Exploring Charisma in Sufism - Saints, Sainthood and Pilgrimage (Sufism 4)
Sufism Carl Ernst Reli 180, Introduction to Islamic Civilization.
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Transcript of Sufism Carl Ernst Reli 180, Introduction to Islamic Civilization.
Sufism
Carl Ernst
Reli 180,
Introduction to Islamic Civilization
Outline
Problems of definition
Modern European and fundamentalist concepts of Sufism
Quick vocabulary check on Sunni/Shi`I
Ibn Khaldun on Sufism
Institutional development of Sufism, post 1200
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1. Definition and the problem of “essentially contested terms”
Examples: Liberal; justice; freedom (see George Lakoff, Whose Freedom? The Battle over America's Most Important Idea)
Different perspectives on Sufism: foreign & non-Islamic, or the heart of Islam?
Where do definitions come from?Summaries of analytical observation (Plato)
Historical record (Oxford English Dictionary)
Authority (political/religious figures)3
Arabic definitions
The derivations of Sufisuf, wool, garment of ascetic denial
Safa’, “purity”
safwa, “the elite”
Ahl al-suffa, “the people of the bench” (early Muslims who shared everything in common)
Tasawwuf, “becoming a Sufi” explained by teaching definitions
How might that differ from “Sufism” as part of the catalog of “isms”?
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2. Rediscovery of the Sufi tradition
Spirituality, experience, mysticism: loaded terms from European/Christian history
Early Europeans like Sufi poetry (love and wine), thought it couldn’t possibly be Islamic – must be from somewhere else?
Recent colonial/postcolonial reformations of Islamic identity (“fundamentalism”) reject Sufi saints, intercession, Sufi lineages and practices, as evil innovations
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3. Who overlaps with whom?A quick vocabulary check
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Sunni Sufis, and Shi`i Sufis
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Human face composed of Allah, Muhammad, Ali
4. Ibn Khaldun on Sufism
“belongs to the sciences of the religious law that originated in Islam”
Divine worship, devotion to God, aversion from the world, abstinence from wealth, retirement into solitude for worship – all common among early Muslims
Special name “Sufi” developed a couple of centuries later [compare special technical terms of Islamic law and hadith]
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Ibn Khaldun: characteristics of Sufism
Asceticism
Intuitive perception of psychological states and stations
Self scrutiny and quest for knowledge and unity with God
Special language for inner experience, parallel to other fields of religious knowledge
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Ibn Khaldun explains Sufism
Philosophical psychology as an explanation of Sufi experiences
“Removal of the veil” as a key metaphor for perception that goes beyond the senses
Different views on God as separate or one with creatures (362); alleged similarity with philosophical and Christian views
Disapproval of Sufis by legal scholars (muftis, who give fatwas)
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Ibn Khaldun criticizes Sufism
Theories of absolute oneness: only God exists
Theory of cosmic imagination
-- dismissed as contrary to reason and experience
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More criticism of Sufism requires distinction of topics
1. “pious exertions” of meditation and worship
2. Removal of the veil, perception of supernatural realities
3. The operation of divine grace in the world
4. Ecstatic expressions that arouse suspicion (“I am the truth” – Hallaj) These are the primary problem; they should be disapproved or reinterpreted
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Ibn Khaldun’s final verdict
Seeking inner experience is fine, but it’s better not to discuss them publicly!
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5. Institutional development of Sufism, post 1200
“Saints” or living friends of GodProblems with using the term “saint”
Tombs as centers of pilgrimage: local forms
Masters (shaykh, pir) and disciples (murid)
“Chains” (silsila) of master and disciple, going back to the Prophet [Sufi “orders”]
“Ways” (tariqa) taught by orders
Veneration of the Prophet
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Tomb of Mu`in al-Din Chishti (Ajmer, India, d. 1235)
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Tomb of Ahmadu Bamba (Touba, Senegal, d. 1910)
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Scale of Sufi shrine pilgrimage
Ajmer receives 1.5 million pilgrims at the annual festival
Touba receives over 2 million pilgrims
Neither pilgrimage center is aware of or connected to the other
Both challenge the hajj to Mecca in size
To what extent should they be considered marginal in modern Islam?
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More institutional developments
Chanting the Arabic names of God as a ritual of remembrance (dhikr)
Rituals of music, recitation of poetry
Sometimes arms-length from politics, sometimes tightly involved
Abolition of Sufism in Turkey by secular govt., in Saudi Arabia by fundamentalists
Modern phenomenon of Sufism for non-Muslims
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Conclusion
Problems of definition:
“Once Sufism was a reality without a name; now it is a name without a reality”
-- Abu al-Hasan Fushanja (11th century)
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