title: The Path of Muhammad: A Book on Islamic Morals & Ethics by Imam Birgivi (Spiritual Classics)
author: Shaykh Tosun Bayrak
description: This long-awaited classic of Islamic spirituality fulfills important needs in scholarship on the history of Sufism and in the contemporary search for spiritual direction in todays troubled world. Imam Birgivis manual of ethical conduct and spiritual practice details the "Path of Muhammad" (al-Tariqah al-Muhammadiyyah), a Sufi method created in late fifteenth century Morocco and disseminated as far as India and beyond through the mediation of Ottoman Sufi masters. This path seeks to instill the sunnah of Muhammad not only through imitation of the Prophets outward behavior, but more importantly, by teaching one to assimilate the Prophets inner spiritual states. In this way, the seeker becomes empowered to find a personal solution to the challenges of the times without merely repeating the answers of the past. Shaykh Tosun Bayraks lucid and at times lyrical translation of Imam Birgivis text gives new life to this work and makes the reader believe it was written yesterday, not five centuries ago. In an era of rampant fundamentalism and simplistic and politicized responses to the worlds problems, this work reminds us that the greater struggle is within ourselves, and that the life of the body cannot be improved without the transformation of the soul. The term, al-Tariqah al-Muhammadiyyah, appears to have been used for the first time by the Moroccan Sufi Abdallah al-Ghazwani (d. 1528-9). A Bedouin by origin, Ghazwani is one of the famous "Seven Saints" of Marrakech and is known locally as Mul al-Qusur (Master of Palaces). In his works, Ghazwani also refers to the Path of Muhammad as the "Method of the Muhammadan Sunnah" (Madhhab al-Sunnah al-Muhammadiyyah) and the "Technique of Archetypal Perception" (Suluk al-Nazrah al-Azaliyyah). The link between this Moroccan Sufi and Imam Birgivis teachers may have been the Egyptian jurist, Sufi, and Quran commentator Muhammad al-Laqani (d. 1528-9), who corresponded extensively with Ghazwani about the details of al-Tariqah al-Muhammadiyyah. Sufis of the Qadiriyyah Sufi order ultimately passed on these doctrines throughout the Ottoman Empire and South Asia. In Ghazwanis version of the Path of Muhammad, the key figure is the "Bell Saint" (al-Jaras), the axial Sufi teacher of his time, who can hear the "pealing" or reverberation of the divine archetypes on the verge of their actualization into forms. The ability of the Bell Saint to teach his followers to perceive these reverberations is based on his assumption of the Prophetic Inheritance (al-wirathah al-nabawiyyah), which comes about through the assimilation of the Prophets inner sunnah or spiritual consciousness. Ghazwanis concept of the Bell Saint comes from a famous tradition, found in the hadith collections of Bukhari, Tirmidhi, and Nasai, where the Prophet describes the sound of divine revelation as like the clanging of a bell. In the words of Ahmad al-Buni (d. 1225), an earlier Sufi who used this metaphor, "The bell tolls for each man. He who listens to it is elevated and is taken from the world for union with Allah, which is the goal of prayer."
zlib_text:  
   
   
   
   
   
  UNDERSTANDING 
  MUHAMMAD 
  AND  
  MUSLIMS  
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Ali Sina  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  
   
   
   
  Publisher: Felibri.com 
  felibri@gmail.com 
  Publication date: November 2014 
  Distributed by Ingram Book Group  
   
   
  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication 
  Sina, Ali 
         Understanding Muhammad and muslims / by Ali Sina. 
  Includes index. 
  ISBN 978-1-926800-05-9 
        1. Muhammad, Prophet, d. 632--Psychology.  2. Islam-- 
  Controversial literature.  I. Title. 
  BP169.S55 2011                297.6'3              C2011-904701-2 
   
   
  Copyright © Ali Sina 
  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in 
  a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, 
  mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior 
  permission of the publisher. For information about permission to translate or 
  reproduce selections from this book, write to faithfreedom2@gmail.com 
   
   
   
   
    
   
   
   
   
  Picture on the cover: Muhamma