Memories of Muhammad by Omid Safi

Author:Omid Safi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-02-27T16:00:00+00:00

There is a choice in Paradise between milk and wine, and yet during the ascension Muhammad picks the cup filled with milk and drinks from it. Gabriel praises Muhammad: “You have been rightly guided to the way of the primordial path, and have thus led your people thereunto. Wine is forbidden to you.”2

What is this “primordial path,” referred to in Islam as the fitra? It is one of the keys to a true understanding of Islam. The Qur’an emphasizes the need for us to remember who and what we are—made in the image of God and intended to know God. From this fitra-perspective, the goal is more than merely being saved from sin. It is to return to that state of primordial purity and illumination in which each human being has already been created. According to the Qur’an, there was a period before the entities of time or space existed, a period of pre-eternity (azal) when God gathered up the souls of all of humanity and asked them the ultimate rhetorical question:

Alastu bi-rabbikum? (Am I not your Sustaining Lord?)

(Qur’an 7:172)

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