" The same identity, which is in the nature of things, is also implicit in one of the first commands addressed to the Prophet: "Prostrate thyself and draw nigh" (XCVI, 19), and in his commentary, "The slave is nearest his Lord when he prostrateth himself," prostration being the posture of faqr. Moreover, nearness to God has a double significance analogous to that of slavehood. Metaphysically speaking, nearness, like slavehood, is an inescapable fact that concerns everybody." (Nasr: 226-227, 1987)
This excerpt actually gives very close study of slavehood and how it connects Shariah and Sufism. Prophet and his companions wanted nearness to God and so did Sufis. They wanted to be so close to God that they couldn't think of anything else. Prophet himself was very near to God and it was his desire to stay close to Allah through his actions, zikr and constant love.
Sufis have understood the concept of Absolute nearness that Prophet clearly understood and followed. "My slave ceaseth not to seek to draw nigh unto Me with devotions of his free will until I love him; and when I love him, I am the hearing with which he heareth and the sight with which he seeth and the hand with which he graspeth and the foot on which he walketh." Allah supports this kind of absolute nearness when He reveals in Quran: "We are nearer to him (man) than his jugular vein" (L, 16), and "God cometh in between a man and his own heart" (VIII, 24).
Thus sufis are the saints of Islam. And they understand the concepts of relative and absolute nearness completely. It was their desire to attain this identity so they could become so close to Allah that He would rest between them and their hearts. The slaves are clearly offered the paradise in return for their great efforts in forming a clear bond with Allah: "O thou soul which art at peace return unto thy Lord, pleased thou and whelmed in His good pleasure. Enter thou among My slaves. Enter thou My Paradise" (LXXXIX, 27-30).
If we closely follow the silsilah, we can see that Sufis fall into this which means they have a place in Silsilah that gives them close connection to sunnah and Shariah. "The silsilah really indicates that the ultimate origin and root of the path (tariqah) is to be found in the Divinity, who revealed it to the Messenger through the archangel of Revelation, Gabriel, the personification of the revelatory function of the Spirit, Because the path traced out by the Prophet has a transcendent spiritual inception, it cannot but manifest itself in the Quran and in the Sunnah, the two foundations of the Islamic religion. These two are also the foundations for the Law (Shari'ah) of Islam, which has to do with the domain of action, whereas the path is concerned with the life of contemplation. That both the Law and the path should repose on the same Quran and Sunnah simply shows that we can look at the Islamic message from two different but complementary perspectives, the exoteric and the esoteric." (Danner, p.239)
Thus Sufis have an important role to play and they must like all Muslims follow Shariah closely. Their main aim is to spread Islam and love Allah with complete devotion. They know that this can only be attained if they are following religion in the way that it is supposed to be followed i.e. through Shariah.
References
Sufism and Shariah: A study of Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi's Effort to Reform Sufism," by Muhammad Abdul Haq Ansari, pp. 221-2. Originally from Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi's letters, Vol. I:36.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr - editor. Islamic Spirituality: Foundations. Publisher: Crossroad. New York. 1987.
Victor Danner: The Early Development of Sufism. Seyyed Hossein Nasr - editor. Islamic Spirituality: Foundations. Publisher: Crossroad. New York. 1987.
