens would definitely look at it as a sign of the alienation overall society feels. Throw out a net. Screaming out the window: Does anyone else feel like I do!?

Or is it a backlash against concrete/non-linear poetics to have cyberspace flooded with base confessionalism?

Eee gads.

In either case… I’m moving over into hard copy print matter, cause tactile is the only tile.

It’s gonna be chant down babylon stuff with a heap the world is an anarchic non-thing exploding in our faces while fascists try to kill you slowly with chemical foods type of thing.

If you want it when it’s done (a few weeks for issue one) get me your address.

Roughly 20 pages of quick read and imagery.

P,B

You did not knock and so I am peeking out for morning doves sitting on branches in the rain.

And they look sweet and pleasant.

Today began the first action of the anti-civilization movement a la mash your pudgy little face you look so cute in your new religious roles.

I told a woman on the phone that she was anti-human for redirecting my call to a central office before I could speak to my local branch.

Anti-human breeds anti-human.

Thus it begins.

The Situationists asked us to take the Spectacle literally. Let it prove itself to us. I don’t think it will. I don’t think it can. I don’t think it wants to be challenged in such a way and will strike with violence if taunted.

In the end she simply said there was nothign she could do. I reminded her that I would not provide her with the information she asked out of spite. At which point I laughed, because if boredom isn’t hilarious than we’re not doing it right.

May the religious of this world combat the fascists with confusion and blasphemy. The only salvation is a heresy. This is a joke, because there is no longer a heresy to be had. Those that claim there is are liars and goblins.

But if there is to be a heresy…

The only heresy is shape-shifting. The only means of shape-shifting is the constant reconfiguration of identities. Let the most Muslim of them all rebel against the Islam of the righteous. Let the Buddhist rebel by becoming a Buddhist. And let the Sikh accept its fate as a religion, for dearest Nanak your anarchism has been laid to sleep.

How dare they call you a Muslim. How dare they call you a Hindu. How dare they call you a Sikh. Only you can call you a Sikh.

Today, one’s identity, as laughable as it is, is the only thing they have left. It is a pathetic state, but to deny one one’s own is murder. And murder is unacceptable.

Those that wish to impose an identity on others (cage them) or worse take one away from another (rape them) are vile and have rendered themselves the living dead.

You do not know who you are because you are vain.

You know, all in good fun. Like paint ball.

As one of you can see, I have stopped accepting comments. I would love to have comments, but the spammers have got me on lockdown right now. I can’t keep up and as such need to keep comments off. If anything inspires you to speak, feel free to email me. those of you who have my email, of course use it, and those of you who don’t, try and find someone who does.

RELIGION into ART:

Ideally I would say this by starting off with: For some time I have been thinking…

But that isn’t the case so, here’ sjust something that passed into my brain, from a floating orb: The anarchist project, that thing that some people want to see happen to the world, makes me nervous. While I embrace the anarchist critique and approach and lens, anarchists in their most vocal forms, are annnnooooooying. Volunteer at the Wooden Shoe in Philly for a month and see for you self.

I assume if the anarchism of some took hold, “spirituality” or worse “religion” would be marginalized a “coercive.” But when “art” becomes life, coudln’t we just reinterperate our actions? Frankly I have little interest in being both “an artist” or a member of a religion, but if I had to chose…

Here’s what sparked my thought; me me me

I was shocked the article even mentioned art. A’s tend to be so drab in their Darwinian forms.

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.

If there is such a thing as purity, than this is a pure rant. Of course it’s not me. It’s that other person that shows up.

Akh. Erg. Ugh.

I’m sooo bored of capital-Islam right now. I posted for about 30 minutes some back-and-forth nonsense some nonsense had with my nonsense about “freedom of expression.” S/he gave the basic “a person shouldn’t abuse their freedom of speech” cover-up of “What I really want is to limit what peple can say and if I had the opportunity I’d limit what they thought as well” bulldonk. Ugh. I swear. Muhammad(p) I am calling out to you right now. I suggest you get over here immediately and straighten this out, cause if I’m supposed to refer back to The Good Book in order to make every decision do-able, than I suggest you just “make it plain” as Malcolm said and lay it out there so I can tell you to either “try again,” “shove it,” “keep it,” “run it up the flag pole,” or I’ll swallow it whole and move on happy as a lizard in the sun.

Did I just say that? Was that me who just begged for clarity? Was I asking for a singular meaning? Oh my goodness, this religious honk is completely getting to me. The Murji’ah were able to defer, and today it seems I am only able to confer.

Con-fer. It is a con.

What on earth does an organic-macrobiotic-homegrown-erupting-from-the-local-Earth spirituality look like?! Can someone please tell me? Capital Islam is boring because it’s limited to a fossilized dogmatism and Prophet-mimicry desguised as “respect.” The so-called margins of Islam are boring because it’s patchwork and self-appreciative to the point of being lazy. A merging of the great naked Aghorin Shiva-Kali with the clean-big-mind-sensuality of Islam and the explosion of forms through Dzogchen Bon-Shamanic Buddhism seems like the only means to an interesting end.

Or what? What else? Am I grasping? Am I syncretizing? I can’t bare to be a syncretist. And I can’t bare to be a purist, a singularity. And I can’t bare to have to prove myself and to some culture that doesn’t even really exist that: no homosexuals do not fuck eachother in the ass because they are evil sinners and are acting against nature while every hetero-fascist jerks off ten times a day even after getting a most “unnatural” handjob from their girlfriend. But apparently all the righteous are practicing coitus interuptus now a days anyway Mantak Chia via the Tao, so you know, there’s a loop hole there.

The truth is, I can’t have these discussions about “freedom of speech” and “women’s roles” (”women’s roles”? Are you f-ing kidding me!?) with people who have a book—a book that contains some of the most beautifully liberating translogical polylinguistic open-ended unpuncuated verse I have yet to come across and yet the biggest concern is “people’s place in society.” And if you’re listening out there Laury, I hold the “tradition” itself accountable. While all currents are actually composed of other multiple currents within, the sonic dominance, the dominant sound, the loudest current manifests at the beckon of the populous. It is maintained by the populous. AKA: the people (another false identity if I ever heard one, but I use it so I’m a hypocrite) determine the dominant paradigm. While not existing in a vacuum and flanked by military atrocities on all sides, a current can not be expected to exist in a pure non-influenced state, where blame can be place squarely on a single person. However, it still stinks.

And while the “other option” (in the circles I run in) is often some vague concept of the “heresy” that more often than not resembles the very consumer culture it so arrogantly proclaims to detest, I am stuck between fascism and fake-ism.

But why can’t I join the discussion regarding gender issues and freedom of expression Islamically?

Simple. Any tradition of debate that has as its base a text and a list of supposed sayings and actions by the vehicle for that text is bound to an access-based heirarchy and a skewed power dynamic. That is, the person that has read more wins. Why? Because the tradition has decided that all thought-action needs to be placed against the thought-action of the text. He (and usually “he”) who has access to the text wins. He who “knows the language” wins. He who has the opportunity and the money to study the text wins. He who doesn’t have enough money and winds up in some madrasa wins. He who carries the books wins. As such the playing field remains terribly uneven. And why? Because the tradition has developed in such a way as to privelage literacy and scholarly access over innovation. And unchecked innovation of thought and the overthrowing of any personal thought on any given day for whatever reason is wonderous.

Maybe.

Or do I just want a club to join like everyone else?

No. In order to chant down Babylon, the Babylonian impulse to control another human being, a person (me for example) needs a form that is personal, organic, dare I say in English?, challenging, deviant in goodness when store-bought deviance becomes passe, and relatively peaceful. The question of women’s so-called role is left up first and foremost to women and all forms of polysexuality are not only “tolerated” but are understood to be mere continuations of the line on which so-called heterosexuality hangs from.

And yet everything will exist in a blissful and perpetual state of “Sometimes.” For sometimes is better than never and never is worse than always, which is worse than sometimes.

As Shunryu Suzuki Roshi said: “Zen is just two words: Not Always So.”

I’ll take that over Divine Punishment any day.

Seen.

At least for today.

Whenever I post what feels like a “rant” I feel all dirty. They’re chock-full o’ contractions and jargon and calloquialisms and mispellings that I just feel so filthy and unrefined. I want to be a good refined boy. So, please excuse me. Lately I’ve been posting a number of these “rants.” It may be childish and base, lacking any references and secondary source material, but this is a natural outgrowth of the changing of seasons—especially the changing from Winter to Spring. When Spring erupts, I tend to get anxious around institution(s). As such, I start ranting about it/them. It will pass and positivity will once again reign! In the mean-time, let’s get a little salty. Besides it’s sunny and 65 degrees outside and salty sailors make great beach blanket buddies.

“I’m on a mission that some say is impossible.
But when I swing my swords, them all choppable.”
—GZA (eds. paraphrasiatic insanity)

Ok. The other day I had the misfortune of hearing what can only be described as the most unfortunate interview “about Islam” I have ever heard.

Hey guy representing Islam on the radio!!! You can’t call children who do not know their father “bastard children.” Are you f-ing nuts?!

Hey guy representing Islam on the radio!!! If the female interviewer asks if Islam “encourages” men to beat their wives, you say NO! You do not go off on some tangent about the “divorce rate” in “the West.” That is disturbing.

Previous to 9/11 Muslims had the privelage of slipping under the radar of public interest. They “dressed funny,” had quasi Abe Lincoln beards, and had really strange customs regarding women, but for the most part “they keep (kept) to themselves.” All of a sudden, BLAMO!!! Literally. Everyone wants to know what the hell is going on in this thing called Islam. People rush to explain. “Islam means peace.” “Islam is as American as the bikini.” “I (heart) Islam.” “Muslims against terrorism.”

And then came the interviews. “What do Muslims think about women?” “What does Islam say regarding the death penalty?” “Are Muslims good neighbors?” A sea of questions so demeaning in their delivery, the Muslims being interviewed can’t even see the fallacy in the questions themselves. Instead of answering with a question: What do Christians think of homosexuality? The thrust into-the-spotlight Muslim responds: “Uh… Islam forbids homosexuality.” “Uh… Islam gives women rights.” “Uh… an eye for an eye, but forgiveness is best.” “Uh… Muslims are great neighbors.” “Uh… there’s a natural order to things.” “Uh… Islam says everyone has their place.”

In being interviewed, the buzz-word is “humility.” Learn it. Live it. Love it. Because the problem thus far is that many people just don’t seem to have it.

Here are a few guidelines I am proposing when being interviewed about Islam:

1. Representation
You are a representative of an enormous tradition with an equally daunting lineage. Act like it. That means that you represent a spectrum the edges of which are equally marked by naked-hairless-genital-pierced-antinomians and crispy-cleaned-well-kempt-grave-of-the-mother-of-the-prophet-digging-up-legalist-fascists. Somewhere in there lies you and billions of other well-intensioned Muslims. Take your blinders off and de-center your perspective if only a little. At least give it the heroic try!

2. Humility
Face it. What you think Islam is about is really just your opinion. Absolutely every aspect of your belief and practice (praxis) is up for debate. In many cases, these aspects of your deen are being debated within walking distance from where you currently stand. Maybe not by you, but definitely by others who also exist in a world, the experience of which, is determined by their own equal and different perceptions. Saying: “Well they’re not really Muslims” is lazy and makes you sound like a six-year old. Cute an’ all, but ultimately just cute an’ all. Nothing really doin’ there.

3. The Issues
Newsflash! You can’t air out your dirty laundry inside your house. That defeats the whole purpose silly! So get crackin’ and let those undies swing to the cool breeze of Spring cause you’re startin’ ta stank. This is just to say: STOP TRYING TO PRESENT US AS ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY WITH A FEW BAD APPLES!!! It’s creepy! I have a few girlfriends who just can’t stand the hair on their arms. Everything gets zapped. I keep telling them: You know what’s weirder than a girl covered in hair? A girl with no hair at all! Same goes for Islam kiddies. You know what’s weirder than a path teeming with dissent? A path wthout any dissent at all. It’s a farse and no one can relate to it. In fact, trying to present Islam as “one thing” just alienates it even more from people who need to find some relevance in it. Don’t you see?! Nothing is one thing! This isn’t some grad-school postmodern banter. It’s just a nice quality of this little happily de-centralized life we’re so bent on disrupting. You’re all into “being American” now and integration, right? Well, multiplicity is as American as my CD collection. (What’s so clever about that is that my CD collection is filled with music from all over the world. Viva la Melting Pot! Or at least The Mosaic!)

And yes. We are all Right-Wing affiliated spies attempting to infiltrate and disrupt Islam in America. That’s why I (sometimes) disturb my sex dreams involving my wife and her friends by getting up at 4am to throw freezing cold water on my face and feet. Really I’m worshipping the devil! (putting finger horns over my head and shaking my tongue)

And with regards to the divorce rate in this country. F- you. My parents are divorced. Thank God!

4. Language
When I get the opportunity to travel I make a point of learning the language. At least I give it a shot. The most important part of this process is learning what not to say. In Mexico I’m not necessarily going to go around calling women chicas unless I have a complete and total command of the social environment and a familiarity with the women I’m talking with. I don’t, so I stay clear. Because you never know unless you know, and since you don’t know I suggest you start gettin’ ta know. So, mister interviewee Muslim man. We don’t say “bastard child” around here. I know you teach at a university and are therefor slightly sheltered from society, but let’s make the effort. And yes, negro, colored, and blacks (as in the group) are all no-no’s for a reason. Take five seconds and learn these words: slavery and segregation. I know you’re really proud of the “color-blindness” of Islam, but you’ve just got to do more with it. Ya can’t just say it. You’ve got to know it. Oh yeah, and the concept of color-blindness can also be construed as racist, so you know, deal with it.

Now I know, I know. Give them a break. They’re doing their best. Well if that’s the best they can do than I have a suggestion. Any time you hear that there is going to be an interview with some “expert” regarding Islam, take a minute or two to find out the number of the show and get those dialing fingers ready. If you get even a scent of ridiculousness, start dialing and show this world that Islam will not be contained. Islam will not be the dissertations of the professional student. Islam will not equal sexism. Rather, Islam will be like the stars in the sky: multiple. This submission is submission because Malcolm was, Marcus was, Noble Drew Ali was, Master Fard was, Honorable Elijah Muhammad was, 13X was, Malachai was, The Grand Matriarch Laury is, Hedonist is, Ginan is, Willow is, Third Resurrection is, MK is and every other contester who has the humor to challenge the experts is. Peace.

This past weekend I attended the Green Hermeticism conference/workshop lead by Peter Lamborn Wilson, Christopher Bamford, and Kevin Townley, which was hosted by the Suluk Academy under the umbrella of the Sufi Order International (SOI) whose lineage is benchmarked by Indian-Muslim mystic Hazrati Inayat Khan (s). Blessings to all the people I met and hung out with, including PLW, CB, and KT. Honorable mentions going to Mike “Universal Dancer” Muhammad & Patrick “Jungle Jim” Scanlon, Siddiqi “NJ-ex-Goth Reppin’” Heather, Aliyah “Pass the Cream-Puffs” Bookstore, Eduardo “Lamb Cake Skin Something Rasta Supreme” Tauhid, DJ Gil of the Gnostic Christians, Nur (I kept forgetting your name, sorry) Habib, Surah “Mystic-Magazine-Inquisitor” Susan, Khalid “Shuttle Master” Triebe, the girl who did Isha prayers with me who I unfortunately forgot her name, the girl who we did “Exquisite Corpses” with who I also forgot your name, Rent Wars lady, “I commune with plants” woman, first night roommate Bill who I left for secret sleeping quarters, the chefs!, the kid with questions regarding chess and when we’ll be back, and anyone else who I am forgetting names and otherwise. It was a blast and I’ll be back in May.

The title of this piece contains all the information you may need. However, let’s just add to that from memory: New Lebanon. Caanan. The one-dollar bill. The Articles of Confederation, the Iriquois Confederation, and The US Consitution. “I stayed in that abandoned cabin all summer.” Old Shaker Community. “I want to see tanks in the streets!” Hermes trickster, contradiction, designator of beginning and end whose life begins as a pile of stones. Symbols represent themselves and the cryptic language of the alchemist is completely contextual. A snake is only a snake to some. Magic exists in the distance between image and word. There is a friction. “When East meets West, sparks will fly.” —Chogyam Trungpa. Muhammad (s) the Shaman (Thee Shaman). Islam the maintainer of alchemical insights into the non-distance between human and cosmos. The Earth is the religion of the Gods. The human cremates into crystals. Geometric de-composition. Liberation Hermeneutics. The “Universal Dances of Peace” as a means to humiliate oneself and destroy any identification with what one believes is “do-able.” An engagement with the “un-cool.” Real ego work. For some of us, this is their purpose. For others they are Divine. And for others still, it’s merely a hoot.

You must respect the individual. I come to this in the most uncomfortable ways. While “groups” may seem vacant, they are merely structures propped by the Babylon we allow ourselves to maintain. “There are no things only beings.”—Christopher Bamford. One mustn’t judge, only take note of something’s relevance to one’s own life. While I may scoff at the “whole,” it’s necessary to investigate the part. The whole, the existence of which has yet to be proven. Is it a lie?. The parts, the microcosm, is authentic. The representation of this micro as macro is farsical, farsic. The group is the red-herring. Are we leaving the age of the “club” the “organization” the “posse” and entering the world of individual relations? Can we make this the norm? While groups will still exist, the plains will be a composit of dis-unified unification. Multiples interacting and separating. Compost. The world becomes the greatest heap where all transforms into the rich soils serving only to fertilize life—in total support of growth and investigation. The elderly woman who sings so sweetly, how can I lazily identify you with the fallacy of representation. You are not the simulacrum. My apologies.

What are we waiting for? Are we waiting for some group, some club, some band of merry-makers? Are we waiting for a definition? How many friends do we need? Waiting for some group we feel comfortable identifying ourselves with is lost time. It is a black hole where light no longer even tries to enter, for it has been too long since lights’ relatives have emerged from within. If you don’t hear back from me in fifteen minutes…The organization will never come. Not for those who want it most. On emergence—divergence. Versions, representations of their existence will arise and replicate a manner most un-fun. We want fun! An Islam that bases itself on it’s own limited understanding of “group” is a death vessel. We want more and Islam is the provider. Islam, a misunderstood Christian heresy. Islam, where one meal equals two. A joyful contradiction. Islam, the I: Salaam (Willow). Islam, the surrendering of one’s supply for the use of the whole. Islam, the offering of prayer times. Islam, the offering of guides. It comes as no surprise that Islam offers much more than we want to believe. Opening your home to a stranger is almost impossible to perceive. Today, being humble enough to NOT oppress others is considered innovation, bida. And yet, we focus our binoculars lest we loose sight of the anti-human blending into innumerable copies of itself. That cyborgian reptile of mimicry. The corrupted parrot whose internal rot worships the act and actor forgetting the inconceivable uncontainable. Be alert friends. And be aware. The only innovation is the forked tongue. A human is only a human to some.

I like being naked. I’m not a “nudist,” but I like being dress-less. I like walking around naked. I have been naked in public, and I have seen people naked in public. I have seen my wife’s friends naked, and they have seen me naked. One saw me naked last night. That was an accident. But my naked body isn’t counting. When it’s hot I like to get as close to naked as socially acceptable, and then a little extra for good measure. When I was in Brazil I was almost always near-naked. The people around me were near-naked. Modesty is relative and is a relative. It visits and is visit-able and changes with age. There are places in the world where being naked or near-to-be simply is. In South Africa I am always near-naked. My brain takes skin as a delicious given. The Qur’an asks women to cover their privates and I honestly see a bikini. (See that girl on the TV dressed in a bikini, she doesn’t think so but she’s dressed for the H-bomb).* No worries. I’ll wear one too if you like. The garment of conscientiousness is best. Great! Watch in amazement as my body’s buddies swing in the cool breeze from every willow tree within walking nude distance!

Consider a creek. It’s hot. Here is me on its bank. Do you know what I’m wearing? That’s right. Do you know what they are wearing? You guessed it. And guess what? They’re not kin, though they are family. Their naked backs are not blood, though they contain blood. We are smiling by the creek’s edge and sometimes we touch.

“Muslim clothing?” What the hell is that? Is it “modest?” I’ve got a few jalabiyas. I wear them all the time. My wife thinks they’re sexy. So much for “modest attire.” I think only seeing a woman’s eyes sans frightened-male-manifest-fascism is kind of sexy. Ooops. The institutionally frozen concept of modesty backfired again. But hey, you know what’s NOT inherently sexy. The naked body. You know what doesn’t make me want to go to town on myself? Naked bodies squatting to take a pee-pee. You know what else? A nude campfire. You know what DOES make me hotter than a caste-iron rhino? A little flesh here. A little flesh there. You know what doesn’t make me run laps in my pants? A bunch of naked people gathering firewood. Not sexy. Empowering? Yes. Debaucherous? Puh-leeze!

I want us to get over the addiction to sex so we can get back to having really fun, really egalitarian sex. Sex is great. It is wonderful. Did you find that chapter in the Qur’an that tells you it’s OK to like sex? Did it say something about only with your wife? Ladies? I agree. All women should have wives! My wife has wives. It’s a pleasure. She’s Jewish so it’s OK. She’s “of the book.”

In Boulder, CO women are allowed to walk around topless. This does not happen. You’re average frat-boy is disgruntled about this. He wants women to “take off there tops.” I don’t. I don’t want women to do anything. I don’t want anyone to do anything. Except tHat guY. I want him to stop being “righteous.” (Look at the world through your polarized glasses).* I want him to stop talking about working within the “limits” of Islam. I want people to stop talking about having fun within the limits of Islam. I don’t like halal meat. Right after the lamb got out of its shit-infested disease tank of a cell that it bleated home it was prayed to and had its neck slit. This reminds me of war. This does not interest me. I don’t like violence. I don’t like making people uncomfortable. I don’t think nudity should be used to make people uncomfortable. I’m rather traditional in that way.

Allah likes not the aggressors.

I like playing in the dirt. I like squatting on the ground in a backyard. I like the grass and I like when there’s dirt in-between the grass. I like that I have been an atheist since day one. I like that I might as well still be an atheist, because I can’t accept the limited conceptualization of Allah that is conventional “wisdom.” It’s the only thing that allows Allah to be. I like to think that Allah keeps me humble this way, because humility is a B-line to servitude. I like knowing that Allah is in the dirt and not contained in the dirt. I like that the dirt can be “of” Allah and Allah not of it. I like that Allah left the Qur’an open. I like that it was a recitation. I like that when two people came to Muhammad (p) and wanted to know which of them had the correct wording of the Qur’an Muhammad said they were both correct, and to not cause dissention between the community. I like that Muhammad (p) could appreciate unity in diversity. I like that Muhammad (p) forgot portions of the recitation and remembered them only when another person was reciting them in the masjid. I like that we pause to (p) for Muhammad. I don’t like when people make others feel like they have to. I wonder why Muhammad (p) was so insistent on people not showing others their “private parts.” I like that Muhammad (p) is reported to have peed “like a woman.”

I like that when the concepts of women and men begin to quiver in the moonlight, we exchange these roles for other, more suitable energetic costumes, and the dowry of a consenting glance is all that is needed. And when the INSTITUTION of marriage becomes a fascistic tribalism we redefine marriage and thus it redefines us. The play of partners expands and children learn from the many-ready and the many-willing. And many hills massive is a call for hide-and-seek. The spectacle a mere play-thing.

The Situationists had a way of subverting the spectacle: Take it seriously. If Coke tells you it’s the “best,” make them prove it. If Cingular tells you that you must have their latest “nights and weekends” plan, confront them and ask them why and how can they be so sure. (Please send me evenings and weekends).* Take the spectacle literally. Call it out. Force it to prove itself. Apply pressure liberally. Prove to me that marriage is only between a man and a woman. Prove to me that advertisements have the right to speak to me in the way they do and that they are somehow outside the due respect I expect from humans. Prove to me that I should respect a society that allows people made of circuitry to yell at me: CALL NOW! START TODAY! DON’T WAIT ANOTHER MINUTE! As if I would let a non-cyborg speak to me with such condescension.

(Love’ll get you like a case of anthrax and that’s something I don’t want to catch)*

The verbalization of Allah, manifest Truth Itself manifest, forbid us from forbidding that which is not forbidden. The zealot shaking with unsatisfaction. The zealot with its unsatiated appetite. The zealot with mischief fangs and pesky clam hands.

A naked body at ease with dirt blends accordingly in the full moonlit sky. It looks to a string held before its eyes for fajr—the sighting of the new moon a mere glance towards the fast. The “people of the cloth” has a new meaning. They argue about beginnings and ends, while the recently bathed quietly squint as the dawn mist turns to air once again.

Once we were fish.

*(parentheses)=Gang of Four

This is a VERY cleaned up version of the original piece. I asked Allah to show me the path of restraint and was graced with a little repose. If you listen closely, the original piece still speaks. I alone am in possession of the original.

I have never felt more a Muslim capital frickin’ “M” than I do today.

This is a bounce off a post over at Warped Galaxies regarding Hamza Yusuf’s brilliant idea to ban “insults.”

“We call upon the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) as well as Muslim countries and governments and the international community to press the United Nations to issue a declaration criminalizing any insult to Muhammad, Jesus or Moses or to any other revered prophetic figure.” (entire PDF statement here)

I hope Hamza Yusuf doesn’t fall under the category of “revered prophetic figure,” because today on March 2, 2006 at 9:57am he has lost my trust.

With all due respect to your “traditional scholarship” Hamza Yusuf, it seems you are so stuck in “the tradition,” as YOU see it, that you have forgotten that you will NEVER be able to pin down what is insulting. This is not a 9th grade debate class and I should not have to reiterate what you should already know! This is BASIC. How do you possibly propose to define this term? And who do you think should do so? And more importantly, if YOU are going to define this term for the rest of us, which you are not going to do, how are you going to do so in such a way as to not lead the entire world down a vertical slope of legalized “my-feelings-are-hurt-and-I’m-insulted-ism.” Your proposed criminalization is the biggest can of worms I have ever had the dis-pleasure of encountering. Saying “I know it when I see it” as the Supreme Court Chief Justice so tellingly stated in reference to “pornography” is absolutely unacceptable. Curbing freedom of speech in ANY way is an insatiable act. We are working to curb LESS not MORE silly.

You the reader will probably hear double-speak disguised as a definition of “insult” along the lines of any speech that intentionally slanders or defames an accepted prophetic figure in history.

DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE!!!

It doesn’t matter how broad you make this claim. I don’t care if you include Santa Clause in this list of prophetic figures, it stinks and it should be dealt with as a stinky stinker—rubber gloves, clothes-pins for your nose, and all! Since I know as you know that most Jews are not going to be upset by a caricature of Moses. And modern history has shown that Christians are willing to put up with a great deal of Christ defamation. Not to mention, Buddhists could care less what you do to an image of the Buddha, since most have realized that a picture of the Buddha IS NOT the Buddha! Your vain attempt at being “universal” is easily seen for what it really is: an attempt to criminalize people for insulting The Prophet(saw).

Do we need to discuss AGAIN how every single word in every single language contains a multiplicity of meanings and references. BLASPHEMY is probably one of the best examples of this. But leave it to the scholars, the very category of which gives me the willies, to forget(?), try OMIT, this everyday experience of language. You WILL NOT contain the amorphous that is experience. You WILL NOT contain the work-in-process that is the human engagement of world and image, insult and pleasantry, border and border-crossing, limit and limitlessness.

This reductionism disguised as petty nice-ism from Hamza Yusuf is the exact reason why I write the way I do and discuss the things I discuss. Language and it’s God-given discursiveness. It’s uncontainability. I discuss it and have devoted my life to it, because people like him are in positions of relative power and attempt to funnel their understandings of language into the public sphere as if it is a concrete understanding. It is not. Attempting to define what is “insulting” is an absolutely PERFECT example of this linguistic-fascism. I mean, you just don’t get handed an example from a respected public figure like that every day!

Hamza Yusuf. You want to talk the timing of the cartoons? Fine. You want to talk implications? Fine. You want to talk “Islamophobia?” Fine. You want to talk anti-Semitism? Fine. You want to talk hurt feelings? Fine. You want to talk about being insulted? Fine. You want to talk about ethics and morals? Fine. You want to talk about decency? Fine. You want to talk about what would the Prophet(saw) do? Fine. You want to TALK about criminalizing insults? Fine. You want to IMPLIMENT a law criminalizing insults? You best check yourself, because it’ll be cold day in frickin’ hell before I allow THAT to take affect.

I accept that in the future we Muslims who stand behind the radical implications of “Allah knows better,” “No compulsion in religion,” and all diversity-affirming statements of the One True Source, may one day be forced to turn Imam Zaid Shakir’s statement to “go it alone” against the Hamza Yusufs of the world and set ourselves up in direct and indirect opposition to legalism in all its forms.

I don’t look forward to this day, but I will accept it if/when it comes.

I ask you my traditionally deviant comrades: do YOU think we should outlaw insults?

The ball sits motionless in their court.

Hamza Yusuf, you have shown your true colors with this statement of yours and your fellow signatories.

We the freely chosen submitters to the will of Allah have respectfully NOT chosen you as our leader.

We have chosen ourselves and concede all judgments to the One. We stand for peace and the free willingness of creation to express their paths in any way they see fit so long as it does not inhibit others to freely express. In many ways I feel that the cartooning of the Prophet(saw) has only strengthened my faith, whereas your call for censorship has riddled me with doubt. Is this the Islam I have to look up to?

I urge you to stay out of THE WORLD’S (this includes you!) semio-anarchic-political right to say or draw whatever THE WORLD wants. You’re on OUR turf now—COMMUNITY: WORLD. The COMMUNITY:WORLD extends far beyond your personal idea of insult. If your ship gets too close again, know that you’ve been warned. We are armed with a vicious array of CRAYONS, and we read, think, and draw just as good as you, if not gooder. We believe in peace, but if pushed will use our crayons by any means necessary.

I am a MUSLIM and I fight for the right for another person to insult me.

I am a MUSLIM and I trust you not.

Malcolm X, like the Prophet Muhammad (saw), was a process. He was continually unfolding. He was continually refining his position—changing his position if necessary. And he made a statement in his “Ballot or the Bullet” speech that has always stuck with me:

If integration is for Black freedom, than it is a worthy cause.

Now I can appreciate both sides of the integration -vs- seperation discussion that was so much on the surface in Malcolm’s time. But even for Malcolm, when seperation was still on his mind, it’s wasn’t about sticking to a sinking ship just because it’s “yours” (this is not to say seperation was a sinking ship). It’s about finding what works and sticking to it as long as it does in fact work. And when it doesn’t, either fix it or move on. And I believe this goes as deep as you can handle.

This reminds me of something the Dalai Lama said that I actually paid attention to (sorry I just don’t follow him much): I won’t believe in reincarnation when something more suitable and proven comes along.

Open. Possible. Compassionate.

Thank you El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.

For the basics you can go here or especially here.