Voices of Islam (167 page)

Among the consequences of hiding one’s inner states is that an individual who attains true sincerity will have his awareness of a meritorious deed or state erased from his memory. He will thus be free of any compulsion to remember it. In the following quotation, Sulami narrates that his grand- father, the Sufi Isma‘il ibn Nujayd (d. 976–977
CE
), said: ‘‘The proof that

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one of your actions has not been accepted [by God] is that you come to take account of it. For that which is accepted is elevated and vanishes from sight. Not being aware of it is the sign of its having been accepted.’’
37
Even more indicative of the essential relationship between anonymity and the realization of true sincerity is the following statement by Ibn al-Jala’, one of the most renowned mentors of the Sufi path in Iraq and Syria. When he was asked, ‘‘When is the
faqir
worthy of the name
faqir
?’’ He answered, ‘‘When there is no spiritual poverty left in him.’’ Then he was asked, ‘‘How can this be?’’ To which he replied, ‘‘Were poverty his, it would not be ‘his,’ but were [poverty] not his, it would be ‘his.’’’
38

Sulami concludes his discourse on spiritual poverty with a statement by Abu ‘Ali al-Juzjani, one of the most illustrious Sufi teachers of Khurasan, the region that now comprises eastern Iran and Central Asia. Juzjani summa- rizes the distinguishing traits of the practitioners of spiritual poverty in a way that beautifully summarizes the balance between inner attitudes and outer behaviors that characterizes the Sufi approach to ethics:

Obedience to God is their sweetness. Love of God is their companion. God is their need and He is their protector. Righteousness is their nature. With God is their commerce. Upon Him they depend. With Him is their intimacy, and in Him is their confi ce. Hunger is their nourishment, nakedness their dress, renunciation their gain, ethical comportment their discerning trait, humility their disposition, and an open smiling face their adornment. Generosity is their profession, intimate fellowship is their companionship, the intellect is their leader, patience is their driving force, and abstinence is their provision. The Qur’an is their speech, gratitude is their ornament, the invocation of God is their yearning, contentment [with God] is their repose, and sufficiency is their treas- ure. Worship is their profession, Satan is their enemy, the world is their refuse heap, modesty is their garment, and fear is their natural temperament. The night is their meditation, the day is their reflection, wisdom is their sword, and the Truth is their guardian. Life is their path, death is their home, the grave is their citadel, and the Day of Judgment is their feast. [To stand] before God is their most ardent desire. In the shade of The Throne is their gathering-place.
Firdaws
39
is their dwelling and the vision of God is the object of their yearning.
40

The main body of
Zalal al-fuqara’
sustains the complementarity of interior attitudes and ethical conduct that Sulami outlined in his Introduc- tion. The aspirant on the path to ethical excellence is self-effaced in his attitudes and conduct; he makes no claims to spiritual authority, nor does he seek personal satisfaction from his states or deeds of piety. In contrast, a pretentious man vies for worldly renown owing to his own infl ted view of his piety. He thus falls from the path of seekers of sincerity and enters the path of the indigent and the destitute. This section of the text is rich in the teachings of Khurasan, Sulami’s home region. Throughout this work Sulami

Sufi Foundations of the Ethics of Social Life in Islam
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opens a window onto a spiritual tradition that is as fresh today as it was in his own time, over 900 years ago.

The final sections of
Zalal al-fuqara’
comprise one of the most concise and eloquently written expositions of Sufi ethics that has been preserved in the rich heritage of Sufi literature. This section of the treatise is conspicuously lacking in citations of any kind. Here we encounter Sulami, the teacher and mentor, who has a unique ability to situate the subject of his discourse within a synthetic vision of the Sufi path. The passages of this section are derived from an earlier work by Sulami,
Suluk al-‘arifi
(The Wayfaring of the Gnostics). In this work, Sulami depicts the various stages of the process of spiritual transformation from the point of view of the aspirant as he journeys toward his goal, the intimate knowledge of the Absolute (
al-Haqq
). As in
Zalal al-fuqara’,
spiritual poverty is essential to the process of finding God. In the final section of
Zalal al-fuqara’,
Sulami reiterates that the actualization of true spiritual poverty is extremely diffi t to attain, for it is the spiritual state of the Prophet Muhammad himself. However, citing the Qur’an and the Hadith, he assures his reader that one who sincerely commits oneself to the process of spiritual transformation, and who sincerely orients oneself according to the compass of ethical conduct, will eventually attain the desired goal. ‘‘Anyone who patterns his life in the manner we have described and searches his soul for sincerity will be granted the blessing of truly realizing this way. The Most High has said: ‘As for those who strive in Us, We surely guide them to Our Paths’ (Qur’an 29:69). The Prophet—may the peace and blessings of God be upon him—said, ‘‘He who acts upon what he knows, God will endow him with what he does not know.’’

In his introduction to
Saints and Virtues,
John Stratton Hawley wrote, ‘‘Within each religion a powerful body of tradition emphasizes not codes but stories, not precepts but personalities, not lectures but lives.’’
41
In Islam, Sufism comprises such a body of tradition. The earliest traditions of Sufism define its method as a way of ethical conduct,
akhlaq.
The writings of Sufi in the formative period of the tradition clearly articulate that ethical conduct was practiced within the contexts of individual reorientation toward and a process of spiritual transformation. Transformation and change are inherent to the human state. The mentors and saint-exemplars of Sufi as inter- preters of the Qur’an and the Sunna of the Prophet Muhammad, have since the earliest times provided their communities with guidance of how to achieve spiritual transformation. Ethical conduct, as exemplified in the figure of the saint-exemplar, has played a major role in defining the ideals and values of Islamic society from the earliest days of the community. A central tenet of Islamic spirituality is the process of individual transformation and reorienta- tion of the ego-self that accords with the foundational sources of the tradi- tion. The degree to which a person is a participant in this process depends on the degree to which he or she can participate in the ethical formation that was the mainstay of this process. Sufi through its saint-exemplars,

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provided Islamic society with the axis around which the process of ethical development could be actualized on both the individual and the social level.

NOTES

1. For a good collection of early sayings defi Sufi see T. Frank, ‘‘ ‘Tasawwuf is
   .. .
   ’ On a Type of Mystical Aphorism,’’
   Journal of the American Oriental Society
   104.1 (1984).
   

2. Abu ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami,
   Tabaqat al-sufiyya,
   ed. Nur al-Din Shurayba (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khanji, 1969), 167.
   

3. Abu al-Qasim al-Qushayri,
   al-Risala al-Qushayriyya,
   eds. Ma‘ruf Zurayq and ‘Ali ‘Abd al-Majid Baltaji (Beirut: Dar al-Khayr, 1993), 271.
   

4. Abu Nasr al-Sarraj al-Tusi,
   Al-Luma’,
   ed. ‘Abd al-Halim Mahmud and Taha ‘Abd al-Baqi Surur (Cairo: Daˆr al-Kutub al-Haditha, 1960), 45.
   

5. Abu Nu‘aym al-Isfahani,
   Hilyat al-awliya’ wa tabaqat al-asfiya’
   (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1997), 55.
   

6. For more on the life of Ibn ‘Ajiba see Ahmed Ibn ‘Ajiba,
   The Autobiography
   (Fahrasa)
   of a Moroccan Sufi Ahmad Ibn ‘Ajiba,
   translated from the Arabic by Jean-Louis Michon, translated from the French by David Streight (Louisville, Kentucky: Fons Vitae, 1999).
   

7. Ahmad Ibn ‘Ajiba,
   Mi‘raj al-tashawwuf ila haqa’iq al-tasawwuf,
   in
   Kitab sharh salat al-Qutb Ibn Mashish,
   ed. ‘Abd al-Salam al-‘Imrani (Casablanca: Dar al-Rashad al- Haditha, 1999), 69.
   

8. Ibn ‘Ajiba,
   Sharh salat Ibn Mashish,
   29–30.
   

9. Abu Nu‘aym al-Isfahani,
   Hilyat al-awliya’,
   55; this quotation is also cited by
   

   T. Frank, ‘‘
   Tasawwuf
   Is
   ...
   ’’ 76, translation by the present author.
   

10. When the Prophet’s wife ‘A’isha was asked about the ethical conduct of the Prophet, she responded: ‘‘The ethical conduct of the Messenger of God was the Qur’an.’’
    Sahih Muslim
    (746), ‘‘The Chapter of the Traveler’s Prayer,’’ sub-section: ‘‘Joining the Night Prayer.’’
    

11. Abu ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami,
    Darajat al-sadiqin
    in
    Three Early Sufi Texts: Stations of the Righteous,
    trans. Kenneth Honerkamp (Louisville, Kentucky: Fons Vitae, 2003), 127.
    

12. Abu ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami,
    Risalat al-Malamatiyya,
    ed. Abu al-‘Ala ‘Afifi (Cairo: Dar Ihya’ al-Kutub al-‘Arabiyya, 1945), 111.
    

13. Peter Brown, ‘‘The Saint as Exemplar in Late Antiquity,’’ in
    Saints and Virtues,
    ed. John Stratton Hawley (Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 1987), 9.
    

14. Adab
    is a term that has been used with a wide range of meanings, including correct beliefs, rules of conduct, and customs. For a survey of these meanings, see
    

    F. Garbrieli, ‘‘Adab,’’
    EI 2,
    vol. 1, 175–176. Treatises dealing with the
    adab
    of the Sufi have existed from the earliest eras of Islamic literature. For a detailed account of Sufi
    adab
    literature, see Etan Kohlberg’s edition of Sulami’s
    Jawami‘ adab al- sufi ya,
    (Jerusalem, 1976) 10–13. One of the best known Prophetic traditions on
    

    Sufi Foundations of the Ethics of Social Life in Islam
    195
    

    the subject of
    adab
    was transmitted by Sulami in this work: ‘‘According to Shaqiq (al-Balkhi), according to ‘Abdallah (ibn Mas‘ud), the Messenger of God said: ‘‘God had instilled
    adab
    within me and has perfected it within me, for He commanded me to observe noble conduct, saying: ‘‘Be clement. Command the good and turn away from the ignorant’’ (Qur’an 7:199), 3. Muhyiddin ibn ‘Arabi (d. 1240
    CE
    ) the Andalusian mystic and renowned teacher whose writings have greatly infl ced Sufi distinguishes four types of
    adab: Adab
    of the Law (
    adab al-Shari‘a
    ),
    Adab
    of Service (
    adab al-khidma
    ),
    Adab
    of Right, (
    adab al-haqq
    ), and
    Adab
    of Essential Reality (
    adab al-haqiqa
    ). See Denis Gril, ‘‘
    Adab
    and Revelation, One of the Foundations of the Hermeneutics of Ibn ‘Arabi,’’ in
    Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi: A Commemorative Volume,
    ed. Stephen Hirtenstein and Michael Tieran (Shaftesbury, Dorset and Rockport, Massachusetts: Element Books, 1993), 228–263.
    

15. Sulami,
    Darajat al-sadiqin
    in
    Three Early Sufi Texts,
    120.
    

16. Tor Andrae,
    In the Garden of Myrtles: Studies in Early Islamic Mysticism,
    trans. Birgitta Sharpe (Albany, New York: State University New York Press, 1987), 36.
    

17. Sulami,
    Tabaqat al-sufiyya,
    119.
    

18. Brown, ‘‘The Saint as Exemplar,’’ 11.
    

19. Sulami,
    Darajat al-sadiqin
    in
    Three Early Sufi Texts,
    126–127.
    

20. On the life and works of Sulami, see Nur al-Din Shurayba’s Introduction to
    Tabaqat al-Sufi
    11–47; Gerhard Bo¨ wering, ‘‘The
    Qur’an
    Commentary of al-Sulami,’’ in
    Islamic Studies Presented to Charles J. Adams,
    eds. Wael B. Hallaq and Donald P. Little, (Leiden and New York: E.J. Brill, 1991), 41–56; Rkia Cornell’s Introduction to Abu ‘Abd ar-Rahman as-Sulami,
    Early Sufi Women:
    Dhikr an-niswa al-muta‘abbidat as-sufi (Louisville, Kentucky: Fons Vitae, 1999), 31–43;
    

    J. Thibon, ‘‘Hie´rarchie spirituelle, fonctions du saint et hagiographie dans l’oeuvre de Sulamˆı,’’
    in Le Saint et son Milieu,
    eds. R. Chih and Denis Gril, Cahier des Annales Islamologiques (Cairo : Institut Franc¸ais d’Arche´ologie Orientale, 2000), 13–31.
    

21. For a complete translation of this work, see Sulami,
    Darajat al-sadiqin
    in
    

    Three Early Sufi Texts,
    126–127.
    

22. Titus Burckhardt,
    An Introduction to Sufi Doctrine
    (Lahore, Pakistan: Sh. Mohammad Ashraf, 1991 reprint), 110.
    

23. Sulami,
    Zalal al-fuqara’
    in
    Three Early Sufi Texts,
    132. 24. Ibid., 132–149.
    

25. Ibid., 143.

26. Ibid., 138.

27. Ibid., 144.

28. Ibid., 135.

29. Ibid., 132.

30. Ibid., 141.

31. Ibid., 140.

32. Ibid., 144.

33. Ibid., 145.

34. Ibid., 144.

1. The Arabic root of the verb used in this passage (
   lahafa
   ) means, ‘‘to request or demand urgently,’’ to solicit in such a manner that one makes a display of one’s
   

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   state of need. For the Sufis, to manifest a state of need to other than for God was seen as unseemly.
   

2. Sulami,
   Zalal al-fuqara’
   in
   Three Early Sufi Texts,
   130. 37. Ibid., 136.