SUFIS

M: The Heart and

Soul of All Religions

By: Prof. M.S. Tajar, U.P.

Diliman

It was the late philosopher-Jurist-Sufi,

Mohammad Hosain Tabatabai (1903 1981
A.D.) of Iran, who called Sufism as The heart and
soul of all religions. In a sense whether you are a
Buddhist, Hindu, Zoroastrian, Jew, Christian,
Muslim, or anything else, as long as you fall in
love with God (and that means falling in love with
His Creations, great and small, too) and see
yourself constantly in His Presence, then you are
a Suf, a Yogi, a Mystic, a Hermit, a Dervish, a
Fekir, a Zen, or a Magi, and whatever other
names that may exist for this type of persons, in
any religion or region.
One of those blessed men, named Sa-ib
of Tabriz (1601 1677 A.D.), a great Persian
poet and Mystic, once said:
Just live, with the good and the bad
In a way, O Sa-ib of Tabriz,
That should you die one day,
-And certainly you will.The Muslims wash you with the Zamzam Water
And the Hindus burn you on the Varanasi Fire!
And thats the essence of Sufism.
Its true that among every people, and in
any religion, there are always some soulconscious and spiritually inclined individuals or
groups, who are so blessed, that they See, hear,
and feel those things that the others (a great
majority of mankind) dont. Those blessed few
are the cream of the crop, so to speak, (although
they never claim as such) and they are the Sufs
of their time. (Every nation has got their own
spiritual warners! Holy Quran 35:24)
According to the late Tabatabai, the
relationship of God with His creations, and that
includes you and I, is that of (1+0) not (1+1) or
(1x1).
In other words, we dont exist; in fact,
nothing else exists, except Him! (Pantheism or
Wahdatol Wojud or Wahdatol Maujud?)
A Sufi is detached from everything of this
world, including all the relationships, and is solely
attached to his Beloved (God), and thus he has
nothing of this world to lose, and nothing in this
world to gain, either.
Shaikh Sa-di (12101291 A.D.), the
famous
poet-educator-Sufi
of
Persia,
has
described this situation very well:
I have no camels to ride
Nor am I under any load,
Like a donkey!
I am not the king of the land,
Nor am I slave to any king,
I am free of it all!
A certain Ayatollah in Iran was once asked:
Are you a Sufi? and he answered:
Everybody goes to the ocean (to cleanse
themseleves) but some people stay there, and

they fall in love with the ocean, itself! (the cults

of the Sufis)
Now, is he a Sufi or is he not?
A Suf reaches a certain level of
awareness, and an intentional awakening
experience after which he doesnt see anything
else but God, and he sees God in everything!
(You are everything, and everything is You!)
To explain further, we may say: God is
everything, but not everything is God! To
simplify it even more, we could also add:
Everything that exists, is actually an Intention
of God and Gods Intention is not separate from
Him!
That is why the Sufis sufi, the holy man
of God, Mansur Hallaj (858 922 A.D.) openly
shouted, I am the Truth! Truth is me! and he
paid the ultimate price, for that claim which the
ordinary people could not understand. He was
burned alive!
Later on, another great Sufi, supported
that claim, in his poem, when Shaikh Mahmood
Shabistari (1288-1340 A.D.) said, If a bush
could claim that I am God/ Why cant a blessed
man also say so? (The bush in the Sinai desert
talking to Prophet Moses a.s. / Holy Quran 28:30)
That is why even Jesus Christ (another
Sufi?) long time ago, said, I am the Way, the
Truth, and the Life! (John 14:6)
Imam Ali (an early saint in Islam) to whom
all the Sufis relate, as their foremost role model,
after the Holy Prophet Mohammad (P.B.U.H) once
said:
I never saw anything, unless I saw Allah, before
it, with it, and beyond it! (see Nahjul
Balagha/p.82)
That is probably the meaning of the Quranic
verse that says: He (Allah) is the First, the Last,
the Apparent and the Hidden! And He is with
you wherever you are (Holy Quran 57:3-4). No
wonder Hallaj said, in a poem, this way:
Whenever I drink
A glass of water
I see your Face O Darling
Shining in my cup!
Or again he said:
I have seen my Lord
With the eyes of my heart
Anytime I saw
The face of a flower.
Another
great
Sufi,
Baba
Taher
Oryan/Hamedani, also expressed this view in
his Rubaiyyat by saying:
Whenever I look at the sea
Darling, I see your lovely face!
And when I am in the desert
Its like your hot embrace!
Whichever direction I set my eyes

Lo! And behold my sweetheart

I see nothing but You,
In each and in every place!
And Shaikh Sa-di puts the same concept
into a classic Persian couplet, by saying:
The leaves of the trees
Which dance in every breeze
Are the booklets of wisdom
In the knowledge of His!
Also Abu Saeed Abul Khayr, the great
sufi master, said:
He who loves you, O Lord!
Wont bother for self anymore,
Nor for the family, or friends,
Or for anything, great or small;
You make him crazy for you
And you give him both worlds
But those crazy for you,
Wont want the worlds, at all!
Now regarding what is the meaning of
Sufi? Some scholars say that it comes from the

Arabic word Suuf meaning wool i.e. the

sackcloth and ashes that the Sufis use.
However, some others, believe that Sufi
in Arabic and in the Islamic literature, came from
the Greek word Sophia meaning Wisdom and
thus the Sufi is a Wiseman/Guru, etc.
Still some others say that it came from suffah, a
place where the poor Sahabah (i.e. the
companions of the Holy Prophet) used to stay in
the mosque of the Holy Prophet Mohammad
(P.B.U.H) in Madinah.
And another group say that its from the suhufi,
i.e. related to the books of the ancient prophets,
etc.
But a Persian Muslim scholar has
combined all those definitions, by saying:
A Sufi is a person, who wears the wool on top of
wisdom and purity!
And thats probably the best definition
that I have heard, regarding Sufsm, so far!