Adab: Spiritual Etiquette of Life

The first half of the Shahadah indicates 'there
is no reality but God'. Indeed, every locus of
manifestation, irrespective of the labels which
we humans may assign to such loci, gives
expression to the Names and Attributes of
Divinity in various combinations.

Notwithstanding the importance of the foregoing
theme, there are a variety of other issues which
arise in conjunction with accepting the
idea that everything in existence shows or
reflects a Face of God. For example, if God
is the only reality, then, why even bother
with a second half of the Shahadah? Why are
distinctions being made?

If God is everything, then, who is Muhammad
(peace be upon him). Is Muhammad (peace be
upon him) God?

Well, perhaps, an answer to the above is to
say: yes and no. That is, there is a sense in
which there is something of the Divine which
makes Muhammad (peace be upon him) possible
and to which the life of Muhammad (peace be
upon him) gives expression, but, at the same
time, one cannot equate the created with the
Creator. In essence, Muhammad (peace be upon
him) may be Divine, but he is not Divinity in
Essence.

Among Sufi masters, the notion of 'ayn al-thabita'
is mentioned as a way of referring to the realm of
fixed forms which constitute the created capacities
of different facets of creation, including human
creation. An individual's spiritual capacity is a
function of such a fixed form creation.

Understanding, light, will, consciousness, and love
are among the potentials of one's fixed form. These
are primordial currents flowing through that capacity,
and how one exercises intention or choice with
respect to such currents has an impact on how things
flow, in what direction, and to what extent.

Someone once asked a spiritual guide to characterize
what it meant to be a Sufi. The teacher reflected on
the matter briefly and responded with: "adab".

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is reported
to have said: "Surely, your soul has a right against
you, and your wife has a right against you. so, give
to each one who possesses a right against you."
All of creation, every Face of the Creator has a
right over us, and at the heart of 'adab' are acts
of doing justice ... of giving everything its due.

Every fixed form has its potential. Being cognizant
of that potential is not enough. One also needs to
understand how to interact, or whether to interact,
with that potential.

A cobra is one of the modes of Divine manifestation.
This does not mean that one acts in relation with
a cobra as one would act in relation to a baby -
although each is owed a duty of care, the nature
of which is shaped by the character of the potential
with which one is confronted
at a given time.

Consider the following Hadiths:

(1) You will not enter Paradise until you have
faith, and you will not complete your faith until
you love one another.

(2) Assist any person who is oppressed - whether
Muslim or non-Muslim.

(3) By no means shall you attain to righteousness
until you spend benevolently out of what you love.

(4) If you love your Creator, then, love your
fellow beings first.

(5) This life is but a tillage for the next,
therefore, do good deeds here that you may reap
benefits there - for, striving is the ordinance
of God, and whatever God has ordained can be
attained only by striving.

(6) The root of all prayers is renunciation of
the world, and love of the world is the root of
all mischief.

(7) Deal gently with people and be not harsh;
cheer them and do not condemn them.

(8) Creation is like God's family, for its
sustenance is from Allah. Therefore, the most
beloved unto God is the individual who does
good to God's family.

(9) Shall I not inform you about a better act
than fasting, charity, and prayer? -- making
peace between one another. Enmity and malice
tear up heavenly rewards by the roots.

(10) What actions are most excellent? To
gladden the heart of a human being; to feed
the hungry; to help the afflicted; to lighten
the sorrow of the sorrowful, and to remove the
wrongs of the injured.

(11) Every person who rises in the morning
either does that which will be the means of
one's redemption or one's spiritual ruin.

(12) One's knowledge calls to be acted upon.
If not satisfied, it will depart.


One could go on almost indefinitely along
the foregoing lines. And, one of the commonalities
shared by all of the above mentioned teachings of
the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is that
each principle revolves around the realm of
action.

Therefore, to whatever degree (according to one's
fixed form capacity) one understands the idea that
there is no reality but Divinity, unless such an
understanding involves not just action but the right
kind of action, then, such an understanding is
deficient . Knowing and understanding
how to do justice or observe adab with respect
to the various facets of that manifested Reality
is needed.

It is possible to be a traveler of the path
without having experienced fana and/or baqa. It
is possible to be a traveler on the path without
having experienced kashf (unveilings) or mystical
states and stations. However, it is not possible
to be in suluk (making spiritual progress through
incorporating and acting upon the experiential
lessons of the Sufi path) without adab – that is,
without seeking to find ways to understand how to
do justice to each and every locus of manifestation
which is, simultaneously, rooted in the Names and
Attributes of Divinity, as well as the fixed form
potential of a given aspect of creation.

A spiritual charlatan is one of the loci of
manifestation which gives expression to Divine
Himma or purpose. However, one does not act toward
a spiritual charlatan in the same way one would act
toward an authentic, spiritual guide -- although
each requires that one give what is due to each
locus of manifestation of Divine purpose ... as
a matter of justice, as a matter of adab.

Similarly, one does not act toward a cobra as one
would act in conjunction with a milk snake, even
though both are snakes. Distinctions are called
for, and inherent in these distinctions are an
array of duties of care with respect to God,
snakes, others, and oneself.

Everything and everyone has something to teach us.
But, everything and everyone does not necessarily give
expression to the same life lessons.

Someone has once described insanity as doing
the same thing over and over again but expecting
a different result. To expect a cobra to be and
act differently than it is and does, may border
on being out of touch with the distinctions
which are inherent in Creation. To expect a
spiritual charlatan to be other than who and
what she or he is, is to lose touch with
important distinctions concerning the manner
in which Divinity is manifested as well as the
life lessons God may wish one to derive from
such distinctions.

Of course, one can pray that God will come
into the life of a spiritual charlatan, or a
pedophile, or a serial killer, or a tyrant,
and, as a result, such a person's life will
change toward a more constructive, adab-based
form of dynamic and interaction with the world.
Moreover, the fact that someone is a spiritual
fraud, pedophile, serial killer, or tyrant does
not entitle one to transgress boundaries of
appropriate adab even in the context of
such manifestations, but, nonetheless,
one should try, God willing, to establish
what those boundaries are and to maintain
propriety with respect to such boundaries.

Notwithstanding the former considerations,
it is entirely appropriate to exercise certain
degrees of caution and discretion in conjunction
with those who may be inclined toward acting as
a spiritual fraud, serial killer, pedophile, or
oppressive tyrant. To ignore such ‘facts’ is to
fail to do justice to one’s knowledge, to one’s
soul, to God, to one’s family, to one fellow
human beings, and to creation in general.

Although there is a great deal of similarity
between the form of the Shahadah and the first
article of faith, some people seem to have
difficulty answering the question: what is the
difference between the two. As the bedouins of
the desert were informed by Allah, there is a
difference between submission and faith.

Faith is not a matter of belief. Faith gives
expression to a potential for action which is
rooted in an understanding of how things are.

The deeper that understanding is, the more
informed, so to speak, is the dynamic which
may arise out of such understanding. Adab -
which gives expression to action or behaviors
- is rooted in a knowledge and understanding
of how to go about giving everything its due
... of how to go about and treat each
manifestation in an appropriate fashion.

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)
is reported to have said: "Should the day
come wherein I increase not in knowledge
wherewith to draw nearer to God, let the
dawn of that day be accursed."

Knowledge is important, but the uses to
which such knowledge is applied is also
extremely important. To do suluk, to be
engaged in spiritual travel, involves
more than, God willing, attaining certain
stations of knowledge and understanding.

One seeks knowledge in order to learn how to use
all of the potential of one's fixed form as a
harmonious instrument of worship - that act
for which human beings and jinn were created.
In this respect, the Prophet Muhammad (peace
be upon him) is reported to have said: "I have
been given all the Names and have been sent
to perfect good behavior."

Good behavior, or adab, is not only knowing
what is due but doing what is known to be so.
The Prophet is reported to have said: "Do not
attend the circle of a learned person unless
that individual asks you to give up five things
in favor of accepting five other things:

- doubt in favor of faith;
- hypocrisy in favor of sincerity;
- worldliness in favor of asceticism;
- pride in favor of humility;
- enmity in favor of love.

Some people today -- even some who are called
spiritual guides -- may give lip service to the
foregoing, but may not give expression to this
teaching in their own lives. We are drawn to
people like the Prophet (peace be upon him)
because they lived what they taught.

The Prophet did not teach: do as I say, not
as I do. Indeed, the way he lived his life
established the standards of, among other
things, proper adab.

If the Prophet indicated that people should be
kind to one another, he practiced what he advocated.
If he indicated that as much as possible one should
refrain from such things as anger, hatred, and
jealousy, again, he acted in accordance with what
he was seeking to instill in others.

Back in the days when Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
were helping to unravel a presidency, they were
allegedly told by their anonymous government source
‘Deep Throat’ to follow the money, and by doing so,
they would discover some important truths about, among
other things, the sleazy politics being practiced by
various ‘leaders’ within the Republican party. Somewhat
analogously, if one wishes to learn about people, follow
their behavior, not their words.

Spiritual charlatans, sociopaths, tyrants, pedophiles,
abusive spouses, demagogues, and many political leaders
use language to misdirect attention and understanding
away from their actual behavior. Such individuals are
very good at inducing others to accept as true, a particular
way of framing reality that serves the interests of the
charlatan, tyrant, political leader, and so on, but not
the interests of the individual or individuals who are
being exploited or misled.

Real adab is largely absent from the lives of spiritual
frauds, sociopaths, tyrants, pedophiles, abusive spouses,
and all too many political leaders. In fact, such people
often use the sense of adab which other people may have
as a weapon against the latter and, as a result, exploit
various principles of adab like kindness, compassion,
empathy, friendliness, and fairness as a means of
manipulating people.

Unfortunately, discernment takes time. Despite what
some people claim, the sort of discernment which
enlivens the realization of, and commitment to, adab
is not a conceptual exercise. Rather, it is an
existential exercise which cannot be learned at a
distance from life but only by struggling with the
varied modalities of Divine manifestation and seeking
to arrive at an understanding through which behavior
might be informed in a manner which will do appropriate
justice to the distinctions which Divinity is making
through varied manifestations.

The distinction between the lesser jihad and the
greater jihad is not necessarily a matter of the
struggle which goes on within us versus the
battles which are fought in the world -- and
the Prophet understood this even as he was making
the distinction between the two kinds of jihad.
The greater jihad is always a matter of seeking
to give everything its due, whether in relation
to one's own soul, or in conjunction with the
souls associated with all other fixed forms of
created being.

As such, there is always both an inward dimension,
as well as an outward dimension to the greater
jihad. This is the nature of adab, and this is
the nature of justice.

Some people have distorted the Prophetic teaching
concerning the different kinds of jihad. As a result,
such individuals have tried to suggest that the Prophet
was saying the greater jihad is only about a person’s
internal struggle with his or her soul, and this
struggle carries few, if any, ramifications for
interacting with the external world. The Prophet’s
entire life serves as a rebuttal to such an
interpretation.

Grasping the basic idea of the first part of the
Shahadah – namely, that there is no reality but God,
is relatively simple. Realizing the truth of
that principle through the essence of one’s
fixed form capacity is quite another matter.

Understanding the second half of the Shahadah
- namely, that Muhammad (peace be upon him) is
the Rasul or Messenger of Allah, is, on the surface,
fairly straightforward. Incorporating the adab which
is inherent in the second part of the Shahadah
as well as living in accordance with the many
principles entailed by such adab is, unfortunately,
a far less traveled road.

Some people wish to restrict Shari’ah to observance
of the five pillars, along with paying lip service
to the six articles of faith. Of the more than 6,000
verses which comprise the Qur’an, only about 500, or
so, verses deal directly with different aspects of
those four pillars of Islam with which many autocratic
and rigid proponents of Shari’ah are concerned.

The remainder of the Qur’an -- that is, 11/12ths
of the entire Revelation -- focuses on issues of
history, understanding, knowledge, wisdom, remembrance,
faith, duty, discernment, as well as the Names and
Attributes of Divinity ... all of which revolve
around, or carry essential ramifications for,
matters of adab and doing justice to both God
and creation.

All manner of spiritual abuse is being perpetrated
by groups like al-Qaida, the Taliban, fundamentalist
terrorists, as well as oppressive governments from:
Saudi Arabia, to: Khomeni’s Iran which claim to be
Islamic but almost entirely misunderstand those aspects
of the spiritual tradition which are rooted in matters
of adab. All manner of spiritual abuse is being
perpetrated by those theologians, mullahs, imams,
and teachers who appear to wish to teach Shari’ah
in the absence of the whole realm of adab.

In fact, the reason why, ultimately, so many
so-called Islamic governments fail, and the
reason why so many ‘back to basics’ Islamic
movements fail, and the reason why so many
Wahhabi, and salafi-like attempts to ‘purify’
the faith fail, is because, for the most part,
none of these governments, movements, theologians,
and ‘leaders’ have any insight into the dynamic
role which adab must play in the observance of
Shari’ah. They have failed to come to terms
with the fact that Shari’ah, as they understand
it, deals with only 1/12th of the Qur’an and,
furthermore, they do not appreciate the fact
that no form of Shari’ah which marginalizes
the other 11/12ths of the Qur’an will flourish.

Earlier, 12 simple hadiths of the Prophet were
given. These were but a small sampling of a
much larger set of hadiths which could have
been given.

One of the amazing facets of those
aforementioned hadiths is that they could
be understood as having relevance and
significance to living a spiritual life
quite independently of the formal requirements
of, say, observing fasting, prayer, zakat,
and hajj. In fact, one of the hadiths previously
mentioned indicated: “Shall I not inform you
about a better act than fasting, charity, and
prayer? -- making peace between one another.
Enmity and malice tear up heavenly rewards by
the roots.”

The principles of adab are meant to shape, color,
and inform how one goes about observing the basic
pillars of Islam. However, all too many mullahs,
imams, teachers, theologians, and would-be leaders
of revolutionary movements tend to ignore adab and
focus on only a restricted, impoverished form of
Islam ... an Islam which is missing the dimensions
of adab that do not pertain to a totalitarian
imposition of the basic pillars and articles of
faith upon people – a form of understanding which
seems to have forgotten the Quranic injunction that
there can be no compulsion in matters of Deen – a
form of understanding which demands that there be
religious police ensuring that everyone does things
in accordance with such an understanding and quite
apart from what God may actually want from human
beings.

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is
reported to have said: “Many are there among you
who fast and, yet, gain nothing from it except
hunger and thirst, and many are there among you
who pray throughout the night and, yet, gain
nothing from it except wakefulness.”

There is an adab to fasting which has more to do
with niyat or intention than it has to do with
the outer formalities, although the latter are
not without their importance. There is an adab
to praying which has more to do with niyat or
intention than it has to do with the outer form
of prayer, although the latter is not without
its importance.

In addition, there is an adab or set of spiritual
principles with respect to engaging all of life
which has to do with more than just observing
the basic pillars of Islam. Such adab is not only
meant to shape, color, and inform observance of
the basic pillars, but it is meant to influence
one’s entire manner of interacting with others.
We ignore this adab at our own peril - not only
spiritually, but socially, politically, and
economically as well.

It is not just people like Osama bin Laden and
the suicide bombers who have failed to understand
the nature of adab. The sad fact is that most of
the governments of the world -- both Muslim and
non-Muslim -- have failed, as well, in this respect
... they have failed to grasp the fact that adab is
more important than government policy ... that how
one treats people, how one behaves toward others,
has the potential to undermine whatever noble cause
one may purport to be pursuing if the latter has
the effect of destroying, oppressing, exploiting,
manipulating, corrupting, and abusing the lives
of ordinary people who have become the pawns in
one’s self-serving game of tyranny – a game in
which words, rhetoric, propaganda, indoctrination,
the media, and education are used to camouflage
intentions and behaviors which are devoid of adab.

Anab Whitehouse