The Persian wants to spend the coin on angur the Turk, on uzum the Arab, on inab and the Greek, on stafil.Ī linguist passing by overhears the argument. Indeed, having drunk from many wells in my spiritual journey, I consider it my mission in life to inform the world that, no matter the well, the water tastes just as sweet.Ĭonsider the following parable by the great Sufi master Jalal ad-Din Rumi, which I recount in my book, “No god but God”:Ī Persian, a Turk, an Arab and a Greek are traveling to a distant land when they begin arguing over how to spend the single coin they share in common. What’s your most unshakeable belief, and why? Share your personal story on CNN.com/IBelieve or upload a video on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter with #IBelieve.īut I know, just as the Buddha did, that while my personal well may be different and unique, the water I draw from it is the same water drawn from everyone else’s wells.It provides me with certain symbols and metaphors for thinking about God that I find useful in making sense of the universe and my place in it.

Let me be clear, I am Muslim not because I think Islam is “truer” than other religions (it isn’t), but because Islam provides me with the “language” I feel most comfortable with in expressing my faith. My well is Islam, and in particular, the Sufi tradition. In other words, if you want to have a deep and meaningful faith experience, it helps – though it is by no means necessary – to have a language with which to do so. It is, as the Sufi mystics say, a “signpost to God.”Ĭan you have faith without religion? Of course! But as the Buddha said, if you want to strike water, you don’t dig six 1-foot wells you dig one 6-foot well. Beyond the doctrines and dogma, the do’s and the don’t’s, religion is simply a framework for thinking about the existential questions we all struggle with as human beings. How would one talk about – or even think about – something so completely foreign? We would need some kind of language to help us make sense of it, a set of symbols and metaphors we can all agree upon to help us define what is fundamentally indefinable. It is a language made up of symbols and metaphors that allows people to express to each other (and to themselves) what is, almost by definition, inexpressible.Īfter all, if there is a God, then that God is utterly beyond human comprehension. Religion, on the other hand, is the language we use to express faith. No one can prove or disprove these things, not any more than anyone can prove or disprove love or fear or any other human emotion.

You either believe in the existence of a soul (as I do), or you don’t. You either believe you are more than the sum of your material parts (as I do), or you don’t. You either believe there is something beyond the physical world (as I do), or you don’t. And yet, in the end, faith is nothing more or less than a choice.

No god but god by reza aslan