A man once went on Hajj (pilgrimage). As he circled the Kaaba (the black cubic structure in Mecca that pilgrims circle seven times during Hajj in worship of the one God), he was suddenly shoved from the right. Wanting to stay focused on his spiritual experience, he ignored this and continued to walk around the cubic structure, like a planet circling a star. Only a few seconds passed before he was once again shoved from the right. This time he looked over his shoulder and politely asked the man standing next to him to stop pushing him, but no sooner had he resumed his walk around the Kaaba than he was once again shoved from the right. This time the man decided that he must put an end to this impolite behavior. He turned to his right and asked the man next to him why he was continuing to shove him, but the man refused to apologize or acknowledge that he had even approached him. Loud voices began to interrupt the serene atmosphere:
"You must stop pushing me!"
"You are deluded! I haven't even touched you!"
A few minutes later, the man felt guilty for allowing himself to be distracted from his spiritual experience.
"Let everyone shove me as much as they wish" he whispered to himself. "I just want to concentrate on emulating the cosmos, circling the Kabaa as the earth circles the sun."
However, as he moved away from the scene, he suddenly noticed that the small leather purse that had been fixed on the left side of his belt was no longer there. While he was obsessed with the man shoving him from the right, another man to his left had been cutting off his purse. How artistically do they divide their roles: one shoves, the other cuts!
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The above story is excerpted from a book, Metaphors of Islamic Humanism, by my dear friend, Dr. Omar Imady, copyright 2005.
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About Me
- Elizabeth Mahlou
- I am the mother of 4 birth children (plus 3 others who lived with us) and grandmother of 2, all of them exceptional children. Married for 42 years, I grew up in Maine, live in California, and work in many places in education, linguistics, and program management. In my spare time, I rescue and tame feral cats and have the scars to prove it. A long-time ignorantly blissful atheist converted by a theophanic experience to Catholicism, I am now a joyful catechist. Oh, I also authored a dozen books, two under my pen name of Mahlou (Blest Atheist and A Believer-in-Waiting's First Encounters with God).
Recommended Reading List
Because I am blog inept, I don't quite know how to get a reading list to stay at the end of the page and not disappear from sight. Therefore, I entered it as my first post. I suppose that is not all that bad because readers started commenting about the books, even suggesting additional readings. So, you can participate with others in my reading list by clicking here.I do post additional books as I read them and find them to be meaningful to me, and therefore, hopefully, meaningful to you. One advantage of all the plane traveling I do is that I acquire reading time that I might not otherwise take.
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