This movement still suffers from that today. And it got Hazrat Inayat Khan in a lot of trouble amongst orthodox Muslims. In other words it’s not just ecumenicalism here. PLW: Using the term in that sense, what I mean by radical tolerance is what you’re calling acceptance. Tolerance in this sense is a kind of weak position, and acceptance would be a strong position?ĪP: I would say that, for example, I can tolerate homosexuals, Muslim homosexuals, or I can say well I accept them in the fold of Islam because they define themselves as Muslim. I can’t practice some Indian village cult here, that would be a little - well I sort of do, you know - but actually (laughs), it’s highly personal.ĪP: Would you say that it’s radically tolerant or radically accepting? I would say that there is a distinction between tolerance and acceptance. So these things have precedents within the Islamic traditions, this universalism, this radical tolerance would be another way of putting it, but nowadays of course it’s hard to find this praxis on the ground. This happened on both a non-literate level of the peasantry and still persists to this day on that level, and also occurred on a very high level of intellectual Sufism which was almost a courtly thing at certain times, especially under some of the wilder Mughal rulers like Akbar who started Din-i Ilahi. And the inspiration for this in his case was Indian synchrotism, between Hinduism and Islam especially, although other religions were involved too such as Christianity, Judaism and others. We’ll just deal with it on a different level. And if this involves contradiction, as Emerson said, OK. So, if I had to define my position now in terms that would be historically meaningful in an Islamic context, I would refer to Hazrat Inayat Khan and his idea of universalism, that all religions are true. I still consider myself all those things but, obviously that’s a difficult position to take vis-a-vis the orthodox practitioners of these different faiths. I’ve been involved in Tantric things that I guess you could call Hinduism, although that’s a very vague term. I never renounced Christianity or if I did, I take it back. But I don’t necessarily practice any of them on a daily basis either. Peter Lamborn Wilson: Well, I’ve been many things in my life and I don’t renounce any of them. Affinity Project: Would you define yourself as a Muslim, and if so, what kind of Islam would you say you practice amongst the multiplicity of different forms?
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |