They lay stress on one’s inner life, contemplation of one’s actions, spiritual
development and cultivation of the soul. They acknowledge the fact that
God, both in His essence and His attributes, can be approached through
faith alone, and this is the way of the majority of the faithful. However,
they assume that there are also other ways of knowing Him and those are
not open to all. Thus, He may be known through intellectual endeavour,
which is the way of the philosophers, but this way certainly falls short of its
goal. And He may be known through a direct experience (which the Sufis
claim for themselves). The direct, mystical experience of God is the most
fulfilling way of knowing Him. However, not everyone may travel this
path. Only some are called to it and even fewer attain their goal.TheTruth
(
Al Haqq
3
) is veiled and can be accessed through His help alone. Though
Allah is
Al Zahir
(The Evident), He is also
Al Batin
(The Hidden), as well as
Al Fattah
(The Opener).
The Sufis trace the origin of
tasawwuf
to the sayings and practice of the
Prophet. Even before receiving the revelation, the Prophet used to spend
days and nights in solitary meditation in the cave of Hira near Makkah. It
was on one such occasion that he saw an apparition in the form of an angel
who asked him to recite a verse. The Prophet said he could not read, that
he was illiterate (
ummi
) but after the insistence of the angel he recited
after him a sentence, which was the first revelation of the Qur’an (96: 1-
5)
4
. It is for this reason that the Sufis attach such great importance to
meditation and
dhikr
5
.
Dhikr
and meditation were the forms of the Prophet’s
prayers before his prophethood.
3
For the names of God in Islam, see
The Most Beautiful Names of Allah
by Samira Fayyad Khawaldeh,
Goodword Books, New Delhi, 2001.
4
For the life of the Prophet Muhammad, see
The Life and Teaching of the Prophet Muhammad
by the
author, Goodword Books, New Delhi, 2004.
5
Dhikr
- means literally “remembrance, recollection” and in the Islamic context denotes the act of
repeating God’s names.
Th e Su f i C on c e p t o f Me d i t a t i on 198
