Sufi Orders – Hybrid Learning

Sufi Orders

Batoota — Thu, 17 Aug 2017 15:02:07 +0000

Sufi orders represent one of the most important forms of personal piety and social organization in the Islamic world. In most areas, an order is called a tariqah (pl., turuq), which is the Arabic word for “path” or “way.” The term tariqah is used for both the social organization and the special devotional exercises that are the basis of the order’s ritual and structure. As a result, the “Sufi orders” or tariqahs include a broad spectrum of activities in Muslim history and society.
Mystical explanations of Islam emerged early in Muslim history, and there were pious mystics who developed their personal spiritual paths involving devotional practices, recitations, and literature of piety. These mystics, or Sufis, sometimes came into conflict with authorities in the Islamic community and provided an alternative to the more legalistic orientation of many of the `ulama’. However, Sufis gradually became important figures in the religious life of the general population and began to gather around themselves groups of followers who were identified and bound together by the special mystic path tariqah of the teacher. By the twelfth century (the fifth century in the Islamic era), these paths began to provide the basis for more permanent fellowships, and Sufi orders emerged as major social organizations in the Islamic community.
The orders have taken a variety of forms throughout the Islamic world. These range from the simple preservation of the tariqah as a set of devotional exercises to vast interregional organizations with carefully defined structures. The orders also include the short-lived organizations that developed around particular individuals and more long-lasting structures with institutional coherence. The orders are not restricted to particular classes, although the orders in which the educated urban elite participated had different perspectives from the orders that reflected a more broadly based popular piety, and specific practices and approaches varied from region to region.
In all Sufi orders there were central prescribed rituals which involved regular group meetings for recitations of prayers, poems, and selections from the Qur’an. These meetings were usually described as acts of “remembering God” or dhikr. In addition, daily devotional exercises for the followers were also set, as were other activities of special meditation, asceticism, and devotion. Some of the special prayers of early Sufis became widely used, while the structure and format of the ritual was the distinctive character provided by the individual who established the tariqah The founder was the spiritual guide for all followers in the order, who would swear a special oath of obedience to him as their shaykh or teacher. As orders continued, the record of the transmission of the ritual would be preserved in a formal chain of spiritual descent, called a silsilah, which stated that the person took the order from a shaykh who took it from another shaykh in a line extending back to the founder, and then usually beyond the founder to the prophet Muhammad. As orders became firmly established, leadership would pass from one shaykh to the next, sometimes within a family fine and sometimes on the basis of spiritual seniority within the tariqah At times, a follower would reach a sufficient degree of special distinction that his prayers would represent a recognized subbranch within a larger order; at other times, such a follower might be seen as initiating a whole new tariqah
Within all this diversity, it is difficult to provide a simple account of the development of Sufi orders, but at least some of the main features of the different types of orders and their development can be noted.
Premodern Foundations. Different types of orders developed in the early centuries of tariqah-formation. These provide important foundations for the Sufi orders of the modern era.
Large inclusive traditions. One type of order is the large inclusive tadgah tradition with a clearly defined core of devotional literature. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, some major figures emerge as the organizers of orders that were to become the largest in the Islamic world. In some cases, the orders may actually have been organized by the immediate followers of the “founders,” but these teachers represent the emergence of large-scale orders. The most frequently noted of these early orders is the Qadiriyah, organized around the teachings of `Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (d. 1166), which grew rapidly and became the most widespread of the orders. Two other major orders originating in this era are the Suhrawardlyah, based on the teachings and organization of Abu al-Najib al-Suhrawardi (d. 1168) and his nephew, Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi (d. 1234); and the Rifa’iyah, representing the tariqah of Ahmad al-Rifa’i (d. 1182). By the thirteenth century, increasing numbers of tariqahs were being organized in the traditions of great teachers. Many of these were of primarily local or regional influence, but some became as widespread as the earlier orders. Among the most important of these are the Shadhiliyah (established by Abu al-Hasan alShadhili, d. 1258) in Egypt and North Africa, and the Chishtiyah (Mu’in al-Din Chishti, d. 1142) in Central and South Asia.
These large tariqahs are an important type of order representing a coherent tradition based on a central core of writings by the founder. Within these broad traditions over the centuries, later teachers would arise and create their own particular variants, but these would still maintain an identification with the main tradition. For example, throughout the Islamic world there are distinctive branches of the Qadiriyah, but these are generally identified as part of the Qadiriyah tradition, as is the case with the Bakka’iyah established by Ahmad alBakka’i al-Kunti (d. 1504) in West Africa, or the various branches of the Ghawthiyah originating with Muhammad Ghawth (d. 1517) in South Asia. This process of creating independent suborders continues to the present and can be seen in the variety of relatively new tadgahs in the traditions of the early orders, often identified with compound names, such as the Hamidiyah Shadhiliyah of contemporary Egypt.
Orders based on “ancient ways.” A second major style of Sufi order developed within less clearly defined traditions that appealed to the early Sufis and utilized some of their prayers and writings but developed distinctive identities of their own. Thus many tariqah organizers traced their inspiration back to early Sufis like Abu al-Qasim al-Junayd (d. 910) or Abu Yazid alBistami (d. 874). One may speak of the Junaydi tradition and the “way of Junayd” as insisting on constant ritual purity and fasting (Schimmel, 1975, p. 255) or the more ecstatic mood in the tradition of al-Bistami. However, the great “Junaydi” or “Bistami” orders are independent and have their own separate traditions. Among the most important Junaydi orders are the Kubrawiyah and the Mawlawiyah; orders such as the Yasawiyah and Naqshbandiyah are seen as being more in the Bistami tradition. Within the framework of affirming inspiration and instruction by a chain of teachers that stretches back to the early Sufis, new orders continue to be created within this broader framework.
Individual-based orders. A third type of major order is the tariqah that develops as a result of the initiatives and teachings of a later teacher and has its own clear identity. These teachers usually would affirm their ties to earlier teachers and tariqahs, but in some significant ways they would proclaim the unique validity of their particular tariqah. Sometimes this would take the form of an affirmation that the new tariqah. was a synthesis of preceding tariqahs, sometimes the claim for authority would be based on direct inspiration from the prophet Muhammad, in which case the order might be called a tariqah. Muhammadiyah, or from some other special agent of God, for example al-Khidr. Orders of this type have been very important in the modern Muslim world and include the Tijaniyah, the Khatmiyah, and the Sanusiyah.
Shrine tariqahs, Local orders centered on particular shrines or families represent another very important type of tariqah. Teachers with special reputations for sanctity might develop significant followings during their lifetime, but their writings and work might not provide the basis for a larger order to develop. Tombs of such pious teachers throughout the Muslim world have been important focuses of popular piety, and the rituals surrounding the ceremonies of remembrance and homage become a local tariqah. Sometimes these might be indirectly identified with some more general Sufi tradition, but the real impact and identity is local. The special centers of popular piety in North Africa that have developed around the tombs of the “marabouts,” or the various centers of pilgrimage that developed in Central Asia and even survived the policies of suppression by the former Soviet regime, provide good examples of this style of tariqah.
Foundations of the Modern Orders. Many observers have proclaimed the effective end of the Sufi orders in the modern era. A major French authority on medieval Sufism, for example, announced in the middle of the twentieth century that the orders were “in a state of complete decline” and that they faced “the hostility and contempt of the elite of the modern Muslim world” (Massignon, 1953, P. 574). This reflects both the long historical tension between the Muslim urban intellectual elites and the tariqahs, and also the specifically modern belief that mystic religious experience and modernity were incompatible. However, by the end of the twentieth century it was clear that Sufi orders remained a dynamic part of the religious life of the Islamic world; moreover, they were at the forefront of the expansion of Islam, not only in “traditional” rural areas but also in modern societies in the West and among the modernized intellectual elites within the Muslim world. These apparently contradictory views reflect the complex history and development of tariqahs, since the eighteenth century.
There is an underlying continuity of experience in the Sufi orders which provides an important backdrop to specific modern developments. The rituals of popular piety among Muslims-educated and uneducated, rural and urban-cannot be ignored. Although over the past three centuries educated Muslims have paid less attention to the more miraculous and magical elements of saint visitation and other aspects of popular Sufi piety, the intellectual appeal of Islamic mysticism has remained strong, and the sense of social cohesion provided by the Sufi organizations has been important, especially in areas like the Muslim Central Asian societies of the former Soviet Union. Popular participation in regular Sufi gatherings and support for various types of tariqahs, remain at remarkably high levels throughout the Muslim world. Estimates of membership in Sufi orders in Egypt, for example, are in the millions, in contrast to the hundreds or thousands in the more militant Islamic revivalist organizations.
Popular Islamic piety among all classes of people remains strong throughout the modern era and shows little sign of a decline at the end of the twentieth century. This popular piety frequently is expressed in terms of participation in the activities of tariqahs, or other groups reflecting Sufi approaches to the faith. However, the activities of the organizations of this popular piety do not usually attract much attention, despite their long-term importance. This situation provides the proper background for examining the specific experiences of the more visible Sufi orders of the modern era.
The history of tariqahs, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries provides an important foundation for understanding the dynamics of the recent development of Sufi orders. Sufi organizations and leadership from this period remain significant in setting the discourse and defining the issues of Islamic piety in the modern era.
Some modern scholars argue that a number of new initiatives can be seen in the development of the Sufi organizations and thought of the early modern era. Among some Sufi teachers there were efforts to remove the more ecstatic and pantheistic elements of the Sufi tradition and to create more reform-oriented Sufi organizations and practices. Fazlur Rahman called this tendency “neo-Sufism” (Islam, Chicago, 1979), a term that came to be used by other scholars as well. “Neo-Sufism” referred to a mood rather than making any claim that the term represented a monolithic school of Sufi thought. Other scholars have tended to reject the term because it seemed to ignore important continuities in Sufi traditions and also seemed to assume a greater degree of similarity among movements than might exist.
Regardless of the details of the debate, in the eighteenth century the broad spectrum of Sufi orders and practices extended from the local varieties of popular folk religion to a more sober and sometimes reformist Sufi leadership that did not approve of the popular cultic practices. Whether or not one calls the latter approach “neo-Sufism” is less important than it is to recognize that the less ecstatic and more shari`ah-minded Sufism existed and provided the basis for emerging tariqahs important in the modern era. These orders represented a “new organizational phenomenon” of orders that were “relatively more centralized and less prone to fission than their predecessors” (O’Fahey, 1990, p. 4).
In the context of Islamic societies in the eighteenth century, immediately before the major encounter with the modernizing West, Sfifi orders were a significant part of the social fabric throughout the Islamic world. They provided vehicles for the expression of the faith of urban elites, served as networks for interregional interaction and travel, acted as an effective inclusive structure for the missionary expansion of Islam, and in some ways shaped the context within which movements of puritanical reform or spiritual revival developed.
Elite Fariqahs. In the large urban centers in regions where Islam was the established faith of the overwhelming majority of the population, the orders were vehicles for the expression of piety among both the masses and the elites. New presentations of the old traditions, such as the Qadiriyah, Shadhiliyah, and Khalwatlyah, were important in places like Cairo. By the eighteenth century the larger orders of all types were expanding into many different regions.
The history of the Naqshbandiyah in the Middle East provides an important example of this development. It spread from Central and South Asia into Ottoman lands in at least two different forms-that of Ahmad Sirhind! (d. 1625), called the Mujaddid or renewer of the second millennium, and the earlier line of `Ubaydullah Ahrar. By the eighteenth century, notables in the tariqah were prominent in Istanbul and other major Ottoman cities like Damascus, where the great Hanafi mufti and historian Muhammad Khalil al-Muradi (d. 1791) was a scion of a family associated with the Naqshbandlyah. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Shaykh Khalid alBaghdadi (d. 1827) of the Mujaddidi line led a major movement of revival in the lands of the Fertile Crescent; the activities of the Khalid! branch established the Naqshbandlyah as “the paramount order in Turkey” (Hamid Algar, “Nakshbandiyya,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., 1960-, vol. 7, p. 936).
Interregional networks. The Naqshbandlyah also presents a good example of how the orders provided structures for interregional networks among the `ulama’ and commercial classes. Students, pilgrims, and travelers could move from city to city, finding shelter and instruction in the Naqshband! centers. One such person was a Chinese scholar, Ma Mingxin (d. 1781), who traveled and studied in major Naqshbandlyah centers in Central Asia, Yemen, and Mecca and Medina. Combined networks of commercial activities and pious instruction can be seen in the activities of family-based tariqahs like the `Aydarusiyah, the order of an important family in the Hadramawt, the `Aydarus, with branches in the islands of Southeast Asia, India, South Arabia, and Cairo. The lists of teachers of scholars in the eighteenth century show that major intellectual figures often received devotional instruction in broad interregional networks of Sufi masters.
Missionary expansion. Sufi orders had also long been vehicles in the missionary expansion of Islam. The less legalistic approach to the faith of Sufi teachers often involved an adaptation to specific local customs and practices. This helped Islam to become a part of popular religious activity with a minimum of conflict. At the same time, the traditions of the Sufi devotions represented ties to the broad Islamic world that could integrate the newer believers into the identity of the Islamic community as a whole. In this way, orders like the Qadiriyah played a significant role in the expansion of Islam in Africa. In Sudan, for example, its decentralized structure allowed specific regional and tribal leaders to assume roles of leadership within the order. In Southeast Asia, the tariqahs, were also important in providing a context within which existing religious customs could be combined with more explicitly Islamic activities. Thus orders like the Shattariyah became major forces in the Islamic life of peoples in Java and Sumatra. This missionary dimension is visible wherever Islam was expanding in the eighteenth century-in Africa, southeastern Europe, and central, southern and southeastern Asia. [See Da’wah.]
Puritan reformism. Sufi orders also helped to provide concepts of organization for groups actively engaged in efforts to “purify” religious practice and revive the faith. Although the best-known eighteenth century revivalist movement, the Wahhabis, was vigorously opposed to the Sufi orders, most revivalists in fact had some significant Sufi affiliations. In West Africa, the leaders of movements to establish more explicitly Islamic states in Futa Jallon and Futa Toro, in the areas of modern Senegal and Guinea, were associated with important branches of the Qadiriyah. The great jihad at the beginning of the nineteenth century in northern Nigeria and neighboring territories was led by Usuman dan Fodio, a teacher closely identified with the Qadiriyah. At the other end of the Islamic world of the eighteenth century, the “neo-orthodox reformist movement” called the “New Teaching” that “swept Northwest China” in the late eighteenth century was the Naqsh-bandiyah as presented by Ma Mingxin (A. D. W. Forbes, “Ma Ming-Hsin,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., 1960-, vol. 5, p. 850). In many other areas as well, Sufi orders were associated with the development of reformist and jihadist movements of purification.
The developments of the eighteenth century provide important foundations for later events in Islamic life in general and in the history of Sufi orders in particular. It was the Islamic world as it existed in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, not some classical medieval formulation, that encountered the expanding and modernizing West. In those encounters the Sufi orders played an important role, which sometimes does not receive as much attention as the activities of more radical movements or movements more explicitly shaped and influenced by the West.
Sufi Orders in the Modern Era. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the different Sufi traditions were involved in many different ways in helping to shape Muslim responses to the West and also in defining Islamic forms of modernity. At the same time, although in changing contexts, many of the main themes of the older experiences of the orders continue. Among the many aspects of the history of Sufi orders in the modern era, it is important to examine a number more closely: the Sufi orders continued to serve as an important basis for popular devotional life; they were important forces in responding to imperial rule; they helped to provide organizational and intellectual inspiration for Muslim responses to modern challenges to the faith; and they continued to be an important force in the mission of Muslims to non-Muslims.
Popular piety. Tariqahs remained very important in the life of popular piety among the masses; however, this important level of popular devotional life is not as visible in the public arena as the more activist roles of the orders. New orders continued to emerge around respected teachers and saintly personalities important in the daily lives of common people. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century it is possible to identify such orders in virtually all parts of the Islamic world. It is especially important to observe that these new devotional paths were not simply the products of rural, conservative, or so-called “traditional” people.
An example is the career of Qarib Allah Abu Salih (1866-1936), a pious teacher in Omdurman, Sudan, and a member of the Sammaniyah tariqah. an order established in the eighteenth century within the Khalwatlyah tradition. He participated in the Mahdist movement in the late nineteenth century and during the early twentieth century attracted disciples from both the poorer people and the emerging modern educated classes in Sudan. His devotional writings and mystic poetry were published and became an important part of the modern literature of Sudan (Tahir Muhammad ‘Ali al-Bashir, Al-adab al-Sufi ft al-Sudan, Cairo, 1970). The Qaribiyah was not politically active as an organization, although its members may have been politically involved as individuals.
Across the Islamic world, similar groups have emerged as a pious foundation for devotional life in all levels of society. Similarly, intellectuals and professionals as well as the more general population continued in relatively significant numbers to participate in activities of the older established orders. This phenomenon could be observed, for example, in Cairo during the 1960s at the peak of enthusiasm for Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Arab Socialism (Voll, 1992). Although the contexts had changed since the beginning of the nineteenth century, at the end of the twentieth century, new orders which served popular devotional needs continued to be created and to flourish in ways that provide a sense of both great continuity and significant adaptability to changing conditions.
Antiforeign resistance. Sufi orders provided significant organization and support for movements of resistance to foreign rule. This was especially true in the nineteenth century, when many of the major wars against expanding European powers were fought by Muslim organizations that originated with Sufi orders. At the beginning of the nineteenth century in Sumatra, a revivalist movement building on reform activities initiated by the Naqshbandiyah and Shattariyah and possibly inspired by Wahhabi strictness or the teachings of Ahmad ibn Idris, provided major resistance to Dutch expansion in the Padri War of 1821-1838. The strongest opposition to the French conquest of Algeria, which began in 1830, was provided by a Qadiriyah leader, Amir `Abd al-Qadir, whose resistance lasted until 1847. In the Caucasus region, Naqshbandiyah fighters under the leadership of Imam Shamil maintained a holy war against Russian imperial expansion for twenty-five years, ending in 1859. At the end of the nineteenth century, it was a tariqah. leader, Muhammad `Abd Allah Hasan (1864-1921) of the Salihiyah, who led a major anti-imperialist holy war in Somaliland against the British. Sufi orders provided the basis for many other movements of resistance, but these examples confirm that the phenomenon was significant and widespread.
Some other Sufi orders that came into conflict with expanding European imperialism also reflect the development of distinctive, new tariqah. traditions. Perhaps the most important of these orders are those established by followers of Ahmad ibn Idris (d. 1837) and others influenced by this Idris! tradition. Ibn Idris was a north African scholar who taught for a number of years in Mecca; some of his major students established tariqahs, that became important orders throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The best-known of these groups is the Sanusiyah, founded by Muhammad ibn `All al-Sanfis! (d. 1859). This order established centers in North Africa and Saharan areas, with special centers in Libya. It provided stability and regional coordination among nomadic tribes and became very influential in a vast area in northern Africa. As a result, expanding French imperial forces in many Saharan areas contacted and eventually came into conflict with the Sanusiyah in the later nineteenth century. When Italy attempted to conquer Libya in the twentieth century, it was the Sanusiyah that provided the most effective opposition, both during the Ottoman-Italian war of 1911-1912 and following World War I, when the victorious allied powers decided to create an independent Libya, it was the head of the Sanusiyah who was proclaimed Idris I, the king of independent Libya. The Sanusiyah as a Sufi order was tied to the newly created tradition of Ahmad ibn Idris rather than being solely associated with older tariqah. traditions.
Other similarly independent orders which developed in this Idrisi tradition were the Khatmiyah, which became one of the major Islamic organizations in the modern Sudan; the Salihiyah and Rashidlyah, which were important in east Africa; and the Idrisiyah, established by the family of the original teacher. These orders, along with the Sanusiyah, represent a major Sufi tradition in the modern era, especially in Africa. Less directly, teachers influenced by the Idrisi tradition had some impact in southeastern Europe and South and Southeast Asia.
Another independent Sufi tradition developed as a result of the work of Ahmad al-Tijani (d. 1815). The Tijaniyah was an exclusive order that claimed to be a synthesis of major tariqah. traditions inspired and instructed initially by the prophet Muhammad himself. The order became an important force in North Africa but did not get involved in opposition to French expansion in the Mediterranean countries. However, the Tijaniyah expanded rapidly into Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa. Al-Hajj `Umar Tal (d. 1864) organized a major holy war under the Tijanlyah banner in the regions of Guinea, Senegal, and Mali; ultimately his successful movement was restricted and then ended by the consolidation of French imperial control in the region. However, the Tijanlyah was more than an antiforeign movement. It became a major vehicle for intensification of Islamic practice in already Muslim areas and for the expansion of Islam into non-Muslim areas. By the end of the twentieth century, the Tijaniyah had become a major force throughout the Sudanic region.
It is clear that major orders like the Sanusiyah and Tijaniyah which were established in the nineteenth century, were not simply anti-imperialist movements in Sufi form. They represented an important style of cohesive social organization based on the traditions of tangah structures. They were not necessarily alternatives to emerging modern state structures but were autonomous within the developing polities defined as sovereign nation-states. This alternative mode is also seen in the developments of distinctive orders whose self-definition was more closely identified with older Sufi traditions. Thus the Naqshbandiyah suborder established by Said Nursi in Turkey in the twentieth century became an important vehicle for the articulation of a revivalist Islamic worldview in the context of an officially secular state. Similarly, a number of orders provided important foundations for the unofficial, “underground” Islam that was so essential for the survival of the Muslim sense of community in Central Asia under Soviet rule.
Responses to modernity. Sufi orders also were important in helping to shape the responses to the challenges to Muslim faith in the modern era. In the nineteenth century this was more in terms of providing organizational bases for opposition to European expansion and in the direct continuation of the traditions of activist reformist movements such as the Nagshbandiyah. In the twentieth century, tariqahs, reponded to specific needs in a variety of ways. In some countries orders provided the direct organizational basis for modern-style political parties. In Sudan, for example, the Khatmiyah provided the foundation for the National Unionist Party, then the People’s Democratic Party; late in the twentieth century the head of the order was also the president of the Democratic Unionist Party. In Senegal, the Muridiyah provided an organization for the development of cash crops and played an important role in modernizing the agricultural sector of the Senegalese economy. In the days of Soviet communist rule in Central Asia, the popular local tariqahs and the established traditional ones like the Naqshbandiyah provided the framework within which Islamic communal identity could be maintained in the face of the official efforts to suppress religion. In the holy war in Afghanistan after the Soviet occupation in 1979, leaders of established orders like the Qadiriyah and Naqshbandiyah Mujaddidiyah were among the most important organizers of mujahidin groups. These examples affirm the fact that in many different areas, the organizational traditions of the Sufi orders provided important bases for responding to specific challenges.
In the twentieth century, however, the role of the orders was sometimes different. The established tariqahs might seem ineffective in meeting particular challenges of modernity, but the basic structures or the general approach might still provide models for new Islamic revivalist and reformist movements.
Sufism and participation in a reform-minded tariqah was, for example, an important part of the early experience of Hasan al-Banna’ (d. 1949), the founder of one of the major modern Muslim revivalist organizations in the twentieth century, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. As a young man, al-Banna’ was impressed by accounts of the strictness of a Sufi shaykh, Hasanayn alHasafi (d. igio), and became an active member of the tariqah he had founded, the Hasafiyah. Al-Banna’ was involved with the tariqah for twenty years and maintained a respect for this strict style of Sufism throughout his life. It appears to have influenced his organizational thinking in terms of the methods of instruction in his Muslim Brotherhood and the daily rituals required of its members. Another major Islamic activist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan, has some similar aspects. Many of its early organizers came from families strongly identified with tariqahs, in Sudan. The most prominent of the leaders in the Sudanese Brotherhood in the second half of the twentieth century is Hasan alTurabi, who came from a religiously notable family whose center was a school-tomb complex of a traditional localized Sufi type. One of his ancestors in the eighteenth century had proclaimed himself to be a Mahdi bringing purification to the Muslims. Turabi emphasized the continuing need for humans to reinterpret the implications of the Islamic faith in changing historical circumstances. In this, one active member of Turabi’s movement noted that “Turabi’s revolution” was a “reaffirmation of the ancient Sufi ethic, with its emphasis on the spirit rather than the letter of Islam” (Abdelwahab El-Affendi, Turabi’s Revolution, London, 1991). The Sufi organizational traditions thus both provided direct means for meeting challenges in modern situations and also helped to inspire new approaches.
Missionary expansion. The Sufi orders continued in the modern era to serve as important vehicles for the expansion of Islam in basically non-Muslim societies. In many areas, this is simply a direct continuation of past activities. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, under colonial rule the Sfifi orders were among the few types of indigenous social organizations that imperial administrators would allow. As a result, they became very important structures both for the expression of indigenous opinion and for the expansion of Islam. It was under colonial rule in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries that Islam was able to make significant advances in areas south of the Sudanic savannas.
More remarkably, the Sufi orders have become important vehicles for Islamic expansion in modern Western societies, where the open inclusiveness and the aesthetic dimensions of the great Sufi philosophies have considerable appeal. Sufi thought was important in influencing nineteenth-century Western intellectuals such as Ralph Waldo Emerson; in the later twentieth century, the writings of Idries Shah became very well known and could be found in bookstores that appealed to popular as well as intellectual tastes. Important Western converts to Islam in the twentieth century were often Sufi in orientation and institutional affiliation. The writings of Martin Lings and his description of the tariqah of the Tunisian Sufi Shaykh Ahmad al-`Alawi are significant examples.
Sufi orders are active organizationally in Western societies. They provide a clearly satisfying and effective vehicle for the expression of religious life and values in modern Western societies and have an appeal among professionals and the general population. The communities established by orders in western Europe and the Americas have been strengthened in the second half of the twentieth century by the significant growth of the Muslim communities through both immigration and conversion. A good example of this tariqah activity is the expansion of the Ni’matullahi order, which by 1990 had centers in nine major cities in the United States, published a magazine, Sufi, and worked with academic institutions in organizing conferences on Sufism. In ways like this, Sufi orders continue to serve as an important means for the modern expansion of Islam.
Challenges and Future Prospects. Throughout Islamic history there have been strong critics of Sufi teachers and organizations. In one of the most famous instances, a medieval mystic, al-Hallaj (d. 922), was executed for proclaiming his mystical union with God in an extreme manner. More literalist and legalist interpreters of Islam have opposed the practices of the Sufi orders as providing vehicles for non-Islamic practices and beliefs. In the eighteenth century, some of the strongest opposition to the tariqahs came from the developing Wahhabi movement. In the modern era, modernizing reformers strongly criticized the orders for encouraging and strengthening popular superstitions, and Islamic modernists attempted to reduce the influence of Sufi shaykhs in their societies.
Such modernist opposition can be seen in actions of reformers throughout the Islamic world. Wherever the Salafiyah modernist movement-which emerged with the thought and actions of late nineteenth-century scholars such as Muhammad `Abduh (d. 1905) of Egypthad influence, there was strong opposition to the popular devotional practices and influence of the Sufi orders. This can be seen in the activities and teachings of `Abd Allah ibn Idris al-Sanusi (d. 1931) in Morocco, the Association of Algerian `Ulama’ organized in the 1930s, the Muhammadiyah in Indonesia throughout the twentieth century, the Jadidist movement within the old Russian Empire, and many other areas. In addition, more explicitly westernizing reform programs attempted to eliminate the influence of the orders, best illustrated in the reforms of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk during the 1920s and 1930s in the new republic of Turkey.
Many observers also thought that as societies became more modern and industrialized, the social functions of the Sufi teachers and their organizations would decline. In the mid-twentieth century, many analyses painted a picture of reduced and possibly disappearing Sufi orders. Despite the opposition and the predictions, however, Sufi orders continue to be remarkably strong in most of the Islamic world and also in communities of Muslims where they are minorities.
The Sufi orders continue to provide vehicles for articulating an inclusive Islamic identity with a greater emphasis on individual devotional piety and small-group experience. The contrast with the more legalist orientation with its emphasis on the community as a whole is a longstanding polarity in Islamic history. It is clear that the great transformations of the modern era have not destroyed the basis for this polarity.
In the changing contexts of the late twentieth century, the traditions of the Sufi orders have special strengths in situations where there is a high degree of religious pluralism. They allow the believer to maintain an individual Islamic devotional identity in the absence of a national or societywide Muslim majority. These traditions also allow for an articulation of Islam in a form compatible with secularist perspectives. Thus Sufism has importance in the non-Muslim societies of Western Europe and North America. In addition, as it becomes clear that it is not possible simply to transfer institutional copies of Western-style associations such as labor unions, political parties, and other nongovernmental organizations, tariqah traditions may provide ways of adapting modern institutions to the needs of emerging civil societies throughout the Islamic world.
[See also Chishtiyah; Idrisiyah; Khalwatiyah; Khatmiyah; Mawlawiyah; Muhammadiyah; Murildiyah; Naqshbandi-yah; Ni’matullahiyah; Qadiriyah; Rifa’iyah; Sanusiyah; Shadhiliyah; Shattariyah; Tijaniyah; and the biographies of `Alawi, Bakka’i al-Kunti, Dan Fodio, Ibn Idris, Tijdni, and `Umar Tal.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Awn, Peter J. “Sufism.” In The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 14, pp. 104-123. New York, 1987. Good introduction to the medieval foundations of Sufi beliefs and orders.
SUFISM: Sufi Shrine Culture 117
Baldick, Julian. Mystical Islam: An Introduction to Sufism. New York and London, 1989. Broad historical presentation providing critiques of a number of interpretations of Sufism in the modern era as well as a helpful list of major orders.
Bennigsen, Alexandre, and S. Enders Wimbush. Mystics and Commissars: Sufism in the Soviet Union. Berkeley, 1985. The best source on the experience of Sufi orders under Soviet rule.
Gilsenan, Michael. Saint and Sufi in Modern Egypt. Oxford, 1973. Important analysis of the general issues involved in the development of orders in the modern era, using the Hamidiyah Shadhiliyah as a case study.
Hoffman-Ladd, Valerie. Sufism, Mystics, and Saints in Modern Egypt. Charleston, S.C., 1995. Important study showing the continuing vitality of Sufi organizations at the level of popular religion.
Jong, F. de. Turuq and Turuq-Linked Institutions in Nineteenth-Century Egypt. Leiden, 1978. Careful and detailed discussion of Egyptian orders and their relations with the state.
Lings, Martin. A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century: Shaykh Ahmad al-`Alawi. Berkeley, 1973. Sympathetic presentation showing the basis for the continuing appeal of Sufism in the modern era.
Mardin, Serif. Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey: The Case of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi. Albany, N.Y. 1989. Study of the experience of a revivalist Sufi tradition in the context of official Turkish secularism.
Martin, B. G. Muslim Brotherhoods in Nineteenth-Century Africa. Cambridge, 1976. Well-documented study of major African activist orders in their historical context.
Massignon, Louis. “Tarika.” In Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam, edited by H. A. R. Gibb and J. H. Kramers, pp. 573-578. Leiden, 1953. An old but still useful summary of the development of the orders, with a long descriptive list.
O’Fahey, R. S. Enigmatic Saint: Ahmad Ibn Idris and the Idrisi Tradition. London and Evanston, Ill., 1990. Very important study of a major tariqah tradition that emerged at the beginning of the modern era.
Schimmel, Annemarie. Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Chapel Hill, N.C., 1975. Sound and readable presentation of the full range of issues related to understanding Sufism.
Schimmel, Annemarie. Islam in the Indian Subcontinent. Leiden, 1980. Very helpful interpretation giving special attention to the role of the orders in South Asia.
Trimingham, J. Spencer. The Sufi Orders in Islam. Oxford, 1971. The single most comprehensive presentation of the origin and development of the orders.
Voll, John Obert. “Traditional and Conservative Orders.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 52¢ (November 1992): 66-78. Discussion of the more conservative orders and their role in the modern period.
JOHN O. VOLL

Sufi Shrine Culture

SUFISM

Batoota — Thu, 17 Aug 2017 15:01:29 +0000

SUFISM. [This entry comprises three articles: Sufi Thought and Practice Sufi Orders
Sufi Shrine Culture
The first provides an overview of the traditional themes, practices, literatures, and institutions of Sufism; the second surveys the development and spread of Sufi orders throughout the Muslim world; and the third treats the spiritual, social, and political significance of Sufi shrines. See also Sufism and Politics.]
Sufi Thought and Practice
In a broad sense, Sufism can be described as the interiorization and intensification of Islamic faith and practice. The Arabic term sufi, however, has been used in a wide variety of meanings over the centuries, both by proponents and opponents, and this is reflected in the primary and secondary sources, which offer diverse interpretations of what Sufism entails. Western observers have not helped to clarify the matter by referring to Sufism as “Islamic mysticism” or sometimes “Islamic esotericism.” Such terms are vague and often imply a negative value judgment, as well as encouraging people to consider as non-Sflfi anything that does not fit into preconceived notions.
The original sense of sufi seems to have been “one who wears wool.” By the eighth century the word was sometimes applied to Muslims whose ascetic inclinations led them to wear coarse and uncomfortable woolen garments. Gradually it came to designate a group who differentiated themselves from others by emphasis on certain specific teachings and practices of the Qur’an and the sunnah. By the ninth century the gerund form tasawwuf, literally “being a Sufi” or “Sufism,” was adopted by representatives of this group as their appropriate designation.
In general, the Sufis have looked upon themselves as Muslims who take seriously God’s call to perceive his presence both in the world and in the self. They tend to stress inwardness over outwardness, contemplation over action, spiritual development over legalism, and cultivation of the soul over social interaction. On the theological level, Sufis speak of God’s mercy, gentleness, and beauty far more than they discuss the wrath, severity, and majesty that play important roles in both fiqh (jurisprudence) and kalam (dogmatic theology). Sufism has been associated not only with specific institutions and individuals but also with an enormously rich literature, especially poetry. [See Fiqh; Theology.]
Given the difficulty of providing an exact definition of Sufism, it is not easy to discern which Muslims have been Sufis and which have not. Being a Sufi certainly has nothing to do with the Sunni/Shi’i split nor with the schools of jurisprudence. It has no special connection with geography, though it has played a greater role in some locations than in others. There is no necessary correlation with family, and it is common to find individuals who profess a Sufi affiliation despite the hostility of family members, or people who have been born into a family of Sfifis yet consider it an unacceptable form of Islam. Both men and (less commonly) women become Sufis, and even children participate in Sfifi ritual activities, though they are seldom accepted as fullfledged members before puberty. Sufism has nothing to do with social class, although some Sfifi organizations may be more or less class specific. Sufism is closely associated with popular religion, but it has also produced the most elite expressions of Islamic teachings. It is often seen as opposed to the state-supported jurists, yet jurists have always been counted among its devotees, and Sufism has frequently been supported by the state along with jurisprudence. The characteristic Sfifi institutions-the “orders” (tariqahs)-do not begin to play a major role in Islamic history until about the twelfth century, but even after that time being a Sfifi has not necessarily entailed membership in an order.
Working Description. Specialists in the study of Sufism have reached no consensus as to what they are studying. Those who take seriously the self-understanding of the Sfifi authorities usually picture Sufism as an essential component of Islam. Those who are hostile toward Sufism, or hostile toward Islam but sympathetic toward Sufism, or skeptical of any self-understanding by the objects of their study, typically describe Sufism as a movement that was added to Islam after the prophetic period. The diverse theories of Sufism’s nature and ori
gins proposed by modern and premodern scholars cannot be summarized here. The best one can do is to suggest that most of Sufism’s own theoreticians have understood it to be the living spirit of the Islamic tradition. One of the greatest Sfifi teachers, Abfi Hamid alGhazali (d. 1111), gives a nutshell description of Sufism’s role within Islam in the very title of his magnum opus, Ihya’ `ulum al-din (Giving Life to the Sciences of the Religion).
Understood as Islam’s life-giving core, Sufism is coextensive with Islam. Wherever there have been Muslims, there have been Sufis. If there was no phenomenon called “Sufism” at the time of the Prophet, neither was there anything called “fiqh” or kalam in the later senses of these terms. All these are names that came to be applied to various dimensions of Islam after the tradition became diversified and elaborated. If one wants to call the Sufi dimension “mysticism,” then one needs an exceedingly broad description of the role that mysticism plays in religion, such as that provided by Louis Dupre, who writes that religions “retain their vitality only as long as their members continue to believe in a transcendent reality with which they can in some way communicate by direct experience” (“Mysticism,” Encyclopedia of Religion, edited by Mircea Eliade, New York, 1987, vol. 10, p. 247).
In historical terms, it is helpful to think of Sufism on two levels. On the first level-which is the primary focus of the Sufi authorities themselves-Sufism has no history, because it is the invisible, animating life of the Muslim community. On the second level, which concerns both Muslim authors and modern historians, Sufism’s presence is made known through certain observable characteristics of people and society or certain specific institutional forms. Sufi authors who looked at Sufism on the second level wanted to describe how the great Muslims achieved the goal of human life, nearness to God. Hence their typical genre was hagiography, which aims at bringing out the extraordinary human qualities of those who achieve divine nearness. In contrast, Muslim opponents of Sufism have been anxious to show that Sufism is a distortion of Islam, and they have happily seized on any opportunity to associate Sufism with unbelief and moral laxity (see Carl Ernst, Words of Ecstasy in Sufism, Albany, 1985, pp. 117ff.).
The attacks on Sufism frequent in Islamic history have many causes. Not least of these has been the social and political influence of $fife teachers, which often threatened the power and privileges of jurists and even rulers. Although the great Sufi authorities set down many guidelines for keeping Sufism squarely at the heart of the Islamic tradition, popular religious movements that aimed at intensifying religious experience and had little concern for Islamic norms were also associated with Sufism. Whether or not the members of these movements considered themselves Su fis, opponents of Sufism were happy to claim that their excesses represented Sufism’s true nature. The Sufi authorities themselves frequently criticized false Sfifis, and the dangers connected with loss of contact with the ahistorical core of Sufism could only increase when much of Sufism became institutionalized through the Sfifi orders (see, for example, the criticisms by the sixteenth century Sufi `Abd al-Wahhab al-Sha’rani in Michael Winter, Society and Religion in Early Ottoman Egypt: Studies in the Writings of `Abd al-Wahhab al-Sha’rani, New Brunswick, N.J., 1982, pp. 102ff.). If Sufism is essentially invisible and ahistorical, the problem faced by those who study specific historical phenomena is how to judge the degree to which these deserve the name Sufism. The Sufi authorities typically answer that the criteria of authentic Sufism are found in correct activity and correct understanding, and these pertain to the very definition of Islam.
In looking for a Qur’anic name for the phenomenon that later generations came to call Sufism, some authors settled on the term ihsan, “doing what is beautiful,” a divine and human quality about which the Qur’an says a good deal, mentioning in particular that God loves those who possess it. In the famous hadith of Gabriel, the Prophet describes ihsan as the innermost dimension of Islam, after Islam (“submission” or correct activity) and iman (“faith” or correct understanding). Ihsan is a deepened understanding and experience that, in the words of this hadith, allows one “to worship God as if you see him.” This means that Sufis strive always to be aware of God’s presence in both the world and themselves and to act appropriately. Historically, islam became manifest through the shad ‘ah and jurisprudence, whereas iman became institutionalized through kalam and other forms of doctrinal teachings. In the same way, ihsan revealed its presence mainly through Sufi teachings and practices (see W. C. Chittick, Faith and Practice of Islam: Three Thirteenth Century Sufi Texts, Albany, 1992, parts i and 4). [See !man.]
By codifying the shari`ah jurisprudence delineates the exact manner in which people should submit their activities to God. Kalam defines the contents of Islamic faith while providing a rational defense for the Qur’an and the hadith. For its part, Sufism focuses on giving both submission and faith their full due. Hence it functions on two levels, theory (corresponding to iman) and practice (corresponding to islam). On the theoretical level, Sufism explains the rationale for both faith and submission. Its explanations of faith differ from those of kalam both in perspective and in focus, but they are no less carefully rooted in the sources of the tradition. On the practical level, Sufism explains the means whereby Muslims can strengthen their understanding and observance of Islam with a view toward finding God’s presence in themselves and the world. It intensifies Islamic ritual life through careful attention to the details of the sunnah and by focusing on the remembrance of God’s name (dhikr), which is commanded by the Qur’an and the hadith and is taken by the Sufi authorities as the raison d’etre of all Islamic ritual. Dhikr typically takes the form of the methodical repetition of certain names of God or Qur’anic formulas, such as the first Shahadah. In communal gatherings, Sufis usually perform dhikr aloud, often with musical accompaniment. In some Sufi groups these communal sessions became the basic ritual, with corresponding neglect of various aspects of the sunnah. At this point Sufi practice became suspect not only in the eyes of the jurists, but also in the eyes of most Sufi authorities.
Like other branches of Islamic learning, Sufism is passed down from master (typically called a shaykh) to disciple. The master’s oral teachings give life to the articles of faith, and without his transmission, dhikr is considered invalid if not dangerous. As with hadith, transmission is traced back through a chain of authorities (called silsilah) to the Prophet. The typical initiation rite is modeled on the handclasp known as bay’at al-ridwan (the oathtaking of God’s good pleasure) that the Prophet exacted from his companions at Hudaybiyah, referred to in the Qur’an, surah 48.1o and 48.18. The rite is understood to transmit an invisible spiritual force or blessing (barakah) that makes possible the transformation of the disciple’s soul. The master’s fundamental concern-as in other forms of Islamic learning-is to shape the character (khuluq) of the disciple so that it conforms to the prophetic model. [See Dhikr; Shaykh; Barakah.]
If molding the character of students and disciples was a universal concern of Islamic teaching, the Sufis developed a science of human character traits that had no parallels in jurisprudence or theology, though the philosophers knew something similar. Ibn al `Arab! (d. 1240), Sufism’s greatest theoretician, described Sufism as “assuming the character traits of God” (Chittick, Sufi Path of Knowledge, Albany, 1989, P. 283). Since God created human beings in his own image, it is their duty to actualize the divine character traits that are latent in their own souls. This helps explain the great attention that Sufi authorities devote to the “stations” (maqdmdt) of spiritual ascent on the path to God and the “states” (ahwal) or psychological transformations that spiritual travelers undergo in their attempt to pass through the stations.
Sufi theory offered a theological perspective that was far more attractive to the vast majority of Muslims than kalam, which was an academic exercise with little practical impact on most people. From the beginning, the kaldm experts attempted to understand Qur’anic teachings in rational terms with the help of methods drawn from Greek thought. In keeping with the inherent tendency of reason to discern and differentiate, kalam fastened on all those Qur’anic verses that assert the transcendence and otherness of God. When faced with verses that assert God’s immanence and presence, kaldm explained them away through forced interpretations (ta’wil). As H. A. R. Gibb has pointed out, “The more developed theological systems were largely negative and substituted for the vivid personal relation between God and man presented by the Koran an abstract and depersonalized discussion of logical concepts” (Mohammedanism, London, 1961, p. 127). Ibn al `Arabs made a similar point when he said that if Muslims had been left only with theological proofs, none of them would ever have loved God (Chittick, Sufi Path, p. 180). [See the biography of Ibn al-`Arab!.]
The Qur’an speaks of God with a wide variety of terminology that can conveniently be summarized as God’s “most beautiful names” (al-asmd’ al-husnd). For the most part, kalam stresses those names that assert God’s severity, grandeur, distance, and aloofness. Although many early expressions of Sufism went along with the dominant attitudes in kaldm, another strand of Sufi thinking gradually gained strength and became predominant by the eleventh or twelfth century. This perspective focused on divine names that speak of nearness, sameness, similarity, concern, compassion, and love. The Sufi teachers emphasized the personal dimensions of the divine-human relationship, agreeing with the kalam authorities that God was distant, but holding that his simultaneous nearness was the more important consideration. The grand theological theme of the Sufi authors is epitomized in the hadith qudsi in which God says, “My mercy takes precedence over my wrath,” which is to say that God’s nearness is more real than his distance.
If kalam and jurisprudence depended on reason to establish categories and distinctions, the Sufi authorities depended on another faculty of the soul to bridge gaps and make connections. Many of them referred to this faculty as imagination (khayal) and considered it the power of the soul that can perceive the presence of God in all things. They read literally the Qur’anic verse, “Wherever you turn, there is the face of God” (2:115), and they find a reference to imagination’s power to perceive this face in the Prophet’s definition of ihsan: “It is to worship God as if you see him.” Through methodical concentration on the face of God as revealed in the Qur’an, the Sufis gradually remove the “as if’ so that they are left with “unveiling” (kashf), the generic term for suprarational vision of God’s presence in the world and the soul. Ibn al-‘Arabi asserts that unveiling is a mode of knowledge superior to reason, but he also insists that reason provides the indispensable checks and balances without which it is impossible to differentiate among divine, angelic, psychic, and satanic inrushes of imaginal knowledge.
Spectrums of Sufi Theory and Practice. One way to classify the great variety of phenomena that have been called Sufism in Islamic history is to look at the types of responses they have made to basic Islamic theological teachings. Tawhid, the fundamental assertion of Islam, declares that God is one, but it also implies that the world is many. The connection between God’s oneness and the world’s manyness can be found in God’s eternal knowledge of all things, on the basis of which he creates an infinitely diverse universe and reveals scriptures that differentiate between true and false, right and wrong, absolute and relative, and all other qualities that have a bearing on human salvation. Oneness and manyness represent two poles not only of reality but also of thought. Imaginal thinking tends to see the oneness and identity of things, while rational thinking focuses on manyness, diversity, and difference. A creative tension has existed between these two basic ways of looking at God and the world throughout Islamic history. By and large, the kalam authorities and jurists have emphasized the rational perception of God’s distance, while the Sufi authorities have countered with the imaginal perception of God’s nearness. On occasion the balance between these two perspectives has been broken by a stern and exclusivist legalism on one hand or an excessively emotional religiosity on the other. In the first case, the understanding of the inner domains of Islamic experience is lost, and nothing is left but legal nit-picking and theological bickering. In the second case, the necessity for the divine guidance provided by the shad `ah is forgotten, and the resulting sectarian movements break off from Islam’s mainstream. In modern times these two extremes are represented by certain forms of fundamentalism on one side and deracinated Sufism on the other (for an interesting case study, see Mark Woodward, Islam in Java, Tucson, 1989, especially pp. 234ff.).
Within the theory and practice of Sufism itself, a parallel differentiation of perspectives can be found. Many expressions of Sufism vigorously assert the reality of God’s omnipresent oneness and the possibility of union with him, while others emphasize the duties of servanthood that arise out of discerning among the many things and discriminating between Creator and creature, absolute and relative, or right and wrong. In order to describe the psychological accompaniments of these two emphases, the Sfifis offer various sets of terms, such as “intoxication” (sukr) and “sobriety” (sahw) or “annihilation” (fand’) and “subsistence” (baqa’). Intoxication follows upon being overcome by the presence of God: the Sfifi sees God in all things and loses the ability to discriminate among creatures. Intoxication is associated with intimacy (uns), the sense of God’s loving nearness, and this in turn is associated with the divine names that assert that God is close and caring. Sobriety is connected with awe (haybah), the sense that God is majestic, mighty, wrathful, and distant, far beyond the petty concerns of human beings. God’s distance and aloofness allow for a clear view of the difference between servant and Lord, but his nearness blinds the discerning powers of reason. Perfect vision of the nature of things necessitates a balance between reason and imaginal unveiling.
The contrast between sober and drunk, or the vision of oneness and the vision of manyness, reverberates throughout Sfifi writing and is reflected in the hagiographical accounts of the Sfifi masters. Those who experience intimacy are boldly confident of God’s mercy, while those who experience awe remain wary of God’s wrath. By and large, drunken Sufis tend to deemphasize the shari`ah and declare union with God openly, whereas sober Sufis observe the courtesy (adab) that relationships with the Lord demand. The sober fault the drunk for disregarding the sunnah, and the drunk fault the sober for forgetting the overriding reality of God’s mercy and depending on reason instead of God. Those who, in Ibn al-`Arabi’s terms, “see with both eyes” keep reason and unveiling in perfect balance while acknowledging the rights of both sober and drunk.
Expressions of sobriety and intoxication often have rhetorical purposes. An author who disregards rational norms has not necessarily been overcome by the divine wine-if he had, he would hardly have put pen to paper. So also, sober expressions of Sufism do not mean that the authors know nothing of intoxication; typically, sobriety is described as a station that follows intoxication, since the sobriety that precedes intoxication is in fact the intoxication of forgetfulness. Sfifis always wrote for the purpose of edification, and different teachers attempted to inculcate psychological attitudes reflecting the needs they perceived in their listeners.
Drunken expressions of Sufism predominate in Sufi poetry, which is ideally suited to describe the imaginal realm of unveiled knowledge, the vision of union and oneness. In contrast, reason is locked into theological abstractions that keep the servant distant from the Lord; it is perfectly adapted to the expression of system, order, and rules. If Sfifi poetry constantly reminds us of God’s presence, Sfifi prose tends toward a rational discourse that is ideal for manuals of doctrine and practice-works that always keep one eye on the opinions of the jurists and the kaldm experts. Poetic licence allowed the Sfifi poets to say things that could not be expressed openly in prose. In the best examples, such as Ibn alFarid in Arabic, `Attar, Rumi, and Hafiz in Persian, and Yunus Emre in Turkish, the poetry gives rise to a marvellous joy and intoxication in the listener and conveys the experience of God’s presence in creation. Since this experience flies in the face of juridical and theological discourse, it is sometimes expressed in ways that shock the pious (for a good study of the role of poetry and music in contemporary Sufism, see Earl H. Waugh, The Munshidin of Egypt: Their World and Their Song, Columbia, S.C., 1989). [See Devotional Music; Devotional Poetry.]
For many Western observers, whether scholars or would-be practitioners, “real” Sufism has been identified with the drunken manifestations that denigrate the external and practical concerns of “orthodox” Islam. It is seldom noted that many of those who express themselves in the daring poetry of union also employ the respectful prose of separation and servanthood. Drunken Sufism rarely demonstrates interest in juridical issues or theological debates, whereas sober Sufism offers methodical discussions of these topics that can quickly prove tiring to any but those trained in the Islamic sciences. The poets address the highest concerns of the soul and employ the most delicious and enticing imagery; the theoreticians discuss details of practice, behavior, moral development, Qur’anic exegesis, and the nature of God and the world. Drunken Sufism has always been popular among Muslims of all classes and persuasions, and even the most literal-minded jurists are likely to enjoy the poetry while condemning the ideas. Sober Sufism has attacted the more educated Sufi practitioners who were willing to devote long hours to studying texts that were no easier than works on jurisprudence, kalam, or philosophy.
For Sufism to remain whole, it needs to keep a balance between sobriety and drunkenness, reason and unveiling-that is, between concern for the shari` `ah and Islamic doctrine on one hand and for the experience of God’s presence on the other. If sobriety is lost, so also is rationality, and along with it the strictures of isldm and imdn; if drunkenness is lost, so also is religious experience, along with love, compassion, and ihsdn. Within Sufism’s diverse forms, a wide range of perspectives is observable, depending on whether the stress falls on oneness or manyness, love or knowledge, intoxication or sobriety. Too much stress on either side means that Sufism becomes distorted and ceases to be itself, but where the line must be drawn is impossible to say with any precision.
The classic example of the contrast between drunken and sober Sufism is found in the pictures drawn of Hallaj (d. 922) and Junayd (d. 91o). The first became Sufism’s great martyr because of his open avowal of the mysteries of divine union and his disregard for the niceties of shariatic propriety. The second, known as the “master of all the Sufis” (shaykh al-td’ifah), kept coolly sober despite achieving the highest degree of union with God. Another example can be found in the contrast between the two high points of the whole Sufi tradition, Ibn al-`Arabi (d. 1240) and Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273). The former wrote voluminously in Arabic prose and addressed every theoretical and practical issue that arises within the context of Islamic thought and practice. His works are enormously erudite and exceedingly difficult, and only the most learned of Muslims who were already trained in jurisprudence, kalam, and other Islamic sciences could hope to read and understand them. In contrast, Rumi wrote more than seventy thousand verses of intoxicating poetry in a language that every Persianspeaking Muslim could understand. He sings constantly of the trials of separation from the Beloved and the joys of union with him. But the contrast between the two authors should not suggest that Rum! was irrational or unlearned, or that Ibn al-`Arabi was not a lover of God and a poet; it is rather a case of rhetorical means and emphasis. Among Western scholars, Henry Corbin argues forcefully that Rumi and Ibn al-`Arabi belong to the same group of fideles d’amour (Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn `Arabi, Princeton, 1969, pp. 70-71).
In the classical Sufi texts there are two basic and complementary ways of describing Sufism. If the drunken side of Sufism is stressed, it is contrasted with jurisprudence and kalam; if sobriety is stressed, it is viewed as the perfection (ihsan) of right practice (isldm) and right faith (iman). The great theoreticians of Sufism, who speak from the viewpoint of sobriety, strive to establish a balance among all dimensions of Islamic thought and practice, with Sufism as the animating spirit of the whole. These thinkers include Sarraj (d. 988), Kalabadhi (d. 99o), Sulami (d. 1021), Qushayri (d. 1072), Hujwiri (d. 1072), Ghazali, Shihab al-Din `Umar Suhrawardi (d. 1234), Ibn al-`Arabi, Najm al-Din Razi (d. 1256), and `Izz al-Din Kashani (d. 1334/35) In contrast, the actual everyday practice of Sufism, especially in its popular dimensions, tends to appear antagonistic toward legalistic Islam, even though this is by no means always the case (see, for example, Jonathan Berkey, The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo, Princeton, 1992, especially chapter 3, which makes clear that Sufis and jurists have sometimes been indistinguishable).
Sufism in the Modern World. In the modern period many Muslims have sought a revival of authentically Islamic teachings and practices, not least in order to fend off Western hegemony. Some have responded largely in political terms, while others have tried to revive Islam’s inner life. Among most of the politically minded, Sufism became the scapegoat through which Islam’s “backwardness” could be explained. In this view, Sufism is the religion of the common people and embodies superstition and un-Islamic elements adopted from local cultures; in order for Islam to reclaim its birthright, which includes modern science and technology, Sufism must be eradicated. Until recently most Western observers have considered the modernist reformers to be “Islam’s hope to enter the modern age.” Nowadays, the dissolution of Western cultural identity and an awareness of the ideological roots of ideas such as progress and development have left the modernists looking naive and sterile. In the meantime, various Sufi teachers have been busy reviving the Islamic heritage by focusing on what they consider the root cause of every disorderforgetfulness of God. Especially interesting here is the case of the famous Algerian freedom fighter `Abd alQadir Jaza’1ri (d. 1883), who devoted his exile in Syria to reviving the heritage of Ibn al-‘Arabi (see Emir Abd el-Kader, Ecrits spirituels, translated by M. Chodkiewicz, Paris, 1982). [See the biography of `Abd al-Qadir.] Today grassroots Islam is far more likely to be inspired by Sufi teachers than by modernist intellectuals, who are cut off from the masses because of their Westernstyle academic training. The presence of demagogues who have no qualms about manipulating religious sentiment for their own ends complicates the picture immensely.
Parallel to the resurgence of Sufism in the Islamic world has been the spread of Sflfi teachings to the West. In America, drunken Sufism was introduced in the early part of this century by the Chisti shaykh and musician Inayat Khan (The Complete Works, Tucson, 1988); his teachings have been continued by his son, Pir Vilayet Inayat Khan, a frequent lecturer on the New Age circuit. In Europe, sober Sufism gained a wide audience among intellectuals through the writings of the French metaphysician Rene Guenon, who died in Cairo in 1951 (The Symbolism of the Cross, London, 1958). More recently hundreds of volumes have been published in Western languages that are addressed to Sufi seekers and reflect the range of perspectives found in the original texts, from sobriety to intoxication. Many of these works are written by authentic representatives of Sflfi silsilahs, but many more are written by people who have adopted Sufism to justify teachings of questionable origin, or who have left the safeguards of right practice and right thought-!slam and !man-and hence have no access to the ihsan that is built upon the two.
Contemporary representatives of sober Sufism emphasize knowledge, discernment, and differentiation and usually stress the importance of the shari’ah. Best known in this group is Frithjof Schuon (Islam and the Perennial Philosophy, London, 1976), who makes no explicit claims in his books to Sufi affiliations but, as reviewers have often remarked, writes with an air of spiritual authority. He is said to be a member of the Shadhiliyah-`Alawiyah order of North Africa (G. C. Anawati and L. Gardet, Mystique musulmane, Paris, 1968, p. 72). He takes an extreme position on the importance of discernment and offers a rigorous criticism of the roots of modern antireligion. The main thrust of his writings seems to be to offer a theory of world religions based on the idea of a universal esoterism, the Islamic form of which is Sufism. He frequently asserts the necessity for esoterists of all religions to observe the exoteric teachings of their traditions, this being the shari `ah in the case of Islam. Titus Burckhardt (Fez: City of Islam, Cambridge, England, 1992) represents a similar perspective, but his works are more explicitly grounded in traditional Sufi teachings. Martin Lings (What is Sufism?, Berkeley, 1975), who has also published under the name Abu Bakr Siraj ed-Din (The Book of Certainty, London, 1952), presents a picture of Sufism that is intellectually rigorous but firmly grounded in explicit Islamic teachings. The noted Iranian scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr (Sufi Essays, London, 1972) also stresses intellectual discernment more than love, and he repeatedly insists that there is no Sufism without the shari`ah. The books of the Turkish Cerrahi leader Muzaffer Ozak (The Unveiling of Love, New York, 1982) present shari’ah-oriented Sufism that is much more focused on love than on intellectual discernment. The Naqshbandi master Nazim al-Qubrusi (Mercy Ocean’s Divine Sources, London, 1983) offers a warm presentation of desirable human qualities, again rooted in a perspective that stresses love and often discusses the shariatic basis of Sufism. The Iranian Ni’matullahi leader Javad Nur-bakhsh (Sufi Symbolism, vols. 1-5, London, 1984-1991) has published several anthologies of classic Sflfi texts; his own perspective falls on the side of intoxication, with emphasis on oneness of being and union with God. He pays little attention to the shari`ah, but he discusses the importance of Sufi communal activities such as sessions of dhikr. Even more to the side of love and intoxication are the works of Guru Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (Golden Words of A Sufi Sheikh, Philadelphia, 1982), who presents a synthesis of Sufism and Hindu teachings that is recognizably Islamic only in its terminology.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Addas, Claude. Quest for the Red Sulphur: The Life of Ibn `Arab!. Cambridge, 1993. Fascinating study of the inner life and historical context of Sulism’s greatest theoretician.
Andrae, Tor. In the Garden of Myrtles: Studies in Early Islamic Mysticism. Albany, N.Y., 1987. Sympathetic account of trends in early Sufism, with frequent comparisons to Christianity.
Ansari al-Harawi, `Abd Allah ibn Muhammad. Les etapes des itinerants vers dieu. Translated by Serge de Laugier de Beaurecueil. Cairo, 1962. French translation of a classic text on the stations of the Sufi path, Manazil al-sa’irin.
Awn, Peter J. Satan’s Tragedy and Redemption: Iblis in Sufi Psychology. Leiden, 1983. Illustrates how Sufis could offer unusual insight into the human condition by reversing the normal theological perception of things.
Baldick, Julian. Mystical Islam. New York and London, 1989. Study of the origins and development of Sufism by perhaps the last specialist to believe that the key to understanding Sufism lies in tracing lines of historical influence.
Bowering, Gerhard. The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam: The Quranic Hermeneutics of the Suft Sahl At-Tustari (d. 283/896). New York, 198o. Erudite study of an important early Sufi.
Chittick, William C. The Sufi Path to Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi. Albany, N.Y., 1983. Anthology of Rami’s poetry, arranged to illustrate the theoretical underpinnings of his worldview. Chodkiewicz, Michel. An Ocean without Shore: Ibn ‘Arabi, the Book, and the Law. Albany, N.Y., 1993. Fine exposition of Ibn al’Arab-i’s grounding in the Qur’an.
Corbin, Henry. The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism. Boulder, 1978. Fascinating study of the role of light and imagination in Sufi theoretical teachings.
Farid al-Din `Attar. Muslim Saints and Mystics. Translated by A. J. Arberry. Chicago, 1966. One of the classics of Sufi hagiography, partially translated by a prolific translator of Sufi texts.
Farid al-Din `Attar. The Conference of the Birds. Translated by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis. New York, 1984. Successful poetic version of a symbolic tale by the Persian poet `Attar.
Ghazali, Abu Hamid al-. Freedom and Fulfillment: An Annotated Translation of al-Ghazali’s al-Munqidh min al-Daldl and Other Relevant Works of al-Ghazali. Translated by Richard J. McCarthy. Boston, 1980. The best study of al-Ghazali’s Sufism.
Hujwiri, ‘Ali ibn `Uthman al-. The Kashf al-Mahjub: The Oldest Persian Treatise on Sufism. Translated by Reynold A. Nicholson. Reprint, London, 1970. One of several still useful translations and studies by a great scholar of Sufism.
Lings, Martin. A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century. 2d ed. London, 1971. Sympathetic account of a contemporary Sufi master of North Africa.
Massignon, Louis. The Passion of al-Hallaj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam. 4 vols. Princeton, 1982. Monumental study of al-Hallaj’s historical context and importance in Sufism.
Murata, Sachiko. The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought. Albany, N.Y., 1992. Broad survey of Sufi and philosophical views on God, the cosmos, and the human soul, with special attention to the Islamic views of male and female.
Najm al-Din Razi, `Abd Allah ibn Muhammad. The Path of God’s Bondsmen. Translated by Hamid Algar. Delmar, N.Y., 1982. Readable translation of a classic Persian text that provides one version of Sufi cosmology and psychology and their relevance to a life of devotion to God.
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. Islamic Spirituality, vol. 1, Foundations; vol. 2, Manifestations. New York, 1987-iggo. The best overview of the whole range of Sufism’s teachings and historical manifestations. Schimmel, Annemarie. Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Chapel Hill, N.C., 1975. The best overview of the Sufi tradition.
Trimingham, J. Spencer. The Sufi Orders in Islam. Oxford, 1971. Good historical survey of the orders, along with descriptions of basic Sufi teachings and practices.
WILLIAM C. CHITTICK