Is the world simply a manifestation of God? A place where God creates Himself?

This might not sound like the kind of theology that most people associate with Christianity, but is in fact central aspects of the ideas and writings of one of the most brilliant thinkers in Christian and European history, one who was highly respected during his own lifetime, but who has sadly been mostly forgotten among the general populace.

I am speaking of the 9th century scholar John Scotus Eriugena, a man whose writings not only bridged the eastern and western parts of Christianity at the time, but whose ideas are still brilliant and shocking in all the right ways even to this very day.

So who was John Scotus Eriugena, and what was his fascinating philosophy and interpretation of Christianity?

Eriugena lived in, and was a product of, the intellectual environment of the 9th century in Europe during the early days of the Holy Roman Empire, a period often referred to as the Carolingian Renaissance.

This revival and flourishing of intellectual life in Europe began with the establishment of the Carolingian dynasty, especially with the rule of Charles the Great, more widely known as Charlemagne (d. 814), crowned by Pope Leo III as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in the year 800, and his successors. This was a conscious effort on part of the king(s) and his intellectual associates to create a “new Athens” where intellectual and cultural life could flourish, which it indeed did. Emphasis was placed on reason as a means of gaining legitimate Christian knowledge, and especially important were the elaboration and study of the so-called “liberal arts”. This included the trivium - grammar, rhetoric & dialectic - as well as the quadrivium - arithmetic, geometry, astronomy & music. The result of this was an increase in many cultural and intellectual fields like art, music, literature, architecture and theology/the study of scripture.

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The Mughal dynasty is a fascinating bunch. These leaders of one of the most significant empires in the history of India are all interesting and have made an impact on the subcontinent and the world. Emperors like Akbar (who I’ve already covered in a previous article), Jahangir & Aurangzeb are all major figures in history, and sometimes for very different reasons.

But one of the most famous and indeed revered of all of the Mughal royals is one who was never an emperor himself. He was a prince who, much like his predecessor Akbar, isn’t remembered for political reasons, but for his explorations of religious and spiritual matters. Being an initiate and teacher of the Qadiri Sufi order and seriously engaging with the teachings of the Hindus, this figure represents the fascinating ways in which religious traditions can meet in serious conversation without necessarily becoming subsumed into each other.

So let’s dive into the life and teachings of prince Dara Shikoh.

Dara Shikoh was born in 1615 in India, and as the son of Shahabuddin Muhammad Khurram, more famously known as Shah Jahan - the emperor who built the magnificent Taj Mahal. Indeed, Dara’s mother was Mumtaz Mahal, the queen in whose honor the Taj Mahal was built after her death. Dara was thus also the grandson of emperor Jahangir, and great grandson of emperor Akbar.

The early years of Dara and his siblings were very tumultuous, being caught up in bloody struggles of succession between his father, uncles and grandfather, a common theme in the Mughal dynasty and one that Dara himself would experience towards the end of his life. Eventually, though, his father won the war of succession and was crowned the new Mughal emperor under the name Shah Jahan. And after this, Dara spent much of his life with the privileges of a prince of a mighty empire, together with his siblings, including his sister Jahanara, whom he was very close with for the rest of his life and shared many spiritual explorations with, as well as his famous/infamous younger brother Aurangzeb.

Dara was clearly the favorite, though. He was Shah Jahan’s eldest son and the father doesn’t exactly hide the fact that Dara was considered heir apparent. We can see indications of this in the fact that when Dara married his beloved wife Nadira in 1633, the celebrations were grand beyond anything that had ever been seen before, whereas the marriages of his brothers Aurangzeb and Shuja were, while still major events, meagre by comparison.

We might also notice that while Shah Jahan would often send his other sons, Aurangzeb in particular, to the far reaches of the empire to constantly fight wars or defend its borders, Dara was mostly kept at home in the security of the palaces, something that some historians theorize might have contributed to his later downfall.

The relationship between Dara and his sister Jahanara remained warm and close for the rest of his life, but he wasn’t always on good terms with his brothers. While spending their youth together, we can start to see signs of conflict early on, his brothers probably being jealous of the favoritism shown toward Dara. This tense relationship with his brothers, while waxing and waning, would escalate and eventually lead to disaster. But we’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves.

Because it isn’t the political aspects of Dara’s life that we are interested in here, even if they serve as an important backdrop. What is so significant about Dara Shikoh is his intense piety and devotion to Islam as expressed through Sufism. Now, what is important to remember here is that Sufism, known as tasawwuf in Arabic, served as a kind of majority expression of Islam at this time. Islam and Sufism were basically synonymous. The different Sufi orders that flourished in the region - the Chishti, Qadiri and Naqshbandi being three examples - and its different spiritual masters was the focal point of what it meant to be Muslim. And all the famous emperors were deeply connected to these orders in some way. Emperors like Akbar, Jahangir and even Aurangzeb would visit the shrines of Sufi masters and engage in their teachings.

One very common mistake that is made when this situation is presented is to picture Sufis on one side and then conservative “orthodox ulama” or “Islamic scholars” on the other, who oppose it. There was no such dichotomy back then; it didn’t exist. This is an anachronistic and inaccurate way of portraying the situation, taking a modern situation and projecting it backwards. In the absolute majority of cases, the so-called “orthodox scholars” were also Sufis. When we see certain Sufi practices or ideas being criticized by scholars such as by Ahmad Sirhindi, who attacked the idea of wahdat al-wujud, this isn’t some Sufi vs. orthodox Islam debate, because no such dichotomy existed. Rather, these are debates and discussions within a Sufi context, between sufis who disagreed. “Sufis” (in other words: Muslims) disagreed about things, they didn’t all believe the same thing and had differing opinions on what constituted legitimate Sufism/Islam. This is an important point that will become relevant again later in the discussion, and we will return to it.

Dara Shikoh was a muslim, and in his youth he became immensely attracted to Sufism in particular. Stories tell that this interest may have been instigated by a significant meeting with the Qadiri Sufi shaykh/ascetic Mian Mir (d. 1635). Famous not only as a master of Sufism in the region, but also in Sikh history as supposedly being the person who laid the foundation stone for the Golden Temple in Amritsar. While this story may not be historically true, it does tell us something about the environment of religious dialogue between traditions at the time, a theme that would run through Dara’s life as well.

It is said that the emperor Shah Jahan visited the ascetic Mian Mir in his lodge together with the young prince. These kinds of visits to different holy men by the emperors was rather common, and was a way to receive their spiritual blessings as well as engage in religious discussion. But Dara seems to have felt especially overwhelmed by the meeting. During this first meeting, Shah Jahan is said to have visited Mian Mir in order for the ascetic to help him cure an illness that Dara was afflicted with, which he promptly did.

Dara, together with his father, would then visit the master on several occasions, during which Dara became increasingly more devoted. The Sufi shaykh is portrayed as completely uninterested in worldly power, behaving in ways in the presence of the emperor in ways that defied royal decorum to show his detachment from the world and imperial power. The prince himself tells of one encounter:

“I considered his blessed house to be a sacred valley, so I went inside barefoot. His Presence, Miyan Jio, was chewing and spitting out cloves during his conversation with the emperor. Some of those present found this annoying to their sensibilities.” - Dara Shikoh

Astonishingly, Dara then picked up the cloves and ate them himself. A sign of devotion and the beginning of a relationship between the two. Dara would continue to visit Mian Mir many times, and the great ascetic would teach him mystical secrets and Qadiri practices in which the prince would engage. He was on his way to becoming a proper Sufi.

Unfortunately, Dara’s time as a disciple of Mian Mir was short, as the master passed away in 1635, leaving the prince still a novice on the Sufi path and without a master.

Mian Mir would continue to play a major role in Dara’s spiritual and mystical development even from the grave, as we will see, but he could no longer serve as a living guide in the physical world.

But Dara’s destiny was by now firmly set - he was to dedicate the rest of his life primarily to the Sufi path, and to the Qadiri order in particular. While he never gave up on his princely duties or the fact that he was to become emperor, the majority of Dara’s activities for the rest of his life would revolve around intellectual and spiritual pursuits.

At this time, both Dara and his sister Jahanara started diving deep into Sufi literature, both classics and contemporary works. This included one of the most common and popular genres - the biographical or hagiographical writings which described the lives and stories of Sufi masters in the past. Many of the great Sufi authorities wrote such works, including the Nafahat al-uns by Abd al-Rahman Jami, the Tadhkirat al-awliya by Fariduddin Attar and the Ruh al-Quds by Ibn ‘Arabi.

And as a result of this, Dara and Jahanara both decided to write such hagiographical works of their own which, it is claimed, they both finished on the same day - the 21 of January 1640. Jahanara had become particularly attached and devoted to the Chishti order of Sufism and her work, entitled Munis al-arwa (“Confidant of Souls”) was a compendium of stories about the great Chishti saints in particular.

Dara’s book, by the name Safinat al-awliya (“The Ship of God’s Friends”) was more ambitious in scope, retelling stories of Sufis from many different orders. Writing such a work was a way to assert oneself as a participant in the Sufi tradition, something that both Dara and his sister were very interested in doing. And not too long after the death of Mian Mir, the prince found another master in the figure Mullah Shah Badakhshi.

Mullah Shah resided in Kashmir and had been a student of Mian Mir, after whose death he took on an increasingly central role. He had become famous as a Sufi who had reached an intense spiritual realization of the principle of tawhid and wahdat al-wujud or “The Oneness of Being”. At once an authority on Islamic law and hadith, and an occasionally controversial figure for certain poetic utterances during moments of mystical union, Mullah Shah would play a decisive role in the lives of Dara Shikoh and his sister Jahanara, both of whom would eventually become his devoted students. But not without some struggle.

Dara first met Mullah Shah in 1640 at the age of 25 when he, together with the emperor and his entourage, visited Kashmir. Dara had of course heard of the master, being connected to Mian Mir, and desperately wanted the shaykh to take him on as a student. Mullah Shah, however, seems to have despised worldly leadership and wanted to detach himself completely from any such connections. Being a prince, Dara was harshly rejected by the ascetic. After having approached the master saying:

“I am a seeker of God and have come to the threshold for spiritual guidance”

Mullah Shah exclaimed:

“What have I got to do with emperors and princes? I’m an ascetic with no desires. What sort of time is this to come give me a headache and make trouble? Get lost and don’t come again!”

Eventually, however, after repeated tries and some help from mutual friends, Mullah Shah agreed to take the prince as his student and Dara started an intense program of mystical practice during the months that he stayed in Kashmir. He was eventually initiated formally into the Qadiri order by Mullah Shah and it appears that the ascetic completely changed his mind of the prince, the two becoming very close, and Mullah Shah admiring the devotion of his student, considering him among his foremost students.

Dara’s sister Jahanara also became one of the Sufi master’s students during their stay, herself being greatly interested and significantly involved in the mystical way. Dara seems to have progressed on the spiritual path unusually fast, and before he left Kashmir to go back home to Lahore, Mullah Shah had given him the permission to teach. In other words, Dara Shikoh had now become a Sufi teacher himself, an accomplished mystic and thus had surpassed all his royal predecessors, most of whom had been spiritually interested and connected to Sufism, but none of whom had actually become a Sufi practitioner officially.

And this religious development continued for the rest of Dara’s life. He remained a student of Mullah Shah, corresponding through letters when at home, and sometimes visiting him. But now Dara would also start teaching himself, and dedicated himself to developing his own approaches, writing works of Sufi literature and engaging in further debates and dialogue.

We really start to see Dara Shikoh coming into his own as a Sufi personality and teacher as he starts having intense visionary experiences, once in 1642 where he saw his master Mian Mir impose upon him an ecstatic experience of mystical union with God, and then another experience in 1645 in which he saw the Prophet Muhammad himself. In the words of scholar Supriya Gandhi:

“Dara now saw the Prophet Muhammad. An unbroken chain of spiritual descent immediately became apparent to him. From the Prophet Muhammad, most beloved of God, the ‘line of leadership’ went straight to Abd-ul Qadir Jilani, founder of the Qadiri order, eventually reaching Mullah Shah - and through Mullah Shah to Dara Shukoh himself. In the vision, the prince was then appointed to write a treatise showing the path to the divine” - Supriya Gandhi

This treatise, which he finished in 1646/1647, was entitled Risala-i Haqqnuma, which can be translated as something like “The Compass of Truth”. As the quote suggested, this is a book that is meant to show the path to reaching the divine, through explicating and explaining a number of spiritual and meditative practices of the Qadiri order and general Sufi doctrines related to it. And it is a good idea to explore this treatise a bit deeper here, since it is probably the best look into the actual teachings and philosophies that Dara Shikoh adhered to.

The treatise is primarily meant as a guide for meditative practices, and it describes some of these practices in detail, something that was quite unusual. Mostly, these kinds of teachings are kept secret and only disclosed between a teacher and initiated student, but Dara seems to make a point of explaining them to anyone who reads his text.

The two primary meditative techniques described are, according to the prince himself, common practices in the Qadiri Sufi order, and he is very careful to trace these practices back directly to Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, the order’s founder, and even to the Prophet Muhammad himself. They include a technique of suspension of the breath that includes certain postures, as well as one practice that aims to hear a kind of primary sound of existence which, when heard, plunges the mystic into a deep ecstatic state. He calls this the Sultan-i Azkar and explains how tradition tells that this is the practice that the Prophet Muhammad would partake in in the Hira cave prior to revelation, and that the sound heard - which is described as a kind of hum, or of running water, a bee hive or sometimes the ringing of bells - is the famous sound that the Prophet is said to have always heard in connection to a new revelation from God.

But the treatise also tells us a lot about Dara’s more metaphysical or ontological positions. Generally, it is clear that Dara, like so many other Muslims at the time, followed the teachings or school associated with the Andalusian Sufi Ibn ‘Arabi, which has become known as wahdat al-wujud or “The Oneness of Being”. He even alludes to this pretty clearly himself in the opening of the treatise:

“By this, they might understand the essential meaning of all the great Sufi books such as al-Futuhat al-Makkiya and Fusus al-Hikam by Ibn ‘Arabi, and commentaries on them like Sawanih by Ahmad Ghazali, Lawa’ih by Mawlana Jami and Lama’at by Fakhr al-Din ‘Iraqi”

Here he clearly connects himself with several scholars attributed to this school of thought, with the exception of Ghazali (who lived before Ibn ‘Arabi). I’ve dedicated full episodes to this school, which you can check out, but it can be characterized as a form of monistic interpretation of Islam, where the only Reality - Reality itself in fact - is identified with God. All appearance in the created world is the reflection of God’s infinite attributes. Having no being or existence in themselves, all created things are nothingness, their Being, or wujud, is God and thus One and Unified.

Dara shows his adherence to this philosophy by making several comparisons, like the classic one of created things being the waves in the ocean, the ocean itself being Existence itself, or God. He also compares it to ice and snow, different things which at the end of the day are made up of the same stuff - water.

“Consider the reality of water. When water is not bound, it is free of color and has no fixed form. But when water is bound in a solid, it assumes various forms such as ice or snow or hail. Observe closely and decide for yourself whether or not the ice, snow and hail consists of the same essential water which is itself colorless and formless. (When ice, snow and hail become melted, they all become resolved into water - then do you call it water or something else? All who recognize reality and who have eyes to see the truth will readily recognize the essential nature of water despite the various forms and appearance that it can adopt under different conditions”

Or the following statement:

“If you imagine that a single mote of dust is separate from the divine essence then you have lost the blessing of witnessing divine unity (tawhid) and mystical comprehension (‘irfan)”

What is also very interesting about the Risala-i Haqqnuma is that it gives us the first clear indications of Dara’s engagement with Indic thought, and what we refer to as “Hinduism” in particular. Firstly, some of the meditative practices described, even though Dara is clear to situate them within an Islamic framework and tracing them to earlier authorities or Muhammad himself, have clear parallells in Yogic practices that were common in the region. We know that Sufis/Muslims and Hindu ascetics had been in dialogue for a long time at this point and influenced each other, and certain Yogic practices had indeed been adopted by Sufis as legitimate ways of religious practice.

This connection with Hinduism and its ideas would continue to be a significant part of Dara’s legacy from then on. And here it is important to pause and have one of those nuancing discussions again.

Firstly, as discussed in the article on Akbar, intellectual and religious interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims was not something uncommon at this time. The perspective on these matters by scholars at that time was significantly more nuanced than what we might imagine today. We have seen that Muslim authorities engaged in translating and studying Hindu books and interpreting their teachings.

We see Sufi writers like Abd al-Rahman al-Chishti commenting on the Bhagavad Gita, theorizing that deities like Krishna and Rama were in fact Prophets of God just like Muhammad and Jesus, and that just like with Christianity or Judaism, Hinduism was originally a religion revealed by God that had gone astray. Thus, many saw value in some teachings that this tradition contained.

It didn’t escape people on both sides at the time that there were significant similarities between Islam, as understood through Sufism and under the influence of ideas like wahdat al-wujud in particular, and Hindu traditions like Advaita Vedanta.

Even since long before Dara’s time, Muslim emperors and scholars had engaged in meeting Hindu ascetics and discussing with them, considering them to hold divine wisdom just like a Muslim saint would. One very famous example is of the emperor Jahangir (d. 1627) who, on multiple occasions, met with the Hindu ascetic Jidrup/Chidrup who lived in a hillside in Ujjain.

Jidrup being “well-versed in the ‘science of Vedanta’” and Jahagir being a Muslim, they engaged in discussion where both affirmed that the same truth was being expressed in different languages, expressing an attitude that had become increasingly common at the time. Indeed, the courtier Mutamad Khan (d. 1639) wrote that:

“these days the science of Vedanta is taken to mean tasawwuf (Sufism)”

…indicating that many at the time saw the two traditions as essentially expressing the same divine truth.

It is also important to remember that clear categories like “Hindu”, as it is used today, didn’t really exist or function in the same way back then. From writings at the time, the term “Hindu” is often used to refer to a specific group, which is contrasted with others like “Rajput” who, by today’s standards, would also be considered “Hindu”. Muslims scholars at the time had a nuanced view of the Hindu tradition, of course looking with some disdain towards any form of idolatry but at the same time affirming that many so-called Hindus fell under the category of “monotheists”. The the non-dualist school of Advaita Vedanta, or Vedanta in general, was seen as an essentially monotheistic tradition which could thus be compared and even connected to Islam in some ways.

So this is important to keep in mind as we go forward. Dara Shikoh, in his interactions with “Hinduism”, wasn’t as unique as you might think. He followed in a tradition of inter-religious dialogue that was flourishing in the region at the time. Because indeed, from this moment on, we see Dara increasingly engage more and more with other religious traditions as containing expressions of divine truth. He would study deeply some of the Hindu classics like the Ramayana, and engaged (much like his predecessors) in meetings and discussion with Hindu ascetics.

The most legendary of these personal interactions is Dara’s frequent meetings with a Hindu sage by the name Baba Lal, who leaned strongly to the non-dualist teachings of Advaita Vedanta, which teaches that the ultimate reality - Brahman - is identical to all appearance and the individual Self (Atman). This attracted Dara greatly as he could see so many similarities with the teachings of Islam as he understood them through the philosophy of wahdat al-wujud.

Baba Lal was endearingly called the “Shaven-headed” and Dara refers to him as “one of the most perfect gnostics”. The two engaged in long debates about the different teachings of the different religions, their similarities and differences. For Dara and most of his contemporaries, Baba Lal definitely fell under the category of a ‘monotheist’ and thus could be greatly revered as a teacher of sacred wisdom, even though he wasn’t a Muslim.

This can be seen in Dara’s next major writing, entitled Hasanat al-’Arifin (“Fine Words of the Gnostics”), which is a collection of ecstatic utterances (shath) by various Sufi authorities. A controversial topic, these utterances have been an important part of Sufi history, with the most famous example being al-Hallaj’s exclamation “Ana al-Haqq” or “I am the Truth”.

In Dara’s vast collection of these utterances, meant as a justification for his own Sufi ideas and claims, he also includes non-Muslims, namely Baba Lal and the famous mystic Kabir (whose status as a Muslim or non-Muslim is contested). This shows that Dara did not consider divine truth to be exclusive to Muslims, but could also be reached, at least partly, by practitioners of other traditions. And in the same work, he states it clearly himself:

“...in every community and in every garb, there are visible and hidden friends of the Divine Truth” - Dara Shikoh

And this idea only seems to have intensified as we reach the final years of Dara’s life. After a military expedition in Qandahar, in 1654, Dara started surrounding himself with Sanskrit scholars as well as representatives of other religions like Christianity and Judaism. Such “Hindu” scholars of Sanskrit were easy to come by, as many of them were employed in the court of Shah Jahan, with whom Dara by now shared a status of almost co-emperorship.

His studies into schools like Advaita Vedanta intensified as he surrounded himself with all these scholars and all of these activities culminated in what is one of Dara’s most famous works. In 1655, by now 47 years old, he wrote a treatise entitled Majma al-Bahrain, meaning “The meeting place of the two oceans”. As the title suggests, this is in essence a comparative work, the “two oceans” in the title referring to, on the surface, Islam and Hinduism. But remember that these categories were much more nuanced back then.

Indeed, the scholar Supriya Gandhi importantly points out that:

“The prince refers to two religious traditions, but these are not the crystalized, rigidly-bounded Islam and Hinduism that we know in modern times. His project does not seek to synthesize two separate streams of Islam and Hindu religion. Instead, he aims to uncover and document a common font of truth shared by Muslim and non-Muslim, Indian ‘monotheists’” - Supriya Gandhi

The book, meant for a specific elite audience close to Dara and never for the broad public, compares teachings, terms and ideas within Islam and “Hinduism”, showing which different terms correspond to each other and emphasizing the common ground that the traditions share. Dara himself writes in the treatise:

“This faqir without a care, Muhammad Dara Shukoh, relates that he, after discerning the truth of all truths, ascerting the mysteries of the subtleties of the Sufi school of truth, and attaining this magnificent divine gift, has approached this purpose, (namely) to comprehend the nature of the school of thought of the monotheists of India (muwahhidan-i hind) and the attainers of truth (muhaqqiqan) among this ancient people. With some among them, who have attained perfection, who have reached the extremities of ascetic practice, comprehension and understanding, and the utmost levels of mystical experience, God-seeking and gravity, he (i.e., Dara Shukoh) has had repeated encounters and carried out dialogues”

And very clearly confirms:

“Apart from linguistic differences in discerning and knowing, I saw no divergence. From this perspective I brought together the words of both parties and collected some terms that are essential and valuable for the seeker of truth to know and arranged them in a treatise.”

While, as we’ve seen, Dara is here taking part in an already existing tradition of inter-religious dialogue, this treatise and its quotes are still remarkable. It shows a huge level of clarity, comparative skill and openness to considering new ideas while remaining firmly grounded in his native religion of Islam, at least according to himself.

The treatise is filled with quotes from and references to the Qur’an, a source that pervades the entire enterprise, while remaining comparative in its essential nature.

“...the project takes as its primary object of study the domain of India’s knowledge, which it seeks both to describe using its own vocabulary, as well as translate into Islamic, largely Sufi, categories.” - Gandhi

The Majma al-Bahrain remains a huge part of Dara Shikoh’s legacy, and is one of the things he is most famous for. But he didn’t stop there.

During the last years of his life, Prince Dara’s translation project continued and intensified. Dara’s purpose with all of these translations was his passionate attempt to find the original and most ancient truths about God’s oneness and monotheism in the ancient Indian texts, which he considered to be the most primordial of all scriptures.

And finally, Dara believed that he had found the ultimate example of this in one of the oldest and most significant scriptures in Hindu history - the Upanishads.

A part of the larger Vedic corpus, the Upanishads are a collection of philosophically and mystically oriented texts that deal with primary subjects like the Brahman, Absolute Reality, and Atman, the Self, as well as their relationship to each other, and which serves as the basis for the vast Hindu tradition of Vedanta. Dara was very excited by this prospect, and surrounded himself with a group of Sanskrit scholars, including the brilliant Kavindracharya to translate a select collection of Upanishads into Persian.

Again, the prince believed that the Upanishads were texts that could unlock interpretations and secrets within the Qur’an, and complement the sacred scripture of the Muslims by being the most primordial revelation sent to humankind, and thus agreeing with its divine message. The Upanishads, as scripture, was the source of monotheism and tawhid. Dara himself writes about the Upanishads:

“...in which are contained all the secrets of mystical path and meditative exercises of pure divine unity”

He called this very ambitious collection of translated Upanishads the Sirr-i Akbar or “The Greatest Secret”, which tells us something about his view of the role that the translation played.

Now, remember, he engages with these scripture in this way without ever abandoning his devotion to Islam and the Qadiri Sufi order. He didn’t seek to replace Islam with Hindu revelation, but saw the Hindu scriptures as complements that could help Muslims and other monotheists on their path to divine unity and intimacy, similar to the way that the early Muslim philosophers viewed the relationship of Islam to Greek philosophy. But sometimes the contents of the Upanishads have very openly polytheistic themes, which of course can create problems for this syncretistic interpretation. What Dara’s translation and commentary does here is very interesting. The texts often refer to deities or gods of the Hindu pantheon like Brahma and Vishnu, and here he engages in some of that really fascinating comparative work, instead understanding these characters as angels rather than gods. Thus, Brahma becomes another name for the angel Gabriel, Vishnu is identified with the angel Michael, etc.

(As a very interesting side-point, they seem to equate “Allah” with the concept of “Om” or the “Om” sound.)

This was the first translations of the Upanishads into Persian, and Dara’s Sirr-i Akbar became a very popular and famous document, surviving beyond the life of the prince. Indeed, the Sirr-i Akbar was the first exposure that many western scholars of Hinduism had to the Upanishads at large, and thus served as a very important factor in that field and in the history of the spread and understanding of these ancient scriptures.

The prince was convinced that he had stumbled upon something very important and significant, both by bringing into light the Upanishads to a Persian audience and thereby opening up for further discussion about the shared features and truths of different expressions of monotheism or divine oneness.

But these fortunes were short lived, unfortunately, as Dara’s life was just about to turn upside down, or rather… well, his life was about to end.

Indeed, when the emperor Shah Jahan suddenly fell gravely ill, a violent war of succession broke out between his sons. Particularly, the throne was dramatically fought for by Dara Shikoh and his younger brother Aurangzeb. Perhaps due to military inexperience on Dara’s part, or other more circumstantial factors, Aurangzeb soon got the upper hand, forced Dara, his family and army to flee across India and crowned himself the new emperor under the name Alamgir - the World Seizer.

Soon, Dara and his family were captured and Aurangzeb realized that his older brother was very popular with the people of the empire, both Muslims & non-Muslims. This was a direct threat to his authority, of course, and as a result of this we reach the famous and tragic end of our story, when Aurangzeb has Dara Shikoh executed.

This is a very famous story, told and retold across history. It is often portrayed under religious themes - the “orthodox” and puritanical Aurangzeb executes the liberal and open-minded Dara. But this is of course a rather modern understanding of the situation. Indeed, Aurangzeb did use religious language in his justification for executing his brother, calling him a heretic on a few occasions. But he never specifies what this heresy was supposed to be. Instead, all claims of Dara’s heretical doctrines and experimentation with Indic thought appear after he was already dead and Aurangzeb was firmly established on the throne, as a way of justifying what was probably a political decision on religious grounds after the fact.

Because history would indeed remember these two brothers in very different ways. Aurangzeb is a very controversial figure. Some say he is the most hated man in Indian history. Under his leadership, the Mughal empire reached its peak in terms of territorial expanse, but many also claim that his rulership was the beginning of the end, and that he was a tyrannical, oppressive ruler. The way Aurangzeb is remembered is often as a champion of a more “orthodox” or conservative, puritanical Islam, in contrast to other Mughal royals like Dara or his predecessors like Akbar. For those Muslims who like that kind of stuff, this is a positive thing, but for others it is a great tragedy.

But how accurate is this common portrayal? How different was Aurangzeb and Dara, really?

As you might guess, it is a big oversimplification and mistake to make a clear dichotomy between Aurangzeb as representing “orthodox” Islam and Dara on the other side of the spectrum. Not only because the two weren’t that different in terms of their religious beliefs and affiliations, but also because such a one-sided view fails to take the nuance of this context into consideration. Dara Shikoh considered himself to be a truly “orthodox” Muslim, and his teachings and ideas very much represent major movements within Islam at the time. He, as a Qadiri Sufi, did not stand in opposition to some “orthodox” school of scholars. As we saw earlier, this kind of dichotomy didn’t exist back then. For many fellow Muslims and scholars at the time, Dara’s activities were entirely legitimate.

And Aurangzeb, after all, wasn’t all that different. He, too, was deeply involved with Sufism, was devoted to the Chishti saints for example. Many of those Muslims today who admire him as a defender of the true faith would probably not be very happy with a lot of his perspectives on Islam.

We shouldn’t see the conflict between the two brothers as one between “orthodox” Islam and “unorthodox Islam”, because indeed “orthodoxy” is always a relative and fluid term, defined by those who claim to be following it and changing with time and place. Dara represents Islam just as much as Aurangzeb does, if we are to view this from a neutral perspective.

A more helpful way to understand the situation is as a conflict between different understandings of Islam, rather than between “Islam” and its opposite. If we do the latter, Islam itself becomes the problem, because we are defining it as such that the “more Muslim” one is, the bigger the problem. Aurangzeb was more puritanical because he was “more Muslim”, “more religious” than Dara, but this is not the case. Arguably, in some ways, Dara was “more religious” than Aurangzeb, more devoted to Islam than his younger brother, but at the end of the day these terms aren’t useful. They simply understood the boundaries of their religion differently.

At the same time, you can’t deny that Aurangzeb does come off as somewhat more strict and rigid compared to his predecessors. He styled himself as a strictly Islamic ruler, did things like forbid music in court (at least for a period), re-established the jiziya tax, had several Hindu temples destroyed etc. There is a lot more nuance to this discussion itself, but that will have to wait for a more thorough discussion of Aurangzeb’s rule in particular.

But he isn’t as different as many tend to believe. Many will speculate about what India would have been like had Dara won the war of succession and become the emperor. Honestly, in my opinion, probably not all that different. Dara was also from the same environment, it is highly likely that he would have had Aurangzeb killed if he got the upper hand instead. And the realities of rulership would have probably led him down similar paths.

The bottom line is - we should do our best to avoid the common black and white narratives about this topic. It is simply not the case that Aurangzeb was universally considered more “orthodox” or “Islamic”. It is simply not the case that Aurangzeb had the backing of the religious Islamic scholars while being hated by Hindus, and Dara being despised by the ulama and liked by the Hindu population.

When we look at the armies of the two brothers during the war of succession and their general supporters, we find even numbers between them. Dara had just as many Muslims and Muslim scholars who supported his side as Aurangzeb did, and they both had an equal number of Hindus who strongly supported their claims to the throne.

Clearly, things aren’t so simple, and history has often projected later construction onto a context that simply didn’t work that way. The way we conceive of these events and the status of these different figures says more about us and our own environment than it does about the historical period we are actually describing.

History is never black or white, and this is no exception. Both Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb are men of their times. Dara, in his explorations and interactions with various strands of Indic thought as an extension of his Sufi piety and Muslim devotedness, embodied attitudes and movements in the religious environment of the time. In some ways, he isn’t all that unique, but in other ways he is of course incredibly fascinating. He may strike us as an unusual kind of Muslim intellectual, judging by today’s standards and the way that the religious landscape of India looks at the current moment, but at the time that he lived his approach to religion and religious diversity represented one way of understanding Islam, Sufism and our quest for divine unity. One way among many that have existed in the long history of Islam and the world religions.

Video:

Bibliography:

Gandhi, Supriya (2020). "The Emperor who never was: Dara Shukoh in Mughal India". Belknap Press.

Ernst, Carl W. (1996). "Sufism and Yoga according to Muhammad Ghawth". University of North Carolina.

Ernst, Carl W. (2016). "Refractions of Islam in India: Situating Sufism and Yoga". SAGE YODA Press; First Edition.

Eaton, Richard M. (2020). "India in the Persianate Age: 1000-1765". Penguin.

Moovsi, Shireen (2002). "The Mughal Encounter with Vedanta: Recovering the biography of 'Jadrup'". Social scientist, Vol. 30, Nos. 7-8.

Nair, Shankar (2020). "Translating Wisdom: Hindu-Muslim Intellectual Interactions in Early Modern South Asia". University of California Press.

Kugle, Scott (ed.) (2012). "Sufi Meditation and Contemplation: Timeless Wisdom from Mughal India". Omega Publications. (Includes a translation of the "Risala-i Haqqnuma"/Compass of Truth.

One topic that often comes up in discussions about Islam today is taqiyya. We avoid getting political on this channel but it is exactly in political contexts that the term comes up, and is understood and described in a certain way. What is interesting is that there is an unusual amount of discrepancy between how muslims themselves understand this concept vs. that of many non-muslims.

So what is taqiyaa? Does it exist in Islam, and how has it been understood historically and today?

Taqiyya is a topic that is contested and debated even within Islam and among Muslims themselves. Some reject it outright as unislamic, whereas others even see it as obligatory in some circumstances. But what is it actually? What is it that is either rejected or obligatory in this case?

The word taqiyya comes from the semitic/arabic root وقى which means ‘to protect oneself’, and that is essentially what taqiyya also means. It is indeed a concept that has existed in Islam as a point of discussion since the very beginning. And in brief, it is the idea that a believer (muslim) is allowed to hide their beliefs in order to save themselves from danger. As in: say a Christian king has captured a Muslim and tells him ‘either you convert to Christianity or we kill you or your family’. In such a circumstance, is it ok for the person to outwardly pretend to become Christian while inwardly still holding to his Muslim faith? Those who support taqiyya argue that yes, it is allowed.

The 11th century Hanafi jurist/scholar al-Sarakhsi (d. 1090) says in his Mabsut:

“taqiyyah means protecting oneself from punishment and harm with what he has (hiding and concealing it), even if he believes inwardly the opposite of what he has revealed.” (Al-Mabsut, 1414, 24/45)

This idea is usually taken directly from the Qur’an, where such examples are given in a few places. The most widely cited is in Surat al-Nahl:

“Whoever disbelieves in Allah after their belief—not those who are forced while their hearts are firm in faith, but those who embrace disbelief wholeheartedly—they will be condemned by Allah and suffer a tremendous punishment.” - Qur’an, 16:106

مَن كَفَرَ بِٱللَّهِ مِنۢ بَعْدِ إِيمَـٰنِهِۦٓ إِلَّا مَنْ أُكْرِهَ وَقَلْبُهُۥ مُطْمَئِنٌّۢ بِٱلْإِيمَـٰنِ وَلَـٰكِن مَّن شَرَحَ بِٱلْكُفْرِ صَدْرًۭا فَعَلَيْهِمْ غَضَبٌۭ مِّنَ ٱللَّهِ وَلَهُمْ عَذَابٌ عَظِيمٌۭ

This verse thus seems to say that those who are ‘forced’ to disbelieve outwardly will not receive the punishment in question.

Now, with that said, taqiyya is something that is primarily associated with Shi'a Islam, and not as much with Sunnism. And indeed it is a much more prominent concept and teaching among the Shi'is, which makes total sense. The Shi’is were, and have been for most of history, in a minority position, and thus had to withstand oppression from some of the Sunni rulers. For example, the early Shi'i imams and communities were sometimes oppressed and persecuted by the Abbasid regime, which could be argued to be a proto-Sunni one.

So within Shi’ism, there developed the strong idea of taqiyya - that Shi'is were allowed to hide the fact that they were Shi'is, and in some circumstances maybe act and appear to be Sunnis, in order to save themselves from harm.

And that last point is important, because it is very firmly and clearly stated in all discussions on taqiyya, that it is only permissible when one is in direct danger of being killed or seriously hurt. Lying is one of the greatest sins in Islam, and is never considered to be allowed, except in these extreme circumstances when one must protect one’s life and family from danger.

But in Shi’ism, again, this is a widely accepted idea, so much so that if such extreme circumstances appear, it can even become obligatory. But even then, it is emphasized that the only circumstance where it is allowed is when one is in direct danger, never in order to gain something.

And again, this is in Shia Islam, where taqiyya is most prominent. We see this many times across history, where Isma’ili imams have hid their identity from the public, or the Druze (who grew out of Shia Islam) who keep all their teachings secret precisely to avoid risking persecution (among other reasons). So much is taqiyya associated with Shi’ism that many Sunnis, especially Salafis, even use this as a point of critique. The medieval scholar Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), sometimes considered the father of Salafism, famously criticized the Shi’is precisely for using taqiyya, which he saw as totally against the ideals of Islam, and many modern Salafis follow in his footsteps.

The more nuanced reality, though, is that taqiyya does exist in Sunni Islam as well. It certainly isn’t as prominent as in Shi’ism, but it is there at least as a discussion that comes up in legal manuals and debates. Now, in Sunnism there is another term that is often preferred over taqiyya (maybe because the latter is so associated with Shi'is) which is ikrah, and means ‘coercion’. Essentially though, in practice, it has the same function, namely to argue (or discuss) that the person under serious and extreme duress and danger is allowed to conceal their true beliefs to save themselves. And the answer is usually that it is allowed, although only in these extreme circumstances that we have mentioned.

In fact, the discussions on ikrah are usually more from the perspective of whether a person who has already lied to save his life is forgiven, or whether he has committed a sin? And the answer is usually that he is indeed forgiven and that it is not a sin. But there are also many examples of a more active discussion of saying ‘you are allowed to do this if you find yourselves in this or that situations’.

Now, this is quite different from how the concept of taqiyya is usually talked about by some non-Muslims today, right? There, the idea seems to be that Muslims are somehow allowed to lie or deceive non-Muslims to spread or further the cause of Islam. And again, we don’t deal with politics or polemical discussions here, but this one case where this common public perception is so far removed from reality that it kind of has to be brought up in an article like this. In fact, there is essentially nothing to support this understanding of taqiyya, either historically or in the contemporary Islamic world. Of course, there will always be a few exceptions to every rule, but this is simply something that is so clearly wrong that it’s hard to be any more nuanced about it.

Some Sunnis, historically and today, think that taqiyya or ikrah, and especially the former, is never allowed and that you should always state loudly and proudly your faith, even if that makes you a martyr. But even those who do accept that it is allowed, it is so clearly stated that it is only in life-threatening situations and that lying in any other circumstance is a grave sin. The 15th century Maliki scholar from Granada said about taqiyya:

“If a tyrant says to [a Muslim], “If you do not do such-and-such, I will imprison you or take your property”, and [the Muslim] does not have any means to protect himself from this except God, then he may commit any act requested of him except killing someone else, for he must not save his own life by killing another.” - al-Mawwaq

The great Ash’ari theologian and scholar Fakhr al-din Razi (d. 1210) wrote:

“taqiyya occurs when a man is among a large group of unbelievers, fears for his life or property from them, and beguiles or cajoles them with his tongue. He does this by avoiding disclosure of enmity with his tongue. It is also permissible to produce speech that gives the impression of friendship and alliance but on condition that he internally maintain (yudmir) the opposite and use allusive language (yu‛arrid) in all of what he says, for taqiyya affects what is externally apparent and not what is in people’s hearts.”

But clarifies:

“taqiyya is (only) permissible for the purpose of preservation of life.” - Fakhr al-din al-Razi

And this is a running theme that we see in basically all manuals of Islamic law historically and today. Another medieval Maliki scholar - al-Qurtubi - said:

“Taqiyyah is not permissible except if one fears death, or being cut up (into pieces), or great harm.” - al-Qurtubi

The famous jurist Abu Bakr Ibn al-’Arabi (d. 1148) (not to be confused with the Sufi mystic Ibn ‘Arabi) said:

“that (taqiyya) is only required for Muslims to safeguard his life and property.” - Abu Bakr Ibn al-’Arabi

And the great Abu Hamid al-Ghazali wrote in the Ihya Ulum al-Din:

“Know that lying is forbidden in every circumstance except compelling need (darura).” - al-Ghazali

And this is precisely the point; because lying is seen as such a great sin in Islam, these examples of taqiyya are seen as very extreme, and they have to be very extreme, because lying or deceiving is a serious thing, including lying to non-Muslims. Indeed, even the aforementioned Ibn Taymiyya, who is often considered the father of Salafism, which in itself is usually seen as the kind of most fundamentalist and ‘extreme’ form of Islam (although this is a simplification), held the same idea and said:

“It is not permissible for a Muslim to betray or lie to anyone — whether Muslim or non-Muslim. Treachery and lying are prohibited in all circumstances.” - Ibn Taymiyya (Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā)

ولا يجوز للمسلم أن يغدر أو يكذب على أحد، سواء كان مسلمًا أو كافرًا؛ فإن الغدر والكذب محرمان على كل حال

These are all very clear statements. And now I’ve also done that thing which I so often criticize others of doing; by just quoting a bunch of old medieval thinkers, as if Islamic Law doesn’t evolve and change and that the general opinions today can be very different. But this is partly on purpose, because this is one of those cases where the general opinion hasn’t changed much at all. What these old figures said is essentially the same as what you will hear Muslim scholars today say. And there are too many examples to quote. But even just by doing a quick google search (on purpose to make a point), one of the first things that came up was a fatwa from the contemporary Hanafi scholar Shaykh Ebrahim Desai, who wrote in a fatwa, first defining taqiyya:

“Taqiyyah is the act of protecting one’s self from danger.”

And then clarifying:

“Taqiyyah in normal circumstances is impermissible according to the majority of ‘Ulamā’. It is only permissible in times of dire need. Al Imām Al Qurtubī said, ‘Taqiyyah is not permissible except if one fears death, or being cut up (into pieces), or great harm.’”

And then clarifying even more:

“Taqiyyah is only permissible if one actually fears some danger. If no danger is expected taqiyyah is impermissible.” - Shaykh Ebrahim Desai

So this is how taqiyya (and ikrah) is understood in Islam and among Muslims. It is there, but is a quite obscure/niche legal discussion among scholars about extreme circumstances. Indeed, when you talk to Muslims (especially Sunni Muslims, but also in general) they will usually tell you that they have never even heard of the concept of taqiyya, and if they have heard of it, it is usually from non-Muslims who criticize them about it. So it is a very peculiar situation where a lot of misunderstanding once again causes us to talk past each other.

One last topic that might be worth bringing up is that I also sometimes here the argument that Islam allows lying in war, and that because (some) Muslims think that they are always at war with non-believers (especially those living in the west); thereby lying or deceiving (taqiyya) is thus allowed in this circumstance. Well, first of all, this is also built on a misunderstanding of what taqiyya is to begin with, which I hope I have dispelled a little bit in this discussion. But there is more to say here.

It is indeed a common position that lying in the context of war is allowed, and this is based on a hadith from the Prophet Muhammad, which says.

“Lying is not permissible except in three cases: a man speaking to his wife to please her, lying during war, and lying in order to reconcile between people.” (Sahih Muslim)

Now, what this means in Islamic Law on a particular level is that lying is permitted in the context of war and battle. You are allowed to ambush or lay traps in battle, to fool your enemy in this sense in order to win the war. It is not generally understood as a permission to lie or deceive people in a more general sense; lying to civilians or a population at large, but specifically in the context of military strategy.

Do some Muslims maybe take this principle and apply it to a more general idea of ‘war’ on a global scale today? I’m sure there are such cases, especially among the more extreme or radical groups, because as we said before, exceptions will always exist. But this would be in a miniscule minority, and on top of that they would be directly going against the traditional and majority position of how these concepts are understood, which usually explicitly states otherwise.

Ibn Hajar (d. 1449) said:

“Deception in war is permissible, but this does not include treachery, for treachery is forbidden.” - Ibn Hajar

I’m sure there is more that could be said, but I’m going to cut it off here. Hopefully, some of you will now have a better grasp of how the concept of taqiyya and ikrah have been understood within the Islamic tradition, as well as how it is understood, and not understood, by Muslims today.

Some of these videos that I make that have a more shallow perspective and aim of explaining concepts that are often misunderstood, such as jihad or sharia, can of course come off as me taking a particular side or giving a ‘positive view’ of the topic. This is natural, of course, since the purpose is to counteract misunderstanding, thus having a certain scope and approach that does not claim to be comprehensive and can thus appear to lean more positively since it is directly in discussion with the opposite extreme.

But in the case of taqiyya, I feel like the common misrepresentation of the topic is so wrong and inaccurate that there is no other way of delivering this than in this way. Hopefully, the discourse about taqiyya and the use of the term in misinformed and prejudiced ways can reach a better place soon, after which conversations can become more fruitful.

Video:

Bibliography

Hallaq, Wael (2004). "The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law". Cambridge University Press.

Hallaq, Wael (2009). "Sharia: Theory, Practice, Transformations". Cambridge University Press.

Stewart, Devin (2013). "Dissimulation in Sunni Islam and Morisco Taqiyya". AL-QANTARA, XXXIV 2, 2013, pp. 439-490.

https://islamqa.org/hanafi/askimam/81133/?utm

In the history of the world, there have appeared rulers here and there that have stood out among the multitude. Emperors, kings or caliphs that managed to make a lasting mark beyond the years of their rule. This could be for various reasons. Some have become famous for their unmatched cruelty, their military prowess or impressive diplomatic skills. Others are remembered for entirely different reasons. Let’s face it, not too many leaders in history are famous in particular for their tolerance, openness and intellectual curiosities. I can think of only a few off the top of my head.

But one of those great rulers of history is certainly the Mughal emperor Akbar, sometimes known as Akbar the Great, which translates to something along the pretty lines of “Great The Great”.

In any case, Akbar is remembered today as perhaps the most successful and powerful ruler of the Mughal empire. He extended its borders to encompass a huge geographical area & was a very talented military leader.

But why, you ask, are we talking about a political leader on a channel about religion? Well, because Akbar is not only remembered for the reasons just mentioned, but also because of his unique and fascinating approach to religion. Not only did he show an unprecedented tolerance towards religious minorities in the lands that he ruled, but he was also spiritually interested himself; conversing and debating with representatives from different religious traditions and, perhaps most significantly, instigated his own religious movement which was known as Din-Ilahi or “The Religion of God”.

Akbar is a very famous ruler, but also one that is often misrepresented, both by his enemies and his fans. So today, let’s dive into the world and thought of one of the most fascinating rulers in world history.

Jalal al-din Akbar is certainly the most famous of the Mughal emperors, and arguably the most important. He was born in 1542 to Humayun, the second Mughal emperor, and a shiite mother, poetically foreshadowing his later life of religious diversity.

After he himself became emperor in 1556, Akbar very quickly showed himself to be a more than capable leader. He led many military campaigns that extended the borders of the Mughal empire to encompass most of India. He established his capital in Agra and later in Lahore, rather than ruling remotely from Afghanistan and established many administrative systems that helped expand the wealth of the region significantly.

One interesting aspect of Akbar’s life is the fact that, from his earliest years and for the rest of his life, he seems to have been entirely illiterate. There are stories of how many different teachers tried in vain to teach him to read and write in his youth, leading many historians to speculate that he might have been dyslectic. The Christian jesuit Monserrate who used to attend Akbar’s court wrote that he was: “entirely unable to read or write” … something that wasn’t uncommon for people in general at that time, but certainly so for the emperors of the Mughal dynasty.

But despite this illiteracy, Akbar was an incredibly inquisitive individual who valued knowledge, science and spiritual insights, as we will see. He didn’t let this inability stop him from being immensely interested in all kinds of different knowledge.

Akbar was, throughout his life, a great enjoyer of sports and different outdoor activities. One of his favorite pastimes was to hunt, something that many stories tell us about.

The Mughals were Muslims, as was Akbar, and at least in the first decades of his life (a point we will return to) took his religion seriously, performed all the obligatory rituals and prayers and conceived of himself as the secular leader and champion of Sunni Islam. He was not only known as the Shahanshah - the king of kings - but also referred to himself as the Amir al-Mu’minin - Commander of the faithful - and as the caliph of Islam, something that greatly concerned the Ottoman Sultans in the west.

But it certainly wasn’t an entirely unfounded claim; at the height of his power, Akbar ruled an enormous population of muslims and non-muslims, probably the largest muslim population of all the Islamic empires at that time. And yet, in spite of this, descriptions of Akbar and his life paints the picture of a relatively modest and contemplative man, concerned with spiritual matters and the well being of those he ruled over.

Now, the majority of biographical material about Akbar comes from the accounts of his grand vizier Abu’l-Fazl ibn Mubarak (d. 1602) and his works Akbarnama and Ain-i-Akbari. Of course, then, Abu’l-Fazl paints Akbar, his boss, in the most favorable light, which should be kept in mind. We also have accounts by writers like al-Badayuni & Ahmad Sirhindi, both of whom were Akbar’s enemies and so are on the other side of the spectrum and should be approached carefully for the same reasons.

In any case, the picture that emerges of Akbar is a fascinating and intriguing one, no matter which side you are on. The rule of Akbar was one in which the Mughals were trying to shake off some of their ethnic and cultural backgrounds. They came from Persia, and spoke Persian in court etc, but descended ultimately from the Mongols who invaded in the 13th century, which is heavily suggested by the name “Mughals”. As such, they were the successors to Islamicized Mongol leaders like Timur/Tamerlane who had ruled greater Persia for a long time.

And while Akbar will certainly emphasize and show pride in much of this heritage, we also see him trying to root out some practices and customs that were common among the post-nomadic Mongols. This included gatherings of soldiers where excessive drinking of alcohol took place, for example. It also included the general mongol way of warfare, which was, according to most estimates, quite brutal and unforgiving. Al-Badayuni writes that:

“It was the Code of Chingis Khan to massacre or make slaves of all the inhabitants (of a conquered region)... to destroy utterly many towns and villages and sweep everything clean and clear… to value God’s creation as if it were but radishes, cucumbers and leeks.” - al-Badayuni

Instead, in order to conform more to Islamic law and customs of war, Akbar forbade things like indiscriminate killing of non-combatants and the free taking and selling of slaves. He also seems to have inaugurated a very strict court etiquette, which even to his contemporaries seemed extreme. The historian André Wink writes:

“Here the allegory of taming the Mongol “beasts” translates into an attempt to turn a loose, multiethnic and religiously heterogeneous assemblage of post-nomadic military retainers into a disciplined service nobility, while establishing a rigid court etiquette as a new force of counter-insurgency. This task was never easy, since Akbar - like any other ruler - could not afford to antagonize his nobles. It had to be done by a judicious mixture of force and persuasion - just like the taming of elephants, as Abu-l-Fazl says” - André Wink

These aspects of Akbar are important to keep in mind, I think. They are important in order to nuance our understanding of his later religious policies and ideas, and can help counteract false accusations thrown at him. His enemies will often want to paint Akbar as an irreligious, liberal leader whose relationship with Islam was shaky at best or non-existent at worst. The historical record shows that this simply isn’t true. Akbar, in fact, comes across as an unusually pious and moderate emperor in this context.

Akbar was not only a devout Muslim, but also a great admirer of the Sufi saints. Indeed, Sufism at this time was really synonymous with Islam, especially in this region. Most muslims were connected to one of the Sufi orders and their founders. Akbar seems to have been especially devoted to the Chishti tariqa/order. He would perform various ziyaras - visits/minor pilgrimages - to the shrines of some of the great Chishti masters like Muinuddin Chishti (d. 1230) in Ajmer and Nizamuddin Auliya (d. 1325) in Delhi.

Both of these masters, and the Chishti order in general, has indeed been characterized as relatively tolerant and open, treating with respect people of different religions which is also what attracted many from the local population to their teachings. So when we look at Akbar as a Muslim, we should consider the fact that it was this Islam that he was a particular adherent to - the Chishti order of Sufism - something that I think is related to his own religious attitudes. I think it’s more beneficial to recognize that the open and inclusive attitude that he would hold later in his life shouldn’t just automatically be seen as a result of a waning commitment to Islam or as the result of outside influence, but rather that these kinds of ideas might have come from a sincere devotion to Islam, since those kinds of tendencies did and do exist within the religion itself, and that he was involved with Islamic contexts that were famous precisely for these things.

In any case, we do find Akbar partaking in some of the standard luxuries of imperial courtly life, including the consumption of alcohol. Basically all emperors did, in most of the empires, Islamic ones included. But with Akbar, we find an unusual abstaining from such vices and a much more ascetic approach. According to accounts by Jesuits, Akbar very rarely drank any wine, and often went on long periods where he didn’t consume it at all. He even instigated policies where he forbade the consumption of alcohol and opium in his court and in wider society. Al-Qandahari writes that:

“He (Akbar) is the king who escaped wine in obedience to God’s command”

These policies and attitudes don’t really fit with the non-religious, apostate Akbar. He furthermore seems to have been greatly interested in spiritual matters, and is said to have had several religious experiences himself. Once while hunting, he had an intense insight which led him to become a vegetarian. Or rather, he wanted to and tried to be a vegetarian. He would go for long periods of his life without eating any meat, often during periods of fasting but also otherwise. And he tells us that it was only due to social pressure that he couldn’t commit fully to a vegetarian diet.

“If the scarf of social life were not on my shoulder, I would restrain myself from eating meat” - Akbar (Akbarnama)

And this vegetarianism was indeed for religious and spiritual reasons. But again we shouldn’t be too quick to connect this to Hinduism or other local religious traditions, since Sufism itself has also had a long history of vegetarianism. And, indeed, Akbar himself refers to non-meat food as “sufi food” on one occasion, which seems to confirm this connection.

In other words, we find a greatly pious and moderate man, especially for someone of his status. It is telling that the emperors that followed him, like Jahangir and Shah Jahan, who are both often seen as much more “Islamic” emperors, both had serious problems with alcoholism. Akbar was not that kind of emperor. Abu’l-Fazl writes:

“The world is, in the contemplation of the Shahanshah’s genius, an extremely contemptible affair. He does not deem it worthy of his complete attention, and always keeps his soul attached to the importance of God” - Akbarnama

Neither is he the kind of emperor who would be remembered as intolerant and cruel. As I mentioned in the beginning, Akbar showed an usual level of tolerance and respect to the different cultures and religious traditions of India. Several of his wives were Hindus, and he appointed many Hindu officials in high positions in his government. Akbar’s policy was generally one of accepting religious plurality in the empire, a strategy that proved, as it usually does, to be very fruitful and successful.

One story tells of how the emperor interacted with the young Sikh community. The third guru of the Sikhs, Guru Amar Das, had established the practice of langar in Goindval - the communal kitchen where food was offered and shared among people of different castes and religions. And when some of the local Hindus called for Akbar in concern about the practice, he visited the Sikh community but was instead so pleased and impressed by the practice of langar that he offered lavish gifts to them.

These are just a few examples to show the attitude that Akbar became known for. And not only did he show “tolerance”, for the lack of a better term, towards other religious traditions, he was also highly interested in intellectually engaging with them. Indeed, towards the last few decades of his life, he instigated a movement of pluralistic religious inquiry that he himself participated directly in.

Being so involved and personally invested in religious matters, it is said that Akbar would spend long nights in the company of Chishti masters, discussing spiritual questions with them. After about a year of this, Akbar wanted to take these discussions to a broader level and decided to create a forum where opposing ideas could be discussed and debated formally. It is for these reasons that, in 1576, he formed what he called the Ibadat khana - the House of Worship - in connection to the shrine of a Sufi master of the Chishti order.

In the House of Worship, he would invite people from different religious traditions, first from different Muslim denominations - Sunni, Shia etc - but later also from all kinds of religions that existed in the region, and had them engage in debates and discussion.

“According to Abu-l-Fazl, Akbar invited Sufis, philosophers, orators, jurists, Sunnis, Shi’is, Brahmins, Jains, Christians of various denominations, Jews, Zoroastrians, and still others to the “beautiful, detached building” of the House of Worship, and made a rigorous examination of the principles of all their faiths and creeds. The astute sovereign praised whatever was good in any of these faiths and creeds.” - André Wink

Akbar personally took part in these discussions. It seems that he was interested in finding the commonalities and truths expressed in all different religions in order to find a more universal truth that transcended sectarian divisions. This all sounds nice of course, but the meetings themselves often ended in disaster, with attendants beginning to fight and throw insults at each other.

Eventually these meetings were disbanded, but by the end Akbar had come to some rather interesting conclusions. According to sources, it seems that he had used these discussions as the basis to create a syncretistic religious movement of his own, which has become known as Din Ilahi or “The Religion of God”/”The Divine Religion”. It wasn’t called this at the time by Akbar, though, but rather as Tawhid Ilahi or “Divine Monotheism”.

Now this is where telling the story properly becomes very difficult, because there are many different opinions and perspectives on what this “Religion of God” was supposed to be. A very common interpretation is that this represented an entirely new religion founded by Akbar, one that tried to incorporate the teachings of all the other religions in the region. Others, however, interpret this not as a new religion, but as an extension of his already existing Sufi-oriented Islamic faith.

Akbar is accused of having left Islam altogether by the end of his life. Many historians and scholars today often accept this idea, despite the fact that basically all such claims are made by Akbar’s enemies. Certainly, we cannot ignore the very obvious fact that Akbar was interested in, and influenced by, different religions - including Hinduism, Zoroastrianism & Christianity. Many of the critical accounts tell of how Akbar would adopt various practices like venerating the sun, prohibiting the slaughter of cows, shaving the crown of his head in the Buddhist fashion since the soul was thought to escape through that spot.

But these writers also kind of expose themselves when they start to claim things that are highly unlikely, like the claim that Akbar supposedly forbade Islamic practices in the empire and banned names like Muhammad & Ahmad. As already pointed out, all these accounts are by authors like al-Badayuni who were openly hostile to the emperor, and we should thus take it with a grain of salt. We find no claims of apostasy directly from Akbar himself, or by Abu’l-Fazl, his grand vizier, who instead writes:

“A set of evil-thinking, shameless ones imagined that the Prince of Horizons regarded the Muslim religion with disfavor. The sole evidence which those wrongheaded ones, whose understanding was rusted, had for this was that the wise sovereign out of his tolerant disposition and general benevolence, extensive overshadowing, received all classes of mankind with affection. Especially did he search for evidence in religious matters from the sages of every religion and ascetics of all faiths” - Abu’l-Fazl

The “Din-Ilahi” only seems clearly like a new religion if we don’t take into account the Sufi-form of Islam that Akbar was so attached to, which contains many of the teachings and ideas that he presented, albeit in a less radical form of course.

In another interpretation:

“The Din-i Ilahi… was not a new religion; it was a Sufi order with its own formula in which all the principles enunciated are to be found in the Quran and the practices of the contemporary Sufi orders… the Din was no religion outside of Islam, nor cut out from it. An Ilahan never regarded it as a separate religion; an Ilahian was often as orthodox as a Mulla” - Makhanlal Roychoudhury Sastri

Furthermore:

“The practices which he asked an Ilahian to follow were mostly Islamic in origin or had precedents in the actions of one of the renowned Islamic monarchs or saints.” - Makhanlal Roychoudhury Sastri

So we have very clearly differing accounts. Some, like his contemporary al- Badayuni and many modern scholars believe that the Din-Ilahi represented Akbar’s apostasy from Islam and the creation of an entirely new religion, whereas others see it as an expression of his Islamic faith.

One of the most interesting and controversial aspects of the Din-Ilahi phenomenon is Akbar’s own role in this religious movement. There are accounts that the formula “There is no god but God, and Akbar is his representative” was uttered by those close to him in the court. Indeed, some interpretations claim that Akbar went even further than that by claiming divinity for himself. This is perhaps most famously represented by the fact that he had seals printed with the phrase “Allahu Akbar”, and asked his subjects to preface letters and writings with this phrase.

What’s so strange about this, you ask? “Allahu Akbar” is after all a very common proclamation in Islam, meaning “God is Greater”/”God is Greatest”. Well, the interesting thing is that “Allahu Akbar” can also mean “God is Akbar”.

This has led many to assume that this was an expression of Akbar’s view of himself as divine, whereas others think that the use of “Allahu Akbar” was used in the more conventional sense. I’ll let you guys decide what you think about that theory.

And that’s the thing about Akbar, really. We don’t really know for sure what was going on with him. Don’t let my sceptical attitude fool you, there is definitely a possibility that Akbar did consider himself to have left Islam and founded a religion of his own. There are historical sources that point in this direction. But personally, I find myself more in the other camp who think we can’t really trust the hostile accounts and that automatically pointing to outside, non-Islamic, influences as soon as someone has open, tolerant and somewhat unusual views betrays a certain prejudice regarding Islam, or at the very least easily falls into essentialism where Islam is painted as a static monolith that is only narrowly represented by the stricter, conceived “orthodoxy” (a term that itself is problematic and can be questioned in this context for various reasons).

As I mentioned earlier, we find many of Akbar’s ideas already in Sufism, and in the Chishti order in particular, which Akbar was so devoted to. Indeed, engagement with other religions and an open attitude to discussion across religious lines was not exactly unusual in India by the time of Akbar. Many other Muslim scholars and leaders had also expressed similar ideas and represented a more tolerant attitude.

The Chishti masters mentioned earlier became known for their generosity and kindness to all people, and there were many others at this time who discussed the relationship between Islam and Hinduism, for example. Not only were Hindus often seen as one among the “People of the Book” (Ahl al-Kitab) but also that it contained some of the same monotheistic teachings of Islam, albiet having been corrupted. Characters like Krishna and Rama were seen as Prophets of God, rather than as deities like for the Hindus.

The Sufi author Abd al-Rahman al-Chishti (d. 1623) represents one of these people who, in his book Mir’at al-Haqa’iq, read, translated and interpreted the Bhagavad Gita as essentially an expression of Tawhid or monotheism, especially as understood by the Sufis. Krishna here becomes a prophet much like Jesus or Muhammad who taught the same message of divine unity. The great grandson of Akbar himself, prince Dara Shikoh, had similar tendencies, and all of this will be discussed properly in a future article.

Even Akbar’s bitter enemy al-Badayuni is said to have translated the Mahabharata and Ramayana. So what I am saying is that these kinds of ideas were in the air at the time, and Akbar is, as all human beings, a product of his time and place.

But Akbar of course can appear especially radical in some ways, especially if it is true that he adopted many practices from these various religions. But my point is that we shouldn’t immediately discard his ideas as non-Islamic and thereby let his enemies, a particular group, define what Islam is. From a neutral standpoint, which is what we strive for on Let’s Talk Religion, Akbar and his tolerance and openness represents Islam just as much as Ahmad Sirhindi or al-Badayuni did. At least if we operate from the assumption that he didn’t leave the religion, which of course is still a possibility.

Because regardless of your opinion about his religious affiliation or whether or not he did start a new religion, it is hard to deny that Akbar was a (at least relatively) tolerant emperor who treated with respect and openness the different religious traditions in his empire. This attitude and policy often goes under the name of Sulh-i kull, an Arabic phrase meaning “Universal peace” or “Peace for all”. From the contemporary accounts, we can clearly see that this was the approach to religion that Akbar wanted to, and did, adopt as policy in his empire.

Abu’l-Fazl says:

“The world lord exercises world sway on the principle of ‘universal peace’ (sulh-i kull), every sect can assert its doctrine without apprehension, and everyone can worship God after his own fashion” - Abu’l-Fazl

Akbar’s own son, and the future emperor, Jahangir strengthens the argument:

“He associated with the good of every race and creed and persuasion, and was gracious to all in accordance with their condition and understanding… This was different from the practice in other realms, for in Persia there was room for Shi’is only, and in Turkey, India and Turan there was room for Sunnis only” - Jahangir

This policy of sulh-i kull or “peace for all” was an attempt to bring harmony and peace to a very diverse empire. Not without its political/social reasons of course, but very successful nonetheless. Akbar’s rule of Mughal lands is seen as one of the most prosperous in history. He was generally liked by the population, and still to this day, even hard-line Hindu nationalist groups see him as a relatively good leader in a sea of (to them) tyrannical Islamic rulers.

Jalal al-din Akbar passed away on October 3, 1605 after suddenly falling very ill. Many think that he may have been poisoned, perhaps even by his own son. But even after his death, Akbar’s legacy and influence could not be escaped. He had established the Mughal empire as one of the major civilizations of its day. His religious movement - the Din-Ilahi - didn’t survive for long after his death, having only about 18 adherents. But his general attitude of relative tolerance continued under successive rulers. Even though the coming emperors like Jahangir, Shah Jahan (who built the Taj Mahal) and especially Aurangzeb all emphasized their identity as Islamic rulers in accordance with the religions’s laws, probably as a result of Akbar’s controversial last decades, they still continued to uphold a relative level of tolerance towards religious minorities for most of their reigns (although Aurangzeb is often associated with a shift toward a more intolerant policy).

In the end, Akbar is not mostly remembered for his military victories but as a tolerant emperor. One who seems to have been personally concerned with the well-being of his subjects. He sought to bring harmony and stability to his diverse empire through the policy of sulh-i kull - Peace for all - and was arguably pretty successful. Perhaps it is best to let the man himself have the final word:

“It is my duty to be in good understanding with all men. If they walk in the way of God’s will, interference with them would be in itself reprehensible; and if otherwise, they are under the malady of ignorance and deserve my compassion.” - Akbar

Video:

Bibliography:

Eaton, Richard M. (2020). "India in the Persianate Age: 1000-1765". Penguin.


Wink, André (2012). "Akbar". In the "Makers of the Muslim World" Series. Oneworld Academic.


Moosvi, Shireen (2002). "The Mughal Encounter With Vedanta: Recovering the biography of 'Jadrup'.


Nair, Shankar (2020). "Translating Wisdom: Hindu-Muslim Intellectual Interactions in Early Modern South Asia". University of California Press.

Have you ever put on some soft music after a stressful day when you need to calm down? Or listened to some really upbeat song to amp yourself up before a difficult task? Perhaps used music as a tool at the gym?

It is no secret to anyone that music has a strong impact on us as humans. It has the power to affect our moods, make us feel deep and varied emotions and bring us together. It really is a magical thing that sound waves and frequencies can have such an impact on our reality.

And we are not unique in thinking this. In fact, people all across history and in different cultures have recognized this power of music, and employed it in different ways. To amplify religious and spiritual emotions and experiences, such as with many of the mystics, to accompany poetry or theater, etc. And even using music as a form of therapy or medicine, employing it as a cure for illnesses, both physical and mental.

Modern research shows that listening to and playing music has very positive effects on the brain, helping to strengthen memory, reduce stress, and even help people recover from legitimate illnesses. And it is used today as therapeutic and medical treatment in different ways.

But this is nothing new. We can go way back in history, all the way to the ancient world, to find examples and precursors to the same ideas and practices. Accounts tell of how the Ancient Egyptians would employ music to treat both physical and mental problems. The physicians of Ancient Egypt, who were the same people as the priests, are said to have called music a “medicine for the soul”. Even in the Bible, we find evidence of music being used in this way, where David cures Saul by playing music for him:

“Whenever the [evil] spirit of God came upon Saul, David would take the lyre and play it; Saul would find relief and feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.” (1 Sam, 16:23) (JPS)

And in Ancient Greece, the situation was similar. Mythologically, the god Asclepius was said to cure illnesses by playing music, and the mythical figure Orpheus, primarily famous as a musician, was also associated with healing powers.

To the philosophers, music was something very important and powerful. The Pythagoreans conceived of the concept of the music of the spheres as an important aspect of the cosmos, and later philosophers like Plato and Aristotle both recognized the power of music to affect emotions and to have a great impact on the moral character of human beings. Plato also called music a “medicine of the soul” and conceived of it as an important part of education and of perfecting the moral character of people, which in turn could have a major impact on society and its order as a whole. But for this reason, he (and others) was careful to also point out that this depended on the kind of music.

Certain music, played using particular modes of the musical system, made people brave and morally upright, whereas other kinds of music or modes had a negative influence on people. So it was very important that the right kind of music was employed, and that the problematic kinds of music were avoided as much as possible. As an example, the Dorian mode (which Plato seems to have been particularly fond of) was seen as manly and “composed”, and Plato seems to have conceived in the Timaeus of the heavens being created according to this mode. The Phrygian mode, however, was sensual and even violent. Plato and Aristotle seem to disagree on the Lydian mode, Aristotle seeing it as decorous and educative, whereas Plato saw it as voluptuous and sensual.

Sadly, we don’t find that many detailed statement on the medical or therapeutic role of music from these thinkers, but Aristotle says very clearly that:

“it is plain that music has the power of producing a certain effect on the moral character of the soul, and if it has this power, it is clear that the young must be directed to music and must be educated in it. (...) And anyone seems to have an inborn affinity with harmonious sounds and rhythms; therefore many wise men assert that the soul is harmony, whereas others say that it has harmony.” - Aristotle

And that part about harmony is important. Because indeed, the Greeks were very much interested in harmony in different ways. We see this with the so-called music of the spheres, where the whole cosmos is seen as being a big harmonious composition, and audible music being a kind of corresponding reflection of that harmony. In the same way, the soul and body of the person needed to be in harmony too, and according to Plato, music could be used precisely to create harmony and thus good health in a soul that had become disharmonious or disordered.

Similarly, Aristotle also saw music as a powerful tool to combat emotional distress by serving as a kind of catharsis where emotions could be expressed, so that people who suffered from uncontrollable emotions:

“after listening to melodies which raise the soul to ecstasy, relapse to their normal conditions as if they had experienced a medical or purgative treatment.” - Aristotle

China

Much of the same can be said about China, where music played an important role in everything from state and official ritual, to individual spiritual practice and healing medicine. Music was here, as always, strongly connected to the emotions. Indeed, the word for music in ancient Chinese - yue - is essentially the same as the word for joy or happiness.

To the Chinese, music was a very important tool to cultivate moral virtue - de - and as an expression of emotions generally.

The famous philosopher Confucius considered music as a very important function for society and personal development, placing it as a central aspect of his educational system. He and his students would often engage in playing and listening to music, and he saw it as a key tool for self-cultivation and the process of becoming morally good and gentlemanly by helping the person express his emotions in a harmonious and cultivated way.

And the question of harmony is a core point when it comes to this subject. Of course, the perspective on medical uses of music changes in its expression depending on the culture we are talking about and their view of the world and the human being, both physically and psychologically.

In ancient China, there was a huge focus precisely on harmony and balance in the world. The religious/philosophical school of Daoism, for instance, posits that there is an unknowable force behind all of reality, which shapes it in harmonious ways. The cosmos is a harmonious interrelationship of different elements, just as music is a harmonious relationship of different notes and sounds. The principle of Yin and Yang is just one expression of this harmony of the cosmos.

“Great music conforms with the harmony of Heaven and Earth.” - Yue Ji

And in a spiritual sense, music was seen as an important tool to attune oneself to the cosmic harmony of reality. There is a correspondence between the cosmos as a whole, as a macrocosm, on the one hand, and music and the human being on the other.

It is all ruled by the same forces and harmonies, a principle of macrocosm vs. microcosm. In a text called the Zou zhuang, it says:

“There are the Six Qi of Heaven, which descend to produce the Five Flavors, expand to make the Five Colors, manifest themselves in the Five Tones, and in excess, produce the Six Illnesses.”

The cosmos is ruled by the forces of qi which is, ideally, balanced in a harmonious way. And as we can see, there is correspondence between different elements in the world - the five physical elements (fire, earth, water, wood, metal) correspond to the Five seasons (winter, spring, summer, late summer, fall), corresponds to the Five tones or notes of the pentatonic scale that is central to Chinese music.

So with the help of music and its harmony, mirroring the harmony of the cosmos, the microcosmic human being can also attune herself to the harmony of the cosmos, thus creating an inner harmony, leading to both spiritual benefit in a religious sense, but also in more concrete health-related ways, creating mental stability and inner balance.

In the Yue Ji, it says:

“Music is lovely and harmonious; it directs spirits and follows along with Heaven. Ritual is discriminating and fitting; it secures ghosts and follows along with Earth. Therefore the sage creates music to respond [appropriately] to Heaven; creates ritual to be congruent with Earth. When ritual and music are clarified and perfected, Heaven and Earth [can fulfill] their functions.” - Yue Ji

And the famous Zhuangzi continues on this metaphor of harmony when he says:

“To harmonize with men is called [making] human music; to harmonize with Heaven is called [making] Heavenly music.” - Zhuangzi

But this also depends, of course, on what kind of music we are talking about. Just like the Greeks, the Chinese considered certain music to be appropriate and good for your health, while other music was bad and harmful. An especially recurring theme is the condemnation of music from the state of Zheng for some reason. I’m not sure exactly what was so bad about this music. But the ancient authors make a point that certain music, using certain notes and scales in a certain way that is harmonious and attuned to the harmony of qi and the cosmos speaks to the “heart-mind” of the person, leading to good bodily and mental health. Other music, such as that from those poor people in Zheng, speak to the senses and instead agitates the human being, creating imbalance and rouses their appetitive and destructive tendencies.

But when the right kind of music is played, it balances the qi and other forces in the human being, thus being essential to the health not just of individuals, but the whole state.

In another ancient text, it says:

“Government adopts the image of music: music comes from harmony, and harmony comes from balance…. When things have obtained their constancy, we call this ‘the crowning of music’... in such a way, the casting of metal, the polishing of stone, the attaching of silk and wood, the boring of holes in gourds and bamboo, and regulating the size of drums all carries it [music] forth, so as to follow along with the Eight Winds. And so, [the surrounding] qi will harbor no obstructed Yin or scattered Yang. Yin and Yang will proceed in an orderly fashion, and wind and rain will arrive at the appropriate times. There will be favorable growth and bountiful blessings, the people will benefit and be in accord, things will be complete and music perfected, and neither superiors nor inferiors will be overworked.” - From the Zhou Jiu (in the Guo yu)

In this way, music became an important part of Chinese medicine and health practice more generally.

In fact, it could also be employed more literally as medicine or almost as a tonic or elixir, being used medically to cure particular illnesses. Perhaps one had listened too much to the dravel coming from Zheng and became sick somehow. Music could be employed thus not just in a more general sense of creating bodily and spiritual harmony, but very functionally to cure specific ailments, such as depression or indeed physionomical conditions by, once again, creating balance in the different bodily functions and forces. Certain kinds of music are appropriate for different purposes. In war, big drums and loud instruments would be used, as it helped to heighten the morale and fighting spirit of the troops. But a very different kind of music would be used to cure someone with melancholy.

Islamic(ate) World

And similar ideas continued further on in history as well. Indeed, in the Islamic world, we see a flourishing of music theory & practice, including the therapeutic and medical use of music. Much of this was of course influenced by the earlier Greek writers that we have explored, whom the Muslim and Islamicate thinkers took so much inspiration from, but they also innovated in significant ways.

In the early Islamic World, such as during the Abbasid caliphate, music was often considered an important part of higher education, and some of the great philosophers of the day wrote about music and its wide therapeutic effects in their works. One of the earliest and most significant of these is the very formative philosopher al-Kindi (d. 875), who wrote extensively about music in his works, and appears to have been a musician himself. We find similarities here with the Chinese case, where there is a large system of correspondences between different elements of the universe. Al-Kindi and most of the other philosophers adopted an Aristotelian cosmology, where the world is essentially built on the four elements - air, fire, earth, water - which correspond to dryness, wetness, cold and heat - which in turn corresponds to the four “humours” in the human body, as conceived in Galenic medicine - blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm.

And music also connects to these correspondences. Indeed, the oud (or lute), which was considered the king of instruments and the “instrument of philosophers”, at this time had four strings. And this was very important. The four strings of the Oud, as you have probably already guessed, corresponded to the four elements, etc.

This was only a philosophical or metaphysical explanation for why music was so effective on the mind and body, because philosophers like al-Kindi used music in therapeutic and medical ways. By playing music for patients, they could seemingly cure all kinds of different illnesses. Most of these were mental conditions such as depression & stress, but we also have accounts by al-Kindi that he supposedly cured a paralyzed child by playing certain kinds of music for him.

Similarly, in the writings of the mysterious Ikhwan al-safa’ - The Brethren of Purity - a secretive anonymous group of philosophers in the 10th century, music plays an important role. In their major work of Epistles, they dedicated a full Epistle to music in particular, where they discuss its therapeutic use, as well as its connections to cosmology, astrology and the elements.

“You should know, dear brother, may God aid you and us with a spirit of His, that in every manual craft the matter [hayula] dealt with consists of naturally occurring material, and that all its products are physical forms. The exception is music, for the ‘matter’ it deals with consists entirely of spiritual substances (Jawahir), namely, the souls of those who listen to it.” - Ikhwan al-safa

The harmony of music corresponds to the harmony and beauty of the cosmos at large, the noble creation of God, and through music we can experience and get closer to that harmony:

“...the tones produced by the movements of the musician remind the individual souls that are in the world of generation and corruption of the joy of the world of the celestial spheres, just as the tones produced by the movements of the celestial spheres and the heavenly bodies remind the souls that are there of the joy of the world of the spirits.” - Ikhwan al-safa’

These cosmological explanations for the effects of music weren’t accepted by everyone. For example, later major philosophers like al-Farabi (d. 950) and Ibn Sina (d. 1037) rejected most of those claims, but they still recognized the healing capabilities of music, and employed it too. There were hospitals in the major cities of the Islamic world, such as Baghdad, which often had as a central part of their treatment plan that patients would listen to music, along with creating a pleasant atmosphere including fountains and running water to calm the patients.

Regardless of the cosmological or metaphysical reasons for it, everyone basically agreed that music affected the emotions and well being of people in significant ways. And this could of course go in different directions. It is for the same reason that some Muslim jurists considered music forbidden, since it agitated the emotions of people too much.

There is a famous story, often told about the aforementioned al-Farabi (although the protagonist sometimes changes), that he once went in front of a court of some sort, and they asked him who he was and why he was considered so wise.

Al-Farabi said that he could make any of them laugh, cry or fall asleep on command. None of them believed him, of course. But then he brought out his oud and started playing a tune in a certain maqam (mode), to which everyone started crying because of its beautiful, sorrowful tones. Then, he switched to another song in another mode, to which everyone started laughing hysterically. Finally, he changed modes again, and everyone fell asleep. Then he put his Oud down and left.

Looking at the sufis, or Islamic mystics, this was employed to very dramatic effects of course, as they developed the ritual of sama’, where listening to music became an important religious practice that could bring you into trance and closer to God, even to unite with God.

But again, just like in Greece or China, this all depended on what kind of music was being played, of course, as we also saw in the story about al-Farabi. Different music would have different effects and was thus appropriate in different circumstances.

In Arabic & Persian tradition, music is essentially built on a system of modes called maqamat. A maqam (sing.) is similar to a mode or scale in western music, but is also much broader. It not only includes a certain set of notes but also certain “vibes”, ways of playing, recurring phrases etc. Each maqam is like a language of its own. And different modes have been associated with different emotions. A certain mode makes you feel one way, while another maqam makes you feel entirely different.

This topic is extensively discussed by al-Farabi in his massive work called kitab al-musiqa al-kabir - ‘The Great Book of Music’. For example, maqam rast, which is one of the most widely used in Arabic music, was often thought to induce feelings of joy and happiness, later also things like pride and power. Maqam Ussak will make you laugh. One of my personal favorite modes - saba’ - often has a strong sense of sadness and longing. I often call it the “sufi maqam” because it really manages to capture that emotion of sour, painful longing for a beloved just out of reach that is so common in sufi poetry (although in al-Farabi’s work, it is associated more with bravery, because associations like that of course change over time).

Needless to say, in Islamicate music therapy, such as in the hospitals, different maqams or modes were used for different functions. Some maqams could help cure someone suffering from stress, others to help with depression, still others to relieve toothache (and yes, there are examples of this particular practice). Different maqams were also only appropriate on certain times of the day. Al-Farabi tells us that Maqam Ussak is most appropriate to play during mid-day, whereas Maqam Zirgule is better before midday to have the best effect, for instance.

The Ikhwan al-safa’ writes:

“When these notes are combined in rhythmic melodies [alhan] corresponding [mushakila] to them, and these melodies are then used at the times of day or night whose nature is counter to that of the prevailing illnesses and sicknesses occurring, they will alleviate them” - Ikhwan al-safa’

Furthermore, perhaps the greatest philosopher in the history of the Islamic world - Ibn Sina, also known as Avicenna - discussed at length the medical uses of music in his many philosophical works, including the significant massive medical treatise al-qanun fi al-tibb - The Canon of Medicine. Here, it becomes clear that, just like for the other philosophers we have mentioned, music is used primarily as a complementary treatment. It helps put patients in a calm state and can be useful to help mental afflictions, but is often only complementary to other, direct treatments of illnesses. But I think it is fascinating how relevant many of the statements from people like Ibn Sina are. For example, he says:

“One of the best and most effective of treatments is to strengthen the mental and spiritual strengths of the patient, to give him more courage to fight illness, create a loving, pleasant environment for the patient, play the best music for him and surround him with people that he loves.” - Ibn Sina

Or the fact that he states that music is particularly useful to treat cases of love-sickness. All of this, of course, is still very much in use by people today, and we basically know that it works, right? I think we’ve all self-treated our sadness or love-sickness by blasting some good tunes.

The foundations that these philosophers built, as well as their Greek predecessors of course, remained in use for centuries afterward in places like the Ottoman empire. In some places, musical therapy is still in use at certain hospitals. Ibn Sina’s Canon of Medicine became the most widely used medical treatise in Europe as well, right up until the modern age, and these ideas also made their way here.

And it is fascinating to see how much of modern science is increasingly showing that these ancient and medieval thinkers were onto something. Perhaps not the particular cosmological theories about the elements or humours in the body, but the general principles that music is an effective tool for therapeutic and medical treatment.

Indeed, there is a field called simply Music Therapy that is growing more and more prominent, and which is recognized by modern science as very effective for treating various conditions and illnesses. Music therapists around the world are using this technique to great success, and it is becoming an increasingly prominent part of the wider world of medicine.

Research shows that listening to music, and especially playing music in different ways, activates a whole host of different parts of the brain at the same time. Music has rhythm with timing and patterns, singing requires that parts of the brain associated with speech and understanding be activated, sensory and motion-related aspect are required when you play an instrument and, of course, as we all know, music can make us feel deep and profound emotions, thus activating the parts of the brain associated with that.

And like I said, this isn’t limited to playing music, referred to as active music therapy, but also simply listening - receptive music therapy - which seems to have a lot of the same effects. And the research and results show that this is useful not only for treating things like stress or depression, but also very effective at treating more serious conditions like dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and even heart disease, as well as being helpful for people with neurodivergent traits like autism.

I’m going to tell you a personal story. Before my grandmother passed away, she suffered from dementia for a number of years. At one point, she had become basically unresponsive to anything around her, she couldn’t communicate or talk, at least with any coherent sentences or phrases. But one day when we visited her, we decided to put on a song that she used to sing a lot in her youth. Suddenly, she started singing along to the song, even remembering some of the lyrics. It was a very beautiful and profound moment, and it really shows how music has a very strong ability to activate certain parts of our brain and memory, and just how deeply and profoundly music becomes ingrained into our soul and person.

It isn’t hard to imagine, then, that music therapy has proven very successful in treating things like dementia and help with memory generally. There are even accounts of people that have suffered severe brain damage that has affected their motor skills and speech patterns, that made an almost complete recovery through, among other things, music therapy. It seems, in other words, that the claim by al-Kindi that he successfully treated a child with paralysis using music isn’t as far-fetched as we might have assumed at first.

Music truly is a powerful and magical thing. There are so many different perspectives from which we can view music and its role in society, religion, culture, spirituality and much else. Today, we have only focused specifically on its medical and therapeutic uses throughout history. From the philosophical writers in Ancient Greece and China, to the great thinkers of the Islamic world, and all the way until the modern world, we see examples of people that have realized the healing potentials of this wonderful artform. And this has of course just been a small sample of such examples. We could continue to look at various other cultures and traditions from around the world and find similar ideas and practices across history.

It’s no wonder, then, that music makes us feel so good.

Video:

Bibliography

Brindley, Erica Fox (2012). "Music, Cosmology, and the Politics of Harmony in Early China". SUNY Press.

Davis, William B. (et al.) (1992). "Music Therapy: Theory and Practice". WM.C Brown Publishers.

Feder, Elaine (1981). "The Expressive Arts Therapies". Englewood Cliffs, N.J.

Klavan, Spencer A. (2020). "Music in Ancient Greece: Melody, Rhythm and Life". Bloomsbury Academic.

Nielson, Lisa (2021). "Music and Musicians in the Medieval Islamic World". I.B. Tauris.

Schullian, Dorothy M. & Max Schoen (1948). "Music and Medicine". Henry Schuman Inc.

Shiloah, Amnon (1995). "Music in the world of Islam : a socio-cultural study". Wayne State University Press.

Shiloah, Amnon (1997). "Music and Religion in Islam". Acta Musicologica, Vol. 69.

The Brethren of Purity. "On Music: An Arabic Critical Edition and Translation of Epistle 5". Edited and Translated by Owen Wright. Oxford University Press.

Wright, Owen (1978). "The Modal System Of Arab and Persian Music a.d. 1250-1300". Oxford University Press.

In the history of western philosophy, Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans are seen as a key moment. He has sometimes been referred to as the ‘first philosopher’, a statement that one can certainly question, and many other ancient philosophers, such as Plato, traced their lineage back to Pythagoras as an early important proponent of a wisdom tradition that included many other figures like Hermes and even Moses.

But we aren’t actually sure if he existed as a historical person. And if he did, we can’t say much with certainty about his life or supposed teachings, due to the fact that all our sources are from hundreds of years after he lived.

Assuming he was real, scholars agree that he seems to have been a charismatic sage-figure who gathered a group of followers in the city of Croton which led a certain “Pythagorean way of life” concerned with asceticism, knowledge of the immortal soul and certain rules of ritual conduct, including a vegetarian diet.

But as the centuries went by, Pythagoras and his followers became especially associated not only with this particular way of life, but also with more philosophical ideas and speculations about numbers and mathematics. Pythagoras is attributed with holding a worldview where everything is essentially made up of numbers and geometry, a universe made up of perfect mathematical relationships and sacred recurring patterns. Reality was math and numbers, in other words.

The problem is, there is no evidence to suggest that Pythagoras ever taught any such ideas, as it doesn’t show up in any of the early sources about him or his life. With that said, the later Pythagoreans probably held these views for a reason, so it isn’t unthinkable that it may be traceable to the man himself. And even the earliest Pythagorean thinkers of whom we have direct accounts or fragments, such as Philolaus (d. 385 BC) and Archytas (d. 350 BC), seems to have put a major emphasis precisely on mathematics and how the relationship between numbers is a significant aspect of the cosmos.

So whatever the case is with Pythagoras himself, we can be sure that the Pythagoreans as a “school”, as much as it can actually be called a ‘school’, were definitely characterized by these kinds of ideas.

And we can see these ideas being incredibly influential on thinkers like Plato and especially the later Neoplatonists, who were also very much concerned with concepts like the “One” as a core aspect of reality.

But among the most famous and significant aspects of the pythagorean mathematical universe was the idea often called the ‘music of the spheres’. This is a theory that implements many different fields - mathematics & geometry, astronomy & music - and proposes a kind of unified vision of reality.

To the pythagoreans, as we have said, all of the universe is governed by mathematical patterns and ratios. In many ways, this is still considered true today, as we can find math basically everywhere - mathematics is a language we use that seems to correspond to some of the deepest truths about how reality works, and the things we observe often follow very predictable patterns and rules. Just think of the Fibonacci sequence and golden ratio for example, which we can find in so many aspects of nature in different ways, all following the same mathematical pattern.

To the pythagoreans, the universe is harmonious, perfectly so in fact. Everything follows the perfect rules of mathematics and its harmony. And ideas of ‘harmony’ are of course directly related to music, which arguably is concerned with harmony in different ways. Thus, to these thinkers, the universe was musical, because mathematics and music are intimately connected, being ruled by the same ratios and structures.

There is a famous story often told, where Pythagoras was walking along in the marketplace listenening to the sounds of hammers striking anvils. He suddenly has a realization that a hammer that is precisely twice as big as another will produce a sound that is harmonious, or ‘beautiful’ when played alongside the other. He had discovered the octave.

This story is obviously most likely not true, but it illustrates the key point, a discovery attributed to Pythagoras that seems to prove that music is a reflection of mathematical harmony. And even though this was probably not Pythagoras’ discovery, it’s actually true. The octave, as well as other notes, in a scale follow a set pattern of intervals that are mathematically sound.

Any note, or sound really, is based on a frequency, and frequencies are represented by the unit hertz (hz). And if we have any given note, say an A note at 440 hz, if we double that number, to get 880 hz, we have a perfect octave, two notes which sound really good together. Furthermore, if we add the original frequency three times, we get to 1320 hz, which is what is known as a perfect fifth, another one of the most common and ‘pleasing’ intervals in music. Add the number 5 times we get the perfect fourth, and so on.

Without boring you too much with music theory, we can see that the Pythagoreans were totally right, all the music we listen to is, at least to some degree, governed by these perfect mathematical ratios and intervals that make notes sound ‘good’ or harmonious together. Mathematical harmony manifests as musical harmony, and to the Pythagoreans, we think notes sound good together precisely because they reflect the fundamental building blocks and patterns of the universe itself.

This becomes even more profound when we consider what is known as the “harmonic series”. When we hear any note, not just on a guitar but any sound in nature, that note includes the base note or frequency, called the fundamental, but also a bunch of overtones that we don’t really “hear” but which makes the sound what it is. And these overtones, amazingly, follow the exact pattern that we have just talked about. The first is always an octave, followed by a perfect fifth, another octave, a perfect fourth, a major third, and so on. It’s pretty mind blowing actually, that these patterns are found in basically all sound. The sound of a singing bird follows the same mathematical rules as does you striking the string on a guitar. It seems like our old friend Pythagoras was onto something, right?

He was, for sure. But it also gets a little more complicated. This is why I said that all music in some sense follows these rules. Because the pythagoreans also tried to construct a 12 note octave scale based on these perfect ratios and… it doesn’t really work entirely. Notes eventually start shifting around and acting strangely, resulting in a limited use for the theory. Turns out things weren’t as ‘perfect’ as Pythagoras hoped. The scale we use today, known as equal temperament, is based on dividing the perfect octave into 12 equally spaced intervals, which don’t align exactly with the perfect pythagorean, mathematical, ones (although they are very close). At the same time, dividing the octave into equally spaced intervals is arguably also a kind of mathematical harmony, only in a different way.

So when you hear most music today, it doesn’t actually follow the perfect pythagorean rules. If it did, it would actually sound “wrong” or off-key to us. And there is a lot to be said for the fact that what we consider notes that sound “good” together is based on cultural conditioning and what we are accustomed to.

Despite these nuances, the basic features of the pythagorean idea is still true. Musical harmony is ruled by these very precise mathematical rules, especially core intervals like the octave, perfect fifth and perfect fourth, and it’s no coincidence that these intervals are probably the most recurring in music across the world, regardless of all the other particular features, quarter tones and such things, the octave & perfect fifth/fourth are basically universal, probably because it just makes sense on a mathematical and cosmic level which we thus respond to.

Speaking of the cosmic level, this is where we get to the actual spheres. The ancients believed that the cosmos was essentially made up of concentric spheres. The earth was at the center and then there were a number of spheres extending outwards, each with a planet that revolved around the center. At the furthest point was the sphere of the fixed stars.

Now, because everything in the universe is governed by mathematical harmony, so were of course the planets and spheres, since they were also a very important and foundational aspect of that universe. The movements of the planets in their spheres followed the ratios and rules that governed the rest of the cosmos. As a result of this, the planetary spheres made music. Their movement and following of these harmonic rules resulted in them emitting their own sounds or, in other words, music.

This wasn’t audible music, of course. We can’t hear the music of the spheres, as Aristotle points out in his critical account of this theory. Instead, it is a kind of higher form of music; the audible version we can hear only being a relatively pale reflection. After all, according to this worldview, everything is music. Since music and mathematics are essentially the same thing, all of reality is musical since it is harmonious and ordered according to the same rules and patterns. When we hear music in the form of sounds, this is a manifestation of the fundamental principles of the cosmos itself.

It’s a powerful idea, one that influenced many thinkers in history, all the way until today.

Plato himself, in his arguably most influential dialogue - the Timaeus - describes the creation of the world according to mathematical and musical harmony. The demiurge, meaning ‘craftsman’ in Greek, creates the world perfectly, according to the precise proportions of music. The spherical universe with its revolving planets all form a cosmic harmony that follows the intervals of a musical scale; in particular, it follows what is known as the Dorian mode, which Plato was particularly fond of. So the whole universe, as fashioned by the Demiurge is an elaborate musical composition, and our ideal way of living as individuals and as a society is to be in tune with this harmony, which will result in peace and wellbeing. In fact, the performance and listening to actual audible music thus becomes an important aspect of this process on a human level, according to Plato.

Later still, the 6th century Christian philosopher Boethius (d. 524) continued in the same manner, carrying the pythagorean and platonic ideas forward into the middle ages. In a work called On the Fundamentals of Music (‘De Institutione Musica’) he presents a similar musical cosmology where everything is ruled by the principles of arithmetic and its harmony. In fact, in the work he classifies music into three categories:

1. Musica Mundana - The music of the spheres or music of the cosmos. This is the highest form of music produced by the harmonious movements of the spheres and of the cosmos in general with its recurring mathematical/musical patterns. The kind of music that cannot be heard by the ears, but understood.

2. Musica Humana - This is music on the human level in the sense of a harmony between the human body and soul, a kind of spiritual harmony.

3. Musica instrumentalis - and lastly, this is music as we know it, music that we can hear and play using instruments or the voice.

While these categories are listed as different in this sense by Boethius, they are of course unified by the fact that they follow the same rules and ratios. They are different manifestations of the same phenomenon - namely the musical or harmonious nature of the universe as a whole.

Even as late as the 17th century with figures like the famous astronomer Johannes Kepler (d. 1630), who is very significant for our current understanding of the solar system, we find similar ideas. He is of course perhaps most famous for suggesting that the planets move in elliptical orbits around the sun, but he was also interested in other aspects of philosophy.

In his Harmonices Mundi - The Harmonics of the World - Kepler attempts to sketch a picture of the cosmos, astronomy in particular, that conformed to the geometry and rules of musical harmony. At this point in history, the Pythagorean scale had been abandoned in favor of a more reliable one, but the principle remains the same. The planets and other features of the natural world are akin to a kind of musical composition, different parts of the world are like instruments in an orchestra, playing beautiful harmonies together, or more particularly in this case - like a choir of voices singing together. Kepler wrote:

“The heavenly motions are nothing but a continuous song for several voices, to be perceived by the intellect, not by the ear; a music which, through discordant tensions, through syncopations and cadenzas as it were, progresses toward certain pre-designed six-voiced cadences, and thereby sets landmarks in the immeasurable flow of time.” - Johannes Kepler

The different planets are presented by Kepler as different voices in a choir, and he even relates certain planets to specific musical notes. It’s a profound philosophical work in many ways.

In relation to this precise project, Kepler articulated what is known as the “third law of planetary motion”, a significant idea in the history of astronomy. And in general, Kepler makes some important innovations to the general idea that he adapts from thinkers like Plato. For one thing, Kepler of course lived in a time when the geocentric model of the cosmos had been abandoned, instead basing his version of the music of the spheres on a more correct heliocentric model where the sun is at the center.

Furthermore, Kepler also implements polyphony into the system to extend the harmonic possibilities, something that wasn’t present in the ancient authors.

So as you can see, the basic ideas adopted by the early pythagoreans have stuck around for a long time. It influenced not only other ancient peoples like Plato but much later thinkers inspired by its beautiful way of seeing the world, including Johannes Kepler. Even today, there are many that look to this theory as an attractive view of the world which seems to align with modern mathematics. The contemporary principles of string theory as a way to explain the fundamental features of the universe, often uses explicit musical language, albeit in a very different way from the theories of the pythagoreans.

Of course, today we know that our friend Pythagoras, if he had these ideas, was wrong about a lot of them. The view of the cosmos held by the ancient has been discarded today and we know that our solar system, and the rest of the universe, looks a lot different from the planetary spheres imagined by ancient thinkers. So in this sense, the music of the spheres kind of falls apart in that particular sense.

Likewise, we know that when you try to create 12-note octave scales using the perfect fifth, things aren’t as perfect as Pythagoras hoped. He would have been pretty upset to know that things like irrational numbers indeed seem to be a thing, and our modern scale system forces us to break some of the rules that pythagoreans would have preferred.

But again, in terms of the basic notions of these ideas, they still accurately explain the world and music in many ways. There is indeed a strong connection and correspondence between musical intervals and mathematical ratios. The music we hear, be it a piece by Bach, the latest song from Harry Styles or the beautiful calling of a bird, it all follows the same mathematical rules and patterns. The universe may not be perfectly harmonious at all times, as far as we can know through our mathematical language, but arguably it is most of the time. Everywhere around us are fundamental mathematical patterns that make up the very foundations of things, things like the golden ratio or the perfectly symmetrical rules of a triangle, the rhythms of people walking or of the falling of raindrops. In this way, it’s all music. And the amazing thing is that actual music, in its foundations, follows the exact same patterns and relationships. The harmonic series of any note which determines intervals like the octave and perfect fifth remains constants that remind us of the beauty and symmetry of the world around us. A musical universe where we all contribute to the rhythm and melody of the grandest symphony of them all.

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Bibliography

Cooper, John M. (ed.) (1997). "Plato: Complete Works". Hackett Publishing Company.

Huffman, Carl A. (2008). "Philolaus of Croton: A Commentary on the Fragments and Testimonia with Interprative Essays". Cambridge University Press.

Huffman, Carl A. (ed.) (2017). "A History of Pythagoreanism". Cambridge University Press.

Kirk, G.S., J.E. Raven & M. Schofield (1983). "The Presocratic Philosophers". Second Edition. Cambridge University Press.

Klavan, Spencer A. (2020). "Music in Ancient Greece: Melody, Rhythm and Life". Bloomsbury Academic.

Zhmud, Leonid (2012). "Pythagoras and the Early Pythagoreans". Translated by Kevin Windle & Rosh Ireland. OUP Oxford.

This script was written a long time ago (2021) and not meant for text-based publication. I take no responsibility for potentially terrible writing.

Kabbalah has become something of a “cool and popular” thing today. Madonna very famously started practicing it a few decades ago and there is a general interest in it from various places, including New Age-movements.

Kabbalah is often referred to as “Jewish Mysticism” and has been around for a long time. Of course, there have been forms of mysticism in Judaism historically that does not fall under the category of Kabbalah, so to simply equate the two is to oversimplify things, but at the very least Kabbalah is certainly a tradition within Judaism that contains strong elements of what we often call “mysticism”.

Now, this is of course a vast and unreasonably complex/complicated tradition that requires years of study to grasp, let alone explain. But many elements of Kabbalah have become quite famous across the world. For example, the system of the ten sefirot and the central book called the Zohar are things that come to mind for most people when they hear the word “Kabbalah” (assuming that they know about it at all to begin with).

But Kabbalah, like most things in this world, is complex and multifaceted. There isn’t just “one Kabbalah” but a multitude of different expressions. The type of Kabbalah that is most well known - the Kabbalah of the Zohar and the ten sephirot - is often called the “theosophical Kabbalah” by scholars - a heavily speculative, systematic form of the tradition.

What we will talk about today is not this kind of Kabbalah. Instead, we’ll be focusing on a man who lived at around the same time that the Zohar was composed, but who represents a very different approach to Jewish mysticism. He is considered the founder of a school of Kabbalah called “Ecstatic Kabbalah” or “Prophetic Kabbalah” and his name was Abraham Abulafia.

Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia was a Jewish mystic and philosopher who is both greatly admired but also quite controversial, as mystics tend to be. He was born in Saragosa, Spain, in the year 1240, but grew up for the most part in Tudela - a time and place of huge intellectual flourishing and political instability. On the Hebrew calendar, the year 1240 is quite a significant date, as it represents the year 5000, and this fact will become important later.

In this series of videos, we have talked about many of the mystics and philosophers of the Islamicate world at around this same time, and it was indeed a time of intense activity, both politically and intellectually.

The Jewish context that Abulafia was born into was one that was also experiencing a lot of activity and debate. The great philosopher Maimonides, perhaps the greatest philosopher in Jewish history, had died only a few decades earlier and his works and ideas were at this time a point of great contention. Maimonides’ philosophy (and thus theology) was one that was heavily rationalistic and grounded in Aristotelianism, and his interpretations of core aspects of Judaism in light of this leaning had an enormous impact on the Jewish world.

But it also had a lot of critics, and by the time of Abulafia’s life, this was a huge debate that was raging across the community and which represented larger discussions regarding the legitimacy of using philosophical speculation to understand the Bible or religion generally. As one part of this debate we also see the appearance and flourishing of Kabbalah at around this time, perhaps best exemplified by the composition of the great work known as the Zohar, which was most likely written by the figure Moshe de Leon (d. 1305) during the late 13th century.

Abulafia would take a clear side on the Maimonides debate, as we will see, but also found a very interesting way to incorporate many of the currents of the time while introducing some unique things of his own.

The life/biography of Abulafia himself is not as much of a mystery to us as other figures like him tend to be. This is because he included a lot of biographical material in his own writings which gives us a good idea of what he did, when he did it and why. Now, because of this, much of the information should of course be taken with a grain of salt, but I think the general outline can be trusted to some degree.

While growing up in northern Spain, or Catalonia, Abulafia studied the Torah and Talmud with his father and was given a formal education in the religious subjects. It is told that in the year 1260, at the young age of 20, Abulafia left his home region of Catalonia and traveled to the Holy land to find the mythical Sambation River, where the lost tribes of Israel are thought to be located.

However, his mission didn’t succeed, as the region was ravished by great conflict at the time. Abulafia writes himself:

“...but I could not get further than Acre because of the conflict between Ishmael and Esau.” - Abulafia

Indeed, at that time the Mamluks were in open war with the invading Mongol armies which made the region… not very safe (as war tends to do). So Abulafia was forced to cancel his ambitious plans and instead went overseas to Greece and Italy where he had an intense period of study.

The following couple of years was probably some of the most formative of his life. He had gotten married on the way back to Europe, and it is here, while probably moving around a lot and studying, that he became formally acquainted with philosophy generally and, in particular, the writings of Maimonides.

He studied Maimonides’ greatest philosophical work - The Guide for the Perplexed - with a Rabbi Hillel and became a devoted follower of his philosophy. So much so that he would spend much of his life defending Maimonides’ rationalistic understanding of Judaism against his enemies, and even wrote three commentaries on the Guide, more than any other major thinker in history.

After becoming thoroughly steeped in Maimonidean philosophy, Abulafia then returned to his home region of Catalonia and settled in the city of Barcelona. This was the home of the leading Jewish scholar of the time - Nachmanides (d. 1270) - but also, most significantly, it was a major center for the developing tradition of Kabbalah. These two currents in Judaism at the time, which are sometimes portrayed as intellectual opposites - Philosophy and Kabbalah - would both become very significant parts of Abulafia’s life and teaching, as, while living in Barcelona, he would dive head first into the Kabbalistic tradition and the literature of Jewish mysticism.

This included studying the so-called “theosophical Kabbalah” of the ten sefirot, which was kind of the new hot thing in the neighborhood, but also texts like the Sefer Raziel and the mysterious Sefer Yetzirah.

Generally, this region at the time was a melting pot of so many different ideas and traditions. Many works of Sufism were translated from Arabic into Hebrew and it is thus very possible that Abulafia was familiar with the works of his fellow Spaniard Ibn ‘Arabi (d. 1240) and other Sufis of the time. Other original works that Abulafia studied, like Bahya ibn Pakuda’s Book of the Duties of the Heart contain clear elements and influences from Sufism and may thus have had an impact on the later teachings of Abulafia himself. Another interesting example of the cross-pollination of intellectual/mystical ideas during this fascinating time period.

And in a general sense, Abulafia’s relationship and attitude towards the other Abrahamic religions - Christianity & Islam - is very fascinating in itself.

In the later writings and teachings of Abulafia’s Ecstatic Kabbalah, these periods of study become very central. The two books that arguably had the most influence on Abulafia is Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed, from which he gets his philosophical grounding, and the Sefer Yetzirah (The Book of Formation), an ancient mystical Jewish text that describes the creation of the world through the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, a subject that is also central to Abulafia.

Indeed, so important is this to him that he considers a deep study of philosophy and, probably, a grounding in “theosophical” Kabbalah as prerequisites for entering into his Ecstatic/Prophetic practices and teachings.

In any case, Abulafia’s life still has a lot of eventful periods after this. In the year 1270, he had a spiritual vision that was the start of some of his greatest activities. This was indeed only one of a series of visions and experiences that would dictate his life from then on. Because from this point onwards, Abulafia believed to have been given a very exalted position, his experiences were prophetic in nature and he was now convinced that he was a prophet. Not only did he view himself as a prophet, but indeed as the very messiah who would eventually be revealed and end the dominion of Christianity to reinstate the glory of the true religion.

And it is from the late 1270’s onward that Abulafia starts his major activity as a teacher. He starts to travel again, moving around constantly doing missionary activity. He taught Maimonides’ Guide in places like Italy and started to develop his very unique form of Kabbalah.

In his writings and the teachings that he passed on to some of his students at the time, he presents a form of Kabbalah that is quite different from the more theosophical form found in the Zohar. Abulafia’s main focus was on the divine names, the letters of the Hebrew alphabet and different spiritual and meditative techniques that would help the practitioner reach the ecstatic experience of mystical union with God and the Active Intellect.

He called this teaching the “Prophetic Kabbalah”, and it is often called either this or “Ecstatic Kabbalah” by scholars today.

His claim to be a prophet was of course rather controversial. Not only did mainstream Judaism teach that prophecy had ended during Biblical times, but also that a prophet could only appear in the holy land. And Abulafia did not meet any of these requirements. But when Abulafia refers to himself as a “prophet” this doesn’t necessarily mean what we usually mean when we talk about prophets. He isn’t an especially chosen messenger who relays the word of God in a direct sense.

Very significantly, Abulafia views the mystical experience of uniting with the Active Intellect and God as essentially a prophetic experience. Anyone who can reach and experience this state of consciousness can thus be considered a prophet, and it was Abulafia’s job to be a guide to help other people reach prophecy as well.

Similar points can be made for his claim to be the messiah. He didn’t really understand this concept in the more traditional way. He didn’t see himself as establishing some earthly kingdom of God or a new Jerusalem as such. Instead, his messianic activity was an esoteric and internal one. He was to bring about an inner spiritual transformation to the Jews and other people of the world. By, again, revealing the secrets of the Divine Names and teaching people to, through the use of those names, reach the prophetic, ecstatic experience.

In the words of scholar Eliot R. Wolfson:

“On this score, the Messiah is not a literal historical figure, the proverbial one who is coming in the future, but instead a metaphorical denotation of the intellect or, to be more exact, the process of conjunction that unites the human and divine. Anyone who attains the state of unification can be considered to have achieved the status of the anointed one, and it is in this sense that Abulafia identifies himself as the Messiah-that is, he is the one to reveal the knowledge of the Name that facilitates the ecstatic experience which renders every individual messianic.” - Wolfson

But at the same time, he did indeed see himself as a messiah that was to bring a kind of earthly change as well. He seems to have predicted an apocalyptic event that was to take place in 1290 or 1291 in which he would be revealed to the world as the messiah and after which the rule and dominion of Christianity would be brought down with the help of his teaching.

These messianic pretensions can be seen by the fact that he traveled around missionizing so much at this time. He was in Italy and Sicily a lot, in Greece and perhaps as far as France. But no other event showcases his confidence as much as an event that allegedly took place in 1280.

In a vision Abulafia had had a few years before, he claims to have been told to go to the pope in Rome in order to convert him to Judaism. This conversion of the pope would be the instigating event in the transformation that was to culminate 10 years later in 1291.

And indeed, he took this very seriously. In 1280 Abulafia set off to meet pope Nicholas III at his summer residence in Soriano. The pope himself apparently found out about Abulafia’s plans and made sure to send a message to him saying that he was indeed welcome, and that they had prepared a nice pile of wood on which Abulafia would be burned when he arrived. But in spite of these threats, the Jewish mystic still went ahead with his plans to go to the castle. And, quite amazingly, it is said that right before or as Abulafia was to arrive, the pope suddenly died. This is actually a confirmed event that we can find in Vatican archives as well. Luckily for Abulafia, this probably saved his life, as instead of being burned at the stake, he was instead just imprisoned for a while and then released.

For the next ten years Abulafia would continue his activities and teaching in various places, primarily in southern Italy and on the island of Sicily. His very bold claims of prophecy didn’t go unnoticed and he soon found himself in the line of fire of a lot of criticism from other jewish authorities and scholars. Concern was raised about him and one of the leading scholars in Barcelona at the time, Rabbi Solomon ben Abraham ibn Adret (d. 1310), started an all out war against Abulafia. In many letters and statements, Solmon ibn Adret gravely criticizes Abulafia as a trickster and a fraud. Among other things, he wrote:

“that trickster, may the name of the wicked rot, Abraham, who set himself up as prophet and messiah in Sicily, who seduced with his falsehoods some of the children of Israel, and had I not slammed the door in his face by the mercy of God, with his imaginary and false teachings, he almost got going and would have annihilated [the community] . . .” - Solomon ibn Adret

Very harsh words indeed, and the condemnation by such a leading scholar of the time dealt a serious blow to Abulafia’s reputation. He would spend much of his last years responding to these accusations while still teaching his prophetic Kabbalah. Due to the criticism, he had to hide for a while on the island of Comtino, near Sicily. And it seems that his last years were indeed spent around this area, probably in Sicily itself.

The year 1291, which Abulafia had prophesied as being the apocalyptic turning point when he would be revealed as the messiah, came and went without anything particularly spectacular happening. But it is also this year that all information about Abulafia stops. There is no trace of him after this date, which has led most scholars to conclude that he must have died at around this time.

Others might speculate that the fact that the great event he was expecting never came might have something to do with his sudden disappearance.

But even if Abulafia’s claims to be the messiah may not have come to fruition, this does not diminish the fact that was a brilliant thinker and mystical teacher, a kind of genius that developed a new form of Kabbalah and mystical practice, implementing both aspects of Maimonidean rationalist philosophy and the mysticism of the Sefer Yetzirah and the Hebrew alphabet. This “Prophetic Kabbalah” or “Ecstatic Kabbalah” had its immediate followers in the wake of Abulafia’s death, but it also had a large impact and influence on later developments in Kabbalah, like for example the Lurianic Kabbalah in the city of Safed/Tzfat and especially in the Hasidic movement in the modern period.

And while Solomon ibn Adret’s condemnation may have tarnished his reputation at that time, Abulafia’s status has to some degree been revived today, and he is generally greatly respected.

For example, the great modern jewish mystic R. Hayyim Joseph David Azulai (d. 1807) wrote:

“I say that in truth I see him as a great rabbi, among the master of secrets, and his name is great in Israel, and none may alter his words, for he is close to that book mentioned, and his right hand shall save him.”

Teachings

In Abulafia’s “Prophetic/Ecstatic” Kabbalah, there is a huge emphasis on spiritual practices that aim to elevate the soul to the divine realm of intellect.

One of the most interesting aspects of Abulafia as a thinker is that he straddles boundaries that we often conceive about religion and philosophy generally, but especially their relationship at the time in question.

When we talk about medieval Judaism, it is often portrayed as a dialectic relationship consisting of Maimonidean rationalism on the one hand, and the Kabbalah or “mysticism” on the other, being polar opposite understandings of Judaism that were in constant conflict. And while it is certainly true that this was a real debate at the time, Abulafia is a perfect example to show that things aren’t so simple.

In fact, Abulafia is characterized by the fact that he is both a strong supporter of Maimonides and his philosophical understandings of the religion, but also a devoted Kabbalist and, certainly, a mystic. And neither are these two sides of him two different personalities co-existing in one man. Instead, he combines them and harmonizes them in ways that create the very unique and ingenious teachings that characterize him.

This aspect of Abulafia will be discussed at length by Dr. Justin Sledge on the channel Esoterica in his companion video to this one. So I highly recommend you go watch that one afterwards.

I say Abulafia was a Kabbalist, but this also needs to be nuanced to some degree. As we saw from his biography, he studied the Kabbalistic tradition, which was quite young at the time, in Barcelona. He also dove deep into earlier Jewish mysticism, especially the Sefer Yetzirah or Book of formations. But there seems to be some debate among scholars about Abulafia’s actual relationship to the “theosophical Kabbalah”.

The “theosophical” Kabbalah is the form most people are familiar with. It is the kind that talks about God as “Ein Sof” (the Infinite) and of the emanations of the ten sefirot, best exemplified in the monumental work of the Zohar.

Some scholars argue, and some of his own writings suggest, that Abulafia did, to some degree, belong to this tradition. That he viewed study of theosophical Kabbalah to be a prerequisite for entering upon his ecstatic or prophetic path. This seems to imply that the mystical techniques and ideas that Abulafia presented was only an extension of the theosophical Kabbalah - a deeper form only meant for the most advanced students.

Others, including the great scholar Moshe Idel, argue that Abulafia was actually very critical of this other branch of thinkers, making his form of Kabbalah an independent and quite different school of thought.

“This complex doctrine of divinity.... was alien to the spirit of Abulafia, who sees in it a danger of heresy. He accuses certain Kabbalists - apparently referring to Ibn Adret, among others - of being even worse than Christians: while the latter believe in a triune God, the Sefirotic Kabbalists believe in a system of ten distinct divine forces” - Idel

But regardless of his position regarding the other Kabbalists of his day, we can all agree that he emphasized different things in his teachings. Instead of complex speculation on different metaphysical forces, Abulafia’s mysticism is practical and (depending on how you look at it) simpler.

The core of Abulafia’s teachings is arguably the mystical experience. The end goal for him, and those who follow his teachings, is to attain “prophecy” or “ecstacy”. In other words, through various mystical practices (which we will get into) Abulafia tells us that the person can reach total union with the divine Active Intellect, or even ultimately with God Himself, the Supreme Being. This “cleaving to God”, or devequt in Hebrew, is a central idea for Abulafian Kabbalah, but its meaning can be elusive. (Again, this state of union with the divine is precisely what Abulafia means by “prophecy”.)

So what does any of this mean, really? “Uniting with God” is a concept used by many in history, but it can mean very different things depending on who’s talking. And how is this experience reached?

We can start by exploring the philosophical or theological positions of Abulafia. He was Jewish, of course, so his whole outlook is based on this fact. This means, for one thing, that he is strictly monotheistic. But as we have seen, Abulafia was also a huge fan of Maimonides, who lived only a few decades prior, and we can see this mirrored in many of his ideas. He follows Maimonides, and thus Aristotle, in identifying God essentially as pure Intellect/Intelligible/Act of Intellection. This makes a lot more sense to you if you have a background knowledge in philosophy, but Intellect is conceived of as a kind of Mind or Awareness.

So whereas the Neoplatonists, and thus many Jewish thinkers of his day, would conceive of God as being beyond Intellect, hidden as the unfathomable One, the hardcore Aristotelians like Maimonides and Abulafia understood God as being Intellect itself. And this becomes very important for understanding his ideas of mystical union, which we will see soon.

He also follows his philosophical guide in having a very rationalistic understanding of religion. Revelation and its teachings are understood through the filter of reason and logic. (He holds intellect and its faculty of reason to be the aspect of the person to be elevated, whereas imagination and the material world is literally identified as satan. Satan is not a figure or evil being, a common idea in Christianity and Islam, but a metaphor for the forces of the material world and imagination which have the power of misleading the soul.)

So this is an important aspect to have in mind at first when talking about Abulafia. He is a Maimonidean rationalist who understands his religion through this lens.

But at the same time, he undeniably has some pretty wacky ideas too. Another of the most important aspects of his teachings is the doctrine and practice involving the Divine Names and the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

So important is this aspect of his teachings that he even uses it as a designation for his kind of Kabbalah as compared to the primarily Spanish theosophical group. The latter he calls qabbalat ha-sefirot - the Kabbalah (tradition) of the Sefirot - and contrasts this with his own qabbalat ha-shemot - The Kabbalah (tradition) of the Divine Names.

This is one of those things that is very hard to explain in a relatively short video like this, but it is indeed central to understanding Abulafia.

He takes much of his ideas about this subject from the Sefer Yetzirah - the book of formations - an ancient jewish mystical text that explores the creation of the universe by God through the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

Similar to developments in other mystical traditions at the time, including Sufism, Abulafia believed that language was a very powerful thing. Words and letters were not just arbitrary symbols representing various things based on social convention, as many of us hold today.

Instead the connection between language and the actual realities of things in the world was seen as a lot more stronger and direct. There is a metaphysical connection between the word “cow” and the actual animal referred to. Language is eternal in that sense, and not just based on social conventions.

To Abulafia, this is of course especially true for the Hebrew language - the language in which the Torah is written and thus the most exalted, directly connected to divine revelation.

He thus belongs to that group of thinkers who felt that letters and words had a very important role to play, not only in the ontological structure of the world, but also in terms of mystical and spiritual practice. To Abulafia, the Divine Names (mentioned in the Tanakh/Torah) and the letters of the Hebrew alphabet have very strong powers that could be utilized in different ways to advance on the spiritual or mystical path. Their outer forms represent inner spiritual realities that connect them to the divine. Just like there is a direct connection between the word “cow” and actual cow, so there is a direct connection between a Name of God and God Himself.

And all of this becomes central aspects of the mystical practices that are at the core of his Ecstatic/Prophetic Kabbalah.

After all, what is central to the teachings of Abulafia is spiritual practices. We can talk all day about his theoretical side - his mystical interpretations and perspectives on Maimonidean philosophy and the Bible. But if we limit ourselves to that we kind of miss the whole point.

The theosophical Kabbalists of the sefirot were highly speculative, whereas Abulafia put most of his emphasis on the practical means of reaching prophecy - techniques that helps the mystic leave behind the world of imagination and the material world - both often identified with satan - and to wake up to the divine world of Intellect within. A place where our true home and source is realized and we can cleave to, or unite with, the Active Intellect or even God Himself.

Luckily for us, we have a lot of writings by Abulafia himself, as well as some of his followers, that give detailed instructions and accounts of these mystical practices and experiences.

The content of Abulafia’s ecstatic Kabbalah consists primarily of what we can, in a broad sense, call different techniques of meditation. And many of these meditative techniques can be quite elaborate.

Much of these we recognize from other practices in other traditions. Abulafia tells us that we should be ritually pure and secluded when going into meditation:

“Be prepared for God, o Israelite! Make yourself ready to direct your heart to God alone. Cleanse the body and choose a lonely house where none shall hear your voice. Sit there in your closet and do not reveal your secret to any man. If you can, do it by day in the house, but it is best if you complete it during the night. In the hour when you prepare yourself to speak with the Creator and you wish Him to reveal His might to you, then be careful to abstract all your thought from the vanities of the world” - Abulafia (Hayye ha-Olam ha-Ba)

What follows these preparations are very intricate techniques of concentration, which primarily involve the Divine Names. Abulafia teaches us to recite or repeat the different names of God both vocally and mentally, a practice shared with many other religions traditions - including Sufism, Hinduism and the Hesychasm of Orthodox Christianity. But what is unique about Abulafia’s technique is the way that he utilizes the different letters of the Divine names and combines them in various ways.

“One must take the letters ‘ms yhw, first as instructed in the written form which is an external thing, to combine them, and afterwards one takes them from the book with their combinations, and transfers them to one’s tongue and mouth, and pronounces them until one knows them by heart. Afterwards, he shall take them from his mouth (already) combined, and transfer them to his heart, and set his mind to understanding what is shown him in every language that he knows, until nothing is left of them” - Abulafia (Ozar ‘Eden Ganuz)

As this quote suggests, Abulafia’s technique involves taking the letters of various divine names, often those of the Tetragrammaton - YHWH - and combining them with one another as well as with the letters of other divine names. This is done first in written form, on a piece of paper in front of oneself. It is also then recited vocally until it is finally entirely internalized. These recitations of letters involve various breathing techniques reminiscent of Yogic practices, as well as movements of the head and hands.

This recitation practice is, as I said, reminiscent of other mystical practices, but it is also quite unique in some ways. Whereas many other forms of meditation are aimed at emptying the mind through silence or repetitive mantras that eventually become trance-inducing in their repetivity, Abulafia’s system of recitation is one of cycles that are constantly evolving and changing. In other words, his technique is to keep the person so occupied and concentrated upon what he’s doing that this in itself leads to a transcendent experience.

And indeed, as a result of these techniques, the practitioner (according to Abulafia and his followers) will eventually reach intense, ecstatic mystical experiences that are described in various ways and in very colorful language.

The experience often begins as something very unpleasant and fearful. It’s interesting that I’ve seen many in my comment section who are critical of various forms of “mysticism”, claiming that it only “sounds nice and comforting”. I don’t know what kind of mysticism these people are referring to, unless they’ve only been exposed to New Age or New religious movements today. Because the mystical experience, and teachings of many so-called “mystics”, whether they be Muslim or Christian or Jew, is often presented as something very challenging, scary and sometimes even outright dangerous.

The initial stages of a mystical experience is explained by Abulafia as follows in the Ozar ‘Eden Ganuz:

“The hairs of your head will begin to stand up and to the storm. And your blood… will begin to move out because of the living combination which speaks, and all your body will begin to tremble, and your limbs will begin to shake, and you will fear a tremendous fear, and the fear of God shall cover you…” - Abulafia (Ozar ‘Eden Ganuz)

It is only after this initial stage is overcome that the ecstatic state comes over the mystic.

“And you shall feel another spirit awakening within yourself and strengthening you and passing over your entire body and giving you pleasure, and it will seem to you that balm has been poured over you from the crown of your head to your feet, once or many times, and you shall rejoice and feel from it a great pleasure, with gladness and trembling” - Abulafia (Ibid)

What the contents of the further mystical experience is like is depicted in various ways. Many claim experiencing a light emitting from one’s self, others see Divine Names written before them, and various other such visions. One of the most recurring and important visions that Abulafia and his followers talk about is experiencing the form of a man standing before oneself and speaking to you. It becomes clear from his writings that this human form is indeed the person himself, a higher part of the person, conversing with him. To Abulafia, the world of the Intellect is the divine realm from which everything comes. But in any kind of spiritual or mystical experience like this, which involves the experience of forms or sounds or anything similar, this is really the work of the Imagination, which often stands in contrast to the intellect and is seen as something that is to be overcome.

But when the mystic has, for example, this experience of the form of a man (himself) standing before him, this is in fact the Intellect, often also identified as the angel Michael, which takes form through the imagination to communicate with the experiencer. Thus, the practitioner is communicating with the intellectual, and thus highest, part of himself which takes the form of a human double that appears as if it is an external person talking to him.

Complicated stuff, but all very interesting and characteristic of Abulafia’s mystical teachings.

But the culmination and end goal of all of these practices and the different stages is the transformative experience of Devequt - a Hebrew word that is often translated as “cleaving” or specifically of “Cleaving to God”.

This is where, in Abulafia’s terms, prophecy is achieved and the soul and intellect of the person becomes united with the Active Intellect and, most likely, with God Himself. But to understand the way Abulafia talks about this, we need to get a little theoretical first.

As I’ve already talked about, Abulafia adopts the philosophical tradition of Aristotelianism and, to some degree Neoplatonism, by talking about this thing called Intellect. A philosophical term that can be very difficult to grasp, but it can simply be explained as mind or pure thinking. Sometimes we can think of intellect as equivalent to something like consciousness and awareness, but one that is also active and contains knowledge. The intellect in philosophical terms is a higher level of reality. To Abulafia and his predecessors, the intellect is our more pure spiritual or.. well, intellectual core that is often placed in contrast to matter. So, we want to focus on intellect and not on the material world, because the intellect is where we have a kind of connection to the divine.

Abulafia identifies the intellect with the angel Michael, and often contrasts it both to the material world but also to something he calls imagination. The latter two are often associated with Satan while the intellect is exalted.

And when it comes to intellect, Abulafia conceives of different levels of intellect - there is the Divine Intellect or Mind of God Himself, but then “below” that there is something he calls the Active Intellect - a kind of universal intellect that is the source of individual intellects. And then, obviously, there are the individual intellects of different human beings.

Without getting into too much philosophy here, when Abulafia talks about his mystical experiences and practices, he often formulates them in philosophical terms of intellect. It is the intellect that we are seeking, that we want to cultivate and unite with. In these different practices, we leave the material world of our body behind and, ideally, enter into the realm of intellect.

And in all of this, there is often talk about a unitive experience. Since all our individual intellects come from the Active Intellect, the ultimate goal is to return to that state of unity, where our individuality becomes one with the Active Intellect and is annihilated in it.

“the ultimate composite, which is man, who comprises all the sefirot, and whose intellect is the active intellect; and when you will untie its knots, you will be united with it (the active intellect) in a unique union” - Abulafia

“he prophesies, according to the entity which causes him to pass from potentiality into the final and perfect actuality and he and he become one entity, inseparable during the act” - Abulafia

From quotes like this, it becomes clear that Abulafia viewed the peak of mystical experience, and thus of prophecy, to be a unification of the soul with the Active Intellect. Very few would deny this. But it also seems that Abulafia goes further and states that the soul becomes one with God Himself.

This may not seem all that strange - this is a language often employed by mystics. But there has been some debate on the presence of the mystical union within Judaism.

The famous scholar Gershom Scholem famously argued that the idea of a complete mystical union with God is not present at all, or is at least very uncommon in Jewish thought, including the Kabbalah.

But many today, including Moshe Idel, who has written a lot about Abulafia in particular, argues that we can see clear indications of this kind of language in Abulafia, his followers and other strands of Jewish mysticism.

And in the case of Abulafia, the evidence is pretty convincing. Take for example this quote from Hayyei Ha’Olam HaBa:

“the benefit of the knowledge of the name (of God) is its being the cause of man’s attainment of the actual intellection of the active intellect and the benefit of the intellection of the active intellect is the ultimate aim of the life of the intellectual soul and it is the reason of the life of the next world; this aim is the union of the soul, by this intellection, with God forever.” - Abulafia (Hayyei Ha’Olam HaBa)

Or another even more striking section:

(when the mystic)”has felt the divine touch and perceived its nature it seems right and proper to me and to every perfected man that he should be called “master” because his name is like the Name of his Master be it only in one, or in many, or in all of His Names. For now he is no longer separated from his Master, and behold he is his Master and his Master is he; for he is so intimately united with Him, that he cannot by any means be separated from Him, for he is He” - Abulafa

It seems pretty clear that the soul can experience a uniting, or becoming one with, the eternal God Himself. Abulafia therefore joins a long list of “mystics” in history who claim this kind of experience.

The idea of one’s soul (or intellect) completely uniting with God isn’t that surprising, however, when we look a little deeper at his theoretical ideas. The part of the human being that unites is of course not the material body, but only the intellectual part. Remember also that Abulafia conceives of God as pure Intellect, Intelligible & Act of Intellection. God is Intellect in the absolute sense. So when he talks about various intellects, including the Active Intellect or individual intellect, it is not that these are separated, but “parts” of a whole. In Moshe Idel’s words, Abulafia is professing a kind of “limited pantheism” or “intellectual pantheism”.

“It is worth remarking that Abulafia’s mysticism includes not only the transformational unitive component, but also a limited pantheistic facet; according to this Kabbalist, the various intellectual parts of the existence are part of one continuum” - Moshe Idel

We should be careful to take this too far, and claim that Abulafia argued for something similar to Ibn Arabi’s Wahdat al-wujud - The Unity of Being - but instead conceive of it as the idea that the intellectual world in particular is one continuum which starts and ends with God. God is the intellect and all other intellectual existences flow from this Absolute. The human being, as far as the intellectual part of his soul is concerned, is a kind of spark of the divine. Whereas the world of matter and imagination is the very opposite of this.

So to unite with the Active Intellect really becomes the same thing as uniting with God in a way, and kind of makes our previous discussion a little unnecessary.

One of the followers of Abulafia, although one who never met him, Isaac of Acre, writes a quite compelling section about this topic:

“I heard from the sage R. Nathan… an explanation of this name (i.e. the Intellect). You must know that when the Divine Intellect descends, it reaches the active intellect, and is called Active Intellect; and when the Active Intellect descends to the Acquired Intellect, it is called Acquired Intellect; and when the Acquired Intellect descends to the Passive Intellect, it is called Passive Intellect; and when Passive Intellect descends to the soul which is in man, it is called the soul. We therefore find that the Divine Intellect which is in the human soul is called the soul, and this is from above to below… and if you shall deserve and cleave to the Divine Intellect, happy are you, because you have returned to your source and root, which is called, literally, the Divine Intellect. And this person is called the Man of God, that is to say, a Divine Man, creating worlds.” - Isaac of Acre (Me’irat ‘Enayim)

We can summarize by saying that Abulafia’s Ecstatic Kabbalah is one that is primarily concerned with the spiritual meditative practices described above, employing the Names of God and letters of the Hebrew alphabet to become unfettered from the world of matter and body and instead the actualization of the soul’s intellectual aspect until one reaches the experience of devequt - cleaving to the Active Intellect and ultimately, as we have seen, to God himself, until the two have become one, and “he is He”.

You can see why he would be a somewhat controversial figure. People who say these kinds of things tend to be controversial, at least in some circles. As I mentioned in the beginning of the video, all traces of Abulafia stop in 1291 and he is assumed to have passed away at this time.

His condemnation by some leading Kabbalistic figures like Ibn Adret did leave a black mark on his reputation but his influence did not die with him. He had devoted students and admirers who would carry his ideas forward.

We have quoted Isaac of Acre, for example, and he is only one in a long line of followers. And indeed, as also talked about in the beginning, Abulafia has to some degree been redeemed since then and he is often greatly respected and admired. His writings continued to spread and to influence later thinkers. While in the immediate aftermath of his death we don’t find his ideas being all too popular, but only a few centuries later they would be picked up by some significant circles.

Abulafia’s Ecstatic Kabbalah had a big impact and influence on the great Kabbalists of Safed (Tsfat) in the 16th century, including Isaac Luria - one of the greatest and most impactful Kabbalists in history. And even later still, he would also influence the Hasidic movement, in whose teachings we can find many similarities with some of what Abulafia says, as well as the so-called “Christian Kabbalah” and much of the Kabbalah that we find today that is removed from its Jewish roots.

So while Abulafia himself may not be the most famous figure today, neither necessarily in Judaism, but definitely not in the world generally, his profound ideas have had an impact on some of the major religious and intellectual traditions in our contemporary world.

Regardless of your approach to this man, it is impossible to look at his life or ideas and not be endlessly fascinated and intrigued.

Bibliography

Hames, Harvey J. (2007). “Like Angels on Jacob’s Ladder”. State University of New York Press.

Ide, Moshe (1988). “The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia”. Translated from the Hebrew by Jonathan Chipman. State University of New York Press.

Idel, Moshe (1988). “Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah”. State University of New York Press.

Wolfson, Eliot R. (2011). “Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia and the Prophetic Kabbalah”. In Jewish Mysticism & Kabbalah (ed. Frederick E. Greenspahn). New York University Press.

If someone says the name Maimonides, there is no question about which figure comes up in the minds of most people. Moses Maimonides, the great Jewish Philosopher and scholar, is one of the most famous intellectuals in history and for good reason. His rationalist philosophy and, even more so, his legal writings had an enormous impact on Judaism for the rest of history. There is a saying that “Between Moses and Moses, there is no one like Moses”, referring to the great Biblical prophet and Maimonides respectively.

But while he is certainly a fascinating figure worth talking about, there is another Maimonides that I find equally as interesting: his son Abraham.

Abraham Maimonides (or more properly - Abraham ben Maimon) not only succeeded his father as the head of the Jewish community in Egypt but also, in contrast to his father’s heavily rationalistic inclinations, became the figurehead for a new movement of Jewish pietism and reform that was heavily influenced by Islamic Sufism in its mystical and renunciant practices.

It is indeed difficult to talk about Abraham Maimonides without doing so in connection to the incredible career of his father. Having come from al-Andalus or Spain originally, Maimonides the elder had fled from his homeland to eventually settle in Fustat, close to modern Cairo in Egypt. Here, he eventually became the leader of the Jewish community as he was not only a greatly learned philosopher but also a legal expert and authority in the Halakha - Jewish Law. Indeed, his probably most significant work from a Jewish point of view was his monumental Mishne Torah, a massive work that attempts to basically go through the entire Jewish law and categorize it in ways that had never been done before.

In the more purely philosophical sphere, he is better known for the work known as Moreh Nevukhim or “The Guide for the Perplexed” in which he presents his rationalistic, Aristotelian-influenced philosophy.’

Needless to say, Maimonides was already a giant during his life, even if controversial among many, and held a great deal of authority. And according to certain sources, he seems to have had only one son - Abraham, the topic of this video.

Abraham Maimonides was born in Fustat in the late 1180’s and grew up watching his father perform his various duties - as physician to the Ayyubid Sultan Saladin, as a philosopher and as the head of the Jewish community in the region, taking on many visitors and giving advice on matters on Jewish religion.

He would have learned a lot from his father, being taught how to perform communal duties, rabbinic law, science and medicine and studying philosophy through the Guide for the Perplexed, and would indeed inherit most of these roles upon his father’s death. Abraham himself eventually also became known as the Nagid - the head of the Egyptian Jewish community.

There could be various reasons for this, among them probably the fact that his father was so loved by many. But he seems to have had a reputation as a great legal scholar and thinker even before becoming the ra’is or head of the community. Judah al-Harizi (d. 1225) wrote about Abraham that he was:

“young in years but great in knowledge, a young man who makes fools out of the wise.” - Judah al-Harizi

His role as leader wasn’t uncontested though, and some prominent individuals in Egypt opposed it. But it seems that he could have been given this title as early as 1205, when he would have been only 19 years old, thus almost immediately after his father’s death.

In many of the ways mentioned, Abraham followed in his father’s footsteps. He not only managed communal affairs for basically all Jews living in Egypt, but also served as physician to the Ayyubid Sultan, a privileged job that also allowed him to gain benefits for the Jews through his close relationship with the ruling Muslim elite.

On top of this, Abraham also regularly worked at the hospital in Cairo, tending to the sick from all communities living there. The Muslim medical chronicler Ibn Abi Usaybi’ah (d. 1270) who also worked alongside Abraham in the hospital, had this to say about him:

“He was a celebrated physician, learned in the art of medicine and skilled in its practice. He [worked] in the service of the king, al-Kāmil... He also frequently left the royal palace to tend to the sick in the hospital in Cairo. I met him in Cairo during my medical appointment in the hospital in 631 or 632, and found him to be a tall gentleman, slender in build and refined in manners, elegant in conversation and outstanding as a physician.” - Ibn Abi Usaybi’ah

In other ways, however, he diverged quite dramatically from his father. Primarily for the fact that he became the central figure and head of a movement of Jewish pietism that sought to reform aspects of Jewish prayer and that developed ascetic and renunciant practices that were heavily influenced by the Sufis - the Islamic mystics that were so prevalent at the time. In general, Abraham and his movement represents an interesting point in time when the co-existence of Islam and Judaism could produce fascinating results, and provide us with a really cool example of inter-religious influence and dialogue (albeit indirectly) and a fascinating glimpse into the world of the medieval Islamic and Jewish worlds.

So to get a fuller grasp of this topic, let’s first get an overview of this significant time and place.

This was a very eventful time in various different ways. Politically, specifically in Egypt, the Ayyubid dynasty led by Salah al-din (Saladin) had just recently toppled the Fatimids, an Isma’ili Shi’i dynasty that had ruled the region for centuries prior. The larger Islamicate world was ruled by various small and large kingdoms, the Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad essentially only being a symbolic authority. In al-Andalus, the puritanical Almohads had just entered the scene, which was one of the main reasons that Maimonides the elder had to leave the area and settle in the more welcoming Egypt.

Jews lived all across the Islamic world at the time and thrived in many ways, except in certain places like Almohad Spain that I just mentioned. There were Jews living in Muslim-majority regions as well as in Europe where Christianity dominated, and even though there were contacts between these groups, we sometimes see them developing separately in unique ways. As always, religions and cultures adapt and change depending on the time and place in which they find themselves, and this is true here as well, as we will see.

Intellectually, this was an insanely vibrant time in which we see some of the most major thinkers in history appearing across different communities. Maimonides, Thomas Aquinas, Ibn ‘Arabi, Ibn Rushd and many more. Sufism, often called Islamic mysticism, had started to really flourish around this time and was widespread all across the Islamic world to the point of being mainstream. And not long after the lives of the Maimonides’ we see the emergence of Kabbalah within Judaism. So this is an incredibly fascinating time in which a lot is happening on a number of fronts, and Abraham Maimonides’ pietist movement is one significant result of this.

Different religious and intellectual traditions always influence each other, which was definitely true at this time as well. The different scholars and philosophers from different religions read, took inspiration from and built upon each other’s works. And in general, the multicultural environment in places like Egypt led to cross-pollination in religious practice and belief.

Sufism had become a significant part of mainstream Islam and was thus a very visible and key feature of Muslim majority societies. Their characteristic renunciation practices and often strict devotional regimen proved very inspirational to people across religious borders.

Already with the Jewish figure of Bahya ibn Paquda (d. 1120) we can see influences from Sufism finding its way into Judaism. In his very significant work The Duties of the Heart, he presents spiritual and ascetic practices that showcase clear influences from the language and concepts of the Sufis at the time. Bahya and his book represents a general trend at the time; one of an increased popularity for asceticism and related practices. In the words of Elisha Russ-Fishbane:

“Jews from Iberia to Iraq in the second half of the twelfth and first half of the thirteenth centuries increasingly drew from Sufi models of ascetic piety, including adopting supererogatory prayer, strict regimens of fasting, and solitary retreats in the desert and mountainside.” - Elisha Russ-Fishbane

This seems to be corroborated in the writings of Moses Maimonides himself who refers to these individuals within the Jewish community at the time and mocks them for imitating the practices of other nations.

And indeed, this was a major point of discussion and one of the most controversial aspects of the movements that developed - the pushback within the Jewish community against adopting practices from other groups such as the Muslims, something that Abraham would respond to in very significant ways.

In any case, while the general opinion of Jewish scholars was very hostile towards adopting the practices of others, this was mostly confined to matters of religion in particular, and there was a more open attitude towards adopting non-religious cultural expressions. And with all of this said, it is interesting to note that there was often a level of respect shown towards some gentiles, or other religious communities (at least in some ways). The already mentioned Bahya ibn Paquda claimed in his work to draw “from the saints and sages of every society” in his work, and philosophers like Maimonides greatly admired his Muslim peers. And partly as a result of his influence, the general perspective that many Jews would adopt was one where, on the one hand, Christianity was seen as an idolatrous heresy and as essentially polytheism and, on the other, Islam and the Muslims were at least respected for the fact that they upheld a very strict monotheism.

This can be seen in a controversy during the life of Abraham Maimonides himself, who criticizes the Jews in Europe for being influenced by the idolatrous doctrines of the Christians, whereas the Jews living in Islamic lands were “better” for holding fast to the monotheistic core of Judaism as understood through Maimonidean rationalism. About Islam, he writes:

“The children of Ishmael have, for their part, adopted this [monotheistic] faith from the children of Israel and have built the foundation of their religion upon it. They have rejected the error and folly of their ancestors, who used to worship idols and did not affirm the unity and exaltedness of [God’s] name, as it is written, “Nations shall come to You from the ends of the earth and say, ‘Our ancestors have inherited lies, [vanity] that is of no avail” (Jer. 16:19).” - Abraham Maimonides

And it is perhaps with Abraham himself, the Nagid or head of the Egyptian Jewish community in the early 13th century, that we see the culmination of this increased interest and tendency of Islamic-Sufi interaction and influence. Indeed, his pietist mystical movement serves as the most daring and extreme example of this religious dialogue, one that became very controversial to his co-religionists. But what was this movement all about?

What Abraham, or the Nagid, did was to instigate a new devotional style, both on an individual ‘mystical’ level and in terms of communal practices. There seems to have been an inner circle, of which Abraham was the leader, that upheld a strict spiritual regimen, one that seemed very similar to the Islamic Sufis. These practices included the emphasis on a teacher-student relationship, and the importance of having a shaykh, as well as intense fasting during the days and nightly vigils in which one would pray. So the pietists would fast during the day, and then neglect sleeping by instead spending most of the night in additional prayers.

Furthermore, there seems to have been an emphasis on individual meditation and contemplation, and even pietists going on spiritual retreats, or khalwa in Arabic, where they would spend 40 days in complete solitude focusing on prayer and meditation.

These renunciant and ascetic practices had the aim of purifying the soul, and to eventually instigate a mystical illuminative experience, thus (according to Abraham) perfecting the Jewish devotional life and even having prophetic and messianic implications, as we will see later.

This was quite unusual for the jews at the time. The intense focus on individual worship and solitary meditation seemed at odds with the mainstream Jewish importance on communal worship in the Synagogue. Abraham and his group didn’t neglect this aspect, of course, and even engaged himself with reforming synagogue practices as well, but his emphasis on these more mystical and contemplative practices did become controversial for various reasons. As we saw, this wasn’t completely new within Judaism, with the already mentioned Bahya ibn Paquda serving as an important earlier example of similar tendencies, but it was a break with the common practices in the region.

The pietists around Abraham Maimonides performed spiritual exercises of solitary prayer & meditation, coupled with strict rules of fasting and asceticism, all under the guidance of an experienced teacher.

The intimate details of these practices are hard to get at, since there is after all a level of esotericism around it, given the role of the spiritual guide. We know that Abraham suggested that practitioners prepare a separate part of one’s house in which one can be alone and which is dedicated to these exercises in particular. Prayers would have been performed, while sitting on the knees as well as standing, points that we will return to later.

We also know that music was sometimes involved in some way. Indeed, music was seen as an important and useful tool to arouse spiritual states and help orient the soul during these practices. Abraham encourages the pietists to recite prayers in a harmonious melody, and musical instruments may have been employed in some way. Just like his father, he connects the use of music with prophecy and the biblical prophets in pointing out its usefulness. He writes:

“In order to attain inner solitude that leads to communion [with God] (al-khalwah al-bātinah al-mu ̣ ’asṣilah ), the prophets and their followers used musical instruments and melodies, seeking to arouse the appetitive faculty toward [God], may He be exalted, and to empty the mind of anything but Him.” - Abraham Maimonides

He points to the fact that many of the biblical prophets of ancient times would use music and musical instruments to induce states in which they would receive their prophecies. And this connection of practices to Biblical precedent becomes very important for Abraham.

Indeed, as we have pointed out on multiple occasions, and as many of you have probably noticed, a lot of these practices are very similar to some of the key features of Sufism as it existed in the Islamic world at the time.

Many of the rabbinic authorities of the time accused the pietist movement of heresy and of copying and adopting practices from a gentile religion - Islam - something that is forbidden in Jewish Law.

But Abraham has a clear response to this criticism. While it is difficult for us to deny that there must have been some influence from the Sufi movement of his time, Abraham claims that these practices aren’t taken from the Sufis at all. Instead, they represent ancient Israelite practice that had been lost after the exile period. The only reason there are similarities between what the pietists were doing and the Sufis, is that the Sufis had somehow discovered or preserved a tradition that was originally Jewish, or Israelite. Thus, they are not imitating Islam, but simply reviving original, true, Israelite devotion.

This argument is stressed even more as similar controversies erupted around Abraham’s communal prayer reforms. Remember, he was not only the pir or leader of the pietist movement, but also the head of the Jewish community in Egypt more generally.

And when it comes to communal practices in Synagogues, Abraham saw a lot that he wanted to change here, too. He complained of the disorderly nature of these affairs, with people sitting along the walls of the synagogue and much else. Compare this to the Muslims, who by comparison appeared much more organized - standing in perfect rows and praying in complete unison.

Abraham wanted to reform these communal prayers in the Synagogue, too, in ways that seemed to bring them a lot closer to the customs of the Muslims.

While he never seems to have actually implemented these changes on a communal level, it is clear that this was his eventual aim. His reforms included that the Jews would stand in orderly rows and do things like bowing and even full prostration with the forehead to the ground, something that was entirely associated with Islamic prayers and not with Jewish practice.

For this reason, he was again attacked and heavily criticized by many authorities in the Jewish community, who felt that he was, again, adopting gentile practices into Judaism.

His response to this was exactly the same. He wasn’t imitating the Muslims, he was simply reviving the way that the Israelites would have prayed in pre-exile times, and providing Biblical support for his claims.

He says:

“Be careful in this matter not to confuse a new idea and custom with ancient [ones] that have been neglected to the point of being forgotten and [only] later brought to the attention [of the community], restored, and revitalized. This is the case in the matter concerning us here, that of prostration, which we are now discussing. For prostration is an obligation of the law and ancient custom of the people, a fact neglected over the course of many years in exile. And when one has been made aware that it is an obligation and puts it into practice, it appears to the deluded and ignorant as if it is a religious innovation. It is an innovation only in relation to the intermediate time [in which it was defunct], not in relation to the time of the original community.” - Abraham Maimonides

It is really interesting that in his defense of the prayer reforms and the mystical practices of the pietists, he is using arguments that seem to line up with the common Islamic narrative that Islamic practices originate in older Israelite practices that have been lost in the later religion of Judaism. Could this be another result of him living in Muslim-dominated lands and interacting with the intellectual world of Islam? It’s possible, but he also seems to be convinced of his points and bases them in scripture. It is an absolutely fascinating example of inter-religious dialogue and influence.

This should not be taken as some kind of indication of a lacking commitment to Judaism. Abraham was fully convinced that he was reviving true Judaism as the true religion of God. Through the practices of the pietists, that he saw as having resurrected, he saw a way of perfecting Jewish worship and restoring it to its original, pre-exile, form. And this had significant messianic implications.

While Moses Maimonides is often upheld as a paragon of reason and a critic of mysticism, many of his ideas proved fruitful for later mystical speculation, including for his son Abraham.

He shared his father’s idea of prophecy as a perfection of the human spirit and a resulting “overflow overflowing from God” to the intellectual and imaginative faculties of the person. So a prophet is a person who has perfected these faculties, the intellectual and imaginative, to such a degree that he experiences an illumination or revelation from God.

But doesn’t this sound like basically anyone can become a prophet? Well, yes, that is exactly what Abraham and his associates thought. By reviving the ancient original practices of the Israelites, including the meditative and mystical practices that they adopted, one could open up the floodgates of prophecy again. In other words, one could enter into a new era when prophecy was once again possible.

In essence, Abraham defines prophetic experience as identical to the highest forms of mystical experience, the final step on the ladder of spiritual ascent.

As you can tell, this is quite a different view of prophecy than what some are used to from a religion like Islam, but to the pietists this was entirely in line with Jewish teachings.

This may sound familiar to those of you who have encountered the Jewish mystical and Kabbalist Abraham Abulafia, who lived roughly at the same time. He, too, was a devoted follower of Maimonidean philosophy but developed a form of “prophetic Kabbalah” where the goal of his complex mystical practices was a cleaving - devequt - to God or the Active Intellect, an experience that he, too, defined a prophetic in nature. To Abulafia, the ultimate aim, which was reachable through his Kabbalistic techniques, was prophecy.

And in the pietist movement in Egypt, the idea seems to be rather similar to this. All the practices that we have talked about - the fasting, nightly vigils, meditation, seclusion and prayer - had the aim of striving for the mystical, prophetic goal. Under the guidance of a teacher, the spiritual wayfarers (salikun) will traverse on the ladder of purification until they reach the highest stage or station of perfection, what Abraham often refers to as Wasul, or literally “arriving” in Arabic.

Here, they will experience the overflow of illumination upon the soul from God.

“the soul will perceive a grandeur which will dazzle it to a point where its existence will be effaced. Thereupon the soul will find itself bathing in the presence of an overwhelming light, called the light of divine majesty. The soul will then perceive the mysteries appearing within this light ...And this is prophecy.” - Anonymous pietist (13th century)

This experience, as the quote suggests, is identified with prophecy. This is thus something that is reachable by those who travel on the mystical path under a legitimate teacher, and perhaps something that, at some point, everyone will get to experience.

“The ultimate end or perfection of the soul consists in the conjunction of the human intellect with the angelic realm of separate intellects, both in the intellectual apprehension that occurs after death and in the imperfect apperception glimpsed in this life.” - Fishbane

We can see, in the teachings of Abraham Maimonides and the pietist movement, the fascinating ways that different spiritual traditions interacted and influenced each other in the middle ages. Abraham Maimonides stands in the shadow of his father, but is still probably one of the most interesting figures of his time. The spiritual practices and mystical ideals of the movement that he led gives us a look not only at the ways in which traditions like Sufism could influence Judaism, but also the diversity of Judaism itself. We often tend to relegate all Jewish mysticism to “Kabbalah”, but here is an example of what could arguably be called a form of mysticism in Judaism that is not connected in any direct way to Kabbalah. It stands on its own as a fascinating look into a time and place of great intellectual and religious activity.

What is also noteworthy is the role of the great Moses Maimonides in all of this. While he had nothing to do with the pietist movement as such, as far as we know, we can see that Abraham and his associates employ the great philosopher’s teachings to argue for some of their most lofty mystical ideas. His teachings on the intellect and the human being’s relationship to it, as well as those surrounding prophecy (among other things) provided some of the basis for the pietists and their doctrines. Similarly, when we look at someone like Abulafia the same is true. He also employs Maimonidean teachings as central parts of his heavily mystical theories. Indeed, the entire philosophical basis of these two movements come from Maimonides in some way.

This might seem ironic to some who share the idea of Maimonides as the great enemy of mysticism and champion of reason. This idea has started to be (at least a little) challenged by some, and it remains a really interesting debate.

Bibloiography

Idel, Moshe (1987). "The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia". State University of New York Press

Kraemer, Joel L. (2010). "Maimonides: The Life and World of one of Civilization's Greatest Minds". Doubleday & Co Inc.

Lobel, Diana (2021). "Moses and Abraham Maimonides: Encountering the Divine". Academic Studies Press.

Russ-Fishbane, Elisha (2015). "Judaism, Sufism, and the Pietists of Medieval Egypt: A study of Abraham Maimonides and his times". Oxford University Press

On November 27, 1235, the famous and important Sufi mystic Qutb al-din Bakhtiar Kaki of the Chishti order in India attended a gathering of sama, or ‘spiritual audition’; a common practice in sufism where music and dance is used for spiritual development and experience.

The musicians played their instruments, the singer recited or sang lines of mystical poetry, and the attendees possibly got up to move to the music in a kind of trance-like dance. Eventually, the music grows and becomes more intense, the tempo increases and the voice of the singer soars in the air. The people present, including Qutb al-din, would probably have been swept away by the music, sweating from the intensity.

In the midst of this, the singer recites two lines of poetry:

“Those who are slain by the dagger of surrender;

Receive every moment a new life from the unseen.”

Upon hearing this, Qutb al-din immediately enters a state of ecstasy, what is known in Arabic as wajd. He is so enraptured, in fact, that he faints, has to be carried away from there, and dies only a few days later.

This is possibly a legendary story, but it is a common narrative about the life (and death) of one of the founding figures of the great Chishti sufi order in India. What it tells us, above all, is that music can be an incredibly powerful experience, and many have argued across the centuries that it has the ability to induce powerful spiritual, religious or mystical states in those that listen to and perform it.

Putting aside these dramatic historical accounts, a sober outlook today will still have to affirm that music has a peculiar way of affecting our state of mind. Anyone who is a musician will know how playing an instrument, especially in moments where one ‘disappears into the music’ so to say, and enters the ‘flow state’, can be a profoundly meditative and even transformative experience. Music has been, and still is, used as a kind of medicine or therapy to relieve mental, and sometimes even physical, afflictions.

As a musician myself, I can attest to the fact that some of my most profound contemplative, or ‘spiritual’ (maybe even ‘mystical’?) experiences have been had when listening to or (especially) playing music. It simply has an incredible way of putting you in a certain state of consciousness; of taking you out of yourself and into that feeling of disappearing. There is, to put it simply, something quite ‘mystical’ about music in a way that seems, to some degree, to be universally applicable.

Indeed, music is often called a ‘universal language’, and this can certainly be argued to be true in the sense that most people, regardless of culture, can ‘understand’ and appreciate beautiful music (although there is always a level of cultural conditioning at play). However, I’ve always somewhat disagreed with this categorization. To me, music isn’t a universal language, or a language at all. Instead, I see it as a kind of anti-language.

What do I mean by this?

Well, what is language, really? It is a way of using symbols and words to communicate things about reality. Per definition, what language does is that it limits and defines things; it takes this incredibly complex and indefinable reality that we experience around us and limits it, defines it, puts it in certain boxes in order for things to be communicable at all. It encloses reality in symbols of meaning.

Music, at least to my experience, tends to do the opposite. While language limits and defines, music opens up and expands. The experience of hearing an incredibly beautiful piece of music is not something that we can put into words and define; it is beyond words. It seems to speak to some part of ourselves that perceives things prior to the limiting nature of words and language. It is (again, to me) a feeling of expansion of one’s heart and consciousness.

Of course, one can argue that music sometimes has words. And words can sometimes even enhance a piece of music. But what I’m talking about here is more specifically the aesthetic element of a musical experience, removed from any words.

And it is indeed interesting, and a possible hole in my argument, that I feel like poetry can also have that same effect, although not as strongly. And poetry is, after all, words and language. So I think it has, again, to be that aesthetic element that is at play.

This brings to mind the classic Indian theory of aesthetics, which revolves around the concept of rasa. This idea was formulated by the ancient sage Bharata Muni, but was also further expanded by the great mystic, philosopher and genius of Kashmir Shaivism - Abhinavagupta (d. 1020). Being a musician himself, he further developed the idea of rasa as a theory of aesthetics that applies to things like theater, poetry and music.

In this conception, every piece of aesthetic art has a rasa, which can be translated as an ‘emotion’, but perhaps more properly as a ‘taste’. A certain song has a ‘taste’ as a whole that we can experience. And if the listener, being a connoisseur of reality and art, can experience that piece of music and its rasa in a purely abstract way, without there being a self or ego that is felt to experience the music, but in a completely ego-free, pure apprehension of the reality of the rasa itself, then they are able to also glimpse the underlying bliss inherent in all of Being and reality; to experience the One Reality through the vessel of an individual aesthetic experience.

This is one of the most profound theories of aesthetics in history, and might be able to explain at least part of why a musical experience can be so powerful. Although there are of course other factors at play, too.

But another Indian thinker that has talked extensively about the mystical character of music and its divine nature is the modern Sufi teacher and musician Inayat Khan (d. 1927). Most famously, there is a published work of his entitled The Mysticism of Sound and Music, compiled from his different talks and discourses about music and sound and how they connect to divine aspects of reality. This book has become something of a classic, even outside of his Sufi movement. It circulated among Jazz musicians in the 1950’s and 60’s and greatly influenced some of the major musicians of the 20th century. And even today, it remains a profound exploration of the mystical and metaphysical dimensions of music.

To Khan, music and spirituality are deeply interconnected. Music was not only a tool to achieve spiritual experiences, but an expression of the very ontological principles at the core of reality; a miniature and symbol of the wider mystical teachings. It was music and its harmony that brought him to the deeper explorations of the soul and reality, a gateway into the wider spiritual life. In music, he found a way of connecting with something greater, with a harmony in aesthetic beauty that mirrored and could bring him closer to the harmony and beauty of the divine, of God. Thus, to him, music in some ways is religion, and he states in multiple places that music is his religion (while not rejecting his Muslim identity):

“The deeper I dive into the ocean of feeling, the more beautiful are the pearls I bring forth in the form of melodies. Thus my music creates feeling within me before others feel it. My music is my religion, and therefore wordly success will never be a fit price for it; my sole object is to achieve perfection…” - Inayat Khan

He calls music the Divine Art, and claims that it has divine origins. In an early work of his on music - the Minqar-i musiqar - which he wrote while still in India around 1907, he explores the divine origins of music. According to one theory, the word music comes from the musiqar bird, which through its peculiar beak could produce various tones and sounds, thus originating music. But he also brings up theories relating to sacred history:

“Some say that the art was revealed to Hazrat Sulayman (peace be upon him) or Da’ud (peace be upon him). One story is that Hakim Pythagoras was its inventor. Others say that it was named after Hazrat Musa (Moses) (peace be upon him). Once while he was in the wilderness, he was passing by a stream whose gentle flow was washing over the pebbles and producing soft and loud sounds. He received the revelation ‘ya Musa qe!’ that is, ‘Oh Musa, wait!’ The word taharna ‘wait’ means to concentrate, think or understand. So, under the guidance of that heavenly or divine communication, Hazrat Musa drew forth rag from the sounds. If this is indeed true, then by the Grace of God this science is divine.” - Inayat Khan

This is high praise, clearly. All (or many of) the great prophets (and he understands some of the hindu gods as prophets here, as had been common in the sufi tradition in India) had something to do with music, because music is the essence of learning and wisdom, and music hides secrets of the deepest aspects of the universe.

In fact, in the harmony of music we get a glimpse of the Divine itself, the Ultimate Reality, in a miniature form. He says:

“Music (...) is nothing less than the picture of the Beloved” - Inayat Khan

To understand what he means by this, we need to take a step back and look at the ideas and intellectual traditions that he is drawing from.

Inayat Khan seems to have been influenced by a school of thought within Sufism often referred to as the Akbari school, traced to the Arab-Andalusian sufi master Muhyddin Ibn ‘Arabi (d. 1240). We know, for example, that Khan’s own Sufi teacher - Abu Hashim al-Madani - wrote a commentary on Ibn ‘Arabi’s most famous work - the Fusus al-Hikam - which seems to confirm this doctrinal transmission.

In the school of Ibn ‘Arabi, God is all there is. He is identified with Being or Wujud itself, and because God is One, that means that Being is One. This is the basis for that common name for his doctrine - Wahdat al-Wujud, The Oneness of Being. And because Being is that which per definition is, there is nothing that is not it. Therefore, all the multiplicity and various things we see in the world, which certainly seem to be (and are, according to Ibn ‘Arabi) different from God, are nothing but the manifestations and reflections of the inherent infinite attributes and qualities (“Names”) of Absolute Being, or God. This gives clarity to the Qur’anic phrase that “Whichever way you turn, there is the face of God”.

Hence, everything we experience in the world is, in some sense, God. By the very fact that it is, it is Being, and therefore it is nothing but God. On the other hand, in its individual unique essence and identity, it is a direct manifestation of the Divine qualities themselves, but in a limited form. So, for example, when we see something beautiful, what we are really experiencing is Beauty itself expressed in a particular way. Everything beautiful is really an expression of the Absolute Beauty that is a Divine Attribute and therefore identical with God Godself.

The point is that the whole world is a display in which God shows himself, epiphanizes himself. And things like Love, Harmony and Beauty are powerful ways that we can glimpse the divine attributes, and thus the divine itself. Whatever we love, or whatever we find beautiful, whether it be a person or a piece of art, what we really love or find beautiful is God, but we only misunderstand that love to be directed at a limited form, as opposed to what that limited form expresses. Ibn ‘Arabi says:

“None but God is loved in the existent things. It is He who is manifest within every beloved to the eye of every lover – and there is no existent thing that is not a lover. So, the universe is all lover and beloved, and all of it goes back to Him… No one loves anyone but his own Creator, but he is veiled from Him by love for Zaynab, Suʾad, Hind, Layla, this world, money, position, and everything loved in the world.”

Love is Love. It is one but expresses itself in multiple ways. The same is true of Harmony & beauty, all things which are so directly found in and represented by music.

In other words, when we hear a beautiful piece of music, we are actually directly experiencing the divine, we are getting a glimpse, a self-disclosure of the Absolute in a miniature or limited form. This is what Inayat Khan means when he says that:

“Music (...) is nothing less than the picture of the Beloved” -Inayat Khan

In another place, he clarifies:

“It is owing to our limitation that we cannot see the whole Being of God, but all that we love in colour, line and form, or personality - all that is beloved by us - belongs to the real Beauty who is the Beloved of all.”

But to Inayat Khan, music is also the fundamental aspect of reality in more concrete ways, too. And here, he not only draws on sacred scriptures, but on the science of his day. Music is life, he says, and life per definition is characterized by movement, by vibrations. And vibrations are, after all , what music is.

“music is the beginning and end of the universe. All actions and movements made in the visible and invisible world are musical. That is: they are made up of vibrations” - Inayat Khan

“Both from the point of view of the Sufi and that of all mystics the original state of the whole creation is vibration, and vibration manifests in two forms, or stages. In its original condition vibration is inaudible and invisible, but in its first stage towards manifestation it becomes audible, and in its next step visible.”

In even more contemporary scientific language, this might be able to be compared to the quantum field, which is said to be a kind of vibrating field of pure energy which makes up our reality. Or, for that matter, the modern theory of string theory, where reality is thought to be made up of vibrating ‘strings’, metaphorically often compared to the strings of a guitar being struck. These vibrations are what Inayat Khan identifies with sound and music from the broader perspective, and as being the very foundation of our reality; its underlying ground.

He connects this idea with several examples from sacred scriptures, as well as wider theories and ideas from what he sees as the mystical traditions of history. In the Qur’an, it explains the creation of the world through the statement that “When he wishes a thing, He only says to it: Kun fa-yakun, ‘Be!, and it is’. So God creates through a vocal command, a sound. And this is that primordial sound, that vibration, that is the ground and animating principle of all things, known in the sufi tradition as the sawt al-sarmad. In the famous sufi poet Jalal al-din Rumi, there is a beautiful image painted based on this Qur’anic theme. That initiating command “Kun/Be!” is the original music of creation, and all of the universe is simply a dance to the harmony of that music. And Ibn ‘Arabi has something very similar to say, arguing that the originating word “Kun!” is the origin and source of all sound and music, and therefore that the very act of existing is an act of sama, or ‘listening’; a term directly related to the ritualized form of listening to music in Sufism. In a similar way, the originating command “Kun” is the original music to which we are all dancing and swaying in ecstasy.

And in the Hindu tradition, we find more profound similarities. Because, in the wider Hindu tradition, sound itself is seen as divine. The Absolute Reality called the Brahman is identified with the syllable Om, the primordial sound or vibration that creates and lies at the core of reality. In this form as sound it is known as the Nada Brahman. And Indian music and the raga system, which Inayat Khan was steeped in, is intimately connected with these philosophical ideas, to the point where music often becomes a direct expression or ‘acting out’ of devotion.

And this can all be seen in the manifest universe. As we saw, all of the world, according to the Akbarian worldview, is simply the manifestation of God, the reflection in limited form of His Beautiful Names and Attributes. This inherent monism or non-dualism is important to keep in mind. Everything is essentially united and expressions of the One Reality, the One Absolute Being. That Being - God - is, in the sufi tradition, identified with Love. Love, Oneness/Unity, Harmony & Beauty are not only attributes of God, but because of that, identified with His very Essence. And in this Platonic sense, all Beauty is really God’s Beauty, all Love is really the all-encompassing Love identified with God and which originates in His Loving wish to be manifested, and the reciprocal love of creation of God. It’s all the same Love, part of the divine unity (tawhid) of all things from the ultimate perspective. Remember that earlier quote from Ibn ‘Arabi.

All the beauty and harmony we experience in the world, and which causes love to arise in us, is really only a self-disclosure of God, a fleeting limited glimpse of the Divine Being itself. And this idea is something that Inayat Khan definitely inherits. Key to his Sufi teachings generally is a kind of triad of: Love, Harmony & Beauty. These are all interconnected, of course, and are themes that we can find prominently in classical Sufism.

As we have seen, all of the world is an expression of the Divine Love, which takes form through harmony and beauty, and this is something that can be experienced in the world by those with the eyes to see, but is also something that we should aim to embody in our own lives.

And all of this, being harmony, is also identified with music. As we said, our human music is only a miniature of the music of the universe itself:

“The music of the universe is the background of the small picture which we call music. Our sense of music, our attraction to music, shows that there is music in the depth of our being. Music is behind the working of the whole universe.” - Inayat Khan

The universe is a beautifully composed symphony, expressing the divine Being and Love through harmony. This kind of idea about the music of the whole universe is one that stretches back into the ancient world. The Pythagoreans spoke about the “Music of the Spheres” as an expression of this very idea, where all of the world is made up of a musical harmony, and thinkers like Plato and others adapted this same idea. But I think it finds perhaps its most beautiful expression in the Mysticism of Sound and Music:

“When we pay attention to nature’s music we find that every thing on the earth contributes to its harmony. The trees joyously wave their branches in rhythm with the wind; the sound of the sea, the murmuring of the breeze, the whistling of the wind through the rocks, hills and mountains, the flash of the lightning, and the crash of the thunder, the harmony of the sun and the moon, the movements of the stars and planets, the blossoming of the flower, the fading of the leaf, the regular alternation of morning, noon and night - all reveal to the seer the music of nature” - Inayat Khan

This divinity of music also extends down from these abstract metaphysical plains to our human world. As he says on multiple occasions, our music is a miniature of the fundamental music and harmony of reality and the divine. Thus, when we listen to music and play music we can experience and connect with that wider harmony. In this way, music is not only useful as a metaphor or a way of understanding the universe at large, but also has powerful practical uses to help the individual mystic or person advance on the spiritual path.

This wider principle can of course be applied to other forms of art, as well. All forms of art express and get us to connect with the divine attribute of Beauty. But to Inayat Khan, there is something particularly powerful about music. Music stands above every other art in its ability to transport us to a divine experience. And that is primarily because it is formless:

“Why is music called the divine art, while all other arts are not so called? We may certainly see God in all arts and in all sciences, but in music alone we see God free from all forms and thoughts. In every other art there is idolatry. Every thought, every word has its form. Sound alone is free from form. Every word of poetry forms a picture in our mind. Sound alone does not make any object appear before us”

Because God is beyond form, the closest we can get to experiencing the divine is through music which is similarly without form. But although it is formless, as we have seen, it is present everywhere. Everything is made up of music and harmony - our heartbeat, the way we walk, it’s all rhythm. The same goes for our speech, how we talk and interact with the world around us. If the whole universe is a symphony, and we are all notes, or perhaps instruments, then:

“There is nothing in the world that is not the instrument of God.”

This means that we need to turn ourselves to harmonize properly with the universal music, to harmonize with each other. All the strife, conflict and suffering in the world is due to disharmony, if looking at it from this point of view. And not just from a personal spiritual perspective, but from a wider ethical one, it is imperative that we make our own lives musical, to better be able to harmonize with the people and creatures around us.

The true sages and prophets of history have all made their lives a work of art, a beautiful piece of music expressing harmony and beauty in everything they do and say, and this is something that can potentially be achieved by anyone.

To expand on this idea, we can metaphorically connect it to key teachings in Sufism and many other spiritual traditions, where we are told that we need to be empty of ego to reach higher spiritual states. If we want to properly resonate with the harmony of the people around us, or with the harmony of the universe and the divine, we need to become empty like the bowl of an oud/lute. After all, a simple chunk of wood doesn’t really resonate sound that well, and neither does a rock. As the Daoists point out, it is emptiness that is useful. And in the case of an instrument, it is when wood is emptied out and becomes hollow that it can carry & resonate the beautiful notes of music properly. As people, we thus need to empty ourselves of ego and self, of all the things that we bring to the table and think we understand, in order to receive the divine music and to carry it forward.

Similarly, a flute needs to be empty on the inside for the player to be able to blow into it and create melodious sounds. This reed flute is what Rumi sings about and identifies himself with in his famous opening to the Masnavi, the section known as The Song of the Reed. Only when we empty ourselves can we become a flute played by God.

As a musician myself, I can easily relate this idea to the practical example of playing together with other people, especially in the context of an improvised jam-session. In order to create spontaneous, beautiful music together, you must take a step back and become passive; to listen to what the other musicians are doing and then do your best to harmonize with what you receive. If you try to impose yourself and your desires on the session, the music will most likely not sound very good. Instead, jamming requires a level of self-denial and emptiness in order to receive and then actively respond in appropriate ways, just like the Daoists talk about effortless and spontaneous action through non-action, or wu wei. The collective harmony of this dance of unified contribution is what leads to a successful jam-session.

In a very practical sense, Inayat Khan includes in his book one spiritual practice that involves concentrating, meditating on hearing something he calls ‘abstract sound’. This is that sound mentioned earlier that lies at the core of reality, the vibration that creates all things, and which is called the sawt-i sarmad. If one is able to accomplish this, the sound will bring with it an overwhelming sense of ecstasy and peace. It is claimed that it was this sound and practice that the Prophet Muhammad experienced in the Hira cave before his first revelation, and that it is this sound that Moses heard on Mount Sinai when he spoke with God.

The sound itself is described as running water, as a swarm of bees, or as the veena, an Indian string instrument and ancestor of the sitar. But to Inayat Khan the core of the sound is the Arabic pronoun Hu, meaning “He”, and being a common way to refer to God, especially in reference to His most transcendent Selfhood.

Related to this, one can also consider the many accounts about how the Prophet Muhammad received his revelations. In mainstream Islamic sources, it is claimed that revelation arrived like the “ringing of a bell, humming of bees or a metal chain dragged across rocks”.

It is interesting to also connect this idea and practice with earlier expressions of a similar kind. Previously, we have explored the writings of the Mughal prince and Sufi Dara Shikoh, who describes an identical practice in a work called Risala-i Haqqnuma, and where he describes the sound in an almost identical way. He calls this the Sultan-i Azkar and describes how it sounds precicely like a kind of hum, or of running water, a bee hive or sometimes the ringing of bells.

Similarly, within the Yoga tradition, especially in what is known as Nada-Yoga or ‘the Yoga of Sound’, there is an almost identical tradition of hearing a sound in connection with reaching a state of samadhi, and that sound, being an expression of the cosmic sound and vibration Om, also known as the Nada Brahman, is described similarly as:

“like the hum of the honey-intoxicated bee, next that of a flute, then of a harp (vina)” - Siva Samhita

… and that this sound when meditated on and heard will bring total absorption.

In this way, music truly is all-encompassing. It is an aspect of the divine itself which manifests as the universe and determines the very harmony and beauty of that universe. But it also governs our human interactions and ways of developing ourselves in relationship with others. It is also, to Khan, as we have seen, the most powerful way to advance on the mystical path, having a way of very directly and profoundly grabbing the soul and taking it beyond itself and to a glimpse of the divine and hopefully toward a fuller embodiment of that universal harmony within the individual self.

Bibliography

Beck, Guy L. (2009). "Sonic Theology: Hinduism and Sacred Sound". University of South Carolina Press.

Huffman, Carl A. (ed.) (2017). "A History of Pythagoreanism". Cambridge University Press.

Inayat Khan, Pir Zia (ed.) (2001). "A Pearl in Wine: Essays on the Life, Music & Sufism of Hazrat Inayat Khan". Omega Publications.

Khan, Inayat (1996). "The Mysticism of Sound & Music". Shambala.

Khan, Inayat (2003). "The Sufi Message: Spiritual Liberty" (Vol. 5). Motilal Banarsidass Publications.

Klavan, Spencer A. (2020). "Music in Ancient Greece: Melody, Rhythm and Life". Bloomsbury Academic.

Kugle, Scott (ed.) (2012). "Sufi Meditation and Contemplation: Timeless Wisdom from Mughal India". Omega Publications. (Includes a translation of the "Risala-i Haqqnuma"/Compass of Truth.

Miner, Allyn (translated by) (2016). "The Minqar-i Musiqar: Hazrat Inayat Khan's classic 1912 work on Indian musical theory & practice". Suluk Press.

Nair, Shankar (2020). "Translating Wisdom: Hindu-Muslim Intellectual Interactions in Early Modern South Asia". University of California Press.

There is no doubt that, on a global scale, the most famous sufi in the world, or the person that most people associate with the word “Sufism”, is the Persian mystic and poet Jalal al-din Rumi.

Rumi’s poetry has been translated into numerous languages and has been one of the best selling poets in the United States and Europe, even 800 years after he lived. In his verses, we find themes of love and heartbreak, relatable stories and profound insights which have touched people worldwide.

At the same time, Rumi is a greatly misunderstood figure. Many people will of course know that he was a so-called “sufi”, from the tradition known as “sufism”. But what does this actually mean? Fewer people are aware of the fact that Rumi was a devoted Muslim, whose poetry is infused with, and can really only be properly understood in the context of, his Islamic intellectual framework.

A lot of the poetry of Rumi that has become so popular, the quotes that you will often see on Instagram posts for instance, is based on translations that have modified the words and message to a major degree, often removing the Islamic and sufi contents entirely. And many of them are just outright fake.

But that isn’t to say that Rumi doesn’t have universal appeal, which he certainly does. His works are incredibly beautiful, regardless of your background. But we do ourselves a disservice when we neglect to understand the actual context in which he writes, the symbolism that he uses and what his colorful words are actually pointing to on a broader level.

Rumi is indeed one of the most popular and influential sufi writers in history, even in the Islamic world. So let’s take some time to get to know this giant of Persian and Mystical literature. Who was Rumi, really? What was the historical context in which he lived and how can we reach a deeper understanding of his religious and spiritual background that helps us better appreciate the literary masterpieces that he composed?

Jalal al-din Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Balkhi was born in the year 1207 in the region known as Khorasan. His nisbah or title al-Balkhi seems to indicate that he was from the city of Balkh in particular. And while it is true that his father and family had a connection with the city of Balkh, it seems possible Rumi himself was born and spent his first years in the city called Vakhsh, in modern Tajikistan, where his parents resided for a couple of years. This region was part of the larger Persianate cultural sphere, and Rumi and his family thus spoke Persian as their native language and took part in that cultural context.

His father, Baha al-din Valad (d. 1231) was a religious scholar of relative renown, and seems to have worked essentially as a preacher and teacher of some of the religious sciences such as fiqh or Islamic Jurisprudence. Baha al-din and his family followed the Hanafi school of Islamic Law, a tradition that his son Rumi would also inherit later on. This, together with the Shafi’i school, were the most prominent in this region at the time, and the Hanafi school is today the largest of the four major schools, as well as often being considered the most “liberal”.

From his surviving writings, such as the Ma’arif, as well as from secondary accounts, it also becomes clear that Baha al-din was a mystic, involved with Sufism and having ecstatic visionary experiences of the divine. And on account of both of these aspects of his career, being a teacher of exoteric sciences but also a sufi shaykh of sorts, he had a modest group of followers or students that often accompanied him.

This already shows that one common narrative of Rumi’s life isn’t entirely accurate. It is often said that Rumi was originally a completely exoterically oriented Muslim scholar and jurist, only practicing the outer requirements of the law, before Shams al-din Tabrizi introduced him to sufism and turned him into an ecstatic mystic. Instead, Sufism or mysticism was already part of his life from the beginning, since his father and many other people around him were directly involved with that tradition.

In any case, the family, including young Jalal al-din, seem to have eventually moved to Samarqand, where Baha al-din ran into some trouble as he would criticize and get into a beef with the ruling elite for being morally and religiously corrupt. And only a few years later, they made another even more significant move, this time leaving the east for good. Probably around the year 1217, when Jalal al-din would have been about 10 years old, they left Samarqand and Khorasan to travel to the west, never to return.

There are various theories and accounts as to why they made this sudden move. A popular version is that Baha al-din and his family/followers saw the looming threat of the Mongol armies that were getting closer and closer, and chose to leave before that would have become… an issue.

This is possible, but the Mongol invasion was still a few years away and it would have been hard to know beforehand that an invasion was in fact going to happen.

Another theory is that Baha al-din’s increasingly bad relationship with the ruling Khwarazmshah dynasty forced him to leave.

It’s hard to say exactly what happened, but what we know for sure is that Baha al-din, parts of his family (including Jalal al-din) and a group of followers did indeed leave the region to travel to the Islamic heartlands in the west.

They visited Baghdad for a while, went on a pilgrimage to Mecca to perform the Hajj, one of the pillars of the Islamic religion, they might have stayed in Syria for a while, and even settled for a couple of years in a city called Larende from around the year 1221. It is here that Jalal al-din came of age, got married and had his first children, including Sultan Valad, who would take over after his father’s death and was instrumental in the founding of the Mevlevi order.

But it was in another place that the family, and Rumi, would find their permanent home when, possibly on the invitation of the Seljuk ruler Ala al-din Kayqubad (d. 1237), they moved to the city of Konya, in what is today Turkey, possibly in the year 1228.

This was a good place to be, being a major political and cultural center of the Seljuk empire, and it allowed Baha al-din to establish himself as a pretty prominent religious authority and teacher.

Now when we read the hagiographies about Rumi and his life, his father Baha al-din is portrayed as a world-renowned religious scholar, the “king of the Ulama” who was sought by people from all over the Islamic world for his expertise in questions of Hanfi law, among other things.

The historical record does not really support this idea though, and is likely an exaggeration after the fact. He was a religious authority, to be sure, had a group of followers, and managed to become quite popular and relatively prominent in Konya in these last years of his life, but probably nowhere near the kind of portrayal we find in the hagiographies. He taught in a prominent madrasa in Konya, and had the authority to issue fatwas - legal opinions - on matters of law and religion. But one of the reasons that they settled in Konya, rather than in one of the more major cities associated with Islamic scholarship such as Baghdad, Damascus or Cairo, is probably that he couldn’t really get any employment there. This would have required a much more accomplished and established person.

Konya, on the other hand, was more on the borders of the Islamic empire. It was a significant center of the Seljuk empire, but nothing like Baghdad in terms of scholarship. Anatolia was a place that had recently been conquered, and much of the population were either still non-Muslims altogether, or recently converted Muslims that didn’t know much about the details of its practices and ideas. This, in other words, was a great place for someone like Baha al-din to be in order to teach religion in a place where the demand was high, especially since he was also a mystic, and incorporated the Sufi aspect into his religious teaching and preaching, something that was rather popular and sought after in that region at the time.

As we all know, this would also be a perfect place for his son Jalal al-din to become an even more prominent figure a few years later. And indeed, it is because he would spend most of the rest of his life in Konya that Rumi is known as… well, Rumi. To most in the Muslim world in history, he wasn’t necessarily known under this name, but rather as Jalal al-din Balkhi or simply as Mawlana or Mevlana - our master. Although we do see some early examples of the name “Mawlana Rumi”. Essentially, he was given this name because of his association with Konya, which was after all part of the wider region known at the time as Rum, or Rome. In other words, the areas that had been ruled by the Eastern Roman or Byzantine empire. So the name Rumi comes from this region of Rum, and thus essentially his name means Jalal al-din the Roman, which is a little funny.

Baha al-Din Valad, the father of Jalal al-din Rumi, unfortunately passed away only about two years after they arrived in Konya, either in 1230 or 1231. Rumi himself would have been around 25 years old at this point, and while apparently already a respected teacher and preacher of sorts, not old enough to take over all of his fathers previous responsibilities.

But just in time, one of Baha al-din’s closest students from the Balkh-region arrived in Konya. This was Borhan al-din Muhaqqiq (d. 1241), at this point an ecstatic sufi master and family friend, who took Jalal al-din under his wing. For the remainder of Borhan al-din’s life, Rumi would remain his student and considered him his shaykh. Burhan al-din first sent Rumi to Syria to properly study the exoteric religious sciences like Law and theology, with renowned teachers. Rumi would spend the majority of the 1230’s in Syria, in places like Aleppo and Damascus, a place that of course had many significant figures, both scholars and mystics, living here at the time.

Once he returned to Konya, he was a significantly learned scholar, surpassing even his father in religious knowledge. And it was at this point that Burhan al-din started to teach Rumi the mystical sufi path. Again, Rumi would have of course been surrounded by Sufism throughout his life, since his father was a sufi shaykh, and thus was “in the know” in various ways. But it was under Burhan al-din that he started traveling on the sufi path proper under a number of years, eventually becoming an accomplished master himself. He would go on several spiritual retreats, fast for long periods of time, and all the other practices associated with sufi training.

About a decade after he arrived, Burhan al-din eventually passed away around the year 1241, but at that point Rumi’s training was already complete, and he would thus start his career proper as an increasingly famous and renowned scholar and mystic.

Rumi was an expert in Hanafi Islamic Law, and would give fatwas, or legal opinions on different matters, teach other students and gained a very favorable reputation. Combining an expertise in exoteric religious sciences as well as his role as a sufi master and shaykh, Rumi eventually surpassed his father in reputation and renown. Just like his father, he was a fantastic preacher and was very popular among the common people. Both himself and other people at the time agree that Rumi was especially skilled at attracting people of different religious backgrounds, particularly Christians, and through his preaching and teaching led them to convert to Islam.

In other words, Rumi was basically on top of the world at this time. He was one of the most popular scholars in Konya, very successful as a teacher and expert on Islamic law, as well as a popular Sufi shaykh and mystic that was reported to perform miracles. So while the often reported version of the story of a purely exoteric worldly scholar isn’t all that accurate, it is true that Rumi was a very public figure at this time, and busied himself with teaching and book-learning on top of his self-negating mysticism.

But then, as we all know, something happened. Something that would turn the scholar Jalal al-din from Balkh into Rumi as we know him.

That something was a man called Shams al-din Tabrizi, who arrived in Konya in November 1244 and would turn Rumi’s life upside down. There are many different accounts of their first meeting, each one more dramatic than the next. Shams apparently settled in a local inn for rice sellers, and an early account of their meeting takes place in a pavilion right outside the inn, as Rumi and his companions were passing by one day. In most accounts, Shams asks a question of Rumi, usually involving the famous ealy sufi Bayazid Bistami. Shams himself, in his surviving writings called the Maqalat, describes their meeting like this:

“The first thing I spoke about with him was this: How is it that Abâyazid did not need to follow [the example of the Prophet], and did not say “Glory be to Thee” or “We worship Thee?”

And Rumi completely understood the full implications of the problem and where it came from and where it was leading to. It made him inebriated on account of his purity of spirit, for his spirit was pure and cleansed and it shone within him. I realized the sweetness of this question from his inebriation, though I had been previously unaware of its sweetness.” - Shams al-Tabrizi

Whatever the case, this initial meeting and short conversation sparks something in Rumi, as well as in Shams, and becomes the starting point for a long spiritual relationship.

Indeed, in some ways this meeting between Rumi and Shams is one of the most significant moments in religious and literary history, as two spiritual giants meet for the first time and begin a relationship that would lead to some of the greatest poetry in history, as well as having a major effect on the future of not only Sufism and Islam, but the entire Islamicate World and beyond.

This is one of the great love stories of the world. Not necessarily romantic or physical love, but a spiritual one. Rumi and Shams are inseparable from this moment on; some reports say that they would shut themselves into a room for weeks or months in deep spiritual discussion. Rumi goes from being a public scholar and teacher to a kind of recluse. From a man of books and conceptual learning to an ecstatic and intoxicated mystic.

Rumi is reported by Shams to have said:

“Since I have become acquainted with you these books have become lifeless in my eyes.”

It is after the arrival of Shams that Rumi discovers the power of music as a spiritual practice, in the form known as samá, a sufi practice that stemmed back many centuries. Shams, Rumi and his disciples would hold such rituals of audition regularly and it became a significant aspect of his mysticism. Rumi’s love for music as a spiritual practice is widely known and famous, and he would often move to the music in a kind of whirling meditative motion, spinning around with arms extended. Franklin D. Lewis says:

“Sama was an activity for the true men of God which liberated Rumi from the austere ways of self-renunciation and gave him a joyous vehicle for

expressing his mystical rapture” - Franklin D. Lewis

It even seems that Rumi was himself a musician, and that he played the rabab, a string instrument played with a bow that still survives. He mentions the rabab in many of his poems in a loving way, and his son Sultan Valad even wrote a poem called the rababname, mirroring Rumi’s song of the Reed.

And this love of music and the particular kind of sama and dance that Rumi, Shams and the disciples would perform was to have a great effect on the Mevlevi order later.

It is also in this period that Rumi, very significantly, starts to compose poetry for the first time.

In many ways, the reason Rumi wrote poetry was to relay the teachings of Shams. As we saw earlier, Rumi was exceptionally skilled at communicating with the common people, whereas Shams ecstatic teachings were hard for people to grasp. So Rumi saw his mission as one where he would use those oratory and literary skills to convey the truths of Shams, to be the moon that reflected the light of the sun, so to say. Rumi says in a poem:

“Shams-e Tabriz, through your sun we shine just like the moon”

This all being a pun on the fact that the name Shams in Arabic literally means “sun”. Shams himself says:

“This Mowlânâ is like moonlight. The eye cannot take in the sun of my being, but it can take in the moon. The extreme brightness of the rays make the eye unable to tolerate the sun. The moon cannot reach the sun, unless the sun reaches out to the moon.” - Shams al-din Tabrizi

Indeed, the great divan or Rumi, his collection of poems, was given the title divan-e shams or diwan shams al-tabrizi, that is: The Divan of Shams; as the whole work is dedicated to this master and often takes on his poetic persona.

The relationship between Rumi and Shams is really unique and interesting. In many ways, Rumi took on Shams as his Master, a shaykh who guided him to full absorption in God and to the utmost stations of the mystical path. But at the same time, Rumi was already himself a Sufi master when the two met, and Shams seems to have also learned a lot from Rumi. In other words, they were kind of spiritual companions of a sort, who lift each other up to the heights of spiritual attainment.

“My thoughts and reflections inspired by you,

as though I were your phrases and expression” - Rumi

But who was this Shams that had such an impact on the life of Jalal al-din? Well, as his name suggests, he was from the city of Tabriz in northwestern Iran, a place that was full of mystical fervor at the time.

Up until a couple of decades ago, this was basically all we knew about him. All we had to go on were mentions of him in the writings of Rumi or his followers, thus being mostly restricted to the time after he arrived in Konya.

But we now know much more, partly because we have actual writings by Shams himself, which can help us understand the larger context here.

Shams al-Tabrizi is often portrayed as a kind of wandering madman. A poor illiterate yet enlightened dervish without religious education that knew nothing of books but was simply an ecstatic experiential mystic.

However, now we know that this isn’t that accurate. It seems, indeed, that Shams was a highly educated man. Just like Rumi himself, he would have studied the religious sciences of Islam (except in this case the Shafi’i school rather than Hanafi) and was deeply familiar with the literary sufi tradition and its history.

While from Tabriz originally, Shams seems to have traveled all across the Islamic world to find a spiritual companion that could match his own mystical attainments. He was a mystic, for sure, and met and spent time with several mystics, none of whom he considered accomplished enough to be his teacher or companion.

He seems to have spent a significant amount of time in Damascus, where he would have met important sufi figures, including a person he refers to as Shaykh Muhammad, who might indeed be the famous Ibn ‘Arabi. Shams often praises these figures and their character, but still claims that none of them quite did it for him. Except, of course, until he arrived in Konya and met Rumi, who finally made his wish come true.

They had a very close relationship for the short time that Shams was in Konya. But all things weren’t well. Indeed, many of Rumi’s followers developed a strong jealousy over the fact that Shams was given such a high status, basically making Rumi neglect his public role as a teacher and spending time with them. On top of this, Shams appeared to them to be just some poor dervish without nearly the scholarly prowess of their Master. How could he possibly deserve all this praise and treatment?

And many of the disciples made these feelings known. Some accounts even state that they might have straight up threatened Shams with violence if he didn’t leave.

Whatever the reason, one day Shams is suddenly gone. He had left Konya behind, throwing Rumi into complete despair. He stopped composing poetry, became even more of a recluse and was generally very distraught.

His followers realized that things had backfired. Instead of bringing their Master back to them, the disappearance of Shams only made things worse. Eventually, they got word that Shams had gone to Damascus, and Rumi sent his son Sultan Valad on a mission to retrieve him, which he did.

Shams once again returns to Konya, things are much better, they celebrate by holding sama sessions and Rumi once again composes poetry. But all things must pass, as they say, and only about a year later, Shams disappears once again, but this time for good. Rumi sends several missions to find him in Syria and other places, but no one can find a single trace of him.

Eventually, Rumi has to give up and realize that his sun was gone, and that he now had to find that light within himself instead of in an external person. His spiritual training was, in a way, finally complete.

There are many theories about what happened to Shams. Some, such as the chronicler Aflaki, recount a version where Rumi’s followers had once again become jealous of Shams, and this time actually had him murdered. In some versions of this story, Rumi’s own son - Ala al-din - might have been a key figure behind this plot.

Another version, however, is less dramatic. Shams seems to have expressed a desire to leave shortly before disappearing. A key aspect of the Sufi path is when the student has to leave the shaykh behind and complete his training on his own. In this case, though, Rumi couldn’t leave because he had so many responsibilities as a teacher in Konya, so Shams might have taken the decision to instead leave Rumi as the last part of his teachings.

We really don’t know what happened to Shams. Some claim he might have gone back home to Tabriz and died there. But there are, as we saw, many other theories as well. One common claim is that he died in the city of Khoy, in Iran, and there is indeed a tomb complex dedicated to him there.

We might never know the full story, but what we know for sure is the incredible impact this man had on Rumi. From his final disappearance in 1247 or 1248, Rumi now takes on the role as the spiritual giant that he is known for. Shams had turned him from a mystically oriented scholar to an ecstatic lover. His following in Konya, the proto-Mevlevis in other words, grew to a significant size and he would have had incredible power, even on a semi-political level. It is also after this final disappearance of Shams that Rumi composes the majority of the poetry that we all know and love.

To the wider world, Rumi is of course famous as one of the greatest love poets in history, and his verse is undeniably magnificent. He was greatly influenced by earlier Persian sufi poetry such as that of Sana’i (d. 1141) and Fariduddin ‘Attar (d. 1230), the author of the famous “Conference of the Birds”. Indeed, there is even a famous story that Rumi met Attar as a young boy when he and his father was traveling east from Balkh, but this is most likely a legend more than historical fact.

In any case, Rumi’s literary output is very impressive, not only taking inspiration from these earlier poets but also being very original and unique himself. He truly had a remarkable skill at conveying the sometimes complex teachings of Islam and Sufism to a general audience, and his words are able to touch people regardless of their cultural or religious background. This was a very useful skill in Konya at the time, with a large non-Muslim population, as well as recent converts with limited knowledge of the religion. Even during his own lifetime, Rumi was not just popular and renowned among his fellow Muslims, but also by Christians and Jews living in the region at the time.

In terms of his poetry, there are two major works to consider. The first is his divan/diwan that we have already mentioned, often going under titles such as the divan-e shams, divan of shams al-tabrizi or the divan-i kabir (“the great divan”). Now, a diwan isn’t necessarily a coherent “work” per se, but a full collection of poetry. In other words, this is a work that contains all or most of Rumi’s individual poems in various styles and forms. As the title suggests, the work as a whole is dedicated to Shams, and many of the poems either take on the poetic persona of Shams or are dedicated to praising or talking about this master, often in an even surprisingly devotional tone. Just listen to this:

“You are my sky, I am the earth, dumbfounded:

what things you sprout from my heart each moment!

I’m parched earth, rain down on me drops of grace,

for your water makes the earth grow rosy

What does the earth know what you sow in it?

you made it pregnant, you know what it bears

every atom pregnant with your mysteries –

you make it writhe a while in pangs of birth

What marvels writhe to birth through the world-womb:

An I am God, the call Glory to me!” - Rumi (Divan) (Translation Lewis)

The divan contains over 5000 poems and 44000 verses. About 3000 of them are so-called ghazals, a popular form of poetry in Persian, and another 2000 are ruba’iyat or quatrains. There are also a few Qasidas and other poetic genres. The language also varies, with the vast majority of the poems of course being in Persian, but a few are in Arabic, and even with instances of Turkish and Greek.

Needless to say, this is an incredible collection, containing some of the most famous lines of poetry in history. It deals with all kinds of topics, but with some more central themes such as love. Love is one of the key concepts for Rumi, and it isn’t for nothing that he is seen as such a great love poet. But this love is more complex than many might imagine. Primarily, when Rumi talks about love he is talking about love of God, and the love that exists between God and Creation, a love that is the thread that keeps the cosmos together and which pulls the mystic towards his God, and toward the essential unity of reality. Now, that isn’t to say that worldly love, such as love between spouses, is irrelevant to this poetry. Poets like Rumi don’t make a clear distinction between metaphysical/divine love and human love. It is all the same love. Human love becomes like a manifestation, or expression of the more universal divine love that is at the core of his message. So his poetry can often be read in different ways and on different levels of meaning, all of which are often true at the same time, which is what makes his poetry so accessible.

But the second major poetic work, and probably the one that is the most renowned worldwide, is a more coherent and unified one. It is an epic narrative poem called the Masnavi-e Ma’navi, often known under the shorter title Masnavi. The full title means something like “Spiritual couplets’ ‘, the word Masnavi simply being the name of the particular poetic style that it is written in - Masnavi or Mathnawi - which is essentially rhyming couplets. It is the same poetic form that ‘Attar’s “Conference of the Birds” was written in, among many other famous poems at the time.

But it goes to show just how influential and loved Rumi’s poem is that it is universally known as the Masnavi. Indeed, this work has been so celebrated in the Muslim world to the point that it has even been called “The Qur’an in Persian”. And it is in some ways a commentary on the Qur’an, or on the general teachings of Islam as understood through Rumi’s Sufism. It deals with all kinds of religious and spiritual topics, from law to theology and spiritual practice, but through accessible poetry in the form of stories, fables and many other fascinating and entertaining yet profound narratives and sections.

The Masnavi was composed sometime during the last ten years of Rumi’s life, from around 1260-1273. It was composed at the request of Rumis (at the time) senior disciple and successor Hosam al-din Chelebi (d. 1284), who was also present during the composing itself. Rumi and Hosam al-din would sit together, Rumi would recite the poetry and Hosam al-din would write it down and read it back to him. For many years this process went on, which isn’t surprising when you consider the length of the work. The Masnavi consists of six books with about 25,000 verses, a truly epic poem and possibly one of the greatest literary achievements in history.

But like we said, Rumi was not just a poet but also a famous and loved preacher. And there are prose works attributed to him as well. In particular, there is a work entitled the fihi ma fihi, which essentially means “In it what is in it”, and is a collection of sermons or “discourses” of Rumi delivered to his students and written down.

While not as famous as his poetry, this is still a significant work, and features important details about his teachings and biography in a more straightforward prose form. We can tell from reading these discourses, even just in translation, that he must have been quite a compelling speaker.

But what are all those teachings that he conveyed in his poetry? What is the philosophy of Rumi? The teachings and wisdoms that we find in books like the Masnavi or Divan, and which have captivated so many people worldwide?

In many ways, Rumi represents a certain flavor of Sufism that emphasizes a particular concept - that of love. We already talked about this a bit earlier, but love is indeed one of the most recurring and important themes in the poetry and the practice of Islam that he presents. This love, as we saw, is both on a practical, mystical and even metaphysical level.

He was a sufi, and so his focus is on many of those common and familiar sufi themes that we have explored in earlier episodes. The sufi path is one of ascending stations where you are guided by a shaykh (master) on gradually higher levels of intimacy with God. Eventually, on the highest level, the mystic reaches what is known as fana or fana fi’llah - Annihilation in God - where the person becomes completely effaced in the reality of the divine and experiences the true oneness of reality or God. This is what is sought by the sufi and described in so many of the poems.

“You are your own shadow - become annihilated in the rays of the Sun! How long will you look at your shadow? Look also at His light!” - Diwan (Chittick)

“The world is snow and ice, and Thou art the burning summer - no trace of it remains, oh King, when Thy traces appear.” - Diwan (Chittick)

The realization of this oneness and a direct experience of God is essentially hindered by a single thing - the nafs, often translated as ego or self. It is our idea and attachment to the idea of a separate individual self, and all the cravings and wants that result from that self, that keeps us from experiencing God and of uniting with God, or rather of realizing that essential oneness. This idea of the nafs and the path to fight against and annihilate it is a key theme in Rumi. He even identifies the nafs with Iblis, or the devil. In his Discourses, Rumi explains it like this:

“In His presence there is no room for two egos (do anâ). You say “ego,” and He “ego”? Either you die in His presence, or He will die in your presence, so that no duality may remain. Yet it is impossible that He should die, either in the universe or in the mind, for “He is the living, who does not die.”[K25:58] He has grace in such measure that, were it possible, He would die for you to remove the duality. But since His death is impossible, you die so that He may become manifest in you and the duality be lifted.” (Fih 24–5)

“With God there is no room for two egos. You say ‘I’, and He says ‘I’. In order for this duality to disappear, either you must die for Him, or He for you. It is not possible, however, for Him to die - either phenomenally or conceptually - because ‘He is the Ever-living who dieth not’. He is so gracious, however, that if it were possible He would die for you in order that the duality might disappear. Since it is not possible for Him to die, you must die that He may be manifested to you, thus eliminating the duality.” - Rumi (Fihi ma fihi) (Thackston)

The whole process of the Sufi path, the fasting, retreats, renunciation, dhikr and listening to music, is to transcend this self or ego. Over the course of the spiritual journey, the nafs is gradually burnt away until nothing of it remains, and only then can God appear. True Selfhood lies in the experience of no-self, of being nothing at all. As he said, in the realm of the divine, in the realm of unity, there can be no duality, no “you” and “I” but only the all-encompassing Reality of the Divine. Rumi himself refers to this burning of the self when he says:

“Three short phrases tell the story of my life:

I was raw, I got cooked, I burned”

“From the beginning, when I heard the story of being in love,

I wore out my soul, heart, and eyes in its path.

I said, ‘Perhaps the lover and beloved are two.

But both were one, and I was seeing double.” - Rumi (Diwan) (Gamard)

ز اولَ كه حديثِ عاشقى بِشْنودم جان و دل و ديده در رهش فرْسودن

گفتم كه: مگر عاشقَ و معشوق دُواند خود هر در يكى بود، من احْول بودم

According to the Qur’an and Islamic theology, we were once united in pre-existence, before God’s existentiating command, after which multiplicity and the phenomenal appeared. Thus we have become separated from God, snatched away from that original state of unity, which is the cause of our suffering. Or rather, it is our ideas and attachment to the false idea of an independent self that causes trouble, and once we are able to transcend that self, to forget it completely, we can find the essential oneness hiding underneath.

It is precisely this theme that Rumi talks about in the opening lines to the massive Masnavi. A section that has become known in its own right as The Song of the Reed, and could be argued to be the most famous section of Persian poetry in history. In these couplets, Rumi uses the image of the ney flute, a popular instrument in the Middle East and Central Asia, and its sorrowful wailing tones as a mirroring of the human cry of longing to be united once again with God. Just as the ney flute longs to return to the reed bed from which it came, the human longs to return to unity. To give you an idea of the beauty of this poetry, I think it is worthwhile to hear it in its original Persian, so that we can experience the melody and rhyming. The Masnavi, and the poetry of Rumi in general, is very musical in nature, which really comes through in the original language. So here is the first 18 lines of the Masnavi, or “the song of the reed”, read by ****, with accompanying translation:

“Listen to this reed as it is grieving;
it tells the story of our separations.

‘Since I was severed from the bed of reeds,
in my cry men and women have lamented.

I need the breast that’s torn to shreds by parting
to give expression to the pain of heartache.

Whoever finds himself left far from home
looks forward to the day of his reunion.

I was in grief in all society,
I joined with those of sad and happy state.

Each one assumed he was my bosom friend,
but none sought out my secrets from within me.

My secret is not far from my lament,
but eye and ear have no illumination.

There’s no concealment of the soul and body,
yet no one has the power to see the soul.

The reed-flute’s sound is fire, not human breath.
Whoever does not have this fire, be gone!

It is the fire of love that’s in the reed,
the turbulence of love that’s in the wine.

The reed is friend to all who are lovelorn;
its melodies have torn our veils apart.

Whoever saw a poison and a cure,
a mate and longing lover like the reed?

The reed tells of the road that runs with blood;
it tells the tales of Majnun’s passionate love.

This sense is sanctioned only to the senseless:
the tongue can trade with nothing but the ear.

In our lamenting, days turned into nights,
the days were taken up with burning pains.

If days are gone, say “Go! There is no fear,
and stay, O You who are uniquely holy!”

Save for the fish, all are filled up by water:
the day is long for him who has no bread.

The raw can’t grasp the state of one who’s cooked,
then words must be cut short - and so farewell!”

بشنو این نی چون شکایت می‌‌کند از جدایی‌‌ها حکایت می‌‌کند

کز نیستان تا مرا ببریده‌‌اند در نفیرم مرد و زن نالیده‌‌اند

سینه خواهم شرحه شرحه از فراق تا بگویم شرح درد اشتیاق

هر کسی کاو دور ماند از اصل خویش باز جوید روزگار وصل خویش

من به هر جمعیتی نالان شدم جفت بد حالان و خوش حالان شدم

هر کسی از ظن خود شد یار من از درون من نجست اسرار من

سر من از ناله‌‌ی من دور نیست لیک چشم و گوش را آن نور نیست

تن ز جان و جان ز تن مستور نیست لیک کس را دید جان دستور نیست

آتش است این بانگ نای و نیست باد هر که این آتش ندارد نیست باد

آتش عشق است کاندر نی فتاد جوشش عشق است کاندر می ‌‌فتاد

نی حریف هر که از یاری برید پرده‌‌هایش پرده‌‌های ما درید

همچو نی زهری و تریاقی که دید همچو نی دمساز و مشتاقی که دید

نی حدیث راه پر خون می‌‌کند قصه‌‌های عشق مجنون می‌‌کند

محرم این هوش جز بی‌‌هوش نیست مر زبان را مشتری جز گوش نیست

در غم ما روزها بی‌‌گاه شد روزها با سوزها همراه شد

روزها گر رفت گو رو باک نیست تو بمان ای آن که چون تو پاک نیست

هر که جز ماهی ز آبش سیر شد هر که بی‌‌روزی است روزش دیر شد

درنیابد حال پخته هیچ خام پس سخن کوتاه باید و السلام

A truly remarkable piece of literature that manages to capture so many aspects of Sufi thought and Rumi’s teachings in a few short lines. Just like the ney flute is hollow in order to allow the breath of the player to create the music, so the individual must empty himself of his self until he is completely empty, and it is only then that God’s breath or love can enter and course through the person, creating a similar music to the ney in its wailing.

In the last, eighteenth, couplet, Rumi says that “words must be cut short”, and this is another important aspect of his thought, and that of Sufism in general. This knowledge and experience of God that Rumi is describing and the mystic seeks, is not a knowledge that can be put into words, or understood through concepts. In this sense, Rumi isn’t interested in philosophy or the wisdoms that can be learned through books. That kind of knowledge, conceptual knowledge, often known as ‘ilm in Arabic and Persian, is severely limited and can never give us knowledge of God. Instead, the kind of knowledge a mystic like Rumi seeks is something else. It is something often called ma’arifa in the tradition, which is sometimes translated as “gnostic knowledge” or “mystical knowledge”. This is not knowledge learned through words but intuited or directly experienced through kashf or literally “unveiling”. The veils of illusion, of independent self and all its acquired “knowledge”, are ripped away to where nothing remains, and in that darkness of annihilation one directly experiences the truth of oneness, a truth completely beyond words or concepts.

“Oh union with Thee is the root of all joys!

For these are all forms, but that is meaning.” - Rumi (Diwan) (Translation Chittick)

Notice here also the return of that central theme of Rumi’s regarding the difference between form and meaning. He also says:

“I am not me, you are not you, and you are not me.

Yet I am me, you are you, and you are me as well.

O idol of Khotan, with you I am such

That I am in doubt whether I am you or you are me!” - Rumi (Diwan) (Gamard)

نى من منم و نى تو تُوبى، نى تو منى هم من منم و هم تو توبى، هم تو منى

من با تو چُنان، ای نگارِ خُتنی کاندر غلطم، که من تُوم يا تو منى

In the sufi tradition, another word is used for this kind of knowledge which is highly useful and which I have employed on several occasions in the past, and that is the word dhawq or literally “tasting”. Mystical knowledge is like tasting, you can never know what a piece of chocolate tastes like until you taste it, regardless of how much it was described to you with words before.

And indeed, that central concept of love is another great metaphor, it is love that burns away the nafs, it is love that imparts that true knowledge. And just like ma’arifa, love is something that we often have a very hard time putting into words, but which we have all experienced regardless, at some point.

“The lover’s suffering’s like no other suffering:

love is the astrolabe of God’s own mysteries.

No matter whether love is of this world

or of the next, it steals us to that world.

Whatever words I say to explain this love,

when I arrive at love, I am ashamed.

Though language gives a clear account of love,

yet love beyond all language is the clearer.

The pen had gone at breakneck speed in writing,

but when it came to love it split in two.

The explaining mind sleeps like an ass in mud,

for love alone explains love and the lover.” (Masnavi, Book 1: 110-115) (Alan Williams)

علت عاشق ز علتها جداست عشق اصطرلاب اسرار خداست

عاشقی گر زین سر و گر ز ان سر است عاقبت ما را بدان سر رهبر است

هر چه گویم عشق را شرح و بیان چون به عشق آیم خجل گردم از آن‌‌

گر چه تفسیر زبان روشن‌‌گر است لیک عشق بی‌‌زبان روشن‌‌تر است

چون قلم اندر نوشتن می‌‌شتافت چون به عشق آمد قلم بر خود شکافت

عقل در شرحش چو خر در گل بخفت شرح عشق و عاشقی هم عشق گفت

Love for Rumi also extends outward. To love God is to love God’s creation, your fellow human beings, animals and plants. Rumi is described in the biographies as a remarkably kind and loving person, and to basically everyone. We even find Shams being a little concerned about just how nice Rumi was to everyone. But this was part of his essential worldview. When we read his works, Rumi comes across as a very tolerant, understanding and open-minded person, even toward those of other creeds within Islam and even other religions. But this also needs to be significantly nuanced.

“If you have lost heart

in the Path of Love,

Flee to me without delay:

I am a fortress invincible.” - Rumi (Diwan) (Translation Chittick)

We have to remember that Rumi was a devout Muslim. He performed all the practices expected of a Muslim such as the prayers and fasting etc. And he time and time again emphasizes the importance of doing these things and of following the Islamic law. As we saw, he was himself an expert and authority on Hanafi law, so this is hardly surprising. For sure, he saw Islam as the only fully true religion, the Qur’an as the last revelation to mankind and Muhammad as the final Prophet. He also followed Sunni Islam in particular, and wrote critically about Shi’ism in places. In other words, Rumi was Muslim. There is really no denying or even debating this question. Today he has often been construed as some universalist mystic where religious adherence isn’t important. This is simply a complete misrepresentation and oversimplification of his person and teachings, and is often supported by the many fake Rumi quotes that spread on the internet. Rumi saw himself as a Muslim, and Islam was to him the one religion to be followed.

With that said, however, there is also no denying that he was what many today would refer to as “tolerant” of religious differences. He had a certain eccumenical approach to such questions and seems to have stayed away from sectarianism as much as possible.

This stems partly from Rumi’s strong insistence on the inner spiritual meanings and truths behind all religious observances, the so-called ma’ani (?). He often criticizes other Muslims for getting too bogged down in the formalities and observances of rituals while forgetting or neglecting their inner meanings, which are the true purpose of religion. Outward practices are like a shell, and the inner meanings are the core.

He uses a famous example here about the elephant standing in a dark room, an analogy that seems to come from India originally. Multiple people enter this dark room to figure out what the object is. One person touches the leg and says it is something like a tree, another one grabs the trunk and says it’s like a snake, a third one the stomach and says it is like a brick wall.

All of the men are describing the same object, but their limited perspectives means they also get a portion of the whole truth, thus their conception is somewhat distorted and colored by that perspective.

Similarly, there is one Truth of religion, which many different traditions describe in various ways, none of whom can fully see the elephant for what it is, but still describe it through their perspective.

In some ways, each person has their own way to God, and it is the intention and inner state of the worshiper that is most important, without neglecting the outward aspect.

“For Hindis, Hindi is for praise of God:

the praise of God in Sindi is for Sindis.

I am not sanctified by their laudations!

• it’s they who are made holy, strewing pearls.

We look at neither languages nor words,

but at the soul and at the inner state,

Inspecting hearts, We see if they are humble,

although the spoken words are not so humble.” (Masnavi 2:1762-65) Translation Williams

هندوان را اصطلاح هند مدح سندیان را اصطلاح سند مدح

من نگردم پاک از تسبیحشان پاک هم ایشان شوند و در فشان

ما زبان را ننگریم و قال را ما روان را بنگریم و حال را

ناظر قلبیم اگر خاشع بود گر چه گفت لفظ ناخاضع رود

One of the best examples of this idea is in another story from the Masnavi about Moses and the shepherd, which this quote is a section from. In this story, Moses is walking along and sees a shepherd in deep prayer and worship, but he worships in a unique way:

“O Lord my God,

Where are You, that I may become Your servant

that I may sew Your shoes and comb your hair?

That I may wash Your clothes and kill your lice,

and bring Your milk to You, Your Eminence” (Masnavi, Williams)

تو کجایی تا شوم من چاکرت چارقت دوزم کنم شانه سرت

جامه‏ات شویم شپشهایت کشم شیر پیشت آورم ای محتشم

Talking about God in such anthropomorphic ways is of course unacceptable to Moses, who harshly scolds the shepherd for his behavior.

“You’ve sunk a long way down!

No Muslim you! You’ve turned into a heathen!

What piffle’s this? What blasphemy and guff!

Go stuff some cotton wool into your mouth!” (Masnavi)

گفت موسی های خیره‏سر شدی خود مسلمان ناشده کافر شدی

این چه ژاژست و چه کفر است و فشار پنبه‏ای اندر دهان خود فشار

The Shepherd is ashamed, apologizes and disappears into the desert. But at this point, God speaks to Moses and explains that it is he who had acted unjustly. Although the prayers of the shepherd were flawed because of anthropomorphism, by scolding him Moses had only taken him further away from God, creating separation instead of union.

“You have repelled from us Our loyal servant!

Did you come to create a sense of union,

or did you come to generate division?

Do not touch separation if you can,

‘For Me the worst of all things is divorce.’

I have consigned a way for every one

To every one a different idiom.

For him it’s praise, for you disparagement,

for him it’s honey, for you it’s poison.” (Masnavi)

وحی آمد سوی موسی از خدا بنده‏ی ما را ز ما کردی جدا

تو برای وصل کردن آمدی نی برای فصل کردن آمدی

تا توانی پا منه اندر فراق أبغض الأشیاء عندی الطلاق

هر کسی را سیرتی بنهاده‏ام هر کسی را اصطلاحی داده‏ام

در حق او مدح و در حق تو ذم در حق او شهد و در حق تو سم

Love of God with flawed outer practice is better than no worship or love at all. Moses is ashamed and returns to the shepherd, who turns out to be doing great, having learned from the experience, becoming inspired in his despair to go beyond all these dualities and find annihilation himself.

This story really encapsulates this central aspect of Rumi’s teaching - that it is love that is at the center of worship and of reality. It is love and the state of the heart that binds the human to God and it is through love that we reach the divine, a love that is all-encompassing. Loving worship of God even comes before outer ritual practices. It is the goal that is prioritized, not the way there. Rumi, unlike many others in his day, isn’t focused on the formalities of the law, but on the state of the soul and heart - it is this that truly matters.

In some ways, love even transcends religion and religious laws. We shouldn’t misunderstand this to mean a rejection of the law, but rather that love is universal, and in a state of complete loving absorption in God and in union, one transcends all multiplicity, including religious divisions.

“The faith of love is separate from all others:

for lovers, faith and piety are God.” (Masnavi 2:1774)

ملت عشق از همه دینها جداست عاشقان را ملت و مذهب خداست

There are many religions and spiritual paths in the world, and Islam is the one that will fully lead to salvation according to Rumi, but for most the goal is the same: God.

“Every saintly friend and prophet has a path,

but all the paths that lead to God are one” (Masnavi, 1:3099, Williams)

هر نبی و هر ولی را مسلکی است لیک تا حق می‌‌برد جمله یکی است

Or:

“Beyond kufr and Islam

there is a desert plain,

in that middle space our passions reign.

When the gnostic arrives there

he’ll prostrate himself,

not kufr, not Islam nor is there any space in that domain.” - Rumi (Translation by Sharghzade/Persian poetics)

Ultimately, the world is a unity; truth is One regardless of sectarian divisions. It is human words and concepts that create division and conflict.

“Division in mankind is born of names:

when names reach meaning, there is harmony” (Masnavi, 2:3696, Williams)

اختلاف خلق از نام اوفتاد چون به معنی رفت آرام اوفتاد

In these words we can certainly sense a person who is disinterested in sectarianism. Even though he was clearly a Sunni Muslim and was devoted to that particular path, his writings constantly remind us that beyond any such conflict or disagreements there is a singular Truth, the truth of Love and Unity. Rumi calls on the listeners to come to that place of love, regardless of who they are. In one of the most famous and often quoted poems:

“Come again, come again

whatever you are come again,

if you are a kafir or idol-worshiper come again.

This home of ours is not a home of hopelessness

even if you’ve repented one hundred times, come again.” - Rumi (Translation by Sharghzadeh/Persian Poetics)

In relation to some of these ideas, many have connected the thought of Rumi with that of his famous older contemporary Ibn ‘Arabi, and his doctrine which later became known as wahdat al-wujud or ‘the unity of being’. As we saw, it is quite likely that Rumi knew of Ibn ‘Arabi and that he might have met him when he lived in Damascus. Rumi was also friends with and lived in the same city as Ibn ‘Arabi’s chief disciple Sadr al-din al-Qunawi. But as scholars like William Chittick have convincingly argued, there is little reason to think that Ibn ‘Arabi’s ideas had any direct influence on Rumi. Although there are similarities, there are also many significant differences, as Rumi’s writings lack many of the characteristic teachings and vocabulary of Ibn ‘Arabi.

In terms of his metaphysics and philosophy, another one of the most central key themes for Rumi is the distinction he draws between form - sura - and meaning - ma’na.

The world that we experience, the world of multiplicity, is a kind of illusion. It is a dream, a veil over reality through forms that hide the meaning behind it. Most people only see the forms of the world, the surface level foam on the ocean, or the dust in the wind, and they never realize that all these forms are pointing to the hidden realities, or reality, behind it all. They are the outer manifestation of that hidden meaning. William Chittick explains:

“Ultimately, meaning is that thing as it is known to God Himself. And since God is beyond any sort of multiplicity, in the last analysis the meaning of all things is God.” - William Chittick

In other words, behind the illusion and veil of multiplicity, there is a unity or oneness, namely God. The world as we know it is, according to Rumi, like a shadow:

“Form is shadow, meaning the Sun” (Masnavi) (Chittick)

But this isn’t gnosticism. Rumi is not a complete denier or the physical world. As we have seen, all of reality is pervaded by a kind of oneness or unity. The forms are the manifestations of the meaning, it is only our misunderstanding that creates trouble. Chittick again:

“Form and meaning are inextricably connected: form derives from meaning, and meaning manifests itself as form. Since the two are the outward and inward aspects of a single reality, each is important in its own way. But for most people, the danger lies in giving too much importance to form and not understanding that it derives its existence and significance from meaning.” - Chittick

And this is where we find some of those similarities between Rumi and thinkers like Ibn ‘Arabi- that the two seemingly hold to what many would perceive as a kind of monistic worldview. Just like for Ibn ‘Arabi, Rumi seems to imply that ultimately there is only God, and all other things are a kind of illusion. At the core of reality is a unity or oneness hiding beneath the multiplicity of apparent existence or form. This kind of idea can be found all over Rumi’s work, for example in the very opening section of the Masnavi, which says:

“The lover is a veil, all is Beloved

Beloved lives. The lover is a corpse.” (Masnavi, 1:30-31)

جمله معشوق است و عاشق پرده‌‌ای زنده معشوق است و عاشق مرده‌‌ای

Or in the Diwan, where he says:

“My soul and yours have been essentially one,

As well as my appearance and yours, and my hiddenness and yours.

Only for the sake of [others’] understanding did I say, ‘Mine and yours’.

Since in reality there is no ‘me’ and ‘you’ in my interior and yours.” - Rumi (Diwan) (Gamard)

در اصْل يكى بُدست جانِ من و تو پَيداى من و تو و نهانِ من و تو

خود ازپیِ فهْم گفتم آن من و تو چون نيست من و تو، در مِيانِ من و تو

We must be careful to not interpret these ideas as crude pantheism, though. There is always a clear distinction between God and creation in a sense, and Rumi, just like his fellow Sufis are always very careful to not say that God is ever incarnated in the human being in any way, or that it is a situation where two essences become one. He makes this clear in one of the quatrains from the diwan:

“As long as the servant of God does not become absolutely extinguished of self,

The Unity of God does not become verified by him.

Unity is not the descent of God into you, it is you not-being.

For something false does not become true merely by idle boasting.” - Rumi (Diwan) (Gamard) (p. 575)

تا بنده ز خود فانى مُطلق نشود تَوْحيد بنزْد او مُحقَّق نشود

تَوحيد حُلول نيست، ناْ بودنِ تُست ورنى، بگزاف باطِلى حق نشود

Or in another quatrain:

“Anyone who ties something untied into a knot

Laughs at his own condition and the condition of the world.

They speak words about union and separation, yet

How can something that was never separated be joined?” - Rumi (Diwan) (Gamard)

هر كاو بگشاده گرهی می بندد بر حالِ خود و حالِ جهان می خندد

گويند سُخن زِ وصْل و هِجْران آخِر چيزى كه جُدا نگشت، چون پيوندد

But there is no denying, as is clear from these same verses, that there are many indications in Rumi’s writing pointing to what we can semi-problematically refer to as a kind of monism. It doesn’t help that many of the most major commentaries of the Masnavi were done from the perspective of Ibn ‘Arabi’s school, further solidifying that kind of interpretation on the poems. Rumi was his own person, with unique ideas that he inherited from his Iranian form of Sufism, but there are clearly many parallels here.

Jalal al-din Muhammad al-Balkhi, known widely as Mawlana Rumi, passed away in 1273 at just over 65 years old. His funeral was attended by scores of people in the city, not only fellow Muslims but Christians and Jews, young and old, poor people and the political leaders, all of whom mourned the loss of a saint and spiritual giant that impacted just about everyone. The funeral prayers were led by another major sufi figure - Sadr al-din Qunawi (d. 1274) - and eventually a major shrine was erected on the site of Rumi’s burial, which still stands today as a centerpiece of the city of Konya.

Clearly, by the time he died, Rumi was already a major figure in various respects, and he left behind a legacy of both students and devoted admirers, but also the massive output of poetry that we have already mentioned. Poetry that would still be read and admired around the world 800 years later.

The significant group of followers and students that he had established, his “school” of Sufism, so to say, was first led by Hosam al-din, the aforementioned disciple central to the composition of the Masnavi. But eventually leadership of the brotherhood eventually went to Rumi’s son Sultan Valad (d. 1312), who would become a key figure in the development of his fathers community into a proper Sufi order.

Sultan Valad wrote several important works himself, including poetry. But it must be hard to have to follow someone like Rumi with that responsibility. In any case, it is in these succeeding years and decades after Mawlana’s death that we see the development of the Mevlevi sufi order, based on Rumi’s teachings and lineage, which is today famous around the world and has been one of the most influential sufi orders in history.

The Mevlevi order is very much based on the personality, teachings and practices of Rumi. It emphasizes love as a key driving force and takes an approach to Sufism that is decidedly “intoxicated” or ecstatic. Rumi’s poetry was and remains an important component of this tariqa, being recited regularly during ritual events and gatherings. Furthermore, Rumi’s great love for music and sama - spiritual concert - developed into a staple and cornerstone of the Mevlevi tradition. The way Rumi and his disciples would perform the sama, with a whirling or spinning kind of dance or motion, became an elaborate and highly ritualized practice in later centuries and is today famous as the so-called “whirling dervishes”. The dervishes whirl in a motion that reflect the motions of the planets, one arm extended upwards and the other stretched outward to the side, representing a kind of reception and transmission, receiving the divine love and spreading it outwardly around you. This is, at least, one among many interpretations of the symbolism at play here.

And on top of this, they of course involved other more “standard” aspects of sufi practice, such as dhikr, particularly in the form where the name “Allah” is chanted, retreats, fasting and other such techniques.

Another really interesting aspect of the Mevlevi order historically is a kind of initiatory practice called chelle. When a person wants to become a Mevlevi, they first have to serve 1001 days in the kitchen of the lodge, along with different meditation practices. It is only after this long process that they are given the famous headwear of the Mevlevis to symbolize officially entering on the path.

The Mevlevi order eventually became one of the most, if not the most powerful and popular sufi orders in the Ottoman empire. Indeed, the order and its shaykhs and leaders often had close contact with the Ottoman sultans, who would sponsor the building of Mevlevi buildings and lodges. For example, the famous Ottoman sultan Suleyman the Magnificent was involved with the building of the sama-hall in the great Mevlevi complex in Konya.

The Mevleviyya, together with the Naqshbandiyya, was often seen as a more “orthodox” order that adhered to the principles of Islamic Law, whereas other order in the region was looked at with more suspicion by the state, such as the Bektashi order, whose status wavered and varied with the times.

But despite this great popularity, and the general fame of Rumi as a poet and spiritual master around the Islamic world, the Mevlevi order has remained mostly based in Anatolia. There have been significant communities in Damascus, Jerusalem and Tripoli in Lebanon, but the majority of Mevlevi activities have taken place in the heartlands of the Ottoman empire.

This status as a more “orthodox” sufi order wasn’t always obvious though, as there have often been individuals and shaykhs that have taken a more antinomian path. The scholar Ahmet Karamustafa argues in his book “God’s unruly friends” that there has always existed two strands or attitudes within the Mevlevi community - one that more closely adheres to the rules of the Shariah and the expectations of Muslim piety and behavior (the mainstream), and another that is more antinomian and leaning toward Malamati or Qalandari Sufism.

The Malamatis, which literally mean the “people of blame” or the “blameworthy” is a certain strand or attitude within sufism where one’s inner spiritual state is hidden from the outside world, sometimes by acting in questionable ways that break social norms. The Qaladariyya often represents the most extreme form of this tendency, with individuals that would consciously break all kinds of laws and norms - drinking alcohol, urinating in public, shaving off all their hair, including beard and eyebrows and often wandering around singing and dancing. All this has a spiritual purpose - it is a way of fighting the ego or self in the most extreme way, by literally making other people despise you for your behavior. A really fascinating group of mystics.

And there have been certain Mevlevis in history, sometimes even prominent leader figures, that have leaned toward these kinds of movements and attitudes. With that said, the majority of Mevlevis, and their general reputation, has been quite the opposite.

After the death of Rumi, the highest leadership in the order was carried on by his descendants. The first one was his son Sultan Valad, as we saw, but this line has continued until this very day. The leaders of the Mevlevi order were given the title Chelebi, and it is the Chelebi that has the highest authority, being able to decide who is an official shaykh or master within the order. The current leader of the Mevlevis is Faruk Hemdem Çelebi.

With that said, the organizational structure of the order has changed significantly in the last century, even falling apart to some degree.

While they (for the most part) had a good relationship with the Ottoman state, this significantly changed in the 20th century. When the empire fell apart and the Republic of Turkey was formed, the new government had a very different attitude toward sufism. Turkey was now to become a secular state, and sufism represented old superstition that had way too much power. As such, in 1925 sufism and all its practices were officially forbidden in Turkey. The Mevlevi lodges were closed down and they were no longer able to officially practice their rituals, including the sama. This has had a significant effect on the order in the modern world, for obvious reasons. The sema of the whirling dervishes can now be experienced by tourists, of course, but this is because it is officially deemed a folk dance, a cultural practice, and not a religious ritual.

But the legacy of Jalal al-din Rumi and the Mevlevis live on around the world in different ways. Official shaykhs recognized by the Chelebi, such as Kabir Helminski in the US, keep the order alive, and, of course, it is the poetry of Rumi that has taken the world by storm.

Books of translation of Rumi’s poems sell in numbers that other modern poets could only dream of. It really is an amazing development.

But like we mentioned earlier, many of these popular translations often greatly alter the original meaning and flavor of Rumi’s words. In particular, the Islamic character of the poetry is often removed completely in translations such as that of Coleman Barks. Barks’ translations obviously have a great beauty to them, and appeal to a lot of people. They can be read and enjoyed as poetry on its own, but not necessarily as always representing the thoughts and words of Rumi himself.

On top of this, there is a whole ocean of fake Rumi quotes out there. I would say that even a majority of the Rumi quotes that you find on Instagram or other sites are either completely fake, not by Rumi at all, or significantly altered in their translation. This has led to a lot of people getting a skewed image of Rumi and his actual teachings, which is really sad.

For more “accurate” translations that stick more closely to the original Persian meanings, we have to turn elsewhere.

There are many different translations of Rumi out there, and it can be hard to navigate where to turn and who to trust.

If you want scholarly translations of his poetry, there are actually some great options out there. When it comes to the Masnavi, I can highly recommend the work of Nicholson, Mojaddedi and Williams.

Basically there are only two full translation of the Masnavi, of all six books. The earliest is that by Reynold A. Nicholson (d. 1245), which was finished in 1940. This still holds up, but the English can be a little dry and old-fashioned by today’s standards. Secondly, the translation by Jawid Mojaddedi is a really beautiful poetic translation. His approach is to actually mimic the rhyming and poetic nature of the original in english. This of course comes with some compromises with how closely the original can be followed, but on the other hand more closely captures the beauty and musicality of the original. Mojaddedi very recently (2025) published the final sixth book of his translation, completing the project.

And lastly, the most recently started translation is that of Alan Williams. At the time of recording, only the first two books of this translation have been published, but it is a very competent and beautiful one. It doesn’t take the poetic, rhyming path of Mojaddedi, instead following the original wording more closely, but still in a really enjoyable and aesthetically pleasing way. I’m very much looking forward to the rest of the books coming out in this translation.

As for Rumi’s divan - the divan-e shams - things are more difficult. There is no complete translation of the work, but you can find individual publications that include sizable representations.

The Quatrains of Rumi by Ibrahim Gamard & Rawan Farhadi is a translation of all the quatrains, or rubaiy’at , from the divan in particular, and is highly recommended.

For some of the ghazals, you can consult Arthur John Arberry’s works, particularly the two-volume collection Mystical Poems of Rumi, which include 400 of the ghazals from the divan.

As for the prose works, in particular his discourses or fihi ma fihi, Arberry has also published a translation of this work under the title Discourses of Rumi. There is also a more recent and very competent translation of the same work by W.M. Thackston called Signs of the Unseen: The Discourses of Rumi.

So now you hopefully have a place to start, so that you too can explore and enjoy the literary and spiritual masterpieces that form Rumi’s legacy.

We have seen that his life is a fascinating tale of love, war, conflict and heartbreak, living through one of the most eventful periods in the history of the Middle East. We have explored the different aspects of his life that would have inspired and been the catalyst of his poetry, and gotten to know him and those around him a little closer.

Hopefully, this allows us to appreciate even more the absolutely awe-inspiring poetry that he has become so famous for. The Masnavi remains one of the most famous and revered works of literature in history, even being called the “Qur’an in Persian” and being appreciated by people from various backgrounds and spiritual leanings. Rumi left behind a legacy not just of poetry but as a beacon of spiritual light in the world, one of the great mystics and luminaries in world history, who was beloved by Muslims as well as Christians and Jews for his openness and understanding, his kind nature and the way he was able to speak to the common man and convey the most lofty spiritual ideals.

It is therefore not that surprising that he is just as relevant today as he has ever been. And that his poems, in various forms, reach and touch people on different continents and across a timespan of almost a millennium.

Bibliography

Chittick, William (1983). "The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi". SUNY Press.

Feldman, Walter (2022). "From Rumi to the Whirling Dervishes: Music, Poetry, and Mysticism in the Ottoman Empire". Edinburgh University Press.

Gamard, Ibrahim & Rawan Farhadi (translated by) (2008). "The Quatrains of Rumi". Sufi Dari Books.

Karamustafa, Ahmet T. (2006). God's Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Middle Period 1200-1550. Oneworld Publications.

Karamustafa, Ahmet T. (2007). "Sufism - the formative period". Edinburgh University Press.

Knysh, Alexander (2000). "Islamic Mysticism: A Short History". Brill.

Lewis, Franklin D. (2000). "Rumi: Past and Present, East and West". Oneworld publications.

Thackston, W.M. (translated by) (1999). "Signs of the Unseen: The Discourses of Jalaluddin Rumi". Shambala.

Williams, Alan (translated by) (2020). "The Masnavi of Rumi: A New English Translation with Explanatory Notes". Book 1 & 2. I.B. Tauris.

Imagine for a moment a man who pops into existence. He is suspended in the air, and all of his sensory faculties are non-functional. He can’t see anything, he can’t hear, smell or feel the touch of anything. He simply floats there, in space, with no sensory input of the outside world. Now ask yourself the question: Is this man aware of his own existence?

This is a very famous thought experiment by the Persian Muslim Philosopher Ibn Sina, more widely known in the west through the latinized form of his name - Avicenna. This example, often known as the “Floating Man” thought experiment, was meant to explore the existence and nature of the human soul, and we will return to that topic later on in the episode.

Because indeed, psychology is only one topic out of a whole ocean of subjects that Ibn Sina wrote about and studied. He was a polymath who tackled everything from logic, physics, metaphysics, medicine, mathematics, music, astronomy and much else.

He truly is one of the most brilliant minds that the world has ever produced, a genius whose influence on the Islamic intellectual tradition, as well as that of the world generally, cannot be overstated. His philosophical works served as the basis for all future philosophical speculation in the Islamic world, and his medical writings were in use in Europe right up until the 18th century. He influenced thinkers like Thomas Aquinas and most of the scholastic tradition in Europe, his ideas include precursors to the Newtonian laws of physics, and he provides one of the most celebrated “proofs” or arguments for the existence of God in history.

Read more

We all know that Islam gets a bit of a bad rap in western discourse and coverage. Because of this, many people who aren’t familiar with the religion associate it primarily with things like violence, oppression and conflict. And in all of this, one word that often comes up is Jihad - a word that is often taken to mean something like ‘holy war’.

Groups like al-Qa’ida or the so-called “Islamic State” claim that they are fighting a jihad, and this is what most people associate with the term. But this is actually a word and concept that is often very misunderstood. Indeed, many Muslims around the world are frustrated that the word “jihad” has been hijacked to mean something that they cannot identify with. So what is Jihad, then? And how have Muslims understood and conceptualized this idea historically?

First of all, we need to get rid of the most obvious misunderstanding. The Arabic word “Jihad” (جهاد) does not mean holy war. Rather, it means something like “struggle” or “striving”. And this becomes important for our understanding of the concept and to broaden our understanding of what it means.

For most Muslims in the world, Jihad is indeed an important concept and part of their religion, but this does not mean that they are referring to the military jihad. It can mean any kind of jihad that is spiritual or connected to religion in some way. Jihad is a struggle or striving in the cause of religion. This can mean striving to be a kind person, striving to fight against injustice, struggle to fight climate change (what has become known as “green jihad”) and much else. In the Qur’an, which is the earliest source we have for Islam and its history, jihad and other words derived from the same root - j-h-d - is mentioned several times and here take both military and non-military meanings.

The same is true of the hadiths, which are the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad and reports of his actions and proclamations. Indeed, one of these hadiths has become very famous in this regard. It is told that when returning from a battle, the Prophet Muhammad said that:

“You are now returning from the ‘lesser jihad’ (jihad al-asghar) to the greater jihad (jihad al-akbar)”

The ‘greater Jihad’ refers to the inner jihad, the struggle against the self or ego, against sin and bad behavior.

Now some have argued, and will argue, that this hadith might not be fully authentic, but this is irrelevant for us, because it has indeed been taken as relevant for many Muslims across history and thus the idea of the ‘lesser jihad’ being the military one and the ‘greater jihad’ being the inner kind has been a very prominent one, especially in movements like Sufism.

Indeed, the major Muslim scholar from the 17th and 18th century - Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi (d. 1731) - writes in one of his letters that the major jihad - defined against the struggle against internal enemies - is more important than the lesser, military jihad, since:

“The faithful is in a constant struggle against his self in order to avert its corrupting tendencies until he dies, whereas his struggle against the infidels is different: it is on at certain times, and off at others.” Abd al-Ghani al-Nablusi

Moreover, the famous medieval scholar and polymath Ibn Hazm (d. 1064) conceives of four kinds of jihad:

1. Jihad of the Heart (Jihad bil-Qalb) - combating the devil and one’s own evil inclinations

2. Jihad of the tongue (Jihad bil-Lisan)- speaking the truth and spreading the religion through the tongue

3. Jihad of the hand (Jihad bil-yad) - to do right in the world, give to charity and combat injustice

4. Jihad of the sword (Jihad bil-Sayf) - Fighting against the exterior enemies of the religion

And that last part is indeed also important. Because with all of these disclaimers out of the way, it is true that when we read the classical works of Islamic jurisprudence, if there is a section dedicated to “Jihad” it is basically always dedicated to warfare. It is important to keep all of the things mentioned here in mind, to understand this concept more broadly and properly, but we should also not act like the military aspect of jihad isn’t a reality. It definitely is, and has been a very significant part of how Muslims have understood the term historically.

With this said, how have Muslims understood the role and practice of this outer, military jihad, both historically and today?

We can begin by looking at the earliest sources and origins of Islam, namely, of course, the Qur’an and the stories about the Prophet Muhammad and his community.

As we said, the word jihad and its cognates can be found in plenty of places in the Qur’an, but here the type of “struggle” is varied, sometimes clearly not referring to war or violence and at other times being ambivalent. But there are at least a few cases where it certainly seems to refer to military war and conflict. And in general, such verses in the Qur’an are definitely there. Part of the revelation that Muhammad is said to have received, and the actions of him and his community, included using force as part of this wider “struggle” in the way of God. Reading the Qur’an we can conclude at the very least that the early Believers (followers of Muhammad) were allowed to use force and violence/war in self defense, in order to protect themselves against foreign aggression.

“Fight in the way of God against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Indeed, God does not love aggressors.” (Qur’an, 2:190)

And many Muslims will basically stop here, and say that this is the only kind of violence that is actually allowed within Islam, the kind that is in self-defense.

Some might object here and point to many of the verses of the Qur’an that point to more offensive warfare. But usually when these are quoted by critics (as well as Muslims who want to justify war), they will ignore the verses that follow, which usually nuance the previous statement.

“But once the Sacred Months have passed, kill the polytheists ˹who violated their treaties˺ wherever you find them, capture them, besiege them, and lie in wait for them on every way. But if they repent, perform prayers, and pay alms-tax, then set them free. Indeed, Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

And if anyone from the polytheists asks for your protection ˹O Prophet˺, grant it to them so they may hear the Word of Allah, then escort them to a place of safety, for they are a people who have no knowledge.” - Qur’an (9:5-6)

So some will argue for this view, but not everyone of course. And many of the early Believers certainly seem to have held the view that part of the wider Islamic movement and religion included a struggle to spread the rule of Islam, what would later come to be called the dar al-Islam, to the rest of the world. Some of the actions of Muhammads community during his life indicate that they had an expansionist tendency, although counterarguments can (and have) been made. But certainly in the periods after the Prophet’s death, with the early caliphs, we see an expansionist policy being put in practice as the Arabs went on to conquer an impressive large portion of the world at that time.

And when the early sources talk about jihad in a military sense, it usually includes a collective call to spread the rule of Islam, which they saw as a just society, to the rest of the world.

Worth pointing out here is that there really wasn’t much emphasis at all on spreading Islam as a religion, or getting the rest of the world to convert to Islam. In fact, the early believers often seem to have been outright non-interested and against the idea of too many outside people converting. Islam was seen, by many, as an Arab religion for Arabs. The Qur’an emphatically states that:

“There shall be no compulsion in religion” (Qur’an, 2:256)

And most interpreters and tafsir works have interpreted this precisely to mean that one cannot force others to convert to the religion. Does this mean that forced conversions never happened? Of course not. Even if it was very uncommon in this early period, it definitely happened in some times and places across history and people have always found loopholes, as we will see later. But this was more of an anomaly. And this is also why we can observe the fact that the majority of people living in the Islamic caliphates for the first centuries remained non-Muslim and practiced their own religions. Conversion to Islam was a very gradual process.

And this is also an essential part of the very character of Islam, especially as it appeared in this early period. In the Qur’an, and in the policies of the early Believers especially, it becomes clear that the wider category of “Islam” as a social system and religious worldview included and embraced other religions as part of that wider phenomenon and the scope of “Islam”. The Qur’an talks about other religions, especially Christianity and Judaism, and even though it criticizes them on a number of points, still includes them as existing religious groups within an Islamic framework. The Qur’an seems to indicate that churches and synagogues are forbidden to be destroyed:

“They are˺ those who have been expelled from their homes for no reason other than proclaiming: “Our Lord is Allah.” Had Allah not repelled ˹the aggression of˺ some people by means of others, destruction would have surely claimed monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques in which Allah’s Name is often mentioned. Allah will certainly help those who stand up for Him. Allah is truly All-Powerful, Almighty.” - Qur’an (22:40)

Which many Islamic scholars have interpreted in this way. Ibn Hazm even supposedly argued based on this that it was obligatory for muslims to fight to help protect such religious buildings from attack.

(Yusuf al-Qaradawi, The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam, IIFSO, Kuwait, 1992, p.339; Da’wah Institute of Nigeria, Protection of Churches, Mosques, and Synagogues in Islam, Islamic Education Trust, Minna, Nigeria, 2012, p. 6.)

And even seems to indicate (depending on who is interpreting) that (at least some) Christians, Jews and other “believers” will end up in Paradise. Even if we don’t follow the more “radical” interpretation of someone like Fred Donner, there is no denying that Islam had this general characteristic, at the very least in its earliest phases.

This semi-perennialist tendency and scope of Islam as a whole is very significant for its time. And while it is certainly true that these non-Muslims were forced to pay the jiziya tax in order to practice their religion freely, this is still profoundly inclusive for its historical context, compared to other empires at the time who sometimes outright forbade religious minorities from existing altogether. It was convert or die. Whereas in Islam, this was (in theory at least) not really on the table, even if it definitely happened from time to time.

Another aspect that I often see people misunderstand is precisely the fact that non-Muslims who were living in Muslim lands didn’t have to follow Islamic Law. The Shariah was something to be followed by Muslims, not by non-muslims. Christians could keep eating pork and drink wine, for example, and the different religious communities were generally kept separate and allowed to follow their own laws, each group having their own leaders (Christians had Bishops etc.), who of course answered to the caliph ultimately. It is only when a legal case involved a muslim that Islamic law took precedence.

This is taking us a bit far from our main topic, but it is connected, because it shows that the early Muslims weren’t necessarily interested in converting people, but they certainly were interested in spreading the political rule and dominion of Islam, but a polity whose scope included the existence of other religions as legitimate, albeit misguided.

So war was part of the early Muslim story, there is no denying that. The Prophet participated in wars (whether only defensive or not), and his followers would use military means to expand their rule over vast parts of the world.

So how did these Muslims actually think about conducting war, then? Jihad in this sense as war, even offensive war to spread the religion, was a clear reality and collective responsibility in many cases, so how was it conceived in terms of the law and religious ethics?

Well, here the early Muslims are very significant as they developed some of the earliest examples of what is called just war theory; a systematic conception of when war is justified and, perhaps more significantly, how war is conducted in a just way. In Latin the official terms for these are Jus ad bellum (right to war) & Jus in bello (right/justice in war).

Even before these traditions became more firmly established in the law schools and early jurists of Islam, we find their sources and earliest expressions of core ideals already in the stories about the Prophet and his companions.

For example, before they would go out to a battle, the Prophet spoke to his companions and instructed them on how war should be conducted:

“Set out for jihad in the name of Allah and for the sake of Allah. Do not lay hands on the old verging on death, on women, children and babies. Do not steal anything from the booty and collect together all that falls to your lot in the battlefield and do good, for Allah loves the virtuous and the pious. (Sunna of the Prophet Mohammed) Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭabarī, Jāmi’ al-bayān ‘an ta’wīl al-Qur’ān (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Risālah, 2000), 3:563, verse 2:190

Collecting all the statements from different sources of hadiths, one can find a couple of different recurring rules for warfare:

𝟏. “𝐃𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝, 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧, 𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐞𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧.” (𝐒𝐮𝐧𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐛𝐮 𝐃𝐚𝐰𝐮𝐝)

𝟐. “𝐃𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐩𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧.(𝐀𝐥-𝐌𝐮𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐚)

𝟑. 𝐃𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐮𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐫 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐩𝐚𝐥𝐦𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐮𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐟𝐫𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐬.(𝐀𝐥-𝐌𝐮𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐚)

𝟒. 𝐃𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚 𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐜𝐨𝐰 𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐥, 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐝.” (𝐀𝐥-𝐌𝐮𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐚)

𝟓. “𝐈𝐟 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫, [𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭] 𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐢𝐝 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐞, 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐆𝐨𝐝 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐡𝐢𝐦 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐝𝐚𝐦.” (𝐒𝐚𝐡𝐢𝐡 𝐁𝐮𝐤𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐢, 𝐒𝐚𝐡𝐢𝐡 𝐌𝐮𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐦)

𝟔. “𝐃𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐤𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩. (𝐌𝐮𝐬𝐧𝐚𝐝 𝐀𝐡𝐦𝐚𝐝 𝐈𝐛𝐧 𝐇𝐚𝐧𝐛𝐚𝐥)

𝟕. “𝐃𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐬, 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞.” (𝐒𝐚𝐡𝐢𝐡 𝐁𝐮𝐤𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐢; 𝐒𝐮𝐧𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐛𝐮 𝐃𝐚𝐰𝐮𝐝)

𝟖. “𝐃𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐦𝐲; 𝐩𝐫𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐆𝐨𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲; 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 [𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨] 𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦, 𝐞𝐱𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞.” (𝐒𝐚𝐡𝐢𝐡 𝐌𝐮𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐦)

𝟗. “𝐍𝐨 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐲 𝐩𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐞.” (𝐒𝐮𝐧𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐛𝐮 𝐃𝐚𝐰𝐮𝐝).

𝟏𝟎. “𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐨 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐢𝐟 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐝𝐨 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐝𝐨 𝐰𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐥.” (𝐀𝐥-𝐓𝐢𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐝𝐡𝐢).

These are pretty significant points that he is making, and I am sure that some of you will be surprised. But this is not exclusive to the Prophet. We can confirm that these ideals were upheld as important by his companions and followers, as we find very similar statements made by some of the early caliphs. For example, there is a report about Abu Bakr saying:

“Stop, O people, that I may give you ten rules for guidance on the battlefield. Do not commit treachery or deviate from the right path. You must not mutilate dead bodies; do not kill a woman, a child, or an aged man; do not cut down fruitful trees; do not destroy inhabited areas; do not slaughter any of the enemies’ sheep, cow or camel except for food; do not burn date palms, nor inundate them; do not embezzle (e.g. no misappropriation of booty or spoils of war) nor be guilty of cowardliness…You are likely to pass by people who have devoted their lives to monastic services; leave them alone.”

And when we look at the historical and archaeological evidence for the early Arab expansion, there is a lot to support the idea that these general rules were followed for the most part. It is often claimed that Islam was “spread by the sword”, but what does that actually mean? If we mean that in the sense that Islam as a polity/Muslims as rulers were spread through military expansion, then there is certainly truth to this claim. But as we also saw, the populations of the Middle East and beyond were generally not forcibly converted, but sometimes actively discouraged from it. Indeed, there were also pragmatic and political reasons for this. The non-Muslim population was a source of income for the state through their paying the jiziya tax. If they were to convert and no longer pay the tax, that would be detrimental to the economy of the caliphate. We see this in the fact that some non-Arabs that did indeed convert to Islam in the early days still had to pay the jiziya.

The nature of the conquests themselves are hard to pin down with certainty, and historians and scholars will debate and disagree on how to portray them. This is partly because of the variety of our sources and evidence. We often hear that it was a bloody conquest full of destruction, but this is often based on hostile sources from much later in history. Instead, if we look at contemporary sources as well as archaeological evidence, the situation is complicated. On the one hand we have sources like Thomas the Presbyter:

“In the year 945 [634 C.E.], indiction 7, on Friday 4 February at the ninth hour, there was a battle between the Romans and the nomads of Muhammad (tayyaye d-Mhmt) in Palestine twelve miles east of Gaza. The Romans fled, leaving behind the patriarch Bryrdn, whom the tayyaye killed. Some 4,000 poor villagers of Palestine were killed there, Christians, Jews and Samaritans. The tayyaye ravaged the whole region.” (Trans. Hoyland, Seeing Islam, 120.)

This is, in fact, one of the earliest references to Muhammad in any non-Muslim source. And it depicts a raid accompanied by great violence and killing.

On the other hand, other sources as well as the archaeological record shows a very different picture as well. Indeed, historians will often note that the Islamic conquests are basically entirely invisible archaeologically. In all the cities and places that were conquered, we see evidence of continued use of churches and synagogues throughout the conquest period and afterwards, as well as continuity in general worship and way of life. In other words, while battles certainly took place between Arab forces and that of the Romans and Sasanians, these were mostly battles between two armies on the countryside. But when the Arabs then conquered actual cities, there is basically no evidence for any major destruction of buildings, mass killings or really any disruption of everyday life.

Given the rules of war that seemingly had been laid down by the Prophet and his successors, this does make sense and follows those general principles.

Christians & Jews (and mostly Zoroastrians in Iran) were allowed to continue practicing their religion as part of the wider Islamic framework, as long as they paid taxes to the new rulers which, as some have argued, were actually less harsh than the taxes they had to pay the Romans prior to the conquest. Indeed, there is evidence that the borders between religious affiliations weren’t all that strict either, as has been argued by scholars like Fred Donner. We know that Muslims and Christians shared common worship spaces in the earliest days, for example. Muslims would pray in churches by installing a mihrab, such as in the Cathisma church in Jerusalem. Some sources also seem to indicate that the first governor of Jerusalem appointed by the Muslims/Believers was in fact a Jew, although the evidence for this isn’t totally reliable or certain.

The so-called “Islamic armies”, such as the ones that carried out the raids mentioned before, weren’t exclusively made up of “Muslims” either, but were accompanied by Arab Christians and others, as is evident from the sources. Fred Donner notes:

“An East Syriac Christian text written in northern Mesopotamia in 687 or 688 (Ktaba d-rish melle of John Bar Penkaye) notes that the Believers (referred to in the text as ‘the kingdom of the tayyaye’ [nomads]) demanded tribute but allowed people to stay in whatever faith they wished. It also notes that among the Believers who engaged in widespread raiding parties in these years were many Christians. The Nestorian patriarch Isho’yahb III in Iraq, writing a letter to one of his bishops in 647 or 648 c.e., notes that the new rulers ‘not only do not fight Christianity, they even commend our religion, show honor to the priests and monasteries and saints of our Lord, and make gifts to the monasteries and churches.”

This paints quite a different picture than what we are used to but, again, aligns with (at least an interpretation) of the basic teachings of the Qur’an and the early Muslim authorities.

Indeed, this question of Christians serving in the military is also important for the wider discussion of jizya. This poll-tax that was imposed on non-muslim population was one that exempted them from military service. It was basically only the men who had to pay the tax, as they were fit to serve in the army but chose not to. If one didn’t pay the tax, you instead would have to take part in the military campaigns of the caliphate.

Now, we do see a bit of a more restrictive attitude being enforced from the time of the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik, whose rule marks a very important point for the development of Islam as we know it. He seems to have much more clearly drawn the boundaries between “muslims” and non-muslims, streamlined the government to be more privileged for Muslims in particular, and made Arabic a more official, universal language. It is also under some of his successors like ‘Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz that new restrictions were made for non-Muslims populations in terms of the clothing they could wear in public, whether they could ride horses in cities or build churches/synagogues larger than adjacent mosques. This is the famous so-called “Pact of Umar”, which has sometimes been attributed to Umar ibn al-Khattab, the companion and second rashidun caliph, but which actually in all likelihood originated with this later Umar, the Umayyad caliph of the 8th century.

Still, while certain restrictions started to seep into the policies of the caliphal policies, most of the principles and practices that we have outlined were still followed in a general sense.

We’re getting a bit off topic in terms of war here, but these are nuances and aspects that will play a role as we continue the discussion on the legal discussions on war in Islamic Law.

And in order to understand how war/jihad and its conduct was further developed in the field of fiqh or jurisprudence (the process of deriving sharia’h) let’s turn to a few examples in the early history of the topic, including important figures like Abd al-Rahman al-Awza’i (d. 774) & Muhammad al-Shaybani (d. 805).

As we get into the period when Islamic law and practice was really becoming established, and as we read the early manuals and works of fiqh or jurisprudence, we can confirm a few things. Firstly, that jihad was definitely seen as part, and as an important part, of the wider Islamic religion. I mean, the fact that the original and most common title for the early caliphs was amir al-mu’minin or ‘Commander of the Faithful’, essentially a military title, tells us as much too, right?

But what also became clear was that when it comes to military jihad, there were very strict and important rules and restrictions on how war should be conducted, and when war was justified. Indeed, some modern scholars have argued that it is with some of these early Muslim jurists that we see the first examples of just war theory.

And this is where some of those prominent jurists and scholars become relevant. The most influential and important early source for this topic is probably al-Shaybani, the student of Abu Hanifah and thus one of the foundational figures of the Hanafi school, but long before that “school” existed as such. Shaybani famously wrote a book called Kitab al-Siyar - the Book of Siyar. Now, ‘siyar’ is usually translated as International Law, and this work is a significant historical document on this topic, which includes warfare, and for the study of ethical contemplations about how such Law is to be conducted.

But he of course wasn’t the only one writing on the topic, and another very early figure whose writings on siyar and war has been significant both historically and today is the aforementioned al-Awza’i - the Umayyad jurist and judge who lived primarily in Damascus and Lebanon. No surviving school or madhhab from Awza’i survives in the same way that the Hanafis derive from Shaybani’s circle, but he is nonetheless very influential, among other things because of his treatment of siyar and rules of war.

So these are two of the main sources that we will be looking at as we try to understand the earliest development of the policies of war and jihad.

First of all, jihad is certainly part of the religion of Islam to these jurists, but they importantly point out that it is a collective duty/obligation, not a universal one. In Ibn Rushd’s Bidayat al-mujtahid, the much later great philosopher and maliki jurist says:

“Its imposition is a communal obligation, that is, when some undertake it the rest are absolved of it” - Ibn Rushd

What this means on a practical level is that military jihad is something that is carried out by an army, with dedicated soldiers and is led by a caliph. It is similar, in other words, to how any nation would conduct offensive or defensive war. It is not a universal obligation, in the sense that every muslim is obliged to make a jihad of their own, so to say. Jihad is performed in the context of an army, who fights as representatives of all muslims. This is one example, among many others, of why many muslims today will argue that modern terrorist groups are directly contradicting classical Islamic law and ideals, as they look at jihad as universal and individual, that it can be carried out by anyone, and this is the result of certain 20th century thinkers like Sayyid Qutb.

In any case, it was in this way a reality for early muslims. But what was the reason for fighting? What was a just cause for war, according to the Muslims? Well, in simple terms, it was to spread Islam. But not in the sense of “spreading Islam” to convert everyone (indeed, we saw before that the earliest muslims were even opposed to this idea), but rather to spread the rule of Islam, to spread what was known as Dar al-Islam or the ‘Abode of Islam’. This is also sometimes referred to as the Dar al-Salam or the ‘Abode of Peace’. And thus what was outside of this realm used to be called the Dar al-Harb or ‘Abode of War’. The way the Muslims themselves saw this was thus that by spreading the Dar al-Islam, they were spreading and assuring peace and justice in society and the world. Hilmi M. Zawati argues:

“Accordingly, jihād, in Islamic legal theory, is a temporary legal device designed to achieve the ideal Islamic public order, and to secure justice and equality among all peoples.”

One of the legal discussions that we find regarding the reasons behind waging war and the resulting just actions and treatment of the enemy is the one regarding the very cause of fighting. And there was some disagreement. Were the unbelievers fought because of their unbelief (kufr), in other words was their unbelief the reason they were to be fought? Or were they fought because they fought back, essentially in self-defense?

In Ibn Rushd’s bidayat al-mujtahid, he argues (by presenting the positions and arguments of different jurists and schools) that the majority of Muslims scholars agreed that the cause of fighting was not unbelief in itself, but in the ability to fight. This is what allowed them to justify and hold to the rules and conduct during war, as we have discussed earlier, for example that women and children aren’t killed, neither are the elderly or the blind or the monks or anyone that doesn’t fight. Because they aren’t fought because of their unbelief, it is only those among the enemy who actively fight that it is permissible to kill.

This can be seen directly in the writings of al-Shaybani, who significantly says:

“... although also associating partners to Allah is the utmost offence, it is in the jurisdiction of God alone and God postponed the trial for such crime to the Day of Judgement. As for the offences that he prescribed punishments for in this life, it is in the interest of his subjects to prevent fighting; this prevention cannot be achieved by killing those who do not fight. Therefore, only those who fight Muslims should be the subject of fighting.” - al-Shaybani

The only one who disagreed with this, according to Ibn Rushd, was al-Shafi’i, who instead argued that it was unbelief itself that was the cause for fighting and killing. But Shaybani’s more ‘humanitarian’ position above was the norm.

This of course leads to many other questions. If the Muslims are only supposed to fight those who attack them, that seems to indicate that only defensive war is permitted? But that is not necessarily how they, including Shaybani, saw it. As we saw before, there was a kind of expectation and requirement that the Dar al-Salam was expanded and that unbelief was actively fought against. So how does this work?

Shaybani, in the Kitab al-siyar, essentially argues that war is only permissible under three different circumstances, or for three different reasons:

1. Self-defense, when a foreign state invades it is obligatory for the muslims to defend the state, which is justified through the Qur’an.

2. Istinqaad, which has been translated as something like ‘humanitarian intervention’. Say, for example, Muslims have been captured and are held in enemy territory, or non-Muslims under the protection of the Muslims state for that matter. Then war can be used to aid and rescue them.

3. Defence of the freedom of religion. And this is often where it gets interesting and complex. Indeed, freedom of religion involved that Muslims were allowed to practice their religion, and for that to happen, the place essentially needed to be ruled by other muslims. The Islamic religion also made a point of allowing other religions to exist within the state and under protection. So this was one of the main reasons it was legitimate to spread the Dar al-Isam/Salam. The whole purpose behind war was to bring peace, and according to the Muslims, true peace and freedom of life and religion could only become a reality under the Islamic state, so to say.

This becomes quite clear in the discussions that revolve around conduct ahead of a battle. The rule of Islam is to be spread into new areas, as we saw, but the Muslims should always attempt to do so peacefully. There are certain requirements to be followed ahead of a battle.

Before engaging in any type of battle, the Muslims first need to extend an invitation to the enemy to resolve things peacefully and diplomatically. They are at this point usually given a few options. They can either convert to Islam, but if they don’t want to do that, then they can accept the Muslims as rulers and pay the jizya tax and thereby be left alone, allowed to practice their religion and way of life in peace. In some cases, a truce can also be negotiated if it is beneficial to the Muslims. But if all these terms are refused, then that is taken as a declaration of war, and battle can ensue. Often, the Muslim jurists and scholars also say that it is preferred that this invitation to resolve things peacefully be extended to the enemy multiple times before engaging.

Another question that often arises is whether all people are allowed to pay the jizya and keep their religion, or if it is only the so-called People of the Book, that is - Jews & Christians. The scholars disagreed on this, but the pragmatic solution of most scholars, including imam Malik was that all polytheists, except for the ones in Arabia in particular, were allowed to pay the jizya. Others only allowed Jews, Christians & Zoroastrians. But history also shows that most peoples that the Muslims encountered were generally allowed to keep their native religion.

These general rules are often based on a very popular hadith regarding the topic, which is quoted by Shaybani and others:

“Whenever the Messenger of Allah, peace be on him, sent an army or a group of troops he used to admonish its leader to fear Allah in his personal behaviour and to be pleasant to the Muslims who accompanied him. Then he would say: ‘Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah; fight only those who disbelieve in Allah. Do not misappropriate; do not commit treachery; do not mutilate [the dead]; and do not kill a child. When you meet the polytheists who are your enemy, invite them to Islam. If they accept Islam, accept it from them and hold yourselves back from them. Then, invite them to move over from their territory to the territory of Muhajirin. If they do that, accept it from them and hold yourselves back from them. In case they do not, tell them that they are like other non-resident Muslims: they shall be subject to the injunctions of Allah applicable to other Muslims; however, they shall have no share in fay of the state or in the spoils of war. If they refuse [to accept Islam], invite them to pay jizyah. If they do that, accept it from them, and hold yourselves back from them.” - Hadith (quoted by Shaybani)

Moreover, our friend Ibn Rushd as always gives us a great overview of different positions and how the topic has been tackled:

“The condition for the declaration of war, by agreement, is the communication of the invitation to Islam, that is, it is not permitted to wage war on them unless the invitation has reached them. This is something upon which the Muslim jurists agreed because of the words of the Exalted, ‘We never punish until We have sent a messenger’. They disagreed on whether the repetition of the invitation was required on the recurrence of war. Some of them made this obligatory, some considered it desirable, while some of them neither considered it obligatory nor desirable.” - Ibn Rushd (Bidayat al-Mujtahid)

So technically, at least according to most of the scholars, Muslims can only fight in self-defense. But at the same time, the requirement to spread Islam includes them giving their enemies the opportunity to surrender peacefully through either:

• Accepting their rule, paying the jizya tax and practicing their religion freely

• Converting to Islam

… and only if they refuse these terms, thereby deciding to pick up arms and fight back, then it is legitimate to fight them. You might think this is the biggest loophole ever, but it is indeed the way that the Muslim jurists argued for what proper conduct in war meant. The basic idea was that a peaceful solution was always to be sought first, and the norm was often to extend these offers to the enemy several times before engaging properly.

Some of the prominent early Muslims jurists seem to have held that fighting non-believers was only obligatory when the enemy had already started a fight, and al-Shaybani quotes Sufyan al-Thawri as holding this opinion. As a basis, they often use the following Qur’anic verse:

“Fight in the way of God against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Indeed, God does not love aggressors.” (Qur’an, 2:190)

It is also important to point out that the world in which someone like Shaybani or al-Awza’i lived was very different. This was a time of great empires, most of whom would engage in religious and non-religious war. War was basically the norm, and these scholars grew up in this environment and formed their opinions and ideas based on it. Representatives from other religions weren’t much different, and also saw military expansion of religion as a legitimate thing. For example, the great Christian figure Augustine said:

“to carry on war and extend a kingdom over wholly subdued nations seems to bad men to be felicity, to good men necessity.” - Augustine

But say that the peaceful means don’t work and now a war has begun. What was considered just and proper conduct and rules during a war? Much of this is directly based on the hadiths and examples of the prophet and early caliphs that we saw before, as we will see that jurists like Shaybani affirm many of the same rules.

Again, in the Kitab al-siyar, al-Shaybani very clearly outlines that in a situation of war, only combatants are allowed to be killed. It is never permissible to kill or hurt:

• Women and children

• Religious functionaries, like monks or priests (although Abu Hanifah seems to have had a different opinion on this)

• the elderly

• the insane or sick

• or generally any non-combatant at all

… unless of course they did start fighting the Muslims. So if a woman would pick up a sword and start swinging, it was then allowed to fight her, because she was now a combatant. You get the idea.

Shaybani also adds that it is not allowed to:

• destroy any fruit-bearing trees

• kill any animals except to use for food

• steal anything from the spoils of war

• become too proud when victorious

Shaybani says in his Kitab al-siyar al-saghir (the shorter version):

“He (Shaybani) says: ‘I asked Abu Hanifah about the killing of women, children, such old men who do not have the ability to fight, those suffering from chronic illness and are unable to fight. He forbade their killing and detested it.” - al-Shaybani (Kitab al-siyar al-saghir)

al-Awza’i held basically the same opinions entirely. Regarding some of the latter points, such as burning down crops or killing animals, he said:

“it is unlawful for Muslims to perform an act of destruction in enemy territory, for that is corruption and God loveth not corruption.” - al-Awza’i

On non-combatants, specifically farmers and workers:

“Do not kill those who work the fields if it is known that they are not combatants” - al-Awza’i (Aḥkām Ahl al-Dhimmah 1/165)

As you can see, this very directly followed those hadiths and the conduct of the early caliphs when they instructed their armies for war, and this really was the norm for most Islamic scholars. They would disagree on a few points here and there. Some allowed the elderly and sick to be fought, for example, but no women and children. Once again, these different positions are well outlined by Ibn Rushd:

“there is no dispute among them (the jurists) that it is not permitted to slay minors or women, as long as they are not waging war (...)

They disagreed about the case of hermits cut off from the world, the blind, the chronically ill, the old who cannot fight, the idiot, and the peasants and serfs. Malik (ibn Anas) said neither the blind nor idiots nor hermits are to be slain, and enough of their wealth is to be left to them by which they may survive. Similarly, the old and decrepit are not to be slain, in this view, and this was also the view of Abu Hanifa and his disciples. Al-Thawri and al-Awza’i said that only the old are to be spared.” - Ibn Rushd (Bidayat al-Mujtahid)

Again, even someone like Ibn Taymiyyah, who is often considered a foundational figure for so-called salafism and an inspiration for many modern jihadist and terrorist groups, basically held the same opinion, saying:

“those who do not constitute a defensive or offensive power, like women, the children […] should not be fought.” - Ibn Taymiyya

There were of course certain caveats, though, and specific circumstances of war that could change some of these positions. For example, if the Muslim army was besieging a city, it would be allowed to cut off water supply and other necessities to starve the enemy into submission, even if this obviously allowed women and children being hurt, because, again, the necessities of war made this a more complex question.

There are also many other details and complexities regarding rules for just conduct of war/jihad, and there really isn’t time to go through all of it. Islamic International Law for example generally forbade certain common practices in war, such as displaying the bodies of killed enemies as trophies or sending severed heads as messages to enemy leaders. Although this doesn’t mean stuff like this never happened of course, it was still the norm in the actual law. A modern example of this is the 19th century Algerian freedom fighter and sufi mystic Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza’iri (d. 1883), who very strictly forbade his fighters from any mutilation of felled enemies as a result of his strict following of Islamic law.

Of course, although women and children and other non-combatants weren’t allowed to be fought or killed, it was still permitted to take them as slaves. But here is another topic where Islamic Law and figures like Shaybani and others have contributed significantly to rules regulating the treatment of prisoners of war.

Here, as always, there are of course disagreements. But generally, when it comes to captured men in battle, it is the decision of the imam or leader in question whether to execute them. It seems in writers like Shaybani that executing prisoners is strongly disliked, but is not an illegal act as such. There is for example a principle that prisoners need to be fed properly, and if there aren’t enough provisions to care for the prisoners, then it might be better to execute them. When it comes to women, children & the elderly (the non-combatants), it seems that the general position has been that executing such people is not allowed at all, even if they had actually participated in the fighting.

“The majority of the jurists maintained that the imam has different types of choices regarding the prisoners of war including their pardon, enslavement, execution, demand for ransom, and the imposition of jizya (poll tax) on them. A group of jurists maintained that it is not permitted to execute the prisoners. Al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Tamimi has related that there is a consensus (ijma’) of the Companions on this.

The reason for their disagreement stems from the conflict of the apparent meanings of the verses in this context, the conflict of the acts (of the Prophet), and the conflict of the apparent meaning of the Qur’anic text with the acts of the Prophet. (...)

Execution is permitted in cases where the guarantee of safe conduct (aman) is not available. There is no disagreement among Muslims on this; however, they differ as to who can grant safe conduct and who cannot. (...)” - Ibn Rushd

A modern example of this is once again the famous 19th century Algerian Abd al-Qadir al-Jazairi (Emir Abdelkader) who fought against French colonialism. During his wars with the French, he captured many prisoners, and became famous (and later even awarded medals by the French) among other things for how well and justly he treated his prisoners, all of which was (to him) a direct reflection of and strict following of Islamic Law regarding just action in war and treatment of prisoners. Some of his former prisoners even came to visit him in France when he himself was imprisoned to pay their respects and thank him. This is not to state that this has always been the case, or that having prisoners of war are good at all to begin with, but is a good way to show how nuanced questions like this can be.

So this is a very general outline of the basic positions regarding jihad and war that we find in the early, traditional authorities books on Islamic law. And as we can see, it presents a picture that is quite complex and nuanced, and very different I think to how many people today conceive of the topic and Muslim positions on the topic. And we will return to the contemporary situation a bit later on.

Another important question that we can ask is - is jihad always “active”? This seems to be a common understanding among some non-muslims, that Islam teaches some inherently perpetual state of war against all non-muslims. Is this true? Well, as you have probably guessed, there are different answers. In the middle ages, and during the great caliphates, there was often this perception that the caliphs had a duty to always at least try to expand the dar al-Islam and fight against unbelief. But even here, this wasn’t necessarily seen as an eternal thing. One common idea historically has been that jihad is active until the Roman empire has been defeated. The Roman empire at this time was of course the Eastern Roman empire, often called the Byzantine empire. So once Constantinople was conquered, the story would be over, right? Based on this understanding, this offensive jihad would have stopped being relevant after 1453 when the Ottomans conquered the great city once and for all.

Secondly, we have mostly been talking about Sunni thinkers in this video. But in Shi’ism, the situation is even more different.

Because the shi’is have such an emphasis on the doctrine of the imams - that the political and spiritual leadership of Muhammad was inherited by his descendants in the line of Ali and Fatima - this strongly affects their ideas on jihad. Jihad can only be called and performed under the leadership of one of the imams. And in Twelver Shi’ism, which is the largest branch today, there hasn’t been a present imam since the 10th century. The twelfth imam - Muhammad al-Mahdi - went into occultation at that time and is expected to return at the end times. At that point, jihad will once again become relevant, but since his going into occultation until this day, no offensive jihad is legitimate according to this shi’is.

(Of course, since the Shi’is have ruled empires like the Safavids since then, there have been loopholes and different ways of approaching this, but it is generally true).

And this gets us to another very important point that many people forget, which is that things change over time and place, of course. The positions of Muslims jurists on things like jihad today aren’t necessarily the same as they were back then, of course. When I hear many people critical of Islam, they love to quote medieval muslim authorities on these matters while ignoring contemporary muslim scholars that have very different opinions that have changed because of the different historical and political circumstances. This is true all across history, and especially today.

For example, even though the sunnis don’t share the doctrine of the imams with the shi’is, as we saw before the traditional position is that jihad is a collective duty, and must thus be led by a legitimate caliph that leads the community. Most Muslims today would argue that such a caliph doesn’t exist, and hasn’t existed since the fall of the Ottoman empire.

In fact, this was one of the arguments used by the great Senegalese Muslim reformer, sufi master and non-violent freedom fighter Ahmadou Bamba (d. 1927), who said that because there is no caliph for the muslim community, offensive jihad is illegitimate, and also in a famous fatwa shows precisely what I am talking about, that Muslim scholars and jurists take historical circumstances into account when interpreting and re-interpreting these doctrines:

“O my Muslim brothers… do not get involved in this so-called Jihad which only would result in human losses and material destruction, not to mention the havoc it would wreak in the country. If you say [to me] that Jihad is prescribed by [Islamic] Law and by Sunnah, my response is that it was so in times and circumstances that are different from yours and for people who are different from you [...] we should treat Christians the way they were treated by Prophet Muhammad. They lived in a peaceful cohabitation without any hostility, nor contempt[...]” - Ahmadou Bamba (Excerpt from fatwa)

And he isn’t alone in this. Most of the major scholars of Islam today have nuanced positions on the question of jihad, as well as its connected topics like slavery.

One famous example is the open letter sent by some of the major Muslim scholars around the world to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, basically condemning the organization’s actions and arguing that they had misappropriated and misinterpreted Islam and Islamic Law to justify those actions. Among the things that are brought up in the letter are precisely these traditional rulings about the protection of non-combatants and the just reason for war, all of which ISIS broke according to them. A selection from the summary section says:

“5. It is forbidden in Islam to ignore the reality of contemporary times when deriving legal rulings.

6. It is forbidden in Islam to kill the innocent.

7. It is forbidden in Islam to kill emissaries, ambassadors, and diplomats; hence it is forbidden to kill journalists and aid workers.

8. Jihad in Islam is defensive war. It is not permissible without the right cause, the right purpose and without the right rules of conduct.” (Letter to al-Baghdadi)

That fifth point shows you exactly what I am saying, that contemporary Muslims scholars, while never consciously changing any of the fundamentals of the religion, still consider it part of the wider scope of the law that certain aspects can be adjusted according to changing situations - the “reality of contemporary times” mentioned here.

For this same reason, many scholars today have abandoned the whole framework of Dar al-Islam/Salam vs. Dar al-Harb, because, they argue, the geopolitical situation today is so much different from back then. We live in a time of nation states and organizations like the UN that at least try to protect the rights of people and their freedom of religion. So the same policies from medieval times are not relevant anymore.

Major Muslim scholars today like Shaykh Abdullah Bin Bayyah have emphasized this idea of al-fiqh al-waqi’ - the current situation or context - and argues that the modern reality of citizenship and its requirements and obligations renders the medieval division outdated and almost obsolete:

“The issue of the abode is this: most people think that the world is divided into two abodes, the abode of peace and the abode of war. The abode of peace is the land of the Muslims, daar al-Islam, and the abode of war is everywhere else. (...) So, the central aspect of international relationships with the Muslims is aggression; it is one of war. This idea is wrong.” - Abdullah Bin Bayyah (Translated by Hamza Yusuf)

Instead, the modern contextual reality of citizenship, freedom of religion and human rights makes any place where Muslims are free to practice their religion either as the dar al-’ahd/dar al-sulh (abode of treaty/peace), a category that also existed in medieval times, or even that such a place of freedom falls under Dar al-Islam itself. One fatwa, which refers to the authority of people like the aforementioned Bin Bayyah, states:

First: the term “Dar al-Islam” or the “territory of Islam” and “dar al-harb” or “territory of war” and “Dar al-ahd” or “territory of pact/treaty” are jurisprudence terms that did not occur in Quran and authentic sunnah.

(...)

Second: Apparently, evidence and the opinions of jurist scholars demonstrate that the essence of the terms dar al-Islam and dar al-kufr is about security and fear. In this view, if Muslims are able to practice their religious rites and enjoy religious freedom then this territory is a dar al-Islam or territory of Islam.” - Fatwa by International Union of Muslim Scholars

Another such interesting case, which is related to the wider discussion of siyar (International Law) and jihad is that of slavery.

There is no denying that slavery has been common practice in the history of the Islamic world, and often in connection with campaigns of jihad/war. But in the contemporary world, the vast majority of Islamic scholars basically consider slavery to be inconsistent with Islamic teachings and promote its abolishment. Official declarations and meetings of scholars have affirmed this position that slavery is outdated, such as the Muslim World Conference in Mecca in 1926.

The argument rests on the idea that even though slavery was a historical reality, the actual message of the Qur’an and the actions of the prophet seems to point in the direction that slavery is to be avoided or even abolished. And in the contemporary world with its political situation, that original intention of the Islamic message can finally become a full reality.

With all of this history in mind, you can probably understand why many muslims claim that the actions of some modern jihadi groups and terrorists don’t represent Islam. Because in many cases, it directly contradicts centuries of rulings and agreed upon laws of war & jihad that have been there since basically the beginning of the religion. As a neutral outsider, I’m not here to argue one way or another, but I’m just showing where these opinions come from. These modern groups have arguments of their own to support their views and to interpret the Qur’an and other sources, but it is significant to keep in mind that in almost all cases, these groups belong to the group known as salafism. I have covered them and their characteristics in earlier episodes, but essentially it is a movement that rejects most of the tradition that has developed over the centuries and instead aims to go back directly to the sources to interpret them directly. And really, the conclusions they draw are only possible if one rejects tradition, since that tradition has so firmly established rules that are frequently broken, and instead interpret Qur’anic verses more freely.

Hopefully, you can understand the background and reason behind some of these divisions and debates within Islam today, and how topics like jihad can definitely be a thorny issue because of it.

As a significant part of the wider field of Islamic Law, the question of jihad, war or siyar (international law) has a long and very complicated history, one that isn’t appreciated and taken into consideration in public discussions as much as it should be. Hopefully, this episode can provide a healthy addition to that discussion, and help give you a better understanding and overview of a very difficult topic.

Bibliography

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Is Islam a Western Religion?

In some of my previous episodes and discussions, I have referred to the religion of Islam as such, and I always notice that people have very strong reactions to this claim. Both non muslims from Europe and America that seem to believe very strongly that Islam is “other” than the west, in a very orientalist and colonialist sort of way, but also from Muslims themselves who sometimes seem to have adopted this same view of things, where the ‘west’ represents the opposite of Islam, things like secularism/atheism, lax sexuality and immorality.

So why do I call Islam a western religion sometimes?

Well, partly to provoke people, honestly. Not ‘provoke’ in a malicious sense, but rather in order to challenge people’s assumptions about these categories and how we talk about them, hopefully to lead to more nuanced and informed discussions.

But mostly it is also because I firmly and legitimately believe that Islam is a western religion, if we are to use ‘western’ in a way that makes any logical sense.

I see many public intellectuals (who shall remain unnamed) today talk about this thing called ‘western culture’ or ‘western civilization’, and that supposed category very rarely includes Islam or the Islamic world, which always leads me to wonder what these people actually mean by the ‘west’ or ‘western’? Because by almost any measure, such a category (used in this way) is quite arbitrary.

Of course, in scholarship this categorization is changing a bit and is tackled differently. A good example is the excellent series of books of the “Classics of Western Spirituality” published by Paulist press, which includes writings by Christians, Jews, Native Americans and, indeed, Muslims under that category. Another sign of this is that Wouter Hanegraaff, one of the leading scholars in the field of ‘Western Esotericism’ published a new introduction to the field last year (2025) in which he consciously includes the neglected Islamicate framework/aspects of this wider story, this being part of a wider movement of highlighting something often called the ‘greater west’.

I understand that it is easy to fall into simplified categories. We have inherited a worldview from the colonial period and orientalists during the 18th-20th centuries where Islam is (from the point of view of ‘the west’) seen as the ‘other’, as an utterly foreign culture and religion that doesn’t harmonize with our own. The problem is that as soon as we start asking questions and investigating these suppositions, things get a lot fuzzier and unclear, as is often the case.

What do we even mean by the west?

If this is simply a geographical designation, then things don’t make much sense. On a global map as it is commonly seen today, the regions dominated by Islam as well as Europe and America would, by all accounts, fall on the western side of the map, whereas religions like Hinduism, Buddhism Taosim & Shintoism could more legitimately be called ‘eastern’ religions.

And furthermore, places like Australia and New Zealand are usually counted as being part of the so-called ‘west’, and they are as far east on the classic map as you can get.

But, after all, very few people would base their categorizations purely on geography like this, and I recognize that. This is just to show that from this point of view, the term ‘west’ doesn’t make sense.

Is it some kind of ‘culture’, then? An intellectual context? Is it the wider ‘culture’ of Europe and North America, as if there is one culture that pervades these regions (there isn’t)? Does it then include eastern Europe? Is Bosnia and Serbia ‘the west’?

I think when most people talk about a ‘western culture’ or ‘western civilization’, they are generally referring to some kind of cultural and intellectual heritage that stretches back into antiquity and which is safeguarded and represented by (North) Western Europe, North America and Australia today. Often, this cultural-intellectual heritage will be traced back to the Ancient Greeks and Romans, and will include in some way the religion of Christianity (and Judaism, if we’re being nice).

And my main point here is: if this is how we want to define the west and its culture, then it certainly makes no sense to exclude Islam and the Islamicate world.

In terms of its cultural place of origin, Islam is no different from either Christianity or Judaism. Where does Judaism emerge primarily? In the Middle east. Where did the ministry of Jesus happen and Christianity emerge? In the Middle East. Where does Islam originate? In the Middle east. They all come from basically the same cultural context, sharing the same mythology & stories, much of the same cultural heritage & literature.

And as these religions and traditions continued to develop, they did so in tandem with each other. Especially in the Islamic caliphates, Muslims Jews & Christians lived together and interacted with each other intellectually, culturally and in many other ways, which contributed to how those traditions evolved.

And one very important aspect of that wider intellectual and cultural environment was the interactions and mingling with the Hellenic and Greek-speaking heritage that had been so strong around the mediterranean.

Most of us know that it was under the early Islamicate empires that a large selection of books were translated into Arabic: Greek philosophical and scientific texts, sanskrit texts from India etc. This was an important part of the policy of the Abbasid caliphs with their base in Baghdad, for example, where the so-called translation movement had its epicenter in the bayt al-hikma or ‘house of wisdom’. This translation and safeguarding of ancient wisdoms was also a joint effort across religious lines. It was patronized by the Muslim leaders and led by Muslim scholars/philosophers like al-Kindi (d. 870), but a huge amount of the people working on these translations were also Christians, including most famously the great Syriac scholar Hunayn Ibn Ishaq (d. 873).

During much of the early middle ages, Baghdad was essentially the center of the world, both culturally and intellectually. The only other place that might have been able to compete (not counting the Americas) was maybe Chang’an in China, but Baghdad was really where it was happening. It was through the translation and incorporation of these texts that the intellectual heritage of the Greeks (and Romans), which is often seen as the ‘core’ of the so-called ‘western culture’, survived and indeed spread to wider parts of the world. Thanks to the Islamic civilization, people were now reading Aristotle and Pythagorean texts all the way over in Afghanistan, thus extending the reach of western culture beyond its previous borders.

I often hear people argue that all the Muslims (Islamicate figures) did was to translate and preserve this intellectual tradition, only then ‘handing it back’ to the Europeans in the later middle ages with the birth of scholasticism and the eventual renaissance. This is simply not true. The Muslims not only translated but continued to develop and build on the traditions of the Greeks. They participated deeply and very significantly in that larger cultural and intellectual heritage. Not only that, they were the ones who inherited and embodied this tradition. Going by our definition here of the west as a cultural-intellectual legacy of the Abrahamic-Hellenic synthesis, it was the Muslim world, and Baghdad in particular that was the centre of the west for centuries.

And this had a deep influence on the religion itself, too.

The Muslims encountered these cultures in the very earliest days of the religions history, and the theology and self-understanding of the religion of Islam would be directly influenced by it. The theological schools of Islam, as well as its philosophical tradition were directly a result of, and in conversation with the already existing traditions in the Middle east and mediterranean. Islamic theology, philosophy, and arguably even jurisprudence, employs the methods of this pre-existing heritage. And all this influenced and shaped the religion of Islam as we know it today.

Furthermore, in a political sense, the early Islamic caliphates modelled themselves on the Romans (and Sasanians), and the art and architecture (including things like music) that would become known as distinctly “Islamic(ate)” was a continuation of (among other things) Roman precedence.

This was, in many ways, a shared cultural and intellectual culture. And in some regions, this was obvious in a geographic sense, too. Medieval Andalusia was a place where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived and interacted in deep ways, influencing each other. Many of the most influential and central figures in the ‘western religions’ like Christianity and Judaism actually lived within an Islamic culture, such as the important Jewish philosopher Maimonides. So is he an Islamic thinker? Or at least, certainly, an Islamicate thinker?

The Ottoman empire, one of the greatest and most powerful in history, saw themselves as a continuation of the Roman empire, and their rule extended deep into Europe. Islam has thus been part of this continent in various ways throughout its history.

What we are getting at here is the idea that what we often describe as ‘the west’ in a cultural, religious and intellectual sense could perhaps be defined as what some, particularly Matthew Melvin Koushki, have chosen to call the Abrahamic-hellenic synthesis. I sometimes use the phrase semitic-hellenic synthesis to be a little broader, but it has essentially the same meaning. In other words, the coming together of the originally semitic speaking Abrahamic cultures with the hellenic heritage. This is really, if anything, what makes up ‘the west’ as we usually understand it. And if that is the case, then it makes absolutely no sense to exclude Islam from that category, since Islam and the Islamic world (broadly) has been an integral, even decisive, factor in that synthesis.

In fact, the Muslims were at the very forefront of that development and synthesis through the translation movement and further development of the hellenic philosophical heritage within the religion, which was then inherited by and even further developed by the Christian European world.

Baghdad, for much of the middle ages, as we have seen, was the very center of the world when it came to precisely this cultural synthesis, thus being, again, arguably the very centre of the so-called ‘west’. And even though the city itself (as it was then) was basically destroyed with the Mongol invasions, it’s not like Islam and the Islamic world stopped participating in that culture, even if that is a common misrepresentation. Far from it, actually.

The ideas developed by the Islamic thinkers like Ibn Sina continued being central aspects of normative Islam for the rest of history. Some might object and say “well, Ibn Sina was condemned by Ghazali as a non-believer”. Yes, some of his doctrines were, but it would be false to thereby conclude that his ideas as a whole were rejected. Insead, they continued to course through the very bloodstream of Islamic thinking and culture, especially in the eastern parts of the Islamic world, what is sometimes called the Persianate cultural sphere, or what Shahab Ahmed has in a more nuanced way called the Balkans-to-Bengal complex. A vast cultural area in which the majority of the world’s muslims lived and that included the great Ottoman empire that stretched from the Hijaz into western Europe, the Iranian and Central Asian regions and all the way to Mughal India.

In fact, the perspectives presented by Ahmed in his modern classic work What is Islam?: The Importance of Being Islamic is valuable to keep in mind in this discussion.

He argues that one of the problems with using words like “Islamicate” instead of “Islamic” to denote cultural expressions within spheres dominated by Islam but which aren’t deemed “religious” enough, or having to do specifically with the religion of Islam, is that we are precisely failing to recognize that Islam is and has been more than just a narrow definition of “religion” based primarily on a religious law. Islam is different from Christianity, and to impose this difference between “culture” and “religion” is to neglect the fact that Islam as a category and phenomenon encompasses aspects that we call “cultural” precisely as being Islamic, even thinkers and expressions of other religions fit under the wider scope of Islam and its civilization, as is even stated and clearly denoted in the Qur’an itself.

The point of this is to counter those who would want to say “well, these philosophical hellenic developments aren’t part of Islam as such, even if they are practiced by Muslims”. But as we can see, this would be to fundamentally misunderstand the very scope and function of the phenomenon we call “Islam”.

And indeed, the very idea that Islamic “science” or philosophical development as we have talked about it here stopped after the first few centuries (the infamous ‘Golden Age’) is in itself a result of the renaissance Europeans and their arbitrary choice to stop considering works composed in Arabic, Persian, Turkish etc. after that period. Because while the Mongol invasion of the Islamic world and the sacking of Baghdad certainly had a major impact on the intellectual and religious climate of the Islamic world, the idea that philosophy and science stopped is a myth. Instead, the centre of these activities were instead moved further east, into the Persianate world and the Balkans-to-Bengal complex; the great empires of the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals in the early modern period, who continued to read Plato and Pythagoras, continued to see themselves as heirs of those ancient ‘western’ figures. And one could even argue then, based on the fact that more people lived in the Balkans-to-Bengal complex than in renaissance Europe, that this area remained the centre of the ‘west’.

To clarify, I’m not necessarily saying this is true, but simply pointing out how these simplified categories can be easily picked apart.

Where does Copernicus come from? Or the other great figures of early modern science that have laid the groundwork for much of our modern worldview, such as Kepler or Newton? Were they building their ideas on earlier latin works? Yes, to a degree, of course. But aside from claims of their simple individual genius, there is no way that they developed their ideas only based on those sources, but instead would have drawn from astronomical sources from the Islamic world as they had developed, including after the ‘cut-off’ moment in the middle ages. There are amazing scientists and scholars from the Islamicate world in the early modern period that have gone almost completely unstudied, but who deserve to be mentioned alongside are equally someone like Newton as significant for the modern development of ‘western’ intellectual traditions; the greek heritage of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle as well as the wider Abrahamic-Hellenic synthesis.

With all these factors in mind, it becomes clear that the way many of us conceive of the “west” certainly doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny. That isn’t to say that we can’t use the phrase at all, even if it denotes the cultural/intellectual features and legacy that is usually associated with it. But if we want to do this, we would have to expand the borders of this “west” to include parts of the world that usually aren’t. This is why some scholars today instead speak of a Greater west, one which takes into consideration the wider contribution of non-European voices in the development of “western culture/civilization”, especially those from the so-called Islamic world.

But am I actually arguing that Islam is a western religion? No, not really. Because Islam, just like most religions, doesn’t belong to any one geographic area. It is a global phenomenon that changes and develops depending on the area where it finds itself. Islam has been prominent in China, it is the majority religion in Indonesia still today, there are Muslims in the Americas, as well as Europe and the Middle East. Any such simplifications and generalizations of any religion being ‘western’ or not is just that - simplifications.

But if we are going to go around using words like ‘the west’, ‘western culture’ or ‘western civilization’ in the way that I see so many people do today, and in that process exclude Islam and the Islamic world, then it is clear that this is a polemical and political statement; a clear division of us vs. them based on one’s own perceived self-understanding and identity, as well as the polarized political climate, and not based on any real historical or contemporary reality, either geographically, culturally, intellectually or religiously.

For those of you who are familar with my work, you know that I do use the word ‘west’ sometimes, so I’m not necessarily arguing that it is a completely useless term, even if we want to use it in the narrow sense of referring to western Europe and North America in particular. But you’ve probably also noticed that I will often use air-quotes or quotation marks when saying the word, and this is because of all the things we have been discussing here. We might be able to use the word ‘west’, whether that is the ‘greater west’ that I think is a lot more accurate and useful, or maybe even its more narrow sense (if you really feel like you have to), but in that case we must do so while being informed and conscious of the huge amount of problems with the term, what it is that we are including or excluding, and why. If we do so, then our debates and discussions about these topics will be a lot more fruitful and less polarizing in the long run.

Bibliography:

Ahmed, Shahab (2017). "What is Islam?: The Importance of Being Islamic". Princeton University Press.

Bulliet, Richard (2004) "The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization". Columbia University Press.

Melvin-Koushki, Matthew (2017). "Powers of One: The Mathematicalization of the Occult Sciences in the High Persianate Tradition". Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 5, no. 1: 127-99.

Ragep, F. Jamil (2004). "Copernicus and His Islamic Predecessors: An Aspect of Islamic Influence on Science". Osiris 16 n.s.: 49-71.

If you were around in the late 80’s and 90’s and was at all into the thing that was often called “world music”, you would have undoubtedly been exposed to artists like the magnificent Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. He is a good and very famous example of what is termed “Sufi music”. And while many may have heard this kind of music, few are aware of its history, development and use in devotional, mystical practices.

We have already explored the general history and development of music in the Islamic world in previous episodes. A deep and highly developed tradition of diverse forms and expressions. And one of the most important and central factors in the development and maintenance of Islamic music have been the Sufis - the Muslims who have heavily emphasized practices of inner purification known as Tasawwuf to reach intimacy with God. What is also often termed “Islamic mysticism”.

Through their frequent use of music as an important part of these practices, Sufis have both legitimized and helped carry forward music in the Islamic world in ways that still inspire today.

Many of us have of course seen and perhaps even experienced the famous whirling dervishes of the Mevlevi order, which is a particular form and expression of the music-infused Sufi rituals that have been so central to its history.

When we talk about Sufi music as such, we are usually talking specifically about the devotional practice called Sama, an Arabic word that literally means “audition” or “listening” and in which Sufis in history and today have engaged in listening to poetry or music as an essential spiritual practice, sometimes often involving movements of the body, or “dance” broadly defined.

In this article, we will be defining Sufi music a little more broadly. The practice-oriented music will be the bulk of our discussion, but we will also count more contemporary art music that have Sufi themes in their lyrics as part of the wider category of “Sufi music”.

In any case, Sufism, or Tasawwuf, is used as an umbrella term for all kinds of Islamic “mysticism” or ascetic tendencies in history, even if the term originally denoted a specific group of mystics in 9th-10th century Baghdad. And this broader definition is what we will go by here as well. We’ll leave a more complex discussion of the varieties of Islamic mysticism to another episode. But from the very earliest days of Sufism, music and “dance” was being used as an important practice for spiritual development.

Aside from the regular practices and rituals that all Muslims performed, like the daily prayers etc., Sufis developed further ways to deepen their relationship to the Qur’anic message, the Sunnah of the prophet and with God. The most universal of these practices is that one will gather for Hadra, or literally “gathering”, and perform Dhikr, or ‘remembrance”. In dhikr, Sufis will often chant the Islamic proclamation of faith - La Ilaha Illa Allah - or the different names of God in a repeated fashion and often for long periods of time. This chanting can sometimes be accompanied by percussion instruments.

Thus, you can see that the lines between dhikr and that other kind of ritual - sama - aren’t always crystal clear.

What is clear is that Sama - audition, the act of listening as an important spiritual practice - was present from the earliest days of Sufism. In the circle in Baghdad, the original Sufis, led by important figures like Junayd & Abu’l Husayn al-Nuri (d. 908) we know that these ecstatic musical gatherings took place, as well as in other places around the Islamic world.

Sama, as opposed to regular dhikr, was based around the power of auditory experience. It has almost always revolved primarily around the melodic recitation of devotional poetry, but has often been accompanied by musical instruments of various sorts. In sessions of sama, the practitioners will also sometimes induce movements of the body to increase the effects.

Now, important to remember here is that while sama has been an important and widespread practice in Sufism historically, not all Sufis have partaken in it. Some Sufis have been highly critical of sama, seeing it as an immoral corruption, while others have seen it as an essential part of religious practice. In later periods, when the different Sufi orders developed, some orders placed a major emphasis on sama - like the Chishtiyya and Mevleviyya - while others - like the Naqshbandiyya - have been more reluctant to use it. We will return to this topic a little bit later, but we should remember that Sufism, just like Islam more generally, is diverse and there have been, and still are, a variety of attitudes toward the use of music in devotional practice.

But from the earliest days of its development and until today, sama in its various forms have been a very popular and important part of Sufi practices. And there are two different ways in which one can view the power and meaning of this ritual:

1. The practical side, that is, how sama is performed and what effects it has on the practitioner

2. And the theoretical side, that is, how do the Sufis imagine that music/sound and its effects can be placed within a metaphysical and cosmological framework.

We will explore both of these perspectives in order to fully understand the vast topic of Sufi music.

Now some of you might be thinking, ‘hold on Filip, doesn’t Islam forbid music?’. The answer to that would be no, because Islam is not a human being. Many Muslims have considered, and consider, music forbidden, yes. But many other Muslims have also seen it as totally permitted, and in varying forms and circumstances. For a more full discussion on the legal status of music in Islam, see my earlier videos on the topic.

But many of the Sufis certainly didn’t consider it forbidden, especially not when it was used for religious purposes and in order to help the practitioner strengthen his relationship to God. This is why we see many of the most important early Sufi writers, like Sarraj, Abu Talib al-Makki and Qushayri defending the practice of listening to music in sufi gatherings. And this also gives us a good look into the way that sama was practiced and conceptualized in early Sufism.

In his very significant Risalat al-Qushayriyya fi ilm al-tasawwuf - ‘The Epistle of Qushayri on the science of Sufism - the scholar Abu’l Qasim al-Qushayri (d. 1072) writes that:

“Know that ‘listening to music’ is permissible, when it means the perception of beautiful sounds and pleasant melodies, when the listener does not intend anything that is prohibited, when he does not listen to anything that is condemned by the Divine Law, when he allows no free rein to his passions, and is not seduced by the amusement that resides in it.”

And that:

“They (the Sufis) say: ‘Listening to music is a delicious nourishment for the spirits of [divine] gnostics.’” - Qushayri

Abu Nasr al-Sarraj argues in his Kitab al-Luma’ fi al-tasawwuf that:

The Prophet said, ‘Wisdom is sometimes to be found in poetry’. Since poetry may be recited, there is no objection to reciting it with musical notes and melodies and with an agreeable intonation. Various divines and lawyers have pronounced in favour of audition, e. g., Malik b. Anas. It is well-known that Malik and the people of Medina did not dislike audition. Shafi’i was of the same opinion.” - al-Sarraj

And we find similar arguments in other formative works of Sufism like Abu Talib al-Makki’s Qut al-Qulub and that of al-Sulami.

What these Sufi writers were trying to do was not only to argue for its total compatibility with Islam and its Law by showing through hadith reports how the prophet and his companions approved of sama or that most of the founders of the law schools didn’t consider it prohibited, but also to show in what way the sama was an essential, sometimes even necessary part of mystical practice and the path to spiritual realization. As well as what rules were required for it to be considered legitimate.

From these writers as well as other sources, we get an idea of the power and purpose of sama sessions. We hear stories of various Sufis, like Dhul-Nun al-Misri, Abu Sulayman al-Darani and others and how they would fall into bouts of ecstasy, faint and other very dramatic things as a result of hearing beautiful sounds and melodies.

“A group of Sufis used to gather at the house of al-Hasan al-Qazzaz. They were accompanied by singers, whose singing made them ecstatic.”

Or much more dramatically:

“Ahmad b. Muqatil al-’Akki related: ‘When Dhu al-Nun al-Misri entered Baghdad, [local] Sufis gathered around him. Among them was a singer (qawwal). The Sufis asked Dhu al-Nun’s permission to have him [the singer] perform something for them. He gave them [his] permission, and the singer began to recite (…)

[On hearing this] Dhu al-Nun stood up and fell on his face, blood streaming from his forehead onto the ground. Then one of the Sufis also stood up and displayed ecstatic behavior.’”

As already mentioned, and as the name suggests, sama revolves around listening. In these sessions, one would listen to beautiful words or melodies. It could be as simple as the recitation of the Qur’an, but more often it involved devotional Sufi poetry. Poetry praising the prophet Muhammad or talking about one’s love or intimacy with God. This experience of listening was further enhanced by the accompaniment of musical instruments of varying sorts, as well as different forms of dancing.

Jean During defined it as such:

“Sama, which literally means ‘audition’, denotes, in the Sufi tradition, spiritual listening, and more particularly listening to music with the aim of reaching a state of grace or ecstasy, or more simply with the aim of meditating, of plunging into oneself, or as the Sufis say, to ‘nourish the soul’. It thus operates in a mystical concert, of spiritual listening to music and songs, in a more or less ritualized form.” - Jean During

This act of listening is thought to help the practitioner evolve spiritually, and in the most exalted situations, help him or her enter a state of spiritual ecstasy or perhaps even union with God.

We’ve all experienced the incredible power that music can have on our emotions. We’ve experienced music that makes us cry, laugh, become contemplative or happy. Some of us have even experienced music that is so powerful that it can take us out of our regular awareness completely, seemingly transporting us to some other, often ecstatic state.

And this power that music has was not lost on people earlier in history, including the Muslims. This is why sama and music was such an effective and central tool for some Sufi adepts and masters. (As well as why some considered it suspect and dangerous.)

It was a very good tool for helping the practitioner enter the state of wajd or ecstasy, to help orient the heart towards God consciousness and, to some, even to induce the highest forms of spiritual experience and union.

Again in the epistle of Qushayri:

“Someone inquired of Abu Yaqub al-Nahrajuri about listening to music. He answered: ‘This is a state that brings about the return to the [divine] mysteries through the burning [of one’s self].’” - Qushayri

Beautiful music (and possibly the words of poetry that accompany them) can move you towards and induce the state of self-annihilation, or Fana, so sought after by Sufis, a state when the ego becomes effaced in the reality of God, who is realized to be the only thing existing.

In the earliest period, the practice of sama does not seem to have been as structured or ritualized as it would become in later periods. We do know that gatherings took place as I just described but not so much about what they would have been like. As mentioned, we know that the early Sufis would gather formally and take part in musical auditions, and many sources suggest that both men and women were involved and that sometimes even women could lead these sessions.

And sama as such could also be a very spontaneous thing. It didn’t have to be in a ritualized setting to have effect. There are many stories of Sufis who are just walking along on the street and hear a beautiful sound, someone singing a melody or reciting some lines of poetry, and immediately being thrust into an ecstatic state. Kenneth S. Avery writes:

“A chance hearing of words, song or poetry in a crowded place, the

cry of a street vendor, or a ‘misheard’ sound or utterance could also

act as a powerful trigger for altered state experiences.” - Kenneth S. Avery

These ecstatic states, or awhal of ecstasy, wajd, was also often associated with certain behaviors, as you can tell. The stories about sufis ripping their clothes, yelling and fainting showcase how powerful these altered states could be. This was another controversial point and there were often variations of opinions about how one should approach them. Sometimes, scholars have talked about a “sober” kind of Sufism, associated with figures like Junayd and later al-Ghazali, and an “intoxicated” form, more associated with figures like Abu Yazid al-Bistami & Hallaj. While this dichotomy is somewhat simplifying, it does hint at the different attitudes. To some, the extreme altered states and experiences should be accompanied by an outer sobriety, where one controls one’s actions and speech while being completely transformed on the inside. Others were more allowing of outer expressions of ecstasy.

Very famously, Sufis have been attributed with ecstatic utterances, known as shath, while in altered states as a result of sama. Perhaps most famously is the story about al-Hallaj who is said to have uttered the phrase Ana al-Haqq or “I am the Truth”, and Bistami who is quoted as exclaiming Subhani - “Glory be to me!”.

When we read contemporary and later writings about these utterances, we often see the Sufis having an apologetic tone. These are utterances of ineffable secrets and the person cannot be judged based on their actions when in a heightened state. Many were concerned about such occurrences at the same time though, not so much because what was said by these mystics was wrong per se, but because they divulged publicly secrets that should only be kept within a confined setting of mystical company.

As we get into the later middle ages and Sufism develops further, becomes more widespread as a practice and is increasingly institutionalized, we have more sources to go by and we can see how the practice of sama spreads and continues to remain a very important practice.

We have more references to music from this time, both in some of the great examples of Sufi poetry but also in more scholastic works.

With the writings of the monumental scholar Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111), in particular is Ihya Ulum al-Din - The Revival of the Religious Sciences - as well as other developments at the time, Sufism became more widely accepted as part of normative, mainstream Islam. In the Ihya, Ghazali not only creates a kind of theoretical synthesis of Sufism, Ash’ari theology and Islamic Law which became paradigmatic, he also presents us with a passionate and comprehensive defense of music and sama in particular.

He presents arguments similar to his predecessors that we have already talked about but is even more systematic and presents theological arguments of his own to support his claims. For example, he famously gives us the phrase:

“Whoever says that all music is prohibited, let him also claim that the songs of birds are prohibited” - al-Ghazali

Beautiful sounds and melodies are not a problem in themselves. If so, then all beauty should be, as he indicates here. Instead, it is about the context in which it is experienced.

Ghazali limits the kinds of instruments that can be used in sama sessions, only including those that are not associated with alcohol-drinking and taverns, but in general is a great defender of sama and music as beneficial to the Muslims who travel on the spiritual path. But not everyone agreed with him.

Perhaps surprising to some of you, the great Andalusian sufi master Ibn ‘Arabi was not a fan of sama at all, and condemns the practice in his great work al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya:

“They practice sama, as if it was an exercise in devotion and piety, but in fact they are just people who take religion as a joke and a game, taking advantage of beardless youths to further their perverse intentions and villainy… the practice really only serves to satisfy the appetite of the senses in spite of the fact that from a legal point of view it is a perfectly acceptable activity” - Ibn Arabi

Pretty harsh words. To him, this was not proper behavior for a gnostic. Even though he indicates that music in general isn’t necessarily a problem from the perspective of the law, he clearly thinks that it is inappropriate as a religious Sufi practice.

This is just to show you that there is diversity in attitudes here, and even a great and famous figure like Ibn Arabi could be very hostile.

But he was probably not in the majority, as we see how sama remains very popular and how it is praised by various poets and mystics at the time.

One of the greatest Arabic Sufi poets of all time, Ibn al-Farid (d. 1234) is said to have been a frequent participant in mystical gatherings of music and dance. But one story also tells of how he spontaneously entered an ecstatic state while in a marketplace:

“a group of guards passed by Ibn al-Farid while they were beating clappers and singing(...). Upon hearing these verses, Ibn al-Farid shouted out and danced in the marketplace. This attracted a large crowd of people, many of whom fell to the ground in ecstasy as the guards continued to sing.” - Emil Homerin

Another writer recalls how a spiritual session of sama wasn’t considered complete unless Ibn al-Farid attended.

And in his poetry, he offers many praises and descriptions of the beauty and transformative experiences that are had while in sama. In his most famous poem, the huge al-Taiyya al-Kubra - The Ode Rhyming in the letter Ta - also known as Nazm al-Suluk - The Poem of the Sufi Way - he offers an absolutely beautiful description of the power of spiritual audition, where he compares it to a mother singing lullabies to her infant:

“When the infant moans from the tight swaddling wrap

and restlessly yearns for relief from distress

He is soothed by by lullabies and lays aside the burden that covered him;

he listens silently to one who soothes him.

The sweet speech makes him forget his bitter state

and remember a secret whisper of ancient ages.

His state makes clear the conditions of audition (sama)

and confirms the dance to be free from error.

For when he burns with desire from lullabies,

anxious to fly to his first abodes,

He is calmed by his rocking cradle

as the hands of the nurse gently sway it

I have found in gripping rapture when she is recalled

in the chanters tones and the singers tunes

What a suffering man feels when he gives up his soul,

when the messengers of death come to take him

One finding pain in being driven asunder

is like one pained in rapture yearning for friends

The soul pitied the body where it first appeared,

and my spirit rose to its high beginnings.

My spirit soared past the gate

opening to beyond my union

where there is no veil of communion.” - Ibn al-Farid

Ibn al-Farid alludes to the spirit’s longing to return to his source in God, the lullaby representing the beauty of the music that reminds the soul of his origin and increases his desire for reunion. As the nurse gently sways him - that is, as the sufi sways his body to the music - and the singers chant the name of God, the mystic experiences a spiritual death, where the spirit can soar to a state beyond all duality. Even, as he says, “beyond union” of lover and beloved - mystic and God.

Similarly, the Andalusian arabic sufi poet Abu’l Hasan al-Shushtari (d. 1269) gave major importance to music and songs in his mystical practice. Many of his poems, in the form of zajal, were songs meant to be sung. Stories tell of how Shushtari would go to the markets with his companions and sing his songs, possibly with instrumental accompaniment, to the regular people in ecstatic sessions.

“When I went towards my object

and listened to the music

My misery became glory

and my poverty, riches.” - al-Shushtari

“O faqih (jurist), if you would but taste it

and listen to the melodies in the Sufi gatherings,

You would give up this world and everything in it

and live love-crazed until the day you die” - al-Shushtari

Indeed, echoing the point made by Ghazali earlier, Shushtari explains in his Risalat al-Baghdadiyya how all forms of listening can be a devotional act, whether it is the music of sufi gatherings or the singing of birds.

“Listening (sama) is veneration, (...). Speech is veneration as long as what is said is good. Sensory experience is veneration, all five senses.” - al-Shushtari

To Shushtari, God can be experienced everywhere at all times, and the perfect devotee is the person who turns every act and sensory experience into an act of devotion. In all beautiful sounds one can experience the presence of God. The ritualized practice of sufi sama in this context becomes like a super-charged way of audition.

At around this time, in the 12th and 13th centuries, we see the significant development of the Sufi orders, a further institutionalization of Sufism into various turuq centered around the teachings of a single founder. As we will see, some of these orders would implement sama and music as central parts of their identity, while others would exclude it completely, and these characteristic forms and expressions of Sufi music often survive today.

Perhaps none is more famous in this regard than the Persian Sufi poet Jalal al-din Rumi (d. 1273) and the Mevleviyya, or Mevlevi order that was founded based on him.

Not only is his most famous poem - the Song of the reed - a direct reference to sama, and we will return to this poem a little bit later, but it is also said that Rumi was a rabab player himself and his life involves various stories that showcase his love to for music and sama.

In one, it is said that when his spiritual master Shams al-Tabrizi suddenly disappeared, Rumi would start to whirl in an ecstatic dance. In another, it is told:

“Once our master Jelaladdin said this:

‘Music is the creaking of the gates of Paradise!’

Whereupon one of the stupid idiots remarked:

‘I do not like the sound of creaking gates!’

And Mevlana answered:

‘You hear the doors when they are being closed, but I, I hear them when they are opening!’”

Many anecdotes and stories like this show how greatly Rumi loved music and its powerful effects.

“Sama was an activity for the true men of God which liberated Rumi from the austere ways of self-renunciation and gave him a joyous vehicle for

expressing his mystical rapture” - Franklin D. Lewis

Rumi’s close connection to music can be seen in the characteristic practices of the Mevlevi order that he founded. It is this order that later developed the very recognizable form of sema where the practitioners whirl in a similar fashion to stories about the master himself. This has become known as the “Whirling dervishes” and is a complex and developed ritual involving musical suites of several parts and compositions. Whirling is another example of the “dancing” movements that often accompanied musical sessions, and is thought to help the dervish enter a state of transcendence and loss of self, to be united to God.

One will often explain how whirling is the most natural movement of the universe, the galaxies revolve in spinning motions, the atoms do the same, as do the planets around the sun. Of course, Rumi wouldn’t have known these scientific things himself at the time, but whirling was seen as important on a symbolic level as such.

A later writer describes the meanings of the particular sama practiced by Rumi and the Mevlevis at the time:

“All the movements emanating from mystics during the sama symbolize a point or a truth. For instance, whirling is a sign of unity and this is a station of saints who (stand in that station) see the beloved and the desired everywhere and in all directions and they attain divine grace wherever they turn. To jump and to stamp the foot denote two things: the first one denotes the joy of connecting with the spiritual world. To stamp the foot denotes that the sufi, in that position, subordinates his self and with that strength he treads upon everything except God. Opening the arms denotes several things: the first is related to the joy of the honour of attainment and to the conferral of the degree of perfection. Secondly, it is a victory over the army of inordinate appetites of the self, and the greatest holy war (jihad) consists of defeating these.” - Faridun bin Ahmad-i Sipahsalar

And that’s one of the fascinating things about Sufi music. We can see how it is widely practiced across the Islamic world, but that it takes distinct forms and develops in unique ways depending on the cultural context, and sometimes the tariqa itself.

The Mevlevi order developed mainly in Turkey, with its base in Konya and thus when we listen to the Mevlevi order, it has clear characteristics of music in that region in terms of the instruments used and the style.

If we move further east to India, sama would develop in ways completely unique to other places as well. In the Chishti order, which has been one of the most popular in this region, sama and music came to play a major role. Some of the most significant masters of the order, like Nizamuddin Auliya (d. 1325) were great advocates of sama and frequently practiced it. One of his students, the Sufi poet and musical composer Amir Khusraw (d. 1325) is one of the most significant in this regard. He and others like him developed forms of sufi music that was unique to this region and had very strong flavors of Indian music culture. Genres like Qawwali came about in this context, which today has been made so famous by figures like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

In North Africa, we also see how the music has a characteristic flavor, often being a combination of Arabic and Berber traditions of music. Here, there is usually a predominance of percussion instruments and group chanting, but as always there is of course diversity.

So as we can see, Sufi music developed in different ways and took different expressions, but the purpose and theory behind it always remained the same - to be an aid and important practice for mystical initiates to advance on the spiritual path and eventually reach the state of full God-remembrance and self-annihilation through ecstacy.

Discussions continued about the permissibility of this practice as well as the conditions in which it could be performed. The earliest Sufi figures like Junayd had said that there were three main requirements for a sama to take place: the right time, the right place and the right people. But we can also see a diversity in attitudes towards these kinds of rules. To some, like the very significant North African Sufi Abu Madyan (d. 1198), sama was a restricted practice. He approved of it, but only behind closed doors and in the company of advanced Sufis. In the Bidayat al-Murid, he writes that:

“As for the session of audition (sama), it constitutes correct behavior - [a point which] no one doubts except the ignorant. It is the method of the saints and the pious. (...) Audition is a private thing - no one but its folk should know of it. When [Sufis] are present for ecstatic sessions they should lock the doors of their homes and when the food is brought they should open them again” - Abu Madyan

One also sometimes argued that sama was only something that was performed as a step on the way to the highest stations of mystical development, but once one had reached a higher station, one no longer needed it and it should be discarded.

“Sama’ relates to the spiritual progress of a Muslim mystic or Sufi adept in one of three ways: (1) it may be totally excluded as inappropriate to Islamic teaching - mystical or nonmystical (as the Mughal Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi [d. 1624] and his suborder, the Mujaddidiyya Naqshbandiyya, believed); (2) it may be accepted as a penultimate stage on the mystical ladder leading to ontological unity, i.e., perfection; or (3) it may be viewed as the top rung of the ladder, itself the ultimate mystical experience when properly pursued” - Carl W. Ernst & Bruce B. Lawrence

Others had a more open attitude. The Chishti order is again a very good example here. Sama sessions here were, and are, often held in public and around the shrines of important masters. Anyone could partake and take advantage of the music and devotional poetry of the ritual and guide them, at least a little bit towards God. Similarly, it was argued that sama or music was not just a step on the way but could actually be the catalyst and main part of the highest forms of mystical development; the very purpose and goal of the path.

“For them music was both the ontological and the epistemological sine qua non of Islamic mysticism. It not only helped the lover to attain a state of ecstacy in the presence of the Beloved, but it itself was integral to the ecstatic moment” - Carl W. Ernst & Brice B. Lawrence

If you go to India or Pakistan, one can easily find Sufi music in the form of Qawwali being sung near the shrines of figures like Nizamuddin Auliya, Moinuddin Chishti and Amir Khusraw, whose poetry is so popular that it is likely the words you are hearing being sung in that moment are probably his.

The world of Sufi music and its diversity is a fascinating thing. Wherever you travel in the Islamic world you will find unique ways that this significant tradition is expressed, from Sudan to Morocco to Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and beyond.

And this very deep tradition of Sufi music has been very significant historically, not only within the Sufi tradition itself but for the general development and history of music in the Islamic world too.

Especially from the later middle ages, when Sufism became mainstream, and into the modern period, Sufi composers were integral to the development of various strands of Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Indian music.

In the Ottoman empire, the Mevlevi order of Rumi received great support from the Sultans and were often close with the court. The masters and composers of the Mevlevi order were often also composers of secular court music and the two genres greatly influenced each other. Some of the most noteworthy and form-giving compositions of the Ottoman and Turkish repertoire come from Sufi composers from the Mevlevi and Jelveti order.

Similarly, in places like North Africa we see how Sufi music becomes very important for the scene. Music that was composed and performed were often based on poems by great Sufi personalities.

And the situation today is quite fascinating as well. Sufism does not have the standing that it used to in many regions of the Islamic world, and thus practices like sama are less common than they were earlier in history. But despite this, Sufi music is flourishing around the world. Remember what we said in the beginning - we are defining Sufi music more broadly here as not only including its ritualized aspects.

The traditional sama still exists of course. The Chishti order in India still performs qawwali music at the shrines of saints. The Mevlevi dervishes are still active, both in its actual traditional practice but also as a kind of tourist attraction for those visiting Turkey today.

And if you visit Morocco you can find Sufi groups who still gather for communal sama both in private, but sometimes also in public, like in the very charismatic performances of the Isawiyya. In Sudan, followers of the Qadiri order can be seen performing a unique kind of sama involving dancing and in Egypt, there are huge gatherings for different mawlid-celebrations where sufi saints are celebrated.

Great traditions like the Mawlid of the Egyptian sufi saint Ahmad al-Badawi (d. 1236) will involve huge gatherings of people engaged in ecstatic audition to poems being sung with complex musical accompaniment and modern equipment. And in places like Humaithara, where the shrine of Abu’l Hasan al-Shadhili is buried, the order’s followers will often engage in singing.

So clearly, sama in its traditional form is still alive and well and continues to evolve and develop. But Sufi music is even broader than this, and in the last century we have seen the rise of various more commercialized expressions. I have already mentioned Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who did figure in a traditional Qawwali environment most of the time, but also recorded those traditional songs on albums and at music festivals, sort of straddling the line between the modern and the traditional. He made Qawwali, thus Central Asian Sufi music, popular to a worldwide audience and this is still carried forward by artists like Abida Parveen & Fareed Ayaz.

But others are seemingly completely divorced from its ritualized aspects, performing what we could call “art-music” but which still figures within a Sufi framework because of the themes involved.

The Senegalese singer Youssou N’dour, who is from a country where Sufism is especially widespread, released an album called “Santa Yallah” in 2004 (released as “Egypt” internationally) that is essentially traditionally infused pop music but with lyrical themes exclusively about Sufism & the important figures of the Mouridiyyah and Tijaniyya Sufi orders. This is quite a common thing in the pop music scene in west africa, with artists like Baba Maal also incorporating sufi themes in his lyrics. And there is a strong tradition of griot singers who will sing praise-songs for various saints or important figures and shaykhs, a slice of which I’ve had the privilege of experiencing myself.

In Iran one is really, and understandably, proud of the great tradition of Persian sufi poets and there is a flourishing musical scene there which often explicitly references this tradition. Singers like Shahram Nazeri and the recently passed Mohammad Reza Shajarian have become celebrated artists around the world while singing songs based on the poetry of Rumi, Hafez and many others, and with music that is heavily rooted in the traditions of sufism.

Even more recently, the British-based artist and composer Sami Yusuf has done some really amazing work to gather, interpret and perform classic Sufi poetry and music from different cultures and regions in accessible ways through ambitious concerts and recordings.

Add to this the many experimentations taking place and the emergence of things like “sufi rock” music and sufi trance, which while perhaps staying true to its ecstatic roots doesn’t always feature things like sufi poetry but more of a vibe and the use of sufi-associated instrumentation.

As you can tell, then, Sufi music in a general sense has branched out into a vast category that has crept into all kinds of contexts, genres and regions of the world. And people really like this stuff. There are festivals arranged, like the Fez Festival of World Sacred Music, which is often heavily focused on the Sufi tradition in particular, and other such developments which shows that whether in the traditional, ritualized form or not, Sufi music is certainly here to stay.

The incredibly colorful stories about the effects of sama and music on its practitioners indicates its great power to affect the human being. But why does it have this effect? How did the Sufis look at music and its role in the metaphysical scheme of things and explain its exalted nature? This is another treasure trove with a lot of different perspectives.

The power of music was realized basically universally, both by its supporters and detractors. We see how many of the early Islamic philosophers wrote many works on music and often connected it to various cosmological and metaphysical ideas. Thinkers like al-Kindi, al-Farabi & Ibn Sina loved music. They realized the medical and therapeutic use of music and often employed it as treatment for various physical and mental ailments, a point often pointed to by the Sufi writers to argue for its permissibility and use.

Music is harmony, and is strongly connected to mathematics and the spheres of the heavens. There is a great section in the Epistle of the Ikhwan al-Safa’ - The Brethren of Purity - who write that:

“You should know, dear brother, may God aid you and us with a spirit

of His, that in every manual craft the matter [hayula] dealt with consists

of naturally occurring material, and that all its products are physical

forms. The exception is music, for the ‘matter’ it deals with consists

entirely of spiritual substances (Jawahir), namely, the souls of those who

listen to it.”

The musician is he or she who shapes and works with the souls of other human beings and animals. They also write:

“...the tones produced by the movements of the musician remind the

individual souls that are in the world of generation and corruption of

the joy of the world of the celestial spheres, just as the tones produced

by the movements of the celestial spheres and the heavenly bodies

remind the souls that are there of the joy of the world of the spirits.”

In other words, the harmony and beauty of music reminds the soul of the harmony and beauty of the celestial world and the divine realm.

And many Sufis would echo similar sentiments.

In the Risala of Qushayri, which we have quoted previously, he retells a story:

“I heard al-Junayd say, when someone asked him: “Why is a man [usually] quiet, but becomes agitated when he hears music?” He answered: “God Most High addressed [disembodied human] souls during the primordial pact, saying: ‘Am I not your Lord?’ They answered: ‘Yes, we testify’ and the spirits [of human beings] fully absorbed the sound of these words, so whenever they listen to music, the remembrance of that [original act of] hearing agitates them.”

Here, Junayd is connecting the listening to, and effects of, music with Qur’anic principles. The primordial covenant when God creates the world and asks “Am I not your Lord?” becomes the original music of our spiritual origin, and any time we hear beautiful music in the sensible world, we are reminded of this original foundation.

This idea of music as remembrance, a form of dhikr, becomes a recurring theme. In Rumi’s masterwork of poetry - the Masnavi - he opens the entire thing with the poem that has become known as the Song of the Reed.

“Listen to the reed and the tale it tells,

how it songs of separation:

Ever since they cut me from the reed bed,

my wail has caused men and women to weep

I want a heart that is torn open with longing

so that I might share the pain of this love.

Whoever has been parted from his source

longs to return to that state of union” - Rumi

These are just the opening lines, but it already indicates the meaning. Rumi is talking about the wailing or sound of the reed flute, the ney which has been an important instrument and symbol in sufi music, and how this sad yet beautiful sound is a metaphor for the longing of the human soul to return to its source in God. When the person hears the melodies of the nay, that melody mirrors the longing of the soul and pushes it towards its desire for union.

There is also a wonderful story involving Ali ibn Abi Talib. This story tells how the Prophet Muhammad once told Ali the most exalted and deepest secrets of reality in confidence, and made Ali promise to never tell another person this secret.

Ali was true to his word but this secret was so amazing that he could not contain himself, he just couldn’t keep it inside. So he went in secret to a little lake and whispered the secret into the reed bed, which absorbed it into its own being. So, when we hear the beautiful music of the ney, we are in some way hearing that secret that the Prophet told Ali. I just love this story.

And the sound of the instrument also becomes a metaphor for another aspect of the human condition and the relationship between God and creation. Just as the ney requires the player to blow into it to give it life, and the drum requires a hand that caresses it or a lute needs fingers that pluck it, so human beings or anything in creation is constantly given life by the breath of God. We are the sounds and instruments played by God.

If we want to find poetic utterances about sama and music and its symbolic and metaphysical function, there is a lot of stuff to draw from. We already saw the earlier examples from Ibn al-Farid and al-Shushtari, and Rumi is an especially great point of reference. In another poem, he writes:

“The wise men tell us that we take these tunes

from the turning of celestial spheres

These sounds are revolutions of the skies

that man composes with his lyre and throat

We all were parts of Adam at one time

In paradise we all have heard these tunes

Though clay and water fill us up with doubts

We still remember something of those songs

And so, like food, sama sustains God’s lovers

within its harmonies the mind’s composed

imagination draws its inspiration

takes its shape within this hue and cry” - Rumi

The huge importance and love Rumi shows towards sama is apparent not only in the poetry itself but in the practice of sama as it developed in the Mevlevi order, characterized by the whirling motion that he was taught by Shams al-Tabrizi, and the above poem mentions how the music and movement of the whirling dervish mirrors the turning of the heavens and spheres.

In many of these poems and descriptions, music becomes an essential component of reality and creation. Rumi, again, here provides one of the most beautiful visions of reality and creation that I can think of. Much like Junayd, he views the originating moment when God asks alastu bi-rabbikum - “Am I not your Lord?” - as essentially a musical one. These words are a musical sound, a melody, to which Non-Being responds by beginning to dance, to whirl and from this dance is created all of the universe - every atom, every galaxy, every flower and animal - all of them come to be and move in a constant dance to the melody of the divine creative music. It’s absolutely breathtaking imagery. And here, the earthly sama or music becomes a micro-version of the most essential movement of the universe, a mirroring of the divine order.

In the Greatest Shaykh, the Andalusian Ibn ‘Arabi (d. 1240) we get a similar idea. He conceives of the creation and continuous maintaining of the world as a relationship of speaking and hearing/listening. The originating command Kun! - Be! - is a kind of sound or speech, a non-sensible one of course, to which creation responds by listening. He refers to this as al-sama’ al-mutlaq - absolute sama’ - and sees it as an essential part of how reality works. This sama isn’t musical, as in the case of Rumi, but sensible music can be seen as a part or mode of this wider absolute listening.

And Ibn ‘Arabi in general is very important for our next point or perspective on the spiritual and metaphysical aspects of music. As we saw earlier, he himself was very much hostile to the practice, but his wider ideas provide us and other mystics with a perfect mystical foundation to build on.

The main philosophical or theological position that Ibn Arabi and his followers are associated with is the doctrine of Wahdat al-Wujud or “The Unity/Oneness of Being”. Ibn ‘Arabi himself never used this term, but it became a very influential theoretical expression of sufi metaphysics around the world after him.

In the so-called Unity of Being, Ibn ‘Arabi essentially argues that there is only one Reality - Reality itself, or al-Haqq - God. God, the One, is all there is and everything “other than God” is simply non-being.

Based on the hadith qudsi that states: “I was a hidden treasure, and I loved to be known. So I created the world that I might be known”, he sees all of creation as the continuous self-disclosure or manifestation of God’s infinite attributes, like in a mirror. Everything we see, everything we experience is a mirror showing a particular reflection of God’s attributes, like the colors of the rainbow being an illusory diversity hiding the inner unity of the white light.

Thus, there is nothing but God. But God is also utterly transcendent and different from the world. The world is God/not God (Huwa la Huwa). All existence in itself is God, because God is Being itself and there is only one Being, and all multiplicity is a refraction or projection of his infinite oneness into a multiplicity that reflects Him back at Himself in limited form.

This is a very simplified explanation, and if you want to know more you should check out my full video on Ibn ‘Arabi.

What is important for us here is the idea that all things are reflections of God’s attributes, so that there is “nothing which is not an aspect of God” or in which God can be contemplated or experienced in an indirect form. When God is experienced, the mystic realizes that there is only one experiencer experiencing himself in a mirror and duality falls apart. As the Christian Meister Eckchart said: “The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me”. (Citat av Ibn Arabi istället?)

“He is a mirror for your vision of yourself, and you are His mirror for His vision of the Names (attributes) - which are none other than Himself - and the manifestation of their determinations” - Ibn ‘Arabi (Fusus)

What does this have to do with music? Well music is a thing that is experienced, so you can already see where this is going. But let’s go deeper than that.

When the very famous philosopher Ibn Sina (d. 1037) wrote about beauty, what beauty is, he followed in the line of Aristotle. In his Risalat fi al-’Ishq - The Treatise on Love - he essentially defines beauty as that which is harmonious:

“Both the rational and the animal soul - the latter by reason of its proximity to the former - invariably love what has beauty of order, composition and harmony, as for example harmonious sounds, harmoniously blended tastes of well-prepared dishes and suchlike. (...) It recognizes that the closer a thing is to the First Object of love, the more steadfast it is in its order, and the more beautiful in its harmony, and that what follow It results therefrom, viz. harmony and agreement, - whereas, on the contrary, the more remote a thing is from It, the nearer is it to multiplicity and such characteristics as follow it - contrast and disharmony” - Ibn Sina

Beauty results from harmony, and harmony is associated with oneness, thus closer to God, whereas disharmony is multiplicity. And what is music if not harmony? Thus we have found a theoretical foundation for why music is beautiful - music is harmony and thus music is beauty. But to thinkers like Ibn ‘Arabi, there is only One Beauty. God is the Beautiful, not just in the sense that he has that quality but in the sense that he IS beauty essentially. There is no beauty but Him, just as there is no reality but Him. All beauty or harmony that we experience in the world is but a tiny reflection of Beauty itself - God.

So now we have taken this as far as it can possibly go. Based on the ideas of Ibn ‘Arabi and Wahdat al Wujud, music is no longer just a reminder of higher realities or the human soul’s origin in the divine womb. No longer is it just a beautiful metaphor for the creation of the world. Now, to experience the beauty of music in an act of sama’ is to experience God himself, it is to experience the Absolute itself. Not fully, of course, but a glimpse of the divine reality, and thus a glimpse into one’s own innermost essence and identity.

Try thinking of that next time you hear a good song.

To finish off, it would be a disservice if we didn’t also discuss the 20th century Sufi figure Inayat Khan (d. 1927) - a master of the Chishti order from India and an accomplished musician himself.

Inayat Khan was one of the first and most important Sufis to travel to “The West” and introduce the tradition here. He did so through lectures and musical concerts, and in those lectures he would often talk about the importance of and exalted nature of music and sound. There is even a book based on those lectures and writings called “The mysticism of sound and music” which deals exclusively with this topic.

In this book, Khan picks up on many of the ideas that had already been discussed by earlier Sufis but also expanded the theoretical and cosmological significance of music. He also wasn’t afraid to incorporate teachings on music from other religious traditions, like Hinduism, universalist in scope as he was.

He mirrors the theory based on Unity of Being by saying:

“Music (...) is nothing less than the picture of the Beloved” -Inayat Khan

And based on earlier precedent, as well as more up to date scientific theories, he argues that the whole world is essentially music.

“music is the beginning and end of the universe. All actions and movements made in the visible and invisible world are musical. That is: they are made up of vibrations” - Inayat Khan

“Creation begins with the activity of consciousness, which may be called vibration, and every vibration starting its original source is the same, differing only in its tone and rhythm caused by a greater or lesser degree of force behind it” - Inayat Khan

Inayat Khan argues that at its deepest level, the universe is made up of vibration. And music and sound is after all just that - vibrations. So the universe is just a large, elaborate musical composition, with harmony in the movements of the heavens and the way everything is intricately structured, rhythm in the way we move - we can’t walk without rhythm - and in the workings of things. Music is all around us, we can find rhythm in basically anything and we can see harmony in every corner of the universe.

Today, the scientific theory known as “String theory” is one of the most popular for explaining the most inner workings of the universe, in which everything is thought of as vibrating strings, like on a guitar. The ideas being put forth by Inayat Khan are not far off from this.

“When we pay attention to nature’s music we find that every thing on the earth contributes to its harmony. The trees joyously wave their branches in rhythm with the wind; the sound of the sea, the murmuring of the breeze, the whistling of the wind through the rocks, hills and mountains, the flash of the lightning, and the crash of the thunder, the harmony of the sun and the moon, the movements of the stars and planets, the blossoming of the flower, the fading of the leaf, the regular alternation of morning, noon and night - all reveal to the seer the music of nature” - Inayat Khan

So, clearly there are many perspectives from which one can view music from a more theoretical perspective and we have gone through just a few of them here. But important to remember is that the use of music and the ritual of sama’ has primarily had a practical function in history. It was a practical way for Sufis to reach higher states of awareness and advance on the spiritual path. Theorizing about the metaphysics or cosmology behind such things were only of interest to certain, philosophically-minded, writers in history, but it still informs and continues to inform the perspectives on music that these practitioners can base their practice on, as well as inspire the rest of us.

This has obviously been a very long video, but I hope you find this topic as interesting as I do. There is so much to say, and even now there are several things that I haven’t included here. But hopefully now you can see how deep of a tradition Sufi music really is, both in its traditional ritualized forms but also in the more contemporary manifestations we find today. It has not only been an important part of Sufism or tasawwuf historically, but also been a very valuable factor in the development of music in the larger Islamicate world, as well as in the artistic heritage of the world.

Bibliography

Abu Nasr Abdallah b. Ali al-Sarraj al-Tusi - "Kitab al-Luma' fi al-Tasawwuf". Translated & summarized by Reynold A. Nicholson. E.J. Brill. 1914.

Adamson, Peter (ed.) (2005). "The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy". Cambridge University Press.

Addas, Claude (1993). "Quest for the Red Sulphur: The Life of Ibn 'Arabi". The Islamic Texts Society.

"Al-Qushayri's Epistle on Sufism - Al-Risala Al Qushayriyya Fi 'ilm Al-Tasawwuf". Translated by Alexander Knysh. 2020. The Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization.

Alvarez, Lourdes Maria (2009). "Abu-l Hasan al-Shushtari: Songs of Love and Devotion".
In the "Classics of Western Spirituality" series. Paulist Press.

Alvarez, Lourdes Maria (2005). "The Mystical Language of Everyday Life": Vernacular Sufi Poetry and the Songs of Abu Al-Hasan Al-Shustari". Exemplaria. 17:1, 1-32, DOI: 10.1179/exm.2005.17.1.1.

Avery, Kenneth S. (2004). "A Psychology of Early Sufi Sama: Listening and altered states". Routledge.

Chishti, Muhammad Tanveer Jamal & Dr. Abdul Zahoor Khan (2015). "Approaches of The Early Sufis From 10th Century to 12th Century Towards 'SAMA'". Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences. 6, 5:51.

Cornell, Vincent J. (transl.) (1996). "The Way of Abu Madyan: The Works of Abu Madyan Shu'ayb". The Islamic Texts Society.

Ernst, Carl W. & Bruce B. Lawrence (2003). "Sufi Martyrs of Love: The Chishti Order in South Asia and beyond". Palgrave Macmillan.

Hammarlund, Anders; Tord Olsson & Elisabeth Özdalga (1997). "Sufism, Music and Society - In Turkey and the Middle East". Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul. Transactions Vol. 10.

Homerin, Th. Emil (2011). "Passion Before Me, My Fate Behind: Ibn al-Farid And the Poetry of Recollection". SUNY Press.

Homerin, Th. Emil (2001). "From Arab Poet to Muslim Saint: Ibn al-Farid, His Verse, and His Shrine". The American University in Cairo Press.

Ibn Sina - "A Treatise on Love". Translated by Emil L. Fackenheim. Medieval Studies.

Khan, Inayat (1991). "The Mysticism of Sound and Music". Revised Edition. Shambala Dragon Editions.

Lewis, Franklin D. (2000). "Rumi: Past and Present, East and West". Oneworld publications.

Ibn 'Arabi - "The Ringstones of Wisdom (Fusus al-Hikam)". Translation by Caner K. Dagli. Great Books of the Islamic World.

Qureshi, Regula Burckhardt (1995). "Sufi Music of India and Pakistan: Sound, Context and Meaning in Qawwali". The University of Chicago Press.

Ridgeon, Lloyd (ed.) (2015). "The Cambridge Companion to Sufism". Cambridge University Press.

Shehadi, Fadlou (1995). "Philosophies of Music in Medieval Islam". E.J. Brill.

Wright, Owen (translated and edited by) (2010). "Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: On Music. An Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of Epistle 5. Oxford University Press.

If I asked you what most people associate with ancient Greece, you would probably mention something about philosophy. The great thinkers of the ancient world such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle & the Stoics are of course household names that have come to represent ancient Greece and its legacy. But this picture is usually incomplete.

Ancient Greece, and these thinkers, to many, represent some kind of pure rationalistic or scientific endeavor. A precursor to our own enlightened age, before it was interrupted by the entrance of religion and superstition, which dominated human thinking until the renaissance or even the enlightenment.

This image of history is of course criminally incorrect and oversimplified, and for various different reasons. Not least because the ancient Greeks aren’t really what many people assume. At least not if we base our understanding on the above narrative.

In fact, while figures like Plato indeed put an emphasis on reason and argument to come to many of their philosophical conclusions, this is not the whole picture. Many of these same philosophers were also deeply involved in things that we would call religious practice or even mysticism, and even saw that as a superior way to reach truth than through limited reason and human intellect.

In fact, ancient Greece was filled with various kinds of mystical practices and experiences, which have been largely ignored by historians looking at the period. It doesn’t really fit with our image of this time and place as our intellectual ancestors, and the way we look at and portray ancient history in this way says more about ourselves than it does about the people we are trying to portray.

Where does one begin to cover such a broad topic? We will of course have to limit ourselves to certain expressions of what we call “mysticism” here. What even is mysticism? Returning viewers will know that it is a contested term and concept, and is of course even more so when used outside of a Christian or at least Abrahamic framework. In this case, we have a bit more luck in the sense that the term mysticism, or at least mystic and mystical actually are Greek words originally, coming from the term μύω meaning to ‘conceal’, or μυστικός meaning ‘initiate’. With that said, the word doesn’t really get the meaning we associate with it today until the writings of the Christian theologian Pseudo-Dionysius (c. 500), and really during the 16th and 17th centuries when the term ‘mysticism’ became a thing.

But keeping in mind what we have said in earlier episodes about it, we can here also use a kind of working definition of mysticism or ‘mystical’ as that which concerns experiences of, practices related to and explanations of direct encounters with the divine, usually accompanied by altered states of consciousness.

With this definition, we can find it all over ancient Greece. While the incorrect picture of ancient Greece mentioned above is still very prevalent, even among academics and historians, many have begun to question it and present an alternative history of this culture. Among them is of course the scholar E.R. Dodds (d. 1979) who, especially with his foundational work The Greeks and the Irrational showed that we need to take these other, what he calls “irrational” aspects of ancient Greece into serious consideration.

And this of course includes famous aspects like the prophetic role of the Oracles, such as the most famous one at Delphi, receiving messages from the God through ecstatic altered states of consciousness.

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The story of catholic christianity in the middle ages is one that, in public consciousness, is dominated by things like the inquisition - the systematic investigation and condemning of groups or individuals deemed heretical by the clergy of the church, usually led by members of the dominican order.

Some of these “heretics” are well known, such as the Templars, or the Cathars, or figures like Marguerite Porete. Others, however, are less known but equally fascinating. And among the latter I would definitely count the Amalricians, a fascinating movement in early 13th century France that seems to have held radical, pantheistic ideas.

The Amalricians is a topic on which our sources are seriously lacking. It was a short-lived movement, even though they may have influenced later currents, and all we know about them essentially come from outside sources, after they had already been deemed heretical. So this article is inevitably going to be relatively short and shallow.

The name - amalrician - refers to a historical figure who is often considered the founder, or at the very least inspirational figure behind the movement - Amalric of Bena. He was a priest and theologian/philosopher originally from Benne, a village in the region of Chartres, active in the last years of the 12th century and the very early 13th. He studied at the University of Paris, perhaps the most important seat of learning at the time, and would eventually go on to teach there himself, specializing in the liberal arts, such as logic, but also dabbled in theology.

And it seems that he became quite popular as a teacher and that he amassed a lot of students and admirers, perhaps partly because of the unusual and striking ideas he had when it came to theology in particular.

Indeed, Amalric seems to have taught what many have later deemed a kind of pantheism - the idea that God is everything, and that there is nothing which is not God. Now, again, we have very little reliable sources to help us understand exactly what these teachings were, but it appears that they were to a large extent inspired by the 9th century theologian John Scotus Eriugena (d. 877).

His philosophy, especially as expressed in his most famous work - the Periphyseon or De Divisione Naturae (On the Division of Nature) - was in itself inspired by the Neoplatonic Christian metaphysics of Pseudo-Dionysius, and proposed a quite profound apophatic theology.

As the title of his great work indicates, he divides nature into four divisions, but defines nature broadly as including both the created world and God under a single category. In true Neoplatonic apophatic fashion, Eriugena claims that we can never know God as He truly is, as the Absolute is completely beyond the grasp of our limited minds and experience. But God reveals himself, and unfolds himself in such a way that he shows himself through the multiplicity of the world. In other words, he sees the entire world not as something created by God outside himself, but as a theophany of God. Every part of the world, every flower, rock or animal, is one way that God reveals himself in limited form, and this is the only way we can know God - through his theophanies - and never as He is in Himself.

Many have interpreted this as a kind of pantheism, but Eriugena is a lot more subtle than any simple categorization like that. Indeed, while affirming a kind of monism, he also strictly maintains a difference between God and the world, the Creator and the created:

“God is both beyond all things and in all things. For He Who only truly is, is the essence of all things, and while He is whole in all things He does not cease to be whole beyond all things. Whole in the world, whole around the world, whole in the sensible creature, whole in the intelligible creature. Whole creating the universe, whole created in the universe, whole in the whole of the universe, and whole in its parts. Since He is both the whole and the part, [and]... He is neither the whole nor the part.” - Eriugena (Periphyseon)

Or:

“It follows that we ought not to understand God and the creature as two things distinct from one another, but as one and the same. For both the creature, by subsisting, is in God; and God, by manifesting Himself, in a marvelous and ineffable manner creates himself in the creature…” - Eriugena (Periphyseon)

This philosophy also led him to unique and fascinating positions on ethics and the afterlife. For example, Eriugena taught that Paradise and Hell are not places in the afterlife, but states of the soul based on its level of unification with God. By realizing the nature of things, we can become united with God and realize that all things, including ourselves, are only His theophanies, and such a state of divinization is Paradise. Whereas the state of attachment to the way things appear to us and our existential separation is the state known as hell.

Eriugena is truly one of the most interesting Christian thinkers of his time, and we will hopefully be dedicated an episode entirely to him soon on the channel, where we can explore the nuances and complexities of his ideas. But let’s return to our narrative.

Because indeed, our sources indicate that Amalric based some, or a lot, of his positions on Eriugena, but might have taken them even further into an even more radical pantheism or monism. Three basic features of his philosophy are considered relatively certain:

1. that God is all (omnia sunt deus) and thus all things are one because whatever is, is God (omnia unum, quia quidquid est, est Deus);

2. that every Christian is bound to believe that he is a member of the body of Christ, and that this belief is necessary for salvation;

3. that he who remains in love of God can commit no sin

Now, some of these, especially the third one, definitely sounds like the kind of idea that others would project onto figures considered heretical, and usually their actual teaching is a lot more nuanced, but nonetheless, we see these pointed out as key teachings.

Other sources have also claimed that Amalric supposedly held to some form of apokatastasis or ‘universal salvation’ - that all people (or everything) will eventually be saved and that no one is thus doomed to spend eternity in hell. This was a position that was relatively common in ancient Christianity, clearly held by figures like Origen of Alexandria and Gregory of Nyssa, but by Amalric’s time had become a lot more unusual.

Regardless of the actual details and nuances of his philosophy, by the early 13th century, he got into some trouble for it. Around the year 1204, he and his teachings seem to have been condemned by his colleagues at the University of Paris, but he was stubborn. He held fast to his principles, and stories even say that he went to Rome to appeal to the pope Innocent III and argue for his case. Unfortunately, for him, the pope seems to have agreed with the critics and also condemned him, ordered him to return to Paris and to recant his ideas.

What happens next is a bit unclear. Some indicate that he did recant but only superficially to stay out of trouble. But regardless, he seems to have passed away not long thereafter, around the year 1206 or 1207.

But as we said, Amalric had been a quite popular fellow, and seems to have had quite a few admirers. These admirers, whether they were his students and followers while he was alive or simply inspired by him after he had died, became the movement known as the Amalricians, who would go on to adopt and possibly develop his ideas even further.

The members of this movement were mostly made up of the clergy and highly educated - those who had studied with or alongside Amalric at the university, for example - and they would go on to preach around France, spreading these pantheistic ideas to a wider audience of laypeople. Due to the already controversial nature of the teachings and Amalric, this was probably done mostly in secret to some degree.

And many will argue that the post-Amalric Amalricians were even more radical than their teacher, taking his teachings to the extreme.

Key to their teachings seems to have been a kind of division of sacred history into three phases of God’s revelation to mankind, centered around the imagery of the holy trinity. First was the epoch of the Father, which started at the time of Abraham. Then, there was the epoch of the Son, which of course began with the Incarnation of the Son in the historical Jesus. And now with Amalric and his followers, was inaugurated the final epoch of the Holy Spirit, in which the true nature of reality became apparent and those who realized this nature and loved God could, supposedly, commit no sin. Presumably, this true teaching included their radical pantheism, in which they taught that “All is One, because whatever is, is God”, and, of course, God is One. Therefore, all things are united in a divine Oneness.

There is nothing which is not God:

“God is everywhere and in everything, whether rational or irrational, sensate or insensate.”

This idea seems to rest partly on the teaching that God is Being, and so whatever is is God in terms of its Being, a teaching that in itself isn’t that unusual perhaps, as we find it in people like Pseudo-Dionysius and even as a core aspect of Thomas Aquinas’ theology a few decades later. But with the Amalricians, it seems to lead to radical expressions where the human being can recognize their own divinity. The council that investigated them claimed about one Amalrician - Bernardus - that:

“because he said that, inasmuch as he was, he was God.”

The radical conclusions of these doctrines were a rejection of some of the basics of catholic doctrine and practice. Because the epoch of the Holy Spirit had arrived, and everyone had equal access to that Spirit and to their own divine nature, the sacraments of the church were redundant and unnecessary. They even seem to have interpreted these sacraments in novel ways, claiming that Jesus is equally present in all bread, not just the consecrated bread during the eucharist. As we saw before, God is equally present everywhere and at all times. Even, if Thomas Aquinas is to be believed, in a formal sense. Indeed, in his Summa Theologiae, Aquinas claimed that the Amalricians taught that God is the formal principle of all things, something that he saw as clearly heretical.

I see in this another one of those similarities with Eriugena, perhaps a continuation of his teaching that the whole world is a theophany of God.

And these connections with Eriugena continue, especially as we look at the claims regarding the Amalricians teachings on the afterlife. Here, hell and paradise are not seen as places at all, and maybe not even necessarily aspects of an afterlife per se, but different modes of one’s own self and its relationship to the truth. The Amalrician Stephanus is claimed to have said:

“that hell is not a place, but is ignorance of the truth; paradise is knowledge of the truth.”

To be in paradise is to realize the world and oneself, to borrow Eriugena’s terminology, as the theophany of God, that we are all the divine in some way, whereas hell is to remain in ignorance of this truth and thus suffer from it.

“One who possessed the knowledge of God, as they did, had paradise within himself; but one who was in mortal sin had hell within himself, like a decayed tooth in the mouth.”

Now, we have to remember that this all comes from hostile sources, and can’t say much more than this regarding their teaching with certainty. On the other hand, there are some figures that are believed by some to have been part of this Amalrician movement, or to have at least been inspired by it, or inspired it in some way. And the most famous is probably the French philosopher David of Dinant (d. 1217). So maybe, if this connection to the Amalricians is true, we can get a further glimpse into some of these doctrines by looking at David’s ideas, which, according to Angus Braid, might be the most central influence on Amalrician pantheism.

David was born in Brittany and, just like Amalric, seems to have taught at the University of Paris. It is not impossible at all, maybe even likely, that they knew each other as colleagues in some way. He was known to great theologians of the 13th century like Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas, who both wrote about him in their works and criticized his ideas.

In any case, in works like the Quaternuli (Little Notebooks), David also taught that God is Being itself, the very being of all things. But even more significantly, he speculated that the three fundamental aspects of reality - Hyle (matter), Intellect (Mind) and God - were in fact one and the same thing, a unified substance.

“It is clear, therefore, that there is only one substance, not only of all bodies but also of all souls, and this substance is nothing other than God himself. The substance from which all bodies come is called Hyle, while the substance from which all souls come is called Reason or Mind. It is therefore manifest that God is the reason of all souls and the hyle of all bodies.” - David of Dinant

This radical, even material, pantheism, seems to predict the later teachings of someone like Giordano Bruno (d. 1600), who indeed mentions David in works like On Cause, Principle and Unity.

What the exact connection is between David and the Amalricians is uncertain, but it seems quite likely that there is some kind of connection. His philosophical ideas might have inspired the more mystical or theological teachings of the latter, or vice versa, but it is an interesting connection nonetheless. In 1215, when Amalric was further condemned once again and called “mad” or “insane” by the pope, David’s books (particularly the Quaternuli) were also condemned and forbidden to be read.

As fascinating as it was, and possibly even quite popular among the lay population in the region at the time, the Amalrician movement was very short-lived. As we saw, Amalric himself likely passed away around 1206 or 1207, and the movement inspired by him only lasted for a few years after. It seems that the church authorities became aware of the movement and their teachings around 1209, and thereafter instigated some kind of investigation into them. One account states that a certain guy called Radulf/Rudolph of Namur was tasked with infiltrating the movement by doubling as a member, and then reported the teachings he had been given in secret to the church authorities. This allowed them to eventually arrest 14 high-ranking members of the movement in 1210, also helped by policies instigated by King Philip II (d. 1223). The investigating council decided to pardon all the regular lay people who had been swept up in the movement, but the arrested 14 leaders had to face a darker fate. Four of them were imprisoned for life, while the remaining 10 were burned at the stake that same year in 1210. The same council and Pope Innocent III also formally posthumously denounced Amalric himself as a heretic, and even exhumed his bones from his grave and instead placed them in unconsecrated ground, as a final insult.

This is an interesting case, as it is one of the earliest such instances of inquisition against heresies carried out by the church, something that would become a lot more common in the following centuries.

But while the Amalricians had thus been eliminated for the most part, it is possible that they would continue to exert influence on other movements later on. For example, many have claimed that they were a key inspiration behind the so called Brethren of the Free Spirit, which would continue to be controversial during the 13th and 14th century, and teach the possibility of union with God and that in such a united state, the soul was unable to sin because their will and the will of God had become one and the same will, thus they didn’t have to follow the rulings of the church. We saw possible aspects of this doctrine being taught by Marguerite Porete and maybe even Meister Eckhart, and also know that the ideas were more complex than what is claimed by their critics (for example, while they don’t “have” to following the laws and practices of the church, this simply means that they it isn’t something they themselves have to choose, but they simply do it because their will is God’s will which always chooses correctly, etc.). And there are of course some similarities between these ideas of the free spirit with the teachings of Amalric and his followers.

But at the center of it all stands the Amalricians, a truly fascinating and unusual movement of medieval Christianity, whose form of pantheism, if the sources are to be believed, went even further than many other similar philosophers like Eckhart or their predecessor Eriugena. It’s too bad that we don’t know much about them or the details of their doctrine, but hopefully the future will see more scholarly work done to clarify exactly what it was that they taught, and that was deemed so dangerous. But regardless, it remains a truly intriguing and mysterious part of the story of medieval Europe and Christianity.

Bibliography:

Angus Braid's Website "The Amalrician Heresy" is an excellent source on the Amalricians in particular: https://theamalricianheresy.wordpress.com

Cohn, Norman (1970). "The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages". Oxford University Press.

McGinn, Bernard. "The Presence of God" Series, in several volumes. Perhaps the best and most comprehensive introduction to Christian mysticism. Published by Crossroad Publishing Co.

For a great video on Eriugena, check out Seekers of Unity:

Christianity has produced some true geniuses throughout history, and so far we have covered quite a few of them, such as Thomas Aquinas, (Pseudo)-Dionysius and Meister Eckhart, among others. But in my opinion, one of the most interesting and unique thinkers in the Christian (especially catholic) tradition comes quite late in history, one who straddles the lines between the medieval world and the renaissance and even modern period, having been called the ‘first modern thinker’, and who wrote about God and our knowledge of the divine in ways that hadn’t really been seen before and which has rarely been replicated since.

His name was Nicolaus Cusanus, or Nicholas of Cusa, a 15th century catholic cardinal, bishop, philosopher and mystic whose teachings on ‘learned ignorance’ and other topics are some of the most baffling in the Christian intellectual tradition.

So, in honor of the Christmas season, let’s take a look at the life & works of Nicholas of Cusa.

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The relationship between the worlds of politics and religion is a subject that is widely discussed today in various circumstances. It is perhaps especially apparent in view of the notion of secularization and the examples of functional separation between official religious institutions and the state, which has been the case in many countries across the world. This notion of a clear distinction between different aspects of society is indeed prevalent in many parts of the world, and a standard that a “modern” nation is often expected to support. Yet, we find many examples where the line between politics and religion isn’t that clearly defined at all, including in countries that define themselves as secular. One category has a strong tendency to creep into the other, and their relationship can often be argued as being one of co-dependence.

Based on my own research and fieldwork, this paper will discuss how the relationship between religion and politics is understood and legitimized in the West African environment, particularly in Senegal and The Gambia (henceforth referred to with the combined name “Senegambia”). These are two countries that consider themselves, and are considered by others, secular democracies where the state functions independently of religious institutions. I will argue, without necessarily questioning the sincerity of this secular endeavor, that the religious and political authorities in Senegambia function in a state of co-dependence, where both parties help legitimize the other and confirm each other’s authority. This will be done partly through a short historical introduction, but primarily through an example from my own research - that of the annual pilgrimage (ziyara) performed by members of the Tijaniyya Sufi brotherhood to Bogal, a village in southern Senegal. As will be shown, this event is significant for both religious and political reasons, and I argue that it reflects the general socio-political milieu of Senegambia.

Sheikhs and colonizers - the historical context

In both Senegal and The Gambia, Islam serves as the majority religion. This is by a good margin too, as the percentage of the population that identify as Muslim is approximately 92% and 95%, respectively (Pew research center, 2002) (The World Factbook, CIA). It is also significant that the form of Islam practiced by most of those Muslims is strongly Sufi-oriented. However, this needs to be understood through a more nuanced and broad definition of Sufism where it isn’t simply deemed “Islamic mysticism”. Instead, the way in which Sufism dominates the landscape is through membership and adherence to brotherhoods or turuq/orders that are prominent in the region, the largest of which are the Tijaniyya, Mouridiyya, Qadiriyya and Layenes (McLaughlin, 1997: 564). Studies show that out of the number of Muslims present in the two countries as mentioned above, 95% of all Muslims in Senegal belong to a Sufi brotherhood (Pew research center, 2002), and approximately the same can be expected in The Gambia. In many ways, this reflects the general practice and situation across much of the Muslim world prior to the mid-19^th century, when most individuals belonged in one way or another to one of the many Sufi orders.

In the case of Senegambia, however, the extent to which the population belongs to these brotherhoods and the Muslim faith generally is a relatively recent development. The largest of the brotherhoods – the Tijaniyya – didn’t gain a significant foothold in the region until the 19^th century, with preachers like al-Hajj Umar Tall (1794-1864) and al-Hajj Malik Sy (1855-1922) (Macké, 2005: 31-35). They challenged the only tariqa with a significant number of followers at the time, the Qadiriyya, and eventually eclipsed them in popularity (Mbacké, 2005: 35).

But while these brotherhoods may not have too long of a history in the region, their origins often stretch back much longer. The Qadiriyya is usually considered one of the earliest of the sufi orders, originating with the person of Abdulqadir al-Jilani (d. 1166), a Sufi saint and jurist from Baghdad, and which spread across the Muslim world to such a degree that it still remains one of the largest and most well-known today. Being such a large order, with so many adherents from different regions in the world, naturally its practices and nuances can differ depending on time and place, thus the branch present in Senegambia may appear as distinct from that in, say, Iraq or Syria.

Before the eventual spread of the Tijaniyya, the Qadiriyya had the strongest foothold and longest history in the region. Scholars disagree regarding when the order firmly established itself in Senegambia, but it is clear that its presence had become significant by the late 18th-early 19^th century (Mbacké, 2005: 18-19).

The Tijaniyya has more recent origins, going back to the figure Ahmad b. al-Mukhtar al-Tijani (d. 1815), a charismatic sufi teacher from Algeria. He traveled across North Africa and founded his new order on the premise that he had received instructions from the prophet Muhammad himself while being awake (as opposed to having a vision while dreaming, as was usually the case). The Tijaniyya is distinguished by this idea, and the resulting infallibility of its doctrines as well as al-Tijani’s insistence that his followers denounce any affiliation with other orders (Abun-Nasr, 2007: 149, 152-153). Furthermore, al-Tijani seems to have rejected certain forms of ascetic poverty and encouraged his followers to engage in social affairs (Abun-Nasr, 2007: 154), something that carries over to the practice of the brotherhood today, and arguably its relationship with politics as well. While the Tijaniyya, also called the “al-tariqa al-Muhammadiyya” ( The way/path of Muhammad) by its founder, started out as mainly confined to the North African region, in the mid 19^th century it started spreading to regions further south and to Senegambia through important preachers like those mentioned above - al-Hajj Umar Tall and al-Hajj Malik Sy. Given the exclusive nature of Tijani teachings, they clashed on occasion with members of the Qadiriyya already present there, but eventually managed to eclipse them almost entirely. By the early 20^th century, the Tijaniyya had established itself as the most powerful brotherhood in the region.

An even later arrival on the scene is the Mouridiyya, the second largest brotherhood in Senegambia today, which developed in the late 19^th-early 20^th- century under the leadership of its central figure - Ahmadou Bamba (d. 1927) - a marabout who persistently fought against French colonialism through non-violent struggle and religious education. This (along with the much smaller Layenes) is the only order with origins in Senegal itself, and was founded on the basis of Ahmadou Bamba’s teachings and insistence on non-violent opposition to colonialism. Indeed, it could be said that most of the population didn’t convert to Islam until this period of French colonialism in Senegal around the turn of the last century (Creevey, 1985: 716), at which time the Sufi brotherhoods and their leaders also gained their significant position and following.

The colonial period is in fact significant for understanding the current social, political and religious landscape in Senegambia, and serves as an important factor in much of the relationship between politics and religion that we see today. Due to colonialism, the social structures in Senegal by the middle-late 19^th century had been severely altered, which gave the Sufi brotherhoods and their marabouts – religious scholars and community leaders – the chance to carve out their own position of power in this new environment (Creevey, 1985: 716). In many cases, the marabouts found themselves acting as intermediaries between the colonial rulers and the native population, and were thus given both religious and temporal authority. This relationship would continue throughout the colonial period and remnants of this structure, I argue, are still present today.

During this early period, and especially in the rural areas, the marabouts were often considered to have almost supernatural powers, and on occasion would be the source of religious devotion (Creevey, 1985: 717). Although this kind of practice has been criticized by some Muslim groups and political leaders, and indeed has decreased since the second half of the last century, there are examples of similar ideas and conceptions being present today, as will be shown through the findings of my research.

Despite this intermediary position, the attitudes shown towards colonial powers varied between different communities and their leaders. Some marabouts, such as the tijani marabout al-Hajj Malik Sy, were generally in favor of cooperation, while others strongly resisted, either militarily or peacefully. The most famous example of the latter is the previously mentioned Ahmadou Bamba, from whom the Mouridiyya was established, and who favored a non-violent form of opposition to the French in Senegal. This is interesting for two reasons – one being that the very presence of, and resistance to, the colonial authorities is an important factor in the rapid growth of Islam and the Sufi brotherhoods around this time. It is likely that this resistance served as a unifying factor in which a Muslim identity (and adherence to sufi brotherhoods) was an important part, resulting in a lot of people converting to strengthen this identity and, by extension, the anti-colonial opposition (Clark, 1999: 154-155). Secondly, the political positions of the Mourid marabouts are especially interesting since Ahmadou Bamba himself was considered a threat by the French and sent into exile. However, following his death many of Bamba’s successors (Khulafa) established close relationships with the colonizers and has since had significant political authority, arguably more so than marabouts from the other brotherhoods (Van Hoven, 200: 229) (Creevey, 1985: 719).

These marabouts continued to hold similar positions after independence (1960 for Senegal & 1965 for The Gambia) (Clark; Ford & Gailey, 2018), serving as an intermediary force that helped legitimize the political establishment. The strong political position of the Mourids continued, but that is not to say that leaders from other brotherhoods didn’t have political ambitions. Indeed, there are examples of marabouts from the Tijaniyya, such as Ibrahim Niasse (d. 1975) who gained a significant amount of support (Creevey, 1985: 719) and was greatly involved with political affairs. The reason for the prominence of the Mourids in the political sphere could be their stronger organizational structure, whereas the Tijaniyya is divided into several branches with competing khalifas (Creevey, 1985: 719). Nonetheless, there are examples from more recent decades of the strong relationship between politics and the religious authorities.

As an example, in 1998 the sitting minister of state Abdoulaye Wade decided to resign from his post, but before doing so he traveled to the city of Touba (“capital” of the Mouridiyya) and met with the Mourid leader Serigne Saliou Mbacké to inform him of this decision and receive his blessings (Van Hoven, 2000: 230-231). This is a good indication of the relationship mentioned and shows how much political weight the marabouts hold even in post-independence periods, and indeed how they serve as a source of legitimizing the authority of the politicians – an important part of the co-dependence between religion and politics in Senegambia. Moreover, in many cases these religious leaders have, both directly and indirectly, affected the outcome of elections in these countries. The support from a popular marabout can make the difference between winning or losing an election, and in return the politicians have often protected their material interests (Van Hoven, 2000: 231). In other words, we can see that remnants of the structure from colonial times remain, with the religious leaders acting as intermediaries between the general population and political establishment.

Both Senegal and The Gambia consider themselves secular, democratic republics. Some of this history has been inherited from French republicanism, with a sitting president and a, on paper, clearly secular structure. But as we will see, the political system in Senegambia is quite unique, especially among other African countries. Senegal is often considered one of the most stable democracies in the region, and many have pointed to the unique relationship between secular and religious authority as one contributing factor to this stability.

A contemporary example – sheikh Abdulrahman Barry and the Ziyara Bogal

In March of 2018, thousands of people gathered in a small village called Bogal, located in the southern part of Senegal. People from all walks of life were there – farmers, griots (praise singers), wealthy businessmen as well as important political figures and military personnel. However, the reason for their arrival was the same – to meet, and be in the presence of, Sheikh Abdulrahman Barry. The members of this branch of the Tijaniyya, of which Barry is the leader, perform a ziyara (in Arabic literally “visit”, in Sufi context denotes a pilgrimage) once every year to this village to take part in religious rituals and community events.

Abdulrahman Barry fits into the category of a marabout, being a religious scholar and leader for a significant number of people. Furthermore, the reverence that his followers show him often reflects the practices that have been present during the last few centuries since the brotherhoods took hold in the region. In the diaspora community in Sweden, individuals from the group often adorn their living room walls with large pictures of the sheikh, for example, and their structured prayers (wird, plural awrad) are both performed per his instructions and sometimes include praises of him (Holm, 2018: 31). The stories told about him and his life often include supernatural and almost magical features. One such story recounts how Barry once blessed a well in Bogal and, after this point, the water has miraculous healing effects for anyone who drinks it, both physically and mentally. This is, as we have seen, also a characteristic of practices in this region in the 20^th century. Because of factors like these, it wasn’t uncommon for Western scholars to present a specific kind of “African Islam” as opposed to “Arab Islam”, and that stories like this reflect that particularity. However, this kind of storytelling fits right into general traditions in Sufism and the status of the wali (saint) that has been present throughout its history and in many different cultural environments. Thus, it should certainly not be viewed as an expression of a unique “African” Islam as such.

Abdulrahman Barry is thought to be a spiritually enlightened individual with a direct connection to God, and thus his person contains a strong baraka, a term used in Sufism to describe a certain “grace” or divine light that special individuals carry and can transmit. Indeed, on several occasions the sheikh has been referred to as “Nur Allah” – a light of God. He resides partly in Dakar but also in the village Bogal, which he has helped establish into a place of residence for a significant number of people, and travels around the world to attend different conferences and events. It would be incorrect to say that he has any kind of worldly or political power, however. In fact, much of the lifestyle he projects outward is often one of asceticism, humility and detachment from worldly things (Holm, 2018: 44). There are parts of speeches that he has held in certain conferences where he talks about questions like integration (of the diaspora community living in Europe), morals and respecting the “law of the land”, but there is no direct way in which Barry has any control over political affairs. Despite this, there are clear indications that he, and other marabouts, have a significant indirect influence on matters such as these. Indeed, as I have stated previously, politics and religion in Senegambia function in a state of co-dependence, and sheikhs like Abdulrahman Barry play an important role in this context.

Perhaps the clearest sign of this is indeed the Ziyara Bogal itself - the yearly pilgrimage where Barry is at the center. Not only is this a weekend of community and religious rituals such as hadra (communal dhikr) and prayers in the local mosque, but the biggest event during this ziyara is one that takes place on the last day (usually Saturday). Here, a large tent is erected in the middle of the village, adorned with carpets for people to sit on. At the far end of this tent there are heightened platforms with rows of chairs; microphones and cameras are ready to be used, and large posters of the sheikh, or with Arabic calligraphy, hang on the walls. During the event, thousands of people who are on this pilgrimage gather in and around this tent. Most of them are sitting on the floor, unless they have been given specific jobs such as operating cameras. Indeed, this event is filmed and broadcast live across the country, indicating its significance. What makes it so special, and interesting to us, is the fact that many high-ranking individuals of society, including politicians and military personnel, are present and seated on the heightened platforms at the end of the tent. The presence of these individuals is part of the very purpose of this gathering.

With the seated public facing this wall of the societal elite, and Sheikh Abdulrahman Barry placed right at its center, the event consists of communal dhikr-chanting as well as long speeches held by the politicians and by the sheikh himself. In this speech, he talks directly to the politicians, urging them to treat the people with respect, remember who elected them to power and to be just (Holm, 2018: 49). In other words, Barry is preaching about ethical and moral concerns to the people in power while holding a position of religious authority. He also clearly connects these to Islam by urging them to be “good Muslims”. Likewise, the politicians hold speeches of their own, praising the sheikh.

I argue that we can view this ziyara, and the Saturday-event mentioned above, as a clear sign of the co-dependence and strong relationship between religious and political authority and leadership in Senegambia. The politicians, by coming to Bogal, listening to the sheikh’s speeches and showing their support, are ritually affirming this relationship. This both establishes a greater authority and legitimacy to the worldly leaders by connecting themselves with the ethics and morals of Islam (as preached by Barry) as well as strengthening and reaffirming the relationship between politics and religion generally. Furthermore, the sheikh is also given greater legitimacy through the presence of the politicians and is used as an indicator of his religious authority. Indeed, Paul L. Heck writes in the book “Sufism Today: Heritage and tradition in the Global community” that:

The relevancy of religious leadership in Muslim society is predicated upon the ability to show that Islam is in fact guiding Muslim society. (Heck, 2009: 15)

Clearly then, this legitimizing function works in both directions. The ideal mentioned here by Heck is affirmed by the ritual of the ziyara and the presence of the societal elite. By doing this, the politicians are conveying a message that Islam is indeed guiding society, and by doing so they gain stronger legitimacy.

We can see that the relationship between worldly and religious authority remains much like what it has been like since the late 19^th century. The marabouts and politicians have always had a strong relationship in one way or another – both during colonial time but also after independence – and have depended on each other in different ways. The case of Sheikh Abdulrahman Barry is just another recent example of this, showing that while the marabouts may not have direct political power, they wield significant indirect power through this relationship. This is what I mean by the co-dependence of religion and politics, a situation where the two areas and aspects of society bleed into each other and where the lines aren’t that clearly defined. Barry remains an important figure for the diaspora community of Tijanis, as well as for the society of Senegambia through factors like the Ziyara Bogal, and acts as an indicator for a larger structure present in the West African context.

Conclusions

The relationship between different facets of society in Senegambia is complicated and yet significant. As in most cases, the lines between categories like religion and politics are vague and the two are often intertwined. It is clear, looking at the recent history of the region, that the role of the religious authorities (marabouts) have been one of political significance – acting first as intermediaries between the colonial powers and the native population. This position continued after independence, with politicians seeking blessings and help from marabouts from different brotherhoods, those from the Mouridiyya being especially powerful in this regard.

Moreover, we have seen that this tradition continues today through the example of the main event of the Ziyara Bogal – a kind of conference where the sheikh holds a speech to major political figures and people of power in West Africa – can act as a strong strategy to reaffirm the role of Islam in Senegambian society. Considering the long relationship between the two, especially with how powerful the marabouts have been politically for much of the 20^th century, the event can be seen as a symbolic way to communicate that Islam (as understood by Barry and his followers) still acts as an ethical basis for society and politics. To some degree, it gives Abdulrahman Barry a certain amount of political power and authority, but even more importantly it is a way for the politicians to legitimize their leadership by establishing a connection to the sheikh and the ethical tenets of religion. In a way, you could say that religion and politics legitimize each other through the rituals of the pilgrimage.

It is also relevant to bring up the often-repeated claim that Sufism represents a kind of “a-political” or indeed inherently “peaceful” form of Islam. Indeed, there have been cases of non-violent attitudes and ideals preached by marabouts – not least by the very prominent example of Ahmadou Bamba – but other examples that have been discussed here show that making any such generalized claims is highly problematic. Not only are there historical examples, such as al-Hajj Umar Tall from the Tijaniyya who lead military action (what could be deemed as armed “jihad”) against pagan populations in the region in the 19^th century, but there are also clear signs that marabouts and religious leaders have been, and are, active in social and political affairs.

This is a region that has seen a lot of change in a relatively short period. It is especially interesting due in part to the large percentage of people adhering to Sufi-oriented Islam, something that is quite uncommon today. The way society functions and how these different areas are lived and understood by the people point to the fact that politics and religion (and probably other categories as well) indeed exists in a state of co-dependence. This isn’t perhaps very surprising, yet has the potential to give us insight into how other societies function as well.

Bibliography

Clark, Andrew Francis (1999). “Imperialism, independence, and Islam in Senegal and Mali”. Africa Today, Volume 46, Number 3/4, Summer/Autumn. Indiana University Press.

Creevey, Lucy E. (1985). “Muslim brotherhoods and Politics in Senegal in 1985”. The Journal of modern African Studies, Vol. 23, No. 4. Cambridge University Press.

Heck, Paul L. (2009). “The politics of Sufism: Is there one?”. Sufism today: Heritage and tradition in the Global community. (Ed. Catharine Raudvere & Leif Stenberg). London: I.B. Tauris.

Holm, Filip (2018). The Architecture of Pilgrimage: A study on the Ziyara Bogal and charismatic authority in the Tijaniyya. Master’s thesis. Södertörns Högskola.

Kimball, Michelle R. (2018). “Shaykh Ahmadou Bamba: A Peacemaker for Our Time”. The Other Press Sdn. Bhd.

Mbacké, Khadim (2005). Sufism and religious brotherhoods in Senegal. Princeton: Marcus Weiner Publishers.

McLaughlin, Fiona (1997). “Islam and popular music in Senegal: The emergence of a new tradition”. Africa: Journal of the international African institute.

Van Hoven, Ed (2000). “The nation turbaned? The construction of nationalist Muslim identities in Senegal”. Journal of Religion in Africa. Volume 30, Fasc. 2. Brill.

The following is the original script for my video on Ahmadou Bamba, posted on Youtube in 2022:

Islam in West Africa is a really fascinating topic, especially when it comes to Sufism. Indeed, in some ways the situation in countries like Senegal or The Gambia kind of mirrors the way that much of the Islamic world looked for most of history, with Sufism playing a major role in religious, social and political life. Not only are these countries overwhelmingly Muslim in their demographics, according to Pew Research Center only a few years ago, 92% of Muslims in Senegal are affiliated with a Sufi brotherhood. And the numbers are similar in neighboring countries as well. This may be surprising to many people who assume that Sufism is some small sect. But this is basically what the situation has been like for much of history and in many places still today.

It is perhaps no surprise why I did both my bachelor’s and master’s theses on West African Sufism and spent extended periods of time with the Sufi brotherhoods there.

In any case, among the two most prominent Sufi orders in Senegambia is the Mouridiyya, which has significant political and social influence and was founded relatively recently by the 20th century figure Ahmadou Bamba. In most ways, the order is based on his teachings of peace, non-violence, education and an emphasis on a strong work ethic and it is still led by his descendants to this day. I have actually met one of his grandsons myself, just a fun side-note brag.

Anyway, who was Ahmadou Bamba then? Let’s explore his life and teachings.

Ahmadou Bamba Mbacké was born in Senegal in 1853, in what were very uncertain and unstable times. His birth and upbringing coincided with some very significant events in the country, primarily the gradual colonization and takeover by France, who would come to rule the region for the better part of a century. In other words, Bamba grew up in an environment that was filled with conflict, war and tension.

The French colonial powers started a program of assimilation, where the locals were put in French schools to learn the french language, conform to “French culture” and eventually become Frenchmen. This naturally also comes with an eroding and erasing of much of the local traditions and cultures. As you might imagine, and as is usually the case, the Senegalese people weren’t very happy with these developments, and various forms of resistance erupted.

Senegal at this time was a diverse place. There were many different tribes and tribal chiefs, both pagan and Muslim, that ruled different regions. Islam had made its way into the area gradually over the centuries, but really started to gain a foothold when the different Sufi orders started to make headway there. In the late 18th century, the Qadiri order started spreading in Senegal, and in the 19th, the Tijaniyya also became very popular.

Reactions from Muslim spiritual leaders and scholars, or Marabouts as they are often known here, to the arrival of the French would vary. Some were more positively inclined toward the French, or at least promoted peaceful co-existence rather than active resistance, such as the popular Tijani figure al-Hajj Malik Sy (d. 1922) and many Qadiri Shaykhs. Others, however, chose to fight back in the form of armed jihad to drive out the occupying Europeans.

Ahmadou Bamba and his family lived in a region that became a hotbed for a lot of this activity. Various religious and political leaders took up the banner to fight the French and a lot of violence ensued. Not only did the locals fight the French, but the different local chiefs also started fighting each other over power or influence, sometimes as proxies for the different sides. Growing up, Ahmadou Bamba would have witnessed first hand the devastation and ugliness of war, and he even lost family members, including young siblings. His family were not warriors. Indeed, Bamba came from a line of religious scholars and his father was a very well respected expert on the Qur’an and Islamic Law. At a young age, and in the midst of all the chaos, Ahmadou was given a thorough education in all the religious sciences, memorizing all of the Qur’an, studying the hadiths of the prophet and learning the principles of jurisprudence, especially the Maliki school of law that was most prominent in this region. He would also study Sufism to some degree, but that journey began in earnest only later.

Even though he and his family stayed out of politics as such, they were kind of drawn into the conflict anyway when his father was given the position of judge and chief advisor to Lat Dior (d. 1886), a local king who became one of the key and last players in armed resistance against the French. As Ahmadou Bamba reached early adulthood and became something of a scholar himself, he worked as assistant to his father in this position, although later chroniclers will often state that he very unhappy with the fact that his father was working so closely with a political figure and only supported him because of filial piety. Already very knowledgeable and with a real talent for pedagogy, Bamba had already sort of started having people come to him for answers to their questions. People were drawn to him, his character and his wisdom.

Even at this point, sources claim that he was showing some serious interest in spiritual matters. He would often go away into nature for extended periods to contemplate or pray. He had also already started to write spiritual poetry in Arabic, something that he would become very famous for later.

But it wasn’t until his fathers death in 1883, when he would have been 30 years old, that his spiritual quest started properly. He seems to have immediately broken away from his fathers position, no longer associating himself with Lat Dior or any worldly leader. Instead, he went on a journey of spiritual purification. He had already been initiated into the Qadiri sufi order by his uncle, and was involved in Sufism because basically everyone was. But now he decided to travel north to Mauritania, which was a center of learning and Sufism at this time. In these travels, he perfected his knowledge of the religious sciences even more, and focused especially on Sufism or tasawwuf, the “mystical” or inner purification of the heart to reach intimacy with God. He met with many shaykhs or masters, including one of the foremost teachers of the Qadiri order and trained under them until he himself had become a shaykh, a spiritual master.

But it is said that he was also initiated in several other Sufi orders at this time - the Shadhiliyya and Tijaniyya. In other words, he really became deeply involved in Sufism.

Once he returned to Senegal and his family, he did so no longer as just a respected scholar, but as a realized Sufi teacher who immediately started attracting devoted followers. This is the start of the community that would eventually grow into one of the most major Sufi brotherhoods in the world.

When Lat Dior was finally defeated in 1886, the French hoped that they had finally stamped out all resistance in the region and could thus complete their process of domination in the region. In some ways they were right, because it is from this point on that they essentially held absolute power over all of what we call Senegal today.

But as Ahmadou Bamba started to amass an increasing number of followers and thus gaining an incredible amount of power, the French eventually started getting really nervous about him.

As his reputation spread, his status increased even more. Through his spiritual charisma, knowledge of the religion and devotion to the prophet Muhammad, he soon started to be considered the Mujaddid or reviver of the religion for that century. So for context, there is a hadith that states that in every century, there will come a reviver that will.. well, revive the religion of Islam. And Ahmadou Bamba was now being seen by his followers as that reviver. Not only this, he was also considered the Qutb al-Zaman or “Pole of the Age”, a title of spiritual pole of the world around which everything turns, as well as being called the Khadim al-Rasul - “The Servant of the Messenger” - referring to his devotion to the Prophet Muhammad in particular.

And indeed, Ahmadou Bamba had not just amassed a group of followers. In a way, he had started a movement. A movement of education and spiritual development that aimed to transform its followers.

There are many stories of his practices and teachings at this time. He would go on long spiritual retreats, but also spend a lot of time advising his students and setting up a system of education. He wrote a lot of poetry, which was often instructional to his students, but also a lot of praise poetry to the prophet or God.

As part of his spiritual mission, he founded two cities or villages. One which was called Daru Salam - The Abode of Peace - and another called Touba, which means “blessing” and is probably referring to a tree in paradise in the Islamic tradition called Tuba, which in Sufism has often come to represent spiritual perfection. Especially the latter city - Touba - was very dear to Bamba. He had been looking for a place to found a spiritual center, and found it when he was out on a retreat and suddenly had a vision of light while praying under a tree. Subsequently, he founded the city of Touba here, which became the center of his movement. He commemorated the founding of the city with the following verses:

“...O God, my Lord, I pray unto You to make

this blessed city a place of peace a safety

by the Grace of the Prophet (pbuh)

I pray unto you to make this blessed city

a place of worship, faith and righteousness,

and a place to acquire knowledge

I pray unto you to make this city

a Garden of Eden for every worshiper and

a place guarded from every outcast demon…

I pray unto you to make this city

a place which will grant the benefit of the pilgrimage

to any believer who wants to go to Mecca,

but cannot afford it…

I pray unto You to forgive the past and future sins

of the dwellers of Touba,and of whosoever visits i

in search of fulfillment.

Amin God, O God! Amin O God!”

The city of Touba, founded by Ahmadou Bamba, is today the second largest city in all of Senegal, and the center for his followers to this day.

In a way, you can kind of understand why the French were getting a little worried. Here is this “marabout” or religious leader who is gathering more and more followers, founding a city basically in the middle of nowhere where all of these followers gather around him and his teachings. Reports from French-friendly locals reported, probably accurately, that Bamba could raise an army of thousands of people at any moment if he so wished. Even though all informants claimed that Bamba was benign and had no interest in politics, and that he himself showed a certain level of cooperation and friendliness towards them, the French still saw this as a great threat. A marabout with this much power could very easily turn into another movement of armed jihad or resistance.

The thing is, they weren’t entirely wrong. Ahmadou Bamba was indeed engaged in jihad, even to some degree jihad against the colonial powers, and he claimed so himself. But his jihad was not one of armed conflict or war. Instead his was a jihad of nonviolence, a jihad of the soul and, as he called it, a “jihad of the pen”. Here, it is useful to get a bit of a broader picture of what “jihad” means, because I can feel that some of you are confused right now.

Jihad does not translate to Holy war, as I think most of you know. It literally means “struggle” and can refer to many different things. In the Qur’an, Jihad is basically never used to refer to war or violence directly. Instead, jihad in general means to strive for one’s religion. That can mean to strive or struggle for peace, of being kind, there is environmental jihad - fighting against climate change. The sufis in particular liked to use the term Jihad al-nafs or the “struggle against the self/ego” to denote the spiritual struggle of fighting your negative drives and ego-driven behaviors and to purify the soul.

And jihad can also mean struggle in the form of armed struggle or war for the sake of the religion, which many people are familiar with. We can talk more about the concept of jihad in a separate episode dedicated to it, but what is important to remember here is that “jihad” is a much broader term that what is usually imagined, and armed conflict is only one of those meanings.

In this way, Ahmadou Bamba was fighting a jihad. But it was a jihad of education and refinement of character. For the rest of his life, he would stay devoted to a nonviolent cause as the only alternative to reach a peaceful society in this case, making him similar to other 20th century figures like Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

The practical part of his jihad was based on education. The movement he had started, and which was centered in places like Daru Salam and Touba, was one based on an educational system called Tarbiyya. It was not only a Sufi order in the traditional sense, a master-student relationship where the students would travel on the spiritual path to intimacy with God. It was that, too, but also a much more comprehensive system where the students were educated in the basics of the religion - taught things like the Qur’an and hadith, Jurisprudence - but also a deeper spiritual education aimed at transforming the person and society from the inside. Through the sufi technologies of the heart, this would create a firm basis for ethical human beings, people who were kind, righteous and embodied all the positive aspects of the Islamic ideal. In the words of Michelle R. Kimball:

“The focus of tarbiyyah is to groom participants who are distinguished and self-motivated to strive for excellence, have a sense of mission, conduct a balanced life, live in peace with themselves and their environment, and gain discernment with the necessary knowledge, understanding, and skills to make a difference in society by taking an active role - both individually and collectively - in the reform process that seeks to better the community, the country, and the world” - Michelle R. Kimball

Ahmadou Bamba’s movement was also one that was radical in other ways for the culture in the region at the time. He would take on basically anyone as a student and progression in the hierarchy was based on merit and level of devotion, rather than social standing in the sort-of caste and tribal system of Senegal. Slaves and griots - local musicians and praise-singers - could become shaykhs and masters. Now, many of the most prominent members of the movement were his family members, and leadership in the order would be carried down primarily in his family line, but Mourids will claim that this was not simply based on family ties but also merit and spiritual authority. He did come from a family of scholars, after all.

Basically anyone was welcome as part of his movement, the members of which were known as Murids, a common word in Sufism meaning something like “student”, or more literally a “seeker (after God)”. It is also this designation that became the basis for the name of the order that he founded - the Mouridiyya or Mourid Order.

Even though Bamba was a renunciate to some degree, and Sufim obviously involved a certain level of asceticism, his brotherhood was one that also emphasized an active participation in society. Bamba himself had a family, and he encouraged his followers to have a profession to be able to provide for and nurture their families. This was important in order to live a fully spiritual life. In particular, the mourids became known for the strong work ethic and their prominence in producing ground nuts. The Mourid community had a certain level of self-sufficiency as one of its goals.

All of this of course not only worried the French, but also angered some of the local chiefs who didn’t like that Bamba was collapsing some of the tribal hierarchies and traditions, and together they started painting him as an enemy. People reported to the French that Bamba was amassing weapons and preparing for an armed rebellion. When the French investigated the communities, they didn’t find any evidence for this, but the process had already started. Ahmadou Bamba was a threat to the colonial powers, and they needed to do something about it.

This culminated in 1895, when the French decided to have Bamba arrested and tried. This starts a new phase in his life. A phase when he not only passively fights his jihad of the pen, but starts being actively persecuted by the colonial powers and yet continues to actively fight his nonviolent, pacifist struggle against them. His dedication to this cause is clear from his own statements, in which he makes it clear that his understanding of Islam and dedication to the Prophet is what is ensuring him that nonviolence is the only correct path. As he is taken to a cell awaiting trial, he wrote:

“Each time I recall this night, this Governor and the ignominy, I felt like having recourse to arms, but al-Mahdi, the Eraser (of sins and pains), the Prophet, peace be upon him, forbade me”

And:

“The most worthy of gratitude, who is worshiped for the sake of His Face. These texts were a spiritual education from the Living God who never dies, the One who guarded me from using weapons against the aggressor” - Ahmadou Bamba

He indicates that in the moments of greatest oppression and humiliation, he indeed did feel the urge to call for armed resistance, but chose not to because the “prophet forbade it”, in other words, this was the only way for him according to his understanding of Islamic orthodoxy. I like this because it nuances his character. He wasn’t some black and white figure. He didn’t consider violence to never be appropriate, but that it was not the answer in this case or in most cases. He had seen enough violence growing up. He had seen how war destroyed families, destroyed people and even religion. Fighting war and using violence was even detrimental to Islam. It wouldn’t lead to the spread of the religion, but to the opposite - it would lead people away from it. He is thought to have said:

“The scuffles that you lead, you and those like you who attempt to wage holy war, will lead you only to an irremediable loss!”

A point I think is relevant in a lot of circumstances today, where people who use violence to spread religion often actually take people further away from it.

Despite this, and strangely in hindsight of course, the French still saw him as too much of a threat and decided to send him into exile to the jungles of Gabon, where condemned people were often sent with the assumption that they would not survive. They couldn’t execute him, because that would make him a martyr. So this was the best option according to the French. But even though it seemed to calm down his movement at first, it also kind of backfired on them. Today, the day Bamba was arrested and subsequently sent away into exile is celebrated by Mourids as a turning point when Bamba started the journey to spiritual perfection.

Indeed, the seven years that he spent in the jungles were spent in even more intense spiritual practices which, according to Mourids, resulted in him reaching the highest stages of sainthood. In Gabon, he also wrote some of his most famous works of poetry.

In short, once Bamba returned to Senegal from exile in 1903, after some of his followers had negotiated with the colonialists, he was more powerful than ever. The fact that he had returned was seen almost as a miracle, and he continued to gain many new followers.

At the same time, the French had been doubling down on suppressing Muslim religious leaders from gaining too much popularity and power. Their policy was “... to prevent marabouts from creating centers of meeting, religious proselytizing, or pilgrimage” with the threat of punishment for anyone who did.

They had Bamba under constant surveillance, as they still considered him a threat to their power. And because he was still getting more and more powerful, as well as the fact that rumors were continuing to spread among his enemies and that he sometimes showed resistance and defiance against worldly power, they decided to have him arrested again, only six month after he had returned from Gabon.

Once again, Ahmadou Bamba was sent into exile, this time to Mauritania under the guardianship of a French-friendly Qadiri Shaykh Sidiyya. This exile, which lasted from 1903-1907 was very different from the previous one. Here, Ahmadou Bamba spent his time with fellow Sufis, he was well respected and even started a school to continue his mission of tarbiyya here.

(It is also said that it was in Mauritania that the Mouridiyya sufi order was consecrated fully, as it is here that he is considered to have received the wird of the order from a vision of the Prophet Muhammad himself. A wird is a kind of prayer cycle that is performed daily by initiates in a sufi order and which is unique to that order or sometimes the individual shaykh. Previously, Bamba had recited the wirds of the Qadiri, Shadhili and Tijani orders, but now he had a wird of his own, thus completing the formation of the Mouridiyya into a full Sufi tariqa of its own.)

Ahmadou Bamba was allowed to return home to Senegal in 1907, and this time he would stay for the rest of his life. He had spent most of 12 years in exile in total but could now return triumphantly once again. The French gradually realized that he probably wasn’t a threat and became increasingly more accommodating to him and the Mourids. Even so, he would spend the rest of his life essentially under house arrest, first in Tieyéne and from 1912 he was allowed to move to another house in Diourbel in his native land of Baol.

It wasn’t Touba, but at least he was home.

The last years of Ahmadou Bamba’s life remained intense. He continued his activities of fighting the jihad of the soul and pen, futher established his system of education which was being led in different locations by different shaykhs. The order grew exponentially in this period, more so than it ever had, and established itself widely across the region. He opened up new places of learning and houses of retreat and sufi practices, he grew his family and continued to write incredible amounts of poetry.

It is in this period of his life, in 1913, that the only known (for certain) photograph of the shaykh was taken. It shows Bamba in his characteristic white attire and a turban that covers half of his face. An image that has come to mean a lot to his followers to this day and often adorn walls on the home of Mourids around the world.

Relatively recently, new images have also appeared that is claimed to be of Bamba. In one, it shows him standing with some of his followers and a French soldier, sporting what certainly looks like a smile.

The second is claimed to be of Bamba laying the foundation stone of the Diourbel mosque in 1918:

Above all, Ahmadou Bamba never backed down from his nonviolent principles and the quest for peace and stability. He fought his jihad for the rest of his days, with unwavering commitment to the pacifist path. In the last decades of his life, he was on increasingly good terms with the French, even supporting them in the first world war since he saw them as protecting Muslim lands from invasion. He had always led a movement of resistance, but this resistance was never one of violence or even of overthrowing the government per se. Above all, it was a resistance in support of spiritual and ethical purification, but also to some degree against the colonialist policies of eroding traditional local traditions. He wanted to preserve the spiritual core of society through education and thereby create a more aware population that would in that way resist colonial influence. Not by taking over the government directly or something, but as a gradual transformation of society from the inside and, most importantly, by peaceful means.

It is thus not surprising that Bamba allowed many of his followers to attend French schools and learn the French language, for example. That in itself was not a problem, as long as they also had a solid spiritual and religious foundation to stand on. At this point, he also probably felt more free to open up for such things, because he had accomplished a lot of what he wanted.

For his whole career, he had insisted and tried to reassure the French powers that he was not interested in raising arms against them, or interested in worldly politics whatsoever. In perhaps the most forceful and clear statement of his commitment to nonviolence, he stated:

“Whoever gives even 5 francs for the sake of God will be compensated. Further, I have agreed to certain conditions with God, such that even if the Mahdi descends to earth I would not assist him in battle. I will not kill neither scorpion nor serpent, nor anything that is living. According to the direction I have taken it is absolutely forbidden for me to shoot from a weapon, such that even if the Mahdi were to arrive, and if I were to take up arms, my mission would be lost” - Bamba

Bamba sought peace above all, and even in his last years, he assured the French that he and his followers were not interested in creating disturbances. Quite the opposite, actually. Bamba praised the relative peace that prevailed under French rule, which was much preferred to the uncertain times of pre-colonial times which was characterized by conflict. He even issued an official fatwa which made clear his stance, arguing that there was no valid reason at the present time to wage armed jihad, pointing to the specific context in which the Prophet Muhammad had done so and, referring to Islamic Law, arguing among other things that French rule was to be accepted because Muslims were still allowed to practice their religion in the country and that they, being Christians, belonged to the so-called “people of the book”. Thus, he emphasized peaceful co-existence while simultaneously fighting very firmly to preserve and cultivate the Islamic tradition against foreign opposition.

In today’s world, it is interesting to consider the fact that Ahmadou Bamba’s total commitment to peace and nonviolence stemmed directly from his reading and dedication to the Islamic religion and its teachings. Just as similar figures of the 20th century like Gandhi claimed inspiration from the Hindu Bhagavad Gita and Martin Luther King justified his civil rights movement on the basis of the Bible, Ahmadou Bamba drew his teachings and stances from the Qur’an and the example of the Prophet Muhammad, in verses like:

“Do not be the aggressor, God dislikes the aggressors” (5:87)

“If anyone slays a human being (...) it shall be as though he had slain all mankind; whereas, if anyone saves a life, it shall be as though he had saved the lives of all of mankind” (5:32)

Ahmadou Bamba passed away in the summer of 1927, by then in his seventies, and was buried in his beloved city of Touba, where a mausoleum and mosque was soon erected and eventually became the largest mosque in all of west africa. He left behind an immense legacy. Whereas the other Muslim leaders who chose the path of armed resistance were defeated and soon forgotten, Ahmadou Bamba’s pacifist struggle was, and became, more successful than anyone could have imagined. His Mourid order had already become a significant religious, economic and social force in the country, and would only become even more so as the years went on after his death. Today, it is estimated that about a third of the population in Senegal and The Gambia belong to the Mouridiyya, and they play a major role in the social and even political life of the country. In this way, he was arguably very successful.

Many of his closest followers became famous shaykhs even in his day, and their influence continued after his passing. The most famous of these is probably the very interesting figure called Ibrahim Fall (d. 1930), one of Bamba’s earliest followers who became famous, and somewhat controversial, for his complete devotion to the Shaykh. He would be so devoted to serving him, in fact, that he even neglected some of the basic Islamic rituals, like the daily prayers, which not everyone appreciated, including Bamba himself. Nonetheless, Ibrahim Fall remained a central leader in the Mourid community, eventually being a Shaykh himself. He emphasized a very strong work ethic and service, and a sub movement within the Mouridiyya grew out of his leadership which became known as the Baye Fall. The Baye Fall is still prominent in the region today and is characterized by often wearing patched, colorful clothing, dreadlocks and sometimes intense musical performances.

But there were many other shaykhs in the community as well, many of whom were members of Bamba’s family. Indeed, after his death, the top leaders of the order - the so-called khalifas - were essentially a succession of his sons, and later his grandchildren. But the order also consists of many shaykhs, teachers and masters of various backgrounds and standings, including of course converts. Because indeed the Mouridiyya grew to be one of the largest sufi brotherhoods in West Africa and eventually the whole world. There are communities of Mourids spread all around the globe, from New York to Paris and Stockholm. All of whom trace their spiritual lineage to Ahmadou Bamba and his teachings of education, nonviolence and peaceful co-existence.

As we said earlier, the city of Touba, which was founded by Bamba, is today the second largest city in Senegal after the capital of Dakar. It is also the place of one of the largest pilgrimages in the world. Indeed, every year millions of Mourids around the world travel to Touba to commemorate the arrest and exile of Bamba to Gabon - that event which came to represent his ascension to true sainthood. It is a massive event in which people come to visit the city, the mausoleum of Bamba and to celebrate his life, teachings and poetry. This pilgrimage is known as the Grand Magal, and has become one of the most important events or happenings in West Africa, having a major social, political and economic impact on the country.

These practices, which make the Moridiyya stand out, are fascinating. Aside from all the regular observances that all Muslims perform, as well as some of the more specific practices associated with Sufism, the Mourids have unique ways of applying the teachings of their master.

Bamba’s legacy in his order is not only in the general teachings that he conveyed, but also very much in his writings. As we have mentioned, he was a very prolific poet who wrote in Arabic with a proficiency that was unusual for someone from this region. Some of the most famous of these poetic works include the Jaawartu and the Maghâliqu-n-Nîrân wa Mafâtihul Jinân or “The locks of hell and the keys to paradise”. These poems, or qasa’id/qasida which express his teachings, are incredibly important to the Mourids and make up a part of every day practice for them. Indeed, one of the most characteristic practices of the Mouridiyya is precisely the recitation of these poems, which is often referred to precisely as qasida. In a way, this is the dhikr of the Mourid order. Dhikr - meaning “remembrance” - is one of the key practices of Sufism, where the names of God or certain phrases are repeated or recited for extended periods of time, often in groups. And in the Mouridiyya, dhikr often takes the form of Qasida recitation. Mourids will often sit in a circle and recite from Ahmadou Bamba’s poetry with certain melodies. In a way it is a kind of musical experience, and a very powerful one for anyone who has the privilege to experience it in real life. Just like dhikr, Mourids have often told me that the experience of reciting, which can go on for hours, is kind of like a meditation, and you feel refreshed afterwards.

If you go to any Mourid celebration or gathering, or visit Touba, especially during the Magal, you will hear the qasida being recited. It is all-pervading in the region.

And not just through the sound of the poetry, but visually as well. If you visit Senegal or The Gambia, you will often find paintings or images of Bamba on buildings or on cars, making him a figure that is basically impossible to escape in West Africa.

In popular music, the same is true. Some of the most famous musicians and artists in the region, such as the renowned singer and peace activist Youssou N’dour, belong to the Mouridiyya and many of their songs often feature him or related topics as central to their lyrics. Youssou N’dour even released an album called “Egypt”/”Santa Yallah” in 2004 which is exclusively dedicated to themes about the Sufi brotherhoods in the region, including praise-songs of Ahamdou Bamba, his associates and the city of Touba.

In the 1960’s, Senegal declared independence from France and has since formed a very unique political structure. The Sufi orders have, and still do, play a major role in Senegambian society, and this is perhaps especially true for the Mouridiyya. As I mentioned, leadership of the order has been carried on by Bamba’s descendants since his death, and these marabouts have a lot of power and popularity. The Mourid order in general is a significant force, an economic powerhouse given their production of peanuts and a social one because such a large portion of the population are devoted to the marabouts. These dynamics have led to that during colonial times, but especially since independence, Senegal and The Gambia have formed a very unique kind of political system, one that is somewhat similar to earlier examples from Islamic history, but is very unusual today.

In Senegambia, basically everyone in the population is connected to a marabout from one of the four major orders - the Tijaniyya, Mouridiyya, Qadiriyya and Layene order. The Marabouts are not only spiritual and religious guides but are significant for the social cohesion of the people. They can, for example, support their followers financially if someone is in trouble, and other such direct involvement with the people.

Thus, even though Senegal, for example, is technically a secular democracy, the government holds great respect for the marabouts and they actually play a pretty important indirect role in politics.

In fact, the system in this region is one where the secular government is at the top, but then the marabouts function almost like middle-men between the political leaders and the population, representing the religious and spiritual foundation in a mutual relationship. In a way, they thus have a significant level of indirect political influence and power. An example of this is that political candidates have often traveled to Touba to ask for the blessings of the Mourid marabouts before running. This gives the politician legitimacy on a level by connecting himself with the religious and ethical teachings of Islam. In the same way, the politicians will in turn often support the marabouts and their followers monetarily and otherwise, creating a kind of symbiotic relationship.

Another good example of this comes from my own research. This deals with the Tijani order, but the situation in this case is basically the same. Here, during an annual pilgrimage, politicians and other high ranking individuals will often come to visit a Tijani shaykh called Abdurrahman Barry. There is a kind of ceremony where they all sit together, the shaykh holds speeches about how the politicians should act ethically and treat the people well, and the politicians in turn hold speeches in response, often praising the shaykh. This is a very clear example of how politics and religion authenticate and support each other in the region.

“Considering the long relationship between the two, especially with how powerful the marabouts have been politically for much of the 20th century, the event can be seen as a symbolic way to communicate that Islam (as understood by Barry and his followers) still acts as an ethical basis for society and politics. To some degree, it gives Abdulrahman Barry a certain amount of political power and authority, but even more importantly it is a way for the politicians to legitimize their leadership by establishing a connection to the sheikh and the ethical tenets of religion. In a way, you could say that religion and politics legitimize each other through the rituals of the pilgrimage.” - Filip Holm

And, again, the same is very much true for the marabouts of the Mouridiyya.

Many political commentators argue that this political system, with a symbiotic relationship between secular politics and religion, is a deciding factor in how Senegal has been, and still is, a relatively very functioning democracy with a stable political system and society. It isn’t one where there is a total “separation of church and state”, something that would be very alien to that society, but neither is it a theocratic model in the way of a country like Iran. Instead, Senegal has developed its own way of doing things, a way that appears to work really well. The religious leaders and people themselves want the state apparatus to remain secular, but the important role that the marabouts play ensure that religion is still an important part of society. According to Leonardo A. Villalon:

“As well organized institutions with an extraordinary high degree of popular legitimacy, based both on an ideological religious foundation and on their responsiveness to popular concerns, the orders have been able to provide Senegalese society with a degree of ‘strength’ in the interactions with the state which is virtually unparalleled elsewhere in Africa” - Leonardo A. Villalon

A strength that probably is an important factor in how fundamentalist groups seem to find very little foothold in this region, and why, for example, a Christian - Leopold Senghor - could be elected the first president of the country with wide support from the Muslim religious leaders.

The figure of Ahmadou Bamba played no small part in this current landscape of west africa. His nonviolent jihad was arguably a lot more successful than the violent uprisings of some of his contemporaries, and has come to have a major impact on the world. Not only this, but he inspires us to this day with his devotion to peace, his commitment to his religious beliefs and his general resilience, whether you are a Mourid or not.

Bibliography:

Babou, Cheikh Anta (2007). "Fighting the Greater Jihad: Amadu Bamba and the founding of the Mouridiyya of Senegal, 1853-1913". Ohio University Press.

Clark, Andrew Francis (1999). "Imperialism, Independence, and Islam in Senegal and Mali". Africa Today, Volume 46, Number 3/4, Summer/Autumn. Indiana University Press.

Creevey, Lucy E. (1985). "Muslim Brotherhoods and Politics in Senegal in 1985". The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 23, No. 4. Cambridge University Press.

Holm, Filip (2018). "The Architecture of Pilgrimage: a study on the Ziyara Bogal and charismatic authority in the Tijaniyya". Master's Thesis. Södertörn University.

Kimball, Michelle R. (2018). "Shaykh Ahmadou Bamba: A Peacemaker for Our Time". The Other Press Sdn. Bhd.

Mbacké, Khadim (2005). "Sufism and Religious Brotherhoods in Senegal". Markus Weiner Publishers.

McLaughlin, Fiona (1997). "Islam and popular music in Senegal: The emergence of a new tradition". Africa: Journal of the international African Institute.

Van Hoven, Ed (2000). "The nation turbaned? The construction of nationalist identities in Senegal. Journal of Religion in Africa, Vol. 30, Fasc. 2. Brill.

What if I told you that one of the most famous people in the 19th century was an Algerian man who fought a struggle of armed jihad against invading French forces in the country, was a deeply devoted sufi mystic and eventually received several awards and medals in Europe for his bravery and compassion?

This is, in fact, the real story about one of the most fascinating figures in the modern history of the Middle east - Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza’iri (d. 1883), widely known as Emir Abdelkader.

His life story is one filled with intrigue, twists and turns & deep spirituality. But perhaps above all, it is instructive to dispel many of the misconceptions people have about the Middle East/North Africa, Islam and Sufism.

Abd al-Qadir ibn Muhyiddin al-Jaza’iri is considered a national hero in his native Algeria. Often to the point of being seen as the father of the modern Algerian nation. There is even that famous song about him.

Abd al-Qadir was born in 1808 in Guetna (Northwestern Algeria) into a family of religious scholars and “mystics’‘ with Arab tribal background, allegedly descendants of the Prophet Muhammad himself. His father, Mudyiddin, was a greatly respected Marabout, a word commonly used in North and West Africa to denote a religious authority, often with connection to Sufism.

And indeed, Muhyiddin was an accomplished Sufi shaykh and regional leader of the Qadiri sufi order, one of the most widespread and major mystical brotherhoods in the Islamic world.

So Abd al-Qadir grew up in an environment of religious learning and sufi piety, essentially living in his fathers zawiya or sufi lodge. As such, he was given a proper education at an early age, being the son of such an important figure. He was taught to memorize and recite the Qur’an, the Hadith or traditions of the Prophet Muhammad, Islamic law and the spiritual path of Sufism.

He was also sent to study more “worldly knowledge” such as philosophy, geometry, geography, mathematics and other topics, as well as training his skills in horseback riding, an important skill to the bedouin living in the Maghreb at the time.

He would periodically go out into the desert by himself for long periods, learning to survive the harsh environment. Even though he was destined for a life of scholarship, these skills would all prove very useful later in his life when he found himself as a military leader.

He also accompanied his father and other followers on the long pilgrimage to Mecca, the hajj which all able Muslims are enjoined to perform, and also stopped in various places on the way back, such as Damascus and Baghdad, visiting the tombs of important saints or awliya, such as Ibn ‘Arabi and Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (d. 1166), the founder of the Qadiri order that they belonged to.

He eventually found himself back in Algeria again, though, and in 1830 things were to take a very dramatic turn. The French colonial power was expanding into Africa at this time, and in July of 1830 they invaded Algeria.

The region had been ruled by the Ottomans before this, and the local population had begun to increasingly despise their leaders as corrupt in various different ways. As such, the immediate reaction to the French invasion wasn’t that dramatic. Even though the new invading power were Christian, there was hope that maybe they would be better at ruling the country than the earlier powers were.

It turned out pretty quickly, however, that this was not the case. The country was basically turned into complete anarchy, and the French appeared incapable of keeping the order.

The local population thus found themselves in a situation where things needed to change. The invading force had to be dispelled to keep peace and order in the region. Because Muhyiddin, Abd al-Qadir’s father, was so beloved as a religious leader, many turned to him to lead this resistance. But he thought himself a man of peace, and too old to lead war, so he instead handed over this responsibility to his son Abd al-Qadir, who was only 24 years old at this point in 1832.

Thus he became Amir al-Mu’minin, the ‘Commander of the Faithful’, the new leader of the resistance that was to wage armed struggle - jihad - against the invading French powers and liberate the country.

This was quite unexpected in a way. As we said, he came from a scholarly family, not one associated with warriors or warfare. But Abd al-Qadir’s great intelligence, charisma and speaking abilities garnered him great support even from the beginning. In a statement, he said:

“We have, therefore, assumed this heavy responsibility, hoping it may be the means for uniting the Muslim community and of preventing dissensions among them and affording general security to all the inhabitants of the land, of putting an end to lawlessness, and of driving back the enemy who has invaded our country in order to subjugate us.” - Abd al-Qadir

Within a short span of time, Abd al-Qadir had essentially united the disparate tribes of Algeria in a unified struggle against the French, and would prove to be a very capable and successful military leader, gaining significant victories against the French (after all, one of the most powerful militaries in the world).

Abd al-Qadir would use guerilla tactics to fight the enemy, and he would consistently live in a tent, partly as a sign of humility and probably related to his sufi practice and asceticism.

There is a lot of fascinating information about the military career of the amir, but we’re not going to go into too much detail here. There are several good sources to advise for a deeper dive into that topic, such as Kiser’s competent biography Commander of the Faithful: the Life and Times of Emir Abd el-Kader. But it is a story of twists and turns.

Over the course of the war, there were several peace treaties signed, one in 1834 and another in 1837. And the French quickly realized that while Abd al-Qadir was a fierce warrior and military leader at wartime, he was highly dignified, respectful and kind, especially in times of peace. (French officers who visited him in his camps describe him and his followers as welcoming, and that he is a man who keeps his word.) What he was after, at the end of the day, was peace. He was, as we have seen, a deeply religious man, devoted to the Islamic religion and its teachings. And this deep religiousness and spirituality shines through in descriptions from the time, as he didn’t have the look of a warrior at all, rather being described as almost looking like a saint with his simple clothing and aura. General Bugeaud, one of the Amir’s foremost enemies in Algeria, once said: “He is pale and somewhat resembles the way that Jesus Christ is often portrayed”

And while he was a fierce warrior on the battlefield and in war, he quickly also gained a reputation for his righteousness, saintly nature and even humanitarianism. Indeed, Abd al-Qadir was adamant to reform certain practices in war that he saw his fellow Algerians taking part in, but which went against the rules and laws of Islam, particularly when it comes to treatment of prisoners.

For example, it was a common practice to behead the enemies you had killed in battle and bring them back to your commander for a price. This was utterly barbaric and sacreligious to Abd al-Qadir, who forbade the practice completely. Individuals were indeed themselves punished harshly if it came to light that they had beheaded a dead or surrendered enemy.

Abd al-Qadir saw it as very important, according to his religious convictions, that prisoners of war were treated humanely and with dignity. When the soldiers brought back prisoners to their camp, the prisoners would always be questioned to make sure they were treated well on the way there.

And once in captivity, the prisoners were always looked after by Abd al-Qadir’s mother, Lalla Zohra, being fed and clothed and treated with kindness. We know this to be true because these are accounts told by the prisoners themselves after the fact. Indeed, it was former prisoners of Abd al-Qadir that would later become some of his greatest supporters in France, and who campaigned to have him released when he was himself imprisoned, visiting him in captivity and sending letters thanking him.

There are also stories of the Amir releasing French prisoners simply because he didn’t have enough food to feed them properly.

In another famous event, he started a correspondence with a local Christian bishop in Algeria who had written to the Emir asking if he could release a particular prisoner whose wife and child were helpless without him.

Abd al-Qadir agreed, and even pointed out, in an almost comical way, that the Bishop should really have asked for all the prisoners to be released. This started a long friendship between the bishop and Abd al-Qadir that would last for the rest of their lives, and during the war they together made a humanitarian effort to exchange prisoners between the two sides, relieving as many people as possible of unnecessary captivity. Later in life, they would also meet in person and become deep friends. Abd al-Qadir saw in the bishop a fellow servant of God, devoted to peace and love of humanity, and they shared many conversations about religion, God the Bible and Jesus.

The character of the Amir became known to people in the region and around the world. In England, he was already being celebrated as a hero defending his country against the French, whom the English weren’t very fond of at this time. And although he was their enemy who made life very difficult for them, many of the French soldiers and generals couldn’t help but at least respect him.

He really was a complex and three-dimensional character in many ways. There is no denying that he could be very harsh and even cruel at times, especially to those of local tribes that betrayed him. The political and social situation in the country was a difficult one, and to be able to unite all the tribes to stand against the enemy required him to occasionally rule with an iron fist. He knew the culture and did what he had to do to keep the nation under control.

At the same time, he was driven by his unfailing sense of justice and mercy, firmly rooted in his Islamic religious faith and practice, with a high intelligence and thirst for knowledge and ultimately with one goal in mind - peace.

In a letter regarding a disputed peace agreement, he said himself:

“Great King of the French! God has appointed each of us to govern some of his creatures. You are in a position far superior to mine by the number, power and riches of your subjects; but on both of us He has imposed an obligation to make our people happy. Let us look together at our positions, and you will agree that on you alone depends the happiness of both our nations. ‘Sign,’ you say, ‘and if you refuse there will be war.’ Well, I will not sign, yet I want peace and only peace..” - Abd al-Qadir

Abd al-Qadir was fighting a jihad. Not just a jihad of defending his country against invasion, but also the internal jihad against his self and ego. A jihad to uphold principles of humanity, selflessness and avoidance of greed, anger & unnecessary conflict.

The status of war in Islam is of course a controversial topic. The amir considered himself to be engaged in jihad. But what does this mean? Many people often mistakenly translate this as “holy war”. But what it actually means is “struggle” in a general sense. This can mean many different things, but usually with religious connotations, from moral struggle to do the right thing, struggle to be a good friend. Struggle for the environment, and in the sufi context there is a huge focus on the jihad al-nafs or ‘struggle against the ego/self’, something that Abd al-Qadir was definitely involved with throughout his life.

But jihad can also of course mean armed struggle in the form of war. When we read the old manuals of Islamic Law and it discusses “jihad”, it is usually this kind of armed jihad. And this was also what the amir was engaged in against the French.

But even in such armed jihad there are several nuances and rules. Islamic law has always established certain rules in war, that war needs to have a just cause and that the actions during war must be just. Common rules in war across the board are often the prohibition of killing non-combatants (women, children, the elderly, monks etc.) as well as a prohibition against killing livestock or burning down crops, and a just treatment of prisoners of war, all of which goes back to the actions of the Prophet Muhammad himself and his immediate successors, the early caliphs.

When we look at the Qur’an, it at the very least seems to allow Muslims to protect themselves, their land and faith when attacked. But it also again and again enjoins the believer to pursue peace:

“If the enemy is inclined towards peace, make peace with them. And put your trust in Allah. Indeed, He ˹alone˺ is the All-Hearing, All-Knowing.” (Qur’an, 8:61)

These were principles that Abd al-Qadir definitely held as important, and which he tried to follow as well as he could. It was his duty as a Muslim to protect his country against invaders, but also to incline to peace, kindness and hospitality. Both of these fall under the general category of jihad - the armed jihad of self-defense, and the moral jihad to uphold the principles of religion through being a good person and suppress the harmful inclinations of the ego. This, I think, is important to remember when we talk about Abd al-Qadir and people like him. His life and actions are deeply informed by his understanding of the Islamic religion, just like the non-violent struggle of Ahmadou Bamba in Senegal was. An understanding that wasn’t black or white, but also encompassing those aspects of kindness, compassion and peace.

And as the years went on, the war continued to rage, bringing times of victory and times of defeat. By the 1840’s, the French decided to turn up the dial in order to defeat Abd al-Qadir once and for all, employing a kind of scorched earth tactic that proved successful in the end. The forces of the Amir were dwindling, more and more tribes were joining the French cause and Abd al-Qadir was forced to constantly move around with his followers in his large movable city of tents, the smala.

Eventually, in 1847 he realized that it was useless to continue fighting. To do so would only bring more death, bloodshed and sorrow upon his people with very little chance of a positive outcome in the end.

He decided to surrender and to promise never to return to his native country, but only under conditions that he was allowed to go into exile in Acre or Alexandria in Egypt. The French general in charge at the time, Juchault de Lamoricière (d. 1865), accepted the terms. He met with Abd al-Qadir and they together traveled to the coast of Algeria. On the way, curious people would come out to get a glimpse of the Amir, who had become almost like a legend or myth at this time.

Abd al-Qadir’s family, as well as a large group of supporters and friends, decided to join him on his journey to the new home. But unfortunately, things didn’t really go as expected.

The French government at the time was not happy with the conditions that Lamoricière had accepted. They felt it was too dangerous for Abd al-Qadir to be anywhere in the Middle East. So instead, he and his family were brought to France and were essentially imprisoned there.

This was a great act of betrayal to the Arabs. The French had agreed to the Amir’s terms, and now they didn’t keep their word. Abd al-Qadir himself tried to keep his spirits up, always stating that he ultimately trusted in the honor of the French to uphold their part of the agreement. And although they eventually would, it would take a long time. Indeed, the imprisonment lasted for several years, from 1847 to 1852. Abd al-Qadir and his community were moved several times, and for the most part their living circumstances weren’t terrible. By the end, they were allowed to go on day trips outside the chateau. But this was a small consolation compared to the freedom that they really wanted. The French would continuously offer Abd al-Qadir to stay in the country and live a comfortable life with his family, almost a nobility. But he refused, choosing to remain in captivity until they upheld their part of the agreement.

The years of imprisonment in France are really fascinating. While he was seen by many, especially those in the government, as an enemy that had fought them in North Africa, Abd al-Qadir became somewhat of a local celebrity and legend in France. Basically everyone that was stationed as a guard in the places they were confined or interacted with in any way always had only good things to say about him and his character.

One of these was named Daumas, who was Abd al-Qadir’s keeper for a period of his imprisonment. The two would have long, deep discussions and became close friends.

Everyone describes him as very polite and kind, with very high intelligence and a calm, saintly nature.

“He never complains for himself, though he is determined to hold France to its word. He forgives his enemies, even those who can still make him suffer, and he will not allow anyone to speak ill of them in his presence. Whether they are Muslims of Christians who are the subject of his complaints, he has forgiven them.” - Daumas

Leon Roche also said about him:

“His physiognomy is fluid and, despite his famous self-control, his face reflects the emotions that are stirring within. When he prays he is an ascetic; when he commands, he is a sovereign; when he talks of war, he is a soldier. When he talks with his friends about matters other than statecraft or religion, he is good humoured and open, with an inclination toward self-deprecation. When he talks of his father, it is never without tears in his beautiful eyes.” - Roches

He made several friends while here, and received a steady flow of visitors from around the country, people who had heard about him and wanted to meet this curious man. Former French soldiers and generals that had been his prisoners in Algeria and came to thank him for his humane treatment of them. One of them even begged to be allowed to follow the Amir to Turkey to be his personal servant as a way of thanking him.

It is also here that he meets in person the bishop Antoine-Adolphe Dupuch, who visited him in prison. This was the same bishop with whom he had corresponded with during the war and who together had orchestrated the release and exchange of prisoners. The two also became close friends and would have long discussions together, as well as continuing to correspond at meetings over the years. The bishop also basically escorted and took care of the Amir’s retinue when they were transferred to their new place of stay at the Château d’Amboise.

And the longer time went on, and the more friends he made, the larger became the choirs of supporters who campaigned to have him released and be allowed to go to the Middle East again. To much of the French population, he had become something of a legendary hero, mistreated by their country.

Finally, after many years of imprisonment, their wishes came true. After a revolution, the new emperor Napoleon III came to power in 1848, and on the 16th of October 1852 he visited the Amir at the Château d’Amboise, where he spent the last years, and told him that he was to be given his freedom. France was to uphold its side of the agreement made in 1847. Abd al-Qadir and his family were ecstatic and relieved. Even the French guards and officers (?) that had looked after the Amir were emotional.

Before leaving France, he visited Paris, went to the Opera, visited Notre Dame, received famous visitors, including Victor Hugo, author of novels like The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Les Misérables, and even received an official salute by the French army. Quite a development from being their foremost enemy in Algeria.

Abd al-Qadir left France and settled first in Bursa, Turkey. But in 1855 he moved to Damascus, Syria, which would be his home for the rest of his life. Aside from being a beautiful and historic city where he could live among his fellow Muslims, there was another fact about this city that particularly attracted him. Indeed, this was the resting place and final home of Abd al-Qadir’s personal hero and inspiration - one of the greatest Sufi masters and saints in the history of the Islamic world, Muhyddin Ibn al-’Arabi (d. 1240), also known as the Shaykh al-Akbar or ‘Greatest Master’.

While controversial in some circles, Ibn ‘Arabi has been one of the most influential mystical thinkers in the history of Islam, and Abd al-Qadir was particularly devoted to his teachings and legacy.

And in many ways, this is what can be said to primarily characterize his life in Damascus during the last 30 years of his life - a devotion and deepening of his Sufism, the mystical path to intimacy with God, and his scholarly activities.

As we said in the beginning, Abd al-Qadir came from a Sufi family, as did most people at that time. His father had been the head of the Qadiriyya sufi tariqa/order in the region, and Abd al-Qadir inherited that tradition. He was always a “sufi”, so to say, and we can see this in his practices and behaviors even during the war, with his strong insistence on asceticism, dhikr, meditation and controlling of vices. He was simultaneously a warrior and a mystic, deeply immersed in spiritual practices and the sufi path.

Indeed, we find a fascinating account from one of his companions during the war, a curious French man called Léon Roches (d. 1901) who pretended to convert to Islam to get close to Abd al-Qadir, became known by the Arabs as Umar and struck a quite deep friendship with the Amir. In his retellings of his time in Algeria, which are so important and fascinating, he describes Abd al-Qadir’s practice during the war:

“The religious practices of Abd al-Kader are not limited to this (Islamic daily prayers). He gives himself to meditation between each prayer, constantly touching his prayer beads. Every day, in his tent, or at the mosque when by chance he finds himself in a town, he gives a talk on the unity of God. He is considered one of the most erudite theologians of the time.

(...)

He fasts at least one time a week, and what a fast! From two hours before dawn until sunset, he does not eat, drink, or even inhale any perfume. I don’t know if I have mentioned that he rejects the use of smoking tobacco and barely tolerates snuff. (...)

He rarely allows himself the pleasures of coffee. The moment he sees that it is becoming a habit, he deprives himself of coffee for several days.”

Not only did he clearly follow a regiment of spiritual sufi practice, as we can see here, but he seems to have been quite advanced on the path, and prone to deep mystical experiences and ecstasies. In another really fascinating account by Roches, he describes that during a battle, he came to Amir’s tent at night feverish and feeling terrible, like he was going to die. Abd al-Qadir gave him a certain drink and placed his head on his lap, stroking his hair and comforting him, until he fell asleep. And when Roche woke up in the middle of the night, he was met with a striking image:

“I awoke well into the night. I opened my eyes and felt revived. The smoky wick of an Arab lamp barely lit the vast tent of the amir. He was standing three steps away from me. He thought I was asleep. His two arms were raised to the height of his head, fully displaying his milky white bernous and haik which fell in superb folds. His beautiful blue eyes, lined with black lashes, were raised. His lips, slightly open, seemed to be still reciting a prayer but nevertheless were motionless. He had come to an ecstatic state. His aspirations toward heaven were such that he seemed no longer to touch the earth. I had on occasion been granted the honor of sleeping in ‘Abd al-Kader’s tent and I had seen him in prayer and been struck by his mystical transports, but on this night he represented for me the most striking image of faith. Thus the great saints of Christianity must have prayed.” - Léon Roches

A haunting image of a powerful mystical experience, made all the more striking coming from an outside source like this.

So clearly, Abd al-Qadir had always been devoted to the Sufi path, even though the unexpected years of leading a war had probably affected the extent to which he could practice.

But in Damascus, he would really dedicate his life in particular to studying, teaching and plunging deeper into the mystical path of Sufism.

In particular, as we saw, he belonged to the Qadiri order and was especially devoted to the intellectual school and lineage of Ibn ‘Arabi, often called the Akbariyya after his honorific title Shaykh al-Akbar.

Ibn ‘Arabi was originally from Andalusia, southern Spain, and became an accomplished and famous mystic in the late 12th century, before eventually moving to the east, visiting places like Mecca, Konya, Cairo and Baghdad, before settling down in Damascus in the 1230’s.

The Akbari school is particularly associated with an idea or doctrine known as Wahdat al-Wujud, meaning ‘The Oneness of Being’. This idea, and the wider teaching of Ibn ‘Arabi, are very complicated and I’ve dealt with them extensively in previous episodes. But in short, Ibn ‘Arabi and the Akbari school proposes that God is identical to Being, and since, according to Islamic principles of Tawheed/Monotheism, God is One, that means that Being is One. It is, in other words, an affirmation of the Islamic proclamation of faith - La ilaha illa Allah, ‘There is no god but God’.

But this also means that, since God is Being, there is no being or existence other than God. In other words, all there is, ultimately, is God. And everything “other than God” is non-existent.

The “cosmos”, or world that we experience, is like a mirage. It is like a shadow or mirror image. The infinite attributes of God have infinite ways that they can become manifested in particular form, and the world of appearance is that fleeting manifestation or reflection of the attributes of God. As I like to say, it is the unfolding of possibilities inherent inherent in infinite actuality. These reflections, the world, is ultimately non-existent, and everything we truly experience is the Being of God itself, so that truly:

“Whichever way you turn, there is the face of God” (Qur’an, 2:115)

It’s like a projector, the light being God or Being, the filter being the possibilities of manifestation, and the actual projection on the wall being our world of appearance, being shaped by the non-existent images, but ultimately only being the light itself taking different forms without itself ever becoming changed in itself.

Again, this is complicated stuff, but that is the basic ideas of Ibn ‘Arabi and the Akbari school that Abd al-Qadir was so devoted to. Some have called it a type of monism, or even non-dualism, but there is also a lot more going on here so that it’s hard to put it into a single category like that.

It was in Damascus that Ibn ‘Arabi spent his last decade before his death in 1240. And when Abd al-Qadir moved to the city in 1855, he moved into the Great Master’s old house, and his first request upon entering the city was to visit Ibn ‘Arabi’s shrine.

In Damascus, Abd al-Qadir would establish himself as a kind of Sufi shaykh or master himself, as well as a teacher or religious sciences & a family man. He would teach every day in the famous Umayyad mosque, and became quite popular as a teacher in the city.

And in particular, he taught and commented on the teachings of Ibn ‘Arabi and the Akbari school. Indeed, the Sufi lineage, or silsila - chain - that he belonged to, and which he was initiated into by his father, seems to have stretched back directly to Ibn ‘Arabi, thus making him a direct representative of the Akbari lineage. This is quite unique and uncommon, as Ibn ‘Arabi never initiated a sufi order and very few silsilas actually go through him, even though he has been so influential as a thinker.

In his lectures, he would comment on verses of the Qur’an, hadith or writings by Ibn ‘Arabi, and he eventually wrote a long, massive work of his own, called the Kitab al-Mawaqif - The Book of Stops - the title clearly being a reference to the classic sufi work by al-Niffari.

And when we read his work, it becomes very apparent how closely he follows and represents the Akbari school of thought, and for example the doctrine of wahdat al-wujud. He writes in the Kitab al-Mawaqif:

“I am two things, according to two different relations. With respect to You (God), I am the eternal, forever and ever. I am the necessary Being who epiphanizes himself. (...)

With respect to me, I am pure non-being who has never breasted the perfume of existence, and adventitious being who remains nonexistent in his adventitiousness.” - Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza’iri

In a commentary on the Qu’ranic verse of the “soul at peace”, he says:

“These are those souls who know their true relation to servitude and Lordship, that is to say, those who know that in naming the “servant” one is designating nothing other than a particular manifestation of the Lord as it is conditioned by the characteristics of the servant: the essential Reality is ‘Lord’, the exterior is ‘Servant’. The ‘servant’ is a ‘Lord’ manifested in the form of a ‘Servant’ and, in the appearance of the worshiper, it is Himself who adores Himself.” - Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza’iri

As for Ibn ‘Arabi and other sufis, he goal of the spiritual life is to travel of the path to God, to where your self or ego - nafs - eventually becomes annihilated, what is known as fana (or annihilation), to where nothing is perceived but the Reality of God. Or really, it is a process of realizing that everything that ever existed was God, and your own being was always a kind of illusion, a non-existence or appearance in the mirror of being. As the Prophet Muhammad is thought to have said:

“He who knows himself knows his Lord”

Abd al-Qadir writes:

“His affairs return to God and they are but one. He has returned to God and he sees Him through Him. (...)

…in the contemplation of this dead-resurrected one, all creatures are annihilated, and for him only one thing exists, one Reality only.

(...) And everything which is not the absolute Being - which belongs to God - is accident.” - Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza’iri

Or, in the almost shocking language of a short poem that he wrote, which recalls the famous saying of the Sufi al-Hallaj:

“I am Truth (Haqq), I am creature, I am Lord, I am servant

I am the Throne and the mat one treads on; I am hell and I am the blissful eternity

I am water, I am fire; I am air and the earth

I am the ‘how much’ and the ‘how’, I am the presence and the absence

I am the essence and the attributes; I am the near and the far

All being is my being; I am the Only, I am the Unique.”

أنا حقُّ، أنا خلقٌ أنا ربُّ، أنا عبدُ

أنا عرشٌ، أنا فرشٌ وجحيمٌ، أنا خلدُ

أنا ماءٌ، أنا نارٌ وهواءٌ، أنا صلدُ

أنا كمُّ، أنا كيفٌ أنا وجدُ، أنا فقدُ

أنا ذاتٌ، أنا وصفٌ أنا قُربٌ، أنا بعدُ

كل كونِ، ذاك كوني أنا وحدي، أنا فردُ

Shocking as some of these statements may seem on the surface, they are perfectly within the Akbarian teachings and much of Sufism generally, but are often easy to misunderstand. Just like Ibn ‘Arabi, he is careful to point out that this isn’t pantheism and that, even though it may seem like it, he never claims that God and creation are one and the same thing. Quite the contrary actually, they couldn’t be further from each other from one standpoint. God is Being, and the world is non-being. So nuance and proper understanding of the Akbarian teachings need to be kept in mind when we read works like the Kitab al-Mawaqif.

Indeed, Abd al-Qadir is a very strong defender of Ibn ‘Arabi, perhaps one of the most devoted akbarians in history, even though he innovates and is unique himself too, of course. But even certain teachings of Ibn ‘Arabi’s that those of his own school are often uncomfortable with or try to explain away, Abd al-Qadir seems to support outright, such as the idea that the Pharaoh in the story of Moses became Muslim at the end and was saved, or the idea that suffering in hell is temporary.

Another idea in Ibn ‘Arabi that is often misunderstood is his ideas on the plurality of beliefs. Some seem to see traces of this the famous section of his poem:

“My heart has become capable of all forms.

It is a pasture for gazelles and a cloister for monks.

It is a temple for idols and the Ka’aba of pilgrims.

It is the scrolls of the Torah and the pages of the Qur’an.

I follow the religion of Love. Wherever its caravans may turn, that is my religion and my faith.” - Ibn ‘Arabi

Abd al-Qadir certainly could be called, to a certain degree, “tolerant” or different religious denominations and beliefs. His life story tells us as much, and he himself wrote in a letter that:

“I have become so tolerant that I respect all men whatever their religion and beliefs… I try not to harm any man, but rather do him good. God created men to be his servants, not the servants of other men.”

But this also needs to be understood through the lens of his Islamic faith. Many have seen this openness as some kind of “liberalism” or cooling commitment to the exclusivity of Islam. Especially when he wrote things like:

“Our God and the God of all the communities different from ours are in reality all one God… He reveals himself to Muslims as beyond all form, to Christians in the person of Jesus Christ and monks… he reveals himself even to pagans who worship objects. For no worshiper of something finite worships the thing for itself. What he worships through this object is the epiphany (tajalli) of God” - Abd al-Qadir

But this reading or interpretation of what he is saying is false, or at least simplified. Instead, the source of these ideas come from within Islam itself, not from a “liberal” attitude to the religion. In particular, we find in the previous quote a direct expression, once again, of the ideas of Ibn ‘Arabi.

To Ibn ‘Arabi, and Abd al-Qadir, everything in the world is the manifestation of the attributes of God. Furthermore, everyone experiences and sees God in a different way, God self-discloses Himself, or “Epiphanizes Himself” in different ways to different people. And because everything, including Jesus or a rock or sacred tree, is also a manifestation of reflection of God, when people worship these things, they are worshiping God. Indeed, the Qur’an says:

“He has commanded that you worship none but Him” (Qur’an: 12:40)

The Akbaris interpret this literally as not being a command, but a statement of fact; meaning that you can’t help but to worship God whatever it is that you worship, even if you tried.

The problem with non-Muslims (and many Muslims indeed), according to this perspective, is that they limit God to that one thing, or fail to realize that while he is indeed immanent everywhere, he also remains utterly transcendent of all things at the same time. And so their worship is still invalid in a general sense. These ideas are not an affirmation or acceptance of paganism or other forms of worship, but an expression of the very particular metaphysical teachings of Ibn ‘Arabi and the Akbari school about the plurality of beliefs and worship. Ibn ‘Arabi writes in the famous Fusus al-Hikam:

“Do not attach yourself to any particular creed exclusively, so that you disbelieve all the rest; otherwise you will lose much good, nay, you will fail to recognize the real truth of the matter. Let your soul be capable of embracing all forms of belief. God, the omnipresent and omnipotent, is not limited by any one creed.” - Ibn ‘Arabi (Fusus)

That isn’t to say that this metaphysical outlook can’t lead to or serve as a basis for a wider kind of “tolerance” and openness, and I’m sure it did so to some degree for Abd al-Qadir.

In any case, to understand the great Amir and his intellectual or spiritual life, we need to understand Ibn ‘Arabi and the great affinity that Abd al-Qadir had for him. He was a dedicated and devoted Sufi, a master himself, prone to mystical experiences of ecstasy and quite advanced on the path.

Indeed, he continued to travel to Mecca & Medina, and here also became, even though he was himself a sufi Master, a disciple of another Sufi Shaykh - Muhammad al-Fasi al-Shadhili. As we saw, Abd al-Qadir was part of the Qadiri order of Sufism, and connected to the lineage of Ibn ‘Arabi, but here he also became initiated into the Shadhili order, and seems to have reached the heights of spiritual attainment while with this shaykh.

But after fana or annihilation of the self comes the next step - baqa or subsistence/remaining - where one returns to the world of multiplicity with a new perspective, to live out your life here in the world, where you are supposed to be.

And in the worldly sphere, Abd al-Qadir’s fame and renown would become even greater in 1860. In July of that year, a riot broke out in Damascus. Tensions had been growing for a while between the Christians in the region and the Ottoman rulers as well as other groups of Muslims and Druze. These tensions were primarily centered around certain reforms that affected taxes and the status of dhimmis, or protected peoples, like Christians.

While the details of what led to this event are somewhat murky, in early July large groups of hired mercenaries, Druze and Muslims entered the Christian quarter and started a bloody, horrible massacre. Diplomats were chased on the streets, homes were burned down and Christians were massacred on the streets.

And in the midst of this chaos, Abd al-Qadir took it upon himself to act as protector of the Christians in the city. He rode out with his sons and associates into the heat of the riot, shouting that everyone should make their way to his house, where they would be sheltered.

The large House of Abd al-Qadir, which had previously belonged to his Master Ibn ‘Arabi, became a safe haven for Christians fleeing the massacre in the city, protected by the Amir’s soldiers that had stood by him since Algeria. It was his duty, he felt, as a Muslim, to protect the lives of innocent Christians. A few days into the riots, a large mob of people came to the gates of his house, demanding that he hand over the Christians sheltered inside.

He said to the crowd:

“My brothers, your behavior violates the law of God. What makes you think you have a right to go around killing innocent people?”

The crowd seemed to find him a hypocrite, since he himself had killed Christians in Algeria. He responded:

“You fools! The Christians I killed were invaders and occupiers who were ravaging our country. (...)

“As long as one of my soldiers is still standing, you will not touch them. They are my guests. Murderers of women and children, you sons of sin, try to take one of these Christians and you will learn how well my soldiers fight!”

This uncompromising stance of Abd al-Qadir eventually dissuaded the angry crowd, and eventually the riot died down.

While estimates vary, it is widely believed that Abd al-Qadir and his companions saved thousands of lives on those days in 1860.

For this, he became seen as even more of a hero around the world. He was given several medals, and sent gifts and letters of praise from various world leaders, from the pope to Queen Victoria and even Abraham Lincoln, who sent the Amir a gift of two colt pistols. This is truly a remarkable story in so many ways. The man who fought the French invaders in Algeria, considered an enemy of Europe, a few decades later was hailed a hero and awarded medals for his bravery and heroism.

Fellow Muslims also praised him for his noble actions, including the famous Imam Shamil, who wrote: “I was stupefied by the blindness of the functionaries who committed these excesses, forgetting the words of the Prophet…”

And praised the Amir for following the Islamic principles represented by the Prophet Muhammad and his religion. And in his response to the famous Muslim figure, Abd al-Qadir’s own perspective becomes apparent:

“What I did was merely obedience to our sacred law and to the precept of humanity” - Abd al-Qadir

This is significant to keep in mind, especially with the image many people have of Muslims and their religion. The actions of Abd al-Qadir during the riots of 1860, as well as his other actions and behavior across his life, was not something that went against his faith, or simply existed alongside it. It was precisely because of his deep commitment to Islam and its law that he did what he did, a law that, according to him, commands Muslims to protect the innocent and stand up for humanity. He did believe that the Christians should pay the jiziya tax, and that they were wrong to refuse it, but the same religious conviction that led him to that opinion also led to him fiercely opposing the killing of innocent civilians and violence. He writes in another letter:

“...That which we did for the Christians, we did to be faithful to Islamic law and out of respect for human rights. All creatures are part of God’s family and those most loved byGod are those who do the most good for his family. (...) The law of Mohammed places the greatest importance on compassion and mercy, and on all that which preserves social cohesion and protects us from division” - Abd al-Qadir

And it should be pointed out that he wasn’t alone in this. There were plenty of other Muslims and Islamic leaders/clergy in Damascus that also put themselves in danger to protect their Christian neighbors during this event. It is just the case that Abd al-Qadir has become the most famous, because his actions were so dramatic, and also of course because he was already famous before this happened.

He continued to live the rest of his life in the city of Damascus, but traveled from time to time to places like Paris and England, meeting important people and leaders in those countries. He became good friends with a few famous Englishmen in Syria, such as the infamous orientalist Richard Burton, who, among other things, wrote the very problematic translation of Arabian Nights, as well as his wife and the fascinating Jane Digby.

He also seems to have, surprisingly, become initiated into a Masonic order. This is a sore point for many, who see Freemasonry as simply an Occult movement, sometimes thought to have connections with Zionism. But this wasn’t true here. They invited him to join on the basis that they had similar principles - a devotion to God and to upholding principles of humanity. He appears to have left the organization in 1877, however, when they decided to become open to atheists, which was a step too far for the Amir.

After a long and dramatic life, Abd al-Qadir ibn Muhyiddin al-Jaza’iri, passed away in 1883 after an illness of the kidneys. Per his own specific wishes, he was buried right next to his spiritual master and inspiration Ibn ‘Arabi, where he remained until 1965 when his body was moved to and reburied in his homeland of Algeria. There is a difference of opinion on this, of course. On the one hand, he specifically asked to lie close to Ibn ‘Arabi, but on the other hand it is a quite nice thought that he was finally allowed to return home again, especially since he had become a national hero to the newly independent nation of Algeria.

His story truly is one of the most remarkable of recent history, from a childhood of scholarly brilliance and mystical practice, to becoming the face of Algerian resistance and jihad - the Commander of the Faithful against the French - for 15 years. Later being imprisoned in France while becoming essentially a local hero and legend for his stoic behavior, saintly nature and his treatment of prisoners during the war. After being released and returning to the Middle East, he would further become a great scholar and teacher in Damascus, a friend of several important historical figures, a Sufi shaykh and ecstatic mystics who embodied and taught the Akbari school of Ibn ‘Arabi and became important for the revitalization of that school in the region, even contributing to critical editions of his works, as well as publishing significant works of his own, ranging form Sufi metaphysics to treatises on the Arabian horse.

He also became an international hero after bravely saving Christians from a massacre in 1860, garnering the admiration of world leaders and general people alike. In the United States, there is a city in Iowa called Elkader, named after the Shaykh, whose fame and renown had reached all the way across the Atlantic. Not to mention the touching and inspiring way that his character, kindness and sagely nature is described by basically everyone who met him.

One can truly understand, then, why the New York Times wrote right before his death that:

“If to be an ardent patriot, a soldier whose genius is unquestioned, whose honor is stainless; a statesman who could weld the wild tribes of Africa into a formidable enemy, a hero who could accept defeat and disaster without a murmur - if all these constitutes a great man, Abd-El-Kader deserves to be ranked among the foremost of the few great men of the century.”

And I would perhaps be so bold as to say not only the 19th century, but perhaps even of all time. His life really kind of deserves to be made into a movie or some kind of series. I know there were talks of doing that like 10 years ago and that Oliver Stone was involved? I don’t know what happened to that project, but if anyone is looking for a great story, this is it right here and… if you do… call me.

It is a story and person that can tell us a lot about not just the Middle East in the 19th century, but also be a valuable addition to the discourse of Islam, where Abd al-Qadir represents a complex and nuanced figure, one who is deeply and strictly devoted to an Orthodox understanding of Islam and its Law, but precisely through that can represent ideals of righteousness, kindness, compassion tolerance. For this reason alone, among many others, the story of Abd al-Qadir deserves to be told and known by more people.

Bibliography:

Bouyerdene, Ahmed (2012). "Emir Abd El-Kader: Hero and Saint of Islam". World Wisdom Books.

Chittick, William (1989). "The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn 'Arabi's Metaphysics of Imagination".

Chittick, William (1998). "The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn al-'Arabi's Cosmology". State University of New York Press.

Chodkiewicz, Michel (ed.) (1995). "The Spiritual Writings of Amir ʿAbd al-Kader". State University of New York Press.

Caner Dagli (translated by) (2004). Ibn 'Arabi - "The Ringstones of Wisdom (Fusus al-Hikam)". Great Books of the Islamic World. Kazi Pubns Inc.

Kiser, John W (2015). "Commander of the Faithful: The Life and Times of Emir Abd El-Kader". Monkfish Book Publishing Company.