Sufi and Hasidic Wisdom
I’m currently doing some research for an article on the convivencia (the period of Jewish/Muslim/Christianity co-existence in Islamic Spain) which I will publish on this blog in due course, and have come across a fascinating article on Sufi - Hasidic links.
Of particular interest is the following story of al-Ghazali:
One day a man came to the teacher Bayazid and said “I have fasted and prayed for thirty years and have found none of the spiritual joy of which you speak”
“If you fasted and prayed for three hundred years, you would never find it” answered the sage.
“How is that?” asked the man.
“Your selfishness is acting as a veil between you and God”
“Tell me the cure”
“It is a cure you cannot carry out” said Bayazid.
Those around him pressed him pressed him to reveal it. After a time he spoke: “Go to the nearest barbershop and have your head shaved; strip yourself of your clothes except for a loincloth. Take a nosebag full of walnuts, hang it around your neck. Go into the market and cry out “Anybody who gives me a slap on the neck shall have a walnut”. Then proceed to the law courts and do the same thing.”
“I can’t do that” said the man. “Suggest some other remedy.”
“This is the indispensable preliminary to the cure” answered Bayazid. “But as I told you, you are incurable.”
It is of interest not only because of its description of method but it clearly shows Bayazid employing teaching techniques that can be equated to the methodology of the malamatiyya.
