Sufism & Pseudo-Sufism

L. P. Elwell-Sutton

Sufism & Pseudo-Sufism

"rriHERE ARE TO BE FOUND in our days_|_ many who parade themselves as Sufis, and

set themselves the task of answering all sorts ofquestions and enquiries regarding Sufism. Everyone of these impostors claims to have written abook or two on Sufism which in reality he hasfilled with nothing but rubbish and nonsense inanswer to equally meaningless and silly queries.Such impostors do not realise that it is not merelyundesirable but a positive evil to do all th is . . . . "

These words were written, not in 1975 by atroubled observer of the neo-mystical scene, butby the 10th-century Arab Sufi al-Sarraj. Even inthe days of its youth, Sufism was already attract-ing to itself a lunatic fringe of charlatans andimpostors, just as it continues to do in its declin-ing old age. Is there something in the teachingitself that lays it open to this sort of corruption?Or is it that at certain periods the social andpolitical environment makes people more readyto embrace esoteric teachings regardless ofwhether they can understand them or not?

The medieval Islamic world would seem to beutterly remote from the mid-20th-century West.Still, it could be argued that in both men werebeing driven to turn their backs on the materialworld through a sense of impotence and frustra-tion in the face of forces and movements thatcontrolled and determined human activities, yetseemed themselves beyond human control. In themedieval Middle East there was the constantsuccessions of invasions and conquests, theabrupt rise and fall of dynasties, arbitrary andcapricious rule, and the general insecurity of lifeand property. Today we are faced with growingconcentration of power, the breakdown ofparliamentary democracy, arbitrary governmentby bureaucracy, the exclusion of individuals fromthe decision-making process. Everywhere, thenas now, there was reluctance to plan ahead, un-

willingness to sacrifice the present for the future,preference for immediate over long-term gain.

It was, therefore, natural in medieval Islamthat men should turn to the search for thepermanent and unchanging veritiesand let it besaid immediately that that is what Sufism was(and is) about. Sufism is a deeply-rooted productof Islam, the last of the great monotheistic faiths,whose insistence on the uniqueness and absolutepower of God provided a natural starting-pointfor those who believed that the only right coursefor the human soul was to seek its way back tothe Divine Source from which it had sprung:"Verily we are from God, and to Him we return"{Qur'an XX 156). The Sufi believes that thematerial world is an insubstantial veil concealingthe real world of God and His angels, a worldthat is hidden from most men but that can beseen and experienced by one who genuinelyseeks to enter it and prepares and trains himselfin the right way.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SUFI thinking and practicefrom the first seeds sown by the Qur'an was along and often painful process. The earliest Sufisof the 7th and 8th centuries were ascetics pureand simple, clothed in garments of coarse wool(suf), withdrawn from the world and living aloneor in small communities. The urge towards self-purification began as a reaction against material-ism in high places and the social disorder of theday. It was characterised by a strong conscious-ness of sin and dread of Divine retribution.

He who is content [said Hasan al-Basri (643-728)]needing nothing, and who has sought solitude,apart from mankind, will find peace; he who hastrodden his carnal desires underfoot, will findfreedom; he who has rid himself of envy willfind friendship, and he who has patience for alittle while will find himself prepared for eternity.

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10 L. P. Elwell-SuttonThe idea that it was possible to know Goddirectly was alien to orthodox Islam, which heldthat communion was only possible between likeand like. Nevertheless, the constant practice ofabstinence and contemplation of the nature ofGod brought to these Sufis the personal experi-ence of penetrating the veil of matter andglimpsing the world beyond.

Soon what was originally a by-product of theascetic life became the central feature of the Sufiway. Already by the 9th century A.D. the directionof Sufism was chang-ing, laying em-phasis on the omni-presence rather thanthe remoteness ofGod, the possibilityof man attainingknowledge of theReal, and the over-whelming love ofGod for man thatmust be reciproca-ted to the pointwhere it excludesevery other objectof affection, includ-ing one's self. Doc-trinal support forthese beliefs wasfound in the Qur'an,notably in the verse(VII171) describingGod's pre-creationcovenant with man,whereby man recog-nised God as hisLord and boundhimself ultimatelyto return to Him.Another much-quo-ted tradition attri-buted these words to God:

IDRIES

I was a hidden treasure, and I wanted to be known;therefore I created man that I might be known.

DURING THE 1 0 T H and 11th centuriesSufism began to receive support from someof those whose pursuit of rationalist and scientificenquiry (discouraged in any case by both theo-cratic and secular authority) had led them toawareness of the vast unexplored areas of know-ledge beyond the reach of the human mind.

While many (like Omar Khayyam) took refugein pessimistic agnosticism, others found securityin Sufism's rejection of knowledge achieved bymere reason. As Dhu'1-Nun al-Misri (796-861)wrote:

The gnostics see without knowledge, without sight,without information received, and without observa-tion, without description, without veiling, and with-out veil. They are not themselves, but in so far asthey exist at all, they exist in God.

But Sufism itself attracted, and was fashioned bymore than one type of outlook. In the western

regions of Islam theprocess of self-puri-fication continuedto be linked withpiety, sobriety, andstrict observance ofthe Islamic law. Inthe east (perhapsunder the influenceof Hindu and Budd-hist thought) moreextreme views pre-vailed, calling fortotal rejection ofthe transient world,including even itslaws and moralcodes. Man, beingnothing in compari-son with God, canonly return to Himthrough completeseverance fromearthly things, andeven (like the Mala-matiya, the "blame-worthy" ones) de-liberately seeking togain public condem-nation.

Orthodox hostilitytowards these groups stemmed as muchfrom^heirrefusal to conform as from their apparently blas-phemous claims of near-identity with God. AbuYazid Bistami (d. 874) was the first of these"intoxicated" Sufis:

Then I began to melt away, as lead melts in theheat of the fire. Then he gave me to drink from thefountain of Grace in the cup of fellowship andchanged me into a state beyond description andbrought me near unto Him. . . . I continued thusuntil I became even as the souls of men had been,in that state before existence was and God abodein solitude apart.


Sufism and Pseudo-Sufism 11Husain b. Mansur al-Hallaj was martyred in 922for his ecstatic utterance:

If ye do not recognise God, at least recognise hissigns. I am that sign, I am the Truth, becausethrough that Truth I am a truth eternally.Somewhat later in time, but still heirs to this

phase of Sufi development, were the greatmystical poets of Iran. The permeation of so muchof Persian literature by the catch-phrases ofSufism, and conversely the use by Sufis of thestock imagery of love- and wine-poetry, has ledsome students of the subject to state categoricallythat all Persian poets were Sufis. Thus IdriesShah in The Way of the Sufi (p. 32): "Almost allthe literature of Persia in the classical period isSufic." This was very far from being the case.The authentic Sufi poetry has to be recognised,not by its language or symbolism, but by itsfundamental characteristics of self-denial, rejec-tion of the world and its temptations, abandon-ment of self-love for love of God, yearning forunion with and annihilation in God.BabaTaher(d. 1010):

Homeless as I am, to whom shall I apply?A houseless wanderer, whither shall I go?Turned from all doors, I come at last to Thee,If Thy door is denied, where shall I turn?

(translated by Edward Heron-Allen)Abu'l-Majdud Sana'i (d. 1141):

Love knows that renunciation is the key of thegate: in the crucible of renunciation the lover isprepared to consume all that keeps him from theBeloved. . . . When He admits you to His court,ask from Him nothing but Himself. When yourLord has chosen you as His lover, your eye hasseen all things: the world of Love allows of nodualitywhat talk is this of 'me' and 'you' ' Whenyou come forth from life and your dwelling-place,then through God you will see God.

{translated by Margaret Smithy

Jalaloddin Rumi (1207-1273):Up, O ye lovers, and away! 'Tis time to leave the

world for aye.Hark, loud and clear from Heaven the drum of

parting callslet none delay!. . .

From this orb, wheeling round its pole, a wondrousslumber o'er thee stole:

O weary life that weighest naught, O sleep that onmy soul dost weigh!

O heart, towards thy heart's love wend, and Ofriend, fly towards the Friend,

Be wakeful, watchman, to the end; drowseseemingly no watchman may.

(translated by R. A. Nicholson)Shamsoddin Mohammad Hafez (d. 1389):

For years our heart has been seeking Jamshid'sglass of us,

Begging from strangers what it already owned;Seeking from lost men on the sea-shoreThe pearl that is outside the confines of place and

being... .

This forlorn manGod is with him at every turn,but he has not seen Him and, as from afar, cries:My God, my God!

That dear Comrade, said he, on whose account eventhe gibbet raised its head,

His crime consisted in manifesting secret things.If the grace of the Holy Spirit vouchsafe help again.Others too may do what the Christ did.I said to him: What means the chain of the tresses

of fair idols?He replied: Hafez is complaining of the length of

Christmas night!(translated by Cyprian Rice)

So FAR Sufism had been primarily a per-sonal search, perhaps under the guidance ofothers more experienced and advanced along theway. But by now the theoreticians were gettingto work. The path to be followed by the seekerwas mapped and detailed. The stages to beachieved by personal effort and the states con-ferred on the worthy by Divine gift were categor-ised. Concurrently, the esoteric aspects of thedoctrine were developed. Some men, it was held,were especially chosen by God, endowed by Himwith ma'rifa (gnosis) and wilaya (sainthoodinthe mystical, not the moral, sense). Soon arrivedthe concept of a hierarchy of saintsat firstdwellers in the supernatural world, but laterextended to include humans. The term pole oraxis iqutb), originally applied to the earthlymanifestation of God in each era, later widenedto include almost any holy man. The decline ofSufism had begun.

In spite of the appearance of major figures likeSuhrawardi, promulgator of the doctrine ofilluminism, the theosophy of lightand of IbnArabi who taught the concept of the "unity ofexisting things", the pre-existence of all thingsas ideas in the knowledge of God, whence theyemanate and whither they ultimately returnthemost significant developments in Sufism from the13th century onwards were in the direction ofinstitutionalisation and ritualisation. The Sufipath could only be followed within the confinesof an Order and under the guidance of a qualifiedteacher recognised in his turn by his superiors.

In this way transmitted knowledge andmechanical observances took the place of per-sonal experience. The achievement of wajd(ecstasy) ceased to be no more than a means tognosis, and became an end in itself. Even moreunfortunate was the encouragement given to thecult of personality. The shaikh of the sub-order(and even the individual teacher) became theobject of veneration, while God, once theimmediate and only object of the search, slipped


12 L. P. Elwell-Suttonaway into a more remote, inacessible elysium.While there continuedand continueto begenuine Sufis who understood the full implica-tions of the Sufi way of life, as well as scholarsboth Eastern and Western who studied its writ-ings in depth, popular Sufism tended to deterior-ate into a de-spiritualised accumulation of ritual,superstition, and folklore, often in the hands ofitinerant dervishes playing on the credulity of thesimple-minded.

IT IS UNFORTUNATE that it is precisely thesedecadent and negative aspects of Sufism that havegained most currency in the West, since pseudo-Sufis have scrambled on to the band-wagon of"Oriental" mysticism set rolling by the ZenBuddhists in the 1950s. Most of these movements,whether they claim the Far East, India, theMiddle East, or Central Asia as their source,have certain things in common. They appeal tothe psychological weaknesses of bewilderedindividuals in a puzzling world. They exploit thepopular view of the East as mysterious and per-haps therefore wiser than ourselves. So Gurdjieff's"Seekers of the Truth", we are told, penetratedduring their search for esoteric knowledge intolittle known parts of Persia, Baluchistan, Afghan-istan, Turkestan, Tibet, the borders of India,China, Egypt, and the Indonesian Archipelago.

They demand whole-hearted and uncriticalacceptance from their adherents, and discourageinformed enquiry and expert assessment. SoRafael Lefort, in his book The Teachers ofGurdjieff (1966), assures us that he was told:

"You can become a pupil. You can follow the path.You will be under the absolute tutelage of thosecharged with the direction of this time-phase of thetradition . . . Question nothing, obey all . . . Returnto Europe, to a place where I will send you. Speakto no one as to where it is or whom you see there."

Idries Shah, in The Way of the Sufi (1968),quotes one Rais Tchaqmaqzade in the followingexchange:

"Question 14: But collecting information aboutSufis and their teachings cannot but be a goodenterprise, leading to knowledge?Answer: This is a question of Lesser Understanding.Information about the activities of one body ofSufis may be harmful to the potential of another."

1 For several years this book had been promised

from, one of our leading British publishers, but infact it is still available in this country only from IdriesShah's private press.

Finally, the pseudo-mystical movements callfor veneration of the personality of a Master.This last facet leads us to consideration of themovement currently run by Idries Shah, andparticularly the part played in its acceptance bythe development of a personality cult.

IDRIES SHAH himself from time to time dis-claims any desire to be treated as a "guru",but it is difficult on the facts to absolve him of allawareness of the campaign vigorously carried onby his adherents.

There is all too much evidence of a well-plannedbuild-up, beginning in the early 1960s with dis-creetly worded articles (for instance, by WilliamFoster in The Contemporary Review for May1960) singling out for special sanctity and aspecial role in the world an obscure Afghan clanfrom whom, as it happens, Idries Shah is de-scended. There followed hints of the establish-ment of a centre of Sufi teaching somewhere inEurope (Rafael Lefort, quoted above; IdriesShah: "There is a conscious, efficient anddeliberate source of legitimate Sufic teachingactually in operation in the West"). In the endthese different strands were brought together toidentify Idries Shah, by now known as a prolificwriter, as the Master to whom the world mustturn. By way of exampleon a somewhat triviallevelmay I cite the "International Week ofthe Sufi Book" held in Buenos Aires in 1972, atwhich six out of the 29 prizes were awarded tobooks by Idries Shah and another nine to booksand articles about him, and six to books by hisassociates or published by his private press.

Recently two books have appeared that bothillustrate and epitomise this process. In 1972 the"Institute for Research on the Dissemination ofHuman Knowledge" of Boulder, Colorado, pub-lished The Diffusion of Sufi Ideas in the West,more accurately subtitled "An Anthology of NewWritings by and about Idries Shah" and packedwith prime examples of the adman's breathlessprose. The following year there appeared, thistime from E. P. Dutton of New York, SufiStudies: East and West, "a symposium inhonour of Idries Shah's services to Sufi studies",edited by octogenarian former Indian CivilServant L. F. Rushbrook Williams.1 A rapidbrowse through these works yields a rich harvest,running the gamut of eulogy from straight praise("inspiring and thought-provoking", "a remark-able contribution to knowledge", "a major


Sufism and Pseudo-Sufism 13interpreter of traditional knowledge", "a makerof the modern mind") through adulation ("hisheart-enrapturing work", "he excels in elevatingthe inner perceptions", "a glowing star risingagainst the evening dusk to light the world withthe wisdom of a brilliant mind") to whole-hearted veneration ("the Guide, the Teacher, theExemplar, the figure central to Sufism", "somepeople claim that meeting him has altered theentire trend of their lives", "there is evidence thatsome mysterious element is in operation"). Thevenerable Hindu monk Dr Bankey Behariexclaims:

"Idries Shah: you have provoked in me the desireto place before you a dish I have prepared; byoffering it to you I expect thereby to secure yourblessings, to bring me close to the lotus feet of myLord and bestow on me a place in the eternalDivine Abode."

Martin Brackett claims to have witnessed aceremony in Turkey held to ratify the election ofIdries Shah as "our High Guide, the MagneticPole of the Age, the Grand Sheikh of theNaqshbandi and Qadiri rites, the Shah." Nofewer than fifteen venerable figures, he tells us,uttered this formula: "I, Master of t h e . . . Order,do hereby accept this man as my Master andSupreme Guide." Several writers have had theimpertinence to couple Idries Shah's name withsuch great classical figures as Ghazali, Rumi,Attar, Hallaj, Ibn Arabi. (Indeed the second ofthese two "Festschrifts" is actually described as"marking the 700th anniversary of the death ofJalaluddin Rumi"!).

V T O T THAT Idries Shah is an austere and remoteJ_\| guardian of a secret doctrine. Books flowfrom his pen unceasingly. They fall mainly intotwo categories: amateurish compendia culled fromanthologies, oriental classics, and the shelves ofthe public libraries (The Sufis, Oriental Magic,The Way of the Sufi may be cited as examples ofthis genre), and collections of "oriental" anec-dotes written in a heavy Anglo-Indian style witha discreetly added pseudo-Sufi flavour (Tales ofthe Dervishes, Caravan of Dreams, Wisdom of theIdiots, etc.). The mixture is spiced with a season-ing of paradoxes, hints of secret knowledge,amateur psychology, "linguistic judo" (hisbrother's phrase), numerology, and plain mumbo-jumbo. When one has disinterred the contentfrom the verbiage, one is left with a collection ofplatitudes and well-worn popular apophthegms,admirable in themselves but scarcely meriting the

awe and veneration with which they have beenreceived in certain circles.

On the evidence of his writings, Idries Shahcan claim no more knowledge of the plain factsof Islamic history, religion, literature, andphilosophy than might be acquired by the use ofany standard, non-specialist reference worksand only such works. Indeed, he appears at timesto have treated even these sources somewhatcavalierly. One of his most misleading practicesis indiscriminately to label every Islamic poet,personality, religious movement, as "Sufi", ahabit that leads him, for instance, to describeOmar Khayyam, the Yazidis, and the Isma'ilisall by the same term. This is bad enough. But itreally will not do, even in the interests of respect-ability, to derive the familiar European name forthe last group, the Assassins, not from Hash-shashin, "users of hashish", but from Asasin(properly Asasiyin), "people of the Foundation,the Fundamentals", a term for the use of whichthere is not a scrap of evidence. As a randomsample of characteristic inaccuracies the followingmay be offered (all from The Way of the Sufi):

p. 48: "Khayyam's Rubaiyat was retranslated "The Rubaiyat are a collection of individual quat-rains, not a single poem.p. 99: The "Parliament of Birds" was by Attar,not Sana'i.p. 102: The Manaqib al-Arifin (not Munaqib) wasby Aflaqi, not Rumi.p. 135: Suhrawardi's name was Shihabuddin Umar,not the garbled and impossible Ziaudin Jahib.p. 166: Ibrahim's father was Adham, a name thathas nothing to do with Adam.

As for Idries Shah's translations from Persian,they are frequently unreliable. A couple ofexamples will suffice. On page 60 a line fromOmar Khayyam which should read

What they have said is only wind, O Cupbearer.is rendered

What they have only said is in our hands,O Cupbearer.

because he has misread bad ast (it is wind) asba dast (with the hand). On page 92 he translatesa verse by Sa'di as follows:

"If a poor man brings you a gift of yoghurt, he willhave bought it at such a price that it will be twoparts water to one of real yoghurt."

In fact it should read"If a stranger sets yoghurt before you, it will betwo cups of water and a spoonful of buttermilk."

The poet is reflecting on the meanness of stran-gers, not on the hardships of poverty.


14 L. P. Elwell-SuttonEqually inaccurate, but perhaps less attribu-

table to ignorance, is his habit of substituting theword "Sufi" throughout for such designations as"a poor man", "a beggar", "a pious man."

MUCH IS MADE OF THE FACT that Idries Shah is aHashemi Sayyid, and it is worth while looking alittle more closely at this claim to assess justwhat it amounts to. The term "Sayyid" is appliedto descendants (real and imaginary) of the ProphetMuhammad through his daughter Fatima andson-in-law Ali and their son Husain. As thiscouple were married in the early part of the7th century A.D., it is scarcely surprising thattheir posterity at the present time should run intoseven figures. Sayyids proliferate throughout theIslamic world, in all walks of society and on bothsides of every religious and political fence.Robert Graves, in an attempt to upgrade thisrather undistinguished lineage, claimed that IdriesShah was "in the senior male line of descent fromthe Prophet"a rather unfortunate gaffe, sinceall the three sons of the Prophet died in infancy.Rushbrook Williams, having another try, callshim "a descendant of the last of the Sasaniankings", again a distinction that all Sayyids canclaim if the legend is accepted as true that Husainmarried the daughter of Yezdegerd III.

The facts are that Idries Shah is the son of thelate Iqbal Ali Shah, a one-time unsuccessfulmedical student at Edinburgh University whoturned world-traveller and publicist to a numberof Asian countries and personalities. The familyis descended from a clan of Musavi Sayyids in thesmall Afghan resort of Paghman, 50 miles westof Kabul. Idries Shah's great-great-grandfatherwas (in 1840) awarded the title of Jan FishanKhan for supporting the British-sponsoredpuppet Shah Shuja, and in 1841 expelled fromAfghanistan for the same activity when theBritish army was disastrously defeated at the endof the First Afghan War. The Indian Govern-ment compensated him with a modest estate atSardhana, near Delhi, where relatives of thefamily still live. The designation "Musavi"indicates descent from Musa Kazem, great-great-grandson of Husain and Seventh Imam of theTwelver Shi'a sect of Islam. (Characteristically,Rushbrook Williams conflates this man's namewith that of his son Ali Reza, and produces anon-existent hybrid "Ali Musa Raza.") But thereal point is that even that phase of Sufism thatplaces transmitted knowledge above personalexperience does not consider that such knowledge

is passed on through physical heredity. To be aSayyid confers neither sanctity nor authority.

LUCK HAS CERTAINLY PLAYED a part inIdries Shah's rise to fame. He is heir to amovement started some sixty years ago byGurdjieff and Ouspensky, two Russian eccentricswho met in Moscow in 1915 and decided that theyhad a message to give to the world. The former,born in the Caucasus in 1872, claimed to havespent the earlier part of his life travelling through-out Asia, and to have acquired esoteric knowledgefrom dervishes, holy men, and members of ancientbrotherhoods. After the Russian Revolution hemoved to France, where he dispensed theseteachings for the benefit of a community foundedat Fontainebleau, and later enshrined them in aseries of booksAll and Everything, Meetingswith Remarkable Men, Views from the Real World.He died in 1949.

Ouspensky undertook the propagation of histeachings in Britain, and founded a communitywhich settled down in 1936 at a large countryestate, Coombe Springs, in the "stockbroker-belt" west of London. He summed up his viewof the teachings of Gurdjieff (with whom he hadbroken in 1932) in In Search of the Miraculous,published after his death in 1946. It would beimpossible to summarise the ideas taught bythese two men, which, though dignified with thename of the "System", were in fact a strangejumble of ill-digested scraps garnered frompopular lore, modern psychology, and a varietyof oriental creeds and religions, from which onecan at least gather that man needs to wake upand discover his real self.

In 1946 the forlorn remnants of this group,directed by J. G. Bennett, formed the "Institutefor the Comparative Study of History, Philosophyand the Sciences", still based on Coombe Springs.In 1963 (according to Systematics, the Institute'sjournal)

Bennett and other members of the Institute Councilmet Sayyed Idries Shah After two years ofintensive study Bennett and his colleagues wereconvinced that Idries Shah had a most significantcontribution to make In 1965, the Counciland Members offered Coombe Springs to IdriesShah who established there his Society for Under-standing Fundamental Ideas.

The unsophisticated reader will not fail to noticethe happy disposition of the four initialsthefirst time, however, that the term "Sufi" hadappeared in connection with the teachings of


Sufism and Pseudo-Sufism 15Gurdjieff or Ouspensky. Subsequently I driesShah disposed of the property and acquired anestate at Langton Green, whence he runs what isnow described more grandiosely as the Institutefor Cultural Research. His life-style, lovinglydepicted for us by Lewis F. Courtland in TheDiffusion of Sufi Ideas, shows us a man very muchof this world, impressed by big names and revel-ling in the lionising and the personality cult thatcentre round him.

TIE REAL SECRET, however, of Idries Shah's suc-cess must be sought not in himself but in hisdisciples. It is significant that the bulk of themcome from the intellectual establishment: poets,novelists, journalists, critics, broadcasters. Indeedthe whole affair throws an interesting light on thevirtues and failings of our Western intelligentsia.

In some cases, of course, one may attributecredulity to senility, the menopause, a variety ofpersonal inadequacies and insecurities. Many aintellectual, gazing from his ivory tower at aworld given over to irrational violence, longs forsome panacea, comprehensive in scope and nottoo demanding on the mind.

Something of this kind must be the explana-tion for the appearance in Sufi Studies: East andWest of this strange medley of European andAmerican figures from the fringes of orientalstudies, supported by cosmopolitan expatriatesfrom the Western-trained chanceries and bureau-cracies of Asia, whose Eastern names are nodoubt intended to give 'artistic verisimilitude'to what must be admitted to be a rather "un-convincing narrative. Certainly many of themhave already committed themselves by accepting,for whatever motive, the status of "Fellow" ofIdries Shah's Institute. The spiritual and intel-lectual level of their contributions is dismallylow; most of them seem to be little more thanreconstituted handouts from the Shah propa-ganda machine. Indeed, one may be forgivenfor wondering whether they can really be dis-tinguished from another category of Idries Shah'ssupportersthe mediocre, who, hovering aroundthe margins of the world of learning but never ofit, are at one and the same time impressed byshowy and shallow scholarship and a pontificalair of omniscience, and delighted by attacks onacademics. It does not seem to have occurred toIdries Shah that the gaps in his knowledge of thefield, easy to conceal from the layman, would beimmediately obvious to specialists in Islamicthought and culture, those whom he patronis-

ingly describes as "conventional" or "traditional"scholars. Curiously, his contempt for the aca-demic world has not stopped him from trying tocreep in by the back door. His publicity repeatedlyrefers to a lecture he once gave to a history semi-nar at Sussex University, and even to the use of asingle sentence from one of his books as a peg onwhich to hang a question in an Oxford Universityexamination paper on medieval Catalan.

EQUALLY POTENT is the romantic lure of "theEast." True, the East is less remote than it usedto be, but there are still relatively inaccessibleareas in Central Asia, the location of most ofthe exotic oriental names that spatter the worksof Idries Shah (as of Gurdjieff before him). Weeven learn from the dust-cover of Tales of theDervishes that he

has met and recorded interviews and exchangeswith the "Hidden Imam" of the Muslims

a scoop indeed, for the Hidden Imam went intoconcealment during the 9th century A.D., and isto reappear only at the Day of Judgment.Imaginary meetings with remarkable men have,of course, been the stock-in-trade of these peopleever since Gurdjieff's time.

The readiness of the intellectual to abandon hiscritical faculties is somewhat more surprising.Is it fear of being caught out, of failing to recog-nise a new idea, of being left behind when thebandwagon drives off? Or the relief of "unques-tioning obedience and utter discipline" (Lefort,op. cit., p. 39)? Or simply the schoolboy thrillof being initiated into a secret society, a mys-terious brotherhood of near-supernatural beings?Whatever the cause, one cannot but be struck bythe mental contortions undergone by followersof Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Idries Shah, in theirattempts to reconcile what their rational facultyrecognises as nonsense with the uncritical accept-ance they feel must be given to a "Master."Kenneth Walker wrote {Venture with Ideas,p. 163):

"Suddenly the answer came to me. All this thatpuzzled me in Gurdjieff's behaviour and in his writ-ing, like many things that he did, served a purpose.This emotional disturbance in me, this shoutingwithin me of contradictory voices, this incessantstruggle between 'yes' and 'no', all this was de-liberately provoked, both as a test and as a form oftreatment."

But then the combination of the non-rationalpower of insight with the rational power toanalyse and discriminate is rare. Gurdjieff andOuspensky didn't have it, still less Idries Shah.


16 L. P. Elwell-Sutton

THE COMMUNITY who handed over theirdestinies to Idries Shah "were convincedthat he had a most significant contribution tomake to the betterment of mankind in thepresent critical phase of human development "We have here perhaps the clue to the fatal flawin Idries Shah's teaching, an impression that isconfirmed when one reads his books.

The uneasy feeling that something vital ismissing crystallises suddenly into the realisationthat this is Sufism (if it deserves that name) with-out Islam, "Sufism" without religion, "Sufism"centred not on God but on man. Page after pageof his writings do not even mention the name ofGod, the word "love", the concept of unity withGod through love. He is far more concernedwith prescriptions for self-improvement, direc-tions for the achievement of personal happiness,guide-lines for a worldly elite. Robert Graves hasit neatly summed up:

"To be in the world but not of it, free from am-bition, greed, intellectual pride, blind obedience tocustom, or awe of persons higher in rank: that isthe Sufi's ideal."These may be admirable sentiments, but a

brief glance at the quotations from Sufi poetsgiven earlier in this article will show that Graves*ideal has nothing whatever to do with genuineSufism. In this, of course, Idries Shah is merelybeing practical. The Western intellectual oftoday is above all a humanist, and is usuallyincapable of swallowing the idea of a transcendentGod more omnipotent than himself. He delightsin being mystified. But the mystifier must not gotoo far, he must remain firmly anchored withinthe world. The void left by the departure ofreligion must be filled, and how better than bythe modern faith of scienceor pseudo-science.So we learn that one Dr Robert Ornstein ofStanford University has, under the influence ofIdries Shah, "matched electrically-monitoredbrain functions with Sufi patterns of thought."

IN THE SAME VEIN, though on a somewhat lessfrivolous level, are the writings of the American-trained Iranian psychologist Reza Arasteh (nowbased in Washington). He has a contribution inSufi Studies under the intimidating title "Psy-chology of the Sufi Way to Individuation", ajargon-packed psycho-analytical interpretationof the Sufi phenomenon that mentions the nameof "God" eight times in the course of tenthousand words, and then only in this kind ofcontext: "To become like God represents a

beautiful creation more than submission to theauthoritarian image of God; it means 'becominglove and loving to save', not loving God to besaved." Among Arasteh's other works is Rumi:The Persian, The Sufi, originally published,under a slightly different title, in Teheran in 1965,(and re-issued in 1974 by Routledge & KeganPaul). Arasteh is clearly influenced by ErichFromm's humanistic psychoanalysis. There arefrequent references to him throughout the book,including a 10-page tribute, a courtesy gracefullyacknowledged by a 3-page preface from the penof Dr Fromm. According to the latter, themysticism of Rumi deals not with "theology andintellectual speculations about God but with theinner experience of oneness with the world. . . .This mysticism . . . is the last consequence ofrationalism." The author follows this line,reinterpreting Persian culture in terms of psycho-analysis, and analysing Rumi's personality onthe basis of psychotherapy. The conclusion of allthis is that Rumi was "one of the greatesthumanists." What the Sufi has to do, accordingto Arasteh, is to listen to his "humanistic con-science", and in this way to part with his "pheno-menal self" in order to achieve the state of"cosmic existence" or "transcendental conscious-ness." "The real self can be thought of as thecrown of the unconscious, which is potentiallyconscious existence, the Sufi's goal."

To do Arasteh credit, his writing is considerablymore profound, far better thought out, than thatof the Master to whom he now offers his allegi-ance. But in the end his insistence on rationalisingthe religious phenomenon, on eliminating thespiritual, the angelic, the divine from his accountof Islamic mysticism leads him to conclusionsthat may be good science, but have nothingto do with Sufism. By the end of the bookGod has completely disappeared, and we are leftwith a vague socio-political prescription:

"The Near East [must] examine the sources ofsocial contradictions in both the East and Westand resolve these basic conflicts in terms of man'sultimate destiny, that is, the development of ahealthy character and the establishment of peace.It is in terms of [this] course that Rumi and hisrelated oriental heritage can be of great benefitto present-day leaders.... This view must be takenif the East is to develop a healthy society whichwill contribute to the gradual but total well-beingof the individual, that is, to facilitate the evolutionof man's rebirth without moulding him first to asocial self, an intellectual self, or a robot."

Sufism, however, is not concerned with thebetterment of the human race, but with leading it


Sufism and Pseudo-Sufism 17away from worldly preoccupations, with givingawareness of the world of God and the spirit,with diverting man's power to love from self-loveto love of God, with guiding him in the searchfor reunion with the Absolute Source fromwhich he sprang. This is not to argue that Sufiteaching no longer has anything to say to themodern world. It may well have, provided that itis founded upon truth and not falsehood. BothHenry Corbin and Seyyed Hossein Nasr, twoscholars from West and East who write acutelyand knowledgeably about Sufism, would describeit (in the latter's words) as "the direct call of theAbsolute to man inviting him to cease his wan-dering in the labyrinth of the relative and toreturn to the Absolute and the One; it appeals to

what is most permanent and immutable inman. . . ." Above all, in a society dominatedby mechanistic science, when already peopleare talking about "the man-made future", it iswell to be reminded that man does not make thefuture, and that the world of matter is only theoutward and temporary symbolisation of thereal and immutable world of the spirit. To forgetthis leads to the subjection of human life to man-made laws that turn men into automata andstatistics, deny the worth of human personality,and degrade man's spiritual role.

But pseudo-Sufis have nothing to say about allthis. Their teachings even encourage negativism,passive non-participation, fatalistic submission toauthority. Therein lies their danger.

The Progress of Poesy

T too would avail myself of the large and commonbenefits of modern technology.

That on the Wings of Imagination a chartered jetshall transport me to my inspiration.

That tapes may record the best and happiest momentsof the happiest and best minds.

That a fine excess of surprising subject-matterbe relayed to me by satellite.

That powerful pumps ensure the spontaneous overflowof powerful feelings.

That cameras shall arrest the vanishing apparitionswhich haunt the interlunations of life.

1 That sophisticated computers select the best words

and collocate them in the best order.

A pointed stick, some vegetable dye, a strip of barkremoved by stealth from the public park.

D. J. Enright


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Sufism & Pseudo-Sufism