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ABSTRACT
This article analyses the place of Sufism in the thought of two prominent Moroccan philosophers, Mohammed Abed al-Jabri (1935–2010) and Taha Abdurrahman (b. 1944), and investigates how it constitutes, in diametrically opposing ways, a core element of their vision regarding modern Islamic rationality. It explores how the reformative impulse in both their projects is guided by different understandings of the demands of modernity on Arabic Islamic culture. The interpretations of these demands range, on the one hand, from al-Jabri’s imperative of disenchanting Islamic reason to, on the other, Abdurrahman’s call to reinvigorate its spiritual and ethical dimensions. This article first explores the authors’ treatments of Arabic Islamic cultural time and its relation to the global temporality of capitalist modernity. It then investigates how their contrasted understandings of the demands of modernity condition their positions on the mystical tradition of Islam, its internal forms of thinking time, and its desired/undesired place in modernity.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Ernest Gellner remarked that, in the Maghreb, Sufi saints are not only important for the rural population but also for the urban scholars of religion. He writes, ‘The scholars too will have their shaikhs, spiritual mystics, leaders: “He who has no shaikh has the devil for his shaikh,” as they used to say in Morocco.’ (Gellner Citation1981, 51).
2 In Forgotten Saints, Sahar Bazzaz (Citation2010) presents an excellent account of the life and legacy of Muḥammad al-Kattānī, leader of the Kattāniyyah brotherhood who was executed by the Moroccan Sultan ʿAbd al-Ḥafīẓ in 1912. In the first decade of the twentieth century, Muḥammad al-Kattānī led a reformist movement that attacked encroaching European imperialism and the compliance of the political and mercantile classes with the European capital. He succeeded in amassing public support and in deposing Sultan Abdelazīz. Al-Kattānī’s movement was the major force in ʿAbd al-Ḥafīẓ’s succession to power and in also instituting the 1908 ‘Conditional Pledge of Allegiance’ that emphasised the supervision of the religious elite and the need to eliminate European meddling in Moroccan political life. ʿAbd al-Ḥafīẓ, however, later succumbed to the pressures of European lenders, annulled the pledge, and executed Muḥammad al-Kattānī. After a systematic crackdown that almost eliminated the Kattāniyyah tariqa from Moroccan social life, the Kattāniyyah remerged later in the Moroccan political scene when one of the lesser-known descendants of the Kattāniyah family helped the French colonial authorities in pacifying the Atlas Berber tribes (performing public miracles that were staged by the French army).
3 In al-Naqd al-dhātī, the Moroccan nationalist leader and reformer ʿAllālah al-Fāssī decries the ecstatic form of Sufism and its practitioners as ‘harmful microbes and destructive ideas’ (jarāthīmun ḍārrah wa afkārun haddāmah). He nonetheless concludes that, ‘Our people are deeply spiritual, and cannot live without the Sufism of principle (ṣūfiyyati-l-mabdaʾ) … let us allow the individual to seek self-annihilation (linadaʿ al-farda yaṭlubu al-imḥāʾ bi-nafsihi) through service to the collective and sacrifice for its survival’ (al-Fāssī Citation1952, 151).
4 While Sufi tariqas continued in the postcolonial phase to play a polyvalent role in Moroccan social life, their relationship with the state alternated between hostility and appropriation. The Būdshīshiyya order is a case in point. Before the nineties, the order was constantly under police surveillance and its leader, Sīdī Hamza al-Qādirī, was kept under house arrest. The post-Gulf War period witnessed a change towards mutual collaboration, which was epitomised by the appointment in 2002 of Aḥmed Taoufīq, a prominent member in the order, to the ministry of religious endowments (Chih Citation2012). Sufism is also engaged within Moroccan bourgeois circles as a medium for synthesising global spiritualties (ranging from Buddhism to New Age Mysticism) in Islamic terms, producing and marketing a highly individualistic, relativist, and eclectic form of religiosity. In these circles, Sufism emerges as a hybrid religiosity that attracts both local economic elites and foreign tourists (Haenni and Voix Citation2007).
5 The post-1967 War discourse of cultural crisis is best exemplified by the 1974 Kuwait Conference organised under the title ‘The Crisis of Civilizational Progress in the Arab World’ in which leading Arab intellectuals contributed research on the question of Arabic ‘cultural stagnation.’ The papers presented at this conference submitted Arab identity and history to a systematic analysis based on the theme of crisis. This includes Muḥammad al-Nuwayhī’s ‘Religion and the Crisis of Civilizational Progress in the Arab World,’ Muṣṭafa Shākir’s ‘The Historical Dimensions of the Crisis of Civilizational Progress in the Arab World,’ Ibrāhīm Abū Lughod’s ‘Colonialism and the Crisis of Civilizational Progress in the Arab World,’ and others. For a selection of the papers presented at the conference, see the dedicated issue by the Lebanese Journal al-Ādāb (Issue 5, V 22, 1974).
6 The Arabic term al-nahḍa refers to the nineteenth century cultural movement in different areas of the Arab world characterised by the reform of Arabic language, the revival of Arabic classical literature, the spread of translational and reformative projects along the lines of Islamic and secular programmes, and the ushering of political modernity through the advocacy of territorial nationalism as well as anti-imperialist Islamism. See Ibrahim Abu Rabiʿ’s discussion of the major trends of the al-Nahda period and its relation to the penetration of region by colonialism and capitalism (Abu Rabiʿ Citation2004, 81).
7 All translations from Arabic are my own.
8 Al-Jabri uses the metaphor of an Arabic cultural stage on which stand figures such as the theologian al-Ghazālī (d. 1111), the North African scholar Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406), the Syrian reformer Rashīd Reḍa (d. 1935), and the Egyptian intellectual ʿAbbās al-ʿAqqād (d. 1964). The homogeneity (or stagnation) of this cultural theatre manifests in the fact that, to an Arab audience, all these figures appear as contemporaries who speak one uniform cultural language and continuously engage with its symbolic world making (al-Jabri Citation1984, 38–39).
9 For al-Jabri, the significance of Andalusian cultural legacy and the work of Ibn Ḥazm (d. 1064), Ibn Bājja (d. 1135), and Ibn Rushd (d. 1198) are the re-inscription of burhān in alliance with bayān and the disentanglement of the former from ʿirfān through the Andalusian school’s systematic attack on the bāṭiniyya school of Ismaʿilī gnosticism. (al-Jabri Citation1980, 251–60).
10 Al-Jabri writes,
With the exception of this [Andalusian] experience that quickly lost steam and had no major reverberations within Arabic culture, Arabic cultural time, if we consider it as a holistic atmosphere, remained in the aftermath of the Age of Recording [from the 9th century to the 10th] digesting itself, agitated within the same ‘moment’ until it settled down into stagnation. (al-Jabri Citation1980, 334)
11 One of the key questions reiterated by al-Jabri in the concluding thoughts of Takwīn al-ʿaql al-ʿarabī reflects his concept of what constitutes the optimal global time. He exclaims,
Why is it that the epistemological tools (concepts, methods, and visions) of Arabic culture during the period of its zenith in the Medieval Age did not develop in such a way that would allow the culture to accomplish a progressive intellectual and scientific renaissance similar to what took place in Europe in the beginning of the fifteenth century? (al-Jabri Citation1984, 335)
12 See Ibrahim Abu Rabiʿs analysis of the decolonial dimensions of al-Jabri’s intellectual project (Abu Rabīʿ Citation2004, 256–57).
13 In his book Tajdīd al-manhaj fī tajdīd al-turāth (The Renewal of Method in the Renewal of Heritage), Abdurrahman asserts that, regarding
the model of Dr. Mohammed Abed al-Jabri, we demonstrated that it is afflicted with two major problems: first, the paradox of claiming a holistic thesis [regarding cultural heritage] which is predicated on the act of fragmentation (al-ʿamal bi-l-tajzīʾ). Second, the deficiency in taking into consideration the internal productivity of the epistemological tools employed to evaluate this heritage. (Abdurrahman Citation1994, 21)
14 For an analysis and critique of the dominant discourse of cultural failure in post-1967 Arab thought, see (Sing Citation2017).
15 For Abdurrahman, al-ʿamal al-tazkawī results from the awakening of al-ruḥ (the spirit) to the memory inherent in al-fiṭrah (human nature) of its divine origin. This results in liberation from al-nafs (the ego) and its desire for domination within both secular and religious agendas. Al-rūḥ then engages the social through al-ʿamal al-tazkawī (proactive ethical presence within the group). This ethical work produces new horizons for knowledge and expands the meanings of rationality, which has been centred on the individual rather than the group. See his discussion of al-ʿamal al-tazkawī in the fifth chapter of Rūḥ al-dīn (Abdurrahman Citation2012b, 289–96).
16 According to Abdurrahman, al-ʿamal al-tasayyudī (domineering practice) is performed by both secular and religious actors who attempt to dictate the social forms of religiosity in a top-down fashion. These actors see in the state a vehicle for controlling the religious life of society. In his analysis both secular and theocratic states exert different forms of violence derived from the governmentalization of religion and the imposition of modes of religiosity on their population (Abdurrahman Citation2012b, 239–51).
17 See for instance his debunking of the model of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the concept of theocracy (Abdurrahman Citation2012b, 430–45).
18 Ethical time, for Abdurrahman, still retains a teleological historical logic. By virtue of being derived from the youngest monotheistic religion, the Islamic ethical model represents for Abdurrahman the reinvigoration and further development of antecedent ethical models. See his discussion of Islamic ethics and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in which he favours the Islamic ethical experience (Abdurrahman Citation2012a, 139).
19 Abdurrahman writes,
The true reality of global culture must be that it possesses the widest view (in terms of its concept of ethical humanism) and not that it is the most hegemonic or most differentiated. The function of Islamic acculturation (al-tathqīf al-islāmī) is specifically to demonstrate that this wider view is the product of cultural complementariness in the sense that cultures contribute together to its construction. (Abdurrahman Citation2005, 94)
20 Ahmet Karamustafa links the rise of Sufism to the practice of zuhd (asceticism) in the first century of Abbasid rule. The prominent Sufis of Baghdad such as Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya (d. 801), al-Ḥārith al-Maḥāsibī (d. 857), and Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz (d. 899) became major symbols in its spread to the rest of Muslim territories (Karamustafa Citation2007, 56–83).
21 Abū Rayḥān al-Birūnī (d. 1048) noted, for instance, the relationship between the Sufi notions of al-fanāʾ (the annihilation of the self into the divine) and the Hindu doctrines on the life of the soul in the Bhagavad Gita (al-Birūnī Citation1958, 66).
22 Al-Jabri refers to the gnostic mode of thought as non-reason (al-lā ʿaql) or the defunct reason (al-ʿaql al-mustaqīl). He writes,
The ʿirfānī position has always been one of escape from the world of reality to the world of ‘defunct reason’ whenever the weight of reality oppresses the individual who fails to overcome his self-centeredness and make of his individual cause a collective one. (al-Jabri Citation1986, 259)
23 Abdurrahman writes, ‘It becomes clear then that grounded reason is abstracted reason when it is fused with sharʿī work. In this sense, it is not its independence (istiqlāluhu) which is compromised but its resignation (istiqālatuhu).’ (Abdurrahman Citation1997, 67).
24 For Abdurrahman, these defects include moral posturing (al-taẓāhur), over-imposition (al-takalluf), and the use of religious authority for personal gain (al-tazalluf). See his critique of grounded reason in al-ʿAmal al-dīnī wa tajdīd al-ʿaql (Abdurrahman Citation1997, 73–110).
25 He asserts, ‘If abstracted reason aims to know the attributes [of the divine reality] and grounded reason aims to know the [sanctioned social] acts, fortified reason aims to know the [realities of divine and human] selves’ (Abdurrahman Citation1997, 129).
26 He argues, ‘The irrationality of the muḥaqqiq is in actuality his refusal to acknowledge a reason divorced from practice, and practice which is divorced from [the spiritual] experience’ (Abdurrahman Citation1997, 167).
27 In Ḥiwārāt min ajl al-mustaqbil (Dialogues for the Sake of the Future), Abdurrahman asserts that the two poles of the Sufi experience are first
the exalted dimension (al-buʿd al-jalālī) which comprises the realities that are disclosed to one’s intellect which equip one with power in the form of knowledge, thought, logic, industry, and their like, and second, the aesthetic dimension, which represents the values that are disclosed to his talent which equip him with gentleness in literature, painting, theatre, music and their likes. The perfect man must combine both dimensions in his private and public life. (Abdurrahman Citation2011, 142–143)
28 The notion of al-waqt has been translated in a number of ways. Louis Massignon translates al-waqt as ‘the instant’ (Massignon Citation1958, 110–111). In his work on Ibn ʿArabī, Michael Sells translates al-waqt as ‘the eternal now’ (Sells Citation1994, 105). Gerhard Böwering also translates al-waqt in Ibn ʿArabī’s thought as ‘the moment’ and ‘the time of the present state’ (Böwering Citation2012, 114). In this article, I use ‘the moment of the now’ which emphasises both its momentariness and its present quality.
29 He defines al-waqt as, ‘that whereby a man becomes independent of the past and the future, as for example, when an influence from God descends into his soul and makes his heart collected (mujtamiʿ)’ (al-Hujwirī Citation1936, 367).
30 Quoting his sheikh al-Daqqāq, he asserts,
al-waqt is what you inhabit; if you are in this life then your waqt is this life itself, if you are in the afterlife your waqt is the afterlife. If you are in joy, then your waqt is joy. If you are in sadness then your waqt is sadness. (al-Qushayrī Citation2001, 90)
31 Regarding the station of ‘qad jāʾa waqtī,’ (‘my moment has come’), al-Niffarī writes,
And he told me my waqt has come and it is the moment in which I unveil my face and manifest my wonders. My light will shine on the courtyards and beyond. Eyes and hearts will behold my splendour, and you will see my enemy enamoured with me. (al-Nifarī Citation1934, 6)
32 See Michael Sells’ discussion of Ibn ʿArabī’s notion of waqt in his chapter entitled “Eternal Now: Moment, Breath, Dhikr,’ in (Sells Citation1994, 105–108).
33 Al-Qushayrī writes, ‘They say the Sufi is the son of his waqt. They mean by that that he is preoccupied by worship in his state, performing what is required of him in the now’ (al-¸Qushayrī Citation2001, 90).
34 In his commentary on Ibn ʿArabī’s al-Isfār ʿan Risālat al-Anwar, al-Jīlī writes,
If your Moment [waqt] is the wellspring of your state, you are the son of your Moment, and your Moment determines what you are, because it is existent and you are nonexistent, you are illusory and it is affirmed … And whoever mourns over the past and fills the present moment with the past, he is one of those made distant. For he lets slip by what the current state demands, engrossed in what will not return. This is the essence of nonexistence. (Ibn ʿArabī Citation1981, 99–100)
35 Al-Jabri writes,
It is clear from our former analysis that time for the Sufis, I mean in their experience of it, is broken time (zamānun munkasir). It is the time of absence and presence, the time of drunkenness and sobriety, the time of switching between different states and stations. (al-Jabri Citation1986, 355–56)
36 He asserts that the Sufi
does not acknowledge time as a frame for occurrences nor as an affective duration, a duration which is continuous and does not allow retreating nor jumping forward in time. Instead, for the Sufi time is like space: within it he can travel in any direction he wishes. (al-Jabri Citation1986, 352–53)