Sufism: The Mystic Tradition of Islam

FOR THESE who have heard of the Sufis, the first thing that typically comes to mind is the whirling dervishes in their camel-hair hats and their white twirling skirts. Others recognize that it has something to do with Islam and perhaps that the gyration has some sort of spiritual significance, but little more is known than that. Most would probably be surprised to learn that not all Sufis are whirling dervishes. In fact, the thing that most characterizes Sufis, whirling or otherwise, is the path of devotion they take toward union with the Divine; in short, Sufis constitute the “mystical core of Islam” (Loutfy 144).

This orthodox Muslim faith is characterized by the Five Pillars, which include the confession of faith (“There is no God but Allah,[1] and Muhammad is his prophet”), prayer, charity, fasting, and the pilgrimage to Mecca. As with all Muslims, most Sufis embrace these tenets, but venture beyond them to esoteric practices as well (Loutfy 145), sometimes subtly reinterpreting them in the process. Put another way, Islam may be (though does not have to be) viewed as a primarily external path of devotion to Allah, whereas virtually all forms of mysticism, including Sufism, are overtly internal in their focus, desiring nothing short of complete union with God: God and the soul united as one. Sufism, then, is not content to follow the external path of devotion to Allah, but desires spiritual union with him in a life centered primarily inward such that the invisible is always brought to bear upon the visible.

Historically, Sufism grew as a corrective both to the excessive legalism emphasized by the mullahs (Muslim clerics) on the one hand and the increasing decadence of the Muslim empire on the other; it also formed a middle ground between those parts of the Qu’ran that characterize Allah as an omnipotent ruler and judge and those that describe him as being nearer to humanity than breath, desirous of living within the human heart (Zeidman). What is more, it also incorporated elements it borrowed from the traditions of its conquered peoples; Zeidman includes “Jewish, Christian, Gnostic, Hellenistic, Zoroastrian and Hindu” in his list of contributors. This syncretism could easily explain why critics tend to ridicule Sufism as not authentically Islamic, though its core is nevertheless firmly rooted in the tradition beginning with the Prophet Muhammad and the teachings attributed to his name.

Whatever its history, the path of the Sufi is one that involves self-discipline and self-mastery: a day-by-day immersion in the Absolute and an increasing awareness of the self. Twelfth-century Sufi philosopher Al-Ghazzali (1058–1111) characterizes this approach to life with an extended metaphor: a child cannot ever fully grasp what it means to be a full-grown adult, a common man cannot conceive of the attainments of a great scholar, and the great scholar has no way of understanding the consciousness of a fully enlightened Sufi (Loutfy 145). In time, of course, each could become the other, but while each remains in the lower state, understanding is not possible. And even within Sufism, there are different levels of attainment, always leaving open the temptation of spiritual pride, perhaps one of the greatest downfalls of an overtly mystical emphasis.

Sufis come in many varieties and we have said that not all of them are of the spinning sort. For example, in the Central Asian Republic of Tajikistan—bordered by China and Afghanistan and formerly a part of the Soviet Union until 1991—two primary Sufi orders coexist, namely the Naqshbandiyya and the Qadiriyya (Arabov 345). The Naqshbandiyya, the newer, larger, and more prominent order, do not perform the public invocations to God known variously as dhikr or zkir (of which the twirling is often a highly visible part), instead performing the silent version known as zikr khafi (Arabov 345; “Zikr”). The high-profile sheihk (or spiritual guide) Ishan[2] Zubaydulla believes that the silent zkir is superior because it does not necessitate a teacher and can be performed anywhere without accessories as an act of spiritual devotion (Arabov 345, 347). The Qadiriyya, however, practice the zikr jali (or “loud zikr”) with its dancing and chanting; according to a young devotee who was interviewed, they see the public manifestation as a means of both drawing followers and giving the common people a spiritual focus to help them purify their hearts and minds (Arabov 345).

Spinning Sufis in general, at least outside of Tajikista, are expressly part of a tradition in which the love of the Divine predominates. Rabi’a al-Adawiya (d.801) was a woman from the city of Basra in Iraq who was motivated neither by heavenly reward nor fear of hell but rather by sheer devotion to God himself. It was she who introduced the theme of Divine Love into the Sufi order and it soon became a dominant feature of Sufism (Zeidman). Not surprisingly, mystical poetry began to circulate in which the central motif extolled the virtues of Divine Love. The Sufi poet and philosopher Jalal ad-Din Rumi (1207–1273) in particular was a venerated master—he was even named “Mawlana” meaning “our Lord or Teacher” (Zeidman)—and his Mathnawi-i-Maanwi (“Couplets of Inner Meaning”) with its over 20,000 rhyming lines has sometimes been described as “The Qu’ran in Persian Tongue,” its blend of everyday elements and depth of spiritual insight an inspiration to countless devotees (Loutfy 145). However, what Rumi is perhaps best known for is establishing the Mevlevi Order of the Sufis, better known as the Whirling Dervishes: we have now arrived at the most familiar aspect of Sufism to the curious Westerner.

To such a one, the etymology of the word “dervish” might come as a surprise. “Dervish” derives from Turkish derviş, itself a derivation of Persian darvīš meaning “poor, mendicant” and often encompassing connotations of a wanderer as well. At least figuratively, the whirling dervishes then are whirling paupers whose rising skirts represent the shedding of sins: spiritual pilgrims with no extra baggage whose canopy is the stars and whose panoply stretches as far as the green grass and hot desert sands. In fact, poverty actually plays a significant part in Sufi spirituality, for a bit like St. Francis of Assisi to Christianity, al-Adawiya and Rumi extolled the virtues of poverty in Sufism, placing an emphasis not only on material poverty but also on its spiritual counterpart until nothing is left but God: until nothing is left but the joyful response of a heart free and overflowing with Divine Love. Nothing weighs such a heart down, having escaped its earthly fetters. And it so happens, spinning was one of the spontaneous overflows of love and gratitude that Rami experienced when contemplating his Creator; his followers developed this display into a ceremonial feat of song and dance known as sama, or “listening,” in which the mental faculties are finely focused, a state of heightened receptivity is entered into, and ultimately wajd (“finding”) is experienced: a finding and then merging with God, if only for a time (LaMothe 64).

When the dervishes enter the sacred space, they are wearing black outer robes signifying the “tomb of the ego”; their “tall camel-hair hat . . . the tombstone” (Goddard H01). While performances may differ, often a sole ney, or flute, accompanies the dance, suggestive of the very soul of the universe (ibid.). Three times the dervishes circle counterclockwise—the direction pilgrims encircle the Kaaba and the planets orbit the sun—and then receive a blessing and a kiss from the shaykh or teacher (Lamothe 64; Safieddine). Rotations complete, they cast aside their black cloaks—the nafs or ego to which they must die—to reveal the purity of white floor-length robes beneath that began to swell into graceful bells as first the right foot steps across the left and then the left circles to meet the right, right, then left, right, then left, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out (Lamothe 64). Their right hand is open, palm upward; their left hand is open, palm downward: “From God we receive,” explained guide Nurretin Bayral of the upturned hand, “to humankind we give” of the other: “we keep nothing for ourselves” (Goddard H01).

Hicham Safieddine puts a particularly compelling frame around this scene when he talks to the forty-seven-year-old dervish Hani Mohammad Ameen, a student of the art for almost forty years. In some ways Ameen is not the typical dervish: for nearly the past two decades of his career, he has toured with a troupe in Egypt whose purpose is to preserve what is fast becoming a dying tradition, far too often deemed heretical by fundamentalist Islam, sharing it with the outside world as well as those who still proudly preserve the name Sufi. Assembled in 1988 by the Egyptian ministry of culture, Al-Tannura, as the troupe is called, is comprised of dervishes whose only formal training has been that of the cultural heritage conferred on them by their fathers who taught them the art of the dance. Their performances are free and are one of the most popular attractions in Cairo; they have also traveled to over thirty countries including Canada, sharing their art and spirituality with the world. The Al-Tannura wear hand-sewn variegated skirts that integrate all the colors of the various orders of the dervishes, representative of the different centers of spiritual consciousness (Safieddine).

Ameen, alone, is the sun at the center, his junior associates the planets orbiting this rotating sphere. “When I spin,” says Ameen, “I am in a completely different state of mind, far away from this world, as if I am swimming in the sky. And the more I spin, the lighter I become, just like when you spin a ball in your hand and you feel its weight is diminishing” (ibid.). Ameen has gone far beyond the usual and performs a spiritual showstopper, in which he unties his skirt and raises it by degrees, representative of the shedding of his sins. Ameen—now in a trance-state, the smile of serenity on his face, bare feet mesmeric in syncopated rhythm, one foot keeping time, then the other, then the one, the skirt now a floating sun disk above his head, twirling, twirling—folds the skirt and gives it a gentle toss to one of the musicians, never stopping until his forty minutes alone with his fellows and God is finished. But he does not get dizzy, even when he twirled for a full hour and a half in India in the mid part of 1995. “When you start spinning at a young age, you actually get dizzy and fall off repeatedly, sometimes even throwing up. But within a year or so, you begin to feel your brain and eyes becoming somewhat unaffected by the movement of the rest of your body, and that is when you know you have begun to master the spin” (Safieddine). For Ameen, the dance not only connects him to God for whom his soul was created, but sends a powerful message of love and tolerance all too often unheard in the Islamic world.

In sum, Sufism has many faces for many are the creations of Allah who alone is one. Yet in the hearts and minds of countless persons, the whirling dervishes are the most vivid and metaphoric embodiment of the cosmic dance between humanity and its Creator: a sama centered in love and self-surrender in which the soul, like the skirt in which it is clothed, begins to float free, rising higher and higher, forming a picture of exquisite grace and beauty, a bit like heaven on earth.