religions Article Fisibilillah: Labor as Learning on the Sufi Path Youssef Carter   Citation: Carter, Youssef. 2021. Fisibilillah: Labor as Learning on the Sufi Path. Religions 12: 3. https://doi. org/10.3390/rel12010003 Received: 20 November 2020 Accepted: 15 December 2020 Published: 23 December 2020 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neu- tral with regard to jurisdictional clai- ms in published maps and institutio- nal affiliations. Copyright: © 2020 by the author. Li- censee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and con- ditions of the Creative Commons At- tribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). Department of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA; youssefcarter@unc.edu Abstract: At the core of this study of spiritual empowerment and Black Atlantic Sufism lies the pre-occupation of understanding precisely the manner by which particular Muslim subjectivities are fashioned within the bounds of the Mustafawi Sufi tradition of religious cultivation through charitable giving and community service in Moncks Corner, South Carolina. This article examines Black Atlantic Muslim religiosities and argues that West African Sufism in diasporic context—which draws upon nonwestern theories of the body and theories of the soul—can be theorized as a philosophy of freedom and decoloniality. In the American South, spiritual empowerment becomes possible through varying forms of care and bodily practice that take place in a mosque that is situated on a former slave plantation. Meanwhile, that empowerment takes place through discourses on Islamic piety and heightened religiosity in a postcolonial Senegal. Spiritual empowerment occurs, as I show, through attending to the body and spirit as students connect themselves, via West African Sufism, to a tradition of inward mastery and bodily discipline through philanthropic efforts. Keywords: labor; Sufism; African diaspora; knowledge transmission; black Atlantic; Senegal 1. Introduction “So her Lord (Allah) accepted her with goodly acceptance. He made her grow in a good manner and put her under the care of Zakariya (Zachariya). Every time he entered Al-Mihrab [the prayer chamber] to (visit) her, he found her supplied with sustenance. He said: “O Maryam (Mary)! From where have you got this?” She said, “This is from Allah.” Verily, Allah provides sustenance to whom He wills, without limit.” (Qur’an 3:37; translation via Sahih International) Shaykh Arona Rashid Faye Al-Faqir always cautions the students under his care to realize that ones’ sustenance (rizq) comes from Allah only. The believer, therefore, should not fear impoverishment or any depletion of wealth due to giving charity. His manner of teaching is not only predicated upon, explicating how Maryam, mother of Sayyidina Isa (Jesus the Christ), was protected and provided for directly from God’s endless bounty, but also the Shaykh’s pedagogical approach involves modeling trust in God through embodying an ethos of giving and service. Therefore, as his students sat encircled around him listening attentively to his teachings in the Moncks Corner mosque—many of them beneficiaries of Shaykh Arona’s commitment to charitable service at one time or another— his points were made that much clearer as they watched him embody service through organizing and facilitating the dispensation of food. In between unfolding accounts of Maryam’s pious character, Shaykh carefully and assertively directed some of his students (taalibes) in ensuring that the preparations for the community dinner were being carried out smoothly. Just as was the case for more than two decades in Moncks Corner, the fuqara 1 1 As in other Sufi traditions, Shaykh Faye has named his community the “fuqara”, which not only connotes dependency on God, it also functions to mark those who similarly identity as spiritual companions regardless of their location. Conceptually, the name “fuqara” is sourced from the Qur’an and is used by Shaykh Arona Faye to express an utter and complete dependence on God. For example, the Qur’an states “ ... If they are poor, God will provide for them from His bounty: God’s bounty is infinite and He is all knowing” (Qur’an 24:32). Shaykh Faye has taken its singular form as a name (“Al-Faqir”) to recognize his own dependency in relation to God and has named his students/followers in a similar fashion to signify their respective dependence. Religions 2021, 12, 3. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12010003 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions