Sufi Notes
Teaching-Stories

It is stated that every passage in the Koran has seven meanings, each applicable to the state of the reader or listener. The dictum of Mohammed was: 'Speak to everyone in accordance with the degree of his understanding.'
The Sufi method, according to Ibrahim Khawwas, is: 'Demonstrate the unkown in terms of what is called "known" by the audience.'

Legend repeatedly links Dhun-Nun, the Egyptian (died 860), reputed author of the tale When the Waters Were Changed, with at leastone form of Free-masonry. He is, in any case, the earliest figure in the history of the Malamati Dervish Order, which has often been stated by Western students to have striking similarities with the craft of the Masons. Dhun-Nun, it is said, rediscovered the meaning of the Pharaonic hieroglyphics.

Ahmed el-bedavi (died 1276) is reputed to have said, in answer to the question: 'What is a barbarian?':
'A barbarian is one whose perceptions are so insensitive that he thinks that he can understandby thinking or feeling somethhing which can be perceived only through development and constant application tothe striving towards God.
'Men laugh at Moses and Jesus, either because they are utterly insensitive, or because they are themselves what these people really meant when they talked and acted.'
According to dervish lore, he was accused of preaching Christianity by Moslems, but repudiated by Christians because he refused to accept later Christian dogma literally.
He was founder of the Egyptian Bedavi Order.

Only a very few Sufi tales, according to Halqavi (who is the author of 'The Food of Paradise') can be read by anyone at any time and still affect the 'Inner conciousness' constructively.
'Almost all others,' he says, 'depend upon where, when and howthey are studied. Thus most people will find in them only what they expect to find: entertainment, puzzlement, allegory.'

Sufi authors make frequent references to Jesus as Master of the Way. There is, in addition, an enormous body of oral tradition about him current in the Middle East, which awaits a collector. Sufis say that 'Son of a Carpenter' and other vocational names given to Gospel characters are initiatory terms, not necessarily describing the individual's work.

In their psychological teaching, the Sufis claim that ordinary transmission of knowledge is subject to so much deformation through editing and false memory that it cannot be taken as a substitute for direct perception of fact.

Drinks of all kinds have been used by almost all peoples as allegories connected withthe serach for higher knowledge.
Coffee, the most recent of social drinks, was discovered by the dervish sheikh Abu el-Hasan Shadhili, at Mocha in Arabia.
Although the Sufis and others often clearly state that 'magical drinks' (wine, the water of life) are an analogy of certain experience, literalists students tend to believe that the origin of these myths dates from the discovery of some hallucinogenic or inebrietive quality in potations. According to th dervishes, such an idea is a reflection of the the investigator's incapacity to understand that they are speaking in parallels.

yak - one (1), do - two(2), se - three(3)

'To assume that one thing follows from another can be absurd and prevent further progress,' and 'Just because someon can perform one function does not prove that he can fulfil another.'

'People find the capacities and blessings of the Sufis impossible to believe. But such people are those who have no knowledge of real belief. They believe all kinds of things which are told them by people of authority.
'Real belief is something else. Those who are capable of real belief are those who have experienced a thing. When they have experienced ... capacities and blessings merely reported are of no use to them.' These words, reported of Sayed Shah (Qadiri, who died in 1854).

Considered a mystery by Orientalis,the Cult of the Snake and Peacock in Iraq was founded on the teaching of a Sufi Sheikh, Adi, son of Musafir, in the twelfth century.
In Arabic, 'Peacock' also stands for 'adornment'; while 'Snake' has the same letter-form as 'orgasm' and 'life'. Hence the symbolism of the crypti Peacock Angel Cult - Yezidis - is a way of indicating 'The Interior and the External', traditional Sufi formula.
The Cult still exists in the Middle East, and has adherents (none of them known to be Iraqis) in Britain and the United States.

'There is a limit beyond which it is unhealthy for mankind to conceal truth in order not to offend those whose minds are closed.' master Haidar Gul

Ibrahim Khawwaas (The Palm Weaver) defined the Sufi Path as: 'Allow what is done for you to be done for you. Do for yourself that which you have to do for yourself.'

In the Three Fishes:
>>holding the breath'may represent the sufi way that allows the
>>return safely to the the origine represented by the water...breath in arabic
>>is nafas which also stands for self so holding the nafas stands for
>>observing and subsequently knowing the nafas which is the central method of
>>sufism for the way back to origin...
> - nice explanation! I think the multiple meaninings of the
>word, "nafs" make the story sufi.



The Nail
A man and a nail had a conversation.
The nail said: 'I have often wondered, during my years
sticking here in this panel, what my fate is to be.'

The man said:
'Latent in your situation may be a tearing out with
pincers, a burning of wood and a fall, the rotting of the
plank--so many things.'

Said the nail:
'I should have known better than to ask such foolish
questions! Nobody can forsee even one thing that
might happen in the future, let alone a variety of them,
and all so very different and unlikely.' And he waited,
having learned this nail-wisdom, until someone else
should come along, someone who would talk
intelligently, and not threaten him.

(Idries Shah; Reflections; p 20)

Nothing good is ever lost. (I. Shah)

AH (anno Hegirae in the year of Hegirae more properly Hijra) is the recognised symbol for the Muslim era as AD is for the Christian era.

---Footnote from "Hero with a thousand faces", Joseph Campbell P74N - p75N ---
34 Compare the frogg of the fairy tale. In pre-Mohammedan Arabia the Jinn (Singular: m. Jinni; f. Jinniyah) were haunting demons of the deserts and wilderness. hairy and misformed, or else shaped like animals, osriches, or serpents, they were very dangerous to unprotected persons. The Prophet Mohammed admitted the existence of these heathen spirits in the (koran, 37:158), and incorporated them into the Mohammedan system, which recognizes three created intelligences under Allah: angels formed of light, Jinn of subtle fire, and man of the dust of the earth. The Mohammedan Jinn have the power of putting on any form they please, but not grosser than the essence of fire and smoke, and they can thus make themselves visible to mortals. There are three orders of Jinn: flyers, walkers, and divers. Many are supposed to be bad. The latter dwell and work in close association with the Fallen Angels, whose chief is Iblis ("the despairer").

33 An Ifrit (Ifritah) is a powerful Jinni (Jinnyah). The Marids are a particularly powerful and dangerous class of Jinn.

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"Iblis the Accursed"

Maymunah, Jinnyah- seed of Iblis the Accursed and daughter of 'Al-Dimiryat
, a reknowned king of the Jinn. Maymunah is "a true believing Jinn."
Dahnash - a Inferit.

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