Product Code Database
The Maryamiyya Order is a tariqa or Sufi order founded by Sheikh Isa Nur ad-Din–Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998). It is a branch of the Shadhiliyya–Darqawiyya–Ahmad al-Alawi order, with communities in Europe, the Americas and the Islamic world. Its doctrine is based on what it understands to be the universal truths of pure esoterism, and its method conforms to the essential elements of the Sufi path.
He was 16 when he discovered the writings of René Guénon. These confirmed and helped to structure his own convictions. In 1931, he began to correspond with Guénon, who advised him to turn to Islam and Sufism. At the end of 1932, Schuon traveled to Mostaganem, Algeria, where he entered Islam, receiving the name Isa. He spent nearly four months in the zawiya of Sheikh Ahmad al-Alawi, who initiated him into Sufism and gave to him the additional name of Nur ad-Din.
Three years later, he returned to Mostaganem where, he reports, Sheikh Adda Ben Tounes, successor to Sheikh al-Alawi, conferred upon him the function of muqaddam, authorizing him to initiate aspirants into the Alawi order. Returning to Europe, he established zawiyas in Switzerland and France, composed mostly of fellow readers of Guénon. At the end of 1936, Schuon awoke one morning with the certainty of having been invested with the function of spiritual master or Sufi sheikh. Several of those close to him reported dreams they had experienced the same night, confirming this new function. As each Sufi sheikh is independent, Schuon's group became an autonomous branch of the Tariqa Alawiyya.
More specifically, the Maryami spiritual method is based on the central practices of Sufism, starting with the ritual prayer ( salah), the invocation of the Divine Name (Dhikrullah) and the individual retreat ( khalwa). Originally for the benefit of his Western disciples, Schuon focused on the essential and obligatory elements of Islamic law ( sharia). He did so in part because he considered the full observance of the sharia by Westerners in the West to be unrealistic and also because, in line with other Sufi masters, he wanted the emphasis placed on the invocation of the Divine Name rather than on the accumulation of meritorious practices. Some of the modalities of this relaxation aroused opposition within and outside of the order.
Schuon expounds his perennialist philosophy in some twenty books, in which he highlights such essential necessities as prayer, virtue and beauty, along with the awareness of the maladies of modernism, which he contrasts with the traditional, God-centered mentality. "What distinguishes us above all–he says–from Muslims by birth or conversion–'psychologically' one might say–is that our mind is centered a priori on universal metaphysics ( Advaita Vedanta, Shahadah, Risalat El-Ahadiyah) and the universal way of the Divine Name ( japa yoga, Nianfo, dhikr, prayer of the heart)."
Although not directly affiliated with his Sufi order, Schuon had a number of followers from other religions, who shared the same perennialist perspective and followed the rites and invocatory practices of their own religion. Most of them adhered to Christianity, and a few to Hinduism, Judaism and Buddhism.
"the Virgin Mother, who–according to a symbolism common to Christianity and Islam–has suckled her children, the Prophets and sages, from the beginning and outside of time. ... Mother of all the Prophets and matrix of all the sacred forms, she has her place of honor within Islam even while belonging a priori to Christianity; for this reason, she constitutes a kind of link between these two religions, whose common purpose is universalizing the monotheism of Israel. The Virgin Mary is not merely the embodiment of a particular mode of sanctity; she embodies sanctity as such. She is not one particular color or one particular perfume; she is colorless light and pure air. In her essence she is identified with merciful Infinitude, which–preceding all forms–overflows upon them all, embraces them all, and reintegrates them all."
After emigrating to Bloomington, Indiana (U.S.) in 1980, Schuon was visited annually by Thomas Yellowtail, Crow medicine man and leader of the Crow Sun Dance. During several of these visits, Yellowtail taught Schuon and some of his followers several of his tribal dances and songs, which later led the Bloomington community to hold occasional "Indian Days".
Participating in Native American Indian dances has caused some controversy among Maryamis. Schuon clarified that these are only secular , without any rite and thus without interference with the Sufi path. He further said that these meetings are optional and that they "are situated outside the practices of the Tariqah–they pertain, in sum, to our private life". More broadly, Schuon explained that "given that our perspective is essentialist, and therefore universalist and primordialist, it is entirely plausible that we have fraternal relationship with the world of the American Indians, which integrates Virgin Nature into religion; furthermore, it can give us–we who live in an unwholesome universe made of artificiality, ugliness, and pettiness–a refreshing breath of primordiality and grandeur."
In 1991, a former disciple accused Schuon of misconduct during an Indian Day. An investigation was launched, but the chief prosecutor concluded that "there is not a shred of evidence" and dismissed the case. Herald-Times article "Schuon indictments dropped", Nov. 21, 1991 The prosecutor issued an apology to Schuon, and the local press published an editorial entitled "Schuon case a travesty". Herald-Times editorial "Schuon case a travesty", Nov. 26, 1991
|
|
