Imagination
The way imagination hovers over ritual
echoes fragrance hovering over flowers;
ritualized, our deeds become habitual,
deprived of our imaginative powers.
Ebrahim Moosa, a professor of Islamic studies at Duke University, and author of Ghazali and the Poetics of Imagination, writes in the NYT, January 10, 2006:
Years later, Muslim tradition holds, Abraham reconciled with Hagar and Ishmael. But more trials awaited. This time Abraham had to do the unthinkable: sacrifice his son. Mainstream Muslim tradition believes that the son in question was Ishmael, while a minority view holds that it was Isaac, Sarah's son. But after a miraculous substitution of Ishmael (or Isaac) by a ram, Abraham's reputation was sealed as the “friend of God.”
To express their loathing of evil, the pilgrims will participate in that ancient drama of Abraham and Ishmael. They will first stone three pillars, each symbolizing Satan's failed attempts to mislead Abraham's family. Then, in a place called Mina, meaning "desires," each pilgrim will sacrifice an animal. With this act they seek to replace their destructive desires with productive ones. Away from Mecca, non-pilgrims with means will also slaughter animals as a show of hospitality to friends, family and the indigent. Pilgrimage embodies exile by requiring seekers to suspend customary routine, enter new environments and live by new rhythms and rituals. For a limited time, pilgrims experience the transitions and dislocations exiles perpetually undergo. As a performance, the pilgrimage links people to a past shared by several Abrahamic traditions, just as, by bringing together Muslims from a great multiplicity of cultures, it celebrates the diversity of our common humanity. Pilgrims return home enriched by this cosmopolitan outlook, but with a new appreciation for their own origins.
In the 1980's, the Iranian revolution inspired some attempts to use the hajj as a platform to express Muslim grievances. But such efforts ended in 1987, when Iranian pilgrims clashed with Saudi authorities, resulting in carnage and mayhem. The more subtle political significance of the hajj, however, persists in the realm of the spiritual imagination. To play on the words of the poet Federico García Lorca: the imagination hovers above ritual, the way fragrance hovers over a flower. Pilgrimage ought to fire the imagination and celebrate transitions, creativity and innovation. And imagination is a weapon, one that tyrants and autocrats fear. If we find it in short supply in the corridors of power, that does not mean that the rest of us should be deprived of its constructive possibilities as well.
© 2006 Gershon Hepner 1/10/06
echoes fragrance hovering over flowers;
ritualized, our deeds become habitual,
deprived of our imaginative powers.
Ebrahim Moosa, a professor of Islamic studies at Duke University, and author of Ghazali and the Poetics of Imagination, writes in the NYT, January 10, 2006:
Years later, Muslim tradition holds, Abraham reconciled with Hagar and Ishmael. But more trials awaited. This time Abraham had to do the unthinkable: sacrifice his son. Mainstream Muslim tradition believes that the son in question was Ishmael, while a minority view holds that it was Isaac, Sarah's son. But after a miraculous substitution of Ishmael (or Isaac) by a ram, Abraham's reputation was sealed as the “friend of God.”
To express their loathing of evil, the pilgrims will participate in that ancient drama of Abraham and Ishmael. They will first stone three pillars, each symbolizing Satan's failed attempts to mislead Abraham's family. Then, in a place called Mina, meaning "desires," each pilgrim will sacrifice an animal. With this act they seek to replace their destructive desires with productive ones. Away from Mecca, non-pilgrims with means will also slaughter animals as a show of hospitality to friends, family and the indigent. Pilgrimage embodies exile by requiring seekers to suspend customary routine, enter new environments and live by new rhythms and rituals. For a limited time, pilgrims experience the transitions and dislocations exiles perpetually undergo. As a performance, the pilgrimage links people to a past shared by several Abrahamic traditions, just as, by bringing together Muslims from a great multiplicity of cultures, it celebrates the diversity of our common humanity. Pilgrims return home enriched by this cosmopolitan outlook, but with a new appreciation for their own origins.
In the 1980's, the Iranian revolution inspired some attempts to use the hajj as a platform to express Muslim grievances. But such efforts ended in 1987, when Iranian pilgrims clashed with Saudi authorities, resulting in carnage and mayhem. The more subtle political significance of the hajj, however, persists in the realm of the spiritual imagination. To play on the words of the poet Federico García Lorca: the imagination hovers above ritual, the way fragrance hovers over a flower. Pilgrimage ought to fire the imagination and celebrate transitions, creativity and innovation. And imagination is a weapon, one that tyrants and autocrats fear. If we find it in short supply in the corridors of power, that does not mean that the rest of us should be deprived of its constructive possibilities as well.
© 2006 Gershon Hepner 1/10/06
posted by Gershon Hepner at 7:21 PM
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