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Chapter 4 Azim

“Hey Jude. You want to join me for a drink?” Azim Fazal poked his head into Zelig’s

office interrupting his writing-meditation. Judah realized that he had been there most of

the afternoon. As always, time was irrelevant when he was writing. Whenever he left this

task now, it was like leaving one group of friends to deal with something else, but all the

while he was away, he couldn’t help feel an urgent need to get back to his friends. In

reality Judah didn’t have many friends, but Azim had been an exception. Ever since he

started at CU this professor of History and Islamic studies had been his companion. Judah

loved the debates he would have with Azim, not so much over religion, but over history,

although both were invigorating. And after September 11, Judah had several opportunities

to eloquently defend his friend and Islam from attacks by witch hunters who tried to force

their beliefs on others. Coming from a Jew, this had a particular impact on those who

listened. He spoke at several rallies and would often quote Islam’s founder Mohammed

saying, “‘All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-

Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority

over a black nor a black has any superiority over a white — except by piety and good

action. Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims

constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a

fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly. Do not therefore do injustice to

yourselves. Remember one day you will meet Allah and answer your deeds. So beware:

Do not stray from the path of righteousness after I am gone.’ Does this sound like a belief

system that would justify the taking of innocent lives? Or perhaps we should condemn
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Judaism and Christianity who hold the following verse sacred from Psalm 137, ‘O

daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as

thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the

stones’. All religions have skeletons in their closet and deeds done by followers that we

would rather not remember, but we cannot and should not judge a belief or a people

based on the actions of a few extremists. As the great philosopher Tevye the milkman

observed, if we take an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth than the whole world will be

blind and toothless.”

“Jude, come on man, you cannot stay here all night. We must get you out before you get

stuck in your rut.”

“Azim, I was right in the middle of discovering that I was a dragon. And you interrupted

that.”

“Good for me. You are not still writing that absurd stuff about Abraham being an

Egyptian Pharaoh are you?”

“Yes, come on you know that history is always rewritten by the victors’ perspectives. Is it

not possible that those who wrote the history we have canonized in the Bible and even the

Koran was written by an anti-Egyptian faction who wanted to put as much distance as

possible between them and their enemy? You don’t have to go any further than the Koran

to prove my point. Both writings have many of the same characters in them, but we see
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them from different perspectives. Who is right? The truth is probably that neither one is

right. Do we have any substantive proof that Solomon or David or Moses or even

Abraham existed at the time and place we are supposed to believe they did?”

“Ah such blasphemy. I shall have to add you to my hit list, but later. Tonight we go

drinking and maybe break a few of each other’s commandments. And later I shall find

you a nice Moslem woman who can straighten you out.”

Judah’s grin told Azim that he had won the argument for now. The only comeback he had

was to mutter something about a student already trying to set him up with some woman

in Glenwood Springs. He was not actually certain why he was thinking of her, but he was

with a little excitement that made no sense to him.

As they settled into their favorite pub, Azim asked. “So how is your new class going?”

“Very good. There was lots of discussion and I could see lights going on. We even

established the major problem with this class at the very first and that is, can man really

change? Are we predisposed to this negative world or can we believe that the world can

change?”

Azim nodded. “Yes, history seems to say that no matter how many roads we pave with

good intentions, we are still moving forward on a road that is heading towards hell. No

matter how many religions we found that teach love and peace, it seems all end up on a
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road of destruction. I see this all too clearly in my own faith. Islam comes from two

words, salaam, which means peace and taslim, which means submission. How can

anyone get from that core belief that it is OK to take innocent life or any life for that

matter? One who follows Islam is called a Muslim, which can be translated as one with

peace. Peace is the core and foundation of our belief as it is with Judaism and Christianity

and yet what the world perceives of all of these religions is death and destruction carrying

their false beliefs that somehow their religion backs up these actions. Buddhism and

Hinduism can boast no better with their wars in India and other places to establish

dominance for one group or the other. The Tibetans seem to hold the most reverence for

life, but who knows if they ever regain control of their country if they will see war and

terrorism as justified in order to hang onto it.”

“Well, you are certainly preaching to the choir here my friend.” Judah loved Azim

because of these conversations. He was always at ease speaking with him.

Azim smiled and continued “It is no accident that one of the physical characteristics of

anger is squinting the eyes. If we could see clearly we would most likely not be angry.

We must be able to see what may not be obviously visible. Most of us when confronted

with a child who does outrageous things can react with patience and understanding. This

is a child after all. I remember one time I was disciplining my daughter and she flew into

a rage and started yelling and screaming and telling me that she hated me. I didn't react

back with anger, I knew she didn't mean those things. I let her spend her anger, then we

talked, and then we hugged, and it was over. Had I been confronted with that kind of
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anger from an adult, I doubt I would have been as forgiving. Is it any wonder that

conflicts exist. At least with my girls, they have the assurance, proven time and again,

that I love them unconditionally and the bonus is that they have returned that

unconditional love to me. There are many who have never had that assurance. The goal

of most religions is to provide that assurance on a spiritual level, but we must truly accept

it. We must identify the child in others (as well as ourselves) and treat them as a loving

parent. What this does is allow an "other" the space to grow. But I offer again the

analogy of seeing in the other not only a child, but your child. I feel no envy when my

girls succeed, only pride. It is easy to support your own child, so the trick is to expand

your definition of who is your family.” Azim finished off his drink with that last comment

and Judah knew again why this man was his friend.

“Azim, you should be teaching my class. I agree that one of the keys may well be getting

in touch with that inner child in us all and seeing others in the same way. Children have a

way of getting into serious arguments one minute and then playing together as if nothing

had happened the next. Friends often have the same capability. This is the stuff of

prophets and holy men which is available to each and every one of us. I read a book by

Rabbi Nilton Bonder called The Kabbalah of Envy that also puts this into perspective.

He says, ‘Prophecy comes from a wise person's ability to keep his eyes open when

everyone else's are closed.’ Bonder talks about the Rabbinic concept of tinok she-nishbah,

which is a captive child that does not know of his origin. This child must be treated with

extreme patience and forgiveness. But that's the problem. When we are greeted with

anger we must learn to develop an understanding that the person before us is a tinok she-
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nishbah. I have been doing some reading about dealing with the inner child and the

bottom line seems to be that Bonder's assessment here and the concepts he quotes have a

very solid basis psychologically. Each one of us has that inner-child, and I would venture

to say that for a number of us, diagnosed or not, that child has never really been nurtured.

Bonder gives us a great Yiddish verb farginen which means ‘to open space, to share

pleasure; it is the exact opposite of the verb to envy.’ It is much easier to grieve with

someone then to rejoice with them. To farginen someone takes discipline and practice.

Bonder recommends some other ways to accomplish lovingkindness in conversation and

avoiding conflict. One of the first ways to avoid conflict is learning to see each situation

clearly. I have heard the story that Bonder tells before, but I love it:

‘The king visited the royal prison and spoke with the prisoners. Each who approached

vowed his innocence, except for one prisoner, who confessed to being a thief. "Get this

scoundrel out of here!" exclaimed the king. ‘He will corrupt the innocent!’”

This was the way these two party animals shared the next few hours and few drinks and

maybe a little lascivious looking. Azim went home to his wife and family and Judah went

home to write. Oedipus had promised that he would remember his vision in more detail

over time and he was anxious to see where those memories led. But instead of exploring

his visions with Oedipus, he wrote of more adventures with Theseus and Pirithous.