Thursday, January 24, 2013

Discovering the spirituality within Islam

Islam is the fastest-growing religion but has too few religious scholars with requisite understanding to link rituals and divine laws to creative spiritual ascension. I grew up in a household where the interior was considered more important than the blind following of dry and ritualistic sharia laws: a Shia and Ismaili religious background further inoculated me against religious rhetoric. It was always Sufi  poets and sages who allowed me to breathe freely. But that's not how it always was.Like all Religions ,Islam was a spiritual faith first and became a socio political force later,except that, like me , if you wish discover its spiritual soul, you will have to mine underneath all the dense layers of doctrines and rules, to find its true soul,hidden inside the shell of the outer religion like a pearl.

Hearing Abida Parveen sing Bulleh Shah's ecstatic poetry, which enriched the centuries-old Sufi tradition of the Indus valley, made me realize how the Islamists have stripped away spirituality from the religion and left believers with rituals, sketchy interpretations of the divine laws and fear of God's wrath. Islam is just a cage for our spirits today..while its supposed should help us fly and give us strength as a spiritual creed.

Sufi Muslims of the subcontinent, who converted to Islam in the pre-partition era, were drawn to the Sufi path of knowledge that has been hijacked by the al-Qaeda ideology of violence.Yet it is this arabised soul less creed, which is increaisngle imposed on them now.They are supposed to act like all drones and let go of their individuality and spirit.
The bombs ...the women beating....head chopping militants, the rigid misogynistic mullah with a beard...the head to tow covered women ...have all but obscured the spiritual spiritual dimension within Islam even for Muslims let alone particularly for non Muslims. The image of militants waging war is overwhelming and hard to supersede.Islam is perceived as a hard, rigid ,uncompromising faith ..only consisting of obscure ancient puritanical rules and no soul at all.

The rapturous quality of Sufi poetry continues to fascinate me and prostration to God devoid of spirituality is no different from doing sit-ups. Surely, the label Sufi is not necessary. What's important is the sentiment. It helps the cause of clarity to call those on the path "Sufis" rather than "mystics," which will more likely conjure images of Aladdin on his flying carpet.

Faith is ineffable; so is our search for God. Ecstatic poetry and Sufi treatises speaking of "annihilation of self" and "Oneness with the Creator" are merely tools to evoke the Sufi sentiment, which is not peculiar to Islam. Teresa of Avila's "Libro de la Vida," Bulleh Shah's ecstatic poetry,Allama Iqbal's intimate conversation with God in "Shikwa" (complaint) and Mansoor Al-Hallaj's proclamation "Anal-Haq" (I am the Truth) are all expressions of the acquired wisdom gleaned from deep introspection.




5 comments:

  1. Thank God you are back after stopping abruptly. Missed your columns. I was registered on your site and could see myself but now that option is gone. I don't like to post using social media hence posting as Anonymous. Salaam.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. aww i am sorry.I must have messed up my setting I will look in it later.The reason I stopped was cause I am really busy in launching some new products.In my non spirtual life I work in IT so it can get demanding sometimes.But i can never really stay away for long without feeling empty.You can always drop me an email about a post or a spirtual emergency at my web address.Really appreciate your reading my mad musings.

      Delete
  2. Safoora - I realized that there are two ways to approach our deen. The first one is based primarily on rejecting what we think we are not. Hating kufr, Christianity, Judaism etc. This seems to be the way of the Salafis. The other way is that of love, love of Allah and our prophet (saw). This is the way of the Sufi. But even that way can be overcome with hatred if we start identifying ourselves us "not Salafis." This is my humble opinion.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When I use the term salafi....its really to identify a political.religous ideology rooted in materialism.In my study of Ibn Wahab, i got the impression he rejects all expressions of the spiritual in mundane life and like Martin Luther believes that everyday reality is divorced of the sacred and restricts spiritual expression.its this ideology I am opposed to as I believe our reality is infused with GOD at all times and rituals are not necessary to access that realm.

      Delete
  3. When I use the term salafi....its really to identify a political.religous ideology rooted in materialism.In my study of Ibn Wahab, i got the impression he rejects all expressions of the spiritual in mundane life and like Martin Luther believes that everyday reality is divorced of the sacred and restricts spiritual expression.its this ideology I am opposed to as I believe our reality is infused with GOD at all times and rituals are not necessary to access that realm.

    ReplyDelete