3. The Ṭayfúrís.
They are the followers of Abú Yazíd Ṭayfúr b. Ísá b. Surúshán al-Bisṭámí, a great and eminent Ṣúfí. His doctrine is rapture (ghalabat) and intoxication (sukr). Rapturous longing for God and intoxication of love cannot be acquired by human beings, and it is idle to claim, and absurd to imitate, anything that lies beyond the range of acquisition. Intoxication is not an attribute of the sober, and Man has no power of drawing it to himself. The intoxicated man is enraptured and pays no heed to created things, that he should manifest any quality involving conscious effort (taklif). The Ṣúfí Shaykhs are agreed that no one is a proper model for others unless he is steadfast (mustaqím) and has escaped from the circle of “states”; but there are some who allow that the way of rapture and intoxication may be trodden with effort, because the Apostle said: “Weep, or else make as though ye wept!” Now, to imitate others for the sake of ostentation is sheer polytheism, but it is different when the object of the imitator is that God may perchance raise him to the rank of those whom he has imitated, in accordance with the saying of the Apostle: “Whoever makes himself like unto a people is one of them.” And one of the Shaykhs said: “Contemplations (musháhadát) are the result of mortifications (mujáhadát).” My own view is that, although mortifications are always excellent, intoxication and rapture cannot be acquired at all; hence they cannot be induced by mortifications, which in themselves never become a cause of intoxication. I will now set forth the different opinions of the Shaykhs concerning the true nature of intoxication (sukr) and sobriety (ṣaḥw), in order that difficulties may be removed.
Discourse on Intoxication and Sobriety.
You must know that “intoxication” and “rapture” are terms used by spiritualists to denote the rapture of love for God, while the term “sobriety” expresses the attainment of that which is desired. Some place the former above the latter, and some hold the latter to be superior. Abú Yazíd and his followers prefer intoxication to sobriety. They say that sobriety involves the fixity and equilibrium of human attributes, which are the greatest veil between God and Man, whereas intoxication involves the destruction of human attributes, like foresight and choice, and the annihilation of a man’s self-control in God, so that only those faculties survive in him that do not belong to the human genus; and they are the most complete and perfect. Thus David was in the state of sobriety; an act proceeded from him which God attributed to him and said, “David killed Goliath” (Kor. ii, 252): but our Apostle was in the state of intoxication; an act proceeded from him which God attributed to Himself and said, “Thou didst not throw, when thou threwest, but God threw” (Kor. viii, 17). How great is the difference between these two men! The attribution of a man’s act to God is better than the attribution of God’s act to a man, for in the latter case the man stands by himself, while in the former case he stands through God.
Junayd and his followers prefer sobriety to intoxication. They say that intoxication is evil, because it involves the disturbance of one’s normal state and loss of sanity and self-control; and inasmuch as the principle of all things is sought either by way of annihilation or subsistence, or of effacement or affirmation, the principle of verification cannot be attained unless the seeker is sane. Blindness will never release anyone from the bondage and corruption of phenomena. The fact that people remain in phenomena and forget God is due to their not seeing things as they really are; for if they saw, they would escape. Seeing is of two kinds: he who looks at anything sees it either with the eye of subsistence (baqá) or with the eye of annihilation (faná). If with the eye of subsistence, he perceives that the whole universe is imperfect in comparison with his own subsistence, for he does not regard phenomena as self-subsistent; and if he looks with the eye of annihilation, he perceives that all created things are non-existent beside the subsistence of God. In either case he turns away from created things. On this account the Apostle said in his prayer: “O God, show us things as they are,” because whoever thus sees them finds rest. Now, such vision cannot be properly attained except in the state of sobriety, and the intoxicated have no knowledge thereof. For example, Moses was intoxicated; he could not endure the manifestation of one epiphany, but fell in a swoon (Kor. vii, 139): but our Apostle was sober; he beheld the same glory continuously, with ever-increasing consciousness, all the way from Mecca, until he stood at the space of two bow-lengths from the Divine presence (Kor. liii, 9).
My Shaykh, who followed the doctrine of Junayd, used to say that intoxication is the playground of children, but sobriety is the death-field of men. I say, in agreement with my Shaykh, that the perfection of the state of the intoxicated man is sobriety. The lowest stage in sobriety consists in regarding the powerlessness of humanity: therefore, a sobriety that appears to be evil is better than an intoxication that is really evil. It is related that Abú `Uthmán Maghribí, in the earlier part of his life, passed twenty years in retirement, living in deserts where he never heard the sound of a human voice, until his frame was wasted and his eyes became as small as the eye of a sack-needle. After twenty years he was commanded to associate with mankind. He resolved to begin with the people of God who dwelt beside His Temple, since by doing so he would gain a greater blessing. The Shaykhs of Mecca were aware of his coming and went forth to meet him. Finding him so changed that he hardly seemed to be a human creature, they said to him: “O Abú `Uthmán, tell us why you went and what you saw and what you gained and wherefore you have come back.” He replied: “I went because of intoxication, and I saw the evil of intoxication, and I gained despair, and I have come back on account of weakness.” All the Shaykhs said: “O Abú `Uthmán, it is not lawful for anyone after you to explain the meaning of sobriety and intoxication, for you have done justice to the whole matter and have shown forth the evil of intoxication.”
Intoxication, then, is to fancy one’s self annihilated while the attributes really subsist; and this is a veil. Sobriety, on the other hand, is the vision of subsistence while the attributes are annihilated; and this is actual revelation. It is absurd for anyone to suppose that intoxication is nearer to annihilation than sobriety is, for intoxication is a quality that exceeds sobriety, and so long as a man’s attributes tend to increase he is without knowledge; but when he begins to diminish them, seekers (of God) have some hope of him.
It is related that Yaḥyá b. Mu`ádh wrote to Abú Yazíd: “What do you say of one who drinks a single drop of the ocean of love and becomes intoxicated?” Báyazíd wrote in reply: “What do you say of one who, if all the oceans in the world were filled with the wine of love, would drink them all and still cry for more to slake his thirst?” People imagine that Yahyá was speaking of intoxication, and Báyazíd of sobriety, but the opposite is the case. The man of sobriety is he who is unable to drink even one drop, and the man of intoxication is he who drinks all and still desires more. Wine being the instrument of intoxication, but the enemy of sobriety, intoxication demands what is homogeneous with itself, whereas sobriety takes no pleasure in drinking.
There are two kinds of intoxication: (1) with the wine of affection (mawaddat) and (2) with the cup of love (maḥabbat). The former is “caused” (ma`lúl), since it arises from regarding the benefit (ni`mat); but the latter has no cause, since it arises from regarding the benefactor (mun`im). He who regards the benefit sees through himself and therefore sees himself, but he who regards the benefactor sees through Him and therefore does not see himself, so that, although he is intoxicated, his intoxication is sobriety.
Sobriety also is of two kinds: sobriety in heedlessness (ghaflat) and sobriety in love (maḥabbat). The former is the greatest of veils, but the latter is the clearest of revelations. The sobriety that is connected with heedlessness is really intoxication, while that which is linked with love, although it be intoxication, is really sobriety. When the principle (aṣl) is firmly established, sobriety and intoxication resemble one another, but when the principle is wanting, both are baseless. In short, where true mystics tread, sobriety and intoxication are the effect of difference (ikhtiláf), and when the Sultan of Truth displays his beauty, both sobriety and intoxication appear to be intruders (ṭufaylí), because the boundaries of both are joined, and the end of the one is the beginning of the other, and beginning and end are terms that imply separation, which has only a relative existence. In union all separations are negated, as the poet says—
“When the morning-star of wine rises,
The drunken and the sober are as one.”
At Sarakhs there were two spiritual directors, namely, Luqmán and Abu ´l-Faḍl Ḥasan. One day Luqmán came to Abu ´l-Faḍl and found him with a piece (of manuscript) in his hand. He said: “O Abu ´l-Faḍl, what are you seeking in this paper?” Abu ´l-Faḍl replied: “The same thing as you are seeking without a paper.” Luqmán said: “Then why this difference?” Abu ´l-Faḍl answered: “You see a difference when you ask me what I am seeking. Become sober from intoxication and get rid of sobriety, in order that the difference may be removed from you and that you may know what you and I are in search of.”
The Ṭayfúrís and Junaydís are at variance to the extent which has been indicated. As regards ethics, the doctrine of Báyazíd consists in shunning companionship and choosing retirement from the world, and he enjoined all his disciples to do the same. This is a praiseworthy and laudable Path.