XLIX.—SUFI′ISM, OR MYSTICISM.
The term Súfí is said to be derived from the Arabic Súf, "wool," on account of the woollen garments worn by the Eastern ascetics; or from the Persian Sáf, "pure," with reference to the Sufiistic effort to attain to metaphysical purity ; or from the Greek, σοφια, "wisdom," i. e. the true wisdom, or knowledge.
Tasawwaf, or Sufíism, appears to be. but the Muslim adaptation of the doctrines of the Vedanta school, which we also find in the writings of the old academies of Greece, and which Sir William Jones thought Plato learned from the sages of the East.
The Súfís are divided into innumerable sects; but although they differ in name, and in some of their customs, they are all agreed in the principal tenets, especially those which inculcate the absolute necessity of blind submission to an inspired teacher, or Murshid. They believe that God only exists. He is in all things, and all things in Him, and all created beings visible and invisible are an emanation from God, and not really distinct from Him. That the soul of man existed before the body in which it is confined as in a cage. The great object of the Súfí being to escape from the trammels of humanity, and to return to the bosom of divinity, whilst the teachings of their mystic creed are supposed to lead the soul onward, stage by stage, until it reaches the goal—perfect knowledge.
The natural state of every Muslim is Násút, in which state the disciple must observe the precepts of the law, or Shariʾat; but, as this is the lowest form of spiritual existence, the performance of the journey is enjoined upon every searcher after Truth.
The following are the stages (Manzil) which the Súfí has to perform. Having become a searcher after God (Tálib), he enters the first stage of ʾUbúdíyat, "service." When the Divine attraction has developed his inclination into the love of God, he is said to have reached the second stage of ʾIshaq, "love." This Divine love, expelling all worldly desires from his heart, he arrives at the third stage of Zudh, "seclusion." Occupying himself henceforward with contemplation and the investigations of the metaphysical theories concerning the nature, attributes, and works of God, which are the characteristics of the Sufi system, he reaches the fourth stage of Mʾarifat, "knowledge." This assiduous contemplation of metaphysical theories soon produces a state of mental excitement, which is considered a sure prognostication of direct illumination from God. This fifth stage is called Wajd, "ecstasy." During the next stage he is supposed to receive a revelation of the true nature of the Godhead, and to have reached the sixth stage of Haqíqat, "truth." The next stage is that of Wasl, "union with God," which is the highest stage to which he can go whilst in the body; but when death overtakes him, it is looked upon as a total re-absorption into the Deity, forming the consummation of his journey and the eighth and last stage of Faná, "extinction." That stage in which the traveller is said to have attained to the love of God, is the pot from which the Sufiistic poets love to discuss the doctrines of their sect. The Sálik, or traveller, is the Lover (ʾA′shiq), and God is the Beloved One (Mʾashuq). This Divine love is the theme of most of the Persian and Pushtu poems, which abound in Sufistic expressions which are difficult of interpretation to an ordinary English reader. For instance, Sharáb, "wine," expresses the domination of Divine love in the heart. Gísú, "a ringlet," the details of the mysteries of Divinity. Mai Khána, "a tavern," a stage of the journey. "Mirth," "wantonness," and "inebriation," signify religious enthusiasm and abstraction from worldly things.
The eight stages which we have given are those usually taught by Súfí teachers in their published works; but in North India we have frequently met with persons of this sect, who have learnt only the four following stages:—
The first, Násút, "humanity," for which there is the Shariʾat, or law. The second Malakút, "the nature of angels," for which there is Taríqat, or the pathway of purity. The third is Jabarút, "the possession of power," for which there is Mʾarifat, or knowledge. And the fourth is Láhút, "extinction," for which there is Haqíqat, or truth.
The Súfí mystic seeks, by concentration of his thoughts and affections on God, to lose his own identity; and the following fable, related by Jalál-ud-dín, the author of the Masnawí,[1] illustrates their views on the subject. It represents Human Love seeking admission into the Sanctuary of Divinity:—
"One knocked at the door of the Beloved, and a voice from within inquired 'Who is there?' Then he answered, 'It is I.' And the voice said, 'This house will not hold me and thee.' So the door remained shut. Then the Lover sped away into the wilderness, and fasted and prayed in solitude. And after a year he returned, and knocked again at the door, and the voice again demanded, 'Who is there?' And the Lover said, 'It is Thou.' Then the door was opened."
In Professor Max Müller's address to the Aryan section of the International Congress of Orientalists assembled in London, in September, 1874, he said:—"We have learnt already one lesson, that behind the helpless expressions which language has devised, whether in the East or the West, for uttering the unutterable * * * there is the same intention, the same striving, the same stammering, the same faith. Other lessons will follow, till in the end we shall be able to restore that ancient word which unites not only the East with the West, but with all the members of the human family, and may learn to understand what a Persian poet meant when he wrote many centuries ago:—'Diversity of worship has divided the human race into seventy-two nations. From all their dogmas I have selected one—the love of God.'"
By "the seventy-two[2] (seventy-three?) nations," are doubtless meant the number of sects into which Muhammad said Islám would be divided; but the learned Professor surely cannot be ignorant of the fact that the "love of God," selected by the Persian poet, as the dogma par excellence, is the ʾIshaq, or second stage of the Sufiistic journey. Only those who have conversed with Súfís on this mystical love can well realize how impossible it is for the Christian to reconcile that practical love of God, which "gave His only begotten Son," and that practical love to God, which is shown by keeping His commandments, with that mystical love, or ʾIshaq, which is the subject of Súfí divinity.
- ↑ The Masnawí is the celebrated book of the Súfí mystics which, it is said, takes the place of the Qurán amongst the majority of people in Persia.
- ↑ Muhammad said that, as the Jews had been divided into seventy-one sects, and the Christians into seventy-two, the Muslims would be divided into seventy-three, that is seventy-two in addition to the "orthodox," or Nájíah sect, each sect, of course, claiming to be Nájíah.