kaaba and surrender

[The]

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The focus of the hajj is the cube-shaped shrine of the Kabah, situated
in the heart of Mecca in the Arabian Hijaz. The Kabah was of extreme
antiquity even in Muhammad's day and may originally have been dedicated
to Al-Lah, the High God of the Arabian pagan pantheon. Muhammad
Islamized the ancient rites of the annual pilgrimage to the Kabah and
gave them a monotheistic significance, and the hajj to this day gives
Muslims a powerful experience of community. The structure of the Kabah
conforms to the geometric pattern found by psychologist C. G. Jung
(1875--1961) to have archetypal significance. At the heart of most
ancient cities, a shrine established a link with the sacred which was
regarded as essential to their survival.

It brought the primal, more potent reality of the divine world into the
fragile and insecure urban communities of mortal men and women. The
shrine was described by such classical authors as Plutarch, Ovid, and
Dionysius of Halicarnassus as either round or square, and was thought
to reproduce the essential structure of the universe. It was a
paradigm of the order that had brought the cosmos out of chaos and, by
making it viable, had given it reality.

Jung believed that it was not necessary to choose between the square
and the circle; the geometric figure representing this cosmic order,
the foundation of all reality, was, he believed, a square inserted into
a circle. The rituals performed at this shrine reminded the
worshippers of their duty to bring this divine order into their world
of potential chaos and disaster, submitting themselves to the
fundamental laws and principles of the universe in order to keep their
civilization in being and prevent it from falling prey to illusion.
The Kabah in Mecca conformed exactly to this archetype. Pilgrims run
in seven ritual circles around the granite cube, whose four corners
represent the corners of the world, following the course of the sun
around the earth.

Only by making an existential surrender (islam) of his or her whole
being to the basic rhythms of life can a muslim (one who makes this
submission) live as an authentic human being in the community.
The hajj, which is still the peak religious experience of any Muslim
who makes the pilgrimage, was thus deeply imbued with the conservative
spirit.

Rooted in the unconscious world of the mythical archetype, like all
true mythoi, it directs the attention of Muslims back to a reality that
is so fundamental that it is impossible to go beyond it. It helps them
at a more profound level than the cerebral, to surrender to the way
things essentially are and not to strike out independently for themselves.
All the rational work of the community--in politics, economics, commerce,
or social relations--takes place in this mythical context. Situated at the
heart of the city and, later, at the heart of the Muslim world, the Kabah
gave these rational activities meaning and perspective. The Koran also
expressed this conservative ethos.

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[The]

about the author:

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Karen Armstrong

For years she was tagged the "runaway nun," the rebellious ex-Catholic with outspoken opinions about religion--comparing, for example, Pope John Paul II to a Muslim fundamentalist.

Now, with her 12th book, "Islam, a Short History" (Modern Library), Karen Armstrong has changed her image. She can still be sharp-tongued, inclined to draw conclusions that get a rise out of critics. But something closer to reconciliation, rather than anger, is propelling her.

Her life in a British convent is 30 years behind her. She spent seven years in the Society of the Holy Child Jesus during the 1960s and later wrote a tell-all book, "Through the Narrow Gate" (St. Martin's Press, 1982) that bemoaned the restrictive life. (The frightened nuns did not know the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 had ended for several weeks; they were not allowed to inquire about the outside world.) Armstrong is still hearing about the book: "Catholics in England hate me. They've sent me excrement in the mail."

...


Reviews of her new book, and of earlier works, tend to challenge Armstrong's sophistication. In the case of her new work, one reviewer argued she gave too little attention to the development of Islamic law, a central feature of a faith that blends religion and politics while Western democracies struggle to keep the two apart. Another reviewer said she overlooked Islam's contribution to science, art and economics.

"I never read reviews," Armstrong replied, defending herself in a cadence that an observer once timed at 130 words per minute. "Islam" presented the added challenge of telling it all in 222 pocket-book-size pages. "This impossibly brief history of Islam," was the publisher's idea, she said. "People too daunted by thick books will get a sense of things in this one."

Armstrong teaches Christianity at London's Leo Baeck College for the Study of Judaism. It was her first trip to Jerusalem in 1983 that piqued her interest in commonality among faiths. "I got back a sense of what faith is all about."

At the time she was an atheist who was "wearied" by religion and "worn out by years of struggle." Born a Roman Catholic in the countryside near Birmingham, England, in 1945, she gave up on religion after her time in the convent. "I was suicidal," she said of life in her late 20s. "I didn't know how to live apart from that regimented way of life."

With an undergraduate degree in literature from Oxford University, she began teaching 19th and 20th century literature at the University of London and worked on a PhD. Three years later, her dissertation was rejected. Without it, she did not qualify to teach at the university level and took a job as head of the English department at a girls' school in London. Not long afterward, she was diagnosed with epilepsy. "After six years at the school I was asked to leave, but nicely," she said. "My early life is a complete catastrophe. It all worked out for the best."

She left the school in 1982 and began working on television documentaries. The story that took her to Jerusalem set her on a new career path and changed her earlier impressions about God. She went from atheist to "freelance monotheist" but has never returned to the Catholic Church or joined any other.

Since her writing career took off, Armstrong's communion with God occurs in the library, where she spends up to three years researching her books, which are as densely packed with detail as her conversations. "I get my spirituality in study," she said. "The Jews say it happens, sometimes, studying the Torah."

It seems no one sacred scripture could satisfy her now. "It's inevitable that people turn to more than one religious tradition for inspiration," she said. "It's part of globalization." She recently read from the Buddhist canon of teachings for her next book. "Religion is like a raft," she said, explaining the Buddha's view of it. "Once you get across the river, moor the raft and go on. Don't lug it with you if you don't need it anymore." She knows that mode of travel: Leave one raft behind to pick up the next just ahead.

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