A TRULY HOLY SOUL

A TRIBUTE TO MARTIN LINGS,

SHAYKH ABU BAKR SIRAJ UD DIN
1909-2005

To be perfectly well, the soul must be complete. Holiness, wholeness and health
are in origin the same word and have merely been differentiated in form and in
meaning through the fragmentation of language. The virtues of simplicity and
sincerity are inseparable from this perfection, for each in its own way means un-
dividedness of soul.

We can think of very few passages that more accurately express the character of
Shaykh Abu Bakr than this one. Put simply, he was all there, a truly whole man,
who was indeed holy, and from whom utter sincerity radiated with disarming
simplicity.

In the nearly two decades that I have been privileged to receive his guidance, I have
always been penetrated by the awareness that in this person there were no flaws of
character, no faults, no disproportion, just a harmonious integration of all the souls
faculties - intellectual, spiritual, volitive, affective - into a mould fashioned by the
remembrance of God. This dhikr was the active counterpart of his faqr, or spiritual
poverty which he often defined as the absence of individualistic coagulations
preventing the divine qualities from imprinting themselves on the substance of the soul.
The dhikr attracts the madhkur, the invoked, God Himself; while faqr allows the
divine qualities of the madhkur to radiate unimpeded by the false riches of the ego. The
result of this perfect combination between dhikr and faqr is holiness, sanctity; and it is
through the saints that religion most dazzlingly displays its transformative power.
Without saints, religion is reduced to a set of abstractions, lofty ideals, and remote
possibilities; with saints, religious ideals are rendered accessible, tangible, indeed,
irresistible. It is in sanctity that religion reaches its highest pitch of intensity; through
the saints, religion delivers the irrefutable, living proof of its salvific efficacy: for
sanctification is salvation here below, as salvation is sanctification in the Hereafter.

Shaykh Abu Bakr often used to remind us: One of the greatest joys of Paradise is the
presence of the holy souls with- in it, the saints and the prophets. Therefore, to enter
Paradise implies a tremendous responsibility: one must be oneself, a source of marvel
for those already there. The whole of the Sheikhs life was dominated by this
imperative: to make one- self as worthy as possible to enter the Paradisal abode, the
true Home. His life can be seen as existential proof that if this imperative be ones
supreme and overriding aspiration - eclipsing all other concerns, desires, ambitions -
and one acts sincerely in consequence, then Paradise is already given, in a certain
manner, already in this life; in the form, precisely, of the barakah generated within
ones soul through the chief means of submitting to this imperative: the remembrance
of God. This dhikr had become one with the very substance of this holy mans soul,
such that his own personality was like a transparent screen through which one glimpsed
the mysteries that unfold within the dhikr; and the barakah issuing from this dhikr,
thanks to the presence of perfectly realized faqr, gave all those who were fortunate
enough to encounter him a taste of Paradise, here and now.

It is thanks to this barakah that Shaykh Abu Bakr was able to write the transformative
books that he did. In this tribute I will glance at just a few of his books, chiefly, his two
biographies, one on the Prophet of Islam, peace be upon him, and the other on a saint of
Islam.

Without doubt, the book which has had by far the greatest impact upon our world - not
just on Muslim readers - is his magisterial Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest
Sources (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1991). I know of individuals whose lives
have been transformed by reading this work; others, whose piety has been restored; still
others, seri- ous aspirants upon the spiritual path, who continuously read the book, in a
quasi-methodic manner, a few pages each day. The book has been awarded a number of
prizes in the Muslim world, and is acclaimed, globally, as the definitive, and peer- less,
account of the life of the Prophet, peace be upon him, in the English language.

It is interest to note that, despite the fact that the original sources on which the narrative
is based are Arabic, many native Arabic speakers have found the book more
compelling than those sources themselves, hence the current preparation of an Arabic
translation of the book (it has already been published in French, Italian, Spanish,
Turkish, Dutch, Bosnian and Tamil; further translations are being prepared in German,
Urdu, Sindhi, Dutch, Malay and Sinhalese). It is by no means inappropriate that the
book is already being hailed as a classic, even an epic: for, as with every great religious
epic, the spiritual principles embedded in the narrative are imparted to the reader with
an existential force that at once overwhelms, inspires and trans- forms.

As one reviewer, Hamid Dabashi, justly puts it: In reading Lings Muhammad, we
detect an alchemical effect in his narration and composition which so evenly combines
scholarly accuracy with poetic passion. Lings is a scholar poet

It would be impossible adequately to convey this alchemy by citing a few passages
from the book; but one can nonetheless be given a taste of the Sheikhs marvelous
narrative skill, and his ability to convey the wisdom and subtlety of the Prophet as a
leader of men, from the way in which the following incident is recounted. I have
chosen this passage also because it was one which Shaykh Abu Bakr himself cited,
during a trip to Istanbul in the mid-1990s, when he was asked which passages of the
book he would recommend as exemplifying the Prophets character. In addition, the
incident in question sheds light on one aspect of the profound complementarity
between the Divine Message and the human messenger, in this case, by showing how
the concrete, complex, often difficult human consequences of enacting a revealed
injunction were dealt with by the Prophet, who thereby demonstrates his mastery of
what might be called spiritual psychology.

After the conquest of Mecca by the Muslims, the Prophet distributed booty from the
subsequent battle, that of Hunayn, in a manner that appeared to be unfair: recently
converted tribal elders of Quraysh were given much, as were other influential but as yet
unconverted pagans, whilst next to nothing was given to the Helpers of Medina, who
were needy, on the one hand, and stalwart Muslims and supporters of the Prophet from
the beginning, on the other hand; these were the very men that had given him refuge
and offered him their allegiance when he had been driven out of Mecca as an exile. The
Prophet had taken this action, we are told, as he knew well enough that though the
religion had power in itself to work upon souls, this power depended on the religions
being accepted with some degree of commitment, and not just nominally. It was to
remove barriers to that commitment, such as a sense of bitterness or frustration, that the
principle of giving to those whose hearts are to be reconciled had been revealed; but
this principle was not under- stood at first by many of the older Companions, let alone
others.

The Prophet was told of dissatisfaction on the part of the Helpers and had them all, up
to four thousand of them, gathered in an enclosure. Having offered praise to God, he
addressed them:Men of the Helpers, word hath come to me that ye are deeply moved
against me in your souls. Did I not find you erring, and God guided you, poor and God
enriched you, enemies each of the other and God reconciled your hearts?

Yea indeed, they answered. God and His Messenger are most bountiful and most
gracious. Will ye not retort against me? he said. How should we retort? they asked,
in some perplexity. If ye wished, he answered, ye might say unto me, and say
truthfully, and be believed: Thou didst come unto us discredited, and we credited thee,
forlorn and we helped thee, an outcast and we took thee in, destitute and we comforted
thee. O Helpers, are ye stirred in your souls about the things of this world whereby I
have reconciled mens hearts that they may submit unto God, when you yourselves I
have entrusted unto your Islam? Are ye not well content, O Helpers, that the people
take with them their sheep and their camels, and that ye take with you the Messenger of
God unto your homes? If all men but the Helpers went one way, and the Helpers
another, I would go the way of the Helpers. God have Mercy upon the Helpers, and on
their sons and on their sons sons.
They wept until their beards were wet with their tears, and with one voice they said:
We are well content with the Messenger of God as our portion and our lot.

Before leaving this inspired piece of work, it is worth quoting in extenso from the
following review, written by an Arabist, Asma Afsaruddin of Harvard University:
It is admittedly difficult to find a gift for narration wedded to impeccable scholarship,
but Martin Lings may be said to have achieved this rare combination. The drama
inherent in the events that led to the establishment of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula in
the 7th century provides momentum in the telling and retelling of the sira, the
biography of the Prophet Muhammad. But to provide the verve and the magical cast
that invests each retelling with a fresh vibrancy - even for the reader who knows the
events well - can only be the accomplishment of a gifted raconteur. All those who have
ventured to translate the Arabic language into English and have struggled to render its
idioms and nuances into comprehensible English will find this work a literary tour de
force. One often hears the original Arabic metaphor reverberating in the English
rendering, adept- ly melded however into the secondary medium. The occasional pithy
observation (Harmony is the imprint of oneness upon multiplicity) and deft
summation (The Arabs were in favour of the man but against the message; the Jews
were in favour of the message but against the man) enriches the fabric from which the
narration is woven. All this allows for a powerfully emotive account so that we are, as
one reviewer remarks on the dust jacket of the book, imbued with the feeling that we
have actu- ally witnessed all the events this is sacred history at its best, rendered by
someone with a regard both for history and for what is sacred.

What his book on the Prophet did for ones understanding of the phenomenon of
prophethood, Shaykh Abu Bakrs book on the Shaykh al-Alawi, one might say, did for
that of sanctity in Islam. However, while the lessons from the life of the Prophet are for
all, and are revealed in accordance with the receptivity of the observer, it is otherwise
in the case of the Sufi saint in question, whose function was to manifest more
explicitly, on the doctrinal plane at least, the esoteric core of the religion, that, in other
words, which is more or less hidden or implicit within the prophetic message as such.
In this work, we are drawn deeply into some of the most profound and subtle aspects of
Sufism, our author often correcting, with impeccable spiritual logic, some of the
principal misunderstandings that had so bedevilled orientalist approaches to Sufism,
misunderstandings centred on the so-called pantheism of the doctrine of wahdat al-
wujud, the Oneness of Being, associated chiefly with Ibn al-Arabi. Indeed, the chapter
by our author entitled Oneness of Being remains to this day - despite the many works
connected with this subject that have appeared in the decades since the book was
written - an unsurpassed distillation of the essence of this doctrine. Seyyed Hossein
Nasr, in his lectures on Sufism, continues to refer to this chapter as the best short sum-
mary of wahdat al-wujud in any western language. In the course of disabusing
orientalists like Massignon and Nicholson of their various misconceptions on this
score, Shaykh Abu Bakr boldly claims that wahdat al-wujud is nothing short of the
Supreme Truth and therefore the ultimate goal of all mysticism. He cites illuminating
parallels to the Sufi formulations from diverse traditions, parallels which demonstrate,
objectively, the true universality of this perspective, and which deepen, subjectively,
ones orientation towards this Supreme Truth.
One of the most revealing points to emerge in this chapter, a point made with
characteristic directness and succinctness, is the clear distinction between union and
oneness, the first pertaining to a lower ontological degree and, in the final analysis,
entailing a metaphysical contradiction, while oneness (tawhd) is the expression, not
just of the indivisible oneness of the transcendent Divinity, but the immutable oneness
of Reality. He quotes the following, altogether fundamental, hadith qudsi (a divine
utterance, transmitted by the Prophet): My slave seeketh unremittingly to draw nigh
unto Me with devotions of his free will until I love him; and when I love him, I am the
Hearing wherewith he heareth, the Sight wherewith he seeth and the Hand wherewith
he smiteth and the Foot whereon he walketh. Then he adds the following irrefutable
concomitant: It cannot be concluded from this Tradition that this identity was not
already there, for the Divinity is not subject to change. The change in question is
simply that what was not perceived has now been perceived. The passage concludes:
We are near- er to him than his jugular vein and God cometh in between a man and his
own heart mean that he is nearer to him than he is to his inmost himself. The Oneness
here expressed exceeds the oneness of union. In these few lines we find expressed,
with wonderful simplicity, the whole difference between a mystical experience in
which union is a momentary state whereby two separate entities are seemingly united,
and metaphysical realization, wherein the One-and-only is grasped, permanently and
beyond the realm of experience, as ultimate Reality, transcending all things and
immanent in all things, whence the possibility, for the mystic, of attaining Supreme
Identity, or Self-realisation in God, as the Shaykh expressed it.

In another chapter we find the following very evocative pas- sage from the Shaykh al-
Alawi, rendered into fine English by our author; the passage can be taken as a
methodic comment on the perspective of oneness, relating the static description of
Reality to the dynamics of realization, centred on prayer; it is a remarkably explicit and
deeply inspiring description of the ultimate fruit of the invocation of the Supreme
Name:

The Infinite or the World of the Absolute which we conceive of as being outside us is
on the contrary universal and exists within us as well as without. There is only One
World, and this is It. What we look on as the sensible world, the finite world of time
and space, is nothing but a conglomeration of veils which hide the Real World. These
veils are our own senses: our eyes are the veils over True Sight, our ears the veils over
True Hearing, and so it is with the other senses. For us to become aware of the
existence of the Real World, the senses must be drawn aside What remains then of
man? There remains a faint gleam which appears to him as the lucidity of his
consciousness There is a perfect continuity between this gleam and the Great Light
of the Infinite World, and once this continuity has been grasped, our consciousness can
(by means of prayer) flow forth and spread out as it were into the Infinite and become
One with It, so that man comes to realize that the Infinite Alone is, and that he, the
humanly conscious, exists only as a veil. Once this state has been realized, all the lights
of Infinite Life may penetrate the soul of the Sufi, and make him participate in the
Divine Life, so that he has a right to exclaim: I am Allah. The invocation of the name
Allah is an intermediary which goes backwards and forwards between the glimmerings
of consciousness and the dazzling splendours of the Infinite, affirming the continuity
between them and knit- ting them ever closer together in communication until they are
merged in identity.

In this biography, Shaykh Abu Bakr succeeds in revealing something of the secret of
sanctified consciousness, while yet respecting its innate ineffability. That which is
communicable - the wisdom that flows from spiritual realization - is rendered
accessible at almost every page of this book, and not least, in the selection of the
Shaykhs poems that are translated, again, with consummate finesse; witness these
lines from the poem Laila:

Full near I came unto where dwelleth
Laila, when I heard her call.
That voice, would I might ever hear it! She favoured me, and drew me to her, took me
in, into her precinct,
With discourse intimate addressed me. She sat me by her, then came closer, raised the
cloak that hid her from me, made me marvel to distraction, bewildered me with all her
beauty.
She took me and amazd me, and hid me in her inmost self, until I thought that she was
I, And my life she took as ransom.
She changed me and transfigured me, and marked me with her special sign, pressed me
to her, put me from her, Namd me as she is named.
Having slain and crumbled me,
She steeped the fragments in her blood. Then, after my death, she raised me:
My star shines in her firmament.

Shaykh Abu Bakrs life was spent fighting the greater jihad, doing so with that
invincible weapon, the remembrance of God.

Let us conclude this tribute with a glance at some of the Sheikhs most direct passages
concerning this theme, passages which bespeak a personal, direct and total engagement
in this struggle against the enemy within. The very first book written by him, The
Book of Certainty, is gem which refracts for us some of the most essential elements of
Sufi gnosis based on traditional Quranic esoteric commentary. The following passage
sums up much of what has already been said, doing so in relation to the interpretation
of the Surah al-Fil (The Elephant): Hast thou not seen how thy Lord dealt with the
masters of the elephant? Did He not turn their plot awry? He sent upon them dense
clouds of birds that pelted them with inscribed stones. Thus made He them like
greenery eaten down.

Every Muslim is at war with the devil. As regards those of the right [The reference to
those of the right and the foremost is from the Surah al-Waqia, where this distinction
applies to the great mass of ordinary believers who are saved, on the one hand, and to
the prophets and saints, on the other; those of the left refer to the damned], however,
this warfare is desultory and intermittent, with many armistices and compromises.
Moreover the devil is aware that as fallen men they are already to a certain extent
within his grasp, and having by definition no faith in the Divine Mercy, he cannot
foresee that they will escape from his clutches in the life to come. But as regards the
foremost, he feels them actually throwing off his domination in the present and they
even carry the war into his own territory. The result is a terrible retaliation, and here
lies the great danger of the spiritual Path for one who enters upon it without due
qualification. Not by human means, but only thanks to the forces of Heaven, can the
traveller overcome the masters of the elephant. Now the rites act as the vehicles of
these forces, provided that the travellers intention be pure. In the case of one who has
entered upon the Path through pride or ambition or from any other impure motive, the
heavenly forces cannot come to the rites in sufficient power. Such a one cannot help
but be defeated, to fall more than ever under the sway of the enemy. But as for him
who enters the path through love of God in spontaneous aspiration towards His Light,
as a plant that turns towards the sun, between such a one and the forces of Heaven there
will be no obstacle. They will thus be able to impregnate in all fullness the rites that he
performs, making them like the birds which conquered the masters of the elephant, and
which are, in the words of the commentator, meditations and incantations, white and
luminous with the light of the Spirit.

The following passage from his what is Sufism Complements this one; it speaks of the
necessity of wielding a sword that has been forged and tempered in Heaven if one is
to overcome the obstacle before the aspirant in the spiritual life, this obstacle being
represented in most traditions as a gigantic monster with supernatural powers. He
offers this galvanising comment on one of the most powerful of these swords, the
Divine Name: calling on the Name of God, whether it be accompanied by some
other experience or not, is the most positive thing in the world because it sets up the
most powerful vibration towards the Heart. The Prophet said: There is a polish for
everything that taketh away rust; and the polish of the Heart is the invocation of
Allah.

Further on in the same book he offers this interpretation of the following verse from the
Quran: A good word is as a good tree: its root is firm, its branches are in heaven.:
This may be interpreted: an invocation, and above all the Supreme Name which is the
best of good words, is not a flat utterance which spreads horizontally outwards in this
world to be lost in thin air, but a vertical continuity of repercussions through- out all the
states of being.

One of the very last acts of Shaykh Abu Bakr was to plant a tree in his beautiful
garden. His earthly sojourn thus ended with a symbolic re-enactment of that for the
sake of which his whole life had been lived: the planting of the seed of the
remembrance in his own heart and, through his compassion- ate wisdom, in the hearts
of all those who sought his guidance; a seed which, he knew with certainty born of
direct perception, would germinate in a Garden which is better and more lasting. .