Articles from the Religious Research Journal
The Great fitna – a Sufi Perspective
By Tom Hemphill
I recently had the pleasure of attending the 32nd annual International Conference of the Spiritual Science Fellowship (SSF) and the International Institute of Integral Human Sciences (IIIHS). This major spiritual gathering is held in Montréal each May, under the leadership of Dr. John Rossner and Dr. Marilyn Rossner. It is always a gathering of leading thinkers in all aspects of the integrated study of spirituality and human sciences. I strongly recommend to any reader of this Journal: if you get an opportunity to attend a future SSF-IIIHS International Conference, certainly do so! (For more info, go online to: www.iiihs.org)
Conference topics presented ran the gamut from the spiritual ramifications of quantum physics to new medical breakthroughs, from communication with extraterrestrial life forms to the spiritual component of music, from Native American wisdom to Hindu mysticism. Each speaker brought new insights, new challenges to old ways of thinking, and new energy to move us into our spiritual future.
One event featured a panel of religious leaders speaking from various religions about the spiritual concepts of compassion and transformation. Of particular interest to me were the comments of Shaykh Abdul Haqq, a Naqshbandi-Sufi leader. A Sufi is a Muslim mystic. Not surprisingly, Sufi mystical teaching often parallels mystical/spiritual teaching in other religions.
Shaykh Abdul Haqq – whose name means “Servant of the Truth” - presented a Sufi understanding of compassion. Contrary to what is so often presented in the western media today, there is a long-standing tradition of compassion within Islam. A common Muslim reference to Allah describes Him as “the beneficent, the merciful.”
After speaking of Islam’s teachings on compassion, Shaykh Abdul Haqq also shared with us the Muslim prophecy of a great “fitna” that is to come. Fitna is an Arabic word meaning dissension or confusion. For example, as would be true in Christian or Jewish congregations, Muslim societies seek to build harmony, communication and understanding within their community, and to avoid the destruction of faith and goodwill that comes through dissension, confusion, or distress - fitna.
Shaykh Abdul Haqq spoke to us of a prediction of a great fitna that is to come upon the whole world. This was new to me – a Muslim prophecy that parallels Christian teachings of a great destruction and panic in the End Times. How fascinating that spiritually-attuned Muslims – like their spiritually-seeking brothers and sisters in other religions – see the coming of a time of great dissension and division among humanity, and that spiritual people are called to be faithful to their teaching and their beliefs during this terribly stressful time.
The western world in recent years has been given a very distorted and imbalanced picture of Islam and Muslims. It is interesting though not surprising that as we seek to learn more and more of what Islam and Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him) truly teach, we find that Islam holds a great reservoir of beliefs and values that correlate with the highest values taught in other faiths – Jewish, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, etc.
For centuries, wise spiritual and mystical leaders of all faiths have sought inner growth, inner wisdom and inner peace. Only as we resolve the conflicts and fears – the fitna – within ourselves can we then hope to add to the greater peace and harmony and love of the world around us.
Shaykh Abdul Haqq told us that the preaching by the Prophet about the coming great fitna was very powerful. It is written that the Prophet meditated in the morning, then arose and preached powerfully about the great fitna. In the middle of the day again the Prophet meditated and then preached strongly about the great fitna. And again in the evening, he meditated and preached on the same subject.
The Prophet said that a great fitna would come upon all humanity, that it would extend as far away as China, meaning to all the earth. The time of the great fitna will be a time of complete chaos, dissension among peoples, killing, confusion and agony. The prediction of the great fitna parallels Christianity’s predictions of events leading up to the ultimate battle of Good with evil, called Armageddon. The Prophet said that in the time of the fitna people will kill without knowing why they are killing, and people will be killed without knowing why they are being killed.
The fitna at that time will be so great that ordinary humans cannot deal with it. It will have its own consuming power, and those who seek to enter into the fitna – including those who seek to heal or resolve or otherwise accomplish goodness in it - will be sucked down into the horror of cruelty, fear, killing, torture and death. In short, this will be a powerful expression of evil, impacting the whole world.
Does not the news today suggest that we are now in such a time of upheaval? Particularly in the Middle East, Europe and North America, we are seeing more division, more hatred, more corruption, more greed, more violence, more stupidity, more fear, more confusion – more fitna – than at any time in recorded history.
Contrast this with World War II. While there was terrible death and destruction in WW II, there was also widespread agreement and clarity about why we were at war, who the enemy was, and what must be accomplished. It was a time of powerful pulling-together, fighting for the common good, and investing in our common future by all the allied nations. This was a clear-cut conflict with almost universal support in our society.
World War II was a vast and terrible war, but there was little fitna – dissension and confusion – involved. Today, however, we are surrounded by nothing but fitna, both in our international warfare and in our societal dissension. There is fitna among nations and fitna within each nation and race, each human society.
The Prophet preached to his followers that they could neither avert the great fitna, nor resolve it, nor alleviate its sufferings. The great fitna is like a wild beast, drawing prey to itself and devouring them, and deriving its life energy from the misery it creates.
This makes sense. Dr. John taught us at Religious Research that evil thrives on human misery. Having cut itself off from receiving the life force that emanates from God, in the “far country” of Earth, evil seeks to create and increase human misery, so that our agony will provide evil with a life force.
Political leaders today insist that it is not only OK but necessary for us to go to war in order to defeat our enemies, whomever they may be. So the U.S. goes to war in Iraq, Iran threatens to go to war against the U.S., the mutual warfare continues between Israel and Palestine, the civil war continues in south Sudan - in so many places throughout the world people feel justified in using violence, destruction and war as a justified, legitimate and appropriate weapon against whomever they choose to hate.
But the real dichotomy is not between those who say that war is justified to fight “terrorists,” as opposed to the “terrorists” who say war is justified to fight against their enemies. The true dichotomy is between those who believe that war is a necessary and justified means to some end, and those who believe that war is not justified.
The issue to be addressed is not whether this side or that side has the more credible justification for murdering their opponents. The issue is that both sides who choose fear as their reality and war as their method have missed the point. They are choosing not peace but fitna.
Greater truth lies in those who seek to make love, not fear, their true reality and who therefore reject war or any other deliberate increase in human agony as legitimate or necessary. You cannot live in the love of God/Yahweh/Allah - and also openly randomly murder those who disagree with you. Just as the Prophet warned, today people kill without knowing why or whom they are killing, and people are being killed without knowing why or by whom they are being killed.
According to Shaykh Abdul Haqq, at the time of the great fitna, those who are wise and faithful will not seek to involve themselves in the fitna. He advised them to do the best they can to protect themselves and their loved ones from the conflict. He told them to go up into a high mountain - that is, to separate oneself and one’s family from the insanity going on around us.
“Going into the mountains” is a euphemism both for getting away from society and its problems, as well as for getting closer to God. The very ruggedness of the mountains discouraged others from following and made the mountains a natural safe haven.
Thus, to go up into a high mountain can be taken literally and also metaphorically. The exhortation of the Prophet was to flee the evil of the great fitna and protect oneself and one’s loved ones from it as well as one can. This is literal and practical: stay out of it.
Do not believe the politicians who create fitna and justify it to achieve political or economic ends. Do not believe the fear-mongering that is regularly presented as “news” as though there is no goodness in the world to report; such imbalanced reporting only feeds your anxiety, uncertainty, confusion and fear – your own personal fitna. (Fearful people are far more easily manipulated and exploited than are clear-headed, wise, loving people; that is the lesson of the novel “1984.”) Avoid getting caught in the middle of the fighting, wherever it is occurring. You cannot stop it, fix it, heal it, or do any good thing there. Stay out of it!
This caution is also metaphorical. Go into the high mountain within yourself. Go into your own spiritual place. Seek and be one with your own soul, your higher self, your inner spirit, your God. Know that although the power of evil will feel incredibly strong, and fear may constantly tempt you or haunt you, God is nevertheless still in charge. This horror shall pass. Evil is not stronger than God. Although the great fitna is intended by evil to benefit evil, God will use it for good. Although many individual human lives may be lost, humanity itself will not be lost.
I believe that after the great fitna, there will be throughout incarnate humanity a breadth and depth of respect, acceptance, humility and love such as we have never seen. Out of the ashes of the great fitna will come, like a phoenix, the new paradigm, the time of the rule of society based on God’s will and God’s values – a time of peace and cooperation, of healing and enlightenment, of joy and love.
The prophet advised his followers to separate themselves from the seductive destructive passions of the great fitna, to keep themselves and their loved ones physically and spiritually above the fray. It is good counsel.
We shall survive the great fitna – which many would argue is already upon us – by clinging strongly to the values of love and the strength of spiritual faith. We may grieve as we see more and more people caught up in the fear and destruction and killing and confusion, but we cannot save them from themselves.
We are not called, according to Shaykh Abdul Haqq to try to save those who choose to invest in the fitna, for by their choice they cannot be saved. Rather, we are to save ourselves and support those whom we know who also seek to rise above the fear, the sectarianism, the violence, the bloodshed and the hatred.
This is a hard time to be alive. The old paradigm struggles to hang on and complete its agenda of destroying life. The new paradigm separates humanity into those who are consumed with fear and those who, in the midst of fear, cling to love. Now, as always, we are not alone. Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Taoist – all of us are one with God and one with each other, and all of us have personal, individual compassionate guidance from our own Spirit, our own “Upstairs Team” of guides and teachers.
Nearly 40 years ago, I set out on my first overseas assignment. I was far from home, dealing with a new culture, unsure of myself, and frightened. I turned to my father for advice. What my father counseled me then still rings true for all of us today: “Remember that you abide in God’s love and care – just as you always have.”