Spiritual work and grace

By Nabil Humeau · April 20, 2026 · 6 min read

Contents

By Nabil Humeau (written adaptation of the “A Sufi point of view” videos on the “Isthme, culture soufie” YouTube channel).

Some insist on the importance of the spiritual work the aspirant must accomplish on the path towards realisation; others, on the contrary, give an essential place to divine grace in that undertaking.

It can therefore prove difficult at times to know how to measure the intensity of one’s efforts on the one hand, and one’s trusting surrender to the divine decree on the other. It is, after all, a central and recurring theme in all spiritual and religious paths.

Let us try to see what can be said of it in the case of Islam and Sufism.

Faouzi Skali¹ has spoken on this subject of a very telling image: that of the peasant who prepares his land and sows his seeds without being certain that sun and rain will come to make his work bear fruit. The fruit does not depend on that work alone. It is a grace which comes, or does not. What the peasant can be certain of, on the other hand, is that if he does not carry out this work of ploughing and sowing… he will have no harvest at all, even if rain and sunshine take their turns on cue!

We can thus hypothesise that grace and work do not exclude each other where spiritual journeying is concerned: both are necessary. Each case, each journey is of course unique, proper to each individual, but to generalise a little, one could say that grace is essential for setting out on the path and also for crowning the spiritual work accomplished; as for that work, it is generally necessary for anything to be produced. For work to be crowned by grace, it must have taken place!

Let us see what the Islamic tradition, and the Sufi tradition in particular, tells us about this.

The beginning: meeting the guide, fruit of grace

Let us start by quoting a well-known Zen Buddhist saying: “When the disciple is ready, the master appears.” As if grace were only waiting for the right moment to manifest itself, in the form of the spiritual master who will take charge of the aspirant’s journey.

In the Sufi tradition, sayings of the friends of God indicating that it is God who seeks the disciples and brings them to the spiritual path are numerous.

Here is Abu Yazid al-Bistami (804-874): “I had been seeking God for 30 years, and when I opened my eyes I discovered that it was He who had been seeking me.”

Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah, in one of his wisdom sayings (Hikam), tells us nothing different: “Glory be to Him who manifests His friends only to manifest Himself, and who leads to them only those He wishes to lead to Him.”

One can see clearly here how it is divine grace that guides the aspirant towards spiritual realisation on the path of the masters.

The Sufi tradition points to another grace: the permanence of the existence of such teaching masters, and so of the possibility of following their path. The imam ’Abd al-Karim al-Qushayri (986-1072; author of the Risala, the epistle on the science of Sufism) said: “As long as Islam lasts, there will be no moment in history when masters are wanting.”

Along the way: spiritual work is necessary

Spiritual work is often presented as a struggle (mujahada in Arabic), a struggle against one’s ego, that part of our being which claims to govern us and hinders our spiritual awakening. The Prophet Muhammad, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, called this struggle “jihad al-akbar” (“the greater struggle”, by contrast with the lesser jihad, armed combat).

This struggle requires discipline, spiritual exercises (the dhikr notably), efforts; in a word, doing the work.

Sidi Hamza (master of the Qadiriya Boutchichiya path between 1972 and 2017) said on this subject: “Everything is done through work (’amal). Everything is tasted and obtained through work. The murid (the aspirant) must work but must not count on his works and say to himself ‘I shall enter Paradise thanks to them’. Everything the murid does must be done for the Face of God, and so neither out of fear of hell nor for the sake of paradise. The murid must work while not counting on his efforts. And he must be like a servant of God, who takes no pride in his work.”

The work Sidi Hamza speaks of includes the fulfilment of ritual obligations (but also family and professional ones) in the search for excellence, the performance of the wird (the whole of the dhikr, the invocations prescribed individually to the disciple), participation in collective gatherings of dhikr; this work also includes service to others, the acquisition of useful knowledge…

During the journey: grace makes us persevere

Assiduity in spiritual work (the practice of dhikr in particular) is not always easy: the human being can falter in his determination and regularity, despite the sincerity of his intention and his spiritual conviction.

He will then need divine grace to sustain him and help him persevere. Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari speaks of this in several of his wisdom sayings (Hikam):

“He has granted you three signal favours (karamat): granting you to invoke Him, for without His grace you would not be worthy of practising His invocation; […]” (Hikam, 261)

“Knowing your weakness to exist, He reduced the number of ritual prayers; and knowing how much you needed His grace, He multiplied their fruits.” (Hikam, 123)

“If you see a servant of God maintained by Him in the regular performance of spiritual exercises (awrad) and favoured with a prolonged divine assistance, do not underestimate the gifts God has granted him on the grounds that you see in him neither the mark of the gnostics (al-’arifin), nor the splendour of those who love God (al-muhibbin). If he had no inspiration (warid), he would not persist in practising the spiritual exercises (wird).” (Hikam, 69)

The fruits of the journey: progress is a gift

This was already touched on in the saying of Sidi Hamza al-Qadiri Boutchich quoted above: progress through the spiritual stations (maqamat) is not the automatic and measurable outcome of the disciple’s spiritual work.

At the same time, we have also seen that without work there can be no progress, that much is certain (barring exceptional cases).

What this means for the disciple is that he accepts to accomplish the work prescribed by his guide, while knowing that progress along the path, right up to realisation, can only be the fruit of divine grace.

Let us conclude by quoting Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah once more: “If you could reach Him only after the extinction of your bad inclinations and the disappearance of your pretensions, you would never get there. But if He wills to bring you to Him, He will cover your qualities with His own, and your attributes with His own, and draw you to Him by a favour He grants you, and not as a consequence of your efforts towards Him” (Hikam, 133).

Further reading

A Moroccan anthropologist, author of numerous works on Sufism and founder of the Festival of Sufi Cultures in Fez. ↩