Moorish Orthodox Church (introduction)
This blog entry from an Orthodox Moor mentions his fasting Ramadan in a uniquely MOC way.
From the History and Catechism of the Moorish Orthodox Church of America:
What is Moorish Orthodoxy? What is its "Catechism"?
In effect, there is none. Moorish Orthodoxy is like a mirror in which each seeker beholds a beloved form, each one different.
We have no required ritual and no source of authority other than those the individual imagination provides. We do however perhaps share a certain "taste" or spiritual aesthetic.
Moorish Orthodoxy was founded originally to explore the esoteric dimensions of Noble Drew's teachings, discovered in such passages from the Circle Seven Koran as these:
"Now cease to seek for heaven in the sky;
Just open up the windows of your hearts and,
like a flood of light, a heaven will come
and bring a boundless joy."
"By the sweet breath of Allah all life is
bound to one; so if you touch a fiber of
a living thing you send a thrill from
center to the outer bounds of life."
"You are, each one, a priest,
Just for yourself."
"Allah and man are one."
"When man has conquered every foe
upon the plane of soul and the
seed will have full opened out,
will have unfolded in the Holy Breath.
The garb of the soul will then
have served its purpose well,
and man will need it never more…
and man will then attain unto a blessedness
of perfectness and at one with Allah."
"I (Jesus) brought immortality to light
and painted on the walls of time a
rainbow for the sons of men;
and what I did all men shall do."
The antinomian and egalitarian aspects of lines like these have reinforced our position, in relation to all organized religion, of heresy; in relation to all liberatory teachings and beautiful imaginings we take up a posture of "rootless cosmopolitanism" that seeks out universal spirit hidden anywhere, revealed in all cultures, always occult and dissident, an "Invisible College" embracing East and West but rejecting all official stultifying Consensus Reality. A Moor might belong to any religion or none, "free either to take up a form or not take up a form… not bound to any. Forms are for use, not to make captives" (Hazrat Inayat Khan).
The idea of an American heretical Islam is one such form. We appreciate the aesthetic of Moorish Science, of Noble Drew's unique and prophetic mixture of Afro-American, Native American, Magical, Oriental and Moorish symbolism and imagery. We admire his courage, his martyrdom, his revolutionary stance against "Pharaoh", his Americanizing of the prophetic spirit (he always wore a Cherokee feather in his fez). We reflect this aesthetic in our lives and creative work. But we are not bound by it. Like certain esoteric Javanese sects we reject the figure of the Master (guru or murshed) in favor of the teacher. Anyone can be a teacher in relation to someone; everyone has something to teach, something to learn.
The Moorish Orthodox Catechism, then, consists of no rules or dogmas,but only of adherence to the "Five Pillars" of Moorish Science as listed by Noble Drew:
LOVE
TRUTH
PEACE
FREEDOM
JUSTICE
to which we add a sixth, "Beauty".
- Hakim Baker's blog
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