202 No god but God
Just as all journeys must have a beginning, so the Sufi path only
originates with the “outer shell” of Islam. As the Sufi passes from one
stage to another on the way to “self-annihilation” and unity with the
Divine, that shell must be gradually discarded, for, as Majnun said,
“It is what the shell hides that counts.” Sufis believe that reason and
theology, creed and ritual, law and its commandments, all must be
replaced in the soul of the enlightened person with the supreme
virtue: love.
It is not surprising that most Muslims have historically regarded
Sufism with suspicion. The Sufi assertion that human reason cannot
fathom the Divine, that such knowledge can come only from intuitive
perception of ultimate reality, naturally infuriated the religious
authorities. It did not help matters that the Sufis rejected the Shariah
as inapplicable to their search for the secret knowledge of the inner
world. As noted, Islamic law is concerned with the external (zahir)
nature of faith: it is quantitative; it can be regulated. But the internal
(batin) cannot, and therefore represents a grave threat to the religious
authorities. Worse, by detaching themselves from the Muslim com-
munity, the Sufis appeared to be creating their own Ummah, in which
the Pirs replaced the Ulama as the sole religious authorities.
In rejecting the rigidity of the Shariah and its traditional interpre-
tations, Sufism eagerly absorbed all manner of local beliefs and cus-
toms, and became immensely popular throughout those areas of the
Muslim Empire that were not dominated by Arab majorities. In India,
Sufism spread like fire as it enthusiastically syncretized anti-caste
Muslim values with traditional Indian practices such as controlled
breathing, sitting postures, and meditation. In Central Asia, a cadre
of Persian Sufis developed a wholly new scriptural canon character-
ized by a rich panoply of poetry, songs, and Sufi literature, which,
unlike the Quran, was written in the vernacular language and easily
disseminated throughout the Empire.
This brief outline of Sufism’s origins may clarify how the move-
ment arose and spread, but it in no way explains what Sufism is. Nor
could it. That is because Sufism is a religious movement that can only
be described; it cannot be defined.
Consider the following parable originally composed by the great-