by Reza Aslan
Kais was mad, it is true. But what is madness? Is it to be consumed by the flames of love? Is the moth mad to immolate itself in the fires of its desire? If so, then yes, Kais was mad. Kais was Majnun.
Clad in rags and stripped of his sanity, Majnun left the city and wandered aimlessly through the mountains and wastelands of the Hijaz, composing mournful odes to his absent beloved. He was homeless and tribeless, an exile from the land of happiness. Good and evil, right and wrong, no longer had any meaning for him. He was a lover; he knew nothing but love. He abandoned reason and lived as an outcast in the desert, his hair filthy and matted, his clothes tattered.
In his madness, Majnun came to the Ka‘ba. Pushing through the crowd of pilgrims, he rushed at the sanctuary and hammered upon its doors, shouting, “O Lord, let my love grow! Let it blossom to perfection and endure. Let me drink from the wellspring of love until my thirst is quenched. Love is all I have, all I am, and all I ever want to be!”
The pilgrims were appalled. They watched as he fell to the ground, heaping dust on his head, cursing himself for the weakness of his passions.
Majnun’s actions shamed his family and tribe, but he himself knew no shame. When he heard of Layla’s arranged marriage to a man of untold wealth named Ibn Salam, Majnun lost all sense and reason. Tearing off his clothes, he crawled naked through the wilderness like an animal. He slept in ravines with the beasts of the desert, eating wild plants and drinking rainwater. He grew famous for his love. People from all over the land sought him out, sometimes sitting with him for hours as he spoke of his beloved Layla.
One day, while he was idly reciting his verses to a captive audience, a scrap of paper, borne by the wind, landed on his lap. On it were written two words: “Layla” and “Majnun.” As the crowd watched, Majnun tore the paper in half. The half on which was written “Layla” he crumpled into a ball and threw over his shoulder; the half with his own name he kept for himself.
“What does this mean?” someone asked.
“Do you not realize that one name is better than two?” Majnun replied. “If only you knew the reality of love, you would see that when you scratch a lover, you find his beloved.”
“But why throw away Layla’s name and not your own?” asked another.
Majnun glowered at the man. “The name is a shell and nothing more. It is what the shell hides that counts. I am the shell and Layla is the pearl; I am the veil and she is the face beneath it.”
The crowd, though they knew not the meaning of his words, were amazed by the sweetness of his tongue.
Meanwhile, trapped by the restrictions of her tribe and forced to marry a man she did not love, Layla was plunged into a lonely darkness. She suffered as deeply as Majnun but did not have his freedom. She too wanted to live with the beasts of the desert, to declare her love for Majnun from the tops of the mountains. But she was a prisoner in her own tent, and in her own heart. When one morning a traveling merchant brought her news of Majnun, Layla felt like a reed swaying in the wind, hollow and weightless.
“Without your radiance,” the old man told her, “Majnun’s soul is like the ocean in a winter’s night, whipped up by a thousand storms. Like a man possessed, he roams the mountainside, screaming and shouting. And there is but one word on his lips: ‘Layla.’ ”
“The blame is all mine,” Layla cried, flinging curses on herself. “I am the one who has set fire to my lover’s heart and reduced his being to ashes.” Desperate, she removed the jewels from her earrings and handed them to the old merchant. “These are for you. Now go to Majnun and bring him here. I only want to see him, to look upon his face for a little while, to bathe in the light of his countenance for but a moment.”
The old man agreed. For days he searched the desert for Majnun. When he finally found him, he relayed Layla’s message. “Could you not bring yourself to break your vows of separation from the world to look upon her tearful face, just for a second?” he pleaded.
“Little does anyone understand me,” Majnun thought. “Do they not realize that their idea of happiness is not mine? Do they not see that while it may be possible for them to have their wishes granted in this life, my longing is something else entirely, something that cannot be fulfilled while I remain in this transient world?”
But Majnun could not resist the opportunity to look upon the face of his beloved. Putting on a cloak, he followed the merchant to a palm grove and hid there while the old man left to fetch Layla.
As the merchant led her by the hand to the grove, to Majnun, Layla’s entire body trembled. When no more than twenty paces separated her from her lover, she froze. The old man tugged on her arm, but Layla could not move.
“Noble sir,” she pleaded, “this far but no farther. Even now I am like a burning candle; one step closer to the fire and I shall be consumed completely.”
The old man left her and went to Majnun. Pulling him out of the palm grove, he brought the boy—his face drained of color, his eyes glass—under the moonlight and pointed him toward Layla. Majnun stumbled forward. Light from the stars peeked through the tops of the palm trees. There was a movement in the darkness, and suddenly, under the dome of heaven, Layla and Majnun faced each other.
It was only a moment: a rush of blood to the cheeks. The two lovers stared at one another, drunk with the wine of love. Yet though they were now close enough to touch, they knew that such wine could be tasted only in paradise. A breath, a sigh, a stifled cry, and Majnun turned and ran from the grove back into the desert, vanishing like a shadow into the night.
Years passed. The leaves on the palm trees lost their color. The flowers shed their petals in mourning. As the countryside turned yellow and wan and the gardens slowly withered, so did Layla. The light in her eyes dimmed, and with her final breath she breathed her lover’s name.
When Majnun heard of the death of his beloved, he rushed back home and writhed in the dust of her grave. He lay down and pressed his body to the earth as though in prayer, but his parched lips could utter only one word: “Layla.” Finally, he was released from his pain and longing. His soul broke free and he was no more.
Some say Majnun’s body lay on top of Layla’s grave for months; others say years. No one dared approach, for the grave was guarded night and day by the beasts of the desert. Even the vultures that swooped above the tomb would not touch Majnun. Eventually, all that remained of him was dust and bones. Only then did the animals abandon their master to lope back into the wilderness.
After the animals had gone and the dust of Majnun was swept away by the wind, a new headstone was fashioned for Layla’s tomb. It read:
Two lovers lie in this one tomb
United forever in death’s dark womb.
Faithful in separation; true in love:
May one tent house them in heaven above.
Sufism—the term given to Islam’s immensely complex and infinitely diverse mystical tradition—is, as Reynold Nicholson long ago observed, fundamentally indefinable. Even the word Sufi provides little help in classifying this movement. The term tasawwuf, meaning “the state of being a Sufi,” is without significance, referring as it probably does to the coarse wool garments, or suf, which the first Sufis wore as an emblem of their poverty and detachment from the world. Indeed, as a descriptive term, the word Sufi is practically interchangeable with the words darvish or faqir, meaning “mendicant” or “poor.” Some have argued that Sufi is derived from the Arabic word safwe, meaning “elected,” or suffa, meaning “purity,” though both of these must be rejected on etymological grounds. Others have suggested that Sufi is a corruption of the Greek word sophia: “wisdom.” This is also unlikely, though there is a tempting symbolic connection between the two words. For if sophia is to be understood in its Aristotelian sense as “knowledge of ultimate things,” then it is very much related to the term Sufi, just not linguistically.
As a religious movement, Sufism is characterized by a medley of divergent philosophical and religious trends, as though it were an empty caldr
on into which have been poured the principles of Christian monasticism and Hindu asceticism, along with a sprinkling of Buddhist and Tantric thought, a touch of Islamic Gnosticism and Neoplatonism, and finally, a few elements of Shi‘ism, Manichaeism, and Central Asian shamanism thrown in for good measure. Such a hodgepodge of influences may frustrate scholarly analysis, but it also indicates how Sufism may have formed in its earliest stages.
The first Sufis were loosely affiliated and highly mobile individuals who traveled throughout the Muslim Empire seeking intimate knowledge of God. As these “wandering darvishes” grew in number, temporary boardinghouses were constructed in high traffic areas like Baghdad and Khurasan where the mendicants could gather together and share what they had learned during their spiritual journeys. By the eleventh century—around the same time that the Abbasids were actively persecuting the Shi‘ah for their heterodox behavior—these boarding houses had become permanent structures resembling cloisters, a few of which gradually evolved into sophisticated schools, or Orders, of mysticism.
The Sufi Orders centered on a spiritual master who had withdrawn permanently from the Ummah to pursue the path of self-purification and inner enlightenment. Called Shaykhs in Arabic and Pirs in Persian (both of which mean “old man”), these Sufi masters were themselves the disciples of earlier, legendary masters whose unsystematic teachings they had collected so as to pass on to a new generation of disciples. As each disciple reached a level of spiritual maturity, he would then be charged with transmitting his master’s words to his own pupils, and so on. It is therefore easy to see why Sufism appears like an eclectic recipe whose ingredients have been collected from a variety of sources over a long period of time. Of course, as the Sufi master Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri teaches, “there is a big difference between merely collecting recipes and actually cooking and eating.”
Like Shi‘ism, Sufism began as a reactionary movement against both the Imperial Islam of the Muslim Dynasties and the rigid formalism of Islam’s “orthodox” learned class, the Ulama. Both Shi‘ism and Sufism vigorously employed ta’wil to uncover the hidden meaning of the Quran, both concentrated their spiritual activities on devotion to the Prophet Muhammad, and both developed cults of personality around saintly characters—whether Imams or Pirs.
But while the Shi‘ah and Sufis existed in the same spiritual dimension and most certainly influenced each other, Sufism represents a rare anti-intellectual strain within Islam dedicated solely to esotericism and devotionalism. Also, unlike the Shi‘ah, the Sufis were not interested in political power. Although they eventually entered the political realm, especially in the Indian subcontinent, the Sufi Pirs initially eschewed all temporal authority and completely removed themselves from the political and theological infighting that pervaded the Muslim community during its formative period. Instead, the Sufis strove toward asceticism and detachment from the Ummah and its worldly trappings through a life of simplicity and poverty. “If you cannot change the kings,” the Sufis argued, “then change yourself.”
In their rituals and practices, the Sufis sought the annihilation of the ego. And while this goal may be common to all mystical movements, there are a few important differences between Sufism and traditional ideals of mysticism. First, there exists in Islam a stringent anti-monasticism that permeates all aspects of the believer’s life. Put simply, Islam is a communal religion. It abhors radical and reclusive individualism. One could argue that a Muslim who rejects the Ummah is like a Roman Catholic who denies the Apostolic Church: both are deliberately separating themselves from the source of their salvation. Although most Sufi masters withdrew from society, they were not monks; their disciples were artisans, chemists, and merchants who lived and worked in the real world. A true Sufi, Shaykh Haeri writes, “does not separate the inner from the outer,” for when you “start by purifying your inner self, you end up being concerned with the outer and with society.”
Secondly, the Quran categorically derides celibacy—another common tradition in mysticism—as being against the command of God to “be fruitful and multiply.” A significant portion of the Revelation is dedicated to the strengthening and preservation of the family, which in Islam is considered to be the model for the Ummah and a microcosm of all creation. In fact, the Quran repeatedly equates filial loyalty with fidelity to God (2:83; 4:36; 6:151; 31:14). So, while there were a few notable Sufi celibates—like the famed Rabia of Basra, who despite her legendary beauty rebuffed all suitors in order to give herself completely to God—celibacy never became a widespread phenomenon in Sufism.
But perhaps the most important difference between Sufism and traditional religious mysticism is that the latter tends to remain permanently attached to its “parent” religion, while Sufism, though born from Islam, treats its parent as a shell that must be cast off if one is to experience direct knowledge of God. Put another way, the formal religion of Islam is the prelude to Sufism, rather than its prominent motif. Islam, like all religions, can only claim to point humanity to God, whereas Sufism’s goal is to thrust humanity toward God.
This does not mean that Sufism rejects Islam and its religious and legal requirements altogether. Despite the occasionally violent Shi‘ite and Sunni accusations to the contrary, Sufis are Muslims. They pray as Muslims. They worship as Muslims. They use Muslim symbols and metaphors and follow Muslim creeds and rituals. To quote the esteemed Sufi Shaykh of the Rifa’i Order in Jerusalem, Muhammad ash-Shadhili, “If you want to walk in … the Way of the Prophet, you must be a real Muslim … one who gives everything to his God to be His slave.”
That said, Sufis consider all orthodoxy, all traditional teachings, the law, theology, and the Five Pillars inadequate for attaining true knowledge of God. Even the Quran, which Sufis respect as the direct speech of God, lacks the capacity to shed light upon God’s essence. As one Sufi master has argued, why spend time reading a love letter (by which he means the Quran) in the presence of the Beloved who wrote it?
Just as all journeys must have a beginning, so the Sufi path only originates with the “outer shell” of Islam. As the Sufi passes from one stage to another on the way to “self-annihilation” and unity with the Divine, that shell must be gradually discarded, for, as Majnun said, “It is what the shell hides that counts.” Sufis believe that reason and theology, creed and ritual, law and its commandments, all must be replaced in the soul of the enlightened person with the supreme virtue: love.
It is not surprising that most Muslims have historically regarded Sufism with suspicion. The Sufi assertion that human reason cannot fathom the Divine, that such knowledge can come only from intuitive perception of ultimate reality, naturally infuriated the religious authorities. It did not help matters that the Sufis rejected the Shariah as inapplicable to their search for the secret knowledge of the inner world. As noted, Islamic law is concerned with the external (zahir) nature of faith: it is quantitative; it can be regulated. But the internal (batin) cannot, and therefore represents a grave threat to the religious authorities. Worse, by detaching themselves from the Muslim community, the Sufis appeared to be creating their own Ummah, in which the Pirs replaced the Ulama as the sole religious authorities.
In rejecting the rigidity of the Shariah and its traditional interpretations, Sufism eagerly absorbed all manner of local beliefs and customs, and became immensely popular throughout those areas of the Muslim Empire that were not dominated by Arab majorities. In India, Sufism spread like fire as it enthusiastically syncretized anti-caste Muslim values with traditional Indian practices such as controlled breathing, sitting postures, and meditation. In Central Asia, a cadre of Persian Sufis developed a wholly new scriptural canon characterized by a rich panoply of poetry, songs, and Sufi literature, which, unlike the Quran, was written in the vernacular language and easily disseminated throughout the Empire.
This brief outline of Sufism’s origins may clarify how the movement arose and spread, but it in no way explains what Sufism is. Nor could it. That is because Sufism is a religious mov
ement that can only be described; it cannot be defined.
Consider the following parable originally composed by the greatest of all Sufi poets, Jalal ad-Din Rumi (d. 1273) and recounted by Idris Shah, the Grand Shaykh of Sardana:
A Persian, a Turk, an Arab, and a Greek were traveling to a distant land when they began arguing over how to spend the single coin they possessed among themselves. All four craved food, but the Persian wanted to spend the coin on angur; the Turk, on uzum; the Arab, on inab; and the Greek, on stafil. The argument became heated as each man insisted on having what he desired.
A linguist passing by overheard their quarrel. “Give the coin to me,” he said. “I undertake to satisfy the desires of all of you.”
Taking the coin, the linguist went to a nearby shop and bought four small bunches of grapes. He then returned to the men and gave them each a bunch.
“This is my angur!” cried the Persian.
“But this is what I call uzum,” replied the Turk.
“You have brought me my inab,” the Arab said.
“No! This in my language is stafil,” said the Greek.
All of a sudden, the men realized that what each of them had desired was in fact the same thing, only they did not know how to express themselves to each other.
The four travelers represent humanity in its search for an inner spiritual need it cannot define and which it expresses in different ways. The linguist is the Sufi, who enlightens humanity to the fact that what it seeks (its religions), though called by different names, are in reality one identical thing. However—and this is the most important aspect of the parable—the linguist can offer the travelers only the grapes and nothing more. He cannot offer them wine, which is the essence of the fruit. In other words, human beings cannot be given the secret of ultimate reality, for such knowledge cannot be shared, but must be experienced through an arduous inner journey toward self-annihilation. As the transcendent Iranian poet, Saadi of Shiraz, wrote,