Is Allah in the Sky?

No. The literal sense of being “in the sky” would mean that Allah is actually in one of His creatures, for the sky is something created. It is not permissible to believe that Allah indwells or occupies (in Arabic, hulul) any of His creatures, as the Christians believe about Jesus, or the Hindus about their avatars.

What is obligatory for a human being to know is that Allah is ghaniyy or “absolutely free from need” of anything He has created. He explicitly says in surat al-‘Ankabut of the Qur’an, “Verily Allah is absolutely free of need of anything in the worlds” (Qur’an 29:6). Allah mentions this attribute of ghina or “freedom of need for anything whatsoever” in some seventeen verses in the Qur’an. It is a central point of Islamic ‘aqida or faith, and is the reason why it is impossible that Allah could be Jesus (upon whom be peace) or be anyone else with a body and form: because bodies need space and time, while Allah has absolutely no need for anything. This is the ‘aqida of the Qur’an, and Muslim scholars have kept it in view in understanding other Qur’anic verses or hadiths.

Muslims lift their hands toward the sky when they make supplications (du‘a) to Allah because the sky is the qibla for du‘a, not that Allah occupies that particular direction—just as the Kaaba is the qibla of the prayer (salat), without Muslims believing that Allah is in that direction. Rather, Allah in His wisdom has made the qibla a sign (ayah) of Muslim unity, just as He has made the sky the sign of His exaltedness and His infinitude, meanings which come to the heart of every believer merely by facing the sky and supplicating Allah.

It was part of the divine wisdom to incorporate these meanings into the prophetic sunna to uplift the hearts of the people who first heard them, and to direct them to the exaltedness and infinitude of Allah through the greatest and most palpable physical sign of them: the visible sky that Allah had raised above them. Many of them, especially when newly from the Jahiliyya or “pre-Islamic Period of Ignorance,” were extremely close to physical, perceptible realities and had little conception of anything besides—as is attested to by their idols, which were images set up on the ground. ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab mentions, for example, that in the Jahiliyya, they might make their idols out of dates, and if they later grew hungry, they would simply eat them. The language of the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) in conveying the exaltedness of Allah Most High to such people was of course in terms they could understand without difficulty, and used the imagery of the sky above them. Imam al-Qurtubi, the famous Qur’anic exegete of the seventh/thirteenth century, says:

The hadiths on this subject are numerous, rigorously authenticated (sahih), and widely known, and indicate the exaltedness of Allah, being undeniable by anyone except an atheist or obstinate ignoramus. Their meaning is to dignify Allah and exalt Him above all that is base and low, to characterize Him by exaltedness and greatness, not by being in places, particular directions, or within limits, for these are the qualities of physical bodies (al-Jami‘ li ahkam al-Qur’an. 20 vols. Cairo 1387/1967. Reprint (20 vols in 10). Beirut: Dar Ihya’ al-Turath al-‘Arabi, n.d.,18.216).

In this connection, a hadith has been related by Malik in his Muwatta’ and by Muslim in his Sahih, that Mu‘awiya ibn al-Hakam came to the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and told him, “I am very newly from the Jahiliyya, and now Allah has brought Islam,” and he proceeded to ask about various Jahiliyya practices, until at last he said that he had slapped his slave girl, and asked if he should free her, as was obligatory if she was a believer. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) requested that she be brought, and then asked her, “Where is Allah?” and she said, “In the sky (Fi al-sama’)”; whereupon he asked her, “Who am I?” and she said, “You are the Messenger of Allah”; at which he said, “Free her, for she is a believer” (Sahih Muslim, 5 vols. Cairo 1376/1956. Reprint. Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1403/1983, 1.382: 538). Imam Nawawi says of this hadith:

This is one of the “hadiths of the attributes,” about which scholars have two positions. The first is to have faith in it without discussing its meaning, while believing of Allah Most High that “there is nothing whatsoever like unto Him” (Qur’an 42:11), and that He is exalted above having any of the attributes of His creatures. The second is to figuratively explain it in a fitting way, scholars who hold this position adducing that the point of the hadith was to test the slave girl: Was she a monotheist, who affirmed that the Creator, the Disposer, the Doer, is Allah alone and that He is the one called upon when a person making supplication (du‘a) faces the sky—just as those performing the prayer (salat) face the Kaaba, since the sky is the qibla of those who supplicate, as the Kaaba is the qibla of those who perform the prayer—or was she a worshipper of the idols which they placed in front of themselves? So when she said, “In the sky,” it was plain that she was not an idol worshipper (Sahih Muslim bi Sharh al-Nawawi. 18 vols. Cairo 1349/1930. Reprint (18 vols. in 9). Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1401/1981, 5.24).

It is noteworthy that Imam Nawawi does not mention understanding the hadith literally as a possible scholarly position at all. This occasions surprise today among some Muslims, who imagine that what is at stake is the principle of accepting a single rigorously authenticated (sahih) hadith as evidence in Islamic faith (‘aqida), for this hadith is such a single hadith, of those termed in Arabic ahad, or “conveyed by a single chain of transmission,” as opposed to being mutawatir or “conveyed by so many chains of transmission that it is impossible it could have been forged.”

Yet this is not what is at stake, because hadiths of its type are only considered acceptable as evidence by traditional scholars of Islamic ‘aqida if one condition can be met: that the tenet of faith mentioned in the hadith is salimun min al-mu‘arada or “free of conflicting evidence.” This condition is not met by this particular hadith for a number of reasons.

First, the story described in the hadith has come to us in a number of other well-authenticated versions that vary a great deal from the “Where is Allah?—In the sky” version. One of these is related by Ibn Hibban in his Sahih with a well-authenticated (hasan) chain of transmission, in which the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) asked the slave girl, “‘Who is your Lord?’ and she said, ‘Allah’; whereupon he asked her, ‘Who am I?’ and she said, ‘You are the Messenger of Allah’; at which he said, ‘Free her, for she is a believer’” (al-Ihsan fi taqrib Sahih Ibn Hibban, 18 vols. Beirut: Mu’assasa al-Risala, 1408/1988, 1.419: 189).

In another version, related by ‘Abd al-Razzaq with a rigorously authenticated (sahih) chain of transmission, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said to her, “Do you testify that there is no god but Allah?” and she said yes. He said, “Do you testify that I am the Messenger of Allah? and she said yes. He said, “Do you believe in resurrection after death?” and she said yes. He said, “Free her” (al-Musannaf, 11 vols. Beirut: al-Majlis al-‘Ilmi, 1390/1970, 9.175: 16814).

In other versions, the slave girl cannot speak, but merely points to the sky in answer. Ibn Hajar al-‘Asqalani has said of the various versions of this hadith, “There is great contradiction in the wording” (Talkhis al-habir, 4 vols. in 2. Cairo: Maktaba al-Kulliyat al-Azhariyya, 1399/1979, 3.250). When a hadith has numerous conflicting versions, there is a strong possibility that it has been related merely in terms of what one or more narrators understood (riwaya bi al-ma‘na), and hence one of the versions is not adequate to establish a point of ‘aqida.

Second, this latter consideration is especially applicable to the point in question because the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) explicitly detailed the pillars of Islamic faith (iman) in a hadith related in Sahih Muslim when he answered the questions of the angel Gabriel, saying, “True faith (iman) is to believe in Allah, His angels, His Books, His messengers, the Last Day, and to believe destiny (qadr), its good and evil” (Sahih Muslim, 1.37: 8)—and he did not mention anything about Allah being in the sky. If it had been the decisive test of a Muslim’s belief or unbelief (as in the “in the sky” hadith seems to imply), it would have been obligatory for the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) to mention it in this hadith, the whole point of which is to say precisely what “iman is.”

Third, if one takes the hadith as meaning that Allah is literally “in the sky,” it conflicts with other equally sahih hadiths that have presumably equal right to be taken literally—such as the hadith qudsi related by al-Hakim that Allah Most High says, “I am with My servant when he makes remembrance of Me and his lips move with Me” (al-Mustadrak ‘ala al-Sahihayn. 4 vols. Hyderabad, 1334/1916. Reprint (with index vol. 5). Beirut: Dar al-Ma‘rifa, n.d., 1.496), a hadith that al-Hakim said was rigorously authenticated (sahih), which al-Dhahabi confirmed. Or such as the hadith related by al-Nasa’i, Abu Dawud, and Muslim that “the closest a servant is to his Lord is while prostrating” (Sahih Muslim, 1.350: 482)—whereas if Allah were literally “in the sky,” the closest one would be to Him would be while standing upright. Or such as the hadith related by al-Bukhari in his Sahih, in which the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) forbade spitting during prayer ahead of one, because when a person prays, “his Lord is in front of him” (Sahih al-Bukhari, 1.112: 406). Finally, in the hadiths of the Mi‘raj or “Nocturnal Ascent,” the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) was shown all of the seven “heavens” (samawat) by Gabriel, and Allah was not mentioned as being in any of them.

Fourth, the literal interpretation of Allah being “in the sky” contradicts two fundamentals of Islamic ‘aqida established by the Qur’an. The first of these is Allah’s attribute of mukhalafa li al-hawadith or “not resembling created things in any way,” as Allah says in surat al-Shura, “There is nothing whatsoever like unto Him” (Qur’an 42:11), whereas if He were literally “in the sky,” there would be innumerable things like unto Him in such respects as having altitude, position, direction, and so forth. The second fundamental that it contradicts, as mentioned above, is Allah’s attribute of ghina or “being absolutely free of need for anything created” that He affirms in numerous verses in the Qur’an. It is impossible that Allah could be a corporeal entity because bodies need space and time, while Allah has absolutely no need for anything.

Fifth, the literalist interpretation of “in the sky” entails that the sky encompasses Allah on all sides, such that He would be smaller than it, and it would thus be greater than Allah, which is patently false.

For these reasons and others, Islamic scholars have viewed it obligatory to figuratively interpret the above hadith and other texts containing similar figures of speech, in ways consonant with how the Arabic language is used. Consider the Qur’anic verse “Do you feel safe that He who is in the sky will not make the earth swallow you while it quakes” (Qur’an 67:16), for which the following examples of traditional tafsir or “Qur’anic commentary” can be offered:

(al-Qurtubi:) The more exacting scholars hold that it [“in the sky”] means, “Do you feel secure from Him who is over the sky”—just as Allah says, “Journey in the earth” (Qur’an 9:2), meaning journey over it—not over the sky by way of physical contact or spatialization, but by way of omnipotent power and control. Another position is that it means “Do you feel secure from Him who is over (‘ala) the sky,” just as it is said, “So-and-so is over Iraq and the Hijaz,” meaning that he is the governor and commander of them (al-Jami‘ li ahkam al-Qur’an, 18.216).

(al-Shirbini al-Khatib:) There are various interpretive aspects to “He who is in the sky,” one of which is that it means “He whose dominion is in the sky,” because it is the dwelling place of the angels, and there are His Throne, His Kursi, the Guarded Tablet; and from it are made to descend His decrees, His Books, His commands, and His prohibitions. A second interpretive possibility is that “He who is in the sky” omits the first term of an ascriptive construction (idafa)—in other words, “Do you feel safe from the Creator of him who is in the sky”; meaning the angels who dwell in the sky, for they are the ones who are commanded to dispense the divine mercy or divine vengeance (al-Siraj al-Munir. 4 vols. Bulaq1285/1886. Reprint. Beirut: Dar al-Ma‘rifa, n.d., 4.344).

(Fakhr al-Din al-Razi:) “He who is in the sky” may mean the angel who is authorized to inflict divine punishments; that is, Gabriel (upon whom be peace); the words “cause the earth to swallow you” meaning “by Allah’s command and leave” (Tafsir al-Fakhr al-Razi. 32 vols. Beirut 1401/1981. Reprint (32 vols. in 16). Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1405/1985, 30.70).

(Abu Hayyan al-Nahwi:) Or the context of these words may be according to the convictions of those being addressed [the unbelievers], for they were anthropomorphists. So that the meaning would be, “Do you feel safe from Him whom you claim is in the sky?—while He is exalted above all place” (Tafsir al-nahr al-madd min al-Bahr al-muhit. 2 vols. in 3. Beirut: Dar al-Janan and Mu’assasa al-Kutub al-Thaqafiyya, 1407/1987, 2.1132).

(Qadi Iyad:) There is no disagreement among Muslims, one and all—their legal scholars, their hadith scholars, their scholars of theology, both those of them capable of expert scholarly reasoning, and those who merely follow the scholarship of others—that the textual evidences that mention Allah Most High being “in the sky,” such as His words, “Do you feel safe that He who is in the sky will not make the earth swallow you,” and so forth, are not as their literal sense (dhahir) seems to imply, but rather, all scholars interpret them in other than their ostensive sense (Sahih Muslim bi Sharh al-Nawawi, 5.24).

We now turn to a final example, the hadith related by Muslim that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said:

Your Lord Blessed and Exalted descends each night to the sky of this world, when the last third of the night remains, and says: “Who supplicates Me, that I may answer him? Who asks Me, that I may give to him? Who seeks My forgiveness, that I may forgive him?” (Sahih Muslim, 1.521: 758).

This hadith, if we reflect for a moment, is not about ‘aqida, but rather has a quite practical point to establish; namely, that we are supposed to do something in the last third of the night, to rise and pray. This is why Imam al-Nawawi, when he gave the present chapter names to the headings of Sahih Muslim, put this hadith under “Instilling Desire to Supplicate and Make Remembrance of Allah (Dhikr) in the Last of the Night, and the Answering Therein.” As for the meaning of descends in the hadith, al-Nawawi says:

This is one of the “hadiths of the Attributes,” and there are two positions about it, as previously mentioned in the “Book of Iman.” To summarize, the first position, which is the school of the majority of early Muslims and some theologians, is that one should believe that the hadith is true in a way befitting Allah Most High, while the literal meaning of it that is known to us and applicable to ourselves is not what is intended, without discussing the figurative meaning, though we believe that Allah is transcendently above all attributes of createdness, of change of position, of motion, and all other attributes of created things.

The second position, the school of most theologians, whole groups of the early Muslims (salaf), and reported from Malik and al-Awza‘i, is that such hadiths should be figuratively interpreted in a way appropriate to them in their contexts. According to this school of thought, they interpret the hadith in two ways. The first is the interpretation of Malik ibn Anas and others, that it [“your Lord descends”] means “His mercy, command, and angels descend,” just as it is said, “The sultan did such-and-such,” when his followers did it at his command. The second is that it is a metaphor signifying [Allah’s] concern for those making supplication, by answering them and kindness toward them (Sahih Muslim bi Sharh al-Nawawi, 6.36–37).

The hadith scholar ‘Ali al-Qari says about the above hadith of Allah’s “descending”:

You know that Malik and al-Awaza‘i, who are among the greatest of the early Muslims, both gave detailed figurative interpretations to the hadith. . . . Another of them was Ja‘far al-Sadiq. Indeed a whole group of them [the early Muslims], as well as later scholars, said that whoever believes Allah to be in a particular physical direction is an unbeliever, as al-‘Iraqi has explicitly stated, saying that this was the position of Abu Hanifa, Malik, al-Shafi‘i, al-Ash‘ari, and al-Baqillani (Mirqat al-mafatih: sharh Mishkat al-masabih. 5 vols. Cairo 1309/1892. Reprint. Beirut: Dar Ihya al-Turath al-‘Arabi, n.d., 2.137).

It is worth remembering that al-‘Iraqi was a hafiz or “hadith master,” someone with over 100,000 hadiths by memory, while ‘Ali al-Qari was a hadith authority who produced reference works still in use today on forged hadiths. In other words, each had the highest credentials for verifying the chains of transmission of the positions they relate. For this reason, their transmission of the position of the unbelief of whoever ascribes a direction to Allah carries its weight.

But perhaps it is fitter today to say that Muslims who believe that Allah is somehow “up there” are not unbelievers. For they have the shubha or “extenuating circumstance” that moneyed quarters in our times are aggressively pushing the bid‘a of anthropomorphism. This bid‘a was confined in previous centuries to a small handful of Hanbalis, who were rebutted time and again by ulama of Ahl al-Sunna like ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Jawzi (d. 597/1201), who addressed his fellow Hanbalis in his Daf‘ shubah al-tashbih bi akaff al-tanzih [Rebuttal of the insinuations of anthropomorphism at the hands of divine transcendence] with the words:

If you had said, “We but read the hadiths and remain silent,” no one would have condemned you. What is shameful is that you interpret them literally. Do not surrreptiously introduce into the madhhab of this righteous, early Muslim man [Ahmad ibn Hanbal] that which is not of it. You have clothed this madhhab in shameful disgrace, until it can hardly be said “Hanbali” any more without saying “anthropomorphist” (Daf‘ shubah al-tashbih bi akaff al-tanzih. Cairo n.d. Reprint. Cairo: al-Maktaba al-Tawfiqiyya, 1396/1976, 28–29).

These beliefs apparently survived for some centuries in Khorasan, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the East, for Imam al-Kawthari notes that the Hanbali Ibn Taymiya (d. 728/1328) picked up the details of them from manuscripts on sects (nihal) when the libraries of scholars poured into Damascus with caravans fleeing from the Mongols farther east. He read them without a teacher to guide him, came to believe what he understood from them, and went on to become an advocate for them in his own works (al-Kawthari, al-Sayf al-saqil fi al-radd ‘ala Ibn Zafil. Cairo 1356/1937. Reprint. Cairo: Maktaba al-Zahran, n.d. 5–6). He was imprisoned for these ideas numerous times before his death, the ulama of Damascus accusing him of anthropomorphism (al-‘Asqalani, al-Durar al-kamina fi a‘yan al-mi’a al-thamina. 4 vols. Hyderabad 1349–50/1930–31. Reprint. Beirut: Dar Ihya’ al-Turath al-‘Arabi, n.d., 1.155). Writings were authored by scholars like Abu Hayyan al-Nahwi (d. 745/1344), Taqi al-Din Subki (756/1355), Badr al-Din ibn Jama‘a (d. 733/1333), al-Amir al-San‘ani, author of Subul al-salam (d. 1182/1768), Taqi al-Din al-Hisni, author of Kifayat al-akhyar, (d. 829/1426), and Ibn Hajar al-Haytami (d. 974/1567) in rebuttal of his ‘aqida, and it remained without acceptance by Muslims for another four hundred years, until the eighteenth-century Wahhabi movement, which followed Ibn Taymiya on points of ‘aqida, and made him its “Sheikh of Islam.” But was not until with the advent of printing in the Arab world that Ibn Taymiya’s books (and the tenets of this sect) really saw the light of day, when a wealthy merchant from Jedda commissioned the printing of his Minhaj al-sunna and other works on ‘aqida in Egypt at the end of the last century, resurrected this time as Salafism or “return to early Islam.” They have since been carried to all parts of the Islamic world, borne upon a flood of copious funding from one or two modern Muslim countries, whose efforts have filled mosques with books, pamphlets, and young men who push these ideas and even ascribe them (with Ibn Taymiya’s questionable chains of transmission, or none at all) to the Imams of the earliest Muslims. My point, as regards considering Muslims believers or unbelievers, is that this kind of money can buy the influence and propaganda that turn night into day; so perhaps contemporary Muslims have some excuse for these ideas—until they have had a chance to learn that the God of Islam is transcendently above being a large man, just as He is transcendently above being subject to time or to space, which are but two of His creatures.

To summarize what I have said in answer to your question above, scholars take the primary texts of the Qur’an and sunna literally unless there is some cogent reason for them not to. In the case of Allah “descending” or being “in the sky,” there are many such reasons. First, a literal interpretation of these texts makes it impossible to join between them and the many other rigorously authenticated texts about Allah being “with” a servant when he does dhikr, “closer to him than the jugular vein” (Qur’an 50:16), “in front of him” when he prays, “closest” to him when he is prostrating, “in the sky” when a slave girl was asked, “with you wherever you are” (Qur’an 58:4), and so on. These are incoherent when taken together literally, and only become free of contradictions when they are understood figuratively, as Malik, al-Awza‘i, and al-Nawawi have done above. Second, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) detailed the beliefs that every Muslim must have in the Gabriel Hadith in Sahih Muslim and others, and did not mention Allah being “in the sky” (or anywhere else) in any of them. Third, Allah’s being “in the sky” like birds, clouds, and so on are “in the sky” in a literal sense contradicts the ‘aqida of the Qur’an that “there is nothing whatsoever like unto Him” (Qur’an 42:11). Fourth, the notion of Allah’s being in particular places contradicts the ‘aqida expressed in seventeen verses of the Qur’an that Allah is free of need of anything, while things that occupy places need both space and time.

These reasons are not exhaustive, but are intended to answer your question by illustrating the ‘aqida and principles of traditional ulama in interpreting the kind of texts we are talking about. They show just how far from traditional Islam is the belief that Allah is “in the sky” in a literal sense, and why it is not permissible for any Muslim to believe this. And Allah alone gives success.

_____________________


Source : http://shadhilitariqa.com/

Read more »

Posted in: Sufi

Dialog Sufisme

Pertanyaan 1: Apakah dasar-dasar Sufisme?

Jawaban: Dasar utama Sufisme adalah keyakinan; keyakinan Islami (Iman) dengan enam dasar, yaitu: adanya Allah; Allah Yang Esa, adanya para Malaikat, para Rasul, Hari Pembalasan, Takdir.

Pertanyaan 2: Bagaimana dasar-dasar tersebut dipahami, karena tidak satu pun merupakan subyek pembuktian umum oleh mayoritas masyarakat?

Jawaban: Semuanya dicatat di dalam pikiran dan dialami dalam "hati".

Pertanyaan 3: Apakah penyelesaian Sufisme?

Jawaban: Persepsi yang melampaui suatu pernyataan di dalam "hati".

Pertanyaan 4: Apa perbedaan antara yang Berubah dan orang-orang lain?

Jawaban: Pemahaman yang Berubah adalah sesuatu yang lain dari apa yang biasa disebut pengetahuan oleh orang lain.

Pertanyaan 5: Apa pengetahuan masyarakat biasa?

Jawaban: Adalah suatu peniruan; belajar melalui latihan dari para instruktur; dianggap yang sejati padahal tidak.

Pertanyaan 6: Bagaimana keyakinan sejati dikembangkan?

Jawaban: Dengan mendatangi, melalui beberapa praktek, Jalan yang hanya satu dari tujuhpuluh dua Jalan yang mungkin terbuka untuk manusia. Bisa saja terjadi, setelah mengikuti jalan imitasi, muncul satu yang sejati, tetapi ini sulit.

Pertanyaan 7: Apa bentuk religi lahiriah yang diikuti orang yang Berubah?

Jawaban: Mayoritas mengikuti peribadatan Islam dan masyarakat Tradisi, serta petunjuk-petunjuk ritualnya dimapankan oleh Syeikh Maturidi dari Samarkand. Mereka yang mengikuti kegiatan Islam dalam Empat Madzhab Utama, umumnya disebut Masyarakat Keselamatan (Muslim).

Pertanyaan 8: Saat ia menanyakan madzhabnya, Bayazid al-Bisthami mengatakan, "Aku dari madzhab Allah." Apa artinya ini?

Jawaban: Semua pengakuan di atas (rukun Iman) dianggap sebagai Madzhab Allah.

Pertanyaan 9: Kaum Sufi menunjuk dirinya sebagai fenomena, pemikiran, binatang dan sayur-sayuran. Mengapa?

Jawaban: Nabi bersabda, bahwa pada Hari Pembalasan manusia dibangkitkan dalam bentuk binatang, sesuai perbuatan mereka sebelumnya. Bentuknya muncul menjadi binatang atau bentuk lain yang menyerupai secara internal, daripada bentuk kemanusiaannya. Dalam tidurnya, manusia melihat dirinya sebagai manusia; Bagaimanapun, ia mungkin melihat dirinya sendiri, sesuai dengan tendensi dominannya, sebagai seekor domba, kera, atau babi. Kesalahpahaman terhadap hal-hal tersebut menimbulkan kepercayaan bahwa kehidupan manusia berlalu menuju kebinatangan (transmigrasi), secara harfiah ditafsirkan oleh orang-orang yang tidak tahu tanpa kedalaman perspektif

Pertanyaan 10: Kaum Sufi menggunakan simbol-simbol dan menganjurkan gagasan-gagasan yang bertentangan dengan persyaratan-persyaratan sosial yang sudah mapan, dan asing untuk suatu susunan pernyataan pemikiran yang secara umum digunakan untuk sesuatu yang lebih tinggi. Mereka berbicara tentang kekasih, gelas anggur dan sebagainya. Bagaimana hal ini dapat dipahami?

Jawaban: Bagi kaum Sufi, agama seperti yang dipahami orang biasa adalah suatu yang mentah, eksternal. Simbol-simbol mereka menunjukkan keadaan tertentu. Mereka berhak menggunakan simbol "Allah" untuk sesuatu yang sama sekali tidak diketahui siapa pun, terpisah dari ilusi yang disebabkan oleh emosi.

Pertanyaan 11: Bagaimana al-Qur'an dapat menjadi alis sang kekasih (hal yang utama)?

Jawaban: Bagaimana al-Qur'an menjadi tanda yang dibuat dari karbon dan getah di atas secarik kertas, dengan menggunakan kayu dari rawa?

Pertanyaan 12: Para Darwis mengatakan bahwa mereka melihat Tuhan. Bagaimana mungkin?

Jawaban: Itu bukan kebenaran secara harfiah; namun merupakan perlambang suatu keadaan tertentu.

Pertanyaan 13: Tidak dapatkah suatu individu dilihat melalui lahiriahnya atau manifestasinya?

Jawaban: Bukan suatu individu; hanya eksternal dan manifestasinya yang terlihat. Ketika engkau melihat seseorang menghampiri dirimu, mungkin engkau berkata, "Aku bertemu Zaid"; tetapi engkau hanya dapat melihat apa yang dapat engkau lihat dari lahiriah dan superficial Zaid.

Pertanyaan 14: Menurut keyakinan ummat Muslim, merupakan penghinaan terhadap Tuhan karena kaum darwis mengatakan, "Kami tidak takut Neraka, atau mendambakan Surga."

Jawaban: Mereka tidak bermaksud demikian. Maksud mereka, bahwa ketakutan dan dambaan bukan jalan di mana manusia harus dilatih.

Pertanyaan 15: Engkau sebutkan bahwa tidak ada kontradiksi antara perilaku eksternal atau keyakinan dan persepsi batiniah kaum Sufi. Bila demikian, mengapa kaum Sufi bersikeras terhadap hal-hal tertentu dari orang lain?

Jawaban: Penyelubungan tersebut bukannya menentang tingkah laku yang baik, tetapi menentang pemahaman biasa. Sebagian besar sarjana yang diunggulkan tidak dapat memahami apa yang tidak ia alami, oleh karena itu tersembunyi darinya.

Pertanyaan 16: Jika seseorang hanya mengetahui keyakinan religius dan bukan ilmu khusus kaum Sufi, akankah keagamaannya tersebut kurang dari kaum Sufi?

Jawaban: Tidak, keyakinannya akan menjadi keyakinan religius paling sempurna, tidak dapat menjadi sesuatu yang lebih rendah daripada keyakinan seorang Sufi.

Pertanyaan 17: Apa perbedaan antara Nabi, orang suci dan mereka yang mempunyai pengetahuan tinggi serta penyelam besar?

Jawaban: Jika mereka mempunyai keyakinan religius, maka keyakinan mereka semua sama. Perbedaan mereka terletak pada pengetahuan mereka, bukan perasaan mereka. Seorang raja sama dengan warganya yang memiliki dua mata, hidung dan mulut. Ia berbeda dalam karakter dan fungsi.

(Muhammad Ali al-Mishri)

2. PEMAHAMAN SECARA MENDALAM

Pertanyaan 1: Untuk berapa lama Sufisme hidup?

Jawaban: Sufisme selalu hidup. Hal itu dipraktekkan secara sangat luas dan beragam; kulit luar dari perbedaan tersebut, kurangnya informasi telah menyesatkan kedalam pemikiran bahwa mereka secara esensial berbeda.

Pertanyaan 2: Apakah Sufisme merupakan makna bagian dalam dari Islam, atau apakah hal itu merupakan aplikasi yang lebih luas?

Jawaban: Sufisme adalah pengetahuan dengan jalan mana manusia dapat menyadari dirinya sendiri dan mencapai keabadian. Kaum Sufi dapat mengajar dengan (menggunakan) suatu kendaraan (sarana), apa pun namanya. Kendaraan religius, sepanjang sejarah telah digunakan dengan bermacam nama.

Pertanyaan 3: Mengapa seharusnya seseorang mempelajari Sufisme?

Jawaban: Karena dia diciptakan untuk mempelajarinya; itulah langkah berikutnya.

Pertanyaan 4: Namun banyak orang percaya bahwa ajaran-ajaran yang bukan disebut Sufisme merupakan langkah mereka yang berikutnya.

Jawaban: Ini adalah disebabkan oleh kepelikan ummat manusia yang memiliki dua bentuk pemahaman: Pemahaman lebih Tinggi dan Pemahaman yang Kurang. Pemahaman lebih Tinggi adalah apabila seseorang ingin mengerti tetapi sebagai gantinya mengembangkan hanya suatu keyakinan bahwa jalan tertentu adalah benar. Pemahaman yang Kurang merupakan bayangan dari Pemahaman lebih Tinggi. Seperti halnya bayangan, hal itu adalah suatu penyimpangan dari kenyataan, mempertahankan hanya sebagian dari yang asli.

Pertanyaan 5: Apakah kenyataan bahwa kaum Sufi yang telah terkenal seperti itu dan tokoh-tokoh yang dihargai (mulia) tidak menarik orang untuk mempelajarinya?

Jawaban: Kaum Sufi yang telah dikenal secara umum hanyalah suatu jumlah kecil dari keseluruhan kaum Sufi; mereka yang tidak dapat tinggal diluar keulungan (keadaan terkemuka). Daya tarik kepada seorang tokoh yang sangat dihargai oleh seorang murid yang potensial, merupakan suatu bagian dari Pemahaman yang Kurang. Selanjutnya dia mungkin mengetahui lebih baik.

Pertanyaan 6: Adakah konflik antara kaum Sufi dan metode-metode pemikiran lain?

Jawaban: Tidak akan terjadi, karena Sufisme mengujudkan atau menambahkan semua metode-metode pemikiran; masing-masing memiliki kegunaannya.

Pertanyaan 7: Apakah Sufisme terbatas pada suatu bahasa tertentu, komunitas tertentu, atau periode sejarah tertentu?

Jawaban: Permukaan yang nyata (jelas) dari Sufisme pada suatu waktu, tempat atau komunitas mungkin sering beragam, karena Sufisme harus menghadirkan dirinya sendiri dalam suatu bentuk yang akan bisa dimengerti suatu masyarakat.

Pertanyaan 8: Inikah sebabnya ada guru-guru Sufi dengan demikian banyak sistem yang berbeda dan yang terkenal dalam begitu banyak negara yang berbeda-beda?

Jawaban: Tidak ada alasan lain.

Pertanyaan 9: Namun orang suka melakukan perjalanan untuk mengunjungi guru-guru di negeri lain, yang bahasanya pun bahkan mereka tidak mengerti.

Jawaban: Tindakan-tindakan serupa itu, kecuali kalau dikerjakan di bawah instruksi-instruksi khusus untuk tujuan tertentu, dapat berguna hanya dalam Pemahaman yang Kurang.

Pertanyaan 10: Adakah suatu perbedaan antara apa yang ingin ditemukan oleh seorang laki-laki dan perempuan, dan apakah dia memang membutuhkan untuk menemukan, untuk kehidupan batiniahnya?

Jawaban: Ya, hampir tanpa kecuali. Itulah fungsi (manfaat) seorang guru untuk menyusun pelaksanaan yang benar dari jawaban untuk kebutuhan tersebut, bukan keinginan. Keinginan adalah milik lingkungan orang-orang dari Pemahaman yang Kurang.

Pertanyaan 11: Apakah pembagian Anda atas Pemahaman ke dalam Pemahaman lebih Tinggi dan Pemahaman yang Kurang, lazim untuk semua Sufi?

Jawaban: Tidak ada yang meletakkan kata-kata lazim untuk semua Sufi.

Pertanyaan 12: Apakah yang lazim untuk semua bentuk dari Sufisme?

Jawaban: Keberadaan guru, kapasitas murid, kepelikan (sifat aneh) individu, interaksi antara anggota komunitas, Kenyataan (yang sesungguhnya) dibalik bentuk-bentuk.

Pertanyaan 13: Mengapa beberapa guru Sufi mengajukan murid-murid ke dalam macam-macam Aliran (Tarekat) yang berbeda?

Jawaban: Karena Aliran-aliran tersebut mewakili ajaran yang sungguh-sungguh ada, yang dibangun menghadapi orang-orang berkait dengan kepribadian individu. Orang-orang berbeda antara yang satu dengan lainnya.

Pertanyaan 14: Tetapi mengumpulkan informasi mengenai kaum Sufi dan ajaran-ajaran mereka tidak dapat lain kecuali merupakan suatu kegiatan memulai usaha yang baik, membimbing kepada pengetahuan?

Jawaban: Ini merupakan suatu pertanyaan dari (kalangan) Pemahaman yang Kurang. Informasi mengenai kegiatan dari satu kelompok Sufi mungkin saja berbahaya secara potensial bagi orang lainnya.

Pertanyaan 15: Mengapa ada juga beberapa indikasi dari aliran Ahmad Yasavi dari Turki dan Ibnu al-Arabi dari Andalusia?

Jawaban: Karena, di dalam (kalangan) Pemahaman lebih Tinggi, bengkel kerja dibongkar setelah kerja diselesaikan.

(Rais Tchaqmaqzade)

_________________________________________

Jalan Sufi: Reportase Dunia Ma'rifat oleh Idries Shah
Judul asli: The Way of the Sufi, Penterjemah Joko S. Kahhar dan Ita Masyitha
Penerbit Risalah Gusti, Cetakan Pertama Sya'ban 1420H, November 1999

Read more »

Posted in: Sufi

Filusuf Sufi Iman Al-Ghazali

Filosuf dan Sufi abad keduabelas, Imam al-Ghazali, mengutip dalam bukunya, Book of Knowledge, ungkapan dari al-Mutanabbi: " Bagi orang sakit, air manis terasa pahit di mulut."

Dengan sangat bagus, ungkapan tersebut diambil sebagai motto Imam al-Ghazali. Delapan ratus tahun sebelum Pavlov, ia menjelaskan dan menekankan (acapkali dalam perumpamaan yang menarik, kadang dalam kata-kata 'modern' yang mengejutkan) masalah pengondisian.

Kendati Pavlov dan lusinan buku serta laporan studi klinis dalam perilaku manusia sudah dibuat sejak perang Korea, para siswa umum, dihadapkan pada masalah-masalah pemikiran tidak menyadari kekuatan indoktrinasi." Indoktrinasi, dalam masyarakat totalitarian, merupakan suatu ketetapan yang diinginkan dan selanjutnya menjadi keyakinan masyarakat tersebut. Dalam pengelompokan lain, kehadirannya tidak mungkin ada bahkan dicurigai. Inilah yang membuat hampir setiap orang mudah menyerangnya.

Karya Imam al-Ghazali tidak hanya mendahului zamannya, tetapi juga melampui pengetahuan kontemporer mengenai masalah-masalah tersebut. Pada waktu opini disampaikan secara tertulis, dipisahkan apakah indoktrinasi (jelas maupun terselubung) diinginkan atau sebaliknya, juga apakah mutlak atau tidak.

Imam al-Ghazali tidak hanya menjelaskan apakah orang-orang yang menciptakan kepercayaan, kemungkinan dalam keadaan terobsesi; dengan jelas ia menyatakan, sesuai dengan prinsip-prinsip Sufi, bahwa hal itu bukannya tidak dapat dielakkan mutlak, tetapi menegaskan bahwa hal itu esensial untuk manusia agar dapat mengenalinya.

Buku-bukunya dibakar oleh kaum fanatik Mediteranian dari Spanyol sampai Syria. Sekarang ini memang tidak dilempar kedalam api, tetapi pengaruhnya, kecuali diantara kaum Sufi, mulai melemah; buku-buku tersebut tidak lagi banyak dibaca.

Menurutnya, perbedaan antara opini dan pengetahuan adalah sesuatu yang dapat hilang dengan mudah. Ketika hal ini terjadi, merupakan kewajiban atas mereka yang mengetahui perbedaan tersebut untuk menjelaskannya sebisa mungkin.

Kendati penemuan-penemuan, psikologi dan ilmu pengetahuan Imam al-Ghazali, dihargai secara luas oleh bermacam kalangan akademis, tetapi tidak diperhatikan sebagaimana mestinya, karena ia (al-Ghazali) secara spesifik menyangkal metode ilmiah atau logika sebagai sumber asli atau awal. Ia berada pada pengetahuannya melalui pendidikan Sufismenya, diantara kaum Sufi, dan melalui bentuk pemahaman langsung tentang kebenaran yang sama sekali tidak berhubungan dengan intelektual secara mekanis. Tentu saja, hal ini membuatnya berada di luar lingkaran kalangan ilmuwan. Apa yang lebih menimbulkan penasaran adalah bahwa temuan-temuannya begitu menakjubkan hingga orang akan berpikir, bahwa para penyelidik ingin mengetahui bagaimana dia telah menempuh atau mendapatkannya.

'Mistisisme' dijuluki dengan sebutan yang buruk seperti seekor anjing dalam sebuah peribahasa, jika tidak dapat digantung, setidaknya boleh diabaikan. Ini merupakan ukuran pelajaran psikologi: terimalah penemuan seseorang jika engkau tidak dapat menyangkalnya, sebaliknya abaikan metodenya jika tidak mengikuti keyakinanmu akan metode.

Jika Imam al-Ghazali tidak menghasilkan karya yang bermanfaat, secara alamiah ia akan dihargai hanya sebagai ahli mistik, dan membuktikan bahwa mistisisme tidak produktif, secara edukatif maupun sosial.

Pengaruh Imam al-Ghazali pada pemikiran Barat diakui sangat besar dalam semua sisi. Tetapi pengaruh itu sendiri menunjukkan hasil suatu pengondisian; para filosuf Kristen abad pertengahan yang telah banyak mengadopsi gagasan al-Ghazali secara sangat selektif, sepenuhnya mengabaikan bagian-bagian yang telah memperlakukan kegiatan indoktrinasi mereka.

Upaya membawa cara pemikiran al-Ghazali kepada audiens yang lebih luas, daripada kepada Sufi yang terhitung kecil jumlahnya, merupakan perbedaan final antara keyakinan dan obsesi. Ia menekankan peran pendidikan dalam penanaman keyakinan religius, dan mengajak pembacanya untuk mengamati keterlibatan suatu mekanisme. Ia bersikeras pada penjelasan, bahwa mereka yang terpelajar, mungkin saja dan bahkan sering, menjadi bodoh fanatik, dan terobsesi. Ia menegaskan bahwa, disamping mempunyai informasi serta dapat mereproduksinya, terdapat suatu pengetahuan serupa, yang terjadi pada bentuk pemikiran manusia yang lebih tinggi.

Kebiasaan mengacaukan opini dan pengetahuan, adalah kebiasaan yang sering dijumpai setiap hari pada saat ini, Imam al-Ghazali menganggapnya seperti wabah penyakit.

Dalam memandang semua ini, dengan ilustrasi berlimpah serta dalam sebuah atmosfir yang tidak kondusif bagi sikap-sikap ilmiah, Imam al-Ghazali tidak hanya memainkan peranan sebagai seorang ahli diagnosa. Ia telah memperoleh pengetahuannya sendiri dalam sikap Sufistik, dan menyadari bahwa pemahaman lebih tinggi -- menjadi seorang Sufi -- hanya mungkin bagi orang-orang yang dapat melihat dan menghindari fenomena yang digambarkannya.

Imam al-Ghazali telah menghasilkan sejumlah buku dan menerbitkan banyak ajaran. Kontribusinya terhadap pemikiran manusia dan relevansi gagasan-gagasannya, ratusan tahun kemudian tidak diragukan lagi. Mari kita perbaiki sebagian kelalaian pendahulu-pendahulu kita, dengan melihat apa yang dikatakannya tentang metode. Apakah yang dimaksud dengan 'Cara al-Ghazali'? Apa yang harus dilakukan seseorang agar menyukainya, orang yang diakui sebagai salah seorang tokoh besar dunia bidang filsafat dan psikologi?
Imam al-Ghazali tentang Tarekat

Seorang manusia bukanlah manusia jika tendensinya meliputi kesenangan diri, ketamakan, amarah dan menyerang orang lain.

Seorang murid harus mengurangi sampai batas minimun, perhatiannya terhadap hal-hal biasa seperti masyarakat dan lingkungannya, karena kapasitas perhatian (sangatlah) terbatas.

Seorang murid haruslah menghargai guru seperti seorang dokter yang tahu cara mengobati pasien. Ia akan melayani gurunya. Kaum Sufi mengajar dengan cara yang tidak diharapkan. Seorang dokter berpengalaman akan menentukan sebuah perlakuan-perlakuan tertentu dengan benar. Kendati pengamat luar mungkin saja sangat terpesona terhadap apa yang ia katakan dan lakukan; ia akan gagal melihat pentingnya atau relevansi prosedur yang diikuti.

Inilah mengapa, tidak mungkin bagi murid dapat mengajukan pertanyaan yang benar pada waktu yang tepat. Tetapi guru tahu apa dan kapan seseorang dapat mengerti.
Perbedaan antara Sosial dan Pemrakarsa Aktikitas

Imam al-Ghazali menekankan pada hubungan dan juga perbedaan antara kontak sosial atau kontak yang bersifat pengalihan dari orang-orang, dan kontak yang lebih tinggi.

Apa yang menghalangi kemajuan individu dan sebuah kelompok orang-orang, dari permulaan yang patut dipuji, adalah proses stabilisasi mereka sendiri terhadap pengulangan (repetisi) dan basis sosial apa yang tersembunyi.

Jika seorang anak, katanya, meminta kita untuk menjelaskan kesenangan yang ada saat memegang kedaulatan tertinggi, kita mungkin mengatakan hal itu seperti kesenangan yang ia rasakan saat olah raga; kendati, kenyataannya keduanya tidak sama, kecuali bahwa keduanya memiliki kategori kesenangan (yang sama).
Perumpamaan Manusia dengan Tujuan Lebih Tinggi

Imam al-Ghazali menghubungkan tradisi dari kehidupan Isa, Ibnu Maryam; Yesus, Putra Maryam.

Suatu ketika Isa melihat orang-orang duduk dengan sedih di dinding pinggir jalan. Ia bertanya, "Apa yang kalian susahkan?" Mereka menjawab, "Kami begini karena rasa takut kami terhadap Neraka."

Isa pun berlalu, kemudian melihat sejumlah orang berkelompok berdiri sedih di sisi jalan. Ia bertanya, "Apa kesusahan kalian?" Mereka menjawab, "Rindu akan Surga yang membuat kami begini."

Ia pun melanjutkan perjalanan, sampai pada sekelompok orang untuk yang ketiga kalinya. Mereka tampak seperti orang-orang yang memikul beban, tetapi wajah mereka bersinar bahagia.

Isa bertanya, "Apa yang membuat kalian begini?" dan mereka menjawab, "Jiwa Kebenaran. Kami sudah melihat Realitas, dan hal ini membuat kami terlupa akan tujuan-tujuan yang kurang baik."

Isa mengatakan, "Mereka adalah orang-orang yang telah mencapai. Pada Hari Perhitungan, mereka inilah orang-orang yang akan berada dalam Kehadiran Tuhan."
Tiga Fungsi Manusia Sempurna

Manusia Sempurna kaum Sufi mempunyai tiga bentuk hubungan dengan masyarakat. Hal ini berubah-ubah sesuai dengan kondisi masyarakat.

Tiga sikap yang dijalankan sesuai dengan:

    Bentuk keyakinan orang yang ada di sekitar Sufi;
    Kemampuan murid, yang diajar sesuai dengan kemampuan mereka untuk mengerti;
    Suatu Lingkaran khusus masyarakat, yang akan berbagi pemahaman pengetahuan yang diperoleh dari pengalaman batiniah, secara langsung.

Daya Tarik Selebritis

Seseorang yang terbebas dari bahaya singa buas, bukanlah tujuan, apakah jasa ini dilakukan oleh individu yang tidak terkenal atau termasyhur. Oleh karena itu, mengapa mencari pengetahuan dari selebritis?
Sifat Dasar Pengetahuan Ilahiah

Pertanyaan tentang pengetahuan Ilahiah begitu dalam, hingga hanya dimengerti dengan benar-benar oleh mereka yang memilikinya.

Seorang anak tidak mempunyai pengetahuan yang sebenarnya tentang pencapaian orang dewasa. Orang dewasa awam tidak dapat memahami pencapaian orang terpelajar. Dalam cara yang sama, orang terpelajar belum (tentu) dapat memahami pengalaman pencerahan orang-orang suci atau kaum Sufi.
Cinta dan Ketertarikan Diri

Jika seseorang mencintai orang lain karena memberinya kesenangan, seharusnya ia tidak menganggap bahwa ia mencintai orang tersebut sama sekali. Cinta, pada kenyatannya adalah, kendati hal ini tidak disadari, ditujukan pada kesenangan. Sumber kesenangan merupakan sasaran perhatian sekunder, dan hal itu dirasakan hanya karena persepsi mengenai kesenangan tidak cukup baik dikembangkan untuk mengenali dan menggambarkan perasaan yang sebenarnya.
Anda Harus Siap

Anda harus menyiapkan diri sendiri, untuk transisi dimana di sana tidak ada satu pun yang Anda sendiri telah terbiasa, kata Imam al-Ghazali. Setelah meninggal dunia, identitas Anda akan merespon untuk merangsang sesuatu yang pernah ia rasakan sebelumnya. Jika Anda tetap terikat dengan sesuatu yang sudah Anda kenal; hal itu hanya akan membuat Anda menderita.
Kebodohan

Manusia menentang sesuatu, karena mereka tidak mengetahuinya.
Upacara Musik dan Gerak

Pertemuan-pertemuan serupa itu harus diadakan sesuai dengan persyaratan waktu dan tempat. Para penonton yang tidak layak akan dikeluarkan. Para partisipan harus duduk tenang dan tidak saling pandang. Mereka mencari apa yang mungkin muncul dari 'hati' mereka sendiri.
Perempuan Mandul

Seorang laki-laki pergi ke dokter dengan istrinya, dan berkata bahwa istrinya tidak memberinya anak. Dokter memandang perempuan tersebut, memegang nadinya, dan mengatakan:

"Saya tidak dapat menangani kemandulan, karena saya telah mengetahui bahwa Anda dalam satu hal akan mati dalam empatpuluh hari."

Ketika mendengar ini, perempuan tersebut sangat khawatir hingga tidak dapat memakan apa pun selama menjelang empatpuluh hari tersebut.

Tetapi ternyata ia tidak meninggal seperti pada waktu yang telah diprediksikan.

"Ya, saya sudah tahu. Sekarang ia akan menjadi subur."

Sang suami menanyakan Bagaimana hal itu bisa terjadi.

Dijelaskan oleh sang dokter:

"Isterimu terlalu gemuk, dan ini mempengaruhi kesuburannya. Saya tahu, satu-satunya hal yang dapat membuatnya jauh dari makanan adalah ketakutan terhadap kematian. Sekarang ia sudah sembuh."

Persoalan tentang pengetahuan merupakan salah satu hal yang berbahaya.
Tarian

Seorang murid meminta izin ikut bagian dalam 'tarian' kaum Sufi. Dijawab oleh Syeikh, "Puasalah selama tiga hari, kemudian masak hidangan yang lezat. Jika kemudian engkau lebih suka 'menari', kau boleh bergabung."
Kualitas Harus Mempunyai Sarana

Kecepatan, akan menjadi berguna jika didapatkan dalam seekor kuda, karena kecepatan sendiri tidak memiliki kemanfatan.
Diri yang Idiot

Jika Anda tidak dapat menemukan contoh dedikasi yang tepat pada diri seseorang, pelajarilah kehidupan kaum Sufi. Seseorang juga harus berkata pada diri sendiri, "Wahai jiwaku! Kau kira dirimu pintar dan marah jika disebut idiot. Tetapi siapa sebenarnya dirimu pada kenyataannya? Engkau buat baju untuk musim dingin, tetapi tidak menyediakan untuk kehidupan lain. Engkau seperti orang di tengah-tengah salju yang mengatakan, 'Seharusnya aku tidak mengenakan baju hangat, sebaliknya percaya pada Kemurahan Tuhan untuk melindungiku dari kedinginan'." Ia tidak menyadari bahwa, di samping penciptaan dingin, Tuhan telah meletakkan di hadapan manusia alat untuk melindungi diri sendiri.
Manusia Diciptakan untuk Belajar

Unta lebih kuat daripada manusia; gajah lebih besar; singa lebih berani; sapi dapat makan lebih banyak daripada manusia; burung lebih jantan. Tujuan manusia diciptakan adalah untuk belajar.
Nilai Pengetahuan

"Tentu saja terdapat nilai pada pengetahuan. Diberikan hanya kepada mereka yang dapat menjaga dan tidak menghilangkannya." --(Book of Knowledge, mengutip Ikriniah)
Komentar Junubi:

"Pengetahuan ini tentu saja pengetahuan Sufi. Sama sekali tidak merujuk buku pengetahuan, sesuatu yang dapat ditulis atau dilestarikan dalam bentuk faktual; karena materi tersebut tidak dapat dihilangkan dengan menjelaskanya kepada seseorang yang mungkin saja gagal memanfaatkannya. Merupakan pengetahuan yang diberikan pada waktu dan cara yang teruji, serta menyajikan buku pengetahuan. 'Memberi pengetahuan yang akan hilang', merujuk pada 'kondisi' tertentu tentang penghargaan terhadap kebenaran yang timbul pada diri individu, sebelum orang tersebut dalam kondisi mempertahankan keadaan tersebut, oleh sebab itu ia kehilangan manfaatnya dan musnah."
Komentar Ahmad Minai:

"Karena sulitnya memahami fakta ini, dan berkait dengan kemalasan yang dapat dimengerti, kaum cendekiawan memutuskan untuk 'menghapus' beberapa ajaran yang tidak dapat dimasukkan dalam buku. Tetapi bukan berarti tidak ada. Hanya saja membuatnya lebih sulit untuk ditemukan dan diajarkan, karena orang-orang tersebut di atas (intelektual) telah melatih masyarakat untuk tidak mencarinya."
Kemilikan

Anda hanya memiliki apa yang tidak akan hilang dalam sebuah kapal yang pecah.
Untung dan Rugi

Saya ingin tahu, apa yang diperoleh seseorang yang sama sekali tidak memiliki pengetahuan, dan apa yang tidak diperoleh orang terpelajar.

   
________________________________________

Source:
Jalan Sufi: Reportase Dunia Ma'rifat oleh Idries Shah
Judul asli: The Way of the Sufi, Penterjemah Joko S. Kahhar dan Ita Masyitha
Penerbit Risalah Gusti, Cetakan Pertama Sya'ban 1420H, November 1999

Read more »

Posted in: Sufi

HOW WOULD YOU RESPOND TO THE CLAIM THAT SUFISM IS BID'A?

Answer :

I would respond by looking to see how traditional ulama or Islamic scholars have viewed it. For the longest period of Islamic history--from Umayyad times to Abbasid, to Mameluke, to the end of the six-hundred-year Ottoman period--Sufism has been taught and understood as an Islamic discipline, like Qur'anic exegesis (tafsir), hadith, Qur'an recital (tajwid), tenets of faith (ilm al-tawhid) or any other, each of which preserved some particular aspect of the din or religion of Islam. While the details and terminology of these shari'a disciplines were unknown to the first generation of Muslims, when they did come into being, they were not considered bid'a or "reprehensible innovation" by the ulema of shari'a because for them, bid'a did not pertain to means, but rather to ends, or more specifically, those ends that nothing in Islam attested to the validity of.


To illustrate this point, we may note that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) never in his life prayed in a mosque built of reinforced concrete, with a carpeted floor, glass windows, and so on, yet these are not considered bid'a, because we Muslims have been commanded to come together in mosques to perform the prayer, and large new buildings for this are merely a means to carry out the command.



In the realm of knowledge, books of detailed interpretation of the Qur'an, verse by verse and sura by sura, were not known to the first generation of Islam, nor was the term tafsir current among them, yet because of its benefit in preserving a vital aspect of the revelation, the understanding of the Qur'an, when the tafsir literature came into being, it was acknowledged to serve an end endorsed by the shari'a and was not condemned as bid'a. The same is true of most of the Islamic sciences, such as ilm al-jarh wa tadil or "the science of weighing positive and negative factors for evaluating the reliability of hadith narrators", or ilm al-tawhid, "the science of tenets of Islamic faith", and other disciplines essential to the shari'a. In this connection, Imam Shafi'i (d. 204/820) has said, "Anything which has a support (mustanad) from the shari'a is not bid'a, even if the early Muslims did not do it" (Ahmad al-Ghimari, Tashnif al-adhan, Cairo: Maktaba al-Khanji, n.d., 133).



Similarly ilm al-tasawwuf, "the science of Sufism" came into being to preserve and transmit a particular aspect of the shari'a, that of ikhlas or sincerity. It was recognized that the sunna of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) was not only words and actions, but also states of being: that a Muslim must not only say certain things and do certain things, but must also be something. The shari'a commands one, for example, in many Qur'anic verses and prophetic hadiths, to fear Allah, to have sincerity toward Him, to be so certain in ones knowledge of Allah that one worships Him as if one sees Him, to love the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) more than any other human being, to show love and respect to all fellow Muslims, to show mercy, and to have many other states of the heart. It likewise forbids us such inward states as envy, malice, pride, arrogance, love of this world, anger for the sake of ones ego, and so on. Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi relates, for example, with a chain of transmission judged rigorously authenticated (sahih) by Ibn Main, the hadith "Anger spoils faith (iman) as [the bitterness of] aloes sap spoils honey" (Nawadir al-usul. Istanbul 1294/1877. Reprint. Beirut: Dar Sadir, n.d., 6).



If we reflect upon these states, obligatory to attain or to eliminate, we notice that they proceed from dispositions, dispositions not only lacking in the unregenerate human heart, but acquired only with some effort, resulting in a human change so profound that the Qur'an in many verses terms it purification, as when Allah says in surat al-Ala, for example,


"He has succeeded who purifies himself" (Qur'an 87:14).



Bringing about this change is the aim of the Islamic science of Sufism, and it cannot be termed bid'a, because the shari'a commands us to accomplish the change.



At the practical level, the nature of this science of purifying the heart (like virtually all other traditional Islamic disciplines) requires that the knowledge be taken from those who possess it. This is why historically we find that groups of students gathered around particular sheikhs to learn the discipline of Sufism from. While such tariqas or groups, past and present, have emphasized different ways to realize the attachment of the heart to Allah commanded by the Islamic revelation, some features are found in all of them, such as learning knowledge from a teacher by precept and example, and then methodically increasing ones iman or faith by applying this knowledge through performing obligatory and supererogatory works of worship, among the greatest of latter being dhikr or the remembrance of Allah. There is much in the Qur'an and sunna that attests to the validity of this approach, such as the hadith related by al-Bukhari that:


Allah Most High says: "....My slave approaches Me with nothing more beloved to Me than what I have made obligatory upon him, and My slave keeps drawing nearer to Me with voluntary works until I love him. And when I love him, I am his hearing with which he hears, his sight with which he sees, his hand with which he seizes, and his foot with which he walks. If he asks me, I will surely give to him, and if he seeks refuge in Me, I will surely protect him (Sahih al-Bukhari. 9 vols. Cairo 1313/1895. Reprint (9 vols. in 3). Beirut: Dar al-Jil, n.d., 5.131: 6502)--which is a way of expressing that such a person has realized the consummate awareness of tawhid or "unity of Allah" demanded by the shari'a, which entails total sincerity to Allah in all one's actions. Because of this hadith, and others, traditional ulama have long acknowledged that ilm or "Sacred Knowledge" is not sufficient in itself, but also entails amal or "applying what one knows"--as well as the resultant hal or "praiseworthy spiritual state" mentioned in the hadith.



It was perceived in all Islamic times that when a scholar joins between these aspects, his words mirror his humility and sincerity, and for that reason enter the hearts of listeners. This is why we find that so many of the Islamic scholars to whom Allah gave tawfiq or success in their work were Sufis. Indeed, to throw away every traditional work of the Islamic sciences authored by those educated by Sufis would be to discard 75 percent or more of the books of Islam. These men included such scholars as the Hanafi Imam Muhammad Amin Ibn Abidin, Shaykh al-Islam Zakaria al-Ansari, Imam Ibn Daqiq al-Eid, Imam al-Izz Ibn Abd al-Salam, ABD'AL GHANI AN-NABLUSI, MUJADDID ALIF THANI SIRHINDI, Shaykh Ibrahim al-Bajuri, ABU HAMID AL-GHAZALI, SHAH WALI 'ALLAH DEHLWI, IMAM AL-NAWAWI, the hadith master (hafiz, someone with 100,000 hadiths by memory) Abd al-Adhim al-Mundhiri, the hadith master Murtada al-Zabidi, the hadith master Abd al-Rauf al-Manawi, the hadith master JALAL AL-DIN AL-SUYUTI, the hadith master Taqi al-Din al-Subki, SAYYAD AHMAD AR-RIFA'I, IBN HAJAR AL-HAYTAMI, Zayn al-Din al-Mallibari, Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, and many many others.



Imam al-Nawawi's attitude towards Sufism is plain from his work Bustan al-arifin [The grove of the knowers of Allah] on the subject, as well as his references to al-Qushayris famous Sufi manual al-Risala al-Qushayriyya throughout his own Kitab al-adhkar [Book of the remembrances of Allah], and the fact that fifteen out of seventeen quotations about sincerity (ikhlas) and being true (sidq) in an introductory section of his largest legal work (al-Majmu: sharh al-Muhadhdhab. 20 vols. Cairo n.d. Reprint. Medina: al-Maktaba al-Salafiyya, n.d., 1.1718) are from Sufis who appear by name in al-Sulamis Tabaqat al-Sufiyya [The successive generations of Sufis]. Even Ibn Taymiyya (whose views on Sufism remain strangely unfamiliar even to those for whom he is their "Sheikh of Islam") devoted volumes ten and eleven of his Majmu al-fatawa to Sufism, while his student Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya wrote his three-volume Madarij al-salikin as a detailed commentary on Abdullah al-Ansaris Manazil al-sairin, a guide to the maqamat or "spiritual stations" of the Sufi path. These and many other Muslim scholars knew first hand the value of Sufism as an ancillary shari'a discipline needed to purify the heart, and this was the reason that the Umma as a whole did not judge Sufism to be a bid'a down through the ages of Islamic civilization, but rather recognized it as the science of ikhlas or sincerity, so urgently needed by every Muslim on ...


"a day when wealth will not avail, nor sons, but only him who brings Allah a sound heart" (Qur'an 26:88).


And Allah alone gives success.

Read more »

Posted in: Sufi

TASAWUF

INTRODUCTION


Perhaps the biggest challenge in learning Islam correctly today is the scarcity of traditional 'ulama. In this meaning, Bukhari relates the sahih, rigorously authenticated hadith that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said,


"Truly, Allah does not remove Sacred Knowledge by taking it out of servants, but rather by taking back the souls of Islamic scholars [in death], until, when He has not left a single scholar, the people take the ignorant as leaders, who are asked for and who give Islamic legal opinion without knowledge, misguided and misguiding" (Fath al-Bari, 1.194, hadith 100).


The process described by the hadith is not yet completed, but has certainly begun, and in our times, the lack of traditional scholars whether in Islamic law, in hadith, in tafsir 'Quranic exegesis' has given rise to an understanding of the religion that is far from scholarly, and sometimes far from the truth. For example, in the course of my own studies in Islamic law, my first impression from orientalist and Muslim-reformer literature, was that the Imams of the madhhabs or 'schools of jurisprudence' had brought a set of rules from completely outside the Islamic tradition and somehow imposed them upon the Muslims. But when I sat with traditional scholars in the Middle East and asked them about the details, I came away with a different point of view, having learned the bases for deriving the law from the Qur'an and sunna.


And similarly with Tasawwuf which is the word I will use tonight for the English Sufism, since our context is traditional Islam quite a different picture emerged from talking with scholars of Tasawwuf than what I had been exposed to in the West. My talk tonight, In Sha' Allah, will present knowledge taken from the Quran and sahih hadith, and from actual teachers of Tasawwuf in Syria and Jordan, in view of the need for all of us to get beyond clichés, the need for factual information from Islamic sources, the need to answer such questions as: Where did Tasawwuf come from? What role does it play in the din or religion of Islam? and most importantly, What is the command of Allah about it?



TASAWWUF


As for the origin of the term Tasawwuf, like many other Islamic disciplines, its name was not known to the first generation of Muslims. The historian IBN KHALDUN notes in his Muqaddima:



This knowledge is a branch of the sciences of Sacred Law that originated within the Umma. From the first, the way of such people had also been considered the path of truth and guidance by the early Muslim community and its notables, of the Companions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), those who were taught by them, and those who came after them.



It basically consists of dedication to worship, total dedication to Allah Most High, disregard for the finery and ornament of the world, abstinence from the pleasure, wealth, and prestige sought by most men, and retiring from others to worship alone. This was the general rule among the Companions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and the early Muslims, but when involvement in this-worldly things became widespread from the second Islamic century onwards and people became absorbed in worldliness, those devoted to worship came to be called Sufiyya or People of Tasawwuf (Ibn Khaldun, al-Muqaddima [N.d. Reprint. Makka: Dar al-Baz, 1397/1978], 467).



In Ibn Khaldun's words, the content of Tasawwuf, "total dedication to Allah Most High," was, "the general rule among the Companions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and the early Muslims." So if the word did not exist in earliest times, we should not forget that this is also the case with many other Islamic disciplines, such as tafsir, 'Quranic exegesis,' or 'ilm al-jarh wa ta'dil, 'the science of the positive and negative factors that affect hadith narrators acceptability,' or 'ilm al-tawhid, the science of belief in Islamic tenets of faith,' all of which proved to be of the utmost importance to the correct preservation and transmission of the religion.



As for the origin of the word Tasawwuf, it may well be from Sufi, the person who does Tasawwuf, which seems to be etymologically prior to it, for the earliest mention of either term was by Hasan al-Basri (Allah be pleased with him) who died 110years after the Hijra, and is reported to have said, "I saw a Sufi circumambulating the Kaaba, and offered him a dirham, but he would not accept it." It therefore seems better to understand Tasawwuf by first asking what a Sufi is; and perhaps the best definition of both the Sufi and his way, certainly one of the most frequently quoted by masters of the discipline, is from the sunna of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) who said:



Allah Most High says: "He who is hostile to a friend of Mine I declare war against. My slave approaches Me with nothing more beloved to Me than what I have made obligatory upon him, and My slave keeps drawing nearer to Me with voluntary works until I love him. And when I love him, I am his hearing with which he hears, his sight with which he sees, his hand with which he seizes, and his foot with which he walks. If he asks me, I will surely give to him, and if he seeks refuge in Me, I will surely protect him" (Fath al-Bari, 11.340 41, hadith 6502);



This hadith was related by Imam Bukhari, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, al-Bayhaqi, and others with multiple contiguous chains of transmission, and is sahih. It discloses the central reality of Tasawwuf, which is precisely change, while describing the path to this change, in conformity with a traditional definition used by masters in the Middle East, who define a Sufi as Faqihun 'amila bi 'ilmihi fa awrathahu Llahu 'ilma ma lam ya'lam,'A man of religious learning who applied what he knew, so Allah bequeathed him knowledge of what he did not know.'

To clarify, a Sufi is a man of religious learning,because the hadith says, "My slave approaches Me with nothing more beloved to Me than what I have made obligatory upon him," and only through learning can the Sufi know the command of Allah, or what has been made obligatory for him. He has applied what he knew, because the hadith says he not only approaches Allah with the obligatory, but "keeps drawing nearer to Me with voluntary works until I love him." And in turn, Allah bequeathed him knowledge of what he did not know, because the hadith says,


"And when I love him, I am his hearing with which he hears, his sight with which he sees, his hand with which he seizes, and his foot with which he walks,"



--- which is a metaphor for the consummate awareness of tawhid, or the 'unity of Allah,' which in the context of human actions such as hearing, sight, seizing, and walking, consists of realizing the words of the Qur'an about Allah that,


"It is He who created you and what you do" (Qur'an 37:96)



ROLE OF TASAWWUF

The origin of the way of the Sufi thus lies in the prophetic sunna. The sincerity to Allah that it entails was the rule among the earliest Muslims, to whom this was simply a state of being without a name, while it only became a distinct discipline when the majority of the Community had drifted away and changed from this state. Muslims of subsequent generations required systematic effort to attain it, and it was because of the change in the Islamic environment after the earliest generations, that a discipline by the name of Tasawwuf came to exist.



But if this is true of origins, the more significant question is: How central is Tasawwuf to the religion, and: Where does it fit into Islam as a whole? Perhaps the best answer is the hadith of Muslim, that 'Umar ibn al-Khattab said:



As we sat one day with the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace), a man in pure white clothing and jet black hair came to us, without a trace of travelling upon him, though none of us knew him.



He sat down before the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) bracing his knees against his, resting his hands on his legs, and said: "Muhammad, tell me about Islam." The Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) said: "Islam is to testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and to perform the prayer, give zakat, fast in Ramadan, and perform the pilgrimage to the House if you can find a way."



He said:" You have spoken the truth," and we were surprised that he should ask and then confirm the answer. Then he said: "Tell me about true faith (iman),"and the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) answered: "It is to believe in Allah, His angels, His inspired Books, His Messengers, the Last Day, and in destiny, its good and evil."



"You have spoken the truth," he said, "Now tell me about the perfection of faith (ihsan)," and the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) answered: "It is to worship Allah as if you see Him, and if you see Him not, He nevertheless sees you."



The hadith continues to where 'Umar said:



Then the visitor left. I waited a long while, and the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said to me, "Do you know, 'Umar, who was the questioner?" and I replied, "Allah and His Messenger know best." He said,



"It was Gabriel, who came to you to teach you your religion" (Sahih Muslim, 1.37: hadith 8).



This is a sahih hadith, described by Imam Nawawi as one of the hadiths upon which the Islamic religion turns. The use of din in the last words of it, Atakum yu'allimukum dinakum, "came to you to teach you your religion" entails that the religion of Islam is composed of the three fundamentals mentioned in the hadith: Islam, or external compliance with what Allah asks of us; Iman, or the belief in the unseen that the prophets have informed us of; and Ihsan, or to worship Allah as though one sees Him. The Qur'an says, in Surat Maryam,



"Surely We have revealed the Remembrance, and surely We shall preserve it" (Qur'an 15:9),



and if we reflect how Allah, in His wisdom, has accomplished this, we see that it is by human beings, the traditional scholars He has sent at each level of the religion. The level of Islam has been preserved and conveyed to us by the Imams of Shari'a or 'Sacred Law' and its ancillary disciplines; the level of Iman, by the Imams of 'Aqida or 'tenets of faith'; and the level of Ihsan, "to worship Allah as though you see Him," by the Imams of Tasawwuf.



The hadith's very words "to worship Allah" show us the interrelation of these three fundamentals, for the how of "worship" is only known through the external prescriptions of Islam, while the validity of this worship in turn presupposes Iman or faith in Allah and the Islamic revelation, without which worship would be but empty motions; while the words, "as if you see Him," show that Ihsan implies a human change, for it entails the experience of what, for most of us, is not experienced. So to understand Tasawwuf, we must look at the nature of this change in relation to both Islam and Iman, and this is the main focus of my talk tonight.



At the level of Islam, we said that Tasawwuf requires Islam,through 'submission to the rules of Sacred Law.' But Islam, for its part, equally requires Tasawwuf. Why? For the very good reason that the sunna which Muslims have been commanded to follow is not just the words and actions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), but also his states, states of the heart such as taqwa 'godfearingness,' ikhlas 'sincerity,' tawakkul 'reliance on Allah,' rahma 'mercy,' tawadu' 'humility,' and so on.



Now, it is characteristic of the Islamic ethic that human actions are not simply divided into two shades of morality, right or wrong; but rather five, arranged in order of their consequences in the next world. The obligatory (wajib) is that whose performance is rewarded by Allah in the next life and whose nonperformance is punished. The recommended (mandub) is that whose performance is rewarded, but whose nonperformance is not punished. The permissible (mubah) is indifferent, unconnected with either reward or punishment. The offensive (makruh) is that whose nonperformance is rewarded but whose performance is not punished. The unlawful (haram) is that whose nonperformance is rewarded and whose performance is punished, if one dies unrepentant.



Human states of the heart, the Quran and sunna make plain to us, come under each of these headings. Yet they are not dealt with in books of fiqh or 'Islamic jurisprudence,' because unlike the prayer, zakat, or fasting, they are not quantifiable in terms of the specific amount of them that must be done. But though they are not countable, they are of the utmost importance to every Muslim. Let's look at a few examples.



(1) Love of Allah. In Surat al-Baqara of the Qur'an, Allah blames those who ascribe associates to Allah whom they love as much as they love Allah. Then He says,



"And those who believe are greater in love for Allah" (Qur'an 2:165), making being a believer conditional upon having greater love for Allah than any other.



(2) Mercy. Bukhari and Muslim relate that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "Whomever is not merciful to people, Allah will show no mercy" (Sahih Muslim, 4.1809: hadith 2319), and Tirmidhi relates the well authenticated (hasan) hadith "Mercy is not taken out of anyone except the damned" (al-Jami' al-sahih, 4.323: hadith 1923).



(3) Love of each other. Muslim relates in his Sahih that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "By Him in whose hand is my soul, none of you shall enter paradise until you believe, and none of you shall believe until you love one another . . . ." (Sahih Muslim, 1.74: hadith 54).



(4) Presence of mind in the prayer (salat). Abu Dawud relates in his Sunan that 'Ammar ibn Yasir heard the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) say, "Truly, a man leaves, and none of his prayer has been recorded for him except a tenth of it, a ninth of it, eighth of it, seventh of it, sixth of it, fifth of it, fourth of it, third of it, a half of it" (Sunan Abi Dawud, 1.211: hadith 796) meaning that none of a person's prayer counts for him except that in which he is present in his heart with Allah.



(5) Love of the Prophet. Bukhari relates in his Sahih that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "None of you believes until I am more beloved to him than his father, his son, and all people" (Fath al-Bari, 1.58, hadith 15).



It is plain from these texts that none of the states mentioned whether mercy, love, or presence of heart are quantifiable, for the Shari'a cannot specify that one must "do two units of mercy" or "have three units of presence of mind" in the way that the number of rak'as of prayer can be specified, yet each of them is personally obligatory for the Muslim. Let us complete the picture by looking at a few examples of states that are haram or 'strictly unlawful':



(1) Fear of anyone besides Allah. Allah Most High says in Surat al-Baqara of the Qur'an,



"And fulfill My covenant: I will fulfill your covenant And fear Me alone" (Qur'an 2:40), the last phrase of which, according to Imam Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, "establishes that a human being is obliged to fear no one besides Allah Most High" (Tafsir al-Fakhr al-Razi, 3.42).



(2) Despair. Allah Most High says,



"None despairs of Allah's mercy except the people who disbelieve" (Qur'an 12:87), indicating the unlawfulness of this inward state by coupling it with the worst human condition possible, that of unbelief.



(3) Arrogance. Muslim relates in his Sahih that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "No one shall enter paradise who has a particle of arrogance in his heart" (Sahih Muslim, 1.93: hadith 91).



(4) Envy,meaning to wish for another to lose the blessings he enjoys. Abu Dawud relates that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "Beware of envy, for envy consumes good works as flames consume firewood" (Sunan Abi Dawud, 4.276: hadith 4903).



(5) Showing off in acts of worship. Al-Hakim relates with a sahih chain of transmission that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "The slightest bit of showing off in good works is as if worshipping others with Allah . . . ." (al-Mustadrak 'ala al-Sahihayn, 1.4).



These and similar haram inward states are not found in books of fiqh or 'jurisprudence,' because fiqh can only deal with quantifiable descriptions of rulings. Rather, they are examined in their causes and remedies by the scholars of the 'inner fiqh' of Tasawwuf, men such as Imam al-Ghazali in his Ihya' 'ulum al-din [The reviving of the religious sciences], Imam al-Rabbani in his Maktubat [Letters], al-Suhrawardi in his 'Awarif al-Ma'arif [The knowledges of the illuminates], Abu Talib al-Makki in Qut al-qulub [The sustenance of hearts], and similar classic works, which discuss and solve hundreds of ethical questions about the inner life. These are books of Shari'a and their questions are questions of Sacred Law, of how it is lawful or unlawful for a Muslim to be; and they preserve the part of the prophetic sunna dealing with states.


Who needs such information? All Muslims, for the Qur'anic verses and authenticated hadiths all point to the fact that a Muslim must not only do certain things and say certain things, but also must be something, must attain certain states of the heart and eliminate others. Do we ever fear someone besides Allah? Do we have a particle of arrogance in our hearts? Is our love for the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) greater than our love for any other human being? Is there the slightest bit of showing off in our good works?


Half a minute's reflection will show the Muslim where he stands on these aspects of his din, and why in classical times, helping Muslims to attain these states was not left to amateurs, but rather delegated to 'ulama of the heart, the scholars of Islamic Tasawwuf. For most people, these are not easy transformations to make, because of the force of habit, because of the subtlety with which we can deceive ourselves, but most of all because each of us has an ego, the self, the Me, which is called in Arabic al-nafs, about which Allah testifies in Surat Yusuf:



"Verily the self ever commands to do evil" (Qur'an 12:53).



If you do not believe it, consider the hadith related by Muslim in his Sahih, that:



The first person judged on Resurrection Day will be a man martyred in battle.



He will be brought forth, Allah will reacquaint him with His blessings upon him and the man will acknowledge them, whereupon Allah will say, "What have you done with them?" to which the man will respond, "I fought to the death for You."



Allah will reply, "You lie. You fought in order to be called a hero, and it has already been said." Then he will be sentenced and dragged away on his face and flung into the fire.



Then a man will be brought forward who learned Sacred Knowledge, taught it to others, and who recited the Qur'an. Allah will remind him of His gifts to him and the man will acknowledge them, and then Allah will say, "What have you done with them?" The man will answer, "I acquired Sacred Knowledge, taught it, and recited the Qur'an, for Your sake."

Allah will say, "You lie. You learned so as to be called a scholar, and read the Qur'an so as to be called a reciter, and it has already been said." Then the man will be sentenced and dragged away on his face to be flung into the fire.


Then a man will be brought forward whom Allah generously provided for, giving him various kinds of wealth, and Allah will recall to him the benefits given, and the man will acknowledge them, to which Allah will say, "And what have you done with them?" The man will answer, "I have not left a single kind of expenditure You love to see made, except that I have spent on it for Your sake."


Allah will say, "You lie. You did it so as to be called generous, and it has already been said." Then he will be sentenced and dragged away on his face to be flung into the fire (Sahih Muslim, 3.1514: hadith 1905).


We should not fool ourselves about this, because our fate depends on it: in our childhood, our parents taught us how to behave through praise or blame, and for most of us, this permeated and colored our whole motivation for doing things. But when childhood ends, and we come of age in Islam, the religion makes it clear to us, both by the above hadith and by the words of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) "The slightest bit of showing off in good works is as if worshipping others with Allah" that being motivated by what others think is no longer good enough, and that we must change our motives entirely, and henceforth be motivated by nothing but desire for Allah Himself. The Islamic revelation thus tells the Muslim that it is obligatory to break his habits of thinking and motivation, but it does not tell him how. For that, he must go to the scholars of these states, in accordance with the Qur'anic imperative,



"Ask those who know if you know not" (Qur'an 16:43),



There is no doubt that bringing about this change, purifying the Muslims by bringing them to spiritual sincerity, was one of the central duties of the Prophet Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace), for Allah says in the Surat Al 'Imran of the Qur'an,



"Allah has truly blessed the believers, for He has sent them a messenger of themselves, who recites His signs to them and purifies them, and teaches them the Book and the Wisdom" (Qur'an 3:164),



which explicitly lists four tasks of the prophetic mission, the second of which, yuzakkihim means precisely to 'purify them' and has no other lexical sense. Now, it is plain that this teaching function cannot, as part of an eternal revelation, have ended with the passing of the first generation, a fact that Allah explictly confirms in His injunction in Surat Luqman,


"And follow the path of him who turns unto Me" (Qur'an 31:15).


These verses indicate the teaching and transformative role of those who convey the Islamic revelation to Muslims, and the choice of the word ittiba' in the second verse, which is more general, implies both keeping the company of and following the example of a teacher. This is why in the history of Tasawwuf, we find that though there were many methods and schools of thought, these two things never changed: keeping the company of a teacher, and following his example in exactly the same way that the Sahaba were uplifted and purified by keeping the company of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and following his example.



And this is why the discipline of Tasawwuf has been preserved and transmitted by Tariqas or groups of students under a particular master. First, because this was the sunna of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) in his purifying function described by the Koran. Secondly, Islamic knowledge has never been transmitted by writings alone, but rather from 'ulama to students. Thirdly, the nature of the knowledge in question is of hal or 'state of being,' not just knowing, and hence requires it be taken from a succession of living masters back to the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), for the sheer range and number of the states of heart required by the revelation effectively make imitation of the personal example of a teacher the only effective means of transmission.



Imaan

So far we have spoken about Tasawwuf in respect to Islam, as a Shari'a science necessary to fully realize the Sacred Law in one's life, to attain the states of the heart demanded by the Qur'an and hadith. This close connection between Shari'a and Tasawwuf is expressed by the statement of Imam Malik, founder of the Maliki school, that "he who practices Tasawwuf without learning Sacred Law corrupts his faith, while he who learns Sacred Law without practicing Tasawwuf corrupts himself. Only he who combines the two proves true." This is why Tasawwuf was taught as part of the traditional curriculum in madrasas across the Muslim world from Malaysia to Morocco, why many of the greatest Shari'a scholars of this Umma have been Sufis, and why until the end of the Islamic caliphate at the beginning of this century and the subsequent Western control and cultural dominance of Muslim lands, there were teachers of Tasawwuf in Islamic institutions of higher learning from Lucknow to Istanbul to Cairo.


But there is a second aspect of Tasawwuf that we have not yet talked about; namely, its relation to Iman or 'True Faith,' the second pillar of the Islamic religion, which in the context of the Islamic sciences consists of 'Aqida or 'orthodox belief.'


All Muslims believe in Allah, and that He is transcendently beyond anything conceivable to the minds of men, for the human intellect is imprisoned within its own sense impressions and the categories of thought derived from them, such as number, directionality, spatial extention, place, time, and so forth. Allah is beyond all of that; in His own words,


"There is nothing whatsoever like unto Him" (Qur'an 42:11)


If we reflect for a moment on this verse, in the light of the hadith of Muslim about Ihsan that "it is to worship Allah as though you see Him," we realize that the means of seeing here is not the eye, which can only behold physical things like itself; nor yet the mind, which cannot transcend its own impressions to reach the Divine, but rather certitude, the light of Iman, whose locus is not the eye or the brain, but rather the ruh, a subtle faculty Allah has created within each of us called the soul, whose knowledge is unobstructed by the bounds of the created universe. Allah Most High says, by way of exalting the nature of this faculty by leaving it a mystery,



"Say: 'The soul is of the affair of my Lord'" (Qur'an 17:85).

The food of this ruh is dhikr or the 'remembrance of Allah.' Why? Because acts of obedience increase the light of certainty and Iman in the soul, and dhikr is among the greatest of them, as is attested to by the sahih hadith related by al-Hakim that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said,

"Shall I not tell you of the best of your works, the purest of them in the eyes of your Master, the highest in raising your rank, better than giving gold and silver, and better for you than to meet your enemy and smite their necks, and they smite yours?" They said, "This what is it, O' Messenger of Allah?" and he said: Dhikru Llahi 'azza wa jall, "The remembrance of Allah Mighty and Majestic." (al-Mustadrak 'ala al-Sahihayn, 1.496).



Increasing the strength of Iman through good actions, and particularly through the medium of dhikr has tremendous implications for the Islamic religion and traditional spirituality. A non-Muslim once asked me, "If God exists, then why all this beating around the bush? Why doesn't He just come out and say so?"



The answer is that taklif or 'moral responsibility' in this life is not only concerned with outward actions, but with what we believe, our 'Aqida and the strength with which we believe it. If belief in God and other eternal truths were effortless in this world, there would be no point in Allah making us responsible for it, it would be automatic, involuntary, like our belief, say, that London is in England. There would no point in making someone responsible for something impossible not to believe.



But the responsibility Allah has place upon us is belief in the Unseen, as a test for us in this world to choose between kufr and Iman, to distinguish believer from unbeliever, and some believers above others.


This why strengthening Iman through dhikr is of such methodological importance for Tasawwuf: we have not only been commanded as Muslims to believe in certain things, but have been commanded to have absolute certainty in them. The world we see around us is composed of veils of light and darkness: events come that knock the Iman out of some of us, and Allah tests each of us as to the degree of certainty with which we believe the eternal truths of the religion. It was in this sense that 'Umar ibn al-Khattab said, "If the Iman of Abu Bakr were weighed against the Iman of the entire Umma, it would outweigh it."



Now, in traditional 'Aqida one of the most important tenets is the wahdaniyya or 'oneness and uniqueness' of Allah Most High. This means He is without any sharik or associate in His being, in His attributes, or in His acts. But the ability to hold this insight in mind in the rough and tumble of daily life is a function of the strength of certainty (yaqin) in one's heart. Allah tells the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) in Surat al-A'raf of the Qur'an,


"Say: 'I do not possess benefit for myself or harm, except as Allah wills'" (Qur'an 7:188),



... yet we tend to rely on ourselves and our plans, in obliviousness to the facts of 'Aqida that ourselves and our plans have no effect, that Allah alone brings about effects.


If you want to test yourself on this, the next time you contact someone with good connections whose help is critical to you, take a look at your heart at the moment you ask him to put in a good word for you with someone, and see whom you are relying upon. If you are like most of us, Allah is not at the forefront of your thoughts, despite the fact that He alone is controlling the outcome. Isn't this a lapse in your 'Aqida, or, at the very least, in your certainty?


Tasawwuf corrects such shortcomings by step-by-step increasing the Muslim's certainty in Allah. The two central means of Tasawwuf in attaining the conviction demanded by 'Aqida are mudhakara, or learning the traditional tenets of Islamic faith, and dhikr, deepening one's certainty in them by remembrance of Allah. It is part of our faith that, in the words of the Qur'an in Surat al-Saffat,


"Allah has created you and what you do" (Qur'an 37:96);


... yet for how many of us is this day to day experience? Because Tasawwuf remedies this and other shortcomings of Iman, by increasing the Muslim's certainty through a systematic way of teaching and dhikr, it has traditionally been regarded as personally obligatory to this pillar of the religion also, and from the earliest centuries of Islam, has proved its worth.



False Sufis

The last question we will deal with tonight is: What about the bad Sufis we read about, who contravene the teachings of Islam?

The answer is that there are two meanings of Sufi: the first is "Anyone who considers himself a Sufi," which is the rule of thumb of orientalist historians of Sufism and popular writers, who would oppose the "Sufis" to the "Ulama." I think the Qur'anic verses and hadiths we have mentioned tonight about the scope and method of true Tasawwuf show why we must insist on the primacy of the definition of a Sufi as "a man of religious learning who applied what he knew, so Allah bequeathed him knowledge of what he did not know."

The very first thing a Sufi, as a man of religious learning knows is that the Shari'a and 'Aqida of Islam are above every human being. Whoever does not know this will never be a Sufi, except in the orientalist sense of the word like someone standing in front of the stock exchange in an expensive suit with a briefcase to convince people he is a stockbroker. A real stockbroker is something else.

Because this distinction is ignored today by otherwise well-meaning Muslims, it is often forgotten that the 'ulama who have criticized Sufis, such as Ibn al-Jawzi in his Talbis Iblis [The Devil's deception], or Ibn Taymiya in places in his Fatawa, or Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya, were not criticizing Tasawwuf as an ancillary discipline to the Shari'a. The proof of this is Ibn al-Jawzi's five-volume Sifat al-safwa, which contains the biographies of the very same Sufis mentioned in al-Qushayri's famous Tasawwuf manual al-Risala al-Qushayriyya. Ibn Taymiya considered himself a Sufi of the Qadiri order, and volumes ten and eleven of his thirty-seven-volume Majmu' al-fatawa are devoted to Tasawwuf. And Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya wrote his three-volume Madarij al-salikin, a detailed commentary on 'Abdullah al-Ansari al-Harawi's tract on the spiritual stations of the Sufi path, Manazil al-sa'irin. These works show that their authors' criticisms were not directed at Tasawwuf as such, but rather at specific groups of their times, and they should be understood for what they are.



As in other Islamic sciences, mistakes historically did occur in Tasawwuf, most of them stemming from not recognizing the primacy of Shari'a and 'Aqida above all else. But these mistakes were not different in principle from, for example, the Isra'iliyyat (baseless tales of Bani Isra'il) that crept into tafsir literature, or the mawdu'at (hadith forgeries) that crept into the hadith. These were not taken as proof that tafsir was bad, or hadith was deviance, but rather, in each discipline, the errors were identified and warned against by Imams of the field, because the Umma needed the rest. And such corrections are precisely what we find in books like Qushayri's Risala, Ghazali's Ihya' and other works of Sufism.

For all of the reasons we have mentioned, Tasawwuf was accepted as an essential part of the Islamic religion by the 'ulama of this Umma. The proof of this is all the famous scholars of Shari'a sciences who had the higher education of Tasawwuf, among them Ibn 'Abidin, al-Razi, Ahmad Sirhindi, Zakariyya al-Ansari, al-'Izz ibn 'Abd al-Salam, Ibn Daqiq al-'Eid, Ibn Hajar al-Haytami, Shah Wali Allah, Ahmad Dardir, Ibrahim al-Bajuri, 'Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, Imam al-Nawawi, Taqi al-Din al-Subki, and al-Suyuti.



Among the Sufis who aided Islam with the sword as well as the pen, to quote Reliance of the Traveller, were:



... such men as the Naqshbandi shaykh Shamil al-Daghestani, who fought a prolonged war against the Russians in the Caucasus in the nineteenth century; Sayyid Muhammad 'Abdullah al-Somali, a shaykh of the Salihiyya order who led Muslims against the British and Italians in Somalia from 1899 to 1920; the Qadiri shaykh 'Uthman ibn Fodi, who led jihad in Northern Nigeria from 1804 to 1808 to establish Islamic rule; the Qadiri shaykh 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza'iri, who led the Algerians against the French from 1832 to 1847; the Darqawi faqir al-Hajj Muhammad al-Ahrash, who fought the French in Egypt in 1799; the Tijani shaykh al-Hajj 'Umar Tal, who led Islamic Jihad in Guinea, Senegal, and Mali from 1852 to 1864; and the Qadiri shaykh Ma' al-'Aynayn al-Qalqami, who helped marshal Muslim resistance to the French in northern Mauritania and southern Morocco from 1905 to 1909.



Among the Sufis whose missionary work Islamized entire regions are such men as the founder of the Sanusiyya order, Muhammad 'Ali Sanusi, whose efforts and jihad from 1807 to 1859 consolidated Islam as the religion of peoples from the Libyan Desert to sub-Saharan Africa; [and] the Shadhili shaykh Muhammad Ma'ruf and Qadiri shaykh Uways al-Barawi, whose efforts spread Islam westward and inland from the East African Coast . . . . (Reliance of the Traveller, 863).


It is plain from the examples of such men what kind of Muslims have been Sufis; namely, all kinds, right across the board and that Tasawwuf did not prevent them from serving Islam in any way they could.


To summarize everything I have said tonight: In looking first at Tasawwuf and Shari'a, we found that many Quranic verses and sahih hadiths oblige the Muslim to eliminate haram inner states as arrogance, envy, and fear of anyone besides Allah; and on the other hand, to acquire such obligatory inner states as mercy, love of one's fellow Muslims, presence of mind in prayer, and love of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace). We found that these inward states could not be dealt with in books of fiqh, whose purpose is to specify the outward, quantifiable aspects of the Shari'a. The knowledge of these states is nevertheless of the utmost importance to every Muslim, and this is why it was studied under the 'ulama of Ihsan, the teachers of Tasawwuf, in all periods of Islamic history until the beginning of the present century.


We then turned to the level of Iman, and found that though the 'Aqida of Muslims is that Allah alone has any effect in this world, keeping this in mind in everyday life is not a given of human consciousness, but rather a function of a Muslim's yaqin, his certainty. And we found that Tasawwuf, as an ancillary discipline to 'Aqida, emphasizes the systematic increase of this certainty through both mudhakara, 'teaching tenets of faith' and dhikr, 'the remembrance of Allah,' in accordance with the words of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) about Ihsan that "it is worship Allah as though you see Him."


Lastly, we found that accusations against Tasawwuf made by scholars such as Ibn al-Jawzi, and Ibn Taymiya were not directed against Tasawwuf in principle, but to specific groups and individuals in the times of these authors, the proof for which is the other books by the same authors that showed their understanding of Tasawwuf as a Shari'a science.


To return to the starting point of my talk this evening, with the disappearance of traditional Islamic scholars from the Umma, two very different pictures of Tasawwuf emerge today. If we read books written after the dismantling of the traditional fabric of Islam by colonial powers in the last century, we find the big hoax: Islam without spirituality and Shari'a without Tasawwuf. But if we read the classical works of Islamic scholarship, we learn that Tasawwuf has been a Shari'a science like tafsir, hadith, or any other, throughout the history of Islam. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said,


"Truly, Allah does not look at your outward forms and wealth,
but rather at your hearts and your works" (Sahih Muslim, 4.1389: hadith 2564).


And this is the brightest hope that Islam can offer a modern world darkened by materialism and nihilism: Islam as it truly is; the hope of eternal salvation through a religion of brotherhood and social and economic justice outwardly, and the direct experience of divine love and illumination inwardly.

By Sufi Raise

Read more »

Posted in: Sufi