Longing for the Transcendent Azdajic, Dejan
Transformation (Exeter),
04/2016, Letnik:
33, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The longing for intimacy and closeness to God has perennially been one of mankind’s most pronounced characteristics. Those worshipers within the Islamic tradition that particularly focus on the ...interior aspects of the faith and endeavor to reach the transcendent, are commonly referred to as Sufis. Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, has devised copious theological materials and practical disciplines to attain its goal. It can be furthermore suggested that one of the ideas that appears to be most predominant in Sufi theology is characterized by the notion of love. This article examines how Sufism understands the concept of love, its close relationship to the attainment of knowledge and if it indeed succeeds in enabling humanity to achieve nearness with God.
Previous literatures apparently argued that Javanese Islam is characterized by orthodox thought and practice which is still mixed with pre-Islamic traditions. By using approach of the sociology of ...religion, this article tries to explain contextualization of Islamic universal values in local space. The results showed that synthesis of orthodox thought and practice with pre-Islamic traditions is doubtless as a result of interaction between Islam and pre-Islamic traditions during the Islamization of Java. In addition, this study found the intersection of Islam and Javanese culture in the terms of genealogy of culture, Islamic mysticism, orientation of traditional Islamic teachings, and the conception of the power in Javanese kingdom. Since kejawen practices accordance with Islamic mysticism can be justified by the practice of the Muslims. Thus the typology of the relationship between Islam and Javanese culture are not contradictory but dialectical. Finally, a number of implications and suggestions are discussed Berbagai literatur sebelumnya mengenai studi Islam di Jawa umumnya berpendapat bahwa Islam Jawa ditandai dengan pemikiran dan praktek yang masih tercampur dengan tradisi pra-Islam. Dengan menggunakan pendekatan sosiologi agama, artikel ini mencoba untuk menjelaskan makna dari kontekstualisasi nilai-nilai universal Islam pada lingkup lokal. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa sintesis pemikiran dan praktek dengan tradisi pra-Islam merupakan hal yang lumrah sebagai hasil interaksi antara Islam dan tradisi praIslam selama periode Islamisasi. Penelitian ini menemukan persamaan identitas antara Islam dan budaya Jawa dalam hal genealogi budaya, mistisisme Islam, orientasi pengajaran Islam tradisional, dan konsepsi kekuasaan di keratonkeraton Jawa. Karena praktek kejawen dapat dijustifikasi sesuai dengan praktek mistisisme Islam, maka tipologi hubungan antara Islam dan budaya Jawa tidak bertentangan tetapi bersifat dialektis.
This paper examines and shows at the same time about Javanese Islam (Islam Nusantara) which is typical of a few Muslims in the world. The characteristic in question is a combination of Javanese ...culture (Javanese original religion, Hindu and Buddhist) with the intrinsic dimension of Islam itself. This combination occurs because it is bound by a red thread called mysticism, which is between Javanese mysticism and Islamic mysticism as a compound. The two conception of mysticism is because the essence of mysticism actually contains the teachings of the unity (tauhid) of God. This encounter through mysticism allows for acculturation between Javanese culture and Islam. This thesis is based on the reconstruction of the thinking of Sufi teachers in the Majelis Shalawat Muhammad in Surabaya and Bojonegoro as a research base. The Sufi masters referred to were placed as sub-alternations which were prevalent in post-colonial studies. As a sub-altern, this paper is believed to better narrate the perpetrators of Islamic mysticism in understanding the dialectic between Islamic mysticism and original Javanese culture or Javanese mysticism itself. Their relations gave birth to what is called Javanese Islam which is typical in Indonesia.
Makalah ini membahas dan menunjukkan pada saat yang sama tentang Islam Jawa (Islam Nusantara) yang merupakan ciri khas beberapa Muslim di dunia. Karakteristik yang dimaksud adalah kombinasi budaya Jawa (agama asli Jawa, Hindu dan Budha) dengan dimensi intrinsik Islam itu sendiri. Kombinasi ini terjadi karena diikat oleh benang merah yang disebut mistisisme, yaitu antara mistisisme Jawa dan mistisisme Islam yang merupakan senyawa. Dua konsepsi mistisisme adalah karena esensi mistisisme sebenarnya mengandung ajaran persatuan (tauhid) Tuhan. Pertemuan ini melalui mistisisme memungkinkan akulturasi antara budaya Jawa dan Islam. Tesis ini didasarkan pada rekonstruksi pemikiran guru sufi di Majelis Shalawat Muhammad di Surabaya dan Bojonegoro sebagai basis penelitian. Para guru sufi yang disebut ditempatkan sebagai sub-pergantian yang lazim dalam studi pasca-kolonial. Sebagai pengganti, makalah ini diyakini akan lebih baik menceritakan para pelaku mistisisme Islam dalam memahami dialektika antara mistisisme Islam dan budaya Jawa asli atau mistisisme Jawa itu sendiri. Hubungan mereka melahirkan apa yang disebut Islam Jawa yang khas di Indonesia.
"How were the Ni‘matullāhī masters successful in reviving Ni‘matullāhī Sufism in Shi‘ite Persia? This book investigates the revival of Ni‘matullāhī Sufi order after the death of the last Indian ...Ni‘matullāhī master, Riḍā ‘Alī Shāh (d. 1214/1799) in the Deccan. After the fall of Safavids, the revival movement of the Ni‘matullāhī order began with the arrival in Persia of the enthusiastic Indian Sufi master, Ma‘ṣūm ‘Alī Shāh, during the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Later, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Persian masters of the Ni‘matullāhī Order were able to solidify the order’s place in the mystical and theological milieu of Persia. Ma‘ṣūm ‘Alī Shāh and his disciples soon spread their mystical and ecstatic beliefs all over Persia. They succeeded in converting a large mass of Persians to Sufi teachings, despite the opposition and persecution they faced from Shi‘ite clerics, who were politically and socially the most influential class in Persia. The book demonstrates that Ḥusayn ‘Alī Shāh, Majdhūb ‘Alī Shāh, and Mast ‘Alī Shāh were able to consolidate the social and theological role of the Ni‘matullāhī order by reinterpreting and articulating classical Sufi teachings in the light of Persian Shi‘ite mystical theology. "
The transfer of Sufism as a lived tradition to the Euro-American sphere, which first began in the early twentieth century, is a notable modern development that has been the subject of increasing ...academic interest in recent decades. Yet much of the literature on this topic to date has focused more on what has changed during the process of transfer, rather than on what has remained the same. It has also tended to prioritize context over mysticism. However, examining the main mystical doctrines and practices of the case study lineage of the Indian shaykh Azad Rasool (d. 2006), who from 1976 sought to introduce his teachings to Westerners arriving in India in search of spiritual fulfillment, in fact reveals substantial continuity with the early and pre-modern past. Such examination involved textual analysis of the primary sources of this lineage combined with multi-sited ethnography, comprised of participant observation as well as interviews, conducted primarily in Germany and the US, along with an excursion to India, among members of the two branches of this lineage between 2015 and 2020. It thus seems that shifting focus from context to mysticism itself, at least in some traditions, has the potential to also reveal much continuity in spite of changing contextual factors.
The Journeys of a Taymiyyan Sufi explores the life and teachings of ʿImād al-Dīn Aḥmad al-Wāsiṭī (d. 711/1311), a little-known Ḥanbalī Sufi master from the circle of Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328). The ...first part of this book follows al-Wāsiṭī’s physical journey in search of spiritual guidance through a critical study of his autobiographical writings. This provides unique insights into the Rifāʿiyya, the Shādhiliyya, and the school of Ibn ʿArabī, several manifestations of Sufism that he encountered as he travelled from Wāsiṭ to Baghdad, Alexandria, and Cairo. Part I closes with his final destination, Damascus, where his membership of Ibn Taymiyya’s circle and his role as a Sufi teacher is closely examined. The second part focuses on al-Wāsiṭī’s spiritual journey through a study of his Sufi writings, which convey the distinct type of traditionalist Sufism that he taught in early eighth/fourteenth-century Damascus. Besides providing an overview of the spiritual path unto God from beginning to end as he formulated it, this reveals an exceptional interplay between Sufi theory and traditionalist theology.
Rabi'a Al-Adawiya (ca. 717–801) and Julian of Norwich (ca. 1343–1416) offer fertile ground for comparative study, but they have yet to be studied together in depth. This article is the first ...sustained comparative analysis of these two crucial voices, each dominant in research on Islamic and Christian love respectively. There are powerful correspondences between the contemplatives' approaches to divine love. Both Julian and Rabi'a seek an apprehension of the ineffable Beloved in their prose and poetry respectively. Attention will rest primarily on these women's approaches to divine familiarity and indwelling; these approaches are enshrined in their prayer practice and in their imaged enclosures.
This paper looks at tariqa-based Sufism, the mystical aspect of Islamic practice, as an example of how archival thinking is used to traditionalize practices by way of religious memory. There is ...currently a lack of engagement in archival studies with religion and religious practices. Because we are aware of the ways that communities remember through embodied ritual as well as of the powerful relationship between affect and archiving, looking at how religious communities remember seems natural. Key archival concepts of provenance, authenticity, and original order can be seen to be at work in the ways in which Sufi communities seek to preserve both knowledge and spiritual experiences. This has led the author to conceive of tariqa-based Sufism as a system of conscious documentation of spiritual lineages, practices, sacred texts, and experiential knowledge of the Divine.
This article examines an esoteric text entitled Duʿāʾ al-Sabāsib al-Sabʿa (Prayer of the Seven Deserts/Wastelands) copied onto a colonial notebook in Zanzibar, probably sometime in the 1930s. The ...content of the text itself is examined and placed in the tradition of Islamic esotericism and occult writing, as well as against the backdrop of emerging Islamic modernism at the time. Three potential readings are offered of this particular copy of the Sabāsib, based on the materiality of the copy, the content and nature of the text, and the position of this type of invocation in colonial and post-colonial Zanzibar: 1) as part of a living tradition anchored in an existing knowledge tradition; 2) as an intellectual exercise to keep alive knowledge in the process of waning; 3) as a curated ethnographic piece in the colonial context. A tentative conclusion is that this text was written as part of a living tradition, especially in light of the fact that texts of this type are still in use in Zanzibar today.
Cet article examine un texte ésotérique intitulé Duʿāʾ al-Sabāsib al-Sabʿa (Prière des sept déserts/terrains vagues) lequel fut copié sur un cahier colonial de Zanzibar, probablement pendant les années 1930. Le contenu du texte est étudié et situé au sein de la tradition de l'ésotérisme islamique et de l'écriture occulte, ainsi que dans le contexte du modernisme islamique émergeant à l'époque. Trois lectures potentielles sont proposées de cet exemplaire particulier du Sabāsib, en fonction de la matérialité de l'exemplaire, du contenu et de la nature du texte, de la position de ce type d'invocation au Zanzibar colonial et postcolonial, à savoir : 1) une partie de la tradition vivante ancrée dans un savoir traditionnel existant ; 2) un exercice intellectuel pour ranimer un savoir en voie de disparition ; 3) un objet de collection muséale et ethnographique dans un contexte colonial. Une conclusion provisoire est que le texte en question a été rédigé dans le cadre d'une tradition vivante, compte tenu en particulier du fait que ce genre de textes est toujours en usage à Zanzibar aujourd'hui.
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