Sirhindi Essay — Beda Eastman

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June 2024

One of the key issues in al-Sirhindi’s thought is the doctrine of ‘wahdat al-shuhud.’ How is this doctrine different from ‘wahdat al-wujud’? What is al-Sirhindi’s view on reunion with God as the goal in the Sufi path?

Shaykh Ahmad al-Faruqi Sirhindi (1564 - 1624), known by his followers as the Renewer of the Second Millennium, is a prominent Sufi scholar of the 16th and 17th century in India. Sirhindi’s theories influenced the direction of Sufi doctrine, as he reformed mysticism to align with more orthodox understandings of Islam. Sirhindi was a pir in the Naqshbandi order, which began in the 1300s in central and south Asia but is now practised in countries across the world. In his leading role in the order, he wrote many letters on Sufism, which became known as Maktubat-i Imam-i Rabbani. Thus, Sirhindi’s reforming ideas have left their mark on a global scale. For Sirhindi, sharia or Islamic law is a necessary part of faith, and indeed should be “the touchstone of Sufi experience” (Friedmann 1971, p.24); meaning the fundamentals of Islam must act as the criterion for spiritual practice. Any previously purported Sufi thought that was heretical in the eyes of the sharia therefore cannot be correct. This is not to say that Sufism itself was problematic; Sirhindi believed that his “mystical insights” had “complete compatibility” with the sharia, and wrote that the Sufi path is necessary for attaining “spiritual achievement” (Friedmann 1971, p.26). Sirhindi also had a strong social and political influence as a jurist during the time of the Mughal empire. His staunch adherence to traditional Islam is clearly exampled in the way he campaigned against the emperor Akbar’s (1542 - 1605) religious innovations, which combined Hinduism and Islam, in an attempt to gain support and societal harmony (Kamal 2024). Sirhindi denounced Akbar’s “Dini-llahi” and was imprisoned for a year for his criticisms. Ultimately, Sirhindi’s theosophical position was one of reconciliation between Sufism and sharia, making him a “pioneer” of Neo-Sufism (Kamal 2024).

One of Sirhindi’s major reforming acts of Sufi doctrine was to redefine the concept of reunion with God. Before Sirhindi, ‘Oneness of Being’ – wahdat al wujud – was a commonly held belief by Sufi scholars and practitioners. This idea was first seen in the actions of Hallaj, but formally explored by ibn Arabi, and coined by his followers. Ibn Arabi claimed that there is only one reality, and that reality is God. There cannot be anything that exists independently; all creation is part of this singular Reality. Wahdat al wujud is an ontological claim about the nature of all humans as an extension of God, as the hand is an extension of the body (Kamal 2024). As Hallaj said “I am the Truth” (Ramli 2013), and Attar wrote that the thirty birds are the Simurgh in his Conference of the Birds, no one is separate from God, and we will all be rejoined to him in the end. Ibn Arabi said “Glory to Him who created all things, being Himself their very essence” (Kamal 2024). We are the essence of God, and God’s essence is everything. These ideas of the Oneness of Being were widely accepted in Sufi thought, even though they breached some core aspects of Islamic belief, as the religion places monotheism as its most important principle.

Because of this, Sirhindi criticised wahdat al wujud, rejecting ibn Arabi’s doctrine. Sirhindi emphasised tawhid– the oneness of God – and believed wahdat al wujud could lead to the justification of idolatry, through seeing all things as God and thus revering or worshipping other than God. According to Sirhindi, we should maintain an understanding of the transcendence of God; “God is not and cannot be one with anything. God is God and the world is world” (Kamal 2024). To perceive a oneness with God is not actually an ontological unity with Him, says Sirhindi; rather it is an “experiential” sense of oneness while in a spiritual act of worship such as meditation. Oneness of being is a subjective perception, not“objectively one’s experience in the outside world” (Buehler 2011, p.160). Sirhindi names this wahdat al shuhud: Oneness of Experience. Wahdat al shuhud is to “see One Being” rather than to “believe that there is only One Being there” (Kamal 2024). Muhammad Abdul Haq Ansari (1986, 102) defines wahdat al shuhud as “to perceive nothing in existence but One Being. But the perception does not mean that other beings are not there; nor does it imply a belief that other things are nonexistent.” The key difference is perception instead of belief.

In Revealed Grace: The Juristic Sufism of Ahmad Sirhindi Arthur Buehler translates Sirhindi’s letters and analyses the ideas discussed within them. In one of his letters, Sirhindi writes about wahdat al wujud and the mistakes that are made by those who believe they have experienced Oneness. Buehler (2011, p.159) explains how this letter articulates that wahdat al wujud is a “merely a preliminary stage and not ontological union with God, though it may be perceived as such”. Those who claim to have unity with God are basing this on experiences that are “still in the realm of the heart” – a beginner stage that has not yet reached “divine effulgence” or knowledge. The experiences that elicit this belief of wahdat al wujud are unreliable due to “altered states of consciousness,” and Sufi practitioners mistake this state for a final stage of unity when they have not actually “arrived at the levels of the Essence” (Buehler 2011, pp.159-160). In his letter, Sirhindi says that these people who desire absolute annihilation of the self are “slain by love” (2011, p.163). Love and yearning for God leads to the misinterpretation of the experience of Oneness as an actual ontological union. When they experience intoxication, they see only One Being – wahdat al shuhud –, but they take this to be an existential revelation.

However, Sirhindi does not discredit these perceived moments of union entirely. According to Yohanan Friedmann (1971, 26) Sirhindi believed that the experience of intoxication, though it “sometimes expresses itself in the theory of wahdat al wujud” and thus may “prompt the Sufi to make some blatant heretical statements,” remains “indispensable to reaching the pinnacle” of mystical attainment. Having intoxicating experiences and perceiving a unity with God is a necessary stepping stone on the Sufi path; and once one has moved past this stage, they can “reject” the “heretical views” of wahdat al wujud, and realise wahdat al shuhud as the “correct theory” (Friedmann 1971, p.26). Buehler also touches on this approach that Sirhindi had towards ecstatic experiences, in his translation of Sirhindi’s letters. Sirhindi writes about Baqibillah (1564 - 1603), who is considered a saint of the Naqshbandi order and is referred to as “our master” by Sirhindi in this letter. Sirhindi was first initiated into the Naqshbandi order by Baqibillah (Friedmann 1971) so the latter held the role of a teacher and guide for Sirhindi. Sirhindi includes Baqibillah’s thoughts on knowledge of unity with God, writing in agreement with him that this knowledge does not come from being “overpowered by love” and that “the main highway is another way” (Buehler 2011, pp.164-166). This means that the main goal of the Sufi is not experiences of overwhelming love or the sense of oneness with God in itself; the true road leads in another direction. Sirhindi says that Sufi masters such as Baqibillah had the goal to “relieve that overpowering feeling” in order to gain inner knowledge (Buehler 2011, p.166). So while ibn Arabi, and indeed other prominent Sufi scholars such as Hallaj, Attar, and Rumi, would consider Oneness of Being to be the ultimate truth and the goal of all who seek God, Sirhindi claims that it is a temporary perception that does not reflect the reality of God and his creations. To find true understanding of God, we must reject any feelings of oneness with Him that come with spiritual experience; instead, though we see One Being, we exist separately from Him. God is one, and we are not God.

Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi conducted a significant renovation of Sufi thought, not least by transforming the concept of union with God. His development of wahdat al shuhud acts as a bridge between Sufism and sharia; it aligns spiritual experience with the perspective of traditional Islamic theology. By characterising the sense of oneness with God as simply a perception, and not a reflection of ontology, the Islamic tenets of tawhid and the transcendence of God remain untouched, and the Sufi practices no longer can be seen as breaching Islamic law. Sirhindi did not believe that reunion with God takes the form of annihilation of the self, or God as the sole Reality. He believed that the Sufi moves beyond these ideas in order to reach unity through insight of God and spiritual knowledge. We maintain the self, and as creations we exist separately from the Creator, though we are dependent on Him to exist. Shaykh Sirhindi rightfully earned the title of mujaddid-i alf-i thani – Renewer of the Second Millennium – and has come to be referred to as Imam-i Rabbani, for his leading role in Sufi and Islamic scholarship, and the way he integrated the two. Many Sufis across the world follow Sirhindi’s teachings, with his reforms to the Naqshbandi order being known as the Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi order; the tariqa is revived, and restored to unity with Islam and the sharia. Neo-Sufism (Rahman 1979) is the term often used to describe forms of Sufism which turned away from the more pantheistic aspects of mysticism, aiming to reaffirm traditional Islamic standards. Followers of these branches of Sufism have been labelled as ‘sober’ Sufis, as opposed to ‘ecstatic’ ones. Asserting the sharia as foundational to Sufism has often been attributed to Ghazali (1058 - 1111), who reformed Sufism in Iran (Kamal 2024). But the impact of Sirhindi and his contribution to Neo-Sufism cannot be ignored; like Ghazali, he reinstated the importance of Islamic rulings, shaping the form Sufism would take in India and around the world. Through critiquing ibn Arabi’s wahdat al-wujud and establishing the doctrine of wahdat al-shuhud in response, Sirhindi returned the concept of God in Sufism to one of absolute perfection, superiority, and greatness. Wahdat al shuhud defines the mystic’s relationship with God and rationalises the experiences of Oneness with Him; and it emphasises that reunion with God is not through loss of self, but through moving beyond the states of intoxication, to gain deeper spiritual knowledge.

Reference List

Ansari, M.A.H. (1986). Sufism and Sharı ̄ āh: A Study of Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi’s Effort to Reform Sufism.Leicester, UK: The Islamic Foundation.

Buehler, A.F. (2011). Revealed Grace: the Juristic Sufism of Ahmad Sirhindi (1564-1624). Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae.

Farid Ud-Din Attar (2016). The Conference of the Birds. Translated by G. de Tassy. and C.S. Nott. Toward Publishing.

Friedmann, Y. (1971). Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi. London, UK: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Kamal, Muhammad. “Ibn Arabi and the Doctrine of wahdat al-wujud.” ISLM20016: Spirituality in Islam. Lecture presented at University of Melbourne, Parkville VIC, April 23, 2024.

Kamal, Muhammad. “Ghazali and the Rise of Neo Sufism.” ISLM20016: Spirituality in Islam. Lecture presented at University of Melbourne, Parkville VIC, May 7, 2024.

Kamal, Muhammad. “Sirhindi and the Unity of Experience.” ISLM20016: Spirituality in Islam. Lecture presented at University of Melbourne, Parkville VIC, May 14, 2024.

Rahman, F. (1979). Islam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ramli, Yusri Mohamad. 2013. “Martyrdom of al-Hallaj and Unity of the Existence: The Condemners and the Commenders.” International Journal of Islamic Thought Vol. 3 (June): 106-112.

“As long as my soul stays in my body,
I am a slave of the Qur’an and the dust on the path of Muhammad, the Chosen One.
If someone interprets my words in any other way,
That person I deplore, and I deplore his words.”

- Jalal ud-Din Rumi