Ṣūfī and Taṣawwuf

A ṣūfī is a mystic of Islam, and taṣawwuf is the discipline that makes one: the whole way of self-purification, remembrance and love that English calls Sufism. The word has been argued over for a thousand years, and the two guides on this site disagree about it in an instructive way.

Four derivations and a refusal

Al-Hujwīrī, writing in the eleventh century, first sets out the explanations current in his day:

“Some assert that the Ṣúfí is so called because he wears a woollen garment (jáma´-i ṣúf); others that he is so called because he is in the first rank (ṣaff-i awwal)”

— Kashf al-Maḥjūb, Chapter III

A third group traced the name to the Aṣḥáb-i Ṣuffa, the poor companions of the Prophet who lodged on the mosque’s veranda, and a fourth to ṣafá, purity. He is unmoved by all of them:

“These explanations of the true meaning of Ṣúfiism are far from satisfying the requirements of etymology, although each of them is supported by many subtle arguments.”

— Kashf al-Maḥjūb, Chapter III

His own answer is that the name is simply a name. “This designation of the sect is a proper name,” he says, “inasmuch as the dignity of the Ṣúfís is too great for their transactions (mu`ámalát) to be hidden, so that their name should need a derivation.” Purity still matters to him, because those who have “purged their morals and conduct” are the people the word describes, but he will not rest the name on it.

The scholar’s answer

Nicholson, writing in 1914, has no such scruple. He notes first that the Sufis themselves usually went the other way:

“Most Sūfīs, flying in the face of etymology, have derived it from an Arabic root which conveys the notion of ‘purity’; this would make ‘Sūfī’ mean ‘one who is pure in heart’ or ‘one of the elect.’”

— Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam, Introduction

Then he reports what the specialists concluded:

“But Nöldeke, in an article written twenty years ago, showed conclusively that the name was derived from sūf (wool), and was originally applied to those Moslem ascetics who, in imitation of Christian hermits, clad themselves in coarse woollen garb as a sign of penitence and renunciation of worldly vanities.”

— Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam, Introduction

The word, he adds, “bore a humbler meaning when it first gained currency (about 800 A.D.)” than it later acquired. The two accounts are less opposed than they look: al-Hujwīrī himself treats wool as the Sufis’ traditional dress and explains why “they seldom wear garments of wool at the present day” (Chapter IV). What changed is the weight the word came to carry.

Ṣūfī, mutaṣawwif, mustaṣwif

Al-Hujwīrī’s most useful move is to split the word into three, so that the name can be claimed honestly or dishonestly:

“The Ṣúfí is he that is dead to self and living by the Truth; he has escaped from the grip of human faculties and has really attained (to God). The Mutaṣawwif is he that seeks to reach this rank by means of self-mortification (mujáhadat) and in his search rectifies his conduct in accordance with their (the Ṣúfís’) example. The Mustaṣwif is he that makes himself like them (the Ṣúfís) for the sake of money and wealth and power and worldly advantage”

— Kashf al-Maḥjūb, Chapter III

The distinction is why a serious reader of the classical texts will find the word used with some reserve. A ṣūfī in the full sense is rare; most people one meets on the path are mutaṣawwifs, and some are neither.

Many definitions, none of them a ceremony

In the same chapter al-Hujwīrī gathers what the masters said when asked what taṣawwuf is. The answers refuse to describe a ritual. Fūshanja, with a note of despair: “To-day Ṣúfiism is a name without a reality, but formerly it was a reality without a name.” Al-Muqrī: “Ṣúfiism is the maintenance of right states with God.” Murta`ish: “Ṣúfiism is good nature.” Núrī: “Ṣúfiism is the renunciation of all selfish pleasures.” Ibn al-Jallā: “Ṣúfiism is an essence without form.” And Shiblī, the most startling:

“Ṣúfiism is polytheism, because it is the guarding of the heart from the vision of ‘other’, and ‘other’ does not exist.”

— Kashf al-Maḥjūb, Chapter III

Al-Hujwīrī’s own closing word on the matter is that quarrelling about the label misses the point: “If they deny only the name it is no matter, since ideas are unrelated to things which bear names.” What matters is the reality, which the next entries take in turn: the stations and states (Ḥāl and Maqām), the self that must be overcome (Nafs and Rūḥ), and the goal (Fanā and Baqā).