The Truth about Muslims Podcast equips listeners to think critically about media, Muslims, and the mission of God. Since 9/11, people are asking “What is really going on in the Muslim world?” “Is the media giving us the whole picture?” “Do we have reason to fear?” As Christians, “How should we respond?” Join hosts, Trevor Castor and Howard Ki in exploring what God is doing in Muslim ministry and how he is using missionaries throughout the Muslim world. You can listen on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon Music or YouTube.
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Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Evil Eye
Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on the Evil Eye during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents on the Evil Eye in both the Bible and the Qur’an, what the Evil Eye is, the Evil Eye in the Muslim world, and how it is understood in Folk Islam.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Evil Eye.
In this one on 30, we have really quite a few, case studies. I believe, if I’m not mistaken, lecture 30, still on forces and, the evil eye. So we’re going to be talking about the evil eye, but also in the process looking at quite a few case studies. The evil eye I apologize for this this diagram here. Now they this is what the assistant came up with.
It’s not really when you get into the Muslim world, it’s, you know, a young woman, is not really what you think of oftentimes as one who has the evil eye. Of course, you don’t know. She doesn’t look exactly friendly, that’s true, and so we don’t know. But, but before we talk about Islam, let’s talk about a little bit about the the Bible and, get some context there, and then we’ll go on, to to Islam. But I just wanted to quickly cover some of these, some of this, in the bible.
You know, there are verses, like Mark, let’s see, Mark 722 where, it it it says that, you know, what comes out of a man, Jesus says, is, you know, it’s it doesn’t matter about the outside, but what comes out of his heart come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy. Now this word, envy, sometimes is translated in the King James, for example, and the New King James, as what? Evil eye. So, envy and evil eye really have a connection. The Amplified also says evil eye for that verse.
So we know that the eye in scripture, that we’re talking about the Bible now, is that it’s, it’s much more than the physical. It’s the total process. It’s perception and understanding. Remember that, in Genesis chapter 3, the day that you eat thereof, your eyes will be opened. So this is certainly more than, you know, just, that that they could see, this beautiful fruit.
I mean, there is some some deeper meaning here. It’s, the organs of spiritual perception. Didn’t David say in or the psalmist said in Psalm a 119 verse 18, open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law? So this is spiritual perception, isn’t it? And, in, Psalm 19 and verse 8, the law of the lord is good, you know, it’s enlightening the eyes.
So many verses in the bible. On the other hand, blindness of the eyes is a terrible, terrible spiritual problem. Remember second Corinthians 44, the god of this world has blinded the eyes of them that believe not, lest they, they should, light of the glorious gospel, should shine on them and they should be saved. You know, we don’t blame and curse Islam. We don’t curse the darkness, but we do recognize that Satan is blinding the eyes of Muslims today, and so Satan is our enemy, not Muslims, not Islam, but, there is the widespread ancient belief in the power of the envious glance.
You see this envy stuff. And, the ancient Jews, the ancient Judaism really had quite a bit, you know, to say about this. But as it comes out of the, the animistic belief that the gaze or the stare can cause material harm. Now we are going to get into that more and more when we think of Islam. Muslims and folk Muslims.
You know, Paul uses a verse in Galatians, where is it? It’s in Galatians chapter 3 in verse 1. He says he’s talking about these Galatians. He says, who has bewitched you that you should, be turning to these these stuff? In other words, he’s using this, sort of smite with the eyes.
It’s almost like he’s he’s using something in their culture that, that, he says, who has bewitched you that you should be doing and thinking the way that you are? Let’s see. I I’m just wondering if I missed something here. Yes. I did.
And that is that, where I was, oftentimes, donkeys would have their ears slit. Why? Well, to prevent the evil eye. Here it says in 5103, it was not Allah who instituted superstitions like those of a slit ear, she camel or she camel. Now I haven’t seen that them slitting the ear of a she camel, but I have seen them slitting the ear of a donkey.
Now they might say, well, you know, we do it for various and sundry reasons, but they may not even know it. But, even though the Quran forbids it, Nevertheless, nevertheless, Muslims do this kind of stuff. Now the word nazar is a word that means, you know, illness causing an illness by some kind of a spell. Now there is an, there is a, chronic basis for this. 68 and verse 51 says the unbelievers would almost trip thee up with their eyes when they hear the message.
They say, surely, he’s possessed. Alright. Now what’s it say? What does it say? Well, it indicates that, that, the evil eye can be used and here the accusation is on those who never really embraced Islam.
And the, tragedy is here that the one who has this power may not even know of it. So what do you what what’s the what’s what happens? You’ve got suspicion of everyone or at least suspicion of some people. And so, fear there is this fear of admiration. And for that reason, oftentimes, the baby, a little baby who is not seen for 40 days.
And the mothers make up all kinds of stories. I mean, they say that a precocious child is dumb. Beautiful one is ugly because, you know, unless someone admire the baby, if, you know, that that the Muslims do that, of course, how can they not do it? How can so then what they have to say afterward is, in other words, god be praised. So a misfortune, to the healthy child comes from the mother of the sick child.
An owner of a healthy animal, can then become under the the, spell or the evil eye of one whose animal is not healthy. A beautiful bride is in danger lest she come under the spell of smallpox. The mother with the homely daughter is jealous, and that goes for not just daughters and children but also for trees. In other words, trees with a lot of fruit on them can be, evil eye can be cast on them. See?
In Iran, the power of the evil eye, the eye can wound, the salty eye. See? Jafar’s children are readily susceptible to the influence of the evil eye. So comes out of the mishket, out of the hadith. May I use a spell for them?
And Mohammed says, yes, for if anything could get ahead of this of the decree, the evil eye could. Well, quite amazing, is it not? How do you protect yourself? How do you protect yourself? Well, you do it through various and sundry ways, but one is exorcism, and Bukhary is 7.
That is volume 7 and, 4 number 426, narrated Ayesha. The prophet ordered me, it ordered rukiah to be used from the evil eye. See? That’s Islam. Now other other things, to use, protection, shells, stones, mother of pearl, or we will get into that, I think, try to recognize it in the next slide.
The agate stone, incantations, incenses made from seed, wild rue. I have a book out of Iran that’s called the wild rue, leaves, frankincense. And remember, coal under the eyes of the baby, not just, football players as you see in this country, but coal. Now they might say, well, it’s for beauty. But, really, the deeper meaning is to prevent, you know, to make the baby ugly.
That’s what, they think so that the spirits will leave him alone or the Ashley. Now here is, a little story that comes out from one of our students, in South Asia, former students. Ashley, that’s his wife, kept getting defensive towards friends and neighbors here because they were using the word weak to describe our newborn baby. Ashley’s response was she’s not weak, she’s eating well, she’s growing well. Finally, a kind neighbor explained to us that the word for weak is also the word for fragile.
So no one was calling our baby a weakling, just simply delicate. Here, listen to this, people do not compliment babies because they are afraid they will call attention to the child bringing the attention to the evil eye. In other words, bring upon them bad luck. So, apparently, fragile is the closest thing they can say to give a compliment. Isn’t this interesting for a baby without bringing on bad luck?
For people that live in fear of forces of darkness, the this evil eye literally affects every aspect of their lives. This has led so many opportunities for us to share how we serve the one who has victory over evil. We do not fear the evil eye, but we serve the one who has conquered evil. So that shows you. And now here’s another, case study.
A missionary was told, and I hope this is clear, that a Muslim friend had a baby girl. So what does the missionary do? The missionary brought a gift, got a gift, and then the mother lied and said the baby was a boy. Why? Well, reason is is that the missionary, when she saw the baby, she raised her eyebrows, Sort of I don’t know.
I just, I guess, the natural thing that some people do. So the Muslim woman looked at that and, immediately was worried that this missionary maybe was, you know, putting the evil eye or envy or something on the little child, and so then she told a lie. The missionary says, hey. Hey. Why why did you tell me a lie?
You know? This was a baby girl, and then and then, I brought this gift for a baby girl and it turns out to be a boy. Why did you tell I mean, you told me a lie. Why did you not tell the truth? You know what the Muslim woman said?
She said she feared the evil eye more than God. She said God is merciful, so that’s why she lied about the gender. Fears the evil eye more than God, which is quite an interesting, isn’t it? Now it’s not uncommon for the mother of a new baby boy to say it’s a girl, to use a girl’s name or a feminine pronoun or verb. Why?
To avoid the evil eye or the eye of envy. Person or evil spirit might be jealous of a mother’s good fortune in having a son and look with envy and make that little child sick or even cause the little one to die. This, story comes out of may the evil eye have no effect on you comes out of Turkey. So in other words, there are stories after stories about this. There are so many cases, so many stories that, maybe in your context, maybe you could tell a story yourself.
But how would you, I guess, respond to a similar situation? In other words, this missionary that we just talked about. I think one thing is that you can, I guess, anticipate something like this and so make sure that you know the the gender before you buy a gift, and also to be, somewhat subdued in the way that you express yourself and your actions? I don’t think that, you know, we necessarily have to, say well, you know, boy, there’s a beautiful baby, like, the Muslims do, but we can be use other words in saying, well, now God has given you a very, very beautiful child and I thank him for that and, and stuff like this to just remember of the to be cognizant of the fears and of what to expect, that, this is not totally uncommon and also to pray perhaps for the child that God would bless him and her, you know, just make sure that you are aware of things, and, this is this is very important. Now here are some of the things we’ve talked about before a little bit.
The mother of pearl, as far as I can figure out, and this is, not the best, I I realize, pictures, we had to take them and a student drew them, couldn’t use it for the course without, duplicating them. I think this is the mother of pearl here, if I’m not mistaken, the mother of pearl fish, to please the jinn. In other words, these charms are 1, worn actually, and so you have, other things that turquoise agate agate rings and so on to protect from harm and danger. You see all kinds of stuff, that you use. In Islamic ceremony, we’re gonna just keep moving, We have various and sundry things.
We’ve talked about the Ig before, we’ve talked about the open hand, a Pakistani fisherman might blame his lack of success on somebody who’s put a curse on him. And in North Africa, the hand of Fatima, you see this thing right here, is used for door knockers, and jewelry and chameleons and so on. Things like that could restore a wandering husband. In Morocco, infants have a torn piece of fabric around their wrist as protection. Moroccans, struck by physical spiritual force may throw a chameleon into the fire, wooden fire, walk around it 3 times.
If that chameleon explodes, the evil is averted. If it melts, there’s trouble. So you saw all kinds of things. World Vision says that, aid ministry in many Muslim converts is difficult. Why?
The reason is, is it because if, you know, no one really wants to succeed too much because if this farmer succeeds, others would be jealous of him and so he will come to harm. So in other words, you don’t wanna be too successful, you don’t wanna fail miserably, but you don’t want to be too successful and use this fertilizer and so on. Aid ministry is hard so that’s keeping all of these things in mind. In Nigeria, one saint forbade women and dogs. Now I apologize again.
This is a very western looking little puppy that you would not see in the western world by and large, but that’s what we have in our notes. In Pakistan, again, touching dogs with your right hand is, a no no. In India, playing with scissors brings bad luck. Mocking pregnant woman causes squint eye, so you don’t wanna mock a pregnant woman. That’s interesting, is it not?
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Baraka
Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Baraka during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents what the meaning of the Arabic word Baraka (blessings) is in Islam, its mechanism, and forms of receiving blessings.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Baraka.
Unit 3 has to do with, forces. So we’re leaving the, the, you know, the animals and all of those spirits and stuff, that we were talking about in unit 2. Now we’re on to the forces. We’re gonna be talking about, several forces here, namely Baraka for 1, but that’s not the only one. So these are forces of, mechanistic forces.
We’ve already talked about predestination as a force. It’s a predeterminism. You know, there are verses in the Quran that are needless to say, they are pretty disturbing. One of them is 17 in verse 13 where it says every man’s fate we have fastened on his neck. In other words, god is speaking here.
We have fastened on his neck. On the day of judgment, we should bring out as for him a scroll, which we he will see and spread open. So, the the footnote here, 2187, Ali seems to be disagreeing. In other words, he’s really reading in his own orthodox views. He says, fate, you know, fire is literally a bird, hence an omen, an evil omen.
The Arabs like, the ancient Romans sought to read the mysteries of human fate from the flight of birds. Alright. He goes on and on and on. But then he ends up by saying our real fate does not depend on birds or omens. It depends on our deeds, good or evil, and they hang around our neck.
Now see what he’s doing. He’s reading in his own his own interpretation, what he he wants the Quran to say. Another verse is 10100 and that is no one, no soul can believe except by the will of Allah. So you have this, as we’ve talked about before, this strong fatalism, and yet and yet and yet people are trying constantly to change their destiny by pulling strings. What are the strings?
Well, there are various strings. We’ve noted them. You know? Spirits are I mean, yes, spirits, but, saints and so on. Now let’s talk about Baraka.
Good word, really. It’s an come named as Hebrew word. Barak, you know, president Obama’s name is Barack Obama. This is a Hebrew name, but it’s also Arabic. You know?
Arabic and Hebrew are cousins. Barak in Hebrew means to kneel, to bless, and there are many, many verses on that in the, in the Hebrew, bible. It may mean to curse or to, to to curse the God or the king. But certainly, oftentimes about mercies, you know, words have double meanings. Sometimes gift, grace, favor, happiness, prosperity, all of these goods the good things.
Now in Islam, there is, it is really a powerful word. It’s not just, you know, a weak, god bless, (Baraka) the missionaries sort of thing. There is pull and luck and influence and spiritual force here. This, is, some of the things that that it means. Now, I have noted that, Pakistani Christians, I mean, they really sort of live in a move oftentimes with a Muslim worldview.
They’ve imbibed it. They’ve taken it in. In other words, and unless they know the Lord, and and really are well trained in a and and and have good understanding biblically, they act like the Muslims in many ways. I can remember some Christians. They really didn’t seem to know the Lord.
They were illiterate, but they would come to the services that we had, and, they really didn’t make any attempt to get there on time. But, the only thing that they were interested in, as I it it it many times it seemed to me, was to get there for the benediction, long as they got there for that. Because you see, the benediction, which is, in some circles, in some churches is quite important. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious unto you.
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Now that’s one of the benedictions (Baraka), of course. But this is really what was always important. Now, it used to bother me a little bit. Others, of course, did get their own time and understood the importance of, you know, of of of understanding the word and prayer and all that kind of stuff.
But I I noticed another thing too is that in the Christian villages, and I wasn’t against this. It it was sort of good for the ego. And I wasn’t an old man at the time, but but I would go out to the Christian villages, you know, outside of in the area there. And, the young teenage girls would come, and they would bow their head for me in front of me. Not that they were worshiping me, but they wanted me to touch the top of their head because you see, I was a Baraka
I was a spiritual leader. I, if I would just give them the blessing, so that’s what you they would do. Never shake hands with, them. Never hug them. Of course, men and women don’t hug, at least not in public.
But but they wanted the blessing, the Baraka. So, it was quite an interesting thing. Now we keep talking about Baraka here. Some of these images you are well aware of, the black stone, which is a source of blessing. Well, it just we just can’t imagine really, how much, it is a source of blessing.
In other words, I’m talking like a Muslim now. This is really what they want, to to think of. That that that’s a place of blessing (Baraka) and a source of blessing (Baraka). This is what we’re trying to say. And the Kaaba itself is certainly a place of blessing (Baraka).
The the, another one, is one that we’ve talked about over and over again is Muhammad’s tomb. You know? People really when Muslims would go on Hajj to Mecca, yes, they will go on Hajj to Mecca, but their goal is also to go 280 miles north to Medina where the prophet was buried to his tomb. And I was just reading today that the mosque, I guess it was in New York Times, that the Saudi government is greatly expanding the mosque, Mohammed’s mosque in Medina. You know, the history has it.
Traditions have it that when Mohammed went to Medina from Mecca, he, there were people, you know, the tribe said, okay. This guy said, well, stay with us. Another said, stay with us. Stay with us. Stay with us.
He didn’t stay anywhere. He just, kept rolling. And where his where his camel stopped, that’s where he stayed. And, they made a little mosque there. Mohammed helped according to traditions to build that mosque.
So, tradition has it that on that very spot today is the mosque of Mohammed. It’s very, very possible. I don’t doubt that at all. But it’s, it’s grandeur. I mean, it’s opulent, really, the things that are going on there in in some of these places.
But his tomb, Muhammad’s tomb, and, of course, Muhammad, blessing (Baraka) him. You know, by blessing him, we can Muslims can be blessed (Baraka). So the shrines too are so they’re imbued with power. So you go to the shrine to soak up that blessing, just to soak it up soak it up. And, of course, you then, would hold out your hands and rub your face, and Muslims will will do this all the time.
Older folks really want to die, if possible, on the Hajj. You know, here we are. We’re on in the pilgrimage. So is if if if at all possible, if we could die on the pilgrimage here in Mecca, then we would go to heaven. The Quran is another source of great barakah as we’ve known.
Now places and of blessing, well, and avenues of blessing (Baraka), here are people too, not just places, but children are a source of blessing (Baraka). You know? This is not really a a very good picture of a of a Muslim child. We’re thinking really of smaller children. Some of the pictures that, my assistant was able to find and put in here are very western and not all that helpful, but think of this.
They are full of blessing, the children, and, and newlyweds as well. We’ve talked about, horses and sheep and doves and bees, and, the month of Ramadan is full of it. It’s full of blessing (Baraka) and, incidentally, the gates of hell are closed. Muslims have the idea that, you know, that Satan is bound during Ramadan. I sometimes would, would seem to me that Satan was more active.
There were more fights, during Ramadan because people were grouchy, and I don’t know. It just didn’t seem like Satan was bound at all. He was very, very active and, doing his will in that day. Now there is this idea too of remembrance of Allah. You do wonder sometimes, do they think this is a blessing, or is it a way to to control Allah?
To you know, if you say the right thing and do the right thing at the right time, then you can be, you can you can you can make it. Allah, of course, his this 99 names of God, with Allah in the center here, this is this is hung up in many, many houses. I even saw it in a Christian home. A fellow didn’t really know the Lord. I never thought, he was more into politics than he was into spirituality.
But, all kinds of amulets and, plaques where you have the names of God and that is a source of blessing (Baraka). Now here is something that came right out of Toronto. We have a lot of Muslims in Toronto. And, in the, the Islamic books, Here is when you’re supposed to remember Allah. When starting on a to, starting to do something, say Bismillah.
Anything. Anything. Even when you start to eat or start to have, physical relationship with your wife. Bismillah is what you’re supposed to say. Or when you intend to do something, you must say Insha’Allah.
I’ll do it Insha’Allah. And if I don’t do it, then it’s God’s fault. If something is to be praised, Subhan Allah, in pain or distress, You Allah. You see, this is, Muslims when the, you know, in the the the, 10th of Muharram, there is a lot of pain. They say You Allah or You Ali.
They also say that too expressing appreciation. Oh, you’ve got a beautiful son. Or thanking someone. Awakening from sleep. There is no other god but Allah.
Taking an oath. And sneezing. You see? Someone else sneezes. Repenting of sin.
If you are reciting the Quran and make a mistake in your recitation, you have to say this. You’re repenting of a sin, giving to charity, fisabi’ulillah, having love for 1, lahu billah, greeting getting married, see, on and on and on. So, you have to say and participating in prayer, you have to say ameen, a death message. If you hear that someone has died, there’s something to say. And if you hear of someone’s death, may god have mercy, you see, on this.
So those are the things that you must say, specific things that you must learn. It’s very regimented. It’s very, mechanical, you see. Mechanical to do the right thing, to say the right thing. It’s almost, a, a great burden.
In other words, how can you remember all of this stuff? Givers of blessing. Well, it’s very important to say Salaam Alaikum. Now I see nothing wrong with saying Salaam Alaikum. You know, it’s it’s pretty close to what Jesus must have said, shalom alaikum, which is Hebrew.
In Arabic, it’s salaam alaikum. The response is be returned to you. And in some areas, they seem to drag it out a long ways. I sort of like it myself, but some Christians where I was wouldn’t even, use those terms. They said, you know, those are Islamic terms, they’re not our terms, and, so they wouldn’t use them.
I see nothing wrong in those terms. Another thing that’s important to do is to handshake after prayer. You know, Muslims are pretty heavy on handshake, and by the way, hugs too. Giving someone a hug, men with men, always gender related, this is, gender specific is an important thing to do and so there’s a lot of hugs going on. Tea, coffee, you know, giving chai.
You can drink more chai in the Middle East than you can shake a stick at. But it is a it is a pretty important thing. It’s, it’s it’s really giving a blessing. Now, on this same topic of blessing, I’m thinking of a book by, Lessing, I guess his name is. He, says that the evangelist bringing the gospel to Muslims must be true, honest, faithful messenger of God.
He must be recognized as a man of blessing who walks close to god, trustworthy. He must be filled with empathy and love through words, and his message must reveal that he is a man or I could say a person blessed by God. Lenning wrote this book, Blessing in God in mosque and mission. Now the the verses there, let’s see, is second Timothy 222 about, you know, the what you’ve received from me, he says, pass on to men who will, you know, to take it to pass it on to others. Now Muslims may see us as ungodly, beer drinkers, pig eaters, emotus, immodest, and immoral.
Why? Well, for various reasons. They don’t necessarily see us the way that we want to be seen. So it’s a we have a challenge on our hands, don’t we? In other words, how do we come across, given the western movies and the way that our country has spread pornography and immorality through the movies and the impression.
The other day, I heard president Morsi from Morsi from Egypt. He was over here. I guess he was attending the UN. This is 2,012, September. And they said to him, well, what do you think of the United States?
Well, I I, you know, I I’m pretty impressed with it. I like your roads and stuff, but there are other things that I don’t like. And he want to mention, the immodesty that he sees in the television and and so on and so on. So, we have that challenge because, Muslims look at it and they think of us as, you know, they’re all we’re all Christians. So we want to, we want to make sure that we, they don’t, you know, we don’t get the they don’t give the impression that we are, you know, we go along with that.
I mean, our culture is so full, you know, of pictures of of beautiful women, scantily dressed. And this is our this is our culture. This is our society. And as if this was the only thing that would rich, rich, you know, as if this was the only thing that matters. Nothing to do with character.
Nothing to do with, godliness. But women are chosen oftentimes, you know, in the Miss America and, the Emmy Awards and all that kind of stuff. How can we show Muslims that we’re praying people and that we are full of blessing. That’s really the task, isn’t it? That’s really the task that, Blessing was talking about.
And may god help us to be to give a good witness.
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Sayyids and Other Practitioners
Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Sayyids and other practitioners during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents what Sayyids are, Diviners and Medicine Men and Women, Midwives, Amulets, Witches, and Marabouts, and how the Qur’an supports this.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Sayyids and Other Practitioners.
I was I was mentioning in the last, lecture that the next one would be about, you know, it would be following after the missiological stuff, and it’s going to be about sayyids and other practitioners. What in heaven’s name are Sayyids? Well, a Sayyid is a descendant of the prophet. In other words, one who can trace his line right up to Muhammad. And these people, in my experience, were quite proud of the fact that they were sayids.
In other words, they could trace their their lineage right to the, to the top as it were. They, some all too often turned out to be beggars because they felt that that, you know, that the rest of the Muslims owed them a living. But they also got Sayyids get into prayer writing. You know, after all, if you’ve got the prophet’s blood in your veins, you can be, a van avenue, a conduit of special blessings. So you write prayers, for, you know, that people could use and wear, not prayers to memorize for their, for their beauty, but prayers to wear for power.
And, also, they’re the kind of people that get into healing, and I would think that their their spittle and stuff like that, is pretty powerful stuff. For the Shiites, we want to remember that there are certain people in Islamic history who are of special significance to them. Basically, they’re the big five. There is Muhammad, naturally, but Fatima, his daughter, because she was married to Ali, and of course this is more than, 5, but I’m I’m just saying that if we would take Mohammed, Fatima, Ali Husayn, and Hassan. That’s 5.
That’s apart from the imams, 12 imams, but it’s the big five, you see. The, the gang of 5 that are really, really important. Wanted to point out that Ali in, you know, in in, Shi’ite contexts is very, very important. If you were to go to a place like Mazar e Sharif in northern Afghanistan, where there are so many Shiites and the beautiful mosque there, you know, really, Ali is the one they love. They are thinking about him, and, Hussein is, his son who was so, as you know, brutally murdered in 680, and whose death is grieved and lamented and, just a constant source of of of grief every year every year for the last 1500 years.
So Hus Hasan is his brother who, wouldn’t take the leadership, but those are the for the Shiites. Now the graves, of course, of these people mentioned and others as well, you know, important people in Islamic history are extremely important for Barakah, for healing, and for help of all kinds anything. The tombs of Muhammad where he is buried in Medina and Fatima and the 4 imams, who were buried in in Medina, there have been, were such an attraction that the Wahabis, who are straight, you know, and orthodox folks, they, destroyed them. I don’t know what the condition is of right now, but they destroyed them because they they thought, you know, this is sacrilegious to spend that much time at the tombs, and so they were against the folk stuff. Thinking about the imams, you know, Iraq is is, and and Iran, of course, too.
Just in these days, in United Nations here in New York, Ahmadinejad, prime minister of Iran, is on hand, and he’s talking. There the UN is very, very worried about nuclear stuff, you know, Iran becoming a nuclear power. He is there, and, of course, he has made threats against Israel. You know, he says, well, Iran is 100 and 100 and 100 of years old, you know, 7000, 10000 years old. Israel is only 50 to 60 years old.
He is a matter it’s a matter of concern for everyone, his threats against Israel, but, I’m just going to say that, in in a very real sense, Ahmadinejad is not the one who is ruling Iran. It’s the Imams because that’s the Imam country. The Imams are the ones who call the shots and in Iraq too you have very, very influential imams. You have 7 of them, in Iraq who are extremely important, 2 at Qazimain near Baghdad, 3 at Samara, and then there is Sayyids Hussein, which is is close to Karbala. I’m talking about the graves here, the tombs, and Ali who is in Najaf or Najaf, and then there’s the 12th imam who doesn’t have a tomb.
Why? Because he went into hiddenness. So, those, that’s Shi’iteism or Shi’ism and, we often don’t spend a whole lot of time talking about the Shiites, but remember that there are a lot of Shiites in the world. Every country, Muslim country, 10, 15%, except for Iran. There’s a smashing majority and also a majority just, over half of the Muslims in Iraq are Shiites and Bahrain is also majority of Muslims.
So and and greatly persecuted by Saudi Arabia, I believe. So we’ve talked about the Sayyids. Now let’s talk about the diviners, those who divine. We’ve actually mentioned that before. Let’s go on to the medicine men, and I might add sometimes women, you know, women are into this stuff too.
We’ve said before that in formal Islam, the women are put down. They’re, really don’t have much of a say. They’re they’re not part of the mosque worship, but these women, resourceful as they are, have made their made their point and and, they have their influence in folk stuff. Thinking about the medicine men, Uzbekistan. In Uzbekistan, that’s up there in Central Asia, a shaman is called when a serious illness occurs.
So he contacts the familiar spirits in the court of a a seance for a source. In other words, where did this ill illness come from? Why is it here? He uses herbs, incantations incantations, and, understandably and predictably, in a situation like that, death is never used because of its it’s just a bad omen. Angels say amen to your supplications, so you don’t want to, you don’t wanna do that.
Now in Pakistan, medicine men are quite common, especially in rural areas. They’re called oftentimes hakims. Another word for them is quack doctors, but that’s not very flattering, but they do a lot of quackery and mixing concoctions. You don’t never know what they’re mixing, but they’re they’re mixing stuff. And I can, just, you know, see images of these fellows, mixing some kind of stuff in the middle of the village or the town and, usually, it’s a potion of, for virility.
This guy is just pouring in stuff, you know, and all incantation, all kinds of stuff, and all lots and lots of men, illiterate villagers standing around listening to this this stuff, but, their diagnosis is dangerous, because they’re diagnosing all kinds of things that they don’t have the training or the skill to do, but nevertheless, they’re into it, these hakims. They say there’s a saying that says, Niem Hakim, if the the, you know, the the quack doctor is a danger to your health. Well, the midwives may use sorcery to keep a husband faithful. So in other words, here is a husband going off to the Middle East or going here and there to, to work. The midwife may use some kind of potion to keep him faithful, but there is also the idea of of, you know, making somebody fall in love with you.
You want to attract a certain young lady, but she’s not interested and neither are her parents. In fact, maybe they’ve even she’s even refused you. So what do you do? Well, you might have to go to a midwife and resort to this. Then you have the prayer white writers, amulet makers.
And, if you are anxious, and all women are, to have a male child, You may have to have a prayer writer write something so that you can have a boy, a baby boy, because baby boys are much more valuable than baby girls. Here is a part of the Muslim world. I haven’t seen this myself, but and it’s probably not true today, but they used to have a when the, when they were waiting to see whether it was a girl or a boy, if it was a green light, It was a boy, a red light. It was a girl if they announced as they announced the birth of a child. So, of course, they’re waiting for a green light.
I’m not sure why they chose those particular colors. Sayyid Spirit workers, we’ve talked about those. Witches, witches, let’s think of some of the, first of all, things in the scripture. I wanted to just read a couple of verses here. One is the verse in, Revelation 21:8 that has to do with, witchcraft, it says that, you know, the the cowardly, the unbelieving,, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, and those who practice magic arts are going to be in the fire of hell.
So here you have witchcraft, pharmaco, which is the word that we get pharmacy from, isn’t it? And remember, remember in Acts 13 where, Paul deals severely. He deals very, very severely with this sorcerer. It says in verse 6 that they traveled, they traveled through the whole island until they came to Paphos, and there they met a Jew Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Barjesus, who was an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. And so I’m sorry, in verse 8, it says, Elymas, the sorcerer, for that which is that’s what his name means, the same guy, He opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith.
And then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, you are a child of the devil and enemy enemy of everything that’s right. Now Saul doesn’t mess around, does he, Paul? He doesn’t mess around with the sorcery. He just takes, he really takes it, you know, head on. Is he not?
Amazing. He doesn’t pussyfoot around at all. Now maraboues, which is the word for, that they use for, you know, peers in, in most of Africa, a French name, would be using a fetish, which is an object of divine power inhabited by the spirit, sewn in a leather case that’s very, very common, which is stiff paper and then Arabic letters of god in there, and that would be the charm, the fetish, or to, you know, some kind of a spell, magical stuff. In Nigeria, a left handed marabou Sayyids is highly esteemed. Now this is, interesting because most of the time in the Muslim world, you don’t use your left hand.
That is what is used for going to the bathroom. That’s what’s, you know, and and, they have it that Satan eats with his left hand, but here you have in Nigeria, the left handed marabou is highly esteemed. Interesting stuff, isn’t it? In, Mauritania, the Marabou Sayyids uses his saliva. You know, this saliva stuff is, is very, very important.
In Senegal, 85% belong to powerful Sufi brotherhoods. Sufism. Sufism. Sufism is very, very, strong, isn’t it, in the, in the Muslim world? Now we’ll keep talking about marabous.
Marabous Sayyids can be cruel. They can bless by spitting on, the head of of the of the person. You see this spittle is very, very important. People eat scraps from his meals. The bottled water he’s used is saved.
It’s mixed with sand and sold, in amulets and, and and then, there’s some of the verses that would be used. I could think of, one of them here is in 3 and 31. You know, it says that, say, if you love Allah, follow me. Allah will love you and forgive you of your sins. Now for some reason, that’s one of the verses that could be used, but another one, would be 10 and 62.
Behold, verily, on the friends of Allah there is no fear, nor shall they grieve. So those might be the verses that are used, in the amulet. Now, the this we’ve just read that verse in 1062 about, you know, certain people are in this this class. So, those are the ones that can intercede. Those are the ones that you can get blessing through, and, they’re the friends, the from the it’s the plural of wali, which is aulia.
And, I wanted to make reference here to, let’s see, 18, If we can find the verse 18 and verse 65, this is, interesting stuff here. It’s, the idea is that, you know, you have a have a pier because, after all, Moses had a pier, and, this is what the Quran says. It’s 1865. It says they found 1 of our servants of whom we had bestowed mercy from ourselves, and verse 66 says, Moses said to him, may I follow you on the footing that you teach me something of higher truth? So in other words, they might say, well, you know, Moses had a pier, so why shouldn’t we?
Anyway, it’s a little bit off the topic, but, the next verse, that’s actually 18 and verse 85. It’s not the next verse, but it’s on ahead. It is 85 and 86. Well, I should have mentioned 85. It calls him, Hidr, which is, the green one.
And, you know, this is sort of the idea, isn’t it? You see these saints or Sufis or whatever, and they’re wearing green. But I wanted to mention something that’s a little bit off the topic here, and it’s 18/86, and it’s something that’s very unscientific, but it says that, until when when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it set in a spring of murky water. Near it, he found a people. We said, oh, Dholul Qurnayn.
That’s the word for Alexander the great. Thou hast authority either to punish them. So here what you have is reference to Alexander the Great. It’s another name for him, a chronic name. He was in the 4th century BC, but here he is in the Quran and here it says that, he reached the setting of the sun, he found it in the spring of murky water.
This is most unscientific. The commentator tries to get around it, you know, tries to explain this, which is, really ridiculous. But, I thought I’d just mention that on the side. We’re we’re talking focused on. We’re not this is not, you know, apologetics, but we we couldn’t help but mention that.
Now the Hausa is among the Swahili. The Wolofi, or Surdanese, often blindly follow a, a Sufi, and this picture is covering up some of it, but it’s, some of these these, Sufi groups like, the the Janiyah, and so on, like that. So, all over the place. In other words, it’s they’re they’re quite common. Practicers in in Indonesia, background here, followers of Aghami Javi movements called kabutaynan, and their, attitude to of total surrender to the Sufi, to this Sayyids
Mysticism is Islam is called Sisawuf, the book, by the way, that was written by this, in reference to this. Mystic Sufi organized into a tariqat. We would say tariqa, and, under a charismatic leader called a mushed, you see, that’s the word for healer, and on and on. So the dukun is a traditional midwives called dukun bayi. Masurs are called dukun.
They pack practice magic. They’re respected and important people. They can be possessed by the spirits, so act as medium. They specialize as aggressive or destructive magic or they specialize in that and, are into divination and numerology. Now, we go on to associations, we’re almost finished with this lecture here, but, the idea is that in Islam and folk practices that the souls of men may inhabit dogs, cats, gazelles, snakes, etcetera.
And so you see here you have again the idea of, why Muslims are often so much against dogs. It’s it’s not just the dogs are unclean, which they are, but to the idea that they might be actually, you know, demon possessed and so on. So, and then, you have the the fact that some say bones are the food of gins, so you don’t touch the bones. And animals might be, the object of an evil lie as I’ve already mentioned, over and over again. There is, of course, the fact that pigs are unclean, and that is taboo, but the dogs are, are, no no.
Now there are some animals that are sources of blessing in folk Islam. For example, horses are okay as they may be associated with braq, the animal that, Muhammad allegedly traveled used on his trip to heaven. So you see horses and then sheep doves also give barakah. So you see bad animals, dogs, cats, anything else like that, not to mention pigs, but then the good ones through whom, you know, there can be blessing. And I could have mentioned, well, with dovesies on there as well.
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Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Missiological Implication with Folk Islam
Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Missiological implications with Folk Islam during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the different contextualization strategies and examples of the felt needs of Folk Muslims and how the Gospel can answer their needs.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Missiological Implication with Folk Islam
27 has to do with, missiological stuff, missiological application, and it’s just before in other words, it’s it’s getting close to the end of unit 2. You might wonder why in the world the missiological application doesn’t come at the very end because we have one lecture after this on unit 1. But I think, I would argue that we’ve tried to do missiological application all the way through the course. So, it is structured this way and this is going to include some stuff on contextualization. Some of it I will go through rather quickly because contextualization is a never ending topic.
But we will, talk about missiological stuff here and hope it’s helpful to you. And and specifically, we’re going to be mentioning some of the, well, I guess, the felt needs of folk Muslims, and, most of the attention is on Pakistan. Listen to this. It comes out of the BBC. Pakistan’s holy men under fire.
Wasim Rana, the real village headman from the Punjab in East Pakistan, proud of his community, but he’s not really happy or proud of what happened just recently. What was that? He said we came to his village after hearing that a baby girl has been buried alive. Her name was Ikra, and she has been buried was buried on the advice of the peer, this saint, who I don’t know what in the world he was thinking, but, you know, all kinds of strange things these peers do. Peers are intermediators between Allah and the community.
There are thousands of them. They’re descendants of Sufis. In other words, there’s a connection with them, believed to have spiritual powers and, peers, especially fake ones, routinely abuse the power for, the corruption, extortion, and, unfortunately, even rape. You read about these things in the newspapers in Pakistan. So, then in that light in that light of of the kind of peers, saints, that you often run across, what can we say about the, missiological implications?
But I wanted to, to just note here that it’s not just, for folk, but it’s formal or folk. And and just for general principles here of contextualization, we need to understand what people think is the problem. And so I I guess if you went into an area where focus on was rampant, which is most of the time, and and, you know, as you come in there with Christians and church and all that, you’re trying to figure out how best to handle this. So, first, you would wanna understand what the people think is the problem, what do they think, these people who are struggling with their peers, what do they think is the problem, and then create some kind of a bridge, using scripture and evaluating the problem, but also evaluating customs using the Bible in a consultative manner manner, rather. In other words, you don’t come in like, the lone ranger.
Practice then missiological contextualized ethics. Well, what about contextualizing the message? I think these passages are very helpful for folk Muslims. Matter of fact, they’re helpful for all of us. But think of the passages, like Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not to your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths.
In other words, God can give guidance and he does give guidance as we look to him. I may have mentioned this before. Let me just mention Matthew’s passage first before the Romans one and, I will open up my Bible to Romans 8. But Matthew 1128-thirty was the the most favorite verse among our Muslim students taking bible correspondence courses, that is come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest to your souls.
So many times in our Bible correspondence work with Muslims taking courses all over the country, they would come across this verse and they would say, Oh, we love that verse. It speaks to our heart and I can understand why because they are not used to seeing that, in anyone really, certainly not in their own religious leaders, their peers, haven’t seen too much of it either in their own prophet, in the records that they have of him, although those are certainly, he they’ve as we’ve noted, they’re totally blown out of proportion today. But the other portion is, Romans 8, and and this is precious to you, I know, but think of it for Muslim, folk Muslims. You know, it says we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them are called according to his purpose, Romans 828. But then it goes on, You know, who those he called, those he foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son.
That he might be the firstborn among any. Those he predestined, he also called, those he called, he also justified, those he justified, he glorified, And then verse 31, what shall we say then? If God be for us, who can be against us? He spared not his only son, how shall he but deliver him up for his all? How will he not with him give us graciously give us all things?
Wow. You know, this is just great stuff for, for, people who are worried and concerned and lack peace, lack hope. Another verse that is very precious to me is Romans 15. May the God of hope, who you know, the the God who gives hope, may he fill you with hope, with peace and and, joy, I guess it is. Let me look at that.
It just miss I’m just missing it for the moment, the the the verse, but it’s it’s Romans 15. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him through the power of the Holy Spirit? See, this is a great this is a God of hope. You don’t really have that in, in, Islam because you cannot, lay your your your you can’t be certain that that God is really gonna be with you, that he’s gonna help you, and so that’s why those verses are so precious. Now there’s a couple of other incidents, situations good for missiological
Sobe Irani in Lahore, a 13 year old, is pregnant because she was abducted and raped by a peer. Somehow she had managed to escape. The peer had agreed to treat Sobia’s brother at home. One day when her parents were out, told Sobia to run to the local shrine to pray. The peer with 2 other men raped her, and the police were of no help at all.
Now we know that, child abuse is rampant. The only thing is is that in our context, here in in the United States and in some other countries, most other countries, in the West, there is swift and severe punishment for those who take advantage. At least we strive for that. But, these peers often get away with murder. And in the book Blasphemy by Tahemina Drane, she’s that’s based on a true story of a sadistic peer told by a battered, humiliated wife.
And you can Google, this title here, Blasphemy by Hamid Durrani, and you can find that material for yourself. Now let’s go on to contextualizing the messenger. We’ve seen and talked about that peers are often unscrupulous, charlatans, immoral, and they fleece people. Now, this here, on exorcism might seem a little bit out of context, a little bit out of place here, but, present it in light of previous lessons. In other words, we’re talking about, dealing with, you know, the troubles, the, demonic troubles that that, Muslims have, also the trouble with peers.
But, and I think we’ve talked about this before. We pray in Jesus’ name. We, praise through singing, prayer in each room for blessings, sending demons demons to the appointed place. I, I don’t think I shared a story, of of Pakistan where we did this. I may have.
I I just don’t remember. But, one of our friends, a Muslim, and his wife were being troubled in their home by spirits, who were troubling them at night and, laying on them and even the children could feel the pressure. And so eventually, they moved out, but they came to us, and so some of us went over there. We sang songs, the pastor and a couple of Muslim converts, my wife and I, and we went from room to room in this mud house. And we sprinkled water, we sang hymns, we prayed, and, and, this Muslim and her husband came back, and they said that they had no more trouble at all in that house.
So that’s what we need to do, really, in in in where we think that there is a problem. In fact, I think it’s a good, a good thing to do. Wherever you are, even in this country, when you go into a new place, we don’t know what has been happening there before. So I think it’s a good place to cleanse the rooms and to pray, And we’re getting about to move ourselves in a few weeks up to Vancouver. And so when we get our own place up there, we are gonna try to do the same. missiological
Now the question is, is still on contextualization missiologically. Should a messenger of God trying to be? Here are a couple of lists, and this is not just folk stuff. It’s basically Islam. And I’d say again that you really often can’t separate folk and formal, so, we’ll just live with that tension.
But here are some comparisons between a Muslim leader and a Christian missionary, and I believe this comes out of Bill Musk missiology. It’s adapted. But, you know, the Muslim leader is often somewhat passive disposition whereas the missionaries tend to be drivers and doers, at least any of the missionaries I saw. We are active, so this is how perception. Muslim leader may be subjective, outlook Here, objective life orientation.
Here, people oriented, task oriented, poor, except certain peers, as we suggested, who do a pretty good job of fleecing people. Here, the missionary is undoubtedly, has more stuff, usually a car, a camera, a recorder, a fridge, and are regarded as wealthy. Here, Muslim leader would not watch a drama, watch TV, or movies. Here, a missionary would probably do all 3. The Muslim leader would not eat in expensive restaurants.
The Christian missionary would very likely do so. The Muslim leader would not eat pork. Christian missionary well might eat pork. Here, the Muslim leader may be recognized by his religious dress. Here, Christian missionaries may be recognized by their secular dress.
This one missiological implication here, Muslim leader wears a beard, there’s a misspelling there. Here, Christian missionary often does not wear a beard, and here the wife of the Muslim leader would either wear a veil or culturally approved clothes. Here in, Christian Missionary, they have not always the wives have not always dressed in clothes that are regarded by Muslims as modest and thus identified, them with the sinful actresses. But, you know, they might do that anyway. They might, identify the western woman with those kind of western movies anyway.
But the least we can do is try the best we can to to identify culturally, with the area we’re we’re living in in in these areas, in other words, to the extent possible. Now let’s go on to contextualizing the church. Here are some case studies. 1 of our former students wrote about the Fulani. She said the Fulani rejoice that spirits are subject to them.
They wear amulets from the Koran, drink water from verses, a verse is for power, and a child is sent to the mallam or mullah. In Africa, they call them mallams. A 3 year process to memorize 26 chapters in Arabic and to know the alphabet. Now generally, it wouldn’t take 3 years but, it might for some students. But they have no idea what they’re saying, and, and this former student said that women stopped by to dip their finger in the water off the slate, and a student, a young boy, who doesn’t want to learn, in other words, has trouble, maybe even chained as he learns the Quran coming out of the Central Asian Republic.
Now, this is one of the forms, and it has to do with Luke 10:20, so I’m not going to talk about it here, but you can discuss it on the forms. We did talk about it in class, as I remember, this summer, But now here’s a question about the church. Here is a pastor, I believe the context here is Africa, who says that he wants to cast demons out of the blood bank before using it. What would you do as a missionary? Now you might think, well, you know, it doesn’t matter.
Let’s just go along with it. But I, I can remember talking about this in class, that you don’t really want to, to become a Christian animist. In other words, for one thing, I don’t think that a blood bank can be infested with demons, but it would take quite a bit of of, diplomacy, wouldn’t it, and prayer and love to, you know, not to go along with this. It would be difficult, but I I think that I think it would be extreme, in other words, to start casting out demons out of everything and and anything, pretty well you’re casting them out of a pen, if you suspect it. But, see, the blood will be used for other patients, and so, but but, obviously, to do this.
Here’s another one, I think, just as tricky, perhaps even more dangerous, because of the potential problem here, a drought hit northeast Ghana. By mid July, there was still no rain. And the king of Deban calls for special prayer by the imam to avert drought. But the Christians there in that country, a tiny minority, feel that to partake in that prayer, in other words, in that prayer, special prayer by the Muslims, would be a compromise because they know that witchcraft, sorcery, is in it. So they send a message back to the king saying, sorry.
We’re Christians. We cannot partake of this. Well, there’s a reaction, and some churches are burned, people are beaten. 2 weeks later, the same thing comes up. Again, the Christians refuse and are in trouble.
Now, if we were face to face, we would be talking about this missiology and it would be interesting to break up in groups and so on. We don’t have that option, but I think we can think about this. And, one thing we talked about in class and and whenever we’ve brought this case study up, we’ve talked about this, that it would it would be better to send a message to the, king, to the effect that, you know, we believe in prayer as Christians and we are going to pray, but we are against any type of demonic activity, so we are going to pray at our own time and, would you kindly set a special time apart for the Christians? We are going to pray in Jesus’ name, for something to happen. Now it does it is risky because what if it doesn’t rain?
But I think what you’re trying to do missiologically is trying to set it up so that Christ gets the glory and that, you’re not compromising your beliefs. And when you think of that particular story, I think, the only thing really that, is against the gospel or the sorcery and witchcraft, prayer is certainly, of God and so you want to pray, you want people, Muslims, the king, and everybody to realize that you’re you’re prayerful people and you pray you’re concerned about the country, you’re concerned about rain, but you want to pray in a way that God gets the glory through Christ and, you don’t want there to be any confusion, so you want to set it up, I think, in that way. Those are some of the some of the thoughts that we had and, it certainly isn’t easy, you know, to if you were a missionary by any chance working in that scene, how would you handle it? How would you advise people? I mean, how would you, encourage the church to, to be involved, but to, to not compromise the gospel?
These are some of the questions that we think about as on this topic.
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Folk Islamic Saints/Pīrs (Pt. 2)
Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Saints (Pirs) Folk Islam during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the different names of Saints (Pirs) within the Islamic Traditions, pre-Islamic roots of Saints, shrines, rituals surrounding Saints, their duties, their authority, and how Christians should understand this.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Islamic Saints/Pīrs (Pt. 2)
Excuse me. Lecture 26, saints and peers continued, building right off the, last lecture, the last discussion about Mohammed, and how appears, these people, you know, follow in the train of Mohammed. In other words, it’s quite amazing. The peer names vary. In other words, they have different names for peers.
Africa, generally called Marabou, which is a French name. In, in Arabic, it’s the word is wali, which we’ve looked at before, or auliya, which is plural, friend of God, but there are other terms too that are used, They used them in my context, sometimes calling them murshid, which is the word for guide. We had one fellow that they who was actually a believer that they called him Murshid. His father actually had been a peer so they, joked with him a little bit. Sometimes they called him Bir Saib or they called him.
Another word is Shafi, which is, intercessor or actually healer, sheikh, and appears we know as holy man, but there are other terms too like, sometimes baba, not baba. I live here in the South, as I’ve mentioned, and the word baba is quite a common name in South Carolina. This is not baba, but it’s baba, which is generally understood to be old man, or another term might be shah Hazrat, and, and by the way, Shah, you know, Shiites, they often use this word Shah. Hazrat, shawafa, I’ve noticed from Morocco, they could call a female saint shawafa, meaning that she is supposed to be into healing. Well, we’ve looked at the pre Islamic roots that Arabs clung to, old attitudes, and, you know, you can even see that when Mohammed died on June 10th, 632, when he died, they said that well, no, no.
It’s impossible. Most people, they couldn’t believe it. You see, he’d already gotten to that place. They said, Well, no, no. He can’t die.
He can’t die. He did die. He died in 632. Finally, an older man, Abu Bakr, who was the caliph, the first one after Mohammed, He had a little more sense, controlled himself, and he stood up in the mosque. He said, oh people, I want to let you know, Mohammed is dead, but as for God, he does not die.
And so he held the community together. It was sort of nip and tuck for a while because people were, besides themselves, with the emotion of him dying, he died suddenly and that has implications for the Quran too because he had made no preparations, as far as I can figure out, for, you know, getting the Quran together or arranging it and stuff like that, but he died suddenly and then after that, 20, 30 years down the road, then they started to collect the pieces and, so the Quran finally came into being. Well, look at the peer places. What is a peer place? It’s a place that you can recognize if you’re looking for it.
You can be driving down the road. I can just see in my mind so many peer places in Pakistan. I wasn’t always so aware of them as I should have been, but you can be driving down the road and, if you dare take your eyes off the road for a minute or second, not a minute surely, because there is a lot of danger, but you can see shrines, all kinds of them. And, what is, the shrine? Well, you’ll see a flag there and maybe bits and pieces of flags.
There’s a tree there that, supposedly they’ll say that the disciples say that the peer himself planted the staff and there’s a well there and the water is curative. You can see these, sometimes larger shrines, sometimes smaller, insignificant ones that you wouldn’t really see and sometimes they’re, really you can’t see them at all, but but people know the spot. And Pakistani Muslims celebrate the peer’s death as heavenly birthday. In other words, that’s the Urs, just like they do celebrate the birthday and the birthday of Muhammad. This, I remind you, grew to just in the years that I was there in Pakistan, grew way out of proportion.
In the early years, it wasn’t very significant at all. But then when I left in 1992, it had grown exponentially. In other words, it just grew amazingly and I think that kind of a thing shows you that, Muhammad’s veneration is growing and incidentally, it’s one of the few things that brings Muslims together. In other words, they have lots to fight about. Sunni, Shia, Sufi, and all that kind of stuff.
But on this they agree. Mohammed Loved the prophet day. So, that’s a unifying a unifying feature. Now here’s a few few examples. I’ll give you one of them of living saints of Gulra Sharif.
Sharif is always the term that’s used, at least in my experience, with a a shrine. This is close to, right outside the capital city, Islamabad, a famous peer, and, he claims to be a direct descendant of, saint Abdul Qadir Jalani, who died in Baghdad in 10/11/66. So this is quite a this is quite a an amazing place, really. 600 acres, 160 people staff work there. And, during the 3 day Urs when this, you know, the big celebration, which a 100000 people will show up, all of them eat and there is a lot of celebration, a lot of, I guess, camaraderie, you know, at these peer places.
These guys are peer brothers, you know, and there’s a lot of peer pressure if you get the joke. So and then another one is Pierre Pergardo. When I was over there, he was also a very, very powerful Pierre and political power. And in 1977, you know, the prime minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was the father of Baynazir, and Butto himself was executed by the army, general in the army, he decided that he would arrest you know, some of his opposition, so he arrested people and included arresting the peer, but he quickly released him because the peer’s followers demanded it, and I’m telling you these peers are powerful. Well, what do you have to do to be a peer?
In other words, what’s the proof? Well, a peer must be able to claim a connection, a sinsela. In other words, he must have the blood of Muhammad in his veins. He’s gotta be a relative. In other words, he’s gotta be able to trace the line right up to Muhammad, directly to him.
Here’s a story, I hope it fits here, of a saint in Egypt. A Coptic woman conceived through Saint Saeta, Zainab’s Baraka, in other words, this saint. She went to a Muslim saint, really, and had a baby, you know, that’s often the case. They go because they can’t conceive. Later, when she baptized the baby, get the point now she’s a Christian, so, she had gone to a Muslim saint.
Through that blessing, she has a baby, but she went back on her word and baptized the the infant. What happened? The little baby becomes wooden, refuses to eat, and was only healed when she went back to the saint and later the woman became a Muslim. You see, baptizing that little one as a Christian was a breach of contract. That’s part of the problem because they do go to saints, they cross over, you know, Muslims, Christian, and, but, it’s a dangerous thing to do.
Peer duties. Now what does a duty what does a peer have to do? What are his duties? Well, in the case of this one act that I mentioned before, other than the, great mass of people, a 100000 people showing up, what does he do? Well, he meets people, on a daily basis all through the year.
10 to 12 people show up every day. There is singing, and these are called qawalis. Now they’re singing about Muhammad. They’re not singing about God. There is no singing in the mosque in Islam.
It’s forbidden, but they’re singing in the shrine and the songs are about Mohammed. Mohammed did this, Saint Mohammed did that. And, if you were to go there and if you could look in on it, the women would be sitting at a distance, at a veranda, you know, some distance from the men. Men would be up close, but the women have to keep their distance, you know, custom demands it. Food is served in this shrine, whether it’s a beautiful one or a simple one, but there’s always a green cover there, usually a green green cover over the tomb because after all, green is the color of Islam, some garlands and some copies of the Quran.
So look at you’ve got, you know, the mixing of, you know, the Quran is there and the various things that give this credibility are all done. What power does the peer have? Does he or she, usually a he, have any power? Well, the value, the main value here is baraka, that the peer is supposed to have blessing and, it’s a little bit different than we think of blessing. There is this awesome presence.
In other words, power sort of radiates, it is believed, from the shrine, and some would claim that the saint can do 20 times like raising the dead, healing the sick, and others would say no, well, you can’t do that much, but, you know, we’ll receive some help from the spirit. It’s true, that they do have political and socioeconomic influence. So, yeah, you really can’t do anything on your own so you try to get some help through this peer, you know, his influence, government, getting a job, and something like that. And then there is this blessing and intercessions type of thing. What authority do they have?
Well, there is, sometimes great claims made, but not always the same result, in other words, but there is some authority and, as previously mentioned, these relationships, it’s almost like, you know, fellowship, you could call it, but if you belong to the same peer, then there is quite a bit of feeling of, you know, we’re in the same thing. And the shrine is a place of emotion. It’s a place of meeting. It’s, you’ve got this relationship with a peer, but then you have relationship with one another. So I think, felt needs are met.
And, in Egypt, just getting away from Pakistan for a minute, the sheikh knows, is supposed to know, what the disciple, you know, really needs, and, you’re supposed to have this gift, you know, just like uneducated people go to the doctor and they think, Well, now why do I have to tell the doctor what my problem is? He should know or she should know. And so you have that, you have that or 2 among the saint, if the peers are supposed to know what this this person needs because of the joining of the spirits and, peers have visions and so on. So in Egypt, apparently, there is quite a bit of, you know, shouting back and forth, things like that, oh, beloved one, and some weeping and crying and so on, and quite a bit of activity. What are we supposed to think about this?
What are we supposed to think about? How are we supposed to evaluate this? Is the saint, a fake or a really, is there anything to it? And I think it is hard to to decide whether or not, there is much help. I think there’s a lot of deception.
There’s a lot of false hopes, a lot of, emptiness because, you know, really, who else can help but God and everything else? Satan is a liar, a deceiver and, so there is really no permanent help from the peers, but certainly a lot of of bondage. I am aware of, seeing pictures and, I don’t know if this this, of course, is not quite a correct diagram because, obviously, you’ve got a cross there. So this is not the this is not a Muslim saint or shrine. It looks like a Christian shrine, but let’s keep in mind that sometimes they cross back and forth, but I’ve seen pictures of people who chained themselves to a shrine for days days days, for instance, somebody who has great need, but, then finally, let it go because, the miracle didn’t occur.
So let’s try to understand the heart hunger of people who really are searching like Jesus said, you know, he looks at the crowd and they’re like sheep and they’re harassed. Never was this more true than the folk Muslims because God is not there then Jesus is the one that they need.
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Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Folk Islamic Saints/Pirs (Pt. 1)
Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Saints (Pirs) Folk Islam during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents what Saints (Pirs) are in Islam, Saints in the Qur’an and within the Islamic traditions, Saint veneration, and whether Muhammad was a Saint.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Islamic Saints/Pīrs (Pt. 1)
Let’s talk about Saints, or the the name for them is Piers, p I r s, not p e e r, but piers is another name for them, quite a common name, but there are other names in other parts of the world. Saints, certainly not saints in the sense that we think of them. This is not a matter of piety, but a matter of power. In other words, power is really what you’re looking for here in this definition, but, in other words, not not virtue, but power. And let’s, let’s look at some verses from the Quran.
I guess, one here is 6 and rather, 1060 2, and that is, behold, verily, on the friends of Allah. There is no fear. You see? As if everyone is not a friend, those who believe and guard against evil, in other words, there are some who make it into this category. Isn’t it interesting when you think of the fact that we are as Christians, we’re all saints?
There is no hierarchy. There is no special class. We are all saints. If Paul would write to people and he did to the saints in Rome, to the saints here, to the saints there, even though they had quite a few problems without fail, nevertheless, Paul calls them saints because they’re children of God as we are. But there is this word for friend, they’re, wally, they’re the friends of God, and this is another name for for them.
We’ve referred to this before, this Ujwudi Datta Ganj Bakhsh, who is a Persian saint, who’s Sufi who’s buried in Lahore, Sufi saint, and died in 10/77, Lahore, Pakistan. Saints are chosen as governors of God’s kingdom. Not everyone, as I mentioned before, according to Islam the par folk Islam are in the same category, but these special special class, and they are special. The legend has it that they are purified from natural corruption, that they only think of God. Really?
I would wonder about that. Remember, that sometimes even though they give this impression that they’re holy, I would think that they struggle with the same temptations we do. Remember, Martin Luther? Despite his struggle with sin and, and laying on, you know, and torturing his body, he still struggled with these things and finally realized that he was justified by faith, not by his efforts. So I don’t think that they do only think of God.
I think that if they give you that impression, I think they’re giving you a false impression because we’re all the same. We are all struggle with sin and with temptation. And and and, legend has it that the their body defies decomposition. This is also a hogwash. I don’t think it’s true, but that is understood in Egypt, but it’s true also of some Coptic saints.
In other words, these are Christian saints and, some Christians would have the same idea about their saints and I suspect that it’s not just Coptics. Here’s a, something. The more a man loves God, the more does his heart revere what he commands, and the further is his body from what he forbids. So this is, you see, the the old idea is that there’s this you can get into this special category where you’re now we do know we do know that there is growth, isn’t there? Becoming more like Christ and and more holy.
But nevertheless, we are, we also know that we are always, always, always, human beings and we are prone to, I think, sin. Now, Quran and Traditions, let’s think a little bit about about this in this lecture 25. What happened? In other words, how did this this take place? Well, you had Islamic monotheism, which is strong, strict, but then you had the old ideas of the mediator.
So you’ve got the tension. Islam rejected some of it, it transformed some of it, and it assimilated some of it. The Koran says that, we won’t look these verses up from the Koran, but you can look them up if you want to. The Quran says in 7188 that there is no power to accept as Allah wills, no knowledge of the unseen. It says that the Jews and there’s this accusation made that the Jews make their doctors and monks lords, high and mighty.
But and then Mohammed said that he said, am I not, am I ought, but a man? In other words, he didn’t possess to be anything, you know, greater than that. He didn’t possess he didn’t profess to be greater than the other prophets, But, you know, there is this struggle. People want a miracle, and they can’t hardly believe without it. It’s just we we know that this was true in the days of Christ too.
People, you know, Jesus did miracles. People, sometimes they demanded a miracle, and Jesus said sometimes I remember one time he was saying, look, there ain’t going to be no miracle. You guys, you are refusing to believe, and so this happened in Muhammad’s day as well. It seems to be part of human nature. They wanted a miracle, and they couldn’t believe without it, his claims, but Mohammed refused.
In other words, and and and and, we’ve noticed this before. I think we’ve touched on it that the, in the Koran, it’s, Mohammed is more modest and more truthful. In other words, he doesn’t claim to to be able to do miracles and stuff, but in the traditions, a 100, 150 years after the Quran, it seems that Mohammed can intercede and that in itself makes you suspect that a lot of it is just is just made up because there, in the traditions and in the, you know, if Muhammad then he can intercede, And yet there is this uneasiness there’s this uneasiness, because, some Muslims have strongly resisted it. For instance, the Hamblites, which is one school of law, resisted this veneration movement. But nevertheless, nevertheless, you see the roots of the development of the veneration of Muhammad, and this is particularly acute right now in in the day in which we’re we’re living.
In other words, I mean today as is in September the 21st, 9 2012 because of what’s happened in the Middle East, the anti Islam film. Ayesha said that a prophet is one who sees what you do not and also said, who knows secret things. So that’s the roots. We’re talking about roots now. Roots.
So Mohammed then becomes a paradigm of meaning, worship of saints. At at one point, it says in the Quran in 6 and 50, it says say and this, of course, God is saying this, kul, which over and over in the Quran, gives you the idea that, you know, you’re it’s just this kingly relationship, say, do this, that, the other thing. I tell you not that with me are are the treasures of Allah, nor do I know what is hidden, nor do I tell you I am an angel. I follow what is revealed to me. So you see, as we’ve been saying, Mohammed refuses He refuses, sorry about that.
He refuses to to get into this, but but I in other words, 18 110, as I mentioned, say, I am but a man like yourselves, but inspiration comes to me to me that your god is one god. So in other words, Mohammed says I’m I’m I’m a man, but I get the inspiration, therefore, I’m a prophet. Nothing more. I’m a warner. So, and then they keep saying to him, and I keep, jumping ahead of myself here.
They they keep arguing for things. And, 29 in verse 50, yet they say, why are not signs sent down to him from his Lord? Say these signs are indeed with Allah. I am indeed a warner. So you see the argument goes back and forth.
And, one of the, one of the issues here is we’ll just look at several of these at one time, and that has to do with the the matter of Mohammed’s sin, because, Muslims today would, would argue till they’re blue in the face and they will fight about it, that Mohammed is sinless. We aren’t going to read these verses from the Quran, but let me just refer to some of them from the screen, and I think that you should remember these verses. You should remember that in the, you know, particularly chapter 47, chapter 48, and then I think the last one might be chapter 40 that actually on the page there, the class notes, it’s 4055, 4721, and 481. Well, let’s look at these verses. One of them is 4055, ask forgiveness for thy sins.
Okay? And, and then, Again, know God but God and ask forgiveness for thy sin, 4721 and then 481, that God may be forgive thy former and thy latter sins. Now there are lots of verses in the Quran that refer to Muhammad’s sins, and these are some of them. There are lots of them, not just in the Quran, but even in the traditions as well, which come later. So we cannot really Muslims are really they’re up against it.
They’re up against the Quran, but nevertheless nevertheless, today, Muhammad is sinless and so then the Muslims would say, well, yes, all the prophets are sinless. And we I sometimes wonder how far this thing is gonna go, is the veneration of Mohammed as a saint, and I’ve mentioned this before, because today, right today is is was called Love the Prophet Day in Friday, Pakistan. But but we but but riots have been taking place all over the Muslim world in the last few days, and people have been killed. We lost an ambassador in Libya in Benghazi, Chris Stevens, and 3 of his associates. We’ve been praying for the families of those who were slain in the rage because of this anti Muhammad film that was made in Southern California by someone who calls himself a competent Christian, a guy by the name of Nakula, who was not a very nice guy and certainly doesn’t love Muslims and does certainly knew what was going to happen when this came out, but you see, it doesn’t make sense to us.
We were looking at this last night in class and wondering how could it happen and so I said to them, well, you know, it’s sort of like because in Christianity Jesus, you know, the word becomes flesh and in Islam, the word becomes book, which, of course, Quran and Mohammed are very close together in the blasphemy laws, one same thing really, But but just like if we were to, you know, be present when people try to destroy Christ and, kill him or burn him or something like that. Like Peter, you know, who raised his sword, this is what Muslims are doing, trying to defend Islam, and they think that if we don’t defend it, him or the Quran, then we are not really loyal Muslims. We don’t love him. And so you have this fanatic, fanatic attitude even though Mohammed was was not perfect. I sometimes think that if Mohammed was alive today, he would be very surprised at the veneration that he is becoming getting.
And it has evolved, but I think we have seen that it does have a chronic basis. Here’s one extreme poem, you know, poets over they express themselves, but sometimes they go overboard with emotion. Welcome, oh high prince of heaven, one of them wrote. We greet you. Welcome, oh one who is not separated from God.
Welcome, oh intercessor, for the sinners. Really? Welcome, oh prince of this world, and the next. Only for you, time and space, are created. And, Muhammad sainthood grows, and, he becomes the way to God.
He becomes, the savior in in many sense in every sense of the word. And so some Sufis asked the followers to bless Muhammad 300 times a day. And you get some of these roots out of the Quran 33 and 56, Allah and his angels send blessings on the prophet. Oh, that you believe, send your blessings on him and saint him with all respect. See?
So, you know, when Muslims today mention the name of Mohammed, what do they say? They say: May God bless him and grant him salvation, not just peace be upon him. So, there you have it, blessing him, blessing him, blessing him. You wonder why they have to bless him 300 times a day or anybody has to bless him once a day, Mohammed really grows much, much larger than than a man and there is, there is the roots for it in the Quran. It becomes much more larger than life and I wonder sometimes where it’s going to grow because on the one hand, the Quran denies it, but it seems to leave the door open for it and so we are in this, predicament today.
And the hadith may not be the exact words of Muhammad, but it does reveal Muslim sentiment, and it is built on Muslim interest. You know? We don’t always can’t get a hold of the facts, but we can realize the sentiment, the feeling. And I was telling my class this last night that when we look at study of the Quran, we don’t just look at, you know, how it was pulled together, collected and collated and all that kind of stuff, but we try to figure out how Muslims feel about it and, do everything that Mohammed did. There are all kinds of verses in the Quran about this evolution where he’s larger than life and I think what we need to keep in mind is from that paradigm, then you have these saints today and how Muhammad has grown in his stature.
He becomes a fortune teller, he becomes a miracle worker, he becomes a magician, and all of those things. And the preaching about the prophet is, extremely, in Pakistan where I was, is extremely common. In other words, that’s what they preach about. Oftentimes he’s Muhammad. Why?
And I guess you can always ask why did this happen? How could this happen? And, I I admit that it is satanic. It is satanic and there is this spiritual aspect to it where Satan, I suppose, is trying to pull attention away from the one and only who deserves to be glorified and that’s Jesus Christ and heaping it on Mohammed through ignorance and superstition, perhaps even through vain hopes, Unrealistic, stuff really because it’s so far from the facts. Let us pray that God would use this extreme.
You know, Satan, I think, he defeats himself and we need to pray and trust God that he will turn all of this away for his own glory so that Muslims will come to Christ and that’s what we hope and pray for.
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Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Saints and Sufism
Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on saints and sufis in Folk Islam during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the beginning of Sufism, a brief history of Sufism, what mysticism is, Sufism’s Qur’anic roots, Sufi orders and their stages, and famous Sufi saints.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Saints and Sufis
Let’s leave the intensity of the last couple of lectures and discussions about demonization and exorcism and let’s start talking a little bit about the saints and Sufis. Certainly a milder subject and also one that’s not so intense, but it’s not as benign as it sounds. In other words, the Sufis are often always, you know, talking about the love of God and this warm fuzzy stuff, but nevertheless, I think there’s a lot of the devil is certainly involved in this stuff as well. But when we talk about, the Sufis, we’re going to, in other words, saints and Sufis, it’s not just the Sufis, but we’re going to talk about saints, Sayyids, and practitioners, and sayyid meaning the ones who, because of their linkage, genealogical linkage with Muhammad, are considered to be sort of special. They’re often into the folk practices.
Sufis, I was wanting to show you a video, but since I can’t show it to you, I want you to look at it, and you can check it out. It’s Pakistan Sufis on YouTube. 10 minutes. It’s a 10 minute video, and here is the, link, www.youtube.com/watchquestionmark. And so, that that’s that gives you another, aspect of Islam.
In other words, you know, what hits our news is the violent stuff that we’re thinking about even right at the moment, particularly because of the anti Islam, the anti Mohammed video, our our movie that was made in Southern California, But this is really another side of Islam that you don’t see, and this is part of the problem with our media. We don’t see this, but this is very, very real. What is Sufism? Well, there is this mysticism, and we’re going to be, I think, looking at some verses from the Quran in this lecture, so I’m hoping you have your Quran handy. Sufism is really a mystical thing and Sufis are reaching out.
They are reaching out and trying to commune with God, not by knowledge, but by experience. This is, this is what they’re doing. Now it has been in the history of Islam for a long, long time. In other words, right off the bat, it took off, you know, not too long after Muhammad, and it reached a peak, presumably with Al Hallaj, who died in, I guess, 9/22, and Al Hallaj went a little bit too far, you know, the Sufi practice of, of of gaining, you know, different taking very, very steps, and then finally they get so close to God, becoming more and more like God, which is in itself not a bad concept, but then he made the tragic mistake of saying that I am God. Well, the Muslims had had enough and they crucified him, but then Sufism went underground for a long, long time, but it didn’t die off.
It kept going underground. And the reason, I guess, why it was so successful was because it accommodated local conditions. In other words, it brought something warm and mystical or whatever it is to the cold, hard Islam that many of them would Muslims, would like to present. But it was opposed, as already suggested, and saint ibn al Aqiyyah, who died in 13/28, opposed it all the way. He kept opposing it and struggled against it.
But, you do have roots of it in the Quran and we’re going to look at some verses in the, in the Quran. And I I think we won’t necessarily look them up, but we will refer to them. In fact, they are part of them there is right there on the on the screen. 92 in verse 17 says, not on the screen but on your notes, those most devoted to God. See, so you have this idea that if you are really, really devoted to God, then you get into a special category.
In other verses 96 and verse 19, those who bow close to Allah. Look these verses up. You know, we have had that in Christianity as well, this tendency that, you know, there is a special class, that that that they’re ultra ultra holy and everyone else is second class. I don’t think it’s so much now, but sometimes it would put missionaries into that holy class as if they were anything special. They’re not.
They face the same temptations, the same struggles as everyone else. God has given them a calling and it is a high and holy calling but it doesn’t mean that they are to be put on a pedestal. There are some, Sufi periods that we note. There is the pietist period, AD 708100. In other words, people were seemingly more into piety and holiness then.
There were the ascetics and Saints, and one of them was al Hallaj, whom we’ve just referred to, philosophers. Saint Al Ghazali was the main one who died in 11/11, and he was half Sufi, but he was a great theologian, and he more or less made Sufism acceptable to, Muslims. In other words, because of his stature and his, his, his brilliance. We note quickly the Sufi orders, and this is the Indian subcontinent. I wanted to mention that, the Indian sub the Sufi orders have different names in different parts of the world, but but they’re basically the same.
In other words, there there isn’t much difference. You have the Chisti, which is very, very common where I was and, you know, the leaders in that in that Sufi order, Abu ala Abu Fird, there is a tomb in Taqpatin, which is this famous door of paradise, and, if you go through there, whoever enters this door every year when they have the Urs, you can, make it to heaven. And then there was, Suhrawardi, who was from Baghdad. This is also in the Indian subcontinent. He was he actually this tomb is quite close to where I lived, 60 miles away, and Wahadur Din Zakria in Bultan that was 60 miles away from where we worked for 23 years in Pakistan.
Then there’s the Qadiri or the Qadiriya, and that is all through India and Pakistan. Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jelani is, the name there. So, there are these 4 and the 4th one is Nakshbandi in Pakistan and, Khwaraj Bahadur Deen, and this fellow was apparently allegedly born circumcised. So you have the, in the Sufi orders in the Indian subcontinent. You know, India and my experience in Pakistan is full of the Sufi saint stuff and there is, as we’ve noted before, the folk relationship.
In other words, Sufism and folk stuff are not the same, but there is a certainly an overlap. Stages. What are the stages? Here is one category of the stages, that, stages that a Sufi sainthood goes through. There was call, love of god, seclusion, knowledge, ecstasy ecstasy, truth, and then you see the union of god, and this is where al Hallaj got into trouble because, at the last step, he, said that he was was god and that is not the thing to do because Muslims are so strong on the oneness of God and the difference between God and humans.
But there are other categories as well, with the stages involving repentance, absence, renunciation, poverty, patience, trust in God, and then satisfaction. There isn’t that much difference in the other, stages, but there is this stage, you know, you get more and more holy, I guess, or not holy, but you sort of get more and more like a saint. So that’s the only one. Sufi missionaries, as we’ve mentioned before in the course, were very, very successful in spreading Islam. We have heard that Islam spread through the sword, but Islam is often spread through these Sufis because of their, their interest and their involvement in in mystical stuff and in miracles, not always doing them, but at least claiming to be able to.
Listen to some of the sincerity of these Sufis saints, you know, this one here coming back to the pietist, the the when they were the the most, pious. Here’s one that really impresses me with the sincerity. She says, this Turkish woman, Consume me with fire, thou judge of the dead. If only, oh God, I thus thee may know, and thee once behold, while I tarry below. Throw me like Abram into the fire.
Like Moses, withhold me from the land I desire. If only, O God, I thus thee may know, and thee once behold, while I tarry below. Hang me like Jesus upon the rude tree. Or poor, like Monseur, through this life I may be. If only, O God, I thus thee may know, and thee once behold, while I tarry Belo.
Now, there are some things in here that we don’t recognize like, being thrown into the fire, but that comes out of the hadith, Abram, and so there is quite a bit of stuff here that we recognize, but some we don’t. But I I just the thing that we need to think of here is the sincerity of this woman, who is willing to, you know, for damnation if only she could see God once. Isn’t it a joy for us to be able to know that we can meet with God every day and we don’t have to depend on our own sincerity to do it? Another, woman here said, oh, my lord, if I worship thee from fear of hell, burn me in hell. If I worship thee in hope of paradise, exclude me for thine own name’s sake: but if I worship thee for thine own name’s sake, withhold not me from thine eternal beauty.
Now this was Saint: Rabia al Adawiya who died in 801. Rubia is an interesting person in the history of Islam. She, apparently had been a slave and, was freed because of her piety. She, had declined offers of marriage, attracted a circle of followers, and interestingly enough, she said that she loved God so much that she didn’t have any room left for the Arabian prophet, Mohammed. Now today, we know that Mohammed has grown out of all proportions and we’ll talk about that later, but Rabia is an interesting person.