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| Malâmiyyah
Psycho-Spiritual Therapy Patrick Laude "Though this be madness, yet there is
method in't" Let us begin with the harmless premise that
medicine is a response to sickness and that the definition of sickness
presupposes an understanding of what is meant by health. No doubt, health
may be considered on a variety of levels, beginning with the two distinct
planes of the soul and the body that are, in the Islamic Weltanschauung,
the respective domains of spiritual psychology and medicine. In the
context of this present essay, we will focus on the former, specifically
on the relationship between the soul (nafs) and the spirit (ruh) that lies
at the core of Islamic mystical understanding of the innermost reality.
However, it should be noted at the outset that physical sickness is,
according to Ibn Sina, following Empedocles and Hippocrates, the result of
a rupture of equilibrium between the various 'humors' of the body. (1)
Thus, sickness (or health) cannot be set apart from a fuller cosmological
understanding of the correlation between the anima and the physical
organism that, in many ways, suggests a certain correspondence between the
inner states and bodily afflictions. In Islamic traditional medicine, the
four 'humors' of the body correspond to the four cosmological 'elements':
black bile to earth, phlegm to water, blood to air and yellow bile to
fire. (2) These correspondences emphasize the 'natural' foundation of
health as an orderly set of relationships. Disease is, therefore,
fundamentally linked, either directly or indirectly, to a loss of balance
that bears witness to a separation from a primordial norm of being. The Koran itself refers to the
"hypocrites" (munafiqun) as those who are "sick in their
hearts" (fi quiubihim maradun) (XXXIII, 60). This is in itself a
clear indication that sickness is a condition that originates in the
spiritual and animistic strata of being. Bodily health is, in this view,
inseparable from that of the health of the soul. (3) In the Koran 'health'
refers more specifically to a state of integrity or totality (4) that can
be identified in a very general sense with the fitra, the primordial norm
or the original state of mankind. From a Koranic standpoint, the loss of
the fitra amounts to a straying away from the shahada, the Islamic
testimony of faith, that reads in Arabic la ilaha illa Llah, literally,
"There is no divinity but the Divinity." In other words, what
could be called 'ontological sickness' is akin to shirk, that is,
'association' of other realities to God with all the spiritual and moral
consequences that this association entails. In this context, it is
important to bear in mind that for Sufi gnostics the shahada does not
simply mean the affirmation of one God as opposed to a plurality of gods
which would be, as Henry Corbin has pointed out, as much of an idolatry as
any other (Corbin 1980). Above all, it stands as a testimony that there is
only one Reality and that all realities 'are' only in so far as they
'participate' in the only Reality like drops of water in a vast ocean.
Consequently, any fault, vice or transgression fundamentally amounts to an
existential shirk, or association, that envisages creatures independently
from the Reality that begets them. From an epistemological standpoint, the
shahada is considered by many Muslim mystics as an expression of
intelligence as such, or as a ray of divine light. It is ultimately linked
('aql) or identified with the Spirit (ruh) since only that which 'is' in
some way the One may affirm the metaphysical unicity of the One without
contradiction or hypocrisy. As for the central agency of denial of truth,
it is the tenebrous soul (nafs al-ammara), divorced from the spirit or
disconnected from intelligence, that 'absolutises' the individual status
of man and the passions that ensue from it, thereby severing him from his
Creator by claiming an illusory metaphysical independence. All disorders,
imbalances and forms of degeneracy result from this existential error and,
furthermore, all sicknesses are manifestations or symbols of it. The 'sick' soul must be restored to
spiritual health. In general terms, Sufi mystics have two main
prescriptions for the cure, two complementary remedies that are most often
referred to as faqr and dhikr. Some emphasize the latter, others stress
the former, but no mutasaiwif (Sufi traveler) would consider any one of
the two as a mere accessory to the restoration of health. Dhikr can be
best defined as a sustained, and ultimately permanent, awareness of God
through the methodical invocation of one or several of His Names. As such,
dhikr is sometimes referred to as a remedy. (5) Since the Name Allah flows
from the verbal and textual substance of the Koran, and since the primary
message of the Koran is God, or the primacy of God, many Sufi mystics tend
to consider this Name (al-ism al-a'zani) as the very essence of the Koran
and, therefore, as the heart of the whole Islamic tradition that flows
from it. In point of fact, it is important to understand that most Sufis
consider the Divine Name not only as a means of reference to God, or a way
of remembering Him, but as a vehicle for His grace. This allows us to
understand dhikr as the 'divine side' of the spiritual way. Although the
repetition of the Name of God is obviously contingent, at least initially,
upon the efforts of the mystic, it remains nevertheless true that, from
the highest point of view, the Divine Name, repeated by the mystic with
the right intention in a suitable religious and moral context, derives its
spiritual effectiveness from its divine 'content', in the same way that
the ritual and transformational efficacy of the words of the Koran issues
not only from their meaning and their utterance but also, and above all,
from their origin and their divine prototype (umm al-kitab). There is in the Koran itself an element of
divine presence without which the religious insistence on the benefits of
its recitation would not be fully intelligible. If one were to define the
respective modes of effectiveness of the Divine Name and the Koran in
terms of spiritual therapeutics, one could assert that the Name Allah, by
virtue of its unicity and coherent simplicity, must be primarily
understood as a cure by means of 'centering' and 'unifying'. It
constitutes a kind of negation of the negation-a piercing through the mist
of the phenomenal universe, a rending of the existential veil (hijab) that
hides the Divine. Clearly, the Koranic recitation, inasmuch as it consists
of numerous verses and words, should be discerned as a means of
re-integration, in the sense that the plurality of its form and content
addresses the multiplicity of the soul, thereby reintegrating this
multiplicity into the unity from which it proceeds. As for faqr, it can be defined as a state
of perfect awareness of one's dependence upon God's will. Faqr is the
state of the one who "has made himself independent of everything but
God and who refuses anything that leads him astray from God"
(Jean-Louis Michon 1973, p. 263). The spiritual content of faqr can also
be approached through reference to the state of mudtarr or being in
spiritual 'need' or 'constraint'. Mudtarr could be best defined as the
state of being on an existential edge-this extremity precipitating an
awareness of one's powerlessness or loss of control over one's own
reality. As Sara Sviri has suggestively put it: "when the seeker
gives up all hope of being in control, and yet 'knows'- consciously or in
his heart of hearts-that he is vertically aligned with a higher source of
power, he knows surrender" (Sviri 1997, p. 34). In some respects, the
station of faqr corresponds to the human side of the spiritual work, since
all that a man can do is acknowledge his own nothingness. However, faqr
would be unthinkable without dhikr, at least in the sense in while an
independence from everything but God implies a perfect remembrance of Him.
As for dhikr, its perfection is evidently incompatible with placing any
reality on the same level of awareness as that of God, which is another
way of saying that it requires faqr as its precondition. So, in a certain
sense, Sufi psychology presents us with the two sides of the same
spiritual reality. At its most elementary level of manifestation, 'outer'
faqr could be defined as a socially-bound religious practice that is
exclusively defined in terms of conformity to the shari'a- the individual
submitting himself to God's Law, which means, literally, islam, whereas
the 'outer' dhikr could be defined as the performance of the various
obligatory and supererogatory devotional prescriptions. However, faqr and
dhikr, relatively external manifestations of devotion, do not take us
beyond the realm of the individual self since they are perfectly
compatible with a lack of awareness of one's immediate and constant
dependence upon God's kun, or act of origination. Of course, these
practices and attitudes take for granted a mode of subservience to God and
a rational and emotional recognition of His awesome power. They do not,
however, delve into the deepest spiritual meaning of human existence, such
as Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya expressed in the oft-quoted Sufi koan: "Thine
existence is a sin wherewith no other sin can be compared"(Lings
1993, p. 97). It is this seemingly absurd predicament that malamiyyah
spirituality addresses in a most radical and uncompromising way. One generally associates malamiyyah (6)
spirituality without referring to any particular tariqah with a systematic
disdain for social norms, including a transgressive tendency with respect
to customs and conventions, and with the cultivation of disruptive
attitudes aimed at attracting upon oneself the blame of others. Now,
although such a vision is undoubtedly founded upon psychological and
social realities, it does not do full justice to the profound meaning and
the vocational principles of this methodical course of action. The term malâmiyyah refers to a variety of
movements and individuals. Strictly speaking, the malâmiyyah originated
with Hamdun al-Qassar and his disciples, the Qassaris. (7) Hamdun is also
referred to as one of the abdal, or 'hidden saints', the apotropean
figures that are referred to by Massignon as being the pillars of light of
the world. These saints that the Sufi tradition considers to be in the
number of forty are the invisible and pure witnesses of God in the world,
unknown to the world and sometimes to themselves. As it will appear more
clearly in the following pages, this principle of unknowing is one of the
keys of malâmiyyah spirituality. The malâmiyyah inspiration, one of the
main trends of the mystical milieu of Nishapur in the third and fourth
century of the hegira, constitutes a path that is predicated upon the
distinction between levels of human subjectivity. It emphasizes the
discontinuity among the various levels of the soul, the deepest layer
being the spirit (ruh). In his Risalat on the malami, Sulami (d.1021)
enumerates four levels of consciousness that he defines as nafs (soul),
qalb (heart), sirr (secret) and ruh (spirit) (Deladriere n.d., p. 10).
These four levels of consciousness are to be understood as forming a
hierarchic chain ranging from the lowest to the highest. Although the
unity of the human subject is not substantially altered by this
quadripartition, the spiritual psychology of the malamati tends to
emphasize the discontinuity that permits a differentiation of the various
levels of the soul. This discontinuity allows one to understand that a
lower level cannot identify with the higher level, for in so doing it
reduces the higher level to its own limitations. In other words, the
continuity between the various levels of the soul a continuity owithout
which the very idea of a subjective identity would be unthinkable can only
be envisaged from the standpoint of the highest or the deepest level of
consciousness, and not the other way about. The spiritual goal of malamati
psychology consists in preventing any appropriation of a higher spiritual
state of consciousness by a lower one. (8) Strictly speaking, a spiritual
mode of consciousness cannot be experienced by the lower soul: any
appropriation by the soul amounts to a vanishing of spiritual gleams.
Spiritual consciousness pertains to the three highest dimensions: the
heart, the secret and the spirit. These refer to numerous central states
of consciousness that are, so to speak, increasingly universal and
'divine' and less and less individual and human. The science of unknowing that is at the
core of malamiyyah spirituality, can be defined as a way to place each
reality on its own level. Thus, spiritual health consists in preventing
confusion of the various levels. Such a confusion would be deadly since it
would amount to a 'deification' of the human individual as such, or of one
of his deeper layers of being. Now, this type of confusion is
intrinsically connected, according to Sulami, to the very notion of inner
'consideration' or 'vision' of oneself (nazar). For the soul to 'see' is,
in a certain sense, to 'appropriate' and therefore to 'bring down'.
Spiritual progress presupposes a measure of 'unknowing', and any attempt
at monitoring this progress amounts to individualizing what pertains, by
definition, to the universal. Malamati identify this individualized
appropriation to the Koranic "dispersed dust" Habd'an manthuran
(XXV, 23) To 'blame', whether it be inner or outer,
is the superior way to make such a perfidious identification difficult, if
not impossible. This is attained by breaking in upon and discontinuing the
complacent 'gaze' upon one's self, keeping in mind that the malamati's
work is focused on the lower realms of the soul and does not impinge upon
the Intellect. Their attitude is also coupled to a vigilant distrust
towards any kind of self-satisfaction or pleasure that would arise from
acts of devotion or virtuous behavior. In his Usul al- Maldmatiyydt wa-gbiltat
al-sufiyah, Sulami emphasizes this ascetic principle of malamiyyah
spirituality in a most radical manner: They [(the malami)] believe that their
submission is not in their hands but belongs to destiny, and that they
have no choice in performing their actions. They went so far as to say
that they were forbidden to find any sweetness in worship and submission
because when a man likes something and finds pleasure in it while looking
at it with satisfaction this is the sign that he is not in a lofty
position. One of them said: "Far from you the pleasure of submission,
for it is indeed a deadly poison." (9) Such an ascetic determination illustrates
most clearly, once again, that the malamiyyah perspective is, in a certain
sense, centered on the lowest levels of human subjectivity, inasmuch as
its starting point, or principle, is the congenital limitations of the
concupiscent, individualistic soul (nafs). In this respect, malamiyyah
spirituality tends to embody a perspective that may be considered to be at
odds with the general religious climate of Islam. The Koran centers its
reminder on the use of intelligence as a means to reconnect with God and
it repeatedly appeals to this intelligence in man. Although the
deceptiveness of the lower soul is also a major Koranic theme, man is far
from being defined by the Koran in terms of his identification with his
nafs. The malamiyyah inspiration, by contrast, appears to be less
intellectual in its approach since, as we have seen, it builds on the
opacity and distorting power of the soul. Two fundamental methodical practices unfold
from this perspective: 1) the need to hide the 'good' and, 2) the benefits
of manifesting the 'bad.' Commenting upon the man of blame in his Mi'raj,
the XIXth century shadhili Ibn 'Ajiba, defines him as "one who does
not manifest anything good outwardly and does not hide anything bad"
(Michon 1973, p. 57). As we will see, these two tendencies may give rise
to seemingly contradictory types of behavior that are respectively
'conformist' and 'aberrant.' Concerning the first of these tendencies,
Sara Sviri defines malamiyyah as follows: "The main aim of the
Malamatiyya is to reach a stage in which all one's psychological and
spiritual attainments become totally introverted" (Lewisohn 1999, p.
599) This utter occultation finds its spiritual models in the ascetic
climate of early Islamic mysticism. The figure of Uways Qarani (10) is most
representative in this respect. Farid al-Din 'Attar tells us about him:
"during his life in this world, he (Uways) was hiding from all in
order to devote himself to acts of worship and obedience" ('Attar
1976, p. 2). 'Attar also relates that the Prophet had declared at the time
of his death that his robe should be given to Uways, a man he had never
met in this life. When 'Umar looked for Uways during his stay in Kufa, he
asked a native of Qarn (the home town of Uways) and was answered
"there was one such man, but he was a madman, a senseless person who
because of his madness does not live among his fellow countrymen (...) He
does not mingle with anybody and does not eat nor drink anything that
others drink and eat. He does not know sadness nor joy; when others laugh,
he weeps, and when they weep, he laughs" (ibid., p. 29). We can
already perceive here, in the case of an early mystic like Uways, the
dual, and seemingly contradictory, spiritual vocation of 'obscurity' and
'eccentricity.' The unassuming figure of Uways (11) is, at the same time,
blatantly discordant in the social context. This discordant status that is
often referred to as 'madness' is the mark of the irruption of a
transcendent, vertical perspective within the world of terrestrial
horizontality. It is akin to a negation of the negation: the Spirit
'negates' the distorted notions of the soul, the biases and comforts. (12)
When Uways finally meets with 'Umar, he tells him that it would be better
for him that "nobody (but God) would know him and had knowledge of
who he was." To remain incognito can be considered as the leaven of
malamiyyah spirituality. (13) However, malamiyyah will tend to apply this
principle in a way that amounts to opting for the spiritual 'desert of
solitude' among men rather than choosing a flight toward the physical
'desert' of nature. In this sense, the malamiyyah orientation manifests
itself as an apparent involvement in exoteric sciences, in the shari'a,
and in adab. (14) As Ibn 'Arabi has expressed it: "God has imprisoned
their outer states (the malamiyyah's) in the tents of habits and worships
of outer actions." (Futuhat, I, 141) In this respect, malami practice
will appear primarily in the forms of rigor and separation. Their outer
manifestations are a testimony to the divine Majesty (jalal) that finds a
human receptacle in an extreme mode of 'ubudiyya or servitude. Thus, we
read in Sulami's Usul: When they (the malumi) attained a high
degree and were confirmed as the people of proximity, connectedness and
gathering, the Truth was jealous of their being unveiled to other people
so that He showed to human beings only their exterior aspect, which
carries the meaning of separation, so that their state of proximity to the
Truth be preserved (Sulami 1985, p. 141). It is important to point out that the
malamiyyah, as presented by Sulami, stand for a unique spiritual
calling-God being the conscription 'agent' of the malamat orientation-that
precludes any kind of experimental alternative or personal whim. The original inclination to hide their
states (talbis al-hal) may be converted, by the same token, into an open
manifestation of states. The 'folly' of the malamiyyah is not to be
understood as a calculated method since it professes an element of
inspiration, 'disposition' or 'state' (hal). (15) The mystic is led to
behave in a manner that may make no sense to him or to others, as if to
portray the unintelligible kernel of relativity alive in the world. As a
consequence, Ibn 'Ajiba defines the malamati as one who "hides his
taste of sanctity and displays states that make people flee his
company" (Sulami 1985, p. 263). This type of display will tend to
situate the mystic in an apparently offensive position toward the shari'a,
and in a disruptive situation vis-a-vis traditional societal practices
(adab). Forms, whether psychological, moral or
social, are viewed as inadequate vis-a-vis spiritual realities. The world
of forms, even though conventional, is a 'scandal" that must be
scandalized in order to suggest 'real' normality. Malamati ordinariness
can actually result in a bad reputation. According to Muhammad Parsa, a
Naqshbandi figure from the 9-10th century, the fact that the Prophet was
called a liar, a madman and a poet was a kind of veil with which God hid
him from the eyes of the world. (16) Along the same lines, the malamati
bases his perspective on the idea that sanctity can only be 'abnormal' and
'shocking' in a world that is defined by the law of spiritual gravity. In
other words, in a sick world, health can only appear in the guise of
illness. Moreover, on a microcosmic level the Spirit appears in all its
'poverty' and 'sickness' from the haughty perspective of the soul. Titus
Burckhardt illustrates this in terms of the recurring mythological theme
of the "royal hero who comes back to his kingdom under the guise of a
poor stranger, or even of a mountebank or a mendicant" (Burckhardt
1980, p. 39). In a similar vein, Sulami quotes Abu-l-Hasan al Husri's
comment that "if it were possible that there be a prophet (after
Muhammad) in our days, he would be one of them (the malamatiyyah)" (Deladrière
n.d. p. 13). A prophet could only be hidden or scandalous in a time when
the world has become a spiritual wasteland. He would be totally
inconspicuous or else so 'different' and 'marginal' that he would
disconcert and unsettle even those - particularly those - who claim to be
religious. The malamiyyah are fundamentally saints 'in the world', not to say, 'worldly saints'. As Ibn 'Arabi (Futuhat, III, 53) describes them: The Malamiyyah do not distinguish
themselves in anything from any of the creatures of God, they are those
whom one ignores. Their state is the state of ordinary people (al-'awam),
and it is for this reason that they have chosen this name for themselves
and their disciples: they do not cease to blame their soul on the side of
God, and they do not accomplish any action in such a way that their soul
would rejoice for it, and they do so in order to be forgiven by God. The malamati does not escape the world but
works within it as a hidden warrior in the 'greater jihad.' He may have an
inclination to solitude and retreat, but his destiny consists in being a
spiritual presence in the world. Actually, by contrast with the usual Sufi
practices, the malamiyyah way tends to de-emphasize the role of communal
structures, organizations and collective practices, including majalis and
sama' in spiritual life. It could even be said that malamiyyah
spirituality is akin to the Sufism 'without a name' present in the early
days of Islam, before Sufism became 'recognizable' as a set of
institutions and specific collective practices. The Naqshbandi and
Shadhili orders are the most representative examples of this orientation
in the world of Sufism, since they tend to place the emphasis on inner
dhikr and social 'inconspicuousness'. (17) In this sense, the malamiyyah
embodies one of the most fundamental tenets of Islamic spirituality, a
spirituality that radiates through an ordinary presence in the world. The
splendor of the malamiyyah is purely inward and does not reveal itself
outwardly in a spectacular fashion. The mystic is like the Prophet who
"talks to people and goes to the markets." This way of being
goes along with a staunch distrust of the most representative methodical
supports of Sufism: spiritual retreat (khalwa) and spiritual concert
(sama'). These practices are held in suspicion by most malami. It is
important to understand, in this respect, that malamiyyah objections to
khalwa and sama' have nothing to do with the intrinsic value and goals of
these methodical elements. They are merely directed at the dangers and
abuses of these practices, but the very fact that the malami would focus
on these dangers and abuses is indicative of their pessimistic approach to
the human soul. In his Usul, Sulami criticizes the Sufi disciples
"who made the error of living in isolation": They delude themselves in thinking that
isolation and living in caves, mountains and deserts would secure them
from the evil of their nafs and that this retreat could allow them to
reach the degree of sanctity, because they do not know that the reason for
Masters' retreat and isolation was their knowledge and the strength of
their states. It is the divine attraction that attached them to Him and
made them rich and independent from all that is not Him, so he who cannot
be compared to them in terms of inner strength and depth of worship can
only simulate isolation, thereby being unfair to himself and harming
himself. (Sulami 1985, p. 182) And in the same vein, sama' presupposes spiritual requirements that are not met by most Sufi practitioners: (They think) that tasawwufis chanting, dancing, music, poetry and attending meetings because they saw sincere souls enjoying sama'; but they erred again because they do not know that every heart that is polluted by worldly things and every soul that carries some laziness and lack of intelligence does not have a right to sama' and should not attend sama'. Junayd said: "If you see that a disciple likes sama' you can be sure that there is laziness in his soul." (Ibid., p.184) The dangers of khalwa and sama' are
envisaged from the standpoint of faqr or lack thereof. In other words, the
malamiyyah assessment is once again predicated upon the distance that
separates the soul from the Spirit, man from God. The self-deceptive
nature of the soul may reveal itself both in the realm of rigor and in
that of beauty and mercy. An ascetic isolation that is neither firmly
rooted in faqr nor the result of a Divine attraction can only foster
presumptuousness or self-glorification. Participation in sama' may also
encourage spiritual passivity and over-reliance on external and communal
supports when it is not solidly grounded on spiritual vigilance. * * * In my opinion, to seek blame is mere
ostentation, and ostentation is mere hypocrisy. The ostentatious man
purposely acts in such a way as to win popularity, while the Malumati
purposely acts in such a way that the people reject him. Both have their
thoughts fixed on mankind and do not pass beyond that sphere. (Hujwiri n.d.
p. 67). In other words, the malamiyyah way is
deemed to be incompatible with a genuine metaphysics of essential unity,
wahdat al-wujud, since it de facto 'absolutizes' the negative singularity
of the complacent soul, instead of focusing on the essential unity of
wujud. We find parallel reservations concerning the malamiyyah in Jami's
(d. 898/1492) Nafahat al-Uns. "However worthy of esteem and
commendable the state of malamatibe, it is nevertheless certain that the
veil of the existence of creatures has not been completely lifted for
them, and that, for this very reason, they are unable to see clearly the
beauty of the doctrine of unity, and to envisage in all its purity the
nature of the only Reality. For to hide one's actions and supernatural
states from men is to make manifest that one still sees the existence of
creatures and one's own existence; something that is irreconcilable with
what is meant by the doctrine of unity". (Jami 1977, pp. 102-3) The very notion of hiding presupposes the
reality of a separation of the veil and the veiled when such a duality is
excluded by wahdat al-wujud. Along more strictly theological lines, such a
view may be considered incompatible with the theomorphic nature of man as
khalifatullah by suggesting a fundamental corruption of the human soul
that is closer to the Christian concept of original sin than to the
Islamic notion of a loss of the fitrah. An extreme mystical depreciation
of the self would seem to run counter to the overall Islamic ideal of
inner and outer balance. Secondly, the malamiyyah way appears to place the
mystical 'interest' of the spiritual traveler above the collective demands
of the religious community, thus setting a bad example by shocking
ordinary people to the point of troubling them in their faith. In other
words, it places subjective spiritual benefits above objective collective
balance, (18) thereby manifesting a very un-islamic emphasis on the
mystical element at the expense of the overall religious health of the
umma. These objections can be, at least,
partially addressed by considering two fundamental dimensions of
malamiyyah spirituality: first, the emphasis on inner dhikr and its
intimate connection with malamiyyah behavior; second, the spiritual and
collective benefits of the malamiyyah function of "balancing through
imbalance." To define malamiyyah spirituality as an
ascetic concentration on the self that loses sight of the real Divine Self
amounts to separating the exterior manifestations of malamiyyah
spirituality from the inner cultivation of the remembrance of God as
concentration on the One. In other words, the emphasis on the combat
against the nafs al-ammarah cannot be disassociated from dhikr. From this
point of view, one could say that dhikr is an act of intelligence, or that
dhikr is identification with the Intellect. Since malamiyyah ascesis
functions on the level of the soul, it could also be said that dhikr is a
means of union, and that malamiyyah practice is a means of distinction on
the basis of this union. In other words, dhikr is a way to unveil the
'divine' nature of man while malamiyyah practices aim at preventing
confusion between this 'divine' nature and human accidents. (19)
Accordingly, in malamiyyah spirituality, dhikr is strongly identified with
inwardness, or the deepest zones of the soul, the sirr (the secret), or
even the ruh (the spirit). As opposed to other Sufi orders, such as the
Mevlevi, which exteriorize dhikr through sama' dance and the vocal
repetition or singing of the Name and sacred litanies, the malamiyyah
dhikr is purely silent and hidden. In this perspective, silent dhikr is in
fact less likely to be 'appropriated' by the lower soul since it only
minimally involves, if at all, its lower level. It is a fact that malamiyyah spirituality
cannot be considered to be a fundamentally intellectual way, as it is also
true that it presupposes some sense of duality. In most instances, it
cannot be identified with the state of the majdhub, the 'holy fool' who is
enraptured by the love of God. Still, it cannot be designated as a mere
path of action, in the sense of a way of observant and attentive
conformity to the shari'a. In fact, whatever might be the level one wishes
to assign the path of blame, the malamiyyah perspective raises the
important question of knowing to what extent man qua man, or the
individual self, can identify with pure intelligence. To the extent that
one may assume that some areas of the soul remain relatively unenlightened
by the Spirit, one may then conclude that their integration will have to
take place in a way that the pure path of intellectual discernment and
unity might not be generally able to achieve in and of itself. For certain
individuals or in some circumstances, malamiyyah spirituality, one among
other paths and methods, tends to address these lower levels of the soul
without necessarily being unaware of the intellectual perspective of
essential unity, nor being incompatible with it; and it does so in a way
that may have a particular appeal to some spiritual temperaments, without
being universally normative. From a collective standpoint, malamiyyah
spirituality postulates a distance between worldly values and practices -
even those religiously cast - and spiritual authenticity or sincerity (ikhlas).
As Shakespeare's Hamlet, malamiyyah spirituality tends to voice a
'pessimistic' anthropology, and malami mystics would no doubt agree with
the prince of Elsinore that "the time is out of joint" and that
it is indeed "a cursed spite" to be "born to set it
right" (Act I, sc. V, v.215-6), if only in a spiritual sense. Like
Hamlet, a typical malami would have no qualms in confessing: "I am
myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that
it were better my mother had not borne me." (Act III, sc. I, v.
130-4.) The oscillation between 'invisible conformity' and 'shocking
madness' is an expression of this keen awareness of the lowest
possibilities of man, an intimation of the gravity of his sickness. As
such, it constitutes a two-pronged strategy of 'humiliation' of the nafs.
Moreover, this heightened sensibility to human defects and failures is
closely related to an intense mystical awareness of God's perfection and
presence. The medieval diagnosis of holy madness as the state of one whose
body is in this world while his soul is already in heaven bears witness to
this. (20) The tension that results from this dichotomy seems to be
mystically crystallized in madness, real or feigned. As with Hamlet's
feigned madness, there is both an aspect of 'sadness' and one of
'occultation' in the foolish, scandalizing ways of the malami. In addition, this psycho-spiritual point of view conforms to a 'negative' assessment of mankind in society. In a mad world that claims to be sane, there is wisdom in madness and madness in wisdom ("Though this be madness, yet there is method in't" Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act II, sc. II 223). Any formal system represents a subtle equilibrium that points to a higher degree of balanced Reality that transcends it, and, thus, it must be disrupted in some instances so as not to allow it to close upon itself or become petrified to the point of obstructing access to its spiritual referent. In this regard, the most discordant and shocking aspects of malamiyyah spirituality are intended to provoke an alchemical dissolution that can be the prelude to a higher crystallization. On a spiritual level, this is the practice that consists in 'breaking habits' by forcing the soul, thereby, to bring to the fore what has, heretofore, remained unconscious. To behave in a malamiyyah way is not simply a ploy for drawing moral and social blames to oneself that will guard one from self-indulgence and self-overestimation, it is also a way to destroy the false equilibrium of the soul, thereby leading it into a state of uncomfortable helplessness that will result in a clearer transparency of the inner knots that help objectify its latent contents. This is clearly the goal of a Sufi Master like the Shaykh 'All al-Jamal who, according to his disciple al-'Arabi ad-Darqawi, seems to have taught his disciples how to break their soul's habits through the discomforting means of social and psychological exposure and humiliation. (21) In one of Shaykh al-'Arabi ad-Darqawi's letters, we read about the application of these tactics. 'All al- Jamal orders his young disciple to go through town carrying two baskets of prunes on his back. In another instance, we read: He (the Shaykh 'All al-Jamal) took hold of
my haik with his noble hands, put it off my head and twisted it several
times around my neck. (Darqawi 1987, p. 33) This "test of what is good" makes
the disciple feel "oppressed to the point of death": going about
town with two baskets of prunes on one's nape or with one's haik twisted
around one's neck is likely to attract the mockeries of social peers for,
as Titus Burckhardt notes in his commentary of this episode, the real
intentions and feelings of most people only appear "under
pressure" and once conventional masks have fallen. In other words,
this strategy is a way to "raise hell" in others and in oneself,
so as to reach a full measure of awareness of unconscious layers and knots
in one's soul. This psycho-spiritual treatment is quite like homeopathic
medicine, insofar as it cures the inner sickness through an initial
exacerbation of its symptoms, "bringing out" the poison of the
soul by subjecting it to its own 'venom.' In this case, being singled out
as an "odd number" by passers-by and acquaintances in a society
where eccentricities are not the norm, is likely to bring much discomfort
to the soul, providing the person with a golden, if bitter, opportunity
for self-knowledge and self-transcendence. The conclusion of the Shaykh
ad-Darqawi's counsel is: "Woe to the faqir (...) who sees the form of
his own soul (...) as it is and does not strangle it until it dies."
Such counsel allows us to catch a glimpse of malamiyyah strategy.
Mortification serves as an excellent catalyst for the ego's undoing and,
consequently, the means of an alchemical transmutation. The disciple is
taught how to 'see' his soul, which means that he becomes uncomfortably
aware of it with a view to objectifying its nature. But this 'objectivization'
is also a way to 'kill' the soul. To the question of knowing how this
'strangulation' of the soul may be attained, one must assume that the
answer lies in the ability of the practitioner to resist his soul, on the
one hand, and rely on God's power through the dhikr, on the other, for
none can put to death but He who gives life. Only the Spirit can 'kill'
the soul, but this 'killing' is also an act of 'love': mors and amor are
the two faces of the same mystery, and the 'objectivization' which we
mentioned above is the other side of an 'identification' (22) or 'union'
in which the Name of God, through the dhikr, 'annihilates' the soul within
its 'embrace,' thereby 'reviving' it to a truer, deeper and more abundant
life. Notes 1. As indicated by Michael W. Dols (1992) and S. H. Nasr (1968), chapter VII. 2. "The Hippocratic doctors borrowed the concept of the four elements of nature-air, earth, fire, and water-and considered them to be the essential elements of the human body. These elements corresponded, in theory, to the four humours that were believed to be produced in various organs of the body: blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm. (...) The doctor, in various ways, was suppose to manipulate these humours by their qualities in order to maintain a humoral equilibrium, which was the meaning of health, or rectify their disequilibrium, which was illness." Michael W. Dols, (1992), p. 18. 3. "(...) The Koran could not have embraced a notion of the soul as being healthy and the body being sick or vice versa. Hence it is said of Saul, for example, 'We gave him amplitude in body and in knowledge" (2,246) ." Fazlur Rahman (1987), p.21. 4. Let us recall that the English 'health' derives from the Old English "hal" that connotes wholeness. 5. "The heart is healed by the permanent remembrance of God." Sviri (1997),p.124. 6. We use the term malamiyya as opposed to maldmatia in accordance with Ibn 'Arabi's preference for the first of these denominations. (Futubat, 16/2) 7. "The importance of the malamati trend in Khurasanian Sufism, constituting an evolutionary development of the pure asceticism of the earlier generation, goes back to the precedence of Hamdun Qassar (d. 271/884), a master of Nishapur, who put his stamp on the Sufi practice of the region, and stressed the importance of sincerity, declaring, 'God's knowledge of you is better than people's.'" Terry Graham (1999), p.128. 8. Islamic mysticism presents a variety of classifications of the various levels of consciousness, not all of them being in agreement with Sulami's. According to Ibn 'Ajiba, al-rub is the place where the epiphanies of the Kingship (al-malakut) occur, whereas al-sirr refers on a higher plane to the level of All-Power (al-jabarut.) The latter refers to the Divine infinity whereas the former pertains to the realm of intelligible archetypes (asrar al-ma'ani). Let us remember, in this respect, that Shi'ite gnosis equates malakut with the intermediary or animic realm, whereas j'abarut refers to the angelic and archetypical level of reality. Cf. H.Corbin(1986) p.192. 9. Sulami (1985), p. 106, the English version that I quote is an unpublished translation by Amira El-Zein and Patrick Laude. 10. In his Kitub 'Uqala' al-majanin, an-Naysaburi ranks Uways among four of the best-known "wise fools" with Majnun, Sa'dun and Buhlul. Cf. Dols, p.355. 11. Uways is also, and quite tellingly, the 'patron' of Sufis who do not have a living master: "The Sufi tradition has distinguished a special group of seekers: those whose sole link with the teaching is through Khidr himself. There are those rare Sufis who do not have a teacher in the flesh. (...) They have been given a special name: uwaysiyyun." Sara Sviri (1997) p.98. 12. This 'madness' is also related to the function of the American Indian 'contrary', Sioux heyokao or Hopi kochare, or the "grey one" of the Apaches, who embodies the apparently senseless reversal of terrestrial and social norms of behavior. 13. It is interesting to note that Uways Qarani is both a norm and a shocking exception in the world of early Islam. He is a shocking exception in so far as his asocial perspective and ascetic disposition took him away from the communal establishment of the ummah that is, in a sense, the very identity of Islam. Still, at the same time, Uways al-Qarani is referred to in at least two ahadith that make of him the spiritual pole of the community. Two interesting facts must be commented upon in this context: first, the Prophet declared that on the Day of Judgment and later in Paradise, God will give the form of Uways to 70,000 angels so that nobody could know, even in the thereafter, who is the actual Uways. This hyperbolic and symbolic manifestation of anonymity is quite suggestive of the principle of 'invisibility' that presides over the malamiyyah way. Secondly, when referring to Uways in connection with 'Umar, 'Attar carefully avoids any expression that would seem to give precedence to Uways over 'Umar: "You should know that Uways al- Qarani was not superior to 'Umar, but that he was a man of detachment vis-a-vis things of this world. 'Umar, as for him, was an accomplished perfection in all his works." (op.cit. p.31) 'Umar's perfection is defined in terms of presence and action in the world of men, whereas Uways' perfection is understood in terms of separation from the world. Given its emphasis on equilibrium between the two worlds, Islam cannot extol Uways' virtues to the point of "otherworldliness." Moreover, the Prophet's robe is no doubt a different kind of investiture than the line of succession in the khilafat: it points to a spiritual authority like the khirka (cloak) of the Sufi Shaykh; but this type of investiture and eminence must remain hidden. 14. This apparent involvement can also be a way to attract upon oneself the blame of the religious 'elite' of Sufis who may consider themselves of a different stuff than the common faithful. 15. We read, for example, in the letters of Shaykh ad-DarqawI, that he was wearing three prayer caps on his head, for "such was my disposition" at the time. Darqawi (1987), see No. 53. 16. Such an association of prophecy and madness has nothing extraordinary about it. In the Koran, for instance, Pharaoh accuses Moses of being struck with madness. (LI, 39). 17. "Other features of early Naqshbandi practice were also linked to the concern for sobriety and anonymity implied by the choice of silent dhikr. (...) As with the Shadhiliyya, all these features are highly reminiscent of the Malamati movement of Nishapur, and it may be suggested that Baha' al-Din Naqshband was an heir to the traditions of the Malamatiyya although not in a formal, initiatic sense." Alexander Knysh (2000), p.221. 18. This point of view has been expressed by Frithjof Schuon in his chapter "Sincerity: What it Is and what it Is Not" in Schuon (1981), pp.123-7. 19. The purely gnostic way of knowledge would simply consider these accidents to be 'unreal'. 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