Nine Questions - Part Three
Question
6) What are some Sufi practices?
The short
answer to this question is as follows. (A) Disciplining the nafs or carnal soul or ego
through various kinds of austerities such as fasting, seclusion, or keeping the night
vigil. (B) Polishing the spiritual heart through zikr Allah or the remembrance of Divinity
through repetitions or the chanting of any of the 99 Names of God. (C) Emptying the sirr
of preoccupations with the world by means of contemplative exercises. Once, God willing,
the sirr becomes emptied, it is capable of guarding the heart from anything other than the
remembrance of Allah. (D) Traversing the spiritual stations of the heart such as longing,
fear, gratitude, patience, sincerity, dependence, and love through one's nisbath or
relationship with, and service to, the shaykh.
The
foregoing notwithstanding, one must understand that none of these practices are sufficient
unto themselves. One, for example, could chant until the cows come home or until hell
freezes over, and if this zikr were not supported and accepted by Allah, one would go
absolutely nowhere. Consequently, these practices are often seen as necessary but not
sufficient conditions for attaining spiritual realization.
Some Sufi
Orders also use spiritual music or sacred turning (e.g., the so-called 'whirling
dervishes' of Turkey's Mevlevi Order ) to help bring about, God willing, various spiritual
states. Or, sometimes these processes help heal various maladies of the soul and heart
through one's participation in them.
Question
7) What is the process of being initiated or becoming an 'official' Sufi?
The answer
to this question can vary with the Sufi Order being considered. Some of these initiation
processes can be very involved and ritual-laden. Others may be very simple.
The essence
of any of these processes, irrespective of whatever surface differences that may
distinguish them, is the contract of nisbath or relationship between seeker and spiritual
guide. Each of the people is obligating oneself to the other in various ways.
The seeker
is indicating his or her willingness to sincerely attempt to learn from, and implement, in
one's personal life, the values, commitments, practices, beliefs, and so on which
characterize the Sufi journey as delineated and exhibited by the shaykh. The seeker is
further committing herself or himself to be loyal to the process of instruction.
The teacher,
on the other hand, is committing himself or herself to look after, and attend to,
engendering, with God's support and blessings, the development and health of the inner,
spiritual life of the seeker. Furthermore, the shaykh is committed to working diligently
and constantly to assist the individual, God willing, to the end to the spiritual journey.
Question
8) How do Sufis receive their "Sufi names"?
First of
all, it is not absolutely necessary to change one's name after stepping onto the Sufi
path, although, in the West, there are many who do this in an attempt to have a concrete,
palpable touchstone of starting out on a new, different journey from what has transpired
previously in their lives. Usually, the way this is done is that the shaykh opens the
Qur'an - seemingly at "random"-- and according to a certain method of selection,
settles on the first root or word which can form the basis for constructing an acceptable
name.
The belief
is, of course, that this is not a random process and that God has led the shaykh to just
this name as being most appropriate for the initiate. Moreover, since the name has special
significance in as much as it has come from one of the Books of Revelation, the meaning
and barakah associated with this name is believed to play a role in the spiritual life of
the individual.
Sometimes, a
spiritually inappropriate name may be chosen by this method in conjunction with some
non-Sufi context. For example, maybe the person converted to Islam before stepping onto
the Sufi path and was given a name at the time of becoming Muslim which, say, weighed too
heavily on the individuals's physical and spiritual being. Upon initiation, shaykhs
sometimes have been known to change the initial name to something else which will not have
the adverse effect on the person as the original name did such as making the person
particularly vulnerable to certain kinds of physical ailment and the like.
Question
9) Do you have any idea on how widespread sufism is?
I do not
have any quantitative statistics, but in all likelihood, there is not a country anywhere
on Earth which does not have one or more authentic practitioners of the Sufi path.
Nonetheless, however large or small this total number of current followers of the Sufi
path may be, it is diminishingly small compared to the number of people who journeyed
along the mystical dimension of Islam in earlier years.
Indeed, the
number of people who follow the Sufi path will continue to drop as we approach the latter
days prior to the Day of Judgement. In fact, the last saint on Earth, who will be a
descendent of the Prophet Seth (peace be upon him), will spend his entire life calling
people to Islam and the Sufi path but no one on Earth will heed the call.
Sometimes
what happens, however, is that someone who has not made a final decision about what to do
about the 'Islam-thing' may, by the Grace of God, be given a mystical experience.
Unfortunately, some people proceed to interpret this to mean that one does not have to be
Muslim in order to undergo mystical experiences.
The
foregoing conclusion is most assuredly true, as far as it goes, since God gives to
Whomsoever Divinity chooses, and can give without stint or reservation. But, what is
problematic with such an understanding is the belief which often accompanies it which
stipulates that these sorts of mystical things will continue to happen or that spiritual
progress can continue to be made outside of the fold of Islam, and, therefore, there
really is no need to become Muslim. This belief is, most assuredly, incorrect.
Given that
the Sufi path can be a very long and difficult journey, having a few authentic experiences
does not necessarily mean anything other than that the Divine touch of barakah has entered
into such a person's life for a short while, or, possibly, a little longer. If one, for
instance, were to speculate, arbitrarily, that 2000 mystical experiences were necessary to
complete the mystical journey (and, things do not work this way on the Sufi path) before
one would undergo both fana and baqa, then even if one were to have 500 authentic
experiences, one still would have three-quarters of the path lying before one.
Consequently,
even if one were to arbitrarily speculate that it were possible to travel one-quarter of
the spiritual distance necessary to reach the goal of the Sufi mystical quest without
becoming Muslim in any formal sense, one still would become stuck at this one-quarter
water mark and not be able to travel further along the Sufi spiritual path.
If the
purpose of someone stepping onto the mystical path is to realize the object of that quest,
then having come only one-quarter of the way toward that goal is as good as being a
googleplex of spiritual light years away from the desired spiritual destination. Whatever
mystical experiences one may have had and whatever spiritual capacities one may have
acquired, by the grace of God, within that one quarter of the way spiritual journey, these
are worthless when considered in relation to the primary goal of the Sufi path.
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