The Hourglass:  Following the Upward Path When All Roads Get Rocky
by Dr. Robert D. Crane

  In most of life we live in an hourglass which is both half full and half empty. 
  Some Muslims are shocked at the blind devotion of so many Americans to “my country, right or wrong.”  Some have criticized me for loving America.  I do love America and its many diverse peoples, but above all I love what America was created to mean.  We have accomplished a lot, have worked mightily to overcome the blot of slavery and of genocide against the Native Americans (my father’s people), and now we must work equally hard to overcome the more recent projection of our original failings onto the entire world.
  America, Pakistan, and Israel are the only three countries deliberately created to embody and carry out the higher objectives of justice and freedom, and all three so far have failed to live up to our joint calling.  All three of us have followed a rocky road and have a long way to go.  The road seems to be getting rockier, but Allah tells us in the Qur’an that those who choose the upward path when all roads get rocky are the favored ones.
  My dream for many years has been to write a five volume book comparing the classical thought of traditionalist America and the classical thought of both traditionalist Islam and traditionalist or Orthodox Judaism, because all are essentially the same.  This might provide guidance, in sha’a Allah, for America, Pakistan, and Israel either before global destruction in order to prevent it or perhaps afterwards in order to build a new global civilization, beginning, in either case, with an Abraham Federation in the Holy Land as a model for the rest of the world. 
  Some Muslims have begun to reinterpret the ayah, wa tamaat kalimatu Rabbika sidqan wa ‘adlan, “and the Word of your Lord is fulfilled and perfected in truth and in justice,” as a warning. They interpret this as meaning that justice in the form of divine punishment will triumph and those who oppose justice will be destroyed.  Such destruction, indeed, has been the fate of all civilizations in the past, as pointed out repeatedly in the Qur’an.  The other way to interpret this ayah is to accept it as guidance in finding the upward path of truth so that we can pursue justice.
  These two opposite approaches to scriptural understanding, the apophatic and the cataphatic (representing the physical principles of entropy and negentropy in the Second Law of Thermodynamics — in religious terms this refers respectively to the “no” and “yes” dimensions of life as in the Ying and Yang in Taoist philosophy— and in every field of science), are particularly striking in the phrase of the ayah, lakum dinakum wa liya din, “Your religion for you and my religion for me.”  I was always told that this meant, you are going to follow your religion and go to hell, and I will follow mine and go to heaven.”  This seemed to contradict everything else in the Qur’an.  Then one day many years ago I met a man who quoted this as meaning, “You follow your path and I will follow mine, because God has told us that both paths lead to the same place as long as both of us love God, recognize divine justice in this world and the next, and practice good works.”  These three conditions, he said, are the only ones specifically and clearly set forth in the Qur’an for peace and prosperity in this world and for salvation in the next. 
  The latter interpretations in both of these Qur’anic ayat I think is what the Prophet, salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa salam, was emphasizing when he said, “Even if you would know that the world will end tomorrow, go out and plant a tree.”  The sand in the hour glass is flowing rapidly right now, but we determine which way to set its direction.