My friend Sarah Uddin told me out this amazing Sufi mosque in Philly. I thought I would post about it here.
Check out the mosque of Sufi Shaikh M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen in Philadelphia.
The crowd-source based ratings site Salatomatic gives this sanctuary a pretty awesome rating of 4.5/5. So if you’re in Philly (I know I will be at some point), make it a ‘to-do’ to stop by this masjid.
Experience renewal.
Qalandariya, the art of achieving ascension or nirvana is practiced by Pakistani dervishes, as seen here. Unlike the artful, glamorous whirling seen at Konya, in Turkey, Pakistan’s dervishes whirl, speak tongues, and entrance themselves in a more raucous-type fashion.
The ear-splitting din is actually a commentary on life on the western subcontinent. Noisy, incongruent, and intoxicating. All one needs now is some paan and a samosa to sit back and enjoy the show.
Baba Shah Jamal (whose name means ‘Daddy, King of the Handsome’) was a stalwart “orthodox” scholar at the time of the rule of Akbar (reign 1556-1605 CE), who gained repute as opposing Din-i-Ilahi, Akbar’s new religion that had a total of 12 adherents.
Not much else is known about the ‘Baba-ji’, save that he was a member of the Qadirriyah order of Sunni Sufis–the same order that Swiss convert Isabelle Eberhardt belonged to, and the oldest order of Sufis in China (yes, there are Muslims in China), based in Linxia City.
Check out LahoreNama’s coverage (via the BBC) of Baba Shah Jamal.
Shair-e-haft zaban, or ”The poet of seven tongues” in English is also known as Sachal Sarmast or “the truthful mystic,” when translated from Urdu. He was from Kolhara, Sindh, in Southern Pakistan–an area dotted with the shrines of brilliant Persian sufis of a bygone era.
Sachal was a huge proponent of the doctrine of Wahdat-ul-Wojood, “Unity of existence”, which argued that essentially everything is a part of God.
The festival marking Sachal Sarmast’s life is on the 14th of Ramadan (today). Sufi Sarmast’s real name was Abdul Wahab, and he lived in the final days of the Mughal Empire, when Farsi (Persian) was still the empire’s national language, and Hindustani (proto-Urdu) was still in its infancy.
The Shrine of Sachal Sarmast (Daraza, Sindh)
Devotional ‘Poetry-Jam’ at Sachal Sarmast’s Tomb
As in Iran, Pakistani and Desi Sufi singers usually sing the poems as devotionals, known as ghazals. Sometimes the melodies come out just as smooth and awe-inspiring as in the Persian tradition. Other times, the overwhelming audio dissonance (like above) produced by the devotees is itself spiritually inspiring.
If you are inspired by what you’ve saw or read above, (and can read the Nastaʿlīq script), then check out a compendium of Sachal Sarmast’s work by Agha Sufi (below):
Sachal jo Risalo (Parts I and II) by Agha Sufi
Sufi Islam is the traditional sort of blending of cultures scene throughout Pakistan, and a hallmark of the Mughal era here.
There is no other Beloved,
There is only what I see everyday!
I was sitting by the roadside,
When the path became clear to me;
In the palace the Beloved I saw,
a glimpse the Beauty gave;
Through the window was the vision,
a glimpse the Beauty saw;
Take care of the ignorant;
Our bond was made for a reason.
I truly recognized the Lord,
My companion He sure became;
‘He is the Creator of all
and intrinsic to all’,
All doubts in this perished;
With happiness shall I carry
Sisters, if your trust I have.
All the journeys, all the manifestations
The Dear One’s own;
Friend ‘Sachal’ know this correctly,
Slumber has created illusions.
Sachal regarded love as the path to spirituality:
‘Tis not in religion I believe
‘Tis love I live in.
When love comes to you.
Say Amen!
‘Tis not with the infidel
that love resides
Nor with the faithful.
http://animation.dawn.com/sachal-sarmast/
Sufiism is the Islamic equivalent of the Jewish Chassidic Movement.
The spiritualist epicenter of Islam, if we can construe Shi’ism as Islam’s
moral backbone, Sufiism is Islam’s compassion. Sufism is the traditional form of Islam in South Asia’s villages, and much of the subcontinent’s earliest converts became Muslim through Sufis preaching across their land. They also introduced Persian as the medium of Islamic civilization to the region, with lasting (positive) influences.
