Non-Islamic Sufism?

[StarryNightshade]

Sufism is often described as a mystical sect/branch of Islam and for the most part that is correct. However, is there a non-Islamic form of Sufism? Or, to be more clear, can someone identify as a Sufi, but not subscribe to the external religious or cultural trappings of Islam?

 

[sandandfoam]

Yes
Universal Sufism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Sha'irullah]

Almost all practices of Sufism are apocryphal to Islam and thus unIslamic but it does not mean they are anti-Islamic. Unlike common thought, the vast majority of Sufis are true blooded Muslims not Buddhist saints who combine Islam in their religion. Sufism usually gets traced to Iran or the late periods of Iraq before Islamic conquest. I learned and still practice many elements associated with Sufism and to be honest it is very unaffiliated with Islam at a lot of points. The excessive need for saints and grave worship are one such example.

Indian Sufis are primarily known for their anti-islamic practices along with the Bektashiyyah and Ismaili'iyah

 

[Assad91]

Yes, there are " non Islamic sufism".... but is it genuine? Not at all.

 

[Sha'irullah]

Yes, there are " non Islamic sufism".... but is it genuine? Not at all.

That is not the point. Sufism is a set of practices added on to Islam. Take for example the Mu'tazili who used natural theology based from Anaxagorian principles in theology. They were obviously Muslims who applied an extra-additional resource to their religion and Sufis are no different in this regard. Being a Shi'ite I would assume you know this considering the Persian crossover with Islam and it's split. Hell, the Sabaeans were praying 5 times a day long before Muslims. It is just cultural/theological transfer

 

[Yusz]

Mysticism is not belong to any religion... there are mystical branch of each religion, and Sufism is part of Islam theoretically... Those who understand the word 'Mysticism' would understand, no matter what religion is, in the end we seek the same answer... And you don't need to convert to Islam if you wanna be part of Sufism..

 

[Sha'irullah]

Mysticism is not belong to any religion... there are mystical branch of each religion, and Sufism is part of Islam theoretically... Those who understand the word 'Mysticism' would understand, no matter what religion is, in the end we seek the same answer... And you don't need to convert to Islam if you wanna be part of Sufism..

This has sort of been my whole issue with the usage of religion and also with my hatred of the word faith as both have undesirable connotations for mystics. Sufism has been realized by people like Inayat Khan that Sufism is irrelevant to Islam yet alone religion. This creates a bit of a dilemma when people realize that a true mystic is in reality irreligious. So no medium(religion) can be a mediator between mysticism and religion.

 

[LuisDantas]

A few questions.

1. Any good threads on why the words religion and faith are undesirable for mystics? I'm at a loss here. Never even imagined that, which I see as an indication of how little I understand of that "mysticism" means.

2. Isn't it true that Sufism is at least generally perceived as the mystical practice with connections to Islam? It is my current understanding that there is a connection, even if perhaps only a historical link with no other significance. Is that correct? Do Sufis see themselves as Muslims (and therefore as non-members of other religions)? How often, if so?

3. Is my perception that Muslims generally have a slightly ambiguous view of Sufism accurate? It seems to me that generally speaking Muslims (and outsiders) perceive Sufism as having at least inspiration and origin in Islam, although their practices are viewed as somewhat heterodox and perhaps suspect.

4. Generally speaking, why would someone be called a Sufist as opposed to a (generic?) mystic if not due to Islamic inspiration? Is there a meaningful distinction? Is it arbitrary choice?

 

[sandandfoam]

A few questions.

1. Any good threads on why the words religion and faith are undesirable for mystics? I'm at a loss here. Never even imagined that, which I see as an indication of how little I understand of that "mysticism" means.

I'm not sure of threads but my understanding is that mysticism is about direct experience, belief in stuff gets in the way

2. Isn't it true that Sufism is at least generally perceived as the mystical practice with connections to Islam? It is my current understanding that there is a connection, even if perhaps only a historical link with no other significance. Is that correct? Do Sufis see themselves as Muslims (and therefore as non-members of other religions)? How often, if so?

Universal sufism is for everyone. IMHO so is Islam.
For example I can't say that I'm a muslim because I don't go to a mosque, follow the 'rules of Islam' etc etc but I consider myself a muslim as I understand the term

3. Is my perception that Muslims generally have a slightly ambiguous view of Sufism accurate? It seems to me that generally speaking Muslims (and outsiders) perceive Sufism as having at least inspiration and origin in Islam, although their practices are viewed as somewhat heterodox and perhaps suspect.

I think if you believe in oneness then labels are not that important

4. Generally speaking, why would someone be called a Sufist as opposed to a (generic?) mystic if not due to Islamic inspiration? Is there a meaningful distinction? Is it arbitrary choice?

Same answer as above - I think if you believe in oneness then labels are not that important

 

[Vouthon]

1. Any good threads on why the words religion and faith are undesirable for mystics? I'm at a loss here. Never even imagined that, which I see as an indication of how little I understand of that "mysticism" means.

I for one would strongly dispute that they are. To do so would be a very bizarre interpretation of mysticism which in point of fact, in terms of history, most often emerged in the context of and in relationship with a venerable religious tradition. The Desert Fathers, the Hesychasts, the Rhineland mystics, the Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Carmelites, the Victorines were all lineages of mystics that arose within the confines of Christianity. The Upanishadic sages were begotten from the ancient Vedic religion. The Neo-Platonists came out of the Greek religion. And yes, Sufism did emerge within the Islamic world. The first Sufis have been proven to be ascetic Muslims trying to escape the pomp and luxury of the Abbasid Caliphate (then the world's most powerful state) by living solitary, holy lives in the desert. These early Islamic mystics were named 'world renouncers' [zuhhad].They meditated on the Qur'an and repeated the dhikr, invoking the Names of Allah. Then over time some Sufis wrote down their devotional exercises beginning in the 9th century. Niffari, Tirmidhi and Bayazid are famous early Sufis. Now, there was an Islamic version of the Inquisition around this time, called the Minha, which tried to suppress the more radical elements of this early Islamic mysticism (although its primary opposition had been towards non-mystical Mutazili rationalist heretics). The state executed Al-Hallaj, who declared identity with God ("I am Allah"). However in the twelfth century the orthodox Muslim jurist Al-Ghazali reconciled Sufi Islam, which by this time was popular among masses of ordinary Muslims, with the orthodox tenets of the Ulema. Thus, Sufism became an accepted part of Islam, even if with some tensions, until the rise of fundamentalist Wahhabism in the 19th century.

That does not mean that non-Muslims cannot practise elements of or admire Sufism. Inyat Khan and all mystics ultimately believe that their experiences transcend all earthly categories, such that they invariably take on an ecumenical vision. However one should not in my opinion neglect the Islamic heritage of Sufism. Early Sufis were influenced by contemporary Syrian Christian mysticism, elements of Buddhism and Neo-Platonism. However their mystical experiences were still inspired by extensive reading of the Qur'an and a life lived in honour of the five pillars of Islam. Every religious tradition has eclecticism.

To argue that mysticism is separate from religion is to be ahistorical in my humble opinion. That it can arise independently of religion I do not dispute, however the norm has certainly been the opposite in historical terms.

 

[Vouthon]

This has sort of been my whole issue with the usage of religion and also with my hatred of the word faith as both have undesirable connotations for mystics. Sufism has been realized by people like Inayat Khan that Sufism is irrelevant to Islam yet alone religion.

If a true Sufi mystic is irreligious, can you please explain to me why Rumi - the most famous of the Sufi mystics who wrote the Masnavi, a world classic of Sufi poetry - remained a devout Islamic scholar and jurist after his first mystical experience, adhering to the Hanafi school? His family carried this legacy on.

SeekersGuidance - What Do Classical Scholars Say About Jalal al-Din al-Rumi? – Answers

Mawlana Jalal al-Din al-Rumi (d. 672 h.) was a recognized scholar of the Hanafi school, as were his father, son, and grandson, all being jurists of the highest caliber, as well as an Imam of the science of self-purification (ihsan).

In his compendium of Hanafi scholars, Abu’l Wafa’ al-Qurshi (d. 696 h.) introduces him as someone “knowledgeable of the [Hanafi] school, possessing vast understanding of juridical matters, thoroughly knowledgeable of juridical differences and other types of sciences.” [Jawahir al-Mudiyya]

Similarly, Ibn Qutlubugha (d. 879 h.), the great Hanafi jurist, stated in his Taj al-Tarajim after mentioning Mawlana Rumi’s lineage back to our liege=lord Abu Bakr (Allah be well pleased with him) that “he was knowledgeable of the legal schools, differences of opinion, and various types of sciences… and he composed many lines of poetry.”...

Perhaps more noteworthy than all of the above are the biographical notices on his son, Baha’ al-Din Ahmad, who was described in Ibn Hajar `Asqalani’s Durar al-Kamina as, “one of the Imams of the Hanafi Masters, brilliant, ascetic, pious, a jurist, scholar of legal methodology (usul), and grammarian…” and by al-Qurshi in his Jawahir as an “Imam… who followed his father in leaving the world behind.”...

All of this goes to show that Mawlana Jalal al-Din was nothing but an orthodox Sunni scholar who not only mastered the outward sciences but actualized the inward as well. May Allah be well-pleaed with him and those who followed him.

 

[Vouthon]

This creates a bit of a dilemma when people realize that a true mystic is in reality irreligious. So no medium(religion) can be a mediator between mysticism and religion.

Au contraire, the mystical path in most traditions has begun through an intermediary, then beyond an intermediary and then beyond that to "direct experience" of reality itself.

An example would be Blessed John of Ruysbroeck, who has been hailed as being among the greatest mystics in history:

"...John Ruysbroeck, 'the Admirable', is in some ways the most wonderful of the mystics...It may with all probability be said, that than him there has been no greater contemplative; and certainly there has been no greater mystical writer. His contemplation is highly intellectual, and at the same time fully mystical. Whether in the sublimity of his elevations or in the power of recording his experiences, Ruysbroeck stands as one of the very greatest of the mystics..."

- Dom Cuthbert Butler, OSB Western Mysticism (1922), p.209-10

"...Kabir belongs to that small group of supreme mystics amongst whom St. Augustine, Ruysbroeck, and the Sufi poet Jalalu'ddin Rumi are perhaps the chief who have achieved that which we might call the synthetic vision of God. These have resolved the perpetual opposition between the personal and impersonal, the transcendent and immanent, static and dynamic aspects of the Divine Nature; between the Absolute of philosophy and the 'sure true Friend' of devotional religion. They have done this, not by taking these apparently incompatible concepts one after the other; but by ascending to a height of spiritual intuition at which they are, as Ruysbroeck said, 'melted and merged in the Unity,' and perceived as the completing opposites of a perfect Whole...Rusysbroeck discerned a plane of reality upon which 'we can speak no more of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but only of One Being, the very substance of the Divine Persons'..."

- Evelyn Underhill, in Introduction to the Poems of Kabir (1915)

Read what he had to say in his "Little Book of Enlightenment":

"...Behold, I have said this: that the contemplative lover of God is united with God through an intermediary, and also without intermediary, and thirdly, without difference or distinction; and this I find in nature, and in grace, and also in glory...We must all be lifted up above ourselves into God, and become one spirit with God in love; and then we shall be blessed. And therefore mark my words and my meaning, and understand me aright as to what is the condition and the way to our eternal blessedness...

OF THE UNION THROUGH AN INTERMEDIARY

And next, I will say that all good men are united with God through means. These means are the grace of God, and the sacraments of Holy Church, and the Divine virtues, faith, hope and charity, and a virtuous life according to the commandments of God; and to these there belongs a death to sin and to the world and to every inordinate lust of nature. And through these, we remain united with Holy Church, that is, with all good men; and with these, we obey God, and are one will with Him, even as an orderly convent is united with its Superior...

OF THE UNION WITHOUT INTERMEDIARY

These same interior, enlightened persons have the love of God before them in their inward vision whenever they want, as drawing or calling in towards unity. For they see and feel that the Father with the Son by means of the Holy Spirit stand embraced with all the elect and are brought back with eternal love into the unity of their nature. This unity is constantly drawing or calling in all that has been born out of it naturally or by grace. And therefore these enlightened people are lifted up with free mind above reason to a bare vision devoid of images. There lives the eternal invitation of God’s unity, and with imageless naked understanding they go beyond all works and all practices and all things to the summit of their spirit. There their naked understanding is penetrated with eternal clarity as the air is penetrated by the light of the sun. The bare elevated will is transformed and penetrated with fathomless love just as iron is penetrated by the fire. And the bare elevated memory finds itself caught and established In a fathomless absence of images. Thus the created image is united threefold wise above reason to its eternal image, which is the source of its being and of its life...

Christ prayed that He should be in us, and we in Him. This we find in many passages in the Gospel. And this is the union that is without intermediary, for the love of God is not only out-flowing, but it is also drawing into unity. And those who feel and experience this become interior, enlightened men. There the faculties are raised above all practices to the bareness of their very essence. There the faculties become simplified above reason in their essence and because of this they are filled and overflowing. For in this simplicity the spirit finds itself united with God without intermediary

OF THE HIGHEST UNION, WITHOUT DIFFERENCE OR DISTINCTION

And after this there follows the union without distinction. For you must apprehend the Love of God not only as an outpouring with all good, and as drawing back again into the Unity; but it is also, above all distinction, an essential fruition in the bare Essence of the Godhead. And in consequence of this enlightened men have found within themselves an essential contemplation which is above reason and without reason, and a fruitive tendency which pierces through every condition and all being, and through which they immerse themselves in a wayless abyss of fathomless beatitude, where the Trinity of the Divine Persons possess Their Nature in the essential Unity. Behold, this beatitude is so onefold and so wayless that in it every essential gazing, tendency, and creaturely distinction cease and pass away. For by this fruition, all uplifted spirits are melted and noughted in the Essence of God, Which is the superessence of all essence. There they fall from themselves into a solitude and an ignorance which are fathomless; there all light is turned to darkness; there the three Persons give place to the Essential Unity, and abide without distinction in fruition of essential blessedness...for that beatific state, which is the fruition of God and of all His beloved, is so simple and onefold that therein neither Father, nor Son, nor Holy Ghost, is distinct according to the Persons, neither is any creature. But all enlightened spirits are here lifted up above themselves into a wayless fruition, which is an abundance beyond all the fulness that any creature has ever received or shall ever receive. For there all uplifted spirits are, in their superessence, one fruition and one beatitude with God without distinction; and there this beatitude is so onefold that no distinction can enter into it. And this was prayed for by Christ when He besought His Father in heaven that all His beloved might be made perfect in one, even as He is one with the Father through the Holy Ghost: even so He prayed and besought that He in us and we in Him and His heavenly Father might be one in fruition through the Holy Ghost. And this I think the most loving prayer which Christ ever made for our blessedness.

For this is the inmost life of the spirit; and, in the enlightened and uplifted man, the life of the senses adheres to the spirit. And so his sensual powers are joined to God by heart-felt love, and his nature is fulfilled with all good; and he feels that his spiritual life adheres to God without means. And thereby his highest powers are uplifted to God in eternal love, and drenched through by Divine truth, and established in imageless freedom. And so he is filled with God, and overflowing without measure. In this inundation there comes to pass the essential outpouring or immersion in the superessential Unity; and this is the union without distinction, of which I have often told you. For in the superessence all our ways end. If we will go with God upon the highway of love, we shall rest with Him eternally and without end: and thus we shall eternally go forth towards God and enter into Him and rest in Him..."

- Blessed John of Ruysbroeck (1293 – 1381), The Little Book of Enlightenment

 

[Sha'irullah]

If a true Sufi mystic is irreligious, can you please explain to me why Rumi - the most famous of the Sufi mystics who wrote the Masnavi, a world classic of Sufi poetry - remained a devout Islamic scholar and jurist after his first mystical experience, adhering to the Hanafi school? His family carried this legacy on.

SeekersGuidance - What Do Classical Scholars Say About Jalal al-Din al-Rumi? – Answers

You are seriously digging into things to much. I do not care about Rumi, he did not create Sufism so why would I interest myself in what he says? Do you even know that Rumi is deemed a heretic on many occasions my Muslims today. If a true Sufi is a mystic then he would see that no religion is fit to fulfill the human experience. Rumi was just a bad mystic simply.

 

[Assad91]

You are seriously digging into things to much. I do not care about Rumi, he did not create Sufism so why would I interest myself in what he says? Do you even know that Rumi is deemed a heretic on many occasions my Muslims today. If a true Sufi is a mystic then he would see that no religion is fit to fulfill the human experience. Rumi was just a bad mystic simply.

Wow, really?

Poor soul, them Wahabis did a real brainwashing on you.

 

[ametist]

Mysticism is not belong to any religion... there are mystical branch of each religion, and Sufism is part of Islam theoretically... Those who understand the word 'Mysticism' would understand, no matter what religion is, in the end we seek the same answer... And you don't need to convert to Islam if you wanna be part of Sufism..

Yes, thats it

 

[Sha'irullah]

Wow, really?

Poor soul, them Wahabis did a real brainwashing on you.

I am not a Muslim. Whether Rumi was a Muslim or not is irrelevant. Sufism is usually regarded as being of Persian/Zoroastrian origins. This of course explains the massive amount of Persian influence, sainthood, and the fact that many Sufis are usually traced with Persian descent. Rumi is a fine example of this of course. Sufism is as separate from islam as islam is from Judaic mythology.

Shia islam is very Persian and pagan influenced. Rumi is a shining light in this regard but as for many Muslims this is not the case.

 

[sun rise]

I just found this topic. Sufism does not have to exist within the bounds of Islam. Hazrat Inayat Khan who is in the Chisti lineage of Sufism wrote this prayer, "Salat":

Most gracious Lord, Master, Messiah,
And Savior of Humanity,
We greet Thee with all humility.
Thou art the first cause and the last effect,
The Divine Light and the Spirit of Guidance,
Alpha and Omega.
Thy light is in all forms,
Thy love in all beings,
In a loving mother, in a kind father,
In an innocent child, in a helpful friend,
In an inspiring teacher.
Allow us to recognize Thee
In all Thy holy names and forms;
As Rama, as Krishna, as Shiva, as Buddha;
Let us know Thee as Abraham, as Solomon, as Zarathustra, as Moses, as Jesus, as Mohammed,
And in many other names and forms,
Known and unknown to the world.
We adore Thy past;
Thy presence deeply enlighteneth our beings,
And we look for Thy blessings in the future.
O Messenger, Christ, Nabi, the Rasul of God,
Thou whose heart constantly reacheth upward,
Thou comest on earth with a message,
As a dove from above when dharma decayeth
And speaketh the word that is put into Thy mouth
As the light filleth the crescent moon.
Let the star of the Divine Light shining in Thy heart
Be reflected in the hearts of Thy devotees.
May the Message of God reach far and wide,
Illuminating and making the whole humanity
As one single brotherhood in the fatherhood of God.

 

[arcanum]

You are seriously digging into things to much. I do not care about Rumi, he did not create Sufism so why would I interest myself in what he says? Do you even know that Rumi is deemed a heretic on many occasions my Muslims today. If a true Sufi is a mystic then he would see that no religion is fit to fulfill the human experience. Rumi was just a bad mystic simply.

Rumi a bad mystic? Many would disagree with you my friend. And just what criteria do use to measure a good from a bad mystic anyways?

 

[Sha'irullah]

Rumi a bad mystic? Many would disagree with you my friend. And just what criteria do use to measure a good from a bad mystic anyways?

Dude I am arguing that Sufism does not need to be attached to Islam. I was being facetious.
I have been a Muslim before and for Rumi to be the way he was he would have to disregard a lot of Islamic doctrine. If he wanted to be a better mystic he would stop being a Muslim although that would be sort of hard at the same time considering that he would have been killed