Shaykh Ahmed abdur Rashid November 1, 2012 www.circlegroup.org Thursday Suhbat Aspects of Spiritual Semiotics and the Malamatiyya Every Moment/Waqt has an Appropriate Response Bismi-Llāhi-r-Rahmāni-r-Rahīm. Words are extremely important. Words create concepts, obviously; and concepts drive what we think we understand. Usually, what we understand is what we want to understand, because it’s the tree we have decided to stand under. We usually understand things best what we prefer. I think in honor of our Persian heritage, I will speak a little more from the Persian Sufi point of view tonight. Certain words convey certain meanings. We assume special meanings, which is why linguistics, semiotics, are very important, not just to a scholar, but to one who would understand Tasawwuf, too. To come to the core and meaning of words, as those words are used in an authoritative way, gives us some security in the meaning. If somebody says to you, “Such and such a word means something,” that’s one thing. But if it is said in the Qur’an, either directly or by usage, you should pay a little more attention to it, especially if the words are used in multiple ways. You should try to understand the reason why it is used in one way in one circumstance, and in another way in another circumstance – hence, the complexity of Arabic, Farsi, Aramaic, Hebrew, and other sacred languages that tend to be used in places of worship or in complex metaphorical ways. When we speak of some of these meanings, some could not really be understood because they had a sacredness to them. That sacredness could only be understood if the individuals themselves pursued certain practices that would reveal the meaning, often after the fact. That is to say, one didn’t study in order to get the meaning of something. One studied, and then the meaning was revealed. The terminology became clear; hence, it was with certain words that were only clear by analogy or reference, like the word Sufi. Does it come from suf / wool, or saf/pure? But if you study Tasawwuf, you begin to understand what it means trans-linguistically, in a way. 1 Shaykh Ahmed abdur Rashid November 1, 2012 www.circlegroup.org Thursday Suhbat Another word is irfan, not an easy word to translate. In a way, irfan, as explained by the urufa, is that only those who are initiated into tariqah would understand their ideas. At least in their view, only the urufa were able to understand the concepts because of their study. We would all be surprised at how much we know because of our study, and your experiences on this path for 10, 15, 20, or 40 years. Yet someone just coming onto the path might understand definitions. If you turn your attention to what you really understand, vis a vis how you respond to circumstances (which is why I asked you to do the exercise about watching what you do out of preferences and conditioning), even the ability to reflect upon that demands a certain understanding of terminology. I don’t really mean this terminology; I mean an understanding of what these terms point to. The urufa, unlike the knowledgeable people of other sciences, arts, social sciences and humanities, have an intention to keep certain levels of the meaning concealed. Not because it’s some secret society or cult, but because a person of real interest will make the effort to learn. The concept or principle of giving away everything, we know has a problem to it. What you give away loses value. Also, the urufa find means to keep meanings concealed by creating various usages for the terminology. Just as in the Qur’an, there are many levels of usages for terminology. The idea is you have a kind of enigma, and you have to solve the problem if you are interested. If you really want to understand, you have to go beyond what is written in the book or defined for you in the common patois / language. There is also another aspect to spiritual linguistics or semiotics. It is found in the practices of the people of irfan. Some of those people we know are called the Malamatiya. If you are interested in that, read Yannis Tsoulis’s book that came out last year. The Malamatiya adopted certain kinds of ostentation or outward actions that would put people off; or say things that would make people doubt them, or accuse them. Instead of trying to gain a good reputation or name among people, they would try to do the 2 Shaykh Ahmed abdur Rashid November 1, 2012 www.circlegroup.org Thursday Suhbat opposite. People who are usually ostentatious do that to try to get attention and a better name, but the Malamati Sufis were trying just the opposite. They would do things to put people off, so that people would not inquire as to who they were and what they knew. There was another aspect to that, which was that by doing that, they had a very short path to the nafs lawwama. They were constantly in a state of self-reproach . In order to be considered acceptable before Allah (swt) and to be unacceptable in the eyes of people was quite a philosophy, quite a mentality. But the inner purpose of that was to cure themselves of ri’ya/ ostentation and to cure themselves of their nafs ammāra. Well, it is not easy to practice that, I guess, unless you are a politician. The majority of the urufa at the time of classical Sufism in Korasan, for example, were malamiya or malamatiya. You can imagine what it was like at that time. Some people even believed that Hafez was Malamatiya, because he used certain words and certain analogies, and he spoke a lot on the subject of giving the impression of doing things that earned people a bad name while being inwardly good and inwardly righteous. Here is an example: He said, If you are an adherent of the path of love, worry not about bad name. The Shaykh of Shinan had his robe in pawn at a gambling house. Even if I mind the reproaches of claimants, my drunken libertinism would leave me not. The asceticism of raw liberties is like a village path. But what good would the thought of reform do to one of world wide ill-fame like me? Through love of wine, I brought myself image to naught, in order to destroy the imprint of self-devotion (the ego). How happily passes the time of a medicant, who in his spiritual journey keeps reciting the name of his Lord, while playing with the beads of his pagan rosary. However, Hafez (I am reading from the commentary now) condemns the ostentatious cultivation of ill-fame and sanctimonious in the following: “My heart, let me guide you to 3 Shaykh Ahmed abdur Rashid November 1, 2012 www.circlegroup.org Thursday Suhbat the path of salvation. Neither boast… nor publicize your piety.” Rumi defends the Malamatiya in this way, “Behold, do not despise those of bad name. Attention must be given to their secrets. How often gold had been painted black for fear of being stolen or lost.” In any case, what was common among the urufa allowed them to wrap their concepts and ideas to convey the opposite of what they meant. Now instead of giving you a lesson about these people, I think it is more important for us to try to relate what it means to irfan, what it means to the sayr suluk. What it ultimately means is that in order to receive the highest fayd, the fayd al-aqdas, the effluent grace, the overflowing grace of Allah (swt) or the fayd al-muqdas, the holy, sanctified grace of Allah (swt) in the moment is to be prepared. To be prepared means not to be distracted; and not to be distracted means to be focused; and to be focused on, always on, that which is not worldly. How do you do that? How do you do that? How do you achieve the rank of the urufa, if you are not Malamati, if you are not running through the streets half naked, or saying terrible things to people, or making a fool of yourself? By the way, the Hindus have a similar group of people, and then you have the masts. They would do things that would be obnoxious in order that they wouldn’t be distracted from their rosary, their japa, their name of God. How do you do that if you are one of us? How do you do that if you are one of the people working in the world, who have this discrimination? I don’t know. Good night. (laughter). That is the real challenge. So the message behind this message, which Hafez was giving, or Rumi, is not just pointing out these people, saying, “Oh look. There they are. They are Malamatiya.” It is not just entering Khorasan 400, 500 years ago and saying, “Wow. Look at these people. What a degenerate place this is.” But they were all gold painted black. Practical irfan is grasped through the sayr suluk. What I called applied Sufism, we could call practical irfan. Even these terms are very important. 4 Shaykh Ahmed abdur Rashid November 1, 2012 www.circlegroup.org Thursday Suhbat I have spoken for many years on sayr and suluk, and this terminology. How do they relate to the human reality? How does it relate to the psychology, and the ethic and the principal life of a person who seeks knowledge and strives to remember Allah? One has to move away from the theoretical side of Islam and Sufism to the practical side.