Is there anything in Islam called Sufism and Islam?

The questioner : Your Eminence, is there anything in Islam called Islamic Sufism?

The Shaykh : We say with complete frankness that there is nothing in Islam called Sufism or Islamic Sufism. This name is foreign, like many other things that have entered among the Muslims, some through doubts they mistake for evidence, and some through desires they chase. Islamic Sufism is like Islamic hymns; it has no basis in the Book or the Sunnah. Rather, there are established truths in the Shari'ah that some people exploit to smooth over matters that have no connection to Islam. When the Sufis who are fanatical about this name are discussed, they say that the Sufism they call for is what came in the Sunnah regarding the desire for asceticism in this world, turning to the Hereafter, and adhering to Islamic morals, as we mentioned briefly at the beginning of this session regarding the exhortation to good character. They say this is Sufism. In that case, if the call were limited to this detail of Sufism, there would be no disagreement left, provided the call is correct. At that point, we demand that the people of Sufism abandon this name, because it has a history and a meaning that goes beyond the fixed meaning they claim from the Shari'ah, which is good conduct. For in Sufism there are very reprehensible matters, the most dangerous of which is what their great leader, known as Ibn Arabi, who was buried in Damascus, constantly harps about: the claim of the Oneness of Existence. The intended meaning of the Oneness of Existence is that there is no Creator and no created being, but only nature, as the communists and the materialists say, who do not believe that this universe has a Creator. Blessed and Exalted is He, far above what these wrongdoers say, in great elevation. Ibn Arabi, by the consensus of everyone who belongs to Sufism—we have not found one of them who disavows him—constantly and forever harps about this great misguidance, which is the Oneness of Existence. He says, for example, in some of his books, "The dog and the pig are nothing but our God, and God is nothing but a monk in a church!" And he says, "Everything you see with your eye is God!" And he says, "If the Majus had followed his system and his principle, they would not have worshipped the fire; they would have worshipped nothing but the One, the Subduer!" This is the imam of the Sufis. We do not find any of these Sufis who interpret Sufism as conduct within the limits of the Shari'ah and adherence to the Muhammadan morals; we do not find one of them who disavows Ibn Arabi. We met with many of these Sufis and discussed with them the disbelieving phrases of Ibn Arabi, and I mentioned to you earlier examples of them. We found no response from them to our denial of them. Rather, one of them said to me, "When I read, for example, the book al-Futuhat al-Makkiyyah by Ibn Arabi and a phrase like this is unclear to me, I put it on the shelf temporarily. And whenever I come across similar problematic phrases, I also put them on the shelf until I have gathered many of Ibn Arabi's phrases. Then I say, I withdraw into a seclusion. You know the seclusions of the Sufis, where one sits in a room with no light and adds darkness to darkness, straightens his legs, places his head between his knees, and closes his eyes, darknesses one above the other. This is a text from one who is not considered among the Sufis, but is among the great scholars of the Shafi'i school, namely Imam al-Ghazali. At the beginning of his book Ihya' 'Ulum al-Din, he sets out the etiquette of the aspirant if he wants to receive inspiration from the Lord of the Worlds. He sits like this in a dark room, straightens his legs, places his head between his knees, and closes his eyes to receive what descends upon him of inspiration! They do not say revelation, because it is a clear contradiction of the Shari'ah. They call revelation inspiration, by way of fallacy. So this Sufi, who died in Damascus recently, not long ago, said to me, "When some problems gather for me, I perform a seclusion and isolate myself from people, and I remember Allah and worship Allah. He says Allah opens up to him and he understands those phrases in the correct way." So we said to him, "Suppose that some of these phrases can have correct meanings extracted from them, but where are you from the way the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) taught us, as I mentioned to you in some previous sessions: He said to that Companion who said to the Prophet, 'What Allah wills and what you will, O Messenger of Allah,' Where is the saying of this Companion, 'What Allah wills and what you will,' from the saying of Ibn Arabi, 'Everything you see with your eye is God'? This is explicit disbelief. So even if we assume the impossible that such phrases have correct meanings, it is not permissible to utter them, because they are contrary to the teaching of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) to his Ummah. In short, there are great and very great misguidances in Sufism, the greatest of which is the claim of the Oneness of Existence, and its caller is Ibn Arabi. It remains in the heads of the leaders and the 'knowers of Allah' among the claimants of Sufism, besides the absurdities and myths found in their stories, their travels, and their exercises, as they call them. Therefore, if there is anything good and prescribed in Sufism, there is no doubt that Islam preceded it by great stages, and there is nothing outside of Islam that we need, whether to clarify or correct belief, or to rectify conduct. For he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: This is what can be said now.
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