Tasawwuf, essential part of Islam
Synopsis of a Talk delivered in Granada
by Hajj Abdul Haqq Bewley
in December 2004

Allah tabaraka wa ta’ala says in His mighty Book: “I only created men and jinn to worship Me”.
Some mufassirun have said that to worship in this context means to ¨know¨. Many Muslims consider that simply by performing the actions outlined by the five pillars: by doing the five prayers, paying zakat, fasting Ramadan and going on hajj, that by doing these things alone they are fulfilling the purpose for which Allah has created them.

However, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, makes it clear to us in several ways that the action on its own is not what is demanded of us. The actions of the Deen are, of course, indispensable; without them nothing is possible. But there is something else which must accompany them. There is a hadith, which talks of a man who is being questioned in the grave by the two angels Nakir and Munkar. They ask him their three questions: “Who is your Lord? What is your Deen? Who is your Messenger?” He finds himself tongue tied and unable to answer any of them. The angels say to him: ¨How is that possible? We saw you praying with the people who pray, paying zakat with those who pay zakat, fasting with the people who fast, and going on hajj as well.¨ His answer to them is, ¨I just did what I saw other people doing.¨

This means that it is entirely possible to perform all the actions of the Deen without them having any real effect whatsoever, without them really being worship of Allah at all. Allah ta’ala says about such actions that they are like ashes blown by the wind on a stormy day.

Shaykh Ibn Ata’illah al-Iskandari says in his Hikam: ¨Actions are cut out shapes. It is only the existence of the spirit of pure sincerity within them that gives them life.¨ So without this dimension of ikhlas no action has any weight, no action can have a real existence. They way that this element enters an action is through intention.

The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, says in the famous hadith: “Actions are only according to intention. Everybody gets what they intend. So if someone’s hijra is for the sake of Allah and His Messenger, their hijra is indeed for Allah and His Messenger. But if someone’s hijra is in order to get something of this world or to marry a woman, their hijra is merely for the sake of what they made hijra for.¨ The importance of this hadith is shown by the fact that many of the great muhaddithin, including Imam al-Bukhari, started their collections with it.

The fuqaha are agreed that the place where the intention must be made is the heart. It is not sufficient for it to be on the tongue alone. The hadith makes it clear that the result of a person’s action depends upon what is in their heart, upon what they really want and expect from what they are doing. This is not an easy thing; the heart frequently contains many conflicting motives and desires. You cannot just say you are doing something for the sake of Allah when the truth is that your motivation is ambivalent and confused. In order for an action to be truly for the sake of Allah and His Messenger, your heart must be cleared of all the other conflicting emotions and desires for this and that which preoccupy most of us most of the time.

In other words, a pure intention demands a purified heart and as we have seen for an action to count it must be preceded and accompanied by a pure intention. So a purified heart is necessary in order for our worship of Allah to be effective, in order to achieve the purpose for which our Lord has put us here.

In the seminal hadith in which the angel Jibril, peace be upon him, comes and sits with the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, with the object of making clear to the Companions and to all subsequent generations of Muslims the nature of their Deen, the Deen is divided into three complementary parts: Islam, which is defined in terms of the actions represented by the five pillars -– affirming the shahadatayn, establishing the salat, paying zakat, fasting Ramadan, and going on Hajj -– Iman, the belief structure or inner landscape of every Muslim, which is defined as belief in Allah, the angels, the divinely revealed Books, the Prophets and Messengers of Allah, the Last Day and the Decree – and a third element Ihsan, which is defined as being to worship Allah as if you could see Him, for though you do not see Him, He sees you.

This third element of Ihsan, directly tied to the worship of Allah, to the practical implementation of the other two, implies an active and constant awareness of the presence of Allah, which of course requires a heart which has gone through a process of purification and is where the necessary purification of the heart finds its source as an integral and necessary part of the Deen and, since the very early days of Islam, this science of the purification of the heart has been given the name of tasawwuf.

For this reason Iman al-Ghazali, may Allah cover him with mercy, gives ihsan, the science of tasawwuf, the legal status of being fard ‘ayn, an individual obligation for every Muslim, on the basis that, apart from the Prophets and Messengers of Allah, there is no human being whose heart is not in need of purification, making it clear that it is something which must be undertaken by all Muslims. Following on from this, Abu’l-Hasan ash-Shadhili, the founder of the Shadhiliyya sufic order said: ¨Anyone who dies without knowing something of this science (meaning tasawwuf), dies persisting in committing great wrong action, even if they do not realise it.¨ This is because people with hearts full of impurities are bound to associate other things with Allah when they worship and it is clear from many ayats and hadiths that associating other things with Allah is among the worst of wrong actions, even if it is done unconsciously.

So the necessary task is to purify the heart, but of what? The people of Allah have categorised the internal enemies of the human being into five: the nafs, shaytan, the appetites (shahawat) – natural instincts such as desire for sleep, food, sex and things like anger and anxiety – the subtle desires (hawa) – being sicknesses of the heart such as pride, envy, conceit, showing off, desire for power etc. – and love of this world. Some explanation of these things is needed here.

The process of purification is to take on the science of tasawwuf. The first essential is a Shaykh to give access to it. Then to establish connection to him through his wird. Then to be regular in dhikr with idhn in company. It is equally important to sit alone with Allah in the last 3rd of the night. It is necessary to keep the company of the fuqara. The murid must follow the individual indications of the Shaykh.

Then you will travel the stages of the path in the course of which the heart is progressively purified and light from Allah becomes less and less obscured. This process is described by the successive advancement of the ego (nafs) from one condition to the next: an-nafs al-ammara – the kafir self with no awareness of its own sickness and therefore with no access to guidance; an-nafs al-awwama – the self which is at least aware of its own state of impurity but veers between right and wrong action; an-nafs al-mulhama – the inspired self which is able to discriminate between what will benefit and harm it and chooses what will bring it closer to Allah; an-nafs al-mutma’inna – the self at peace, pleasing to Allah and pleased with Allah in every circumstance, in a state of illumination; an-nafs al-kamila – the perfected self, both illuminated and illuminating, guided by Allah and guiding to Allah, a locus of lights, a point in time/space where Allah is remembered and by which creation is reminded of Him.

Undergoing this process enables the individual Muslim to truly worship Allah without associating anything with Him and therefore to fulfil the purpose for which Allah created him and will enable the community which undertakes it to truly establish Allah’s Deen among themselves and to spread it to those around them.