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The chief aim of all Sufis is to seek the pleasing of God by working to restore within themselves the primordial state of fitra, described in the Quran and Hadith. According to the Sufi ideology, the human nature consists of two antithetical powers i. e., body ( matter) and spirit. The body was created from the clay and water and the soul was breathed into it which dwelt in the spiritual world. The spirit desperately longs for its real home and it desires for the companionship of its beloved creator. Maulana Rumi, who was called by Professor A J Arberry, surely the greatest mystical poet in the history of mankind, compares this longing with the reed- flute which laments for its banishment from its home, in the opening lines of his masterpiece, The Masnavi , he says, Hearken to the reed- flute, how it complains, Lamenting its banishment from its home: Ever since they tore me from my osier bed My plaintive notes have moved men and women to tears I burst my breast, striving to give vent to sighs, And to express the pangs of my yearnings for my home The leading mystic poetess of Kashmir, Lalla Ded renders this longing for the Eternal Beloved like this, With a rope of un- spun thread am I towing my boat upon the sea. O would God make me reach the shore: As water leaks out from the unbaked earthen vial, My soul yearns to reach its home. While referring to the creation of Man, The Holy Quran says, Then ( Allah) formed him and breathed spirit into him and gave you hearing, sight and hearts, what little thanks you show ( 32: 9). It suggests that human spirit has a close relation with its creator and it is for a short duration that it has been shifted into the human body. According to the Sufis there are two natural pulls persistent in every human being, the material pull and the spiritual pull, the former pulls it towards the matter and the later pulls it towards the spiritual companionship ( wasl) of the Eternal Beloved. Thus, a person feeding his material self and starving his spirit can not attain the higher perception and satisfaction in his life. This concept is mentioned in the Upanishad like this Man in his ignorance identifies himself with the material sheets which encompass his real self. What an individual has to do is that he has to discover his spiritual ego in the rubble of these material sheets. This ambition of unveiling the transcendental and metaphysical mysteries of life motivates the Sufis to strive desperately for the achievement of the spiritual ideal. Rumi says, You belong to the world of dimensions but you came from the nondimensional world, close the first shop and open the second one. According to Imam Al Ghazali, a Sufi at first has to bring about an ethical revolution within his own self and then he can bring about an effective revolution in the society. All this is undertaken by the single motivation of love of God. Sufism is the way of purifying the lower self of its reprehensible traits, while adorning it instead with what is praiseworthy, whether or not this process of cleansing and purifying the heart is in time rewarded by esoteric knowledge of God. This can be conceived in terms of two basic types of law ( fiqah), an outer law concerned with actions, and an inner law concerned with the human heart. The outer law consists of rules pertaining to worship, transactions, marriage, judicial rulings, and criminal law what is often referred to, a bit too broadly, as shariah. The inner law of Sufism consists of rules about repentance from sin, the purging of contemptible qualities and evil traits of character, and adornment with virtues and good character. According to Allama Iqbal, religious life may be divided into three periods. These may be described as the periods of faith, thought, and discovery. In the first period religious life appears as a form of discipline which the individual or a whole people must accept as an unconditional command without any rational understanding of the ultimate meaning and purpose of that command. ( The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam page no181) a Muslim Sufi passes through all the three stages; he gains the spiritual and metaphysical knowledge by individual perception, not by releasing himself from the fetters of the law, but by discovering the ultimate source of the law within the depths of his own conscience. Thus, the terms like prophethood, revelation, the angels etc. which previously were understood and imagined in terms of conformation or abstraction, as if
reveal their true meaning to the seeker. Similarly, the concept of omnipresence of God is one of the fundamental beliefs of Islam, as the common Muslims accept it by conformation that is why it hardly affects their thinking and practices whereas a Sufi experiences it in the depths of his soul. According to Allama Iqbal, Sufism is essentially a system of verification- a spiritual method by which the ego realizes as fact what intellect has understood as theory. ( Mir Imtiyaz Afreen works in GHS Surasyar. Feedback at imtiyazaafreen@ gmail. com)