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Asceticism in Islam
Cross Currents, Wntr, 2008 by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf
Every religion crystallizes after the death of its founder into differentiated exoteric and esoteric institutional forms. We tend to call the exoteric "religious" or "outer" practice and the esoteric "spiritual" or "inner" practice, while both strands are organically linked to each other in the original form as practiced by the founder and his immediate disciples and followers, as organically linked as body is to soul for a human to be alive and called human. The exoteric crystallization within Islam became popularly known as the Sharia, Divine Law or Canon, and the esoteric crystallization as the Tariqa, the Way. The Tariqa's focus and praxis became known as tasawwuf, or Sufism in English.
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Religion's objective as a whole, both exoteric and esoteric practice taken together, is human perfection according to the religion's existential worldview of the nature and purpose of humankind. Religion's given is that we humans are imperfect: either inherently at birth--born with original sin in the Christian worldview, for example--or as in the Islamic worldview born perfect but derailed from the pure state of birth by the urgings of our appointed demons as we grow older.
Asceticism, or zuhd in Arabic, is not an end in itself in the Islamic worldview but is one of several tools and aids towards attaining or catalysts to kick--start religious/spiritual development. The term zuhd embraces a spectrum of meanings including abstinence, withdrawal, renunciation from pleasure and/or from society; frugality and modesty in material comforts, clothing, food, being spartan in one's life style, with a presumption of piety and being devoted to the service of God. Asceticism is therefore not a necessary end or required permanent practice to attach oneself to but rather a tool to be used for attainment of these ends. When, whether, how and for how long it should be dispensed by the spiritual teacher is a function of the individual character and personality, his or her phase of religious/spiritual development and the context.
For the purpose of this essay, we shall discuss Islamic ascetic practice by contextualizing it within a narrative of the Islamic perspective on human nature and the Divine call to humanity, a narrative which determines and also describes the ultimate purpose of ascetic practice.
The Islamic Worldview on the Nature of the Human Being (1)
We can look at the nature of the human being either from the humanly generated or from God the Creator's perspectives:
The human perspective provides as many definitions of man as there exist human sciences: biologically a creature evolved out of the sea, physiologically a warm-blooded mammal, most closely related to the apes but with a thinking and creative mind; sociologically a gregarious animal, needing to live in communities. Each definition within such a cluster of definition cannot provide an existential purpose outside its own terms. Thus biologically and physiologically a human being lacks any purpose other than to eat and drink, sleep and reproduce, as the rest of creatures are impelled to do. Those governed by this definition regard their physical life as all there is, with a value system completely dominated by it.
The other way of looking at the human is God the Creator's point of view, given to each faith by its sources such as Scripture which is the record of the Creator's speech. The Qur'an is, for Muslims, God's speech to humanity. It defines man as the earthly receptacle, container and repository of a breath of the Divine Spirit (ruh)--an earthly creature given an especially exalted trust and mandate (the amanah) by Divinity Itself. Those governed by this definition, or taken by it, find that it precipitates a significant shift that focuses the human individual on a clearly depicted purpose and intent.
Human exaltedness therefore lies in our spirituality, which is the root of human psychology, and less in our physiology. It is the former which makes us a vicegerent of God, a khalifah, ambassador of God or divinely appointed steward of the earth who is also a servant of God (an 'Abdullah) in accordance with the precedent of the Prophets and saints. As such an exalted form of creation, we are the most developed locus where Divinity manifests Its Attributes, including Its desire to be known, according to one of God's well-known speeches passed on by the Prophet (Hadith Qudsi): "I was a hidden treasure and desired to be known, so I created the Creation, and through Me they knew Me." In other words, God created the universe for the purpose of Divine Self-discovery. And since our being maps the cosmos in microcosm, the correspondences between us and God have a number of definite consequences.
First, we too are a hidden treasure desiring to be known, and our struggles in life take us on a life journey of self-discovery reflecting divine realities. We too seek to know our own meaning; and we are prompted to do this not only to fathom the meaning and purpose of our own existence, but primarily to reciprocally create God's existence within our consciousness, the domain that maximally lies within our power. Just as God created us in order for Him to be known, we too "create" the consciousness of God within us as part of our self-discovery, in order for us to be known. We do this in two dimensions: we seek to be known to the world, and we seek to be known to God: worldly and divine recognition. Of course, at the basic level both the world and God know us. But when we accomplish great things in the world, the world grants us special recognition: a knighthood or an Oscar, for instance. And when we accomplish great things in the spiritual dimension, God grants us special recognition in His domain. Self-discovery is therefore not only the path that leads to God-discovery; it is no less true that God-discovery leads to greater and truer self-discovery, a cyclical process in which as we get to better know ourselves, we get to know God better. This is succinctly expressed in a Tradition of the Prophet's cousin and third successor 'Ali that paraphrases the Oracular demand to "Know thyself": "He who knows himself, knows his Lord."
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