Sufi Studies Today (III)

by William Foster

1968



Another important result of Western analysis of traditional

documents has been the discovery that many of the bewildering

cults, beliefs, pieces of literature and other unusual pieces

generally supposed to be parts of Christianity, or of occultist

society provenance, can be traced to Sufi origins. Hence Professor

Asin Palacios* has traced work by Teresa of Avila, John

of the Cross* and Dante* to Sufi published originals; the sociologist

Daraul has traced Rosicrucianism,* much alchemy, and

'witchcraft' to Sufi groups; the Templars and Order of the

Garter have been found to have irresistible analogies with

Sufism*; and much of the 'Hindu' thinking so prized by many

Westerners has been shown to be a late development of imported

Sufi ideas into India and 'Hinduised' by medieval Indian gurus. 

The very novelty and abundance of the newly-discovered Sufi

activity in the heritage of the Judeo-Christian, Hindu and Moslem

traditions, coming into prominence within a comparatively

short space of time has had a predictable, though nonetheless

unnecessary, reaction. Many people are unable to adjust themselves

sufficiently quickly to the news that Dante and the Blessed

Ramon Lull* copied Sufi literature, that Najmuddin Kubra anticipated

St Francis in an alarming variety of details, that Sufi

influence underlay national, social, literary and philosophical

movements in the East and West which had until recently appeared

to be of totally varying origins. The more paranoid

observers either cannot stomach this new flood of information,

or regard it as a manifestation of some sort of Sufi hidden hand

trying to assert a psychological ascendancy.

(See supporting documentation in References under: Palacios, Daraul,

Shah, Lull, Dante.)

Such reactions are as unnecessary as that of the synthesisers

who are trying to relate Sufism to their established ways of

thinking. The latter include authors of books on Sufism and

occultism, on Sufism and Christianity, on Sufism and poetry,

and so on.

The main defect in current scholarship when it comes to its

power of evaluation of Sufism is that traditional intellectualism

requires that the material studied shall be explicable 'mandarinism'

(which operates on a basis comparable to 'Which category

familiar to us does this material fall into?') has already

been discarded by science. No scientific researcher in existence

will say: 'What kind of electricity am I studying?' without

first making sure that he is working with electricity . . .

Sufism, when its materials are assembled without prejudice,

shows that it has features which seem to place it within the

purview of philosophy, but also some features which belong,

apparently, to mysticism. At the same time, it is partly manifested

in the forms of literature, and literary men tend to study

it from this point of view, ignoring almost all others. When

Sufic organisations are found which recall to the mind of the

medievalist the monastic formulations of the Middle Ages, the

treatment of the materials unearthed will tend to be comparative

with monkish orders known in the West.

.

Among the difficulties encountered in studying Sufism is the

fact that, as soon as one tries to analyse a Sufi organisation's

rituals, ideas, manner of proceeding, heirarchy, literature and

the rest, one finds that, although complete in itself as a teachingsystem,

such an organisation differs considerably from another

—equally important—Sufi body in another place, belonging to

another culture, or operating at another time.

This difficulty, if we read what Sufis have to say about it,

becomes logically resolved. According to Sufis, their methods of

teaching must vary in accordance with the 'individuality' of the

teacher, the times, the place and the students. While such an

idea may recommend itself to logic (if one grants that Sufism

has the knowledge to provide peculiarly apposite formulations)

it is not one which forms a part of our Western intellectual

tradition. Consequently, whilst an electronic computer might be

expected to take such a conception in its stride, through lack of

culturally-conditioned preconceptions, most of us as largely

Western-trained thinkers (academics or otherwise) are, frankly,

incapable of making the psychological adjustment of facing this

contention. It has, in short, no parallel in our thought-systems.

The Sufi answer is that this is precisely the thought-system

which we have to learn in order to be able to approach Sufism.

Until 'Sufic' thinking-training machines are developed, the

traditional method of learning this process remains unsuperseded:

the study, with a Sufi teacher, of his thoughts, ways of

acting, projects and products.

Recent research and publications on Sufis and Sufism seem

to be a particularly useful way of approaching the study of

what seems to be an almost totally unfamiliar set of ideas. The

alternative is to study with a Sufi 'exponent, and the literature

(apart from that emanating from popularised and diluted

'cultish' recruitment bodies passing as Sufis) tells us that it is

hard to find Sufi teachers in the main line of the tradition.

Even if one did find such an exemplar, the indications are

that the majority of students would approach him in an uncritical

frame of mind, being in psychological dependency need, or else

from the mechanical-assumption point of view, trying to relate

his instruction to our own preconceptions, and fragmenting it

in the process.

As a matter of interest, annexed to this monograph is a contemporary

Sufic document, previously unpublished, which gives

an insight into present-day projections of the Sufi message by

authoritative exponents of the study. It is called: 'Sufi Studies',

and in stressing the need for a community within which Sufism

is correctly expressed, it helps to counterbalance the increasingly

theoretical tendency in students of Sufism.

References:

PALACIOS, M. ASIN, Un precursor hispanomusulman de San

Juan de la Cruz (Andalus J, pp. 7ff., 1933).

LULL, R., in Ribera, J., Origines de la Filosofia de Raimundo

Lulio.

DARAUL, A.,

A History of Secret Societies,
New York (Citadel),

1961

DANTE, ASIN PALACIOS, M.,
Islam and the Divine Comedy(Tr. Sunderland), London, 1926.

 

SHAH IDRIES, SAYED, University of Sussex (England) Lecture:

Special Problems in the Study of Sufi Ideas,

(Soc. for Understanding Fundamental Ideas), 1966. 2nd. Edition, with documentation, index, etc. 1968. Also reprinted in Shah, (I) The Way of the Sufi, London (Johnathan Cape)1968, pp. 13-48.

Note:

These are documentation, not necessarily recommended reading