North American and South Asian Sufism
by:
Merin Shobhana Xavier
when:
Sunday, September 29, 2013 - 11:15 to 12:15
The presentation will focus on one particular facet of my research on the North American and South Asian Sufism, namely that of the classical Sufi understanding of Al-insan al-kamal or insan kamil, which is commonly translated as the perfect man or servant, the universal man, or the perfected being in Islamic mystical tradition of Sufism. (Izutsu 1983, Schimmel 1992, Baldick 1989, Buckhardt 1959; 1979, Chittick 2000; 2005, Dagli 2004). In this doctrine of perfected being, the human being is positioned as the isthmus between Allah (God) and the cosmos; a mirror that reflects unity or tawhid (Chittick 2000) and is the barzakh (interface) between God and the world, wherein the perfected being “preserves” the existence of the universe (Baldick 1989, 84). This understanding of insan kamil was (re-)formulated by the Tamil Sufi Sheikh Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (d.1986). Bawa, as his adherents referred to him, was a teacher and guru of Sufi-Islam from Sri Lanka, who migrated to Philadelphia in the 1970s. I will explore how this particular teaching of searching within oneself and striving to achieve perfection of the self is found not only in Islamic mystical traditions but is a common teaching in other religious traditions, such as the varying interpretative tendencies (commonly esoteric) of Buddhism and Christianity.
Merin Shobhana Xavier is a PhD Student in the joint Religious Diversity Program in Wilfrid Laurier and Waterloo University. Her area of interests is primarily in Islamic mysticism of South Asia and North America, through the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship, a transnational Sufi order in Philadelphia with ties to Sri Lanka. The Fellowship is based on the teachings of Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (d. 1986). Her interests include metaphysical teachings of Islamic mysticism and also lived Sufi practices through adherent’s performance of rituals and piety. Her dissertation project she seeks to explore questions of transnationalism, Islamic-Sufi identity and politics of race, culture and religious negotiations of identity formation. As a trained primary and secondary teacher, she also seeks to utilize this research in classroom pedagogical practices, especially with regards to how religious identities informs student’s understanding of knowledge, how knowledge is formed and how to integrate varying sites of knowledge production to help students approach learning and holistic knowledge differently (i.e., heart-knowledge and mind-knowledge).