VOA标准英语2010年-American Jew Finds Peace in Islam

Quest for spiritual truth guides US woman to Sufi Islam

Julie Taboh | Washington, DC 21 May 2010

 Maryam Kabeer Faye, here in 2009, teaching Arabic to students in Gambia

For many people, the word 'Islam' conjures 1 up images of violence, suicide bombings and holy war. But not for Maryam Kabeer Faye, a Jewish-born American. She believes the religion she adopted after a long spiritual journey represents peace, love and mercy.

Kabeer Faye describes her transformative experience, from her Jewish roots to Sufi Islam, in her recent book, "Journey through Ten Thousand Veils:the Alchemy of Transformation 2 on the Sufi Path."

Search for answers

As far back as she can remember, Maryam Kabeer Faye yearned 3 for spiritual fulfillment.

She was born in 1946 to a liberal Jewish family in Hollywood, California. While her parents were kind and loving, they were not religious, which left Kabeer Faye with a spiritual void.

At the age of 12, she was given a painted scroll 4 of an ancient man with the words, "Seek and the truth shall make you free." That message resonated with her as she grew up in the tumultuous political climate of the 1960s.

At 16, she enrolled 5 at the University of California, Berkeley, then a hotbed of social and political activism. While there, she studied the teachings of the Koran, the scriptures 6 of Advaita Vedanta - a form of Hindu philosophy - and the poetry of 13th century philosopher Jelaluddin Rumi.

Jewish-born American Maryam Kabeer Faye's spiritual journey led her to embrace Islam.

Spiritual quest

She left Berkeley after just two years, to begin a spiritual quest to find what she calls her "truth."

"It was not any particular religion that I was seeking or that I knew about," says Kabeer Faye. "I was seeking that liberating 7 truth, wherever the call was coming from."

The call led her to places far beyond America's shores, including Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. It was on a bus trip through an Afghan desert that she first encountered the faith that would come to define her spiritualism.

"The bus went into the middle of the desert and at a certain moment the call to prayer came just lilting through the desert - first time I've ever heard it - and then the bus stopped and all of those colorful people got off the bus," she remembers. "Everyone had their prayer mats and they laid them out in the desert and prayed. [It was the] first time that I saw people praying in that way. And it was so pure and beautiful and truly inviting 8."

Kabeer Faye had witnessed what all devout 9, practicing Muslims do five times a day. They set aside other activities, face in the direction of the Muslim holy city of Mecca, and kneel down in worship.

The experience was a call that she eventually answered.

Finding her religion

"Countless 10, countless moments of awakening 11 led me ultimately to the path of Islam, and within that, to the practice of Sufism, or Tasawuf, which for me is intricately united with Islam," explains Kabeer Faye.

Sufism arose as an organized movement after the death of Muhammad, the central prophet of the Islamic faith. Many consider it a mystical form of Islam.

Maryam Kabeer Faye describes her conversion 12 to Sufi Islam in her book, "Journey through Ten Thousand Veils:the Alchemy of Transformation on the Sufi Path."

"It's kind of the interior illumination of the practices of Islam, which bring out the best in it. That is the love, the mercy, the kindness, wisdom, light," says Kabeer Faye. "And so that was the destiny that was marked for me, that was decreed for me."

She studied and travelled with Sufi masters in Israel, Sri Lanka, Senegal and Gambia, as well as closer to home in Pennsylvania and South Carolina, in order to deepen her understanding of this particular form of Islam.

"The experience I've had [is] not with the abstract study of Sufism in books - because we can always read about Sufism in the 12th century - but in my case, my destiny was to be guided from one Sufi master to the next, until my present teacher, who is Sheikh Harun Rashid Faye from Senegal, West Africa."

It is from this teacher that Maryam Kabeer took her last name.

Maryam Kabeer Faye visiting Bangladesh in 2002.

Changing perceptions

Kabeer Faye acknowledges that while many believe Islam is a violent religion, the Islam she knows and embraces is a religion of mercy and compassion 13.

"I can't count the numbers of people I met who were the most generous, kind, and giving, loving, caring people," she says. "That is, caring for the orphan 14, caring for the disadvantaged, caring for women, caring for me. How did I become a Muslim? It's by that love. How would I transmit it to anyone else? Through that love."

Those who espouse 15 violence in the name of Islam, says Kabeer Faye, have distorted the true faith.

"I learned by studying, that suicide is forbidden in Islam, and killing 16 of innocents is forbidden in Islam, and even cutting down trees in a defensive 17 battle is forbidden. So life is supported by Islam. Therefore oppression and aggression 18 are forbidden, whereas mercy, tolerance 19, kindness and charity are commanded."

Maryam Kabeer Faye with son, Issa, in New Mexico in 1989

New journey

Born Jewish but now a Sufi Muslim, Maryam Kabeer Faye lives in Philadelphia with her grown son, Issa.

In addition to attending conferences and workshops, Kabeer Faye teaches Arabic and Islamic studies to women and girls in the U.S. and in Gambia, as well.

And, once a week, she visits a prison where she speaks to inmates 20 about the transformative powers of her Sufi faith.

Now that her first journey of spiritual learning is complete, she has embarked 21 on a second journey as an author and teacher to share the knowledge she's acquired during a lifetime of experiences with Muslims and non-Muslims alike.