Sufism
5. SUFISM- WHAT IT REALLY IS ABOUT AND WHAT IS ITS WORTH
Before we delve into this chapter at some length we better begin with analysing and describing the human consciousness as far as an understanding of mysticism in general and Sufism in particular is concerned.
Again, before we begin we must use the preceding chapter as our standing ground: humility before reality. Prejudice we should discard and so must we the anger because anger is prejudice in incandescent and most immediately destructive form.
Human consciousness is the ultimate value we have; in fact we only exist, as far as we ourselves are concerned, so long as we are conscious in one form or another, like ordinary and mostly rational waking consciousness or the sometimes irrational dream consciousness. We also have another and very different and often very bizarre forms of consciousness when under the influence of some drugs which are often illegal or when we subject ourselves or are subjected by others to certain physiological and psychological regimens with a view to induce in us what are nowadays called altered states of consciousness. Among these methods are again the use of some drugs (like the so-called ‘truth drugs’ which allegedly cause a person under interrogation to spill out some truth he is concealing which truth we would like to know) and physiological methods which often amount to torture. Among these are social isolation, starvation, sleep- deprivation, irritating stimuli like repeating the same tune ad nauseatum etc. Interestingly the last group make up the favourite, nay, almost universal methodology in mystic search or indoctrination. Please keep this in mind because it will lay the foundation of our main research about causation of the mystic states of mind.
Another fact we should firmly bear in mind is that persons are not and should better not be made like mass-produced cars of a certain brand and model rolling off automated assembly lines- this desire or ideal is very popular, and dangerously so, with some bird-brained yet too ambitious religious idealists and socio-political ideologues. It is their trademark in fact.
Before we proceed further let us clarify this point a bit more. On the religious front first: Some people are fanatics in their version of religious, especially theological beliefs and cannot stand any slightest deviance- apparent or real- from it. Of course the Existence, Perfection and Unity of God deserves all faith and commitment but otherwise all beliefs are more or less relative at least in their interpretation. One can understand perhaps why Sunni and Shia in Islam disagree on the relative merits of the sahaba but no mainstream Sunni and mainstream Shia will ever dispute about the Unity, Perfection and Existence of Allah. The same with mainstream Christianity: No Catholic and Protestant will disagree about the Trinitarian nature of God. Similarly no Muslim will contemplate Trinity and remain Muslim and no Christian will refute Trinity, go for simple Unity of God and remain a Christian. For each their main belief is non-negotiable and his most cherished desire is to see the whole of mankind to believe exactly like he believes. Ritual practices come later and may be flexible.
On the socio-political front we had, as from the 18th century Republicanism versus monarchy and by the twentieth the debate had changed into Communism versus Capitalism. Both pairs of contending ideologists were seeing blood and shed blood to get their way. Thankfully, time and experience proved the excesses entertained by each and every party and we ended up modern democracies with or without royals as heads of state and socially and economically more fairly- minded. A modern Western democracy aims at satisfying its citizens’ political participation desires so that decisions are not made by self-styled and forcefully imposed elites and it also aims at lessening the prosperity and safety gap between the richer and better-educated and the poorer and less well educated.
These and other tensions, both spiritual and socio-economic, are in operation in every society and all citizens from the ruler at the top to the most humble living on the pavement feel that they are not getting their due in this respect or that. Royals and other prosperous celebrities may look to fools as enjoying paradise on this earth but ask them and they will tell their least complaint will be their terrible pursuit and harassment by the media. This harassment is widely believed to have led to the tragedy of the squalid death of late princess Diana, just as one better known example. Men of religion deeply regret that the masses are not much responding to their pious pleas, the salesmen complain that buyers are too shy or too unappreciative, wives or husbands often have desperate mutual complaints, politicians feel unappreciated when they lose and insecure when they win. Overall, only the humblest-minded enjoy their existence reasonably well and that is because they are humble enough to see and accept the realities their experiences in life push to their senses.
Spiritually, the same tensions and people’s ways of responding to them similarly varies. Some, having too much appetite for this world’s material and sensual satisfaction, cannot bear any invitation to spiritual pursuits like following a religion seriously if at all. In fact they develop an almost instant antipathy towards religions in general and are irritated when the subject crops up. You see, seeing that life is offering so many and so much sensual satisfactions that he has no time for pie-in-the-sky promises and no tolerance for promotions of the same: Often he is right in one respect at least: those who preach and practice the religion on offer look anything but better in their human qualities like honesty, humility and contentment. Often rightly interpreting their attempts at and efforts for the acceptance of their religious doctrines as just another marketing exercise by another kind of entrepreneur they equally often end up with the satisfaction that these different kinds of businessmen are exposed as ruthless cheats. What they forget is the fact that the real thing, i.e., a truthful and gracious faith and its equally beneficial attitudes and practices sometimes somewhere do exist and the religious crooks who are making so much noise and causing so much trouble are like parasites at the job of sharing the life-blood of worthy faiths with worthy practices. As our master Rumi put it “Circulating fake currencies indicate the existence of a genuine currency”.
Now true Sufism is a natural extension or dimension of true Islam and the multiplicity of misguided and misapplied forms, given their often significant popularity indicate the need as well as existence of a true Sufi dimension to Islam. Like all esoteric traditions Sufism features mysteries and produces mystic experiences but in true Sufism these are entirely derived from Islam’s genuine beliefs like the Unity of God and results in the fulfilment of our inalienable moral, legal and ritual obligations towards Him, in fact with far more enthusiasm than ordinary, literal-minded Muslims can muster.
From now on when we say Sufi and Sufism we will mean the true stuff and true practitioner unless otherwise qualified. To begin with the bedrock of Sufism is out and out sincerity (ikhlas). For the Sufi one, it is enough that Allah knows what good he is meaning and doing or otherwise. He abhors self-advertisement or promotion, will not fight for popularity or fame but will see Allah enough witness to everything and Allah’s private approval and invisible blessing as enough reward. Fame and following may only be pushed to him by others without his asking for them and if these are somehow denied to or removed from him he could not care less. It is like a man marrying the love of his life after a long pursuit and yearning and his love is fully returned. This lover will not mind in the slightest if his wedding was a famous ceremony or a totally private affair. So are lovers of God: They have obtained their heart’s and life’s desire in full and the rest is immaterial. A song says “Drink the wine, love the beauty if you have any sense and mind at all/ whether a world exists or not outside this why to worry about?”. Tasting Divine love is the only wine in which the Sufi is interested: he knows that once he tastes this wine his thoughts and actions are fuelled and guided by it all the rest of his life and his affairs take care of themselves, affairs like finding a legitimate livelihood, good and worthy friends, a useful family medium, contentment, safety, security and welfare in the real, causeless sense. Read if you wish “Whoever, male or female, does good while also he is a believer, such We will surely make live a good life and We will surely reward them on the basis of their best actions” (16: 97) and read also “Beware that for the friends (awliya) of Allah there is neither fear nor shall they ever grieve. For them are good news both in this world and the next. There can be no changing to the words of Allah. This, yea, this is the greatest prosperity and success” (10: 62-64).
I want my dear readers to especially note these two synergic verses: Like two perfectly complementary medicines they define the meaning of the famous and central Sufi term ‘wali’ whose ‘awliya’ is the plural form. Basically ‘wali’ means a caring friend or responsible friend or guardian of somebody. Allah calls Himself the wali of the believers and calls the believers awliya of Allah. In the two verses above a wali of Allah finds his or her conclusive and exclusive definition as one who believes in Allah (so piously and sincerely that) he or she does good works and no evil. Perhaps unfortunately this correct definition and description of a wali of Allah has been a bit distorted among many Sufis who see a wali more in terms of producing miraculous effects at will, which feat even Allah’s true Prophets do not claim or favour. Knowing the mystic traditions of many religions older than Islam as renewed by our master Muhammad, we can be sure that this concept of a wali has been influenced by the guru and yogi traditions of India and the ‘saint’ traditions of Christianity. Why some otherwise excellent Sufis perhaps seem to go along with this shift in the concept of wali of Allah can best be explained by their wise desire not to be outdone by Indian and Christian mystics in appealing to people’s vanity who are usually more after excitement and sensation when it comes to belief and the fruits of belief than private moral and spiritual improvement.
Competitive tactics or invented beliefs did not end with a modified definition of wilaya (being a wali) of Allah. Like Indian yogis and Christian saints ‘official’ ranks and functional specialisations among such ‘greats’ became Islamised so that non-Islamic traditions did not have an attractive weapon to beat Islam in the opinion of naive and vain populace watching and listening. This was certainly facilitated by the absorption of hundreds of millions of ex-Hindus, Buddhists, Christians etc into Islam who naturally could not entirely avoid retaining their ex-cultural baggage despite moving into the House of Islam.
Such beliefs (and the practices going with them) among some Sufis and some sections of the general public among the Muslims (sometimes given belated support by very dubious ‘hadiths’) can sometimes but not always or too frequently be justified by some ingenuous and novel interpretations of some verses of the Qur’an but there always remains a disturbing bad taste in one’s mouth somewhat similar to that of artificial sweetener compared to sugar’s or honey’s. They just sit uncomfortably among the original and quite simple and clear set of Islamic beliefs and their artificial sweetness need a lot of equally artificial perfumes to make them palatable to the honestly learned and sincere in seeking Allah’s pleasure in genuinely Islamic if humbler and unpretentious ways.
Justifying interpretations of the Qur’an can range from the plainly and boldly blasphemous to the almost laughably disingenuous. An example of the blasphemous interpretation can be this verses: “Wallahu huwal waliyyu, huwa yuhyil mawta wa huwa ala kulli shay’in qadir” (42: 9) which is rendered “Allah is no other than the saint (wali) himself, is he who raises the dead and he is able to do all things”. More incredibly when the whole of this verse is taken it could not rule out such an atrocious interpretation more. The first half of the verse reads “Emittahazu min dunillahi awliya- Did they adopt awliya other than Allah?” How can one then read the rest that ‘the saint is Allah’ Imagine the Messenger of Allah saying such a thing about himself! Such an atrocious interpretation can further and easily be blown away with this verse “Inna waliyya’llahi nazzala’al kitaba wa huwa yatwallas-salihin (7: 196). i.e, “My wali is Allah Who has sent down the Book (al Qur’an) and befriends (takes as His walis/friends) the piously good”. Mind you, many too ambitious yogis claim divinity and cosmic miraculous powers as a matter of routine. The parallel cannot be mistaken. Please note that this verse is in perfect harmony with the verses quoted farther up. Such careful, responsible and high quality should the interpretation of the Qur’an be.
Why some reckless, too mysticized Sufis entertain such atrocious interpretations which are more at home in pagan and semi-paganised earlier religions?
The answer is, with little doubt, because they employ the psychedelic, grossly brain-washing and mind altering pagan methods the degenerated religions employed. The list has already been given before: social isolation, starvation, sleep-deprivation, torturing or nearly torturing the body and perhaps taking psychedelic herbal drugs. If the first five are employed effectively the last may not be necessary and that kind of Sufis do not usually take up the drug part. The master subjecting the disciple to the said discipline helps the disciple to experience the required mystic experiences by guiding the disciple’s imagination. Such brain washing and imagination guiding is not effective on some but very effective in others: These can be made to believe anything (repeat anything) however bizarre or blasphemous simply because their minds become so plastic that like a moulding plastic it can be easily moulded into the required ‘witnessing’ experiences’ and the ‘verification’ of dogmas they supposedly verify. As a result the disciple comes out of his exercise cocksure in the belief that Guatama Buddha or Jesus Christ or his guru is God in full sense because ‘he has witnessed that truth ‘first-hand’. You also take the trouble and find for yourself, it is easy to deny the truth of the mystic’s discoveries because only one who ‘tastes’; knows! Take or leave it. It does not matter a whit or occur to them as a worrying after-thought that the Hindu aspirant’s witness includes the ‘verification’ of reincarnation while that of a Christian excludes it and verifies a future single resurrection of all the dead and their variously going to heaven or hell. Additionally they also cannot agree on the identity of God: is He Gautama, Krishna or the Christ?
Such pagan-emulating ‘Sufis’ conveniently forget that Allah revealed all the elements of faith in His Qur’an He sent down on His Messenger who was also inspired with correct interpretations of and expansions on them. A Muslim needs no mystical verification of his faith; what he needs is Allah’s grace and help to enable him to WITNESS the Truth of Islam in his life experiences by seeing the infallible moral and sometimes also physical success it causes him. For example the sahaba believed in and followed the Messenger of Allah and surely became witnesess that Islam WORKED in all senses, moral, spiritual, social, legal, diplomatic, filial, charitable and solidarity senses and all the rest. These without starving, sleep-depriving and torturing themselves deliberately except those rare acts of self-punishment born of too deep regret like that of Abu Lubaba who stood accused helping the idolaters with a view to safeguard his family who lived in Mecca. There is no deliberate or systematic asceticism in Islam, the Prophet effectively banned it and Allah explained the Christian monasticism as a voluntary innovation on the part of some Christians who mostly failed to fulfil their unnecessary vows. Those who could fulfil them Allah kindly rewarded but no such methods were required in Islam instead they were banned. Interestingly once the Prophet banned himself eating his favourite food honey and Allah angrily put him right! Some sahabas called at the Prophet’s house boasting to one of his wives about their self-prescribed ascetic practices like celibacy and the Prophet had to come out red with anger and scold them for their arrogance in daring to differ from his path.
In the face of all above and many more facts we need not quote it becomes obvious that the mystic spiritual effort in Islam can only be exercised within the prescriptions and limitations Allah and His Messenger taught and imposed and the dogma’s integrity is non-negotiable and closed to all technical ‘investigation and verification’, simply faith is effective only when it is an implicit act of trusting Allah and His Prophet and then plain acting on it and not investigating as if finding fault with it is an option. Allah describes his good servants as ‘those who believe in what they do not actually perceive (Yu’minuna bi’l-ghaib) (2: 3) and it is obvious to us that this belief is borne of LOVE for and TRUST in Allah, like a child’s who so much loves and idolises his father that he will excitedly believe in anything and everything his father says. IT IS THIS WHICH MAKES US THE DARLINGS OF ALLAH to whom He cannot wait to respond with His LOVE for them and His mercy towards them! In the face of such correct understanding of faith and humble submission to the Divine Beloved all other supposed options for arriving at the Truth are out of place, disrespectful as well as impure. Allah is not for burgling, laying bare the anatomy and the secrets of, for conquering and ordering around by His too ambitious and impatient created servants but revealing Himself gradually and in His Own Way and in His Own Time and as much as He wills. Read if you wish “We will show them Our Signs in the horizons and in their own hearts until it will be clear to them that it (the Qur,an) is True”(41: 53).
Obviously ‘the horizons’ define the objective universe because wherever we stand or reach the universe looks bordered in by horizons, that is to say virtual circular limits. That also Allah’s Signs (‘ayat’ which means both signs and verses) will, at long last, penetrate and be accepted as true by us in our hearts”. This feat shall be performed by Allah and is not available to spiritual DIY (do-it-yourself) enthusiasts as yogis, monks and some Muslim mystics emulating them claim.
In fact in some Sufi works we meet such personal claims, grandiose pontifications and ‘prophecies’ which, by their sheer daring, intimidate the impressionable who feel compelled to believe them. One irresistible temptation hooking some too ambitious Sufis is declaring that they are the greatest of their kind past and future. Others indulge into such Gnostic theological analysis that one would think the man is holding Allah in his palm and studying Him like a biologist studying a living specimen of some creature. With whatever good intentions (husn az-zann) one looks at these supposed gems of gnosis they leave a disturbing if not nauseating taste in one’s mouth. While unable to make up one’s mind faced with such pseudo-profound philosophising the game, by Allah’s merciful trapping of the pretender, is given away when the man makes claims on more practical and straightforward matters like when the Hour (the Day of Resurrection) is going to happen. He gives a future date a few centuries after him, which date is long past by another few centuries now. Other blunders include contradicting the Qur’an and Hadith on some stories of the prophets which could be avoided had the good ‘sheikh’ checked his stories with them. Unfortunately other bad claims like boastings and impossible miracles are pushed which cannot stand honest scrutiny. One, for example, is reported to have bodily participated in Friday prayers on the same Friday at 12,000 locations all over the earth! Who counted, checked and reported all these sightings and who verified them and how, is not mentioned. What is more, worldwide simultaneous multiple presence on a defined occasion like Friday prayer makes no sense because there is no simultaneity between noon times across the earth: when Persians are praying a Friday prayer Americans are fast asleep pending the same day’s sunrise. And why all this trouble, this fuss? Islam begins with loving and obeying Allah and ends with loving and obeying Allah, this is the only agenda of all prophets and should be the only agenda of all believers in prophets of Allah. Great spiritual secrets do most certainly exist but they are not the kind of stuff we can talk or write about, especially the childish stuff which looks more in place in pagan environments where all lies and superstitions go.
The fact is that, unlike material secrets which can be put into concepts and words spiritual secrets cannot be conceptualised and then put into words, at least in a way that everybody who is not mentally retarded can understand. But to be fair to the named Sufis we must consider the realistic possibility that they are not responsible for the works ascribed to them and some others corrupted their original and totally sensible works and then ascribed to him these corruptions. What do we want? Even Allah’s Books except the Qur’an could not escape tamperings with as Allah in His Qur’an testifies. He All-Knowing says that both Jews and Christians tampered with their respective Books and modern historical criticism proves this fact only too well.
Now we will insha Allah try to explain what true Sufism is about and what its worth is.
Sufism is a personal, God-inspired effort on the part of a sincere and spiritually heroic Muslim exerted with a view to understand and appreciate Allah’s Religion more so that the Muslim finds more ways to work for the pleasure of Allah and the welfare of Allah’s all creatures in which effort in fact Allah’s pleasure lies. In other words Allah needs nothing from us whatsoever; what He wants from us is working towards His pleasure so that we derive more pleasure from His gifts here and now and there and thereafter. Read if you wish: “I have not created man and demon but for them to worshipfully serve Me. I do not want from them provisions nor that they feed Me; indeed Allah, yea He is the Very Provider of all, Possessed of Mighty Power” (51: 56- 57).
So Islam is worshipfully serving Allah. What does ‘worshipful service’ (Ibadah) mean? It means loving, admiring, joyful service to Allah. Who can be totally besotted with a beloved one and not prepared to do anything in his power in order to please that beloved? Why do we love Allah if we love Him at all? We believers love him because we are created to seek and adore perfection, hence all our efforts to educate, train, keep in good health and make ourselves sociable. We always want to improve ourselves as we understand improvement and improve other persons and other things. That is why we want higher civilised order, more developed sciences and arts, more prosperous economy, more peaceful co-existence with others, more this more that. As believers, we find the whole source of these perfections and more in our Creator and we are very thankful that He created us and taught us how to become happier through a correct development of our intellectual and emotional minds and also our material environment. The two go together.
Now Sufism adds an extra shine, zest and joy to the pursuit of Allah’s pleasure, to the worshipful service of Allah on our part. Our true sheikhs are living proofs that a better and nobler, a more contented and worry-free, a more moral and graceful personal and social life is possible just by taking our faith more seriously and working towards its higher and higher development. The sheikh is attractive because he has largely solved his moral and spiritual development problem and is advancing at an ever-increasing speed on the path of perfection towards Allah. Will not somebody sitting nearer to a light source look more brilliant than the rest? Do we not instinctively follow those who know more than we do about things we value and need?
Ultimately Sufism is another if invented name for Islam, invented because over time Muslims’ zeal for Islam underwent a natural decline and some new flavour was needed to renew the zeal. All the while thousands and millions of new Muslims from other backgrounds were flowing into Islam and enriching our cultural mix. What is more Islam, especially as from the fourth century of it was spreading more by Sufi missionary efforts which used some of the harmless attractions of old religions in order to facilitate the passage of their members into their new Islamic environment. Did not Yusuf/Joseph (Alaihissalam) fraudulently plot the arrest of his youngest brother Benjamin in order that he could be detained in Egypt and raised to instant prosperity and happiness with his good brother while also sending a subtle message to his father Ya’qub/Jacob (alaihissalam)? In the same wisdom Sufis used harmless plots to attract converts and most of these converts made a smoother passage into mainstream Islam one or two generations down the way at the latest. If sometimes Sufism contains some elements which look like bid’ah it need not necessarily be bid’ah in spirit; there is a kind of bid’ah that ulema call ‘bid’ah al hasana’, i.e., a good innovation which began to creep in even during the sahaba era. Calling a first adhan from the top of a mosque before the adhan for khutba was instituted by our master Uthman (RA) and is an example of a good bid’ah. Madina had vastly grown in size and an indoors adhan could not be relied on to let people know that prayer time was approaching. Adding minarets to mosques is a bid’ah but a good one, praying twenty rik’ats as tarawih prayers in Ramadan with congregation is reported to be instituted by our master Umar (RA) is another possible bid’ah. Umar who, watching people praying it in congregation remarked “If this is a bid’ah what a good bid’ah is it”. Still another bid’ah, is celebrating the birthday of the Prophet (maulid) and all these are very much loved by the generality of Muslims which is a vindication of all of them. Sufism is certainly the most widespread and entrenched of bid’ahs and when piously and modestly followed can only be seen as a way of Islamic perfection in which all the commandments and recommendations of Allah and His Messenger are taken far more seriously than anywhere else. Do you know what is the most solemnly declared first aim of mainstream, moderate true Sufism? It is ‘to regimen oneself under the tutelage and mentorship of a master (sheikh or murshid) so as to be able to shun all harams in the open or in the secret, to perform all the obligations of Islam and overall to attain all the noblest and best moral qualities and most graceful social manners as taught and represented by the Messenger of Allah”. Now, who can find fault with it, show him to me and I tear him to pieces on the spot (so-to-speak of course)!
As imam Qusahiri says Sufism is the fiqh (jurisprudence) of the heart which teaches about the states of heart, what each means in our relation with Allah and how to recognise bad states and eliminate them and how to recognise good states and promote them. In other words it researches, diagnoses and tries to cure those states of mind which block us from observing Allah’s Law and His Messenger’s example (Sunna). Wallahi this is the worthiest of pursuits and efforts and no doubt on it depends our salvation. Read if you wish: “By the (human) heart (nafs) and What arranged it, and inspired it its impiety and piety (which is which and when): Whoever purified it (from unworthy thoughts and intentions) is definitely saved and whoever messed it (with bad thoughts and intentions) is frustrated” (91: 10).
How shall we know what is a good thought and bad thought, what is a good intention and an ill intention if not by referring our hearts to Allah’s jurisdiction? Only a constant checking with Allah our mental states we may find our pious correct way forward and not without. This then must be an inner form of fiqh whose mastery is only too badly needed if we want salvation.
Lastly, we may expand a bit more on the ‘secrets’ or ‘mysteries’ side of Sufism as an esoteric interpretation of Islam. Mystic experiences are fruits of minds which actively search for the meaning of existence and especially human life. Because ‘meaning’ is not a tangible and measurable commodity like wealth or industrial production it can only be explored in its own terms- that of spiritual truths and their values. Because mind has an indelible habit of thinking in, on the one hand, pictorial and on the other, emotional terms imagination is the only medium in which meaning can be given a definite symbolic form. Such symbols are brightest and most impressive in dreams and as a result a lot of mystic experiences are produced in the dreaming mode of our minds. Yes, all dreams are hallucinations but of dreams a special category are truthful, reality based and as such they reveal to us spiritual secrets in the form of symbols which look like tangible objects and events.
There are two ways of inducing such spiritually revealing hallucinations. The first is casual but almost constant and serious contemplation of spiritual matters like God, angels, prophets, death and resurrection and the after-death all with an often unrecognised view to personal salvation. The searcher is unhappy with his moral and spiritual state because he has a sensitive conscience which also observes and evaluates others thereby becoming pleased with some and displeased with some other people and wondering what could or should happen to each. In other words a religious soul is constantly worried about his and other people’s attitudes and conduct and dearly wishes that they could be better. As his mind dwells so seriously and persistently on these moral and spiritual matters the unconscious and far vaster part of his mind becomes activated into a huge answers-getting mode of operation. The result, if and when it comes are symbolic representations of the realities and meanings sought which symbolic representations may include living, corporeal images of dead or living people (some fictional) and other entities like angels in human form. All these are hallucinations but not in vain in the least; just like the written word ‘tree’ does not look like a tree, nor the written word ‘fire’ can burn anything but still REPRESENT these said real entities so do the angels or people seen in lucid dreams as well as daytime hallucinations (often in a trance state) do represent real but materially invisible entities and- VALUES.
When such revelations (kashfiyat or futuhat, not wahy) are received naturally and spontaneously as above they are most reliable for acting upon whatever they may seem to demand. All the prophets got their initiation this way, naturally, without asking for it.
There is also an artificial way though. Here, a ‘creative imagination’ guide subjects the seeker to some physiological regimen and discipline until his rational mind is numbed and his dreaming mind takes over. Once this state is attained the guide takes control of the seekers mind and tries to guide it to produce dream symbols confirming the guide’s theological and moral persuasions or pretensions and lo and behold they materialise and become implanted in the mind of the seeker. This of course amounts to what is variously called ‘mind control’, ‘brain-washing’, ideological indoctrination and what have you. Although it is an effective method for changing minds to order in some individuals it is not very effective with hardier subjects. Some people, for better or worse, cannot simply be made to switch into serious enough symbolic dream/hallucinating mode except perhaps by the use of psychedelic drugs. Incidentally all primitive religions often called Shamanic and deeply pickled in magic do employ drugs to procure mystic experiences whatever their worth.
There is however one more thing to add, a thing which is of momentous significance: It is the little known and very rarely if at all explained fact that ‘the life after death’ and all that it involves as well as the resurrection and judging of the dead is real, only too real in a special sense and not real in the ordinarily understood sense. You see, all existence, compared to Allah’s are illusory. Illusory not the least because they keep changing like the wave forms on the sea. Modern physics confirms this image: all visible and tangible substances and objects are made of energy waves, all are patterns and levels of energy of wave motion. You must have seen in scientific documentaries how plants appear to grow in a few seconds, flourish, produce fruit, wither, die and become dust again. These motion pictures are shot by the use of only very intermittently filming cameras, for example filming momentarily once each day. If a flower plant takes only three months from shooting up from the soil and dying back into it, then our cine-camera will shoot only about ninety pictures of it which can be projected on a screen in about four minutes. Time is so relative: Nobody can say that our ordinary sense of time is the only possible and workable way of perceiving time. What is more, as our illustrious master Sheikh Nazim al Haqqani (may Allah sanctify his secret) had once told me during my early days “Allah creates spaces within spaces and times within times”, we must realise that the experience of an after-life, the experience of a general resurrection and a following judgment with some ending in jubilation and bliss and others in condemnation and torment, can and should be real and what is more, IT NEED NOT TO CLASH WITH OUR ORDINARY EXPERIENCES OR THE COSMIC DESCRIPTIONS OF SCIENCE. A dreaming man is not normally aware that he is dreaming and outside that consciousness is an infinite larger form of consciousness whose contents are infinite and infinitely more real and enduring as well. Read if you wish: “They only know the superficiality that this world’s life is and of the hereafter they are entirely unaware” (30: 7). Again “Definitely this world’s life is nothing but a diversion and a play and without doubt the House of the Hereafter is the real big life- had they but knew!” (29: 64).
This real world, like the only semi-real world we now find ourselves living in is also in us but it is yet dormant like a seed. At death we awake like awaking from a dream: the world we so wake up to was there all along and only more real. Hence the word of the Prophet “People are dreaming, they wake up when they die”. OK, let this world feel as real as it wants and as verifiable as it wants and show another infinitely vaster and more permanent world as unlikely as it wants; all dreams and dreamers think of themselves like that. It is only when the sleeping and its dream end that a realer and more durable world is woken up to when the whole picture comes together at long last. Then the ex-dreamers will be both surprised and unsurprised: because all of us know deep down that reality should and must be bigger than it may appear and that ‘man is the measure of all things’, that is to say, because consciousness is all as far as each man is concerned, unconscious-looking realities are no realities comparable to man. Not them but man is made to dominate and his consciousness is designed to win against all odds. He has more dreams to see than he can now occasionally may see and those dreams will feel realer and realer at each instance until the Final and Ultimate Real and His creation man face and gaze at each other, the First complimenting and giving and the second receiving, thanking and adoring. Read if you wish:
“The Day He calls you and you attend, singing His praises and think that you remained but a short while (as dead)” (17: 52) and “That Day are faces resplendent with happiness gazing at their Lord and are faces grimacing in pain and shame, expecting their backs to be broken”(75: 22- 25), and “Allah, there is no god but He! He will surely gather you on the Day of Resurrection- who is more truthful than Allah”(4: 87).
Since this pursuit of moral and social perfection is the definitive description of Sufism all other concerns like the nature of Allah or the possibility or otherwise of producing miracles and especially a hunger for them IS NOT SUFISM! Any extraordinary events occurring very providentially at times of crisis and repeated in other forms and contexts far above the ordinary probability considerations are gifts from Allah to those who serve him extraordinarily well or have the potential or the intention of doing so are miracles or ‘karamat’ from Allah and their occurrence is common experience who took the trouble to take their faith seriously and worked hard enough. Prophetic miracles and their little sisters the saintly karamat are forceful warping of what is called laws of nature which in fact are nothing more than Allah’s more predictable habits made compassionately predictable so that we can often know what to expect and not end up unprepared. They are by no means infallible but may be overruled by higher laws from the same Source like a supreme court suspending, overruling or replacing the rulings of all lower courts.
All above considered, genuine mystical experiences providing us with more clues for the glories of Allah and the glories of His prophets and other friends (awliya or good believers, the same thing) are inevitable and integral parts of Sufism but they are not conscious and deliberate pursuits pursued through invented or borrowed methodologies. That is where dubious if not bad Sufism begins. Instead the opening-up (fath) to us Allah’s, His Prophets’ and His believers’ glories is granted to us as a gift by Allah as and when we are ready and worthy of receiving them. No artifices and catalysts are necessary and in fact they may do more harm than good.
CONCLUSION: Sufism, when true and genuine, is within Islam, the best fruit of Islam, since it can make Islam easier to follow and put it more comprehensively in control of a believer’s life on top of making both faith and practice more, far more delicious and productive. A true Sufi can bear Islam with less fatigue and boredom with more and better moral and behavioural results for himself and happier results for others. Amen.