SUFISM

GenX grooves to Sufism

Its entirely right for you, todays youth, to be drawn to the Sufi tradition as it is a modern belief system, says Firoz Bakht Ahmed


Even as the 797th annual Urs or congregation of Gharib Nawaz Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti continues in Ajmer, it is such a contrast to find the world cleaving into Islamic and non-Islamic domains . Growing up in the walled city of Delhi means a childhood spent learning about the healing attributes of the Sufi order and never looking into another persons eyes to see a Hindu or a Muslim, just a human being. In the old city, religion never came in the way of forging friendships between Hindus and Muslims and the fellow feeling was not lost even during the rare communal riots.
Sufism or tasawwuf (as mystic consciousness is known in Persian) advocates the peaceful co-existence of all faiths. It is differently defined by various writers. The Sufis taught about the practice of virtue, purification of the soul and divine love. Thereby, they raised their lives from the mundane to spiritual.
In his essay Sarmad Shaheed , Maulana Abul Kalam Azad described Sufism as synonymous with love, boundless goodness, philanthropy, tolerance and humility. Writing about a Sufi teacher, he wrote, Even a cursory glance at his life can show that his chief mission was to heal lacerated hearts and to join together the separated souls. He went on to say that for Sufis discrimination on the grounds of race, religion, colour or creed is un-Godly . Sufis facilitated intellectual development and creativity in the cultural sphere .
The sense of receiving a tutorial on spiritualism is reinforced by that other key aspect of Sufism its tradition of pir-murid or guru-shishya . The pir teaches the murid as he or she struggles to achieve union, like a lover with the beloved, in this case God according to eminent Islamic Sufi scholar Maulana Wali Rehmani of Khanqah-e-Rehmania , Mongeyr, Bihar.
An urs is a congregation for a Sufi saints death anniversary. Its not an occasion to be sorrowful but to re-energize oneself. This is the process in which self becomes fana or effaced, acting as a source of baqa or eternity.
Both Hindus and Muslims remember Chishti as Khwajaji. Both revere him. Both claim him. Both listen and frequently quote his words of wisdom . Writer Aziz Burney says, Since Gharib Nawaz has been the symbol of national integration and interfaith concord for the last 797 years, vegetarian food is served at his shrine to all visitors and the rose flowers placed on his mazaar (mausoleum) come from Pushkar, a revered Hindu shrine.
The early Sufis practised asceticism and denounced the display of pomp and pursuit of pleasure of the Khilji or Tughlaq feudal aristocracy. Those were troubled times. The power of the sword had driven Hindus to take cover. For Renuka Narayanan, author of The Little Book of Indian Wisdom and firm believer in the Sufi-Shaivite tradition of Sheikh Nooruddin Wali (Nund Rishi), the Sufis culture of khidmat-e-khalq or service to mankind, humility, generosity and selfless devotion brought thousands to embrace Islam.
One can be a Sufi even today. It does not require rejection of the world in the sense of abandoning high fashion and fun. But it means acceptance of what comes to him and refusing to hoard it. Real happiness, according to Sufis, lies not in accumulating money but in giving and spending it on others, especially those who deserve.
The Ajmer Urs shows that the young are receptive to Sufism . Youth constitutes a major chunk of the congregation 20-30 lakh people. Young people around the world the US, Morocco , Iran and India are seen to be increasingly drawn to Sufism because of its tolerance, right interpretation of the Quran, rejection of fanaticism and the way it embraces modernity.
In the US, Sufi poet Rumis popularity is greater than ever before. In Morocco, young men and women find that the Sufi principles of beauty and humanity allow them to enjoy the arts, music and love without abandoning their spiritual, social and religious obligations. According to Ahmed Kostas, an expert on Sufism and director of Moroccos Ministry of Religious Affairs, Progress and change are the basic tenets of Sufi philosophy making this old spiritual tradition so popular among youth.
Sufis neither condemn unveiled women nor censure modern means of entertainment. For them, the difference between virtue and vice is determined by intent, not appearances , says Rida Haider, a student of Delhis Modern School. She feels that there should be stories on Sufis in the school curriculum.
Relates Maulana Wali Rehmani Mongeyri that it is this fusion of spiritualism and modernity, which creates that unique aesthetic experience so attractive to todays young as they reject extremism. In the words of Urdu poet Afzal Manglori, I am far better than those hypocrite preachers who have sold their souls for material gains .
Today, images of gun-toting kids, bombs and preachers of hate flash across the mind when speaking of violence-torn Kashmir and the Swat valley. But Kashmir, abode of Sufi saints such as Nund Rishi, Lalleshwari , Dehat Bibi, was once a great centre of Islamic culture and learning because of Charar-e-Sharif .
The question to be asked of those who propagate Islam as a belief system based on hate is that if its tenets really propagate violence and destruction , how could it possibly have given birth to something so beautiful, tolerant and modern as Sufism

INDIAS FIRST SUFI

The first great Sufi saint to visit India was Sheikh Ali-bin-Usmani , popularly known as Data Ganj Bakhsh, who died in 1081 AD. Then the Chishtiya chain of Sufis began with Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti. His followers included Khwaja Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki of Ush (Turkmenistan), Sheikh Fariduddin Ganj Shakar of Multan, Sultan-ul-Mashaikh Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia of Delhi, Sheikh Naseeruddin Chiragh of Delhi and saints of different faiths such as Chaitanya Prabhu, Kabir, Nanak and Dhanna.