Maqam (Sufism)

Maqām[1] (Arabic: مَقَام "station"; plural مَقَامَات maqāmāt) refers to each stage a Sufi's soul must attain in its search for God.

[2] The stations are derived from the most routine considerations a Sufi must deal with on a day-to-day basis and is essentially an embodiment of both mystical knowledge and Islamic law (Sharia).

Although the number and order of maqamat are not universal the majority agree on the following seven: Tawba, Wara', Zuhd, Faqr, Ṣabr, Tawakkul, and Riḍā.

[4] It is within the power of a Sufi to fulfill the obligations pertaining to the specific station, and keeping it until its full precision is comprehended.

Each of the stations stand related to each other in a hierarchical order, so that even when they are transcended they remain a permanent possession of the one who attained them.

Al-Ghazali, a prolific Sufi theologian, wrote that Tawba is the repentance of a sin with the promise that it will not be repeated and that the sinner will return to God.

[4] Ibn Arabi, a Sufi mystic and philosopher who had tremendous influence on post 13th century Islamic thought, spent a great deal of time exploring what religious as well as spiritual authorities identified as being the three conditions of human tawba.

All of these conditions essentially convey the message that tawba, in its purest form, consists of forgetting one's sin.

Al-Arabi concluded that brooding over ones faults, after the fact, is not only a hindrance in the remembrance of God but also a subtle form of narcissism.

[4] The station of Zuhd, translated "renunciation", concerns that which is permitted and is at hand, and the obligatory action of relinquishing all desire for that which is prohibited as well as that which is uncertain.

[4] The third rank consists of those who would renounce the thought of renunciation at all[9] Faqr, translated as "poverty", is one of the central attitudes in a Sufi's life.

Tawwakul is not a "passive" form of fatalism that counteracts human agency, rather it can be characterized as a disposition whose achievement requires active and persistent work on one's self.

[2] As an early authority on Sufism, Ali al-Hujwiri in his book Kashf al-Mahjub, defines Hal as "something that descends from God into a man’s heart, without his being able to repel it when it comes, or to attract it as it goes, by his own effort.

The most prominent distinction made between the two spiritual states is that the ahwāl are essentially gifts from God, while the maqamat are acquired through the exertion of effort.

In the Ihya Ulum al-din (Revivification of the religious science) al-Ghazali defines Hāl in conjunction and in contrast with maqam.