The foundations of spiritual brotherhood
Contents
Text by Shaykh Muhammad ibn ’Ali al-Tadili.
According to one tradition, the Prophet of Islam said: ‘The believer is an intimate friend to whom one often pays visits.’
Spiritual friendship implies enquiring after the cares of one’s brothers (or sisters) in God, working to ease the accomplishment of their affairs as far as possible, and going often to their homes to visit them and renew mutual trust.
A Sufi disciple was in the habit of frequenting the dwelling of one of his brothers in God every evening. Someone remarked to him on the frequency of his visits, and he replied: ‘Hearts deteriorate with time, just as stagnant water grows cloudy with time. So I fear my personal dispositions would degrade if I spaced my visits out too far.’
What spiritual friendship implies
Spiritual friendship involves, among other things, help given to souls in distress, that help implying the tokens of affection one bears towards one’s fellow beings.
Friendship obliges one to sincerity, both outwardly and inwardly, for each is the mirror of his brother in God.
Friendship implies modesty, distance from every kind of outburst, and the deep conviction that one is of less worth than each of one’s brothers or sisters in God.
One consequence of friendship is to pay no attention to one’s brothers’ missteps, to conceal their faults as far as possible, to pray for their forgiveness and to seek every possible excuse to explain those faults.
Friendship requires that the Sufi disciple be animated by the best of thoughts towards his brothers. It presupposes renouncing command within the assembly of disciples, renouncing the love of ostentation and renouncing the love of honours.
The qualities of character of the accomplished Sufi mean that he forgives the one who has wronged him, that he strives to renew the bonds of friendship with the one who broke them, and that he grants the requests of the one who repulsed his own.
The Sufi disciple will not boast of surpassing his brothers in God by his outward knowledge, by his inner knowledge or by his spiritual states. He will think first of his own difficulty in escaping the passions of his soul, and he will watch over his promptness in seeking whatever may satisfy his brothers (or sisters). If he commits a fault or falls short of his duties, he will have reproaches only for himself, and will hasten back in prayer to the One who forgives.
Perfect brotherhood between Sufi disciples corresponds to the attributes of spiritual chivalry (futuwwa), which enjoins always attending to others and preferring others to oneself.
One must never seek to divide the disciples among themselves, for division is a straying that disperses hearts and destroys the fruits of love. ‘Truly, the believers are brothers to one another. Establish concord among your brothers!’ (Qur’an XLIX, 10). This call to concord rests on the noble virtues of character: long-suffering, generosity, modesty, solicitude, patience and affection.
In a word, the Sufi path is a path of union, for union is the principle of existence that governs all worlds. The Sufis have a maxim: the relations between two brothers (or sisters) in God will not be perfect until one can say to the other: ‘O myself!’
The song of the true brother
Your true brother is the one who stays by your side,
who consents to harm himself in order to be of use to you,
who, when the vicissitudes of time assail you,
multiplies himself so that you may remain in unity.
What in the world is sweeter than a friend who gladdens the heart?
If I have slipped, I do not fear his blame;
and if I have stumbled, he strives to raise me up.
Joys lie neither in refined dishes, nor in luxury,
nor in riches, though their glitter subjugate us.
Only a friend inspires the respect and benevolence born of generosity.
For a friend one shows a pleasant, smiling face.
A friend gives access to pure happiness, the heart expanded with abundance.
He ceaselessly raises the character of the best.
And even if I remain faithful to the Almighty,
I must not on that account disdain the qualities of the friend.
The ennobled man is irreplaceable!
The ennobled man walks towards victory!
The text published is taken from ‘La vie traditionnelle, c’est la sincérité’, translated by Antoine Broudier.
Who was Shaykh al-Tadili?
Muhammad ibn ’Ali al-Tadili was born around 1880 in Rabat, into a family descended from the Prophet and originally from Sijilmasa, on the edge of the Moroccan Sahara. This spiritual master studied the Qur’an in his native town until about fifteen, then left for Fez to pursue his studies in the religious sciences at the Qarawiyyin university, where he attached himself to a Darqawi Sufi brotherhood under Shaykh ’Ali al-Susi al-Ja’fari al-Ilghi. He then led the life of a wandering ascetic, going from zawiya to zawiya. A man of the utmost rigour, he one day burnt all his texts, for the thought of publishing them had distracted him during a spiritual retreat he was carrying out in Marrakech. The greater part of his manuscripts is now scattered among his disciples. He is known above all for his role as spiritual master. At the end of his life, once he had settled in the small town of al-Jadida, he was struck by paralysis and became blind until his death, some fifteen years later. One of his treatises, al-din al-nasiha, has been translated into French by Antoine Broudier under the title ‘La vie traditionnelle, c’est la sincérité’.
