Community

Community

 Chishtīyah:

                                     Chishtīyah, Muslim Ṣūfī order in india and pakistan, named for Chisht, the village in which the founder of the order, Abū Isḥāq of Syria, settled.

Brought to India by Khwājah Muʿīn-ad-Dīn Chishtī  in the 12th century, the Chishtīyah has become one of the most popular mystical orders in the country. Great emphasis was originally placed by the Chishtīyah on the Ṣūfī doctrine of the unity of being (waḥdat al-wujūd), oneness with God; thus, all material goods were rejected as distracting from the contemplation of God; absolutely no connection with the seculer state was permitted; and the recitation of the names of God, both aloud and silently (dhikr jahrī, dhikr khafī), formed the cornerstone of Chishtī practice. Members of the order were also pacifists. The ideals of the early adherents are still revered, but some modifications of practice—e.g., ownership of property—are tolerated.

In the history of the Chishtīyah, the period of the Great Sheikhs (c. 1200–1356) was marked by the establishment of a centralized network of monasteries (khānqahs) in the northern provinces of Rājputāna, the Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh. From the 14th century, these monasteries were provincial  institutions where various branches of the order took root, notably the Ṣābirīyah branch in the 15th century at Rudawlī and the Niẓāmīyah, revived in the 18th century in Delhi.

Samā:

                Samāʿ, (Arabic: “listening”), the Ṣūfī (Muslim mystic) practice of listening to music and chanting to  reinforce ecstasy and induce mystical trance. The Muslim orthodox regarded such practices as un-Islāmic, and the more puritanical among them associated the Ṣūfis’ music, song, and dancing with drinking parties and immoral activities. The Ṣūfīs countered such attitudes by pointing out that Muḥammad himself permitted the Quran (Muslim scripture) to be chanted and that the adhān (call for prayer) was also chanted in order to prepare for worship.

Ṣūfīs maintain that melodies and rhythms prepare the soul for a deeper comprehension of the divine realities and a better appreciation of divine music. Music, like other beautiful things, draws the Ṣūfī closer to God, who is the source of beauty.

Many Ṣūfīs have held that a true mystic does not lose himself in such forms as music but uses them only to bring himself into a spiritual realm, after which he must experience deeper meanings and realities. While Muslim fundamentalist legalists reproved samāʿ as an  innovation (bid ʿah), some Muslim scholars held that it was a useful innovation since it might bring souls nearer to God.

Many Ṣūfīs, e.g., the Mawlawīyah dervishes, combined dancing with samāʿ. Often Ṣūfīs requested that after their death there should be no mourning at their funerals, insisting instead that samāʿ sessions be held to celebrate their entrance into eternal life. The Ṣūfīs warned, nevertheless, that the full appreciation of samāʿ requires strong ascetic training. An individual must be pure in heart and strong in character before indulging in samāʿ; otherwise music and song would arouse his base instincts instead of elevating his spirituality. Some Ṣūfīs reject the practice of samāʿ altogether.

Sheikh:

                      Sheikh, Arabic title of respect dating from pre-Islamic antiquity; it strictly means a venerable man of more than 50 years of age. The title sheikh is especially borne by heads of religious orders, heads of colleges, such as Al-Azhar University in Cairo, chiefs of tribes, and headmen of villages and of separate quarters of towns. It is also applied to learned men, especially members of the class of ʿulamāʾ (theologians), and has been applied to anyone who has memorized the whole Qur’ān, however young he might be.

Shaykh al-jabal (“the mountain chief”) was a popular term for the head of the Assassins and was mistranslated by the crusaders as “the old man of the mountain.” By far the most important title was shaykh al-islām, which by the 11th century was given to eminent ʿulamāʾ and Sufi mystics and by the 15th century was open to any outstanding mufti (canonical lawyer). In the Ottoman Empire the use of this title was restricted by Süleyman I (1520–66) to the mufti of Istanbul, who, equal in rank to the grand vizier, was head of the religious institutions that controlled law, justice, religion, and education. Because of his right to issue binding fatwas (Islamic legal opinions), this official came to wield great power. In 1924, under the secular Turkish Republic, the last vestiges of the institution were abolished.