Marcia Hermansen is an American scholar of Islam originally from Canada. Hermansen is professor and director of Islamic World Studies at Loyola University Chicago. [1]
Hermansen earned a PhD from the University of Chicago in Arabic and Islamic Studies. Her graduate training included study of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu though language training in the respective countries. She specializes in Sufism, Islamic thought, Muslims in America, Shah Waliullah, [2] Islam and Muslims in South Asia, and women and gender in Islam. [3] [4] Hermansen is a Muslim. [5]
Hermansen has studied modern Sufi movements and has described movements which hold that Sufism is part of broader, eternal spirituality as "Perennial Movements" and movements which require adherence to Islamic tradition as "Hybrid Movements", utilizing the metaphor of a garden and flowering plants to describe the diversity of modern American Sufi movements. "Transplants" in the garden refers to Sufi groups in the West that primarily attract immigrants from Muslim societies. [6] [7] She has also studied Muslim youth culture and identity. [7] Hermansen's work examined young American Muslims identity post-9/11. [5] [8]
Sufism is a mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic purification, spirituality, ritualism, and asceticism.
The Chishti order is a Sufi order of Sunni Islam named after the town of Chisht where it was initiated by Abu Ishaq Shami. The order was brought to South Asia by Mu'in al-Din Chishti in the city of Ajmer.
A wali is most commonly used by Muslims to indicate a saint, otherwise referred to by the more literal "friend of God".
The Barelvi movement, also known as Ahl al-Sunnah wal-Jama'ah is a Sunni revivalist movement that generally adheres to the Hanafi and Shafi'i schools of jurisprudence, and Maturidi and Ash'ari schools of theology with hundreds of millions of followers, and it encompasses a variety of Sufi orders, including the Chistis, Qadiris, Suhrawardis and Naqshbandis as well as many other orders of Sufism. They consider themselves to be the continuation of Sunni Islamic orthodoxy before the rise of Salafism and the Deobandi movement.
Abū Yazīd Ṭayfūr bin ʿĪsā bin Surūshān al-Bisṭāmī (al-Basṭāmī), commonly known in the Iranian world as Bāyazīd Bisṭāmī, was a Persian Sufi from north-central Iran. Known to future Sufis as Sultān-ul-Ārifīn, Bisṭāmī is considered to be one of the expositors of the state of fanā, the notion of dying in mystical union with Allah. Bastami was famous for "the boldness of his expression of the mystic’s complete absorption into the mysticism." Many "ecstatic utterances" have been attributed to Bisṭāmī, which lead to him being known as the "drunken" or "ecstatic" school of Islamic mysticism. Such utterance may be argued as, Bisṭāmī died with mystical union and the deity is speaking through his tongue. Bisṭāmī also claimed to have ascended through the seven heavens in his dream. His journey, known as the Mi'raj of Bisṭāmī, is clearly patterned on the Mi'raj of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Bisṭāmī is characterized in three different ways: a free thinking radical, a pious Sufi who is deeply concerned with following the shari'a and engaging in "devotions beyond the obligatory," and a pious individual who is presented as having a dream similar to the Mi'raj of Muhammed. The Mi'raj of Bisṭāmī seems as if Bisṭāmī is going through a self journey; as he ascends through each heaven, Bisṭāmī is gaining knowledge in how he communicates with the angels and the number of angels he encounters increases.
Ahl-i-Hadith or Ahl-e-Hadith is a Salafi reform movement that emerged in North India in the mid-nineteenth century from the teachings of Sayyid Ahmad Shahid, Syed Nazeer Husain and Nawab Siddiq Hasan Khan. It is an offshoot of the 19th-century Indian Tariqah-i-Muhammadiya movement tied to the 18th-century traditions of Shah Waliullah Dehlawi and the Wahhabi movement. The adherents of the movement described themselves variously as "Muwahideen" and as "Ahl e-Hadith."
Syed Nazeer Husain Dehlawi was an Islamic scholar and leader of the reformist Ahl-i Hadith movement in India. Earning the appellation shaykh al-kull for his authority among early Ahl-i Hadith scholars, he is regarded, alongside Siddiq Hasan Khan (1832–1890), as the founder of the movement and has been described as "perhaps the single most influential figure in the spread of the Ahl-i-Ḥadīth".
Laleh Mehree Bakhtiar was an Iranian-American Islamic and Sufi scholar, author, translator, and psychologist. She produced a gender-neutral translation of the Quran, The Sublime Quran, and challenged the status quo on the Arabic word daraba, traditionally translated as "beat" — a word that she said has been used as justification for abuse of Muslim women. Her translation, published in 2007, was the first translation of the Quran by an American woman.
Sufism has a history in India evolving for over 1,000 years. The presence of Sufism has been a leading entity increasing the reaches of Islam throughout South Asia. Following the entrance of Islam in the early 8th century, Sufi mystic traditions became more visible during the 10th and 11th centuries of the Delhi Sultanate and after it to the rest of India. A conglomeration of four chronologically separate dynasties, the early Delhi Sultanate consisted of rulers from Turkic and Afghan lands. This Persian influence flooded South Asia with Islam, Sufi thought, syncretic values, literature, education, and entertainment that has created an enduring impact on the presence of Islam in India today. Sufi preachers, merchants and missionaries also settled in coastal Gujarat through maritime voyages and trade.
Muhammad Abdul Haq Ansari was an Islamic scholar from India. He was the Amir (president) of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) from 2003 to 2007. He was the member of Central Advisory Council of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. He was also the Chancellor of Al Jamia Al Islamia, Shantapuram, Kerala. His book Sufism and Shariah is a synthesis of Sufi and Shariah thought, especially a Tatbiq of Shaikh Ahmed Sir Hindi and Shah Waliullah's thought. It grew out of his in-depth engagement with kalam, tasawwuf and fiqh in Islamic history. His other major contributions are a book on Mishkawah's philosophy and an English translation of Ibn Taymiyyah's fatwas with an introduction. He also wrote 'Learning the Language of Quran' it is one of the best English guides for the beginners learning to read the Qur'an. In New Delhi he established the Islami Academy, aimed at training graduates from secular educational background in Islamic Sciences based on the madrasa curriculum.
The Madrasah-i Rahimiyah is an Islamic seminary located in Delhi, India. It was founded by Shah Abdur Rahim, the father of Shah Waliullah Dehlawi, during the reign of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. After the death of Shah Abdur Rahim in 1718 Shah Waliullah started teaching at the Madrasah. It became a leading institute of Islamic learning and was acknowledged as the most influential seminary in the Indian subcontinent. Later, when Shah Wali Allah died, his sons Shah Abdul Aziz, Shah Rafi and Shah Abdul Qader began teaching here, with Abdul Aziz becoming its principal. Following the death of Abdul Aziz, the leadership of the Madrasah passed on to his grandson Shah Muhammad Ishaq.
Shah Abdur Rahim was an Islamic scholar and a writer who assisted in the compilation of Fatawa-e-Alamgiri, the voluminous code of Islamic law. He was the father of the Muslim philosopher Shah Waliullah Dehlawi. He became a disciple of Khwaja Khurd son of Khawaja Baqi Billah a revered Sufi of Delhi. He established Madrasa Rahimiyya in Delhi, a theological college which later played a part in the religious emancipation of Muslim India and became the breeding ground of religious reformers and mujahideen like Shah Waliullah and Shah Abdul Aziz.
Lataif-e-sitta are special organs of perception in Sufi spiritual psychology, subtle human capacities for experience or action. Depending on context, the lataif are also understood to be the qualities of consciousness corresponding to those experiences or actions.
Sufism known as Tasawwuf in the Arabic-speaking world, is a form of Islamic mysticism that emphasizes introspection and spiritual closeness with God. It is a mystical form of Islam, a school of practice that emphasizes the inward search for The God and shuns materialism. About 60% Muslims in Pakistan regard themselves as followers of Sufi saints.
Shah Wali Ullah Nagar is a neighborhood in Orangi Town in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.
Qutb ud-Din Ahmad ibn ʿAbd-ur-Rahim al-ʿUmari ad-Dehlawi, commonly known as Shah Waliullah Dehlawi, was an Islamic Sunni scholar and Sufi of the Naqshbandi order, who is seen by his followers as a renewer. He emphasized the importance of following Sharia and believed in the unification of Hanafi and Shafi'i schools of law, aiming to reduce legal differences.
Khwaja Hasan Nizami was an Indian Sufi saint and a known Urdu essayist and humorist and satirist who wrote many essays for the Mukhzun Akhbar magazine. He wrote more than 60 books including the incidents of Indian Rebellion of 1857, while Mulla Wahidi writes that he had over five hundred books on an amazing variety of subjects to his credit. Being a Sufi he had many disciples and it appeared in his literature.
Zainab Alwani is an American activist and Islamic scholar. She is Founding Director and Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at Howard University School of Divinity.
Victor Danner was a Mexican-American author, researcher, and translator specializing in comparative religion and Islamic mysticism.
Debra Mubashshir Majeed was an American religious historian, activist and womanist.