[This essay is part of the Critiques series.]

If traditionalist jurisprudence has been the father of our religious indoctrination, then mystical sufism has undoubtedly been its mother. It has not always been a happy marriage, but it is a marriage nonetheless. This essay will deal with the “mystical” side of our society’s mistakes, just as the previous one dealt with traditionalism. The general perception of sufism, that it stands opposed to the material corruptions in society while pitching a pure ‘spirituality,’ is far from accurate. Not only have they collaborated with the traditionalists, they enabled the imperial rulers, the colonists and the economic elites of our societies, sometimes even becoming the elite themselves and carrying out exploitation directly. Their influence, which is much stronger than people generally assume, has distracted our societies from focusing on practical solutions. Mystic sufism’s softer and much more benign reputation notwithstanding, it is no less to blame for our present day predicament.

We might be tempted to think that sufism’s influence pales in comparison to that of the traditional scholars, but this is simply inaccurate. Just as the father’s influence may be more visible, nevertheless; maternal influences still shape society on a much deeper psychological level. Such is the case with sufism, who’s own vast influence on our society has been described by academics like Paul Heck as “unparalleled.“ Scott Kugle, a renowned specialist on sufism, who is a convert to Islam and a sufi himself, agrees: “Kugle argues that Sufism is the ideal place to begin an inquiry into cultures, because Sufis have engaged with the body more deeply and meaningfully than other Muslims. “ The effect of all of this influence has been our definition of “piety” itself, or rather, how our society understands, qualitatively, the idea of being a good Muslim. Ahmet Karamustafa states that our sufi inspired “self-conscious mode of piety… moved to the center of Muslim social and intellectual to all levels of urban and rural societies.” Beyond all the regulations that are laid down by the traditional jurists, it has been sufi mysticism which has instilled the spirit and motivation to follow those errant rules. If jurists are the stick, then sufis are the carrot.

This also connects to the illusion that sufism has always existed as an alternative to the rigidity of traditional scholars. According to Heck: “The legal and mystical traditions of Islam – shari’a and sufiyya, respectively – are not at odds.” Sufis certainly critique the rigid approach of the traditionalists, much like the mother may question the sternness of the father, yet sufis still base their boundaries within the scope of that very same sharia which clearly contradicts the Quran: “Sufi shaykhs (often Shafi’i in affiliation) overlapping with traditionalist ulama teaching in the same institutions, and even recognized as legal experts in their own right.” The traditionalists have gotten much use of the sufis as well, besides just stabilizing this house of cards they’ve built together. They have also been known to employ distinctly sufi philosophical methods, whenever convenient, to justify their own visions of the law. Thus, there is indeed a “close intellectual association in Islam between the mystical outlook and the legal tradition.” Mark Sedgwick has pointed out that not only did the sufis receive support of the traditional jurists, members of the jurists even began joining the sufi tariqahs, and in some cases even led them.

With that said, there is a subtlety here that needs to be understood. Unlike the case of the traditional jurists, as explained in the previous essay, the sufi case of intermixing with the political elite is not straightforward. Whereas the jurists simply rubber-stamped the authority of the imperial rulers in return for the status of becoming the “arbiters of Islamic law,” the sufi shaykhs maintained a more independent image, according to Professor Jamil Abun-Nasr. Their evolution from independence to interdependence began with the notion of sainthood in the 9th century. By the 11th century, this concept merged with “spiritual authority.” Then, by the 13th century, this authority began to be linked to the Prophet, through the saints. Finally, by the 18th century, exclusive allegiance was being demanded by these different sufi groups, which then led to distinct centralized religious communities. No longer could people be affiliated with multiple tariqas. When the colonial-era dawned on our societies, the more established sufi shaykhs largely chose accommodation and compromise with their new colonial rulers, despite the few examples to the contrary. They basically did this in order to sustain their own ‘spiritual authority,’ telling their followers to simply focus on “strict religious observance.” This is the main reason why the sufis found themselves on the defensive in the post-colonial era, leaving the door wide open to the salafiyya movement, which positioned itself as the true resistance. The sufis were basically telling a defeated society to focus on empty religious rituals, while their conquerors ran amok.

The most important claim of sufism that we must examine is that its mysticism stands wholly apart from the corrupted realm of the material. All the claimed virtues of sufism stem from its position as a ‘spiritual’ and saintly movement, untainted by the ‘materialism’ of the corrupted world. That’s how sufism has always been marketed, ever since its very beginning during the Umayyad Empire: “Thus, Sufism can be interpreted as a reaction against the growing materialism which spread in Muslim societies as a result of prosperity in the wake of conquests and annexation of vast territories in Persia, Byzantium, Central and Western Asia, and Africa.” This is what attracts the downtrodden, the disaffected and the heartbroken into mysticism’s embrace.

But these ascetic principles eventually turned into just another advertising commercial. I’m sure genuine saints existed among the sufis, but just as the traditionalists fell prey to patronage, history proves that the sufis did too. In their case, however; the charge is much more serious, because it contradicts the core image of sufism as a “reaction against the growing materialism.” In order to understand the systemic nature of mysticism’s mixture with materialism for selfish and exploitative gains, we must look at the issue structurally. The principal architectural feature of Sufi communities consists of shrines built over the graves of saints, often with political patronage, with an aim to establish a power structure. According to Karamustafa, “the shrines would become venues where descendants of many Sufi saints converted their forebears’ charisma into formidable social and economic power. Shrine communities also became the focal points around which new communal identities – often ethnic or tribal in character – took shape.” Regarding the shrines, Kugle states:

“They provided a site for meditation or retreat, a venue for the singing of devotional songs outside the strict norms of ritual prayer, occasion for making vows, offering gifts, repaying debts, and making other kinds of transactions with the sacred realm. Many of these rituals took forms from royal protocol for approaching an inaccessible emperor through his delegated ministers, transposing them into a devotional setting, in which one could approach a transcendent God through immanent mediators who have been granted intimate proximity to the divine. Thus, most important, tombs of saints provided emotional connection with a chain of spiritual masters, some living and some dead, who gave a Sufi disciple a vivid connection back to the Prophet Muhammad and through him to God.“

This sounds like a very powerful charm, and indeed it is. It is so powerful, in fact, that it has actually been used to establish a divine right to rule in places such as Morocco, which persists even in present day politics. This may sound odd at first. But if you concede the point that an earthly object, such as a shrine, by itself, enables proximity to God, then granting those people who control such shrines a ‘divine right to rule’ isn’t really that much of stretch, is it?

“(Mawlay Idris al-Azhar’s) tomb shrine stands in for the Kaʿba, and visitation to his tomb is analogous to pilgrimage to Mecca. His proximity bridges the distance to the Prophet Muhammad, and his genealogy brings the Prophet’s charisma into the Moroccan locality, making it accessible to the elites, like dynastic rulers who claim legitimacy through his legacy and like commoners who claim blessing through submissive devotion to him… Mystically devoted and erotically charged, the author continues to describe the union between God, the Prophet, and Mawlay Idris. “I saw nothing except that I saw his face (qubl). I took witnessing his essence as my orientation in prayer…. (quoting another researcher): “Theoretically; the spiritual power which the [saint] possesses is unlimited, in the sense that disciples should not have the impertinence to imagine its limitations.”

The problem here, is obvious. Such excessive devotion given to sufi saints and their mystical shrines, can easily be exploited, and it is. Kugle makes it clear though, that the ‘divine right to rule’ came later, and there is no evidence to suggest that it was sanctioned by the saints themselves. But it is after all, a natural outgrowth of such excessive devotion: “the sanctity of their genealogy Their right to rule, we might say, ran in the blood that flowed from the marrow of their bones.” It doesn’t end with political power, but also fleecing the poor of their money. Even the dirt found in these shrines is advertised as having magical healing powers and can be sold, at great profit, to the clans who control them, and of course there’s always a justification for such practices, via hadith. Kugle further states:

“The lesson we can take from Mawlay Idris and Abu Ghalib is that material props are required to achieve this immaterial effervescence of communal harmony and social unity… The tombs of saints in Islamic cultures, reinforced by the mystical practices of Sufi communities, manifest these subtle operations of religion and provide “pegs” to preserve the order of the human cosmos.”

The “material props” the sufis use are there to establish a hierarchical pecking order, i.e. to preserve the status quo. One of the roles of the “traditional mold of Sufi shaykhs,” was to give “spiritual advice, guidance, and sustenance to the powerful in exchange for patronage.“ An example of this are the “visual markers of religious prestige” that are the dervish lodges one finds in Turkey, built under the Ottomans. But it doesn’t seem like the sufi shaykhs gave any ‘guidance’ to the Ottoman rulers that actually helped, as their empire obviously collapsed in utter defeat. Perhaps the ‘guidance’ these shaykhs should have been giving was to remind the rulers that their royally imperial behaviour was an insult to the very Islam they claimed to be the guardians of. But I’m sure such harsh words would not have earned them any favors, let alone any precious patronage.

This state of affairs was present in the Mughal, Safavid and Shaybanid cases as well, where “certain shrines enjoyed the highest level of patronage from the rulers and their family members.” Hagiographers (the ones writing biographies of saints) were crucial agents in promoting the interests of the sufi elites, as the mythical tales would attract the attention of the imperial authorities and focus favors on those sufi orders which were to be most trusted. Hagiography and sufi shrines thus complimented each other. One provided the mystical myth, while the other provided the ‘material prop,’ both of which attracted the patronage which would ensure prosperity for the sufi hierarchy. All of this had to be sanctioned by the traditional jurists and their fatwas, which is why the miracle stories were interlaced with allegorical verses from the Quran taken literally.

Nile Green has shown that this cycle of patronage began as early as the Seljuk period and strengthened afterwards. Besides offering propogandist legitimacy to the imperial rulers, the leading sufis also offered divine blessings in the form of baraka, which they claimed to be able to channel in whichever direction they wanted, through their ability to work miracles. Green states:

“The relationship between the saint and the sultan was, then, one of reciprocal exchange, albeit one of dissimilar resource of cash and land for miracles and blessings. In almost every corner of the Islamic world, from the twelfth century on we begin to hear more and more stories in which the Sufi saints were seen to use their baraka as a means of intervention in what in secular terms would be seen as political affairs.”

In the Sub Continent one can still observe this patronage in the dargha, which is a “quasi-feudal establishment.“ Qawwali groups (sufi musical performers) are the service professionals employed by the “controlling class,” who award hereditary privileges to their selected musical families, under conditions controlled by the sufi leaders. This entire “shrine establishment” depends on economic patronage from the worldly elites. The clientele and devotees include the rich and powerful, for which these sufi leaders provide religious legitimacy, which then further promotes the prestige of their own orders. It’s basically a feedback loop.

Another feature of sufism in South Asia is the hereditary aristocracy of the ‘Syed’ families, which descended from the sufi saints: “Although the authority and charisma of the sufi saints came from their personal piety, it also helped if they could claim descent from the Prophet, so there was a strong incentive for them or their descendants to manufacture family trees, sagarah, to prove this.“ What ended up happening, is that these families who claimed descent from the Prophet incorporated features of the same pagan inequality that Islam came to abolish, and re-established their own “quasi-castes,” placing themselves at the top. To this day, these families maintain strict marriage patterns to preserve their “purity of blood,” (whatever that’s supposed to mean.) It’s actually just a way to preserve their lands and wealth, much of which was given to them by the imperial Mughal rulers. Such was their aristocratic behavior that the Syeds were given the reputation for laziness and “sloth,” by the British. Interestingly, the first genetic study that was done on the Syeds yielded no evidence to suggest they descended from the Prophet, as their genes are too varied and do not indicate a common ancestral heritage. But this is a moot point anyway, since any genetic descent from the Prophet (real or imagined) does not bring with it any aristocratic privileges and/or ‘purity of blood,’ according to the Quran. In fact, it goes against the core message of the Quran, which is to set all humans on an equal plane before God, leaving only our deeds as the decider, not any “purity of blood”.

All such examples expose the irony of the image of sufism in our society. On the one hand, these are the same people who claim to be the guardians of ‘spirituality,’ opposed to the material realm which they see as corrupt. On the other hand, they’ve been historically hooked on patronage, and use their own institutions to extract money from their devotees (in some case literally selling them ‘magical’ dirt) while lavishing the elites with legitimacy. This is not a history of sincerity, it is a litany of hypocrisy and exploitation. Despite whatever virtues the original saints extolled, their descendants fell very far from the tree.

But what of the core ideology of sufism itself? With regards to its meditation, Kugle states that the stories which claim the Prophet advised such practices to his close associates are based in hadith reports. Their core idea is as follows:

“Most fundamentally, Hujwiri explains that meditation is the inner aspect of prayer, which is an outer orthodox. He argues that prayer really means remembrance of God but, for beginners and those concerned with the outer life, it is cloaked in ritual postures of prayer. He draws a direct allegory between the outer actions of orthodox Islam and the inner experiences of Sufi practice.”

… Okay, but what exactly is the functional difference between the traditionalists, who focus on the outward forms of ‘prayer,’ and the sufis who focus on the ‘inner experiences,’ if neither of them produce any actual benefit for society? I’ve written about this previously, in “The Irrationality of Empty Rituals,” and will continue to expound on this in the future. Basically, “prayer” in the Quran, or rather the salaat which we are suppose to establish, is an active means, to a revolutionary end, with empirically measurable effects to benefit society. None of these benefits were there to stop our fall, nor are they present today in the midst of our ‘dark age.’ Much of the blame for this passive definition of piety falls on the sufis. The sufis told their adherents to focus on their religious rituals, while the West was running rampant colonizing their lands with machines, the mechanics of which the mystics could hardly fathom. Let’s take another look at sufi meditation, with this in mind:

“Meditation is remembrance as opposed to forgetfulness. So whatever makes you remember and stay connected with your object (God) counts as meditation and constitutes an act of worship, regardless of whether the means of meditation be a name, ritual or action per formed with the body or in the body or in abstraction from the body or in any other way… For Sufis, everything said, everything done and everything felt can be meditation, on condition that it leads them to remember God and stay awake and aware.“

Again, this sounds great, right? Anything, apparently, can bring one closer to God, as long as one just “remembers” God in whatever one does. But here’s the problem: If anything and everything is capable of bringing one closer to God, then why bother with active struggles? Why not just sit in a room and meditate like a Buddhist? If both acts can achieve reward/nirvana, then what’s the point in choosing the riskier option? This is what most of the sufi shaykhs did, by choosing to preserve their authority, rather than actively opposing the imperial ‘muslim’ rulers, or the colonists who conquered them later. While the Quran’s message is supposed to spur an active correction of the unjust status-quo, until the day when the Quranic State becomes the status-quo.

Indeed, the discovered manuals from the Mughal era that Kugle describes in his paper, only focus on different ways to vocalize God’s remembrance, breathing techniques, ‘spiritual’ retreats and different ways to concentrate during sitting meditation etc. Nothing at all is said about challenging the practices of their political or economic overlords, who were at the time beginning their road towards steep decline, only to be eventually conquered by the onslaught of the Western machine. But why bother with all that stuff? As long as you can do your ‘breathing exercises’ in peace, who cares if the empire you’re living under is Mughal or British? If the the world outside your window is being destroyed, then shut the blinds, and continue to pray/meditate. That is how sufi ‘piety’ works, apparently.

I have not even mentioned the influence and ideas of Ibn Arabi, who’s “metaphysical monism” reshaped much of sufi thought. One major thinker who dealt with the philosophical flaws of sufi metaphysics and their effects directly, was the philosopher/political leader, Muhammad Iqbal:

“In spite of their disparagement of reason, the Sufis had to justify their moral and metaphysical attitudes by means of rational thought. For this purpose, they developed the doctrine of metaphysical monism, called wahdat ad-wujud (unity of existence), which had very grave ethical consequences, since it entailed the denial of the existence of evil and resulted in a full-fledged determinism that could admit of no free-will. From all these standpoints, i.e. its monistic world-view which abolished the distinction between God and man, its denial of the efficacy of the human will and its obliviousness to the presence of evil, Sufi standpoint was very different from that of early Islam, and because the moral attitudes engendered by Sufism permeated the masses of the Muslim Community, Iqbal rightly thought that it must share with other contributory factors the responsibility for the decline which set in among Muslims after the classical period of Islam.“

I won’t go into the details of the metaphysical discourse. Its detached musings are irrelevant to the matters at hand. Suffice it to say, that some of the Sufi ideas, especially those of Ibn Arabi, are so unapologetically pantheistic, that it’s amazing to me that such a discourse occurred within an ‘islamic’ framework at all. However, the real effect of such ideas was, as Iqbal suggested, was the attraction they offered to naturally speculative minds. This is an important point, so I’ll explain it in some detail. In the sixth chapter of his Reconstruction, Iqbal tries to explain the reason behind the “state of immobility” of the Law of Islam. Iqbal blames this, partly, on the later sufis. But he does so in an interesting manner, developing a cause-effect relationship. Iqbal says that “on its speculative side which developed later, Sufism is a form of free thought and in alliance with Rationalism.” However, the particular subset of rationalists Iqbal is referring to here are those whose “unrestrained thought” damaged the over-all rationalist movement. We must keep in mind that Iqbal is not picking sides, as he finds fault with basically all of the players. Of the rationalist movement itself, Iqbal says that they were wiped out when the Abbasids eventually sided with the traditionalists “fearing the political implications of Rationalism.”

In Iqbal’s analysis, the downfall of the rationalists came about because of two things: 1) a misunderstanding of its ultimate motives and 2) a minority of the rationalists were completely unrestrained in their thoughts. Both of these factors led to them being labelled as threats by the traditionalists, and eventually by the Abassid rulers. Why is this relevant? Because according to Iqbal, sufism benefited from the resulting domination of the traditionalists. The Sufis turned to their hallmark “other-worldliness,” which Iqbal says developed “under influences of a non-Islamic character.” It was this unrestrained thought, which had first plagued the rationalists, that now attracted and absorbed the brightest minds in the lands, in the garb of sufi philosophy. The net result of this brain-drain was that: “The Muslim state was thus left generally in the hands of intellectual mediocrities, and the unthinking masses of Islam, having no personalities of a higher caliber to guide them found their security only in blindly following the schools.”

Let it be clear, however; that Iqbal’s critique of sufism does not echo orientalism, which claimed that sufism as a whole is borrowed from non-Islamic sources. Iqbal’s critique focused on the “other-worldliness” of “later Sufism” specifically, which he blamed for the brain-drain that took place. It was this aspect alone which he said was implanted from non-Islamic sources. In the words of Mazheruddin Sidiqqi: “Iqbal, however, repudiates the view put forward by the orientalists, like Von Kremer, Dozy, Merx and Nicholson who trace the origin and development of Islamic mysticism to non-Islamic sources.” and yet “Iqbal also says that the presence of Christianity was a further contributory factor in the growth of Sufism. ‘It was, however, principally the actual life of the Christian hermit rather than his religious ideas, that exercised the greatest fascination over the minds of early Islamic saints whose complete unworldliness, though extremely charming in itself is, I believe, quite contrary to the spirit of Islam.'”

The non-Islamic ascetic ideas were cemented via the hadith, a subject covered in some detail in the previous two essays. As it relates to Sufi asceticism, the hadiths supporting it began to come into circulation after the time the Caliph Ali. It has been speculated that the ascetic bent was originally a result of the disillusionment of the failures of the rebellions against the Ummayads, who had turned the original Quranic State into an empire. The power of these new caliphs was too strong to challenge directly, and some began to abandon hope in social reforms and revolutions, turning instead to mysticism. It was the hadith which enabled this attitude by justifying it. Another key idea that appeared during this period, which was also cemented via the hadith, was the Messianic Doctrine. This main vector of this messianic infection was sufism, which introduced it in our society. The idea that some savior will come down from the sky and magically restore the glory of Islam, is I think, one of the most self-destructive elements we have. It robs us of the impetus to solve our own problems in a systematic and progressive manner, and instead feeds all the apocalyptic ‘the end is nigh’ narratives.

When Muslims are disenchanted with the world around them and go searching for a deeper Islamic meaning to their life, they are usually presented with one of two options: Traditionalism or Mysticism. Iqbal recognized the problem with this binary choice. Historically, the less intelligent were drawn to traditionalism, while the brighter minds were attracted to sufism, thereby leaving the evolution of our society crippled. Of course, there have been exceptions and one can always find great individuals from among the sufis (just as one may find them from among the traditionalists) but individual examples are irrelevant. Both of these models have fundamental flaws and their history, in general, proves their ineptitude. It is undeniable that neither traditionalism nor mysticism have managed to produce the Islamic society described in the Quran.