Asalaamu alaykum all
A few weeks ago, I attended a performance of the Whirling Dervishes from Konya, Turkey at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester. It was a most beautiful evening, entitled ‘Rumi: Whispers of Love’. It started off with a stunning presentation of the Whirling Dervishes then a dervish playing on a reed flute. This was followed by an inspiring and moving speech by Dr Ian Williams, a convert to Islam, about the search for the vision of God and relating this to world problems today. After a performance by a Sufi music group, the main order of the day that was the ‘Sema’ (Whirling Ritual), which lasted for about 45 minutes, was carried out by a group of dervishes who travelled from Turkey for this night.
After the performance, I was talking to a fellow Muslim who was not too keen about this performance, possibly thinking that the rituals involved were innovating, misguided , deviant and out of the fold of Islam. He enquired of me as to whether I had ever attended these performances before and I replied that this was my first, but that I had really enjoyed it. He then said to me, “So, you’ve converted now have you?”
Now, whether he meant that I have converted out of Islam or something more light-hearted, only the knower of Man’s thoughts, God, knows. However, it got me thinking about things and some people and as a result I have made the following declarations that I would like to share with all of you:
Any religion such as the one described above is a blemish on the human condition and is an utter failure and instead of taking a person from the darkness into the light would take a person from the light into the darkness. Referring back to the Subject of this email, if the above religion is called Islam, then I don’t want anything to do with it nor would I want to be a follower of it. Such a religion is a cold, dark, dead, soulless, lifeless, inhuman and unattractive cult.
With the documented and rampant draconian and almost totalitarian attitudes, words and actions of some Muslims today who are hijacking Islam with their simple but deceptive slogans, it is now the job of every Muslim to speak up with every other Muslim and in one voice say:
We categorically reject and outright condemn this bastardised version of Islam, a version of Islam that leads to cold, dead hearts that would have no qualms in indiscriminately terrorising, mutilating and murdering innocent civilians, men, women, children, the elderly, the disabled and infirm, one and all, a version of Islam that has NOTHING to do with the Prophet whom it claims to follow.
It is equally the duty of every responsible non-Muslim who wants to know about the Islam of the Prophet Mohammed to learn from the people who actually practice it and not the people who pretend to.
However, those of you who know what Islam is REALLY about know that this type of religion is as antithetical to Islam as the Antichrist is to Christ. Islam, a religion that has produced the greatest poet in human history, who said: Let nothing be narrated from me but that I am a servant of the Koran and the dust under the feet of Prophet Mohammed, and a religion that has produced the most beautiful spiritual and mystical expressions of thought through poetry, music and art. The hearts and tears of Westerners, Muslims and non-Muslims alike yearn for the voice of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the Muslim musician from Pakistan. Along with this the world-admired architecture of the Muslim world from the Blue Mosque of Istanbul and the Taj Mahal to the Dome of the Rock and Bad Shahi Mosque in Lahore are but a few examples of the reality and impact of Islam in history on the human heart, mind and soul.
So, with these final words I present to you Islam, the human religion, the religion of love, my religion and the religion of my Prophet, Mohammed, the Messenger of God.
Tauseef