Follow the Sunna, Do Not Innovate: Jilani's First Discourse

The counsel on this page is a close rendering of the words that open the first discourse of al-Fath al-Rabbani, shortened in a few places so that it reads easily.

The sermons of Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani began to be written down in Baghdad in the year 1150 by the people who came to hear him. Sixty-two of these sessions were later gathered into a book called al-Fath al-Rabbani, “The Opening from the Lord.” When you pick the book up you do not meet a work of scholarship but the voice of a preacher speaking from the pulpit, because the words were recorded almost exactly as they were spoken.

The first discourse begins with short commands. Each command has two parts; it says what to do, and then right away adds what not to do, so that the listener is turned in the right direction. In fact the whole essence of the Qadiri path may well be in these opening lines.

The Counsel

Follow the Sunna, and do not innovate.

Obey, and do not stray.

Know God as One, and do not set partners beside Him.

Know God as free of every fault, and do not accuse Him.

Affirm, and do not doubt.

Be patient, and do not complain.

Stand your ground, and do not run.

Ask Him, and do not tire of asking.

Wait for relief, and do not lose hope.

Gather to remember God, and do not scatter.

Love one another, and do not hold grudges.

The Sunna First

It is worth noticing that Jilani says two things before he says anything about states or stations: follow the Sunna, and know God as One. We can think of this as the starting point of the road, because in his view there is no path apart from the Prophet’s path, just as there is no door that opens through disobedience. Anyone who wonders where Sufism stands within Islam will find the answer hidden in this first line.

The order of the commands is a lesson in itself. Innovation is named first, then straying, and only at the end, associating partners with God. The sequence reads like a description of how a heart gets lost; first a small addition is made to the religion, then a step is taken off the road, and at the end of that road a person finds themselves attached to something else entirely. That is why Jilani prefers to shut the door at the very first step.

Do Not Accuse Him

The middle commands speak of pain, because the lives of the people listening to Jilani were full of hardship too. “Know God as free of every fault, and do not accuse Him” recalls what the tradition calls husn al-zann, that is, thinking well of God. A person who has lost someone close, or whose livelihood has collapsed, looks for someone to blame; you will have noticed it yourself, that search sometimes reaches all the way up to God without the person even realizing it. Jilani wants to cut off that whisper before it starts.

Patience, standing firm, asking, and hope are four commands that complete one another. The servant is not told here to feel nothing; he is told where to stand while he feels it. What is asked of him, in other words, is to hold his ground and to trust that relief will come sooner or later, and meanwhile not to be ashamed of asking. To my mind this is the most useful part of the whole discourse, because like Jilani’s listeners our real trouble is not that we cannot make pain go away, but that we do not know how to stand while we are in it. In this school, surrender is not collapsing; it is learning to stay on your feet.

Gather, and Love One Another

So why does the counsel not end with the single person? Toward the end Jilani leaves the inner life of the individual and turns to the community. The commands so far were addressed to each person one by one, but remembrance of God, dhikr, is commanded in the plural: come together to remember God, and do not scatter. And the last command is the simplest of them all, and perhaps the hardest: love one another, and do not hold grudges.

It is no accident that a discourse which begins with the Sunna ends with brotherly love. In Jilani’s understanding, walking the right road softens a person’s heart, and a softened heart begins to love its brother. In other words, following the Sunna and loving people are not two separate things; they are the beginning and the end of the same road.

Why This Voice Still Reaches Us

If these lines still read as though they were spoken to you, nine hundred years on, the reason is that Jilani never spoke over anyone’s head. He uses short commands and plain words, and has no need of ornament. That is where the book’s strength comes from. It is why a few lines spoken from a pulpit in Baghdad can still put a person’s day in order today (try it: pick one in the morning and carry it with you until evening).

Sources

• Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, al-Fath al-Rabbani wa’l-Fayd al-Rahmani (62 discourses, delivered in Baghdad, 545-546 AH / 1150-1152 CE; the passage above renders the opening of the first discourse)
• For comparison in English: Muhtar Holland (trans.), The Sublime Revelation (1992)