Gregory Blann

Introduction from the books

     Sufism is the mystical tradition of divine love and unity. Whether in subtle or manifest form, it has existed in our world as long as conscious beings have inhabited it. Between the seventh and tenth centuries C.E., according to the Western calendar, the historical spiritual movement known to the world as Sufism developed under the aegis of Islam, in light of the deeply self-transcendent, unitive teachings revealed through the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). Before his time, this same primordial wisdom was the spiritual life-blood and sustenance of the ancient prophets, realized sages, saints and hanifs of pre-Islamic times. Its central proclamation is that there exists but One Reality, which lovingly emanates and continually sustains this vast and intelligent universe, a realm of physical existence which is never separate from its Divine Creative Source.
     From Arabia, the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad, the mystical tradition of Islam, known as tasawwuf or Sufism, spread to Iraq and its capital, Baghdad. There, the first major Sufi orders arose in the time of Junayd (d. 910 C.E.). From Baghdad and other centers, Sufism and Islam spread to Central Asia, North Africa, India, Anatolia and Spain. This book offers a history of Islamic mysticism up to the founding of the great Sufi orders, including biographies of many of its major saints, founding pirs, and the trends which have developed out of their teachings.
     Sufism has seen a tremendous growth in popularity in the United States in recent years, both in its traditional Islamic context and in its universal, ecumenical form. Before 1970, there were scarcely a few dozen English books on the subject of Sufism. Today, publications number in the thousands, as Western interest in Sufism—the religion of the heart—continues to grow. Beyond the horizon of biography, this book seeks to unfold the path of mystic love as it passes through various phases in history, each stage timelessly representing a makam, or station, on the path of spiritual realization. By “mystic love” we mean to indicate nondual love, in which the soul awakens from its sense of separation into its own Essential Source, becoming the Beloved which it loves. Thus, mystic love is not fixated on any material object of love, nor a remote deity, but is a subjectless, objectless expression of union within the One All-Pervading Reality. This love comes from God, is for God, transpires through God, and operates within the Oneness of God, or Allah—the Sole Reality.
     According to Sufi teachings, all the divine attributes, the stations of love, and the souls of human beings, which co-exist in this one many-splendored Reality, emerge from the celestial realms—from the Garden of Divine Essence. As the Turkish Sufi poet, Niyazi Misri, wrote (referring to the human soul):

This nightingale, stranger to space and time, has come here from the Garden of Pure Essence.

That abode is simply the Friend, all Divine Face, gazing, gazing.
      (From Nur Lex Hixon’s English setting of the Turkish ilahi, Ey Garip Bülbül.)

 The Garden of Mystic Love is a Sufi metaphor which describes this one vast spectrum of existence. From the eternal realms, Allah Most High brings forth the temporal life of the world, replete with conscious souls, who are spiritually nurtured and sustained by divine guidance and the realization of unity. These guiding sacred revelations to humanity are poured out abundantly over the centuries through the hearts and minds of authentic divine messengers and prophets. According to the Qur’an, at least one of them has been sent to every nation on earth.
     The Divine Oneness is proclaimed by the Prophet Abraham; the sacred law is revealed to Moses and other noble messengers, known and unknown; the way of divine love, forgiveness, and mystic union is revealed through the Messiah Jesus. Finally, the cycle of divine revelation is brought to its fullest fruition by the Seal of Prophets, Muhammad, upon him be peace. Through the Prophet Muhammad is revealed the quintessential teaching of unity, succinctly formulated in the Arabic words, La ilaha illallah, meaning approximately: “there is nothing except Divine Reality”. The power of this illuminating principle, the radiant well-spring of the mystic tradition, was spiritually transmitted by the Prophet Muhammad to his son-in-law, Hazrat ‘Ali, and indeed flows to all conscious humanity.
     After the passing of Muhammad, what can be called the Sufi tradition, in its historical Islamic setting, first assumed the form of rigorous ascetic practice and poverty, an austere attitude of Godfearing repentance and retreat from the ways of the world. This is exemplified in the lives of such early Sufis as Uways al-Qarani and Ibrahim Adham. With Rabi‘a al-‘Adawiyya, the heart of Sufism begins to further reveal itself as a path of pure love for Allah, divested of all secondary desires, such as the hope of paradise and avoidance of hell. The ecstatic states of union experienced by Bayazid Bistami and other “intoxicated” Sufis mark a further tendency toward divine Self-discovery in the consciousness of the Sufi mystics, a trend sealed by the martyrdom of Mansur al-Hallaj and Shams-i- Tabriz.
     n the Sufi understanding, it was not Mansur, but the Divine Source that ecstatically cried out through him: “I am the Absolute Truth!” Nor was it Rabi‘a who offered supplications of unconditional love to her Lord; it was pure worship, without one who prays. This passionate pursuit of divine love, beyond all duality, was fervently celebrated by such mystic poets as Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi and Yunus Emre, and incorporated into the mystic orders in many ways, including the ecstatic ceremonies of Divine Remembrance (dhikr).
     The path of mystic Self-realization and boundless love is the spiritual high road, the great promise of religion, the soul’s open door to union with Truth. Beyond all divisions and creeds, love is our innermost nature, our Divine Essence. As Hazrat Inayat Khan has most beautifully written:

 

“You are love. You come from love; you are made by love; you cannot cease to love.”

     It was with the intoxication of love for the light that the moth, circling around the candle, sacrificed everything and threw itself into the flames. This same fire of love purifies and illuminates the human heart, cooking that which is raw and radically transforming it. We, too, are invited by the words of the Mevlud to draw near and feel its intoxicating power:

Come close now, true dervishes of love, to the very fire of Divine Love, which burns in the Prophet’s noble heart as he ascends through the heavenly spheres to the most intimate Presence of Allah. This same fire of love will now burn within you, for such is the highest mystic teaching of Islam. (Translation by Nur Lex Hixon)