Dr. Zubair Fattani
dr_fattani@hotmail.com
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, the coming of the Judgement,
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 are concerned with man's relationship to God. Secondly,
it consists of 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, 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 they wither or
become feeble, the outward form of the faith becomes like a soul-less
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 to literally 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 (Sallallahu Alaihe Wa Sallam)
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 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 (Sallallahu
Alaihe Wa Sallam), began to use the term Ma'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 Sufis they might have been
termed Ahle-e-MaarifatI or Arifin. But every aspirant to spiritual
development is not an Arif, and the average human mind seeks more
the outer 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 qualities; 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 lowly in
their prayers" (23:1, 2), 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 (Hajj), 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" (30:21). 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 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
Shariat 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 Shariat there exists an inner Shariat
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 "Shariat"
(the road) should really include the devotion of the heart to
Allah as well as 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 "Shariat" 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 inner
relationship with God, and in place of the word "Shariat"
they chose the word Tariqat (the path) to
denote the way to spiritual perfection. Just as the outer "Shariat"
consists of two parts, belief and practice, so also does the inner
"Shariat" 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 (Sallallahu Alaihe Wa Sallam) 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 (Sallallahu Alaihe Wa Sallam) have
taught us that this should be inspired by sympathy, justice, kindness,
unselfishness, generosity, sternness on matters of principle,
lenience 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 Shariat,
it is the first i.e. man's relationship with God, which is the
root, the moral attitude of man towards his fellow 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
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 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. Whereas 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 (Sallallahu Alaihe Wa Sallam). The following incident is reported by Hazrat 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 on him. None of us recognised him. He came and sat before the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihe Wa Sallam) with his knees touching his knees, and his hands placed on his thighs. He then said; "O! Muhammed tell me, what is Islam?" The Prophet replied: "Islam is that you testify that there is no God but Allah, and Muhammed is the Messenger of Allah, and that you establish prayer, pay 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 (Sallallahu Alaihe Wa Sallam) informed his companions that this was the Angel Gabriel who came to teach them their religion... (Bukhari, etc).
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 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 (Sallallahu Alaihe Wa Sallam) 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 the Hadith-Qudsi (Divine Inspirations apart from the Qur'an itself) and revelations of the next world. It is illustrated particularly in the Me'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 (Sallallahu
Alaihe Wa Sallam) used to say: "I acquired two vessels from
the Messenger of Allah (Sallallahu Alaihe Wa Sallam). One of them
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 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 Hadith and
the lives of the Companions, some have tried to deny this spiritual
heritage of the Noble Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihe Wa Sallam) 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 (Sallallahu Alaihe Wa Sallam) 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 principles
of the Divine Book and the life of Allah's Messenger (Sallallahu
Alaihe Wa Sallam). 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 formulation. During the second
century we begin to find more or less comprehensive collections
and criticisms of Hadiths and the formulation of rules of classification,
which culminate, in the third century, in critical recensions
based on now thoroughly elaborate 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 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 (Sallallahu Alaihe Wa Sallam). 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 Tasawwuf
appears as a fully developed and formulated spiritual science.
It is just as gratuitous to talk critically of later innovations
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
(Sallallahu Alaihe Wa Sallam) 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 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 Rai (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 of the progressively more detailed expounding
of the spiritual experience constituting the inner heritage of
the Noble Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihe Wa Sallam) 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 there 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 fountainhead
of human thought, and so of human action. Events in man's history,
and 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 b 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.