As militant Islam does its level best to discredit the religion, it's important to remember that there are other voices within the faith. One such is the Sufis, the Islamic mystics who live islam (submission), iman (faith) and ishan (awareness of G-d, "to act beautifully").

The Wahhabi hate them, of course, which constitutes an endorsement in my books. The great poet Rumi was a Sufi, as is the popular folk character Nasruddin (also known in some places as Hodja or Nasreddin Hodja). I've come to appreciate the Sufis for their poetry, their humour, and their body of wisdom. Every Shabbat, therefore, I will be sharing some of that here.

"A certain man asked Nasreddin Hodja, "What is the meaning of fate, Hodja?"
"Assumptions," Hodja replied.
"In what way?" the man asked again.
Hodja looked at him and said:
"You assume things are going to go well, and they don't - that you call bad luck.
You assume things are going to go badly and they don't - that you call good luck.
You assume that certain things are going to happen or not happen - and you so lack intuition that you don't know what is going to happen.
You assume that the future is unknown. When you are caught out - you call that Fate."