"Lifes in Freedom" in Islam ( Sufi Mystics )

              A Mohammedan saint came to King Adam in Bactria and said : ' I an a stranger and would like to remain in your rest-house.' The King protested that his palace was not to be called a rest- house. ' To whom did it belong before you lived?' 'To my father, and before that to his father and his father's father.' 'Then how can your dwelling place be considered anything more than a shelter wherein people rest for a while before passing on?' The King was thoughtful. Then when he went hhunting, in the depth of the forest he heard a voice : Awake,before death awakens thee.' The King eventually left the world altogether to become an ascetic. He underwent severe spiritual disciplines. He arrained divine consciousness and his heart became filled with love. Spiritual illumination made him free.
            By and large, Islam is anti-monastic and anti-mystical. Yet it produced a number of great saints during the Middle Ages. most of them were mystics. Islamic mystics are called SUFIS.  One of the earlist of them was a woman, Saint Rabia of Basra (717-801). Orphaned at an early age, she was kidnapped and sold as a slave girl by a wicked man. Her new master was equally cruel, but one night he saw a strange light surrounding the poor girl, and getting frightened, set her free. She spent some time in the solitude of a desert and then lived like a hermit in Basra(in Iraq). Her spiritual experiences put her beyond the dualities of this world. When she was asked whether she hated Satan, she relied : 'No,My love for God leaves no rood in my heart for hating anybody,' Her most famous prayer is : ' O my Lord, if  I worship Thee for fear of hell, burn me in hell ; and if I worship Thee for the hope of Paradise, exclude me from there ; but if I worship Thee for Thine own sake, withhold not from me Thine eternal Beauty. '
           The greatest of Sufi mystic was Mansur AL-Hallaj (858- known simply as Hallaj.He was born in southern Persia. Even in his boyhood he had a mystical temparment and sought advice from several Sufi saints. When he  man he went to Bagdad and became the disciple of a Junad, a well-known master of that time. After spending some years in seclusion in Mecca, Hallaj travelled to India by sea. At that time India was not come under Muslim rule and Hallaj was one of the earliest Sufi mystics to visit India where he must have had lengthy discussions with Hindu mystics. On his return to Bagdad he started preaching. The most famous and fundamental of his doctrins was ana'l-haqq ( 'I am the reality') which is much similar to Vedantic dictum, I am Brahman'. The outraged Muslim theoligions got him arrested and, after a prolonged trial, he was totured and executed in a barbarous manner. But his ideasabout the divinity os soul and the possibility of attaining oneness with supreme Spirit influenced Islamic mysticism of several centuries.
           Another great Islamic mystic and poet was Jalaud-Din Rumi (1207-1273). He was born a Balk in estern Persia. When he was a small boy his father incurred the displeasure of the reigning sovereign and had to leave his native place with his family. After long  settled in Quoniya in Turkistan. Jalal was educated in the Arebic universities and became famous as a great scholar. But his contact with a wandering dervish brought about a sudden conversion in his life. Thenceforth he spent a long time in contemplation. In memory of his beloved teacher he founded a new religious order called the Maulavis who practiced a kind of whirling dance to induce spiritual ecstasy. He wrote several books including the Matnavi, considered to be one greates mystical poems of all times. Jalal-Din Rumi looked upon God as the only Reality and the phenomenal world as a shodow of His. His allegory about a man knocking at the door of his beloved is famous. The voice from inside asks, 'Who is there?' and when the lover answers, It is 'I', the door is not opened. Later on when he comes again and again and knocks and, in answer to usual question, answers : It is Thou'. the door opens. The meaning of the allegory is that as long as the ego consciousness persists, full union be and God is not possible. Through the large number of his disciples and through his writtings Jalal-Din Rumi ecercised considerable influence on the development of Sufism.