NORMATIVE Sufism is a genuine Islamic phenomenon as the Prophet Muhammad`s (PBUH) prophetic consciousness was founded upon very definite, vivid and powerful mystic experiences.

From the inner unity of his spiritual experience and of his faith, the Prophet of Islam at the very outset of his prophetic mission was certain that he was to deal with global concerns. This to him was to destroy the corrupt socioeconomic structures of the world and build anew.

With dazzling certainty of purpose and risks involved he challenged the Makkan oligarchy, inspired by his religious consciousness and spiritual experience. The latter was not to be dwelt on and enjoyed for its own sake, but it was the means to an end, not an end in itself. Thus, he was uniquely poised to bend history to a definite course. It is on this touchstone that Sufism which to Iqbal qualitatively does not differ from the experience of the Prophet needs to be judged.

Imbued, informed and judged by the normativity of the Quran, the early Sufi movement was based on the simplicity and piety of the Prophet against the luxurious lifestyle of the ruling elites. However, being reactionary in nature it succumbed to renunciation of the world. It aligned with the Asharite doctrine of pre-determinism and assumed neutrality to social phenomena. Sufism had lost its pivot when al-Ghazali reintegrated it into Islam as a pivotal core by striking an organic link between law, theology and mysticism.

However, the cumulative force of his own temperament, his openness to Christian ideas and his concerns for the state`s interests led al-Ghazali to the doctrine of personal salvation, a far cry from the fundamental impulse of the Quran, for there is no particular salvation only success (falah) or failure (khusran) in the task of building a sociopolitical world order.

Hence, al-Ghazali`s individualism took a heavy toll on Islamic positivism and collectivism. And as the Muslim philosophers had brought revelation at par with reason and were playing havoc with the metaphysical aspects of faith, al-Ghazali inspired precaution against them, which the community took as a ban on philosophy.

However, it was Ibn al-Arabi`s overblown syncretic Sufi movement which assimilated alien ideas of every stripe and brought the idea of personal salvation to the level where religion was hardly needed.

Philosophy violently reappeared in the form of `infallible` Sufi intuition (kashf) as a norm, with reason denied its role. Cast in Avicennian logic, Ibn al-Arabi`s doctrine of unity of being through Persia reached India where it fertilised itself withVedantic monism. The rapprochement culminated in Akbar`s Din-i-Ilahi. Ibn Taimiyya had already termed Ibn al-Arabi an epitome of everything `un-Islamic`.

However, Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi categorised him a saint in cardinal error.

Sheikh Sirhindi treated Ibn al-Arabi in sympathetic terms with Sufi rebuttals. He said monism, ie, unitary repose, is the first station of the spiritual journey and so overwhelms the subject that he deems it as final. He becomes so enamoured of God that everything seemed `God` to him; in turn something from within impels him to announce hama oost (`everything is God`).

This leads him to the idea of `God-world identity`, ie, God is the world and the world is God. This is peculiar to the monistic state which needs to be transcended. The highest station of spiritual journey is the province of prophets which yields moral content. Mystics may have access to it with the mediacy of a prophet.

So complete was the spiritual odyssey of Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi that after1,000 years of Islamic history, normative Islam comes alive in his mysticintellectual constructs, which justify his claim as `Innovator of the millennium`. It was the richness of spiritual enterprise that swung Ibn Taimiyyaand Sheikh Ahmad into action on the line of the Prophet against the status quo and led Shah Wali Allah to `rediscover` Islam.

In Dr Fazlur Rahman`s apt remarks, Iqbal has but simply rendered in magical poetry what Sheikh Ahmad had preached as his central theme 300 years before. On this premise, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto termed Pakistan a Sufi idea.

Sufism is a fact, though the metaphysically exhausted, science-smitten Cartesian West deems it fiction. Sheikh Ahmad`s constructs have turned mysticism into a positive science of higher psychology for which modern psychology is groping in the dark.

Hence, Sufism needs to be judged by the normativity of the Quran, not rescinded in the name of progressivism. Progress we want not despite Islam, nor besides Islam, but because of Islam which represents pure progress moral and material.

Sufism, which is all about inwardness of the deep sense of the moral task, to activate and put moral energies in constructive channels, is as integral to our progress as to Islam. • The wúter is an academic.