The Bigger Picture: Musings from The Fate Project

I've become an immense fan of the following blog, Musings, spearheaded by the fine people at The Fate Project - essentially 'Life' consultants who use philosophy and metaphor as a teaching tool in regards to dealing with the realities of unpredictable circumstances, change, or loss.

I cut and paste the following post from the blog, one of my favorites, this parable is also retold in a different version among Mullah Nasruddin stories:

Fate and the Bigger Picture 

24 May, 2010 

Posted by Golabuk in General 

Shortly after my first book was published, I was fortunate to have it reviewed in the Washington Post by a writer named Skip Kaltenheuser. In his review, Skip said that one thing he took away from the reading was the idea that, in his words, “We seldom know the significance of an event on the day that it happens.” Skip got this because the book, which offers consolation and direction to those who are struggling with a broken heart, makes a case for stepping back and remembering that there’s a bigger picture than the one that may be staring us in the face at the moment. This is not a practice that hubris finds to its liking. On the contrary, hubris is nearsighted. Driven by willfulness, it judges events solely in terms of its agendas and motives, counting every development as though it were a conclusion, and brooks no interference with its plans. Hubris meets the world and others with a presumption of entitlement that includes dictating not only what should happen but how and when, and if it meets resistance, it becomes frustrated and feels justified in waging wars of one sort or another to protect or ensure its interests. 

There’s a wonderful parable about an old Chinese farmer and his son, who lived on a small plot of land in a rural province and made do with little. One day, a wild horse came out of the mountains and began grazing on their land. At the time, horses possessed great value; only the wealthy could afford to own them, and according to local law, the wild horse now belonged to the them. Incredulous at their sudden good fortune, the son cried out in joy. “Isn’t it wonderful, father?” he asked. But the farmer said only, “We shall see.” The next day, the horse ran off, back to the mountains, and the boy was crestfallen. “Oh, father,” he said, “now we are poor again. Better that that horse had never come.” To this, the father replied, “We shall see.” On the third day, the horse returned with half a dozen horses following, and the son, once again, was dancing with delight, but when he went to his father to express his joy, the father said once again, “We shall see.” On the fourth day, the son climbed on one of the wild horses and was thrown badly, breaking his leg. While the father was tending to his son, the boy began bemoaning his bad luck, and the old farmer, comforting him, said, “We shall see. And on the fifth day, the province went to war, and the army recruiters came through the town and conscripted every eligible young man—except the one who could not go because he had a broken leg. And so on.

We do well to remember that even significant events are a chapter in the book of our life, not the whole story, and that given the quick-change artistry of the gods illustrated in the parable of the old farmer and his son, we cannot say that a certain development is a conclusion, only a turn in a road that continues. Who can say what good may follow some seeming misfortune? If we’re truthful, if we remain on the path of humility, all we can say is, “We shall see.”

The Cliff Notes Version of Events: Gaddafi has gone mad, Saleh is sad, Saudi is stunned, Obama and Hillary are baffled and everyone else is pissed off...

For anyone who has been keeping track of the protests that have exploded across the Middle East, since Ben Ali's and Mubarak's disgraceful exits, every other country in the region has basically exploded. Protests have spread across to Yemen, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, Syria, Algeria, Libya, Sudan, and now Morocco. Obama administration officials are scrambling to find a proper response to what's going on (or rather trying to figure out what is going on).

To be entirely frank, I lost track after Egypt. I think every other news junkie is also taken aback by information overload from the major international bureaus, news forums, Twitter, and Facebook feeds.

In Libya, Muammar Gaddafi has decided to take from the authoritarian playbook and violently crack down against protesters which of course has only served to make them angrier. Reuters just reported that Gaddafi has declared that he will fight protests against his rule until the "last man standing" a quote by his son who appeared on state television to deliver the message. Gaddafi has to be mad considering his 'dic' neighbours have been kicked out and that people have essentially lost their fear. An update by Iranian news states that according to an unnamed 'report' Gaddafi has left Libya for Venezuela or Brazil although this is entirely unverified. It appears these rumors are still flying this afternoon. I'm convinced the media is trying to create a self-fulfilling prophecy by headlining Gaddafi's exit prior to it actually happening. 

Recent events in Bahrain have utterly baffled the Obama administration. The Al Khalifa ruling family is rumored to be divided on how to respond to the protests. Emile Nakleh, a former member of the intelligence community, wrote a critical piece in the Financial Times today on the Al Khalifa family urging US to 'not fear forces' behind the protests in Bahrain. "The ruling family believed that Saudi and western support would shield it from accountability to its people.... But now events in Tunisia and Egypt are giving a clear indication to the al-Khalifas and other 'princely' regimes in the neighbourhood that such outside support cannot shore up a government if it has no legitimacy with its people. It should not, therefore, be surprising that the opposition is drawing wide support across Bahraini society. As in Tunisia and Egypt, it is neither driven nor controlled by Islamist ideology. Of course since the Shia are the majority, many of the demonstrators are Shia. But it is also true that the protesters include liberal Sunnis."

Speaking of baffled, Saudi Arabia has taken a lukewarm stance toward Bahrain declaring its "absolute rejection" in meddling in Bahraini affairs according to the Saudi Gazette. Saudi Arabia sits uncomfortably sandwiched between several protesting countries and I suppose the Saudis themselves don't want to incite any internal unrest within their own borders by taking sides with anyone in Bahrain.

In Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh is talking big about making compromises with the protesters, first by declaring he would not run for elections again in the fall (the man's been in office since 1978) and more recently making offers to open up negotiations with his political opposition, an offer which has just been rejected.

Meanwhile, Team Obama appears entirely confused and the term a 'balancing act' has been so overused by foreign policy analysts it's become cliché. Truly, if Obama policies are to be compared to gymnastics then Middle East policy is a Chinese acrobat. The US recently vetoed a UN resolution declaring Israeli settlements illegal a move that was condemned by Palestinian protesters. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has urged restraint on the Al Khalifa family in regards to protesters and furthermore demanded that Gaddafi punish any security personnel responsible for violence against protesters. US foreign policy can't go back to the same old business of funding dictators' high-flying life style. I hope that the uprisings taking place across North Africa and the Middle East will give American policy-makers from now on into the future a shake-up. Supporting those who oppress their own people is never a lucrative investment for the long run. Of course, I'm being optimistic. Politicians will never change although there's nothing more amusing than to watch them reap the consequences of their own bad policies.

Burlesconi's Women: On Fidelity, Monogamy, Sex, & Power

Italy's Prime Minister, Silvio Burlesconi, has been under a lot of fire over his extramarital affairs with and gift-giving to beautiful younger women, and recently for allegedly having sex with an underage prostitute. Italian women are rallying against him and accusing him of demeaning women through his "bad boy" behaviour and "bunga bunga" sex parties.  The protesting women have put up some fabulous signs such as "We Like Sex, Not Bunga Bunga!"

The Burlesconi scandals highlight fascinating contradictions of Western culture, society, assumptions about morality, and also emphasizes the dynamic of how democracy actually instituted monogamy (fact). Italian women declare they 'like sex' but view Burlesconi's conduct towards women as demeaning. Yet, sexuality is intrinsically tied to this view of 'demeaning' and Burlesconi's mistresses are portrayed as victims of his 'predatory lusts' rather than willing agents in their affairs with him. The traditional and popular view of women as the sexually passive victims of male lusts prevails. It would be funny if news stories, rather, portrayed Burlesconi as being a victim of women's overpowering beauty and unable to control himself which is probably closer to the truth.

Bill Clinton escaped his scandals by claiming to have an uncontrollable sexual addiction. I say, if that's the case, then all men must suffer this incurable fact of nature. Should we so admonish men for their natural weaknesses, and should we display women as victims of male lust? Should we curse nature with such public outcries against natural human urges, against the facts of human sexuality? True, instinct can be controlled and these men should know better given their offices, but it's the fact of their offices, of their power, that they have the option to stray outside their marriage beds. I am not condoning the practice, simply stating a fact. And I hardly view women as passive victims. I'm skeptical of the way the media paints mistresses, either publicly scorning them or viewing them as helpless. My view of feminism is that human sexuality, in all its splendour, is precisely what gives women power and plenty of it.

Consider the following hypocrisy: Burlesconi's current wife Veronica Lario was formerly one of Burlesconi's mistresses back in the 80s before marrying him after his subsequent divorce in 1990. Truly, hell hath no fury like a woman's scorn and Lario has incited a serious public shaming of her husband for his flirtations, affairs, and mixing and mingling with underage minors. I truly admire Lario's candor, courage, and lack of mincing words although part of me finds it difficult to be sympathetic to her given that she began her relationship with Burlesconi under dubious circumstances. She knew what she was signing up for, a man with an obvious weakness for women. I am not supporting Burlesconi in crap behavior but I think deeper issues of sexual evolution, politics, religious morality, need to be considered before sending him to the scaffold.

It is a fact of nature that a man who has money and power, essentially resources, will have access to many women and women will willingly gamble their hearts (and sex) for a powerful man, married or not, than for a weak one. Polygamy was the status quo of ancient societies because powerful men would have a monopoly over beautiful young women who would bear their offspring in exchange for his resources and protection. The moral impetus to monogamy was first seen with the establishment of modern democracies. Matt Ridley writes the following in The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature - 

... the long interlude of human polygamy, which began in Babylon nearly four thousand years ago, has largely come to an end in the West. Official concubines became unofficial mistresses, and mistresses became secrets kept from wives. In 1988, political power far from being a ticket to polygamy, was jeopardized by any suggestion of infidelity. Whereas the Chinese emperor Fei-Ti once kept ten thousand women in his harem. Gary Hart, running for the presidency of the most powerful nation on earth, could not even get away with two. 

What happened? Christianity? Hardly. It coexisted with polygamy for centuries and its strictures were as cynically self-interested as any lay man's. Women's rights? They came too late. A Victorian woman had as much or as little say in her husband's affairs as a medieval one. No historian can yet explain what changed, but guesses include the idea that kings came to need internal allies enough that they had to surrender despotic power. Democracy, of a sort, was born. Once monogamous men had a vote against polygamists (and who doesn't want to tear down a competitor, however much he might also want to emulate him?), their fate was sealed.

My Chinese grandmother once told me that when a woman picks a man she should do so wisely. She was frank in noting that if a man is too handsome and has too much money he's "no good" for the fact that he'll have many women on the side. A woman who marries a man of this calibre will have to spend a lifetime defending her prize or be willing to look the other way to his extramarital affairs in order to maintain her marriage. Power and monogamy are rarely bedfellows.

If anyone should nail Burlesconi on anything, corruption is a more substantial place to start, but his affairs with women, similar to the Clinton scandals, are rather trifling. If you're going to send Burlesconi to the scaffold for sex, then send all heterosexual men with him because as one old wise cabbie noted to me earlier this week quite frankly: "My dear, men don't stop looking [at and for women], if they stop looking they're dead. Sex is the most powerful force in the world, my dear. If you are a beautiful woman with a brain you can take down the most powerful men in the world." Fact. Women are not the victims of powerful men, powerful men are victims of beautiful women.

Emphatic Civilisation

Posted by a friend on Facebook. Exploring universal compassion, anther RSA Animation gem:

Bibliophilia Unbound (or why I'm book addicted)

For the past few months I've been buried in reading. My free time is often spent indulging in the things that make me curious, interest me, I waste away my hours learning. I love to read. I eat up books as if I'm indulging colourful French macarons, popping one after the other. I also eat up news and blogs. I easily get lost in reading. It eases my mind and separates me from more existential turmoils such as wondering as to the purpose of my life (an entirely futile endeavor) or fantasizing when the man of my dreams is going to arrive (wishful thinking). Charles W. Eliot (whoever he is) once said: "Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers." Truth.

Among my favorite authors - Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, Salman Rushdie, Naguib Mahfouz, Karen Armstrong, Tariq Ramadan, Idries Shah, his son Tahrir Shah (my books have relatives), Gautama Chopra, Al Ghazali, Ibn Arabi, Hazrat Inayat Khan, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Khalil Gibran, Jiddu Krishnamurti, poets Fernando Pessoa, R.M. Rilke, Rumi, Hafiz, Rab'ia, Jami, Sadi, and Mahmoud Darwish, and many more.

Books I've recently finished include: Heart, Soul and Self: The Sufi Psychology of Growth, Balance and Harmony by Robert Frager; The Essential Feminist Reader by Estelle Freedman; The Secret History of Dreaming by Robert Moss; and The Wind Amongst the Ruins: A Childhood in Macao by my auntie, Edith "Didi" Jorge de Martini; and The Sufis by Idries Shah. 

Books I've been stuck on for the past year and half and still haven't finished (yes, I have a few of those): The Prince a biography of Prince Bandar bin Sultan by his friend William Simpson (undoubtedly bias but well-written), and Desert Queen a biography of Gertrude Bell by Janet Wallach. For some reason I get to certain parts in biographies where my eyes start glazing over and I can't get past them. These two books are my first attempts to crack the biography genre.

One of my favorite books by far was a travelogue by Canadian poet Marius Kociejowski, The Street Philospher and the Holy Fool: A Syrian Journey where Kociejowski recounts his adventures across Syria with two unlikely and eccentric characters, an unemployed romantic smoking cafe-loitering philosopher and his friend a mad Sufi who aspires to uncover the secrets of alchemy and turn lead into gold. Reality is stranger than fiction indeed, but the two characters of Kociejowski's travelogue are exceedingly lovable.

My current reads include: In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor's Journey Into the Saudi Kingdom by Qanta Ahmed; The Religion of Islam, a classic by Maulana Muhamad Ali; Signs of the Unseen: The Discourses of Jallaludin Rumi by Rumi.

I recently purchased Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary.

Arif & Ali's Blog provided a great review of the book noting it to be "an unbiased account from the birth of Islam 1400 years ago right through the various Caliphate regimes, covering the Mongol Raids as well as the Glory days of the Moghuls right down till the 2003 invasion of Iraq. I don’t think there’s a country or major event in the tale that Aga Ansary has left uncovered." 

I'm dying to read it but I have to finish my other books first. At any rate, reading is a wonderful anti-productively productive hobby.

New Ways of Learning: Changing Education Paradigms by RSA Animate

Not only do I love TED Talks for the free public lectures and talks by some of the world's leading figures in a variety of fields, but RSA Animate provides a creative take on some cutting edge ideas.

Its most recent production by Sir Ken Robinson is on changing education paradigms criticizing an educational system that tries to ingraine deductive reasoning in children when creativity and different types of thinking exist for different individuals:

Google Art Project: Explore the World's Art Museums Virtually

I'm very impressed by Google Art Project. You can now explore the world's art museums without having to leave your own home. Go Google!

Mubarak has shown his true colors...

...and the Egyptian army has shown whose side they're on. After spending a week remaining essentially neutral and seeming to befriend the anti-Mubarak protesters, last night, the Egyptian army allowed pro-Mubarak supporters into Tahrir Square and according to one source the military "blocked the anti-Mubarak [protesters] from exiting." Additionally, pro-Mubarak thugs armed with machetes and other weapons also inflitrated the square. Official estimates suggest that one soldier was killed and over 400 injured. [Update: According to Al Jazeera medical sources, as of midnight in Cairo, 2000+ have been reported injured in clashes.]

The possibility exists that the army may be working with Mubarak by creating disorder on purpose to claim it has legitimate right to later crack down on the civilian population to restore order. If that's the case, we could be seeing a massacre later on. I pray that's not the case and that the army remains neutral but that may be wholly wishful thinking.

Earlier today, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs took some questions where answers were decidedly shallow as the Obama administration sits the fence in a bid not to alienate their strategic allies in the Middle East (see Abu Saleh in Yemen, Netanyahu in Israel, the Saudi Monarchy, and currently Mubarak etc.) The following Q&A was truly a gem:

AP Reporter: Do you think Mubarak is a dictator? 

White House Press Secretary: We think Mubarak has the chance to show us who he is by allowing for a peaceful transition in Egypt.

As one Twitter poster pointed out simply:

Coffee_n_Cream RT @noonanjo: If bloodying innocents in the street isn't enough for Obama to drop the "orderly transition" shit, nothing is. #Jan25 #Egypt 

I urge American citizens who care about the people of Egypt to write a letter to the White House or contact your Senator or Representative supporting their bid to establish a democracy and hold transparent elections. If you wish to send an email to the Obama Administration you may do so here. You may also contact the official White House comments line at (+1) 202-456-1111 if you wish to leave a voice message. It's entirely true that your messages will be read and responded to by White House staff, but the point is by flooding the White House with responses to the crisis it will result in a collective opinion being considered. People overseas are also welcome to comment and write in.

Pax Populi: Tutoring Students in Afghanistan via Skype

My lovely cousin Lina will be spending this Spring Term at Bentley University tutoring an Afghan student in English via Skype. This student-to-student tutoring programme is spearheaded by a Massachusetts-based NGO known as Pax Populi, whose mission statement declares: "Rather than leaving peacemaking to politicians, we look to ordinary people — educators, businesspeople, people of faith, artists, scientists, and people of goodwill everywhere — to heed the call help advance peace." Launched in November 2008, Pax Populi initiated a "Food for Peace in Afghanistan" project where members of the greater-Boston Afghan community as well as non-Afghans set up a fundraiser on the Bentley University campus forwarding the proceeds to Oxfam America's food assistance programs in Afghanistan. Pax Populi has since developed to connect education institutions in the United States to Afghanistan under the greater umbrella of Applied Ethics, Inc. "established in July 2007 as a nonprofit organization based in Massachusetts, USA, with the mission of seeking ethical solutions to significant social issues through projects, education, counseling, and advocacy."

"Although many people want to support the advancement of peace, they lack the means to enable them to effectively respond," the Pax Populi's mission statement reads,  "The goal of Pax Populi is to put the tools of peacemaking into the hands of ordinary people everywhere through direct people-to-people, institution-to-institution, and community-to-community actions."

Pax Populi has since launched an educational outreach programme in Afghanistan which will bring Afghan students to the United States to advance their education. This is a partnership programme with the School of Leadership, Afghanistan (SOLA). One of Pax Populi's first candidates is an exceptional young Afghan woman named Shogofa. Read more about her story on the link.

Pax Populi's English Tutoring programme which has been launched this year will be partnering Bentley University students to students in Afghanistan using Skype to help advance their English skills. I shouldn't be bias, but I do hope Lina gets paired with a girl! Advancing education and literacy in war-torn Afghanistan is a magnificent cause, but girls, in particular, are in need of all the support they can get not only due to the decades of brutal social, cultural, and political oppression (entirely un-Islamic for the record) they faced under the Taliban, but also because in the past few years Afghan girls have risked their lives and the lives of their families by simply stepping into a classroom. The Taliban staged targeted attacks at girls' schools, including intimidating or threatening families that allowed their daughters to go to get an education. In recent developments, negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban has suggested an easing of tensions. As of January 2011, the Taliban claims to end its opposition to the schooling of girls.

The need to bring Afghan students up to speed in education is dire. The Daily Mail cited the Afghan Minister of Education, Farooq Wardak, as providing the following figures:

"The education minister admitted that historically opposition to schooling extended beyond the Taliban to the 'deepest pockets' of Afghan society. "That is the reason that in many provinces of Afghanistan we do not have either male or female teachers," he said. "During the Taliban era the percentage of girls of the one million students that we had was 0%. The percentage of female teachers was 0%. Today 38% of our students and 30% of our teachers are female."

Pax Populi's programme to connect students across the world via the use of social media and free communication technology is a platform that can be replicated by other organisations in the future. The fact that one does not have to travel to Kabul to tutor an Afghan student makes it possible for the ordinary person to get involved in changing major political realities across the world. In this case, globalisation has some very positive outcomes.

Whether she is paired with an Afghan girl or boy, bravo Ms. Lina! You're doing a great deed, lending to positive world change, and you may very well make a new friend you can email and keep for life. No one is more in need of educational and moral support than the young people of Afghanistan.

____________

To make a tax-deductible donation to the programmes run by Applied Ethics, Inc. please click here.

Sufi for the Foodie: The Spiritual Origins of Coffee

Taking a break from politics, I'm thinking about food for the soul. Literally. Superluminal posted a Sufi Cookbook online listing not only recipes, but poetry, parables and interesting historical and spiritual facts concerning, well, food! One of his more interesting essays is on the origins of coffee.

I will repost the text here, although do follow the link above for the beautiful images included in the essay:

Coffee: The Wine of Islam

Most modern coffee-drinkers are probably unaware of coffee's heritage in the Sufi orders of Southern Arabia. Members of the Shadhiliyya order are said to have spread coffee-drinking throughout the Islamic world sometime between the 13th and 15th centuries CE. A Shadhiliyya shaikh was introduced to coffee-drinking in Ethiopia, where the native highland bush, its fruit and the beverage made from it were known as bun. It is possible, though uncertain, that this Sufi was Abu'l Hasan 'Ali ibn Umar, who resided for a time at the court of Sadaddin II, a sultan of Southern Ethiopia. 'Ali ibn Umar subsequently returned to the Yemen with the knowledge that the berries were not only edible, but promoted wakefulness. To this day the shaikh is regarded as the patron saint of coffee-growers, coffee-house proprietors and coffee-drinkers, and in Algeria coffee is sometimes called shadhiliyye in his honor. 

The beverage became known as qahwa — a term formerly applied to wine — and ultimately, to Europeans, as "The Wine of Islam." It became popular among the Sufis to boil up the grounds and drink the brew to help them stay awake during their night dhikr. (Roasting the beans was a later improvement developed by the Persians.)

The Shadhili Abu Bakr ibn Abd'Allah al-'Aydarus was impressed enough by its effects that he composed a qasida (poem) in honor of the drink. Coffee-drinkers even coined their own term for the euphoria it produced — marqaha. The mystic and theologian Shaikh ibn Isma'il Ba Alawi of Al-Shihr stated that the use of coffee, when imbibed with prayerful intent and devotion, could lead to the experience of qahwa ma'nawiyya ("the ideal qahwa") and qahwat al-Sufiyya, interchangeable terms defined as "the enjoyment which the people of God feel in beholding the hidden mysteries and attaining the wonderful disclosures and the great revelations."

The Shadiliyya dervishes were active in the world; it is said that Shaikh Abul Hasan ash-Shadhili, the founder of the order, was reluctant to take on a student who did not already have a profession. It soon became apparent that coffee's benefits could be extended to the workday and the local economy as well. The southern Arabian climate was ideal for coffee cultivation, and the ports of Yemen, particularly the port of Mocha, became the world's primary exporters of coffee.

Coffee's use spread to Mecca, where, according to an early Arab historian,

...it was drunk in the Sacred Mosque itself, so that there was scarcely a dhikr or mawlid where coffee was not present. (Jaziri)

By way of pilgrims, traders, students and travelers, coffee spread throughout the Islamic world. Al-Azhar became an early center of coffee-drinking, and a certain amount of ceremony began to surround it. One 16th century writer describes dervish meetings in Cairo:

They drank coffee every Monday and Friday eve, putting it in a large vessel made of red clay. Their leader ladled it out with a small dipper and gave it to them to drink, passing it to the right, while they recited one of their usual formulas, mostly "La illaha il'Allah..." (Ibn 'Abd al-Ghaffar)

Another early Yemeni Sufi devotional ritual involved coffee-drinking accompanied by recitation of a ratib, the invocation 116 times of the divine name Ya Qawi, "O Possessor of All Strength!" — a prayerful and witty juxtaposition of sound and sense.

Over time, coffee even acquired an angelic reputation: according to one Persian legend, it was first served to a sleepy Muhammad by the Angel Gabriel. In another story, King Solomon was said to have entered a town whose inhabitants were suffering a mysterious disease; on Gabriel's command, he prepared a brew of roasted coffee beans, and thereby cured the townspeople.

By the early 16th century CE coffee-drinking moved to the secular sphere, and a new institution evolved which transformed social life throughout the Islamic world. Coffee-houses supplied more than beans — they had the needed equipment, the expertise to prepare the brew, and a convivial milieu in which to enjoy it. Ahmet Pasha, the governor of Egypt during the late 16th century CE, actually built coffeehouses as a public works project, thereby garnering great political popularity. In the mid-seventeenth century two Syrian businessmen, Hakm and Shams, introduced coffee to Istanbul, established the city's first coffeehouses, made a fortune in the process, and established a new and profitable arena of economic activity. Evliya Efendi wrote of the coffee-merchants of Constantinople:

The Merchants of coffee are three hundred men and shops. They are great and rich merchants, protected by Shaikh Shadhili, who was girded by Weis-ul-karani with the Prophet's leave. (Evliya Efendi)

Throughout the first few centuries of its history in the Islamic world, coffee's popularity engendered great controversy. Many were suspicious of the effects of caffeine and the gatherings in which it was consumed — they seemed debauched to some and subversive to others. Coffeehouses competed with mosques for attendance, and as unsupervised gathering places for wits and learned men, provided spawning grounds for sedition. The wags of Istanbul jokingly called the coffeehouses mekteb-i 'irfan, "schools of knowledge." Efforts were launched, and persisted for at least a hundred years, to declare coffee an intoxicant forbidden by Islamic law.

...As to the coffee it is an innovation, which curtails sleep and the generating power in man. Coffee-houses are houses of confusion. Coffee has been by law declared illicit in the great collections of fetwas (legal injunctions) wherein every thing that is burnt is declared to be illegal food. (Evliya Efendi)

During Ramadan in 1539 CE Cairo's coffeehouses were raided and closed, although only for a few days. Soon after coffeehouses achieved popularity in Constantinople, Sultan Murat IV closed them all; they were to remain dark until the last part of the century. But as soon as the Sultan's edict went into effect, the coffeehouse patrons, their money and their social life, went elsewhere:

In Brussa there are seventy five coffeehouses frequented by the most elegant and learned of the inhabitants. All coffeehouses, particularly those near the great mosque, abound with men skilled in a thousand arts... These became famous only since those of Constantinople were closed by the express command of Sultan Murat IV. (Evliya Efendi)

The moralists fought a losing battle, for they were opposed by well-educated coffee-drinkers from the highest ranks of the religious and political hierarchy who did not look fondly upon innovative legal prohibitions. The "tavern without wine" offered a respectable gathering place for men to socialize and entertain away from home. Business was especially brisk during Ramadan, when proprietors made extra efforts to draw crowds with storytellers and puppet shows.

Despite coffee's eventual secularization, the fondness for it in Sufi circles and the motives for its use were not lost. Helveti dervishes were among those who enthusiastically drank coffee to promote the stamina needed for extended dhikr ceremonies and retreats. Once coffee was readily available throughout the Ottoman Empire, it became a fixture of daily life in the Helveti dergahs, and a legend was born that linked the beneficial effects of a miraculous spring to a morning cup of brew:

Mosslahuddin Mergez, the head of the Dervishes Khalveti... once said to his fakirs, "I heard here underneath the ground a voice saying: "O Sheikh! I am a spring of reddish water imprisoned in this place for seven thousand years, and am destined to come to the surface of the earth by thy endeavor as a remedy against fever. Endeavor then to release me from my subterraneous prison." Upon this speech all his fakirs began to dig a well with him, and forth rushed a sweet water of a reddish color, which if drank in the morning with coffee, is a proved remedy against fever, known all over the world by the name of the Ajasma of Mergez. (Evliya Efendi)

In Persia, coffeehouses evolved into hotbeds of lasciviousness and political dispute soon after they were introduced. Shah Abbas I responded to this situation by installing a mullah in the leading Isfahan establishment; he would arrive early in the morning, hold forth on topics of religion, history, law and poetry, then encourage those assembled there to be off to their work. A pious ambience was thereby promoted, an example was set for other coffeehouses, and a potentially volatile social milieu was somewhat controlled. Poets and mystics occasionally took up permanent residence; for example, Molla Ghorur of Shiraz settled in Isfahan in his old age and established himself at a coffeehouse, which soon became a gathering place for those seeking spiritual guidance.

The 17th Century French traveler Jean Chardin gave a lively description of the Persian coffeehouse scene:

People engage in conversation, for it is there that news is communicated and where those interested in politics criticize the government in all freedom and without being fearful, since the government does not heed what the people say. Innocent games... resembling checkers, hopscotch, and chess, are played. In addition, mollas, dervishes, and poets take turns telling stories in verse or in prose. The narrations by the mollas and the dervishes are moral lessons, like our sermons, but it is not considered scandalous not to pay attention to them. No one is forced to give up his game or his conversation because of it. A molla will stand up in the middle, or at one end of the qahveh-khaneh, and begin to preach in a loud voice, or a dervish enters all of a sudden, and chastises the assembled on the vanity of the world and its material goods. It often happens that two or three people talk at the same time, one on one side, the other on the opposite, and sometimes one will be a preacher and the other a storyteller. (Jean Chardin)

In private valises, coffee reached Venice in 1615, Marseilles in 1644, and London in 1651; but it did not make its official debut into European high society until 1669, when it was introduced to Parisians by the Turkish ambassador, Suleyman Mustapha Koca. By the end of the century coffee was fashionable throughout Europe, and its cultivation and use subsequently spread to North and South America. Wherever it has been introduced it has become a symbol of hospitality and a vehicle of sociability. The current resurgence in popularity of the coffeehouse is undoubtedly a response to the aggressive marketing efforts of coffee producers and enterprising restaurateurs. It may also contain a longing for the sort of companionship the Shadhiliyya dervishes enjoyed six hundred years ago, as they gathered to remember Allah and passed the cup from hand to hand.

TED Talks: Karen Armstrong - Let's Revive The Golden Rule

All religions are paths up the same mountain. At the base they all appear different and distinct, but as one climbs higher and delves deeper it all comes down to the same thing:

"One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him."  

- Plato's Socrates (Crito, 49c)

"One who, while himself seeking happiness, oppresses with violence other beings who also desire happiness, will not attain happiness hereafter." 

- Buddha, Dhammapada 

"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them" 

- Jesus, Matthew 7:12 

"That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour."

- Rabbi Hilel  

"Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you."

- The Prophet Muhammad (AS), The Farewell Sermon

So forget the need to be right and care, respect, and love all those who cross your path in everything that you do. Karen Armstrong, religious historian, emphasizes the need to revive the Golden Rule among all people all over the world: