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The verse is speaking of a SPIRITUAL
CHANGE, specifically, a transformation of the NAFS(ego) of the believers- not a moral one. And as the Blessed Prophet never tired of reminding us, there is little value in outward conformity to the rules unless this conformity is mirrored and engendered by an authentically righteous disposition of the heart.
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**'No-one shall enter the Garden by his works,' as he expressed it.
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It is theological NONSENSE to suggest that God's final CONCERN is with our ability to conform to a complex set of rules. His concern is RATHER that we should be RESTORED, through our labours and His grace, to that STATE of PURITY and EQUILIBRIUM with which we were born. The rules are a vital MEANS to that END, and are facilitated by it. But they do NOT take its PLACE.
The Holy Quran deploys a striking metaphor. In Sura Ibrahim, verses 24 to 26:
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Have you not seen how God coineth a likeness: a goodly word like a goodly tree, the root whereof is set firm, its branch in the heaven? It bringeth forth its fruit at every time, by the leave of its Lord. Thus doth God coin likenesses for men, that perhaps they may reflect (to end verse).
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According to the scholars of tafsir (exegesis), the reference here is to the 'words' (kalima) of faith. Faith is illustrated as a natural growth.
Islam is NOT, ultimately, a MANUAL OF RULES which, when meticulously followed, becomes a passport to paradise. Instead, it IS a package of social, intellectual and spiritual TECHNOLOGY whose PURPOSE is to CLEANSE the human HEART. In the Qur'an, the Lord says that on the Day of Judgement, NOTHING will be of any use to us, EXCEPT a SOUND heart (qalbun saleem).
Mindful of this commandment, under which all the other commandments of Islam are subsumed, the Islamic scholars have worked out a science, an ILM (science), of ANALYZING the 'STATES' of the HEART, and the METHODS of bringing it into this CONDITION of SOUNDNESS. In the fullness of time, this science acquired the name TASAWWUF, in English 'SUFISM' - a traditional label for what we might nowadays more intelligibly call 'Islamic PSYCHOLOGY.'
At this point, many OBJECTIONS are voiced. It is vital to understand that mainstream Sufism is a set of INSIGHTS and PRACTICES which operate WITHIN the various Islamic madhhabs(doctrines or schools of thought); in other words, it is NOT a madhhab, its an ILM (science). And like most of the other Islamic ulum (sciences), it was NOT known by NAME, or in its later developed form, in the age of the Prophet (pbuh) or his Companions. There are many Islamic sciences which ONLY took shape years AFTER the Prophetic age: usul al-FIQH, for instance, or the DISCIPLINES of HADITH. Now this, of course, leads us into the often misunderstood area of sunna and BID'A, two notions which are wielded as blunt instruments by many contemporary activists.
What is a BID'A? We all know the famous hadith: *Beware of matters newly begun, for every matter newly begun is innovation, every innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in HELL.*
Does this mean that EVERYTHING introduced into Islam that was not known to the first generation of Muslims is to be rejected? The classical scholars do NOT accept such a LITERALISTIC interpretation. Let us take a DEFINITION from Imam al-Shafi'i, an authority UNIVERSALLY accepted in Sunni Islam. Imam al-SHAFI'I writes:"There are two kinds of INTRODUCED matters (muhdathat). ONE is that which CONTRADICTS a text of the Qur'an, or the Sunna, or a report from the early Muslims (athar), or the consensus (ijma') of the Muslims: this is an 'innovation of MISGUIDANCE' (bid'at dalala). The SECOND kind is that which is in itself GOOD and entails NO contradiction of ANY of these authorities: this is a 'NON-REPREHENSIBLE innovation' (bid'a ghayr madhmuma)." This basic distinction between acceptable AND unacceptable forms of BID'A is RECOGNIZED by the overwhelming MAJORITY of classical SCHOLARS. Among some, for instance al-Izz ibn Abd al-Salam (one of the mujtahids of Islamic history), innovations fall under the FIVE axiological headings of the Shari'a: the obligatory, the recommended, the permissible, the offensive, and the forbidden.
The above classification of BID'A types is ACCEPTED by the 4 FIQH schools. There have been only 2 EXCEPTIONS: the Zahiri school as articulated by IBN HAZM, and ONE wing of the Hanbali madhhab, represented by IBN TAYMIYA, who goes against the classical ijma' (consensus), and CLAIMS that ALL forms of INNOVATION, good OR bad, are UN-Islamic.
Islamic psychology is characteristic of the new ulum (sciences) which, although present in latent and implicit form in the Quran, were first systematized in Islamic culture during the early Abbasid period.
Occupation
Given the importance that the Quran attaches to obtaining a 'SOUND HEART', we are not surprised to find that the influence of Islamic psychology has been massive and all-pervasive. In the formative first four centuries of Islam, the time when the great works of tafsir, hadith, grammar, and so forth were laid down, the ulema also applied their minds to this problem of al-qalb al-salim.
Companies
This was first visible when, following the example of the Tabi'in (followers), many of the early ascetics, such as Sufyan ibn Uyayna, Sufyan al-Thawri, and Abdallah ibn al-Mubarak, had focussed their concerns explicitly on the art of PURIFYing the heart. The methods they recommended were frequent fasting and night prayer, periodic retreats, and a preoccupation with murabata: service as volunteer fighters in the border castles of Asia Minor.
Schools
This type of pietist orientation was not in the least systematic during this period. It was a loose category embracing ALL MUSLIMS who sought SALVATION through the PROPHETIC virtues of RENUNCIATION, SINCERITY, and deep DEVOTION to the REVELATION. These men and women were variously referred to as al-bakka'un: 'the WEEPERS', because of their FEAR of the Day of Judgement, or as ZUHHAD, ASCETICS, or UBBAD, 'UNCEASING worshippers'.
Interests
By the 3rd century, however, we start to find writings which can be understood as belonging to a distinct devotional school. The increasing luxury and materialism of Abbasid urban society spurred many Muslims to campaign for a RESTORATION of the SIMPLICITY of the PROPHETIC age. PURITY of heart, COMPASSION for others, and a constant RECOLLECTION of God were the defining features of this trend. We find references to the METHOD of muhasaba: SELF-EXAMINATION to detect impurities of INTENTION. Also stressed was riyada: SELF-DISCIPLINE. By this time, too, the main outlines of Quranic psychology had been worked out. The HUMAN creature, it was realised, was made up of four constituent parts: the BODY (jism), the MIND (aql), the SPIRIT (ruh), and the SELF (nafs). The first two need little comment. Less familiar (at least to people of a modern education) are the 3rd and 4th categories. The SPIRIT is the ruh, that underlying ESSENCE of the human individual which SURVIVES death. It is hard to comprehend rationally, being in part of Divine inspiration, as the Quran says: ==========================================And they ask you about the spirit; say, the spirit is of the command of my Lord. And you have been given of knowledge only a little. (Qur'an 17:85)=======================================According to the early Islamic psychologists, the ruh is a non-material reality which pervades the entire human body, but is centred on the HEART, the qalb. It represents that part of man which is not of this world, and which connects him with his Creator, and which, if he is fortunate, enables him to see God in the next world. When we are born, this ruh is intact and pure. As we are initiated into the DISTRACTIONS of the world, however, it is COVERED over with the 'RUST' (ran) of which the Quran speaks. This rust is made up of two things: SIN and DISTRACTION. When, through the process of SELF-DISCIPLINE, these are banished, so that the worshipper is PRESERVED FROM SIN and is focussing entirely on the immediate PRESENCE and REALITY of God, the RUST is dissolved, and the ruh once again is FREE. The HEART is SOUND; and SALVATION, and CLOSENESS to God, are achieved. This sounds simple enough. However, the early Muslims taught that such precious things come only at an appropriate price. CLEANING up the Augean stables of the HEART is a most excruciating CHALLENGE. Outward conformity to the rules of religion is simple enough; but it is ONLY the first step. Much more DEMANDING is the policy known as mujahada: the daily COMBAT against the LOWER SELF, the nafs. (The greatest Jihad is against ONE's Own EGO)..As the Quran says: ========================================As for him that fears the standing before his Lord, and FORBIDS his nafs (EGO) its DESIRES, for him, Heaven shall be his place of resort. (Qur'an 79:40)========================================Hence the Sufi commandment: 'Slaughter your ego with the knives of mujahada.' (Imam al-Qushayri)Once the nafs is controlled, then the heart is clear, and the virtues proceed from it easily and naturally. Because its OBJECTIVE is nothing less than SALVATION, this VITAL ISLAMIC SCIENCE has been consistently expounded by the great scholars of CLASSICAL Islam. While today there are many Muslims, influenced by either WAHHABI or ORIENTALIST agendas, who BELIEVE that SUFISM has always led a somewhat MARGINAL existence in Islam, the reality is that the overwhelming MAJORITY of the classical scholars were actively INVOLVED in Sufism.The early Shafi'i scholars of Khurasan: al-Hakim al-Nisaburi, Ibn Furak, al-Qushayri and al-Bayhaqi, were all Sufis who formed links in the richest academic tradition of Abbasid Islam, which culminated in the achievement of Imam Hujjat al-Islam al-GHAZALI. Ghazali himself, author of some 300 books, including the definitive rebuttals of Arab philosophy and the Ismailis, 3 large TEXTBOOKS of Shafi'i FIQH, the best-known tract of USUL al-FIQH, 2 works on LOGIC, and several theological treatises, also left us with the classic statement of orthodox Sufism: the IHYA ULUM al-DIN, a book of which Imam NAWAWI remarked: =======================================Were the books of Islam ALL to be LOST, EXCEPTING only the IHYA', it would SUFFICE to REPLACE them ALL.=======================================Imam NAWAWI himself wrote 2 books which record his DEBT to SUFISM, one called the Bustan al-Arifin ('Garden of the Gnostics', and another called the al-Maqasid (recently published in English translation, Sunna Books, Evanston Il. trans. Nuh Ha Mim Keller). Among the MALIKIS, too, Sufism was popular. Al-Sawi, al-Dardir, al-Laqqani and Abd al-Wahhab al-Baghdadi were ALL exponents of Sufism. The Maliki jurist of Cairo, Abd al-Wahhab al-Sha'rani defines Sufism as follows:
