Ali, the Wali Allah
Ali is unanimously acclaimed by the Sufis as the founder of their sect because he combined mystical intuition with the firmest grasp of Islamic theology. The traditions of the Sufis depict him as “Wali Allah” (friend of God) and ascribe to him esoteric spiritual powers. They maintain that the highest aim of knowledge, as preached by Ali, is the awakening of latent spiritual faculties. They hold that if a person follows certain “Tariaqas”, or “Paths”, as laid down by their Saint of Saints, he will be enabled to discover his true and inner self. To this inner self, God will reveal Himself, while the self will disappear in the vision of the All-Absorbing Reality. They quote the personal example of Ali who, amid the multifarious duties of kingship spent wakeful nights in prayer and meditation and thus found peace in the ecstasies of mystic experience. A keen sense of responsibility weighed on Ali’s mind and a sudden recollection of a duty unfulfilled would draw a torrent of tears from his eyes, driving him into a fit of melancholy. Often he would sob the whole night through and mortify himself to subdue the temptations of the flesh, then God would reward him with a glimpse of that Inner Vision Through austerity and prayer, duties which Ali always enjoined on others, Ali was able better to contemplate the Almighty, and through the “Dhikr” or religious exercises that he practised, the Shias believe that other
men can also attain nearness to God.
Ali’s Mysticism a Practical One
Mysticism may be a phase of thought or it may be a phase of feeling. Ali did not enter into the philosophical or speculative aspects of mysticism, confining himself to the more practical aspects, based on his Own experience and observation. The experience itself brought him face to face with that supreme, all-pervading, in-dwelling power, in whom all things are merged to become one. Such qur’anic verses as “I (God) want to create my viceroy on earth” (2:29). Again “Whatever is in the earth or in the Heavens has been made subject to man” (13:45); “We are nearer to man than the vein of his neck”, and “Wherever you turn, there is the face of God,” “A people whom He loveth and who Love him”, led Ali to lose himself through contemplation, in divine love. Because this direct intercourse with the Being of Beings had made him a partaker of divine revelations, Ali wanted to show other men how they, too, might know the joy and wonder of communion with Almighty God. The practical side of his mysticism was, therefore, the way in which he urged his fellow-Believers to abandon their selfish pride, to discipline the flesh, to submit to the will of Almighty God. Again and again, he exhorted them not to indulge in the gross licentiousness which had characterised Arab society in the “Days of ignorance”, enjoining them to live, instead, in simplicity and piety. Even on the battlefield Ali stressed the need to avoid the temptation of the flesh. With death so near them, he urged his soldiers to bear the fatigue of long marches, and the terrible thirsts and hungers as a means of selfmortifica- tion, the better to behold their God. Setting a personal example he urged upon them acts of renunciation and saw to it that they were humane to the aged, the weak
and the sick. All this Ali saw as a preparation for the life everlasting.Man” said Ali, “is a wave in the boundless Sea of God.” As long as man’s vision is clouded by ignorance and sensuality, man, Ali maintained, will consider himself a separate entity, different from God. But once let that veil between him and God be removed and he will then know himself for what he really is. The ‘wave’ will merge with the ocean. The enlightenment is needed so that one can first get to know oneself; only then can one get to know God. To this end religious exercises must be practised.
Aal-e-Qutub Aal-e-Syed Abdullah Shah Ghazi 