srinath@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Srinath Viswanathan) (12/03/89)
Who are the Sufis? Do they still exist, and if so, where? What
are their beliefs? What is their position in the Islamic religious
hierarchy?
Srinath
srinath@unix.cis.pitt.eduprabhu@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (12/04/89)
This article is in response to the recent query about Sufism. This article represents my personal views and is partly based on discussions I've had with numerous people and partly on what I've read. I do welcome comments and criticisms (no flames please!) First of all to understand Sufism and its place in Islam we need some background on Islam itself. The following is an attempt, albeit weak, to provide that information. Islam is one of three Semitic monotheistic religions that trace back to Abraham (the other two being Christianity and Judaism.) Central to Islam is the Qur'an which is the direct Word of God. There are four remarkable things about Islam. Firstly, the Qur'an and not the Prophet Muhammad is central to the religion though the Prophet occupies a special place in Islam. Secondly, the Word of God was revealed to an unlettered man. This fact is of great metaphysical and spiritual significance not unlike the Virgin Birth in Christianity. Thirdly, the words of the Qur'an have been faithfully preserved in the form in which they were received (down to the smallest detail!). Fourthly, Islam like Buddhism and Christianity is based on human equality. A second source of Islamic doctrine and practice is the Sunna. This contains the customs and usage and the sayings (hadiths) of the Prophet. While the hadiths are also of Divine inspiration, they are quite distinct from the words of the Qur'an. The central message of Islam is the declaration of Faith "La ilaha illa 'Llah; Muhammadur Rasoolu 'Llah" which translates to "There is no god but God; Muhammad is the Messenger of God." It is this declaration of faith that is central to Islamic and Sufic doctrine. The five "pillars of Islam" are iman (faith), salat (prayers), saum (fasting during Ramadan), zakat (charity) and hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). Each of these has a spiritual significance in Sufism. As an interesting aside, the imagery of wine (explicitly forbidden in Islam) and intoxication has been used by the Sufis to symbolize mystical states and sometimes as a source of confusion and error. There are two distinct but related domains in Islam, outward and inward. The outward religion is the shari'a and the inner is the haqiqa (the Truth) The haqiqa forms the inner core. The path from the outside in is called the tariqa (the way). [The analogy one can draw is that of the wheel where the circumference forms the shari'a and the center the haqiqa. Each spoke of the wheel represents a tariqa.] Sufism is then Islamic mysticism which is made up of the haqiqa (doctrine) and tariqa (method). A point to note here is that the shari'a is absolutely essential to Sufism and hence there is no Sufism without Islam (contrary to the sanitized stuff seen in the West). This basically means that while Sufism conforms outwardly there is a great deal of freedom inward. This seemingly paradoxical situation has caused a great deal of confusion and persecution of a few Sufi shaikhs. As mentioned earlier, the declaration of Faith (shahada) forms the core of Sufism. The first clause of the declaration,"La ilaha illa 'Llah" can be interpreted as "There is no reality (truth) but Reality (Truth)." This oneness called wahdat al-wajood is equivalent to the advaitic (non-dual) philosophy of Hinduism. Further, Sufism comprises the Way of Love (mahabba) and the Way of Knowledge (ma'rifa) which correspond roughly to bhakti yoga and jnana yoga of Hinduism. The ultimate goal of Sufism is salvation. One embarking on the path to salvation is spiritually initiated by a shaikh who in turn was initiated by his teacher and so on. This chain of initiation called silsila is interesting because one can trace back to one of the companions of the Prophet (esp. the Caliphs 'Abu Bakr and 'Ali) who was initiated by him. The most important part of this spiritual path is the zikr (meditation). The zikr usually is done under the supervision of the shaikh at a gathering or a retreat. The zikr usually consists of repeatedly invoking God's name. The technique varies from tariqa to tariqa. The most famous is the "Dance of the Whirling Dervishes" Maulawi tariqa. The practice of zikr goes hand in hand with the practice of all the Islamic virtues (iman,salat,saum, zakat,and hajj). The most famous turuq (plural of tariqas) are the Qadiri tariqa, Suhrawardi tariqa, Shazili tariqa, Maulawi tariqa of the great Sufi poet Jalal ud-din Rumi, and the Darqawi tariqa. In South Asia the most famous ones are the Naqshbandi tariqa (Afghanistan) and the Chisti tariqa (Ajmer). I'm pretty sure that the Rumi, Chisti, Qadiri turuq still have adherents today. I'm not sure about the rest. Finally, a note about Sufic literature. Most Sufic literature is in the form of poems. "The key to the treasury lies beneath the tongue of a poet" so goes and old Sufic saying. These poems are often quite esoteric and abstruse. I'm currently reading "The Conference of the Birds" by Farid ud-din Attar. I've seen English translations of excerpts from Rumi's works. There is also an excellent book titled "Sufis" by Idries Shah. There is also a quarterly magazine titled Sufism published here in California. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I and Thou signify duality, and duality is an illusion, for Unity alone is Truth. When the ego is gone, then God is His mirror in me." Bayazid
turk@vaxb.acs.unt.edu (06/28/91)
[Moderator's Note: This article is a reply to an original article in
soc.culture.turkish, and may be more relevant here.]
From: yamen@engr.wisc.edu (Soner Yamen)
[ lines deleted ]
Mansur 'enel Hak' demis, yani "ben Hakkim" demis. En kit zekayla bile,
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
sofinin dediginin 'ben Allah'im' anlamina gelmeyecegi acik. Oyle
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
dese bile, kimsenin inanacagi mi var? En fazla 'delidir' der gecersiniz.
Oysa dedigi, 'fenafillah' anlayisinin sonucu ve illa bir anlam verilmek
isteniyorsa 'ben Hakki buldum, ondan gayri hic birsey yok, olsa dahi
onemi yok' turunden bir anlam verilebilir.
Excuse me...... I didn't take any I.Q. test but my intellicency is not the
case. I believe he meant what he said. Sufi philosophy believes all things are
the parts of Allah including living things and human being, they are at least
the reflection of Allah. They originate from Allah. I also believe this
philosophy (Metaphysic Dialectic) is the mainstream of Islamic philosophy
(non -fundamentalist of course) which makes biggest difference with
Christianity which believes God is a Human-Shaped male "thing" who runs around
among people and deals with them and throws bombs to cities ( Sodom and
Gomora ).
So Mansur thought as a part and/or reflection of Allah he has right to say
"Enel-Hak" ( I am the Allah ).
*I ask the yellow flower if it got an origin?*
(Sordum sari cicege aslin varmidir?)
By the way this discussion isn't belong here, if you want to discuss this
further see you in S.R.I. if we can ever get in there, or you can E-Mail me.
--
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| University of North Texas, Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine |
| Department of Physiology. Fort Worth, TX 76107 USA |
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| ( Democracy is an impossible ancient dream and a silly game in the |
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|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|hanif@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Hanif G Khalak) (06/29/91)
In article <1991Jun28.130920.16155@wpi.WPI.EDU> turk@vaxb.acs.unt.edu writes: > [text deleted] > Excuse me...... I didn't take any I.Q. test but my intellicency is not the >case. I believe he meant what he said. Sufi philosophy believes all things are >the parts of Allah including living things and human being, they are at least >the reflection of Allah. They originate from Allah. I also believe this >philosophy (Metaphysic Dialectic) is the mainstream of Islamic philosophy ------------------------------------------------------------- >(non -fundamentalist of course) which makes biggest difference with >Christianity which believes God is a Human-Shaped male "thing" who runs around >among people and deals with them and throws bombs to cities ( Sodom and >Gomora ). I am having problems with your use of the terms 'mainstream' and 'Islamic'. This concept of 'pantheism' which you've describe is in no way shape or form a principle of Islam. There is an explicit dichotomy between Allah and 'creation'. No equivocation whatsoever. In Islam, also, there is the concept of 'man created in the Image of God', but how this can be extrapolated to *anthropomorphizing* ALlah is dubious. While we're trying to be rigorous... where exactly does it say that bombs were dropped on Sodom and Gomorra? > | Can Baytan M.D. (turk@vaxb.acs.unt.edu) Bitnet: turk@untvax | Just a comment about the quarrels between the Turkish members on the net: S.R.I. has no obligation to subsume conversations about Islam on every newsgroup this side of eternity, and it's moderated status has no relation to the problems in soc.culture.turkish. [moderator, please comment if I'm wrong! :)] In fact, it would seem that an argument about Turkish culture or politics (modern) would be irrelevant in S.R.I., but a similar argument about an Islamic issue, Turkiye being what it has been and says it is (a Muslim country), might have direct relevance to Turkish culture. If you want, a newsgroup like 'talk.politics.turkiye' or 'talk.secular.turkiye' would achieve your wish. Just submit a CFD:newsgroupname (Call for Discussion) to new.newsgroups. -- /~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\ | Hanif G. Khalak | hanif@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu | | 308D WRW, UT/Austin | hanif@ticom.ae.utexas.edu | | Austin, TX 78712 | phone: (512) 471-4704 | \__________________________________________________________________/
shari@zahle.wpi.edu (Shari Deiana VanderSpek) (06/29/91)
In article <1991Jun28.173148.6370@wpi.WPI.EDU> hanif@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Hanif G Khalak) writes: > Just a comment about the quarrels between the Turkish members on >the net: S.R.I. has no obligation to subsume conversations about Islam >on every newsgroup this side of eternity, and it's moderated status has no >relation to the problems in soc.culture.turkish. [moderator, please comment >if I'm wrong! :)] In fact, it would seem that an argument about Turkish >culture or politics (modern) would be irrelevant in S.R.I., but a similar >argument about an Islamic issue, Turkiye being what it has been and says it >is (a Muslim country), might have direct relevance to Turkish culture. > If you want, a newsgroup like 'talk.politics.turkiye' or >'talk.secular.turkiye' would achieve your wish. Just submit a >CFD:newsgroupname (Call for Discussion) to new.newsgroups. You are correct. :) But this article was submitted to S.R.I. like any other post, and I added the comment on where it came from so that readers would not wonder where the ongoing discussion came from. Thanks. "A people can never be free at the expense of another people." -Galia Golan, Member of Peace Now ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shari Deiana VanderSpek, shari@zahle.wpi.edu __ | ^ College Computer Center, Fuller Laboratories / / / |_/_/_/ Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA 01609 \__/ __/ ..
shari@zahle.wpi.edu (Shari Deiana VanderSpek) (06/29/91)
In article <1991Jun28.173148.6370@wpi.WPI.EDU> hanif@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Hanif G Khalak) writes: > Just a comment about the quarrels between the Turkish members on >the net: S.R.I. has no obligation to subsume conversations about Islam >on every newsgroup this side of eternity, and it's moderated status has no >relation to the problems in soc.culture.turkish. [moderator, please comment >if I'm wrong! :)] In fact, it would seem that an argument about Turkish >culture or politics (modern) would be irrelevant in S.R.I., but a similar >argument about an Islamic issue, Turkiye being what it has been and says it >is (a Muslim country), might have direct relevance to Turkish culture. > If you want, a newsgroup like 'talk.politics.turkiye' or >'talk.secular.turkiye' would achieve your wish. Just submit a >CFD:newsgroupname (Call for Discussion) to new.newsgroups. You are correct. :) But this article was submitted to S.R.I. like any other post, and I added the comment at the beginning so that readers would not wonder where the ongoing discussion came from. Thanks. "A people can never be free at the expense of another people." -Galia Golan, Member of Peace Now ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shari Deiana VanderSpek, shari@zahle.wpi.edu __ | ^ College Computer Center, Fuller Laboratories / / / |_/_/_/ Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA 01609 \__/ __/ ..