Afghan polygraph
- What is the "Afghan polygraph"? - you ask at the hot spots.
- Probably, this is when your questions are answered under the threat of being thrown from a helicopter, - the veterans answer.
No, the “Afghan polygraph” is not violence, but perhaps the wisdom of the ages, leading its lineage from the mystical teachings of the Sufis, to which, if it was not a clever hoax or fraudulent trick, had to be slightly touched.
At the end of the 90 of the last century, after the withdrawal of Soviet troops, the overthrow of the government of Najibullah, and then the government of the Mujahideen, the emergence and success of the Taliban and the widespread fighting throughout Afghanistan, the situation reached a dead end. The anti-Taliban coalition (ATK), or the Northern Alliance, was seriously battered by the Taliban (DT) movement and, in fact, controlled only a few provinces not in northern Afghanistan. The armed forces of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, recognized at that time only by two states - Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, have exhausted after the offensive. Moreover, the guerrilla movement of Hazaras, supporters of Abdurashid Dostum and Ahmad Shah Massoud was expanding in the territories they captured, and pressure on the DT from the international community increased, which also put the Taliban in difficult military-political conditions.
Meanwhile, the international community in the face of the United States and Western European countries, concerned about the spread of Islamic terrorism, and, of course, Russia and other CIS countries that are not interested in approaching the southern frontiers of Islamic radicals, has stepped up diplomatic and not only diplomatic efforts in an attempt to put the opposing parties to the negotiating table.
Under these conditions, measures were taken to implement the idea of convening the Loy Jirga, or the International Peace Conference on Afghanistan, with the goal of developing decisions and adopting agreements between all Afghan political forces to stop the hostilities and create conditions for a transition to a peaceful life. In connection with a wide range of Afghan national, religious and political forces, secret consultations were conducted through secret channels not only with representatives of a number of countries around the world involved in the Afghan confrontation, as well as with the opposing parties, the ATK and the Taliban, but also with political leaders who hold neutral positions in the Afghan conflict, some of which, as it turned out, were practically headed by authoritative Afghan sheikhs of Sufi orders (tariqats) Naqshbandiya and Kadiriya.
I had to negotiate with representatives of one of these Afghan delegations together with one operative, let's say, a Muslim. (At that time, we could conditionally be called Orthodox or Muslims. After all, most of our lives were atheists, and at that time most of us did not come to faith. Especially none of us observed any religious traditions and rituals.)
The meeting, after mutual greetings, began with a strange request from the Afghan side for each of us to tie on seven spoons on a simple knot from a napkin. Then, spreading our napkins tied with napkins and covering them with towels, the Afghans said prayers and pulled off the towels. My partner turned out to be a untied knot on one spoon, mine - on five. As a result of this test, the Afghans refused to negotiate with my friend, and I was told that they were ready to discuss all the issues frankly. Moreover, they added that if another knot had been untied on one of my spoons, they would, in spite of another religion, be invited to become their judge. At the same time, they stressed that “the main thing is purity of the Heart,” and they will teach the rest.
Whether it was a trick or a desire to break our group, I don’t know. But as the protagonist Al Pacino said in the film Devil's Advocate: Vanity is one of my favorite sins. So I want to believe that in our youth "we were better and kinder, and our lives were sung like a song ...". By the way, the negotiations were successful, and both parties subsequently strictly fulfilled their obligations.
For special forces and intelligence services, knowledge of psychology, the possibility of obtaining a complete and objective psychological portrait of an object of interest at all times was an important matter. It is clear that in this matter the special services in their activities are always trying to adopt the advanced experience of modern psychology, in which, however, one can get lost. After all, as they say, the soul prevents psychology from being scientific. As the scientists say: "Even the name is interfered with - Psychology" (that is, the science of the soul). There is no alternative to replacing the term: behaviorism, mentalism, cognitivism, connectionism, neuro-linguistic programming.
Spetsnazovtsu note: Polygraph in Afghan
Of course, how the aforementioned “Afghan polygraph” works is unknown to me to this day. Meanwhile, special services, as is known, when studying an object rely on classical methods of psychology. So let us recall how, according to the classics, they make up a psychological portrait of an object that can be summarized as follows:
Psychological portrait = personality motivation (worldview and orientation) + individual characteristics of mental processes and states (attention and observation, memory, thinking and speech, emotions and feelings, will) + manifestation of the properties of the nervous system as a dynamic basis of temperament (strength and weakness of nervous processes, balance or imbalance of nervous processes, their mobility or inertia) + character (attitude towards work, other people, attitude towards oneself) + abilities (intellectual level, efficiency, Blasting willpower, masculinity, perseverance, etc.) + communication skills + professional and life experience.
It should be remembered that the behavior of an object is determined by the situation, that is:
Behavior = psychological portrait + situation.
In this regard, pilots are tested in one Australian airline in the same way, and they work out interaction and mutual understanding. The crew is taken out of the city, put on an inflatable raft and offered to jointly scoop in the middle of the reservoir. After the raft is located far from the coast, all the plugs are automatically “fired” at once and it begins to sink, and the crew members find themselves in the water. Here it becomes clear who is worth something and whether these people can work together ...
Our special services also check, for example, candidates for work or illegal agents through operational instructions so that a person can open up and show himself in a critical situation. (The test here can be limited only by the operative’s fantasy, and also by financial possibilities. Operational experiments with the use of conditional violators of the state border, their introduction into pseudo-criminal groups, etc.) became “classic”.
Of course, political leaders are always under a special eye of psychology, and special services are actively eyeing the analysis of actions and the prediction of possible reactions. It should be noted that already at the end of the 50-ies, the CIA began to actively conduct research in a little-studied area at that time - the political behavior of the individual. Specialists in psychology and psychiatry began to comprehensively study the statesman of any country and made up his psychological portrait, accompanying him with conclusions, predictions and recommendations.
This work aroused great interest of US President John F. Kennedy, and soon the study of the psychological portrait became an indispensable type of preparation for American politicians for official summits. Thus, the psychological portrait of the Soviet leader N. S. Khrushchev, prepared on the eve of the Vienna meeting in 1961, was highly appreciated by the American president. Nevertheless, experts noted that although it was rather detailed, at the same time it did not differ in objectivity, since the negative relations between the USSR and the USA had a strong influence on the approach to its development.
However, to the success of psychologists, the experts subsequently attributed the well-prepared psychological portraits of the Israeli Prime Minister? Begin and the president of Egypt? Sadat. According to experts, their careful study has allowed Washington to achieve a favorable outcome of the Camp David talks in 1978.
The success of the CIA in this area contributed to the creation in its structure of a special unit - the Center for Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior (Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behaviour). It was later renamed the Political Psychology Center. In addition, the Office of Leadership Analysis was also set up in the Information and Analytical Directorate of the CIA to perform similar tasks.
The founder of the Center for Political Psychology is considered to be Professor J. Washington University J. Post, a psychiatrist by education, who graduated from Yale and Harvard Universities. Under his leadership, the development of psychological portraits of political leaders began to involve not only psychologists and psychiatrists, but also experts in the field of political economy, stories, culture and anthropology.
The technique of J. Post consisted in a scrupulous study of the biography and personality of a politician in order to reveal his “psychodynamics, manifested in a political setting”. By definition, J. Post, by personal psychodynamics is meant human behavior, representing a complex of conscious and unconscious desires and needs. To evaluate it, it is necessary to carefully study all aspects of the life of the subject, and especially the key moments in childhood and adolescence, that is, those years when he develops qualities that can manifest themselves in future political activities.
If there is sufficient information about the object, the receipt of which presents known difficulties, J. Post tried to determine the reasons that prompted the political leader in question to act in one way or another. For this, he tried to get answers to questions about whether a politician became passive during times of crisis or, on the contrary, took an active position; what will be his behavior if approached from a position of strength; what motivations they are driven by (achievement and retention of power, the desire to leave his name in history, the desire to be revered, etc.). Also, an important role in research is played by the study of speeches by a political leader, his spontaneous statements, and various publications.
J. Post is a staunch supporter of the “correspondence” study of politicians, since, in his opinion, direct contact with the subject may affect the analyst’s opinion, cause him to be mistaken in a number of aspects necessary for the study. Thus, the work on the psychological portrait of a political leader should be based on information provided by persons who know the person being studied.
In the Center for Political Psychology of the CIA was used not only the methodology of J. Post. Some of his colleagues moved away from the "stationary psychodynamic orientation technique." The most popular method used by these political psychologists is psycholinguistics, through which a politician can be characterized by analyzing his speech and writing. Specialists working in this vein consider this technique more effective than the method of psychobiography proposed by J. Post. Psycholinguists study speeches and interviews of foreign politicians, then use so-called “code” directories, which allow to “count” speech, that is, to identify speech turnovers, which are indicators of certain characteristics of the subject.
So, for the supporter of this method, D. Winter, a specialist in political behavior at the University of Michigan, the main personality assessment consists of two factors: a speech image and basic motivations, such as success, power, and origin. Moreover, motivation plays an important role. They allow us to make conditional (“if ... then”) predictions about future actions of a politician. By tracking these motivations in his speeches, it is possible to determine whether he has, for example, a predisposition to aggression in relation to any state. This is usually evidenced by the politician's use of a significant number of speech turns indicating an increase in the “motives of power”.
Another proponent of the psycholinguistics method, U. Weintraub, a psychiatrist at the University of Maryland, was concerned with developments that predict the most likely successor to A. Khomeini. According to his research, they should have become what happened later, Ali Akbar Hashemi - Rafsanjani. The conclusions were made on the basis of a thorough analysis of his pre-election speeches, which, unlike the speeches of his political rivals, were well received and supported by all political groups in Iran.
However, along with successes in preparing psychological portraits of political leaders, American psychologists also had failures. A good example is the speech of a CIA representative at the White House in October 1993 at one of the closed meetings. A psychological portrait was brought to the attention of those present, including information that the dictator of Haiti, J. B. Aristide, having a serious psychological disorder, was undergoing treatment in Montreal in 1980 year. This information came into print, and it soon became clear that they were not true and, moreover, obtained from dubious sources.
In this regard, recently, psychological portraits prepared by American specialists are losing their popularity. For psychologists, the difficulties associated with obtaining reliable information and its verification remain to this day. So, not being able to directly examine the personality of a politician through direct contact with him, specialists are forced to receive second-hand information. Often, these sources can not give reliable information because of their incompetence or intentional desire to distort the information. In this connection, it is often impossible to create an objective psychological portrait.
The CIA leadership has also repeatedly pointed out that the studies of the Center for Political Psychology were “the weakest in the analytical field”, since, often referring to databases for information about persons of interest, the Center’s specialists encounter a large number of errors and inaccuracies. And sometimes the complete absence of certain facts in the biographies of political leaders. However, despite the fact that psychologists have not always been able to fully cope with their tasks, the study and compilation of psychological portraits of political leaders of other countries by the US special services continues.
As we see: “Man is not created for the convenience of psychologists,” as psychologists say. Perhaps it still saves us from the soulless standardization of our “conveyor” world, and continues to amaze in knowledge of Man (created, as you know, “in the image and likeness ...”) of a host of scientists armed with polygraphs, the most modern laboratories and the latest theories and research in the field of psychology.
However, it seems, knowledge in the field of psychology, and in our conditions first of all national psychology, and religious studies will never be superfluous in the baggage of a spetsnaz man. Unfortunately, this experience, as a rule, is still not sufficiently transmitted and seriously studied.
From our dossier
Sufism (at-Tasawvuf) mystic-ascetic trend in Islam. There are several hypotheses of the origin of this word. Sufi authors often put his etymology to the root of the SPV - “to be clean, immaculate” - or to the expression Ahl al-Suffa (“people of the bench, or overhang”), which was applied to especially the faithful and pious followers of the Prophet from among the poor. Western European scientists until the beginning of the twentieth century were inclined to believe that the word at-Tasawwuf comes from the Greek word "wisdom." Nowadays, the point of view is generally accepted, according to which at-Tasawvuf is derived from the word suf - “wool”, since the coarse woolen garb has long been considered the usual attribute of the ascetic hermit, “God’s man”.
The essence of the Sufi practices, as claimed by Islamic mystics, is to perform a special ceremony - zikr, when, through repeated commemoration of the name of the Most High, the human soul attains a special state, which can be described as complete pacification.
Many, probably, in the films saw the Chechens committing a collective zikr - this is when believers gather in a circle, follow each other and lead chants. They say that this allows you to feel yourself as part of a unified community of believers, in which everyone is equal before God. At this moment, there is a feeling that Sufis call “jazz”, a feeling of belonging, empathy to their brothers in faith. Pride goes away, an understanding of the frailty and vanity of the world comes, and at this moment, as the Sufi teaching says, Allah turns his eyes to the one who prays. A believer who has become pure in heart is renounced temporal, material and rises to the knowledge of the laws of eternity. This is the meditative practice of the Sufis - followers of the Order of Kadiri.
Other Sufi orders suggest holding a hidden zikr when commemoration of God is accomplished and a similar state is achieved, but this is not shown in public. In general, the essence of Sufism is the knowledge of oneself and the constant struggle of man against evil within himself, when he gets rid of evil thoughts through special meditations and self-control, which is supported and instructed by the teacher, the sheikh, on this path.
Up to the present, Sufism continues to play an important role in the political life of a number of Muslim states of Central Asia, the Near and Middle East, the Maghreb (Algeria, Libya, etc.), as well as Turkey and the North Caucasus.
- Probably, this is when your questions are answered under the threat of being thrown from a helicopter, - the veterans answer.
No, the “Afghan polygraph” is not violence, but perhaps the wisdom of the ages, leading its lineage from the mystical teachings of the Sufis, to which, if it was not a clever hoax or fraudulent trick, had to be slightly touched.
At the end of the 90 of the last century, after the withdrawal of Soviet troops, the overthrow of the government of Najibullah, and then the government of the Mujahideen, the emergence and success of the Taliban and the widespread fighting throughout Afghanistan, the situation reached a dead end. The anti-Taliban coalition (ATK), or the Northern Alliance, was seriously battered by the Taliban (DT) movement and, in fact, controlled only a few provinces not in northern Afghanistan. The armed forces of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, recognized at that time only by two states - Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, have exhausted after the offensive. Moreover, the guerrilla movement of Hazaras, supporters of Abdurashid Dostum and Ahmad Shah Massoud was expanding in the territories they captured, and pressure on the DT from the international community increased, which also put the Taliban in difficult military-political conditions.Meanwhile, the international community in the face of the United States and Western European countries, concerned about the spread of Islamic terrorism, and, of course, Russia and other CIS countries that are not interested in approaching the southern frontiers of Islamic radicals, has stepped up diplomatic and not only diplomatic efforts in an attempt to put the opposing parties to the negotiating table.
Under these conditions, measures were taken to implement the idea of convening the Loy Jirga, or the International Peace Conference on Afghanistan, with the goal of developing decisions and adopting agreements between all Afghan political forces to stop the hostilities and create conditions for a transition to a peaceful life. In connection with a wide range of Afghan national, religious and political forces, secret consultations were conducted through secret channels not only with representatives of a number of countries around the world involved in the Afghan confrontation, as well as with the opposing parties, the ATK and the Taliban, but also with political leaders who hold neutral positions in the Afghan conflict, some of which, as it turned out, were practically headed by authoritative Afghan sheikhs of Sufi orders (tariqats) Naqshbandiya and Kadiriya.
I had to negotiate with representatives of one of these Afghan delegations together with one operative, let's say, a Muslim. (At that time, we could conditionally be called Orthodox or Muslims. After all, most of our lives were atheists, and at that time most of us did not come to faith. Especially none of us observed any religious traditions and rituals.)
The meeting, after mutual greetings, began with a strange request from the Afghan side for each of us to tie on seven spoons on a simple knot from a napkin. Then, spreading our napkins tied with napkins and covering them with towels, the Afghans said prayers and pulled off the towels. My partner turned out to be a untied knot on one spoon, mine - on five. As a result of this test, the Afghans refused to negotiate with my friend, and I was told that they were ready to discuss all the issues frankly. Moreover, they added that if another knot had been untied on one of my spoons, they would, in spite of another religion, be invited to become their judge. At the same time, they stressed that “the main thing is purity of the Heart,” and they will teach the rest.
Whether it was a trick or a desire to break our group, I don’t know. But as the protagonist Al Pacino said in the film Devil's Advocate: Vanity is one of my favorite sins. So I want to believe that in our youth "we were better and kinder, and our lives were sung like a song ...". By the way, the negotiations were successful, and both parties subsequently strictly fulfilled their obligations.
For special forces and intelligence services, knowledge of psychology, the possibility of obtaining a complete and objective psychological portrait of an object of interest at all times was an important matter. It is clear that in this matter the special services in their activities are always trying to adopt the advanced experience of modern psychology, in which, however, one can get lost. After all, as they say, the soul prevents psychology from being scientific. As the scientists say: "Even the name is interfered with - Psychology" (that is, the science of the soul). There is no alternative to replacing the term: behaviorism, mentalism, cognitivism, connectionism, neuro-linguistic programming.
Spetsnazovtsu note: Polygraph in Afghan
Of course, how the aforementioned “Afghan polygraph” works is unknown to me to this day. Meanwhile, special services, as is known, when studying an object rely on classical methods of psychology. So let us recall how, according to the classics, they make up a psychological portrait of an object that can be summarized as follows:Psychological portrait = personality motivation (worldview and orientation) + individual characteristics of mental processes and states (attention and observation, memory, thinking and speech, emotions and feelings, will) + manifestation of the properties of the nervous system as a dynamic basis of temperament (strength and weakness of nervous processes, balance or imbalance of nervous processes, their mobility or inertia) + character (attitude towards work, other people, attitude towards oneself) + abilities (intellectual level, efficiency, Blasting willpower, masculinity, perseverance, etc.) + communication skills + professional and life experience.
It should be remembered that the behavior of an object is determined by the situation, that is:
Behavior = psychological portrait + situation.
In this regard, pilots are tested in one Australian airline in the same way, and they work out interaction and mutual understanding. The crew is taken out of the city, put on an inflatable raft and offered to jointly scoop in the middle of the reservoir. After the raft is located far from the coast, all the plugs are automatically “fired” at once and it begins to sink, and the crew members find themselves in the water. Here it becomes clear who is worth something and whether these people can work together ...
Our special services also check, for example, candidates for work or illegal agents through operational instructions so that a person can open up and show himself in a critical situation. (The test here can be limited only by the operative’s fantasy, and also by financial possibilities. Operational experiments with the use of conditional violators of the state border, their introduction into pseudo-criminal groups, etc.) became “classic”.
Of course, political leaders are always under a special eye of psychology, and special services are actively eyeing the analysis of actions and the prediction of possible reactions. It should be noted that already at the end of the 50-ies, the CIA began to actively conduct research in a little-studied area at that time - the political behavior of the individual. Specialists in psychology and psychiatry began to comprehensively study the statesman of any country and made up his psychological portrait, accompanying him with conclusions, predictions and recommendations.
This work aroused great interest of US President John F. Kennedy, and soon the study of the psychological portrait became an indispensable type of preparation for American politicians for official summits. Thus, the psychological portrait of the Soviet leader N. S. Khrushchev, prepared on the eve of the Vienna meeting in 1961, was highly appreciated by the American president. Nevertheless, experts noted that although it was rather detailed, at the same time it did not differ in objectivity, since the negative relations between the USSR and the USA had a strong influence on the approach to its development.
However, to the success of psychologists, the experts subsequently attributed the well-prepared psychological portraits of the Israeli Prime Minister? Begin and the president of Egypt? Sadat. According to experts, their careful study has allowed Washington to achieve a favorable outcome of the Camp David talks in 1978.
The success of the CIA in this area contributed to the creation in its structure of a special unit - the Center for Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior (Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behaviour). It was later renamed the Political Psychology Center. In addition, the Office of Leadership Analysis was also set up in the Information and Analytical Directorate of the CIA to perform similar tasks.
The founder of the Center for Political Psychology is considered to be Professor J. Washington University J. Post, a psychiatrist by education, who graduated from Yale and Harvard Universities. Under his leadership, the development of psychological portraits of political leaders began to involve not only psychologists and psychiatrists, but also experts in the field of political economy, stories, culture and anthropology.
The technique of J. Post consisted in a scrupulous study of the biography and personality of a politician in order to reveal his “psychodynamics, manifested in a political setting”. By definition, J. Post, by personal psychodynamics is meant human behavior, representing a complex of conscious and unconscious desires and needs. To evaluate it, it is necessary to carefully study all aspects of the life of the subject, and especially the key moments in childhood and adolescence, that is, those years when he develops qualities that can manifest themselves in future political activities.
If there is sufficient information about the object, the receipt of which presents known difficulties, J. Post tried to determine the reasons that prompted the political leader in question to act in one way or another. For this, he tried to get answers to questions about whether a politician became passive during times of crisis or, on the contrary, took an active position; what will be his behavior if approached from a position of strength; what motivations they are driven by (achievement and retention of power, the desire to leave his name in history, the desire to be revered, etc.). Also, an important role in research is played by the study of speeches by a political leader, his spontaneous statements, and various publications.
J. Post is a staunch supporter of the “correspondence” study of politicians, since, in his opinion, direct contact with the subject may affect the analyst’s opinion, cause him to be mistaken in a number of aspects necessary for the study. Thus, the work on the psychological portrait of a political leader should be based on information provided by persons who know the person being studied.
In the Center for Political Psychology of the CIA was used not only the methodology of J. Post. Some of his colleagues moved away from the "stationary psychodynamic orientation technique." The most popular method used by these political psychologists is psycholinguistics, through which a politician can be characterized by analyzing his speech and writing. Specialists working in this vein consider this technique more effective than the method of psychobiography proposed by J. Post. Psycholinguists study speeches and interviews of foreign politicians, then use so-called “code” directories, which allow to “count” speech, that is, to identify speech turnovers, which are indicators of certain characteristics of the subject.
So, for the supporter of this method, D. Winter, a specialist in political behavior at the University of Michigan, the main personality assessment consists of two factors: a speech image and basic motivations, such as success, power, and origin. Moreover, motivation plays an important role. They allow us to make conditional (“if ... then”) predictions about future actions of a politician. By tracking these motivations in his speeches, it is possible to determine whether he has, for example, a predisposition to aggression in relation to any state. This is usually evidenced by the politician's use of a significant number of speech turns indicating an increase in the “motives of power”.
Another proponent of the psycholinguistics method, U. Weintraub, a psychiatrist at the University of Maryland, was concerned with developments that predict the most likely successor to A. Khomeini. According to his research, they should have become what happened later, Ali Akbar Hashemi - Rafsanjani. The conclusions were made on the basis of a thorough analysis of his pre-election speeches, which, unlike the speeches of his political rivals, were well received and supported by all political groups in Iran.
However, along with successes in preparing psychological portraits of political leaders, American psychologists also had failures. A good example is the speech of a CIA representative at the White House in October 1993 at one of the closed meetings. A psychological portrait was brought to the attention of those present, including information that the dictator of Haiti, J. B. Aristide, having a serious psychological disorder, was undergoing treatment in Montreal in 1980 year. This information came into print, and it soon became clear that they were not true and, moreover, obtained from dubious sources.
In this regard, recently, psychological portraits prepared by American specialists are losing their popularity. For psychologists, the difficulties associated with obtaining reliable information and its verification remain to this day. So, not being able to directly examine the personality of a politician through direct contact with him, specialists are forced to receive second-hand information. Often, these sources can not give reliable information because of their incompetence or intentional desire to distort the information. In this connection, it is often impossible to create an objective psychological portrait.
The CIA leadership has also repeatedly pointed out that the studies of the Center for Political Psychology were “the weakest in the analytical field”, since, often referring to databases for information about persons of interest, the Center’s specialists encounter a large number of errors and inaccuracies. And sometimes the complete absence of certain facts in the biographies of political leaders. However, despite the fact that psychologists have not always been able to fully cope with their tasks, the study and compilation of psychological portraits of political leaders of other countries by the US special services continues.
As we see: “Man is not created for the convenience of psychologists,” as psychologists say. Perhaps it still saves us from the soulless standardization of our “conveyor” world, and continues to amaze in knowledge of Man (created, as you know, “in the image and likeness ...”) of a host of scientists armed with polygraphs, the most modern laboratories and the latest theories and research in the field of psychology.
However, it seems, knowledge in the field of psychology, and in our conditions first of all national psychology, and religious studies will never be superfluous in the baggage of a spetsnaz man. Unfortunately, this experience, as a rule, is still not sufficiently transmitted and seriously studied.
From our dossierSufism (at-Tasawvuf) mystic-ascetic trend in Islam. There are several hypotheses of the origin of this word. Sufi authors often put his etymology to the root of the SPV - “to be clean, immaculate” - or to the expression Ahl al-Suffa (“people of the bench, or overhang”), which was applied to especially the faithful and pious followers of the Prophet from among the poor. Western European scientists until the beginning of the twentieth century were inclined to believe that the word at-Tasawwuf comes from the Greek word "wisdom." Nowadays, the point of view is generally accepted, according to which at-Tasawvuf is derived from the word suf - “wool”, since the coarse woolen garb has long been considered the usual attribute of the ascetic hermit, “God’s man”.
The essence of the Sufi practices, as claimed by Islamic mystics, is to perform a special ceremony - zikr, when, through repeated commemoration of the name of the Most High, the human soul attains a special state, which can be described as complete pacification.
Many, probably, in the films saw the Chechens committing a collective zikr - this is when believers gather in a circle, follow each other and lead chants. They say that this allows you to feel yourself as part of a unified community of believers, in which everyone is equal before God. At this moment, there is a feeling that Sufis call “jazz”, a feeling of belonging, empathy to their brothers in faith. Pride goes away, an understanding of the frailty and vanity of the world comes, and at this moment, as the Sufi teaching says, Allah turns his eyes to the one who prays. A believer who has become pure in heart is renounced temporal, material and rises to the knowledge of the laws of eternity. This is the meditative practice of the Sufis - followers of the Order of Kadiri.
Other Sufi orders suggest holding a hidden zikr when commemoration of God is accomplished and a similar state is achieved, but this is not shown in public. In general, the essence of Sufism is the knowledge of oneself and the constant struggle of man against evil within himself, when he gets rid of evil thoughts through special meditations and self-control, which is supported and instructed by the teacher, the sheikh, on this path.
Up to the present, Sufism continues to play an important role in the political life of a number of Muslim states of Central Asia, the Near and Middle East, the Maghreb (Algeria, Libya, etc.), as well as Turkey and the North Caucasus.
Information