In Omdurman, the largest city in Sudan, the Qadiriyya Sufi order meets every Friday outside Sheikh Hamed Al Nil mosque, which houses the tomb of their 19th century Sufi leader. Sudan has the largest Sufi communities in the world. Sufism is a branch of Islam often seen as mystical due to its followers’ pursuit of a personal, inner path to Allah. What unites each Sufi order is the belief that a path to God can be found through dhikr - absolute absorption in worship during which prayers, dances and spins may be repeated with enough fervour to induce a trance.
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Sufism (Arabic: الصُّوفِيَّة‎ aṣ-ṣūfiyya), also known as Tasawwuf (التَّصَوُّف‎ at-taṣawwuf), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, ritualism, asceticism and esotericism. It has been variously defined as "Islamic mysticism", "the mystical expression of Islamic faith", "the inward dimension of Islam", "the phenomenon of mysticism within Islam" the "main manifestation and the most important and central crystallization" of mystical practice in Islam, and "the interiorization and intensification of Islamic faith and practice".
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Practitioners of Sufism are referred to as "Sufis" (from صُوفِيّ, ṣūfīy), and historically typically belonged to "orders" known as tariqa (pl. ṭuruq) - congregations formed around a grand wali who would be the last in a chain of successive teachers linking back to Muhammad.
Sufism emerged early on in Islamic history, partly as a reaction against the worldliness of the early Umayyad Caliphate (661-750) and mainly under the tutelage of Hasan Al-Basri. Although Sufis were opposed to dry legalism, they strictly observed Islamic law and belonged to various schools of Islamic jurisprudence and theology.
Although the overwhelming majority of Sufis, both pre-modern and modern, remain adherents of Sunni Islam, certain strands of Sufi thought transferred over to the ambits of Shia Islam during the late medieval period. This particularly happened after the Safavid conversion of Iran under the concept of Irfan. Important focuses of Sufi worship include dhikr, the practice of remembrance of God. Sufis also played an important role in spreading Islam through their missionary and educational activities.
Source: www.theguardian.com/world/gal....