Speculative Mysticism
Although the mystical experience itself cannot be subjected to rational analysis or description, many so-called “speculative” mystics have tried to understand how the mystical experience is possible at all and what it can reveal about the nature of God and of the human soul. As a result, many Sufis were attracted to the new sciences and philosophy that became available as a result of the translation movement of the ninth and tenth centuries. Alchemy was highly popular among Sufis. Its practitioners were sometimes engaged in the attempt to transform base metals into gold, and they were even more concerned to transform imperfect souls into perfect ones through the spiritual discipline that alchemy offered. Some Sufis became well known for both their spiritual exercises and their elixirs.
Philosophy, however, had an even more powerful impact on the mystical expression of Islam. Certain features of Neoplatonism and of gnosticism appealed to many mystics for the same reason that they had been popular among pagans, Jews, Christians, and Muslim rationalists. Neoplatonism not only furnished the cosmology that allowed mystics to explain their progress toward union with the One in the reverse order of the emanations, but it also had a complex theory of the divisions of the human soul that enabled them to explain their spiritual progress in mastering one aspect or another of their lower selves. Gnosticism taught that spiritual elites were in possession of a special knowledge that was different from knowledge gained by the masses or from empirical observation. Moreover, this knowledge was different from (and better than) even what passed as wisdom: It was obtained by direct contact with God’s presence.
A sixteenth-century Persian painting of a Sufi pir dancing with his disciples.
Neoplatonism and gnosticism provided the framework and the concepts for the development of ideas that played an important role in Sufism for hundreds of years. A major example is the understanding of the significance of the Prophet himself. The earliest Muslims viewed Muhammad to be a prophet and a warner, but his image inevitably acquired additional characteristics due to his role as the model of the pious life. With the aid of Neoplatonic concepts, the doctrine of the preexistence of Muhammad and the concept of Muhammad as the Perfect Man emerged, developments that run parallel to the Hellenistically influenced Christian ideas of Jesus of Nazareth as preexisting Logos and Perfect Man. The doctrine of the mi‘raj, or the ascent of the Prophet to heaven (from Jerusalem), became fully developed during this time. Based on an ambiguous passage in the Qur’an (17:1), it soon was fleshed out in the Hadith and then was further elaborated among Neoplatonic Sufis. For the latter, it became a powerful paradigm for their own spiritual ascent into the presence of God.
Another legacy from Neoplatonism and gnosticism was the development of the concept of al-Qutb, “the Pole” or “the Axis,” introduced by the Sufi theoretician al-Tirmidhi (d. 932). Al-Tirmidhi (who was nicknamed al-Hakim, the term used to refer to Greek philosophers), wrote that saints, or walis, govern the universe. They are ranked in a hierarchy, according to their spiritual insight, with al-Qutb at the pinnacle. Over the next few centuries, these ideas were developed in great detail, and walis were considered to be responsible for everything that happens in this world. Several Sufi masters claimed to be the Qutb of their generation, and some Sufis believed that a Muslim had to know the Qutb of his era or be regarded as an infidel. Al-Qutb was also known as the Seal of the Saints, a concept that disturbed some ulama because it could be construed to detract from the status of Muhammad as Seal of the Prophets.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, several speculative mystics produced works that have been a source of inspiration for Sufis to the present day. Three are of particular importance for our purposes. Shihab al-Din Yahya al-Suhrawardi (1153–1191) was from the same town and had a similar name as the man who created the Suhrawardiya order, but he is nicknamed al-Maqtul (the murdered) to distinguish him from the other one. As a young man, he settled in Aleppo at the court of Saladin’s son, Malik al-Zahir. Al-Suhrawardi attempted to create a philosophical base for an Islamic mysticism that combined elements of Neoplatonism, Zoroastrianism, and gnosticism. The central theme of his work is the metaphor of God as Light. With the help of this image, al-Suhrawardi could substitute illumination for the Neoplatonic concept of emanation; both the creation and the sustaining of the universe are the result of the constant production of light that characterizes God. The mystical experience itself is understood as a process of illumination, and the soul’s fate after death depends on the degree of illumination that it obtained during life in the body.
Al-Suhrawardi was critical of Aristotelian categories, and dismissed all definitions and categories as mental constructs. For him, all reality was a single continuum, possessed with more or less of a degree of Being. God is pure Being, whereas nature has less Being. This interpretation of the universe is variously called pantheistic or monistic, for it suggests that nothing exists except God. By suggesting that the world is in some sense God, and that there is no distinction between God and His creation, al-Suhrawardi undercut a basic tenet of revealed monotheism. His ideas were too bold for the leading ulama of Aleppo, and they prevailed upon Malik al-Zahir to have him imprisoned and then killed. His ideas of Illuminationism, however, survived to influence mystics of the Persian-speaking world for centuries.
Meanwhile, in Andalus, a young man was reaching maturity who would have an even wider influence. Ibn al-‘Arabi (sometimes rendered “Ibn ‘Arabi”) was born in Murcia in 1165. Sometime between 1198 and 1201, he set out on the hajj and never returned to Andalus. He remained in Mecca for several years, and then visited many other cities over the next quarter of a century before settling in Damascus in 1223. He died in 1240. Ibn al-‘Arabi’s ambition was to give philosophic expression to the important mystical doctrines that had been developed to that point. Like al-Suhrawardi, Ibn al-‘Arabi employed ideas from gnosticism and Neoplatonism, and his erudition was formidable. His output, which included both poetry and prose, was prodigious. His writings have always been difficult to understand. Much of his work drew upon sources with which his readers were not familiar; he was fond of metaphors; and many of his ideas seem to contradict each other. As one can imagine, modern readers who grapple with his books in translation find his thought to be quite obscure. But precisely because his work combines a brilliant philosophical scheme with provocative imagery and ambiguous concepts, generations of Sufis have been able to find within his work many passages that reflect their own transcendental experience.
At the center of Ibn al-‘Arabi’s thought is a God who is inconceivable and unknowable, and whose only attribute is self-existence. And yet, God wishes to be known, and so He created the world. The universe exhibits His characteristics, serving in a sense as a mirror for His attributes. Longing to be known by individual souls, He makes His names known to us, that we may at least know Him in part. This partial self-revelation explains why each individual has a different conception of God, and why the various religions describe Him in different ways.
Just as Ibn al-‘Arabi became al-shaykh al-akbar (“Great Master”) for subsequent generations of speculative mystics, another thirteenth-century Sufi genius became known as Mawlana (“Our Master” in Persian; it is rendered Mevlana in Turkish) for the unsurpassed beauty of his poetry. Jalal al-Din al-Rumi (1207–1273) was born in Balkh, in modern Afghanistan. Leaving home just before the onslaught of Chinggis Khan, his father led his family on a circuitous route westward, eventually settling in Konya. Thus, Jalal al-Din grew up under the Saljuqs of Rum and, as a result, this poet who hailed from the eastern Islamic world has forever been known as Rumi. Rumi succeeded his father as a teacher of the religious sciences in Konya, and he also became a Sufi master, leading a circle of devoted disciples. In 1244, he met a wandering mystic named Shams al-Din, whom many found to be boorish, but in whom Rumi discovered the Divine Beloved. He became totally preoccupied with his relationship with Shams, and his family and disciples finally drove “the Beloved” from Konya.
Rumi fell into a depression, and his family summoned Shams back to the city. Rumi’s single-minded obsession resumed, however, and in desperation, his jealous disciples and children killed Shams.
The death of Shams was a life-changing event for Rumi. The experience of loss and of love turned him into a poet, and he developed a passionate interest in music and dance. He produced a collection of poetry dedicated to his beloved, and then, in 1249, he met a goldsmith whose deep spirituality reestablished for him a relationship similar to the one he had had with Shams. After the goldsmith’s death, he formed a similar relationship with Husam al-Din Chelebi. Husam became the inspiration for Rumi’s most famous work, the Mathnawi (Masnavi) which contains 26,000 couplets. The Mathnawi was inspired by the music of the world around Rumi—formal music, the music of nature, and of the everyday world of work, such as the ringing of the coppersmith’s hammer. It contains fables, stories, proverbs, and the poetic evocation of the spiritual nature of the everyday world. For Sufis of the Persian-language world, it is second in importance only to the Qur’an as an inspirational text. At Rumi’s death, Husam succeeded him as the leader of his spiritual circle and was in turn succeeded by Rumi’s son Sultan Walad. Sultan Walad created the order that became known as the Mevlevi order, better known in the West as the Whirling Dervishes, whose musical, mesmerizing dance recapitulates the ecstasy and joy of Rumi’s life and spiritual quest.
Ibn al-‘Arabi, Rumi, the Egyptian Ibn al-Farid, and other Sufi poets of the thirteenth century produced one of the most powerful literary traditions in history. Rhythmic, sensuous, lucid, and yet deliberately obscure, it has provided pleasure and spiritual inspiration (as well as having provoked a powerful opposition to it by those who sense that it goes beyond the bounds of acceptable forms of worship). Since the mystical experience cannot be described, but can only be communicated through metaphor and analogy, poetry was found to be a far more appropriate medium for it than prose. In addition, the symbols and evocative imagery that are more easily expressed through poetry can also convey the mystical perspective that transcends the categories of rational thought. In their meditations upon the divine, Sufi poets borrowed subjects and themes from secular poetry to create allegories. A discussion of divine love could include a quatrain such as the following:
Last night my idol placed his hand upon my breast,
he seized me hard and put a slave-ring in my ear.
I said, “My beloved, I am crying from your love!”
He pressed his lips on mine and silenced me.1
In much the same way that Jews and Christians have found in the Biblical Song of Songs a metaphorical expression of the love between God and humans, so Sufis found in images of human love, of nature (the rose, the nightingale, the ocean), and even of forbidden pursuits (idols, wine, taverns, and temples) ways to express the ineffable truths of God’s relationship to his creatures. The beloved represents God, and is usually portrayed in Persian poetry as a beautiful boy. Occasionally, in Arabic poetry, the beloved is a female, as in the works of Ibn al-Farid and in Ibn al-‘Arabi’s love lyrics in Mecca, composed under the spell of a young Persian-speaking lady. The idol, too, represents God; wine expresses the intoxication of God’s love; the tavern can be the divine presence (where the lover drinks the wine of God’s love); and the tavern keeper often represents the Sufi master. Puckishly, whereas the tavern and tavern keeper are positive symbols, the mosque and preacher usually represent hypocrisy or, at best, legalistic and empty religiosity. Not surprisingly, many of the non-Sufi ulama found such lyrics reprehensible, but many others found them profound, enjoyable, and inspirational. Particularly in their Persian form, they influenced the literature of Central Asia and South Asia in lasting ways.
Consolidating Institutions: Shi‘ism
The tenth and eleventh centuries were heady days politically for the Shi‘ites, for they controlled a large part of the Dar al-Islam. The Carmathians were a threat in the Persian Gulf from their base in Bahrain from the early tenth century until 1077; the Buyids ruled parts of Iraq and western Iran from 945 until 1055; the Fatimids controlled Ifriqiya and then Egypt and parts of Syria from 909 until 1171; the Isma‘ili dynasty of the Sulayhids ruled Yemen from 1063 until 1138; the Hamdanids were a northern Syrian power in the second half of the tenth century; and the Assassins were a feared presence in Iran and Syria from 1090 until 1256. In addition, small Shi’te states were scattered throughout remote areas of the Dar al-Islam.
The period also witnessed important developments in Shi‘ite theology and organization. As we have seen, this remarkably fragmented and inchoate movement coalesced into four major branches. The Zaydi community remained remarkably unchanged. Concentrated on the periphery of the major states in mountainous regions such as Daylam and Yemen, its members created small states but had little interaction with the major powers of the region. The Fatimid movement split in 1094 into the Nizari and Musta‘li branches. The Imamiya, who fragmented upon the death of the eleventh Imam in 874, regrouped by the early tenth century around the doctrine of the Occultation of the Twelfth Imam. The dissolution of the Yemeni and Egyptian Isma‘ili states in the twelfth century and the persecution of the Nizaris in the thirteenth century after the Mongol invasion left the Twelvers the largest single group of Shi‘ites.
Twelver Shi‘ites
From the 870s to the 940s, the leaders of what had been known as the Imamiya stated that the Hidden Imam was communicating with his community through certain spokesmen. Because the Hidden Imam was regarded as the twelfth and final leader of the Imamiya, the movement has become known as Twelver Shi‘ism. After about seventy years of this so-called Lesser Concealment, the doctrine changed to that of the Greater Concealment, according to which the Imam no longer has an official spokesman. The transition from the period of the Lesser Concealment to that of the Greater Concealment occurred about 941, shortly before the Buyids seized power. Under their patronage, the Twelver Shi‘ites flourished in Iraq and western Iran for a century.
During the Buyid period, Twelver scholars developed doctrines that answered some of the vexing questions that accompanied the end of the period of a present, or visible, Imam after 874. They taught that the twelfth Imam continues to provide guidance to his community despite his concealment. Although he has no single spokesman or agent, he does communicate through dreams and visions to highly-educated, spiritual ulama. When the Saljuqs conquered Baghdad from the Buyids in 1055, the leading Twelver intellectuals moved to Hilla, in southern Iraq, to escape persecution. There they developed the doctrine that the Imam had delegated his judicial authority to those who had studied jurisprudence. Thus, he continued to serve as a guide to his community, as well as to intercede with God for his followers. Because he is also the Mahdi, shortly before the Day of Judgment he will return to bring justice to this corrupt world. After a cataclysmic conflict with the forces of evil, he will rule the earth for several years. Then Jesus and the first eleven Imams will come, as well as prophets and saints who have previously brought the word of God and who have striven to establish righteousness on earth.
The doctrine of the Concealment of the twelfth Imam had important repercussions for the Twelver Shi‘ites. One was that it provided a stability to the movement that it had never previously enjoyed. During the first two centuries or more of Shi‘ite history, the Imamis had been less organized and less ideologically identifiable than the Isma‘ilis, and had actually been in danger of fragmenting irretrievably in the late ninth century. However, during the tenth and eleventh centuries, they began to rally around the doctrine of the Hidden Imam and to develop doctrines and institutions that provided them with continuity and a stronger identity.
A second consequence of the new doctrine was that Sunni persecution of the sect became less pronounced. Until the doctrine of the Occultation was developed, the various Imams had been at least potentially political as well as religious figures. Although the Imams themselves had not led political uprisings since the time of Husayn, several pro-Alid
agitators had proclaimed revolts in their name, and the Imams were suspect in the eyes of the political authorities because of these revolts and those of Zaydi activists. Any “present” or “visible” Imam would inevitably be perceived to be a political threat to the established order, and, as we have seen, several were persecuted and others died under mysterious circumstances. After 874, with the removal of the twelfth Imam from the political arena, Sunni authorities did not consider Twelver Shi‘ism to be a threat and were able to coexist with it much more easily than they could Isma‘ilism for several centuries. By the thirteenth century, Twelver Shi‘ism was clearly the strongest and largest of the Shi‘ite groups.
The Isma‘ilis
The Isma‘ilis enjoyed a period of great influence and power in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. In the first half of the eleventh century, the Fatimid empire was rivaled in the Muslim world only by the Ghaznavid empire under Mahmud. The factional conflicts and famines that began to afflict the empire during the 1060s greatly weakened it, but the schism of 1094 that resulted in the Musta‘li-Nizari rift paradoxically left the perception that Isma‘ilism was even more powerful than before. To many Sunnis and Twelver Shi‘ites, it appeared that Hasan-i Sabbah’s fortresses in Iran and Syria were simply an extension of the Fatimid state and that Isma‘ilism was poised to dominate most of the Dar al-Islam. In reality, of course, the Fatimid movement had become greatly weakened, and it was saved from disintegration only by the fragmentation of the Saljuq empire at the very time of the Fatimid schism.
A History of the Muslim World to 1405: The Making of a Civilization Page 37