Introduction to Tareeqat: Seven Elements of Living Sufism
By Dr. Kamran Ahmed
April 13, 2015
(Video Transcription by New Age Islam Edit Desk)
My involvement with Sufism has been there for a long time with different schools different forms of sufism. But first a few words about why a chose to write Tariqat at this time.
Tariqat is seven elements of living sufism in Pakistan. A few years ago I lost a few dear friends to a suicide bombimg. I have their blood on my hands and the blood of hundreds and thousands before who have lost their lives to religious extremism in this country. I have their blood on my hands because I knew what is going in our midst and I chose to close my eyes. And I chose to ignore it. It was perhaps too difficult for me, like many others, to nail them who were doing it in the name of religion. So I sought excuses for them. It was lack of education, lack of good governance lack of justice. It was because of this and that country out there. I felt too uncomfortable to put my finger on the growing formal religiosity in our midst which justifies giving and taking of lives in the name of this or that interpretation of religion. So I closed my eyes, ignored and turned away. And in the cover of the excuses and justifications provided by us, the violence of the religious extremism continued to grow. Used by economic hues like conflict between the landlords and the urban population in Jhung, city where some of the earliest militant violent religious groups come from. This was much before 9/11. All were used by the countries like the US to counter their Soviet threat. It kept a foucus on who was using them and not what was being used
This growing ability for violence by extremeist religious groups, the growing formal religiosity in massess. It is the growing surface level formal religiosity in masses that invariably produces, nurtures and then protects the extremists by always diverting attention from them by coming up with excuses and justifications for them.
Ending extemism is not possible without challenging this rapid growth of formal reigiosity in the general masses.
And on the other hand the land and the people which constitute Pakistan today have a history of civilisation that goes back to eleven thousand years to the Indus valley to Kandhara They are deep rooted to spiritual tendency that runs through the veins of the people here that are much deeper than any mental formal construct introduced by the religious rites today.
There is a tremiendous need for Pakistanis to recognise these spiritual currents that is laid deep in their psyche, and to stay in touch with them . When Islam came to this land It was the mystics of Islam , the Sufis, who basically attracted people to Islam, what is important to recognise is that their spirituality was very much in line with the already existing spiritual currents in the psyche of the people here. This was very different from the formal Islamic discourse and also the formal religiosity of the Brahmins before that .
It was basically the poetry of the Sufis that the people of this land were attracted to. Hardly any of the sufi tried to conver people to Islam. They just lived their spirituality. They lived their lives intensely. If there was not a threat to this live spirituality it would have been better to let it continue like that because there is something beautiful about a life intensely fully lived without being overtly mindful of its own spirituality. But today given the threat from the formal religious discourse and indoctrination it becomes necessary to be mindful of the spiritual elements. Not necessariy the formal spirituality either but the spiritual elements that are part of the everyday life that are woven in the every day life of the peole of this land.
Tariqat is a book specifically written for this purpose. It was recently lauched in Islamabad and Lahore. In very simple words it outlines the seven elements of local spirituality in Pakskistan that needs to be recognised, protected and lived with pride against the current onslaught of formalism. There are another elements that are necessarily most needed. But the ones that are already present in the colletive psyche of the land . Some of these elements actually have very strong shadow sights to them as well. These are aslo outlined in the book. These are negative manifestations if that element is allowed to consume the psyche losing its balance with the other elements.
And lastly not to get lost in an intellectual discourse, alongwith the verses and visuals, the book also gives everyday practices after each element that can enhance and strengthen these elements inour everyday life.
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