Sufism, non Muslim Sufism, Secular Sufism, Sufism as spiritualism and mysticism

[RevolutionThroughReason]

When Rumi talks of Quran and Muhammad , he talks of his person being a Muslim. As a Muslim he believes in Quran and Muhammad and wants to remove this misconception

No you're misinterpreting Rumi, he warned about people who will do what you are doing; he's saying Sufism depends on Islam . Shari'ah in Islam only means one thing and since Rumi was a Shaikh; for him Shari'ah Means Law. When he says "I looked into my own heart and there I saw Him; He was nowhere else.” he means that merely being a Muslim won't be enough you need Ikhlas. He does not mean Non-Muslims can be Sufi.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

This is what I always try to explain that all such injunctions have a moral or ethical content not legal. Please see the bold words in this verse

And We ordained for them therein a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a nose for a nose, an ear for an ear, a tooth for a tooth, and for wounds is legal retribution. But whoever gives [up his right as] charity, it is an expiation for him. And whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed - then it is those who are the wrongdoers.

Here the main purpose is charity and expiation not legal punishment as for a death sentence you need a complete penal code. You cannot just by few words run a court sentencing people to death.

This will be very naive or even stupid way of thinking to make Quran a legal book as for law the world need parliament, courts, legislation, legal codes and many other prerequisites not just few sentences in a religious book.

Yes we have full guidance and the whole paraphernalia for beliefs, worship modes and ethics in Quran. We also have guidance for spiritual growth but for law, politics, economics, society, culture and science we have to resort to other sources not to Islam. This is why Sufis do not indulge in politics because they consider it a profession for politicians and we have the separation of Sultan and Murshid. Even people like Imam Abu Hanifa did not join the post of Judge and opposed the ruler of the time.

Wrong. You are interpolating into the ayaah. It says clearly that the law of equality and retribution was revealed for justice, but mercey between human beings is clearly better but a choice. This is reflected in the revelations/ayaahs regarding murder and retribution and the rights of family members to forgive or demand the life of the murderer.

Rather, it is naive and stupid to somehow conjure and imagine up the notion that the ayaah absolves the laws of retribution, otherwise it would have said so. The wording is explicit about the fact that Muhammad (S) was being given a continuation of the law, just as Christ says in the New Testament that he came to fulfill the law and not destroy it.

You are utterly bereft of proof or references to validate that comment you made regarding the Quran absolving or nullifying said penal code.

If you choose to answer please do not repeat your erroneous argument unless you are equipped with class I references. Otherwise, its merely your opinion negated even by the practice of the law in the Prophet's lifetime.

[faye]

Faye I do not have words to thank you for sharing this couplet of the great Rumi. You made my work easier.

In these words we can find secular sufism and sufism for non Muslims. Rumi did not find God no where neither in Kaaba nor in Prophet's experience but in the heart of Rumi. God is in our heart and we can be Muslims or Non Muslims. Finding God is sufism and you cannot find it in religion but in heart which is a spiritual experience for the whole mankind.

sufism is sufism. it does not own the experience of compassion, mysticism nor the experience of connecting with the creator.
a christian once told me i am a christian because i believe in the equality of all and love for humanity. i reminded her, that love was around before christians, that christianity does not have the patent on love.

i believe that the illusion or mass, which we call reality, is the vehicle for the spirit, for an experiencing and learning process and one will transcend attachment to it and all ideas and ideals, when attaining a realisation of our true nature.
but i am not a sufi.

[RevolutionThroughReason]

They seems to confuse what the meanings of terms in Islam mean. Some say Shari'ah can be interpreted as system. I have never heard a single Arabic speaker or Person who has an academic background in Arabic whether Western or Eastern, Islamic or Secular, ever use the word Shari'ah as system.

Every dictionary of Arabic lists Shari'ah as "al qanun al Islamiyah" which means Laws of Islam

Qur'an says in
Surah Al Ma'idah 48 says mina al haqqi lixkullin ja'alna minkum shir'aatan wa minhajan

Here they use the word Shira'atan which is "form" of the word Shari'ah and "Manhaj" which means "system" . Shari'ah and its meaning is in the Qur'an and when Rumi talks about Shari'ah he means Law of Islam

[faye]

[QUOTE=RevolutionThroughReason;
[I]"The Shari'ah is like a lamp: It shows the way. Without a lamp you will not be able to go forward.[/I]
When you enter the path your going is the Tariqah when you reach the goal, that is the Truth..........
When man dies to the life of this world, the Shari'ah and the Tariqah will be cut off from him and only the Truth will remain
The Shari'ah is knowledge, the Tariqah is works and the Truth is attainment to God."
(from Masnawi Book 5 by Shaikh Jalaluddin Rumi)[QUOTE]

i also read, when researching qu'ran, that muhammad also said, 'one has to die to the world before leaving the world', or words to that effect.

[Badlun]

I do not deny that the Muslim and Non Muslim scholars agree that Shariat exist in Islam but I am going to challenge this misnomer Shariat to be a complete system. I am doing more research on this issue but may be I am the pioneer in this regard to totally refute the idea of Shariat as a complete code and limiting it only to few religious areas.

Please read the following excerpts taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia(you may also see the references given in the article) which shows that Sharia can mean a path and is not a code and limited to few areas.
Scholars describe the word sharia as an archaic Arabic word denoting "pathway to be followed",[16][17] or "path to the water hole".[20] The latter definition comes from the fact that the path to water is the whole way of life in an arid desert environment.[18]

Many scholars have pointed out that the sharia is not formally a code,[24] nor a well-defined set of rules.[25] The sharia is characterized as a discussion on the duties of Muslims[24] based on both the opinion of the Muslim community and extensive literature.[26]

Much of the Qur'an exhorts Muslims to general moral values; only 80 verses of the Qur'an contain legal prescriptions.[34]

Sharia in the secular Muslim states: Muslim countries such as Mali, Kazakhstan, and Turkey have declared themselves to be secular, meaning religious interference in state affairs, law, and politics is prohibited. In short, sharia is limited to personal and family matters.[44]

Muslim states using classical sharia: Saudi Arabia and some of the Gulf states do not have constitutions or legislatures. Their rulers have limited authority to change laws, since they are based on sharia as it is interpreted by their religious scholars.

"Reliance of the Traveller", an English translation of a fourteenth century CE reference on the Shafi'i school of fiqh written by Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, organizes sharia law into the following topics:
Purification
Prayer
Funeral prayer
Taxes
Fasting
Pilgrimage
Trade
Inheritance
Marriage
Divorce
Justice

In the above list the word tax is strange as zakat is not a tax. Moral aspects of trade and not doing injustice in inheritance is the main idea. Marriage and divorce again or family issues not social, economic or political issues as such.

[RevolutionThroughReason]

ah so you changed you do have an ideological motive and agenda before you denied that you had a an agenda now you admit your agenda which is verified by your attempt to try to misrepresent Sufism.

The problem is you are not qualified; all your reasoning and arguments have been addressed by Both Western and Eastern, Muslim and Non-Muslim Scholars already and all have shown you're incorrect from both historical evidence, Qur'an and even Hadith. Even the issues of alleged contradictions you argue have been explained by understanding of context and conditional application which makes the issue of contradiction as no longer present and this has been known from the earliest times.


The Wikipedia link only lists 3 scholars; but every other scholar agrees it is a law and social/political system as well. 3 scholars cannot refute the conclusion of thousands and thousands of more qualified academics

[fzpz]

Osho fails at science and logic.

[Badlun]

What do you say about this simple statement that
Much of the Qur'an exhorts Muslims to general moral values; only 80 verses of the Qur'an contain legal prescriptions

In more than 6000 verses only 80 have legal prescriptions and those legal prescriptions also have moral under pinning as punishment for murder is to control the social evil and sin of killing some one.

In the list given above the focus is on religion not on other aspects of life. How can one says that the so called sharia is a complete system. The simple reason again that no where except few places we do not have any Shariat based state.If it is such a good divine ssytem recommended by so many schoalrs then why it is not promulgated. A thing become good if it is used. Just having the injunctions in books cannot make Sharia a system.

Let us simply be honest and just with Islam to declare it only a religion and spiritual system and nothing beyond that.

[RevolutionThroughReason]

If you study the Qur'an Tafsir, how many times something is referred is not the central aspect of determining Shari'ah, but rather the type of emphasis and directive it has and also the context of reference.

So even if something is mentioned 4-5 times and something else is mentioned 80 times. 4-5 times can still carry more weight than the one mentioned 80 times, it depends on the weight a particular concept has. In certain instances number of references do matter, but this is why studying the QUr'an is a very dynamic subject for people qualified to do it.

Shari'ah is not just a bunch of rules and regulations but also a way of determining legislation based on the context and relevance of each situation in respects to the Qur'an so that's how we can determine Shari'ah. The key is using the Qur'an to do this process.

And we know this from the verse "judge by what Allah has revealed".

[Badlun]

The contents of a book, the number of chapters, topics covered and issues raised definitely indicate how much importance is given to what subject. When you repeat offering prayers as several hundred times while talking of inheritance once means that prayers are more important than inheritance.

Stress of the Quran is on God, the life after death, prophets, prayers etc not day to day affairs . The target is man and family not beyond that. Society, culture, state , world etc which is teh so called Shariat are not the topics dealt with details as God knows that time changes and no permanent rules can be assigned for such aspects of life.

Beliefs, worship and morality is eternal so dealt on permanent basis while the rest is kept for the judgement of man. That will be a very cruel God to define every thing for you and you just a robot or a piece of stone follow a written code. The misnomer of Shariat wants to serves for this purpose but it was never never a success no where.

[RevolutionThroughReason]

Not necessarily

it also depends on context, the type of language structure used to emphasize it. The type of verbs used. Prayers are more important, but not because it is said 100 more times; but because the language used; the way the statement is stated. Many things are mentioned in Islam 1000 x like for example

Only in SOME cases does repetition mean more emphasis. You cannot say for all cases. And you cannot say "definitely" unless you examine the other factors which you clearly have not.Also you're wrong God gives us a Methology based on some principles and rules and we USE that methodology; so God doe exactly the opposite; he gives us TOOLS to know how to use and apply Shari'ah and thereby giving us the opportunity to discover how deep the Shari'ah Is.



That's a very fair and far from cruel; cruel would be to say it's ok for men to sell their daughters for wheat like in Pashtunwali

.Here is a paper on the subject of repetition in the Qur'an; in many instances it talks about certain things with different words with the same meaning; Shari'ah is repeated in different forms and different words but same meaning.

http://publications.qu.edu.sa/ojs/index.php/islamic/article/view/178

[faye]

perfect!!!!!


....All creations exists in or because of God. It is the attributes of God that come across each other to have self conciousness and the sense of externality and this way God minifests Himself. This the reality of the unreality that we call creations; whether we call it the shadow or reality or its mirror, it is realy saying the same thing. God was a hidden treasure and He wanted to minifest Him self. He created this entire universe in this way. Now looking at His creation is actually looking at God, not from the point of view of the universe being the wonderfull handicraft of a master artisan but also because it is still Him or inside Him. We can not imagine a separate God against a separate universe for that will limit His Omnipresence, may also bestow eternity on the universe. There can not be two co-eternal, co-existing at the same time. If God is Omnipotent and Omnipresent than what is the potentiality or even the reality of the universe and where does it exist? We are forced to conclude that it is entirly dependent upon God and can exist only in him. And that is the doctrine of Wahdatul Wajud (the unity of essence)....

(Muktoobat-e-HamzaBaba)

[Badlun]

wahdatul wajud is a great idea which gives a message to the unity of mankind in all spheres of life. This was a tragedy that a Sufi like Sheuikh Ahmad Serhendi brought his own false idea of wahdatul shahood and then Wahabis discredited sufism even not be part of Islam and called Sufis infidels.

[RevolutionThroughReason]

wahdatul wajud is a great idea which gives a message to the unity of mankind in all spheres of life. This was a tragedy that a Sufi like Sheuikh Ahmad Serhendi brought his own false idea of wahdatul shahood and then Wahabis discredited sufism even not be part of Islam and called Sufis infidels.

Sheikh Sirhandi is apart of the Golden Chain (silsila al-dhahabiya) so it is people who say his ideas are false ....that introduce false ideas because they are fake Sufis and don't understand the true objective of Sufism, not the other way around. They must correct themselves not the other way.

Ignorant people always judge by their ignorance.

Naqshbandi Chain

The Naqshbandi Sufi Way: History and Guidebook of the Saints of the Golden Chain©

by Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani



Prophet Muhammad ibn Abd Allah, Salla Allahu `alayhi wa alihi wa sallam
Abu Bakr as-Siddiq, radiya-l-Lahu`anh
Salman al-Farsi, radiya-l-Lahu`anh
Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr
Jafar as-Sadiq, alayhi-s-salam
Tayfur Abu Yazid al-Bistami, radiya-l-Lahu canh
Abul Hassan Ali al-Kharqani, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Abu Ali al-Farmadi, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Abu Yaqub Yusuf al-Hamadani, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Abul Abbas, al-Khidr, alayhi-s-salam
Abdul Khaliq al-Ghujdawani, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Arif ar-Riwakri, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Khwaja Mahmoud al-Anjir al-Faghnawi, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Ali ar-Ramitani, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Muhammad Baba as-Samasi, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
as-Sayyid Amir Kulal, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Muhammad Baha'uddin Shah Naqshband, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Ala'uddin al-Bukhari al-cAttar, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Yaqub al-Charkhi, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Ubaydullah al-Ahrar, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Muhammad az-Zahid, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Darwish Muhammad, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Muhammad Khwaja al-Amkanaki, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Muhammad al-Baqi bi-l-Lah, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Ahmad al-Faruqi as-Sirhindi, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Muhammad al-Masum, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Muhammad Sayfuddin al-Faruqi al-Mujaddidi, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
as-Sayyid Nur Muhammad al-Badawani, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Shamsuddin Habib Allah, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Abdullah ad-Dahlawi, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Khalid al-Baghdadi, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Ismail Muhammad ash-Shirwani, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Khas Muhammad Shirwani, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Muhammad Effendi al-Yaraghi, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Jamaluddin al-Ghumuqi al-Husayni, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Abu Ahmad as-Sughuri, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Abu Muhammad al-Madani, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Sharafuddin ad-Daghestani, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Abdullah al-Fa'iz ad-Daghestani, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah
Muhammad Nazim Adil al-Haqqani, qaddasa-l-Lahu sirrah