Monday, May 10, 2010

List, Updated

I've decided to name this list the Awesome List. Why? Because.

The Awesome List

Done: Anabaptism, The Schleitheim Confession, Islamic Monasticism

Added: Petr Chelcicky, A. Phillip Randolph, Stonewall, William Lloyd Garrison

Vaclav Havel
A.J. Muste
James Farmer
Bayard Rustin
Trappist Monks
Thomas Merton
Origen
Tertullian
Rene McGraw
Ronald Neihbur
Vinoba Bhave
Jayaprakash Narayan
Fred Hampton
William Langland
John Gower
The Gospel of Matthew
The Sermon on the Mount
Bodhisattvacharyavatara
"Moral Man and Immoral Society"
"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"
"Piers Plowman"
"The Lover's Confession"
Islamic Monasticism
Petr Chelcicky
A. Phillip Randolph
Stonewall
William Lloyd Garrison

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I had "Islamic Monasticism" on the list because I heard the term used and found it strange. My curiosity was mostly about whether or not there actually was such a thing. I like monks and ascetics in general, so I thought I would have heard about Islamic Monasticism before then. It turns out I was essentially correct. Since it's pretty short, I'll just copy and paste what Wikipedia had to say on the subject:

While most Muslims do not believe in monasticism (emphasizing the Qur'anic injunction [Qur'an 57:27] in which Allah says that monasticism is a man-made practice that is not divinely prescribed), various Muslim Sufi orders, or "tariqas" encourage practices that resemble those of monastic brotherhoods in other faiths.

Dervishes—initiates of Sufi orders—believe that love is a projection of the essence of God to the universe. Many of the dervishes are mendicant ascetics who have taken the vow of poverty. Though some of them are beggars by choice, others work in common professions; many Egyptian Qadirites, for example, are fishermen.

All genuine dervish brotherhoods trace their origins from two of the close companions of Muhammad, Ali ibn Abu Talib and Abu Bakr. They differ from spiritual brotherhoods of Christianity in that they usually do not live together in a 'monastery' setting; it is actually a stipulation that they have families, and earn an ethical living.

Whirling dance, practiced by the Mevlevi order in Turkey, is just one of the physical methods to try to reach religious ecstasy (majdhb) and connection with Allah. Rif'ai, in their mystical states, apparently skewer themselves without engendering any harm. Other groups include the Shadhili, a gnosis based order who practice the 'hadra' or 'presence', a dance-like breathing exercise involving the repetition of divine names. All genuine brotherhoods and subgroups chant verses of Qur'an, and must follow their form of sharia, or sacred law.

Traditionally monks in Sufism have been known as fakirs. This term has also been applied to Hindu monks.

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