Mystics and Saints of Islam Part 1

Mystics and Saints of Islam.

by Claud Field.

PREFACE

It is a custom in some quarters to represent Mohammadan mysticism as merely a late importation into Islam, and an altogether alien element in it. But however much later Islamic mysticism may have derived from Christian, Neo-platonic, and Buddhist sources, there is little doubt that the roots of mysticism are to be found in the Koran itself. The following verse is an instance: "G.o.d is the Light of the heavens and the earth. His light is like a niche in which is a lamp, the lamp encased in gla.s.s--the gla.s.s as it were a glistening star. From a blessed tree is it lighted, the olive neither of the East nor of the West, whose oil would well nigh s.h.i.+ne out even though fire touched it not! It is light upon light!" (_Koran Sura_ 24).

Indeed it seems strange to accord the t.i.tle of "a practical mystic" to Cromwell and to deny it to Mohammad, whose proclivity for religious meditation was so strong that the Arabs used to say "Muhammad is in love with his Maker,"[1] and whose sense of the "terror of the Lord" was so intense that it turned his hair prematurely white. Many of the reported sayings of the Early Companions of Muhammad show that they shared this terror. "Verily, you shall see h.e.l.l, you shall see it with the eye of certainty" says the Koran, and they thought it very probable. Thus Ali exclaimed "Alas for the shortness of the provision and the terrors of the way!" Abu'l Darda said "If ye knew what ye shall see after death, ye would not eat nor drink, and I wish that I were a tree that is lopped and then devoured."[2]

This "fear of the Lord" led naturally to an almost fierce asceticism.

Abu Bekr and Ali both founded communities of ascetics,[3] and during the first and second centuries of Islam there were many orthodox mystics.

Professor Nicholson in the work just quoted, rightly says "I do not think that we need look beyond Islam for the origin of the Sufi doctrines.... The early Sufis are still on orthodox ground, their relation to Islam is not unlike that of the mediaeval Spanish mystics to the Roman Catholic Church."

The following sketches are for the most part translations of papers by continental scholars such as Alfred Von Kremer, Pavet de Courteille, and A.F. Mehren. The essays on Ghazzali and Jalaluddin Rumi are, however, founded on original study of those writers. The translator hopes a wholesome tonic may be found in some of these Moslem mystics at a time when many "Christian" pulpits and presses seem anxious to dilute Christianity "into a presumptuous and effeminate love which never knew fear."[4]

He desires to thank the Editors of the _Expository Times_, _Church Missionary Review_, _Irish Church Quarterly_, and _London Quarterly Review_ for permission to include papers which have appeared in those journals.

C.F.

[1] Ghazzali, Munqidh.

[2] Nicholson. Literary History of the Arabs (p. 225).

[3] Tholuck. Sufismus.

[4] Sir John Seeley.

CHAPTER I

PANTHEISTIC SUFISM[5]

I.--THE IMPORT OF ISLAMIC MYSTICISM

The moral law proclaimed by Moses three thousand years ago agrees with that which governs men to-day, irrespective of their various stages of culture; the moral precepts of a Buddha and Confucius agree with those of the Gospel, and the sins for which, according to the Book of the Dead of the ancient Egyptians, men will answer to the judges of the other world are sins still after four thousand years. If the nature of the unknown First Cause is ever to be grasped at all, it can only be in the light of those unchanging moral principles which every man carries in his own breast. The idea of G.o.d is therefore not an affair of the understanding, but of the feeling and conscience. Mysticism has always so taken it, and has therefore always had a strong attraction for the excitable and emotional portion of mankind whom it has comforted in trial and affliction. Every religion is accordingly rather intended for the emotions than for the understanding, and therefore they all contain mystical tendencies. The mysticism of Islam and Christendom have many points of contact, and by mysticism perhaps will be first bridged the wide gulf which separates Islam from Christendom, and thereby from modern civilisation. Just in proportion as the various religions express the ideals of goodness and truth they approximate to one another as manifestations of the unchanging moral principle. Inasmuch as they surmised this, the Motazilites (or free-thinkers in Islam), at a time when Europe lay in the profoundest intellectual and moral bewilderment, fought for one of those ideas which, although they are quickly submerged again in the stormy current of the times, continue to work in silence and finally emerge victorious. On that day when the Moslem no longer beholds in G.o.d simply omnipotence, but also righteousness, he will simultaneously re-enter the circle of the great civilised nations among whom he once before, though only for a short time, had won the first place.

It is not perhaps too fanciful to hail, as an omen of the triumph of moral mysticism over the dogmatic rigidity of Islam, the fact that the present Sultan Muhammad V. was girded with the sword of Osman by the head of the Mevlevi dervishes, a sect founded by the great mystic teacher Jalaluddin Rumi of Iconium. Forty-three years ago a Persian Orientalist Mirza Kasim Beg wrote in the _Journal Asiatique_:--

"_L'unique voie qui dans l'Islam puisse conduire a la reforme c'est la doctrine du mysticisme._"

II.--EARLIER PHASES

The period during which the asceticism practised by the earlier Sufis pa.s.sed into the dreamy pantheism which characterises the later Sufism is the end of the third century after Muhammad. This introduced a new element into Islam which for centuries exercised a powerful influence on national culture, and is still partially operative at present. The conception of G.o.d and of the relation of the finite and human with the infinite and divine from this time onward formed the chief subject of inquiry and meditation.

The man who was destined to be the first to give those ideas, which had hitherto been foreign to Arabian Sufism, definite expression was a poor workman, a cotton-carder, bearing the name of h.e.l.laj. He was an Arabised Persian, born in Persia, but educated in Irak, where he enjoyed the privilege of being instructed by Junaid. The story of his life as handed down by s.h.i.+ah or Sunni writers has been much exaggerated. It is clear, however, that he had a great number of disciples who revered him as their spiritual guide and ascribed to him almost supernatural powers.

His ever-growing popularity much scandalised the orthodox mullahs, who moved the authorities to proceed against him, and were successful in procuring his execution 922 A.D. Before his death he was subjected to terrible tortures, which he bore with wonderful composure.

The reason of his condemnation was declared to be that he regarded himself as an incarnation of the G.o.dhead. His disciples honoured him as a saint after his death. They ascribed to him the famous saying, "I am the Truth" (_i.e._ G.o.d), which they took in a pantheistic sense. He is said to have taught the doctrine of the incarnation of the G.o.dhead in a man and to have uttered the exclamation:

Praise to the Most High Who has revealed His humanity and concealed the overpowering splendour of His Deity. Whoso purifies himself by abstinence and purges himself from every trace of fles.h.i.+ness, unto him the Spirit of G.o.d enters, as it entered into Jesus. When he has attained to this degree of perfection, whatever he wills, happens, and whatever he does is done by G.o.d.

His letters to his disciples are said to have commenced with the formula, "From the Lord of Lords to His slaves." His disciples wrote to him:

O Spirit of the Spirit! O highest Aim of the holy: We bear witness that Thou hast incarnated Thyself in the form of Hosain the cotton-carder (h.e.l.laj). We flee for protection to Thee and hope in Thy mercy, O Knower of secrets.

The genuineness of these fragments has much to support it, but is not entirely beyond doubt. This much, however, is clear, that the disciples of h.e.l.laj after his death regarded him as a divine being. Ibn Hazm, a trustworthy author who wrote only 150 years after the execution of h.e.l.laj, says so expressly. Ghazzali, who wrote about fifty years later still, does not mention this, but shelters h.e.l.laj from the charge of blasphemy by construing his exclamation "I am the Truth" in a pantheistic sense, and excuses it by ascribing it to an excess of love to G.o.d and to mystic ecstacy. In another place he says:

The first veil between G.o.d and His servant is His servant's soul. But the hidden depth of the human heart is divine and illuminated by light from above; for in it is mirrored the eternal Truth completely, so that it encloses the universe in itself. Now when a man turns his gaze on his own divinely illumined heart he is dazzled by the blaze of its beauty, and the expression "I am G.o.d!" easily escapes him. If from this stage he does not advance further in knowledge, he often falls into error and is ruined. It is as though he had allowed himself to be misled by a little spark from the light-ocean of G.o.dhead instead of pressing forward to get more light. The ground of this self-deception is that he in whom the Supernatural is mirrored confuses himself with it. So the colour of a picture seen in a mirror is sometimes confounded with the mirror itself.

h.e.l.laj was no more than the representative of an old idea, Indian in origin, which he combined with Sufism, thereby giving an entirely new direction to Islamic thought, which was important, as leading to an entirely new development of the conception of G.o.d. Even previous to h.e.l.laj, the doctrine of incarnation had emerged in Islam. The Caliph Ali was reported to have been such, and was accordingly venerated by the s.h.i.+ahs. The sect of the Khattabiyah wors.h.i.+pped the Imam Jafar Sadik as G.o.d. Another sect believed that the Divine Spirit had descended upon Abdallah Ibn Amr.

In Khora.s.san the opinion was widely spread that Abu Muslim, the great general who overturned the dynasty of the Ommeyads and set up that of the Abbasides, was an incarnation of the spirit of G.o.d. In the same province under Al Mansur, the second Abbaside Caliph, a religious leader named Ostasys professes to be an emanation of the G.o.dhead. He collected thousands of followers, and the movement was not suppressed without much fighting. Under the Caliph Mahdi a self-styled Avatar named Ata arose, who on account of a golden mask which he continually wore was called _Mokanna_, or "the veiled prophet." He also had a numerous following, and held the Caliph's armies in check for several years, till in 779 A.D., being closely invested in his castle, he, with his whole harem and servants, put an end to themselves.

Towards the end of the second century after Muhammad, Babek in Persia taught the transmigration of souls and communism. His followers, named Khoramiyyah, long successfully resisted the Caliph's troops. He claimed that the soul of an ancient law-giver named "Bod" had pa.s.sed into him, which meant perhaps that he wished to pa.s.s for a "Buddha."

It is well known that s.h.i.+te teachers were especially active in Persia.

In the apotheosis of Ali, as well as in the cases of Abu Muslim, we find an a.s.sertion of the ideas peculiar to the Persians in pre-Islamic times.

The infusion or indwelling of the G.o.dhead in man as with the Hindu Avatars was also popular, and widely spread in Persia. In Bagdad, from the time of the early Abbasides, the Persians had exercised great influence. s.h.i.+ahs were able to profess their views freely under the tolerant or rather religiously indifferent Caliph Mamoun. Bagdad early harboured within its walls a number of communities imbued with s.h.i.+ah doctrine, and the Persian conception of G.o.d silently, but widely prevailed.

h.e.l.laj, educated in the orthodox Sunni school of Junaid, which, through its laying stress on the idea of love to G.o.d, possessed rather a mystic than dogmatic character, allowed himself to be carried away by his pa.s.sionate temperament into not only preaching, but practically applying to himself the above-mentioned doctrines, which though known to many, had been discreetly veiled in reserve. When once the populace have been prepared for a new idea, the mere expression of it is sufficient to act as a spark on tinder. The fatal word was spoken by h.e.l.laj; the authorities did their duty, seized the daring innovator and put him to death in the cruel fas.h.i.+on of the time. But the word once spoken had been borne on the winds in all directions, and the execution of h.e.l.laj gave a powerful impulse to the spread of his doctrine. There are periods in the lives of some nations when the longing for a martyr's crown becomes epidemic. A few years after the execution of h.e.l.laj, a man of the people, Ibn Aby Azkyr, from the same village, Shalmaghan, where h.e.l.laj had spent his youth, gave himself out as an incarnation of the G.o.dhead. He was put to death with several of his followers under the reign of the Caliph Radhi, 933 A.D. A century after h.e.l.laj an Egyptian, Ismail Darazy, from whom the Druses derive their name, proclaimed the Fatimite Caliph Hakim to be an incarnation.

How great was the influence exercised in general by those ideas for which h.e.l.laj died a martyr's death we learn most clearly from the pages of Ghazzali, who wrote not quite two hundred years later. He says:

The speculations of the Sufis may be divided into two cla.s.ses: to the first category belong all the phrases about love to G.o.d and union with Him, which according to them compensate for all outward works. Many of them allege that they have attained to complete oneness with G.o.d; that for them the veil has been lifted; that they have not only seen the Most High with their eyes, but have spoken with Him, and go so far as to say "The Most High spoke thus and thus." They wish to imitate h.e.l.laj, who was crucified for using such expressions, and justify themselves by quoting his saying, "I am the Truth." They also refer to Abu Yazid Bistamy, who is reported to have exclaimed, "Praise be to me!," instead of "Praise be to G.o.d!" This kind of speculation is extremely dangerous for the common people, and it is notorious that a number of craftsmen have left their occupation to make similar a.s.sertions. Such speeches are highly popular, as they hold out to men the prospect of laying aside active work with the idea of purging the soul through mystical ecstasies and transports. The common people are not slow to claim similar rights for themselves and to catch up wild and whirling expressions. As regards the second cla.s.s of Sufi speculation, it consists in the use of unintelligible phrases which by their outward apparent meaning and boldness attract attention, but which on closer inspection prove to be devoid of any real sense.

These words of the greatest thinker among the Muhammadans at that time afford us a deep insight into the remarkable character of the period.

From them we gather with certainty that the division of Sufism into two cla.s.ses, one orthodox and outwardly conforming to Islam, and the other free-thinking and pantheistic, was already an accomplished fact before Ghazzali's time. We recognise also that the latter kind of Sufism was very popular among the lowest cla.s.ses of the people and even among the agricultural population. The fundamental characteristic of mysticism, the striving after the knowledge of G.o.d by way of ecstatic intuition, had already come into open conflict with the fundamental principles of Islam. "Mystical love to G.o.d" was the catchword which brought people to plunge into ecstatic reverie, and by complete immersion in contemplation to lose their personality, and by this self-annihilation to be absorbed in G.o.d. The simple ascetic character of the ancient Arabian Sufism was continually counteracted by the element of pa.s.sive contemplation which was entirely foreign to the Arab mind. The terms "ascetic" and "Sufi,"

which were formerly almost synonymous, henceforward cease to be so, and often conceal a fundamental variance with each other. We shall not go very far wrong if we connect the crisis of this intellectual development with the appearance of h.e.l.laj, so that the close of the third and commencement of the fourth century after Muhammad marks the point of time when this philosophico-religious schism was completed. In Persia the theosophy of h.e.l.laj and his supporters found a receptive soil and flourished vigorously; on that soil were reared the finest flowers of Persian poetry. From the Persians this tendency pa.s.sed over to the Turks, and the poetry of both nations contains strongly-marked theosophical elements.

III.--THE LOVE OF G.o.d AND ECSTASY

Already in the second century of Islam great stress was laid upon the cultivation of love to G.o.d, an outstanding example of which is the female Sufi Rabia. With it was connected a gradually elaborated doctrine of ecstatic states and visions which were believed to lead by the way of intuition and divine illumination to the spiritual contemplation of G.o.d.

We have already endeavoured to describe the religious enthusiasm which took possession of the Moslems in the first and second century after Muhammad and have partly traced the causes which led to this phenomenon.

Ecstasy is an invariable concomitant of religious enthusiasm. In the endeavour to break through the narrow bounds which confine the human spirit pious and credulous natures are only too easily led astray. The instruments which man has at his command when he wishes to investigate the supernatural do not suffice to procure him an even approximately correct image of the object which he would fain observe. While the optician with the aid of mathematics can reduce errors arising from the convexity of his magnifying lens to an infinitesimally small amount, the theologian has never found a device, and never will find one, to obviate the errors which arise from the fact that his intellectual insight has to be exercised through the medium of material senses, which obscure the clearness of his observation. And yet it is precisely this ceaseless striving, this irresistible impulse after something higher, this unquenchable thirst for the fountain-head of knowledge, which const.i.tutes the highest and n.o.blest side of humanity, and is the most indubitable pledge of its spiritual future. The net result of these strivings has been an endless series of self-delusions, and yet humanity takes on a grander aspect in them than in all its other manifold efforts and successes. The history of this spiritual wrestling, this hopeless and yet never relaxed struggle against the impossible, forms the n.o.blest aspect of the history of mankind.

The phenomena produced by Islam in this respect do not fundamentally differ from those produced by Christianity and Buddhism. Sufism exhibits a more remarkable development of these phenomena, simply because it grew up in an environment which favoured their more luxuriant growth.

The Koran, which Muhammad came, as he said to preach, was regarded as the very word of G.o.d, and must therefore have produced an overpowering impression on the minds of the faithful. Of this numerous instances are reported. Abd al Wahid ibn Zaid heard one day a Koran-reader recite the following verse (Sura 45: 28):--"This is Our book, which announces to you the truth; for We have caused to be recorded all that ye have done.