The Vital Ten Percent

It may be said that the religious impulse is ninety per cent wishful thinking. Wishful thinking is, indeed, rooted deeply in us. Unlike other animals, human beings live by their illusions: our very words, it has been said, point to what is in fact not there. Human beings alone are artists. Over and beyond the immediate stimulus and response, we want every moment to make sense in some larger whole which our lives form: people cannot stand living with sheer absurdity. If we refuse to make a conscious choice of what sense to make of life, we are told, we will in practice adopt some pattern of sense unconsciously and without consideration. Hence even intelligent people may persuade themselves to believe almost anything that seems to make hopeful sense of life. And since life is largely a tissue of miseries, we are under pressure to discover some sense which will give the misery a positive meaning...The component of sheer wishful thinking in religion is large, but is still not the whole of it. What is most interesting about religion is not the wishful thinking as such, but the creative insights that come along with it, which open new possibilities of human meaningfulness and expression.

~ Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, vol. 1, 158-159.

If, as Hodgson asserted, the religious impulse is ninety per cent wishful thinking, what makes up the remaining ten per cent? He implies the remainder is composed of creative insights that accompany the main body of "wishful thought."

Of what do such insights consist?



If one is a dervish, those insights emerge from the critical faculty. Once activated, that faculty begins to slowly chip away at the ninety per cent. This is the foundational task of dervishood. The goal is fana' or the annihilation of that part of the consciousness responsible for generating the illusions of wishful thinking in the first place (the so-called "ego-self"). The hallmark of fana' is, therefore, disillusionment.

There is an ecstasy that often accompanies disillusionment, and many who enter upon the dervish path live for such experiences. Ecstasy, however, is not the goal of fana', it is an emotional by-product. It should be enjoyed, but not fetishized. And when this mood passes--as it must--the mood of sobriety that takes its place leaves one "calm of mind, all passion spent." (Milton, Samson Agonistes).

A tranquil state of calm resolve (baqa') then characterizes the dervish's comportment. And it is with such resolve that the dervish dons the mantle of disillusionment (khirqa, lit., "rag") and re-enters the crowded tavern of ruin to play her song for any who possess the ears to hear.