Three Tales Of Sufi Wisdom

hamid,

you should follow whichever tariqa your heart is most comfortable with...the mevlevi (whirling dervishes) is as good as any although i would personally recommend the naqshbandi or qadiri or chishti tariqas as these are most popular amongst desis...

then again, Allah guides whom He wills...

you can do worse than to read Tazkirat al Awliya by Shaykh Fariduddin Attar (I am sure you can read Urdu and if not an English abridgment by Nicholson or Arberry exists.)

:-)

naqshbandi sahib,

........ one of these days when i am ready to accept the tyranny of god, i will call you to find out which sufi order i can join - the whirling dervishes kind of appeal to me ............. if one has to belong to some organized form of religion, i prefer your silly ways to the joyless and depressing islam preached by the likes of malik and urstruly which drives people to homicide and suicide .......... if you have to suffer from a std, herpes is not a bad choice .........

....... on the other hand, i might want to check out hindooism, the religion of my forefathers - i have always been intrigued by the elephant-nosed god who seems to be a rather amiable felllow .............

If this board is a preview of what ijtihad might be like, it wont solve too many of our (and I mean both muslims and non-muslims) problems.

ballukhan#157:

Pascal`s reasoning might make sense to those who believe in a Jewish or even Islamic God but not to those who believe in a loving God. For them, if you have lived your life according to a single commandment, ``Dont do unto others what you dont want others to do unto you``, you should be okay (include animals in ``others`` if you are a Jain or a member of PETA).

But if you believe in a God who chose to keep himself a mystery and yet is vindictive and vengeful towards those who do not indulge in his sycophantic praise, then Pascal was right.

Stockholm Syndrome with religion


Very interesting idea. !!

God as the terrorist who can has the power and means to snuff out your life in a jiffy

---

and we all pray out of fear first....and then end up loving...and then justifying his actions to others!!!

romair,

i answered your question in 119 in my post of 126.
please see that post of mine. it was quite detailed.

**

no one knows when the mahdi will come but by most predictions it will be way in the future long after all of us are dead...

:D

hamid mian,

your ammi was obviously a very sensible woman...Allah bakhshay....:-)

what happened to you?!

Mr Hamid...

unfortunately for all those people who have to see their next generation growing in the one of ``most progressed country`` cannot afford to live in the box.. they must adapt to the ``Progresive`` ways or make those ways adapt u .. which is a certain impossibility..

we like it or not but that quran in red velvet is slowly passing away in our past as well as our parents and their parents were.. adn there is nothing we can do about that any more. cz after all we cant afford to look weired . abnoxious in this age of reason.

some time i wish that i can shed the prgressive ness of this world and can go back to that same place where i lived in my box..

regards

#138 by hamidm2 on December 5, 2004 10:57am PT

You are a true pragmatist!! A true American and a true believer. To make it clear here is how Pascal`s wager went:

````God is, or He is not.`` But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up... Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose... But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is... If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.``

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/

You are also much closer to William James, ( ``It is useful because it is true.`` and ``It is true because it is useful.``) If bowing to the mazar benefits them mentally and morally then why should others grumble?? This should indeed be the attitude of the modern day Gnostic before he really believes in all that apocalyptic stuff that we read in those religious books!!!

#152 by Ralph on December 5, 2004 9:28pm PT
``it is probably safer for the current states not to get involved at all at the present time till the Mahdi arrives insha Allah. that is my view.``

Does that imply that this guy would join the jehadis when he thinks that the Mahdi has arrived??
Is he sitting on a time bomb waiting to explode when the right divine signs would flash before his vision??

hamidm2 # 150
``...... sometimes it is not bad living in a box ............... ``
Fear is the key to all religious puzzles. You fall in love with something that terrifies you.You will go to hell if you consume alcohol or if you dont pray. Try comparing Stockholm Syndrome with religion.

Naqshbani....

Could you kindly answer the questions I asked in reply #119...........

Thanks

urstruly,

is your reading comprehension in English so bad?!

this is what I wrote as quoted even by you! :

``I said it is haram to prostrate to anyone other than Allah but it cannot be called shirk ...``

is that unclear to you? let me repeat it again in case you didn`t get it that time either: prostrating to other-than-Allah is haram. period.

before i go onto the next part (let`s keep this easy shall we, piecemeal by piecemeal) do you know that haram does not equal shirk necessarily?

talha! I have found it--the Chishti shaykh who passed away during a qawwali session (mehfil e sama`) was Hazrat Khwaja Qutbuddin Bahktiyar Kaki (rahmatullah alayhi)

An excerpt from his biography at http://muslim-canada.org/sufi/kaki.html :-


Death also came to him in an unusual manner. It is stated that once in an assembly of Sama [religious music] he happened to hear a verse of Hazrat Ahmad Jam with the meaning: ``Those who are killed with the dagger of surrender and pleasure get a new life from the Unseen.``

Hazrat Khwaja Bakhtiyar Kaki r.a. was so much absorbed in and inspired with this verse that from that day on he kept on reciting it in a state of unconsciousness and gave his life in the same state. He remained in this state of Wajd for 3 consecutive days and expired on the 4th day. He passed away on the 14th of Rabi-ul-Awwal 633 A.H. On account of his extraordinary death, Hazrat Khwaja Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kak ir.a. is known as ``Shahid-e-Mohabbat`` or Martyr of Allah`s Love. ``


subhan Allah!

ps. You are a Chishti you say? Are you in the tariqa of Hazrat Pir Sayyid Mihr Ali Shah Chishti of Golra Sharif (may his secret be sanctified) ?