Sufism
and Truth
John 15
(NET Bible Translation)
15:1 “I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener. 15:2 He takes away every branch that does not bear fruit in me. (Ponder this…God the Father takes away every branch that does not bear fruit in Jesus. This warning from Christ in itself refutes everything that the Sufis teach. The Sufis do not bear fruit IN JESUS.) He prunes every branch that bears fruit so that it will bear more fruit. 15:3 You are clean already because of the word that I have spoken to you. 15:4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. (A person cannot follow the Sufi and remain in Jesus.)
15:5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me--and I in him—bears much fruit, because apart from me you can accomplish nothing. 15:6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown out like a branch, and dries up; and such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire, and are burned up, 15:7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want, and it will be done for you. 15:8 My Father is honored by this, that you bear much fruit and show that you are my disciples.
15:9 “Just as the
Father
has loved me, I have also loved you; remain
in my love.
The paper you
are about to read has been written to refute the claim by the Sufis
that the
This paper
will accent exactly what the Sufi way teaches by showing the source of
that
teaching and by utilizing the writings of various Sufis countered by my
comments as coming from a perspective in Christ.
These comments will be bold-faced and in
parenthesis. As you
begin to peruse this
paper also keep in mind what is written in John 14:5-14:17: Thomas
said, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 14:6 Jesus
replied, “I am the way,
and the truth, and the
life. No one comes to
the Father except through me. 14:7
If you have
known me, you will know my Father too. And from now on you do know him
and have
seen him.”
One can read into the above
passage that if one does
not accept Christ and what He taught about Himself, then there is no
way that person
can know the Father. God
the Father, Son
and Holy Spirit is not known by such a one.
Therefore, this person, in this case the Sufi, does not
and cannot know
God. This is simple
logic. So simple, a
child should be able to
understand.
Sufism
Short
Introduction into Sufism
Neo-Platonism
strongly influenced the development of Sufism; therefore it is not true
that Sufi
thought came directly from God by way of the Koran and Mohammed. Sufism is not the heart of
Islam as Sufis
teach to an unknowing public.
Neo-Platonism,
as developed by Plotinus, conceives God to be the source and goal of
everything. Islam qua institution is closed to all
critical and
philosophical thought, but Sufism enjoys a more liberal and critical
approach.
It is more than probable that the translations of Plotinus have
provided the
necessary philosophical ground for Sufism. An examination of both
Sufism and Neo-Platonism
reveals close similarities with regard to the nature of God, the soul,
the
body, concepts such as goodness, evil and beauty, death and life, and
creation.
In the roots of Sufi philosophy
there are influences other
than Neo-Platonist philosophy. Ascetic practices within the Sufi
philosophy are
also associated with Buddhism. The notion of purification (cleaning one’s soul from all evil things
and trying to reach Nirvana
and to become immortal in Nirvana) plays an important role in
Buddhism. The
same idea shows itself in the belief of "vuslat" (communion
with God) in Sufi philosophy.
Sufism was also influenced by
Orpheus and related beliefs,
and consequently by Pythagoras and his teachings, because Pythagoras
was
closely interested in Orpheus beliefs. Orpheus was a poet who lived in
The attempts to construct a
religious philosophy on the
basis of Greek thought and especially the theories of Pythagoras
culminated in Neo-Platonism.
Plotinus, the founder of Neo-Platonism, took Plato's theory of ideas
and
reinterpreted them from Protagoras' point of view. According to
Neo-Platonism,
God is conceived as the source and goal of everything; from him
everything
comes, to him all things return; he is the alpha and omega, the
beginning,
middle and end. Communion with God or absorption in God, therefore, is
the real
purpose of all our strivings, and religion the heart-beat of the
universe. The
principal doctrine of Plotinus states that there is just one exalted
God, which
is a supreme power, the final cause, the cosmic force. God is the
highest
spiritual and creative Being.
The Sufi believes that, although
the world proceeds from
God, he did not create it; the universe is an emanation from God, an
inevitable
overflow of his infinite power or actuality. (This
is not true from a Christian perspective.
God created the world, according to the Old
Testament, and Christ did not refute this teaching.
Since Christ taught about His resurrection
before it occurred, I will follow what Christ taught.
He teaches from authority.
Plotinus taught a philosophy which was
thought to be true at the time. However,
Christ takes precedence over Plotinus—Christ did not teach
what Plotinus taught.) Plotinus
employs several metaphors to suggest
the meaning of emanation. God is a spring from which the spring flows
without
exhausting its infinite source; or, God is the sun from which the light
radiates without loss to the sun. The absolute being (God) is higher
than beauty,
truth, goodness, consciousness, and will, for all these depend on him.
The
farther we are from the sun, the source of light, the nearer we are to
darkness
(matter). Beauty is in the structure of divine existence. Other types
of
existence such as matter and body are not beautiful in themselves, but
rather
they are beautiful as a reflection of God's beauty. Among all beings in
the
universe human beings are the closest to the divine essence because
they have
souls that strive to turn in the direction of pure thought. The
truthfulness,
beauty or goodness of a human being depend on its soul's actions within
its
body; the closer the soul of a human being gets to the source of light,
the
more it acquires the qualities such as truth, goodness, and beauty.
Human beings
reflect the appearance of God in themselves more than other life forms,
and
consequently they are the highest in the scale of being.
There is no
aspect of Sufi philosophy that is not influenced by Neo-Platonism, therefore
the claim that Sufis make concerning that their teaching emanates from
the heart
of Mohammed and the Koran cannot be true. Neo-Platonism existed long
before the
Koran ever graced the earth. This may be why Muslim scholars and
clerics frown
upon Sufi teachings.
According to Sufi philosophy,
Absolute being is also
Absolute beauty, and since beauty tends toward manifestation Absolute
being
developed the phenomenal world. Human beings in this phenomenal world
are the
only ones that share a unity of essence with God, because they have
souls.
After a human being dies, his/her soul goes back to its source, to the
Absolute
being, while his/her body dissolves and decays. Since the soul makes a
human
being a person, one should practice the quiestic virtues such as
poverty,
austerity, humility, fortitude, and discipline; devote oneself to the
ways of
inwardness such as withdrawal, silence, solitariness, and
self-examination; and
keep in mind a constant awareness of God with faith and desire. This
way, one
can achieve a sense of direct communion with God which is the Absolute
being
behind the phenomenal world. f one follows these directions with
sufficient
perseverance, one will advance through the standard mystic stages of
concentration, appreciation of the oneness of everything, epiphanies,
i.e.,
sudden and unpredictable illumination, blissful ecstasy, sense of union
with
the Deity, sense of one's own nothingness, and sense of the nothingness
beyond
nothingness.
Neo-Platonism is the closest
doctrine of thought to Sufi
philosophy in terms of their system of belief. Now, these two doctrines
need to
be compared more closely, and the similarities between them need to be
described in detail.
In Sufism, the universe is just
an appearance of God, and
does not have an independent existence. To think of the universe and
the God as
being separate is to deny the "Oneness" and to suggest a
"duality" between God and the universe. But in reality, So Sufis
teach, the God and the universe are the "One" and the same thing such
that God reflects himself as the universe. It is not possible to think
of God
and the universe as separate entities because God is not something
outside the
universe as Islam favors, but rather something within the universe. As
seen
above, this belief was initially suggested by Neo-Platonism. They both
see the
existence of the universe as an emanation from God.
Sufism assumes that there is a
union of God, universe and
humans, and that human beings are an appearance of God; but God's
appearance in
the shape of a human being cannot be thought of any further than just
an
appearance. The reality is not a duality between God and humans, but
rather a
sameness, a oneness between them. A person is a talking, thinking,
acting God.
This idea is beautifully expressed in Yunus Emre's following verse:
I
didn't know you were the eye inside of me
You were a secret essence both in body and soul
I asked you show me a symbol of you in this world
Suddenly I realized you were the whole universe.
This poem
expresses the idea of the oneness of God-universe-human beings. It is
possible
that the belief of oneness of humans and God in Sufism is carried from
Neo-Platonism.
In the trilogy of God-Universe-Humans, God has the highest position,
second is
the universe, and third is human beings. Even though humans rank last
in the
trilogy, they are very close to the God, and almost identical to him
because of
the soul they have.
Sufism and Neo-Platonism
share the same beliefs about the soul. According to Neo-Platonism, the
soul is
a divine essence, a substance, the source of all existence. The soul is
the
effect, image, or copy of pure thought, namely God. It is immortal,
infinite,
and separate from the body. The body is a cage where the soul is
trapped, and
it can be freed when the body dies. The soul, by its nature, always
tends
toward perfection, beauty, goodness and exaltation. In Sufism the soul
is
treated similarly, and expressed as a divine essence in humans.
The body,
like soul, is also treated similarly in both Sufism and Neo-Platonism.
According to Neo-Platonism, the body is mortal, temporary, and not
divine. The
body tends not towards beauty and goodness, but towards ugliness and
evil. What
is beautiful, good, valuable and divine is not body, but the soul. The
body
tends towards temporary desires and wishes. The task of the soul is to
purify
the body from evil tendencies, and its deficiencies. The body is a cage
for the
soul. Sufism shares the same belief. The body is created from the
earth, and
will go back to the earth, and decay there. For this reason, the body
is not
important, and a person should not follow the desires of his/her body,
but
rather should turn from sensuous life to thought, and through it, to
God.
For Neo-Platonism
beauty means much more than mere symmetry. It involves a close
relationship to
the ideal reality; it is an appearance of God over the objects of the
universe.
Whatever the divine light shines on becomes beautiful. Sufism thinks
exactly
the same about beauty. In Sufism, beauty is expressed with "cemal"
meaning human face, the beauty of human face. What is really expressed
in
"cemal" (human face) is the appearance of divine light in the face of
a human. Neo-Platonism identified beauty with divine essence, and
Sufism
adopted the same idea. This is beautifully expressed in the following
verse from
Husrev:
Want to understand an example of
the real essence of
God
Look at the face of a beautiful woman and there see the face of God.
Realizing
divine characteristics in human beauty might be an influence of
Neo-Platonism
in Sufi philosophy.
Both Neo-Platonism
and Sufism believe that, just as beauty, goodness is also a divine
virtue.
Goodness is the most important among the characteristics that exalt a
human
being to the highest stage of being. Both in Islam, and in Sufism,
goodness as
a divine virtue is associated with God's will. The belief that God will
recompense good deeds in blessing to human beings is not something new
or
original in Islamic philosophy. Goodness was first formulated
systematically as
a philosophical problem in Plato. Goodness, honesty, bravery, wisdom,
and
virtue are the main topics of Etik in Plato's philosophy. Later
Plotinus
reconciled Plato's philosophy with religion under the teachings of
Neo-Platonism.
Thus, the idea of goodness as a divine virtue in Sufism is probably
carried
over from Neo-Platonism. In both of these doctrines, the more the soul
purifies
itself from temporary passions, wishes and desires, the more harmonious
it
becomes with goodness.
Both Neo-Platonism
and Sufism believe that death is a separation of body and soul. When a
person
dies, the soul as a divine essence does not die, and travels to another
body
while the body decomposes, decays and becomes earth again. Death is a
dissociation of two entities, the soul and the body.
Sufism sees
the creation as an emanation from God, as an "appearance" of God.
This notion of creation is quite different from Orthodox Islamic belief
of
creation as coming to existence from nothing. According to this belief
God
created the universe, mankind, and all other living creatures from
nothing but
out of self-love. This belief is adopted by all monotheistic religions,
such as
Christianity, Judaism and Islam which assume the existence of only one
God, and
it probably first originated in the Old Testament. Sufism, like
Neo-Platonism,
explains creation in a pantheistic fashion.
Both Sufism
and Neo-Platonism claim that the soul can reach exaltation by passing
through
certain stages. First of all, the exaltation of the soul depends on
purifying
itself from passions, sensual desires and wishes. Secondly, the soul,
because
of its divine nature, is immortal and its tendency towards temporary
beings can
cause it to degenerate and deteriorate. In order to prevent this, the
soul must
turn to itself, and try to understand its meaning. Thirdly, the soul
can reach
exaltation by knowing itself. The way to know thyself is through love.
Love is
the appearance of God, and by love one can achieve a special knowledge,
knowledge of one's own self. Self-knowledge can be achieved through
introspection. At the last stage, as a person knows oneself and
understands the
essence of the soul, one realizes that one is identical with the
universe and
all other creatures, and that God is the only being showing itself in
all
creation. Hence, one frees oneself from dualism. This is the stage of
unification of God, humans and the universe. At this stage, words, such
as you,
and I, which imply separation and differentiation, lose their meaning;
there is
only "One", and this "One" is unification in the essence of
God. This is the highest stage of exaltation for a person, and once one
reaches
this stage, one sees God in one's own self, and understand that God is
the only
being in the universe, and that one's self is nothing but God.
As
seen above, there are very close similarities (almost identical is some
aspects) between Sufism and Neo-Platonism. How they came to interact is
really
a question of the social and cultural environment in which Sufism
flourished.
As is known, Islamic philosophy has its roots mostly in the works of
Aristotle
which were all translated into Arabic. Islamic philosophers interpreted
Aristotle from an Islamic point of view, and established their theories
on the
basis of Aristotle's philosophy. Through the translations of the
writings of
Plato and Plotinus, they also were introduced into the Anatolian
culture and
mingled with different ancient Anatolian beliefs, such as Orpheus. The
mystic
elements within Neo-Platonism, woven together with ancient Anatolian
beliefs (eg, the sacredness of natural events
such
as the sun which is incorporated in Sufism in the belief of God's
resemblance
to the sun), prepared the way for liberal interpretations of
Islamic
principles in Sufi philosophy. Neo-Platonism seems to be the most
probable
underlying philosophical system of thought for Sufi philosophy.
Now, in
the context of the
history of thought, according to the Sufi, Sufism always insists on a
return to
the sources of the Islamic tradition - can be seen to have functioned
at times
as a positive and healthy reaction to the activity of Islamic
philosophers and
theologians. (But we have just read that
Sufism derives the foundation of its thought from Plotinus’
thought. It is not
derived from Mohammed.)
For the Sufis, the road to spiritual
knowledge - to Certainty - could never be confined to the process of
rational
or purely intellectual activity, without intuitive knowledge (zawq,
"taste") and the direct, immediate experience of what they claim as
the Heart. Truth, they believe, can be sought and found only with one's
entire
being; nor were they satisfied merely to know this Truth. They insist
on a
total identification with it: a "passing away" of the knower in the
Known, of subject in the Object of knowledge. Thus, when the
fourth/tenth
century Sufi Hallaj proclaimed "I am the Truth" (and
was martyred for it by what we could call Islamic fundamentalism),
he was not violating the "First Pillar" of Islam, the belief in Unity
(tawhid), but simply stated the truth from the mouth of the Truth. So
the Sufis
believe. This is
debatable, however.
This
insistence of total involvement in "mystical" realization, and on a
participative understanding of religious doctrine, sharply
distinguishes Sufism
from other Islamic schools of thought, so the Sufi would have one
believe. However,
after having read what is written
above, this appears not to be the whole truth.
Considering themselves the true core of Islam (which cannot be since much of the source of Sufi
thought originates
from the thought of Plotinus), Sufis appear as outsiders not
only to the Islamic
philosophers and theologians, but even to "ordinary" Muslims. Their
peculiarity, their distinctness, manifested itself in every aspect of
their
lives: their daily activities, their worship, social relations, and
even style
or means of expression. Like mystics in all traditions, they tend to
remake
language and form for their own purposes, and as in all traditional
civilizations,
the potency and directness of their expression tends to flow out and
permeate
other areas not directly related to mysticism in the narrow sense:
literature,
the arts and crafts, etc.
Islam,
according to the Sufi, gives the basic situation in which we find
ourselves this
interpretation: man in his ordinary state of consciousness is literally
asleep
("and when he dies he wakes," as Mohammad said). He lives in a dream (which is to infer that the life is not
real—which is not true.
Life is not a
dream. There is no
purpose to a dream,
no goal. Life does
have a purpose and a
goal. The statement
that life is like a
dream is false.) whether of enjoyment or suffering - a
phenomenal, illusory
existence. [Existence is not
illusory—this thought is derived from Buddhism, a tradition
that states that
God is not necessary to live a life of non-suffering.] Only
his lower self
is awake, his "carnal soul." Whether he feels so or not, he is
miserable. But potentially the situation can be changed, for ultimately
man is
not identical with his lower self. Man's authentic existence is in the
Divine;
he has a higher Self, which is true; he can attain felicity, even
before death
("Die before you die," Mohammed has been cited as saying.). The call
comes: to flight, migration, a journey beyond the limitations of world
and
self.
Imprisoned
in the cage of the world (the world in its negative,
"worldly" sense), man is exiled and forgetful of his true home. To
keep his part of the covenant, to be faithful to his promise, he must
set out
on the Path from sleep to awakening. It is only the blessed few for
whom this
Path lasts no longer than a single step, although in theory all that is
needed
according to the Sufi is to "turn around" or "inside out"
and be what one is. For most seekers the Path is long; one Sufi speaks
of
"a thousand and one" different stages.
"Everything
perishes
save His Face"; the first step on the Sufi path is to begin to
contemplate
the futility of the world of dust, the world in which one's lower self
is
doomed. The seeker must renounce it all, including his own self, and
seek that
which is Everlasting. He must travel from things to nothing, from
existence to
Nonexistence. (This is foreign to
Christian teaching, and false from a Truth standpoint.
Christ is the truth—He did not teach that man
must travel from existence to non-existence.
Therefore, this statement is false.)
How does
one get lost on
purpose, according to the Sufi? Our present state is one of
forgetfulness
toward the Divine - the true Self - and remembrance of worldly affairs
and the
lower self. The cure for this is a reversal: remembrance of the true
Self, the
Divine within, and forgetfulness toward everything else. (It
would be difficult to forget all else and be a productive person in
society. This
teaching also is foreign
to Christian teaching.)
In Sufism the basic technique
for this
is invocation or "remembrance" (dhikr) of the Divine Name, which is
mysteriously identical with the Divine Being. [The Divine
name—what is this
name? Is it not
Jesus, the son of God
and God? Sufis do
not remember
Christ. They do not
take part in the
Last Supper. Jesus
said to eat the bread
and drink the blood (wine) in remembrance of Him.
If anything, Christians participate in
remembrance of God every time they participate in Eucharist. Does the Sufi?] The Sufi claims that through
this discipline
the fragments of our directionless minds are re-gathered, our outward
impulse
turned inward and concentrated. This is the act of a lover who thinks
of
nothing but his beloved.
Sufism or tasawwuf,
as it is called in Arabic, is generally understood by scholars and
Sufis to be
the inner, mystical, or psycho-spiritual dimension of Islam. Today,
however,
many Muslims and non-Muslims, as I stated above, believe that Sufism is
now outside
the sphere of Islam. In
fact, Sufism,
since its foundation is based on Plotinus’ thought, never was
based on Islam,
certainly not on the thought of Mohammed, as I understand his teaching.
In spite of its
many variations and expressions, and the intimation that Sufism is no
longer
under the thralldom of Islam, the essence of Sufi practice is quite
simple. It
is that the Sufi surrenders to God,(their conception of God) in love,
over and
over; which involves embracing with love at each moment the content of
one's
consciousness (one's perceptions,
thoughts, and feelings, as well as one's sense of self) as
gifts of God or,
more precisely, as manifestations of God.
While all Muslims believe that they are on the pathway to
God and will
become close to God in
Jesus replied, “Your
brother will come back to life
again.” Martha said, “I know that he will come back
to life again in the
resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her,
“I am the resurrection and
the life. The one who believes in me will live even if he dies, and the
one who
lives and believes in me will never die.
Do you believe this?” She replied, “Yes, Lord, I
believe that you are the
Christ, the Son of God who comes into the world.” (John 11:
23-27.) The
person in Christ, does he/she not dwell
in Eternity now?]
Furthermore, the
attainment of the knowledge
that comes with such intimacy with God, Sufis purport, is the very
purpose of
the creation. Here they mention the hadith qudsi in which God
states, "I was a hidden
treasure and I loved that I be known, so I created the creation in
order to be
known." Hence for the Sufis there is already a momentum, a continuous
attraction on their hearts exerted by God, pulling them, in love,
towards what
they believe to be God. They experience the joyful ecstasy of being
gently
drawn to their Eternal Beloved, yet this primordially blissful return
seems to
have been interrupted. The Persian poet Hafiz remarked, “O
Wine giver, pour me
a cup and pass it around for love seemed easy at first, but later the
difficulties arose.”
The
difficulties in following the Sufi path derive primarily from one's
self or ego
(nafs). In other words, it can be said that if one
is not recognizing or
experiencing God's "closeness" or presence, the responsibility for
this condition lies with one's own self.
[It must be emphasized that Sufi’s place short
shrift to the Christian
belief that Christ is God. They
maintain
that Christ is a prophet, which denies the essence of Jesus, who
stated, “I and
the Father are one.” In
effect, a Sufi,
by denying that Christ is God, will never be able to experience
God’s closeness
or presence. The
love they experience,
though sublime, is not the deep love of God.
This is a major problem with Sufism that Sufis apparently
do not see.]
Some of the gross
effects of the dominance of
the nafs are that one may become overwhelmed by the
need to gratify
desires such as anger, lust, and the many addictions that afflict us.
Other
gross effects are that one may become dominated by states of
consciousness such
as anxiety, boredom, regret, depression, and self-pity-- so that one
feels like
a powerless victim or prisoner tortured within one's own mind.
Given that the
Sufi regards every thought,
feeling, and perception that he or she has (including
his or her sense of self) as a manifestation of God or as a
particular view
of God's face ("Wherever you turn
there is God's face"--Qur'an), a more subtle effect of the
dominance
of the nafs than those expressed earlier (but still
a devastating
effect) the Sufi believes is to imagine that God is absent from one's
experience
or to imagine that one does not have the choice to embrace the way in
which God
appears at this moment. Such mistaken imaginings often cause one to
cease to
surrender gratefully and lovingly into God's embrace. In fact, being
overcome
by these subtle effects opens the door for the gross effects mentioned
earlier.
Hence, one of the
emphases of Sufism is upon the
struggle to overcome the dominance that one's nafs has over one, a struggle that first
and foremost involves
choosing at each moment to remember and surrender actively to their
conception
of God--irrespective of whether the form in which God becomes manifest
is one
of absence or presence, benevolence or severity. As Rumi said,
“I am a lover of
both his benevolence and severity!
Amazing it is that I'm in love with these
opposites!” [An
individual must surrender his/her
conception of self. This
surrender is to
God. The Sufi does
not do this. Works
will never free one from the self, from
nafs. In some
cases, such activity works
to increase the conception of self. This is another flaw in Sufism.]
The Qur'an instructs Muslims to
remember God, whose reality
encompasses and pervades both the unmanifest and manifest worlds (al-ghayb
wa-al-shahadah). Sufis have developed this into the
quintessential Sufi
practice of silent and vocal dhikr (remembrance).
An inherent problem in
dhikr, however, is the difficulty in remembering God
when one has little
or no awareness of God. To start with, Muslims begin with a name of
God, such
as "Allah," which is often called the "comprehensive" name (al-ism
al-jami'). It is comprehensive in the sense that it comprises
all of the
infinite names of God (except Jesus, the
most important), which refer to the source of the awareness
of all of
reality. In down to earth terms, the ultimate source of one's awareness
of the
words on this page, for example, is the reality of one of the names of
God, all
of which are encompassed by the name Allah. In short, according to
Islam and
the Sufi, the source of one's present awareness--whatever that
awareness may
be--is encompassed by the name Allah. Thus, remembering God can begin
quite
simply and ordinarily with the awareness of two things: one's present
awareness
and the name Allah--even when one has no awareness of the reality to
which the
name Allah refers. (A logical question
is, “If one has no awareness of what Allah means, the reality
of Allah, then
how can one be aware of the reality behind the meaning of the word? Anyone can repeat any
word, let’s say
benikneuteranibus, but without the awareness of what the word means,
that
person is, in actuality, aware of nothing.
Do you, the reader, glean awareness from knowing the above
word,
benikneuteranibus? The
word has no
meaning…it’s a made-up word with no meaning. It is
extremely difficult to
remember God if there is no basis for the remembrance.
A person needs to know something about God to
be able to remember Him. A
name for God
does not do this. I
have pointed out
another flaw in Sufism.)
The Sufi follows the path toward
God
primarily by means of love. For the Sufi who is enraptured with the
love of God
(who is the source of all existence, or, as some might say, who is all
of
existence), all of existence is extraordinarily beautiful. In contrast,
one who
is not in love with God to this degree will not see what is so awesome
about
existence. While
some Sufis such as Rumi
become utterly consumed by love's fire, for most who wish to love God,
their
love is merely a wavering flame, ever in danger of diminishing. Hence,
by
remembering God's forgotten reality and beauty, Sufis are said to
rekindle the
flame of their love for God. In Sufism, it is remembrance that makes
the heart
grow fonder. In a nutshell, this is the relationship between dhikr
(remembrance of God)
and love.
This paper will attempt to show
that Sufism,
though beautiful in many aspects—it’s poetry is
sublime—cannot reach what it
purports its goal to be.
Now, let us turn to a more
elaborate
review of Sufism.
Islam at the
beginning was primarily a
legalistic religion and placed before its adherents little more than a
code of
ethics combined with a set of rituals. The faithful observance of these
was
deemed sufficient to satisfy every man's religious quest and ensure him
a place
in heaven. There was no demand for spiritual regeneration through a
rebirth
experience and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as in the Christian
faith, nor
for a highly spiritual form of devotion through which the worshipper
could draw
near to God in a personal way and discover the knowledge of his grace
and favor.
During the Ummayad
period, after Islam had made direct
contact with Eastern Christianity and
other oriental religions, a deeply mystical movement arose within its
realm, in
many ways, perhaps, indebted to the influence of these faiths for its
motivation and principles, but nonetheless an independent theosophy (so the Sufi would have us believe.
(Remember, however, that the Sufi has gleaned
most of its philosophy from Neo-Platonism, Plotinus, Gnosticism)
developing
purely within the framework of the Islamic society and heritage. The
movement
is known as Sufism (tasawwuf) and its followers are
known as Sufis
(pronounced "Soofies"). The word Sufi almost
certainly comes
from the Arabic suf, meaning "wool", and implies
that the Sufi
is a wearer of a woolen garment. In pre-Islamic times ascetics often
dressed in
wool as a symbol of their particular course of life and the early
Muslims who
practiced austerity were duly nicknamed "Sufis". Later on the name
was adopted by those who sought to obtain knowledge of God through
various
stages of spiritual self-denial as asceticism in Islam gave way to
mysticism.
Sufism is
principally a quest for a living
knowledge of the Supreme Being. To the orthodox Muslim, Allah is the
Lord of
the Worlds, unique in his essence and attributes, ruling over the
entire
universe and quite unlike anything in his creation. To the Sufi, on the
other
hand, "God is the One Real Being which underlies all phenomena"
(Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam, p.80). He is
everything and there is
nothing but Him. Man's purpose is to lose his natural sense of a
separate
identity from his Creator and to be absorbed instead into his knowledge
until
there remains no distinction of consciousness between him and God.
Through a
series of stages (maqamat) and subjective
experiences (ahwal)
this process of absorption develops until complete annihilation (fana)
takes place and the worshipper becomes al-insanul-kamil,
the
"perfect man".
The Sufi concept
of a God who is "all in
all" (pantheism) differs from the orthodox conviction that the further
he
is placed from his creation, the more he is glorified. Historically it
is a
marvel that Sufism grew out of the bedrock of Islam but its
development, so the
Sufi believes, will not surprise Christians who believe that man was
made in
the image of God and that his highest glory is to be conformed to the
divine image
and be partaker of the divine nature through the indwelling Holy Spirit
(However, this does not mean that man may
be absorbed in God and lose his identity as the Sufi believes).
The
mystical quest in Islam was perhaps to be expected for, as it has been
put by
Sufis, there is a "God-shaped vacuum" in every human heart that no
religion based purely on ethics and formal rites can ultimately fill.
To become a Sufi a
Muslim must attach himself to
a tariqah, one of the Sufi orders, and submit
himself to a pir or master.
Only when this master adorns the disciple with a khirqah,
a robe
inducting him into the order, does he become a recognized Sufi, and
only then
can he embark on a valid pilgrimage through the various stages towards
his goal
of union with God.
Accordingly,
whenever an unknown dervish comes into a convent or wishes to join a
company of
Sufis, they ask him "Who was the Pir that taught thee?" and
"From whose hand didst thou receive the khirqa?"
Sufis recognize
no relationship but these two, which they regard as all-important. They
do not
allow anyone to associate with them, unless he can show to their
satisfaction
that he is lineally connected in both these ways with a fully
accredited Pir.
(Nicholson, Studies in Islamic Mysticism, p.23).
The covenant by
which the disciple is initiated
into the particular order he enters is known as a bay'ah
and it attaches
him to his master and the silsilah (chain) from
which the master himself
derives his power (barakah) and authority (similar to the "apostolic authority" conferred on
Roman
Catholic priests through a progressive laying on of hands said to go
back to
Simon Peter).
The initial Sufi
experience is not, as it is for
true Christians, a rebirth experience in which the man, once born of
the flesh,
is now born of the Spirit, has a totally new relationship to God and
knowledge
of him, and can through his unity with God in the Spirit develop the
relationship. Rather the Sufi really seeks only "to become aware of
what
one has always been from eternity (azal) without
one's having realized
it until the necessary transformation has come about" (Nasr, Living
Sufism,
p.7).
The major Sufi
orders are the Suhrawardiyya
(founded by one as-Suhrawardi), the Qadiriyya
(attributed to Sufism's
most famous personality, Abdul Qadir al-Jilani), the Chishtiyya
(its
master Mu'iniddin Chishti who is buried at Ajmer in India), the Shadhiliyya,
the Mawlawiyya (a Turkish order founded by
Jalaluddin Rumi who is buried
in Konya in Turkey), and the Naqshabandiyya (which
is prominent in Iran
and other parts of Asia).
2. A
Brief Analysis of Sufi Stages and Experiences.
The goal of the
Sufi is to reach a personal
knowledge of his Creator until knower and known are one and there is no
awareness of any distinction of personality between them. Like all
orthodox
Muslims, Sufis reject the concept of incarnation (hulul)
and do not believe
that God can become man (they therefore
reject the teaching of Christ, which is Truth). They also resist pantheistic
tendencies (but do not deny that they exist
within
Sufism), carefully distinguishing between God and his
servants, while
nevertheless teaching that man's aim must be to attain to such a high
state of
consciousness of God that his personality may no longer be
distinguished from
God's essence and character (this is not
a logical construct—cannot have it both ways—not
logical). Man
does not have this knowledge by nature,
however, and each prospective Sufi must prepare for a course which will
take
him through many stages and experiences before he completes his
journey.
…the
Sufis never tire of emphasizing that the end of Sufism is not to
possess such
and such a virtue or state as such but to reach God beyond all states
and
virtues (This is foreign to the teaching
of Christ. Christ
taught that the Father
chooses who will come to Him.). But to reach the Transcendent
beyond the
virtues, man must first possess the virtues; to reach the station of
annihilation and subsistence in God, man must have already passed
through the
other stages and stations. (Nasr,
Living
Sufism, p.58).
The Sufi who sets
out to seek God calls himself
a 'traveler' (salik), he advances by slow 'stages' (maqamat)
along a path (tariqat) to the goal of union with
Reality (fana
fi'l-Haqq).... The Sufi's 'path' is not finished until he has
traversed all
the 'stages', making himself perfect in every one of them before
advancing to
the next (How can an imperfect being
make himself perfect without the aid of one who is perfect. The only sinless one was
Christ, whom the
Sufi rejects.) and has also experienced whatever 'states' it
pleases God to
bestow upon him. (Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam,
p.28, 29).
The early
mysticism of Islam sought only a path
of self-purification, a character renewal, until the personality was
conformed
to the divine image. (It appears in
Sufism that man must make himself pure.
In Christ, God makes man able to approach God. A person can do nothing
for himself in this
regard. Therefore,
the self is useless
in Christianity). Later
it was
believed that such growth must be accompanied by deliberate ecstatic
experiences, confirming the progress of the soul. The decline of Sufism
in
later centuries can perhaps be attributed to the interest of the masses
purely
in the experimental side of Islamic mysticism and the desire for
emotional
excesses.
The
early mystics of Islam, however, devoted themselves primarily to the
first of
the three stages, that is, Purgation. To the mystics, at-tariq
(the
Pathway) was a method of self-purification acquired through the
cleansing of
the senses and through bodily discipline. Gradually the Sufis began to
develop
the second stage, this is, Illumination. Al-Muhasibi (A.D. 781-857),
who
pioneered with his disciples in the pathways of Purgation, was one of
the first
to declare that as purification brings freedom from the attachments of
this
world the Sufi might expect to arrive at the stage of Illumination and
thence
proceed to the unitive life in God. (Jurji, "Illumination - A Sufi
Doctrine", The Muslim World, Vol.27, p.129).
Pure Sufism,
however, sincerely seeks the fullness
of the knowledge of God. (This is
impossible. God
bestows his knowledge to
man through acceptance of His Son and through grace.
The fullness of the knowledge of God comes
through Christ. If
the Sufis do not let
Christ in, they will never know the fullness of the knowledge of God.
The Sufi
is confused, blinded by what he believes he can do.
No man can come to know God through his own
effort.) Nevertheless it has been universally believed by
Sufis and Muslims
for centuries that such a search must be accompanied by external
manifestations. The goal will be obtained when the worshipper sees God
alone in
all that he contemplates and at the same time feels a total and
ecstatic sense
of his presence.
The
whole of Sufism rests on the belief that when the individual self is
lost, the
Universal Self is found, (This is not
true. The
individual does not coalesce
into the Eternal. The
individual self is
never lost. When
Christ arose from the
dead, was He not recognized by his disciples?
Did they not recognize His voice and His form? Did He not have a physical
body? Did He not
walk on the earth? Was
He then lost to
his individuality? No!
) or, in
religious language, that ecstasy affords the only means by which the
soul can
directly communicate (This is also
false. Did not the
disciples communicate
with Christ on earth? It
is true that
the disciples did not know that they were communicating with God at the
time. Lack of
recognition does not mean
the inability to communicate.)
and
become united with God. (Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam,
p.59).
The Sufi believes (and he is deluded in his belief) that a
person can become the
Perfect Man, one "who has fully realized his essential oneness with the
Divine Being in whose likeness he is made" (Nicholson, Studies
in
Islamic Mysticism, p.78). On the path towards this goal,
therefore, the
Sufi believes (which is again misguided
belief) one must no only go through the progressive stages of
self-annihilation but must also have trance-like experiences in which
his
normal consciousness is to be lost in ecstatic contemplation of the
Divine
Being alone. (When Moses spoke with God,
was Moses in ecstatic contemplation at the time? No.
Is not this proof that a person need not lose
his normal consciousness to speak with God?
It is true that few have met God as did Moses, but it is
also true that
normal consciousness need not be lost.
What the Sufis believe here is not true.) These experiences are the ahwal
(singular hal) mentioned earlier and authenticate
the developing
discovery of the ultimate light and truth.
In
the Sufism of the orders this ecstasy or trance-like 'state' is called
a hal,
though in Sufism proper a hal more strictly refers
to the succession of
illuminations, through experiencing which the Sufi progresses a further
'stage'
(maqtam) towards the goal of spiritual perfection.
(Trimingham, The Sufi
Orders in Islam, p.200).
Such experiences
are, to the Sufis, not to be
regarded as hypnotic phenomena to which the human spirit is susceptible
in
appropriate circumstances but rather gifts from God confirming the
Sufi's
striving for his presence. Each stage reached by the disciple is the
result of
his own effort (Did not I not indicate
that it is in Christ that man is able to come to God?
The Sufis place much emphasis on man’s
efforts to reach God…but man can do nothing to attain to the
knowledge of
God. Nothing. Works are dead. Whenever a
person attempts to
reach God by works he is going to fail utterly.
All depends upon God’s grace, through the
acceptance of Jesus
Christ. The Sufis,
again I repeat,
reject the central core of Christ’s teaching.
Therefore, there is no way that they can gain any
knowledge of God. What
they experience comes from their own
minds and not the “Mind” of God); each
experience is a token of the divine favor
upon the endeavor - "the hal is a spiritual mood
depending not upon
the mystic but upon God" (Arberry, Sufism: An Account of the
Mystics of
Islam, p.75).
The Sufi believes
that a Christian must surely
be affected by the whole nature of Sufism. True Christianity, a Sufi
believes, is
by nature mystical (This statement is
false. How can a
Sufi speak concerning
true Christianity? He
does not recognize
the truth in Christianity but presumes to teach what True Christianity
is? How
presumptuous and how utterly false.
True Christianity is essentially logical and
historical. It is
based on mysticism.)
and anyone born of the Holy Spirit will not only seek to become
conformed to
the image of his Lord but will also experience many proofs of the
Spirit's
presence in his soul. Indeed it is a New Testament principle that where
such a
relationship between man and God truly exists, the formal restraints of
legal
ethics and rituals have no binding effect as the believer has the
motivation
towards truth and right-living within him. [This
above statement is believed by Sufis.
However, the statement is false.
Ethics and rituals do restrain.
No Christian is to denigrate the ethics found in the
teaching of Christ,
nor are the rituals to be thrown into the air as being useless. These keep all Christians
in check. Christians
are not above Christ. Christ
taught that the Law was to be observed
and that ethics had a purpose. They
restrain the element of mysticism that could creep into the faith. You see what the Sufis are
attempting to do
here? They are
attempting to discredit
the Law because in a subtle way they believe that they are above the
Law, that
it is not needed. They
think that they
know God, so they don’t need to view the Law and ethics as
anything of much
importance. They
will not say this to
anyone, but it is evident by the above statement.]
And
so for all the actions of life: no outward law regulates the Sufi (They
do
believe that they can do what they wish…for to them what
they do is in
actuality what God is doing. It
is true
that they do not advocate violence, etc.
But it is also true of Paul that he said that some people,
though they
do not know the Law have the Law written in their
hearts—referring to
non-Jews. The law
of God can regulate
some people—however; this is not what the Sufi here means. The Sufi believes in his
heart that since He
knows God, he does not need the “outward” law, not
even as focal point for
spiritual guidance. The
outward law
does not regulate him. But
from where
did the outward law come. Did
it not
come from God and not man? This
is also
what the Gnostics of passed times believed.)
in regard to them, whether the one way or the other; only
the Golden
Mean and the General Happiness. (Gairdner,
"The Way of a Mohammedan Mystic", The Muslim World,
Vol.2,
p.255).
A prominent Sufi
in Islamic history, Sari
as-Saqati, who lived in Baghdad at the same time as Islam's
arch-conservative
theologian, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and was strongly opposed by him, made a
profound
distinction between the legal formalism of the Muslim masses and the
spiritual
quest and path of the Sufi elite:
"The
way of the multitude is this", said Sari, "that you observe prayer
five times daily behind the imam, and that you give alms - if it be in
money,
half a dinar out of every twenty. The way of the elect is this, that
you thrust
the world behind you altogether and do not concern yourself with any of
its
trappings; if you are offered it, you will not accept it. These are the
two
ways". (Arberry, Muslim Saints and Mystics, p.169).
There is a
remarkable similarity here between
the old and new covenants, the former legalistic, the latter based on
"grace and truth" which came through Jesus Christ (John 1.17). Islam cannot be
regarded as a
stepping-stone to Christianity but Sufism definitely is. Genuine Sufism is Islam's
only endeavor to
raise itself towards the glory of the Christian revelation.
The difference
between the two is this - the Sufi seeks in himself to attain to the
knowledge
of God through a series of spiritual stages and denies the Christ in
doing so;
the Christian acknowledges that his natural tendency towards sin and
separation
from God prevent him from ever attaining such a goal, and he submits
rather to
God's redeeming grace in Jesus Christ, His Son (which
the Sufi refutes) and the regenerating work of the Holy
Spirit within him to enable him to know God fully and become like Him.
3. The
Different Stages in the Sufi Quest.
It is not easy to
define the various stages of
the Sufi path, especially since there is no universal consensus
concerning the
exact identity of each stage or even of the order in which they are
reached. It
is generally agreed that the goal is al-Haqiqah,
"the True
Reality", also known as fana, self-annihilation" or
absorption
in God. Very prominent in the Sufi stages is ma'rifah,
"knowledge" of God, or the gnosis of his essence and presence. In
some cases it is set forth as one of the stages towards the goal, in
others it
is identified with the haqiqah as the object of the quest. These two,
together
with the initial tariqah, "the path", constitute
the three
great stages of Sufism. A Sufi must attain to these after graduating
from the
basic laws of Islam which are set forth, Sufis believe, as a principal
code for
the unenlightened Muslim masses. The foundations of the
shari’ah, the law, and
the three ascending Stages of Sufism towards the goal of complete union
with
God through a loss of self-consciousness are defined as follows:
Nasut
is the natural human state in which one lives following the rules of
the shari'a;
Malakut
is the nature of angels, to reach which one treads the tariqa,
the path
of purification; whilst
Jabarut
is the nature of power, to attain which one follows the way of
enlightenment, ma'rifa,
until one swoons into Fana, absorption into Deity,
the State of Reality
(Haqiqa), often called in the order literature `Alam
al-Ghaib,
'the (uncreated) world of the mystery'. (Trimingham, The Sufi
Orders in
Islam, p.160).
Famous Sufis have
individually been responsible
for identifying and emphasizing different stages making up this
threefold
gradient. In time these became integrated into the catalogue of stages
in the Sufi
quest.
One of the initial
stages is said to be an
attitude of indifference towards good or bad fortune. The Sufi believes
that
adversity, causing discomfort, depression or discouragement is brought
about
through God's deliberate "contraction" (qabdh) and
that
prosperity, joyful circumstances and the like, come from his
"expansion" (bast). He humbly resigns himself to
both, seeking
not to be affected by his circumstances but to fix his devotion purely
on his
Lord and Master. Qur'anic sanction is found for these contrasting acts
of God
and the Sufi's willingness to abide in them.
The
Sufi has submitted himself to God, who says "God contracts and
expands" (Koran II: 245). Thus, whether he gives
contraction or
expansion, the Sufi only desires what is desired by his Beloved.
(Nurbakhsh, Sufism,
p.27).
One is reminded of
Paul's words in Philippians
4.11-13. Another typical stage is that of "gathering" (jam)
in
which the Sufi begins to turn away from the state of separation from
God (tafriqah
- "dispersion"), the distinction being between God himself and the
world
of everything but God.
There are many
different stages, but perhaps
some attention should be given to the ultimate stage - fana
- for all
the intermediate stages are different forms of disassociation from all
that is
"under the sun", to use a Biblical expression (from Ecclesiastes), in
the cause of being absorbed into the consciousness of the Supreme Being. Alternatively,
the Sufi seeks to shake off
the identity of his nafs, his individual soul with
all its ungodly
tendencies, similar to the concept of "the flesh" as it is set forth
in opposition to the way of the Spirit in the New Testament, especially
the
eighth chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans.
Fana is the
ultimate goal - dissolution of the Sufi's
consciousness of his own identity through a total absorption in the
knowledge
of God. As a technical term in Sufism, the word annihilation signifies
the
annihilation of the attributes of human nature and their transformation
into
Divine Attributes. In the state of annihilation, the Sufi is completely
immersed in the contemplation of the Attributes of God and oblivious to
his own
self. Sufis
would like to emphasize that
this does not lead to a pantheistic theosophy, but it does.
It is true to say
that the Sufi should never be
able to proclaim that he has reached this stage for his complete
absorption in
God and self-annihilation, his fana fit-tawhid, fil Haqq
("
The
highest stage of fana is reached when even the
consciousness of having
attained fana disappears. This is what the Sufis
call 'the passing-away
of passing-away (fana al-fana). The mystic is now
wrapped in
contemplation of the divine essence. (Nicholson, The Mystics
of Islam,
p.60).
Let us briefly
look at one of the ways in which Sufis
seek to induce a state of ecstasy. Though a means is employed to create
this
state, they insist that the experience itself is from God, which
appears to be
false.
4. Dhikr
- The Remembrance of Allah.
The commonest
means of inducing a state of
ecstasy is the dhikr ceremony. A group of Sufis
will gather together and
begin a series of chants, either of the ninety-nine names of Allah, or
just
simply of the name of Allah himself, until the devotees collapse in a
state of
trance. The famous "whirling dervishes" obtain their name and fame
from this very ceremony. Today it has become customary for numerous
adherents
of Sufism, who know nothing of true Sufism or a deep spiritual quest
coupled
with acts of self-discipline to attain to a higher state of
spirituality, to
seek purely the supposed state of "ecstasy" that can be obtained
through regular concentration on and recitation of the name and
attributes of
Allah.
After
an experience of nearly thirteen years of close contact with Egyptian
Moslems,
I have no hesitation in saying that, as to the bulk of the population
of
The Qur'an
commends the remembrance of Allah in
these words: Wa aqimis-salaah ... wa lathikrullaahi akbar
- "and
establish prayer ... and the remembrance of Allah, which is greater"
(Surah 29.45). Orthodox Muslims take this verse simply to mean that
prayer
without a consciousness of Allah has a very limited value. Sufis
interpret it
to mean that the practice of dhikr through
repetitions of Allah's name
and attributes is greater than the formal acts of the prescribed salaah,
the basic Islamic form of worship.
According
to some this means the mentioning, or the remembering of God
constitutes the
quintessence of prayer; according to others it indicates the excellence
of
invocation as compared with prayer. (Burckhardt, An
Introduction to Sufi
Doctrine, p.101).
A dhikr ceremony
is something to behold, though
Christian observers can be excused if they become bored after a while
with a
monotonous repetition of religious clichés, e.g. la
ilaha illullah -
"there is no God but Allah", which supposedly brings the devotee into
the realm of God and a conscious awareness of his presence simply
because they
result in a trance-like state. In all religions there are those who
seek,
through various means, to enter into such trances and these means are
all very
similar to one another. The end result seems to be a self-induced,
hypnotic
state rather than a God-ordained experience.
5. How
Sufism Relates to the Qur’an and Hadith.
If Sufism is a
later development within Islam
(with roots in Neo-Platonism), how does it reconcile itself with
original
Islam, the religion of Muhammad as set forth in the Qur'an and Hadith?
The Sufi
answer is that this original Islam has the germs of Sufism and that
both the
Qur'an and Hadith contain numerous passages indicating the deeper
nature of
true Islam, that which later blossomed into its great mystical
movement. We
know, though, that Sufism is not the
nature of true Islam.
Expressions such
as these in the Qur'an are
produced by Sufis as proof that Islam is, at heart, a spiritual
religion:
"To God belong the East and the West: whithersoever ye turn, there is
the
Presence of God. For God is All-Pervading, All-Knowing" (Surah 2.115);
and
"We are nearer to him (man) than his jugular vein" (Surah 50.16).
Although Muhammad himself could hardly be described as a mystic, let
alone a Sufi,
there are verses in the Qur'an that do at least support the Sufi
contention,
prompting one scholar to say: "however unfavorable to mysticism the
Koran
as a whole may be, I cannot assent to the view that it supplies no
basis for a
mystical interpretation of Islam" (Nicholson, The Mystics of
Islam,
p.22). As the Qur'an is believed to be the uncreated Word of God it is
little
wonder Sufis seek to authenticate their movement with reference to its
teaching
and it is not surprising that they make much of these verses. "For
these
mystical texts are the chief encouragement and justification of the
Sufi in his
belief that he also may commune with God" (Arberry, Sufism:
An Account
of the Mystics of Islam, p.17).
Another verse
cherished by the Sufis is this
one: "To God we belong, and to Him is our return" (Surah 2.156) as it
seems to synchronize with their whole philosophy that man's objective
and duty
on earth is to strive spiritually until he comes back to the knowledge
of his
Creator. The "return" must therefore be one in which the soul can be
re-united with its Maker through a thorough spiritual devotion.
The
Sufis claim that the whole of Sufism is summed up in this verse, and it
is
often chanted at their gatherings and sometimes repeated a certain
number of
times on a rosary; and in fact, although every believer is necessarily
'for
God' in some degree or other, the mystic may be said to be 'for God' in
a way
which the rest of the community is not. (Lings, What is
Sufism?, p.28).
The Hadith contain
certain "hadith
qudsi" (divine sayings of Allah), allegedly reported from Muhammad
himself
which contain mystical elements even closer to the heart of Sufism than
the
verses quoted from the Qur'an. A famous saying of this kind is:
My
slave keeps on coming closer to Me through performing Nawafil (praying
or doing
extra deeds besides what is obligatory) till I love him, so I become
his sense
of hearing with which he hears, and his sense of sight with which he
sees, and
his hand with which he grips, and his leg with which he walks; and if
he asks
Me, I will give him, and if he asks my protection (Refuge), I will
protect him.
(Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol.8, p.336).
One writer
comments that "the whole of Sufism
- its aspirations, its practice, and in a sense also even its doctrine
- is
summed up in this Holy Tradition, which is quoted by the Sufis perhaps
more
often than any other text apart from the Qur'an" (Lings, What
is Sufism?,
p.74). Another similar saying is: I was a hidden treasure and I desired
to be
known; therefore I created the creation in order that I might be known
(quoted
in Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam, p.80).
These traditions are, for the Sufis, their motivation for earnestly
desiring to
know God and their belief that he does indeed desire that his servants
should
thus seek Him. One writer says of the last saying:
This
is called the "self-revealing" (tajalla) of Allah
and is only
really intelligible through the mystical contemplation, which sees all
things
in God, as it sees God in all things. (MacDonald, The
Religious Attitude and
Life in Islam, p.170).
There is, of
course, the possibility that the
hadith quoted are symptomatic of later developments in mystical Islam.
Accordingly they may well have been invented. Nevertheless, for the
Sufis, they
authenticate Islamic mysticism, enabling them to trace it back to
statements
allegedly reported on the authority of Muhammad himself.
6. Some
Famous Sufis in Muslim History.
There are a number
of Sufis who stand out in the
history of Islamic mysticism, all of whom have made their contribution
in one
way or another to the development of Sufism. One of the most famous of
the early
Sufis was Junayd, the head of a large body of disciples, who died in
Junayd, being one
of the early Sufi masters, was
not given to excesses in his mystic devotions and sought chiefly
through a
process of self-denial to discover the way to God. The following
saying, which
seems to be far more Christian than Muslim in origin and emphasis, is
attributed to him: "Sufism is that God makes thee die to thyself and
become resurrected in Him" (quoted in Nasr, Living Sufism,
p.57).
It was this very principle of dying to self that later became the
foundation of
the Sufi concept of fana, being lost in the
consciousness of God, and
Junayd was one of the first to use this expression.
At the other
extreme we find the famous Persian Sufi
master Bayazid al-Bistami, "first of the 'intoxicated' Sufis who,
transported upon the wings of mystical fervor, found God within his own
soul
and scandalized the orthodox by ejaculating, 'Glory to Me! How great is
My
Majesty'" (Arberry, Sufism: An Account of the Mystics of Islam,
p.54). Sobriety was not at the heart of this man's mystic experiences.
He not
only established the concept of being so united to God that the
identities of
the Creator and creature become one but also gave the ecstatic
character of
this experience its impetus. As was to be expected, he was highly
unpopular
with the orthodox Muslims of his day. He is credited with many bold and
daring
statements, of which the one quoted above is an example. Here is
another:
For
instance, one day Bayazid was in his cell.
Someone came and said, "Is Bayazid in the house?"
He answered, "Is there anyone in the house but God?
(Nurbakhsh, Sufism, p.53).
He also greatly
emphasized the ultimate state of
fana but gave it a far more experimental character.
He is accordingly
regarded as the founder of the "drunken"
Some Muslims say
that a true Muslim on
pilgrimage will see the Casaba the first time, the Casaba and the Lord
of the
House the second and only his Lord on the third. Bayazid went further:
"The
first time I entered the Holy House," stated Abu Yazid, "I saw the
Holy House. The second time I entered it, I saw the Lord of the House.
The
third time I saw neither the House nor the Lord of the House" (Arberry,
Muslim
Saints and Mystics, p.121).
This experience
illustrates the whole meaning of
the fana state - a lost consciousness even of God himself as the Sufi
pilgrim
becomes one with God. Another symbolizing this same concept is:
One
day someone came to Bayazid's door and knocked. The shaykh said, "Who
are
you seeking?" The man replied "Bayazid". Bayazid then answered,
"Poor Bayazid! I have been seeking him for thirty years but have found
no
sign or trace of him". (Nurbakhsh, Sufism, p.97).
Another famous
mystic from the golden age of Sufism
was Abu Sa'id ibn Abul-Khayr, a prominent member of the group of early
masters
who emphasized the doctrine of losing one's human consciousness and
subsisting
in the knowledge of God alone. These men all believed that by
renouncing
earthly pleasures, by mystical hours of devotion, and by seeking out
the higher
virtues of the soul, one could walk the road towards this goal.
Self-love had
to be replaced by a disinterested love for God alone.
Abu Sa'id followed
in the footsteps of Bayazid,
making many bold statements calculated to antagonize the orthodox. On
one
occasion he told one of the fuqaha, the Muslim
jurists, that he could
read his thoughts (many anecdotes have
been recorded of his alleged power to discern the thoughts of men).
The
jurist had thought to himself that he could not find Abu Sa'id's
teaching in
the seven-sevenths of the Qur'an (that
is, the whole Qur an). Abu Sa'id replied that his doctrine
was contained in
the "eighth-seventh" of the book, meaning a special revelation given
by God to his favorite servants. This concept of an independent
revelation
given to a Muslim after the revelation of the Qur'an is diametrically
opposed
to the Muslim doctrine of the finality of prophet hood.
Here
Abu Sa'id sets aside the partial, finite, and temporal revelation on
which
Islam is built, and appeals to the universal infinite and everlasting
revelation which the Sufis find in their hearts. As a rule, even the
boldest
Mohammedan mystics shrink from uttering such a challenge. (Nicholson, Studies
in Islamic Mysticism, p.60).
Among the great
mystics of Islam was a woman,
Rabi'a al-Adawiyya, who lived in
Of
Rabi'a her biographer wrote that she was "on fire with love to God",
and she was one of the first among the Sufis to teach the doctrine of
disinterested love to God. She was asked if she hated Satan, and
answered
"No", and when asked if she loved the Prophet, she said, "My
love to God has so possessed me that no place remains for hating aught,
or
loving any save Him". (Smith, "Rabi'a, The Woman Saint', The
Muslim World, Vol.20, p.341).
The most tragic
figure in Sufi history is
al-Hallaj, one of the "intoxicated" mystics who was also inclined to
complete indiscretion in making bold statements which outraged the
orthodox. He
openly claimed ana'l Haqq - "I am the Truth", and
for refusing
to recant was brutally dismembered and crucified. (It
is striking to find that he suffered the same fate as Jesus Christ
who made exactly the same claim, although more worthily in that Jesus
did show
proofs relating to His deity before His death on the Cross.)
Later Sufi mystics
considered him a true martyr
even though many at the time disowned him. They charged him with
teaching hulul,
i.e. incarnation, in that he suggested that God himself joined in union
with
man (the hypostatic union of Christ?)
in all his essence rather than that man attained to a state of
identifying with
God in his attributes and personality. The later Sufis, however,
endeavored to
interpret al-Hallaj's doctrine as distinct from the concept of hulul
and
"they have also done their best to clear Hallaj from the suspicion of
having taught it (Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam,
p.151).
The
general line taken was that he was right in his teaching, but that he
ought not
to have published abroad the secrets of Sufism, a proceeding for which
he deserved
to be put to death. It must be remembered that later Sufis left out
many of the
distinctive features of Hallaj's doctrine. They discarded the term Hulul,
and they replaced his view of the union of the human soul with God by a
doctrine of monism, in which all created things including the souls of
men, are
merely mirrors reflecting one or other of the attributes of God.
(Thompson.
"Al-Hallaj, Saint and Martyr", The Muslim World,
Vol.19,
p.401).
Although Abdul
Qadir al-Jilani is held to be the
founder of the Qadariyya, the greatest school in Sufism, the extent of
his
devotion to Sufism cannot be ascertained fully. He was a dedicated
follower of
the legalistic
After the heyday
of Sufism in the early
centuries of Islam the movement began to lose credibility and it took
the great
Islamic scholar Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali to give it a more sober image and
respectability among the general public. Al-Ghazzali was a renowned
orthodox
theologian and, after a period of cynical agnosticism and depression,
he
declared himself a champion of Sufism, claiming to have found peace and
purpose
at last through a personal experience of refuge in God alone. His
mysticism was
chiefly of a less emotional kind than his predecessors, concentrating
on
intellectual insight and understanding, and it is therefore not
surprising that
"he is not regarded as being a practicing Sufi by the ecstatics and
gnostics" (Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam,
p.52). Yet it was
he who reconciled Sufism with orthodox Islam and a fine example of the
way he
did this is found in his definition of the four stages of the knowledge
of tawhid,
the "unity" of God, in his greatest work:
The
first stage is like the outer cover of a cocoanut, the second stage is
the
inner cover of a cocoanut, the third is the kernel of a cocoanut, and
the
fourth stage the oil of the kernel. The first stage of Tawhid is to
utter by tongue
"There is no deity but God". The second stage is to confirm it by
heart. The third stage is like a kernel which can be seen by inner
light or by
way of Kashf. The fourth stage is like oil in kernel. He sees nothing
but God.
(Imam Gazzali's Ihya Ulum-id-Din, Vol.4, p.238).
Here the orthodox
dogma is almost imperceptibly
fused with the whole foundation of Sufism. Al-Ghazzali's chief
contribution to Sufism
was to remove its stigma in the eyes of the orthodox by tempering its
character
and bringing it more into line with fundamental Islam.
Not only did he
save Sufism from extinction by
softening its dramatic character but at least one writer considers that
he also
delivered orthodox Islam from the dead-weight of formalism: "Had not
mysticism in the course of time acquired a place in official Islam,
chiefly
through the influence of al-Ghazali, the Muslim religion would have
become a
lifeless form" (Wensinck, The Muslim Creed, p.58).
Sufism is a
remarkable phenomenon in Islam and
Christian readers must, after reading this introduction, have
recognized how
similar it is to Christianity in so many of its facets and objectives.
Although
Sufism is similar in some respects to Christianity it must be also be
remembered that in Christianity there is no esoteric and exoteric
teaching as
in Sufism. Jesus
told His disciples that
what the Father taught Him, He in turn taught His disciples. In effect, he held nothing
back, and holds
nothing back as long as an individual asks.
“Ask and you shall receive; knock and the door
will be opened to you,”
are words that came from Jesus’ lips.
The Holy Spirit enables anyone to understand the teaching
of God. All who
accept Christ and wish to know the
truth will be taught by the Holy Spirit.
In Sufism, however, this principle is not readily accepted.
Having written the
above one must admit than in
many ways Sufi spiritual character is far more consistent with
Christianity
than orthodox Islam. The Christian
witness to Islam has here its greatest potential for making its message
heard
and understood.
________________________________________________________________
Below is an
article written by a prominent Sufi
which explains, in essence, that some men and woman can never know God. It is difficult for
Christians to accept the
gist of this statement.
The following
article written by Shah
Nazar Seyed Dr. Ali Kianfar is taken
from the journal Sufism: An Inquiry.
Does everyone have the essential
capacity to accept and
receive the teachings and the principles taught by Sufis? More
precisely, can everyone make the principal focus of their life the
cultivation
of discipline, learning, and advanced morality? (Christians believe so.)
Truthful
Sufis have a consensus on this important, though little-discussed
issue. The
answer is clear in nature: not every human being is capable of
receiving,
accepting, and understanding spiritual teachings. (Christians
do not accept this.)
Sufis believe that everything is
in the hand of Allah. This
might seem to imply that anything and everything is possible (Jesus taught that anything is possible for
God.)-but in truth this fact point highlights the same
conclusion. Allah
has established the harmony of Being, a world governed by laws,
including
spiritual laws. One of the most basic of these is that there must be a
harmony
between the sender and the receiver, both in the world of nature, and
in the
world of the spirit-the two are, for Sufis, one realm of being. In the
spiritual domain, such harmony consists in understanding, and that
depends upon
the inherent capability of the receiver.
The heart of the human being is
the locus of receiving
spiritual truth, and the truth that the individual is capable of
receiving
depends upon the qualities of heart. Just as not every individual may
be a
mathematician, a poet, or an inventor, so also not everyone may receive
spiritual teachings, for many lack the necessary basis of
understanding. (This statement is not true. Christ taught otherwise.)
To admit this
is merely to accept the nature of being, to acknowledge the evidence of
many
years of teaching and the long history of Sufism.
Some people may argue against
this statement by claiming
that everyone is equal, and all can receive spiritual knowledge. But
this is
not really argument, only empty sloganeering. Indeed, to think in this
way is
itself a sign of a lack of essential inward understanding, or a poverty
of
heart. (This is not true. Anyone who
accepts Jesus can receive the Holy Spirit, who does the teaching. Please do not fall for
what this Sufi is
saying.) Those
who would make
everyone equal deny the uniqueness of heart, the reality of humanity,
and
reduce the human being to the uniformity of a thing. Such people do not
practice reason, but instead express their own anger at Being. (…Again, this Sufi is subtly making
false
statements. All are
enabled by God to
know Him. All they
need do is ask. Beware;
he is discussing approaching God and
being taught. We
are not discussing the
physical body here, or one’s temperament.
We are examining the ability of a man/woman to understand
spiritual
teaching. God is
not exclusionistic in
this regard. Anyone
who comes to Christ,
to God, was drawn by the Father and will be accepted and taught by the
Holy
Spirit.) They
question God for His
supposed lack of compassion-as if to make everyone the same were to
show Divine
compassion. In so doing, they merely expose their own lack of
understanding:
the God that is accused in such a court and by such people is indeed
unknown to
them.
There is a story told by a Sufi
that may be mentioned here:
A group of bandits once infested
the mountains, waiting for
passing caravans to rob. A king who lived in a nearby city gathered the
best of
his soldiers and sent them to the mountains to find the robbers. The
soldiers
found their hiding places, and waited for the bandits to fall asleep.
With
nightfall, the robbers fell asleep one by one. In the middle of the
night the
soldiers attacked, captured them, and brought them back to court. The
king
ordered all to be executed. There was a very young man among these
thieves, and
the king's minister, taking pity on this youth, asked the king to spare
him.
Perhaps such a young man could be exposed to a good environment,
brought up in
a good family, and given teachers to help him to grow to be a better
man. The
king warned his minister that the boy was a thief, that such was his
identity,
despite his youth. But the minister begged to be allowed to try. So the
king
set the boy free and gave the minister the responsibility of educating
the boy.
Time passed, and in a few years, the boy began associating with unfit
friends,
stealing, and eventually killing none other than the son of the
minister,
running away from the city and joining another group of bandits.
The Sufi storyteller ends with
this warning:
Rain is delicate and pure. It
pours gracefully upon both
field and desert, the field grows flowers, and the desert-thorns. (Do
not
forget that the thorns can be plucked out of the desert. Jesus plucks the thorns
out of the desert of
the mind and with the help of the Holy Spirit, plants flowers.)
My comments…
Sufis enjoy
telling stories. Did
you remark in the
above story that what the Sufi is teaching is that one man is not
capable of
changing his behavior with Divine help. Remember, this Sufi is
discussing spiritual
truth. The story is
attempting to show
that people cannot change.
“Once a
thief always a thief,” is the gist of this story. Christians know this to be
wrong. The
acceptance of Christ in one’s life has
changed the lives and behaviors of many spiritually errant men and
women. You see here
that the Sufi is rejecting
relevant facts to further what he believes to be true about man. This Sufi does not know
Christ, has not had
the experience of Christ, is not aware of the power of the Holy Spirit,
and,
regrettably, as it appears, could care less.
No man can teach spiritual truth without accepting the
truth of
Jesus. The
attitudes of men do change
under the influence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This
Sufis’ belief that only the few can know
divine truth shows that he still is planted in what the Sufis
themselves call
“nafs”.
Let us get one
thing perfectly clear in reading Sufi literature.
Sufis, for the most part, are still
Muslims. As a whole
they do not accept
the teachings of Christ. They
do not
accept His return. They
do not accept
the resurrection body. They
do not
understand the Trinity, and what it means.
They speak of love but deny the source of that love, which
is Jesus, who
is God. They do not
have a
conceptualization of the sublime power of the Holy Spirit to change the
lives
of men and women. Al
Hallaj, a Sufi in
which I referred to in the introduction, because he professed his
profound love
for Christ, was crucified by the religious authorities of his day. Al Hallaj identified
himself with
Christ. He said
that he and Christ were
one. (Jesus, in John 17 prays to the Father that we all become one in
Him as He
is one in Father). He
recognized that
Jesus was in Him and He was in God and God in him.
And, like Jesus, was crucified for the
utterance of affirming that Truth.
Sure
that was many years ago; however, Sufis still cling to Islam, and Islam
denies
that Jesus is the Son of God.
In this paper, please remember what I have written above. Sufi teaching is very appealing to the Christian because it mirrors much of what Christ taught.