27.)
Aren’t Sufis really inviting people to submit to a form of shirk or polytheism?
In
reality, Sufi masters are urging all of us to give up the many forms of polytheism which
populate and shape our lives. We may give lip-service to the Oneness of Divinity and to
the obligation not to associate any partners with Allah, but we belie our profession of
faith with each flicker of self-congratulations we may feel for allegedly having
accomplished this or that, or for having known this or that, or for having done this or
that.
Even the
belief that we say prayers, or we fast, or we perform hajj, or we give charity is an
admission of polytheism, for we are, in effect, claiming that we are somehow responsible
for these things getting done or observed. In this way, we are associating partners with
Allah.
In
addition, many of us assume that our thoughts, ideas, creations, inventions and so on are
ours. By taking credit, in however small a way, for these things we are denying the
reality that all praise is due Allah, and, thereby, are guilty of shirk.
We believe
that we deserve our degrees and our promotions. We believe that we are earning our way to
paradise through our efforts and good works. We believe that others like, love or respect
us because we are nice, attractive, intelligent, talented, or pious people, and in
believing this, we commit shirk because we are associating partners with Allah.
We think
we worship God. In reality, we often worship ourselves, and, consequently, we feel that
God should find us to be every bit as winsome as we find ourselves to be.
When these
unpleasant realities are brought to our attention through the barakah of insight and
guidance which God has lavished on the servants of Divinity, we tend to get upset. A
classic response under such circumstances is what is known as reaction formation in which
we attempt to project on to another what we, in fact, are guilty of doing ourselves.
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