The Kashf al-mahjúb: The oldest Persian treatise on Súfiism

God hath said: “O believers, fasting is prescribed unto you” (Kor. ii, 179). And the Apostle said that he was informed by Gabriel that God said: “Fasting is mine, and I have the best right to give recompense for it” (al-ṣawm lí wa-ana ajzá bihi),[159] because the religious practice of fasting is a mystery unconnected with any external thing, a mystery in which none other than God participates: hence its recompense is infinite. It has been said that mankind enter Paradise through God’s mercy, and that their rank therein depends on their religious devotion, and that their abiding therein for ever is the recompense of their fasting, because God said: “I have the best right to give recompense for it.” Junayd said: “Fasting is half of the Way.” I have seen Shaykhs who fasted without intermission, and others who fasted only during the month of Ramaḍán: the former were seeking recompense, and the latter were renouncing self-will and ostentation. Again, I have seen others who fasted and were not conscious of anyone and ate only when food was set before them. This is more in accordance with the Sunna. It is related that the Apostle came to `Á´isha and Ḥafṣa, who said to him: “We have kept some dates and butter (ḥays) for thee.” “Bring it,” said he; “I was intending to fast, but I will fast another day instead.” I have seen others who fasted on the “white days” (from the 13th to the 15th of every month), and on the ten (last nights) of the blessed month (Ramaḍán), and also during Rajab, Sha`bán, and Ramaḍán.

Others I have seen who observed the fast of David, which the Apostle called the best of fasts, i.e. they fasted one day and broke their fast the next day. Once I came into the presence of Shaykh Aḥmad Bukhárí. He had a dish of sweetmeat (ḥalwá) before him, from which he was eating, and he made a sign to me that I should do the same. As is the way of young men, I answered (without consideration) that I was fasting. He asked why. I said: “In conformity with such and such a one.” He said: “It is not right for human beings to conform with human beings.” I was about to break my fast, but he said: “Since you wish to be quit of conformity with him, do not conform with me, for I too am a human being.” Fasting is really abstinence, and this includes the whole method of Ṣúfiism (ṭaríqat). The least degree in fasting is hunger, which is God’s food on earth, and is universally commended in the eye of the law and of reason. One month’s continual fasting is incumbent on every reasonable Moslem who has attained to manhood. The fast begins on the appearance of the moon of Ramaḍán, and continues until the appearance of the moon of Shawwál, and for every day a sincere intention and firm obligation are necessary. Abstinence involves many obligations, e.g., keeping the belly without food and drink, and guarding the eye from lustful looks, and the ear from listening to evil speech about anyone in his absence, and the tongue from vain or foul words, and the body from following after worldly things and disobedience to God.

One who acts in this manner is truly keeping his fast, for the Apostle said to a certain man, “When you fast, let your ear fast and your eye and your tongue and your hand and every limb;” and he also said, “Many a one has no good of his fasting except hunger and thirst.”

I dreamed that I saw the Apostle and asked him to give me a word of counsel, and that he replied: “Imprison thy tongue and thy senses.” To imprison the senses is complete self-mortification, because all kinds of knowledge are acquired through the five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Four of the senses have a particular locus, but the fifth, namely touch, is spread over the whole body. Everything that becomes known to human beings passes through these five doors, except intuitive knowledge and Divine inspiration, and in each sense there is a purity and an impurity; for, just as they are open to knowledge, reason, and spirit, so they are open to imagination and passion, being organs which partake of piety and sin and of felicity and misery. Therefore it behoves him who is keeping a fast to imprison all the senses in order that they may return from disobedience to obedience. To abstain only from food and drink is child’s play. One must abstain from idle pleasures and unlawful acts, not from eating lawful food. I marvel at those who say that they are keeping a voluntary fast and yet fail to perform an obligatory duty. Not to commit sin is obligatory, whereas continual fasting is an apostolic custom (which may be observed or neglected). When a man is divinely protected from sin all his circumstances are a fast.

It is related by Abú Ṭalḥa al-Málikí that Sahl b. `Abdalláh of Tustar was fasting on the day of his birth and also on the day of his death, because he was born in the forenoon and tasted no milk until the evening prayer, and on the day of his decease he was keeping a fast. But continual fasting (rúza-i wiṣál) has been forbidden by the Apostle, for when he fasted continually, and his Companions conformed with him in that respect, he forbade them, saying: “I am not as one of you: I pass the night with my Lord, who gives me food and drink.” The votaries of self-mortification assert that this prohibition was an act of indulgence, not a veto declaring such fasts to be unlawful, and others regard them as being contrary to the Sunna, but the fact is that continuance (wiṣál) is impossible, because the day’s fast is interrupted by night or, at any rate, does not continue beyond a certain period. It is related that Sahl b. `Abdalláh of Tustar used to eat only once in fifteen days, and when the month of Ramaḍán arrived he ate nothing until the Feast, and performed four hundred bowings in prayer every night. This exceeds the limit of human endurance, and cannot be accomplished by anyone without Divine aid, which itself becomes his nourishment. It is well known that Shaykh Abú Naṣr Sarráj,[160] the author of the Luma`,[161] who was surnamed the Peacock of the Poor (Ṭá´ús al-fuqará), came to Baghdád in the month of Ramaḍán, and was given a private chamber in the Shúníziyya mosque, and was appointed to preside over the dervishes until the Feast.

During the nightly prayers of Ramaḍán (taráwíḥ) he recited the whole Koran five times. Every night a servant brought a loaf of bread to his room. When he departed, on the day of the Feast, the servant found all the thirty loaves untouched. `Alí b. Bakkár relates that Ḥafṣ Miṣṣísí ate nothing in Ramaḍán except on the fifteenth day of that month. We are told that Ibráhím Adham fasted from the beginning to the end of Ramaḍán, and, although it was the month of Tammúz (July), worked every day as a harvester and gave his wages to the dervishes, and prayed from nightfall to daybreak; they watched him closely and saw that he neither ate nor slept. It is said that Shaykh Abú `Abdalláh Khafíf during his life kept forty uninterrupted fasts of forty days, and I have met with an old man who used annually to keep two fasts of forty days in the desert. I was present at the death-bed of Dánishmand Abú Muḥammad Bángharí; he had tasted no food for eighty days and had not missed a single occasion of public worship. At Merv there were two spiritual directors; one was called Mas`úd and the other was Shaykh Abú `Alí Siyáh. Mas`úd sent a message to Abú `Alí, saying: “How long shall we make empty pretensions? Come, let us sit fasting for forty days.” Abú `Alí replied: “No; let us eat three times a day and nevertheless require only one purification during these forty days.” The difficulties of this question are not yet removed. Ignorant persons conclude that continuance in fasting is possible, while physicians allege that such a theory is entirely baseless. I will now explain the matter in full.

To fast continuously, without infringing the Divine command, is a miracle (karámat). Miracles have a special, not a general, application: if they were vouchsafed to all, faith would be an act of necessity (jabr) and gnostics would not be recompensed on account of gnosis. The Apostle wrought evidentiary miracles (mu`jizát) and therefore divulged his continuance in fasting; but he forbade the saints (ahl-i karámat) to divulge it, because a karámat involves concealment, whereas a mu`jizat involves revelation. This is a clear distinction between the miracles performed by Apostles and those performed by saints, and will be sufficient for anyone who is divinely guided. The forty days’ fasts (chilla) of the saints are derived from the fast of Moses (Kor. vii, 138). When the saints desire to hear the word of God spiritually, they remain fasting for forty days. After thirty days have passed they rub their teeth; then they fast ten days more, and God speaks to their hearts, because whatever the prophets enjoy openly the saints may enjoy secretly. Now, hearing the word of God is not compatible with the subsistence of the natural temperament: therefore the four humours must be deprived of food and drink for forty days in order that they may be utterly subdued, and that the purity of love and the subtlety of the spirit may hold absolute sway.