The doctrine of Junayd
Contents
The path of pure love opened by Rabi’a al-’Adawiyya (713-801) had many followers. Some of them lived through states of ecstasy that immersed them in the world of divine proximity, to the point of neglecting the precepts of the Law (shari’a). Muslim orthodoxy rose up against such a situation. The doctors of Islam were supported in this by great mystics like Abu’l-Qasim al-Junayd (830-911), who sought to reconcile the rapture of ecstatic experience with the normative application of the principles of the Law. In this context Junayd’s contribution is fundamental: it would allow not only the general principles of Sufism to be theorised, but also the foundations of Sunni Sufism, socially acceptable, to be laid down.
The Baghdad school
Nicknamed by his contemporaries ‘the lord of the spiritual assembly’, Junayd was born in Baghdad. After the death of his father while he was still a child, he was taken in by Sari al-Saqati (772-867), his maternal uncle. Saqati was regarded as the founder of the Sufi school of Baghdad, known for its development of the notion of divine unity (tawhid). Junayd pursued his studies in Baghdad and became the disciple of several great Sufi masters, the most influential being Saqati and the scholar al-Muhasibi (781-857). From his uncle he retained outward sobriety, an ascetic practice and the doctrine of the knowledge of divine unity. From Muhasibi he took the importance of self-examination and of vigilance towards the ego.
Junayd always sought to keep clear of political quarrels, but he could not avoid entering the fray that set the Sufis against their detractors. Following the extravagant utterances of mystics transported by divine love, and despite the great doctrinal openness of Islam at the time, the Sufis were subjected to violent attacks by influential fundamentalist opponents. Accused of heresy, threatened with death, they had to make themselves ever more discreet. A brilliant jurist endowed with a thorough knowledge of canon law and theology, Junayd answered the malicious accusations with jurisprudence and Qur’anic verses, deploying a logic so irrefutable that it earned him even the respect of the caliph. It is related that he attracted such esteem and love that more than sixty thousand people formed the cortège at his funeral.
Sobriety and intoxication
For Junayd, if certain mystics had brought such hostility upon themselves, the cause lay in their negligence towards religious obligations. A spiritual practice cut off from ritual observance could, in his view, only lead to error. One major event confirmed his position and the need to set out clearly the doctrinal foundations of Sufism. Mansur al-Hallaj (857-922), who had been his disciple for twenty years, scandalised the society of the time by publicly proclaiming: ‘I am the Truth!’ Hallaj was the figure par excellence of the one ‘rapt in God’, annihilated in the divine Presence. In fact he was not claiming divinity for himself: stripped of all individuality, drowned in the ocean of divine love, he was speaking of God and of no other. Junayd knew this, and when Hallaj was arrested by the authorities in the year 909, he assented to the condemnation, while stressing that only his outward behaviour deserved reproof.
Thus, in Junayd’s time, two ways of access to spiritual realisation were taking shape: that of ecstatic mysticism, of ‘intoxication’, and that of ‘sober’ Sufism. Hallaj was the prototype of the first, Junayd of the second. Junayd’s adherence to a sober Sufism, whose corollary was the balance between esotericism and exotericism, made Sufism acceptable in the eyes of the orthodox. On sobriety he gave this advice: ‘O friends! If religion is what matters to you, then be prudent! If God is what matters to you, then turn your gaze towards the path! And if you want to keep your head on your shoulders, then keep your inner state confidential!’
As for the balance to be preserved between the normative outward dimension of Islam and its initiatic inward dimension, Junayd spoke of it in these terms: ‘On this road of life, one must hold in the right hand the Book the Lord has sent us and, in the left hand, the traditional precepts of the Prophet. He who walks by the light of these two lamps will never stray from the right path.’
The necessity of a guide
Junayd’s doctrine is founded on the knowledge of divine unity, the goal and end of the spiritual quest. The mystics agreed that this knowledge could only be realised on condition of breaking the ties with everything one loves, until the divine Being takes the place of all. Whereas the first ascetics applied themselves to renouncing every material possession, Junayd insisted on inner renunciation, the only true form of renunciation in his eyes; from it flows detachment from, rather than the elimination of, material goods, a detachment which alone can lead to spiritual realisation. He then took up an expression of the Prophet Muhammad: the ‘greater jihad’, that is, the struggle against the self, through a deep work of purification of one’s being. ‘Sufism,’ he said, ‘is that the divine Being should make you die to yourself and make you live in Him.’
Junayd described the road of inner purification in terms of a multitude of stations to be traversed, leading from the state of spiritual ignorance to that of perfect realisation. This journey is strewn with pitfalls and can only be undertaken in safety in the company of one who has already completed it, that is, a ‘realised’ being. As he recalls in an answer to a friend concerning the dangers of the spiritual path: ‘Know, my friend, since you ask me about it, that on the way to the goal there will be perilous desert stages and deadly oases, which are traversed only with a guide and crossed only with perseverance, and riding a good mount!’
The body of doctrinal principles put in place by Junayd was to contribute to the blossoming of the brotherhoods in the lands of Islam, and to allow every Muslim who so desired to experience Sufism in a viable manner, ‘without losing his head’, while carrying on his daily life in the world. As for his method of spiritual education, for several centuries it remained the classic reference model of Sufi education. On account of its austerity, however, this method became increasingly difficult to apply in the new living conditions imposed by the modern world. Without the foundations of Sufism being altered, a renewal of teaching methods was soon to prove necessary for the present times.
Karim Ben Driss
Further reading
- The spiritual guide on the Sufi path
- The journey of the soul: the seven stations
- ’Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, the founder
