In part four of a five part series at 3 Quarks Daily, Namit Arora charts the development of Sufism from the third to the the seventh century of Islamic history:
A systematic destruction of the ego (fana) and surrender of the self to God became central to the Sufi ideal: one who discards his ego to discover the divine presence at the heart of his own being would experience greater self-realization and self-control. ‘Man becomes dead unto himself and alive unto God.’ [4] Many practiced celibacy as a mystic ideal, flouting the example of matrimony set by Muhammad himself. Scholars like Majid Fakhry have noted Hindu influences on ‘this bold concept of annihilation of the ego and the reabsorption of the human in the divine’ (many early mystics in Persia had Hindu teachers).
Such views were clearly antithetical to the religious establishment, for whom there was no other God but Allah and His one revelation to Muhammad. How dare man approach God with a spirit of intimacy rather than reverence, piety, and awe? The Sufi ideal of a direct encounter with God, silently bypassing the Prophet and the Qur’an, drew further ire. It proved to be an expensive proposition: many early Sufis are known to have feigned madness to escape punishment. Sufi thought, therefore, spread slowly in the early centuries, in small circles led by sheikhs, or Sufi mystical teachers. Mainstream Sufis nominally remained within the bounds of orthodoxy to avoid the hostility of Sunni theologians, which led them to even avow that the observance of the Shari’ah was indispensable.
Early Sufis came from all schools of Islamic law and theology—Sufism had true cross-sectional appeal. But a systematic reckoning of scripture and this new spirituality had to await Muid ad-Din ibn al-Arabi’s bold and radical writings on mysticism. It was al-Arabi (1165-1240 CE) who exposed the immense chasm between orthodox faith and mysticism. Sufism, henceforth, had its own theological framework—nominally derived from the Qur’an, but inspired by, and much influenced by, far older traditions.
According to Professor Henry Corbin (1903-78), a modern scholar of Islamic mysticism, al-Arabi was ‘a spiritual genius who was not only one of the greatest masters of Sufism in Islam, but also one of the great mystics of all time.’ [5] His mysticism, says Professor Majid Fakhry, ‘culminated in a grandiose cosmological and metaphysical world-scheme, which is of decisive philosophical significance.’ [6] Much as we did for Islamic rationalism, let’s explore Sufi mysticism through the life and times of an acclaimed practitioner of the form, namely, al-Arabi.
Meanwhile, in the Guardian, Franklin Lewis has published the first two installments of what will be an eight part series investigating the enduring legacy of Rumi’s (d. 1273 CE) Masnavi-e Ma‛navi:
Rumi is thus seen, not just as an icon of Islamic civilisation (or of Afghan, Iranian, Tajik or Turkish national heritage), but of global culture. And, indeed, the popular following he enjoys in North America as a symbol of ecumenical spirituality is evident in bookstores, poetry slams, church sermons and on the internet. Some claim that Rumi is the bestselling poet in the United States, achieving great commercial success at the hands of authors who “translate” despite not speaking the original language.
Since another Persian poet, Omar Khayyam (d. 1121), once had societies dedicated to him in every corner of the Anglophone world, but is relatively little read today, we may well ask whether Rumi’s recent fame in the west represents just another passing fad. But might he have something profound to say about, not only the paradigm of new age thought and spirituality, but also the mystical traditions of the other established religions?
Read more at 3 Quarks Daily and the Guardian.