Download or read book Sufi Encounters written by Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri and published by Watkins Media Limited. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 809 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unparalleled exploration of Sufism as it is practised around the world, describing meetings with today's enlightened teachers as well as including wonderfully inspiring translations of the great Sufi masters of the past. Ultimately, this book acts as a guide to the Sufi path and offers wise insight into the meaning and purpose of life. A compelling view of Sufi history together with vivid personal remembrances of living mystics. This is an inspiring and at the same time beautifully subtle book, with light-filled insights on every page." – Saadi Shakur Chishti, author of The Sufi Book of Life The Sufi path described in this book leads the seeker past ordinary states of consciousness towards a new experience of infinitude that is the source of the universe. In this stage there is no duality or otherness, but instead infinitude, the Original Oneness, from which all dualities and attributes emanate. The book is at once an autobiography, a didactic treatise and a literary opus full of wonderful translations of the words of earlier Sufis, as well as the author's own poetry. It describes Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri’s life quest to connect today’s world with classical times, especially through his meetings with enlightened Sufis all over the globe. Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri also addresses profound Sufi teachings concerning the nature of humankind, the cosmos and God, using clear and simple language to address difficult doctrinal issues as only a master who has digested fully such knowledge could do. The book also reveals much about the present-day Islamic world where, despite the tragedies that are to be seen everywhere, tradition and spirituality survive. This is a metaphysical and spiritual guide to the Sufi path that ultimately offers insight into the meaning and purpose of life.
Download or read book Sufi Encounters written by Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri and Muneera Haeri and published by . This book was released on 2019-12-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ''A compelling view of Sufi history together with vivid personal remembrances of living mystics. This is an inspiring and at the same time beautifully subtle book, with light-filled insights on every page.'' - Saadi Shakur Chishti, author of The Sufi Book of Life The Sufi path described in this book leads the seeker past ordinary states of consciousness towards a new experience of infinitude that is the source of the universe. In this stage there is no duality or otherness, but instead infinitude, the Original Oneness, from which all dualities and attributes emanate. The book is at once an autobiography, a didactic treatise and a literary opus full of wonderful translations of the words of earlier Sufis, as well as the author's own poetry. It describes Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri's life quest to connect today's world with classical times, especially through his meetings with enlightened Sufis all over the globe. Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri also addresses profound Sufi teachings concerning the nature of humankind, the cosmos and God, using clear and simple language to address difficult doctrinal issues as only a master who has digested fully such knowledge could do. The book also reveals much about the present-day Islamic world where, despite the tragedies that are to be seen everywhere, tradition and spirituality survive. This is a metaphysical and spiritual guide to the Sufi path that ultimately offers insight into the meaning and purpose of life.
Download or read book The Sufi and the Friar written by Minlib Dallh and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2017-07-19 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigation of the spiritual encounter between a twentieth-century Dominican friar and an eleventh-century Afghani Sufi master. This book explores the profound spiritual encounter between Serge de Beaurecueil (19172005), a twentieth-century French Dominican friar and Christian mystic, and the eleventh-century ?anbal? Sufi master Khw?ja Abdull?h An??r? of Her?t (10061089). De Beaurecueil lived much of his Christian discipleship in Cairo and Afghanistan, where he became the foremost expert on the life and thought of An??r?. His mystical conversation and scholarly engagement with An??r?, his experience of Islamic hospitality, and the transformation of his own practical spirituality or praxis mystica through his experience of dwelling in the abode of Islam provide us with not only a magnificent and luminous meditation on the hidden and abiding presence of God among Muslims but also a contemplation on the quandary of genuine engagement with and openness to the religious other. To place a French Dominican friar who died in 2005 and a Sufi who died in 1089 in juxtaposition in the same book is not the most obvious path in comparative religious scholarship. Yet Dallh has not only done precisely that, but he has also produced a brilliant monograph in the process which makes for a fascinating read. Dallhs work exhibits painstaking scholarship which illuminates two notable figures in Christianity and Islam respectively and makes an original contribution to the study of these two great faith traditions. Ian Richard Netton, author of Islam, Christianity and Tradition: A Comparative Exploration
Download or read book Garden of the Sufi Insights Into the Nature of Man written by Jim Aghevli and published by Green Dragon Books. This book was released on 1999-03 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the centuries, religion has inspired some of civilization's most beautiful poetry, and certain Persian Muslims, the Sufi, have created intricately wrought poems celebrating peace and harmony. The world is a beautiful garden of mystery when viewed through the eyes of the Sufi. Each poem, most from the 1200's, is clearly and fully explained in its historical, religious, political, and spiritual context. Written to propagate tranquility and harmony through a better understanding of an important religion and its impact on literature, Garden of the Sufi is a lavishly thorough exploration of Sufi poetry and philosophy.
Download or read book Days in the Life of a Sufi written by Raziuddin Aquil and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2020-11-12 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If anyone puts thorns on my way out of animosity Every flower in the garden of his life remain thornless - Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya The lives of Sufis are replete with stories of tantalizing miracles and unforgettable anecdotes of wisdom. The 101 Sufi tales in this book show pursuits of ethical and moral conduct in Sufi spirituality - a vibrant movement within Islamic traditions across time and space. Committed in their love for God, the Sufis found love in all His Creations. Large numbers of followers and devotees have continued to throng Sufi shrines seeking blessings and benediction. The stories of mystical exercises and charitable endeavour in this book illustrate their role and continuing relevance in shaping a pluralistic, diverse and tolerant Indian society. Exactly as the Sufis focused on soul searching and right conduct for themselves and all those around them, these stories are nuggets of wisdom which guide people to become better human beings.
Download or read book Philosophical Sufism written by Mukhtar H. Ali and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-07-29 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Sufi Visionary of Ottoman Damascus written by Elizabeth Sirriyeh and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi (1641 to1731) was the most outstanding scholarly Sufi of Ottoman Syria. He was regarded as the leading religious poet of his time and as an excellent commentator of classical Sufi texts. At the popular level, he has been read as an interpreter of symbolic dreams. Moreover, he played a crucial role in the transmission of the teachings of the Naqshabandiyya in the Ottoman Empire, and he contributed to the eighteenth-century Sufi revival via his disciples. This pioneering book analyzes important aspects of al-Nabulusi's work and places him in the historical context.
Download or read book Sufism in Western Contexts written by Marcia K. Hermansen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-07-03 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sufism in Western Contexts explores both historical trajectories and multiple contemporary manifestations of Islamic mystical movements, ideas, and practices in diverse European, North and South American countries, as well as in Australia – all traditionally non-Muslim regions of the “global West”. From early French and British colonial administrators who admired Persian poetry to nineteenth-century American transcendentalists, followed by South Asian and Middle Eastern immigrant Sufi guides and their movements, expansive and many-faceted expressions of Sufism such as its role in Western esotericism, female whirling dervishes and Rumi cafes, and new articulations in cyberspace, are traced and analyzed by international experts in the field.
Download or read book The Little Book of Sufi Stories written by Neil Douglas-Klotz and published by Hampton Roads Publishing. This book was released on 2018-06-01 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Entertaining. . . . practical, ghostly, and often very funny tales . . . including those by saints like Rumi as well as lay storytellers from Turkey and Persia.” —Publishers Weekly The stories in this book are drawn from the dozens of Sufi tales that Douglas-Klotz has enjoyed telling in his seminars over the past 20 years. Most of them appear in works of the classical Sufis, such as Rumi, Attar, or S’adi. To preserve some of the in-person feeling and bring the language up to date, he has given them his own improvised turns. “If you want to hear a good story but prefer to read it instead, then read Douglas-Klotz! He writes as if he’s sitting in your living room, invited over for afternoon tea to entertain you with some heart-pleasing, often humorous, yet soul-searching Sufi stories. His modernization of these old texts is gentle and mindful, yet unapologetic.” —Maryam Mafi, from the foreword
Download or read book Contemporary Sufism written by Meena Sharify-Funk and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-12-22 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is Sufism? Contemporary views vary tremendously, even among Sufis themselves. Contemporary Sufism: Piety, Politics, and Popular Culture brings to light the religious frameworks that shape the views of Sufism’s friends, adversaries, admirers, and detractors and, in the process, helps readers better understand the diversity of contemporary Sufism, the pressures and cultural openings to which it responds, and the many divergent opinions about contemporary Sufism’s relationship to Islam. The three main themes: piety, politics, and popular culture are explored in relation to the Islamic and Western contexts that shape them, as well as to the historical conditions that frame contemporary debates. This book is split into three parts: • Sufism and anti-Sufism in contemporary contexts; • Contemporary Sufism in the West: Poetic influences and popular manifestations; • Gendering Sufism: Tradition and transformation. This book will fascinate anyone interested in the challenges of contemporary Sufism as well as its relationship to Islam, gender, and the West. It offers an ideal starting point from which undergraduate and postgraduate students, teachers and lecturers can explore Sufism today.
Download or read book The Hindu Sufis of South Asia written by Michel Boivin and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-09-05 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Within the complex religious landscape of modern India, the community of Sindh stands out as a powerful example of interfaith relations. This Hindu community moved to India and practiced Sufism following Sindh's inclusion to Pakistan in the 1947 partition. Drawing on a close analysis of literature and poetry, interviews with key informants, and a reading of historic rituals and architectures, Michel Boivin demonstrates that this active religious minority has managed to retain its unique Hindu-Sufi identity amidst the rigidification of official religions in both India and Pakistan. Of particular significance, Boivin argues, was the creation of sacred spaces called darbars. These shrines include a religious building where the Hindu Sindhis worship Sufi saints, chant Sufi poetry and perform Sufi rituals. In looking at this vibrant community as a trans-religious culture capable of navigating the challenges of the modern nation state, this book is an important contribution to understanding the Muslim-Hindu encounter in India.
Download or read book Sufism The Living Tradition written by Riyad Asvat and published by . This book was released on 2021-06-03 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By examining the teaching and work of the contemporary Sufi master, Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi, the book weds the traditional understanding of existence propounded by the ancient world with cutting edge, present day scientific discourse.
Download or read book Islam in South Asia written by Amit Dey and published by Parul Prakashani Private Limited. This book was released on 2016 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholarly, insightful and, at the same time, written in an exceptionally lucid style, this book challenges certain stereotypes relating to Islam, Sufism, folk songs and inter community relations in the South Asian context. By consulting Persian, Urdu, Bengali and English sources, this book suggests that Sufism is more heterogeneous and complex than what is commonly taken to be.
Download or read book Global Sufism written by Francesco Piraino and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sufism is a growing and global phenomenon, far from the declining relic it was once thought to be. This book brings together the work of fourteen leading experts to explore systematically the key themes of Sufism's new global presence, from Yemen to Senegal via Chicago and Sweden. The contributors look at the global spread and stance of such major actors as the Ba 'Alawiyya, the 'Afropolitan' Tijaniyya, and the Gülen Movement. They map global Sufi culture, from Rumi to rap, and ask how global Sufism accommodates different and contradictory gender practices. They examine the contested and shifting relationship between the Islamic and the universal: is Sufism the timeless and universal essence of all religions, the key to tolerance and co-existence between Muslims and non-Muslims? Or is it the purely Islamic heart of traditional and authentic practice and belief? Finally, the book turns to politics. States and political actors in the West and in the Muslim world are using the mantle and language of Sufism to promote their objectives, while Sufis are building alliances with them against common enemies. This raises the difficult question of whether Sufis are defending Islam against extremism, supporting despotism against democracy, or perhaps doing both.
Download or read book Sufism the Living Tradition written by and published by . This book was released on 2015-03-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book aims to demonstrate that the modern idea defining epistemology as a branch of philosophy with only two sources for knowledge - reason and sense perception or, in other words, rationalism and empiricism - is wholly insufficient as a complete description of the true nature of knowledge. It will do this by focusing on the contrasting epistemological positions of modernity and Sufism and, in particular, on those aspects of knowledge which are required for the understanding and interpretation of the meaning of reality. It is also clear that beliefs, and the knowledge employed in justifying and explaining them, lead to certain values and these values lead, in turn, to the institutionalization of specific types of behaviour. The institutions that develop around these values go on to form the core of the cultures and civilizations that grow up based on those beliefs. In this way, the beliefs inherent in Sufism, and the areas of Sufi knowledge that elucidate them, may well be able to contribute to social cohesion and harmony in the modern world. The Sufi model we will be looking at, with regard to both theory and practice, is that of the contemporary Sufi Master, Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Sufi, and the conceptual framework adopted in order to examine these issues is existentialist, by which we mean that evidence for the validity of particular epistemic truths can only truly be ascertained from the actual results produced by the values and institutions that are born out of those truths. The community we will focus on is the one established in Cape Town by Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir. The main institutions around which it functions are the market, the mosque, the college and the Murābiṭūn movement. Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir's zāwiya, the place where he lives and holds his meetings, is a hive of constant activity and, based on this, our aim is to highlight the contemporary practical implications of the Sufi epistemology which underlies his work.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Sufism written by Lloyd Ridgeon and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces the evolution of Sufism from the formative period to the present.
Download or read book Re visioning Sufism written by Jonas Atlas and published by Yunus Publishing. This book was released on 2019-10-28 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sufism is often described as ‘the mystical branch of Islam’. Giving some more attention to this underexposed spiritual side, it is often proposed, could help us to ease certain contemporary societal tensions. One finger then points toward the rigorous religious aggression of fundamentalism as ‘the problem’, while another points toward the soft beauty of mysticism as ‘the solution’. Yet, no matter how well-intended the contemporary focus on Sufism might often be, in the end, it repeatedly portrays a lack of comprehension when it comes to Islamic mysticism. The typical descriptions are full of mistakes, and the conclusions they lead to need much nuance. Those misunderstandings do not simply stem from innocent ignorance. They are misunderstandings with more profound origins and implications. They’re closely tied to enormous blind spots in the contemporary view of religion and deeply entwined with pressing political issues. In fact, the way we deal with mysticism in general and with Sufism in particular actually kindles many contemporary conflicts. This book thus seeks to add the necessary nuances, correct the misunderstandings and unveil the contemporary ‘politics of mysticism’. It seeks to clarify how the growing interest in what is called ‘Sufism’ is connected to both the contemporary demonization of Islam and the modern destruction of profound spirituality in the East as well as the West.
