manuals started with an attempt at defining the terms Sufi and
tasawwuf
,
then moving on to the Sufi understanding of the Islamic tenets. After that
they dealt in great detail with the relationship between
pir
and
murid
, specific
Sufi concepts: state, stage, annihilation (
fana
‘); and Sufi practices:
dhikr
,
meditation,
sama’
, etc. All these were well illustrated with examples taken
from the lives of the great Sufis.
The earliest surviving manual is a work by
Abu Nasr al Sarraj
of Tus
(d. 988), which is called
Kitab al Luma’
(‘The Book of Brilliances’)
12
.Written
in 10
th
century Persia during the period when Sufism was being consolidated
as a coherent body of spiritual teachings, this book gives a comprehensive
picture of how the mystical path was in harmony with all aspects of Islamic
religious law and doctrine.When speaking of understanding things the Sufi
way, Sarraj insists upon a multi-leveled interpretation of divine revelation.
This was in clear agreement with the Sufi belief that different people
perceived the same things differently, and this perception corresponded to
the different levels of understanding of the listeners.This notion of degrees
of knowledge and nearness to God is one of the fundamental characteristics
of the mystical teachings of Sufism. Thus the knowledge given by God to
prophets and saints is indeed exceptional.
13
Qut al Qulub
‘
The Nourishment of Hearts
), written by
AbuTalib al Makki
(d. 996), was an authoritative description of Sufism which attempted to
reconcile it with orthodox Islam. It became one of the books most widely
read by Sufis of all generations. In
Munqidh al Dalal,
Al Ghazali expressly
mentions that he had studied this book.That it was a book used by the Sufis
12
al Sarraj, Kitab al Luma’ fi’l tasawwuf, ed. R.A.Nicholson, London, 1914 and 1963; for Urdu
translation, see Sayyid Asrar Bukhari Kitab al Luma’, Lahore, 1984
13
some Sufi practices discussed by Sarraj are presented in the later chapter:‘Sufi Concept of Meditation’
