by Mehru Jaffer
In Islam in the Subcontinent Annemarie Schimmel mentions that the inmates of a jamatkhana performed both personal services for the master and the cooperative management of the affairs of the monastery. The Sufis went out in search of kindling and tinder and when not engaged in other menial tasks they studied mystical texts. Their social life centred around the common hall, which, despite its modest exterior, attracted crowds of the rich and poor, wise and ignorant, in search of amulets, advice, food, or just rest. The open kitchen or langar manifested Muslim magnanimity and was revolutionary in the Hindu heartland where a common kitchen for use by members of different castes had never existed before.
For those interested in longer stays many khanqahs, which often enlarged into cloisters and monasteries, provided private cells for the purpose of solitary meditation. Some others organized discourses by experienced Sufis who talked to those still bewildered by conflicting emotions and unsure of the path they wanted to follow in life.
Under the Ghazni empire Lahore in 1031 had been bustling with intense Islamic learning and became the home of Muhammad al-Bukhari, a Sunni Muslim scholar of great repute. During this time mystical thinkers like Hujwiri ended their travels around the world to settle in Lahore to contemplate their inner selves. Hujwiri wrote the first theory of Sufism in Persian in Lahore and is to this day considered the first patron-saint of the city.
Alberuni too had lived in Lahore, in the Kitas area. He studied Sanskrit and estimated the circumference of the earth at this latitude. He wrote extensively on Hinduism and Hindu society and concluded that Hindus were entirely different from Muslims in every respect, the first and foremost difference being their language. He also noted how different their religions were, and that in a theological discussion the Hindu may argue with words but will never stake his body, soul or property on religious controversy.
The number of learned people in Lahore around the time Muinuddin visited the city a century after Alberuni was so great that out of every hundred persons at least ninety were scholars and nine out of ten were interpreters of the Quran. He decided to stay on for a few months in Lahore listening to intellectuals, discussing topics of the day, including religion and spirituality. But his real desire was to behold the heart of India.
The arrival of Muinuddin in Ajmer coincided with a hectic revival of the classical way of life dictated by the Vedas. Hindus, looking for recourse from orthodoxy, were in a liberal mood and in the process of integrating ideas from Buddhism and Jainism into their life. The new Muslim masters too were less interested in forcing the law of Islam upon the land and more in being friendly in order to consolidate their power. They were forced by circumstances to be tolerant.
But it was a time of great change in India. The old society was aching to renew itself. Islamic mystics found the atmosphere conducive to engaging in dialogue with mystic traditions of the Vedanta, especially since followers of both faiths were looking for alternatives to their religions as dictated by the respective clergy. They found it easy to begin the discourse, opening it with incorporation, which led at first to isolation, then the discovery of differences, comparisons, uneasiness, wonderment, admiration and, finally, to the promise of mutual exchange and unity.
His studies and conversations with Hindu scholars had revealed to Muinuddin the immense possibility before all human beings of realizing the truth in different ways without thinking of any one way as superior to another. He became sure that the unity of truth exists everywhere, even in the values of other faiths. He realized that the root of tolerance, so unique to Hinduism, stretches back to ancient India and that it was possible to be a Hindu whether one’s belief was in one god, many or none.
He gathered too that wisdom lay in accepting that life is far more complex than it seems, that reason is not enough to discover the truth and that the discovery of truth is not only about knowledge but also about morals held by individuals whether they are interested in discovering the truth or not.
Muinuddin was most impressed with the life of Buddha who did not claim to be a god or founder of a religion. Buddha was a Hindu by birth but rebelled against the social injustices of his time without attacking anyone; neither was he persecuted by anyone else. Be mindful of love, was the message he propagated, along with goodwill, compassion and friendliness towards all living beings.
However, Muinuddin could not reconcile the practice of religious tolerance with the intolerance of the upper castes for the majority of society, whom they considered impure and not worthy of marriage or any other social contact. How cruel it is that inequality at birth should remain a curse for an entire lifetime! Islam, in comparison, was a strict religion but did not make any social discriminations.
Muinuddin must have thought of Emperor Ashoka, who, after his conversion to Buddhism, tried to incorporate morality into governance and legitimized his rule not through descent from any divine decree but with the support and approval of the people.
The easterly winds had also carried with them songs dedicated to Shiva and Vishnu composed by devotees. The ritual-oriented classical Vedic religion with its rigid emphasis on the performance of social and religious duties according to the individual’s place in the social hierarchy had been shaken by the call of the mystical verses of the Alvar poets of Tamil Nadu. Millions had rocked to the hymns in praise of Vishnu, mainly in his later incarnations of Rama and Krishna, mainly composed by twelve saints, including a woman and some low-caste devotees, who insisted that neither caste nor gender could be an obstacle to the realization of the divine. Nammalvar, among the best-known of the Alvar poets from the seventh century, had captured the essence of Vishnu worship in hymns imagining himself as the beloved yearning for the Lord: ‘Tossing about restlessly with mind melted, singing again and again and shedding tears, calling you … and seeking you everywhere, this beautiful girl is languishing.’1
Adi Shankara, the eighth-century sage and reformer, had enriched the spiritual life of ordinary people in India within a short span of thirty-two years. He had explained the concept of advaita, or non-duality, more simply and effectively than the complicated sermons that confused common people. Shankara took the different streams of divisive arguments of the day and tied them into a colourful bouquet as a gift for people who were happy at the thought that the divine existed within them. Shankara is remembered for stating very simply that Brahman is the only truth and the world is unreal; there is no difference between Brahman and the individual self, but the union of man with God comes only after realizing the true nature of the self.
The blizzards from the west brought to Muinuddin the philosophy of Ibn Arabi, a few decades younger than Muinuddin and preaching his faith in Spain and northern Africa. Ibn Arabi said that what is left of the past is mere words and it is up to human beings to find out what traditions mean. He based his religion of love on reason and stressed that this religion is the birthright of all human beings. Ibn Arabi admitted that the divine had appeared in the innermost core of his heart to say that human beings should not despair as the mercy of the all-powerful is all-pervasive. He believed that the sacred does not dwell either in heaven or on earth, but in the heart of the beloved believer. According to him the perfect or universal man is not God but a reflection of God. Consciousness and the cosmos are separate realities but connected like two mirrors forced to acknowledge the existence of the other. The Quran says that creation comes from a single soul and Ibn Arabi understood this to mean that the perfect human being is one in whom the attributes of God are perfectly reflected.
Travelling teachers like Abul Qasim Junaid in Baghdad and Abu Yazid Bistami in Khorasan spread the word of Sufism throughout Central Asia in the eleventh century, quenching the spiritual thirst of the very rebellious Shia and Ismaili communities within Islam who were persecuted by powerful ruling dynasties of the region.
One of numerous anecdotes associated with Junaid is about a thief who sneaked into Junaid’s room and found nothing there except a shirt. The thief took the shirt and tr
ied to sell it in the marketplace the following day. An argument began as the customer asked for proof that the shirt actually belonged to the seller before he paid for it. Junaid, who was passing by, recognized his shirt and walked up to the buyer to say, ‘I am ready to testify that the shirt does belong to him.’
Junaid preached that the self is not annihilated when it becomes one with the divine. Even at the height of ecstasy when the veil between the devotee and the divine is lifted, a human being remains incapable of comprehending the fullness of truth. Fana, said Junaid, is neither incarnation nor deification but simply the longing to find one’s eternal self in God.
According to Junaid the three stages of fana include the obliteration of characteristics, the obliteration of pleasures and the obliteration of the consciousness in attaining the vision of God in the final stage of ecstasy.
To experience fana a mystic chooses a master to whom he reports all his experiences. The master offers guidance according to the individual need of the pupil so that the soul begins to purify in preparation for the spiritual journey. There are many difficulties at first, as carnal desires rebel and wrestle and prevent one from conquering pride and prejudice, lust and longing. When deeds begin to match words, thoughts intent, carnality eventually gives way to contentment. It then becomes possible to live life in harmony with the natural beat of one’s heart that is cleansed of all fear of loss and gain and ready to receive love.
At this stage it is possible to recognize whether the master is demanding obedience to him or to the dictates of the devotee’s own heart. To know this the mystic may need to fast and to meditate in silence and in isolation as he tries to blossom spiritually. Over time it is possible to differentiate between mystical experiences and disturbing hallucinations and to actually feel the warmth of the flame of love already flickering in the heart. It is only then that a human being begins to live.
Mansoor al-Hallaj, the Persian mystic and Junaid’s disciple, described his own dissolution into divine bliss when he said that he is who he loves and the object of his love is he. The mystic is extinguished by having become part of the perfect one. However, no two Sufis agree on how free the will of man is or the exact path that should be followed to comprehend the infinite.
When the mystical genius from Khorasan, Abu Yazid Bistami, cried in ecstasy that he had passed into nothingness, that only when he was no more did he come alive, the ideal of Sufism traversed unexpected heights. In contrast to sober Sufis like Junaid, Bistami, a profoundly spiritual man who had achieved an exalted state of self-awareness through austerity and meditation, introduced the concept of ecstasy or intoxication into the Sufi doctrine.
Muinuddin too must have dreamed of a world where he imagined all human beings born from a single source to be living together with minimum conflict. Muinuddin was sure at this stage in his life that the essence of the divine is love, that love is the cause of creation and a more natural emotion for human beings to practice than hate.
Like other mystics, whether Hindu or Muslim, Muinuddin did not think that there was nothing before creation. The divine was always there in a loving, primordial state of unity. ‘It was only when God desired to express this love to the “other” that humanity was created in the image of the Divine. Humanity is God made manifest; it is God objectified through love.’2
The love that Sufis advocate is a passionate, all-consuming, humbling, self-denying love, an unconditional surrender to the beloved’s will with no regard for one’s own well-being. The purpose of this love is self-annihilation, for love is the fire that wipes out the ego and purifies the soul but first the lover must flare and burn as Majnun did for Laila.
According to Farid al-Attar, the Persian poet from the eleventh century, the lover’s face is fevered and yearning. The frenzied lover is glad to set a hundred worlds ablaze. He knows not faith nor blasphemy, doubt nor certainty. To the lover both good and evil are the same and he is nothing but a living flame.
For Muinuddin the meaning of life was love for everyone and everything. Mere talk of peaceful coexistence was not enough; he inspired those around him to reveal the full magnificence of their mortal self if they were to experience joy and to share this joy with those who were shrouded in misery. He wanted human beings to glow in the fire of truth and to use spiritual light to dispel darkness and ignorance from the world. He insisted that the only mission of human beings was to serve those who were poor in spirit and in body.
The Sufi movement in India derived its strength from the best minds in both Hinduism and Islam opening their hearts to each other and agreeing that the human being is the most important reality in the universe, that the value of human life supersedes all ideology. At the core of the faith was the belief that human beings are in fact quite a wonder, a complete world in themselves, micro versions of all creation, possessing all the potential and power found on a larger scale in the universe, including the dark and the light, the bastardly and the benign, the calamitous and the calm. It looks upon negative emotions such as lust and anger as real passions which will not go away but which can be conquered and turned into a constructive passion for the sake of attaining perfection. It is up to human intelligence to prevent the conversion of the consciousness into a battleground for good and evil. It is possible to protect the self from being reduced to a ping-pong ball in the power play between the forces of good and evil in spite of being unsure of the exact purpose of life, for what a human being really is remains a mystery.
Sufi masters of the heart say that the soul is the divine spirit while the body is the outer world protecting the precious essence of life. To realize this essence, to be aware of the spark of life, is the only purpose of life. The body is made of the same material as the outer world, that is, the elements—fire, air, earth and water. The five internal faculties it possesses are thought, imagination, doubt, memory and a yearning. Together, the external and internal capabilities serve the heart and the soul of human beings. When sense and sensibilities are injudiciously directed to serve the outer world at the cost of the inner world there is confusion, turbulence and destruction. To find the right path, to stay on it by making the correct choice at every stage of life is the individual responsibility of every human being. The mystic does not separate the inner world from the outer and all rituals performed in the outer world have meaning only as long as they are followed up with a personal and inner motivation to practice goodness and kindness in actual life.
The discovery of what is morally and ethically correct and beneficial to both individuals and others comes from understanding the self through personal experience and guidance from another more experienced, and hence the significance of the spiritual guide, the Sufi master.
These were some of the ideas that perhaps preoccupied Muinuddin as he continued to live in Ajmer and chart out the principal beliefs of the Chishti way of life.
The origin of Sufism is traced to Muhammad, the founder of Islam, whose companions included a group of pious people from around the world. They met at an elevated area in front of Muhammad’s modest home, near the first mosque built by him in Medina. Those who came here daily to participate in discussions about the true meaning of the verses of the Holy Book were called ahle suffe, or the people of the platform, and are considered to be the first Sufis.
When Muhammad, the Habibullah or God’s beloved, was no more, his closest companions dispersed to travel to different parts of the world to share ideas they had discovered about the self, Muhammad and God with others who were on a similar path of spiritual progress. Already masters in ascetic and mystical practices for the purpose of freeing the mind of worldly temptations that are obstacles to the pursuit of spiritual awakening, they discovered similar impulses among wanderers in India and across Africa.
It has never been difficult for one mystic to recognize another, although it is believed that a real Sufi is recognized only by God. The most distinctive quality of a saint is self-effacement and there are many who are unaware that they are Suf
is.
The knowledge of Sufism is considered an unmediated secret between God and those chosen by him as his friends and messengers. These friends of God have special insights into the workings of the divine and on reality, knowledge that is revealed to them by God secret by secret and as a sign of their sainthood. Saints subsist on the knowledge they have acquired and live a wonderful life dictated by it. They are considered to be God’s chosen creatures and their powers to be the most potent.
The practices of different schools of Sufism may differ today but all Sufis trace their origin to the ahle suffe who eventually emerged from the core of Islam to embark on tasawouf, a journey of the heart. Their followers are those who are also in love with the intoxicating and magnificent idea of the existence of the divine.
Muslims consider Muhammad a shining example of primordial light, and Sufis look up to the Prophet as the most dazzling reflection of the Perfect One. However, Muhammad is not God. The nur or light of Muhammad is just that, a reflection of God’s light. The relationship of God to Muhammad is likened by a Sufi to the relationship of the sun, the actual source of light, to the moon or the stars that merely mirror the light of the sun.
Many Orientalists and fundamentalists have attempted to separate Sufism from Islam. But Muhammad’s sincere and lasting devotion to God, his direct experience of God and his daily routine marked by severe discipline and frequent meditations after midnight remains at the core of all Sufi practice.
However, the record of Muhammad’s life is not a mere catalogue of model behaviour to be emulated point by point. It is, rather, a collection of information that requires assessment and application in an appropriate context. No one can replicate the life of Muhammad, who is a window into moral knowledge—he not so much a person as a principle.
Mystical awareness was obvious in Muhammad’s own relationship with God. It cannot be denied that during his life the Prophet experienced the presence of supernatural powers and was chosen to reveal a new message from the divine to mankind.