Islam: A Love Story

Part 1: Beyond Myth  Right click to download mp3  Right click to download m4b AudioBook  Duration: 26 minutes

Part 2: The Courage to Question  Right click to download mp3  Right click to download m4b AudioBook  Duration: 37 minutes

Part 3: Head vs. Heart  Right click to download mp3  Right click to download m4b AudioBook  Duration: 30 minutes

Text by Corey W. deVos

To Western society, there is no religious tradition more controversial (or more misunderstood) than Islam. At best, Islam is often defended as a legitimate "religion of peace" by a liberal sensibility that intuits the need for respect and inclusion in a non-marginalizing pluralistic embrace, yet struggles to justify or even understand the brutality that can be so prevalent in Islamic societies. At worst, it has filled a role previously taken by modern day monsters like the Nazis and the Communists: Islam has become a new bogeyman for the 21st century, a loosely-defined "them" used to prod our xenophobic fears and reinforce our ethnocentric and nationalistic identities.

So we have a liberal bias that is often too quick to overlook the "dark side" of Islam, and a conservative bias that usually cannot see anything but. Meanwhile, there are millions of practicing Muslims around the world who simply do not fit into either of these caricatures that have become so prominent in our 24-hour media cycle. Of course, both these stereotypes have a partial truth to them, just as all stereotypes contain at their core a seed of observational honesty—Islam is both a sublimely beautiful path to piety, as well as one of the largest sources of ongoing violence in our world. As Ken often mentions, religion is simultaneously the source of the greatest amount of liberation in the world, as well as the source of the greatest amount of suffering. Nowhere do we see this paradox of religious life more clearly than in Islam.

Over the years, we have been approached by individuals in just about every major spiritual tradition—Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Advaita, etc.—and as such, each of these traditions has been rigorously examined through the Integral lens, which in most cases has allowed the fruits of these traditions to ripen more fully than ever before. However, we at Integral Life have noticed a remarkable dearth of Islamic perspectives within the Integral scene, even to the point of featuring a piece of content several years ago titled Where Is Integral Islam?

(We often joke about previous Integral Spiritual Experience promotions we have sent in the past, listing the many spiritual teachers who would be attending the event, which included a darkened silhouette of a person with the words "Islamic Scholar - To Be Announced" beneath it. We knew someone just had to show up eventually.)

It's fairly easy to see from an Integral point of view that, just as with any spiritual tradition, there are any number of ways to interpret and live the Islamic faith: there are fundamentalist Muslims, rational Muslims, postmodern Muslims, mystical Muslims, etc., let alone the countless cultural differences that exist in different Islamic societies around the world. But the notable absence of Islamic voices in the Integral community has prompted many to ask, "Is an Integral Islam even possible?"

Well, we are very happy to tell you: yes it most certainly is. If you want proof, look no further than this extraordinary discussion between Amir Ahmad Nasr and Ken Wilber.

What is truly remarkable about this discussion is not just how the integral model can help enliven and enrich an already abundantly rich and lively tradition, but how Amir's personal story actually brings the integral model itself to life. It's one thing to know intellectually that a tradition like Islam can find new and increasingly more integral forms of expression, but it's another thing entirely to live that journey yourself—to experience firsthand the blood, tears, and laughter that such transformations incur.

Amir and Ken remind us once again that the integral framework is so much more than a theoretical map sitting on an idle shelf in our minds—it is a reflection of the ever-expanding territory of our actual lives, with all its light and shadow and multifarious colors. The Integral map simply describes the various patterns, pressures, and perspectives that have given shape to all of human history—that give shape to this very moment, right now. But the actual experience of those patterns, pressures, and perspectives cannot be represented by simple charts or graphs. They can only be communicated through extraordinary personal stories like Amir's, as he shares with us his own journey through the typically grim landscape of self discovery.

While many of us are still waiting to see how the Integral vision will emerge as a new force of higher-order problem solving in the world, this dialogue is a wonderful reminder of how it is already resolving some of the greatest struggles of the interior world, equipping our future scholars and leaders with the means to consciously enact and engage every dimension of reality—top to bottom, inside and out, individual and collective—tilling the soil where integral global solutions can inevitably take root.

As for the extremely valid question of why there have been so few Islamic voices in the Integral scene at large, this is something you might want to ask Amir himself, as I am sure he has his own insights to share with you all. You can do so here on Amir's blog, Prologue to Islam: A Love Story, published here on Integral Post.

*Note: Unfortunately Amir's phone connection was not quite as clear as our usual recorded dialogues, which resulted in sub-optimal audio quality. I did my best to clean up the recording in order to make Amir's voice more audible, but you may find some parts to be difficult to make out. As such, I recommend headphones for this discussion. —Corey