Sufism and Persia

The cities of Basra, Kufa, Damascus, Cairo, Baghdad feature, along with the desert wastes of Arabia, Sinai, and Mesopotamia, as centres where the Sufi movement took root and flour- ished. At the same time a “school” of mysticism of extraordinary vitality and influence came into being in the distant province of Khorasan, the bridgehead between the Middle East and the Far East. The earliest semi-historical figure in this gallery of Persian saints is Ebrahim ibn Adham, “Prince of Balkh, whose conversion to the mysti- cal life has been not inaptly compared with the legend of Gautama Buddha. It may be noted in this connection that in pre-Muslim times Balkh was the centre of a large Buddhist community, and the ruins of the massive Buddhist monastery called Naubahar were still pointed out centuries after the coming of Islam. Ebrahim travelled from Balkh to Syria in quest of “honest toil” and is said to have died fighting at sea against Byzantium in about 780; he had made ‘‘ person- al contact with many Sufis of Syria and Iraq.

However spectacular the example of Ebrahim ibn Adham may have been, his influence upon the history of Sufism was soon overshadowed by the emergence in Khorasan of a mystical genius of the first order, Abu Yazid of Bestam, who died about 875. His recorded acts and sayings (“Glory be to Me!” he ejaculated memorably in the fervour of mystical ecstasy) reveal him as a man of profound spirituality, who through long austerity and med- itation reached a state of compelling awareness of the merging of his human individuality into the Individuality of God; a long and graphic descrip- tion of his “flight of the alone to the Alone”, a psychical journey performed in emulation of the Ascension of Mohammad, will be found in due place in this book. To him is attributed the intro- duction of “intoxication” into Sufi doctrine, and in this respect he is contrasted with the “sober” school of Baghdad, headed by the great al-Jonaid (d. 9IO). The latter, who studied and commented on Abu Yazid’s ecstatic sayings, reached indeed the same conclusions regarding the supreme mys- tical experience, the passing away of the temporal ego into the Eternal Ego; but he expressed the matter much more cautiously, supporting his argument by adroit “Neo-Platonic” interpreta- tion of certain key quotations from the Koran and the sayings of the Prophet.

The early years of the tenth century witnessed the climax of a sharp orthodox Muslim reaction against the individualistic transcendentalism of the Sufis (some of whom deliberately flouted the proprieties to prove their contempt for human judgments), when the Persian-born al-Hallaj, who declared himself to be the Truth, was exe- cuted for blasphemy in Baghdad in 922. Thereafter the majority of vocal Sufis laboured to effect a reconciliation with traditionalism and accepted theology; and Persians played a notable part in this irenic endeavour. Textbooks aiming to prove the essential conformity of Sufi claims within the framework of strict Islamic doctrine were compiled by al-Sarraj of Tus (d. 988), Abu Bakr of Kalabadh (d. c. 995), and, most famous of all, al-Qoshairi of Nishapur (d. 1072). To Nishapur (whose most famous son to the world at large was of course Omar Khayyam) belonged also al-Solami (d. 1021), author of the oldest sur- viving collection of Sufi biographies; whilst Esfahan produced Abu No’aim (d. 1038) whose encyclopaedic Ornament of the Saints is our chief sourcebook on Muslim hagiology.

These men all wrote in Arabic, the learned and prestige language of Islam. Meanwhile the politi- cal renaissance of Persia under the virtually inde- pendent tenth-century dynasties of Saffarids and Samanids led to a revival of the Persian language, transformed as dramatically out of the old Pahlavi as English out of Anglo-Saxon, both phe- nomena the results of foreign conquest; and the eleventh century produced the first Sufi composi- tions in that tongue.

On the formal side, we have in the Kashf al-mahjub of Hojwiri the earliest Persian textbook of Sufi doctrine, in its own way fully the equal of al-Qoshairi’s celebrated Resala. Then al-Ansari of Herat, an eminent Hanbali lawyer (d. 1088) who wrote notable works in Arabic including the classic Stages of the Mystic Travellers, chose Persian, and a remarkably beau- tiful Persian at that, as the medium of his mysti- cal meditations and prayers (Monajat); he also produced in Herati Persian an enhanced edition of al-Solami’s Classes of the Sufis. The following extract from the Monajat, made into rhyming and rhythmical prose in imitation of the original, shows how closely Ansari adhered to the thought and expression of the earlier Sufis.
O my friend, behold yon cemetery, and see how many tombs and graves there be;

how many hundred thousand delicate ones there sleep
in slumber deep.
Much toiled they every one and strove, and feverishly burned with barren hope
and selfish love, and shining garments jewel-sprinkled
wove.

Jars of gold and silver fashioned they, and from the people profit bore away, much trickery revealing, and great moneys
stealing; but, at the end, with a full regretful sigh they laid them down to die.
Their treasuries they filled, and in their hearts well-tilled planted the seed of lustful greed;
but, at the last, from all these things they passed.
So burdened, suddenly at the door of death they sank, and there the cup of destiny they drank.
O my friend, ponder well thy dissolution, and get thee betimes thine absolution; or, know it full well, thou shalt in torment dwell.
In this same period Abu Sa’id ibn Abi ‘l-Khair of Maihana (Khorasan), a man of great saintli- ness who met and corresponded with the master- philosopher Avicenna, is credited with having used the newly invented and popular roba’i (qua- train) as his medium for expressing mystical ideas and experiences. His contemporary Baba Taher, a wandering dervish, composed dialect verses in a somewhat similar quatrain form to court the Heavenly Beloved, pictured as coy and cruelly reluctant as any rustic maiden.
Like hyacinths on roses Thy tangled locks are strung; Shake out those gleaming tresses, And lo, a lover young On every hair is hung.
The breeze that fans thy tresses Surpasseth fragrant posies. In sleep I press thine image, And as mine eye uncloses
I breathe the scent of roses.
Give me thy two soft tresses, Therewith my lute I’ll string; Since thou wilt never love me, Why dost thou nightly bring Soft dreams, my heart to wring?
Two eyes with surmeh languid, Two curls that idly stray, A body slim, seductive— And dost thou truly say,
“Why art thou troubled, pray?”
Thou hast me, soul and body, My darling, sweet and pure; I cannot tell what ails me, But this I know for sure, Thou only art my cure.