2.4 - Spiritual Education and His Main Shaykhs

We have seen above that the natural Way of Sufism requires a great struggle against oneself, to tame and educate the soul under the guidance of expert Sufi masters who have gone through all these painstaking difficulties with their authenticated Sufi shaykhs who are connected by similar chains of shaykhs up to the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. This struggle and contemplation is difficult and long, which may take many years and requires a lot of patience for hunger, asceticism and vigilance, until the soul dies away to exterminate its intrinsic state of deism and revive the ultimate state of being a real servant of God, by realizing the natural poverty for Allah the Exalted. Only after that the soul may become ready to receive the divine manifestations, and the eyes will be open to the world of the unseen, which is called the opening.

Although the true repentance of the Greatest Shaykh was at the hands of Jesus, the son of Mary, peace be upon him, since he said: “He is our first Shaykh whom we returned on his hands, and he has great care for us that he does not ignore us for an hour [Futuhat: III.341], and although his opening occurred as a result of attraction without having to go through any long periods of contemplation, yet it was still necessary for him to pursue some spiritual education by the shaykhs of his time, in order to refine his talents and prepare himself to reach the highest stations and states waiting for him to experience and acquire. This is because, as we have seen above: “If the opening advances before contemplation, no true man will ever come out of this except in the rare circumstances [The Treatise of Lights, p. 5].

2.4.1- Discipling the Soul

2.4.2- Shaykh Abu Yaqoub Yousef Ibn Yakhluf al-Kumi al-Absiy

2.4.3- Shaykh Abu al-Abbas Ahmad al-Ureybi (Seville, after 580/1184)

2.4.4- Shaykh Abu-Imran Mousa al-Mirtuli

2.4.5- Shaykh Salih al-Adawi al-Barbariy