Practicing Sufism

Sufi Politics and Performance in Africa

Abdelmajid Hannoum, Abdelmajid Hannoum

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317233480
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Islamic Theology

Islam in Africa is deeply connected with Sufism, and the history of Islam is in a significant way a history of Sufism. Yet even within this continent, the practice and role of Sufism varies across the regions.

This interdisciplinary volume brings together histories and experiences of Sufism in various parts of Africa, offering case studies on several countries that include Morocco, Algeria, Senegal, Egypt, Sudan, Mali, and Nigeria. It uses a variety of methodologies ranging from the hermeneutical, through historiographic to ethnographic, in a comprehensive examination of the politics and performance of Sufism in Africa. While the politics of Sufism pertains largely to historical and textual analysis to highlight paradigms of sanctity in different geographical areas in Africa, the aspect of performance adopts a decidedly ethnographic approach, combining history, history of art and discourse analysis. Together, analysis of these two aspects reveals the many faces of Sufism that have remained hitherto hidden.

Furthering understanding of the African Islamic religious scene, as well as contributing to the study of Sufism worldwide, this volume is of key interest to students and scholars of Middle Eastern, African and Islamic studies.

1
Semiotics of Sufism; or how to become a saint

Abdelmajid Hannoum

The hagiographic text and its author

An important challenge for the sociology of religion interested in the phenomenon of sainthood in Islam is the fact that sainthood is provided by hagiography, that is, by texts that take as self-evident the phenomenon of saints itself, despite their unmistakably fantastic dimension. Therefore, one of the ways to live up to this challenge is to interrogate the very narratives that construct sainthood as such, and examine these texts as an expression of cultural paradigms by which sainthood is imagined and constructed.

This is the aim of this chapter. My approach is, first, textual, a semiotic one that looks at how meaning is constructed not only through the use of specific language and categories, but through the very composition and organization of narrative sequences as well. I intend to read and analyze a hagiographic text to be able to show how in Muslim belief of a specific time—the eighteenth century—and of a specific place—Northern Africa—sainthood is recognized, believed, acted on, and reacted to. The approach may remind the reader of Clifford Geertz’s analysis of Moroccan Islam using the oral stories about a saint of the seventeenth century.¹ However, unlike Geertz, I propose an analysis of a written text and I also do not make any claims about Moroccan Islam as such, but rather, seek only to understand a specific Moroccan Islam that might have been well spread at one point, but is not typical to the country. I take it to be only a development among developments, inscribed in a long history of change and continuity.

The text at hand, though written in the eighteenth century, portrays a saint of the twelfth century, Abû Madyan. This is important not only because the eleventh century is considered the century of the emergence of Sufism against philosophy, but also because Abû Madyan is considered a patron saint in the region, arguably the most influential of the formative period of North African Sufism.² Even today, Abû Madyan remains undoubtedly a hugely important saint of the Maghreb, evidenced by his mausoleum in the Algerian city of Tlemcen which is an important site of pilgrimage in the region. In the history of sanctity, Abû Madyan has an exceptional place. Suffice to mention that Ibn ‘Arabî considers him his master and equal him with Moses in the cycle of Prophethood.³

I intend to interrogate the biography of Abû Madyan in order to offer an understanding of how one becomes a Sufi saint; how one is transformed from an ordinary person, with no religious or spiritual status, to a man endowed with exceptional power emanating from a uniquely constructed spiritual capital. It is also the construction of this religious capital that I will attempt to uncover in the text. Since sainthood is expressed through texts we label as hagiographic, let us first ask: How is such a hagiographic text different from the historiographic text and how can hagiography be used as a source for historical knowledge?

It should be noted that hagiography has been considered an insufficient source of material for historical writing by traditional historians. The hagiographic text is synonymous not with legends, which are known to be fabricated, but rather, with popular oral history that, though it narrates stories of real people and their deeds, endows them with surrealistic facts that only the naïve, the illiterate, and above all, the believer would take to be true, so it is assumed. But the historian, on the other hand, relies on factually verifiable and reliable documents such as archives. His facts, so it is assumed, are verifiable and surely likely to have happened.

However, the hagiographic text, like the historiographic one, is constructed in such a way as to contain a description of acts and actions, events so to speak, carried out by characters and individuals. Whether these events have actually happened or not is irrelevant. Historians also write about events that have not happened, or that happened differently, but also because any event is a narrative, the very existence of which depends on an observer, and therefore on the perceiver’s own mode of cultural understanding.⁴ Some of the founding events of human history are the result of one person whose perception, interpreted as miraculous or outstanding by believers, may well be seriously questioned from within a secular perspective.

The hagiographic text can or, rather, should be treated as a historical text in its own right because it is expressive of an imaginary—a way of understanding, of believing, and of living that is specific to a people in a given time and place.

The text I propose to analyze is part of a biographical book titled al-Bustân fî awliyâ’ wa ‘ulamâ’ tilimsân (The Garden of the Saints and the Ulema of Tlemcen) written by Muhammad Ibn Maryam.⁵ The author begins the book with a statement about himself:

In the name of God, the Clement, the Merciful! The humble servant of God—Glory to Him—Muhammad Ben Muhammad Ben Ahmad, nicknamed Ibn Maryam, the Sharif, al Militî al-Midyînî, al-Tilimsânî.

(al-Bustân, 1)

There is little information about the author, Ibn Maryam, except what he, himself, provides in the introduction: he is a sharif from Tlemcen who is a descendant of the Prophet Mohamed, most likely through a woman by the name of Maryam whose name is mentioned in the lineage. He is the grandson of a man by the name of Ahmed, about whom there is no information, and he is the son of Mohamed, a teacher, whose profession the author inherits in the town of Tlemcen. As for the geographical reference, he is a Militî and Midyînî, a region between Mostaganem and Oran, west of Algeria.

At the end of his career as an instructor, Ibn Maryam composed al-Bustân, and he died around 1802. The book is a biographic dictionary, with entries about saints and ‘ulama’ of the city of Tlemcen. The biographies themselves are a compilation of citations from various existing works. Most of the biographies, some short, others long, are taken from different books. Eighty-five entries of the entire book are taken verbatim from the well known savant of Timbuktu, Ahmed Baba Timbuktu, Nayl al-ibtihâj fî târîkh al-Dîbâj.⁶ This habit of constant borrowing, also noticed in Muslim historiography, clearly shows that the genre assumes the validity of facts and does not abhor direct borrowing, harshly denounced in creative writings—especially poetry—as plagiarism (al-sariqât). The reason may be that in Muslim hagiography as well as in historiography, what is narrated, even verbatim, is considered common knowledge of events that have indeed happened and thus are the property of no one.

Recognition

From the outset of the text, Abû Madyan, whose full name is Shu‘ayb al Hasan, al Andalusî, appears not only as a sheik and as a saint, but as a sheik of sheiks and master of saints:

He was the sheik of sheiks, the master of saints, the model of the Sufis, the well known imâm.

(al-Bustân, 107)

The recognition thus announced is immediately confirmed by the citing, that is the witnessing, of important authors of Sufis and Saints such as Ibn Sa‘d who testifies that “Abû Madyan, may God bless his soul, was an incomparable man among incomparable men, one of the greatest saints” (al-Bustân, 107).

The saint also appears as a master and a teacher of other Sufis and saints. The biographer al-Tâdilî, along with “others,” are reported in this biography to have said that more than 1,000 saints and Sufis were schooled by Abû Madayn.⁷ Abû Sabbâr, identified as the greatest shaykh of his time, is reported to have said that Abû Madyan was “zâhid, fâdil, ‘ârif bi Allah,” etc. But first, we must ask: What is the temporality of this recognition?

The biography is specific about the time of this recognition. Abû Madyan became a Sufi saint when he was recognized by his teacher, a Berber saint by the name of Abû Ya‘zâ.⁸ This recognition is situated within a specific time around the end of the Almoravid dynasty, from the mid twelfth century to the time of the composition of the book by Ibn Maryam, that is, around 1802. As for space, it is clearly situated from the West, from Fez, to the East, Mecca. Therefore, it is an Arab, Islamic area. Let us first analyze the semantics of this recognition. Such an analysis is nothing but an exploration of the vocabulary of sainthood itself. This analysis, ordered according to the Arabic alphabet, will attempt to answer the two main questions: What does it mean to be recognized as a Sufi Saint? What is the language specific to Sufism?

‘Ārif bi Allah (knower of God)

Abû Madyan is mentioned first as ‘ârif bi Allah. The noun ‘ârif designates the agent of ma‘arifa. Ma‘arifa, in Sufi understanding, means not just any knowledge, but knowledge specific to Sufi practices, which makes the experience of Sufism distinct from any other religious experience. To begin with, in Sufism there is a clear distinction between ma‘arifa (knowledge) and ‘ilm (science). However, the two terms are opposed. ‘Ilm refers to all knowledge that pertains to the understanding of the Qur’an and the Hadith (anything that the Prophet said or did or supposedly said or did). ‘Ilm consists of all the auxiliary branches of knowledge (such as grammar, logic, law, even history) that allows a good understanding of the Qur’an and the Hadith. Ma‘arifa, on the other hand, refers to divine knowledge, or direct knowledge of God. This type of knowledge cannot be acquired through ‘ilm but, rather, by the practice of a specific tariqa: by engaging in an enterprise, pursuing a bodily and spiritual discipline, reaching and traversing stages until one reaches a divine knowledge within the inner self (wijdân).⁹ In the text at hand, Abû Madyan is not only recognized as ‘ârif bi Allah, but rather sayyid al-‘ârifîn, a master of those who attain ma‘arifa. One can see that there are degrees of divine knowledge. Abû Madyan possesses the highest degree among the ‘arifîn bi Allah.

Fâdil (virtuous)

From the noun fadîla (virtue). However, fadîla has a specific meaning in the language of Sufism: it is the ability to distance oneself from anything that may obstruct the search for divine knowledge, namely earthly temptations.

Zâhid (ascetic)

From zuhd (asceticism). Asceticism is the ability to refrain not only from the temptations of the earthly world, but also the ability to engage in practices that help one to unite with God. Zuhd is closer in meaning to fadîla, but is not the same, as zuhd clearly requires a greater inner struggle.¹⁰

Hâdi ilâ al-haqq (guide to truth)

Hâdi is a guide. In this context the hâdi is one that teaches and indicates to others the path to God. This quality presupposes that one knows this path, that is, that he is already a ‘ârif bi Allah. In this text, the conception of haqq attributed to Abû Madyan indicate not that he is the haqq, he is one with it, as in the case of Hallâj,¹¹ but rather that he is knowing of the haqq and, in addition, he is one that teaches and guides to it, so others would know it as well.

Dâ‘î (missionary)

Whereas hâdi is someone ...