Al-Hallaj and St. Paul

My last semester as a student at John Carroll University was mainly spent finishing my thesis on how the new translation of the Roman Missal is a Vatican political move to revert the changes of Vatican II, but every Thursday I took a much needed break from that chaos to study Sufism with Zeki Saratoprak. 

Zeki is a kind man, maybe the kindest I encountered at JCU, which is certainly saying something.  Not only would he offer me his lunch or dinner every single time I ran into him heating it in the staff microwave, but he would treat me with such warm hospitality even when I had interrupted one of his 5 daily prayers.  Through Zeki’s class I not only came to appreciate Islam and Sufism, but to envy their faith.  Daily prayer not only reminds a Muslim, but also helps them put into practice, the literal meaning of the word Islam – surrender to God.

The God which Muslims surrender to is the same God Christian’s call the Creator/Father/Lord Almighty/etc…, but the Muslim imagination projects a few distinct non-Christian traits on our shared Creator.   For instance, a Muslim could never accept Jesus as both God and human because God cannot be man; God is other.  In fact, God is so much so “other” that Muslims say no matter what is said about God is untrue.  God is not of this world; God is other.  This is clearly quite distant from the Christian theology of an incarnate, fleshy God.

Yet listen again to Sunday’s reading from Isaiah:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are you ways my ways,” says the Lord.  “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.

Is this pre-incarnation image of God so different than that of Islam?  The Lord is clear – our thoughts are not the thoughts of the Lord.  And beyond that, the Lord clarifies that our ways and thoughts are worlds apart.  We’re not even on the same playing field…

…except that we are.  For Christians, we have faith in an incarnate God, a God made human.  Muslims, especially in the Sufi tradition, rest their belief in a God whose reflection can be found in all things.  The 99 names of God can be found in every existing thing.  For example, in a tree is the reflection of Al-Khaliq, God as Creator.  Its fruit is a reflection of Ar-Razzaq, God the Provider.  Its shade reflects Ar-Rahman, God the Merciful.  Its height reflects the Al-Aliyy, God the Most High. And, even when a tree falls and tragically takes a life, it’s a reflection of Al-Mumit, God the Causer of Death.  God’s reflection can be found in all things.  Sound similar?  Sound like the Jesuit idea of “finding God in all things”? 

Al-Hallaj was a famous Sufi martyred in the middle ages for claiming that the only thing inside his cloak was God.  His meditation and prayer brought him to see only Allah’s reflection in everything he encountered, including himself.  For Al-Hallaj, the blasphemous statement made perfect sense, he was a reflection of Allah in all Allah’s glory. 

For Paul this Sunday it’s the same.  He writes, “For if we live, we live for the Lord and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.”  He could not have been more right on so many levels.  Literally, yes, our life and death is at the hands of our maker, but it's deeper than that.  We are the Lord’s…image, body, hands, feet, breath, speech…we are the Lord’s reflection AND action in the world.  When we wake each day, we should find ourselves saying, like Al-Hallaj, that everything inside this cloak is God, that everything inside this cloak is the body of Christ.