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"I suppose that is true," said Astrid. "However, the same water that drowns the fire also nourishes all life."
"Yes, yes, but the water needs to stand side by side with the fire and not drown it," said Jamal. "Love needs to be the firewall, the protector of both the fire of passion and the water that satisfies."
Mohja hugged Jamal as she said this. "The bottom line is, that we both regard hijab as a commitment to honoring one-another and all human beings to such a degree that we stand before the Principle of Universal Love with the same awe as we stand before Allah. If we do this I see no reason why this active honoring should not extend beyond the marriage space and embrace humanity universally. Shouldn't the sphere of love be expanded to encircle all human beings? Shouldn't the fire, which love protects, put us in awe of life itself and all life as Allah implies? If this active honoring includes honoring one-another as sexual human beings, which we are, then sexual contacts will naturally be included in the fire of life or else we become hypocrites. In fact they must be included as a demand on us to assure that nothing enters this sensitive arena that is in anyway degrading and might in the slightest manner mar the face of the human being as the supreme being in the universe."
"Behind the closed bedroom door of the conventional word the demand for this kind of sensitivity does not exist," said Jamal. "With the bedroom door open, however, it becomes a paramount necessity that we demand the utmost of honesty with ourselves, never to violate our highest perception of the human being in any way or form. This higher-level demand for the utmost in sensitivity tends to upgrade the whole sexual scene everywhere. It tends to remove all the elements that are not honestly justifiable between human beings and serve the advantage of the other."
He turned to Mohja. "Our personal experience has been, of Mohja and I, that the focus of the fire becomes increasingly shifted away from the physical sexual domain into the mental and spiritual domain that may on occasions have a physical component to some degree. On this path our relationships towards one-another as human beings can never again drop down to the level where people allow an orgy of lust, rape, or other forms of exploitation to happen," said Jamal. "It simply won't be possible, because what one finds in that low-level sewer simply doesn't measure up to what can be attained at the higher level where sex is not dirty, but comes to light as something gently human and beautiful. That's like leaving the ox cart behind in the pages of history, for the automobile. Of course, there are huge challenges involved in getting to this point. To Mohja and I, hijab represents a commitment to master the challenges. It also reminds us of the unproductive road that we leave behind, and the tragedy that pervades the entire imperial world in all its aspects that darkens civilization with countless forms of its old-world traditions of domination."
"Almost all of the world's religions spin a web around sex to regulate it, and to regulate society with it," said Mohja. "In Judaism, the great tribal religion that goes back in time the biblical sons of Jacob, sex is kept forcefully within marriage boundary. However, within this boundary the unconditional availability of sex is guaranteed under the weight of law. The law of Judaism attributes the highest degree of respect for woman that we have seen throughout the ages. It gives a woman the right to hold property and to conduct business. However, under that law a husband is required to provide sex as requested by his woman, almost on demand. By this kind of compromise the human need is met to some degree, almost ideally so, so it seems. However this demanded fulfillment comes without any guarantee that a fire of passion for life will be lit and lighten the sky out of the riches of our humanity. To the contrary, this forced setting comes at the horrendous cost of universal isolation and subjection to ritualized regulations. My point is that we are human beings and don't have to stop at a compromise stage if we can step up to higher ground and move beyond it and take sex up with us to this higher ground. Basic psychology tells us that sex and love are not essentially the same thing unless love gives a higher meaning to sex, which in turn enriches the dimensions of love. This mutually uplifting process is much more demanding, of course. Its vastly greater challenge appears to be acknowledged in Buddhism where the focus is no longer on barriers but on compassion, opening the gates to love. Judaism also contains a faint element of compassion, as it counsels that sex should only be experienced in times of joy. However, I see us going still farther with that by combining sex, joy, and love, and uplifting all three to the level of universal Principle? Shouldn't this achievement be the greatest guarantor for the rights of any human being? Wouldn't it cause each human being, men and woman alike, to be cherished in its fullest universality, acknowledging mankind as the brightest stars in the universe that we stand in awe before?"
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