Irritated
by trivialities,
overwhelmed
by brutality
and innocent suffering,
disappointed
by our own inadequacies –
–in anxiety, confusion and hope
we turn to You.

Pry us loose from our self-absorption
that we might look for You today,
for Your comfort, Your Peace,
Your power, Your direction.

Break the hold
of the posturing, presumptuous
yet finally false powers of this world.

Awaken us to Your magnificence
that we might live in awe
of nothing but You.

Free us, then, from our fears
that we might, at the least,
be courteous to all whom we meet,
and thereby offer
an opening for Your grace.

Literally meaning strong desire, excessive yearning, joy issuing from knowing, delight, and longing, shawq (joyful zeal) is used by Sufis to express the heart’s overwhelming desire to meet with the Beloved, Who cannot be comprehended and “vanishes” after being “observed.” Some have described this as joyful desire, excitement, and a lover’s excessive heartfelt longing to see the Face of the Beloved. Others have regarded it as a fire that reduces to ashes all desires, wishes, yearnings, and inclinations other than the love for and inclination toward the Beloved.

Joyful zeal originates in love. The remedy of a heart burning with such a longing to meet with the Beloved is meeting with Him, and shawq is the wing of light that carries the lover to this meeting. Zeal disappears when a lover finds the Beloved, while the yearning for Him (ishtiyaq) continues to increase. One who yearns for Him never stops yearning and, whenever favored with a special manifestation of His Essence, wishes for more. This is why the prince of the Prophets and the greatest of humanity, upon him be peace and blessings, who, equipped at each moment with a new radiance of knowledge, love of God, and spiritual delight, incessantly traveled between the summits of love, joyful zeal, and yearning, and used to pray: O God! I ask You for zeal to observe Your perfectly beautiful “Face” and to meet with You.

Some interpreters of the Qur’an, when writing about: Those who believe are firmer in love of God (2:265) remark that joyful zeal is felt toward things that are partly perceivable and partly unperceivable, partly comprehensible and partly incomprehensible. One feels no zeal toward that which he or she has never seen or heard of, or about which he or she knows nothing. Nor does he or she feel interest in that which he or she completely comprehends or perceives.

Zeal and yearning can be divided into two categories. The first is the yearning produced by separation from the Beloved after meeting with and gazing upon Him in the past eternity. The sighs uttered by the flute of Rumi, and the creaking, painful sounds heard by Yunus Emre from the revolving water-wheel express such a separation. These sighs will continue until the final union or meeting with Him. The second category is when a lover sees the Beloved from behind a veil, and thus cannot completely comprehend Him. The believer feels His presence, but cannot see Him; he or she dips a finger into the honey of love but is not allowed to take a further step. Consumed with thirst, the believer cries: I am being consumed with thirst! Give me some water! but receives no answer.

The spirit of all men and women observed Him in an assembly of past eternity, where God asked them: Am I not your Lord? and they answered: Yes, assuredly. We testify! After this assembly, either because humanity’s very humanness required it or because humanity had to be tested, to believe in Him without seeing Him, humanity was thrown into the pangs of temporary separation. This is why people always dream of Him in a conscious or unconscious longing for Him, and burn with a yearning to re-unite with Him. What is more significant than this is the yearning which the All-Sacred Being has toward pure, innocent, and unadulterated souls, but only in a way that is appropriate for His essential independence of all being. This Divine eagerness may be the real source of the yearning that enters one’s heart.

Zeal means turning to the Beloved with all inner and outer feelings, and locking out all appetites other than those one feels to meet with Him. In the context of yearning, it means one is overflowing with desires and wishes related to Him. Both zeal and yearning feed the spirit. Both are painful but exhilarating, and distressing but promising.

No individual experiences more anguish, nor is none happier, than the one who burns with love and groans with zeal. Such people become so spiritualized when enraptured with the thought and hope of meeting with God that they would not agree to enter Paradise at that moment, even if allowed to do so. They burn inwardly with the pangs of separation to such a degree that even the waters of Paradise cannot extinguish the fire in their hearts. Only meeting with the Friend can extinguish such a fire. Paradoxically, they never think of escaping that fire, for even if they were offered the sanctuary of the palaces of Paradise to prevent them from burning with the fire of zeal to meet with the Friend, such people would scream out like the inhabitants of Hell who seek to be rescued from Hellfire.

Worldly people cannot know what that zeal means or the state of those who possess it, while people of zeal are amazed at worldly people, so engrossed in their worldly affairs and pleasures.

Their amazement is quite natural, for God Almighty told Prophet David, upon him be peace:

O David! If those who love and show inclination to the world knew how much I care about them, want them to resist against sins, and how I expect to meet with human beings, they would be dying with the zeal to meet with Me.

When the zeal to meet with God invades a lover’s being, the result is an overflow of feelings of pain and delight and cries of:

Zeal has bewildered me, zeal has burnt me.
Zeal has intervened between sleep and my eyes.
Zeal has invaded me, zeal has engrossed me.
Zeal has overwhelmed me, zeal has stricken me with awe.

This degree of zeal sometimes incites the lover to stand up and dance or spin. The lover should be excused for such movements, as he or she cannot resist such a spiritual state:

Say to him who wants to prevent a man of ecstasies from going into ecstasies:

You have not tasted the wine of love together with us, so leave us.
When souls overflow with the zeal to meet with the Beloved,
know, O you unaware of spirituality, that bodies begin to dance.
O guide who incites lovers, stand up and move us
with the name of the Beloved, and breathe life into us.

In our own day, some prefer to serve the Qur’an and faith by the way based on acknowledging one’s poverty or destitution and impotence or helplessness before God’s Wealth and Power, and on thankfulness and zeal. In this context, zeal means constant hope and continuing to serve without becoming dispirited or losing one’s energy. It also means seeking an aspect of Divine mercy even in the most distressing conditions, and then relying upon Him alone for His help and victory.

O God! I ask You for zeal and yearning to meet with You, and bestow blessing and peace on our master Muhammad, the master of those full of this zeal and yearning.

The heart is the home of God, clean it of others than Him,
So that the All-Merciful may descend into His home at night.

The couplet above, recorded by Ibrahim Haqqi of Erzurum in his Ma’rifetname (Book of Knowledge), expresses the intention of obtaining true love and His pleasure, and tells how to realize it. It concisely describes the way between decision and resolution and from resolution to destination. The only way to obtain peace of mind and be at rest without going to extremes and being exposed to spiritual trouble and pain is to seek the love and pleasure of God, and then order one’s life around this aim. Rumi says:

A heart devoid of the Friend and seeking Him cannot be freed from trouble and pain. [As for] a head in which there is no love of the Friend, do not attempt to find any meaning and value in it, for it consists of bones and skin.

Those who have set their hearts on Him and have decided to reach Him never neglect to follow a way toward Him and to meet the necessities of traveling on it. [1] Even if they turn their eyes from Him for a single moment to look to others, they sigh for a whole lifetime. How unfortunate is the one who lives unaware of a way leading to Him. What a great loss, impossible to compensate, it is to fall and get stuck on the way after taking it.

Decision first appears and develops in the heart, grows firmer and stronger as a feeling, and then becomes a very powerful drive directing one toward his or her destination. In this context, decision signifies an intention and resembles a seed sown in the heart’s soil. If the one who has this intention or seed in his or her heart receives help from God Almighty, the seed germinates and grows into an elaborate, fruitful tree. After a few steps traveled in decision, one finds resolution, which is defined as being determined to do something, steadfast in one’s pursuit, and consciously fulfilling all responsibilities undertaken. Resolution is the first step toward the “heavens” of reliance and surrender. The Qur’an describes this step and the final point to be reached: When you are resolved, rely on (or put your trust in) God (3:159). If this first step can be taken through reliance on and submission to God, then the road becomes level and easy to walk on, and one travels it as if flying through the air.

Decision and resolution are two important dimensions or functions of willpower. Every traveler who intends to make a long journey must stop at the station of decision and resolution to receive the permit or visa, given by God, in order to progress to higher stations. Only after this does the journey truly begin. One who has taken the wings of decision and resolution feels attracted toward the goal and, no longer advancing by his or her own power, is taken to it. A friend of God says: Whoever overflows with the desire to meet with God, despite his inability to fulfill the requirements of the way leading to his goal, God Himself comes to him. God then becomes his or her eyes with which to see, ears with which to hear, and tongue with which to speak.

For the traveler who flies along on the wings of decision and resolution, meeting with God means finding subsistence in or through annihilation. For those with whom God wills and desires to meet, it means subsistence within subsistence, [2] and they suffer no trouble or pain in the “virtuous circle,” [3] where they encounter good after good. In this circle pain changes into pleasure, and wrath or chastisement are manifested as favors. One who has reached this point always utters in pleasure: Whatever comes from You, whether it be a favor or punishment, is good. With a cup of resignation in one’s hand, he or she sips whatever comes from God, the Truth, as if it were the water of Paradise.

Notes

1. There is more than one way to God. It is said that there are as many ways or paths to God as there are breaths of people. Such a statement is said to express the differences in people’s temperaments and moods. In addition, spiritual orders use different rituals to help their initiates make progress on the spiritual path.
2. This phrase denotes the concept of compound subsistence, defined as a “firmer subsistence” and as “being well-versed or grounded in subsistence.”
3. This is the opposite of the “vicious circle” that so many people encounter in their daily lives.

Our Friend

in the beauty of

countless vibrant hearts

strongly sinewed

in purifying love.

We meet you

Our Friend

in the steadfast

prayerful care

of blessing hands

and radiant faces.

We meet you

Our Friend

in attentive minds

and quickened spirits

devoted to guiding

our journey together.

We meet you

Our Friend

in crescendoed voices

reverberating the praises

of the Only Holy One

Whose lowly servant you are.

Salaam.

– Bernadette & Daniel Skubik

Bernadette and Daniel live in Riverside, CA. Daniel Skubik is a professor of law, ethics, and humanities in California Baptist University.

And so the Zapatistas of Mexico declare war on the Mexican government, NAFTA, and neoliberalism/ globalization. Three thousand ski-masked Zapatista soldiers take over Chiapas’ state capital and several towns, claiming that their state’s natural wealth does not benefit them,1 that constitutionally protected communal land is given illegally to government supporters, and that electoral fraud ensures their continued oblivion. Within 24 hours, planes bomb indigenous communities and at least 145 people die. Massive demonstrations by outraged Mexicans are immediate.

Within 12 days, a strange process unfolds: The army cannot defeat the guerillas. In February, to counter uncomfortable international media scrutiny, President Zedillo sends a hand-picked negotiator and asks a local Catholic bishop to mediate. For a week, Zapatista leaders make their case on national television and radio from a cathedral, around which Mexicans from all over the country form a human barrier to protect them.

Steadily increasing Zapatista popularity meets official vacillation between negotiation and force. Military action results in casualties and provokes massive demonstrations throughout Mexico and in front of Mexican embassies. The Zapatistas reach out through the Internet and find enthusiastic support (e.g.,http://chiapas.indymedia.org; www.zapatistas. org; www.utexas.edu/students/nave; http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/zapatista.html). Local and foreign journalists and well-known people flock to Zapatista forums in Chiapas. 

Subcomandante Marcos’ charisma and obvious intelligence intrigues a now-global audience. Through this book, Marcos hopes to reach yet more people who oppose the worship of profit, control of others, and multinational corporations. In his words: “We are united by a world order that destroys nations and cultures. Today, Money-the great international criminal-has a name that reflects the incapacity of Power to create new things. Today, we suffer a new world war, a war against all peoples, against humanity, against culture, against history. It is an international war, of Money versus Humanity, carried out by a handful of financial centers, without homeland and without shame. Now, this international terror is called neoliberalism” (p. 167).

All of his words, whether in the form of epistles or stories from the Mayan past, make the same point: We are human beings. You cannot ignore us, for we are not going away. We deserve a better life. Give us what the constitution promises us: democracy, freedom, and justice. Do this, and we will work with you for a new Mexico.

On July 2, 2000, the ruling PRI loses its 71-year grip on power, and businessman Vincente Fox of the conservative PAN party is elected. During the campaign, he offered “neoliberalism with a democratic face” and was hailed in the American media as a “friend of Wall Street.” On February 21, 2001, 24 Zapatists leaders begin the “Caravan of Peace and Dignity” from Chiapas to Mexico City. Until March 8, when they reach its outskirts and are greeted by about 250,000 people, conferences are held wherever they stop to rest. In Mexico City, they spend 17 days in front of the Congress building talking about “indigenous autonomy, self-determination, a society that does not exclude anybody.’

Finally invited inside, Comandante Esther, an indigenous farm woman whose house has a dirt floor and whose village is unreached by a paved road, and 3 other comandantes speak at a special session about indigenous rights. Subcomandante Marcos does not participate-he is not a comandante-and declines to meet with President Fox until Zapatista demands are met. The Zapatistas then return to a Chiapas long since militarized by the presence of government soldiers and bases. Determined to be “other” and to bring about peaceful change, they wait for President Fox to act

Footnote

1. Chiapas produces 55% of Mexico’s electricity, 21% of its oil, 47% of its natural gas, 35% of its coffee, and large quantities of tropical woods. It is the second largest producer of beef, corn, bananas, honey, melons, avocados, and cocoa, all of which are exported. And yet it lacks modern infrastructure and schools, and endures massive poverty, illiteracy, malnourishment, and high death rates from non-fatal diseases.

pure as rain, cool as the shade of clouds;

its colour and design address all the worlds,

unstained white like the river of milk in Paradise…

Not a transient hope, but peace everlasting,

from which begin all roads leading souls to heaven.

A source of strength for whoever affirms it,

a source of light for whoever takes refuge in it.

It unveils its wonders one after the other

To whoever enters its clime.

It draws the attention of all because of its message,

never worn out, written in the moisture of gabriel’s speech.

Its ever-green hills are pavilions where

the created meet with the Creator.

Satan is always defeated in its climate.

The greatest mystery between the Creator and existence.

Its voice is the most vigorous and enlivening;

Souls thirsty for that mystery stand before it

in utmost respect and ready to follow its way,

enveloped with the fragrant scent of afterlife.

The days it promises approach in blooms of spring;

it points to eternal existence and leads to

eternity, and along all the paths it clears

welcoming breezes blow from gardens of friends…

Through all the succeeding years, time

overflows with the pleasures it brings.

It came with the most profound of messages

and its breath holds the cure for incurable diseases.

The spirit is never heard to wail in its climate,

those burning in love are cooled with the hope of union

Though winter visits every year, those who enter it

gain immortality, suffering no autumn fall.

They advance to eternity with documents

showing their absolution from punishment..

meet with god and seek intimacy with Him

flying on wings of light that cannot tire

they pass impenetrable veils one after the other.

***