an abiding love

Love for you came to my heart, and left again, happy.

Once more it came, unpacked, and left again.

Politely I invited, "Stay for two, three days."

It stayed and now the thought of leaving's gone away.

#362: From Rumi's Kolliyaat-e Shams-e Tabrizi

The news that blasted out at me this morning was of yet another suicide bombing of innocent civilians in Tel Aviv. I was then further shocked by what I see as irresponsible reporting of the incident at the smh. I've commented on this at Jihad Watch.

This latest incident has been the last straw. I've been teeter-tottering over where I stand on this whole conflict, holding out hope that talking of some sort could hold off bloodshed. I don't believe in it now. Islam has had long enough to present its credentials to me and I'm refusing to buy. At my home forum, in answer to a question on corruption in Indonesia, I've declared my conclusion:

Surely corruption is practised everywhere, not just in Asia. Democracy and a free press help to contain it, that's about all.

I think Islam indirectly aids corruption because it nurtures closed-mindedness, unquestioning submission to authority, intolerance of opposing views, an indifference to human suffering, and (paradoxically, I know) an impious indifference to God. God is nothing if not the grand totality of things and Islamists care not a jot for that. They care only for their own egos.

Islamists cannot accept the reality that their religion is a farce and essentially a fake. We will all be made to pay for their own stupidity and their own insane delusions.

I really don't think Indonesia is quite as insane as those closer to the centre of the conflict but it could tip either way. Given a conflict of loyalties, I fear it will go with the pan-Islamic program.

The best moral platform we have today as a response to power corruption is the UN human rights declarations, and Islam is the only worldview left today that doesn't really agree with it. Some have said that Islam is fascist to the core and they have good grounds for that assertion. Islam is, then, the last "moral" force that could ever overcome power corruption. Rather, it is THE propaganda machine that nurtures and justifies it. It raises ordinary human corruption to divine status and renders it unassailable by reason or by ordinary humane concern for life on this planet.

Jeez, I hope it crumbles very quickly.

I'm quite certain that I hate Islam and yet also quite certain that I love Rumi. He understood that Mohammad's was a lesser light and Shams' the far greater. He found a way to express his loyalty to Shams and to the true essence of God, while living under the faux light of Islam. That is actually a credit to him for realistically he could have done no more or no better. Today he holds firm to his love for Shams and for the true essence of God that he represented. He came to realize that his love was strengthened by the hardship of his loss of Shams in person. This third visit in today's verse is the moment when Shams returned in spirit, exactly akin to the moment when Jesus returned to His apostles in the moment of the resurrection (in the Spong interpretation, not the literal).

For me, Jesus is merged with Shams who is merged with Rumi. Mohammad can stay outside the door where he rightly belongs. A man like him has no place in the sweet chamber of love. As Dante correctly saw and Doré illustrated, Mohammad belongs in hell.

Gustave Doré: illustration for Dante's Inferno @ commons.wikimedia.org