I am coming in cold this morning. And not from the weather.
I have not read many of my recent mail. Afraid to touch them.
But I was going to suggest, tentatively again, we try to go for Tuesday & Wednesday afternoons for our so-called Arabic Program.
That should give us two days together and the rest of the week to recover.
In the meantime, the more I see, and hear, the Muslims the more my back wants to curve. Feel like echoing a Tennis player: Are You Serious?
But I also feel a new surge of compassion for Muslims. And pain.
And I hurt for them, which I always have done, as we all should do.
And wish to say: Poor, poor Muslims -- Beycharey Musalman, as Iqbal said -- they love their Deen so much that they are afraid to face it.
Or talk about it candidly -- and honestly and openly.
They have been so burned by the imaginary thunderbolts that will scorch them if they uttered one wrong word. Or even thought a single unsanctioned thought.
A thought unapproved and un-cleared unsanctioned by their self-appointed Minders and Handlers.
They are afraid to talk about their Deen, like they would talk about everything else in life. Freely, openly, fearlessly.
Their Jum'ah Khutbahs are a hash and their Mimbars are Occupied Territory. No room for a breath of fresh air from those Mimbars!
It almost seems like the old days, and the not-so-old days: gatecrash the Masaajid and demand the right to speak. And possibly get thrown out or beaten up.
Or simply, like the Old Days, stand at the door or steps of a mosque and speak away!
Wish the Muslims will let me speak! They let everybody else do!
At least now, when we are all growing very old, very fast, and many of us are already packed up and gone. With the rest of us standing in queue.
I am saying that partly because that is the only way to reach the Muslims, if you can ever do, talking to them. And doing so on the Day of Jum'ah from the Mimbar of a Masjid.
Muslims are not a reading people. You can write what you want, Muslims will not even look at it. So, how on earth do you reach Muslims?
How on earth do you get their attention?
How on earth do you talk to them?
They keep doing the same thing over and over and over and expect that this time, somehow, miraculously maybe, the results will be different. Einstein, I think who it was that, defined it as Insanity?
That is why, in part, I am afraid to open some of the more recent mail. But I will. Inshallah, as they say.
And that is why I am cold today. And not from the weather.
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