Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Saints and Sufism
Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on saints and sufis in Folk Islam during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the beginning of Sufism, a brief history of Sufism, what mysticism is, Sufism’s Qur’anic roots, Sufi orders and their stages, and famous Sufi saints.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Saints and Sufis
Let’s leave the intensity of the last couple of lectures and discussions about demonization and exorcism and let’s start talking a little bit about the saints and Sufis. Certainly a milder subject and also one that’s not so intense, but it’s not as benign as it sounds. In other words, the Sufis are often always, you know, talking about the love of God and this warm fuzzy stuff, but nevertheless, I think there’s a lot of the devil is certainly involved in this stuff as well. But when we talk about, the Sufis, we’re going to, in other words, saints and Sufis, it’s not just the Sufis, but we’re going to talk about saints, Sayyids, and practitioners, and sayyid meaning the ones who, because of their linkage, genealogical linkage with Muhammad, are considered to be sort of special. They’re often into the folk practices.
Sufis, I was wanting to show you a video, but since I can’t show it to you, I want you to look at it, and you can check it out. It’s Pakistan Sufis on YouTube. 10 minutes. It’s a 10 minute video, and here is the, link, www.youtube.com/watchquestionmark. And so, that that’s that gives you another, aspect of Islam.
In other words, you know, what hits our news is the violent stuff that we’re thinking about even right at the moment, particularly because of the anti Islam, the anti Mohammed video, our our movie that was made in Southern California, But this is really another side of Islam that you don’t see, and this is part of the problem with our media. We don’t see this, but this is very, very real. What is Sufism? Well, there is this mysticism, and we’re going to be, I think, looking at some verses from the Quran in this lecture, so I’m hoping you have your Quran handy. Sufism is really a mystical thing and Sufis are reaching out.
They are reaching out and trying to commune with God, not by knowledge, but by experience. This is, this is what they’re doing. Now it has been in the history of Islam for a long, long time. In other words, right off the bat, it took off, you know, not too long after Muhammad, and it reached a peak, presumably with Al Hallaj, who died in, I guess, 9/22, and Al Hallaj went a little bit too far, you know, the Sufi practice of, of of gaining, you know, different taking very, very steps, and then finally they get so close to God, becoming more and more like God, which is in itself not a bad concept, but then he made the tragic mistake of saying that I am God. Well, the Muslims had had enough and they crucified him, but then Sufism went underground for a long, long time, but it didn’t die off.
It kept going underground. And the reason, I guess, why it was so successful was because it accommodated local conditions. In other words, it brought something warm and mystical or whatever it is to the cold, hard Islam that many of them would Muslims, would like to present. But it was opposed, as already suggested, and saint ibn al Aqiyyah, who died in 13/28, opposed it all the way. He kept opposing it and struggled against it.
But, you do have roots of it in the Quran and we’re going to look at some verses in the, in the Quran. And I I think we won’t necessarily look them up, but we will refer to them. In fact, they are part of them there is right there on the on the screen. 92 in verse 17 says, not on the screen but on your notes, those most devoted to God. See, so you have this idea that if you are really, really devoted to God, then you get into a special category.
In other verses 96 and verse 19, those who bow close to Allah. Look these verses up. You know, we have had that in Christianity as well, this tendency that, you know, there is a special class, that that that they’re ultra ultra holy and everyone else is second class. I don’t think it’s so much now, but sometimes it would put missionaries into that holy class as if they were anything special. They’re not.
They face the same temptations, the same struggles as everyone else. God has given them a calling and it is a high and holy calling but it doesn’t mean that they are to be put on a pedestal. There are some, Sufi periods that we note. There is the pietist period, AD 708100. In other words, people were seemingly more into piety and holiness then.
There were the ascetics and Saints, and one of them was al Hallaj, whom we’ve just referred to, philosophers. Saint Al Ghazali was the main one who died in 11/11, and he was half Sufi, but he was a great theologian, and he more or less made Sufism acceptable to, Muslims. In other words, because of his stature and his, his, his brilliance. We note quickly the Sufi orders, and this is the Indian subcontinent. I wanted to mention that, the Indian sub the Sufi orders have different names in different parts of the world, but but they’re basically the same.
In other words, there there isn’t much difference. You have the Chisti, which is very, very common where I was and, you know, the leaders in that in that Sufi order, Abu ala Abu Fird, there is a tomb in Taqpatin, which is this famous door of paradise, and, if you go through there, whoever enters this door every year when they have the Urs, you can, make it to heaven. And then there was, Suhrawardi, who was from Baghdad. This is also in the Indian subcontinent. He was he actually this tomb is quite close to where I lived, 60 miles away, and Wahadur Din Zakria in Bultan that was 60 miles away from where we worked for 23 years in Pakistan.
Then there’s the Qadiri or the Qadiriya, and that is all through India and Pakistan. Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jelani is, the name there. So, there are these 4 and the 4th one is Nakshbandi in Pakistan and, Khwaraj Bahadur Deen, and this fellow was apparently allegedly born circumcised. So you have the, in the Sufi orders in the Indian subcontinent. You know, India and my experience in Pakistan is full of the Sufi saint stuff and there is, as we’ve noted before, the folk relationship.
In other words, Sufism and folk stuff are not the same, but there is a certainly an overlap. Stages. What are the stages? Here is one category of the stages, that, stages that a Sufi sainthood goes through. There was call, love of god, seclusion, knowledge, ecstasy ecstasy, truth, and then you see the union of god, and this is where al Hallaj got into trouble because, at the last step, he, said that he was was god and that is not the thing to do because Muslims are so strong on the oneness of God and the difference between God and humans.
But there are other categories as well, with the stages involving repentance, absence, renunciation, poverty, patience, trust in God, and then satisfaction. There isn’t that much difference in the other, stages, but there is this stage, you know, you get more and more holy, I guess, or not holy, but you sort of get more and more like a saint. So that’s the only one. Sufi missionaries, as we’ve mentioned before in the course, were very, very successful in spreading Islam. We have heard that Islam spread through the sword, but Islam is often spread through these Sufis because of their, their interest and their involvement in in mystical stuff and in miracles, not always doing them, but at least claiming to be able to.
Listen to some of the sincerity of these Sufis saints, you know, this one here coming back to the pietist, the the when they were the the most, pious. Here’s one that really impresses me with the sincerity. She says, this Turkish woman, Consume me with fire, thou judge of the dead. If only, oh God, I thus thee may know, and thee once behold, while I tarry below. Throw me like Abram into the fire.
Like Moses, withhold me from the land I desire. If only, O God, I thus thee may know, and thee once behold, while I tarry below. Hang me like Jesus upon the rude tree. Or poor, like Monseur, through this life I may be. If only, O God, I thus thee may know, and thee once behold, while I tarry Belo.
Now, there are some things in here that we don’t recognize like, being thrown into the fire, but that comes out of the hadith, Abram, and so there is quite a bit of stuff here that we recognize, but some we don’t. But I I just the thing that we need to think of here is the sincerity of this woman, who is willing to, you know, for damnation if only she could see God once. Isn’t it a joy for us to be able to know that we can meet with God every day and we don’t have to depend on our own sincerity to do it? Another, woman here said, oh, my lord, if I worship thee from fear of hell, burn me in hell. If I worship thee in hope of paradise, exclude me for thine own name’s sake: but if I worship thee for thine own name’s sake, withhold not me from thine eternal beauty.
Now this was Saint: Rabia al Adawiya who died in 801. Rubia is an interesting person in the history of Islam. She, apparently had been a slave and, was freed because of her piety. She, had declined offers of marriage, attracted a circle of followers, and interestingly enough, she said that she loved God so much that she didn’t have any room left for the Arabian prophet, Mohammed. Now today, we know that Mohammed has grown out of all proportions and we’ll talk about that later, but Rabia is an interesting person.