The Path (Tucson Discourses - May 1978)

The Path (Tucson Discourses - May 1978)

By Shaykh Abdal Qadir as-Sufi

So how are we going to talk about Tariq, about the Way? There is Tariq, and there is Sabil, Sabilillah, fi-sabilillah, in the way of Allah. The tariq, tariqa sufiyya, properly speaking is sabil. Sabil is from a root which means rain. Rain comes out of non-existence, out of the cloud-form and becomes rain. It was cloud, it becomes rain, and it disappears. It completely disappears, and only its results are seen, which is grass and flowers, and food for others. Imam Junayd, radiya'llahu 'anhu, the Imam of the 'Arifeen, and the People of the Tariq, the Tariq of Allah, said, "The Sufi is like dung, turf on the earth and all the different seeds are thrown onto it, and from this, roses and all the beautiful flowers spring up and bloom.

I am speaking in the language of the people of tasawwuf, knowledge, to the people of tasawwuf as we were talking about this morning with one group, is not contained within the realm of information. Information is the lowest, most limited, and first degree of knowledge after which there are two degrees, each one of them higher than the other, each with its own language, each with its own science, and each with its own zone in which it may be experienced. And people do not know it exists, and when they hear it exists, only a small group of people want to have this experience, to have this knowledge. Why is this? Because we are in an age of outward expansion, and inner contraction. People want to expand outwardly, and therefore they contract inwardly. It's an age where people have no adab, as we say, they have not got manners; and manners are the Path: "at-Tariqa, kulluha adab."

The tariqa is nothing but good manners, and people do not have good manners. They are not able to sit properly. They sit like babies, like children in perambulators: they lounge. Why? Because they are outwardly free. Why? Because they are inwardly imprisoned. Islam is Shari'at. Islam is shahada, salat, siyam, zakat, hajj. All of which are imprisoning, all of which have their conditions, all of which trap you, all of which shrink you, all of which constrict you outwardly, and all of which have their expansion inwardly. This is an age of freedom. People are free: "I do this. I do that. I go with the flow. I do what I like. It doesn't suit me. I don't like it. I have an opinion."

What is opinion? Opinion is something you have been taught by others to have, imagining it is from yourself. Sufis say, "beware of opinion". Why? Not because it is evil or bad or dangerous, but because it gives you kingdom. It enthrones, and it enthrones you in ignorance. Speculation is the way of ignorance. You speculate when you do not know. Tasawwuf is science. Science is from knowledge, and it has no speculation: in its beginning, in its middle, or in its end.

Read the whole discourse from Aisha Bewley's webste.