Abu hassan, what are you inferring from the slippery slope argument in philosophy? http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/slippery-slope.html I was reading an easy and simple to understand psychology article on 'why people choose to follow/join a cult' http://m.psychologytoday.com/blog/sideways-view/201402/why-do-people-join-cults Some interesting revelations are to be discovered upon reading this link. Among them are: 1. Friendship, identity, connections and contribution 2. There is a great deal of interest in “cults” which can take many forms: They may be religious or racial, political or mystical, self-help or pseudo-psychological, but they all have half a dozen recognizable characteristics: Powerful and exclusive dedication/devotion to an explicit person or creed. They use of “thought-reform” programmes to integrate, socialize, persuade and therefore control members. A well thought through recruitment, selection and socialization process. Attempts to maintain psychological and physical dependency among cult members. Cults insist on reprogramming the way people see the world. Consistent exploitation of group members specifically to advance the leaders goals. Cults nearly always go in for milieu control signals: a different,unfamiliar setting with different rules, terms, behaviour patterns. Ultimately using psychological and physical harm to cult members, their friends and relatives and possibly the community as a whole. 3. Most cults start their induction by trying to stop both individualistic and critical thinking like the army their job is the first to break you than remake you as one of them 4. Cults deliberately induce powerful emotions like fear, guilt but also pride. They tend to develop their own language, dress and signals which shows their specialness. Here the article asks a critically important question: "But the central question is whether usually-thought-of good, legitimate organizations do things differently than cults. Do the Boy Scouts or the Round Table or the Women’s Institute operate psychologically at any rate?" The article explains: "All too often, we explain strange, unexpected behaviour (like joining a cult) in terms of the dispositions (personality) of others; they (the poor gullible naïve indoctrinated members) have quite defective personalities But we explain more common behaviour in terms of the appeal of an accepted group's philosophy, leaders or benefits. Thus sad inadequates join cults; but altruistic, caring people join the church." Or in Islamic terms: Tariqas end up believing, due to weak thought process, that they're exclusive and the best and the almost only saved group. But people with a broader perspective on life and a lesser sense of prejudice, generalisations, biases and stereotypes believe that the group with the most logical belief system and correct understanding and grasp of the Quran and sunnah is the saved sect. After all it mentions: "Rather than immediately trying to blame extremists for being different, it is equally important to try to understand the psychological appeal of cults, extremist groups and political cells, as well as some business organizations." Which shows why we can't also generalise. We must measure up with the standard yardstick of Sunni aqida first and then begin to empirically assess whether the pir disallows hierarchical ways of process. Among other things. To be discussed further on. 5. It also states: "Any analysis of the make-up of individuals in cult groups shows surprising large diversity in terms of age, career, education, ideology and talents. They can attract the post-graduate and the illiterate; the teenager and the "senior citizen"; the solidly middle class and those on the fringes of society. It is not so much their demography that is important as their psychological needs." Which shows why it's not impressive if Muhammad Ali or the president even are murids, because they also have a heart and soul and mind and therefore feel needs of mental development and spiritual and emotional help of some sort.
d) a general agreement must be aired on mosque mics at juma for people in general to begin to stop entertaining any yardy pirs/Shaykhs who come to the west from asia or middle east. In reality- I personally believe- that should include scholars also who don't come to teach the ulum but rather perform 1 or 2 sweet speeches and go back to Pakistan (mostly after fattening their pockets) The ones who came here and contributed a great deal initially have also become diverted into buying extra houses and giving fatwa for the allowance of 1 house in a case of exigency. And have proceeded themselves to purchase more than 1 house among building extensions to the mosques which are simply providing funeral and other services which increases the mosques income. And many more factors related directly to qillat al ilm or the lack of basic knowledge and peoples basic ability to being able to think. e) we all need to stop letting our egos get in the way. Especially students of knowledge who acknowledge the dangers of manipulation and therefore shouldn't end up themselves taking advantage of simple followers. This the asl aseel or the cream of the crop, in that If the new students familiarise themselves with ulum diniyyah they'll eventually be able to easily identify fraud and point it our when necessary. I am noticing young students already taking advantage of their dars nizami students and making them believe things which aren't even true. This is the danger of where a dars nizami circle can also become a cult depending on the teachers style and mode of expression. Mostly this is not the case however. That's the beauty of the sacred sciences: they open up the human mind and heart for truth f) open discussions and disagreements which may be developed upon and people still remain as brothers in the din. This should've been point (a) and is my real aim for posting on here altogether. If fellow "practising" brothers were sociable on this level we wouldn't have people like Khadimu, Amatullah and most recently Imran behaving and acting impudently time and again.
This is not an obsession with the subject or form of low life expression. It's just airing a personal intake and spin on what I've observed and internalised for a few years on the subject of bay'ah and why and how it's been over emphasised as part and parcel of ones iman- leaving the poor Muslim with guilt of being misguided if they don't promptly find a shaykh even if they don't know how to perform istinja. I'm maintaining basic language and straight forward well accepted notions so that people like Khadimu or Amatullah or Imran and others may also openly object to my points and other readers hereon may make up their minds ever so decidedly and thoughtfully about bay'ah which is as important as marriage according to some Sufis. I don't know the proof for that. But it maybe true
Continuing from above. More reasons for bay'ah: 5. Conformity and peer pressure bay'ah. The friends of an individual revered the man so one draws in for many reasons. Those reasons alone can be expanded upon 1 by 1 ever so thoroughly. This kind of bay'ah is absolutely invalid and doesn't mean anything at all. Because a lot of the times the murid isn't really bothered about his/her bay'ah after a few weeks due to getting back into the real world of work, family etc 6. The bay'ah will be valid and the murid isn't suffering any problems of psychological disorder at all. This murid is fine. As long as he doesn't begin to advertise who his shaykh is irrelevantly and start to over emphasise group mentality. Rather, he meets his shaykh as one would probably meet the imam of the mosque, sits in his Suhba, respects him as one would a scholar of Islamic learning and takes advice on awrad and further spiritual development which must be implemented without any hoo haa. The murid must remain open minded about the fact that his shaykh may slip- although maintaining a firm conviction that he will not (as long as he says inshaAllah) and that the pir isn't infallible. He's most definitely human in every sense and not unique in every way. He's a special person of Allah but there isn't any guarantee that he won't err. These are 6 prime reasons I could outline so far. If anyone has more they are more than welcome to number in continuation from 7 in order to maintain thread consistency and order for better and clear understanding when reading. In my next phase I want to move on to alternatives to the culture of meaningless/misguiding bay'ah and therefore how to prevent fake pirs from taking charge: a) mosques providing advice on family, child care, marriage and other social aspects of life. A constitutive organisation may be put into place which allows for weekend clubs etc to take place. Mosque is preferable than a community centre or places divorced from worship. Because children may also play physical activities in a room annexed to the prayer hall. Psychologically learning over time 'association' between ibada and fun. Therefore when older not being distanced from masajid b) existentialism (as I've mentioned few times before) as well as aesthetic value. Appreciating artistic and spiritual or emotional aspects of the inner most self. This can be done alone. Free of any pir or advisor. This may range from singing, poetry, art, to even recreational activities such as gardening, cooking, and even talking and expressing ones thoughts (as I'm doing now). Due to the faction and sect mindset all of us possess this is really rudimentary for development of the heart and mind. People have stopped more or less expressing their true selves and therefore live life masquerading as even Sunnis when they're far of the radar. c) Probably should've been the prime point: learning with ulama basic Quran and sunnah. That of course branches out to even tasawwuf and once one has really understood and indeed grasped the notion in ones mind then bay'ah will be the next viable option due to clear ability of being able to distinguish many aspects independently. Rather than conforming among other things. (To be continued: the ways to circumvent fake pirs taking charge and thereafter we will begin to discuss certain notions in psychology and their application here)
Yasser has and is studying. He has a degree in Abrahamic Faiths and Philosophy. He has studied books like with U'lama locally and continues to study with them. As far as I know he studied up to a good level and reads books with U'lama and Arabic books by himself. Imran must be a disgruntled cult member. Imran this is is a forum. A forum is: So views and ideas are exchanged here. If you disagree with views then show why you disagree? If we were agreeing with your views you would think we do have a life..But because we disagree we don't. Why would you have made an account on this forum if you thought it was a waste of time? You seem to have an itch about something.
Lol. I'm trying to get a life. Inspire me brother! Don't tell me Are you the same Imran whose cage I rattled in sparkhill? I hope not. Cus if you are I'll meet you now and demonstrate how to get a life. How do you define "getting a life"? If you reply anything absurd or don't get to the point I won't answer your childish digs. Proceed to outline the process of getting a life. And so will I. Because that's what this threads about really
Moriarty is dealing more with the leader rather than the follower. In his other thread he does tackle 'brainwashing'. Here I want to discuss a little bit about the follower and why he/she follows a fake pir/shaykh and in the process gets well deluded. Or at times the pir isn't fake but doesn't possess the ability to fly either. But why does the follower end up believing he may fly/meet imam Mahdi/ and so on? That's what I want to investigate now. A simpe analogy for the average reader will show that the murids are the bees and the leader is the pollen. The main aim of Sunnis ought to be to cut away all those plants which attracts the bees. Since the Sunnis aren't doing their homework it's best to convince the bees of the pollen being artificial; but doing so requires wisdom and time. We shouldn't be condescending in the process because we will further such people away even more. Having said that some people must be reprimanded harshly. Such as people higher up in the pyramid who know for fact that the leaders a fraud. So the question is: why do people need a spiritual guide in their lives? In other places its been mentioned that there are certain reasons such as: 1. father figure (surrogate father),- ranging from broken marriages, to late night taxi driver dads not knowing or being able to relate to the child on a most basic level even 2. lack of confidence (due to-mainly - parents not allowing their child to express themselves. Ranging from mental thought processes all the way up to an improper and dysfunctional ways of dealing with the child's emotional needs) 3 The basic need for us Sunnis to go into the study of psychology and psychiatry as well as sociology 4. Basic meaning in life which isn't otherwise found probably due to lack of any constructive thought processes relating to wider aspects of life. Again this is related my post on existentialism. Tariqa members are hardy taught to think independently and are therefore confined. (Note: I had a far longer post which has been cut short due to logging out. I will shortly expound upon this during the week)
