Dear Friedrich,
I must confess to you that the term free spirit no longer refreshes me—at least the English translation of the idea. It does not set me aglow. It rather has the feel of a cluttered and cramped room with too many colours, crystals and gew-gaws; the artwork on the wall is playful, but, in the same way that broken children playfully torture animals. The term has excessive energy from refined sugar, and I need more bitter alkaloids to stimulate my immune system—something that honours my coldness, suspicion, and hatred. I also cannot, in good conscience, use words like free—I am an indelibly bound spirit. I have to funnel the right combination of minerals and proteins into my gullet or else—catastrophe! My intestines give signals like breathless messengers from the Orient, trailing an army of ruthless mercenaries, ready to topple my kingdom. Pain in my body is spoken in a cryptic dialect—I can only decipher screams and moans. To summarize—my body is my greatest enemy, and has harmed me more than anyone else. There can be no freedom with its salivating fangs aiming for my jugular.
My own consciousness is at war with me; my discipline skirmishes with my anemia, my lust with my dignity. To love my fate is to surrender to it—I prostrate at its feet while I keep my ineffective little dagger under my cloak. Like the Sicarii, I’m always tempted to use my blade but I know that doing so will end with the destruction of Jerusalem. We free spirits are strangers not just to the world, but to our own bodies. We grew from the earth and return to it, yet our concord with the Earth is hard to find—if not a half-baked rumor. How strange! As I’m sure you know, the etymology of this word is stunningly simple: ‘something on the outside‘.
I’m reminded of the words of Muhammad ﷺ : Islam began as something strange and it will return to being strange, so blessed are the strangers. He wasn’t kidding—imagine you’re a sixth-century illiterate merchant living in the arid Saudi Arabian desert, making the hour-long trek up Jabal Al Nour. Once you get to your secluded cave you enter deep meditation, apart from the world of mankind, until an angel begins giving you infallible guidance from the boss of the whole universe. And this angel will relay information only to you, and all subsequent generations would be fundamentally lost without your message. You are the redeemer of the present world and all future worlds.
Now think of yourself, Friedrich—the migraine-ridden man who roams the mountains alone when he’s not too busy battling his stomach over an open toilet. And yet, you’ve blanketed the modern world with your ideas, with your spirit—you’ve defeated not just the idealists, but the materialists too, rising from the dead and infiltrating the minds of future men and women. Phrases you penned in your mountain shack now resonate around the globe like an ever-present adhan—God is dead replaces la ilaha il allah. Philosophers faithfully repeat it—mockingly or otherwise—through digital minarets. Is it really a good thing that God is dead? Actually he clearly didn’t think it’s a good thing if you read further! But didn’t he tell us to think for ourselves? Nietzsche was a Nazi, guys, don’t even think about reading his fascist trash! Round and round it goes, and the Nietzschean spirit further coils itself around our hearts and minds, embracing newer pupils and enemies.
Speaking of enemies, you will be glad to know that you were villified as the personification of evil in the early 20th century, Friedrich. But, if your thoughts are the most dangerous and evil, and your behaviour is so mild and polite, wouldn’t that make you the most compassionate and merciful person in the world? My friend—you’ve become arrahman, arraheem, terms once reserved for Almighty God!
Anyway, back to terminology.
The root of Islam is Sin Lam Meem—س ل م • . Apparently, Arabic works kinda like Hebrew in that this sequence of three consonants has a certain vibe; S-L-M has the vibe of safety, security, peace, and most importantly for my purposes, submission.
I bring this up because of what you said about the ancient Greeks. I don’t really buy your argument that their souls were more unified than our fractured, cosmopolitan minds, but I do like the thought experiment that those before us have perfected humanity. That we moderns are in decline—this is the alkaloid I love! Its aroma alone is enough to get me out of bed in the morning, savouring harsh, impossible challenges. Again I must bring up the words of Muhammad ﷺ :
The best of men are my generation, then those who come next to them, then those who come next to them.
Mishkat al-Masabih 3767—Book 18, Hadith 103
The exoteric meaning is pretty plain—every generation gets worse. But the esoteric meaning is to ask: how do I become part of the generation that Muhammadﷺ values? How could you travel back in time and become born in Muhammad’sﷺ time? Th..t-that’s impossible! Friend, with God—all things are possible!
Here, I usually pull down my sunglasses—my shades—and tell students: you guys ready for some esoteric interpretations of hadith?
Then everyone cheers.
I swear, it’s true.
Anyway, the esoteric meaning is that of course you can become part of Muhammad’sﷺ generation—by studying and learning from him!
Read a book, dummy! And mind your manners! And show some respect to your elders! Jesus Christ, it’s not that hard. Kids these days!
To be fair, though, it’s kinda weird to read and write… a little strange. Am I expected to believe that young people with healthy bodies and instincts want to sit still and stare at little symbols for hours at a time? Really now. Have you ever been to a waterslide park? Or wrestled in the mud? Climbed monkey bars? Frolicked in the ball pit? Bounced on a giant trampoline? These are unambiguously better things to do compared to reading and writing. And for those kids who aren’t healthy? Well… word on the street is that your father’s brain imploded or melted when he was pretty young.
Word on the street is also that you died from a virus eating your brain, or a genetic glitch, or something horrific like that. In other words, I don’t remember you being particularly gifted in physical health—then again, that makes your willingness to climb mountains an impressive sight. I do appreciate your willingness to overcome physical disability, and it’s actually the reason that I started reading all your stuff.
But I find it weird how much you hate on Paul, since you guys seem similar to me. Paul—a sickly, ugly, epileptic jailbird that stuttered—wrote a passage in Thessalonians that inspired concentration camp prisoners like Corrie ten Boom to be grateful despite being stuck in flea-ridden barracks:
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
I know you’ll roll your eyes here, but c’mon, this is kinda like a flowery version of amor fati. Paul’s spirit continues to thrive somehow, despite science relentlessly ripping his epistemology to shreds. I learned from you how entertaining it is to watch throngs of scientists exasperated with people taking Paul’s letters seriously—all in spite of mind-blowingly advanced technology and discoveries. You’ve taught me that they’re being dutiful Christians, making ascetic sacrifices to The Truth, which seems to reign even higher than God—now that’s a fearsome deity if I ever met one! I imagine it makes them gnostics—they must see the material world as the product of an evil demigod, since human beings are so unwilling to behave properly. If only The Truth was to come out, so the story goes, then humanity will bask in its deserved paradise. I agree with you that falsity and error is a fundamental part of life—at least that’s what I told my parents when I showed them my report card.
But really, deep down, I think you like Paul. Sure, he was a hateful man, but I learned from you to reappraise my evil, for my love of life shall encompass all of life. Sin so that grace may abound? Based Dark Paul. When I learned that you wrote Die Liebe höret nimmer auf — Love never faileth— on your father’s gravestone, I mighta shed a tear or two. Cannot confirm nor deny. It’s beautiful. I know you know it’s beautiful. But to associate your name and philosophy with ‘love never fails‘? You’d be laughed out of the edgy college student’s dorm—arguably the greatest of all philosophical forums!
Anyway, I’m thinking to drop the free spirits thing, spice it up with a little flavour. I want something austere but elegantly charming; something bitter with a subtle stimulating high that keeps you going through the day but doesn’t make you crash. Instead of trying to popularize the German word you used—freier Geist—my idea is to use this Arabic word:
غرباء
Ghurabā’.
Strangers.
The line above the ‘a‘, followed by the apostrophe, means you flatten out the last letter and round it off with an ‘ooh‘ sound. So it’ll sound like ghoora-bah-ooh. For the singular stranger, gharib غريب, it’s pronounced something like ghariboon. Luckily the transliteration can only approximate the sounds, so it retains its distance. After all, its root vibe set is غ ر ب (Ghain Reh Beh)—distance, remoteness. The first and only tenet of The Strangers, Al-Ghurabā, الغرباء is that they share a name but no content. No gharib can speak for another gharib, and one cannot assume a gharib’s beliefs based on their status as a gharib. There is no official nor unofficial membership. A gharib actively denies their membership. In fact, any and all Ghurabā should actively discourage membership, and denounce all members. It’s a term which actively seeks to frustrate semiotic depth so as to retain its distance. To always be—strange. This is a necessary tactic to avoid being hollowed out by others into unpleasant phrases like Keep Austin Weird.
Here’s what the flag looks like—it simply says stranger in al-shohadaa Arabic script:
You might say I ripped off the Quran by using the explicitly indecipherable consonant roots at the beginnings of suras, pioneered by Muhammadﷺ. The mystery consonants have a vibe of mystery—an important vibe in the Quran. But I mean, do you want to be part of the greatest generation, or not? I suppose I should make something as beautiful and game-changing as the Quran. Well, I’m still young! *cough cough* [soundtrack music turns menacing]
As an architectural illustrator I couldn’t help but design some buildings for the occasion, attached below. And as a lover of fashion—some costumes. For the time being, no likenesses will be shown. Muhammadﷺ was right to prohibit his depiction, since it makes it easier for people to focus on cultivating their character and strengthening their values. My animating principle is ihsan إحسان — to see the world as something suffused with infinite and perfect beauty, and to honor that beauty. More specifically, I wanted many contradictory things, which I believe are in harmony here: austerity, elegant charm, loving detail, soothing simplicity, bitterness, harshness, mystery and hope.
What do you think?
Best,
Rajul ibn Mazari
And if you obey most of those in the earth, they will lead you astray from Allah’s way; they follow but conjecture and they only lie.
Quran 6:116
