BY
REYNOLD ALLEYNE NICHOLSON
PREFACE
As was explained in the preface to
my Studies in Islamic Poetry, the following essays conclude a series of five,
which fall into two groups and are therefore published in separate volumes.
While mysticism, save for a few casual references, found no place in the
studies on the Lubabu 'l-Albab of 'Awfi and the Luzumiyyat of
Abu 'l-'Ala al-Ma'arri, in these now brought together it has taken entire
possession of the field. Ibnu 'l-Farid, indeed, is an exquisite poet; and the
picture of Abu Sa'id ibn Abi 'l-Khayr, drawn by pious faith and coloured with
legendary romance, may be looked upon as a work of art in its way. But on the
whole the literary interest of the present volume is subordinate to the
religious and philosophical. I have tried to make the reader acquainted with
three Sufis famous in the East and worthy of being known in Europe. Most of
what has hitherto been written concerning Abu Sa'id begins and ends with the
quatrains passing as his, though (for the chief part, at any rate} they were
neither composed nor recited by him. As to Jili, the masterly sketch in Dr Muhammad Iqbal's Development of Metaphysics in Persia stands almost alone. Ibnu 'l-Farid had the
misfortune to be translated by Von Hammer, and the first intelligent or
intelligible version of his great Ta'iyya appeared in Italy four years ago. It will be seen that the subjects
chosen illustrate different aspects of Sufism and exhibit racial contrasts, of
which perhaps the importance has not yet been sufficiently recognised. Abu
Sa'id, the free-thinking free-living dervish, is a Persian through and through,
while Ibnu '1-Farid. in the form of his poetry as well as in the individuality of his spiritual
enthusiasm displays the narrower and tenser genius of the Semite. Nearly a
third of this volume is concerned with a type of Sufism, which as represented by Ibnu 'l'Arabi and Jili-possesses
great interest for students of medieval thought and may even claim a certain significance in relation to modern philosophical and theological
problems. Mysticism is such a vital element in Islam that without some
understanding of its ideas and of the forms which they assume we should seek in
vain to penetrate below the surface of Mohammedan religious life. The forms may
be fantastic and the ideas difficult to grasp; nevertheless we shall do well to
follow them, for in their company East and West often meet and feel themselves
akin.
I regret
that I have not been able to make full use of several books and articles published during the final stages of
the war or soon afterwards, which only came into my hands w.hen these studies were already in the press.
Tor Andrae's Die person Muhammeds in lehre und glauben seiner gemeinde (Upsala, 191) contains by
far the best survey that has yet appeared of the sources, historical evolution
and general characteristics of the Mohammedan Logos doctrine. This, as I have
said, is the real subject of the İnsânu 'l-Kâmil. Hs roots lie, of course, in Hellenism. Andrae shows how the notion of the 8eios av~p@mos passed over into Islam through the Shi'ites and became
embodied in the Imam, regarded as the living representative of God and as a
semi-divine personality on whom the world depends for its existence. Many
Shi'ites were in close touch with Sufism, and there can be no doubt that, as
Ibn Khaldun observed, the Shi'ite Imam is the prototype of the Sufistic Qutb.
It was inevitable that the attributes of the Imam and Qutb should be
transferred to the Prophet, so that even amongst orthodox Moslems the belief in
his pre-existence rapidly gained ground. Particularly instructive to students
of the Insanu 'l-Kamil is Andrae's account of the Logos doctrine of Ibnu 'l-'
Arabi, whose influence is manifest in every page that Jili wrote. In
this connexion another book by another Swedish scholarH. S. Nyberg's Kleinere Schriften des Ibn al-'
Arabi (Leiden,
I9I9)-provides new and valuable material. The introduction, to which I have now and. then referred in the footnotes, not only
elucidates the mystical philosophy of the Insanu 'l-Kamil but enables us to trace in detail the indebtedness of Jill to his great predecessor. In the 16th and I7th centuries the Insanu 'l-Kemii exerted a
powerful influence upon
Indonesian Sufism, which has
been studied by
the Dutch
Orientalists D. A. Rinkes, B. J. O. Schrieke, and H.
Kraemer. I should like to can attention to the account given by the fast-named
scholar in Een Javaansche ~rimbon uit de zestiende eewu {Leiden, 1921), p.
40 foll. and p. 83 foll.
Some months after my
work had gone to the press, I received from Prof. C. A. Nallino an off-print of his article IL poema mistico arabo d' Ibn al-Farid in
una recente traduzione italiana',
from which I learned that a prose translation by Sac. Ignazio Di Matteo of Ibnu 'l-Farid's most celebrated ode, the Td'iyyatu 'l-Kubra, had been
published in 1917 at Rome. As this book was reproduced in autograph for private circulation, it would have
been inaccessible to me, if the author had not kindly presented me with a
copy. He replied to Nallino
in a paper entitled Sulla
mia interpretazione de! poema mistico d'Ibn al-Farid (RDSO., 1920, vol. VIII. 479-500), which was immediately
followed by a second article
from Nallino, Ancora su
Ion al-Farid e sulla mistica
musulmana (ilid. vol. VIII. 501-562). Hoving myself attempted to translate the T'iyya, I am impressed with the merit of Di Matteo's version
rather than inclined to dwell on its faults. He has
given us, for the first time, a
careful and tolerably correct rendering of the original; and that is no slight
achievement. The articles by Nallino, which include a critical examination of numerous passages in the poem, are the
most important contribution that any European Orientalist has so far made to the study of Ibnu '1-FariQ.. In an essay consisting largely of translations, I could but indicate (pp. 193-5 infra) my views on the main question which he has discussed in his friendly
controversy with Di Matteo. To
him, as to me, it seems clear that the view put forward by Di Matteo is erroneous.
Neither the
form nor the
substance of the Ta'iyya suggests that it was inspired by Ibnu
'!-'Arabi, though some traces of his influence may
perhaps be found in it 1. It differs in kind from poems indubitably so inspired, such as the 'Ayniyya of Jill. Above all, it is a mystic's autobiography, a poet's description of his
inner life, and the terms which it employs belong to the psychological vocabulary
of Sufism, with few exceptions. I have no quarrel with those who call Ibnu
'l-Farid a pantheist; but his pantheism (unlike that of his commentators) is
essentially a state of feeling, not a system of thought. The poem, however,
requires explanation, and I do not think it can be interpreted without
reference to the corresponding philosophical doctrine. In other words, if we
are to elicit any definite meaning from the symbols which shadow forth a
consciousness of mystical union, we must somehow connect them with metaphysical
propositions. But although mysticism is not an allegory, still less is it a
theology or philosophy. Hence the sayings of "God-intoxicated" men
will not serve as a sure criterion of their attitude towards religion. Moslems
themselves, as a rule, want better evidence of heresy than this.
I desire to express my gratitude to Prof. C. A. Nallino and Sac. Ignazio Di Matteo
for their gifts of books and for the courtesy which accompanied them; to Mr A.
G. Ellis for the loan of his copy of the Insanu 'l-Kamil; and to the authorities of
the India Office Library for placing at my disposal the manuscripts mentioned
on p. 77 infra. Especial thanks are due to Mr Rhuvon Guest, who most generously sent me
his unpublished translation of the T'iyya of Ibnu 'l-Farid
and allowed me to use it for the purpose of correcting and improving my own,
before the latter was in print. Mr Guest's version, while keeping very close to
the original, is thoughtful and judicious, and I found it of great service in
dealing with passages which to me seemed obscure. If I have sometimes preferred
my interpretation to his, he has at least as often convinced
me that his was more likely to be the right one. Besides thanking the scholars
who have helped me in the second part of these studies, I wish to acknowledge
the appreciative criticism which the first volume has received. Both Nöldeke
and Goldziher have declared their agreement with the view there taken of the
character of Ma'arri. The remarks of my old teacher, Prof. Nöldeke, are so interesting that I cannot refrain
from quoting them:
In der Gesammtauffassung des Dichters und Denkers
muss ich Ihnen durchweg beistimmen. Zunächst darin, dass M. kein Muslim mehr
war, sondern als einzigen, allerdings festen Punct aus der religiösen
Ueberlieferung das Vorhandensein eines allmächtigen Gottes behielt, der in
seiner Willkür so ziemlich dem koranischen glich. Dabei halte ich es immerhin
für möglich, dass M. hie und da auch sonst an Einzelheiten der Lehre Muhammeds festhielt, je
nach verschiedenen Zeiten und Stimmungen. Dass die Widersprüche innerhalb der
Sammlung nicht alle auf absichtliche Täuschung herauskommen, möchte ich damit
betonen. Welche Weltanschauung und welche Dogmatik ist ohne innere
Widersprüche? Das christliche Dogma habe ich hier vor Allem im Auge; ich meine
die Dogmatik aller christlichen Confessionen. ... Was man auch an M. aussetzen
mag, man muss vor seiner Selbständigkeit doch die grösste Achtung haben. _Wie
eigen berühren uns nr. 1I7-119, worin die Fürsten als Diener
und Besoldete des Volkes erscheinen, bei einem Orientalen! (Friedrich der
Grosse dachte wenigstens theoretisch auch so.) So fern uns oder mir (da ich mich doch als strenger
Rationalist ihm verwandt fühle)
seine übertriebene Askese liegt, die z. B. nicht berücksichtigt, dass "Die
grossen Fische fressen stets die kleinen," dass die Singvögel·
grösstenteils von Insecten leben und dazu, dass wir Menschen von den Tieren
direct oder indirect aufgefressen würden, wenn wir sie nicht vielfach töteten,
so muss man doch auch in der Hinsicht vor ihm Achtung haben. Wenn er den Wein
verabscheut, so muss man bedenken, dass dieser damals wie jetzt (namentlich bei
den Persern) ganz besonders dazu diente, rasch sinnlos betrunken zu werden
(cfr. Gen. xliii. 34,, )102")). Der Standpunct war also
vernünftiger als der der americanischen Gesetzgebung, die das Kind mit dem Bade
ausschüttet. Wie verständig ist M. auch darin, das er nicht an dem fast zum
Dogma der islamischen Ueberlieferung gewordenen Satze festhielt, dass die
Menschen in früheren Zeiten besser gewesen wären als die Zeitgenossen (nr. 162,
4 als zweifelhaft, 146, 3 bestimmt ausgesprochen)! Vermutlich wollte er damit
besonders den Vorzug der "Genossen des
Propheten " treffen.
X
Preface
Prof. Noldeke laid me under a further obligation by
reading the text of the pieces selected from the Luzumiyyat and proposing a number of emendations. These are given
below, together with some which I owe to the kindness of Prof. Bevan. Misprints are included, and the English version
has been corrected in a few places where, as Prof. Bevan pointed out, the original was mistranslated
or not fully understood.
CHAPTER I
ABU SA'ID IBN ABI 'L-KHAYR
ABU SA'ID and Omar Khayyam are associated in the history of Persian literature by
the circumstance that each of them is the reputed author of a famous collection
of ruba'' iyydt in which his individuality has almost disappeared.
That these collections are wholly, or even mainly, the work of Abu Sa'id and
Omar no one who examines the evidence is likely io assert : they should rather be
regarded as anthologies-of which the nucleus, perhaps, was formed by the two
authors in question -containing poems of a particular type composed at various
periods By many different hands. It is possible, no doubt, that Omar's view of life and
his general cast of thought are more or less reflected in the quatrains
attributed to him, but we can learn from them nothing definite and distinctive.
The same considerations apply with equal force to the mystical ruba'is passing under the name of Abu
Sa'id. İt his case, however, we possess excellent and copious biographical
materials which make us intimately
acquainted with him and throw a welcome light on many aspects of contemporary
Persian mysticism.
The oldest of these documents is a short treatise
on his life and sayings, which is preserved in a manuscript of the British
Museum (Or. 249). It bears neither title nor indication of authorship, but Zhukovski in his
edition of the text (Petrograd, 1899) identifies it with the Halat
u Sukhunan-i
Shaykh Abu Sa'id ibn Abi'l-Khayr, a work
composed about a century after Abu Sa'id's death by one of hi; descendants
whose name is unknown. He was a cousin of 11u}:iammad ibnu '1-Munawwar, the
great-great-grandson of Abu Sa'id.
Using the Halat u Sukhunan as a foundation, Muhammad ibnu 'I-Munawwar compiled a
much larger biography of his ancestor which he entitled Asraru
'l-tawhid fi maqamati 'lShaykh Abi Sa'id (ed. by Zhukovski, Petrograd, 1899) and dedicated to the Ghurid prince,
Ghiyathu'ddin Muhammad ibn Sam (ob. A.D. 1203). The author, like Abu Sa'id himself, was a native of Mayhana or Mihna in
Khurasan. From his earliest youth it had been a labour of love for him to
gather the sayings of the Saint and to verify the records and traditions which
were handed down in his family and were still fresh in the minds of his
fellow-townsmen. The task was undertaken not a moment too soon. In A.D. 1I54 the Turcoman tribe of the Ghuzz swept over the borders of Khurasan and
carried fire and sword through that flourishing province. Everywhere the
population was massacred; the author tells us that rr5 descendants of Abu
Sa'id, young and old, were tortured to death in Mayhana alone, and that no
memorial of him was left except his tomb. Religion, he says, fell into utter
ruin; the search after Truth ceased, unbelief became rampant; of Islam only the
name, and of Sufism only the form survived. Impelled by divine grace, he
complied with the request of some novices that he should write an account of
the spiritual experiences and memorable sayings of Shaykh Abu Sa'id, for the
encouragement of those who desired to enter upon the Path (tariqa) and for the guidance of those who were
travelling on the road of the Truth (haqiqa). Abu Sa'id died in A.D. 1049, and the Asraru
'l-tawhid was probably completed not less than 120 or more than 150 years later. As
Zhukovski points out, it is almost the first example in Persian of a separate
work having for its subject the life of an individual mystic. The portrait of
Abu. Sa'id amidst the circle of Sufis and dervishes in which he lived is drawn
with extraordinary richness of detail, and gains in vividness as well as in
value from the fact that a great part of the story is told by himself. Although
the Mohammedan system of oral tradition by which these autobiographical
passages have been preserved forbids us to suppose that we have before us an
exact transcript of Abu Sa'id's words as they were spoken to the original
reporter, there is no reason to doubt that in most cases the substance of them
is given correctly. His own veracity is not incontestable, but this question,
which leads at once into the darkest abysses of psychology, I must leave in
suspense.
I] Abu Sa'id ibn Abi 'l-Khayr
The Halt u Sukhunan and the Asraru 'l-tawhid render the more recent biographies of Abu Sa'id all
but superfluous'. A certain amount of new material is found in the Supplement to Faridu'ddin 'Attar's Tadhkiratu 'l-Awliyad (vol. II of my edition, PP. 322-337) and Jami's Nafahtu
'l-Uns (ed. by Nassau Lees, No. 366)2
For the sake
of clearness, I have divided the following study into three sections, of which
the first deals with the life of Abu Sa'id, the second with his mystical
sayings and doctrines, and the third with miracles and other matter belonging
to his legend.
I.
Abu Sa'id
Fadlu'llah was born at Mayhana, the chief town of the Khawaran district of
Khurasan, on the 1st of Muharram, A.H. 357 (December 7th, A.D. 967). His father Abu 'l-Khayr, known in Mayhana as Babu Bu 'l-Khayr, was
a druggist, "a pious and religious man, well acquainted with the sacred
law of Islam (shari'a) and with
the Path of Sufism (tariqa)°."
He and other
Sufis were in the habit of meeting every night in the house of one of their
number. Whenever a strange Sufi arrived in the town, they would invite him to
join them, and after partaking of food and finishing their prayers and
devotions they used to listen to music and singing (samd'}. One night, when
Babu Bu 'lKhayr was going to meet his friends, his wife begged him to take Abu
Sa'id with him in order that the dervishes might look on him with favour; so Bu
'I-Kha yr let the lad accompany him. As soon as it was time
for the music to begin, the singer (qawwal)
chanted this quatrain:
God gives the dervish love-and love is woe;
By dying
near and dear to Him they grow.
The generous youth will freely yield his life,
The man of God cares naught
for worldly show.
On hearing
this song the dervishes fell into ecstasy and kept up the dance till daybreak.
The qawwl sang the quatrain so often that Abu Sa'id got it by
heart. When he returned home, he asked his father the meaning of the verses
that had thrown the dervishes into such transports of joy. "Hush!"
said his father, "you cannot understand what they mean: what does it
matter to you? "
Afterwards, when Abu Sa'id had attained to a high
spiritual degree, he used sometimes to say of his father, who was then dead,
"I want Babu Bu '1-Khayr to-day, to tell him
that he himself did not know the meaning of what he heard on that nighti."
Abu Sa'id
was taught the first rudiments of Moslem education-to read the Koran-by Abu
Muhammad 'Ayyari, an eminent divine, who is buried at. Nasa.2. He learned
grammar from Abu Sa'id 'Ayyari and the principles of Islam from Abu 'l-Qasim
Bishr-i Yasin, both of Mayhana. The latter seems to have been a remarkable man.
I have
already referred to the mystical quatrains which Abu Sa'id was fond of quoting
in his discourses and which are commonly thought to be his own. Against this
hypothesis we have his definite statement that these quatrains were composed
by other Sufis and that Bishr-i Yasin was the author of most of them . From
Bishr, too, Abu Sa'id learned the doctrine of disinterested love, which is the
basis of Sufism.
One day Abu '1-Qasim Bishr-i Yasin (may God
sanctify his honoured spirit !) said to me: "O Abu Sa'id, endeavour to remove
self-interest (tama') from thy dealings with God. So long as that exists,
sincerity (ikhlas) cannot be attained. Devotions inspired by
self-interest are work done for wages, but devotions inspired by sincerity are
work done to serve God. Learn by heart the Tradition of the Prophet-God said to me on the night of my
Ascension, 0 Mohammed! as
for those who would draw nigh to Me, their best means of drawing nigh is by performance
of the obligations which I have laid upon them. My servant continually seeks to
win My favour by works of supererogation until I love Mm; and when I love him, I am to him an ear and an eye and a hand and a
helper : through Me he hears , and through Me he sees, and through Me he takes'." Bishr explained that to perform obligations means
"to serve God," while to do works of supererogation means "to
love God" ; then he recited these lines:
Perfect love proceeds from the lover who hopes
naught for himself; What is there to desire in that which has a price?
Certainly the Giver is better for you than the
gift:
How should you want the gift, when you possess
the very Philosopher's Stone1?
On another occasion Bishr taught his young pupil
how to practise 'recollection" (dhikr). "Do
you wish," he asked him, "to talk with God? " 'Yes, of course I
do,'' said Abu Sa'id. Bishr told
him that whenever he was alone he must recite the following quatrain, no more and no less:
Without Thee, O Beloved, I cannot rest;
Thy goodness towards me I cannot reckon. Tho'
every hair on my body becomes a tongue,
A thousandth part of the thanks due to Thee I
cannot tell.
Abu Sa'id was constantly repeating these words. "By
the blessing which they
brought," he says, "the Way to God
was opened to me in my childhood." Bishr died in A.H. 380 (A.D. 990). Whenever Abu Sa'id went to the graveyard of Mayhana his first visit was always paid
tu the tomb of the venerated teacher who had given him his first
lesson in Sufism
If we can
believe Abu Sa'id when he declares that in his youth he knew by heart 30,000 verses of pre-Islamic poetry, his knowledge of profane
literature must have been extensive1. After
completing this branch of education, he set out for Merv with the purpose of
studying theology under Abu 'Abdallah al-Husri, a pupil of the famous Shafi'ite
doctor, Ibn Surayj. He read with al-Husri for five years, and with Abu Bakr al-Qaffal for five more . From Merv he moved to Sarakhs, where he
attended the lectures of Abu 'Ali Zahir3 on Koranic exegesis (in the
morning), on systematic theology (at noon), and on the Traditions of the
Prophet (in the afternoon)4.
Abu Sa'id's
birth and death are the only events of his life to which a precise date is
attached. We know that he studied at Merv for ten years, and if we assume that
his Wanderjahwre began at the usual time, he was probably between 25
and 28 when he first came to Sarakhs. Here his conversion to Sufism took place. He has described it himself in the
following narrative, which I will now translate without abridgement. I have relegated to the foot of the page, and distinguished by means of square brackets, certain passages that interrupt the narrative
and did not form part of it originally.
Abu Sa'id said
as follows :
At the time
when I was a student, I lived at Sarakhs and read with Abu 'Ali, the doctor of divinity. One day, as I was going into the city, I saw Luqman
of Sarakhs seated on an ash-heap near the gate, sewing a patch on his gaberdine". I went up to him and stood looking at him, while he continued to sew'. As
soon as he had sewn the patch on, he said, "O Abu Sa'id! I have sewn thee
on this gaberdine along with the patch." Then he rose and took my hand,
leading me to the convent (khanaqak)
of the Sufis in Sarakhs, and shouted for Shaykh
Abu 'l-Fadl Hasan, who was within. When Abu 'l-Fadl appeared, Luqman placed my
hand in his, saying, "O Abu 'l-Fadl, watch over this young man, for he is
one of you." The Shaykh took my hand and led me into the convent. I sat
down in the portico and the Shaykh picked up a volume and began to peruse it. As is the way of
scholars, I could not help wondering, what the book was. The Shaykh perceived
my thought. 'Abu Sa'id!" he said, "all the hundred and twentyfour
thousand prophets were sent to preach one word. They bade the people say
'Allah' and devote themselves to Him. Those who heard this word with the ear
alone, let it go out by the other ear ; but those who heard it with their souls
imprinted it on their souls and repeated it until it penetrated their hearts
and souls, and their whole being became this word. They were made independent
of the pronunciation of the word, they were released from the sound and the
letters. Having understood the spiritual meaning of this word, they became so
absorbed in it that they were no more conscious of their own non-exis tence1." This saying took hold of me and did not allow me to sleep that night. In the morning, when
I had finished my prayers and devotions, I went to the Shaykh before sunrise
and asked permission to attend Abu 'Ali's lecture on Koranic exegesis. He began
his lecture with the verse, Say Allah!
then teave them to amuse themselves in their folly1. At the moment of hearing this word a door
in my breast was opened, and I was rapt from myself. The Imam Abu 'Alf observed the
change in me and asked, "Where were you last night?" I said,
"With Abu 'l-Fadl Hasan." He ordered me. to rise and go back to Abu
'1-Fadl, saying, "It
is unlawful for you to come from that subject (Sufism) to
this discourse." I returned to the Shaykh, distraught and bewildered, for
I had entirely lost myself in this word. When Abu 'l-Fadl saw me, he said:
"Abu Sa'id !
mastak shuda'i hami nadani pas u pish.
Thou art drunk, poor youth! Thou know'st not head
from tail."
"O Shaykh!" I said,
" what is thy command? " He said, "Come in and sit down and
devote thyself wholly to this word, for this word hath much work to do with
thee." After I had stayed with him for a long time, duly performing all
that was required by this word, he said to me one day, "O Abu Sa'id I the
doors of the letters of this word3 have been opened to thee. Now the
hosts (of spiritual grace) will rush into thy breast, and thou wilt experience
diverse kinds of self-culture (adab)." Then he
exclaimed, "Thou hast been transported, transported, transported ! Go and
seek a place of solitude, and turn aside from men as thou hast turned aside
from thyself, and behave with patience and resignation to God's will." I
abandoned my studies and came home to Mayhana and retired into the niche of the
chapel in my own house. There I sat for seven years, saying continually,
"Allah ! Allah!
Allah!" Whenever drowsiness or inattention arising from the weakness of
human nature came over me, a soldier wifa a fiery spear-the most terrible and
alarming figure that can possibly be imaginedappeared in front of the niche'
and shouted at me, saying, "O Abu Sa'id, say Allah!" The dread of
that apparition used to keep me burning and trembling for
whole days and nights, so that I did not again fall asleep or become inattentive; and at last
every atom of me began to cry aloud, "Allah! Allah ! Allah !"
Countless records of mystical conversion bear witness
to foe central fact in this description-the awakening of the soul in response to some unsuspected
stimulus, by which, as Arnold says,
A bolt is shot back somewhere in the breast, opening a way for the flood
of transcendental consciousness to burst through. The accompanying ecstasy is a
normal feature, and so is the abandonment of past occupations, habits,
ambitions, and the fixing of every faculty upon that supreme reality which is
henceforth the single object of desire. All these phenomena, however sudden
they may seem, are the climax of an interior conflict that perhaps only makes
itself known at the moment when it is already decided. Probably in Abu Sa'id's
case the process was at least to some extent a conscious one. He had been long
and earnestly engaged in the study of theology.
I possessed many books and papers, but though I used
to turn them over and read them one after the other, I was never finding any
peace. I prayed to God, saying, " O Lord, nothing is revealed to my heart
by all this study and learning: it causes me to lose Thee, 0 God! Let me be
able to do without it by giving me something in which I shall find Thee again1."
Here Abu Sa'id acknowledges that he sought spiritual
peace, and that all his efforts to win it from intellectual proofs ended in
failure. The history of that struggle is unwritten, but not until the powers of
intellect were fully tried and shown to be of no avail, could mightier forces
drawn from a deeper source come overwhelmingly into action. As regards the
perpetuai iteration of the name Allah, I need hardly remind my readers that
this is a method everywhere practised by Moslem mystics for bringing about fana,
i.e. the passing-away from self, or in Pascal's phrase, "oubli du
monde et de tout hormis Dieu,"
We have seen that the first act of Abu Sa'id after his
conversion was to enquire of Shaykh Abu 'l-Fadl what he must do next. That is
to say, he had implicitly accepted Abu '1-Fa(l.l as his spiritual director, in
accordance with the rule that "if any one by means of asceticism and
self-mortification shall have risen to an exalted degree of mystical experience, without
having a Pir to whose authority and example he submits himself, the Sufis do not regard him as belonging to their
comrnunity1." In this way a continuous
tradition of mystical doctrine is secured, beginning with the Prophet· and
carried down through a series of dead Pirs to the living director who forms the
last link of the chain until he too dies and is succeeded by one of his pupils.
Abu Sa'id's lineage as a Sufi is given in the
following table:
Mohammed, the Prophet
I
'Ali (ob. A.D. 661)
I
Hasan of Basra (ob. A.D. 728)
I
Habib 'Ajami
(ob. A.D. 737)
I
Dawud Ta'i
(ob. A.D. 781)
I
Ma'ruf Karkhi (ob. A.D. 815)
I
Sari Saqati (ob. A.D. 867)
I
Junayd of Baghdad (ob. A.D. 909)
I
Murta'ish of Baghdad (ob. A.D. 939)
I
Abu Nasr al-Sarraj of Tus (ob. A.D. 988)
!
Abu '1-Faql Hasan of Sarakhs
. I
•
Abu Sa'id ibn Abi 'l-Khayr
The appearance of Mohammed and his son-in-law at
the head of a list of this kind fits in with the fiction-which was necessary
for the existence of Sufism within Islam-that the Sufis are the legitimate
heirs and true interpreters of the esoteric teaching of the Prophet. Hasan of
Basra, Habib 'Ajami, and Dawud Ta'i were ascetics and quietists rather than
mystics. Even if we take the ninth century as a startingpoint, it must not be supposed that any
fixed body of doctrine was handed down. Such a, thing is foreign to the nature
of Sufism, which essentially is not 2.
system based on authority and tradition, but a
free movement assuming infinitely various forms in obedience to the inner light
of the individual soul. Before the time of Abu Sa'id, certain eminent theosophists-Junayd,
for instance-had founded schools which owed their origin to controversies over
particular questions of mystical theory and practice, while at a later period
Sufism branched off into great organisations comparable to the Christian
monastic orders. Everywhere we find divergent tendencies asserting themselves
and freely developing a vigorous life.
There is no difficulty in believing that Abu
Sa'id, after passing through the spiritual crisis which has been described,
returned to Mayhana and spent some time in solitary meditation, though doubts
are suggested by the statement, which occurs in the two oldest biographies,
that his seclusion (khalwat) lasted for seven years. According to the JJ dldt tt Sukhunan, at the end of this period-Shaykh Abu 'l-Fadl having
died in the meanwhile-he journeyed to Amul in order to visit Shaykh Abu
'l'Abbas Qassab'. The Asrar, however, mentions a second period during which he practised the most severe
austerities, first at Sarakhs under the care of Shaykh Abu 'l-Fadl and then,
for seven years 2, in the deserts and mountains of Mayhana, until at the
age of 40 he attained to perfect saintship. These numbers can
only be regarded as evidence of a desire to make him exemplify a theoretically
symmetrical scheme of the mystic's progress towards perfection but it is none the less probable that for many years after his conversion Abu Sa'id was painfully treading the via purgativa, whichSufis call 'the Path" (tariqa).
His biographers give an
interesting account of his self-mortification (mujahada). The details are derived either from his public discourses or from the
testimony of eye-witnesses'.
The author of the Asrar relates that after seven years of solitary retirement
Abu Sa'id came back to Shaykh Abu '1-Fadl, who gave him a cell opposite his
own, in order that he might keep him always under observation, and prescribed
such moral and ascetic discipline as was necessary? When some time had passed,
he was transferred to the cell of Abu 'I-Fadl himself and subjected to still
closer supervision (muraqabat-i alwal). We are not told how long he remained in the convent at Sarakhs. At last
Abu 'l-Fadl bade him return to Mayhana and take care of his mother. Here he
lived in a cell, apparently in his father's house, though he also frequented
several cloisters in the neighbourhood, especially one known as "The Old
Cloister" (Rib!-i
Kuhan) on the Merv road 3. Among the ascetic exercises ii, which he was now
constantly engaged the folloVi-ing are recorded4:
He showed excessive zeal in his religious
ablutions, emptying a number of water-jugs for every single wudu'.
He was always washing the door and
walls of his cell.
He never leaned against any door or wall, or rested
his body on wood or on a cushion, or reclined on a couch.
All the time he wore only one shirt, which
gradually increased in weight because, whenever it was tom, he would sew a
patch on it. At last it weighed 20 maunds.
He never quarrelled with any one nor spoke to any
one, except when necessity forced him to do so.
He ate no food by day, and broke his fast with
nothing more than a piece· of bread.
He did not sleep by day or night but shut himself
in his cell, where he had made an excavation in the wall, just high and broad
enough to stand in, which could be closed by means of a door.
He used to stand here and close the door and occupy himself with recollection (dhikr), stuffing
his ears with cottonwool in order that no disturbing sound might reach him,
and that his attention might remain concentrated. At the same time he never
ceased to watch over his
inmost self (muraqabat-i
sirr), in order that no thought except of God might cross his
mind
After a while he became unable to bear the society or even the sight of
men. He wandered alone in desert and
mountainous places and would often disappear for a month or
more. His father used to go in search of him and find out where he was
from labourers or travellers who had seen him. To please his father, he would come home, but ere long he would fed the
presence of human creatures to be
unendurable and would again flee to mountains and ,vildernesses, where lw was sometimes seen roaming with a venerable old man clad in white raiment. Many years afterwards, when Abu Sa'id
had risen to eminence, he declared to those who questioned him that this old man was the prophet Khadir2.
Although he was carefully watched,
Abu Sa'id contrived to escape from his father's house
night after night. On one occasion his father (who felt a natural anxiety as to the object of these nocturnal excursions) followed him, unperceived, at a little distance.
My son (he relates) walked on until he
reached the Old Cloister (Ribdt-i Kuhan). He entered it and shut
the gate behind him, while I went up on the roof. I saw him go into
a chapel, which was in the ribaf, and close the door. Looking through the chapel window, I waitC?d to see what would happen. There was a stick lying on the
floor, and it had a rope fastened to it. He
took up the stick and tied the end of the rope to his foot. Then, laying the stick across the top of a pit that was
at the corner of the chapel, he slung himself into the
pit head downwards, and began to recite the Koran. He remained in that posture
until daybreak, when, having recited the whole Koran, he raised himself from
the pit, replaced the stick where he had found it, opened the door, came out of the chapel, and commenced to perform hie- ablution in the middle of the ribat. I
descended from the roof, hastened home, and slept until he came in 1.
The following passage illustrates another side of Abu Sa'id's
asceticism. He said,
One day I said to myself, "Knowledge, works, meditation-I have them
all; now I want to become absent from them (ghaybati ai in)." On
consideration I saw that the only way to attain this was by acting as a servant
to the dervishes, for when God wishes to benefit a man, He shows to hint the path of
self-abasement. Accordingly I made it my business
to wait upon them, and I used to clean their cells and privies and lavatories.
I persevered in this work for a long time, until it became a habit. Then I
resolved to beg for the dervishes, which seGmecl to me the hardest thing I could lay upon myself. At
first, when people saw me begging, they would give me a piece of gold, but soon
it was only copper, and by degrees it came down to a single raisin or nut. In
the end even this was refused. One day I was with a number of dervishes, and
there was nothing to be got for them. For their sake I parted with the turban I
had on my head, then I sold one after the other my slippers, the lining of my jubba, the cloth of which it was made,
and the cotton quilting.
During the period of ascetic discipline which he underwent at:. Mayhana,
Abu Sa'id sometimes visited Sarakhs for the purpose of receiving spiritual
guidance from Shaykh Abu '1-Fadl. His biographer says that he travelled on his
bare feet, but if we may trust 'Abdu 'l-Samad, one of his disciples, he
usually flew through the air; it is
added that this phenomenon was witnessed only by persons of mystical insight 3. According to
the Asrar, he returned to Abu 'l-Fadl for another year's
training and was then sent by him to Abu 'Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami, who invested
him with the patched frock (khirqa) that proclaims
the wearer to be a recognised member of the brotherhood of Sufis'. A1-Sulami ot
Nishapur (ob.
A.D. 1O21), a
pupil of Abu 'l-Qasim al-Nasrabadi, was a celebrated mystic. He is the author
of the Tabaqcitu 'l-S-ufiyya-biographies of the early Sufi Shaykhs-and
other important works.
On Abu Sa'id's return, Shaykh Abu 'l-Fadl said to him, "Now all is
finished. You must
go to Mayhana and call the
people to God arid admonish them and show them
the way
to the Truth." He came back to Mayhana, as his Director enjoined, but instead of
contenting himself with Abu 'l-Fadl's assurance that all was now finished,
he increased
his austerities and was more assiduous than ever in his devotions. In the following discourse he refers to the veneration
which the people began
to maniiest
towards him at this time'.
When I was a: novice, I bound myself to do eighteen things:
I fasted continually; I abstained from unlawful food; I practised
recollection (dhikr) uninterruptedly;
I kept awake at night; I never reclined on the ground; I never slept hut in a sitting posture;
I sat facing the Ka'ba; I never
leaned against anything; I never looked at a handsome youth or at women whom it would have been unlawful for me to see unveiled.; I
did not beg; I was content and resigned' to God's will; I always sat in the mosque and did not go into
tie market, because the Prophet said
that the market is the fithiest of places and the mosque
the cleanest.
In all my acts
l was a follower of the Prophet.
Every four-and-twenty hours I completed a recitation
of the Koran. In my s0eing
I was blind, in my hearing deaf, in my speaking dumb. "For a wh::;le year
I conversed with no one'. People called me a lunatic, and I all-owed them to give me that name, relying on the Tradition that a man's faith is not made periect until he is supposed to be mad. I performed everything
that I had read or heard of as
having been done or commanded
by the Prophet. Having read that when he
was wounded in the foot in the battle of Uhud, he stood on his toes in order to perform his devotions-for he could
not set the sole
of his foot upon the ground-I resolved to imitate him,
and standing on tiptoe I performed a prayer
of 400 genuflexions.
I modelled my actions,
outward and inward, upon the Sunna of the
Prophet, so that habit at last became nature.
Whatever I had heard or found in books
concerning the acts of worship performed by the
angels, I performed the
same. I
had heard and seen in
writing that some angels worship God
on their heads. Therefore I
placed my head on
the ground and bade the blessed mother
of Abu Tahir tie my toe witlr a cord and fasten the cord to a peg and then
shut the
door behind her. Being left alone, I said, "O Lord ! I do not want myself: let me escape from myself!" and I began a
recitation of the whole Koran. When I came to the verse, God shall suffice thee against
them, for He heareth and knoweth all', blood poured from my eyes and I was no longer
conscious of myself. Then things changed. Ascetic experiences passed over me of
a kind that can be described in words 2, and God
strengthened and aided me therein, but I fancied that all these acts were done
by me. The grace of God became manifest and showed me that this was not so, and
that these were the acts of divine favour and grace. I repented of my belief and
realised that it was mere self-conceit. Now if you say that you will not tread
this path because it is selfconceit, I reply that your refusal to tread it is
self-conceit. Until you have undergone all this, its self-conceit will not be
revealed to you. Self-conceit appears only when you fulfil the Law, for selfconceit
lies in religion, and religion is of the Law. To abstain from religious acts is
infidelity, and to perform such acts self-consciously is dualism. If
"thou" exists and "He" exists,. "two " exists;
and that is dualism. You must put your "self" away altogether.
I had a cell
in which I sat, and sitting there I was enamoured of passing-away from myself.
A light flashed upon me, which utterly destroyed the darkness of my being. God
Almighty revealed to me that I
was neither that nor this: that this was His grace even as that was His gift.
So it came to pass that I said:
When I mine
eyes have opened, all Thy beauty I behold; When I tell Thee my secret, all my
body is ensouled. Methinks, unlawful 'tis for me to talk with other men,
But when
with Thee I am talking, ah ! the tale is never told.
Then the
people began to regard me
with great approval. Disciples gathered round me and were converted to S1'.tfism.
My neighbours too showed their respect for me by ceasing to drink wine. This proceeded so far that a
melon-skin which I had thrown away was bought for twenty pieces of gold. Qne
day when I was riding on horseback, my horse dropped dung. Eager to gain a
blessing, the people came and picked up the dung and smeared their heads and
faces with it. After a time it was revealed to me that I was not the real
object of their veneration. A voice cried from the corner of the mosque, Is not thy Lord enough for thee ?
A light gleamed in my breast, and
most veils were removed. The people who had honoured me now rejected me, and
even went before the cadi to bear witness thatI was an infidel. The inhabitants
of every place that I entered declared that their crops would not grow on
account of my wickedness. Once, whilst I was seated in the mosque, the women
went up on to the roof anl bespattered me with filth; and still I heard a voice
saying, Is not thy Lord enough for thee? The congregation desisted from their prayers, saying,
"We will not pray together so long as this madman is in the mosque."
Meanwhile I was reciting these verses:
I was a lion-the fierce pard was ware
Of my
pursuit. I conquered everywhere.
But since I drew Thy love close to my heart,
Lame foxes drive me from my
forest-lair.
This joyous transport was followed by a painful
contraction (qabd). I opened the Koran, and my eye fell on the verse, We will prove you with evil and with good, to try you;
and unto Us shall ye return1, as
though God said to me, "All this which I put
in thy way is a trial. If it is good, it is a trial, and if it is evil, it is a trial. Do not stoop to good or to evil, but dwell with
Me!" Once more my "self" vanished, and His grace was all in
all°.
After the death of his father and mother-which the
biographer leaves undated, only observing, in the spirit of a true Sufi, that
these events removed the obstacle of filial affection from his path-Abu
Sa'id is said to have roamed for seven years in the deserts between Mayhana and
Baward (Abiward) and between Merv and Sarakhs . He then returned to Mayhana. By
this time Shaykh Abu '1-Fadl, to whom he had hitherto confided all his
perplexities, was dead. Feeling that he required a spiritual Director, Abu Said
set out for Amul in Tabaristan, whither many Sufis were flocking in consequence
of the fame of Shaykh Abu 'l'Abbas
Qassab. He was accompanied by Almad Najjar and Muhammad Fadl, his
disciple and lifelong friend, who is buried at Sarakhs. They journeyed to
Baward and thence along the Gaz valley (Darra-i
Gaz) to Nasa'. At Shah
Mayhana', a village in this valley, having performed
their ablutions and prayers on the rocky bank of a stream, they were
approaching the tomb of Abu 'Ali حوحى), which it was their purpose to visit, when they
saw a lad driving an ox and ploughing, and on the edge of the field an old man
sowing millet-seed. The old man seemed to have lost his wits, for he was always
looking towards the tomb and uttering loud cries.
"We were deeply
moved," said Abu Sa'id, "by his behaviour.
He came to meet us and salaamed and said, 'Can
you lift a burden from my
breast?' 'If God will,' I replied. 'I have been thinking,' he said, 'if
God, when He created the world, had created no creatures in it; and if He had filled it full of millet
from East to West and from earth to heaven; and if then He had created one bird
and bidden it eat one grain of this millet every thousand years; and if, after
that, He had created a man and had kindled in his heart this mystic longing and
had told him that he would never win to his
goal until this bird left not a single millet-seed in the whole world, and that he would continue
until then in this burning pain of love-I have been thinking, it would still be
a thing soon ended !' The words of the old peasant (said Abu Sa'id) made all the mystery plain to me1.''
Nasa, which the travellers skirted but did not
enter, was known amongst Sufis by
the name of "Little Syria " (Sham-i
kuchak), because it boasted as many tombs of saints as Syria of prophets. The author of the Amir says that in his time the cemetery overlooking the town contained 400 sepulchres of great Shaykhs and holy men. The
prevailing belief that the sanctity of the place protected it from devastation he declares to
have been verified by what he himself witnessed during the
massacres and ravages of more than thirty years.
Every calamity that threatened Nasa has been averted by the favour and
kindness of God and by the blessings of the tombs of departed Shaykhs and by
the prayers of the living. Even now (he continues), when religion in Khurasan
is almost extinct and scarcely any vestige of Sufism is left, there are still
in Nasa many excellent Shaykhs and Sufis, richly endowed with inward experiences,
as well as numerous hidden ,aints who exert a powerful and beneficent influence1.
In the upper part of the town. adjoining the cemetery,
stood a convent for Sufis, the Khanaqah-i Sarawi. It had recently been founded by the
amous mystic, Abu 'Ali Daqqaq of Nishapur (ob. A.D. 1O15). The
legend concerning its foundation was that Abu 'AH had
a dream in which the Prophet ordered him to build a house for Sufis, and not
only pointed out the site but also drew a line showing its dimensions. Next
morning, when Abu 'Ali went to the place indicated, he and all those who were
with him saw a line distinctly marked on the ground; and upon this line the
outer wall of the convent was raised 2. When Abu Sa'id arrived at
Yaysama', a village in the neighbourhood of Nasa, he went to visit the tomb of
Ahmad 'Ali Nasawi'. Meanwhile Shaykh AJµnad NaSr5, who was then
in charge of the convent at Nasa, put out his head from his cell and said to
the Sufis seated in the portico, "The royal falcon of the mystic Way (shahbaz-i tariqa)
is passing! Whoever wants to catch him must go to
Yaysama ."
While passing through the village, Abu Sa'id and his friends noticed a butcher who wore a fur gaberdine (pustin} and was seated in his shop, with pieces of meat
hanging in front of him. He came forward to greet the strangers, and bade an
apprentice follow them and see where they lodged. They found quarters in a
mosque beside the river, and when they had performed their ablutions and
prayers the butcher appeared, bringing some viands of which they partook.
"After we had
done," said Abu Sa'id, he asked whether any of us could answer a question.
My friends pointed to me.
He then said,'What is the duty of a slave and what is the duty of a labourer for hire? ' I repliedin terms of the religious law. He asked,' Is there nothing else?' I
remained silent. With a stern look he exclaimed, 'Do not live with one whom
thou hast divorced !' meaning that since I had discarded exoteric knowledge ('ilm-i 'zahir), I must not have any further dealings with it. Then
he added, 'Until thou art free, thou wilt never be a slave1, and until thou art an honest and sincere labourer,
thou wilt never receive the wages of everlasting bliss.'" 2
To digress a little, as the leisurely style of
Oriental biography permits, it will be remembered that on his conversion to Sufism Abu
Sa'id immediately abandoned the study of theology and jurisprudence in which he
had spent so much of his youth. He collected all the volumes that he
had read, together with his own note-books, buried them, and erected over them
a mound of stone and earth (dukani). On this mound he planted a twig of myrtle, which took root and put forth
leaves, and in the course of time became a large tree. The people of Mayhana
used to pluck boughs from it, hoping thereby to win a blessing for their
new-born children, or in order to lay them on their dead before interment. The
author of the Asrar, who had often seen it and admired its beautiful foliage, says that it was destroyed,
with other relics of the saint, during the invasion of Khurasan by the Ghuzz'. When Abu Sa'id buried
his books, it was suggested that he might have done better to give them to some one
who would profit by reading them. "I
wished,"' he said, "that my heart should be entirely void of the consciousness of
having conferred an obligation and of
the recellection of having bestowed a
gift1." Once he was heard wailing in his cell the whole night long. Next
morning he explained that he had been visited with a violent toothache as a
punishment for having dipped into a tome which he took away from a student°.
Here are two more of his sayings on the same
topic:
"Books! ye are excellent
guides, but it is absurd to trouble about a guide after the goal has been
reached." "The first step in this affair (Sufism) is the breaking of
ink-pots° and the tearing-up of books and the forgetting of all kinds of (intellectual)
knowledge'."
We left Abu Sa'id on his way to Amul. He is said to have resided
there for one year in the convent of
which Shaykh Abu 'I'Abbas Qassab was the head. The Shaykh gave him a cell in
the assembly-room (jamc' at-khana), facing the oratory reserved for himself, where he had sat for
forty-one yt:ars in the midst of his disciples 7. It was the custom of Shaykh Abu 'l'Abbas, when he saw a
dervish performing supererogatory prayers at night, to say to him, "Sleep,
my son! All the devotions of your Director are performed for your sake, for
they are of no use to him and he does not need them himself " ; but he
never said this to Abu Sa'id, who used to pray all night and fast all day.
During the night Abu Sa'id kept his eyes continually fixed upon his navel, and
his mind upon the spiritual "states' (ahwal) and acts of the Shaykh. One day the Shaykh had some blood let from his arm. At night the bandage slipped
off, uncovering the vein, so that his garment was stained with blood. As he
came out of the oratory, Abu Sa'id, who was always on the watch to serve him,
ran up to him, washed
and bandaged his arm, and taking from him the soiled garment offered his own,
which the Shaykh put on, while Abu Sa'id clad himself in a khashan1 that he had. Then he washed and cleaned the Shaykh's
garment, hung it on the rope (habl') to dry, rubbed and folded it, and brought it to the Shaykh. "It
is thine,'
said the Shaykh, "putit on!" "Nay," cried Abu Sa'id,
"let the Shaykh put it on me with his own blessed hand!"
This was the
second gaberdine (khirqa) with which
Abu Sa'id was invested, for he had already received one from Abu 'Abd al-Rahman
al-Sulami of Nishapur .
Here the
author of the Asrar introduces a
disquisition on the meaning of such investiture , with the object of refuting
those who hold that a Sufi ought not to accept a khirqa from more than one Pir. In the first place, he
describes the endowments in virtue of which the Pir is privileged to invest a
disciple with the khirqa. ThePir should be worthy of imitation, i.e., he should have a perfect knowledge, both theoretical
and practical, of the three stages of the mystical life-the Law, the Path, and the Truth; he should also be entirely purged of fleshly
attributes (sifat-i bashariyya), so that nothing of his lower "self" (najs) remains in him. When such a Pir has become thoroughly
acquainted with a disciple's acts and thoughts and has proved them by the test
of experience and, through spiritual insight, knows that he is qualified to advance
beyond t~e position of a famulus (maqam-i khidmat)--whether his being thus qualified is due to the training which
he has received from this Pir or to the guidance and direction of another Pir
possessing a like authority-then he lays his hand on the disciple's head and
invests him with the khirqa. By the act of investiture he announces his conviction
that the disciple is fit to associate with the Sufis, and if he is a
person of credit and renown amongst them, his declaration carries the same
weight as, in matters of law, the testimony of an honest witness
and the sentence of an incorruptible judge. Accordingly, whenever an unknown
dervish comes into a convent or wishes to join a company of Sufis, they ash.
him, "Who was the Pir that taught thee'?" and "From whose hand
didst thou receive the khirqa?" Sufi'.s recognise no relationship but these two, which
they regard as all-important. They do not allow any one to associate with them,
unless he can show to their satisfaction that he is lineally connected in both
these ways with a fully accredited Pir.
Having insisted that the whole Path of Sufism
turns upon the Pit (madar-i tariqa bar pir ast'), the author of the Asrar comes to the question in dispute-" Is it right to
receive investiture from the hands of more than one ? " He answers, in
effec+, ' Yes, it is right, provided that the second investiture is not
accompanied with the intention of annulling the first4.'' His
argument is a universal principle, which can be stated in a few words.
Ultimately and essentially all things are one. Difference and duality are
phenomena which disappear when unity is reached. The sayings of the great
mystics differ in expression,
but their meaning is the same. There are many religions, but only one God;
diverse ways, but only one goal. Hence those who raise an objection against the
double investiture proclaim themselves to be still on the plane of dualism,
which the Pirs have transcended. In reality, all Sufis, all Pirs, and all khirqas
are one. Amidst these sublime truths it
is rather a shock to meet with the remark that the novice who receives two khirqas
resembles a man who calls two witnesses
to attest his competence5.
On his departure from Amul, Abu Sa'id was
directed by Shaykh Abu 'l'Abbas Qassab to
return once more to Mayhana'. This event approximately coincides with the
beginning of a new period in his spiritual history. The long discipline of the
Path, broken by fleeting visions and ecstasies, brought him at last into the
full and steady splendour of illumination. The veil, which had hitherto been
lifted only to fall again, was now burst asunder. Henceforth no barrier (hijb) in the shape of 'self"-that insidious obstacle
which it is the whole business of the via purgativa to remove-could
even temporarily shut off his consciousness of the Unseen. While conversing
with Abu 'Ali Daqqaq, Abu Sa'id asked him whether this experience was ever
permanent. 'No," said Abu 'Ali. Abu Sa'id bowed his head, then he repeated
the question and received the same answer, whereupon he bowed his head as
before. On being asked for the third time, Abu 'Ali replied, "If it ever
is permanent, it is extremely rare." Abu Sa'id clapped his hands joyfully
and exclaimed several times, This "-referring to his own
case- ''is one of these rarities&." Continuous though his illumination
may have been, it was not of uniform intensity, but was subject to the
fluctuations which are described in the technical language of Sufism as
contraction (qabd) and expansion (bast)°. Often, when he fell into the
former state, he would go about asking questions of every one, in the hope of
hearing some words that might relieve his oppression'. When qabd was violent, he would visit the tomb of Shaykh Abu 'I-Fadl Hasan at
Sarakhs. His eldest son, Abu Tahir, relates that one day Abu Sa'id, while
preaching, began to weep, and the whole congregation wept with him. Giving
orders that his horse should be saddled, he immediately set out for Sarakls,
accompanied by all who were present. As soon as they entered the desert, his
!eeling of "contraction" was dispelled. He began to speak freely,
while those around him shouted with joy. On arriving at Sarakhs he turned aside
from the highroad in the direction of the tomb of
Shaykh Abu 'i-Fadl Hasan and bade the qawwai sing this verse
:
Here is the mansion of delight, the
home of bounty and of grace!
All eyes towards the Ka'ba turn, but
ours to the Beloved's face.
During the qawwal's chant Abu Sa'id and the dervishes with bare heads and feet circumambulated th:
tomb, shrieking ecstatically. When quiet was restored, he said, "Mark the date ot this day, for you will never see a day like this again.'' Afterwards he used to tell any of his disciples who thouglit of making
the pilgrimage to Mecca that they must visit the tomb of Shaykh Abu I-Fad! Hasan and perform seven circumambulations therc1.
!t is stated on the authority of Abu Sa'id's grandson, Shaykhu 'l-Islam Abu Sa'id, who was the grandfather of
Muhammad ibnu 'I-Munawwar, the compiler of
the A srar, that Abu Sa'id attained to perfect illumination at
the age of forty'. That statement may he approximately correct, though we cannot help regarding as suspicious its combination with the theory foun<led on a passage in the Koran 3, that no one under forty years of age ever
attained to the rank of prophecy or saintship,
excepting only Yahya ibn
Zakariyya (John the Baptist) and Jesus. At this point
the biographer concludes the first chapter of his work, describing Abu Sa'id's
conversion and novitiate, and enters on the mature period of his mystical life-the period of illumination and contemplation.
In the foregoing pages we have been mainly concerned with his progress as an ascetic. We are now to see him as Theosophist and Saint. It must be added, however, that in this higher stage he did not discontinue his austerities. He took pains to conceal them, and all our information
about them is derived from allusions in his public speeches or from the exhortations which he addressed to novices. According to his disciples, after becoming an adept there was no rule or practice of the Prophet that he left performed
able for Abu Sa'id's biography, consisting for
the most part of miscellaneous anecdotes, are of such a kind that it is
impossible to give a connected account of events in their chronological order.
Concerning his movements we know nothing of importance beyond the following
facts:
(a) He left Mayhana and journeyed to Nishapur, where he stayed for a
considerable time.
(b) Shortly before quitting Nishapur he paid a visit to
Abu 'I-Hasan Kharaqani at Kharaqan'.
(c) Finally, he returned from Nishapur to Mayhana.
The anecdotes in the second chapter of the Asrar
form
three groups in correspondence with this local
division:
1.Nishapur (pp. 68-174).
2.Kharaqan (pp. 175-190).
3.Mayhana (pp. 191-247).
Various circumstances indicate that his residence
in Nishapur was a long one, probably extending over several years, but
we find no precise statement2, and the evidence
that can be obtained from his reported meetings with famous contemporaries is
insufficient, in my opinion, to serve as a basis for
investigation. His visit to Kharaqan supplies a terminus ad
quem, for Abu 'l-Hasan Kharaqani is
known to have died in AH.
425 = A.D. 1033 -4. Unless the stories of his friendship with Qushayri are inventions, he can
hardly have settled in Nishapur before A.H. 415 = A.D.
1024, since Qushayri (born A.H. 376 = A.D. 986) is described at the date of Abu Sa'id's arrival as a celebrated teacher with
numerous pupils.
For the reasons mentioned above, we must now
content ourselves with the barest outline of a narrative and seek compensation
in episodes, incidents, and details which often reveal the personality and
character of Abu Sa'id in a surprising manner
and at the same time kt us
see how the monastic life was lived and by what methods it was organised.
When Abu Sa'id set out for Kbhapt'tr, he did not travel alone, but was attended by the disciples
whom he had already gathered round him at Mayhana, while many new converts
joined the party at Tus. Here he preached to crowded assemblies and moved his audience to tears. On one of these
occasions an infant fell from the gallery (bam), which was thronged with
women. Abu Sa'id exclaimed, "Save
it!" A hand appeared in the air and ca11gM the child and placed it unhurt on the :flour. The spectators
raised a great cry and scenes of ecstasy cnsned. "I swear," says Sayyid Abu 'Ali, who
relates the story,
"that I saw this with mv own eyes. If I did not sec it, may both my eyes become blind 1 ! "
At Tus Abu Sa'id is
said tu have passed by a number of children standing together in the street of the Christians (kuy-i tarsdydn) and to have pointed out one of them to his companions,
saying, "If you wish to look at the prime minister of the world, there he is!" The boy, whose future eminence was thus miraculously
foretold, and who,
forty years afterwards, repeated those prophetic words to a great-grandson of Abu Sa'id was the illustrious statesman Nizamu '1-Mulk (born A.D. IOI 8) 2.
On entering Nishapur Abu Sa'id was met by an influential patron of the Sufis, Khwaja Mahmud-i Murid, who installed him and his disciples in the monaskry (klzdnaqdh) of Abu 'Alf Tarasusi in the street of
the carpet-beaters(?) 3, which seems to have been his
headquarters as Jong as he remained in Nishapur'. His preaching and, above all,
the C'Xtraordinary powers of telepathy which he displaved in pul,lic made many converts and brought in large sums of money .
Hasan-i Mu'addib-afterwards his principal
famulus and major-domo relates his own experience as follows:
When people were proclaiming everywhere in Nishapur that a. Sufi Pir had arrived from Mayhana and
was preaching sermons in the street of the carpet-beaters and was reading men's
secret thoughts, I said
to myself-for I hated the Sufis-'How can a Sufi preach, when he knows nothing
about theology? How can he read men's thoughts, when God has not given
knowledge of the Unseen to any prophet or to any other person? " One day I went to the hall where he preached, with the intention
of putting him to the proof, and sat down in front of his chair. I was handsomely
dressed and had a turban of fine Tabari stuff wound on my head. While the
Shaykh was speaking, I regarded him with feelings of hostility and disbelief.
Having finished his sermon, he asked for clothes on behalf of a dervish.
Every one offered something. Then he asked fer a turban. I thought of giving
mine, but again I reflected that it had been brought to me from Amul as a present
and that it was worth ten Nishapuri dinars, so I resolved not to give it. The
Shaykh made a second appeal, and the same thought occurred to me, but I
rejected it once more. An old man who was seated beside me asked, "O
Shaykh! does God plead with His creatures? " He
answered, "Yes, hut He does not plead
more than twice for the sake of a Tabari turban. He has already spoken twice to the man sitting beside you and has told him to give to
this dervish the turban which he is wearing, but he refuses to do so, because it is worth ten pieces of gold and was
brought to him from Amul as a
present." On hearing these words, I rose, trembling, and went forward to
the Shaykh and kissed his foot and offered my turban and my whole suit of
clothes to the dervish. Every feeling of dislike and incredulity was gone, I
became a Moslem anew, bestowed on the Shaykh all the money and
wealth I possessed, and devoted myself to his service1.
While Abu Sa'id was
enthusiastically welcomed by the Sufis of Nishapur, he met with formidable
opposition from the parties adverse to them', namely, the Karramis',
whose chief was Abu Bakr Ishaq, and
the 4shib-i ray (liberal
theologians) and Shi'ites led by Qadi Sa'id. The lenders of those parties drew up a. written charge against hin, to the following effect:
A certain man has come hither irom Mayhara and
pretends to be a Sufi. He preaches sermons in the course of which he recites poetry but does not quote the Traditions of the Frnphet. He holds sumptuous feasts and music is played by
his orders, whilst the young men dance and eat sweetmeats+ and roasted fowls
and all kinds of fruit. He declares that
he is an ;:iscc,i-:, but this is neither asceticism nor
Suifisin. Multitudes have joined him and arc being led astray.
Unless measures be taken to repair ii, the mischief will soon become universal. •
The authorities at the court of Ghazna, to whom the document was sent,
returned it with the following ansur written on the back: "Let the leaders
of the Shafi'itcs and Ijanafites sit in council and inquire into his case and duly inflict upon him whatever penalty the religious law
demands." This answer was received on a Thursday.
The enemies of Abu Sa'id rejoiced and immediately held a meeting and determined
that on Saturday he and all the Sufis should be gibbeted in the
market-place. His friends were anxious and alarmed by rumonrs of what was impending,
but none dared tell him, since he desired to have nothing communicated to him,
and in fact always knew by miraculous intuition all that was going. on.
\\'hen we had performed the afternoon prayers
(says Hasan-i Mu'addib), the Shaykh called me and asked, "How many are the Safis?" I replied, "A hundred and twenty-eighty travellers (musafir) and forty residents (muqim)." ''To-morrow," said he, "what will you give them for dinner?" "Whatever
the.Shaykh bids," I replied. "You must place before each one," said he, "a lamb's head and provide plenty of crushed sugar to sprinkle on the lamb's brains, and let each one have a pound of khalifati sweets, and see that there is no lack of
aloes-wood for burning and rosewater
for spraying over them, and get well-laundered linen robes.
Lay the table in the congregational mosque, in order that those who
slander me behind my back may behold with their own eyes the viands that God
sends from the unseen world to his elect." Now, at the moment when the
Shaykh gave me these directions, there was not a single loaf in the store-room
of tire convent, and in the whole city I did not know any one of-whom I could
venture to beg a piece of silver, because these rumours had shaken the faith of
ail our friends; nor had I courage to ask the Shaykh how I should procure the
things which he required. It was
near sunset. I left him and stood in the street of the carpet-beaters, utterly
at a loss what to do, until the sun had almost set and the merchants were
closing their shops and going home. When the hour of evening prayer arrived and
it was now dark, a young man running to his house-for he was late-saw rne as I
stood there, and cried, O Hasan
! what are yon doing?" I told him that the Shaykh had given me certain
orders, that I had no money, and that I would stay there till morning, if
necessary, since I durst not return. Throwing back his sleeve, he bade me put
my hand in. I did so and drew forth a handful of gold, with which I returned in
high spirits to the convent. On making my purchases, I found that the sum was
exactly right-not a dirlem too much or too little. Early next morning I got the
linen robes and laid the table in the congregational mosque, as the Shaykh had
directed. He came thither with all his disciples, while many spectators
occupied the galleries above. Now, when Qadi Sa'id and Ustad Abu Bakr Karrami
were informed that the Shaykh had prepared a feast for the Safis in the mosque,
Qadi Sa'id
exclaimed, "Let them make merry to-day and eat roast lamb's head, for
to-morrow their own heads will be devoured by crows"; and Abu Bakr said,
"Let them grease their bellies to-day, for to-morrow they will grease
the scaffold." These threats were conveyed to the Sufis and made a painful
impression. As soon as they finished the meal and washed their hands, the
Shaykh said to me, 'Hasan! take the Sufis' prayer-rugs to the chancel (maqsura) after
Qadi Sa'id (who was the official preacher), for to-day we will perform our
prayers under his leadership." Accordingly, I carried twenty prayer-rugs
into the chancel and laid them in two rows; there was no room for any more. Qadi Sa'id mounted the pulpit and delivered a
hostile address; then he came down and performed
the service of prayer.
As soon as he pronounced the final salutation (salam),
the Shaykh rose and departed, without waiting for the customary
devotions (sunna). Qadi Sa'id faced towards him, whereupon the
Shaykh looked at him askance. The (adi
at once bowed his head. When the Shaykh and his disciples returned to
the convent, he said," lja~an ! go to the Kirmani market-place. There is a
confectioner there who has fine cakes. made of white sesame and pistachio
kernels. Buy ten maunds' worth. A little further on you will find a man who
sells raisins. Buy ten maunds' worth and clean them. Tie up the cakes and
raisins in two white cioths (du izar-i futa-i kafuri) and put them on your head and take them to Ustad
Abu Bakr Ishaq and tell him that he must break his fast with them
to-night." I followed the Shaykh's instructions in
every particular. When I gave his
message to Abu Bakr Islaq, the colour went out of his face and he sat in
amazement, biting his fingers. After a few minutes he bade me be seated and
having summoned Bu 'l Qasimak, his chamberlain, despatched him to Qadi
Sa'id. "Tell him," said he, "that I withdraw from our
arrangement, which was that to-morrow we shoulci bring this Shaykh and the
Sufis to trial and severely punish them. If he asks why, let him know that last
night I resolved to fast. To-day, while riding on my ass to the congregational
mosque, I passed through the Kirmani marketplace and saw some fine cakes in a
confectioner's shop. It occurred to me that on returning from prayers I would
send to purchase them and break my fast with them to-night. Further on, I saw
some raisins which I thought wild he very nice with the cakes, and I resolved to buy
some. When IE me
home, I had
forgotten all about the matter and I had not spoken of it tu any one. Now
Shaykh Abu Sa'id sends me the same cakes and raisins which I noticed this
morning and desired to buy, and bids me break my fast with them! I have no course
but to abandon proceedings against a man who is so perfectly acquainted with
the thoughts of his fellow-creatures." The chamberlain went to Qadi Sa'id and
returned with the following message: "I was on the point of sending to you
in reference to this affair. To-day the Shaykh was present when I conductud
public worship. No sooner had I pronounced
the salutation than he went off without performing the sunnat. I turned
towards him, intending to ask how his neglect of devotions on a Friday was
characteristic of ascetics and Sufis and to
make this the foundation of a bitter attack upon him. He looked askance at me.
I almost fainted with fear. He seemed to be a hawk and I a sparrow which
he was about to destroy. I struggled to speak but could not utter a word.
To-day he has shown to me his power and majesty. I have no quarrel with him. If
the Sultan has issued an edict against him you were responsible. You were the
principal and I was only a subordinate." When the chamberlain had
delivered this message, Abu Bakr Ishaq turned to me and said: "Go and tell
your Shaykh that Abu Bakr Ishaq Karrami with 20,000 followers, and Qadi Sa'id with 30,000, and the Sultan with ro0,000 men
and 750 war elephants, made ready for battle and tried to
subdue him, and that he has defeated all their armies with ten maunds of cake
and raisins and has routed right wing, left wing, and centre. He is free to
hold his religion, as we are free to hold ours. Ye have your
religion and I have my religion"
I came back to the Shaykl (said Hasan-i Mu'addib)
and told him all that had passed. He turned to his disciples and said,
"Since yesterday ye have been trembling for fear that the scaffold would
be soaked with your blood. Nay, that is the lot of such as Husayn-i Mansur
Haliaj, the most eminent mystic of his time in East and west. Scaffolds drip
with the blood of heroes, not of cowards." Then he bade the qawwal sing these
lines:
With shield and quiver meet thine enemy !
Vaunt not th'self but make thy vau:i ot Me.
Let Fate be cool as water, hot as fire,
Do thou live happy, whichsoe'er it be!
The qawwal sang and all the disciples began to shout and fling
their gaberdines away.
After that day no one in Nishapur ventured to
speak a word in disparagement of the Sufis'.
The story may not be entirely fictitious. It shows, at any
rate, that Moslems ascribe a miraculous character to telepathic powers, nor
does it exaggerate the awe inspired by a holy man who displays them effectively.
Most of Abu Sa'id's recorded miracles are of this kind. That Mohammedan saints
have often been thought-readers seems to me beyond question, whatever doubts one may feel as to a great part of the
evidence preserved in their legends. Whether Abu Sa'id was actually threatened
with legal prosecution or not, we can well believe that the orthodox parties
were scandalised by his luxurious manner of living and by the unlicensed
practices in which he and his disciples indulged. He made no attempt to rebut
the charges brought against him, and from numerous anecdotes related by those
who held him in veneration it is clear that if the document said to have been
sent to Ghazna be genuine, his accusers set down nothing but what was
notoriously true. They gained sympathy, if not active support, from many Sufis who perceived the danger of antinomianism and desired above al' things
to secure tbe position of Sufism within Islam. Oi this party the chief
representative in Nishapur was Abu 'l-Qasim Qushayri, we!l known as the author
of al-Risilatu 'l-Qushayriyya fi
'ilmi 'l-tasawwuf,
which he composed in A.1. 437 A.D. 1045-6 with the avowed object of
de-muustrnting that the history and traditions of Sufism arc bound up with
strict observance of the Mohammedan religious law.
The biographer gives an interesting but probably
untruthful account of Abu Sa'id's public and private relations with Qushayri,
who is depicted as having been induced by personal experience of his miraculous
intuition to repent of the hostile feelings with which he regarded the
new-comer. During the first year of Abu Sa'id's stay in Nishapur, his
prayer-meetings were attended by seventy disciples of Qushayri, and finally he
himself agreed to accompany them. While Abu Sa'id was preaching, Qushayri
reflected: "This man is inferior to me in learning and we are equal in
devotion: whence did he get this power of reading men's thoughts?" Abu
Sa'id at once paused in his discourse and fixing his eye on Qushayri reminded
him of a certain ritual irregularity of which he had been guilty in private on
the preceding day. Qushayri was dumbfounded. Abu Sa'id, as soon as he
left the pulpit, approached him and they embraced each other1. Their harmony, however, was not yct complete, for
they differed in the great controversy, which had long been
raging, whether audition (samd') was
permi-sible; in other words, "Did the religious law sanction tle use of music, singing, and dancing as
a means of stimulating ecstasy1?" One day Qushayri, whiie passing Abu Said's
convent, looked in and saw him taking part with his disciples in an ecstatic
dance. He thought to himself that, according to the Law, no one who dances like
this is accepted as a witness worthy of credit. Next day he met Abu Sa'id on
his way to a feast. After they had exchanged salutations, Abu Sa'id said to
him, "When have yon seen me seated amongst the witnesses? " Qushayri
understood that this was the answer to his unspoken thought 2. He now dismissed from his mind all
unfriendly feelings, and the two became so intimate that not a day passed
without one of them visiting the other', while on Qushayri's invitation Abu Sa'id
conducted a service once a week in the former's convent'.
These anecdotes and others of the same tendency may be viewed, not as
records of what happened, but rather as illustrations of the fact that in
balancing the rival claims of religious law and mystical truth Qushayri and Abu
Sa'id were inclined by temperament to take opposite sides. In
every case, needless to say, the legalist is worsted by the theosophist,
whose inner light is his supreme and infallible authority. The following
stories, in which Qushayri plays his usual role, would not have been worth
translating unless they had incidentally sketched for us the ways and manners
of the dervishes whom Abu Sa'id ruled over.
One day Shaykh Abu Sa'id with Abu 'l-Qasim Qushayri and a large number
of Sufi disciples
were going through the marketplace of Nishapur. A certain dervish let his eye
fall on some boiled turnips set out for sale at the door of a shop and felt a
craving for them. The Shaykh knew it by clairvoyance (irasa). He pulled in the reins of his horse and said to Hasan, "Go to that man's shop
and buy all the turnips and beetroot that he has and bring them along."
Meanwhile he and Qushayri and the disciples entered a neighbouring mosque. When Hasan returned with the
turnips and beetroot, the dinner-call was
given and the dervishes began to eat. The Shaykh joined them, but Qushayri
refrained and secretly disapproved, because the mosque was in the middle of the
marketplace and was open in front. He said to himself, "They are eating
in the street! " The Shaykh, as was his custom, took no notice. Two or
three days afterwards he and Qushayri with their disciples were present at a
splendid feast. The table was covered with viands of all sorts. Qushayri wished
very much to partake of a certain dish, but he could not reach it and was
ashamed to ask for it. He felt extremely annoyed. The Shaykh turned to him and said, "Doctor,
when food is offered, you refuse it, and when you want it, it is not offered." Qushayri silently begged God to
forgive him for what he had done1.
One day Qushayri unfrocked a dervish and severely
censured him and ordered him to leave the city. The reason was that the dervish
admired Isma'ilak-i Daqqaq, one of Qushayri's disciples, and had requested a
certain friend to make a feast and invite the singers (qawwalan) and bring Isma'ilak with him. "Let me enjoy his company this
evening (he pleaded) and shout in ecstasy at the sight of his beauty, for I am on fire with love for him." The
friend consented and gave a feast which was followed by music and singing (same'). On hearing
of this, Qushayri stripped the dervish of his gaberdine and banished him from
Nishapur. When the news came to the convent of Shaykh Abu Sa'id, the dervishes
were indignant, but they said nothing about it to the Shaykh, knowing that he
was acquainted by clairvoyance with all that passed. The Shaykh called Hasan-i
Mu'addib and bade him make ready a fine banquet and invite the reverend Doctor
(Qushayri) and all the Sufis in the town. "You must get plenty of roast
lamb," he said, "and sweetmeats, and light a great many
candles." At nightfall, when the company assembled, the Shaykh and the
Doctor took their seats together on a couch, and the Sufis sat in front of it
in three rows, a hundred men in each row. Khwaja Abu Tahir, the Shaykh's eldest
son, who was exceedingly handsome, presided over the table. As soon as the time came for dessert, Hasan placed a
large bowl of lawzina before the Shaykh and the Doctor. After they had helped themselves, the
Shaykh said to AM Tahir, "Take this bowl and go to yonder dervish, Bu 'Ali
Turshizi, and put half of this lawzina in his mouth and eat the other half yourself."
Abu Tahir went to the dervish, and kneeling respectfully before him, took a
portion of the sweetmeat, and after swallowing a mouthful put the other half in
the dervish's mouth. The dervish raised a loud cry and rent his garment and ran
forth from the convent, shouting " Labbayk !" The Shaykh said, "Abu Tahir! I charge you to wait upon that
dervish. Take his staff and ewer and follow him and be assiduous in serving him
until he reaches the Ka'ba." When the dervish saw Abu Tahir coming after
him, he stopped and asked him where he was going. Abu Tahir said, "My
father has sent me to wait upon you," and told him the whole story. Bu
'Ali returned to the Shaykh and exclaimed, "For God's sake, bid AM Tahir
leave me !" The Shaykh did so)whereupon the dervish bowed and departed. Turning to
Qushayri, the Shaykh said, "What need is there to censure and unfrock ~nd disgrace a
dervish whom half a, mouthful of lawzina can drive from the city and cast away into the Hijaz? For four years he
has been devoted to my Abu Tahir, and except on your account I should never
have divulged his secret." Qushayri rose and prayed God to forgive him and
said, "I have done wrong.
Every day I must learn from you a
new lesson in Sufism." All the Sufis rejoiced and there were manifestations of
ecstasy.
Abu Sa'id's invariable success in conciliating
his opponents is perhaps the
greatest miracle that his biographers record, but their belief in it
will hardly be shared by us. His mode of life in Nishapur, as depicted by his own friends and
followers, must have shocked Sufis of the old
school who had been taught to model themselves upon the saintly heroes of Moslem asceticism. What were they to think of a man whose visitors found him lolling on cushions, like a lord,
and having his feet massaged by one of his dervishes2? A man who prayed every night that God
would give his disciples something nice to
eat' and spent all the money
he received on costly entertainments?
Could their objections be removed by exhibitions
of thoughtreading or by appeals to the divine right of the saint-
Thou art thus because thy lot is thus and thus,
I am so because my lot is so and sol
or by exhortations to regard the inward nature
and disposition rather than the outward act2? From the following anecdote it appears that such arguments did
not always suffice.
When Abu Sa'id was at Nishapur, a merchant brought him a present of a large bundle of
aloes-wood and a thousand Nishapuri dinars. The Shaykh called Hasan-i Mu'addib
and bade him prepare a feast; and in accordance with his custom he handed over
the thousand dinars to him for that purpose. Then he ordered that an oven
should be placed in the hall and that the whole bundle of aloes-wood should be
put in it and burned, saying, "I do this that my neighbours may enjoy its
perfume with me." He also ordered a great number of candles to be lighted,
though it was still day. Now, there was at that time in Nishapur a very
powerful inspector of police, who held rationalistic views° and detested the
Sufis. This man came into the monastery and said to the Shaykh, " What are
you doing? What an unheard-of extravagance, to light candles in the daytime and
burn a whole bundle of aloes-wood at once ! It is against the law 4." The Shaykh replied, " I did not know that it is against the
law. Go and blow out these candles." The inspector went and puffed at
them, but the flame flared over his face and hair and dress, and most of his
body was scorched. "Did not you know," said the Shaykh, "that
Whoever tries to blow a candle out
That God hath lighted, his moustache gets burnt?
"
The inspector fell at the Shaykh's feet and
became a convert.
While the relations which Abu Sa'id established
with the jurists and theologians of Nishapur cannot have been friendly. it is
likely enough that he convinced his adversaries of the wisdom or necessity of leaving him alone. In order
to understand their attitude, we must remember the
divinity that hedges the Oriental saint not merely in the eyes of mystics but
amongst all classes of society. He wield§ an illimitable and mysterious power
derived from Allah, whose chosen instrument he is. As his favour confers
blessing, so his displeasure is fraught with calamity. Countless tales are told
of vengeance inflicted on those who have annoyed or insulted him, or shown any
want of respect in his presence. Even if his enemies are willing to run the
risk, they must still reckon with the widely spread feeling that it is impious
to criticise the actions of holy men, which are inspired and guided by Allah
Himself.
Naturally, Abu Sa'id required large sums of money for
maintaining the convent with, perhaps, two or three hundred disciples, on such
a liberal scale of living as he kept up. A certain amount' was contributed by
novices who, on their conversion, put into the common stock all the worldly
goods they possessed, but the chief part of the revenues came in the shape of
gifts from lay brethren or wealthy patrons or persons who desired the Shaykh to
exert his spiritual influence on their behalf. No doubt, much food and money was
offered and accepted; much also was collected by Hasan-i Mu'addib, who seems to
have been an expert in this business. When voluntary contributions failed, the
Shaykh's credit with the tradesmen of Nishapur enabled him to supply the needs
of his flock. Here are some anecdotes which describe how he triumphed over
financial difficulties.
The 'Amid of Khurasan relates as follows:
The cause of my devotion to Shaykh Abu Sa'id and his
disciples was this. When l first came to Nishapur, my name was
Hajib Muhammad and I had no servant to attend upon me. Every morning I used to
pass the gate of the Shaykh's convent and look in, and whenever I saw the
Shaykh, that day brought me a blessing, so 'that I soon began to regard the
sight of him as a happy omen. One night I thought that on the morrow I would go
and pay my respects to him and take him a present. I took a thousand silver dirhems of the money which had been recently
coined-thirty dirhems to the dinar-and wrapped them in a piece of paper, intending to visit the Shaykh next day and lay them
before him. I was alone in the house at the time when I formed
this plan, nor did I speak of it to any one. Afterwards it occurred to me that a thousand dirhems are a great sum, and five hundred
will be ample; so I divided the money into two equal parts, which I placed in
two packets. Next morning, after prayers, I went to visit the Shaykh, taking
one packet with me and leaving the other behind my pillow. As soon as we had
exchanged greetings, I gave the five hundred dirhems to Hasan-i Mu'addib, who
with the utmost courtesy approached the Shaykh and whispered in his ear'Hajib
Muhammad has brought some pieces of money (shikasta-i)."
The Shaykh said, "God bless
him! but he has not brought the full amount: he has left half of it behind his
pillow. Hasan owes a thousand dirhems. Let him give Hasan the whole sum in
order that Hasan may satisfy his creditors and be freed from anxiety." On
hearing these words, I was dumbfounded and immediately sent a servant to bring
the remainder of the. money for Hasan. Then I said to the Shaykh, " Accept
me." He took my hand and said, "It is finished. Go in
peace',"
During Shaykh Abu Sa'id's stay in Nishapur
Hasan-i Mu'addib, his steward, had contracted many debts in order to provide
the dervishes with food. For a long time he received no gift of money and his
creditors were dunning him. One day they came in a body to the
convent gate. The Shaykh told Hasan to let them in. Op being admitted, they bowed
respectfully to the Shaykh and sat down. Meanwhile a boy passed the gate,
crying "Sweet cakes (natif) !" "Go and fetch him," said the Shaykh. When he
was brought in, the·Shaykh bade Hasan seize the cakes and serve them out to
the Sufis. The boy demanded his money, but the Shaykh only said, "It will
come." After- waiting an hour, the boy said again, "I want my
money" and got the same reply. At the end of another hour, having been put
off. for the third time, he sobbed, "My master will beat me," and burst into tears; Just then some one entered the convent and placed a purse of gold before the Shaykh, saying, "So-and-so has sent it and begs,
that.you will pray for him." The Shaykh
ordered Hasan to pay the creditors and the cake-boy. It was exactly the
sum required, neither more nor less.
The Shaykh said, "It came in
consequence of the tearsofthislad'."
There was in Nishapur a rich broker, Bu "Amr by
name, who was such an enthusiastic admirer (muhibbi) of
Shaykh Abu Sa'id that he entreated Hasan-i Mu'addib to apply to him for
anything that the Shaykh might want, and not to be afraid of asking too much.
One day (said Hasan) the Shaykh had already sent me to him seven times with
divers requisitions which he satisfied in full. At sunset the Shaykh told me to
go to him once more and procure some rosewater, aloes-wood, and camphor. I felt
ashamed to return to him; however, I went. He was closing his shop. When ·he
saw me, he cried, "Hasan !
what is it? You come late." I expressed to him the shame which I
felt for having called upon him so frequently in one day and I made him
acquainted with the Shaykh's instructions. He opened the shop-door and gave me
all that I needed; then he said, "Since you are ashamed to apply to me for
these trifles, to-morrow I will give you a thousand dinars on the security of
the caravanseray and the bath-house, in order that you may use that sum for
ordinary expenses and come to me for matters of greater importance." I
rejoiced, thinking that now I was quit of this ignoble begging. When I brought
the rose-water, aloes-wood, and camphor to the Shaykh, he regarded me with
disapproval and said, "Hasan ! go and purge thy heart of all desire for worldly vanities, that I may let thee associate
with the Sufis.' I went to the convent gate and stood with bare head and feet
and repented and asked God to forgive me and wept bitterly and rubbed my face
on the ground; but the Shaykh did not speak to me that night. Next day when he
preached in the hall, he paid no attention to Bu
'Amr, although he was accustomed to look at him every day in the course of his
sermon. As soon as he had finished, Bu 'Amr came to
me and said, "Hasan ! what ails the Shaykh? He has not looked at me
to-day." I said that I did not know, and then I told him what had passed
between the Shaykh and me. Bu 'Amt went up to the Shaykh's chair and kissed it,
saying, "O prince of the
age, my life depends on thy look. To-day thou hast not looked at me. Tell me
what I have done, that I may ask God's forgiveness and bestech thee to pardon
my offence." The Shaykh said," Will you fetch me down from the
highest heaven to earth and demand a pledge from me in return for a thousand
dinars? If you wish me to be pleased with you, give me the money now: and you
will see how little it weighs in the scales of my lofty spirit!" Bu 'Amr
immediately went home and brought back two purses,
each containing five hundred Nishapuri dinars. The Shaykh handed them to me
and said, "Buy
oxen and sheep. Make a hotchpotch (harisa) of the beef and a zira-ba of the mutton, seasoned with saffron and otto of roses. Get plenty of lawzina and rose-water and aloes-wood,, and light a
thousand candles in the daytime. Lay the tables at Pushangan (a beautiful
village, which is a pleasure resort
of the people of Nishapur), and proclaim in the city that all are welcome who
wish to eat food that entails neither obligation in this world nor calling to
account in the next." More than two thousand men assembled at Pu.shangan.
The Shaykh came with his disciples and entertained high and low and with his
own blessed hand sprinkled rose-water over his guests while they partook of the
viands.
Abu Sa'id's methods of raising money are further
illustrated by the story in which it is recorded that, while preaching in
public, he held up a sash and declared that he must have three hundred dinars in
exchange for it, which sum was at once offered by an old woman in the
congregation1• On another
occasion, being in debt to the amount of five hundred dinars, he sent a message
to a certain Abu 'l-Fadl Furati that he was about to visit him. Abu 'l-Fadl entertained
him sumptuously for three days, and on the fourth day presented him with five
hundred dinars, adding a hundred for travelling expenses and a hundred more as
a gift. The Shaykh said, "I pray that God may take from thee the riches of
this world." 'Nay," cried Abu 'l-Fadl, "for had I iacked riches,
the blessed feet of the Shaykh would never have come here, and I should never
have waited upon him and gained from him spiritual power and peace." Abu
Sa'id then said, "O God ! do not let him be a prey to
worldliness: make it a means of
his spiritual advancement, not a plague!" In consequence of this prayer
Abu 'l-Fadl and his family prospered greatly and reached high positions in
church and state2. Apparently, Abu Sa'id did not
scruple to employ threats when the prospective donor disappointed him. And his
threats were not to be despised! For example, there was the Amir Mas'ud who,
after once paying the Shaykh's debts, obstinately refused to comply with a second demand; whereupon Abu Sa'id
caused the following verse to be put into his hands by Hasan-i Mu'addib:
Perform what thou hast promised, else thy might And valour will not save thy life from me!
The Amir flew into a rage and drove Hasan from
his presence. On being told of this Abu Sa'id
uttered no word. That same night Mas'ud, as is the custom of Oriental princes,
slipped out from his tent in disguise to make a
round of the camp and hear what the soldiers were saying. The royal tent was
guarded by a number of huge Ghuri dogs, kept in chains by day but allowed to roam at night, of such ferocity that they would tear
to pieces any stranger who approached. They did not recognise their master, and
before any one could answer his-cries for help he was a mangled corpse1•
Stories of this type, showing the saint as a
minister of divine wrath and vengeancde, must have influenced many
superstitious minds. The average Moslem's fatalism and belief in clairvoyance
lead him to justify acts which to us seem desperately immoral. Abu Sa'id is said to
have corresponded with his famous contemporary, Ibn Sina (Avicenna) I cannot regard as
historical the account of their meeting in the monastery at Nishapur, or the report
that after they had conversed with each other for three days and nights the
philosopher said to his pupils, "All that I know he sees," while the
mystic declared, " All that I see he knows3.'! Even less probable is the
statement that Avicenna's mystical writings were the result of a miracle wrought
by Abu Sa'id, which first opened his eyes to the reality of saintship and Sufism'.
Among the eminent Persian mystics of this epoch
none was so nearly akin to Abu Sa'id in temperament and
character as Abu 'l-Hasan of Kharaqan'. Before leaving Nishapur and finally
settling at Mayhana, Abu Sa'id paid him a visit, which is described with great
particularity'. A complete version would be tedious, but I have translated the
most interesting passages in full. When Abu Tahir, the eldest
son of Abu Sa'id, announced his intention of making the pilgrimage to Mecca,
his father with a numerous following of Sufis and disciples resolved to
accompany him. As soon as the party left Nishapur behind them, Abu Sa'id
exclaimed, "Were it not for my coming, the holy man could not support this
sorrow." His companions wondered whom he meant. Now, Ahmad the son of Abu
'l-Hasan Kharaqani had just been arrested and put to death on his wedding-eve.
Abu 'l-Hasan did not know until next morning, when, hearing the call to prayer,
he came forth from his cell and trod upon the head of his son, which the
executioners had flung away. On arriving at Kharaqan, Abu Sa'id went into the
convent and entered the private chapel where Abu 'l-Hasan usually sat. Abu
'l-Hasan rose and walked halfway down the chapel to meet him, and they embraced
each other. Abu 'H-Hasan took Abu Sa'id's hand and led him to his own chair,
but he declined to occupy it; and since Abu '1-I_Iasan was equally averse to
take the place of honour, both seated themselves in the middle of the chapel.
While they sat there weeping, Abu 'l-Hasan begged Abu Sa'id to give him a word
of counsel, but Abu Sa'id said, "It is for thee to speak." Then he bade the
Koran-readers who were with him read
the Koran aloud, and during their chant the Sufis wept and wailed. Abu THasan
threw his gaberdine (khirqa) to the readers. After that, the bier was brought out, and they prayed
over the dead youth and buried him with manifestations of ecstasy. When the
Sufis had retired to their cells, a dispute arose between them and the readers
for the possession of Abu 'l-Hasan's khirqa, which the Sufis claimed in order that they might tear
it to pieces. Abu ''l-J.Iasan sent a message by his servant to say that the
readers should keep the khirqa, and he gave the Sufis another khirqa, to be torn to pieces and distributed among them. A separate chamber was prepared for
Abu Sa'id, who lodged with Abu 'l-Hasan three days and nights. In spite of his host's entreaties he refused to speak,
saying, "I have been brought hither to listen." Then Abu '1-I;Iasan
said, "I implored God that He would send to me one of His friends, with
whom I might speak of these mysteries, for I am old and feeble and could not
come to thee. He will not let thee go to Mecca. Thou art too holy to be
conducted to Mecca. He will bring the Ka'ba to thee, that it may circumamb_ulate
thee." Every morning Abu 'l-I;Iasan came to the door of Abu Sa'id's room
and askedaddressing the mother of Khwaja Muzaffar, whom Abu Sa'id had brought
with him on this journey-''How art thou, 0 faqira? Be sage and
vigilant, for thou consortest with God. Here nothing of human nature remains,
nothing of the flesh (nafs)
remains.
Here all is God, all is God." And in the daytime when Abu Sa'id was
alone. Abu 'l-Hasan used to come to the door and draw back the curtain and beg
leave to come in and beseech Abu Sa'id not to rise from his couch; and he would
kneel beside him and put his head close to him, and they would con verse in low
tones and weep together; and Abu '1-I;Iasan would slip his hand underneath Abu
Sa'id's garment and lay it upon his breast and cry, "I am laying my hand
upon the Everlasting Light ...." Abu 'l-Hasan said, ''O Shaykh, every
night I see the Ka'ba circumambulating thy head: what need for thee to go to
the Ka'ba? Turn back, for thou wast brought hither for my sake. Now thou hast
perfonned the pilgrimage." Abu Sa'id said, "I will go and visit
Bistam and return here." ''Thou wishest to perform the 'umra,"
said Abu
'l-Hasan, ''after having performed the hajj.'' Then Abu Sa'id set out for Bistam, where he visited the shrine of
Bayazid-i Bistami. From Bistam the pilgrims journeyed westward to Damghan, and
thence to Rayy. Here Abu Sa'id made a halt and declared that he would go no
farther in the direction of Mecca. Bidding farewell to those who still
persisted in their intention of performing the pilgrimage, the rest of the
party, including Abu Sa'id and his son Abu Tahir, turned their faces towards
Kharaqan and Nishapur.
The last
years of Abu Sa'id's life were spent in retirement at Mayhana.
We are told that his :final departure from Nishapur was deeply regretted by the
inhabitants, and that the chief men of the city urged him in vain to alter his
decision+. With advancing years he may have felt that the duties which devolved
upon him as a director of souls (not to speak of bodies) were too heavy a
burden: in his old age he could not rise without being helped by two disciples
who took hold of his arms and lifted him from his seat2. He
left no money in the convent, saying that God would send whatever was necessary
for its upkeep. According to the biographer, this prediction was fulfilled, and
although the convent never possessed a sure source of income (ma'lum), it
attracted a larger number of dervishes and received more spiritual and material
blessings than any other religious house in Nishapur, until it was destroyed by
the invading Ghuzz°.
Abu Sa'id lived 1000 months
(83 years + 4 months). He died at Mayhana on the
4th of Sha'ban, A.H.
440 = I2th of January, A.D. 1049, and was
buried in the mosque opposite his house'. His tomb bore the following lines in
Arabic, which he himself had chosen for an epitaph:
I beg, nay, charge thee: Write on my gravestone, "This was love's
bondsman," that when I am gone, Some wretch well-versed in passion's ways
may sigh And give me greeting, as he passes by 5.
Apart from several allusions to his corpulence, the only description of
Abu Sa'id's personal appearance that his biographers have preserved is the
following, which depicts him as he was seen by an old man whom he saved from
dying of thirst in the desert:
tall, stout, with a white skin and wide eyes and a long beard falling to
the navel; clad in a patched frock (muraqqa'); in his hand?
a staff and a ewer; a prayer-rug thrown over his shoulder, also a razor and toothpick; a Sufi cap on
his head, and on his feet shoes of cotton soled with linen-rags (jumjum) ; light
was shining from his face 6•
This sketch of his life has shown us the saint and the abbot in one.
Before coming into closer touch with the former character, I should like to
refer to a few passages of specially monastic interest.
The first gives ten rules which Abu Sa'id caused to be put in writing,
in order that they might be observed punctiliously by the inmates of his
convent. In the original, after every rule there
follow some words of the Koran on which it is based.
I. Let them keep their garments clean and themselves always pure.
II. Let them not sit 1 in the mosque or in any holy place for the sake
of gossiping.
III. In the :first insta.nce2 let them perform their prayers
in common.
IV.Let them pray much at night.
V.At dawn let them ask forgiveness of God and call unto
Him.
VI.In the morning let them read as much of the Koran as
they can, and let them not talk until the sun has risen.
VII. Between evening prayers and bedtime prayers let them occupy
themselves with repeating some litany (wirdi u dhikri).
VIII. Let them welcome the poor and needy and all who join their
company, and let them bear patiently the trouble of (waiting upon) them.
IX. Let them not eat anything save in participation with one another.
X. Let
them not absent themselves without receiving permission from one another.
Furthermore, let them spend their hours of leisure in one of three
things: either in the study of theology or in some devotional exercise (wirdi) or in bringing comfort to some
one. Whosoever loves this community and helps them as much as he can is a sharer in their merit and future
recompense .
Pir Abu Salih Dandani, a disciple of Shaykh Abu
Sa'id, used continually to stand beside him with a pair of nail-scissors in his
hand Whenever the Shaykh looked at his woollen gaberdine and saw the nap (purz) on it, he
would pull the nap with his fingers, and then Abu Salih would at once remove it with the
nail-scissors, for the Shaykh was so absorbed in contemplation of God that he
did not wish to be disturbed by perceiving the state of his clothes. Abu Salih
was the Shaykh's barber and used regularly to trim his moustache. A certain
dervish desired to be taught the proper way of doing this. Abu Salih smiled and
said, "It is no such easy matter. A man needs seventy masters of the craft to
instruct him how the moustache of a dervish ought to be trimmed." This Abu
Salih related that the Shaykh, towards the end of his life, had only one tooth
left. "Every night, after supper, I used to give him a toothpick, with
which he cleansed his mouth; and when he washed his hands, he would pour water
on the toothpick and lay it down. One evening I thought to myself, 'He has no
teeth and does not require a toothpick: why should he take it from me every
night? ' The Shaykh raised his head and looked at me and said, 'Because I wish to observe
the Sunna and because I hope to win divine mercy. The Prophet has
said, May God have mercy upon those of my people who use the toothpick in their ablutions and at their meals!' I was overcome with shame and began to weep1."
Pir Hubbi was the Shaykh's tailor. One day he
came in with a garment belonging to the Shaykh which he had mended.
At that moment the Shaykh was taking his noonday siesta and reclining on a
couch, while Khwaja 'Abdu 'I-Karim, his valet, sat beside his pillow and fanned
him. Khwaja 'Abdu lKarim exclaimed, " What are
you doing here?" Pir Hubbi retorted, "Wherever there is room for you,
there is room for me." The valet laid down the fan and struck him again
and again. After seven blows the Shaykh said, "That is enough." Pir
Hubbi went off and complained to Khwaja Najjar, who said to the Shaykh, when he came out for afternoon prayers, "The young men
lift their hands against the elders: what says the Shaykh?" The Shaykh
replied, "Khwaja 'Abdu 'I-Karim's hand is my hand," and nothing more
was said about it 2.
In describing Abu Sa'id's mystical doctrines and their relation to the
historical development of Sufism, European scholars have hitherto relied almost
exclusively on the quatrains which he is said to have composed and of which
more than six hundred have been published1. As I have
shown above (p. 4, note 3), it is doubtful whether Abu Sa'id is the author of
any of these poems, and we may be sure that in the main they are not his work
and were never even .quoted by him. To repeat what has been already said, they
form a miscellaneous anthology drawn from a great number of poets who
flourished at different periods, and consequently they reflect the typical
ideas of Persian mysticism as a whole.
Abu Sa'id helped to bring its peculiar diction and symbolism into vogue,
by quoting Sufi poetry in his sermons and allowing it to be chanted in the sama', but
we may hesitate to accept the view that he invented this style (which occurs,
full-blown, in the odes of his contemporary, Baba Kuhi of Shiraz) or was the
first to embody it in quatrains.
The mysticism which his sayings and sermons unfold has neither the
precision of a treatise nor the coherence of a system. It is experimental, not doctrinal or
philosophical. It does not concern itself with abstract speculations,
but sets forth in simple and untechnical language such principles and maxims as
bear directly on the religious life and are the fruit of dearly-bought
experience. As we read, we seem to hear the voice of the teacher addressing his
disciples and expounding for their benefit the truths that had been revealed
to him. Abu Sa'id borrows much from his predecessors, sometimes mentioning them
by name, but often appropriating their wisdom
without a word of acknowledgement1. Amongst Moslems, this kind of plagiarism is
considered respectable, even when the culprit is not a saint.
The sayings of Abu Sa'id include several definitions
of Sufism, which it will be convenient to translate before going further.
I. To lay aside what thou hast in thy head, to give what thou hast in thy
hand, and not to recoil from whatsoever befalls thee . 2. Sufism is two
things: to look in one direction and to live in one way°.
3. Sufism is a name attached to its object; when it reaches its ultimate perfection, it is God (i.e. the end of
Sufism is that, for the Sufi, nothing should exist except God)#
4. It is glory in wretchedness and
riches in poverty and lordship in servitude and satiety in hunger and
clothedness in nakedness and freedom in slavery and life in death and sweetness in bitterness °.
5. The Sufi is he who is
pleased with all that God does, in order that God may be pleased with all that he does
6. Sufism is patience under God's commanding and
forbidding, and acquiescence and resignation in the events determined by divine
providence 7•
7. Sufism is the "Will of the Creator concerning His
creatures when no creature exists •
8. To be a Sufi is to cease
from taking trouble (takalluf)
; and there is no greater trouble
for thee than thine own self (tu' i-yi tu), for when thou art occupied
with thyself, thou remain est away from God,
9. He said, "Even this
Sufism is polytheism (shirk)."
"Why,
O Shaykh? " they asked. He
answered, "Because Sufism consists in guarding the soul from what is other
than God; and there is nothing other than Godi
The quietism and pantheistic self-abandonment, on
which these definitions lay so much stress, forms only the negative side of Abu
Sa'id's mystical teaching. His doctrine of fana, the
passing-away from self. is supplemented by an equally characteristic positive
element, of which I shall have more to say presently. Both aspects are
indicated in the following maxim: " A man ought to be occupied with two things:-he ought to put away all
that keeps him apart from God, and bring comfort to dervishes2."
Innumerable are the ways to God 3, yet the Way is but a single step:
"take one step out of thyself, that thou mayst arrive at God4."
To pass away from self (fan) is to realise that self does not exist, and that nothing exists except God (tawhid). The Tradition, "He who knows himself knows his
Lord," signifies that he who knows himself as not-being ('adam)
knows God as Real Being (wujud)5. This knowledge cannot be obtained through the
intellect, since the Eternal and Uncreated is inaccessible to that which is
created , it cannot be learned, but is given by divine illumination. The organ which
receives it is the "heart" (qalb or dil), a spiritual faculty, not the heart of flesh and blood. In a remarkable
passage Abu Sa'id refers to a divine principle, which he calls sirr
Allah, i.e. the conscience or
consciousness of God, and describes-it as something which God communicates to
the "heart."
Answering the question, "What is sincerity (ikhlas)? " he said:
The Prophet
has said that ikhlas is a divine sirr in man's heart and soul, which sirr is the object of His pure contemplation and is
replenished by God's pure contemplation thereof. Whosoever declares God to· be One, his belief in the divine Unity depends on that sirr.
Being asked
to define it, he continued as follows:
That sirr is
a substance of God's grace (latifa)-for He is gracious (latif) unto His servants (Koran, 42, 18)-and it is produced by the bounty and mercy of God, not by the acquisition
and action of man. At first, He produces a need and longing and sorrow in man's
heart; then He contemplates that need and sorrow, and in His bounty and mercy deposits in that heart a
spiritual substance (latifa) which is hidden from 'the. knowledge of angel and
prophet. That substance is called sirr Allah, and that is ikhlasl.... That pure sirr is the Beloved of Unitarians.
It is immortal and does not become naught, since it subsists in God's
contemplation of it. It belongs to the Creator: the creatures have no part
therein, and in the body it is a loan. Whoever possesses it is "living·• (liayy), and whoever lacks it is animal" (hayawan). There is a great difference between the "living'
and the "animal"?
Students of
medieval Christian mysticism wall find many analogies to this sirr Allah, e.g. the "synteresis" of Gerson and Eckhart's
" spark " or "ground of the soul."
I will now
translate some of Abu Sa'id's discourses and sayings on the Way to
God through self-negation.
He was
asked, "When shall a man be freed from his. wants?
"
"When
God shall free him," he replied; "this is not effected by man's
exertion, but by the grace and help of God. First of all, H~ brings forth in him the desire to attain this
goal. Then He opens to him the gate of repentance (tawba). Then He throws him into self-mortification (mujahada), so that he continues to strive and, for a while, to
pride himself upon his efforts, thinking that he is advancing or achieving
something; but. afterwards he falls into despair and feels no joy. Then he
knows that his work is not pure, but tainted, he repents of the acts of
devotion which he had thought to be his own, and perceives that they were done
by God's grace and help, and that he was guilty of polytheism (shirk) in attributing them to his own exertion. When this
becomes-manifest, a feeling of joy enters his heart. Then God opens to him the
gate of certainty (yaqin), so that for a time he takes anything from any one and
accepts contumely and endures abasement, and knows for certain by
Whom it is brought to pass, and doubt concerning this is removed from his
heart. Then God opens to him the gate of love (mahabba), and
here too egoism shows itself for a time and he is exposed to blame (malama), which
means that in his love of God he meets fearlessly whatever may befall him and
reeks pot of
reproach; but still he thinks 'I love' and finds no rest until he perceives
that it is God who
loves him and keeps him in the state of loving, and that this is the result of
divine love and grace, not of his own endeavour. Then God opens to him the gate
of unity (tawhid) and
causes him to know that all action depends on God Almighty. Hereupon he
perceives that all is He, and all is by Him, and all is His; that He has laid
this self-conceit upon His creatures in order to prove them, and that He in His
omnipotence ordains that they shall hold this false belief, because omnipotence
is His attribute, so that when they regard His attributes they shall know that
He is the Lord. What fonnerly was hearsay
now becomes known to him intuitively as he
contemplates the works of God. Then he entirely recognises that he has not the
right to say 'I' or 'mine.' At this stage he beholds his helplessness; desires
fall away from him and he becomes free and calm. He wishes that which God
wishes: his own wishes are gone, he is emancipated from his wants, and has
gained peace and joy in both worlds .... First, action is necessary, then
knowledge, in order that thou mayst know that thou knowest naught and art no
one. This is not easy to know. It is a
thing that cannot be rightly learned by instruction, nor sewn on with needle
nor tied on with thread. It is the gift of God 1.''
The heart's vision is what matters, not the tongue's speech.
Thou wilt never escape from thy self (nafs) until thou
slay it. To say "There is no god
but Allah" is not enough. Most of those who make the verbal profession of
faith are. polytheists at heart, and polytheism is the one unpardonable sin.
Thy whole body is full of doubt and polytheism. Thou must cast them out in
order to be at peace. Until thou deny thy self thou wilt never believe in God.
Thy seli, which is keeping thee far from God and saying, " So-andso has
treated thee ill," "such and such a one has done well by thee,"
points the way to creatureliness; and all this is polytheism. Nothing depends
on the creatures, all depends on the Creator. This thou must know and say, and
having said it thou must stand firm. To stand
firm (istiqama) means that when
thou hast said "One," thou must never again say" Two."
Creator and creature are
"Two." ... Do not double like a fox, that ye may suddenly start up in some other place:
that is not right faith. Say "Allah!" ' and stand firm there. Standing
firm is this, that when thou hast said "God" thou shouldst no more
speak or think of created things, so that it is just as though they were not
.... Love that One who does not cease to be when thou ceasest, in order that
thou mayst be such a being that thou never wilt cease fo be1 !
So long as any one regards his purity and
devotion, he says "Thou and I," but when he considers exclusively the
bounty and mercy of God, he says "Thou! Thou!" and then his worship'
becomes a reality 3.
He was asked, "What is evil and what is the
worst evil? " He replied, "Evil is 'thou'; and the worst evil is
'thou,' when thou knowest it not4."
Abu Sa'id's belief that he had escaped
from the prison of individuality was constantly asserting itself. Once he
attended a party of mourners (ta'ziya), where the visitors, as they arrived, were announced by
a servant (mu'arrif) who with a loud voice en um era ted their titles of honour (alqdb). When Abu
Sa'id appeared, the mu' arrif inquired how he should announce him. 'Go," said
he, "and tell them to make way for Nobody, the son of Nobody'." In
speaking of himself, he never used the pronouns "I" or
"we," but invariably referred to himself as 'they" (ishan). The author of the Asraru 'l-tawhid
apologises for having restored the
customary form of speech, pointing )Ut that if he had retained" they"
in such cases, the meaning :}f
the text would have been confused and
unintelligible to most6.
While the attainment of selflessness is
independent of human
initiative, the mystic participates, to some extent, in the process by which it
is attained. A power not his own draws him on towards the goal, but this divine
attraction (kashish) demands, on
his part, an inward striving (kushish), without which there can be no vision (b£nish)1. Like many Sufis, Abu Sa'id admits freewill in practice but denies it in
theory. As a spiritual director, he could not teach what, as a pantheist, he
was bound to believe-that the only real agent is God. Speaking from the
standpoint of the religious law, he used often to say: "0 God l whatever comes from me to Thee I beseech Thee
to forgive, and whatever comes from Thee to me, Thine is
the praise2!" On the other hand, he says that had there been no
sinners, God's metcy would have been wasted°; and that Adam would not have been
visited with the tribulation of sin unless forgiveness were the dearest of all
things to God4. Iri the following passage he suggests that although sin is
an act of disobedience to the divine commandment (amr), it is none the less determined by the divine will
(iraada).
On the Day of Resurrection
Iblis (Satan)
will be brought to judgment with all the devils, and he will
be charged with having led multitudes of people astray. He will confess that he called on them to follow him, but
will plead that they need not have done so. Then God will say, "Let that
pass! Now worship Adam, in
order that thou
mayst be saved." The devils will implore him.to obey and thereby deliver himself and
them from torment, but Iblis will answer, weeping,
"Had it
depended on my will,
I would have worshipped Adam at the time when I
was first bidden. God commands me to worship him; but does not will it. Had He willed it, I should have worshipped him then 5."
It is
significant that Abu Sa'id lets Iblis have the last word, whereas Hallaj, who
was faced with the same dilemma, insisted that the saint must fulfil the divine
command (amr) at whatever cost of suffering to himself.
The
"inward striving" after selflessness is identical with the state which Abu Sa'id calls "want" (miyadz). There is no way nearer to God than this 1. It is described as a living and luminous fire placed by God in the breasts
of His servants in order that their" self" (nafs) may be burned; and when it has been burned, the fire of "want"
becomes the fire of "longing" (shawq) which never dies, neither in
this world nor in the next, and is only increased by vision'.
Complete negation of individuality involves
complete affirmation of the real and universal Self-a fact which is expressed
by Sufis in the formula, "Abiding after passingaway" (al-baqa ba'd al-fan). The perfect mystic abides in God, and yet (as Ruysbroeck says) "he
goes out towards created things in a spirit of love towards all things, in the
virtues and in works of righteousness3." He is not an ecstatic devotee lost in contemplation of the Oneness, nor
a saintly recluse shunning all commerce with mankind, but a philanthropist who
in all his words and actions exhibits and diffuses amongst those around him the
divine life with which he has been made one. "The true saint," said
Abu Sa'id, 'goes in and out amongst the people and eats and sleeps with them
and buys and sells in the market and marries and takes part in social
intercourse, and never forgets God for a single moment4."
His ideal of charity and brotherhood was a noble
one, however he may have abused it. He declared that there is no better and
easier means of attaining to God than by bringing joy to the heart of a Moslem5, and quoted with approval the
saying of Abu 'l'Abbas Bashshar, 'When a disciple performs an act of kindness
to a dervish, it is better for him than a hundred genuflexions; and if he gives
him a mouthful of food, it is better for him than a whole night spent in prayer
." His purse was always open, and he never quarrelled with any one',
because he regarded all creatures with the eye of the Creator, not with the eye
of the creatures°. When his followers wished to chastise a bigot who had cursed
him, he restrained them, saying, "God forbid! He is not cursing me,
but he thinks that my belief is false and that his own belief is true:
therefore he is cursing that false belief for God's sake'" He seldom
preached on Koranic texts describing the pains of Hell, and in his last years,
when reciting the Koran, he passed over all the "verses of torment" (ayat-i 'adhab). " O
God!" he cried, "inasmuch as men and stones have the same value in
Thy sight, feed the flames of Hell with stones and do not burn these miserable
wretches2 !" Although Abu Sa'id's charity embraced all created
beings, he makes a clear distinction between the Sufis and the rest of his
fellow-men. The Sufis are God's elect and are united by a spiritual affinity
which is more binding than any ties of blood.
Four thousand years before God created these bodies,
He created the souls and kept. them beside Himself and shed a light upon them.
He knew what quantity of light each soul received and He was showing favour to
each in proportion to its illumination. The souls remained all that time in
the light until they became fully nourished. Those who in this world live in
joy and agreement with one another must have been akin to one another in
yonder: place. Here they· love one another and are called the friends of God,
and they are brethren who love one another for God's sake. These souls know
each other by the smell, like horses. Though one be in the East and the other
in the West, yet they feel joy and comfort in each other's talk, and· one who
lives in a later generation than the other is instructed and consoled by the
words of his friend
Abu Sa'id said:
Whoever goes with me in this Way is my kinsman, even
though he be many degrees removed from me, and whoever does not back me in this
matter is nobody to me, even though he be one of my nearest relatives 4.
To many Christians the description of Abu Sa'id as a Moslem saint will "seem doubly paradoxical. The Mohammedan
notion of saintship, which is founded on ecstasy6, justifies the noun; but we may still wonder that the adjective should.
be applied to a man who on one occasion cried out in a transport of enthusiasm,
"There is nothing inside this coat except Allah 1!"
I need not discuss here the causes which gradually
brought about such a revolution that, as Professor D. B. Macdonald says,
"the devout life within the Muslim church led to a more complete pantheism
than ever did the Christian trinity2." At any rate, the question whether Abu Sa'id
was a Moslem cannot be decided against him on this count, unless we are
prepared to excommunicate most of the saints, some of the profoundest
theologians, and wellnigh all the earnestly religious thinkers of Islam. This
was recognised by his orthodox opponents, who ignored his theosophical
doctrines and attacked him as an innovator in matters connected with the
religious law. Within reasonable limits, he might believe and say what he
liked, they would take notice only of his overt acts. The following pages,
which set forth his attitude towards positive religion, will prove to every
impartial reader that in their treatment of heretics the medieval Christian
divines had much to learn from their Moslem contemporaries. Upon toleration also ex Oriente lux.
At the time of Abu Sa'id's residence in Nishapur
Shaykh Bu 'Abdallah Baku was in the convent of Shaykh Abu 'Abd alRahman al-Sulami, of which he became the director after the death of Abu 'Abd al-Rahman. (Baku is a
village in the district of Shirwan.) This Bu 'Abdallah Baku used frequently to talk with Shaykh Abu Sa'id in a
controversial spirit and ask him questions about the Sufi Path. One
day he came to him and said, "O Shaykh ! we see you doing some things that our Elders
never did." "What are these things? "
Abu Sa'id inquired. "One of them," said he, "is this, that you
let the young men sit beside the old and put the juniors on a level with their
seniors in all affairs and make no difference between them; secondly, you
permit the young men to dance and sing; and thirdly, when a dervish throws off
his gaberdine (in ecstasy), you sometimes direct that it should be given back to him; saying that the dervish has the
best right to his own
gaberdine. This has never been the practice of our Elders." " Is
there anything else? " said Abu Sa'id. "No," he replied. Abu
Sa'id said, "As regards the juniors and seniors, none of them is a junior
in my opinion. When a man has once entered on the Path of Sufism, although he
may be young, his seniors ought to consider that possibly he will receive in a
single day what they have not received in seventy years. None who holds this
belief will look upon any person as a junior. Then, as to the young men's
dancing in the samd' 1 the souls of young men are not yet purged of lust: indeed it may be the
prevailing element; and lust takes possession of all the limbs. Now, if a young
dervish claps his hands, the lust of his hands will be dissipated, and if he tosses his feet, the lust of his feet will be
lessened. When by this means the lust fails in their limbs, they can preserve themselves from great
sins, but when all lusts are united (which God forfend!), they will sin mortally.
It is better that the fire of their lust should be dissipated in the samd' than in
something else. As regards the gaberdine which a dervish throws off, its
disposal rests with the whole company of dervishes and engages their attention.
If they have no other garment at hand, they clothe him again in his own
gaberdine, and thereby relieve their mi11ds from the burden of thinking about
it. That dervish has not taken back his own gaberdine, but the company of
dervishes have given him their gaberdine
and have thus freed their minds from thought of him. Therefore he is protected
by· the spiritual concentration (himma) of the whole company. This gaberdine is not the same
one which he threw away." Bu 'Abdallah Baku said, " Had I never seen
the Shaykh, I should never have seen a real Suffl."
This
interesting passage represents Abu Sa'id as having departed in certain respects
from the ancient Sufistic tradition. His innovations, by destroying the
influence and authority of the more experienced dervishes, would naturally;
tend to relax discipline. Early Sufi writers, e.g.
Sarraj,
Qushayri, and Hujwiri, do not agree with him in thinking that the practice of same' is
beneficial to the young; on the contrary, they urge the necessity of taking
care lest novices should be demoralised by it. According to the same writers, the doctrines of Sufism are contained in,
and derived from, the Koran and the Traditions, of which the true meaning has
been mystically revealed to the Sufis alone. This
theory concedes all that Moslems claim as to the uniquc authority of the Koran and reduces the difference
between Moslem and Sufi to a question of interpretation. Abu Sa'id, however, found the source of his doctrine in a larger revelation than the Word which was given to the
Prophet.
The author of the Asrar says:
My grandfather. Shayklu 'H-Islam Abu Sa'id, relates that one day, whilst Abu Sa'id was preaching; in Nishapur, a
learned theologian who was present thought to himself that such doctrine is
not to be found in the seven sevenths (i.c. the whole) of the Koran. Abu Sa'id immediately turned towards him and
saiJ," Doctor, thy thought is not hidden from me. The doctrine that I
preach is contained in the eighth seventh of the Koran." "What is
that?" the theologian inquired. Abu Sa'id answered: ' The seven sevenths
are, 0 Apostle,
deliver the message that hath been sent down to thee (Kor. 5, 71), and the eighth seventh is, He revealed unto His servant that which He revealed (Kor. 53, 1o). Ye imagine that the Word of God is of
fixed quantity and extent. Nay, the infinite Word of God that was sent down to
Mohammed is the whole seven sevenths of the Koran; but that which He causes to
come into the hearts of His servants does not admit of being numbered and
limited, nor does it ever cease. Every moment there comes a messenger from Him
to the hearts of His servants, as the Prophet declared, saying, 'Beware of the
clairvoyance (firasa)
of the true believer, for verily he sees by the
light of God.'" Then Abu Sa'id quoted the verse:
. Thou art my soul's joy,
known by vision, not by hearsay.
Of what use is hearsay to one who hath vision?
In a Tradition (he went on) it is stated that the Guarded
Tablet (lawh-i mahfuz)+ is so broad that a fleet Arab horse would not be able to cross it in four years, and the
writing thereon is finer than a hair. Of all the writing
which covers it only a single line has been communicated to God's creatures. That little keeps them in perplexity
until the Resurrection. As for the rest, no one knows anything about it.
Here Abu Sa'id sets aside the partial, finite, and
temporal revelation on which Islam is built, and appeals to the
universal, infinite, and everlasting revelation which the Sufis find in their hearts. As a rule,
even the boldest Mohammedan mystics shrink from uttering such a challenge. So
long as the inner light is regarded only as an interpreter of the written
revelation, the supremacy of the latter is nominally maintained, though in
fact almost any doctrine can be foisted upon if: this is a very different thing
from claiming that the inner light transcends the Prophetic Law and possesses
full authority to make laws for itself. Abu Sa'id does not say that the
partial and universal revelations are in conflict with each other: he
does not repudiate the Koran, but he denies that it is the final and absolute
standard of divine truth. He often quotes Koranic verses in support of his
theosophical views. Only when the Book fails him need he confound his critics
by alleging a secret communication which he has received from the Author.
The foregoing anecdote prepares us for mysticism of an
advanced and antinomian type. Not that Abu Sa'id acted in logical accordance with his beliefs. With one
exception, which will be noted
presently, he omitted no religious observance that a good Moslem is required to
perform. But while he thus shielded himself under the law, he showed in word
and deed how little he valued any external ceremony or traditional dogma.
There was at Qa'in a venerable Imam, whose name was Khwaja Muhammad Qa'ini. When Abu Sa'id arrived at Qa'in, Khwaja Muhammad
spent most of his time in waiting upon him, and he used to attend all the parties to which Abu Sa'id was invited. On one
of these occasions, during the samti.'
which followed the feast, Abu Sa'id and all the company had fallen into transports of
ecstasy. The muezzin gave the call to noonday prayers, but Abu Sa'id remained in the same
rapture and the dervishes continued to dance and shout. "Prayers! Prayers!
" cried the Imam Muhammad Qa'ini. 'We are at prayers," said Abu
Sa'id; whereupon the Imam left them in order to take part in the
prayer-service. When Abu Sa'id came out of his trance, he said, "Between its rising: and setting the
sun does not shine upon a more venerable and learned man than this ''-meaning
Muhammad Qa'ini-" but his knowledge of Sufism is not so much as the tip of a
hair1."
Although it would be wrong to use this story as
evidence of Abu Sa'id's habitual practice, we may at least affirm that
in his eyes the essence of prayer was not the formal act, but the "passing
away from self" which is completely attained in ecstasy.
"Endeavour,'' he said, "to have a mystical experience (warid), not a devotional exercise (wird)?" One day he said to a dervish, who in order to show
the utmost respect stood before him in the attitude of prayer, "This is a
very respectful posture, but thy not-being would be still better ."
He never made the pilfrimage to Mecca, which
every Moslem is bound to make at least once Many Sufis who would have gladly
dispensed with this semi-pagan rite allegorised it and attached. a mystical
significance to each of the various ceremonies'; but they saved their orthodoxy
at the expense of their principles. Abu Sa'id had no such reputation to keep
up. His refusal to perform the Hajj is not so surprising as the contemptuous
language in which he refers to one of the five main pillars of Islam.
Abu Sa'id was asked, 'Who has been thy Pit? for every Fir has had a Pir to instruct him; and how is it that thy neck is too big for
thy shirt-collar, while other Pirs have emaciated themselves by austerities? And why hast thou
not performed the Pilgrimage, as they have done? " He replied, 'Who has been
my Pir? This (doctrine that I teach) is part of what my Lor ' hath taught me (Kor. 12, 37). How is it that my neck is too big for my shirt-collar? I marvel how
there is room-for my neck in the seven heavens and earths after all that God
hath bestowed upon me. Why have I not performed the Pilgrimage? It is no great
matter that thou shouldst tread under thy feet a thousand miles of ground in
order to visit a stone house. The true man of Goel sits where he is, and the Bayt
al-Ma' mar' comes
several times in a day and night to visit him and perform the circumambulation
above his head. Look and see!" All who were present looked and saw it
The mystic’s
pilgrimage takes place within himself3. "If God sets the way to Mecca before any one, that person
has been cast out of the Way to the Truth'" Not content with encouraging his disciples to neglect the Hajj, Abu Sa'id used to send
those who thought of performing it to visit the tomb of Abu 'l-Fadl Hasan at
Sarakhs, bidding them circumambulate it seven times and consider that their
purpose was accomplished. One sees what a menace to Mohammedan
institutions the cult of the saints had already become.
The saint
lost in contemplation of God knows no religion, and it is often his fate to be
classed with the freethinkers (zanadiqa) who, from the Moslem point of view, are wholly
irreligious, though some of them acknowledge the moral law. Abu Sa'id said, '
Whoever saw me in my first state became a siddiq, and whoever saw me in my last state became a z-indiq6," meaning that those who accused him of being a
freethinker thereby made themselves guilty of the very thing which they imputed
to him. I will translate the biographer's commentary on this saying.
His first
state was self-mortification and asceticism, and since most men look at the
surface and regard the outward form, they saw the austerity of his life and how
painfully he advanced on the Way to God, and their sincere belief (sidq) in this Way was increased and they attained to the
degree of the Sincere (siddiqan). His last state was contemplation, a state in which the
fruit of self- mortification is gathered and the complete unveiling (kashf) comes to
pass; accordingly, eminent mystics have said that states of contemplation are
the heritage of acts of self-mortification (almushahadat mawarithu 'l-mujahadat). Those who saw him in this state, which is necessarily
one of enjoyment and happiness, and were ignorant of bis former state denied
that which was true (haqa) ; and whoever denies the Truth (Hiaqq)
is a
freethinker (zindiq). There are many analogies to this in the sensible
world. For example, when a man seeks to win the favour of a king and to become
his companion and intimate friend, before attaining to that rank he must suffer
all sorts of tribulation and patiently endure injuries and insults from high
and low, and submit with cheerfulness to maltreatment and abuse, giving fair words
in return for foul; and when he has been honoured with the king's approval and
has been admitted to his presence, he must serve him assiduously and hazard his
life in order that the king may place confidence in him. But after he has
gained the king's confidence and intimacy, all this hard and perilous service
belongs to the past. Now all is grace and bounty and favour; everywhere he
meets with new pleasures and delights; and he has no duty but to wait upon the
king always, from whose palace he cannot be absent a single moment by day or
nigat, in order that he may {P at hand whenever the king desires to tell him a secret or to honour him
with a place by his side1.
Asceticism
and positive religion are thus relegated to the lower planes of the mystical
life. The Sufi needs them and must hold fast to them while he is serving his
spiritual apprenticeship and also during the middle stage which is marked by longer or shorter intervals of illumination; but in
his "last state," when the unveiling is completed, he has no further use for ascetic practices and religious forms, for he
lives in
permanent communion with God Himself. This leads directly to antinomianism,
though in theory the saint is above the law rather than against it. One who
sees the reality within cannot judge by
appearances.
Being told that a disciple of his was lying blind-drunk on a certain road, Abu
Sa'id said, "Thank God that he has fallen on the way, not off the Way1." Some one asked him, "Are the men of God in the mosque?
" ''They are in the tavern too," he replied2.
His
pantheistic vision blotted out the Mohammedan afterworld with its whole system
of rewards and punishments. "Whoever knows God without mediation-worships
Him without recompense ." There is no Hell but selfhood, no Paradise but
selflessness: 'Hell is where thou art and Paradise where thou art not'" He
quoted the Tradition, "My people shall be split into more than seventy
sects, of which a single one shall be saved, while the others shall be in the Fire,"
and added, "that is to say, in the fire of their own selves'."
As I have
already remarked, Abu Sa'id speaks with two voices: now as a theosophist, now
as a Moslem. Hence the same terms bear their ordinary religious meaning in one
passage and are explained mystically in another, while the purest pantheism
runs side by side with popular theology. To our minds it seems absurd to
suppose that he believed in both; yet probably he did, at least so far as to
have no difficulty in accepting the Mohammedan scheme when it suited him. For
example, he preaches the doctrine of the intercession of saints, in which
(though the Koran does not support it) Paradise, Hell, tle D of Judgment, etc., are what the Koran says
they are. A few of his sayings
on this subject may be quoted here, especially as it is closely connected with
his miracles and legend which will be discussed in the following pages.
The man who is being carried off to Hell will see a light
from afar. He will ask what it is and will be told that it is the light
of such and such a. Pir. He will say,
"In our world I used to love him." The wind will bear his words
to the ears of that Pir, who will plead for him in the divine presence, and God
will release the sinner on account of the
intercession of that holy man .
Whoever has seen me and has done good work for my family and disciples will be under
the shadow of my intercession hereafter 7.
I have
prayed God to forgive
my neighbours on the left, on the right, in front, and behind,
and He has forgiven them for my sake." Then he said, "My neighbours
are Balkh and Merv and Nishapur and Herat. I am not speaking of those who live
here (Mayhana)1."
• "I need not say a word on behalf of
those around me. If any one has mounted
an ass and passed by the end of
this street, or has passed my house or will pass it, or if the light of my candle falls on him,
the least thing that God will do with him is that He will have mercy upon him"
III.
Sufism is at once the religious philosophy and the popular religion of
Islam. The great Mohammedan mystics are also saints. Their lives belong to the
Legend and contain, besides their lofty and abstruse speculations, an account
of the miracles which they wrought. They are the object of endless worship and
adoration, their tombs are holy shrines whither men and women come as pilgrims
to beseech their allpowerful aid, their relics bring a blessing that only ±he
rich can buy. Whilst still living, they are canonised by the people; not
posthumously by the Church. Their title to saintship depends on a peculiarly
intimate relation to God, which is attested by fits of ecstasy and, above all,
by thaumaturgic gifts (karamat = apiauara, grazie).
Belief in such gifts is almost universal, but there is disagreement as to the
importance which should be attached to them. The higher doctrine, that they
are of small value in comparison with the attainment of spiritual perfection,
was ignored by the mass of Moslems, who would have considered a saint without
miracles to be no saint at all. Miracles there must be; if the holy man failed to supply them, they were invented for
him. It is vain to inquire
how far the miracles of Abu Sa'id may have been the work of popular
imagination, but the following extracts show
that the question is not an irrelevant one, even if we take for granted the
reality of these occult and mysterious powers.
Sa'id's
principal Koran-reader (muari), that when Abu Sa'id was living in Nishapur a man came to him and saluted him and said:
,
"I am a
stranger here. On my arrival I found the whole city full of thy fame. They tell me
thou art a man who has the gift of miracles and does not hide it. Now show me
one." Abu Sa'id replied: "When I was at Amul with Abu 'l'Abbas
Qassab, some one came to him on the same errand and demanded of him the same
thing which you have just demanded of me. He answered, 'What do you see that is
not miraculous? A butcher's son (pisar-i qassabi), whose father taught him his own trade, has a vision,
is enraptured, is brought to Baghdad and falls in with Shaykh Shibli; from
Baghdad to Mecca, from. Mecca to Medina, from Medina to Jerusalem, where Khadir
appears to him, and God puts it in Khadir's heart to accept him as a disciple;
then he is brought back here and multitudes turn towards him, coming forth from
taverns and renouncing wickedness and taking vows of penitence and sacrificing
wealth. Filled with burning love they come from the ends of the world to seek
God from me. What miracle is greater than this?' The man replied that he wished
to see a miracle at the preseni moment. 'Is it not a miracle,' said Abu
'l'Abbas, 'that a goat-killer's son is sitting in the seat of the mighty and
that he does not sink into the earth and that this wall does not fall upon him
and that this house does not tumble over his head? Without goods and gear he
possesses saintship, and without work or means of support he receives his daily
bread and feeds many people. Is not all this a gift of miracles? ' Good sir
(Abu Sa'id continued), your experience with me is the same as that man's with
Abu '1'Abbas Qassab." "O Shaykh!" said he, "I ask thee for
miracles and thou tellest of Shaykh Abu 'I'Abbas.'' Abu Sa'id said,
"Whosoever belongs entirely to the Giver (Karim), all his acts are gifts (karmat)"
Then he smiled and
said in verse:
Every wind
that comes to me from the region of Bukhara Breathes the perfume of roses and
musk and the scent of jessamine. Every man and woman on whom that wind is
blowing
Thinks it is surely blowing from Khoten.
Nay, nay ! From Khoten bloweth no such delicious gale:
That wind is coming from the presence of the Beloved.
Each night I gaze towards
Yemen, that thou mayst rise;
For thou art Suhayl (Canopus), and Suhayl rises from Yemen. Adored One! I endeavour to hide thy name from all,
In order that thy name may not come into folk's
mouths; But whether I will or no, whenever I speak to any one. Thy name is the
first word that comes to my lips.
When God makes a man pure and separates him from his
selfhood, all that he does or abstains from doing, all that he says and all that
he feels becomes a wondrous gift (karamat).
God bless Mohammed and the
whole of his Farnily1.
In another passage the extraordinary
feats performed by saints
are reduced to their proper insignificance.
They said to him, "So-and-so walks on the water." He replied, "It
is easy enough: frogs and waterfowl do it." They said,
"So-and-so flies in the air." "So do birds and insects," he
replied. They said, "So-and-so goes from one town to another in a moment
of time." "Satan," he rejoined, "goes in one moment from
the East to the West. Things like these have no great vaiue"; and he
proceeded to give the definition of the true saint which has been quoted
already2-a man who lives in friendly intercourse with his
fellow-creatures, yet is never forgetful of God3.
Abu Sa'id looked with disfavour on the composition of marvellous tales concerning himself. One day he
summoned his famulus, Khwaja 'Abdu 'l-Karim, and inquired what he had been
doing. 'Abdu 'I-Karim answered that he had been writing some anecdotes of his
master for a certain dervish who wanted them. "O 'Abda 'I-Karim!"
said the Shaykh, "do not be a writer of anecdotes: be such a man that
anecdotes will be told of thee." The biographer observes that Abu Sa'id's
fear lest a legend of his miracles should be published and widely circulated
accords with the practice of the most eminent Sufis, who have always concealed
their mystical experiences'. Abu Sa'id placed the hidden and unrecognised saint
above the saint manifest and known to the people: the former is he whom God
loves, the latter he who loves God5.
Such
protests may have retarded, although they did not check, the constantly
increasing glorification of popular saints by themselves and their devotees. At
any rate, the ancient Lives of Abu Sa'id are modest and subdued if we compare them with some famous legends
of the same kind.
As I have mentioned, his recorded miracles are mostly instances of irsa, a term equivalent to clairvoyance. Being an effect of the light which God sets in the purified
heart, firasa is reckoned
among the ''gifts'' (kardmdt) of the saint and is accepted as evidence of holiness.
There were two friends, a tailor and a weaver, who obstinately asserted that
Abu Sa'id was an impostor. One day they said, "This man pretends to have the
gift of miracles. Let us go to him, and if he knows what trade each of us
follows, we shall then know that his claim is true." They disguised
themselves and went to the Shaykh. As soon as his eye fell on them, he said:
On the falak are two
craftsmen",
One a tailor, ohe a weaver.
Then he
said, pointing to the tailor:
This one
fashions robes for princes.
And pointing
to the weaver:
This one weaves black woollens only.
Both were
covered with confusion and fell at the Shaykh's feet and repented of their
disbelief.
Moslems
attribute to firasa, and
therefore to a divine source, all the phenomena of telepathy, thought-reading,
and second sight. In the course of this essay I have had occasion to translate several testimonies
that Abu Sa'id was richly endowed with these ''gifts'' and that he made his
reputation as a saint by exhibiting them in public. That he really possessed
them or, at least, persuaded a great number of people to think so, is beyond
dispute-otherwise, traditions attesting them would not have occupied so much of his legend; but when we come to
examine particular cases, we find that the evidence is weak from a scientific point of
view as well as on common grounds of probability. Such considerations, I need
hardly say, not only have no influence upon the Moslem's belief in occult
phenomena but do not even enter his mind. Many stories illustrating Abu Sa'id's
powers of firasa occur in the preceding pages, and it would be useless to give further
specimens. The following extracts commemorate some miracles of a different
class.
In Nishapur there lived a woman of noble family, whose name was Ishi Nili.
She was a great ascetic, and on account of her piety the people of Nishapur
used to seek blessings from her. It
was forty years since she had gone to the warm baths or set foot outside of
her house. When Abu Sa'id came to Nishapur and the report of his miracles
spread through the city, she sent a nurse, who always waited upon her, to hear
him preach. "Remember what he says," said she, "and tell me when
you come back." The nurse, on her return, could recollect nothing of Abu
Sa'id's discourse, but repeated to her mistress some bacchanalian verses she
had heard him recite1. fshf cried, "Go and
wash your mouth ! Do ascetics and divines speak such words as these? " Now, Ishi was
in the habit of making eye-salves which she gave to the people. That night she
saw a frightful thing in her sleep and started up. Both her eyes were aching.
She treated them with eye-salves, but was no better; she betook herself to all the physicians,
but found no cure: she moaned in pain twenty days and nights. Then one night
she slept and dreamed that if she wished her eyes to be better, she must
satisfy the Shaykh of Mayhana and win
his exalted favour. Next day she put in a purse a
thousand dirhems, which she had received as alms, and bade the nurse take it to
Abu Sa'id and present it to him as soon as he should have finished his sermon. When the nurse
laid it before him, he was using a toothpick-for it was his rule that at the end
of the sermon a disciple brought some bread and a toothpick, which he would use
after eating the bread. He said to her, as she was about to depart, 'Come,
nurse, take this tocthpick and give it to thy lady. Tell her that she must stir some water with it and then wash
her eyes with the water, in order that her outward eye may be cured.
And tell her to put out of her heart all suspicious and unfriendly feelings
towards the Sufis, in order that her inward eye too may be cured." Ishi
carefully followed his directions. She dipped the toothpick in water and washed
her eyes and was cured immediately. Next day she brought to the Shaykh all her
jewelry and ornaments and dresses, and said, " O Shaykh ! I have
repented and have put every hostile feeling out of my heart." "May it bring thee
blessing !" said he, and bade them
conduct her to the mother of Bu Tahir1, that she
might robe her in the gaberdine (khirqa).
Ishi went in obedience to his
command and donned the gaberdine and busied herself with serving the women of
this fraternity (the Sufis). She gave up her house and goods, and rose to great
eminence in this Path, and became a leader of the Sufis°.
During the time when Abu Sa'id was at Nishapur,
disciples came to him of all sorts, well and ill bred. One of his converts was a rough peasant with
iron-soled mountain-shoes, which made a disagreeable noise whenever he entered
the monastery; he was always knocking them against the wall and annoying the
Sufis by his rudeness and violence. One d2y the Shaykh called him and said,
"You must go to a certain valley (which he named-it lies between the hills
of Nishapur and Tus, and a stream descending from it falls into the Nishapur
river). After going some distance you will see a big rock. You must perform an ablution on the
bank of the stream and a prayer of two genuflexions on the rock, and wait for a
friend of mine, who will come to you. Give him my greeting, and there is something I wish you to tell
him, for he is a very dear friend of mine: he has
been with me seven years." The dervish set off with the utmost eagerness,
and all the way he was thinking that he was going to see one of the saints or
one of the Forty Men who are the pivot of
the world and upon whom depends
the order and harmony of human affairs. He was sure that the holy man's blessed
look would fall on him and make his fortune both in this world and in the next.
When he came to the place indicated by the Shaykh, he did what the Shaykh had
ordered; then he waited a while. Suddenly there was a dreadful clap and the
mountain quaked. He looked and saw a black dragon, the largest he had ever seen: its body filled the whole space between
two mountains. At the sight of it his spirit fled; he was unable to move and fell
senseless to the earth. The dragon advanced slowly towards the rock, on which it laid
its head reverently. After a little while, the dervish recovered himself
somewhat, and observing that the dragon had come to a halt and was motionless,
he said, though in his terror he scarcely knew what he said, " The Shaykh
greets thee." The dragon with many signs of reverence began to rub its
face in the dust, whilst tears rolled from its eyes. This, and the fact that it
attempted nothing against him, persuaded the dervish that he had been sent to
meet the dragon; he therefore delivered the Shaykh's message, which it received
with great humility, rubbing its face in the dust and weeping so much that the
rock where its head lay became wet. Having heard all, it went away. As soon as it was out of sight, the dervish came to himself and once
more fell in a swoon. A long tire passed before he
revived. At last he rose and slowly descended to the foot of the hill. Then he
sat down, picked up a stone, and heat the iron off his clogs. On returning to
the monastery, he entered so quietly that none was aware of his coming, and
spoke the salaam in such a low voice that he was barely heard. When the elders
saw his behaviour, they desired to know who was the Pir to whom he had been
sent; they wondered who in half a day had wrought in his pupil a change that
can generally be produced only by means of long and severe discipline. When the
dervish told the story, every one was amazed. The elder Sufis questioned the Shaykh, who replied, "Yes, for seven years he has
been my friend, and we have found spiritual joy in each other's society."
After that day none ever saw the dervish behave rudely or heard him speak
loudly. He was entirely reformed by a single attention which the Shaykh
bestowed on him1•
When Shaykh Abu Sa'id was at Nishapur, holding
splendid feasts and musical entertainments and continually regaling the
dervishes with luxurious viands, such as fat fowls and lawzina
and sweetmeats, an arrogant ascetic came to him
and said, "O Shaykh ! I have come in order to challenge you to a forty days'
fast (chihila)." The poor man was
ignorant of the Shaykh's novitiate and of his forty years' austerities: he
fancied that the Shaykh had always lived in this same manner. He thought to
himself, "I will chasten him
with hunger and put him to shame in the eyes of the people, and then I shall be
the object of their regard." On hearing his challenge, the Shaykh said,
"May it be blessed !"
and spread his prayer-rug. His adversary did the
like, and they both sat down side by side. While the ascetic, in accordance
with the practice of those who keep a fast of forty days, was eating a certain
amount of food, the Shaykh ate nothing; and though he never once broke his
fast, every morning he was stronger and fatter and his complexion grew more and
more ruddy. All the time, by his orders and under his eyes, the dervishes
feasted luxuriously and indulged in the sama' , and he himself danced with
them. His state was not changed for the worse in any respect. The ascetic, on
the other hand, was daily becoming feebler and thinner and paler, and the sight
of the delicious viands which were served to the Sufis in his presence worked
more and more upon him. At length he grew so weak that he could scarcely rise
to perform the obligatory prayers. He repented of his presumption and confessed
his ignorance. When the forty days were finished, the Shaykh said, "I have
complied with your request: now you must:do as I say." The ascetic
acknowledged this and said, "It
is for the Shaykh to command." The Shaykh
said, "We have sat forty days and eaten nothing and gone to the privy: now
let us sit forty days and eat and never go to the privy." His adversary
had no choice but to accept the challenge, but he thought to himself that it was impossible
for any human being to do such a thing'.
In the end, of course, the Shaykh proves to be an
overman, and the ascetic becomes one of his disciples.
It is related that an eminent Shaykh who lived in Abu Sa'id's time went on
a warlike expedition to Rum (Asia Minor), accompanied by a number of Sufis.
Whilst be was marching in that country, he saw Iblis. "O accursed
one!" he cried, "what art thou doing here?-for thou canst not cherish
any design against us." Iblis replied that he had come thither
involuntarily. "I was passing by Mayhana,' said he, "and entered the
town. Shaykh Abu Sa'id came out of the mosque. I met him on the way to his
house and he gave a sneeze which cast me here?"
A tomb and sepulchre (turbati
u mashhadi)
was the only memorial of Abu Sa'id in his
native town that the Ghuzz hordes
did not utterly destroy+. Concerning
his relics, that is to say, garments and
other articles which were venerated on account of
some circumstance that gave them
a peculiar sanctity or simply because they once had belonged to him, we find valuable details in three passages of the Asrar.
One day, whilst Shaykh Abu Sa'id was preaching at
Nishapur, he grew warm in his discourse and being overcome with ecstasy
exclaimed, "There is naught within this vest (jubba) except Allah!" Simultaneously he raised his forefinger (angusht-i musabbiba),
which fay on his breast underneath the
jubba, and his blessed finger passed
t'.1rough the jubba and became visible to all. Among the Shaykhs and Imams present on that
occasion were Abu Muhammad Juwayni, Abu '1-Qasim Qushayri, Isma'il Sabuni, and
others whom it would be tedious to enumerate. None of them, on hearing these
words, protested or silently
objected. All were beside themselves, and following the Shaykh's example they
flung away their gaberdines (khirqaha). When the Shaykh descended from the pulpit, his jubba and their gaberdines were
torn to pieces (and distributed)2. The Shaykhs were unanimously of
opinion that the piece of silk (kazhpara)
which bore the mark of his blessed finger should
be torn off from the
breast of the jubba
and set apart, in order that in the future all
who came or went might pay a visit to it. Accordingly, it was set apart just as
it was, with the cotton and lining, and remained in the possession of Shaykh Abu 'l-Fath and his family. Those who came from all parts of the
world as pilgrims to Mayhana, after having visited his holy shrine used to visit that piece of silk and the other memorials of
the Shaykh and used to see the mark of his finger, until the Ghuzz invasion,
when that blessing and other precious blessings of his were lost3.
Bu Nasr Shirwani, a rich merchant of
Nishapur, was converted by Abua Sa'id. He gave the whole of his wealth to the
Sufis and showed the
utmost devotion to the Shaykh. When the latter left Nishapur to return to Mayhana, he bestowed on Bu Nasr a green woollen mantle
(labacha) of his own, saying,
"Go to thy country and set up my banner there." Accordingly Bu Nasr
went back to Shirwan, became the director and chief of the Sufis in that
region, and built a convent, which exists to-day and is known by his name. The
Shaykh's mantle is still preserved in the convent, where Bu Nasr deposited it.
Every Friday at prayer-time the famulus hangs it from a high place in the
building, and when the people come out of the Friday mosque they go to the
convent and do not return home until they have paid a visit to the Shaykh's
mantle. No citizen neglects this observance. If at any time
famine, pestilence, or other calamity befall the country, they place the mantle
on their heads and carry it afield, and the whole population go forth and
reverently invoke its intercession. Then God, the glorious and exalted, in His
perfect bounty and in honour of the Shaykh removes the calamity from them and
brings their desires to pass. The inhabitants of that countty say that the
mantle is a proved antidote (tiryak-i mujarrab) and they make immense offerings to the followers of
the Shaykh. At the present time, through the blessings of the Shaykh's spirit (himma) and the people's excellent belief in the Sufis, this
province can show more than four hundred well-known monasteries, where
dervishes obtain, refreshment.
When the
fame of Abu Sa'id reached Mecca, the Shaykhs of the Holy City, wishing to know
what kind of man he was, sent Bu 'Amr Bashkhwani, who was a great' ascetic and
had resided in Mecca for thirty years, to Mayhana in order that he might bring
back a trustworthy report of Abu Sa'id's character and mystical endowments. Bu
'Amr journeyed to Mayhana and had a long conversation with Abu Sa'id in
private. After three days. when he was about to return to Mecca, Abu Sa'id said
to him, "You must go to Bashkhwan: you are my deputy in that district. Ere
long the bruit of your renown will be heard in the fourth heaven." Bu 'Amr obeyed and
set out for Bashkhwan. As he was taking leave, Abu Sa'id gave him three toothpicks which he had cut with
his own blessed harid, and said, "Do not sell one of
these for ten dinars nor for twenty, and if.thj,rty dinars are offered
"-(here he stopped shore and Bu 'Amr went on his way). On arriving at Bashkhwan, he lodged in the room which is now
(part of) his
convent, and the people honoured him as a saint. Every Thursday he began a complete recitation of the Koran, in which he was
joined by his disciples and the men of
Bashkhwan and all the notables of the neighbouring hamlets ; and when
the recitation was finished, he would call
for a jug of water and dip in it Ont' of the toothpicks which he bad
received from Shaykh A'a Sa'id. The water was then distributed
amongst the sick, and
it healed them by means of the blessed influence
of both Shaykhs. The headman of Bashkhwan, who
was always suffering from colic, begged Bu 'Amr to send him some of the holy water. No sooner had he drunk it than
the pain ceased. Next morning he came to Bu 'Amr and said, "I hear that you have three of these toothpicks. Will you sell me one, for I am very often in pain?" Bu 'Amr asked him how much he would give.
He offered ten dinars. "It is worth more," said Bu 'Amr. "Twenty dinars." "It is worth more." "Thirty dinars." "No, it is worth more." The headman said nothing and would not bid any
higher. Bu 'Amr said, "My master, Shaykh Abu
Sa'id. stopped at the same
amount." He gave him one of the toothpicks in exchange for thirty dinars, and with that money he founded
the convent which now exists. The headman kept the toothpick as long as he lived. On his deathbed he desired that
it should be broken and that the pieces should be placed in his mouth and
buried with him. As regards the two remaining toothpicks, in accordance with Bu 'Amr's last
injunctions they were placed in his shroud and interred in his blessed tomb1.
I have set before my readers a picture of Abu Sa'id as he appears in the oldest and most authentic documents available. These do not always show him as he was, but it would be absurd to reproach his
biographers with their credulity and entire lack of critical judgment: they write as worshippers,
and their work is based upon traditions and legends which
breathe the very spirit of unquestioning faith. Only an alloy can be extracted from such materials, however carefully
they are analysed. The passages in which Abu Sa'id d&scribes his early life, conversion, and novitiate are
perhaps less open to suspicion than the numerous anecdotes concerning his
miracles. Here pious invention plays a large part
and is not limited by any sense of natural law. Even the sceptics converted hy
Abu Sa'id feel sure that miracles occur, and only doubt his ability to perform
them. The mystical sayings attributed to him have a power and freedom beyond
speculative theosophy and suggest that he owed his fame, in the first instance,
to an enthusiastic personality and to the possession of" psychic"
gifts which he knew how to exhibit impressively. He was a great teacher and preacher
of Sufism. I the matter of his doctrine is seldom original, his
genius gathered up and fused the old elements into something new. In
the historical development he stands out as a
leading exponent of the pantheistic, poetical, anti-scholastic, and antinomian
ideas which had been already broached by his predecessor, Bayazid of Bistam,
and Abu 'l-Hasan Kharaqani. It may be said of Abu Sa'id that he, perhaps more than
any one else, gave these ideas the distinctive form in which they are presented
to us by the later religious philosophy of Persia. Their peculiarly Persian
character is just what we should
expect, seeing that Bayazid, Abu 'l-Hasan, and Abu Sa'id himself were born and passed their lives in Khurasan, the cradle
of Persian nationalism. Abu Sa'id also left his mark on another side of Sufism,
its organisation as a monastic system 1. Although he founded no Order, the convent over which he presided
supplied a model in outline of the fraternities that were established during
the rzth century; and in the ten rules which he, as abbot, drew up and caused
to be put into writing' we find, so far as I know, the first Mohammedan example
of a regula ad monachos.
CHAPTER II
THE PERFECT MAN'
Man, is not he Creation's last appeal,
The light of Wisdom's eye ? Behold the wheel
Of universal life as
'twere a ring,
But Man the superscription
and the seal.
OMAR
KHAYYAM.
Ούτως, φησίν, Ιστι πάνν βαθίϊα και δυσκαταληπτός η τον τ«λαου άνθρωπον
γνώσής. 'Αρχη γάρ, φησίν, Τίλίιώσίως γνώσις άνθρωπον· θΐον 81 γνωσις
άπηρτισμίνη τίλίίωσις. ΗίΡΡΟLYUTUδ.
"Ανθρωπος θίον τον άΐ8ίον λόγος. ΡΗΙLΟ..
WHAT do Sufis mean when they speak of the Perfect Man (al-insamnu 'l-kamil), a phrase which seems first to have been used by the celebrated Ibnu
'1-'Arabi, although the notion underlying it is almost as old as Sufism itself?? The question might be answered in different ways, but if we seek a
general definition, perhaps we may describe the Perfect Man as a man who has fully
realised his essential oneness with the Divine Being in whose likeness he is
made. This experience, enjoyed by prophets and
saints and shadowed forth in symbols to others, is the foundation of the Sufi theosophy. Therefore, the class of Perfect Men comprises not only the prophets from Adam to Mohammed, but also the superlatively elect (khususu 'l-khusis) amongst the Sufis, i.e., the persons named collectively awliya, plural of wali, a word originally meaning
''near," which is used for "friend," "~rotege,'' or
"devotee." Since the wali or saint is the
popular type of Perfect Man, it should be understood that the
essence of Mohammedan saintship, as of prophecy, is nothing less than Divine
illumination, immediate vision and knowledge of things unseen and unknown, when the veil of sense is suddenly lifted and the conscious self passes away in
the overwhelming glory of "the One true Light." An
ecstatic feeling of oneness with God constitutes the wali.
It is the end of the Path (tariqa) in so far as the discipline of the Path is meant to predispose and prepare the disciple to
receive this incalculable gift of Divine grace, which is not gained or lost by
anything that a man may do, but comes to him in proportion to the
measure and degree of spiritual
capacity with which he was created.
Two special functions of the wali further illustrate the relation of the popular saint-cult to
mystical philosophy-(r) his function as a mediator, (2) his function as a cosmic power. The Perfect Man, as will be explained in the course of
our argument, unites the One and the Many, so- that the universe depends on him
for its continued existence. In Mohammedan religious life the wali
occupies the same middle position:
he bridges the chasm which the Koran and scholasticism have set. between man and an absolutely transcendent God. He brings relief to the
distressed, health to the sick, children to the childless, food to the
famished, spiritual guidance to those who entrust their souls to
his care, blessing to all who visit
his tomb and invoke Allah in his
name. The walis, from the
highest to the lowest, are arranged in a graduated hierarchy, with the Qutb at their head, forming "a saintly board of administration by which
the invisible government of the world is carried on 1." Speaking of the Awtdd-four saints whose rank
is little inferior to that of the Qutb himseltHujwiri
says:
It is their office to
go round the whole world every night, and if there be any place on which their eyes have
not fallen, next day some flaw will appear in that place; and they must then inform the Qutb, in order that he may direct his attention to the weak spot, and that by his blessing the
imperfection may be remedied •
Such experiences and beliefs were partly the
cause and partly the consequence of speculation concerning the nature of God
and man, speculation which drifted far away from Koranic monotheism into
pantheistic and monistic philosophies. The Sufi reciting the Koran in ecstatic
prayer and seeming to hear, in the words which he intoned, not his own voice
but the voice of God speaking through him, could no longer acquiesce in the
orthodox conception of Allah as a Being utterly different from all other
beings. This dogma was supplanted by faith in a Divine Reality (al-lf aqq), a God who
is the creative principle and ultimate ground of all that exists. While Sufis,
like Moslems in general, affirm the transcendence of God and reject the notion
of infusion or incarnation (hulul), it is an interesting fact that one of
the first attempts in Islam to indicate more precisely the meaning of mystical union was founded on the
Christian doctrine of two natures in God. Hallaj, who dared to say A.net
'l-ljaqq, "I am the If aqq3," thereby announced that the
saint in his deification "becomes the living and personal witness. of
God." The Jewish tradition that God created Adam in His own image
reappeared as a hadith (saying of the Prophet) and was put to strange uses by Mohammedan
theosophists.
Even the orthodox Ghazali hints that here is the
key of a great
mystery which nothing will induce him to divulge'. According to Hallaj, the
essence of God's essence is Love. Before the creation God loved Himself in
absolute unity and through love revealed Himself to Himself alone. Then,
desiring to behold that love-in-aloneness, that love without otherness and
duality, as an external object, He brought forth from non-existence an image of
Himself, endowed with all His attributes and names. This Divine image is Adam,
in and by whom God is made manifest-divinity objectified in humanity? Hallaj,
however, distinguishes the human nature (nastit) from the Divine (lahut).
Though mystically united, they arc
not essentially identical and interchangeable. Personality survives even in
union: water does not become wine, though wine be mixed with
it. Using a more congenial metaphor, I;-Ltllaj says in verses which arc often
quoted:
I am He whom I
love, and He whom I love is I.
We are two soirits dwelling in one body',
If thou seest me, thou seest Him;
And if thou seest Him, thou
seest us both.
The markedly Christian flavour of the Hallajian
doctrine condemned it in Moslem eyes, and while later Sufis develop its main
ideas and venerate Hallaj himself as a martyr who was barbarously done to death
because he had proclaimed the Truth, they interpret his Ana Haqq in the light of an idealistic
monism which reduces all antitheses-including ldhut and nasut-to necessarily correlated aspects of the universal Essence. His doctrine in its original
form has only recently been recovered and given to the world by M.
Louis Massignon, to whose learned and brilliant monograph every student of
Sufism is deeply indebted. ‘Abdu ’1-Karim ibn Ibrahim al-Jilf, author of
al-Insanu 'l-kamil fi ma'rifati 'l-awakhir wa 'l-awa'il (“The Man perfect in
knowledge of 'the last and first things"), was born in 4.D. 1365-6
and probably died some time between A.D. 1406 and 1417. His surname, ·which is derived from
Jilan or Gilan, the province south of the Caspian, commemorates his descent
from the founder of the Qadirite order of dervishes, 'Abdu 'I-Qadir al-J ili
(Gilani), who died almost exactly 200 years before the date of Jili's birth'. In the Insani 'l-kamil he
more than once refers to 'Abdu 'I-Qadir as "our Shaykh,'' so that he must
have been a member of the fraternity. The Moslem biographer:s leave him
unnoticed, but he himself tells ns that he lived at Zabid in Yemen with his
Shaykh, Sharafu'ddir. Isma'il ibn Ibrahim al-Jabarti, and had pn·viuusly travdled
in India. Of his mystical writings twenty arc known to be extant, and it is not
unlikely that as many have been lost.
Jili begins his work with a statement of his object in composig it 3. That object is God (al-Hayy) therefore he must treat in the first place , of the:
Divine names, then of the Divine
attributes, and lastly of the Divine essence. "I will call
attention," he says, ''to mysteries which no author has. ever put into a
book', matters concerning the gnosis of God and of the universe, and will tread
a path between reserve and divulgation." He writes throughout as one
reporting what has been communicated to him in mystical converse {mukalama), so
that" the hearer knows it intuitively to be the word of God ." These
private revelations are supported, he asserts, by the Koran and the Sunna, and
he warns his readers not to charge him
with errors which may arise from their own want of understanding; but while he
professes belief in the Mohammedan articles of faith 2, he interprets them by an allegorising method that yields any and every
meaning desired. As a writer, he is not without talent, though his work belongs
to mysticism rather than to literature. Besides many poems which he seems to
have admired inordinately°, he introduces maqamas in rhymed prose and
specimens of the Platonic myth. Thus he tells how the stranger, whose name is
the Spirit, returned from long exile and imprisonment to the world known as Yuh, and entered a
spacious city where Khadir rules over fl the
Men of the Unseen" (rijalu 'l-ghayb) -exalted saints and angels, of whom
six classes are described'.
The characteristic of the Insanu 'l-kamil is the idea of the
Perfect Man, "who as a microcosmos of a higher order reflects not only the
powers of nature but also the divine powers 'as in a mirror' (comp. the evuos av~pomos of
Philo)5." On this basis
Jili builds his mystical
philosophy. It will
be better grasped as a whole, if before
coming to details I endeavour to sketch
it in outline.
Jili belongs to the school of Sufis who hold that Being is one°, that
all apparent differences are modes, aspects, and manifestations of reality,
that the phenomenal is the outward expression of the real. He begins by
defining essence as that to which names and attributes are referred; it may be
either existent or non-existent, i.e., existing only
in name, like the fabulous bird called 'Anqa. Essence that really exists is
of two kinds: Pure Being, or God, and Being joined to notbeing. i.e., the world of created
things. The essence of God is unknowable per se; we must seek
knowledge of it through its names and attributes. It is a substance with two
accidents, eternity and everlastingness; with two qualities, creativeness and
creatureliness; with two descriptions, uncreatedness and origination in time;
with two names, Lord and slave (God and man); with two aspects, the outward or
visible, which is the present world,
and the inward or invisible, whicl, is the world to come; both necessity and
contingency are predicated of it, and it
may be regarded either as non-existent for itself but
existent for other, or as non-existent for other bat existent for
itself!
Pure Being, as such, has neither name nor attribute; only when it gradually descends from its absoluteness and enters the realm of
manifestation, do names and attributes app<"'ar imprinted
on it. The sum of these
attributes is the universe, which is
"phenomenal" only in the sense that it shows reality under the form of externality..
Although, from this standpoint, the distinction of essence and attribute must
be admitted, the two are ultimately one, like water and ice .. The so-called phenomenal world-the world of attribntes-is no illusion: it really exists as the self-revelation
or other self of the Absolute. In
denying any real difference between
essence and attribute, Jili
makes Being identical with Thought.
The world expresses God's idea of Himself, or as Ibnu '1'Arabi puts
it, "we ourselves are the attributes by which we desctibe God; our
existence is merely an objectification of
His existence. God is necessary to us in order that we
may exist, while we are necessary to Him in order that He may be
manifested to Himself2.''
Jili calls the simple essence,
apart from all qualities and relations, "the
dark mist" (al-'A ma). It develops consciousness by passing through three stages of manifestation, which modify its
simplicity. The first stage is Oneness (A hadiyya), the second is He-ness (Huwiyya), and the third is I-ness (niyya). By this process of descent Absolute Being has
become the subject and object of all thought and has revealed itself as
Divinity with distinctive attributes embracing the whole series of existence.
The created world is the outward aspect of that which in its inward aspect is
God. Thus in the Absolute we find a principle of diversity, which it evolves by
moving downwards, so to speak, from a plane beyond quality and relation, beyond
even the barest unity, until by degrees it clothes itself with manifold names
and attributes and takes visible shape in the infinite variety of Nature. But
"the One remains, the Many change and pass." The Absolute cannotrest
in diversity. Opposites must be reconciled and at last united, the Many must
again be; One. Recurring to Jilis
metaphor, we may sav that as water becomes ice and
then water once more, so the Essence crystallised in the world of attributes
seeks to return to its pure and simple self. And in order to do so, it must
move upwards, reversing the direction of its previous descent from
absoluteness. We have seen how reality, without ceasing to be reality, presents
itself in the form of appearance: by what means, then,
does appearance cease to be appearance and disappear in the abysmal
darkness of reality?
Man. in virtue of his essence, is the cosmic Thought assuming flesh and connecting Absolute Being with the world of Nature.
While every appearance shows some attribute of
reality, Man is the microcosm in which all attributes are united, and in him
alone does the Absolute become conscious of itself in all its diverse aspects.
To put it in another way, the Absolute, having completely realised itself in
human nature, returns
into itself through the medium of human nature; or,
more intimately, God and man become one in the Perfect Manthe enraptured prophet or saint-whose religious function as a mediator
between man and God corresponds with his metaphysical function as the unifying
principle by means of which the opposed terms of reality and appearance are harmonised. Hence
the upward movement of the Absolute from the sphere of manifestation back to
the unmanifested Essence takes place in and through the unitive experience of
the soul; and so we have exchanged philosophy for mysticism.
Jili
distinguishes three phases of mystical illumination or revelation (tajalli), which run parallel, as it were, to the three
stages-Oneness, He-ness, and I-ness-traversed by the Absolute in its descent to
consciousness.
In the first
phase, called the Illumination of the Names, the Perfect Man receives the
mystery that is conveyed by each of the names of God, and he becomes one with the name in such sort
that he answers the prayer of any person who invokes God by the name in
question.
Similarly,
in the second phase he receives the Illumination of the Attributes and becomes
one with them, i.e., with the Divine Essence as qualified by its various
attributes: life. knowledge, power, will, and so forth. For example, God reveals Himself to some mystics
through the attribute of life. Such a man, says Jili, is the life of the whole
universe; he feels that his life. permeates all. things sensible and ideal,
that· all words, dee ls, bodies, and spirits derive their
existence from him. If he be endued with the attribute of knowledge,
he knows the entire content of past, present, and future existence, how everything
came to be or is coming or will come to be, and why the non-existent does not
exist: all this he knowsboth synthetically and analytically. The Divine
attributes are classified by the author under four heads: (1) attributes of
the. Essence, (2) attributes of Beauty, (3) attributes of Majesty, (4)
attributes of Perfection. He says that all created things are mirrors in which
Absolute Beauty is reflected. What is ugly has its due place in the order of existence no less than what is beautiful, and equally belongs to the
Divine perfection: evil, therefore, is only relative. As was stated above, the
Perfect· Man reflects all the Divine attributes, including even the Essential
ones, such as unity and eternity, which he shares with no other being in this world or the next.
The third
and last phase is the Illumination of the Essence.
Here the Perfcct Man becomes
absolutely perfect. Every attribute has
vanished, the Absolutely:, returned into itself.
In the theory thus ontlined we can recognise a monistic iorm of the myth wiich represents the Primal Man, the first-born of God, as sinking into
matter, working there as a creative principle, longing for deliverance, and, at
last finding the way back to his source'. Jili
calls the Perfect Man the preserver of the universe, tle Qutb or Pole on
which all the spheres of exlstence revolve.
He is the final cause .of cn;ation, i.e., the means by which God secs Himself, for
the Di vine names and attributes
cannot be seen, as a whole, except in the Perfect Man. He is a copy made in the
image of God; therefore in him is that which corresponds to the Essence with its two
correlated aspects of He-ness
and I-ness, i.e., inwardness
and outwardness, or divinity and humanity: His real nature is threefold, as Jili expressly declares in the following verses, which no one can read without
wondering how a Moslem could have written
them :
If you say that it (the Essence) is One, you are right; or if
you say that it is Two, it is in fact Two .
Or if you say, "No, it is Three,'· you are right,
for that is the real nature of Man'.
Here we have a Trinity consisting of the Essence together with
its two rnmplementary aspects, :nornely, Creator
and creature--God and man. Now, all men arc
perfect potentially, but few are
actually so. These few arc the prophets and saints. And since their perfection varies in degree according to their capacity for receiving illumination, one of them must Stand out
above all the rest, Jili remains a Moslem
in spite of his philosophy,
and for him this absolutely Ptrfect Man is the Prophet Mohammed. In the
poem from which I have quoted he idrntifics the Three-in-One with Mohammed and addresses him
as follows:
O centre of the compass!
O inmost' ground of the truth! O pivot of necessity and contingency!
0 eye of the entire circle of existence! 0 point of the Koran and the Furqan!
0 perfect one, and perfecter
of the most perfect, who have been beautified by the majesty of God the
Merciful:
Thou art the Pole (Quto) of the most wondrous things. The sphere of perfection in its solitude
turns on thee.
Thou art transcendent; nay, thou art immanent; nay, thine is
all that is known and unknown, everlasting and perishable.
Thine in reality is Being and not-being; nadir and
zenith are thy two garments.
Thou art both the light and its opposite; nay, but
thou art only darkness to a gnostic that is dazed2.
Jili also holds that in every age the Perfect Men are an outward manifestation of the essence of Mohammed°, which has
the power of assuming whatever form it will; and he records the time and place of his own meeting with the Prophet, who
appeared to him in the guise of his spiritual
director, Sharafu'ddin Isma'il al-Jabarti.
In the 60th chapter of the Insanu 'l-kamil he depicts Mohammed as the absolutely perfect man, the first-created
of God and the archetype of all other created beings. This, of course, is an Islamic Logos
doctrine'. It brings Mohammed in some respects very near to the Christ of the Fourth Gospel and the Pauline Epistles. But if the resemblance is great, sci is the difference. The Fafoerhood of God, the Incarnation, and the Atonement suggest an infinitely rich and sympathetic
personality, whereas the Mohammedan Logos tends to identify itself with the active principle. of revelation in the Divine essence. Mohammed is loved and adored as the perfect image or copy of God: "he that has
seen me has seen Allah,'' says the Tradition}. Except that he is not quite
co-equal and co-eternal with his Maker, there can be no limit to glorification
of the Perfect Man°. I need hardly say that Mohammed gave the lie direct to
those who would have thrust this sort of greatness upon him: his apotheosis is
the triumph of religious feeling over historical fact.
These ideas in part go back to Hallaj but were first
worked out and systematised by the most prolific of Moslem theosophists and
one of the most original, Muhyi'ddin Ibnu '1-'Arabi, of whose influence on the
course of later Sufi speculation the traces are so broad and deep that he well
deserves the honorary title of doctor maximus (al-shaykhu 'l-akbar), by which he
is frequently designated. Although Jili does not follow him everywhere,
he has learned much from his predecessor's manner of philosophising; he looks
at things from a similar standpoint, and his thought moves in the same circle of mystical
phantasies+struggling to clothe themselves with forms of logic. Ibnu 'l-'Arabi
would be better known to us, if he had written more briefly, lucidly, and
methodically. In all these respects Jili has the
advantage: we can say of the Insanu 'l-kamil what cannot be said of the Futuhatu
'lMakkiyya or the Fususu 'l-hikam-that the author is not so difficult as the
subject. The philosophy of Ibnu 'l-'.Arabi requires a volume for itself, but I
will attempt to give my readers some account of the Fusus, where he
treats particularly of the Divine attributes displayed by the prophetic class
of- Perfect Men.
The Insanu 'l-kamil, though strongly marked
with a character. and expression of its own, is one of those books which gather
up the threads of a whole system of thought and serve as a clue to it. After
having explored the visionary world of reality through which the author
conducts us step by step, we at least know where we are when hierophants of the same guild beckon
us to their company and bid us soar with them
Into the height of Love's rare universe.
I trust that
the following analysis and exposition is full enough to bring out the principal
features of the work and open an avenue for further study. The subject-matter
of Jili's sixty-three chapters has been arranged under a few heads in the way
that seemed most suitable.
I. ESSENCE, ATTRIBUTE, AND NAME
The Absolute
Essence (Dhat), or the Essence of God, is that to which names and
attributes belong in their real nature, not as they appear in .existence 1. It denotes the self (nafs) of God whereby He exists, for He is self-subsistent. It is endowed with all tHe names and ideas which His perfection demands.
Amongst these are infinity and incomprehensibility. No words can
express or hint what the Essence is, since it has no opposite or like. In its absoluteness it annuls all
the contradictions which, as the universal ground of individualisation, it
inclndes2.
I am
convinced that It (the Essence) is non-existence, since by
existence It
was manifested
Thought hath beheld It from afar as a power exerting
itself in
existence.
It is
not other than a wall, wherein is set for thee a store of treasures. I am that wall, and It is the hidden treasure-hidden in order
that I may find it by digging.
Take It then, to be a body in respect of an outward form (which It assumes), while to that body It is a spirit, that thou mayst regard
it (the body).
God made Its comeliness {husr;
complete', and by tha beauty (jamal) of God
it became cel brated (known to all).
It never subsisted {as an object) Lat in thee alone':
perceive the Word (Amr)•, that
thou mayst sec its
d.iverse forms·1.
I am the existent ant! the non-existent and the naughted and the
everlasting.
I am the awared and the imagined and the snake and the charmer. I am the loosed and the bound and Uw wine and the cupbcarer.
I am the treasure, I am poverty, I
am my creatures and my Creator.
Neither affirm my existence nor
deny it, 0
immortal one!
Do not suppose thyself different from me or deem thyself the
eye of my eye-corners.
And say, "That am I, yet in
respect of my qualities and natural dispositions That I am
not"."
Jili defines the attribute (sifat) of a thing as that which conveys knowledge of its state to the
understanding°. The attributes of the Essence are the forms of thought by
which it is manifested
and made known. In the world of appearance we distinguish the forms from the
reality underlying them, but the distinction is not ultimate: the attributes in their real
nature are identical with the Essence which manifests itself as
"other," i.e.,
under the aspect of externality, to our perceptions7. What is called in
theology the creation ol the world is
just tliis manifestation, accompanied by division
and plurality, of the Essence as
the attributes, or of Being as the object of thought; and in reality the Essence zis the attributes (al-Dhdt 'aynu 'l-sifat), The universe is an idca-''such stuff as dreams arc made on," although
the idea cannot properly be differentiated from
the "thing-in-itself," except for convenience of understanding. Here
Jet me translate part of the
57th chapter, "Concerning
thought (khayl.'}, how it is the material (hayula, i) oi the (osmios+.
Thought is the life of the spirit or the universe: iu is the foundation of that life, and its (Thought’s) foundation
is Man.
To him that knows Thought through the power oi tie Almighty, existence is nothing but a thought.
Sensation, before its appearance, is an object of
through to thee, and if it goes it
resembles a dream goes foundation is Man.
And, similarly, the time during whkil it is felt inheres in our
consciousness upon a foundation of
thought).
Be not deceived by sensation, for it is an object oi
thought (zukkayyal), and so is the reality (which every fonn expresses) and the whole universe,
And likewise, to him that knows foe truth. the worlds of melakut and jabarut, and the divine nature (lahi!)
and the human nature (nasit).
Do not despise the rank of Thought, for it is the very
gist of the notion2 of the Being who disposes all.
Know that Thought is the origin of existence and is the essence wherein God is manifested perfectly. Consider your own belief in
God and in His having the attributes and names which belong to Him. Where is the locus
(ma'lf,all) of this belief, in which God is made manifest to you? It is '11mught. Therefore we said that Thought is the essence wherein He becomes manifest in perfection; If you recognise this, it will be plain to yo.u that
Thought is the origin of the whole universe, because God is the origin of all
things, and their most perfect manifestation occurs nowhere but in a locus which is the origin (of Els manifestation) ;
and that locus is Thought.
Mark how the Prophet considered
the sensible world to be a dream-and dream is a thought--and said, " 1,fankind are
asleep, and when they die, they awake," i.e., the reality
in which they were during their earthly !ife is manifested t,1 them, and. they perceive that they were asleep. Not that death brings a complete
awakening. Forgetfulness (ghaflat) of God prevails over those in the intermediate state (barzakh) and those in the place of Judgment and those in Hell and Paradise, until
God reveals Himself to them on the Hill to which the inhabitants of Paradise go
forth and behold Him. This forgetfulness is the sleep (mentioned by the
Prophet). The universe, then,' has its origin in a thought, and for this reason
Thought determines the individuals therein: all, whatever their sphere of existence, are determined by Thought. For example, the people
of this world are determined by thought of their life
as it is now or as it shall be hereafter; in either case, they are forgetful of
presence with God (al-hudur
ma' Allah) : they are asleep. He that is present with God is awake
according to the measure of his presence....The sleep of the inhabitants of the
next world is lighter, but although they are with God in respect that He is
with all beings and
says (in the Koran), 'He is with you wheresoever ye be," yet are they
with Him in sleep, not in waking. One that, by divine predestination, enjoys in
this world what shall at last be shown on the Hill to the people of Paradise,
so that God reveals Himself to him and he knows God-that man is (truly) awake.
If you perceive that those in every world are judged to be asleep,
then judge that all those worlds are a
thought, inasmuch as Sleep is the world of Thought.
The comparison with dream-experience does not
imply that the universe is unreal, but that it is reality as presented to
itself through and in the cosmic consciousness of the Perfect Man,
which holds all the attributes of
reality together. This, we have already noted, is the central doctrine of the
work before us. Other men lack such consciousness: they regard the. sum of attributes constituting the "material"
world as something different from the Essence and from themselves.
In the unitive state
there is immediate perception of the Essence, but no mystic perceives the attributes as they really
are: you can feel intuitively
that you are He, that the Divine essence is
consubstantial ('ayn) with your own, and thereby attain to knowledge of the Essence; you cannot, however, perceive and know the attributes
of the Essence any more than you can perceive and know the qualities latent in yourself, which are only visible in their effects.
Consequently it may be said that the Essence is imperceptible, in the sense of
its being identical with the attributes1.
The name (ism) objectifies the named (musamma) in the understanding, pictures it in the mind,
presents it to the judgment, moves ii in
reflection and keeps it in memory. It serves to make unknown things known; therefore, its relation to the
named is that of the outward to the inward, and in this respect it is identical
with the named. Some things exist in name and not otherwise; thus, the
existence of the 'Anqa
is entirely
nominal: the" named" in this case is not-being. God, on the contrary,
is real Being; and just as our knowledge of the 'Anqa is derived from its name, so we reach knowledge of God
through the name Allah, in which all the Divine names and attributes are
compiised3.
God made
this name a mirror for man, so that when he looks in it, he knows the true
meaning of "God was and there was naught beside Him," and in that
moment it is revealed to him that his hearing is God's hearing, his sight God's
sight, his speech God's speech, his life God's life, his knowledge God's
knowledge, his will God's will, and his power God's power, and that God
possesses all these attributes fundamentally; and then he knows that all the
aforesaid qualities are borrowed and metaphorically applied to himself, whereas
they really belong to God'
The Divine
names are either names of the Essence, e.g., al-Ahad (the One), or names of the attributes, e.g., al-Rahman (the Merciful), al-'Alim (the Knowing). Each of themexcept al-Ahad,
which
transcends relationship-brings forth the effect (athar) inherent in that particular aspect of the Essence of
which it is, so to speak, the embodiment: Good. and evil, faith and infidelity,
all mundane life, thought, feeling, and action proceed inevitably from the
Divine names
ll. THE; DESCENT OF THE ABSOLUTE1•
Pure Being, devoid of qualities and relations, is called by Jili ' the dark nist" or "blindness" (al-'Am), a term which
the Frophet is said to
have used in answering the question, "Where was Goel before the creation? 2" Dr
Iqbal remarks that el-'Ama, translated
into modern phraseology, would be "the
Unconsciousness," and that cur
author here anticipates the theories of Schopenhauer
and Von Hartmann3. The parallel seems to me little more than verbal. Jilf's ontology is
based on logic, and in developing it he
follows a method which curiously resembles the Hegelian dialectic. According to Hegel,
the Absolute Idea 'tself is the resolution of the antithesis of Nature and Mind. The Idea is articulated
as abstract, self-identical unity, negation of this by
a plural" other" of particularity and differences, and as concrete identity-in-difference and unity-in-plurality, wherein it affirms itself with a richer content.. ..
The "result" in question, however, must not be expressed amiss. It docs not occur at the end
of a time-process. 'Moments'' severed for us are together for the
Absolute ldea, the comcious Reason, the Notion which knows
all as itself. The tail of the serpent is
iv the serpent's mouth. This
self-sundering of the Idea is the Hegelian form of the mystic Jacob Bolme's view that without self-diremption" the being
of the Eternal would be not-being. Conscious knowledge, it is urged, implies antithesis within the Spiritual Ground4.
Similar principles determine Jili's line of
thought, although he never states them formally.
The 'Ama, as he describes it, is not a blind unconscious power, but it is the
absolute inwardness (batun) and occultation (istitar) in which the
opposite concept of outwardness (zuhr)-i.e., all relations of the.
Essence to itself as"other "is somehow absorbed
and negated,
like starlight in sunlight 1. Jili compares the 'Ama, as the eternal and unchangeable ground of Being, to
the fire which, in a sense, is always latent in the flint whence it flashes
forth°. Thus the 'Ama may be regarded as the inmost self, the
"immanent negativity" of the Essence; as such, it is logically correlated ,with Ahadiyya3, in which the Essence
knows itself as transcendental unity; and both these aspects
are reconciled in the Absolute, '' whose out wardness is. identical with its inwardness'"
A hadiyya, the abstract notion of oneness, although nothing else is
manifested in it, marks the first approach of the Essence to manifestation',
Its nature is analogous to a wall viewed from a distance
as a single whole without reference to the clay,
wood, bricks, and mortar of which it is composed: the· wall is "one."
in respect of its being a name for· the "murity" {mardiyya)6• In the same way A hadiyya
comprises all particulars as negated
by the idea of nnity. This absolute unity in turn resolves itself into a pair of
opposites in order to become re-united in a third term which carries the process of individualisation a: stage further. Thus we arrive at Wahidiyya or
relative unity, i.e., unity in
plurality. The intervening thesis and antithesis are named Huwiyya
(He-ness) 1 and Aniyya
(I-ness).2. Huwiyya signifies the inward unity (alahadiyyat al-batina) in which the attributes of the
Essence disappear ; Aniyya, the obverse
side or outward expression of Huwiyya, is that unity
revealing itself in existence. Clearly, then, external
manifestation is the result of a "self-diremption" which lies in
the-very nature of the Essence as Pure Thought3. The discord of Huwiyya (the
Many submerged in the One) and Aniyya (the
One manifested in the Many) is overcome in the harmony of Wahidiyya
(the Many identical in essence with each other and
with the One) '. In Wahidiyya "essence
is manifested as attribute and attribute as
essence," so that all distinction between the attributes is lost: one is
the 'ayn (identity) of
the other, Mercy and Vengeance are the same. We shall see that from this point
of view the plane of Divinity (ilahiyya) is a descent
from Wahidiyya,in so far as in the former the attributes, which were
identical in the latter, become distinct and opposed. Before passing to
theology, let me put the
author's scheme of ontological devolution in the form of a table.
A. Absolute
Being or Pure Thought (al-Dhat, al-Wujud al-mutlaq). {a) inward aspect: "the dark mist" (al-'Ama). Being, sunk in itself,.
bare potentiality.
{b) Outward aspect: abstract Oneness (A hadiyya). Being, conscious of itself as unity.
B. Abstract
Oneness (A hadiyya).
(a) Inward
aspect: He-ness (Huwiyya). Being, conscious of itself as negating the Many (attributes).
(b) Outward
aspect: I-ness (Aniyya). Being, conscious ofitself as the "truth" of
the Many.
C. Unity in plurality {Wahidiyya). Being, identifying itself as One with itself as Many.
III. THE ESSENCE AS GOD.
In the Insanu 'l-kamil we find the same contrast as in the Vedanta system between Being with attributes, i.e.,
God, and
Being which would not be absolute unless it were
stripped of all qualities.' The essence of God is Pure Being, but Divinity (Ilahiyya)-the domain of Allah, regarded as He who
necessarily exists--is the highest manifestation of the Essence, embracing all that is manifested:
"it is a name for the sum of the
individualisations of Being, i.e., Being in the relation of Creator (al-}Jaqq) to created things (al-khalq), and for their maintenance in their respective order in
that sum1.'.' Here the full ideal content of every individualisation, existent or non-existent', is manifested according to its proper place in the series, and all opposites exhibit their relativity in the .greatest possible. perfection; thus, the Creator (al-Haqg) appears in the form of the creature (al-khalq)', and conversely the creature in. the form of the
Creat_or4. Since Divinity represents the sum of the attributes, it is invisible to the eye, though visible everywhere in its effects, z". c., in the sensible workl; the Essence, on the other hand, is visible, though its zedzerc is unknown. Similarly, when you sec a man, you
know or believe that he has certain
qualities, but
you do not see them; his essence {nti, however, you see as-a whole, even if
many of his qualities are unknown to _you. Only the effects of his qualitie,; arc visiblt:, the qualities
themselves you cannot see, because the attribute must always remain hidden in the Essence; otherwise, it could be separated from
the Essence. and that is impossible1. In a scale of existence where each lower individualisation marks a loss
of simplicity, the difference-in-identity (Ilahiyya) in which the sunken riches
of the. Absolute are completely realised, might be expected to succeed the
identity-in~difference which belongs to the stage of Wahidiyya. Jili, as a
mystical theologian, does not take this view. He enthrones Allah in the seat of
the Absolute and gives the following line of descent.
1.Divinity Illahiyya).
2.Abstract Oneness
(.Ahadiyya).
3.Unity in plurality (Wahidiyya).
4. Mercifulness:; (Rabminiyva).
5. Lordship (Rububiyya).
Jforcifulness and Lordship are specialised aspects of Divinity. Rahmaniyya° manifests
the creative attributes (al-Sidretu 'l haqqiyya) cxdusively4, whereas İlahiyya
comprehends both
the creative and the creaturely (khali). The first mercy (rahmat) of God wa.s His bringing the umverse into existence from Himself5_ His
manifestation pervaded all that exists, and
His perfection was displayed iu ewry particle and atom of the whole, yet He remains One (wahid)
in the Many which mirror Him and Single (ahad) according to the neceSsity of His nature, for
He is indivisible and He created the world from
Himself. It is wrong to say that God "lends" His attributes to
things; the things are really His attributes, to which He lends the name of
creatureliness (khalqiyya)', in order that the mysteries of Divinity and the
antithesis inherent in it may be revealed. God is the substance (hayula) of the universe. The universe is like ice, and God is
the water of which it is made: the name "ice" is "lent" to
the congealed mass, but its true name is " water." Jili pursues this
analogy in four verses which he quotes from an ode of his own composition2. He says in the second verse that although Religion declares the ice and
the water to be different, "we mystics know that they are the same."
He asks how this doctrine-the permeation of existence by the Essence--can be
confounded with hulul (incarnation), which affirms contact, i.e., non-identity
. In virtue of the name al-Rahman, God exists in all the things that He brought into
being. His mercy towards His creatures was shown by His manifesting Himself in
them and by causing them to appear in Himself. 'In every idea that you form God
is present as its Creator, and you are God in respect of its existence in you,
for you must needs form ideas in God and find (feel the presence of) God in
forming them4."
Lordship (Rububiyya) establishes a necessary relation between God and His
creatures, since it typifies the class of attributes which involve a
complementary term or require an object; e.g., "lord " implies 'slave,'' and
"knower"' refers to something "known."
It will be
understood that 'comparison" (tashbih), i.e., the bringing of God into relation with created things,
is "a judgment about Him and does not afiect His absolute transcendence (tanzih) as He is in Himself, which He alone can conceive and
know2. This fact is known intuitively by Perfect Men; for other mystics it is a
truth apprehended by faith. While the Essential tanzih
has no
opposite, the antithesis of tanzih and tashbih is associated with God in His creative and creaturely aspects by those who perceive
that He is One
and that the form of all existent things is the form of Divine excellence (usn)°. Considered absolutely, the
Divine nature does
not admit of change. Change consists in the relations of God, i.e., in the diverse aspects wherein He manifests Himself to us. His
manifestation of Himself to Himself, and His occultation of Himself in Himself,
is eternally one and the same'. The notion of eternity, without beginning and without end, when it is applied to God, involves no
time-relation with His creatures, but only a judgment that His
nature is'necessarily
timeless5.
Jili makes a
fourfold division of the Divine attributes: (i) attributes of the Essence.,
e.g., One, Eternal, Real; (2) attributes of Beauty (jumdl), e.g., Forgiving,
Knowing, Guiding aright; (3) attributes of Maj esty {jaldl}, e.g., Almighty,
Avenging, Leading astray; (4) attributes of Perfection (kamdl), e.g., Exalted,
Wise, First and Last, Outward and Inward®.Every attribute has an
effect (etkar), in which its jamal or jalal or kamal
is
manifested. Thus, objects of knowledge are the "effect" of the Name al-'Alim,
the Knower.
All attributes of jamal, and some of jalal, are displayed by everything that exists.
Paradise is the mirror of absolute jamal, Hell of absolute jalal, and the universe is the form of these
Divine attributes. Evil, as such, does not exist, although it has its appointed place in the world of opposites. What we call evil is really the relation of some parts and aspects of the whole to other parts and aspects; in a word, all imperfection arises from onr not looking at things sub
specie unitatis. Sin is not evil except in so far as we judge it to be forbidden by God. The
author's treatment of the seven principal attributesLife, Knowledge, Will,
Power, Speech, Hearing, and Sightis marked by great subtlety, but the
discussion is somewhat arid. I will give a few specimens.
Life.
The
existence of a thing for itself is its complete life; its existence for another
is its relative life. God exists for Himself. He is the Living One (al-Mlayy), and His life is the life complete and immortal.
Created beings in general exist for God: their life is relative and linked with
death. While the Divine life in created beings is one and complete, some
manifest it in a complete form, e.g., the
Perfect Man a11d the Cherubim; others incompletely, e.g., the animal man (alinsanu 'l-hayawani), the inferior angels, the jinn (genies), animals, plants, and minerals. Yet, in a certain
sense, the life of all created beings is complete in the measure suitable to
their degree and necessary for the preservation of the order of
the universe. Life is a single essence, incapable of diminution or division,
existent for itseli in everything; and that which constitutes a thing is its
life, that is to say, the life of God whereby all things subsist: they all
glorify Him in respect of all His names, and their glorification of Him in
respect of His name "the Living" is identical with their existence
through His life. The author states, as a fact know•'i
to fevv but revealed to him by mystical illumination, that everything exists in and for itself, and that its life
is entirely free and selfdetermined. This-which, as he admits, does not tally
with what has been said above-is confirmed by the Divine information that on
the Day of Resurrection each of a man's deeds will appear in visible shape and will
address him and say, "I am thy deed."
Knowledge". Although every attribute is independent and uncompounded, knowledge is
most nearly connected witli life: whatever lives knows3• Jili controverts the doctrine of Ibnu 'H'Arabi that God's knowledge is given Him by the objects which He knows1. God
certainly decreed that every individual thing should be what its nature
required it to be, but the consequence drawn by Ibnu 'l'Arabi, namely, that His
knowledge of things is derived from the necessity of their natures, is false:
on the contrary, their natures were necessitated by His knowledge of them
before they were created and brought into existence-it was His knowing them,
not the necessity inherent in them of being what they are, that caused them to
become objects of His knowledge. Afterwards (i.e., when they were created), their
natures required other than that which He knew of them at first, and He then
for the second time decreed that they should be what their natures required,
according to that which He knew of them.
Will The
will of God is "His particularisation of the objects of His knowledge by
existence, according to the requirements of His knowledge." Our will is
identical with the Divine eternal will, but in relation to us it partakes of
our temporality (hudith), and
we call it ''created." Nothing but this (unreal) attribution prevents us
from actualising whatever we propose: if we refer our
will to God, all things become subject to it. Jili enumerates nine phases of will, beginning with
inclination (mayl)
and ending with the highest and purest love ('isha), in which· there is no lover or beloved, since
both have passed away in the love that is God's very essence . The Divine will
is uncaused and absolutely free, not, as Ibnu VArabi holds, determined
by the obligation of the Knower to act as His nature demands'.
Power1. This is defined by Jili as "the
bringing of the nonexistent into existence." Here again he disagrees with
lbnu 'I-'Arabi, who asserts that God did not create the world from not-being,
but only brought it from being in His knowledge into actual being. But in that
case, Jili argues, the world would be co-eternal with God. It is not so: the judgment that God exists in Himself is logically prior to
the judgment that things exist in His knowledge; and the former judgment
involves the non-existence of things and the existence of God alone. God
brought things from not-being into being and caused them to exist in His
knowledge, i.e., He knew them as brought into existence from not-being;
then He brought them forth from
His knowledge and caused them to exist externally. Does it follow, because they
were produced from not-being, that they were unknown to Him before He caused
them to exist in His knowledge? No; the priority is of logic,
not of time. There is no interval
between the not-being of things and their existence in His knowledge. He knows
them as He knows Himself, but they are not eternal as He is eternal.
IV. THE HEAVENLY MAN.
Like Jacob Bohme2, Jili sets out from the principle that
"in order that the truth may be manifested as a Something, there must be a
contrary therein." He finds the ground of existence in a Being which, though
essentially One, is of threefold nature, since it knows itself as the Creator (al-]Haq_q) and the creatures (al-khalq).
"The Essence," he
says, "is 'Thou' and 'I'-'Thou' in respect of thy deepest self (huwiyya, He-ness), not in respect of the human attributes which the notion 'Thou' admits; and 'I'
in respect of my individual self, not in respect of the Divine attributes which
the notion 'I' admi.ts. That is what is signified by the Essence (al-Dhat). 'I,' in respect of my
'I-ness' (aniyya), viewed in relation to the
judgments which the notion 'I' is capable of, is God; and 'Thou,' in the
creaturely aspect, is Man. Therefore consider your essence, if you will, as
'I,' or if you will, as 'Thou,' for there is nothing besides the universal
reality ....
If you say, that it (the Essence) is One, you are
right; or if you say that it is
Two, it is
in fact Two.
•
Or if you say, 'No, it is Three,' you are right, for
that is the real nature of Mari.
Regard the Oneness (ahadiyya) which is his essence: say, 'He is One relatively (wahid), One absolutely (ahad), unique in glory.' But if the two essences are considered, you will say
that he is Two, because he is a slave ('abd) and a Lord (rabb).
And if you examine his real nature and what is united
therein, namely, two things deemed to be contrary,
You will contemplate him with amazement: his lowness
is such that you will not call him lofty, and his loftiness is such that you
will not call him low.
Nay, name that (Man) a Third, because of a reality
having two attributes inherent in the realities of its essence1.
It (that reality) is he named Alimad as being that (Man), and Molammed as
being the true idea (haqiqa) of all things that exist."
As an introduction to the Logos doctrine foreshadowed here,
which is interwoven with a mystical scheme of cosmology, I will translate part of the 6oth chapter, "Of the Perfect Man: showing that he is our Lord
Mohammed, and that he stands over against the Creator (al-haqq) and
the creatures (al khalq)''
The Perfect Man is the Qutb (axis) on which the spheres of existence revolve from first to last, and
since things came into being he is one (wahid') for ever and ever, He hath various guises and appears
in diverse bodily tabernacles (kana'is): in respect of some of these his name is given to him,
while in respect of others it is not given to him: His own original name is
Mohammed, his name of honour Abu 'l-Qasim, his description 'Abdullah-, and his.
title Shamsu'ddin°. In every age he
bears a name suitable to his guise (libas) in that age. I once met him in the form of my Shaykh, Sharafu'ddin
Isia'il al-Jabarti, but I did not know that he (the Shaykh) was the Prophet,
although I knew that he (the Prophet) was the Shaykh. This was one of the
visions in which I beheld him at Zabid in A.H. 796. The real meaning of this matter is that the Prophet has the power
of assuming every form. When the adept (adib) sees him in the form of Mohammed which he wore during
his life, he names him by that name, but when he sees him in another form and
knows him to be Mohammed, he names him by the name of the form in which he
appears. The name Mohammed is not applied except to the Idea of Mohammed (al-Haqiqatu
'l-Muhammadiy:ya). Thus, when he
appeared in the form of Shibli , Shibli said to his disciple, "Bear
witness that I am the Apostle of God'; and the disciple, being one of the
illuminated, recognised the Prophet and said, "I bear witness that thou art the Apostle of God." No objection can be
taken to this: it is like what happens when a dreamer sees some one in the form
of another; but there is a difference between dreaming and mystical revelation,
viz., that the
name of the form in which Mohammed appears to the dreamer is not bestowed in
hours of waking upon the Haqiqatu 'l-Muhammadiyya, because interpretation is applicable to the World of Similitudes: accordingly, when the
dreamer wakes ht> interprets the haqiqa of Mohammed as being the haqiqa of the dream-form. In mystical revelation it is otherwise, for if you perceive
mystically that the haqiqa of Mohammed is displayed in any human form, you must bestow upon the hagiqa
of Mohammed the name of that form and regard its
owner with no less reverence than you would show to our Lord Mohammed, and after having seen him therein
you may not behave towards it in the same manner as before. Do not imagine that my words contain any tincture of
the doctrine of metempsychosis. God forbid! I mean that the Prophet is able to
assume whatever form he wishes, and the Sunna declares that in every age he
assumes the form of the most perfect men, in order to exalt their dignity and
correct their deviation (from the truth): they are his vicegerents outwardly,
and he is their spiritual essence (haqiqa) inwardly.
The Perfect Man in himself stands over against all the
individualisations of existence. With Ms spirituality he stands over against
the higher individualisations, with his corporeality over against the-lower.
His heart stands over against the Throne of God (al-'Arsh), his mind over against the
Pen (al-Qalam), his soul over against the Guarded Tablet (al-Lawhu 'l-mahfuz), his nature over against
the elements, his capability (of receiving forms) over against matter (hayula).... He stands over against
the angels with his good thoughts, over against the genies and devils with the
doubts which beset him, over against the beasts with his animality. ... To
every type of existence he furnishes from himself an antitype. We have already
explained that every one of the Cherubim is created from an analogous faculty
of the Perfect Man. It only remains to speak of his correspondence with the
Divine names and attributes.
You must know that the Perfect Man is a copy (nuskha) of God, according to the saying of the
Prophet, "God created Adam in the image of the Merciful," and in
another hadith, "
God created Adam in His own image." That is so,
because God is Living, Knowing, Mighty, Willing, Hearing, Seeing, and Speaking,
and Man too is all these. Then he confronts the Divine huwiyya with his huwiyya, the Divine aniyya with his aniyya, and the Divine dhat (essence) with his dhat-he
is the whole against the whole, the universal against the universal, the
particular against the particular.... Further, you must know that the
Essential names and the Divine attributes belong to the Perfect Man by
fundamental and sovereign right in virtue of a necessity inherent in his
essence, for it is he whose "truth" (haqiqa) is signified by those
expressions and whose spirituality (latifa) is indicated by those symbols: they have no subject in existence
(whereto they should be attached) except the Perfect Man. As a mirror in which.
a person sees the form of himself and cannot see it without the mirror, such is
the relation of
God to the Perfect Man, who cannot possibly see his own form but in the mirror
of the name Allah: and he is also a mirror to God, for God laid upon Himself the necessity that His names
and attributes should not be seen save in the Perfect Man. This cbligation to
display the Divine attributes is the "trust" (amana) which God
offered to the heavens and the earth: they were afraid to accept it, "but
Man accepted it; verily he is unjust and ignorant" (Kor. 33, 72), i.e., unjust to his own soul in letting it suffer degradation (from the things
of this world) and ignorant of his real worth, because he is unaware of that
with which he has been entrusted .... Beyond the plane of the-Names and
Attributes, which are ranged on the right and left of him according to their
kind, the Perfect Man feels through his whole being "a pervasive delight,
which is named the delight of the Godhead" (ladhdhatu 'l-ilahiyya) .... Here he is independent of his modes, i.e., the Names
and Attributes, and regards them not at all. He knows nothing in existence save
his own nature (huwiyya), contemplates the emanation (sudir) from himself of all that exists, and beholds the Many
in his essence, even as ordinary men are conscious of their own thoughts and
qualities; but the Perfect Man is able to keep every thought, great or small,
far from himself: his power over things does not proceed from any secondary
cause but is exercised freely, like other men's power of speaking, eating, and
drinking.
These
extracts bring out the germinal idea. which is developed by Jili into a
psychological and cosmological system. The Perfect Man, as the copy of God and
the archetype of Nature, unites the creative and creaturely aspects of the
Essence and manifests the oneness of Thought with things. "He is the heaven
and the earth and the length and the
breadth1." '
Mine is the kingdom in both worlds: I saw therein none but myself, that I
should hope for his favour or fear him.
Before me is
no "before," that I should follow its condition, and after me is no
"after," that I should precede its notion.
I have made all kinds of perfection mine own, and lo, I am the beauty of
the majesty of the Whole: I am naught but It.
Whatsoever thou seest of minerals and plants and animals, together witl:
Man and his qualities,
And whatsoever thou seest of elements and nature and original atoms (haba') whereof
the substance is (ethereal as) a perfume, And whatsoever ihou seest of seas and
desert3 and trees and hightopped mountains,
And whatsoever thou seest of spiritual forms and of things visible whose
countenance is goodly to behold,
And whatsoever thou seest of thought and imagination and intelligence
and soul, and heart with its inwards,
And whatsoever thou seest of angelic aspect, or of phenomena whereor
Satan is the spirit,
Lo, I am that whole, and that whole is my theatre: 'tis I, not it, that is
displayed in its reality.
Verily, I am
a Providence and Prince to mankind: the entire creation is a name, and
my essence is the object named.
The sensible world is mine and the angel-world is of my weaving and
fashioning; the unseea world is mine and the world of omnipotence springs from
me.
And mark! In all
that I have mentioned I am a slave returning from tle Essence to his Lord--
Poor, despised, lowly, self-abasing, sin's captive, in the bonds of his
trespassesl.
The conclucdmg verses
only say what Jili repeats in many places, that whilc at supreme moments a man may
lose himself in God, he can never be identified with God absolutely.
In the second part of his work the author treats of the Perfect Man as the Spirit whence all things have
their origin.
Accordingly he devotes successive
chapters to the organs and faculties
which make up the psychological and intclkctual constitution of the Perfect Man-spirit, heart, intelligence, reflection, etc,, with the corresponding celestial
beings which are said to be 'created" from them'. The highest hypostases of his psychology
are the Holy Spirit (Runu 'l-Quds) and the Spirit (al-Ruh,); the latte:r is also described as "the angel named al-Ruh" and, in the technical language of the Sufis, as "the Haqq by mear,.s of which the world is created"
(alhaqqu 'l-makhlua bihi) and "the Idea of
Mohammed" (alHaqiqatu 'l-Muhammadiyya). How these two Spirits are
related to each other is indicated in the following passage:
You must know that every sensible object has a created spirit which constitutes its form, and the spirit is to the form as the meaning to
the word. The created spirit has a. Divine spirit which constitutes it, and that Divine spirit is the Ruhu
'l-Quds. Those who regard the Ruhu "l-Quds in man deem it
created, because two eternal substances cannot exist: eternity belongs to God
alone, whose names and attributes inhere in His essence because of the
impossibility of their being detached; all else is created and originated. Man,
for example, has a body, which is his form, and a spirit, which is his meaning,
and a consciom,ness (sirr), which is al-Ruh, and an: essential aspect (wajh), which is denoted by the terms Rub1e 'l-Quds (the Holy Spirit), al-sirru 'l-ilahi (the Divine consciousness) and al-wujudu 'l-sari (the all-pervading Being)1.
The Ruhu 'i-Quds and the Ruh are one Spirit viewed as eternal in relation to God and non-eternal in
relation to Man; as the inmost essence of things or' as their form of existence2. The uncreated Spirit of God, sanctified above all phenomenal
imperfections, is referred to in the verse, '' I breathed of My Spirit into Adam"
(Kot. 15, 29, 38, 72), and in the verse, 'Wheresoever ye turn, there is the
face (wajh) of Allah" (Kor. 2, 109}, i.e., the Ruhu 'l-Quds exists, ''in<.1ividualised by its perkction," in every object
of sense or thought. Jili adds thai: inasmuch as the spirit of a thing is its self (nafs), existence is constituted by the "self"
of God; and His "self" is His essence , Union with the Ruhu 'l-Quds comes only as the crown and consummation of
the mystical life to "the holy one" (qudsi)' who unceasingly contemplates the Divine
consciousness (sirr) which
is his origin, so that its laws are made manifest in him and God becomes
his ear, eye, hand and tongue: he touches the sick and they are healed, he bids
a thing be and it is, for he has been strengthened with
the Holy Spirit, even as Jesus was (Kor. 2, 8r)1.--
It will now be seen that Jili considers
the created Ruh or the
archetypal Spirit of Mohammed as a mode of the uncreated Holy
Divine Spirit and as the medium through which God becomes conscious of
Himself in creation.
God created the angel named Ruh from
His own light, and from him He created the world and made him His organ of vision in the world.
One of his names is the Word of Allah (Amr Allah}3• He is the noblest and
most exalted of existent beings: there is
no angel above him, and he is the chief of the Cherubim. God
caused the mill-stone of existent beings to turn on
him, and made him
the axis (qutb) of the sphere of created things. Towards every thing that God created he has a special aspect (wajh) , in
virtue of which he regards it and preserves it in
its appointed place in the order of
existence. He has eight forms, which are the bearers of the Divine Throne (al-'Arsh)', From
him were created all the angels, both
the sublime and the elemental. The angels stand to him in the relation of
drops of water to the ea,
and :he eight bearers of the 'Arsh stand in the same relation
to him as the eight faculties which constitute human
existence to the spirit of man. These faculties are intelligence ('aql), judgment (wahm), reflection
(fkr), phantasy (khayal), imagination (al-mu.awwira), memory (al-hajiza), perception (al-mudrika), and
the soul (nafs). The Rub exercises a Divine guardianship, created in him by God, over the
whole universe. He manifests himself in his perfection in the Haqiqatu 'I-Muhammadiyya therefore the Prophet is the
most excellent of mankind.
While God manifests Himself in His attributes to all other created beings, He manifests Himself in His
essence to this angel alone. Accordingly
the Ruh is the Qutb of the present world and of the world to come.
He does not make himself known to any creature of God but to the Perfect Man.
When the saint (wali) knows him and truly understands the things which the Rauh teaches him, he
becomes a pole (gutb) on which the entire universe revolves; but the
Poleship (Qutbiyya) belongs fundamentally to the Ruh, and if others
hold it, they are only his delegates1. He is the first to receive the Divine
command, which he then delivers to the angels; and whenever a command is
to be executed in the universe, God creates from him an angel suitable to that command, and the Ruh sends him to carry it out. All the Cherubim are created from him,
e.g., Seraphiel, Gabriel, Michael, and Azrael, and those above them,
such as the angel named al-Nun2, who is stationed beneath the Guarded Tablet,
and the angel named the Pen (al-Qalam), and the angel named al-Mudabbir, whose station is beneath the Kursi°, and the angel named al-Mufassil, who bore me, and I asked them
in marriage, and they let me marry them1.'' In the course of this colloquy the
Idea of Mohammed (al-Haqiqatu ’l-Muhammadiyya) says:
God created Adam in His own image—this is not doubted or disputed—and Adam
was one of the theatres (mazdhir) in which I displayed myself: he was appointed
as a vicegerent {khalifa} over my externality. I knew that God made me the
object'and goal of all His creatures, and lo, I heard the most gracious
allocution from the Most Great Presence: ‘‘Thou art the Qutb whereon the
spheres of beauty revolve, and thou art the Sun by whose radiance the full-moon
of perfection is replenished; thou art he for whom We set up the pattern2 and
for whose sake We made fast the doorring3; thou art the reality symbolised by
Hind and Salma and ‘Azza and Asma4. O thou who art endued with lofty attributes
and pure qualities, Beauty doth not dumbfound thee nor Majesty cause thee to
quake, nor dost thou deem Perfection unattainable: thou art the centre and
these the circumference, thou art the clothed and these the splendid
garments5.”
In some aspects the spiritual organ which Stiffs call “the heart” (qalb} is
hardly distinguished from the spirit (ruh): indeed Jflf says that when the
Koran mentions the Divine spirit breathed into Adam, it is the heart that is
signified. He describes it as "the eternal light and the
sublime consciousness (sirr) revealed in the quintessence ('ayn) of created beings (Mohammed), that God may behold Man thereby1"; as "the Throne of God (al-'Arsh) and His Temple in Man ... the centre of Divine
consciousness and the circumference of the circle
of all that
exists actually or ideally2." It reflects all the Divine names and attributes at
once, yet quickly changes under the influence of particular names. Like a
mirror, it has a face and a back. The face is always turned towards a light
called the attention (al-hamm), which is the eye of the heart, so that whenever a nar becomes opposite to, or as we should say, strikes the
attention, the heart sees it and receives the impression of it; then this name
disapp1'1.rs and is succeeded by others. The "back" of the heart is
the place from which the attention is absent°. Jili illustrates his meaning by
the diagram reproduced here:
The Divine
names and attributes are the heart's true nature, in which it was created. Some
men are so blessed that they have little trouble to keep it pure, but most of
us must needs undergo painful self-mortifications in order to wash out the
stains of the flesh1. Recompense for good works depends on the merit imputed by God to His
creatures according to the original individualisations in which He created
them: it is a necessary right, not an arbitrary gift2. The heart reflects the world of attributes, or rather, as Jili holds, is
itself reflected by the universe. "Earth and heaven do not contain Me, but
the heart of My believing servant containeth Me" : if the universe were
primary and the heart secondary, i.e.,
if the heart were only a mirror, then the power of containing and
comprehending would have been ascribed to the
universe, not to the heart; but in fact, it is the heart alone that comprehends
God-by knowledge, by contemplation, and finally by transubstantiation3.
When God
created the whole world from the Light of Mohammed, He created from the heart
of Mohammed the angel Israfil (Seraphiel), the mightiest of the angels and the
nearest to God 4.
The faculty
of Reason has three modes, viz., the First Intelligence (al-'aqlu 'l-awwal), Universal Reason (al-'aqlu 'l-kulli), and ordinary reason ('aqlu 'l-ma'cish)5. Jili identifies the First Intelligence, as the faithful treasurer of Divine
Knowledge, with Gabriel, 'the trusted Spirit" (al-Ruh'l amin) 1, and as a locus for the form of Divine Knowledge in
existence-the first objective analysis of the Divine synthesis -with the Pen (al-Qalam) which transmits the particulars contained as a whole in God's
consciousness to the Guarded Tablet (al-Lawhu 'l-mahfuz)'. Universal Reason is "the percipient luminous medium whereby the
forms of knowledge deposited in the First Intelligence are made manifest3";
not the sum of individual intelligences, for in this case Reason would be
plural, while in reality it is a single substance, the common element, so to
speak, of human, angelic, and demonic spirits. Ordinary reason is "the
light (of Universal Reason) measured by the rule of reflection (fikr), and does not apprehend save by means of reflection " : therefore
it cannot reach the unconditioned First Intelligence, often misses its mark,
and fails to perceive many things. Universal Reason, on the other hand, is
infallible, since it weighs all with the twin scales of Wisdom and Power', but
it never penetrates beyond the sphere of creation. Neither universal
(intuitive} nor ordinary (discursive) reason can attain to knowledge of God.
The contrary doctrine has only a demonstrative and controversial value. True
gnosis (ma'rifa) is given by faith, which
does not depend on proofs and effects (dthar) but on the Divine attributes themselves .
The judgment (wahm) of Mohammed was created from the light of the Divine Name al-Kmil (the
Perfect), and God created from the light of Mohammed's judgment Azrael, the
Angel of Death . Wahm is the strongest of the human faculties: it overpowers the understanding, the reflection,
and the imagination7 •• ,nothing in the world apprehends more quickly; it is what enables men to walk on the water and fly in
the air; it is the light of certainty (yaqin) and the basis of dominion; he that has it at his command
exercises sway over all things high and low, while he that is ruled by its
might becomes stupefied and bewildered1; The spirit, on entering' the body',
either acquires angelic dispositions and ascends to Paradise, or assumes
bestial dispositions and sinks to Hell: it ascends when it judges the limitations of its human
form, e.g.,
grossness and weakness, to be
merely negative and capable of being thrown off, since the spirit always
retains its original qualities potentially. At death Azrael appears to the
spirit in a form determined by its beliefs, actions, and dispositions during
life8. Or, again, he appears disembodied
and invisible, so that a man may "die of a rose in aromatic pain" or
of a stench'. When the spirit sees Azrael, it becomes enamoured of him, and its gaze
is entirely withdrawn from the body , whereupon the body dies. The spirit does
not quit its bodily form at once but abides in it for a while,
like one who sleeps without seeing any vision . After this dreamless sleep,
which is its death (mawtu 'l-arwt1J;), the spirit passes into the intermediate state (al-barzakh).
Meditation (himma) is the noblest of the spiritual lights ·(faculties),
for it has no object but God'. Yet one must beware of resting in it in order to
enjoy its fruits: the mastermystic will leave it hefore it has yielded all its
secrets to him, lest it-become a barrier to his further advance2. Michael, the angel created
from it, is charged with the duty of dispensing the portions of fate allotted
by eternal necessity to each recipient°.
From the reflection (ikr) of
Mohammed God created the spirits of the celestial and terrestrial angels, and
appointed them to guard the higher and lower spheres of existence until the
Last Day, when they shall be translated to the intelligible world' One of the
keys to that world is
reflection, leading to true knowledge of the nature of Man, which is set with
all its aspects over against the aspects of the Merciful (al-Rahman).
But the pure region of fikr lies open to mystics alone:
the path of speculative philosophy ends in a mirage5•
As we have already seen
, thought (khayal), i.e.,
the faculty that retains what the fancy perceives of
the forms of sensible objects after their substance has disappeared','is
declared by Jili to be the stuff of the universe. In Hegelian language " the things
that we know about are appropriately described when we say that their being is
established not on themselves, but on the Divine Idea." Nothing exists,
otherwise than as a dream in the perception of the dreamer, and the· cosmos is
"a thought within a thought
within a thought" (khayal"" fi
khayal'"" fi khayal)'. It must be added, however, that while
every thing, i.e., every
thought, expresses some reality, the Perfect Man (though he is not Reality itself) is
the complete self-expression of Reality°.
Imagination, memory, and perception, which the author enumerated amongst the eight spiritual faculties',
find nu place in this discussion.
After a
preliminary chapter on the Form of Mohammed (al-suratu 'I-Muhammadiyya), which I will omit for the present, he concludes his
psychology with an account of the nature of the soul.
Ascetic and
devotional Sufism, in agreement with orthodox Islam, distinguishes sharply
between the spirit (ruh) and the soul (nafs) 2. The latter• term may, indeed, be used to denote a man's spiritual self"-"he that knows
himself (nafsahu) knows his Lord"--but as a rule when Sufis refer to the nafs they mean the appetitive soul, the sensual"
self" which, from their point of view, is wholly evil and can never become
one with God 3• Jili
makes short
work of this dualistic doctrine. The heading of his 59th chapter promises to
show that the nafs is the origin of Iblis and all the devils, and he
begins as follows:
The nafs is the consciousness
(sirr) of the Lord, and the essence (of God): through that Essence it hath in
its essence manifold delights. It is created from the light of the attribute
of Lordship: many, therefore, are its lordly qualities .... God created the nefs of Mohammed from His own nafs (and the nafs of a thing
is its essence) ;
then He created the nafs of Adam as a copy of the nafs of Mohammed 4.
With great
boldness Jili argues that the Fallof Manis the necessary consequence
of his Divine nature. Adam ate the forbidden fruit because his soul manifests a
certain aspect of Deity, viz., Lordship (rububiyya) ; for it is not in the nature of Lordship to submit to a
prohibition. The soul knew that, if it ate the fruits, it would inevitably
descend into the material world and would suffer misery, but on
the other hand it was aware of the blessedness of its inherent sovereignty.
Thus it became
perplexed, and its perplexity (iltibas) brought about
its fall. The choice of the soul is at once determined and free: determined,
because in the last resort its act proceeds from a fundamental difference in
the nature of God; free, because the soul acts in accordance with its knowledge
of itself and,
had it not been blinded by pride, would have perceived that its true nature
requires obedience to the Divine command, inasmuch as disobedience renders the
spirit miserable, and misery is inconsistent with Lordship.
When God created the soul of Mohammed from His own Essence, which
comprises all- contraries, He created from the soul of Mohammed (1) the Sublime
Angels in respect of His attributes of Beauty, Light, and Leading, and (2) Iblis and his followers in respect of His attributes
of Majesty, Darkness, and Misleading1. Now, the name
of Iblis was 'Azazil: he had worshipped God for thousands of years before the
creation of the world, and God had forbidden him to worship aught else. -
Therefore, when God created Adam and commanded the angels to bow down before.
him, Iblis refused, for he did not know that to worship by God's
command is equivalent to worshipping God2. Instead of justifying his disobedience or repenting
'of it and asking God to forgive him, he silently acknowledged that God wills and
acts in conformity with the eternal and unchangeable principles of His nature.
Iblis was banished from the Divine presence and a curse was laid upon him "until
the Day of Judgment" (Kor. 15, 35),
i.e., for a finite
period3. After the Day of Judgment the creatureliness which
hinders the spirit from knowing God as He really is will be counted amongst its perfections1, and Iblis will then be restored to his place beside God2.
Jili mentions five phases of the soul, or
ascending grades of spiritual life: {I} the animal soul, i.e., the spirit regarded as governing the body; (2) the commanding
(evil-prompting) soul3, i.e., the spirit regarded as
subject to the passions ; (3) the inspired soul, i.e., the spirit which God inspires to do good; (4) the self-reproaching soul,
i.e., the spirit regarded as turning penitently towards God; (5) the tranquil
soul, i.e., the spirit regarded as at rest with God'
V. THE MACROCOSM.
As Man is created in the image of God, so the
universe is created in the image of Man', who is its spirit and life6. In describing its
creation Jili combines mystical ideas with an old cosmological myth, in the
following manner7:
Before the creation God was in Himself, and the objects of existence
were absorbed (mustahlik) in Him
so that He was not manifested in any thing. This is the state of
"being a hidden treasure8" or, as the Prophet expressed it, "the dark mist above which is a void and below which is a void ,' because the Idea of Ideas1 is beyond all relations. The Idea of Ideas is called in another
Tradition "the White Chrysolite2, in which God was before He created the
creatures." When God willed to bring the world into existence, He looked
on the Idea of Ideas (or the White Chrysolite) with the look of Perfection,
whereupon it dissolved and became a water; for nothmg in existence, not even
the Idea of Ideas, which is the source of all existence, can bear the perfect
manifestation of God. Then God looked on it with the look of Grandeur, and it
surged in waves, like a sea tossed by the winds, and its grosser elements were
spread out in layers like foam, and from that mass God created the seven earths
with their inhabitants. The subtle elements of the water ascended, like vapour
from the sea, and from them God created the seven heavens with the angels of
each heaven. Then God made of the water seven seas which encompass the world.
This is how the whole of existence originated.
Jili surveys the celestial, terrestrial and aqueous
universe at considerable length°, but I will not attempt to give more than an
outline of his map. He takes first the seven heavens, which rise in concentric
and gradually widening circles above the spheres of earth, water, air, and
fire. Mystics, he remarks, have seen them and. can interpret them to sublunary men.
I. The Heaven of the Moon.
This is not
the earth-born vapour which we call the sky, but is invisible on account of its
farness and subtlety. God created it from the nature of the Spirit (al-Ruh)', that it might have the same relation to the earth as
the spirit has to the body; and He made
it the
dwelling-place of Adam'. Its colour is whiter than silver.
2. The Heaven of Mercury.
God created
it from the nature of reflection (ikr) and placed in it all the angels who help craftsmen. Its colour is grey.
3. The Heaven
of Venus.
It is created from the nature of phantasy (khayal) and is the locality of the World of Similitudes ('alamu 'l-mithal). Its colour is yellow. Jili describes the various tasks assigned to the angels
whom he saw in this heaven, where he also met the Prophet Joseph 1. 4. The Heaven of the Sun.
It is
created from the light of the heart (qalb). The Sun in his heaven is like the heart in man-a
mirror of Deity: while the heart displays the sublime degrees of existence
connoted by
the name
Allah, the Sun is the source and prii.ciple of the elemental world.
Idris,
Jesus, Solomon, David, and most of the prophets dwell in the heaven of the Sun;
its ruling angel is Israfil.
5. The
Heaven of Mars.
Azrael, the
Angel of Death, presides over this blood-red heaven, which is created from the
light of judgment (wahm).
6. The
Heaven of Jupiter.
Its colour
is blue. God created it from the light of meditation (himma). The angels of the Sixth Heaven, of whom Michael is the
chief, are angels of mercy and blessing. Some have the shapes of animals and
birds and men; others appear as substances and accidents which bring health to
the sick or as solids and liquids which supply created beings with food and
drink; others are formed half of fire and half of ice.
Here Jili
beheld Moses, "drunken' with the wine of the revelation of Lordship,"
who explained to him the meaning of Thou shalt not see Me' (Kor. 7, 139).
7. The
Heaven of Saturn.
The Seventh
Heaven was the first to be created. It was created from the light of the First
Intelligence, and its colour is black. Between it and the Starless Heaven (al-falaku 'l-atlas) there are three heavens which have only a logical, not
an actual, existence: the Heaven of Matter (falaku 'l-hayula), which is the highest of the three; the Heaven of Atoms
(falaku 'l-haba) ; and the Heaven of the Elements (falaku 'l-'andSir); some philosophers add a fourth, viz., the Heaven of Natural Properties (falaku 'l-taba' i').
The author
proceeds to describe the seven limbos of the Earth+.
1. The Earth of Souls (ardu 'l-nufus).
God created
it whiter than milk and sweeter than musk, but when Adam walked on it after the
Fall it became dust-coloured, except one region in the North, never reached by
any sinner, which is ruled by al-Khadir and inhabited by the Men of the Unseen
World (ricailü 'l-ghayb)2•
2. The Earth of Devotions ((ar du ’l-ibadat).).
In colour it
resembles an emerald. Its inhabitants are those of the Jinn (genies) who
believe in God: their night is our day, and their day our night. After the sun
sets in our earth, they appear on it and fall in love with the children of men. Most of
these spirits envy the disciples of the Mystic Way, and taking them unawares
bring them to ruin. Jili affirms that
he had seen some Safis who were in bondage to them and were made so deaf and
blind that they could neither hear nor understand the Word of God, unless the
reciter were one of the Jinn.
3. The Earth
of Nature (ardu 'l-tab').
Its colour
is saffron-yellow. The unbelieving Jinn who inhabit it appear in human shape
amongst mankind and cause them to neglect the worship of God.
4. The Earth
of Lust (ardu 'l-shahwa).
Its colour
is blood-red. It is inhabited by different sorts of devils who are the
offspring of the soul of Iblis.
5. The Earth of Exorbitance (ardu 'l-tughyan).
Its colour
is indigo blue. 'Afrits and potent demons dwell in it, who busy themselves with seducing men to commit great sins.
6. The Earth of Impiety (ardu 'l-ilhad).
Its colour is black as night. It is the abode of the marids (the most evil and rebellious of the Jinn)3.
7. The Earth of Misery (ardu 'l-shaqawa).
It is the floor of Gehenna (Jahannum) and
is inhabited by
enormous
snakes and scorpions, which God placed there
in order that it might be a pattern of the torments of Hell to the people
of this world!
Concerning
the Seven Seas, which were originally twoone of salt and the other of fresh
water-Jili has much to say2, but his
description of them is somewhat confused and we must now pass on to matters of
greater interest.
VI. THE RETURN TO THE ESSENCE.
The gist of
Jili's philosophy, as I understand it, is· the· notion of One Being, which is One Thought, going
forth from itself in all the forms of the universe, knowing itself as Nature
and yet, amidst the multiformity of Nature, reasserting its unity in Man-in Man
whom self-knowledge has enlightened and
made perfect, so that ceasing to know himself as an individual he sinks into
his Divine element, like a wave into the sea. This language, apart from its
inadequacy, conveys a wrong impression by translating in terms of time and
space what does not belong to these categories. All interpretations of ideal
and mystical experience are more or less fictitious.
The word
commonly used to denote the self-manifestation of God in His essence, attributes, and names is tajalli, which
implies that something hidden before is now clearly seen, as the splendour of
the sun emerging from eclipse or the beauty of a bride when she unveils. The
Divine tajalli, in respect of the person to whom it is made, may be called an illumination, for it is the
light whereby the mystic's heart has vision of God. Accordingly, the
ontological descent from the Absolute and the mystical ascent or return to the
Absolute are really the same process looked at from different points of view1. The self-revelation of God necessarily involves the manifestation of His nature by those who
possess an inborn capacity for realising it in themselves. Jili divides the ascending
movement of this consciousness into four stages-the Illumination of the
Actions, the Illumination of the Names, the Illumination of the Attributes,
and the Illumination of the Essencewhich correspond in reverse order to the devolution of Pure Being from its primal simplicity to the
manifestation of its effects in the sensible world.
(a)
The Illumination of the Divine actions2•
To one thus illumined it becomes plain that human
agency is naught, that he has no power or will of his own, and that all things
are done by the power of God who moves them and brings them to rest. Sometimes
the Divine will is made known to him before the act: consequently, he may
disobey the command of God in order to comply with His will; in which case his
disobedience is essentially obedience and lies between him and God, though
"it remains for us to exact from him the penalty which God has imposed in
the Koran and the Sunna upon those who break His commandment3."
(b)
The Illumination of the Divine names'.
The mystic to whom God reveals Himself in one of His
Names vanishes (from consciousness of individuality) under the radiance of the
Name; and if you invoke God by that Name, the man will answer you, because the
Name is applicable to him....If God reveal Himself in His Name Allah, the man
will disappear and God will call to him, saying, "Lo, I am Allah"; and if you cry "O Allah ! " the man will answer you with the words "At thy service (labbayka) ! "• Then, if he mount higher and God
strengthen him and let
him abide in consciousness after his passing-away (fan), God will answer
any one who calls the man, so that if you say, for instance, "O Muhammad!" God
will respond to you, saying, "At thy service! "1 In
proportion as he is strengthened to ascend, God will reveal Himself to him in
His subordinate Names, viz., the Merciful (al-Rahman), the Lord (al-Rabb), the King (alMalik), the Omniscient (al-'Alim), the Omnipotent (al-Qadir), etc. The self-revelation of God in each of these Names
is superior to His self-revelation in the Name preceding it, because as regards
the Illumination of the Names analysis is superior to synthesis, and the
manifestation of each lower Name is an analysis of the synthesis which is
manifested by the one immediately above it.
As regards
illuminations of the Essence, it is otherwise; here the more general is above
the more particular: al-Rahman is sunerior to al-Rabb, and Allah to either.
Finally, all the Divine Names seek to apply themselves to the illumined man,
even as the name seeks the object named, and then he sings:
One calls
Her by Her name and I answer him, and when I am called (by my own name) 'tis Layla (the Beloved) that
answers for me.
That is
because we are the spirit of One, though we dwell by turns in two bodies-a·
marvellous thing!
Like a
single person with two names: thou canst not miss by whichever name thou
callest him.
Jili only speaks of what he himself has experienced, since
every Name. is revealed in different ways to different individuals. From his
account of these illuminations I take a passage
which exhibits his characteristic blend of logic and mysticism:
The way to the illumination of the Name al-Qadim (the
Eternal) is through a· Divine revelation whereby it is shown to any one that he
existed in the knowledge of God before the Creation, inasmuch as he existed in
God's knowledge through the existence of that knowledge, and that knowledge
existed through the existence of God: the existence of God is eternal and the knowledge is eternal and the object of knowledge is inseparable from the
knowledge and is also eternal, inasmuch as knowledge is not knowledge unless it
has an object which gives to the subject the name of Knower. The eternity of
existent beings in the knowledge of God neeessarily follows from this
induction, and the (illumined) man returns to God in respect of His Name, the
Eternal. At the moment when the Divine eternity is revealed to him from his
essence, his temporality vanishes and he remains eternal through God, having
passed away from (consciousness of) his temporality1•
(c)
The Illumination of the Divine
Attributes.
When God desires to reveal Himself to a man by
means of any Name or Attribute, He causes the man to pass away (fana)
and makes him naught and deprives
him of his (individual) existence; and when the human light is extinguished and
the creaturely spirit passes away, God puts in the man's body, without incarnation
(hulul),
a spiritual substance, which is of
God's essence and is . neither separate from God nor joined to the man, in
exchange for what He deprived him of; which substance is named the Holy Spirit (ruhu 'l-quds). And when God puts instead of the man a spirit of His
own essence, the revelation is made to that spirit. God is never revealed
except to Himself, but we call that Divine spirit "a man" in respect
of its being instead of the man. In reality there is neither "slave"
nor "Lord," since these are correlated terms. When the
"slave" is annulled, the "Lord" is necessarily annulled, and nothing
remains but God alone.
Mystics receive these illuminations in proportion
to their capacities, the abundance of their knowledge, and the strength of
their resolution. Taking each of
the seven chief attributes in turn, the author describes the effects of the
illumination on himself or on
others, and the different
forms which it may assume. Concerning Life and Knowledge something has
been said above! Those endowed with Hearing hear the language of angels,
animals, plants, and minerals2. As for the mukallarnt'm, who receive the illumination of Speech, the Word (kalam) comes to them sometimes audibly and from a certain
direction, sometimes from no direction and not through the ear, sometimes as an
inner light having a definite shape; and in oneness with God they realise that
all existent beings are their Word
and that their words are without end 3. According to Jili, the illumination of Power is marked in its initial
stages by a phenomenon characteristic of prophetic inspirationthe ringing of a
beli (salsalatu 'l-jaras), which is produced, as he quaintly writes, by" the dashing of
realities one against another in order that men's hearts may not dare to enter
the presence of Divine Majesty4." "In thisUlumination," he says, "I heard the ringing of bells. My frame dissolved and my trace vanished and my name was rased out. By reason of the violence of
what I experienced I became like
a worn-out garment which hangs on a high tree, and the fierce blast: carries it
away piece py piece. I beheld naught but lightnings and thunders, and clouds
raining lights, and seas surging with fire "
(d) The
Illumination of the Divine essence.
While every
illumination of a Nan1e or Attribute reveals the Essence in a particular
relation, the Illumination of the absolute Essence is not identical with any or all of
these illuminations. Jili refers the difference to the Divine substance,
which, as we have seen, God" puts instead of the man"
so that the subject and object of illumination are really one. This substance may be either attributal (sifati) or essential (dhati). Only in the latter case does "the man" become the
God-man.
Such a one is the Perfect Unit (al-fardu 'l-kamil) and the Microcosmic Pole (alghawthu 'l-jami') on whom the whole order of existence revolves; to
him genuflexion and prostration in prayer are due, and by means of him God
keeps the universe in being. He is denoted by the terms al-Mahdi and al-Khatam (the Seal)-, and he is the Vicegerent
(khalifa) indicated in the story of Adam The essences of all things that exist are
drawn to obey his command, as iron is drawn to the magnet. He subdues the
sensible world by his might and does what he will by his power. Nothing is
barred from him, for when the Divine substance is in this wali as a simple essence, unconditioned
by any degree appertaining to the Creator or to the creature, he
bestows on every degree of existent things its haqa, i.e. what it requires and is capable of
receiving, and nothing can hinder him from doing so. That which hinders the Essence is
merely its limitation by a degree or name or quality; but the simple Essence
has nothing to hinder it: therefore with it all things are actual, not
potential, while in other essences things are sometimes potential and sometimes
actual.
It would seem, then, that the Illumination of the Absolute is given to the
Heavenly Man (Mohammed) alone and transmitted through him to the Perfect Men
who are his representatives on earth 3.
VII. RELIGION,
REVELATION AND PROPHECY.
Religious belief may be defined as man's thought about
God, and we have learned that all things and thoughts in the universe are
attributes of God, i.e.,
aspects in which He reveals Himself to human
minds. Moreover, the attributes are identical with the Essence in so far as
they are nothing but the Essence regarded from every possible point of view.
Therefore God is the essence of all thought; and all thought is about God. In the light of such principles the
author's philosophy of religion is easy to understand.
Divine
worship, he says, is the end for which all things are created1, and therefore belongs to their original nature and constitution. The different forms of worship result
from the variety of Names and Attributes by which God manifests Himself in
creation. Every Name and Attribute produces its own characteristic effect. For
example, God is the true Guide (al-Hadi); but He is also the Misleader (al-Mudill), for the Koran says, "Allah shall lead the wicked
into error." He is the Avenger (al-Muntaqim) as well as the Forgiver (alMun'im).
If any one
of His Names had remained ineffectual and unrealised, His self-manifestation
would not have been complete. Therefore He sent His prophets, in order that
those who followed them might worship Him as the One who guides mankind to
salvation, and that those who disobeyed them might worship Him as the One who
leads mankind to perdition.
All God's creatures
worship Him in accordance with His will, and every form of worship expresses
some aspect of His nature. Infidelity and sin are effects of the Divine
activity and contribute to the Divine perfection. Satan himself glorifies God,
inasmuch as his disobedience is subordinate to the eternal will. Yet some
aspects in which God shows Himself, such as Majesty and Wrath, are relatively
less perfect than others, such as Beauty and Mercy. And, again, the more
completely and universally the idea of God is presented in any form of worship,
the more perfect that form must be. Religions revealed through a prophet
contain the fullest measure of truth, and amongst these the most excellent
is·lslam.
Jili mentions ten principal ".religious" sects
from which all the rest are derived , It is an odd catalogue, comprising (r)
the Idolaters or Infidels; (2) the Physicists, who worship the four natural
properties, namely, heat, cold, dryness and moisture; (3) the Philosophers, who
worship the seven planets; (4) the Dualists, who worship light and darkness (5)
the Magians, who worship fire; (6) the Materialists (Dahriyyun), who abandon worship entirely; (7) the Brahmans (Barahima), who claim to follow the religion of Abraham; (8) the
Jews; (9) the Christians; (ro) the Mohammedans.
The author
proceeds to explain that God is the truth or essence of all these forms of
belief!. The Infidels disbelieved in a Lord, because God, who is their essence,
has no lord over Him, but on the contrary is Himself the absolute Lord. They
worshipped God according to the necessity of their essential natures. Idolaters
worship Him as the Being who permeates every atom of the material world without
infusion or commixture. God is the ''truth" of the idols which they
worship, and they worship none but Him. This is the mystery of their following
the Truth in themselves 2, because their hearts bore witness to them that the
good lay in their so doing. On account of that spirit of belief in the reality
of their worship, the thing as it really is shall be revealed to them in the
next world. "Every sect is rejoicing in that which it hath" (Koran, 23, 55), i.e., here they rejoice in their acts,
and hereafter they shall rejoice in their spiritual states. Their joy is
everlasting3. Therefore,
even if the Infidels had known the torment which they must suffer in
consequence of their worship, they would have persisted in it by reason of the
spiritual delight which they experience therein; for when God wills to punish
any one with torment in the life to come, He creates for him in that torment a
natural pleasure of which his body· becomes enamoured; and God does this in
order that the sufferer may not have an unquestionable right to take refuge
with Him from the torment, but may remain in torment so long as the pleasure
continues to be felt by him. When God wills to alleviate his torment, He causes
him to lose the sense of pleasure, and he then takes refuge in the mercy of
God, "who answers the sorely distressed when they pray to Him" (Koran, 27, 63)°.
Similarly, the Physicists really worship the four
essential attributes of God, namely, Life, Knowledge, Power, and Will; the
Philosophers worship His names and. attributes as manifested in the planets; the Dualists worship Him as Creator and
creature in one; the Magians worship Him as the Unity in which all names and
attributes pass away, just as fire destroys all natural properties and
transmutes them to its own nature; the Materialists, who deny the existence of
a Creator and believe in the eternity of Time, worship God in respect of His
He-ness (Huwiyya), in which He is
only potentially, but not actually, creative; the Brahmans worship Him
absolutely, without reference to prophet or apostle1.
As regards the future life, since all worship God
by Divine necessity, all must be saved. But the seven sects abovementioned
(unlike the Jews, Christians and Moslems, who received their religions from a
prophet) invented their forms of worship for themselves. Consequently, they are
doomed to misery hereafter. That which constitutes their misery is the fact
that their felicity, though ultimately assured, is far off and is not revealed
to them until they have suffered retribution. On the other hand, those who
worship God according to the mode ordained by a prophet enjoy immediate felicity,
which is revealed to them continuously and gradually. It is true that the Jews and
Christians suffer misery, but why is this? Because they have altered God's Word
.. ind substituted something of their own. Otherwise, they would have come
under the rule that God never sent a prophet to any people without placing in
his apostolic mission the felicity of those who followed him2.
Here, perhaps, it will not. be inopportune to
give some details of the author's eschatology. We must remember that in his
view all experience is perception by the human spirit of the nature
and destiny eternally stamped upon it. "I Myself am Heaven and Hell."
"Life" denotes the spirit's
contemplation of its bodily form: the spirit assumes the form of the object
contemplated, just as sunbeams falling on green or red glass take the form and
colour of the glass. After death, i.e., after the withdrawal of the spirit's gaze from
the body, the spirit remains wholly in the spiritual world, while wearing the
sane corporeal aspect as it had before". Those mystics who deny the
resurrection of the body are in the wrong. "We know by Divine information
that bodies are raised from the dead with their spirits.'' The death of the
spirit consists in its detachment from the body and resembles the dreamless
sleep which is akin to notbeing', since the sleeper has neither perception of
the sensible nor vision of the unseen .
During the intermediate state (barzakh) between
death and resurrection every one moves in a world of phantasy (khayal) peopled
by the forms, ideas, and essential characters of the actions which he or she
committed in their earthly life'. The drunkard quaffs fiery wine in a cup of
fire; the sinner whom God has forgiven passes into forms of good works, each
fairer than the last; and he whose good works have been done in vain becomes
imbued with the form of his eternal fate, ever-changing images of woe which his
resurrection shall reveal to him as realities', The present, intermediate, and
future states are one existence (wujud wahid), and you by virtue of your inmost nature (huwiyya) are
the same in them all, but while the
things of this world are free (ikhtiyari), the things
hereafter are determined by what happens here .
The world, having been created, must die: its death is its passing away (Jana) under the might of the Divine Reality which manifests
itself in the guise of individuals; and its resurrection is the manifestation
of that Reality with the. signs foretold in the Koran1. The universal or greater resurrection (al-sa'atu 'l-kubra) includes the particular or lesser resurrection (al-sa' atu
'l-sughra), i.e., the resurrection of eve1y individual, and their signs correspond. For
example, Dajjal (Antichrist) is an emblem of the flesh (hafs): as Dajjal shall be slain by Christ (the Spirit of God,
Ruh Allah), so shall the flesh be destroyed by the spirit (ritb)2. Again, the coming of the Mahdi, who shall reign for
forty years, symbolises the perfection of the Perfect Man uniting and
consummating the forty grades of existence3. God beholds this world through the medium of Man ;
therefore, after the Resurrection, it will not exist otherwise than in God's
knowledge, even as Paradise and Hell exist in His knowledge to-day. But when
Man shall have been removed to the next world, God will behold Paradise and Hell through him, and they will then exist actually'.
God created
the Form of Mohammed (al-suratu
'L-Muhammadiyya) from the light of His
Name the Almighty Maker (alBadi'u 'l-Qadir), and regarded it with His
Name the All-subduing Giver (al-Mannanu
'l-Qahir); then He displayed Himself to it in His Name the Gracious Pardoner (al-Latifu 'l-Ghafir). Thereupon, because of this illumination, it split in two halves, and God, created Paradise from the half on the right hand, and
Hell from the half on the left hand 5.
Jili's
description of the Eight Paradises is not specially interesting . In the first Paradise good works are
rewarded, in the second good thoughts and beliefs concerning God. The third,
which is gained solely by Divine grace, surpasses all the rest in magnitude and contains persons of every religion, sect, and
nationality. Theoretically it is possible for any human being to enter this
Paradise, if such fortune be vouchsafed to him in some Divine illumination, but
the author adds: "We saw in mystical vision that only
a few of each sect are there1." The four highest Paradises have no
trees, pavilions, or houris, and are inhabited (except the highest of all) by
contemplatives and saints in an ascending scale of holiness. The floor of the
eighth Paradise is the roof of the Throne of God (al-'Arsh). Thither none
may comefor it is the Paradise of the Essence, "the Lauded Station" (al-Maqam al-mahmud) which, as the
Tradition tells us, was promised by God to Mohammed.
With the people of Paradise every idea immediately becomes an object of
sensation. When Adam, whose form is a copy
of the form of Mohammed, went down from Paradise, he lost the life of his form,
i.e., the power of
materialising his thoughts. In the present world this power ·depends on the
spirit, and since most of mankind are dead spiritually, belongs only to mystics
endued with God's everlasting life .
Hell is the manifestation of Divine Majesty (jalal). When
God created the Fire, He revealed Himself to it seven times, appearing each
time in a different Name. These theophanies clove the Fire into seven valleys,
which are the limbos of
Hell'.
Pantheism cannot allow evil to be permanent. Jill cites the Tradition,
"My Mercy preceded My Wrath," and infers that while the latter
attribute is a mode of Divine Justice, Mercy is essential and prevails in the
end '. Hell,
according to him, is a temporary state5, and not
necessarily an altogether undesirable one. Of course, he had been there in his
visions, and he tells of a meeting with Plato, "whom the formal
theologians account an infidel, but I saw that he filled the unseen world with
light, and that his rank was such as few amongst the saints possess1." Some of the damned are more excellent than many of the
Paradisal folk: God has placed them in Hell, that He may be revealed to them
therein 2. Jili expatiates
on the variety of pleasures enjoyed by those who burn in the Fire3. Some feel a pleasure comparable to
the joy of battle, for although the soldier is conscious of pain he often has a
keen delight in the fray into which "the Lordship lurking in his soul"
impels him to plunge. Another of their pleasures resembles that felt when any
one rubs an itch, even if he should chance to break the skin. Then they have
subtler pleasures, like the self-satisfaction of the fanatic who persists in a
wrong way of thinking, or the philosopher's happy sense of superiority in preferring his own wretched condition
to the rich man's luxury and ignorance.
Their states are diverse: some, notwithstanding
that they suffer the most intense torment, would not exchange it for Paradise;
some long for a breath of the air of Ed.en and a draught of its water; some,
having no pleasure in their pain, feel the utmost bitterness. of loathing in
themselves.
It is well known that Mohammed asserted the
essential unity of Revelation. From the beginning of the world, as he believed,
one and the same faith had been revealed to mankind through a succession of
prophets, of whom he himself was the last. Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus
taught the same religion, the religion of Islam. It followed, in the
first place, that the Pentateuch, the Psalms, and the Gospel are identical in substance with the Koran, and secondly, that since
the Jews and Christians would neither accept Islam nor acknowledge Mohammed as
the prophet foretold in their books, they must be giving a false account of
what these books actually contained. The argumentum ad
homines needed firm handling
Uninspired Moslems would rather say that the books in their present form are
corrupt or incomplete. From quite another standpoint the Sufis agree with their
Prophet that the Word of God is essentially one. For them, indeed, all that
exists is His Word, which is revealed to His prophets and saints under different
aspects and in varying degrees of perfection. The historical and temporal is
only a symbol of the mystical and eternal revelation. As, in the former;
Christianity occupies the middle place between Judaism and Islam, so in the
latter, where these religions typify the progressive ascent of the soul to God,
the Illumination of the Names is denoted by the Pentateuch, the Illumination of
the Attributes by the Gospel, 'and the Illumination of the Essence by the Koran
1.
No one who reads the Insanu 'l-Kamil
can fail to discern that its
author was profoundly influenced by Christian ideas, though it is not always
possible to separate these from the Jewish, Gnostic and other elements with
which they are intermingled2. I nee.d only.
allude to the Trinitarian basis of the Divine nature3 and the
prominence given to the Holy Spirit as the source and, in relation to man the
organ and sustaining
principle of spiritual life1. Jili criticises the Christian doctrine, but so mildly and apologetically
that one passage of his work is declared by the Moslem editor to be an
interpolation which only a heretic could have written°. The Pentateuch, he
says, was sent down to Moses in nine tables°, two of which, containing the
mysteries of Lordship and Power, he was forbidden to communicate to any one; and
as the Jews remained ignorant of their contents, Moses was the last of that
people to gain perfect knowledge of God. On the other hand, both Jesus and
Mohammed revealed the mystery of Lordship; but whereas Mohammed cloaked it in
symbols and made it an esoteric matter', Jesus proclaimed it openly, with the
result that his followers became infidels and worshipped him as the third of
three Divine Persons, namely, the Father, the Mother, and the Son 5• This form of Trinity, by the way, appears in the Koran
; it is not a grotesque blunder on the part of Mohammed, but a Christian heresy
which still survives amongst the tribes of the Syrian desert 7.
While Jesus
spoke the Truth allegorically, the Christians have taken his words literally1. Polytheists as they are, God after punishing them for their error will
pardon them because of the inward sincerity of their belief, for "they
acted in accordance with the knowledge which He bestowed upon them: therefore
blame them not, since their polytheism was essentially belief in One God (kana shirkuhum'ayna 'l-tawhid')." It is this sentence and others of like tenor that the
editor would erase, and we can understand his indignation, though Juli is
simply applying to a special case the monistic doctrine which has been
explained already. Of all non-Islamic religious communities he holds that the
Christians are nearest to God, for while they worship Him in Jesus, Mary, and
the Holy Ghost, they'assert the indivisibility of the Divine nature and that
God is prior to His existence in the created body of Christ. Thus they
recognise the two complementary sides of true belief concerning God, namely
that from the one point of view (tanzih) He is above all likeness and
that from the other (tashbih) He reveals Himself in the forms of His creatures3• But, in addition to the grave error of anthropomorphism
(tajsim), they are at
fault in restricting the Divine self-manifestation to these three. God said,
"I breathed My Spirit into Adam'," and here the name" Adam"
signifies every human individual 5. The contemplation of those who behold God in Man is the most perfect in
the world. Something of this vision the Christians possess, and their doctrine
about Jesus will lead them at last, "when the Thing shall be discovered as it
really isl," to the knowledge that mankind are like mirrors set face to
face, each of which contains what is in all; and so they will behold God in themselves and declare Him to be absolutely One2.
Jili concludes his work with a mystical
interpretation of Islam, "the crown of religions ." Much of what he
says has no interest except for specialists, e.g., his definitions of technical
terms used by Sufis and his explanations of the esoteric meanings which he
finds under every detail of Mohammedan ritual. He is careful to guard against
antinomianism. Certain Sufi saints
claimed to have outdistanced the prophets', but Jili decides in favour of the latter. He admits that saintship-the revelation
of the Divine attributes to man-is the essence of prophecy, and that the
prophet qua saint is superior to the
prophet qua prophet. Every
prophet has "the prophecy of saintship" (nubuwwatu
'l-wilayat), although some, like Jesus
and al-Khadir, have nothing more'; others, like Moses and Mohammed, have
also" the prophecy of institution" (nubuwwatu
'l-tashri'), i.e., they were sent to
promulgate and establish a new religious code. The Sufi Shaykhs, whom God
brings back from the state of trance (Jana') in order that they may guide the people to Him, are
vicegerents (khulafa) of Mohammed and, as such, are invested with ''the prophecy of
saintship" and bound to observe the laws of the last of the institutional
prophets, Mohammed, who in both respects is supreme and unique6. Jili must be
called a pantheist in so far as he takes "There is no god but Allah"
in the sense of "Nothing really exists but the Divine Essence with its creative and creaturely modes of being."
These modes are unified in the abstraction of intellect as well as in the mystic's flight to God, but the author of the Insanu'l-Kamil
is neither a pure philosopher at
any time nor an ecstatic always. "Perception of the Essence," he
writes, "consists in thy knowing that thou art He and that He is thou, and that this is not identification or incarnation, and that the slave is a
slave and the Lord a Lord, and that the slave does not become a Lord nor the
Lord become a slave1." Even the Perfect Man is a reality (haqg), not the Reality (al-Jjaqq)
which
displays itself in the mirror of his consciousness as God and Man°.
143
APPENDIX I JILIS 'AYNIYYA
Mention has
been made (p. 99, note 2 supra) of Jili's ode entitled al-Nawadiru 'l-' ayniyya fl' l-bawaddiri 'l-ghaybiyya.
In the lnsanu 'l-Kamil he cites 36 of its 534
verses (r. 30, 3; 39, 6 fr. foot; 52, 17; 66, 19; and 76, 15) and describes it as a magnificent and unique
composition, too sublime to be fully understood. It is, however, little more than a versified summary of
matter set forth in the lnscinu 'l-Kamil, though in some
instances the author expresses himself with a freedom and boldness which would
hardly be tolerated in a prose treatise. As a poem, apart from its ungraceful
style, it suffers from expounding a theory of mystical philosophy and cannot
bear comparison with Ibnu '1-Farid's Ta'iyya-the poetry of pure
mysticism. The extracts given below have been copied from a manuscript in the
British Museum (Or. 3684; Rieu's Suppl. to the Catalogue of Arabic MSS. No.
245) contaming the text .together with a commentary by 'Abdu '1-Ghani alNabulusi.
APPENDIX II
SOME NOTES ON THE FUSUSU 'L-HIKAM
I have already referred to the work of Ibnu
'I-'Arabi, bearing a title which may be rendered "The Bezels of Divine
Wisdom," and have pointed out that its subject-matter coincides, to a
large extent, with that of the Insanu 'l-Kamil, while both writers are not only inspired by the same
mystical philosophy but use similar methods in order to
develop their ideas. The following
notes, inadequate as they are, will at least show the magnitude of
Jili's debt to his predecessor, besides making clearer some fundamental
principles which. in the Insanu 'l-Kamil are assumed rather than expounded. The Fusts purports to be a treatise on
the nature of God as manifested through prophecy, each of its 27 chapters being
attached to the logos (kalima) of a prophet typifying a particular Divine attribute. Since God does not
reveal Himself completely except in Man, the first chapter treats of Adam as
the microcosm, the Perfect Man, the absolute mirror of Divinity. Often Ibnu
'l-'Arabi takes a text of the Koran and elicits his doctrine from it in a
fashion well known to students of Philo and Origen. The theories set forth in
the Fusus are difficult to understand and even more difficult to explain. Many
years ago I translated the greater part of the. work, with the commentary by
'Abdu 'l-Razzaq al-Kashani, for my own use, but the author's language is so
technical, figurative, and involved that a literal reproduction would convey
very little. On the other hand, if we reject his terminology, we shall find it
impossible to form any precise notion of his ideas. By collecting and arranging illustrative passages and by availing myself of
the commentator's aid I may, perhaps, throw some light on a peculiarly
recondite phase of mystical scholasticism.
The Divine Essence, which is all that exists, may
be regarded from two aspects: (a) as a pure, simple, attributeless essence; (b) as an essence endowed with attributes. God, considered
absolutely, is beyond relation and therefore beyond knowledge--the Neoplatonic
One, inconceivable and ineffable. From this point of view God, in a sense, is
not God. "Some philosophers and Abu Hamid (al-Ghazali) have asserted that
God is known without reference to the universe, but they are mistaken. An
eternal Essence is known, but it is not known to be a god, i.e., an object of worship (ilah), until the ma'luh (the logical complement of ildh) is known1.'' Here we are
introduced to a dialectic which dominates the FusuS. while God is independent of
created beings in respect of His essence, He requires
them in respect of His divinity2. His existence ts absolute, theirs is relative, z.e., it is Real Being limited and
individualised by appearing as a relation of Reality. Hence all things are
attributes of God. As such, they are ultimately identical with God, apart from
whom they are nothing'. Regarded externally, they depend on the universals of
which they are the particulars. Thus, a ''living" persoh is not judged to
be "living" unless he have in him the universal "life"
which, though as a universal it exists only in the mind, has an external
existence in so far a.sit is attached to phenomena. Universals, being mental
concepts, imply a subject and an object. As the universal, knowledge,
necessarily predicates of any one endowed with it that he is "knowing,"
so the person endowed therewith necessarily predicates of the knowledge that it
is originated in relation to himself, eterrnal in relation to God1. The Divine
Essence, in knowing itself, knows all things in itself and distinguishes them
from itself as objects of its knowledge. The difference, of course, docs not
impair the essential unity of knowledge, knower, and known, but is none the
less inherent in the nature of things, i.e., in Reality as manifested to us.
'Triplicity (tathlith) is the foundation of becoming." God is single Uard), but according to Ibnu 'l'Arabi the first single (odd) number is 3, not x. "One" is the object of numeration, whence
all numbers from 2 upwards are derived. 'Creation depends on knowledge and therefore involves tathlith. That which is brought into existence is a correlate°,
which already exists ideally and contains in itself the potentiality of
existing objectively, inasmuch as it must correspond with the knowledge and will of God
concerning it; otherwise, it would not exist either potentially or actually'. The essences (a'yan) of things are eternally known to God and "give" His knowledge to Him in virtue of their
being that which He knows of them. His creative Word (Kun, "Be!") actualises their existence, but
properly they bring themselves into existence, because He only wills what they have
it in them to become. From the proposition that "knowledge
is a relation depending on the object known (al'ilm nisbat"
tabi'at"" li 'l-ma'lum), and the object known
is thou and all appertaining to
thee5," lbnu '!-'Arabi infers that human actions are logically
self-determined6. The fate of
every: individual is his 'ayn thabita or essential character as it exists from eternity in
the Divine knowledge. Men receive of good and evil just what the necessity of their natures demands. The verse, " Had God
willed. He would have guided you all aright"
(Koran, 6, 150), means that God could not will the impossible. His wisdom requires that the infinite
diversity of His attributes should be matched by infinitely diverse capacities
in the objects wherein these attributes are displayed7•
Mystics see
that God is One and All, and One in All.
Sublimity ('uluww) belongs to
God alone. The essences (a'yan) of things are in themselves non-existent, deriving what
existence they possess from God, who is the real substance ('ayn) of all that exists. Plurality consists of relations (nisab), which are nonexistent things. There is really nothing
except the Essence, and this is sublime (transcendent) for itself, not in
relation to anything, but we predicate of the One Substance a relative
sublimity (transcendence) in respect of the modes of being attributed to it:
hence we say that God is (huwa) and is not (la huwa). Kharraz1,
who is a
mode of God and one of His tongues, declared that God is not known save by His
uniting all opposites in the attribution of them to him (Kharraz)2: He is the First, the Last, the Outward, the Inward; He is the substance
of what is manifested and the substance of what remains latent at the time of
manifestation; none sees Rim but Himself, and none is hidden from Him, since He
is manifested to Himself and hidden from Himself; and He is the person named
Abu Sa'id al-Kharraz and all the other names of originated things. The
inward'says "No" when the outward says "I," and the outward
says "No" when the inward says "I," and so in the case of
every contrary, but the speaker is One, and He is substantially identical with
the hearer....The Substance is One, although its modes are different. None can
be ignorant of this, for every man knows it of himself°, and Man is the image
of God.
Thus things
became confused and numbers appeared, by means of the One, in certain degrees'
The One brought number into being, and number analysed the One, and the
relation of number was produced by the object of numeration .... He that knows
this knows that 'the Creator who is declared to be incomparable (munazzah) is the creatures which are compared (mushabbah) with Him-by reason of His manifesting Himself in their
forms-albeit the creatures have been distinguished from the Creator. The
Creator is the creature, and the creature is the Creator: all this proceeds
from One Essence; nay, He is the One Essence and the many (individualised)
essences .... Who is Nature and Who is all that is manifested from her1? We did not see her diminished by that which was
manifested from her, or increased by the not-being of aught manifested that was
other than she. That which was manifested is not other than she, and· she is not identical with what
was manifested, because the forms differ in respect of the predication
concerning them: this is cold and dry, and this is hot and dry: they are united
by dryness but separated by cold and heat. Nay, the Essence is (in reality)
Nature. The world of Nature is many forms in One Mirror; nay, One Form in
diverse mirrors. Bewilderment arises from the difference of view, but those
who perceive the truth of what I have stated are not bewildered3.
We do not find in the Fusus any systematic scheme of Plotinian emanation or process of
self-propulsive thought such as Jili ascribes to the Absolute'. Ibnu 'l-'Arabi
indicates the relation of the One to the Many by means of metaphors, e.g., tajalli (self-unveiling), fayd (overflowing), takhallul (permeation)5.
and ta'thir (producing an effect or irnpression)6• Contingent Being
resembles a shadow cast by a figure (Real Being), falling
on a place (the forms of phenomena), and made visible by a light (the Divine
Name al-Zhir,
"the Outward"). The universe is
imaginary if we deem it external to God and self-subsistent; it is real only as
an aspect of the Real. It is ' the breath of the Merciful" (nafasu 'l-Rahman). God exhales, as it were, the essences and
forms of things which are contained potentially in His nature, and unites the
active and passive elements in one medium of self-expression, just as words and letters are united in the breath of man°. Phenomena are perpetually changing and being created anew1, while God remains as He ever was, is, and
shall be. The whole infinite series of individualisations is in fact one
eternal and everlasting tajalli which never repeats itself. Ibnu 'l'Arabi observes that his doctrine
agrees superficially with that of the Ash'arite atomists, who held the universe
to be homogeneous in substance but dissimilar in quality. On the other hand, he
points out that instead of identifying the substance with God, and the sum of
those forms and relations which they call "accidents," with the
universe, the Ash'arites postulate certain monads: these, although by
definition they are composed of accidents, are regarded (he says) as having an
independent existence, as a reality (haqq) but not essentially the Reality (al-]Jaqq)2. To our minds the atoms, which have extension neither in space nor in
time, seem insubstantial enough. But Ibnu 'l'Arabi will brook no secundum
quid, not even one that only endures for a moment.
God is both the spirit and the form of the universe. We must not say that the
universe is a form of which He is the spirit3.
What has been said in the foregoing essay regarding
the nature and function of Man was first put forth by Ibnu 'I-'Arabi. A few
quotations will make this clear.
When God willed in respect of His Beautiful Names (attributes), which are
beyond enumeration, that their essences (a'yan)-or if
you wish, you may say "His essence ('aynuhu)"-should
be seen, He caused them to be seen in a microcosmic being (kawn jami') which,
inasmuch as it is endowed with existence', contains the whole object of vision,
and· through which the inmost consciousness (sirr) of God
becomes manifested to Him. This
He did, because the vision that consists in a thing's seeing itself by
means of itself is not like its vision of itself in something else that serves
as a mirror for
it: therefore God appears to Himself in a form given by the place in which He
is seen (i.e., the mirror), and He would not appear thus
(objectively) without. the existence of this place and His epiphany to Himself
therein. God had already brought the universe into being with an existence
resembling that of a fashioned soulless body, and it was like an unpolished mirror! Now, it belongs to the
Divine decree (of creation) that He did not fashion any place but such as must
of necessity receive a Divine soul, which God has described as having been
breathed into it; and this denotes the acquisition by that fashioned form of
capacity to receive the emanation (fay), i.e., the perpetual self-manifestation (tajalli) which has never ceased and never shall. It remains to
speak of the recipient (of the emanation). The recipient proceeds from naught
but His most holy emanation, for the whole affair (of existence) begins and
ends with Him: to Him it shall return, even as from Him it began.
The Divine
will (to display His attributes) entailed the polishing of the mirror of the
universe. Adam (the human essence) was the very polishing of that mirror and
the soul of that form, and the angels are some of the faculties of that form, viz.,
the form of
the universe which the Sufis in their technical language describe as the Great
Man, for the angels in relation to it are as the spiritual and corporeal faculties in the human organism°.... The aforesaid microcosmic
being is named a Man (insan) and a Vicegerent (khalifa). He is named a Man on account of the universality
of his organism and because he comprises
all realities1. Moreover, he
stands to God as the pupil (insan), which is the instrument of vision, to the eye; and for this reason he is
named a Man. By means of him God beheld His
creatures and had mercy on them°. He is Man, the originated (in his body), the
eternal (in his spirit) ; the organism everlasting (in his essence), the Word
that divides and unites. The universe was completed by his existence, for he is
to the universe what the bezel is to the seal-the bezel whereon is graven the
signature that the King seals on his treasuries . Therefore He named him a
Vicegerent, because he guards the creatures (of God) just as the King guards
his treasuries by sealing them; and so long as the King's seal remains on them,
none dares to open them save by his leave. God made him His Vicegerent in the
guardianship of the universe, and it continues to be guarded whilst this PERFECT MAN is there. Dost not thou see that when he shall depart
(to the next world) and his seal shall be removed from the treasury of this
world, there shall no. more remain in it that which God stored therein, but the
treasure shall go forth, and every type shall return to its (ideal) antitype,
and all existence shall be 'transferred to the next world and sealed on the
treasury of the next world for ever and ever4?
This was the knowledge of Seth, and it is his knowledge
that replenishes every spirit that discourses on such a theme except the spirit
of the Seal (the Perfect Man), to whom replenishment comes from God alone, not
from any spirit; nay, his spirit replenishes all other spirits. And though he
does not apprehend that of himself during the time of his manifestation in the
body, yet in respect of his real nature and rank he knows it all essentially,
just as he is ignorant thereof in respect of his being compounded of elements.
He is the knowing one and the ignorant, for as. the Origin (God) is capable of
endowment with contrary attributes-the Majestical, the Beautiful, the Inward,
the Outward, the First, the Last-so is he capable thereof, since he is
identical ('ayn) with God, not other than He+ Therefore he knows and knows not, perceives and perceives not,
beholds and beholds not2.
Mohammed is
the Logos who unites the Essence, the Attributes, and the Names in his single
nature (fardiyya)°.
His wisdom is singular (fardiyya), because he is the most perfect being in the human
species: threfore existence was begun and ended with him, for he was a prophet
whilst Adam was water and clay'.
We have seen whither these principles lead when applied in the sphere of
positive rdigion5. Ibnu
'1-'Arabi's doctrine that knowledge is sequent to the object knowR6 enables him formally to assert men's individual responsibility for their actions.
Fate (Qada)," he says, ''is the decree of God concerning things, which is conditioned by His knowledge of them; and His knowledge of them depends on what they give Him of their essential nature. Determination (Qadar) is the temporal limitation of a thing's essential
nature. Whatsoever Fate decrees concerning a thing is decreed (not by an
external agent, but) by means of the thing itself. This is the essence of the mystery
of Determination (sirru '1-Qadar)?."
In other
words, God's knowledge of His essence is
His knowledge of all individual souls: the soul as a mode of Divine being determines its own destiny. Every one's portion in this world is that which God knows he will receive, and which is all that he is capable of receiving. God Himself cannot alter it8. The true believer here and now was a true believer when his
soul existed only as an idea in God, the infidel of to-day
has been an
infidel from eternity. Hence God says in the Koran (50, 28):
"I am not unjust to My servants,"' i.c., 'I did not ordain the unbelief which dooms them to misery and then demand of them what lay not in their power to perform. ... If there
be injustice, they are the
unjust1." "Therefore do not praise any one but yourself or blame any
one but yourself. All that remains to God is praise for having given you
existence, for that (existence) is His, not yours2."
Ibnu
'I'Arabi makes the same distinction as Hallaj between the Divine uncreated will
(mashi'a), which decrees nothing" that does not come to pass,
and the mediate command (amr), which is the religious law (shar') and is often disobeyed. God decrees the establishment of the law, but
not the practice of what is enjoined by the law. "Sin" is disobedience
to the law: it cannot be disobedience to the Divine will.
In reality
the Divine will decrees only the coming into existence of the act itself and is
not directed towards the agent in whom the act is manifested. That the act
should not occur is impossible, but in the
individual who is its locus (i.e., the particular agent) it is sometimes named "obedience to the Divine command" and sometimes
" disobedience to the Divine command," and is followed by praise or blame accordingly'.
Thus,
although the sinner violates God's law, the act named "sin" by us is
necessitated by the Divine nature, which reveals itself in acts of various
quality corresponding with the variety of its attributes. Reward and punishment
in the future life may be regarded as effects of obedience or disobedience, i.c., Divine manifestations determined by the state of the individual soul, but it is a more profound view that
God Himself feels the pleasure and the pain'.
The finite
God of religion is contrasted with the infinite God of mysticism in many
passages, e.g.:
The believer
praises the God who is in his form of belief and with whom he has
connected himself. He praises none but himself, for his God is made by himself,
and to praise the work is to praise the maker of it: its excellence or
imperfection belongs to its maker. For this reason he blames the beliefs of
others, which he would not do,if he were just. Beyond doubt, the worshipper of
this particular God shows ignorance when he criticises others on account of
their beliefs. If he understood the saying of Junayd, " The colour of the
water is the colour of the vessel containing it'," he would not
interfere with the beliefs of others, but would perceive God in every form and
in.every belief. He has opinion, not knowledge: therefore God said, "I am in My servant's opinion of Me," i.e., " I do not manifest Myself to him save in the form of his
belief." God is absolute or restricted, as He pleases; and the God of
religious belief is subject to limitations, for He is the God who is contained in the
heart of His servant. But the absolute God is not contained by any thing, for
He is the being of all things and the being of Himself, and a thing is not said
either to contain itself or not to contain itself°.
It may be
noted that while Ibnu 'l'Arabi admits the immutability of the Koranic
revelation, he claims for Moslem saints the right to modify by abrogation or
addition the religious code that is based on ijtihad, i.e., on non-Prophetic authority, and to put aside any hadith in which their inner light detects a flaw .
Like Jili,
he is confident that all souls will be saved at last, and argues it'in his own
scholastic way:
Every one
whom Mercy remembers is blessed, and there is nothing that Mercy has not remembered. Mercy's
remembrance (dhikr) of things is identical with her bringing them
into existence1: therefore every existent tl.ing is an object of mercy.
Do not let thy perception of what I say be hindered by the doctrine of everlasting
punishment. Know, first, that Mercy's bringing into existence comprises all, so
that the pains of Hell were brought into existence by Mercy. Then, secondly,
Mercy has an effect in two ways: (1) an essential effect, which is her bringing
into existence every 'ayn (individual
idea) without regard to purpose
or absence of purpose, or to what is congruous or incongruous, for she was
beholding every 'ayn as it existed
in the knowledge of God before its actual existence, and therefore she saw the
reality (&aqq),
created in men's beliefs, as a potentially existent 'ayn, and showed
mercy to it by bringing it into existence (in their beliefs). Accordingly, we
have said that the reality created in men's beliefs was the first object of
mercy, after mercy was shown by bringing into existence the individual
believers. (2) An
effect produced by asking (su'al): those who are
veiled from the truth ask God2
to have mercy upon them in their belief, but the
mystics ask God that Mercy may subsist in them3, and they ask
for mercy in God's name, saying, "O God, have mercy upon us!" That
which has mercy upon them is the subsistence of Mercy in them'
The remainder of this passage, though one can
readily see its drift, is too abstruse and technical to bear translation. Ibnu
'l'Arabi agrees with Jili that the damned, even if they remain in
Hell-fire, ultimately cease to suffer pain'. Religious intolerance appeals as
little to the pantheist who says" All is God" as to the freethinking
pessimist who cries out that all is vanity; but here Ibnu '!-'Arabi feels more
deeply and pleads more earnestly than Ma'arri. What God created in His own image
let none take upon himself to destroy except by God's command. Men are not
blameworthy in their real nature: their actions are praised or blamed, but all
action belongs to God. As regards those who legally deserve death-infidels and
idolaters-God rebuked David for slaying them, and when he said, "For Thy
sake, O Lord," God answered and said, " Yea, but are not they My servants?
" It is
right to be indignant on God's behalf, yet "compassion towards His
servants has the greater claim1" Love is the highest form in which God is
worshipped°. Ibnu 'l'Arabi anticipates Wordsworth in a reasoned tribute to the heavenly
influence of children.
The child affects the father's disposition, so that he descends from his
authority and plays with him and prattles to him and brings his mind down to
the child's, for unconsciously he is under his sway;
then he becomes engrossed with educating and protecting his child and with
seeking what is good for him and amusing him, that he may not be unhappy. All
this is the work of the child upon the father and is owing to the power of his
state, for the child was with God a short while ago (hadithu 'ahd'" bi-rabbihi) since he is
newly come into the world, whereas the father is further away; and one that is
further from God is subject to one that is nearer to
CHAPTER III
THE ODES OF
IBNU 'L-FARID)'
Pensando al bel ch eta non cangia o verno.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
ONE of the deepest
differences between Arabs and Persians shows itself in the extent and character
of the mystical poetry of each people. As regards Persia, the names of Sana'i,
'Attar, Jalalu'ddin Rumi,Sa' di, Hafiz, and Jami are witnesses enough. Whether
quantity or quality be considered, the best part of medieval Persian poetry is
either genuinely mystical in spirit or is so saturated with mystical ideas that
it will never be more than half understood ty those who read it literally. When we turn to Arabic poetry of the period
subsequent to the rise and development of Sufism, what do we find? No lack of
poets, certainly, though few of them reach the first rank and their output is
scanty compared with the opulent genius of their Persian contemporaries. But
from Mutanabbi and Ma'arri down to the bards unknown in Europe who flourished long
after the Baghdad Caliphate had fallen, it is remarkable how seldom they possess the note (as Newman would say) of
mysticism. The main reason, I think, lies in racial endowment. The Arab has no
such passion for an ultimate principle of unity as has always distinguished the
Persians and Indians+. He shares with other Semitic peoples an incapacity for
harmonising and unifying the particular facts of experience: he discerns the
trees very clearly, but not the wood. Like his art, in which "we
everywhere find a delicate sense for detail, but nowhere large apprehension of
a great and united whole2," his poetry, intensely subjective in feeling and therefore lyrical
in form, presents only a series of brilliant impressions, full of life and colour, yet essentially fragments and
moments of life, not fused into the substance of universal thought by an
imagination soaring above place and time. While nature keeps Arabian poetry
within definite bounds, convention deprives the Arabic-writing poet, who is not
necessarily an Arab, of the verse-form that is most suitable for continuous
narrative or exposition-the allegorical, romantic, or didactic mathnawi-and
leaves him no choice but to fall back upon prose if he cannot
make the qasida or the ghazal answer his purpose. Both these types of verse are associated with love:
the ghazal is a
love-lyric, and the qasida, though its proper motive is praise, usually begins
"with the mention of women and the
constantly shifted habitations of the wandering tribesmen seeking pasture
throughout the Winter and Spring; the poet must tell of his love and its
troubles, and, if he likes, may describe the beauty of his mistress°."
Thus the models of Arabic mystical poetry are the secular odes and songs of
which this passion is the theme; and the imitation is often so close that unless
we have some clue to the writer's intention, it may not be possible to know
whether his beloved is human or divine-indeed, the question whether he himself always knows is one which
students of Oriental mysticism cannot regard as impertinent.
Ibnu 'l-'Arabi,
a great theosophist rather than a great poet, deserves to be mentioned amongst
the few Arabs who have excelled in this ambiguous style1; but its supreme master is Sharafu'ddin 'Umar Ibnu 'l-Farid, a native of
Cairo, who was born seventeen years after Ibmu 'l'Arabi and died five years
before him (A.D. I182-1235)'. The two seem never to have met. The description of
Ibnu 'l'Arabi as Ibnu 'l-Farid's teacher (ustadh) rests upon a far-fetched interpretation of the verse,
O camel-driver crossing the wilderness with thy howdahs,
Kindly halt beside the hills of Tayyi' !
Here N.
detects an allusion to Ibnu 'l'Arabi, who belonged to the Tayyi' tribe .
It rarely
happens that the outward lives of mystics are eventful. The poet's chief
biographer-his grandson, 'Alihas much to say about his personal beauty, his
ecstatic temperament, his generosity and unselfishness, his seclusion from the
world, and the veneration in which he was held by all'. As his name declares,
he was the son of a notary (farid). In his youth he practised religious austerities on Mt Muqattam near Cairo,
returning at intervals to attend the law-courts with his father and study
theology. One day he encountered a saint in the guise of an old greengrocer,
who told him that the hour of his illumination was at hand, but that he must go
to the Hijaz to receive it. Accordingly Ibnu 'l-Farid set out for Mecca, where
the promise was fulfilled. Many of his odes celebrate the hills and valleys in
the. neighbourhood of the Holy City, scenes
endeared by the visions and ecstasies which they recalled to his mind.
After fifteen years' absence from Egypt he heard the voice of the saint, who
was then on his deathbed, bidding him return to Cairo, in order to pray over
him and bury him. Ibnu 'l-Farid obeyed, and having performed this pious duty
settled in Cairo for the rest of his life, lodging (it is said) in the mosque
al-Azhar, as his father had done. The biographer 'Ali, whose mother was a
daughter of Ibnu 'I-Farid, mentions two sons of the poet, Kamalu'ddin Muhammad
and 'Abdu 'l-Rahman, who were invested with the khirqa' by the famous Sufi, Shihabu'ddin Abu Hafs 'Umar
al-Suhrawardi on the occasion of his meeting with Ibnu '1-Farid;I. at Mecca in A.D. 123I.
The Di.wan, first edited by the aforesaid 'Ali from a manuscript
in the author's handwriting, is a thin volume comprising about twenty qasidas
and qit'as together with some quatrains (rube'iyya!)
and enigmas (alghaz).
The longest ode, the
Nazmu 'l-suluk or "the Mystic's
Progress," generally known as the Td'iyyatu
'l-kubrd2, has been omitted from the Marseilles edition, which is otherwise
complete. Owing to its expository and descriptive character this poem stands
apart from the purely lyrical odes, and I have treated it as an independent work. The Wine
Ode (Khamriya) and several other pieces have been published with a French prose translation
in the Anthologie
arabe of Grangeret de Lagrange (Paris,
1828), and a few more will be
found in De Sacy's Chrestomothie arabe. Italy possesses a prose rendering of the minor poems
by P. Valerga (Firenze, 1874). There is nothing in English except some
fragments which hardly amount to a hundred lines in all3. I hope to persuade my
readers that the Diwan of lbnu '1-Farid;I., though it will not please every taste,
is too curions and exquisite to be left on one side by those
who take an interest in Oriental poetry.
Concerning the subtle quality of his thought no less than of his style,
it would be hard to better what a French critic wrote ninety years ago:
L'intelligence parfaite de ses productions ne peut être que le fruit d'une étude longue et
approfondie de la poésie arabe. Deux causes principales les rendent d'un
difficile accès. La première, c'est qu'il arrive souvent à ce poëte de
quintessencier le sentiment; et alors ses idées sont si subtiles, si déliées,
et, pour ainsi dire, si impalpables, qu'elles échappent presque aux poursuites
du lecteur le plus attentif: souvent même elles disparoissent dès qu'on les
touche pour les transporter dans une autre langue. On voit qu'il a pris
plaisir, par un choix de pensées extraordinaires, et par la singularité des
tours, à mettre à l'épreuve la sagacité de ceux qui
étudient ses ouvrages. Au reste, les lettrés de l'Orient pensent qu'un poëte
est sans génie et sans invention, ou bien qu'il compte peu sur leur
intelligence, quand il n'a pas soin de leur ménager des occasions fréquentes de
fair6 briller cette pénétration qui sait découvrir les sens les plus cachés. Il
faut donc que le poëte arabe, si'l veut obtenir les suffrages et l'admiration
des connoisseurs, n'oublie pas de porter quelquefois à l'excès le raffinement
et la subtilité dans ses
compositions, d'aiguiser ses pensées, et de les envelopper de telle sorte dans
les expressions, qu'elles se présentent au lecteur comme des énigmes, qu'elles
réveillent son attention, piquent sa curiosité, et mettent en jeu toutes les
facultés de son esprit. Or, il faut convenir qu' Omar ben-Fâredh n'a point manqué à ce devoir prescrit aux poëtes arabes,
et qu'il n'a point voulu que ses lecteurs lui reprochassent de leur avoir
enlevé les occasions de montrer leur sagacité.
This describes very well a general and obvious feature of Ibnu
'l-Fàrid's style, a feature which is entirely absent both from pre-Islamic and
early Islamic poetry, although since the time of Mutanabbî, who first brought
it into prominence, it has
maintained itself not merely as a local. or temporary fashion but with all the
force of a fixed and almost universally accepted tradition. While Ibnu 'l-Fàrid
has nothing in common with the imitatorum seruum pecus, he neither attempted nor desired to swim against the stream; and it is
probable that only his mysticism saved him from the worst excesses of
metaphysical wit. In him, as in Meleager and Petrarch, "the religion
of love is reduced to a theology; no subtlety, no fluctuation of fancy or
passion is left unregistered1.'' If his verse
abounds in fantastic conceits, if much of it is enigmatic, to the last degree,
the conceits and enigmas are not, as a rule, rhetorical ornaments or intellectual
conjuring tricks, but like tendrils springing from a hidden root are vitally
connected with the moods or feeling which they delineate. It may be difficult
to believe, what is related on the testimony of his most intimate friends, that
he used to dictate his poems at the moment when he came out of a deep ecstatic
trance, during which "he would now stand, now sit, now repose on his side,
now lie on his back, wrapped like a dead man; and thus would he pass ten
consecutive days, more or less, neither eating nor drinking nor speaking nor
stirring." His style and diction resemble the choicest and finest
jewel-work of a fastidious artist rather than the first-fruits of divine inspiration.
Yet I am not inclined to doubt the statement that his poetry was composed in an
.abnormal manner2. The history of mysticism records
numerous instances of the kind. Blake said that he was drunk with intellectual
vision whenever he took a pencil or graver in his hand. "St Catherine of
Siena," we are told, "dictated her great Dialogue to her secretaries
whilst in the state of ecstasy ." 'When Jalalu'ddin Rumi was drowned in
the ocean of Love he used to take hold
of a pillar in his house and set himself turning round it. Meanwhile he versified and
dictated, and people wrote down the verses'" Since the form of such
automatic composition will largely depend on materials stored within the mystic's
brain, and on the literary models with which he is familiar, we need n.:it be surprised if his visions and
revelations sometimes find spontaneous utterance in an elaborately artificial
style. The intense passion and glowing rapture of Ibnu
'l-Farid's poetry are in keeping with this account of the way in which it was
produced1. That he may have written
it while not under the influence of ecstasy, I can conceive'; but that he wrote
it in cold blood, for the sake of those who might enjoy sharpening their wits
upon it, seems to me incredible.
The double character of Islamic mystical poetry makes
it attractive to many who are out of touch with pure mysticism. Ibnu '1-FariQ.
would not be so popular in the East if he were understood entirely in a
spiritual sense. The fact that parts of the Diwan cannot be
reasonably understood in any other sense would not, perhaps, compel us to
regard the whole as spiritual, unless that view of its meaning were supported
by the poet's life, the verdict of his biographers and commen tators, and the
agreement of Moslem critical opinion; but as things are, we can declare, with
Nabulusi, that "in every erotic description, whether the subject thereof
be male or female, and in all imagery of gardens, flowers, rivers, birds and
the like he refers to the Divine Reality manifested in phenomena, and not to
those phenomena themselvcs3." This Reality, z.e. God (or, in some places, Mohammed conceived as the Logos} is the Beloved
whom the poet addresses and celebrates under many names-now as one of the
heroines of Arabian Minnesong, now as a gazelle or a driver of camels or an
archer shooting deadly glances from his eye; most frequently as plain He or
She. The Odes retain the form, conventions, topics, and images of ordinary
love-poetry: their inner meaning hardly ever'
obtrudes itself, although its presence is everywhere suggested by a strange
exaltation of feeling, fine-drawn phantasies in which (as the same French
critic remarks) the poet is rapt "au-dela des bornes de la" droite
raison," mysterious obscurities of diction and subtle harmonies of sound. If Ibnu 'l-Farid had
followed the example of Ibnu '1-' Arabi and written a commentary on his own
poems, it might have added considerably to our knowledge of his mystical
beliefs, but I am not sure that it would have had much greater interpretative
value than the work of his commentators, who profess to explain the esoteric
meaning of every verse in the Odes. While such analysis may be useful within
certain limits, we should recognise how little it is capable of
revealing. An eminent scholar came to Ibnu '1-Farid and asked permission to
write a commentary on his masterpiece, the Nazmu 'l-Suluk. "In how many volumes?' "Two." The poet smiled. "Had I
wished," said he, "I could have written two volumes of commentary on
every verse of it1_;, The more
interpreters, the more interpretations, as those who have given time and labour
to the study of mysticism well know. Poetry of this kind suggests more than it
says, and means all that it may suggest.
We cannot do without the commentators, however,
and they will help us a good deal if we learn to use them discreetly. When
they handle their text like philologists and try to fasten precise mystical
significations upon individual words and phrases, the process is as fatal to
poetry as the result is likely to be far from truth. Against this, they have
the immense advantage of being Sutis, that is to say, of knowing through
tradition and their own experience what Europeans can only acquire by study and
perceive by sympathy. They are the poet's fellow-citizens in the ideal world
from which he drew his inspiration; they have dreamed his dreams and travelled
on his path towards his goal; they do not miss the main drift of his allegory
even though they err in some of the details.
Any one who has read the Diwan of Ibnu 'l-Farid
in Arabic will admit that while a complete rendering into English verse
would be a quixotic enterprise, some entire odes and not a few passages in
others are suitable for that form of translation. Therefore, instead of
confining myself to prose, I have sought here and there to capture the shadows
at least of things that no prose version can reproduce.
Ma bayna dali 'l-munhana wa-zilalihi
dalla 'l-mutayyamu wa-'htada bi-dalalihil.
Where lote-trees o'er the valley cast their shade
The frenzied lover strayed.
Alone with thoughts confusing
Which love
put in his brain,
He lost and in his losing
Found the way again:
Lo, on yon gorge's southern slope
The vision long-desired, that far seemed from his hope.
This is 'Aqiq', my friend!
Halt! here to pass were strange. Feign rapture, if thou be
Not rapt indeed, and let thine eye range free:
Mine, with tears overflowing, cannot range.
Ask. the Gazelle that couches in this valley,
Knows he my heart, its passion
and ·distress?
Delighting with his beauty's pride to dally,
He reeks not of my love's abasedness.
My dead self be
his ransom! 'Tis no giving:
I am all his, dead or living!
Think you he. knows that I his absence love
Even as I loved his presence? that I move
Nightly his image to my waking eye?-
A phantasy within a phantasy3.
So let me ne'er have savour
Or peace from counsellors, as I never bent
A listening ear towards
their argument!
By his sweet grace and favour,
I vow my heart tired not, when he did tire, Of
love-desire.
Woe's me,
'Udhayb's fair water might
I win And
with its coldness quench the flames within!
But since my
longing durst
Not soil
that noble stream,
Ah ! how I thirst
For its
mirage agleam!
The
following ode, though characteristically subtle, presents no special
difficulties:
Tih dalal" fa-anta
ahl" li-dhaka
wa-tahakkam fa-'l-husnu
qad a'taka!.
Feign coy
disdain, for well art thou entitled;
And
domineer, for Beauty hath given thee power.
Thine is the
word: then will whatso thou wiliest,
Since over me Beauty hath made thee ruler.
If in death I shall be with thee united,
Hasten it
on, so may I be thy ransom!
And try, in
all ways thou deem'st good, my passion,
For where thy pleasure is, my choice attends
it.
Whale'er betide, thou to myself art nearer
Than I, since but for thee I had not existed.
Not of thy
peers am I: enough of glory,
That loving
thee I bow in lowly worship.
And though I
claim not-'twere too high relation
Favour with
thee, and thou in truth my Master,
Yet me
sufficeth to be thought to love thee
And counted
by my folk amongst thy slain ones.
Yea, in this
tribe thou own'st a dead man, living
Through
thee, who found it sweet to die for love's sake;
A slave and chattel who never pined for freedom
Nor, hadst
thou left, would let thee leave him lonely;
Whom beauty
veiled by awe doth so enravish,
He feels
delicious even that veil of torment,
When thou,
brought nigh to him by hope's assurance,
Art borne
afar by fear of sundering darkness.
Now, by his
ready advance when thee he visits,
By his alarmed retreat when thou affright'st him,
I swear mine heart is melted: oh, allow it
To crave thee whilst it hath of hope a remnant;
Or bid sleep (yet, methinks, 'twill disobey thee,
Obedient else) pass o'er mine eyelids lightly;
For in a dream, perchance, will rise
before me
Thy phantom and reveal to me a
mystery.
But if thou wilt not
stir my life's last embers
With the hand of hope, and thy All needs must naught me',
And if Love's law not even a fitful slumber
Lets trespass on my lids, and
bans our meeting,
Spare me an eye, that some day, ere I perish,
Haply I may behold those who beheld thee!
Alas, how far is that desire! Nay, never
Mine eyelashes durst kiss the earth thou tread'st on,
For had my messenger brought a word of kindness
From thee, and life were mine, I would
cry,
"Take it!" Enough of
blood hath welled from these chapped eyelids:
Ah, have I not yet shown what shall content thee?
Guard safe against thine hate a man afflicted,
Who loved thee fondly ere he knew what love wast
Grant that uucivil flyting tongues forbade him
To go near thee: by whom wast thou forbidden?
Grant that thy beauty moved him
to such passion,
Yet who moved thee to part from him? Who, think'st thou?
Who, think'st thou, gave the
sentence thou should'st scorn him?
Who gave the sentence thou should'st love another?
By my heart-brokenness and humiliation,
By my most bitter need, by thine abundance,
Leave me not to the forces that betrayed me
Of mine
own strength: to thee I turn in weakness.
Thou didst ill use me when I had
some patience:
Now for its loss God help thee to console me!
Scorn upon scorn! It may be thou wilt pity
My plaint, if but to hear me say, "It may be."
The mischief-makers shamed thee with my parting
And gave out that thy love I had forgotten.
I loved not with their hearts, that I should ever
Forget thee-God forfend !-so let them babble!
Thee how
should I forget? At every lightning
That flashes, lo, mine eye starts up to meet
thee.
If 'neath the light
of thy litham? thou smilest
Or breathest soft-and on the wind thy news comes
Glad is my soul when clear dawn of thy side-teeth
Breaks on my sight, and keenly blows thy
fragrance.
Within thy borders all do love thee, natheless
My single worth buys all within thy borders2.
There dwells in thee a notion that endeared thee
To mind's eye, fixed my gaze on thy perfections.
The lords of beauty thou in grace and goodness
Excellest so, they hunger for thy notion.
Beneath my flag the lovers shall be gathered.
To Judgment, as beneath thine all the fair ones.
From thee dire sickness never turned me: wherefore
Turn'st thou from me, then, 0 disdainful charmer?
Thou art
present with me in thine absence from me,
And in thy cruelty I feel a kindness.
Taught by Desire to- wake through night's long
hours,
Mine eye hath won to see thee while it sleeps
not.
0 happy, happy night in which
thy vision
I hunted after with my net of waking!
The full moon, being thy copy, represented
To my unslumbering eye thy face's image ;
And in such alien form thine apparition
Cooled mine eye's fever: I saw thee, none other.
Thus Abraham of old, the Friend of Allah,
Upturned his eye, what time he scanned the
heavens'.
Now is the pitchy gloom for us made dazzling,
Since thou thy splendour gav'st me for my guidance;
And when thou from mine eye in outward seeming
Art gone, I cast it inward, there to find thee.
Of Baclr are they with whom by night thou faredst
Nay, not of Badr: they journeyed in thy daylight}.
That men do borrow radiance from mine outward,
'Tis not strange, when mine inward is thy dwelling.
Ever since thou to kiss thy mouth didst call me,
Musk lingers wheresoe'er my name is spoken,
And the rich air teems in every place of meeting
With spice-a metaphor of thine aroma.
The beauty of all things seen tempted me, saying,
"Enjoy me," but I said,
"I aim beyond thee.
Beguile not me, thyself by my Beloved
Distraught, in whom thou seem'st but an idea,
Averted, over men's souls he is mighty';
Unveiled, he makes the ascetics be his vowed slaves.
For his sake I exchanged my truth for error,
My right for wrong, my modesty for ill-fame'.
My heart confessed his love
One: then my turning
To thee were dualism, a creed I like not."
Beauty
itself is mad with passion for him-
0 friend
that chid'st me, may I lack thy friendship!
Hadst thou
his beauty seen--ne'er shalt thou see it
That me
enthralled, it surely had enthralled thee.
At a
'glimpse of him my wakefulness I pardon,
And
"This for that" I say to my aching eyeballs.
After
reading a little of Ibnu 'l-Farid's poetry, one can take a general view of the
whole. All his odes are variations on a single theme, and the variations
themselves have a certain interior uniformity. Not only do the same
'leitmotifs' recur again and again, but the same metaphors, conceits and
paradoxes are continually reappearing in new dress. Although translators must
regret this monotony, which they
cannot make
other than tedious, I think most of them would agree that the poet has
triumphed over it by means of the delicacy of his art, the beauty of his
diction, and the "linked sweetness" of his versification-powerful
spells to enchant those who read him in his own language. The Diwan is a miracle of literary accomplishment, yet the form
would be cold and empty without the spirit which it enshrines. Like Sidney, Ibnu 'l-Farid looked into his heart before he wrote. His
verse is charged with the fire and energy of his inmost feelings.
Where eyes
encounter souls in battle-fray,
I am the
murdered man whom 'twas no crime to slay.
At the first
look, ere love in me arose,
To that
all-glorious beauty I was vowed.
God bless a racked heart crying,
And lids
that passion will not let me close,
And ribs
worn thin,
Their
crookedness wellnigh to straightness shaped
By the glow within,
And seas of
tears whence I had never 'scaped
But for the
fire of sighing!
How sweet
are maladies which hide
Me from
myself, my loyal proofs to Love!
Though after
woeful eve came woeful dawn,
It could not
move
Once to
despair my
spirit: I
never cried
To Agony, "Begone!"
I yecrn to every heart that passion shook,
And every
tongue that love made voluble,
And every deaf ear stopped against rebuke,
And every lid not dropped in slumbers dull.
Out on a love that hath no melting eyes !
Out on a flame from which no rapbre flies1 !
In exquisite contrast with
this high-wrought prelude is another passage of the same ode, describing the mystic's . vision of the
Divine beauty revealing itself in all things beautiful.
Though he be gone, mine every limb beholds him
In every charm
and grace and loveliness:
In music of the lute and flowing reed
Mingled in consort with melodious airs;
And in green hollows where in cool of eve
Gazelles roam browsing,
or at break of morn;
And where the gathered clouds let fall their rain
Upon a flowery carpet woven of blooms;
And where at dawn with softly-trailing
skirts
The zephyr
brings to me his balm most sweet;
And when in kisses from the flagon's mouth
I suck wine-dew beneath a pleasant shade2.
Here the Moslem commentator, startled for a moment out
of his lucubrations on syntax and rhetoric, pauses to pay a tribute of
admiration to the poet, a tribute which is the more noteworthy because in these six verses Ibnu 'l-Farid comes as near. as he ever docs to the modem
European conception of what poetry should be. Unadorned simplicity is the
antithesis of his style. For our taste, he has far too much of the gift of Holofernes:
he plays with sound and sense alike, though in the daintiest and subtlest fashion
imaginable. Concerning his verbal euphuism a treatise might be written. One
versean extreme instance, no doubt--will serve as a sample of many:
Ama laki 'an sadd'" amalaki 'an sad'"
li-zalmiki zulm"" minki mayl""
li-'atfati
Hast thou no desire to withdraw from a resistance that has caused thee to turn away, with wrong on thy part, from one who
thirsts for the water of thy teeth 1?
His extravagant flights of fancy are generally accompanied by an equal
exaltation of feeling and sustained by the fiery element in which they move; at
times, however, they sink into something very like the "sweet smoke of
rhetoric," 0.g.,
I sowed roses
on his cheek by looking (at him) : mine eye has the right to gather that which
it planted.
But if he refuses, then his (teeth
white as) camomile will be my amends: 'tis no bad bargain when one is given
pearls instead of flowers2.
They said, "Thy tears flowed red." I answered, "They flowed from causes which are
small in comparison with the greatness of my desire:
I slaughtered sleep on my eyelids to entertain
my phantom-guest,
and therefore my tears flowed bloody over my cheek3."
The following examples are more typical:
Thou stol'st away mine heart when it was whole:
Now at my last gasp give it back in shreds#!
0 thou
who didst treacherously take my heart away, how didst not thou let follow it the
rest of me that thou sparedst?
Part of me is made
jealous of thee by part of me, and my outward envies my inward because thou art
there .
I am so wasted by
lovesickness that those who come to visit me have lost their way, for how can
the visitors see one who hath no shadow!?
To affirm that lovers and mystics delight in paradox is only to
acknowledge that in states of spiritual enthusiasm we enter a
region where the logic of common experience is perceived to be false. This alta fantasia moulds the language oi the Odes, imposing its own laws and revelling in its power to
transcend contradictions which, for the intellect, are final.
When I died of his love, I lived by him, through the wealth of my
self-denial and the abundance of my poverty2.
Tis Love ! Keep thy heart safe. Passion is no light thing, and he that is wasted thereby chose it not when he was sane.
And live fancy-free, for love's joy is sorrow: its
beginning a sickness and its end a slaying;
Yet, methinks, death owing to love-desire is a life
that my loved one bestows upon me as a boon°
If separation be my guerdon from you, and if there be
no (real) distance between us, I regard that separation as union.
Repulse is nothing but love, so long as it is not
hate; and the hardest thing, excepting only your aversion, is easy to bear.
Delicious to me is the torment which ye inflict; and
the injustice which Love ordains that ye do unto me is justice.
And my patience, a patience both without you and with
you' its bitterness seems to me everlastingly sweet5.
Besides the two protagonists, Arabian love-poetry introduces several
minor figures, who play a helping or hindering part in the idyll. Ibnu
'l-Farid, of course, uses them allegorically. One of them is the "
watcher" (raqib), who prevents
the lover from approaching. The "slanderer" (washi)
represents the logical and intellectual faculty,
which aannot pierce beyond the outward forms of things. More important than
either of these (to judge by the frequent passages of description and dialogue in which he appears), and more dangerous, because of
his greater plausibility, is the "blamer" ("la'im) or 'railer" (lahi), a type of the
Devil, suggesting evil and inspiring doubt, of sensual passion, and of all that lures the soul away
from Divine contemplation.
And in my silencing him who blamed me on thy account,
when it was no time to dispute concerning thee\ my argument was thy face;
Whereby, after having been my rebuker, he was made my
excuser; nay, he became one of my helpers.
And, as I live, my vanquishing in argument a guide whose reproac.hes would have
led me astray is like my greater and lesser pilgrimages .
He perceived that my scornful ear was Rajab (deaf) to
baseness and false counsel, and that blame of me was al-Muharram (forbidden) .
Full oft had he desired me to forget thy love and seek
another than thee, but how should he change my fixed purpose?
He said, "Mend what remains in thee (of
life)." I answered, "Methinks, my mind turns nowhither but towards
death."
My refusal refused everything except thwarting a
counsellor who would beguile me to show a quality that was never mine', One to whom chiding me on thy
account is sweet, as though he deemed my separation (from thee) his manna and
my forgetfulness (of thee) his quails'.
It is a favouiite paradox of
Ibnu 'I-Farid that reproof bears a message of love, and that the ''railer "
deserves to be thanked and praised.
Pass round the name of my Dearest, if only in blaming me-for
talk of the Beloved is my wine-
That she may be present to mine ear, though she be far
away, as a phantom called up by blame, not by sleep.
For sweet to me is her name in every mould, even if my
chiders mingle it with disputation.
Methinks, he that blames me brings to me the glad news
of her favour, though I was not hoping to have my greeting returned 1.
But I found thee in one way my benefactor, albeit thou wouldst have hurt me by
the scorch of thy rebuke, had I obeyed thee.
Thou didst me a kindness unawares, and if thou
wroughtest ill, ., yet art thou the most righteous of wrong-doers.
the phantom that visits me in the hour of blame brings the Beloved, though he dwell afar,
close to the eye of my waking ear.
And thy reproof is, as it were, my Loved One's camels
which came to me when my hearing was my sight3.
Thou tiredst thyself and I was refreshed by thy
mention of him, so that I regarded thee as excusing me for my passion .
Marvel, then, at a satirist lauding with the tongue of
a thankful complainant those who blame him for his love!
The hyperfantastic strain in Ibnu 'l-Farid's poetry is surprisingly relieved by
a poignant realism, of which there is no trace in the work of his Persian
1ivals. They have, what he reserves for his great Ta'iyya, the power of lifting themselves and their
readers with them into the sphere of the infinite and eternal,
Al) breathing human passion far above.
The Arabic odes, on the contrary, are full of local
colour and redolent of the desert; and the whole treatment of the subject is
intimately personal. Jalalu'ddin Rumi writes as a God-intoxicated
soul, Ibnu 'l-Farid as a lover
absorbed in his own feelings.
While the Persian sees a
pantheistic vision of one reality in which the individual disappears, the Arab , dwells on particular aspects of the relation of
that reality to himself.
Some of the finest passages are inspired by the
author's recollection of the years which he spent in the Hijaz,
where (he says) he left his heart behind when his
body returned to Egypt'
Give aid, my brother dear, and sing me the tale of them
that alighted in the water-courses-if thou wilt keep a brother's faith with me-
And recall it to mine ears; for the spirit yearns for
tidings, if the loved ones
be afar.
When the
anguish of pain settles on my soul, the aroma of the fresh herbs of the Hijaz
is my balm.
Shall I be debarred from the sweetness of going down to the
waters in its land, and turned aside from it, when my very life is in its sandhills,
And its dwellings are my desire, yea, and its spring-tide is my joy and averts
from me the most bitter distress,
And its mountains are to me a vernal abode, and its sands
a pasture, and its daytime shadows are my (cool) shades of eve, And its earth is my fragrant spice, and its water a fui' well for my thirst,
and in its soil are my riches,
And its ravines are to me a garden, and its tents
a shield, and on its rocks my heart is untroubled2?
May the rain bless those haunts and hills, and may showers following each
other moisten those homes of bounty,
And shed abundance on the shrines of pilgrimage
and the pebbles at al-Mina, and plenteously bedew the halting-places of the
jaded camels!
And may God preserve my dear companions there
with whom I whiled away the night with tales of lovers' meetings!
And may He preserve the nights at al-Fhayf that
were but as a dream that passed in the wakefulness of a light sleep!
Ah me for that
time and all that was in that goodly place, when the spies were off their
guard!-
Days when I blithely
pastured in the fields of Desire and tripped in flowing skirts of Ease1.
How wonderful is Time, which lays benefits on a man and proves him by
taking the gift as spoil!
0 would that
our bygone pleasure might return once more! Then would· I freely give my life.
Alas, vain is the endeavour, and cut are the strands of the cord of
desire, and loosed is the knot of my hope.
'Tis torture enough that I pass the night in frenzy, with my
longing before me and Fate behind me2.
From many such passages I select one that is characteristic, because it
illustrates Ibnu '1-Farid's habit of seeking his imagery in Nature, as seen by
Bedouins', and also his sense of the poetic value of proper names.
0 that
I knew whether
Sulayma is dwelling in the valley of the demesne, where the bondsman of love is
crazed!
Hath thunder crashed with bursting showers at La'la', and hath rain
gushing from the clouds flooded it?
And shall I come down to the waters of al-'Udhayb and Hajir openly, when
the mystery of night is declared by dawn?
And are there green dunes in the camping-place at al-Wa'sa? and will the
joy that passed there ever return?
And, 0 ye dear folk at al-Naqa, is there in the hills of Najd any one
that relates from me, to show forth what my ribs enclose'?
And on the sand-slope of Sal' do they ask news of a rapt lover at Kazima
and say, "How is Passion dealing with him?"
And are the blossoms being culled from the myrtle-boughs, and in the
Hijaz are there mimosas with ripe berries?
And the tamarisks at the bend of
the vale, are they fruitful, and are the eyes of despiteful Time asleep to them?
And are there fair women at 'Alij
looking shyly with large eyes,
as I knew them once, or is it a vain thing?
And did the
gazelles of the Two Meadows remain there a little while after us, or did.
something not let them stay?
And will
girls at al-Ghuwayr show me where dwells my Nu'm in spring?-how pleasant are those dwelling-places!
And is the
shade of yon willow east of Darij still spread wide?for my tears have watered
it.
And is Shi'b
'Amir prospering since we departed, and will it one day bring the lovers together?
Perchance
when my dear comrades at Mecca think of Sulayma, they will feel the flame
cooled of that which their bosoms hide, And petchance
the sweet nights that are vanished will
come again
to us, that a hoping man may win his desire,
And a
sorrowing one rejoice and a lovelorn one revive and a longing one be made happy and a listening one thrill with delight'.
It needs but a
slight acquaintance with Ibnu 'I-Farid to discover that he fully possesses a
gift which the Arabs have always prized in their rulers no less than in
their poets and orators-the power of terse, striking, and energetic expression. He
depicts the lover wasted by suffering,
Hidden from
his visitors, appearing only
As a crease in garments after their unfolding'.
An exceeding great love hath hewn my bones, and my body is vanished, all but the two least parts of me.
I felt sum
passion for you that if the strengths
of all who love had borne half the burden thereof, they would have tired.
My bones were hewn by a desire twice as great as that of my eyelids for my sleep or of my weakness for my strength'.
Any one of the Odes will furnish examples of this Arabian
eloquence which has its· roots deep in the structure of the language and
defies all attempts to transplant it.
In his famous Wine Ode (Khamriyya)
Ibnu 'I-Farid develops a symbolism
which elsewhere he only uses incidentally. His sparing use of it may perhaps
be attributed to. his respect for the Mohammedan religious law, just as the antinomian
bias of some Persian mystics seems to express itself in the freedom of their
bacchanalian imagery. According to Ibnu 'l-Farid's custom, the symbolism is
precise and circumstantial, so that its interpretation is far more baffling
than in Persian odes of the same kind, where large and simple ideas carry the reader easily along. I hope that the literal
translation given below, together with the notes accompanying it, will make the meaning tolerably clear, though we may doubt
whether the poet would always have accepted the interpretation given by his
commentator, 'Abdu '1-Ghani al-Nabulusi, who not only explains too much but
brings in philosophical theories that belong to Ibnu 'l'Arabi rather than to
Ibnu 'I Farid. Into this question, however, I need not enter
now.
Sharibna 'ala dhikhri
'l-habibi mudamat""
sakirna biha min qabli an
yukhlaqa 'l-karmu
(1) In
memory of the Beloved we quaffed a vintage that made us drunk before the
creation of the vine2.
(2) Its cup
the full-moon; itself a sun which a new moon causes to circle. When it is
mingled (with water), how many stars appear3!
(3) But for
its perfume, I should not have found the way to its taverns; and but for its
resplendence, the imagination would not have pictured it'.
(4) Time hath preserved
of it but a breath: it is unseen as a thing hidden in the bosom of the mind!
(S) If it be mentioned amongst
the tribe, the tribesmen become intoxicated without incurring disgrace or
committing sin°.
(6) It oozed up from the inmost
depths of the jars (and vanished), and in reality nothing was left of it but a
name3•
(7) If it ever come into the mind of a man, joy will abide with him
and grief will journey away.
(8) And had the
boon-companions beheld the sealing of its vessel, that sealing would have
inebriated them without (their having tasted} the wine';
(9) And had they sprinkled
with it the earth of a dead man's grave, his spirit would have returned to him,
and his body would have risen;
(10) And had they laid down in
the shadow of the wall where its vine grows a man sick unto death, his malady
would have departed from him;
(11) And had they brought to
its taverns one palsied, he would have walked; and at the mention of its
flavour the dumb would speak;
(12) And had the breath of its
aroma floated through the East, and were there in the West one that had lost
the sense of smell, he would have regained it;
(13) And had the palm of one
touching its cup been stained red thereby, he would not have gone astray at
night, the lodestar being in his hand;
(14) And had it been unveiled
in secret (as a bride) to one blind from birth, he would have become seeing; and at the sound of
its (decanting into the) strainer the deaf would hear;
(15) And had a party of
camel-riders set out for the soil that bore it, and were there amongst them one
bitten by a snake, the venom would not have harmed him;
(16) And had
the sorcerer inscribed the letters of its name on the brow of one smitten with
madness, the writing would have cured him;
(17) And had
its name been blazoned on the banner of the host, 'lat blazon would have
intoxicated those beneath the banner.
(18) It
corrects the natures of the boon-companions, so that those who lack resolution
are led by it to the path of resolution, (19) And he whose hand was a stranger
to munificence shows himself generous, and he who had no forbearance forbears
in the hour of wrath.
(20) Had the
dullest-witted man in the tribe kissed its fdam, his kissing it would have endued him with foe real
inwardness of the wine's qualitiesl.
{2I) They
say to me, "Describe it, for thou art acquainted with its
description." Ay, well do I know its attributes:
(22) Pure,
but not as water ; subtle, but not as air; luminous, but not as fire; spirit,
but not (joined to) body.
(23) The
(Divine) discourse concerning it was eternally prior to all existing things (in the knowledge of God), where is no
form nor any external trace2;
(24) And
there through it all things came into being because of a (Divine) providence
whereby it was veiled from every one that lacketh understanding.
(25) And my spirit was
enamoured of it in such wise that they {my spirit and the wine) were mingled
together and made one, not as a body pervades a body3.
(26) There
is a wine without a vine, when Adam is a father to me; there is a vine without
a wine, when its mother is a mother to me',
(27)
The
(essential) subtlety of the vessels (forms) depends in truth on the subtlety of
the realities; and by means of the vessels the realities increase1
(28) After
division has occurred, so that, while the whole is one, our spirits are a wine
and, onr bodies. a vine.
(29) Before
it is no "before" ad. after it is no "after"; it is the
"before" of every "after" by the necessity of its nature'.
(30) Its
grapes were pressed in the winepress ere Time began, and it was an orphan
although the epoch of our father (Adam) came after it3.
(31) Such
are the beauties that lead its praisers to laud it, and beautiful is their
prose and verse in its honour.
(32) And he
that knows it not thrills at the mention of it, like the lover of Nu'm when her
name is spoken.
(33) They
said, "Thou hast drunk the draught of sin." Nay, I have only drunk
what, in my judgment, 'twere the greatest sin to renounce.
(34) Health
to the people of the Christian monastery! How often were they intoxicated by it without having drunk
thereof! Still, they aspired'.
(35) In me,
ere I was born, it stirred a transport that abides with me for ever,
though my bones decay.
(36) Take it
pure! but if thou wish to temper it, the worst wrong is thy turning aside from
the water of the Beloved's teeth 1. (37) Seek it in the tavern, and there to the accompaniment of
tuneful notes bid it display itself, for by means of music it is made a prize2.
(38) Wine
never dwelt with Care in any place, even as Sorrow never dwelt with Song;
(39) And,
though thy intoxication with it have but the life of a moment, thou wilt regard
Time as a slave obedient to thy command.
(40) Joyless
in this world is he that lives sober, and he that dies not drunk will miss the
path of wisdom.
(41) Let him
weep for himself-he whose life is wasted without part or lot in
wine !
The Khamriyya
forms a link between
the love-lyrics and the great Ode in which Ibnu 'l-Farid describes his own
mystical experience and puts it
forth (excepting, however, the highest stage of all) as a doctrine for others. This Ode, the author's masterpiece,
bears a plain and appropriate title, Nazmu 'l-suluk, 'The Poem of the Mystic's Progress" ; the meaning of the name
al-Td'iyyatu 'l-kubra, by which it is
commonly known, has been explained above The Td'iyya, with
its 760 verses, is nearly as long as all the minor
poems together, if we leave the quatrains and enigmas out of reckoning. It was edited in 1854 by
Joseph von Hammer and may
re studied in the fully vocalised text which he copied from an excellent manuscript in his possession.
To transcribe is one thing, to translate is
another; and as" translation" of a literary work usually implies that
some attempt has been made to understand it, I prefer to say that Von Hammer rendered the poem into
German rhymed verse by a method peculiar to himself, which appears to have
consisted in picking out two or three words in each couplet and filling the
void with any ideas that might strike his fancy. Perhaps. in
a sense, the Td'iyya is untranslatable, and certainly it offers very slight
encouragement to the translator whose aim may be defined as" artistic
reproduction." On the other hand, it seemed to me that a literal prose
version with explanatory notes would
at least enable the reader to follow the course
of the poem and become acquainted with its
meaning, while any one who ventured on the Arabic
text would profit by the labours of a fellow-student and would not be so likely
to lose heart,
Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.
Though formally an ode (qasida),
the Td'iyya is addressed to a disciple, so that
its prevailing tone is didactic and descriptive,
the exposition being only now and then interrupted by strains of pure lyric
enthusiasm.· Not that the poem is deficient either in beauty or in power; much,
if not most of it, combines these qualities, and in the following version I have tried to
preserve some traces of them. Ibnu 'I-Fa.rig is here illustrating the doctrine
that 'phenomena are merely the illusory medium through which the soul acts in
the world. For this purpose he compares the soul to the showman of the
shadow-lantern who throws his puppets on a screen, keeping himself out of sight
while he manipulates them 1. The passage beginning
And so it comes that now thou laugh'st in glee describes
the various scenes and incidents of the shadow-play and the emotions aroused in
the spectators.
Lo, from behind the veil mysterious
The forms of things are shown in every guise
Of manifold appearance; and in them
An all-wise providence hath joined what stands
Opposed in nature: mute they utter speech,
Inert they move and void of splendour shine'.
And so it comes that now thou laugh'st in glee,
Then weep'st anon, like mother o'er dead child,
And mournest, if they sigh, for pleasure lost,
And tremblest, if they sing, with music's joy.
Birds warbling on the boughs delight thine ear,
The while their sweet notes sadden thee within;
Thou wonderest at their voices and their words
Expressive unintelligible tongues!
On land the camels cross the wilderness,
At sea the ships run swiftly through the deep;
And thou behold'st two armies-one on land,
On sea another-multitudes of men,
Clad, for their bravery, in iron mail
And fenced about with points of sword and spear.
The land-troops march on horseback or on foot,
Bold cavaliers and stubborn infantry;
The warriors of the sea some mount on deck,
Some climb the masts like lances straight and tall.
Here in assault they smite with gleaming swords,
There thrust with tough brown shafts of quivering
spears;
Part drowned with fire of arrows shot in showers,
Part burned with floods of steel that pierce like
fiames;
These rushing onward, offering their lives,
Those reeling broken 'neath the shame of rout;
And catapults thou seest hurling stones
Against strong fortresses and citadels,
To ruin them. And apparitions strange
Of naked viewless spirits thou mayst espy',
That wear no friendly shape of humankind,
For genies love not men.
And in the stream
The fisher casts his net and draws forth fish;
And craftily the fowler sets a snare
That hungry birds may fall in it for corn.
And ravening monsters wreck the ships at sea,
And lions in the jungle rend their prey,
And in the air some birds, and. in the wilds
Some animals, hunt others.
And thou seest
Many a form besides, whose names I pass,
Putting my trust in samples choice, tho' few.
Regard now what is this that lingers not
Before thine eye and in a moment fades.
All thou beholdest is the act of one
In solitude, but closely veiled is he.
Let him but lift the screen, no doubt remains:
The forms are vanished, he alone is all;
And thou, illumined, knowest that by his light
Thou find'st his actions in the senses' night'.
Ibnu 'l-Farid more often reminds us of Dante
than of Lucretius, but these verses may
be compared with a passage in the De rerum natura (2,
323 foll.) where the author illustrates "the perpetual motion of the atoms
going on beneath an appearance of absolute rest" by a picture "taken
from the pomp of human affairs and the gay
pageantry of armies":
Praeterea magnae legiones cum loca cursu
camporum complent belli simulacra
cientes,
fulgor ibi ad caelum se tollit totaque circum
aere renidescit tellus supterque uirum ui
excitur pedibus sonitus clamoreque montes
icti reiectant uoces ad sidera mundi
et circumuolitant equites mediosque
repente tramittunt ualido quatientes impete campos.
"The truth and fulness of life in this
passage are immediately perceived, but the element of sublimity is added
by the thought in the two lines with which the passage concludes, which reduces
the whole of this moving and sounding pageant to stillness and silence-
et tamen est quidam locus altis montibus
unde
stare
uidentur et in campis consistere fulgor1."
A similar and perhaps even more striking effect
is produced when Ibnu 'I-Fa.rig, after having brought before his readers the
spectacle of restless life and strife which fills the world, at once transforms
it into a vision of eternal order and harmony-
All thou beholdest is the act of One.
In reading the Tr.i'iyya it is a rare pleasure to meet with even ten or twenty consecutive lines like these, which
require . no commentary to interpret them. Yet the poem, as a. whole, is not unduly cryptic in expression. Those who
blame a writer for obscurity ought to ask themselves whether his meaning
could have been given more clearly; and if so, whether he can allege good and sufficient
reasons for his default. On these counts I think Ibnu 'l-Farid will secure an acquittal,
if we remember that
he was bound by the poetic forms
and fashions of his day. The obscurity docs not lie in
his style so much as in the nature of his subject.
How little may a heart communicate in the form of thought, or a
tongue utter in the mould of speech !
While his symbolism may have served him at times
as a. mask when
plain speaking would have been dangerous', he generally uses it as the only
possible means of imparting mystical truth; and in his own circle, no doubt, it
was understood readily enough. We, on the other hand, must begin by learning
it and end with recognising that no intellectual effort will bring us to the
stage whence an initiated Mohammedan sets out.
What makes the interpretation of the poem
especially uncertain is that the author's account of his religious and mystical
experience is psychological in character and throws but a faint light on his
theological position. Was he really a pantheist, or was he an orthodox mystic
whose feeling of oneness with God expressed itself in the language of
pantheism? Does the Ta'iyya reflect the doctrines of Ibnu 'l'Arabi, as its
commentators believe? Although such questions cannot be ignored by any one who
attempts to translate or explain the poem, they are not easy to answer
definitely. I have followed Kashani in the main; nevertheless I regard his
interpretation as representing a point of view which is alien to Ibnu 'l-Farid.
Logically, the mystical doctrine of ittihad (Einswerden) leads to the pantheistic monism of Ibnu 'l-'Arabi; but those who find in
the Ta'iyya a poetical
version of that system are confusing mysticism with philosophy. In some
passages, however, we meet with philosophical ideas2 and may draw inferences from them. While they do not appear to me to support the.
view that Ibnu 'l-Farid was a follower of Ibnu 'I'Arabi, they imply
pantheism and monism on the plane of speculative thought, where commentators
and theologians (not poets
and mystics) are accustomed to dwell. I consider, therefore, that K.'s
interpretation, false as it is to the spirit of the poem, places it in a medium
intelligible to us and conveys its meaning in a relatively adequate form. And
my readers will see at once how the mystical content of the Ta'iyya as well as
its philosophical implications are illustrated by the foregoing essay on the Insanu 'l-Kamil.
Was Ibnu
'l-Farid consciously a pantheist? I do not think so. But in the permanent
unitive state which he describes himself as having attained, he cannot speak
otherwise than pantheistically: he is so merged in the Oneness that he
identifies himself now with Mohammed (the Islamic Logos), now with God, whose
attributes he assumes and makes his own.
Many of
these passages are such as no medieval religion but Islam would have tolerated,
and we cannot wonder that he was charged with heresy. His opponents accused him
of holding the doctrine of incarnation (hulul)
and of
pretending to be the Qutb. He disavows jilil
and shows
how it differs from his own doctrine (vv. 277 foll.). As regards the Qutb, the most explicit reference occurs in vv. 500-r:
Therefore
'tis upon me the heavens turn, and marvel thou at their Qutb (Pole) which
encompasses them, howbeit the Pole is a central point.
And there
was no Qitb before me, whom I .should succeed afler having passed three grades (of
sanctity), although the Awtad rise to the rank of Qutb from the rank of Badal.
Here is
another suspected verse (313):
And my spirit is a spirit to all the spirits (of created beings) ; and
whatsoever thou seest of beauty in the universe flows from the bounty of my
nature.
Evidently
the poet declares himself to be one with the spiritual Qutb (the Logos), whom in v. 501 he
distinguishes from the terrestrial Qutb (the head of the Sufi hierarchy). The latter presides over the visible
world. On his. death he is succeeded by one of the three saints known as Awtad, who are next to him in dignity and have themselves risen from the ranks of the forty Abddl or Budal<i1. The dominion of the
spiritual Qutb, the real Pole (al-Qutbu 'l-b,aqiq[), extends over the
created things of both the visible and invisible worlds. He has neither
predecessor nor successor, for he is the Spirit of Mohammed, i.e., the essence of Man and the final cause of creation°. Ibnu 'l-Farid, then, does not profess this heretical doctrine
(qutbiyya, qutbaniyya) in the sense which Sufis ordinarily assign to it. His 'Poleship" is
not the temporal vicegerency delegated by Mohammed to the supreme saint of
every age, but a pure consciousness of being one with the Spirit, who as the
perfect image of God encompasses all things with his knowledge, power and
glory.
My translation covers three-fourths of the poem3. The omitted passages are generally
unimportant, but I have given a summary whenever I thought it would be of use.
ARGUMENT
The poem, addressed to a real or imaginary disciple,
sets forth in due order the
phases of mystical experience through which the writer passed before attaining to oneness with
God, and describes the nature of that abiding oneness so far
as it can be indicated by words.
In the opening verses (r-7) Ibnu 'l-Farid
recalls a time when his love of God was still
imperfect and unfixed so that the. "intoxication» of ecstasy would be
followed by the "sobriety" of a relapse into selfhood.
He tells (8-83) how he sought the favour of the
Beloved and related to her his sufferings, not by way of complaint for suffering
is the law of love-but in the hope of relieving them; how he said that he was
enraptured by her beauty, that he would never change, that he cared for nothing
but her and for her sake had abandoned all.
The Beloved answers (84-102), accusing him of insincerity
and presumption. He is not really in love with her, hut only with himself. If
he would love her in truth, he must die to self.
In reply he protests that this death is his
dearest wish and prays the Beloved to grant it, whatever pain it may cost
(1o3-116). Then, addressing the disciple, he describes his dying to self and
its effects: how it has brought him
great glory, though he is despised by his neighbours and regarded as a madman;
and how it has caused
his love to be hidden even from himself, his faculties to be jealous of one
another, and his identity to be lost, so that in worshipping he feels that he
is the object of worship (117-154). He proceeds to explain the mystery of his love, saying
that he loved before the creation but was separated from his Beloved in this
world, and that by casting-off his self-existence he has found her to be his
own real self. There was no thought of merit in his sacrifice, so she accepted
it (155-174). He exhorts the disciple to follow the via
purgativa, by which mystics are prepared
for the highest things, and describes how he himself disciplined his soul
(175-203).
The poet now begins to explain the origin and
nature of his ittihad or oneness with the Beloved. As it is hard for the mind to conceive that
two may be one, he points to the analogou:; case of a woman possessed by a
spirit. He urges the disciple to get rid of the illusion of dualism, and the
mystery will then become clear to him. He says that this was the way by which
he himself attained to his present state (204-238).
He bids the disciple mark that all beauty is
absolute. Every fair earthly form is in reality a manifestation of the Beloved (239-26.4).
He then explains why, notwithstanding his exalted
degree, he strictly fulfils the duties of the religious law and occupies himself with voluntary works of devotion. Antinomianism would be consistent with belief in incarnation (hull); but he does not hold that doctrine. His own doctrine
is supported by the Koran and the Apostolic Traditions (265-285).
He calls on
the disciple to follow him in the path of love, but warns him that he must not
aspire to the supreme grade of ittihad, which is now described as being beyond love (286-
333).
After a hymn
of praise to the Beloved (336-387), he resumes the description of his oneness.
His spirit and soul, which formerly drew him up and down between them, are in reality one with the Beloved, i.e., they are identified with Universal
Spirit and Universal Soul, whence all forms of spiritual and sensible life are
fed. The image of the Beloved that he receives through sensation agrees with
the image of her in his spiritual consciousness; and this is a proof that he is
one with her. He says that she is presented to him by all that he sees, hears,
tastes and touches. He describes particularly his listening to music: at that
time he beholds her with his whole being and is riven asunder by the struggle
of his spirit to escape from the body; then dancing soothes him, and, as it
were, rocks him to sleep (388-440).
Continuing,
he declares that the state which he has now reached is higher than"
union" (wisal). He gained it through casting aside every vestige of
self-regard. It was he who imposed the laws of religion on himself and
was sent as an apostle to himself before any prophet appeared in the world. His
overruling influence is exerted throughout heaven and earth. He is beyond all
relations: place, time, and number are gone; he has no rival or opposite; he is
the object of his own worship. No. change of state can now befall him: the
alternation of" intoxication" and" sobriety" has been superseded
by a permanent consciousness in which past and future are the same. He is the
Pole (Qutb)
on which the
universe revolves (441-501).
He mentions,
as a strange effect of his love, that he sought his Beloved in himself until he
found that he was seeking himself, so that in being united with himself he
embraced his own essence (502-532). Speaking in the person of God, he says that his attributes, names, and actions cannot be known except
through himself, and that he cannot be known through them. As the names of his
external attributes, e.g., sight and hearing, which are really faculties of the soul, are derived
from his organs of sensation, so the names of his inward attributes are
ultimately derived from his (the Divine) essence. By means of the names God
manifests Himself in creation. Their qualities and the benefits which they
confer on the body and the
soul are described at some length (533- 574)
He is so entirely one, he says, that all his faculties
are interfused and each part has become absorbed in the whole. Hence he acts
universally and infinitely. This is the explanation of the miracles wrought by
the prophets. Mohammed, the last of the prophets, not only summed up in himself
all the marvellous powers of his predecessors but is the source from which
these powers were bestowed on the prophets before him and the Moslem saints
after kim. Ibnu 'I-Farid, making himself one with the spirit of Mohammed, claims to be the father of Adam, the final cause
of creation, and the origin of life: all creatures obey his will, speak his
word, see with his sight; he is hidden in everything sensible, intellectual,
and spiritual (575-650).
He forbids the disciple to believe in metempsychosis,
pointing out that what appears in different forms is really the same, e.g., Abu Zayd (the hero of Hariri's fiction) in all
his disguises, the image in a mirror, the echo, the phantom seen in dream, and
the figures shown by a shadow-lantern. He describes the various scenes of the shadow-play-all
of them the work of a single person behind a screen-and likens the soul to the showman, the
body to the screen, and the figures to the objects perceived in sensation. When
the bodily screen is removed, the soul becomes unified (651-730).
He says that faith and infidelity are not essentially
different. The One God is adored in every form of worshipby Moslems, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, even by idolaters; those who go
asti av from Him are none the less seeking Him: it is He that guides
and misguides them, according as they are destined for salvation or perliticin. All is
determined by the Divine will and is the effect of the Divine nature. This the
soul knows from itself (731-749).
He declares
that he is not to be blamed for having revealed the mysteries imparted to
him, and concludes with the assertion that none living or dead has attained to
such a height as he (750-761).
Saqatni humayya 'l-hubbi rahatu
muqlati
wa-ka' si muhayya man 'ani 'l-husni jallati
(I) The hand of mine eye gave me love's strong wine to drink, when my cup
was the face of Her that transcendeth beauty,
(2) And in my drunkenness, by means
of a glance I caused my comrades to fancy that it was the quaffing of their wine that gladdened my inmost soul,
(3) Although mine eyes made me
independent of my cup, and my inebriation was derived from her qualities, not
from my wine; (4) Therefoie in the tavern of my intoxication was the hour of my thanksgiving to youths through whom my love
was completely hidden nctwithstanding my celebrity (as a lover).
(5) And whenmy sobriety was
ended, I sought union with her, and no restraint oi fear affected me in my
boldness towards her,
(6) And in the privacy of bridal unveiling, when no continuance of
self-regard was beside me as a watcher, I declared to her that which I felt,
(7) And I said-my state
bearing witness to my ardent love, and my finding her (in my heart) effacing me, whilst my losing her brings me
back to myself-
(8) "Bestow on me the
glance of one who turns for a moment, ere Love makes pass away what remains in
me (of self-existence) to see thee by.
(9) And if thou forbid that I
see thee, favour mine hearing with, 'Thou shalt not (see me) ': this word was
sweet to another before me;
(10) For, because of my
drunkenness, I have need of a
recovery (from drunkenness) which, but for passion, would not break my heart.
(11) • Had the mountains felt
what I suffer, and were Sinai amongst them, they would have been razed to the
earth ere the revelation
(12) A passion that only tears
betrayed, and an inward ardency that increased the burning heats whose maladies
brought me to ruin.
(13) The Flood of Noah is like
my tears, when I lament, and the blazing of Abraham's fire is like my bosom's glow.
(14) But for my sighs, I should be drowned by my tears; and but for my tears, I should be burned by my sighs.
(15) That (grief) which Jacob uttered is the least of my sorrow, and all the
woe of Job is but a part of my affliction;
(16) And the last sufferings
of those who loved unto death arc but a part of what I suffered in the beginning of my tribulation.
(17) Had the ear of my guide heard my moaning caused by pains of love-sickness
which wasted my body,
(r8) My grief would have
called to his memory the bitter distress of travellers left behind, when the
camels are reined (and ready for the journey).
(19) Anguish hath sorely
oppressed and naughted me, and emaciation hath laid bare the secret of my true
being;
(2o) And in complaining of my
leanness I made him who spied upon me my confidant, acquainting him with the
sum of my inmost feelings and with the particulars of my way (in love).
(21) I appeared to him as an
idea, while my body was in such case that he saw it not, because of the woeful
burning of love that consumed it;
(22) And though my tongue
spake not, the hidden conceptions of my soul revealed to his ear the
mystery of that which my soul had concealed from him,
(23) And his ear became for my
thought a mind, so that my thought was moving in his ear, which thereby stood
him in stead of ocular vision ;
(24) And he gave news of me to those in the tribe, setting forth my inward
state, for he knew me well.
(25) 'Twas as though the
Recording Angels had come down to his heart to inspire him with knowledge of
what was written in my book (the book of my experience).
(26) He would not have known
what I was covering and what was the guarded secret that my bosom hid,
(27) But the drawing aside of
the bodily veil disclosed the secret, which it had screened from him, of my
inmost soul.
(28) And I should have been invisible to him in respect of my secret unless my groans arising from the weakness of emaciation had
divulged it,
(29) So that J was made visible by a malady that hid me from him: there is no strange thing but Love brings it to pass.
(30) A sore anguish o'erwhelmed me, at whose stroke the suggestions of my soul-suggestions that betrayed me, like tearsvanished
into nothingness.
(31) U hateful death had sought me, it would not have known where I was, since I was concealed by concealing my love for thee (or 'by thy love's concealing me ').
(32) Betwixt yearning and
longing I passed away, whilst thou didst either avert
thyself in repulse or display thyself in presence.
(33) And were my heart sent back to me from thy court,
to redeem my passing-away, it would not desire the abode of my exile.
(34) That whereof I declare
unto thee a part is (only) the frontispiece of my state: 'tis beyond my power
to express what lies underneath;
(35) And, being unable, I
refrain from (speaking of) many matters; they shall not be recounted by my
speech, and even if I told them, they would be few.
(36) My cure drew nigh unto
death; nay, passion decreed that it should die, since the cooling of my thirst
finds the heat of my burning drought (still remaining).
(37) And my heart is more
threadbare than the garments of my endurance; nay,
my selfhood is linked with my pleasure in respect of its being reduced to naught.
(38) Had God revealed me to my
visitors (as I really am), and had they ascertained from the Tablet how much of
me Love had allowed to survive,
(39) Their eyes would not have
beheld anything of me except a spirit pervading the garments of a dead man.
(40) And ever since my tracks
were obliterated and I wandered distraught, I had vain imaginings about my
existence, but my thought could not
lay hold upon if.
(41) And after this, my feelings (of love) for thee became self subsistent
(independent of my phenomenal being) : my proof is the fact that my spirit
existed before my mortal frame.
(42) I told how I fared in my
love of thee, not because impatience made me weary of my sufferings, but in
order to assuage my grief.
(43) 'Tis good to show
fortitude towards enemies, but in the presence of loved ones aught save
weakness is unseemly.
(44) The excellence of my patience keeps me from complaining, though if I complained to my enemies
of what I feel, they would do away with my complaint.
(45) And the issue of my
patience in loving thee is praiseworthy if I endure the sorrows thou layest on me; but if I endure to be separated
from thee, it is not praiseworthy.
(46) Whatever woe befalls me
is a favour, inasmuch as my purpose holds firm against breaking my vows;
(47) So tor every pain in
love, when it arises from thee, I give thanks instead of complaining.
(48) Ay, and if the agonies.of
passion do me despite, yet are they reckoned in love as a kindness;
(49) And my unhappiness, nay,
my tribulation is a bounty when wrought by thee, and my raiment of hardship worn for thy sake is the
most ample of felicities.
(50) My ancient fealty to thee
caused me to regard the worst of slaves, who were bestowed on me (by thee), as
the best of treasures.
(51) One of them a railer and
one a slanderer: the former leads me astray because of vainglory, while the
latter talks foolishness about me because of jealousy.
(52) I oppose that one in his
blame, from fear (of God), and I ally myself with this one in his meanness,
from caution.
(53) And my face was not
turned from thy path by dread of that which I encountered, nor by any harm that
smote me therein,
(54) Although in bearing what
hath befallen me on account of thee I have no patience that tends to praise of
me or to the lauding of my love;
(55) But thy beauty, which
calls to thee (every heart), ordained that I should endure all that I have told
and all the sequel of my tale to
its farthest length.
(56) It was only because thou
appearedst to mine eye with the most perfect qualities, surpassing (mortal}
loveliness;
. (57) And thou madest my
tribulation an ornament to me and gavest it a free hand over me, and coming
from thee it was the most glorious of distinctions;
(58) For when one is snared by
Beauty, methinks his soul (even) from the most delicious life is (gladly)
rendered up to death.
(59) A soul that thinks to
meet with no suffering in love, when it addresses itself to love, is spurned.
(60) No spirit that was given repose ever gained love, nor did
any soul that desired a tranquil life ever win devotion.
(6r) Tranquillity! how far is it from the life of a lover! The
garden of Eden is compassed about with terrors.
(62) Mine
is a noble soul-a soul that would not forget thee even though thou shouldst
offer it, on condition of forgetting thee, what is beyond its wishes;
(63) A soul that would not let go the true love I bear, even
though it were removed far (from thee) by scorn and absence and hatred and the
cutting off of hope.
(64) I have no way of departing from my Way in love, and if ever
I shall turn aside from it, I shall abandon my religion;
(65) And had a thought of fondness towards any one save thee
come into my mind unawares, I should have pronounced myself a heretic.
(66) 'Tis for thee to give judgment in my case. Do as thou wilt,
for my feeling towards thee was ever desire, not aversion.
(67) I swear by the firm
pact of love between
us, which was not alloyed with any imagination of annulment-and 'tis the best
of oaths-
(68) And by thy taking the covenant of troth in a place where I
did not appear in such a form that my soul was clothed in the shadow of my clay,
(69) And by the primal pledge that never was changed since I plighted it, and by the succeeding bond that was too solemn for any
frailty to loose,
(70) And by the rising oi thy radiant countenance, whose splendour caused all
the full moons to become invisible,
(71) And by the attribute of perfection in thee, from which the fairest and
shapeliest form in creation drew support,
(72) And by the quality of thy
majesty with which my torment is pleasant to me and my being slain is sweet;
(73) And by the mystery of thy
beauty, whereby all loveliness in the world is manifested and fulfilled;
(74) And by thy comeliness
which captivates the mind and which guided me to a love wherein my abasement
for thy glory's sake was comely;
(75) And by an idea in thee
beyond comeliness-an idea which I beheld through itself, too subtle to be
apprehended by the eye of perception:
(76) Verily, thou art the
desire of my heart, and the end of my search, and the goal of my aim, and my
choice and my chosen.
(77) I disrobed myself of
modesty and deprecation, clothing myself in shamelessness, rejoicing in my
disrobing and in my robe; (78) And 'tis my dut to cast off modesty for thy
sake, even though my folk shrink from approaching me; aed shamelessness is my law.
(79) And no folk of mine arc
they, so long as they find fault with my recklessness and show hatred and deem it right to abuse me for thy sake.
(80) My fellows in the religion of love are those who love; and
they have approved my ignominy and thought well of my disgrace. (81) Let who
will be wroth, save only thee: there is no harm (in their anger), when the
noble of my kin are pleased with me. (82) I£ the ascetics are fascinated by
some of the beauties that are thine, everything in thee is the source of my
fascination. (83) And I never was bewildered until I chose love of thee as a
religion. Woe is me for my bewilderment, had it not been on account of
thee!"
(84) She said, "Another's love thou hast sought and hast
taken the wrong path, forsaking in thy blindness the highway unto me.
(85) And the imposture of a soul that cherished vain desires
beguiled thee so that thou saidst what thou saidst, putting on thereby the
shame of falsehood,
(86) And didst covet the most precious of boons with a soul that
crossed its bound and trespassed.
(87) How wilt thou win my love, which is the best of affections,
by means of pretence, which is the worst of qualities?
(88) Where is Suha to a man blind from birth who in his confusion has forgotten what he seeks? Nay, thy
vain hopes have duped thee,
(89) So that thou stoodest in
a position to which thy rank was inferior, on a foot that overstepped not its own province.
(90) And sough test a thing
towards which how many stretched out their necks and were beheaded!
(91) Thou didst come to tents
which are not entered by their back parts and whose doors are closed against
the knocking of one like thee;
(92) And thou didst lay (as an
offering} before thy converse (with me) mere tinsel, aiming thereby at a glory
whose ends are hard to reach;
(93) And thou earnest to woo
my pure love with a shining face, not letting thine honour be lost in this world or in the next;
(94) But hadst thou been with
me as the kasra below the
dot of the letter b, thou wouldst have been raised to a rank that thine own effort did not
gain for thee,
(95) Where thou wouldst see
that what thou didst (formerly) regard is not worth a thought, and that what
thou didst provide is no (sufficient) provision.
(96) To those who are rightly
guided the straight road unto me is plain, but· all men are made blind by their
desires.
(97) It is time that I reveal (the nature of} thy love, and who it is that hath wasted thee, by
a denial of thy claim to love me.
(98) Thou art sworn to love, but to love of self: amongst my proofs (of this)
is the fact that thou sufferest one of thy attributes to remain in existence.
(99) For thou lov'st me not,
so long as thou hast not passed away in me; and thou hast not passed away, so
long as my form is not seen within thee.
(100) Cease, then, pretending
to love, and call thy heart to something else, and drive thy error from thee by
that (state) which (is the best).
(101) And shun the quarter of
union: 'tis far off, and was never reached (in life), and lo, thou art living.
If thou art sincere, die!
(102) Such is
Love: if thou dicst not, thou wilt not win thy will of the Beloved in aught.
Then choose death or leave my love alone!"
(103) I said to her, "My spirit is thine: 'tis for thee to take it.
How should it be in my power?
(1o4) I am not one that loathes to
die in love--I am always true (to death): my nature
refuses aught else.
(105) What should I hope to be
said of me except 'Such a one died of love'? Who will ensure me of that
(death)?-for it is that I seek.
(106) Ay, it pleaseth me well
that my life be ended by longing ere thou art gained, if my claim to love thee
shall be found real;
(107) And if I shall not make good such a claim in
regard to thee, because it is too high, I am content with my pride in being reputed thy lover;
(108) And if I die of anguish
without the reputation, thou wilt have done no wrong to a soul that delights in martyrdom;
(109) And if thou wilt spill
my blood in vain and I shall not be reckoned a martyr, 'tis grace enough for me
that thou shouldst know the cause of my death.
(110) Methinks, my spirit is
not worth so much that it should be offered in exchange for union (wisal) with thee, for it is too threadbare to be prized."
The poet then refers to the warning that he must show
his sincerity by dying to self. Does the Beloved threaten him with death?
(115) ''To me thymenace is a
promise, and its fulfilment is the wish of an affianced lover who stands firm
against the blows of all calamity except absence (from thee).
(116} I have come to hope that
which others fear: succour therevith a dead man's spirit that is prepared for
(everlasting) life !"
By passing-away (fan) the mystic wins immortal life in God (baqa).
(120) If she lets my blood be
shed in love of her, yet hath she established my rank on the heights of glory
and eminence.
(121) By my life, though I
lose my life in exchange for her love, I am the gainer; and if she wastes away my heart, she will make it whole once more.
But this is an inward glory, which causes him to be
scorned by his fellow-men.
(26) 'Tis as though I had
never been honoured amongst them, but they had always despised me both in
easy fortune and in hard.
(127) Had they
asked me "Whom dost thou love? " and had I declared her name, they
would have said, "He speaks a parable," or ' A touch of madness hath smitten. him."
(128) Yet, had abasement for
her sake been impossible, my passion had not been sweet to me; and but for
love, my glory had not been in abasement.
(129) Because of her, I am
endowed with the understanding of one crazed, the health of one shattered by
disease, and the glory of ignominy.
The following lines, curiously subtle in their psychology and phrasing,
represent the "self" (nafs) as desiring Divine Love, but keeping its desire beyond
the reach of mental perception.
(130) My soul secretly
imparted its desire for her love to my heart alone, where the intellect was
unable to spy upon it;
(131) For I feared that the tale, if
it were told, would transport the rest of me, so that the language of my tears
would declare my secret.
(132) In order to keep safe that secret, part of me (my soul) was misleading part
of me (my intellect), but my falsehood in hiding it was really my speaking the
truth.
(133) And when my first
(intuitive) thought refused to divulge it to my ribs (my mental faculties), I guarded it also from my
reflection,
(134) And I did my utmost to
conceal it, so that I forgot it and was caused to forget my concealment of that
which my soul confided to my heart.
(135) And Hin planting those
desires I shall pluck the fruit of suffering, God bless a soul that suffered
for its desires,
(136) Since of all love's
wishes the sweetest to the soul is that whereby she who caused it to remember
and forget them willed it to
suffer.
(137) She set, to guard her,
one taken from myself who should watch against me the amorous approach of my
spiritual thoughts; .
(138) And if they, unperceived by the
mind, steal into my heart without hindrance, I cast down mine eyes in reverent
awe.
(139) Mine eye is turned back if I seek but one giance, and if my hand be
stretched forth to take freely (its will of her), it is restrained.
(140) Thus in every limb of me is an advance prompted by hope,
and in consequence of the awe born of veneration a re-treat prompted by fear.
The poet now
attempts to describe the mystical union of the lover with the Beloved
(144) 'Tis my being crazed with love of her that makes me jealous of
her; but when I recognise my
worth (to be naught), I disown my jealousy,
(145) And my spirit is rapt in ecstatic joy (towards her),
though I do not acquit my soul of conceiving a desire.
(146) Mine ear sees her, far though she be from the eye, in the
form of blame which visits me in
my hours of waking,
(147) And when she is mentioned, mine eye deems mine
ear lucky, and the part of me that remains (in consciousness) envies the
part that she has caused to pass away.
(148) In reality I led my Imam (leader in prayer), and all
mankind were behind me. 'Wheresoever I faced, there was my (true) direction.
(149) Whilst I prayed, mine eye was seeing her in front of me,
but my heart was beholding me in front of all my Imams.
(150) And no wonder that in conducting the prayer the Imam faced towards me, since in my heart
dwelt she who is the gibla of my gibla,
(151) And that
towards me had
faced all the six directions with their whole contents of piety
and greater and lesser pilgrimage.
(152) To her I address my
prayers at the Maqam, and behold in them that she prayed to me.
(153) Both of us are a single
worshipper who, in respect of the united state, bows himself to his essence in
every act of bowing. (154) None prayed to me but myself nor did I pray to any
one but myself in the performance of every genuflexion.
(155) How long shall I keep to
the veil? Lo, I have rent it! 'Twas in my bond of allegiance that I should
loose the loops of the curtains.
(156) I was given my fealty to
her before she had appeared no me at the taking of the covenant, on a day when
no day was, in my primal state.
(157) I gained my fealty to
her neither by hearing nor by sight nor by acquisition nor by
the attraction of my nature,
(158) But I was enamoured of her in the world of command, where is no manifestation, and
my intoxication was prior to my appearance (in the created world).
(159) The attributes dividing
us which were not subsistent there (in the world of command) Love caused to pass away here (in the created
world), and they vanished;
(160) And I found that which I
cast off going out of me unto me and again coming from me with an increase,
(161) And in
my contemplation (of the Divine essence) I beheld myself endowed with 'the
attributes by which I was veiled from myself during my occultation,
(162) And I
saw that I was indubitably she whom I loved, and that for this reason my self
had referred me to myself.
(163) My
self had been distraught with love for itself unawares, though in my
contemplation it was not ignorant of the truth of the matter.
Continuing
Ibnu 'I-Farid. shows that the railer and the slancderer (who symbolise
respectively the sensual and intellectual attributes of the self) are in
reality one with the LoverBeloved. He next explains more fully what he meant when he spoke of the passing-away (fan) of these attributes (e. 159), and describes the successive stages by which his self (nafs) was gradually stripped bare of all the affections that
stood between him and a purely disinterested love.
(168) I sought to approach her by sacrificing my self, reckoning upon her as my recompense and not hoping for any (other) reward from
her; and she drew me nigh.
(169) I
offered readily what was mine (of promised bliss) in the world to come and what
she might peradventure give to me (of her grace),
{{70) And
with entire disinterestedness I put behind me any regard for that
(self-sacrifice), for I was not willing that my self should be my beast of burden.
(171) I
sought her with poverty, but since the attribute of poverty enriched me I threw
away both my poverty and my wealth
(172) My throwing
away my poverty and riches assured to me the merit
of my quest: therefore I
discarded my merit,
(173) And in my discarding it my own welfare appeared:
my reward was she who rewarded me, nothing else.
(174) And through her, not through myself,
I began to guide unto her those who by themselves
had lost the right ways; and 'twas she
that (really) guided them.
The following verses (175-196) show the poet as a director of souls,
preaching unselfishness, poverty, humility, and repentance; exhorting his
disciple to lose no time and to beware of saying" To-morrow I will work " ;
bidding him shun vainglory and ambition; pointing out that the true gnostic is
silent inasmuch as the mysteries revealed to him are incommunicable. All
self-activity, all self-consciousness, must be renounced.
(194) Be sight (not a seer) and look; be hearing (not a hearer) and retain
(what is heard) ; be a tongue (not a speaker) and speak, for the way of union
(with the Beloved) is the best.
The detachment or isolation (tafrid') of the soul
from all desires and affections costs bitter pain.
(197) Formerly my
soul was reproachful: when I obeyed her, she disobeyed me, or if I disobeyed
her, she was obedient to me.
(198) Therefore I brought her
to that of which (even) a part was harder
than death and I fatigued her that she might give me rest,
(199) So that
she came to endure whatever burden I laid upon her, and if I lightened
it she grieved.
(200) And
I loaded her with tasks, nay, I took care that she should load herself with
them, until I grew fond of my tribulation.
(201) And in correcting her I deprived her of every pleasure by
removing her from her habits; and she became calm.
(2o2) No terror remained before her but I confronted it, so long
as I beheld that my soul therein was not yet purged,
(203) And every stage that I traversed in my progress was an 'ubudiyya which I
fulfilled through 'ubuda.
When the
soul is completely denuded of affections it is made one
with God. In the first verse of the following passage the feminine pronoun,
which has hitherto referred to the soul either as reproaching itself for its
actions and desires or as being in passionless calm, undergoes a change ~f meaning,
so that "she," who stood for an individual, now denotes the Universal
Self.
(204) Until then I had been enamoured of her, but when I
renounced my desire, she desired me for herself and loved me, (205) And I became a beloved, nay, one loving himself: this is
not like what I said before, that my soul
is my beloved.
(2o6) Through her I went forth from myself to her and came not
back to myself: one like me does
not hold the doctrine of return.
(207) And in generous pride I detached my soul from my going forth, and consented not that she should consort with me again,
(208) And I was made absent from
(unconscious of) the detachment of my soul, so that in my presence (union with God) I was not pushed (disturbed) by
showing any attribute (of individuality).
In a passage of high eloquence and beauty the poet
endeavours to analyse his experience of the unitive state and reveal the
mystery, so far as it can be expressed in a symbolic form.
(209) Lo, I will unfold the beginning of my
oneness and will bring it to its end in a lowly descent from my exaltation.
(210) In unveilirrg herself she unveiled Being to mine eye, and
I saw her with my sight in every seen thing.
(211) And when she appeared, I was brought to contemplate that in me that is hidden,
and through the displaying of my secret place I found there that I was she;
(212) And my existence vanished in my
contemplation and I became separated from the existence of my contemplationeffacing
it, not
maintaining it.
(213) And in the sobriety following my
intoxication I retained the
object which, during the effacement of my
self-existence, I contemplated in her by whom it was revealed,
(214) So that in the sobriety after
self-eftacement I was none other than she, and when she
unveiled herself my essence became endued with· my essence.
(215) When it (my essence) is not called
"two," my attributes are hers, and since we are one, her outward
aspect is mine.
(216) If she be
called, 'tis I who answer, and if I am summoned. she answers the one who calls me, and cries "Labbayk!" ("At thy service !').
(217) And if she speak, 'tis I
who converse. Likewise, if I tell a story, 'tis she that tells it.
(218) The pronoun of the
second person has gone out of use between us, and by its removal I am raised
above the set who separate (the One from the Many).
(219) Now if, through want of
judgment, thy understanding allow not the possibility of regarding two as one and decline
to affirm it,
(22o) I will cause indications
of it, which are hidden from thee, to demonstrate it like expressions that are clear to
thee;
(221) And, since this is not
the time for ambiguity, I will explain it by means of two strange
illustrations. one derived from hearing and one from sight,
(222) And I will establish
what I say by evidence, showing forth a parable as one who speaks the truth-for
Truth is mystay(223) The parable of a woman smitten with catalepsy, by whose
mouth, whilst she is possessed by a spirit, another-not she -gives news to
thee;
(224) And from words uttered
on her tongue by a tongue that is not hers the evidences of the signs are shown to be
true,
(225) Since it is known as a
fact that the utterer of the wondrous sayings which thou heardest is another
than she, though in the (material) sense she uttered them.
(226) Hadst
thou been one, thou wouldst have come to feel intuitively the truth of what I
said;
(227) But,
didst thou but know it, thou wert devoted to secret polytheism with a soul that
strayed from the guidance of the Truth ; (2e8) And he in whose love the unification
of his beloved is not accomplished falls by his polytheism into the fire of
separation from his beloved.
(229) Naught
save, otherness marred this high estate of thine, and if thou wilt efface
thyself thy claim to have achieved it will be established indeed.
(230) Thus was I myself for a time, ere the covering was lifted.
Having no clairvoyance, I still clave to dualism,
(231) Now
losing (myself) and being united (with God) through contemplation, now finding
(God) and being sundered (from myself) through ecstasy.
(232) My intellect, through being attached to my presence (with
myself), was separating me (from God), while my deprivation (of individuality), through the enravishment of my selfexistence
by my absence (from myself), was uniting me (with God).
(233) I used to think that
sobriety was my nadir, and that intoxication was my way of ascent to her (the
Beloved), and that my self-effacement was the farthest goal I could reach;
(234) But when I cleared the
film from me, I saw myself restored to consciousness, and mine eye was
refreshed by the (Divine) Essence;
(235) And at the time of my second separation I was
enriched by a recovery from my impoverishment (self-loss) in drunkenness, so
that (now) my union (jam') is like my unity (wahda, individuality = tafriqa, separation).
(236) Therefore mortify
thyself that thou mayst behold in thee
and from thee a peace beyond what I have described-a peace born of a feeling of
calm.
(237) After my
self-mortification I saw that he who brought me to behold and led me to my
{real) self was I; nay, that I was my own example,
(238) And that my standing
(at' Arafat} was a standing before myself; nay, that my turning (towards the
Ka'ba) was towards myself. Even so my prayer was to myself and my Ka'ba from
myself.
(239) Be not, then, beguiled
by thy comeliness, self-conceited, given over to the confusion of folly;
(240) And forsake the error of
separation, for union will result in thy finding the right way, the way of
those who vied with each other in seeking oneness (iftihad);
(241) And declare the
absoluteness of beauty and be not moved to deem it finite by thy longing for a tinselled gaud;
(242) For the charm of every
fair youth or lovely woman is lent to them from Her beauty.
(243) 'Twas She that crazed Qays,
the lover of Lubna; ay, and every enamoured man, like Layla's Majnun or 'Azza's
Kuthayyir. (244) Every one of them passionately desired· Her attribute
(Absolute Beauty) which She clothed in the form of a beauty that shone forth in
a beauty of farm.
(245) And tlis was only
because' She appeared in phenomena.
They supposed that these (phenomena) were other than
She, whilst it was She that displayed Herself therein.
(246) She showed Herself by
veiling Herself (in them), and She was hidden by the objects in which She was
manifested, assuming tints of diverse hue in every appearance.
(247) At the first creation She became visible to Adam in the form of Eve
before the relation of motherhood,
(248) And he loved Her, that by means of Her he might become a father
and that the relation of sonship might be brought into
existence through husband and wife.
(249) This was the beginning of the love of the manifestations for one another, when as yet there was no
enemy to estrange them with (mutual) hate.
(250) And She ceased
not to reveal and conceal Herself for
some (divinely ordained) cause in every age according to the appointed
times.
(251) She was appearing to Her
lovers in every form of disguise in shapes
of wondrous beauty,
(252) Now as Lubna, anon as Buthayna, and sometimes. She was called
'Azza, who was so dear (to Kuthayyir).
(253) They (fair women) are not other than She; no, and they never were.
She hath no partner in Her beauty.
(254) Just as She
showed to me Her beauty clad in the forms of others, even so in virtue of
oneness (ittihad)
(255) Did I show myself
to Her in every lover enthralled by
youth or woman of rare beauty;
(256) For, although they preceded me (in time), they were not other than I in their passion, inasmuch as I was prior to them in the
nights of eternity;
(257) Nor are they other than
I in my passion, but I became visible in them for the sake of clothing myself
in every guise, (258) Now as Qays, anon as Kuthayyir, and sometimes I appeared
as Jamil who loved Buthayna.
(259) In them I displayed
myself outwardly and veiled myself inwardly. Marvel, then, at a revelation by means of a mask! (260)
The loved women and their lovers-'tis no infirm judgment-were maniiestations
in which we (my Beloved and I) displayed om (attributes of) love and beauty.
(261) Every lover, I am he,
and She is every lover's beloved, and all (lovers and loved) are but the names
of a vesture,
(262) Names of which I was the
object in reality, and 'twas I that was made apparent to myself by means of an
invisible soul. (263) I was ever She, and She was ever I, with no difference; nay, my essence loved my essence.
(264) There was nothing in the
world except myself beside me, and no thought of beside-ness
occurred to my mind.
Having advanced in ittil;dd to a point where the "I" is indistinguishable from God, Ibnu 'l-Farid begins the promised sequel- "a lowly descent from my exaltation" (see v. 209). He tells how he returned from the freedom of ecstasy to the bondage of
piety, how he occupied himself with works of devotion and ascetic practices. He then makes a solemn declaration that his coming back to the normal life of the mystic was not due to any selfish motive, such
as fear of disrepute or hope of honour, but was dictated solely by his anxiety to
protect from attack· the friends whom he revered. These friends (awliya) were, no doubt, his spiritual masters or other Sufis intimately associated with him. What was the danger which he foresaw and in which he would not have them involved? As the following verses show, it was the charge of heresy in respect of a doctrine abominable to
all :rvioslems~--the doctrine of incarnation (hull).
(277) I£ I recant my words, "I am She, or if I say- and far be it from one like me to say it !-that She became
incarnate (hallat) in me, (then I shall deserve
to die the death).
(278) I am not
referring thee to anything unseen; no, nor to anything absurd which deprives me of my power (to
demonstrate its truth).
(279) Since I am stablished on
the Name of the Real (God) how should the false talcs of error frighten me?
(280) Mark now! Gabriel, the
trusted (messenger), came in the shape of Dihya to our Prophet in the beginning
of his prophetic inspiration.
(281) Tell me, was Gabriel
Dihya when he appeared in a human form to the true Guide,
(282) Whose knowledge
snrpassed that of those beside him inasmuch as he knew unambiguously what it
was that he saw? (283) He saw an angel sent to him with a message, while the
others saw a man who was treated with respect as being the Prophet's companion;
(284) And in the truer of the
two visions I find a hint that removes my creed "· r from the doctrine of
incarnation.
(285) In the Koran there is
mention of "covering" (fabsj and it cannot be denied, for I have not
gone beyond the double authority of the Book and the Apostolic Traditions.
Ibnu '1-Farid, no longer
speaking in his own person but as the
Logos (Mohammed) or as one merged in the Absolute, of which nothing-not even
Love and Oneness-can be predicated, warns his disciple that he must not aim so
high: let him fix his eyes on the glory of
Love, and he will far excel those who worship God in hope or fear.
(286) I give thee knowledge. If thou desirest its unveiling, come into my way and begin to follow my law,
(287) For the fountain of Sadda
springs from a water whose abundant well is with me: therefore tell me not of a
mirage in a wilderness!
(288) And take (thy knowledge)
from a sea into which I plunged, while those of old stopped on its shore,
observing reverence towards me.
(289) The text, "Meddle not with the substance of
the orphan" (Kor. 6, 153), alludes
symbolically to the palm of a hand that was holden when it essayed (to draw
water).
(290) And except me none hath
gained aught thereof, save only a youth who in constraint or ease never ceased
to tread in my footprints.
(291) Stray not darkly, then,
from the tracks of my journeying. and fear the blindness of preferring another
to me, and go in my very path;
(292) For the valley of Her
friendship, 0 comrade of sober heart, is in the province of my command and
falls under my governance,
(293) And the realm of the
high degrees of Love is mine, the realities (thereof) are my army, and all
lovers are my people. (294) Love hath passed away! Lo, I am severed from it as
one who deems it a veil. Desire is below mine high estate,
(295) And I have crossed
Passion's boundary, for Love is (to me) even as Hate, and the goal that I
reached in my ascension to Oneness is become my point of departure.
(296) But do thou be happy
with love, for (thereby) thou hast been made a chief over the best of God's
creatures who serve Him (by devotion and piety) in every nation.
(297) Win those heights and
vaunt thyself above an ascetic who was exalted by works and by a soul that
purged itself (of worldly lusts) ;
(298) And pass beyond one
heavily laden (with exoteric knowledge) -who, if his burden were lightened,
would be of little weight-one charged with traditional authorities and
intellectual wisdom;
(299) And take to thyself
through kinship (of love) the heritage of the most sublime gnostic, who made it
his care to prefer (above. all else) that his aspiration should produce an
effect (upon mankind);
(300) And haughtily sweep the
clouds with thy skirts-the skirts
of an impassioned lover which in his union (with the Beloved) trail over the
top of the Milky Way !
(301) And traverse the various degrees of
oneness and do not join a party that lost their lifetime in (attachment to)
something besides.
(302) For its single champion is a host,
while all others are but a handful who were vanquished by the most convincing
of testimonies.
(303) Therefore make that which it (the
term "oneness") signifies thy means of access (to God) and live in
it, or else die its captive, and follow a community which attained the primacy
therein.
(304) Thou art worthier of this
glory than one who strives and exerts himself in hope (of reward) and in fear
(of punishment).
(305) 'Tis not marvellous that thou shouldst shake thy sides
(boastfully) before him in the sweetest delight and the completest joy,
(306) Since the attributes related to it
(to Oneness)-how many a man have they chosen out in obscurity I and its names how many
a one have
they raised to
renown! •
(307) Yet thou, in the degree (of union) to
which thou hast attained, art remote from me: the Pleiades have no connexion
with the earth.
(308) Thou hast been brought to thy Sinai
and hast reached a plane higher than thy soul had ever imagined ;
(309) But this is thy limit: stop here, for
wert thou to advance a step beyond it, thou
wouldst be consumed by a brand of fire.
Leaving his disciple in "the intoxication of union" (sukru l-jam'), with an emphatic warning not to exceed the
measure of his spiritual capacity, Ibnu
'l-Farid depicts from his own experience the unitive
life in its perfect and final development, which is known technically as ' the
sobriety of union" (sahwu 'l-jam'). Cf.
the notes on vv.
233-5, 260-4, and 326-7.
(310) My degree is of such a height that a
man who has not reached it may still be deemed happy; but the
state for which I am deemed happy transcends thy degre·e.
(311) All men are the sons of
Adam; (and I am as they) save that I alone amongst my brethren have attained to
the sobriety of union.
(312) My hearing is like that of Kalim (Moses) and my
heart is informed (about God) by the most excellent (ahimad) vision of ar eye like that of him who is most excellent (Ahmad = Mohammed):
313) And my spirit is a spirit to all the spirits (of
oreated beings); and whatsoever thou sest of beauty in the universe flows from
the bounty of my nature.
(314) Leave, then, to me (and
do not ascribe to any one else) the knowledge with which I alone was endowed
before my appearance (in the phenomenal world), while (after my appearance)
amongst created beings my friend knew me not (as I really am).
(315) Do not give me the name
of "lover" (rurid) amongst them (my friends), for even he. who is
rapt hy Her and is called Her
' beloved'' (murad') hath need uf my protection;
(316) And let names of honour
fall from me and pronounce them
not, babblmg foolishly, for they are but signs fashioned by one whom I made;
(317) And take back my title
of "gnostic," for according to the Koran, if thou approvcst people's
calling each other names, thou wilt be loathed.
(318) The least of my
followers-the virgin brides of gnosis were led home to the eye of his heart.
(319) He plucked the fruit of gnosis from a branch of perception that grew by
his following me and springs from the root of my nature;
(320) So that, if he is questioned
about any (spiritual) matter, he brings forth wondrous sayings which are too
sublime for comprehension, nay, too subtle for the mind to conceive.
(321) And amongst them (my
friends) do not call me by the epithet of "favourite" (mi,qarrab), which in virtue of my
union (with God) I deem to be a sinful severance;
(322) For my meeting is my
parting, and my nearness is my being far, and my fondness is my aversion, and
my end is my beginning,
(323) Since for Her sake by
whom I have disguised myself -and 'tis but myself I mean-I have cast off my
name and my style and my name of honour,
(324) And have journeyed
beyond where those of old stood still, and where minds perished+ misled by (the
search after intellectual) gains.
(325) I have no attributes, for
an attribute is a mark (of substance). Similarly, a name
is. a sign (of an object). Therefore, if thou wouldst allude to me, use
metaphors or epithets.
(326) From "I am She" l
mounted to where is no "to," and I perfumed (phenomenal)
existence by my returning;
(327) And (I
returned) from "I am I" for the sake of an esoteric wisdom and
external laws which were instituted that I might call (the people to God).
(328) The
goal of my disciple who was rapt to Her (in ecstasy) and the utmost limit
reached by his masters is the point to which I advanced before my turning back;
(329) And
the highest peak gained by those who thought themselves foremost is the lowest
level that bears the mark of my tread;
(330) And
the last pinnacle of that which is beyond indication, and where is no progress
upwards (but only backwards)-that is whee my first footstep fell !
(331) There
is nothing existent but hath knowledge of my grace, nor aught in being but utters my praise.
(332) No
wonder that I lord it over all who lived before me, since· I have grasped the
firmest stay (which is a verse) in (the chapter of the Koran entitled) Ta-ha.
(333) My
greeting to Her is metaphorical: in reality my salutation
is from me to myself.
Here Ibnu 'l-Farid inserts in praise
of his Beloved an ode of fifty-two yerses (336-387) in the same metre and rhyme dividuality). This stage
is technically known as" the intoxication of union" (sukru 'l-jam'). as, the rest
of the Td'iyya. Beautiful
as.this lyric interlude is and wdcomc for the relief which it::; warm colouring affords to
imaginations fatigued by" the white radiance of
eternity," it interrupts the course of the poem and may be omitted here.
After a short passage (vv.
388-39.3) concerning the" railer" and the
"slanderer," whom the mystic when he regards them ·under the aspect
of union (jam') perceives to
be really inspired by· love, not by enmity, lbnu '1-Farid resume:s his
description of the unitive state at its supreme level, marked by the rctm n
from ecstasy to a new and enlarged consciomness of the One Reality which
manifests itself in every form of thought and sense.
(394) And therein (in ittiluid)
arc matter;; of.which the
veil was entirely rais<:d for
me by my recovery from intoxication, while
they were scr<:'enc<l from every one besides.
(395) A mystic can dispense with plain words and will understand
me when I speak allusively on accuunt'of thosr who would trip mt' up.
(396) None may divulge them without making his lifeblood the
forfeit, and in symbols there
is a nwaning that wurds cannot define.
(397) Now my exposition begins
with the twain who sought to bring about my severance, albeit my union defies separation. (398) Those
twain are one with us (the Beloved and me) in inwanl union, though in outward
separation we and they are counted as four.
(399) For truly I and She are one essence, while he who told ta.lt>s of her and he who turned !lltl away from her are attributes . which appeared.
(400) That one (the slanderer) helps the spirit, guiding it to its
region for the sake of a contemplation which takes place in a spiritual mould ;
(401) And this one (the railer) helps the soul, driving it to its
companions for the sake of an existence which occurs in a material form.
(402) Whoever knows, as I do, (the real nature of) those
figures, his doctrine in removing the perplexity of doubt (as to the Divine
Unity) is unmixed with polytheism.
(403) My essence
endowed with delights the whole sum of my worlds (of being) both in particular
and in general, in order to replenish them with its all-embracing unity.
(404) And it bounteously poured forth its overflow when there
was as yet no capacity for acquisition (of being), and it was capable (of
overflow) before there was any preparation for
receiving (the overflow).
(405) The forms of existence were made happy by the Soul, and
the spirits of (the plane of) contemplation were refreshed by the Spirit.
The inward oneness of the Essence with its attributes or emanations is now further illustrated by reference to what takes place in
audition (samd'), when
the mystic falling into ecstasy at the sound of
music finds God, only to lose Him again as soon as the momentary transport has ebbed away.
(406) My twofold contemplation of a slanderer hastening to his region
and a railer bestowing good advice on his companions
(407) Bears witness to my state in
the sama', a state
caused by two things which draw me (to and fro), namely, the law of my abiding
home and the law of the
place where my sentence is passed.
(408) And my denial of being perplexed (with doubts touching ittihad')
by the five external senses is established to be true by the agreement
of the two images.
(409) Now, before (I come to) my purpose, let me tell thee the mystery of that which my soul received secretly
from them (the external senses) and communicated (to the inward senses).
(410) Whenever the idea of beauty
appears in any form, and whenever one afflicted by sorrow raises a mournful cry
in (reciting) the verses of a chapter of the Koran,
(411) My thought beholds Her with the eye of my phantasy, and my
memory hears Her with the ear of my intelligence,
(412) And my mind brings Her in imagination before my soul, so
that my understanding deems Her sensibly at my side,
(413) And I wonder at miy drunkenness without wine, and am thrilled in
the depths of my being by a joy that comes from myself,
(414) And my heart dances, and the trembling of my limbs doth clap its
hands like a chanter, and my spirit is my musician.
(415) My soul never ceased to be
fed with (spiritual) desires and to efface the (sensual) faculties by weakening them,
until at last it waxed strong.
(416) Here I found all existing things allied to aid methough
the aid (really) came from myself-
(417) In order
that every organ of sense might unite me with Her, and that my union might
include every root of my hair,
(418) And that the veil of estrangement between us might be cast off,
albeit I found it no other than friendship.
(419) Mark now-and do not hope to learn this by studyhow the
sense conveys to the soul by immediate revelation what She brings to light.
(420) When a north wind travelling by night from Her blows at
dawn, its coolness recalls the thought of Her to my
spirit,
(421) And mine ear is pleased when in the forenoon grey doves
warbling and singing on the branches arouse it,
(422) And mine eye is gladdened if at eve flashes of lightning transmit and give it from Her to the
pupil of mine eye,
(423) And it is bestowed on my
taste and touch by the winecups when they" are passed round to me at night,
(424) And my heart conveys it as an inward thing to the
mental faculties through the medium of the outward thing that was delivered by
the bodily messengers (the senses).
(425) He that chants Her name
in the assembly (of listeners) makes me present with Her, so that as I listen 1
behold Her with my whole being.
(426) My spirit soars towards
the heaven whence it was breathed (into me), while my theatre of manifestation (my soul), which was fashioned by the
spirit, stoops to its ,'arthly peers.
(427) Part of me is pulled towards Her and part of me
pulls towards itself, and in every pull there is a tug like giving up the
ghost.
(428) The cause of this is my
soul's recollecting its real nature from Her when She inspired it,
(429) So that it longed in the
limbo of earth to hear the Divine call alone (uncontaminated by the call of the
lower self), since both (the spiritual ani the sensual natures) take hold of my
bridlereins.
(430) Concerning my state in audition a babe, even though he
grow up to be dull, will inform thee by throwing it upon
thy mind like (a flash of) inspiration or insight.
(431) When he moans because of the tight swaddling-clothes and
restlessly yearns to be relieved from exceeding distress,
(432) He is soothed with lullabies, so that he lays aside all
the weariness which came over him and listens to his soother like one attending
silently,
(433) And the sweet words nake him forget his bitter grief and
remember the .speech that passed in times of old,
(434) And by his state he explains the sta.tc of samti' (audition) and confirms the absence of
imperfection from the mystic dance:
(435) When through the one that is hushing him he becomes distraught
with longing and would fain fly to his first home,
(436) He is quieted by being rocked.in his cradle as the hands
of his nurse move it to and fro.
(437) I have felt, when She is called to mind by tbe beautiful
tones of a reciter (of the Koran) or the piercing r.otes of a singer,
(438) As the sufferer feels in
his agony when the angels of Death take to themselves his all.
(439) For one who feds pain in being driven to part (frnrn his
body) is like one who is pained by foding (rapture) in his yearning after his
(spiritual) companions:
(440) As the soul of the former had pity for that (body) in
which it appeared, so my spirit soared to its high origins.
Having exhibited
the phenomena of the sam' in their
due relation to the doctrine of ittihad, lbnu 'l-Faridreturn, to the region of
the self-contained l1uity which is sole ,1ctur on the univf'rsal
stage·.
(441) My spirit passed the gate which barred my going beyond union (with the
Beloved) and soared to where no barrier of union
remained.
(442) He that like me makes it (this gate) his chosen quest, let
him follow me and ride for it with firm resolution!
(443) Before entering it, I have plunged into how many a deep!
wherefrom none that craved (spiritual) wealth
was ever blest with a draught.
(444) I will show it to thee, if thou art resolved, in the
mirror of my poesy, therefore turn the ear of insight to what I let fall.
(445) I cast aside from my speech the word "self-regard,'' and from
my actions self-interest in any act;
(446) And my looking for fair recompense for my
works, and my care to preserve my mystical states from the shame of
suspicion,
(447) And my preaching-all these things I put away with firm
resolution as one who is entirely disinterested; and my casting aside regard
for my casting aside applies to each division. (448) So my heart is a temple in
which I dwell: in front of it (hindering
approach) is the appearance from it of the attributes belonging to my veiledness.
(449) Amongst them my right
hand is a pillar (corner-stone) that is kissed in myself, and
because of the law in my mouth my kiss (qubla) comes from my qibla (the ubject to which I turn in worship).
(450) My circumambulation in the spirit is really round myself, and my running
from my Safa to my Marwa is for the sake of my own face (reality).
(451) Within a sanctuary of my inward
my outward is safe, while my· neighbours around it arc in danger of being snatched away.
(452) My soul was purified by my solitary fasting from other
than myself, and gave as alms the overflow of my grace;
(453) And the doubling
of my existence during my contemplation became single in my oneness (ittihad) when I awoke from my
slumber;
(454) And my inmost self's
night-journey to myself from the special privilege of the Truth is like my
voyage in the general obligation of the Law;
(455) And my divinity did not make me neglectful of the requirement of my theatre of
manifestation, nor did my humanity cause me to forget the theatre in which my
wisdom is manifested.
(456) From me the covenants derived their binding
power upon the soul, and by me the laws of religion were instituted to restrain
the senses,
(457) Inasmuch as there had
come to me from myself an Apostle to whom my sinning was grievous, one taking
jealous care of me from compassion,
(458) And I executed my
command (given) from my soul unto herself, and when she took charge of her own
affair she did not turn back;
(459) And from the time of my
covenant, before the era of my elements, before the
(prophetic) warning was sent to (the world) where men shall be raised from the
dead,
(460) I was an apostle· sent from myself to myself, and my essence was led to me
by the evidence of my own
signs.
(461) And when I conveyed my soul, by purchase, from the possession of her own land to the kingdom of
Paradise-
(462) For she had fought a
good fight and had died a martyr in her cause and had gotten joy of her
contract when she pair! the price-
(463). She soared with me, in
consequence of my union, beyond everlasting life in her heaven (Paradise), since
I did not consent to incline towards the earth of my vicegerent;
(464) And how should I come under (the dominion of) that over
which I am lord, like the friends of my kingdom and my followers and my party and my adherents?
(465)' There is no celestial sphere hut therein, from the light
of my inward being, is an angel who gives guidance by my will, (466) And there is no region
but thereon, from the overflow of my outward being, falleth a drop that is the
source of the clouds' downpouring.
(467) Beside my countenance the far-spreading light (of the sun)
is like a gleam, and beside my watering-place the all-encom-passing sea
is like a
drop. •
(468) Therefore the whole of me is seeking· the whole of me and
is directing itself towards it, and part of me is drawing part of me with
reins.
(469) Every direction tends to the all-guiding face of him who is
above (the relation of) "below" and below whom is (the relation of)
"above."
(470) Thus (in my experience) the 'below-ness'' of the earth is.
the above-ness" of the aether, because of the closing of that which I clave asunder; and the cleavage of that which was closed is only the
outward aspect of ny way (sunna).
(471) And there is no doubt,
since union is the essence of certainty, and no
direction, since place is a (relation of) difference arising from my
separation;
(472) And there is no number,
since numeration cuts like the edge of a sword,
and no time, since limitation is the
dualism of one who fixes a definite term;
(473) And I have in the two worlds no
rival who should doom to destruction what I built or whose command should cause the decree
of my authority to be enforced;
(474) Nor have I in either
world any opposite, for thou wilt not see amongst created beings any
incongruity in their mode of creation, but all
are alike (in perfection).
(475) And from me appeared
that which I made a disguise to myself, and by means of me the phenomena were
caused to return from me to myself;
(476) And in myself I beheld
those who bowed in worship to my theatre of manifestation, and I knew for sure
that I was the Adam to whom I bowed;
(477) And I discerned that the
spiritual rulers of the earths amongst the angels of the highest
sphere are equal in relation to my rank.
(478) Although my comrades craved right guidance from my horizon
that is near (to them), the union of my unity was shown forth from my second
separation,
(479) And in the swoon that crushed my senses my soul fell
prostrate before me in order that she might recover ere repenting as Moses
repented.
(480) For there is no "where" after (vision of)
Reality, since I have recovered from intoxication, and the cloud that veiled
the Essence has been cleared away by sobriety.
(481) The end of a
self-effacement that preceded my (individual self's) conclusion is like the
beginning of a sobriety (selfconsciousness), because both are circumscribed by
a period.
(482) I weighed
in a scale him who is rapt by an obliterating effacement in death (to self)
with him who is cut off by the sobriety of sense
(self-consciousness) in separation (from God).
(483) Therefore the dot of the
"i" of "film" was effaced from my sobriety, and the wakefulness of
the eye of the Essence annulled my self-effacement.
(484) One who loses (God) in
sobriety and finds (God) in selfeffacement is incapable, owing to his
alternation, of the fixity of nearness (to God).
(485) The drunken and the
sober are alike inasmuch as they are qualified by the mark of"
presence" or by the brand of" enclosure." (486) No followers of
mine are they in whom the attributes of "disguise" or the vestiges of
any remnant (of these attributes) succeed each other.
(487) He that does not inherit
perfection from me is faulty, a backslider into chastisement.
(488) Inmeisnaught
thatwouldlead to the "disguise' resulting from a remnant (of
self-existence), nor any shadow (of phenomenal being) that would condemn me to
return {to an inferior degree).
(489) How little may a heart communicate in the form
of thought or a tongue utter in the mould of speech !
(490) All sides (of Being)
joined in me and the carpet of otherness was rolled up in virtue of the
equality (of all),
(491) And my existence, in the
passing-away of the duality of existence, became a contemplation in the
abidingness of unity. (492) That which is above the range of intellect-the
First Emanation-is even as that which is below the Sinai of traditionthe last
handful.
(493) Therefore the best of
God's creatures forbade us to prefer him to the Man of the Fish, although he is
worthy of preference.
(494) I have indicated (the
truth concerning phenomenal relations) by the means which language yields, and
that which is obscure I have made clear by a subtle allegory.
(495) The "Am not I" of yesterday is
not other (than what shall be manifested) to him who enters on to-morrow, since
my darkness hath become my dawn and my day my night.
(496) The secret of
"Yea"-to God belongs the mirror of its revelation, and to affirm the
reality of union (jam') is to deny ''beside-ness.''
(497) No darkness covers me
nor is there any harm to be feared, since the mercy of my light hath quenched
the fire of my vengeance.
(498) And no time is, save
where is no time that reckons the existence of that existence of
mine which is computed by the 'reckoning of the new moons;
(499) But one
imprisoned in the bounds of Time does not see what
lies beyond hi,; dungmn, in the Paradise
everlasting.
(500) Therefore 'tis upon me the heavens turn, and marvel thou at their (utb (Pole)
which encompasses them, howbeit
the Pok is a central point.
(501) And there was no Qutb before me,
whom I should succeed after having passed three
grades (of sanctity), although the
Awtad rise to the rank of Qutb from the rank of Badal.
(502) Do not
overstep my straight line, and seize the best opportunity, for in the angles there arc hidden
things.
The poet now describes some of his strange experiences in love. The first of these is a
state which. the commentator calls "the greatest absence from self" (al-ghaybiyyatu
'l- kubra).
(506) Through Her I became
oblivious of myself, so that I thought myself another
and did not seek the path that leads to thinking
myself existent.
(507) And my being
cblivious (of myself) in Her, caused me to lose my reason,
so that I <licl not return to myself or follow any desire of mine in consequence of my thinking (that I existed).
(508) And I became distraught for Her, engrossed with
Her; and whomsoever She renders distraught throngh being taken up with Her, him
She makes forgetful of himself.
(509) And I was so preoccupied with Her as to forget the preoccupation that made me forget myself: had I died
for Her, I should not have been aware of mny departure
(from the world).
(512) And I was seeking
Her from myself, though She
was ever beside me. I marvelled how She
was hidden from me by myself.
(513) And I ceased not from going with Her to and fro in myself
(in search of Her), because my senses were intoxicated by the wine of
Her beauties,
(514) Travelling from the knowledge of certainty to the intuition thereof; then journeying to the fact thereof, where the Truth is.
(521) (So was I seeking Her within
me) until there rose from me to mine eye a gleam, and the splendour of
my daybreak shone forth and my darkness vanished. •
(522) Here I
reached a point from which the intellect recoils· before gaining it, where from myself I was
being joined and united to myself.
(523) And
when I attained unto myself, I beamed with joy because of a certainty that saved me from saddling for my journey;
(524) And since I was seeking myself from myself, I directed myself to myself, and my soul showed the way to me by means of me.
(525) And
when I removed the curtains of the shroud of sense which the mysteries of
mine own ordainment had let down,
(526) I lifted my soul's curtain by unveiling her, and 'twas
she that granted my request (that the veil should be removed).
(527) And I was that which cleansed the
mirror of my essence from the rust of my attributes, and
the rays that surrounded it were from myself;
(528) And I caused myself to behold myself, inasmuch as in my beholding there
existed none other than myself who might decree the intrusion (of duality).
(529) And when I uttered my
name, that which uttered it caused me to hear it, though (in truth) 'twas my soul that listened and pronounced my name while sensation was banished.
(530) And I embraced myself,
but not through contact of my limbs with my ribs: nay, I embraced my very
essence.
(531) And I let myself smell
my own perfume, while the
perfume of my brath made fragrant the
scents of bruised spices.
(532) And the
whole of me was transcending the dualism of sensation. howbeit my transcendence
was in myself, since I had unified my essence.
Human thought distinguishes the essence of God from
His attributes, names, and actions, but in the mystic's vision of Oneness all
is essentialised and every partial relation identified with the Whole.
(533) To praise my attributes
because of me (my essence) enables my praiser to glorify me (for what I am essentially), but to
praise me (my essence) because of my attributes is to blame me (my essence).
(534) Therefore he that
beholds my attributes in my companion (my body) and beholds me (my essence) by
means of them will never alight at my abode-for I veil myself (with my
attributes).
(535) And to
call to mind my
Names
through me (my
essence) is
a waking vision (a revelation of the Truth), but to call me (my essence) to
mind through them is the (false) dream of one that slumbers in the night.
(536)
Likewise,-he that knows me (my essence) through my actions knows me not,
whereas he that knows them through me is a knower of the Truth.
(537)
Receive, then, the knowledge of the principal attribute which are attached to
outward abodes (visible organs), from a sou' well acquainted therewith,
(538) And
(receive) the understanding of the Names of the Essence, which are made manifest
through them (the attributes) but (themselves) reside in the inward (invisible)
worlds, from a spirit that gives an indication thereof (by means of symbols).
(539) The
manifestation metaphorically of my attributes (e.g. sight and
hearing) from the names of my bodily organs (e.g. the visual
and auditory faculties)-names by which my soul was named because of my judgment
(that in reality they belong to the soul,
not to the body)-
(540)
Consists of a knowledge (latent in the soul)-marks traced on the veils of forms
(bodily organs) and throwing light on what is beyond sense-perception in the
soul.
(541) And the manifestation
actually of the names of my essence
from the attributes of my inward being, for the sake of mysteries whereby the
spirit was gladdened,
(542) Consists of hints
concerning treasures (of knowledge)hints revealing the significations of a
mystical doctrine and encompassed by the arcana of that which is hidden in the
depths of the heart.
(543) And their effects in all
that exists, together with the knowledge of them-and created things are not
independent of the effects produced by them (the Names and Attributes)-
(544) Are (shown by) the
existence of praise that is gained (by God) for strength of dominion, and hy
the beholding of thanks that are gathered in return for universal favours.
(545) They (the effects of the
Names and Attributes) are theatres of manifestation for me: I appeared in them,
although I was not hidden from myself before my epiphany (in them).
(546) For speech-and the whole
of me is a tongue that tells of me-and sight-and the whole of me is an eye in
me for regarding me-
(547) And hearing-and the
whole of me is ears (asmu') listening to the proclamation of (my) bounty-(and power)-and the whole
of me is a hand strong to repel destruction,
(548) (All these faculties)
are a means of manifestation for Attributes which
established (the presence in the soul of) what transcends the (outward) vesture
(the body) and for Essential Names which spread abroad that which sensation related
(to the soul).
In language so figurative as to be almost
untranslatable the poet describes (vv. 549-574) {he Divine Names according to (1) their characteristic
qualities; (2) the benefits which accrue from them to body and soul; and (3) their
respective spheres of influence, viz., the visible world ('alamu'l-shahda), the invisible world ('lamu 'l-ghayb), the world of dominion ('alamu
'l-malakut), and the world of almightiness ('alamu 'l-jabarit)'. Here again he rises to the plane of undifferentiated unity (jam'), where plurality (tafriga) has disappeared. This phase, however, is momentary. As Wt: have seen, in the highest
mystical experience plurality returns under the form of unity: the One does not
exclude the Many, but comprehends them in its own nature, so that every part is
the essence of the whole.
(575) The whole of me performs that (devotion)
which is required by the Path, while keeping the way of that (unity) which was
required by my Truth.
(576) And when, no longer
separating, I joined the rift, and the fissures caused by the difference of the
attributes were closed, (577) And nothing that leads to estrangement was left
between me and a firm trust in the intimacy of my love,
(578) I knew for sure that we
(lover and Beloved) are really One, and the sobriety of union restored the
notion of separation,
(579) And my whole was a
tongue to speak, an eye to see, an ear to hear, and a hand to seize.
All particular attributes being thus dissolved in the universality of the Essence, the 'unified" mystic can say that his
eye speaks, his tongue secs, his hand listens, etc., and that his sense of
smell speaks, sees, hears, and takes, or conversely, that his tongue, eye, car, and hand arc endowed with the sense of smell; and can declare that all his faculties are exercisc·d simultaneously by every atom of his
body (vv. 580-88).
(589) Therefore I read all the knowledge of the wise in a single word, and show unto
myself all created beings in a single look; (590) And I hear the voices of them
that pray and all their languages in a time less than the duration of a gleam;
(591) And ere mine eye winks,
I bring before me what was hard to convey on account of its distance;
(592) And with one inhalation
I smell the perfumes of all gardens and the fragrance of what (herbs) soever
touch the skirts of the winds;
(593) And I survey all regions
(of the earth) in a flash of thought and traverse the seven tiers of Heaven in one step.
The next passage indicates
the origin and nature of these extraordinary powers which the poet claims not only for himself
but for all prophets from Adam to Mohammed and for the Moslem saints in
general. It is perhaps unnecessary to add that where he uses the words "I"
and "my" he assn mes the character of the universal Spirit.
(594) The bodies· of those in
whom remains no remnant (of self) because of my union (with them) are like the spirits: they are encompassed (with my union) and made light (subtle);
(595) And whosoever is
sovereign or munificent or mighty in onset only finds his way (to these
qualities) through my aiding him with a particle (of my union).
(596) He walked not on the
water nor flew in the air nor plunged in the flames but in virtue of my
volition,
(597) And I am the source
whence he whom I aided with a particle (of my union) became changed in a moment
from all his (normal) being,
(598) And whence he that w;_th
his whole being followed my union recited the Koran, from beginning to end, a
thousand times in an hour or less
(599) And had a breath of my
grace been bestowed on a dead man, his soul would have been given back to him
and caused to return.
(600) Such is the soul: if she cast off her desires, her faculties are
multiplied and endow every atom with the (entire) activity of the soul.
(601) Union suffices thee (as an explanation of these miracles) ; they are not
produced by a separation consisting in two extensions, namely, measurable space and
finite time.
After enumerating some miracles of pre-Islamic
prophets --Noah, Solomon, Abraham, Moses, Jacob
and Jesus-the poet explains the unique position of
Mohammed as the spiritual father of all prophets and saints and the real author of all
miracles past, present and future.
(614) The inward notion that
produced (miraculous) effects in outward things is that (oneness) which; by
(Divine) permission, my moulded speech communicated to thine ear,
(615) And the notions
underlying all (the effects) that belonged to them (the former prophets) were
brought (together) by him (Mohammed) who caused them to stream over us, thereby
putting the seal upon a ti.me when no prophets arise;
(616) And there was none of
them (the former prophets) but had called his people to the Truth by grace of
Mohammed and because he was Mohammed's follower.
(617) And a divine of ours is
one of those prophets, while any one of us that calls (the people) to the Truth
performs the office of apostle:
(618) And in our Mohammedan
era our gnostic is (like) one of the old prophets, one who clave to the
commandment and was firm (in obedience to the religious law).
(619) After him, the
evidentiary miracles of the prophets became acts of Divine grace (yapidµara) towards his saints and vicegerents.
.
(620) His family and his
Companions and the religious leaders of the next generation sufficed mankind
instead of the apostles.
(621) Their
miracles form part of what he conferred on them exclusively, in bequeathing to
them a share of every excellence (of his).
(627) And the saints who believe in him, though they
never saw him, are elect in virtue of their affinity: they are near (to
him) as
brother to brother.
(628) And his being near them in spirit resembles his yearning towards them in form.
Marvel, then, at a presence in absence!
The mystical union of the saints with the Logos expresses itself in language that might easily be mistaken for blasphemy.
(629) They (the prophets) who received the Spirit called (their
peoples) to my way in my name and vanquished the miscreants by my argument;
(630) And in consequence of the priority of my essence they all revolve in my circle or descend
from my watering-place,
(631) For albeit I am outwardly a son of Adam, yet in him is a spirit
of mine that bears witness I am his father.
(637) Do not deem that this matter lies outside of me, for none
gained lordship (as a prophet or a
saint) except he entered my service,
(638) Since, but for me, no existence would have come into
being, nor would there have been a contemplation (of God), nor would any secure covenants
have been known.
(639) None lives but his life is from mine, and every willing
soul is obedient to my will;
(640) And there is no speaker but tells his tale with my
words, nor any seer but sees. with the sight of mine eye;
(641) And no silent (listener) but hears with my hearing, nor
any one that grasps but with my strength and might;
(642) And in the whole creation there is. none save me that
speaks or sees or hears.
(643) And in the world of composition (the sensible world) I manifested
in every (phenomenal) form a reality whereby that form was made fair;
(644) And in every reality that was not
revealed by my phenomena I was imaged, but not in a corporeal shape;
(645) And in that which the spirit beholds
by clairvoyance I was hidden from fatigued thought by my subtlety.
The clairvoyant spirit contemplates itself as the
Whole that pervades every aspect of reality and as the Identical in which all contraries are united.
(646) In the
mercy of 'expansion" the whole of me is a wish whereby
the hopes of all the world are expanded;
(647) Andintheterror(wrath) of '
contraction " the whole of me is an awe, and o'er whatsoever I let mine eye range,
it reveres me; (648) And in the union of both these attributes
the whole of me is a nearness. Come, then, draw near to my beauteous qualities!
(649) In the place where "in" ends I ceased not to feel, through
myself, the majesty of contemplating myself-an experience arising from the
perfection of my nature;
(650) And where is no "in" I
ceased not to contemplate in myself the beauty of my Being,
not with the sight of mine eye.
Perception of reality is impossible so long as senseirnpressions,
which affirm that things exist by themselves, are allowed to stand in the way.
(651) So if
thou art of me, seek union with me and efface the distinction of my
separation and be not turned aside by the darkness of Nature,
(652) And receive the signs of my inspired
wisdom which will remove
from thee the false judgments of opinion formed through sensation.
Ibnu
'l-Farid naturally condemns metempsychosis, a special form of the already repudiated doctrine of incarnation (hull)1.
(653) Have
nothing to do with one that believes in naskh
(the transmigration of souls into human bodies)-for his is
a case of maskh (the
transmigration of souls into the bodies of animals)and
hold aloof from his doctrine;
(654) And
let him alone with his assertion offaskh (the
transmigration of souls into plants)-for if zaskh (the transmigration of souls into minerals) were true, he
deserves to suffer it everlastingly in every cycle.
If we scorn the notion of a spirit doomed to perpetual confinement in matter, how shall we represent
the true monistic relation between them? Our minds can never know that relation
as it really is: like all mystical truth, it is unseizable by thought. But
mystics have their own ways and means of communicating with each other, and the
poet has just announced himself as a hierophant (v. 652), bidding his readers attend to "the signs of his inspired wisdom." The best commentary on
this phrase is lbnn '1-'Arahi's remark that mystical "states" cannv.;
be explained, but can only be indicated
symbolically to those who have begun to experience the like2.
(655) My
coining parables for thee time after time concerning my state is a favour from me to thee.
(656)
Consider the Maqamat of the Sarujite and draw a lesson from his variety (of
disguise)-then wilt thou deem it good to have taken my advice,
(657) And thou wilt
perceive that the soul in whatever form and shape she appears, inwardly masks
herself in sensation;
(658) And if his (Hariri's)
work is fiction, yet the Truth makes of it a parable, for the soul
labours not in earnest.
(659) Therefore be
understanding, and while doing justice to thy soul look upon thy phenomenal actions with
thy (faculty of) sense;
(660) And wouldst thou have
thy soul unveil herself, contemplate what thou seest without doubt in the
burnished mirrors.
(661) Was it another that appeared in them? Or didst
thou behold thyself by means of them when the rays were refracted?
(662) And listen how the sound of thy voice, when it
dies away, is returned to thee by the walls of lofty buildings.
(663) He that talked with thee
there, was he some one else?
Or didst thou hear words uttered by thy voiceful
echo?
(664) And tell me, when thy
senses had been hushed in slumber, who imparted to thee his
lore?
(665) Ere to-day thou didst
not know what happened yesterday or what shall happen to-morrow,
(666) And now thou art
acquainted with the histories of them that are past and with the secrets of
them that shall come afterand the knowledge makes thee proud.
(667) Think'st thou it was
another, not thyself, that conversed with thee in' the drowsiness of sleep
touching diverse sorts of noble knowledge?
(668) 'Twas none but thy soul,
what time she was busied with her own world and
disengaged from the theatre of humanity.
(669) She unveiled herself to herself in the invisible world in the form of a sage that
led her to the apprehension of wondrous meanings;
(670). For already had the sciences been imprinted on her, and she was anciently taught the names (realities) thereof through the
inspiration of fatherhood,
(671) Not by knowledge derived
from the "separation" of otherness was she blest; nay, she enjoyed
that which she dictated to herself.
(672) Had she become naked
(detached from the body) before thy dream, thou wouldst have beheld her, as I
do, with an eye that sees true (in a waking vision).
(673) And her being normally
detached (in sleep) in the firs" place confirms her being detached in the
eternal world (of mystical· contemplation) in the second place; therefore be
steadfast,
(674) And be not one whom his
studies made foolish, so that they enfeebled and unsettled his mind;
(675) For there, beyond
tradition, lies a knowledge too subtle to be apprehended by the farthest
reach of sound understandings. (676) I received it from myself and derived it from myself:
'twas with mine own bounty my soul was replenishing me.
One of the most amazing things in Von Hammer's
version of the Ta'iyya
is his translation of vv. 677-8. Their language could scarcely be plainer, they introduce a passage in which the poet dwells on the relative value of sense-perception viewed as an
illustration of the nature of reality-and this is how Von Hammer translates them:
Du spiele nicht mit Scherz und fasle nicht im Leben, Du
sei den Possen nicht, dem Ernste sei ergeben!
O hute dich und wend' dich ab von allen Bildern, Von
allen Fantasei'n, die nur Getraumtes schildern.
In a different
context Ibnu 'l-Farid might have said this or something
like it; but here, as it happens, he says just the opposite.
(677) Be not wholly neglectful
of the play (illusion), for the jest of the playthings (phenomena) is the
earnestness of a soul in earnest,
(678) And beware of turning
thy back on every tinselled form or unreal and fantastic case;
(679) For in the sleep of
illusion the apparition of the shadowphantom brings thee to that which is
shown through the thin (semi-transparent) curtains.
Herc Ibnu 'l-Fari~ refers to the shadow-lantern
by means of which leathern figures, moved by wands agamst a muslin curtain, are
illuminated and made visible to the spectators on the other side (see Nallino, op. cit., P. 93). The verses immediately following (680-706)
have been translated above (p. 189 foll.). They describe how the showman,
standing behind the screen, displays his figures in every variety of action and causes the spectators to
sympathise with the representation; yet when the screen is taken away, he alone
is seen to be the
real actor. This analogy guides us to the truth of things. The showman is the
soul, the shadowy figures are the phenomena of sensation, the screen is the
body: remove it and the soul is one with God.
(707) Even thus (like the
showman) I was letting down between me and myself the curtain that obscures the soul in the light of darkness,
(708) That in producing my actions at intervals I might appear to my sensation
gradually, thereby accustoming it (and preparing it for complete illumination).
(709) I joined the play
(illusion) thereof to my work (reality), in order to bring near to thy understanding the ends of my far-off
purposes.
(710) Although his (the
'showman's) case is not (essentially) like mine, there is a resemblance between
us in regard to the two forms of manifestation:
(711) His figures (puppets)
were the forms in which, with the aid of a screen, he displayed his action:
they became naught and withdrew when he revealed himself;
(712) And my soul resembles
him in action, for my sensation is like the figures (puppets), and the (bodily)
vesture is my screen.
(713) When I removed the
screen from me, as he removed it (from him), so that my soul appeared to me
without any veiling-
(714) And already the sun of
contemplation had risen, and all existence was illumined, and through myself
the knots of the tethering-rope (of sense-perception) were untied-
(715) I slew the youth, my
soul, while on the one hand I was setting up the wall (of consciousness) to
safeguard my laws and on the other staving in my (bodily) boat,
(716) And turned to shed my
replenishing grace over every created being according to my actions at every
time;
(717) And were I not veiled by
my attributes, the objects in which I manifest myself would be consumed by the
splendour of my glory.
Once the illusion of selfhood is destroyed, nothing
remains but "the Master of the Show," the one real person in the
drama
Which, for the Pastime of Eternity,
He doth Himself contrive, enact, behold.
(718) The tongues of all
beings, wilt thou but hearken, bear eloquent witness to my unity.
(719) And touching my oneness (ittihad)
there hath come down a sure Tradition, whose
transmission by (oral) relation (from the Prophet) is not infirm,
(7:20) Declaring that God loves (His creatures) after they draw nigh unto Him
by voluntary works of devotion or by the observance of that which is
obligatory;
(721) And the point that the
doctrine bids us mark is made as clear as the light of noon by the words
"I am to him an ear."
(722) I used the (religious and,
devotional) means to reach unification until I found it (unification), and the agency of the
means was one of my guides (thereto);
(723) And I unified in respect
of the means until I lost them, and the link of (this} unification was the
way of approach (to unity) that availed me best;
(724) And I stripped my soul
of them both, and she became single (detached from the world of relations)-yet
had she never at any time been other than single (in her real nature);
(725) And I dived into the
seas of union, nay, I plunged into them in my aloneness and brought out many a
peerless pearl,
(726) That I might hear mine acts with a seeing ear and
behold my words with a hearing eye.
(727) So if the nightingale lament in the grove, whilst the birds in every tree
warble a response to her,
(728) And if the flute-player
make music in accord with the strings touched by the hand of a singing-girl
(729) Who chants tender
poetry, so that the souls (of the hearers) mount to their Paradisal lote-tree at
each trill-
(730) I take delight in the
effects of mine own art, and I ever declare my union and society to be free
from partnership with others.
It follows from
the doctrine of ittihad that all forms of worship are essentially divine. Even
dualism and polytheism represent certain aspects in which God expresses
Himself. This passage (vv.731-49) should be
compared with the viewsset forth by Ibnu 'I'Arabi and Jili (see pp. 130 foll. and 157 foll.).
(731) Through me the assembly
of them that praise my name is (attentive like) the ear of one reading (a
book), and for my sake the wine-seller's shop is (open like) the eye of a
scout;
(732) And virtually no hand
but mine tied the infidels' girdle; and if it be loosed in acknowledgement of me, 'twas my hand that loosed it.
(733) And if the niche of
a mosque is illuminated by the Koran, yet is no
altar of a church made vain by the Gospel;
(734) Nor vain arc the books
of the Torah revealed to Moses for his people, whereby the Rabbis converse with
God every night.
(735) And if a devotee fall
down before the stones in an idoltemple, there is no reason for religious zeal
to take offence;
(736) For many a one who is
clear of the shame of associating others with God by means of idolatry is in
spirit a worshipper of money.
(737) The warning from me hath
reached those whom it sought, and I am the cause of the excuses put forward in
every faith.
(738) Not in any religion have
men's eyes been awry, not in any sect have their thoughts been perverse.
(739) They that heedlessly
fell in love with the sun lost not the way, forasmuch as its brightness is from
the light of my unveiled splendour;
(740) And if the Magians
adored the Fire-which, as history tells, was not quenched for a thousand years-
(741) They intended none but
me, although they took another direction and did not declare the purpose they
had formed.
(742) They had once seen the
radiance of my light and deemed it a fire, so that
they were led away from the true light by the rays.
(743) And hut for the screen
of existence, I should have said it out: only my observance of the laws imposed on
phenomena doth keep me silent.
(744) So this is no aimless
sport, nor were the creatures created to stray at random, albeit their actions are not right.
(745) Their affairs take a
course according to the brand of the Names; and the wisdom which endowed the
Essence with (diverse) attributes caused them to take that course in
consequence of the Divine decree,
(746) Disposing them in two
handfuls-''and I care not. .. and I care not '-one
destined for happiness and one for misery.
(747) Oh, let the soul know
that the case stands thus, or else let her not (seek to) know (at all), for
according to this the Koran is recited every morning.
(748) And her knowledge arises
from herself: 'twas she that dictated to my senses what I hoped (of mystic
knowledge).
(749) Had I singled, I should
have swerved (from the truth) and been stripped of the signs of my union (jam') through associating my
handiwork (as an equal partner) with myself.
Protesting that he is not to be blamed for having divulged the sublime
mysteries with which the grace of God illuminated him, the poet bids his disciple farewell. Let him follow in his master's
footsteps and be one with the Essence, even as he is one.
(759) In the world of
reminiscence the soul hath her ancient knowledge--my disciples beg it of me as
a boon.
(760) Do thou, therefore,
make haste to enjoy my eternal union, in virtue of which I found the full-grown
men of the tribe (of Sufis no wiser than) little babes.
(761) For my contemporaries
drink only the dregs of what I left; and as for those
before me, their (vaunted) merits are my superfluity.