The Sacrifice of Personal Time

By Imam Daayiee Abdullah

As an Imam, I am often privy to semi-private conversations that are easily overheard while people are generally having discussions or making commentary about their day-to-day lives. One theme that I hear quite a lot is the “sacrifice of time”—I don’t have the time—the “boogy-man” of commitment. Don’t get me wrong, people are committed to many things depending upon where they may be in life—early may be focused on education or work, middle on intimate and family relationships, later years dealing with health and maintenance issues, and like most other people, we have social issues we support.

What I don’t hear that often is the willingness to make some effort towards a common goal. What do I mean by that statement? A commitment to an ideal does not mean one has to do all the work. If it is an ideal that you support with a few volunteer hours a week, you are part of the process of moving towards the ideals to which you are committed. In order to express my point more clearly, let me give you a personal example.

In my early activist years, I learned Jane and John Q. Public types, as well as...

RIP, ifti nasim.

a dear friend of the huriyah family has passed away friday. his poetry is familiar to all of those readers of the magazine.  he was a wonderful spirit.

Pioneering gay Pakistani Muslim poet dies at 64

By SOPHIA TAREEN, Associated Press – 19 hours ago 

CHICAGO (AP) — A well-known openly gay Pakistani Muslim poet and Chicago radio show host has died.

Ifti Nasim was 64. His sister Ajaz Nasreen tells The Associated Press he died Friday following a heart attack.

Nasim was a fixture in Chicago's South Asian community, known for his activism, flamboyant fashion and touching poetry that dealt with themes including homosexuality, politics and his native Pakistan. He immigrated more than three decades ago.

Nasim was a founder of SANGAT/Chicago, a South Asian lesbian, gay and transgender organization. His book "Narman" which was believed to be the first book of gay themed poetry to be published in Urdu.

He was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 1996.

A funeral was Saturday. Religious memorial services were planned Sunday.

Red, green & the bee by Rahal Eks

I'm in a new phase. Red for passion. Green clearly linked to Al-Khidr and recuperation, healing and nature per se. Evidently it is an interior state - but it also is reflected in my newly established base on the 10th floor with a skyline panorama view including the minarets of a distant mosque - half the apartment is painted green on the border towards turquoise, the other half red - my summer base and personal khaniqah/zaouia/tekkia. It could be anywhere and I won't tell you the location to leave room for your own vivid imagination. Feel free to be indulgent in this regard.

And what does the bee have to do with this?

It stands for "Al-Insan Al-Kamil", the perfected human being or in old Persian it was known under the term "Sarman" which means he who preserves the doctrine of Zoroaster, or the bee.

John G. Bennett, a student of George Gurdjieff wrote: "The word can be interpreted in three ways. It is the word for bee, which has always been a symbol of those who collect the precious 'honey' of traditional wisdom and preserve it for further generations. A collection of legends, well known in Armenian and Syrian circles with the title of The Bees, was revised by Mar Salamon, a Nestorian Archimandrite in the thirteenth century. The Bees refers to a mysterious power transmitted from the time of Zoroaster...