THE SECRET PATH: MUSLIM SUFIS, AND THE SPIRITUAL QUEST Do not attach yourself to any particular creed exclusively, so that you disbelieve all the rest; otherwise you will miss much that is good, indeed, you will fail to see the real Truth. God the omnipotent and omnipresent is not contained by any one creed, for He says in the Quran, ‘Wherever you turn, there is the face of Allah.’ – Sufi Grand Master Ibn Arabi The mysticism or esotericism (called in Arabic tasawwuf) of Islam is today identified with the Sufis (a word commonly thought to come from the Arabic suf meaning ‘wool’, after the rough woollen robe worn by early Muslim mystics). However, there are several Muslim communities, such as the Ismailis, Qarmatians, Alawis and Druze, who derive their doctrines and practices from Islamic esotericism. In the days of the Prophet Muhammad there was no sharp distinction between the esoteric and exoteric teachings of Islam. The Prophet instructed his inner circle, known as the Companions, in both the exoteric (zahir, the outer or apparent) and esoteric (batin, the inner or secret) meanings of the revelations he received from Allah. Although Prophet Muhammad, as the last of the Messengers of God, was the repository of a complete treasure of precepts, he proclaimed only some of them publicly, leaving the rest undeclared. The Prophet is said to have privately entrusted the undeclared precepts to a select few of his Companions, foremost among them Ali, “so that they would progressively reveal them at appropriate junctures according to their wisdom, whether by inferring the particular from the absolute, or the concrete from the abstract.” Soon after the death of the Prophet the Muslim community was riven with power struggles and a rising tide of legalism which sought to suppress the mystical side of Islam. In the decades following the Prophet’s death, Sufi orders grew in secret as disciples (murids) gathered around an individual master (called murshid, shaykh or pir) to receive personal instruction in esotericism. Thus the inner teachings of Islam survived to become crystallised principally in Sufism.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 17:33:24 +0000
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