Question

Review Humanity -HUMA1301 What is Sufism? 1. Which is one of the commonalities shared between Christianity and Islam? 2. What is one of the major legacies for Western culture from Islamic culture? 3. What is the goal of spinning in a circle for the Whirling Dervish dancers? 4. What was the early life like of the poet and saint Rabi'ah? 5. What key element allowed the functioning of the feudal system? 6. What was Charlemagne's view on iron broadswords? 7.

Answer 1

Sufism is not a religion. When Islam reached India that was a vast land including today's Pakistan, and Bangla Desh. India was the land of idol worship, and the Hindu religion had divided the people into upper caste and lower caste, untouchability, and cruelty towards lower caste was common, they had an ample number of God, Sun is a form of God, the earth is called mother, anything that benefits the human, they were taking them as the form of God, even Serpent is a form of God, when the word of Islam came to this continent with the invitation of one God, all human beings are equal, there is no distinction between a dark skin person or a fair skin person.

Those who were oppressed by the upper class, got attracted to this teaching and started embracing Islam, there was a problem of language, as the holy book the Quran is in Arabic, and people could not understand it, to make people understand the essence of Islam, the learned people of that time, wrote certain poetries, in praise of Allah and many prophets, as well as they took the positive and acceptable teachings of Hindu religion so that people can understand it. These learned people were called Sufis and the way of their teachings to introspect oneself is Sufism, it is not Islam, and neither a sect of Islam it is the way of living so that people from other religion can understand what the religion wants from people, and how to spend a truthful life. The Qadiriyyah order was founded by Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani, his disciples traveled to India and many settled down in India, There are many branches of Sufism, and all the Sufis are Islamic scholars who played an important role in bringing Muslims and Hindus closer, so that the teaching of equality can spread and people will worship only one God, the spread love and no hatred towards anyone.

2. The commonalities between Islam and Christianity is the belief that there is only one God the creator of this universe, The Muslims and Christians believe in all the prophets before Jesus, but the Christians do not believe in Prophet Mohammed.

3. One of the legacies for western culture from Islam is to avoid alcohol, drug, smoking and any other form of drink that effects on your behavior and alter your thinking power, Alcohol is banned in Islam, (but people drink, not all), Alcohol effects the thinking power of a human being and the drunkard cannot differentiate between right and wrong, thus leading to a sinful life.

4. Islam is a very straight and simple religion to follow, the Dervesh Whirling Dance is not at all an Islamic culture, Darvesh is a branch of Sufism, with the spread of Sufism the Darvish have taken these whirling dance from other religion, Islam prohibits these type of dances. According to Darvesh system the whirling dance is that God enters in their body, means they are very much engrossed in remembering God, that unknowingly they start whirling and this is one form to express emotion and achieve the love of God. These are all man-made traditions and practices, in fact, Islam condemns, and do not recognize it as the right path to reach to God. Sufism and Darvesh are actually initiated with an intention to spread the right teaching of Islam, through a simple form and easy to understand manner, but now these are taken as an integral part of Islam, that is absolutely wrong.

5. Rabi'ah al-Basri is the first female Sufi Saint of Islam  (714 – 801 CE), there is not much known about her, whatever knowledge and tradition regarding her, are known is through  Farid ud- din Attar a later Sufi saint and poet. We know about her through her poetry, that she was born in Basra and was from the poor family, but she was completely devoted to Allah and had completely surrendered to Allah, and she was spreading brotherhood through her poetry,

6. Feudalism is the medieval model of government that is a combination of legal and military customs, it has flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, it was introduced by William I, The Conqueror, after his conquer of England in 900 AD, under this system the weaker section work and fought for the noble and in return the nobles will reward them with protection and land.

7. Charlemagne is the first Holy Roman Emperor, who united the majority of Western Europe, during the early Middle Ages, that is why he is often called as the Father of Europe, his sword was made up of case-hardened iron strips, his personal sword is known as  Joyeuse.