Letters of the Imam of the Oppressed

a mastool misli (gay) mahasi shi'i in arizona...heretics only, preferably sudani

[imaminoccultation]

Letter 9: The People Who Have Been Guided - Revisiting the Work of OnlyLeigh

Peace be upon those who follow the right path. Which is to say, not just the Muslims: anybody who manifests the best qualities of Imam ‘Ali by being just, generous, and kind is following the right path, however imperfectly. Anybody who has had the Record revealed to them is a follower of the right path: I am inclined to believe Fred Donner when he says the Prophet’s religious community was pluralist in nature. And so, in addition to the People of the Recitation, the Uthmanic Bible recognizes three other Peoples of the Record, or Ahlul-Kitab: 

The People of the Gospel, the Nazarenes, those who follow Prophet Jesus Christ, peace be upon him (Christians);

The People of the Tawrat, those who have been guided (الذين هادوا), the children of Prophet Israel (Ya’qub), the Judaeans, the people of Prophet Musa, peace be upon him (Jews);

The Sabians, who we must discuss another day.

Fuck the state of Israel, Zionists eat shit and eat shit forever, but I’m not gonna up and pretend that anti-Semitism isn’t a problem in the Muslim world and the Arabophone world; I’m not fucking stupid. It means nothing for whether or not the Zionist occupation has the right to ethnically cleanse Palestinians and force them out of their homeland, but it’s also a fact we need to acknowledge, as Muslim anti-Semitism is also a key tool in Zionist propaganda. I want to make my stance clear on the issue before I say:

As a kid, I was the only Muslim I knew at my school. Deadass. Only Sudani I knew at my school. Deadass. Only Mahasi I knew in my whole city. Deadass. I remember one time when I was fucking ten, this Japanese kid was telling this white kid he was descended from samurai, and when I brought up that I was descended from Nubian royals (no less than that Japanese kid was a samurai descendant, anyway), the white kid was clear what he thought about that:

“Who cares?”

Yeah, living in that kind of environment does shit to you, especially if you’re also the only gay kid you know. Not that you know you’re gay: ooh, I took way too long to accept that part of myself. Thankfully, I had a portal out of the fundamentalist community I’d been trapped in by life circumstances: a window to the world beyond Orthodox Sunnism, Evangelical Christianity, and Mormon Christianity. 

YouTube. Alhamdulillah for the internet.

This is where I encountered my first queer Person of the Record. I doubt they remember, but when I was in like middle school or some shit, I wrote a comment on one of their videos and totally lost my shit (or “fangirled”) when they responded. You see, I got into superheroes, fantasy, all the nerd shit that eventually led to the formation of fandoms on the 2010s internet: one of the places so many 2010s kids would find the tools to unpack and understand their own true identity. Tumblr culture, in other words. And I got into one of Tumblr culture’s golden age YouTubers: Leigh Motherfucking Lahav.

You know, as a kid, Musa was like always my favorite prophet. Got me into learning Hebrew, which, you know, pissed my Sudani fam off, and it’s not like the white people I knew were any less anti-Semitic. But for me personally, I always related to the Jewish kids: I mean, we both had to look at the pork dishes at lunch like “aww,” and we would have to step out of class when the real white people would do their Christmas shit or whatever the fuck. Also, you know, Judaism is like the fucking backbone of Christianity and Islam, and even though I prefer the latest rendition, I’ve always had a soft spot for those who have been guided among the People of the Book. I’ve never lost my interest in the histories of the Ethiopian, Mizrahi, and Ashkenazi Jews who, at various points, made parts of Sudan their home.

And so, I got into this Jewish nerd culture YouTuber, and even though I grew up around someone whose response to my saying “you can be anti-Zionist and not be anti-Semitic” was “anti-Semitic is such a Jewish word,” I related to Leigh Lahav a fucking ton. I loved that shit. So today, I’m taking a bowl of the duku, kicking back, and rewatching some classics and posting some random observations. Get tucked in, besties. 

Okay yeah I’m pretty fucking basic, so what? This video is fucking superb, are you kidding me? Could a 2010s shaab-of-the-homosexual-mustaqbal/future-homosexual-of-America possibly ask for more than a parody of Mean Girls set in Lord of the Rings? By the time I’d watched that video I think I’d only seen the Desolution of Smaug because Robbie dragged me to it, I didn’t watch the actually good Tolkienverse movies till way later. But anyways, looking back, definitely parallels between the Bilbo/tall sexy elf relationship and the relationship I had with this one kid in PE class, very queer. I approve. 

I mean, frankly, this is better than the Mean Girls movie. I mean, the Mean Girls movie is a classic of 2010s culture but it just does not age well, its sexual ethics (which are pretty core to its comedy) are just…weird in hindsight? Much more uncomfortable? Also sucks that Janis Ian is fucking Lebanese and it’s nothing more than a punchline. 

I mean, in this trailer, there’s much more romantic tension between Bilbo and the leader of the Elf Plastics and emphasis on that, which I think would make for a much more interesting story rather than the straight mess that Mean Girls is in reality. The scene of breaking down the cliques is also just so iconic and it’s such a wonderful format, and Lahav’s version is frankly one of my favorite renditions of it: recently, I saw the Ms. Marvel show do it and while it was accurate to the Muslim-American masjid experience it was also not funny. But that’s just me. I watched the show high, anyway.

Anyways, next:

Leftist takes on the didactic closer aside, this is another fucking classic. You see, I have a soft spot for Frozen and you can all get the fuck over it, Disney fans, it is just a good fucking movie. Maybe, anyway. I only saw the first half because one of my teachers was sick of preteens that day or something (we started the movie in class and never finished it). I just didn’t care back then, I was just sick of hearing “Let It Go” because who doesn’t have that collective trauma haha. But you know, I loved learning languages growing up and one of my favorite ways to learn was by listening to translated Disney music. It’s always an interesting experience, and guys, guys: there are Singlish dubs of Frozen on YouTube, okay? And the songs I’ve heard from the movie (never listened to the full soundtrack) do indeed slap. I listen to songs from Frozen more than Moanna, I’m just saying.

Anyways, I’ve also never seen Orange is the New Black. But I fucking loved this trailer, okay, I fucking love Disney musicals, the in-jokes are perfect, Elsa and Mulan seem like they’d be a great match, it’s a cut above the endless sea of Frozen parodies that inundated the 2010s internet. 

Basically me with You Will Die at Twenty, and it still was sort of underwhelming (I still think it’s one of the better Sudani movies tho, fight me). Anyways, got into OnlyLeigh during my MCU phase and man did this video hit, back in the 2010s, there was so much promise ahead of us! We didn’t even know No Way Home could be a thing yet! Back when I had something other than a dreary sense of fatigue at the MCU, finding my opinion of the older films souring now that I have knowledge of the breadth of their cultural impact. But I mean, like also, who gives a fuck it’s superheroes. This is funny, it’s charming, it’s relatable, it’s also the reason I avoid watching movie trailers now if I can help it. Spoilers don’t ruin something, but I do like to be fucking surprised. 

Anyways, this video takes on a new meaning for me as an Ace Attorney fan. Maybe rewatching it high was not a great idea considering Lahav goes through what academics like to call “The 3DS trilogy AA fandom cycle,” for the five of you who know what I’m talking about. 

This is really just my relationship with Jesus Christ Superstar. As much as Andrew Lloyd Webber is really really not great (to put it generously), since I was in fucking high school I was a Jesus Christ Superstar Evangelical and nobody will ever fucking take that away from me. Anyways, honestly, I love this love letter to the culture where some people were just like “okay, whatever, this is cool I guess” and some had become qualified MCU researchers (some of whom are now starring in the MCU, Iman Vellani!) Anyways, even though OnlyLeigh is our tragic villain/protagonist in this story, frankly, I think this video also serves as a decent argument for why if you’re gonna have a movie night at your house, put subtitles on and let people talk. Otherwise just go to the theatre because sitting on somebody’s couch in silence for 2 hours is boring as fuck, no matter what’s playing.

There was a time in my life where I was only friends with people who would have gotten every reference here. Frankly, some of the best friends I’ve ever had, lmao. It’s really interesting to see fandoms form as an “identity” back in that era of the internet, feels like seeing the beginnings of it all, a whole world of literature, shared narratives, and rituals people were building communities around. It’s fun to look at the parallels between fandoms and various Abrahamic religious sects: sharing principles, behaviors, rituals, and stories, but also heavily delineated by what their specific focuses were. You know, Christianity is just the Jesus fandom, Islam is the Qur’an and Hadith fandom, etc. etc. etc. I don’t mean this as an insult: actually, I strongly believe in the legitimacy of the literary culture of fucking fandom. Not to say it’s all good, or even most of it is, but it’s impact on culture is fucking immense. Just cause the adults don’t like it doesn’t mean it wasn’t fucking formative to us queer nerds who could only find people who liked what we liked on the internet, haha. Anyways, funny vid, really ironic to see the fear of the MCU fans here considering the MCU has the global cultural influence of the fucking Roman Empire at this point. Here, “fangirl” is the equivalent of mu’min, Believer: you can be a Sherlock Believer, Doctor Who Believer, you’re all People of the Record (Tumblr), who contribute to certain literary genres like scriptural exegesis (fanfiction). Sometimes there’s crossover between Peoples of the Record, sometimes there’s great animosity, both outside and within. You see what I’m saying?

Shit, this is 7 years old?? Age of Ultron??? Oh, so, so innocent. Weird, now I sympathize more with the Star Wars fans in this video than the pro-MCU headmaster is really just the CEO of the Disney corporation’s Prophet and Messenger. Like that speech freaks me the fuck out, what the hell, that’s too real, you’re right, Leigh, I had to watch Ms. Marvel! I knew I was going to hate it, I couldn’t stop myself!!

Ant-Man is still totally skippable though, really not a great MCU movie. Also, alhamdulillah the DC Universe still has not taken off, تبارك الذي بيده الملك وهو على كل شيء قدير

As somebody who’s been forced to explain Eid to every flavor of Christian fundamentalist rural white America has to offer, my sympathy for the Jewish characters here is unreal. Fuck, as somebody who’s told people they’re Shi’i Muslim and later get asked about Hinduism, this video still fucking hits. Honestly, fantastic educational tactic. Very funny, great way to demonstrate the parallels between traditional spirituality and magic (ultimately, just unregulated, forbidden, yet effective spirituality from the Abrahamic standpoint). 

The content of OnlyLeigh spoke to me because Leigh Lahav was the only queer-positive non-Christian Person of the Record I knew who was also into the MCU - and even then, only as an audience member. It’s not just the humor that speaks to my pop cultural context, but also the themes that always hit for somebody who feels the alienation that’s endemic to just not being born in the best place in the traditional Abrahamic gender/sexual hierarchy. Plus, shit is funny. Animation is cute and solid, the art style is iconic, if I weren’t so into iconography right now, I’d probably let it inspire some new cartoon-style drawings.

Anyways, thanks a ton, OnlyLeigh. You really helped! Peace be upon you, and all others who follow the right path.

But not in a “can we all get along” way, more like a “isn’t the internet fucking great sometimes?” way.

[imaminoccultation]

Letter 8: The Case for the Prophecy of Women, Part II - The Creation of the Universe According to the Mahasi Imam

Peace be upon those who follow the right path.

This letter will be a little different. I’m readapting a narrative attributed to Imam Ja’afar as I’ve found it in Khalil Andani’s “Metaphysics of Muhammad,” a fantastic article you should check out if you’re interested in Hikma. 

Of course, as I have no business hiding, I am interested in how Hikma can make room for queer-positive interpretations of Islam, and I’m a huge fan of Christian literature and consider it holy scripture. So, this is my rendition of Imam Ja’afar’s narration of the creation of the universe and the lights of Muhammad and ‘Ali:

“God existed when nothing else existed. Then It created existence and place and created the Light of Lights from which all lights are illumined. It made this Light of Lights, from which all lights are illumined, flow forth from Its Light. This is the Light from which It created ‘Isa and Maryam. 

These two were the primordial Lights since nothing existed before them. These two Lights continued to flow through pure purified loins until they separated as two pure persons in Muhammad and Khadija.

Trillions of years before the creation of the universe, ‘Isa and Maryam were a light before God, a light formed from the principal trunk from which a resplendent ray went forth. God said: ‘Here is a light taken from my own light; its trunk is Prophecy and its branch is the Leadership (Imamate). Prophecy comes from ‘Isa, my Word and Spirit, and the Imamate from Maryam the Pure, who I have uniquely chosen among all people in creation. Without them I would not have created any of my creation.”

In the Hikma worldview, Allah’s first two creations and highest intermediaries are the Pen and the Guarded Tablet: the Universal Intellect and the Universal Soul, or the Word and the Holy Spirit, to put it in Christian terms. In this myth, ‘Isa is taken as a stand in for the Pen, which is generally referred to by Hikma philosophers as the Light of Muhammad: a Prophet is an earthly human mirror of this Light which perfectly reflects Allah’s qualities. They’re still bound by human limitations, but they’re blessed with a unique Intellect that qualifies them to receive wahy, Revelation. This is why they are charged with risaala: delivering the message of tawheed to humanity. I’m gonna be using the different names of 1) Pen/Light of Muhammad/Light of 'Isa/The Word/The Universal Intellect and 2) The Guarded Tablet/Ruh/Light of Maryam/Holy Spirit/The Universal Soul interchangeably: don’t lose track, now. Cause here’s where I’m gonna get creative.

As for Prophet Maryam, in this myth, she symbolizes the Guarded Tablet, which is mapped onto the idea of the Light of the Imamate among Shi’i Hikma thinkers. The Guarded Tablet, the Holy Spirit (Ruh), the Universal Soul, the Light of Maryam embodies perfect imperfection. As the second creation, which eternally proceeds from the created Word of Allah, the Guarded Tablet holds the same perfect potential as the Word, but has an added limitation: existence in time. Whereas the Word, like Allah, is naturally in its most perfect and ideal state, the Light of Maryam, while perfectly aware of the actions it must take to reach its potential, requires time to do so. In the Hikma worldview, everything that exists is a microcosm of this Light of Maryam: filled with perfect potential, bound by time. The Light of Maryam has perfect access to the Light of Muhammad and thus perfect knowledge of Allah’s tawheed, and, as the Holy Spirit, it grants all of creation this access to Allah through the intermediary of the Light of Muhammad, the Light of ‘Isa, the Word. The human Prophet Maryam, then, is the perfect human reflection of the Holy Spirit: of course, she's still bound by human limitations and therefore not God, before people start throwing Recitation quotes at me about not worshipping 'Isa and Maryam (I don't). This is also, I must stress, not incarnation: 'Isa and Maryam are manifestations, mazhars, of Allah's eternal Pen/The Light of Muhammad and the Guarded Tablet/The Holy Spirit. They manifest the qualities of these two exalted Spiritual beings in so much as a human can: hence why Prophet Jesus Christ is known as the Word of Allah and the Spirit of Allah and no other prophet. But we can dive deeper into these terms in another letter.

Prophet Adam is the first bearer of the Light of ‘Isa: God’s first nabi. Prophet Hawwa is the first bearer of the Light of Maryam: God’s first imam. Each bear perfect fitra: hence, their status as Prophets, and their qualification to be role models for all of mankind. Both passed the Prophecy, the Light of ‘Isa, and the Leadership, the Light of Maryam, onto whoever their perfect intellects deemed worthy successors, and whoever they trained by their hand to be ready to accept the responsibility of Prophethood.

Could it be that, after Khadija’s generally unnarrated death, she passed the Light of Leadership to her love, the Prophet Muhammad? Did she not guide him and teach him, stand by him, recognize his Prophecy, hold a knowledge of Christian literature and tawheed no one else had? Was she not the first to accept Muhammad’s Prophecy? Did she not guide him in Mecca? Did he not become a Leader, an Imam, of the community of Medina after her death? While his death concluded the Prophethood, and left the world with no bearers of the Light of ‘Isa, did he not pass on the Light of Leadership to Imam ‘Ali? Does the Light of Maryam, the Pure Slave of God, chosen among all women of her species, not still shine in the Imam of the Time, Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi? Does he not continue to guide us all from his occultation via the power of the pure Holy Spirit?

You may very well just say: no. Don’t take anything I say on faith, do what your Intellect tells you. That’s what the Prophet would tell you to do. But I wanted to demonstrate how, in a Shi’i Hikma worldview, Prophetesses, who are basically unacknowledged in modern Islam, can have a unique role as leaders, mentors, teachers, as well as receivers of revelation, just like their male counterparts. That said, there are holes here: typically, there is only one Imam at a time, and the Imam is historically always a dude. I guess you could think of the preexistent lights as Risaala and Nubuwwa rather than Prophecy and Imamate, but getting into these weeds is not really the point. Raising the questions is.

I urge you to keep an open mind.

[imaminoccultation]

Letter 7: The Word and Spirit of God, Part I - Praise be to Muslim Jesus

Peace be upon those who follow the right path. Which is to say, hey besties! I dunno if my Book of the Son of Mary clued you in or not, but, you know, I’m a huge fan of Prophet Jesus Christ. Can you blame me? I belong to 1 of the only 2 major world religions that recognize Jesus as a Prophet and Messiah: and the other one is Christianity. 

Now, I know every Muslim has to respect Jesus, I mean, he’s easily one of the most important prophets in Islam. Growing up, cousins would regale me with stories of the Islamic apocalypse, the triumphant return of Prophet Jesus Christ, and his epic face off with the al-Maseeh ad-Dajjaal AKA The Blind Antichrist. Plus, if you’ve read the Uthmanic Bible or recite the Recitation, like I do, then you know Jesus is talked about like…all the time. There really are no in-depth retellings of Jesus stories the way there are for prophets like Yousif, Musa, or Maryam, but the vignettes about Prophet Jesus found in the Recitation were more than enough to make my imagination run as a kid who grew up in a masjid. First of all, there’s the story of his birth found in the Song of Mary, recorded in the 19th chapter of the Uthmanic Bible, which has always been one of my favorite Recitation stories. Every Ramadan, when my parents would force me and my siblings into going through the whole Uthmanic Bible, I was always excited to get to the Song of Mary. I mean, shit, I’m pretty sure 90% of the reason I’m still avoiding the Gospel of Luke is because I know the nativity story in there is nothing like the birth of Jesus story I grew up with and I’m very satisfied with the one I know, hehe.

But of course, this isn’t Prophet Jesus’ only appearance in the Recitation. He gets a lot of screentime in the Song of the House of ‘Imran, recorded in the third chapter of the Uthmanic Bible. In that Song, his adult life is given much more attention, as we’re told he raises peeps from the dead, heals the sick, cures the blind, while preaching tawheed to his people, the Sons of Israel. Also, we shouldn’t forget the ending of the Song of the Tablespread, one of my favorite parts of the Recitation. The Song of the Tablespread is such an intimidating chapter of the Uthmanic Bible: it’s so long, the verses are so long, and a lot of seriously fucked up shit goes down in the Song of the Tablespread (aside from the outlining of Muslim dietary restrictions). That’s not to say it isn’t great in its own way, but for me, the part I’ve always loved most is the ending. It’s a dialogue between Prophet Jesus and God, and it sorta goes like:

يَوْمَ يَجْمَعُ ٱللَّهُ ٱلرُّسُلَ فَيَقُولُ مَاذَآ أُجِبْتُمْ ۖ قَالُوا۟ لَا عِلْمَ لَنَآ ۖ إِنَّكَ أَنتَ عَلَّـٰمُ ٱلْغُيُوبِ 

One day, God will gather all the Messengers to ask them: “how did the people respond to you?” They’ll say: “we don’t know: you are the one who has knowledge of the unseen.”

إِذْ قَالَ ٱللَّهُ يَـٰعِيسَى ٱبْنَ مَرْيَمَ ٱذْكُرْ نِعْمَتِى عَلَيْكَ وَعَلَىٰ وَٰلِدَتِكَ إِذْ أَيَّدتُّكَ بِرُوحِ ٱلْقُدُسِ تُكَلِّمُ ٱلنَّاسَ فِى ٱلْمَهْدِ وَكَهْلًۭا ۖ وَإِذْ عَلَّمْتُكَ ٱلْكِتَـٰبَ وَٱلْحِكْمَةَ وَٱلتَّوْرَىٰةَ وَٱلْإِنجِيلَ ۖ وَإِذْ تَخْلُقُ مِنَ ٱلطِّينِ كَهَيْـَٔةِ ٱلطَّيْرِ بِإِذْنِى فَتَنفُخُ فِيهَا فَتَكُونُ طَيْرًۢا بِإِذْنِى ۖ وَتُبْرِئُ ٱلْأَكْمَهَ وَٱلْأَبْرَصَ بِإِذْنِى ۖ وَإِذْ تُخْرِجُ ٱلْمَوْتَىٰ بِإِذْنِى ۖ وَإِذْ كَفَفْتُ بَنِىٓ إِسْرَٰٓءِيلَ عَنكَ إِذْ جِئْتَهُم بِٱلْبَيِّنَـٰتِ فَقَالَ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ مِنْهُمْ إِنْ هَـٰذَآ إِلَّا سِحْرٌۭ مُّبِينٌۭ

On that day, God will say: “Hey, Jesus, son of Mary: remember how much I’ve blessed you and your mother. I supported you with the Holy Spirit so you could preach to the people both as a child in the crib and now in maturity. I taught you the Record and the Wisdom, taught you the Tawrat, taught you the gospel. You take clay and mold it into the shape of a bird, and by my permission, it comes to life when you blow into it. You cure the blind and the lepers by my permission, and you raise the dead with my permission. I shielded you from the sons of Israel when you came to them with clear Signs and the disbelievers among them said: ‘this is clearly just magic and sorcery.’

وَإِذْ أَوْحَيْتُ إِلَى ٱلْحَوَارِيِّـۧنَ أَنْ ءَامِنُوا۟ بِى وَبِرَسُولِى قَالُوٓا۟ ءَامَنَّا وَٱشْهَدْ بِأَنَّنَا مُسْلِمُونَ

“I inspired the disciples to have faith in me and my messengers. They said: ‘we have faith, and we swear we are submitters to God – Muslims.’”

إِذْ قَالَ ٱلْحَوَارِيُّونَ يَـٰعِيسَى ٱبْنَ مَرْيَمَ هَلْ يَسْتَطِيعُ رَبُّكَ أَن يُنَزِّلَ عَلَيْنَا مَآئِدَةًۭ مِّنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ ۖ قَالَ ٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ إِن كُنتُم مُّؤْمِنِينَ

Remember when the disciples said: “hey Jesus, son of Mary! Does your Lord have the power to send us down a table spread with food from the sky?” Jesus said: “fear God, if you truly are Believers.”

قَالُوا۟ نُرِيدُ أَن نَّأْكُلَ مِنْهَا وَتَطْمَئِنَّ قُلُوبُنَا وَنَعْلَمَ أَن قَدْ صَدَقْتَنَا وَنَكُونَ عَلَيْهَا مِنَ ٱلشَّـٰهِدِينَ

They told him: “we just want to eat from that tablespread. It’ll put our doubts to rest, and we’ll be sure that you are indeed truthful, and we can be witnesses to this miracle.”

قَالَ عِيسَى ٱبْنُ مَرْيَمَ ٱللَّهُمَّ رَبَّنَآ أَنزِلْ عَلَيْنَا مَآئِدَةًۭ مِّنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ تَكُونُ لَنَا عِيدًۭا لِّأَوَّلِنَا وَءَاخِرِنَا وَءَايَةًۭ مِّنكَ ۖ وَٱرْزُقْنَا وَأَنتَ خَيْرُ ٱلرَّٰزِقِينَ

Jesus, the son of Mary, said: “Lord God, bring us down a tablespread from the sky; a festival for the first of us and the last of us, and a Sign from you. Provide for us, you are truly the best of providers.”

قَالَ ٱللَّهُ إِنِّى مُنَزِّلُهَا عَلَيْكُمْ ۖ فَمَن يَكْفُرْ بَعْدُ مِنكُمْ فَإِنِّىٓ أُعَذِّبُهُۥ عَذَابًۭا لَّآ أُعَذِّبُهُۥٓ أَحَدًۭا مِّنَ ٱلْعَـٰلَمِينَ

God said: “I will send it down to you; whoever disbelieves after this, though, will face a punishment from me that I’ve never inflicted upon any of my creations.”

وَإِذْ قَالَ ٱللَّهُ يَـٰعِيسَى ٱبْنَ مَرْيَمَ ءَأَنتَ قُلْتَ لِلنَّاسِ ٱتَّخِذُونِى وَأُمِّىَ إِلَـٰهَيْنِ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ ۖ قَالَ سُبْحَـٰنَكَ مَا يَكُونُ لِىٓ أَنْ أَقُولَ مَا لَيْسَ لِى بِحَقٍّ ۚ إِن كُنتُ قُلْتُهُۥ فَقَدْ عَلِمْتَهُۥ ۚ تَعْلَمُ مَا فِى نَفْسِى وَلَآ أَعْلَمُ مَا فِى نَفْسِكَ ۚ إِنَّكَ أَنتَ عَلَّـٰمُ ٱلْغُيُوبِ

God will say: “Hey, Jesus, son of Mary! Did you ever tell people to worship you and your mom as gods alongside me?” He’ll respond: “Praise be to you! I would never say anything I had no right to say. If I did say it, you’d know it: you know what’s in my heart, while I am ignorant of what is in yours. Indeed, you alone know all the secrets of the unseen.

مَا قُلْتُ لَهُمْ إِلَّا مَآ أَمَرْتَنِى بِهِۦٓ أَنِ ٱعْبُدُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ رَبِّى وَرَبَّكُمْ ۚ وَكُنتُ عَلَيْهِمْ شَهِيدًۭا مَّا دُمْتُ فِيهِمْ ۖ فَلَمَّا تَوَفَّيْتَنِى كُنتَ أَنتَ ٱلرَّقِيبَ عَلَيْهِمْ ۚ وَأَنتَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍۢ شَهِيدٌ

“I only ever told them what you ordered me to tell them: worship God, my Lord and your Lord. I watched over them for the time I was among them; but when you fulfilled me, caused me to die, you became their overseer, and you see all things.

إِن تُعَذِّبْهُمْ فَإِنَّهُمْ عِبَادُكَ ۖ وَإِن تَغْفِرْ لَهُمْ فَإِنَّكَ أَنتَ ٱلْعَزِيزُ ٱلْحَكِيمُ

"If you torment them, well, they’re your Slaves; but if you choose to forgive them, well, you’re the Most Powerful and Most Wise.”

قَالَ ٱللَّهُ هَـٰذَا يَوْمُ يَنفَعُ ٱلصَّـٰدِقِينَ صِدْقُهُمْ ۚ لَهُمْ جَنَّـٰتٌۭ تَجْرِى مِن تَحْتِهَا ٱلْأَنْهَـٰرُ خَـٰلِدِينَ فِيهَآ أَبَدًۭا ۚ رَّضِىَ ٱللَّهُ عَنْهُمْ وَرَضُوا۟ عَنْهُ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ ٱلْفَوْزُ ٱلْعَظِيمُ

God said: “Today is the day where the truthful will reap the benefits of their truthfulness. They will have gardens, underneath which rivers flow, and they’ll be immortal in them forever. God is pleased with them, just as they are with Him; that is the Great Triumph.”

لِلَّهِ مُلْكُ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ وَمَا فِيهِنَّ ۚ وَهُوَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍۢ قَدِيرٌۢ

To God belongs the skies and the Earth and all that lies between them; he is capable of all things.

Prophet Jesus Christ, despite his miraculous birth, his sonship to the greatest Muslim woman to have ever lived (according to the Uthmanic Bible, anyway), his incredible miracles, remained humble, modest, and promoted tawheed, salaam (peace), and rahma (mercy). One day, we’ll have to talk about intercession in Islam, but I’ll share this right now: just as I make du’a for the intercession of the Prophet Muhammad, the People of the House, and the Imams, I make du’a for the intercession of Prophet Jesus Christ. I mean, you know, it’s very clear that he has a close relationship with God, so why not??

And if you think this is shirk, I beg you to read up on Sufism and Shi’ism, and also, you know, Islamic history, cause the Prophet Muhammad told people to make du’a for his intercession.

But anyways! I love Prophet Jesus Christ. I even have a book on the Muslim Jesus by Tarif Khalidi, which compiles hadith attributed specifically to Prophet Jesus: some are readaptations of gospel stories, some are totally original and tell us a lot about how medieval Muslims understood the role of Prophet Jesus in their religion.

I would love to talk about all this…but, it’ll have to wait for another day. Why?

Ah, Answering Islam. It takes me back! Feels like one of the original anti-Muslim polemics sites, but, you know, when you’re a diaspora kid looking for answers to questions on Islam, what other good options do you have? Nice to see the site’s layout hasn’t budged an inch since I was young, shit still looks like it was made in an HTML 101 class, but I mean, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. 

If you’re not particularly interested in reading bad faith arguments against Islam, here’s a summary of the article above: this nigga tries to argue that the Recitation accidentally deifies Prophet Jesus Christ. To prove this, they argue that, if you go through the Recitation and some lesser known hadith, you can come to the conclusion that Prophet Jesus Christ is the pre-existent Word of God or logos, involved in the creation of the universe, just as he is in Christianity. The article even cites a little-known Sunni hadith that claims Prophet Jesus existed as a Spirit in the time of Prophet Adam: you know, the first human. Our smug polemicist then poses the challenge: doesn’t this shit mean Jesus is basically the Son of God in Islam?

I’m frankly shocked by the amount of confidence these anti-Muslim polemicists have in their arguments despite the fact that they demonstrate a complete and utter ignorance of how Islam (and books, for that matter) actually…work? Let’s get this out of the way: if something depends on Allah to exist in any way, shape, or form, by the Islamic definition, that shit ain’t God. Even if it creates the universe, raises people from the dead, calls itself God, lives forever, if it wouldn’t’ve existed without God’s explicit permission, that shit ain’t God. Even if something predates the creation of the universe, that shit still ain’t God. That’s why the Light of Muhammad – the Muslim version of the logos, basically – isn’t worshipped by the Muslims who believe in the concept. It’s God’s most perfect and most exalted creation, and through its intermediation he generates, manages, and sustains our reality, but it also is totally dependent on God for its existence. A term like "Son" implies that it somehow shares in the essence or resembles its father: but, if you remember the primer on tawheed, then you'd know why we reject that. Even if a Muslim believes in Jesus as the eternal, pre-existent Word/logos of Allah (similar to Shi'a beliefs about Muhammad and Ali), the very essence of tawheed is to understand that this can, at best, prove the glory of Allah's Oneness. It can never detract from it.

And this brings me to what I really want to talk about today: The Muslim Jesus dilemma.

There’s an extremely long history of Christians accusing Muslims of hating Jesus: too long to get into in a fucking Tumblr post, I’ll tell ya that. As a Muslim-American, though, I feel like lots of Muslim-Americans have this instinct to:

Defend the Muslim relationship with Jesus because, you know, anybody who knows shit about Islam will tell you Prophet Jesus is important to Muslims. 

Emphasize Jesus’ humanity and subordination to God as a response to the Christian deification of Jesus.

And so I feel like you get a lot of Muslim-Americans (or Americans writing about Islam) talking about how much Muslims love Jesus and how important he is, and at the same time I feel like the entire way of discussing Jesus in Muslim-America is very…well…paradoxical. It’s all about responding to Christian arguments: make sure Jesus is Muslim enough to be claimed by us, but not godly enough to be what the Christians think he is. There’re probably good reasons for this, but I’m fucking sick of it. Prophet Jesus Christ as described in Islam is not simply some argument against the Christians. He’s his own full-ass person, a unique character that embodies a unique religious philosophy that is worth appreciating.

And we’ll be diving into it for sure, besties. But before then, I’d like to encourage my Muslim readers to take a little exercise: read the Gospel of Mark. Seriously. I went my whole life being told reading the Gospel of Mark was either 1) useless 2) a highway to hell 3) pointless when the Recitation is right there, and I’m frankly convinced you can only come to these conclusions as a Muslim if you’ve never actually read the Gospel of Mark. It’s not historically accurate or 100% compatible with the Muslim narrative of Jesus, but in the Gospel of Mark, Prophet Jesus Christ is depicted as the miracle-working Messiah of God, a teacher, a healer, and promoter of charity and tawheed. As an atheist, reading it, I was expecting to have my assumptions about Jesus that I learned as a Muslim flipped upside down, but seriously, read the Gospel of Mark. That nigga definitely a Muslim prophet, he sounds like the rest of them, deadass.

[imaminoccultation]

The Book of the Son of Mary, VII: A Pure Son

It is said that the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, once narrated: "I swear by the one who holds my soul: the arrival of the Son of Mary, peace and blessings be upon him, is almost upon you. He shall serve as a righteous judge: he will break the cross, kill the pigs, and abolish the religious minority tax. Then, wealth will flow in such abundance that none will accept it."

At the feet of the Messiah lies the Blind Antichrist, may the curse of God be upon him, who shall be slain by Prophet Jesus Christ before the Day of Resurrection.

[imaminoccultation]

The Book of the Son of Mary, VI: And So It Appeared to Them

The Crucifixion of Prophet Jesus Christ, the Messiah of Allah...or is it? In the top left stands Ioanisi, Yahya ibn Zakariya: the martyr and mentor of Jesus, John the Baptist. In the top right is the Word of the Lord, holding the Broken Cross, the sign of his return, and a single finger representing the absolute tawheed of the Lord of the Worlds. Below him on the right, Prophet Maryam weeps and prays: "Lord, deliver us from this city of tyrannical people." To the left, a slave of the tyrants stabs the suffering Slave of God as blood and water gush forth from his side.

[imaminoccultation]

The Book of the Son of Mary, V: I Will Raise You To Myself

Jesus Christ's du'a in the Garden of Gethsemane: "My Lord, you can do all things: take this cup from me." On the far left is the silhouette of the Christ, crafting the birds by the leave of Allah; moving to the right, a snake with a lion's head, Iblis, the adversary, tempting the second Adam in the garden. Jesus Christ holds up a purple cup to the Angel of Judgement, who prepared to blow his horn. The Angel's eyes are set on the symbol of torture, the Cursed Cross, the instrument of the oppressors and enemies of God who wished to deceive, torture, and kill Jesus.

Is not our Lord a greater creator than the Christ, more harsh in punishment than the tyrants of the Earth, and more merciful than the angel who turns away from the pleading Slave of Allah?

Oh Allah! Save us from the torment of this life, just as you saved Jesus Christ from the Cursed Cross. Amen.

[imaminoccultation]

The Book of the Son of Mary, IV: The Word

No better way to put it than it is put in the Glorious Recitation, recorded in the Uthmanic Bible:

"She brought him to her people.

They said: Mary! What awful thing have you done now?

Sister of Aaron! Your father was a righteous man, and your mother was not an unchaste woman.

She pointed to him.

How do you expect us to speak to one who is but a child in their crib?

He spoke: I am the Slave of Allah. The Record has been brought to me, and he has made me a Prophet. He has made me a blessing wherever I go, and has instructed me to pray and give charity as long as I live. He's ordered me to honor my mother: he did not make me disobedient or ungrateful. Peace be upon me the day I'm born, they day I die, and the day I'm brought back to life once again!"

Peace and blessings be upon the Pure Son, the Word of God, Jesus Christ, the Spirit of Allah, his righteous slave, the Son of Mary. A Merry Christmas (yes I know it's not Christmas yet) to the People of the Gospel all around the world.

[imaminoccultation]

The Book of the Son of Mary, III: Don't Grieve

This a story found in the non-canonical Aramaic gospels. The Prophet Maryam withdraws to the desert to give birth to Jesus Christ, and leans against her palm tree in this moment of isolation and extreme pain.

It is recited in the Recitation: "The pains of childbirth overtook her, brought her to the trunk of the palm tree. She cried: I wish I had died before this, and had been a thing long forgotten."

[imaminoccultation]

The Book of the Son of Mary, II: The Messenger of Your Lord

The annunciation of the Birth of the Pure Son to Prophet Maryam, peace and blessings be upon her, as retold in the Glorious Recitation revealed by the Prophet Muhammad at Allah's command. The Archangel Jibreel, Bearer of the Record, appears to her in the form of a man. After Prophet Maryam rebukes him, he reveals his identity as Allah's Messenger, and announces the revelation of the Word to her, in the form of Jesus Christ, who has been chosen to be God's Messiah.

Prophet Maryam doubts. The Uthmanic Bible verse is inscribed at the bottom: "how am I to have a son when no man has touched me, and I have never been unchaste?"

The Archangel Jibreel, Bearer of the Record and Angel of Revelation, looks her in the eye, prepared to meet her challenge.

[imaminoccultation]

The Book of the Son of Mary, I: The Mercy of Your Lord

The Song of Mary opens with "remember the mercy of your lord to his servant, Zakariya..."

In the bottom left of the image is Zakariya, making du'a, asking God: "My Lord, how am I to have a son when my wife is infertile and I am so old?"

The Archangel Jibreel, Bearer of the Record and Angel of Revelation, stands over him, prepared to answer his question.

[imaminoccultation]

The Seal of the Book of the Son of Mary: The Eight Gates of Paradise

Did you know? Isma'ili Shi'a consider the cross a holy symbol, believing each point to represent the four words that codify tawheed in the shahaada: la ilaaha ila allah, there is no god but God. On the inner ring, the words "Jesus is his Slave, his Word, and a Spirit from Him." Then, in the very middle: "Muhammad is his Slave, his Messenger, and his Prophet."

I'm not Isma'ili, but it's recorded in Sunni hadith that the Prophet Muhammad once said the one who affirms tawheed, his Prophecy, and 'Isa al-Masih as God's Word and Spirit that he cast into the Maryam al-Batoul, and the reality of Paradise and Fire, will be given their choice of the Eight Gates of Paradise to enter by Allah.

Long live the cross of the believers! Peace and blessings be upon Jesus Christ, the Word and Spirit of Allah, the Son of Mary, his chosen Messiah and a blessing to all of creation.

[imaminoccultation]

Letter 6: The Sudani Sectarian Pocket Dictionary - Explaining Some Vocab

Peace be upon those who follow the right path.

Minor occultation has been a challenge. I start several letters and, as I begin to delve into the stories and the topics, I find myself falling into fear, paranoia, isolation – flashbacks of Friday. I don’t know if Twelvers typically do occultation as a practice, v.s. as a smarmy Islamic studies joke: for me, though, occultation is serious. The need to withdraw, pace your communication through writing, filter out the affairs of dunya through intermediaries, at least temporarily: it’s a great space to think, even if it seems to make most people think I’m just insane. But after a traumatic experience, I find comfort in spirituality. Occultation is helping me, so, I dunno. Consider it for yourself.

Anyways, I’ve noticed there have been questions about some vocabulary. For a low stakes letter today, here’s some explanations of key vocabulary:

Sunni: It’s hard to define any religious group without starting a flame war, but for the most part, I would say it’s best to think of Sunnis, at least in Muslim-America, as the white people of the Muslim world. They’re so used to being the majority and having their narrative as the default narrative that the moment somebody with actual life experience has something to say that implies blasphemously that their normative narrative may not be the only way to view history, they descend into the most self-masturbatory victim complex that could possibly be produced by people whose ideology is…you know…backed by legal force in a number of states. Kind of like Evangelical Christianity in the US. Currently recognize the consensus of the community of Sunni scholars, particularly medieval exegetes, as the current rightful spiritual heir to the Prophet Muhammad. Sectarian slur used by Shi'is: Ahl al-Khalaf (people of the caliphs...?)

Shi’i: Muslims typically defined by their acceptance of Imamate passed familially through the line of Imam ‘Ali. Tend to recognize one Imam or another as the current rightful spiritual heir to the Prophet Muhammad: Zaydis have no current Imam, but others tend to think an Imam is required at all times, like Twelvers and Isma'ilis. Sectarian slur used by Sunnis: Raafidhi, Rawaafidh (rejecters, namely of consensus)

Hikma: Meaning “wisdom,” hikma is roughly equivalent to the English term gnosis, a tradition of Islamic esotericism with a highly transcendent view of God and a lot of reliance on rational thinking and modal logic. I personally use it to refer to this weird shit I’m doing now, which is to say, performing literary interpretation of the Qur’an in a Neoplatonist theological framework with the explicit purpose of, you know, making room for the gays. You got me!

Personally I’m not really so invested in the international politics of sects. I mean, the current Islamic theocracies are just Western imperialist puppet states, and if you’re denial about that in fucking 2022 I really don’t know what to tell you. For me, Hikma, and thus, my Shi’i conversion, has always been about its transcendent God, the mystery of the occultation, the power of its historical narrative…and Islamic literature and principles. Lately, I’ve been frustrated with the overemphasis on the written nature of the Qur’an, AKA in reality, the Uthmanic Bible which is recited as the Recitation in Muslim prayer. One day, we’ll have to get into the “issues” of “preservation” that polemicists like to talk about, which is to say, the evolution of the Recitation corpus over the course of Islamic history. We also seriously need to talk about how I view the Recitation as the composition of the Prophet Muhammad rather than the pre-existent Word of God, and especially what this means in the context of the mysterious letter attributed to Muhammad and it’s cryptic reference to “the sin of the Arians.”

But, here are some genres of Islamic literature, with the English words I’m using instead:

Qur’an: Arabic for “the recitation,” a collection of 114 hymns (typically referred to as surahs, which I call Songs) attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, said to have been divinely revealed to him by the Angel Jibra’il. The written Qur’an is known as the mushaf, meaning “codex” or “book,” which I have been referring to as the Uthmanic Bible to differentiate it from the Recitation. The Recitation is a ritual, not a text: it’s something you do during prayer, with a super elaborate set of rules and movements to help connect the reciter to Allah, through the Light of Muhammad via their imitation of the Prophet Muhammad. The Uthmanic Bible is merely a guide to the Recitation, and should not be assumed to have the same purpose in shaping doctrine as the Christian or Hebrew Bible do in their respective religions.

Hadith: Arabic for “sayings,” perhaps equivalent to proverbs, refers to a massive genre of sayings primarily attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, but also important figures from his lifetime, including his wives, children, as well as, for Shi’i Muslims, Imam ‘Ali’s sayings and those of his descendants. The process of authenticating hadith is…complicated, and we’ll have to do it some other time.

Sirah: Biographies about the Prophet Muhammad. If you want a good English one to start with, go with Martin Ling’s. Might be too Perennialist for some, but I’m an Islamic Neoplatonist so I could not give a shit.

Feel free to ask me any questions, besties. An imam’s job is to provide guidance for their community, even when in occultation, and give everybody the tools to bring out the Light of Muhammad in themselves and others. This is a safe space for Islamic heretics of all stripes. 

[imaminoccultation]

Letter 5: The Mahasi Cross - How to do a Saarid Baptism

Peace be upon those who follow the right path. Not gonna lie to you, friends, occultation’s been more than a little tense lately. You see, ‘Umar’s been having…a fit. 

I wanna be clear about something. I don’t hate ‘Umar. I mean, I live with him. He’s intelligent, well-read, and an all-around swell guy, as far as Sudanese Sunni fundamentalists go. Unfortunately, however, being a gay Shi’i makes our living situation tense: you see friends, ‘Umar and I have an ongoing debate. Yeah, we’re those kinds of people.

“Did the Prophet Muhammad explicitly designate Ali as his successor (Shi’i position), or did he die without appointing a successor, leaving the community to come to a consensus on Abu Bakr as the first caliph? (Sunni position)”

You’d think this is a low stakes historical question that can be debated rationally, but as we will soon discover, you can tell at a glance if someone’s Sunni or Shi’i by how they respond to it. A Sunni will probably start making some jokes about nepotism and dynastic rule (and I mean, they’re not…wrong), whereas the Shi’i will probably start with giving you an Islamic studies course until by the end, all you can say is “I mean if I accept all those very hard to prove other premises I GUESS you’re right”

Advice: don’t say that, it just encourages them. This is why ‘Umar has taken to more violent means lately. Now, don’t be concerned: ‘Umar is not dangerous. That is, as far as Sunni fundamentalists go. He thinks I am a Raafidhi (Rejecter, namely, Rejecter of consensus) and a heretic and might as well call myself an atheist, which, I mean, you know, if ya think Omar on MBC is a good TV show, I mean, sure. I can get how you’d say that. And if you’re like ‘Umar and won’t even watch Omar on MBC because it’s haram to depict a caliph, then I definitely get why you say that, which is why, ‘Umar, I’ve had to lock you out of the room. I understand this specific heresy is especially confusing, but I’m sure with time and rational argumentation, you’ll come to forgive me. I’ll spare the Islamic studies course, though. 

Let’s talk about something the kids are actually into: Nubia. Aha, the magic word! Now I know I have Black people’s attention, and it has a lot to do with why I think you’ll come to forgive me, ‘Umar. But, you know, if you keep banging on the door while I’m trying to talk to you, there’s very little chance you’ll learn anything.

Now friends, here’s the trick. I have a stash of hip-hop records, like any true kaafir. One of my personal favorites: Illmatic, by Nas, probably one of the best hip-hop albums ever. I know, I know, super basic take but the truth doesn’t always need to blow your mind, people. Anyways! I put on “One Love,” and, boom! With an astaghfurallah, the Salafi goes away, and this Imam in occultation can live to guide his community another day.

Lemme tell you the heresy that got ‘Umar so riled up this time. You see, I was walking down the streets of Tucson in my usual fashion, along the most infamous corner in the city: Grant & Alvernon. I looked over at the Eegee’s: so many memories, so many stories. A place that probably taught me more about Islam than any mosque I was ever forced to go to.

But that’s neither here nor there. Grant & Alvernon is really not that bad. I mean, people regularly do heroin in the restrooms, and a lot of people had set up a pretty sick camp decked out with a couch till the city decided to expel them from their camp, but I mean, like, can you imagine being homeless? In Tucson? This city is dangerous as fuck. And when the summer hits…holy shit, you gotta fucking watch out.

It always makes me think of the Song of Daybreak....

ألم يجدك يتيماً فأوى

Didn’t you see how God found you orphaned, then took care of you?

ووجدك ضالاً فهدى

Found you lost, then guided you?

ووجدك عائلاً  فأغنى

Found you helpless, then gave you power?

فأما اليتيم فلا تقهر

So why treat the orphan with harshness?

وأما السائل فلا تنهر

Don’t turn away those who ask you questions!

وأما بنعمة ربك فحدث

Tell them about the blessings of your Lord.

I hate people who make this shit all about the afterlife. I mean, that’s obviously a part of it, but for me Islam is also the religion of the here and now. Common sense. What’re you gonna do with the tools God gave you to make the world suck less? I mean, that’s a pretty fair way to get into Paradise.

Wish Tucsonians got this message, they’re the worst to their homeless people. Mainly white Tucsonians. Mainly Christians. Even Sudanis aren’t as bad. From my experience, people treat them like they’re subhuman despite the fact that every single institution in society is built to prevent them from building back up. At least Muslims have more fucking humility about it, cause like half the Recitation is about how being a dick to poor people is bad. Which, you know, I mean, I don’t know about you guys, but that sounds pretty fair. For the most part, I’ve found that, as long as you talk to a homeless person like they’re a human being, they’re not a threat. There are exceptions, of course, but I mean, they are also people. But what do I know? I’m a Raafidhi heretic.

Anyways. Walking down Grant & Alvernon, seeing everything wrong with white Christian capitalism happening in the same spot: come across this one kid I know, Saarid son of Maarid. The storyteller. The rhyme is sick, right? He was doing something I’d never seen him do before: read. But you know…positive development. Saarid’s smart as hell. See him around here all the time with his friends. Bit of a quiet guy, smokes way too much for a 13 year old. I mean, come on, that is very Sudanese of him, but like, Jesus Christ my good dude. Anyways, I slap the cigarette out of his hand and ask: “ya walad inta gaa’id tagra shnu? Bitdakhhin kamaan?” (“Nigga what YOU reading? Are you smoking?!”)

He looks me dead in the eye: “al-Injil.” (“The Gospel.”)

You see why I like this kid? Doesn’t take shit from nobody.

“Which one?”

“John, you know, in the beginning was the…”

Oh not this Trinitarian shit again. Feels like a sign. What can I say? I’m superstitious. Prophet Maryam and Nubia are on my mind a lot these days…probably cause I love me some Nubian Mary icons. That shit is fire. And, being a Believer in Hikma, AKA a Shi’i Gnostic, AKA a Muslim Mystic, AKA an Islamic Neoplatonist I’m delighted to see that Orthodox Christian theology has a lot of parallels to Neoplatonist ideas, even in the Trinity. I mean…they maintain the Trinity is a paradox not meant to be comprehended by the human brain, to which I have to say…okay whatever. But as somebody who grew up in a faith tradition that emphasized rituals as a path to divine union, I mean, I get their theology. Plus, they got the coolest art. Sorry to all the other Christians. Nubians and Ethiopians especially are my favorite. 

Anyways, I ask Saarid: “Do you want to convert?”

Saarid: “Well, I want to do my reading cause I don’t want to read something later and then change my mind.”

“Leyh?”

Saarid: “What?”

“Why are you afraid to change your mind? It’s natural!”

I think I have a hunch. In Sudani communities, people are crazy fucking Sunni. I only just clocked it, but hey, better late than never. Saahib az-Zamaan, the Leader of the Time, he’s helping me see it more clearly now. I know it worries him…sectarianism is deadly. Always has been, probably always will be…unless the Leader of the Time comes out of occultation. And that’s a big if. Who knows, maybe the real Leader of the Time is actually an alien. Anyways, Orthodox Sunnis don’t approve of any sort of religion change away from Orthodox Sunnism. People even tell you that’s punishable by death.

I mean, it don’t gotta be, but it’s still not a pleasant experience to leave Orthodox Sunnism and try to tell Orthodox Sunnis, lemme tell you. They think they’re so right about everything that’s ever happened in Islamic history. So, I have this urge to rock their world a little. I mean…sectarianism did get Imam Hussayn killed, right? At the very least, I’d rather not have people slitting throats over which God you believe in. Everybody gotta be free to pick their own relationship with Allah.

So, I was like “Look, want me to explain the Orthodox Trinity to you? I’ll teach ya some Nubian prayers, and I’ll baptise you and give you a medieval Nubian Christian name. Just don’t go to these white people churches, they’ll exploit the shit out of you. The beautiful Nubian Christian heritage of Faras Cathedral, where authority of the Nubian Church was once held and Christianity was practiced, is unfortunately flooded by Lake Nubia. It’s a crime against humanity, but knowing it exists is a reminder you can be a Christian your own way. Just don’t tell your parents. They’d kill you if they knew I did this. It’s not a proper baptism, but hey, now you got something to tell people who try to sell you on their church.”

After a surprisingly deep discussion of theology and scripture, I walked into the Eegee’s and asked for a cup of water. Look, I have a secret to tell you: my grandparents were baptised in the Nile. Long after the fall of the Nubian Orthodox Church in Sudan, people would baptise their babies in the Nile, then draw a cross on their forehead with kohl, like eyeliner, but not? Anyways, I don’t got kohl, but it’s not like the Gospel of John tells you how this shit is supposed to be done, anyway, I dip my finger into the water and inspired by my ancestors I draw a cross on Saarid’s forehead.

 I said:

“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit

I Christen thee Iesounkouda – Servant of Jesus

A member of the Mahasi Church of our ancestors, which the oppressors of Egypt flooded and destroyed.

But today, just as your Lord and Savior, Jesus was resurrected, our ancestors' belief in Jesus was resurrected in thee.”

He said amen. 

“Welcome to Christianity, Iesou!” 

I’ve been inspired by the flexibility of doctrine I’ve seen in the Community of Christ or in the Episcopal Church, I know people think Muslims can’t be that way, but I mean, I’ve been to el-Gezira. Diaspora kids really exaggerate how religious Sudanis are sometimes, your parents might be boomers, but, you know, it’s not like Wardi’s singing ‘bout his wife. I wish that for the Sudani community: I can walk into an Episcopal Church, see a queer woman serve mass with no one batting an eye. I want Iesou to feel that safe, you know? I sympathize. I’m on my second religious minority, third if you count Orthodox Sunnism while living in fucking Arizona, and poor Iesou here…oh boy. I mean, you see the level of oppression and neglect Nubian Christians faced and face: look at Faras Cathedral. Flooded, with tons of its most precious icons cut up and taken out to white people museums. Disgusting. 

And I mean, I don’t get why niggas so uptight about it, I mean, like, fuck, I’m Shi’i and Mahasi, right? Well, before that, I was atheist (and there are Nubian atheists), and then before that, my family was Orthodox Sunni, and before that, Sufi Muslim, and before that, Orthodox Christian, and before that, who knows how many different kinds of indigenous Nubian religions there were. The evidence we do have suggests it shared a lot with the ancient Egyptian religion.

And like, every time, you know Sudanis, we extra about everything. I’m sure this’ll sound familiar to the white Tucsonians and Christians, too. Nubian kingdoms tend to be zealous, for lack of a better word – even Sudani Mahdi was Dongolawi. Correlation, not causation. But think about it!

I think of a joke my dad likes to tell. It’s about how Halfawi Nubians always be blaspheming. Personally, as a Nubian, I find the suggestion I could partake in anything someone could call blasphemy utterly heretical (sarcasm) I do not endorse tribalism, but, like, come on, loosen up, don’t lose track of the point at hand:

Halfawi Nubian A: Bro my uncle just died

Halfawi Nubian B: No way, he was committing heresy just a second ago ;-;

(khaalu laughter ensues, echoing through the deywaan)

Sometimes I wonder if it’s cause Halfawis might’ve given up Christianity relatively late and always been saying shit that pisses the Orthodox Sunnis off. But anyway, who cares? I’m saying, religious flexibility is in our blood. There was room for everybody in the Kingdom of Alwa. Room for everyone in Makuria. Should be room for Iesounkouda among Sudanis.

This is also an option for you, Sudanis who might wanna be Christian but don’t wanna give in to the scourge of American white Protestantism. There are tons of African Christianities, and you got Mahasism as a placeholder. Suntuwekane has resources in Old Nubian, and there’s a Nobiin Gospel of Mark, plus all 4 Gospels written in Kenzi by a Nubian convert named Samuel Hassanayn.

Just be smart about your religion. You know what I’m saying, ‘Umar? House is big enough for the both of us if you’d just calm your tits for a second. Yeah, Iesounkouda’s decision might not make sense to you, but hey, he should feel safe to explore that for himself. Who knows, maybe even he will end up a Sunni fundamentalist like you. God’ll be fine. We just gotta stop indoctrinating each other before our lack of religious literacy gets us all killed. 

Now, for those who are worried my baptism isn’t salvific…

(I mean, I’m barely a Muslim, by some accounts, much less an Orthodox Christian)

I consulted with that one Catholic who works at Eegee’s. I told him how the baptism went and he said “Very Protestant, but sounds Trinitarian enough to me” to which I said “ugh, I taught him the opposite of tawhid. Musta done it right.”

Eegee’s Catholic: “OH BOO HOO, GET OVER IT”

So I think it worked…? Eh, Jesus’ll figure it out.

I hope a Biblical Unitarian somewhere sees this and is like “yo preach! Everybody, Jesus is just a man! You’ve all been fooled!”

Yeah, I know you think we’re both going to Hell, ‘Umar. Let God handle it, he’ll be fine. 

[imaminoccultation]

Letter 4: Seeing the Light of the Imam - How I went from Sunni, to Atheist, to Shi’i Gnostic

I have a confession to make y’all. I’m a spiritual person.

I know, I know, put your pitchforks down, cringey ex-Christians and ex-Sunnis of Arizona’s Omdurman (Tucson), trust me, I don’t think y’all are going to Hell if you don’t agree with me. I’m not an Evangelical, or Mohammed Hijab. I also don’t believe in any ideology that makes me ashamed to be who I am: atheism turned out not to be right for me after my six year trial run, but I didn’t accept Imam Mahdi as my Lord and Savior just cause I decided my parents were right all along. Ha! But it’s hard to put into words exactly what happened to me. I think back to Dayf Allah’s Book of Biographies: I think of Sheikh Idris wad al-Arbaab, one of the most memorable biographies for me as, you know, a descendant of Mahasi Sufis. I think of the story where the son of the Prince (wad al-Arbaab, who I do call on occasionally when I slip and fall) first receives, well, I dunno. I dunno how you say this in English, let’s say he meets Jesus for you Americans. He sees the Light of the Muhammad, united himself with the highest level of the Muhammedan Reality, bringing his head into perfect contact with Allah’s eternal Pen: or, Dayf Allah tells us, he has a vision of the Prophet Muhammad, who teaches him the ins and outs of Islam. After that, they say Sheikh Idris never talked about anything except the cosmos, the stories of the ancients, or the movements of the angels closest to the Throne.

I can relate to that these days. It’s hard to tell people what happened in my conversion experience. On the outside, I had a conversation with a Twelver Gnostic who was extremely well educated in religious philosophy, which is good, because 1) I love philosophy 2) I love history 3) I know Islamic scripture pretty well. What can I say? I’m the son of a preacher, man. But he didn’t talk like anybody I’d ever met before. This nigga had something the Sufis would call ma’rifa of tawhid: deep, intuitive, internal knowledge of the true nature of God’s unity: the First Perfect and Eternal Truth, or Allah. He engaged in a practice called ‘irfaan: a weird way of talking, basically, that’s meant to help build your intuitive awareness of God’s tawhid. He just asks you questions unflinchingly. I remember one of them super vividly, because it’s then where it all clicked for me, and I saw the Light of Muhammad. You see, to understand anything a nigga like Sheikh Idris over here has to say, you need to do a lot of reading. Thankfully, I’ve been training all my life for this. I basically grew up in a mosque: I can run circles around the average internet dawah-cel. I’m an Arabic linguist by training. Parents speak Sudani, and also read a ton of the Recitation, and it was super important to them that I learned to recite it, too. A trip to Utah and a conversation with my friend’s grandpa also got me interested in Mormon history and the academic study of religion, which, you know, being an Arabic linguist trained me to actually comprehend. Then, since I was 16, I’ve become a mini-Islamic historian. Blame Rick Riordan. Percy Jackson is just too much like me: can’t focus on anything, and also split between a great but invisible legacy (his Greek godly heritage) and the fact that that legacy made living daily life super hard. I felt that, as a first-gen Muslim-American queer dude who also couldn’t focus on class if his life depended on it. But hey, you know why it appealed to me? Cause I love stories. They help me understand the world in terms I can actually understand cause, you know, I can follow a story. Plus, I have a wild imagination. Blame growing up with the Recitation!

You know, the story of Sheikh Idris makes me think of the Song of the Stairways. One of the Recitation’s most badass apocalyptic images, a staircase yawning into the sky, where a day is like 50,000 years, the angels marching, slowly, flowing wings dragging across the steps, all behind the Spirit: who is the Spirit? The Recitation tells me we’ve only been given a little knowledge, but I have a guess. The angel Jibra’il: the Slave of God, an angel who sometimes gets called a Messenger of God. Maybe the first Rasuul, while Adam was the first nabi (Prophet?) Well, anyways, the hadith say the Angel Jibra’il looks trippy as fuck: 600 wings that blot out the horizon, this nigga the guy who cut open Muhammad’s chest and washed out his heart on his way to talk with God and unite with the Light of Muhammad, returning as the Nabi, the Prophet Muhammad, completing the purpose Allah had always prepared for him. Anyways, he leads the procession, on his way up to God on the Day of Judgement: what’s up there?

I don’t know, but you can’t help but be a little curious, right? It’s why I love to draw Islamic imagery. Try to envision this mystical imagery so I can understand it better…I’m thinking of my next drawing being me holding the hands of the Hidden Imam, Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi, the Imam in Occultation, peace and blessings be upon him.

When I was talking with Twelver Gnostic Sheikh Idris, he didn’t judge me. He spoke to me in languages I was fluent in: Academic English, Islamic Scripture, Philosophy, Rational Argumentation (well, the last a bit more dubiously, all I’m saying is I did debate in high school LMAO) He asked me why I didn’t believe in God. We had a long discussion about whether or not brute contingency makes any sense and he said something that was gonna change my life forever.

“To test the utility of a principle like brute contingency, work backwards from that premise, and see if you can end up with physical reality.”

Uhh…you can’t. I mean, smarter people than me have argued that this is a great argument against the existence of reality, and I mean, have fun, guys. But like me, I’m a normal fucking dude, okay? ‘Umar, if you want to sit there and atfalsaf about whether or not this table exists, that’s fine, let’s settle this matter scientifically. Let’s set up some cameras, I’ll take your head, slam it into the dining table, and then you can tell me, based on your firsthand observation, whether or not it exists.

For me, that’s all I care about. What can I know, and then I just work off that. I’m not gonna lose my mind over shit that can’t be understood, but for some reason I thought Islam and rational thinking didn’t go together: but that’s not true. Sheikh Idris taught me otherwise. He taught me Hikma: Wisdom. He told me how to think for myself and how to see God, if I so chose. After a childhood of being an Imam Ali fanboy, knowing this philosophy – Neoplatonism – had room for queer people like me, and seeing how much it was like the Perennialist omnitheism I believed in as a kid (look it up, just look it up!)...I knew it was right for me.

But, I tried to tell him: “well, how am I supposed to know all that is true? Can you even say you believe in God?” Then Sheikh Idris gave me the words that made everything click, that passed the Gnosis, the Hikma, the Wisdom, that let me see the Light of Muhammad and put me on this mission to spread Islamic Neoplatonism before the akh-right gets all the queer Sudani-Americans killed. It brought me the spiritual peace that I imagine the prodigal son must’ve felt, the divine union that the story of the Return of the Prodigial Son symbolizes. But I wasn’t sure. I showed Sheikh Idris something I wrote about tawhid. It’s my masterpiece, and most vulnerable work. I call it the Four Gospels of Tawhid, and maybe one day, I’ll show them to you. He told me I understood his teachings beautifully, after a whole life of training. He said that he saw the Light of the Imam in me, and that it was my job to bring out my inner Imam so Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi, peace upon him, the Imam in Occultation, could come out. 

“What do you mean, do I believe in God? I know who God is.”

It felt like coming home. Saw the Light then.

I’d taken the Shi’i shahaada by myself about 3 times before over the course of the year. But now I was sure. I pledged my faith to God, recognized the Prophecy of Muhammad, and pledged my allegiance to Imam Ali as his rightful successor, who passed down the Light of Muhammad which until this day, I think, is held by the Imam in Occultation, who, once we’re ready, will come out to help us out. But even out of sight, even while in hiding, he’s guiding us in his own way…God just hasn’t let us in on the secret. Yet.

See, if you’re an Islamic Neoplatonist, like I am, you gotta pick an Imam. The Imam is basically the best human at a given moment: think of them as whoever it is who lucked out with all the perfect traits at a specific point in time (to put it simply). There are competing claims for the Imamate. Isma’ili Neoplatonists argue that the Aga Khan IV is the Imam of the Time, and, as is expected of a Twelver, I strongly disagree. It’s basically like Catholics arguing who the right Pope is. Isma’ilis think the Aga Khan IV is the last living descendant of Imam Ali and his wife, the Prophet Muhammad’s favorite daughter, Fatima the Radiant, and therefore more qualified than anyone to be the Pope. I…am not convinced. Sorry, I’m a linguist, and until I see evidence that he speaks Old Hijazi Arabic I’m afraid Imam al-Mahdi is just gonna have to be enough for me. Imam al-Mahdi, I was taught, is staying out of sight cause humans need time to figure some things out before they’re ready for him. But, you know, we still need to get ready. We still need to fight for justice, because Imam al-Mahdi’s job is to implement God’s justice on Earth one last time, helped out by asexual Prophet extraordinaire, Jesus Christ, the Messiah of the Muslims. 

I’ve been inspired by him. That’s why I converted. I’m planning my next drawing in my head: myself, holding the hands of Imam al-Mahdi, with the white veil I always see in Shi’i art over his face, symbolizing his mystery. I imagine the Light of Muhammad shining between us, a mourning, agonized soul longing for the divine union which Imam al-Mahdi provides him access to, without sitting at his shoulder and telling him only to believe what the scholars say.

Which is what Sunni Orthodoxy was for me, and it was killing me. And white atheism was also killing me because it told me I couldn’t have my Islam and my queerness. But I can. I don’t have to justify my faith to you, that shit is my business, and your shit is your business. But I’m not gonna not talk about it cause it makes you uncomfortable. I was gonna end up another dead queer Black Muslim-American if I didn’t meet a Muslim who taught me how to be Muslim and queer at the same time completely on accident. I feel purpose now. I owe Imam al-Mahdi, and plan on making good on my pledge. That’s the essence of my worship. To learn from oppression, build the tools to fight it, which I’ve been cultivating. Slowly, but surely. They’re all coming together now. Watch out, akh-right bros. I have some bad news for you: it’s a secret the Muslim Brotherhood (Sunni Orthodox) scholars don’t want you to find out – the Qur’an and the hadith are scientifically and historically inaccurate. I know, I know, shocking, I can prove it, too, and I’m still Muslim. I just don’t read these books like science or history textbooks, I read them like, you know…literature…because I like to read. But my reading brought me back into a relationship with Allah that, right now, is working really well for me. You can have a healthy relationship with Allah if you’re queer, and you can still have Islamic Literature as a part of your life. There is more than Orthodox Sunni Islam, and more people need to know, because Orthodox Sunni dawahganda is scarily successful. The shit I learned took me my whole life to be able to actually comprehend because my experiences as an Orthodox Sunni had me so myopic about what Islam could be.

There are options if you’re doubting your faith as a queer person. Find the relationship with God (or no God) that works for you, but don’t do it on fundamentalists’ terms.

[imaminoccultation]

Letter 3: How Nubians Became Arab - A Sufi Hypothesis for the Arabicization of Sudan

Peace be upon those who follow the right path. Which is to say, okay, Sudani Sufism? Aren’t you a Shi’i Neoplatonist?

Ugh, I know it seems a bit weird, ‘Umar, but trust me, Neoplatonism is a bit more common than you might think. I have it on good authority that the Tijaaniya Sufis are Neoplatonists, and lately I haven’t been able to not wonder about what other Sufis in Sudan might be. I think of how my mom used to describe God to me, how I always believed in him: like some sort of power that runs through and connects the universe, not so much a being with a distinct personality…

This is why Muslim Neoplatonists like the Isma’ilis, the Tijaanis, and yours truly like intercession. We think God is inaccessible except through intermediaries, a bunch of middle men (or women!) of varying degrees of qualified to help you access God. It’s gonna be really complicated to get into how this works, but sufficient to say: okay, everybody has a little bit of the Light of Muhammad (the Ideal Man, in the Muslim Neoplatonist worldview) in them. Sheikhs, imams, other spiritual teachers, basically they are the most qualified to identify the Light of Muhammad in things and also know the best tools to bring it out. This is why Sufis are obsessed with isolation: one of the main ways Sudanese people got educated in my parents’ time was in khalwas, secluded rooms usually built around mosques where some old dude (Light of Muhammad extraordinaire AKA sheikh AKA Sunday school teacher with magic powers), where they do nothing but memorize and recite the Recitation in hopes of getting the deep, personal knowledge of the truth of the Light of Muhammad that their sheikh has.

Make sense? No? Well, we’ll have to come back to it.

Anyways, so, for the record, the place I’m from is also very Sufi. Mostly Hindiyya, I think, but you also got yourself a lot of Sammaanis and just enough Mukaashifis that the old ladies in the village still like to yell “Oh sweet St. Mukaashifi!” (or, in Sudani Arabic: ya al-mukaashifi!)

See, calling on the names of bearers of the Light of Muhammad, even after they’re dead, is just one of many tactics to accessing God. The idea of accessing the divine with your coolest ancestors as your middle men is REALLY old in Sudan. Before Sufi Islam came along and took the region by storm, people were Orthodox Christians.

Now, Orthodox Christians aren’t quite Neoplatonist, from what I understand, but they’re pretty close. The Father is, like, the absolutely simple reality that Shi’i Neoplatonists like me call “Allah” or “God” cause we don’t like confusing people, which eternally gives birth to the Word, the logos, the Son! The Son basically breathes out the Holy Spirit (or Holy Ghost, if you’re Mormon, or “Sacred Breath” if you want a plain English version), which then generates the reality we can experience. But, you know, cause Orthodox Christians hate the idea that somebody could comprehend the Trinity, they also add the fact that, you know, they all do this shit in perfect unity while all being the same entity. It’s a paradox, but it’s how the One God has chosen to reveal himself! At least, that’s how much I can understand it.

Now, I’m Muslim. I don’t believe God does paradoxes. For me, that’s why I call the Christians’ Father “God” and not the Father: like I was saying in my letter about tawhid, I don’t believe God resembles things in the known universe. While I also believe in the logos, the Light of Muhammad, or the Universal Intellect which contains all the eternal truths that govern our experiential reality, I see the Light of Muhammad more like Allah’s Pen, which he mentions in the Recitation. It’s the first thing he created, according to some Shi’i hadith. When he created it, the first thing it said was “what do you want me to write, dude?” and God said “everything that will ever happen.”

Well, what does such a Pen write on? See, this where the Guarded Tablet, Allah’s heavenly notebook, comes in. As a Shi’i, Allah is basically just the ultimate Drawn to Life protagonist: hence the Recitation talking about all his “all he needs to do is say ‘Be,’ then it is.” The Guarded Tablet, often known as the Universal Soul, is its own, independent eternal being that generates the cosmos. In some senses, it's a Trinity, except the power dynamics are different: while the Pen and the Guarded Tablet are independent eternal beings, they are both created by and wholly dependent on Allah for their existence. They are the intermediaries closest to him, but still perfect Slaves: totally subordinated. But, if it depends on God to exist, in the Hikma worldview, it is 100% not God.

Anyways, back to Sudan. Ya see, in the Funj Sultanate, what I would argue is basically the first Sudanese state (sans-Darfur and South Sudan, of course), some famous dude named Muhammad son of Dayf Allah took it upon himself to record a bunch of biographies of all the Sufi bigwigs he was hearing about. It’s like, one of the oldest Sudani history books, Sudani Sufis still read the shit out of it today. At one point, Dayf Allah basically gives us the cliff notes of how Islam spread in Sudan and the Funj Sultanate took over the former territory of Dotawo, “The Kingdom of the Upper and Lower Nile,” which included basically all of modern Sudan except Darfur (and also not South Sudan). 

Basically, according to Dayf Allah (with some details added in from the Granary Clerk’s Manuscript, a Turkish-era book about Funj history): 

Apparently some Muslim dude went and met up with the Funj, wowed them with his brilliant table manners (or religious knowledge, there are a ton of different versions of this story), got hitched to the Funj chief’s daughter, and they gave birth to the Funj royal line (I mean, supposedly). Then, they followed this one magic bull to the shore of the Nile where they found some chick who called herself “Sinnar” (some people claim this means Essin-Aar, “Island of Water” or “Island of the Sister,” but neither seem likely to me), and they decided “fuck it, why not build the capital of one of the two great Sudanese Islamic empires right here?”

Anyways, supposedly, after this rousing start (details are disputed, but that’s the gist), these niggas made their way up from southeastern Sudan (modern-day Sinnar state), up the Blue Nile (and northwards on a map), slowly conquering the former territories of the Kingdom of Alwa, the southernmost Nubian kingdom. By that time, Alwa was already sort of going through a rough time and it may have joined forces with Makuria to form Dotawo to deal with that stuff, but they couldn’t stop the Funj onslaught. The Funj crushed the Alwans, fucked their capital Soba up so bad that I know this one Sufi song that goes like “law ma ahl an-noba kan ad-dunya khirbat kharaab zey Soba,” basically “if the Sufis hadn’t shown up, the world woulda been fucked up the way they fucked up Soba.” Yeah, that bad.

Anyways! Funj Sultanate kicks Alwa’s ass and reaches, let’s say, the bottom of what Dayf Allah calls as-Saafil: basically, roughly the border between ash-Shimaaliya and the River Nile, around where the Shawayga and Ja’aliyyin squat. Now here’s where things get a bit twisty. What’s happening up in Makuria, AKA ash-Shimaaliya + River Nile State + Red Sea State + Kassala? Maybe?

So, there are two theories:

Some Yemeni dudes land in Red Sea State from Hadramawt and marry some rich Beja kings, ending up with something called the Hadariba Sultanate (Hadariba, Hadarima, see? Also notice – Ancient Egyptians called the Beja, Medjay). These guys hire some Meccan dude (or maybe a Beja dude who was claiming his grandma was from Mecca, sources are unclear) named Abdallah Jamaa’ (the Gatherer), who then basically starts an Orthodox Islamic Empire starting in the East, working his way until he’s taken up former Makuria territory and made it all the way down to Arbaji. Abdallab Sultanate v.s. Funj Sultanate: they’ve both done a lot to take up the former land of two of Africa’s most powerful kingdoms, Makuria and Alwa, and now they’re facing off in el-Gezira of all places. The Abdallab convince Amara Dungus that he should convert from paganism to Islam, he does, and they agree to join forced and form the Islamic Funj Sultanate.

Abdalla Jamaa’ is as fake as the Muslim Arab dude who gave birth to the Funj royal family. In reality, like Dayf Allah tells us, the Abdallab Sultanate (perhaps an Arabized Nubian or Beja state?) whooped the asses of some Nubian kingdom in the north, kept moving south, then got in a fight with the Funj. I mean, it makes sense, I feel like the Funj lowkey already knew what Islam was without having to have some Meccan dude tell them.

Instead, Dayf Allah just mentions that, before the Funj came along, people in Nubia/Makurian Territory/Ash-Shimaaliya+Northern state+East Sudan/The Funj Lowlands/as-Saafil did the dangerously sinful and barbaric deed of…checks notes “Divorcing a woman and getting married the next day without the Islamically specified waiting period.” Okay really, Dayf Allah, that’s all you got for me? It’s gotta be more complicated than that!

He mentions some famous sheikh coming in and then teaching them hey, have an ‘idda period, ye fucking bastards, which is, I mean, like, okay. But my point is, starting from the south/the Funj Highlands/as-Sa’eed/Alwa, the Funj move northwards and establish Islamic polities. That’s not to say there weren’t Muslims before: we got tons of examples of Old Nubian documents with Muslim names in them, sometimes with parents with Muslim names, some not (too lazy to find examples, look up Old Nubian onomastics, or send me an email complaining for citations, I got y’all). We also know from Muslims who wrote about Nobatia, Makuria, Alwa, and their final combined form, Dotawo, who talk about how there were already Muslim communities in the area. Famous Arab explorer and fuckboy Ibn Battuta visited the Hadariba Sultanate and claimed he met Arab Muslims there who spoke Bidawiyet. Ibn al-Aswani also mentioned meeting people who identified as Arab but spoke Nubian. This phenomenon was basically recorded among the riverine Sudanese groups all the way up until the 19th-century, as far as I can tell, where we have the last records of white people telling us they met Ja’alis and Shaigis who spoke fluent Nobiin. How widespread was this? I mean, who the fuck knows! 

But I mean, it’s clear something weird is happening at the Makuria/Alwa boundary when it comes to movements of Sudanese Sufi communities. You see, I’m Mahasi. Starting from the first cataract (all the way up in southern Egypt) and all the way down to the 6th (basically before Khartoum?), the Nubian groups basically go:

Kunuz, also known as Mattokki in their language, Mattokki Nubian (means “people of the East”). They may have something to do with the people who migrated from Dongola, the capital of Makuria, after it fell north up to Egypt and founded the Kanz state? Anyways, they basically live up by Aswan, for the most part. 

Egyptian Fadicca, sometimes also called Mahas, heard three etymologies for their names: fark-dijja, I think (“(people of) the five valleys”), fadaja (“peasant,” if I’m not mistaken), and also fayadicca: “I’m gonna die!” Also claimed that this is the result of them being Makurian refugees but I don’t think there’s enough evidence to say so. Anyways,

Sudanese Fadicca AKA Halfawis, usually called Halfawiyyin, but some Sikkotawis are also called Halfawi, so don’t get mixed up. Named after, you know, Wadi Halfa, which is the place they’re from and also the place fucking Jamal Abdelnasser flooded under Lake Nubia. Jesus Christ.

Sikkotawis: Ah, the group Wardi and other people from the Nubian town of Sawarda belong to. Sometimes called Halfawis, too, since they’re a pretty small group. They’re also sometimes called Mahas.

Mahas: Okay, there are Mahas proper, who live in Mahas, Nubia, ash-Shimaaliya, and then there are the non-Mahasi Nobiin-speaking Nubians who also get called/call themselves Mahas, and then there are the Blue Nile Mahasis. I will get to them. I have a personal bone to pick with them, but, they claim to be from Mahas (sometimes)

Danagla: Down by the 4th cataract, Dongola, the most Arab of the non-Arab Nubians, or, you know, the most Nubian of the non-Nubian Arabs. The tribe Sudani (fake) Muhammad al-Mahdi fucking came from, which is to say, the tribe Ja’afar Nimeiry comes from, which is to say, like, the people who speak Andaandi and live in Dar Dongola, the old capital of Makuria.

Now, unlike groups 1-3, which I feel like are at the forefront of most Nubian language revitalization initiatives, I feel like groups 4-6 probably represent the vast majority of Nubians…it’s just that not that many of them speak Nubian languages by comparison. Ya see, tons of Mahasis live in el-Gezira and have since at least the Turkish period, but they don’t got no living memory of speaking Nobiin. Then there’s also Danagla who live outside of Dar Dongola who have a super long connection with Sufism: I mean, fucking Muhammad al-Mahdi, Sudan’s most…successful Sufi sheikh let’s say. They also don’t really speak Andaandi anymore. And notice: people living in southern Makuria territory, like the Ja’aliyyin and Shawayga, they also don’t speak Nubian languages anymore. Not to mention there are all sorts of Western Sudanese Nubian languages that have been lost to history, like Haraza Nubian. At least we still have Midob, the Ajang languages of the Nuba Mountains, and some evidence of Birgid Nubian that has led some experts to think: “you know, maybe Nubian languages started out in Darfur.”

But that’s a whole other topic. But anyway! Noticing a pattern? Slowly but surely, from the south on up, as Sufism spreads throughout Sudan, more and more Nubian-language speakers, while holding onto a ton of Nubian culture and sharing a long connection with Nubians, start calling themselves Arab after the arrival of Sufism even if they still speak Nubian. Then, after they stop speaking Nubian languages, they stop calling themselves Nubian.

What could be happening here?

Well, ya see, prior to the arrival of Sufism, Nubians were Orthodox Christians. They had a very transcendent concept of God the Father, similar to my crazy specific tawhid, ‘scept I can tell you, them niggas believe in a Trinity. Which basically means, for them, God was so far away and so inaccessible, but also so powerful, basically anything can connect you with God if you use it right. So Nubian Christians prayed for the intercession of angels, The Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ, all sorts of Coptic saints (like Saint Mena, who you should totally read up on), and when Sufism came along, I mean, it fit like a glove. Sure, you can’t call the intermediaries God anymore, but Sufis lowkey see the world the same way that I do as a Shi’i Neoplatonist. Just like Nubians called on their Christian saints to connect them with God because of the great deeds they’ve done for Him, Nubian Sufis (and indeed, Sufi Sudanis generally) call on their Sufi sheikhs/saints to connect them with God because of the great deeds they’ve done for It. 

So maybe what separates the Nubians (Halfawi, Mahasi, etc.) from the Arabized Nubians (Ja’aliyyin, Shawayga, etc.) is primarily religion, the former converting later than the latter. I’ve noticed a lot of tribalist jokes tend to imply that Nubians are less religious, but I mean, every Nubian I’ve ever met is religious as fuck, and historically, Nubians are religious zealots. The Kushites, like Amanirenas, were basically Amun keyzaan, then they got into Jesus in the 6th-century just to show the Egyptians and Ethiopians how to do it right, and then when a version of Islam that wasn’t Orthodox Sunnism finally came along (Sufism) they were super into it. 

So maybe that’s why the Nubians who still speak Nubian languages, still do, and those who don’t, don’t? i.e. me as a Geziran Mahasi whose ancestors claim to be from Sawarda (Sikkot territory) or Badeen Island (Sikkot territory…?), living in a Sufi hotspot with an extremely long connection to Sufi history (the areas along the Blue Nile), and maybe the reasons Halfawis keep getting stereotyped as being the most blasphemous despite being very practicing is cause maybe they fucking converted last. You know, Orthodox Christians hated the Muslims’ guts, maybe they were still dropping those hot takes, sibbing the deen like nobody’s business, I mean, Muhammad Jalal Hashim claims there were Christian Nubians till the early 20th-century who literally fought their Nubian Muslim neighbors.

But it’s also worth noting that, I’ve read the Turkish-era Nobiin Gospel of Mark from 1860, a time period where we know there were at least SOME Nubian Christians, albeit often recent converts from Islam to Christianity thanks to white missionaries. Like 14% of the words in there are Arabic (and it’s some 3ammu  from Serre writing it), including a ton of the loanwords a lot of Nubian language activists are trying to replace with Nobiin neologisms. I mean, it’s fine if you wanna do that, personally, though, I think it’s worth recognizing that basically any Muslim culture is going to have a TON of contact with Arabic, and that’ll naturally influence the language. It’s true of Urdu, Farsi, Bangla, Swahili, Hausa, Fur, Nobiin, Andaandi, Bidawiyet (Beja), literally it’s all over the place. But most of those languages are doing fine. It’s not Arabic loanwords that kills languages. It’s failing to teach a language to your kids that kills languages. You can sit there making up Nobiin neologisms till the cows come home, but if it’s not helping your kids learn Nobiin better, should you?

[imaminoccultation]

Letter 2: The Case for the Prophecy of Women, Part I - The 6 Nabiyyas of the Andalusian Scholars

Peace be upon those who follow the right path. Which is to say, what’s up guys??

Okay, new letter, this time for one of my favorite topics, even though I know it’s not as pressing as some of the other ones I’ve got on my list. I’m procrastinating a little, forgive me: it’s kind of like how I’m still referencing Muhammad’s letters to diplomats and not the actual letters of Imam Mahdi because I’ve seen ar-Risaala but I still can’t find a good PDF with all the Imam’s letters in a format that doesn’t make my eyes hurt. 

Y’all ready? Okay. Let’s do this:

If you don’t consider Prophet Maryam, peace be upon her, a Muslim Prophet, you are a fucking kaafir or a sexist or both.

(I mean that lovingly, but if you are gonna be offended by that, it is not gonna get better, I recommend a soothing night of Surat Maryam by Sheikh Abdulbasit Abdassamad, probably my favorite Egyptian reciter. I know my ancestors would be angry I’m recommending an Egyptian right now and not somebody like Sheikh Salih Ahmed Salih, who is great, but come on, Abdassamad is called “the Voice of Heaven” for a reason. Check him out!)

Okay, first of all, this is not just some 21st-century “oh, look, I wanna make Islam liberal” nonsense, this is a hot take that dates all the way back to Andalusia, Spain: back in the time Muslims ruled. When was it? Dunno, I hate numbers, don’t make me keep track of dates, but this is a take so hot it basically never left Spain. But I’m bringing it back, because I’m nothing if not a history nerd. I go crazy for this shit.

And so, let’s talk: the six female prophets (nabiyyas) of the Andalusian scholars. 

“Hold the fuck up!” I hear a strawman calling out in the distance, “Aren’t Muslim prophets only supposed to be MEN, silly??”

Oh, get the fuck over yourself, ‘Umar, let’s have a look at this verse from the Song of the Prophets:

وَمَآ أَرْسَلْنَا قَبْلَكَ إِلَّا رِجَالًۭا نُّوحِىٓ إِلَيْهِمْ ۖ فَسْـَٔلُوٓا۟ أَهْلَ ٱلذِّكْرِ إِن كُنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ

We’ve only sent to you people MEN, MEN, underlines, circles, provides several citations of Arabic dictionaries, walking on their damn MANLY feet, who we delivered Revelation to (AKA inspired in white Christian). Ask THE PEOPLE OF REMEMBRANCE (they mean the Muslims, obviously, and my favorite Muslims specifically) if you don’t got a clue (like you, Shi’i heretic)

Ugh, don’t make me do this to you, ‘Umar. Okay, why don’t we actually talk about Song of the Prophets instead of just playing linguistics games that make the Recitation seem way more complicated than it actually is. Okay, so, what is the Song of the Prophets?

The Song of the Prophets is the 21st chapter (or surah) of the Uthmanic Bible, AKA the mushaf, the written Qur’an that you probably think of when somebody says “Qur’an,” which I call the Recitation. Anyways, Recitation Songs lowkey follow the “Tupac naming rule.” Some dude once showed me this YouTube video where Tupac was talking about how the best way to make a rap song is to just be as in the moment as possible, mentioning “what’s the last thing that nigga said? Okay, let’s make that the title of the song.” Recitation Song titles are lowkey like that. They’re usually just a name people picked cause it made this collection of verses easier to refer to, so sometimes Songs have multiple different names, but don’t think the Song title will always tell you what the Song is about. That said, the Song of the Prophets is built different, as the kids say. Basically every other verse is about another Prophet up until like the last 20 or something lines, like:

وَٱلَّتِىٓ أَحْصَنَتْ فَرْجَهَا فَنَفَخْنَا فِيهَا مِن رُّوحِنَا وَجَعَلْنَـٰهَا وَٱبْنَهَآ ءَايَةًۭ لِّلْعَـٰلَمِينَ (91)

PLUS the one who kept her legs closed (look, the Arabic isn’t much better, trust me), so we blew some of our Spirit into her and we made her and her baby boi a Sign to all of humankind

إِنَّ هَـٰذِهِۦٓ أُمَّتُكُمْ أُمَّةًۭ وَٰحِدَةًۭ وَأَنَا۠ رَبُّكُمْ فَٱعْبُدُونِ (92)

This is your community: one community, and I’m y’alls’ Lord, so worship me dudes

وَتَقَطَّعُوٓا۟ أَمْرَهُم بَيْنَهُمْ ۖ كُلٌّ إِلَيْنَا رَٰجِعُونَ (93)

It’s just that later on y’all fucking lost sight of yourselves and started overcomplicating this stuff; you’re coming back to Us, don’t worry.

I hope people aren’t offended by the way I’m translating these verses. I just don’t think that translating the Qur’an into Biblical English is always the right thing to do, especially if I’m tryna talk to fucking normal people and not people who, you know, don’t know enough Literary Arabic to understand the Recitation by ear alone (like I can…most of the time, the Medinan surahs are SO HARD). 

Anyways, those verses come after a list of people that includes:

Yahya (John the Baptist): asexual prophet famous for giving his cousin Jesus a bath and starting a trend that took over the Roman Empire (and most of the world now)

Zakariya’s Wife: name isn’t mentioned, but she gets a miraculous baby in old age, also mentioned as somebody who does “good works” and prays a ton

Zakariya: Johnny’s dad, who’s most famous for…being Johnny’s dad!

Zun Nun/Yunis/Jonah: dude who gets swallowed by a whale, has a great verse here, he’s all “OKAY GOD I’M SORRY MAN DUDE FUCK I SHOULDN’T’VE BEEN SO SELFISH please forgive me” and God saves him in the nick of time. Boom!

Zul Kifl: Oh, don’t get me started on this guy.

Idris: Not, as some Nubians would have you believe, Nubian for “man of knowledge,” although this nigga did apparently learn to write thanks to God

Isma’il: forefather of the Arabs, who Muslims believe was about to be sacrificed by Ibrahim v.s. Isaac like Jews and Christians do. Ya see, Isma’il was the son of Ibrahim’s…err…sex slave, to put it in modern terms, or concubine, to put it like a historian. Sarah didn’t like him or her mom cause she was a Karen and she told Ibrahim “hey, get those motherfuckers outta here” so Ibrahim totally left them in the Arabian Desert.

Ayyub/Job: Mentions the part of the book of Job where the Prophet (well, according to Muslims, Christians don’t consider him a Prophet) has God come in and save him from his suffering, leaving out the part where God…er…put him through horrible suffering to prove a point to Satan and was also a total dick about it

Sulayman/Solomon: mentioned as genie tamer king and ultimate airbender Prophet

Dawud/David: don’t get me started on this guy, either.

Nuh: Ugh, let’s leave this one for another time.

Lut: Oh we’ll get to you, motherfucker. We will get to you.

Ya’qub/Jacob: Uhhh, Yousif’s dad? Cries his eyes out, I think?

Isaac: Ugh, the lightskin if we were to compare him to Isma’il and imagine them as kids of one Black American dude with a white American wife (Sarah) and a Black American wife (Hajar), deadass

Ibrahim: Ooh, it has the story of him smashing the idols in this one, best Ibrahim story, no cap

Muhammad: The opening is vaguely about him. It’s tryna establish his credentials by comparing him to these other famous figures.

Hmm, what do all these figures have in common with the Prophet Muhammad?

Well…they’re not all Jewish: Isma’il is, you know, the original Arab who gets kicked out of Palestine (I mean that in an anti-Zionist way, not an anti-Jewish way, to be clear, fuck anti-Semites). They are basically old dudes, except for like, one person: fucking Zakariya’s wife. Now, what does she have in common with Maryam? What do these two women who gave birth to famous prophets (Yahya/John and ‘Isa/Jesus) have to do with Muhammad?

Well, I mean, you could go with my very simple explanation: they’re Prophets. I mean, why the fuck not? You know, Andalusian Sunni Imam al-Ashari said Hawwa/Eve, Haajar/Agar, Moses/Musa’s Mom, Asiyah (Pharaoh’s wife, Musa’s adopted mom), Sarah (Isaac’s mom), and Maryam (Jesus’s mom) were all Prophets.

I mean, why not??

First of all, all of them receive revelation and the same word is used for it: wahy. Now wait! ‘Umar says: a BEEEEE receives wahy/Revelation at one point. Gonna call a bee a Prophet?

Ugh, ‘Umar, Prophets can only be humans, you know this, ‘Umar! That was the point of the line you were using to refute me! This is why the Recitation keeps going on and on and on about how human the Prophet Muhammad is: the point of sending an Arab dude and not an angel or something more obviously from God is because people would think they’re hallucinating that shit. Bring them a dude that speaks their language and speaks some fucking sense.

So, I mean, maybe that bee is a bee prophet. Who cares?? We’re talking about PEOPLE, ‘Umar, why can’t these people be Prophets? Fucking Surat Taha mentions how Musa’s Mom receives Revelation to chuck baby Musa into the river. Ya see, if she’d done that on her own, we’d call her a lunatic (or at least a severely negligent parent). But because God told her to do it (and it worked out really well, as far as chucking babies into the Nile goes), we respect Musa’s mom. Not to mention, her son is a Prophet. Hmm, who else does that apply to?

Well, Haajar is also the mother of a Prophet: Isma’il. Despite her lack of illustrious background compared to Ibrahim’s legal wife, Sarah, God likes her enough to, you know, tell Muslims to follow in her footsteps every year at Hajj. Literally. Plus, her son is super important to Muslims as the ancestor of Muhammad, at least in traditional belief. You know, doesn’t she get Revelation when the whole zamzam thing is going on?

Okay, Asiyah, when does she receive wahy? You got me, I think Andalusian guys just really liked her cause she raised Musa, and who doesn’t like Musa?

See, now Maryam is even more special. She’s so special, she is the only woman mentioned by name in the Qur’an, deadass, and she’s mentioned in a few hadith with some extended shahaadas, which Islamophobes love to point out to prove the Qur’an basically secretly worships Maryam???

I mean, people need to learn to read books. The Recitation likes Maryam because Maryam is literally the Mother of Jesus Fucking Christ, who is basically the most important Jewish Palestinian who ever lived. You know what that means, right??? This is the chick that RAISED Jesus, literally the most perfect Muslim boy to ever walk the face of the Earth. Dude was so perfect, God, depending on what you believe, either 1) loved him so much, he let that nigga get tortured to death then brought him back to life and took him to Paradise or 2) loved him so much, he saved that nigga from getting tortured to death in public (what most Muslims believe). And Prophet Maryam, according to Muhammad, was equally perfect: apparently the dude said that Iblis pricks every single child when they’re born, except Mary and Jesus. Now, literalists are gonna focus on how exactly it is Iblis, a being made of invisible fire, goes around pricking newborns but that’s really just not the fucking point. The point is, girl is pristine. The usual gross straight person way to read this is “well, yeah, she’s cool because despite not being a hoe she managed to still be a mom”

Uhhhhhh

What? No.

Muslims aren’t that obsessed with Maryam’s virginity compared to Christians, at least not in the same way. I mean, they care that she was a virgin when Jesus was born. Otherwise, what would be the point of making such a big deal about his birth? Dudes named Jesus were born all the time in 1st-century Palestine to moms named Maryam, these some basic-ass names. Like, I read this one book called Christians, Muslims, and Mary by some Catholic woman (I think she was Catholic? Might be wrong on that) who talked about how this one Muslim was arguing with a Christian whether or not Maryam’s hymen was intact after she gave birth to Jesus. The Muslim, having what I like to call “common sense,” said “who the fuck actually cares, like, seriously??? She gave BIRTH, how did her cherry survive that shit” while the Catholic was like “well, you know, if God can make a virgin give birth, why can’t he make her hymen survive the ordeal?”

I mean, flawless logic, but that’s besides the point. It’s notable that in Arabic, Christians call Mary Maryam al-’Adhraa’: Mary the Virgin, or Mary the Pure. The Prophet Muhammad, though, liked Maryam al-Batoul better: Mary the Secluded or Isolated, or Mary the Pure. But the point of the Recitation isn’t really to prove she’s a virgin, but it’s to prove she’s worth being Jesus’s mom. At the time Muhammad was walking around Arabia, dropping facts and hot takes left and right, Muhammad was pretty pissed with this thing a bunch of Jews who read the Babylonian Talmud were doing. They were spreading this pretty scandalous rumor: ya see, Mary wasn’t actually a virgin. Mary actually banged some Roman officer and gave birth to a bastard baby, Jesus Christ, who pretended to be the Messiah until the Jewish elite put an end to his misery by getting him tried and convicted as a sorcerer, before stoning him to death and hanging him on a tree.

So…Muhammad had some notes…

Which is why the Recitation, which is really concerned with correcting misunderstandings and refuting bad Abrahamic ideas, leaves Maryam’s supposed husband (Joseph) out of the story and focuses instead on how fucking badass Maryam is. Girl the son of Imran, a dude who’s LITERALLY named after Moses’s dad and descended from Aaron (Moses’ older bro, the Mario to his Luigi), plus her mom was also expecting to give birth to a prophet, cause, you know, that’s what descendants of ‘Imran do. They give birth to prophets. She dedicates her womb to God, hoping for a male prophet, and woops: it’s a girl! And God’s all:

إِذْ قَالَتِ ٱمْرَأَتُ عِمْرَٰنَ رَبِّ إِنِّى نَذَرْتُ لَكَ مَا فِى بَطْنِى مُحَرَّرًۭا فَتَقَبَّلْ مِنِّىٓ ۖ إِنَّكَ أَنتَ ٱلسَّمِيعُ ٱلْعَلِيمُ

Remember when Imran’s wife was like “yo God, I’ve dedicated whatever’s in my belly to you man, completely, so accept it; you’re the one who knows and hears prayers.”

فَلَمَّا وَضَعَتْهَا قَالَتْ رَبِّ إِنِّى وَضَعْتُهَآ أُنثَىٰ وَٱللَّهُ أَعْلَمُ بِمَا وَضَعَتْ وَلَيْسَ ٱلذَّكَرُ كَٱلْأُنثَىٰ ۖ وَإِنِّى سَمَّيْتُهَا مَرْيَمَ وَإِنِّىٓ أُعِيذُهَا بِكَ وَذُرِّيَّتَهَا مِنَ ٱلشَّيْطَـٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ

Then she gave birth and was like “Oh God, I gave birth to a girl! And God knew I’d give birth to a girl, and women are definitely not like men. I’mma name her Maryam – servant of God – and I pray God protects her from fucking Satan.”

فَتَقَبَّلَهَا رَبُّهَا بِقَبُولٍ حَسَنٍۢ وَأَنۢبَتَهَا نَبَاتًا حَسَنًۭا وَكَفَّلَهَا زَكَرِيَّا ۖ كُلَّمَا دَخَلَ عَلَيْهَا زَكَرِيَّا ٱلْمِحْرَابَ وَجَدَ عِندَهَا رِزْقًۭا ۖ قَالَ يَـٰمَرْيَمُ أَنَّىٰ لَكِ هَـٰذَا ۖ قَالَتْ هُوَ مِنْ عِندِ ٱللَّهِ ۖ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يَرْزُقُ مَن يَشَآءُ بِغَيْرِ حِسَابٍ

And God accepted her prayer, made her prettier and more pure till she grew up and started living with Zakariya. Every time he came into her room he found tons of fruits around her. He was like “Mary, where the fuck did you get this shit?” And Maryam was like “I got it from God, dude, God provides limitlessly for whoever he likes.”

You think somebody God loved that much couldn’t be a prophet? Just cause she’s a woman who never got married?

I like to think of Maryam as the queen of the asexual women. Maybe her celibacy isn’t about her proving to the dudes she’s magic, or just about that. Maybe…she didn’t want to have sex. Maybe she was fine enough on her own. I mean, she fucking gives birth in the desert in the Qur’an and the only person who helps her out is God. 

This is why Andalusian scholars were all so convinced. These 6 women are mothers of prophets, and in the Recitation, prophethood tends to be passed down familially. Well, that’s what I think, but I also think Imam Ali was a better choice than Abu Bakr for first caliph.

And you know, it makes sense with the Islamic worldview. Who’s the first Prophet? Adam. Who was the other Prophet there? HAWWA, EVE, his wife! Girl passing down the prophethood, too, like all the other prophet wives, cause somebody’s gotta raise the prophets. Even the Prophet Muhammad had a religious mentor: the love of his life, Khadija. In my opinion, she was the last of the female prophets. She raised Fatima, who’s literally known as the Queen of the Queens of Paradise in Islam, and was the Prophet Muhammad’s favorite daughter. The Prophet Muhammad had nobody but Khadija when he started out. She was literally the first Muslim woman, tremendously literate in Christian literature since her uncle, Waraqah, was a priest, plus she was a business woman who went to Syria (where a bunch of Christians lived) all the time. She was the one who encouraged him to be a Prophet. She was the first to identify the Light in him. She was taken early…before Muhammad left Mecca, after which, Muhammad actually starts getting called nabi (prophet) in the Recitation, not just rasuul (messenger). Almost like he took the position, filling a vacancy.

I like to think of a nabi as somebody charged with preaching God’s truth to their community, as opposed to a rasuul, somebody charged with preaching God’s truth within their community, like Prophet Maryam with the Jews. That is, assuming they’re different things. Maybe they’re one in the same, in any case, I don’t see a great reason not to count these 6 chicks as prophets.

Prophets Maryam, Hawwa, Umm Musa, Asiya, Haajar, Sarah: all women who received revelations and were also key parts of the lives of the 6 super important Muslim prophets, Jesus Christ, Adam, Moses…Moses again, Ismail, Isaac, and Ibrahim! Not to mention, God also inspires Musa’s sister, Miriam, to tell Asiya to bring in Umm Musa to nurse Musa. You know the Christians consider her a prophet? She did become a leper later, though, but I don’t think getting sick is disqualifying for a prophet…

You might say “hey! Never heard of this take.” But also, like, you know, this take is older than the entire country of Sudan and basically any of the modern Muslim theocracies y’all think practice “true Islam.” Be careful. You have more options than you think, gay Muslims of the world. It’s fine if you wanna be atheist, but don’t let people kick you out of a relationship with the God you want to have a relationship with, deadass. Wish I’d learned that earlier! Knowing this could’ve helped.

[imaminoccultation]

Letter 1: Tawhid for White (Christian) Americans and Muslim-Americans

Peace be upon those who follow the right path. Which is to say, hey besties!

It’s hard to know where to start with these letters. There’s a lot to talk about, and very little time to do it.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about my preferred candidate for leader of the known world, Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi, peace be upon him: I like to imagine he’s somewhere out there, maybe in Paris, sipping a coffee in a fancy cafe overlooking the Eiffel Tower…basically, enjoying his Occultation. Maybe he takes a look over at the TV, sees the news.

My goal as a Shi’i is to see the world through his eyes. I mean, he’s the last living descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, guys, yet he still doesn’t want to show himself. My job as a Muslim is to create the conditions for his reappearance. You see, the world is dangerous. Always has been, always will be, but the ways it is dangerous are always changing. Imam al-Mahdi first went into hiding – Occultation – in response to the dangers associated with being the rightful heir to the Prophet Muhammad’s earthly authority. The oppression of his 11 predecessors – the previous Imams – had been a lesson to learn from, and a test for us. So, what can I do to make conditions for Imam al-Mahdi’s reappearance? Make the world less dangerous? What abilities has God given me to help his viceregent?

Ah, God. You know, people tend to think of Islam as the religion of the Prophet Muhammad: which, of course, it is, but you know, he comes second in the shahaada for a reason. The Prophet Muhammad did not choose the God – Allah – and choose to be his Prophet. Allah chose him, first and foremost, to deliver a message that forms the very basis of Islam: there is no god but the God. No deity of worship other than Allah. La ilaaha ila Allah. 

As someone who would affirm this statement from youth, I found the Christian doctrine of the Trinity utterly incomprehensible, yet, as an atheist, it’d attracted some strange fascination to me. See, as a kid growing up surrounded by white Protestants – some practicing, most not, all racist – I’d fallen under the dangerous misconception that the religion they were practicing was somehow less harsh and less irrational than the one I’d been persuaded to believe in. When I left Sunni Islam for the banal white atheism I’d been persuaded of by fucking WikiIslam of all things, I’d started to gain a real curiosity about the religions I’d grown up around. 

So one day I decided, what better way to find out about Christianity than, you know, talk to a Christian? Long story short, things would probably have gone better if I’d talked to literally any other Christian. The University of Arizona has a ton of fucking white Evangelicals for some reason: even as an Idahoan who grew up around Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and every flavor of Protestant extremist you could ask for, the shit I’ve heard white Christians say in Tucson has me shocked. 

But, you know, maybe the fact that they had a giant wooden cross and were handing out bills with parts of the Gospels written on them. You know, THE GOSPELS, the books about a fucking poor Jewish Palestinian farm tools maker who hated rich people, Prophet ‘Isa al-Masih, peace be upon him. Yeah, putting his words on fucking bills. Jesus Christ.

Anyways, I made the horrible mistake of asking these anti-Muslim dipshits to explain the Trinity to me. I would learn far, far later that in fact, there is no rational explanation for the Trinity: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all one God, according to the Christians. It’s a paradox, but the goal is not to understand the Trinity so much as it is to affirm it. Unfortunately, I don’t think these guys got the memo, so they instead tried to use analogies that did nothing but confuse me more. 

Which is why I countered with what I thought was the right explanation of the Islamic counterpart, or even response to the Trinity: the idea of tawhid. You can see akh-right dawah bro Mohammed Hijab debate it with alt-right Christian jihadi David Wood here, where he does a fine enough job showing why Muslims don’t believe in the Trinity, and a horrible job at explaining what tawhid actually is: 

Now, for me as a Muslim, the entirety of my faith depends on how I define tawhid. No joke. Tawhid – meaning “unity” or “oneness” – basically refers to how a Muslim actually interprets the first half of their shahaada: there is no god but God. Which is to say, there is only one God. But, what does that even mean?

Because apparently if you’re a Christian, “One God” actually means three divine characters, let’s say, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all of whom are collectively referred to as God and individually each count as God, but, you know, there are still three of them by all known definitions of the number three. So it’s clear when a Christian says “I believe in one God,” they have a very specific definition of one that your average Muslim really doesn’t recognize, especially since the Qur’an is pretty clear: Allah is not a part of a trio, as is Recited in the Song of the Tablespread (Q 5:37):

لقد كفر الذين قالوا إن الله ثالث ثلاثة وما من إله إلا إله واحد وإن لم ينتهوا عما يقولون ليمسن الذين كفروا منهم عذاب أليم

Those who say the God is the third in a trio have lied; there is only one god, and if they don’t stop these lies, the liars among those people will experience a painful Punishment. 

I think a lot of Christians read this verse and get pretty offended because they think what the Recitation is trying to say here is: “if ya say God is one in Trinity, you’re a fucking infidel and we’re gonna kill you.” 

Now, everyone has their own way of understanding this verse, but I think Imam Ali, peace be upon him, gives a pretty good explanation:

“When we say ‘God is one,’ we don’t mean ‘one’ as in, more than 0 and less than 2, if you get what I’m saying. That’d be like saying ‘God is the third of three,’ which is a lie, just like the Recitation says in the Song of the Tablespread. We also don’t mean ‘one’ as in ‘he’s the only real God,’ gods aren’t a species that Allah falls into, that’d imply there’s a way for God to actually be similar to things, and we don’t believe that. 

When we say ‘God is one,’ we mean he’s fundamentally unique, and not like anything in the known universe. He’s not divided in any way, shape or form, unlike his creations: he is perfectly independent and united.” (adapted from al-islam.org, just ctrl+F “5. Oneness”)

One of the ways that Evangelical Christian piece of shit tried to justify the Trinity was by telling me “well, you know, God is love, so he’s gotta be a group to symbolize that love.”

I mean…cute (I guess), but that’s just not how Muslims think of God. He doesn’t lead by example because there’s nothing out there like him: he might give us some examples of what he’s like, so we can get some understanding, but you know, God is God. He’s kinda his own…thing, for lack of a better word, and the point of tawhid is to say that anybody who claims to also be that kind of thing is either lying or dangerously wrong: so while it’s very sweet that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (might) be a loving family, we uh…don’t care? The implication that three entities can count as God isn’t the problem (well, not the only problem), but the fact that it’s three entities claiming to be one God. Shit’s illogical.

Ya see, Muslims believe in a little thing called fitra – more or less, instinct. But Muslims think your instincts don’t just include, you know, knowing not to jump into a fire because that shit hurts; it also means that you can tell when something makes no sense. You can tell right from wrong. You can consciously discern between what’s true and what’s false. Basically, people have the power to not be idiots and do the right thing (sometimes even simultaneously!) They also think God means for all of us to follow our fitra so we, you know, don’t say or do no dumb shit. If something is dumb, illogical, or paradoxical, then, like, say, the idea that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all one God, then humans can tell and, you know, they should call it out. 

So that’s tawhid. That’s what Muslims are trying to say when they say God is one, God is unique, and I mean it’s not a crazy idea. I mean, in the Song of Loyalty, the Recitation gives a super simple explanation of it in like 4 sentences:

قل هو الله احد

Say: “God is unique,

الله صمد

God is indivisible,

لم يلد ولم يولد

He doesn’t give birth (generate new members of his species), he wasn’t given birth to (nothing like him came before him)

ولم يكن له كفواً احد

And there’s absolutely nothing like him.”

Not the most literal translation, but literal translations do a terrible job at clarifying things to people who speak, you know, normal fucking English.

So that’s a normal fucking English explanation of tawhid. Do you think there’s an entity that initiated the universe? Do you think it’s not like any of the entities in the universe? If so, that’s tawhid, believing in one fundamentally unique being that created the universe v.s. thinking multiple beings worked together to create the known universe and, even crazier, that they actually resemble things in the known universe.