Social Scientist

The Eclectic Spirit of Sufism in India: An Appraisal

Author(s): Babli Parveen
Source: Social Scientist, Vol. 42, No. 11/12 (November–December 2014), pp. 39-46
Published by: Social Scientist
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24372901
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 The Eclectic Spirit of Sufism in India:
An Appraisal

Babli Parveen

The entrance to the shrine is situated at the extremity of a long bazaar, which
runs the whole length of the town. Several monumental gateways, marble
domes, and mosques can be seen above the exterior line of wall sand stand out
against the huge grey mountain which rises like a pyramid behind them. I went
to visit the shrine with a letter of recommendation from the governor; who
however, told me that I must not expect to be treated politely, for as a rule Eu
ropeans are not allowed to enter it. I was stopped at the first gate by a group of
sombre and fanatical-looking men, who told me, in no measured terms, that
I could go no farther without first taking off my boots. Having made up my
mind socks on my feet, I followed one of the moolahs, who offered himself as
my guide. We entered a great court paved with white material, so perfectly pol
ished that the sun shone on it as on smooth water. On all sides stood mosques
and tombs of dazzling whiteness; and in the centre, surrounded by a beautiful
group of trees, was the mausoleum, as white as its surroundings.1

Today, there is a vigorous debate raging in the Muslim countries be

tween ultra-orthodox Islamists and the Sufi groups. Even though Sufism
has become increasingly more identified with popular ritual practice than
with formal spiritual training, one sees today a tendency to question the very
premise on which it is based, namely union with God. These debates have
often taken an ugly turn in South Asia, where followers of the Deobandi
and Barelwi 'schools' are divided on the issue of tomb-worship, Sama, zikr
and music. These are integral elements in almost all the Sufi orders.2
This essay does not claim to uncover this debate: it seeks to introduce
some aspects of Sufism to the less-informed reader and underline how
Sufism needs to be interpreted in humanistic terms that materialised the
spiritual and material realms of existence. I also draw attention to how
Sufism in India adapted itself to the Indian traditions and borrowed many
practices from folk worship.
The terms Sufi and Sufism evoke complex layers of meaning, but they
are nonetheless creative manifestations of religious life in Islam. Over cen
turies, Sufism has become a distinctively Islamic way of seeking commu
nion with Allah, of achieving an intensely personal liaison with the Divine
based on realising God's attributes within oneself.3 In other words, Sufism
functions to restore to the religious life of the Muslim, the element of per
sonal communion with God which orthodox theology was squeezing out.
39

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 Social Scientist

According to al-Hasan Basri (ad 643-728),

o
<N
!_ I have not served God for fear from hell for I should be a wretched hireling if
0)
-O I served Him from fear; nor from love of heaven for I should be a bad servant
£
<u if I served for what is given; I have served him only for love of Him and desire
<J
V
of Him.4
Q
L Consumed by the fire of love for Allah, another Sufi Master Abu Bayazid
<u
_Q Bastami (d. 260) defined Sufism as 'it is to take complete refuge in the Lord
£
and to close the door of worldly comforts'.5
?
o The Quran enjoins on every Muslim, the practice of recollecting God.
Z The most crucial Quranic verse for Sufis, however, describes the establish
rs ment of the primordial covenant between God and the souls of men and
T women in a time before the creation of the cosmos. This experience of mys
tical union is a concern at a relatively early date in the writings of important
</>
o Quranic commentaries. Both the agony of separation and the exhilaration
z of union, ebb and flow throughout the poetry of Jalaluddin Rumi (b. 1207).
rM Known as tasawwuf in Arabic, the Sufi theology is mystical, aiming at a
T
personal and super-sensory experience of the passing away of the individ
5 ual ego into a divine presence. This involves meditation and prayers, service
towards Allah, and rebuff of worldly pleasures. The isolationism teaches
that men should desist not only from politics but even from administration
and public affairs. Hence, in reaction to the worldliness of the Umayyads,
individual ascetics arose to preach a return to the heroic values of the
Quran through the abandonment of both riches and the trapping of earthly
power. The three major centres of the ascetic movement in the eighth and
ninth centuries were Iraq, especially the cities of Basra, Kufa, and Baghdad;
the province of Khorasan, especially the city of Balkh; and Egypt.6
By 'contemplation' is meant spiritual vision of God in public and
private, without asking how or in what manner. There were two kinds of
contemplation. The former is the result of perfect faith, the latter of raptur
ous love, for in the rapture of love a man attains to such a degree that his
whole being is absorbed in the thought of his Beloved and he sees nothing
else. This is what Rabiah al-Adawiyah (d. 801), the first great female Sufi
argued. Union entailed the complete obliteration of the lover's soul in the
Beloved. It is so in the writings of another great Sufi, Abu Yazid al-Bistami;
according to him, complete annihilation is attainable only after the most
arduous stripping away of one's attributes.
In the end, Sufism has evolved as one of the creative manifestations of
religious life, embodying the values enshrined in the Quran and followed
by Prophet Mohammad.7 The historian Fazlur Rahman aptly remarked
that the Prophetic consciousness was founded upon very definite, valid and
powerful mystic experiences briefly described or alluded to in the Quran.8
But a Sufi saint (in Arabic wali, auliya) is not the Prophet, but as one close
40 to, a friend of or even loved by Allah.

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 The Eclectic Spirit of Sufism in India

CP
While discussing the correlation between sainthood (wilayat) and p
cr
prophethood, Islamic scholars have rejected the idea of superiority of saints
TJ
over prophets.9 Sunni Islam, in fact, presumes that prophethood was the p

pinnacle of spiritual perfection, exemplified by Mohammad. H.A.R. Gibb <

<0
n>
was, in fact, one of the early Orientalists, who argued that the concentration 3

of religious feeling upon the person of Mohammad gives it its characteristic

ethos. Indeed, his veneration has always been an integral element of Islam,
enshrined in the kalima, the basic confession of faith. There is but one God
and Muhammad is His Prophet. Among the Sufis especially there was a
cult of Muhammad, which would have contrasted oddly with their pursuit
of absorption in the Divine Essence had the two not been harmonised by a
doctrine with recognisably Gnostic affinities.10
The Prophet's confirmatory miracles separated him from saints, who
could only perform occasional, non-confirmatory feats, but his day-day to
day activities, known in Islam as sunnahi-nabi, 'the custom of the Prophet',
became the canon of correct behaviour ( adab) which every saint sought to
emulate. To substantiate this claim, it is asserted that all prophets possessed
the special gift of impeccability (ismah); above all, each had the power to
perform a unique miracle ( mujizah). Each one of them attained perfection
in religious practice as well as in the knowledge of Allah.11 The French Ori
entalist Garcin de Tassy offered his own description:

In times of distress people turn to these pirs, who during their life would help
them by praying to God on their behalf. Sometimes people go to them for
amulets, tawiz. Hindus as well as Muslims believe that tigers and leopards are
the property of these pirs that is why the natives resent the Europeans hunting
tigers. In the delta of the Ganges, called Sunderbans, one may come across
Muslim holy men who claim to possess charms against the cruelty of tigers.
These people live in miserable huts on the rivers and are greatly respected by
passers-by, Hindu, as well as Muslim, who give these holy men food and cow
ries to make them propitious.12

To Ali Ibn-i Abu Talib, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, the Sufis
trace their ancestry. This is done through a long chain of pious men who
were noted for their self-abnegation, as well as for their criticism of Sultans
and Badshahs for violating the Shariat and for establishing a state which
was inconsistent with the Islamic principles. Among them were the Ethio
pian Bilal, the Iranian Salman, and Ammar bin Yasir, and Abuzar Ghaffari,
who formed the nucleus of Medinese piety after the Prophet. One of them,
Ibrahim ibn Adham, even gave up his kingdom and joined the ranks of the
Sufis. These men established asceticism as characteristic features of reli
gious life, with an exaggerated consciousness of sin and an overwhelming
dread of Divine retribution.
Sunni-Sufi Islam rejects self-cultivation in detachment from the
world, and decries the contemplative forms of passive mysticism. The 41

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 Social Scientist

ideal is rather adab - a cultivated way of living in the world, without being
0
<N absorbed by the world or fleeing from it. It is a life journey toward self
s_
a; realisation and religious salvation that can only be achieved by cultivating
-Û
E clear vision, ethical responsibility, honourable relations with one's fellow
a>
u man, and the sincere worship. The true paideia of a Muslim, then, is the
<u
Q integration of all levels of experience, knowledge, character, feeling, and ac
1 tion into a harmonious life that leads to well-being in this world in patient
aj
XI preparation for the world to come.13 Indeed, as the centuries rolled on, the
E
early pietistic ascetism changed into what is technically known as Sufism
2
o with its proper ethos.
Z
The Sufi ideal also set itself against the rigidity of the various schools
<N of Muslim jurisprudence. It was, moreover, to teach the simple practical
I faith of Islam and the ardent love of a personal God. The following couplet
expressed their challenge to the jurists:
M
O
You cannot see God in Kanz or Hidayah,
Z
Look into the mirror of your heart, for there is no book better than this.
<N

This was a serious challenge of love and devotion to the legists' concept of
obedience and observance of the Law.
£
'Sufi' is derived from the Arabic word for wool (suf); the early ascet
ics of Islam wore coarse woollen garments to symbolise their rejection of
the world. Hasan al-Basri asserted: 'He who wears wool out of humility
towards government increases the illumination of his insight and thrust
down to hell with the devil'.14 Other etymologies suggested that Sufi came
frop the root safa, 'to be pure', or from suffa, that is, the raised platform in
the Prophet's mosque in Medina where poorer people used to sit and exer
cise devotion, or as suggested by some others that the word is derived from
the Greek sophos. The roots of the word notwithstanding, 'Sufi' evoked
complex layers of meanings.15 All said and done, Sufism is a truly popular
form of Muslim devotion, as every believer can approach some aspect of
the ideal by leading a pious life, by following the teachings of a personal
Shaykhs, and by participating in rituals at the khanqah in villages and
towns. Generally speaking, this is attributed to their aspiration for a per
sonal, direct approach to and a more intensive experience of the Supreme
Being and the religious truth. It is the spiritual flowing to the Sufi from
God which constitutes his moral authority and enables him to intercede on
behalf of the faithful and to work miracles.16
The Sufi fraternities spread ever more widely over the Muslim lands.17
Fluid interactions among Sufis soon involved more structured relationship
of master and disciple. Moreover, in course of time the stabilisation of Sufi
institutional structures took place so that by the thirteenth century many
Sufi groups became self-perpetuating social organisations whose central
focus was the founder and his teacher. They cared for the personal and
42 religious needs of the people and gave full play to their religious emotions

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 The Eclectic Spirit of Sufism in India

CO
but were generally careful to avoid a clash with the orthodox theology. p
CT
The doctors and theologians, on their side, entered freely into the Sufi
"O
orders, and these assisted to hold the balance against extreme pantheistic P
tendencies there. First and foremost is the Chishti order which was active
m
in the Hari-Rud valley of Afghanistan in about 930 AD. It was founded by n>

Abu Ishaq Shami (Syria), who brought Sufism to Chisht, some 95 miles east
of Herat. Muinuddin Chishti, a seminal personality in the development of
the Sufi movement in India, carried forward his mission. According to a
seventeenth-century account, Siyar al-Aqtab, while on a pilgrimage to the
Prophet's tomb in Medina, the Khwaja heard a voice from inside the tomb
ordering him to go to Hindustan. Accordingly, he set off on his quest of
truth. Soon, his pupils spread over the country, north, and south. They in
cluded Baba Fariduddin Masud Ganj-iShakar (1175-1265), who attracted
the masses in Pakpathan, Punjab.18 His recognition as a great Sufi saint was
visibly confirmed by the official recognition given by the Delhi court and by
the magnificent tombs constructed by the sultans on the site.19 The disciples
of Nizamuddin Auliya (1238-1325) established dargahs in several regions,
but the one in Ajmer took on the special distinction of being the 'mother'
dargah of them all.
In Punjab, Bahauddin Zakariya (d. 1266) founded the Suhrawardy
silsila, and introduced the ideas and works of both Fariduddin Attar (111 9—
1190), the mystical poet, and of Ibnul Arabi (1165-1240), the apostle of
theosophical mysticism in Islam and the author of wahdat al-wujud (the
unity of witness; all is the One; the One is all).20 Says K.A. Nizami:

At a time when moral inertia and spiritual paralysis had rendered the Muslim
society invertebrate, he applied himself with great zeal to the work of reform
and regeneration. The medieval Muslim mystics accepted his Awariful Maarif
as an external manual for the guidance of silsilah.21

In general, Sufism created an irresistible pull on men's minds and won an

increasing number of the ablest intelligentsia.
Sufi preachers and missionaries promoted a cultural dialogue from the
twelfth to fourteenth centuries. In order to introduce Islam to the broad
masses of the urban population and to be understood better, they actively
made use of local religions and cultural traditions. Richard Eaton's study of
Bijapur (1490-1680) explains how the 'high' tradition of the Sufi masters
established links with the folk literature of certain Sufis. They employed in
digenous themes and imagery for the propagation not of complex mystical
doctrines, but of a simpler level of Sufi and Islamic precepts. The bulk of
this literature was sung by village women.22
In the course of this proselytising activity, certain correspondence
between the teachings of Islam and the doctrines of advaita Vedanta was
established, as also between the preaching of Sufis and Naths, Sants and
Bhaktas. Consequently, the subcontinent experienced a unique cultural 43

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 Social Scientist

syncretism by the fifteenth-century, which is known as 'mixed', 'compos

o
<N ite', 'common' culture in north India, in Kashmir, Punjab, Sind, Bengal,
L.
<1) Gujarat, and Deccan. As for the rulers, the syncretic tradition was kept
X)
£ alive by Ibrahim Sharqi, the Sultan of Jaunpur, and Sultan Zainul Abidin
<D
u of Kashmir, Ibrahim II Adil Shah of Bijapur and Mohammad Quli Qutb
OJ

Û Shah of Golkonda, Mahmud Begra, the ruler of Gujarat, and the Mughal
L emperor Akbar (r. 1556-1605).
QJ
XI Quite a few Muslim intellectuals in the twentieth century looked at
£
<u themselves critically, probing their past and exploring their present. Mo
>
o hammad Iqbal, the Urdu poet, was one of them. He shared the vision of a
Z united India - one that was free of both alien domination and inner dis

C*4 sension. He called his birth a garden where the people inhabiting it were
T members of a nation, with two circles of Islam and watan intersecting and
at several places coalescing into a coherent whole. His poem Himala is
1/J

O inspired by the beauty of his land of birth. Similarly, Maulana Abul Kalam
z Azad inherited the great Indian tradition of living together in a plural
rM society. As the legitimate trustee of a syncretic culture, he absorbed not
only Islamic/Muslim thought but also the field of Western rationalism. He
£ renounced exceptionalism in favour of interaction, if not fusion. Pluralism,
which was no more than an ideology of accommodation with firm histori
cal and philosophical roots, served as a guide that allowed men like Azad to
manage their right to be 'different'.
Today, there is talk of a new Islamic tradition for the postmodern age, a
fiqh of our time, which treats the fundamental sources of Islam, the Quran
and the Sunnah, as an integrated whole. This would facilitate inter-religious
dialogues across many divides. But, for the dialogue to be successful, we
need to expand tolerance in our approach to different religions, celebrate
the variety in religious expressions, and encourage a readiness in believers
of different faiths. In other words, to follow the path shown by Khwaja
Muinuddin Chishti:

I say the same to Hindus and the Muslims.

Be good, each, as your faith would have you be
The world's a rod? Then you become as water.
Clash like the waves, but still remain one sea.
(Akbar Ilahabadi)

Islam persists not through rigid negation but through adaptation of

the forces of change. This has enabled its adherents to survive the endless
vicissitudes of history. The historian Mohammad Mujeeb had described
Islam as a dynamic faith demanding continuous involvement of mind and
energy in worldly affairs for fulfilling the purpose for which man was cre
ated. Instead of complacency and self-satisfaction, he desired the Muslim
conscience to repeat to itself and to others, 'Nigh unto men has drawn their
44 reckoning, while they in heedlessness are yet turning away'. And, surely,

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 The Eclectic Spirit of Sufism in India

CO
among the mystics of both Islam and Hinduism, Muslims and Hindus were p
er
no so very far apart. When Mansur sings:
"O
p
Of how the Highest High can condescend -j

And how the lowest low can raise and soar à

n
3
Even to Thy Presence even to Thy Heart,
O mightiest of the mighty (yet more dear)
Than mighty), ever nearer and more near,
Until he is, and shall be evermore,
O mightiest of the might what Thou art.

He cannot be far distant from the Hindu yogis in their moments of highest
rupture.

Notes and References

1 Louis Rousselet, India and Its Native Princes: Travels in Central India and in the
Presidencies of Bombay and Bengal, Delhi, 2011, p. 218, first printed in 1882.
2 Zikr and Sama are identified with Sufi ritual practice. It involves listening to music,
usually with a group. The recital, i.e., qawwali in South Asia, is intended to spark a
mystical experience within the audience.
3 In the Islamic world, it is popularly known as tasawwuf, while Western writers
have termed it as Islamic Mysticism. Mysticism is connected to a Greek word Muo,
which means closing, or shutting the lips or eyes, or both eyes and lips.
4 Ainslee T. Embree (ed.), Sources of India Tradition, Columbia University Press,
New York, 1988, vol. 1, p. 448, second edition.
5 Brij Mohan Sahai, From Sanjar to Ajmer: The Story of Sufi Mystic Hazrat Khwaja
Muinuddin Hasan Chishti, Lucknow, n.d., p. 15.
6 Based on Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 13, p. 8810.
7 Sufism has attracted serious scholarly attention in the West only in the course
of the twentieth century, especially through the work of Reynold A. Nicholson
(1868-1945) and Louis Massignon (1883-1962). The former concentrated on
certain major works and their authors, such as the Masnawi of Jalaluddin Rumi;
the latter focused on the development of mysjtical terminology and produced a
four-volume biography of the twentieth-century mystic al-Hallaj (1922; English
translation, 1982). This line of study was pursued for mystical poetry by A.J.
Arberry (1905-1969). Muslim mystical orders were studied by, among others, J.
Spencer Trimingham.
8 Fazlur Rahman, Islam, London, 1966, p. 128.
9 Ibid., p. 136.
10 H.A.R. Gibb, Modern Trends in Islam, Chicago, 1947, p. 74.
11 Pir means literally an old man, but in this contest, a person who has spiritual
dignity, much like the guru of the Hindus. Muslims, who dedicate themselves to
the study of religion and practise piety, are required to choose a spiritual guide.
Wali has said, 'Follow the pir as his shadow does the man'. Many of the pirs are
venerated as saints after their death. That is why the word wali is synonymous with
pir, and signifies a saint as much as the world wali does. Garcin de Tassy, Muslim
Festivals in India and other essays. Translated and edited by M. Waseem, Oxford
University Press, 1997, p. 39.
12 Ibid., p. 40.
13 Ira M. Lapidus, 'Knowledge, virtue and Action: The Classical Muslim Conception
45

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 Social Scientist

of Adab and the Nature of Religious fulfilment in Islam', Barbara Daly Metcalf
o (ed.), Moral Conduct and Authority: The place of Adab in South Asian Islam,
<N
London, 1984, pp. 60-61.
<U
jq 14 S.A.A. Rizvi, The Wonder That Was India 1200-1700, London, 1987, vol. 2, p. 237.
E 15 There exist various conflicting theories regarding the origin of the term Sufi. Some
<o
u scholars contend that the word was derived from safa (purity); others that a Sufi is
<D
Q so-called because he wears a woollen garment (jamai-surf). Another view focused
on his appearance in the first rank ( saffi-awwal) on the Day of Judgement. Muslims
<u regard this as a highest honour accorded by Allah. Yet another opinion is that suffa
-O
E was the name of the tribe of Arabs engaged in the service of the Meccan temple
(U even before the birth of Islam in Mecca and Medina. The Sufis themselves laid
>
o stress on their humble origin - on their attire, for example. The Kashf al-Mahjub
Z
emphasises safa as universally praised and its opposite is kadar (impurity), of
<N which the Sufis are purged and on that account they are called Sufis.
16 Jürgen Wasim Frembgen, The Friends of God: Sufi Saints in Islam, Karachi,
2006, p. 1. By the eleventh century, belief in miracles of 'the saints' had become
(/)
widespread. Ibn Sina had to devise a rational doctrine to accommodate at least
O such 'miracles' as could be explained by scientific psychology. Under the influence
Z of the suggestions of al-Ghazali himself an elaborate theory was constructed to
CM prove the existence of the Alam al-Mithal (the world of Symbols and figures) as an
intermediary between the spiritual and material realms. This dream and shadow
land was now to serve in theory as the proper arena of miracle-mongering. This,
£ combined with the spiritual demagogy of many Sufi Shaykhs, opened the way for
all kinds of aberrations, not the least of which was charlatanism. Fazlur Rahman,
Islam.
17 Writes Fazlur Rahman in Islam, 'Besides these orders, the Indian subcontinent
teems with a host of questionable and so-called "irregular" ( be-shar) orders which
are but very loosely organised and , as their name implies, are not bound either
by a discipline or by the religious law of Islam. These range from lesser off-shoots
of regular orders, through more or less organised "irregular" orders (the chief
of which are the Qalandars) to individual mendicants, called faqirs or malangs,
who attach themselves to any saint's tomb, real or imaginary, and generally lead
a parasitic and often charlatanic existence. In the subcontinent, Muslim religious
life, at the popular level, has been profoundly influenced by indigenous beliefs and
practices; or, rather, the local Muslim population, despite its conversion to Islam,
has largely kept its pre-Islamic weltanchauung alive. All too often the conversion
has been purely nominal and the process of Islamisation has been a painfully
slow one-so strong is the influence of spiritual romanticism to which the native
population has ever been a prey.'
18 K.A. Nizami, The Life and Times ofShaykh Fariduddin Ganj-iShakar, Aligarh, 1955.
19 David Gilmartin, 'Shrines, Succession, and Sources of Moral Authority', Barbara
Daly Metcalf (ed.), Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian
Islam, Berkeley, 1984, p. 222.
20 Muzaffar Alam, The Languages of Political Islam in India, c. 1200-1800, Delhi, 2004,
pp. 91-93.
21 Nizami, 'Islam', The Life and Times of Shaykh Fariduddin Ganj-iShakar, p. 63.
22 Richard M. Eaton, Essays on Islam and Indian History, Delhi, 2002, pp. 190-91.

Babli Parveen is a Research Scholar in the Centre for Historical Studies,

46 Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

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