Al-Baqarah III

195: An unexpected call to moderation here. It's not immediately clear what "spend" here means, but an interpretation of "give of yourself and your resources" seems easily supportable.

196: More unexpected reasonableness here, though the significance of shaving one's head is news to this non-Muslim.  I'm not aware of other holy books that make such detailed allowances for extenuating circumstances, although I seem to recall the Talmud allows for impoverished supplicants to offer birds as sacrifices.

197: The suspicion that التَّقوىٰ is all but untranslatable is supported by the fact that it appears differently in all three translations I'm referencing.  Hulusi's decision to leave it untranslated and to extrapolate parenthetically is one I could wish he made more consistently.  At any rate the repeated admonition to "You of understanding" is reminiscent of similar refrains in both the Hebrew and Greek scriptures.

198: If I were more confident in the intentionality of the writer, I would spend more time analyzing when he employs رَبِّكُم instead of اللَّهُ.  Hulusi's extrapolation that the former is one's own divine essence, and the latter the universal Divine is tempting and difficult to contravert.

199: Hulusi's decision to leave غَفورٌ رَحيمٌ untranslated is a little more inexplicable than some of his other decisions, insofar as the translation of these words is generally agreed upon as "forgiving and merciful".  It seems entirely within character for him to have made the decision on mystico-phonetic grounds.

200: This seems a contradiction of the reassurance in 198 that there is nothing wrong with seeking bounty in this world.

201-202: It is as yet unclear what could possibly be wrong with such a request to deserve the punishment of fire.

203: I would be interested to know if those who take this verse literally, and perform the duties of Eid at their own pace, are actually seen as blameless by their religious communities.

204-206: Here seems to be the answer to the puzzle in 201.  It is not the pursuit of blessing that is damnable;  it is such pursuit to the detriment of others.

207: Hulusi's interpretation that the "self" here is rather the ego is the only way to reconcile it with 195.

208: Still curious to know the role of Satan in all this, which question also begs the issue of sequencing in this book.  It is clearly neither arranged chronologically, nor topically.  Much mentioned in passing here will no doubt be explained at length in "later" books.

209: Another set of words that Hulusi leaves untranslated, but other translators seem to agree on: زيزٌ حَكيمٌ.  One cannot help but be reminded that the book opens with a phonetic invocation, the meaning of which is absolutely obscure.  No doubt in Sufi tradition, الم have power in their vibration, not only in their meaning.

210,211: Perhaps it's my mood today, but these verses in particular feel very metaphysical.  Even in the non-Sufi translations I'm referencing, the phrase "to Allah all [things] are returned" is a telling way to describe the divine law.  It is not a deliberate administering of justice, but merely the ways things naturally occur for the consequences of our actions to be inescapable.

212: "Worldly life" sure does seem glamorous, and not just the acquisition of goods and experiences.  The battle on the physical plane for good, and right, and just.  It's easy to forget that this is just as ephemeral.

213: It sure sounds like there were no problems until the prophets appeared.  Is it possible that the Book was the source of all these divisions?  It's not the first time in this book and its predecessors that Allah has only guides those "whom he wills".

214: But the "distress" mentioned here is clearly of the spiritual variety, a grinding and groping over the truths as we perceive them--at least based on the context of the preceding verse.  Accordingly, the "help" Allah sends is that of clarity and guidance, not physical rescue.

215: No argument here.  Giving is worship is divine, but notice to whom you should give.

216: One hopes that القِتالُ can bear a metaphorical meaning in Arabic.  If not, the book loses a great amount of credibility.  I know that there will eventually be bloodthirsty passages here, and I wonder how Hulusi will justify them with the Sufi perspective.

217: of all the engrossing and upsetting things in this verse, one that draws my attention is the wildly different renderings of الفِتنَةُ across translations.  One version leaves it untranslatable as "Fitnah", Hulusi renders it parenthetically as "provocation", one suggests "faithlessness", and the dictionary offers "sedition", with at least ten alternatives including "discord" and "strife".  Contextually, the Prophet is clearly speaking of faithlessness, but that He chooses to talk about it in such terms is revealing.  The failure to keep faith, when pinned to this word, carries a definite subtext of separation and division.  This is in keeping with the Sufi idea that the only truth is unity, and belief in duality is the only sin.

218: I have now been trained to expect that this sort of verse is going to be connected to previous ideas by the following verse.

219: Sure enough.  The connection is one of compromise.  in 217, the harm of belief in--and action according to belief in--duality outweighs the harm of fighting.  Likewise, the benefit from certain vices is outweighed by the harm.

220: They who fail to care for orphans and treat them as brothers are curiously referred to here as المُفسِدَ, a corrupter, one who chooses actively to make things worse instead of better.  I like the layers of this designation.

221: I can already tell that Hulusi's translation takes unpardonable liberties before even glancing at the Arabic.  There's no way his idea of "dualism" is explicit in the original text.  Looking at the Arabic reveals that my suspicion was only partially correct.  The idea of pluralism is absolutely to be found in المُشرِكاتِ, but it's definitely  not as clear as Hulusi pretends.

222: I was just thinking about this yesterday: how ridiculously misogynistic the Talmudic proscriptions against menstruation were.  And here they are again, no doubt grandfathered in.  If there one thing we can count on in Abrahamic religious texts, it's misogyny.

223: A despicable verse that eevn Hulusi's relatively ecumenical translation could not make palatable.

224: . . . followed by a very nice verse that even more fundamentalist translations could not tarnish.

225: A nice extension of the above thought, and a rebuke to Pharasaic interpretations of any law.  Furthermore, Hulusi's insistence that Allah is something within is, rather than something external, finds a nice home here.  If one breaks the spirit of the law, even while holding to the letter, one's own spirit is the least forgiving.

226: A curious reference to pre-Islamic divorce proceedings and a nice dichotomy is developed here between Allah as the غَفورٌ رَحيمٌ who accounts for the weakness of the body on the one hand . . .

227: . . . and the سَميعٌ عَليمٌ who insists on the highest spiritual standards on the other.  It's revealing though, that the reader's attention is drawn to Allah's omniscience in the context of divorce.  Marriage vows are not exempt from the warnings in 224, above: break them only if you are prepared to answer to your own Rabb.

228: The misogyny is back.  At times I find Hulusi's Sufi approach to this text appealing.  And then there is this moment when I actually don't want to proceed.

229: Fairly clear and, compared with Judeo-Christian traditions at least, reasonable.

230: And it gets even more blurry.  What was Islamic marriage at this point, even?

231: The Islamic divorce proceedings here are of considerably less interest than the reference to the power of the letter ب.  Is this an invention of Hulusi's?  At the very least it is sure to have roots in Sufi tradition before him.  Nonetheless, the more straightforward rendering of بِهِ as "in accordance with it" (rather than Hulusi's "In accordance with the letter B") in the other texts I'm referencing seems more linguistically sound.

232: Of course, if you have already "divorced" your wife twice, to continue to meddle in her affairs is the very definition of petty.

233, 234: Okay, why do we have more detail on divorce than on marriage?  There is no mention yet of how to marry, and more detail on how to divorce than on any other subject so far.

235: Hulusi's straightforward rendering of يَعلَمُ ما في أَنفُسِكُم as "knows what is in your consciousness" feels like a missed opporunity to reinforce his Sufi perspective, and a raare instance of restraint on his part.

236: And this is the earliest mention of alimony that I know.  As misogynist as the text is on occassion, I suppose this soothes my distaste ever so slightly.

237: A reading of this entire book is possible from the perspective of الفَضلَ, which is often given as "righteousness", but is obviously deeper.  Hulusi wisely leaves it untranslated.

238: The emphasis on "the middle prayer" is telling here.  What other reason could there be for one prayer to be more important than the others, but that it symbolizes an attitude of prayer in the midst of normal activity?

239: And another reminder that the spirit of prayer, rather than a particular posture, is the most important thong.

240: And how are the dead supposed to fill this obligation?

241: I had thought that we left the idea of Divorce behind in 237, but here we are again.  Rather than view this as a disjointed rambling, I prefer to think of it as an insertion of principle--specifically that of الفَضلَ--into a seemingly unrelated discourse.

242: And by "Thus", we can easily understand the dialectic, the manner of teaching, rather than the specific topic.

243: We can "thus" expect that this seeming non sequitir will be tied again to the overarching idea.

244: Each time these attributes of Allah are presented as pairs, one wonders whether there is some pattern:
 Hearing and Knowing (227, here)
Almighty and Allwise (240, 228)
All-forgiving and All-forberaing (226, 235)

etc. as opposed to those attributes that seem to be mentioned alone:
Basir ([one who sees] 233)
Habir ([one who knows] 234)

245: There seems to be more hay to be made from the concept of يَقبِضُ وَيَبسُطُ, the natural ebb and flow of life as granted by Allah.

246: This presentation of Allah as عَليمٌ in isolation is in contrast with what I observed in 244.

247: At first I wondered who "Talut" was, and supposed that he was another figure that escaped mention in the Hebrew texts.  but no, it's just that I didn't recognize Saul's Arabic name. Also, we are given yet another pairing of "Knowing", this time with "Bounteous".

248: Hulusi's decision to refer to The Ark of the Covenant as "A coffin" is fascinating, and tantalizes the reader with a string of possible metaphorical interpretations of that relic.

249: This is different than the Hebrew telling of the story of Gideon.  Here "Saul" is far more explicit in his instructions, which makes the undisciplined soldiers more culpable.

250: I don't recall this from the Hebrew scriptures.

251: Nor do I recall Gideon's story being conflated with David's.

252: And "You" here is Muhammad, though self-reported endorsement is always suspect.

253: Wait, what?  Who among Jesus' successors fought each other? Other than metaphorically, that is.  Perhaps the conflict reported in the Greek scriptures was downplayed.

254: This 180 turn left me confused.  What does a lack of friendship have to do with anything?  I hope that this is one of the left turns that becomes clearer in subsequent verses, rather than one that is dropped offhandedly, and never revisited.

255: If I know anything about religion, it's that this is the sort of verse that people commit to memory.

256: This is a good summary of the preceding verses, especially the lengthy discussion of divorce.  Taking all of the above into considerationg, the most important thing to consider is not the rules and regulations; it is the essence of Allah.

257: Interesting parallel between the names "Taghut" and "Satan" etymologically.

258-260 Three new stories about Abraham, dropped offhandedly as though they were common knowledge.  Yet none of the three is familiar to me.  How greatly each of them would have contributed to the narrative!  A little research reveals that the account is given at length in the Talmud, and that Nimrod is the person in question.  This is positively tantalizing, and reveals just how little justice I did to the Talmud before.

261: One begins to see that 254 was indeed the beginning of a new thread, this time about abundance.

262: And a repetition of the phrasing in 254 reveals an interesting perspective on material wealth: when you have it, spend it.  There's more where that came from.

263: Far more in line with Paul's admonitions in 1 Timothy 2:9 than with anything in the HEbrew scriptures.

264: Hulusi's insertion of the importance of ب is rather more inexplicable here than elsewhere.  In 231, the letter was at least present.  Here, it is only there as an affix to the name of Allah. 

265: It is not at all clear what "Spending one's wealth for Allah's pleasure" means.  Hulusi's parenthetical explication that it means "to not let one's conditionings limit the manifestation of Allah's names" is less than helpful.  Is the phrase meant to contrast with the spending mentioned above, or to complement it?

266: This is an altogether obscure metaphor, unless one takes it in the spirit of 262: wealth itself is of no value.

267: And that perspective is reinforced here.

268: Is there a distinction between "Satan" here and "Taghut" earlier?  No doubt hulusi would argue that both are metaphorical representations of the same phenomenon: deceit and illusion are not even flip sides; they are the same side of a coin.

269: The Quran itself is less than helpful in defining "wisdom", but Hulusi's addition that it is understanding of the manifestations of the Divine names in oneself helps to tie other mentions of it together.  And it is this alone that can be accumulated without fear.

270-71: Accordingly, what possible benefit can there be to disclose one's charitable actions?  It is to the Divine names alone that these actions relate, and they are aware of everything by nature as خَبيرٌ. 

272: Perhaps in anticipation of the argument, "But my charity can serve as an example for others!"

273: A very specific target for this giving though.  Perhaps it is in this sense that one spends for Allah in 265.

274: My favorite liberty of Hulusi's is his extrapolation of رَبِّهِم to be not merely one's image of Allah, but the divine nature within oneself. 

275: Here we have a more helpful distinction between Taghut, Iblis, and Shaitan, this latter being a group of malevolent spirits rather than an individual.  It is interesting that this proscription against usury survived the transition from Judaism to to Christianity to Islam, and yet is thoroughly ignored by all three today.

276: Charity is the only allowable usury!  For what else can we call that by which one attains so great a profit?

277: The familiar duo of Prayer and Charity, perhaps here mentioned as a transition from discussion of the latter to the former.

278: And perhaps not.  But the dialectic is exceedingly clear.  Each thread of this book has been dropped, and then picked up again later in a way that reveals it was never dropped at all.  EAch verse overlays several others, and the one is ending at the same time that another is beginning and a third is still in progress.

279: Carrying on the lovely metaphor of 276, one can still salvage the capital of mis-motived deeds, but one cannot hope to profit from them.

280-81: And the metaphor comes full circle, returning the discussion of material wealth to the ultimate purpose of spiritual virtue.

282: Considering how much time was just spent downplaying the importance of material wealth, this is rather a lot of attention to give to transactions.

283: I'm beginning to think that Hulusi's emphasis on ب is rather opportunistic.  There is no pattern that I can discern.

284: I feel like Hulusi could be more consistent with his emphasis on the qualities ond properties of the different names as well.  His entire point seems to be that each one's رَبِّهِم carries all of the properties of the Divine within it, and our own nature will just as much يُحاسِبكُم as Allah.

285: And this is the loveliest resolution of that concept.  The Prophets, the Book, each one's Rabb, the Divine names, even the letter ب itself, are all the same thing, and they all bear the same message.

286: The final supplication to رَبَّنا is a great place to tie up this book.

Herta Müller: Traveling on One Leg

I suppose it's certainly possible that I'm guilty of a certain type of confirmation bias.  Having only recently finished Elfriede Jelinek's The Piano Teacher, perhaps my thoughts are still with her, and I'm seeing parallels that don't exist.  Perhaps this book of Müller's is not representative of her overall work, and I was simply drawn by the title into an outlying sample.

But the question arises nonetheless, what is it about Germany that draws this sort of book out of women, and what is it about those works that attracts the attention of the Nobel Committee? The style, subject, and structure of these books all seem to be in dialogue with each other, though Jelinek could obviously claim to be the first speaker.  If Müller was at all influenced by Jelinek, it is clear that she chose to take her style even further into obscurity.  Where Jelinek blurred lines between reader, character, and narrator, Müller nearly eliminates them altogether.

Which could give the mistaken impression that Müller has a narrative to be narrated at all.  What she creates is not a story, but rather a textual collage.  She could easily be referring to the work as a whole when she writes of Irene's photos that "The connections were opposites.  They made one single strange collage out of all the pictures.  The collage was so strange that it could relate to everything.  It was constantly moving" (38).  It might even be said that both in style and content, she is entirely unconcerned with connections, and far more interested in the spaces between things, the very tips of fingers and leaves, where one thing ceases to be itself, but before it becomes another.  The moment in one's stride when they are "traveling on one leg, lost before they change to the other" (80).

These moments, the tips and termini of things, are all that matter to Irene.  For her, "the detail has been bigger than the whole" (145).  The silence at the tips of things is both obsession and terror for her.  She "lived not in the things, but in their consequences," a habit that renders her stagnant, unable to act, which is where her similarity to Jelinek's Erika unravels (124).  Where the latter's desire is that of insatiable teeth, Irene's has no object.  It is sterile, a subject-in-itself, observing the world without becoming a part of it, and ultimately, unable even to say goodbye.