The National Library of Israel posted an article regarding the radical Sufi conception of religion. There’s discussion of things like circumambulating sacred structures and a saint that suggests that in looking at him you are looking at God. Might be relevant to y’all. You figger it out. The article starts:
“Sometime in the mid-ninth century CE, a Sufi initiate named Bayazid set off by foot from his home in north-central Iran toward Mecca, aiming to complete the hajj pilgrimage to the holy city—a journey of almost 2,500 kilometers. In every town and village through which he passed along the way, he sought out local mystics and saints, hoping to find his own true master. Finally, in an unnamed town, Bayazid encountered a poor, blind Sufi hunched with age. The sage asked him of his plans, and Bayazid told him he aimed to complete the hajj.
‘Just walk around me seven times instead; that’s better than the hajj,’ the old sheikh replied,
“Complete your hajj thus! Reach your journey’s end! You’ve run to Safa, entered purity; you’ve done the Umrah; live eternally! He judges me much loftier, I swear, than that mere house of His. Let us compare: That Ka‘ba is the home of piety, but I contain His deepest mystery; inside the Ka‘ba no one’s ever stepped and my pure heart none but God will accept; when you have seen me, you have seen God too; You’ll circle then the Ka‘ba that’s most true.”
