Die Before Dying - Activism and Passivity in Sufi Ethics - Scott Kugle

Die Before Dying:Activism and Passivity in Sufi Ethics1

Scott Kugle

(Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World

Leiden University)

Abstract

This article explores Sufi notions of the death of self-will. Sufis

are often accused of advocating an ethic of passivity when they

speak of giving the self over to an authoritative shaykh or

spiritual master. However, some Sufis turn the image of giving

over the self to death before ones actual death to more activist

ends. This article will examine the lives and writings of two

such reformist Sufis, Ahmad Zarruq (died 1493) and Ali Muttaqi

(died 1567), to show how their concept of the death of self-will

propelled them on paths of intellectual vigour, political

engagement, and individual initiative. The essay offers two

original translations of these Sufi masters epistles on the death

of self-will. Its conclusion offers a theoretical reflection on Sufi

concepts of agency, its different possible relations to spiritual

authority, and how these different models enable or limit

engagement in political or social movements.

Introduction

The disciple should be in the hands of the master like a corpse in the

hands of the one who washes it.2 This proverb circles so widely that

it defines, for most Sufis, the ideal relationship between spiritual teacher

(shaykh) and disciple (murid). Most Sufis see this relationship, of

1

This article was first given as an oral presentation at the American Academy

of Religion, as part of a panel on Spiritual Authority in Sufism. I benefited

from the insights of fellow participants on the panel, including Frederick

Colby, Qamar-ul Huda, Hugh Talat Halman, Laurie Silvers, Robert Rozenhal

and Arthur Beuhler, and the advice of Michael Feener.

2 Carl Ernst, The Shambhala Guide to Sufism (Boston: Shambala Publications,

1997), p. 24.

Journal for Islamic Studies, Vol.26, 2006, pp. 113-155

JIS Bk Oct06 Final.p65 11/7/2006, 11:49 AM114

absolute submission and unquestioning obedience, as the basic

condition for spiritual growth along the Sufi path.

Yet under the impact of modernity, Islamic reform movements

question this proverbs spiritual value. Some see absolute submission

to ones shaykh as fostering passivity, alienating disciples from their

own conscience and disengaging them from activity in political

movements, social reform and economic wellbeing. Their activist

ideologies sprang from a gut-level reaction to the advice to act like a

corpse.3

Contemporary Sufis who see spirituality as fuelling an activist

engagement with issues of social justice need to confront such critiques.

For the rubric Engaged Sufism to have any meaning, Sufis must

overcome or dispel the pervasive dichotomy between passive submission

to ones shaykh and active assertion in confronting injustice in politics,

economics, environmental degradation and gender inequity. This essay

proposes that we return to the medieval past in search of resources (in

Sufi texts, personalities and values) that can help contemporary scholars

and activists confront and overcome this dichotomy with a more nuanced

understanding of what Sufis mean by die before death.

We will take as our two examples Shaykh Ahmad Zarruq from

North Africa and Shaykh Ali Muttaqi from South Asia. On the surface,

they extol dying to self-will, as if embracing passivity, but deeper down,

this is not that case at all. Both were rebellious and actually rejected

their first shaykhs authority, something considered almost unspeakable

to Sufis who valued actual submission to ones shaykh as the overt

medium for spiritual allegiance to the Prophet Muhammad, and through

him, to love for God. The essay will try to make sense of these concrete

cases when activist and reform-oriented Sufis rejected the authority of

the shaykh. It will concentrate on the issue of spiritual authority within

3

Even a personality as attuned to Sufi values as Muhammad Iqbal turned

upon 20th century Sufis with an acid tongue, pointing out their supposed

passivity and abandonment of self-will. In the generation after him, the

founders of major Islamic fundamentalist movements were raised in families

with hereditary or actualized Sufi connections, such as Hasan al-Banna of

al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin, Maulana Ilyas of the Tablighi Jamaat and Abul-

Ala Mawdudi of the Jamaat-i Islami.

114Die Before Dying: Activism and Passivity in Sufi Ethics


Die Before Dying: Activism and Passivity in Sufi Ethics

Sufi communities and reflect on whether it empowers or restrains Sufis

from engaging in public movements for social justice. It concludes by

observing that all Sufis engage the public sphere in different ways and

with different levels of self-awareness. The conclusion will theorize about

the different models of engagement that Sufis use and will assess the

advantages and limitations of each.

Ahmad Zarruq: Text, Personality and Values

Ahmad Zarruq is an important Sufi of late-medieval North Africa (1442-

1493 CE). He was a Shadhili Sufi master and also an authoritative jurist

in Maliki law. As a jurist-Sufi, he rejected a quietist interpretation of Sufi

spirituality in favour of a more activist spiritual life in writing, teaching

and plunging into political controversies. Near the end of his life, he

wrote, I have found servanthood unadulterated by looking out for my

self, and a vision unadulterated by relying on others.4 Interestingly, he

does not mention a spiritual master as his means of spiritual awakening.

How did one of the most renowned Sufi masters of North Africa,

counted by Shadhili Sufis as a spiritual pillar of his age, reach sainthood

without relying on a master? If relying on a master was not essential,

what other means of spiritual cultivation could compensate for its lack?

These are crucial questions in trying to understand Zarruqs life and

writings, and their relevance to contemporary Sufis trying to forge a

tradition of Engaged Sufism. As an entry point into his life, this article

offers in an appendix a translation of his short epistle on the wilful death

of self-will, rendered from the only known manuscript of this work, which

has never before been edited or published.

Zarruqs epistle on the wilful death of self-will raises many questions.

It appears to extol the virtue of passivity and abnegation of self-will, as

if confirming the ideal of the Sufi as a corpse in the hands of the one who

washes it. He writes,

4

Abdullah al-Talidi, al-Mutrib fi Mashahir Awliya al-Maghrib (Tangier:

Muassasat al-Taghlif lil-Shamal, 1987), p. 145.

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Some spiritual masters have explicated the principles on which

the path of spiritual cultivation is founded. When I examined

these principles closely, I found that they were all dependent on

a single principle: to give ones life for God. It is said in the

proverb, The surest path to God trusted by the early

companions and those who follow is sacrificing ones life before

it wears out and becomes hollow. This is exactly the meaning of

the saying Die before dying and drop yourself and arise and

others like them.5 Those who die before their death are those

who make all personal qualities and states to be like those of one

who has already died, totally surrendered to the fate decreed by

God. You should desist planning and choosing for yourself to

earn eternal repose with God and a life without anxiety and care.

However, at a deeper level, its complex analysis of death of self-will as

the essential principle of Sufi spiritual training paradoxically questions

passivity. In it, the disciple must achieve this death of self-will on his or

her own a guide or master can certainly help, but relying on a shaykh

is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition. Zarruq claims that if

one has high aspiration, strong self-control and firm inner resolve, one

can achieve the death of self-will on ones own by laying down in the

middle of the road, and extending his limbs as if he were the body of a

dead man.

This seemingly simple command is actually a radical critique of

institutional Sufism from within Sufism! Institutional Sufism has been

built upon the proverb that the one who does not have a Sufi master

has satan (shaytan) as a spiritual master.6 In the earliest period of

Sufism, the spiritual master mentored an informal circle of disciples.

Disciples circulated between masters, bound only by respect for their

knowledge and wisdom. Over time, however, the disciple circle around a

master developed into communities that were distinct social institutions.

The community might have a rule of conduct, a form of invocation (wird),

or unique style of dress that set disciples apart from common Muslims

5

The two sayings commonly attributed to the Prophet as a hadith are in

Arabic: mutu qabl an tamutu and di nafsaka wa taala.

6 Ernst, The Shambhala Guide to Sufism.

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(or from members of other Sufi communities). The community might have

physical buildings (zawiya or khanqah) housing devotees, hosting

travellers, providing free food to the needy, and offering refuge for those

under political pressure. Such institutions developed through the twelfth

century CE, giving rise to institutional Sufism in contrast to the informal

Sufism of an earlier period. We can use this analytic term, but must be

careful not to create an artificial hierarchy between institutional and

informal Sufism, as was postulated by the historian Spencer Trimingham,

who claimed that early, informal Sufism is authentic and spiritually

vibrant while later institutional Sufism is more routine and spiritually

suspect.7

As the form of Sufi communities changed, so did the way members

imagined the role of their master. The social circumference of Sufi

communities expanded, taking in amateur admirers as well as those

actively pursuing mystical training, and so Sufi masters took on the role

of saint as well as spiritual guide. The authority of a saint (wali, plural

awliya) is not limited to a personal circle of followers, but is rather

recognized by a wide following who may only admire him as a saint

rather than strive to imitate him as a spiritual guide. The saint might take

on many social roles: as protector of the poor, mentor of specific

communities like trade guilds, civic protector of a region, or advocate of

social justice against the political power of sultans. The saint enjoyed

heightened prestige in these roles, and among intimate followers he was

seen to have authority that verged towards absolute. The Sufi master as

saint was seen to inherit authority of the Prophet Muhammad (through

a chain of initiation that are pledges of loyalty, baya); his role was not

just to teach wisdom but also to assert order. By the late medieval period,

Sufi practice was to pledge fealty to only one Sufi master (though one

might, with permission, sit with other masters for secondary benefit,

istifada, without taking a pledge of loyalty). That Sufi master was ones

spiritual guide, ones mediator with the Prophet Muhammad, whose

7

Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1971) has been thoroughly critiqued by scholars in the limited field of Sufi

studies, though others still use Trimingham as their guide to Sufism.

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authority governed the follower throughout life and into eternity, for he

might be intercessor during trials of judgment after death.

By the time of Zarruqs youth, Sufi communities taught that absolute

obedience to the masters command is obligatory. It is the key to Sufi

training (to negotiate the trials of this world) and the means to achieve

intercession with God on judgment day (to alleviate punishment for

ones shortcomings in the next world). Yet Zarruqs troubled relationship

to spiritual masters defied such idealized descriptions of spiritual

authority. Moreover, as he began to assert his own role as a Sufi master,

he taught a type of reform-oriented Sufism that seriously questioned

the role of a living spiritual master (and even the absolute necessity of

having one). Zarruqs perspective is relevant in our contemporary society

as many Muslims cast a critical eye at institutional forms of spiritual

authority. Institutional forms of spiritual authority, that is obeying ones

shaykh without reasoned analysis or critical reflection, can be an

impediment to active engagement with issues of social justice in ones

society and community. At its worst, pressure to obey can lead to spiritual

or social abuse, which is a very difficult topic for contemporary Sufis to

discuss, especially in the current climate of Salafi and Wahhabi attacks

upon Sufis in general.

To understand Zarruqs very nuanced critique of spiritual

authoritarianism that is implied in his go-it-alone advocacy of the death

of self-will, we have to understand his personality more fully. Despite

being known as a Sufi master, Zarruq was a terrible disciple. His

discipleship in Fes was disastrous and he broke many dominant patterns

in the Sufi tradition. Not only was he silent in this autobiographical

statement about his master, but he also showed an unusual suspicion of

Sufi masters throughout his life. This is because he suffered in his early

twenties from what he might call, if he were alive today, spiritual abuse.

It was his engagement with issues of social justice that led to crisis

in his Sufi discipleship. Zarruq grew up in the capital of the Marinid

sultanate, in the states waning era. Though orphaned, Zarruq gained

admittance into the Madrasa (the Islamic College attached to the

congregational mosque of al-Qarawiyyin, the largest religious institution

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in Fes). While studying Maliki law, in his early twenties, he pledged

allegiance to a Sufi master in the Qadiriyya Sufi community and served

the master and fellow disciples at their local zawiya. His master was

Muhammad al-Zaytuni, a very powerful and politically astute man to

whom Marinid rulers entrusted the protection of caravans from Fes to

Cairo.8 Zarruq advanced quickly to become intimate with al-Zaytuni,

accompanying him on pilgrimages (ziyarat) and becoming privy to his

household. Zarruq presents us a fairly classic portrait of spiritual training

through offering oneself as a client to a powerful patron, who wielded

absolute authority with the promise that obedience would lead to spiritual

advancement.

Yet when Zarruq was twenty-four, this spiritual training was

aborted. Al-Zaytuni revealed to Zarruq secret information and then

accused him of having divulged it to others, thus betraying the master.

The hagiographic story that circulates in Morocco about Zarruq presents

him as having been tested and having failed. He trusted his own sense

of right and wrong, honed by a too avid devotion to Islamic law, rather

than trusting his master. The hagiographic story presents Zarruq as

perceiving his master in an adulterous affair. According to this story,

Zarruq once knocked on the door of al-Zaytunis home, but heard no

answer. Upon finding the door open, he went inside and upstairs. There,

he witnessed al-Zaytuni seated between two women, turning to kiss one

after the other. Having called his master a hypocrite for carrying out an

adulterous affair, al-Zaytuni cursed Zarruq for overstepping the bounds

of etiquette with his master.

The hagiographic story reinforces the normal pattern of spiritual

authority asserted by masters: Zarruq was misled by his own acute

scepticism while al-Zaytuni asserted that, the person whom you saw to

my right, she is really this world (al-dunya) and one you saw to my left

is really the next world (al-akhira).9 Zarruq trusted his own observation

over loyalty, betraying his trust and deserving banishment. Can we trust

the hagiographic narrative that people in Fes related about Zarruq? The

8

Ibn Askar, Dawhat al-Nashir li-Ma asin man kana bil-Maghrib min

Mashaikh al-Qarn al-Ashir (Rabat: Dar al-Maghrib, 1976), pp. 71-72.

9 Ibid., p. 49.

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story circulated after Zarruq left Fes, and was recorded by almost every

Moroccan source.

There is reason to doubt this story. Passages in Zarruqs own writings

hint that he rebelled against his Qadiri master because of his masters

political involvement rather than over sexual dalliance. Zarruq grew up

in a time of political turmoil in Morocco. Due to mismanagement,

infighting, and depredations by the marauding Portuguese, Marinid rulers

were slowly losing their ability to govern. Within the capital of Fes,

Sharifan clans who claimed religious authority because of genealogical

descent from the Prophet were consolidating their position as power-

brokers in the city. Soon they conspired against the Marinid Sultan.

Qadiri Sufis (those spiritually aligned to Shaykh Abd al-Qadir Jilani) lent

their support to this incipient rebellion by allying with the Qadiri shurafa

(the clan genealogically descended from Shaykh Abd al-Qadir, who was

also a descendant from the Prophet). Zarruqs master, al-Zaytuni, was

pivotal in this alliance; he had been close to members of the Marinid

ruling elite but threatened to withdraw his support and shift it to the

Sharifan upstarts. Before the rebellion broke out, al-Zaytuni had

foreknowledge of political events (firasa), predicting the execution of

the Marinid Sultan. This political prediction declared his communitys

shift of allegiance from the ruling dynasty towards the rebels. He shared

this prediction with his trusted disciple, Zarruq, and then accused him

of having leaked it to the public, possibly endangering the whole

conspiracy.

Why would Zarruq betray the trust of his Qadiri master at the

most delicate and dangerous turn of political events? He felt that rebellion

against the Marinid Sultan was illegal, because of his over-riding concern

to respect and uphold Islamic law. Marinid rule might be weak and the

Sultan might be personally vicious, but their rule was legally constituted

while rebellion, even inspired by religious sentiments, was still rebellion,

fitna. Despite Zarruqs actions, rebellion broke out in 1465 CE. The leader

of the Sharifan clans was declared the rightful ruler and the mob executed

the Marinid Sultan amid cries of jihad. The Sharifan rebellion caused

a clash between Zarruqs loyalty to his Sufi training under the almost

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universally acknowledged principle of obedience to a spiritual master,

and his juridical training in Islamic law. Zarruq chose to uphold the rule

of law and betray his Sufi master.

This decision reveals another complexity, one that the

hagiographic story elides altogether. Zarruq had two masters at the same

time. One was the charismatic Qadiri, al-Zaytuni, while the other was his

mentor in the Islamic College, Muhammad al-Quri. Al-Quri was a leading

jurist and a Sufi who did not wield spiritual authority in an absolute

manner. Rather he combined the authority of being a scholar and jurist

with that of being a saintly exemplar. He was part of a network of Sufi-

jurists in Marinid Morocco (especially in Fes, Meknes and Sal) who

were exceptions to the general pattern of saintly authority in Sufi

communities. Their external role was as teachers and jurists,

professionals in the madrasa institutions that the Marinid dynasty

patronized. They trained disciples in Sufi practices from within their

elite constituency of students and jurists.10

It was probably to al-Quri that Zarruq revealed the incipient plot

to overthrow the Marinid regime. Because al-Quri was the Mufti of Fes

and government-appointed preacher, this meant treason in the eyes of

the rebels. As the rebellion overtook Fes, the crowds turned to al-Quri

for a fatwa declaring it legal to execute the Marinid Sultan. He refused,

was threatened with death, and resigned. The revolution proceeded

leaving Zarruq young, exposed, outspoken and an evident traitor. His

former master, al-Zaytuni, banished him and he left Fes in physical danger.

In an autobiography, Zarruq recorded a sketch of his perilous

flight to escape the curse of his betrayed master.11 On his return, he

experiences enlightenment through his own efforts, as if by the will of

God alone, in direct contradiction of his former master. Zarruq placed

himself under the care of God, and on the way back to Fes, others

recognized him not just as a jurist but also as a wali or saint. Zarruq was

never welcomed back into the Sufi establishment in Fes. He left for the

1 0

Scott Kugle, Rebel btween Spirit and Law (Bloomington: Indiana University

Press, 2006), pp. 52-64.

11 Zarruq, al-Kunnash fi ilm Ash (mss. Rabat: al-Khizanat al-Amma, 1385 k)

combines recollections from his childhood, record of the teachers with whom

he studied, his exile from Fes and his journey to Tlemcen.

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Hajj and began to study and teach at al-Azhar University in Cairo. There,

Zarruq met an unconventional Sufi master, Shaykh Abu al-Abbas Ahmad

al-Hadrami, and took allegiance with him.

Before following his story to understand the values he held about

the principles that unite Sufism with legal rectitude, let us detour to the

life and text of one of his most sincere followers, Shaykh Ali Muttaqi

from South Asia. That detour will reinforce our later discussion about

his values, for they were values both shared.

Ali Muttaqi: Text, Personality and Values

Ali ibn Husam al-Din Muttaqi was a Sufi master and scriptural scholar

from Gujarat (1480-1567 CE) who followed the reformist teachings of

Zarruq. He was both a Sufi master and muhaddith who is credited which

reviving hadith scholarship in South Asia. In Mecca, he joined hadith

study-circles that were also Sufi devotional communities. He took

initiation from a disciple of a disciple of Zarruq, studied Zarruqs texts

about Sufism and Islamic law, and wrote commentaries on them.12

One of the many commentaries that Ali Muttaqi wrote upon the

texts of Zarruq is this short epistle on the death of self-will, translated

below. It is entitled Hadha Hidayat Rabbi inda Faqd al-Murabbi (My

Lords Guidance in a Spiritual Guides Absence), and it comments on

Zarruqs epistle (translated in the appendix) in 1567 CE, three-quarters

of a century after Zarruqs death.13 In it, he expresses admiration for

Zarruqs Sufi principles, as when Zarruq raised the possibility of

achieving selflessness without adherence to a shaykh: You can struggle

to earn this state with your own efforts, by trying to act like as if you are

dead in as many ways as possible ... Sew a little bag, inscribe on it the

1 2

Ali Muttaqi absorbed many personality traits and spiritual values of Zarruq,

so much so that his life reflects that of Zarruq even more than most of his

North African disciples who had met him personally. On the connection

between Zarruq and Muttaqi, see Scott Kugle, Usuli Sufis: Ahmad Zarruq

and his South Asian Disciples, in Eric Geoffroy (ed.), La Voie Soufie des

Shadhilis (Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose, 2005), pp. 181-204.

13 Ali Muttaqi, Hadha Hidayat Rabbi inda Faqd al-Murabbi (mss. Ahmadabad:

Pir Mohammadshah Dargah 70 dhayl) and Cairo (al-Azhar ayn 5446

tasawwuf).

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word death and carry it with you everywhere, in public and in private.

Every time you glance at it, imagine its owner wrapped in his shroud and

remind yourself of the presence of death. Ali Muttaqi finds in this

seemingly small gesture a spiritual technique of great power.

There are many expressions that describe the inner power of the

little death bag that Shaykh Zarruq described in his epistle

about the death of self will. It is worn as a constant reminder

that removes any chance of negligence or forgetfulness. Like a

thread around the finger bound it removes the chance of memorys

coming unwound. Its a reminder of universal laws to prevent

any moral flaws. It urges all people to stay conscious at all

moments. Its a harmless deception leading to victory from

perdition. Its looking over your flaws before death opens it

jaws. It is good planning and clever strategy before the inevitable

arrival of your destiny. It is a happy reminder of the long journeys

remainder. Its the call to be bold and depart to reach the goal of

the journey youre about to start. Its the sterling method to

fulfill the self-willed death of selfish will. Its the call to a funeral

prayer for a dead man and its the most beautiful call ones ever

heard or ever can.

Although this recommendation seems to elevate the ideal of passivity

the Sufi as a corpse there is hidden beneath it a call to activism and

individual endeavour, for there is no one present to wash the corpse. In

a way, the Sufi takes initiative to wash himself rather than wait for a

washer to come along in the form of a reliable shaykh. Ali Muttaqi

continues in his epistle,

There is one quality that, if one cannot find a spiritual guide,

takes the place of a guide and plays the guides role, if God wills.

That quality consists of constant spiritual struggle, awareness

of God, knowledge that one puts into practice, and ascetic

abstinence along with acquired reason. Although these are broken

up into several terms individually, together they comprise one

quality that, if inherent in a person, is enough to ensure their

arrival at the ultimate goal ... Such a death of self-will is the

principle behind all religious actions and is their essential

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foundation. Because of this, we can call the death of self-will the

general cure for any disease impure The death of self-will is

the best of all religious actions and the least burdensome of

rituals for this reason, one can say, One action better than

the rest is contemplating the moment of death and The choicest

action is letting choice itself die.

Ali Muttaqis commentary reinforces Zarruqs radical ideas, but couches

them in a careful framework of tradition, comparing them to hadith and

rephrasing them into Arabic proverbs. He praises Sufi masters and

encourages his reader to find a principled and insightful spiritual guide

whose personality is in accord with ones own inner disposition and

also with the sharia. But beneath this respectful framework saying,

one who meets such a spiritual guide and stays in his company for just

an hour is granted what takes others a long time to achieve! Ali

Muttaqis epistle is specifically written for those who do not have a

spiritual guide, either because a real one is hard to find or because as a

disciple one cannot sincerely defer to a masters authority with absolute

resignation and inward passivity.

Consider carefully how there are two distinct types of allowing

the self to die. The most obvious type is when the self is killed

with a sword or other weapon. The second type is committing

the self into the trust of another and doing their will. The first

type may get you the salvation of martyrdom, but it is the fruit

of the lesser struggle (jihad asghar). The second type is actually

the greater struggle (jihad akbar). Being slain in battle takes the

power of firm obedience hour by hour. The self is killed with

vivid guidance and delusional fears, not with sharpened swords

and thrusting spears. True bravery and fearless concentration is

killing the self with the arrows of imagination.

In citing the famous hadith, about turning from the lesser struggle of

military war to the greater struggle of ethical self-restraint, Ali Muttaqi

turns stereotypes of Sufi passivity and Islamic martial activity inside-

out. By praising the selflessness of committing the self into the trust of

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another and doing their will, he does not recommend blind obedience

to a shaykh.

Ali Muttaqi might have been writing this commentary for himself

for he, like Zarruq, struggled in his early life with spiritual

authoritarianism. His father had him initiated into the Chishti community

at age five or six, with his own shaykh. Ali Muttaqis early Sufi allegiance

was not his own choice but was rather imposed by his father in an act of

patriarchal authority. The Chishti community dominated religious life in

his town of Burhanpur, and their style was oriented toward love of ones

shaykh and abnegation to his will, demonstrating this surrender to him

(and through him to God) in rituals of ecstatic music and dance. As a

teenager, Ali Muttaqi rebelled against this style of devotion, seeing it

as both anti-rational and disrespectful of the Prophets legacy which, he

felt, was more firmly established in scriptural interpretation, sharia,

and hadith traditions.14

Like Zarruq, Ali Muttaqi saw Sufism as inward purification and

sharia as outward rectitude. Like Zarruq, this dual concern led him to

delve into issues of social justice that got him into trouble. He became

the spiritual advisor of the Sultan of Gujarat, Bahadur Shah. However,

the Sultan overextended his ambitions to expand his kingdom, provoking

an attack by the rising Mughal Empire in 1534 that drove the Sultan,

against his advisors advice, into an alliance with Portuguese imperialists

who were carving out a sea-borne empire in the Indian Ocean. Defeated

by the Mughal armies who were poised to assault the capital,

Ahmadabad, the Sultan begged Ali Muttaqi for prayers of absolution

and aid, but Ali Muttaqi refused to answer him. Seeing his engagement

with ethical governance crumbling around him, the Sufi scholar moved

to Mecca. There, he came into contact with Ahmad Zarruqs teachings

and spiritual community, which recharged his faith in critical and engaged

Sufism in new ways.

1 4

Ali Muttaqis fascinating story cannot be fully told here; for more detail on

his life and writings, see Scott Kugle, In Search of the Center: Authenticity,

Reform and Critique in Early Modern Islamic Sainthood, Ph.D. Dissertation,

Duke University, Department of Religion, 2000.

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Interpreting the Texts: A Search for Principles beyond

Authoritarianism

For Zarruq and Muttaqi, obedience to ones shaykh is important only as

a skillful means through which to achieve the death of self-will, but was

not an end in itself or an unconditional requirement for being a Sufi. In

fact, absolute obedience to ones shaykh could be dangerous, if his

demands conflicted with the sharia, overrode ones inmost conscience,

distorted ones reasoned perception, or thwarted ones pursuit of justice.

Both Zarruq and Muttaqi followed their conscience in ways that led

them into conflict with their shaykh. Both pursued a vision of social

justice and engagement with their surrounding society mediated by

upholding that sharia, which they saw as embodying the highest ideals

of justice and necessitating intellectual principles. In their views,

neglecting these duties could be excused for neither excessive love for

ones shaykh or quietist retreat into interior contemplation. Both suffered

exclusion and exile for their positions.

Although Zarruq recovered his prestige in Cairo, he never acted

out the idealized master-disciple relationship. He pledged allegiance to

Shaykh al-Hadrami, who did not give him a firm silsila or a clear tariqa

which define one as a Sufi within a discrete community.15 Of al-Hadramis

disciples, only Zarruq left a record of al-Hadramis character and oral

teachings.16 If Zarruq had not singled him out as my master we would

probably know nothing about al-Hadrami at all.

Al-Hadrami often treated Zarruq as if he were a disciple without a

living master. He wrote this advice to Zarruq: You must engage in

meditation at all times, and often invoke praise and blessings on the

1 5

Kugle, Rebel, pp. 118-129. Abd al-Salam ibn al-Tayyib al-Qadiri, al-Maqsad

al-Ahmad fi al-Tarif bi-Sayyidna Abdullah Ahmad (Fes: Lithoprint, n.d.),

p. 302 shows that Al-Hadrami held a compound allegiance to three lineages:

the Qadiriyya, the Madyaniyya and the Shadhiliyya, but did not distinguish

between them. He appears to have taken initiation into all three at once

from a single master; yet he refused to name that master for Zarruq.

16 He was not known as a prolific author, a profound scholar, a respected

teacher or a popular saint. In Cairo, scholars with Sufi interests knew of

him and noted his presence, but did not take enough interest to preserve

anything substantial about his life.

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Prophet, for these are a ladder of ascent and a way of spiritual training

for a disciple who does not have a master to guide him.17 Al-Hadrami

intentionally minimized his practices and avoided complex devotions.

He advised disciples to take the simplest prayers and litanies as spiritual

training, which allowed them to persist with their habitual lives and prior

professions without dramatic displays of renunciation. Zarruq explained

the importance of this simplicity: it keeps the disciple close to his original

nature and demands only sincerity. Whoever journeys to God through

his own nature, his arrival to God is closer to him than his own nature,

and whoever journeys to God through abandoning his own nature, his

arrival to God is dependent on his distance from his own nature; attaining

distance from ones own nature is difficult indeed.18

Al-Hadrami removed himself from the economy of sainthood with

its elevated social authority. He might have been making a subtle claim

that his method of spiritual training relied on ones conforming to ones

inner disposition rather than relying on the external authority of a spiritual

master.19 Al-Hadrami proposed that disciples should simply study the

scriptural sources and act within the limits of the law, as derived from

these scriptural sources. By acting within the law, they will enact

goodness within society, without recourse to Sufi institutions. However,

they must pursue this study, legal understanding and social action in

the company of a saintly guide. The guide will direct their actions, not

through discrete rituals or through charismatic authority, but simply

through the spiritual power of his attention and concentration.

1 7

Zarruq, Manaqib al-Hadrami (mss. Rabat: al-Khizana al-Amma 1385 k)

folio 106.

18 Zarruq, Sharh Asma al-Husna (mss. Rabat: al-Khizana al-Amma 1838 d),

p. 249. The quoted lines paraphrase a teaching of Shaykh Abul-Hasan al-

Shadhili.

19 Al-Hadrami taught that, Spiritual training as currently understood is no

longer valid. In this time, there only remains spiritual assistance through the

Shaykhs lofty aspiration and inner state. Therefore, you are obliged to

follow the book [the Quran] and the example [of the Prophets guidance],

without adding any practices or subtracting any as recorded by Zarruq,

Qawaid al-Tasawwuf, conclusion.

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Zarruq adopted from al-Hadrami the ideal that Sufism should be

fused with sharia. He said that Sufi initiation would not force a disciple

to surrender the discerning power of reason to absolute devotion to a

single master or lineage. Zarruq most clearly lays out the advantages to

this sceptical style of reformed discipleship in this classic text, Qawaid

al-Tasawwuf, the Principles of Being a Sufi. Ali Muttaqi studied

Zarruqs texts and wrote his own commentaries on them, transmitting

their principles to his own circle of disciples in and from South Asia.20

He taught his disciples that true worship was not interior retreat that led

one away from active engagement with the world and the intellect. One

who is always engaged in good deeds is always engaged in dhikr, or

remembering God ... To chose to sit in isolation and perform dhikr, that

is like taking medicine to cure a specific illness. You only need it from

time to time, as you feel sick.21

Of course, for Ali Muttaqi, the highest form of good deeds was

studying scripture, the Quran and hadith, and transmitting this

knowledge to others for this reason I have described him and Zarruq

in another article as Usuli Sufis whose spiritual method depends upon

intellectual revival and return to scriptural sources (ijtihad). However,

in the context of this article, their spiritual method can also de described

as one form of Engaged Sufism. Ali Muttaqis advice did not preclude

other more practical good deeds that translated scriptural commands

into ethical principles, intellectual insights and forceful interventions:

this he calls knowledge that one puts into practice. Zarruq, in his

short epistle translated above, wrote that the death of self-will is:

2 0

Two of Ali Muttaqis texts are direct commentaries of Zarruqs Sufi

principles: Dabita li-Usul al-Tariqa (mss. Rampur, India: Reza Library,

arabic 3083; and Aligarh: Azad, Subhanullah Collection 297.7/51 farsi

tasawwuf) and Sharh Qawaid at-Tariqa (mss. Berlin: Deutsches

Kulturbesitz 3031. PM. 547.1 folios 1-32a; and Paris: Escurial 2741,4).

21 Abd al-Haqq Muhaddith Dihlawi, Zad al-Muttaqin (mss. London: British

Library, Oriental Collection 217), folio 60a. This text includes a spiritual

biography of Ali Muttaqi written by his most famous follower who brought

his teachings back to South Asia.

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beneficial for worldly people, like rulers, ministers and nobles.

They can practice its methods ... It is clear that by Gods wisdom,

the world was made in a way that rulers and ministers and nobles

are necessary for its proper function. If the rulers were to

renounce the world in total, then society would fall into disarray

and ruin ... The one who practices the methods and advice in this

epistle, even if in secret (as is recommended for rulers) can achieve

the goal on intimacy with God.

Those engaged in public affairs can do so ethically by taking on this

spiritual discipline in secret and letting it shape their actions indirectly.

Those who take it on directly and openly must have more limited roles,

as scholars, jurists and Sufi masters (roles that Zarruq prefers to be

united into one personality) who are buffered from worldly conflicts and

power-plays practicing these methods openly and in the public eye

is better and will yield benefits more directly and more swiftly. Ali

Muttaqi translated these principles into more practical advice, writing a

series of five separate small treatises on Sufi devotion for different

classes of people: rulers, soldiers, married men, unmarried younger men,

and women.22

Within their reformist vision of Sufism, Ahmad Zarruq and Ali

Muttaqi put forward some startling suggestions for their disciples;

suggestions that broke with many of the tenets of institutional Sufism.

First, one should test a spiritual guide before becoming committed to

him: one should follow the guidance of a saint on the condition that this

guidance has a root source in scripture and can be deduced via an

intellectual principle from that source, without trusting that ones saintly

guide is inerrant.23 Secondly, one should never abandon ones power of

reason. Dedication to a spiritual master can help to cultivate a spirit of

humility, love and service to others, yet if taken to extremes it can ruin

the disciple: only the power of reason and discrimination can lead the

disciple to the key of balance and moderation.24 Absolute obedience to

2 2

Kugle, In Search of the Center, pp. 444-464 gives titles and locations of the

five manuscripts.

23 Zarruq, Qawaid al-Tasawwuf, Principle 165.

24 Ibid., Principle 104.

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a Sufi master that leads to extreme deference, even to the point of

passivity, was for Zarruq an example of abandoning the necessary

discrimination of reason. Thirdly, one should read books to learn about

being a Sufi; Zarruqs writings contain advice on when and how to

study Sufi texts so as to reinforce ones allegiance to the outward rule of

law as well as to increase ones inward illumination, admitting that books

might, in some cases, replace a living guide.25 If one does not have a

living spiritual guide and books are not sufficient, Zarruq asserts that,

fourthly, one can take the Prophet Muhammad as ones spiritual guide.

Other Sufis in Zarruqs time discussed the possibility of attaining spiritual

awakening directly from the spirit of the Prophet Muhammad. Zarruq

was sceptical about the possibility that invoking blessings upon the

Prophet Muhammad was a way to secure spiritual training directly from

the Prophet himself. He argues that invoking blessings on the Prophet

should remind one to enact the Prophets virtues, rather than substituting

the Prophets spirit for the absence of a living master. Love for the

Prophet himself should not become so intense that it collapses all

concern for the Prophets example. In contrast, he urged that study of

scriptural texts was the primary way to gain intimacy with the Prophet.

Fifthly, Zarruq asserted that the best method of spiritual training without

an absolute master is death before death. It is this final point upon

which this article will elaborate in detail; it is this point which may interest

scholars in Religious Studies outside the narrow field of Sufi Studies.26

The Self-Willed Death of Self-Will

Zarruq spoke of death before death as the principle experience to

which any Sufi practice aimed. This could be achieved on ones own or

with a trusted companion, but no absolute spiritual master was needed

2 5

Ibid., Principle 59. One could rely on books for guidance, especially if one

had a sincere companion with whom to read and share observations. Such

a companion could play the role of a guide, Zarruq felt, by keeping ones

interpretations and actions in line with religious custom. Because of the

dangers involved in individual practice, Zarruq advises that a fully realized

spiritual guide is preferable (if one is to be found).

26 For a detailed elaboration of the first four points of Zarruqs method and

their importance in his reformist Sufism, see Kugle, Usuli Sufis.

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in order to experience dying to yourself before your actual death. By

this expression, he meant that the only way to spiritual training is through

a profound gesture of surrender. This is an ultimate paradox: to achieve

something valued above all else, one must relinquish the very desire to

achieve it. This paradox cuts right to the pith of religious experience that

psychological discourse frames as mysticism. The psychoanalyst,

Viktor Frankl, explored this dynamic in order to open up the power of un-

self-consciousness. He found that, when a person has forgotten a name,

the harder the person struggles to remember it, the more obstacles there

are to accessing that memory. Yet, if a person can manage to relinquish

the very desire to remember, the name easily comes forward into

consciousness.27 Intent and desire lead to struggle and self-assertion,

which in many cases are the direct cause of failure to arrive at the desired

result. This is especially true when the object of desire is abstract, remote

and of ultimate value. Frankl tried to develop methods of play to

encourage un-self-consciousness that would loosen the bondage of

intentionality, to distract his patients until, without premeditation, they

realize they have already attained their goal without self-aggrandizing

effort. Rather than un-self-consciousness, Zarruq used the metaphor

of death to illustrate his own abandoning of ambition and intent, and to

encourage others who admired him as a saint to do the same.

Sufi literature offers a long tradition of paradoxical sayings that

try to lure the will into just such a spontaneous gesture of surrender. For

example, when asked by a divine voice, What do you want? Bayazid

Bistami answered, I want only to not want at all.28 Qadiri communities

revere a text, Openings of the Unseen by Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, which

contains a remarkable passage on voluntary death and rebirth as the

dramatic passage into sainthood.

If you have died to the demands of other people (God have

mercy on you) then God may make you die to your own desires.

2 7

Marvin Shaw, The Paradox of Intention: Reaching the Goal by Giving up the

Attempt to Reach It (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), pp. 61-74.

28 Abu Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami, Kitab Tabaqat al-Sufiya (Leiden: E. J. Brill,

1960).

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If you have died to your own desires (God have mercy on you)

then may God make you die to your own will and planning. If

you have died to your own will and planning (God have mercy

upon you) then may God grant you a whole new life. At that

moment, you are revived with a life after which there is no

presence of death ... You will be like the mythic red sulfur, the

touchstone of life. You will become the most unique person, the

wellspring of sanctity, the hidden core of the hidden, the very

secret of the secret. At that moment, you inherit the innermost

legacy of the Prophet and Messenger of God.29

If one cannot achieve the death of self-will by just imitating a corpse for

a few days and forcefully denying self-wills urges, then Zarruq claims

one could achieve an approximation of the experience through ritual and

meditation, as revealed in his short text, above. Zarruq struck a tenuous

balance between a dramatic enactment of death by self-induced paralysis

and courting of death through ritual actions.

In this way, Zarruq raises the controversial subject of whether

spiritual training is possible without a master. In his treatise, Zarruq

invokes a paradox without trying to resolve it, for the resolve to let

ones self-will die involves will-power. The very term used by Zarruq,

al-mawt al-ikhtiyari, captures this ambivalence. It could be translated

literally as a self-willed death yet also suggests the death of self-

will or mawt al-ikhtiyar. The literal meaning and its semantic resonance

with a more radical ideal, set up a paradox. How can one by oneself will

the death of ones self-will? Spiritual cultivation happens in this

paradoxical tension between exercising ones fullest will-power to reach

the presence of a divine other and renouncing the very efficacy of will-

power when confronted by that presence.

One can see this dynamic of Sufi disciples struggling to embody

and display for others a state of being-close-to-death. Those who favour

music and poetry display this being-close-to-death in the drama of

ecstasy, involuntary motion and trance. Those who place their faith in

2 9

Abd al-Haqq Muhaddith Dihlawi, Miftah al-Futuh (mss. Hyderabad, India:

Andhra Pradesh State Oriental Manuscript and Research Library 1771

tasawwuf farsi) is a Persian commentary on Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, Futuh

al-Ghayb.

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Sufi community see in the act of initiation to a master the necessary

gesture of surrender that rhymes with death. However, these metaphoric

solutions to the problem of reaching the threshold of death did not

satisfy Zarruq and his followers. If being-close-to-death is the necessary

passage for self-transformation, then one must push the self to the brink

of death. In this commentary, above, Ali Muttaqi explained that, The

best way to achieving lifes aims is death the death of self-will ... Such

a death of self-will is the principle behind all religious actions and is

their essential foundation ... It is the least burdensome of ethical tasks,

since a person, by simply resolving to achieve the death of self-will,

spontaneously experiences the removal of self-will. He quotes with

approval Zarruqs vivid description of how one must enact death, not

through Sufi initiations or musical trances, but through the very limbs

of ones body. This method turns the will against the body itself, denying

its most basic urges and habitual motions, like eating, drinking, sleeping,

standing, even moving. Ali Muttaqi tries to address this apparent

paradox of how the will can overpower the body, leading in a

contradictory motion to the death, not of the body, but of the will that

began the operation:

The will to die to ones self-will is one among the goals of will

itself. Yet it is like an elixir. If the elixir is dribbled upon a piece

of brass, it transmutes the metal into purest gold, raising its

value exponentially from what it was before. Just so with

someone who has willed to die to their own self-will: their every

action will be with pure and sincere intention to act only for

God, absolutely clear of any hypocrisy or fault.

Through the image of alchemy, Ali Muttaqi describes the drama of the

paradox of intention through which the greatest aims can be achieved

only by abandoning the will to achieve them. The point is not to abandon

self-will so as to live in passivity; quite to the contrary, the point is to

abandon self-will in order to become a more powerful active agent in

society, whether as a social critic, scriptural ethicist, legal activist or

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political advisor. In all these roles, one becomes truly effective by giving

up selfish ambition but still acting boldly; then and only then will ones

actions be free of conceit, hypocrisy and manipulation and become rather

an expression of Gods own will.

Conclusion: Agency after Dying to Self-Will

With such unconventional ideas about how to pursue spiritual training

without an absolute master, Zarruq reflects his own disastrous youthful

discipleship. He suffered spiritual abuse at the hands of a Sufi master. In

his writings, especially Preparing the Sincere Disciple, he criticized

the conduct of contemporaries in Sufi communities who make incumbent

upon their disciples to believe in the saints irrancy (isma), and that

everything he does proceeds from Gods directive ... They treating the

disciple after his allegiance as if he were not a full person, as if he were

a slave with no will of his own, with no spirit, no soul, no wealth and no

family.30 Zarruq intended the death to self-will to be an internal and

personal transformation leading to social and political empowerment, a

life of renewed vigour in ones profession or craft. He critiqued Sufi

communities that imposed experiences of death or self-effacement upon

disciples, by making them submissive to commands, stripping them of

identity and setting them apart by special clothing. Such behaviours

would remove Sufi disciples from their social world and its demands,

and foster a cultish exclusivity.

This critical acumen earned Zarruq the title, Muhtasib al-Sufiya wal-

Fuqaha, the watchman calling Sufis and jurists to account.31 In a

similar way, Ali Muttaqi returned twice to Gujarat from his exile in Mecca

in order to take on the role of muhtasib to reform court procedures and

stamp out corruption in government. Clearly, their highlighting the

principle of death of self-will did not lead them to quietistic Sufism or

passivity! On the outside, Zarruq and Muttaqi argued that allegiance to

Islamic law and juridical reasoning demanded that one take a sceptical

3 0

Zarruq, Uddat al-Murid al-Sadiq (Tripoli: Maktabat Tarabulus al-Ilmiyya

al-Amaliyya, 1996), p. 101.

31 Ahmad Baba al-Timbukti, Nayl al-Ibtihaj fi Tatriz al-Dibaj (Fes: al-Matbaa

al-Jadida, 1899), p. 72.

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approach to Sufi training. On the inside, however, we can discern in

their reformist Sufi method a more delicate psychological drama. Zarruq

struggled to confront the wounds he suffered under one master by

critiquing the very idea of Sufi masters who demand absolute obedience.

He held out the possibility of achieving spiritual maturity, even selfless

sainthood, without overtly relying on an absolute spiritual master, as

the Sufi communities around him tended to insist.

Zarruqs reformist method addresses whether one can achieve the

level of being a Sufi master without a Sufi master altogether. In fact,

Zarruq was pushing towards the radical statement that conforming to

the Prophet Muhammads example (by absorbing the revelations of the

Quran, modelling oneself on the Prophets teachings in hadith and

adhering to Islamic law) could replace the role of the Sufi master. To

make this replacement efficacious, however, one cannot just valorize the

sharia, the external norms and customs, over the routines of Sufi

communities. One must rather purge oneself of self-will through a process

of dying to ones self. Only one who has died to self-will can enact the

outward armature of Islamic law and loyalty with spiritual potency and

without egoistic hypocrisy.

This leads us to a conclusion that will move beyond the specificities

of Ahmad Zarruq, Ali Muttaqi and their two epistles about death. It

raises the question of agency and authority in our present context by

asking what variety of ways Sufis may understand the Prophet

Muhammads command to die before dying. All would agree that the

Prophet urges us to die to self-will but in what way, for what purpose,

and what authority fills one after such an experience of death? One

could die to self-will in order to more fluently obey the sharia, or to

more fully love ones shaykh, or to more humbly serve others needs, or

to perpetually abandon pretence and cleave sincerely to ones original

nature. Let us briefly examine each of these possibilities, which are not

mutually exclusive but can be combined to define an individual or

communitys orientation within Sufism.

First, to die to self-will is to obey the sharia. This is the position of

both Zarruq and Muttaqi and more widely of the Shadhili Sufi community

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that deeply influenced them. They assert that actions performed within

sharia norms are not your will but are Gods will for you, while actions

outside of those norms are egoistic urges or satanic delusions. Abu al-

Hasan al-Shadhili said, If you must willfully plan, and how can you

avoid willfully planning, then plan only not to willfully plan at all.32 Al-

Shadhili focused on the wills propensity to plot and plan for its own

benefit, an urge removed by regulating all activity by the sharia.33 The

basic assumption of this position is that Gods will is unambiguously

manifest in the classical sharia, the norms of which are the highest

expression of justice possible for humankind. It is a position that places

enormous trust in Islamic jurists to discern Gods will and concomitant

mistrust of any other standard of justice based upon human reason or

experience. Zarruq reveals this position when he argues that the central

principle of being a Sufi is, Be a jurist first then a Sufi dont be a Sufi

first then a jurist. He clarifies the wide implication of his pithy ideal: A

person is not safe relying on Sufi practices without jurisprudence or

relying on jurisprudence without Sufi practices. It is like maintaining

your health: what good is taking medicine only without also carefully

watching your daily habits?34 With these words he urged Muslims to

completely fuse these parts of their religious tradition, Sufi spiritual

cultivation and juridical rectitude, that had become divergent if not

occasionally in open conflict. This position has the advantage of

encouraging social and political activity while eliminating the need for

an activist mentality, with the egoism and confrontational agency that

3 2

Scott Kugle (trans.), The Book of Illumination: Shaykh Ibn Ata Aillahs

Kitab al-Tanwir fi Isqat al-Tadbir (Louisville: Fons Vitae Press, 2005), p.

53.

33 Victor Danner (trans.), Ibn Ataillahs Sufi Aphorisms (Leiden: E.J. Brill,

1994), p. 23 defined selfish plotting (tadbir) in the following way: Tadbir

implies egocentric concern for ones direction in life, and more particularly

in ones daily existence, to the point where it blots out the obligations due

God. In that case, which is self-direction, the tadbir is negative and should

be eliminated. But if the planning or direction is in conjunction with Gods

directives, then it is positive and not an obstacle in the Path, in which case

it is not self-direction but Self-direction that is, direction by the only

ultimate self or God.

34 Zarruq, Qawaid al-Tasawwuf, Principle 26.

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term implies in modelling ones activity on sharia norms, one can

abandon the self-will of choice while remaining socially, ritually and

politically active. However, this position has limitations as well, for in

modern times many Sufis (along with other Muslims) observe that the

norms of the sharia are out of touch with existential life-choices,

especially of people not traditionally empowered by patriarchal society.

This is even more of a limitation as fundamentalist groups elevate the

sharia into a rhetorical ideal even while overriding its ethical principles,

justifying their political will-to-power and victimizing the vulnerable,

like women or homosexuals or religious minorities.

The second position is to die to self-will in order to love ones shaykh.

From this perspective, love for another is the key to Sufi spiritual

cultivation and the shaykh is the central focus for this love. Advocates

of this position ask, if one cannot love (and therefore cherish and obey)

ones spiritual teacher who is present, how can one claim to love and

obey the Prophet who is long deceased or to love God who is

transcendent beyond presence? In this sense, they uphold the proverb:

The disciple should be in the hands of the master like a corpse in the

hands of the one who washes it. This goal is not passivity but rather

love yet the true expression of love is surrender to the demands of the

beloved. And in this dynamic of loving surrender, the shaykh stands in

for the Prophet Muhammad, extending his charismatic personality

through time, through the initiatic chain (silsila) which gives it form, the

hand-clasp (musahafa) that symbolizes it, and the spiritual investiture

(ilbas) which is its inner potency. It highlights the role of the shaykh as

intermediary (shafaa) along with the Prophet. Most Sufi communities

advocate this position, often in harmony with the previous position but

sometimes with the understanding that love for the shaykh should be

unbounded by sharia norms.

Zarruq was very critical of Sufis for whom love took priority over

rectitude, and sarcastically called them love-struck (muhibbun). Zarruq

insisted that knowledge always takes precedence over love and that

love is conditional upon knowledge. One cannot love God without

obeying Gods commands, and obeying is conditioned by knowledge of

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those commands. Echoing his teachings, Ali Muttaqi wrote,

Those who claim to love God and the Prophet but refuse to

pursue knowledge are like a person afflicted with passionate

love for a sweetheart to such an extent that he is helpless without

his lover. Imagine that this man is informed that his sweetheart

is behind a high wall, and that the only way to reach his love is

to climb the wall. Imagine that upon hearing this news, he says,

This wall is a veil, an obstacle between my lover and me, so Ill

turn my back on it and reject it! Upon hearing this logic, all the

people around him will tell him that he is an idiot. He should

clearly work to climb the wall to reach his lover, rather than turn

his back on the wall altogether. Those who desist from acquiring

religious knowledge are all idiots like this man. Sufi masters have

said that Knowledge is the greatest veil of God since knowledge

requires such painstaking efforts to master.35

Ali Muttaqi dedicated a small treatise to the subject of love, A Warning

to Lovers, in which he argues that true and authentic love does not

lead to the overt displays of love-madness and uncontrolled

behaviour.36 The true lover conceals passion from the gaze of others,

refraining from bragging, sighing, weeping or lamenting. Similarly, the

lover must love death, for the time of being steady with the beloved is

only after death, coining a proverb: Death is a cord that leads a lover to

the beloved. According to him, love means obedience to the beloveds

command, and since the Quran is a love-letter from God, the love-

struck Sufi needs to study the letter and acquire the knowledge to

understand it. In contrast, those Sufi who uphold this position contend

that Muslim saints manifest the character, virtue and light of the Prophet

Muhammad, such that one who follows a saint, and strives to imbibe his

presence and imitate his conduct, has a connection to the Prophet that

is deeper and truer than adherence to legal norms. In their view, saints

and Sufis follow a deeper current of Prophetic guidance that is supra-

3 5

Ali Muttaqi, Ghayat al-Kamal fi Bayan Afal al-Amal (mss. Princeton:

Garrett Collection SII 519 (no 15), pp. 9-11.

36 Ali Muttaqi, Tanbih al-Ahibba fi Alamat al-Muhabba (mss. Delhi: Shah

Abul Khayr Dargah 21 tasawwuf, folios 1-9).

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rational, based on love, on seeing oneself in another, unbounded by

egoistic restraints.

The third position is to die to self-will in order to serve others

(khidma). This position recognizes that Sufi spiritual cultivation rests

upon the relationship of self to other, and that self-fulfilment comes

only in caring for others. Like the previous position, this is a form of

love, but rather than focusing specifically upon the shaykh and

personalizing the dynamic, it advocates love for others in a generalized

dynamic. The teaching of many Sufi masters points in this direction. In

the Chishti Sufi community which Ali Muttaqi rejected in his young

age, the chief exemplar, Nizam al-Din Awliya, taught that service to the

needy is better than ritual worship, for the presence of God is found

among the destitute and needy; he said that although there are

innumerable ways leading to God, the surest way to intimate knowledge

of God (marifa) is bringing happiness to others.37 In this way, he

emphasized a hadith that reports: All people are Gods family, and the

most beloved of people are those who do most good for Gods family.38

How does this position relate to the others and what are its

limitations? It would find fulfilment in philanthropic activity rather than

in cultic or devotional activity, though all Sufi communities demand that

disciples cultivate humility by serving the shaykh and their fellows in

the community. Loving the shaykh could be an integral means to

achieving this wider love for humanity, but would not become a goal in

itself. Likewise, the sharia might be a guide to caring for others, in

terms of giving others their rights. This position is often the basis for

more ideological Islamic movements that grow out of Sufi communities

but morph into activist organizations. At its furthest extreme, one might

see this position underlying the Jihadist urge toward suicide-as-service,

3 7

In Nizam al-Din Awliyas understanding, this was the best way to emulate

the Prophets example (sunna), and he made a pun in Persian that equated

prophethood (payghambari) with bearing the sorrows of others (pay-i

ghamm bari).

38 The hadith in Arabic: Al-khalqu ayalullahi fa-ahabbu l-khalqi ila allahi

man ahsana ila ayyalihi. For more details, see Khaliq Ahmad Nizami, The

Life and Times of Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya (Delhi: Idarah-i Adabyat-i

Delhi, 1991).

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though one could argue that by the time it reaches such expression in

violence against innocents, the ideal has passed beyond the limits of

both Sufism and sharia.

The fourth position is to die to self-will in order to perpetually

abandon pretence. and cleave sincerely to ones original nature. In this

view, dying to self-will is not a one-time event in a flash of awareness or

a completed ritual. It is rather a continuing psycho-ethical process, of

renouncing ones current selfish preoccupation and opening oneself to

the other, whether that is God, the Prophets example, the shaykhs

directives, ones personal beloved or the needs of others in society.

Advocates of this position emphasize that any act of egoism (or even

the assertion that an ego acts) is idolatry or shirk, and stress the need

for constant self-scrutiny (muraqaba), as expressed very powerfully by

the early Sufi al-Muhasibi, to overcome the human penchant to

substitute egoistic desires for divine will; they would agree that egoism

is the prime cause of social conflict and political strife, and therefore

often emphasize interior struggle with selfish desire over exterior struggle

over community issues of justice. They emphasize psychological process

over ritual norms, communal prosperity or confessional allegiance. Within

this position, Sufis may value Islamic doctrine as the clearest theology

against egoistic shirk, or may dismiss traditional belief structures as

too easily distorted by zealotry when believers claim to speak of God

but actually speak for God, concealing their own will-to-power over

others in a mantle of self-righteous religiosity. Such a position is useful

in Muslim majority contexts in confronting patriarchal or authoritarian

Islamic movements, like Islamist extremists or sharia-fundamentalists.

It is also common in Muslim minority contexts as a strategy to promote

integration into the wider (non-Islamic) society and establish cooperation

with non-Muslim groups to further projects of social justice on the basis

of shared values, which would be undermined by citing Islamic symbols

this strategys political utility is visible in Farid Esacks Quran,

Liberation and Pluralism, though he does not explicitly cite Sufism.39

In a less assertive way, such a strategy is deployed by advocates of

Sufi psychology, an approach that is currently developing by fusing

3 9

Farid Esack, Quran, Liberation and Pluralism (Oneworld: Oxford, 1997).

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Western psychotherapy with Sufi symbols, theories of personality (with

different levels of commitment to Islamic ritual practices).40

We might summarize these four basic positions in a broader and

more abstract way by focusing on how they define agency and authority.

In the first position, to die to self-will is to obey the sharia, a person

acts but attributes agency to a system of norms; one gains spiritual

completion by conforming to a system that is seen as divinely ordained.

In the second position, to die to self-will in order to love ones shaykh,

a person acts but attributes agency to another person; one achieves

spiritual perfection by being devoted to a charismatic person who is

seen as divinely elevated. In the third position, to die to self-will in order

to serve others, a person acts but attributes agency to the act itself; one

attains spiritual wholeness by humbly serving others, an act that brings

one and others into a covenant that is divinely desired. In the fourth

position, to die to self-will in order to abandon selfishness, a person

acts but attributes agency to the action (not the specific act but the

acting itself); one comes to know oneself through perpetually renewed

action in the moment, relinquishing certainty of self-identity and claims

of ultimate reality, in hopes of finding oneself divinely present.

As the permutations of these four positions reveal, it is not easy to

define what engaged might mean for Sufis. Each type of engagement

necessitates other kinds of disengagement. Forceful intervention in the

field of politics necessitates a certain inattention to psychological self-

critique. Assertion of communal needs and norms de-emphasizes social

justice for those marginalized in traditional community hierarchies. These

variations show that there is always a balance between engagement and

disengagement, between activism and passivity.

4 0

See for example Amineh Amelia Pryor, Psychology in Sufism (International

Association of Sufism, 2000) and Arife Ellen Hammerle, The Sacred Journey:

Unfolding Self Essence (International Association of Sufism, 2000), both

associated with the East-West Psychology Program at the California Institute

of Integral Studies, and also Kabir Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way

to Mindfulness and the Essential Self (Penguin Putnam 1992) of the Mevlevi

Sufi order.

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Appendix: Two Sufi epistles on the death of self-will.

Both epistles in Arabic have never before been edited or published and are

translated here by Scott Kugle. Both are referred to in his article, Die Before

Dying, in this volume. The first epistle is by Shaykh Ahmad Zarruq, entitled

Traveling the Path of Spiritual Cultivation With No Reliable Fellow Companion.

The translation was rendered from the only known manuscript of this work.41

1. Traveling the Path of Spiritual Cultivation With No Reliable Fellow

Companion

In the Name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate in whom we take

refuge and seek protection. All praise belongs to God, the Lord of all

creation. Blessings and peace be upon our Master Muhammad and upon

all the other Prophets, their families and their followers without exception.

I have entitled this epistle Traveling the Path of Spiritual Cultivation

With No Reliable Fellow Companion. It is designed to benefit whoever

has not found a spiritual guide to show the way or a sincere companion

to give sound advice. He or she can practise the method of this epistle

and arrive successfully at the goal, if God wills. But how much better it

would be if either of these two would be found!

The spiritual masters, may God be satisfied with them all, have

described the path of travelling toward intimacy with God in countless

books. Each of them has described the path in different ways, according

to how God has opened their consciousness to the divine presence. One

of them has said, The paths of reaching God are as numerous as the

variety of beings in creation. This is a warning about the bewildering

variety of the paths towards achieving intimacy with God. Every type of

supererogatory worship is in fact a distinct path toward Gods presence.

And the variety of acts of worship and devotion are beyond number. The

greatest of them is bearing witness that There is no god but God. The

least of them is to remove trouble or injury from the common Muslim.

Some spiritual masters have explicated the principles on which the

path of spiritual cultivation is founded. There are those who base it on

thirty-five principles, while others base it on ten principles and others on

eight. When I examined these principles closely, I found that they were

4 1

Ahmad Zarruq, Suluk al-Tariq idha fuqida al-Rafiq (mss. Ahmadabad: Pir

Mohammadshah Dargah 70 dhayl).

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all dependent on a single principle: to give ones life for God. It is said in

the proverb, The surest path to God trusted by the early companions

and those who follow is sacrificing ones life before it wears out and

becomes hollow. This is exactly the meaning of the saying, Die before

dying and, Drop yourself and arise and others like them. Those who

die before their death are those who make all personal qualities and states

to be like those of one who has already died, totally surrendered to the

fate decreed by God. You should desist planning and choosing for yourself

to earn eternal repose with God and a life without anxiety and care. This

is the quality of someone with a lofty spiritual aspiration and strong

personality, someone who does not fear the blame of any detractors.

There is a proverb that Whoever marries a beauty has to pay the dowry.

The dowry that needs to be paid before a life of blissful intimacy is to

sacrifice ones very life for God.

It is told that some person was walking along the road and resolved

to choose the death of his will (yakhtara al-mawt al-ikhtiyari). So he

laid down right there in the middle of the road, and extending his limbs as

if he were the body of a dead man. After just an hour had passed, the heat

of the sun became unbearable and his self-will demanded that he move

into the shade. He answered his self-will that a dead man does not need

any shade. After another hour, he became thirsty and his self-will

demanded water, but he answered that a dead man needs no drink. Later,

hunger overpowered him and his self-will moved him to eat, but he

answered again that a dead man needs no food. Everything his self-will

demanded of him, he refused on the grounds that he had already died,

until he passed beyond consciousness. When he awoke after three days,

he found that he had already arrived at the goal he had set for himself. He

simply stood up and walked away.

You can struggle to earn this state with your own efforts, by trying to

act as if you are dead in as many ways as possible. Remind yourself constantly

of death. Sew a little bag, inscribe on it the word death and carry it with you

everywhere, in public and in private. Every time you glance at it, imagine its

owner wrapped in his shroud and remind yourself of the presence of death.

Imagine every day as the day of his death, and conceive of every prayer to be

143



the last prayer of his life. Every time you lay down to sleep imagine his sheet

to be a shroud, his bed to be a coffin, and his house to be a tomb. In all these

thoughts you should repent of misdeeds and ask forgiveness and renew

your faith, without harbouring hatred for anyone. You should write out your

will and place it under your head as you sleep, and get rid of any possessions

beyond the minimum that you need. If the practitioner is single, he should

leave enough provision for just forty days; if he is married with a family, he

should leave enough provision for one year. This is what each person is

permitted to meet their needs and the rights that others have over them. But

it is better if one retains only what one needs for a single day.

If one wakes up after such a sleep, one should say, Praise be to God

who gives us life after causing us to die and resurrects us for himself! and

resolve to remain watchful and prudent until the resurrection. You should

practise these rituals on the second day, just as you did on the first, and

never remove from around your neck that little case, except in case of human

functions. If you persist with these rituals for a time (the least possible time

is forty days) then there is hope that God will grant you the death of your

self-will and ennoble you with everlasting life.

If one is shy before the eyes of other people, one does not have to

reveal this little death case to others; it can remain hidden beneath ones

clothes so that one feels it always but does not reveal it to others.

However, revealing it outwardly is more beneficial and promotes more

rapid progress towards the goal.

Each day in this spiritual practice, one should recite the following

prayer each day three times, beginning and ending with invoking praise

and benedictions on the Prophet.

Dearest God, do not leave me to myself for even one twinkling of

an eye! Conceal me from my enemy who incites me to rebellion

and help me against those who oppress me! Dearest God, take

my self and empower me and purify me, for you are the best able

to purify the soul! You are my selfs protector and master, by

your mercy, oh most compassionate of those who show mercy!

May God bless and praise our leader, Muhammad, along with his

family and followers.

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One of the benefits of this epistle is for worldly people, like rulers,

ministers and nobles. They can practise its methods in hope that the

world will not ruin their souls, by the grace of God. It is said that the

early successors to the Prophet used to appoint someone to accost the

Caliph every day with a shroud in his hand and shout in his face in a

loud voice, Oh Commander of the Faithful, death is inevitable! Death

has rights over everyone! It is clear that by Gods wisdom, the world

was made in a way that rulers and ministers and nobles are necessary for

its proper function. If the rulers were to renounce the world in total, then

society would fall into disarray and ruin. However, whoever does not

plot and plan for himself at all, the world cannot harm him in the least.

The one who practises the methods and advice in this epistle,

even if in secret (as is recommended for rulers) can achieve the goal on

intimacy with God, by Gods grace and generosity. Of course, practising

these methods openly and in the public eye is better and will yield benefits

more directly and more swiftly. The main benefit of this public practice is

that it protects one from any forgetfulness or negligence and keeps his

or her attention fully focused on the presence of God. That this alone is

the ultimate goal there is no doubt, but God alone knows best.

The epistle is completed. And may God bless and praise the

Prophet Muhammad, along with his family and his followers, each of

them without exception.

The second epistle is by Ali al-Muttaqi and is entitled My Lords Guidance in a

Spiritual Guides Absence. It comments on Zarruqs epistle translated above.

This translation has been rendered from the manuscript housed in Ahmadabad

after being corrected against a second copy of this manuscript text in Cairo.42

2. My Lords Guidance in a Spiritual Guides Absence

In the Name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate in whom we take

refuge and seek protection. All praise belongs to God, the Lord of all

creation. Blessings and peace be upon our Master Muhammad and upon

all the other Prophets, their families and their followers without exception.

4 2

Ali Muttaqi, Hadha Hidayat Rabbi inda Faqd al-Murabbi (mss.

Ahmadabad: Pir Mohammadshah Dargah 70 dhayl) and Cairo (al-Azhar

ayn 5446 tasawwuf).

145



This is an epistle that I have entitled My Lords Guidance in a

Spiritual Guides Absence. I have composed it as a sort of commentary

on the epistle by Shaykh Ahmad Zarruq (may God be merciful with him)

known as Traveling the Path of Spiritual Cultivation With No Reliable

Fellow Companion. Shaykh Zarruq has quoted from his own teacher,

Shaykh Abu al-Abbas Ahmad al-Hadrami, saying that spiritual training

is no longer valid in the sense commonly understood, and all thats left

is benefiting from the shaykhs own aspiration and state. So you should

follow the scripture (kitab) and the example of the Prophet (sunna), no

more and no less. Shaykh Zarruq explained this saying in the following

way:

Following these sources must be in three fields: in dealing with

the true One (al-haqq), in dealing with ones own self (nafs), and

in dealing with other people. In dealing with the true One,

following these sources means three things: carrying out

obligatory acts of worship, avoiding explicitly forbidden acts,

and submission to commandments. In dealing with the self,

following these sources lies in three things: treating the self with

moderation and fairness, refusing to submit to its whims, and

constant caution against its pitfalls in all its varied states (like

attracting or repelling, acceptance or rejection, gaining favor or

turning away). Finally, in dealing with other people, these sources

demand three things: making sure others get what is rightfully

theirs, relinquishing to them whatever is in others possession

and control, and fleeing from whatever drives others to jealousy

and envy (except in obligatory matters from which there is no

turning away). 43

And I say that there is one quality that, if one cannot find a spiritual

guide, takes the place of a guide and plays the guides role, if God wills.

That quality consists of constant spiritual struggle (mujahada),

awareness of God (taqwa), knowledge that one puts into practice (al-

ilm ma al-amal), and ascetic abstinence (zuhd) along with acquired

4 3

Both the saying and Zarruqs explanation of it are found verbatim in the

conclusion [khatima] of Zarruq, Qawaid al-Tasawwuf (Beirut: Dar al-Jil,

1992).

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reason (al-aql al-ik

Documents

Die Before Dying - Activism and Passivity in Sufi Ethics - Scott Kugle