Islam, like any tradition, is divided. Sunnis and Shiites disagreed on the succession of Muhammad. We will not discuss this historical split this time, we will look at a different division. This is the division of Islam into a mystical minority called the Sufis and the majority of believers. The latter are just as good Muslims, just not mystical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A century or two after Muhammad's death, a group of Muslims who adhered to the spiritual teachings of the Qur'an began to wear coarse-woven woollen cloth, hence their name, as \"souf\" means wool. (In protest against the silk clothing of the sultans and caliphs.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Sufis, seeing that Islam was becoming more and more secular, were outraged and wanted to purify it from within. \"Don't love the vessel so much, love the contents.\" The Sufis were gripped by the Qur'anic revelation that the divine nature has an inner and an outer side. For the majority of Muslims, the obvious attributes of Allah are enough, but the Sufis want to delve deeper into the depths Allah offers. And they wish to experience it in this life, not the next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Special methods are needed to do this, so the Sufis gathered around a chosen person, who they called the sheikh, or lord. In the 12th century, such communities formed orders whose members were called fakirs, or poor, in the sense that they were poor in the world but rich in Allah. They formed a spiritual group, thus aiming higher than other Muslims, but also took on the discipline required for a particular purpose. They did not retire to monasteries, many even married and worked as usual. In their free time, however, they sang, danced, prayed and murmured the rosary together in their meeting places, listening to the teachings of their sheikhs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Sufis have developed three overlapping but distinct modes. These are called the mysteries of love, self-desire and intuitive clairvoyance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let's start with the first: Sufi love poetry is world famous. During her solitary vigils, sometimes lasting all night, the extraordinary female saint Rabi's, from the 8th century, discovered that at the centre of the world is the love of Allah. If we do not immerse ourselves in this love and pass it on to others, we lose the ultimate beauty of life. Since love is strongest when its object is absent, Persian poets have spent much time on the agony of absence in order to deepen their love for Allah and thus draw closer to Him. Rumi, the Persian poet, embellished this theme with the plaintive sound of the reed whistle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\"Listen to what the reeds say about parting:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since then I have heard this wailing voice,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
since I was cut from the reeds,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Who has been separated from their loved ones,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
you understand what I'm saying \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Who has been chased away from the source,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
longing to get back there.\"<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
2. The path of ecstasy and ecstasy<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
The second Sufi approach to the presence of Allah is called ecstasy, because it is based on experiences that are different in both degree and substance from the usual. What the ecstatic experienced affected them so much that they forgot themselves completely. They did not know where they were, what was happening to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Sufis respect those who go into a state of delirium, or \"going astray\", but by calling them \"drunk\" they warn that they must later return to a state of sobriety, bringing with them the essence of their visions. Transcendence must be embraced, and if they have met Allah while detached from the world, they must also meet him in the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
3. The path of intuitive clarity<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
The latter does not have to be preceded by ecstasy, the path to which is shown by the third Sufi approach, instinctive clairvoyance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like the other two methods, it also provides knowledge, but of a different kind. Just as the mystery of love provides \"knowledge of the heart\" and the mystery of the self provides \"visual or visionary knowledge\", so intuitive mysticism provides \"knowledge of the mind\". But let us not forget that we are dealing here with a very deep level of understanding. The name of direct clairvoyance refers to the acquisition of perceptual knowledge, but in this case the objects perceived are immaterial, that is, spiritual objects. This kind of insight does not obscure the world, as in the visions of the delirious Sufis. Rather, they clothe the world in celestial light, or to put the point another way, they recognize worldly objects as the garments that Allah must put on. This veil, as clairvoyance strengthens, gradually becomes transparent, and Allah seems to reveal Himself in this way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Symbolism is the main way for the Sufis to penetrate the veil covering Allah. Symbolism is the language of religion, when it uses visible objects to speak of invisible things, just as numbers are the language of science. Each verse of the Qur'an contains at least seven hidden meanings, but this number can reach seventy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let's take an example: for every Muslim, it is a sign of respect to take off your shoes before entering the mosque. The Sufi also begins with this symbolic act, but he goes further and gives this act the additional meaning that separates his soul from Allah. Or look at the plea for forgiveness. Every Muslim begs forgiveness for his own sins. But the Sufis also ask Allah to forgive them for existence itself. The Sufis see this as a further development of Rabi's teaching: \"Your existence is a sin like no other.\" Since the concept of existence, of being, originally also means being outside of something. Since in this case we are talking about Allah, existence also implies being apart from Him. In order to avoid being distanced from Allah, the Sufis developed the doctrine of fana, or annihilation, non-being. According to this doctrine, it is not their consciousness but their self-consciousness, their image of themselves, that must be destroyed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As an example of the Sufis' extreme use of symbolism, they have tightened the earlier statement that \"There is no god but Allah.\" Thus, \"There is nothing but Allah.\" To ordinary Muslims, this sounds almost like a blasphemous statement. However, the Sufis are only questioning the independent existence that people usually attribute to things. For them, monotheism is more than the theoretical proposition that there are no two gods. Considering the existentialist interpretation of theism that Allah is the one to whom we give (or should give) ourselves, the Sufis agree that we should not give ourselves to anyone but Allah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The relationship between Sufism and orthodox Islam<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Sufis have their rights, but, when the unified teachings of Islam are weighed against each other, the ordinary believers also have rights, and their faith, based on sound principles, which are perfectly sufficient for salvation, can be shaken by teachings that seem to disturb these principles. Hence many spiritual leaders and sheikhs are very careful in their teaching. And this is the reason why Sufism has been received with suspicion by the authorities. Control is exercised by public opinion on the one hand, and by the dynamic tension that has arisen between the religious authorities and the Sufi cells on the other. These two factors have created a roughly appropriate balance of belief.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sufism is a mystical branch of Islam that focuses on spirituality and divine love. Learn about its origins, aims, communities and the three main methods of Sufi mysticism.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kultura"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kozelkeletblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kozelkeletblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kozelkeletblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kozelkeletblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kozelkeletblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kozelkeletblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":254,"href":"https:\/\/kozelkeletblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions\/254"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kozelkeletblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kozelkeletblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kozelkeletblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kozelkeletblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}