page_title: Islam
section_title: Mysticism
hierarchical_section_title: Islam / Mysticism
caption_attribution_description: English: Whirling dervishes at Mausoleum of Mevlana, Konya, Turkey. فارسی: درویشان در حال انجام رقص سما در محل آرامگاه مولانا در ترکیه
context_page_description: Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion that teaches that Muhammad is a messenger of God. It is the world's second-largest religion with over 1.8 billion followers or 24.1% of the world's population, known as Muslims. Muslims make up a majority of the population in 49 countries. Islam teaches that God is merciful, all-powerful, and unique, and has guided mankind through prophets, revealed scriptures, and natural signs. The primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, believed to be the verbatim word of God, as well as the teachings and normative examples of Muhammad.
  Muslims believe that Islam is the complete and universal version of a primordial faith that was revealed many times before through prophets, including Adam, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. Muslims consider the Quran in Arabic to be the unaltered and final revelation of God. Like other Abrahamic religions, Islam also teaches a final judgment with the righteous rewarded in paradise and the unrighteous punished in hell.
context_section_description: Sufism (Arabic: تصوف‎, tasawwuf), is a mystical-ascetic approach to Islam that seeks to find a direct personal experience of God. It is not a sect of Islam and its adherents belong to the various Muslim denominations. Classical Sufi scholars defined Tasawwuf as "a science whose objective is the reparation of the heart and turning it away from all else but God", through "intuitive and emotional faculties" that one must be trained to use. Sufis themselves claim that Tasawwuf is an aspect of Islam similar to sharia, inseparable from Islam and an integral part of Islamic belief and practice.
  Religiosity of early Sufi ascetics, such as Hasan al-Basri, emphasized fear to fail God's expectations of obedience, in contrast to later and more prominent Sufis, such as Mansur Al-Hallaj and Jalaluddin Rumi, whose religiosity is based on love towards God. For that reason, some academic scholars refuse to refer to the former as Sufis. Nevertheless, Hasan al-Basri is often portrayed as one of the earliest Sufis in Sufi traditions and his ideas were later developed by the influential theologian Al-Ghazali. Traditional Sufis, such as Bayazid Bastami, Jalaluddin Rumi, Haji Bektash Veli, Junaid Baghdadi, and Al-Ghazali, argued for Sufism as being based upon the tenets of Islam and the teachings of the prophet. Sufis played an important role in the formation of Muslim societies through their missionary and educational activities.
  Popular devotional practices such as veneration of Sufi saints have faced stiff opposition from followers of Wahhabism, who have sometimes physically attacked Sufis leading to deterioration in Sufi–Salafi relations. Sufism enjoyed a strong revival in Central Asia and South Asia; the Barelvi movement is Sufi influenced Sunni Islam with over 200 million followers, largely in South Asia.  Sufism is also prominent is Central Asia, where different orders are the main religious sources, as well as in African countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Senegal, Chad and Niger.
  Mystical interpretations of Islam have also been developed by Ismaili Shias, as well as by the Illuminationist and Isfahan schools of Islamic philosophy.
caption: The Whirling Dervishes, or Mevlevi Order by the tomb of Sufi-mystic Rumi
exif: {}