"Ramadan Mubarak." The traditional greeting during Ramadan: meaning "Blessings of Ramadan. It has begun!" Or more traditionally I could say: "Assalamu alaykum." To which you reply: "Wa alaykum assalam."

It is good to begin this talk on Islam wishing one another peace. In such a time in which we now live, uttering the word peace, offering one another peace, is an important gesture of both affirmation and resistance. Peace indeed. But in a different vein . . . .

There is a series of stories told in the Sufi tradition, which is the mystical sect of Islam, its mystical core, about a character called Nasrudin. Many of you may have heard of him, he is the Islamic Coyote, the trickster, the fool for God. One whose outrageous behavior exposes our own human foibles, and unwittingly shows us deeper truths that can guide our spiritual journey. Well, it so happened that one dark night a good friend spotted Nasrudin pouring over the ground under a street light. "What are you doing my dear Nasrudin, have you lost something?" the friend asked. "Yes, yes," Nasrudin replied, "I have lost the keys to my house." "Well, this area where you are looking is not very large, let me join you here to look for them." the friend offered. "Oh no," Nasrudin replied, "I didn't loose them here." "You didn't loose them here" the friend was incredulous. "If you didn't loose them here, where did you loose them---and why are you looking here?" "Over there," Nasrudin said pointing to a very dark stretch on the street, "I lost them somewhere over there, but I am looking over here---for after all, the light is much better here, over there, you can't see a thing!"

How appropriate a story for a mystic to tell! There are so many symbols embedded in this story: The keys to his house (his house symbolizing the place of peace he is locked out of); the problem of not being able to see (symbolizing seeing the truth, and learning to live in ways that truly assist our spiritual search); the encounter with a friend (symbolizing the giving up of our rigid individuality, learning to receive from others, perhaps wiser than we about certain things). The many symbols of this story, are so appropriate to the mystic path. But also how appropriate this story is as an Islamic story, because, as I said, Sufism is the path of mysticism that comes out of Islam. This is a good Islamic story because it raises the issues of how to live as a human person with all our limited faculties and our tendency to error, along with all our enormous potential for straightforward and simple living guided by common sense and compassion.

Straightforwardness, simplicity, compassion are all part of the fundamental tenants of Islam, which they call the five pillars. I'll list them with explanatory comments of my own and those written by American Muslim convert, Robert Frager who founded the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology here in Palo Alto.

The pillars are:

Bearing witness to the presence of the Ultimate (Frager: In a room lit by several lamps there is only one, indivisible light. How similar to Unitarianism: One source, not multiple sources).

Daily Prayer, which begin by putting ones hands up to one's ears, palms forward. (Frager: In raising our hands, we try to put the world and all our worldly concerns behind us. If we open our hearts, we can feel ourselves in the presence of God, with nothing between us and God. [How like our Unitarian faith, relying on personal experience as the test for truth!])

Fasting, which is undertaken from dawn until sunset each day during a month long period each year, called Ramadan; we are now in the fifth day of Ramadan. (Frager: This is a demanding practice, designed to help us to become more aware of the conflicting forces of our lower and higher natures. And to know what the poor suffer.)

Charity to those in need. (Frager: At the end of Ramadan, every Muslim household gives one fortieth of its accumulated wealth to the poor. We are only the custodians of whatever has come to us.)

Pilgrimage to the shrine of the Ka'bah in Mecca. (Frager: The pilgrimage is a metaphor for the journey of life. The pilgrimage and the journey both lead to God's house.)

These pillars form the foundation for a vast, culture-adaptive, world-wide religious movement. In fact it is the fastest growing religion in the world today. Even more relevant for us here, perhaps, according to some research done by Peter Bright, church member, is the fact that it is the fastest growing religion in North America. "Even now, there are probably as many Muslims as Jews in the US. And here at UUCPA, according to our recent church survey there are almost as many members who identify with Islam as identify with Judaism."

The word Islam has two root meanings: To surrender your will to God and to acquire inner peace. For Muslims, which is the proper English name for the followers of Islam, not MOSLEMS---for Muslims, the two are intertwined---for authentic, sincere, and open-hearted surrender invariably leads to profound peace in the very depths of one's being, freeing one, then, for intelligent, ethical and liberated action. For those of you with more rational and practical temperaments this kind of language may be hard to follow---though the ethics that springs from it are quite rational; for those with a more intuitive and feeling orientation, you may find an affinity between the opening of the heart in love and the act of surrender; but for all of us as Unitarian Universalists, the religion of Islam raises many questions, questions that are stimulated by our identity as individualists and free thinkers. How can one be a free thinker, after all, if giving up one's will is a prerequisite for membership?!

For me, these kinds of questions sit right at the heart of the clash of religions in our times. Faith questions are central to modern interfaith dialogues that had their beginnings at the World Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago in 1893---organized by Unitarians and Universalists of the Free Religious Association. Religious historian Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty expressed its vision this way:

"It is surely significant that the discipline of the history of religions was born and raised in the context of the World Parliament of Religions, which spawned the still operative optimism that the more you know about other people (even when you do not like what you know), the less likely you will be to kill them."

And yet . . . and yet . . . it is very difficult to be accepting of something about which you know next to nothing. Which is the state that most citizens of this country find themselves in relative to one of the world's largest religions, as well as its fastest growing one. Palo Alto is not unlike many (most?) suburban communities across the U.S., among the several dozen churches and synagogues, and meeting houses for worship in this town, there is not one Masjid (the correct term for Muslim houses of worship). Which, of course, increases the probability of, if not ignorance, then certainly lack of neighborliness and relationship

Although the word Mosque is widely used today, even by many Muslims, that incorrect term points out one of the more difficult dynamics in the west's relationship with Islam. The term Mosque, you see, is actually an artifact of Christian imperialism dating back to the fifteenth century when the forces of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella boasted they would swat out Muslim prayer houses like Mosquitoes! That kind of attitude of negation and superiority, woven with violence, has been central to the West's relationship to Islam from before 1095 in the common era when Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade, before even the wars on the Iberian peninsula for control of Spain---going all the way back, in fact, to the rejection of Muhammad [peace and blessings upon him] by most of Judaism. Their rejection, in fact, according to Karen Armstrong, writer and historian of religion in her book, Muhammad [peace and blessings upon him], was probably the greatest disappointment of his life. But he was more than up to the task of combating anti-muslim assaults. In a shrewd combination of political savvy, military genius, religious ardor, social consciousness, and compassion he inspired a religious revolution within the Arabic world that is unique in the history of religion on this planet.

Karen Armstrong's book, Muhammad [peace and blessings upon him], captures the power of the revelations he experienced, revelations that extended over 23 years, and the complex yet simple, political yet supremely spiritual layers that texture the origins of this religion.

She describes that on one of his many retreats on Mount Hira above Mecca, . . . on the seventeenth night of Ramadan . . . Muhammad [peace and blessings be upon him] was torn from sleep in his mountain cave and felt himself overwhelmed by a devastating divine presence. Later he explained this ineffable experience by saying that an angel had enveloped him in a terrifying embrace so that it felt as though the breath was being forced from his body. The angel gave him the curt command: "iqra!" "Recite!" [or Read!] Muhammad [peace and blessings be upon him] protested in vain that he could not recite [he was illiterate]; he was not a kahin, one of the ecstatic prophets of Arabia. But, he said, the angel simply embraced him again until, just as he thought he had reached the end of his endurance, he found the divinely inspired words of a new scripture pouring from his mouth. The holy book would be called the Qu'ran: the Recitation.

Armstrong goes on with her narrative:

The consequences of this strange experience were immense. Twenty-three years later, when Muhammad [peace and blessings upon him] died on 8 June 632, he had managed to bring nearly all the [warring Arabic] tribes into his new Muslim community.

Muhammad [peace and blessings upon him] had political gifts of a very high order: he . . . entirely transformed the conditions of his people, rescued them from fruitless violence and disintegration and [gave] them a profound new identity. They were now ready to found their own unique culture . . . [His] teaching . . . unlocked such reserves of power that within 100 years, the Arabs' empire stretched from Gibraltar to the Himalayas.

If this political feat had been Muhammad's [peace and blessings upon him] sole achievement, he would have a claim to our admiration. But his success depended upon the religious vision that he communicated to the Arabs and which was adopted with alacrity by the subject people of the empire, clearly fulfilling a deep spiritual need.

That last, the allusion to the fulfilling of a deep spiritual need, leads me to the specific questions I raised in the announcement I wrote about this service for the church newsletter. Let me list them:

What gift has Islam brought to us in America and for us as UUs? What price must we pay for its gifts?

We claim, as UUs, to take succor and wisdom from all the world's religions, how have we gained as a religious movement from the presence of Muslims among us?

What ground do we mutually share?

What answers can I have to give to these questions?

The first, "What gift has Islam brought to us in America . . . and for us as UUs?" and the third of these, ". . . how have we gained as a religious movement from the presence of Muslims among us?" have a single simple answer. The gift of global and American Islam is the very presence of its people; the presence of people of integrity, whose faith and ethics has a laudatory discipline of practice in daily life. What more powerful gift can anyone make than that of their simple presence? And when that presence is enhanced by lives lived with integrity, with disciplined contribution, with humility before the vast enterprise of the universe---then the power of that presence is amplified, both in our individual hearts as we encounter such persons face-to-face, and within the society at large where their lives are grounded in the love of community.

And why wouldn't we, a nation and a religious movement founded in their most fundamental ideals (no matter how roughly they have been treated) on pluralism and faith in the human spirit, why wouldn't we want to welcome the entry of a people whose faith has captured the hearts, largely of peoples other than European ancestry? Why wouldn't UUism, a largely white, Euro-American, intellectually heavy religious movement, welcome people of a religion that launched modern mathematics---yet whose faith calls them to simplicity, charity, and reflection--which are the central requirements of the holiday of Ramadan.

These are gifts we must welcome---if we want our religious movement, UUism, to grow in number and develop in creative energy. It is not that we must seek Muslim converts, but that we suffuse our own faith stance with integrity when we are accepting and affirming of others---and when we stand firmly against the kind of ethnic and racial profiling that our government is now promoting with such ferocity in the name of fighting terrorism.

Another question I posed is, "What price must we pay for its gifts?" And again, the answer is a simple one: Humility and openness. To receive the gifts that any other faith have to offer ours, and to offer each of us as individuals, humility and openness are required---that means we must pay with whatever arrogance we carry in believing that our way is THE right way for everyone (who among us doesn't wrestle with this?). Practicing positive interfaith relationship between UUism and Islam, and the entry into our ranks of people whose own ethics and faith are powerfully informed by Islam, is a spiritual practice we must practice, and to the degree that we are able to do so, to that degree are our own ethics strengthened and broadened."

Lastly, I asked, "What ground do we mutually share?" Well, of course, there is a lot of ground that we do not share. There are many issues, such as the place and role of women, the belief that Mohammed [peace and blessings be upon him] asserted that Islam was the last authentic prophetic vision, the belief that our greatest reward for life here on this planet is in the afterlife---but my purpose today has been to lift up what is connective. So here's a list to end the sermon. The ground we mutually share is:

A love of truth and truth seeking. The belief that human beings are capable of good. The conviction that we can, and are obligated, to exercise our wills to choose how we will behave. A deep sense of generous charity and the moral obligation to help those who are in need. And lastly, for our time today, in the words of the prophet [peace and blessings upon him], "making friends with people is half the wisdom, and asking good questions is half the knowledge." May we find solidarity in truth, love and the determination to do good with our sisters and brothers of the Muslim world. May our faith give us faith to reach across the borders of our differences. And may we, gathered here today, live from the flame of authentic charity and courage.

Ashé-Amen-Ameen. Shalom. Blessed Be.
Gracias y Namasté.

What is your reaction to this sermon? Please send comments to Reverend Kurt Kuhwald