Sufi Doctrine

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SUFI DOCTRINE AND METHOD*

by Titus Burckhardt

World Wisdom (2006)

At-Taṣawwuf

Sufism, Taṣawwuf,1 which is the esoteric or inward (bāṭin) aspect of
Islam, is to be distinguished from exoteric or “external” (ẓāhir) Islam
just as direct contemplation of spiritual or divine realities is distin-
guishable from the fulfilling of the laws which translate them in the
individual order in connection with the conditions of a particular
phase of humanity. Whereas the ordinary way of believers is directed
towards obtaining a state of blessedness after death, a state which may
be attained through indirect and, as it were, symbolical participation
in Divine Truths by carrying out prescribed works, Sufism contains its
end or aim within itself in the sense that it can give access to direct
knowledge of the eternal.
This knowledge, being one with its object, delivers from the
limited and inevitably changing state of the ego. The spiritual state
of baqāʾ, to which Sufi contemplatives aspire (the word signifi es pure
“subsistence” beyond all form), is the same as the state of mokṣa or

* Editors’ Note: This article is a selection of three chapters from Burckhardt’s
classic text on Sufism, An Introduction to Sufi Doctrine, which is widely
regarded as one of the finest treatments of the subject.

1 The most usual explanation is that this word means only “to wear wool
(ṣūf),” the fi rst Sufis having worn, it is said, only garments of pure wool. Now
what has never yet been pointed out is that many Jewish and Christian ascetics
of these early times covered themselves, in imitation of St. John the Baptist
in the desert, only with sheepskins. It may be that this example was also
followed by some of the early Sufis. None the less “to wear wool” can only be
an external and popular meaning of the term Taṣawwuf, which is equivalent,
in its numerical symbolism, to al-ḥikmat al-ilāhiyya, “Divine Wisdom.” Al-
Bīrunī suggested a derivation of ṣūfī, plural of ṣūfiya, from the Greek Sophia,
wisdom, but this is etymologically doubtful because the Greek letter sigma
normally becomes sīn (s) in Arabic and not ṣād (ṣ). It may be, however, that
there is here an intentional, symbolical assonance.
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Titus Burckhardt
“deliverance” spoken of in Hindu doctrines, just as the “extinction”
(al-fanāʾ) of the individuality which precedes the “subsistence” is
analogous to nirvāṇa, taken as a negative idea.
For Sufism to permit of such a possibility it must be identified
with the very kernel (al-lubb) of the traditional form which is its
support. It cannot be something super-added to Islam, for it would
then be something peripheral in relation to the spiritual means of
Islam. On the contrary, it is in fact closer to their superhuman source
than is the religious exoterism and it participates actively, though in
a wholly inward way, in the function of revelation which manifested
this traditional form and continues to keep it alive.
This “central” role of Sufism at the heart of the Islamic world may
be veiled from those who examine it from outside because esoterism,
while it is conscious of the significance of forms, is at the same time in
a position of intellectual sovereignty in relation to them and can thus
assimilate to itself—at any rate for the exposition of its doctrine—
certain ideas or symbols derived from a heritage different from its own
traditional background.
It may appear strange that Sufism should on the one hand be the
“spirit” or “heart” of Islam (rūḥ al-islām or qalb al-islām) and on the
other hand represent at the same time the outlook which is, in the
Islamic world, the most free in relation to the mental framework of
that world, though it is important to note that this true and wholly
inward freedom must not be confused with any movements of re-
bellion against the tradition; such movements are not intellectually
free in relation to the forms which they deny because they fail to
understand them. Now this role of Sufism in the Islamic world2
is
indeed like that of the heart in man, for the heart is the vital center
of the organism and also, in its subtle reality, the “seat” of an essence
which transcends all individual form.
2 This refers to Sufism in itself, not to its initiatic organizations. Human groups
may take on more or less contingent functions despite their connec tion with
Sufism; the spiritual elite is hardly to be recognized from outside. Again, it
is a well-known fact that many of the most eminent defenders of Islamic
orthodoxy, such as ʿAbd al-Qādir Jīlānī, al-Ghazzālī, or the Sultan Ṣalāḥ ad-
Din (Saladin) were connected with Sufism.
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Sufi Doctrine and Method
Because orientalists are anxious to bring everything down to the
historical level it could hardly be expected that they would explain
this double aspect of Sufism otherwise than as the result of influences
coming into Islam from outside and, according to their various
preoccupations, they have indeed attributed the origins of Sufi sm to
Persian, Hindu, Neoplatonic, or Christian sources. But these diverse
attributions have ended by canceling one another, the more so because
there is no adequate reason for doubting the historical authenticity
of the spiritual “descent” of the Sufi masters, a descent which can be
traced in an unbroken “chain” (silsila) back to the Prophet himself.
The decisive argument in favor of the Muhammadan origin of
Sufism lies, however, in Sufism itself. If Sufic wisdom came from a
source outside Islam, those who aspire to that wisdom—which is
assuredly neither bookish nor purely mental in its nature—could not
rely on the symbolism of the Qurʾān for realizing that wisdom ever
afresh, whereas in fact everything that forms an integral part of the
spiritual method of Sufism is constantly and of necessity drawn out of
the Qurʾān and from the teaching of the Prophet.
Orientalists who uphold the thesis of a non-Muslim origin of
Sufism generally make much of the fact that in the fi rst centuries
of Islam Sufi doctrine does not appear with all the metaphysical de-
velopments found in later times. Now in so far as this point is valid for
an esoteric tradition—a tradition, that is, which is mainly trans mitted
by oral instruction—it proves the very contrary of what they try to
maintain.
The fi rst Sufis expressed themselves in a language very close to
that of the Qurʾān and their concise and synthetic expressions already
imply all the essentials of the doctrine. If, at a later stage, the doctrine
became more explicit and was further elaborated, this is something
perfectly normal to which parallels can be found in every spiritual
tradition. Doctrine grows, not so much by the addition of new know-
ledge, as by the need to refute errors and to reanimate a diminishing
power of intuition.
Moreover, since doctrinal truths are susceptible to limitless de-
velopment and since the Islamic civilization had absorbed certain
pre-Islamic inheritances, Sufi masters could, in their oral or written
teaching, make use of ideas borrowed from those inheritances pro-
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Titus Burckhardt
vided they were adequate for expressing those truths which had to be
made accessible to the intellectually gifted men of their age and which
were already implicit in strictly Sufic symbolism in a succinct form.
Such, for example, was the case as regards cosmology, a science
derived from the pure metaphysic which alone constitutes the in-
dispensable doctrinal foundation of Sufi sm. Sufi cosmology was very
largely expressed by means of ideas which had already been defined
by such ancient masters as Empedocles and Plotinus. Again, those Sufi
masters who had had a philosophical training could not ignore the
validity of the teachings of Plato, and the Platonism attributed to them
is of the same order as the Platonism of the Christian Greek Fathers
whose doctrine remains none the less essentially apostolic.
The orthodoxy of Sufism is not only shown in its maintaining of
Islamic forms; it is equally expressed in its organic development from
the teaching of the Prophet and in particular by its ability to assimilate
all forms of spiritual expression which are not in their essence foreign
to Islam. This applies, not only to doctrinal forms, but also to ancillary
matters connected with art.
3
Certainly there were contacts between early Sufis and Christian
contemplatives, as is proved by the case of the Sufi Ibrāhīm ibn Adham,
but the most immediate explanation of the kinship between Sufism
and Christian monasticism does not lie in historical events. As ʿAbd al-
Karīm al-Jīlī explains in his book al-Insān al-Kāmil (“Universal Man”)
the message of Christ unveils certain inner—and therefore esoteric—
aspects of the monotheism of Abraham.
In a certain sense Christian dogmas, which can be all reduced to
the dogma of the two natures of Christ, the divine and the human,
sum up in a “historical” form all that Sufism teaches on union with
God. Moreover, Sufis hold that the Lord Jesus (Sayyidnā ʿĪsa) is of
all the Divine Envoys (rusūl) the most perfect type of contemplative
saint. To offer the left cheek to him who smites one on the right is true
spiritual detachment; it is a voluntary withdrawal from the interplay of
cosmic actions and reactions.
3 Certain Sufis deliberately manifested forms which, though not contrary to
the spirit of the Tradition, shocked the commonalty of exoterists. This was a
way of making themselves free from the psychic elements and mental habits
of the collectivity surrounding them.
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Sufi Doctrine and Method
It is none the less true that for Sufis the person of Christ does
not stand in the same perspective as it does for Christians. Despite
many likenesses the Sufi way differs greatly from the way of Christian
contemplatives. We may here refer to the picture in which the different
traditional ways are depicted as the radii of a circle which are united
only at one single point. The nearer the radii are to the center, the
nearer they are to one another; none the less they coincide only at the
center where they cease to be radii. It is clear that this distinction of
one way from another does not prevent the intellect from placing itself
by an intuitive anticipation at the center where all ways converge.
To make the inner constitution of Sufism quite clear it should be
added that it always includes as indispensable elements, first, a doc trine,
secondly, an initiation and, thirdly, a spiritual method. The doctrine is,
as it were, a symbolical prefiguring of the knowledge to be attained; it
is also, in its manifestation, a fruit of that knowledge.
The quintessence of Sufi doctrine comes from the Prophet, but,
as there is no esoterism without a certain inspiration, the doctrine is
continually manifested afresh by the mouth of masters. Oral teach-
ing is moreover superior, since it is direct and “personal,” to what
can be gleaned from writings. Writings play only a secondary part
as a preparation, a complement, or an aid to memory and for this
reason the historical continuity of Sufi teaching sometimes eludes the
re searches of scholars.
As for initiation in Sufism, this consists in the transmission of a
spiritual influence (baraka) and must be conferred by a representa tive
of a “chain” reaching back to the Prophet. In most cases it is transmitted
by the master who also communicates the method and confers the
means of spiritual concentration that are appropriate to the aptitudes
of the disciple. The general framework of the method is the Islamic
Law, although there have always been isolated Sufis who, by reason
of the exceptional nature of their contemplative state, no longer took
part in the ordinary ritual of Islam.
In order to forestall any objection which might be raised on this
account to what had already been said about the Muhammadan origin
of Sufism, it must here be clearly stated that the spiritual supports on
which the principal methods of Sufism are based, and which can in
certain circumstances take the place of the ordinary ritual of Islam,
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appear as the very keystones of the whole Islamic symbolism; it is
indeed this sense that they were given by the Prophet himself.
Initiation generally takes the form of a pact (bayʿa) between the
candidate and the spiritual master (al-murshid) who represents the
Prophet. This pact implies perfect submission of the disciple to the
master in all that concerns spiritual life and it can never be dissolved
unilaterally by the will of the disciple.
The different “branches” of the spiritual “family tree” of Sufism
correspond quite naturally to different “paths” (ṭuruq). Each great
master from whom the start of a specific branch can be traced has
authority to adapt the method to the aptitude of a particular cate gory
of those who are gifted for spiritual life. Thus the various “paths”
correspond to various “vocations” all of them orientated to the same
goal, and are in no sense schisms or “sects” within Sufi sm, al though
partial deviations have also arisen from time to time and given birth
to sects in the strict sense. The outward sign of a sectarian tendency is
always the quantitative and “dynamic” manner in which propagation
takes place. Authentic Sufism can never become a “movement”4
for
the very good reason that it appeals to what is most “static” in man, to
wit, contemplative intellect.
5
In this connection it should be noted that, if Islam has been able to
remain intact throughout the centuries despite the changes in human
psychology and the ethnic differences between the Islamic peoples,
this is assuredly not because of the relatively dynamic character
it possesses as a collective form but because from its very origin it
includes a possibility of intellectual contemplation which transcends
the affective currents of the human soul.
4 In some ṭuruq, such as the Qādiriyya, the Darqāwiyya, and the Naqshbandiyya,
the presence of “outer circles” of initiates in addition to the inner circle of the
elite results in a certain popular expansion. But this is not to be confused with
the expansion of sectarian movements, since the outer circles do not stand
in opposition to exoterism of which they are very often in fact an intensified
form.
5 What is in these days usually called the “intellect” is really only the discursive
faculty, the very dynamism and agitation of which distinguishes it from the
intellect proper which is in itself motionless being always direct and serene
in operation.
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Sufism and Mysticism

Scientific works commonly defi ne Sufism as “Muslim mysticism” and
we too would readily adopt the epithet “mystical” to designate that
which distinguishes Sufism from the simply religious aspect of Islam if
that word still bore the meaning given it by the Greek Fathers of the
early Christian Church and those who followed their spiritual line: they
used it to designate what is related to knowledge of “the mysteries.”
Unfortunately the word “mysticism”—and also the word “mystical”—
has been abused and extended to cover religious manifestations which
are strongly marked with individualistic sub jectivity and governed by a
mentality which does not look beyond the horizons of exoterism.
It is true that there are in the East, as in the West, borderline
cases such as that of the majdhūb in whom the Divine attraction (al
jadhb) strongly predominates so as to invalidate the working of the
mental faculties with the result that the majdhūb cannot give doctrinal
formulation to his contemplative state. It may also be that a state of
spiritual realization comes about in exceptional cases almost without
the support of a regular method, for “the Spirit bloweth whither It
listeth.” None the less the term Taṣawwuf is applied in the Islamic
world only to regular contemplative ways which include both an
esoteric doctrine and transmission from one master to another. So
Taṣawwuf could only be translated as “mysti cism” on condition that
the latter term was explicitly given its strict meaning, which is also its
original meaning. If the word were understood in that sense it would
clearly be legitimate to compare Sufis to true Christian mystics. All
the same a shade of meaning enters here which, while it does not
touch the meaning of the word “mysticism” taken by itself, explains
why it does not seem satisfactory in all its contexts to transpose it into
Sufism. Christian contemplatives, and especially those who came after
the Middle Ages, are indeed related to those Muslim contemplatives
who followed the way of spiritual love (al-maḥabba), the bhakti mārga
of Hinduism, but only very rarely are they related to those Eastern
contemplatives who were of a purely intellectual order, such as Ibn
ʿArabī or, in the Hindu world, Śrī Śaṅkarāchārya.
6
6 There is in this fact nothing implying any superiority of one tradition over
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Now, spiritual love is in a sense intermediate between glowing
devotion and knowledge; moreover, the language of the bhakta
projects, even into the realm of final union, the polarity from which
love springs. This is no doubt one reason why, in the Christian world,
the distinction between true mysticism and individualistic “mysticism”
is not always clearly marked, whereas in the world of Islam esoterism
always involves a metaphysical view of things—even in its bhaktic
forms—and is thus clearly separated from exoterism, which can in this
case be much more readily defined as the common “Law.”7
Every complete way of contemplation, such as the Sufi way or
Christian mysticism (in the original meaning of that word), is dis tinct
from a way of devotion, such as is wrongly called “mystical,” in that
it implies an active intellectual attitude. Such an attitude is by no
means to be understood in the sense of a sort of individualism with
an intellectual air to it: on the contrary it implies a disposition to open
oneself to the essential Reality (al-Ḥaqīqa), which transcends discursive
thought and so also a possibility of placing oneself in tellectually beyond
all individual subjectivity.
That there may be no misunderstanding about what has just been
said it must be clearly stated that the Sufi also realizes an attitude
of perpetual adoration molded by the religious form. Like every
believer he must pray and, in general, conform to the revealed Law
since his individual human nature will always remain passive in
relation to Divine Reality or Truth whatever the degree of his spiritual
identification with it. “The servant (i.e. the individual) always remains
the servant” (al-ʿabd yabqā-l-ʿabd), as a Moroccan master said to the
author. In this relationship the Divine Presence will therefore manifest
Itself as Grace. But the intelligence of the Sufi, inasmuch as it is directly
identified with the “Divine Ray,” is in a certain manner withdrawn,
another; it shows only tendencies which are conditioned by the genius and
temperament of the peoples concerned. Because of this bhaktic character of
Christian mysticism some orientalists have found it possible to assert that Ibn
ʿArabī was “not a real mystic.”
7 The structure of Islam does not admit of stages in some sense inter mediate
between exoterism and esoterism such as the Christian monastic state, the
original role of which was to constitute a direct framework for the Christian
way of contemplation.
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in its spiritual actuality and its own modes of expression, from the
framework imposed on the individual by religion and also by reason,
and in this sense the inner nature of the Sufi is not receptivity but pure
act.
It goes without saying that not every contemplative who follows
the Sufi way comes to realize a state of knowledge which is beyond
form, for clearly that does not depend on his will alone. None the less
the end in view not only determines the intellectual horizon but also
brings into play spiritual means which, being as it were a prefiguring
of that end, permit the contemplative to take up an active position in
relation to his own psychic form.
Instead of identifying himself with his empirical “I” he fashions
that “I” by virtue of an element which is symbolically and implicitly
non-individual. The Qurʾān says: “We shall strike vanity with truth and
it will bring it to naught” (21:18). The Sufi ʿAbd as-Salām ibn Mashīsh
prayed: “Strike with me on vanity that I may bring it to naught.” To
the extent that he is effectively emancipated the con templative ceases
to be such-and-such a person and “becomes” the Truth on which he
has meditated and the Divine Name which he invokes.
The intellectual essence of Sufism makes imprints even on the
purely human aspects of the way which may in practice coincide with
the religious virtues. In the Sufi perspective the virtues are nothing other
than human images or “subjective traces” of universal Truth;
8
hence
the incompatibility between the spirit of Sufism and the “moralistic”
conception of virtue, which is quantitative and in dividualistic.
9
Since the doctrine is both the very foundation of the way and the
fruit of the contemplation which is its goal,
10
the difference between
8 It will be recalled that for Plotinus virtue is intermediate between the soul
and intelligence.
9
A quantitative conception of virtue results from the religious con sideration
of merit or even from a purely social point of view. The qualitative conception
on the other hand has in view the analogical relation between a cosmic or
Divine quality and a human virtue. Of necessity the religious con ception of
virtue remains individualistic since it values virtue only from the point of
view of individual salvation.
10 Some orientalists would like artificially to separate doctrine from “spiritual
experience.” They see doctrine as a “conceptualizing” anticipating a purely
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Sufism and religious mysticism can be reduced to a question of doctrine.
This can be clearly expressed by saying that the believer whose doctrinal
outlook is limited to that of exoterism always maintains a fundamental
and irreducible separation between the Divinity and himself whereas
the Sufi recognizes, at least in prin ciple, the essential unity of all beings,
or—to put the same thing in negative terms—the unreality of all that
appears separate from God.
It is necessary to keep in view this double aspect of esoteric
orientation because it may happen that an exoterist—and par ticularly
a religious mystic—will also affirm that in the sight of God he is
nothing. If, however, this affirmation carried with it for him all its
metaphysical implications, he would logically be forced to admit at
the same time the positive aspect of the same truth, which is that the
essence of his own reality, in virtue of which he is not “nothing,” is
mysteriously identical with God. As Meister Eckhart wrote: “There is
somewhat in the soul which is uncreate and uncreatable; if all the soul
were such it would be uncreate and uncreatable; and this somewhat is
Intellect.” This is a truth which all esoterism admits a priori, whatever
the manner in which it is expressed.
A purely religious teaching on the other hand either does not take
it into account or even explicitly denies it, because of the danger that
the great majority of believers would confuse the Divine Intellect with
its human, “created” reflection and would not be able to conceive
of their transcendent unity except in the likeness of a substance the
quasi-material coherence of which would be contrary to the essential
uniqueness of every being. It is true that the Intellect has a “created”
aspect both in the human and in the cosmic order, but the whole
scope of the meaning that can be given to the word “Intellect”11
is not
what concerns us here since, independently of this question, esoterism
subjective “experience.” They forget two things: first, that the doctrine ensues
from a state of knowledge which is the goal of the way and secondly, that God
does not lie.
11 The doctrine of the Christian contemplatives of the Orthodox Church,
though clearly esoteric, maintains an apparently irreducible distinction between
the “Uncreated Light” and the nous or intellect, which is a human, and so
created faculty, created to know that Light. Here the “identity of essence” is
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is characterized by its affirmation of the essentially divine nature of
knowledge.
Exoterism stands on the level of formal intelligence which is
conditioned by its objects, which are partial and mutually exclusive
truths. As for esoterism, it realizes that intelligence which is be yond
forms and it alone moves freely in its limitless space and sees how
relative truths are delimited.
12
This brings us to a further point which must be made clear, a
point, moreover, indirectly connected with the distinction drawn
above between true mysticism and individualistic “mysticism.” Those
who stand “outside” often attribute to Sufis the pretension of being
able to attain to God by the sole means of their own will. In truth it is
precisely the man whose orientation is towards action and merit—that
is, exoteric—who most often tends to look on everything from the
point of an effort of will, and from this arises his lack of under standing
of the purely contemplative point of view which envisages the way
first of all in relation to knowledge.
In the principial order will does in fact depend on knowledge and
not vice versa, knowledge being by its nature “impersonal.” Although
its development, starting from the symbolism transmitted by the
traditional teaching, does include a certain logical process, know ledge
is none the less a divine gift which man could not take to himself by
his own initiative. If this is taken into account it is easier to understand
what was said above about the nature of those spiritual means which
are strictly “initiatic” and are as it were a prefiguring of the non-human
goal of the Way. While every human effort, every effort of the will
to get beyond the limitations of individuality is doomed to fall back
expressed by the immanence of the “Uncreated Light” and its presence in the
heart. From the point of view of method the distinction between the intellect
and Light is a safeguard against a “luciferian” con fusion of the intellectual
organ with the Divine Intellect. The Divine Intellect immanent in the world
may even be conceived as the “void,” for the Intellect which “grasps” all
cannot itself be “grasped.” The intrinsic orthodoxy of this point of view—
which is also the Buddhist point of view—is seen in the identification of the
essential reality of everything with this “void” (śūnya).
12 The Qurʾān says: “God created the Heavens and the earth by the Truth
(al-Ḥaqq)” (64:3).
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on itself, those means which are, so to say, of the same nature as the
supra-individual Truth (al-Ḥaqīqa) which they evoke and prefigure
can, and alone can, loosen the knot of microcosmic individuation—the
egocentric illusion, as the Vedantists would say—since only the Truth
in its universal and supra-mental reality can consume its opposite
without leaving of it any residue.
By comparison with this radical negation of the “I” (nafs) any
means which spring from the will alone, such as asceticism (az -zuhd)
can play only a preparatory and ancillary part.
13
It may be added that it
is for this reason that such means never acquired in Sufism the almost
absolute importance they had, for instance, for certain Christian monks;
and this is true even in cases where they were in fact strictly practiced
in one or another ṭarīqa.
A Sufi symbolism which has the advantage of lying outside the
realm of any psychological analysis will serve to sum up what has just
been said. The picture it gives is this: The Spirit (ar-Rūḥ) and the soul
(an-nafs) engage in battle for the possession of their common son the
heart (al-qalb). By ar-Rūḥ is here to be understood the in tellectual
principle which transcends the individual nature14
and by an-nafs the
psyche, the centrifugal tendencies of which determine the diffuse and
inconstant domain of the “I.” As for al-qalb, the heart, this represents
the central organ of the soul, corresponding to the vital center of the
physical organism. Al-qalb is in a sense the point of intersection of the
“vertical” ray, which is ar-Rūḥ, with the “hori zontal” plane, which is
an-nafs.
Now it is said that the heart takes on the nature of that one of
the two elements generating it which gains the victory in this battle.
Inasmuch as the nafs has the upper hand the heart is “veiled” by her,
for the soul, which takes herself to be an autonomous whole, in a
13 Sufis see in the body not only the soil which nourishes the passions but
also its spiritually positive aspect which is that of a picture or résumé of the
cosmos. In Sufi writings the expression the “temple” (haykal) will be found
to designate the body. Muḥyi ʾd-Dīn ibn ʿArabī in the chapter on Moses in his
Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam compares it to “the ark where dwells the Peace (Sakīnah) of
the Lord.”
14 The word rūḥ can also have a more particular meaning, that of “vital spirit.”
This is the sense in which it is most frequently used in cosmology.
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way envelops it in her “veil” (ḥijāb). At the same time the nafs is
an accomplice of the “world” in its multiple and changing aspect be-
cause she passively espouses the cosmic condition of form. Now form
divides and binds whereas the Spirit, which is above form, unites
and at the same time distinguishes reality from appearance. If, on the
contrary, the Spirit gains the victory over the soul, then the heart will
be transformed into Spirit and will at the same time transmute the
soul suffusing her with spiritual light. Then too the heart reveals itself
as what it really is, that is as the tabernacle (mishkāt) of the Divine
Mystery (sirr) in man.
In this picture the Spirit appears with a masculine function in
relation to the soul, which is feminine. But the Spirit is receptive and
so feminine in its turn in relation to the Supreme Being, from which
it is, however, distinguished only by its cosmic character inasmuch
as it is polarized with respect to created beings. In essence ar-Rūḥ is
identifi ed with the Divine Act or Order (al-Amr) which is sym bolized
in the Qurʾān by the creating Word “Be” (kun) and is the immediate
and eternal “enunciation” of the Supreme Being: “. . . and they will
question you about the Spirit: say: The Spirit is of the Order of my
Lord, but you have received but little knowledge” (Qurʾān, 17:85).
In the process of his spiritual liberation the contemplative is
reintegrated into the Spirit and by It into the primordial enunciation
of God by which “all things were made . . . and nothing that was
made was made without it” (St. John’s Gospel).
15
Moreover, the name
“Sufi” means, strictly speaking, one who is essentially identifi ed with
the Divine Act; hence the saying that the “Sufi is not created” (aṣ-ṣufi
lam yukhlaq), which can also be understood as meaning that the being
who is thus reintegrated into the Divine Reality recognizes himself
in it “such as he was” from all eternity according to his “principial
possibility, immutable in its state of non- manifestation”—to quote
Muḥyi ʾd-Dīn ibn ʿArabī. Then all his created modalities are revealed,
whether they are temporal or non- temporal, as mere inconsistent
refl ections of this principial possi bility.
16
15 For the Alexandrines too liberation is brought about in three stages which
respectively correspond to the Holy Spirit, the Word, and God the Father.
16 If it is legitimate to speak of the principial, or divine, possibility of every
being, this possibility being the very reason for his “personal unique ness,” it
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Rites

A rite is an action the very form of which is the result of a Divine
Revelation. Thus the perpetuation of a rite is itself a mode of Revelation,
and Revelation is present in the rite in both its aspects—the intellectual
and the ontological. To carry out a rite is not only to enact a symbol but
also to participate, even if only virtually, in a certain mode of being, a
mode which has an extra-human and universal extension. The meaning
of the rite coincides with the ontological essence of its form.
For people of modern education and outlook a rite is usually no
more than an aid in promoting an ethical attitude; it seems to them that
it is from this attitude alone and from nothing else that the rite derives
its efficacy—if indeed such people recognize in rites any efficacy at all.
What they fail to see is the implicitly universal nature of the qualitative
form of rites. Certainly a rite bears fruit only if it is carried out with an
intention (niya) that conforms to its meaning, for according to a saying
of the Prophet, “the value of actions is only through their intentions,”
though this clearly does not mean that the intention is independent of
the form of the action.
17
It is precisely because the inward attitude is
wedded to the formal quality of the rite—a quality which manifests
a reality both ontological and in tellectual—that the act transcends the
domain of the individual soul.
The quintessence of Muslim rites, which could be called their
“sacramental” element, is the Divine Speech for which they provide a
vehicle. This speech is moreover contained in the Qurʾān, the recitation
of the text of which by itself constitutes a rite. In certain cases this
recitation is concentrated on a single phrase repeated a defi nite number
of times with the aim of actualizing its deep truth and its particular
grace. This practice is the more common in Islam because the Qurʾān is
does not follow from this that there is any multiplicity whatever in the divine
order, for there cannot be any uniqueness outside the Divine Unity. This truth
is a paradox only on the level of discursive reason. It is hard to conceive only
because we almost inevitably forge for ourselves a “substantial” picture of the
Divine Unity.
17 Rites of consecration are an exception because their bearing is purely
objective. It is enough that one should be qualified to carry them out and that
one should observe the prescribed and indispensable rules.
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composed in great part of concise formulas with a rhythmical sonority
such as lend themselves to litanies and incantations. For exoterism
ejaculatory practices can have only a secondary importance; outside
esoterism they are never used methodically, but within it they in fact
constitute a basic method.
All repetitive recitation of sacred formulas or sacred speech,
whether it be aloud or inward, is designated by the generic term dhikr.
As has already been noted this term bears at the same time the meanings
“mention,” “recollection,” “evocation,” and “memory.” Sufi sm makes
of invocation, which is dhikr in the strict and narrow sense of the term,
the central instrument of its method. In this it is in agreement with
most traditions of the present cycle of humanity.
18 To understand the
scope of this method we must recall that, accord ing to the revealed
expression, the world was created by the Speech (al-Amr, al-Kalīma)
of God, and this indicates a real analogy between the Universal Spirit
(ar-Rūḥ) and speech. In invocation the ontological character of the
ritual act is very directly expressed: here the simple enunciation of the
Divine Name, analogous to the primordial and limitless “enunciation”
of Being, is the symbol of a state or an undifferentiated knowledge
superior to mere rational “knowing.”
The Divine Name, revealed by God Himself, implies a Divine
Presence which becomes operative to the extent that the Name takes
possession of the mind of him who invokes It. Man cannot con centrate
directly on the Infinite, but, by concentrating on the symbol of the
Infinite, attains to the Infinite Itself. When the individual subject is
identified with the Name to the point where every mental projection
has been absorbed by the form of the Name, the Divine Essence of the
Name manifests spontaneously, for this sacred form leads to nothing
outside itself; it has no positive relationship except with its Essence
18 This cycle begins approximately with what is called the “historical” period.
The analogy between the Muslim dhikr and the Hindu japa-yoga and also with
the methods of incantation of Hesychast Christianity and of certain schools
of Buddhism is very remarkable. It would, however, be false to attribute a
non-Islamic origin to the Muslim dhikr, first because this hypothesis is quite
unnecessary, secondly because it is contradicted by the facts, and thirdly
because fundamental spiritual realities cannot fail to manifest themselves at
the core of every traditional civilization.
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Titus Burckhardt
and finally its limits are dissolved in that Essence. Thus union with the
Divine Name becomes Union (al-waṣl) with God Himself.
The meaning “recollection” implied in the word dhikr indirectly
shows up man’s ordinary state of forgetfulness and unconsciousness
(ghafla). Man has forgotten his own pre-temporal state in God and
this fundamental forgetfulness carries in its train other forms of
forgetfulness and of unconsciousness. According to a saying of the
Prophet, “this world is accursed and all it contains is accursed save only
the invocation (or: the memory) of God (dhikru ʾLlāh).” The Qurʾān
says: “Assuredly prayer prevents passionate transgressions and grave sins
but the invocation of God (dhikru ʾLlāh) is greater” (29:45). According
to some this means that the mentioning, or the remembering, of God
constitutes the quintessence of prayer; ac cording to others it indicates
the excellence of invocation as com pared with prayer.
Other Scriptural foundations of the invocation of the Name—or
the Names—of God are to be found in the following passages of the
Qurʾān: “Remember Me and I will remember you . . .” or: “Mention
Me and I will mention you . . .” (2:152); “Invoke your Lord with
humility and in secret. . . . And invoke Him with fear and desire;
Verily the Mercy of God is nigh to those who practice the ‘virtues’
(al-muḥsinīn), those who practice al-iḥsān, the deepening by ‘poverty’
(al-faqr) or by ‘sincerity’ (al-ikhlāṣ) of ‘faith’ (al-īmān) and ‘submis-
sion’ to God (al-islām)” (7:55, 56). The mention in this passage of
“humility” (taḍarruʿ), of “secrecy” (khufya), of “fear” (khawf) and of
“desire” (ṭamaʿ) is of the very greatest technical importance. “To God
belong the Fairest Names: invoke Him by them” (7:180); “O ye who
believe! when ye meet a (hostile) band be firm and remember God
often in order that ye may succeed” (8:45). The esoteric meaning of
this “band” is “the soul which incites to evil” (an-nafs al-ammāra) and
with this goes a transposition of the literal meaning, which concerns
the “lesser holy war” (al-jihād al-aṣghar), to the plane of the “greater
holy war” (al-jihād al-akbar). “Those who believe and whose hearts
rest in security in the recollection (or: the invocation) of God; Verily
is it not through the recollection of God that their hearts find rest in
security?” (13:28).
By implication the state of the soul of the profane man is here
compared to a disturbance or agitation through its being dispersed
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Sufi Doctrine and Method
in multiplicity, which is at the very antipodes of the Divine Unity.
“Say: Call on Allāh (the synthesis of all the Divine Names which is
also transcendent as compared with their differentiation) or call on ar
Raḥmān (the Bliss-with-Mercy or the Beauty-with-Goodness intrinsic
in God); in whatever manner ye invoke Him, His are the most beauti-
ful Names” (17:110); “In the Messenger of God ye have a beautiful
example of him whose hope is in God and the Last Day and who
invokes God much” (33:21); “O ye who believe! invoke God with
a frequent invocation (dhikran kathīrā)” (33:41); “And call on God
with a pure heart (or: with a pure religion) (mukhliṣīna lahu-d-dīn) .
. .” (40:14); “Your Lord has said: Call Me and I will answer you . . .”
(40:60); “Is it not time for those who believe to humble their hearts
at the remembrance of God? . . .” (57:16); “Call on (or: Remember)
the Name of thy Lord and consecrate thyself to Him with (perfect)
consecration” (73:8); “Happy is he who purifies himself and invokes
the Name of his Lord and prayeth” (87:14, 15).
To these passages from the Qurʾān must be added some of the
sayings of the Prophet: “It is in pronouncing Thy Name that I must
die and live.” Here the connection between the Name, “death,” and
“life” includes a most important initiatic meaning. “‘There is a means
for polishing everything which removes rust; what polishes the heart is
the invocation of God, and no action puts so far off the chastisement
of God as this invocation.’19 The companions said: ‘Is not fighting
against infidels like unto it?’ He replied: ‘No: not even if you fight on
till your sword is broken’”; “Never do men gather together to invoke
(or: to remember) God without their being surrounded by angels,
without the Divine Favor covering them, without Peace (as-sakīna)
descending on them and without God remembering them with those
who surround Him”; “The Prophet said: ‘The solitaries shall be the
first.’ They asked: ‘Who are the solitaries (al-mufridūn)?’ And he
19
According to the Viṣṇu-Dharma-Uttara “water suffices to put out fire and
the rising of the sun (to drive away) shadows; in the age of Kali repetition of
the Name of Hari (Viṣṇu) suffices to destroy all errors. The Name of Hari,
precisely the Name, the Name which is my life; there is not, no, there surely
is no other way.” In the Mānava Dharma-Śāstra it is said: “Beyond doubt
a brahmin (priest) will succeed by nothing but japa (invocation). Whether
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Titus Burckhardt
replied: ‘Those who invoke much’”; “A Bedouin came to the Prophet
and asked: ‘Who is the best among men.’ The Prophet answered:
‘Blessed is that person whose life is long and his actions good.’ The
Bedouin said: ‘O Prophet! What is the best and the best rewarded of
actions?’ He replied: ‘The best of actions is this: to separate yourself
from the world and to die while your tongue is moist with repeating
the Name of God’”;
20 “A man said: ‘O Prophet of God, truly the laws
of Islam are many. Tell me a thing by which I can obtain the rewards.’
The Prophet answered: ‘Let your tongue be ever moist with mention-
ing God.’”
* * *
The universal character of invocation is indirectly expressed by the
simplicity of its form and by its power of assimilating to itself all those
acts of life whose direct and elemental nature has an affinity with the
“existential” aspect of the rite. Thus the dhikr easily imposes its sway
on breathing, the double rhythm of which sums up not only every
manifestation of life but also, symbolically, the whole of existence.
Just as the rhythm inherent in the sacred words imposes itself on
the movement of breathing, so the rhythm of breathing in its turn
can impose itself on all the movements of the body. Herein lies the
principle of the sacred dance practiced in Sufi communities.
21
This
practice is the more remarkable since the Muslim religion as such
is rather hostile both to dancing and to music, for the identification
through the medium of a cosmic rhythm with a spiritual or divine
he carries out other rites or not he is a perfect brahmin.” Likewise also the
Mahābhārata teaches that “of all functions (dharmas) japa (invocation) is
for me the highest function” and that “of all sacrifices I am the sacrifice of
japa.”
20 Kabīr said: “Just as a fish loves water and the miser loves silver and a mother
loves her child so also Bhagat loves the Name. The eyes stream through looking
at the path and the heart has become a pustule from ceaselessly invoking the
Name.”
21
According to a ḥadīth, “He who does not vibrate at remembrance of the
Friend has no friend.” This saying is one of the scriptural foundations of the
dance of the dervishes.
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Sufi Doctrine and Method
reality has no place in a religious perspective which maintains a strict
and exclusive distinction between Creator and creature. Also there
are practical reasons for banishing dancing from religious worship,
for the psychic results accompanying the sacred dance might lead to
deviation. None the less the dance offers too direct and too primordial
a spiritual support for it not to be found in regular or occasional use in
the esoterism of the monotheistic religions.
22
It is related that the fi rst Sufis founded their dancing dhikr on the
dances of the Arab warriors. Later, Sufi orders in the East, such as
the Naqshabandis, adapted certain techniques of hatha-yoga and so
differentiated their form of dance. Jalāl ad-Dīn Rūmī, who founded
the Mevlevī order, drew the inspiration for the collective dhikr of his
community from the popular dances and music of Asia Minor.
23 If the
dances and music of the dervishes are mentioned here it is because
these are among the best known of the manifestations of Sufi sm; they
belong, however, to a collective and so to a rather peripheral aspect of
taṣawwuf and many masters have pronounced against their too general
22
A Psalm in the Bible says: “Let them praise His Name in the dance: let
them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and the harp.” It is known that
the sacred dance exists in Jewish esoterism, finding its model in the dancing
of King David before the Ark of the Covenant. The apocryphal Gospel of
the Childhood speaks of the Virgin as a child dancing on the altar steps, and
certain folk customs allow us to conclude that these models were imitated
in mediaeval Christianity. St Theresa of Avila and her nuns danced to the
sound of tambourines. Mā Ananda Moyi has said: “During the samkīrtana
(the “spiritual concert” which is the Hindu equivalent of the Muslim samāʿ,
or rather, of ḥadra or ʿimāra) do not pay attention to the dance or the musical
accompaniment but concentrate on His Name. . . . When you pronounce the
Name of God your spirit begins to appreciate the samkīrtana and its music
predisposes you to the contemplation of divine things. Just as you should
make pūjās and pray, you should also take part in samkīrtanas.”
23
An aesthetic feeling can be a support for intuition for the same reason
as a doctrinal idea and to the extent to which the beauty of a form reveals
an intellectual essence. But the particular efficacy of such a means as music
lies in the fact that it speaks first of all to feeling, which it clarifies and subli-
mates. Perfect harmony of the active intelligence (the reason) and the passive
intelligence (feeling or sensibility), prefigures the spiritual state—al-ḥāl.
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Titus Burckhardt
use. In any case, exercises of this kind ought never to preponderate
over the practice of solitary dhikr.
Preferably invocation is practiced during a retreat (khalwa), but it
can equally be combined with all sorts of external activities. It requires
the authorization (idhn) of a spiritual master. Without this authoriza-
tion the dervish would not enjoy the spiritual help brought to him
through the initiatic chain (silsila) and moreover his purely individual
initiative would run the risk of finding itself in flagrant contradiction
to the essentially non-individual character of the symbol, and from
this might arise incalculable psychic reactions.
24
24 “When man has made himself familiar with dhikr,” says al-Ghazzālī, “he
separates himself (inwardly) from all else. Now at death he is separated from
all that is not God. . . . What remains is only invocation. If this invocation
is familiar to him, he finds his pleasure in it and rejoices that the obstacles
which turned him aside from it have been put away, so that he fi nds himself
as if alone with his Beloved. . . .” In another text al-Ghazzālī expresses himself
thus: “You must be alone in a retreat . . . and, being seated, con centrate your
thought on God without other inner occupation. This you will accomplish,
first pronouncing the Name of God with your tongue, ceaselessly repeating:
Allāh, Allāh, without letting the attention go. The result will be a state in
which you will feel without effort on your part this Name in the spontaneous
movement of your tongue” (from his Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm ad-Dīn). Methods of
incantation are diverse, as are spiritual possibilities. At this point we must
once again insist on the danger of giving oneself up to such practices outside
their traditional framework and their normal conditions.

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