Religions and mystics

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.

The acceptance of Sufism within Islam was slow and fraught with difficulties but concluded in the 9^th century (4^th 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 8^th century (2^nd 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 9^th century (3^rd 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 7^th century (2^nd 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 13^th century (7^th 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 9^th and 10^th centuries (3^rd and 4^th 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.

From the 9^th century (5^th 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 (5^th century of the Hegira) and the 15^th century (9^th 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 13^th century (7^th century of the Hadira).