History of Sufism
Aspect of Islamic history / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about Sufism. For other uses, see Sufism (disambiguation).
Sufism is the mystical branch of Islam in which Muslims seek divine love and truth through direct personal experience of God.[1] This mystic tradition within Islam developed in several stages of growth, emerging first in the form of early asceticism, based on the teachings of Hasan al-Basri, before entering the second stage of more classical mysticism of divine love, as promoted by al-Ghazali and Attar of Nishapur, and finally emerging in the institutionalized form of today's network of fraternal Sufi orders, based on Sufis such as Rumi and Yunus Emre.[2][1] At its core, however, Sufism remains an individual mystic experience, and a Sufi can be characterized as one who seeks the annihilation of the ego in God.[3]