Fred Björn Profile picture
Apr 19 8 tweets 3 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
• The Nature of Islamic Art & Sufism • Image
Image
Image
Image
ImageImage
Image
Image

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Fred Björn

Fred Björn Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @Jawnmard1

Apr 19
The Prophet was asked once what was the best cure for forgetfulness—or for what the Qur’an calls “rust on the heart”—and he said it was to think frequently of death and to remember God constantly.
(1/) Image
You see, if we forget how soon we shall have to die, and if we overlook the fact that everything around us is perishing before our eyes, then we are living in a fantasy world. It is only when we wake up to the truth that the perishable,
(2/)
once it is recognised as such, points towards the Imperishable, and things lost in time point towards the Timeless, that our vision pierces through surface appearances.
(3/)
Read 5 tweets
Apr 19
The fourth Pillar, the Fast during the month of Ramadan, takes this a step further and requires that we practice detach­ment from our natural desires and appetites.
(1/) Image
The basic rules are simple. During that one month of the year, the Muslim must abstain from food and drink from the first dim light of dawn until sunset, provided this does not endanger his health.
2/)
But that, in a sense, is only the outward aspect of the matter. We must abstain also from anger and malice, and all evil thoughts; this, of course, is something we ought to do all the time, but we are human and Islam is not intolerant of our human failings.
(3/)
Read 15 tweets
Apr 19
I remember many years ago I was invigilating an examination in Cairo University and, because the annual exams take place at the hottest time of the year, they were held in a huge marquee by the Nile.
(1/) Image
Several hundred students were sitting at their desks, their whole future depending on what they wrote upon those terrible blank sheets of paper before them. A strange tension built up, almost palpable; one student after another put his or her pen down, staring into space.
(2/)
I expected a storm to clear the air. Suddenly one student raised his head and shouted: lā ʾilāha ʾillā -llāh. A sound filled the marquee, something between a sigh and a sob, and there was a ripple of laughter.
(3/)
Read 4 tweets
Apr 19
What I have said might suggest a rare—even rarified— minority interest of little concern to the mass of believers, so it is important to emphasise that Sufism has penetrated the whole body of Islam.
(1/) Image
A Sufi brotherhood is called a tariqah (its plural is turuq), meaning “path” or “way”. Whereas in Christianity mysticism has been largely confined to the monasteries, the turuq have played an important role in Islamic history.
(2/)
In the main it was Sufis who converted the Turks to Islam (with tremendous historical repercussions) and also the Indo­nesians (who make up the largest Islamic nation today).
(3/)
Read 5 tweets
Apr 19
Those who follow this way believe that Sufism—not the name, but the thing itself—derives directly from the Prophet Muhammad. The name came later, to describe something implicit in the religion from the very start.
(1/) Image
And that’s an important point, because many Western oriental­ists have tried to attribute the development of Sufism to foreign influences, “borrowings”—Neoplatonism, Hindu Vedanta and so on. It’s an understandable misconception.
(2/)
Early Islamic mysti­cism was, in a sense, inarticulate; it was there, but it did not pos­ sess the technical terms by which to define itself. Neoplatonism in particular offered a convenient terminology—so why not use it?
(3/)
Read 5 tweets
Apr 19
At the same time, it can be maintained that spiritual development is also critically dependent on what the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) called the jihad al-akbar, the struggle with the lower self,
(1/) Image
or, in terms of my previous note to Qur’an 50:21-22, the struggle with the nafs al-ammarah, the compulsive or commanding self. In taking on board the empirical findings of cognitive psychology in the identification of the prevalence of fast,
(2/)
conditioned thinking based on fixed ideas and automatic habits, we can find much to help us understand how our own unexamined prejudices, fixations and compulsions hinder us from realizing our full potential as human beings endowed,
(3/)
Read 8 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(