Sufism and Sackcloth

 

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

والصلاة والسلام على من لا نبي بعدى

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

Prayers of blessings and peace upon the one after whom there is no prophet

The wearing of sackcloth has symbolic value in Religion, and in the Bible symbolizes mourning and repentance. Hence it is stated in the Torah that the Patriarch Jacob عليه السلام put on sackcloth and mourned for his son Joseph عليه السلام weeping bitterly for him (Genesis 37:34-35). The latter is confirmed in the Holy Quran:

وَتَوَلّٰی عَنۡہُمۡ وَقَالَ یٰۤاَسَفٰی عَلٰی یُوۡسُفَ وَابۡیَضَّتۡ عَیۡنٰہُ مِنَ الۡحُزۡنِ فَہُوَ کَظِیۡمٌ

And he (Jacob) turned away from them and he said, “O my sorrow over Joseph!” And his eyes were whitened from grief, and he was suppressing (his grief)

(Surah 12, Ayah 84)

According to the Bible, sackcloth was also worn by King David (1 Chronicles 21:16), King Hezekiah (Isaiah 37:1), Job (Job 16:15), Daniel (Daniel 9:3) and all the people of Nineveh after Jonah warned them to symbolize their repentance (Jonah 3:5).

It is from the Hebrew word שַׂק saq defined as a “coarse loose cloth or sacking” (Strong’s Concordance, H8242). According to the Jewish Encyclopedia: “Term originally denoting a coarsely woven fabric, usually made of goat’s hair. It afterward came to mean also a garment made from such cloth, which was chiefly worn as a token of mourning by the Israelites. It was furthermore a sign of submission (I Kings xx. 30 et seq.), and was occasionally worn by the Prophets. Grüneisen (Ahnenkultus, p. 80) thinks the saq resembled the hairy mantle used by the Bedouins. Thus Schwally points to the circumstance that the Moslem pilgrim, as soon as he puts his foot on Haram, the holy soil, takes off all the clothes he is wearing, and dons the ihram.” So it is more likely that the sackcloth mentioned in the Bible was from a course material like goat’s or camel’s hair and not necessarily the imagined burlap woven from jute. It may be that the Prophet Elias عليه السلام known for his mantle of hair (2 Kings 1:8) was in fact wearing that sackcloth which symbolized his Prophesy. Likewise the great Prophet Yahya (John the Baptist) wore an endyma, Greek for raiment that is a cloak or outer garment, made of camel’s hair (Matthew 3:4). The Prophet Yahya عليه السلام stood out in this regard, apparently copying the manner of Prophet Elias عليه السلام

In the important and famous Hadith of the Cloak which illustrates the excellence of the Panjtan Pak (Ali, Fatimah, Hasan and Husain رضى الله عنهم), Umm al-Mu’minin A’ishah رضى الله عنها described the cloak worn by the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم with which he covered his family members:

مِرْطٌ مُرَحَّلٌ مِنْ شَعْرٍ أَسْوَدَ

A cloak made of the black hair of a camel or goat (Sahih Muslim)

The traditional khirqah of the Sufis was a wool raiment. The very word Sufi is an attribution to suf or wool in Arabic. Wearing of such clothes symbolizes a person’s repentance and other worldliness, as well as an emulation of the Prophetic mission.