Binding with a Perfect Sufi Master: Naqshbandī Defenses of rābiṭa from the Late Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic

This article explores debates surrounding the controversial spiritual exercise of rābiṭa - the binding of the disciple with a Sufi master by envisioning the image of the master in different parts of the body. Despite being criticized as a non-Qurʾanic practice and as a form of idolatry, rābiṭa was m...

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1. VerfasserIn: Wilson, M. Brett (VerfasserIn)
Medienart: Elektronisch Aufsatz
Sprache:Englisch
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Veröffentlicht: Brill [2020]
In: Die Welt des Islams
Jahr: 2020, Band: 60, Heft: 1, Seiten: 56-78
normierte Schlagwort(-folgen):B Osmanisches Reich / Türkei / Naqšbandīya / Religiöser Führer / Imagination / Meditation / Schüler / Geschichte
RelBib Classification:AG Religiöses Leben; materielle Religion
BJ Islam
KBL Naher Osten; Nordafrika
weitere Schlagwörter:B Turkey
B Mysticism
B Ritual
B Naqshbandī
B Ottoman Empire
B Sufism
B Syria
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Zusammenfassung:This article explores debates surrounding the controversial spiritual exercise of rābiṭa - the binding of the disciple with a Sufi master by envisioning the image of the master in different parts of the body. Despite being criticized as a non-Qurʾanic practice and as a form of idolatry, rābiṭa was made a ritual of prominence among the Khālidī-Naqshbandī suborder which took shape in early nineteenth-century Syria and spread throughout the late Ottoman Empire. Tracing defenses of the practice from Arabic sources in the early nineteenth century to Turkish language treatises in the twentieth century, I argue that the Sufi ādāb manual al-Bahja al-saniyya composed by Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh al-Khānī (1798-1862) established a repertoire of arguments that have been adopted and reused in Turkish language treatises until the present with little variation, revealing a remarkable continuity of apologetics over nearly two centuries. Additionally, the article considers the role of this ritual in defining the nature of master-disciple relationships and establishing hierarchies of Sufi devotion and obedience.
ISSN:1570-0607
Enthält:Enthalten in: Die Welt des Islams
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/15700607-00600A02