The Deep Origins of Muridiyya in the End of Blood Sacrifice

"... one can assert without paradox that more than any other singular action, it was the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 CE, as a result of the Jewish revolt, that activated the slow--overly slow--transformation of religion to which we owe, among other things, European culture. The Jews should no doubt pay thanks to Titus, whose memory they hold in contempt, for having destroyed their temple for the second time, for imposing on them the need to free themselves from sacrifice and its ritual violence, before any other society...An additional consequence of the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem is the democratization and spatial explosion of Jewish worship. The Temple of Jerusalem owed its celebrity to its uniqueness. The end of sacrifices also brought the disappearance for all useful purposes of the caste of priests (kohanim) and of their Jerusalemite monopoly. Jewish ritual was now no longer linked to a sacred space, to the omphalos represented by the Temple. It could take place anywhere, with anybody...God, who has lost his palace, his own habitation, now 'stays with the locals,' as it were. The divine presence, the shekhina (from the root shakhan, to inhabit) whose specific place had been in the Temple, is now found (according to a well-known midrash) in 'the four cubits of the halakha alone'...here we manifestly observe a privatization of religion, passing from the most official and public status of religio civilis to the quiet rituals of individual and familial religion." --Guy Stroumsa, The End of Sacrifice, University of Chicago Press (2009), 63-66.

... Brick By Word-Worn Brick

Art is not a plaything in [the] hands [of the murid]; it is not a means for gaining [selfish] pleasure, for diversion, for stupefaction, for the expenditure of accumulated energy. It is not a servant to sexuality, politics or capital. Art is the special trust given to man by God. It is the creative pen of the Maker, given by Him to his viceregent so that he might make a second earth and a second paradise, new forms of life, beauty, thought, spirit, message, a new heaven, a new time. God possesses absolute freedom, absolute awareness and absolute creative power. Ideal man, the bearer of God's trust, he whom God has fashioned in His own form, is an eternal will overflowing with beauty, virtue and wisdom. In all of nature, only man has attained to relative freedom, a relative awareness, and a relative creative power. For God created him in His own image and made of him His relative, telling him, "If you seek Me, take your own self as an indication."

Ali Shari'ati, On the Sociology of Islam, tr. by Hamid Algar, Oneonta, New York: Mizan Press (1979), 123-124.

Building Golgonooza...

See Qur'an 18: 83-108; 2 Chronicles 36: 22-23.

The Murid Art of Reading

Among the most important things that one can learn from Buber is how to read...Modern man is a voracious reader who has never learned to read well. Part of the trouble is that he is taught to read drivel that is hardly worth reading well...One ends up by reading mainly newspapers and magazines--ephemeral, anonymous trash that one scans on its way to the garbage can...We must learn to feel addressed by a book, by the human being behind it, as if a person spoke directly to us. A good book or essay or poem is not primarily an object to be put to use, or an object of experience: it is the voice of You speaking to me, requiring a response.

--Walter Kaufmann, "I and You: A Prologue," 38-39.

The Prophetic Virtues

In Ideals and Realities of Islam, S. H. Nasr (perhaps following the lead of Frithjof Schuon) listed what he called the three major characteristics (I will call them "virtues") of Irano-Semitic prophecy:

1. "Piety in its most universal sense, that quality which attaches man to God" (Nasr, 64) corresponds to imagination understood in the Muridiyya sense. How is imagination an acceptable translation for piety? As Ibn 'Arabi taught, imagination is the bridge one must cross in the pilgrimage to the divine Real. To that end, Ibn 'Arabi was fond of quoting a hadith qudsi or Divine speech: "I am with My servant's opinion of Me, so let him have a good opinion of Me" (see, e.g., W. Chittick, Imaginal Worlds, 174). We find a similar view in Blake (see John Middleton Murry, William Blake, chapter 20 in particular) where the only access to the divine is the imagination (indeed, for Blake, imagination is the "human-divine").

2. "Combativeness" (Nasr, 64). Prophetic combativeness corresponds to the Murid virtue of courage and is a manifestation of the Murid's recognition that life is unceasing struggle--struggle with the forces of external oppression, struggle to overcome the forces of internal oppression. In the Tolstoyan-Murid view, whenever combativeness descends to violence, the forces of internal oppression have won. Note Blake's vow to engage in unceasing mental fight (see post of 08-13-13 below). In the Blakean scheme, the courage to engage in Prophetic combativeness is found in one's dedication to "eternity" (see Murray, chapter 20).

3. "Magnanimity" (Nasr, 65). It takes greatness of soul to forgive and, in Blake's schema, forgiveness is the manifestation of the Prophetic virtue of magnanimity (see Murry, chapter 20). With every act of forgiveness, the human heart experiences a kind of increase; the human character acquires Prophetic nobility.

[Pictured above: John Middleton Murry at his writing desk].

A Murid Catechism

Q: What is the work of the Murid?
A: To build the new Jerusalem.

Q: And where is the new Jerusalem to be built?
A: Wherever the Murid wanders in this world.

Q: And how shall the new Jerusalem be built?
A: With the prophetic virtues of magnanimity, imagination, and courage.
[see S. H. Nasr, "The Prophet and Prophetic Tradition" in Ideals and Realities of Islam, pp. 64-65].

Q: And when built, what shall the new Jerusalem be named?
A: Golgonooza.

The Business of the Muridiyya: To Build New Jerusalems Everywhere

AND did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire.

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.

So William Blake. And so the Muridiyya. In the 7th century of the Common Era, Muhammad's followers first prayed in the direction of the temple mount in Jerusalem. Later, the qibla (prayer direction) changed to the ancient Arabian shrine, the Kaaba.

The Prophet's ability to change the direction of prayer demonstrates the conventional nature of the axis mundi. The Qur'an contends that the entire world is a mosque. The portability of the prayer rug is an emblem of this promise.

These are but outward and visible symbols of an inward and aspirational truth--Blake's truth that we must not sleep from mental fight until we have built "new Jerusalems" to function as Second Isaiah envisioned his restored Jerusalem would function: as a Dar al-Murid (abode of desire) for the nations.

"Thy kingdom come Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." As above, so below.

Amadu Bamba understood the imminent eschatology these concepts and symbols represent, so he dedicated a portion of his life to planning his own beautiful city, Touba, in his native Senegal.

Sacred space is not so much discovered as it is invented.

"Oh what a beautiful city/Twelve gates to the City, hallelujah."

Heroes of Muridiyya: The Second Isaiah (Is. 40-55/66)

The Second Isaiah is one of the unknown prophets referenced in Islamic tradition. He had, in the words of C.C. Torrey, "his own peculiar message, his new truth...[that of] the inclusion of the whole Gentile world, side by side with Israel, in the family of the One God...Here, then, is a great landmark in the history of the world's religious thought. In Judea, centuries before the Christian era, we are told of the love of God the Father for his children of whatever race, and of the destined co-operation of all good men in his service, in their many lands and various forms of worship, in the happy time to come. We have good reason to believe that no such announcement was ever made before" [Torrey, The Second Isaiah, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons (1928), 118].

In his study of this prophet, Klaus Koch elaborates on his "new truth":

When the estrangement between God and human beings ends, the alienation between human beings will end as well. The visionary colours deepen as the prophets paint in utopian terms the salvation that wells up from common faithfulness to the community of all. The divine sedeq that will then rain down will make people everywhere act spontaneously in sedaqa (Isa. 45:8) [i.e., "in accordance with the needs of the community," see Koch, p. 124]. The messiah belongs within the same context. He is hardly ever described in warlike terms, let alone as dictator. His chief task is a moral and religious one--indeed his blessing will extend to nature itself. All this belongs to his sedaqa (Isa. 9:7; 11:1-9). Administrative and political functions recede into the background.

Klaus Koch, The Prophets, vol. 2, tr. M. Kohl, Philadelphia: Fortress Press (1982), 200-201.

Miracle of miracles, the axis mundi of the universal brotherhood of humankind is, for the Second Isaiah, the temple mount in Jerusalem.

There are famous utopias in the world's literature, and they have played their important part in arousing and inspiring men. The work of our poet-prophet belongs only partially in this class, for it deals mainly with the preliminaries, the end of the old order and the dawn of the new. Always present, however, whether in the dim background or brought forward in bright colors, is the picture of a better world; with a glorious renovated Zion, worship of One God throughout the earth, peace and kindliness among men, and everywhere the just rule inaugurated by the Anointed of the Lord. The prophet does not concern himself with the restoration of the Hebrew kingdom, appears not to think at all of a Jewish state. He has neither political nor social program to recommend, no form of worship to prescribe as essential. There is nothing to indicate that he has attempted to visualize the actual regime of the Messiah. He writes as a fervently loyal Israelite and in the traditional formulas, it is needless to say, but his doctrine is not limited, nor his humanity. What he heralds is the triumph of pure religion, meaning just those few things which the prophet Micah and the apostle James declare to be the essentials. He knew well that only this, nothing more nor less, could make common ground for all men. The "saved remnants of the nations," led by a repentant and purified Israel, must come together here.

C.C. Torrey, The Second Isaiah, x.

Heroes of Muridiyya: Ayoub (Job)

The Biblical book of Job may be based upon an Arabic original (see Harold Bloom, Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?, pp. 14-18). Towards the close of the book, God, from the whirlwind, answers Job's persistent questioning of Divine justice. As usual, Walter Kaufmann's remarks are insightful:

Far from insisting that there is some hidden justice in the world after all, or from claiming that everything is really rational if we only look at it intelligently, God goes out of his way to point out how utterly weird ever so many things are. He says in effect: the problem of suffering is no isolated problem; it fits a pattern; the world is not so rational as Job's comforters suppose; it is uncanny. God does not claim to be good and Job in his final reply does not change his mind on this point: he reaffirms that God can do all things.

Kaufmann, The Faith of a Heretic, New York: Doubleday (Anchor Books, 1963), 153.

Job's unflinching honesty and acceptance of what Kaufmann termed "the weirdness of the ways of this world, which is nothing less than grotesque" [ibid.] makes him a particular hero of Muridiyya. Kaufmann adds: "Those who believe in God because their experience of life and the facts of nature prove his existence must have led sheltered lives and closed their hearts to the voice of their brothers' blood" [ibid., 167].

Jobean piety is of the disillusioned variety. Kaufmann praises his "profound detachment...not being wedded to the things of this world, being able to let them go--and yet not repudiating them in the first place like the great Christian ascetics and the Buddha and his followers...to be able to give up what life takes away, without being unable to enjoy what life gives us in the first place; to remember that we came naked from the womb and we shall return naked; to accept what life gives us as if it were God's own gift, full of wonders beyond price; and to be able to part with everything. To try to fashion something from suffering, to relish our triumphs, and to endure defeats without resentment: all that is compatible with the faith of a heretic" [ibid., 168-169].

The Shaykh Tarqiyya As Hidden Saint

In his investigation of the history of the Jewish folk legend of the thirty-six hidden just men (zaddikim) upon whom rests the fate of the world, Gershom Scholem reviewed, naturally, Genesis 18:18. But he also referred to Rudolf Mach's mention of a similar legend among Muslim pietists (dating to the 10th-11th centuries, C.E.). In the Islamic tale, there are, at any given time, 4,000 friends of God upon the earth who do not know one another. Al-Hujwiri notes that these figures "are not even aware of the special distinction of their rank; invariably they are hidden from themselves and from mankind." Scholem writes: "Still older Islamic sources mention the number of forty [friends of God], who constitute a special category. They live unrecognized by their fellow men while contributing to the continued maintenance of the world through their good deeds. For the present we cannot determine whether this conception originated in a Jewish tradition which had already taken on new form when it penetrated Islamic circles or whether the metamorphosis occurred in Islam and then the tradition returned to Judaism in this new form at an as yet undetermined time. Precisely those Jewish oriental sources which would be most likely to reflect such influence on account of their proximity to Islam afford us no evidence for the presence of this idea. There are just men who conceal their mode of life but nowhere do we find that the continued maintenance of the world depends especially on them." G. Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism, New York: Schocken Books (1971), 254.

Muridiyya: Piety Is Service

Amadu Bamba was most impressed by Ibrahima Faal's instinctive understanding that true piety is enacted through service to others. It is for this reason that he tolerated Faal's neglect of his daily canonical prayers. Indeed, he didn't simply tolerate Faal, but regarded him as a shaykh tarbiyya. What does this mean?

Muridiyya pedagogy is modeled on Ghazalian epistemology and, therefore, provides for a division of labor among the members of the scholar class. There are scholars of book learning (the shaykh taalim) and scholars of character building (the shaykh tarbiyya). A subset of the latter is the shaykh tarqiyya, whose personal character is acknowledged by his community to have "ascended" beyond the usual excellences of the shaykh tarbiyya. I am uncertain as to whether Bamba considered Faal to have achieved this third level.

The shaykh taalim teaches his students the classical curriculum in order to instill within them (1) knowledge of the curriculum and (2) knowledge of the limitations of such knowledge. Some students find this level of education sufficient for their needs and eventually move on. Others, however, are made anxious by this level of education; they grow restless and want to learn something that will help them to discover meaning in their lives. The latter type of student is then introduced to the shaykh tarbiyya. This mode of learning is practical and residential. It is acquired through living in close quarters with the shaykh tarbiyya and observing his conduct in ordinary life situations. Conversation and emulation are the methods of tarbiyya. The student receiving this type of education is learning a way of being-in-the-world by following the example of someone whose way of being-in-the-world is worth emulating--someone like Ibra Faal who was humble, generous, and always thinking about the welfare of others.

Ibra Faal

"Ibra Faal inaugurated a new ethic of behavior between master and disciple in the school of Mbakke Kajoor [Senegal]. This ethic required excessive veneration of the persona of Amadu Bamba. Faal knelt and removed his headwear when talking to [the Sheikh], bowed his head when greeting him, abstained from eating out of the same bowl as Bamba, and refused to allow anybody to lead his sheikh in prayer. He devoted his life at [Bamba's] school to work instead of instruction and worship. He collected firewood and timber for construction during the day and fetched water for Amadu Bamba's wives during the night. He neglected praying and fasting and gradually abandoned these canonical acts of worship. Faal's behavior toward his sheikh was not uncommon among Sufi[s], especially at what Trimingham terms the taifa stage. His demeanor was consistent with that of a mazjub--an ascetic who is so consumed by his love of God that he has lost all sense of reality, blurring the boundaries between the lawful and unlawful and putting spiritual exercises and disciplining the body over formal worship. Majzub behavior was seemingly unknown in Wolof country. Amadu Bamba, who was well versed in Muslim mysticism, was in a position to understand and tolerate his disciple's odd outlook, but this was not true for his entourage. Ibra Faal's attitude shocked the students in the school but impressed Amadu Bamba, who refused to get rid of him despite growing protestations from his followers. Faal's neglect of the fundamental Islamic rituals outraged many who considered him to be a madman. Amadu Bamba's refusal to dismiss his atypical disciple prompted many families of doomi sokhna to withdraw or put pressure on their sons to abandon the school of Mbakke Kajoor." --Cheikh Anta Babou, Fighting the Greater Jihad: Amadu Bamba and the Founding of the Muridiyya of Senegal, 1853-1913, Athens, OH: Ohio University Press (2007), 65.

Cheikh Lo: Baye Faal Mouride