SUFI MOVEMENT IN INDIA

The word “Sufi” has arrived from the “Arabic word Suf”, which actually means the “wool”. It means that the dresses of Sufis were made up of rough wool garments, which is alos a sign of “poverty”.  In the terms of Arabic meaning, the word “Sufi” can be denoted as ‘purity’ or pureness. Therefore, Sufis are generally decided into two groups that are “Ba-shara” who believed in Islamic law and “Be-shara” who does not believe in Islamic law. Sufis also follows some principles, major beliefs and practices, which helps them to build well human behaviour to all of their regional people.   

Principles of Sufism in India 

There are mainly two principles that were followed by the Sufis, which are mainly helping them to build a proper healthy environment in their rituals and culture. The two of these main principles are described below:

Sufis were believed that they can reach God by devotion & love and also avoid following the ritual observance blindly. They trust in loving human beings as they believe God is in all human beings. Therefore, it also helps them to increase the humanity of their regional people and it alos helps to give the priority to their people. 

Another main principle, they believe that there is one God and all of the people under their region are the children of their God. However, they believe in loving each other as they also believe that God is in every man & woman. Sufis mainly believed in loving people, which is according to the love God and severe the duty for their God. The Sufis were always inspired their people to love each other, which is referred to them to love God.     

Sufi Revolution- various steps of Sufism, worship method, and features 

The Sufis have mainly followed 10 important steps, which are “Tauba”, “Zuhd”, “Wara”, “Faqr”, “Sabr”, “Shukra”, “Raza”, “Riza”, “Khauf”, “Tauvakkul”. 

The term Tauba means “repentance”, which can be also referred to as the “Remorse for your past conduct”.

Zuhd means “piety”, which can be referred to as “Righteousness by virtue of being pious”.

Wara can be referred to as “abstinence” which means “act or practise of refraining from indulging an appetite”.  

Faqr can be referred to as “poverty” which means “state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions”.

Sabr means “patience” which means “good-natured tolerance of delay or incompetence”.

Shukra can be referred to as “gratitude” which means “feeling of thankfulness and appreciation”.

Raza is referred to as the “hope” which means “Be optimistic; be full of hope; have hopes”.

Riza can be referred to as the “submission” which means “act of submitting; usually surrendering power to another”.

Khauf means “fear” which is “emotion experienced in anticipation of some specific pain or danger”.

Tauvakkul means “contentment” which means “Happiness with one’s situation in life”.   

Practices and major beliefs of the Sufis 

The major beliefs and practices of Sufis are various from the other cultures and all of these important principles were followed by the Muslim mystics or Sufis. There are some vital practices that are followed by the Muslim mystics or Sufis are described below:

Firstly, the Muslim mystics were rejected all of the outward religiosities and put all of their efforts into devotion and love to God. All groups of the Sufis are believed in their God and it is the most unique in their culture. As the Sufis were more knowledgeable about Buddhism and the Vedantic philosophy of India, they inspire the people to be great to each and every one. The Sufis does not believe in worshipping the idols, instead of it, they do collective prayers to worship God. Therefore, Sufis also believed that the human heart can also be trained to see the world from a different perspective. They always teach their regional peoples to share love with each other and look at the world with love. Therefore, they have also developed various types of training methods such as “breath control”, “discussion of parables”, “raqs (dancing)”, “sama (singing)”, “contemplation”, “zikr (chanting of a name or sacred formula)”. These were the major principles that are followed by the Muslim mystics or Sufis to increase the humanity between all of their regional people.

Conclusion 

The main practices and principles followed by the Sufis have been described here, and it also proves that Sufis are different from other cultures. Therefore, they mainly believe in God and does not believe in worshipping idols for praying to God.