Ramadan Special: Tales of Sufi Wisdom

Jayp and chaltahai, I had decided to not raise this here, but it might help. Hopefully it will not be misunderstood.

Do you know that Jinnah, the skilled promoter of TNT that Jayp does not much appreciate, and which is as far from zen doctrins as any idea can possibly be, was a follower/worshipper of Vishnu?

Yes, the same Hindu God Vishnu, that you and I know about?

Naqsh,

Thanks for your referrals, but I no longer believe in sufism. Thanks to you.

Notice that I am not full of praise for you and asking Allah to douse you with perfume either.

Your loss buddy. Could have had a really cool student to proliferate your views. I was even willing to be brainwashed and become gentleMindlessBreeze instead of ThinkingStorm.

Oh well.

To each his own.
with much respect,
thinking storm

Re: # 6
I remember Sabah Khaleeli who was a model.Their mother married a Hinjoooo conman who killed her and buried her in the garden.Anyone else remember?

Kaal,

I have read a few of sufi stories, teh equivalents of Koan in zen budhism. The point is that sufis are enlightened men, and to that extend I do not think that they distinguish between religions. The problem comes only when the book is said to contain all the truths and other religious people are to be killed. In modern times this view of islam is the created by jinnah with his TNT and that is why pakistan is the centre of terrorists. The sufis did not and were not the interpreters of teh book, at least jihad as we know it, which is a pure pak creation. The taliban is essentially the TNT notion expanded in a global sense, and that is why the budha statues that survived the gaznis and lodhis are being destroyed in pakistan.

In conclusion, sufis predate pakistan and should be kosher, not halal.

the way to paradise is the Prophet. There is no other way.

Ba Khuda khuda ka yehi hai dar, nahin aur koii mafar maqar//
Jo wahan ka ho tau yehen aakar ho, jo yahan nahin tau wahan nahin!

Kaal writes:"masadi, as far as I can see, sufism is not much more than people worship, as you mentioned. It is about creating excessive, maudlin "LOVE" for "exalted" individuals (not any principles, independent of Islam or Hinduism) so people can be influenced in given ways, and their desire to question is simply eradicated.

Since most people on earth tend to respect others for various reasons, they become unwitting victims."

I find this concept of sufism or the view of kaal quit funny. By extending the nature of islam and declawing all the nastiness out of the religion, sufis actually make it more palatable to others. The desire to question is actually increased and if it takes "love" for the sufi as great as the love for the god, then it is a good thing. Desire to question is something that religon at its very basis tries to limit or as int he case of islam..completely eradicate. Faith is blind and it is good per islam. How does one question that if you get your mandates from this logic.

Naqshbandi #232: but thinkingstorm is not in pakistan, or europe, or the us. he is on chowk. why dont you be his guide. Show him the way to paradise.

thinkingstorm,

even though you've been mocking me with your false praise i am not worthy of guiding anyone-- i am worried about my own soul.

mujhe yeh fikr hai ke meri inteha kyaa hai!

but if you're serious about finding a sufi teacher i can perhaps recommend someone. it depends on where you are living.

if you're in pakistan i would recommend hazrat qibla abu bilal muhammad ilyaas qadri if karachi.

if you're in europe i would say mawlana shaykh nazim al haqqani al qibrisi naqshbandi.

if you're in india i would say hazrat shaykh al islam muhammad madani miyan ashrafi jilani kichauchavi.

if you're in the USA i'd recommend mawlana shaykh muhammad hisham kabbani al naqshbandi.

if you#re in the middle east i would recommend hazrat shaykh sayyid habib ali al jifri of hadramawt yemen.

of course in each of these places there are many other shuyukh to choose from.

gentle readers,

I must sadly announce that due to neglect by the teacher, I have decided to abandon my quest to have Naqshbandi take me under his wings.

I should be sad, for I pursued this quest for quite some time (2 weeks). However, I have come to see the error of my ways. Naqsh is no wali!

I would also like to take the opportunity to announce my own path: the almost secularist muslim.

I will communicate more to you as God sends me messages on what to do next. Live well my gentle readers.
with much respect,
thinking storm

Re: # 229 Further

and look at the fact that about even today i.e. well after over hundered years of that debate several Muslims on this website alone believe that Pir Sahib actually would have levitated the pen or would have survived a jump from the minaret of badshahi mosque. Such powerful his bluff was.

But don't take me wrong, I do belive in miracles and karamat. As I wrote earlier the ESP phenomenon such as mind over matter and hypnosis to make someone actually belive that he just saw someone jumping from a minaret and then surviving it, is not only possible, but it is a recorded fact. People have made statute of liberty disappear.

Re: # 224 Manto:

You have to go back to Dawa's original post that describes what transpired between Pir Mehr Ali Shah Sahib and Mirza Sahib. Please note that the basic premise for the contest in both cases i.e. writing the best tafseer and doing something incredible was initiated and proposed by Mirza Sahib himself. Pir Sahib only responded to his cahllenge not only in agreement but upped the ante as well. I think it was pretty intense poker on Pir Sahib's part and Mirza sahib just couldn't call his bluff. This is what I call one heck of a debate.

Jayp bhai, you seem to hold that sufism believes in even stuff such as reincarnation, as YOU understand it.

I profoundly disagree. May I please request you to go back and re-read whatever you may have read about sufism's faith in re-incarnation. It SIMPLY CANNOT be identical to yours. Or Sufism will lose all connection to Islam - it's ONLY justification.

If you do undertake that excercise, please share whether you agree with my assessment: Sufism is a purely fraudulent doctrine, thriving on ambiguity, deception, and people's unwillingness to ask necessary questions.

Chances are that a sufi "thinker" who tells you (a Hindu) that he believes in/accepts reincarnation will, as certainly as night comes after day, switch words here and there to deceive you into beliefs that are totally alien to reincarnation (or any other concept) that may be valuable to you.

One suspects you are seeing your familiar Yogis in these sufis. The two have nothing in common except looks and some words that sufis pick up.

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masadi, as far as I can see, sufism is not much more than people worship, as you mentioned. It is about creating excessive, maudlin "LOVE" for "exalted" individuals (not any principles, independent of Islam or Hinduism) so people can be influenced in given ways, and their desire to question is simply eradicated.

Since most people on earth tend to respect others for various reasons, they become unwitting victims.

my previous post was cut off and "filtered", this is the entire post

Tales are tales of course, a new invention, a kind of people worship by those that tried to "religionize" Islam's rational outlook, invented to literally put the Quran on the backburner or on the top of a piece of furniture reaching to the skies so access to it is near impossible except as sacred item that by its touch (not by the meaning of its content) is supposed to bring safety and blessings. All that in an attempt to hold tradition and custom over enlightenment of the mind and thus bring to naught the entire purpose of the Quran- challenging people's irrational traditions and beliefs and thus freeing their mind of superstition.

As was expected, amidst all this tale mongering we forget the real purpose behind Ramadan:

"O you who believe, fasting is prescribed for you (as a cure), as it was prescribed for those before you so that you might become socially conscious...Ramadan is the month in which was sent down the Quran, as a guidance for humankind and as clear signposts of the guidance and the Criterion" (Quran 2:183-185)

When I was talking to a reporter from the Springfield News Leader about the "exotic" Ramadan tradition in Islam in 1993, I was asked about the tales that were behind this tradition. I was happy to inform the reporter that we fast in Islam because the Quran says it makes us more socially conscious. If you experience hunger and thirst and other deprivation first hand (be it out of choice) you become more responsive to the plight of the tens of millions of others who face such deprivation through no choice of their own, due to the workings of an unjust socio-economic system. The other purpose behind Ramadan fasting is to cleanse your mind of the garbage that a legitimating ideology has spread in a society, through which it perpetuates just such deprivation and that is done through the rationality, reason and the mind-freeing techniques involved in a careful study of the Quran, the "criterion" so to speak....

Tales are tales of course, a new invention, a kind of people worship by those that tried to "religionize" Islam's rational outlook, invented to literally put the Quran on the backburner or on the top of a piece of furniture reaching to the skies so access to it is near impossible except as sacred item that by its touch (not by the meaning of its content) is supposed to bring safety and blessings. All that in an attempt to hold tradition and custom over enlightenment of the mind and thus bring to naught the entire purpose of the Quran- challenging people's irrational traditions and beliefs and thus freeing their mind of superstition.

As was expected, amidst all this tale mongering we forget the real purpose behind Ramadan:

hamidm: By providing the standard line of christian mullahs who seek to define Islam as having roots in - horrors! - polytheism, I see you are inspired by christian mullahs, not from muslim mullahs like urstruly or hindu mullahs like jayp.

Common sense, of course, would tell you that monotheism is such a central aspect of Islam that it doesnt matter if there was a pre-Islamic god of the name allah. Common sense would also tell you that christianity and judaism also have roots in earlier polytheistic traditions.

But dont listen to me, since fresh air is bad for closed minds.

Re: # 84 (and 104)

Dear Urstruly,

I have considered both your posts and the conclusion you are drawing from it and I am afraid I cannot agree with this conclusion.

Where does it follow that Mirza actually agreed to the Pir's line of argument?