Do I need a spiritual guide, or can I learn the path from books?

True Tasawwuf has to be learnt and practised under the guidance of someone who has learnt and received it from another shaykh, linking the chain back to the Companions and ultimately to Allah's Last Prophet ﷺ. Books are a great source of information, but it is when they are combined with tálluq, the connection with a living shaykh, that the information becomes knowledge.

Allah describes the nafs as “ever prompting to do wrong” [Qur'an, Yusuf 12:53], and it never surrenders unless trained to submit. The nafs never agrees that it has any ailment; rather, it tries to hide behind self-praise.

The submission of the nafs cannot be achieved by mere reading of the books; in fact, knowledge can harbour pride, as we notice many whose learning is tarnished by arrogance. Iblees was the teacher of the angels, yet his pride and arrogance made him accursed.

To identify and cure the ailments of the nafs, one needs to seek guidance from someone who has travelled the path of Tasawwuf himself and has been trained by a teacher to guide others. A true shaykh is the one who has been on the journey of Tasawwuf under the guidance of his shaykh, and has the knowledge and understanding of both Islamic jurisprudence and the discipline of Tasawwuf. In Tasawwuf, the purpose of the shaykh is to help the seeker get rid of the spiritual ailments, assist in the fight against the nafs and guide him through to the path of true love, which is ihsan, spiritual excellence.

In the learning of Fiqh, Islamic jurisprudence, university degrees, acclaim and published work are great achievements, yet they cannot replace the learning from an unbroken line of teachers extending back to the Beloved Prophet ﷺ. The same goes for Tasawwuf, as the matters of the soul and the heart are beyond the capacity of the human brain to comprehend.

For a bodily disease or ailment, one would never consult a self-proclaimed doctor who has read a few books on medicine, so how can one consider receiving any benefit on the spiritual path of Tasawwuf from a person who is a self-proclaimed Sufi? Some have even said that whoever has no shaykh, but travels the path of Tasawwuf alone, has Satan as his shaykh.

Allah's Messenger ﷺ led by his own example of the best morals, and the Companions followed him in each and every aspect and taught those ethics to their followers, and so on. The knowledge of the Qur'an and Sunnah does not suffice until it is applied. The practical approach to it is to be learnt from those who led their lives in the light of that knowledge, and this knowledge is then to be implemented in one's life by practice and under the guidance of the one who himself has the knowledge.

At the practical level, the nature of the science of purifying the heart requires that the knowledge be taken from those who possess it. Throughout history, students or seekers gathered around shaykhs to learn the discipline of Sufism. The way, or tariqa, may have been slightly different; however, some features are common in all, such as learning knowledge from a teacher by precept and example, and then methodically increasing one's iman, or faith, by applying this knowledge through performing obligatory and supererogatory works of worship, among the greatest of the latter being dhikr, the remembrance of Allah.

Tasawwuf is knowledge, as distinct from information, and it has to be learnt in company, by means of ittiba, the following of a teacher. Allah gives this injunction in the Qur'an: “And follow the path of him who turns unto Me” [Qur'an, Luqman 31:15]. The word used in this verse is ittiba, meaning follow, implying to follow as in keeping the company and following the example of the teacher, which is the fundamental method of teaching in Tasawwuf.