Shari'ah and Bi'dat
Someone said:
"As to "Shari'ah:" There are dozens of practices within the purview of Tasawwuf that are bi'dat according to somebody --- including dhikr --- and details of Muslim practice are different all over the world, so I don't take "adherence to (someone's definition of) Shari'ah" as a necessary index. One of my mentors (but not my murshid) is the shaikh of a particular Order who is also a Hafiz Qur'an and an imam. He is very clear in his discourses that the Islam of Tasawwuf and the Islam of the mosque are quite different, and that one should not let their actions be determined by those who can only see one level of Islam."
I feel there are a number of, potentially, problematic aspects to the foregoing statements. First, and without prejudice to the individual to whom you are referring (which is quite easy to do since I have no idea to whom you are referring), any assertion which seeks to differentiate, the 'Islam of Tasawwuf' and the 'Islam of the mosque' and, thereby, imply that the former is somehow better or superior to the latter (and I really don't know how else to render the idea of "different" in the foregoing but as a word which carries a rather presumptuous, elitist and negative judgment of mosques as well as those who are part of the community of such places), this does a great disservice to far too many people. There are mosques run by Sufis, and there are mosques to which Sufis go, and there are hidden saints of God who attend mosques (but who may not be Sufis), and there are good people who are not Sufi but attend mosques, and the Islam of these people is not 'quite different' from the Islam of Tasawwuf. I don't think it is constructive - especially in the context of a web site which is focusing on issues of spiritual abuse - to create divisions in such a critically inclusive manner.
Are there mosques where un-Islamic behaviors, attitudes, ideas, and politics have precedence? Yes, there are. Unfortunately, there are also a variety of groups which call themselves Sufi where the same sort of things can be said.
When reading the kind of perspective which is given expression in the foregoing quote, a anecdote from the life of Ra'bia of Basrah (may Allah be pleased with her) comes to mind. There had been a Sufi who was speaking with her and who was being quite judgmental about the sort of people who go to mosques and about the great differences, supposedly, between so-called 'ordinary' Muslims and the people of the Path. At a certain point, Ra'bia (may Allah be pleased with her) stopped the individual from proceeding and said: "Thy existence is a sin with which none other can compare."
Islam is something different from the interpretations which people - whether they be Sufi or not - place upon it. Each individual seeks to hermeneutically engage the reality of Islam and struggle toward an understanding of that reality - God, and no one else, will tell us, on the Day of Judgment, wherein we differed and who was right and who was wrong. ["then to Me shall
be your return, so I will decide between you concerning that in which you differed." (Qur'an 3:56)]
Some Muslims who attend mosques may be limited in their vision and understanding concerning the infinite richness of Islam. Some Muslims who attend mosques may be less limited in such respects. I know of no authentic shahykh who, either in the present or in the past, has indicated that only Sufis have a multi-dimensional understanding of Islam, or that just because an 'ordinary' Muslim differs in her or his understanding of Islam relative to someone who alleges to be a Sufi, that, consequently, the matter of correctness must automatically be assigned to the Sufi - as with everything else in life, context and specifics matter.
Surely, as the Qur'an stipulates: "We raise by grades (of Mercy) whom We will, and over every lord of knowledge, there is one more knowing." (12:76) Who has been raised by grades, and who is a lord of knowledge, and who is more knowing will not be determined by human predilections -- nor will such matters be settled by making arbitrary distinctions between the Islam of Tasawwuf and the Islam of the mosque.
A second point to make is the following -- and, again, this is done entirely without prejudice to whomever you may be alluding in your foregoing comments. To refer to someone as a shaykh, or a Hafiz of the Qur'an, or an imam doesn't necessarily mean much of anything these days - at least not in the abstract.
Unfortunately, there are all too many individuals who refer to themselves as shaykhs, or as those who have memorized the Qur'an, or who have memorized so many thousands of Hadith, or who are considered to be imams of this or that community who are instructing others to kill innocent people, or who are sexually and financially exploiting women and men, or who are seeking power and domination over others, or who are introducing all manner of fitna or mischief into the community, or who are distorting and corrupting people's understanding about the nature of Islam. This is true, to varying degrees within the Sufi community, and this is true, to varying degrees within the non-Sufi community.
Personally, I don't want to know what label someone applies to himself or herself, or what labels other people apply to such individuals. Instead, I want to know if I can trust such people not to betray or exploit, or manipulate, or lie, or mislead, or misinform, or spread dissension. There are quite a few individuals who refer to themselves as shaykhs, Sufis, imams, and Hafiz of the Qur'an that I have encountered who I have learned cannot be trusted in any of the foregoing ways.
Thirdly, the remarks in the opening quote of this posting which make reference to bi'dat and Shari'ah really have little to do with what I said in the previous posting toward which those remarks are directed. If you will go back and read what I actually wrote, you will see, I believe, that a specific reference was being made to a principle of Shari'ah.
While the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is reported to have said: "My community will never agree in error," and he also is reported to have said: "The diversity (of views) among the learned of my community is a blessing (Mercy) of Allah," he was not saying that Shari'ah is whatever we want to make it or that there was no such thing as bi'dat, or impermissible innovation.
One can agree with you that there are those who try to claim that whatever they are against is what the Prophet had in mind when he spoke of impermissible, innovative practices [and, as Hazrat 'Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) taught us through re-instituting the public observance of tarawih prayers during the month of Ramadan, there are permissible or good innovative practices], but notwithstanding such a concession, this does not mean there is no such thing as bi'dat. Rather, what it means is that one must exercise discernment and insight to be able to differentiate between the truly impermissible and that which is merely imagined to be impermissible due to someone's likes and dislikes.
Returning, for the moment, to what I actually said in a previous posting, the relevant section is as follows:
"one dimension of bi'dat, or impermissible innovation, is to claim that a practice, not specifically prescribed within Shari'ah, will guarantee spiritual benefits."
When someone claims -- and I am not saying you are claiming this but that, apparently, some of those who knew Bob H. were saying words to this effect -- that a name change is incumbent upon Muslims or that by changing one's name one will derive spiritual benefit, then, the making of such claims not only cannot be reliably supported by evidence from the Qur'an, Hadith, or Shari'ah, but, in fact, constitutes an instance of bi'dat. This is so because it is a well-established principle of Shari'ah among all the five major, accepted schools of Islamic jurisprudencethat that no one should try to argue that any given practice which has neither been prescribed nor proscribed by the Qur'an or Hadith can be said to be a necessary source of blessings if such an action is taken, or a necessary cause of Divine displeasure if such an action is not taken.
The fact there are those who misuse or misunderstand the nature of Shari'ah does not entitle one to conclude that, therefore, there is no such thing as Shari'ah or that Shari'ah is wholly arbitrary or that one does not have to pay attention to the principles of conduct which are being given expression through Shari'ah or that one does not have an obligation, as a Muslim, to struggle to understand the principles on which Shari'ah rests. Furthermore, the fact there are those who, apparently, don't read the Qur'an sufficiently closely, and, therefore, have failed to notice that it says: "Lo! Ritual worship preserves one from lewdness and iniquity, and, verily, remembrance of Allah is more important," (29:45) is not really an adequate reason to dismiss Shari'ah as a "necessary index" of Divine guidance.
Hazrat Junayd (may Allah be pleased with him) quite clearly said: "This knowledge of ours is delimited by the Qur'an and Sunnah [of the Prophet (peace be upon him)]." Another friend of Allah has said: "Every unveiling which is not born witness to by the Qur'an and the Sunnah is nothing." There is 'no Islam of tasawwuf' and 'Islam of the mosque' ... there are just different hermeneutical or interpretive renderings of the Qur'an and the Sunnah -- some of which are good, others which are better, and still others which are problematic.
The Sufi Path is not for everyone. However, this does make those who pursue tasawwuf somehow better than those who do not do so, anymore than one can say that because of the differences between a rose and a lotus blossom that one is somehow better than the other -- rather, they are just different manifestations of one and the same underlying beauty.
Moreover, I have met so-called ordinary Muslims who have a lot better sense of, and devotion to, the principles of adab than quite a few so-called Sufis whom I have met. Islam is not found in the labels, but in the niyat with which acts are undertaken which is one of the reasons why Allah said, through the mouth of the Prophet (i.e., it is a Hadith Qudsi): "My heavens and My earth do not contain Me, but the heart of my believing servant does contain Me."
One does not have to be a Sufi to have faith. One does not have to be a Sufi to have sincerity, or compassion, love, kindness, generosity, nobility, honesty, integrity, or empathy. One does not have to be a Sufi to be a Mu'min.
To have any of the foregoing qualities, one needs Allah's blessings, and Allah's blessings are not restricted to the people of the Sufi Path. Hazrat Junayd (may Allah be pleased with him) has said: "The Enlightened One is one who refuses to place his trust in three things: (a) knowledge; (b) action; (c) seclusion." Indeed, as the Qur'an indicates: "Say: He is my Lord; there is no god save Him. In him do I put my trust and unto Him is my recourse," and it was the Sunnah of the Prophet to advise people to also seek to 'tie their camel' while trusting in Allah.
The people of tasawwuf tie their camel one way, and other people tie their camel in other ways. God, through Divine generosity and infinite compassion, accepts many ways of tying a camel - but not all, and it is our task as human beings to discover those ways which are both acceptable to God and compatible with the spiritual potential of our essential fixed form or al-a'yan al-thabita. "To everyone, We have appointed a Law and a way." (Qur'an 5:48)
