Pages 1 and 2 - Chapter
One: "One easy way to avoid searching for Sufism’s reality is to replace the
name with another name. We often hear that Sufism is "mysticism" or
"esotericism" or "spirituality," usually with the adjective
"Islamic" tacked on front. Such labels can provide an orientation, but they are
both far too broad and far too narrow to designate the diverse teachings and phenomena
that have been identified with Sufism over history. They can never do more than hint at
the reality Bushanji had in mind, and they may be more of a hindrance than a help, because
they encourage people to file Sufism away unthinkingly into a convenient category. In
order to justify using one of these alternative terms, we would have to provide a detailed
and careful definition and analysis of the new term, and the three I mentioned are
notoriously vague. Even if we could provide an adequate definition, we would still have to
explain why it is appropriate for 'Sufism' ".
Commentary: The
author fails to make clear why replacing the name "Sufism" with some other name
- such as "mysticism", "esotericism", or "spirituality",
qualified by the adjective "Islamic", is an "easy way to avoid searching
for" the ‘reality without a name’. However vague any of the three terms
cited above may be, qualifying them with the adjective "Islamic" goes much
further in establishing a recognizable and legitimate starting point from which to venture
forth in seeking the reality without a name than does the term "Sufism" on its
own.
By using the modifier
"Islamic", one immediately knows at least three things that one does not
necessarily know when one uses the term "Sufism". Whatever the truth may be
concerning the ultimate or actual nature of: "Islamic mysticism", "Islamic
esotericism" or "Islamic spirituality", the Qur’an, the life of the
Muhammad (peace be upon him), and the Prophetic tradition [which begins with Adam (peace
be upon him)] will be of paramount importance in guiding an individual along the Path
which leads, God willing, to the reality without a name.
The author claims that
although a term like "Islamic mysticism" can provide a certain sort of
orientation, nonetheless, according to the author, such terms "are both far too broad
and far too narrow to designate the diverse teachings and phenomena that have been
identified with Sufism over history". If one leaves aside the rather mystifying idea
of how a term can be, simultaneously, both "too broad and too narrow", one only
has the author’s allegation (i.e., still without evidentiary support) that the
teachings concerning the ‘reality without a name’ are too diverse to be
meaningfully aligned with a term such as "Islamic mysticism".
Furthermore, in addition
to the already noted point that the ‘reality without a name’ is not a phenomena,
nor a function of phenomena, one also should understand that what has, or has not,
"identified with Sufism over history" is neither here nor there. The issue is
not the term "Sufism" but, rather, the ‘reality without a name’ with
which some usages of this term (i.e., Sufism) later became associated in certain
linguistic circles.
The ‘reality without
a name’ is primary. The term "Sufism" is purely secondary and derivative.
The history of the latter
term cannot be used as a standard for the former reality. More specifically, neither
language, nor language usage, nor the history of language usage can serve as a substitute
for Being.
According to the author,
terms like "Islamic mysticism" or "Islamic esotericism" are
problematic "because they encourage people to file Sufism away unthinkingly into a
convenient category". This claim is made without further elaboration, however, the
claim is hardly an a priori assertion whose truth instantly can be recognized merely by
examining the author’s allegation.
Among other things, one
would like to know which "people" are being encouraged in this fashion. One also
might like to know how such terms "encourage" these individuals to file away the
relevant issues "unthinkingly" into "a convenient category" ...
whatever is meant by "convenient".
One easily could turn the
tables on the author and say that terms like "Sufism" are "more of a
hindrance than a help" because it encourages "people to file" ‘Islamic
mysticism’ " away unthinkingly into a convenient category". After all, one
would like to know why the author seems so insistent on making the history of the term
"Sufism" to be the litmus test of what is, or isn’t, of importance in the
quest to realize the ‘reality without a name’?
The author maintains that
any use of alternative terms such as: "Islamic mysticism", "Islamic
esotericism", or "Islamic spirituality", need to be justified through providing
"a detailed and careful definition and analysis of the new term, and the three I
mentioned are notoriously vague". Presumably, any term will be
"notoriously vague" prior to elaboration, and, presumably, the purpose of such
elaboration is to render a term that once was vague into somewhat less vague language.
Of course, one cannot
know if this sort of elaboration of an initially vague term would satisfy the
author’s criteria for ‘justifying’ the usage of such a term, since the
author does not spell out what he believes is entailed by the notion of justification.
Similarly, he does not establish a precise context for specifying what he means by "a
detailed and careful definition and analysis of the new term" or whether this is even
an appropriate or heuristically valuable exercise with respect to acquiring a better
understanding of the ‘reality without a name’.
Rather arbitrarily,
however, the author has decided that "Sufism" is, somehow, not as
"notoriously vague" as the three terms he mentioned which are prefaced with the
modifier "Islamic". Yet, strangely enough, up to this point of his book, the
author has been making no point more consistently than that "Sufism" is a very
vague and difficult - perhaps impossible - term to grab hold of conceptually.
Finally, the author
argues that "even if we could provide an adequate definition [of one of the three
alternative terms prefaced by ‘Islamic’], we would still have to explain why it
is appropriate for "Sufism". This way of arguing is putting the cart before the
horse.
As indicated previously,
the term "Sufism" is not the benchmark for what is to be considered as
acceptable or unacceptable discourse in relation to the ‘reality without a
name’. The benchmark for such discourse is the ‘reality’ in question, and
the challenge is to try to find one, or more, ways that permit the explorer or seeker to
realize the truth of the ‘reality without a name’ which is being sought - to
whatever extent this is possible.
Islam is not answerable
to "Sufism". Rather, the latter is answerable to the reality of the former since
it is the essential reality of the former to which Ali ibn Ahmad Bushanji was making
reference when he spoke about a ‘reality without a name’. This was a reality
which was manifested through the lives of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), his
close Companions, and those who pursued the essence of the spiritual model exemplified in
those lives, especially that of the Prophet, during subsequent generations of seekers.
One might note that a
distinction is being made in the foregoing between ‘Islam’ and ‘the reality
of Islam’. More specifically, daily prayers can be observed, fasting during the month
of Ramadan can be done, pilgrimages can be performed, charity or zakat can be given, an
individual can submit to the fact that God does, indeed, exist, or, any number of other
spiritual litanies can be practiced, and, yet, there is no guarantee in all of this that
the essential reality of Islam will ever be approached, let alone realized.
The life of the Prophet
Muhammad (peace be upon him) was rooted in the realization of the reality of Islam
considered in the latter’s most essential, broadest, and richest sense. It is this
kind of realization which is the ‘reality without a name’.
Islam is a prescribed
Path or Way to follow in order to approach such a realization, even if one may not be able
to travel this Path with the same degree of success which was evident, by the grace of
God, in the lives of Muhammad (peace be upon him) or the other Prophets and friends of
God. There are many states and stations along this Way which must be traversed before one
begins to reach the shores of the ‘reality without a name’, and not everyone who
begins the trek finishes it, and, therefore, knowing something of Islam, and, yet, knowing
almost nothing of the ‘reality without a name’ to which Islam invites us need
not be a contradiction in terms.
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