Barakah
InIslam,BarakahorBaraka(Arabic:بركة"blessing" ) is a blessing power,[1]a kind of continuity of spiritual presence and revelation that begins withGodand flows through that and those closest to God.[2]
TheQuranis said to be charged withbarakah,and God can bestow prophets and saints withbarakah.EspeciallyMuhammadand his descendants are said to be especially endowed with it. These special people can transfer theirbarakahto ordinary people, both while being dead or alive.[3]
Sacred places are said to containbarakahand ward off evil spiritual forces, thus monastries and Sufi temples are often visited for protection against demonic beings.[4]
As a blessing force, barakah is also a force of creation and fertility, causing cereals to miraculously multiply.[5]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^Schimmel 1994,pp. xiv
- ^Nasr, Seyyed Hossein(1972).Sufi Essays.Albany: State University of New York Press. pp. 35–36.ISBN0873952332.
- ^Colin, G.S. (2012). Baraka. In P. Bearman (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Islam New Edition Online (EI-2 English). Brill.https://doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_1216
- ^Pantić, Nikola. Sufism in Ottoman Damascus: Religion, Magic, and the Eighteenth-century Networks of the Holy. Taylor & Francis, 2023.
- ^Colin, G.S. (2012). Baraka. In P. Bearman (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Islam New Edition Online (EI-2 English). Brill.https://doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_1216
Works cited
[edit]- Schimmel, Annemarie(1994).Deciphering the Signs of God: A Phenomenological Approach to Islam.State University of New York Press.ISBN978-0791419823.
General references
[edit]- Coulon, C., et al. (1988).Charisma and Brotherhood in African Islam.Oxford University Press.ISBN0-19-822723-X.
- Meri, J.W. (1999)Aspects of Baraka (Blessings) and Ritual Devotion among Medieval Muslims and Jews.Medieval Encounters.5, pp. 46–69.
- Takim, L. N. (2006).The Heirs of the Prophet: Charisma And Religious Authority in Shi'ite Islam.SUNY Press.ISBN0791481913.
- Werbner, P., et al. (1998).Embodying Charisma: Modernity, Locality and Performance of Emotion in Sufi Cults.Routledge.ISBN1134746938.