The Sufis by Idries Shah

Author:Idries Shah
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ISF Publishing
Published: 2015-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

MYSTERIES IN THE WEST:

I. Strange Rites

In an instant, rise from time and space. Set the world aside and become a world within yourself.

(Shabistari, Secret Garden)

It is the night of Saturday, especially consecrated to a ritual which is awesome to us, faithfully followed by the devotees of a certain cult.

Two groups of eleven, dressed in colourful costumes, carry out complicated movements within an enclosed space. They at times respond to musical stimuli applied through a primitive instrument by a man of seeming authority who, with a few assistants, supervises their activity. Entirely surrounding the area devoted to the ritual, a congregation gives its responses. At times the people sing, sometimes they shout, sometimes they are silent. Some wield an instrument which gives forth a strange sound.

Much care has evidently gone into the planning of the geometrically designed arena. Around it are colourful insignia, flags, banners, decorations probably designed to raise the emotional pitch of the individual and the group. The atmosphere is eerie partly because of the abrupt changes in emotion. Their reaction to the ecstatogenic processes being enacted in their midst is so explosive at times that one wonders why they do not spill over into the sacred enclosure. Both joy and sorrow are manifested among the votaries.

We are observers at a floodlit association football game. What is missing from the observer’s account is a knowledge of what is actually happening, and why. If we have this knowledge, we can identify the players, crowd, referee, the use of the chalked lines. If we do not, we continue: Here a man writhes on the ground, another grimaces, sweat pouring from his face. One of the audience strikes himself, another his neighbour. The totem rises into the air, and is hailed by an awesome roar from the assembly… Then we see that blood has been shed.

Other forms of ritual are subject to a similar approach by those who have not been through the experiences which precede their staging. Even more important, very many rituals of one kind or another have undergone alteration throughout the ages, the original intention or force being lost. When this happens, there is a mechanical or associative substitution of other factors. The ritual is distorted, even though there may be apparent reasons for its every aspect. This development is what we can call the dereliction of cult behaviour.

Here, now, is an externalist account of a dervish ritual, in which events are described from the point of view of the observer alone. The author is the Reverend John Subhan, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, who was present at this event in India:

Tonight is Thursday night, the night which is specially sacred to the Sufi. Come, let us visit some shrines and see for ourselves what strange religious rites are practiced almost at our very doors.

We enter a dimly lighted room where a number of men are gathered. As we do so a signal is given by a man who appears to be the leader of the assembly, and the doors are shut.

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