X. The True Character of Ṣūfīism

It will be seen that the great object of the Ṣūfī Mystic is to lose his own identity. Having effected this, perfection is attained. This ideal conception of the Ṣūfī is thus expressed by Jalālu ʾd-dīnu ʾr-Rūmī in his book, the Mas̤nawī (p. 78). It represents Human Love seeking admission into the Sanctuary of Divinity:—

“One knocked at the door of the Beloved, and a voice from within inquired, ‘Who is there?’ Then he answered, ‘It is I.’ And the voice said, ‘This house will not hold me and thee.’ So the door remained shut. Then the Lover sped away into the wilderness, and fasted and prayed in solitude. And after a year he returned, and knocked again at the door, and the voice again demanded, ‘Who is there?’ And the Lover said, ‘It is Thou.’ Then the door was opened.”

The Ṣūfī doctrines are undoubtedly pantheistic, and are almost identical with those of the Brahmans and Buddhists, the Neo-Platonists, the Beghards and Beguins. There is the same union of man with God, the same emanation of all things from God, and the same final absorption of all things into the Divine Essence. And these doctrines are held in harmony with a Muḥammadan view of predestination, which makes all a necessary evolution of the Divine Essence. The creation of the creature, the fall of those who have departed from God, and their final return, are all events pre-ordained by an absolute necessity.

Bāyazīdu ʾl-Bist̤āmī, a mystic of the ninth century, said he was a sea without a bottom, without beginning and without end. Being asked, “What is the throne of God?” he answered, “I am the throne of God.” “What is the table on which the divine decrees are written?” “I am that table.” “What is the pen of God—the word by which God created all things?” “I am the pen.” “What is Abraham, Moses, and Jesus?” “I am Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.” “What are the angels Gabriel, Michael, Isrāfīl?” “I am Gabriel, Michael, Isrāfīl, for whatever comes to true being is absorbed into God, and this is God.” Again, in another place, al-Bist̤āmī cries, “Praise to me, I am truth. I am the true God. Praise to me, I must be celebrated by divine praise.”

The chief school of Arabian philosophy, that of al-G͟hazzālī (A.H. 505), passed over to Ṣūfīism by the same reasoning which led Plotinus to his mystical theology. After long inquiries for some ground on which to base the certainty of our knowledge, al-G͟hazzālī was led to reject entirely all belief in the senses. He then found it equally difficult to be certified of the accuracy of the conclusions of reason, for there may be, he thought, some faculty higher than reason, which, if we possessed, would show the uncertainty of reason, as reason now shows the uncertainty of the senses. He was left in scepticism, and saw no escape but in the Ṣūfī union with Deity. There alone can man know what is true by becoming the truth itself. “I was forced,” he said, “to return to the admission of intellectual notions as the bases of all certitude. This, however, was not by systematic reasoning and accumulation of proofs, but by a flash of light which God sent into my soul! For whoever imagines that truth can only be rendered evident by proofs, places narrow limits to the wide compassion of the Creator.”

Ṣūfīism (says Mr. Cowell) has arisen from the bosom of Muḥammadanism as a vague protest of the human soul, in its intense longing after a purer creed. On certain tenets of the Qurʾān the Ṣūfīs have erected their own system, professing, indeed, to reverence its authority as a divine revelation, but in reality substituting for it the oral voice of the teacher, or the secret dreams of the Mystic. Dissatisfied with the barren letter of the Qurʾān, Ṣūfīism appeals to human consciousness, and from our nature’s felt wants, seeks to set before us nobler hopes than a gross Muḥammadan Paradise can fulfil.

Whilst there are doubtless many amongst the Ṣūfīs who are earnest seekers after truth, it is well known that some of them make their mystical creed a cloak for gross sensual gratification. A sect of Ṣūfīs called the Muhābīyah, or “Revered,” maintain the doctrine of community of property and women, and the sect known as the Malāmatīyah, or “reproached,” maintain the doctrine of necessity, and compound all virtue with vice. Many such do not hold themselves in the least responsible for sins committed by the body, which they regard only as the miserable robe of humanity which encircles the pure spirit.

Some of the Ṣūfī poetry is most objectionable. MacGuckin de Slane, in his Introduction to Ibn K͟hallikān’s Biographical Dictionary, says:—“It often happens that a poet describes his mistress under the attributes of the other sex, lest he should offend that excessive prudery of Oriental feelings which, since the fourth century of Islāmism, scarcely allows an allusion to women, and more particularly in poetry; and this rigidness is still carried so far, that Cairo public singers dare not amuse their auditors with a song in which the beloved is indicated as a female. It cannot, however, be denied that the feelings which inspired poetry of this kind were not always pure, and that polygamy and jealousy have invested the morals of some Eastern nations with the foulest corruption.”

The story of the Rev. Dr. ʿImādu ʾd-dīn (the eminent native clergyman, a convert from Islām, now residing at Amritsar) is a remarkable testimony to the unsatisfying nature of Ṣūfīistic exercises to meet the spiritual need of anxious soul. The following extract from the printed autobiography of his life will show this:—

“I sought for union with God from travellers and faqīrs, and even from the insane people of the city, according to the tenets of the Ṣūfī mystics. The thought of utterly renouncing the world then came into my mind with so much power, that I left everybody, and went out into the desert, and became a faqīr, putting on clothes covered with red ochre, and wandered here and there, from city to city and from village to village, step by step, alone, for about 2,000, or (2,500 miles) without plan or baggage. Faith in the Muḥammadan religion will never, indeed, allow true sincerity to be produced in the nature of man; yet I was then, although with many worldly motives, in search only of God. In this state I entered the city of Karuli, where a stream called Cholida flows beneath a mountain, and there I stayed to perform the Ḥisbu ʾl-bahār. I had a book with me on the doctrines of mysticism and the practice of devotion, which I had received from my religious guide, and held more dear even than the Qurʾān. In my journeys I slept with it at my side at nights, and took comfort in clasping it to my heart whenever my mind was perplexed. My religious guide had forbidden me to show this book, or to speak of its secrets to anyone, for it contained the sum of everlasting happiness; and so this priceless book is even now lying useless on a shelf in my house. I took up the book, and sat down on the bank of the stream, to perform the ceremonies as they were enjoined, according to the following rules:—The celebrant must first perform his ablutions on the bank of the flowing stream, and, wearing an unsewn dress, must sit in a particular manner on one knee for twelve days, and repeat the prayer called Jugopar thirty times every day with a loud voice. He must not eat any food with salt, or anything at all, except some barley bread of flour lawfully earned, which he has made with his own hands, and baked with wood that he has brought himself from the jungles. During the day he must fast entirely, after performing his ablutions in the river before daylight; and he must remain barefooted, wearing no shoes; nor must he touch any man, nor, except at an appointed time, even speak to anyone. The object of all this is, that he may meet with God, and from the longing desire to obtain this, I underwent all this pain. In addition to the above, I wrote the name of God on paper 125,000 times, performing a certain portion every day; and I cut out each word separately with scissors, and wrapped them up each in a ball of flour, and fed the fishes of the river with them, in the way the book prescribed. My days were spent in this manner; and during half the night I slept, and the remaining half I sat up, and wrote the name of God mentally on my heart, and saw Him with the eye of thought. When all this toil was over, and I went thence, I had no strength left in my body; my face was wan and pale, and I could not even hold myself up against the wind.”

Major Durie Osborn, in his Islam under the Khalifs of Baghdad (p. 112), says: “The spread of this Pantheistic spirit has been and is the source of incalculable evil throughout the Muḥammadan world. The true function of religion is to vivify and illuminate all the ordinary relations of life with light from a higher world. The weakness to which religious minds are peculiarly prone is to suppose that this world of working life is an atmosphere too gross and impure for them to live in. They crave for better bread than can be made from wheat. They attempt to fashion a world for themselves, where nothing shall soil the purity of the soul or disturb the serenity of their thoughts. The divorce thus effected between the religious life and the worldly life, is disastrous to both. The ordinary relations of men become emptied of all divine significance. They are considered as the symbols of bondage to the world or to an evil deity. The religious spirit dwindles down to a selfish desire to acquire a felicity from which the children of this world are hopelessly excluded. Pre-eminently has this been the result of Muḥammadan mysticism. It has dug a deep gulf between those who can know God and those who must wander in darkness, feeding upon the husks of rites and ceremonies. It has affirmed with emphasis, that only by a complete renunciation of the world is it possible to attain the true end of man’s existence. Thus all the best and purest natures—the men who might have put a soul in the decaying Church of Islam—have been drawn off from their proper task to wander about in deserts and solitary places, or expend their lives in idle and profitless passivity disguised under the title of ‘spiritual contemplation.’ [ZIKR.] But this has only been part of the evil. The logical result of Pantheism is the destruction of a moral law. If God be all in all, and man’s apparent individuality a delusion of the perceptive faculty, there exists no will which can act, no conscience which can reprove or applaud. The individual is but a momentary seeming; he comes and goes like ‘the snow-flake on the river; a moment seen, then gone for ever.’ To reproach such an ephemeral creature for being the slave of its passions, is to chide the thistledown for yielding to the violence of the wind. Muḥammadans have not been slow to discover these consequences. Thousands of reckless and profligate spirits have entered the orders of the derweshes to enjoy the licence thereby obtained. Their affectation of piety is simply a cloak for the practice of sensuality; their emancipation from the ritual of Islam involves a liberation also from its moral restraints. And thus a movement, animated at its outset by a high and lofty purpose, has degenerated into a fruitful source of ill. The stream which ought to have expanded into a fertilising river, has become a vast swamp, exhaling vapours charged with disease and death.” [FAQIR.]

(For further information on the subject of Eastern Mysticism the English reader is referred to the following works: Hunt’s Pantheism; Tholuck’s Sufismus; Malcolm’s History of Persia; Brown’s Darweshes; Oxford Essays for 1855, by E. B. Cowell; Palmer’s Oriental Mysticism; De Slane’s Introduction to Ibn K͟hallikān; Bicknell’s Translation of Ḥāfiz̤ of Shīrāz; Ouseley’s Persian Poets; Vaughan’s Hours with the Mystics. Persian and Arabic books on the subject are too numerous to mention. ʿAbdu ʾr-Razzāq’s Dictionary of the Technical Terms of the Ṣūfīs was published in Arabic by Dr. Sprenger in Calcutta in 1845.) [FAQIR; ZIKR.]

SUFTAJAH (سفتجة‎). The delivery of property by way of loan, and not by way of trust. It is forbidden by the Sunnī law. (Hamilton’s Hidāyah, vol. iii. p. 244.)

SUHAIL IBN ʿAMR (سهيل بن عمرو‎). One of the most noble of the Quraish, and one of their leaders on the day of the action of Badr. He was taken prisoner on that occasion. He embraced Islām after the taking of Makkah. He is said to have died A.H. 18.

SUICIDE. Arabic Qatlu nafsi-hi (قتل نفسه‎). Suicide is not once referred to in the Qurʾān, but it is forbidden in the Traditions, where Muḥammad is related to have said: “Whosoever shall kill himself shall suffer in the fire of hell” (al-Buk͟hārī, Arabic ed., p. 984); and “shall be excluded from heaven for ever” (ibid. p. 182). It is also related that the Prophet refused the funeral rites to a suicide (Abū Dāʾūd, Arabic ed., vol. ii. p. 98), but it is usual in Muḥammadan countries to perform the funeral service, although forbidden by the custom of the Prophet himself.

SUKR (سكر‎). [DRUNKENNESS.]

SULAIM (سليم‎). Banū Sulaim. One of the powerful tribes of ancient Arabia, descended from the Banū ʿAdwān.

SULAIMĀN (سليمان‎). [SOLOMON.]

ṢULḤ (صلح‎). “Concord; reconciliation; peace.” It occurs in the Qurʾān, as follows:—

Sūrah iv. 127: “And if a woman fears from her husband perverseness or aversion, it is no crime in them both that they should be reconciled to each other, for reconciliation is best.”

S̤ULS̤ (ثلث‎). “Three-quarters” of a Sīpārah of the Qurʾān, or of the Qurʾān itself. [QURʾAN.]

SULT̤ĀN (سلطان‎). A word in modern times used for a ruler or king, as the Sult̤ān of Turkey. Its literal meaning is “strength” or “might,” and in this sense it occurs in the Qurʾān:—

Sūrah xvii. 35: “We have given his next of kin authority.”

Sūrah lxix. 29: “My authority has perished from me.”

Sūrah li. 38: “We sent him (Moses) to Pharaoh with a manifest power (miracle, or authority).”

SUNNAH (سنة‎). Lit. “A path or way; a manner of life.” A term used in the religion of the Muslim to express the custom or manner of life. Hence the tradition which records either the sayings or doings of Muḥammad. Consequently all traditional law is divided into (1) Sunnatu ʾl-Fiʿl, or what Muḥammad did; (2) Sunnatu ʾl-Qaul, or what Muḥammad enjoined; (3) Sunnatu ʾt-Taqrīr, or that which was done or said in the presence of Muḥammad, and which was not forbidden by him.

Those things which the Prophet emphatically enjoined on his followers are called Sunnatu ʾl-Hudā, “Sunna of Guidance,” or as-Sunnatu ʾl-Muʾakkadah: as, for example, the sounding of the aẕān before prayers. Those things which have not been emphatically enjoined, are called as-Sunnatu ʾl-Zāʾidah, or “Supererogatory Sunnah.”

The Honourable Syed Ahmed Khan, C.S.I., says in his Essay on the Traditions, that “upon examining the sayings (or the Aḥādīs̤), and the deeds (or the Sunnah) of the Prophet, we find (1) some of them relating to religion, (2) others connected with the peculiar circumstances of his life, (3) some bearing upon society in general, and (4) others concerning the art of Government.” When Muḥammad spoke on the subject of religion, he is held to have been inspired, and also when he performed a religious act he is believed to have been guided by inspiration; but with regard to other matters, the degree to which he was inspired is held to be a subject for investigation as well as for discrimination. In support of this view, the following tradition is related by Rāfiʿ ibn K͟hadīj: “The Prophet came to al-Madīnah when the people were grafting the male bud of a date tree into the female in order to produce greater abundance of fruit, and he said, ‘Why do you do this?’ They replied, ‘It is an ancient custom.’ The Prophet said, ‘Perhaps it would be better if you did not do it.’ And then they left off the custom, and the trees yielded but little fruit. The people complained to the Prophet, and he said, ‘I am no more than a man. When I order anything respecting religion, receive it; but when I order you about the affairs of the world, then I speak only as a man.’ ” (Mishkāt, book i. ch. vi. pt. 1.)

ʿAbdu ʾllāh ibn Masʿūd says: “The Prophet drew a straight line for us, and said, ‘This is the path of God.’ Then he drew several other lines on the right and left of it, and said, ‘There are the paths of those who follow the devil. Verily my path (sunnah) is straight and you must follow it.’ ”

It is upon the sayings and customs of Muḥammad that that traditional law is founded which is handed down in the Ḥadīs̤, and which is treated of under the article TRADITION.

SUNNĪ (سنى‎). Lit. “One of the path.” A Traditionist. A term generally applied to the large sect of Muslims who acknowledge the first four K͟halīfahs to have been the rightful successors of Muḥammad, and who receive the Kutubu ʿs-Sittah, or “six authentic” books of tradition, and who belong to one of the four schools of jurisprudence founded by Imām Abū Ḥanīfah, Imām ash-Shāfiʿī, Imām Mālik, or Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥambal.

The word Sunnī is really a Persian form, with its plural Sunnīyān, and stands for that which is expressed by the Arabic Ahlu ʾs-Sunnah, “the People of the Path.” The word sunnah meaning a “path,” but being applied to the example of Muḥammad.

A Sunnī is held to be a traditionist, not that any section of Islām rejects the traditions, but merely that the Sunnīs have arrogated to themselves this title, and the rest of the Muslim world has acquiesced in the assumption; hence it comes to pass that although the Shīʿahs, even to a greater degree than the Sunnīs, rest their claims upon traditional evidence, they have allowed their opponents to claim the title of traditionists, and consequently Mr. Sale and many European writers have stated that the Shīʿahs reject the traditions.

The Sunnīs embrace by far the greater portion of the Muḥammadan world. According to Mr. Wilfrid Blunt’s census, they are 145 millions, whilst the Shīʿahs are but some 15 millions.

The principal differences between the Sunnīs and the Shīʿahs are treated of in the article SHIʿAH.

SUPEREROGATION, ACTS OF. [NAFL.]

SŪRAH (سورة‎). Lit. “A row or series.” A term used exclusively for the chapters of the Qurʾān, of which there are one hundred and fourteen in number. These chapters are called after some word which occurs in the text, e.g. Sūratu ʾl-Ḥadīd, the “Chapter of Iron.” The ancient Jews divided the whole law of Moses into fifty-four siderīm, or “sections,” which were named after the same manner as the Sūrahs of the Qurʾān. [QURʾAN.]

SUTRAH (سترة‎). Lit. “That wherewith anything is concealed or covered.” Something put up before one engaged in prayer facing Makkah, to prevent others from intruding upon his devotions. It may be a stick, or anything a cubit in height and an inch in thickness. (Mishkāt, book iv. ch. x.) [PRAYER.]

SUWĀʿ (سواع‎). An idol mentioned in Sūrah lxxi. 22. Professor Palmer says it was an idol in the form of a woman, and believed to be a relic of antediluvian times. (Introduction to the Qurʾān, p. xii.)

SWEARING. [OATH.]

SWINE. Arabic k͟hinzīr (خنزير‎), pl. k͟hanāzīr. Heb. ‏חֲזִיר‎ k͟hazīr. Swine’s flesh is strictly forbidden to Muslims in four different places in the Qurʾān, namely, Sūrahs ii. 168, v. 4, vi. 146, xvi. 116; in which places its use is prohibited with that which dieth of itself and blood.

In the Traditions, it is related that Muḥammad said that “when Jesus the Son of Mary shall descend from the heavens upon your people as a just king, and he will break the cross and will kill all the swine.” (Mishkāt, book xxiii. ch. vi.)

SYNAGOGUES. [CHURCHES.]

SYRIA. [SHAM.]