In previous blog posts I wrote about Al Habib Abu Bakr Almashhur (1, 2). His significant modern contribution to Islamic thought was his revisiting of the famous hadith by Sayyidna Omar (3), the 2nd Khalifa of Islam and a man whose humbleness (from the Sunni perspective) stopped him from narrating hardly any Ahadith at all.
Based on this hadith there are the “Muslims”: those who believe in the Shahada and observe all the rituals of Islam from praying, fasting, hajj, and giving alms. There are the “Mu’mins”: those who believe in God, His angles, His prophets, and His sacred texts. And there are the “Muhsins”: those who believe in worshiping God even if they don’t see Him because they know He sees them. Stated differently this group are the group of Muslims who worship from pure utter love and devotion to God. They have remembered their purpose in being created.
Historically scholars stopped there. There are these 3 levels of Muslims based on their awareness, behaviors, and internal realization. However, Al Habib Abu Bakr Al Mashhur argued, there was a forth category historically ignored until now. This was the category of Muslims who were aware of the End of Times. Al Habib Abu Bakr thought now is the time to take a closer look at the Muslims who have the awareness of Times’ End.
To be true to this blog post I liked to find the intertwining threads between an Islamic perspective and ACIM. In ACIM (as taught by Gary’s teachers) time is seen as a spiral, and not linear. The fourth category of Muslims are Muslims who have the “awareness” of the End of Times. The first three are Muslims: who have the awareness of the “rituals” (Islam/Surrender), or the awareness of the Divine revelations (Iman/Faith), or a direct awareness of “God” (Ihsan/ Beautification). Given that the End of Times versus in the Quran are mostly the Meccan Suras (Chapters) and these Suras have existed from the beginning of The Prophet’s revelations, I would look at a consciousness of the End of Times in the Muslim world as a cycle. We could have been aware of them back then or now, but the verses are always there and open to our own interpretation within the context of our current lives. I also tend to think that those Muslims who are sensitive to the End of Times rhetoric are ones who are closer to awakening. They are the ones who suddenly start to understand the deeper meaning of the Quranic verses and start to see non dualistically.
I believe Muslims for a Course in Miracles are Muslims that fall into the fourth category. Muslims aware of the End of Times. The simplest and most obvious fact is that of the greater signs of the end of times to both Shia and Sunni Muslims is that Christ returns. We believe ACIM’s message is the second coming of Christ on earth and we trust and follow that.