Tasuv'vuf------ a brief historical review ----- Taseer Cheema, MD

Mootu Qabla Antamootu --------------- this is the argument a sufi puts forth which is misunderstood by him. Dieing before death does not mean isolation from the community or escaping the responsibilities one owes to the family. It means supression of the unneccessary desires and focus on only productive activities which would be benificial to both the individual and the society at large. What good someone could do by sitting in the "khanqah" and doing "zikar". It may have some value to the very individual in terms of stregthing the concentration power but cannot benifit the society.The ideaology of tasuvvuf was originated by Pythagorus the greek philosopher and Palto was also of this school of thought.He was of the opinion that all spirits were living in a different world before getting trapped into this material world and they are still left with some memmory of that life and by stregthning this one can get to know about the absolute reality, this is hard to get any information about the reality but one can recognise it through a process which popularly is termed as "mahrafat". The term sufi is not found in the early islamic literature, later someone fabricated a hadith about ashab-e-suffa but its not reliable since the ashabah ikram R were mujahid not darwaish ( in sufi sense).

Some researchers are of the opinion that its origin is greek word "sophia" which means something like reason/intellect.There is an other opinion that its derived from the word "soof" which literally means a rough woolen piece of cloth. The bottom line is this term is not found in the early islamic literature, in the beginning people of this school of thought were called ehlay khair or saliheen and they were notorious for fabricating hadiths, such as in saheeh muslim mohammad bin yahyah bin saeed stated that ehlay khair were notorious for being liars.The first sufi found in islamic history is Abu hashim usman ------------ he was the first one called as sufi. he was from koofah and moved from there to Ramlah(palestine) in 160 HIjrah and settled down in the first khankah which was founded in 140 hijrah.After this many others connected the word sufi with their names and haris bin asad is more prominant in these early sufya.They claimed that they acquired this knowledge mystically from rasoolullah SAW and since this ideology took birth in iran so Syedna Hadhrat ALi was considered the SHAH-E-WILAYAT except Naqshbandi who associate themselves with Syedna Hadhrat Abu Bakr Siddique R. Later this faith developed so many forms and every sect has its own Aqaaid.
But in islamic history they were not considered to have an authority of understanding QUraan. Tareeqat and Shariat were always cutting each others throat.Like shariat tareeqat is also devided into many sects such as "haloolee", "wahdatul wajoode" and "wahdatul shahoodee".Hallool ----HIndus have an aqeedah of halool that eeshwar appears in different forms and species and everything from an ant to ram karishm has eeshawar in it.The same Aqeedah is found in many sects of shias such as ghali, naseeryah, kaisanya, Qaramtah and Batneyah ------- they believe that Allah is found in the personalities of Syedna Ali R and his offsprings, this aqeedah lead hussain bin mansoor hallaj to proclaim Anal HaqueKhood razay AnalHaque ko wohee khole raha haiMansoor kai parday main Khuda bole raha haiMansoor describes in his Qitabul tawaseen that Lahoot did "halool" in "Nasoot" and thats how Khaliq and Makhlooq turned into one unit.Mansoor once used these words" Kufrat badeenallah walkufr wajib ladee waindalmuslimeen Qabeeh" After this Abassee khaleefah Almuqtadir Billah hanged him in 309 AH and burnt his dead body.

After Mansoor this Aqeedah did not become popular but many prominant Sufya had respect for mansoor for his aqeedah.Ali Hajwairee in Kashaful mahjoob also shows respect for mansoor.Wahdatul Wajood --- This aqeedah is very similar to Halool and was formulated by ibnay arabee who was born in spain in 6th hijrah and and died in damishq. He is the founder of this aqeedah and believd that Allah is in everything and everything has Allah in it. he also believed that human fate is connected to numbers, stars and dreams.he based his aqeedah on the following ayah of quraanMinha Khalaqnakum wa feeha noeedokum wa minha nukhrijokum taratan ukhrah 20/55"It is He Who created all of you from this earth (inorganic matter) and He shall revert your lifeless physical body back to it; and raise you forth once again from it. (Therefore, amongst human beings there is no distinction between ruler and the ruled, master or the slave. He is the real master or ruler; all human beings are equal and are His servants.) You have now understood what kind of Rabb He is, Whose message we have brought to you."This was so simple but he derived from this ayah that all of us came out of ahadeeyat and we will meet with ahadeeyat after fina then we'll reappear---- Fasoosul hakam. In short this ideology states that noting has its own existance but Allah and everything has Allah in it ---- Hamah oost ---- and this aqeedah astrayed them so much that they started believing if everything has Allah in it then there is no difference between different things, individuals and aqaid so Ram and Raheem are same------------ would u believe Ibnay arabee went so far he wrote in Fasoosul hakam " Firawn was very right to say "ana rabbakomul ahla" becasue Allah is in everyone." According to his belief a man is not respoonsible for his deeds, whatever he does he is compelled to do so, there would not be any accountability.Look where its taking us.I guess this is the most easy religon one can desire to have, do everything and you dont have to be accountable since everything is from Allah ----------- Aqeedah-e-Jabr.In India Akbar and Dara Shakoh propagated this philosophy tro the great extent. Dara manageds to trasnlate upnishads into farsee and introduced muslims to hindu waidanat ( tasuvvuf).Two sects Qadria and Shatareeyah mixed hindu tasuuvuf with islamic tasuvvuf.

Mian mir of lahore was the torch bearer of qadreeah and dara shakoah's murshad Mullah Bakhshee was his mureed. Darah Shakoh was of the opinion that there is no difference in islamic tasuvvuf and hindu waidanat and Ram and Raheem are the same. THis lead to the Baghtee movement in india which was solely designed to prove that Quraan and Paraan, Ram and Raheem are the same and there is no difference in hindusim and islam- it was a great conspiracy against islam. Bahat Kabeer and guru nank are among the most prominant ones in this movement. Kabeer saysGangah aik ghaat behteeray Kehat Kabeer aqal kai phairayAlong with kabeer numerous punjabi and sindhee poets left no stone unturned to propagate this belief.Lets see what Bullay shah saysKittay Ramdas, kitay Fateh mohammad, ehho Qadeemee shoreMit gaya dohna da jhagra, nikal paya kujh horeBaid parana parh parh thakkay sajday kardayan ghiss gai mathayNa rab teerath na rub makkay jis paya uss noor anwaarWahdatul Shahood------- This was put forth by Sahiakh Alauddin samnani and was propagated in india by Mujaddad alif sani - in short it says hama az oost.
This Aqeedah describes that this universe is not khuda ( means khuda in not everything ) but everything is His shadow. Basically there is no big difference in these two ideologies , only difference of words and expression.The followers of Wahdatul shahood also believe that although man is not part of Allah but by going through different stages of salook he can merge into the absolute being.This was a brief introduction or review of different aqaid of tasuvuf.