A Word About the Sufis.

The questioner : He saysThe questioner : The Sufis are a recent phenomenon in our country. What do you advise us?

The Shaykh : There is a very old disagreement among Muslims, in the general sense as we explained earlier, regarding the Sufis. In fact, the name "Tasawwuf" and those who claim it, the Sufis or the mutasawwifin, have many and very different meanings. We know, from our interaction with many of them, that when the argument is presented to them, they say that Tasawwuf is nothing but adhering to the morals of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), such as asceticism in this world and desire for the Hereafter. This is what they say when the argument is presented to them. In that case, we say: if Tasawwuf is this, as you claim, then the disagreement between us and you is merely verbal. Drop the word "Tasawwuf," because it has become a word with many, many meanings, some of which we mentioned earlier about them: adhering to noble morals, asceticism in this world, and turning to the Hereafter. There is no need to apply this doubtful name to this agreed-upon matter of adhering to the morals of the Messenger (peace be upon him), asceticism in this world, and turning to the Hereafter. But the truth is that the concept of Tasawwuf has meanings much, much further from this correct meaning. And this deviation sometimes takes its adherent out of the circle of Islam, and sometimes associates him with one of the misguided sects. As for the first case, those are the ones who believe in what is known among scholars as the doctrine of the Unity of Being, or more clearly, the Unity of Existence. The Unity of Existence means nothing but atheism; it means nature, in the expression of natural scientists, i.e., there is nothing but matter. One of them says, "Everything you see with your eye is Allah," meaning matter. Everything you see with your eye is Allah. And another says, "The dog and the pig are nothing but our God, and Allah is nothing but a monk in a church." And a third says:
The servant is the Lord, and the Lord is the servant, so let me know who is the one obligated?
When I said "servant," that is a negation, and if I said "Lord," how can one be obligated?
The fourth and fifth points—I do not know what the number is—state that when the Zoroastrians worshipped fire, they did not worship anything but the One, the Subduer. These are all phrases written in their books, which they seek blessing from. A belief like this takes its holder out of the fold of Islam, because it is a more severe disbelief than the belief of the Jews and the Christians. This reminds me of the statement of one of their extremists, who said: "The Jews and Christians became disbelievers because the Jews confined Allah to 'Azir, while the Christians confined Allah, or the Father, to the Son and the Holy Spirit. As for us, we generalized Him in everything; we generalized Him in everything." Therefore, the remembrance of those people is not the remembrance of Muslims, as he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Their remembrance is not "He is He." And they say in some phrases that, unfortunately, some of the common people among us in Syria have picked up. You will find a person sitting, wanting to remember Allah. What does he say? "There is no other than Him, there is no other than Him." How can there be no other? There is a Creator and there is the created. This is the belief of the Unity of Existence, which has crept into the words of some people, but they do not notice its misguidance. And exactly like it is the statement of many of the elite and the common people: "Allah is present in all existence; Allah is present in every place." This is like the belief of the Unity of Existence, but it is nonetheless the belief of the Ash'ari and Maturidi schools in the end times: "Allah is present in every place." This is the place where Allah is present. What is present here? Zayd, Bakr, 'Umar, matter, walls, air, and so on. "Allah is here" This is the belief of the righteous Salaf, and so on. This type of Sufism is a more severe disbelief than the disbelief found on the face of the earth in a lower category, which is the one that deviated in its behavior from what the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) did, by burdening the soul with what it cannot bear in the name of its training, in the name of its training. And here we say, in our capacity as Muslims, we are never in need of a means that we receive from a path other than the path of our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) to train ourselves with, how, when the hadith narrated by Imam Ahmad in the Musnad and others, in a hadith of Jabir ibn 'Abd Allah al-Ansari (may Allah be pleased with him), states that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) saw one day a paper in the hand of 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, and he was reading from it. He said: He said: "This is a paper written for me by a man from the Jews." He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: So if Moses, the one who spoke with Allah, to whom Allah directly revealed the Torah, had lived to see the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), it would not have been sufficient for him to follow his Torah, but rather it would not have been sufficient for him to follow our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family). So how is it with us today, in the name of Sufi Islam, that we train ourselves according to a method of burdening the soul, in their claim of refining the commanding soul with evil, by being harsh with it? They have strange and very peculiar stories. One of them—and when was this? In some of the early centuries known for virtue, as for what came after, in the era of al-Sha'rani, and I do not know what al-Sha'rani is, so let it be, but in the early eras when Sufism began to show its horn, there were among them those who would wear the thickest clothes and then immerse themselves in the Tigris or Euphrates river on a day of extreme cold, then climb up and stand on the roof of the house, with the cold winds striking them. What is this? He said: "Refining of the soul." This is not refining; this is tormenting. And the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), truly, and we need to know the impact of this word in our Islamic scholarly life today: And among that are two hadiths in the authentic collections of al-Bukhari and Muslim. One of them is from the hadith of Anas ibn Malik (may Allah be pleased with him). A group of people came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) but did not find him, so they asked his family about his worship, his standing in the night, his fasting in the day, and his intimacy with women. They told them what they knew and said: "He (peace and blessings be upon him) fasts and breaks the fast, stands in the night and sleeps, and marries women." Anas said: "When they heard that, they considered it little." That is, they found the worship of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) to be little. Why? Because they imagined that the Messenger of Allah, the master of mankind, who stayed up at night, had to stand the whole night, and who broke the fast, had to fast the whole year, and who married women. And some people say: "Knowledge is lost between the laps of women." How can the Messenger marry, and not only marry four, but marry nine and more? So they found his (peace and blessings be upon him) worship to be little. But they returned to themselves and said: "This is the Messenger of Allah, and Allah has forgiven him what came before of his sin and what came after." In truth, this statement means that it comes from people who, from a distance, understood that they were new to Islam. It is not possible for a person who understood his Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in his sublime perfection, which has no parallel, to say: "Why is the Messenger marrying? Why is he sleeping? Why is he breaking the fast? Allah has forgiven him. What does he need more than this?" This statement should not be made. But this is how it happened. The important thing is that they returned to themselves and said: "This is the Messenger of Allah, and Allah has forgiven what came before of his sin and what came after. So what do we do? We must make things hard for ourselves, toil, and worship Allah until Allah forgives us." What is the way, in their claim? One of them said: "As for me, I will fast the whole year and never break the fast." Another said: "As for me, I will stand in the night and not sleep." And the third said: "As for me, I will not marry women." They left. After a little while, the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) came and was informed of the news. So the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) delivered a brief sermon and said: Here is the point: So these righteous Sufis of old—I do not mean al-Sha'rani and his like, nor the Unity of Existence, not these—deviated from the guidance of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family). They brought in old Indian Buddhist methods that they inherited, and perhaps they were among the non-Arabs who entered Islam and had not yet understood Islam, so they came with a method of tormenting the soul, in their claim of purifying it. And this is your Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) saying: Then he (peace and blessings be upon him) applied this methodology with some of his companions when it reached him regarding 'Abd Allah ibn 'Umar ibn al-'As, a Companion, the son of a Companion (may Allah be pleased with them both). It reached him that his father had married him to a young woman from Quraysh. So he entered upon her one day and asked her about her husband. She said to him: "There is nothing wrong with him except that he has not yet lain with us in our bed. He stands in the night and fasts in the day." This is marriage and not marriage. So the matter became difficult for 'Amr, and he complained to him (peace and blessings be upon him). So he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: He said: "That was the case, O Messenger of Allah." And here the hadith is long, and I will summarize it by saying that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) established a methodology for him to worship Allah in, and to combine, as they say today, the right of the body and the right of the soul on one hand, and the right of the spirit on the other, that is, worship. He said, and he used to stand the whole night, completing the Qur'an, and fast the whole year. He said, regarding the recitation of the Qur'an, this is the final outcome, otherwise the story is long. He said: And regarding fasting, he said to him at first: So he would say: "O Messenger of Allah, I am a young man, I have strength, I am able to do more than that." And you notice the difference between that generation and our generation today. A young man in the prime of his life, his father married him to a young woman from Quraysh, and he avoided her to stand in the night and fast in the day, and so on. When the Messenger told him to be easy on himself, he said to him: "O Messenger of Allah, I am young, I am strong, I am able to do more than that." Today it is exactly the opposite. A young man is raised in the obedience of Allah, and you find the deterrents around him, the near and the far. First, the father, and second, the mother, saying: "Marriage is later for you, you are still young, later, later, you will worship." Look at the difference between that time and this time. The point is that he said to him in the end: He said: "O Messenger of Allah, I want something better than that." He said: So where are the Sufis, this asceticism that claims to contradict the Book and the Sunnah? If Sufism is not interpreted in a way that agrees with the Book and the Sunnah in truth, then at that time, drop this name, and we remain with the Book and the Sunnah and the methodology of the righteous Salaf, and whatever contradicts them, we cast it aside.