Sufism Offers Solutions

By Rasheed Khalid, "Sufism and science ‘take human beings on equal footing’" - The News International - Pakistan
Saturday, February 21, 2009

Islamabad: Sufism and science take human beings on equal footing and whatever they do is for whole the humanity, said Ijaz Shahid, an analyst.

He was speaking in a talk on ‘Sufism and science’, organised by Islamabad Cultural Forum at TVO House, here Friday. Dr Noor Fatima conducted the proceedings.

Shahid said that Sufis for many are special people related with religious ideas but Sufism also offers solutions to political problems of countries and societies. He said that Sufism dates back to ancient times of human history and is a continuation of mysticism.

He said that different orders of Sufis started emerging in the Islamic world a century after the death of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). He said that Sufis believe in integrating with the ultimate reality in the end which they call oneness with God and they try to achieve this with practice.

Ijaz Shahid mentioned orders of Qadria, Chishtia, Suharwardya, Hallajia, Rumi, Ghazali and Farabi. He said that Hallaj achieved total annihilation of self into God. He was humiliated, meddled into garbage, executed and burnt.

He said that some Sufis discarded rituals and prayers being superficial. He said that some Sufis perceive to have gone beyond time and space and claim certain powers.

He said that Lord Buddha abandoned luxuries to find salvation through meditation in woods. Finally he found the answers to ‘dukhas’ (sufferings) of man and we can overcome it with humiliation and self-denial. He said that even Buddhism has so many denominations. He said that ‘budhi’, ‘dharma’ and ‘sangha’ are stages of Buddhism.

He said that Sufis wanted integration, ‘irfan’ (fana). He said that philosophies of Christianity, Hinduism and Jainism also had such stages or ‘muqamat’ of mysticism.

He said that science is based on facts. He said that both Sufism and science take human beings on equal footing and whatever they do is for whole the humanity. He said that there is a Sufi in all of us at one stage of our lives. He said even non-believers artists and men of letters experience mystic feelings.

He said that some people are timely Sufis and feel satisfied in the company of mystics which he called an escape route for them.He said that there could be non-Sufis (quack Sufis) acting as Sufis for the sake of livelihood.

He said that feeling like Sufis is a bio-psychological phenomenon.

He said that it is a brain function to have feelings and as we have different brains so express different reactions to same reality like thumb impressions.

He said that DNA affects neurons which have impact on our personality and a change in it changes one’s behaviour.

In the question hour, Professor Ashfaq Salim Mirza said that except biological state of mind, the topic had not been touched properly by the speaker. He said that Lord Buddha had nothing to do with mysticism. He said that Farabi was a scientist and Ghazali was a predecessor of today’s fundamentalists. He said that intuitionism is the core of Sufism.

A participant said that mysticism is an offshoot of religion closest to science. He said that in mysticism, we all are parts (juzv) of a whole (kull) and in science whatever exists is made of 92 elements (matter). He said that mystic poetry of Ghalib, Mir etc fits into scientific interpretation.

[Picture: Faisal Mosque, Islamabad. Photo from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faisal_Mosque].