Communication from Shakespeare to Bush - From Homer to Hip-Hop - Books & Culture
Jeet Heer writes that, “The Jesuit scholar Walter Ong studied the evolution of human consciousness via the history of communication…”
Fascinating…
“Othello was no ordinary wife-killer. Usually a murderous husband will slaughter his mate in a blind and inarticulate rage. Yet there is nothing inarticulate in that great and terrible scene in Shakespeare’s play where Othello strangles his wife Desdemona after being wrongly convinced that she was unfaithful to him….
Shakespeare rarely spelled his name the same way twice, since letters were not yet firmly tied to words. And the world around him was a din of spoken words: from street-corner preachers to courtiers quick to flatter, everyone around Shakespeare was talking all the time. In this world, personal eloquence, possessing the “winged words” that Homer sang of, was a mark of distinction. For himself, Shakespeare rebuilt his family’s dwindling fortune by becoming a lord of the living language.
We inhabit a very different world. Our leaders tend to halt and stammer unless they have a speechwriter’s text (often on a teleprompter) in front of them. Humanity has gone through a long journey from the purely oral universe of Homer (who lived before the written word was invented) to the mixed oral and print world of Shakespeare to the heavily textual environment of James Joyce to our own multimedia carnival.
To understand how we got from there to here, and what the journey has meant, the best guide is the work of Father Ong, the great Jesuit scholar who died last year at age ninety. With remarkable erudition and sweeping scholarship, Ong illuminated not merely the history of communication but also what he called “the evolution of consciousness.” Explicating everything from Renaissance textbooks to subway graffiti, sometime focusing tightly on a single poem while on other occasions briskly leaping through centuries, Ong was one of the great intellectuals of the last century. Much cherished by specialists, he deserves a larger audience among general readers….”
AMERICA AND THE WORLD–JUERGEN HABERMAS IN CONVERSATION: LOGOS SUMMER 2004
America and the World - A Conversation with Juergen Habermas..
Interesting…
Qasidas in Praise of the Beloved of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) - the Hejaz Group
Songs:
* Li Taybata `Arrij (’Turn to Tayba’; Tayba is Madina)
* As-Salatu `Ala al-Mudhallal bi’l Ghamam (’Peace be upon the one shaded by the clouds’)
* Blessings on the Beloved
* Baghi al-Khayr Salli `ala Ahmad (’O Seeker of Good ** Send Blessings on Ahmad’) — amazing
* Tala`a al-Badru `Alayna…
May Allah grant us true love for His Beloved Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him, his family, companions, and followers), and may He guide us the ways of becoming those whom He loves.
CORNEL WEST–DEMOCRACY MATTERS IN OUR TIME: LOGOS SUMMER 2004: “Democracy Matters Are Frightening in Our Time”
Cornel West is Class of 1943 University Professor of Religion at Princeton University. The author of the numerous works including The American Evasion of Philosophy, and Race Matters, Professor West is a recipient of the American Book Award and more than twenty honorary degrees. This article is an excerpt from his forthcoming book Democracy Matters from Penguin Press.
“Send Blessings on This Prophet” (Sallu `ala Hadha al-Nabi) - Qasida by a Maghribi group
Beautiful.
“Send blessings on this Prophet
The Hashimi, the Muttalibi.
Ahmad, the one of pure descent,
The one described in past books.”
And,
“O Muhammad, O one perfected in beauty,
May the peace of your Lord be upon you.
Be my intercessor on the Day of Judgment…”
“My eye has beheld none more beautiful than you,
And no mother has given birth to one more perfect than you.
You were born free of all faults,
As if you were created as you wished.”
Dan Kurland’s www.criticalreading.com — Strategies for Critical Reading and Writing
Reading and thinking, something…
Alhamdulillah.
Qasida - Qulub al-`Arifin - The Hearts of Knowers of Allah
Shaykh Helbawi, an Egyptian munshid:
“The hearts of knowers of Allah have eyes
That see what others see not.
And tongues call upon Allah with secrets
That are beyond the understanding of recording angels.
And wings that fly without feathers
To the sacred precinct of the Lord of the Worlds.”
Another song:
La Ilaha Illa Allah - Make Remembrance of Allah While Walking (udhkur Allah wa anta mashi)
The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “The best thing I and the prophets before me came with is ‘La ilaha illa Allah‘” [Tirmidhi, and Malik, with similar wordings]
Wired News: It’s Just the ‘internet’ Now: “It’s Just the ‘internet’ Now”
Changing internet usage: Wired now uses ‘internet’ and ‘web’ (not Internet and Web).
And what about email? (Or is it ‘e-mail’?)
Chicago Manual of Style Q&A is very useful for current stylistic matters.
A highly critical review of the best-selling book on punctuation.
Even more critical is Louis Menand in her review in The New Yorker:
Bad Comma: Lynne Truss’s strange gramma
A much more useful book is Patricia O’Conner’s Woe is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English
. See:
Exorcising Grammar and Language Demons
Another review:
Review of Woe is I
And: Woe is I Reviewed
One of the standard short texts on arguments, and clear thinking.
Imam Ghazali and others have said that it is not possible to rely on the knowledge of someone who does not think according to the dictates of logic and reason…
The English Style Book - Online
Judge for yourself, but this online text has received some very solid reviews.
Higher Education: Uniting the Great Books and Faith - Insight on the News - Features
“The most radical experiment in American higher education today isn’t taking place at an Ivy League university. Nor is it happening at one of the country’s prestigious liberal-arts colleges such as Amherst or Davidson or at a big-name state university. No, this bold and significant academic undertaking has been quietly but powerfully under way for more than three decades on a bucolic mountain meadow near Santa Paula, Calif., 65 miles northwest of Los Angeles and not far from Santa Barbara…”
Quality Islamic educational institutions, where are you?
‘Drunk on the Wine of Divine Unity - La ilaha illa Allah’ - the Fez Singers (on www.DeenPort.com)
Lines from Ibn al-Farid (Allah be pleased with him),
“We drank in the Remembrance of the Beloved an inebriating wine
Our intoxication was from before the creation of grapes.”
In the DeenPort Downloads section, titled.
The ‘wine’ of lovers is remembrance (dhikr) of their Beloved.
Shaykh Abd al-Rahman al-Shaghouri (Allah have mercy on him) said,
“How many an accuser censured me
For drinking virgin wine.
He believed that it was filthy,
While in it was all well-being.
What would he have done had it but tasted it?
He would have given his very soul for the one who allowed him to taste it.”
Many scholars considered these to be among the most beautiful and powerful lines ever stated in praise of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him):
وعلى تفنن واصفيه بحسنه يفنى الزمان وفيه ما لم يوصَف
“His perfections are complete. Had he but
Gifted the moon from their light before it was full it would never again be eclipsed.
And despite the ability of those who have have magnified him
Time passes and much remains unpraised of his perfections.”
Inclining to other than Allah
Imam Zafar Uthmani stated in his Sufism and Good Character:
“[E]very heart that inclines to love of other than Allāh has a sickness to the extent of its inclination.”
[Sufism and Good Character, Fall 2004. White Thread Press, www.whitethreadpress.com]
Counsel - A Poem by Imam Ahmad al-Alawi of Mostaghanem
“Accept none other for thy love but God.
All things apart from Him are pure illusion.
Here is my counsel, if thou canst counsel take.
…..”
Monday 9 August 2004
Lend my eyes a look at Your Beauty - Sung by Hasan Haffar
Lend my eyes a look at Your Beauty - Sung by Hasan Haffar
Hassan Haffar Sings,
"Lend my eyes a look
At Your Beauty
That I may attain felicity
On the Day when skies are rent asunder."
Another song: (Ustadh Haffar with other leading Munshids of Aleppo (Halab)
Ya Rasul Allahi Ya Man Fadluhu Sami al-Sama’
"O Messenger of Allah!
O One whose honor is exalted beyond the sky
You are truly the seal of Prophets
In you have I become ecstatic."
Iqbal on Good and Evil
How may I describe good and evil?
The problem is complex, the tongue falters,
Upon the bough you see flowers and thorns,
Inside it there is neither flower nor thorn.
(Payam-i-Mashriq)
Rumi - Servant of the Qur’an
This has been posted before, but stil…
“I am the servant of the Qur’an as long as I have life.
I am the dust on the path of Muhammad, the Chosen one.
If anyone quotes anything except this from my sayings,
I am quit of him and outraged by these words.”
Passionate Rendition of the Qasida Burda, Sung by Shaykh Diya’ — DeenPort Downloads
Shaykh Diya’ al-Hanafi sings the first two chapters of the Qasida Burda, and then breaks down crying in the song after it (a passionate expression of yearning for spiritual limpidity), and is unable to continue.
Also in the Downloads section of DeenPort Habib `Ali al-Jifri singing in praise of the Beloved Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him, his family, companions, lovers, and followers).
A Turbent Times
A plane hit a patch of severe turbulence and the passengers were holding on tight as it rocked and reeled through the night.
A little old lady turned to a minister who was sitting behind her and said, “You’re a man of God. Can’t you do something about this?
He replied, “Sorry, I can’t. I’m in sales, not management.”
Hasan Haffar: “La ilaha illa Allah”
Ustadh Hasan Haffar, the Halabi nasheedmeister…
“And the blessings of Allah without measure
Are gifted to You, O Exalted in rank.Can your lover ever worry,
When by your honor we have none to fear?”
A whole page of his songs (though with French titles… they’re all worth it):
Ustadh Hasan Haffar Songs
How to deal with others’ bad actions
Allah Most High reminds us,
“The good deed and the bad deed are not alike. Repel the bad deed with one which is better, then you will find that the one between whom and you there was enmity will become as though a close friend.
But none is granted this save those who are steadfast, and none is granted it save one of great fortune.” [Qur’an, 41.34-35]
The entire life of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him, his family, companions, and followers) is a commentary on these verses.
Spiritual Resolve (himma)
Someone dear recently said:
The act of trying is the birth of spiritual resolve (himma).
Picking oneself up after failing is the strengthening of spiritual resolve.
The act of persevering is the consolidation of spiritual resolve.
Consistency is high spiritual resolve.
And Allah alone gives success.
God’s salesmen on earth…
A young Roald Dahl observed in Boy,
“He was an ordinary clergyman at that time as well as being Headmaster, and I would sit in the dim light of the school chapel and listen to him preaching about the Lamb of God and about Mercy and Forgiveness and all the rest of it and my young mind would become totally confused. I knew very well that only the night before this preacher had shown neither Forgiveness nor Mercy in flogging some small boy who had broken the rules…If this person, I kept telling myself, was one of God’s chosen salesmen on earth, then there must be something very wrong about the whole business.”
Whats up?
When both Salafis and Sufis are asked, “Whats up?” their answer is the same: Allah.
But for very different reasons.
Sayyid A’isha (Allah be pleased with her) said,
“The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) used to be in the remembrance of Allah at all times.” [Related by Bukhari, Muslim, and others]