ナクシュバンディー教團の修行法について

Abstract

Heretofore, not many scholars have researched the position of the Sufi Orders in the history of Islam. Even basic aspects of the orders, such as the kind of goals they pursued and the kind of methods of discipline they practiced have not yet been clarified. This treatise will explain the contents of the methods of discipline practiced by the large and prominent Islamic order, the Naqshbandi Order, during its early period. I shall try to indicate several characteristics of the order that caused its development into such a great order. The characteristics of the order's methods of discipline that have already been clarified are (1) regard for the sunna and the sharia, (2) esteem held for the participation of lay members by attaching importance to the internal ascenticism, to which I want to add (3) importance attached to the suhbat (intimate conversations) held between disciples and the shaykh. This emphasis on the suhbat indicates a turn away from the secret and closed nature of the former orders, and made effective the two former characteristics in expansion and development of the Naqshbandi Order in the contemporary Islamic society. Another characteristic of the order's methods of discipline, the silent dhikr, also had an important effect on the expanding influence of the order, although this method deeply retained the aspect of secrecy. In the history of the order, vocal dhikr was often used as the dhikr of the order. This fact evidences the continued existence of persons who opposed to the silent dhikr in the order.