التصوف والطرق الصوفية في حمص ١_a .. كتاب حمص

Chapter six

Sufism and Sufi orders in Homs

Sufism is a language that means wearing wool. It is said that a man’s Sufism means wearing wool, just as it is said that he is reincarnated if he wears a shirt. In terminology, it is a scientific and practical trend towards which Islamic spiritual life has tended since its inception at the beginning of Islam and according to the successive phases it has passed through in its historical development. Sufism, in this sense, is the mirror of this Islamic spiritual life in which a person submits his soul to forms of exercise and struggle, and in which he prepares his heart to know the truths through revelation and struggle, which is based first on what Muslims follow in the example of the Prophet (PBUH). From asceticism, asceticism, and piety, which is attributed in its source to the perjury of al-Bani (may God bless him and grant him peace), he went to Hira before the mission, and while he was devoted to it and took himself in, worship after the mission and during it. Religious and philosophical elements transformed Sufism, which represents Islamic spiritual life, into a science of the interior of hearts. Then to a spiritual philosophy, after it was at the beginning of his era to purify souls and purify hearts. That is, Islamic Sufism has included, in its entirety, theoretical, practical and spiritual elements whose study reveals its rules of behavior, its principles of morality, and its methods for tasting the truths and knowing the subtleties, especially what is connected to the knowledge of the causal truth or the divine essence, which the philosophical Sufis consider the overflowing source of all... The signs of truth, goodness and beauty that are revealed in the universe.

Various sects of Muslims have devoted themselves to spiritual life, each of which is called a /name/. The best Muslims after the Messenger of God were called / the Companions, and those who accompanied the Companions were called / the Successors / and those after them were called / the Followers of the Successors / those who, after these, were concerned with the matter of religion as / the ascetics / and / the servants and the ascetics. When strife occurred in the world and luxury appeared after the expansion of the rule of the Muslim Arabs, those who turned to God and turned away from the trappings of the world were called Sufis. And since God is among the elite of Muslims, on the authority of other religious people in general, and on the authority of other apparent scholars who work with religion, and on historians and researchers, both early and late, God is Kufi and Jawzi, that is, God rewarded him, so God’s action with him is evident in his name, and God (2) is the only one with him, p. (25) and Abu Ali Al-Rudhabari said He was asked about the Sufi, and he said: He who wears wool on al-Safa and feeds his desires on al-Jaffa, and the world is full of the back, and follows the path of the Chosen One. Sahl bin Abdullah (3) was asked: Who is the Sufi? He said:

He who is clear of distress and filled with thought and is devoted to God, and gold and mud are equal to Him.)

Among the definitions of Sufism is what Al-Junaid says: Sufism is a purification of the heart from conformity with divinity and the paradox of natural morals, suppression of human traits, avoidance of psychological motives, comparison with spiritual qualities, attachment to true sciences and the use of what is more important than eternity, sincerity of the whole nation, loyalty to God in truth, and following the Messenger/M. / In Sharia.

In its scientific formation, Sufism is one of the two parts of the science of Sharia, which was divided in its development into two sciences: a science that was specialized by jurists in general rulings, acts of worship, and transactions, and is called “the science of the apparent.” And a science that was specific to the Sufis and the people of the esoteric, and it includes their conditions and rulings in observations, accounting, sports, struggles, tastes, and other matters. Which is related to the innermost hearts, and therefore this science was called the science of the inner. The Sufis looked at themselves as masters of truths and masters of the inner, and they looked at the jurists and other scholars as masters of phenomena and images. The jurists also looked at Sufism with a look of indignation and objection, as is clear from history. The conflict between the jurists and the Sufis since the third century AH, and in this conflict (3) many of the major Sufis were harmed, such as Dhu al-Nun al-Misri, al-Hussein bin Mansur al-Arabi al-Jalaj, and the murdered Suhrawardi. And Muhyi al-Din ibn al-Ghazali was able, with his motivations and the fervor of his faith, to endear the Sunnis to Sufism by making it a spiritual path to certain knowledge and true happiness, and therefore superior to the science of theology, which does not remove doubt, according to his expression, and to philosophy, which does not achieve knowledge or happiness, and for this reason, al-Ghazali preferred Sufism is superior to other sciences, because all the movements of Sufis, both outward and inward, are according to him, taken from the light of the niche of prophecy, beyond which there is no light on the face of the earth to be illuminated by. According to Al-Ghazali, Arab-Islamic Sufism reached its peak when it became a path to knowledge and happiness that differed from the path of theologians and philosophers. However, after this peak, it began to decline. The reason for this is that Arab-Islamic Sufism, until the second half of the sixth century AH, was an individual psychological phenomenon. After that, the Sufis began to prefer meeting over isolation due to the strength of their work and the health of their condition, so they saw gatherings in the homes of the congregation on the carpet, so the carpet of every sheikh is his corner.

Since it was necessary to have a place where the Sufis could meet under the leadership of their sheikh, we find, since the Mamluk era, the emergence of the khanqah, the ribat, and the zawiya. What do these words mean?


* Khanqah: A Persian word meaning house of worship. The Arabs used it as a feminine form. It is a type of scientific institute reserved for Sufis and expatriate scholars. This name disappeared over time and was replaced by the name “takiyya.”

* Takayas: Places for non-Arab dervishes to reside, and there is still a trace of this era in Homs. The name “Khanqah” is given to a family in Homs that is still used by the name “Khanqah”, which is a distortion of the “Khanqah”, as indicated by the famous endowment of Haj Abdul Latif, who is related to the son of “Al-Khanqah”, dated in The first of Rabi’ al-Awwal 1187 AH, corresponding to the twenty-fourth of May 1773 AD.

* Al-Rabat: It is a house prepared for the residence of Sufis, and some of it was allocated for isolated, abandoned, or divorced women, or elderly widows who were worshipers, and it had fees and famous shrines from preaching councils.

* Al-Zawiya: It was prepared from ancient times to accommodate some righteous people for worship within its walls, and Friday prayers were not held there at first, but then the situation happened and Friday prayers were held in most of it.

In the Ayyubid and Mamluk eras, the corners were small in size and of little importance. A small number of worshipers, perhaps ten, reside there, and it may be a place where one man worships, as is clear from the words of Al-Maqrizi when he spoke about Babirs, because he built for Sheikh / Khadr / a corner in Jabal Al-Mezzeh and another in Zahir Baalbek, a third in Hama, a fourth in Homs, and a fifth outside Cairo. .


We see that the place of the zawiya in Homs is the shrine of Al-Khidr Al-Jawani in Al-Fakhurah in the interior of Homs. As for the other shrine of Al-Khidr, they call it Al-Khidr Al-Barani.