2022/04/02

Sufism - Wikipedia

Sufism - Wikipedia

Sufism

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This article is about Sufism. For other uses, see Sufism (disambiguation).
"Sufi" redirects here. For other uses of Sufi, see Sufi (disambiguation). For sanctification in Islam, see Tazkiah.
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Six Sufi masters, c. 1760

Sufism (Arabic: ٱلصُّوفِيَّة), also known as Tasawwuf[1] (ٱلتَّصَوُّف), is a mystic body of religious practice within Islam characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, ritualism, asceticism and esotericism.[2][3][4]

It has been variously defined as "Islamic mysticism",[5][6][7] "the mystical expression of Islamic faith",[8] "the inward dimension of Islam",[9][10] "the phenomenon of mysticism within Islam",[11][12] the "main manifestation and the most important and central crystallization" of mystical practice in Islam,[13][14] and "the interiorization and intensification of Islamic faith and practice".[15]

Practitioners of Sufism are referred to as "Sufis" (from صُوفِيّ, ṣūfīy),[11] and historically typically belonged to "orders" known as tariqa (pl. ṭuruq) – congregations formed around a grand master wali who would be the last in a chain of successive teachers linking back to Muhammad.[16]

Sufism emerged early on in Islamic history,[11] partly as a reaction against the worldliness of the early Umayyad Caliphate (661–750).[17] Although Sufis were opposed to dry legalism, they strictly observed Islamic law and belonged to various schools of Islamic jurisprudence and theology.[18] Although the overwhelming majority of Sufis, both pre-modern and modern, remain adherents of Sunni Islam, certain strands of Sufi practice developed within the ambit of Shia Islam during the late medieval period, particularly after the Safavid conversion of Iran.[19] Important focuses of Sufi worship include dhikr, the practice of remembrance of God.[20] Sufis also played an important role in Islamic history through their missionary and educational activities.[18]

Despite a relative decline of Sufi orders in the modern era, Sufism has continued to play an important role in the Islamic world, and has also influenced various forms of spirituality in the West.[21][22][23]

Definitions

The Arabic word tasawwuf (lit. being or becoming a Sufi), generally translated as Sufism, is commonly defined by Western authors as Islamic mysticism.[24][25] The Arabic term sufi has been used in Islamic literature with a wide range of meanings, by both proponents and opponents of Sufism.[24] Classical Sufi texts, which stressed certain teachings and practices of the Quran and the sunnah (exemplary teachings and practices of the Islamic prophet Muhammad), gave definitions of tasawwuf that described ethical and spiritual goals[note 1] and functioned as teaching tools for their attainment. Many other terms that described particular spiritual qualities and roles were used instead in more practical contexts.[24][25]

Some modern scholars have used other definitions of Sufism such as "intensification of Islamic faith and practice"[24] and "process of realizing ethical and spiritual ideals".[25]

The term Sufism was originally introduced into European languages in the 18th century by Orientalist scholars, who viewed it mainly as an intellectual doctrine and literary tradition at variance with what they saw as sterile monotheism of Islam. In modern scholarly usage the term serves to describe a wide range of social, cultural, political and religious phenomena associated with Sufis.[25]

Etymology

The original meaning of sufi seems to have been "one who wears wool (ṣūf)", and the Encyclopaedia of Islam calls other etymological hypotheses "untenable".[11][24] Woolen clothes were traditionally associated with ascetics and mystics.[11] Al-Qushayri and Ibn Khaldun both rejected all possibilities other than ṣūf on linguistic grounds.[26]

Another explanation traces the lexical root of the word to ṣafā (صفاء), which in Arabic means "purity", and in this context another similar idea of tasawwuf as considered in Islam is tazkiyah (تزكية, meaning: self-purification), which is also widely used in Sufism. These two explanations were combined by the Sufi al-Rudhabari (d. 322 AH), who said, "The Sufi is the one who wears wool on top of purity."[27][28]

Others have suggested that the word comes from the term ahl aṣ-ṣuffah ("the people of the suffah or the bench"), who were a group of impoverished companions of Muhammad who held regular gatherings of dhikr, one of the most prominent companion among them was Abu Huraira. These men and women who sat at al-Masjid an-Nabawi are considered by some to be the first Sufis.[29][30]

History

Main article: History of Sufism

Origins

Modern academics and scholars have rejected early Orientalist theories asserting a non-Islamic origin of Sufism;[18] the consensus is that it emerged in Western Asia. Sufism has existed as an individual inner practice of Muslims from the earliest days of Islam.[31] According to Carl W. Ernst the earliest figures of Sufism are Muhammad himself and his companions (Sahabah).[32] Sufi orders are based on the bay‘ah (بَيْعَة bay‘ah, مُبَايَعَة mubāya‘ah 'pledge, allegiance') that was given to Muhammad by his Ṣahabah. By pledging allegiance to Muhammad, the Sahabah had committed themselves to the service of God.[33][34][32]

Verily, those who give Bai'âh (pledge) to you (O Muhammad) they are giving Bai'âh (pledge) to Allâh. The Hand of Allâh is over their hands. Then whosoever breaks his pledge, breaks it only to his own harm, and whosoever fulfils what he has covenanted with Allâh, He will bestow on him a great reward. — [Translation of Quran, 48:10]

Sufis believe that by giving bayʿah (pledging allegiance) to a legitimate Sufi Shaykh, one is pledging allegiance to Muhammad; therefore, a spiritual connection between the seeker and Muhammad is established. It is through Muhammad that Sufis aim to learn about, understand and connect with God.[35] Ali is regarded as one of the major figures amongst the Sahaba who have directly pledged allegiance to Muhammad, and Sufis maintain that through Ali, knowledge about Muhammad and a connection with Muhammad may be attained. Such a concept may be understood by the hadith, which Sufis regard to be authentic, in which Muhammad said, "I am the city of knowledge, and Ali is its gate."[36] Eminent Sufis such as Ali Hujwiri refer to Ali as having a very high ranking in Tasawwuf. Furthermore, Junayd of Baghdad regarded Ali as Sheikh of the principals and practices of Tasawwuf.[37]

Historian Jonathan A.C. Brown notes that during the lifetime of Muhammad, some companions were more inclined than others to "intensive devotion, pious abstemiousness and pondering the divine mysteries" more than Islam required, such as Abu Dharr al-Ghifari. Hasan al-Basri, a tabi', is considered a "founding figure" in the "science of purifying the heart".[38]

Practitioners of Sufism hold that in its early stages of development Sufism effectively referred to nothing more than the internalization of Islam.[39] According to one perspective, it is directly from the Qur'an, constantly recited, meditated, and experienced, that Sufism proceeded, in its origin and its development.[40] Other practitioners have held that Sufism is the strict emulation of the way of Muhammad, through which the heart's connection to the Divine is strengthened.[41]

Some contend that Sufism developed from people like Bayazid Bastami, who, in his utmost reverence to the sunnah, refused to eat a watermelon because he did not find any proof that Muhammad ever ate it.[42][43] According to the late medieval mystic, the Persian poet Jami,[44] Abd-Allah ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah (died c. 716) was the first person to be called a "Sufi".[26] The term also had a strong connection with Kufa, with three of the earliest scholars to be called by the term being Abu Hashim al-Kufi, Jabir ibn Hayyan and Abdak al-Sufi.[45] Later individuals included Hatim al-Attar, from Basra, and Al-Junayd al-Baghdadi.[45] Others, such as Al-Harith al-Muhasibi and Sari al-Saqati, were not known as Sufis during their lifetimes, but later came to be identified as such.[45]

Important contributions in writing are attributed to Uwais al-Qarani, Hasan of Basra, Harith al-Muhasibi, Abu Nasr as-Sarraj and Said ibn al-Musayyib.[46] Ruwaym, from the second generation of Sufis in Baghdad, was also an influential early figure,[47][48] as was Junayd of Baghdad; a number of early practitioners of Sufism were disciples of one of the two.[49]

Sufi orders

Main articles: Tariqa and List of Sufi orders

Historically, Sufis have often belonged to "orders" known as tariqa (pl. ṭuruq) – congregations formed around a grand master wali who will trace their teaching through a chain of successive teachers back to the Islamic prophet Muhammad.[16] These orders meet for spiritual sessions (majalis) in meeting places known as zawiyas, khanqahs or tekke.[50]

They strive for ihsan (perfection of worship), as detailed in a hadith: "Ihsan is to worship Allah as if you see Him; if you can't see Him, surely He sees you."[51] Sufis regard Muhammad as al-Insān al-Kāmil, the complete human who personifies the attributes of Absolute Reality,[52] and view him as their ultimate spiritual guide.[53]

Sufi orders trace most of their original precepts from Muhammad through Ali ibn Abi Talib,[54] with the notable exception of the Naqshbandi order, who trace their original precepts to Muhammad through Abu Bakr.[55] However, it was not necessary to formally belong to a tariqa.[56] In the Medieval period, Sufism was almost equal to Islam in general and not limited to specific orders.[57](p24)

Sufism had a long history already before the subsequent institutionalization of Sufi teachings into devotional orders (tariqa, pl. tarîqât) in the early Middle Ages.[58] The term tariqa is used for a school or order of Sufism, or especially for the mystical teaching and spiritual practices of such an order with the aim of seeking ḥaqīqah (ultimate truth). A tariqa has a murshid (guide) who plays the role of leader or spiritual director. The members or followers of a tariqa are known as murīdīn (singular murīd), meaning "desirous", viz. "desiring the knowledge of knowing God and loving God".[59]

Over the years, Sufi orders have influenced and been adopted by various Shi'i movements, especially Isma'ilism, which led to the Safaviyya order's conversion to Shia Islam from Sunni Islam and the spread of Twelverism throughout Iran.[60]

Prominent tariqa include the Ba 'Alawiyya, Badawiyya, Bektashi, Burhaniyya, Chishti, Khalwati, Kubrawiya, Madariyya, Mevlevi, Muridiyya, Naqshbandi, Nimatullahi, Qadiriyya, Qalandariyya, Rahmaniyya, Rifa'i, Safavid, Senussi, Shadhili, Suhrawardiyya, Tijaniyyah, Uwaisi and Zahabiya orders.

Sufism as an Islamic discipline

Dancing dervishes, by Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād (c. 1480–1490)

Existing in both Sunni and Shia Islam, Sufism is not a distinct sect, as is sometimes erroneously assumed, but a method of approaching or a way of understanding the religion, which strives to take the regular practice of the religion to the "supererogatory level" through simultaneously "fulfilling ... [the obligatory] religious duties"[11] and finding a "way and a means of striking a root through the 'narrow gate' in the depth of the soul out into the domain of the pure arid unimprisonable Spirit which itself opens out on to the Divinity."[7][61] Academic studies of Sufism confirm that Sufism, as a separate tradition from Islam apart from so-called pure Islam, is frequently a product of Western orientalism and modern Islamic fundamentalists.[62]

As a mystic and ascetic aspect of Islam, it is considered as the part of Islamic teaching that deals with the purification of the inner self. By focusing on the more spiritual aspects of religion, Sufis strive to obtain direct experience of God by making use of "intuitive and emotional faculties" that one must be trained to use.[58] Tasawwuf is regarded as a science of the soul that has always been an integral part of Orthodox Islam.[63] In his Al-Risala al-Safadiyya, ibn Taymiyyah describes the Sufis as those who belong to the path of the Sunna and represent it in their teachings and writings.[citation needed]

Ibn Taymiyya's Sufi inclinations and his reverence for Sufis like Abdul-Qadir Gilani can also be seen in his hundred-page commentary on Futuh al-ghayb, covering only five of the seventy-eight sermons of the book, but showing that he considered tasawwuf essential within the life of the Islamic community.[citation needed]

In his commentary, Ibn Taymiyya stresses that the primacy of the sharia forms the soundest tradition in tasawwuf, and to argue this point he lists over a dozen early masters, as well as more contemporary shaykhs like his fellow Hanbalis, al-Ansari al-Harawi and Abdul-Qadir, and the latter's own shaykh, Hammad al-Dabbas the upright. He cites the early shaykhs (shuyukh al-salaf) such as Al-Fuḍayl ibn ‘Iyāḍ, Ibrahim ibn Adham, Ma`ruf al-Karkhi, Sirri Saqti, Junayd of Baghdad, and others of the early teachers, as well as Abdul-Qadir Gilani, Hammad, Abu al-Bayan and others of the later masters— that they do not permit the followers of the Sufi path to depart from the divinely legislated command and prohibition.[citation needed]

Al-Ghazali narrates in Al-Munqidh min al-dalal:

The vicissitudes of life, family affairs and financial constraints engulfed my life and deprived me of the congenial solitude. The heavy odds confronted me and provided me with few moments for my pursuits. This state of affairs lasted for ten years, but whenever I had some spare and congenial moments I resorted to my intrinsic proclivity. During these turbulent years, numerous astonishing and indescribable secrets of life were unveiled to me. I was convinced that the group of Aulia (holy mystics) is the only truthful group who follow the right path, display best conduct and surpass all sages in their wisdom and insight. They derive all their overt or covert behaviour from the illumining guidance of the holy Prophet, the only guidance worth quest and pursuit.[64]

Formalization of doctrine

A Sufi in Ecstasy in a Landscape. Isfahan, Safavid Persia (c. 1650–1660), LACMA.

In the eleventh-century, Sufism, which had previously been a less "codified" trend in Islamic piety, began to be "ordered and crystallized" into orders which have continued until the present day. All these orders were founded by a major Islamic scholar, and some of the largest and most widespread included the Suhrawardiyya (after Abu al-Najib Suhrawardi [d. 1168), Qadiriyya (after Abdul-Qadir Gilani [d. 1166]), the Rifa'iyya (after Ahmed al-Rifa'i [d. 1182]), the Chishtiyya (after Moinuddin Chishti [d. 1236]), the Shadiliyya (after Abul Hasan ash-Shadhili [d. 1258]), the Hamadaniyyah (after Sayyid Ali Hamadani [d. 1384], the Naqshbandiyya (after Baha-ud-Din Naqshband Bukhari [d. 1389]).[65] Contrary to popular perception in the West,[66] however, neither the founders of these orders nor their followers ever considered themselves to be anything other than orthodox Sunni Muslims,[66] and in fact all of these orders were attached to one of the four orthodox legal schools of Sunni Islam.[67][68] Thus, the Qadiriyya order was Hanbali, with its founder, Abdul-Qadir Gilani, being a renowned jurist; the Chishtiyya was Hanafi; the Shadiliyya order was Maliki; and the Naqshbandiyya order was Hanafi.[69] Thus, it is precisely because it is historically proven that "many of the most eminent defenders of Islamic orthodoxy, such as Abdul-Qadir Gilani, Ghazali, and the Sultan Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn (Saladin) were connected with Sufism"[70] that the popular studies of writers like Idries Shah are continuously disregarded by scholars as conveying the fallacious image that "Sufism" is somehow distinct from "Islam."[71][72][70][73] Nile Green has observed that, in the Middle Ages, Sufism more or less was Islam.[57](p24)

Growth of influence

A Mughal miniature dated from the early 1620s depicting the Mughal emperor Jahangir (d. 1627) preferring an audience with Sufi saint to his contemporaries, the Ottoman Sultan and the King of England James I (d. 1625); the picture is inscribed in Persian: "Though outwardly shahs stand before him, he fixes his gazes on dervishes."

Historically, Sufism became "an incredibly important part of Islam" and "one of the most widespread and omnipresent aspects of Muslim life" in Islamic civilization from the early medieval period onwards,[61][67] when it began to permeate nearly all major aspects of Sunni Islamic life in regions stretching from India and Iraq to the Balkans and Senegal.[61]

The rise of Islamic civilization coincides strongly with the spread of Sufi philosophy in Islam. The spread of Sufism has been considered a definitive factor in the spread of Islam, and in the creation of integrally Islamic cultures, especially in Africa[74] and Asia. The Senussi tribes of Libya and the Sudan are one of the strongest adherents of Sufism. Sufi poets and philosophers such as Khoja Akhmet Yassawi, Rumi, and Attar of Nishapur (c. 1145 – c. 1221) greatly enhanced the spread of Islamic culture in Anatolia, Central Asia, and South Asia.[75][76] Sufism also played a role in creating and propagating the culture of the Ottoman world,[77] and in resisting European imperialism in North Africa and South Asia.[78]

Blagaj Tekke, built c. 1520 next to the Buna wellspring cavern beneath a high vertical karstic cliff, in Blagaj, Bosnia. The natural and architectural ensemble, proposed for UNESCO inscription,[79] forms a spatially and topographically self-contained ensemble, and is National Monument of Bosnia.[80]

Between the 13th and 16th centuries, Sufism produced a flourishing intellectual culture throughout the Islamic world, a "Renaissance" whose physical artifacts survive.[citation needed] In many places a person or group would endow a waqf to maintain a lodge (known variously as a zawiya, khanqah, or tekke) to provide a gathering place for Sufi adepts, as well as lodging for itinerant seekers of knowledge. The same system of endowments could also pay for a complex of buildings, such as that surrounding the Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, including a lodge for Sufi seekers, a hospice with kitchens where these seekers could serve the poor and/or complete a period of initiation, a library, and other structures. No important domain in the civilization of Islam remained unaffected by Sufism in this period.[81]

Modern era

Opposition to Sufi teachers and orders from more literalist and legalist strains of Islam existed in various forms throughout Islamic history. It took on a particularly violent form in the 18th century with the emergence of the Wahhabi movement.[82]

Whirling dervishes of the Mevlevi Order photographed by Pascal Sébah (Istanbul, 1870)

Around the turn of the 20th century, Sufi rituals and doctrines also came under sustained criticism from modernist Islamic reformers, liberal nationalists, and, some decades later, socialist movements in the Muslim world. Sufi orders were accused of fostering popular superstitions, resisting modern intellectual attitudes, and standing in the way of progressive reforms. Ideological attacks on Sufism were reinforced by agrarian and educational reforms, as well as new forms of taxation, which were instituted by Westernizing national governments, undermining the economic foundations of Sufi orders. The extent to which Sufi orders declined in the first half of the 20th century varied from country to country, but by the middle of the century the very survival of the orders and traditional Sufi lifestyle appeared doubtful to many observers.[83][82]

However, defying these predictions, Sufism and Sufi orders have continued to play a major role in the Muslim world, also expanding into Muslim-minority countries. Its ability to articulate an inclusive Islamic identity with greater emphasis on personal and small-group piety has made Sufism especially well-suited for contexts characterized by religious pluralism and secularist perspectives.[82]

In the modern world, the classical interpretation of Sunni orthodoxy, which sees in Sufism an essential dimension of Islam alongside the disciplines of jurisprudence and theology, is represented by institutions such as Egypt's Al-Azhar University and Zaytuna College, with Al-Azhar's current Grand Imam Ahmed el-Tayeb recently defining "Sunni orthodoxy" as being a follower "of any of the four schools of [legal] thought (Hanafi, Shafi’i, Maliki or Hanbali) and ... [also] of the Sufism of Imam Junayd of Baghdad in doctrines, manners and [spiritual] purification."[68]

Current Sufi orders include Alians, Bektashi Order, Mevlevi Order, Ba 'Alawiyya, Chishti Order, Jerrahi, Naqshbandi, Mujaddidi, Ni'matullāhī, Qadiriyya, Qalandariyya, Sarwari Qadiriyya, Shadhiliyya, Suhrawardiyya, Saifiah (Naqshbandiah), and Uwaisi.

The relationship of Sufi orders to modern societies is usually defined by their relationship to governments.[84]

Sufi Tanoura twirling in Muizz Street, Cairo

Turkey and Persia together have been a center for many Sufi lineages and orders. The Bektashi were closely affiliated with the Ottoman Janissaries and are the heart of Turkey's large and mostly liberal Alevi population. They have spread westwards to Cyprus, Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, Republic of Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and, more recently, to the United States, via Albania. Sufism is popular in such African countries as Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Senegal, where it is seen as a mystical expression of Islam.[85] Sufism is traditional in Morocco, but has seen a growing revival with the renewal of Sufism under contemporary spiritual teachers such as Hamza al Qadiri al Boutchichi. Mbacke suggests that one reason Sufism has taken hold in Senegal is because it can accommodate local beliefs and customs, which tend toward the mystical.[86]

The life of the Algerian Sufi master Abdelkader El Djezairi is instructive in this regard.[87] Notable as well are the lives of Amadou Bamba and El Hadj Umar Tall in West Africa, and Sheikh Mansur and Imam Shamil in the Caucasus. In the twentieth century, some Muslims have called Sufism a superstitious religion which holds back Islamic achievement in the fields of science and technology.[88]

A number of Westerners have embarked with varying degrees of success on the path of Sufism. One of the first to return to Europe as an official representative of a Sufi order, and with the specific purpose to spread Sufism in Western Europe, was the Swedish-born wandering Sufi Ivan Aguéli. René Guénon, the French scholar, became a Sufi in the early twentieth century and was known as Sheikh Abdul Wahid Yahya. His manifold writings defined the practice of Sufism as the essence of Islam, but also pointed to the universality of its message. Spiritualists, such as George Gurdjieff, may or may not conform to the tenets of Sufism as understood by orthodox Muslims.[89]

Aims and objectives

The Tomb of Shah Rukn-e-Alam located in Multan, Pakistan. Known for its multitude of Sufi shrines, Multan is nicknamed the "City of Saints".

While all Muslims believe that they are on the pathway to Allah and hope to become close to God in Paradise—after death and after the Last Judgment—Sufis also believe that it is possible to draw closer to God and to more fully embrace the divine presence in this life.[citation needed] The chief aim of all Sufis is to seek the pleasing of God by working to restore within themselves the primordial state of fitra.[90]

To Sufis, the outer law consists of rules pertaining to worship, transactions, marriage, judicial rulings, and criminal law—what is often referred to, broadly, as "qanun". The inner law of Sufism consists of rules about repentance from sin, the purging of contemptible qualities and evil traits of character, and adornment with virtues and good character.[91]

Teachings

Man holding the hem of his beloved, an expression of a Sufi's agony of longing for the divine union

To the Sufi, it is the transmission of divine light from the teacher's heart to the heart of the student, rather than worldly knowledge, that allows the adept to progress. They further believe that the teacher should attempt inerrantly to follow the Divine Law.[92]

According to Moojan Momen "one of the most important doctrines of Sufism is the concept of al-Insan al-Kamil ("the Perfect Man"). This doctrine states that there will always exist upon the earth a "Qutb" (Pole or Axis of the Universe)—a man who is the perfect channel of grace from God to man and in a state of wilayah (sanctity, being under the protection of Allah). The concept of the Sufi Qutb is similar to that of the Shi'i Imam.[93][94] However, this belief puts Sufism in "direct conflict" with Shia Islam, since both the Qutb (who for most Sufi orders is the head of the order) and the Imam fulfill the role of "the purveyor of spiritual guidance and of Allah's grace to mankind". The vow of obedience to the Shaykh or Qutb which is taken by Sufis is considered incompatible with devotion to the Imam".[93]

As a further example, the prospective adherent of the Mevlevi Order would have been ordered to serve in the kitchens of a hospice for the poor for 1001 days prior to being accepted for spiritual instruction, and a further 1,001 days in solitary retreat as a precondition of completing that instruction.[95]

Some teachers, especially when addressing more general audiences, or mixed groups of Muslims and non-Muslims, make extensive use of parable, allegory, and metaphor.[96] Although approaches to teaching vary among different Sufi orders, Sufism as a whole is primarily concerned with direct personal experience, and as such has sometimes been compared to other, non-Islamic forms of mysticism (e.g., as in the books of Hossein Nasr).

Many Sufi believe that to reach the highest levels of success in Sufism typically requires that the disciple live with and serve the teacher for a long period of time.[97] An example is the folk story about Baha-ud-Din Naqshband Bukhari, who gave his name to the Naqshbandi Order. He is believed to have served his first teacher, Sayyid Muhammad Baba As-Samasi, for 20 years, until as-Samasi died. He is said to then have served several other teachers for lengthy periods of time. He is said to have helped the poorer members of the community for many years, and after this concluded his teacher directed him to care for animals cleaning their wounds, and assisting them.[98]

Muhammad

His [Muhammad's] aspiration preceded all other aspirations, his existence preceded nothingness, and his name preceded the Pen, because he existed before all peoples. There is not in the horizons, beyond the horizons or below the horizons, anyone more elegant, more noble, more knowing, more just, more fearsome, or more compassionate, than the subject of this tale. He is the leader of created beings, the one "whose name is glorious Ahmad"[Quran 61:6]. —Mansur Al-Hallaj[99]

The name of Muhammad in Islamic calligraphy. Sufis believe the name of Muhammad is holy and sacred.

Devotion to Muhammad is an exceptionally strong practice within Sufism.[100] Sufis have historically revered Muhammad as the prime personality of spiritual greatness. The Sufi poet Saadi Shirazi stated, "He who chooses a path contrary to that of the prophet shall never reach the destination. O Saadi, do not think that one can treat that way of purity except in the wake of the chosen one."[101] Rumi attributes his self-control and abstinence from worldly desires as qualities attained by him through the guidance of Muhammad. Rumi states, "I 'sewed' my two eyes shut from [desires for] this world and the next – this I learned from Muhammad."[102] Ibn Arabi regards Muhammad as the greatest man and states, "Muhammad's wisdom is uniqueness (fardiya) because he is the most perfect existent creature of this human species. For this reason, the command began with him and was sealed with him. He was a Prophet while Adam was between water and clay, and his elemental structure is the Seal of the Prophets."[103] Attar of Nishapur claimed that he praised Muhammad in such a manner that was not done before by any poet, in his book the Ilahi-nama.[104] Fariduddin Attar stated, "Muhammad is the exemplar to both worlds, the guide of the descendants of Adam. He is the sun of creation, the moon of the celestial spheres, the all-seeing eye...The seven heavens and the eight gardens of paradise were created for him; he is both the eye and the light in the light of our eyes."[105] Sufis have historically stressed the importance of Muhammad's perfection and his ability to intercede. The persona of Muhammad has historically been and remains an integral and critical aspect of Sufi belief and practice.[100] Bayazid Bastami is recorded to have been so devoted to the sunnah of Muhammad that he refused to eat a watermelon because he could not establish that Muhammad ever ate one.[106]

In the 13th century, a Sufi poet from Egypt, Al-Busiri, wrote the al-Kawākib ad-Durrīya fī Madḥ Khayr al-Barīya ('The Celestial Lights in Praise of the Best of Creation'), commonly referred to as Qaṣīdat al-Burda ('Poem of the Mantle'), in which he extensively praised Muhammad.[107] This poem is still widely recited and sung amongst Sufi groups and lay Muslims alike all over the world.[107]

Sufi beliefs about Muhammad

According to Ibn Arabi, Islam is the best religion because of Muhammad.[52] Ibn Arabi regards that the first entity that was brought into existence is the reality or essence of Muhammad (al-ḥaqīqa al-Muhammadiyya). Ibn Arabi regards Muhammad as the supreme human being and master of all creatures. Muhammad is therefore the primary role model for human beings to aspire to emulate.[52] Ibn Arabi believes that God's attributes and names are manifested in this world and that the most complete and perfect display of these divine attributes and names are seen in Muhammad.[52] Ibn Arabi believes that one may see God in the mirror of Muhammad, meaning that the divine attributes of God are manifested through Muhammad.[52] Ibn Arabi maintains that Muhammad is the best proof of God, and by knowing Muhammad one knows God.[52] Ibn Arabi also maintains that Muhammad is the master of all of humanity in both this world and the afterlife. In this view, Islam is the best religion because Muhammad is Islam.[52]

Sufism and Islamic law

Tomb of Salim Chishti, Fatehpur Sikri, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India

Sufis believe the sharia (exoteric "canon"), tariqa ("order") and haqiqa ("truth") are mutually interdependent.[108] Sufism leads the adept, called salik or "wayfarer", in his sulûk or "road" through different stations (maqaam) until he reaches his goal, the perfect tawhid, the existential confession that God is One.[109] Ibn Arabi says, "When we see someone in this Community who claims to be able to guide others to God, but is remiss in but one rule of the Sacred Law—even if he manifests miracles that stagger the mind—asserting that his shortcoming is a special dispensation for him, we do not even turn to look at him, for such a person is not a sheikh, nor is he speaking the truth, for no one is entrusted with the secrets of God Most High save one in whom the ordinances of the Sacred Law are preserved. (Jamiʿ karamat al-awliyaʾ)".[110][111]

The Amman Message, a detailed statement issued by 200 leading Islamic scholars in 2005 in Amman, specifically recognized the validity of Sufism as a part of Islam. This was adopted by the Islamic world's political and temporal leaderships at the Organisation of the Islamic Conference summit at Mecca in December 2005, and by six other international Islamic scholarly assemblies including the International Islamic Fiqh Academy of Jeddah, in July 2006. The definition of Sufism can vary drastically between different traditions (what may be intended is simple tazkiah as opposed to the various manifestations of Sufism around the Islamic world).[112]

Traditional Islamic thought and Sufism

Tomb of Sayyid Ali Hamadani, Kulob, Tajikistan

The literature of Sufism emphasizes highly subjective matters that resist outside observation, such as the subtle states of the heart. Often these resist direct reference or description, with the consequence that the authors of various Sufi treatises took recourse to allegorical language. For instance, much Sufi poetry refers to intoxication, which Islam expressly forbids. This usage of indirect language and the existence of interpretations by people who had no training in Islam or Sufism led to doubts being cast over the validity of Sufism as a part of Islam. Also, some groups emerged that considered themselves above the sharia and discussed Sufism as a method of bypassing the rules of Islam in order to attain salvation directly. This was disapproved of by traditional scholars.

For these and other reasons, the relationship between traditional Islamic scholars and Sufism is complex, and a range of scholarly opinion on Sufism in Islam has been the norm. Some scholars, such as Al-Ghazali, helped its propagation while other scholars opposed it. William Chittick explains the position of Sufism and Sufis this way:

In short, Muslim scholars who focused their energies on understanding the normative guidelines for the body came to be known as jurists, and those who held that the most important task was to train the mind in achieving correct understanding came to be divided into three main schools of thought: theology, philosophy, and Sufism. This leaves us with the third domain of human existence, the spirit. Most Muslims who devoted their major efforts to developing the spiritual dimensions of the human person came to be known as Sufis.[42]

Iranians embracing Sufism

Islamic mysticism essentially provided a mechanism for individuals to connect with and realize this fundamental truth and thus fascinated those who wanted a direct connection with the divine; thence while the end of the Sassanid period prepared the Persians for a new faith, the converted Zoroastrians (of whom there were many at the time), were able to retain some of their former Amesha Spentas by following the philosophy of the early Sufis. These included Asha Vahishta (truth and righteousness) and Spenta Armaiti (holy devotion, serenity, and loving-kindness); they believed Man could know God through his Divine Attributes; a belief akin to the belief of the Sufis that through contemplating on God’s divine essence one can become closer to ‘Him.’ As the Persians began to adopt Islam in large numbers, particularly in Northeast Iran, Arabic developed as the primary language for literature whilst Persian remained the language used by the masses in spoken form. Once the consolidated power of the caliphate waned and marginal regions became increasingly independent, Persian speakers wrote Persian in the Arabic script to maintain their cultural identity. With time, the use of Arabic declined further. Persian became the dominant language and the source of great literature; its influence spread to neighboring lands, including India, Afghanistan, and modern-day Pakistan. [113]

Neo-Sufism

The mausoleum (gongbei) of Ma Laichi in Linxia City, China

The term neo-Sufism was originally coined by Fazlur Rahman and used by other scholars to describe reformist currents among 18th century Sufi orders, whose goal was to remove some of the more ecstatic and pantheistic elements of the Sufi tradition and reassert the importance of Islamic law as the basis for inner spirituality and social activism.[23][21] In recent times, it has been increasingly used by scholars like Mark Sedgwick in another sense, to describe various forms of Sufi-influenced spirituality in the West, in particular the deconfessionalized spiritual movements which emphasize universal elements of the Sufi tradition and de-emphasize its Islamic context.[21][22]

Devotional practices

Sufi gathering engaged in dhikr

The devotional practices of Sufis vary widely. Prerequisites to practice include rigorous adherence to Islamic norms (ritual prayer in its five prescribed times each day, the fast of Ramadan, and so forth). Additionally, the seeker ought to be firmly grounded in supererogatory practices known from the life of Muhammad (such as the "sunnah prayers"). This is in accordance with the words, attributed to God, of the following, a famous Hadith Qudsi:

My servant draws near to Me through nothing I love more than that which I have made obligatory for him. My servant never ceases drawing near to Me through supererogatory works until I love him. Then, when I love him, I am his hearing through which he hears, his sight through which he sees, his hand through which he grasps, and his foot through which he walks.

It is also necessary for the seeker to have a correct creed (aqidah),[114] and to embrace with certainty its tenets.[115] The seeker must also, of necessity, turn away from sins, love of this world, the love of company and renown, obedience to satanic impulse, and the promptings of the lower self. (The way in which this purification of the heart is achieved is outlined in certain books, but must be prescribed in detail by a Sufi master.) The seeker must also be trained to prevent the corruption of those good deeds which have accrued to his or her credit by overcoming the traps of ostentation, pride, arrogance, envy, and long hopes (meaning the hope for a long life allowing us to mend our ways later, rather than immediately, here and now).

Sufi practices, while attractive to some, are not a means for gaining knowledge. The traditional scholars of Sufism hold it as absolutely axiomatic that knowledge of God is not a psychological state generated through breath control. Thus, practice of "techniques" is not the cause, but instead the occasion for such knowledge to be obtained (if at all), given proper prerequisites and proper guidance by a master of the way. Furthermore, the emphasis on practices may obscure a far more important fact: The seeker is, in a sense, to become a broken person, stripped of all habits through the practice of (in the words of Imam Al-Ghazali) solitude, silence, sleeplessness, and hunger.[116]

Dhikr

Main article: Dhikr
The name of Allah as written on the disciple's heart, according to the Sarwari Qadri Order

Dhikr is the remembrance of Allah commanded in the Quran for all Muslims through a specific devotional act, such as the repetition of divine names, supplications and aphorisms from hadith literature and the Quran. More generally, dhikr takes a wide range and various layers of meaning.[117] This includes dhikr as any activity in which the Muslim maintains awareness of Allah. To engage in dhikr is to practice consciousness of the Divine Presence and love, or "to seek a state of godwariness". The Quran refers to Muhammad as the very embodiment of dhikr of Allah (65:10–11). Some types of dhikr are prescribed for all Muslims and do not require Sufi initiation or the prescription of a Sufi master because they are deemed to be good for every seeker under every circumstance.[118]

The dhikr may slightly vary among each order. Some Sufi orders[119] engage in ritualized dhikr ceremonies, or sema. Sema includes various forms of worship such as recitation, singing (the most well known being the Qawwali music of the Indian subcontinent), instrumental music, dance (most famously the Sufi whirling of the Mevlevi order), incense, meditation, ecstasy, and trance.[120]

Some Sufi orders stress and place extensive reliance upon dhikr. This practice of dhikr is called Dhikr-e-Qulb (invocation of Allah within the heartbeats). The basic idea in this practice is to visualize the Allah as having been written on the disciple's heart.[121]

Muraqaba

Main article: Muraqaba
An Algerian Sufi in Murāqabah. La prière by Eugène Girardet.

The practice of muraqaba can be likened to the practices of meditation attested in many faith communities.[122] While variation exists, one description of the practice within a Naqshbandi lineage reads as follows:

He is to collect all of his bodily senses in concentration, and to cut himself off from all preoccupation and notions that inflict themselves upon the heart. And thus he is to turn his full consciousness towards God Most High while saying three times: "Ilahî anta maqsûdî wa-ridâka matlûbî—my God, you are my Goal and Your good pleasure is what I seek". Then he brings to his heart the Name of the Essence—Allâh—and as it courses through his heart he remains attentive to its meaning, which is "Essence without likeness". The seeker remains aware that He is Present, Watchful, Encompassing of all, thereby exemplifying the meaning of his saying (may God bless him and grant him peace): "Worship God as though you see Him, for if you do not see Him, He sees you". And likewise the prophetic tradition: "The most favored level of faith is to know that God is witness over you, wherever you may be".[123]

Sufi whirling

Main article: Sufi whirling
Whirling Dervishes, at Rumi Fest 2007

The traditional view of the more orthodox Sunni Sufi orders, such as the Qadiriyya and the Chisti, as well as Sunni Muslim scholars in general, is that dancing with intent during dhikr or whilst listening to Sema is prohibited.[124][125][126][127]

Sufi whirling (or Sufi spinning) is a form of Sama or physically active meditation which originated among some Sufis, and which is still practised by the Sufi Dervishes of the Mevlevi order. It is a customary dance performed within the sema, through which dervishes (also called semazens, from Persian سماعزن) aim to reach the source of all perfection, or kemal. This is sought through abandoning one's nafs, egos or personal desires, by listening to the music, focusing on God, and spinning one's body in repetitive circles, which has been seen as a symbolic imitation of planets in the Solar System orbiting the sun.[128]

As explained by Mevlevi practitioners:[129]

In the symbolism of the Sema ritual, the semazen's camel's hair hat (sikke) represents the tombstone of the ego; his wide, white skirt (tennure) represents the ego's shroud. By removing his black cloak (hırka), he is spiritually reborn to the truth. At the beginning of the Sema, by holding his arms crosswise, the semazen appears to represent the number one, thus testifying to God's unity. While whirling, his arms are open: his right arm is directed to the sky, ready to receive God's beneficence; his left hand, upon which his eyes are fastened, is turned toward the earth. The semazen conveys God's spiritual gift to those who are witnessing the Sema. Revolving from right to left around the heart, the semazen embraces all humanity with love. The human being has been created with love in order to love. Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi says, "All loves are a bridge to Divine love. Yet, those who have not had a taste of it do not know!"

Singing

File:Kurdish Dervishes practice sufism (Dhikr).ogv
Kurdish Dervishes practice Sufism with playing Daf in Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan.

Musical instruments (except the Daf) have traditionally been considered as prohibited by the four orthodox Sunni schools,[124][130][131][132][133] and the more orthodox Sufi tariqas also continued to prohibit their use. Throughout history Sufi saints have stressed that musical instruments are forbidden.[124][134][135]

Qawwali was originally a form of Sufi devotional singing popular in South Asia, and is now usually performed at dargahs. Sufi saint Amir Khusrau is said to have infused Persian, Arabic Turkish and Indian classical melodic styles to create the genre in the 13th century. The songs are classified into hamd, na'at, manqabat, marsiya or ghazal, among others. Historically, Sufi Saints permitted and encouraged it, whilst maintaining that musical instruments and female voices should not be introduced, although these are commonplace today.[124][134]

Nowadays, the songs last for about 15 to 30 minutes, are performed by a group of singers, and instruments including the harmonium, tabla and dholak are used. Pakistani singing maestro Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is credited with popularizing qawwali all over the world.[136]

Saints

A Persian miniature depicting the medieval saint and mystic Ahmad Ghazali (d. 1123), brother of the famous Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111), talking to a disciple, from the Meetings of the Lovers (1552)
Main article: Wali

Walī (Arabic: ولي, plural ʾawliyāʾ أولياء) is an Arabic word whose literal meanings include "custodian", "protector", "helper", and "friend."[137] In the vernacular, it is most commonly used by Muslims to indicate an Islamic saint, otherwise referred to by the more literal "friend of God."[138][139][140] In the traditional Islamic understanding of saints, the saint is portrayed as someone "marked by [special] divine favor ... [and] holiness", and who is specifically "chosen by God and endowed with exceptional gifts, such as the ability to work miracles."[141] The doctrine of saints was articulated by Islamic scholars very early on in Muslim history,[142][143][11][144] and particular verses of the Quran and certain hadith were interpreted by early Muslim thinkers as "documentary evidence"[11] of the existence of saints.

Since the first Muslim hagiographies were written during the period when Sufism began its rapid expansion, many of the figures who later came to be regarded as the major saints in Sunni Islam were the early Sufi mystics, like Hasan of Basra (d. 728), Farqad Sabakhi (d. 729), Dawud Tai (d. 777-81) Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya (d. 801), Maruf Karkhi (d. 815), and Junayd of Baghdad (d. 910). From the twelfth to the fourteenth century, "the general veneration of saints, among both people and sovereigns, reached its definitive form with the organization of Sufism ... into orders or brotherhoods."[145] In the common expressions of Islamic piety of this period, the saint was understood to be "a contemplative whose state of spiritual perfection ... [found] permanent expression in the teaching bequeathed to his disciples."[145]

Visitation

Main article: Ziyara
Sufi mosque in Esfahan, Iran

In popular Sufism (i.e. devotional practices that have achieved currency in world cultures through Sufi influence), one common practice is to visit or make pilgrimages to the tombs of saints, renowned scholars, and righteous people. This is a particularly common practice in South Asia, where famous tombs include such saints as Sayyid Ali Hamadani in Kulob, Tajikistan; Afāq Khoja, near Kashgar, China; Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sindh; Ali Hujwari in Lahore, Pakistan; Bahauddin Zakariya in Multan Pakistan; Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer, India; Nizamuddin Auliya in Delhi, India; and Shah Jalal in Sylhet, Bangladesh.

Likewise, in Fez, Morocco, a popular destination for such pious visitation is the Zaouia Moulay Idriss II and the yearly visitation to see the current Sheikh of the Qadiri Boutchichi Tariqah, Sheikh Sidi Hamza al Qadiri al Boutchichi to celebrate the Mawlid (which is usually televised on Moroccan National television).[146][147]

Miracles

Main article: Karamat

In Islamic mysticism, karamat (Arabic: کرامات karāmāt, pl. of کرامة karāmah, lit. generosity, high-mindedness[148]) refers to supernatural wonders performed by Muslim saints. In the technical vocabulary of Islamic religious sciences, the singular form karama has a sense similar to charism, a favor or spiritual gift freely bestowed by God.[149] The marvels ascribed to Islamic saints have included supernatural physical actions, predictions of the future, and "interpretation of the secrets of hearts".[149] Historically, a "belief in the miracles of saints (karāmāt al-awliyāʾ, literally 'marvels of the friends [of God]')" has been "a requirement in Sunni Islam."[150]

Shrines

A dargah (Persian: درگاه dargâh or درگه dargah, also in Punjabi and Urdu) is a shrine built over the grave of a revered religious figure, often a Sufi saint or dervish. Sufis often visit the shrine for ziyarat, a term associated with religious visits and pilgrimages. Dargahs are often associated with Sufi eating and meeting rooms and hostels, called khanqah or hospices. They usually include a mosque, meeting rooms, Islamic religious schools (madrassas), residences for a teacher or caretaker, hospitals, and other buildings for community purposes.

Theoretical perspectives

The works of Al-Ghazali firmly defended the concepts of Sufism within the Islamic faith.

Traditional Islamic scholars have recognized two major branches within the practice of Sufism and use this as one key to differentiating among the approaches of different masters and devotional lineages.[151]

On the one hand there is the order from the signs to the Signifier (or from the arts to the Artisan). In this branch, the seeker begins by purifying the lower self of every corrupting influence that stands in the way of recognizing all of creation as the work of God, as God's active self-disclosure or theophany.[152] This is the way of Imam Al-Ghazali and of the majority of the Sufi orders.

On the other hand, there is the order from the Signifier to his signs, from the Artisan to his works. In this branch the seeker experiences divine attraction (jadhba), and is able to enter the order with a glimpse of its endpoint, of direct apprehension of the Divine Presence towards which all spiritual striving is directed. This does not replace the striving to purify the heart, as in the other branch; it simply stems from a different point of entry into the path. This is the way primarily of the masters of the Naqshbandi and Shadhili orders.[153]

Contemporary scholars may also recognize a third branch, attributed to the late Ottoman scholar Said Nursi and explicated in his vast Qur'an commentary called the Risale-i Nur. This approach entails strict adherence to the way of Muhammad, in the understanding that this wont, or sunnah, proposes a complete devotional spirituality adequate to those without access to a master of the Sufi way.[154]

Contributions to other domains of scholarship

Sufism has contributed significantly to the elaboration of theoretical perspectives in many domains of intellectual endeavor. For instance, the doctrine of "subtle centers" or centers of subtle cognition (known as Lataif-e-sitta) addresses the matter of the awakening of spiritual intuition.[155] In general, these subtle centers or latâ'if are thought of as faculties that are to be purified sequentially in order to bring the seeker's wayfaring to completion. A concise and useful summary of this system from a living exponent of this tradition has been published by Muhammad Emin Er.[151]

Sufi psychology has influenced many areas of thinking both within and outside of Islam, drawing primarily upon three concepts. Ja'far al-Sadiq (both an imam in the Shia tradition and a respected scholar and link in chains of Sufi transmission in all Islamic sects) held that human beings are dominated by a lower self called the nafs (self, ego, person), a faculty of spiritual intuition called the qalb (heart), and ruh (soul). These interact in various ways, producing the spiritual types of the tyrant (dominated by nafs), the person of faith and moderation (dominated by the spiritual heart), and the person lost in love for God (dominated by the ruh).[156]

Of note with regard to the spread of Sufi psychology in the West is Robert Frager, a Sufi teacher authorized in the Khalwati Jerrahi order. Frager was a trained psychologist, born in the United States, who converted to Islam in the course of his practice of Sufism and wrote extensively on Sufism and psychology.[157]

Sufi cosmology and Sufi metaphysics are also noteworthy areas of intellectual accomplishment.[158]

Prominent Sufis

Abdul-Qadir Gilani

Geometric tiling on the underside of the dome of Hafiz Shirazi's tomb in Shiraz

Abdul-Qadir Gilani (1077–1166) was a Mesopotamian-born Hanbali jurist and prominent Sufi scholar based in Baghdad, with Persian roots. Qadiriyya was his patronym. Gilani spent his early life in Na'if, a town just East to Baghdad, also the town of his birth. There, he pursued the study of Hanbali law. Abu Saeed Mubarak Makhzoomi gave Gilani lessons in fiqh. He was given lessons about hadith by Abu Bakr ibn Muzaffar. He was given lessons about Tafsir by Abu Muhammad Ja'far, a commentator. His Sufi spiritual instructor was Abu'l-Khair Hammad ibn Muslim al-Dabbas. After completing his education, Gilani left Baghdad. He spent twenty-five years as a reclusive wanderer in the desert regions of Iraq. In 1127, Gilani returned to Baghdad and began to preach to the public. He joined the teaching staff of the school belonging to his own teacher, Abu Saeed Mubarak Makhzoomi, and was popular with students. In the morning he taught hadith and tafsir, and in the afternoon he held discourse on the science of the heart and the virtues of the Quran. He is the founder of Qadiri order.[159]

Abul Hasan ash-Shadhili

Abul Hasan ash-Shadhili (died 1258), the founder of the Shadhiliyya order, introduced dhikr jahri (the remembrance of God out loud, as opposed to the silent dhikr). He taught that his followers need not abstain from what Islam has not forbidden, but to be grateful for what God has bestowed upon them,[160] in contrast to the majority of Sufis, who preach to deny oneself and to destroy the ego-self (nafs) "Order of Patience" (Tariqus-Sabr), Shadhiliyya is formulated to be "Order of Gratitude" (Tariqush-Shukr). Imam Shadhili also gave eighteen valuable hizbs (litanies) to his followers out of which the notable Hizb al-Bahr[161] is recited worldwide even today.

Ahmad Al-Tijani

A manuscript of Sufi Islamic theology, Shams al-Ma'arif (The Book of the Sun of Gnosis), was written by the Algerian Sufi master Ahmad al-Buni during the 12th century.

Ahmed Tijani (1737–1815), in Arabic سيدي أحمد التجاني (Sidi Ahmed Tijani), is the founder of the Tijaniyya Sufi order. He was born in a Berber family,[162][163][164] in Aïn Madhi, present-day Algeria and died at the age of 78 in Fez.[165][166]

Bayazid Bastami

Bayazid Bastami is a recognized and influential Sufi personality from Shattari order.[citation needed] Bastami was born in 804 in Bastam.[167] Bayazid is regarded for his devout commitment to the Sunnah and his dedication to fundamental Islamic principals and practices.

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (died 1986) was a Sufi Sheikh from Sri Lanka. He was found by a group of religious pilgrims in the early 1900s meditating in the jungles of Kataragama in Sri Lanka (Ceylon). Awed and inspired by his personality and the depth of his wisdom, he was invited to a nearby village. Thereafter, people from various walks of life, from paupers to prime ministers, belonging to various religious and ethnic backgrounds came to see Sheikh Bawa Muhaiyaddeen to seek comfort, guidance and help. Sheikh Bawa Muhaiyaddeen spent the rest of his life preaching, healing and comforting the many souls that came to see him.

Ibn Arabi

Ibn 'Arabi (or Ibn al-'Arabi) (AH 561 – AH 638; July 28, 1165 – November 10, 1240) is considered to be one of the most important Sufi masters, although he never founded any order (tariqa). His writings, especially al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya and Fusus al-hikam, have been studied within all the Sufi orders as the clearest expression of tawhid (Divine Unity), though because of their recondite nature they were often only given to initiates. Later those who followed his teaching became known as the school of wahdat al-wujud (the Oneness of Being). He himself considered his writings to have been divinely inspired. As he expressed the Way to one of his close disciples, his legacy is that 'you should never ever abandon your servant-hood (ʿubudiyya), and that there may never be in your soul a longing for any existing thing'.[168]

Junayd of Baghdad

Junayd al-Baghdadi (830–910) was one of the great early Sufis. His order was Junaidia, which links to the golden chain of many Sufi orders. He laid the groundwork for sober mysticism in contrast to that of God-intoxicated Sufis like al-Hallaj, Bayazid Bastami and Abusaeid Abolkheir. During the trial of al-Hallaj, his former disciple, the Caliph of the time demanded his fatwa. In response, he issued this fatwa: "From the outward appearance he is to die and we judge according to the outward appearance and God knows better". He is referred to by Sufis as Sayyid-ut Taifa—i.e., the leader of the group. He lived and died in the city of Baghdad.

Mansur Al-Hallaj

Mansur Al-Hallaj (died 922) is renowned for his claim, Ana-l-Haqq ("I am The Truth"). His refusal to recant this utterance, which was regarded as apostasy, led to a long trial. He was imprisoned for 11 years in a Baghdad prison, before being tortured and publicly dismembered on March 26, 922. He is still revered by Sufis for his willingness to embrace torture and death rather than recant. It is said that during his prayers, he would say "O Lord! You are the guide of those who are passing through the Valley of Bewilderment. If I am a heretic, enlarge my heresy".[169]

Moinuddin Chishti

A Mughal-era Sufi prayer book from the Chishti order

Moinuddin Chishti was born in 1141 and died in 1236. Also known as Gharīb Nawāz ("Benefactor of the Poor"), he is the most famous Sufi saint of the Chishti Order. Moinuddin Chishti introduced and established the order in the Indian subcontinent. The initial spiritual chain or silsila of the Chishti order in India, comprising Moinuddin Chishti, Bakhtiyar Kaki, Baba Farid, Nizamuddin Auliya (each successive person being the disciple of the previous one), constitutes the great Sufi saints of Indian history. Moinuddin Chishtī turned towards India, reputedly after a dream in which Muhammad blessed him to do so. After a brief stay at Lahore, he reached Ajmer along with Sultan Shahāb-ud-Din Muhammad Ghori, and settled down there. In Ajmer, he attracted a substantial following, acquiring a great deal of respect amongst the residents of the city. Moinuddin Chishtī practiced the Sufi Sulh-e-Kul (peace to all) concept to promote understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims.[170]

Rabi'a Al-'Adawiyya

Depiction of Rabi'a grinding grain from a Persian dictionary

Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya or Rabia of Basra (died 801) was a mystic who represents countercultural elements of Sufism, especially with regards to the status and power of women. Prominent Sufi leader Hasan of Basra is said to have castigated himself before her superior merits and sincere virtues.[171] Rabi'a was born of very poor origin, but was captured by bandits at a later age and sold into slavery. She was however released by her master when he awoke one night to see the light of sanctity shining above her head.[172] Rabi'a al-Adawiyya is known for her teachings and emphasis on the centrality of the love of God to a holy life.[173] She is said to have proclaimed, running down the streets of Basra, Iraq:

O God! If I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell, and if I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise. But if I worship You for Your Own sake, grudge me not Your everlasting Beauty.

— Rabi'a al-Adawiyya

She died in Jerusalem and is thought to have been buried in the Chapel of the Ascension.

Reception

Persecution of Sufi Muslims

Main article: Persecution of Sufis
See also: Sectarian violence among Muslims and Sufi–Salafi relations
Muslim pilgrims gathered around the Ḍarīẖ covering the grave (qabr) of the 13th-century Sufi saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar (shrine located in Sehwan Sharif, Pakistan); on 16 February 2017, ISIS claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on the shrine which resulted in the deaths of 90 people.[174][175][176]

The persecution of Sufism and Sufi Muslims over the course of centuries has included acts of religious discrimination, persecution and violence, such as the destruction of Sufi shrines, tombs, and mosques, suppression of Sufi orders, and discrimination against adherents of Sufism in a number of Muslim-majority countries.[2] The Republic of Turkey banned all Sufi orders and abolished their institutions in 1925, after Sufis opposed the new secular order. The Islamic Republic of Iran has harassed Shia Sufis, reportedly for their lack of support for the government doctrine of "governance of the jurist" (i.e., that the supreme Shiite jurist should be the nation's political leader).

In most other Muslim-majority countries, attacks on Sufis and especially their shrines have come from adherents of puritanical and revivalist Islamic movements (Salafis and Wahhabis), who believe that practices such as visitation to and veneration of the tombs of Sufi saints, celebration of the birthdays of Sufi saints, and dhikr ("remembrance" of God) ceremonies are bid‘ah (impure "innovation") and shirk ("polytheistic").[2][177][178][179][180]

In Egypt, at least 305 people were killed and more than 100 wounded during the November 2017 Islamic terrorist attack on a Sufi mosque located in Sinai; it is considered one of the worst terrorist attacks in the history of modern Egypt.[177][181] Most of the victims were Sufis.[177][181]

Perception outside Islam

A choreographed Sufi performance on a Friday in Sudan

Sufi mysticism has long exercised a fascination upon the Western world, and especially its Orientalist scholars.[182] Figures like Rumi have become well known in the United States, where Sufism is perceived as a peaceful and apolitical form of Islam.[182][183] Hossein Nasr states that the preceding theories are false according to the point of view of Sufism.[184] The 19th-century Scottish explorer David Livingstone said of Sufism:

"Sufi practices are merely attempts to attain psychic states—for their own sake—though it is claimed the pursuit represents seeking closeness to God, and that the achieved magical powers are gifts of advanced spirituality. For several reasons, Sufism was generally looked upon as heretical among Muslim scholars. Among the deviations introduced by the Sufis was the tendency to believe the daily prayers to be only for the masses who had not achieved deeper spiritual knowledge, but could be disregarded by those more advanced spiritually. The Sufis introduced the practice of congregational Dhikr, or religious oral exercises, consisting of a continuous repetition of the name of God. These practices were unknown to early Islam, and consequently regarded as Bid'ah, meaning "unfounded innovation." Also, many of the Sufis adopted the practice of total Tawakkul, or complete "trust" or "dependence" on God, by avoiding all kinds of labor or commerce, refusing medical care when they were ill, and living by begging."[185]

A 17th-century miniature of Nasreddin, a Seljuk satirical figure, currently in the Topkapı Palace Museum Library

The Islamic Institute in Mannheim, Germany, which works towards the integration of Europe and Muslims, sees Sufism as particularly suited for interreligious dialogue and intercultural harmonisation in democratic and pluralist societies; it has described Sufism as a symbol of tolerance and humanism—nondogmatic, flexible and non-violent.[186] According to Philip Jenkins, a Professor at Baylor University, "the Sufis are much more than tactical allies for the West: they are, potentially, the greatest hope for pluralism and democracy within Muslim nations." Likewise, several governments and organisations have advocated the promotion of Sufism as a means of combating intolerant and violent strains of Islam.[187] For example, the Chinese and Russian[188] governments openly favor Sufism as the best means of protecting against Islamist subversion. The British government, especially following the 7 July 2005 London bombings, has favoured Sufi groups in its battle against Muslim extremist currents. The influential RAND Corporation, an American think-tank, issued a major report titled "Building Moderate Muslim Networks," which urged the US government to form links with and bolster[189] Muslim groups that opposed Islamist extremism. The report stressed the Sufi role as moderate traditionalists open to change, and thus as allies against violence.[190][191] News organisations such as the BBC, Economist and Boston Globe have also seen Sufism as a means to deal with violent Muslim extremists.[192]

Idries Shah states that Sufism is universal in nature, its roots predating the rise of Islam and Christianity.[193] He quotes Suhrawardi as saying that "this [Sufism] was a form of wisdom known to and practiced by a succession of sages including the mysterious ancient Hermes of Egypt.", and that Ibn al-Farid "stresses that Sufism lies behind and before systematization; that 'our wine existed before what you call the grape and the vine' (the school and the system)..."[194] Shah's views have however been rejected by modern scholars.[18] Such modern trends of neo-Sufis in Western countries allow non-Muslims to receive "instructions on following the Sufi path", not without opposition by Muslims who consider such instruction outside the sphere of Islam.[195]

Similarities with Eastern religions

Numerous comparisons have been made between Sufism and the mystic components of some Eastern religions.

The 10th-century Persian polymath Al-Biruni in his book Tahaqeeq Ma Lilhind Min Makulat Makulat Fi Aliaqbal Am Marzula (Critical Study of Indian Speech: Rationally Acceptable or Rejected) discusses the similarity of some Sufism concepts with aspects of Hinduism, such as: Atma with ruh, tanasukh with reincarnation, Mokhsha with Fanafillah, Ittihad with Nirvana: union between Paramatma in Jivatma, Avatar or Incarnation with Hulul, Vedanta with Wahdatul Ujud, Mujahadah with Sadhana.[citation needed]

Other scholars have likewise compared the Sufi concept of Waḥdat al-Wujūd to Advaita Vedanta,[196] Fanaa to Samadhi,[197] Muraqaba to Dhyana, and tariqa to the Noble Eightfold Path.[198]

The 9th-century Iranian mystic Bayazid Bostami is alleged to have imported certain concepts from Hindusim into his version of Sufism under the conceptual umbrella of baqaa, meaning perfection.[199] Ibn al-Arabi and Mansur al-Hallaj both referred to Muhammad as having attained perfection and titled him as Al-Insān al-Kāmil.[200][201][202][203][204][205] The Sufism concept of hulul has similarly been compared with the idea of Ishvaratva, that God dwells in some creatures in Hinduism and Buddhism, and godhood of Jesus in Christianity.[206]

Influence on Judaism

See also: Jewish philosophy

There is evidence that Sufism did influence the development of some schools of Jewish philosophy and ethics. In the first writing of this kind, we see Kitab al-Hidayah ila Fara'iḍ al-Ḳulub, Duties of the Heart, of Bahya ibn Paquda. This book was translated by Judah ibn Tibbon into Hebrew under the title Chovot HaLevavot.[207]

The precepts prescribed by the Torah number 613 only; those dictated by the intellect are innumerable.

— Kremer, Alfred Von. 1868. "Notice sur Sha‘rani." Journal Asiatique 11 (6): 258.

In the ethical writings of the Sufis Al-Kusajri and Al-Harawi there are sections which treat of the same subjects as those treated in the Chovot ha-Lebabot and which bear the same titles: e.g., "Bab al-Tawakkul"; "Bab al-Taubah"; "Bab al-Muḥasabah"; "Bab al-Tawaḍu'"; "Bab al-Zuhd". In the ninth gate, Baḥya directly quotes sayings of the Sufis, whom he calls Perushim. However, the author of the Chovot HaLevavot did not go so far as to approve of the asceticism of the Sufis, although he showed a marked predilection for their ethical principles.

Abraham Maimonides, the son of the Jewish philosopher Maimonides, believed that Sufi practices and doctrines continue the tradition of the biblical prophets.[208]

Abraham Maimonides' principal work was originally composed in Judeo-Arabic and entitled "כתאב כפאיה אלעאבדין" Kitāb Kifāyah al-'Ābidīn (A Comprehensive Guide for the Servants of God). From the extant surviving portion it is conjectured that the treatise was three times as long as his father's Guide for the Perplexed. In the book, he evidences a great appreciation for, and affinity to, Sufism. Followers of his path continued to foster a Jewish-Sufi form of pietism for at least a century, and he is rightly considered the founder of this pietistic school, which was centered in Egypt.[209]

The followers of this path, which they called, Hasidism (not to be confused with the [later] Jewish Hasidic movement) or Sufism (Tasawwuf), practiced spiritual retreats, solitude, fasting and sleep deprivation. The Jewish Sufis maintained their own brotherhood, guided by a religious leader like a Sufi sheikh.[210]

The Jewish Encyclopedia, in its entry on Sufism, states that the revival of Jewish mysticism in Muslim countries is probably due to the spread of Sufism in the same geographical areas. The entry details many parallels to Sufic concepts found in the writings of prominent Kabbalists during the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain.[211][212]

Culture

Literature

The 13th century Persian poet Rumi, is considered one of the most influential figures of Sufism, as well as one of the greatest poets of all time. He has become one of the most widely read poets in the United States, thanks largely to the interpretative translations published by Coleman Barks.[213] Elif Şafak's novel The Forty Rules of Love is a fictionalized account of Rumi's encounter with the Persian dervish Shams Tabrizi.[214]

Allama Iqbal, one of the greatest Urdu poets has discussed Sufism, philosophy and Islam in his English work The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam.[215]

Visual art

Main article: Islamic art

Many painters and visual artists have explored the Sufi motif through various disciplines. One of the outstanding pieces in the Brooklyn Museum's Islamic gallery has been the museum's associate curator of Islamic art, is a large 19th- or early-20th-century portrayal of the Battle of Karbala painted by Abbas Al-Musavi,[216] which was a violent episode in the disagreement between the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam; during this battle, Husayn ibn Ali, a pious grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, died and is considered a martyr in Islam.[217]

In July 2016, at International Sufi Festival[218] held in Noida Film City, UP, India, H.E. Abdul Basit who was the High Commissioner of Pakistan to India at that time, while inaugurating the exhibition of Farkhananda Khan said, "There is no barrier of words or explanation about the paintings or rather there is a soothing message of brotherhood, peace in Sufism".

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ The following are among definitions of Sufism quoted in an early Sufi treatise by Abu Nasr as-Sarraj:
     • "Sufism is that you should be with God--without any attachment." (Junayd of Baghdad)
     • "Sufism consists of abandoning oneself to God in accordance with what God wills." (Ruwaym ibn Ahmad)
     • "Sufism is that you should not possess anything nor should anything possess you." (Samnun)
     • "Sufism consists of entering every exalted quality (khulq) and leaving behind every despicable quality." (Abu Muhammad al-Jariri)
     • "Sufism is that at each moment the servant should be in accord with what is most appropriate (awla) at that moment." ('Amr ibn 'Uthman al-Makki)

Citations

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  70. ^ Jump up to:a b Titus Burckhardt, Introduction to Sufi Doctrine (Bloomington: World Wisdom, 2008, p. 4, note 2
  71. ^ Martin Lings, What is Sufism? (Lahore: Suhail Academy, 2005; first imp. 1983, second imp. 1999), pp. 16-17
  72. ^ "Caner Dagli, "Rumi, the Qur'an, and Heterodoxy," note on Facebook". facebook.com. 6 January 2015.
  73. ^ Rozina Ali, "The Erasure of Islam from the Poetry of Rumi," The New Yorker, Jan. 5 2017
  74. ^ For the pre-modern era, see Vincent J. Cornell, Realm of the Saint: Power and Authority in Moroccan Sufism, ISBN 978-0-292-71209-6; and for the colonial era, Knut Vikyr, Sufi and Scholar on the Desert Edge: Muhammad B. Oali Al-Sanusi and His Brotherhood, ISBN 978-0-8101-1226-1.
  75. ^ Leonard Lewisohn, The Legacy of Medieval Persian Sufism, Khaniqahi-Nimatullahi Publications, 1992.
  76. ^ Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islam: Religion, History, and Civilization, HarperSanFrancisco, 2003. (Ch. 1)
  77. ^ Dina Le Gall, A Culture of Sufism: Naqshbandis in the Ottoman World, 1450–1700, ISBN 978-0-7914-6245-4.
  78. ^ Arthur F. Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet: The Indian Naqshbandiyya and the Rise of the Mediating Sufi Shaykh, ISBN 978-1-57003-783-2.
  79. ^ "The natural and architectural ensemble of Blagaj". UNESCO World Heritage Centre - Tentative List of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 11 December 2007. Retrieved 2 May 2020.
  80. ^ "Tekke in Blagaj on the Buna Spring, the natural and architectural ensemble of Blagaj". Commission to Preserve National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina "Tekke in Blagaj on the Buna Spring, the natural and architectural ensemble of Blagaj". 9 May 2005. Retrieved 2 May 2020.
  81. ^ Victor Danner, The Islamic Tradition: An introduction. Amity House. February 1988.
  82. ^ Jump up to:a b c Voll, John O. (2009). "ṢūfĪ Orders". In John L. Esposito (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic 9.3World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  83. ^ Knysh, Alexander (2010). "Sufism". In Irwin, Robert (ed.). The New Cambridge History of Islam. Volume 4: Islamic Cultures and Societies to the End of the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge University Press. pp. 60–61.
  84. ^ Masatoshi Kisaichi, "The Burhami order and Islamic resurgence in modern Egypt." Popular Movements and Democratization in the Islamic World, pg. 57. Part of the New Horizons in Islamic Studies series. Ed. Masatoshi Kisaichi. London: Routledge, 2006. ISBN 9781134150618
  85. ^ Babou 2007, p. 184–6.
  86. ^ Mbacké & Hunwick 2005.
  87. ^ Chodkiewicz 1995, Introduction.
  88. ^ "Sufism". Oxford Islamic Studies Online. Retrieved 26 August 2015.
  89. ^ Googelberg, compiled form Wikipedia entries and published by Dr. Islam. Lulu.com. ISBN 978-1-291-21521-2.
  90. ^ Abul Hasan ash-Shadhili (1993). The School of the Shadhdhuliyyah. Islamic Texts Society. ISBN 978-0-946621-57-6.
  91. ^ Muhammad Emin Er, Laws of the Heart: A Practical Introduction to the Sufi Path, Shifâ Publishers, 2008, ISBN 978-0-9815196-1-6
  92. ^ Abdullah Nur ad-Din Durkee, The School of the Shadhdhuliyyah, Volume One: Orisons; see also Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, Classical Islam and the Naqshbandi Sufi Tradition, ISBN 978-1-930409-23-1, which reproduces the spiritual lineage (silsila) of a living Sufi master.
  93. ^ Jump up to:a b Momen, Moojan (1985). An Introduction to Shiʻi Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shiʻism. Yale University Press. p. 209. ISBN 978-0-300-03531-5.
  94. ^ Mohammad Najib-ur-Rehman Madzillah-ul-Aqdus (2015). Sultan Bahoo: The Life and Teachings. Sultan ul Faqr Publications. ISBN 978-969-9795-18-3.
  95. ^ See Muhammad Emin Er, Laws of the Heart: A Practical Introduction to the Sufi Path, Shifâ Publishers, 2008, ISBN 978-0-9815196-1-6, for a detailed description of the practices and preconditions of this sort of spiritual retreat.
  96. ^ See examples provided by Muzaffar Ozak in Irshad: Wisdom of a Sufi Master, addressed to a general audience rather than specifically to his own students.
  97. ^ Knysh, Alexander. "Sufism". Islamic cultures and societies to the end of the eighteenth century. Irwin, Robert, 1946-. Cambridge. ISBN 9781139056144. OCLC 742957142.
  98. ^ Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, Classical Islam and the Naqshbandi Sufi Tradition, ISBN 978-1-930409-23-1
  99. ^ Ernst 2010, p. 125.
  100. ^ Jump up to:a b Ernst 2010, p. 130.
  101. ^ Aavani, Gholamreza, Glorification of the Prophet Muhammad in the Poems of Sa'adi, p. 4
  102. ^ Gamard 2004, p. 169.
  103. ^ Arabi, Ibn, The Seals of Wisdom (Fusus al-Hikam), Aisha Bewley
  104. ^ Attar, Fariduddin, Ilahi-nama – The Book of God, John Andrew Boyle (translator), Thou knowest that none of the poets have sung such praise save only I.
  105. ^ Attar, Fariduddin, Ilahi-nama – The Book of God, John Andrew Boyle (translator)
  106. ^ The Signs of a Sincere Lover (PDF), p. 91
  107. ^ Jump up to:a b Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych (2010), The Mantle Odes: Arabic Praise Poems to the Prophet Muhammad, Indiana University Press, ISBN 978-0253354877
  108. ^ Muhammad Emin Er, The Soul of Islam: Essential Doctrines and Beliefs, Shifâ Publishers, 2008, ISBN 978-0-9815196-0-9.
  109. ^ Schimmel 2013, p. 99.
  110. ^ Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri; Nuh Ha Mim Keller (1368). "Reliance of the Traveller" (PDF). Amana Publications. pp. 778–795. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  111. ^ Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri; Nuh Ha Mim Keller (1368). "A Classic Manual of Islamic Scared Law" (PDF). Shafiifiqh.com. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  112. ^ The Amman Message Summary. Retrieved on Feb 2, 2010.
  113. ^ "Path of Mysticism in Persia".
  114. ^ For an introduction to the normative creed of Islam as espoused by the consensus of scholars, see Hamza Yusuf, The Creed of Imam al-Tahawi, ISBN 978-0-9702843-9-6, and Ahmad Ibn Muhammad Maghnisawi, Imam Abu Hanifa's Al-Fiqh Al-Akbar Explained, ISBN 978-1-933764-03-0.
  115. ^ The meaning of certainty in this context is emphasized in Muhammad Emin Er, The Soul of Islam: Essential Doctrines and Beliefs, Shifâ Publishers, 2008, ISBN 978-0-9815196-0-9.
  116. ^ See in particular the introduction by T. J. Winter to Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali, Al-Ghazali on Disciplining the Soul and on Breaking the Two Desires: Books XXII and XXIII of the Revival of the Religious Sciences, ISBN 978-0-946621-43-9.
  117. ^ Abdullah Jawadi Amuli. "Dhikr and the Wisdom Behind It" (PDF). Translated by A. Rahmim. Retrieved 2020-02-08.
  118. ^ Hakim Moinuddin Chisti The Book of Sufi Healing, ISBN 978-0-89281-043-7
  119. ^ "The Naqshbandi Way of Dhikr". Archived from the original on 1997-05-29. Retrieved 26 August 2015.
  120. ^ Touma 1996, p.162.[full citation needed]
  121. ^ "What is Remembrance and what is Contemplation?". Archived from the original on 2008-04-15.
  122. ^ "Muraqaba". Archived from the original on 2015-06-09.
  123. ^ Muhammad Emin Er, Laws of the Heart: A Practical Introduction to the Sufi Path, ISBN 978-0-9815196-1-6, p. 77.
  124. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Hussain, Zahid (22 April 2012). "Is it permissible to listen to Qawwali?". TheSunniWay. Retrieved 12 June 2020. Unfortunately, the name "Qawwali" is now only used if there is an addition of musical instruments and at times with the "add on" of dancing and whirling depending on the mood of those present. Musical instruments are forbidden. And so is dancing if it is with intent.
  125. ^ Desai, Siraj (13 January 2011). "Moulana Rumi and Whirling Zikr". askmufti. Retrieved 12 June 2020. However, later on this Simaa’ was modernized to include dancing and music, thus giving rise to the concept of "whirling dervishes". This is a Bid’ah and is not the creation of orthodox Sufism.
  126. ^ Abidin, Ibn. Radd al-Muhtar. Vol. 6. Darul Ma'rifa. p. 396.
  127. ^ Hashiyah at-Tahtaawi. Al-Ilmiyya. p. 319.
  128. ^ "The Sema of the Mevlevi". Mevlevi Order of America. Archived from the original on 2012-12-21. Retrieved 2009-03-26.
  129. ^ "The Whirling Dervishes of Rumi".
  130. ^ Murad, Abdul Hakim. "Music in the Islamic Tradition." Cambridge Muslim College Retreat. May 18, 2017.
  131. ^ Rabbani, Faraz (25 December 2012). "Listening to Islamic Songs with Musical Instruments". Seekers Guidance. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
  132. ^ "Is Music Prohibited in Islam?". My Religion Islam. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
  133. ^ Muhammad Ibn Adam (14 April 2004). "Music and Singing - A Detailed Article". Darul Ifta. Leicester.
  134. ^ Jump up to:a b Muhammad bin Mubarak Kirmani. Siyar-ul-Auliya: History of Chishti Silsila (in Urdu). Translated by Ghulam Ahmed Biryan. Lahore: Mushtaq Book Corner.
  135. ^ Auliya, Nizamuddin (31 December 1996). Fawa'id al-Fu'aad: Spiritual and Literal Discourses. Translated by Z. H. Faruqi. D.K. Print World Ltd. ISBN 9788124600429.
  136. ^ "Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan : National Geographic World Music". 2013-03-20. Archived from the original on 2013-03-20. Retrieved 2018-10-09.
  137. ^ "Mawrid Reader". ejtaal.net.
  138. ^ John Renard, Friends of God: Islamic Images of Piety, Commitment, and Servanthood (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008); Idem., Tales of God Friends: Islamic Hagiography in Translation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), et passim.
  139. ^ Radtke, B.; Lory, P.; Zarcone, Th.; DeWeese, D.; Gaborieau, M.; Denny, F.M.; Aubin, Françoise; Hunwick, J.O.; Mchugh, N. (2012). "Walī". In P. Bearman; Th. Bianquis; C.E. Bosworth; E. van Donzel; W.P. Heinrichs (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.). Brill. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_1335.
  140. ^ Kramer, Robert S.; Lobban, Richard A. Jr.; Fluehr-Lobban, Carolyn (2013). Historical Dictionary of the Sudan. Historical Dictionaries of Africa (4 ed.). Lanham, Maryland, USA: Scarecrow Press, an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield. p. 361. ISBN 978-0-8108-6180-0. Retrieved 2 May 2015. QUBBA. The Arabic name for the tomb of a holy man... A qubba is usually erected over the grave of a holy man identified variously as wali (saint), faki, or shaykh since, according to folk Islam, this is where his baraka [blessings] is believed to be strongest...
  141. ^ Radtke, B., "Saint", in: Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, General Editor: Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C..
  142. ^ J. van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra. Eine Geschichte des religiösen Denkens im frühen Islam, II (Berlin-New York, 1992), pp. 89-90
  143. ^ B. Radtke and J. O’Kane, The Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism (London, 1996), pp. 109-110
  144. ^ B. Radtke, Drei Schriften des Theosophen von Tirmid̲, ii (Beirut-Stuttgart, 1996), pp. 68-69
  145. ^ Jump up to:a b Titus Burckhardt, Art of Islam: Language and Meaning (Bloomington: World Wisdom, 2009), p. 99
  146. ^ "Popular Sufi leader in Morocco dies aged 95". gulfnews.com. Retrieved 2020-12-30.
  147. ^ Staff Writer (2018-03-28). "Confreries: A Crossroads of Morocco's Literary and Spiritual Diversity". Morocco World News. Retrieved 2020-12-30.
  148. ^ Wehr, Hans; Cowan, J. Milton (1979). A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (4th ed.). Spoken Language Services.
  149. ^ Jump up to:a b Gardet, L. (2012). "Karāma". In P. Bearman; Th. Bianquis; C.E. Bosworth; E. van Donzel; W.P. Heinrichs (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.). Brill. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_0445.
  150. ^ Jonathan A.C. Brown, "Faithful Dissenters," Journal of Sufi Studies 1 (2012), p. 123
  151. ^ Jump up to:a b Muhammad Emin Er, Laws of the Heart: A Practical Introduction to the Sufi Order, Shifâ Publishers, 2008, ISBN 978-0-9815196-1-6
  152. ^ For a systematic description of the diseases of the heart that are to be overcome in order for this perspective to take root, see Hamza Yusuf, Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart, ISBN 978-1-929694-15-0.
  153. ^ Concerning this, and for an excellent discussion of the concept of attraction (jadhba), see especially the Introduction to Abdullah Nur ad-Din Durkee, The School of the Shadhdhuliyyah, Volume One: Orisons, ISBN 977-00-1830-9.
  154. ^ Muhammad Emin Er, al-Wasilat al-Fasila, unpublished MS.
  155. ^ Realities of The Heart Lataif
  156. ^ Schimmel 2013.
  157. ^ See especially Robert Frager, Heart, Self & Soul: The Sufi Psychology of Growth, Balance, and Harmony, ISBN 978-0-8356-0778-0.
  158. ^ Akhtar, Ali Humayun (June 10, 2017). Philosophical Sufis among Scholars (ʿulamāʾ) and Their Impact on Political Culture. Philosophers, Sufis, and Caliphs: Politics and Authority from Cordoba to Cairo and Baghdad. Cambridge University Press. pp. 135–237. ISBN 9781107182011.
  159. ^ "Sufism - Sufi orders". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2021-04-18.
  160. ^ "Thareeqush Shukr". Shazuli.com. Retrieved 13 August 2012.
  161. ^ "Hizb ul Bahr – Litany of the Sea". Deenislam.co.uk. Retrieved 27 September 2014.
  162. ^ Jestice, Phyllis G. (2004-12-15). Holy people of the world: a cross-cultural encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 858. ISBN 9781576073551.
  163. ^ Willis, John Ralph (2012-10-12). Studies in West African Islamic History: Volume 1: The Cultivators of Islam, Volume 2: The Evolution of Islamic Institutions & Volume 3: The Growth of Arabic Literature. Routledge. p. 234. ISBN 9781136251603.
  164. ^ Gibb, H. A. R. (1970). Mohammedanism. OUP USA. p. 116. ISBN 9780195002454.
  165. ^ Bangstad, Sindre (2007). Global Flows, Local Appropriations: Facets of Secularisation and Re-Islamization Among Contemporary Cape Muslims. Amsterdam University Press. ISBN 978-90-5356-015-0.
  166. ^ Akyeampong, Emmanuel Kwaku; Henry Louis Gates Jr. (2012-02-02). Dictionary of African Biography. OUP USA. ISBN 978-0-19-538207-5.
  167. ^ Ahmad, Khwaja Jamil (1971). Hundred great Muslims [by] Jamil Ahmad. Ferozsons. OCLC 977150850.
  168. ^ K. al-Wasa'il, quoted in The Unlimited Mercifier, Stephen Hirtenstein, p. 246
  169. ^ Memoirs of the Saints, p.108.[full citation needed]
  170. ^ "Sultan-e-Hind: Mysticism takes centre stage". The Express Tribune. 2011-12-19. Retrieved 2021-04-18.
  171. ^ Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam. Yale University Press, 1992, p. 112.
  172. ^ Smith, Margaret. Rabi'a The Mystic. Cambridge University Press, 1928.
  173. ^ Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam. Yale University Press, 1992, p. 87.
  174. ^ Hassan, Syed Raza (17 February 2017). "Pakistan's Sufis defiant after Islamic State attack on shrine kills 83". Reuters. London. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  175. ^ "88 dead, 343 injured in Sehwan shrine explosion: official data". Daily Times (Pakistan). 17 February 2017. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  176. ^ "Sehwan blast: Death toll reaches 90 as two more victims succumb to injuries". Geo News. 20 February 2017. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  177. ^ Jump up to:a b c Specia, Megan (24 November 2017). "Who Are Sufi Muslims and Why Do Some Extremists Hate Them?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 15 September 2020.
  178. ^ Ibrahim, Baher (10 May 2010). "Salafi intolerance threatens Sufis". The Guardian.
  179. ^ Mir, Tariq. "Kashmir: From Sufi to Salafi". November 5, 2012. Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Retrieved 20 February 2013.
  180. ^ "Salafi Violence against Sufis". Islamopedia Online. Archived from the original on 2013-05-30. Retrieved 24 February 2013.
  181. ^ Jump up to:a b Walsh, Declan; Youssef, Nour (24 November 2017). "Militants Kill 305 at Sufi Mosque in Egypt's Deadliest Terrorist Attack". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 15 September 2020.
  182. ^ Jump up to:a b Geaves, Ron; Gabriel, Theodore; Haddad, Yvonne; Smith, Jane Idleman. Islam and the West Post 9/11. Ashgate Publishing. p. 67.
  183. ^ Corbett, Rosemary R. (2016). Making Moderate Islam: Sufism, Service, and the "Ground Zero Mosque" Controversy. Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804791281. Archived from the original on 2016-10-29. Retrieved 2019-01-02.
  184. ^ Nasr, Seyyed Hossein Nasr (1993-01-01). An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines. ISBN 9780791415153. Retrieved 17 January 2015.
  185. ^ Livingstone, David (2002). The Dying God: The Hidden History of Western Civilization. iUniverse. ISBN 978-0-595-23199-7.
  186. ^ Jamal Malik, John R. Hinnells: Sufism in the West, Routledge, p. 25
  187. ^ Jenkins, Philip (January 25, 2009). "Mystical power". Globe Newspaper Company. Archived from the original on 2014-07-08. Retrieved 26 June 2014.
  188. ^ Parfitt, Tom (23 November 2007). "The battle for the soul of Chechnya". Guardian News and Media Limited. Archived from the original on 2014-09-14. Retrieved 26 June 2014.
  189. ^ "Sufism: Of saints and sinners". The Economist. Dec 18, 2008. Archived from the original on 2014-05-16. Retrieved 26 June 2014.
  190. ^ "MUSLIM NETWORKS AND MOVEMENTS IN WESTERN EUROPE". Pew Research Center. Government Promotion of Sufism. September 15, 2010. Archived from the original on 2014-06-23. Retrieved 26 June 2014.
  191. ^ Rabasa, Angel; Benard, Cheryl; Schwartz, Lowell H.; Sickle, Peter (2007). "Building Moderate Muslim Networks" (PDF). RAND Corporation. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2014-05-31. Retrieved 26 June 2014.
  192. ^ ETERAZ, ALI (June 10, 2009). "State-Sponsored Sufism". FP. Archived from the original on 2014-09-14. Retrieved 26 June 2014.
  193. ^ Munn, Richard C. (January–March 1969). "Reviewed work(s): The Sufis by Idries Shah". Journal of the American Oriental Society. American Oriental Society. 89 (1): 279–281. doi:10.2307/598339. JSTOR 598339.
  194. ^ Shah 1970, p. 28-29.
  195. ^ Shah 1964–2014.
  196. ^ Malika Mohammada The Foundations of the Composite Culture in India Aakar Books 2007 ISBN 978-8-189-83318-3 page 141
  197. ^ The Jamaat Tableegh and the Deobandis by Sajid Abdul Kayum, Chapter 1: Overview and Background.
  198. ^ Mohammada, Malika (2007). The Foundations of the Composite Culture in India. Aakar Books. p. 90. ISBN 978-81-89833-18-3. Retrieved 7 January 2022.
  199. ^ Siddiqui, Ataullah; Waugh, Earle H. American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 16: 3. International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). p. 12. Retrieved 27 December 2021.
  200. ^ Laliwala, J. I. (2005). Islamic Philosophy of Religion: Synthesis of Science Religion and Philosophy. Sarup & Sons. p. 81. ISBN 978-81-7625-476-2. Retrieved 7 January 2022.
  201. ^ Chamankhah, Leila (3 September 2019). The Conceptualization of Guardianship in Iranian Intellectual History (1800–1989): Reading Ibn ʿArabī's Theory of Wilāya in the Shīʿa World. Springer Nature. p. 253. ISBN 978-3-030-22692-3. Retrieved 7 January 2022.
  202. ^ Madzillah-ul-Aqdus, Sultan ul Ashiqeen Hazrat Sakhi Sultan Mohammad Najib-ur-Rehman (11 March 2015). Sultan-Bahoo-The Life and Teachings. Sultan ul Faqr Publications. p. 49. ISBN 978-969-9795-18-3. Retrieved 7 January 2022.
  203. ^ Bahoo, Sultan ul Arifeen Hazrat Sakhi Sultan (2015). Risala Roohi Sharif (The Divine Soul): English Translation and Exegesis with Persian Text. Sultan ul Faqr Publications. p. 58. ISBN 978-969-9795-28-2. Retrieved 7 January 2022.
  204. ^ Bennett, Clinton (1 January 1998). In Search of Muhammad. A&C Black. p. 223. ISBN 978-0-304-70401-9.
  205. ^ Bennett, Clinton (1 January 1998). In Search of Muhammad. A&C Black. p. 190. ISBN 978-0-304-70401-9. Retrieved 7 January 2022.
  206. ^ Nicholls, Ruth J.; Riddell, Peter G. (31 July 2020). Insights into Sufism: Voices from the Heart. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 181. ISBN 978-1-5275-5748-2. Retrieved 7 January 2022.
  207. ^ A Sufi-Jewish Dialogue: Philosophy and Mysticism in Bahya ibn Paquda's Duties of the Heart, Diana Lobel
  208. ^ See Sefer Hammaspiq, "Happerishuth", Chapter 11 ("Ha-mmaʿaḇāq") s.v. hithbonen efo be-masoreth mufla'a zo, citing the Talmudic explanation of Jeremiah 13:27 in Chagigah 5b; in Rabbi Yaakov Wincelberg's translation, "The Way of Serving God" (Feldheim), p. 429 and above, p. 427. Also see ibid., Chapter 10 ("Iqquḇim"), s.v. wa-halo yoḏeʾaʿ atta; in "The Way of Serving God", p. 371.
  209. ^ "Maimonides, Abraham | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2021-04-18.
  210. ^ Loubet, Mireille (15 October 2000). "Jewish pietism of the Sufi type". Bulletin du Centre de Recherche Français À Jérusalem. bcrfj.revues.org (7): 87–91. Retrieved 26 August 2015.
  211. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. 11. 1906. pp. 579–581.
  212. ^ Shah 1970, p. 14-15.
  213. ^ Curiel, Jonathan (6 February 2005). "Islamic verses / The influence of Muslim literature in the United States has grown stronger since the Sept. 11 attacks". SFGate.
  214. ^ "The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak – review". The Guardian. 2011-07-01. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2017-05-05.
  215. ^ Muhammad, Iqbal (1990). The reconstruction of religious thought in Islam (4th ed.). New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan. ISBN 978-8171510818. OCLC 70825403.
  216. ^ "Battle of Karbala". Brooklynmuseum.org. Brooklyn Museum. 2020. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
  217. ^ Cotter, Holland (2009-06-11). "The Many Voices of Enlightenment". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-01-15.
  218. ^ "Exhibition of Paintings by Farkhananda Khan at Sufi Festival". mstv.co.in. July 5, 2016. Retrieved 2020-01-15.

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'Illish
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Abū Sahl Abbād ibn Sulaimān (Salmān) as-Sāymarī
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Najjārīyya

Abū ʿAbdillāh al-Husayn ibn Muḥāmmad ibn ʿAbdillāh an-Najjār ar-Rāzī
Abū Amr (Abū Yahyā) Hāfs al-Fard
Muḥāmmad ibn ʿĪsā (Burgūsīyya)
Abū ʿAbdallāh Ibnū’z-Zā‘farānī (Zā‘farānīyya)
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The Twelve Imams
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Ali al-Hadi
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Allamah Al-Hilli
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Hisham ibn Hakam
Agha Zia ol Din Araghi
Ja'far Sobhani
Ruhollah Khomeini
Shi’a-Ismailiyyah
(Ibn Maymūn)

Ibn Ismāʿīl
Maymūn al-Qaddāḥ's Ismā'īlī doctrine
Al-Qadi al-Nu'man
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Arwa al-Sulayhi
Tayyibi Ismā'īlī doctrine
Dhu'ayb ibn Musa
Hassan Ala Dhikrihi's Salam
Nizārī Ismāʿīlī doctrine
Idris Imad al-Din
Ali ibn Muhammad ibn al-Walid


Key books

Sunni books

Asas al-Taqdis
Al-Baz al-Ashhab
Al-Farq bayn al-Firaq
Al-Milal wa al-Nihal
Al-Irshad
Al-Aqidah al-Tahawiyyah
Al-Sawad al-A'zam
Kitab al-Tawhid
Tabsirat al-Adilla
Masnavi
Fihi Ma Fihi
Divan-i Shams-i Tabrizi
The Moderation in Belief
Shia books

Eʿteqādātal-Emāmīya
Al-Amali
Al-Khisal
Awail Al Maqalat
Tashih al-I'tiqad
Tajrid al-I'tiqad
Independent

Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity
Kitab al-Majmu of Alawis
Malfūzāt of Ahmadiyya
Rasa'il al-Hikma of Druze
Umm al-Kitab of Musta'li Isma'ilism



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A Quaker Perspective on the Qur’an and the Bible – Quaker Theology

A Quaker Perspective on the Qur’an and the Bible – Quaker Theology

A Quaker Perspective on the Qur’an and the Bible

By Anthony Manousos

Quaker Theology > Issues > Issue #14, Fall-Winter 2007-2008 > A Quaker Perspective on the Qur’an and the Bible


George Bernard Shaw once observed that England and America are two countries separated by a common language. It could also be said that Christianity, Islam and Judaism are three religions separated by a common religious heritage. The three great monotheistic faiths all claim Abraham as their common spiritual ancestor. They ascribe to many of the same religious narratives and honor many of the same prophets. They worship one God who is the ruler of the universe. Nonetheless, acrimonious and sometimes bloody disputes have arisen among these self-styled “children of Abraham.”

During our current age of religious conflict, scriptures are cited to justify everything from war and terrorism to peacemaking and social justice. It is important for people of faith, as well as for skeptics, to have a basic understanding of what the Bible and the Qur’an actually say and how they are being interpreted from a variety of theological/philosophical perspectives.

In this essay, I will explore some of some areas of controversy regarding the Bible and the Qur’an, including the nature of God (“Do Muslims, Jews, and Christians worship the same God?”), how these scriptures were composed, and how the ambivalence towards war and peace found in these texts reflects the different levels of spiritual development. I am not trained as a biblical or qur’anic scholar, but I have had scholarly training in English literature and have read the Bible and the Qur’an for many years on a daily basis as part of my spiritual practice. I have also written a pamphlet about “Islam from a Quaker Perspective” and pondered what scholars have written about both these scriptures.

In this essay, I will sum up some of what I have learned and offer some reasons why Friends and others who care about peacemaking in the modern (or postmodern) world would do well to increase their scriptural literacy by reading both the Bible and the Qur’an.

I realize that many unprogrammed Friends, like many Americans, are “biblically illiterate.” Hence the Quaker joke:

What do Quakers from Friends United Meeting [the branch of Quakers known for being mainstream Christians] bring to their bible study class? Answer: A Bible and a cup of coffee.

What do liberal, unprogrammed Friends bring to their bible study class? Answer: a cup of coffee.

Joking aside, there are signs of growing interest in the Bible even among liberal Friends. Friends General Conference, the national gathering of liberal Friends, has bible studies in each of its Gatherings and publishes some of the talks given by speakers at these events. Another hopeful indication has been the recent publication of The Quaker Bible Reader, a collection of essays by Friends from different branches of Quakerism. I was also encouraged to learn that some Meetings (such as Orange County Meeting here in California) are making an effort to study the Qur’an.

As a Quaker interested in peacemaking and spirituality, I see three primary reasons to study the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic scriptures:
Knowledge of scripture helps us to be more clear and effective when we dialogue with “people of the book,” i.e. Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Such knowledge is essential if you believe (as I do) that interfaith dialogue plays an important role in post 9/11 peace and reconciliation work.
Scriptural literacy helps us to discern when people are misusing their scriptural tradition either out of ignorance or because of a political agenda. Americans have been described as “Christ-haunted” and “biblically illiterate” which is sad but true, and a source of many problems in today’s world. Many Muslims and Jews also lack direct knowledge of scriptures, either their own or those of other faiths; they rely instead on second-hand opinions that sometimes create misunderstanding and mistrust. To counteract ignorance and religious prejudice, we need to study and to share what we know to be accurate and true about the scriptures. Early Friends knew their scripture intimately and did not hesitate to argue against what they saw as “errors.” George Fox was knowledgeable enough about the Qur’an to quote it authoritatively when writing a letter to the Sultan of Turkey calling for humane treatment of sailors captured by the Turks.
The Bible and Qur’an are sources of genuine spiritual wisdom which, if read with discernment, sensitivity, and intelligence, can help transform our lives. Friends were among the first Christians to recognize divine wisdom not only in the Bible but also in the Qur’an.

It is no easy task to become scripturally literate or to “read the scriptures in the spirit in which they were written” (to use the Quaker phrase). It takes many years of study, and a willingness to keep as open mind as well as a critical spirit.
Quakers and the Bible

Let’s begin by briefly describing how Friends view the Bible, their primary scriptural heritage. Like most 17th century Protestants, early Friends read the Bible incessantly and were steeped in its language and imagery practically from birth. It has been said that if all the Bibles in England were destroyed, George Fox would have been able to reconstruct the Bible from memory. If this story were literally true, Fox would be a Christian version of what Muslims call a hafiz (someone who has memorized the entire Qur’an and can recite it by heart).

Even though Friends read and quoted the Bible as much as any Protestant sect, they differed from most Protestants because they did not see the Bible as the primary source of authority. Instead, Quakers believed that they could have direct access to the Divine through prayer and meditation. In Fox’s view, the Bible was not the “Word of God” the ultimate authority but simply the words of God. The Word of God was the living, inward Christ who could be experienced directly without the intermediary of priest or book. Once someone received a genuine religious insight from this Source, he or she usually found it confirmed in the Bible. George Fox described this process of coming to experience and verify the Truth in his Journal:

Now the Lord God opened to me by his invisible power how that every man was enlightened by the divine light of Christ. I saw that the grace of God, which brings salvation, had appeared to all men, and that the manifestation of the spirit of God was given to every man, with which to profit. These things I did not see by the help of man, nor by the letter, though they are written in the letter; but I saw them in the light of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by his immediate spirit and power, as did the holy men of God by whom the holy scriptures were written.Yet I had no slight esteem of the holy scriptures, they were very precious to me; for I was in that spirit by which they were issued; and what the Lord opened in me, I afterwards found was in agreement with them.

Given this emphasis on direct experience of the Divine rather than on scripture, it is not surprising that Quakerism has produced few eminent Bible scholars. In the 20th century, serious biblical exegesis has been attempted by only a relatively small numbers Quaker academics, such as Henry Cadbury, Rufus Jones, Douglas Steere, Howard Brinton, and Elizabeth Watson. Of these, only Henry Cadbury played a significant role in modern biblical scholarship.

Today the Bible is read by liberal Friends as a source of spiritual inspiration and moral instruction, but it is not seen as an inerrant or infallible source of authority. Friends tend to be drawn to the Jesus Seminar and to theologians like Marcus Borg who combine an historical reading of scripture with a progressive social agenda.
The Evangelical vs. Liberal Perspective on Other Religions

Before going any further with this discussion, it is important to clarify differences between the liberal and Evangelical Quaker approach to other religions. Let’s begin with a brief summary of a complex historical narrative. When Quakers moved westward in the 19th century, many were influenced by the evangelical revival that was sweeping the country. During this tumultuous period western Quakers split into two opposing branches: the evangelicals and the liberals.

Evangelical Quakers were bible- as well as Christ-centered and accepted most of the doctrines of traditional Christianity, most particularly, the notion that you had to accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior or you would go to hell. Evangelical Quakers identified themselves primarily as Christians, and only secondarily as Quakers.

Liberal Quakers took a very different path. They turned towards a more mystical, universalist approach to their faith and welcomed into their fold Jews, Buddhists and “refugees” from doctrinaire Christian faiths who were looking for a non-dogmatic approach to religion. Today most liberal Friends are universalist rather than Christian in outlook.

This profound difference is illustrated by two books about Islam that were published by Friends in the West after 9/11/2001. As a liberal Friend, I wrote a pamphlet called Islam from a Quaker Perspective to explain Islam to Quakers, and to explain Quakerism to Muslims. It was a deeply personal essay, the result of my decision to fast during Ramadan as a way to understand the Muslim faith and practice from a spiritual perspective. This pamphlet was co-published in 2003 by Friends Bulletin (the magazine that I edit for Western Friends) and Quaker Universalist Fellowship. It was re-printed the following spring by the Wider Quaker Fellowship and sent out to around 4,000 subscribers in 103 countries. This pamphlet makes no effort to convert Muslims to Quakerism; that would be unthinkable for liberal Friends.

During this same period, Barclay Press, an Evangelical Quaker publishing house located in Newberg, Oregon, published a book called My Muslim People by Dr. Abraham Sarker, a Muslim convert to Christianity who (as far as I know) is not a Quaker. The purpose of this book is to equip evangelical Christians with the knowledge and tools they need to “save” Muslims from their “false” religion. Sarker was born a Muslim in Bangladesh and trained to become a Muslim missionary with hopes of converting Americans to the “true faith.” But while in America, he dreamed that he was “burning in a lake of fire” and was told by God in an “audible voice” that he should “Go, and get a Bible.” When he did so, he found Christ (thanks to some help from a friendly American evangelist named Peter) and became a Christian.

Sarker describes how his conversion led to his being rejected by his family and persecuted by the Muslim community. With a convert’s zeal, he discusses the shortcomings of Islam and explains why Christianity is the “only hope” for Muslims.

In spite of his proselytizing zeal, Sarker tries to be as accurate as possible in presenting the Islamic faith. He makes it clear that in order to convert a Muslim from his “errors,” you need to know the facts about his religion. Despite its biases, Sarker’s book is a “must read” for anyone who wants to understand an Evangelical Christian perspective on Islam. This book is also indicative of how many (but not all) Evangelical Quakers feel about Islam.

One more point needs to be clarified: not all Christ-centered Friends are exclusivist in their outlook and believe that you must accept Christ to please God and avoid going to hell. It is possible to be a devout Christian Quaker and at the same time respectful and open to Islam, Judaism and other faiths.

To cite an example, Michael Birkel, a professor of religion at Earlham College and a member of Friends United Meeting, approaches Quakerism from a deeply Christian perspective and is also very open to interfaith dialogue with Muslims. In his recent Plenary Address at Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting he writes with great sensitivity and insight about the importance of interfaith dialogue with Muslims. He concludes:

We should not expect agreement, nor victory after all, it’s not a contest. Instead we might find the common ground that comes of listening. We might experience growing respect, despite conflict and challenge. Maybe you and your conversation partners will come to agree on how to disagree. Articulating that “how” can be wonderfully liberating, even exhilarating. Misunderstanding can be an opportunity to learn rather than a reason to be offended. That requires a kind of generosity based in trust.

You might discover a new dimension of what it means to love your neighbor. Like John Woolman’s experience, we can find that our first motion, our motivation, is love, and from there we can be genuinely open to others while being faithful to what is truest in our own tradition.

Birkel’s words would no doubt resonate with Marshall G.S. Hodgson (1922 – 1968), a professor at the University of Chicago who was one of this century’s major Islamic scholars. A practicing Quaker, Hodgson had a deep respect for other cultures and civilizations and challenged the Eurocentric view of history prevalent in his time. In his preface to his magisterial study, The Venture of Islam, Hodgson offers a quotation from John Woolman that epitomizes the perspective of liberal Friends:

To consider mankind other than brethren, to think favours are peculiar to one nation and exclude others, plainly supposes a darkness of understanding.
Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?

Before discussing scriptures, I would like to focus our attention on God since God is considered the revealer of scriptures, as well as their main subject, by all three Abrahamic faiths. A question that has often been posed lately is: do Jews, Muslims and Christians worship the same God? As we shall see, this question has arisen for reasons that have more to do with politics than theology.

Ever since President George Bush stated after 9/11/2001 that Muslims, Christians and Jews worship the same God, many right-wing Christians taken exception with the President’s effort to be pluralistic and conciliatory. Some have gone so far as to describe the “Muslim god” as the antithesis of the “Christian God,” or even an “idol.” Ted Haggard, former President of the National Association of Evangelicals (and now under a cloud because of his secret homosexual liaisons), stated:

The Christian God encourages freedom, love, forgiveness, prosperity and health. The Muslim god appears to value the opposite. The personalities of each god are evident in the cultures, civilizations and dispositions of the peoples that serve them. Muhammad’s central message was submission; Jesus’ central message was love. They seem to be very different personalities.

Richard Land, a top official of the Southern Baptist Convention, cited the Bible to justify this claim: “The Bible is very clear about this. There is only one true God and His name is Jehovah, not Allah.”

Haggard and Land were articulating a common view among evangelicals. In a poll of evangelical leaders at the community level, 79 percent disagreed with the statement that Muslims and Christians “pray to the same god.”

More ominously, General William G. Boykin, a born-again Christian who sees U.S. military exploits in apocalyptic terms, stated: “I knew that my God was bigger than his [i.e. Osman Otto, a Muslim warlord]. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.”

The view that God and Allah are different entities is the result of linguistic as well as theological misunderstanding. English-speaking Muslims often use the Arabic word “Allah” (“the God”) when referring to the supreme deity. The same word is used by Arab-speaking Christians and Jews when referring to God. Furthermore, calling “Allah” an idol invented by Muslims makes no theological sense. Muslims consider idol worship, including portraying God by any sort of image, to be shirk (i.e. idolatry), which an unpardonable sin by Islamic standards.

A deeper question involves discerning whether the Muslims, Christians and Jews share the same basic understanding of God. In 2004 The Christian Century, a magazine for liberal Christians, ran a series of five articles in which leading Christian theologians addressed this question, and then a Muslim scholar named Umar F. Abd-Allah was given a chance to express an Islamic perspective.

In addressing the question of Islam’s understanding of God, Prof.. Abd-Allah (whose name means “Servant of God) explored its social and political context. Why are Muslims being singled out and asked whether they worship the same God as do Christians and Jews? From a Muslim viewpoint, the answer is obvious, and indeed, self-evident. There is only one God. According to the Qur’an, Muslims are required to believe that they worship the same God as did Abraham, Moses and Jesus.

But the Muslim scholar then raised a deeper question: do all Christians or Jews or Muslims share a common understanding of God?

When focusing on the diversity of religious predicates, we might ask: “Does anyone worship the same God?” Can any faith or its followers sport an essentialist label? Which religion can claim to have held a monolithic theological view even within its creedal schools? Hillel and Shammai the sagely Pharisaic “pair” sat together at the head of the Great Sanhedrin but posited sharply divergent visions of God’s character and actions. The Alexandrian Fathers and their counterparts in Antioch were not always affectionately immersed in Christian fellowship. For that matter, earlier Jews and Christians not only differed from their Hellenistic brethren on how they viewed God and Christ but held jarringly different notions of the basic structure of reality.

Re-framing this question in this way opens up an entirely different perspective. It becomes clear that each believer has a different view of God, depending on his or her stage of spiritual/psychological development and/or theological perspective.

In today’s world, the theological boundary is not between Muslims and Christians, or even Muslims and Jews. Rather it is between competing understandings of God. This becomes clear if we consider Prof Abd-Allah’s question in contemporary terms: Do Christians such as Jim Wallis, Marcus Borg, Pat Robertson and Ted Haggard all worship the same God?

My own Quaker-influenced understanding of God is closer to that of Muslims and Jews in the peace movement than it is to fundamentalist Christians who support war. (Both positions have scriptural warrant, as I will explain later.) Furthermore, many fundamentalist Christians and extremist Muslims share a similarly exclusivist and possessive view of God (i.e. “my God is better, bigger, stronger than your God”). This view of God is one that progressive Muslims, Christians and Jews find repellent, or at least immature.

To conclude this brief overview of how different faith traditions view God, it is worth noting that many Muslims would strongly object to the claim that Islam portrays God/Allah as stern and cruel being who demands to be obeyed unquestioningly. With the exception of one, all 114 chapters of the Qur’an begin with the phrase: “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.” Mercy, compassion and forgiveness are among the most commonly mentioned attributes of God in the Qur’an. In one of the sayings (hadith) of the Prophet Muhammad we are told that “God is more loving and kinder than a mother to her dear child.” Most Muslims as well as most Christians and Jews believe in a God that is compassionate and forgiving as well as peaceful and just.
Composition of the Bible and Qur’an

The Bible and the Qur’an derive from a common religious tradition and express similar spiritual verities, but they were composed under strikingly different circumstances.

The Bible (the Greek word meaning “The Book”) consists of two parts, the “Old” (Hebrew) and the “New” (Christian) Testament (or Gospels). The Hebrew Bible (known to Jews as Tanakh) is actually a series of 39 (or 46, depending on the version) books or writings compiled from 1000-660 BCE [before the Common Era]. The New Testament was composed by a variety of writers between 60 to 110 CE. The contents of the New Testament were formalized by Athanasius of Alexandria in 367 CE, and finally “canonized” (officially authorized) in 382 CE.

Some Christians and Jews believe that everything in the Bible is literally true. Some Christians believe that the Bible has one unifying message, pointing to Christ. Other Christians and Jews see the Bible as a multivocal and polysemous source of Divine wisdom composed by a variety of human authors and reflecting a diversity of meanings and religious perspectives. Efforts to view the Bible, or even the New Testament, as a unified whole have proven problematic at best.

In considering the composition of scripture, at least two issues need to be considered:

1) How were the scriptures composed? Who composed them, when, and for what reason? Is the text we have what the original author(s) wrote or said, or has it been altered over time?

Determining the answers to these questions is extremely difficult. Traditionalists believed that the scriptures were written by the authors whose names are given in the scriptures, e.g. the first five books of the Bible were composed by Moses, the gospel of Matthew was written by the apostle Matthew, etc. Traditionalists also believe that the scriptures have been preserved verbatim and therefore can be seen as “inerrant.”

Beginning in the 18th century, many scholars have come to question these traditional accounts for textual and historical reasons. Close readings of scriptures revealed many stylistic discrepancies showing that these works were written by numerous individuals over a period of many years, and for complex theological reasons.

2) How did certain scriptures become “canonized,” i.e. officially recognized? In the first two centuries after the death of Jesus dozens of “gospels” and epistles attributed to the apostles were written, including the gospels of Mary Magdalene, Thomas, and Peter; the Epistle of Barnabas; the Acts of Andrew and John; the Revelation of Peter, etc. All of these works were rejected by the Church for various reasons. How did certain gospels come to be considered “canonical” (i.e. fit for use by the church) and others rejected as inauthentic or heretical?

These questions have preoccupied Christian scholars for the last couple of centuries.

So far, however, most Muslim scholars have not grappled with questions such as these because the Qur’an is assumed to have always been a unified work directly inspired by God. The Qur’an (meaning “Recital”) consists of 144 suras, or chapters, that were revealed to one man, Mohammad, over a 22-year period, from 610 CE until shortly before his death in 632 CE. As a result, the Qur’an is a much more unified work than the Bible, although some apparent contradictions and inconsistencies have been noted and will be discussed later.

Twenty years after the Prophet’s death, in 653 CE, the first “authorized” version of the Qur’an was compiled under Caliph Uthman. The earliest manuscripts of the Qur’an date back to around 100 years after the Prophet’s death. Most Muslims believe that every word in the Qur’an is an exact transcript of what God revealed to Mohammed, with absolutely no changes in wording since it was first transmitted and written down. Today only fundamentalist Jews or Christians would make such a claim about their Scripture.
Controversies Regarding the “Canonization” of the Qur’an

Some modern non-Muslim scholars have questioned whether the Qur’an was preserved perfectly, word-for-word, as Mohammad received and recited it. Since we do not have an “authorized” version of the Qur’an dating back to the Prophet’s lifetime, we will never know for sure, just as we will never know for certain what happened after the crucifixion of Jesus. We are told that the Prophet’s revelations came in fragmentary outbursts that were copied down and memorized by believers. After his death, these fragments were gathered together into a unified work through a process that has never fully been explained or understood. Caliph Uthman is supposed to have authorized Muslim religious leaders to gather these different versions and produce a standardized text. However, some modern scholars, such as the archeologist Arthur Jeffrey, believe that there were “wide divergences” among these early quranic texts:

When we come to the accounts of ‘Uthman’s recension, it quickly becomes clear that his work is no mere matter of removing dialectical peculiarities in reading, but was a necessary stroke of policy to establish a standard text for the whole empire – there were wide divergences between the collections that had been digested into Codices in the great Metropolitan centres of Medina, Mecca, Basra, Kufa and Demascus. Uthman’s solution was to canonize the Medinan Codex and order all others to be destroyed. There can be little doubt that the text canonized by Uthman was only one among several types of text in existence at the time.

This passage is quoted by the ex-Muslim Christian convert Sarker with great satisfaction, since any suggestion that the text of today’s Qur’an is not exactly as Mohammmad received it would undermine the Muslim claim that the Qur’an is a “perfected” scripture while the scriptures of the Jews and Christians were added to and corrupted over time.

However, there is no scholarly consensus about the significance and extent of variations in Qur’anic texts prior to Uthman. Most secular scholars tend to agree with the traditional view of Islamic scholars that the Qur’an was revealed to Mohammad in its entirety and redacted into its present form during the reign of Uthman.

Some “iconoclastic” scholars, such as John Wansbrough and his students Michael Cook and Patricia Crone, have questioned whether the Qur’an as we know it was revealed in its entirety to Muhammad, since the earliest surviving copies of the complete Qur’an date back to around a hunderd years after the Prophet’s death. These iconoclasts argue that the original Qur’an was expanded and altered as the Islamic empire evolved.

It should be noted, however, that some Muslims question the motives of these secular scholars. As we have seen, those who are seeking to discredit Islam (such as Sarker) use this scholarship to undermine faith in the Qur’an as an inspired text. For centuries Christian scholars have argued that the Qur’an is a forgery, a plagiarism of Christian and Jewish sources, etc. In an article entitled “The Great Koran con trick” Martin Bright examines the pros and cons of this new scholarship. Bright makes it clear that Patricia Crone has a dark view of Islam as religion. According to Bright:

In Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, Crone argued that the early Muslim converts turned to Islam because it promised an Arab state based on conquest, rape and pillage. “God could scarcely have been more explicit. He told the Arabs that they had a right to despoil others of their women, children and land, or indeed that they had a duty to do so: holy war consisted in obeying.”

Bright notes that Ziauddin Sardar is one of the few Muslim intellectuals to have responded to these new iconoclastic scholars:

[Sardar] has called their work: “Eurocentrism of the most extreme, purblind kind, which assumes that not a single word written by Muslims can be accepted as evidence”. Writing in the aftermath of the Rushdie affair, Sardar placed the western revisionists firmly in the post-colonial orientalist camp, from where colonial “experts” have consistently told Muslims that they know best about the origins of their primitive, barbarian religion. “The triumphant conclusion of Crone and Cook,” he says, “was that Islam is an amalgam of Jewish texts, theology and ritual tradition.”

Whatever the merits of the new scholarship, it is clear that politics played a role in the canonization of Islamic scriptures as well as of the Christian gospels. Politics may play a role even in “objective” scholarship.

It is also clear that the divergences between versions of the Qur’an were not as wide as those between versions of the Christian gospel. In his recent book Constantine’s Bible, David L. Dungan points out that dozens of Gospels were composed in the first couple of centuries after the death of Jesus. One of the tasks of Eusebius (and the Catholic Church) was to winnow this plethora of gospels down to four. This process took place immediately prior to and during the time of Constantine for political as well as theological reasons so that the Church (and the Roman empire) would have a unified scripture and so that theological dissent could be suppressed. Uthman may have had a similar intention, but his job was much simpler since there was only one Qur’an and the discrepancies, if any, were probably minor.

Another controversy regarding the Qur’an involves the Satanic Verses (which Salman Rushdie used as a theme in his book of the same name). According to one of Mohammad’s biographers, Ibn Ishaq, the Prophet wanted so much to please his opponents in Mecca that God supposedly sent him verses implying it was acceptable to seek intercession from certain popular idols such as al-Hat, al-Uzza and Manat. Mohammad allegedly confessed later that it was Satan, not God, who had inspired him to promulgate these verses and they were retracted.

Almost all modern Islamic scholars reject this story as historically improbable and lacking the kind of corroboration required to be considered an authentic haddith (or saying) of the Prophet. Others have said that it doesn’t really matter if Mohammad was tricked by Satan since he was human, and therefore fallible; what matters is that God corrected his mistake and it doesn’t appear in the Qur’an today.

Because scriptures play such an important role in the faith development of “people of the book,” such disputes are inevitable. The wisest approach is to be aware of these controversies and not to let them blind us to the insights and wisdom that we can acquire from a careful and sensitive reading of scripture. Augustine affirmed that the goal of the religious life is to practice “faith, hope, and love.” A person who “keeps a firm hold upon these [virtues], does not need the Scriptures except for the purpose of instructing others” (Dungan, p. 135). Most liberal Quakers, as well as many Muslims, Christians, and Jews, would probably agree with Augustine on this point.
Translation and Politicization of the Scriptures

Muslims believe that the Qur’an cannot be translated because the Arabic of the Qur’an is divinely inspired and too beautiful to be rendered into another language. Therefore, any rendering of the text into another language is considered an interpretation, not a translation.

The same might be said about translations of the Bible: each one is an interpretation, not simply a word-for-word rendering of the text. Each of the many Bibles that I own has a different interpretive perspective. My Catholic Bible contains commentary that accepts textual-historical criticism and promotes a Catholic take on the Gospels (complete with pictures of the stations of the cross). The language of this Catholic version is modern and very readable. My conservative Protestant Bible rejects textual-historical criticism and sees the Bible as the inerrant word of God. It uses the King James translation which conservative Christians seem to favor as if it were authorized not by a self-serving King but by God Himself. My Jubilee African-American Bible offers an African-American perspective on faith and social justice. This version uses plain, modern English that can be read aloud with great effect.

A similar diversity of perspectives can be found among different translations-interpretations of the Qur’an. But unlike Christians, Muslims in America today can be penalized for having the “wrong” interpretation of their scripture.

Let me give an example. In my pamphlet Islam from a Quaker Perspective, I recommended a translation/version of the Qur’an by the eminent Muslim scholar Abdullah Yusuf Ali. Recently I was shocked, but not surprised, to learn that this version has been banned from school libraries in Los Angeles because of its alleged anti-Semitism.

I learned about this through CAIR Watch (www.CAIRwatch.org), a website devoted to exposing the alleged terrorist tendencies of a moderate Islamic organization called the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). Headquartered in Washington, D.C., with 32 regional offices and chapters in the U.S. and Canada, CAIR was founded in 1994 as a Muslim civil liberties and advocacy group.

CAIR has successfully formed a partnership with the National Council of Churches and held dialogue with representatives of the National Association of Evangelicals. But it is viewed with suspicion by groups that accuse it of supporting Palestinian terrorism. The motto of CAIR Watch is “Keeping an Eye on Hate.”

Because CAIR Watch uses techniques employed by Steven Emerson and others who see Islam as the embodiment of evil and part of a vast conspiracy to dominate the world, it is worth examining how this group exposes CAIR’s alleged anti-Semitism:

According to this website,


In February of 2002, Los Angeles city school officials pulled more than 300 copies of The Meaning of THE HOLY QURAN from area school libraries. The Quran – an English translation published by Maryland-based Amana Publications – was found to have had numerous anti-Jewish commentaries contained within it. One of the cited commentaries read, “The Jews in their arrogance claimed that all wisdom and all knowledge of Allah was enclosed in their hearts. Their claim was not only arrogance but blasphemy.”Doug Smith, Henry Weinstein and Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times, ‘Schools Remove Donated Books,’ February 7, 2002

This commentary by Yusuf Ali is quoted accurately and paraphrases what the Quran actually says. It should be noted that the Quran’s attitude towards Jews is a complex one. The Quran pays tribute to the Jews for being monotheistic and “people of the Book.” It celebrates Jewish prophets like Abraham, Moses, Joseph, etc. But it also criticizes Jews for imagining that they are a “Chosen People” who have a monopoly on God or scriptures. Whether this criticism is anti-Semitic depends on your definition of the term and your attitude towards Muslims.

Given the large Jewish population in Los Angeles and the tensions that arise because of perceived anti-Semitism, it is not hard to see why the L.A. school officials would remove this Qur’an from its shelves. School boards have banned books for all sorts of reasons that seem strange to those of us who cherish the First Amendment. An illustrated edition of “Little Red Riding Hood” was banned in two California school districts in 1989 because the book shows the heroine taking food and wine to her grandmother. The school districts cited concerns about the use of alcohol in the story.

Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice was banned from classrooms in Midland, Michigan, in 1980 because of its portrayal of the Jewish character Shylock. If alleged anti-Semitism is a criterion for banning books in public schools, the Gospel of John should also be banned. It accuses Jews not of blasphemy and arrogance but of killing Christ – an allegation that has caused far more suffering to Jews than any disparaging words in the Qur’an.

However, the CAIR Watch website uses classic McCarthyite techniques to discredit CAIR through guilt by association and unproven accusations. It notes that this edition of the Qur’an was published by an organization that was under investigation for financing terrorism:

In March of 2002, the editor of this Qur’an, the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), had its Virginia offices raided by the FBI, in a probe that targeted 14 businesses accused of financing terrorism. One of the groups IIIT was said to have financed was the World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE), the Palestinian Islamic Jihad front run by Sami Al-Arian. (Paul Sperry, World Net Daily, ‘Editor of Koran raided by feds,’ April 12, 2002)

CAIR Watch correctly stated that the offices of IITT were raided, but it doesn’t mention that no arrests were made and no charges proven against it. Raids against Muslim businesses occur fairly frequently and are often a sign of anti-Muslim bias. CAIR Watch mentions Sami Al-Arian, a pro-Palestinian professor who was arrested but has not been convicted by a jury of any crime, even after ten years of intense government scrutiny and persecution. The anti-CAIR website goes on:

Only months after the L.A. ban and IIIT raid, in September of 2002, CAIR began providing American libraries with ‘The Meaning of THE HOLY QURAN’ through its ‘Explore Islamic Culture & Civilization’ project. And in May of 2005, CAIR began a new program whereby the group gave a free copy of the Amana-produced Quran to anyone who asked. (Americans Against Hate, ‘CAIR DISTRIBUTING BANNED QURAN,’ May 26, 2005)

CAIR Watch implies that CAIR distributed the Qur’ans for the express purpose of promoting anti-Semitism, but from what I know about CAIR, I am confident that its purpose was conciliatory, not inflammatory. After the news media revealed that soldiers in Guantanamo had treated the Qur’an in ways considered disrespectful by Muslims, the Muslim community was outraged and some Muslims in other countries resorted to violent protests. Instead of denouncing the US government (and thereby running the risk of inciting a violent reaction here in the USA), CAIR chose instead to give out free Qur’ans.

When Pope Benedict made insensitive remarks about Islam that led some Muslims to react with violence, CAIR denounced the violence and called for American Muslims to donate to Catholic charities responsible for rebuilding Christian churches burned down by irate Muslims. (Destroying any house of God, whether it be a synagogue, church, or mosque, is expressly forbidden by the Qur’an.)

It must be admitted, however, that CAIR left itself open to criticism by distributing this version of the Qur’an. Despite allegations of its anti-Jewish bias, I would still recommend Yusuf Ali’s version of the Qur’an since its commentary is excellent. My recommendation would include a caveat regarding its comments about Jews.

I must also point out that for generations, Christian commentaries on the Gospels celebrated its overt and highly inflammatory anti-Semitic passages. Probably the most glaring example is Mathew 27:25 in which the Jewish crowd is alleged to have shouted to Pilate: “Let [Christ’s] blood be upon us and upon our children.”

This savage and utterly unbelievable self-indictment has been used to justify the murder of countless Jews. Take these comments from no less an eminence than John Wesley, in his Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, published in the 1750s and still featured today on the very popular crosswalk.com website:

His blood be on us and on our children – As this imprecation was dreadfully answered in the ruin so quickly brought on the Jewish nation, and the calamities which have ever since pursued that wretched people . . . .

(Crosswalk: http://bible.crosswalk.com/Commentaries/WesleysExplanatoryNotes/wes.cgi?book=mt&chapter=027 )

More concise but of the same sort is the Peoples New Testament commentary of 1891, on the same site:

His blood be on us. That is, let us have the responsibility and suffer the punishment. A fearful legacy, and awfully inherited. The history of the Jews from that day on has been the darkest recorded in human annals. (http://bible.crosswalk.com/Commentaries/PeoplesNewTestament/pnt.cgi?book=mt&chapter=027)

Even many recent commentaries still let this outrage pass: one Catholic commentary merely reports that this is “the evangelist’s commentary on the responsibility for Jesus’ death.” Lutheran and Oxford bible commentaries I consulted simply ignored this passage. [ The New American Bible, Thomas Nelson: NY, 1970. The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Revised Standard Version: Oxford Press, 1963. Concordia Self-Study Bible, New International Version, St Louis, MO: 1984.]

One modern translator of the Gospels who challenges this anti-Semitism is Willis Barnstone. In The New Covenant (Penguin, NY: 2002), Barnstone wisely observes: “This line, ‘Let his blood be upon us and upon our children!’ has given rise to much dispute and skepticism. The Jews in the street are shouting, ‘Let the guilt of his murder be upon us, the Jews, forever.’ On Passover evenings the Jews would be in their houses, celebrating the Passover meal. They would not be in the street asking the Romans to crucify a rabbi, and, had they been, they would not be shouting for crucifixion and at once declaring their guilt forever by shouting for crucifixion” (p. 194-195). For those interested in reading a translation of the Gospels that is sensitive to the “Jewishness” of Jesus and his followers, I highly recommend William Barnstone’s thoughtful translation.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that I have been given two free Qur’ans by CAIR: one by Mohammad Marmaduke Pickthall and one by Mohammad Asad. I was never given one by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. I hope this means that CAIR has stopped distributing the Yusuf Ali’s version of Qur’an, perhaps in response to adverse criticism.
The Ambivalence of Scripture towards War and Peace

As a Quaker, I am loath to admit that the scriptures of Judaism, Christianity and Islam can be used to justify war, even genocide, as well as pacifism. Yet it is undeniable that one of the names of God in the Hebrew Bible is YHVH Tzva’ot, which means “Lord of Hosts,” i.e. of Armies. The significance of this dark side to divinity came home to me most graphically in 1992 when I made my first trip to Israel with a group of clergy. Standing before Jericho, not far from the Mount of Temptation where Jesus spend forty days in the desert, a pastor read the following chilling passage:

When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city. They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys (Joshua 6:20-21).

Nothing in any scripture I know equals the blood-curdling horror of this passage. Not only women and children, but even animals were eradicated in the name of the Lord!

The cult of the warrior god has unfortunately not disappeared. Recently former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu wrote a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert citing scripture to justify the eradication of Palestinians. He said that if some Palestinians continue to fire Kassam rockets into Israel, Israelis are justified in doing whatever it takes to stop them. “If they don’t stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand,” he said. “And if they do not stop after 1,000 then we must kill 10,000. If they still don’t stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop.”

In the letter, Eliyahu quoted from Psalms 18:32. “I will pursue my enemies and apprehend them and I will not desist until I have eradicated them.” Eliyahu wrote: “This is a message to all leaders of the Jewish people not to be compassionate with those who shoot [rockets] at civilians in their houses.”

Some Muslim clerics use similar passages in the Qur’an to justify the killing of civilians on the grounds that Israel is an armed camp occupying Muslim territory and Palestinians have the right to do whatever it takes to oust their oppressors (“Must Innocents Die? The Islamic Debate over Suicide Attacks” by Haim Malka, Middle East Quarterly Spring 2003).

One of the most notorious verses of the Qur’an is 9:5:


“When the sacred months are over, slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them. If they repent and take to prayer and render the alms levy, allow them to go their way. God is forgiving and merciful.” Another one is 47:4-5: “When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield strike off their heads and, when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly. Then grant them their freedom or take a ransom from them, until War shall lay down her burdens.”

These are warlike, certainly, but it is worth noting that both passages also include provisions for mercy to captives; there was no such luck for the people or animals in Jericho, or several similar cases in the Bible!

Such bloody interpretations of scriptures are vigorously challenged by Jewish and Muslim moderates as well as by many Christians. Religious moderates condemn terrorism (whether by individuals or by states) and point to other passages in scriptures that call for nonviolence.

In my pamphlet Islam from a Quaker Perspective I note that the “Qur’an imposes strict limitations on the use of violence,” which can be interpreted to require an abstention from all forms of modern warfare:

In Reading the Muslim Mind, Hassan Hathout (a well-respected Muslim leader in the Los Angeles area) observes that the Qur’anic rules of war forbid Muslims from harming houses of worship (non-Muslim as well as Muslim), or even the trees or animals of one’s enemy. Under such stringent rules, it would be morally wrong for a Muslim to crash land into the World Trade Center, or for the US to drop a bomb on Hiroshima or on Afghanistan. Hathout concludes: “Since modern war is so devastating, war itself should cease to be an option in conflict resolutions. War should be obsolete just like slavery!” (p. 102).

Many rabbis active in the peace movement have taken a similar position and have condemned the violence in the Middle East as contrary to the spirit of the Jewish prophets.

What are we to make of these divergences of opinion regarding scriptures? First, we must admit that scriptures do not present a unified, logically consistent viewpoint on war or peace. Scriptures can be used to justify almost any atrocity, including suicide bombing and genocide. They can also inspire us to strive “with all our hearts, strength and mind” for peace and justice.

Which passages we choose to follow, and how we interpret the scriptures, depends a great deal more on our level of spiritual development than on logic.

For this reason, it is difficult, if not impossible, to convince anyone to forsake an ethic of violence and embrace an ethic of peace simply by quoting scriptures (although it is helpful to know the scriptures if you are having a discussion with someone who sees them as authoritative).
Scriptures & Stages of Faith

To understand how people can have totally different understandings of what the scriptures have to say about war and peace, the work of James Fowler has been extremely helpful to me. In training to become a Methodist minister, Fowler studied psychology as well as theology. He was a Professor of Theology and Human Development at Emory University and director of both the Center for Research on Faith and Moral Development and the Center for Ethics until he retired in 2005.

Fowler’s great achievement was to apply the concepts of developmental psychology such as Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson, et al. to faith development. According to Fowler, adults generally progress through the following stages in their faith journey:

Stage 4 – “Synthetic-Conventional” faith (arising in adolescence) characterized by conformity

Stage 5 – “Individuative-Reflective” faith (usually mid-twenties to late thirties) a stage of angst and struggle. Individuals take personal responsibility for their beliefs and feelings.

Stage 6 – “Conjunctive” faith (mid-life crisis) acknowledges paradox and transcendence relating to reality behind the symbols of inherited systems.

Stage 7 – “Universalizing” faith, or what some might call “enlightenment”.

This is a somewhat crude simplification of Fowler’s subtle and complex analysis, but it suggests a useful framework for understanding how our reading of scripture changes during our lives. The notion that our spiritual understanding evolves over a lifetime is of course nothing new. The Apostle Paul wrote in a famous passage from his letter to the Corinthians: “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

As adults, most of us no longer read the Bible literally, as we did as children. We no longer accept uncritically what our teachers told us about God and the Bible. We have gone through a period of questioning. We have taken personal responsibility for our beliefs as well as for our actions. We have come to recognize that God, Truth, Reality, etc. is too complex, too subtle, to be reduced to any verbal formulation or to any dogma. As we have encountered a variety of people and life experiences, our understanding of life and the Bible grows more complex. We realize that the Bible uses the language of poetry and paradox to suggest the complexities of the human condition and divine reality.

This maturation process does not happen automatically, however. The stages of faith described by Fowler are associated with periods of life, but do not automatically occur at a certain age. We can get “stuck” at a certain stage and never evolve any further. Stress and crises may cause us to regress to an earlier stage. When we feel threatened and fearful, we often return to conventional, tribalistic modes of thinking and feeling. We then interpret scripture in ways that reinforce the world view of our particular religious or national group.

As we mature and grow in our faith, we not only come to embrace the paradoxical and complex nature of religion (and life), we grew less fearful and more accepting. When passages of scriptures that seem strange to us are explained by an enlightened interpreter whether Jewish, Christian, or Muslim we are less apt to be feel defensive. We “feel where the words come from,” to use John Woolman’s phrase, and sense the wisdom underlying the unfamiliar words.

If we keep an open heart and mind, we may reach the stage that James Fowler describes as “enlightenment” and become “universalizers”:

The rare persons who may be described by this stage have a special grace that makes them seem more lucid, more simple, and yet somehow more fully human than the rest of us. Their community is universal in extent. Particularities are cherished because they are vessels of the universal, and thereby valuable apart from any utilitarian considerations. Life is both loved and held to loosely. Such persons are ready for fellowship with persons at any of the other stages and from any other faith tradition.

This is the spiritual state to which early Friends aspired, and to which we still aspire today. William Penn beautifully described these “universalizers”: “The Humble, Meek, Merciful, Just, Pious and Devout Souls, are everywhere of one Religion; and when Death has taken off the Mask, they will know one another, tho’ the divers Liveries they wear here make them Strangers.”

“The diverse Liveries” we wear are our religious and cultural traditions as well as our unique personalities. We need to respect these differences. We also need to acknowledge the controversial, the discordant elements in scriptures the “ocean of darkness,” to use George Fox’s term but we see beyond them to what George Fox called “the ocean of Light.” Thanks to the interfaith movement, my understanding of scripture has broadened as well as deepened and I can see a little more clearly the Light in each religious tradition and in each human soul.
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2022/04/01

mindfulness meditation vs spiritual meditation?

spiritual exercise meditation differences - Google Search

What is the difference between mindfulness meditation and spiritual meditation?
Spirituality concerns matters that transcend the physical/material world, such as the "soul" or "spirit" while mindfulness, by its definition, does not. 
While one can be a mindful person and a spiritual person, 
mindfulness simply means paying attention to the present moment, on purpose, non-judgmentally.24 Aug 2020
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