r/Sufism

Yaar I’ve been listening to sufi spell “Maikada” by Samie Muhammad heavily these past couple days. But a few days ago I had a pretty long dream.

Quick context: a person came to me in the dream and said “Don’t listen to Maikada, it’s shirk… and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ has sent me to tell you this.

Now I already know, if the Prophet ﷺ doesn’t appear himself and some third party is relaying the message, it’s not binding. Shetan can’t take the Prophet’s ﷺ actual form, but he can send a messenger in a dream. So technically the dream alone isn’t daleel.

But then I actually looked at the lyrics…

“Maula-e-Kainaat (A.S) aur awaz de mujhe Ay Jibrail (A.S) quwwat-e-parvaaz de mujhe”

This is a direct appeal to Jibrail A.S. asking him to grant something. Du’a is ibadah we all know this. So how is this not shirk in du’a?

I get that Samie Muhammad uses metaphors, but when the structure of the line itself is a sincere appeal… that’s not really a metaphor anymore is it?

I haven’t listened to it since that day. Mind is genuinely unsettled.

Is my concern valid or am I overthinking? Would love to hear from people with actual Islamic knowledge, not just “bro it’s just poetry relax.”

Salam,

If anybody has some sufi poetry suggestions please let me know

I like drugs a lot, but sometimes I go overboard and scare myself (I am working on this). Something I like to do when the anxiety starts and my thoughts start becomes scary because I’m too high to read the Qur’an. I just turn to random page and read. This time I landed on surah hud, right exactly where the Quran was going over the story of lut.

I find this particularly interesting, because when I converted I was gay and I do hold some resentment toward Allah sadly, because I had to change that part of my lifestyle. I’m trying to get over it, but I really don’t know how.

Obviously - this is a story warning against homosexuality and about how disastrous looking back is when trying to leave a sin. I also took this as a warning, because I was planning on getting more drugs when I read that.

But im curious what does the storu of lut mean to you? What have your shayukh said? Perhaps I might learn something useful to change my ways inshaAllah.

Given naqshbandi’s emphasis on sober scholasticism and dhikr, why isn’t the naqshbandi path more known among alim students?

Salaam everyone,

A few of us in Germany Dortmund have been running a weekly gathering for a while now — rooted in the classical Islamic Sufi tradition, Hanafi in fiqh, with hadith study at the heart of it.

Our approach follows the classical tradition — silsila, adab, and sohbet as the core.

We're not a tariqa recruitment post. Just people who find that the inner dimension of Islam doesn't get much airtime, and wanted a space for it.

Our WhatsApp channel is open to anyone — diaspora, converts, lifelong Muslims who feel something is missing in the more surface-level conversations.

DM or comment if you are interested.

Salam Alaykum

I'm wondering if there are any "Sufi" masjids in the Chicago area. I.e masjids where there is a group dhikr after Jummah. Any leads are appreciated.

Thank you.

First off, I'm not sure this is the right place to ask, but I'm hoping for some answers and some good discussion.

For context: I'm an ethnic Swede who grew up in a secular household and society. Religion was never central to my life, but, I don't quite know how to put it, I've always felt God's presence and held a belief in God, even without any way to express it or organize my life around it. I grew up around Turks, Kurds, Syrians, Palestinians and others who were Muslim. We never really talked about Islam or religion, but knowing them at least kept me from falling for the propaganda about Muslims, having grown up during the peak War on Terror and Daesh years post 9/11.

Like most "spiritual" Westerners from a secular background, I went down the usual pipeline of Buddhism, non-dual Hindu metaphysics and so on. A lot of it resonated, but I found it tended to overcomplicate things and attract the kind of people who use their spirituality to serve their own ego, which I find off-putting. It also felt very culturally alien to me.

That was years ago now. But around that time I also discovered Rumi, whose poetry resonated more deeply than almost anything else I explored. Then, just over a year ago, I was introduced to Ibn Arabi, and something reawakened in me after lying dormant for years. Reading Ibn Arabi feels like reading my own mind, his words express everything about my experience, my thoughts, my relationship to God. For the first time it felt like someone was truly making sense of my inner world and putting it into something tangible.

Naturally this sent me down the rabbit hole of learning about Islam seriously, and the more I learn the more I fall in love with it. I see how the practices and rituals are designed to help you live righteously in submission to God and to struggle against the nafs. So much of it strikes me as deeply beautiful, and the sincerity of its believers moves me. I feel like I'm inching closer to converting every day. But I do have some questions, and I'd love your input:

• Mainstream Islam seems to reject Ibn Arabi as shirk. I can see why from a fundamentalist standpoint (a whole other debate), but it makes me cautious about how to approach the faith in practice. Is this mainly a Wahhabi/Salafi position, or do Muslims more broadly hold it?
• Coming in through this door, how would I be received by other Muslims? I'm planning to travel to Jordan and Turkey after the summer and would love to use the trip to explore the faith deeper, but I'm a little worried about how I'd be received if I explained my "entry point." Same question for visiting mosques among the Muslim diaspora in Europe.
• Most of the aspects of Islam that get called "problematic" seem to come from the hadith and later material rather than the Quran itself. I've read some passages from the Quran and loved it, and I plan to read "The Clear Quran" soon. Is that a fair read of the hadith? What exactly are Muslims expected to follow? Different denominations seem to build on different hadith collections, is a convert expected to do the same, or is building on the Quran alone enough to start?
• Also worth mentioning I moved out of Sweden over a decade ago and now live not far from a Naqshbandi-Haqqani tekke. My understanding is that they're closer to Ibn Arabi's Islam than a Salafi/Wahhabi reading, but are also quite controversial (?), so I plan to visit and see where it leads. Does anyone have experience with or insight into the Naqshbandis and how they're viewed relative to mainstream Islam? Any advice before I go?

Any books, texts or other sources you'd point me toward would be hugely appreciated, and any comments, discussion or advice on any of the above is also deeply appreciated. Many thanks, everyone.

Assalamu Alaikum,

I’m considering reciting Ya Qahhar and Ya Mumit thousand times with the intention of overcoming my bad habits, controlling my nafs, and reducing lustful thoughts.

What effects could come from regularly reciting these Names? Has anyone experienced any positive or negative changes?

Are those names too jalali ?

Is it recommended to recite them for this purpose, and are there any precautions or etiquettes I should follow before starting?

I’d appreciate hearing from anyone with knowledge or personal experience.

JazakAllahu Khair.

I'm diagnosed with chronic schizophrenia. And every six months or so I would experience overwhelming thoughts & mania caused by decreased sensory gating. Become hyper focused, hyper active & hyper verbal and begin outstanding projects in business and humanitarian cause but will drop it because of lose of sleep followed by Auditory & visual hallucinations (some time extremely euphoric but most of the time paranoia) sometimes end up doing regretble things (like once when i was 21 , breaking into a wahhabi mosque and shouting allahu akbar) . Any thoughts on how to navigate this. (I take medications ofcourse )

I am in my second. First one was straight off not a real one. The entire organisation also got banned and the people got arrested. I joined a second one through my family. I dont doubt the Sheikh at all but the tariqat is living through its community and I am struggling with that. I stopped visiting the tekke because of racist comments. But I still met people from the tariqat here and there and the backbiting, saying n word, just bad out manipulative way of communicating got to me so much that I am disgusted with everything that could be associated with them. I literally can't wear perfume that smells like them for example. In my head it's just not compatible how you can be Sufi and ignorant with your words. I am just so confused. Like in one hand I only should worry about my relationship to my Sheikh on the other hand I am 10 years in this tariqat and have seen barely anyone careful with their words. Maybe I am just so careful-with-your-tongue focused because I was a sensitive kid who got hurt by words too much. It just hurts to be around them, to be shamed how incomplete your modest clothes are. Literally straight up bullying. Anyone else struggling with the community within a tariqat?

Those who don't know, in Pakistan sufism has become a derogatory term. Through various means, like class differences as most of the followers of peer/faqeers are from labour and poor class, wide spread sectarian hate speech towards this sect, education to some extent, and these exposures of fake ness of spiritualities. Let's just say in my earlier I have consumed a lot of these sectarian hate speeches or better I have only listened to one side of argument.

Now at the same time these sufis, faqeers do hold a lot of political and social power in my country from local administration to national assembly. Even military high ups revered them as heroes. Also mazars/ shrines has become money tree. Producing millions every month for their administration. The power they have is also used for criminal activities, like drug smuggling, prostitution etc.

So we have this weird situation where, this spirituality shenanigans being used to exploit both the working class and government.

On the other hand I was thinking about their history, Sufi's has played a major role in spreading Islam, inspiring thoughts and culture of Islam. And not only that they have played a big role in developing the culture of my country through their theory, teaching and legacy, and architecture.

Sufism has a distinct place in Pakistani culture. There are a lot of redeeming qualities like free food, related businesses growth, promotion of social cohesion and mental wellbeing .It's a subculture providing us attention of the population of other countries who want to attain spirituality. Thus if worked on could provide us economical and social benefits.

So I am confused. How I should be thinking about sufism. On one hand they are immensely valuable. On the other hand a lot of them are culprits, but is it not the story of every single sect around the world. What should we be focusing to decrease the criminal elements in it.

(A request: I am not looking for a theological debate of shitk, biddah etc. rather I am instrested in history and sociapolitical perspectives.)

Finding rare ahle-e-tasawwuf knowledge is hard. Because since theres no way to verify anything, its not a safe way.

I want to know the secretest of the secret knowledge . Dm if any good resources you know. Allahumma baarik.

Im especially curious about experiences describing kashf.