Within Reason - #91 Filip Holm - What is Sufism? Islam and Mystical Experience

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

Filip Holm is the creator and host of "Lets Talk Religion", a YouTube channel which aims to educate on the subject of religion from an academic perspective. He joins the show to discuss Sufism, which can broadly be defined as the mystical tradition within Islam. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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that just has too many problems with it. And in general, it's just a widely debated term. the way that it's been understood, at least in the modern world, is often going back to people like William James, who defines it as, particularly defines mysticism as relating to experiences, so experiences of absolute reality. That is a bit limiting in many ways, and so in the last few decades,

scholarship debates, whether there is even such a thing as a pure mystical experience outside of the sort of socio-religious environment in which a mystic figures. But in general, there is actually a definition of mysticism that I quite like by Bernard McGinn, who is one of the leading scholars of Christian mysticism in particular. I think I have it written down here somewhere. So he says that mysticism, at least in the Christian context, is belief and practices that concerns the preparation for the consciousness of and the reaction to what can be described as the immediate or direct presence of God. If you want to broaden that, we can maybe switch out the word God with absolute reality or the absolute in some way. So what distinguishes mystics from non-mystics within a given religion is often imagined to be this approach that is often aimed at a sort of inner experience or consciousness of becoming sometimes united with, although uniting that word can be understood in different ways, but uniting with or being in the presence of the

absolute reality in this life. So in Sufism, for example, which is the tradition that I've studied primarily, this comes from Islam. And in Islam, there's this idea that after death, at the day of judgment, people will get to see the face of God or experience God at that point. But Sufis are sort of, they're impatient, right? They want to have that experience of God right now in this life. So that is, even though it's difficult to define, but I would say, if anything, that's what sort of characterizes a mystic as opposed to someone who isn't.

Yeah, I want to talk to you about Sufism today, because one of the first things that strikes you about the so-called Islamic mystical tradition is that within Islam there is such an emphasis on the transcendence of God, on the sort of utter, almost unknowability of this being who exists beyond and above everything. It doesn't have the kind of imminence, theologically, that something like Christianity does with the incarnation. The whole point is that God is wholly other and above. And yet the Sufi mystics are people who think that we can have this imminence. And I think that mysticism is sort of broadly defined in terms of this imminence, imminence with God. Now, of course, the Quran does say in I think the 50th chapter that God is closer than the jugular vein, but it does seem a little bit out of accord for some, I mean, listening to this with their view of what Islam is all about to think that there can be these. mystics who sort of want to achieve this immediate, imminent experience with God. Right. Yes, that's very true. I mean, Islam, at the core of Islamic theology is the idea of Tohide, which is, well, monotheism,

but that also has connotations of God being one, God being transcendent of all things. The Quran says, as you point out in multiple places, that God is unlike anything in the created world. God is completely beyond the creative world. And that is, when we look at the sort of speculative theological tradition in Islam, or even the philosophers of Islam, this is definitely the perspective on God that they adopt for the most part. But then we have the Sufis, which, you know, and we should be careful not to see Sufism as its own sort of branch that stands in contrast to these other groups, because often Sufis, will belong to, so backing up a bit, in Islam there are these normative, orthodox, so-called

schools of theology, like the Asharis and the Maturidis and Atharis, for example. And Sufis in history will often belong or sort of ascribe or adhere to one of these theological schools. But at the same time, as you point out, one of the characteristics of perhaps mystics in general, but definitely Sufis is that they also seem to emphasize the imminence of God and they will point to verses in the Quran

like what you mentioned God is closer to you than your jugular vein in the second chapter it says that whichever way you turn there is the face of God there is a verse that says he shall

I'm not quoting directly here but he shall show his signs in themselves and in the horizons and they will know that He is the truth or the Sufis will read that as it is the truth so that which is perceived

in themselves on their horizon so they will often also interpret Quranic verses in ways that emphasize that eminence and that is it's a tension definitely that exists

across the Islamic tradition that is why it is so controversial when a Sufi like Halaj says, I am the truth. He seems to somehow, at least on a surface level, he appears to be identifying himself with God. And that goes completely against

this fundamental tenet of Islam of God's transcendence. Of course, what he is saying is more complicated than that, but it shows that there's always this tension. And Sufis often have to sort of wrestle with that. A very good example is one of the greatest Sufi thinkers in history,

Ibn Arabi, who I've studied particularly a lot. And in his thought, we constantly see this sort of push and pull between perspectives of transcendence and imminence. He calls it Tashbih, which means similarity or imminence, and Tanziah, so transcendence. or difference. And reading his works, we can sort of, it's difficult to sort of point to what he, which perspective he considers to be correct.

In fact, he sees them both as correct. He compares it to seeing the world through two eyes. One eye is the eye of reason and the intellect, and that part of ourselves will always see God as transcendent, because we will have to recognize that God is not limited. God does not have a body. He is not confined to time and space. So that is what reason will always conclude, whereas the other eye is the eye of, well, what we could call perhaps mysticism, right? Mystical insights. In Arabic, they use words like kesh, which means unveiling, or valk, which means tasting. And that is a sort of, it's not

It's never anti-rational. It's rather considered hyper-rational, a sense. It's like it takes over where reason inevitably hits a wall and can't go any further. And from that perspective of mystical insights, of Gnosis, you could call it also, that is where the imminence of God is perceived. And so in his thoughts, there's always this balance between both of these aspects. And he has really interesting ways of sort of explaining how that works, which maybe we could get into. But in general, yes, that is a very recurring tension across all of Islamic history, and it's particularly with the Sufis.

I do want to talk about that, but I want to circle back to something that you mentioned a second ago, which is that Sufism is not like a branch or kind of Islam. Some people listening will know that there are different branches of Islam. They'll have heard of the Sunnis and the Shias, and they might think that Sufism is something a bit like that, but it's not, right? No. This is a very common misunderstanding, I would say. Sometimes we see people listing the branches of Islam,

and will say Sunni and Shia and Sufi as three different branches. Even Muslims themselves will often have this mistaken view, or I shouldn't say mistaken, but sort of this common idea. For example, I did a video on a 19th century Sufi figure called Abu Qadr al-Jahiri, who was a sort of freedom fighter in Algeria. And he was staunch like Sufi. He was a very, some would even consider like an extreme radical Sufi thinker. But then I had people from Algeria in the comments saying, no, he was a Sunni, he wasn't Sufi. It was like, well, they don't, it's not contradictory, right? So Sufism is more, it appears in, basically from the beginning of the Islamic religion as a way for certain Muslims to sort of deepen on top of the outer expectations of the religion, like the prayers, the exterior aspects.

They want to sort of interiorize the Quran and the Sunnah by purifying the heart, so the inner soul on sort of the path to intimacy with God. And Sufis across history have been mostly Sunnis. There are examples of Shi'i Sufis as well, although in Shi'ism it's more common to conceive of their own sort of form of misnish. mysticism, they call it Erfan, which is basically Sufi metaphysics and speculation, but without many of the practices, like the musical gatherings and stuff like that. They will sort of deny, and they will claim that this is sort of a tradition of its own. So Sufism exists within Islam, more generally, not as a branch, but as a sort of tendency within the religion, as a certain Muslim sense. say it's a science broadly defined right as a sort of field of knowledge within within the religion I sometimes compare it to rather than branches we have certain what's the

what I'm looking for a certain disciplines within the religion so for example you have FIP like jurisprudence this is concerned with how do we practice the religion how do we pray correctly how do we act in society in the correct way etc according to the will of God and the Quran. Then you have what's known as Kalam, which is doctrinal theology, you could say, also known as Aqida or Creed. And this is more so speculating about the nature of God,

nature of free will, these kinds of theological questions based on the scripture, but also inspired by rational discourse. And then you could place Sufism or Tasawwuf, as it is known in Arabic, as one of those categories that some people within the religion sort of have as a certain discipline of, so Fik is concerned with the outer practices, Kalam were the sort of more speculative way of understanding God, and Sufism would be the sort of interior purification of the soul through a sort of deep ethical commitment, through certain practices that takes you on ascending stations, sort of spiritual stations toward God.

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That isn't to say. I often say that Sufism makes up the majority expression of Islam. That doesn't mean that every or most Muslims in history were mystics, per se, but rather that the wider complex of Sufism, which at its core is this sort of esoteric mystical tradition, where a master teaches a student on this path, mystical path, to God. The majority of Muslims weren't initiated into a Sufi order, but there is a sort of wider complex of Sufism,

which includes certain saints. Some of these masters and sheikhs will become seen as, we say saints, but that is a Christian term, obviously. In Arabic, it's Wali, which means a friend of God. So there will be shrines dedicated to saints that people will come and visit to receive blessed, blessings. Sometimes they have things that they want solved in their lives, and they will go to the grave of a saint, and they will receive blessings, and hopefully their troubles will be relieved, etc. So even though most people, or at least not the majority of people, were initiated into a Sufi order, per se, I would say that almost every Muslim in history up until the 20th century participated in the wider complex of Sufism. That was simply hearts of the religion of Islam and how that was practiced and how that functioned in culture and

society generally. Is there a reason why Sufis have tended to be Sunni rather than Shia? Is that just because there are so many more Sunni Muslims or is there something about being a Sunni that lends itself more to Sufism? And actually perhaps for the sake of our listeners, you could give a brief explanation of what the Sunni-Shia divide is within Islam. Right. I can begin maybe with the basic overview of that division. So it's a complicated question, obviously, but the origins, the basics of it is that the early Muslim community disagreed upon, or they disagreed on the succession of authority after Prophet Muhammad. So what became the Sunnis eventually think that the world's,

authority, the political authority, was handed down to the so-called caliphs, which begins with the four Rashidun, in Islam known as the Righteous Caliphs, which is Abu Bakr, Omar, Uthman, and Ali, and then on to like the Umayyad Caliphate and Abbasid, etc. Not every Sunni saw them as legitimate, but basically political, worldly authority is handed down through the caliphs. The Shi'is believed that not only the worldly authority, but also the spiritual authority, was handed down in the family of the prophet. So first from the prophet to his cousin, Ali, who was married to the prophet's daughter Fatima, and then that lineage is handed down from Ali to his son and then so on down the family line. And so the imams, as they are known, this lineage, is central to Shiism in principle.

particular. And there are different branches of Shiism that had different imams. The Nizade Ismailis, for example, still has a living Imam today. And so the Imam is at the center of Shiism, in a sense. He is the one who has the right to interpret the Quran for new circumstances. He is the one that sort of leads the community both in a political and in a religious sense. So Shiism, at least after the prophet, right, revolves around the authority of the Imam and in his absence, people who represent him. So that's the basis of that difference. It's a very good question why, I think why Sufism is more prominent in Sunniism. I think one of the aspects you point out is that there are, they have always been more Sunnis, basically.

I'm trying to So I think I think one of the reasons we can look at, for example, the context in Al-Andalus, which was originally ruled by the Maliki School of Law. This may be getting into the details a bit much, but the Maliki school in the early days

was considered among the so-called Ahele-Rae, which were jurists that used personal reasoned opinion as a sort of legitimate form of legal argument, right? And within that context, Suvism doesn't really take hold. And the she's have also always put a great emphasis on reasoned argumentation in law matters, as well as is jihad, which means like reinterpretation and things like this. And I'm not, like, this is me theorizing a bit, but we see a change when the new paradigms from the east start appearing in the West, where the sort of hadiths become more prominent as a tool for deriving law. And that seems to allow for Sufism more.

There's something about certain hadiths that seems to be more, well, that opens up for that kind of tradition. That's one theory. And I think we should also point out that this idea of the Sunni-Shiya divide isn't something that that necessarily exists in the, well, the divide exists, but the identity as I am Sunni, I am Shia, isn't that established for the first few centuries. It really becomes much more prominent in the Middle Ages. Sunnisism really becomes a sort of proper self-identification as a whole from maybe the 12th century around the time of Saladin and his sort of he actually makes an effort in Egypt to bring together all these schools as a sort of unified Sunni Islam.

Before that, that doesn't exist. And I think it's also that in the early centuries, Sufis exist generally within the Islamic society, right? But it is later when we start to see a much clearer rejection of Sufism by Shi'is, particularly under the Safavid Empire. which is interesting because the Safavids were originally a Sufi order that took power and then sort of converted to Ashiy Islam and made their empire also based on Ashi identity. And within that, there was a conscious attempt to reject Sufism. And I think that was partly because Sufi masters had a huge power in society. Some of them were close to the courts. Some Sufis rejected worthy power completely.

Others would sort of use political power to try to affect, you know, make sure that proper ethics were conducted in society by influencing the rulers, for example. And they often had a lot of powers. I think that could be definitely one reason why the Sahavids rejected them. And so during the Safavid period is, I think, where this clear division where Shi'i's sort of reject Sufism, whereas Sunnis, it becomes very, it already was, but remains prominent in Sunni Islam. And that's the way it sort of has continued to this day. But with that said, there are Shi'i Sufi orders, the Niamatulahi order, which is prominent in Iran,

but is also significantly oppressed by the current Iranian regime. So it's a complicated situation. Yeah, and of course there's a lot of speculation in all kinds of history, let alone religious and mystical history. But I want to talk a little bit about the mystical history of Sufism. Starting with, I suppose, this term, as you say, the term is Tasawolf. where do we get this word Sufism? What does it mean? Where does it come from?

Et cetera. So Tasawwuf means something like the path of becoming a Sufi. So the term Sufi existed pretty early on. And where do we get the word Tasawwuf? It starts being used by Sufis to describe their tradition. But you don't find it. in religious scripture, in Hadiths of the Prophet, anything like that?

Not really, no. We have, so Tasebuf means the path of becoming a Sufi, right? And Sufi is used earlier, right? And Sufi, there are different ideas where the term Sufi comes from. The most popular and likely, I would say, most accepted by scholars, is that it comes from the Arabic word Suf, which means wool. this supposedly referenced the woolen garment that was a sign of asceticism and a sort of renunciate lifestyle that the early sort of Sufis, the early renunciates would wear. So that's that's one theory.

There is another that relates this to a certain group of the prophets followers, were known as the Ahlas Sufa, which means the people of the bench. And the story is that there were a certain group of the prophet's followers that were always, they basically lived on a bench outside the prophet's house and the mosque in Medina when he was alive. And they were the most sort of dedicated followers, dedicated to the prophet, to the religion. They were very sort of, well, dedicated to spiritual practice, basically. And they are seen as the sort of forbearers of Sufism. And hence, the Ahellah is where Sufi comes from.

there's also I forget maybe it's in Persian there's a word I think saff or saff means purity so that's another theory that it means pure some even speculate that it comes from

the Greek Sophia wisdom but the most widely accepted is that the term is derived from Suf which means war and this is the theory that I also sort of ascribed to and how early do we start seeing what we now describe as like Sufi practices and Sufi beliefs about the

imminence of God, attempts to sort of gain mystical knowledge of God. Where does that start really cropping up in the history of Islam? Pretty early on. It depends, like, the first part of the question has one answer and the second has another. Sufis themselves will of course say that Sufism goes back to the Prophet Muhammad himself, that he was the sort of ultimate Sufi, even before him, because Islam sees all the biblical prophets as representing Islam. So Adam would be the first Sufi based on that idea. But from a historical perspective, we start seeing proto-Sufis, so to say, like early renunciates, people who choose to live ascetic lives with the aim of purifying their soul.

We see this at least from the 8th century. We have figures like Bishar al-Hafi, Bishar the Barefoot, who would walk around as a sort of ascetic. There is Rabeah, a female Sufi, or proto-Sufi, Rabia of Basra, who is very famous for her exclamations of love. She's seen as the originator of this idea of love mysticism. There's a great quote by Rabia, she says that, if I worship you, she's speaking to God, if I worship you out of fear of hell, then hell is where I belong.

If I worship you out of desire for paradise, then lock the doors to paradise. But if I love you only for your own sake and for your everlasting beauty, then do not deny me your intimacy. I'm paraphrasing, right? So that is also a sort of maybe early indication of what we become sort of more mystical ways of thinking. But in the earliest periods, it's more we see certain lifestyles and practices that are renunciate and ascetic in nature. Women are in fact, seem to be pretty prominent in this movement. A lot of these early proto-Sufis are women that sometimes widows, for example, that sort of leave their life behind. to dedicate themselves to God.

But in this early period, it's also, there isn't such a thing as a sort of unified Sufism. So there are different styles of renunciates. We see some in Egypt, Dulnoun is one of them. We see some in Iran and some in like the central lands like Baghdad. And it's really, I would say, in the 9th century, that the first proper developments of a sort of unified Sufi movement becomes apparent, and this is primarily in and around Baghdad in modern Iraq.

And here we have a movement of people, including Maruf al-Kherj, Junaid, al-Mahassibi, and they seem to not only develop certain practices like Dhikr, which is one of the most popular practices in Sufism, is where you recite, names of God are often the proclamation of faith. There is no God but God, La Allah Allah, for sort of extended periods of time. So it's meant to, the name, Dicud means remembrance. It's a way to remember God and to forget the self. And through this, have a sort of mystical experience.

They develop these practices and live ascetic lives together in some sense. But we also see in this environment in the 9th century, the development of certain ideas and teachings, mystical teachings. There is this, first of all, very clear emphasis on ethics, right? But also we see the emergence of ideas like that there is a kind of knowledge beyond, beyond reason, beyond understanding that's known as ma'arifa. So often in Arabic, knowledge is, alim would be a word for knowledge. And this is usually meant to represent

worldly knowledge or conceptual knowledge like science. Elm is often translated as science. But then we have something called ma'arifa, which the Sufis seem to imply is this supra-rational knowledge. It's this kind of knowledge that we reach when we have purified ourselves and we get this direct experience of the divine.

And that is also another theme that is developed in this early period. period is this idea of becoming annihilated, that the self can be extinguished in an experience of the oneness of, at least the oneness of God. The most famous example I already mentioned, which is Halaj, and he was sort of part of this Baghdad school, although he was independent in many ways, but in the story of Halash, he is said to have entered an ecstatic state, a mystical state, and he He exclaims, Ana al-Haq, which means I am the truth.

And Al-Hq is one of the names of God. So it means, again, he seems to identify himself with God. But what he is seemingly expressing is this idea of annihilation in Arabic is known as Fana, where the, it's, so again, it's unclear, it's not entirely clear how radical the early form of this teaching was. if it was actually this idea of the self becoming united with God or becoming annihilated, the early Sufis described it as the individual attributes going away, and then one experiences the oneness of God. So there are different ways of describing it,

but it is here that we see the emergence of ideas like funa, like ma'arifa, practices like zikr, like sama, or when you do music and dance, for a similar purpose, right? So the 9th century and early 10th is very important for the development of Sufism. It's also in the 10th, and especially the 11th century, 10th and 11th, where we see the earliest Sufi manuals by people like Shiairi, Hojaviri, Sulami. There are a bunch of these sort of manuals that appear in the 11th century

that sort of not only seem to take all. these different renunciates and mystics and now place them under one category, Sufism. This sort of happens with these manuals, but also start to actually systematize and explain all these themes and teachings that would become standard in Sufism. So it's as expected. It's a development over time, but we see the earliest forms of Sufism in the 8th century, the development of the teachings and form of Sufimans, we know it, is primarily in the 9th, 10th century, and then it's sort of codified in the 11th, I would say. Yeah, Al-Halaj's exclamation is, ecstatic exclamation, and Al-Hak is one of the most

probably controversial statements in the history of mysticism, because you can imagine as sort of an Orthodox Muslim hearing somebody say, I am the truth, knowing that Al-Hack is one of the names of God. Right. Am I right in thinking that even Sufis, at least at the time, were kind of upset with him, thought that this was maybe a bad thing to say, not necessarily because what he was saying was untrue or wrong, but just because if you don't understand exactly what he's getting at, it kind of sounds like he's committing the most fundamental sin that you can commit in Islam, which is,

you know, which is worshipping the wrong thing, attributing things which should only be attributed to God, to something that is not God. But it seems like he's maybe not doing that in the same way you kind of get all kinds of mystical traditions which express a unity with the divine, a unity with God, a unity with truth. And so saying, I am the truth in that sense, maybe sort of getting at something more like a unity, but a controversial phrase, even to Sufis, because it could lead people to think that he's essentially blaspheming.

Absolutely. Yeah, no, that was exactly what happened. It was not only that statement, but he also made a bunch of other statements and did things that were very eccentric. He built, for example, a sort of makeshift version of the Kaaba in his, it's sad that he did this in his backyard and sort of circumamilated that Kaaba instead of, he went to Mecca too, but it was like a miniature version of the Kaaba. So he's very eccentric and special or interesting in different ways. But you're absolutely right that even his friends and former master's within the Sufi community at that time renounced him basically for saying these things. And again, it's exactly like you say, that it's not necessarily because they consider what he was saying to be wrong. But it's experiences and teachings that are not meant for the general population. There's always this level of esotericism in Sufism. It makes me think of, sorry.

You know in the Gospel of Thomas in the Gnostic Christian tradition where Jesus pulls Thomas aside and says three words to him, this is what the Gospel of Thomas says. And when he comes back, the other disciples say to him, what did Jesus just say to you? And he says, if I told you what he said to me, you would pick up stones and you would throw them at me. And like the stones would turn into fire and then consume you or something. Sort of implying that what Jesus had said was blasphemous because you stoned people for blasphemy. But obviously Jesus wouldn't say something actually blasphemous. So he must have given some kind of esoteric knowledge, which if you tried to explain to somebody who didn't have that, that the fullness of that knowledge, they would misunderstand it to the extent that they'd want to stone them. Kind of reminds me of what's going on here.

And Al-Hal-Aj is eventually like beheaded, isn't he? Yeah, the story is way worse than that too, yeah. He's beheaded his hands and feet are cut off. He's hung up on a, basically he's crucified in a sense, like overnight, and then he's beheaded, and then his body's burned, and it's thrown in the Tigris River. This is the legendary version of the story, at least. Yeah, don't they say that people claimed to still hear sort of mystic chanting coming from the ashes of his body? Yes.

the legend is that he kept saying An al-Hqq as he was being executed, and even after he was burned, they could hear the words An al-Hq coming from the ashes in the river. It's a very powerful story. Yeah. Well, Sufis do have, and I imagine it's, you said that this is sort of a legendary account. I imagine that a lot of the legendary accounts we have of Sufi history

comes from Sufis themselves. And Sufis, if I'm not mistaken, have been known to visit graves, graves of their masses and sort of have a special connection to going to the places of the dead in what you'd call like a pilgrimage or visit, the word, what is it, Ziera? Zara, yeah, exactly. Ziyara, which is something that Sufis are sort of known for doing, but also, I think, also criticized for doing. I've heard opponents of Sufism say that they, you know, they go and worship graves and stuff like that's like, what's going on there?

It's one of the more common critiques of Sufis today, but it's been, it's been a part of the tradition. So the idea is that, well, the idea, but certain Sufi masters who have reached a certain spiritual state, they have, when they're considered saints or Waliz, friends of God, they have what's known as Baraka, which is translated as grace. It's almost like this, I don't want to use modern terms, but like an aura around them that sort of blesses people that comes into contact with them. And this is of course not their own, but it's really God's blessings, but they become sort of the conduit of God's light. And this baraka still exists after they die in where they're sort of buried, basically.

So the idea is that if you visit the grave of a great saint or a great master, you can receive some of that blessing, some of that grace, some of that baraka. And people have interpreted what that means in different ways. Some people, as I mentioned before, used it very sort of mundane. to help with everyday tasks. Others have perhaps a more spiritual purpose for wanting that baraka, sort of helping them on the spiritual path, etc. It's not, and this is where the misunderstanding comes,

because the Muslims that have been critical of this, and perhaps the famous early example of this is Ibn Taymiya, who was a Muslim thinker in the 14th century. He criticized this practice of what he calls, or some called grave worship, because they see it as too close to shirk, or associationism or polytheism, that it seems like the Sufis are worshipping or praying to these saints.

The Sufis themselves don't see it like that. in Islam there is this tradition of of intercession so the prophet intercedes on behalf of people and the day of judgment and the saints can sometimes have that same purpose right that we can if we want something from God

if we go through a great saint in asking for that then then we it's it becomes a more powerful prayer, so to say. But it's never that they pray, at least not, that's the way they see it, right? They never pray to the saints because they always want to maintain that very strict monotheism of Islam. So Ibn Taymiah famously criticized this, and he is often seen as the father of the Salafi movement, which grows in popularity in the 19th and 20th century. He's actually quite

an obscure figure before that. He's popular in some circles in the Hanbali school, which is often known as the most strict conservative school. But in the 19th century, he becomes a sort of symbol of reform in some sense. Sufism becomes associated with superstition with old traditions and innovations in the religion. Instead, Muslims wanted to go back to some sort of pure, original, rational among other things, version of Islam, and Ibn Taimiya became a good symbol of someone who, earlier on in history,

had many of the same critiques of Sufis. And so now he is, especially in the Salafi community, he is very popular and seen as a very prominent teacher and imam. And so it is primarily in the Salafi environment, as well as other perhaps individuals in schools that have been influenced by the Salafi rhetoric that used this critique of grave worship.

And for that reason, there's also been certain reforms within Sufism. The Diobandi movement in India in the 19th century is a good example of that, in which Sufis themselves have rejected things like visiting graves. I suppose broadly, those who are critical of Sufism, one thing that springs to mind is that Sufism seems to stand in opposition to the more sort of rational, philosophical Islam of the sort of, I guess, the kalam tradition. People who want to do theology, who want to study arguments for God's existence, who want to think about him rationally, who think that the way to come to know God is through. argument and understanding rather than experience and mysticism. And this is common across all religious traditions, right, in discussions of other religions.

I mean, most religions have a sort of mystical branch. One of the points that's made is that like real interaction with God is not about argument and debate. Thomas Aquinas famously after years of writing what is probably the most important work of Christian metaphysics, like in history, one of them, has a religious experience near the end of his life. I think while he's performing mass, he suddenly becomes sort of, well, he's overcome with some kind of religious experience. And then he dies shortly after leaving an unfinished Sumer Theologica behind him. And his friend had written to him, practically begging him,

like, you have to finish this work. And he said, I can write no more. Like, what I have seen makes all of it like straw. And so this is a common. thread. But to those who are more rationally minded, the Catholic Church have as a dogma that God's existence can be known through reason and rationality. If you don't think you can establish God's existence through the use of reason and rationality alone, your anathema to the Catholic Church. I don't know if there's a similar tradition in Islam that's sort of strictly philosophical, but presumably if there is, Sufism would sort of stand as a challenge to this. It's a very good question. There has been always that tension, as I mentioned before.

I guess one example of such a, I wouldn't call a philosophical tradition, but a more sort of a branch that emphasizes reason would be the Salafis that I mentioned, right? But their reason is also sort of strongly connected with a very strict literalism and scripturalism. So it's not philosophical in that sense. What is it that Salafis, like, broadly are aiming to do with Islam? Like, what is the version of Islam that they promote? They are very concerned with getting rid of everything that they consider to be innovation, bida in Arabic.

And so they see everything including Sufism, even philosophy and kalam theology. all of that appeared after the prophet's death and his immediate followers. So that has no place in Islam, right? Because in the Quran it says, today I have completed your religion, God says in this case, right? And this is one of the last verses that the Prophet Muhammad supposedly received. And so they argue that the religion is complete and perfect

as it was when the Prophet received his last revelation from God. and nothing can be added to it, basically. Earlier, Sufis, for example, did not have that unforgiving of a perspective. Sometimes one could see that there were good innovations versus bad innovation, etc. But the Salafis, they want to take the religion back to what they see as the original state of the religion, as it was practiced by the prophet. And this means not only in terms of practice, but also in sort of clothing, they're very strict about what to wear and how to do their beard to be exactly in line with the Sunnah, for example. I mean, all Muslims are, but Salafis tend to be a bit more, I was going to use a word that sounds a bit like pejorative, but more sort of neurotic about that sort of stuff.

Salafi, the word Salafi comes from the term Salafas, which means the pious predecessors. And this refers to the companions of the prophet and the first two generations after the prophet's death. And so their aim is to go back to the religion as it was then. Now it's important to point out that every Muslim considers himself to practice the religion as it was practiced by the early followers of the prophet. But the Salafis have

a different methodology. So they reject, not completely, but basically reject all the established schools of law, at least a sort of blind following of that law. And instead, they emphasize that every answer to every question is directly in the Quran and the Hadith. So we can individually, or at least a sort of learned person, can go to the Quran and find the answer there. So So their methodology is a lot more scriptural, a lot more literalist, you could say, emphasizing more the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law as a common sort of expression. So that's one of the points I'm making my video about Salafism is that their goal is the same

as every other Muslim, but it's their methodology that differs, and their methodology is very anti-tradition and literalist and scripturalist. Yeah, presumably, Sufis will say in response to this charge of innovation, that at least some Sufis will believe that Muhammad was a Sufi. And as you say, Jesus was a Sufi. I don't know if they consider Isaiah to be a Sufi. I don't know if they consider Adam to be a Sufi. That's quite an interesting thought.

But if they do, then... In general, they would argue that every prophet in some way sort of embodied the spirit of Sufism. Then presumably Sufism isn't this kind of innovation that it might be seen as historically. And in fact, there is one thing I wanted to talk to you about, which I've heard it said. I mean, we've been talking about Sufism as belonging in the tradition of Islam, as a way of expressing an Islamic faith. But watching your materials on this, and I should mention, you've just mentioned you've got a video on Salafism, you have a bunch of videos on all things Sufism. Some of the names that you've mentioned, you have sort of biographies of, and it's a wonderful set of materials. And one thing that I found really interesting was when you were talking about how some people consider Sufism and Islam to kind of be two separate things.

Some people even say that Sufism predates Islam. And I wanted to know what that was all about, because to me, Sufism is like the mystical branch of Islam. And talking to you, it's like, well, maybe it's not a branch, maybe it's an expression. But there's also this idea that it's not even really a part of Islam at all, right? Yeah, especially today. That's pretty common to hear. There are different factors behind this. I mean, for example, Salafis would argue that Sufism is not part of Islam because it's an innovation, right?

but that's perhaps a different aspect of this conversation. I think there was an idea that it sort of emerged also around the 19th and early 20th century that Sufism sort of transcended Islam. And there are different reasons for this. One of them is the sort of Salafi response and critique of Sufism as being something other than Islam, influenced by Buddhism or influenced by other religious traditions. But then we also see scholars in the West who start to sort of take an interest in certain expressions of Sufism, like Sufi poetry, Rumi and Hafez and Omar Chayam and all these people that become very popular.

And they, reading that poetry, they seem to, they cannot sort of, they can't understand how this is the same as, what they see as sort of this puritanical fundamentalist religion of Islam so they see this must be somehow separated they must have two different origins and they must be right that the Sufism exists in spite of Islam so that's a sort of a tendency in that direction from sort of Western

scholarship orientalist scholarship but also within Sufism we see some of these tendencies one of the famous example the most famous example I'm actually doing a project on him right now. It is Inayat Khan who was a Chishti Sufi Muslim from India who lived

late 19th to 1927 and he was given a mission by his Sufi sheikh that said he said go my son and unite east and west with your music spread Sufism to the ends of the world basically because you have been given a gift

And so Inayat Khan, a few years later, travels to the West and becomes the first person from the Islamic world to take Sufism to, at least like northwestern Europe and America. And he presents Sufism as a sort of universalist spirituality that transcends Islam. he uses Islamic vocabulary and all these things but he says that Sufism is a sort of primordial mysticism and that Islam it only

particularly was able to flourish within the Islamic environment but it's not necessarily connected with Islam and so that becomes also very popular of an idea in the West because we have Sufi teachers who are supposedly saying this too right

and so this more and more became a common way to look at it. And then as scholarship has developed, we have realized that this is not really accurate and we can see the very clear, intimate relationship that Islam and Sufism has. That Sufism emerges in an Islamic environment. It emerges in response to the questions

and circumstances of the development of the development of the Islamic religion in response to the Quran to the Sunnah and to all these, but I also think personally that a lot of scholars, because of this, also kind of overcorrected in saying that, oh, it's completely based on the Quran, it's completely based on the Sunnah,

it's all Islamic. I agree with that in the sense that Sufism, as we know it, obviously emerges in this environment, but we can also clearly see that, as with any religious tradition, it is obviously influenced by pre-established Islamic movements and traditions in the region too.

People will often point to Christian monasticism in the Middle East at that time, which influenced maybe some of the early renunciates in Islam, hermeticism perhaps, especially later on with the emergence of the more speculative philosophical kinds of Sufism. We see clear influences from Neoplatonic thinking. So while it is an Islamic phenomenon, it is an expression of Islam, it emerges in Islam, It's an aspect of Islam, but obviously it has taken cues and has been influenced, probably unknowingly by a lot of these Sufis, but has been influenced by other traditions that existed before Islam too.

So that doesn't make me go as far as saying that Sufism predates Islam, but I think it's important to also recognize that influences from the outside are pretty apparent, although Sufis themselves would probably be a bit uncomfortable with that, perhaps. But also important to point out what you say about the fact that Sufis themselves say that Syphism goes back to the prophets, back to Jesus, all the way back to Adam, right? So to them, just like when we see similarities in Zoroastrianism to Islam, Muslims can say, well, obviously, Zarathustra was an earlier Islamic prophet that people misunderstood over time, but we can see a glimpse.

of that same truth that Islam expresses in his teachings. And so it's very easy for Sufis as well to simply say, well, of course, aspects of Sufism existed before Islam, because Islam existed before Islam did, as we know it, right? So that's some perspective. Yeah. And what about today, this universalist approach to Sufism, the idea that it sort of transcends Islam, Does that mean that there are sort of Sufis walking around today who are not Muslims, who maybe don't believe in God, or don't believe in the, don't believe that Muhammad was a prophet of God, and yet would still be considered Sufis?

There are definitely people who identify as Sufis that aren't Muslims today, especially in the lineage of in Ayat Khan that I mentioned before. Most of the students at the time were not required to convert to Islam, and I don't have any numbers on this, but I would guess that many, if not a majority of the followers of that Sufi order in the West today are still not necessarily, have not necessarily converted to Islam. I could be wrong with that. But I know that there are definitely examples of Sufis that don't identify as Muslims. Whether they believe in Muhammad as a prophet, I think. I'm sure there are those kinds of people too, but even within the sort of universalist tendencies, like in Ait Khan, they will often still emphasize the prophet as an important teacher and prophet and saint and so on. Even though they might understand Muhammad in a different way than a standard Muslim would, I think for most Sufis, Muhammad is still a very important figure. And there are different, so Sufism is very varied today. And there are other forms of Sufism that also allow for non-Muslims to become initiated.

There's actually a historical president for this in the Chishti order in India. At least from the 18th century, there is evidence that a Chishti teacher in India called Kalimullah, Jahanabad. he supposedly initiated Hindus that didn't convert to Islam. We do find examples of this historically, but it's definitely a lot more common today than it was back then. Yeah. Imagine, we've spoken a little bit about some of the practices that characterize Sufi, I don't know if you call it,

Sufi belief, Sufi identity. For example, Dikir, I don't know if I'm pronouncing these words, right, but Remembrance and Samar, which, which I think it means like listening or audition, right? Literally listening or hearing. Listening. So this would be like the sort of musical influence that you were mentioning before, the use of percussion and instruments, perhaps chanting in order to sort of get into an ecstatic state.

What I was going to ask is that given the sort of variance of Sufi practice and belief that we've just been talking about, If you were to sort of stumble upon a religious gathering and you were looking at some people, you know, all together in a room, what would they be doing? What would they be saying that would make you go, aha, I think these guys are Sufis? Like, what are some of the real sort of telltale signs of Sufi practice? Is it those kinds of things? Is it the ecstatic? There's the the Sufi whirling, right? The spinning around. What's that? I've certainly seen that. That would be an example of Sama that you mentioned, which is this musical listening or audition as a practice. As part of that, it's a varied practice and it takes different forms. But for a lot of Sufis, that has also involved forms of dancing. And sort of whirling dancing has been pretty common. But the image that most of us have of the whirling dervishes of Sufism have the origin in a particular Sufi order called the Mevlevilevi. order, which is based on the lineage of Rumi, Jalaladin Rumi, the famous Persian poet who died

in 1273 in Konya in Turkey. And so that Konya and Turkey, the Ottoman Empire, has been sort of the center of that movement. Today it's actually not, it's like forbidden in Turkey because of the secular government, but it's it you can still um see the whirling dervishes as a kind of tourist attraction so that's where where that comes from as for your first question and let's just say that most other street furthers don't do that kind of wording although they might do other forms of of dancing or movement um your first question is

very good um there are certain things like there could i could point out very small details like uh One, like, immediate sign could be if they have prayer beads. Most Muslims maybe do, but I think it's more common within Sufi Qumri at least to have prayer beads, but that's a very sort of shallow observation. For the most part, I think it would be those practices, especially Dhikr. There is basically no, I shouldn't say no, but it's like almost basically every Sufi order, every Sufi lineage and group perform and practice some form of theqqshpan the order which is common in all over the place but perhaps primarily in central asia they do a silent

so they will sit and it looks like they're meditating and they will for example listen to their heartbeats where they will internally sort of recite the name of God. But usually a vicar will be a vocal zikr. And so if you're invited, because Dikr is sometimes usually held more sort of secluded, but if you're invited and you stumble upon it, then you will perhaps find a group of people sitting, maybe in a circle, maybe different parts of the room. They'll be sitting down and they will be chanting. Either they will say Allah, Allah, Allah. Or they will say, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, in different rhythms, sometimes melodies.

I did fieldwork from a master's thesis in Senegal with the Tijani Sufi Order, and they have a very melodic zikr. It's very fascinating how different regions can have different vikers that sort of reflect the musical culture of the region. So the Tijani order has a really sort of beautiful melodic, West African sounding dicker, whereas others will be very sort of harsh and percussive. Sometimes they will use percussion instruments. It's not uncommon, especially. That's very common in Turkey, for example. Other musical instruments, not as common. Usually that's reserved for sama, if at all. But it isn't unheard of either. So I would say, sorry,

Sorry, carry on. No, I was just going to say that's like the main, if there's anything that would sort of clearly characterize Sufis, it would be that practice of Dukkid. Because other than that, Sufis are basically indistinguishable from other Muslims. I wanted to ask about two things that I've heard you say. First is just then this use of musical instruments. am I right in thinking that a lot of Muslims think that musical instruments are haram based on a hadith of the Prophet Muhammad

where he seems to condemn the use of musical instruments? Like how common or mainstream a belief is that when it comes to specifically the musical element? Of Sufism, particularly? Of Islam and then I guess within Sufism as well.

It's pretty common. I don't know if it's a majority opinion necessarily, but it's always been There's always been a skepticism of music or a sort of concern with the effects of music. But there's also a significant sort of, there's a scale of how much one allows it or doesn't allow it, for example. Salafis, again, will usually completely forbid all kinds of music. There are some who allow singing but no instruments based, for example, that hadith, the prophet says that there will be some in my community who allow

wearing silk and drinking alcohol and musical instruments, and they will be punished, basically. I'm again paraphrasing. But there are other hadiths that seem to argue the opposite. There's one hadith where the prophet comes home and there are two young women or girls singing and playing the drum. And Abel Bacca, his friend comes in and sort of scolds them, and then the prophet says, let them continue, we are celebrating aid. And there are other hadiths like that that point in the other direction. So folks on both sides of the arguments can draw from different traditions to strengthen their arguments.

Again, yes, Sotom will allow percussion instruments, but not other instruments. Some will allow certain lyrics, but on other lyrics. So it's a whole spectrum of different beliefs. I would argue that Sufis generally are more accepting of music than non-Sufi Muslims. Although some Sufis are still skeptical, many Sufis still consider false music to be haram, to be forbidden. But it has been played such a major role for a lot of Sufi orders and for Sufism that I I would definitely argue that it's more likely to hear a Sufi scholar or figure consider at these certain forms of music allowed than someone who does not adhere to Sufism.

But even within that, there's this spectrum. And it's interesting also one of the reasons why I would argue why music is frowned upon is because of the associations that music had in that early period. music was in Arabia, for example, was associated with slave girls singing to kings while they were drinking alcohol and there was sexual promiscuity and all these things that were never frowned upon, right? So that was the association. And that also determined what kind of music was allowed. So there is one I read the other day a work ascribed to Ahmed Ghazali, a famous Sufi, although it's not certain if it's by him, but he argues very strongly for music. for allowing music and that's music is good for even as amusement, it's sort of good for the soul, but for the Sufis, it's like required, basically. But even then he says, the drum is allowed,

certain flutes are allowed, certain flutes are not allowed, the harp and the ode, so the lute, are definitely not allowed, probably because they were associated with taverns and like the courts of the calyps and these kind of world environments. And then we can compare that to another Sufi from the same time, Nizamuddin Aulia, in India. And he also talks about music. He loves music. He allows music. And he has a sort of almost the opposite. He says, music is loud as long as it involves the lute and some of these instruments that Rosali completely didn't allow because those instruments had completely

different associations and connotations in the Indian cultural environment. So it depends on the time and the place and the culture and all these kinds of things. But it's always been a conversation and a controversy within Islam, but it's a significantly lot more nuanced than I think a lot of people are led to believe. Another thing that I heard you talk about in the context of the Sufi tradition is in the art, in the poetry that is produced out of the Sufi tradition, most famously, as you've already mentioned, Rumi, who most people have heard of even if they don't know anything about Sufi,

And I heard you speaking in your video series about this, talking about the themes that come up in Sufi poetry, one of which is, of course, love. But another you said was the theme of wine or intoxication. And that raised an eyebrow for me too. Is drinking alcohol universally condemned in Islam? If so, why is that the case? And then if so, why is it that I heard you mention that Sufi poet? sometimes has this theme of wine and intoxication? The short answer is that alcohol is basically universally forbidden in Islam.

There are some early examples in the Hanafi school, for example, that allowed certain cans of alcohol and certain... But generally, across the board, alcohol is not allowed. But as you say, we do find a wine very commonly in Sufi poetry. And I would say there are different reasons for this, but one reason is that Sufis, in their poetry, they want to be provocative a lot of the time. They want to evoke emotions in the readers. And so they will use themes that are taboo to sort of get people's attention, but also to sort of rattle the soul of the person who's reading it. And so they will use wine, they will use erotic imagery a lot of the time. They will speak of like apostasy.

There is a story of a sheikh who in a Tartis conference of the birds. There's a story of a sheikh who goes to Constantinople and falls in love with a woman. And that woman is a Christian. And she says that he can marry her as long as he he converts, he becomes a Christian. He works as a swineherd. And he

does something blasphemous with the Quran. I can't remember exactly what it is, but he does because of love, right? And then there's an ending to that story, which is, you know, more Islamic-friendly, right? But that's an example of this sort of taboo themes that are... What happens in the end to our blasphemous friend? The Sheikh's students are very distraught over this. So they go to Mecca, and they find another sheikh who then return to Constantinople, and they somehow manage to get him to come to his senses, basically.

It's a kind of unsatisfying end. He basically just sort of rejects what he has done. Where does this story come from? It's in Fariduddin Atar's famous Sufi poem called The Conference of the Birds. It's a story about a group of birds that travel to meet the king of the birds called the Simurg, but along the way there are a bunch of fables and stories. that he tells them. It's been a while since I write it, so I can't retell the ending properly, but I do remember it's being sort of tame compared to how it begins.

Yeah, well, I think that perhaps the most well-known element of the Sufi tradition is the art and the poetry that's sprung up as a result of that. I mean, do you think that that speaks to the almost transcendence of the Sufi part of Sufi Islam that, non-Muslim readers will happily read the poetry of Rumi and find it beautiful and compelling. Do you think that sort of plays in the favor of those who say that Sufism is a distinct entity from the Islamic religion? Probably, yeah. I think that's one of the reasons why some of these early Western readers of these poems concluded that it must be some sort of something opposed to the orthodoxy of Islam, because it seemed to celebrate things

that are clearly forbidden in the orthodox law of the religion, for example. But what the Sufis are doing, and this is important to point out, is that they are using these themes as metaphors for mystical experiences. So wine can be different things, if we're going to detail,

but generally wine is a sort of symbol and metaphor for love, for God's love, and for this experience of being drawn to God. And wine leads to intoxication. And so when one falls in love with God and walks on the path to God, one becomes intoxicated and loses one's senses, just like someone who would fall in love. So this theme of love and wine are very interconnected in the poetry as well. And the same goes for Rumi, who is often misunderstood. in the West as being a sort of regular love poet.

I saw a meme the other day, it was like, it was Rumi, and then it said, my poetry is about God, not your ex-boyfriend or something. Because if you read Rumi without the sort of background knowledge of the theology and the tradition that he stands in, it's very easy to just read him as a love poet. But really, when he talks about love, it's this more profound concept of love, as the love between God and the human being, but also love as an ontological reality, the sort of undergirds and is that the essence of reality. God is identified with love, and God manifests, and so the world is a sort of manifestation

of love. And so that is usually what someone like Rumi is talking about, but also, I think, there's also another case of people overcorrecting, because, yes, people misunderstand and think that he's only talking about human love, but he is talking about human love too, because love is love in this tradition, right? So God is love, and every love, whether it's love for a mother for her child

or two spouses or two friends, whatever form love takes, it's the same love. And that is that sort of divine love. When you love someone, when you love your child, you're actually loving God, but sort of through someone else. So that's the next dimension of that poetry, is that, yes, it means human love too, but within a sort of broader metaphysical understanding of the reality of love. And it is worth pointing out, I suppose, in closing that we've spoken about Sufism as a mystical, experiential tradition that stands in opposition to the sort of philosophical, rational tradition within Islam.

But Sufis do, at least some of them, have a broad metaphysical view about the nature of the world, the nature of God. I remember in your video you're talking about, is it Ibn Arabi, who talks about sort of God as being itself, which will perk up the ears of like the Christian metaphysicians who are interested in, you know, classical theology and God as being. you find it in this in this Sufi tradition as well that there's a lot i think for those kinds of like christians alike in the kind of Sufism that we've been we've been talking about here but you also talk about beliefs in sort of philosophical monism which broadly speaking means there's only sort of one kind of stuff so yeah there might be the materialist monism that says that there only exists the material then there are dualists who think that there's the material and also the spiritual or the material and the divine or something

like that. But there's also a kind of monism which says that there is only one kind of substance, but it's the spiritual stuff. So, I mean, like George Barclay, for example, I think would be a monist who thinks that the entire world is essentially ideas. That's a sort of secular version of it. But in theology, there'll be a kind of monism which sort of says everything is God. everything is being and God is being and so everything just is God and that makes a lot of sense of a statement like I am the truth

right I am sort of identifying with that with that statement but yeah I just wanted to point out to our listeners that there is something of a metaphysical tradition within racism and I think it's important to sort of clarify that that I don't think we should

over-emphasize this sort of dichotomy between Sufism and mysticism in Islam or at all versus... You mean Sufism and... Oh, sorry, yeah, Sufism and... And sort of philosophy or rationalism or rational theology, because while a lot of the Sufis, including it, but Anabu, will be sort of critical of the philosophers and the pursuit of reason, especially when it comes to God in that there is no point. Like, there's a famous letter he wrote to one of the theologians at the time where he says,

like your rational philosophizing about God will never get you anywhere. It's not going to be any use in the afterlife. The only sort of proper path is to experience God directly. So there is this sort of critique often of reason and the philosophical tradition, at least in some Sufis. But with that said, especially Sufis like Ibnanabe has this incredibly complex metaphysical system, or, if not system, at least, he expresses himself metaphysically in very profound ways, that clearly takes inspiration from, he wouldn't know that probably,

but like Neoplatonism, through the early Islamic philosophers. And you mentioned the monism, and Arabi could definitely be considered a monist, for example, but his monism is not a substance monism in that sense. sense, he would say that there is only God. God is the only reality. But being a Muslim, he also has to adhere to the transcendence of God. So God is also completely transcendence of the world. God is being itself, and the multiplicity of the world is non-being. It doesn't exist. one way, now we're getting into I'm not because I can help myself, but one way that I really like to put in a picture of what he says,

is that, and this is from another writer called Robert Dar, so I hold credit to him basically, but he compares to a projector. So a projector that's projecting something on a wall. And God is being, God is being itself, which is all that there is. Being is one, and everything that is, being in the sense that it is, that it exists, right? But in this projector metaphor, the light of the projector is, is being, is God.

And the light has to go or go through this filter in order to project images on the wall, and that filter could be said to be the multiplicity of the world, the knowledge that God has of the potentialities of the manifestation of his being, and then the actual image on the wall is the world that we experience. And the image on the wall is nothing but light. It's nothing but being. It's nothing but God.

But the images that we see is actually the limitations of the light. So the multiplicity in the things in the world is being, but it's also that which isn't being. It's that which limits being. And there's a lot more to his philosophy, right?

But we can see that clearly even the Sufis who will sort of, be critical of philosophical speculation. They have incredibly intricate metaphysical ideas and speculations. Whose analogy did you say that was? I saw it first in a work by Robert Dar, in a translation of Mahmoud Shabistari. It's a Persian poem of the Rose Garden of Mysteries. He has a beautiful introduction to that translation.

How do you spell Dar there? D-A-R-R. Awesome. Yeah, that's a really interesting analogy. I think that when you say things like, you know, all that exists is being and anything that exists exists as being itself. People who are not a little bit predisposed to that kind of metaphysical position will just sort of switch off because they're like, what are you even talking about? And I kind of struggle to understand what a lot of this means. But I find that analogy, just hearing it now on the surface at least, an incredibly useful one. It really helped me when I first read it. I thought it was really beautiful in the sort of clarity and how it sort of, yeah, explains it. Yeah, well, there's something great about when you're trying to understand a difficult, particularly like a religious concept, and particularly one that you don't believe yourself. You're trying to understand how someone else's mind works.

And finally, someone says it in such a way that it just begins to click. And I think that that's also, broadly speaking, what I think people like your channel for in general. let's talk religion is the name of the channel it will of course be linked down in the description below it's been a long time that i've wanted to speak to you i think that i i can't remember when it was that i that i that i first reached out but i wasn't exactly sure you know what angle to take when you've got someone whose corpus is so wide wide ranging it's difficult to know what to pin down but i think that this was a this was a good choice because i found this this felt appropriate yeah yeah and as i mentioned before you have an entire

series on, you have a series called, is it called Making the Muslim World? Yes. Which is sort of about Islam more broadly, but within that you have a number of specific videos on all of these elements of Sufism that we've been discussing. So if people want to go deeper, then I would of course point them in that direction. But whether they do or don't, I hope they've enjoyed this conversation. And I thank you, Philip, for coming on the show. Thank you so much.

I sure have enjoyed this conversation. lot and I feel very grateful that I was invited to come and I look forward to speaking to you again soon. I hope so.