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
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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.
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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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Die Before Dying: Activism and Passivity in Sufi Ethics
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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Die Before Dying: Activism and Passivity in Sufi Ethics
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
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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).
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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