During the annual Urs Festival in India some Sufi Muslim holy men known as Qalandars of the Chisti showing their devotion by sticking knives in eyes.
Thousands of devotees attend the six-day festival Amjer in Rajasthan commemorating the death, some 800 years ago, of Sufi saint Moinuddin Chishti, the founder of the Chisti order of Sufism. Apart form stabbing themselves in the eyes, these Sufi Muslim holy men also self-flagellate, drive spikes into their backs, pierce their cheeks with knives and skewers and take part in a 75 mile walk to a shrine in Bhadiyad, ending with an all-night singalong with other (presumably similarly maimed) worshipers.
Sufism differs from other forms of Islam with congregations formed around a grand master (Mawla) who are claimed to maintain “a direct chain of teachers back to the Prophet Muhammad.” Sufis consider themselves to be “the original true proponents of this pure original form of Islam.” The eyeball stabbing and the self-torture form part of the strict self-discipline Sufis consider evidence of their devotion.
Source: dangerousminds.net/
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