#sunni islam

[roseconservator]

I'm gonna fucking insane if I keep seeing blogs on here fetishizing trans Muslim women, please make it stop.

[alpaca-clouds]

Isaac's Religion: The Origins of Sufism

Okay, I promised some folks ( @xshingie among them) that I would use my time during Ramadan to write a couple of background essays on Isaac's philosophy and religion. Mainly because I realize that most of the people watching this show are from majority Christian places and barely ever have been taught anything about Islam, if not outright being fed misinformation about Islam, like "that is the religion of terrorists" and such.

So, let me start today with this: When Isaac meets the Captain in season 3, he gets offered alcohol and declines. The Captain asks: "Muslim?" To which Isaac answers: "Sufi."

I originally just wanted to explain Sufism, but as people rightfully pointed out: If you do not know anything about Islam, explaining Sufism will leave certain holes.

So. Let me start like this:

Islam 101

I am rather certain most people know at least one thing about Islam: It goes back to Muhammed, the prophet, Peace be upon him. Like Christianity and Judaism, Islam is an Abrahamitic religion. In fact, Muslims do believe that all the prophets known from the bible, including Jesus, were prophets. In fact, many Muslims will even agree that Jesus was a messiah (as in "a savior of a people"), just not with the idea that Jesus was the son of God.

As I said, the religion originated with Muhammed, who grew up as an orphan in Mecca, a city that originally was also following the Abrahamitic religions, but at this time - in the Gregorian calendar around the early 7th century - many people there had found their way back to older polytheistic religion (specifically mixing some of the Abrahamitic stuff with older religions), and because of this were committing many acts that Muhammed considered to be sinful.

In regret of this, he decided to go out into the desert - specifically into the cave of Hira, to meditate and pray. And it was there that he received his first vision from the archangel of Gabriel. He shared the vision that he received, and it would be only the first of several. As he started preaching, more and more people started to join his new religion - though as it goes with new religions this obviously made him quite a lot of enemies. Even more so, as this new religion mainly appealed to marginalized people, such as women, the poor, the disabled and slaves. As they were religiously persecuted in Mecca, they finally emigrated to Yathrib, which would eventually become Medina. There they properly founded their own religion.

Of course, as you might know - as some folks love to go on about this in the west - what followed was quite a lot of war. While Muhammed died in 632, his new religion spread throughout the Arab region, partly through war and conquest. You can absolutely argue about the value of this, but I will remind you, that neither Judaism, nor Christianity were different in that way, both using war and conquest to spread their religion.

I will not go into the details of this. I can absolutely go into the history of these things at another time, if people are interested in it, but I am more interested in the religion itself.

Under Muhammed, the Qur'an was only shared orally through the quite poetic form of it. But due to the politically instable time, which led to a lot of people who had the full text memorized being killed, it was quickly decided after the death of Muhammed to also write the text down. Though to this day it is considered to be rather normal among Muslims to memorize the text. (Note: The Qur'an is a lot shorter than either the bible or the thora, and is usually memorized in the poetical Arab form.)

Now, I realized that a lot folks do not really know of the main divide of Islam: The divide between Suni and Shia - a divide that is part of the political instability we see in the Arabic world today. And this divide started almost directly after Muhammed's death.

This conflict is not too different from the conflicts within Christianity. Mainly there is a conflict in who gets to interpret the Islam and lead the Muslims. While the Shia believed, that Muhammed named his successor in Ali ibn Abi Talib (who then later named his own successor and such), the Sunni believe, that there should be a council who will choose a calif, who then gets the ability to interpret the text and make declarations. There is obviously more to this and there are more small differences in how the religion is practiced, but again, that would go into too much detail.

It should be said, though, that most practicioners of the faith very much still follow the same general rules, so the five prayers of faith. These are (I am so free to just copy from Wikipedia): Shahada (profession of faith), Salat (prayers), Zakāt (giving of alms), Sawm (fasting, specifically during Ramadan) and Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). What is and what isn't considered haram - so sinful - also is mainly the same, with just some minor differences.

However, while Sunni and Shia are the biggest groups underneath Islam, there are other factions. For one there is the Ibadi movement, that is the main form of Islam in Oman. And then there is Sufism. Which is of course what Isaac has been raised in.

So, what is Sufism?

The first thing you need to know about Sufism is that it is a topic of a lot of discussion among both scholars and actual researchers. While we somewhat know how it started - once again in the 7th century and not too long after Muhammed's death - other stuff is quite more argued about. While we fairly certain that it somewhat developed under Sunni Islam, it still is not quite part of it. In fact, a lot of the interpretations of Sufism are a lot closer to Shia Islam, than to Sunni Islam.

Sufism often gets described as Islamic mysticism a lot, which is kinda what it is. It is a more spiritual practice of Islam. While Sufi do absolutely observe the pillars of faith, they do generally differ from other interpretations of the religions through two aspects. Partly, in that they generally do empower more people to themselves interpret the Qur'an (though this also depends on the Sufi order, but this would once more go into too much detail), and the other is how they practice tazkiyah.

Translating tazkiyah is a bit hard. Technically it refers to pruning a plant to allow it to grow better, but in regards to human religious practice it is often translated as "self-purification". And if you think of Isaac's self-flagellation now, you are both right and wrong. Because, yes, this is probably why he does this - but technically it is not quite in line with typical Sufi teachings. Let me start this off a bit different.

Tazkiyah in Sufism has the goal of reaching ihsan ("beauty of the soul") and ultimately fitra. And understanding fitra is somewhat important to understand Isaac.

Fitra to Sufi is the original pure state of the soul. See, Sufi believe that the soul when it gets created by God is pure, but it just cannot go through life in this world without being stained, no matter how good you are trying to be. As a human you are faulty, and you will make mistakes and will get corrupted. The goal is to get as close to fitra during life, as it is possible for a mortal. (This is also a good moment to note, that while some people might disagree with this, there is a general believe in Islam, that hell is not permanent, but just a thing where a soul goes to do atonement, until it is pure once more. As God does want people to eventually return to His side.)

Generally Sufi also tend to be the part of Islam that often gets along best with other religions, as at least some Sufi believe that technically all religions on this world are the same - just that God showed himself in a way that people were able to understand in the context He appeared them to. But again, this goes a bit too far for this.

So, let's get back to tazkiyah. In Sufism this usually has seven specific aspects:

Repentance (tawbah)

Abstention (wara)

Asceticism (zuhd)

Poverty (faqr)

Patience (ṣabr)

Confidence (tawakkul)

Contentment (riḍā’)

Usually these are seen both as ideals, and as stages to go through to get to fitra. And if you look now at season 3 and 4 and go: "Ooooooh," then I will tell you: You are very welcome.

But let's get back to the entire self-flagellation issue. Because it is one of those things that a lot of people will have a lot of opinions on.

See, generally there are two very contrary thoughts in Islam, as there are in a lot of religions. One is that the body we have on this earth is what God has given us, and hence should be treated with respect. As such it should not be changed more than necessary, if at all. This can mean: No hair cuts. And in the extremes it can also mean, no surgery even if it means accepting death. The other train of thought is quite contrarian to that one: This body is just a temporal vehicle, that all in all actually keeps this soul down. As such it should be at least at times punished in some way basically to not let the vices of the body become vices of the soul.

Now, we know very little where exactly Isaac comes from. While Ade talked about Isaac coming from the south west just south of the Sahara. But we do not know what culture exactly he stemmed from. However, we can see that his culture if nothing else practices scarification. We can now argue whether the part that he does clearly shave his entire head is related to a cultural pracice or to him not knowing how to care for his hair - given he was taken young - but at least the scarification is most certainly a cultural pracice. So it is highly likely he was more of a practice that did disregard the body.

But yeah. This is basically the religious context from which Isaac was written. A context that was lost on quite a lot of folks, it seems.

[afriblaq]

The True Legacy of Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz)

[faahiii]

And I tried to rid my heart from sins,

But they were carved into my soul too.

Still He covers them so beautifully,

Although I have done nothing to deserve it.

I realised it has nothing to do with me.

It has something to do with his unconditional mercy.

~ anonymous

[wisdomfish]

The Entire Story & Game Plan Of Islam

Thirty minutes that'll teach you more about Islam than most muslims know.

CHAPTER MARKERS:

0:00 Important Summary of Islam

0:44 Muhammad, War & Slavery

3:25 Jefferson, Barbary Pirates & Islam

4:24 Moderate vs Fundamentalist Muslims

7:24 Christian Nations Becoming Muslim

7:53 The Origins of Muhammad

10:08 The Cave Revelation

12:08 Medina, Politics & Power

14:51 The Jews of Medina

16:01 Immigration, Expansion & Dawah

18:15 Sharia, Halal & Haram

19:06 Christianity vs Islam

20:34 Quran, Hadith & Islamic Law

21:34 Sunni vs Shia Explained

22:55 Iran, the Mahdi & End Times

24:07 Why This Clip Must Go Viral

[katzenkoenigreich]

[jewkbox]

Thd Kurdish women fighting ISIS

All-female battalions of Kurdish soldiers have been instrumental in fighting ISIS

"In Syria, the women of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) have been recognized for their all-female fighting force. This force, known as the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) have been heralded for their bravery on the battlefield. Al Jazeera reported that Kurdish soldiers from the YPJ had singlehandedly killed over 100 Islamic State fighters.[1] In the defense of Kobani, it was reported that up to 40% of the resistance fighting force against ISIS was made up of Kurdish women."

Women in Kurdistan | The Kurdish Project

Kurdish women have been playing an increasing role in Kurdish society. Learn more about the history, culture and values of women in Kurdista

By the way, 98% of Kurds are Sunni Muslims.

[secular-jew]

Cry me a river asshole