Islam’s forgotten bohemians

May 10, 2023 8:15 PM

"I am love’s infidel; the Muslims’ creed is no use to me.
My veins are taut like wire; I’ve no need of the Hindus’ holy belt.
So go away from my sick bed you foolish physician:
For the lovesick, the only cure is a glimpse of the beloved.

"That is why fundamentalists, whether the Pakistani Taliban, the Saudi government or ISIS, have destroyed so many Sufi shrines and places of pilgrimage. The poetry sung at those places celebrates and advances an Islam that rejects political power, an Islam incompatible with the ambitions of religious fundamentalism."

"European travellers’ accounts of India and Iran during the Age of Empire described the fakirs and dervishes as dirty hobos and opium addicts, street people. By the late 19th century, Muslim reformers took this colonial criticism to heart. They blamed the fakirs and dervishes – in other words, the Sufis – not only for Islam’s supposed religious decadence, but also for the Muslim world’s loss of economic and political power. The poor repute into which orientalists and Muslim reformers threw the Sufis contributed to their marginality in Western representations of Islam. This marginality makes it much easier for fundamentalists to portray themselves as the spokespeople of the authentic Islam. However, Islam without Sufism is like French philosophy without existentialism, or French poetry without Rimbaud."

posted by clawsoon (9 comments total)

If not for the sufis, Southeast Asia - ie the region with most number of Muslims - probably won't be so full of Muslims.

That said, on western representation, what seems to exist (like those 'translations' of Rumi) seems intent on divorcing them from their Islamic context too.
posted by cendawanita at 10:27 PM on May 10, 2023 [14 favorites]

While I'm glad to see any post to the blue that's favorable to Islam, I think the word "bohemian" when used for Sufism is far from representative of the entirety of the tradition. It's not all about great music, contemplating Love with stars in one's eyes, and whirling about, although one can certainly do those things.

An excellent way for Westerners into the rich intellectual field of Sufism is to read and contemplate any of the work of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, 450-505 AH/1058-1111 AD: jurist, theologian, philosopher, survivor of a major spiritual crisis, moral educator, and Sufi. The site I've linked provides plenty of links to work online in translation, much free of charge. There's also this Stanford site for a biography and Western philosophical commentary on his work; might be a good way in for many people here who aren't Muslim.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 10:53 PM on May 10, 2023 [32 favorites]

Many thanks for initiating this discussion clawsoon. Thank you too rabia.elizabeth for your suggestion. Cendawanita, I wonder what you make of Jawid Mojaddedi's translation of Rumi's Masnavi? I'm reading it now and have been stunned and inspired by its insights and charmed and delighted by its parables but am happy to be pointed elsewhere!
posted by dutchrick at 1:47 AM on May 11, 2023

If, like me, you find it easier to get explore a subject through fiction, I really recommend Laury Silvers' Sufi Mysteries Quartet. Silvers' previous career was as a scholar of the Sufism of Abbasid Baghdad so she knows stuff. The novels focus on the lives of various characters at the edges of a Sufi community in 10th/3rd century Baghdad, though Silvers devotes a lot of time to showing how Islam was practiced in other ways as well. They do a really great job showing what it actually feels like to engage in Sufi practices and how Sufism meshes with other forms of Islamic piety. Silvers is first and foremost a historian and so is concerned with depicting the Islam of the period in an understandable and accurate way, but as a Muslim feminist she's particularly interested in the lives of women during the period so it's her female characters who drive the plot of the novels forward.

I'm a Christian and so I can't say how true to the experience of contemporary Sufis the novels are. However, I did learn a lot from them and probably was challenged more by them to reckon with the depth and demandingness of commitment to a God of transcendent and all encompassing love than I have been by most of the theology books I read for living.
posted by nangua at 2:21 AM on May 11, 2023 [9 favorites]

"Wisdom Of The Idiots" is a good place to start. I am far from well read on Sufism, but I do appreciate their ability to tell tales that bypass rational argument and permit one to look at other people and the world a little more perceptively. I was told by a Persian Muslim that Sufism is not a religion but a means to improve one's being in the world and out of the world.
posted by DJZouke at 5:05 AM on May 11, 2023

Thanks for the post, and all the other comments and resources.

I am heartbroken to learn that Sufi shrines and places of pilgrimage have been destroyed.

OnBeing podcast - Krista Tippett’s discussion with Persian scholar Fatemeh Keshavarz on
The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi is a discussion of Rumi, centered in Islam. A link to the entire conversation l without edits, is on the page too. And Fatemeh has her own podcast — Radio Rumi, where Fatemeh explores both Rumi’s texts, as well as her applications of his teachings to her thinking and feeling and life.
posted by Silvery Fish at 5:18 AM on May 11, 2023

Cendawanita, I wonder what you make of Jawid Mojaddedi's translation of Rumi's Masnavi? I'm reading it now and have been stunned and inspired by its insights and charmed and delighted by its parables but am happy to be pointed elsewhere!

I've only just started but I do find it as delightful as you have. Rumi to me feels new as well, partly because my upbringing is per TFA so I'm trying to learn more about it + my regional sufi tradition isn't this (and that's even less easily found except as academic presentations) and partly because I felt alienated by what western reference I could find previously.
posted by cendawanita at 9:39 AM on May 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

"read Rumi, drink wine."
Starting Wednesday 5/17/23, 7pm to 10ish, Oakland 464 42nd St.
Read one Rumi poem, or one of yours. Or break convention.

Polymaths, polyglots, polysluts welcome.
It's a small place but we'll fit you in. we fit, here.

When you come tell me you saw it on MeFi. Been too long I've been lurking.
Let's play.
posted by bearwombatdogpuppy at 12:24 PM on May 11, 2023 [4 favorites]

I was going to post some Rumi. What a great post. I had the honor to meet Shaykh Hisham Kabbani. A wonderful person and outspoken for women's rights and speaking out against extremists.
posted by clavdivs at 2:03 PM on May 11, 2023