Ever since I started thinking seriously on life and its problems, I remember viewing pirs, dervishes, babas (spiritual guides), sheikhs and such with suspicion. Even before that, when I was naïve enough to buy into the purported miracles of these ‘elders’, I distinctly remember having weaker moments when I thought the whole thing was rather fishy. Of course, such moments must have been few and far between, for that phase of my life can still be characterised as one of ‘faith’.
It was a little later (at and after the age of 12) that I started having serious misgivings about these pirs and their teachings. As I came to study Islam from its original sources, discarding concocted tales and fantasies fabricated for the purpose of preventing simpletons from going astray or for increasing somebody’s income (or both), I started to have an issue with these sheikhs for replacing the straight and simple path of Islam with complex labyrinths of what they like to call spirituality or mysticism, but which actually amounts to various sets of complicated and absurd mumbo-jumbo, and which has done infinitely more harm than good.
With time my gripe has only been intensifying. Up until recently, that is. In the spirit of candidly admitting one’s excesses, past and present, I propose to publicly acknowledge that I have often been overly harsh on babas. Not that I now consider the activities and track record of these babas any less objectionable, or the case against them any weaker; but having viewed the ordinary man up close and for a considerable period of time, I see the context better. These pirs are guiltty of many things, and there is no defending that. But I have had to revise my assessment that they are guilty of misleading unsuspecting, innocent public. For the public is anything but unsuspecting or innocent.
A few months ago, a scholar (whom I happen to rate highly) shed light on the factors behind the sad state of affairs. With sadness in his eyes, yet in his characteristic humour, he said the following: Over and over it happened that some youth worried sick about his future, or some lady unhappy with her domestic life came to him and requested him to prescribe some cure for those troubles. On each such occasion he made it a point to tell them that while he did not have prescriptions or ready recipes for any outcome, they should employ all the worldly wisdom at their disposal to solve their problems– at any rate they must refrain from making matters worse by persisting with silly behaviour. And that they should at all times keep invoking God’s mercy to help them make wise decisions, for perseverance in their struggle, and for their efforts to bear fruit.
Every time he did this however (the scholar continued), the other party looked at him as if saying: ‘But whoever has the time (or the inclination) for such a lengthy programme?’ Or: ‘What purpose does your existence serve if each man had to do everything on his own steam?’ And one would be wrong if one thought that this sort of thing was confined to the uneducated or to the lower strata of society. A serving judge came to him (he continued) and asked him to pray for him. He promised to pray but told the judge that his prayers would be useless unless the judge himself helped himself by doing all that was required. The judge remained quiet but his eyes said it all. Namely, ‘Why would anybody come to you if he was supposed to do it all himself?’
There is no defending the beneficiaries of the ‘spirituality’ trade. But it would require super-human commitment and effort to resist the temptation when masses are hell-bent on getting misguided. After all, our pirs and sheikhs are only human.
Nobody is interested in sane advice. For that always means getting one’s act together; while nothing sums up our nation better than mental and physical laziness. Solutions based on the Quran and the Sunnat invariably demand hard work. The purpose of the Quran, for the vast majority, is giving relief to the dying or to the already dead– including those who never bothered to open it while they lived. Anything more demanding than having to repeat certain formulas a fixed number of times is a non-starter as far as most of these seekers are concerned. All the better if the spiritual guide is considerate enough to supply drinking water which he has blessed by blowing on it.
Motivational speakers and self-help gurus have also realized that nobody is interested in any practicable advice. They are smart enough to dispense clever-sounding truisms that make their audience feel good about themselves but that hardly mean anything if one decides to think them through. Any advice that requires a man to pull himself together and get rid of destructive habits that have brought him to the situation where he requires help is dismissed out of hand. Whether it is a conscious decision based on the fact that he has no intention of giving his merry ways up or on a subconscious conviction that he has been doing nothing wrong in the first place (of course, it is always somebody else’s fault or that of the circumstances) is neither here nor there.
The reader can readily verify this for himself provided somebody asks his advice. Just tell him something sensible – for instance, it is better to understand the Quran even if it is one verse a day than ‘finishing’ it every month – and observe how he responds to the suggestion.
There is no defending the beneficiaries of the ‘spirituality’ trade. But it would require super-human commitment and effort to resist the temptation when masses are hell-bent on getting misguided. After all, our pirs and sheikhs are only human.
