Introduction to Tareeqat: Seven Elements of Living Sufism

By Dr. Kamran Ahmed

April 13, 2015

(Video Transcription by New Age Islam Edit Desk)

My involvement with Sufism has been there for a long time with different schools different forms of Sufism. But first a few words about why a chose to write Tariqat at this time.

Tariqat is seven elements of living Sufism in Pakistan. A few years ago I lost a few dear  friends to a suicide bombing. I have their blood on my hands  and the blood of hundreds and thousands before who have lost their lives to religious extremism in this country. I have  their blood on my hands because I knew what was going in our midst and I chose to close my eyes. And I chose to ignore it. It was perhaps too difficult for me, like many others, to nail them who were doing it in the name of religion. So I sought excuses for them. It was lack of education, lack of good  governance lack of justice. It was because of this and that country out there. I felt too uncomfortable to put my finger on the growing  formal religiosity  in our midst which justifies giving and taking of lives in the name of this or that interpretation of religion. So I closed my eyes, ignored and turned away. And in the cover of the excuses  and justifications provided by us,  the violence of the religious extremism continued to grow. Used by economic  groups like conflict between the landlords and the urban population in Jhang city where some of the earliest militant violent religious groups come from.  This was much before 9/11. All were used by the countries like the US to counter their Soviet threat.  It kept a focus on who was using them and not what was being used

 This growing ability for violence by extremist religious groups, the growing formal religiosity in masses.  It is the growing surface level formal religiosity in masses that invariably produces, nurtures and then protects the extremists by always diverting attention from them by coming up with excuses and justifications for them.

Ending extremism is not possible without  challenging this rapid growth of formal religiosity  in the general masses.

 And on the other hand the land and the people which constitute Pakistan today have a history of civilisation that goes back to eleven thousand years to the Indus valley to Kandhara. They are deep rooted to spiritual tendency that runs through  the veins of the people here that are much deeper than any mental formal construct introduced by the religious rites today.

 There is a tremendous need for Pakistanis to recognise these spiritual currents that is laid  deep in their psyche, and to stay in touch with them. When Islam came to this land It was the mystics of Islam, the Sufis, who basically attracted people to Islam. What is important  to recognise is that their spirituality was very much in line with the already existing spiritual currents in the psyche of the people here. This was very different from the formal Islamic discourse and also the formal religiosity of the Brahmins before that.

It was basically the poetry of the Sufis that the people of this land were attracted to. Hardly any of the Sufis tried to convert people to Islam. They just lived their spirituality. They lived their lives intensely. If there was not a threat to this lived spirituality it would have been better to let it continue like that because there is something beautiful about a life intensely, fully lived without being overtly mindful of its own spirituality. But today, given the threat from the formal religious discourse and indoctrination, it becomes necessary to be mindful of the spiritual elements. Not necessarily the formal spirituality either but the spiritual elements that are part of the everyday life that are woven into the everyday life of the people of this land.

 Tariqat is a book specifically written for this purpose. It was recently launched in Islamabad and Lahore. In very simple words it outlines the seven elements of local spirituality in Pakistan that needs to be recognised, protected and lived with pride against the current onslaught of  formalism. There are another elements that are necessarily most needed. But the ones that are already present in the collective psyche of the land . Some of these elements actually have very strong shadow sides to them as well. These are also outlined in the book. These are negative manifestations  if that element is allowed to consume the psyche losing its balance with the other elements.

And lastly not to get lost in an intellectual discourse, along with the verses and visuals, the book also gives every day practices after each element that can enhance and strengthen these elements in our everyday lives.

URL: https://newageislam.com/multimedia/introduction-tareeqat-seven-elements-living/d/102420