July 6, 2015

The Allure of Sufism


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Petra, Jordan

One of the things that drew me to Sufism was the notion that “the only one we take personally is God”. I began to realize the truth of this statement when studying Aqidah (Islamic belief system) but Sufism put it in to both words and practice. I think many of us are looking for a drug, an escape, to run away from our difficulties. We do this in a range of ways, some hazardous, some beneficial. What Sufism teaches us is that our entire life is a manifestation of our personal dealings with God. No one is independent of God. The hurt you feel, the pain you’re experiencing, the anger, whatever it is the reality is that any and every scenario God puts you in which conjures up that emotion isn’t “real”. We harbor hate at at so and so because of such and such, in reality their actions are only a manifestation of God’s will so we’re consistently left not asking ‘how to I react to Sally?’ but ‘how do I deal with God?’ And when we deal with God we are dealing with a wise and merciful being therefore we can never look towards God and claim He is unjust -how can He be unjust when everything belongs to Him and He is All Wise? We can only hope and pray to act in a manner that will bring us near to God. Seeing past the particularities of any given situation and seeing only the manifestation of God’s will.

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