When the soul is blown in a physical design he becomes a moving and feeling being. After coming into existence his physical and spiritual growth starts simultaneously. Both chains go ahead in growth side by side but not conflicting with each other. Body needs food for its development and its food is necessary to be from the elements which are portions of body while the soul is invisible, delicate and elegant in its form and its blowing means making it connected with the physical body it is for.
According to the Creator’s scheme man has to develop both in his physical structure and soul or spirit together. Body is composition of material elements, so its growth depends on the harmonizing of these elements. For them he has to turn down to the earth to till the land and get the vegetations rich with sugar, minerals and salts and many other organs. On the contrary spirit is blown by Allah, the All-Mighty, All-Wise. For its vigor worship, remembrance and servitude to its Creator gives it an exaltedness and illustriousness. It gets vitalized for rising high to the heavens from where it descends.
Monasticism versus Hedonism
Very interestingly, excessive and imbalanced materiality of the elements like sleep, eating, hilarity, whimsicalness and gossiping, thought invigorating the body weaken the spirit. A lot of rapturous means have been found and audio visual aids have been invented for gaiety and sensual pleasures. This kind of epicurean and hedonistic trends are actually an extreme, causing a squeeze for the spirit. On the other side there is another philosophy of reclusiveness and asceticism which stimulates the concept of monasticism. It is also an extreme, contrived by those who want their spirit develop. They have invented a lot of mystic and physical exercises. Austerities, starvation and many other practices of self torturing are meant to pine away the body to crush the carnal desires and temptations and through these practices establish the control of the spirit over all the fleshly wants. Some of the people believe it to be ‘spiritualism’.
A Balanced and Natural Stand of Islam
Islam is the most balanced and wise system, totally consistent with the human nature. It has taken the most temperate, rational and mild position avoiding both the extremes. Islam neither supports excess of earthliness disregarding the needs of our soul nor recommends absolute tastelessness of life in the name of spiritualism. According to Islamic teachings, as the Messenger of Allah, be peace and blessings of Allah upon him, had asserted, this worldly life is actually a field to harvest for the life Hereafter. As we sow here, so shall we reap in the Akhirah. (Day of Judgment)
Islam gives not up the worldly life and deprives not the body from its needs but Akhirah remains the first choice nonetheless. Only making fulfillment of bodily requirements is like the engine of a train or a vehicle which needs fuel while the main purpose of fueling it is to move the compartments of the train or body of the transport. With no heed to the main purpose of keeping body healthy and strong is identical to running the engine on the railway track without the compartments. And relinquishing a vibrant role in the worldly life is synonymous to having the engine with missing its some parts and without fuel and keeping the lorry or train without load and passengers. In the Islamic teachings the purpose remains in precedence. “Nay, you prefer the life of this world, although the Hereafter is better and more lasting.” (Al-A’la: 16-17)
Tazkiyah-tun-Nafs
‘Nafs’ or ‘Nafas’ is a multi-dimensional term of the Quran. Soul, person, psyche, breath, self, heart and being are some of its dimensions. Islam enjoins gaining purity of ‘Nafs’ in every sense. Keeping the body, clothes and surrounding clean is the perfection of half of the Faith. Two verses before the one given above have the core point of the subject under discussion. Allah says: “Indeed whosoever purifies himself shall achieve the success (in Akhirah), and remembers (glorifies) the name of his Lord and prays (five times obligatory and also additional) prayers.” What is actually required in the light of the Quran and the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah, be peace and blessings upon him, and truly for that the term ‘spiritualism’ has been coined, is purification of hearts from moral evils and sinful thoughts and feelings.
Shirk (polytheism) and hypocrisy are inner contamination and joining others in worship with Allah is a great Zulm (wrong). Arrogance, malice, jealousy, hatred, greed and stinginess are serious moral diseases which bring innumerable social evils and give a rise to corruption in the society. They become a curtain blocking the luminosity of the Quran reach the hearts. Unless the heart is cleansed of all these moral evils, they remain hurdles in leading a righteous and pious life. The success not only in Akhirah, also in this earthly life depends on purifying the ‘Nafs’. “Indeed he succeeds who purifies his own self (body, heart and entire environment). Indeed he fails who corrupts his own self.” (Ash-Shams: 9-10)
Sufism and Monasticism claim to have the purity of the hearts a major objective of many of the esoteric exercises innovated by them, most of which are unapproved by Islam, because the Quran and the Messenger of Allah, be peace and blessings of Allah upon him, have already proposed most effective measures for the purpose, having close conformity with human nature.
How Monasticism got Roots in Muslim Communities?
Unusual and bizarre things have a particular type of attraction in them. Shaitan knows this fact and exploits this psychological situation in his favour to divert the peoples from the right path to the ideological corruption. When it is done then true, simple and natural rites and rituals of Islam seem to be insufficient for inner gratification. Hence, very easily the people are charmed by eccentrics of belief and ideology and get entrapped in the web of false and fake beliefs.
Ehsan and Tazkiyah, both in the Quran and Ahadith, have very clear meanings with no confusion and complication. Apart for benevolence, almsgiving and beneficence, the term Ehsan stands for zenith of sincerity. It also means conformity of the inner and outer fold and public and private spheres of life without any sanctimoniousness and formalism. Worshiping our Lord as if we see Him in front of us and if our vision is not so sharp to envisage at this level then at least it should be in mind that Allah sees us. But Sufism has chosen both of the above mentioned terms as basis of its mystic philosophy.
When Egypt, Iran and Syria were conquered, many repulsive practices, completely divorced from the material life in the name of ‘spiritualism’ were in vogue there. Particularly the Christianity, as we find the detail in ‘What the loss the World Suffered by the Downfall of the Muslims’ one time a bestseller of the prominent scholar late Abu Al-Hasan Ali Nadvi and interpretation of the term ‘Rahbaniya’ by Syed Abu Al A’la Maududi in the fifth volume of his famous commentary of the Quran, in those days was under the sway of Monasticism.
Those were the days of tyrant rule of Banu Umayyah in the Muslim world. There was no check on the cruelties of Umavi governors. Raising the voices of truth and justice had become identical to losing the lives. The situation was the same as ‘Ashab Kahf’ (The People of the Cave) had to face long ago, after Isa (A S). Along with the example of Ashab Kahf , the Sufi system made seclusion of the Prophet Muhammad in the cave of Hira before he was commissioned as the Messenger of Allah was made a ground for their mystic philosophy. A tradition related by Abu Hurairah (RA) was also started to be argued about esoteric order. During the rule of Banu Umayyah, the first Zawiyah (seclusion center) in Palestine came into existence, perhaps imitating the Christians there.
Quitting the worldly life to get rid of the carnal wishes and crushing the natural desires through some horrible exercises has nothing to do with Islamic teachings. No exercise of this nature has any root in Islam. Harsh practices were innovated emulating the Christian monks long after the time of even the descendants of the companions of the Holy Prophet, SAW. Spiritualism as a term for self impurity was neither known in the time of Muhammad, be peace and blessings of Allah upon him, nor was used in this sense until interaction of the Muslims started with the other communities of the world around Arabian Peninsula.
Living devoid of the pleasures of the family life, cut off the social bonds and torturing the body by starvation in the name of gaining the pleasure of Allah, SWT, is a trend rejected by our Holy Prophet, be peace and blessings of Allah upon him. Once he heard from one of the three of his companions, who visited him and while waiting for him out of his door, saying very sincerely he would not marry any woman and would lead a bachelor life for keeping himself free for worship. The second showed his determination to fast consecutively throughout his life. The third one resolved to spend his nights in worship without sleep. The Messenger of Allah, be peace and blessings of Allah upon him, instead of appreciating them, renounced the trait they were about to chose for them, saying that the model for his Ummah set by him was that he had his wives and he worshiped his Lord at night and slept also and he sometime kept additional (Nafli) fasts and sometime he left this practice.
Conclusion
We have to acquire Taqwa and Tazkiyah (purity of hearts) through the means we find in the Quran and the Messenger of Allah, be peace and blessings of Allah upon him. No more effective thing is there than establishing the five times obligatory prayers and also Nawafil (optional prayers), Saum (fasting), Zakat, Hajj and Umrah (for those who have the financial resources to travel to Makkah). There are many Azkar and Duas in the teachings of the Prophet, SAW, for remembering Allah and establishing a strong relation with Him. Reciting and reading the Quran with regularity and cognizance has the far reaching inner and outer impacts on the life of an awaking and active Muslim.
Spiritualism is meant to awaken the slumbering spirit of the Muslims. But unfortunately for developing an Ummah, with a toothless jaw, harmless for the enemies of Islam and enthralled by the intoxicative ideas unfamiliar to the spirit of Islam is a big effort, very strangely made by the think tanks and intellectual circles in the West to make Sufi Islam and freakish shape of Spiritualism popular in the Muslim world.
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