Chapter 78. The Mystical Path: Sufism, the Orders and Their Western Afterlife

Sufism (tasawwuf) appears in the library’s sources in two forms at once. It is an interior discipline aimed at the annihilation of the ego in God, and it is a social institution of lodges, masters and orders that held Islamic society together after the caliphate weakened. It was also a constant object of suspicion. Jurists objected to its music, dance and antinomian sayings, and its critics accused it of drugs and pederasty. In the modern period it became one of the main channels through which Western occultists, Traditionalists and nationalists claimed access to “Oriental” initiation. This chapter follows that arc from the early ascetics to Rumi, the Bektashis and the Hurufis, and then to Sebottendorff, Guénon’s circle and Evola.

Origins: asceticism, intoxication and sobriety

Karen Armstrong traces Sufism to the asceticism (zuhd) of the Umayyad period, “a reaction against the growing worldliness and luxury of Muslim society,” and to the coarse wool (suf) worn by the poor. She also sees it as “a reaction against the growth of jurisprudence,” an attempt to reproduce Muhammad’s “interior islam.” She contrasts the “drunken” Sufis with the sober ones. Abu Yazid al-Bistami heard God say “I am through Thee; there is no god but Thou.” Al-Hallaj cried “Ana al-Haqq!” (“I am the Truth!”) and “was executed by the ulama for claiming that it was possible to make a valid hajj in spirit.” Junayd of Baghdad (d. 910) treated intoxication as a phase to be transcended [Armstrong, Islam: A Short History, #53062, “The Esoteric Movements”].

Mark Ferrara places Sufism within the Islamic expansion. He calls it a syncretic tradition that “brought together contributions from pre-Islamic asceticism, Zoroastrianism, Mithra worship, monastic Christianity, and Neoplatonism.” He notes that al-Bistami’s grandfather “converted to Islam from Zoroastrianism” and that al-Bistami “created metaphors of being ‘drunk’ in God.” Ferrara also cites an Arabic proverb: “If you want to find God, look in a hookah” [Ferrara, Sacred Bliss, #66945, “Islamic Expansion and the Rise of Sufi Mysticism”]. Franklin Lewis likewise describes Sufism as “a confluence of ascetic exercises (zohd), sharing much in common with Christian monasticism in Syria,” and of mystical speculation “fed probably by Zoroastrian, Manichaean, Buddhist and Hindu theosophical teachings” [Lewis, Rumi: Past and Present, East and West, #76418, “Rumi as Sufi”]. René Guénon rejects this genealogy outright. For him, theories of a Greek, Persian or Indian origin are “gratuitous,” and Sufism “is Arab like the Quran itself” [Guénon, Aperçus sur l’ésotérisme islamique, #68713, ch. I].

Contested practices: music, dance, cannabis and boys

Ferrara sets out the practices and the accusations made against them:

“Intensive prayer sessions, dancing to religious orchestrations, reciting mystical poetry, and consuming profuse amounts of cannabis operated synergistically to clarify perception and induce mystical experiences. As one might imagine, wild displays of seemingly irreverent behavior gave rise to rumors of debauchery among some Sufi sects (including charges of pederasty and accusations of hashish-induced malaise).” [Ferrara, #66945, “Sufi Practices and Al-Ghazali’s Defense”]

These charges, he writes, led “some ‘sober’ Sufis, along with more orthodox Muslims, to denounce Sufi religious practices and exaggerate the vices of its adherents.” Ferrara cites al-Ghazali’s Alchemy of Happiness as the classic defence of music: “The heart of man has been so constituted by the Almighty that, like a flint, it contains a hidden fire which is evoked by music and harmony, and renders man beside himself with ecstasy.” Ferrara takes al-Ghazali to argue that the Quranic command to love God “cannot simply imply obedience to religious law” [Ferrara, #66945]. Armstrong describes al-Ghazali (d. 1111) as the man who gave mysticism “a ringing endorsement.” After his breakdown in 1095 he concluded that “only ritual and prayer could give human beings a direct knowledge of God,” and he urged the ulama to practise Sufi contemplation alongside the Shari’a. After him, she writes, dhikr “became a group activity,” the tariqas became “international,” and every town had its khanqah [Armstrong, #53062, “A New Order”].

Ferrara goes further and argues that cannabis was itself a vehicle of mystical states:

“For Sufis ascribing to the ‘intoxication’ school, hashish is a holy sacrament that stimulates mild feelings of euphoria and lends acquiescence and carefreeness.” [Ferrara, #66945, “Peak Experiences and Cannabis in Sufi Tradition”]

He links the plant to the colour green, to al-Khidr the “Green Man,” and to the Qalandar founder Qutb al-Din Haydar, who “apocryphally” discovered its spiritual uses. He notes that orthodox opponents called Sufis hashishiyya. He quotes a thirteenth-century poem by al-Is’irdi in which hashish, unlike wine, can be “drunk openly in a Sufi monastery or a mosque” and “recalls the secrets of Beauty.” He also claims that “there was hardly an Arabic poet between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries who did not refer to cannabis” [Ferrara, #66945, “Cannabis’s Enduring Appeal in Islamic Literature”]. These are Ferrara’s interpretations; the Rumi biographies quoted below (Gooch, Lewis) do not say that Rumi used cannabis.

The accusation about boys has a documented basis in at least one milieu. Brad Gooch describes the Baghdad master Awhad al-Din Kermani as “very much in the school of Ahmad al-Ghazali, who glimpsed flashes of divinity in the faces of beautiful boys.” Kermani “was notorious for tearing open the cloaks of beardless young men during sama dancing and pressing his chest against theirs.” Shams of Tabriz mocked this practice of seeking divinity in a reflection: “Unless you have a boil in your neck, why not look at the sky?” [Gooch, Rumi’s Secret, #70020, ch. 7]. The Bektashi editor of Sebottendorff’s volume likewise notes Qalandari influence: “antinomian practices, the consumption of intoxicants,” and shahed bazi, “witness play,” which “involves in part the contemplation of the beauty of the human body” [Sebottendorff, Secret Practices of the Sufi Freemasons, #82052, editor’s ch. 2 “The Bektashi Sect of Sufism”].

Ibn Arabi, Shams and Rumi

Armstrong presents Ibn Arabi (d. 1240) as the theosopher of the creative imagination. In her account, he taught that “every single human being was a unique and unrepeatable revelation of one of God’s hidden attributes” and that the mystic is “at home in a synagogue, mosque, temple or church” [Armstrong, #53062]. Jeffrey Raff, reading Ibn Arabi through Jung, writes that “God has an infinite number of names, all of which are living entities that can personify themselves as imaginal figures.” He quotes Ibn Arabi: the “form is related to the spiritual being just as a light that shines from a lamp into the corners of a room is related to the lamp.” Raff names Jabir ibn Hayyan (d. c. 800) as “the most famous of the Arab alchemists,” one who “attempted to unite both the spiritual and practical sides of alchemy” [Raff, Jung and the Alchemical Imagination, #69596, ch. 1 and ch. 5].

Rumi’s lineage, as Lewis reconstructs it, runs through his father Baha al-Din Valad, a preacher from Balkh, and then through Borhan al-Din Termezi. After Baha al-Din’s death Borhan came to Anatolia to “turn over to him the mission which my Shaykh has entrusted to me.” Lewis is cautious about the frequent claim that both men were Kubrawi Sufis. He notes that Najm al-Din Razi, a refugee from the Mongols, reportedly met in Konya “both Rumi and Sadr al-Din of Konya, the step-son of Ibn ‘Arabi,” but adds: “We do not know if, in fact,” this meeting occurred as Jami claims [Lewis, #76418].

Gooch describes the meeting with Shams (born in Tabriz around 1180) as a rupture. The two men spent three months secluded in Salah al-Din’s house. Shams commanded “Don’t read! Don’t read!” and sent the jurist to buy wine in the Jewish quarter. Rumi unveiled his wife before Shams, and when Shams “asked for a beautiful boy to serve him, Rumi presented Sultan Valad, though Shams thoughtfully declined.” Shams then “rapidly introduced music, sung poetry, and dance into Rumi’s life, through the practice of sama.” Gooch records that Shams belonged to the Shafi’i school. In Damascus he “appears to have become a serious student” of “Sheikh Mohammad,” thought to be Ibn Arabi, whom he praised as “a mountain, a true mountain!” but faulted because “he did not follow” the Prophet. Rumi’s love poems to Muhammad won the comparison: “For such tender logic, Rumi became a ‘pearl’ to Shams, and Ibn Arabi a mere ‘pebble'” [Gooch, #70020, ch. 7].

Armstrong calls Rumi (1207-73) a “drunken Sufi” whose “Mawlanah Order” of Whirling Dervishes “has had great influence in Turkey right up to the present day,” and whose Mathnawi “is known as the Sufi scripture” [Armstrong, #53062, “The Mongols”]. Lewis notes that the Mevlevi order was “founded in Konya by Rumi’s son, Sultan Valad,” that its dhikr was “Allah, Allah, Allah,” and that the sama’ ceremony was something “of which not all Sufis and certainly not all jurisconsults approved.” Since music and dancing “were associated with royal courts, slave girls, wine drinking and debauchery, Islamic law generally did not encourage it, though it did not necessarily forbid it outright” [Lewis, #76418]. Nasr records the same tension at the level of philosophy: Rumi’s verse “The leg of the syllogisers is a wooden one” provoked a reply from Mir Damad and a counter-reply from a Shirazi Sufi master [Nasr, Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present, #83281, ch. 2].

Primary voices: Sam’ani and the three kinds of worship

The library holds a major Persian primary text, Ahmad Sam’ani’s twelfth-century commentary on the Divine Names, translated by William Chittick. It is organised name by name, from “Hu: He” and “Allah” through al-Rahman, al-Malik and al-Quddus. Its theme is the precedence of divine love. In one passage God is “tossing the secret hook of He loves them into the ocean of they love Him [5:54],” which the commentary glosses as meaning that “God’s beginningless love … is the seed of our endless love” [Sam’ani, The Repose of the Spirits, #68110]. A contemporary devotional writer, A. Helwa, transmits a saying attributed to Ja’far al-Sadiq that people worship God in three ways: “the worship of the slave, who worships God out of fear of punishment; the worship of the merchant, who worships God seeking a reward; and the worship of the free, who worships God out of love and gratitude, which is the best form of worship” [Helwa, Secrets of Divine Love, #65220, ch. 12].

Bektashis, Hurufis and the road to the Safavids

According to the Wikipedia article, Haji Bektash Veli (c. 1209-1271) was a Khorasani migrant to Anatolia, “revered among Alevis.” His teachings centred on Ali, the Twelve Imams and Ja’far al-Sadiq, and his silsila ran through Baba Ilyas, the Babai revolt and the Qalandari Qutb al-Din Haydar. The article calls the Vilayet-name genealogy from Musa al-Kazim “impossible” [Wikipedia: Haji Bektash Veli]. The editor’s introduction to Sebottendorff’s volume adds that the Bektashis “worship in assembly houses (cemevi), have ceremonies including music and dance, conduct rituals together with women.” The order “was the official sect of the Turkish Janissaries” until 1826, and orthodox Muslims distinguished “bad Bektashis” from good, the bad ones accepting “even Jews among them.” Atatürk banned all Sufi orders in 1925 [Sebottendorff, #82052, editor’s ch. 2].

The same introduction defines Hurufism. Fazlallah Astarabadi (1340-1394), who wrote under the name Naimi, was, “as was the case with several other Sufi pioneers,” a victim of orthodox hostility. Its basic idea is “that God reveals himself in the word, and that the word is made up of sounds or letters with accompanying numerical values. These are made manifest in the human body through certain exercises. One who has gained proficiency in this may be able to act in a godlike manner” [Sebottendorff, #82052, editor’s ch. 2]. The Sufi tariqa as a political force culminated in the Safavid order. The Wikipedia article describes it as a Sufi order founded by Zahed Gilani and named after Safi al-Din Ardabili (1252-1334). It was initially Shafi’i Sunni, but by the mid-fifteenth century it had turned into “a ghulat form of Twelver Shi’ism,” militant under Shaykh Junayd and Shaykh Haydar. Its propaganda claimed the leader was “the Mahdi himself—or even a divine incarnation.” In 1501 Ismail founded the Safavid empire and proclaimed Twelver Shi’ism the state religion [Wikipedia: Safavid order]. Chapter 8.10 takes up that story.

Western afterlife: Sebottendorff, the Traditionalists, Evola

The editor’s biography of Rudolf von Sebottendorff (born Adam Alfred Rudolf Glauer, 1875) states that in Turkey he managed an estate near Bursa for the Sufi landowner Hussain Pasha. There he met the Termudi family, Jews from Greece and students “of the Kabbalah and Rosicrucianism,” and he “was initiated into a Freemasonic lodge of which the Termudis were members.” In 1910 he “founded a mystical lodge in Constantinople, which is a tariqat of the Bektashi Order of Sufis.” He later led the Thule Society (1918-19), formed a militia, was “instrumental in the formation of the German Workers’ Party,” and bought the paper that became the Völkischer Beobachter. The Nazis banned his Bevor Hitler kam in 1934. He died, probably by suicide in the Bosporus, on 8 May 1945. The editor speculates about whether these exercises were “at the root of other men’s power … from Muhammad to Hassan-i-Sabbah to Sebottendorff” [Sebottendorff, #82052, editor’s ch. 1]. His 1924 manual, The Practice of Ancient Turkish Freemasonry: The Key to the Understanding of Alchemy, sets out letter-formulas (alam, alar, kaha-ya, taha) applied through “neck,” “chest,” “middle” and “stomach” grips. Its stated aim is “the spiritualization of matter, or in other words, the raw uneven stone is transformed into a cubical one,” the Masonic rough ashlar recast as Sufi alchemy [Sebottendorff, #82052, “The Practice of Ancient Turkish Freemasonry”; ch. 4 “Alchemy and Sufism”]. Parts 10 and 11 follow his Thule and Masonic connections.

Guénon’s Traditionalism, set out in Chapter 8.7, made tasawwuf the “kernel” of Islam and the model of regular initiation [Guénon, #68713]. Mark Sedgwick and Francesco Piraino’s collection Esoteric Transfers and Constructions examines such crossings historically. Andrea Gondos argues that love functions “in very similar ways as a rhetorical tool for the mediation of theological ideals” in Jewish, Christian and Sufi mystical poetry. Mark Wagner, writing on the Yemeni Rabbi Shalom Shabazi, warns that because Sufi poetry is “an amalgam of other genres of Arabic poetry,” the fact that Shabazi uses the same images “does not prove that the Sufi poets (of Yemen or elsewhere) influenced Shabazi” [Sedgwick & Piraino (eds.), #62621, Part I, chs. 2-3].

Julius Evola appears in Julius Evola: The Sufi of Rome, a first-person memoir by an Italian disciple who is not named in the library copy. There Cairo acquaintances call him “al-Roumi al-Thani, the second Roman,” “to distinguish him from the first Roumi, Jelaluddin.” In this portrait Evola “excoriated Kemal Ataturk”:

“Ataturk was a catastrophe for the Turks. What the Christians could never achieve, a Turk did. The enemy inside. He dethroned Allah. By changing the Arabic alphabet, he made it impossible for people to read their own language. Cultural genocide, you might call it. His abolition of the Caliphate was symptomatic…” [Julius Evola: The Sufi of Rome, #65750, “The Pope and the Sultan”]

The narrator also reports Evola’s view that the last caliph had become “a shadow’s shadow,” and his prediction that Atatürk “too will be knocked off his throne,” the “return of the repressed.” The narrator presents the 1979 seizure of the Great Mosque of Mecca by “400 armed men” as Evola’s words coming “almost true” [Julius Evola: The Sufi of Rome, #65750, “Queen of Heaven”]. Kim Ghattas’s account of the same siege, and of the Sufi sheikh Muhammad Alawi al-Maliki teaching in the Holy Mosque while Wahhabi rule shrank the study circles, is treated in Chapter 8.7 [Ghattas, Black Wave, #72495].

Key points

• The sources trace Sufism to Umayyad asceticism and to reaction against legalism. Ferrara and Lewis stress Zoroastrian, Christian and Neoplatonic inputs, while Guénon insists it is purely Arab and Quranic [Armstrong, #53062; Ferrara, #66945; Lewis, #76418; Guénon, #68713].
• Al-Ghazali’s defence of music and inner religion brought Sufism into the mainstream and turned it into international orders [Armstrong, #53062; Ferrara, #66945].
• Ferrara argues that cannabis was a Sufi sacrament and records the charges of pederasty and intoxication. Gooch documents Kermani’s sama’ with beardless youths and Shams’s rejection of it [Ferrara, #66945; Gooch, #70020].
• Shams studied with Ibn Arabi but ranked Rumi a “pearl” and Ibn Arabi a “pebble.” The Mevlevi order, founded by Sultan Valad, made the sama’ its rite despite juristic disapproval [Gooch, #70020; Lewis, #76418].
• Bektashis (the Janissary order), Hurufis (letters and numbers realised in the body) and Qalandaris formed a heterodox Anatolian milieu out of which the Safavid order rose to power [Wikipedia: Haji Bektash Veli; Sebottendorff, #82052; Wikipedia: Safavid order].
• Sebottendorff, initiated in a Bektashi-linked lodge, presented Turkish Sufi exercises as the “key” to alchemy and Freemasonry before leading the Thule Society [Sebottendorff, #82052].
• In the disciple’s memoir, Evola condemned Atatürk’s abolition of the caliphate as “cultural genocide,” and Sedgwick’s collection examines such esoteric transfers critically [Julius Evola: The Sufi of Rome, #65750; Sedgwick & Piraino, #62621].