RELIGIOUS ORDERS

TRANSFORMATION OF DERVISH LODGES INTO TAVERNS AND BROTHELS
When the Prophet was incontestably the unique spiritual guide, the only institution of Islam was the mosque. Prayers, education and all kinds of social activities took place in the mosque. Even the dervish lodges and the inmates of dervish convents acknowledge that during the lifetime of the Prophet and the reign of the Four Caliphs there had been no lodges or convents other than the mosque. It is generally acknowledged that the first order had been established circa 760 AD somewhere in the vicinity of Damascus. Yet, the sprawling over a vast area of lodges was to take place hundreds of years later. It is a fact that lodges served a variety of purposes, among others as an academy of sciences, a military headquarters, infirmaries, etc. It is also a fact that, in the terms of Kuþadalý Ibrahim, a day came when they served as brothels and taverns; and practices not related in any way to the injunctions and prescriptions of the Quran took place here in the name of religion. Kuþadalý, who witnessed this, refused to re-erect the lodge burned down and said that the lodges that had been established hundreds of years ago should be closed down, that the entire surface of the earth could be used as a single lodge and that, with the exception of the mosque, just as in the lifetime of the Prophet, all religious institutions other than the mosque should be closed and that the special prayers conducted in lodges should be abandoned leaving the place only to the reciting of the Quran.

Lodges may have started to be erected in 150 AH, but their spread as institutions took place actually circa 600 AH. It is generally acknowledged that the first institutionalized religious order was the Khadiriya; the founder was Abdulkadir Gilani, d. 562 AH. To quote only a few more: Rýfaiyah, founder Ahmad ar Rýfai, d. 578; Baktashiyah, founder Hacý Bektaþ Veli, d. 669 AH; Mawlawiyah, founder Mawlana Djalal al-din Rumi, d. 672 AH; Khalwatiyah, founder Amaladdin al Khalveti, d. 750 AH; Nakshibandiyah, founder Bahauddin Nakshiband, d. 791 AH.

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PAGE 3: WHOSE SPIRITUAL LEADER IS SATAN?
PAGE 4: BLIND OBEDIENCE TO SHEIKHS
PAGE 5: EXPLOITED DISCIPLES
PAGE 6: LEGENDS
PAGE 7: FUNNY LINK
PAGE 8: DO NOT FOLLOW IN THE WAKE OF THEIR MASTERS
PAGE 9: DISCIPLES THAT CAUSE THEIR SHEIKHS TO FLY

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