Voluntary Suffering as a Means of Perfection in Sufism
Mehdi Farhoodinia
Abstract: Sufis are a branch of Muslims since early Islam to the present who
have sought gnosis and have developed their own intensive religious ascetic
practices to be unified with divine truth. They undergo many physical,
emotional, and mental hardships to abstain from the physical world which
involves both the mental and physical aspects of man. The dual, i.e. physical
and spiritual, nature of human existence creates an either/or situation in
which Sufis opt for the spirit. Having decided to follow the spiritual path,
Sufis are inclined to abstain from the world.
This behavior is similar to The Freudian Model of the human psyche
in which the Superego monitoring and controlling the ego and the pleasuremotivated Id. This monitoring can lead to a guilt complex frequently seen
among Sufis.
Keywords: Sufism, asceticism, superego, Islam, spirit
I. Introduction
Suffering by means of abstaining from pleasures is a widespread religious
practice shared by many religions. Stoics and Cynics among ancient Greeks,
Essenians among the Jews, Christian anchorites, Budhist sangha, and the
Hindu sadhu are all examples of the tendency toward asceticism as a means
of spiritual perfection. Apart from the select spiritual groups mentioned
above, ordinary people practice self-discipline to a certain extent according to
their religious beliefs. “The value of asceticism in strengthening an
individual‟s mental and physical discipline has been a part of many religions
and philosophies throughout history.”1
Here, the practice of voluntary suffering is going to be studied in a
specific religious trend among Muslims called Sufism. The word Sufi, which
refers to the followers of this trend, comes from the Arabic word ‫( ﺻﻮﻑ‬su:f)
meaning the wool of sheep. The reason is that early Sufis used to wear rough
clothes woven out of sheep wool. These robe-like clothes were worn by Sufis
because they irritated their skins and thus functioned as a permanent reminder
of the necessity of abstaining from worldly pleasures.
The history of Sufism is as old as the religion of Islam. The exact
date for the creation of a cult called Sufism is not known. What we know is
that in the second century of the Islamic year the term Sufism was used. what
is more, during the lifetime of the Islamic prophet, too, there were people
who had the lifestyle, practices and beliefs of Sufis even if they were not
called by that name. for example Ashab el Soffah, who were a group of poor
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Introduction
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immigrants to Medina accompanying the prophet of Islam, were lodged on
veranda of the mosque, called ‫( ﺼﻔﻪ‬Ѕͻ:fæ) in Arabic, by the prophet. Many
Sufis consider these people as their forerunners. 2 They were very strict
people and there are mythical stories about their ascetic lifestyle.
Here the aim has not been to record cases of suffering among the
Sufis, as this has been sporadically done in different books, but to consider
the various forms of suffering based on Sufi beliefs regarding human
existence and the function of self-inflicted suffering in developing the
personality of Sufis. Human existence to Sufis does not comprise the classic
Cartesian dichotomy of body and mind. Apart from these two aspects, Sufis
believe in a spirit bestowed upon man by God which is divine and otherworldly.
Among the three aspects of human existence, spirit is the essence of
man that inhabits the body. Mind, too, is restricted to the world and cannot
have access to divine truth. Love, „the astrolabe of heavenly mysteries,'
inspires all religion worthy of the name, and brings with it, not reasoned
belief, but the intense conviction arising from immediate intuition. 3 These
three aspects of human existence, as well as the function of self-inflicted
suffering will be analyzed. Furthermore, as many of the texts the writer has
used are in Persian and their translations in English are either nonexistent or
not available, all the translations, except those from Masnavi by Rumi, have
been carried out by the writer.
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II. Human aspects and the necessity of suffering in Sufism
From the perspective of Sufism, as well as all other religions, every human
has a spirit which is an other-worldly gift from God. Sufis believe that there
is a unified spirit that is united with God and all creatures share it.
The whole of Sufism rests on the belief that when the
individual self is lost, the Universal Self is found, or, in
religious language, that ecstasy affords the only means by
which the soul can directly communicate and become
united with God. Asceticism, purification, love, gnosis,
saintship--all the leading ideas of Sufism--are developed
from this cardinal principle.4
The idea of the all-inclusive spirit is shared by Indian Patanjali who
compares human spirit with the water in a bowl (divinity) from which it
receives its hue. 5 Neo-Platonism of Plotinus believes that “as long as the soul
lives in the pure world of essence, it is not separated from other souls living
in the same world.”6 Stoics, too, believe that “God is not separate from the
world; He is the soul of the world, and each of us contains a part of the divine
fire.”7 All of these ideas might have influenced Sufism. For Sufis spirit is the
real and everlasting essence of man. The world and the body are habitats of
the spirit.
Love, again, is the divine instinct of the soul impelling it to
realise its nature and destiny. The soul is the first-born of
God: before the creation of the universe it lived and moved
and had its being in Him, and during its earthly
manifestation it is a stranger in exile, ever pining to return
to its home.8
When the spirit is considered the real essence of man, abstaining
from the physical world can be a natural outcome as involvement in this
world distracts the real essence which has an identity and needs that can
never be fulfilled by the this world. Suffering, too, comes out of the physical
world as it is the world of incompleteness and constant flux known in Sufism
as Faani (finite) as opposed to the other world known as baaqi (everlasting).
“Whenever you deal with the faani you become separated from the baaqi.”9
The world of the spirit is eternal as it is the realm of God and
perfection. “To behold the imperfection of the phenomenal world, nay, to
close the eye to everything imperfect in contemplation of Him who is remote
from all imperfection--that is Sufism.”10 Thus human existence can be said
two have two poles, i.e. the pole of the spirit and that of the physic. The more
4
Human aspects and the necessity of suffering in Sufism
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one is attracted to one pole the more they distance from the other. As Sufis
opt for the spiritual world they not only neglect their physical side but also
try to make it suffer and diminish. “Many of them lead a simple life in spite
of the fact that they were not poor and some others willingly and avoided
material pursuits in case they wouldn‟t be misled.” 11 This ascetic lifestyle is,
at times, extended to unbelievable limits. For example, it is said that a certain
Hafaz ibn al-Yamaan claimed that, “the most pleasant days of my life are
days on which my family come to me and say that we don‟t have anything to
eat.”12
Keeping away from physical pleasures is sometimes claimed to be a
natural outcome of constant obsession with divinity. It might be said that
Sufis do not feel the need for the pleasures of the world because they have
experienced divine bliss. This claim seems to be baseless because of two
reasons. First, if the pleasures of the world had not been alluring to the Sufis
why did even the greatest of them have to undergo self-discipline such as
hunger, poverty, wearing rough clothes, etc.? Secondly, there are numerous
quotations from heads of Sufism regarding the pleasures of the world and the
pain of abstention. The prophet of Islam believed, “ fighting against nafs (that
part of human mind involved with worldly desires) is superior to Jihad
(fighting the enemies) because its pain is greater than that of war” 13
The Pains of life, whether voluntary or involuntary, serve another
purpose, namely that of a test and a purifying process. Jalal al-Din Rumi
compares the movement through hardship with the process of the purification
of metals such as gold, during which all the impurities are disposed of.
When God refines, no flaws can filter through;
Religious discipline and suffering loss
Is so the furnace burns the silver‟s dross,
That‟s why for good and bad we scrutinize
And gold is boiled so that the scum may rise––14
From the Sufi point of view, pain could also reveal the possibility of
pleasure as human knowledge is based on the existence of opposites. Thus,
God inflicts pains on individuals to enable them to understand the possibility
and the value of the especially celestial, pleasures to come. This kind of
suffering seems to be out of control, yet there is the voluntary attitude of the
Sufi to receive this as a gift.
The opposite of light shows what is light,
Hence colors too are known by their opposite.
God created pain and grief for this purpose,
To wit, to manifest happiness by its opposites.15
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II. Different aspects of Suffering
The world we live in, as opposed to the everlasting world of divinity, is a
finite habitat of the spirit but can seriously entangle the human spirit both
physically and mentally. Carnal pleasures weaken human spirit. Mental
obsessions, too, can cause distraction from the spiritual world. The mental
world itself can be divided into the faculty of reason and that of emotions
both of which are considered as pitfalls for the Sufi‟s endeavor to achieve
perfection.
In order to disentangle themselves from the shackles of the worldly
bounds, Sufis have to exercise vigilant self-disciplining practices which
discourage the carnal pleasures, the emotional attachments, and the charm of
reason because human reason is an insufficient tool to understand the divine
and eternal world.
As to discouraging physical desires such as an affair with a woman,
eating, sleeping, having comfort and the like, there are a lot of examples and
what was said about the origin of the word Sufi supports the claim. Two
more examples will follow. “If body suffers from hunger, heart will be
enlightened, soul will be purified, and head will visit God.”16 Visiting god or
Legha is a stage of Sufism in which the Sufi is so purified that can spiritually
experience God. In another example from Kashf al-Mahjoob we read, “In
general, repentance is the divine approval and all sins are physical deeds.”17
Apart from physical abstinence, there is an emotional abstinence
that teaches Sufis to be detached from the society in which they live
including their own families. Ibrahim Adham is quoted to have said, “The
dervish who is married has embarked a ship and when he has a child he is
drowned.”18 “Aarif (Gnostic) is the one who wants a heart . . . detached from
people.”19 This does not entail a lack of responsibility to people but only an
emotional detachment. “The convert must also, as far as lies in his power,
satisfy all those whom he has injured.”20
Another aspect of self-discipline is the necessity of the turning away
from reason and science. “Sense perception and concepts of reason based on
sensory experience are unable to discover the Truth.”21 There is a famous
story in Masnavi by Rumi in which an Indian displays an elephant in a dark
room. People gather to see it. As the room is dark, they have to use their
hands to experience the elephant. Each and every one of the people comes to
a different conclusion because they have touched different parts of the
animal.22
There is a voluntary aspect to involuntary suffering, i.e. the kind of
suffering that is destined by God and not chosen by man. This paradox can be
resolved by noticing that the suffering inflicted by God, apart from the
general notion of being a test, can reveal divine mercy because it can be
God‟s intention to further distance the Sufi from the Faani (transient) world
6
Different aspects of suffering
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and bring him closer to unity with haq (divine truth). “ every suffering that
God has given me he has turned into a light for me.” 23
An important function of suffering among Sufis, especially the early
ones, should not be neglected. Suffering functioned as a kind of passive
resistance. After the prophet of Islam, some of his followers did not approve
of extravagance in the court of the rulers, especially during the reign of
Othman and Bani Omayyeh clan. “Amer ibn el-Abd ol-Qais, was accused of
abstaining from meat and women during the reign of Othman, but he actually
protested against the prophet‟s successor. Abuzar Ghaffari showed his protest
against the successor in the same way.”24
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III. Conclusion
In the model displayed here of the Sufi view of human existence, too, three
aspects of human existence were studies, i.e. body, mind, and spirit. Mind
was itself divided into an emotional faculty and also a reasoning apparatus. It
was also mentioned that Sufis distrusted both body and mind as
representatives of the lower world. The real essence of man was said to be the
spirit which is other-worldly. These categories are very similar to Freud‟s
view of human psyche consisting of Id, ego, and superego.
The id, wholly unconscious, embodies the instincts related
to psychosexual gratifications (libido) and operates without
relevance to the dictates of logic or external reality. While
governed essentially by the pleasure principle, it
incorporates certain regressive and destructive potentialities
that are inherent in the biological make-up of the organism.
The ego, wholly conscious, is essentially the mind as
ordinarily conceived. It is the instrument of learning and of
adaptive relationship to the environment. The ego is
concerned essentially with perception, memory, and the
control of speech and volitional activity. The super-ego,
while closely related to consciousness, is in part
unconscious and derives its energies vicariously from the
id. It operates as a monitor of conduct and a major source
of control through repression. The superego constitutes the
nucleus of conscience and provides the foundation of adult
morality.25
From a Freudian viewpoint, Sufis are governed by superego as a repressive
agent in their abstention from pleasure or Id and ego or the social aspect of
life. The difference between Freudian superego and The Sufi spiritual
concerns is that for Freud the human spirit is reduced to a moral sense
developed in human psyche and not belonging to the higher world of
divinity.
This is, in other words, the difference between living an experience
actively and subjectively as Sufis do and viewing the same experience
passively and objectively as psychologists and scientists do. To use a further
analogy one can compare this objective/subjective dichotomy with inductive
and deductive approaches to understanding. Freud‟s stance as a scientist is an
objective and inductive one, “a form of induction which takes experience
apart and analyses it, and forms necessary conclusions on the basis of
appropriate exclusions and rejections.”26 Whereas for Sufis, spirit is an
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Conclusion
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undeniable truth, an “intense conviction arising from immediate
intuition.”27
This seems to be the key to understanding the reason why Sufis
voluntarily accept and even inflict severe suffering on themselves
whereas it might sound strange or pretentious by many others. Sufis
deductively and intuitively find higher truths which are alien to scientific
minds. This opens up a new mystical world with the possibility of
perfection and infinity. Suffering, too, loses its meaning as suffering and
becomes a bounty by divinity that helps the Saalek (traveller on the road
to the spiritual world) leave the physical world behind to be united with
Haq (divine truth).
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Notes:
1
Michael Frassetto (ed.), Britannica Encyclopedia of World Religions,
Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., London, 2006, p. 80.
2
Abd ol-Hossein Zarrinkoob, The Value of Sufi Heritage, Amir Kabir,
Tehran, 1999, p. 46. All the translations of the Persian books, except
Masnavi Manavi, are carried out by the writer.
3
Reynold A. Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam, Routledge & Kegan Paul,
London, 1914, p. 116.
4
ibid., p. 59.
5
Saeed Nafisi, The roots of Sufism in Iran, Asatir Publications, Tehran, 2004,
p. 249.
6
Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, Alden Press, Oxford,
1961, p. 297.
7
ibid., p. 262.
8
ibid., p. 114.
9
Ali ibn el-Othman Hojvairi, Kashf ol-Mahjoob, V. Zhokovsky (ed.),
Tahoori, Tehran, 1997, p. 79.
10
Reynold A. Nicholson, op. cit., p. 28.
11
Zarrinkoob, op. cit., p. 46.
12
ibid.
13
ibid., p. 252.
14
Jalal al-Din Rumi, The Masnavi, Jawid Mojaddedi (trans), Book One,
Oxford University Press, New York, 2004, p. 18.
15
Jalal al-Din Rumi, Masnavi i Ma’navi, Translated and abridged by E.H.
Whinfield, M.A., Omphaloskepsis, Ames, 2001, p. 34.
16
ibid., p. 419.
17
ibid., p. 382.
18
Farid o-Ddin Attar Neishaboori, Tazkerat-ol-Owliya, Reynold A.
Nicholson ed., Asatir Publications, Tehran, 2000, p. 164.
19
ibid., p. 137.
20
Reynold A. Nicholson, op. cit., p. 31.
21
Marietta T. Stepaniants, Sufi Wisdom, Seyyed Hossein Nasr (ed.), State
University of New York, Albany, 1994, p. 34.
22
E.B. Winfield, op. cit., p. 181.
23
Hojveiri, Op. cit., p. 56.
24
Zarrinkoob, op. cit., p. 48.
25
Richard L. Gregory (ed.), The Oxford Companion to the Mind, Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 1987, p. 278.
10
26
Notes
Francis Bacon. The New Organon. Lisa Jardine, Michael Silverthorne
(ed.), Cambridge University Press, New York, 2000, p. 17.
27
Reynold A. Nicholson, op. cit., p. 114.
Mehdi Farhoodinia
11
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