Bark ‘writing’ open to interpretation

Is it a religious sign or a fluke of nature?

McClatchy newspapers

SKOKIE, Ill. — Something about the sound of the tree bark hitting the ground caught Assad Busool’s attention, compelling the Islamic scholar to pluck the wood fragment from the pavement in front of his Skokie home.

What he found written on it has caused a minor stir among some members of his Muslim community, who view the engraving as a divine reminder of the existence of God.

The word Muhammad — or rather the Arabic for the Islamic prophet’s name — had been carved into the bark by insects.

“I was astonished,” said Busool, 69. “I said, ‘What is the meaning of this?’ I have a holy tree in my yard.”

Like Catholics who claim to have seen images of the Virgin Mary, some Muslims in Busool’s community are interpreting the markings on the 14-inch-long bark chip as a sign from heaven, even though, like visages of Mary, it is mixed with other markings that open it to other interpretations.

“It’s crystal clear, it says Muhammad,” said Andala Mbengue, a cabdriver from Senegal who saw the wood after Friday prayers at the American Islamic College in Chicago. “Allah is always putting himself out there. Sometimes people ignore it, but he’s always showing us signs.”

Sani Umar, a professor of religion at Northwestern University, said some sects within Islam would treat such findings with great skepticism. Other Muslim societies might be more accepting of the phenomena, he said. The most conservative sects would dismiss the sightings.

Not everyone greeted news of the bark chip with Busool’s level of enthusiasm.

Dr. Muhammad Sahloul, a physician and president of the Mosque Foundation, said mainstream Muslims “don’t tend to overestimate the significance of these things.”

And a colleague of Busool’s at the Islamic college said he didn’t see the word Muhammad the first time he looked at the bark.

“I guess it depends on how you look at it,” said Ghulam Haider Aasi, chair of the Islamic Studies Department.

Apparitions in Islam are typically in Arabic script, not human form, which is forbidden by Islam, scholars said.

What such sightings mean depends on a person’s religion, experts said. But scholars of Islam said some Muslims would view such apparitions as mystical reminders that God is everywhere in nature, in the setting sun, in the clouds, in a blade of grass.

“Nature is a scripture that has to be read,” said Ali Asani, a professor of Indo-Muslim languages and cultures at Harvard University. “So you find these phenomena in different Muslim societies, of people finding the name of God written on things.”

Busool, a Sunni Muslim and Islamic judge who rules on family matters, cites a verse in the Quran, Islam’s holy book, to explain why insects might cut lines in wood to spell the word Muhammad. The verse teaches that every living being on Earth sings the praises of God in languages human beings can’t understand, he said.

“They don’t know Arabic. To eat the inside of the branch and make that writing, it’s guidance from God, of course,” said Busool.