Appreciating the Sufi Colour of Jamaat e Islami

Syed Moududi, despite his differences with Sufism, especially its philosophical framing and the perception of divergence of its popular form from sharia, succeeded in translating the core moral and spiritual content of Sufism understood as struggle with the lower self and perfection of virtues in the pages of his work that exudes the perfume of discovery of God by a self consumed by obedience to the Divine Will. Reading Syed Moududi one finds that one is led to take God seriously and in that light see everything else. History and our odyssey get a new meaning with fellowship of God. Sufism, according to its acclaimed Masters, is not the science of states but stations and one can take his critique of world wary intoxicating bliss pursuing indulgent Sufism in positive light. Great Masters of Sufism would thank Syed Moududi for feedback on dangers of abnegating reason, eschewing self criticism and cultistic servile following of so called spiritual guides and pleading for non-attachment to particular forms and idiom in which Sufism has hitherto been clothed.

    Sufism is not basking in particular states of mystery or pursuing mystifying occultistic power games but fellowship of God granted to truly humble and obedient servants of Him. JeI’s founder’s contribution to Sufism lies in distinguishing its core of annihilation of personal will in utter obedience to the commands and truth of the Real from associated dispensable narratives or speculations. It appears that he is interested in safeguarding the moral-spiritual affirmation that follows from perfecting humility, sincerity and devotion to God. And this is indeed the objective of Sufism. Sufis could well be active Jamaat workers and vice versa. In fact there are great examples of Sufi Jamaat workers. In Kashmir especially the most distinguished Jamaat figures had reputation as Sufis.

    The question is how does a Muslim respond to a world rife with injustice and desacralization of all institutions. He can’t afford to be indifferent. Quietist mysticism is not the only or principal manifestation of mystical spirit in the world of Islam. Prophetic activist mysticism has inspired many of its great political personalities and thinkers. Jamaat e Islami is one of the responses to the call and the challenge of secularizing modernity.

    Mystical element in social activism and community centric voluntary organizations has been noted by certain analysts. Seen in this light, exemplary community work by arguably the largest NGO of the world, JeI, calls for gratitude from all of us.

    However, what is important from the viewpoint of reclaiming the Sufi element (repressed for ideological reasons, to be sure), is to note moral mysticism or what is called prophtetic activist mysticism informing JeI’s grand vision and practical plan. What is that moves a worker of Jamaat e Islami? What sustains him in prisons and against all kinds of tribulations? What is this volunteering for funding and working on countless welfare projects for the needy? What is this utter submission to the Divine Will if not fana? What is this elaborate sustained and comprehensive interpretative effort that shows key terms of Islamic canon to constitute call for utter abandonment of personal will or desire so that God’s will alone reigns in every sphere? What does it mean to say no to every ideology/idol/object in the name of the Transcendent God/Other? What does it imply to wage jihad against every oppressive structure anywhere so that nothing obstructs exercise of freedom? Doesn’t JeI seek to subject every temporal action and political struggle to the demand of Eternity and die every moment to God/Other?  Man’s every project is laid at the altar of God and if all this is not mysticism what else is? A worker of JeI is an activist for life whose life work consists in caring for the demands of the non-self/ other/God. The only problematic element of Jamaat from the viewpoint of objectives of mysticism/Sufism is its failure to truly submit and open up to the other and see all others in God as it makes Islam into an ideological project, or construes it as a system; it is inadequately open to the openness that Islam embodies (and historically embodied in lives and works of sages, saints and poets), less ready to acknowledge human character of interpretative efforts and consequently tendency to arrogate to itself the task of correctly understanding and implementing the Divine Will and create all kinds of others in the process as it judges other manifestations of the divine in other philosophical, religious, mystical and artistic or cultural formations as more or less idolatrous or wedded to merely human non-divine ends. JeI also tends to lose sight of the paradoxical nature of Islamic faith – its simultaneous affirmations of transcendence and immanence or of sacred and profane, and its avowed commitment to both earth and heaven, its distrust of all Utopianism while seeking to ever approximate the Justice that is God, its critique of every claim to be the Truth while identifying itself with the Truth with its multiple faces and interpretations. What Vali Reza Nasr sees, in his work on Syed Moududi and Jamaat e Islami, as reformist zeal far removed from mystical is itself an expression of mysticism as far as we can see in it care and compassion for the other/other’s salvation and colouring all things in the divine colour. Mystics have been known to be reformists in Islamic and other traditions.

    JeI shouldn’t have been tagged as anti-Sufi/badaetiqadi as its primary focus was not on reacting to Sufism but developing another facet of Islamic critical consciousness and that explains Syed Moududi didn’t deem it necessary to engage in detail with it. JeI is only bound by its vision of transforming the self and society in light of Divine Nomos. It did hastily comment on certain developments of Sufism and did find its popular form problematic on both theological and political grounds. Ambivalence within JeI and in Muslim intellectual-spiritual elite attitude towards it can be gleaned from the fact of divergence in attitudes of Askari and his most gifted associate Saleem Ahmed, divergence amongst towering Muslim scholars within and across seminaries such as Deoband and Nadwa. I think we all agree that Sufism has many colours and it is more than speculative or philosophical system a praxis and one is a better Sufi if one has better ethic and the spirit of Sufism may well be better manifest in our devotion to our work and activism of all kinds and one is required to be nobody – perfect humility – in Sufism. There is none who can claim to be a Sufi in the sense of being somebody. Syed Moududi lived exemplary Sufi ethic and we find moral-spiritual heroes amongst Jamaat. The task is to keep working on oneself and the good of community and that is where we as Muslims are all united irrespective of labels given by others. We are all fellow travelers and as guests of God in the feast called life we shouldn’t indulge in name calling or fighting as Hafiz said.