Khalwat dar anjuman ('Solitude within society'): An Islamic ethico-mystical response to the dialectical tension between solitary and social life

This dissertation explores the question of why world civilizational traditions came to idealize either solitary or social life through a conceptual history and theoretical approach. It will be demonstrated that the idealization of one of these two ways of living was highly germane to the different ways in which civilizations had envisioned the good life, esp. in terms of virtue and piety. In addition, the study will investigate whether there existed a tension between life in solitude and one in society; what this dialectic entailed in theory; and how it was dealt with in practical terms. In this context, part one of the first chapter begins by assessing the civilizational traditions of Judaism, Buddhism, Greek antiquity, and Christianity. This assessment will be used as a counterpoint to frame the analysis in part two on the civilization of Islam. It will be argued that in light of Islam's vision of the good life, the tension between solitude and society becomes not only a relatively more prominent feature in Islam when compared to its counterpart traditions, but that it also becomes characteristic of a dynamic interplay and takes on much more of a polemical tone in the realm of both theory and praxis. Chapter two conceptually situates the said dialectic within the Islamicate civilization through a literary survey of Muslim advocates, detractors, and reconfigurators of solitude. Chapters three, four, and five draw on the Khwājagān-Naqshbandī Sufi ṭarīqah as a case study and mainly focus on their (ostensibly contradicting) principle of khalwat dar anjuman (lit: 'solitude within society'), viz. an ethico-mystical precept that stipulates mystical absorption in God and spiritual detachment from the world, and at the same time insists on maintaining an active social presence and participation in temporal activities. More specifically, chapter three delivers an ideational and socio-historical investigation on khalwat dar anjuman – a concept that is interpreted to be a reconfiguration of the conventional idea of solitude in both its ascetical and mystical variants – in order to pinpoint how it emerged as an alternative orientation for mystical attainment. Chapter four deals with more practical considerations, analyzing how the Khwājagān-Naqshbandīs negotiated other-worldly mystical pursuits and this-worldly mundane activities through their practice of khalwat dar anjuman. And, finally, chapter five concludes with an examination of how the Khwājagān-Naqshbandīs persevered in confronting modern realities vis-à-vis the principle of khalwat dar anjuman. It will be argued that khalwat dar anjuman was paramount in reconciling – as opposed to resolving – the dialectical tension between solitude and society from both a conceptual and practical standpoint. Moreover, although khalwat dar anjuman, admittedly, existed in both theory and practice prior to its formulation, its novelty lies in how it was conceptualized and turned into an operative principle at the organizational level, and also how it essentially transformed the general landscape of Sufi thought and salvational activity in the here and now. All in all, this dissertation partly aims to give substance to the point that khalwat dar anjuman served not only to justify and sanctify involvement in worldly matters, but that it also fostered a radical shift as a consequence of its basic premise which posits society as the sole arena where all spiritual and mystical activities are to be carried out and realized.