Sufism (tasawwuf) is the mystical dimension of Islam: the search for a direct, loving experience of God. The name probably comes from suf, wool, after the rough woollen cloaks of early ascetics. Sufis are organised in orders (tariqa), each passing teaching from master (murshid) to disciple in a chain going back, they say, to the Prophet. Their practices include dhikr, the repeated remembrance of God’s names, and sama, listening to music and poetry.
Rabia of Basra (8th century) — a woman who taught love of God for God alone, not for fear of hell or hope of paradise. Later legend shows her carrying a torch to burn paradise and water to quench hell.
Al-Hallaj (died 922) — executed in Baghdad after crying out in ecstasy “Ana al-Haqq”, “I am the Truth”, one of God’s names.
Al-Ghazali (1058–1111) — Islam’s most famous theologian, who in a personal crisis left his professorship in Baghdad, lived as a Sufi, and argued that mystical experience and orthodox faith belong together.
Attar (12th century) — author of The Conference of the Birds, in which the birds seek their king, the Simorgh; the thirty who survive the journey discover that they themselves are si morgh, “thirty birds”.
Rumi (1207–1273) — whose followers founded the Mevlevi order, the “whirling dervishes”.
“Whether love be from this side or from that side, in the end it leads us yonder.”Rumi, Masnavi I.111 (tr. R. A. Nicholson)
“I regard not the outside and the words, I regard the inside and the state of heart.”Rumi, Masnavi, Book II, God speaking to Moses (tr. E. H. Whinfield)
Illustration: in Sufism, music is a path to God
Sufis brought Islam to much of South Asia more through song and service than through conquest. Moinuddin Chishti settled at Ajmer around the end of the 12th century; his shrine still draws people of every faith. In Delhi, Nizamuddin Auliya taught that serving the poor was the highest worship, and his disciple Amir Khusrau shaped qawwali, the devotional music still sung at Sufi shrines. Punjabi poets such as Bulleh Shah mocked religious hypocrisy in verses beloved by Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs alike, and Sufi saints sit beside Kabir and Guru Nanak in the Guru Granth Sahib, which includes the verses of Sheikh Farid.
In this 12th-century Persian poem by Farid ud-Din Attar, the birds of the world set out to find their king, the Simorgh. They must cross seven valleys: quest, love, knowledge, detachment, unity, bewilderment and annihilation. Most give up; only thirty arrive, and find no king, only their own reflection, for si morgh in Persian means “thirty birds”. The seeker and the sought turn out to be one.
In 1095 the most celebrated scholar of his age, al-Ghazali, lost his voice and his certainty while teaching in Baghdad. He left his post, lived as a wandering Sufi for years, and in his autobiography, Deliverance from Error, concluded that the Sufis had what learning alone could not give: direct taste of the truth. His later work helped bring Sufism into the mainstream of Islamic thought.
Sufism on Wikipedia · Sufi philosophy (Wikipedia) · The Conference of the Birds · Rumi
