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

This evening we went to see this Egyptian movie, دنيا Dunia, at the DC Muslim Film Festival (followed by a live belly dance performance by Katarina Gala). Directed by Jocelyne Saab and starring beautiful Hanan Turk, Dunia is a major achievement of Arab women's cinema, stunningly visual and carrying a powerful meaning.

Dance.
Poetry.
Sensuality and desire.

The film, very rich in symbolism, explores how these themes come together in a woman's life. Dunia is a university student taking courses in poetry, and also a promising belly dancer, about to enter a dance competition. Her mother had been a star of belly dance, who was referred to in Arabic respectfully as fannān: an artist. She is studying with the same dance teacher who had taught her mother, and while revering the mother's accomplishments in dance, he urges Dunia to release her potential and stop imitating her mother, to find her own self in the dance.

But something is blocking her from dancing fully: she is a stranger to her own body. She lives only in her head, while her body remains unknown to her. She has never even seen herself naked. When she feels threatened, she curls up into a ball as a defense. She needs to overcome the inhibition of her sensuality to be able to dance with her whole being. This problem is tied into the whole issue of eroticism versus puritanical censorship in Arab culture, especially in poetry. Women's bodies are the real battleground between sensuality and the fear of it in the private sphere, while in the public sphere this battle is fought over literature. The film's genius is to intimately unite the two.
( read more... )

A mulla was praying the Islamic prayer outdoors. A young woman walked by and passed right in front of him. He saw this and became very angry.

Some time later she was walking back in the other direction. The mulla called out, "Young lady, don't you know it's a sin to walk in front of someone who's praying?"

She answered, "Oh, I'm sorry! I was on my way to to meet my lover... I never saw you."

Fāṭima [al-Barda‘iyya, tenth century] used to live in Ardabīl [a city in the ‘Abbasid province of Adharbayjan, in Iran]. She was one of the female gnostics who speak words of ecstasy (al-mutakallimāt bi-ash-shaṭḥ)

I heard Abū al-Ḥasan as-Salāmi say: A shaykh asked Fāṭima al-Barda‘iyya about the statement of the Prophet (may God bless and preserve him) relating [a saying] from his Lord: "I am the Companion of the one who remembers Me." After he had argued with her about the meaning of the tradition for some time, she said: "No. Complete remembrance of God means that you witness yourself being remembered by the One you are remembering, while maintaining constant remembrance of Him. Therefore, your remembrance is annihilated in remembrance of Him, whereas His remembrance of you persists beyond place and time."

--in Early Sufi Women by Rkia Cornell and Women of Sufism: A Hidden Treasure by Camille Adams Helminski

از محبت تلخها شيرين شود
از محبت مسها زرين شود
از محبت دُردها صافى شود
از محبت دَردها شافى شود
از محبت مرده زنده ميكنند
از محبت شاه بنده ميكنند

By love, the bitter becomes sweet;
by love, copper becomes gold;
by love, dregs become clear;
by love, pains become healing;
by love the dead become living;
by love, the king becomes a slave.

az mohabbat talkh-hâ shirin shavad
az mohabbat mes-hâ zarrin shavad
az mohabbat dord-hâ sâfi shavad
az mohabbat dard-hâ shâfi shavad
az mohabbat mordeh zendeh mi konand
az mohabbat shâh bandeh mi konand

Jalal al-Din Rumi - the Masnavi

This is a very old traditional folk song. It is a song in praise of Allah (God), asking him to do his will but refrain from bringing suffering upon anyone. Although it is a very simple song, the lyrics are highly appropriate for the times in which we find ourselves. The second verse sums up the sentiment of the song: "When glass breaks it is possible to put the pieces back together, but a heart once broken cannot be pieced together again. The suffering of man is immense, and only in love can relief be found from that suffering."

Musical ambassadors of cross-cultural tolerance and understanding, the innovative Iranian-American musical group نياز Niyaz just spent two days at the University of Maryland, helping to teach a class on ethnomusicology, giving a matinee performance for the students, and tonight a public concert.
( Concert review follows: )

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

So I was down in my basement looking for something. The area was cluttered and needed tidying up. That made it harder to find the missing item. Walking around barefoot, I struck my toe against something on the floor.

It hurt. I was hopping up and down and saying vulgar words. "Ow! Fuck! Ow! Fuck!" and so on like that. Frustration plus pain.

Then I thought of putting the gift of speech to better use. I remembered a Muslim schoolteacher from Africa who taught in the same school as me, many years ago. If any mishap or injury occurred, he always invoked يا سلام "Yâ Salâm!" What this means: السلام al-Salâm is one of Allah's 99 Beautiful Names. It's translated 'the Peace'; it also means a state of being safe and sound. To say this phrase is like a prayer invoking the divine through the prism of that particular attribute.

So instead of cussing I said "Yâ Salâm." My flustered mood changed to calm and gentleness. In that instant my eye lit upon the missing item, visible in front of me plain as day. And my toe felt a little better too.

It just gave me something to think about...

السلام عليكم al-salâm ‘alaykum - Peace be upon you. Love that good old Sufi stuff.

From Mystical Dimensions of Islam by Annemarie Schimmel.