Tareeqat– 7 Elements of Living Sufism in Pakistan

‘Tareeqat—7 Ele­ments of Liv­ing Sufism in Pak­istan’ comes from Dr Kam­ran Ahmad who has pre­vi­ous­ly authored ‘Roots of Reli­gious Tol­er­ance in Pak­istan and India’. Hav­ing had a PhD in South Asian Spir­i­tu­al­i­ty with inter­na­tion­al teach­ing expe­ri­ence of both Reli­gion and Psy­chol­o­gy, apart from exten­sive inter­na­tion­al trav­el­ling, explor­ing var­i­ous spir­i­tu­al tra­di­tions includ­ing sev­er­al Sufi Orders, he is able to pull out the essen­tial ele­ments of spir­i­tu­al­i­ty that under­lie the dif­fer­ent reli­gious forms, and iden­ti­fy them in the every­day life of Pak­istan.

The book has an attrac­tive cov­er show­ing an indige­nous oil lamp burn­ing in the mid­dle of a carved wall open­ing in a shrine, intro­duc­ing one to a spir­i­tu­al jour­ney. Its con­tents include the Introduction–essentials of spir­i­tu­al­i­ty along with its theoretical/historical base; 7 vital ele­ments of our every­day spir­i­tu­al­i­ty i.e., Ishq, Rawabit, Tawakkul, Aks-e-Muqad­das, Rawadari, Wah­dat-ul-Wujud and Jamali­at; Meezan (bal­ance of all the ele­ments); and final­ly, Reminders, embody­ing the crux of every ele­ment. The book also includes the Shad­ow sides of some of the ele­ments, which tell us what dam­age can be done indi­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly if an ele­ment of spir­i­tu­al­i­ty los­es its bal­ance with the oth­er ele­ments.  Last­ly, after each ele­ment of spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, use­ful exer­cis­es and prac­tices have also been rec­om­mend­ed that can enhance that aspect of spir­i­tu­al­i­ty fur­ther with­in our lives.

The mes­sage of the book is uni­ver­sal­ly appeal­ing and attempts to revive our 11,000 years’ old her­itage of Sufism in the present soci­ety. Look­ing at the hatred, divi­sion and vio­lence in our midst today, we need to active­ly pre­serve and reclaim our for­got­ten roots. It high­lights the impor­tance of love and heart mat­ters, fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty rela­tion­ships, sub­mis­sion to the will of a lov­ing God, the Sacred as reflect­ed in names and forms, plu­ral­ism and respect­ful tol­er­ance, sacred­ness of every­day life, and beau­ty and cre­ativ­i­ty. All these spir­i­tu­al ele­ments expe­ri­enced in dai­ly life will ensure a peace­ful soci­ety free of harsh judg­ments for oth­ers, result­ing in intol­er­ance and sub­se­quent vio­lence. The book right­ly urges us to cleanse and open our heart to com­pas­sion and love; to bring our heart to life and soft­en and deep­en it. It talks about the beau­ty of the life spir­i­tu­al­ly-lived, with love for all and prej­u­dice for none.

‘Taree­qat’ is based on direct expe­ri­ences with spir­i­tu­al peo­ple and prac­tices in this region and in oth­er parts of the world. Even more than that, this book is based on an appre­ci­a­tion of the essence of the spir­it in the every­day life of this land. Giv­en the need today, it is an acknowl­edge­ment, a bring­ing to light, a see­ing of that which already resides in the psy­che and the spir­it of the peo­ple of this land. The crux is to keep our heart and spir­it alive, in a way that is the her­itage and the pride of this land.

The author has con­veyed his point of reviv­ing our Sufi her­itage very effec­tive­ly. Accord­ing to him, we do not need to re-learn our reli­gion and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty. The spir­it runs strong and deep in our every­day lives and rela­tion­ships. We just need to rec­og­nize it for what it is, embrace it with love, and live it with pride, in its eter­nal flow, in its ever-chang­ing forms! The book is a rich­ly woven visu­al feast, dec­o­rat­ed with mag­nif­i­cent images of our spir­i­tu­al her­itage (shrines, mosques, and diverse cul­tur­al and reli­gious items) as well as excerpts of famous Sufi poet­ry. It reminds us of how lit­tle it takes to enrich our lives by mind­ful­ly incor­po­rat­ing our indige­nous, lived ele­ments of spir­i­tu­al­i­ty. Renowned social activist Dr Fouzia Saeed sums up the whole mes­sage of the book per­fect­ly in these words:

“This book is exact­ly what we need­ed at this crit­i­cal junc­ture in our cul­tur­al and reli­gious lives. For me, the most ben­e­fi­cial part of the book is the prac­ti­cal guid­ance it pro­vides to incor­po­rate the 7 ele­ments of spir­i­tu­al­i­ty in our lives. It is almost like a man­u­al for redis­cov­er­ing peace with­in us and in our soci­ety. This book touched the inner core of my soul.”