Transcript sufism - pgapworld

Sufism
Basic Tenants
The Spiritual Journey to God:
•Less of a doctrine then a way of life
•Way of life that a deeper identity is discovered and
lived
•Harmony with all that exists
•Seeks a way out of the path of “worldliness”
•Developed out of Islam
A Gathering of Sufis, Persian 19th century miniature
A Gathering of Dervishes - India, 17th century
Ibn Khaldun, the 14th century Arab
historian, described Sufism as:
... dedication to worship, total
dedication to Allah most High, ….
(Ibn Khaldun, quoted in Keller, Nuh Ha Mim, The
Place of Tasawwuf in Traditional Islam)
Span of Influence
Sufism expanded vastly throughout
the Islamic Empire and beyond to
many places not under Muslim
control
A Qadiri Sufi village in Dongxiang county, Linxia prefecture, Gansu province.
The tower is a Sufi tomb
The tomb of Khoja Afāq, near Kashgar, China
Sudanese Sufi ceremony
Dervishes
Dervishes are a very ascetic form of Sufi
mystics known for their extreme poverty.
A Persian dervish, Qajar era
Dervishes: Mevlâna mausoleum, Konya, Turkey
Dervishes in Turkey became known for the whirling
dances they performed
Persian or Arabic for Dervish
‫درویش‬
Dar is Persian means ‘door.’ A Darvesh is one
who goes from door to door
Sufism in Turkey and Central Asia
Sufism laid the ground work for the Ottoman
Empire in Turkey
Muslim presence in Iran and
Afganistan
A Sufi dervish, they spread Islam throughout Anatolia
Sufi presence in Transoxania and Khorasan
since its conception
Sufism in South and
Southeast Asia
Chisti Sufis and
Seljuk invasions
helped the spread
of sufism into India
Tomb of Shaikh Salim Chisti,
Uttar Pradesh, India
Sufi singers in Indonesia
18th
Century
Dutch
map of
Java,
prominent
religious
groups
included
Sufi
mystics
Spread of Sufism
3
1
4
2
5
1.Sufism
spreads from
Arabian
heartlands
and moves
into Anatolia
2. Sufism spreads into Africa and establishes a community in the larger already present Islamic community
3. Sufism moves with the expansion of seljuks into India
4. Sufi mystics move along trade routes into China and SouthEast Asia
5. Sufism spreads into Indonesia
Literature
"The Concourse of the Birds" painted by
Habib Allah
In order to guide spiritual travelers and to express the states of
consciousness experienced on this journey, Sufis produced an
enormously rich body of literature, often using a specialized
technical vocabulary
The Mathnawī of Rūmī
Comprising six books of poems that
amount to more than 50,000 lines, it
pursues its way through 424 stories
that illustrate man's predicament in
his search for God.
Bibliography
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Nasr, Syed Hossein. (1991). Islamic Spirituality II: Manifestations. New
York: Crossroad.
Dr. Alan Godlas, University of Georgia, Sufism's Many Paths, 2000,
University of Georgia: http://www.uga.edu/islam/Sufism.html
Dr. Zubair Fattani, "The meaning of Tasawwuf", Islamic Academy. See:
http://www.islamicacademy.org/html/Articles/English/Tasawwuf.htm
Haddad, Gibril Fouad: Sufism in Islam LivingIslam.org:
http://www.livingislam.org/k/si_e.html
Geaves, Theodore Gabriel, Yvonne Haddad, Jane Idleman Smith: Islam and
the West Post 9/11, Ashgate Publishing Ltd., p. 67
Muhammad Emin Er, Laws of the Heart: A Practical Introduction to the Sufi
Path, Shifâ Publishers, 2008
"Ṣūfi literature." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica
Online. 07 Oct. 2008
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/719922/Sufi-literature