Sufism

SUFISM. - From the woolen (Arabic sūf) camel-hair cloak worn by the followers of the movement, the "spirituality" of Muslims is called S.

The starting point of S. is asceticism (zuhd), consisting in contempt for the world and in mortifications and spiritual exercises aimed at purifying the soul from all its faults, making it worthy to draw near to God. To reach this final goal it is necessary, after an act of repentance and conversion (tawbah), to travel, under the blindly followed guidance of a spiritual director (šaih, muršid), a long path (tariq), made up of various stages (maqāmāt), of which the most important are abstinence, renunciation, poverty, patience, trust in God and the joyful acceptance of all the decrees of the Most High. Culminating, precisely, is trust in God (tawakkul), which consists in annihilating one's own will, entrusting oneself to God as to a procurator who thinks of the sūfī and for the sūfī and wills for him. Everything is informed by the concept of suppressing egoism, not only in a negative form, but also through the active example of altruism and goodness, with the aim of making oneself similar to God (or, at least, to Muhammad), in his perfections.

But the supreme goal, upon reaching which the ascetic becomes a mystic, a true sūfī, is tawḥīd. Tawḥīd - the recognition of the unity of God - represents the essence of Muslim dogmatic theology, and indeed gives it its name; but in mystical theology this term takes on a new meaning: it denotes a state in which "humanity disappears and only divinity remains"; in which man loses consciousness of the world and even of himself, so that the situation preceding creation is reproduced, when there was nothing but God.

To the theory of the "stages" (maqāmāt), Muslim ascetico-mystical theology couples that of the "states" (aḥwāl), which leads onto the proper ground of mysticism. The stages are "acquired," the states are "given"; the former are the fruit of human industry, the latter are spontaneous bestowals of Grace. "States" are the name given to transient phenomena of emotional life by which God makes His presence felt, alternately instilling fear and hope, confidence and awe, sensations of expansion (basṭ) and of contraction (qabd) of the soul (the anchura and aprieto of St. John of the Cross).

But in God's favored one a sentiment predominates which in its Author embraces all creatures: Love ('īq). Opposed to "Reason," which gives a purely abstract notion of the Supreme Being, Love guides to the intuition (mukāšafah) of God and to gnosis (ma'rifah), which is something far other than simple theological science ('ilm). By a supreme act of love that breathes equally from the side of the Lover and from that of the Beloved, the mystic enters into a state of union (ittiṣāl, ittiḥād) with God. This occurs in ecstasy, which is called "intoxication," "absence," "immersion," "effacement" and above all "annihilation" (fanā'): an annihilation whose correlative is a persisting (baqā') in God. Usually temporary, this state becomes permanent in the great saint, who is at once in God and in the world. Holiness (wilājah), that is, friendship with God, confers the power to exercise acts of dominion (taṣarruf) over things or to work miracles (karāmāt): there is, indeed, the belief that God governs the world through a hidden hierarchy, renewed from generation to generation, of living saints.

In the state of union every dualism has disappeared on the plane of consciousness; there are no longer the I and the Thou: the Lover identifies himself with the Beloved. Hence the "theopathic locutions" (šatāhāt) do not cause scandal, in which the ecstatic subject expresses himself as God Himself would express Himself. The ordinary believer says: "Glory to God"; the saint Bājazīd al-Biṣāmi (d. 877-78) exclaims: "Glory to me!"; al-Ḥallāǧ (d. 922) proclaims "I am God," and if for this he was condemned to death, tradition has justified and sanctified him.

But will what takes place in the consciousness of the ecstatic not perhaps correspond to what Reality itself is? Official dogmatic theology affirms that God is the sole Agent; taking a short step further, the theorists of Ṣūfism add that only God has esse proprium, while the esse of creatures is mutuatum, so that they, properly speaking, are not. From this position, which orthodoxy has no difficulty in admitting, one passes gradually to monism, which is found in a tendential state in all Muslim mystics, gains ever more ground under the influence of Neoplatonic ideas that penetrated the Muslim world, and is constructed into a system with the Murcian Ibn 'Arabī (1165-1240) and his continuators. Thus is born the doctrine of waḥdat al-waḡūd ("unity of Being"), according to which there is only one Being. But Being (waḡūd) is inseparable from manifestation (zuhūr), and creation, posterior to God only logically, is precisely a descending series of manifestations: from the "diffusive Being" or "First Intellect," followed by the Universal Soul, down to the lowest forms of being. The First Intellect is, moreover, identified with Muhammad, who, consubstantialized with God, assumes the function of Logos, and is made to appear on earth not only in the historical Muhammad, but also in the persons of all the prophets, starting from Adam, and of the saints. Holiness restores to man, who possesses it in potency, the function of vicar of God on earth enjoyed by Adam.

As can be seen, the monism of the ṣūfī is of the Neoplatonic and not the Indian type. Despite the audacity of some of its formulas, it never falls into absolute pantheism. The personality of God is strongly felt in all the types and manifestations of Ṣūfism, which remains essentially a practice of life, tending toward the interiorization of dogma, of worship and of works. It aims to substitute for the "thought" God of dogmatic theologians a God who is "felt," and not merely feared but loved; to integrate ritualism with individual prayer, conceived as an intimate colloquy with God (manāḡāt); to place all the acts of life under the sign of disinterestedness and altruism. The Koran is far from lacking in suggestions in this sense; but, whereas the official religion had neglected them, moving toward emptying into farisdaism, Ṣūfism gathers them up and develops them, under the action of Christian influences so evident that its devotees take Jesus as their model, wear the habit and the hair shirt, isolate themselves in cells or gather in convents like monks, and make an apology for monasticism, celibacy included.

However, Ṣūfism did not arrive at a monasticism of the Christian type; the numerous confraternities (tariqah) to which it has given rise are associations of faithful who neither practice celibacy nor live together, but are only bound by a rule (tariqah, whence the name) consisting in particular devotions, and only at intervals meet again at the convent (sāwīqah, tekkē, etc.) for the common celebration of the ḍikr. This name, corresponding to the Mvāyā of the Eastern monks, is given to the recitation of formulas and litanies, to which are added in some confraternities songs and dances tending to the artificial production of ecstasy, accompanied by displays of cataleptic insensibility.

Ṣūfism had to sustain a long struggle before being received within the bosom of orthodoxy, alarmed by its Christianizing ideal of a secluded life, by the theory of ecstatic union, in which it suspected an offensive return of the Christian dogma of the Incarnation, by its irreverent criticisms against theologians and canonists, and by its propaganda based on strange notions and paradoxes often heretical in sound even if not in intention: as when disinterestedness in actions was recommended even in the form of indifference to the rewards of Paradise, and the mosque, the church, the synagogue and the temple of the idolaters were provocatively placed on the same level in proclaiming the heart alone as the sanctuary of God. The theologians were likewise offended by the theopathic locutions that had become literary exercises, by the accusations of polytheism leveled at other Muslims, by the abuse of erotic and bacchic songs to depict the spiritual nuptials and the intoxication of ecstasy, by the doctrine of a secret science communicated by God to 'Alī, for the use of the elect, simultaneously with the revelation made to Muhammad for the common people. Cases of true and proper anti-ritualism and antinomianism, of syncretistic collusions with the religions superseded by Islam and of understandings with heretical and subversive sects often provoked measures of repression. But moderate and prudent mystics such as Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī (d. 996), al-Gunajd (d. in 909-10), al-Qušajrī (d. 1074) and, above all, al-Gazzālī (d. 1111), the great synthesizer of Sunnism, were able to reconcile mysticism with dogmatics and canon law, to the great benefit of Islam, which emerged from it spiritualized. Ibn 'Arabī and his school seemed to break the equilibrium reached, but they too benefit from the broad Sunni tolerance. The ḥanbalites remain irreconcilable adversaries of Ṣūfism.

Martino Mario Moreno