More on the East and West
Following on from the recent comments on the post ‘East vs West’ below, I thought it might be interesting to actually look at the similarities between the West and Islamic thought.
In fact, when one delves into this (however superficially), one immediately finds that the similarities are less correspondences than actual foundations. Some of these are widely known but other not. It is interesting to compile a list - not only for possible research and as a basis for discussion, but also as a reminder that many of the things we consider as uniquely Western actually have their roots in Islamic culture. In many regards, there is no such thing as the ‘Clash of Civilizations’ or even a conception of the ‘other’ in this regard because western society is in many respects founded on Islamic concepts. Consider the following facts which I throw open for discussion:
1. Alcohol, generally regarded as ‘Western’ was first distilled by the Sufi and alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan (d. 815). Jabir also was the first person to systematize chemistry and is regarded as the founder of Western alchemy. He gave his name to the english word ‘jibberish’ (ie Jabir-ish) as he was allegedly so difficult to understand.
2. As in the case of Jabir, many Arabic and Persian words have passed into English, some directly: Coffee is from Qahwa (the beverage was first utilised by Arab Sufis as an aid to concentration), traffic, cheque, tariff, magazine, tabby, filly, algebra, troubadour and admiral are also Arabic. The word ‘Orange’ is directly from the Persian na rang meaning ‘no sorrow’.
3. In literature too there are direct links. Shakepeare used many Sufi stories (see link below and also this Guardian article courtesy of reader Kingsley - thanks!) as did Dante, drawing largely on Arabian folk-tales. Chaucer’s ‘Pear Tree’ story is to be found in Rumi’s Mathnawi and the fable ‘Dick Whittington’ is Persian in origin. Later writers such as Goethe draw heavily on the Persian Hafiz.
4. The British King Offa (757 - 796) may have been a Muslim. There is a coin minted during his reign in the British Museum which has the shahada - There is no God but Allah - inscribed on it alongside his name.
5. The discipline of Comparative Religious Studies was founded by Ibn Hazm of Cordoba (d. 1064) who also wrote the first history of world religions. In other academic fields, the first critical historical survey was written by Ibn Khaldun (his muqaddima still an acknowledged Classic text), al-Razi (d. 925) is credited with inventing the classification ‘animal, vegetable, mineral), logarithms were developed by the Arab mathematician al-Khwarizm from Hindu sources (the name algorithm is a corruption of his own), Rumi mentions a form of evolutionary theory hundreds of years before Darwin and ibn Nafis discovered the circulation of the blood centuries before Harvey who is generally credited with this discovery.
6. The concept of the University is Islamic on origin. The world’s oldest University is al-Azhar in Cairo which dates from 970. Even the ‘mortar boards’ of graduates are Islamic and derive from the flat hats of the scholars there who would rest the Qur’an on the ‘mortar’ to symbolize the primacy of Scripture over the intellect. The tassel at the back of the ‘mortar board’ was for bookmarking the pages of the Qur’an.
In the 13th Century at Oxford, the great Franciscan scholar Roger Bacon taught Arab Illuminist philosophy and wore Arab clothes whilst lecturing (incidentally there are many connections between Sufism and Franciscan thought - particularly marked are the parallels between St Francis and the Sufi teacher Najmuddin Kubra).
Hospitals too derive from a similar source - perhaps specifically the Bimaristans (sick-houses) of the Seljuq period in Damascus. they were imported to Europe by the Crusaders. Vaccination also was first introduced into the West at this time form Turkish lands.
7. In Music, the Waltz is modeled on the movements of the ‘Whirling Dervishes’ (Mevlevis) and Ravel’s ‘Bolero’ is a Sufi piece of music. Similarly the typically English ‘Morris Dancing’ is in fact Moorish dancing and derives from Islamic Spain.
8. Saint George, patron Saint of England is in fact synonymous with Khidr the patron Saint of the Sufis and is not English at all but Syrian. Similarly, the Christian Saint Charlambos is in reality the Sufi teacher Haji Bektash as Saint Therapion is really the Sufi poet Turabi.
There are many more such foundations - particularly in the realm of science: the concept of zero, translations of Greek thought, astronomy and mathematics are perhaps the best known. All in all there is so much more that unites the Islamic world and the West than divides that it is incredible that these common areas are not more widely known.
September 10 2005 in Sufism/Islam | Read More | Comments [2]
Logo
Was asked about the blog masthead logo and whether it was mean to represent the Islamic crescent moon symbol. Actually it is adapted from a motif ubiquitous in Ottoman art, the chintamani - literally meaning ‘auspicious’ - which is usually depicted in threes. It is also sometimes called ‘the badge of Tamerlane’. Tamerlane was a despotic ruler who features sometimes in Mulla Nasrudin stories.
The name “Anulios” comes from George Gurdjieff’s magnum opus Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson or Third Series of writings “All and Everything”. In the first book it is the name for a fragment of the Earth which split off and became the moon and which thenceforth exerted an influence on human beings. Along with its sister fragment “Kimespai” it has the general meaning of ‘never allowing one to sleep in peace’.
I thought the chintamani also evoked the image of the earth and a smaller fragment quite nicely. And of course it does look like a crescent!
Here is a pic of the symbol in situ - on a silk kaftan made for Sultan Ibrahim (d. 1648) and now in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul.
September 10 2005 in Sufism/Islam | Read More | Comments [0]
East vs West
From New Scientist via Strange Attractor: it appears that East and West really do see things differently - literally.
While Americans focus on the central objects of photographs, Chinese individuals pay more attention to the image as a whole, according to psychologists at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, US.
“There is plenty of anecdotal evidence suggesting that Western and East Asian people have contrasting world-views,”? explains Richard Nisbett, who carried out the study. “Americans break things down analytically, focusing on putting objects into categories and working out what rules they should obey,” he says.
By contrast, East Asians have a more holistic philosophy, looking at objects in relation to the whole. “Figuratively, Americans see things in black and white, while East Asians see more shades of grey,” says Nisbett. “We wanted to devise an experiment to see if that translated to a literal difference in what they actually see.”
The researchers tracked the eye-movements of two groups of students while they looked at photographs. One group contained American-born graduates of European descent and the other was comprised of Chinese-born graduate students who came to the US after their undergraduate degrees.
Each picture showed a striking central image placed in a realistic background, such as a tiger in a jungle. They found that the American students spent longer looking at the central object, while the Chinese students’ eyes tended to dart around, taking in the context.
Nisbett and his colleagues believe that this distinctive pattern has developed because of the philosophies of these two cultures. “Harmony is a central idea in East Asian philosophy, and so there is more emphasis on how things relate to the whole,” says Nisbett. “In the West, by contrast, life is about achieving goals.”
September 09 2005 in Sufism/Islam | Read More | Comments [1]
Christ in Egypt
I received an email today from A Xian fundie - as opposed to a follower of Christ’s teachings who would be more properly termed a ‘Christian’ - which purported to be from someone who talked regularly to God and who had thus prophesied Katrina in advance and seemed to think an earthquake will hit San Francisco in a week or so.
There was also lots of OT Biblical references (out of context and wildly misunderstood tellingly) but luckily it didn’t take a lifetime of rigorous Jesuit training to realise that my correspondent was that a representative of that class which is the bane of modern life: the literalists.
But I must be positive and not express negativity so I shall pay homage to him (and all other literalists out there of whatever stripe) by posing a question.
What, in a literal sense, could the following passage from the KJV of the Bible, Revelation 11:8, possibly mean?
And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
What do you all think? Is it literal? Or metaphorical?
September 09 2005 in Esoteric Christianity | Read More | Comments [5]
Mushkil Gusha: The Journey
It’s Thursday and the day of Mushkil Gusha again.
Today the story is from Idries Shah’s Learning How To Learn
Shah retells the following story in response to a question as to how tales and stories such as Mushkil Gusha could lead to enlightenment and contain hidden wisdom apart from the explicit moral or narrative.
The story is called “The Journey” and Shah states that is one of a very few that can help in the understanding of how the inner developmental content of such stories work.
A man was on a journey with a Sufi teacher when night fell, and both were tired and hungry. The master asked at a humble house for food and the tenant, a poor man, gave them everything he had.
In the morning, the Sufi said ‘Blessings upon you and your house’ and the tow travellers started on their way.
After they had gone a few steps, the disciple said: ‘We have surely not recompensed this man for his generosity. Could you not give him more than a mere blessing?’
‘He has had enough. More would not be better’ said the master. But the soft-hearted disciple hung his head and with as much politeness as he could exercise, he insisted that ‘all are bound to do all they can for others....’‘Very well,’ said the Sufi, ‘I shall let you see what happens.’ He went back and called their host, saying to him: ‘A treasure is buried in your garden. It is under that apple tree. Dig it up and flourish.’
The two set off again and wandered for a year. It so happened that they were passing the same way again, hungry and tired, when they saw that the house was no longer there. It had been replaced by a palace. The formerly kindly tenant was now a great lord, and everyone around was suffering from his tyranny. ‘What do you say now?’ asked the teacher. ‘I understand what has happened,’ said his disciple. ‘But if you knew that this would happen, why did you do as I asked: in fact causing this man to become an oppressor?’
The master waved his hand; and the disciple saw that they were back in the conditions of a year before. No trace of the tyrant remained: they were looking at the smiling face of the humble cottager, waving them goodbye. It was at that moment that the disciple realised that the Sufi teacher had vanished.
He has not found him since and that was many years ago.
September 08 2005 in Sufism/Islam | Read More | Comments [1]
Fugara Shamans
Courtesy of a discussion on the wonderful Cabinet of Wonders Fortean forums, I found an amazing site on the Fugara - the Bedouin Shamans of Jordan.
The deeper one digs into this site the more amazing information one finds. There is much about the Shamanic conception of the jinn, particularly from the point of view of the tribes of the Jordan Valley.
Also of great interest is some rare and not generally known historical info about the nomadic bedouins of Southern Jordan - particularly the little-researched Shamanic al-Sulaba tribe as well as the more well-known Aniza.
This last tribe are interesting for their ‘water of life’ legends (which hark back to the Sufic Khidr motifs) which featured in a much discussed passage relating to Idries Shah which featured in Louis Palmer’s Adventures in Afghanistan
The Aniza are also widely regarded as providing the original framework of the European Witch Cult through the person of Abu el-Atahiyya whose teachings passed into Europe when the Aniza migrated to medieval Islamic Spain.
September 07 2005 in Sufism/Islam | Read More | Comments [3]
Mercury Prize
I think I dropped out of keeping up with new artists and music releases sometime about 1997 (and I’ve got the the MusicMobs playlist to prove it), probably the last album I bought was Pulp’s This Is Hardcore. Occasionally, I would (always to my horror and unending regret) inadvertently catch the tail-end of something from Operaćion Triunfo or the latest one-hit wonder and it always seemed meaningless and devoid of should somehow. Maybe I was listening to the wrong thing but if there was any searing political comment or the punk spirit out there I somehow missed it.
September 07 2005 in Music | Read More | Comments [1]
Shakespeare
Just found out from this article in the London Observer newspaper that Claire Asquith has a new book on Shakespeare coming out soon and entitled Shadowplay
Although I haven’t read it yet (added to my Amazon Wishlist hint, hint!) it seems like a fascinating read. As I understand it, the main thesis is that Shakespeare was left specific hidden codes in his works and that these codes (which Asquith claims to have deciphered) point to the fact that Shakespeare was a Catholic and was signaling to others through the means of this cipher of his works.
September 06 2005 in Literature | Read More | Comments [2]
Additions
Just added a link to Touchy Subjects which currently has a great post on the philosophy of Spongebob. Actually it isn’t about Spongebob at all which is fine with me because all I know about this character (other than that he is likely to be some variety of sponge and probably called Robert) is that Falwell accuses him of being gay or demonic or both and that’s good enough for me! Great post and a very interesting blog.
Also added a link to a great article by Yusuf of Indigo Jo Blogs posted at The Sharpener about the madness of the nonsensical ‘God’s Punishment’ meme that is as much a part of the fall out of Katrina as the political recriminations.
September 06 2005 in General Stuff | Read More | Comments [0]
Freemasonry
As regular readers of this blog will no doubt be all too painfully aware, I refuse to yield to anyone in my utter detestation of the literary (?) output of Dan Brown and all the demonic hybrids it has spawned but, to my unending horror, it seems impossible to avoid references to the said monstrosity. In all fields and all areas.
September 05 2005 in Fortean | Read More | Comments [4]
Appearances
I was talking to a friend yesterday (they had just discovered this blog) and they were quizzing me about Islam and such from an ‘orthodox’ pov so I wasn’t really into talking about it. They found this strange because they thought I was talking about it all the time on the blog but didn’t seem to get my explanation that in fact, I wasn’t and I don’t really. True, I do write about Islam a bit, because it is my belief and also because I study it. Esotericism - well, that’s something quite different and separate but essentially I am not really writing about these things.
A while back on Enormous Fictions, Coe blogged on how Gnostic blogs seem to be sprouting up everywhere. I know Anulios is not so much Gnostic in the accepted sense of the word but I like to think that we are all part of a bigger picture that is developing where we look at things in a specific way and from a specific angle rather than looking in an ‘orthodox’ way. We are trying to see beneath the surface and in doing so we are questioning the surface - some blogs are doing this with Christianity and I am trying to do it with Islam and mysticism. Obviously then we are not focusing on the surface so cannot be grouped in with people who do - we are not denying the surface, opposing or fighting it - just looking deeper beneath. It’s more of a Fortean approach if we have to define it but even that won’t really do - maybe it’s Gnostic heh!
September 05 2005 in Esoteric Christianity | Read More | Comments [5]
One More Thing…
Added one more blog which is well worth checking out: Orbis Quintus.
Can’t imagine how I missed this one before - seems like there is so much I relate to there. It has quite a bit of good stuff on Fortean matters, a great post on Istanbul (more or less my favourite city too in a three-way tie with NYC and Damascus), the political analysis is spot-on and there is even a post about Welsh language music - actually I don’t know much about the current Welsh scene but Welsh was my mother-tongue so it was amazing to see it in amongst all the other great stuff.
It’s very, very rare (in my experience) to find a blog that you look forward to reading like you do a good book - ‘unputdownable’ is I think the technical phrase - but this is definitely the real deal. Wow. Stop reading this and go there!
September 04 2005 in General Stuff | Read More | Comments [2]
Latest Tweaks
Have updated and expanded some of the categories (again), added some new links and moved some stuff around a bit.
It’s always a problem categorizing blogs in our field of interest because in general they tend to span many different areas - hence the new Philosophy category encompasses general Religious Studies, Philosophy as commonly understood and what may loosely be called ‘spirituality’.
A great site I have just discovered in this category is Paul Condran’s Hermetic Spot which currently has a fascinating post on Meditation. Also more than worthy of a mention is New World Border which is a Fortean/Magickal/Parapolitical blog and great reading. Also added the Universalist blog Philocrites. Check them out.
Have also added a Travelog section as I will soon be a-wandering eastwards myself (joy!) and this will be mostly for Middle Eastern blogs or resources that focus on specific cities/countries. The idea is to list resources that can be of help to people traveling there or just wanting to know more about the culture and people of the areas. I decided to cull the old Barcelona category (surprisingly few resources at all about Barcelona) and throw the old Barna stuff in this section too.
Right now Travelog mainly features blogs about Syria as this is the country I know best in the region and travel to most. I am also in love with Damascus so it seems fitting though I shall be traveling to Istanbul soon and will post from there and add some links.
Also added a category of Discussion Forums which may be of interest.
September 04 2005 in General Stuff | Read More | Comments [0]
Gurdjieff Music
Been looking around for some Gurdjieff material that might be suitable for inclusion on the new ‘Downloads’ section and found that there is a new box-set of Gurdjieff’s Harmonium improvisations available on CD and MP3.
The recordings are from 1949 and consist of over 19 hours of music plus, as I understand it, some recordings of Gurdjieff himself reading to pupils. I’m in two minds as to whether to purchase this, I have quite a few of the Gurdjieff/de Hartmann recordings - there are quite a few at Amazon
The following link is an example of some of the Harmonium Music.
September 02 2005 in Esoteric Christianity | Read More | Comments [0]
Downloads Page
Have added a Downloads Section in the ‘Pages’ category which (hopefully) will end up being a useful resource for interesting documents, articles and publications that might be of interest to readers of this blog.
Have started of with two fascinating resources: the latest book from the inimitable Jeremy Puma, Running Towards The Bomb and also a scholarly monograph from my friend Max Gorman - Lost Bearings in Philosophy.
Check them out and if you can, please support these authors by purchasing their writings - you won’t regret it!
September 02 2005 in General Stuff | Read More | Comments [0]
