TASSAWUF N SHARIAH 2
Recently one of the leading Muslim journals in US,
the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, [a
joint publication of the Association of Muslim
Social Scientists (AMSS) and the International
Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT)], vol. 12, no. 4,
Winter 1995, published a paper titled "Al Ghazali
between Philosophy and Sufism" [authored by
Professor Yasin Ceylan]. The author describes al
Ghazali's experience with sufism in these words:
"Al Ghazali embarked on his investigation of four
different schools of thought that were influential in
his time - Batinism, theology, philosophy, and
Sufism - in order to find truth in them. The first
three did not satisfy him, while Sufism provided
him the truth for which he had been searching.
There have always been notable Sufis of varied
backgrounds throughout the history of Islamic
thought. Whereas most of them received the
traditional education, some had so much interest in
logic and philosophy that they pursued these fields
in depth. However, none of them penetrated into
these sciences as far as al Ghazali, who acquired an
intimate knowledge of both philosophy and
theology. Al Ghazali himself discloses why he was
frustrated by philosophy in his quest for truth and
why he choose to adopt Sufism instead. His account
may be summed up as follows: His disillusionment
with philosophy was derived from its destructive
effect on the fundamentals of religion, while his
attraction to Sufism was rooted in the fact that
ethical refinement and the purification of the soul
were necessary conditions in this discipline." [p.
584] "Al Ghazali mentions three fundamental
features related to his mystical experience: a) the
purification of the soul from those evils and
worldly desires that hinder moral perfection; b)
those spiritual dispositions or explorations that
occur after the process of purification reaches the
level of maturity (described as extraordinary
intellectual intuitions); and c) that these
dispositions are not explicable through reason." [p.
587]
In his work, The Cultural Atlas of Islam, Professor
Ismail R. al Faruqi writes, "Reaffirming his view
that Tasawwuf is both knowledge and action, al-
Ghazali chastised those who sought to reach the
mystical experience in a hurry. He also rejected the
sufi claim that in the mystical experience one
reaches God through fusion into or unity with the
divine Being. Such a claim he regarded as
blasphemous. The true perception of God is always
perception of the presence of the transcendent as a
commanding being; knowledge of Him is never a
knowledge of His self but of His will. Al-Ghazali
therefore could not countenance the preaching of
Mansur al Hallaj who went about Baghdad
claiming that through the mystical experience he
and God had become one. By reaffirming that
Islam implies action, al-Ghazali meant to repudiate
those sufis who preached monkery and withdrawal
from society, any form of asceticism or
mortification, or nonobligation to observe the
rituals and all other laws of the shariah. Al-Ghazali
thus made Tasawwuf respectable and conformant
with the shariah and spirit of Islam.
Thus al-Ghazali built his system on God as starting
point and foundation, unlike the philosophers who
started with senses or reason. He anchored reason
in iman, whence it drew its ultimate postulates;
and then gave it the freedom to be as critical as it
wished. Without such anchoring, reason is fallible
and untrustworthy. God is knowable through His
works, His order and design of nature, His
ubiquitous providence - all of which reason is
capable of discerning in tentative but not
definitive form. Between God and the world stands
the realm of malakut and amr , by which al-Ghazali
meant the realm of values constituting the ought of
all that is or will be, a realm that is absolute, a
priori and transcendent (malakut ), as well as
normative and imperative (amr ). Knowledge of it is
yaqin (apodeictic certainty) and such knowledge is
the ground of all other knowledge. Al-Ghazali, we
may concede, taught the primacy of axiological
knowledge, which relates man to God, over the
knowledge of the world, which would be faulty and
groundless without the first." [pp. 300-1]
Contrary to beliefs often held in the West, to set
out on the path of sufism it is absolutely necessary
to be a Muslim, for sufism's methods are
inoperative without this religious affiliation, and
may even prove destructive to the individual who
lack the protective and normative devotion of the
religion of Islam, which is its vehicle. Ahmad
Zarruq, the fifteenth century Maliki scholar and
hadith specialist, states: "So there is no sufism
except through comprehension of Sacred Law or
Shariah, for the outward rules of Allah Most High
are not known save through it, and there is no
comprehension of Sacred Law or Shariah without
sufism, for works are nothing without the sincerity
of approach, as expressed by the words of Imam
Malik (Allah have mercy on him): 'He who
practices sufism without learning Sacred Law or
Shariah corrupts his faith, while he who learns
Sacred Law or Shariah without practicing sufism
corrupts himself. Only he who combines the two
proves true.'" ( Iqaz al-himam fi sharh al-Hikam , Ibn
Ajiba, Ahmad ibn Muhammad, and Ahmad ibn
Muhammad Ibn Ata Illah, Mustafa al-Babi al-
Halabi wa Awladuhu, Cairo, 1972, pp. 5-6).
Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, one of the most
influential and prolific of contemporary Muslim
scholars, echoed the same view. In his seminal
introduction to Islam, Risalah-yi Diniyat (later
translated as Towards Understanding Islam ,
Khurshid Ahmad, The Islamic Foundation, U. K.,
1980 and The Message Publications, Islamic Circles
of North America [ICNA], New York, 1986), he
defined Shariah as "the detailed code of conduct or
the canons comprising ways and modes of worship,
standards of morals and life, laws that permit and
prohibit and rules that judge between right and
wrong." [p. 95] He then explained how Fiqh and
Tasawwuf complement each other in Shariah. He
writes: "Fiqh deals with the apparent and the
observable conduct, the fulfilling of a duty in
practice. The field which concerns itself with the
spirit of conduct is known as Tasawwuf. For
example, when we perform salat , Fiqh will judge us
only by the fulfillment of physical requirements
such as cleansing, facing towards the Kabah and
the timing and the number of rakaahs. Tasawwuf,
on the other hand, will judge our prayers by our
concentration, devotion, purification of our souls
and the effect of our prayers on our morals and
manners. Thus, the true Islamic Tasawwuf is the
measure of our spirit of our obedience and
sincerity, while Fiqh governs our carrying out
commands to the last detail. An Ibadah devoid of
spirit, though correct in procedure, is like a man
handsome in appearance but defective in character
and an Ibadah full of spirit but defective in
execution is like a man noble in character but
deformed in appearance. The above example
makes clear the relation between Fiqh and
Tasawwuf. Tasawwuf, in the true sense, is an
intense love of Allah and Muhammad (blessings of
Allah and piece be upon him) and such love
requires a strict obedience to their commands as
embodied in the Book of God and the Sunnah of
His Prophet. Anyone who deviates from the divine
commands makes a false claim of his love for Allah
and His messenger." [p. 97]
This point was further emphasized by Professor
Muhammad Abul Qasim in his book, Salvation of
the Soul and Islamic Devotions , Kegan Paul
International, London, 1983. He succinctly summed
up the mutual relation of Islamic jurisprudence
(fiqh) and sufism. He writes: "The Quran teaches
that the means to salvation in the Hereafter on the
human side are belief or faith (iman) and action
(amal ): salvation cannot be achieved without these
two means. Both of them are mentioned in most of
the verses of the Quran containing references to
salvation; in a few verses, however, only faith is
mentioned explicitly, but action is implicit in them.
That faith and action are the requirements of
salvation on the human side is also the teaching of
the prophetic tradition which is but an elaboration
of what is briefly taught by the Quran. The
prophetic tradition presents us with details of faith
and action as means to salvation. Closely following
this teaching of the Quran and Tradition, Islamic
jurisprudence, theology and sufism have
unanimously agreed that faith and action are the
only two means to salvation. In working out the
details of these means, however, they differ slightly
among themselves. Thus jurisprudence accepts the
outward meanings of the teachings of the Quran
and Tradition, without feeling the need to explore
their deep, inward meanings. Sufism, in addition
to outward meanings, looks for inward meanings;
it also adds material learnt from experience but
not inconsistent with the Quranic teachings." [p.
29]
"Sufis put a great emphasis upon the Quranic
teaching that faith and action are both needed if a
man is to ascend from the rank of lower animals to
that of those who behold the beauty of the glorious
face of God." [p. 30] "Islam is a religion which
enjoins moderation or the mean state of all affairs.
In Islam there is place neither for too much of
hardship nor for too much of lavishness, neither
for excess nor for deficiency. Moderation is
considered by Islam to be the most reasonable
course of action and to enable man to achieve that
at which the Islamic religion aims. A man has an
outward aspect and an inward aspect, and
moderation is to be observed in relation to both.
His outward aspect is mainly the concern of
Islamic law (fiqh) and hence in this field one often
finds the prescription of moderation and middle
course. The inward aspect of a man is mainly dealt
with in sufism and Islamic philosophy and hence
in these two discipline also we find that
moderation or the mean is taught
emphatically." [Footnote no. 14, p. 54]
In fact, true sufis perform obligatory prayers and
other duties (fard ) which the Shariah has placed on
them, and observe the sunnah of the Prophet
(sallallahu alaihi wa sallam ) which he has
recommended. They never think that they can any
time dispense with the Shariah. Those who violate
the Shariah and commit sins are rather impostors,
who use sufism to justify their evil deeds. There is
general agreement among sufis that the only way
to know what things are legal or illegal, and what
acts are right or wrong is the Quran, the Sunnah of
the Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wa sallam ), the ijtihad
of qualified jurists (mujtahidin ), and their
consensus (ijma ). These are also the means for
knowing the degrees of obligation, whether a thing
is obligatory (fard/wajib ) or forbidden (haram ),
commendable (mandub ), undesirable (makruh ), or
permissible (mubah ). The inspiration (ilham ) or the
kashf of the sufi has no rule in this regard, neither
in determining the legality or otherwise of things,
nor in fixing the degree of their obligation. Shaykh
Ahmad Sirhindi, the great seventeenth century
Indian sufi and religious reformer, states the
common view in the clearest terms: ìIt is
commonly agreed that in determining the rules
(ahkam) of the Shariah, what counts is the Quran,
the Sunnah of the Prophet, the qiyas of a qualified
jurist (mujtahid ) and the consensus of the Ummah.
No other principle apart from these four is to be
taken into consideration to determine the legality
of rules. Inspiration (ilham ) does not determine
whether something is right or wrong, and the kashf
of a sufi does not establish the degree of a rule,
whether it is obligatory or desirable. The saints
(awliya ) have to follow, like an ordinary Muslim,
the opinions of the mujtahids . Their revelations
(kushuf) and inspirations (ilhamat ) do not elevate
their status and relieve them from following the
judgments of the jurists (fuqaha ). . . . They have to
follow the judgments of the jurists (mujtahidin ) in
matters of ijtihad.' [Maktubat Iman Rabbani, vol. II,
p. 1041]. In the above statement, Sirhindi uses the
term waliyat in the sense of nearness and intimacy
with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala .