The Keys to Uncovering Mysteries
The Keys to Mysteries
For almost all sets of beliefs, religous or scientific, a certain amount of interpretation and critical thinking is required to break through paradigms or conventional thinking for the sake of innovation.
It's up to the critical mind to break through the assumptions and up to the creative mind to look at other possibilities. This is a key to moving ideas forward and to understanind real world applications of scientific fact.
The keys to mysteries. Centuries and centuries of philosophers and poets have expressed ideas and experiences by using images, metaphores, and symbols. Sacred documents like the Bible are full of these rhetorical tropes that enrich stories. A dogmatic reading of poetry or sacred texts stiffles the mind and impoverishes the wisdom.
In A Sufi's Ghost, we see how the Sufi tradition affects our modern understanding of religious perspectives. The story of Larson and Carmen tells how certain assumptions about mainstream religions might not be what they appear.
- Carmen decides to rely on Larson to help her. He wants to work with Carmen, hoping that she can lead him to one of the high profile Al Queda members for his bounty reward.
- Though, once she makes it clear to Larson that the Saudi police are looking for him as a suspect in the murder of Prince Kabir, he sees how his helping Carmen out of the country also serves his own survival.
- Together they take a car, flee, and begin to work as partners on a new quest. They both become compelled to solve the mystery of Kabir’s death. Carmen begins to trust Larson and to share her knowledge of Sufism with him and she leads most of the deciphering of the clues.
- The first message she finds in Karbir’s notebook is a five–line fable by Aesop that includes a Sufi method to code words for hidden, otherwise illegal messages.
- Carmen confides to Larson that Prince Kabir was one of her closest friends and that he reminded her of her father because he taught her so much about Sufism, a tradition forbidden in Saudi Arabia, mystical paganism being a capital crime, punishable by beheading.
She realizes immediately that some of Kabir’s cryptic messages are meant for her: next to Larson’s name, Kabir had written Kiyama Khulda, the nickname her father had given her. How Kabir knew
this is a mystery. - Kabir had confided Sufi secrets to her about the use of root words to express forbidden ideas. From this, she also knows Larson to be innocent because he brought Kabir’s rosary to her. She wonders if Kabir had somehow intended for her to meet Larson who might help her to escape her abusive husband.
- Carmen explains to Larson how Prince Kabir was probably a leading member of the Sufi community and therefore might have known the location of the lost Sura, which in turn indicates the location of the Kaaba Key, kept safe in a
black box, a 
reference to the black stone that Islam considers sacred and displays as a fixture in the Kaaba.
Kabir's notebook also refers to hidden documents which would shake the foundation of Islam regarding the Hidden Imam. - The location of the Lost Sura that Prince Kabir revealed to Sayid at threat of death is actually a well-rehearsed lie, namely that the Lost Sura is beneath a tile in the mihrab of Ar Rmilah mosque. The
message beneath the tile simply contains a reference to a passage in the Koran (Sura 6:50) which reads "Say: I tell you not that with me are the treasures of Allah, nor do I know what is hidden." Sayid realizes he has been duped. - At one point Carmen and Larson believe that they have found the place where they can find the ancient artifacts. It's at the Dome of the Rock. Or is it?
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