THE ELEMENTS OF SUFISM
(Excerpts Only)

By: Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri

Chapter 2
The Early Development of Sufism

Al-Kindi (d. tenth century) refers to the appearance of a small community in Alexandria in Egypt in the ninth century which enjoined good and spoke out against evil. They were called Sufis. According to Muruj adh-Dhahab al-Mas'udi, Sufis first appeared during the time of the Abbasid caliph al-Ma`mun. According to Abu'l-Qasim Qushayri, the Sufis appeared in the ninth century, about two hundred years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. The question arises, why did it apparently take so many years for people to take serious interest in the inner sciences? A brief retrospective glance at the early history of Islam may shed some light on this matter.

Let us transpose ourselves to Arabia at the beginning of seventh century AD. What we find is a society of disunited Arab tribes who for centuries had been involved in an established tradition of warfare, idol-worship and other tribal values. Although the Arabs of that time engaged in commerce outside Arabia, they were little influenced by other cultures. The Byzantine Empire and the forays of Nebuchadnezzar into Arabia really had little impact upon them. So we find a people who had been carrying on their traditional nomadic way of life for centuries with little change. Suddenly an incredible 'Prophetic Light' manifests before them. This light begins to clearly identify and destroy the inhumanities and injustices in their society.

The incredible being who brought this new light of knowledge was the Prophet Muhammad. For 23 years Muhammad sang the eternal truth that man is born into this world in order to learn the ways of creation while journeying back to his source, the One Creator, for although man is free in his essence he is constrained and restricted by the outer laws that govern existence.

Muhammad spoke the same eternal truth which was spoken by thousands of divine messengers before him, and he spoke it in the contemporary language of his land, a language which was the highest cultural achievement of and a gift to those people. ...

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Sincere and pious Muslims could not tolerate injustice and oppression indefinitely, and there emerged a movement led by Abu Muslim Khurasani committed to re-establishing justice and the true way of Islam. To begin with, it was a popular revolutionary movement against the Ummayads in favor of the Hashimites and the immediate family of the Prophet. However, when the cause was won, and the Ummayad dynasty was brought to an end in 749, the rulership of Muslim society was usurped by the Abbasids on the pretext of their being related to the family of Muhammad, although the connection was remote.

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It was these circumstances of blatant political and social contradictions that gave rise to the emergence of the Sufis, pious and thoughtful Muslims under the general umbrella of Islam, wanting to distinguish themselves from the ruling party and their worldly supporters. So we find the Sufi movement beginning as a natural consequence of Muslim society accepting and following corrupt dynasty rulership rather than following the King of kings, God the Almighty, through following its true representatives on this earth.

Muslims who were aware of the real prophetic teachings, but unable to change the existing situation, started devoting their life to prayers and the discipline of inner purification. Imam Ali Zayn al-Abidin, the son of Imam Husayn, is just one of many prominent examples. These Muslims could not turn their energy outwardly against the evil regimes, so they were compelled to turn it inwardly against the evil within the human self. These are the people who later came to be called the Sufis.

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What the first Sufis did can be done by anyone who is seeking the higher meaning in life. Hence it is superficial to say that Sufism came into existence 200 years after the Prophet Muhammad's death, or that it originated from the poor and good-hearted simple people who were among the earliest followers of the Prophet. Both these views are true as well as false. Sufism is a movement that began to take form, identity and size when Islamic leadership or rulership deviated from the original teachings of Islam. It was at this stage that the Sufi circles began to grow. These circles became a sign of protection as well as a sign of identity which differentiated between a real Muslim (that is, a Sufi) and the one who deviated from the original Muhammadan code.

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Throughout the history of Islamic civilization, we occasionally find a Sufi master rising to denounce openly a regime which has deviated from the original Muhammadi path to an unacceptable degree. A true Sufi does not accept the esoteric path only, because he is a man of Unity. He does not separate the inner from the outer. He distinguishes between them and recognizes where one stops and the other begins. He does not say that he is solely a person of inner and become a recluse. The Sufi spiritual masters were not recluses. They had the vision of totality. From the Sufi point of view, if you start at one end you end up at the other end. If you start with outer purity, you end up at the other end by purifying your inner self. If you start by purifying your inner self, you end up being concerned with the outer and with society.

If you want to know why a tree is so big and robust and can withstand the onslaught of hurricanes, you have to dig deep in order to discover the depth of its roots. One reflects the other and traces the story of the other. If you want to have a strong outer situation, then you need a strong inner situation. For example, a galleon or sailing ship carrying a full cargo will only cross the tumultuous seas if it has a strong mast and a very large sail. In the same way, the Sufis were saying, the more involved a person is in a worldly situation, the more concerned and involved he ought to be in a spiritual situation. Then there is a balance. You cannot have the one without the other. This is the meaning behind the observation that he who is seeking the world is in reality seeking a spiritual one, but he is unaware of it. The greedy person is in need of security. However the ultimate real security is inner contentment and certainty. If he seeks it outwardly, it is because the outer quest is easier. It is gross and physical and therefore more tangible and workable. The inner is more subtle and difficult to work. He who is arrogant outwardly is actually insecure inwardly, which is why he puts a show of arrogance. He who is inwardly insecure protects himself outwardly elevating himself.

These are the laws of the self which were discussed, taught and practiced in the Sufi circles. This does not mean that they were not known before this time and that they emerged only 200 years after the Prophet's lifetime. These types of knowledge were known both before and during the time of Muhammad and practiced without being formalized or labeled. It is like someone cooking a meal and eating it without having any name for the dish or a recipe book. So Sufism existed at the time of the Prophet without that label actually being given to it. That is the meaning of Imam Junayd's saying, 'Sufism was a reality without a name.' It was not an objective science to be studied by orientalists and analyzed and disseminated by linguists. There is a big difference between merely collecting recipes and actually cooking and eating. Nowadays there are hardly any real cooks anywhere, but there are many people who collect and exchange recipes, such as 'There was an emergence of Sufism in the 9th century', which does not mean anything if one contemplates deeply. Statements that Sufism emerged two centuries after Prophet Muhammad's lifetime are superficial unless one considers the backdrop of the political history of Islam. For a reflective mind, it becomes quite clear that the emergence of Sufism out into the open was a reaction to the oppressive and unjust external situation caused by the ruling party which had deviated from the original Islamic way.

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It was during this period of social, political, spiritual and moral decadence and decline that the Sufi movement grew in strength to revive the true way of Islam, as has already been discussed earlier. In this sense, I regard the Sufi movement as a parallel to the prophethood of Jesus, whose message was not to destroy the Law of Moses, but to revive the spirit of the Law in order to rebalance it. As a result, we do not find Jesus changing the already existing Mosaic Law, but confirming it, while showing its true application and meaning. It was a later convert, Paul, and others, who brought about what is called Christianity. In the same way, it was during this period, in which many of the Muslims had lost sight of the true application and meaning of Islam, that major Sufi writings on spiritual and moral disciplines appeared in order to guide the people who desired balance, purity, self-knowledge and inner illumination.