This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Peace be upon all of you and thank you so much for coming to hear me speak for just a few minutes. It's an incredible privilege and honor to be here at this Incredibly beautiful center with you good people, and I hope this is something that will be meaningful for you and that I'll be able to ask some questions or answer some questions for you. I just don't. And... I asked for a picture so I could send it to my ship. Everybody okay with that? Yes. Okay. Sorry. I think we should check with you first. But inshallah, I'll be able to answer a few questions for you and give you a little bit of information.

[01:02]

A little bit about me. My name is Mehmet. I am from Marina, California, just up the road. I'm married with poor children. Married a lovely lady from Baghdad that I met when I was in the army and brought home with me. I like to refer to her from time to time as my war trophy. Gets me slapped every now and then. I was in the army for 20 years. While I was in the army, I accepted Islam, which caused a great deal of consternation in some circles within the army and a lot of confusion in others. But alhamdulillah, praise be to God, it's been a beautiful trip and an incredible journey that ultimately ended with me landing here near Monterey, in Marina. And I became acquainted with the community through the International Day of Feast, where I met Greg and Shokin. And we both did some readings at the Carmel Mission. They were very well received. So as we get started, when I do this with interfaith groups, I usually offer a couple of little ground rules.

[02:05]

They're not really ground rules, they're just kind of statements. But I think it makes it useful. The first rule is that if you ask me a question and I know the answer to the question, I will answer it. And I will answer it truthfully according to the orthodox understanding of the song. not according to some fringe understanding. It would be the orthodox, run-of-the-mill center understanding. If at some point I deviate a little bit from that, I will let you know. Orthodox understanding is X, I tend to think more of Y, and I'll explain why, whenever that is appropriate. But I don't know the answer to every question, and I don't pretend to. And if I say I don't know, you have to just accept that I don't know. And if I say I don't know, it will be an honest forgiveness I don't know. There was once a great man who traveled all the way from North Africa to Medina, which is in the Hijaz of Saudi Arabia, to ask a question of the great scholar of Islam, Imam Malik, Anas bin Malik.

[03:06]

And after making this perilous journey of over a thousand miles, he comes to the grave, Imam, and he presents his question to him. And the Imam answers, I don't know. And the man says, well, what do you mean you don't know? We traveled all the way from Morocco. It wasn't Morocco at that time. It was the Maghrib, but it's Morocco today. He says, well, what do you mean you don't know? We came all the way from North Africa. He says, I don't know. He says, well, what will I tell the people in Morocco when I come back home? And he says, you go to the tallest hill, and you shout in your most clear voice, Imam Malik doesn't know. I'm going to say it. The second thing I'd ask is, if you ask me a question, I promise to give you an honest answer to it. But I'd ask you not to get upset. Don't blame the messenger. I'm going to answer the question truthfully and honestly, according to the Orthodox understanding of Islam, if I know the answer. Some of those answers you won't like, but they'll be truthful. And I ask you just to accept it. So, Inshallah, with that out of the way, this is again... Oh, there's always the second one.

[04:11]

I always forget to say this. If you're afraid that I've come to convert you, just relax. I'm not here to convert anybody. In my tradition, we say that Allah guides to the path, whomsoever he guides to the path. Alhamdulillah, I feel Allah guided me to the path that I'm on. He may guide some of you. He may never guide any of you. That's none of my business. My job is to come and seek discerns. It shall all be useful to you. But as my sake used to teach, if you come and you sit with me and I say something that's useful, take it. If what I say to you is not useful, leave it. I'll take it. The subject of our question today is really twofold. First, what is Islam? And second, what is the Sufi path of Islam? And that was not on the program.

[05:11]

I recognize that. I kind of added it here at the last minute. And the reason why I added it is because that is my area of specialty. That is the path that I am most firmly rooted in. But there is no such thing as a true Sufi. And by true Sufi, I mean an orthodox Sufi. I'm not trying to judge anybody's religion or their faith or their understanding of it. But an orthodox Muslim Sufi who is not firmly, deeply embedded within the orthodox tradition of Islam, mostly within the Sunni tradition, about 80-90% of us, Although there are some that are from the Shia tradition as well. And all of us are observers, strict observers of the Sharia. So we are not those who gather together and not to be pejorative, but play Sufi. We are serious seekers on the path, well-grounded within the Islamic tradition, within the Orthodox Sunni Islamic tradition. And from there we'll... Maybe I will digress just a moment and talk to you about what Islam itself is.

[06:13]

And I always tell people, if you ever sit down with someone like myself and he says to you, Islam is, and he gives you some cute little answer that takes about 20 seconds, just get up and walk out of the room. Because he doesn't know what he's talking about, or she doesn't know what she's talking about. Islam is something so much bigger than what can be described in just a cute little 20-second answer. Islam is a religious tradition, of some 1400 years, with many different faces and facets, schools of thoughts and ideologies, different paths and different understanding, that cannot be encapsulated so simply. But all Muslims hold a very few things central. All Muslims will agree on the few tenets that I'm about to share with you. And then beyond those things that we all hold to be dear and true, there is an enormous amount of liberty amongst Muslims to determine for themselves, under the guidance of their teachers and their shukh, sheikhs, how that material and how that understanding is to be practiced and implemented in daily life.

[07:22]

So what do all Muslims agree on? Muslims, first of all, believe in a single, all-powerful, omnipotent, all-m merciful, all-loving, all-kind, compassionate God. to whom we refer to as Allah. Allah is actually a contraction of two words. The word al, which means the, and illa, which means God. So Allah is just the God. And it's the same word used by Christians as well in the Middle East. Arabic-speaking Christians will also say Allah. In fact, the opening verse of the Christian Bible mentions the name Allah in the beginning. Allah created the heaven and earth in seven days. And the Islamic understanding of God, as I described him now, is absolutely monotheistic. Why do I say absolute? Why do I qualify? Because in the Islamic tradition, we believe, though the Quran tells us to say, this is Bismillahirrahmanirrahim, in the name of Allah, the Compassionate and Merciful, قُلْهُوَ اللَّهُ أَحَدُ

[08:31]

Say, he is Allah, the one. Allah Hussamit, Allah the unique. He neither begets nor was he begotten. And there is nothing like unto him. And so in the Islamic tradition, Allah is without partner, he's without sons, he's without daughters, he's without parents. He's utterly sublime, utterly unique, and completely beyond human comprehension or any... attempt by humanity to define him or put him into a nice little box. And so, rather than trying to personify him or anthropomorphize him, which we would consider idolatry, we simply refer to him as the God, Allah, our Lord. All Muslims would agree upon this point. The second thing that all Muslims would agree upon is the prophethood of Muhammad could see upon him and upon his family and his companions. And by Mohammed, of course, we're referring to the Mohammed born in Mecca, not out of the thousands and millions of Mohammeds lying around the world.

[09:34]

You know, Mohammed is such a common name. There was a man in Egypt, had seven sons, he named them all Mohammed. And they asked him, I said, yeah, Aki, your brother, why don't you name him Mohammed? He says, I just love Mohammed. So he named all seven sons. Yeah, Mohammed, one, Mohammed, two, Mohammed, three, Mohammed. They say, Mohammed, and his wife say, which one? Number five, send him two. Alhamdulillah. You know, we mean the Mohammed, of course, who was born... in Mecca, in the Hijaz of Saudi Arabia, in the year 632, depending upon how we calculate it, calendars got a little squishy back then when you go back that far. And we believe that he was the last of the prophets. And by prophets, we mean those people who came to reveal a divine religion. And I think that that is an important point because we don't reject other prophets who came before him. We believe in the prophet Abraham. The prophet Abraham, I'm sorry, Adam, Abraham, Yunus, Jonah, Ayu, Job, Musa, Moses, Yaqub, Jacob, Asa, Jesus.

[10:38]

And even this surprises people when I say it. Even Yahya, which is John the Baptist. We accept them all as prophets. We have no problem with any of them. We love them. We honor them. We put them on top of our heads. We're simply saying that Muhammad is the final prophet. messenger from Allah and a long list of messengers that includes these people and also includes some 124,000 other prophets. Some of them would be familiar to you if you grew up in the Judeo-Christian tradition, like the ones I just mentioned. Others you wouldn't know, like Salir or Hud, who were prophets that were sent to the Arab peoples. Others, we as Muslims, we don't know ourselves. The Quran says to every nation was sent a warning. So every nation received a warner, a prophet, who came to them and preached to them and talked to them. Some of those names had been lost in antiquity. Some of those prophets had one follower their entire lives. Some had many. Some had two or three. Nabi Noah, Noah, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, Noah, alayhi salam, peace be upon him, he's preached his whole life.

[11:42]

He had eight followers. So we don't... Make any differentiation between them. We say, there's no difference between the messengers. All Muslims would agree upon this. The next thing that we'd all agree upon is the sacredness, the perfection, the sublimeness of the Holy Quran, the divine book of revelation that we believe that the angel Gabriel in the Christian tradition presented to the prophet Muhammad. at the Cave of Light on the outskirts of Mecca. Fawalgi was meditating, by the way. In Islam, we call meditation tafakur. But it's the same thing. It's meditation by a different form, a different name. In fact, in one prophetic tradition, the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, is known to have said that one hour of tafakur is greater than 70 years of worship.

[12:43]

So all Muslims would agree upon this. we'd also agree upon a coming day of judgment. One day all of us will die, we will return to our Lord, and in a way that we don't understand entirely, that can't be simplified, that literalists like to simplify everything and make everything very black and white, but we don't find that to be true. In a way that we can't entirely understand, each and every one of us will one day stand before our Lord, and we will be held to account. But we take comfort in the fact that Allah says, that his mercy overcometh his anger. And so we take some comfort in the fact that Allah is merciful, that he's compassionate, that he's kind. And that he looks at us, the weak servants that he created, that he created weak, and he has an incredible amount of love and compassion for us. And we're afraid that that compassion will overcome our struggle. So this, in a nutshell, is the essence of what Islam is. Everything else is pretty rubs and beautiful buildings. pointy hats.

[13:43]

But the essence of Islam are these things. So what's the purpose of it? Why does all of this matter? It matters because for us, Islam is a vehicle that is designed to take us from point A to point B on a path. Point A being the place we came from, and point B being the place that we want to get to. And we believe that the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him and upon his family and his companions, he gave us some... That's true. Allah gave us, through Him, a series of practices that help us on that path. Amongst those are the Declaration of Faith, where we proclaim our faith in God and in the Prophet Muhammad, or the Salat, which is the five daily prayers that we do on a regular schedule. It's based upon the rising and setting of the sun. Fasting during the holy month of Ramadan and other times. The giving of charity. to the poor and to those who need it, and then pilgrimage to the house of Mecca.

[14:47]

All these little things are designed together to bring us from, like I said, point A to point B and prepare us to come cleanly to our law. So that is a very, very brief, utterly insufficient, woefully inadequate description of what Islam is. So let's shift gears a little bit and talk about my path, the Islamic path that I'm on, which is the Sufi path. So I am a local representative. Why I'm not a local representative, I don't know. My Sheikh, in his mercy, gave it to me. I think he must know something that I don't. I feel utterly inadequate. And that's not just humble talk. That's a true statement. But for some reasons known to him, he made me his representative here in Central California. In the Osmanli Nakshbandi Durga, which is the Ottoman Nakshbandi... Durga. Durga means threshold. It's a gathering place of Sufis, kind of like your zendo. And so what is this Sufi path and what does it mean?

[15:50]

The Sufi paths, really, there are 40 major Sufi orders. There's many, many sub-orders and sub-sub-orders and sub-sub-sub-orders, but really 40 main Sufi orders. Out of those 40 Sufi orders, the Naqshabani is one of the very largest predominantly found today in Eastern Europe and throughout Central Asia, but all over the world. Wherever you find Muslims, you'll find Naqsaqamis as well. But the majority of them you'll find in places like Bosnia and Macedonia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, a lot of Sains, but Central Asia, predominantly. And our Sheikh, Sheikh Lokman Hocaefendi, was the disciple of a beautiful man named Sheikh Abdul Karim. We refer to him as Sahibul Sayyid. It's a great title that was given to him. It means the holder of the sword. But we're peaceful people, don't know the name. He came to New York at the request of his Sheikh, Sheikh Nazim al-Hakani. May Allah bless him and raise his station.

[16:52]

Both of them left us within the last about five or six years. And we pray for them daily and continually seek their guidance even from the next life. But he was sent here by Sheikh Nazem Adela Khan in the United States to share Islam in the West. And he came here as a very young man. He was about 19 years old. Showed up in New York State. Sheikh said, when you get to New York, let the people love you. Be friendly. Let them love you. He says, how do I do it? He says, well, first, you show yourself that you're friendly. And number two, you assume that every person you meet on the street is better than you. Everyone is better than you. They can be drug dealers or prostitutes or whatever they are, but they're better than you. You assume it and you believe it. He said, yes, Shay. He got off the planet. The lady was in LaGuardia. He walked up to the first person he said and says, good morning. How are you today? And the man said, screw you, buddy. You don't know me. What happened? I was friendly. I assumed he was better than me.

[17:53]

There are some cultural things that happen. But Alhamdulillah, through his incredible work and sacrifice, he gathered together a group of people. Alhamdulillah, I count myself as one of those people. And we established a center for the worship of Allah and the remembrance of Allah and the Catskills of New York State. If you're ever in the middle of nowhere, by Sydney Center in New York, come visit us. You're always welcome, all of you. And so, what is this Sufi path? What does it mean? People like to say the word Islamic mysticism. Well, that's... an accurate description, but it's inadequate because it's trying to put an Islamic term, tasawwaf, into a pretty Western Judeo-Christian mold, and it just doesn't quite work. So what is it really? Sheikh Malano Rumi, I'm sure I've read Rumi in some of his work, I would be surprised if you didn't have some of it in your library. Rumi was once described, he described it as a pathway of lovers.

[18:55]

Once a man came to Milana Rumi and he said, yeah, Milana, oh, Milana, I want to be your dervish. I'm going to follow you. And Milana Rumi said to him, he said, son, have you ever been in love? And he said, no, Sheikh, I have never been in love. He said, go, fall in love, and come back. Ours is a path of lovers. It's a path of losing yourself within the divine love of Allah. So what makes it different from other Muslims? Other Muslims love Allah too. What makes us different is that where the typical Muslim perhaps is content to simply learn what Allah desires of us and then bend his or her will to that thing in the hope of receiving some reward in the next life or in this life. And we don't have any problem with any of that. That's fine if that's the path that you choose. It's a good path, Alhamdulillah. It's a path where you can live a decent, honorable, godly life and be blessed. But we as Sufis are not satisfied.

[19:57]

We want something greater than that. Something more. We don't want to be merchants who provide a service and receive a reward. Or provide a commodity and receive something in return for. The Sufi is one who is not content to simply obey his Lord or submit to his Lord. The Sufi is he or she who wants to know his Lord. Who wants to be lost in his Lord. we say, wants to be annihilated in his Lord. The Sufi sees himself as a drop of water falling through a great sky into the immense ocean of his Lord. And he falls with great anticipation for that moment when he's lost in the oneness. There's a poem by Eunice Emery. I didn't plan on sharing this with you guys today. I was walking around Pacific Grove with my wife and kids yesterday, and we stopped in this bookstore, and it was just waiting for me.

[20:58]

And I said, you know, this is a sign. I have to buy it. And there's a beautiful poem. Yiddish Emre was a beautiful Sufi master from Anatolia, lived in about 1350 time frame. He studied under the Bektashis, and he studied also under some other Sufi orders. But alhamdulillah, he says some beautiful things, and I wanted to share a poem that might give you a taste of what I'm trying to describe. And I felt that these words were appropriate from me to you as they were from him to me. He says, I haven't come here to settle down. I've come here to depart. I'm a merchant with lots of goods selling to whoever will buy. I didn't come to create any problems. I'm only here to love. A heart makes a good home for a friend. I've come to build some hearts. I'm a little drunk from this friendship. Any lover would know the shape that I'm in.

[22:00]

I've come to exchange my two-ness to disappear into one. He is my teacher. I am his servant. I am a nightingale in his garden. I come to the teacher's garden to be happy and to die singing. They say souls which know each other here knew each other there. I've come to know a teacher and to show myself as I am. This cute little poem was really not just cute. It really conveys in many ways what it means to be on the Sufi path, to find a teacher, to love that teacher, to become drunk in the love of your sheikh, Because it is the shaykh who brings us to Muhammad and it is Muhammad who brings us to Allah. And it is in the presence of our master that we hope to be lost in eternal bliss. Once there was a great Sufi shaykh by the name of Junaid al-Baghdadi.

[23:04]

I'm particularly fond of any of the shaykh who came out of Iraq because my bride is from Baghdad. We met there back in 2004 when I was in the army. And that sacred ground and the people who preached upon it is very close to my heart. But Jai al-Daghdadi once was taken up into the divine presence. And I say that very easily as if it's a small thing. But in truth it's an honor given to very few people. And he was taken up in divine presence in a vision where he stood before a great door on the other side of which he believed to be the throne of Allah himself. And he knocked upon the door... before the throne of God, and he heard a voice say, Who is it? And Junaid said, It is your servant Junaid. And the voice from beyond the door said, There is no room here for you and me. And Junaid left disappointed.

[24:05]

After some time, he was again granted his great honor, and in a vision, he was swept away into the Divine Presence, and he stood before the throne of Allah again, and he knocked. And the voice said, Who is it? And Junaid said, It is you. And he said, This is the path that the Sufi wants to be on more than anything else. He wants to be lost in the oneness of Allah. Because in truth, as Muslims, when we say, La ilaha illallah, that there is no God but Allah. What we are really negating is not other gods. We're negating all that is not Allah. And in truth, there is only Allah. All of us, this world, its temporariness, are just shadows of a reality that is far greater than anything that we can imagine. And somehow, we are a reflection of that reality. We think of ourselves in terms of separateness, meanness, and I-ness, and you-ness.

[25:13]

But it's an illusion. There is only a lot. The separation that divides you and I is an illusion. It's a comfortable illusion that helps us to make sense of the world we live in. But it's just an illusion. Because the one overshadows all animals. Yes. And so this path that we embark upon as Sufis is difficult. It's a path that takes a lot of patience, and a lot of time, and a lot of prayer, and a lot of scorn. It's not easy, as you can assume, being a Muslim in the 21st century. I can assure you it wasn't particularly easy being a Muslim in the 1st Calvary Division in Florida, Texas. But alhamdulillah, this is the path that Allah put before me, and that I'm happy to share with you. I take comfort in the fact that Allah is merciful. And Melchorani tells a story about an ant that was carrying a drop of water, not even a drop of water, but a small morsel of water.

[26:14]

Allah said to one of his angels, go down to that angel and ask him, and to that ant, and ask him, why is he carrying this water? Of course, Allah knows he answered these questions, but he asked for it. The angel goes down, he asked the ants, and he says, your ants, oh ants, where are you going with that drop of water? See, the ants knew that Nimrud, Nimrod, had built a great fire upon which she intended to throw the friend of Allah, Abraham, peace and blessings be upon him, because he had destroyed the idols of the people that lived in that particular place. And the aunt says to the angel, he said, I'm going to the fire of Nimrud to put it out before he can harm Abraham. And the angel said, oh aunt, you're just an aunt. The fire is so big they can see it all the way in Iraq. And they said, yes, but this is what I do. This is my part. What did Allah say of this ant?

[27:15]

He said, of this ant, convey to this ant, O angel, that on the day of judgment, this ant will sit beside me on my throne. Because he tried. Because Allah teaches us through the Quran that it's about our effort. The first rule of Islam, of Sharia, of the Islamic law, is that there's no action without intention. Everything is by intention. Without intention, there is nothing. And may Allah judge us by our intentions and not our actions. May He judge me by my intentions and not my actions. I forgive you. I'm sure of many, many mistakes I've made in the course of the last 30 minutes. With that, I'll be happy to take your questions. Or I could ramble on forever. I think this goes until 4.30, and I wanted to get time for questions, but there's quite a few. Yes? Thanks so much for coming. It's really nice to hear other questions.

[28:20]

My advisor in college is a Sufi teacher and an academic as well. He's studied near me. And I was fortunate enough to take a seminar with him on a book that just came out called What is Islam? might be familiar with. I've heard of the book. Yeah. Kind of this masterpiece of religious scholarship. And yeah, one of his main, it's a sprawling history of Islamic cultures and really shows how there's just so much diversity that we don't appreciate in the West. And I like your allusion, you know, if somebody says like Islam is X, then like sleep because it's just... obviously they don't know history so I guess yeah and in this book he says in his attempt to sort of not define Islam but sort of express to a general audience what it is he says you know it's basically like hermeneutic engagement with the Quran and life like engaging with your life through the Quran through these images and and

[29:35]

and yeah so I guess my question is a little complex but I'm curious if you could speak a little bit about the category of believer and unbeliever and maybe like ethnologically what that means because it seems like that might not translate so well into English so there's two words in Arabic thank you for your question Two words in question. The first one is movement. It's the more pleasant of the two, which means believable. And the other is kafir, which you've probably heard on the news and television. Kafir comes from the Arab... All Arabic words have a root of three syllables. It comes from the root kafirah, which means to cover. So when you hear Muslim scholars use the word kafir... Well, I can't speak for all Muslim scholars. We have good scholars, we have bad scholars. But generally, good scholars, when they use the word kafirah, kafir, What they're talking about are those people in the early Islamic history and to this day who know the truth, who are on the path of Haq, they know the truth, and they deliberately cover it.

[30:46]

They deliberately take it and they twist it or they hide it and they change it in a way that alleviates them from any responsibility. And so that is the classical understanding of the word kafir. And does that mean that that is the way it's always used? No. People use it as a pejorative all the time. You hear that, especially the extremists, God Kirsten, who were doing these terrible violent things, horrible things. They always use it very flippantly. But that's not what it means intentionally. And so, you know, I see these cars driving down the freeway. They're usually pickup trucks. They're usually very large pickup trucks. And they have kafir written on them, right? Or infidel. Infidel, there's no word in Islam that means infidel. Infidel is actually a word that comes from the Catholic tradition. We don't have this word. We have kafir. And it always cracks me up. Kafir. You're not a kafir. The chances of this man being a kafir are so small. He's probably a Christian of some flavor.

[31:49]

Maybe a Jew. Maybe someone from a Christian tradition. Most likely in this country. And Christians have never been kafirs. Jews have never been kafirs. Not in Islamic tradition. Christians, Jews are kafirs. We call them Al-Kitab, the people of the book. They're very deeply respected people. Not only are they not Gaffers, you can marry them. A Muslim man, he can marry a Christian woman, marry a Jewish woman, no problem. He doesn't hide behind his couch wait for him to come home so he can wage jihad. If he comes home late, he might get some jihad waged on him. I guess... Sorry. Yeah, so in kind of jumping off from that, I guess I was... Curious if you could speak a little bit about... Sorry, this is a little complicated. So, it seems like one of the main tropes in Islamic literature or theology is, you know, Allah Akbar is sort of... By having this larger category of...

[32:58]

the ultimate or some sort of thing that is undefinable, where we kind of, there's this possibility of bringing together disparate groups of people in harmony. It's sort of this higher category that allows for harmony. And there's a lot of reference to that. And there's this wonderful phrase, and there's Sorry, this is kind of complex. But in Buddhism, there's this trope that comes up. Often, you know, Thich Nhat Hanh embodies this, I think, really well. That to choose... If you're given a choice to choose peace or Buddhism, then you have to choose peace because choosing Buddhism is going against Buddhism. And I guess I was curious if you... if you know of any interpretations of, you know, the people who are sort of considered part of the ummah as including Buddhists within that, because it doesn't seem like, I mean, there's been some sheikhs that seem to, like some attempts to extend people of the book to... Well, first we have to define what is ummah.

[34:23]

Ummah is the community in common parlance, in modern parlance, it would be the community of Muhammad. Please be upon him in his family. So who is in the Ummah Muhammad? My teacher teaches us that the Ummah of Muhammad is every person who was ever born from the time of the prophethood of Muhammad until the present day. They're all a part of Ummah Muhammad. They may not acknowledge him, they may not be Muslims, they may not call themselves Muslims, but they are still a part of the Ummah Muhammad. In fact, we have in our tradition that there are many prophets who gave up their prophethood in the pre-earthly life to just be a regular member of the Ummat al-Muham. So that would be the first thing I would say. But there's also the very specialized and narrow understanding of the word, which would be the Ummah of Nabi Isa, for example, the community of Jesus, which would be the Christians. The Ummah of Moses would be the Jews. The Ummat of Muhammad in this sense would be those who declared Islam amongst themselves.

[35:27]

And do Buddhists fall somewhere within them? In the latter, I think the answer is no. In the former, the answer is yes. All of creation since the time of Muhammad is a member of the Ummat of Muhammad. And the Prophet Muhammad is praying for them. All of them. Whether they call themselves Buddhists or Hindus or Christians or Jews or atheists or whatever they are. When he will be raised on the day of resurrection, The first thing he will say is, Ummati, Ummati, my Ummah, my Ummah. Well, that's all of us. That's everyone. That's all of humanity. So the question perhaps that you didn't ask, that you wanted to ask, are Buddhists part of this Al-Kitab, this group of people that are considered people of the book for which Muslims can intermarry with and so forth? The answer to that is no. They are not. I have heard a few sheikhs who have tried to and their desire for ecumenicalism, trying to bring along everyone in the fold. But the truth is it's not true. I told you I was going to say the truth.

[36:29]

The truth is that Buddhists would not be considered that because, well, they could be. They could be. I don't want to just make blanket statements. They could be. But one of the prerequisites of being al-kitab was to be monotheos and to worship God as a singular who. If you do and you're a Buddhist or whatever you call yourself, if you do that, then there's a possibility there. And Allah knows best. Before that, I can't say too much further. I would say, though, that we believe that Buddha was a righteous man, was a good man who sacrificed his family and his title and his wealth and his place of honor as a prince. He went out into the wilderness to find something greater than himself. As a believing person who is seeking that same sort of thing, I have nothing but incredible respect for him. And the people that follow his practice. Yes. When you're speaking of Allah, you often use masculine pronouns.

[37:34]

He, his, him. So I imagine that's intentional that Allah is spoken of as a masculine entity. I'm wondering if you could speak about that. Does that imply that masculinity is somehow more closer to God than another? No. Okay, good question. Thank you very much. A little big question. Allah is interested in that there's a name. In the Arabic language, there's a letter we call it Talma Buta. It looks like a little snake with two dots on top. Like a little cobra. It's used to identify the feminine. So, for example, a table is feminine in Arabic language. It has its tongue. A dog is masculine. Go figure. The nice thing that you feed on is feminine. And the dog is masculine. Allah has a tongue. This is usually something that designates femininity.

[38:36]

And yet, all throughout the Qur'an, he's referred to as he. And we say who, which means he. So... But it all misses the point that, as I quoted to you earlier from the Quran, there's nothing like him. Allah doesn't have a bulletproof. Allah isn't a masculine orphan. There's nothing in creation like unto him. He's he because the Arabic language requires you to choose one or the other. And it uses he. But I think it compensates for that with the tar marbuta. This shows that Allah is beyond masculinity. He's beyond femininity. Allah is Allah. There's nothing like unto him. So, yes, he refers to himself in the Quran as he. Say he. But it's not a he like you and me. He's Allah. He's not like his creation. Nothing like his creation. Good question.

[39:39]

You talked about some of the practices that traditional Muslims engage in to try to worship or get closer to their God. What particular things do Sufis do? Well, we have to do everything that every other Muslim does. So we pray, we fast, we follow, we keep the Sharia, we do all of these things. On top of that, though, we have a great deal of emphasis on vicar. And vicar literally means to remember... And if you come to my house in Mariana, California, I'd have a gathering there once or twice a month. You're all welcome, many of you. And you can experience it. I can describe it, but you really have to experience it. And there's many different ways to do zikr. One of the ways is that you've probably seen the whirling dervishes. They stand and they turn. This is a form of zikr. They're actually praying. So each time they turn, they recite a prayer. A lot of people don't realize it. It's a form of zikr. It's a form of prayer. In my tradition, we do many different things. We have silent and loud zikr. The loud decker is very powerful.

[40:41]

We sit in a circle just like this. The sheikh sits here at the head of the circle. And he leads them through chanting. And it's very... Actually, I think Shogun, you joined us, right? You and your mother. I invited him to come and join us one time. And then he reciprocated by inviting him. I was invited here, alhamdulillah, thank God. So it's just very powerful. Our windows shake. One time my neighbors came in and knocked me. They were like, what the heck is going on? They said, come on in. They came in, they sat down and joined. I said, yeah, alhamdulillah. You really have to experience. If you have some free time, you'll go sit down in the woods and we'll experience it together. I'll show you a picture. And anybody else would like to. Yes, of course. Well, I have... Two questions, and maybe just whichever one strikes you. The first one is, can you just be willing to describe some of your experience? It sounds like you were in Iraq and very strongly called to Islam.

[41:45]

And I'm just curious what that was like for you personally. Oh, mashallah. Brother, this would take me a long time then. Okay. Only 15 minutes left of this class. But it's been an incredible journey. An incredible adventure. I joined, I became a Muslim in 1993 in Honolulu, Hawaii as a young, young soldier. I'd only been in the army for like a year. And I was prior, see I'm always hesitant to say what I was prior because maybe somebody in this audience is what I was and they're gonna get offended. But I was a member, so I grew up in the Mormon church. And I was actually a Mormon missionary in Japan. And that's where I first encountered Soto's entry. In fact, I had a picture in my scrapbook of me doing zazen in a temple up in northern Japan with the bows behind me with the stick that ran away. So I love Japan.

[42:49]

I stayed on after I finished my missionary work. I stayed there and I worked as an interpreter in Japan for some time. And... Anyway, I started to question deeply my faith growing up. I had some serious questions. And the Mormons are lovely, beautiful people. And if anyone here is a Mormon here, I don't have anything against you. I love Mormons. They're nice people. They're lovely people. My mom's well. But I began to question it. I began to question it very seriously. And I started off on this journey. And after I decided to leave the Mormon church, I started going to other churches thinking, well, I'm a Mormon. I'm a Christian. Let me go find some other Christian churches. And I started going to Christian churches. And Out of a couple of months of that, I realized it wasn't a Christian island. I never really had been a Christian. Mormons are a bit different, a little bit heterodox. And then I went to a synagogue. I studied in synagogues. I went to some Buddhist temples in Honolulu. I don't know if I went to Soto Zen Shuk. In Hawaii, there's a lot of pure land Buddhists. And so I did go there and did the Nami Hamad of Butsu.

[43:50]

You know, they experienced that too. One day I was driving down the freeway, this radio program came on, hosted by some Muslims at the University of Hawaii, talking about Osama. And something said, Ken, go check it out. My other name is Ken. And so I did. I drove up to the mountains on the Pali Highway. I found a mosque. They were calling a prayer just as I walked in. Some guys started yelling at me because I had my shoes on. I didn't know I was supposed to take his shoes on. And I took off my shoes anyway. And I sat down. And the call to prayer... filled up my entire heart and soul in a way I can't describe, and I just cry. After four months of study, became Muslim. And I've been asking myself what the heck happened to a person. That's been a great adventure. That's a short motion. Was there any other questions? I think someone else had a question. Yes, ma'am. I was wondering if you talk about the different schools. Schools of Islam, yeah. Sure. So there's two primary schools, Sunni and Shia. People always talk about them as sex.

[44:52]

They're really branches. Because there's different kinds of Sunni and there's different kinds of Shia. And this notion of this constant Sunni-Shia sweat that we all hate each other is not true. It's not true. It's just... I don't know what... What is true is that the extremists like Al-Qaeda and ISIS, they hate everybody. And they happen to be Sunnis. Kind of Sunnis. That's the problem. God forgive me for even saying that. They shouldn't even be called Sunnis. They shouldn't even be called Muslim. Their humanity is questioned. But they kill everyone, including Shiites. And so there's this notion of this Sunni-Shia split. My wife is a Shiite. And we're not killing each other, usually. But so what's the difference? So Sunnis are those who believe that a person can be a good Muslim and live a godly Muslim Islamic life by following the Quran and following the Sunnah, the tradition. That's where the word Sunni comes from, Sunnah, which means tradition of the Prophet, peace be upon him. hopefully through a teacher and a guide who's versed in the way and who knows the way, and not one of these charlatans like we talked about, these extremists.

[45:56]

Shias are those who would also believe in the Quran and the Sunnah as being very important, but they feel very strongly that the leadership of the Muslim ummah has to be someone from a direct descendant of Muhammad's daughter Fatima and his son-in-law Ali. And there's different labels of Shia, different types of Shia. In belief we have some minor differences. In practice we have some minor differences. But I can tell you that the real differences are political. You have different groups in the Middle East particularly vying for power. One tribe that happens to be Sunni and another tribe happens to be Shia. And they're vying for power against each other. This is very true today between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iran happens to be Shia. Saudi Arabia happens to be Sunni. And they're vying for power against each other. But it's not because of what they believe so much. It's more about politics. The actual differences in practice are so minuscule that I would bore you to death by even talking about it because they're just trivial.

[47:00]

How does Sufi fit into that? So Sufism is not a sect. It's not a branch. It's an approach. You can kind of think of Sufis like Catholic religious orders. They're all Catholic, but you've got the Franciscans do things a little bit differently than the Dominicans. The Dominicans do it a little bit differently than the Jesuits. So Sufi orders are kind of like that. So we're all Muslims, mostly Sunni Muslims. But we have different approaches by which we try to harness this thing that Allah gave us and there's a vehicle that Allah gave us called Islam to get to where we're going. Yes? Can you talk about the Shahada in relation to this God that's beyond comprehension? Sure. So shahada means testimony. It comes from the word shahad, the root shahada, which means the witness, testimony. And it is the first step that a person takes on the Islamic path.

[48:03]

It's the declaration that there is no God but Allah alone and that Muhammad is his prophet. Upon uttering those words, you are a Muslim. Even if you never pray another day in your life, you never go on hajj, you never give sadhika, you never fast, those words... make you a member of the Ummat al-Muhammad in the smaller sense that we were talking about. In a limited sense. The idea behind the shahadah, in the short time we have, I couldn't do it justice, but we could speak for weeks about it. It's the notion that a declaration and a realization in your heart that there is nothing worthy of worship whatsoever but Allah Allah. Not your job, not your wealth, not your family or your kids or your wife, what people say about you, what you think about yourself. It's this constant, at its heart is this squashing of the ego. Especially in the Sufi path, we talk often about the ego in Arabic called the nafs.

[49:07]

Sufism, Islam first, but Sufism in particular is really focused on the struggle. Man struggles against himself, against his ego, against the illusions of this world, and the realization that there is a greater reality. And the Shahada is the first step towards that reality. Yes? I've heard the term hidden imam in the Shia tradition. Is that part of the Sufi tradition at all? There are some Sufis who recognize... the occultation of Muhammad ibn al-Asqari, who is the hidden imam of the Shiitews. But they would be the very minority of you. We do believe in and anxiously await the return or the appearance of the Mehdi. The Mehdi is a messianic figure within Islam who will come at the end of time and he will unite all people together against kufr, disbelief.

[50:10]

And by disbelief, I don't mean what you believe necessarily, but as in I'm talking about between light and darkness, true good and evil. And as Sufis, particularly in my school of thought, the Nakshavendi school of thought, the Mehdi is very important. It's very central to our belief. And we are praying for him to appear at any time. We're desperate for him to appear at any time and to be able to place ourselves in his service. But we don't accept necessarily this notion of a hidden imam. So where does the hidden imam come from? In the Shia school, in the largest of the Shia schools, the 12-er school, they call themselves the Itna Ashari, which just means 12. They believed that they had 11 imams, who imams were these divinely guided leaders that began with Ali and then through his descendants in a chain of 11 appointed leaders, ending in the hidden imam. who they believe that as a very young boy was taken up by God and hidden away somewhere.

[51:14]

And that he will reappear at the end of time. We believe in the same figure appearing at the end of time. We just don't believe he was born in the 7th century or 8th century. We believe that he will be born just like any other person and that he will declare himself one day. And we wait for that day with great anticipation in hopes that we will be able to serve him. Yes, ma'am. So there's actually an interfaith retreat that's starting today, I think. And the historical co-leader of the retreat was Brother David, who unfortunately can't be here. And I remember him fighting, and I hope I don't botch it, God as the nothing from which something arises. Oh, I'm not familiar. OK. And I'm wondering how that statement meshes with what you believe. Could you say it again? The nothing from which something arises. I'm a little taken back by it.

[52:17]

Honestly, I wouldn't ever think of my Lord as a nothing. The nothing from us. Can I ask maybe another way of framing that? The kama is empty. Maybe the significance of the fact that the kama is empty. Ah, I see. I think I understand. First of all, who's the author of the book? Do you know, right, Jen? No, he's actually a monk. I'm not sure if he's a monk. So let me address four of these. I think we're very close to me at a time. We consider Allah to be eternally existing. The one thing that has always existed. So the characterization given in the title causes me some concern. That being said, we consider him like the prime, one way I've already described it, like the prime mover. He is the something from which all other things emanate. All of us are emanations, actually, of his ultimate reality, his eternal reality.

[53:22]

We don't believe there was ever a time when he wasn't. He is. Always has been. And all it is is a reflection of his reality. His eternal reality. And with regard to the emptiness of the Kaaba, the Kaaba is a building. The Kaaba is stones and mortar with a beautiful cloth embroidered in gold placed on top of it. The first Muslims didn't pray towards the Kaaba at all. They prayed towards Jerusalem. And then in a verse, they were instructed by God through the Prophet Muhammad, his people, to change their direction of prayer to the Kaaba as the first house we had in our belief. that was built to honor Allah. But it is a direction of prayer, and you're not praying to the structure. There's nothing in the structure, as she pointed out, to pray to. It's that we pray in a direction, and all Muslims pray towards that direction. But it is a prototype, really, of a heavenly kaha that exists in paradise, above which is the throne of Allah Himself.

[54:29]

And it is to Him that we are praying in this direction. But... We'll probably have to stop here, otherwise we're going to get into waters that are too deep for me to extricate myself from in a pretty short time. There's a question behind you. There's something behind you ahead. I just quickly wanted to ask what we've experienced as being Muslim in the current administration. Well, that's true. No, I'm trying to stay out of politics. The day that he was elected president, my wife woke up, she saw the news, and she immediately began to cry. She was very afraid. I had to reassure her that we weren't going to be put in detention camps. There's a lot of fear in the community. That being said, I'm not that worried to be honest with you. Trump needs Muslims too much. He's got too much invested in their oil fields. You know, I try not to get too political, but there's a lot of fear in the community.

[55:32]

A lot of fear about that. But, you know, if Trump, through his talk and all of his tweets and his whatever, he causes good people like you to think about people like me. God bless him. Okay, I think my time has passed. No. Am I still not? Oh, I'm not sure about it. Let's take another question. Yes. would you describe Allah as separate or different from the material world? Yes, absolutely. That is the classical Islamic understanding. But still encompassing? So, it's not easy. I'm not going to pretend like it is. It's not easy to describe. But yes, separate from this world. This world is a reflection of the reality that is Him, but He is not in it. It's... We say that Allah is closer to us than our own jugular veins, but we're very far from him.

[56:34]

It's almost a Koran. But yes, he is not of this world. This world is a reflection of his true reality. This world is not a reality to us at all. In fact, my Sheikh describes this world, sorry for the crudeness of it, as a toilet. No, that doesn't mean it's not a beautiful toilet. It's gorgeous. It's a lovely, beautiful place. Why do I say a toilet? Because our father Adam and our mother Eve were in paradise together. And when they ate of the apple in disobedience to Allah, they became human. And when they became human, they did what every human being has to do. They got some food in their belly and after a while they had to pass it. You can't pass filth in paradise. Paradise is utterly clean. So this world was necessary. to give him a place to live in purity, until we could find purity within ourselves and return to the real world, which is our home, that we are separated from today.

[57:41]

Yes? Because you said he's separate, he's not here. You said he's not here. So who said, who is that? Who was talking there? When he said, who is this? Well, we would say that your neck wasn't here. Junaid was risen to some greater reality. He wasn't here. To say that he is not here, though, is not entirely correct. We say that he is not in this world. He is above this world. But he's closer to us than our jugular veins. And our jugular vein is here. We also say that the throne of Allah is our hearts. That Allah resides in the hearts of men and women. Well, our heart is here. So he's here in the sense also. So this is why I said it's almost a Koran. I mean, it's very hard to describe. And I don't think I'm qualified to go too much deeper into it. But suffice it to say that this reality is for us not a true reality.

[58:43]

It's an illusion. The real reality is with Allah. And that is not fear. And I have to leave it at that. I can't explain it any better. Yes, ma'am. Can you talk a little bit about limits rates in Islam? Sure, sure. I think for the structure of watching the news, I might judge some of the customs as to the game. Well, thank you. It's a good question. I always get this first. When we look at the Muslim world today, we see successes and failures. Just like the rest of the world. And some of the things that we deem successes here in the West, for me as a mortal man, I would deem it better. And vice versa. What did the Prophet teach us about him? He said that heaven is at the feet of your mother.

[59:49]

He didn't say that about fathers or anyone else. He said it about your mother. Where is heaven? Where do you find heaven? At the feet of your mother. He said that if your mother is angry at you, The doors of paradise are forbidden until she's forgiven. Once a man came to the Prophet and he said, Ya Rasulullah, O Messenger of Allah, who should I love most after you? He said, the Prophet answered, your mother. He said, and after her? The Prophet said, your mother. He said, and after her? He said, your father. So women in Islam have a very honored and exalted position. Highly honored and exalted. When a Muslim woman marries a Muslim man, she keeps her. She doesn't change it because she's an individual. She doesn't become a steward just because she married a steward. She's, in my wife's case, an Muhammad. Any wealth that she earns is her wealth, not the family's wealth, not her house's wealth. If she wins the lottery, her winnings are her wealth.

[60:49]

Her husband has no right on it. In the 7th century, the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, reported in the Quran as revealed to him, the women must have the right to consent to a marriage, they have the right to spousal support upon a divorce, and they have the right to have child support for young children. These were rights that were given to Muslim women in the 7th century, when women in Europe and in much of the world were property, where any property that they owned in England up into the 17th century, 18th century, was her husband's. She had to give it to her, he had to give it to his brother if he died so she could take it from him to inherit. Women were given the right to have property in the 7th century and so on. Now that being said, they weren't given the right to the same amount of property as men. It's absolutely true. A man inherits twice but a woman inherits. And so we can look at this and say, well this is an inequality, it's not fair. And it is an inequality, it's absolutely true.

[61:49]

It is. Don't try to pretend that it isn't. But it's also a reality based upon a very different way of doing it. In the Islamic world, in my family, in my home, today at 24th century, I am 1,000% responsible for the care of my wife and my children. I have to feed them, provide for them, care for them, get their health care, clothing, everything. My wife is responsible for my home, our home, and the upbringing of our children. She will never be required by me to participate in any degree in rent or mortgages or grocery shopping or anything of that effect. That's my responsibility, completely my responsibility as a Muslim man. And so I received a greater inheritance because I had a greater responsibility, a greater financial responsibility, not a greater responsibility. The responsibility of the mother is far greater in many instances than that of her father. During the time of the Prophet there were people who had gave birth to girls. It's like that people are going to give birth to girls today.

[62:51]

And in the pre-Islamic era, before the coming of Islam, this was a bad thing. This thing is a bad omen to have a girl child. They used to take girls out and bury them alive in the sands of a rape. It's a terrible, heinous infant. The Quran specifically condemns and actually questions. I thought, for what crime will this child... The Quran actually mentioned, what will you say to this child on the day of judgment that was killed? Um... So there's different roles and responsibilities within Islamic tradition. The prophet said, when you have a girl, you should rejoice. Why? Because a man raises a family. A woman raises a nation. What she brings forth has the potential of becoming an entire people. Whereas a man just desires children. Because she's the one who teaches them. She learns the first steps on the path from his mother, not from his father. The father's out there living in the Muslim. So, Yes, there are inequalities. Certainly there are inequalities. When we look at the Middle East in particular, it breaks my heart sometimes.

[63:53]

There's some world inequality. But I don't think that there's Islam inequality. There's just human inequalities that are exacerbated by conditions currently in the Middle East. But I can tell you that in this space, I'm paternalistic and patriarchal, and I accept it because Islam is patriarchal. I accept that too. I told you I was going to tell you the truth. I'm talking. But it's a different way of living. But I can assure you that my daughter, my first child is a daughter. She's going to have a baby next month, inshallah. There's nothing in this universe other than my Lord that I love more than her. And maybe even that's not entirely true. And if it is, God forbid. She means the entire world to me. My wife, I will die for her a thousand times before I accept it in the slightest discomfort for her. And if you look at the way that Muslim men love their mothers, I challenge you to find any people who love their mothers to speak with you. It is not uncommon for a Muslim man to come home after a long journey and see his mother and stop and kiss with you.

[64:57]

So, that's what it is. And Allah knows best. I think now my time truly is up. Thank you so much, everyone, for your time and your attentiveness and for honoring me by coming and listening to me talk. If I've said anything to offend, please forgive me. If there's anything good that I said, it's because my shri taught me good things. If there's anything bad that I said, it's because I'm kind of an idiot. But thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit SSCC.org. and click giving.

[65:43]

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