isafakir
04-18-2008, 05:14 PM
My name is Isa [pronunced 'eesa' like in 'a piece a cake'~Isa is another form of the name Jesus, and the world's most common form as a first name] and I am a 64 year old dual NY~Swiss native living in Istanbul. I have lived in the Middle East since 1986. I am a USA 100% service connected disabled vet[vietnam era but not combat vet], due to PTSD and head and back and neurological injuries. Just on Sunday and Monday this week I attended the screening of Jihad for Love and I would like to say that for me, it is the most powerful film on being out and proud I have ever seen.
I guess in my whole life I never was face to face and certainly not since I became a practicing Muslim never face to face hand in hand with a believer who was out and believing and practicing. The director, the producer, the principals of the film are the most courageous ever. I sat and spoke with Imam Hendricks from South Africa for several hours in private. Since September 11th, I have not been able to believe within me that Islam except as a personal private religion would ever again be able to show the way, be the way.
I can't explain. Just as The Anglican Communion excluded Bishop Robinson from Lambdeth, and the Pope blames gay people for his church's abuse of children, and the evangelicals claim that heterosexist patriachism is enshrined in the Gospels, so over the last 50 years so-called Islamic so called "scholars" have found that all those gay people which were contemporaries of the Prophet (saws) and the saints since are fabrications and have erased them from history.
Homophobia is violence and the violence of terrorism just as the violence of the crucifixion of Mathew Sheppherd and the execution of 14 year olf Larry is part and parcel of a new theology of homophobia and violence and hate which has literally hijacked Islamic discourse across the world.
After September 11th I let my hair grow out, and except for split ends have not cut it since, and I have worn an earing since: it is part of the faith not to dress or appear in the costumes of the enemy. Not to rub it in their faces when I go to Friday prayer but just to be me. I swore to God as the Twin Towers collapsed before my eyes in my hotel room in Muscat, Oman on September 11th, that I never again would deny to anyone who I am. Who God made me. Not for fear and not for the ones who have taken from us our faith in the supremacy of God's love.
I never believed though I would ever be anything but one small dissenter out there in the wilderness, an odd, eccentric, disabled over the hill old man.
There is only one way to love, and that is to love. Whatever form that love takes, called evangelical, call it the Boddhisattva vow, call it piety, call it the Great Peace of the Iroquois, or Torah, or Dharma, whatever: love is stronger than the grave, says Solomon (aws), Shakespeare's tempest or Basho's frog. It is love.
Please go see Jihad for Love.
You can see my photos of its screening on Flickr, at the Jihad for Love group, or on my blog at isafakir.multiply.com. Or go to Parvez Sharma's blog and read about it.
love and peace and prayers for peace
I guess in my whole life I never was face to face and certainly not since I became a practicing Muslim never face to face hand in hand with a believer who was out and believing and practicing. The director, the producer, the principals of the film are the most courageous ever. I sat and spoke with Imam Hendricks from South Africa for several hours in private. Since September 11th, I have not been able to believe within me that Islam except as a personal private religion would ever again be able to show the way, be the way.
I can't explain. Just as The Anglican Communion excluded Bishop Robinson from Lambdeth, and the Pope blames gay people for his church's abuse of children, and the evangelicals claim that heterosexist patriachism is enshrined in the Gospels, so over the last 50 years so-called Islamic so called "scholars" have found that all those gay people which were contemporaries of the Prophet (saws) and the saints since are fabrications and have erased them from history.
Homophobia is violence and the violence of terrorism just as the violence of the crucifixion of Mathew Sheppherd and the execution of 14 year olf Larry is part and parcel of a new theology of homophobia and violence and hate which has literally hijacked Islamic discourse across the world.
After September 11th I let my hair grow out, and except for split ends have not cut it since, and I have worn an earing since: it is part of the faith not to dress or appear in the costumes of the enemy. Not to rub it in their faces when I go to Friday prayer but just to be me. I swore to God as the Twin Towers collapsed before my eyes in my hotel room in Muscat, Oman on September 11th, that I never again would deny to anyone who I am. Who God made me. Not for fear and not for the ones who have taken from us our faith in the supremacy of God's love.
I never believed though I would ever be anything but one small dissenter out there in the wilderness, an odd, eccentric, disabled over the hill old man.
There is only one way to love, and that is to love. Whatever form that love takes, called evangelical, call it the Boddhisattva vow, call it piety, call it the Great Peace of the Iroquois, or Torah, or Dharma, whatever: love is stronger than the grave, says Solomon (aws), Shakespeare's tempest or Basho's frog. It is love.
Please go see Jihad for Love.
You can see my photos of its screening on Flickr, at the Jihad for Love group, or on my blog at isafakir.multiply.com. Or go to Parvez Sharma's blog and read about it.
love and peace and prayers for peace