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| The Yoni of Islam peNkaLai kâtalikkirên The etymology of the divine name al-Rahmân (the All-Merciful) is connected to the word for ‘womb’ (rahim). There is a hadîth qudsî that specifically addresses that: Allah says, "I am al-Rahmân. I created the womb and I derived its name from My name. I will be connected to whoever stays connected to it, and I will be cut off from whoever stays cut off from it." Here, "staying connected to the womb" is usually interpreted to mean ‘maintaining family ties’ in the social world. It’s the extension of loving, honoring, and caring for one’s mother, which is the supreme social duty in Islam. But in a meta-cosmic sense it also reminds me of the all-encompassing importance of the Yoni in Tantra (Yoni = womb). Verse 4:1 in the Qur’ân commands us to "Reverence your Lord . . . and (reverence) the wombs (al-arhâm)." Right up front, Allah puts reverence for
the Yoni immediately after that of Himself. Allah is the Ultimate Reality,
the Absolute One, in which there is no differentiation of duality. But on
the very next level, He puts in first place the Eternal Feminine. Looking
at the footnote to this verse in A.Yusuf Ali’s translation, it appears
that he understood the Tantric esotericism deep within Islam. "Among the most wonderful mysteries of our nature is that of sex. The unregenerate male is apt, in the pride of his physical strength, to forget the all-important part which the female plays in his very existence, and in all the social relationships that arise in our collective human lives. The mother that bore us must ever have our reverence. The wife, through whom we enter parentage, must have our reverence. Sex, which governs so much of our physical life, and has so much influence on our emotional and higher nature, deserves—not our fear or contempt, or our amused indulgence, but—our reverence in the highest sense of the term."
with permission from peNkaLai
kâtalikkirên |
