I became a Muslim when it seemed I had already
accepted Islam in my bones, as if beyond
choice, and I only had to make a leap to
embrace it formally. Outwardly I was content;
inwardly I was coasting. My three-year-old
theatre company was disbanded after a
hilariously chaotic production for a Tim Leary
Benefit at the Family Dog in San Francisco, circa
’68 — naturally the orange juice everyone had
passed around was spiked, so that chorus
members were doing the final scene in the first
ten minutes — and for six months I had been
methodically typing out poetry manuscripts in
my attic in Berkeley preparatory to a big
publishing peak.
I considered myself a Zen Buddhist. But I was
other things as well. My normal routine was to
get up, sit zazen, smoke a joint, do half an hour
of yoga, then read the “Mathnawi” of Rumi, the
long mystical poem of that great Persian Sufi of
the thirteenth century.
Then I met the man who was to be my guide to
our teacher in Morocco, Shaykh Muhammad ibn
al-Habib, may Allah be pleased with him. At first
the meeting was simply remarkable, and my
guide simply a remarkable man. But soon our
encounter was to become extraordinary, leading
to a revolution in my life from which I have never
recovered and never hope to.
The man looked like an eccentric Englishman.
He too had only recently come out of the English
version of the Hippie Wave. He was older,
refined in his manners, spectacularly witty and
intellectual, but of that kind prevalent then who
had hobnobbed with the Beatles and knew the
Tantric Art collection of Brian Jones firsthand.
He had been on all the classic drug quests —
peyote in the Yucatan, mescaline with Laura
Huxley — but with the kif quest in Morocco he
had stumbled on Islam and then the Sufis, and
the game was up. A profound change had taken
place in his life that went far beyond the
psychedelic experience.
For the three days following our meeting, two
other Americans and I listened in awe as this
magnificent storyteller unfolded the picture of
Islam, of the perfection of the Prophet
Muhammad, peace be upon him, of the Sufis of
Morocco, and of the 100-year-old plus Shaykh,
sitting under a great fig tree in a garden with his
disciples singing praises of Allah. It was
everything I’d always dreamed of. It was poetry
come alive. It was the visionary experience
made part of daily life, with the Prophet a
perfectly balanced master of wisdom and
simplicity, an historically accessible Buddha,
with a mixture of the earthiness of Moses, the
otherworldliness of Jesus, and a light all his
own.
The prophetic knowledge our guide talked about
was a kind of spiritual existentialism. It was a
matter of how you enter a room, which foot you
entered with, that you sipped water but gulped
milk, that you said, “Bismillah” (In the Name of
Allah) before eating or drinking, and “Al-
hamdulillah” (Praise be to Allah) afterwards, and
so on. But rather than seeing this as a burden of
hundreds of “how-to’s,” it was more like what
the LSD experience taught us, that there is a
“right” way to do things that has, if you will, a
cosmic resonance. It is a constant awareness of
courtesy to the Creator and His creation that
itself ensures and almost visionary intensity.
It is hard to put forward any kind of explanation
of Islam, to try to suggest the beauty of its
totality, through the medium of words. The light
of Islam, since it is transformational and
alchemical in nature, almost always comes via a
human messenger who is a transmitter of the
picture by his very being.
Face to face with our guide, what struck us
most was his impeccable, noble behavior. He
seemed to be living what he was saying. Finally
the moment came, as a surprise, when he
confronted me with my life. “Well,” he said one
morning after three full days of rapturous
agreement that what he was bringing to us was
the best thing we’d ever heard, “What do you
think? Do you want to become a Muslim?”
I hedged. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve
heard about so far. After all my Zen Buddhism,
all my yoga, Tibetan Buddhism and Hindu gurus,
this is certainly it! But I think I would like to
travel a little, see the world, go to Afghanistan
(then unoccupied), maybe meet my Shaykh in a
mountain village far off somewhere.”
“That’s not good enough. You have to decide
now. Yes or no. If it’s yes, then we start on a
great adventure. If it’s no, then no blame, I’ve
done my duty. I’ll just say goodbye and go on
my way. But you have to decide now. I’ll go
downstairs and read a magazine and wait. Take
your time.”
When he had left the room I saw there was no
choice. My whole being had already acquiesced.
All my years up to that moment simply rolled
away. I was face-to-face with worship of Allah,
wholly and purely, with the Path before me well-
trodden, heavily signposted, with a guide to a
Master plunk in front of me. Or I could reject all
of this for a totally self-invented and uncertain
future.
It was the day of my birthday, just to make it
that much more dramatic. I chose Islam.
Source:IslamiCity
accepted Islam in my bones, as if beyond
choice, and I only had to make a leap to
embrace it formally. Outwardly I was content;
inwardly I was coasting. My three-year-old
theatre company was disbanded after a
hilariously chaotic production for a Tim Leary
Benefit at the Family Dog in San Francisco, circa
’68 — naturally the orange juice everyone had
passed around was spiked, so that chorus
members were doing the final scene in the first
ten minutes — and for six months I had been
methodically typing out poetry manuscripts in
my attic in Berkeley preparatory to a big
publishing peak.
I considered myself a Zen Buddhist. But I was
other things as well. My normal routine was to
get up, sit zazen, smoke a joint, do half an hour
of yoga, then read the “Mathnawi” of Rumi, the
long mystical poem of that great Persian Sufi of
the thirteenth century.
Then I met the man who was to be my guide to
our teacher in Morocco, Shaykh Muhammad ibn
al-Habib, may Allah be pleased with him. At first
the meeting was simply remarkable, and my
guide simply a remarkable man. But soon our
encounter was to become extraordinary, leading
to a revolution in my life from which I have never
recovered and never hope to.
The man looked like an eccentric Englishman.
He too had only recently come out of the English
version of the Hippie Wave. He was older,
refined in his manners, spectacularly witty and
intellectual, but of that kind prevalent then who
had hobnobbed with the Beatles and knew the
Tantric Art collection of Brian Jones firsthand.
He had been on all the classic drug quests —
peyote in the Yucatan, mescaline with Laura
Huxley — but with the kif quest in Morocco he
had stumbled on Islam and then the Sufis, and
the game was up. A profound change had taken
place in his life that went far beyond the
psychedelic experience.
For the three days following our meeting, two
other Americans and I listened in awe as this
magnificent storyteller unfolded the picture of
Islam, of the perfection of the Prophet
Muhammad, peace be upon him, of the Sufis of
Morocco, and of the 100-year-old plus Shaykh,
sitting under a great fig tree in a garden with his
disciples singing praises of Allah. It was
everything I’d always dreamed of. It was poetry
come alive. It was the visionary experience
made part of daily life, with the Prophet a
perfectly balanced master of wisdom and
simplicity, an historically accessible Buddha,
with a mixture of the earthiness of Moses, the
otherworldliness of Jesus, and a light all his
own.
The prophetic knowledge our guide talked about
was a kind of spiritual existentialism. It was a
matter of how you enter a room, which foot you
entered with, that you sipped water but gulped
milk, that you said, “Bismillah” (In the Name of
Allah) before eating or drinking, and “Al-
hamdulillah” (Praise be to Allah) afterwards, and
so on. But rather than seeing this as a burden of
hundreds of “how-to’s,” it was more like what
the LSD experience taught us, that there is a
“right” way to do things that has, if you will, a
cosmic resonance. It is a constant awareness of
courtesy to the Creator and His creation that
itself ensures and almost visionary intensity.
It is hard to put forward any kind of explanation
of Islam, to try to suggest the beauty of its
totality, through the medium of words. The light
of Islam, since it is transformational and
alchemical in nature, almost always comes via a
human messenger who is a transmitter of the
picture by his very being.
Face to face with our guide, what struck us
most was his impeccable, noble behavior. He
seemed to be living what he was saying. Finally
the moment came, as a surprise, when he
confronted me with my life. “Well,” he said one
morning after three full days of rapturous
agreement that what he was bringing to us was
the best thing we’d ever heard, “What do you
think? Do you want to become a Muslim?”
I hedged. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve
heard about so far. After all my Zen Buddhism,
all my yoga, Tibetan Buddhism and Hindu gurus,
this is certainly it! But I think I would like to
travel a little, see the world, go to Afghanistan
(then unoccupied), maybe meet my Shaykh in a
mountain village far off somewhere.”
“That’s not good enough. You have to decide
now. Yes or no. If it’s yes, then we start on a
great adventure. If it’s no, then no blame, I’ve
done my duty. I’ll just say goodbye and go on
my way. But you have to decide now. I’ll go
downstairs and read a magazine and wait. Take
your time.”
When he had left the room I saw there was no
choice. My whole being had already acquiesced.
All my years up to that moment simply rolled
away. I was face-to-face with worship of Allah,
wholly and purely, with the Path before me well-
trodden, heavily signposted, with a guide to a
Master plunk in front of me. Or I could reject all
of this for a totally self-invented and uncertain
future.
It was the day of my birthday, just to make it
that much more dramatic. I chose Islam.
Source:IslamiCity
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