Whats your opinion of Sufi Islam?

[abdalquran]

The sufis have deeper insights into Quran than any quranist at present. It would do us a world of good to read their works and use them as stimuli to higher understanding.

[Released]

Peace Farouk

Are there any works in particular that you would recommend reading?

[abdalquran]

Sure. I love this: Sufi Metaphysics and Qur'anic Prophets: Ibn Arabi's Thought and Method in the 'Fusus Al-Hikam'

helps us see the function of Quranic personalities

[Released]

Thanks!

I will check this out! Looks like I can get it ordered to my local Barnes and Noble.

[Lena]

  I am ignorant about Sufi's - just wondering, do they follow any man made doctrines or practices outside of Quran?

Thanks.

[abdalquran]

Yeah, to me, most of their practices aren't from the Quran. I find their reverence for their shuyukh also to be anti-quranic.

[captainneckbeard]

I am ignorant about Sufi's - just wondering, do they follow any man made doctrines or practices outside of Quran?

Thanks.

The majority of Sufies are Sunnis, and from I have seen and read, they differ only in additional methods of worship, but still govern themselves by the Sunni madhabs.

[abdalquran]

Another book I highly recommend is Ian Almond's Sufism and Deconstruction. This book shows how Sufis had non-linnear readings of the Quran which enabled them to make conceptual leaps in the same way as Derrida's techniques of deconstruction.

[Indelwyn]

Thanks for recommendations.

I found it interesting that Saladin was highly influenced by Sufism. His main source al-Ghazali.

P.H. Newby in his book, Saladin in his Time stated:
"Had it not for al-Ghazali, Saladin would have been a fundamentalist than in practice he was because al-Ghazali was largely responsible for making mysticism respectable. For al-Ghazali the Sufi (from suf the garment sufis wore) path was one that led out of the despair into which at a crucial period of his life he had fallen. His 'dark night of the soul' came when he was a professor at the Nizamiya University in Baghdad and found that for all his mastery of scholastic theology he was without the spiritual experience necessary for that truly religious life which would ensure bliss in the world to come. His illumination came after years of ascetic contemplation. Al-Ghazali's search for truth tested the limits of human knowledge. As a result of his experience he wrote The Revival of the Religious Sciences which showed that true religion was not achieved merely by rituals or by mastering a lot of information (important though both of these were) but through a living awareness of divine values."

Its is important to note that these exquisite values were the traits of Saladin, and the thrust by which he exercised during the course of events with the Crusaders.

[abdalquran]

Yeah, I believe Al-Ghaz became as popular as he is because of Saladin's influence. He used him to overcome the Shia influence of the Fatimids of Egypt.