Τό γυναικεῖον τῆς Ὑπατίας - An Áit Bhanda na Hypatia - Hypatia's Gynaeceum

Mother, return us to your breast: Toward a thealogy of Islam
Johanna-Hypatia Cybeleia

What happened in the encounter between Islam and Goddess religion?
( long essay )

Lots of religions all at once, I really enjoy this. And you know when LGBT people do it, the fun is quadrupled. I was invited to speak there this year. Saw lots and lots of my friends: notably, seer_eridanus helped organize the service and he coordinated us speakers. It was a beautiful service and I felt the love. I was moved to tears in places. And the music was excellent as always.

This is just a look at current relations without going back over the whole history of my experience with Christianity.

By choosing a focus on interfaith work (why not--I'm a one-woman interfaith group myself) in the USA, obviously I have chosen to get involved with Christians a lot. We may have had our differences, but the level of dialogue and cooperation I'm engaging in through the Network of Spritual Progressives precludes any adversarial attitudes between us. Which is a relief because I don't like fighting over this stuff.

As an Italian feminist Pagan with a penchant for ancient history, two incidents stand out for me from the time when Christianity consolidated its power over the Roman Empire and violently crushed out the heritage of Paganism all over the Mediterranean.

391 - The Theodosian edict which resulted in the abolition of Cybele's religion, the massacres of Her transsexual priestesses the Gallae and forced conversions of their followers, the conversion of their home into the Vatican City, the devotion for the Mother Goddess shifted to Mary--resulting in the eternal question of how do you subordinate a Mother Goddess when Her religion is encapsulated within a patriarchal system ("hyperdulia" and such), when the Church Fathers want Her subordinate but She continues to hold first place in the people's hearts. If you know Sicilians, you know what I mean. All of Cybele's temples were destroyed, with orders that they should never be built upon (in contrast to the usual practice of converting non-Christian religious sites). The religion of Cybele was targeted in particular for obliteration, it had been the principal religion of Rome with Her temple right on the Palatine Hill (the most prestigious real estate in all Rome)--but who remembers nowadays the central importance She once held?

415 - The murder of Hypatia in Alexandria.

That said, when I get together to dialogue and cooperate with Christians today in a civilized way, for the purpose of helping our nation's politics to care more for people, more for the environment-- one thing becomes immediately obvious: We all have far more in common with each other than any of us has with those ancient people.

The progressive Christians who I work with today are nothing like Bishops Ambrose of Milan and Cyril of Alexandria who instigated pogroms against the Pagans of their day to seize power over the Roman Empire. Not by a long stretch! They're the heirs of the German Protestants who made the Declaration of Barmen in a heroic act of resistance to Fascism. For that matter, honestly, I scarcely resemble ancient pagans. Witches today don't even sacrifice chickens let alone humans. (There's more human sacrifice to be found in Christianity, heh, just teasing you guys.) Witches I admire like Starhawk and T. Thorn Coyle (yezida), in their resistance to the Fascist developments of our day, are just as much the spiritual heirs of Barmen. When I blog against theocracy, guess who's right alongside me--a church pastor.

When I look around at Christians and me in dialogue, all I see is people of Modern Western Civilization. And what is that? The result of synthesizing both Pagan and Christian sources into one thing. My people (the Italians) invented this too, in the Renaissance. Let's face it, folks, today's American Christians and American Pagans are born joined at the hip, so let's get hip to one another.

I've given yezida's recent arguments a lot of thought. One of our Witches in Central Virginia has been wondering about debating a Christian preacher who is showing them some antagonism. This is the community that recently held a public Yule celebration at a Unitarian church in Charlottesville. Some Christians seemed outraged that Pagans would have the chutzpah to announce themselves in public and everything, employ the same public means as Christians to get their word out, and in general behave like a, you know, regular religion.

I agree with yezida that Pagans have to be able to engage in interfaith dialogue if we want to be taken seriously by the more established religions. If Pagans want a place at the table in the dialogue of world religions... do we? There are already Pagan scholars in the American Academy of Religion... and colloquy there must seem a far cry from debating your local preacher man's crusade... but we've got to start somewhere.

I took the easy way and joined the Arlington chapter of the Network of Spiritual Progressives as a founding member. All different religions and sexual orientations are supposed to be accepted in theory, I'm there to see how true that is in practice. Why, because I think interfaith dialogue is healthy for our world, and because this is time for queers to be out and proud. Meetings are at a church where I'm the only Pagan in a room full of Christians, but I can talk their lingo too, quote Bible exegesis, etc. They looked at me & my pentagram funny at first, but they've come to understand how serious is my intent in sticking with this interfaith dialogue.

yezida's point is that to be able to dialogue with other faiths as equals, we have to be clear about what we believe and able to articulate it. We've been concentrating on experience to the detriment of logos. (Logos meaning the talky side of faith, not commercial emblems)

Ironically, I read yezida's ideas the day after I'd put in my LJ profile a quote from a radical Sufi named ‘Ayn al-Qozat Hamadani--

"Close the shop of argument and mystery, open the teahouse of experience."

yezida is saying when the tea break is over, the argument shop is reopening, any Pagans going to work there? What would shop talk be like?

"Look, I came in here for an argument."
"Oh, I'm sorry, but this is Abuse. You want room 12A, next door."

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/starhawk/2007/02/to_be_a_true_friend_of_the_jew.html

I'd like to think Starhawk is onto something valuable here. There is already a small and rapidly growing Pagan movement in Israel that has been restoring worship of the goddesses indigenous to the land like Asherah. Considering how the God of Abraham has been implicated in a lot more bloodshed than peacemaking there, why not give the Goddess a chance?

All the Israeli Pagans I know of come from Jewish backgrounds, like Starhawk. There have been hints of Arab Goddess revival in the Middle East too, but little information because of the extreme secrecy needed, especially when it's a question of uppity Arab wimmin.

So I dream of Arab and Jewish Pagans miraculously getting past the barriers that separate them... and joining together in the worship of the land's Goddesses that they all share in their common ancestry, to cooperate in working toward peace. I have a CD of Israeli Pagan songs with the same phrase sung in Hebrew and Palestinian Arabic:
"One hug per day brings peace that will last"
חבוק אחד ליום
מביא את השלום
hibbuk ehad le-yom
mevi’ et ha-shalom
معانقة وحدي في يوم
بحلي السلام يدوم
mu‘anaqah wahdi fi yom
bi-halli al-salam yidum

שלום
יוחנה

farsafal19:
Jewish leaders, too, are much better informed on these racial origins than Christians; but the success of their plans for world domination depends upon keeping Christendom blindfolded and sympathetic toward their aims, by sending out a steady stream of unholy propaganda regarding the Holy Land.

Johanna-Hypatia Cybeleia:
I just joined this group. Is it considered acceptable here to make statements about Jews like this? 'Cause if so I'm out of here.
Johanna

farsafal19:
Don't wait to long!!!

Johanna-Hypatia Cybeleia:
يهديكم الله تعالى عن الباطل إلى الحق. أنا بريئة منكم
Yahdikum Allah ta‘ala ‘an al-batil ila al-haqq. Ana bari’ah minkum.
Johanna-Hypatia

The Arabic phrases I replied with mean 'May Allah guide you from falsehood to truth. I am cleared of any association with you.'

Then I left the group without waiting to see if there was any reply. Eew. Ick. Those idiots had better not tangle with a Witch who knows better magick and better Classical Arabic than they do!

لقد صار قلبي قابلاً كل صورة * فمرعى لغزلان ودير لرهبانِ
وبيت لأوثان وكعبة طايف * وألواح تورات ومصحف قرآنِ
أدين بدين الحب أنّا توجهت * ركايبه فالدين ديني وإيماني


My heart has become capable of every form:
it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,
And a temple for idols and the pilgrim's Ka‘bah
and the tables of the Torah and the book of the Qur’an.
I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love's camels take,
that is my religion and my faith.

la-qad sara qalbi qabilan kulla surah
fa-mar‘an li-ghizlanin wa-dayrun li-ruhbani
wa-baytun li-awthanin wa-ka‘batu tayif
wa-alwahu tawratin wa-mus-hafu qur’ani
adinu bi-din al-hubbi anna tawajjahat
rakayibuhu fa-al-dinu dini wa-imani

--lines 13-15 from Ghazal 11 in Tarjuman al-ashwaq by Muhyi al-Din ibn al-‘Arabi (1164-1240), a Spanish Arab Sufi whose three spiritual guides were all women.

The first spiritual focus he mentions, before all the religions, is the "gazelles." In Arabic poetry that refers to women. Comparing his heart to a "pasture" for them means it's a place of safety and nurturance for women. Sisters, don't you wish there were more men like this?! The third spiritual focus he invokes, even before he gets to Islam, is Paganism. Please take note of this opening, I hope to see Islam-Pagan dialogue happening in my lifetime, and this poem would be a great place to start.

Ironically, the shadow that was cast over my life for 20 years happened in part through my interest in the Arabic language. But that's too long a story to go into here. Anyway, this is part of my process of maturing as a spiritual woman, reflecting back on what I found of lasting value in those years. Reflecting that as I emerged from the shadow into my present blessed life, my use of the Arabic language has continued, and it feels good to have some continuity extending through my years. In particular, I revisited this poem two years ago, when I had just re-emerged from the shadow and was beginning to face a new life. That's when I wrote the following commentary on those lines--

The white light shining through colored glass takes on its color. Anyone receiving this light transmitted through glass of a given color would receive the light along with the added coloration. But sometimes, when a light shines especially bright, it overpowers the local glass coloration and is seen on the other side as still white, therefore containing all colors, by virtue of its great brightness.

And people everywhere can see the clear white light, no matter what their local coloration. These lines of poetry in particular express how I experience the diversity of world religions in my own heart. I hear an echo of these famous lines in the modern Tajik poem by Zulfiya Atoi when she invokes "Love--humanity's religion."

Apart from the fundamentalism of today tearing everything up, Islam (in the form of Sufism) has been contributing these ideas of universal love, accepting all religions, for many centuries. As far as I've been able to find out, Sufism was the first to introduce these ideas to the world's religious discourse. Nowadays the popular image of Islam being the worst enemy of this spirit strikes me as an unutterably profound tragedy.

يُوَنّا-هيپاتيا كيبيليا

Farouk Mohammed Atwa, a bus mechanic who worked across the street from the church, thought that the apparition was a woman attempting suicide by jumping from the structure.

Despite the police, the street was packed with the faithful and curiosity seekers. "There were Muslims and Christians, and everyone was as one, one religion together."

"Some anthropologists suggest that Mary's popularity in Egypt is a vestige of the Isis cult, itself an incarnation of primeval mother-goddess worship. Virgin sightings may be among paganism's contributions to monotheistic mysticism."

(I got this in mail from both al-Fatiha and Tikkun. The latter included rabbinical commentary from Michael Lerner:)

How many times have you heard claims that Muslims never speak out to denounce the extremism in their community, while Jews and Christians do? It's a lie that is part of the larger assault on Muslims that has replaced anti-communism as the primary way that reactionary forces in the U.S. deflect attention from their own extremism, militarism and ongoing war in Iraq. We are pleased to present to you one of the many voices in the Muslim world raised in opposition to the disgusting and outrageus Holocaust denial sponsored by the President of Iran. Here is a statement from the Muslim American Society.

***************************************************************************

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, Most Merciful

True Muslims Must Never Deny the European Holocaust

By Ibrahim Ramey

History will recall the tragedy of the genocide that slaughtered some six million European Jews between the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party in 1933 and the culmination of the Second World War in Europe in May, 1945.

The evidence of this crime, and the horrible magnitude of this killing, is irrefutable. From sources as varied as Nazi war records, film documentation, and most importantly, the testimony of survivors and witnesses, we know that the mass murder of European Jews was, indeed, the single greatest crime of genocide in the twentieth century.

Yet the world now witnesses yet another wave of historical revisionism and Holocaust denial, this time emerging not from European Anti-Semites, but from none other than the President of Iran. Indeed, this head of state has taken the unprecedented act of hosting an international conference of anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers, and even white racists like former Klan leader David Duke, to gather in Tehran to deny the magnitude, if not the very existence, of this barbaric act.

As a Muslim of African decent in the United States, whose ancestors were victimized by the enormous crime of slavery, I object. And I believe that all Muslims, like other human beings who value compassion and truth, must vigorously object to this gathering as well.

Like many in the global Muslim community, I regard the occupation of Palestinian land and the policies of the State of Israel as issues of extreme importance. I am certainly among those who believe that the occupation of Palestinian territory and the denial of full human rights to Palestinians, and even to Arab people regarded as Israeli citizens, is deplorable.

But I find it to be morally unconscionable to attempt to build political arguments and political movements on a platform of racial hatred and the denial of the suffering of the human beings who were victimized by the viciousness of Hitler's genocidal rampage through Europe.

President Ahmedinejad should recognize that the issue of the Palestinian people must not, and cannot, be transmogrified into the ugly and spiritually bankrupt context of racial hatred. The cause of freedom must never drink from the well of hatred and racism.

And indeed, as the Holy Qur'an compels Muslims to demand justice for the oppressed, we are also called to witness against ourselves when we are in error.

And in this case, the President of Iran most certainly is.
********************************

The writer is the Director of the Human and Civil Rights Division of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation

I just got back from Northwestern University. I had a brilliant time at the conference, the organizer Barbara Newman is such a cool lady (and she wears the most fantastic caftans). Starhawk not only gave the keynote address, she drummed and led a Spiral Dance afterward. How cool is that! I spent a whole day and parts of two other days immersed in constant spiritual intellectual discourse and activity with other Goddess people comparing many different traditions. I found it easy to make friends there, all the people there were so cool.

Carol Christ gave a talk on feminist thealogy and death. She was talking about the understanding of death and afterlife as one of the main differences between Goddess religion and patriarchal theology. Her research was based on not only studying Minoan Goddess culture but also living in Greece and participating in traditional rituals with Greek village women, figuring the basics wouldn't have changed over the years even if the name changed to Christianity. Carol said the Christian formula "do ut des" (I give so that you may give) does not work in Goddess culture. The tradition she traced back to Minoan religion is "I give back in gratitude because you always keep giving."

It was a small conference, about 100 people, and the attendees were over 90% women. I wanted to say a shout out to the handful of men there, men who were cool with sitting in a room full of women talking about girly stuff. More power-from-within to them! :)

I heard a lot of scholars and students talking about Islam, but mostly how they don't know much about it. I don't know why hardly anyone so far has done anything to build bridges between Paganism and Islam. One Witch who has done that is yezida. She was doing it years before I started it independently of her, and when I started saying it, Witches told me "Thorn is doing that." I was pleased to learn that she and sista S.R. were doing it too. In fact, S.R. and I started it going for each other when we first met. Several people at the conference spoke up and asked about Islam, so I began to speak out about what I've been finding there. Carol Christ thanked me for telling her about it. It was the fulfillment of a dream I've long had: attending such a conference, sharing my thoughts on this with scholars in the field, and being well received. I really want to do this some more.

On the subject of Islam-Witchcraft relations: One woman in the audience at Starhawk's lecture said that the burning times came about as a direct result of repressive changes in laws made as a result of threat and fear to Christendom from Islam. First they made repressive laws to get the Muslims, then they turned around and used this repression on the Witches. She drew a parallel between that sequence of events and the Patriot Act in present-day America. It's enough to make a Witch feel uneasy.

In discussions the conference kept touching on subjects I'd long thought about, and it was good to know others were thinking about these things too--for example, what are Goddess religion and feminine divine spirituality doing as the predominant faith in some patriarchal social orders? Some scholars who have published books on this are Alf Hiltebeitel, Is the Goddess a Feminist? and Sarah Caldwell's work on Kali. At the conference they discussed a dualistic model: The feminine divine can be either a model to empower women-- the Goddess does this so you can too-- or "compensatory"-- only Goddesses can do this, so you can't. Do what? Be powerful, independent, fierce, respected beings. Like Kali. Also during the conference a third model to answer this question came out, which some called "subversive." ;) Another very popular theme at the conference, which came up in several papers and discussions, was gender fluidity. They loved that concept. Wait till I tell them about the gender fluidity of Allah...

Chün-Fang Yu spoke on Kwan Yin and told an anecdote from her childhood during World War II in China. Her maternal grandmother was a very devout Buddhist and prayed to Kwan Yin early every morning. Her mother was a modern intellectual. One day they were about to board a river ferry. Suddenly Professor Yu's grandmother had a vision of Kwan Yin dressed in white, standing in the river gesturing to her to go back, to get away. So her grandmother refused to board the boat. Her mother was not persuaded by the vision and argued that they should go ahead and get on. They kept arguing for a long time, and finally her mother gave in. Then when the boat pulled away into the river, it struck a mine that had been left by the retreating Japanese, which exploded and killed everyone on the boat. "So if we hadn't heeded Kwan Yin's warning, I wouldn't be talking to you today." Naturally, this audience loves nothing better than women telling such cool anecdotes of their grandmothers.

Throughout the brief conference, Barbara Newman got much applause and gratitude for bringing us together, and the applause for her and Starhawk included zagharît ululation. When the main form of cheering heard is ululation, you know you're at a feminist event. :)

There were only two other Reclaiming Witches who registered for the conference (yeah, I was hoping to see more of youz), two women of Chicago Reclaiming, including my dear friend Jennifer B. who is a brilliant ritualist--although more folks showed up to see Starhawk--her talk was free and well attended. At the reception afterward everybody there (with only a couple exceptions) joined in the Spiral Dance around a table full of food and floral arrangement which she suggested as an image to use. People who had never even heard of Starhawk or Spiral Dances before joined in. Not everybody got the concept of looking into everyone else's eyes, but I'm glad they got an experience of the dance. I was there representing SpiralHeart--that's what I had them put under my name--so lots of people who had never heard of Reclaiming asked me what SpiralHeart is, and I got to tell them.

Thanks to Goddess my ideas were well received, and I was personally well received. I feel very blessed at fitting in among them, because gatherings like this are my favorite things. You can intuit when people in a movement aren't sincere in what they're doing, when they're faking it or their heart isn't in it. At this conference I really did feel the spirit bringing people together in perfect love and perfect trust. I felt the participants truly were acting and speaking from their hearts. Goddess's blessing.