The Malāmatiyya () or Malamatis were a Muslim mystic group active in 9th century Greater Khorasan. The root word of their name is the Arabic word malāmah () "blame". 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. They concealed their knowledge and made sure their faults would be known, reminding them of their imperfection. 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".
"Malamati" can also refer to a method of teaching within Sufism based on taking blame.
Malamatiyyas and Sufis
According to scholar Sara Sviri, the Malamati originated in a town called Nishapur in Khorasan in the ninth and tenth centuries. Nishapur was one of the four main towns in Greater Khorasan and it was at the crossroads of two main routes. Because of their distance from Baghdad, the Malamatiyyah originally had very little influence from Sufi practice and thought.
The Malamati mystical movement developed independently from Sufism until the Baghdadi and Khurasani mystical schools combined. With the rise in Sufi literature and the stature of Baghdad as an intellectual community during the late tenth century, Sufi became the umbrella term for all Muslim mystics. 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. Some even claim that the Malamatiyyas are not only separate from Sufism, but also from Islam. Malamati critics say that the Malamatiyyas are not completely Muslim in "spirit or in theory".
According to As-Sulami
The Malāmatiyyah were first written about by Abū ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī (d. 1021) in the 11th century (4th–5th century AH). Al-Sulami was born in Nishapur in 937 to a prestigious family. His father was on good terms with the early Malāmatiyyah. When al-Sulamī was young, his father moved to Mecca and left al-Sulami under the care of his maternal grandfather. His grandfather, Abu ‘Amr Isma’il b. Nujayd al-Sulamī (d. 971) was the spiritual heir to Abu ‘Uthman al-Hiri (d.910), who is an important figure in the formation of the Malamatiyya.
Al-Sulamī wrote works in a variety of genre including hagiography, commentary on the Qur'an and mystical groups' ideology and customs. He is our chief source for information about the Malāmatiyyah. Al-Sulamī, as a Malamatid apologist, claims that the Malāmatiyyah are the most elite of the three groups of learned and pious men. The first group are those that study jurisprudence and are legal experts. The second group are people that whom God has given special knowledge. The third group, the most elite of all are the Malāmatiyyah, those "who are recipients of God's special favors". His work introduced the Malāmatiyyah as an Islamic mystical tradition and bolstered the reputation of Nishapuri teachers. Lastly, al-Sulamī defended the Malāmatiyyah from accusations of nonconformity.
Although al-Sulami's work has contributed the most insight to the Malāmati path, he is not the only source of information on the Malamatiyyas. Other works exist like traces of Al-Hakim al-Nishapuri's (d. 1014) Ta’rikh Naysaburi. This work lists shaykhs and scholars from Nishapur that include Malamati-like descriptions.
Spiritual anatomy
What the Malamati understand to be humans' spiritual anatomy is central to their ideology. The Malamatiyya believe that nafs is the principal actor because it is the center of human consciousness. Nafs is essentially the ego or the "lower self". The Malamati conception of nafs is derived from five Qur'anic passages, four of which are S.17:11/12, 21: 3, 17:18/19, 100:6. In the fifth passage S. 12:53 it is stated that "surely the nafs, soul, incites man to be ungrateful. 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. In a letter to Abu 'Uthman, Kahim al-Tirmidhi describes that nafs acts as a veil between the heart's vision and the truth.