A translation by Tarek Ghanem
Many neighborhoods traditionally used to be named after one of their residents, in recognition of their piety and influence on their community. The neighbourhood of al-Tunisi (literally the Tunisian) in old Cairo is named after the shaykh, educator and author of the new translation of the text below, titled ‘the Law of Repentance’. Al-Shaykh Abu al-Mawahib al-Tunisi (d. 881/1477) is author the Qawanin hikm al-ishraq (The Laws of Wisdoms of Illumination), the book to which our Law of Repentance belongs. In his biographical dictionary, al-Tabaqat al-kubra, Imam al-Sha’rani (d. 973/1565) describes the Shaykh Abu al-Mawahib and his book by asserting, “He has al-Qanun on the science of the [Sufi] Folks which is a splendid, unmatched book. It testifies to his complete sapiential experience in the spiritual path.”[i]
Shaykh Abu al-Mawahib Muhammad bin Ahmad bin Ahmad bin Dawud bin Salamah al-Tunisi, known as Ibn Zaghdan, was born in Tunisia in 820/1417. He died in Cairo in 881/1477 and is buried in a mosque that bears his name to this day. He memorized the Qur’an and studied Arabic, theology, and Maliki fiqh from a young age in Tunisia before moving in Cairo. After settling in Cairo, he resided near al-Azhar Mosque and his spiritual retreat was no other than the very minaret of that famous mosque and honored educational institution. In Cairo he studied Hadith with the erudite master Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (d. 885/1449) and Sufism with Yahya ibn Abi al-Wafa’. He came to be associated with the Shadhili Sufi order and the Wafa’iyya branch, which was started by Shaykh Ali al-Wafa (d. 807/1405) and then continued to become a vibrant zawiya under his sons in the Mamluk era. Currently the Mosque of Waffa’iyya is separated from the Mosque of al-Tunisi by a highway. From Cairo Shaykh Abu al-Mawhib went to perform pilgrimage and stayed there for a while. Imam al-Manawi describes Shaykh Abu al-Mawahib as “His words are well-regarded. Talk about his stature testify to his elevated rank. He is the imam of piety, the of chief the ascetics, and the treasure of the Gnostics.”[ii] Shaykh Abu al-Mawahib was known for his connection with and immense reverence for the Prophet, Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him. His profound admixture (mazj), or intertextual commentary, on the famous Prayer of Ibn Mashish, titled al-Wazifa, continues to be recited to this day. He authored few books on spiritual topics and a collection of poetry. His Law of the Wisdom of Illumination is his most celebrated. According to its author, the reason he wrote down these laws is, “Because they contain that which is either as swift passing as an arrow or lofty and pristine, referring to knowledge with the most gracious allusion… offering intimacy to the wayfarer in the beginning, and cause him or her to reach guidance, God’s willing, in the end.”[iii]
Repentance in Islam is not only an act of rectification and cleansing of the heart. Al-Tawwab, meaning the Repenter or Relenter, is one of Allah’s ninety nines Beautiful Names. Allah also inspires us to turn by affirming, {Truly, Allah loves those who repent} (2:222). He also cautions us that, {Those who do not repent are the wrongdoers} (49:11). Also our beloved Prophet, Allah’s peace and blessing be upon, says, “I am the Messenger of repentance” (narrated by Muslim), and also says about himself, “I seek Allah’s forgiveness and repent to Him a hundred times a day” (al-Nasa’i and Ahmad). Starting with Adam, peace be upon him, returning to Allah the soil in which our souls are rooted. According to the Qur’an, Allah not only accepted the repentance of Adam, peace upon him, He also inspired him with the prayer of leading to his repentance (2:37). Repentance is a way of being and an outlook with which the believers advance in their life and path by constantly creating new openings and beginnings for themselves, by way of returning to their deity, anchoring themselves in primordial truths of their bigger reality, and achieving their maximal potential. No wonder then that, as a spiritual and practical act, repentance takes a centerstage in the story of our existence and the divine Trust and ethical responsibility we have.
We did offer the Trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they refused to bear its burden and were afraid of it, and man picked it up. Indeed he is unjust, unaware. The result (of all this) is that Allah will punish the hypocrites, men and women, and the idolaters, men and women, and will accept the repentance of the believing men and women. Surely Allah is Most-Forgiving, Very-Merciful. (33:72-73)
The Law of Repentance is one of fourteen sections of the book of Law of Wisdoms of Illumination. As a literary and spiritual work, it is unique in its style and conten. The below is a new translation of one of its section. An old translation under the title Illumination in Islamic Mysticism, by Edward Jabra Jurji, was published in 1938. Despite its fluency, a new translation is needed. For example, even when followed by speaking about misguided groups (as in the translation below), the translator translated jama’a (lit. community) as “the Sufis”, instead of the obvious and correct translation as the Sunni Orthodoxy (ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jama’). Each section of the book, or separate law for spiritual illumination, is made of a collection of rhyming interchangeable sets of aphorisms. For example the First Law of Divine Oneness (tawhid), is made of two sets of aphorism. It starts with headed as a ‘reality’ (haqiqa), followed by ‘subtilty’ (daqiqa), and then back to ‘reality’, and so forth. In the section on repentance there is dialectic between ‘affirmations’ (sing. taqrir) and ‘cautions’ (sing. tahzir). Between every affirmation and caution that author ably digs for a new understanding of how to best repent is achieved. Other laws in the book cover sincerity, asceticism, love, vigilant self-accountability, gnosis, and is concluded with general and special sainthood (wilaya), among others.
I trust that the readers can benefit from the inspiring insights of this text.
Being a translation of Qanun al-Tawba, from Abu al-Mawahib al-Tunisi al-Shadhili’s Qawanin hikm al-Ishraq ila kafat al-Sufiyya bi-jami’ al-afaq
The Law of Repentance (tawba): Meaning Returning (awba)
The Most Sublime says, {And turn all together to Allah, O you believers; so that you may prosper} (24:21).
Affirmation: According to the consensus of the Community [of the Sunni Orthodoxy], excluding the people of innovation and deviation, the conditions for repentance are: (1) to have remorse for contraversions that a servant committed, (2) to quit immediately from them without slowness or looking back, (3) to have resolve to never recommit them in the future, (4) to give back any property that was unlawfully taken, and; (5) to seek to free oneself from falsely falling into speaking ill of others in the honor.
Caution: Never ride the limping ride of disobedience, least it stops midway on the winding road. Rather, race in and march uprightly on the straight path.
Affirmation: He only commended you to repent in order to cleanse you from desecration, and in order to adorn you with the attributes of satisfaction. Therefore, rid yourself from your base and reprehensible attributes, and, instead, take on His majestic and honorable attributes.
They have elected you to a matter, so lofty–
If only you are able to understand that.
So be sagacious not to graze with the trivial herds.
Caution: Never abandon repentance, because the sign of prosperity is to adopt the path of the success.
Affirmation: He who has never acquired true repentance has not cleansed himself according to the People of the Path (ashab al-tariqah). Therefore, cleanse yourself and be among the repented so that He adores you with His attributes.
He, Most Sublime, says, {Truly, Allah loves those who repent, and He loves those who cleanse themselves} (2:222).
Caution: Never construct your castle of works on anything but the foundation of repentance and seeking forgiveness; so that you are not like he who builds on the brink of a crumbling abyss.
Affirmation: The repentance of the common ones is from slippage. The repentance of the elites is from habits. The reprentence of the elites of the elites is from everything other [than He], and gravitating toward spiritual stations and lights.
Caution: Never feel safe with sincere repentance, even it brought you the tidings of acceptance; because He, Most Sublime, is not questioned of what He does, and they are questioned.
Affirmation: The execution of repentance neither pleases nor is abandoning difficult. It was only made for you as a guarding protection.
Caution: Never repent outwardly while inwardly you are insisting on viles; so that you are like the Hypocrites who are satisfied with the contentment in the eyes of creation, while they brought on themselves the wrath of the Lord of the Worlds.
Affirmation: What has moved the resolve of the Folks to quit is their awareness of their state of wicked habits.
Caution: Never be allured by the promises of false hopes and procrastination, so that you are not barred from receiving closeness in the lofty stations.
Affirmation: He who the Real has made to witness the darkening of sins abandons them.
Caution: Never fall in the captivity of disobedience as, otherwise, you will take on the attributes of impurity, will perish, and your ugliness will not be covered. People will turn away from you from the abhorrent stench.
Affirmation: The Folks made breaking away with the friends of disobedience a condition for repentance. Abandon them prior to that for the sake of preserving your character, as this is more pleasing to your Creator.
Caution: Never return to the places of abandonment and the sites of desertion, as they might cause you to relapse instantly.
Affirmation: He who is continuously in repentance, with prudence and determination, is the truthful, genuinely-faithed one, the one who, based on his or her wayfaring, will arrive at the objectives of the path.
Caution: Beware of feebleness and laxity, as they are causes of lethargy. He who keeps the company of the vile ones shall have his wayfaring fall short from all the gains and good he or she seeks.
Affirmation: Had repentance not have any virtue except that it saves its possessors from their destruction, and bring them closer to the Sovereign Lord after remoteness [that would suffice]! Otherwise, one would be among the perishing one, because of their remoteness from the Lord of Worlds.
Caution: Stay away from that which will cause even the hands of an innocent person who is satisfied with kind commendation to apologize. Goodly states are in tranquility and happiness. Are not the types of confirmation that are often-recited enough of an admonition for a sagacious person?
Affirmation: How greatly different is the repentance of the longing lover from that of the one who repents out of fear and apprehension. The first is moved by longing to behold beauty. The second was cautioned by fear against the authority of rigor.
Caution: Be aware you noble, skillful, intelligent individual of making your repentance a reason for your wish to be fulfilled. Rather, making it a form our worship to your Master, so that you become one of the elite ones, the possessors of realization and sincerity.
Affirmation: Some used to not asking repentance, but rather for the desire for apprentice; so that they may find the incentive for resolve, which is more worthy of and better for achieving prudence.
Caution: Never claim that you have reached the station of repentance, while you are still continuing with your desires, preoccupied with your habits. Begone! Begone! Finding resolve has signs.
Affirmation: The station of repentance does not take it possessor away from the beginnings. The is why he or she is preoccupied with their striving, while in the end there awaits them the pleasure of different kinds of beholding. Or you may say, the beginning is getting rid of one’s habits and purification, while the end is a possession of enlightenment. Or you may say, the beginning rids oneself and adornes them, while the end is preparation for the light of manifestation. Or you may say, the beginning is staying away from heinous attributes and fleeing from mean character traits. Or your may say, the beginning is the filling the vessel with a better ‘I’, while the end is differentiating between ‘You’ and ‘I’. Or you may say, the beginning is letting go of creation, and or even adorning oneself with noble character, followed by the manifestation of the Self-Sufficient all-Knower. Or you may say, based on the beginning the end; is realized by way of discernment (firāsah) without the unveiling of devotion, which is known habitually. Or you may say, if the foundation of the beginning is firmly based on the proper foundations. Its possessor shall in the end find the objectives and the benefits he or she wish for.
Caution: Beware of constructing your path on
foundation other than that of God-fearingness. Otherwise, you may become of one
of the people of misguidance and caprice. Rather, seek the most cautionary
position, so you may find wish and happiness in your grave.
[i] Abd al-Wahhab al-Sha’rani, al-Tabaqat al-kubra, edited by Ahmad al-Sayih and Tawfiq Wahba(Cairo: Maktabat al-Thaqafa al-Diniyya, 2005), 2:135.
[ii] Muhammad al-Manawi, al-Kawakib al-Durria fi tarajim al-sada al-Sufiyya, edited by Ahmad Farid al-Mazidi(Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyah, 2008), 2:400.
[iii] Jamal al-Din Abi al-Mawahib al-Shadhili al-Tunisi, Qawanin hikm al-Ishraq ila kafat al-Sufiyya bi-jami’ al-afaq, edited by Muhammad Shihata Ibrahim (Cairo: al-Maktaba al-Azharyya lil-Turath, 1999), 5.
Tasawwuf can be called the inwardness of Islam. Islam, like most other faiths to a greater or lesser extent, consists firstly of certain beliefs, such as the existence of God, and the coming of the Judgement, and reward and punishment in the next life, and the outward expression of these beliefs in forms of worship, such as prayer and fasting, all of which concern man’s relationship with God; and secondly, a system of morality, which concerns man’s relationship with man, and has its outward expression in certain social institutions and laws, such as marriage, inheritance, and civil and criminal laws. But it is obvious that the basis of this faith, the spirit that gives it life, is man’s relationship with God. Forms of worship are simply the physical vehicles of this relationship, and it is this relationship again which is responsible for the origin, the significance and the ultimate sanction of the principles of morality and their formulation into a specific social and legal system. If the interior converse with the Supreme Being and inspiration from Him are present, then they are comparable to the soul within the body of the exterior religion; if they die away, or in proportion to the extent that they wither or become feeble, the outward form of the faith becomes like a soulless body, which by the inexorable law of nature swiftly succumbs to corruption. It is therefore man’s direct relationship with his Maker which is the breath and life of religion, and it is the study and cultivation of this relationship that the word tasawwuf connotes.
It may be wondered why the words ‘Sufi’, which means ‘woollen-clothed’, and ‘Tasawwuf’, which means the path of the Sufis, i.e. the woollen-clothed ones, should have become so universal in order to denote something which belongs properly to the realm of the spirit. This name is symbolic rather than descriptive. To be a Sufi does not require a person literally to wear woollen clothes, but presumes an inner quality which was at one time characteristic of those who wore them. In the early generations of Islam, through the closeness to the time of the Noble Prophet (peace be upon him) and the illumination of his incomparable spirituality, which encompassed so completely the inner and the outer, the comprehension of the inwardness of Islam enwrapped in its outward expressions was so general that no group of people who devoted themselves specially to this aspect of the faith was distinguishable. It was only when the inevitable course of development of human affairs began to run and the original trunk of universality began to throw out branches of specialisation, that Islamic knowledge was progressively divided into the interior and the exterior, and the general word ilm (knowledge) began to denote more the academic study of the Qur’an, Hadith and Fiqh than their spiritual content, contrary to its Qur’anic use in the sense of ‘knowledge of Allah’. At this stage that body of Muslims who devoted themselves more particularly to the cultivation of the spiritual heritage of their Prophet (peace be upon him), began to use the termMa‘rifat (Recognition of Allah) and arif (One who recognises Allah) to denote this inward aspect of knowledge, and indeed still do to the present day. So it was possible that instead of being termed Sufis they might have been called Ahl-i Ma‘rifat, or Arifin. But not every aspirant to spiritual development is anArif, and the average human mind seeks more the outward badge than the inner reality, which in this case is anyway difficult to describe, so the habit observed in certain Godly persons (in reaction to the excessive luxury of the times) of wearing coarse woollen clothes, which were then the mark of extreme poverty, was taken as the symbol of all those who sought the inner life; and this term’s convenience and simplicity has withstood all the vagaries of time and place throughout the Islamic world.
The visible formulations of Islam are therefore both enlivened by the spiritual and moral force behind them, and so they are the manifestations of this force, and at the same time they are the means of attaining these spiritual and moral quaities; this can be said to constitute their main purpose. Thus these two aspects of Islam are mutually generative, each one producing the other. It can be seen from the Word of Allah, the Qur’an, that wherever something concerning man’s outward actions is decreed, its inward content and purpose is also stressed. Take Prayer for instance; Allah says ‘Observe Prayer for My remembrance’ (20:14); or ‘The believers have attained success; who are humble in their prayers’ (32:1), emphasising that the object of Prayer is not the mere outward performance, but to remember Him with a humble heart. In the case of fasting, Allah says, ‘Fasting has been decreed for you, as it was decreed for those who came before you, that you may be God-fearing.’ (2:183) Regarding sacrifice on the occasion of Pilgrimage, He says: ‘It is not their blood or their flesh which reaches Him, but the devotion from you.’ (22:37) On the subject of marriage: ‘It is one of His signs that He has made for you mates of your own kind that you may find peace in them, and He has created affection and kindness between you.’ (30:24) On spending for the poor: ‘They (the righteous) give food to the needy, the orphan and the prisoner, for the love of Him; they say: We feed for the sake of Allah only, and desire no reward or thanks from you.’ (76:8,9) If we reflect on these and other similar indications in the Qur’an, we are led to the conclusion that if it is necessary to observe the outward ordinances of our faith, it is equally necessary to develop within ourselves those qualities which are their soul; that these two are complementary and one cannot exist in a sound state without the other. When the word ‘Shari‘at’ is used, one immediately calls to mind the basic beliefs of Islam, without which a person cannot be reckoned a Muslim, and the external decrees comprising forms of worship, rules of behaviour, and civil and criminal laws. In short, it is the outwardness of Islam which is normally referred to by this term. But we have seen that within this outer Shari‘at there exists an inner Shari‘at of equal importance, which constitutes both its inspiration and its goal. Like the word ‘ilm’ (Knowledge) which originally comprised both the inward realisation of divine truths as well as outward knowledge of Islamic tenets, the term ‘Shari‘at’ (the road) should really include the devotion of the heart to Allah as well as the specific beliefs, and the attainment of moral excellence as well as submission to the law. But just as ‘ilm’ came to mean only book-knowledge, so ‘Shari‘at’ came to mean only the law; as a result, the Sufis, the devotees of the spirit of Islam, began to use the word ‘Ma‘rifat’ for the inner relationship with God, and in place of the word ‘Shari‘at’, they chose the word ‘tariqat’ (the Path) to denote the way to spiritual perfection. Just as the outer shari‘at consists of two parts, belief and practice, so also does this inner shari‘at manifest itself in two main fields.
The first is man’s attitude to his Maker. From the Qur’an and the teachings of the Noble Prophet (peace be upon him) we learn that this attitude should be inspired by love, hope, fear, gratitude, patience, trust, self-sacrifice and complete devotion; and that He should be felt to be constantly near. This is the inwardness of belief. The second is man’s attitude to his fellow men: Allah and his Prophet (peace be upon him) have taught us that this should be inspired by sympathy, justice, kindness, unselfishness, generosity, sternness on matters of principle, leniency wherever possible, and that we must avoid pride, jealousy, malice, greed, selfishness, miserliness and ill-nature. These qualities will not be found explained in the books of Fiqh; it required a group of people distinct from the jurists to determine and develop the science of the soul. Of these two parts of the inner Shari‘at, it is the first, i.e. man’s relationship with God, which is the root, the moral attitude of man towards his fellows being derived from it. It is the realisation that all men are creatures of the One God, and that He wishes us to treat them with mercy and kindness, and at times justice, which should reflect His own sublime qualities, and that if we succeed in this we shall win His pleasure, that is the real basis of morality. Some have made the mistake of imagining that morality can exist by itself without the foundation of religion, and have tried to promulgate a non-religious ethical code as a substitute for faith. This is nothing but a mental illusion. It comes about in this way: through the medium of religious teaching, a certain moral outlook permeates a whole society, and colours not only the specifically religious life, but education and social customs and habits of thinking and acting. When at a later stage some people take to agnosticism and rebel against the established faith, they are unable to separate themselves from this moral attitude which has now become the very stuff of their mental being. Without realising the origin of their morality, they fall into the error of considering it self-existent, and imagine that they can reform society by simply calling upon people to be ethical. But it is a matter of observation that such inherited moral attitudes, when cut off from the tree of religion to which they owe their being, very quickly decay, and it is not long before the very basis of morality is questioned and finally denied, and non-moral philosophies are openly proclaimed. By contrast, the morality based on faith in God, derived from a revealed Book and given life by the consciousness of Divine pleasure, has in it the seeds not of decay but of growth and fruition.
That it is man’s inner relationship with Allah which gives meaning and value to his outward expression of belief and the performance of his religious duties is asserted most pointedly in one of the most famous sayings of the Noble Prophet (peace be upon him). The following incident is reported by Omar, the second Khalifa.
‘We were sitting with the Messenger of Allah one day when a man appeared with very white clothes and very black hair, with no signs of travel upon him. None of us recognised him. He came and sat before the Prophet (peace be upon him) with his knees touching his knees, and his hands placed on his thighs. He then said: ‘O Muhammad, tell me, what is Islam?’ The Prophet replied: ‘Islam is that you testify that there is no god but Allah, and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and that you establish prayer, and Zakat, fast the month of Ramadan, and make the pilgrimage to the House of Allah if you are able.’ The man said: ‘You are right’, and we wondered that he both asked and confirmed the answer. Then he said: ‘what is Iman?’ The Prophet replied: ‘Iman is that you believe in Allah, His Angels, His Books, His Messengers and the Last Day, and that you believe in the predestination of good and evil.’ The man said: ‘You are right. Now tell me what is Ihsan (good performance)?’ The Prophet replied: ‘That you worship Allah as if you are seeing Him and if you do not see Him, He surely sees you.’’
Then after asking about the Last Day, the man left, and the Noble Prophet (peace be upon him) informed his companions that this was the Angel Gabriel who came to teach them their religion.
Here the word Ihsan, which means to perform something in the best manner, is explained as ‘the worship of Allah as if you are seeing Him, and if you do not see Him, He surely sees you.’ This means that the consciousness of the presence of Allah, and the feeling of Love and awe which accompany it, must permeate both our faith and practice (Iman and Islam) and it is in proportion to this consciousness that our excellence in religion can be judged. Clearly this sense of presence is not to be confined only to worship, but to all our actions (one version of the above incident, in fact, has ‘to work for Allah as if you are seeing Him’). It is precisely this awareness of the nearness and presence of Allah that the Sufis have as their ultimate goal in all their activities.
So far we have been speaking of the Muslims’ relationship with Allah in a general way. But Tasawwuf has a more specific content, that is to say, it aims at bringing the novice to the direct spiritual experience. The fountainhead of Islam (a fact which is often forgotten) is the direct spiritual experience of the Noble Prophet (peace be upon him) by means of which the message of God was conveyed to man. This spiritual experience had many forms, and was continuous throughout the period of the Prophet’s prophethood, starting from the initial vision of the Angel when the call to the divine mission was sounded, and persisting throughout the inspiration of the Divine Book, with other manifestations such as Hadith Qudsi (Divine inspirations apart from the Qur’an itself) and revelations of the next world. It is illustrated particularly in the Mi‘raj (the Ascension), which culminates in the vision of the Supreme Reality. When the essence of prophethood is the spiritual experience, it would be strange indeed if some portion of this aspect of the prophetic life were not inherited by the Prophet’s companions and those who followed them. So we find a tradition of spiritual experience alongside that of the more obvious branches of religious teaching concerned with beliefs and practices. In the early stages it was not considered proper to publish such experiences and considerable reticence was observed; it was thought sufficient only to hint at them. As time passed, reticence was lessened and gradually the science of Tasawwuf was outwardly formulated, although the very nature of these most inward matters makes some reticence inevitable at all times.
Abu Huraira, one of the intimate companions of the Prophet (peace be upon him) used to say: ‘I acquired two vessels from the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), one of which I published; but if I published the other my throat would be cut.’ This is an interesting allusion to the danger of making a show of spiritual experience before those who do not understand them. If the experiences are believed, then some people out of ignorance are inclined to raise the one who is spiritually gifted almost to divinity, if not to make him into God Himself. If they are disbelieved, the doubters become guilty of denying what is true, and deprive themselves of certain special benefits which it is the Will of God that they should have. This is the reason why ‘sufis’ have always counselled great caution in the matter of describing some of their spiritual states in detail as these can only be appreciated in the tasting, and not in the description. In spite of the obvious references in the Qur’an, the Hadiths and the lives of the companions, some have tried to deny this spiritual heritage of the Noble Prophet (peace be upon him) and claim that the early Muslims were only ‘ascetics’ and not ‘mystics’. But to perceive spirituality where it exists is not given to everyone, even to perceive it at all; let it suffice to say that the extraordinary dedication to Allah and His Prophet (peace be upon him) and their commands by the leading companions and followers would be inexplicable without a profound spiritual experience.
I have said that in the early period the outer and the inner aspects of Islam, that is, the outward observance and its spiritual content, were not divided but formed a homogeneous whole, but as time passed and specialised knowledge increased, it became necessary and inevitable that a body of Muslims should devote themselves more particularly to the inwardness of Islam which came to be known as Tasawwuf. If we consider the development of Tasawwuf as a science, that is the science of the soul, we find that it provides a close comparison with the development of other sciences based on the principle of the Divine Book and the life of Allah’s Messenger (peace be upon him). To take the science of Hadith as an example, we find that during the first century, which was the time of the Companions and the followers, things remained very much in the original form of personal teaching from those who sat in the company of the Great Ones, with little sign of elaboration and formalisation. During the second century we begin to find a more or less comprehensive collection and criticism, which culminate in the third century in critical recensions based on now thoroughly elaborated and determined principles. In the case of Fiqh we find a similar process; after the first century of the direct and practical teaching of the companions and followers, the second century produces elaborate compendia of legal decisions and the formulation of principles of jurisprudence which again by the third century had been built up into a relatively independent science. Tasawwuf, too, was constructed into a spiritual science on the firm foundations of the spiritual heritage of the Prophet of God; here again, the elaboration begins in the second century in the recorded sayings and treatises and books of the early Sufis, and in the third century Tasawwufappears as a fully developed and formulated spiritual science. It is just as gratuitous to talk critically of later innovation in the matter of Tasawwuf as it is in the matter of Fiqh, Hadith and Tafsir. There is a world of difference between elaborations and innovations, which people with muddled minds find difficult to distinguish.
Although the development of Tasawwuf can be historically compared with that of the other sciences, there is an intrinsic superiority in Tasawwuf which should be well remembered. This superiority lies in that the expansion of the science of spiritual development is based on experience and direct observation confirmed in its broad pattern by thousands of travellers on the upward path of the soul, whereas the other sciences mainly owe their formulation to reason and conjecture. All, of course, are founded on tradition, that is, the Qur’an and its living commentary by the Noble Prophet (peace be upon him) and his followers, but the process of later elaboration has this fundamental difference. It cannot be contested that direct experience, especially when it is common to large numbers of people, is a vastly more authoritative source of knowledge than rational speculation. For instance, after the data provided by revelation and tradition the chief instrument in the development of Fiqh is Qiyas (analogy) or Ra’y (opinion). The main pillar of the science of Hadith is Jarh and Ta‘dil, which means the critical examination of the reliability of the reporters of a certain Hadith in addition to its subject matter. Obviously these processes are rational and speculative. The development of Tasawwuf, however, has consisted in the progressively more detailed expounding of the spiritual experience constituting the inner heritage of the Noble Prophet (peace be upon him) and has no content of conjecture and opinion. This vital element has resulted in a remarkable unanimity among the proponents of this science throughout the ages, and whatever differences that exist are those of emphasis or mode of expression and do not show any real cleavage in the essential unity.
We have already alluded to the function of Tasawwuf, which is to perfect the relationship of man first with his God, and secondly with his fellow men. Now it is obvious that only very few people have the call to devote themselves entirely to spirituality and become, as it were, specialists in the inner life. This appears to be the result of some innate urge which so drives those who possess it as not to allow them to follow any other vocation. This is not to say that even these specially gifted few entirely abandon all usual worldly activities. On the contrary, we find in Islam, in distinction from other religious communities, that its greatest scientists of the soul were mostly married, had children and conducted their household and similar affairs like other men. It is another matter that during the period of training for spiritual development a certain retirement, either total or partial, is usually required, as indeed it is during the acquirement of other branches of specialist learning. It is also true that even after reaching expertness many of the Islamic spiritualists paid very little attention to the earning of their livelihood and spent their whole time in teaching and giving solace, help and encouragement to the common people. Their physical wants were looked after by their pupils and admirers, as was the practice until recently even in the case of those who taught children how to read and write. In this deliberate neglect of their own material needs in order to devote themselves more unhamperedly to their mission, they observed the utmost selflessness and resignation to Allah, and never expressly or by implication gave any sign of the poverty or even hunger which they often had to undergo. If they neglected the world, it was only as far as their own wants were concerned; they never neglected the wants of those who came to them for spiritual nourishment, or even for physical nourishment if they had any to spare, for in addition to being at the service of those who were hungry for the things of the soul, they often conducted public kitchens for the feeding of the poor, and engaged themselves in the healing of the sick in body as well as those who were sick in spirit, as is well-known to those who have studied their lives.
Just as spiritual specialists are few by the nature of things, so also the number of the pupils who shape their lives in close conformity to those of their masters is also very small. These selected followers are those who, having the inner call, are later charged with the duty of carrying on the work of teaching and exhortation in a new generation. But the majority of those who visit these inheritors of the more inward traditions of Islam are those who, while engaged in their daily vocations, wish to refresh themselves from the toils of the world at the pure springs of sincerity and devotion which they find so abundant with the Sufis. It is here that we see the influence of the Sufis working and giving new life to the whole wide land of the community. The ordinary men and women who spend a part of their time with the Sufis acquire some measure of inspiration for their spiritual and moral betterment, and to this measure their whole lives are affected. It is the spiritual orientation and the moral attitude which constitute the fountain-head of human thought, and so of human action. Events in man’s history, and the growth, flourishing, and decay of peoples, can always be traced back to these inner sources. The contact of people of the world with the Sufis, whether they be kings, princes, captains, merchants, administrators, artisans or peasants, indirectly affects the whole movement of the nation along the uneven road of time. It is from these most intimate wells of inspiration that a certain quality is given to the thought and life of a whole culture; what a pity that some superficial intellects are unable to perceive these undercurrents of history. Economics, politics, and social life are all controlled by the mental processes of man; he can only ignore at his peril these deep directive forces from which his mental processes emerge. The apparent obscurity and detachment of the Sufi conceal an activity of radical importance to the whole Muslim nation.
(The writer (1915-1978) was an English convert to Islam who became a Shaykh of the Tariqa Chishtiyya, living a life of simplicity in Karachi, Pakistan, where his holiness gained him the love and devotion of thousands of Muslims from all walks of life. May Allah show him His mercy, and grant him light in his grave. Amin.)
Perhaps the biggest challenge in learning Islam correctly today is the scarcity of traditional ‘ulama. In this meaning, Bukhari relates the sahih, rigorously authenticated hadith that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said,
“Truly, Allah does not remove Sacred Knowedge by taking it out of servants, but rather by taking back the souls of Islamic scholars [in death], until, when He has not left a single scholar, the people take the ignorant as leaders, who are asked for and who give Islamic legal opinion without knowledge, misguided and misguiding” (Fath al-Bari, 1.194, hadith 100).
The process described by the hadith is not yet completed, but has certainly begun, and in our times, the lack of traditional scholars—whether in Islamic law, in hadith, in tafsir ‘Qur’anic exegesis’—has given rise to an understanding of the religion that is far from scholarly, and sometimes far from the truth. For example, in the course of my own studies in Islamic law, my first impression from orientalist and Muslim-reformer literature, was that the Imams of the madhhabs or ‘schools of jurisprudence’ had brought a set of rules from completely outside the Islamic tradition and somehow imposed them upon the Muslims. But when I sat with traditional scholars in the Middle East and asked them about the details, I came away with a different point of view, having learned the bases for deriving the law from the Qur’an and sunna.
And similarly with Tasawwuf—which is the word I will use tonight for the English Sufism, since our context is traditional Islam—quite a different picture emerged from talking with scholars of Tasawwuf than what I had been exposed to in the West. My talk tonight, In Sha’ Allah, will present knowledge taken from the Qur’an and sahih hadith, and from actual teachers of Tasawwuf in Syria and Jordan, in view of the need for all of us to get beyond clichés, the need for factual information from Islamic sources, the need to answer such questions as: Where did Tasawwuf come from? What role does it play in the din or religion of Islam? and most importantly, What is the command of Allah about it?
As for the origin of the term Tasawwuf, like many other Islamic discliplines, its name was not known to the first generation of Muslims. The historian Ibn Khaldun notes in his Muqaddima:
This knowledge is a branch of the sciences of Sacred Law that originated within the Umma. From the first, the way of such people had also been considered the path of truth and guidance by the early Muslim community and its notables, of the Companions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), those who were taught by them, and those who came after them.
It basically consists of dedication to worship, total dedication to Allah Most High, disregard for the finery and ornament of the world, abstinence from the pleasure, wealth, and prestige sought by most men, and retiring from others to worship alone. This was the general rule among the Companions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and the early Muslims, but when involvement in this-worldly things became widespread from the second Islamic century onwards and people became absorbed in worldliness, those devoted to worship came to be called Sufiyya or People of Tasawwuf (Ibn Khaldun, al-Muqaddima [N.d. Reprint. Mecca: Dar al-Baz, 1397/1978], 467).
In Ibn Khaldun’s words, the content of Tasawwuf, “total dedication to Allah Most High,” was, “the general rule among the Companions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and the early Muslims.” So if the word did not exist in earliest times, we should not forget that this is also the case with many other Islamic disciplines, such as tafsir, ‘Qur’anic exegesis,’ or ‘ilm al-jarh wa ta‘dil, ‘the science of the positive and negative factors that affect hadith narrators acceptability,’ or ‘ilm al-tawhid, the science of belief in Islamic tenets of faith,’ all of which proved to be of the utmost importance to the correct preservation and transmission of the religion.
As for the origin of the word Tasawwuf, it may well be from Sufi, the person who does Tasawwuf, which seems to be etymologically prior to it, for the earliest mention of either term was by Hasan al-Basri who died 110 years after the Hijra, and is reported to have said, “I saw a Sufi circumambulating the Kaaba, and offered him a dirham, but he would not accept it.” It therefore seems better to understand Tasawwuf by first asking what a Sufi is; and perhaps the best definition of both the Sufi and his way, certainly one of the most frequently quoted by masters of the discipline, is from the sunna of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) who said:
Allah Most High says: “He who is hostile to a friend of Mine I declare war against. My slave approaches Me with nothing more beloved to Me than what I have made obligatory upon him, and My slave keeps drawing nearer to Me with voluntary works until I love him. And when I love him, I am his hearing with which he hears, his sight with which he sees, his hand with which he seizes, and his foot with which he walks. If he asks me, I will surely give to him, and if he seeks refuge in Me, I will surely protect him” (Fath al-Bari, 11.340–41, hadith 6502);
This hadith was related by Imam Bukhari, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, al-Bayhaqi, and others with multiple contiguous chains of transmission, and is sahih. It discloses the central reality of Tasawwuf, which is precisely change, while describing the path to this change, in conformity with a traditional definition used by masters in the Middle East, who define a Sufi as Faqihun ‘amila bi ‘ilmihi fa awrathahu Llahu ‘ilma ma lam ya‘lam,‘A man of religious learning who applied what he knew, so Allah bequeathed him knowledge of what he did not know.’
To clarify, a Sufi is a man of religious learning,because the hadith says, “My slave approaches Me with nothing more beloved to Me than what I have made obligatory upon him,” and only through learning can the Sufi know the command of Allah, or what has been made obligatory for him. He hasapplied what he knew, because the hadith says he not only approaches Allah with the obligatory, but “keeps drawing nearer to Me with voluntary works until I love him.” And in turn, Allah bequeathed him knowledge of what he did not know, because the hadith says, “And when I love him, I am his hearing with which he hears, his sight with which he sees, his hand with which he seizes, and his foot with which he walks,” which is a metaphor for the consummate awareness of tawhid, or the ‘unity of Allah,’ which in the context of human actions such as hearing, sight, seizing, and walking, consists of realizing the words of the Qur’an about Allah that,
“It is He who created you and what you do” (Qur’an 37:96).
The origin of the way of the Sufi thus lies in the prophetic sunna. The sincerity to Allah that it entails was the rule among the earliest Muslims, to whom this was simply a state of being without a name, while it only became a distinct discipline when the majority of the Community had drifted away and changed from this state. Muslims of subsequent generations required systematic effort to attain it, and it was because of the change in the Islamic environment after the earliest generations, that a discipline by the name of Tasawwuf came to exist.
But if this is true of origins, the more significant question is: How central is Tasawwuf to the religion, and: Where does it fit into Islam as a whole? Perhaps the best answer is the hadith of Muslim, that ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab said:
As we sat one day with the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace), a man in pure white clothing and jet black hair came to us, without a trace of travelling upon him, though none of us knew him.
He sat down before the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) bracing his knees against his, resting his hands on his legs, and said: “Muhammad, tell me about Islam.” The Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) said: “Islam is to testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and to perform the prayer, give zakat, fast in Ramadan, and perform the pilgrimage to the House if you can find a way.”
He said: “You have spoken the truth,” and we were surprised that he should ask and then confirm the answer. Then he said:
“Tell me about true faith (iman),” and the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) answered: “It is to believe in Allah, His angels, His inspired Books, His messengers, the Last Day, and in destiny, its good and evil.”
“You have spoken the truth,” he said, “Now tell me about the perfection of faith (ihsan),” and the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) answered: “It is to worship Allah as if you see Him, and if you see Him not, He nevertheless sees you.”
The hadith continues to where ‘Umar said:
Then the visitor left. I waited a long while, and the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said to me, “Do you know, ‘Umar, who was the questioner?” and I replied, “Allah and His messenger know best.” He said,
“It was Gabriel, who came to you to teach you your religion” (Sahih Muslim, 1.37: hadith 8).
This is a sahih hadith, described by Imam Nawawi as one of the hadiths upon which the Islamic religion turns. The use of din in the last words of it,Atakum yu‘allimukum dinakum, “came to you to teach you your religion” entails that the religion of Islam is composed of the three fundamentals mentioned in the hadith: Islam, or external compliance with what Allah asks of us; Iman, or the belief in the unseen that the prophets have informed us of; and Ihsan, or to worship Allah as though one sees Him. The Qur’an says, in Surat Maryam,
“Surely We have revealed the Remembrance, and surely We shall preserve it” (Qur’an 15:9),
and if we reflect how Allah, in His wisdom, has accomplished this, we see that it is by human beings, the traditional scholars He has sent at each level of the religion. The level of Islam has been preserved and conveyed to us by the Imams of Shari‘a or ‘Sacred Law’ and its ancillary disciplines; the level of Iman, by the Imams of ‘Aqida or ‘tenets of faith’; and the level of Ihsan, “to worship Allah as though you see Him,” by the Imams of Tasawwuf.
The hadith’s very words “to worship Allah” show us the interrelation of these three fundamentals, for the how of “worship” is only known through the external prescriptions of Islam, while the validity of this worship in turn presupposes Iman or faith in Allah and the Islamic revelation, without which worship would be but empty motions; while the words, “as if you see Him,” show that Ihsan implies a human change, for it entails the experience of what, for most of us, is not experienced. So to understand Tasawwuf, we must look at the nature of this change in relation to both Islam and Iman, and this is the main focus of my talk tonight.
At the level of Islam, we said that Tasawwuf requires Islam,through ‘submission to the rules of Sacred Law.’ But Islam, for its part, equally requires Tasawwuf. Why? For the very good reason that the sunna which Muslims have been commanded to follow is not just the words and actions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), but also his states, states of the heart such as taqwa ‘godfearingness,’ ikhlas ‘sincerity,’ tawakkul‘reliance on Allah,’ rahma ‘mercy,’ tawadu‘ ‘humility,’ and so on.
Now, it is characteristic of the Islamic ethic that human actions are not simply divided into two shades of morality, right or wrong; but rather five, arranged in order of their consequences in the next world. The obligatory (wajib) is that whose performance is rewarded by Allah in the next life and whose nonperformance is punished. The recommended (mandub) is that whose performance is rewarded, but whose nonperformance is not punished. The permissible (mubah) is indifferent, unconnected with either reward or punishment. The offensive (makruh) is that whose nonperformance is rewarded but whose performance is not punished. The unlawful (haram) is that whose nonperformance is rewarded and whose performance is punished, if one dies unrepentant.
Human states of the heart, the Qur’an and sunna make plain to us, come under each of these headings. Yet they are not dealt with in books of fiqh or ‘Islamic jurisprudence,’ because unlike the prayer, zakat, or fasting, they are not quantifiable in terms of the specific amount of them that must be done. But though they are not countable, they are of the utmost importance to every Muslim. Let’s look at a few examples.
(1) Love of Allah. In Surat al-Baqara of the Qur’an, Allah blames those who ascribe associates to Allah whom they love as much as they love Allah. Then He says,
“And those who believe are greater in love for Allah” (Qur’an 2:165), making being a believer conditional upon having greater love for Allah than any other.
(2) Mercy. Bukhari and Muslim relate that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “Whomever is not merciful to people, Allah will show no mercy” (Sahih Muslim, 4.1809: hadith 2319), and Tirmidhi relates the well authenticated (hasan) hadith “Mercy is not taken out of anyone except the damned” (al-Jami‘ al-sahih, 4.323: hadith 1923).
(3) Love of each other. Muslim relates in his Sahih that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “By Him in whose hand is my soul, none of you shall enter paradise until you believe, and none of you shall believe until you love one another . . . .” (Sahih Muslim, 1.74: hadith 54).
(4) Presence of mind in the prayer (salat). Abu Dawud relates in his Sunan that ‘Ammar ibn Yasir heard the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) say, “Truly, a man leaves, and none of his prayer has been recorded for him except a tenth of it, a ninth of it, eighth of it, seventh of it, sixth of it, fifth of it, fourth of it, third of it, a half of it” (Sunan Abi Dawud, 1.211: hadith 796)—meaning that none of a person’s prayer counts for him except that in which he is present in his heart with Allah.
(5) Love of the Prophet. Bukhari relates in his Sahih that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “None of you believes until I am more beloved to him than his father, his son, and all people” (Fath al-Bari, 1.58, hadith 15).
It is plain from these texts that none of the states mentioned—whether mercy, love, or presence of heart—are quantifiable, for the Shari‘a cannot specify that one must “do two units of mercy” or “have three units of presence of mind” in the way that the number of rak‘as of prayer can be specified, yet each of them is personally obligatory for the Muslim. Let us complete the picture by looking at a few examples of states that are haramor ‘strictly unlawful’:
(1) Fear of anyone besides Allah. Allah Most High says in Surat al-Baqara of the Qur’an,
“And fulfill My covenant: I will fulfill your covenant—And fear Me alone” (Qur’an 2:40), the last phrase of which, according to Imam Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, “establishes that a human being is obliged to fear no one besides Allah Most High” (Tafsir al-Fakhr al-Razi, 3.42).
(2) Despair. Allah Most High says,
“None despairs of Allah’s mercy except the people who disbelieve” (Qur’an 12:87), indicating the unlawfulness of this inward state by coupling it with the worst human condition possible, that of unbelief.
(3) Arrogance. Muslim relates in his Sahih that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said,
“No one shall enter paradise who has a particle of arrogance in his heart” (Sahih Muslim, 1.93: hadith 91).
(4) Envy,meaning to wish for another to lose the blessings he enjoys. Abu Dawud relates that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said,
“Beware of envy, for envy consumes good works as flames consume firewood” (Sunan Abi Dawud, 4.276: hadith 4903).
(5) Showing off in acts of worship. Al-Hakim relates with a sahih chain of transmission that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said,
“The slightest bit of showing off in good works is as if worshipping others with Allah . . . .” (al-Mustadrak ‘ala al-Sahihayn, 1.4).
These and similar haram inward states are not found in books of fiqh or ‘jurisprudence,’ because fiqh can only deal with quantifiable descriptions of rulings. Rather, they are examined in their causes and remedies by the scholars of the ‘inner fiqh’ of Tasawwuf, men such as Imam al-Ghazali in hisIhya’ ‘ulum al-din [The reviving of the religious sciences], Imam al-Rabbani in his Maktubat [Letters], al-Suhrawardi in his ‘Awarif al-Ma‘arif [The knowledges of the illuminates], Abu Talib al-Makki in Qut al-qulub [The sustenance of hearts], and similar classic works, which discuss and solve hundreds of ethical questions about the inner life. These are books of Shari‘a and their questions are questions of Sacred Law, of how it is lawful or unlawful for a Muslim to be; and they preserve the part of the prophetic sunna dealing with states.
Who needs such information? All Muslims, for the Qur’anic verses and authenticated hadiths all point to the fact that a Muslim must not only do certain things and say certain things, but also must be something, must attain certain states of the heart and eliminate others. Do we ever fear someone besides Allah? Do we have a particle of arrogance in our hearts? Is our love for the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) greater than our love for any other human being? Is there the slightest bit of showing off in our good works?
Half a minute’s reflection will show the Muslim where he stands on these aspects of his din, and why in classical times, helping Muslims to attain these states was not left to amateurs, but rather delegated to ‘ulama of the heart, the scholars of Islamic Tasawwuf. For most people, these are not easy transformations to make, because of the force of habit, because of the subtlety with which we can deceive ourselves, but most of all because each of us has an ego, the self, the Me, which is called in Arabic al-nafs, about which Allah testifies in Surat Yusuf:
“Verily the self ever commands to do evil” (Qur’an 12:53).
If you do not believe it, consider the hadith related by Muslim in his Sahih, that:
The first person judged on Resurrection Day will be a man martyred in battle.
He will be brought forth, Allah will reacquaint him with His blessings upon him and the man will acknowledge them, whereupon Allah will say, “What have you done with them?” to which the man will respond, “I fought to the death for You.”
Allah will reply, “You lie. You fought in order to be called a hero, and it has already been said.” Then he will be sentenced and dragged away on his face and flung into the fire.
Then a man will be brought forward who learned Sacred Knowledge, taught it to others, and who recited the Qur’an. Allah will remind him of His gifts to him and the man will acknowledge them, and then Allah will say, “What have you done with them?” The man will answer, “I acquired Sacred Knowledge, taught it, and recited the Qur’an, for Your sake.”
Allah will say, “You lie. You learned so as to be called a scholar, and read the Qur’an so as to be called a reciter, and it has already been said.” Then the man will be sentenced and dragged away on his face to be flung into the fire.
Then a man will be brought forward whom Allah generously provided for, giving him various kinds of wealth, and Allah will recall to him the benefits given, and the man will acknowledge them, to which Allah will say, “And what have you done with them?” The man will answer, “I have not left a single kind of expenditure You love to see made, except that I have spent on it for Your sake.”
Allah will say, “You lie. You did it so as to be called generous, and it has already been said.” Then he will be sentenced and dragged away on his face to be flung into the fire (Sahih Muslim, 3.1514: hadith 1905).
We should not fool ourselves about this, because our fate depends on it: in our childhood, our parents taught us how to behave through praise or blame, and for most of us, this permeated and colored our whole motivation for doing things. But when childhood ends, and we come of age in Islam, the religion makes it clear to us, both by the above hadith and by the words of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) “The slightest bit of showing off in good works is as if worshipping others with Allah” that being motivated by what others think is no longer good enough, and that we must change our motives entirely, and henceforth be motivated by nothing but desire for Allah Himself. The Islamic revelation thus tells the Muslim that it is obligatory to break his habits of thinking and motivation, but it does not tell him how. For that, he must go to the scholars of these states, in accordance with the Qur’anic imperative,
“Ask those who know if you know not” (Qur’an 16:43),
There is no doubt that bringing about this change, purifying the Muslims by bringing them to spiritual sincerity, was one of the central duties of the Prophet Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace), for Allah says in the Surat Al ‘Imran of the Qur’an,
“Allah has truly blessed the believers, for He has sent them a messenger of themselves, who recites His signs to them and purifies them, and teaches them the Book and the Wisdom” (Qur’an 3:164),
which explicitly lists four tasks of the prophetic mission, the second of which, yuzakkihim means precisely to ‘purify them’ and has no other lexical sense. Now, it is plain that this teaching function cannot, as part of an eternal revelation, have ended with the passing of the first generation, a fact that Allah explictly confirms in His injunction in Surat Luqman,
“And follow the path of him who turns unto Me” (Qur’an 31:15).
These verses indicate the teaching and transformative role of those who convey the Islamic revelation to Muslims, and the choice of the word ittiba‘ in the second verse, which is more general, implies both keeping the company of and following the example of a teacher. This is why in the history of Tasawwuf, we find that though there were many methods and schools of thought, these two things never changed: keeping the company of a teacher, and following his example—in exactly the same way that the Sahaba were uplifted and purified by keeping the company of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and following his example.
And this is why the discipline of Tasawwuf has been preserved and transmitted by Tariqas or groups of students under a particular master. First, because this was the sunna of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) in his purifying function described by the Qur’an. Secondly, Islamic knowledge has never been transmitted by writings alone, but rather from ‘ulama to students. Thirdly, the nature of the knowledge in question is ofhal or ‘state of being,’ not just knowing, and hence requires it be taken from a succession of living masters back to the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), for the sheer range and number of the states of heart required by the revelation effectively make imitation of the personal example of a teacher the only effective means of transmission.
So far we have spoken about Tasawwuf in respect to Islam, as a Shari‘a science necessary to fully realize the Sacred Law in one’s life, to attain the states of the heart demanded by the Qur’an and hadith. This close connection between Shari‘a and Tasawwuf is expressed by the statement of Imam Malik, founder of the Maliki school, that “he who practices Tasawwuf without learning Sacred Law corrupts his faith, while he who learns Sacred Law without practicing Tasawwuf corrupts himself. Only he who combines the two proves true.” This is why Tasawwuf was taught as part of the traditional curriculum in madrasas across the Muslim world from Malaysia to Morocco, why many of the greatest Shari‘a scholars of this Umma have been Sufis, and why until the end of the Islamic caliphate at the beginning of this century and the subsequent Western control and cultural dominance of Muslim lands, there were teachers of Tasawwuf in Islamic institutions of higher learning from Lucknow to Istanbul to Cairo.
But there is a second aspect of Tasawwuf that we have not yet talked about; namely, its relation to Iman or ‘True Faith,’ the second pillar of the Islamic religion, which in the context of the Islamic sciences consists of ‘Aqida or ‘orthodox belief.’
All Muslims believe in Allah, and that He is transcendently beyond anything conceivable to the minds of men, for the human intellect is imprisoned within its own sense impressions and the categories of thought derived from them, such as number, directionality, spatial extention, place, time, and so forth. Allah is beyond all of that; in His own words,
“There is nothing whatesover like unto Him” (Qur’an 42:11)
If we reflect for a moment on this verse, in the light of the hadith of Muslim about Ihsan that “it is to worship Allah as though you see Him,” we realize that the means of seeing here is not the eye, which can only behold physical things like itself; nor yet the mind, which cannot transcend its own impressions to reach the Divine, but rather certitude, the light of Iman, whose locus is not the eye or the brain, but rather the ruh, a subtle faculty Allah has created within each of us called the soul, whose knowledge is unobstructed by the bounds of the created universe. Allah Most High says, by way of exalting the nature of this faculty by leaving it a mystery,
“Say: ‘The soul is of the affair of my Lord’” (Qur’an 17:85).
The food of this ruh is dhikr or the ‘remembrance of Allah.’ Why? Because acts of obedience increase the light of certainty and Iman in the soul, and dhikr is among the greatest of them, as is attested to by the sahih hadith related by al-Hakim that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said,
“Shall I not tell you of the best of your works, the purest of them in the eyes of your Master, the highest in raising your rank, better than giving gold and silver, and better for you than to meet your enemy and smite their necks, and they smite yours?” They said, “This—what is it, O Messenger of Allah?” and he said: Dhikru Llahi ‘azza wa jall, “The remembrance of Allah Mighty and Majestic.” (al-Mustadrak ‘ala al-Sahihayn, 1.496).
Increasing the strength of Iman through good actions, and particularly through the medium of dhikr has tremendous implications for the Islamic religion and traditional spirituality. A non-Muslim once asked me, “If God exists, then why all this beating around the bush? Why doesn’t He just come out and say so?”
The answer is that taklif or ‘moral responsibility’ in this life is not only concerned with outward actions, but with what we believe, our ‘Aqida—and the strength with which we believe it. If belief in God and other eternal truths were effortless in this world, there would be no point in Allah making us responsible for it, it would be automatic, involuntary, like our belief, say, that London is in England. There would no point in making someone responsible for something impossible not to believe.
But the responsibility Allah has place upon us is belief in the Unseen, as a test for us in this world to choose between kufr and Iman, to distinguish believer from unbeliever, and some believers above others.
This why strengthening Iman through dhikr is of such methodological importance for Tasawwuf: we have not only been commanded as Muslims to believe in certain things, but have been commanded to have absolute certainty in them. The world we see around us is composed of veils of light and darkness: events come that knock the Iman out of some of us, and Allah tests each of us as to the degree of certainty with which we believe the eternal truths of the religion. It was in this sense that ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab said, “If the Iman of Abu Bakr were weighed against the Iman of the entire Umma, it would outweigh it.”
Now, in traditional ‘Aqida one of the most important tenets is the wahdaniyya or ‘oneness and uniqueness’ of Allah Most High. This means He is without any sharik or associate in His being, in His attributes, or in His acts. But the ability to hold this insight in mind in the rough and tumble of daily life is a function of the strength of certainty (yaqin) in one’s heart. Allah tells the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) in Surat al-A‘raf of the Qur’an,
“Say: ‘I do not possess benefit for myself or harm, except as Allah wills’” (Qur’an 7:188),
yet we tend to rely on ourselves and our plans, in obliviousness to the facts of ‘Aqida that ourselves and our plans have no effect, that Allah alone brings about effects.
If you want to test yourself on this, the next time you contact someone with good connections whose help is critical to you, take a look at your heart at the moment you ask him to put in a good word for you with someone, and see whom you are relying upon. If you are like most of us, Allah is not at the forefront of your thoughts, despite the fact that He alone is controlling the outcome. Isn’t this a lapse in your ‘Aqida, or, at the very least, in your certainty?
Tasawwuf corrects such shortcomings by step-by-step increasing the Muslim’s certainty in Allah. The two central means of Tasawwuf in attaining theconviction demanded by ‘Aqida are mudhakara, or learning the traditional tenets of Islamic faith, and dhikr, deepening one’s certainty in them by remembrance of Allah. It is part of our faith that, in the words of the Qur’an in Surat al-Saffat,
“Allah has created you and what you do” (Qur’an 37:96);
yet for how many of us is this day to day experience? Because Tasawwuf remedies this and other shortcomings of Iman, by increasing the Muslim’s certainty through a systematic way of teaching and dhikr, it has traditionally been regarded as personally obligatory to this pillar of the religion also, and from the earliest centuries of Islam, has proved its worth.
The last question we will deal with tonight is: What about the bad Sufis we read about, who contravene the teachings of Islam?
The answer is that there are two meanings of Sufi: the first is “Anyone who considers himself a Sufi,” which is the rule of thumb of orientalist historians of Sufism and popular writers, who would oppose the “Sufis” to the “Ulama.” I think the Qur’anic verses and hadiths we have mentioned tonight about the scope and method of true Tasawwuf show why we must insist on the primacy of the definition of a Sufi as “a man of religious learning who applied what he knew, so Allah bequeathed him knowledge of what he did not know.”
The very first thing a Sufi, as a man of religious learning knows is that the Shari‘a and ‘Aqida of Islam are above every human being. Whoever does not know this will never be a Sufi, except in the orientalist sense of the word—like someone standing in front of the stock exchange in an expensive suit with a briefcase to convince people he is a stockbroker. A real stockbroker is something else.
Because this distinction is ignored today by otherwise well-meaning Muslims, it is often forgotten that the ‘ulama who have criticized Sufis, such as Ibn al-Jawzi in his Talbis Iblis [The Devil’s deception], or Ibn Taymiya in places in his Fatawa, or Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya, were not criticizing Tasawwuf as an ancillary discipline to the Shari‘a. The proof of this is Ibn al-Jawzi’s five-volume Sifat al-safwa, which contains the biographies of the very same Sufis mentioned in al-Qushayri’s famous Tasawwuf manual al-Risala al-Qushayriyya. Ibn Taymiya considered himself a Sufi of the Qadiri order, and volumes ten and eleven of his thirty-seven-volume Majmu‘ al-fatawa are devoted to Tasawwuf. And Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya wrote his three-volume Madarij al-salikin, a detailed commentary on ‘Abdullah al-Ansari al-Harawi’s tract on the spiritual stations of the Sufi path, Manazil al-sa’irin. These works show that their authors’ criticisms were not directed at Tasawwuf as such, but rather at specific groups of their times, and they should be understood for what they are.
As in other Islamic sciences, mistakes historically did occur in Tasawwuf, most of them stemming from not recognizing the primacy of Shari‘a and ‘Aqida above all else. But these mistakes were not different in principle from, for example, the Isra’iliyyat (baseless tales of Bani Isra’il) that crept into tafsir literature, or the mawdu‘at (hadith forgeries) that crept into the hadith. These were not taken as proof that tafsir was bad, or hadith was deviance, but rather, in each discipline, the errors were identified and warned against by Imams of the field, because the Umma needed the rest. And such corrections are precisely what we find in books like Qushayri’s Risala,Ghazali’s Ihya’ and other works of Sufism.
For all of the reasons we have mentioned, Tasawwuf was accepted as an essential part of the Islamic religion by the ‘ulama of this Umma. The proof of this is all the famous scholars of Shari‘a sciences who had the higher education of Tasawwuf, among them Ibn ‘Abidin, al-Razi, Ahmad Sirhindi, Zakariyya al-Ansari, al-‘Izz ibn ‘Abd al-Salam, Ibn Daqiq al-‘Eid, Ibn Hajar al-Haytami, Shah Wali Allah, Ahmad Dardir, Ibrahim al-Bajuri, ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, Imam al-Nawawi, Taqi al-Din al-Subki, and al-Suyuti.
Among the Sufis who aided Islam with the sword as well as the pen, to quote Reliance of the Traveller, were:
such men as the Naqshbandi sheikh Shamil al-Daghestani, who fought a prolonged war against the Russians in the Caucasus in the nineteenth century; Sayyid Muhammad ‘Abdullah al-Somali, a sheikh of the Salihiyya order who led Muslims against the British and Italians in Somalia from 1899 to 1920; the Qadiri sheikh ‘Uthman ibn Fodi, who led jihad in Northern Nigeria from 1804 to 1808 to establish Islamic rule; the Qadiri sheikh ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza’iri, who led the Algerians against the French from 1832 to 1847; the Darqawi faqir al-Hajj Muhammad al-Ahrash, who fought the French in Egypt in 1799; the Tijani sheikh al-Hajj ‘Umar Tal, who led Islamic Jihad in Guinea, Senegal, and Mali from 1852 to 1864; and the Qadiri sheikh Ma’ al-‘Aynayn al-Qalqami, who helped marshal Muslim resistance to the French in northern Mauritania and southern Morocco from 1905 to 1909.
Among the Sufis whose missionary work Islamized entire regions are such men as the founder of the Sanusiyya order, Muhammad ‘Ali Sanusi, whose efforts and jihad from 1807 to 1859 consolidated Islam as the religion of peoples from the Libyan Desert to sub-Saharan Africa; [and] the Shadhili sheikh Muhammad Ma‘ruf and Qadiri sheikh Uways al-Barawi, whose efforts spread Islam westward and inland from the East African Coast . . . . (Reliance of the Traveller,863).
It is plain from the examples of such men what kind of Muslims have been Sufis; namely, all kinds, right across the board—and that Tasawwuf did not prevent them from serving Islam in any way they could.
To summarize everything I have said tonight: In looking first at Tasawwuf and Shari‘a, we found that many Qur’anic verses and sahih hadiths oblige the Muslim to eliminate haram inner states as arrogance, envy, and fear of anyone besides Allah; and on the other hand, to acquire such obligatory inner states as mercy, love of one’s fellow Muslims, presence of mind in prayer, and love of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace). We found that these inward states could not be dealt with in books of fiqh, whose purpose is to specify the outward, quantifiable aspects of the Shari‘a. The knowledge of these states is nevertheless of the utmost importance to every Muslim, and this is why it was studied under the ‘ulama of Ihsan, the teachers of Tasawwuf, in all periods of Islamic history until the beginning of the present century.
We then turned to the level of Iman, and found that though the ‘Aqida of Muslims is that Allah alone has any effect in this world, keeping this in mind in everhday life is not a given of human consciousness, but rather a function of a Muslim’s yaqin, his certainty. And we found that Tasawwuf, as an ancillary discipline to ‘Aqida, emphasizes the systematic increase of this certainty through both mudhakara, ‘teaching tenets of faith’ and dhikr, ‘the remembrance of Allah,’ in accordance with the words of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) about Ihsan that “it is worship Allah as though you see Him.”
Lastly, we found that accusations against Tasawwuf made by scholars such as Ibn al-Jawzi, and Ibn Taymiya were not directed against Tasawwuf in principle, but to specific groups and individuals in the times of these authors, the proof for which is the other books by the same authors that showed their understanding of Tasawwuf as a Shari‘a science.
To return to the starting point of my talk this evening, with the disappearance of traditional Islamic scholars from the Umma, two very different pictures of Tasawwuf emerge today. If we read books written after the dismantling of the traditional fabric of Islam by colonial powers in the last century, we find the big hoax: Islam without spirituality and Shari‘a without Tasawwuf. But if we read the classical works of Islamic scholarship, we learn that Tasawwuf has been a Shari‘a science like tafsir, hadith, or any other, throughout the history of Islam. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said,
“Truly, Allah does not look at your outward forms and wealth, but rather at your hearts and your works” (Sahih Muslim, 4.1389: hadith 2564).
And this is the brightest hope that Islam can offer a modern world darkened by materialism and nihilism: Islam as it truly is; the hope of eternal salvation through a religion of brotherhood and social and economic justice outwardly, and the direct experience of divine love and illumination inwardly.
© Nuh Ha Mim Keller 1995
This the text of a lecture give at Islamic Foundation (Markfield Center, Leicester) January 1995 and Croydon Mosque 30th January 1995.