Holiest sites in Sufi Islam
The four most holiest cities in Sufi Islam are Baghdad, Lahore, Multan and Touba. The most holiest sites for Sufi Muslims are the Mazar Ghous in Baghdad, Iraq followed by Data Darbar in Lahore, Pakistan. Most holy sites in Sufism are shrines dedicated to various Sufi Saints - spiritually elevated ascetics from various mystical orders within Islam. Shrines are widely scattered throughout the Islamic world. Pilgrimages to them are known as Ziyarat. Traditional annual commemorations of the saint's death held at his shrine are known as Urs In several countries, the local shrine is a focal point of the community, with several localities named specifically for the local saint.
Iraq[edit]
Mazar Ghous in Baghdad, Iraq is the most holiest site in Sufi Islam. It is dedicated to the founder of Qadiryya Sufi order, Abdul Qadir Gilani. The complex was built near the Bab al-Sheikh (al-Sheikh Gate) in al-Rusafa, on the east bank of the Tigris.
Pakistan[edit]
Lahore[edit]
Data Darbar in Lahore is considered the second holiest site in Sufi Islam. The site is also considered to be the most sacred place in Lahore.[1] It was built to house the remains of Ali Hujwiri, commonly known as Data Ganj Baksh, a Sufi saint from Ghazni in present-day Afghanistan, who is believed to have lived on the site in the 11th century.
Multan[edit]
Tomb of Shah Rukn-e-Alam in Multan is considered the third most holiest site in Sufi Islam. The shrine attracts over 100,000 pilgrims to the annual Urs festival that commemorates his death.
Pakpattan[edit]
Pakpattan is one of the ancient and smallest cities of Pakistan. It is the city that has the shrine of the well-known Sufi of his times, Baba Fareed.
Africa[edit]
Touba[edit]
The Great Mosque of Touba in Senegal is the holy city of Mouridism and the burial place of its founder Aamadu Bamba. Next to his tomb lies a large mosque. The construction of the mosque was completed in 1963. It is the largest building in the city and one of the largest mosques in Africa, with a capacity of 7,000.[2]
Turkey and Central Asia[edit]
Konya, Turkey[edit]
Contains the tomb of Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, the Persian Sufi poet commonly known as "Mevlâna" and who is the founder of the Sufi Mevlevi order (known for the Whirling Dervishes), is located in Konya where he spent the last fifty years of his life.
Turkestan (City), Kazakhstan[edit]
Throughout most of the medieval and early-modern period this city was known as Yasi or Shavgar and after the 16th-17th centuries as Turkistan or Hazrat, both of which names derive from the title 'Hazrat-i Turkistan', which literally means "the Saint (or Blessed One) of Turkistan" and refers to Khoja Ahmad Yasavi, the Sufi Shaikh of Turkistan, who lived here during the 11th century CE and is buried in the town.
Because of his influence and in his memory the city became an important centre of spirituality and Islamic learning for the peoples of the Kazakh steppes. In the 1390s Timur (Tamerlane) erected a magnificent domed Mazar or tomb over his grave, which remains the most significant architectural monument in the Republic of Kazakhstan, pictured on the back of the banknotes of the national currency.
Africa[edit]
Mosque of Uqba, Tunisia[edit]
Under the Aghlabids, the fame of the Mosque of Uqba and of the other holy sites at Kairouan helped the city to develop and repopulate little by little. The university, consisting of scholars who met in the mosque, was a centre of education both in Islamic thought and in the secular sciences. Its role can be compared to that of the University of Paris in the Middle Ages. With the decline of the city, the centre of intellectual thought moved to the University of Ez-Zitouna
Harar, Ethiopia[edit]
The old town of Harar is home to 110 mosques and many more shrines.
El-Mursi Abul Abbas Mosque, Egypt[edit]
This is a famous mosque in Alexandria, Egypt, which is dedicated to the Alexandrine Sufi saint el-Mursi Abul Abbas.
Bangladesh[edit]
Many Sufi Saints lived in Bangladesh, and most have shrines.
Sylhet, Bangladesh[edit]
Sylhet is a historic city in northeastern Bangladesh, which hosts the mausoleum of Shah Jalal, a revered Sufi saint-warrior of Bengal and the eastern subcontinent. The city is often considered the spiritual capital of Bangladesh.
The Mosque City of Bagerhat is a historic town in southwestern Bangladesh, which hosts the mausoleum of Khan Jahan Ali (d. 1459), a revered saint and officer of Khalifatabad. He is known for building the famed Sixty Dome Mosque in 1450 and several other mosques. The sites are listed under UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Opposition to shrines[edit]
According to hardline or "puritanical" interpretations of Islam of Wahabbis, Salafis and others, it is forbidden in Islam to build building over graves.[3]
Numerous Shia and Sufi shrines were once located in Saudi Arabia, but were destroyed in the 1930s by Saudi Arabia's Wahabbis. Other important shrines in Central Asia, were destroyed by the Soviets in the 20th century.
From March 2005 to 2010, 209 people have been killed and 560 injured in 29 different terrorist attacks targeting shrines devoted to Sufi saints in Pakistan.[4] Sufi shrines have also been targeted for destruction by puritanical Muslim groups in Mali (Ansar Dine), Somalia (Al-Shabaab), Libya in the recent years. According to Gaber Qassem, deputy of the Sufi Orders, approximately 14 shrines have been violated in Egypt since the January 2011 revolution.[5] In 2009, when Islamist troops (al-Shabaab) occupied large lands in southern Somalia, mosques, graves and shrines were destroyed to tear down any revered religious places of the Sufists.[3]
Ali Gomaa, a Sufi scholar and the eighteenth Grand Mufti of Egypt, has criticized the destruction of shrines and public property as unacceptable.[6]
See also[edit]
Notes[edit]
- ↑ Halafoff, Anna; Clarke, Matthew (2016). Religion and Development in the Asia-Pacific: Sacred Places as Development Spaces. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781317647454. Retrieved 12 September 2017. Search this book on
- ↑ "The Mourides: Inside the grand mosque in Touba, Senegal". BBC News. 4 August 2011. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Somali rage at grave desecration". Bbc.co.uk. 8 June 2009. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
- ↑ Sunni Ittehad Council: Sunni Barelvi activism against Deobandi-Wahhabi terrorism in Pakistan – by Aarish U. Khan Archived 2013-01-23 at the Wayback Machine| criticalppp.com| Let Us Build Pakistan
- ↑ "Salafi Violence against Sufis". Archived from the original on 30 May 2013. Retrieved 24 February 2013. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Salafi destruction of shrines and public property unacceptable". Ikhwanweb. Retrieved 24 February 2013.
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