Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (d. 911) on Tasawwuf
Shaykh al-Islam al-Suyuti, the Renewer of the Eighth Islamic century and Mujtahid Imam said in his book on tasawwuf entitled Ta’yid al-haqiqa al-`aliyya wa-tashyid al-tariqa al-shadhiliyya (The upholding of the lofty truth and the buttressing of the Shadhili path):
Tasawwuf in itself is a most honorable knowledge. It explains how to follow the Sunna of the Prophet and to leave innovation, how to purify the ego… and submit to Allah truly…
I have looked at the matters which the Imams of Shari`a have criticized in Sufis, and I did not see a single true Sufi holding such positions. Rather, they are held by the people of innovation and the extremists who have claimed for themselves the title of Sufi while in reality they are not…
Pursuit of the science of the hearts, knowledge of its diseases such as jealousy, arrogance and pride, and leaving them are an obligation on every Muslim.1
1 al-Suyuti, Ta’yid al-haqiqa al-`aliyya wa-tashyid al-tariqa al-shadhiliyya, ed. `Abd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn al-Siddiq al-Ghumari al-Hasani (Cairo: al-matba`a al-islamiyya, 1934), p. 56-57.Reproduced with permission from Shaykh M. Hisham Kabbani’s The Repudiation of “Salafi” Innovations (Kazi, 1996) p. 386.
Blessings and Peace on the Prophet, his Family, and his Companions
