The Malamati Way

Those who subscribe to the Malamati Way love all of their righteous forebears: those who have known the sufferings and satisfactions of a pietistic discipline in which a reputation for personal piety is one of the chief obstacles to its realization.



The Malamatiyya trace their lineage to Adam's utter humanity.

To Father Abraham's rational rejection of his inherited gods.

To Jacob the Angel-Wrestler; Job the Questioner; and Jonah, the prophet who fled.



To Socrates's unrelenting search for knowledge and Diogenes's quest for an honest man.

To Jesus, who broke with the self-satisfied piety of the Scribes and the Pharisees.

To Bayazid who declared "Glory be to me!"



To Abol-Hasan al-Kharaqani who welcomed all who came to his Khanaqa without regard to their religious confession.

To Hafez of the wine-shop.

And, of course, to Muhammad who challenged the Meccan aristocracy's commodification of their city's ancient shrine.