In most Western countries, people no longer like to speak much of “religion” (except at the difficult or symbolic moments of life): the word has developed connotations of obligation, compulsion, and sometimes, frankly, of old-fashioned fustiness. Many claim not to belong to any religion, even if they believe “in something.” But the fashionable word is “spirituality,” which has come to refer to a countless number of different realities, from relationship with God to simply the meaning one may give to life or to “things,” including retreat from the world, the search for inner peace, overcoming the traps of the consumerist society, or even diving voluntarily and deliberately into the world of emotions. The Jewish or Christian origins have faded or simply disappeared and the idea of spirituality now covers almost everything imaginable that could “give a breath of life” or “give meaning.”
In the confusion of a world of reference like this, the Muslim consciousness, without giving itself the right to stand in judgment, must make an effort to define for itself its own spirituality, its specific qualities, its demands, and its instruments. In order to avoid succumbing to fashion, confusingcategories of experience, and finding only a superficial spirituality atthelevelof discourse, Muslims are called to carry out a real “inner work,” conscious that if they lose the source at the center, they will inevitably lose their way further out. This is a statement of the importance of this subject. This is where everything begins, but it is also where everything may stall.
Want and Fashion
Our consumerist societies offer us a home, food, comfort, and free time, and we all know how important these things are if one is to live a dignified and balanced life. In fact, it is not a question of refusing the gifts of industrialized societies but of knowing how to handle them so that they do not give rise in us, at the very moment when we becoming conscious of having so much, to a feeling, deep down, of not being at peace, or in harmony, or simply happy. The sense of “want” that is born in this situation is without doubt the most widely shared feeling in the West. It has various causes, but it seems to be summarized in the double reality of want of time and want of dialogue. The rhythms of life have become such that we have a sense of constantly drowning. It stifles us and drags us along and in the end kills in us the source of vital energy and shuts us up in a world in which we simply function. Habit and routine reinforce in us daily this feeling of unease, which may take on different hues but seems to us to lack emotion, affection, love, and, more generally, humanity. To whom do we really speak, who really understands us, how many people really love us? Who can answer these questions?
The French poet Arthur Rimbaud, in his poem Les e´trennes des orphelins, describes the world of two children without a mother with this felicitous expression: “On sent dans tout cela qu’il manque quelque chose” (In all this one feels that something is missing). Doubtless he was one of those in the nineteenth century who felt most intensely the voids we are referring to, and in Une saison en enfer, he adds: “Ceux que j’ai rencontre´ ne m’ont peut-eˆtre pas vu” (Those I met did not see me, perhaps). As early as the nineteenth century and in spite of being so young, he expresses this sense of want (which our societies seem constantly to worsen), while his whole life conveyed the birth of a thirst for a solution. In the end, as he recounts, he left Europe.
Developed societies seem to offer us only two choices by which to overcome unease: either to dive into the most intense feelings and emotions, which, even if they are not always real or deep, do give us the sense that we exist, or to go into a sort of exile, which, whether for an hour or a lifetime, takes us away from the world to live inwardly, in psychological or mystical introspection and meditation, listening for one’s self, one’s being, and/or one’s feelings. Though many have become expert at the first option, people who speak of a “spirituality” as distinct from religion often today turn toward the second. It consists of a kind of retreat and distancing from the rhythm of daily life, taking time and giving meaning to things. The secularization of societies has caused a rise in this phenomenon, and people find a great need to be grounded at the private and intimate levels, far from the hubbub of public life.
This retreat-spirituality is today felt to be a necessity, a need, and it sometimes takes the form of not very well considered types of “consumption.” Some people practice exotic forms of yoga without really studying or understanding it, others get involved in sugar-coated varieties of Buddhism adapted to their “need for a break,” yet others choose undemanding types of Sufism that help them to escape from themselves without hindrance, rather than helping them find themselves by exertion. Some essentially psychological techniques, even treatment by psychoanalysis, are also suggested to help people live “more inwardly,” develop “emotional intelligence,” or achieve more self-control. The “spiritual” life is often confused with techniques that enable one to find a balance between living out one’s emotions and desires to the full and developing in oneself the means to control them.
In fact, these practices often are only superficially associated with longestablished and authentic spiritual teachings such as Buddhism, which are, by contrast, built on rigorous disciplined work, control of desires, and denunciation of the “I,” which is the object of this spiritual projects. Muslim mysticism shares the demanding nature and in-depth work on the “I” of these Far Eastern traditions. But, at the present time, we are witnessing the spread of a curious understanding of Sufism whose main characteristic is above all that of an individual and private enterprise1 but one that is basically almost entirely lacking in the very strict methods of initiation into approaching and knowing the Transcendent (marifat Allaah). There is emphasis on the remembrance of God (dhikr), on withdrawing from the world, and, above all, on a semi-invisible practice. Even more serious, in the minds of some, following Sufism (“another Islam,” an Islam said to be “enlightened”) means less practice and ritual, although the great tradition is to require very demanding spiritual exercises of the initiates (murids). The former endlessly reduce the practice, while the latter have nothing to do but augment and increase it, so important is it that the “wanderer” be aware of his special calling through his efforts (jihad al-nafs) and testing
(ibtila).
In fact, Muslim spirituality has nothing in common with these trends and fashions, and neither is it a simple exercise in managing the emotions. It requires awareness, discipline, and constant effort (jihad), because it is the expression of a returning to one’s self, which should be a liberation.
Today, at the very heart of Western societies, this exercise is a test.
