Malamatiyya
The Malāmatiyya (ملامتية) or Malamatis were a Muslim mystic group active in 9th-century Greater Khorasan.
The Malamatiyya believed in the value of self-blame, that piety should be a private matter and that being held in good esteem would lead to worldly attachment.
The Malamati is one for whom the doctrine of "spiritual states" is fraught with subtle deceptions of the most despicable kind; he despises personal piety, not because he is focused on the perceptions or reactions of people, but as a consistent involuntary witness of his own "pious hypocrisy".
[4] The name Malamati slowly disappeared as the term Sufi was used with increasing frequency although the Malamatiyyas had their own distinct practice and ideology.
In fact, some sources claim that the Malamati path was heterodox to Sufism and that the two schools of thought are incompatible.
When al-Sulamī was young, his father moved to Mecca and left al-Sulami under the care of his maternal grandfather.
[7] Al-Sulamī wrote works in a variety of genre including hagiography, commentary on the Qur'an and mystical groups' ideology and customs.
Al-Sulamī, as a Malamatid apologist, claims that the Malāmatiyyah are the most elite of the three groups of learned and pious men.
[8] His work introduced the Malāmatiyyah as an Islamic mystical tradition and bolstered the reputation of Nishapuri teachers.
[11] The Malamatiyyas interpret these passages to mean that nafs is the source of all human evil like lust, desire, fear, anger, doubt, idolatry and forgetfulness.
[12] In a letter to Abu 'Uthman, Kahim al-Tirmidhi describes that nafs acts as a veil between the heart's vision and the truth.
The aim is to transcend the nafs in order to first reach the qalb, the "repository of knowledge and emotions", whereafter one can elevate oneself to sirr, the spring of man's moral behavior.
[15] All of the Malamati values and practices attempt to humiliate the nafs with every action so that they may work toward a spiritual transformation.
Consequently, the Malamatiyyas believed that the only way to rid oneself of ego was to practice asceticism secretly and publicly act unlawfully in order to humiliate the nafs from all angles, from both external agents and from the Malamati himself.
[20] To illustrate such a practice it is said that a saint "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.
The practice of not wearing identifying clothing served a secondary purpose of hiding their identities from the authorities to escape persecution.
Actually, when petitions are answered the Malamatiyyas were often suspicious of their fortune for fear it is a trap[24][25] All of the external humiliation and embarrassment was in accordance of the virtue ikhalas or "perfect sincerity".
Both the Malamatiyya and the Qalandariyya considered themselves to be inwardly in accord with God even if outwardly in discord with a community's subjective conceptions of convention.
[37] Although apologists like al-Sulami would praise these groups for their devotion, Hujwiri, a critic of both schools of thought writes, "The ostentatious men purposely act in such a way as to win popularity, while the malamati purposely acts in such a way that the people reject him.
[38] In this way, critics serve the malamati's purpose of disavowing the approval of society more than the apologists who would attempt to praise them.
