A path of rigour, a path of beauty

By Faouzi Skali · February 4, 2024 · 7 min read

In the Sufi tradition, spiritual teachings always answer the particular needs of an era and its given circumstances. In quite recent times, the time of the master of Sidi Hamza al-Qadiri Boutchich, who was himself my spiritual guide¹, a spiritual master would accept a disciple only if the latter met a certain number of conditions. He had to have already lived through a whole personal journey and to be at least forty years old, for otherwise he was considered a young man who had yet to know anything of the experience of life. Before being able to apply to a spiritual guide, one therefore had to have deepened one’s practice, overcome sometimes difficult trials and possess a certain spiritual baggage. In Sufism, such a path is well known and is called the ‘path of Rigour’ or ‘path of Majesty’ (jalal).

The path of Beauty

But such a scheme has no absolute value and can evolve according to modalities that obey a divine choice. Sidi Hamza had been entirely steeped in this traditional approach and was himself integrated into the same path of rigour as his father, Sidi Hajj ’Abbas. Yet when he in turn became guide of the path in 1972, his approach to spiritual education was very different². Sidi Hamza’s way of teaching even seemed to run counter to that prior demand. It is the expression of the ‘path of Beauty’ or ‘path of Compassion’ (jamal), within which everyone is welcomed, without any discrimination. Already in his time, Sidi Hajj ’Abbas used to say that he would gladly give his spiritual secret to the whole of creation, were that possible, certain as he was that only the one to whom it was destined would take it.

The path of Beauty presents itself as a form of education renewed in relation to certain schemes of the past. The following anecdote is very revealing of this. When he was guide of the brotherhood, Sidi Hajj ’Abbas was not in the habit of giving lectures. At every spiritual assembly he attended, it was always one of his disciples who spoke. However, one evening, the disciple who was speaking evoked the image well known in all spiritual traditions according to which the disciple must hold himself in the hands of his spiritual master like a dead man in the hands of the washer of the dead, that is, in a kind of total abandonment. And there, suddenly, quite exceptionally, Sidi Hajj ’Abbas asked to speak: ‘Forgive me, but I have something to say on this subject!’ The disciple was very surprised, for it was the first time his guide had interrupted him in this way: ‘Yes, master, what do you wish to say?’ Sidi Hajj ’Abbas replied: ‘Formerly it was indeed so, but now it is the master who must be in the hands of his disciple like the dead man in the hands of the washer of the dead.’

This reversal of roles evoked by Sidi Hajj ‘Abbas is reminiscent of the way Jesus washed his disciples’ feet one after another. In a path of Beauty, the master must, in a gesture of compassion, ‘come down’ to welcome the disciple and accompany him. He must go, like water, ever lower, in order to be able to welcome and accompany, with the idea that once the disciple has ‘tasted’ the Source, he will naturally begin a certain transformation of his own accord. Sidi Hajj ’Abbas went on and concluded in these terms: ‘There is also a proverb that says: strip yourself bare and you will taste! I say the opposite: taste and you will strip yourself bare!’

An education suited to our time

This type of approach, in which the prior individual trials have been done away with, corresponds to the needs of our era. For the present times constitute in themselves a formidable form of trial. The modern way of life resembles a sort of conspiracy against every form of inner life. Isn’t that enough to test our thirst for spirituality? Nowadays, what matters is helping to open and nourish the spiritual ‘heart’ of all those who carry this quest. In fact, many people long to be ‘given water’, for the aridity of the present age invites the awakening of a thirst and a desire of another order.

In reality, the path of Beauty and that of Majesty are always associated: in all beauty a rigour is present, but it remains hidden. It is rigour, for instance, that contributes, in a hidden way, to the disciple’s rooting in a regular practice. Conversely, in the path of Rigour there is also a great compassion, for it is out of love for the essential that one manages to be demanding with oneself. Being exacting with oneself is a force that carries compassion at its core. It is in this sense that a famous Sufi, Abu Yazid al-Bistami³, reported the following munajat (a kind of intimate dialogue with God). One day, God called out to Bistami: ‘O you whom everyone takes for a formidable master, if I revealed your true nature, everyone would flee from you!’ Bistami, much embarrassed, was nonetheless not disconcerted, and answered: ‘Lord, if I revealed to men Your immense Compassion, they would flee from You too, for they would no longer fear anything.’ There was then a moment of silence, and Bistami heard a voice saying: ‘Listen, let’s agree: you say nothing and I say nothing!’ This is an allusion to a secret like no other: the secret of the heart.

Counting on God, not on oneself

Man attains perfection only by abandoning himself to God, and will never attain it, whatever he does, by counting only on himself. A maxim of Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah⁴, a Sufi of the Middle Ages, illuminates this fundamental notion: ‘One of the signs that you are counting on your ego and not on God is that you despair as soon as you make a misstep.’ Indeed, we believe, sometimes unconsciously, that it is through intensive practices, good works and praiseworthy efforts on ourselves that we shall reach the goal, a little as though we thought we could enter the Kingdom of heaven by sheer force of will. And then, all of a sudden, an unexpected event occurs and thwarts all our fine ideas. That is when we feel a deep despair and consider ourselves ‘less than nothing’. We pass thus from one extreme to the other, because instead of counting on God alone, we are in fact counting above all on ourselves. The genuine trust towards which we must strive is not trust in oneself or in our ego, even a consolidated ego, an ego with charisma or an ego with magnetism.

In all circumstances, one must discern who is the Giver and where the Source is, and tirelessly ‘surpass oneself’ to move in its direction. Then one can understand what Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah also said: ‘Perhaps in giving to you, He deprives you. Perhaps in depriving you, He gives to you.’ A privation becomes liberation for us if it helps us draw near to an inner truth that had hitherto been buried. Rigour and compassion work together, throughout life, towards the emergence of a deep knowledge of being. Thus takes shape the meaning of all authentic quest: first understand by oneself, then understand through God, and finally He becomes the illumination and the meaning of our path, echoing the prayer upon the Prophet Muhammad that was given to Sidi Hajj ’Abbas on his entry into the path: ‘Annihilate me, drown me in the ocean of unity, until I see, find and feel only through It.’

Faouzi Skali

Further reading

• Sidi Hamza al-Qadiri Boutchich (1918-2017)
• Love in Sufism

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