YSP 38 Carl Ernst | The History of Sufism and Yoga

In this episode we speak with Carl Ernst about his career of scholarship on Sufism-which he describes as the tradition of ethics and spirituality associated with Islam. In particular we discuss the unique history of Sufism's engagement with Hindu forms of yoga in northern India, which has been the subject of numerous important publications by Ernst. We discuss the nature of Sufism, the fluid boundaries of religious identity, and the fascinating history of translation and adaptation of yoga within the Sufi orders, including the unique transmission of the "Ocean of Life" (Baḥr al-ḥayāt), compiled by Muḥammad Ghawth in 1550. We conclude with a preview of Ernst's upcoming online course, YS 123 | Sufism and Yoga.
Speaker Bio
Dr. Carl W. Ernst is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies Emeritus, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is an academic specialist in Islamic studies, with a focus on West and South Asia. Ernst has received research fellowships from the Fulbright program, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and he has been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His research, based on the study of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu, has been mainly devoted to the study of three areas: general and critical issues of Islamic studies, premodern and contemporary Sufism, and Indo-Muslim culture.
He studied comparative religion at Stanford University (A.B. 1973) and Harvard University (Ph.D. 1981). He has done extended research tours in India (1978-79, 1981), Pakistan (1986, 2000, 2005), and Turkey (1991), and has been a regular visitor to the Gulf, Turkey, Iran, and Southeast Asia for lectures and conferences. His next publications, coming out in August 2023, are I Cannot Write My Life: Islam, Arabic, and Slavery in Omar ibn Said’s America, co-authored with Mbaye Lo (UNC Press, 2023), and Breathtaking Revelations: The Science of Breath, from the Fifty Kamarupa Verses to Hazrat Inayat Khan, co-authored with Patrick d’Silva (Suluk Press, 2023).
Links
YS 123 | Sufism and Yoga - www.yogicstudies.com/ys-123
carlwernst.web.unc.edu/

[@TamAndalib-qh2li]

That’s my Islamic studies professor as a teen. Amazingly brilliant w & yet so open minded-he was not a “dominating persona” as a professor . I remember he just quietly observed while we came to our own conclusions in our “open circle freshman seminar” That’s why I have such fond memories of his class -I learned so much & grew astronomically intellectually & it’s only because of his making sure his “Islamic curriculum “ had a wide variety of progressive Muslim thinkers . Thankful for Dr. Ernst coming into my life.

[@dsbdsb6637]

I prefer the term Mixed spaces to Syncretism. It's interesting for me to see how medieval Indic-Islamic connections are emphasized without using the term 'Orientalism' {maybe because of how Colonization appropriated global Knowledge for it's purposes & how slower / weaker was the Islamic appropriation in medieval times} while the beliefs which clearly had shared milieu for a much longer duree of history aka Dharmic / Indic beliefs & have more similarities with local cultures, communities etc. the difference is emphasized but i am glad that the talk highlighlighted some very important issues.

[@sabinak8182]

I just stumbled on this and I’m so glad I did !! Thank you both 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

[@johnleebold8894]

Thank you a very interesting introduction to Dr Carls course as well as his personal journey of learning through his academic lens. I’m interested in his knowledge of Panini’s grammar in context historically in relation to Persian and Arabic languages. Which developed earliest ? and who influenced who first ?

[@AJ-SuriaYoga]

26:50 - meaning of tassawuf

[@SparkleInMoonlight]

I´m so happy to have finally sufism on Yogic Studies :-) It was somehow missing there

[@AJ-SuriaYoga]

33:20 - Tomb of Eve near the Red Sea Jeddah

[@stresst]

Very interesting insight. Spirituality or Sufism existed before time, will remain after time and has no bounds. I'd like to say that the practice of Yoga was taken from the Sufis and monetised by the Hindus. And 90% of the Guru Granth Saab consists of Hazrat Baba Farid u Din Masood Ganj Shakar RA's words complied by Guru Nanak Dev Ji. I offer a new book which will be of great interest for you to read 'Gems of Sufism' by Dr Jalil Aslam. Written for today's time by a living Sufi Saint.

[@AnAncient76]

Everything is taken from the Sufis, including Vedic knowledge. In what today is called India 200 years ago nobody knew what Vedas and Sanskrit are. Nobody spoke Sanskrit. European masons have created today's India and their culture.