Abstract:

Abstract Sufism or Islamic mysticism is a certain interpretation of Islam religion. It has been institutionalized through sects and lodges and became the most effective agent in shaping of traditional Islamic sentiment. It is a historical fact that many religious-moral concepts in Islamic mystical thought gain a meaning in its own way. This is felt in the meanings that are attributed to the world concept. In sufistic thought the world is considered as “baseness, evil” which includes everything, material and nonmaterial, that disenchanting humans of Allah by engaging they bodily and mentally. In sufistic thought the world is considered as a negative value that should be overcome in order to reach ‘perfect human being’ model in training process. In this way souls are kept away from world, bodily and mentally, by creating a negative perception against the world. It should be conformed to the methods such as seclusion, ordeal, privacy and navigation and asceticism or techniques such as eating sparingly, sleeping little, reticence, invocation, contemplation and reclusion in order to adopt asceticism. These experiences can be classified as “physiological mortification” in the meaning of restricting bodily process,” mental mortification” in the meaning of disciplining mental process and “social mortification” in the meaning of protecting the sense organs from social effects. In this context we consider the asceticism as educational philosophy of Sufism and the experiences of seclusion, ordeal, privacy and journey as educational methods and mortifications as educational technics.     In Islamic mysticism, approach of moving away from worldly interests and pleasures, i.e.  mortification methods we may describe as follows: asceticism and limitation of physical processes as “physiological mortification”; to discipline mental processes as “mental mortification”; protection of the sense organs from social influence as “social mortification”, help people eliminate the disruptive effects of human desires on consciousness and pass to the state of receiving divine truths fully. Thus, through spiritual training, it is provided the heart is cleaned, the soul is purified and the world obstacle on the way of getting mystical knowledge is removed.

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