South Asian Sufism Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

South Asian Sufism - Research Paper ExampleThis diversity has to a certain cessation been created by the subcontinent?s numerous linguistic and cultural customs and its unique networks beyond the region. In terms of Islamic roots, Sufism has, in a way, played a key role in the spread of Islamic devotional and spiritual life in South Asia. At some stage in the eighth and ninth centuries A.D., a novel prominence began to grow within Islam. This prominence was a constructive response against the established uncongenial and ceremonial nature of Islam. The necessitate for deeper meaning started with a pietistic simplicity, which in turn led to the advance of the well-acknowledged mystical side of Islam - known as Tasawwuf or Sufism. Sufism is in essence a spiritual form of Islam focusing on the connection between the individual and divinity. The Sufis surfaced in South Asia around 800 years ago, and were initi bothy stanch devotees, whose meager woolen attire signified their humility, hence the word Sufi that denotes Arabic word for wool. The Sufis sought the mysticism, divine realism or eventual truth that stands everywhere all the fantasies and deceptions about the materialistic society. In order to attain ecstatic unification with God, Sufis integrated practices of sound and actions -- chanting and harmony, swaying and dance. Sufi followers joined in closed brotherhoods or tariqahs, each following a captivating leader (shaykh). They offered an Islam that fused South Asian customs and worship styles, including Christian saints and Hindu gods. Sufism highlights the importance of trustworthy, as distinctive from a faint acceptance of what is considered to be real in everyday existence, by authentic comprehension of the self and the veils which separate it from both understanding of the truth. (ELWELL-SUTTON). This also implies a quest for real existence. It also tryd empathy from one soul to another, in spite of all other differences. The Sufi trend drew at traction throughout South Asia (as well as Eurasia and Eastern Europe) can be recapitulated in Rafiq Zakaria?s book as Though blithe with affairs of state, the sufis had a profound influence on the Muslim polity. They humanized its rigours and reduced the area of conflict between religion and politics. They gave Islam a broader base. Non-Muslims flocked to sufi hospices in erect numbers and in due course hundreds of thousands came into the fold of Islam. . . . (Zakaria) Sufism Spirituality or Libertarianism? Despite the fact that Sufism has been majorly identified as the spiritual and mystic extension of Islam, split of literary research argues about the existence of Sufism as a political entity. For example, the way Sufis tombs surfaced and grew as places of pilgrimage indicate that the missionary agenda of the Islamic mystics was devised in the main for conversion and the establishment of Perso-Arabian cultural control in South Asia (R.Upadhyay). Despite of the cultural releva nce of Sufism, over the period of time, differences have also arisen from divergence of interests among Muslims over what should be the right standard for cultural and political life. As Sufism endorsed various forms of cultural articulation, it did not extend unilaterally as a response to orthodoxy and legalistic rigorism however from time to time it harmonized and engaged in these developments. In the same way, hostility between sharia (law) and tariqa (Sufi path) in Islam is an open topic of debate, although Sufi researchers emphasize that