RASHID MUGHAL

FAMILY OF THE HEART SEMINAR ON SEPT. 04, 2005

"CAN WE SAY GOODBYE TO GOD?"

Dear Family of the Heart & Friends:

        Rashid Mughal

 
His interpretation may differ from the mullah next door but in essence it is the same parrotification that all detestable mullahs are made of. When we hover around the web of words, we get entangled in the traps sprung by our own cultural and traditional understanding of words clamouring for meaning and attention when in fact a word actually means different things to people whose intelligence is out to lunch. Take the nine-mile-long prolix of Akhtar Sherazi, for instance (see post #400). Once again he has gate-crashed our wide-ranging discussion with Part 2 of his Delhi belly verbosity on "the real significance of the word Allah" as if the word is really the thing it represents, as if the word "Allah" is really the thing we are discussing here.
 
Akhtar Sherazi makes a mind-boggling revelation that stunned some Arabs in the molten noon-day sun. He tells us, "The word Allah takes shape with the combination of the basic roots Alif, Lam and Ha," as if we are in kindergarten listening to some sacrosanct sermon about the attributes of the Arabic alphabet when in fact Arabic has no such magic or charm other than the fact that Muslims believe Arabic is the favoured language of God.
 
When you meet up with God, and you should some day, God will tell you that any god would be a fool to bluff people that way because Allah or God or Whassisname must remain above all manmade conventions, including the convention of human intercourse in Arabic with the Creator, whoever that Creator may be, when Arabic is not your mother tongue and even you don't understand what you are saying. It is no big secret that God actually detests parroting of any kind.  
 
Depending on what time of day it is, God will tell you in no uncertain terms that nothing is more baffling to the Maker of the Universe than an Urdu speaking convert to some Arabic religion who believes God listens to one's innermost intercourse with Deity through the classical lyrics of a language that very few people even in the petro-dollar contaminated deserts think they understand. That is because The Big Chief, by whatever name, works in wonderful ways for all kinds of people everywhere, not only Muslims.
 
Akhtar Sherazi's logic is twisted within a twisted matrix. Caught in the spider's web, he tries to justify his logic by saying, "Allah is beyond the perception of human mind. No living person has ever seen him over millennia and He has not directly talked to any one, not even his chosen Messengers. However, the concept of Allah does not change from place to place, nation to nation, and tribe to tribe. But, it is not at all right to say that god of all religions are the same; there is a distinct difference between Ram and Raheem and they are not one and the same. The ‘Father’ of Christians, the ‘Judeo’ of Jews, the ‘Ishwar’ or ‘Parmaatma’ of Hindus and ‘Armazd’ of Zoroastrians are totally different from one another, because their attributes are world apart. Many gods of antiquity are dead now. A god dies, when it loses its following. Amen Ra of Egypt, Greek Jupiter, Baal of Babylonia, and Zeus of Rome are all dead Gods, as they have lost their worshippers."
 
When Akhtar Sherazi dishes out such a hotchpotch, he is really defying his own demented logic. What stops him from surmising that one day Allah will also go the way of all gods? That is the question we have been thrashing out here, and I think we should remind him and all future Akhtar Sherazis out there: Can we say goodbye to God?
 
And please write from your intelligence, not from your parrot memory!
 
Thank you.
 
Rashid Mughal
 
___________________________________________________________

Send questions or comments to Family of the Heart