Pages 14 and 15 -
Chapter One: "If Sufism is an appropriate name for doing what is beautiful
and striving after spiritual perfection, then, it is built on two foundations - islam
or submission to God (the practice of the Sharia and the prophetic model) and iman
or faith (acceptance of basic Islamic teaching concerning God, prophecy, and the Last
Day). Once seekers have gained sufficient grounding in these two dimensions, they can
focus their efforts on ‘worshiping God as if they see Him.’ Eventually,
sincerity and love may take them to the place where the "as if" ceases to apply.
In other words, they will worship Him while seeing Him. An often cited model here is the
Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, who said, ‘I would not worship a Lord whom I
did not see.’
"Like Sufi faith,
Sufi practice is rooted in the Shahadah. Hence it combines two complementary perspectives
- negation and affirmation, or ‘no god’ and ‘but God’. The
‘god’ or false reality that needs to be negated is the individual self or ego,
the face turned toward the west and oblivious of the east. As long as self-awareness is
dominated by the ego, people will not be able to see the sun’s light. Instead, they
will perceive a multitude of shadows, false realties, and ‘idols’. In
Rumi’s words, ‘The mother of all idols is your own ego.’
"The actual path of
Sufism entails a process of inner transformation whereby the powers of the soul are turned
toward God. Sufism adds to the strictly Shariite practices many devotional and spiritual
exercises. The most important of these, around which the others are ranged as so many
auxiliary means, is the ‘remembrance’ (dhikr) of God, which the Koran commands
people to perform in many verses. Remembrance was taught by the Prophet to his close
companions in the specific forms that make up the kernel of the Sufi discipline.
"The
‘normal’ human situation is one of forgetfulness and heedlessness. The least
precondition for human perfection is to recognize one’s own imperfection and to
remember the perfection of the one Reality. But in order to remember the Real in Its
fullness, seekers must forget the unreal, which is the western face of their own selves
and the world.
"In the Koran and in
Islamic usage in general, the command to ‘remember’ God also means to
‘mention’ God, so the actual means of remembering God is the mention of
God’s name (or names). The name is considered to be the direct manifestation of the
divine on the human level. Through a gradual process or transformation, the name fills up
the mind and consciousness, leaving no room for remembrance of others. The basic insight
here is that awareness is the fundamental reality of human nature, and its content
determines who we are. As Rumi puts it,
‘You
are your thought, brother,
the rest of you is bones and fiber.
If you think of roses, you are a rose garden,
if you think of thorns, you’re fuel for the furnace.’
Constant focus on God
leads eventually, God willing, to the goal of the Sufi path, which is ‘union’
with God."
Commentary: The
author begins this section with a subjunctive or conditional - "If Sufism is an
appropriate name for doing what is beautiful and striving after spiritual
perfection". According to the author, should the ‘if’ portion of the
statement be true, ‘then’ certain other things are also true -
namely, that the Sufi Path is "built on two foundations": ‘islam’ and
‘iman’.
Of course, the
‘then’ aspect could be true, without the initial conditional being true.
Alternatively, the ‘then’ facet of the statement could be true, but in need of
qualification, even though the conditional which preceded the ‘then’ clause is
not true, and, in fact, this latter possibility is closest to the truth.
More specifically,
‘Sufism’ is not "an appropriate name for doing what is
beautiful and striving after spiritual perfection", and this is so for a number of
reasons. To begin with, this way of saying things denigrates, by implication, the vast
majority of Muslims.
After all, if
"Sufism is an appropriate name for doing what is beautiful", then, by
implication, what non-Sufis do cannot be beautiful. Or, approached from a slightly
different angel, if what non-Sufis do is also beautiful, then, one would have lost one of
the qualities being cited by the author which supposedly permits us to differentiate the
Sufi Path from other kinds of spiritual activities, and/or the generality of Muslims. If
the quality: ‘doing the beautiful’, is held in common, as well, by the
activities of non-Sufi Muslims, then, one cannot use this quality to demonstrate how the
Sufi Path differs from what most Muslims do.
There is only one
perspective which matters with respect to determining what is meant by, or entailed by,
the idea of "doing what is beautiful". This perspective belongs to Divinity.
However, consider the
following. Can one suppose that God considers the imperfect struggles of a human being to
seek, worship, serve, or submit to the Truth as being anything other than beautiful?
Is ‘doing the
beautiful’ only a matter of having achieved a lofty station of spiritual perfection,
or does ‘doing the beautiful’ also entail the flawed stumbling of a being into
which God placed, among other capacities, forces which were designed to incline that being
to rebellion against Truth and the Real? Or, does ‘doing the beautiful’
encompass both, and more?
The parable of the
‘prodigal son’s’( or daughter’s) return resonates deeply in the heart.
The Prophet has indicated that Allah is more joyous over a human being’s return to a
path of righteousness after having been on a wayward course, than is a shepherd who
recovers a sheep which had been astray from the flock - and one has to have some
appreciation of how important the finding of an errant sheep is to a shepherd in order to
begin to have even a hint of the joy God has in relation to the return of a wayward human
being.
In truth, there is a
dimension within us which is more like a sheep than we may care to admit. The Prophet
Muhammad (peace be upon him) is reported to have said, with respect to God’s
eagerness to meet up with us, that: "I (i.e.,God) am more intense in My yearning to
meet My servant than he is in desiring Me,’ but, unfortunately, like many sheep, a
lot of human beings, when spiritually lost, don’t seem to make much of an effort to
find their Shepherd and seem content to just wander in the wilderness, ‘baa-ing’
away, until our very lives become endangered - physically, psychologically, and
spiritually.
In any event, being
spiritually lost, and being spiritually found are fundamental themes in the history of
human beings - both collectively and individually. These themes cut across eras,
civilizations, races, religions, ethnicity, language, and culture.
The Qur’an informs
us that when the angels were witness to the creation of the human form, they could see
some of the potentials which were being placed in that form by Divinity, and they asked
God - not defiantly but out of bewilderment - ‘why art Thou fashioning one who will
spread bloodshed and corruption in the land’? God did not disagree with the
observation of the angels, but said, instead: "I know that which you do not
know!"
The Trust which was
accepted by man - ignorant and tyrannical though he would always prove himself to be - was
rejected by the ‘heavens, the mountains, and the earth’. They feared the
enormity of the challenge or task entailed by that Trust.
Not everyone can be a
Prophet, or a Saint, or a Friend of God, or a fully realized human being, and as beautiful
as these exemplars of spirituality may be, there is also a deep, abiding beauty to be
found in the simple struggles of ‘ordinary’ human beings as they face and deal
with - however imperfectly - a vast array of imposing forces, both within and without,
which have been set in opposition to them by none other than Divinity.
God’s capacity for
forgiveness is said to be so enormous that even if human beings were suddenly to stop
sinning and, therefore, no longer require forgiveness, nevertheless, God would create
another species of being who would commit sin so that God could forgive these beings. Yet,
human beings continue to sin, and God continues to forgive those sins, and there is a
beautiful symmetry between human beings who are inclined toward sin and the One Who
forgives those sins - especially given that the One Who forgives those sins is the same
One who invested human beings with competing inclinations toward sinning and seeking
forgiveness.
There is beauty in the
extraordinary deeds of spirituality which are given expression through the lives of the
Prophets and Saints. There is beauty in the simple acts of flawed struggles that are given
expression through the lives of ordinary Muslims and those who submit, as best as they
can, to the Source of all levels of reality.
‘Doing the
beautiful’ is what God does. It is what is given expression through many different
kinds and qualities of manifested loci - sometimes these loci are Prophets and Saints, and
sometimes these loci of manifestation are ‘ordinary’ people who have
‘chosen’ to participate in the incredible saga of Creation with all its
attendant struggles, conflicts, uncertainties, problems, questions, failures and ...
sometimes ... successes.
Aside from the activity
of ‘doing the beautiful’, the author of Sufism - A Short Introduction,
says that another characteristic appropriate to the Sufi Path is "striving after
perfection". The ‘striving after’ part of this perspective is
understandable since we all know what is involved in seeking after something which we
desire, and, as well, we also know what is meant when, in the process of seeking, we are
required to struggle or make efforts with respect to that which we seek.
However, the issue of
‘perfection’ is somewhat more elusive. What exactly is ‘perfection’?
What are the criteria of perfection?
Can a human being become
perfect in some sense (and, if so, in what sense exactly?), or can a human being only
aspire to be a witness to Perfection’s Presence?
Are all expressions of
perfection the same, or are there different levels and modalities of perfection? Is the
maximizing of one’s potential the same as achieving perfection?
When something is
operating as it should - without error or flaw and in accordance with maximum capacity -
we often say that this ‘something’ is operating "perfectly". However,
there is no standard of excellence which necessarily is implied when one uses the
indicated term in the above fashion.
In fact, this manner of
speaking is rather tautological in nature. In other words, when one uses
"perfectly" in the foregoing context, this is really just another way of saying
that something is operating as designed or to specifications.
The ‘something’
could be a tool or machine which might be improved upon in any number of ways in
subsequent versions of that device. Nonetheless, as long as the tool or machine performed
as it was intended to perform, and did so without problems and breakdowns during the
operating life of that device, then, one might say that it performed ‘perfectly’
and, in so doing, committed oneself to nothing more than to say that it fulfilled its
function.
Presumably, the author is
alluding to something much more substantial and loftier than the foregoing sense of
"perfection". On the other hand, until one knows what the nature of
‘fitra’ or spiritual potential is, and until one understands what Divinity
intends with respect to the purpose and uses to which ‘fitra’ is to be applied,
then, one doesn’t really know if we are being challenged ‘to be all we can
be’, irrespective of whether ‘all we can be’ entails a lot or a little, or
if we are being challenged to strive for certain standards of excellence which have been
established by God and which only a fortunate few might achieve.
In the New Testament,
Jesus (peace be upon him) is quoted as saying, "Why callest thou me good, when God,
alone, is good." Slightly different versions of these words are given in Mathew (19:17),
Mark (10:18), and Luke (18:19).
If someone of the
spiritual stature of Jesus (peace be upon him) can say such words, then, what about the
rest of us who are far, far below the spiritual capacity and realization of Jesus (peace
be upon him). Moreover, here, the theme is goodness rather than the more comprehensive
issue of perfection.
There is a heroic ring to
the idea of "striving after perfection". However, there is also a possibility
that such striving may be a lot like ‘tilting at windmills’ in which the
self-deluding fantasies of a ‘noble’ calling distance an individual from contact
with reality.
A Sufi shaykh of India
once indicated there are two points associated with every human being. One of these points
concerns spiritual origins, and the other point has to do with the zenith of an
individual’s potential for spiritual ascension.
The shaykh elaborated on
the foregoing framework somewhat by stipulating that while, on occasion, the highest point
of spiritual ascent for a non-Prophet might rise above the ‘point of origin’
of this or that Prophet, under no circumstances could the highest ‘point of spiritual
ascent’ of a non-Prophet ever begin to remotely approach the ‘point
of spiritual ascent’ of any of the Prophets.
If, for the sake
of discussion, one were to define ‘the highest point of spiritual ascent of the
Prophets’ as a standard of perfection, then, clearly, from the perspective of the
aforementioned shaykh, no non-Prophet, irrespective of how high the latter‘s point of
spiritual ascent might be, could ever attain, or even nearly attain, the standard of
perfection established by the spiritual ascent of any of the Prophets. If this is so,
then, where does this leave the author’s statement that, among other things, the Sufi
Path is about ‘striving after perfection’?
The author maintains that
one of the foundations on which the life of a Sufi rests is the "prophetic
model" - referring primarily to the example set by the Prophet Muhammad (peace be
upon him) but, by implication, including the example set by any of those individuals who
were entrusted by Divinity with the Prophetic mission. However, is there any sincere Sufi
who would be so arrogant and ignorant as to assume that whatever the nature of the
spiritual activity in which they were engaged might be, such activity could be said to be
instituting the ‘prophetic model’ in his or her life?
Of course, there is a
sense in which one follows, as best one can, what one knows about, and understands of, the
‘prophetic model’. Thus, the Prophet said prayers, so, we say prayers, and the
Prophet fasted, so, we fast, and the Prophet went on Hajj, so, we go on Hajj.
Nonetheless, our prayers
are not the prayers of the Prophet. Nor are our fasts the fasts of the Prophet. And, our
Hajj is not the Hajj of the Prophet. Nor are any of the acts which one might pursue in an
attempt to follow the Sunnah of the Prophet, the same as his actions.
Our niyat or intention is
of a different, lower quality than is his. In addition, the condition of concentration,
awareness, understanding, commitment, sincerity, love, submission, taqwa, and so on with
which we follow the Sunnah of the Prophet is altogether different than the condition of
concentration and so on out of which the Prophet gave expression to the actions which are
recorded as his Sunnah.
One could, as the author
suggests, ‘strive after’ the ‘prophetic model of perfection’. Yet,
this sort of striving would be like the mathematical concept of the ‘asymptote’
in which no matter how rigorously and valiantly one’s efforts might be to approach
the standard of the ‘prophetic model’, one could never reach that point of
perfection.
Moses Maimonides, a
Spanish Rabbi of the twelfth-thirteenth century, once said something along the following
lines. He proposed that God would not hold Moses Maimonides responsible for failing to
live up to the capabilities of Prophet Moses (peace be upon him), but, rather, he, the
Rabbi, would be held accountable for failing to live up to the capabilities of Moses
Maimonides.
The Qur’an indicates
that God will not hold any soul accountable for what is beyond that soul’s capacity
to bear (2:286). In short, souls will be judged in accordance with that which is within a
soul’s capacity and not for that which is beyond such a capacity.
Consequently, if
‘striving after perfection’ is part of the Sufi path, then, seemingly, the
nature of perfection may vary from capacity to capacity. Moreover, given the foregoing
considerations, then, perfection - to whatever extent this notion is relevant to the
spiritual quest of humans - might, after all (and as previously suggested), be a matter of
each person’s journey toward realizing her or his primordial, spiritual potential or
‘fitra’ - however limited or expansive this may be in any given case.
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