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The essence of Sufism is to keep the love of Allah and the Prophet alive along with good morals and tawheed. The institutionalized form of Sufism is the tariqa. In a full-fledged tariqa, there is a sheikh, disciples, a dervish lodge as a place and several customs, manners, ceremonies and rituals that ensure the continuation of the system. These do not constitute the essence of Sufism, but they are necessary elements for the continuation of the institution and the healthy functioning of the education and training there. Dhikr assemblies and certain ceremonies are among these. The succession of most tariqas end in Ali and their dhikr is public / vocal. The sound often brings movement along with it. The body movements made during enthusiastic dhikr assemblies contain a number of forms in accordance with the greatness of that maqam. These are different from worldly raks. These dhikr and ceremonies are not haphazard. All of them have etiquette and manners, and these are learnt by practice. Rifâî and Mevlevî dhikrs are very lively and flamboyant. Their appearance carries an aesthetic pleasure. However, it is wrong to regard them only as body movements or dance, it is incompatible with the sublimity of the matter. Each movement or ritual has a deep inner meaning. In this article, we will see that the performance of certain ceremonies opens a door to the world of meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a means of drawing closer to God, thariqah is a practical way or approach that takes the shape of guidance. It is thought to have originated with the Prophet, then evolved into associations in the form of suluk, a structured spiritual education under the direction of a teacher (sheikh / murshid) with a number of pupils / worshippers who studied with him. The significance of the thariqah Jam'iyah Khalwatiya Syekh Yusuf al-Makassariy offered an outline of the profile of the thariqah as well as the Jam'iyah Khalwatiyah Syekh Yusuf al-Makassariy, disclosing his thariqah practices surrounding worship, such as the use of dhikr in personality enhancement. As jam'iyah and as a sect, Jam'iyah is an association or, more precisely, a forum, an organization that unites adherents of the thariqah Khalwatiyah, Syekh Yusuf al-Makassary. Good deeds and worship necessitate giving precedence to fardhu (obligatory) and other sunnah prayers that cannot be abandoned. Included in the practice of devotion in the thariqah is dhikr with the lafaz (La Ilaha Illallah). Thariqah and jam'iyah in their attempts to cultivate Islamic knowledge and teachings, as well as arranging the congregation in various thariqah procedures. The meaning of is the life of the body (body); the meaning of is the life of the qalb (heart); and the meaning of damir is the life of the spirit or sirr (secret). A servant who performs dhikr (remembrance) of Allah will become remembered, the makrifah (knowing) will become the known, the seeing will become the seen, and the loving will become the loved. This is what is known as the level or state of fan '. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cardiac patients usually feel anxious because they think their most vital organs are disturbed, and they will experience death. Anxiety has a bad impact on the development of the disease. The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of the Benson and dhikr relaxation combination on the anxiety and pulse frequency of heart patients treated in the hospital wards. Quasy experiment research design with pre-post test control group design was employed. The population in this study were all patients undergoing hospitalization in the cardiac wards. A sample of 74 patients was taken by purposive sampling technique. The intervention given was Relaxation Benson combined with dhikr. Anxiety data were taken using the Self Anxiety Rating Scale (SARS) questionnaire, while the pulse frequency data was recorded with an observation sheet. Analysis using Independent t-test with a significant value of p <0.05. The results showed a significant difference between the anxiety of the treatment group patients and the control group (p = 0,000). The frequency of the treatment and control group pulses occurred significantly (p = 0.017). Benson's Relaxation can reduce the anxiety and pulse frequency of heart patients who are treated in the Hospital. Future studies are suggested to look at the biomolecular response of the combination of Benson and dhikr relaxation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper sets out to offer social-psychological and phenomenological constructs of spirituality in the culture of dhikr in eastern Ethiopia at a micro-ethnography of faith based therapy (FBT). For analytical purpose, the paper draws on hermeneutics. This is the theory and method that places greater emphasis on the way humans deploy linguistic and cultural symbols to represent, organize and frame religion and other complex experiences. The paper focuses on how dhikr producers deploy various interpretive repertoires to construct the psychological, interactional, emotional, behavioural, imaginative and perceptual dimension of spirituality. The paper indicates that the Hararghe Oromo’s dhikr culture is a hermeneutic exercise that involves cognitive and analytical engagement with the exoteric meanings as well as the esoteric meanings of the world. One can thus take dhikr as a socio-cultural site for analysing the nature of hermeneutically conveyed social–psychological constructs of religion and spirituality. The paper offers also the epistemological and conceptual implications of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this paper is to find out what are the main meanings and functions of selected rituals in the life of Naqshbandi-Haqqani Sufi order. The theoretical part is directed at the main terms and concepts of meanings and functions of ritual, rites of passage and role of ritual in religion. In the practical part of the thesis, the particular religious group is being discussed in the broader context of Sufism and Naqshbandi order. The present-day situation of the order is being described especially in relation to the Sufi centre in Germany Osmanische Herberge where the long-term field research was conducted. Selected rituals that the research aimed at are the initiation ceremony bajca, rites of recollection dhikr and hadra and the wedding ceremony. With every ritual, the fundamental meanings and functions that these rituals mean for the group are being analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the parallels found in the dance of the whirling dervishes and Rumi's poetry. The dance, or sema, is a remembrance of God, zikr, which Rumi beautifully describes in his poetry. It is an honoring and mirroring of the revolutions, cycles, circles, centers, and turnings of life. This poetry in motion, done in the silence of the dervish, brings us to the sema, as a pronounced capacity to presence, because it is both poetry and thing. As poetry, it affords us to undergo an experience with language and the silence that bring us nearer to our center. There is much that is said in the sema even if nothing is spoken. What is said is heard in the silence cultivated by sema. The dance of the whirling dervishes is zikr, a remembrance of God. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last fifteen years, the ethnic make-up of Moscow's mosques has undergone significant change, while the number of practicing Muslims has grown manifold. These quantitative changes are connected with both the internal migration of people from the North Caucasian republics (a migration that had already begun in the early 1990s) and the external migration of natives of Central Asian states, primarily Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kirgizia (a mass migration dating from the 2000s). This paper is dedicated to two phenomena of contemporary Moscow Muslim life - the loud dhikr of the Kunta Hajji wird of the Qadiri tariqa, practiced by Chechens and Ingush; and the religious practices of the Central Asian 'uninstitutionalized' mullas. Both spiritual practices are popular and have great significance for a considerable proportion of Moscow Muslims, including those who do not directly participate in them. What both practices have in common is also found in their marginal nature with regard both to institutionalized Moscow Islam and to the fundamentalist trend which is now gathering steam here. This is an attempt to identify some specific features of contemporary Moscow Islam through the analysis of certain practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the edition of a legal document from c. 44/664-5, written in Arabic, that records a woman's debt of a third of a dinar. It is the oldest preserved original of its kind. A study of the formulary of this document and contemporary copies of similar documents reveals a hitherto overlooked validity clause which states that the recorded financial transactions are in accordance with 'the normative procedure of the believers' (sunnat qaḍā' al-mu'minīn). This clause gives documentary evidence for the existence of ideas about legal identity among the Muslim community in Egypt as early as the beginning of Umayyad rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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A famous Naqshbandī Sufi, Ahmad Kāsānī Dahbīdī, surnamed Makhdūm-i A'zam, had great influence on Islamic practices and thought in the Chinese part of Central Asia as early as the late sixteenth century when his descendants, known as Makhdū- mzāda, conducted missionary campaigns in the Tarim basin. Among the 30 or so treatises that he wrote, two are of particular interest for understanding Islamic soundscapes. The first work is entitled Risālāyi dhikr, or Treatise on Recitation, and describes the devotional repetition of the profession of faith (shahāda). The second text is devoted to the practice of spiritual audition (samā'). This Risālāyi samā'iyya is basically a defence of Sufi musical performances. A close reading of the texts shows that the master nourished the ambition to promote a profound and encompassing vision of Sufi practices, which would educate and, at the same time, enlarge his circles of disciples. Despite the later divisions among the Makhdūmzāda branches, and the heated debates on forms of dhikr and samā', Ahmad Kāsānī's teaching was an inaugural act that has left a deep legacy for the Sufi soundscape of Xinjiang. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the examination of several gems and precious stones. It mentions the identification of boron carbide at the Gem Testing Laboratory in Jaipur, India, that appeared to be synthetic black moissanite; Islamic prayer beads resembling amber analyzed at the Gemstone Unit of the Dubai Central Laboratory in United Arab Emirates (UAE) and mixed-cut specimen submitted as a sapphire to the Gem Testing Laboratory at the Indian Gemological Institute in Delhi, India.