Fiqh, Sufism, and Religious Intellectualism

If one can find a documented lineage for religious intellectualism in the history of Muslims, in my opinion it is mysticism and Sufism. Shariati says the Masnavi saved me from suicide three times. Soroush would not have become so renowned without Rumi. If Attar, Sanai, Rumi, and Muhyiddin were taken away from religious intellectuals, it would be as if a helpless youth were abandoned in a desolate stony place. The devotion of religious intellectualism to mysticism and Sufism is no less than its debt to modern philosophies; but if philosophy and theology are the body of religious intellectualism, Sufism and mysticism are its soul; both when it is in a position of critique and pathology, and when it is in a position of affirmation and creativity. Religious intellectuals, when they wish to speak about the truth of faith and religion's relationship with it, say nothing more than Rumi's Masnavi, Attar's Conference of the Birds, and Sanai's Hadiqa; even if they have not read these books or do not have a mystical disposition.

Sufism is a general tendency in all religions that strives to internalize religious teachings and beliefs and stands against sufficiency with outward appearances. It is for this reason that the apparatus of jurisprudence, more than any other knowledge or tendency, needs Sufism or something similar to spiritualize and animate its pretentious formalism; but the jurists considered this friend an enemy, and used certain excesses and improprieties among some old and new Sufis as a pretext to attack them. Jurisprudence sees Sufism and philosophy as rivals; but in reality, the Sharia, without systems that expand spirituality, becomes an empty mold. Sufism is not the cloak and the lodge; just as jurisprudence is not the turban and the sandals. One is the custodian of the form, and the other is committed to its spirituality. The war between form and inner meaning is a war in which the victory of either is the defeat of both.

The empathy of religious intellectuals with Sufism in defining religion and the nature of faith has made jurists unkind to them as well; because in this definition, form and appearance must align themselves with inner meaning and content; not the other way around, as has been the case until now. Religion, according to the narrative of Sufism and religious intellectuals, is faith-centered, and according to the reading of jurisprudence, it is Sharia-oriented. Thus, any inner-meaning orientation, whether it has an intellectualist taste or a mystical disposition, offends jurisprudential formalism. The anti-Sufism conferences in Qom in recent years, more than targeting a few dervishes and a number of closed lodges, are a proxy war against the forebears of religious intellectualism. Unaware that eliminating mysticism or religious intellectualism does not make room wider for the Sharia; rather, it allows the emergence of a type of inner-meaning orientation that no longer has any relation to any domestic institution (seminary or non-seminary). The Meraj al-Sa'ada does not fill the empty space of the Masnavi; it gives the turn to Far Eastern mysticisms or even the merchants of spirituality.

The closer and more extensive connection of jurists with ordinary people and all social classes, which has more sociological causes than religious origins, has granted them long-term authority and bestowed upon them the position of approbative supervision over other religious sciences and tendencies. If this authority, which is a historical inheritance, is spent solely on eliminating and rejecting others, rather than managing assets, it will add to the country's countless conflicts; a country that, more than ever, needs convergence and empathy.

For years you were a heart-rending stone, For the test, be soil for a time.

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Fiqh, Sufism, and Religious Intellectualism

Author: Reza Babaei | 1397/7/12

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