Islamic Dervish And Sufi Culture

Pre-Islamic Arabia was a culture knit together by kinship. In this society there was no emperor or ruling elite. The people of pre-Islamic Arabia were bound together by nomadic tribes who made profit by trading and most importantly “raiding”. These raids were often described as small-scale warfare and were instrumented by tribal leaders in order to increase the wealth and power of the tribe (Gordon 5). This was the society in which Islam came to power. Warfare and raiding were essential in order to be successful in pre-Islamic Arabia. The integration of warfare into the Islamic religion created a similarity among Muslims, those who follow Islam, and non-Islamic Arabian people. This relationship and common interest established by the prophet Muhammad helped in the rise of Islam among non-Islamic

The focus stays on predominantly Islamic societies, usually in southern Europe and Asia. One historical event included is, of course, the birth of a religion. Muhammad began to gain converts, many of them poorer members of the clans in Mecca, who agreed with his ideas of creating a society where everyone could prosper, as God would want. “Religious ideas and practices take root not because they are promoted by forceful theologians, nor because they can be shown to have a sound historical or rational basis, but because they are found in practice to give the faithful a sense of sacred transcendence” (p. 61). These people did not convert because they were forced, they converted because what Muhammad was saying things that spoke to them. They agreed with what ideas Christianity and Judaism had already taught about God, and wanted to revive the faith of the people in their area. Although Muhammad and his followers had enemies and sometimes had to use force, religious matters were not the motivation, as the Quran says “there should be no coercion in matters of faith” (p. 10). There were even Jewish and pagan people living in Medina as part of the ummah after they were forced out of Mecca. The beginning of a religion and its close-knit society is not the only historical event covered by the Short History. The Crusades in 1099 impacted Muslims greatly, as one of their holy cities was massacred. Many other events in history impacted them, as they have been around for over 1400

Long ago in 610, a man named Muhammad meditated in a cave near Mecca Arabia , and received a religious vision. This vision laid the foundations and a new belief system for an unknown religion, Islam. United by their faith in Allah, Muslims of Arabia succeeded in consolidating their beliefs throughout the Arabian peninsula into the Middle East. After the death of Muhammad, the Islamic state expanded rapidly through a remarkable success of trade, law and order, military conquest, and guiding principles.

The lives of the people in the Southwest Asia and North Africa region has changed drastically in the last century. With improved health care and high birthrate, the region’s population has grown rapidly. Making one-third of the population in most countries under the age of fifteen. A large number of people of the region have moved to urban areas. This change in the lives of the people have made it difficult for them to maintain their cultural values as technological advances continue. Religion is an important part of the lives of the people in the region. Many religions have emerged in the Southwest Asia and North Africa region. The vast majority of the people in the region are Muslim, worshipers of Islam. Islam originated in Southwest Asia

Introduction “What Went Wrong: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response” a novel written by Bernard Lewis, outlines how the Islamic world has failed to keep up with modernization due to Western power and dominance over certain regions. Lewis’ book acknowledges the differences between Islamic and Western culture and gives distinct examples of the many years Islamic regions have failed to come up with efficient solutions to get back their global position. In means of political, economic, and military development the Islamic world has fallen way behind where they once stood in centuries past. Lewis gives examples of different Islamic views regarding their history and the cause and effect of major inciting events that have regressed the Islamic culture. One major theme I found in Lewis’ book is that ethnocentrism has made Islamic ideology very foggy and unrealistic in terms of progressing in all areas.

Islam’s rapid expansion, unequaled by any other religion, was due to its religious content and values, as many unbiased Western intellectuals state:

The Islamic religion began to spread rapidly through the world due to its accepting religion and cultural diffusion through trade routes and missionaries/scholars. The tolerance of the religion was one of the most important accounts for the spread since “Conversion to Islam generally did not mean a sudden abandonment of old religious practices in favor of the new.” People were admired by this “rule” and did not feel suspicious of the Islamic faith as if they would destroy you if you practiced things from other religions. Islam in the Early Modern Era could also be described as “assimilating Islamic rituals, cosmologies, and literatures into... local religious systems.” Unlike many other conquered, Muslims did not force conversion after military

Beginning in the mid-8th century, Islam was the most prominent religion in Sub-Saharan West Africa. One century after the blossoming of Islam (when it spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa), Islam merchants penetrated the Saharan, and quickly spread their beliefs among their new trading partners. While the states of West Africa remained independent from the main empires of Islam, the religion permanently changed the region’s landscape. Not only did Islam become the most popular religion in West Africa, but it also spurred trade, opened up the region to outsiders, and helped to modernize architecture.

Chapter one explores on the ways in which the people living today in the Western Europe percept on Islam as the rapidly spreading religion in the Arabian peninsula within the third decade of the seventh century. Greece, and particularly Athens is identified by the European as the source of core components of the culture and thought of the “Western civilization.” The Greeks never considered themselves as Europeans or Westerners, but much less originators of anything resembling “European” or “Western.” Greeks considered themselves as neither Asian nor European but rather as a distinct people who by virtue of their intermediate location being between the two continents endowed with the best qualities of both. For the Romans, they came to adopt

The Islamic world has continued to endless expand the population of Islam since the beginning of time, Islam was influenced by the religion that defines its community and honorable codes. However, Islam had rehabilitated over time as it started to expand beyond the cultural grounds as well as its improvement in the trading and the learning world. It was determined that the change of the Islamic world from 600 to 1000 C.E. is due to the religion, trading system, political group, and the education methods. The culture had continued to progress in its own unique way that stayed untouched by distant regions and time. The primary change in the Islamic world was around 632 CE, when

In the Islamic world, Sufism is a word used to describe an aspect of the Islamic faith which is largely focused on mysticism. Many non-Muslims consider Sufism to be a sort of Islamic sect, however this is extremely inaccurate. Sufism is a very blanket term, and refers to a style of thinking and philosophy that aims to find divine love and wisdom through direct personal experience with God. Sufism is as old as the Islamic religion itself, dating back to the 7th century. Ultimately, all Sufi orders trace their origins back to the prophet Muhammad himself. It is believed by many that the prophet instructed his successor to in mystical teachings that are believed to be hidden within the Qur’an. However, it is not known who exactly Muhammad’s successor

The negative imagery surrounding Islam has then created a discourse which fuels fear, hostility, and a misunderstanding of the religion and its adherents and thus fosters violence and aggression towards Muslim communities both in and outside of the West. Such discourse reinforces the notion that ‘the West’ is essentially opposite of ‘the East,’ a concept rooted in colonialism and primarily cited as a justification for the oppression of what is now called the Middle East. “The extraordinary mismatch between Euro-American ideas of Islam and the realities lived by Muslims will form a recurring theme… There is no one simply or easy explanation, though one must look both at history and at contemporary political interests to see the larger patterns” (Ernst, 4). The development of this West/East dichotomy reduces the complexities of the region and provides a very dangerous space for misunderstanding. The West/East dichotomy further suggests a Good/Bad dichotomy which paints the actions of the West as justified and the reactions of those in the East as backwards or barbaric.

From the start of the nineteenth century European power increased until 1920. Many Muslim countries were politically dominated or influenced by countries in Europe. Some were ruled by colonies and some were native states. Some were ruled independent but were pressured and got restrictions. The only countries that retained independence were central Arabian countries and Afghanistan. The Muslim responses were by people from the military and they were unsuccessful. They didn’t have good cooperation with The Europeans and it was complicated that some elements in Muslim societies found

The Mu’tazila were a Muslim group who had an immense impact on political, intellectual, and theological aspects of society. In his article, Watt mentions that “the Mu’tazilites were important to Islamic theology because they brought Greek conceptions into the discussions of Islamic dogma” (Watt, 46). In the beginning, the term “Mu’tazilite” had a fairly broad meaning and included a lot of people. As time went on, the term came to be associated only with those who accept the five points of Mu’tazilite dogmatic position (Watt 46). The Mu’tazila made lasting impacts on Islamic society through their following of the five principles and dedication to Kalam. (Watt 47-48)

However, Sufism has been condemned by the Muslim community for many reasons. The obvious reason is in relation to certain principles, beliefs and practices of Sufis which the Muslims reject and are highly critical of. Despite there being some principles and practices of Sufism that are recognised within the Muslim community, there is difference due to various interpretations and understandings of such beliefs and rituals. Therefore, throughout the essay I will outline the main distinctive features of Sufism and explain why Sufis were and are often condemned by the Muslim community.