Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2017-08-09T13:07:48Z No. of bitstreams: 1 delanodejesussilvasantos.pdf: 135729870 bytes, checksum: f09e07640964778d2620f484b6a1357b (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2017-08-09T15:00:19Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 delanodejesussilvasantos.pdf: 135729870 bytes, checksum: f09e07640964778d2620f484b6a1357b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-09T15:00:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 delanodejesussilvasantos.pdf: 135729870 bytes, checksum: f09e07640964778d2620f484b6a1357b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-07-05 / A presente tese, desenvolvida a partir da perspectiva da mística comparada, analisa alguns elementos históricos, doutrinários e praxiológicos que proporcionam e favorecem o diálogo inter-religioso e inter-civilizacional entre o sufismo da Ordem Chishti na Índia e as tradições hindus. A pesquisa disserta sobre a presença inicial do islã na índia e a importância do sufismo persa para o diálogo com o hinduísmo. Procura-se demonstrar iniciativas de comunicação realizadas pelos primeiros sufis chishtis que se estabeleceram no subcontinente indiano que contribuíram para esse processo de interação. A pesquisa também trata de questões filosófico-teológicas da Ordem Chishti e suas práticas espirituais que servem como eixos de aproximação entre as duas tradições destacando a importância da religiosidade popular na forma de música (qawwãli) e espaços sagrados (dargãhs) que revelam o pluralismo da estrutura religiosa indiana. A tese aponta para um modelo não-ocidental de diálogo inter-religioso vivenciado por esses encontros entre as duas maiores religiões da Índia. Por um lado, esse intercâmbio espiritual entre hindus e muçulmanos é mediado pela mística islâmica, ou sufismo, e por outro pela tradição dos Upanisads. Um traço comum em ambas as tradições é a abertura dialógica e o compromisso com a dignidade humana. / The present thesis, developed from a comparative mysticism perspective, analyzes some historical, doctrinal and practical elements, which provide and favors the inter-religious and inter-civilizational dialogue between the Sufism of the Chishti Order in India and Hindu traditions. The research discusses the initial presence of Islam in India and the importance of Persian Sufism to the dialogue with Hinduism. It seeks to indicate some communicative initiatives taken by the first Sufi chishtis established in the Indian subcontinent who contributed to this process of interaction. The research also addresses philosophico-theological issues of the Chishti Order and its spiritual practices that serve as references for approximation between the two traditions highlighting the importance of popular religiosity in the form of music (qaw-wali) and sacred spaces (dargahs) revealing the pluralism of the Indian religious framework. The thesis points to a non-western model of inter-religious dialogue experienced through these encounters between the two major religious in India. On the one hand, this spiritual exchange between Hindus and Muslims is enriched by the Islamic mysticism, or Sufism, on the other hand by the Upanisadic tradition. A common feature to both traditions is their dialogic openness and commitment to human dignity.

This paper describes how everyday muslims with no formal (or weak) affiliation to sufi brotherhoods in Upper Egypt practice and relate to sufism as a grand scheme or larger islamic tradition. The thesis highlights the importance of islamic sainthood in everyday religion, whereby the saintly dead are regarded as acting intermediaries between the divine and the worldly realms. Saints, holy people and blessed places are given agency through divine blessings, thus allowing villagers to partake in a larger islamic tradition through the mediation of– or cult connected to saints. This paper intends to demonstrate that an islamic concept of sanctity in muslim environments does not only exist historically, but is central to the contemporary religious landscape of Upper Egypt.

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Rābi'a al-'Adawiyya and Dhū'n-Nūn are among the founding saints in the Ṣūfītradition; however, these figures are more legend than fact. Their narratives in Western scholarship have been constructed from numerous sources, a process which has stripped them of their original contexts. This work addresses this issue by examining these characters' stories in the context of three of the major works containing collections of their stories: Sulamī's Dhikr and Ṭabaqāt, Qushayrī's Risala, and 'Aṭṭār's Tadhkirat, in order to see which themes the original compilers of these stories emphasized. This approach will demonstrate that these authors were primarily focused on two issues in these works: the role of gender in the practitioner's relationship with God, and the problem of how to discuss advanced states along the Ṣūfīpath such that they do not distract novice Ṣūfīs lacking the spiritual maturity to handle these stages. Recontextualizing these stories in this way opens the door to further questions regarding the way that Western scholars approach the stories of other Ṣūfīsaints and the history of early Sufism as a whole.

Recent political developments in the world show us that different cultures need to know and understand each other better. Even though technological developments like the Internet, satellites, cable television and conglomeration of big media entities have made mass communication more effective and faster, we cannot easily say that these developments help to bring world cultures together. As a result, mass audiences are not very much able to see what few productions do speak to these issues in a constructive manner. The main aim of this documentary film project is to serve as a small step towards helping different cultures to understand each other better. This documentary film conveys the basics of Mevlevism by following the formal gatherings of a Mevlevi den in Istanbul, Turkey. A den or tekke is a place where Islamic people gather and perform their religious activities. During these gatherings they do the sema, they pray, they listen to music, and they discuss spiritual matters. Sema is the entire ritual they perform as part of their ceremonies including listening to music, singing and chanting to attain a state of religious emotion and ecstasy or vecd. The documentary film is structured around a twelve year old girl, Elif, who is learning the basics of Mevlevism. The interviews conducted with regulars from the den explain to the audience why people are attracted to this belief system. Filming the ceremonies at the 550-year-old Mevlevi temple in Galata, Istanbul accentuates the historic background of this belief system. The Night of Reunion is the day in which Mevlevis celebrate the passing of Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, the founder of Mevlevism and provides the climax of the film. Elif performs on that night, a very important moment in her spiritual life.

Eric Hermelin, the translator and mystic who, while being incarcerated at a mental institution outside Lund in Sweden, managed to write himself into the history of literature by translating the Great Persian sufi poets of the Middle Ages, Rumi, Attar and Sadi, to name a few. Amongst his other translations we find the native Emanuel Swedenborg who will be the focus of this study.The purpose for this study is to look upon how the teachings of Swedenborg affected Hermelin through a comparative analysis where the translations of Hermelin will play a key role. By comparing them to the original texts of both Swedenborg and the Persian poets and by putting Hermelin in context with his times we hope to find out in what way Hermelin related to Swedenborg.Analysis is centered around three concepts; the Personality, the Correspondence and Influxus, which mirrors the Hermelin focus regarding Swedenborg. The study shows that Swedenborg is central to Hermelin in helping him finding strength for his massive work. Hermelin knows Influxus by experience and he seems well aware of the mystic and esoteric context in which Swedenborg belongs where the Persian poets also plays an important part. In a way Hermelin relate Swedenborg to the Persian poets using the teachings of Swedenborg as an instrument to point out the similarities of content.

No description available.

This dissertation asks how Muslims in north India today understand four paradoxical aspects of Sufi saint shrine traditions. The shrines of Sufi saints are sometimes regarded as apolitical, sacred, all-inclusive, and anti-elite religious spaces. At the same time, they are sites that are politicized, illegally bought and sold as commercial real estate, fuel for Islamic sectarian divisions, and often controlled by upper-caste Muslim elites. Based on the analysis of historical archival materials and twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork in Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh), this dissertation argues that shrines are sites that straddle the dīn-duniyā distinction in Islam. Dīn (understood as “religion” in the modern period) is the atemporal, immaterial domain of true spirituality, whereas duniyā (“world”) is the realm of this-worldly material concerns and temporal impermanence. As sites imbued with the ethereal barakah (love of God manifest as the power of a blessing) of Sufi saints that aid individuals in drawing near to God by transcending “worldly” desires and also material commodities that are aggressively competed over by adversarial stakeholders (e.g., the state, real estate mafias, sectarian rivals), these shrines are paradoxically both of dīn and of duniyā. When asked how one can differentiate between dīn and duniyā—for example, when a Sufi politician is acting a religious manner or in a worldly manner—many of my interviewees explained that one can distinguish between these two domains based on the material presence of money. In this dissertation, I argue that the concept of money (paisā; also, “money” in English) acts as a symbol to help Muslims in Lucknow navigate this paradoxical quality. By attributing to the materiality of money those aspect of shrine operations associated with duniyā, interviewees effectively identified the boundary line dividing dīn from duniyā, thereby resolving the ostensibly contradictory nature of, for example, the politicization of an apolitical space. As a key signifier in the broader neoliberal context of Lucknow and the global politics of Sufism, money is an important concept by which Muslims make sense of the social, economic, and political complexities of Muslim life in the north India.

Magister Artium - MA / Our secular age is a period of scepticism and ubiquitous doubt. The epistemology of a paradigmatic figure like Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (1058-1111) is central to Islamic intellectual thought, but also speaks to our modern world. In this research dissertation we embark on a critical study of doubt (shakk) and certainty (yaqīn) in Ghazālī’s epistemology. We ask, what is the nature and function of doubt, and how do we best acquire truth and certainty according to Ghazālī? In our evaluation of scepticism in Ghazālī’s epistemology, we analyse the notion of existential doubt and his methodological doubt. In the latter, we look at his scepticism of the methods of knowing as a means to establish the foundations of knowledge. Also, we look at his scepticism as an instrument to cast doubt upon heterodox doctrines and show the limitations of philosophical logic. In this study we assess Ghazālī’s attitude to philosophical demonstration and Sufism as a means to certainty. In early scholarship surrounding Ghazālī, it was assumed that he was a vehement adversary to philosophy. On the other hand, in much of contemporary scholarship, Ghazālī has been understood to give preference to philosophy as the ultimate means to certainty, undermining the place of Sufism. In this study we evaluate these claims; we argue that he was not antagonistic to philosophy and regarded it as a legitimate approach to certainty, but recognised Sufism as a superior approach. Much of previous scholarship has either focused on Ghazālī as a Sufi or a philosopher; we attempt to embark on a parallel approach in which we acknowledge each discipline in its right place within Ghazālī’s epistemology. Thus, in analysing Ghazālī’s approach to acquiring certainty, we evaluate his foundationalism, his attitude to authoritative instruction (taʿlim), and the place of philosophical demonstration and Sufism.

Senegal is a country in West Africa that is 95% Muslim and where Islam is deeply linked to hip-hop music. According to existing academic research, the emerging rappers in the artistic and cultural scene in Dakar are men and belong to the Sufi Taalibe Bay brotherhood, whose founder Ibrahim Niasse (1900-1975) is considered the spiritual leader of the rappers. Through the use of hip-hop, they communicate religious messages and attract many young people to Bay’s movement.This thesis presents for the first time a study concerning the musical material of a young Senegalese female artist belonging to this Sufi brotherhood, namely Aida Sock. Currently, no academic studies are acknowledging the presence of the female disciples of Bay and how they use hip-hop music as a means of spreading Sufi mystical Islam. This study aims to fill this academic gap through an interpretative analysis of the symbolism and religious message present in two of Aida Sock’s music videos: “Road to Redemption” and “The Highest”. The research also hopes to encourage othe racademics to look into this untouched topic further.