Muslim Religion (Islam)
Implores You to
Accept Your Original Self

My curiosity about the Muslim religion, Islam, as a way of healing myself and my community has expanded over many years, even as the contradictions of the organized religion of Islam have become increasingly clear. This awareness of contradictions is not peculiar to Islam or to any religion--it is a failing of all of these organizations. They have weaknesses and it takes a great deal of work to harmonize the systems operating within them. They purport to be a "body" and if they did operate efficiently as our bodies do, all would be well. Scroll all the way down on this page to learn about exciting research in the Muslim world concerning healing and Islam.

In the biographical article I related about my conversion, from professing Christianity to embracing Islam. This article will share how my conversion was really a REversion, a going back to what I was in the beginning. If you are non-Muslim, I hope by the time you are finished reading this you will accept the legitimacy of Islam. In English, Islam can be translated from the Arabic into: The Peace of, Surrender to or Submission of the Will to God.

Healing one’s spirit is the order of the day; all other healing stems from or revolves around that. After 35 years in this path of Peace, I now have a broader agenda for spiritual healing among people. This supercedes inviting people to organized Islam, and is the real “invitation to the faith” in my opinion. I am a submitter, which in Arabic is "muslim," and I recognize submitters permeating every religious path. It is the Prophet Abraham, father of the Muslim religion and paths (and Judeo-Christian ones), who named followers of God "submitters" (muslim), and the millat-ul Ibraham, is his religion or way of life (deen). Prophet Muhammad followed practices established by Abraham. Judaism and Christianity both spring from this origin. Submitter is a title available to every human being and is not owned by Muslims, Moslems,* or the ummah (general global community of followers) of Islam. Surrenderer is more clumsy, albeit completely accurate. (Too bad the word "submission" may be associated by some with whips and chains. God is in control.)

In conversation, if asked, I say I am either a submitter or muslim, and with avowed Christians, if we “go there,” I assure them of my love for Christ. Most people think it odd, don’t care, and didn’t know about Islam as an Abrahamic religion. Yet it is love as an active expression in social relations that marked the earliest form of Christianity. The Dead Sea Scrolls describe this; the word in Greek is agape.

Love for Muhammad, Christ, Moses, or Abraham is an emotional outcome of journeying on a spiritual “career” path or “vision quest.” All the prophets, messengers and warners told their people very specific things about life and how they must live it for success. Our work is to love the human being as much as we love the spiritual guidance brought by these people. Focus on the message, not the messenger. So far, this perspective works for my family and the international community of Submitters. I believe that every walk of life and every faith in the heart has their version of loving one another enough to be merciful and forgiving with each other.

QUR’AN

The deepest wisdom in Islam comes from The Reading or The Recital, Al-Qur’an, which is often spelled Koran and which I shorten to Quran for the sake of brevity. This scripture is the sacred book of all Muslims. It has 114 surahs or chapters that are very unlike the Western Bible. The whole of it was inspired in one person, the Prophet Muhammad Al-Amin, and released over a period of 23 years. One Internet site compares several translations of the Quran, verse by verse, all at once. The link will be inserted as soon as I confirm it.

In several surahs, the book calls itself “a healing and a mercy.” The following is an example:

10:57 O people, enlightenment has come to you herein from your Lord, and healing for anything that troubles your hearts, and guidance, and mercy for the believers.

10:58 Say, With GOD’s grace and with his mercy they shall rejoice.” This is far better than any wealth they can accumulate.So in my spiritual mind what I am doing by giving you this information is rejoicing with God's mercy.

FIVE PILLARS

The building blocks of organized Islam are known as The Five Pillars. They are the basis of what Muslims know of their religion, whether they practice each fully or not. Just as in Judaism or Christianity, people are born into the religion and call themselves Muslim who may not fulfill the tenets of the religion, or even confess or confirm them. Confession and confirmation—these Christian ways of aligning oneself with Catholicism or Protestantism do not really exist in Islam. Neither does baptism, per se, except for the washing of the extremities that has to occur before the salah (pl. salat) prayers.

People become Muslims when they make the declaration of faith, or “take” their Shahadah, usually witnessed by an imam or other Muslims with their right hand on a Quran. The Islamic world bears witness to Prophet Muhammad’s role in Islam through this shahadah: “I bear witness that there is no god but GOD, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of GOD.” These are the pillars of Islamic faith and practice; I have provided the Quranic shahadah, which scholars agree is the essence of the witnessing:

1. SHAHADAH, bearing witness and recognizing One God Alone, through the Declaration of Faith, There is no god (small g) worthy of worship/service except The One God. “laa ilaha ila Allah.” Manifests as taqwa, God consciousness, or tauheed, the principle of the unity of God.

2. SALAH, performance of ritual, obligatory prayer five times a day

3. ZAKAH, performance of obligatory charitable giving

4. RAMADAAN, fasting during the month from dawn to after sundown

5. HAJJ, making the pilgrimage to Mecca, at least once in one’s lifetime

HADITH

The Muslim religion has thousands that seek to interpret the original holy scripture and the life of the man who delivered it. There may be thousands or millions more writings that are expressions of love and wisdom Muslim thinkers have gained from the Quran and the hadith. The vast majority of Muslims accept the Quran and hadith as inviolable scriptures, even while officially recognizing that some hadith translations are not honorable. The word hadith means narration, history or story. Critical Islamic history is contained in the hadith, and Islamic jurisprudence, or fiqh, has its origins in the earliest decisions of the earliest rulers of Islam as it spread through Arabia, Asia, Southern Europe and Northern Africa.

For its part, the Qur’an asks, which hadith, besides this, do you believe in/uphold?” (7:185, 45:6) Calling itself the “best” hadith (39:23), “GOD cites the example of a man who deals with disputing partners, compared to a man who deals with only one consistent source. Are they the same? Praise be to GOD; most of them do not know. (39:29) Further:

When God alone is mentioned, the hearts of those who do disbelieve in the Hereafter shrink with aversion, but when others are mentioned with Him, they become satisfied.” (39:45)

They are the ones who examine all words, then follow the best. These are the ones whom GOD has guided; these are the ones who possess intelligence. (39:18)

SPIRITUAL WARRIOR'S PERSPECTIVE

My book, The Spiritual Warrior's Guide to a Proven Islam (2001, Anansi Clear Press), takes a loving and metaphysical view of the religious, cultural and spiritual aspects of Islam. It was written over many years of research and investigation into and participation in practices within the African American ummah, and in immigrant communities. I am not an anthropologist, however, and do not take the objective point of view.

This book is instead my commitment to open up Islam to greater numbers of people, to introduce the Glorious Quran as the definitive testimony on all religions, and to liberate the spiritual wisdom as the core of Islamic religious practice from its not coincidentally veiled state of being.

He bestows wisdom upon whomever He chooses, and whoever attains wisdom, has attained a great bounty. Only those who possess intelligence will take heed. 2:269

Much of the veiled state of Islam ended with the fall of the World Trade Towers. No matter who master-minded it, vengeance against Islam was the first response. We are now in the second response, wherein the Creator of heavens and earth has decided a man with an African Muslim father should be leader of the U.S.

Since President Obama’s father was Muslim, does this mean that Islam is intent on taking over the world? Not at all. Muslim world leaders certainly couldn’t have established Obama in the presidency the way it happened. The Christian unwise, like the Muslim unwise, think everything going on in the world is an affront to them; they are attached to the dunya (world) and believe, egocentrically, that it’s “all about me.”

This behavior imitates that of the chief rebellious one, or the first immaturely contentious and ignorant one, as described in the Quran. I cannot abbreviate this story and here it is in full:

We created you, then We shaped you,
then We said to the angels, “Fall prostrate before Adam”
They fell prostrate, except Iblis (Satan);
he was not with the prostrators.

He said, “What prevented you from
prostrating when I ordered you?”
He said, “I am better than he;
You created me from fire,
and created him from mud.”

He said, “Therefore, you must go down,
for you are not to be arrogant here.
Get out; you are debased.”

He said, “Grant me respite,
until the Day of Resurrection.”
He said, “You are granted a respite.”

He said, “Since You have willed
that I go astray, I will skulk for them
on Your straight path.

“I will come to them from before them,
and from behind them, and from their right,
and from their left, and You will find that
most of them are unappreciative.”

He said, “Get out therefore, despised and defeated.
Those among them who follow you,
I will fill Hell with you all.

“As for you, Adam, dwell with your wife in Paradise,
and eat therefrom as you please, but do not approach
this one tree, lest you fall in sin.”

The devil whispered to them, in order
to reveal their bodies, which were invisible to them.
He said, “You Lord did not forbid ou from this tree,
except to prevent you from becoming angels,
and from attaining eternal existence.”

He swore to them, “I am giving you good advice.”

He thus duped them with lies.
As soon as they tasted the tree,
their bodies became visible to them,
and they tried to cover themselves with the leaves of Paradise.
Their Lord called upon them:
“Did I not enjoin you from that tree,
and warn you that the devil is your most ardent enemy?”

They said, “Our Lord, we have wronged our souls,
and unless You forgive us and have mercy on us,
we will be losers.”

He said, “Go down as enemies of one another.
On earth shall be your habitation and provision for awhile.”

He said, “On it you will live,
on it you will die, and from it
you will be brought out.”

O children of Adam, we have provided you
with garments to cover your bodies,
as well as for luxury. But the best garment
is the garment of righteousness.
These are some of GOD’s signs, that they may take heed.
--7:11-26

The spiritual warrior’s perspective is a victorious one inspiring certainty in regards to the devil, satan, shaytan, Iblis, Beezlebub, Set, negativity, suffering, and other names by which this entity and its energy are known. It is the shadow, devil, unknown and powerfully suggestive energy, typically felt as uneasiness, bad “vibes” or vibrations, or being "spooked," from which healing is nigh, through many of the methods discussed here on The HealMobile by the grace of God.

As we see in the verses, the devil promoted his being made of fire (a racial-type concept) as better than the human's origin in clay. Every difference between peoples can be traced to this profound event (or allegory, if you prefer that understanding of it.)

There are many levels on which the simplest allegories in the Quran may be read. The Spiritual Warrior’s Guide to a Proven Islam talks about the surrender to God’s will as essential to the healing on the path of Peace. I will soon be making the Guide available without the word “Proven” in the title, because I realize it raises ire among non-Muslims and may repel the curious--certainly not the desired result. My intention is to invite inquiry and support exploration of muslim religion and spirituality and their healing potential. My understanding of the physics or scientific proof supporting One God Alone and service to this Oneness, is evident in the book.

Someone sent me an article about the research on the utterance of "Allah" (God) which demonstrated healing. Click here to read further. When I get more information about this study I will provide it in The HealMobile. Meanwhile, for a few more favorite quotes from the Quran, click here.