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Chapter 8
Sufism is a part of Religion
The word Sufi is variously traced to ‘Suf’
"wool", referring either to the simple cloaks the early Muslim
ascetics wore, or possibly to ‘Safa’,"purity". Others suggest the
origin of the word Sufi is
from ‘As-hab as-suffa’
"Companions of the Porch", who were a group of impoverished
Muslims during the time of the Prophet Muhammad who spent much of their
time on the veranda of the Prophet's mosque, devoted to prayer and eager to
memorize each new increment of the Qur'an as it was revealed. Yet another explanation
advanced by the 10th century Persian historian Abu Rayhan al-Biruni is that
the word is linked with the Greek word sophia "wisdom".
In ancient times, Sufism (or
more properly its root Arabic word, ‘Tasawwuf’) was equated with Mysticism
or Esotericism (esoteric: enigmatic, understood only by a select few). The
reason for this was the secret rituals practiced by devotees of certain
sects in ancient Egypt and Greece. Their aim was to achieve immortality
and in Greece, they were worshippers of the god Dionysus and the goddess Demeter. In Greek
mythology, Dionysius is the god of wine and the inspirer of ritual madness
and ecstasy, while Demeter is the goddess of grain and fertility and the
nourisher of youth. Their devotees believed that if worshipped in a certain
way, they could grant the worshipper eternal life. The customs and rituals
thus practiced to achieve immortality were forbidden to all but a select group
and were taught in secret. The followers of Pythagoras, the Greek
Mathematician were separated into two groups: The Exoterics, those being
taught the ‘external’ knowledge and the Esoterics, those initiated into the
inner circle, being taught the ‘hidden’ or ‘higher’ knowledge.
The ancient Hindu Vedas were
taught the same way. The Upanishads are the Hindu scriptures that teach the
core principles of Vedanta, a spiritual tradition explained in the Upanishads
concerned with that self-realization by which one understands the ultimate
nature of reality. The meaning of the Sanskrit word Upanishad is literally
‘to sit nearby’, that is, to sit near a spiritual teacher to learn about
hidden truths.
The origins of Mysticism,
like those of Religions, Science and the Arts are shrouded in the mists of
time. However, like Religion, Mysticism too, springs from the ancient
concept of the ‘spirit’. Ancient humans dreamed that they were roaming in
far off places or meeting their dead loved ones but upon waking would find
them selves lying in their cave dwellings. Gradually, they came to believe
that there was something inside of them that would leave their bodies when
they fell asleep to roam far and wide and then return upon awakening. This
later came to be called ‘Spirit’ (Latin-‘breath’). This was the age of
Animism (‘Anima’-Latin for ‘soul’ or ‘life’). Just as humans attributed
their life to a spirit or soul, they ascribed the same force to all plants,
animals, the Sun, Moon and stars, rocks, water and everything that they
observed around them. This later evolved into the belief that after death,
a person’s spirit left their bodies to merge with trees or animals etc. This
led to the concept of rebirth and reincarnation. According to Herodotus,
the 5th Century BC Greek historian, this idea was borrowed from
Egyptian traditions. Ancient Egyptians used to preserve their dead as
mummified remains so their spirit could return after becoming one with
plants or animals. Ancient Greeks and Hindus also revered their ancestors
and would sometime preserve their organs. They believed that there existed
powerful entities in the Universe (which they identified with their dead
ancestors) who could control their destinies and who needed to be placated
in various ways. This gave birth to the idea of religious worship. Of
course, all of this was in response to ancient humanity’s complete
dependence on natural phenomenon such as the weather. Droughts and storms
could destroy crops and cause widespread famine and death. Illnesses (for
which there were no cures, since there was no understanding of their
causes) could devastate communities and depopulate regions. Since humans
had very little control over their environment, it was felt necessary to
ask for ‘gods’ to intercede on our behalf to prevent these calamities. Thus
developed elaborate ceremonies to honor these super-natural entities believed
to control our fate. Enormous temples were built in which idols and statues
of all kinds were kept, laden with jewels and gold, bathed in perfume and
wrapped in the finest garments. Sacrifices, of both animals and humans,
were made to appease them, and beautiful women from all over the land were
kept in the temples to dance for their entertainment. These rituals were
considered part of purity and piety.
Another group of people
amongst these early humans disdained and rejected these overt displays of
religiosity and were forever striving to liberate the spirit from its
material, human form by way of meditation and self-denial. They were the
forerunners of the Esoterics and Mystics. We can also see the influence of
esotericism in the accumulated knowledge and philosophy of the time. The
Pythagoreans and the Vedanta philosophers both believed that the material
world is an illusion, a prison for the spirit, a mirage. The real world is
beyond what can be perceived by the senses and can only be experienced with
that knowledge that comes from self-denial. This knowledge is hidden from
view and cannot be known except by the select few who strive to seek it
out. It is sometimes referred to as ‘Irfan’. This is an Arabic word that
literally means ‘knowing’,
used to refer both to Islamic mysticism as well as the attainment of direct
spiritual knowledge. In the latter sense it is often translated into English
as ‘Gnosis’, a special knowledge or insight into the infinite, divine and
uncreated rather than the finite, natural or material world. Gnosis is a transcendent as well as mature
understanding. It indicates direct spiritual experiential knowledge rather
than that from rational or reasoned thinking. There are two ancient
traditions of Mysticism or ‘Irfan’, Greek Esotericism and Hindu Vedanta. A
look at the evolution of the two will help us distinguish the contours of
Mysticism which has always been distinct from religious beliefs.
Pythagoras of Samos, the 5th
century Greek Mathematician and philosopher was one of the proponents of
Esotericism, which, as described above was considered a devotional sect of
Dionysius. They believed that Dionysius melded with them when they were in
a state of intoxication. Pythagoras’ religious and scientific views were,
in his opinion, inseparably interconnected. He believed in transmigration,
or the reincarnation of the soul again and again into the bodies of humans,
animals, or vegetables until it became moral. His ideas of reincarnation
were influenced by ancient Greek religion. He was one of the first to
propose that the thought processes and the soul were located in the brain
and not the heart. He himself claimed to have lived four lives that he
could remember in detail, and heard the cry of his dead friend in the bark
of a dog. One of Pythagoras' beliefs was that the essence of Being is
Number. Thus, Being relies on the stability of all things that create the
universe. Things like health relied on a stable proportion of elements; too
much or too little of one thing causes an imbalance that makes a being
unhealthy. Pythagoras and his students believed that everything was related
to mathematics and that numbers were the ultimate reality. Through
mathematics, everything could be predicted and measured in rhythmic
patterns or cycles and knowledge of the essence of being can be found in
the form of numbers. Pythagoras once said that "number is the ruler of
forms and ideas and the cause of gods and demons”.
One
of his students, Parmenides of Elea (early 5th century BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Elea, a
Greek city on the southern coast of Italy. He was the founder of the Eleatic
school of philosophy. The single known work of Parmenides is a poem which
has survived only in fragmentary form. In this poem, he explains how
reality is one, change is impossible, and existence is timeless, uniform,
and unchanging. He asserted the primacy of ‘One-ness’, the Ultimate Truth,
overshadowing the entire universe. This later transmuted into the idea of
‘the One Supreme Being’, which encompasses all being. Zeno of Elea, one of
his contemporaries, used logic and paradoxes to argue against change and
motion. Like Pythagoras, Empedocles (490-430 BC) believed in the transmigration
of the soul, that souls can be reincarnated between humans, animals and
even plants. For Empedocles, all living things were on the same spiritual
plane; plants and animals are links in the same chain as humans. Empedocles
urged a vegetarian lifestyle, since the bodies of animals are the dwelling
places of punished souls. Wise people, who have learned the secret of life,
are next to the divine, and their souls, free from the cycle of
reincarnations are able to rest in happiness for eternity.
It is however, Plato (428–
348BC), the Classical Greek philosopher, who, together with his mentor, Socrates,
and his student, Aristotle, helped to lay the foundations of Western
philosophy. He is considered the father of the philosophy of ‘Idealism’ as
well as the forerunner of Mysticism and Esotericism. In his philosophy, the
esoterics of Pythagoras, the rationality and dialectics of the Eleatics and
eternal beauty of Socrates’ ideals have found their highest expression. Plato's
Theory of Forms asserts that
Forms (or Ideas), and not the material world
of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most
fundamental kind of reality. To him, these Ideas are eternal, and exist in
a shape elevated and superior to the material world which he considers a
corrupted reflection of the Forms. In comparison to what he refers to as
‘The Ideal Land’ in one of his Dialogues, our earth is "spoilt and
corroded as in the sea all things are corroded by the brine.”
He considers matter to be far
inferior to Forms; once they are reflected and become matter, they become
debased. This is the beginning of his esoteric philosophy. He asserts, like
Pythagoras before him, that the spirits of the material world (which can
also be referred to as Ideas, Forms, Souls, etc) originally resided in the
Cosmos. Plato claims that Ideas, in times past, felt the pull of Matter and
descended from the heavens to inhabit Matter. However, by doing so, they
became corrupted and corroded by Matter, since Matter itself (by which he
means all material things in the Universe) is inferior and impure. However,
once they inhabit Matter, Ideas are restless and forever striving to escape
their Material prison and return to their pure essence. This is where his
philosophy converges with the Esotericism of Pythagoras. Like the early
Animists and the Esoterics, he believes in transmigration of the soul after
death in accordance with a person’s worldly deeds. For instance, he holds
that a foolish person’s spirit is reincarnated as a fish while an evil
person returns as a woman.
In his famous “Allegory of
the Cave” described in his ‘Republic’ (ca.360 BC), he put forward the idea
that the material world, the ‘world of shadows’ is an illusion. In it he
asks the reader to imagine a cave inhabited by prisoners who have been
chained and held immobile since childhood: not only are their arms and legs
held in place, but their heads are also fixed, compelled to gaze at a wall
in front of them. Behind the prisoners is an enormous fire, and between the
fire and the prisoners is a raised walkway, along which puppeteers
manipulate puppets of various animals, plants, and other things are moved.
The puppets cast shadows on the wall, and the prisoners watch these
shadows. There are also echoes off the wall from the noise produced from
the walkway. The prisoners assume the shadows to be real things and the
echoes to be real sounds, not just reflections of reality, since they are
all they have ever seen. With this
Allegory, Plato wants to emphasize the illusory nature of the material
world, likening everyone in it to the prisoners. According to him, what we
see, hear and perceive is but an image of the real thing, and a distorted
one at that. He uses this story to emphasize the superiority of ideas (or
forms) over material reality since, according to him, no person can truly
grasp the essence of reality. In another dialogue, Plato puts forward his
concept of Eros, Greek for (romantic) Love. This notion greatly influenced
Hindu Vedanta teaching as well as Muslim Sufis. He asserts that since
eternity, Love has meant Divine Love, love that is unceasing, unending and
everlasting. When we observe something beautiful in this world, it reminds
us of the love and beauty of the Divine, the Eternal, and the Infinite. All
beautiful things in the world deeply affect those who observe them since
they are all reflections of Divine beauty. He also maintains that all
things in motion are pulled towards the Divine, that which does not move or
strive, and this pull is what keeps the Universe in motion. His viewpoint
of the Universe is static and unchanging. It has no place for human
endeavor. Of course, if one were to accept his theory of Forms as
ever-lasting and the material world as simply a distorted reflection, there
would be no question of striving to better or improve the world of Forms.
According to Plato, the ultimate purpose of life is to use introspection
and self-reflection to free the Spirit from the prison of the living body.
Philip of Macedon defeated
the united Greek armies to end Greek autonomy and thus also ended this era
of Greek philosophy. During Roman times, Zeno founded the Stoic school of
philosophy in the 3rd Century BC. Notable Stoic philosophers include the
Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Epictetus. The Stoics were
philosophical materialists. They believed in the primacy of matter over
thought or ideas. Materialism refers to those philosophical trends which
emphasize the material world (the world outside of consciousness) as the
foundation and determinant of thinking, especially in relation to the
question of the origin of knowledge. For materialism (and materialists),
thoughts are “reflections” of matter, outside of Mind, which existed before
and independently of thought. The Stoics considered the Universe as the
body and God as its soul and rejected their separation into different
entities. This conception led to the origin of the idea of the unity of all
being which greatly influenced the Sufi mystics.
The Stoics, by declaring the
Universe and God to be one and the same had tried to unify philosophy and
religion. Plotinus of Alexandria (204-270 AD), had an inherent distrust of
materiality (an attitude common to Platonism), holding to the view that
phenomena were a poor image or mimicry (‘mimesis’) of something
"higher and intelligible" which was the "truer part of
genuine Being". This distrust extended to his own body; it is reported
that at one point he refused to have his portrait painted, presumably for
much the same reasons of dislike. Likewise Plotinus never discussed his
ancestry, childhood, or his place or date of birth although from all
accounts his personal and social life exhibited the highest moral and
spiritual standards. He is the founder of the school of ‘Neo-Platonism’
considered the last philosophical effort against the growing popularity of
the new Christian religion. Before we examine Plotinus’ teachings, it may
be instructive to restate briefly the basic tenets of mysticism and
esotericism that were common at the time.
1.
The
spirit (or soul) is imprisoned inside of the body. The only purpose of
human endeavor is to free it from this prison by means of reflection,
introspection and self-denial.
2.
Matter
is the source of all pain, all evil and thus it is necessary to reject all
things material.
3.
Life
is synonymous with suffering. The cause of this suffering is the
imprisonment of the spirit in the circle of life and rebirth.
4.
The
material world is an illusion and cannot be perceived by our senses. To
grasp it requires intuition which can only be achieved through esoteric
teachings.
5.
All
things in the universe are moving towards the Divine. This attraction is
true love. All beauty is a reflection of Divine beauty.
6.
The
Divine reason, or ‘Logos’ and the Divine mind or ‘Nous’ is operative everywhere
in the universe and is either matter or fire.
7.
Existence is one (defined differently by
people in different eras); all things emanate from it and return to it.
There is no other reality
Plotinus tried to find a
synthesis between the Pythagoreans and the Platonists. Plotinus taught that
there is a supreme, totally transcendent "One", containing no
division, multiplicity or distinction out of which emanates (or arises) all
else. The first emanation is ‘nous’
(thought or the divine mind, logos or order, reason). From ‘nous’ proceeds the ‘world soul’,
from the world soul proceeds individual human souls, and finally, matter,
the least perfected level of the cosmos. Plotinus asserted the divine
nature of material creation since it ultimately derives from the One,
through the mediums of nous
and the world soul. Plotinus offers an alternative to the orthodox Christian
notion of creation ‘ex nihilo’
(out of nothing), which attributes to God the deliberation of mind and
action of a will, although Plotinus never mentions Christianity in any of
his works. Plotinus uses the analogy of the Sun which emanates light
indiscriminately without thereby diminishing itself, or reflection in a
mirror which in no way diminishes or otherwise alters the object being
reflected.
Some historians consider
Plotinus to have been affected by Buddhist beliefs as well since there was
a large Buddhist community in Alexandria in his day. From them, he borrowed
the prohibitions on animal sacrifices and the eating of meat. In this
context, it is also necessary to mention Mani of Persia (c. 210–276 AD) ,the founder of Manichaeism, an
ancient Gnostic religion that was once widespread. Mani had also been
influenced by Buddhist teachings. Mani decided that salvation is possible
through education, self-denial, vegetarianism, fasting and chastity. Like
Plotinus, he too, considered matter to be the source of all suffering and
preached asceticism and self-denial.
These ideas affected the
early Christians deeply. Augustine of Hippo, also known as Saint Augustine (354 – 430 AD), was a philosopher and
theologian and one of the most important figures in the development of Western
Christianity. Augustine was heavily influenced by the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus
and had also, at one time, been a Manichean. These ideas also reached the
Muslim world and were eagerly studied and debated. These works had already
been translated into Egyptian and Syrian and in the time of
Mamun-al-Rashid, the Abbasid Caliph, were also translated into Arabic
leading to great intellectual ferment and upheaval. The ideas of Pythagoras
and the Neo-Platonists penetrated deeply into Muslim philosophies of the
time with esotericism, animism, unity of Being and other neo-platonic ideas
later becoming the seeds of Sufi philosophy.
The theology of Sufi thought
is the same as that of the ‘Ikhwan al-Safa’, Al-Kindi, Farabi and Ibn
Seena. The Arabic "Ikhwan
al-Safa" (short for, among many possible transcriptions, "Ikhwan al-Safa wa Khullan al-Wafa
wa Ahl al-Hamd wa abna al-Majd", or the "Brethren of
Purity, Loyal Friends, People worthy of praise and Sons of Glory") were
a mysterious organization of Arab Muslim philosophers in Basra, Iraq -
which was then the seat of the Abbasid Caliphate - sometime during the 10th
century AD. Their esoteric teachings and philosophy are expounded in an epistolary
style (i.e. in the form of letters) in the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of
Purity (Arabic: Rasa'il Ikhwan al-safa'), a giant compendium of 52 epistles
that would greatly influence later encyclopedias. The Ikhwan too, supported
the idea of the spirit imprisoned inside of matter and needing to be freed
by self-denial and reflection. Like Pythagoras, they considered the study
of numbers, logic and mathematics to be the key to freeing intellect from
the prison of the senses. They espoused the same evolutionary path of the
spirit and matter as put forward by Plotinus and the Neo-Platonists with
matter being the most inferior form of being. Subsequent Muslim
philosophers such as Al-Kindi (801-873 AD) who made a special effort to
introduce Greek and Hellenistic (i.e. Aristotelian and Neo-Platonic)
philosophy to the Arab World, Al- Farabi (872-950 AD) and Ibn Seena
(980-1037 AD) further elaborated on the same themes.
The Neo-Platonic idea of love
is illustrated clearly in their works. Al-Farabi, the Persian Muslim
polymath and one of the greatest scientists and scholars of his time claims
that God is Love and Love itself is the source of all that exists in the
Universe. He further asserts that humans can only achieve their true
spiritual potential by acknowledging and embracing this love. Ibn Seena, commonly known in
English by his Latinized name Avicenna
was a Persian polymath and the foremost physician and philosopher of his
time. He was also an astronomer, chemist, geologist, logician, paleontologist,
mathematician, physicist, poet, psychologist, scientist, soldier, statesman,
and teacher. He believed that the striving to excellence experienced by all
humans is (Divine) love. Like Plato, he believes that the Universe
gravitates towards the beauty of the Divine and thus all living beings
experience this pull. All matter including inanimate things, plants,
animals and humans experience this pull to move towards perfection and
completion.
Like Plato, the Sufi
philosophers see God as Divine beauty. Like all beauty, it must reveal
itself. This, they believe, is the secret of the creation of the Universe.
All beauty in the universe, according to them, is a reflection of this
Divine beauty.
By the 11th century,
Neo-Platonism was adopted by the Fatimid state of Egypt while Khorasan (including large parts
of present day Central Asia) had been a Buddhist stronghold for centuries. Thus Muslim mysticism
originated in Fatimid Egypt while the earliest Muslim Sufis
appeared in Central
Asia,
including Khorasan. These included Rabia
al-Adawiyya al-Qaysiyya or simply Rabia al-Basri (717–801 A.D) the first female Muslim Sufi
saint, born in Basra, Iraq. Most of what we know about her comes
from the writings of later Sufi poets since Rabia herself did not leave any
written works. Her poetry is replete with references to Divine love. Rabia
remained an ascetic throughout her life, once rejecting an offer of
marriage from the Amir of Basra himself. In addition to her asceticism, she
was the first to introduce the idea that the Divine should be loved for its
own sake rather than out of fear. She taught that repentance was a gift
from God because no one could repent unless God had already accepted them
and given them this gift (of repentance). She believed that emotions like
fear and hope were like veils between the Divine and all its creations. She
was once been seen running through the streets of Basra with a torch in one hand and a bucket
of water in the other. When asked what she was doing, she replied that she
intended to put out the fires of Hell and burn down Heaven since the ideas
of punishment and reward prevented people from loving the Divine for its
own sake. The asceticism and self denial of the early Sufis was clearly
influenced by the prevailing Buddhist traditions of the time.
Mansur Al-Hallaj, the Persian
mystic (858-922 AD) espoused similar ideas and was executed by the Abbasid
rulers of the times for heresy. In his best known work, Kitab al Tawasin,
he identifies five worlds or levels of existence. The lowest, darkest one
he calls ‘Nasoot’, where humans dwell, next up is ‘Malkoot’, the abode of
angel, higher still is ‘Jabroot’, where the Divine light is prevalent ,then
comes ‘Lahoot’ or the place of Ultimate light and finally ‘Hahoot’ the
place of ‘Truth’. Hallaj maintains that the Divine spirit which manifested
itself in the person of the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, was present before
the creation of the Cosmos and Adam, the apocryphal ‘first human’. He was
the first to introduce the idea of Immanence into Sufism. Immanence, derived from the Latin
‘in manere’, "to
remain within", refers to philosophical and metaphysical theories of
the divine as existing and acting within the mind or the world. In worship,
a believer in immanence might say that one can find God wherever one seeks.
Ibn Arabi (1165-1240 AD) was
an Arab Sufi Muslim mystic and philosopher. A vastly prolific writer, Ibn
Arabi is generally known as the prime exponent of the idea later known as ‘Wahdat-ul-Wujood’
(literally ‘Unity of Creation’), though he did not use this term in his
writings. As originally developed by Ibn Arabi, it does not, as sometimes
believed, imply that God is present in everything, but rather that God's
likeness can be observed in created things. He claimed that he was ‘given’
one of his philosophical treatises in a state of revelation by the Prophet
Muhammad himself. Ibn Arabi, for fear of religious persecution, couched his
philosophy in religious language and used Quranic verses to illustrate
their meaning. This did not prevent him being declared a heretic by some.
Ibn Arabi claimed, like his Neo-Platonist predecessors that the Universe
had neither a beginning nor an end. He, too, claimed that the material
world is an illusion and denied the existence of a divine being separate
from the material world. While Christians had presented Jesus of Nazareth
as the Divine ‘Logos’ (literally ‘The Word (of God)’), Ibn Arabi attributes
the same qualities to Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam. Ibn Arabi was
persecuted for his teachings partly because he declared himself a devotee
of ‘Iblees’ (the Archangel Satan, who, in all monotheistic religious
doctrines fell from grace for refusing to bow to Adam, the first human).
Ibn Arabi explained this devotion by pointing out that Iblees’ disobedience
was in fact, proof of his absolute obedience only to God since he refused
to bow to anyone other than God. He also rejected the notion of Heaven and
Hell, explaining that Heaven was a state of lack of want or need i.e. a
state where there is no hunger for anything or anyone except the Divine. He
considered his view of the unity of creation to be similar to the One-ness
of the Neo-Platonists. His teachings greatly influenced later Sufi mystics.
Al-Ghazzali (1058-1111 AD)
was an Islamic theologian, jurist, philosopher, cosmologist, physician, psychologist
and mystic of Persian origin and one of the most celebrated scholars in the
history of Sufi Islamic thought. He is considered a pioneer of the methods
of doubt and skepticism and synthesized Sufi philosophy into mainstream
Islamic religious belief, thus making it acceptable to the ‘Exoterics’ and
religious scholars.
Jalal
ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
known to the English-speaking world simply as Rumi, (1207 – 1273), was a 13th-century Persian poet, Islamic jurist,
and theologian. Rumi is a descriptive name meaning "the Roman"
since he lived most of his life in an area called ‘Rum’ because it was once
ruled by the Byzantine
Empire. The
general theme of Rumi's thought, like that of other mystic and Sufi poets
of Persian literature, is essentially that of the concept of ‘Tawheed’–
union with the Divine beloved. His epic ‘Masnavi’, comprising six books of poems and 50,000 lines weaves
fables, scenes from everyday life, Qur’anic revelations and exegesis, and
metaphysics into a vast and intricate tapestry. Rumi believed passionately
in the use of music, poetry, and dance as a path for reaching God. It was
from these ideas that the practice of "whirling" dervishes
developed into a ritual form. Rumi encouraged ’Sama’a’, listening to music
and turning or doing the sacred dance. In this tradition, ‘Sama’a’
represents a mystical journey of spiritual ascent through mind and love to
the Perfect One. In this journey, the seeker symbolically turns towards the
truth, grows through love, abandons the ego, finds the truth, and arrives
at the Perfect. The seeker then returns from this spiritual journey, with
greater maturity, to love and to be of service to the whole of creation
without discrimination with regard to beliefs, races, classes, and nations.
Rumi believed that all matter in the universe seeks union with the Divine
from which it emerged. Evolution into a human being from an animal is only
one stage in this process. This synthesis is an evolution of the ideas of Plotinus
and of previous Muslim philosophers like Al Farabi. Rumi also was an
enthusiastic proponent of Ibn Arabi’s idea of ‘Wahdat-al-Wujood’, which
became immensely influential in later Sufi thought.
In the 12th
century, many Sufi orders came into being and by the 14th
century, thanks to their efforts and those of Sufi scholars and poets like
Rumi, Sufi thought and philosophy had become achieved immense popularity.
Another esoteric tradition
developed in ancient India. The Upanishads, dating back to perhaps 3000 years, are Hindu
scriptures that constitute the core teachings of Vedanta, a spiritual
tradition explained in the Upanishads that is concerned with the self-realization
by which one understands the ultimate nature of reality (‘Brahman’). Their
teachings emphasize that the believer's goal is to transcend the
limitations of self-identity and realize one's unity with Brahman. The
Upanishads speak of a universal spirit (‘Brahman’) and an individual soul, (‘Atman’) and assert the unity of both. They speak also of the
illusions of the material world. It should be pointed out that ‘Brahman’ as
spoken of in the Upanishads, is very different from the idea of ‘Eeshwar’
the supreme God of Hinduism (consider the differences between Plotinus’
‘One’ and the God of Christian beliefs or Ibn Arabi’s ‘Unity of Creation’
and Al-lah as an individual in Muslim theology). The Upanishads teach that
the purpose of humanly existence is to discover this ‘Atman’ the individual
divine spirit, and then to meld it with the ‘Brahman’. These ideas found
tremendous popularity in Sufi thought. As pointed out in another chapter,
no religious or philosophical belief can ever take hold in a geographical
region until and unless it acknowledges, accepts and adapts existing ideas,
beliefs and traditions. Thus, the Chisti Sufi order, named for Moinuddin
Chishti of Ajmer, India, is the one that found the most acceptance
in the Indian sub-continent since it was the most successful in
synthesizing Sufi thought and the Vedanta teachings. Some of the most
famous Sufis of this order such as Nizammudin Auliya, Farid Ganjshakkar and
Shah Wali Ullah are greatly revered to this day in the region.
The preceding discussion
illustrates that Sufi thought borrowed the ideas of Greek philosophy which
has persisted in the works of the various mystics through the ages. The
‘One’ of Parmenides, the duality of Plato’s material world and world of
shadows, the ideas of Divine love and beauty and Pythagoras belief about
matter being corrupt entered Sufi thought by way of esotericism. From
Plotinus were borrowed the ideas of Unity, Divine reason, illumination and
revelation and the superiority of intuition and revelation over acquired
knowledge. From Buddhism and Manichaeism were borrowed asceticism,
self-denial, the concept of ‘Murshid’ (or Guide) and ‘Murid’ (or Follower)
and turning away from the material world towards the Divine. The question
now is: what is the difference between the morality and theology of Sufi
thought and that of religion. Let us examine this in turn.
1.
In
Sufi thought, Creator and creation are one and cannot be separated while
religion maintains that God, Al-Lah, Jehovah, Eeshwar etc. is apart from
creation and also above it. A corollary of this is that religion considers
the Creator as an individual apart from his or her creations.
2.
Sufis
assert that the universe emanated from the Divine just like the rays of the
Sun emanate from it. Religion maintains that God created the universe from
nothingness.
3.
Sufis
believe in the unity of creation, that there is nothing material apart from
the Divine. Religion teaches that the material world exists apart from God.
4.
According
to Sufi thought, the spirit, or soul or ‘Atman’ is trapped in its mortal
shell, the human body but with self denial and reflection; it can be freed
to seek unity with the Divine spirit. Religion maintains that the spirit
was created by God and remains after death.
5.
Sufis
deny the literal existence of Heaven and Hell claiming that upon death, the
spirit returns to its origin. Religion asserts that Heaven and Hell (or
their equivalents) exist and one’s deeds in this world will determine one’s
place in the afterlife.
6.
Sufis
identify matter itself as the source of all evil and instruct the seeker of
truth to abstain from all worldly things. Religion allows reasonable
indulgence in material pleasures denying that matter is the source of all
evil.
7.
Sufis
claim that ultimate truth is hidden and inaccessible to all but a select
few. Religion points to doctrine, as revealed in various scriptures and
proclaims that as the truth that should guide all conduct.
8.
Sufi
thought believes in the impotence of man before the Divine while religion
proclaims man to have free will and thus responsible for his own conduct.
This also makes man responsible for his ultimate fate after death.
9.
Sufi
thought teaches self denial in order to appreciate Divine beauty and love.
Religions teach fear of God and good deeds. God wants obedience and
devotion, not love.
10.
Sufis
consider the cycle of time to be infinite. The universe has no beginning
and no end. Religion affirms the linear nature of time and the universe
including a beginning and an end.
11.
According
to Sufi thought, the sole purpose of life is to free the spirit from its
material prison (the body) by self denial, reflection and introspection.
Without cleansing the ‘inner soul’, outer deeds are meaningless. Religion
declares that the sole purpose of human endeavor is to follow scripture to
attain God’s approval in order to achieve a place in Heaven. Good deeds are
proof of inner piety and purity.
The above demonstrates that
the ethics and morality of Religion and Sufi thought are vastly different. Sufi
thought cannot be considered a component of any religion. It is, in fact,
more like a permanent system of philosophy. Unity of being and Divine
One-ness are derived from Greek Idealistic philosophy which has always been
close to Sufi philosophy, the difference being that the Greeks used logic
to support their arguments while the Sufis stressed their love and devotion
to the Divine. All idealist philosophers, that is, those who assert the
primacy of ideas over material reality, from Parmenides to Plato to
Leibnitz, Schopenhauer, Hegel and Bergson have ascribed reason and
consciousness to the universe and have considered this immanence. Sufis
too, have tried to seek out this truth through their teachings.
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