Lecture 8
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VIII. ISLAMIC MYSTICISM AND THE INFLUENCE OF SUFISM
Mysticism is called tasawwuf - and a practitioner Sufi (Lings; also suggests safi= pure)
Sufism is the name given to Islamic mysticism, a word based on the Arabic word Suf, meaning undyed wool, because these mystics were accustomed to wearing rough woolen clothes as a mark of their piety and unworldliness. We could regard the woolen garment of the Sufi as a badge or uniform used as a sign of protest against the immense luxury and wealth that the upper classes came to possess as a result of the dramatic conquests in the Near East and Persia. We could consider the wearing of coarse wool also as a mark of their protest against what the Sufis felt to be the political and moral deterioration of the Islamic umma. You will often find Sufis being referred to in Western literature as ascetics, which is fine, as long as you realize that we are not talking about monks and monasticism. As one scholar has described it, “If one were to seek a parallel with Christian movements, one might say that, on the whole, the Sufis were more like friars than monks.” That is to say their vision of God compelled them in the direction of public preaching and sermonizing rather than of monastic seclusion. Their experience of God was, for them, something to be shared with the rest of their community, even though they realized that not everyone could follow them along the Sufi path. It was therefore more of an activist involvement with society, rather than a withdrawal from it; even though private reflection and contemplation was a big part of their activities.
As regards the Sufi movement itself, one might fruitfully compare certain aspects of the mood of the movement with the Romantic mood of early 19th-century Europe. Sufism, like Romanticism, represented a revolt against the formalism and intellectual dogmatism that seemed to them to dominate the lives of fellow religionists. Ritualism and reason were no longer adequate as expressions of the totality of religious experience. Most Sufis would claim that they have transcended intellectual knowledge itself (‘ilm) and to have attained a very special type of knowledge which they call gnosis (ma‘rifa), or spiritual and even experiential knowledge. What is the site, the locus, the place of this special, immediate, and experiential knowledge? (Lings - p. 48/132 - “the heart is the synonym of the intellect.” What is the term that distinguishes “heart-knowledge from mind-knowledge?" Dhawq p. 52/134- Lings) When we read the excerpt from al-Ghazali’s autobiography, we sense this rejection on his part of the intellectual and academic dogmatism current in his day.
One early and very famous example of a Sufi mystic is Rabi‘a al-Adawiya, from the 2nd/8th century, a contemporary of Hasan al-Basri, another important mystical and scholarly figure. An excerpt from a biography of hers is included in your readings.
At first, as you might imagine, the orthodox religious scholars tended to look rather suspiciously upon Sufism. If you have taken the core course in the humanities, you’ve also heard of another early Sufi, al-Hallaj, who was put to death in 309/922 for uttering the famous or infamous statement, “I am the Truth.” In Arabic this utterance is “Ana al-Haqq” which his enemies understood to mean literally that he was claiming to be God. A main part of Sufi thought emphasizes the mystic closeness between the Sufi and His Creator, so much so that the Sufi can claim to have extinguished his human self (fana’) in the Divine Being. This is of course, not to be taken literally; what it implies is that a Sufi becomes so immersed in the remembrance of God that he or she tends to forget the divide between this world and the next. In Arabic, this remembrance of God is called dhikr.
DHIKR as a Sufi technical term refers also to the frequent mention and chanting of God’s names; sometimes to deliberately induce trances. We will be watching a video which will have clippings from a Sufi dhikr session and you can watch some of these activities. Quite frequently, there will also be music accompanying the chanting of the Sufis; sometimes these mystics would dance to the music while enthralled in trances. So you can see why the more conventional religious scholars were actually quite horrified by what went on at these mystical gatherings.
The other name you must remember for all time is al-Rumi, full name Jalal al-Din al-Rumi who died in Konya, Turkey, in 1273. Al-Rumi is particularly celebrated for his exquisite poetry, most of which was written in Persian. His works have been translated into many different languages of the world, and I remember reading somewhere that Rumi is one of the best-selling poets in English today. Rumi was also the founder of a Sufi order known as the Mevlana order; in English they are called the Whirling Dervishes; dervish is a Persian word meaning a mystic. They are called the Whirling Dervishes because in their dhikr sessions, dressed in their somber white clothes, they often twirl around while chanting pious phrases. Included here is footage of a dervish ritual called Sema, which was inspired in part by al-Rumi. Anyone ever seen a performance?
