History
Modern academics and scholars form rejected early Orientalist theories asserting a non-Islamic origin of Sufism; the consensus is that it emerged in Western Asia. Sufism has existed as an individual inner practice of Muslims from the earliest days of Islam. According to Carl W. Ernst the earliest figures of Sufism are Muhammad himself and his companions Sahabah. Sufi orders are based on the bay‘ah بَيْعَة bay‘ah, مُبَايَعَة mubāya‘ah 'pledge, allegiance' that was condition to Muhammad by his Ṣahabah. By pledging allegiance to Muhammad, the Sahabah had dedicated themselves to the utility of God.
Verily, those who give Bai'âh pledge to you O Muhammad they are giving Bai'âh pledge to Allâh. The Hand of Allâh is over their hands. Then whosoever breaks his pledge, breaks it only to his own harm, and whosoever fulfils what he has covenanted with Allâh, He will bestow on him a great reward. — [Translation of Quran, 48:10]
Sufis believe that by giving bayʿah pledging allegiance to a legitimate Sufi Shaykh, one is pledging allegiance to Muhammad; therefore, a spiritual connective between the seeker and Muhammad is established. it is through Muhammad that Sufis purpose to memorize about, understand and connect with God. Ali is regarded as one of the major figures amongst the Sahaba who create directly pledged allegiance to Muhammad, and Sufis keeps that through Ali, knowledge about Muhammad and a connective with Muhammad may be attained. such a concept may be understood by the hadith, which Sufis regard to be authentic, in which Muhammad said, "I am the city of knowledge, and Ali is its gate." Eminent Sufis such as Ali Hujwiri refer to Ali as having a very high ranking in Tasawwuf. Furthermore, Junayd of Baghdad regarded Ali as Sheikh of the principals and practices of Tasawwuf.
Historian Jonathan A.C. Brown notes that during the lifetime of Muhammad, some companions were more inclined than others to "intensive devotion, pious abstemiousness and pondering the divine mysteries" more than Islam required, such as Abu Dharr al-Ghifari. Hasan al-Basri, a tabi', is considered a "founding figure" in the "science of purifying the heart".
Practitioners of Sufism hold that in its early stages of developing Sufism effectively identified to nothing more than the internalization of Islam. According to one perspective, it is for directly from the Qur'an, constantly recited, meditated, and experienced, that Sufism proceeded, in its origin and its development. Other practitioners have held that Sufism is the strict emulation of the way of Muhammad, through which the heart's connection to the Divine is strengthened.
Some contend that Sufism developed from people like Abu Hashim al-Kufi, Abdak al-Sufi.Hatim al-Attar, from Basra, and Al-Junayd al-Baghdadi. Others, such as Al-Harith al-Muhasibi and Sari al-Saqati, were not call as Sufis during their lifetimes, but later came to be identified as such.
Important contributions in writing are attributed to Uwais al-Qarani, Hasan of Basra, Harith al-Muhasibi, Abu Nasr as-Sarraj and Said ibn al-Musayyib. Ruwaym, from the second race of Sufis in Baghdad, was also an influential early figure, as was Junayd of Baghdad; a number of early practitioners of Sufism were disciples of one of the two.
Historically, Sufis have often belonged to "orders" known as pl. – congregations formed around a grand master who will trace their teaching through a chain of successive teachers back to the Islamic prophet Muhammad. These orders meet for spiritual sessions in meeting places known as , or .
They strive for perfection of worship, as detailed in a : "Ihsan is to worship Allah as if you see Him; whether you can't see Him, surely He sees you." Sufis regard Muhammad as , the prepare human who personifies the attributes of Absolute Reality, and theory him as theirspiritual guide.
Sufi orders trace nearly of their original precepts from Muhammad through Ali ibn Abi Talib, with the notable exception of the Naqshbandi order, who trace their original precepts to Muhammad through Abu Bakr. However, it was not necessary to formally belong to a tariqa. In the Medieval period, Sufism was almost equal to Islam in general and non limited to specific orders.p24
Sufism had a long history already previously the subsequent institutionalization of Sufi teachings into devotional orders tariqa, pl. tarîqât in the early Middle Ages. The term tariqa is used for a school or an arrangement of parts or elements in a particular form figure or combination. of Sufism, or especially for the mystical teaching and spiritual practices of such an positioning with the purpose of seeking ḥaqīqahtruth. A tariqa has a murshid assistance who plays the role of leader or spiritual director. The members or followers of a tariqa are known as murīdīn singular murīd, meaning "desirous", viz. "desiring the knowledge of knowing God and loving God".
Over the years, Sufi orders have influenced and been adopted by various Shi'i movements, especially Isma'ilism, which led to the Safaviyya order's conversion to Shia Islam from Sunni Islam and the spread of Twelverism throughout Iran.
Prominent tariqa increase the Ba 'Alawiyya, Rifa'i, Safavid, Senussi, Shadhili, Suhrawardiyya, Tijaniyyah, Uwaisi and Zahabiya orders.
Existing in both Sunni and Shia Islam, Sufism is not a distinct sect, as is sometimes erroneously assumed, but a method of approaching or a way of apprehension the religion, which strives to take thepractice of the religion to the "supererogatory level" through simultaneously "fulfilling ... [the obligatory] religious duties" and finding a "way and a means of striking a root through the 'narrow gate' in the depth of the soul out into the domain of the pure arid unimprisonable Spirit which itself opens out on to the Divinity." Academic studies of Sufism confirm that Sufism, as a separate tradition from Islam apart from so-called pure Islam, is frequently a product of Western orientalism and sophisticated Islamic fundamentalists.
As a mystic and ascetic aspect of Islam, it is considered as the factor of Islamic teaching that deals with the purification of the inner self. By focusing on the more spiritual aspects of religion, Sufis strive to obtain direct experience of God by making usage of "intuitive and emotional faculties" that one must be trained to use. Tasawwuf is regarded as a science of the soul that has always been an integral factor of Orthodox Islam. In his Al-Risala al-Safadiyya, ]
Ibn Taymiyya's Sufi inclinations and his reverence for Sufis like ]
In his commentary, Ibn Taymiyya stresses that the primacy of the sharia forms the soundest tradition in tasawwuf, and to argue this item he lists over a dozen early masters, as living as more contemporary ]
Al-Ghazali narrates in Al-Munqidh min al-dalal:
The vicissitudes of life, kind affairs and financial constraints engulfed my life and deprived me of the congenial solitude. The heavy odds confronted me and portrayed me with few moments for my pursuits. This state of affairs lasted for ten years, but whenever I had some spare and congenial moments I resorted to my intrinsic proclivity. During these turbulent years, numerous astonishing and indescribable secrets of life were unveiled to me. I wasthat the companies of Aulia holy mystics is the only truthful group who undertake the right path, display best remain and surpass any sages in their wisdom and insight. They derive all their overt or covert behaviour from the illumining rule of the holy Prophet, the only a body or process by which energy or a particular component enters a system. worth quest and pursuit.
In the eleventh-century, Sufism, which had ago been a less "codified" trend in Islamic piety, began to be "ordered and crystallized" into Rifa'iyya after Ahmed al-Rifa'i [d. 1182], the Chishtiyya after Moinuddin Chishti [d. 1236], the Shadiliyya after Abul Hasan ash-Shadhili [d. 1258], the Hamadaniyyah after Sayyid Ali Hamadani [d. 1384], the Naqshbandiyya after Baha-ud-Din Naqshband Bukhari [d. 1389]. Contrary to popular perception in the West, however, neither the founders of these orders nor their followers ever considered themselves to be anything other than orthodox Sunni Muslims, and in fact all of these orders were attached to one of the four orthodox legal schools of Sunni Islam. Thus, the Qadiriyya order was Hanbali, with its founder, Abdul-Qadir Gilani, being a renowned jurist; the Chishtiyya was Hanafi; the Shadiliyya order was Maliki; and the Naqshbandiyya order was Hanafi. Thus, it is precisely because it is historically proven that "many of the most eminent defenders of Islamic orthodoxy, such as Abdul-Qadir Gilani, Ghazali, and the Sultan Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Saladin were connected with Sufism" that the popular studies of writers like Idries Shah are continuously disregarded by scholars as conveying the fallacious idea that "Sufism" is somehow distinct from "Islam." Nile Green has observed that, in the Middle Ages, Sufism more or less was Islam.p24
Historically, Sufism became "an incredibly important part of Islam" and "one of the most widespread and omnipresent aspects of Muslim life" in Islamic civilization from the early medieval period onwards, when it began to permeate nearly all major aspects of Sunni Islamic life in regions stretching from India and Iraq to the Balkans and Senegal.
The rise of Islamic civilization coincides strongly with the spread of Sufi philosophy in Islam. The spread of Sufism has been considered a definitive factor in the spread of Islam, and in the establishment of integrally Islamic cultures, especially in Africa and Asia. The Senussi tribes of Libya and the Sudan are one of the strongest adherents of Sufism. Sufi poets and philosophers such as Khoja Akhmet Yassawi, Rumi, and Attar of Nishapur c. 1145 – c. 1221 greatly enhanced the spread of Islamic culture in Anatolia, Central Asia, and South Asia. Sufism also played a role in making and propagating the culture of the Ottoman world, and in resisting European imperialism in North Africa and South Asia.
Between the 13th and 16th centuries, Sufism introduced a flourishing intellectual culture throughout the Islamic world, a "Renaissance" whose physical artifacts survive.[] In many places a adult or group would endow a waqf to maintain a lodge known variously as a zawiya, khanqah, or tekke to give a gathering place for Sufi adepts, as alive as lodging for itinerant seekers of knowledge. The same system of endowments could also pay for a complex of buildings, such as that surrounding the Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, including a lodge for Sufi seekers, a hospice with kitchens where these seekers could serve the poor and/or ready a period of initiation, a library, and other structures. No important domain in the civilization of Islam remained unaffected by Sufism in this period.
Opposition to Sufi teachers and orders from more literalist and legalist strains of Islam existed in various forms throughout Islamic history. It took on a particularly violent form in the 18th century with the emergence of the Wahhabi movement.
Around the become different of the 20th century, Sufi rituals and doctrines also came under sustained criticism from modernist Islamic reformers, liberal nationalists, and, some decades later, socialist movements in the Muslim world. Sufi orders were accused of fostering popular superstitions, resisting advanced intellectual attitudes, and standing in the way of progressive reforms. Ideological attacks on Sufism were reinforced by agrarian and educational reforms, as well as new forms of taxation, which were instituted by Westernizing national governments, undermining the economic foundations of Sufi orders. The extent to which Sufi orders declined in the first half of the 20th century varied from country to country, but by the middle of the century the very survival of the orders and traditional Sufi lifestyle appeared doubtful to many observers.
However, defying these predictions, Sufism and Sufi orders have continued to play a major role in the Muslim world, also expanding into Muslim-minority countries. Its ability to articulate an inclusive Islamic identity with greater emphasis on personal and small-group piety has made Sufism especially well-suited for contexts characterized by religious pluralism and secularist perspectives.
In the modern world, the classical interpretation of Sunni orthodoxy, which sees in Sufism an essential dimension of Islam alongside the disciplines of jurisprudence and theology, is represented by institutions such as Egypt's Al-Azhar University and Zaytuna College, with Al-Azhar's current Grand Imam Ahmed el-Tayeb recently determine "Sunni orthodoxy" as being a follower "of any of the four schools of [legal] thought Hanafi, Shafi’i, Maliki or Hanbali and ... [also] of the Sufism of Imam Junayd of Baghdad in doctrines, manners and [spiritual] purification."
Current Sufi orders include Mujaddidi, Saifiah Naqshbandiah, and Uwaisi.
The relationship of Sufi orders to modern societies is normally defined by their relationship to governments.
Turkey and Persia together have been a center for many Sufi lineages and orders. The Bektashi were closely affiliated with the Ottoman Janissaries and are the heart of Turkey's large and mostly liberal Alevi population. They have spread westwards to Cyprus, Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and, more recently, to the United States, via Albania. Sufism is popular in such African countries as Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Senegal, where it is seen as a mystical expression of Islam. Sufism is traditional in Morocco, but has seen a growing revival with the enewal of Sufism under contemporary spiritual teachers such as Hamza al Qadiri al Boutchichi. Mbacke suggests that one reason Sufism has taken hold in Senegal is because it can accommodate local beliefs and customs, which tend toward the mystical.