SUMMER VISITS: ISLAM INFORMATION CENTRE

Some of the group at the Islam Information Centre this evening

The Faith Awareness series of summer visits to places of worship and other faith-related sites in Leicester continues this evening at the Islam Information Centre, Highfield Street.

 

I was last here less than a week ago, helping out with a group of Year 5 pupils from Sandfield Close Primary on a visit arranged in association with The Mighty Creatives. The children had cameras, digital voice recorders and all kinds of art materials, to capture their experiences and impressions visiting not only here, but also the Jain Centre, Leicester Cathedral and BAPS Swaminarayan Mandir. Back in the classroom they'll be producing material for a display entitled "Faith in Neighbours" that will be on show in Curve during An Indian Summer later this month.

I'm glad to say that we have the biggest turnout so far for these Monday evening visits, with an even dozen of us at the start. Had any more arrived, the group would have had to be renamed "Christians Galore"!

Each of the three floors in the Centre has themed rooms. The ground floor and reception area is "Discover Islam". On the first floor are two rooms, "Status of Women" and "Islamic World of Science". In the last of these, we watch a short DVD feature, Library of Secrets, starring Sir Ben Kingsley, which reveals some of the contributions that Islam has made to some of the most essential aspects of the modern world. We're introduced to illustrious figures from the Golden Age of Muslim civilization (roughly coinciding with what is still called the Dark Ages in European history) who pushed back the frontiers of theory and practice in matters such as

• astronomy (Meriam al-Astrulabi, 10th century CE)
• mathematics (Al Kindi, c 801-873 CE)
• manned flight (Abbas Ibn Firnas, 810-887 CE)
• mechanics (Al-Jazari, 1136-1206 CE)
• optics (Ibn al-Haytham, AKA Alhazen, 965-1040 CE)
• surgery (Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi 956-1013 CE).

This is very well made, à la Harry Potter: accessible, enjoyable and interesting for children and adults alike.

 

I remember when I first heard about characters such as these and their achievements, the glories of the Golden Age of Muslim civilization and how much that magnificent culture has bequeathed to our modern world. That was in 1979, when I was 19 years old. I was astonished at what I learned then and questioned why I hadn't known any of this before. How could I have gone through a liberal educational process, the finest that the Scottish system - long the envy of much of the rest of the world - had to offer, yet been taught nothing about this? Did my teachers even know about these things? Did those who had taught them? I felt like I uncovered these hidden truths, which are now gaining ground as common knowledge, through the writings of William Sears and George Townshend, little known apologists for what was a little known faith in my late teenage years. Sometimes it felt like being a detective or lifting the lid on a conspiracy theory as I found out more and more. It's good that institutions such as the Islam Information Centre exist today to redress the balance and close some of these yawning gaps in our knowledge.

Kamran Qayyuam & Abu Bakar

Kamran Qayyum and Abu Bakar are our guides through the rooms. They're supported by Daud Sameja (Joint Coordinator of the Christian-Muslim Dialogue Group), who gives a short introductory talk and fields the Q&A at the end. In the photo above, Kamran and Abu are seen with a display of copies of the Qur’án in different languages. To the left of the picture are translations of the Qur’án in Albanian, Chinese, French and German; to the right, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Tamil and Urdu translations. This in "The Noble Qur’án" room, one of the two themed rooms on the top floor. The other is dedicated to a display on "The Prophets of God (Peace Be Upon Them)".

After we've toured the themed rooms, we return to the reception area, where some food is laid on for us. We end with a relaxed Q&A and I present Kamran with a copy of Meeting Muslims, the latest in a series of books on encounters with people of different faiths published by Christians Aware. I checked beforehand that they didn't already have a copy of this. They didn't, surprisingly, since it was done with the help of several friends in Leicester (including Daud) and is published by an inter-faith organization based a mere stone's throw away. I'm glad to be able to rectify that omission this evening.

 

I get the remaining members of the group to pose for a photo at the front of the building. As we're leaving, I encourage our Muslim friends to join us on the visit to Neve Shalom - Leicester Progressive Jewish Congregation's synagogue - next Monday evening. I hope that some of them will be able to take us up on the offer.

This is the fourth of six Faith Awareness visits planned for Monday evenings in May and June, the others being

• Jain Centre, Oxford Street (13 May)
• All Saints Church, Kerrysdale Avenue (20 May)
• BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Gipsy Lane (3 June)
• Neve Shalom Progressive Synagogue, Avenue Road (17 June)
• Guru Amar Das Gurdwara, Clarendon Park Road (24 June)

I may not be ale to attend every visit personally, but I hope to arrange for a blog post on each of them. Watch this space!

GOING ON BEYOND 2: MYSTICISM FROM A CISTERCIAN PERSPECTIVE

At ChristChurch, Clarendon Park, this evening for the second session in the course, "Going On Beyond: Meditation and Mysticism in the World Faiths". This nine-week course is an interfaith opportunity presented by Christians Aware, as part of its Faith Awareness programme. It is presented in association with Leicester Serene Reflection Meditation Group.

Our speaker this evening is Father Joseph Delargy, Abbot of the Monastery of Mount St Bernard Abbey (on the right in the photo above, with Kevin Commons). The full text of his talk is reproduced below. 

Mysticism from a Cistercian Perspective 

I have been invited to speak about Mysticism from a Cistercian Perspective. There are two words in that title that may need clarification.

Cistercian is the order of monks I belong to. It is a Roman Catholic Christian order founded in the year 1098. Today it numbers about 4000 of both of monks and nuns, about 2000 monks and 2000 nuns spread throughout 200 monasteries throughout the world.

Mysticism is harder to define. Even though it is a word that is used much in Christianity – we speak of mystical theology, mysticism, and mystics, we think of the Spanish Mystics Teresa and John of the Cross, or the English mystics, Julian of Norwich, Richard Rolle, the Cloud of Unknowing - we find it hard to actually define it. A definition of mystical theology is: the study of the human experience of God and a definition of mysticism is: involving the explicit experience of the immediate presence of God. So it is to do with the experience of God in this life.

Another problem with the word mysticism is the tendency to equate it with unusual phenomena like ecstasies, trances, visions, but these are always peripheral to true mysticism, all the true mystics never sought anything like that and if they did experience them they often found it an embarrassment. A saying that is often said by older monks to over eager novices is that mysticism "begins in mist, is centred on I and ends in schism."

The mystical teaching of the Cistercians would be above all found in the writings of the first Cistercians monks, people like St Bernard of Clairvaux (pictured below), William of St Thierry, Ailred of Rievaulx, Guerric of Igny and others. The Cistercians were originally a reform movement, started in 1098 in France, when a group of monks left the abbey of Molesme to found a new monastery with a simpler lifestyle and following the Rule of St Benedict more closely, stripped of all the accretions that had attached themselves to it over the years.

 

Their teachings are found in their sermons, treatises and commentaries. The Song of Songs in the Old Testament was one of their favourite books of the Bible and they never tired commentating on it. St Bernard’s great commentary runs to 86 substantial sermons and he only got as far as chapter 3 verse 1, not even half way through. The English Cistercians John of Ford and Baldwin of Ford continued this work after Bernard’s death in 1153.

The Cistercians saw the love story between the bride and the groom in the Song of Songs as representing the relationship between God and the soul.

Bride = the soul (or the Church) = anima

Groom = God = the Word

One verse they homed in on was 2:4. Our modern bibles say: He brought me to the banqueting hall and his banner over me was love but the old Latin bibles they would have used instead of saying his banner over me was love say He set love in order in me. That seems to be the whole key to Cistercian mysticism – the ordering of our love.

We do love, as humans we can’t do anything else, but we either love the wrong things or love the right things but love them too much or too little. Our love needs to be put in order.

Another important theme is that of image and likeness. Following Holy Scripture and the book of Genesis they believe that man is made in the image and likeness of God. After the fall of Adam we are still the image of God but we have lost our likeness. The spiritual/mystical path has as its goal to restore our likeness to God.

The Cistercians couldn’t get over the fact of the Incarnation, it fascinated them, the fact that God emptied himself to become man in Jesus Christ, the true humanity of Christ, a man like us in all things but sin. Pope Benedict XVI speaking on this aspect of St Bernard’s teaching in 2009 said:

In the extenuating battles between Nominalists and Realists two philosophical currents of the time the Abbot of Clairvaux never tired of repeating that only one name counts, that of Jesus of Nazareth. "All food of the soul is dry", he professed, "unless it is moistened with this oil; insipid, unless it is seasoned with this salt. What you write has no savour for me unless I have read Jesus in it" (In Canticum Sermones XV, 6: PL 183, 847).

For Bernard, in fact, true knowledge of God consisted in a personal, profound experience of Jesus Christ and of his love. And, dear brothers and sisters, this is true for every Christian: faith is first and foremost a personal, intimate encounter with Jesus, it is having an experience of his closeness, his friendship and his love. It is in this way that we learn to know him ever better, to love him and to follow him more and more. May this happen to each one of us!

Silence was another important element to the Cistercian mystical path. Not just silence to foster recollection but silence in order to "hear" God. They believed that hearing comes before sight. We will only see God in heaven but in this life we can ‘hear’ God (metaphorically speaking) speaking to our soul.

Simplicity was important – simplicity in liturgy, architecture, and life style. Whilst beautiful things – statues, stained glass, etc. - can lead us to God they can also be a hindrance getting in the way of a pure experience of God. In a sense the Cistercians were minimalists.

 

The Cistercians followed the Rule of St Benedict (c. 530 pictured above) and so its teaching was foundational to them. Humility and obedience were essential elements of their spirituality and mysticism.

Manual work was held in high esteem by the Cistercians. St Bernard said he learnt more from the woods and the trees and the rocks than he ever did from books.

The Cistercians described the mystical experience as ‘Visits from the Word’ – no strange phenomena – but when prayer is easy and living the virtues then the Word (God) is with us. When prayer is difficult and living the virtues is a struggle then the Word has departed. We sense the Word’s presence and absence but we don’t know the moment when he came or went. The comings and goings of the Word are entirely up to God, though we can facilitate them by making ourselves ready.

No saint is as optimistic as St Bernard, no saint is as hopeful as he is, in the ability of man, wherever and whoever he is, to return to God. No one was beyond hope for Bernard. The most wretched sinner was seen by Bernard as a man with his foot on the first rung of the ladder back to God. For Bernard the man at the very bottom has nowhere else to go apart from up. No saint was ever as encouraging as St Bernard. In a very well known passage Bernard writes – and this comes after speaking about the heights of the spiritual life and union with God – he writes:

Every man – even if burdened with sin, enmeshed in vice, ensnared by the allurements of pleasures, caught in mud, fixed in mire, a slave to care, distracted by business, afflicted with sorrow, wandering and straying, filled with anxious forebodings and uneasy suspicions – every man, I say, standing thus under condemnation and without hope, has the power to turn and find it can not only breath the fresh air of the hope of pardon and mercy, but also dare to aspire to union with God…. Why should he not venture with confidence into the presence of him by whose image he sees himself honoured, and in whose likeness he knows himself made glorious? Why should he fear a majesty when his very origin gives him ground for confidence. (SC 83)

St Bernard certainly lived by this. In the well-known story, one day St Bernard was on his way to see Count Theobald and on the way he came across a crowd leading a man out to the gallows for execution. The man was Constantius and he was guilty of murder. We can imagine the scene, the baying crowds heaping insults on the murderer and the terrified man being dragged along. Bernard stopped and took the rope by which the man was tied and said to those in charge "Let me have this murderer, for I wish to take him and hang him with my own hands" (i.e. by living the penitential monastic life). Such was Bernard’s authority that those in charge let him take the man and Bernard took him to Clairvaux where he became a monk. Under Bernard’s guidance Constantius made atonement and reparation for his sins by a life of obedience and penance as a monk for the remaining thirty years of his life until his holy death. Constantius is remembered in the menology of our Order on June 20.

When the crowds looked into the terrified man’s face they saw an evil demon, when St Bernard looked into the man’s face he saw past his sins to a potential saint. Cardinal Basil Hume used to say (quoting Oscar Wilde): "Every sinner has a future and every saint has a past."

In his sermons on conversion he paints and all to familiar picture, when we try to convert we are beset with greater temptations. But we are not to despair. He writes: (If we ask) … "Is it possible for such wretchedness to make a person happy?" (I say to you) Whoever you are, if you are in this frame of mind, do not despair: it is mercy, not misery, that makes a person happy, but mercy’s natural home is misery. Indeed it happens that misery becomes the source of our happiness when humiliation turns into humility and necessity becomes a virtue. Sickness has real utility when it leads us to the doctor’s hands, and he whom God restores to health gains by having been ill. (Conversion 12)All I have been saying is from the past, from history, so I would like to speak about a modern Cistercian Mystic, Thomas Merton. In December it was the 46^th anniversary of his death.

Thomas Merton (photo above) was born on 31 January 1915 in Prades in France in the eastern Pyrenees where his father was painting. His father, Owen, was a New Zealander, and his mother Ruth, was an American. When Merton was one year old the family moved to the US, first to Douglaston on Long Island then to the borough of Queens in New York. Merton had one brother, John Paul, who was a few years younger than he. When he was 6 Merton’s mother died and this was followed by a period of wandering for the family. First his father took him to Bermuda and then once again to France, where Merton went to school. In 1928, when Merton was 13, it was decided to continue his education in England and they moved to Ealing, W. London. He began school at Ripley Court, a prep school in Surrey, and then when he was 14 he moved to Oakham Public School in Rutland, just 25 miles away from where we are sitting now. After Oakham he gained entrance to Cambridge University where he studied modern languages French and Italian. At Cambridge something went wrong, though we are never told quite what it was, but to the end of his days Merton seemed to have a real hatred of Cambridge. After two years at Cambridge he transferred to Colombia University in NY and was much happier there reading English Literature and doing his Masters degree on William Blake. He lived in NY on and off for the next 6 years and during this period he converted to the Roman Catholic faith, being baptised on 16 November, the feast of St Gertrude, in 1938, when he was 23. Three years later he entered the Cistercian Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky in the U.S. and soon after began his prolific writing career.

There is no single opinion on Merton: some see him as the most important monk of the twentieth century, and indeed the most important monk of modern times, others see him as an anomaly. Whatever the opinion, though, it can’t be denied that he was a significant figure and still is. What his influence on the development of the Order was is hard to say; it could be argued he had an enormous influence on the Order, or equally, that he had no real lasting influence on the Order. My opinion at the moment is that he had a large influence on the Order, but not directly, but indirectly. I don’t think we can point to anything and say we do or don’t do this because of Thomas Merton, but I think the attitude and outlook of the Order has been very much shaped by Merton.Just recently I came across a piece of his writing that I think can serve us as a good meditation.

It is his first ever Christmas he spent in the monastery, so that is just after a few weeks, bearing in mind he entered on 10 December, Merton was waiting in church for the midnight Mass to begin and Merton writes in his journal:

Lord it is nearly midnight and I am waiting for you in the darkness and the great silence. I am sorry for all my sins. Do not let me ask any more than to sit in the darkness and light no lights of my own, and be crowded with no crowds of my own thoughts to fill the emptiness of the night in which I await you.… Your brightness is my darkness. I know nothing of you and, by myself, I cannot even imagine how to go about knowing you. If I imagine you, I am mistaken. If I understand you, I am deluded. If I am conscious and certain I know you, I am crazy. The darkness is enough. (Bridges to Contemplative Living, edited by Montaldo & Toth, Ave Maria Press, 2010. p. 28)

Powerful words from someone who had just been in the monastery for two weeks.

Twenty four years later this basic theme and attitude is still there in his mature writings. In 1965 in the Climate of Monastic Prayer he writes:

Contemplative prayer is, in a way, simply the preference for the desert, for emptiness, for poverty. One has begun to know the meaning of contemplation when one intuitively and spontaneously seeks the dark and unknown path of aridity in preference to every other way. The contemplative is one who would rather not know than now. Rather not enjoy than enjoy. Rather not have proof that God loves him. He accepts the love of God on faith, in defiance of all apparent evidence. This is the necessary condition, and a very paradoxical condition, for the mystical experience of the reality of God’s presence and of his love for us. Only when we are able to ‘let go’ of everything within us, all desire to see, to know, to taste, and to experience the presence of God, do we truly become able to experience that presence with the overwhelming conviction and reality that revolutionize our entire life. (Ibid. p. 29)

I think that is a good and helpful passage. We all experience periods of aridity in the spiritual life but here Merton teaches that we have only begun to know the meaning of contemplation when we "intuitively and spontaneously seek the dark and unknown path of aridity in preference to every other way." So our aridity is not a hindrance on our journey to God but rather it is the way, the path, to Him.

Father Joseph has set the bar rather high for the speaker following him next week. Hang on a minute - that'll be me! *gulp*

ChristChurch is busy this evening. We're used to the City of Leicester Singers rehearsing here on Monday evenings. Tonight, session four of an eight-week course on the history of the Old Testament is being held in the Vaughan Powell Room, next to ours - though no one can remember that being on last week. In the Worship Space (the main area of the church), Rev David Jennings, Canon Theologian, is delivering the monthly Leicester Theological Society: "Is the Bible the word of God? Discuss". Until this evening, Leicester Theological Society has held its monthly meetings on Fridays. I've often wanted to attend their lectures but they've either coincided with the kids staying with me or some other social commitment. But it's odd that they should be holding them here now on Monday evenings, when some of those who regularly attend the Christians Aware / Faith Awareness sessions would more than likely want to attend the lecture. For that matter, I'd fancy joining in the Old Testament history course too!

But it's a wee bit more than a minor irritation here this evening. In the Worship Space, David Jennings is using the microphone and PA and his talk is seeping into our room via a speaker that we can't switch off. It's turned down as low as it'll go but we can still hear every word, bubbling under Father Delargy's talk. When he's about to take us into a period of silent meditation, I break ranks and dash into the Worship Space to see if they can cut the sound to our room. But even though they're on to Q&A, there's no natural break in the flow that would allow me to interject. After standing there for the better part of ten minutes and failing to make myself seen or heard, I head back to our session. I have to say I'm relieved that that particular distraction won't be there next week.

MINDFULNESS & WISDOM 5: THE PLACE OF WISDOM IN THE ISLAMIC TRADITION

At ChristChurch, Clarendon Park, for the fifth session in the course, "Mindfulness". This eight-week course is an interfaith opportunity presented by Christians Aware (as part of its Faith Awareness programme) in association with Leicester Serene Reflection Meditation Group.

Our topic this evening is "The Place of Wisdom in the Islamic Tradition", presented by Freda Hussain MBE. Freda is retired Head Teacher at Moat Community College and former Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire. Her presentation is peppered with illuminating quotations about the significance of wisdom in the Islamic tradition and the importance of knowledge and learning:

"Acquire knowledge, it enables its possessor to distinguish right from wrong. It is our friend in the desert, our company in solitude and companion when friendless. It guides us to happiness, it sustains us in misery, it is an ornament amongst friends and our armour against enemies." (from Hadith - a compilation of sayings ascribed to the Prophet Muhammad)

"A Muslim who plants a tree or sows a field, from which man, birds and animals can eat is committing an act of charity." (Hadith)

"Who are the learned? Those who practise what they know." (Hadith)

"No man is a true believer unless the desires for his brethren, that which he desires for himself." (Hadith)

"There is no greater wealth than wisdom; no greater poverty than ignorance." (from sayings of Imam Ali)

"The teacher who is wise indeed does not bid you into the house of wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind." (Kahlil Gibran)

Our speaker briefly but helpfully discusses the Sufi thread in Islamic thought and culture and how Sufi poetry expresses the wisdom born from that tradition, which is inseparably linked with spiritual yearning and religious ecstasy.

When we do small group work for 20 minutes or so, we're tasked with thinking of a question to put to our speaker. I don't think that even this group is familiar enough with the kind of Islam which has been described this evening to do that. Many of those attending find it hard to reconcile the contemporary image of Islam with the one which Freda has described this evening. She understands this all too well and acknowledges it as the tragedy of modern Islam.

One interesting question is whether there is an movement or stream of thought within the Islamic world comparable to the Sea of Faith Network. Our speaker says that she doubts it.

Freda differentiates between modern Islamist thinking, which appears to revolve around the fear of God, with Sufi thinking, which revolves around the love of God. In this connection, she quotes another saying from the Hadith: "The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr."

The authoritative, canonical nature of Hadith seem always to be in dispute. As fashions and passions change, so certain sayings can be ruled in or out, giving backing to different worldviews.

We discuss the apparent equivalence of knowledge and wisdom in the quotations used this evening. These are two distinct terms in Arabic ('ilm and hikmat) which are occasionally conflated when translated into English. But over and above these, Freda emphasises the inseparable relation between faith (iman) and action (aman).

MINDFULNESS & WISDOM 2: WISDOM & SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE

At ChristChurch, Clarendon Park, for the second session in the course, "Mindfulness and Wisdom". This eight-week course is an interfaith opportunity presented by Christians Aware (as part of its Faith Awareness programme) in association with Leicester Serene Reflection Meditation Group.

Our topic this evening is "Wisdom and Spiritual Intelligence", facilitated by Ian Grayling and Kevin Commons from the  Serene Reflection Group.

Direction is set by the question, “Is ‘wisdom’, by its nature, ‘intelligence’?” To help us consider this question, Ian introduces us to Howard Gardner's concept of Multiple Intelligence (1999), different types of intelligence, going beyond that which is identified in standard IQ tests. These different kinds of intelligence are illustrated in the picture at the top of this entry and are (reading clockwise in the illustration):

• verbal-linguistic ("word smart") the capacity to use language to express what's on your mind and to understand other people
• logical-mathematical ("logic smart") the ability to understand the underlying principles of some kind of causal system
• musical ("music smart") the capacity to think in music, to hear patterns, recognise them and perhaps manipulate them
• intra-personal (“self smart”) having an understanding of yourself, of knowing who you are, what you can do etc
• inter-personal (“people smart”) the ability to understand other people
• bodily-kinaesthetic (“body smart”) capacity to use your whole, or parts of your, body
• spatial (“picture smart”) the ability to present the spatial world internally in your mind

Other versions of this illustration contain "naturalistic" (nature smart) and "existentialist" intelligence. We didn't touch on these in this evening's session. 

In discussing the meaning of "spirit" - in a way that avoids fuzzy religiosity or new-agey feelgood practices - we go to the Latin root of the word: spiritus - that which breathes life or vitality into a system.

This brings to mind one of my favourite quotes on spirit and spirituality, from Robert Wyatt: "A French journalist asked if my music was spiritual, and I said, 'Only in the original sense of spirit meaning breath'."

I also think of the example that has stood me in good stead over recent years, that of people being happy to describe themselves as "spiritual, but not religious" in a variety of settings (I usually draw on the example of Internet dating sites) without really saying just what that means – except that it’s a good thing.

Zohar and Marshall (2003) define "spiritual intelligence" as "the intelligence with which we can place our actions and lives in a wider, richer, meaning-giving context; the intelligence with which we can assess that one course of action or one life-path is more meaningful than another." In this sense, when we think of "spirit", it directs us to a deeper level of meaning, toward the import or implications of what is said, thought, written or read. We talk of the "spirit of the law" being something greater, more significant and more meaningful than the "letter of the law" – even if it escapes definition.

In terms of education, it’s current to consider the spiritual, moral, social, cultural implication for everything that pupils, students and learners may be studying (at the most recent meeting of Leicester SACRE, we had a presentation on how SMSC is making a comeback in the curriculum).

The table below helps us understand Zohar and Marshall's concept of "spiritual capital" - and where it fits with the nature and function of other kinds of capital.

INTELLIGENCE	FUNCTION	CAPITAL
Rational	What I think	Material
Emotional	What I feel	Social
Spiritual	What I am	Spiritual

Our small group exercise is to come up with three nuggets of wisdom that we'd give to the world, based on Zohar and Marshall's model. For my part, I'd say that the world currently revolves around "What I want", "What I own" and "What I need" - and would advocate replacing these functions with those identified in the table above.

For once, we're given a little homework. We're asked to reflect on our own faith perspective (assuming each of us has one) - historically, contemporary, potentially - and think of examples of spiritual intelligence (or of spiritual stupidity!)