Malamatiyya

The Arabic word malāmatiyya means "those who are blamed", and derives from the word malāma ("blame"). According to Annemarie Schimmel, "the Malāmatīs deliberately tried to draw the contempt of the world upon themselves by committing unseemly, even unlawful, actions, but they preserved perfect purity of thought and loved God without second thought" (Schimmel 86). Schimmel goes on to relate a story illustrative of such actions: "One of them was hailed by a large crowd when he entered a town; they tried to accompany the great saint; but on the road he publicly started urinating in an unlawful way so that all of them left him and no longer believed in his high spiritual rank" (quoted in Schimmel 86).

It should be noted that, in fact, the Malāmatīs were deeply pious, following the Shariah, or Islamic law, in all else they did; it was only when they were openly "accused" of great spirituality that they would perform such actions. This was done so as not to give in to the nafs, or ego, by being ostentatious about one's spiritual qualities, and thus—rather than having praise heaped upon them and puffing their egos up—they would take pains to have blame heaped upon them instead, while knowing full well that internally, they were dwelling "in the sweetness of divine union" (Schimmel 87).

The Malāmatiyya were first written about by Sulamī and Hujwīrī in the eleventh century AD (fourth-fifth century AH). Sulamī is much more positive about them than Hujwīrī, who, comparing them with the spiritually ostentatious, writes: "The ostentatious men purposely act in such a way as to win popularity, while the malāmatī purposely acts in such a way that people reject him. Both have their thought fixed on mankind [as opposed to God] and do not pass beyond that sphere" (Schimmel 87).

The Malātiyya were not quite a Sufi group per se, as in their day the Sufi orders had not yet arisen and Sufism was by no means an organized movement as yet. Rather, they were a variety of qalandar, or wandering dervish, who engaged in a specific kind of practice.

In their actions, they bore much resemblance to the Greek Cynics, such as Diogenes of Sinope, as well as to certain of the Eastern Syriac Christians, such as Isaac the Syrian. Within the Islamic tradition, some of the tales concerning Nasreddin bear some similarity to the practices of the Malāmatiyya, insofar as Nasreddin's wisdom is rather well hidden behind a foolish façade.

Source