Michael Sugich
Michael Sugich is a well-known author whose subjects include some of those fascinating people in the Muslim world.
More About this Author
Michael Sugich is a well-known author whose subjects include some of those fascinating people in the Muslim world.
More About this Author
Michael Sugich is a well-known author whose subjects include some of those fascinating people in the Muslim world.
More About this Author
The Fruit Seller, Eugène Girardet, ca. 1900
A traveler met the Angel of Death. “Where are you headed?” the traveler asked. The Angel replied, “I have been sent by God to such and such a city to take one thousand lives.” There was a plague in that city. Sometime later the traveler met the Angel of Death on the way back from the city. He said to the Angel, “You told me that you were sent by God to take one thousand lives, but I have heard that five thousand citizens perished.” The Angel of Death replied, “I did take only one thousand lives. The other four thousand died from fear.”
Our age is marked by fear. We’re all living through a prolonged period of uncertainty and constriction: lockdowns, layoffs, closures, bankruptcies, the zero-sum mindset that is breaking democracy, and a grim reaper promising to reappear in perpetual war and in contagions. Employment, schooling, rent, mortgages, car payments, taxes, health care, and all the heavy demands that loom up at us can easily induce depression, stress, anxiety, and fear—most of all fear of insolvency and poverty.
I have found that what we most fear, adversity itself, can be the best teacher, as humbling and painful as it can be, because one is rendered helpless and in need, which is, in fact, our true condition. Only when we have reached the end of our tether and are forced to give up our will do we see marvels. During such times, an extraordinary dynamic is set in motion, and we witness the oneness of action and existence as God moves us through His creation, responding to our need in real time, and to the needs of others, including our worldly benefactors. “States of need,” wrote the thirteenth-century jurist and Sufi master Ibn ‘Aţā’ Allāh, “are gift-laden carpets.”
My own gift-laden carpets have been many. I will share three below.
* * *
Fifty years ago, my friend Daniel Abdal-Hayy and I were sent on a fool’s errand to the Bay Area in California to set up a kind of community center in Berkeley. We arrived with pocket money but not enough to pay for accommodations. Nor did we have a clue as to how we were going to raise the security deposit and first and last months’ rent for a property that could serve as a decent-sized gathering place. I didn’t know a soul in Northern California. The souls Hajj Abdal-Hayy knew were from his previous life among the Beat literati. He made a call to fellow poet Allen Ginsberg, but the only thing Ginsberg wanted to know was whether Abdal-Hayy was… celibate. We passed by City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, and Abdal-Hayy gamely hit up his old mentor, the poet and publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti. We left empty-handed. In retrospect, this must have been a humiliating exercise for the former rising star of the City Lights set, now reduced to scrounging for cash and sleeping in a used car.
The used car was mine. Every evening, we would find an empty street in some San Francisco neighborhood—Potrero Hill was a favorite landing place—park my hideous (but trusty) mouthwash-green 1963 Plymouth Valiant, and laugh ourselves to sleep, switching places every day between the relatively comfortable back seat and the front seat, which retained the old flat-bench design (no bucket seats) but still required one to accommodate the steering wheel. Every morning, we would drive across the Bay Bridge to Berkeley, to a café near the university campus, where we would use the washroom and station ourselves near the pay phone to continue our pathetic fundraising quest. We canvassed every affluent soul we could find. Most lived isolated lives at the top of a hill or the bottom of a valley. We even paid a visit to Abdal-Hayy’s ex-sister-in-law, the former movie star Diane Varsi (Peyton Place), who had left Hollywood and settled in San Rafael. None of our prospects were fulfilled by their wealth, nor did any one of them seem to believe they could find fulfillment by giving us any of their money.
I can’t remember how long we engaged in this dispiriting exercise. It seemed like months but was most likely a few weeks. The absurd hilarity of our situation was wearing off, replaced by a rising sense of desperation. We were hitting one dead end after another. Our private supplications became increasingly urgent.
Then we learned about a wealthy young woman known for supporting spiritual causes. How she had come by her fortune was unclear. We made a call and arranged to meet this generous Aquarian-age philanthropist at her home, which was a modern five-story off-white building near the San Francisco Art Institute. We pressed the penthouse intercom button and were buzzed through to an elevator with a window in its door. We hit the top-floor button and ascended. Through the window we could see the stark, minimalist interior of each floor: empty gallery, empty dance studio, empty meditation room.
At the penthouse floor, the elevator door opened, and a pleasant thirtysomething woman with sandy hair, barefoot, wearing a casual cotton blouse and loose cotton trousers, led us into her inner sanctum, a large room that resembled an assembly hall without chairs, with a raised platform at one end. Tagging along was her daughter, who I guessed was about six years old and who wore very thick spectacles. I felt this immediate sense of sadness I couldn’t explain. The child was sent out of the assembly room, and our prospective patroness took her place in a chair on the platform, indicating that we should sit on the floor, facing the platform. There seemed to be no opening for small talk or any ice-breaking conversation, so we awkwardly launched into our pitch. Before we’d finished the first minute or two of our earnest presentation, our hostess picked up a large, ledger-like book and began to write in it, saying quietly, “It’s okay. You don’t need to continue. I know why you’re here.” And then, almost under her breath, “It’s the only reason anyone comes.” She tore off a check from the book and handed it to us. We were stunned. The amount was more than we needed and far more than we had hoped for.
With that, the meeting was over. We backed out of our patroness’s penthouse with profusions of gratitude. She seemed entirely unmoved. We were elated. Once we were out on the street I said to Abdal-Hayy, “She just solved all our problems. We’ve got to give her some kind of meaningful gift, as an expression of our gratitude.” Some musician friends of ours had just released a recording of Sufi music. We rushed over to the nearest record store and bought the (vinyl) album. We rushed back to our benefactor’s home, buzzed the intercom, and explained that we just wanted to give her a small token of our appreciation for the generous gift. Up we went: empty gallery, empty dance studio, empty meditation room, penthouse. Door opens, album delivered. Door shuts. We never saw our benefactor again.
Premises found, center set up, mission accomplished. We were off the hook.
Several months later, the person on whose behalf the center was established visited the young woman philanthropist in San Francisco to personally thank her for her generosity. This is what she told her visitor: “The day those two young men visited me, I had decided to kill myself. When I played the recording they gave me, it made me want to live.”
The Tailor, Eugène Girardet, 1896
* * *
In the mid-1970s, I found myself stranded in Paris without the boat-train fare back to London, where I was living at the time. The only thing I had of value on me was a rather nice, almost new down jacket I had been given. I needed thirty pounds for the ticket, so I set out toward the American Express office at 11 rue Scribe to see if I could sell the jacket.
The place was jumping with tourists. But it was summer, and all I had to sell was a down jacket. I waylaid every traveler I saw and made my sales pitch on the hoof. No takers. “I could have used this two weeks ago on the Matterhorn,” one trekker replied. It was a nice jacket and, at a thirty-pound asking price, a steal. But there was a heat wave outside. Everyone was headed to the beach. I was about ready to throw in the towel when I spied a well-turned-out young man with a beard. I made my pitch as he ascended the escalator, and he seemed genuinely interested in the coat. After hearing his accent, I asked him if he was a Muslim. He said he was. His name was Mustafa. I replied, “So am I.” And he suddenly came to life. He asked me where I was from. When I told him I was an American he got really excited. He said, “I’m not a very good Muslim, but my cousin, he is a very good Muslim, and he would be so happy to meet you. He’s downstairs. I will send him up to meet you, and I will see if I can find someone to buy your jacket.” So down the escalator he went.
A few minutes later a round-faced, cherubic young man, grinning from ear to ear, came bounding up the escalator two stairs at a time. Mustafa’s cousin greeted me with overwhelming warmth. He was so genuinely happy to meet a Muslim from America. We sat down and talked. Both young men were Egyptians. I can’t remember whether they were working or studying, but I think they were living in different countries and had met up in Paris. This was long before the European Union was formed, and Mustafa’s cousin had come to Paris to deal with some irritating cross-border formality. He was really ticked off that he had been forced to come all the way to Paris to sign some paper for a bureaucracy.
Mustafa returned, apologetic. “I really tried to sell the jacket, but no one was interested. I really did try.”
Mustafa’s cousin perked up. “What jacket?”
I explained, “You see, I need to sell this jacket for thirty pounds to buy a ticket to London.”
“You want thirty pounds for it?”
“Yes.”
He whipped out his wallet and handed me thirty pounds. I took the cash, took off my down jacket, and handed it to him.
Mustafa’s cousin put up his hand. “No! No! I didn’t want to come to Paris. I was very unhappy coming here for no good reason, but now I understand that God sent me here so that I could help you. I am very happy. My journey has been for a reason.”
He refused the coat, gave me a hug as if I had just made his day, turned around, and skipped down the escalator, his cousin close behind. I said a silent prayer and made my way to Gare du Nord, jacket in hand.
Prayer before the Meal, Jan Steen, 1660
* * *
I yearned to visit Mecca, to make the pilgrimage and to visit the Messenger of God ﷺ in al-Madinah al-Munawwarah, “the Illuminated City.” I had every hope of fulfilling my obligations and realizing my aspirations. My wife was from Mecca. But we discovered, after marrying in the UK, that Saudi women had to get permission from the king (more accurately, from the minister of the interior) to marry non-Saudis. We didn’t have permission and had no idea how to get it. So we settled in California, had two children, and got on with life, but my yearning for Mecca remained.
On November 20, 1979, the Holy Mosque in Mecca was taken by armed extremists. Apocalyptic rumors circulated that the Mahdi had appeared and that the Saudi government had lost control of the Holy Mosque. The army was said to have surrounded the city. There was a total news blackout. My wife couldn’t reach her family. The siege continued day after day. Everything had suddenly changed, and I began to fear that I might never see the Kaaba or visit the Messenger ﷺ. This apprehension haunted me for days until, after my midday prayer, I raised my hands in helpless supplication and made a plea: “Please, God, please, let me see Your house just once before I die.”
Not more than a quarter of an hour had passed when the telephone rang. I answered.The caller briefly introduced himself. We had never met, and I had never even heard of him. He explained that he had heard about a small jewelry business I was involved with and was interested in selling the jewelry in Saudi Arabia. Before I could respond, he said that he was going to send me a ticket to Jeddah. Normally, upon receiving a cold call from a perfect stranger, I would have insisted on meeting the caller in person first. But I had just asked God to let me see His house. I received the ticket, and after the siege of Mecca was lifted, I took a flight to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I was able to legalize my marriage, bring my family, and settle in Mecca, where I lived for twenty-two years. It seems to me that this is a case of “when My servant comes to Me walking, I come to him running” (ĥadīth qudsī).
* * *
As people of faith, we accept the scriptural assurances that God is the Provider, that our provision is preordained. Yet for all this, many of us become racked with anxiety over our place in the world and our provision, and this, we’ve been advised by our sages down through time, is a dangerous vulnerability.
The eighteenth-century Moroccan sage Moulay al-‘Arabī al-Darqāwī, who gave new life to a spiritual lineage that has nourished seekers in North Africa and the Near East to this day, wrote: “The adversary—be it the ego or the devil (may God curse them both)—has no power over us from any direction it might attack us as much as it does from the question of our earthly provision.”
Moulay al-‘Arabī also wrote:
Our Lord, Glory be to Him, has sworn to us by Himself:… “Bid your family to prayer and be steadfast therein. We ask no provision of you; We provide for you” [Qurʼan 20:132]. Sidi Abū Yazīd al-Basţāmī said, “My duty is to worship Him as He commanded me to do, and His duty is to provide for me as He promised He would.” I mention this only because I am afraid that what has afflicted so many others might afflict you: I have seen so many people with abundant means, both religious and worldly, and yet who still fear poverty more than anything else. If they knew what wealth there is to be found in devoting themselves totally to God, they would give up their worldly attachments and concentrate on Him alone, that is, on fulfilling His commandments. But since they are ignorant of this, even after they have gathered up all their religious means and all their worldly means, their fear of poverty is not alleviated, nor is their fear of people. This is really extreme heedlessness and a bad state to be in, but it is the state of most people—nearly all of them!—and we seek refuge from that!
I think part of the problem for us today is that we are all too plugged into the prevailing culture—the relentless news coverage, the onslaught of manipulative images that reflect a value system that is antithetical to our faith and practice. We have been raised on the mythology of progress—that everything is getting better—whereas, in fact, we are on a downward trajectory, as we know from the famous tradition of our Messenger ﷺ: “Show endurance, for you will not come to a time that isn’t worse than the time before it until you meet your Lord.” Just when you think things can’t get any worse… they do.
Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, may God protect him, once called me out of the blue, as he is wont to do with some of his old friends. He said something like, “The world is really going to the dogs, everything is getting worse and worse,” and he continued in this vein for a bit. I’m not sure whether a particular event had induced his bleak commentary or whether he was sharing a general observation of a world in crisis.
He stopped, paused for a beat. And then, as if stating a simple matter of fact, he said, “But I’m doing okay.” This took me by surprise, but I immediately responded, “Me too.” And then I thought about it and realized that pretty much everybody I knew was doing okay. More than okay. Of course, we know that everybody is not doing okay, that there are traumas and tragedies all around the world and that we may well face severe adversity or heartbreaking loss at some point in our lives, if we haven’t already. Yet despite the relentless decline and all the human, social, and environmental calamities we are exposed to daily in this digital age, most of us are doing okay.
We ought to change our reference points and not listen to the popular narratives that measure everything in life from a purely material and temporal—that is to say, profane—standpoint. We can disengage from the chatter of the common people and the headlines. We spend far too much time consuming bad news about events and issues we can do nothing about apart from prayer and supplication. The reality of our existential situation is something else altogether. Moulay al-‘Arabī wrote:
So, beware of this. Put yourself totally in God’s Hands, and you will see marvels, and do not put yourself in the hands of the world as so many people do, lest there afflict you what has afflicted them. By God, if our hearts were truly with our Lord, the world would come to us inside our very houses, let alone outside, even as our Lord says, “O world! Serve those who serve Me, and weary those who serve you!”
Many of us accept these admonitions in principle, but in practice, we panic when adversity strikes. Today more than ever, the pressures we face can sometimes seem suffocating and insurmountable, and we can easily lose perspective. This has always been the case, and we continually need reminding. In another letter, Moulay al-‘Arabī wrote:
There was a certain learned person who knew many of the spiritual masters of his time and had received litanies from them all, and yet even so, whenever he was with me, he would complain to me about the debts he had accrued and how his situation had become exceedingly narrow because of them. One day I said to him, “Listen to what I have to say to you, follow it always, and you will see marvels. In a time of adversity, both good and evil are present, never absent, and near, never far. If at that time you invoke your Lord and forget yourself, you will profit, and otherwise, you will lose. Whenever times of need come and overshadow you, occupy yourself with the means that your Lord has enjoined upon you and pay no attention to anything else. Be that way always when a time of difficulty comes your way, and evil will leave you and good will come your way. If you give up your will to your Lord in times of need, or hardship, or tribulation, and you do not seek to help yourself by any secondary means you have, that is the greatest station, and above it there is no higher station except prophethood.”
After listening to this, he said to me (may God be kind to him), “I have such-and-such invocations—maybe a thousand! Some of them I received from Shaykh so-and-so, some I got from Shaykh so-and-so…,” and he went on like this until he had mentioned a great number of the masters of his time. I said to him, “Listen to what I have told you, follow it, and you will see marvels: a true shaykh is the one who teaches you what I have taught you, and may God curse anyone who would lie to you!” Peace.
Moulay al-‘Arabī was saying that all the invocations, rituals, and litanies that we are prescribed are means to an end, tools to help us reach the station he describes, the station of reliance upon God and total submission to God. What we have been given by our masters is not magic. It is not an incantation that delivers us from everything. It is a way of turning our hearts totally to God. And in this time, we need to seek this station more than ever. So much of the insecurity, frustration, anxiety, and fear young people suffer from today is a product of the “success culture” most of us in the so-called developed world have been raised in, where an individual’s worth is measured by achievement, material gain, position, public affirmation, and whatever accessories of success complete or enhance that measurement.
Pressures to measure up to these standards, to sink or swim in this hypercompetitive sea of individualism, can be an incentive to some but are profoundly demoralizing to others. I was certainly raised in this environment, and right up to the moment I embraced Islam, I was on the fast track to becoming a successful wreck. It was only by leaving “success” behind and venturing into what is politely called “the developing world” that I caught a glimpse of another metric altogether.
* * *
In the late 1980s, I traveled for many months throughout India, researching a book I was writing. While in Rajasthan I had a driver, Raju, with me for one month. We were together for eight to ten hours every day. While I stayed in palaces, grand houses, and posh hotels, he slept in or under the car or bunked with servants. At the beginning of our journey, when I learned about his sleeping situation and made moves to find him proper accommodation on the road, he was adamant that I stop. This was the custom for drivers, and any deviation from it could get him fired. He never complained.
On the way from one destination to another, Raju mentioned that his family lived nearby. He hadn’t seen them for weeks and asked if we might be able to stop by for a visit. I couldn’t have been happier to agree. We were crossing the agricultural flatlands of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Raju steered our cream-colored Ambassador onto an unpaved road leading to a bare settlement at the edge of green fields. Raju’s young wife and young son came out to greet him, his son wide-eyed in awe of his father, who commanded an automobile. Raju let his son sit behind the wheel. Wonder filled the child’s face, and for that moment in time, the young Rajput driver, son of a peasant, was a superhero.
I met Raju’s father, a wiry subsistence farmer cultivating someone else’s land in a feudal system that was still very much in evidence in India back then. The local Thakur—the feudal lord—had plumbing, running water, and electricity. The rest of the village did not. I noticed a single light bulb in what passed for a village square. As I recall, Raju’s father’s home was stark and basic, no electricity or running water. My host boiled water for tea over a small gas bottle. Here was a man of about fifty who almost certainly worked his fields from dawn to dusk, living in poverty on the margins of society with none of the modern conveniences many of his compatriots in the emerging urban middle class in India had access to and chased after. I wondered whether he might be embittered at his lot in life.
We drank our tea. I asked him, “How is life?”
He said, “Perfect.”
How about that?
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