Sufism

Persian poets since Rūdakī have drawn on the letter symbolism of the Perso-Arabic alphabet. Visually, its characters have attracted poets who find the likeness of the beloved in their shapes. Spiritually, it enjoys a special status as the language of the Koran and therefore, in the eyes of some, God. Classical Persian lyric poetry combined these aesthetic and religious connotations, and as one of the foremost voices in that tradition, Ḥāfiẓ was no exception. But a review of the extant literature shows that, as a trope, letter symbolism has been largely overlooked when compared with wine, the moth, or the candle. Through a comprehensive study of the let-ters' use in Ḥāfiẓ's dīvān, this article argues that, by playing with particular letters' connotations, or punning on their physical shapes and homographs, Ḥāfiẓ invokes disparate meanings, only to then reveal their underlying unity, in the process affirming the affinity between love and language, the beloved and the divine.

The location of the city of al-Ludd, between the lowlands and the coastal plain, made it an attractive settlement site through the ages. This location brought with it, on the one hand, a fertile catchment area and on the other, caravans looking for a safe inland route. The last settlement phase that resulted in the medieval town was extant until the mid-twentieth century, whence it was demolished leaving only a dozen buildings standing. Those remains are the starting point for this study in which we discuss topics such as shrines, sheikhs' tombs, the soap industry and public bath, presented here as part of a preliminary survey that lays the ground for further discussion of the town's urban dynamics.

Bakhtine a décrit le carnaval comme un espace utopique, populiste et festif. Mon propos est que le Grand Magal, un événement religieux mouride au Sénégal ainsi qu'une fête nationale populaire, partage de nombreux parallèles notables avec le carnaval, un argument qui permet de mieux comprendre son importance de même que sa nature. Tout comme le carnaval, le Grand Magal est un espace contradictoire où les oppositions binaires s'estompent : les participants y célèbrent non seulement leur foi mais aussi leur existence humaine en embrassant les plaisirs mondains. Temporairement libérée des règles et des rôles habituels dictés par la vie quotidienne, la communauté mouride peut envisager le futur et le renouvellement, et ainsi échapper aux difficultés de la réalité. Fondée en 1887 par le Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba – fondateur du mouvement soufi musulman – à la suite d'une vision sacrée, la ville de Touba, au Sénégal, est le centre spirituel des Mourides. Chaque 18 Safar, au mois de novembre, environ 4 à 5 millions de Soufis font leur pèlerinage – leur zyara – à Touba. Celui-ci se nomme le Grand Magal : le Magal Gu Ma en wolof. Mag signifie « être important » ou « être vieux ». Magal peut donc être traduit par « célébration » ou « anniversaire » (Coulon 1999 : 196). Pendant le Magal, les disciples mourides – les talibés – font une circumambulation autour des monuments associés au Fondateur, tels que sa tombe, qui se trouve dans la grande mosquée construite en son honneur. Ils présentent des offrandes à leurs marabouts et surtout font des oblations au Khalife Général, qui est

This critical Arabic text edition of Salwat al-ʿārifīn wa-uns al-mushtāqīn, a manual of early Sufism by Abū Khalaf al-Ṭabarī (d. ca. 470/1077), is based on a very old manuscript preserved in Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣrīya of Cairo, Egypt and copied in 459/1067. It is introduced by a detailed analytical study of the author and his work. Salwat al-ʿārifīn forms an integral part of Sufi literature and reflects Islamic developments in Nishapur in northeastern Iran. This crucial Arabic text, published for the first time, is especially valuable because of its great philological accuracy and sound textual tradition. It represents an essential source for the intellectual history of Islam during the middle of the 4th/10th to the middle of the 5th/11th century.

Abraham Abulafia (1240–1290) is considered to be one of the most significant Jewish mystics and is one of the few who taught a comprehensive system of meditative practices designed to induce ecstatic religious experiences. At the heart of Abulafia’s meditation techniques lies the coordination of breath and body while pronouncing the Hebrew letters of the Name of God. Specifically, Abulafia instructs the practitioner to empty and stop the breath, paralleling a technical breathing practice in Yogic Pranayama called “Kumbhaka”. The Islamic polymath Al-Biruni’s (973–1048) Arabic translation of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras is proposed as one possible transmission vector for this Yoga technique across radically different cultures and geographies into Abulafia’s method, which then profoundly influenced major Jewish personalities down to our day.

The famous argument for the existence of God is analyzed with a survey of the Greek and Arabic influences of Avicenna's system.

Turning to the text, The Salvation, ‘’Metaphysics,’’ II. 12, it is stated that ‘’at any one and the same time there cannot be for anything that is possible in itself a cause that is possible ad infinitum’’ (II.12.2). Here he’s saying that a possible being cannot have an infinite amount of causes at the same time. Because if that infinite totality of causes would itself have either an internal cause or an external necessary cause. It can’t be internal, because it would either be (a) necessary, which is not an option because everything internal to that totality is possible; then (b) an internal possible cause – which is not an option because that would make it a part of the totality and a part can’t be a cause of the whole. So if that cause is not internal, then it has to be external. It can’t be possible, because all of the possible causes have been established in that inner totality. Therefore it has to be necessary. He concludes the argument by stating that:
Thus, things existing possibly terminate in a cause existing necessarily, in which case not every effect that exists as something possible will have simultaneously with it a cause that exists as something possible, and so an infinite number of causes existing at a single time is impossible. (II.12.2)
This argument can be considered as a subsidiary conclusion to Avicenna’s main argument for the proof of God’s existence (McGinnis 166-67). There are considered to be four main categories of arguments: (1) the metaphysical proof from necessity; (2) the proof from movement; (3) the proof from causality; (4) the proof from ontology (Netton 172-73). The themes are similar to the discussions on the problem of infinite causal regress as discussed for example in book two of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ On Aristotle’s Metaphysics. I think that he is essentially concerned with establishing a logical argument that integrates a hierarchy of ontological causality rather than simply natural causality. In that sense, it could be considered similar to the ‘’a posteriori cosmological arguments’’ of the quinque via  of ThomasAquinas (Netton 173).

‘[A] valid concept of “Islam” must denote and connote all possible “Islams,” whether abstract or “real,” mental or social’ (104)... Ahmed seeks to avoid two major pitfalls: (1) making Islam into a static essence or a category within an essentialist framework – such as proscription/prescription, ‘religion’,‘civilization’, ‘culture’, ‘orthodoxy’, etc., and (2) rendering Islam into a totally incoherent concept by conceding that there are as many islams as there are communities or individuals. Ahmed’s thesis (presented in Chapter 5) is that Islam is best conceptualized as a process of meaning-making or hermeneutical engagement in which the human agent engages with the Divine Revelation granted to Muhammad in one or more of this Revelation’s hierarchical dimensions – Pre-Text, Text, and Con-Text – in order to constitute meaning for himself."

The intention of this study is to examine the last tale of Sufi master Jalal-e-din Rumi in his masterpiece Masnavi or Mathnavi (trans. 2003). Sufism is one of the world's established mystical traditions and the Sufi Order is a school that offers training for initiates. Storytelling is an integral and important tradition within Sufism, fomenting the soul’s growth through knowledge. The medium of storytelling speaks directly to the heart and soul of the listener, penetrating where mere informational and intellectual lectures do not.

Realizing the constructed nature of gender is often described as a twentieth-century
Western phenomenon. Nevertheless, in several South Asian
religious traditions, practitioners are instructed through songs and oral teachings
to exchange and ultimately transcend gender identities. In this article
I discuss the practices aimed at transcending gender identity among some
contemporary Bengali lineages that have been defined as “heterodox” by
nineteenth-century reformers. Several lineages in West Bengal and Bangladesh
perform cross-dressing and meditative identification with the opposite
sex. I discuss such practices using songs, riddles, and oral sources collected
during fieldwork conducted between 2011 and 2015. I then briefly trace the
history of religious transvestism in South Asian literature, while contextualizing
this practice within Vaishnava and Sufi traditions. Finally, I discuss how
similar phenomena have been interpreted by modern and postmodern scholarship
to conclude with a conceptual framework for interpreting “pregnant
males” and “barren mothers” in light of contemporary gender theories, with
reference to performativity and ritual liminality.

Sohbet tarzında, her yaştan insanın rahatça okuyabileceği bazı tasavvufî yazılarımızı derlediğimiz bu esere, sohbetin ve dostluğun önemine işâret etmek için “Kahve Bahâne” adını verdik. Çünkü günümüzün hızla büyüyen şehirlerinde yalnızlaşan insanımız sohbete ve muhabbete her zamankinden daha fazla muhtaçtır.
Bu kitap, daha önce neşredilen “Derviş Keşkülü” ve “İrfan Bahçesi” isimli eserlerimizin bir devamı ve bu serinin üçüncü kitabı olarak da kabul edilebilir. Tasavvufî sohbet tadındaki bu eser, farklı zamanlarda kaleme alınan yazıların toplanmasıyla oluştuğu için bir konuya odaklanmış değildir. Farklı konulardaki yazıların bir araya getirilmesiyle oluşan bu eserin de keyifle okunacağını umuyoruz.

In the Balkan borderlands, a region characterized by hybridity and religious ambiguity, the Muslim allocation of an equivalent saint in the “pantheon” of Christianity was facilitated by a certain “rapprochement” between the two religions through what Mikhail Bakhtin calls an “organic” hybridization: an ongoing fusion of disparate elements into a new language which had culturally productive effects. The polymorphic figures of two “saints”, Sarı Saltuk and St. George, are emblematic of this process of cultural translation. Their joint hagiolatry is a refraction of conquest and appropriation, tempered by pilgrimage and cross-cultural accommodation. Their joint hagiolatry will be examined from the perspective of shared cultural spaces and the entanglements taking place within these spaces.

This paper introduces the presence of Islam and Islamic culture in the work of Fernando Pessoa. It consists of a chronological and textual overview of these themes in the author's writing and intellectual course. Focusing primarily on Pessoa's literary estate and private library, this paper points out and presents Pessoa's interests in Islam, Islamic Philosophy, Arabic literature, Omar Khayyām and al-Andalus. A hermeneutical, cultural and bio-bibliographical framework is proposed and further research possibilities are suggested. The paper is followed by a publication of twelve texts from the author's literary estate concerning these themes.

In 18th century, The Ozbek Tekkes of Istanbul  was established for the Uzbeks who come to Istanbul before going to the pilgrimage. The tekke is connected with the Naqshbandi religious order, tarikat. The tekke which has strong ties with the state had become a school in nineteenth century.  The tekke has contributed  to the war of independence but it was closed after the proclamation of the Republic. In this period, it has transformed into a center for artists, especially for classic turkish musicians.

This contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium “Fuzzy Studies” explores the boundaries between religions by exploring the ambiguous place of yoga in various religious traditions, both modern and premodern. Recently, certain Hindus and Christians have tried to argue that yoga is an essentially Hindu practice, making their case by appealing to the Yoga Sutras, a text by the Sanskrit author Patanjali. However, on closer examination, the Yoga Sutras seem to exist in a fuzzy, indeterminate space that is not quite “Hindu” in the way the word is understood today. For instance, other Sanskrit authors of the first millennium CE criticized Patanjali's yoga teachings for not being properly theistic and for having strong affinities to Buddhism and Jainism. Yoga was also integrated into at least one of the “religions of the book” in the medieval period: in India in the second millennium, yoga was practiced widely among Sufis, who adapted it in surprising and idiosyncratic ways to make it compatible with their own Islamic philosophies. Nicholson concludes with an appeal for a more nuanced understanding of religious contact that goes beyond the pejorative term syncretism to acknowledge that religious mixing has been a central force in the development not only of Hinduism and Islam, but also of Christianity.

Analyzing the intersection between Sufism and philosophy, this volume is a sweeping examination of the mystical philosophy of Muḥyī-l-Dīn Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 637/1240), one of the most influential and original thinkers of the Islamic world. This book systematically covers Ibn al-ʿArabī’s ontology, theology, epistemology, teleology, spiritual anthropology and eschatology.

While philosophy uses deductive reasoning to discover the fundamental nature of existence and Sufism relies on spiritual experience, it was not until the school of Ibn al-ʿArabī that philosophy and Sufism converged into a single framework by elaborating spiritual doctrines in precise philosophical language. Contextualizing the historical development of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s school, the work draws from the earliest commentators of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s oeuvre, Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī (d. 673/1274), ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Kāshānī (d. ca. 730/1330) and Dawūd al-Qayṣarī (d. 751/1350), but also draws from the medieval heirs of his doctrines Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī (d. 787/1385), the pivotal intellectual and mystical figure of Persia who recast philosophical Sufism within the framework of Twelver Shīʿism and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 898/1492), the key figure in the dissemination of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s ideas in the Persianate world as well as the Ottoman Empire, India, China and East Asia via Central Asia.

Lucidly written and comprehensive in scope, with careful treatments of the key authors, Philosophical Sufism is a highly accessible introductory text for students and researchers interested in Islam, philosophy, religion and the Middle East.

The Seven Seals of medieval Islamic magic, which are believed to constitute the Greatest Name of God, also feature in Jewish Kabbalah from the same period. While many Seal symbols make sporadic appearances in early Islamic amulets bearing Kufic script, the source of the symbols and their eventual ordering remains a matter of legend. As this topic was first – and last – examined systematically by Dr. Hans Winkler in 1930, a wider-ranging and more modern review is long overdue. The present survey focuses on potential sources for the symbols rather than on their exegesis. It first examines the possibility that a precedent for the Seal series exists in an undecipherable “seven signs repeated seven times” inscribed on a Late Babylonian amulet. It then considers the possibility that the Seals’ origins lie in other cuneiform symbols from ancient Mesopotamia; in Egyptian hieroglyphs or scripts; in paleo-Hebrew characters or the letters of ancient South Arabian scripts; in Libyco-Berber or Tifinagh letters from North Africa; or in the symbol repertoire of Late Antique magic, including the highly potent seven Greek vowels. The review also explores the possibility that at least some of the symbols originated in numerological ciphers or religious emblems, canvassing sources as diverse as Indian Hinduism and Byzantine Christendom. The article concludes by considering the recent suggestion that the Seal series may have acquired its privileged status because its symbols reflect “shape archetypes” that are hard-wired into the human nervous system.

From the style of the language of the opening of this text it is clear that it was composed between 1790 and 1804 during the middle period of the reform movement established by the Shehu, which began in 1774 until his death in 1817. The specific target of this text was his son, Shaykh Muhammad Sanbu who requested the Shehu to put in writing some principles on the methodology of disciplining the soul through hunger and fasting. Shaykh Abd’l-Qaadir ibn Mustafa informs us in his Bayaan at-Ta`abudaat that as a result of applying the discipline of the text at the hands of his father, Shaykh Muhammad Sanbu ibn Shehu Uthman ibn Fuduye` had attained the station of champion of truth (siddiqiyya) at an early age. The general target audience of this text were the many spiritual disciples of the Shehu who were apart of his close assembly in Degel just before the hijra in 1804. Among them were Shaykh Umar Kamuni, Shaykh Muhammad Yero, Shaykh Abdullahi Mujjin Mahwi, Shaykh Muhammad Kari`angha, Shaykh Muhammad Tukur, Shaykh Ali Dhimbu, Shaykh  Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Bukhari, Shaykh as-Sayyid Ibrahim, Shaykh Umar Ghurba, the wife of the Shehu A`isha Iyya Gharka bint Shaykh Muhammad Sanbu; and others. Shaykh Umar Ahmad Zaruq said that another important beneficiary of this text was the Shehu’s eldest son, Muhammad Sad, who died in the year 1791, which means the text was probably composed between 1789 and 1790. At the time of the composition, Shaykh Muhammad Sanbu was about 17 years old and Shaykh Muhammad Sa`d was about 20 years old.

Water stands as one of the most symbolically significant images in most of the world’s religious communities. Yet Islam’s intellectual, contemplative, and popular traditions accord distinctive and variegated meaning to this image, uniquely influenced by pre-Islamic Arabic literary convention, the text of the Qur’ān, Muslim rituals, Islamic literature, and the cultural context within which Islam blossomed. It is difficult to say that there is an image of water in Islam at all, but one can discern an accumulation of images and connotations that contribute to a concept of water as indefinite as it is rich. While, broadly speaking, that “image” relays life, knowledge, and purity, this work assumes that studying particular, illustrative instances of the meaning of water will yield a picture more indicative of Islam’s unique symbolic heritage.

Elinizdeki bu çalışma, İslam Tarihi’nin belirli bir bölümünde, belirli bir
bölgede ortaya çıkan ve İslam Medeniyeti’nin doğal bir parçası olan bir
devletin içerisinde var olan sûfî zümrelerin hangi tasavvufî metinler üzerine yoğunlaştığını ele almaya çalışmıştır.
Öncelikle konuya giriş olarak tasavvuf tarihindeki ilk teliflere sonra tasavvufî metin şerhi meselesine değinilmiştir. Ardından şerhe konu olmuş temel metinlerden bir kısmı ele alınarak incelenmiştir. Sonrasında Osmanlı’da şârih kimliği öne çıkan bazı sûfî müellifler ile şerhlerin dönemsel değerlendirilmesi ile çalışma tamamlanmıştır. Ek kısmında ise asır asır yazılan şerhlerin dökümüne yer verilmiştir. Bununla aynı asırda hangi eserler rağbet görerek şerhlere konu olmuştur bir resminin ortaya konulması amaçlanmıştır. Ayrıca diğer İslami ilimlerde ortaya konulan şerh literatürü ile mukâyese de bu şekilde mümkün olabilecektir.