#9 The Inner Work with Shaykh Ebrahim Schuitema
Shaykh Ebrahim Schuitema is a Sufi Teacher from the Darqawi-Shadhiliya Tariqa and currently lives in Gauteng, South Africa. Shaykh Ebrahim received his chain of transmission in the Tariqa from the late Shaykh Mustafa Bassir of Morrocco, may Allah bless his soul.
Shaykh Ebrahim is also the founder and Leading Partner of Schuitema Associates, a business transformation consultancy that is based in South Africa and Pakistan....
SPEAKERS
Host: Saqib Safdar
Guest: Shaykh Ebrahim
Saqib
بسم الله الرحمان الرحيم
Bismi llāhi r-Raḥmāni r-Raḥīm. السلام عليكم (as-salāmu ʿalaykum) everyone. Today we are joined by Shaykh Ebrahīm who will be talking to us about Sufism and the path and what brought him to the path. Shaykh Ebrahīm, welcome to The Ḥikmah Project podcast.
Shaykh Ebrahīm
Thank you very much Saqibصاحب (ṣāḥib), nice to meet you.
Saqib
Pleasure to have you. Can we start off by you just telling us a bit about your own spiritual journey and what it is that brought you to Sufism.
Shaykh Ebrahīm
It was sort of an incremental move. I think, from my adolescence, I was, you know, I had a curiosity and an interest in—in the inner, or inner reality. You know, even as an adolescent, I'd spent many, many months actually, in sort of advanced meditation programs and sort of dabbled in all sorts of things. You know, mainly Oriental, but also Occidental, some Christian mysticism, and some, fiddled a bit with Kabbalism. But this is all in my late teens and early 20's. And it became apparent to me in my early 20's, that I had this sort of, I suppose, arrogant, young person's dismissal of formal religion. I was brought up Catholic, so I had a bit of a visceral reaction to the whole Catholic thing, a number of things that just, I found a bit offensive about, some of the assumptions of Catholicism. And I thought, well, you know, I don't really ever want to commit to any formal religion, but if I would then Islam would be it because at least it doesn't ask me to do anything that's offensive to my reason. And so, I became Muslim in 1981, with some Tablighi's, and I must admit, you know, right from the start, I wasn't—I wasn't sort of doubting my decision, but I found their worldview, dare I say, medieval and somewhat offensive. And so, very early on, I kind of gravitated to circles of ذكر (dhikr) and the first person that—who, and I'm still friends with him today, the person I would regard as my first شيخ (Shaykh) was a man called Ferdamingo Naqshbandi, a Naqshbandi Shaykh, but representing a branch within the Naqshbandi that had actually been indigenous to South Africa for a couple of centuries and had been around at least 150 years through the Cape. So, not of, actually in a sense completely unrelated to the more modern people, so from Cyprus and so on. So, he was my first exposure. And then from there, I had asojourn as many people of my generation did with the مرابطون (Murabiṭūn). The Murabiṭūn, you know, the agenda was quite explicitly political. And that is very attractive to people of my generation, South Africans of my generation, I mean, you know, we kind of grip, cut our teeth on the struggle. And also Islam in South Africa had a very peculiar kind of patterning that it is really people of South Asian descent who control the دين (dīn) in South Africa. It was up in the—in the interior there's many people of South Asian descent and specifically Gujarati but then also some Tamil influence. And then in the Cape, people of Malay descent and there is particularly among the people of South Asian sort of background there, there wasn't a place for new Muslims really for them and they're actually quite racist. And that racism was particularly experienced by black, South African Muslims. And so there was a great resistance to just, you know, we wanted the dīn, but we didn't want to be second class citizens in the Muslim community. And so this thing, the Murabiṭūn thing came, like a breath of fresh air, you know, just cut across all of this. So, basically, the message was, you don't need to take on what we would call an Indian identity to be a Muslim, you know, I mean, you know, so we all became مالكي (Mālikī). And we took on this whole Murabiṭūn thing. But that became increasingly politicized by the end of the 80's and early 90's and also had gone almost criminal. And I got increasingly disenamoured with it. So I then before a short while, I never gave بيعة (bayʿah) to him, but I became associated this Shaykh Fadhlʿallā Haeri. And through him, I was directed to Shaykh Musṭafā obviously who was my Shaykh and from whom I got my علم (ʿilm). Yeah, so and that was about (in the year) 2000 when that happened. So that was kind of the rather circuitous journey.
Saqib
Wow. So could you tell us more about Shaykh Musṭafā and what the structure of the practice was, the training, the framework, the intellectual framework, if you like, what, how, what was the تربية (tarbiyah) process?
Shaykh Ebrahīm
There was none. It was the most extraordinary experience. Shaykh Fadhlʿallā indicated to me that I should go and see this man because in Shaykh Fadhlʿallā's world he was the most important living exponent of the درقاوة (Darqāwah).
Shaykh Ebrahīm
And so I took my family and we basically did a holiday to... You know, there was a young Moroccan man who'd stayed in our house for the better part of a year. And so his family had a house in Fez. So I took my family to Morocco, we stayed in Fez. And then I planned a short visit to Shaykh Musṭafā's الزاوية (zāwiya), three days in that trip. I think this is about (the year) 2000 when this happened.
Shaykh Ebrahīm
And when we arrived after a nightmare journey from Fez because, you know, there were sort of three adults and three—three boys in a tiny car, lost in the mountains, it was an absolute nightmare journey. Sort of, you know, we finally got to the gates of the zāwiya exhausted, they said to us, they were about to close the gates for the night and they said, "You know, Shaykẖ Musṭafā isn't here and, we don't know where he is and when he's gonna come back." And so I was quite disappointed. And I said, "Well, look, we'll come back tomorrow, and we are clearly bombing you out at the end of the day so we will find a hotel or something" and they would scan us and say, "No no, you must stay here tonight." So we stayed and when I got up for صبح (ṣuboḥ) for the next morning, Shaykh Musṭafā was in the—in the ﺟﻤﺎﻋﺔ (jamāʿat) and immediately after the سلام (as-salām) he took me for a walk. Now I don't speak his Arabic and I mean I don't speak Arabic at all never mind his Arabic. So this, this young man who'd been our, our guest here, who was then our host, and he was sort of our our guide, he came with us. It was myself, this young man, Muḥammad and Shaykh Musṭafā. We were walking through the cemetery at the back of the zāwiya. And Shaykh Musṭafā was explaining about various graves and who's lying here and who's lying there. And I was trying to find, I had a question in my mind that I was formulating, and he said something which Muḥammad answered, it was a direct question, direct answer to the question I was formulating in my mind. And I was kind of taken aback. I said, you know, "Shaykh Musṭafā how did you know I was going to ask you that?" And then he was taken aback. He said, "Well, don't you know you are the same" and he pointed directly at my chest like this. He said, "We're the same." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "We were together from—from the first moment." He said, "We were together when Allāh asked us to bear witness". And I, you know, Saqib I had three days with this man, I'd never been so overwhelmed by another human being in my life. It was completely irrational. I've never considered myself to be a particularly sentimental person. But when I left that zāwiya, after those three days, it felt like somebody had physically taken their hands, put it in my chest and pulled my heart out. It was the most heart-rending anguish I've ever experienced. You know, I didn't weep when either of my parents died, while I wept like an infant when I left Shaykh Musṭafā's zāwiya. And as I walked out, he put his burnus (cloak) over me. He gave me his ʾabnūs. And I didn't realize the significance of that. And then he came to visit us here about three or four years subsequently, in this zāwiya and he said to me, "Well, you know, I gave you—I've given youاذن (ʾiḏhn) then.". So the extent of my initial exposure to this man was three days; it's completely non-rational what happened. I cannot account. To this day, I cannot account. This is one of the most overwhelming experiences of my life.
Saqib
Wow. So just going back, just to put this into context, here, you are somebody who's tried different sort of paths out and explored various spiritual religious traditions. And just for our listeners, what was it? I mean, you said, You came through the ﺟﻤﺎﻋﺔ ﺍﻟﺘﺒﻠﻴﻎ (at-Tablīgh Jamāʿat) and obviously the things that resonate in terms of the worldview, etc. But when you met these men of God, what ذوق (thawq), what taste, or what was it that gave you the certainty in your heart that this is more than just mere belief system or, you know, some political ideas or just a blind following? How did you know this was authentic spirituality? And this is what you were looking for?
Shaykh Ebrahīm
I listened to an interview of Carl Jung recently. And it was done two years before he passed away. So he was an old man. And the interviewer asked him, so it was just like in a circuit as if the guy's trying to obviously trap him you see, you know, "Did you grow up religious?" —"Yes", Dr. Jung said, "Religious." "Did you believe in God?" —"Yes, I believed in God". "So do you still believe in God?" he said, and then Jung got a strange glint in his eye and he said, "Well, that's a difficult thing to answer. Because I don't actually—I know". So you have this sense of conviction, and it's completely visceral, it's not in the head. You know. And if somebody asks you for evidence, well, rationally, how can you demonstrate this? This is like saying, how can I rationally demonstrate that I've got a... that there's pressure on my backside on the seat right now? It's like a strange question. You know, it's like, it's a difficult question. You just know, you know, in your, you know, from here, not from here. That's not evidential. So when I mean, so the most overwhelming experience I had in my life was with Shaykh Musṭafā. And it was, I had absolute sense that I was, you know, in the presence of an absolutely extraordinary being. I was just completely enchanted by the man. You know, he didn't look like much. I mean he was about as broad as he was tall. He walked with an extreme limp; he was, you know, he was—he was a grizzled old man. I mean, it's kind of like, it's suffering the whole time because he had this severely disabled leg. So he was always in pain, you know, but I just cannot account for the experience. Although I know, there's not you know, of, why should I be so overwhelmed by a person that I've only known for three days? Why should... I wept for a day after it! It was the most extraordinary experience. And it wasn't just—so he came to visit us at the zāwiya. But you know, sometime maybe three or four years after that event, and when he, both when he arrived and when he left, there wasn't a dry eye on this property. Where, the day he left, people lined, they lined to drive up, it's a long drive, it's a few 100 meters, you know, on either side of the drive. Everybody’s weeping, blubbing like a baby. They couldn't understand what the man said. You know, I mean, he spoke Arabic. So it wasn't, it's not, this was not, this matter that we're after is a matter of taste (ذوق) and firsthand experience, it's not a matter of demonstration and argumentation. You know, it's a different kind of knowledge. And it's a kind of knowledge that you have a complete conviction about once you've experienced it. Cause you know nobody can deny my experience; it's like Dr. Jung's quote, you know, I don't believe in God, I know God. You know, as it's for him, it has become a firsthand experience.
Saqib
Amazing. Just talking about Jung, I just came across a quote by Jung this morning, which resonated I wonder if it's an Indian synchronicity habit, I was gonna quote it. He says, "One doesn't become enlightened by imagining figures of light. But by making the darkness conscious." And one of the things I've experienced or found on the Sufi path at times, on the spiritual path generally, is that sometimes what Jung refers to the 'shadow' is not fully acknowledged. Or maybe it is, in some teachings it is, in others it might not be fully acknowledged, and the practice are generally just to do dhikr or focus on the Light. Was he, obviously here, suggesting to turn to the darkness and make it conscious, you know? And so the question really, is, to see what your insight is into this quote, and how it relates to theتذكيه النفس (tadhkīyah of nafs), the purification of the نفس (nafs) and character development?
Shaykh Ebrahīm
I think it's a very useful way to understand one's own spiritual development: as a journey of integrating parts of yourself that you've vanished and alienated, as becoming more Holy and fully you. It's taking the light of your attention and shining it deeper and deeper in, to (where) your being comes from, so bits of you that were disavowed become acknowledged and integrated. That's one of the reasons why I get very irritated (with) people who, who assume that this journey is purely about becoming moral and twee and correct. You know it really isn't that. If you haven't, if you don't come to acknowledge the degree to which you are capable of absolute monstrosity, I mean, absolutely shocking brutality, then you cannot be trusted. You know, you can only trust a person who understands the full keyboard of their being and knows that this base note of complete blood curdling brutality is part of their nature. Then that thing will never overwhelm when they're in the wrong place at the wrong time. You know, the rest of us, we just play a very narrow part of this keyboard. And all of these, these monsters are sitting just out of view. And we don't have the objectivity, we don't have the depth of, of kind of gatheredness and of perceiving, to not be overwhelmed by these things when they come out of the closet, you know, so you put very nice people in the right condition and they become absolute monsters. And they'll always justify it to themselves and they'll justify to themselves in the name of being moral. So, I mean, you may have heard me mentioned this a number of times in various discussions and the ظروف (ẓorūf). I was onالحج (Ḥajj). And I was in the حرم (Ḥaram). And there was a group of Turkishحجاج (ḥujjāj), obviously they're in a tour group, and the young men were on the outside holding hands protecting the women and the old people on the inside. So it was like this, almost like a military kind of formation moving through. And I saw a young Turkish man knocking this doddering little Indonesian buddy out of the way, you know, I mean, obviously, in protection of his lot, you know, and it struck me, you know, that man would never do that in cold reason. But, you know, here he's like stuck between this rock and a hard place, he's got to protect his own and, and so he's now stuck in a spot, and yet, the monster that's there that he would never acknowledge in himself, came out.
Shaykh Ebrahīm
So, I think, we cannot be trusted until we we are fully acquainted with the extent of our own brutality.
Saqib
So how are those areas, those monsters, as you put it, integrated and then transformed? Is that more psychological, as Jung would have it? Or does it fall under the spiritual? Or is the spiritual wide enough to incorporate the psychological?
Shaykh Ebrahīm
Well, yeah, maybe Saqib maybe these differentiations aren't particularly useful? Is it spiritual? Is it psychological? Maybe, I don't know. It's all inner work. So, I'll give you an experience that I had. So as a child, I was always bedevilled by this, this idea that I wasn't recognized for my, I mean, it's very embarrassing to admit, I mean, even at 60 years old, I'm embarrassed to admit it. I wasn't recognized for my genius. As a child, I had this conviction, you know, so and it causes—it used to cause me great pain that people used to think I was just an idiot. And, you know, and so, one day, this is like decades ago now it is quite a while ago, I was sitting in—I used to live on the other side of this property, in a flat. I was sitting in my flat, at a bench next to the door. And I felt... this was in a dream, in the dream, I'm sitting on the bench, the bench was there, it was real. And a child who is me probably about eight years old, came walking into the room deployed, really crying like snot and tears, like heartbroken. And I said, "What's the matter?" He said, "They don't recognize me for my genius." And I looked this kid in the eye, knowing this kid is me, I looked this kid in the eye, and I said, "You know what, it's true. They don't." And it is like, his demeanour changed, he wiped his face, he beamed at me, disappeared, I could feel him walk out of my chest, and gone.
Shaykh Ebrahīm
So for me, there was—that was one of the most dramatic experiences of my life, of experiencing something that was denied being integrated. It happened to come sort of in a sort of a visionary dream, but I think that is how it works. You can't, because you can't deal with the pain, you see, of that thing, whatever that thing is. You're not looking at, you're not looking at it, the moment you round on it, I mean you just acknowledge it because it no longer—because it's no longer the monster.
Saqib
Yeah, I completely see that. And I think it's just that depending on the path and the spiritual sort of teaching approach. Sometimes seekers or the مريد (murīd), seekers of knowledge, can look to the Shaykh for psychological solutions, whether it's self-esteem, confidence, you know, dare I say depression. And and I guess you're right. from one perspective, as الغزالي (al-Ghazālī) might say, well, there are certain ills in the soul that can only be cured by depression. So that yeah, by depression, so essentially, from his perspective, in the blessings of the tribulation, that there's a lesson to be learned. Yeah, absolutely. So could you tell us more about the الشاذلي (ash-Shādhulī) path, its principles, and its fundamental sort of approach to spiritual journeying and development?
Shaykh Ebrahīm
So again, I'm not a scholar. And so I can only give you what I've gleaned from my exposure to this over the years. And also bear in mind that you're dealing with something that's been going since the 10th century of the Christian era. So this is an ocean beyond an ocean but from what I understood, the main elements of this tradition is that it started off as a way of protecting people who are busy with inner endeavor, from getting into trouble with the intelligencia and with the establishment, because before, there weren't really things like طريقة (ṭarīqas) for 400 years after the death of the Rasūl ﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa sallam), these things are comparatively modern, well, they were subsequent developments. And they became developments in the first instance so that people who were doing inner work, there was some sense of them being integrated in the society and not being, basically, seemed to be this kind of crazy, counter-establishment, sort of mystics. And so that, as far as I understand that Shaykh ash-Shādhulī's principal aim was precisely that. It was basically to make the endeavor socially acceptable so that people would not get into trouble and they would still be able to do the inner work but they'd be—they'd fit. It's almost like they had a license to operate because they were part of an organization or an organized group of people who deliberately sought favor, carried favor with establishment. So that's what he did. He was politically very conservative. And he's, he's, I think one of his most long, most enduring quotes is, you know, "The person on this path is inwardly intoxicated, and outwardly sober." The whole thing of keeping proper decorum and being outwardly consistent to the requirements of شريعة (sharīʿa) so that you don't, you don't end up creating unnecessary disruption and having your head cut off, you know. So that's kind of the genesis of the الشاذليه (ash-Shādhuliyya), the Shādhuliyya being immensely influential in Africa, they took the dīn down both the East Coast and the West coast, from coast to coast. But it had this, it always had this undertone of compliance, if you'd like. And I think what Shaykẖ ad-Darqāwī did, and again, I speak under correction, I'm not a scholar on the matter, but what I understand Shaykẖ ad-Darqāwī to have done was brought in an element of almost social activism again, because he was particularly active among the poor. But that's probably about as much as I know.
Saqib
So what about in terms of teaching texts, for example, in the Mevlevi ṭarīqa they have the Masnavi (Arabic: مثنوي Mathnawī) is there a central text you would use for teaching spiritual principles كتاب حكم ابن عطاء الله السكندري the Ḥikam of Ibn ʿAta Allah or...?
Shaykh Ebrahīm
No, I don't use text. I mean I'm not hostile to people using text and if people want that, then I would encourage them to go—to go somewhere else. My curiosity is the firsthand experience, not the narration. And so we do a lot of practice here. We do a lot of dhikr but if somebody sort of comes with a with م(maqām) Ibn ʿAta Allah or something like and they're looking for an erudite discourse, I would say to them my friend, you've come to the wrong man. Please go to somebody who can. This is not my skill or my curiosity.
Saqib
So what would a seeker of truth if he came to your zāwiya, he or she came to your zāwiya, what would they find? What what would you offer them?
Shaykh Ebrahīm
Well, I can show you. So that's physically the place that they find.
Saqib
Right.
Shaykh Ebrahīm
And so they will be offered a place to stay. There will be congregational practice that happens on a daily basis, that they can join. They'd have access to me where they could discuss anything that is an issue with them. And depending on how I gage their progress I might step up the level of their—of their practice to, you know, we also have half way down the hall we have a خلوة (khalwa) if I think the person's ready for it and if the person's up for it. Then we would put them in kẖalwa. So... so but everything that—I'm always curious about the firsthand experience. So what happens at صبح (ṣoboḥ) when we get quiet, in the morning, you know, our morning practice, you know, including the صلاة (ṣalāt) and the ورد (wird) and, you know, how quiet do you get? What are you experiencing? What are your insights? What are your dreams? What do you, yeah, so that's the sort of thing we do here.
Shaykh Ebrahīm
And I use principally, not text, I use principally my own experience and having worked with inner experience for my adult life, in an attempt to be useful to people. And it's not everybody's flavour. I completely accept that, you know, very often people they want—they want more of a sense of, kind of like an intellectual purity. So that relates to one of the questions you asked Saqib about بيعة (bayʿah). And, you know, it's not for me to judge what anybody else does. But my own approach to this thing is my front door, my back door is absolutely open. This is a very intense, this is living here, and doing this work with people is very intense. And I only have brain space for a limited number of people at any given point in time. So I encourage people, I say to them, you know, when I'm useful to you stay, when I'm no longer useful to you leave, because there's only so many chairs, I mean, you know, I can't give everybody attention. So don't occupy space out of some misplaced sense of loyalty. My front door, my back door, completely open. Come as you need to and go as you need to. And that's always—that has been my approach. I don't think that—because it has not been the case in my experience, my path, you know, the people who gave me the most intellectually actually enabled the least inwardly, the people who gave me the least intellectually enabled the most inwardly, it was literally like that.
Saqib
That's amazing. Shaykh Ebrahīm could you say something about Sufism for our time? I mean, this issue about bayʿah in some orders is essential. In others, there's a sort of probationary period, if you'd like, and before you then journey on the bayʿah is compulsory. In some orders, it's absolutely once you've taken bayʿah there is no going to any other orders and you're basically, you've taken a pledge for this life and the next. I mean, there are variations of that and while certain structures would have been absolutely essential in the past, with the modern era and the challenges, it brings from exponential change and growth to technology zapping our attention. What are the needs of the time? And how do you see that inner work taking place with so many outward distractions?
Shaykh Ebrahīm
So I have two lives. I have a life as a—I have apparently rather two lives, a life as an organizational transformation consultant and a life as a—as a Shaykẖ, basically. There's actually no difference between the two, it's exactly the same endeavor in both. In both cases, the endeavor is to create the conditions where people can incrementally are comfortable with constructing their day to day engagement with life and with the other on the basis of—of giving or contributing unconditionally. Because when they do that, their whole life comes right, everything comes right. You know, they don't have to worry about what they get from life—it looks after itself. So that, for me is like the core principle that all this stuff is rooted in. Now, yeah, I think to do that successfully, you really have to take that—you need to take the turban and the sherbet off the message because this is nothing other than what the Rasūl (ﷺ) ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam said for his time. He tried to help people decode what it meant to be appropriate in that time. But people are lost in a morass of, of cultural accretion, which makes it impossible for them to work out the essential from the inessential. So my—my view of this is that bayʿah is not essential. And depending on what time, what side of the bed I got right out of in the morning, I might go as far as to say, it's error, it's not guidance, you know. Because it is not how this thing started, you know, for those 400 years before the ṭarīqas became kind of cast in light, you know, people used to travel, they used to move, you'd sit with somebody, and you'd get from him and then thank you very much, it was very insightful, you go to the next guy, that's how it used to work. Where's this thing suddenly come that somebody else has my ticket to the Divine encounter? Surely that's شرك (shirk), you know, I mean, the Divine encounter is proximate, He said, "I'm closer to you than your jugular vein." So how can some other person claim to give me the key to me? That this just fundamentally, I don't think it's useful, I think—I just, I mean, I'm going to stop there, because I'm probably going to get myself into very hot water. I try not to be too contentious about these things. So they might all be right and I might be wrong. And that's them but you know, you have to live by your own conscience. And so as far as I'm concerned, I'm, you know, don't stay an hour later here than what you need to and if I've out played my usefulness to for heaven's sake move.
Saqib
So Shaykẖ Ebrahīm in your role as a consultant and a Shaykẖ, with addressing transformation, what role does technology have? Does technology have a role in that? I guess we're using technology right now, in one sense, to create this podcast.
Shaykh Ebrahīm
So if you see the journey that Allāh has put us on, it's a journey of occupying higher and higher platforms of increasing complexity, which are increasingly tenuous because it's very different, you know, the higher the platform becomes, the less stable it is. So that we have a deeper and deeper (and) a greater and greater vantage point into how things are. And when we have a greater vantage point into how things are we can be increasingly in order with Him and amazed with Him. So I think that this current revolution that we are in now creates a possibility of a level of complexity. Like questions that you asked me before, like about Ibn ʿAta Allāh, well actually, you know if I really wanted to know, he's—he's a Google search away. So all of that stuff's now irrelevant. You know, what used to stick in your head is irrelevant. So we're now operating as, we can collaborate as a species now, in ways that we could never collaborate before. So I think that we're in for, you know, one of the most extraordinary and enlightening rides that we've had as a species. I don't think the story is done. I think there's so many things that indicate we're at a cusp of the integration between the insights of what was called science and the insights of what was called religion. I mean in the past, you know, the sort of some of the stuff that's being done at the sort of right at the vanguard of investigations into the effects of, of consciousness on—on phenomena, we're going to go into a new world, and that new world is going to present us with even more extraordinary possibilities for witnessing and awe, which is why Allāh made us. So I think that technology is making possible a revival, a growth, a new thing that we wouldn't have had before.
Saqib
Shaykẖ Ebrahīm what does it mean to be human, fully human?
Shaykh Ebrahīm
So I'm going to say some things which can be quite legitimately dismissed as being trite. To be safe to say that there's been a lot of, kind of, the sentence is the product of many years of struggle with this issue. The only reason why He has made us is so that we can be in awe. The reason why the human—because He said, He made us because he wished to be known. And who is He? Well He is everything that's superlative. He is everything, He is the greatest. And what is the effect of the greatest on that which is small? Well, either terror or awe. And, you know, you have to have the possibility of terror, otherwise, you couldn't have awe. So, the reason why we've been made is to be worshipful. Worshipful, isn't just making lots of noises and professions in a strange language. It is being in a state of amazement, astonishment, at the—the extraordinary improbability of it all. And you know, this is the—this is the what the new world is making increasingly possible, we're beginning to understand, just, you know, from the Big Bang from, our place, on this tiny blue marble in this infinite inkiness of non-existence, that we should be at. Just, you know, just the scale of things makes the human being such an improbable thing. You know that produces in us, if you've got, if you got any honesty about you, that what the astronauts call the 'overview effect', it's an effect of just: Isn't it astonishing? Isn't it amazing? You know, a sense of awe and that's why we've been made so to be fully human is to be in a state of awe. And there's actually only two ways of being human. The one is to be in a state of awe and the other is to be in a state of terror. Because this, you know, if you stripped away everything else and also what is it being—what is being alive all about? You know, here I am, this kind of thing that looks sort of caught in a bag of skin, looking out around me, and—and let me get out of this tiny little room and put myself on the mountain somewhere so I get a good view. I mean, there's, you know, the natural effect of just seeing things as they are; seeing the vastness of all of that next to me is amazing, it is awe. But the problem is that I am facing that which is potentially completely overwhelming, in fact, will overwhelm me at some point. So I'm either in awe or I'm in terror. And the only thing that makes it possible to move from terror to awe is that I do the thinking work, the rational work, the real فكر (fikr), you know the reflective work, of decoding what I'm looking at, so that thing isn't just vast, but I actually see that that which I'm apprehending out there is my Benefactor and my Ally. So does the experience of gratitude, and trust, gratitude for whatever's put you here, this place where you can witness from, and trust that whatever you're looking at is fundamentally your ally. That then makes it possible, that makes all possible, otherwise, you're in a state of terror. Both of those things, gratitude to, and trust of, require recognizing a Superlative Intelligence on the other side of what you're looking at. An Incomprehensible Intelligence; in other words, not random. So to be human means to, in this sense to believe, to, not to, in other words, to believe means: to fully claim for yourself the insight that His face, that which you're looking at, is your Benefactor and your Ally and It's on your side, you know, and to know that as a firsthand experience. That's what it means to be human, the moment you start to deny that you've actually sold yourself short in your humanity, you've reduced yourself to the status of an animal.
Shaykh Ebrahīm
So in this sense, being human also means to believe, when you don't believe you're—you're selling your humanity short and essentially you're a waste of a human skin.
Saqib
Shaykh Ebrahīm for somebody who is, who doesn't have any background say, for argument's sake, in religion, and is seeking authentic spirituality. If they were to ask you, what is Islam? What would you say?
Shaykh Ebrahīm
I would say that the word translated from Arabic means to submit. This, this goes back to the distinction we've just indicated, there's two ways of dealing with a problem of being the frightfully small, in the face of the Overwhelming, you can either be in awe or you can be in terror. When you're in awe, you recognize that that is your Benefactor and your Ally and you are no longer contending with It, you submit. Whatever Allāh brings you accept and you submit. Whereas, if you—if you view that as dangerous, then you're contending with It, then you resist. So there's two ways of being in the world, one of contention and resistance, and the other one is of submission. What Islam gives you is the technology to submit and that, you know, the صوم (ṣawm), the ṣalāt, the Ḥajj, that gives you the technology to submit. So that you exercise of being—of being in awe. And that's what Islam is for me. It's not my identity, I think people ruin this thing by turning it into an identity, you know, so I'm very comfortable with multiple identities. I mean, you know, I still use my, my birth name, that my Christian—my parents gave me, which is not in fact even a Christian name, it's a pagan name. It's like some Germanic sun-god or something. And I use my Islamic name, and they're interchangeable and that I could say I wear jackets for the day. You know, and I think it's perfectly appropriate. You know, it's not, don't turn your your dīn into an identity because if you turn your dīn into an identity it becomes a reason to be contending again. It's not, it's not about submitting, it's about contending; us versus them. And there's all sorts of really undignified expressions of this, like, you know, I mean, did you know that Muslims were taught quarantine, it is ridiculous. You know, I mean, that if it wasn't for the Arabs we wouldn't have mathematics, what—what to do? You know, I mean, honestly, I mean, you know, you know, why should this be a competition. I mean, aren't we first human? Aren't we supposed to be collaborating as a species not contending?
Saqib
Shaykh Ebrahīm many people on social media and our listeners would know or have heard of Shaykha Shahbano Aliani and her lovely poetry, which seemed to be sort of spiraling out from the unseen through her. Very, very creative. And I didn't know her too well, but I always felt it was inspired by her interaction with you. I'm assuming she was one of your students.
Shaykh Ebrahīm
She was, yes.
Saqib
Could you say a bit about her and her poetry?
Shaykh Ebrahīm
So, so I mean, she really was an absolutely extraordinary being, like, sort of in the class of Shaykẖ Musṭafā, you know that is you no longer—it doesn't matter what your—park the words in the text. Just sitting with the person you realized there was something there. So I first met her, I was, there's a DJ in Karachi, called Khalid Malik. And we were having a dhikr in his flat, now you're talking a good 15 years ago, I'm sure. I can't remember how long ago now. And she came to this dhikr. And then, then after that, she just, she kept the conversation alive, you know. And then, at one point, she came to the zāwiya, she stayed here for a couple of weeks, she went into kẖalwa. And then she, I recognized this woman's talent and I mean dare I say I wanted to kind of pitch her for our business because she was apart from anything else, she had—she's incredibly intelligent, and had a very good nose for organizational work. So she started working with us and then, unfortunately, she got ill and it just became increasingly insupportable for her to do the work. And I gave her ʾiḏhn, probably about two years before she passed I think, two or three years before she passed. But she was immensely, immensely generous with I mean hundreds of people. She obviously wasn't in the position to do anything kind of in congregation because she was, she was really desperately ill. I mean, her whole skeleton had crumpled in on itself, so she became this tiny ball of pain. But she always had time for people, you know, people would text her and she'd answer and she kind of, and I found that she had the patience that I just thought was angelic. It was just nothing that I had. So I found that I mean, really one of the most extraordinary, extraordinary beings I've ever had the pleasure to encounter. I have met some extraordinary beings in this journey. And she's one of the select. Very, very rare. Not too many people like that in the world.
Saqib
And was poetry always her thing? Was she always a poetess?
Shaykh Ebrahīm
No.
Saqib
Or is that something that sort of came through the path?
Shaykh Ebrahīm
The start when she came on the path. And I mean, sometimes, it is likely her to just prompt from like, like, gush, from her. But right from the start there was an element of the almost—because it was so spontaneous, you know, there's an element of the—of the sort of deeply inspired in the stuff, you know, that kind of, so I mean, I don't think I would/I could have stopped her, but I did as much as I could to encourage her to continue writing.
Saqib
And what about Shaykh Harūn from Karachi? I've had a few exchanges with him, which is quite interesting, maybe for another time, but I know he's very close to you. Could you say a few words about him?
Shaykh Ebrahīm
His daughter is my daughter in law. She's married to my son. We had a peculiar relationship myself and this man. I mean, it was—we fought like brothers, you know. It was quite strange. And we'd be in each other's company for a day and we'd be bickering about you know the tea—I mean, it was quite bizarre. But I knew, you know, I met him first in Karachi, at a dhikr, but I was very exhausted at the time. So I didn't register this man. And then we went on another trip to Morocco. And this was after Shaykh Musṭafā had passed. And there's a few of us who had gone, a few from people from South Africa, there was somebody who joined us from Scotland and, and he decided he was gonna go on this trip. And the moment I saw the man, I think I had experienced not dissimilar from the experience of Shaykh Musṭafā had with me. I just knew this guy was not recognized for what he was. And so I said to him, "Why are they treating you like this? Why they're not recognizing who you are?" And while he sort of muttered a couple of things and then I said, "Well, I mean, well as far as I'm concerned, you're a Shaykh, people should be taking you seriously. You know, you are a rare breed." So I just at the end of that trip that I gave him ʾidhn. But it was always a not an easy relationship. I mean, because you see somebody's depth and insight, that doesn't necessarily mean we're all twee with each other. So we had we had a very disputatious relationship.
Saqib
So historically, he was, correct me if I'm wrong, from the Chistiyah order path?
Shaykh Ebrahīm
He was, he had crossed, so he had been—he had touched signs with the Darqāwah, with the Shādhulīyyah, he the also had a short sojourn with both Shaykh Fadhlʿallā and Shaykh ʿAbdel-Qādir with the Murabiṭūn. So he kind of traveled around a bit. But it was really that his relationship with a living Shaykh, it escapes me now, a man from Karachi and also an Englishman, was not dissimilar from my experience from what he accounted, recounted to me, it was not dissimilar from my experience with Shaykh Musṭafā, it was just an instant, absolutely visceral recognition.
Saqib
Yes, I remember a few years back when I had a couple of email exchanges with him. He said, something to the effect of, having a spiritual connection with Ḥazrat Bābā Farīd?
Shaykh Ebrahīm
Yes, that's correct.
Saqib
And, and was in some sort of connection. But I always felt he had, although we never physically met, he had a lot of deep insight into asking...
Shaykh Ebrahīm
No, no question about it; the man was, was rare. That is, I'm very fortunate to have him here because his daughter is here. And she's very much her father's child, you know, she's the same—same qualities.
Saqib
Shaykh Ebrahīm, could you end with some advice for seekers of truth, or some nuggets, some takeaway, some guidance for listeners of this podcast who are seeking authentic spirituality in the current time. I mean for yourself, just to put this into context, there was no rational thought, as you said, it was from the heart and you just knew, it happened. And for some people who are blessed with that encounter, the whole situation is effectively resolved, you know where you need to be and what you need to do and what the Divine Reality has planned for you. Whereas, others often ask how do you know which Shaykh is your authentic Shaykh or which path is an authentic path. And it's very easy for people to either get trapped sometimes in the worst-case scenario through a bayʿa type of sort of pledge, which they might or might not fully understand, especially if they are entering Islam through Sufism. And on the other hand, and I'm just painting a picture of two extremes here, on the other hand, you have spiritual window shoppers who would come in and dabble around for a bit, and then just simply move on. But in, you know, it's very easy for the nafs, as I'm sure you would know better than me, to come in through the back door, especially when you're on the spiritual path, trying to do this inner work and saying, actually, your work is done here, you need to move on, or you need to stay, etc. So what advice would you have for seekers of Sacred Knowledge and Truth in the current climate?
Saqib
And oh, sorry, before you answer that Shaykh Ebrahīm maybe one more thing to add, is in this spectrum that I'm drawing out, you also have people who are, who tend to be of the Islamic faith in that they have been brought up in the Islamic household, and whether they have cultural ideas of Islam, or it's turned into an identity for them, the perspective of a strong emphasis on legalism, y ou know, as though the whole of Islam is encoded within some laws that, you know, and that's the purpose of existence. And yet, if you strip that down, even behind that, there's this sincerity that just wants—that's yearning for something authentic, you know, but the narrative, the only narrative sometimes they have, is that it's through a strict or a more sincere adherence to a set of laws, even within a cultural conditioned mindset, if you'd like. So you have a variety of things going on here. So what would your advice be to seekers of Sacred Knowledge and Truth?
Shaykh Ebrahīm
So if I understand correctly, you're saying, you know, how should one view sort of the reverse order to your questions: How should one view people who are sort of committed to a culturally encoded understanding of their dīn? And it's all about rule compliance, and if you like, they're counting الآخرة (al-Ākhirah), you know, sort of like the ثواب (thawāb) picking, you know, one way of looking at it. And on the other end: What would be my advice to the people who are trying to pursue their own inner development?
Shaykh Ebrahīm
So in terms of the first category of people, I would suggest not to have any dispute with them. And not to put yourself into a situation you end up in a disputatious engagement to them. I don't know whether we actually have the same dīn. I don't know. I don't know whether when I put my head on the مصلى (muṣalā) and that person puts their head, the same thing is happening behind their eyes. I could never know. For all I know, that's what's happening with them is actually superior than what's happening to me. But all that I can say is that that way of looking at life, the sort of thawāb counting, and the sort of excessive legalism, just doesn't float my boat. I was about, you know, no. So—so I'm probably looking at sort of a subset of people who are kind of odd fish like myself, who, you know, find that sort of very legalistic way of approaching things a little bit unnerving. So for somebody like myself, I would say to them, "There is رب(Rabb). He has a greater interest in you arriving home than you have. Because He created you to be the wanderer, and He created you to be the one who comes home. And He will, by his own promise, take 10 steps to you with every step that you take to Him. And all that you have to do in any context that you're in, is ask yourself, what does he really want from me now? What is the contribution He wants me to make here?" And when you do that with absolute sincerity, and as unconditionally as you can, in other words, it's given to give away, He will deliver you to a higher place of witnessing, where an even greater contribution will become a pact for you to make. So it oscillates between witnessing and acting, witnessing and acting, witnessing and acting, and actually it's not a Shaykh that does that for you, He does it for you. He has put you in exile, He wants you to come home. And He's the more eloquent, He is far more eloquent at giving directions than any human Shaykh could ever conceivably be. So in fact, the best Shaykhs are actually normally people who are actually spiritually somewhat clumsy.
Shaykh Ebrahīm
It's like the best coach has never been the best athlete. You know, the role of the Shaykh is not to be this pristine being kind of emanating light at the top of the mountain. You know, that's not useful. The role of the Shaykh to be somewhere halfway up the mountain to say, "Hey, the top is over there". That's the direction, you know, that's a good guide. A good guide isn't somebody who's this angelic being, that kind of, you know, eats sherbets and floats three millimeters off the ground, I don't think that's helpful.
Shaykh Ebrahīm
So, trust that there is a Creative Genius that sits behind the design of your life. Trust that that Creative Genius has made you to see Him and His works from a vantage point that only you can, a unique vantage point. And He is busy kneading you there. And He will meet you, bring you in the company of people, that will be helpful to the next part of this steep ascent to your witnessing place. And He will take you away from people, you know. And if you are half-way up here and you suddenly decide though, I'm going to, I'm committing to this thing, I think that's a mistake. Because maybe it's not as far as this thing can go. And who knows how far it can go? You know. So, trust, there's a manager in Charge of the Affair. And He's baizen admission. He's the Planner. And His plans are... gobsmacking, just extraordinary.
Saqib
On that note, Shaykẖ Ebrahīm, the last time we met at SOAS in London, you gave a talk and you said you had, I think become, financially bankrupt, or you were just in a difficult situation, but it was the best thing that had ever happened to you.
Shaykh Ebrahīm
Yeah.
Saqib
Did you say (that), how's that going? Could you could you say a bit more?
Shaykh Ebrahīm
Well, I mean, this, you know, so the industry that we were in required us to be travelling around the world and being in training rooms and being in boardrooms and, this virus kept us caged for six months. And it's been the most extraordinary experience of my life. I mean, I just, I now know what it feels like not to be an exhausted adult. It's the most extraordinary experience. So, so consistently in my life, you know, it's when you’ really kind of bereft, you've played your hand, you've got a number of cards left, you know, you've kind of you've now that's when He demonstrates to you that He in fact, has this, you know, He will pluck victory from the jaws of catastrophic failure time and again. He leaves it to you to get yourself to the point of catastrophic failure so He can sort of toss in that opening. I thinkالله سبحانه و تعالى (Allāh subḥānahu wa-taʿala) has the got the most amazing sense of humor and that He is a superlative tease.
Saqib
Amazing.
Shaykh Ebrahīm
You think you're completely cornered, there's no way out. It turns out to be the biggest blessing of your life. That's consistently been, in fact, that's not gone away you know. You expect that this thing gets less so as you get older, or as you get sort of as you develop yourself. This is the, you know, I've tried catastrophes in a sense of by the hour, almost sometimes it feels like, you know, it's a kind of like, yeah. الحمد لله (al-ḥamdulillāh).
Shaykh Ebrahīm
So I can bear witness that there's a Genius that has taken charge of my life, which is infinitely bigger than my own capacity. And that my own capacity consistently comes up short, with the complexity that my life produces. And that He's always, always come through. He's always opened, He's always shown the next step. So I feel a little bit like Jung if somebody asked me, Do you believe in Allāh? I would say, well, that's a very strange question. I would not answer that question. Because I don't believe in Allāh. I know Allāh. And He is Real. It's absolutely almost tactile, for me, it's like—Real. Al-ḥamdulillāh.
Saqib
Al-ḥamdulillāh. Shaykẖ Ebrahīm, final question. Could you say something about Carlos..
Shaykh Ebrahīm
Castaneda.
Saqib
Castaneda.
Shaykh Ebrahīm
So, Carlos. I told you I had this sort of wandering youth and as an adolescent, I came across the writings of Carlos Castaneda and, I mean, I kind of came from a working-class background, and none of, you know, not a lot of kind of culture, I suppose, in my background. But this man, his insights, were just so extraordinary. And I think the thing that really, really the essence of Castaneda. Ask me what's the essence of Castaneda? It's an absolutely radical rejection of victimhood of any kind, fundamental, radical rejection of victimhood of any kind. You know, I mean, as an adolescent, you're such a victim. That I mean, you just are I mean, the whole world's out to get you don't you know. So when I read this man, and I saw, but there's a way of looking at life, where you accept such a level of accountability that you could die at any moment. And that just blew me away. So, I mean with subsequent reading of Castaneda, I mean, there's a number of really clever, what can you call them? Devices and tools and insights that you can gain from Castaneda. But the critical, if I say, what, what is the essence of it? It is this radical rejection of victimhood.
Saqib
Shaykh Ebrahīm, I'd like to thank you for your time and for blessing us with this opportunity to be able to listen to you and really, it's been a pleasure, and I am short of words for learning about your journey and the insights that you've provided us, and I'm sure many listeners will feel the same.
Shaykh Ebrahīm
Thank you, Saqib ṣāḥib. It was very nice talking to you again.
Saqib
Likewise, ʾinshāʾllāh, maybe another podcast in the future.
Saqib
Āmīn, you'd be very welcome.
Saqib
Thank you.
Shaykh Ebrahīm
As-salāmu ʿalaykum.
Saqib
Wa ʿalaykum as-salām.
