The Sufis

Once upon a time the king of a certain country chose an official to search the kingdom for a fool to come and amuse the court. The official, whose name was Nasrudin, scoured the land for weeks, before returning to the palace alone. The king asked him if he had found a man of suitable stupidity. ‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ said Nasrudin, ‘I have indeed found the most foolish man alive, be he is too busy searching for fools to entertain you!’

This teaching-story has been recounted in teahouses and caravanserais from Istanbul to Samarkand for a thousand years. It is told to amuse, and to educate. The tellers of this story and others like it are Sufis – a brotherhood of mystics – whose enlightened thought has influenced societies as far apart as Morocco and China. For Sufis, the teaching-story is a tool, a way of preparing the mind, readying it to receive a new way of thinking.

Sufis are revered as teachers, thinkers and mystics throughout the Islamic world. Their written texts are regarded as literary classics and works of genius, examples of a higher form of consciousness. And, although Sufism is linked with the Islamic faith, Sufis assert that their roots stretch back to a time long before the birth of Islam. Indeed, they say that Sufism is the core to every religion, and that you certainly don’t have to be a Muslim to be one.

During the last three decades, the ancient philosophy of the Sufis has found its way to the West, where it has been championed for its level-headedness and its brutal simplicity. And now, at a time when many Muslims are feeling as if their religion has been hijacked by radical forces, the Sufis are finding a growing following in both East and West, for stressing moderation, and a sense of selflessness.

Perhaps the hardest facet of Sufism is to explain what it is. Sometimes it’s easier to say what it is not: it is not a cult, or a magic answer to one’s problems, but it is a method of reducing mental clutter, of achieving purpose, fulfilment, and stretching oneself in ways one might have not thought possible.

At the center of Sufi thought is the teacher. He leads by example, and can only teach once he has gained a higher understanding, and has acquired sufficient experience through perceiving the world in which we live. Before his pupils can learn, they must ‘learn how to learn’. This means shedding ideas and concepts given to us by regular society, replacing them with different ways of perception. They must learn to differentiate the container from the content, and appreciate a true message from a false one. But, perhaps most important of all, they must learn how to tell between the quack teachers who offer fraudulent sideshows of Sufi thought (such as Whirling dance and trance-like music) in place of the genuine message.

The ‘real’ teachers of the Sufi tradition have often paid a price, with their teachings being seen at odds with society. Ibn El Arabi, the Sufi mystic from 12th century Spain, was hauled before an inquisition, while his contemporary, El Ghazali (author of the celebrated Alchemy of Happiness), had his books burned, and Jalaluddin Rumi of Afghanistan – author of the Masnavi – was lampooned for his teachings.

My father, Idries Shah, spent much of his life presenting a body of Sufi knowledge to a Western audience. He realized the extraordinary foresight of this work, and saw that it could have an important impact on Western society, if it was understood correctly. During four decades he published some forty books on the traditions of the Sufis, ranging from Sufi humour, to its literature, teaching-stories, neglected aspects and folklore. His books, which have sold in their millions, attracted tens of thousands of letters each year. More often than not my father would reject requests from people seeking a teacher. He would say: ‘that person only wants a guru’, or ‘this person can’t be taught, because he isn’t ready yet to learn’. Those whom he accepted were directed to Sufi teaching-stories and other writing by the great masters – among them Omar Khayyam, Jalaluddin Rumi, Hakim Sanai, El Ghazali and Saadi of Shiraz.

Sufis will often take from a text a single verse, or even a couplet, and turn it around their mind – for days or weeks. Explaining this, my father writes in The Way of the Sufi, ‘…Sufi authors plant their teachings within a framework which as effectively screens its inner meaning as displays it. This technique fulfils the functions of preventing those who are incapable of using the material on a higher level from experimenting effectively with it; allowing those who want poetry to select poetry; giving entertainment to people who want stories; stimulating the intellect in those who prize such experiences’.

One can find different versions of the same teaching-stories across Arabia and the entire Islamic world, where they have formed a central body of folklore for centuries. These tales, such as those which one finds in The Arabian Nights are intended as an educating tool, rather than as a mere entertainment. One can learn from them, extracting truth, insight and wisdom. In the West, we tend to reserve stories and tales to the nursery – food for our young children’s minds. We are amused by them, but like to believe we are above them in some way. Our societies are, perhaps, the very first in human history to have shunned stories, and we are poorer for it.

Last week I was on a train from the southern Moroccan city of Marrakech to Casablanca. The man sitting opposite me in the compartment remarked that there was sorrow in my eyes. He said he would give me medicine. I replied that didn’t need pills, for my malady was merely caused by too much stress. My fellow passenger laughed. ‘This medicine is not a pill,’ he said, ‘it is a story’. This is the tale he told me:

‘A man went to a tattooist and told him to tattoo a ferocious tiger on his back. The tattooist began his work, but after a few seconds the man could not stand the pain. “Which part are you doing?” he asked. The tattooist said he was drawing the creature’s tail. “Then leave out the tail,” said the customer. Again the artist began to jab with his needle, and again the man screamed with pain. “Which part are you doing now?” “I am drawing the body.” “Then,” said the man, “leave out the body.” The tattooist continued. A moment later the customer shrieked again. “Won’t you let me draw the head?” he pleaded. “No,” said the man, “I am ready to leave.” The artist looked at the speck he had tattooed. “I’ve only done a spot as big as a flea,” he said. The customer put on his shirt. Then, running out the door, he cried back, “Well, it’s the flea from a tiger’s back!”’

As the body of Sufi thought has slipped into Western society, all kinds of people have found themselves benefiting from stories such as the one recounted by my fellow traveler. Scientists and lawyers, artisans and actors, musicians and homemakers have gone on record, detailing how this ancient framework has affected their lives. For my father, and other exponents of Sufi thought, the greatest thrill was to watch a person wakened from a ‘dreamstate’, often by a paragraph of text written 800 years ago.

Supporters of Sufi teachings in the West have included the classicist Robert Graves, who wrote the introduction to my father’s The Sufis. When the book first appeared in 1964, the novelist Doris Lessing said she had waited her entire life to read it. The Poet laureate Ted Hughes wrote shortly after that the Sufis must be ‘the biggest society of sensible men there has ever been on earth’.

To say that the West is only now being touched by the works of Rumi, Hafiz, Sanai and others, is mistaken. Roger Bacon wore Sufi ‘dervish’ robes while teaching at the newly established Oxford University in the 13th century. Indeed, college robes are thought to have come directly from Arab dervish dress. The list of European writers whom are thought to have been inspired by Sufi traditions is endless, and includes men such as Geoffery Chaucer, Dante, Shakespeare and, more recently, Sir Winston Churchill.

Of all the Oriental teaching-stories that have found their way to our world in the last fifty years, the most popular of them feature the folk-hero Nasrudin, who’s said to have been the wisest fool who ever lived, that is if he ever lived at all. Many countries claim him as a native, although few have gone so far as Turkey in exhibiting a ‘grave’ of Nasrudin – but, characteristically, the burial plot is empty. Versions of his back-to-front thinking can be found in a multitude of countries, including Morocco, Egypt and Russia, in Turkey, Greece, Albania and Afghanistan. The stories of Nasrudin’s many incarnations are studied by Sufis for their hidden wisdom, and are universally enjoyed for their humour. Sometimes he’s an impoverished itinerant or stallholder, and at others, he is the mayor, judge, vizier, or even the king. For his universal popularity, it seems appropriate to leave the last word to the wise fool himself:

‘Late one night, Nasrudin’s neighbor found him on all fours in the moonlight searching for something outside his house. The neighbor asked what he had lost. ‘I’ve lost my key,’ said Nasrudin. ‘I have been looking for hours.’ The neighbor got down and helped him search. After an hour of helping, the neighbor’s patience was wearing thin. ‘Where exactly did you drop the key?’ he asked. ‘I dropped in my house,’ said Nasrudin, ‘but there’s more light out here.’

(Written for Terra Magazine)

(C) Tahir Shah, 2005

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