{"id":11,"date":"2016-05-11T12:32:46","date_gmt":"2016-05-11T12:32:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/awthurston\/?p=11"},"modified":"2016-05-11T12:32:46","modified_gmt":"2016-05-11T12:32:46","slug":"week-1-we-are-more-love-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/awthurston\/2016\/05\/11\/week-1-we-are-more-love-together\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 1: We Are More Love Together"},"content":{"rendered":"<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-11-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/awthurston\/files\/2016\/05\/We-Are-More-Love-Together.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/awthurston\/files\/2016\/05\/We-Are-More-Love-Together.mp3\">http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/awthurston\/files\/2016\/05\/We-Are-More-Love-Together.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p><em><strong>Vocal composition in four-part harmony<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>This piece is inspired by Professor Asani&#8217;s book, <em>Infidel of Love: Exploring Muslim Understandings of Islam<\/em>. The poetic trope\u00a0of an &#8220;infidel of love&#8221; was one of the first and most exciting ideas I internalized from our course. In particular, I was inspired by this passage from Professor Asani&#8217;s introduction:<\/p>\n<div class=\"page\" title=\"Page 15\">\n<div class=\"section\">\n<div class=\"layoutArea\">\n<div class=\"column\">\n<blockquote><p>By relating to God through passionate, yearning and longing love, an individual can become so transformed that he is purified of all egotistical tendencies and becomes God- centric&#8230;love is such a powerful transformative force that it transcends socially constructed categories such as Muslim and Hindu which no longer have any significance&#8230;In this sense, the term \u201cinfidel of love\u201d serves as a badge of true faith and challenges the narrow construction of religion as a static sociopolitical identity (14).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The idea of God&#8217;s love transcending narrow constructions of religious identity, is profoundly resonant to me. It is intricately connected to the ideas we learned early in the course about the difference between &#8216;islam&#8217; and &#8216;Islam&#8217;. In Arabic, the word &#8216;islam&#8217; means submission and the word &#8216;muslim&#8217; means one who submits. Professor Asani explained that the inclusive term &#8216;islam&#8217; was used to denote all who submit to God, including those who come to know God through Abraham and Jesus. Abraham himself would be &#8216;muslim&#8217; by this understanding, even though he predates the Prophet Muhammed. But as the religion espoused by Muhammed became politicized and shaped by issues of empire, geographic dominion, and authority claims, a more exclusive &#8216;Islam&#8217; emerged. (As is, of course, similarly\u00a0the case with other religious identities!)<\/p>\n<p>Even though &#8216;Islam&#8217; now refers to a specific group of those who submit to God, even the dominant understanding of Islam &#8211; namely, as a religion defined by knowing God through the revelation of the Prophet Muhammed, the last and greatest of the prophets &#8211; does not do justice to its internal diversity. Professor Asani explained how the Five Pillars, which came from the Hadith of Gabriel and are therefore extra-Qur&#8217;anic, are not agreed upon even among Muslims. Some say there are seven. This goes to show that Islam &#8211; that &#8220;narrow construction of religion,&#8221; as an infidel of love might accuse &#8211; has emerged in many forms over centuries, as the result of cultural forces, and is not original to the times of the Prophet himself.<\/p>\n<p>With\u00a0this in mind, I was inspired to celebrate the inclusive term &#8216;islam&#8217; and the possibility of transcending social constructs,\u00a0and\u00a0their divisiveness, through\u00a0the transformative force of love. The lyrics of this song, &#8220;We are more love together,&#8221; and the interwoven voices, attempt to honor a simple truth about the power of coming together to relate to God and each other through love.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vocal composition in four-part harmony This piece is inspired by Professor Asani&#8217;s book, Infidel of Love: Exploring Muslim Understandings of Islam. The poetic trope\u00a0of an &#8220;infidel of love&#8221; was one of the first and most exciting ideas I internalized from &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/awthurston\/2016\/05\/11\/week-1-we-are-more-love-together\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/awthurston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/awthurston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/awthurston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/awthurston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/awthurston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/awthurston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/awthurston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions\/68"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/awthurston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/awthurston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/awthurston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}