You Stop Knocking

Some lessons you hear when you're younger don't land until life catches up. The words stay, but you still haven't lived enough to feel them. Then years pass, and one day everything finally makes sense. I had a moment like that recently. My mind keeps going back to an afternoon in Ustadha Amina's class years ago. She read us a piece of wisdom from Kitab Al-Hikam by Ibn Ata'illah and told us we probably wouldn't understand it yet. But she said we would, when the time was right.

The wisdom reads:

مَتى أَوْحَشَكَ مِنْ خَلْقِهِ . . فَاعْلَمْ : أَنَّهُ يُرِيدُ أَنْ يَفْتَحَ لَكَ بَابَ الْأُنْسِ بِهِ

"When Allah makes you feel distant or alienated from His creation, know that He actually wants to open for you the door of intimacy with Him."

Ustadha explained that when someone feels alone, or like a stranger even among our own friends, it's not a sign that something is wrong with us. Allah is the One who placed that feeling there to pull us back to Him. This kind of loneliness isn't there to break us from the inside. It's an invitation to turn toward Him instead of wasting it by drowning everything out. "Don't run to people first," she said. "Run to Allah first. Be happy with Allah. Truly."

I thought about her words again the other day while scrolling through my phone. We stay online all day now, but somehow we still feel unseen. All these group chats and notifications are going off, but we can sit there and feel completely empty. You know that feeling of standing at a packed train station. Surrounded by a sea of people, rushing past you, yet you remain almost invisible. Socializing starts taking up so much energy, and conversations that used to feel warm suddenly lose their life. Dealing with people becomes exhausting even when you don't hate anyone. We end up drained from pretending like everything is okay.

We often treat this restlessness with people like a problem that needs to be solved by finding better company. In Al-Hikam, this restlessness is understood as a signal. Scholars call this al-wahshi, a kind of wildness that makes a person feel like they don't belong. It's the opposite of uns, that deep sense of intimacy and belonging. Sometimes Allah uses al-wahshi to quiet things down so He can open bāb al-uns for us, the door of intimacy with Him. The word for human being, insān, shares its root with uns. Maybe that's why no amount of attention from other people ever fully settles us. If we try to satisfy that need entirely through other flawed humans, we end up feeling homeless. Allah pulls us back from the crowd through moments of rejection or sudden emptiness. He's clearing away expectations that were never meant to hold us. He wants us to stop chasing approval from faces that are as tired and lost as we are.

This isolation is a necessary stage for the heart to grow. I remember Ustadha describing how faith starts out like a small flame. When a fire is new and fragile, you have to shield it from the wind. You cup your hands around it, maybe even take it to a quiet corner, because a strong gust will kill it. That's what solitude sometimes is. Allah shielding a heart that's still too easy to put out. You're not supposed to hide forever. Once the fire gets big enough, the wind won't kill it anymore. It'll only make the fire grow. But you need that first bit of shelter.

And then, you go back.

You go back to people, but you carry a different kind of presence. You don't do good things because you're scared they'll leave, or because you're chasing a thank you. You do it like a mother who gets up early to make steamed bread for her kid. She's not even hungry for that food herself. She just knows her kid loves it. She might not have slept well, but she prepares it with care because the love she has for the child simply flows through her hands. That's how relationships change when the heart is full of Allah. You don't show up to take because you're already filled.

So when the people around you start feeling distant and nothing really lands the way it used to, it might not be something you have to fight. Let the silence hang there. Just sit for a moment instead of reaching for something to cover it up. That feeling of isolation isn't an empty hole you need to cram something into. It's more like a door that's been waiting for you to open it. And afterwards, you walk back into the world without needing to knock on every door, begging to be let in.

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What Is Sufism? by Martin Lings

I started reading the Indonesian translation of this book, Apa Itu Tasawuf?, expecting it to be fairly approachable. The title made me think I was getting an introduction, something that would lay out the basic ideas and give me a clearer picture of what Sufism is. I thought I'd get an easy overview I could read with my afternoon tea.

Boy, was I wrong.

From the first chapter, I realized this wasn't going to be that kind of book. One reviewer said it wasn't exactly light reading for a coffee shop, and honestly, I can't disagree. You have to pay attention. There were times I read a paragraph and then went back to the beginning because somehow I'd understood every sentence without quite getting the whole thing. It made me feel dumb sometimes, which I suppose is not the worst thing a book can do to you.

I love that Lings doesn't write about tasawwuf like someone standing outside of it. He was a scholar, but also a practicing Sufi and a student of Frithjof Schuon. You can feel that background in the way he writes. When he describes Sufism as the inward dimension of Islam, rooted in the Qur'an and Sunnah and concerned with the purification of the soul, he's not just giving you a definition. He's talking about something he considers a living tradition.

He starts with this striking image of a tidal wave coming from the Ocean of Infinitude. The wave reaches the shores of our finite world, leaving water in what Lings calls the “consecrated hollows.” Lings uses that water to represent the formal aspect of religion, while the ebbing wave represents the movement of the mystic back towards the Source. I like that the water left behind still has a place in the image. The outward forms of religion still matter. The interesting question is what happens inside the person who practices them, and whether there is an inward movement towards the Source as well.

A lot of what he discusses wasn't new to me. I'd come across many of these ideas before, especially the relationship between outward practice and inward reality. But Lings puts them together in his own way, moving between doctrine, symbolism, spiritual practice, and metaphysics. He doesn't always stop to explain every connection. You have to keep up with him.

That was probably the part I found most interesting. Lings talks about the inward dimension of religion, but I don't think "inward" should mean separate from the outward. Prayer is outward, but it is also supposed to change something in you. Fasting is outward. Dhikr can be something you do with the tongue, but that's not where it ends. You can know the rules, do the practices, and still have a heart that hasn't caught up with any of it. It's not a new idea, but it's an uncomfortable one, and Lings takes it seriously.

Later in the book, Lings takes this further with 'Abd al-Karim al-Jili's image of ice and water. The "eye of ice" sees only ice, while the "Eye of Water" sees water. But the image isn't just about looking beyond appearances. Lings connects the melting of the ice with letting go of our claim to an existence separate from God. I had to read that part slowly.

This is where “heart-wakefulness” comes in. Lings uses it to describe Sufism from the point of view of the person practicing it. The outward practices aren't being thrown away. You can pray, study, make dhikr, work on your character, and do everything you're supposed to do, but are you actually awake to what you're doing? Or have the practices become things you're good at performing? That's a much less comfortable question.

There were also moments when his metaphysical framework was hard to miss, and I wasn't always sure how far I was willing to follow it. I wasn't sure I agreed with everything that followed from it. I wanted to think about some of those ideas a little longer before deciding what I made of them.

I can understand why some readers find his writing too flowery or philosophical. He expects a lot from the reader, and there are passages where his language gets dense enough that I had to reread a sentence just to make sure I'd understood it. I wouldn't recommend this as someone's first introduction to Islam or tasawwuf. It helps to have some familiarity with the ideas he's talking about.

As for the Indonesian translation, I found it clear enough overall, but some of the wording felt a little too literal. There were times when I wasn't sure whether I was struggling with Lings's writing or with the translation. Maybe that's part of why I kept wishing I could check the original English. If I read the book again, I'd probably go with the English version.

But I also wouldn't want him to simplify it too much. I appreciate that Lings takes tasawwuf seriously. He doesn't turn it into a collection of inspirational quotes or a kind of Islamic self-help. He expects you to think, and sometimes to struggle a little. I certainly did.

For all that, I enjoyed the book. Not because it was easy or particularly comforting. There were parts I had to work through, and there were probably things I understood only halfway. But I was glad I read it.

If you're looking for a quick introduction to Sufism, there are probably easier places to start. But if you already have some familiarity with Islam and want to read Lings's take on its spiritual dimension, What Is Sufism? is worth the effort.

4.5/5. Just don't bring it to your coffee break expecting an easy read. I tried that already.

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