Quran 2013

“Do they not travel through the land, so

that their hearts may learn wisdom, and

their ears may learn to hear?…” 22:46

“Those who believed, and those who

were Jewish, and the Christians, and the

Sabians, and any that believe in God and

the Last Day, and work righteousness,

they will have their reward with their

Lord, on them will be no fear, nor shall

they grieve.” 2:62

I’m just returning with an interfaith group of 16 Atlantans from a one week journey to the Grand Canyon, Sedona, Window Rock, Arizona. This was another World Pilgrims venture that brings people of various faiths together to travel to interesting places which provide a backdrop for interpersonal and interfaith engagement. A distinguished group inclusive of two Rabbis, two Pastors, an Imam, and an Islamic Publisher, shared prayers, meditations, and reflections while overlooking the Rim of the Grand Canyon and contemplating the wonders of God.

There is nothing like the Grand Canyon, and to partake in it’s awe-inspiring majesty and beauty at sunrise, midday, and at sunset, with spiritually inclined people, is soul-stirring and deeply moving. Not only are the Canyon’s seven ecosystems brimming with diverse life, the Canyon itself seems to be alive as the colors, shapes, forms, and landscapes constantly change in response to sunlight and the position or disposition of the viewer. Six million years old, 277 miles long, 10 miles wide, 1 mile deep, exposed cliffs and pinnacles, expose the wonders of Earth and the Grandeur of God, while invoking humility as deep and expansive in the hearts and minds of observant human beings.Upon one of these many cliffs, we shared in an inspiring Christian worship service.

After 3 days at the Canyon, we passed through the Petrified Forest en-route to the Navajo Capital of Window Rock, Az. There we were welcomed and enlightened by a Navajo Cultural Practitioner (Medicine-man), who shared with us the sad and sordid history between the Native Americans and the U.S. Government. Nothing there for any of us to be proud of, and that wretched history continues today through the discriminative policies that dis-empower the Reservations and Indian tradition. In spite of it all, the Navajo, Hopi, and other tribes have held on to the love and reverence of nature, the earth , it’s creatures, and the human responsibility to live in harmony with the creation and to serve as caretakers, and not exploiters. Our Practitioner said if you care for the Earth, it will take care of you. To him the earth is us and it’s vegetation is our Pharmacy. It was here, under the huge oval opening in a mountainous rock that gave Window Rock it’s name, that we collectively observed the Muslim Jumuah Prayer.

The next day we traveled to Sedona to immerse in the beauty of the red rock formations that are acclaimed to be a vortex of spiritual energy. It is indeed mesmerizing, and the perfect setting for our Shabbot (Jewish Sabbath) Service. Once again, Pilgrims returned more enlightened and appreciative of the others’ faith and of their own, and more committed to interfaith collaboration for the benefit of our City and as an investment towards the renewal and preservation of our Earth and Humanity.

submitted by Plemon T. El-Amin

“Or like one who passed over a neighborhood in ruins up to its rooftops. He said, ‘How will God bring it to life after its death?’ So God caused him to die for a hundred years then raised him up. He said, ‘How long have you been here?’ He said, ‘A day or part of a day.’ He said, ‘No, you have been here a hundred years. But look at your food and drink, they show no sign of age, and look at your donkey. And We will make you a sign for humanity. Look further at the bones, how We bring them together and clothe them with flesh.’ Once this became clear to him he said, ‘I know that God has power over all things.’ ” (2:259)

For those who have gazed upon the world’s rural shacks and urban slums, and have wondered how God will bring prosperity to these communities that have no life, or at least not the life they want, imagine yourself having died for 100 years or having disappeared for 100 years, and then sudden reappearing.

Imagine having neglected your relatively prosperous communities for a century, and suddenly finding yourself in a “neighborhood in ruins up to its rooftops” of your own. Had your home not been destroyed by the passing of time but instead by some natural disaster, it would still be ruined in much the same way. So although it took a 100 years is be destroyed, it could have been a day, or part of day for all you know.

But as you look beyond the home and beyond the neighborhood what do you see? You see the natural resources and natural environment; sure it has grown wild, but it is essentially unchanged. And you notice something else, something even more important. You notice that you have not changed, and you are still capable.

Once this becomes clear to you, what would you do next? And while knowing that God has power over all things, how would you like others to assist you? The thing we would do next is the very thing we should do now to assist those for whom this imagined scenario is all too real. And through our work is how God will bring a community “to life after its death”.

Submitted by Bilal

“They ask you concerning intoxicants and gambling. Say, ‘In both of them is great harm and benefit for humanity, but the harm outweighs the benefit.’ ” 2:219

“O you who believe, intoxicants and gambling, dedication of stones and divination by arrows is the harmful work of Satan. Avoid such harm that you may flourish.” 5:90
“Satan’s plan is to incite enmity and hatred between you with intoxicants and gambling, and to keep you from the remembrance of God and from prayer. Will you not then abstain?” 5:91

The verses above manage to address problems with intoxicants in general while focusing on alcohol by using the word “khamr” which can be translated simultaneously as “intoxicants” and “alcohol” (see examples). Perhaps this is done to reveal to us that we should concern ourselves with all intoxicants and especially alcohol, because not only is alcohol a gateway drug, but it is more harmful to individuals and society combined, than any other drug.

Consider the following story…

WebMD and CNN – Alcohol abuse is more harmful than crack or heroin abuse, according to a panel of experts from the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs.

Neuropharmacologist David Nutt, MD, of Imperial College London, and colleagues rated 20 different drugs on a scale that takes into account the various harms caused by a drug. Drugs are rated on nine harms a drug causes an individual and seven harms a drug causes society.

The scale, developed by a panel of experts called the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ICSD), ranges from 0 (no harm) to 100 (greatest possible harm). It is weighted so that a drug that scores 50 is half as harmful as a drug that scores 100.

“The highest and lowest overall harm scores … are 72 for alcohol and 5 for mushrooms,” Nutt and colleagues calculate. “The ICSD scores lend support to the widely accepted view that alcohol is an extremely harmful drug both to users and to society.”

Alcohol was found to be the most harmful drug to society and the fourth most harmful drug to users.

The findings should come as no surprise: Alcohol has been linked to more than 60 diseases.

“Alcohol does all kinds of things in the body, and we’re not fully aware of all its effects,” alcohol researcher James C. Garbutt, MD, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, recently told WebMD. “It’s a pretty complicated little molecule.”

Alcohol vs. Heroin, Other Drugs

Using the ICSD ratings, Nutt and colleagues rated 20 substances in terms of the overall harm they do. Their results:

Heroin, crack, and crystal meth were the most harmful drugs to the individual, while alcohol, heroin and crack were the most harmful to others.

According to this “multicriteria decision analysis approach,” alcohol is almost three times as harmful as cocaine or tobacco.

Nutt and colleagues conclude that aggressively targeting alcohol harm is “a valid and necessary public health strategy.”

In an editorial accompanying the Nutt team’s report, Jan van Amsterdam of the Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment and Wim van den Brink of the Amsterdam Institute for Addiction research note that the legal penalties prescribed by various nations’ drug policies are out of synch with the actual harms caused by different drugs.

“It is intriguing to note that the two legal drugs assessed — alcohol and tobacco — score in the upper segment of the ranking scale, indicating that legal drugs cause at least as much harm as do illegal substances,” van Amsterdam and van den Brink write.

The editorial and the Nutt study appear in the Nov. 1 Online First edition of The Lancet.

Submitted by Bilal

“Do not marry women whom your fathers married, except what has undoubtedly past. It was immoral and detestable, an abominable custom indeed. (4:22) Prohibited to you for marriage are your mothers, daughters, sisters, father’s sisters, mother’s sisters, brother’s daughters, sister’s daughters, foster-mothers, foster-sisters, your wives’ mothers, your step-daughters under your guardianship born of your wives to whom you have been intimate, no prohibition if you have not been intimate, those who have been wives of your sons proceeding from your loins, and two sisters in wedlock at the same time, except what has undoubtedly past, for God is Oft-Forgiving, Mercifully Redeeming. (4:23) Also, women already married, except those whom your right hands possess. God has ordained this for you. And except for these, all others are permissible, provided you pursue them with gifts from your property, desiring chastity, not lust. Seeing that you are given blessings from them, give them their dowries as prescribed. But if after a dowry is prescribed you agree to modify it, there is no blame on you, and God is All Knowing, All Wise. (4:24)”

In the Quran, God forbids 15 different categories of marriages (4:22-24). But as detestable, disgusting (21:74), lewd (7:80), abominable (11:78), shameful (27:54) and sinful (29:29) same sex marriage is, it is not one of the 15 forbidden marriages.

Now, although the Quran never claims to be a law book, it can certainly serve as guidance concerning the laws that govern our societies (2:2). So how can we use the fact that God does not forbid same sex marriage to help us deal with the issue of same sex marriage and gay rights? Perhaps we can begin to answer that question by first asking this one; why didn’t God forbid same-sex marriage the way He did the other 15?

One answer might be that since Allah has already forbidden homosexuality, forbidding gay marriage would be redundant. But Allah obviously has no problem appearing redundant seeing that on several occasions He revealed the same verse more than once. So we can rule that answer out.

Another answer might be that God does not forbid gay marriage because a gay marriage cannot be considered marriage at all, and because no Believer reading the Quran would ever consider marrying someone of the same sex, and thus there is no need for Allah to even mention it, let alone forbid it. The pretty obvious problem with this answers is that it implies that although they are forbidden, the 15 categories of marriage that are mentioned can be considered marriage, and because those category of marriages were forbidden, those who read it might have had a natural tendency to establish one of those marriages (e.g. marrying ones’ mother or daughter (4:23)). So we would do ourselves a favor by ruling that answer out as well.

My answer to why God did not forbid same sex marriage is that when it comes to homosexuals and their homosexuality (and perhaps only when it comes to their homosexuality), those who are openly gay are unified and determined (11:79) in their offensive (7:80), anti-establishment (7:81), lustful, passionate, hot-tempered (11:78), arrogant (11:79) short sighted, selfish (26:166) confused, immature, self-destructive (27:55), unapologetic, unconscionable (27:54), rebellious (11:78), threatening, aggressive, (15:70) wildly senseless, distracted (15:72) corrupted, unethical, and Godless (29:29). And discriminating against them will not only cause us to loose our moral authority, but it will morph us into hypocritical bigots by betraying our beliefs in freedom, justice, and equality (2:256, 4:135) but it will also, as we have seen, backfire by bringing homosexuals attention and sympathy from those who are not homosexual but who do not share our belief that homosexuality is wrong. And fighting homosexuals will not only fail to solve the problem of homosexuality but it will continue to exacerbate it (11:79, 21:74, 26:166, 27:54, 29:29).

However addressing the underlying reasons for the openly gay as well as the privately gay (e.g. molestation, peer pressure, abuse, rape, a hyper sexual culture, identity crisis, broken homes, mental illness, unnatural birth defects, miseducation, etc.) We may actually help solve the problem (27:55). And instead of focusing on repressing and punishing the openly gay, we should refocus our attention on those who privately struggle with homosexuality by sharing the Quranic message with them that, “for those work righteousness, male or female, and has faith, indeed to them will God give a new life, a life that is good and pure, and God will bestow on them their reward according to the best of their actions (16:97).”

Submitted by Bilal