Merhaba! The remembrance of the proper heritage of the community, framed by the Qur'an and set out in the prophet's sunnah, was performed by devoted and sincere scholars of spirituality. These individuals, in time, came to be known by the name of 'sufi', a word derived from the Arabic safa'a which means "to purify," because of the assiduousness with which they applied themselves to holding firmly to the sunnah and employing it to purify their character from all defects in behavior and morality. The graphic above is large enough to print out quite nicely.
The sufi refines his spiritual and physical conduct. The summing up of sufism is to have elegant manners. Humbleness, humility and the etiquette in ALLAH's court make it necessary that one must not allow his full attention to be diverted anywhere else except on the glory and fear of ALLAH himself. To contrive sin and evil is itself sinful and also a cause of plunging one into darkness.
The morals of the sufis are in fact the character of Rasulullah S.A.W., which is consistent with the aayat, "Most verily thou art of a high character" (Surah 68:4), and also whatever has been narrated in the hadith. To be humble, to be kind and gentle, to be polite and soft natured and not to be difficult and not to show fury and anger, to be sympathetic and give preference to others, to show generosity, to over look the shortcomings of others, to forgive and be cheerful, to make things easy and be accommodating, to abstain from formality and pretentiousness, not to be miserly nor to be extravagant, to be contented with minimal worldly wealth, not to have jealousy, malice and enmity, not to desire rank and honour and avoid unnecessary amassing of wealth, to fulfill promises, to show forbearance, to have foresight, and to show love are all qualities we must develop.
The Mevlevi dervish tarikat founded by Mevlana's son Sultan Veled is over 700 years old and maintains a practice of moving zikr (remembrance of God) called mukabele or the whirling dance as it is known in the west. This is a very precise form of sacred dance and takes deep training on many levels to learn and many years to perfect. It is both an inner and outer form having been a part of a process known as chille (ordeal). Each different group is under the psychic guidance of a shaikh or elder who maintains links with the essential source of the cosmos through contemplation and other mystical practices. Sometimes these elders are hidden and sometimes they are quite openly teaching especially in North America, instructing followers to cleave to their prophetic sunnah and the sunnah of their successors. The meaning of sunnah is "path," "way," which is also the meaning of tariqat referred to in the Qur'anic verse, "Had they kept straight on the path (tariqat), We would have made them drink of a most limpid water" (72:16). The shaikhs exhorted their students to actively respond to ALLAH and his messenger(s), to cleanse their hearts and purify their souls from the lower desires prompted by the ego and to reform erroneous beliefs.
The GRAPHICS on these pages are taken from two texts and enhanced in Photoshop. On the top of the page is the frontspiece of a book on the sufi tariqat containing all methods of sufists. It is written in Arabic by Shaikh Ahmad B. Mustafa Ziya ud Din Gumushkhanevi Naqshibandi Khalidi (1813-1893) and was printed in Egypt Misir in the year 1298 (1879). The text dividers and lower border are from an unknown 19th Century book written in Farsi from Persia containing poetry, sayings of Mohammed and some sufi texts. These texts reside in the library of the Samarkand Province V of the Noble Order.
