Asceticism in Islam.

Every religion crystallizes after the death of its founder into differentiated exoteric and esoteric institutional forms. We tend to call the exoteric "religious" or "outer" practice and the esoteric "spiritual" or "inner" practice, while both strands are organically linked to each other in the original form as practiced by the founder and his immediate disciples and followers, as organically linked as body is to soul for a human to be alive and called human. The exoteric crystallization within Islam became popularly known as the Sharia, Divine Law or Canon, and the esoteric crystallization as the Tariqa, the Way. The Tariqa's focus and praxis became known as tasawwuf, or Sufism in English.

Religion's objective as a whole, both exoteric and esoteric practice taken together, is human perfection according to the religion's existential worldview of the nature and purpose of humankind. Religion's given is that we humans are imperfect: either inherently at birth--born with original sin in the Christian worldview, for example--or as in the Islamic worldview born perfect but derailed from the pure state of birth by the urgings of our appointed demons as we grow older.

Asceticism, or zuhd in Arabic, is not an end in itself in the Islamic worldview but is one of several tools and aids towards attaining or catalysts to kick--start religious/spiritual development. The term zuhd embraces a spectrum of meanings including abstinence, withdrawal, renunciation from pleasure and/or from society; frugality and modesty in material comforts, clothing, food, being spartan in one's life style, with a presumption of piety and being devoted to the service of God. Asceticism is therefore not a necessary end or required permanent practice to attach oneself to but rather a tool to be used for attainment of these ends. When, whether, how and for how long it should be dispensed by the spiritual teacher is a function of the individual character and personality, his or her phase of religious/spiritual development and the context.

For the purpose of this essay, we shall discuss Islamic ascetic practice by contextualizing it within a narrative of the Islamic perspective on human nature and the Divine call to humanity, a narrative which determines and also describes the ultimate purpose of ascetic practice.

The Islamic Worldview on the Nature of the Human Being (1)

We can look at the nature of the human being either from the humanly generated or from God the Creator's perspectives:

The human perspective provides as many definitions of man as there exist human sciences: biologically a creature evolved out of the sea, physiologically a warm-blooded mammal, most closely related to the apes but with a thinking and creative mind; sociologically a gregarious animal, needing to live in communities. Each definition within such a cluster of definition cannot provide an existential purpose outside its own terms. Thus biologically and physiologically a human being lacks any purpose other than to eat and drink, sleep and reproduce, as the rest of creatures are impelled to do. Those governed by this definition regard their physical life as all there is, with a value system completely dominated by it.

The other way of looking at the human is God the Creator's point of view, given to each faith by its sources such as Scripture which is the record of the Creator's speech. The Qur'an is, for Muslims, God's speech to humanity. It defines man as the earthly receptacle, container and repository of a breath of the Divine Spirit (ruh)--an earthly creature given an especially exalted trust and mandate (the amanah) by Divinity Itself. Those governed by this definition, or taken by it, find that it precipitates a significant shift that focuses the human individual on a clearly depicted purpose and intent.

Human exaltedness therefore lies in our spirituality, which is the root of human psychology, and less in our physiology. It is the former which makes us a vicegerent of God, a khalifah, ambassador of God or divinely appointed steward of the earth who is also a servant of God (an 'Abdullah) in accordance with the precedent of the Prophets and saints. As such an exalted form of creation, we are the most developed locus where Divinity manifests Its Attributes, including Its desire to be known, according to one of God's well-known speeches passed on by the Prophet (Hadith Qudsi): "I was a hidden treasure and desired to be known, so I created the Creation, and through Me they knew Me." In other words, God created the universe for the purpose of Divine Self-discovery. And since our being maps the cosmos in microcosm, the correspondences between us and God have a number of definite consequences.

First, we too are a hidden treasure desiring to be known, and our struggles in life take us on a life journey of self-discovery reflecting divine realities. We too seek to know our own meaning; and we are prompted to do this not only to fathom the meaning and purpose of our own existence, but primarily to reciprocally create God's existence within our consciousness, the domain that maximally lies within our power. Just as God created us in order for Him to be known, we too "create" the consciousness of God within us as part of our self-discovery, in order for us to be known. We do this in two dimensions: we seek to be known to the world, and we seek to be known to God: worldly and divine recognition. Of course, at the basic level both the world and God know us. But when we accomplish great things in the world, the world grants us special recognition: a knighthood or an Oscar, for instance. And when we accomplish great things in the spiritual dimension, God grants us special recognition in His domain. Self-discovery is therefore not only the path that leads to God-discovery; it is no less true that God-discovery leads to greater and truer self-discovery, a cyclical process in which as we get to better know ourselves, we get to know God better. This is succinctly expressed in a Tradition of the Prophet's cousin and third successor 'Ali that paraphrases the Oracular demand to "Know thyself": "He who knows himself, knows his Lord."

Additionally, Muslim spiritual teachers believe that the Creator discloses Itself to every human being as an act of Divine grace, an awareness we serendipitously receive at least once in our lifetime, given as a reminder to all humans of a compact we each made before our souls were incarnated into this life. The Qur'an asserts that all human souls were arraigned in a prior existence to this life, and shall exist to be arraigned again after it. How come we do not remember this Covenant with the Lord, a Day when, according to the Qur'an, God asked us "Am I not your Lord?" (alastu birabbikum?; Qur'an 7:172) The reason is that there are boundaries (barzakh) between the different realms, veiled in such a way that they cover the consciousness of mortals when they move from one realm to another. It is as though we drink from a stream of oblivion, and our task in this life is to learn to lift the veils and to remember in this realm what we have seen and done in the previous realm of our existence. The Creator gives each human being the opportunity to remember the act of bearing witness to God, and the human individual in turn either accepts or rejects it. Those who reject it are "rejecters of God" (kafir or "infidel"); those who accept it are "believers."

The ultimate human attainment of all religious activity in the Islamic viewpoint therefore can be described as:

1. Witnessing the reality of God, called the shahadah, followed by merging our individual human consciousness--bounded in the self or ego--with God. This step of dissolving or extinguishing the boundaries of the ego or self and merging and anchoring it with the Divine Self is called fana'.

2. Anchoring our consciousness in God and maintaining a state of union with God. This phase is called baqa', which means "abiding"

3. Returning to the plane of human work in a state wherein our will is submitted to the Divine will, called islam, maintaining a state of God-mindfulness and obedience to the Divine will, called taqwa (often translated as "piety") and to discharge a God-given mandate on earth during one's lifetime.

Looking at this objective through an Islamic lens but using vocabulary associated with the Hindu Brahman, or supreme Reality, it is the personal attainment of anchoring oneself in Absolute Being or Reality (sat), Absolute Consciousness (chit) and Absolute Bliss (ananda). God, according to the Islamic viewpoint, has ninety-nine Attributes or Divine Names (compiled from many more found in the Qur'an and the prophetic Traditions), two of which are pure nouns (al-haq: Reality or Truth, and al-salam, Peace or Bliss) the rest being adjectival nouns that describe God, including al-'alim (the All-knowing) and al-khabir (the All-aware), which together describe well the objectives of Hindu personal attainment.

Buddhism, again looked at through an Islamic lens, prefers not to speak about the Divine or its "nature" (the Prophet Muhammad urged his followers not to dwell on the nature of God as it could lead to wrong ideas that would thereby constitute sin against God), and instead focuses on the personal process of attaining the "moments of contact" with the Absolute and anchoring oneself with It, that is, achieving enlightenment.

Right Loving: Love Your Jesus and Not His Donkey

The inner personal journey to this ultimate goal involves a combination of personal striving on our part and an act of Divine grace on God's part. The striving enhances our capacity to perceive and receive Divine inspirations, and eliminates those behaviors and attitudes that impede the process. Fasting and other ascetic patterns of living are an integral part of this internal struggle.

The spiritual journey is further based on a concept of the human that divides our nature into four components: the physical, the intellective, the emotional/sentimental, and the spiritual. Nurturing and taking care of ourselves means not only to take care of our physical being and its health, but to also take care and develop our intellective, emotional and spiritual natures; although many however ignore their spiritual health to the point that they are hardly aware or acknowledge that they have a spirit nature or component of being.

The famous thirteenth-century Afghani luminary poet Jalaluddin Rumi, in one of his witty stories whose purpose is to remind his listener of this lesson, describes the relationship between the human soul and the human body as like Jesus, the soul, riding a donkey, the body. (2) To paraphrase, those whose viewpoint is merely worldly and who ignore their souls are like those who "listen to the moaning of the donkey, and pity comes over them." Don't they know, Rumi asks, that "the donkey commands you to be asinine?" He advises us to "Have pity on Jesus (the soul created in the divine image within you that is riding your body) and have no pity on the donkey (your physical self)." Personally I am like many who find having no pity on the donkey hard to do; I love my latte coffee and smoked-salmon-on-seven-grain-bread breakfasts. But what I do find is that by taking care of my donkey, my physical nature and appetites, my "inner Jesus" rides much faster. The donkey that knows it is carrying a Jesus rather than a bale of hay is a far happier and more fulfilled one.

But Rumi's point is still an important one. Human exaltedness lies in spiritual depth rather than corporal shallowness; it is our spirituality that makes us God's stewards or khalifah. As an exalted form of creation, we are the most developed locus where Divinity manifests its attributes, including its desire to be known. If one has to choose to prefer one at the expense of the other, we should honor our soul at the expense of our body, and not vice versa. This is Rumi's advice.

Part of the purpose of asceticism therefore is to inform the human individual (specifically our conscious awareness and our will) of the greater importance of the soul over the body, the spiritual over the physical. The task of actually embarking on the spiritual journey, the next challenge in the personal narrative, depends on the nature of the spiritual seeker, who can belong to either of two classes: Those who make great demands upon themselves (the elite, al-khawass) or to that class that demands nothing special of themselves (the masses, called al-'awam), for whom to live means to be every moment what they are without imposing upon themselves any effort towards perfection.

For the elite human souls, the quest for moral and social perfection is a natural outcome of their commitment to tread a higher and more demanding yet authentic path within their religious tradition. Propelled towards a heightened consciousness of God, they embark on a journey of self-discovery in God, first within themselves and then among humanity. As difficulty often enhances spiritual attainment, as in ascetic self-renunciation, this path is shorter and steeper than the natural path. Instead of attaining the highest point by following a path that gradually ascends, they opt to climb more quickly up a steep, narrow and extremely difficult path, a path of initiation. (This path of initiation within the authenticity of the Islamic tradition became known and institutionalized as Sufism--tasawwuf). These are the Chosen who wish to attain their goal faster so that they can help others forward and onward. They lead a difficult life, full of sadness and problems, but also rich in insight and silent joy, because it is problems that give us insight. In one lifetime, they experience the content of many lives, for they wish to go on, even at that price. These chosen ones have been called by God (Allah), and have heard and responded to this call. They are the ones who wish to know, who seek the fullest answer to the question: "Where do we come from and where are we going?" They are prepared to subject themselves to tests and undergo trials, reaching spiritual maturity sooner than others, and find peace and joy even in this life through giving help, support, comfort, service, care and love.

The strongest among these attain the level of "Friend of God" or waliyyullah, also called "those near to God" (al-muqarrabun) or "elite of the elite" (khawass al-khawass) and usually translated into English as "saint." The Friend of God perceives the causes and consequences of the Past for the Present through the Past, and can therefore see into the inevitable future. The Friend of God seems to perform miracles because of his knowledge of the natural laws which are still unknown to us. He knows the hidden motives existing behind what we call Life, the consequences of these for the present as well as the future. To reach the level of wali or sainthood we must be prepared to work for years in silence and loneliness, with utter dedication and gratitude to God who will inspire us to achieve what is possible for human understanding in that field chosen for us.

In Islamic vocabulary, this is the path of the Sufi, which at certain stages, in certain contexts and for certain souls, embraces ascetic practice. Sufism, which is pilgrimage along the spiritual path, requires two elements: Divine remembrance and companionship with an authentic Master. The first element is embodied in the first part of the Muslim profession of faith, the Shahada: la ilaha illallah, ("There is no god but God"). The second element is embodied in the Shahada's second part: Muhammadun rasulullah ("Muhammad is God's messenger"). In the Qur'an, this is a call from the Lord of the Worlds--wa'llahu yad'u ila dari'ssalam, "and Allah invites to the Abode of Peace:" the Creator's Abode, wherein exists Absolute Truth, Absolute awareness and Absolute Peace/Bliss (corresponding to sat-chit-ananda). This call is our call to perfection in the Divine Plan, a call that requires us to destroy all that is bad and unworthy in ourselves, simultaneously develop higher and more refined skills, and to seek insight into the lines of God's policy.

The methodology of this journey is embodied in the term dhikrullah, or dhikr for short. Dhikr, which may take many practical forms such as simple recitation of God's name, is the intake and assimilation of a form of Divine energy that completely nourishes the human soul as mother's breast milk completely nourishes an infant baby. The masters are tributaries of the Prophet, the main river through whom the dhikr flows to each community. The masters dispense it to their students, and this is why in Sufi imagery the master is likened to a wine giver and his monastery to a pub, and he dispenses to his students a beverage that alters their consciousness towards a state in which their consciousness of the Divine is enhanced. Dhikr is a powerful source of self-discovery, through which come knowledge and strength. Without knowledge, strength is not perfect; and without strength, no one can achieve much worth achieving. We are taught how to suffer so as to remain unaffected by suffering, to increasingly detach from all attachments other than God (thus the import of no god but God: La ilaha illallah), a teaching embodied in the Sufi aphorism to "know how to die before you die" so as to embrace immortality; to know how to achieve and detach so as not to be affected by the acquisition of possessions. These are the main secrets of a new life for which we are to be prepared by means of our tests.

Along his pilgrimage the Sufi is required to serve the Truth (this is the definition of the term "dervishhood"), for Truth is an attribute of God. This, however, takes time for the young spiritual journey-maker to understand. To begin, he will have to learn to control his senses so that his spirit may be free and thus rewarded with a clear insight. This is the value of ascetic practices. They contribute to necessary steps of spiritual realization that help to push the young soul seeker along the path to understanding his service to God.

Fasting as an Example of Ascetic Practice

Muslims are commanded to fast for the thirty-day month of Ramadan from dawn to sunset, the fast defined as avoidance of food, drink (even water), smoking and sexual activity. In verses 2:183-185 of the Qur'an, God commands the Prophet's followers to fast in order to gain piety or a state of God-mindfulness, adding that He desires ease for them, not difficulty, and that they should complete the period required of the fast, and that they should magnify God for having guided them, so that that they may learn how to be grateful.

Like the Zen Buddhist sitting silently for hours in a state of stillness, fasting stills the mind, slows down the emotional and psychic processes and calms the body. It allows the fasting person to observe himself from the vantage point of the soul, and to discern the distinction between soul, body, mind and emotion. Often a fasting person will experience an emotional stimulus--say, to anger--but will perceive the lag (due to fasting) between the stimulus and the ability to respond. During the time of this lag we discern the locus of the observer, who is the soul, and the locus of the part stimulated: the body if it's a physical stimulus, the emotional "body" if it's an emotional stimulus, or the mind if it's an intellectual stimulus. This experience provides the seeker with an important step in his or her spiritual development--an important lesson in self-discovery.

By learning to distinguish the locus of the soul and its inspirations from what originates in other loci of our being, the seeker is enabled to recognize such inspirations and realizations, for the soul is his or her source of guidance. The soul is, as we have seen above, the breath of God within us, and it is in and through the soul that one discerns God, perceives His action, and communes and communicates with the Creator. As a highly respected Iranian ayatollah once said in a meeting I attended with a group of visitors, anyone who follows the urgings of his soul is a submitted to God person (i.e. a muslim), even if that specific action outwardly contravenes the dictates of the Sacred Law. The key, of course, is to make sure that what we are receiving is indeed from God and not from the anti-God pole, what in the Semitic traditions is called Satan. It is also important to discern the difference between an urging from the soul and one from the mind or emotion or body, or as Rumi says above, to recognize the difference between one's Jesus and one's donkey.

Fasting during Ramadan, therefore, as part of an ensemble of acts deemed ascetic, is a form of "addition by subtraction," or as is often mentioned in spiritual works, learning how to spiritually detach for the benefit of the soul's development and ascent along the Path, analogous to throwing ballast out of the basket of a hot air balloon in order to ascend.

Submission to What Comes Authentically from the Soul Equals Togetherness with God

"Walking with God" is a phrase commonly used in the Christian West to describe the demand placed on the spiritual traveler (salik is the term used for such a traveler in Islamic parlance). A key term in Islamic spiritual (or Sufi) vocabulary is "togetherness with God," or "togetherness" for short (from the Arabic word ma 'iyyah, based on the Qur'anic verse 57:4, wa huwa ma 'akum ayna ma kuntum, "He (God) is with you wherever you are.") In his commentary to the Risala't-tawhid or "Affirmation of Divine Oneness" of Shaykh Wali Raslan (written in twelfth century Syria), Shaykh al-Hamawi (d. c. 1530 CE) urges the traveler to give "togetherness with God" (ma 'iyyah) its due, and always be on one's best behavior (adab) for His sake. This is understood to mean abiding by the "levels or degrees of courtesy or protocols" (adab, proper behavior, that is, morality and ethics) required to "walk with God." (3)

Togetherness (ma 'iyyah) with God has three dimensions, which must not be thought of as stages ordered in sequence. To speak of stages implies that we develop from one to the other. These are rather three independent aspects. Each has to be developed, practiced, and refined. There is a bleeding effect between each stage and the others, in the sense that developing one aspect has a positive catalytic effect upon the development of the other dimensions.

1. At the outermost dimension, you are present with Allah in keeping with the standards of behavior proper to the Sacred Law (adab ash-Shar'). This means that you put into practice what He has commanded you to do, that you avoid what He has forbidden you to do, and that you cheerfully accept what He has decreed and ordained for you. It means that all the limbs and organs of your physical body are actively engaged in worshipful obedience to Him, and that you spend every moment of your time in His service. He will therefore screen you, at this stage, from the distracting influences of your (lower) self (nafs) and your circumstances, and He will enable you to witness His gracious favor toward you.

2. At the intermediate dimension, you are present with Allah in keeping with the standards of behavior proper to the Spiritual Path (adab at-Tariqah). This means that you are personally non-existent in relation to the service in which you are engaged, since there is no work more eagerly hoped for by hearts than the work that has no visible connection with you, and the very existence of which is unimportant from your personal point of view. As Allah has said: wa'l-'amalu's-salihu yarfa 'uh (35:10), "And the righteous deed He does exalt." At this level, the soul says: "My Lord, if good qualities (mahasin) appear to come from me, they do so through Your gracious favor, and to You belongs the credit for the kindness bestowed upon me. If evil qualities (masawi) appear, they do so because of Your justice, and to You belongs the evidence against me."

3. At the innermost dimension, or some may say the highest degree, you are present with Allah in keeping with the standards of behavior proper to Reality (adab al-Haqiqah). This means that you recognize what belongs to you and what belongs to Him, for the reality is that to you belong poverty, weakness, incapacity, ignorance and abject humility, while to Him belong affluence, strength, power, wisdom and glory. To you belong non-existence, to Him all-Being; you are contingent reality, a zero, and Allah is Absolute Reality and Being, therefore Infinity. So, if you are present with Him in keeping with these standards of behavior, if your haqiqah or reality is with His, if you allow your envelope to be the theater where Allah's infinity and splendor intersects your zero-ness, He will screen your poverty with His affluence, your weakness with His strength, your incapacity with His power, your ignorance with His knowledge and wisdom, and your abject humility with His glory, your non-being with His Being. He will display His splendor on your canvas.

At this stage, you will witness nothing but His actions (af' al) and His characteristics (awsaf). Your personal existence (wujud) will fade into insignificance, and every attachment will take its leave of you. The spiritual station of unification (maqam at-tawhid) will be rightly and properly yours. All that is superfluous will depart, and you will come to be numbered among "the singular people" (ahl at-tafrid). The rays of insight (shi 'at al-basira) will cause you to witness His nearness to you. The eye of insight ('ain al-basira) will cause you to witness your non-existence in relation to His existence. The truth of insight (haqq al-basira) will cause you to witness His existence, neither your non-existence nor your existence: in the beginning there was Allah, and there was nothing with Him, and He is now in the state in which He was then.

All these experiences are among the results of togetherness (ma 'iyya), of observing the standards of behavior proper to it, conforming to its rules of conduct, and adhering to its basic principles. If someone does not merely fail to observe the standards of behavior proper to togetherness with the Lord (adab al-ma 'iyya), but keeps company with his own (lower) self (nafs) instead, following it obediently wherever it happens to lead him, that person is screened from his Lord and Master (Mawla) by his own lower self, and it is the most seriously obstructive of all screens.

What is the objective of the Sufi's ethics? To learn that if you surrender to Allah, He will draw you close, but if you argue with Him, He will keep you at a distance. To comprehend that if you draw near through Him, He will bring you close, but if you draw near through you, He will keep you at a distance. To understand that your nearness to Him is your separation from you, while your distance is your sticking with you. To realize that if you come without your self and ego, He will accept you, but if you come through you, full of your self and ego, He will exclude you. And finally, to know that all of creation is a screen, and you are a screen, while He is the one Who screens. He is screened from you because of you, and you are screened from you because of you, and you are screened from you because of Him (that is, by Him). So, separate from you, and you shall witness Him. (fa'n-fasil 'anka tash-had-Hu). For as Shaykh Wali Raslan describes it: Creatures are a screen and therefore, since you are a creature, you are a screen. But the Lord of Truth is not one to be screened; He is concealed from you because of you. So detach from you, and you shall witness Him.

In this narrative the ultimate objective of any spiritual practice, including asceticism, is to locate the Self among the unseen order of God's creations. Muslims, in this regard, have the unparalleled luxury to live as ascetics without leaving society, or without changing their physical location. Our religion, made portable by our unwavering faith in its timeless tenets and practices, has never confined itself to a lonely hillside or hermit's cave. Instead, Muslim ascetics walk the earth as usual--whether during Ramadan, a fast of prophetic tradition, or simply as a regular exercise in spiritual restraint--and amalgamate their observance into their everyday lives. Humans, again, are social creatures, and draw upon each other for support in times of external or internal difficulty. And even as we live in difficult, trying times, ascetic spirituality will never lie far beyond our reach as long as the comfort of society's embrace lies definitively within it.

I pray, and ask you to pray alongside me, that we all find the courage to reexamine our humanity, renew our relationships with our fellow people and restore our unity with God.

Notes

1. We use the term "man" for the Arabic insan, for which no precise equivalent exists in English. It refers to the generic individual human whether male or female. We intend no sexism in such use.

2. This story is part of the oral tradition connected to Rumi.

3. Shaikh Wali Raslan Ad-Dimashqi. Concerning The Affirmation Of Divine Oneness (Risala fi't-Tawhid), Tr. Muhtar Holland. (Fort Luaderdale, Florida:Al-Baz Publishing), 1998.