muslims, posts by tag: tasawwuf - LiveJournal

As salaamu alaikum

I would like to share this excellent article about the place of tasawwuf in Islam written by Nuh Ha Mim Keller. As he describes in his article, and I've heard the same wording by numerous other scholars as well, the religion of Islam is made up of three fundementals:

"Islam, or external compliance with what Allah asks of us; Iman, or the belief in the unseen that the prophets have informed us of; and Ihsan, or to worship Allah as though one sees Him."

So basically, Islam [though i personally think another term should be used here since islam is the sum of all of these, but my arabic is limited so i dont know what other term i would prefer... fiqh, maybe?] is the submission of the body, iman is the submission of the intellect/mind, ihsan is the submission of the soul/heart.

In terms of knowledge,

"The level of Islam has been preserved and conveyed to us by the Imams of Shari‘a or ‘Sacred Law’ and its ancillary disciplines; the level of Iman, by the Imams of ‘Aqida or ‘tenets of faith’; and the level of Ihsan, 'to worship Allah as though you see Him,' by the Imams of Tasawwuf."

Sharia (or fiqh as others also include) so you know the proper way to worship Allah outwardly, aqida so you have correct belief and faith, and tasawwuf so you have a clear heart and sincere intention in worshipping Allah. I recommend this article b/c a lot of people [myself included at one point] have some really bad misconceptions about Tasawwuf until they realized that it's one of the essential cores of Islamic worship. I think it's primarily b/c of the modern movement, wallahu'alam. To quote someone who said it perfectly:

In the time of the Rasulullah (salAllahu alayhi wasalam), tasawwuf was a reality without a name. Today tasawwuf is a name, but few know its reality.
-Author Unknown

Here is the summary of the article by N.H.M Keller, please check out the link below, inshaAllah:

To summarize everything I have said tonight: In looking first at Tasawwuf and Shari‘a, we found that many Qur'anic verses and sahih hadiths oblige the Muslim to eliminate haram inner states as arrogance, envy, and fear of anyone besides Allah; and on the other hand, to acquire such obligatory inner states as mercy, love of one’s fellow Muslims, presence of mind in prayer, and love of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace). We found that these inward states could not be dealt with in books of fiqh, whose purpose is to specify the outward, quantifiable aspects of the Shari‘a. The knowledge of these states is nevertheless of the utmost importance to every Muslim, and this is why it was studied under the ‘ulama of Ihsan, the teachers of Tasawwuf, in all periods of Islamic history until the beginning of the present century.

We then turned to the level of Iman, and found that though the ‘Aqida of Muslims is that Allah alone has any effect in this world, keeping this in mind in everhday life is not a given of human consciousness, but rather a function of a Muslim’s yaqin, his certainty. And we found that Tasawwuf, as an ancillary discipline to ‘Aqida, emphasizes the systematic increase of this certainty through both mudhakara, ‘teaching tenets of faith’ and dhikr, ‘the remembrance of Allah,’ in accordance with the words of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) about Ihsan that "it is worship Allah as though you see Him."

Lastly, we found that accusations against Tasawwuf made by scholars such as Ibn al-Jawzi, and Ibn Taymiya were not directed against Tasawwuf in principle, but to specific groups and individuals in the times of these authors, the proof for which is the other books by the same authors that showed their understanding of Tasawwuf as a Shari‘a science.

To return to the starting point of my talk this evening, with the disappearance of traditional Islamic scholars from the Umma, two very different pictures of Tasawwuf emerge today. If we read books written after the dismantling of the traditional fabric of Islam by colonial powers in the last century, we find the big hoax: Islam without spirituality and Shari‘a without Tasawwuf. But if we read the classical works of Islamic scholarship, we learn that Tasawwuf has been a Shari‘a science like tafsir, hadith, or any other, throughout the history of Islam. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said,

"Truly, Allah does not look at your outward forms and wealth, but rather at your hearts and your works" (Sahih Muslim, 4.1389: hadith 2564).

And this is the brightest hope that Islam can offer a modern world darkened by materialism and nihilism: Islam as it truly is; the hope of eternal salvation through a religion of brotherhood and social and economic justice outwardly, and the direct experience of divine love and illumination inwardly.

it's definitely worth a read, check out the rest of it at: The Place of Tasawwuf in Traditional Islam