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A story

Rabia al-Adawiyya (aka Rabia al-Basri) was running through the streets of town, Basra, one day with a pail of water in one hand and a burning torch in the other. When asked what she was doing, she responded, “I want to put out the fires of Hell, and burn down the rewards of Paradise.” She was then asked why, to which she responded, “They block the way to God. I do not want to worship from fear of punishment or for the promise of reward, but simply for the love of God.”

MLT – Extremism and New Media, the Imam’s Circle

Sorry folks. I was on the extremism panel (not as an extremist) and I ditched the Imam’s Circle. For various reasons, I actually didn’t say much on the panel, but the main presenter, Aftab Malik, was quite good. I’ll develop some of the thoughts I had in a separate post. I didn’t attend the Imam’s Circle because I thought its composition reflected the tendency to construct, however inadvertently, a homogeneous face of Islam, particularly in its lack of Shi’ah representation. Technorati Tags: MLT

Walk this way

Velveteen Rabbi has a post on her understanding of the practice of her faith. The paragraph that most caught my eye was: The phrase “observant Jew” generally means a person who observes the laws and rituals of Jewish tradition according to a standard set of interpretations. Lately, though, I’ve been wanting to use the words differently. I want to be an observant Jew–someone whose eyes are open. I want to interact with my tradition with clear vision. I want to really see Judaism, from the inside, and find joy and meaning there. I too often get the question, “are you…