[Toninvell]

Assalamualukum,
If anybody has a good article explaining the permissibility of tassawuf

[biannaruh]

http://www.daralmahmood.org/tasawwuf.html
http://www.ashrafiya.com/about/
http://www.tasawwuf.org/basics/what_tasawwuf.htm

[VawSwaspamups]

http://www.daralmahmood.org/tasawwuf.html
http://www.ashrafiya.com/about/
http://www.tasawwuf.org/basics/what_tasawwuf.htm

Do you know Hazrat Hansa from South Africa khalifah khaas of Hazrat Jalalabadi Moulana Masihullah Khan Sherwani sahib (ra)?

[asharbiq]

search for articles on Tasawwuf, zuhd and raqaaiq. they all mean the same thing. most hadith compilers have whole sections on zuhd war raqaaiq, so the permissability of Tasawwuf / zuhd / raqaaiq is an obvious no-brainer.

Assalamualukum,
If anybody has a good article explaining the permissibility of tassawuf

[ppfpooghn]

Assalamu alaikum,

Has anyone ever seriously said that tassawuf is not permissible?

To say that you would need a comprehensive description of tassawuf, and that is probably not possible.

Secondly, I have heard criticism of some practices and positions of some Sufis, but generally speaking, Sufism seems very well integrated into the fabric of traditional Islam. Many of our best known scholars were involved in this current, including Ibn Taimiyyah, who wrote a short glossary of Abdul Qadir al-Jilani's terminology and who is even said to have been initiated into the Qaadiriyya order of Sufis.

There is a short discussion of this here; http://sunnah.org/tasawwuf/scholr23.htm

Ibn Taymiyya's "sufism" was discovered by George Makdissi, a major authority on the Hanbali scholars, while researching manuscript sources on Ibn Taymiyya in the 1970s.

More on Makdissi's work here:

www.seekingilm.com/books/hanbalisweresufis.pdf

I believe that the Salafi critique of Sufism has more to do with authority structures than with religious doctrines. Their critiques often focus on ideas of taqlid, loyalty to shaykhs, and the notion of mystic authority passed down from generation to generation by one man's election of another, the "silsilah." They have prohibited taqleed, which they define as the blind following of authority, but not, to my knowledge, tassawuf.

One interesting critique of taqleed is Salih b. Muhammad al-Umari al-Fulani (d. 1218 h.), Iqaazh himam ulu al-albaab. صالح بن محمد العمري الفلاني, إقاظ همم ولى الأيصار (دار القتح , الشارقة )

Al-Fulani, whose name comes from the Fulani people of the Southern Sahara, was an African scholar who settled in Madinah toward the end of the 18th century. He lived just before the Wahhabi dawa. Al-Fulani's book is largely a summary and commentary of a much larger work, Zain al-Din Abi al-Faraj Abdul Rahman bn Shihaab al-Din al-Baghdadi (d 790 h.). Jaami'3a al-3ulum wal-Hikam.

زين الدين أبي الفرج عبد الرحمن شهاب الدين البغدادي , جامع العلوم والحكم

Criticism of taqleed predates the Salafis and the Wahhabis by centuries, so, rather than focus on their sectarian and often confused and confusing narratives, it is possible to go back before them to read an earlier critique. This is not less impassioned but at least it does not become entangle us with other loyalties.

Salaam,

Abu Marwan