Write your abstract here. The Sufis,The Octagon Press Ltd. The Author: Idris Shah. Review: BayoumiAndil In his intriguing introduction of the book,
Robert Graves states that Sufism is not a "Moslem version", as it is commonly mistaken, for the Sufis are at home in all religions. Nor are the Sufis a sect, as they are not bound by any
religious dogma. They have no regular place, rather temple of worship. Moreover they have no sacred city, no monastic organization, no religious instruments Sufi schools have indeed gathered around particular teachers, but there is no graduation and they exist only for the convenience of those who work to perfect their studies by close association with fellow Sufis. The characteristic Sufi signature is found in widely dispersed literature from at least the second millennium B.C.E. and although their most obvious impact on civilization was made between the eighth and eighteenth centuries C. E., Sufis are still active as ever.They number some fifty million by now. Sufism has gained an Oriental flavor from having been so long linked to Mohammedanism, but the natural Sufi may be as common in the West as in the East, and may come dressed as a engineer, a peasant, a lawyer, a schoolmaster, a housewife, or anything. For to be a Sufi is to be "in the world, but not of it," free from greed,mental pride, blind obedience to custom, or awe of persons in rank. Sufism respect the rituals of
religion insofar as these further social harmony, but broaden religion's doctrinal basis wherever possible and define its myths in a
higher sense, for instance, explaining angels as representations of man's higher faculties. The individual devotee is offered a "secret garden" for growth of his understanding, but never required to be a monk, nun or hermit, and therefore claims to be enlightened by actual experience. Our author escorts us, so to say, in his bulky book through the writings of
great Sufi teachers, starting by "Ibn Arabi" of Saracen Spain,(1156-1240), whom the Sufis call their Master Poet. He, in his persisting desire to exalt Woman,
writes: If I bow to her as my duty And if she never returns my salutation Have I just cause for complaint? Lovely
women feel no obligation! This stanza of the Great Sufi could mean much less to us nowadays than it did to a Medieval world in which the inferiority of women was taken for granted as a natural and divine inerrant ruling, whether in the Mohammedan East, where women were locked behind Veils or the Christian West where they were literally locked down under Chastity belts, in both cases were severed from all societal activity. Once again he writes: I follow the religion of
Love. My beloved is three, yet only one, Give her no name, As if to limit one At sight of whom All limitations are confounded. Then he passed with us by the Great Galalddin Rumi who died in 1273, to be wept not only Muslims. A christain, was asked why he wept so bitterly at the death of a Moslem teacher. His reply shows the Sufi idea of recurrence of teaching and of the transmission of spiritual activity: "We esteem him as the Moses, the David, the Jesus of the age. We are all his followers" Sufism is the attunement with true reality, not what we take to be reality. The question which kept coming up to mind is: as long as we find Sufism lurking behind every religion from the self-called celestial religions to Hinduism and Taoism, why should we refrain from calling it just a religion in itself?
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