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Sufism is typically thought of as the mystical side of Islam. In recent years, it has been held up as a supposedly peaceful alternative to the spread of forms of Islam associated with violence, an embodiment of democratic ideals of tolerance and pluralism. Are Sufis in fact as otherworldy and apolitical as this stereotype suggests? Modern Sufis and the State brings together a range of scholars, including anthropologists, historians, and religious-studies specialists, to challenge common assumptions that are made about Sufism today. Focusing on India and Pakistan within a broader global context, this book provides locally grounded accounts of how Sufis in South Asia have engaged in politics f...
The heart in the Islamic understanding is the expression of a human being's spiritual existence. It is a Divine gift and Divine subtle faculty bestowed upon humanity. It is a polished mirror reflecting God. Like a general, the heart commands all other bodily organs and faculties, which are its troops, Everything that comes from a human being, whether good or bad, is a product of the heart. Mehmet Y. Seker, a scholar of Sufism and tasawwuf, studies the concept of the heart in the Islamic tradition looking at how it is approached by three prominent scholars and thinkers of Islam: Ghazali, Said Nursi, and Fethullah Gulen. Being the first in English to take as its focus the human heart from an Islamic spiritual, this book comparatively analyzes classical and modern age interpretations and evaluations on the concept and adds to the rich literature of spirituality in the Islamic tradition.
This is a woman's firsthand account of a Sufi halvet, a forty-day retreat conducted in complete isolation, along with strict fasting from sunrise to sundown. Voluntarily confined to a sparsely furnished room amid the bustle of Istanbul, Michaela Özelsel will occupy her time with reading the Qur'an and works of Rumi and Ibn 'Arabi, and with praying and practicing the powerful Sufi exercise known as zhikr, the rhythmic repetition of names of God or other sacred formulas, accompanied by movements of the head or body. In intimate detail Dr. Özelsel shares her experiences as she strives to attain true "Islam" in its meaning of surrender or unconditional acceptance of the will of God. Her daily ...
The material in The Nature of the Sufi Path consists of 70 commentaries on a book entitled Sufism: A Short Introduction by Professor William C. Chittick. Many, if not most, of the paragraphs that comprise the 163 pages (preface plus text) of Professor Chittick’s book contain problems, errors, misleading statements, and/or incorrect understandings concerning Islam, in general, and the Sufi path, in particular. This is both surprising and disturbing since the author is someone who, apparently, enjoys a considerable reputation in North America -- and, perhaps, elsewhere in the world -- as an expert on, and scholar of, the Sufi mystical tradition. I do not claim that what I say in this book is a definitive, exhaustive, ‘incapable-of-being-improved-upon’ treatment of the Sufi path. Rather, my hope is that the present book might move a person closer to the truth concerning the nature of that path than Professor Chittick’s aforementioned introduction to Sufism does and, as such, would represent an improvement over his work.
We often confuse unity with uniformity. In reality it is the spirit of unity which creates uniformity for the sake of its beauty and protection it gives. Throughout all ages both have existed: unity as the inner nature of every soul and the only purpose of life, and uniformity to help to fulfill that purpose. Unity is the goal and uniformity the means to reach that goal, but often the means has obscured the purpose. All through the ages the different religions, which have been given to man for his spiritual development with the sole idea of unity, have gradually become a kind of community or nationality. Many people who belong to a Church accept its dogmas, claim a certain name for their rel...
This volume provides a composite of contemporary Sufi involvement in politics using a range of approaches and disciplines. It explores the role of Sufi-related parties where they exist or are emerging. It also examines how parties that condemn Sufism have adopted aspects of Sufi organization and practice. Changes in views within the academy on politics and Sufism are discussed. Perspectives on Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia are included as are overviews of Sufism's political dimension across various regions. Contributions in the volume seek answer questions such as: Where Sufi related parties exist, what policies do they propose, and how do they differ from those of Islamist parties? How would "law" be understood? What is the relationship between secular and Sufi ideas about the role of religion in society? How do Sufi views about how to structure the state in Muslim majority space differ from alternatives? Are Sufis more likely to support democracy?
In an effort to attain a ‘global’ character, the contemporary academic discipline of International Relations (IR) increasingly seeks to surpass its Eurocentric limits, thereby opening up pathways to incorporate non-Eurocentric worldviews. Lately, many of the non-Eurocentric worldviews have emerged which either engender a ‘derivative’ discourse of the same Eurocentric IR theories, or construct an ‘exceptionalist’ discourse which is particularly applicable to the narrow experiential realities of a native time-space zone: as such, they fall short of the ambition to produce a genuinely ‘non-derivative’ and ‘non-exceptionalist’ Global IR theory. Against this backdrop, Sufism: A Theoretical Intervention in Global International Relations performs a multidisciplinary research to explore how ‘Sufism’ – as an established non-Western philosophy with a remarkable temporal-spatial spread across the globe – facilitates a creative intervention in the theoretical understanding of Global IR.
In-depth ethnographical study of contemporary Sufi orders in Iran, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, as well as in the UK and US.