Revolutions Coming Our Way

Revolution's coming our Way.

Revolution's coming our way,

People's power's, here to stay.

Democracy's flawed and failed.

Supporting tyrants, is just the last nail.

Now, let's throw that coffin six feet deep,

Covering it up for ages, for all time to keep.

So that another generation might not be deluded,

By its fine words, that forever blinded,

 bind-ed.

Us to hypocrisy's ways.

Which always made someone else pay.

Colonialism, of another name.

Whilst we left our brothers and sisters to suffer in pain.

(pause)

Kings, and Amirs, Fathers of the Nation.

Forever claiming that they were their own peoples salvation.

Titles given, taken for what?

For whatever reason it's long forgot.

Lids lifted, veils removed.

Hearts boiling, the people are moved.

For they have seen tyranny's true ear,

Glued shut, deaf to all just tears.

Brothered, twinned with Democracy's lifeless ear.

Where Politics is just another career.

Vested interests both of them have,

Our Politician's and their tyrannical other halves.

So the truth of this unholy relationship is laid bare,

Now is the time of change for all those who care.

Revolution's coming our way,

People's power's, here to stay.

But let it not be a flash in the pan,

Nor any entry for just another breed of man.

Who shouts in anger against all that is low,

Whilst on the morrow, he forgets

And upholds the Status Quo.

He is the son,

Of all that he hated, simply begot 

and then got.

So let the World unite in Our Flight.

Let the World unite in our flight,

From the vested interests of the few,

From the rampant hypocrisy of this democracy.

To clean shores,

Not of a lifeless ideology.

(pause)

But of an example, real,

Of the greatest of revolutionaries.

From a long line of Prophets, 

he was their seal.

Mohamed Shafi Bachelani.

Believing in Democracy,

But not of the Hypocritical Kind.

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God, our Father who art in Heaven

The Middling Nation.
In the Qur'an, our Messenger's Nation is termed the middling one. The Qur'an is an address to all men, women and Nations of this World, but primarily to the Nations that preceeded ours; our cousins the Jewish and Christian Nations. And so it is within this context that middling is to be understood.


The Judaic Nation is insular. For truly no man can be a Jew except that his parentage is of such.


The Christian Nation is evangelical, and is ever seen to bend and turn with the times so that it can evangelize all the more better. The Council of Nicea that promoted the trinitarian doctrine is just one prime example of such.


And so, we as a Nation do not evangelize nor are we insular. Instead we believe in the ascendency of Truth and Justice above all else, even when it is to our own personal self-detriment. A Truth and a Justice that is codified within the immutable text of the Qur'an, which we believe is GOD's words revealed through the noblest of Messengers.


However, we are not a Nation built around a single tribe, nor many tribes, rather for all Muslims, whether they be Chinese or African or European, the Messenger of GOD is their Messenger and as it were talks down through the ages intimately with each and every one of them.


And so it is with this understanding of our middling tradition that I approach each and every topic that I discuss.


It is not to convert, nor to explain a deficiency, but just simply to tell it as it is. Nor is it said in the interests of keeping some things hidden, the provender of a select few.


An Exemplary Nation.
Furthermore, whilst the Jews say that they are the Chosen Nation and the Christians say that none will enter Heaven save those who accept Jesus as saviour and redeemer of sins. I say neither.


That the middling Nation presumes in it's very conception not a domination, but an exemplary leader amongst the community of Nations. Nor do I say that none can attain Heaven save those who follow the Religion.


However, neither beliefs impinge on my following the words of GOD, that no religion will be accepted by HIM other than the religion of Islam (submission to HIS will and reliance on HIM).


GOD, Our Father Who Art in Heaven.
And so after length we come to it.
A Christian friend had the impression that our Lord GOD was different to his own.


The Christians call the Creator of All, because that is the essential first act of GOD, their "Father who art in Heaven".


It is meant in an allegorical sense to convey the sense of provider, the one who looks after us. But because of it's comparability with our own lives, it suffers the severe confusion of an anthropomorphic GOD; of God being in man's image, of God having a family with sons and daughters.


To accept that man is made in God's image does not imply the reflective notion that God be a man, with the concurrent needs of family and society.


In Islam the non-reflective nature of the relationship between GOD and the whole of creation, including man, is made abundantly clear through the use of negation.


That GOD is the ultimate Creator, who has neither father nor son.
The Creator, who Himself is not created nor born of any.
That GOD is the provider and sustainer who is Himself in need of no sustenance nor provision.
That GOD sees all, whilst none can see Him.
That GOD comprehends all, whilst none can comprehend Him.


And none is like unto HIM.


An Affirmation.
The Qur'an declares of itself that it is an affirmation of all the revelations that came before it (the revealed books being the Torah, Psalms and the Gospel).


That the GOD of the Torah, Psalms and Gospel, is the very same GOD that revealed the Qur'an.


For the sense of the Father GOD who provides, nurtures and cares, the Qur'an terms Rab= Lord, Provider of Sustenance. And it is a term without the ambiguity of Father, whilst retaining it's essence of thankfulness.


In the Lord's Prayer, GOD is called Father whilst then thanking Him for "our daily bread".


The opening of the Qur'an is Al-Fathihah which itself opens with: "All gratitude and thanks belongs to the Lord, Sustainer of all the Worlds".


Whilst Muslims often see the ambiguity of the terminology associated with the Bible as being caused by a loss in translation, the reality may be in it being a reaction against the first Nation. For the Judaic Nation often perceived the very same GOD as being the aloof Law-Maker and Law-Giver. And saw the religion as being one solely about the Law and not necessarily it's ethical spirit.


A Shifting Emphasis.
Jesus, a Prophet we name Nabi Isa (may GOD be pleased with him), often tried to instruct the Sanhedrin (Jewish Priests concerned with the Law) in their disregard of a balanced application of the Law, so that it's spirit of mercy might flow through. Muhammad (saw) did likewise in his application of our Shariah.


And it is this shifting of emphasis that is captured in the transformation of the terminology used for the same One GOD. Away from ELOHIM, and HIS name which the Judaic Priests feared to write, an impersonal aloof GOD to GOD the father, provider and carer of all.


However, the choice of "of our Father who art in Heaven" resonates a little further than that within our own human social experience. For is not the father the one who provides but also administers and upholds the law. Is he not the first to uphold the principle that the blind application of Law is both a necessary mercy and a blessing to all.


And so GOD the Father who art in Heaven, is the one and same Law-Giver GOD of Moses and the same Sovereign over all Creation, both Heaven and Earth, of the Muhammad (may he forever be blessed, the last Messenger sent from GOD with the completion of all that preceded it).


Shafi,
Telling it like it is, if GOD so wills!








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The Fanatical Holidaymaker

The Fanatical Holidaymaker.


On holiday with family in Bournemouth. After a wet and windy promenade on the beach front we retired to a luncheon of traditional battered cod 'n chips. Followed by an even more traditional, save of a different origin, ritual Zuhr Salaat.


Forgetting the virtues of Salaat for a man constantly in search of meaning, I want to focus on what I did after.
I spied the craven images of man and beast hanging on my hotel room wall. Of course on any other occasion they would have been just plain pictures, even to me.


But at that time, I covered them with cloth so that their forms would not be visible. And I thought, does that action make me a fanatic in the eyes of this World?


For most people I would be just that. Even though I did not seek to influence their own public perceptions of imagery, but in fact because I had to alter what they had sought to impose on me.


Cameron attacks Multiculturalism.
Cameron's attack on the failure of multiculturalism obviously leads on to questions of what he had hoped to gain from it. But for most British Politicians the question was not of gain, but because Multiculturalism naturally lead on from their traditionally tolerant disposition. This because today's World is shrinking and thence the pre-eminence of immigration. A traditional British disposition that at the turn of the 20th Century saw them play host to Karl Marx amongst others.


Traditions that made us Great.
Interesting then that Cameron should give voice to his values in a country that has no such tradition. That at the turn of the 20th Century saw the rise of fasicism. Are Cameron's values then not at odds with traditional British values? 


And like Blair, before him, is he not just playing poodle to Merkel's economic power, and ignoring our traditions. Then Cameron's and Blair's values that determine our policy are shown to be what they are, plainly feelings of inadequacy in the face of superior industrialization or markets. Playing poodle and undermining all that is Great about Britain is no way to up your game, no matter how you swing it.


Maybe he's appealing to our changing values?
Cameron may well argue and be justified in arguing that British values have changed, but then he should not seek to pull the wool over our eyes by appealing wrong-headedly to British traditions. Incredibly, if he were to argue that the now British values are based on a suspicion of immigration, then he would have to admit that the cause of the rise of such suspicion comes not from an indigenous population but from second and third generation immigrants themselves.


Maybe his position is plain and simply anti-Muslim?
And then if Cameron would fain admit to that position, then he is left solely with an anti-Muslim sentiment. He's not alone in that, but it can hardly be called traditional. After all Muslims were not public enemy number 1 twenty to thirty years ago.


So what's changed?
Well let's see, could it be something to do with oil being found in the Arabian peninsula. Well that's suits the timeline to a tee. And then with the World's economy booming on high because of cheap oil, is it a wonder that the Powers that be adopt a duplicitous, non-traditional and base foreign exploitative policy.


Muslims are people and when cornered, react as all people do!
No, put it that way then it's no wonder. It's no wonder then that there is free game on Muslims Worldwide. And it's no wonder that Muslims feel alienated and react aggressively, finding identity in a non-existent, non-traditional and even non-Islamic, but branded as such by bulls on both sides on the fence, ideology.


Back to the true fanatics.
I have met fanatics, and actually thinking about it not one of them was Muslim. My own definition of fanaticism would be the inability to step into another's shoes to see their arguments and reasons. Of course you cannot step into someone else's shoes if you cannot appreciate a common humanity between the two of you.


I know I can do that.
I know that all of the Muslims that I know can do that.


But that does not mean we have to adopt the precepts or values that public opinion, as dictated by the media savants, want us to adopt.
However, because we can appreciate them from the standpoint of their logic, it means that we are not fanatics.


Maybe at worst reactionaries to a failed foreign policies.


But the same cannot be said of the Camerons of this World, who cannot and will not step into our shoes. Because if they did, then with a clarity they would see the callousness of their words and the destruction that they might bring.


They are the true fanatics.
The only other difference is I chose to holiday in Bournemouth, and he chose Germany.


END.






Your Brother,


Shafi


(I had intended to talk more on MultiCulturalism, the imposition of values etc... I did no justice to those theme and hope to revisit them as soon as my pen rests upon my paper again.)






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