Religions and mystics

The origins of Sufism

The question of the origins of Sufism is particularly controversial. Orientalists such as Nicholson and Massignon, using case studies like that of Al-Hallaj, have emphasised Greek and Christian influences in their research. For them, the strong Christian presence in the Arabian Peninsula before the arrival of Islam, especially in the region of Najran and around the Gulf, is a determining factor. Other researchers have stressed the influence of more distant civilisations and the experience of mysticism originating the East (Iran and India), or even from the North via the Byzantine Empire.

Review of the genesis of Sufism in the East

The acceptance of Sufism within Islam was slow and fraught with difficulties but concluded in the 9th century (4th century of the Hegira) with its recognition as a fully fledged religious science and practice. Ibn Khaldun[1] explains the context of this evolution in his Muqaddimah: “Sufism is one of the sciences born in Islam. Here is how it originated. The way of life adopted by people – mystics or Sufis – has always flourished since the time of the first Muslims. The most eminent among the Companions and their disciples, and among their successors, thought it the route to the truth and the good path. They based this on the obligation to give themselves over constantly to works of piety, to live only for God; to renounce the pomp and vanity of the world; to pay no attention to what men commonly sought, pleasure, wealth and honours; but to live in retreat practising devotion. Nothing was more common amongst the Companions and the rest of the faithful in those early times. Later, in the second century of Islamism and the centuries that followed, when the taste for worldly goods spread and most men allowed themselves to be taken up in the whirlwind of worldly life, the persons given over to piety became known as Sufis or moutasouefs”.

Originally, Sufis constituted an isolated minority in Muslim society, which was dominated by a judicial tradition which frowned on departure from the Qu'ranic texts and the words of the Prophet.

The economic, social and ideological turmoil that Islam underwent at the end of the era of the Rashidun caliphs forced the “Adorers of God” to retreat (Ghorba) from a society they saw as corrupt and degenerate. Opponents of the ruling regime, they also found themselves at odds with social norms (Ibaha), for example in advocating celibacy, vegetarianism, and eccentric clothing. They also adopted hermitism, wandering (siaha) and begging. They renounced all normal activity, claiming that that they had put themselves in God's hands for their subsistence (Attawakoul). Some even rejected religious obligations (Al farid). Their seemingly coarse behaviour meant that these “Adorers of God” were seen as mad (Majadibs[2]) . In order to overcome the hostility to Sufism of the ulemas and sultans, who saw it as a heterodox tendency in Islam which weakened faith and was therefore dangerous to society, the Sufi group of the Zouhads emerged, which tried to underplay its 'otherness' and moderate its preaching.

The centre of caliphate power from the 8th century (2nd century of the Hegira), then intellectual crucible and crossroads of many kinds of influences, Iraq was also the cradle of the Sufi movement. At the beginning of the 9th century (3rd century of the Hegira) the Sufis, previously dispersed throughout the Abbasid Empire and as far as Byzantium, began to coalesce around celebrated teachers and other figures in mysticism. They were then in a position to defend their position on faith and the good conduct of believers and to share their experiences of mysticism and to develop the first rules on mysticism, producing treatises and epistles on the path to mysticism: introspection (Isstibtan), education of the self (Al Mujahada) to rid oneself of bad thoughts, and love of God.

At the roots of the Sufi movement were other pious people, the marabouts, from the first century of the Hegira. They would accompany soldiers on a temporary basis to participate in jihad against the infidels. From the 7th century (2nd century of the Hegira) ribats began to appear to serve as refuges for these solitary mystics. Ribats[3] were later built in towns. At first accommodating classical schools, from the 13th century (7th century of the Hegira) they became, under a variety of names – Khannika, Zaouia, Takia – centres of Sufi teaching.

One may present an historical picture marking out the principal stages in the Sufi movement. Primitive Sufism was born in Basra[4] and Kufa[5] , where the first followers lived in ascesis, in poverty and intense meditation on the Qu'ran. The 9th and 10th centuries (3rd and 4th centuries of the Hegira) marked the apogee of classical Sufism. Three great schools developed a mystical gnosis (Maarifa), those of Egypt and Baghdad, then that of Khwarazm[6] .

This phase came to an end with the execution of Al Hallaj[9] in 922. After this event, the Sufis returned to a more clandestine existence and began to establish major syntheses in the search to legitimise their doctrine through treatises and a body of work on mysticism. The most well known remain the treatise of Al Qushayri[7] and that of the great theologian Al Ghazali[8] , who worked to minimise the danger to official Islam represented by Sufism.

The martyrdom of d'Al-Hallaj from a Mughal miniature c. 1600.InformationsInformations[10]

From the 9th century (5th century of the Hegira) the Sufi movement experienced a remarkable renaissance in Persia, due to celebrated mystics. This resurgence led to a second golden age of Sufism between the 11th century (5th century of the Hegira) and the 15th century (9th century of the Hegira) with significant figures such as Ibn Arabi[11] , founder of the theory of the oneness of the perfect Being, and Jilani[12] , with his theory based on the unity of mystic knowledge, presented as a response to the collapse of the Islamic Caliphate after the disappearance of the Abbasid Empire, destroyed by the Mongols in 1258.

The great Sufi orders were created from their theological bases, but their expansion from the Iranian plateau and Central Asia was most marked in the 13th century (7th century of the Hadira).

  1. Ibn Khaldun

    Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) was from an Andalus family expelled from Spain. He was born in Tunis during the Merinid era, and was famous fro his travels which took him to the East. His major work, the Book of Lessons (kitab Al Ibar) is a universal history. The introduction to this book is known under the title of Al-Muqaddimah (Introduction); in this he explains his theory of societies and the rise and fall of empires.

  2. Majadibs

    The word majdoub means, in Arabic, a Sufi who is in a state of mystical intoxication. Wholly given over to divine love, he seems mad and dispenses with all religious responsibility.

  3. Ribats

    Ribats were at first places of refuge for Sufis to practice their mystical rites; they later evolved to become places of learning for mysticism. Ribats also had a role as sanctuaries and sometimes as fortresses for the defence of Islamic territory.

  4. Basra

    Basra is a town in the south of modern Iraq. At the beginning of the Abbasid Empire (8th century) it was celebrated as a crossroads for the great mystical tendencies and was the laboratory of the great Muslim mystical theories.

  5. Kufa

    Kufa is a town in the centre of modern Iraq known for its flourishing culture during the Abbasid era.

  6. Khwarizm

    Khwarazm is a region to the south of the Aral Sea in modern Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Its most celebrated son is the mathematician Muhammed Ibn Musa al-Khwarazmi whose name, once latinised, gives us the word 'algorithm'.

  7. Al Qushrayri

    Abu I-Qasim Al Qushrayri was born in Persia in the Khorassan in 986-987 and died about 1072-74. he was famed for his treatise Al-Risāla al-Qushayriyya which provided one of the most important bases of Sunni Sufism.

  8. Al Ghazali

    Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad aṭ-Ṭūsī al-Ġazālī (1058-1111), latinised as Algazel, was a Muslim theologian of Persian origin, As a critic of Aristotle in the Muslim world, he condemned his philosophical errors (Tahafut al-Falasifa) and defended the dogma of Sufism.

  9. Al Hallaj

    Al Hassan bin Massud Al Hallaj was born in Tur in Persia in 875. Known for his mystical temperament displayed in his poems [Document 2], he was crucified for his ideas in Baghdad on the orders of the Sunni ulemas.

  10. Creative Commons Zéro

  11. Ibn Arabi

    Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibnʿArabī al-Ḥātimī aṭ-Ṭāʾī , born on 26 July 1165 in Murcia (in modern Spain) and died on 16 November 1240 in Damascus (in modern Syria). He was known as “Sheikh al-Akbar” (lit. 'the greatest master'). Ibn Arabi was a major Sufi thinker.

  12. Jilani

    Abdul Qadir al-Jilani, born in 1077 or 1078 and died in 1166, was a Persian teacher of Sufism. Like Ibn Arabi, he contributed to the formalisation of Sufi thought.

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