The Difference between Suluk & Siyar

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ 

Dr. Alan A. Godlas wrote, “A friend asked about ‘suluk’.  ‘Sayr’ and ‘suluk’ are two complementary terms that, together, can be seen to comprise the entirety of the Sufi path.  Although both of these terms in ordinary discourse mean ‘travelling’, in Sufi discourse. they mean two different, but complementary aspects of following the Sufi path.  Hence, commonly, though not always, they are found together as ‘sayr  as-suluk’. 

In such a context, on the one hand, ‘sayr’ refers to ‘inner work’, an inner, mystical journeying through the subtle planes, levels, or degrees of one’s consciousness, away from compulsive egoism and toward ever increasing Closeness with God or God’s unity. 

On the other hand, in such a context, ‘suluk’ refer to the relatively more ‘outer work’, consisting of striving to relate harmoniously and wisely with people.  Since relating harmonious and wisely with people necessitates emotionally intelligent flexibility that the ego generally resists, especially in stressful situations, ‘sayr’ and ‘suluk’ are complementary, not merely because the former refers to the esoteric, or inner aspect of the spiritual path, while the latter refers to the exoteric, or outer, dimension of the path, but because they are mutually beneficial. 

Although I have indicated how inner work can facilitate outer work, the converse may be less obvious.  In a nutshell, however, suluk as outer work - aside from having the benefit of serving God by optimally serving humanity and the Created world - facilitates inner work by providing grist for the mill, the ‘mill’ here being the inner work of sayr. 

The way in which suluk provides grist for the mill is that by thrusting oneself into the world, suluk will inevitably place one in difficult situations in which often one’s numbed or unconscious wounds will be triggered or evoked.  When such grist within oneself is simultaneously faced via sayr, the inner journey of sipping at each moment, whatever emerges in one’s conscious by dzikr, remembering, with sips of gratitude, the all-inclusive embrace of God’s Mercifully Loving Unity, this increases the likelihood that such wounds will be healed. 

As a result, the more one practices sayr and suluk together, it becomes more likely that one will increasingly become freed from the rigidly reactive, or sometimes rigidly inhibited and avoidant, counter-productive habits of the ego.  In turn, this will increase the chances that the scope of one’s awareness will increase, and one will increasingly be able, with ups and downs, of course, to think and act outside the box of one’s ego, thinking and acting in an optimally wise, emotionally and spiritually intelligent manner. 

In practicing both sayr and suluk, Sufis follow the example of the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.), who, although he certainly spent time exclusively doing inner work, both for short periods during the day during and after ritual prayer, as well as at night and especially during Ramadhan, he nevertheless spent much of his life interacting with people, rather than predominately being in ascetic, contemplative retreat. 

Socio-historically, the mutually complementary practice of sayr  as-suluk, together with adab, as an important aspect of suluk, in Islamic culture may have particularly further developed in the urbane and relatively civil society of Central Asian and Persianate culture, of which Shaykh Muswlih ad-Din Abu Muhammad Sa’adi ibn ‘Abdullah ash-Shirazi (q.s.) Gulistan is a good example. 

If I remember correctly, ‘The Path of God’s Bondsmen’, my professor, Dr. Hamid Algar’s translation of Shaykh Najm ad-Din Abu Bakr ‘Abdullah ibn Muhammad ar-Razi’s (q.s.) Merṣad al-‘Ebad men al-Mabda’ ela al-Ma’ad, talks about specific groups of people and how to relate to them, but I do not recall whether or not he called it ‘suluk’.  It is probably not a coincidence that Shaykh ar-Razi (q.s.) and Mawlana Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi (q.s.) came from the same Kubrawi tradition.

Mawlana ar-Rumi (q.s.), in his collection of ecstatic poetry, the Divan-e Shams, on one occasion addresses the importance of harmonising with people, even though it can appear hypocritical.  In addition, in the Sufi practice of the Zhu ar-Riasetayn, the Nurbakhsh branch of the Ni’matullahi Sufi order, during the 1970s and early 80s, when I was actively involved in it, it was regarded as an important principle and was termed ‘suluk’.”

 

As translated by Dr. Godlas, here is what Mawlana ar-Rumi (q.s.) wrote:

 

ای عاشقان ای عاشقان پیمانه را گم کرده‌ام  زان می که در پیمانه‌ها اندرنگنجد خورده‌ام

مستم ز خمر من لدن رو محتسب را غمز کن  مر محتسب را و تو را هم چاشنی آورده‌ام

ای پادشاه صادقان چون من منافق دیده‌ای  با زندگانت زنده‌ام با مردگانت مرده‌ام

با دلبران و گلرخان چون گلبنان بشکفته‌ام  با منکران دی صفت همچون خزان افسرده‌ام 

“O lovers, hey lovers,

I have lost the goblet

since I've downed the wine

that goblets can't contain!

I'm drunk from the brew of proximity.

Go, wink at the policeman!

I've brought a taste for both you and him!

O Sultan of the sincere,

have you ever seen a hypocrite like me?

I am alive with your living servants

and dead with your dead ones.

Like the bower of roses,

with heart ravishers and rosy-cheeked beauties,

I blossom.

Like autumn,

with wintery-hearted deniers,

I grieve.”