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Religion Compass 1/1 (2007): 148–164, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2006.00011.x
Sufism – What Is It Exactly?
Paul L. Heck*
Georgetown University
Abstract
Sufism is commonly called mysticism, the mysticism of Islam, but is it mysticism
and what is its relation to Islam? Despite diverse expressions and modernist and
reformist attempts to disassociate it from Islam, Sufism is the spirituality of Islam.
Sometimes saint based, sometimes text based, it aims to bring the soul into relation
with the sanctity of the other world, thus orienting it to divine truth. Sufism thus
sees itself as the completion of Islam, its living embodiment, in contrast to legal
formalism and theological scholasticism, but not in opposition to Muslim laws and
doctrines. Its goal is sanctity, embodiment of the godly holiness described by the
Qurwan. It is thus a path to saintliness not as perfection of human virtue but as
extension of the prophecy of Islam, standing in an integral relation to the ethical
and theological outlook of Islam, with which, this article argues, Sufism is finely
interwoven.
Sufism is commonly referred to as mysticism, the mysticism of Islam, but is
it mysticism and what is its relation to Islam? It is not right to call all Sufism
mysticism, although the mystical experience constitutes one important aspect
of Sufism.1 It has been described by its practitioners, often themselves trained
in shariva, as the perfection of Islam. Sufism has been part and parcel of the
Islamic heritage, still today an essential reference point in Muslim discussions
about the nature of Islam. So, what is it?
It is first of all worth explaining the tendency to disassociate Sufism from
Islam. Modernist approaches to knowledge, disdainful of what could not be
scientifically explained and thus controlled, tended to dismiss Sufism as
medieval, the work of charlatans out to exploit the unenlightened or, at
best, lingering superstitions of rural life.2 Such backwardness would surely
disappear with the spread of European civilization.3 Moreover, the fact that
resistance to colonial advances was often led by Sufi figures made it urgent
to label Sufism as a den of fanaticism,4 entirely foreign to all that reasonable
gentlemen were agreed upon as religion.
This disparagement was compounded by reformist currents within Islam,
notably in the eighteenth century, calling for a return to the original sources
of revelation (i.e., the Book of God and Sunna of the prophet Muhammad).
Aspects of Sufism were judged to be unwholesome accretions to the pristine
beliefs of the first Muslims. Prior to contact with European thought, this
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Sufism – What Is It Exactly? . 149
reformism included Sufi figures,5 but is remembered today as the start
of Wahhabism, violently intolerant of practices deemed inconsistent with
perfect monotheism, such as Sufism’s promotion of visitations to the shrines
of saints. The reformist impulse, which quickened in the face of colonial
expansion, fell under the influence of Enlightenment categories of true and
false religion. Sufism was placed in the latter category, making its extirpation
from Islam imperative if Muslims were to revive true religion, recover divine
favor, and thus recoup their former glory and power. When it came to
explaining Muslim weaknesses, fingers pointed at Sufism.
Sufism had never been a stranger to controversy. The claim to union with
God led some Sufi figures to transgress social and religious norms. This
intoxicated, as opposed to sober, brand of Sufism was characteristic of
wandering dervishes. For them, extreme asceticism, including bodily
mutilation, and disregard for all convention represented the height of sanctity
(i.e., discounting the ways of this world as fulfillment of the qurwanic
disclosure of the other world).6 Unkempt, scantily dressed if clothed at all,
dismissive of employment and marriage, enhancing mystical experience with
hallucinogenic substances, living off what they could extract from local
populaces through the performance of miracles or simple intimidation, these
examples of antinomian Sufism pushed the interpretive limits of the message
of God as conveyed to and by the prophet Muhammad in seventh-century
Arabia.
There were, however, orientalists who did not discount the Islamic
character of even the odder versions of Sufism. Notable was the research of
Louis Massignon (d. 1962), which focused on the figure of al-Hall-j (d.
922),7 controversial in his own day for activity deemed subversive to both
the religious and political order and ultimately condemned to death by
crucifixion for claiming to have manifested divine truth in his own person.
Massignon showed that there was a distinctly Islamic framework to al-Hall-j’s
thinking and, moreover, that later generations of Muslims had held him in
esteem. Massignon also demonstrated that the concepts and terminology of
Sufism had qurwanic origins.8 The stage was thus set for the field, once
relieved of its modernist anxieties, to explore more fully the connection
between Sufism and Islam.
Sufism concerns itself with the relation of the soul to the other (i.e.,
nonmaterial) world. As such, it is the spirituality of Islam, but spirituality
can be mediated through multiple channels; for example (1) through saints
and devotion to saints, living and deceased, a means of spiritual communion
and regeneration still popular today as witnessed in the national pilgrimages
to the tombs of Sufi masters, e.g., in Touba, Senegal (to the shrine of Amadou
Bamba, d. 1927) and Tanta, Egypt (to the shrine of Ahmad al-Badawi, d.
1276), rivaling in number the pilgrimage to Mecca; and (2) through texts
and the communal study of texts. The last century saw the rise of large-scale
movements with a text-based rather than saint-based spirituality. These
groups, such as the Nurcu and Tablighi, shedding the hierarchy implicit in
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150 . Paul L. Heck
a saint-based spirituality, do not go by the name of Sufism. Although
distancing themselves from structures and practices of Sufism that many
contemporary Muslims find atavistic, these groups do overlap in fundamental
ways with the theological and ethical outlook of Sufism,9 even if now
expressing a spiritual collectivity not through visitation of saintly shrines but
contemplative reading of common texts.10
It is also important to guard against dividing Sufism into categories of
traditional and modern.11 There is simply too much continuity even amidst
varied emphasis. In times past and present, one can find both devotion to
saints and criticism of the practice. Likewise, then and now, texts, in addition
to the oral instructions of spiritual masters, have acted as important means
for initiating new members into the spiritual and ethical life of the
community – manuals, hagiographies, guidebooks for shrine pilgrimage,
etc. Sufism has undergone so many transformations that it is shortsighted to
limit it to a form alleged to be “traditional” but which is in fact only one
stage in a still unfolding trajectory.12 The bad name inflicted upon Sufism
by reform-minded Muslims of both the rationalist and fundamentalist type
has led some Muslims to use new terminology to describe their spiritual
endeavors – e.g., “refinement of the soul” instead of Sufism. Adepts of
Sufism would themselves agree that the goal of Sufism lies not in its name,
but its benefits – insight into ultimate truth and an ethics of kindness to all
one meets.13 A more legitimate controversy than the decline of traditional
Sufism is its de-Islamization by new-age currents in Europe and North
America. Here, finally, is a Sufism without Islam, which – its own complex
history notwithstanding – represents itself as a perennial philosophy (i.e.,
spirituality without religious particularity).14
There are so many sides to Sufism that it is difficult to get a handle on it
all. For example, although focused on other-worldly sanctity, Sufism has
had important socio-political dimensions.15 The saints of Islam have been
both counselors and challengers of sultans, at times extending their blessing
to legitimate rule and at other times asserting their spiritual authority over
the temporal powers of the day. In tribal society, as personages standing
above clan interests, they have proven effective mediators of conflict, whereas
in villages and cities, they are moral figures whose distance from corrupt
politics earns them the trust of the people, allowing them to act as a
facilitating link between society and government (thus making sense of the
state to the local populace).16 A saint’s followers can function as a realm of
their own and thus a force with which other groups, governmental and
nongovernmental alike, have to contend in negotiating interests, values, and
balance in society. It is also true that Sufism has been a very effective agent
for religious renewal of Muslim society, a topic still to be fully considered.
This may be especially true in predominantly illiterate societies where the
work of reacquainting the faithful with the ways of God cannot be achieved
through the dissemination of texts, but through saintly figures embodying
godliness in their own person, in their sayings and actions, for all to see,
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Sufism – What Is It Exactly? . 151
even the most unlearned. The role of Sufism in reinvigorating Muslim
society with the values of Islam and spirit of the prophecy as borne by the
saint is not limited to any period of Islam, but the widespread nature of the
phenomenon in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has attracted
considerable interest in recent years and yielded much scholarly fruit.17 The
endless dimensions of Sufism notwithstanding, our goal in what follows is
not to review recent scholarship on Sufism, but to illustrate its insights by
outlining the ways in which Sufism is intimately connected to the theological
and ethical outlook of Islam.
The Qurwan speaks not only of prophets (anbiyAv, sing. nabi) but also of
saints (awliyAv, sing. wali), the latter often referred to as the friends or allies
of God. The question of prophethood was largely settled with Muhammad
as the seal (i.e., last) of the prophets, but the nature and purpose of sainthood
were not. The discussion began at a very early stage, from at least the ninth
century,18 and reached its most elaborate formulation in the work of the
philosophically minded mystic, the celebrated Ibn vArabi (d. 1240).19 If
Sufism has any essence, it is realization of a life of sanctity as climax of the
spiritual journey inaugurated by the Qurwan, placing the idea of sainthood
(i.e., closeness to God) at the heart of Sufism.
Sainthood was not singular, but embraced diverse types of holiness as
described in hagiographical literature (manAqib), encountered in shrine
visitations (ziyArAt), and celebrated in song and procession on feast days
(mawAlid). Some saints were commemorated for their erudition, others for
their asceticism, still others for their skills in counseling, mediating conflict,
and making peace; there were mendicant saints, wonder-working saints,
and even warrior saints.20 Who were these figures understood to have
perfected Islam? How had they managed to come so close to God as to
enjoy ceaseless communion with Him and personal embodiment of His
attributes? What did the godly, even theophanic, character of their lives say
about their status vis-à-vis prophets? Finally, what function did saints play
in the lives of devotees, not to mention the cosmos entire? Was it not enough
to perform prescribed prayers, fast during Ramadan, give alms to the needy,
undertake pilgrimage to Mecca, and so earn salvation? Was there a need for
something else, something extra, something called Sufism?
The early architects of Sufism emphasized that it was not enough to
perform actions commanded by God, as they could be undertaken
hypocritically, not for the sake of God, but to win communal approval. Also,
religion could easily become a commercial exchange in which one expected
reward in the next life for keeping God’s commands and punishment for
neglecting them. Sufism stood against both the hypocritical performance of
religion and its commercialization. R-biva, a female mystic of the eighth
century,21 spoke of God not as dispenser of reward and punishment, but as
object of love, and vAttar, poet of the twelfth century, insisted that heaven
and hell were but a ruse meant to distract one from the true goal – complete
identification with God.
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152 . Paul L. Heck
It was therefore necessary to combine adherence to the norms of Islam
– ritual and moral action – with examination of the soul. A scholar of the
ninth century, al-Muh-sabi, was suspicious of the moral worth of action
that was not based on godly motivation, which, he argued, was possible
only in a soul fully detached from all worldly interest and ambition and
focused entirely on the world to come. In other words, it was an advanced
realization of death that purified one’s interior, purged it of selfish
inclinations, not to mention devilish enticements, since such things had no
hold in death, even a death that was not yet actual but only anticipated.
Sufism thus arose not as a critique of the legal norms of Islam, but as a way
by which to perform them sincerely; it is no surprise that the most legally
minded of Muslims took to Sufism.22 Some, to be sure, claimed that their
spiritual practices, climaxing in identification of their souls with God,
supersede shariva norms. However, a spirituality resulting in antinomian
conclusions has been generally dismissed as spiritual self-centeredness – union
with God without regard for worldly reality – and thus antithetical to Sufism.
Sufism, as a path to religious perfection, aims not to do away with the
morality of Islam, but to save it from ethical bankruptcy.23
The exact origins of Sufism remain elusive.24 Its association with the
Arabic word for wool (suf) suggests that its earliest practitioners were
identified with the lifestyle of the monks who in the eastern Christianity of
the day had the habit of wearing wool as a sign of world renunciation. This
is not to suggest extra-Islamic sources for Sufism, as was once common.
Even if adept at assimilating ideas and practices not explicitly Islamic, Sufism
is not syncretistic. It does not refer to anything other than Islam in its
self-explanation, and today scholars have come to understand it not as height
of universally practiced human virtues but as extension of the prophecy of
Islam – an extension, sometimes quite elaborate, of the spiritual implications
of Qurwan and Sunna, as shariva is an extension, sometimes quite elaborate,
of the legal implications of Qurwan and Sunna.
Two currents came together in early Sufism: asceticism and mysticism.25
Ascetical withdrawal from the world and its ways was commended because
it was felt that too close an association with the world ran counter to the
spiritual goal of orienting oneself totally to the other world, where, as the
Qurwan had declared, the final prize was to be won. The world was thus
seen as a threat to one’s salvation, making it necessary to renounce it as an
abode of temptations. The Qurwan, however, also noted that the human
being had been created weak and possessed a soul inclined to evil (i.e.,
susceptible to the temptations of the devil). Detachment from the world,
then, was not enough. It was equally important to cultivate detachment
from oneself. This was conceived as annihilation of the self in God, a task
that began as spiritual warfare, jihad against the evil (i.e., ungodly inclinations
of the soul) and ended in the soul’s total identification with God. Only when
the self was no more and God alone remained in the inner recesses of the
heart, could one be certain of undertaking action that was devoid of
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Sufism – What Is It Exactly? . 153
self-regard. The mystical absorption of the soul in God, communicated via
ecstatic utterances as a loving intimacy with the divine,26 was brought about
by spiritual practices, for example, ceaseless recitation (dhikr) of the names
of God as found in the Qurwan, until they became inscribed on one’s soul,
training the soul – in accordance with a canonical hadith – to concentrate
only on God, to see only God at all times or, if one could not attain such
an advanced state, to realize that God sees one’s soul at all times.
Of primacy for all Muslims is reception of the speech of God (kalAm allAh)
as departure point for the venture of Islam, but what was the nature of the
venture that this revealed speech, the Qurwan, intended to initiate? Was it a
command, an instrument for the regulation of human behavior in accordance
with the divine will? Or was it an invitation to commune with the divine
reality announced and mediated by the language of Qurwan? The messenger
of God, Muhammad, was a giver of laws which were attributed to a divine
source and which he himself followed, but he was also known to pass his
nights in prayerful vigil (tahajjud), which was supererogatory (nawAfil), not
obligatory (farAwid), prayer. How did the voice of God define the human
being: as His obedient servant (wabd allAh) or His intimate friend (wali allAh)
– or both? Could adherence to the law, performance of the ritual duties,
and study of the religious texts leave one with the satisfaction of having
reached God? Or was it necessary to complement such things as prophetically
spelled out with additional prayers, additional devotions, and above all
ascetical discipline and spiritual exercise that turned the attention of religion
to the interior dimension of human existence? After all, divine law (shariwa)
was God’s measure of external life, including ritual and social action, but
what was to be the divine measure of internal life? Surely that could not be
ignored, and there was something additional to divine law – a divine reality
(haqiqa) that was not apparent, but hidden, and yet necessary to know as
standard against which the various movements of the soul were to be judged
as godly or ungodly. Did shariva amount to the totality of religion or only
point of departure to a much fuller realization – and experience – of divinity?
The journey of the soul to God as necessary partner to performance of
the norms of shariva opened the door to sainthood. The idea of realizing the
divine in this world was seen by some as a fulfillment of prophecy, by others
as unwelcome rival to it. Did the prophetic heritage have any relevancy
once sainthood was achieved? Variously conceived, sainthood was generally
taken as necessary complement to a now sealed prophecy, designed to
accomplish the divine work in the world that prophecy had laid out. The
saint was agent of the prophetic mission and guarantor of its validity, ensuring
its place as a living representative of the godliness described by the Qurwan
and first embodied by the prophet Muhammad. The life of Muhammad was
thus held to be saintly as well as prophetic, making all subsequent saints his
spiritual – as opposed to political – successors. Did this mean that Muhammad
was first and foremost a saint who had been chosen for a prophetic mission,
indeed the final one, or was his prophecy his primary quality and his
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154 . Paul L. Heck
saintliness its by-product? In other words, was prophethood a subset of
sainthood or was the reverse true? Certainly, the saint could not bring a
new prophetic message, but could considerably expand – by fulfilling – the
final prophecy of Muhammad, in that sense acting – in echo of a canonical hadith
– as the hands of God in the world and – in echo of a qurwanic verse – a
means (wasila) to bring people, creation entire, to the Lord.
God thus chose individuals, saints, to fulfill the mission of Islam, as He
had chosen individuals, prophets, to initiate it. Sainthood came to be
elaborated as a spiritual hierarchy at the pinnacle of which stood “the pole
of the age” (qutb al-zamAn), the saintly ruler of the universe. Even if his rule
was not worldly, the welfare of the universe was in his care and its salvation
effected through his mediation. His domain was the spiritual, but – as
superior to the temporal – also included it; however, to preserve spiritual
purity, the saints delegated direct supervision of temporal affairs – the dirty
business of politics – to the powers of the day. There was thus a symbiotic
relation between saints and sultans – the spiritual and the temporal working
together in harmony. Saints would bless and thus extend Islamic legitimacy
to sultanic rule and in exchange would be patronized by it. When things
went awry, however, at moments of crisis in Muslim society, saints would
call rulers to task – or seek to reinvigorate the spiritual caliber of society –
by invoking a messianic title, mahdi, identifiable with the pinnacle of
the saintly hierarchy. This messianic aura galvanized followers of the saint,
individuals and entire clans, in armed struggle against sultanic power,
rebellions that combined material and religious interests and that, if
successful, could result in the formation of new dynasties.27 Claims to be the
mahdi have become less common today, but still exist; for example, in
the case of vAbd al-Sal-m Yasin, leader of Justice and Charity, a group in
Morocco which has challenged, if not threatened, the monarchy.28
The salvific role played by saints transformed their tombs into objects of
pious devotion – sites which radiated other-worldly blessing as recognized
by people and rulers alike. Visitations to these shrines were undertaken not
for the purpose of worshipping the saint but for seeking his or her
intercession in obtaining requests which were not always spiritual in nature.
Seeking the intercession of saints, even if the specific requests were not
granted, did provide petitioners with emotional comfort and spiritual renewal
via the saintly presence represented materially in the shrine, a presence to
which Muslim and non-Muslim alike could have recourse.29 The insistence
in Islam on the integrity of the body, before and after death, precluded
dismemberment of saintly bodies and distribution of their parts to the faithful
far and wide, as in Christianity. Still, a system of relics – based on closeness
to the saint’s body (e.g., material that had come in contact with it, amulets
the saint had fashioned in his lifetime) – has its place in Islam as a means for
materially representing the charismatic protection of the saint beyond the
sanctuary of the shrine itself.
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Sufism – What Is It Exactly? . 155
For many, lettered and unlettered alike, the saint had attained human perfection
(al-insAn al-kAmil) by embodying – thus modeling and mediating – the
qualities of God, making of the saint the spiritual focal point of all existence
without whom creation could have no discernible meaning. The shrine of
the saint thus took on enormously important implications for local identity,
as underscored in a recent study on the centrality of saintly shrines to the religious
coherence of the Kazakhs as a nation, especially in the wake of post-Soviet
independence; a collective memory of family and national ancestors, especially
saintly figures, is nurtured through a landscape of shrines that act as “signposts
of the Muslim identity of the Kazakhs.”30 In Egypt also, sainthood figures in
everyday Muslim religiosity, fashioned through the commemoration of saints
in a calendar of feast days that have both local and national significance.31
Given its role as divine agent, sainthood in Islam cannot be characterized
by moral apathy. In other words, the mystical experience nurtured by Islam
did not lead to the conclusion that the world was an illusion and action in
it senseless. An early architect of Sufism, al-Junayd (d. 910), offered an
expansive interpretation of the oneness of God affirmed by the Qurwan. It
did not mean simply that there were no other gods but God, but rather that
there was nothing else but God. It was thus with Sufism that Islam was given
a deeper understanding of the world. While true that Sufism has the tendency
to view this world as source of temptation and thus to be renounced, also
as ephemeral existence and thus to be endured until death, it is no less true
that at a more fundamental level Sufism views the world as a manifestation
of the divine, creation as a mirror in which the supreme jewel of divinity
– in echo of a canonical hadith – could be reflected and thus known. The
world as a whole therefore has theological value, greatly expanding the idea
of Islam not simply as prophetic edict but more fully as divine presence
represented, even if hidden, in all existence. In other words, the universe –
the created order, the human being – is, to be sure, not God, but does share
in the same nature as the Qurwan. All is revealed. All points to God. All
existence is one. There was, of course, debate about the implications of the
oneness of existence (wahdat al-wujud). Was evil included?32 The monistic
outlook – one of many Sufi-derived philosophies of existence33 – is most
closely associated with the name of Ibn vArabi, but has had a wide-ranging
history, undergoing subsequent refinement and reformulation, for example,
at the hands of Sufi reformists in India, notably Ahmad Sirhindi (d. 1624)
and Sh-h Wali All-h (d. 1763).34 The intricacies of the debate aside, it was
agreed that the real battleground of Islam was not the apparent realm,
however vital it was to have Islam visibly represented in the world, but the
unseen realm of the soul striving to be more godlike, i.e., to appropriate
more fully the divine writing, the names of God constitutive of all
existence. The goal, however, was not a given. One had to pursue Sufism
for many years before being able to see existence so transfigured in the divine
image, the image of which the human being above all – in echo of a
canonical hadith – was primary bearer.
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156 . Paul L. Heck
The upshot of all this is that Sufism – despite its ascetical origins – ended
by attributing theological worth to the world. Existence entire, whether or
not identifiable with Islam, shares in divine existence, even if imperfectly.
Certainly, for Sufism, Islam formed the necessary starting point without
which such a conclusion could not be reached. The theology of Sufism is
not relativistic, but rather works to reconcile the ideals of Islam to the realities
of the world. Nor is this to suggest that Sufism is given to quietism as a result
of its theology, but rather to say that Sufism has the theological resources
to bridge what appear to be unbridgeable gaps between religious principles
and secular realities, between Muslims and non-Muslims, between nations
and peoples with apparently irresolvable political interests. Its ethical
disposition, embracing shariva, is more widely affirmed in all relationships,
even with infidels, who, it could be argued, also share in divine existence
and can be led to conversion, to awareness of divine oneness, not by
condemning their theological shortcomings, but by showing them a
charitable kindness (ihsAn) that was a more effective witness, even “proof,”
of the meaning of Islam than debate over doctrine ever could be.
Sufi manuals composed in the tenth and eleventh centuries indicate that
the representatives of Sufism were quite conscious that their way was superior
to legal formalisms and theological assertions. As the living embodiment –
and thus full representation – of Islam, Sufism was the antidote to the sickness
of the heart, remedy for doubts that theological debate and philosophical
demonstration could never finally resolve. In other words, the very truth
of Islam, not simply its moral project, was dependent on the mystical
evidence offered by Sufism and its saints, as recognized by the great Muslim
intellectual, al-Ghaz-li (d. 1111). The challenge of skepticism could not be
met – and the decadence of faith could not be halted – by syllogistic
reasoning, but only by a god-consciousness induced by the practices of
Sufism, above all the ceaseless repetition (dhikr) of the names of God that
in time would permit one to see existence as the Qurwan depicted it. As
al-Ghaz-li argued, decisive proof of the truth of Islam lay with the saints,
whose mystical knowledge offered direct vision of what prophecy
described. After all, there was no denying what could be witnessed firsthand
by those capable of viewing existence with the inner eye of the soul.35 The
reality of the throne of God could be verified with certainty not because
prophetic verse spoke of it but because the saints frequented it.36
In the course of the tenth and eleventh centuries, the charisma of
sainthood underwent a process of institutionalization,37 and spiritual
brotherhoods under the aegis of saintly figures began to take shape. There
were degrees of membership: some wholly devoted to the journey to God,
while others pledged allegiance to the sheikh and participated in the life of
the Sufi milieu – religious teachings and spiritual exercises – to the extent
that work and family permitted. In a training manual for Sufism,Ab0 Najib
al-Suhrawardi (d. 1168) makes considerable allowance for those unable to
fulfill the more stringent, world-renouncing demands of Sufism. In other
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Sufism – What Is It Exactly? . 157
words, as the appeal of Sufism spread, the way in which the spiritual path
was experienced underwent alteration. First, the place of the sheikh grew
in prominence. Larger numbers of disciples meant that individual instruction
was not feasible in every case, transforming his role from that of teacher to
intercessor. It was his image that formed the link to the prophet and to God,
and devotion to him, love for him, concentration on his image in prayer
became part of the process of salvation. In short, the Sufi initiate was to
identify not so much with God as with his sheikh, who would bring him
to God. Second, the long years of ascetical discipline, withdrawal to the
desert, solitude with God, gradually gave way to spirituality via community.
The companionship of the brotherhood not only located the individual
believer in a social context, but also encouraged humility, an altruistic
readiness to prefer others to oneself, constituting a kind of self-abnegation
that furthered progress on the path to God. So long as the socio-spiritual
atmosphere was wholesome, one could seek communion with God not as
end but as beginning. That is, one might feel an attraction to God, induced
by spiritual song amidst the brethren, chanted recollection of the names of
God, before actually setting out on the spiritual journey.38
These spiritual networks, known as paths (turuq, sing. tariqa, i.e., paths to
God), were named after the founding saints – e.g., Q-diriyya (vAbd al-Q-dir
al-Jil-ni, d. 1166), Sh-dhiliyya (Ab0 l-Hasan al-Sh-dili, d. 1258), Chistiyya
(Muwin al-Din al-Chishti, d. 1236), and Naqshbandiyya (Bah-w al-Din
al-Naqshbandi, d. 1389). Such networks spread throughout the Muslim
world, but were organized locally under a sheikh who represented only one
of many spiritual successors to the founding saint. Later, in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, networks emerged that were more centrally
organized, such as the Tij-niyya in West Africa and the Khatmiyya in East
Africa. These regional networks, embracing various locales, served in some
cases as a template for empire builders and, in time, the modern nation-state.39
Saintly lineage coalesced with family lineage, the descendants of the saint
acting as custodians of his shrine and the lucrative lands associated with it,
if not also as his spiritual successors. The saint’s progeny became quasi-feudal
dignitaries, capitalizing on their ancestor’s post-mortem patronage and
prestige. A cult of saints spread along with the spiritual networks, which
promoted visitation to the shrines of past spiritual masters. The visitations
of the faithful to these shrines had various motives, chiefly the intercession
of the saint in obtaining a request which was not always spiritual in nature.
Some scholars, notably Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), while not rejecting shrine
visitations per se, criticized some of the practices associated with them,
especially saintly intercession, which they equated with the cardinal sin of
Islam (i.e., attributing godly powers to beings who were clearly not God).
The controversy continues today – for example, in South Asia between
Barelwi partisans of a shrine-focused piety and their Deobandi counterparts
who do not oppose Sufism as a form of spiritual guidance, but do reject the
excesses they impute to the cult of saints and its claims to intercessory powers.40
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Religion Compass 1/1 (2007): 148–164, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2006.00011.x
158 . Paul L. Heck
It should not be concluded that Sufism, now so thoroughly embedded
in Muslim society, had somehow sold out to the world, although some cases
might warrant such a conclusion.41 Brotherhoods did compete for social
prestige and political patronage, but new spiritual insights had developed –
such as the concept of “retreat in society” (i.e., being in the world but not
of it) – that facilitated greater integration of Sufism into society. It is more
accurate to say that the spirituality of Sufism came to be inscribed into the
materiality of the world as a visible part of the geography of Muslim society.42
Its saintly shrines and dervishes lodges, alongside mosques and madrasas,
created a distinctly Muslim landscape of sanctity that worked to remind the
faithful of the unseen realm by representing it visually – verses of the Qurwan
and the names of God calligraphically adorning the walls of saintly shrines
no less than those of mosques: a visual authority.43 The saint, whose presence
was now represented in Islamic architecture, created a link between a people
and its religious past and religious identity.44 Sufism has been unequalled in
the history of Islam in terms of its influence on the formation of the religious
and cultural character of Muslim life and society. It would be simplistic,
then, to call its integration into the worldliness of Muslim society a strategy
for institutional survival. It certainly was a strategy for institutional survival,
but one without which the spiritual outlook of Sufism could not have
penetrated Muslim society so completely.
The changes wrought by European colonial rule cannot therefore be
limited to the political, but touch upon the very meaning of Muslim society,
the norms and symbols that spoke to the exterior and interior lives of
Muslims alike. Sufism no less than other dimensions of Islam was affected
and sought strategies of adaptation and reformulation, a process still ongoing
today. It was not just a matter of new masters, new laws, and new
politics. The souls of Muslims were also at stake. What would happen now
that the ideas sustaining them, the symbols animating them, the attire
identifying them, and the governing structures backing them were gradually
ceding pride of place to the new ideas, symbols, attire, and governance of
Europe? Could the geography of Muslim society that Sufism had so deeply
cultivated simply be discarded without a corresponding need for internal
reconstruction? The souls of Muslims and the societal ways that nurtured
them – how was the disconnect going to be managed? Was Sufism up to
the task? The spirituality of Islam, it is no exaggeration to say, forms one of
the major religious questions of our day.
Sufism persists and in some places is undergoing a renaissance. It still faces
the attacks of rationalist and fundamentalist currents, but also interacts with
them in forging its own reformist path.45 Are new generations interested in
a spirituality mediated through miracles and saintly intercession? Sufism
continues to play key roles in shaping Muslim societies as diverse as Senegal
and Turkey.46 The history of Muslim spirituality still needs to be more
precisely mapped out, but much progress has been made. What is its future
and will it still be referred to as Sufism? Whatever form it takes and whatever
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Sufism – What Is It Exactly? . 159
name it goes by, it will be part and parcel of Islam. As Sufism has long
insisted, in echo of a qurwanic verse, nothing endures save the face of God.
Short Biography
Paul L. Heck is assistant professor of Islamic Studies in the Department
of Theology at Georgetown University. His work focuses on religious
knowledge and its ethical and socio-political implications. His publications
on Islam treat conceptions of jihad, moral dimensions of mysticism, religious
renewal, scripture-based politics, eschatological sensibilities, and the
transmission of religious knowledge. His book, The Construction of Knowledge
in Islamic Civilization, looks at the formative period of Islamic systems of
knowledge and explores ways in which knowledge was classified and shaped
in accordance with the social and political as well as intellectual concerns
of the day. He has edited a collection of articles on “Sufism and Politics,”
forthcoming shortly as an issue of Princeton Papers. Current projects include
two monographs: The Theology of Islamic Politics, which looks at the
connection of faith outlook and political attitudes in Islam, and The Crisis
of Knowledge in Islamic Civilization, which is a full treatment of the
phenomenon of skepticism in Islam and the varied responses to it.
Notes
* Correspondence address: Theology Department, Georgetown University, 120 New North, 37th
and O Streets, NW,Washington, D.C. 20057, USA.
1 The point that all Sufis are not mystics has been made by Arthur F. Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the
Prophet. The Indian Naqshbandiya and the Rise of the Rise of the Mediating Sufi Shaykh (Columbia,
SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1998).
2 Jo-Ann Gross, “The Polemic of ‘Official’ and ‘Unofficial’ Islam: Sufism in Soviet Central Asia.”
In Frederick de Jong and Bernd Radtke, eds., Islamic Mysticism Contested: Thirteen Centuries of
Controversies and Polemics, (Leiden,The Netherlands: Brill, 1999).
3 Elizabeth Sirriyeh, Sufis and Anti-Sufis: The Defense, Rethinking and Rejection of Sufism in the Modern
World (Richmond, Surrey, UK: Curzon Press, 1999).
4 For examples of Sufi-led resistance to European colonial encroachment, see Julia A. Clancy-Smith,
Rebel and Saint: Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters (Algeria and Tunisia, 1800 –
1904) (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994); Anna Zelkina, In Quest for God and
Freedom: The Sufi Response to the Russian Advance in North Caucasus (London: Hurst and Company,
2000). For a view that questions the Sufi dimension of such resistance, see Michael Kemper,
Herrschaft, Recht und Islam in Daghestan: von den Khanaten und Gemeindebünden zum GihAd-Staat
(Weisbaden: Reichert, 2005). For the European creation of a fanatical image of Sufism, see
Jean-Louis Triaud, La légende noire de la Sanusiyya. Une confrérie musulmane Saharienne sous le regard
français 1840–1930 (Editions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme: Paris, 1995).
5 Ahmad Dallal,“The Origins and Objectives of Islamic Revivalist Thought, 1750–1850.” Journal
of the American Oriental Society 113.3 (1993): 341–59; and Basheer M. Nafi, “A Teacher of Ibn
vAbd al-Wahh-b: Muhammad Hay-t al-Sindi and the Revival of AshAb al-Hadith’s Methodology.”
Islamic Law and Society 13.2 (2006): 208–41.
6 On such movements, see Ahmet T. Karafmustafa, God’s Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the
Islamic Later Middle Period 1200–1550 (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 1994).
7 Louis Massignon, La Passion de Husayn Ibn Mansûr HallAj, martyr mystique de l’Islam, exécuté à
Bagdad le 26 mars 922: étude d’histoire religieuse (Paris: Gallimard, 1975, new edition).
© Blackwell Publishing 2006
Religion Compass 1/1 (2007): 148–164, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2006.00011.x
160 . Paul L. Heck
8
Louis Massignon, Essai sur les origines du lexique technique de la mystique musulmane (Paris: P.
Guenther, 1922).
9 The Nurcu group has been referred to as crypto-Sufism by Thierry Zarcone,“The Transformation
of the Sufi Orders in the Turkish Republic and the Question of Crypto-Sufism.” In Jayne
L. Turner, ed., Cultural Horizons: A Festschrift in Honor of Talat S. Halman (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse
University Press, 2001). Indonesia is another place where Sufism is being revitalized and
reformulated. See Julia Day Howell, “Sufism and the Indonesian Revival,” The Journal of Asian
Studies 60.3 (2001): 701–29.
10 For the Nurcu group, see M. Hakan Yavuz, “Towards an Islamic Liberalism? The Nurcu
Movement and Fethullah Gülen.” The Middle East Journal 53.4 (1999): 584–605. For the Tablighi
group, see Yogander Singh Sikand, The Origins and Development of the Tablighi Jamavat (1920–
2000): A Cross-Country Comparative Study (Hyderabad, India: Orient Longman, 2002).
11 R. S. O’Fahey and Bernd Radtke,“Neo-Sufism Reconsidered.” Der Islam 70 (1993): 52–87.
12 In the hopes of defending traditional Sufism, some scholarship tends to reify it. A recent work
with that tendency is Scott Kugle, Rebel Between Spirit and Law. Ahmad Zarruq, Sainthood, and
Authority in Islam (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2006).
13 Paul L. Heck, “Mysticism as Morality: The Case of Sufism,” Journal of Religious Ethics 34.2
(2006): 253–86.
14 For this kind of Sufism, see David Westerland, ed., Sufism in Europe and North America (London:
RoutledgeCurzon, 2004).
15 For the sociopolitical dimension of Sufism, see Paul L. Heck, ed., Sufism and Politics, forthcoming
in 2006 as an issue of Princeton Papers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (Princeton,
NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers).
16 Rachida Chih, Le soufisme au quotidien: Confréries d’Egypte au xxe siècle (Paris: Sindbad, 2000)
320–342.
17 For example, R. S. O’Fahey, Enigmatic Saint: Ahmad ibn Idris and the Idrisi Tradition. (Evanston,
IL: Northwestern University Press, 1990); Knut S. Vikør, Sufi and Scholar on the Desert Edge:
Muhammad b. wAli al-Sanusi and his Brotherhood (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press,
1995); Mark Sedgwick, Saints and Sons: The Making and Remaking of the Rashidi Ahmadi Sufi Order,
1799–2000 (Leiden,The Netherlands: Brill, 2005).
18 For the most recent treatment of sainthood, with useful biographical references, see Ahmet T.
Karamustafa, “Wal-ya According to al-Junayd (d. 298/910).” In Todd Lawson, ed., Reason and
Inspiration in Islam: Theology, Philosophy and Mysticism in Muslim Thought. Essays in Honour of Hermann
Landolt (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005).
19 Michael, Chodkiewicz, Seal of the Saints: Prophethood and Sainthood in the Doctrine of Ibn wArabi
(Cambridge, UK: The Islamic Texts Society, 1993).
20 See Anna Suvorova, Muslim Saints of South Asia: The Eleventh to Fifteenth Centuries (London:
RoutledgeCurzon, 2004).
21 It has not been possible here to discuss the important issue of gender and Sufism. For one study,
see Jamal J. Elias, “Female and Feminine in Islamic Mysticism,” The Muslim World 78.3 –4 (1988):
209–24.
22 Christopher Melchert,“The Han-bila and the Early Sufis.” Arabica 48.3 (2001): 352–367.
23 Paul L. Heck,“Mysticism as Morality: The Case of Sufism.”
24 See Victor Danner, “The Necessity for the Rise of the Term S0fi.” Studies in Comparative
Religion 6.2 (1973): 71–77.
25 Christoph Melchert,“The Transition from Asceticism to Mysticism at the Middle of the Ninth
Century C.E.,” Studia Islamica, 83 (1996): 51 – 70; and Jacqueline Chabbi, “Remarques sur le
developpement historique des mouvements ascetiques et mystiques au Khorasan III/IX siècle,”
Studia Islamica 46 (1977): 5–72.
26 Carl W. Ernst, Words of Ecstasy in Sufism (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press,
1985).
27 On messianism in Islam, see Shahzad Bashir, Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions: The Nurbakhshiya
Between Medieval and Modern Islam (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2003). For
messianism at the service of rebellion, see Ahmet Yasar Oçak, La révolte de Baba Resul, ou, La
formation de l’hétérodoxie musulmane en Anatolie au XIIIe siècle (Ankara, Turkey: Société turque
d’histoire, 1989).
28 Malika Zeghal, Les Islamistes Marocains. Le défi à la monarchie (Paris: La Découverte, 2005).
© Blackwell Publishing 2006
Religion Compass 1/1 (2007): 148–164, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2006.00011.x
Sufism – What Is It Exactly? . 161
29
Christopher S. Taylor, In the Vicinity of the Righteous. Ziy-ra and the Veneration of Muslim Saints
(Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1999); and Josef W. Meri, The Cult of Saints among Muslims and
Jews in Medieval Syria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
30 Bruce G. Privratsky, Muslim Turkistan: Kazakh Religion and Collective Memory (Richmond, Surrey,
UK: Curzon Press, 2001).
31 For Sufism in Egypt, see Valerie J. Hoffman, Sufism, Mystics, and Saints in Modern Egypt
(Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1995); and Julian Johansen, Sufism and Islamic
Reform in Egypt: The Battle for Islamic Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
32 For “oneness of existence,” see William C. Chittick, “Wahdat al-Wujûd in Islamic Thought.”
Bulletin of the Henry Martyn Institute of Islamic Studies 10 (1997): 7–27. For Ibn vArabi’s thought in
general, see idem, Imaginal Worlds: Ibn al-vArabi and the Problem of Religious Diversity (Albany, NY:
State University of New York Press, 1994).
33 Another important Sufi-related philosophy is illuminationism (ishrAq).
34 For Sirhindi, see J. G. J. ter Haar, Follower and Heir of the Prophet: Shaykh A[mad Sirhindi (1564–
1624) as Mystic (Leiden: Het Oosters Instituut, 1992); for Wali All-h, see J. M. S. Baljon, Religion
and Thought of Shah Wali AllAh Dihlawi, 1703–1762 (Leiden,The Netherlands: Brill, 1986).
35 The question of skepticism in classical Islam and the many responses to it, including the Sufi
one, is a current project of this author. As first stage of the project, see “Paul L. Heck,The Crisis
of Knowledge in Islam (I): The case of al-v*miri,” Philosophy East and West 56 (2006): 106–135.
36 See Carl W. Ernst (trans.), RuzbihAn Baqli: Mysticism and the Rhetoric of Sainthood in Persian Sufism
(Richmond, Surrey, UK: Curzon Press: Richmond, 1996).
37 Richard W. Bulliet, Islam: The View from the Edge (New York: Columbia University Press,
1994). We still await a proper treatment of the concept of the institutional nature of Sufism.
38 Bruce B. Lawrence, “The Early Chishti Approach to Sam-,” In M. Israel and N. K. Wagle,
Islamic Society and Culture (New Delhi: Manohar), 69 –93; and J. G. J. ter Haar, Follower and Heir
of the Prophet: Shaykh A[mad Sirhindi (1564–1624) as Mystic (Leiden: Het Oosters Instituut, 1992).
39 Knut S.Vikør, “Jih-d in West Africa: A Global Theme in a Regional Setting.” In Leif Manger,
ed., Muslim Diversity: Local Islam in Global Contexts (Richmond, Surrey, UK: Curzon Press, 1999);
and Ali Salih Karrar, The Sufi Brotherhoods in the Sudan (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University
Press, 1992).
40 Barbara Daly Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900 (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1982).
41 For example, see Matthijs Van Den Bos, Mystic Regimes: Sufism and the State in Iran, from the
Late Qajar Era to the Islamic Republic (Leiden,The Netherlands: Brill, 2002).
42 Raymond Lifchez, The Dervish Lodge: Architecture, Art, and Sufism in Ottoman Turkey (Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press, 1992).
43 Ethel Sara Wolper, Cities and Saints: Sufism and the Transformation of Urban Space in Medieval
Anatolia (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003).
44 Bruce G. Privratsky, Muslim Turkistan: Kazakh Religion and Collective.
45 On the role of Sufism in reformist, even Salafi currents, see Itzchak Weismann, Taste of Modernity:
Sufism, Salafiyya, and Arabism in Late Ottoman Damascus (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2001);
and idem, “The Politics of Popular Religion: Sufis, Salafis, and Muslim Brothers in 20th-century
Hamah,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 37 (2005): 39–58.
46 For Senegal, see Donal B. Cruise O’Brien, Symbolic Confrontations: Muslims Imagining the State
in Africa (New York: Palgrave, 2003). For Turkey, see Thierry Zarcone, La Turquie moderne et
l’islam (Paris: Flammarion, 2004). For other examples of Sufism in national politics, see Kathering
Ewing, “The Politics of Sufism: Redefining the Saints of Pakistan.” The Journal of Asian Studies
42.2 (1983): 251–268; and Galina M. Yemelianova, “Sufism and Politics in North Caucasus.”
Nationalities Papers 29.4 (2001): 661–668.
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Religion Compass 1/1 (2007): 148–164, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2006.00011.x