Islam is traced back to revelations from God to the Prophet, Mohammed. One of its central principles is Ihsan, which requires each Moslem to worship God as though they see Him.
Sufis, - more accurately described as an aspect or dimension of Islam rather than as a sect - are mystics who aspire to be close to God. The various methods of worship include chanting, singing (Qawali is one example)and dancing, which includes the Dervishes. There are also Sufis who meditate, with some groups active in the UK.
Sufis are emphatic that knowledge should be learned from teachers and not exclusively from books and can trace their teachers back through the generations to the Prophet himself. Modelling themselves on their teachers, students hope that they too will glean something of the character of the Prophet and his state when the revelations were originally given.
I studied for some time with a group based on meditation techniques and was fortunate to meet their spiritual leader, Shaykh al-Tariqat Hazrat Azad Rasool.
His teachings include a meditation on the heart, normally practiced by the group after prayers at sunset. The meditation should last one hour and is formed around a single thought. One concentrates on the thought: "I turn my attention to my heart and it turns its attention to the Holy Essence." Throughout the meditation one concentrates on one's heart (the centre of loving in the body, situated in a man about three inches below the left nipple and in a woman at the bottom of the left breast where it rejoins the body). Throughout the meditation we "watch" the heart in its process of loving God.
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