Ramadan – a feast for spirit and soul
"Ramadan is the month in which, with the communication between God and the Prophet, a new light and lifeline between Allah and mankind emerges. Anyone who is willing to receive a piece of it may benefit." In a calm voice, Muhyiddin Shakoor, a retired American professor of psychology who lives between Turkey and the U.S., talks about the blessings of the fasting month. He pauses frequently while the consecutive translator beside him searches for the best Turkish equivalents for his words.
The audience consists of several hundred viewers who, at half past nine, have just begun digesting their iftar. The desire for spiritual uplifting is strong during the second Ramadan of the pandemic, which the Turkish government heralded with curfews and bans on public gatherings. Using the live TV feature of the social platform Instagram, thousands of Turkish spiritual seekers have been appeasing their hunger for soul food every evening since the beginning of the fasting month; a function that otherwise would be fulfilled by communal fast-breaking or gatherings at dergahs and Sufi centres.
On Instagram, spiritual masters, academics and explorers of mysticism speak on topics such as spiritual fasting, self-improvement and contemporary Koranic interpretation. The format is based on a particular culture of conversation that springs from Sufism – sohbet. The word sohbet is derived from the Arabic suhba (companionship) and describes the practice of inspired discourse within the circle of a spiritual community. Sohbet combines group communication and knowledge sharing with an atmosphere of unconditional love, which the Sufis seek to cultivate in their hearts.
COVID-19 has taken this conversational culture, which has characterised Anatolian Sufism for centuries, into the virtual realm. The Instagram account of Sufi Kitap – an Istanbul publishing house that has been releasing classical Sufi literature and works by contemporary teachers from the tradition for 16 years – possesses a following of nearly thirty thousand users. Sufi Kitap hosts sohbets several times a week, including the conversation with Shakoor, who has brought out two diaries about his spiritual path with the publisher.
Purification of mind and soul
Anyone who has ever fasted – even if it was only to lose weight – has experienced the decelerating effect of this practice. Not only does our digestive system shut down, but also the ever-spinning carousel of thoughts in our heads. But while the modern wellness industry with its detox recipes completely lacks any spiritual framework, Ramadan fasting is primarily intended as a purification of mind and soul.
After returning from Syria, the famous Sufi saint Rumi was sent into retreat by his mentor Borhanuddin Tirmidhi. Instead of one week, as instructed by his teacher, Rumi is said to have spent forty days fasting in prayer and meditation. The retreat prepared the young Jalal ad-Din Mohammad (at that time he was not yet called "Rumi"), who had studied Islamic jurisprudence and Koranic exegesis at a renowned academy in Aleppo, for the mystical path. Book learning alone, the Sufis emphasise, is not only insufficient on the spiritual path, it can sometimes even prove an obstacle for those seeking true knowledge – knowledge which is the fruit of direct mystical experience and brings with it a certainty of heart.
Decades later, Rumi, now at the height of his human potential, spoke in the Masnavi: "Man’s original food is the Light of God: animal food is improper for him / But, in consequence of disease, his mind has fallen into this, that day and night he should eat of this water and clay."
Now, Rumi is far from the asceticism of the world-weary and frugal exponents of early Sufism, who devoted their lives to strenuous religious exercises. After all, joy, hope, and divine ecstasy predominate in his verse, especially in the love-intoxicated ghazals of the Divan-e Shams, which tell of Rumi's metaphysical experiences.
And yet Rumi recommends abstaining from physical food more clearly than any other spiritual practice. Fasting, as the U.S. scholar of Sufism William Chittick writes in his book The Vision of Islam, is the most personal and spiritual of the five pillars of Islam, a test of people’s sincerity in their religion.
Many Muslims around the world, who are currently abstaining from food and drink from dawn until sunset, see their abstinence as more than just a prescribed test of patience. They take Ramadan as a precious opportunity to turn their senses, that are otherwise outwardly directed, inward and – in Rumi's words – make them receptive to God’s light.
The "fasting of the mind", which Al-Ghazali calls the "fast of the elect", requires close observation of one’s thoughts and patterns of behaviour. The Sufis speak of fasting with the eyes, ears, tongue, and hands: they turn their eyes and ears away from anything that weakens their remembrance of God, refrain from gossip and negative words, avoid quarrels, and use their hands to serve their fellow human beings.
Honing one's awareness of God
The goal of this month-long abstention is not to humiliate the body, but to hone one's awareness of God by turning the focus inwards. In fact, the word "Ramadan" derives from the Arabic root r-m-d, which describes the heat of the blazing sun. The "heat" of Ramadan, according to the etymological interpretation, causes the "immature" individual to boil from within – a verb Rumi likes to use for man’s spiritual development process.
In addition to cultivating patience, contentment and empathy for those suffering from hunger, Ramadan is an invitation to leave one’s ego behind. In Islamic mysticism, the ego is sometimes compared to an insatiable animal. Withdrawing physical food deprives the "commanding soul", the nafs al-'ammara, of some of its fuel and puts a stop to its ploys. In Sufi psychology, the nafs is regarded as an idol that we place next to God on a daily basis. As idol worshippers in the clutches of our indwelling tyrant, we live in a state of separation from God, when in fact, as the Koran asserts, he is closer to us than our own jugular vein. So close that the sole obstacle can only be ourselves.
Fasting interrupts this habitual rut, it pulls us out of the "sleep of ignorance" (khāb-e gheflat in Persian). While the thoughts of the fasting person keep wandering to food, during this time of contemplation the unrecognised ego patterns – our "shadow", as Carl Gustav Jung called it – begin to surface more clearly. Ramadan, when consciously experienced, is an invitation to introspection; it helps to discover and correct negative thought structures and selfish tendencies. The Sufis call this muhasaba, a form of self-accounting.
“Die before you die”
Rumi, too, sought shelter from the attacks of the nafs through fasting: "Since the prophet said 'Fasting is a protection', lay hold of that, do not cast away this shield before the arrow-shooting carnal soul". The transformation of the nafs echoes in the prophetic saying "die before you die", which Rumi uses as a focal point of his Masnavi. Rumi is careful to emphasise that what this means is "not such a death that you will enter the grave, but a death consisting of transformation, so that you will enter the Light."
Each loss of ego control is like a small death, followed by rebirth into a more holistic consciousness. Seen in this way, the human maturation process is one of continuous death and rebirth. At the same time, fasting could also be viewed as preparation for physical death, that inescapable reality which our modern culture, with all its strategies of distraction and diversion, systematically tries to exclude.
Islamic faith practices are meant to support this inner transformation, especially during Ramadan. From the perspective of the mystics, the Muslim ritual prayer, for instance, is not a dry fulfilment of duty, but a conscious return to what is essential. Salah here means entering God's presence five times a day with intentionality and perfect concentration, surrendering the "mortal I" in prostration to a higher reality. At the same time, prayer is an escape from the tensions of our confused external world in order to be able to face the challenges of everyday life with renewed strength.
The reading of the Koran during Ramadan fulfils a similar function. If the repetition of Koranic formulas during prayer is not an automatism of memorised mantras, it serves to directly connect the soul to the divine. According to Muslim tradition, the revelation of the Koran began on one of the last nights of Ramadan. With the help of meditation on the sound and meaning of the suras, the Sufis strive for their own experiences of revelation, so that the inner meaning of God’s words is conveyed directly to them.
Rumi even goes a step further in one of his verses on fasting: "Whoever feeds on straw and barley becomes a sacrifice; whoever feeds on the Light of God becomes the Koran". Becoming the Koran here means that the book of the human soul becomes receptive to the divine mysteries. As a result, man in his actions becomes an instrument of the continuous divine revelation on earth. He helps to carry "divine qualities" into the world – such as the boundless mercy encapsulated in the Islamic name of God, ar-Rahman. For the mystic, nature in all its fullness is a "living Koran" that reveals itself to us afresh at every moment, as long as we are only receptive to it.
Counting one's blessings
Many of the Turkish Sufi teachers from the Instagram sohbets point out how Ramadan provides an opportunity to cultivate the best of human traits – values such as humility, compassion and kindness – within oneself. In an immediately physical way, the empty stomach of the fasting person reminds them to count their own blessings. For too quickly, Rumi also warns, our daily wealth becomes a habit for us, too quickly we fall into complaints without perceiving the abundance in our lives.
Sufis practice developing gratitude for difficulties, without which, for them, there can be no progress on the spiritual path. In their eyes, Ramadan is a rehearsal for the whole of life. But as with any other religious act, fasting requires a pure intention, otherwise piety – as Rumi’s fellow poet the Persian Hafez repeatedly warned his contemporaries in the 14th century – can degenerate into a dry orthodoxy, or worse, turn into a show of hypocrisy before others. Religious practice, Hafez said, is perfect only with love: "The rewards for fasting and the pilgrimage are reaped by the one / Who has visited the soil of the tavern of Love."
For the Islamic mystics, the alchemy of fasting begins with the invitation to deep introspection, which is possible only with the help of strong willpower and a certain degree of self-discipline. In an excessively accelerated world that pulls our attention outward all the time, leaving less and less opportunity for self-knowledge – which in turn leads to ever greater chaos in our societies –this invitation is of utmost relevance, even to non-Muslims.
© Qantara.de 2021
Marian Brehmer holds a degree in Iranian Studies and writes as a freelance author from Istanbul with a focus on Islamic mysticism.
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