Tawhid in Sufism
The face was red with flushing blood as he tried to
stop his breath for as long as he could. The eyes bulged out, though staring at nothing.
Small rivulets of perspiration shone on the forehead, and the voice coming through the
foaming mouth was barely audible. He could scarcely speak when he tried to complete his
sentence, and then did that through his gestures, nodding with satisfaction as if the
message had been transmitted by some telepathic process.
The man, a neighbour of mine, was not faking it out.
He was a highly educated professional and belonged to a very respectable family. He truly
believed in what he was trying to say. Somehow — perhaps because of my appearance — he
had a misconception that I belonged to his clan. So he took very little time
to begin sharing his ideas with me: The fragrance of flowers, the song of birds, the
air, everything… but then, you know it. Yes, yes, you know it. I am Allah, you are
Allah, everything is Allah….
I realised afterwards that in a very crude manner,
the man was expressing (though technically incorrectly) ideas he had gathered from some
Sufi….
The Quranic concept of Tawhid (monotheism) is
that there is only one God — Allah. All those characteristics which can only be
associated with God must not be attributed to anyone else.
The Quran says:
Declare [O Prophet] that1 God is One2! He
is the rock.3 He is neither anyones
father nor anyones son. And none is equal to Him.[112:1-3]
Therefore, the whole world is His creation: He is
above all, and there is nothing like Him.
It is the correct belief in God which enlightens the heart and solves the riddle this
universe is. Every creation points out to the fact that there must be a Creator and
therefore reflects God:
Allah is the Light of the heavens and
the earth. [24:35]
In Sufism, however, Tawhid, is expressed as
only Absolute Reality is absolutely real. To the Sufi, this concept of Tawhid
is different from pantheism (regarded un-Islamic by almost all the Muslim scholars), for
the Sufistic Tawhid is not everything is God: it is God is
everything, or, more ostensibly, there is nothing except God. The result
is that in Sufism, Tawhid expressed as la ilaha illallah (there is no God but Allah) is
the Tawhid of the ordinary, whereas the Tawhid of the elect is la mawjuda illallah (there
is nothing but Allah). This means that whatever we see does not have any significance, for
it does not exist in reality. It is only relatively real. What does exist in reality is
God. Ibn Arabi writes in his book Fususul-Hikam:
Although, apparently Creation is
distinct from the Creator, in reality the Creator is but Creation and Creation is but the
Creator. All these are from one reality. Nay, it is but He who is the Only Reality, and it
is He Who manifests Himself in all these realities.
This concept is called Wahdatul-Wajud (Unity of
Being): the idea is that a knife and a sword, for example, are called by their respective
names and are treated as distinct and separate items. But when their essence
steel moves wara ul-wara (beyond the beyond, that is beyond all forms
and shapes), it is called steel. Similarly, God is considered as the Ultimate Reality,
which is transcendent (beyond shape and form) but in essence immanent in Creation. In the
words of Sha Muhammad Ismail (Abaqat, abaqah 20, al-isha#rah
ul-awwal):
For all Creation, Ma bihitta
yun4 is only one Definite being.
Another version of this concept is
Wahdatul-Shahud (Unity of Appearance), according to which, God is the only Reality,
and everything else is illusion. This version is again the same concept expressed in a
different way. According to Sha Muhammad Ismail (Abaqa#t, abaqah 20,
al-isharahul-awwal):
…deep analysis will show that there
is no difference except that owing to the difference in their stages and in their ways of
reaching Lahut,5 they [the proponents of the
two versions] have adopted varying styles to express their opinions.
Such beliefs often result in a strong tendency to
regard a mans physical self as a form and to consider this form as an
obstruction in his going waraul-wara (beyond the beyond) and in reaching the
Ultimate Reality. Theosophical (to be more precise, existential) realisation of this
Reality through self-denial and self-control becomes the ultimate goal of life, whereas
according to the Quran, the purpose of man’s life is worship and servitude to God
(51-56) and the purpose of religion is the purification of his soul to enable him to do
just that (62:2). In Sufism, therefore, purification of the soul becomes the ultimate
target of the Sufis life rather than becoming the outcome of following the dictates
of Islam. For this purification, rituals and methods other than those recommended or
demanded by Islam are often prescribed with such authority6
and adhered to with such pertinacity that they virtually amount to innovation in religion.
That which is a means to an end becomes the end in itself: man’s humility, which in Islam
leads to servitude, becomes a source of his pride in Sufism; servitude, which makes him a
humble servant of his Master, makes him the Master.
According to Sufism, perfect awareness of the
Absolute Reality results in the Sufi’s being absolutely unaware of Creation and of his own
self; to be more precise, it results in his being aware of the fact that in reality there
is no existence of Creation and even of his own self. This concept often leads to great
imbalance; in negating his ego, the Sufi ends up worshipping it; in negating Creation, he
negates life itself.
Absolute negation of the self is impracticable,
absolute negation of Creation impractical.
No Man born of a woman can conceive nothingness for
himself, unless he is deranged enough not to perceive anything at all. Life is not
insignificant. Nor is consciousness. And every one of us knows this. Life still brings
laughter, death still summons tears. Intellect is still honoured, lack of consciousness is
still regarded as insanity. A man thinks and therefore is. When he thinks, he knows —
consciously or otherwise — that it is `he’ who is thinking. Therefore, if he thinks or
believes that he does not exist — that only God exists –, then he will usually end up
thinking or believing that it is he who is actually God. But God he cannot be.
For the best of men — the messengers of God –, even in their greatness, always remained
in want of their Lord’s mercy for the most minor of their needs:
Allahumma inni lima anzalta
ilayya min khayrin faqir
Lord! verily I am needy for anything you may bestow upon me out of
good. [A prayer of Moses (sws); see the Qura#n 28:24]
- Allahumma inni abduka, ibn
bdika, ibn amatika, nasiyati biyadik….
Lord! verily I am your slave, the son of your bondman, the son of
your bondwoman, my forelock is in your hands. [that is I am completely in your power]….
[A bedtime prayer of the Prophet (sws)].
Even a messenger of God is a servant of his Master.
To him God is the Master whom he loves with all his heart and all his mind and all his
soul. To the Sufi, however, God is the beloved whose love leads him to realise the
Ultimate Reality — and thus makes him the Master (though the Sufi will sometimes deny
this. However, as long as he believes — consciously or otherwise — that
nothing expect God exists, he will usually be thinking of himself as the Deity7).
The usual result of this shift in the object is that
in addition to the spiritual exercises and rituals recommended or prescribed by Islam to
enable man to worship and serve God, the Sufi virtually makes many other exercises and
rituals obligatory, which often leave him with very little energy and motivation to do
God’s bidding where it is actually required. And since the Sufi has a philosophical
foundation for this shift from the balance required by Islam, he usually ends up being a
slave of his own desires.
Vis-a-vis the society as a whole, the object of an
individuals life as envisaged by Sufism is impractical ad absurdum, as realisation
of the object by all would mean negation of Creation by all and therefore negation
of society, whereas realisation of the object of a mans life as envisaged by Islam
would result in the creation of a truly harmonious society. Worshipping and serving God
entail responsibility towards society. Ones affiliation with society is not negated
as such in Islam as a goal for achieving self-purification, just as none of the blessings
of God is negated for this purpose, howsoever trivial it may appear to be.
Only when such negation becomes necessary for
preventing a greater injustice to the society or to one’s own self does Islam allow — and
in some cases demand — that an individual deny the privileges he has and negate his
affiliation with his society.
In Sufism, however, there seems to be a strong
tendency to regard asceticism as highly desirable per se. If nothing else, there is at
least an abnormal emphasis on the negation of worldly life:
Ibn Ata Allah writes:
The source of every disobedience,
indifference, and passion is self-satisfaction. The source of every obedience, vigilance,
and virtue is dissatisfaction with ones self. (Tr. Cryil Glasse, The Concise
Encyclopaedia of Islam, second edition, London: Stacey International, 1991, p. 378).
Al Ghazali says in a al-Munqidh
minal-Dalal:
Then I turned my attention to the Way
of the Sufis. I knew that it could not be traversed to the end without both doctrine and
practice, and that the gist of the doctrine lies in overcoming the appetites of the flesh
and getting rid of its evil dispositions and vile qualities, so that the heart may be
cleared of all but God….
When I considered the intention of my
teaching, I perceived that instead of doing it for God’s sake alone I had no motive but
the desire for glory and reputation. I realised that I stood on the edge of a precipice
and would fall into Hellfire unless I set about to mend my ways… Conscious of my
helplessness and having surrendered my will entirely, I took refuge with God as a man in
sore trouble who has no resource left. God answered my prayer and made it easy for me to
turn my back on reputation and wealth and wife and children and friends. (Tr. Cyril
Glasse, The Concise Encyclopaedia of Islam, second edition, London: Stacey International,
1991. p. 379)
Is this abnormal inclination towards asceticism
deliberate? Is it obligatory or merely desirable? — these questions may be debatable.
However, one thing is certain. As far as the concept of perfect awareness of the Absolute
Reality is concerned, it inevitably leads to the conceptual negation of Creation and
therefore of society.
Perhaps because of the impracticability and
impracticality of their ideas, the Sufis have usually regarded it desirable per se not to
reveal their inner thoughts about Tawhid (and when they do reveal them, the style they use
makes their language unintelligible to most people), whereas the Prophet (sws) was told to
communicate his message clearly as part of his mission (the Quran 5:67):
Know therefore that the ultimate of all disciples of
Mystic intuition is this Tawhid, and the secrets of this discipline and cannot be written
in any book because, according to a saying of Arifin [those who have achieved
awareness], exposing the secrets of Divinity amounts to infidelity. [al-Ghazali, Ihya
Ulumil-Din, Vol. 4. p. 641]
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Notes and References
1. That has been
used here as a pronoun, not as a conjunction.
2. That is unique
or single in kind.
3. That is the rock
which is the shelter against the enemy and is the saviour (See Psalms 18:2 & 3 — the
Lord is my rock …)
4. From which other
things are, for example a knife and a sword are from steel.
5. That is God.
6. Sufis claim
direct knowledge for themselves through the same Divine source which was the basis of
Divine Guidance given to the messengers of God and His Prophets (For example see Sha#
Muhammad Ismail, Abaqat, Abaqah 11, al-isharahtul-ijmaliyyah ila
maratib kamalil-nafs). Although they believe that no further directives are given to
them after the Prophet (sws) as far as the content of religion is concerned, yet the fact
that they present their prescriptions for the application of the
principles of the Quran and the Sunnah on the basis of their direct
knowledge and therefore with the same degree of authority that religion itself has
is a sufficient cause for concern over innovation in religion.
7. Perhaps that is
why the walls of the tombs of the Sufi saints echo with claims as Ana al-H~aq (I am God —
claimed by Hallaj) and Subhani, ma azama shani! (I am pure! what an exalted
status is mine! — claimed by Bayazid) whenever some Arif in his ecstasy is unable
to contain his awareness. One cannot therefore blame the simple followers of the Sufis as
our friend with bulging eyes for thinking themselves to be God.