Sufism

Sufis are members of a small Islamic sect that arose as a protest against the growing worldliness of Muslims after the time of the Prophet. Sufis strive to imitate the words and deeds of Muhammad, and traditionally adopt a life of poverty and abstinence. Although Sufism is firmly anchored in orthodox Islamic doctrine, it emphasizes the inner pursuit of love, obedience, and devotion to God over concern with the outward law or shari ʿa, and is often associated with mysticism and esotericism. There are hundreds of Sufi orders that have developed within different cultural contexts so that there is no one Sufi way.

Role of Food in the Sufi Tradition

Sufis are guided by the adab, written treatises that prescribe manners or norms of conduct modeled on the life of Muhammad, which includes the food sayings and practices of the Prophet in minute detail. Muhammad praises the virtues of hospitality, generosity, and moderation, and food was and is clearly seen as a means of encouraging these virtues. As an integral part of the daily spiritual life of Sufis, food provides a way of sharing in the greatest of Divine blessings, of creating unity among people and of linking to all creation. Hospitality and eating together were highly commended by Muhammad and, since early times, Sufis have been associated with the serving of food to others. Communal kitchens and guest lodges for feeding the poor and travelers were features of early Sufi settlements, a tradition that continues in Sahas, or Sufi centers where massive concrete tables may serve up to one hundred diners at a sitting. At moulid festivals, feeding stations are set up to offer food and drink to passers-by.

Food Symbolism and Rituals

There is extensive use of food imagery and metaphor in Sufi writings. Sugar and other sweet foods represent the sweetness of piety and community with God, while salt symbolizes purity and incorruptibility. Bread is regarded as sacred in Islam and is treated reverentially. Through the pronouncement of Bismallah during the bread-making process, the bread is imbued with spiritual power or baraka, which is shared by those who eat the bread. The transformation of the raw wheat to finished bread is used as an analogy for Sufi spiritual development.

Sufi ritual observances (dhikr ) are concerned with remembrance of God through exaltation and praise. Singing, dancing, and drumming are commonly part of such rituals, as is sharing of food. For example, ashura is a dish that takes its name from the festival celebrated by all followers of Islam. During preparation of the ashura, Mevlevi Sufis stir the pot in a special way while pronouncing the name of God. Sharing the ashura then becomes a way of spreading remembrance of God in the form of bodily nourishment.

Holidays and Festivals

Sufis observe general Muslim holidays and festivals. Ashura has particular significance for Sufis and Shiʿa. In addition, they celebrate numerous saints' days, or moulids. Major moulid festivals attract hundreds of thousands of people and can last for two to three weeks. Sufi orders set up hospitality stations (khidamet) in public buildings, in tents, or simply on cloths spread on the ground. Drink and (usually) food are offered to passers-by, and must be accepted as the food contains the baraka of the saint being honored and therefore confers spiritual blessing on the recipient. For the poor, these stations provide an additional opportunity for physical as well as spiritual nourishment.

Fasting and Feasting

Fasting is an essential feature of Sufism, especially during the forty-day retreat undertaken by initiates in many orders. Early Sufis placed great emphasis on asceticism in the pursuit of self-control and suppression of worldly desires. Eating was seen to be an important source of potential harm to the new initiate, and there are many Sufi stories of extreme restraint. Later, excessive fasting came to be viewed as unfavorably as excessive eating, for the message of the adab was one of moderation. Indeed, Muhammad even enjoined His followers to break a fast if invited to eat, for to refuse an invitation to share in God's blessing was wrong.

Food and Social Circumstance: Prescriptions and Proscription

While the asceticism of early Sufism has largely disappeared, gluttony is frowned upon and moderation is enjoined. Sufis follow Qurʾanic injunctions regarding food and are usually fastidious about observing the prohibition on pork consumption. While many Muslims do eat meat other than pork, Sufi teachings recommend that such meat be consumed only in small quantities. Some orders, both ancient and modern, have praised vegetarianism as a more compassionate practice, and have viewed animal consumption as conducive to animalistic behavior.

See also Fasting and Abstinence: Islam; Iran; Islam: Shiʿite Islam; Islam: Sunni Islam; Middle East; Religion and Food.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hoffman, Valerie. "Eating and Fasting for God in the Sufi Tradition." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 62, no. 3 (1995): 465–484.

Reynolds, Gabriel Said. "The Sufi Approach to Food: A Case

Study of Adab." The Muslim World 90 (2000): 198–217.

Seidel, Kathleen. Serving the Guest: A Sufi Cookbook and Art

Gallery 2000. Site posted August 2001. Available on the Internet at http://www.superluminal.com/cookbook/.

Paul Fieldhouse

Sufism , an umbrella term for the ascetic and mystical movements within Islam . While Sufism is said to have incorporated elements of Christian monasticism, gnosticism, and Indian mysticism, its origins are traced to forms of devotion and groups of penitents ( zuhhad ) in the formative period of Islam. The early pious figures, later appropriated by Sufism, include Ali , Hasan al-Basri (d. 801), and Rabia al-Adawiyya, a woman from Basra (Iraq) who rejected worship motivated by the desire for heavenly reward or the fear of punishment and insisted on the love of God as the sole valid form of adoration. The word Sufi first appears in the 8th cent., probably in connection with the coarse wool that many ascetics wore.

Two central Sufi concepts are tawakkul, the total reliance on God, and dhikr, the perpetual remembrance of God. Al-Muhasibi (d. 857) and his disciple Junayd (d. 910) are representative early figures. The introduction of gnostic elements ( marifa ) into Sufism is often attributed to Dhu-n-Nun al-Misri (d. 859). Sufism nonetheless faced growing opposition from orthodox clerics. The scholastic and ecstatic paths further diverged with the concept of fana, the dissolution into the divine, advocated by al-Bistami (d. 874), and used by Hallaj in the declaration of his unity with God, which eventually led to his execution in 922. Islamic orthodoxy and Sufism were not irreconcilable, as attested by the attempt by al- Ghazali (d. 1111) to infuse conformist Muslim religious life with mysticism.

The evolution of Sufism in the post-Ghazali period was influenced by Ibn al-Arabi and Ibn al-Farid. Their theoretical contributions led to the development within Sufism of a complex system of initiation and progression toward the Divine and set the stage for the emergence of organized Sufi orders. This phase of literary Sufism was also characterized by the prominence of Persian works, notably those of Shihab ad-Din Suhrawardi (d. 1191), Farid ad-Din Attar , and Jalal ad-Din Rumi , and the subsequent development of Persian, Turkish, and Urdu mystic poetry. Important Sufi figures elsewhere in the Islamic world include Muin ad-Din Chishti in India and Baha ad-Din Naqshband (d. 1390) in central Asia.

Sufi orders, which assimilated aspects of native religious traditions more readily than more dogmatic versions of Islam, played a major role in the expansion of Islam into sub-Saharan Africa and central, S, and SE Asia. The oldest extant order with attested historicity is probably the Qadiriyya, founded by Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (d. 1166) in Baghdad. Other important orders include the Ahmadiyya (notably in Egypt), Naqshbandiyya (Central Asia), Nimatullahiyya (Iran), Rifaiyya (Egypt, SW Asia), Shadhiliyya (N Africa, Arabia), Suhrawardiyya and Chishtiyya (S and central Asia), and Tijaniyya (N and W Africa).

The work of Idries Shah was instrumental in introducing Sufism to the West; see his The Sufis (1964) and The Way of the Sufi (1968). Although Sufism has made significant contributions to the spread of Islam and the development of various aspects of Islamic civilization (e.g., literature and calligraphy), many conservative Muslims disagree with many popular Sufi practices, particularly saint worship, the visiting of tombs, and the incorporation of non-Islamic customs. Consequently, in recent centuries Sufism has been a target for Islamic conservative and reformist movements.

Bibliography: See A. J. Arberry, Sufism (1970); L. Lewin, ed., The Diffusion of Sufi Ideas in the West (1972); A. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (1975) and As through a Veil (1982).

Sufism the mystical system of the Sufis, the esoteric dimension of the Islamic faith, the spiritual path to mystical union with God. It is influenced by other faiths, such as Buddhism, and reached its peak in the 13th century. There are many Sufi orders, the best-known being the dervishes.

Sufism Mystic philosophical movement within Islam that developed among the Shi'ite communities in the 10th and 11th centuries. Sufis stress the capability of the soul to attain personal union with God. See also Dervish

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