Barakah

Blessing power in Islam

In Islam, Barakah or Baraka (Arabic: بركة "blessing") is a blessing power,^[1] a kind of continuity of spiritual presence and revelation that begins with God and flows through that and those closest to God.^[2]

The Quran is said to be charged with barakah, and God can bestow prophets and saints with barakah. Especially Muhammad and his descendants are said to be especially endowed with it. These special people can transfer their barakah to ordinary people, both while being dead or alive.^[3]

Sacred places are said to contain barakah and ward off evil spiritual forces, thus monastries and Sufi temples are often visited for protection against demonic beings.^[4]

As a blessing force, barakah is also a force of creation and fertility, causing cereals to miraculously multiply.^[5]

References

^ Schimmel 1994, pp. xiv
^ Nasr, Seyyed Hossein (1972). Sufi Essays. Albany: State University of New York Press. pp. 35–36. ISBN 0873952332.
^ Colin, G.S. (2012). Baraka. In P. Bearman (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Islam New Edition Online (EI-2 English). Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_1216
^ Pantić, Nikola. Sufism in Ottoman Damascus: Religion, Magic, and the Eighteenth-century Networks of the Holy. Taylor & Francis, 2023.
^ Colin, G.S. (2012). Baraka. In P. Bearman (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Islam New Edition Online (EI-2 English). Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_1216

Works cited

Schimmel, Annemarie (1994). Deciphering the Signs of God: A Phenomenological Approach to Islam. State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0791419823.

General references

Coulon, C., et al. (1988). Charisma and Brotherhood in African Islam. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-822723-X.
Meri, J.W. (1999) Aspects of Baraka (Blessings) and Ritual Devotion among Medieval Muslims and Jews. Medieval Encounters. 5, pp. 46–69.
Takim, L. N. (2006). The Heirs of the Prophet: Charisma And Religious Authority in Shi'ite Islam. SUNY Press. ISBN 0791481913.
Werbner, P., et al. (1998). Embodying Charisma: Modernity, Locality and Performance of Emotion in Sufi Cults. Routledge. ISBN 1134746938.