Abstract
Sufis write books, some of them polemical and political. Yet the heart of the Chishti Sabiri tradition remains firmly grounded in an interpersonal teaching network centered on the fundamental master-disciple (pir-murid ) relationship. This chapter turns from texts to ethnographic contexts to explore how knowledge is transmitted within the contemporary Chishti Sabiri order. By quoting liberally from personal interviews, I aim to allow murids to articulate their own experiences and understanding of the Sufi path. The words of a senior murid —a middle-aged, middle-class, male Pakistani who is a father and husband, a businessman and a Sufi adept—offer an appropriate entry point into this worldview:
Our antennas are so deeply attuned to the material world that we rarely tune in to the spiritual transmitter. There is a whole world there that directly impacts this material world, what we are doing here. Allah Most High is the source of the spiritual transmission. He is on 365 days a year, twenty-four hours a day. If you want to find this frequency, you must join a Sufi order [tariqa ]. The shaykh is your antenna. (October 15, 2000, Lahore)
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Notes
Barbara Daly Metcalf, “Introduction,” in Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam, ed. Barbara Daly Metcalf (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 9–10.
Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love, 25–26. See also Mohammad Ajmal, “A Note on Adab in the Murshid-Murid Relationship,” in Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam, ed. Barbara Daly Metcalf (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 241–251
Gerhard Bowering, “The Adab Literature of Classical Sufism: Ansari’s Code of Conduct,” in Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam, ed. Barbara Daly Metcalf (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 62–87
For perspectives on the roles of women in Sufi practice, see especially Shemeem Abbas, The Female Voice in Sufi Ritual: Devotional Practices of Pakistan and India (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002)
Patricia Jeffery, Frogs in a Well: Indian Women in Purdah (London: Zed Press, 1979)
Annemarie Schimmel, My Soul Is a Woman-The Feminine in Islam (New York: Continuum, 1997).
Abu’ Abd ar-Rahman as-Sulami, Early Sufi Women (Dhikr an-niswa al-muta’ abbidat as-sufiyyat ), translation and commentary by Rkia E. Cornell (Louisville: Fons Vitae, 1999).
Ashraf’ Ali Thanawi, quoted in Perfecting Women: Maulana Ashraf ’Ali Thanawi’s Bishishti Zewar, translated with commentary by Barbara Daly Metcalf (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 200.
Contemporary firsthand accounts of the Sufi master-disciple relationship are rare. Among the more accessible and insightful works are a number of spiritual diaries written by women. See especially Michaela Ozelsel, Forty Days: The Diary of a Traditional Solitary Sufi Retreat (Brattleboro, VT: Threshold Books, 1996)
Irina Tweedie, Daughter of Fire: A Diary of Spiritual Training with a Sufi Master (Nevada City, CA: Blue Dolphin Publishing, 1986).
Frances Trix, Spiritual Discourse: Learning with an Islamic Master (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993).
Desiderio Pinto, Piri-Muridi Relationship: A Study of the Nizamuddin Dargah (Delhi: Manohar, 1995).
Carl W. Ernst, “Mystical Language and the Teaching Context in Early Lexicons of Sufism,” in Mysticism and Language, ed. Steven T. Katz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 191.
Katherine P. Ewing, “Dreams from a Saint: Anthropological Atheism and the Temptation to Believe,” American Anthropologist, Vol. 96 (1994): 578.
Katherine P. Ewing, “The Modern Businessman and the Pakistani Saint: The Interpenetration of Worlds,” in Manifestations of Sainthood in Islam, ed. Grace Martin Smith (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1993), 69–84.
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© 2007 Robert Rozehnal
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Rozehnal, R. (2007). Teaching Sufism: Networks of Community and Discipleship. In: Islamic Sufism Unbound. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-60572-5_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-60572-5_5
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