A short history of Tasawwuf

As old as humankind

Khwaja Shamsuddin Azeemi divides knowledge into two kinds (p. 43). Outward knowledge serves livelihood and society; inward knowledge is Tasawwuf. In his account, Tasawwuf began when Allah told the angels, "I am placing a successor on the earth" (Quran 2:30), and taught Adam the names of all things (Quran 2:31). That inward knowledge is Adam's inheritance to his children, and so, the author writes, Adam was the first Sufi.

Every prophet after him taught the same essentials: to worship the One God, to live as brothers and sisters, to forgive, and never to take what belongs to another. Whoever follows these teachings, the book says, is a Sufi (pp. 43–44).

Signs along the way in the Quran

The book draws on several Quranic stories to show the inner path at work:

• Ibrahim looked at a star, then the moon, then the sun, and turned from each as it set, to the One who created the heavens and the earth. "Thus We showed Ibrahim the realm of the heavens and the earth, that he might be among those of certain faith" (Quran 6:75) (p. 46).

• Musa travelled to meet a servant of Allah to whom inward knowledge had been given, known in the tradition as Khidr. The story of the boat, the boy and the wall shows that Allah's order includes people of inner knowledge who are not prophets (Quran 18:60–82; pp. 47–48).

• Maryam was chosen and purified above the women of the worlds. From her story, the book concludes that Allah gave women spiritual abilities just as He gave them to men (pp. 48–49).

The Prophet ﷺ and his companions

For Muslims, the complete model of the path is the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ: his nights of prayer, his retreats in the cave of Hira, and above all his character. The book gives a whole chapter to the inner life of his companions, men and women, among them Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali, Khadija, Aisha, Fatima and Salman al-Farsi (pp. 146–151).

The early masters

In the first centuries of Islam, men and women known for their devotion gathered in Basra, Kufa and Baghdad:

• Hasan of Basra (d. 728), known for his asceticism and fear of God. Many of the later chains of masters pass through him.

• Rabia of Basra (d. 801), who taught that Allah is to be loved for His own sake, not for fear of Hell or hope of Paradise.

• Junaid of Baghdad (d. 910), remembered as the leader of the Sufis of his time, who kept the path firmly within the Shariah.

• Abu Bakr Shibli (d. 946), a former governor. The book tells how Junaid made him beg in the streets of Baghdad to break the pride of office before he could begin (p. 174).

• Ali Hujwiri, Data Ganj Bakhsh (11th century), who settled in Lahore and wrote Kashf al-Mahjub, one of the earliest books on Sufism in Persian.

• Imam al-Ghazali (1058–1111), the leading scholar of Baghdad, who left his teaching post to follow the path for about ten years. He later wrote that without that turning his life would have been wasted (p. 175).

The orders

From the twelfth century, the masters' teaching was organised into orders (silsilas), each a chain of teachers and students reaching back to the Prophet ﷺ. The book counts about two hundred of them (p. 173). In their lodges (khanqahs), seekers are trained to know Allah through prayer, worship and meditation, and to make service to creation and forgiveness the aim of their lives. Four are best known in South Asia:

• Qadiriyya, from Shaykh Abd al-Qadir Jilani (1077–1166), born in Gilan and buried in Baghdad.

• Chishtiyya, named after the town of Chisht near Herat, and brought to India by Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti of Ajmer (d. 1236).

• Suhrawardiyya, from Shaykh Shihabuddin Umar Suhrawardi (d. 1234), whose disciple Bahauddin Zakariya made Multan its centre.

• Naqshbandiyya, named after Khwaja Bahauddin Naqshband of Bukhara (d. 1389), known for silent remembrance and for keeping watch over the heart.

How Islam spread

The book is clear about what the Sufis achieved (p. 172). Through saints such as Abd al-Qadir Jilani, Data Ganj Bakhsh, Moinuddin Chishti, Bahauddin Zakariya, Lal Shahbaz Qalandar and Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, the message of the oneness of God reached Pakistan, India, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, Africa, Iran, Iraq, Arabia and China. They forced no one: people saw their character and conduct, and many embraced Islam (p. 66).

Based on Khwaja Shamsuddin Azeemi, Ahsan o Tasawwuf (Khwaja Shamsuddin Azeemi Research Society), pp. 43–49, 66 and 146–175. Dates of the early masters and the orders follow standard historical sources.