The Pakistani Spectator

Actually my “beef” is not with spiritualism itself, it has to do with how it is preached and practiced in Pakistan. Some of you may recall my previous essay on this topic under the heading “Lost Sufis of Pakistan” on which I got a lot of flak as usual. But that essay was intended for another audience altogether and in this essay I will try to explain the basis for my skepticism against the various popular forms and shapes of spiritualism / Sufism / mysticism in Pakistan. I will also try to shed light on some popular myths on this subject matter which I find contradictory with the teachings of the Quran.

One of the comments I got in the last essay that spiritualism has to be actually “felt” from within and Allah gives guidance to whomever He chooses. Now the first part of this statement is quizzical to me, it implies that guidance is for a selected few who can actually feel it, for those of us who cannot “feel it” are destined to be doomed without any hope of salvation? Islam is not a religion for an enlightened few; it is for the whole mankind. Indeed, Allah gives guidance to whomever He chooses but we must not forget that there is a prerequisite to it; we have to seek guidance first. Come near to Me and I will come towards you, the Quran claims. Allah does not give salvation to those who do not seek it.

In the Quran Allah says that He is all seeing and all hearing. He also says that I am nearer to you than your own jugular. Now when He actually says that, is there any space left for any intermediary to convey our grievances and prayers to Him? Here, you may also claim that prayers are more potent when conducted through the pious ones, if I accept that for a minute then, there is actually no need for Allah to say the above, He could have said the same in the Quran thus leaving no ambiguity whatsoever.

Yet another popular belief is that the student of spiritualism has no right to question his teacher. He has to obey his teacher without any shadow of doubt. Again I say, when the Quran is telling us to think and open our minds then why are we being told the contrary? People should also realize that by not questioning these pirs and faqirs, we simply handover a blank cheque to them and they gleefully play havoc with our money and our minds to say the least. Do we not read of rape and plunder by these so called pirs and faqirs almost everyday in the newspaper?

Once again I would like to clarify that I am not at all against spiritualism. Who am I to refute it? Spiritualism is indeed found in different forms in almost all regions practiced in this world. It is my belief that first we have to act upon the “physical” aspect of our religion and by striving to attain that Allah shall give us guidance to the next level; the spiritual level. Why do we always have to go for short cuts in all aspects of our lives including the religion?

I would like to end this essay with a quote from the Quran which, I hope, some of you will find meaningful:

“And the Day whereon We shall gather them all together, then We shall say to those who did set partners in worship with Us: “Stop at your place! You and your partners (whom you had worshipped in the worldly life).” then We shall separate them, and their partners (so-called gods) shall say: “It was not us that you used to worship.”

“So sufficient is Allah for a witness between us and you, that we indeed knew nothing of your worship of us.”

There! Every person will know (exactly) what (all) he had earned before, and they will be brought back to Allah, their rightful Lord, and their invented false deities will vanish from them.

Surah # 10 Yunus (Jonah), Ayat 28-30

We must realize that much of what is being taught today as a Sufi way is actually not what these Sufi’s actually said. I say again, it is for us to seek the truth for ourselves.