USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Muslims And Entering A Church

"All the world's a stage" ?

"Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of
Religion." (from Blake's " Proverbs of Hell" )

"I have never attended a church service." ( Habib Baba Habu, Consul
General of Nigeria )

We must respect his personal decision. Surely, it is not a criminal
offence to prohibit oneself ever attending a church service. As
Consul-General it is expected that he should be responsive when
tragedy befalls Nigerians as he is there to serve Nigerians and so he
does. He is surely, exonerated from any charge or suspicion of "
bigotry" after he says,

" My prayers go to the families of those who lost their loved ones.
May the Almighty accept them unto His keeping and grant their families
fortitude to bear this irreparable sad loss. May God also quicken the
recovery of the wounded ones and provide their families succor." And
adds, " I have never attended a church service. However, I sent one of
the most senior staff of the Consulate General, who incidentally, is
an Igbo man and a Catholic, to represent me and the Consulate
General....I wish to point out, for the avoidance of doubt, that since
my arrival in New York, I have had the pleasure of attending meetings,
dedications, baptismal in churches not only in New York but in other
states under the Jurisdiction of the Consulate General. I never ever
told Mr. Onyeani that "I can never enter a Church". I have had the
pleasure, both in Nigeria and USA, of joining my friends in all their
events held in churches. But I have never attended a church service. "

It's been a storm in a tea cup, probably being whipped up by those
still reeling under the impact of Boko Haram and would like to see all
Muslims in that dim light....

Of course, it would not be politically expedient for a would-be
president of Nigeria to say that he would never attend a Church
Service or a mosque service, although it is well within his rights to
be free to choose whether to enter or not to enter a church – for
whatever purpose, to pray, to talk peace or to hustle votes. A normal
Muslim would not like to view or to pray to any of the effigies of
Jesus and his mother, that are usually there as ornamentals/idols in
some of the churches. But then again, it's not all Muslims that are
normal. Isn't one of the functions of the Madhi (a.s.) to break the
crucifix?

We could also avoid conflating Sufism with Islam, especially the
sufisms of pantheism which contrast with Islam's strict monotheism.

Recently, when that earthquake hit Tabriz in Iran, my first thought
was Shams'uddin of Tabriz, Rumi's special friend, because my first
Iranian Sufi teacher Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh would often talk about the
Rumi-Shams relationship and my next teacher (also Iranian) Hazrat
Sultan Husayn Tabandah Rida Ali Shah's disciples would chant verses of
Mathnavi, Hafez etc in Farsi. Hazrat Agha did enter a church here in
Stockholm and dear Dr. Nurbakhsh said it was OK for his journal "Sufi"
to be sold by London Tobacconists as the journal would "purify" such
shops (I had suggested to Dr. Nurbakhsh that it was not a good place
since those shops also sold pornographic materials.....

A Malaysian prince bought the Church at , 277 St Anns Road, Seven
Sisters, in London and gave it to Shaykh Muhammad Nazim al-Haqqani who
converted it to a meeting place of his Sufi students. And there I met
them once.

These few examples serve to illustrate that some people have the
attitude that with the sky as roof, the whole world is a mosque or
Church...

By the way and just for the record Mwalimu Bangura, what's this that
the Pope was at Rumi's funeral?
Which Pope?
Did he take off his shoes?
http://www.shaykhabdalqadir.com/content/articles/Art093_11052009.php

The Qur'an says :http://quran.com/50/16

The poet-saint Kabir asks and answers:

"O servant, where dost thou seek Me?
Lo! I am beside thee.
I am neither in temple nor in mosque: I am neither in Kaaba nor
in Kailash..."

https://www.google.com/search?q=O+servant%2C+where+dost+thou+seek+Me%3F+Lo!+I+am+beside+thee.&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=rcs

At Kabir's his death at the age of 129 years, both his Hindu and
Muslim devotees claimed him.
http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&sugexp=cghsbq&gs_nf=1&cp=14&gs_id=7&xhr=t&q=Kabir%27s+poetry&pf=p&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&oq=Kabir%27s+poetry&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=861f8e23df00fca0&biw=1024&bih=656



On 14 Aug, 20:05, "Abdul Bangura" <th...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Muslims and Entering a Church
>
> Abdul Karim Bangura
>
> As Mwalimu Toyin Adepoju has put it, no one can know everything. Thus, it is with sincerity that I ask whether anyone on this forum is aware of any precept in the Qur'an or the Hadith that prohibits a Muslim from entering a church, as I am quite baffled by the Nigerian official's refusal to enter a church, especially when citizens of his country he is representing are bereaved. While I pride myself as an avid student of the Torah, the Bible, the Qur'an and the Hadith, I might have missed such a prohibition.
>
> I lean more toward the great Sufi Rumi or Jalaluddin Balkhi on matters dealing with Abrahamic connections. As I state in my book in progress tentatively titled Rumi on Judaic-Christioan-Islamic Connections,  Rumi's reverence for all faiths is captured in the poem titled Only Breath as follows: "Christian or Jew or Muslim, or Hindu, or Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen all belong to the beloved...."
>
> As I also note in the work, in the midst of the crusades and violent sectarian conflict, Rumi said "I go into the Muslim mosque and the Jewish Synagogue and the Christian church and see one altar." As I further mentioned, in December of 1273 when Rumi died, representatives of every major religion---the Pope, etc.---attended his funeral.

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