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SUFISM
THE ORIGIN AND QURANIC JUSTIFICATION OF
SUFISM
by Allama Iqbal
Chapter V excerpted from his doctrinal thesis: The Development
of Metaphysics in Persia, (1908)
It has become quite a fashion with modern, oriental scholarship
to trace the chain of influences. Such a procedure has certainly
great historical value, provided it does not make us ignore the
fundamental fact, that the human mind possesses an independent
individuality, and, acting on its own initiative, can gradually
evolve out of itself, truths which may have been anticipated by
other minds ages ago. No idea can seize a people's soul unless,
in some sense, it is the people's own. External influences may
wake it up from its deep unconscious slumber; but they cannot -
, so to speak, create it out of nothing.
Much has been written
about the origin of Persian Suifiism; and, in almost all cases,
explorers of this .most interesting field of research have
exercised their ingenuity in discovering the various channels
through which the basic ideas of Sufiism might have travelled -
from one place to another. They seem completely to have ignored
the principle, that the full significance of a phenomenon in the
intellectual evolution of a people, can only be comprehended in
the light of those preexisting intellectual, political, and
social conditions which alone make its existence inevitable. Von
Kremer and Dozy derive Persian Sufiism from the Indian Vedanta;
Merx and Mr. Nicholson derive it from Neo-Platonism; while
Professor Browne once regarded it as Aryan reaction against an
unemotional Semitic religion. It appears to me, however, that
these theories have been worked out under the influence of a
notion of causation which is essentially false. That a fixed
quantity A is the cause of, or produces another fixed quantity
B, is a proposition which, though convenient for scientific
purposes, is apt to damage all inquiry, in so far as it leads us
completely to ignore the innumerable conditions lying at the
back of a phenomenon. It would, for instance, be an historical
,error to say that the dissolution of the Roman Empire was due
to the barbarian invasions. The statement completely ignores
other forces of a different character that tended to split up
the political unity of the Empire. To describe the advent of
barbarian invasions as the cause of the dissolution of the Roman
Empire which could have assimilated, as it actually did to a
certain extent, the so-called cause, is a procedure that no
logic would justify. Let us, therefore, in the light of a truer
theory of causation, enumerate the principal political, social,
and intellectual conditions of Islamic life about the end of the
8th and the first half of the 9th Century when, properly
speaking, the Sufi ideal of life came into existence, to be soon
followed by a philosophical justification of that ideal.
(1.)
When we study
the history of the time, we find it to be a time of more or less
political unrest.
The latter half of the 8th Century presents, besides the
political revolution which resulted in the overthrow of the
Umayyads (749 A.D.), persecutions of Zendiks, and revolts of
Persian heretics (Sindbah 755-6; Ustadhis 766-8; the veiled
prophet of Khurasan 777-80) who, working on the credulity of the
people, cloaked, like Lamennais in our own times, political
projects under the guise of religious ideas. Later on in the
beginning of the 9th Century we find the sons of Harun (Ma'man
and Amin) engaged in a terrible conflict for political
supremacy; and still later, we see the Golden Age of Islamic
literature seriously disturbed by the persistent revolt of the
Mazdakite Babak (816-838). The early years of Ma'mun's reign
present another social phenomenon of great political
significance - the Shu'ubiyya controversy (815), which
progresses with the rise and establishment of independent
Persian families, the Tahirid (820), the Saffarid (868), and the
Samanid Dynasty (874). It is, therefore, the combined force of
these and other conditions of a similar nature that contributed
to drive away spirits of devotional character from the scene of
continual unrest to the blissful peace of an everdeepening
contemplative life. The Semitic character of the life and
thought of these early Muhammadan ascetics is gradually followed
by a large hearted pantheism of a more or less Aryan stamp, the
development of which, in fact, runs parallel to the slowly
progressing political independence of Persia.
(2.) The
sceptical tendencies of Islamic Rationalism which found an early expression in the poems of Bashshar ibn Burd
- the blind Persian sceptic who deified fire, and scoffed at all
non-Persian modes of thought. The germs of Scepticism latent in
Rationalism ultimately necessitated an appeal to a super,
intellectual source of knowledge which asserted itself in the
Risala of Al-Qushairi (986). In our own times - the negative
results of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason drove Jacobi and
Schleiermacher to base faith on the feeling of the reality of
the ideal; and to the 19th Century sceptic Wordsworth uncovered
that mysterious state of mind "in which we grow all spirit and
see into the life of things".
(3.) The unemotional piety of the various schools
of Islam - the Hanafite (Abu Hanifa d. 767), the Shafiite (Al-Shafi'i
d. 820), the Malikite (Al-Malik d. 795), and the anthropomorphic
Hambalite (Ibn Hambal d. 855) - the bitterest enemy of
independent thought - which ruled the masses after the death of
Al-Ma'mun.
(4.) The religious discussions among the
representatives of various creeds encouraged by Al-Ma'mun, and
especially the bitter theological controversy between the
Ash`arites and the advocates of Rationalism which tended not
only to confine religion within the narrow limits of schools,
but also stirred up the spirit to rise above all petty sectarian
wrangling.
(5.) The gradual softening of religious fervency
due to the rationalistic tendency of the early `Abbasid period,
and the rapid growth of wealth which tended to produce moral
laxity and indifference to religious life in the upper circles
of Islam.
(6) The presence of Christianity as a working ideal of
life. It was, however, principally the actual life of the
Christian hermit rather than his religious ideas, that exercised
the greatest fascination over the minds of early Islamic saints
whose complete un worldliness, though extremely charming in
itself, is, I believe, quite contrary to the spirit of Islam.
Such was principally the environment of Sufiism, and it
is to the combined action of the above conditions that we should
look for the origin and development of Sufiistic ideas. Given
these conditions and the Persian mind with an almost innate
tendency towards monism, the whole phenomenon of the birth and
growth of Sufiism is explained. If we now study
the principal pre-existing conditions of Neo-Platonism, we find
that similar conditions produced similar results. The barbarian
raids which were soon to reduce Emperors of the Palace to
Emperors of the Camp, assumed a more serious aspect about the
middle of the Third Century. Plotinus himself speaks of the
political unrest of his time in one of his letters to Flaccus(1).
'When he looked round himself in Alexandria, his birthplace, he
noticed signs of growing toleration and indifferentism towards
religious life. Later on in Rome which had become, so to say, a
pantheon of different nations, he found a similar want of
seriousness in life, a similar laxity of character in the upper
classes of society. In more learned circles philosophy was
studied as a branch of literature rather than f or its own sake;
and Sextus Empiricus, provoked by Antiochus's tendency to fuse
scepticism and Stoicism was teaching the old unmixed scepticism
of Pyrrho - that intellectual despair which drove Plotinus to
find truth in a revelation above thought itself. Above all, the
hard unsentimental character of Stoic morality, and the loving
piety of the followers of Christ who, undaunted by long and
fierce persecutions, were preaching the message of peace and
love to the whole Roman world, necessitated a restatement of
pagan thought in a way that might revivify the older ideals of
life, and suit the new spiritual requirements of the people. But
the ethical force of Christianity was too great for
Neo-Platonism which, on account of its more metaphysical(1)
character, had no message for the people at large, and was
consequently inaccessible to the rude barbarian who, being
influenced by the actual life of the persecuted Christian
adopted Christianity, and settled down to construct new empires
out of the ruins of the old. In Persia the influence of culture
- contacts and cross-fertilization of ideas created in certain
minds a vague desire to realize a similar restatement of Islam,
which gradually assimilated Christian ideals as well as
;Christian Gnostic speculation, and found a firm foundation in
the Qur'an. The flower of Greek Thought faded away before the
breath of Christianity; but the burning simoom of Ibn Taimiyya's
invective could not touch the freshness of the Persian rose. The
one was completely swept away by the flood of barbarian
invasions; the other, unaffected by the 'Tartar revolution,
still holds its own.
This extraordinary vitality of the Sufi restatement of
Islam, however, is explained when we reflect on the
all-embracing structure of Sufiism. The Semitic formula of
salvation can be briefly stated in the words, "Transform
your will" - which signifies that the Semite looks upon will as
the essence of the human soul. The Indian Vedantist, on the
other hand, teaches that all pain is due to our mistaken
attitude towards the Universe. He, therefore, commands us to
transform our understanding implying thereby that the essential
nature of man consists in thought, not activity or will. But the
Sufi holds that the mere transformation of will or understanding
will not bring peace; we should bring about the transformation
of both by a complete transformation of feeling, of which will
and understanding are only specialised forms. His message to the
individual is - "Love all, and forget your own individuality in
doing good to Says Rumi: "To win other people's hearts is the
greatest pilgrimage; and one heart is worth more than a
thousand Ka`bahs. Ka`bah is a mere cottage of Abraham; but the
heart is the very home of God." But this formula demands a why
and a how - a metaphysical justification of the ideal in order
to satisfy the understanding; and rules of action in order to
guide the will. Sufiism furnishes both. Semitic religion is a
code of strict rules of conduct; the Indian Vedanta. on the
other hand, is a cold system of thought. Sufiism avoids their
incomplete psychology, and attempts to synthesise both the
Semitic and the Aryan formulas in the higher category of
Love. On the one hand it assimilates the Buddhistic idea of
Nirvana (Fana - Annihilation), and seeks to build a metaphysical
system in the light of this idea; on the other hand it does not
disconnect itself from Islam, and finds the justification of its
view of the Universe in the Qur'an. Like the geographical
position of its home, it stands midway between the Semitic and
the Aryan, assimilating ideas from both sides, and giving them
the stamp of its own individuality which, on the whole, is more
Aryan than Semitic in character. It would, therefore, be evident
that the secret of the vitality of Sufiism is the complete view
of human nature upon which it is based. It has survived orthodox
persecutions and political revolutions, because it appeals to
human nature in its entirety; and, while it concentrates its
interest chiefly in a life
of self-denial,
it allows free play to the speculative tendency as well.
These are some of the chief verses out of which the
various Sufi commentators develop pantheistic views of the
Universe. They enumerate the following four stages of spiritual
training through which the soul - the order or reason of the
Primal Light - (" Say that the soul is the order or reason of
God(5).") has to pass, if it desires to rise above the common
herd, and realise its union or identity with the ultimate source
of all things:
(1) Belief in the Unseen.
(2) Search after the Unseen. The spirit of inquiry
leaves its slumber by observing the marvelous phenomena of
nature. "Look at the camel how it is created; the skies how they
are exalted; the mountains how they are unshakably fixed."
(3) The knowledge of the Unseen. This
comes, as we have indicated above, by looking into the depths of
our own soul.
(4) The Realization. This results,
according to the higher Sufiism from the constant practice of
Justice and Charity - " Verily God bids you do justice and good,
and give to kindred (their due), and He forbids you to sin, and
do wrong, and oppress(1)".
It must, however, be remembered that some later Sufi
fraternities (e.g. Naqshbandi) devised, or rather borrowed(2)
from the Indian Vedantist, other means of bringing about this
Realisation. They taught, imitating the Hindu doctrine of
Kundalini, that there are six great centres of light of various
colours in the body of man. It is the object of the Sufi to make
them move, or to use the technical word, "current", by certain
methods of meditation, and eventually to realise, amidst the
apparent diversity of colours, the fundamental colourless light
which makes everything visible, and is itself invisible. The
continual movement of these centres of light through the body,
and the final realisation of their identity, which results from
putting the atoms of the body into definite courses of motion by
slow repetition of the various names of God and other mysterious
expressions, illuminates the whole body of the Safi; and the
perception of the same illumination in the external world
completely extinguishes the sense of "otherness". The fact that
these methods were known to the Persian Sufis misled Von Kremer,
who ascribed the whole phenomenon of Sufiism to the influence of
Vedantic ideas. Such methods of .contemplation are quite
un-Islamic in character, and the higher Sufis do not attach any
importance to them.
2. ASPECTS OF SUFI METAPHYSICS
Let us now return to the various schools, or rather the
various aspects, of Sufi Metaphysics. A ,careful investigation
of Sufi literature shows that Sufiism has looked at the Ultimate
Reality from three standpoints which, in fact, do not exclude
but ,complement each other. Some Sufis conceive the essential
nature of reality as self-conscious will, others beauty, others
again hold that Reality is essentially Thought, Light or
Knowledge. There are, therefore, three aspects of Safi thought:
In the beginning of the 9th Century Ma'ruf Karkhi defined
Sufiism as " Apprehension of Divine realities(1)" - a definition
which marks the movement from Faith to Knowledge. But the method
of apprehending the ultimate reality was formally stated by Al-Qushairi
about the end of the 10th Century. The teachers of this school
adopted the Neo-Platonic idea of creation by intermediary
agencies; and though this idea lingered in the minds of Sufi
writers for a long time, yet their Pantheism led them to abandon
the Emanation theory altogether. Like Avicenna they looked upon
the Ultimate Reality as "Eternal Beauty ", whose very nature
consists in seeing its own "face" reflected in the
Universe-mirror. The Universe, therefore, became to them a
reflected image of the "Eternal Beauty", and not an emanation as
the Neo-Platonists had taught. The cause of creation , says Mir
Sayyid Sharif, is the manifestation of Beauty, and the first
creation is Love. The realization of this Beauty is brought
about by universal love, which the innate Zoroastrian instinct
of the Persian Sufi loved to define as "the Sacred Fire which
burns up everything other than God." Says Rumi:
"0 thou pleasant madness, Love! Thou Physician of all our
ills! Thou healer of pride, Thou Plato and Galen of our souls!"
As a direct consequence of such a view of the Universe,
we have the idea of impersonal absorption which first appears in
Bayazid of Bistam, and which constitutes the characteristic
feature of the later development of this school. The growth of
this idea may have been influenced by Hindu pilgrims travelling
through Persia to the Buddhistic temple still existing at
Baku.(2) The school became wildly pantheistic in Husain Mansur
who, in the true spirit of the Indian Vedantist, cried out, "I
am God" - Aham Brahma asmi.
The Ultimate Reality or Eternal Beauty,
according to the Sufis of this school, is infinite in the sense
that "it is absolutely free from the limitations of beginning,
end, right, left, above, and below(1)." The of essence and
attribute does not exist in the Infinite-" Substance and quality
are really identical(2)." We have indicated above that nature is
the mirror of the Absolute Existence. But according to Nasafi,
there are two kinds of mirrors
(a) That which shows merely a reflected image - is
external nature.
(b) That which shows the real essence - this is man who
is a limitation of the Absolute, and erroneously thinks himself
to be an independent entity.
"O you who endeavor to unite the knot (of being)! You are born
in union, yet die in the thought of an unreal separation.
Thirsty on the sea-shore! Dying penniless while master of the
treasure! "
All feeling of separation, therefore, is ignorance; and
all "otherness" is a mere appearance, a dream, a shadow - a
differentiation born of relation essential to the self
-recognition of the Absolute. The great prophet of this school
is "the excellent Rumi", as Hegel calls him. He took up the old
Neo-Platonic idea of the Universal Soul working through the
various spheres of being, and expressed it in a way so modernin
spirit that Clodd introduces the passage in his "Story of
Creation". I venture to quote this famous passage in order to
show how successfully the poet anticipates the modern concept of
evolution, which he regarded as the realistic side of his
Idealism.
First man appeared in the class of inorganic things,
Next he passed there from into that of plants.
For years he lived as one of the plants,
Remembering naught of his inorganic state so different;
And when he passed from the vegetate to the animal state,
He had no remembrance of his state as a plant,
Except the inclination he felt to the world of plants,
Especially at the time of spring and sweet flowers ;
Like the inclination of infants towards their mothers,
Which know not the cause of their inclination to the breast.
Again the great Creator as you know,
Drew man out of the animal into the human state.
Thus man passed from one order of nature to another,
Till he became wise and knowing and strong as he is now.
Of his first soul be has now no remembrance,
And he will be again changed from his present soul.
(Mathnavi:
Book IV).
It would now be instructive if we compare this aspect of Sufi
thought with the fundamental ideas of Neo-Platonism. The God of
Neo-Platonism is immanent as well as transcendent. "As being the
cause of all things, it is everywhere. As being other than all
things, it is nowhere. If it were only 'everywhere', and not
also 'nowhere', it would be
all things(1)." The Sufi, however, tersely says that God is all
things. The Neo-Platonist allows a certain permanence or fixity
to matter(2); but the Sufis of the school in question regard all
empirical experience as a kind of dreaming. Life in limitation,
they say, is asleep; death brings the awakening. It is, however,
the doctrine of Impersonal Immortality - "genuinely Eastern in
spirit" - which distinguishes this school from Neo-Platonism.
"Its (Arabian Philosophy) distinctive doctrine", says Whittaker,
"of an Impersonal immortality of the general human intellect is,
however, as contrasted with Aristotelianism and Neo-Platonism,
essentially original."
The above brief exposition shows that there are three
basic ideas of this mode of thought:
(a) That the Ultimate Reality is knowable through a
supersensual state of consciousness;
(b) That the Ultimate Reality is impersonal;
(c) That the Ultimate Reality is one.
Corresponding to these ideas we have:
(a) The Agnostic reaction as manifested in the poet `Umar
Khayyam (12th Century) who cried out in his intellectual
despair:
The joyous souls who quaff potations
deep,
And saints who in the mosque sad vigils
keep, Are lost at sea alike, and find no shore,
One only wakes, all others are asleep.
(b) The monotheistic reaction of Ibn Taimiyya and his
followers in the 13th Century.
(c) The Pluralistic reaction of Wahid Mahmud (1) in the
13th Century.
C. Reality as Light or Thought
The third great school of Sufiism conceives Reality as
essentially Light or Thought, the, very nature of which demands
something to be thought or illuminated. While the preceding
school abandoned Neo-Platonism, this school transformed it into
new systems. There are, however, two aspects of the metaphysics
of this school. The one is genuinely Persian in spirit, the
other is chiefly influenced by Christian modes of thought. Both
agree in holding that the fact of empirical diversity
necessitates a principle of difference in the nature of the
Ultimate Reality. I now proceed to consider them in their
historical order.
Return to Persian Dualism
The application of Greek dialectic to Islamic Theology
aroused that spirit of critical examination which began with Al-Ash`ari,
and found its completest expression in the scepticism of Al-Ghazali.
Even among the Rationalists there were some more critical minds
- such as Nazzam - whose attitude towards Greek Philosophy was
not one of servile submission - but of independent criticism.
The defenders of dogma - Al-Ghazali, Al-Razi, Abul Barakat, and
Al-Amidi, carried on a persistent attack on the whole fabric of
Greek Philosophy; while Abu Sa'id Sairafi, Qadi `Abd al-Jabbar,
Abul Ma'ali, Abul Qasim, and finally the acute Ibn Taimiyya,
actuated by similar theological motives, continued to expose the
inherent weakness of Greek Logic. In their criticism of Greek
Philosophy, these thinkers were supplemented by some of the more
learned Sufis, such as Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi, who endeavoured
to substantiate the helplessness of pure reason by his
refutation of Greek thought in a work entitled "The Unveiling of
Greek Absurdities". The Ash`arite reaction against Rationalism
resulted not only in the development of a system of metaphysics
most modern in some of its aspects, but also in completely
breaking asunder the worn out fetters of intellectual thraldom.
Erdmann (1) seems to think that the speculative spirit among the
Muslims exhausted itself with Al-Farabi and Avicenna, and that
after them Philosophy became bankrupt in passing over into
scepticism and mysticism. Evidently he ignores the Muslim
criticism of Greek Philosophy which led to the Ash`arite
Idealism on the one hand, and a genuine Persian reconstruction
on the other. 'That a system of thoroughly Persian character
might be possible, the destruction of foreign thought, or rather
the weakening of its hold on the mind, was indispensable. The
Ash`arite and other defenders of Islamic Dogma completed the
destruction; Al-Ishraqi - the child of emancipation - came
forward to build a new edifice of thought; though, in his
process of reconstruction, he did not entirely repudiate the
older material. His is the genuine Persian brain which,
undaunted by the threats of narrow-minded authority, asserts its
right of free independent speculation. In his philosophy the old
Iranian tradition, which had found only a partial expression in
the writings of the physician Al-Razi, Al-Ghazali and the
Isma`ilia sect, endeavors to come to a final understanding with
the philosophy of his predecessors and the theology of Islam.
Shaikh Shahabal Din Suhrawardi, known as Shaikhal Ishraq
Maqtul was born about the middle of the 12th Century. He
studied philosophy with Majd Jili - the teacher of the
commentator Al-Razi - and, while still a youth, stood unrivalled
as a thinker in the whole Islamic world. His great admirer Al-Malik
al-Zahir - the son of Sultan Salah-al-Din - invited him to
Aleppo, where the youthful philosopher expounded his independent
opinions in a way that aroused the bitter jealousy of
contemporary theologians. These hired slaves of bloodthirsty
Dogmatism, which, conscious of its inherent weakness, has always
managed to keep brute force behind its back, wrote to Sultan
Salah-al-Din, that the Shaikh's teaching was a danger to Islam,
and that it was necessary, in the interest of the Faith, to nip
the evil in the bud. The Sultan consented; and there, at the
early age of 36, the young Persian thinker calmly met the blow
which made him a martyr of truth, and immortalised his
name for ever. Murderers have passed away, but the philosophy,
the price of which was paid in blood, still lives, and attracts
many an earnest seeker after truth.
The principal features of the founder of the Ishraqi
Philosophy are his intellectual independence, the skill with
which he weaves his materials into a systematic whole, and above
all his faithfulness to the philosophic traditions of his
country. In many fundamental points he differs from Plato, and
freely criticizes Aristotle whose philosophy he looks upon as a
mere preparation for his own system of thought. Nothing escapes
his criticism. Even the logic of Aristotle he subjects to a
searching examination, and shows the hollowness of some of its
doctrines. Definition, for instance, is genus plus differentia,
according to Aristotle. But Al-Ishraqi holds that the
distinctive attribute of the thing defined, which cannot be
predicated of any other thing, will bring us no knowledge of the
thing. We define "horse" as a neighing animal. Now we understand
animality, because we know many animals in which this attribute
exists; but it is impossible to understand the attribute
"neighing", since it is found nowhere except in the thing
defined. The ordinary definition of horse, therefore, would be
meaningless to a man who has never seen a horse. Aristotelian
definition, as a scientific principle is quite useless. This
criticism leads the Shaikh to a standpoint very similar to that
of Bosanquet who defines definition as "Sum- mation of
qualities". The Shaikh holds that a true definition would
enumerate all the attributes which, taken collectively, exist
nowhere except in the thing defined, though they may
individually exist in other things.
But let us turn to his system of metaphysics, and
estimate the worth of his contribution to the thought of his
country. In order fully to comprehend the purely intellectual
side of Transcendental Philosophy, the student, says the Shaikh,
must be thoroughly acquainted with Aristotelian Philosophy,
Logic, Mathematics, and Sufiism. His mind should be completely
free from the taint of prejudice and sin, so that he may
gradually develop that inner sense, which verifies and corrects
what intellect understands only as theory. Unaided reason is
untrustworthy; it must always be supplemented by "Dhauq" - the
mysterious perception of the essence of things - which brings
knowledge and peace to the restless soul, and disarms Skepticism
for ever. We are, however, concerned with the purely speculative
side of this spiritual experience - the results of the inner
perception as formulated and systematized by discursive thought.
Let us, therefore, examine the various aspects of the Ishraqi
Philosophy - Ontology, Cosmology, and Psychology.
Ontology
The ultimate principle of all existence is "Nur-i Qahir"
- the Primal Absolute Light whose essential nature consists in
perpetual illumination. "Nothing is more visible than light, and
visibility does not stand in need of any definition(1)." The
essence of Light, therefore, is manifestation. For if
manifestation is an attribute superadded to light, it would
follow that in itself light possesses no visibility, and becomes
visible only through something else visible in itself; and from
this again follows the absurd consequence, that something other
than light is more visible than light. The Primal Light,
therefore, has no reason of its, existence beyond itself. All
that is other than this original principle is dependent,
contingent, possible The not-light" (darkness) is not something
distinct proceeding from an independent source. It is an error
of the representatives of the Magian religion to suppose that
Light and Darkness are two distinct realities created by two
distinct creative agencies. The ancient philosophers of Persia
were not dualists like the Zoroastrian priests who, on the
ground of the principle that the one cannot cause to emanate
from itself more than one, assigned two independent sources to
Light and Darkness. The relation between them is not that of
contrariety; but of existence and non-existence. The affirmation
of Light necessarily posits its own negation - Darkness, which
it must illuminate in order to be itself. This Primordial Light
is the source of all motion. But its motion is not change of
place; it is due to the love of illumination which constitutes
its very essence, and stirs it up, as it were, to quicken all
things into life, by pouring out its own rays into their being.
The number of illuminations which proceed from it is infinite.
Illuminations of intenser brightness become, in their turn, the
sources of other illuminations; and the scale of brightness
gradually descends to illuminations too faint to beget other
illuminations. All these illuminations are mediums, or in the
language of Theology, angels through whom the infinite varieties
of being receive life and sustenance from the Primal Light. The
followers of Aristotle erroneously restricted the number of
original Intellects to ten. They likewise erred in enumerating
the categories of thought. The possibilities of the Primal Light
are infinite; and the Universe, with all its variety, is only a
partial expression of the infinitude behind it. The categories
of Aristotle, therefore, are only relatively true. It is
impossible for human thought to comprehend, within its
tiny grasp, all the infinite variety of ideas according to which
the Primal Light does or may illuminate that which is not light.
We can, however, discriminate between the following two
illuminations of the original Light:
(1) The Abstract Light (e.g., Intellect, Universal as
well as individual). It has no form, and never becomes the
attribute of anything other than itself (Substance). From it
proceed all the various forms of partly-conscious, conscious, or
self-conscious light, differing from one another in the amount
of lustre, which is determined by their comparative nearness or
distance from the ultimate source of their being. The individual
intellect or soul is only a fainter copy, or a more distant
reflection of the Primal Light. The Abstract Light knows itself
through itself, and does not stand in need of a non-ego to
reveal its own ,existence to itself. Consciousness or
self-knowledge, therefore, is the very essence of Abstract
light, as distinguished from the negation of light.
from its cause; it is a transformation, or a weaker form of the
supposed cause itself. Anything other than the Abstract light
(e.g., the nature of the illuminated body itself) cannot be the
cause of the Accidental light; since the latter, being merely
contingent and consequently capable of being negative, can be
taken away from bodies without affecting their character. If the
essence, or nature of the illuminated body, had been the cause
of the Accidental light, such a process of disillumination could
not have been possible. We cannot conceive an inactive cause
(1).
It is now obvious that Shaikh al-Ishraq agrees
with the Ash`arite thinkers in holding that there is no such
thing as the Prima Materia of Aristotle; though he recognises
the existence of a necessary negation of Light-Darkness, the
object of illumination. He further agrees with them in teaching
the relativity of all categories except Substance and Quality.
But he corrects their theory of knowledge, in so far as he
recognises an active element in human knowledge. Our relation
with the objects of our knowledge is not merely a passive
relation;. the individual soul, being itself an illumination,
illuminates the object in the act of knowledge. The Universe to
him is one great process of active illumination; but, from a
purely intellectual standpoint, this illumination is only a
partial expression of the infinitude of the Primal Light, which
may illuminate according to other laws not known to us. The
categories of thought are infinite; our intellect works with a
few only. The Shaikh, therefore, from the standpoint of
discursive thought, is not far from modern Humanism.
Cosmology
All that is “not-light" is, what the Ishraqi thinkers
call, "Absolute quantity", or "Absolute matter". It is only
another aspect of the affirmation .of light, and not an
independent principle, as the followers of Aristotle erroneously
hold. The experimental fact of the transformation of the primary
elements into one another points to this fundamental Absolute
matter which, with its various degrees of grossness, constitutes
the various spheres of material being. The absolute ground of
all things, then, is divided into two kinds:
(1) That which is beyond space - the obscure Substance or
atoms (essences of the Ash`arite).
(2) That which is necessarily in space-forms of darkness,
e.g., weight, smell, taste, etc.
The combination of these two particularizes the Absolute
matter. A material body is forms of plus obscure substance, made
visible or illuminated by the Abstract light. But what is the
cause of the various forms of darkness? These, like the forms of
light, owe their existence to the Abstract light, the different
illuminations of which cause diversity in the spheres of being.
The forms, which make bodies differ from one another, do not
exist in the nature of the Absolute matter. The Absolute and the
Absolute matter being identical, if these forms do exist in the
essence of the Absolute matter, all bodies would be identical in
regard to the forms of darkness. This, however, is contradicted
by daily experience. The cause of the forms of darkness,
therefore, is not the Absolute matter. And as the difference of
forms cannot be assigned to any other cause, it follows that
they are due to the various illuminations of the Abstract Light.
Forms of light and darkness both owe their existence to the
Abstract Light. The third element of a material body - the
obscure atom or essence - is nothing but a necessary aspect of
the affirmation of light. The body as a whole, therefore, is
completely dependent on the Primal Light. The whole Universe is
really a continuous series of circles of existence, all
depending on the original Light. Those nearer to the source
receive more illumination than those more distant. All varieties
of existence in each circle, and the circles themselves, are
illuminated through an infinite number of medium-illuminations,
which preserve some forms of existence by the help of "conscious
light" (as in the case of man, animal and plant), and some
without it (as in the case of minerals and primary elements).
The immense panorama of diversity which we call the Universe,
is, therefore, a vast shadow of the infinite variety in
intensity of direct or indirect illuminations and rays of the
Primary Light. Things are, so to speak, fed by their respective
illuminations to which they constantly move, with a lover's
passion, in order to drink more and more of the original
fountain of Light. The world is an eternal drama of love. The
different planes of being are as follow:
of Primal
the parent of the heavens.
Light.
{ 2. The Plane of the Soul.
{ 3. The Plane of Form.
(1) The Plane of ideal forms.
|
1. The Plane of |
Having briefly indicated the general
nature of Being, we now proceed to a more detailed examination
of the world-process. All that is not-light is divided into:
(1) Eternal, e. g., Intellects, Souls of heavenly bodies,
heavens, simple elements, time, motion.
(2) Contingent, e.g., Compounds of various elements. The
motion of the heavens is eternal, and makes up the various
cycles of the Universe. It is due to the intense longing of the
heaven-soul to receive illumination from the source of all
light. The matter of which the heavens are constructed is
completely free from the operation of chemical processes,
incidental to the grosser forms of the not-light. Every heaven
has its own matter peculiar to it alone. Likewise the heavens
differ from one another in the direction of their motion; and
the difference is explained by the fact that the beloved, or the
sustaining illumination, is different in each case. Motion is
only an aspect of time. It is the summing up of the elements of
time, which, as externalized, is motion. The distinction of
past, present, and future is made only for the sake of
convenience, and does not exist in the nature of time(1). We
cannot conceive the beginning of time; for the supposed
beginning would be a point of time itself. Time and motion,
therefore, are both eternal.
There are three primordial elements - water, earth, and
wind. Fire, according to the Ishraqis, is only burning wind. The
combinations of these elements, under various heavenly
influences, assume various forms - fluidity, gaseousness,
solidity. This transformation of the original elements
constitutes the process of "making and un making" which pervades
the entire sphere of the not-light, raising the different f orms
of existence higher and higher, and bringing them nearer and
nearer to the illuminating forces. All the phenomena of nature -
rain, clouds, thunder, meteors - are the various workings of
this immanent principle of motion, and are explained by the
direct or indirect operation of the Primal Light on things,
which differ from one another in their capacity of receiving
more or less illumination. The Universe, in one word, is a
petrified desire; a crystallized longing after light.
But is it eternal? The Universe is a
manifestation of the illuminative Power which constitutes the
essential nature of the Primal Light, In so far, therefore, as
it is a manifestation, it is only a dependent being, and
consequently not eternal. But in another sense it is eternal.
All the different spheres of being exist by the illuminations
and rays of the Eternal light. There are some illuminations
which are directly eternal; while there are other fainter ones,
the appearance of which depends on the combination of other
illuminations and rays. The existence of these is not eternal in
the same sense as the existence of the pre-existing parent
illuminations. The existence of color, for instance, is
contingent in comparison to that of the ray, which manifests
color when a dark body is brought before an illuminating body.
The Universe, therefore, though contingent as manifestation, is
eternal by the eternal character of its source. Those who hold
the non-eternity of the Universe argue on the assumption of the
possibility of a complete induction. Their argument proceeds in
the following manner:
(1) Everyone of the Abyssinians is black; therefore all
Abyssinians are black.
(2) Every motion began at a definite moment; therefore
all motion must begin so.
But this mode of argumentation is vicious. It is quite
impossible to state the major. One cannot collect all the
Abyssinians past, present, and future, at one particular moment
of time. Such a Universal, therefore, is impossible. Hence from
the examination of individual Abyssinians, or particular
instances of motion which fall within the pale of our
experience, it is rash to infer that all Abyssinians are black,
or all motion had a beginning in time.
Psychology
Motion and light are not concomitant in the case of
bodies of a lower order. A piece of stone, f or instance, though
illuminated and hence visible, is not endowed with
self-initiated movement. As we rise, however, in the scale of
being, we find higher bodies, or organisms in which motion and
light are associated together. The abstract illumination finds
its best dwelling place in man. But the question arises whether
the individual abstract illumination which we call the human
soul, did or did not exist before its physical accompaniment.
The founder of Ishraqi Philosophy follows Avicenna in
connection with this question, and uses the same arguments to
show that the individual abstract illuminations cannot be held
to have pre-existed, as so many units of light. The material
categories of one and many cannot be applied to the abstract
illumination which, in its essential nature, is neither one nor
many; - though it appears as many owing to the various degrees
of illumination receptivity in its material accompaniments. The
relation between the abstract illumination, or soul and body, is
not that of cause and effect; the bond of union between them is
love. The body which longs for illumination, receives it through
the soul; since its nature does not
permit a direct communication between the source of light and
itself. But the soul cannot transmit the directly received light
to the dark solid body which, considering its attributes, stands
on the opposite pole of being. In order to be related to each
other, they require a medium between them, something standing
midway between light and darkness. This medium is the animal
soul - a hot, fine, transparent vapour which has its principal
seat in the left cavity of the heart, but also circulates in all
parts of the body. It is because of the partial identity of the
animal soul with light that, in dark nights, land-animals run
towards the burning fire; while sea-animals leave their aquatic
abodes in order to enjoy the beautiful sight of the moon. The
ideal of man, therefore, is to rise higher and higher in the
scale of being, and to receive more and more illumination which
gradually brings complete freedom from the world of forms. But
how is this ideal to be realized ? By knowledge and action. It
is the transformation of both understanding and will, the union
of action and contemplation, that actualizes the highest ideal
of man. Change your attitude towards the Universe, and adopt the
line of conduct necessitated by the change. Let us briefly
consider these means of realization:
(a) Knowledge.
When the
Abstract illumination associates itself with a higher organism,
it works out its development by the operation of certain
faculties - the powers of light, and the powers of darkness. The
former are the five external senses, and the five internal
senses - sensorium, conception, imagination, understanding, and
memory; the latter are the powers of growth, digestion, etc. But
such a division of faculties is only convenient. "One faculty
can be the source of all operations (1)." There is only one
power in the middle of the brain, though it receives different
names from different standpoints. The mind is a unity which, for
the sake of convenience, is regarded as multiplicity. The power
residing in the middle of the brain must be distinguished from
the abstract illumination which constitutes the real essence of
man. The philosopher of illumination appears to draw a
distinction between the active mind and the essentially inactive
soul; yet he teaches that, in some mysterious way, all the
various faculties are connected with the soul.
The most original point in his psychology of
intellection, however, is his theory of vision (2). The ray of
light which is supposed to come out of the eye must be either
substance or quality. If quality, it cannot be transmitted from
one substance (eye) to another substance (visible body). If, on
the other hand, it is a substance, it moves either consciously,
or impelled by its inherent nature. Conscious movement would
make it an animal perceiving other things, The perceiver in this
case would be the ray, not man. if the movement of the
ray is an attribute of its nature, there is no reason why its
movement should be peculiar to one direction, and not to all.
The ray of light, therefore, cannot be regarded as coming out of
the eye. The followers of Aristotle hold that in the process of
vision images of objects are printed on the eye. This view is
also erroneous; since images of big things cannot be printed on
a small space. The truth is that when a thing comes before the
eye, an illumination takes place, and the mind sees the object
through that illumination. When there is no veil between the
object and the normal sight, and the mind is ready to perceive,
the act of vision must take place; since this is the law of
things. "All vision is illumination; and we see things in God".
Berkley explained the relativity of our sight-perceptions with a
view to show that the ultimate ground of all ideas is God. The
Ishraqi Philosopher has the same object in view, though his
theory of vision is not so much an explanation of the
sight-process as a new way of looking at the fact of vision.
(b) Action. Man as an active being has the
following motive powers:
(a) Reason or the Angelic soul - the source of
intelligence, discrimination, and love of knowledge.
(b) The beast-soul which is the source of anger, courage,
dominance, and ambition.
(c) The animal soul which is the source of lust, hunger
and sexual passion.
The first leads to wisdom; the second and third, if
controlled by reason, lead respectively to bravery and chastity.
The harmonious use of all results in the virtue of justice. The
possibility of spiritual progress by virtue, shows that this
world is the best possible world. Things as existent are neither
good nor bad. It is misuse or limited standpoint that makes them
so. Still the fact of evil cannot be denied. Evil does exist;
but it is far less in amount than good. It is peculiar only to a
part of the world of darkness; while there are other parts of
the Universe which are quite free from the taint of evil. The
sceptic who attributes. the existence of evil to the creative
agency of God, presupposes resemblance between human and divine
action, and does not see that nothing existent is free in his
sense of the word. Divine activity cannot be regarded as the
creator of evil in the same sense as we regard some forms of
human activity as the cause of evil(1).
It is, then, by the union of knowledge and virtue that
the soul frees itself from the world of darkness. As we know
more and more of the nature of things, we are brought closer and
closer to the world of light; and the love of that world becomes
more and more intense. The stages of spiritual development are
infinite, since the degrees of love are infinite. The principal
stages, however, are as follows:
(1) The stage of " I ". In this stage feeling of
personality is most predominant, and the spring of human action
is generally selfishness.
(2) The stage of " Thou
art not
Complete
absorption in one's own deep self to the entire forgetfulness of
everything external.
(3) The stage of "I
am
not". This stage is the necessary
result of the second.
(4) The stage of “Thou
art”
The absolute negation of "I", and the
affirmation of "Thou", which means complete resignation to the
will of God.
(5) The stage of "I
am not; and
Thou art not”.
The complete
negation of both the terms of thought - the state of cosmic
consciousness.
Each stage is marked by more or less intense
illuminations, which are accompanied by some indescribable
sounds. Death does not put an end to the spiritual progress of
the soul. The individual souls, after death, are not unified
into one Soul, but continue different from each other in
proportion to the illumination they received during their
companionship with physical organisms. The Philosopher of
illumination anticipates Leibniz's doctrine of the Identity of
Indiscernible, and holds that no two souls can be completely
similar to each other.
When
the material machinery which it adopts for the purpose of
acquiring gradual illumination, is exhausted, the soul probably
takes up another body determined by the experiences of the
previous life; and rises higher and higher in the different
spheres of being, adopting forms peculiar to those spheres,
until it reaches its destination - the state of absolute
negation. Some souls probably come back to this world in order
to make up their deficiencies (1). The doctrine of
transmigration cannot be proved or disproved from a purely
logical standpoint; though it is a probable hypothesis to
account for the future destiny of the soul. All souls are thus
constantly journeying towards their common source, which calls
back the whole Universe when this journey is over, and starts
another cycle of being to reproduce, in almost all respects, the
history of the preceding cycles.
Such is the philosophy of the great Persian martyr. He
is, properly speaking, the first Persian systematize who
recognizes the elements of truth in all the aspects of Persian
speculation, and skillfully synthesizes them in his own system.
He is a pantheist in so far as he defines God as the sum total
of all sensible and ideal existence(2). To him, unlike some of
his Sufi predecessors, the world is something real, and the
human soul a distinct individuality. With the orthodox
theologian, he maintains that the ultimate cause of every
phenomenon, is the Absolute Light whose illumination forms the
very essence of the universe. In his psychology he follows
Avicenna, but his treatment of this branch of study is more
systematic and more empirical. As an ethical philosopher, he is
a follower of Aristotle whose doctrine of the mean he explains
and illustrates with great thoroughness. Above all he modifies
and transforms the traditional Neo-Platonism, into a thoroughly
Persian system of thought which, not only approaches Plato, but
also spiritualises the old Persian Dualism.. No Persian thinker
is more alive to the necessity of explaining all the aspects of
objective existence in. reference to his fundamental principles.
He constantly appeals to experience, and endeavours to explain
even the physical phenomena in the light of his theory of
illumination. In his system objectivity, which was completely
swallowed up by the exceedingly subjective character of extreme
pantheism, claims its due again, and, having been subjected to a
detailed examination, finds a comprehensive explanation. No
wonder then that this acute thinker succeeded in founding a
system of thought, which has always exercised the greatest
fascination over minds - uniting speculation and emotion in
perfect harmony. The narrow-mindedness of his contemporaries
gave him the title of "Maqtul" (the killed one), signifying that
he was not to be regarded as "Shahid" (Martyr); but succeeding
generations of Sufis and philosophers have always given him the
profoundest veneration.
I may here notice a less spiritual form
of the Ishraqi mode of thought. Nasafi(1) describes a phase of
Sufi thought which reverted to the old materialistic dualism of
Mani. The advocates of this view hold that light and darkness
are essential to each other. They are, in reality, two rivers
which mix with each other like oil and milk(2), out of which
arises the diversity of things. The ideal of human action is
freedom from the taint of darkness; and the freedom of light
from darkness means the self-consciousness of light as light.
Al-Jili was born in 767 A.H., as he
himself says in one of his verses, and died in 811 A.H. He was
not a prolific writer like Shaikh Muhy al-Din ibn `Arabi whose
mode of thought seems to have greatly influenced his teaching.
He combined in himself poetical imagination and philosophical
genius, but his poetry is no more than a vehicle for his
mystical and metaphysical doctrines. Among other books he wrote
a commentary on Shaikh Muhy al-Din ibn `Arabi's al-Futuhat al-Makkiya,
a commentary on Bismillah, and the famous work Insan al-Kamil,
(printed in Cairo).
Essence pure and simple, he says, is the thing to which
names and attributes are given, whether it is existent actually
or ideally. The existent is of two species:
(2) The existence joined with non-existence--Creation -
Nature.
The Essence of God or Pure Thought cannot be understood;
no words can express it, for it is beyond all relation and
knowledge is relation. The intellect flying through the
fathomless empty space pierces through the veil of names and
attributes, traverses the vasty sphere of time, enters the
domain of the nonexistent and f inds the Essence of Pure Thought
to be an existence which is non-existence - a sum of
contradictions(1). It has two (accidents); eternal life in all
past time and eternal life in all future time. It has two
(qualities), God and creation. It has two (definitions),
uncreatableness and creatableness. It has two names, God and
man. It has two faces, the manifested (this world) and the
unmanifested (the next world). It has two effects, necessity and
possibility, It has two points of view; from the first it is
non-existent for itself but existent for what is not itself;
from the second it is existent for itself and non-existent for
what is not itself.
Name, he says, fixes the named in the under standing,
pictures it in the mind, presents it in the imagination and
keeps it in the memory. It is the outside or the husk, as it
were, of the named; while the named is the inside or the pith.
Some names do not exist in reality but exist in name only as “Anqa”
(a fabulous bird). It is a name the object of which does not
exist in reality. just as "Anqa" is absolutely non-existent, so
God is absolutely present, although He cannot be touched and
seen. The "'Anqa" exists only in idea while the object of the
name "Allah" exists in reality and can be known like "`Anqa"
only through its names and attributes. The name is a mirror
which reveals all the secrets of the Absolute Being; it is a
light through the agency of which God sees Himself - Al-Jili
here approaches the Isma`ilia view that we should seek the Named
through the Name.
In order to understand this passage we should bear in
mind the three stages of the development of Pure Being,
enumerated by him. He holds that the Absolute existence or Pure
Being, when it leaves its absoluteness undergoes three stages:-
(1) Oneness. (2) He-ness. (3) I-ness. In the first stage there
is an absence of all attributes and relations, yet it is called
one, and, therefore, oneness marks one step away from the
absoluteness. In the second stage Pure Being is set free from
all manifestation, while the third stage, I-ness, is nothing but
an external manifestation of the He-ness; or, as Hegel would
say, it is the self-diremption of God. This third stage is the
sphere of the name Allah; here the darkness of Pure Being is
illuminated, nature comes to the front, the Absolute Being has
become conscious. He says further that the name Allah is the
stuff of all the perfections of the different phases of
Divinity, and in the second
stage of the progress of Pure Being,
all that is the result of Divine self-disruption was potentially
contained within the titanic grasp of this name which, in the
third stage of the development, objectified itself, became a
mirror in which God reflected Himself, and thus by its
crystallization dispelled all the gloom of the Absolute Being.
In correspondence with these three stages of the absolute
development, the perfect man has three stages of spiritual
training. But in his case the process of development must be the
reverse; because his is the process of ascent, while the
Absolute Being had undergone essentially a process of descent.
In the first stage of his spiritual progress he meditates on the
name, studies nature on which it is sealed; in the second stage
he steps into the sphere of the Attribute, and in the third
stage enters the sphere of the Essence. It is here that he
becomes the Perfect Man; his eye becomes the eye of God, his
word the word of God and his life the life of God - participates
in the general life of Nature and "sees into the life of things
".
To turn now to the nature of the attribute. His views on
this most interesting question are very important, because it is
here that his doctrine fundamentally differs from Hindu
Idealism. He defines attribute as an agency which gives us a
knowledge of the state of things. Elsewhere he says that this
distinction of attribute from the underlying reality is tenable
only in the sphere of the manifested, because here every
attribute is regarded as the other of the reality in which it is
supposed to inhere. This otherness is due to the existence of
combination and disintegration in the sphere of the manifested.
But the distinction is untenable in the domain of the un
manifested, because there is no combination or disintegration
there. It should be observed how widely he differs from the
advocates of the Doctrine of "Maya".
He believes
that the material world has real existence; it is the outward
husk of the real being, no doubt, but this outward husk is not
the less real. The cause of the phenomenal world, according to
him, is not a real entity hidden behind the sum of attributes,
but it is a conception furnished by the mind so that there may
be no difficulty in understanding the material world. Berkeley
and Fichte will so far agree with our author, but his view leads
him to the most characteristically Hegelian doctrine identity of
thought and being. In the thirty-seventh chapter of the second
volume of Insan al-Kamil, he clearly says that idea is the stuff
of which this universe is made; thought, idea, notion is the
material of the structure of nature. While laying stress on this
doctrine he says, "Dost thou not look to thine own belief ?
Where is the reality in which the so-called Divine attributes
inhere? It is but the idea" Hence nature is nothing but a
crystallized idea. He gives his hearty assent to the results of
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason; but, unlike him, he makes
this very idea the essence of the Universe. Kant's Ding an
sich to him is a pure nonentity; there is nothing behind the
collection of attributes. The attributes are the real things,
the material world is but the objectification of the Absolute
Being; it is the other self of the Absolute another which owes
its existence to the principle of difference in the nature of
the Absolute itself. Nature is the idea of God, a something
necessary for His knowledge of Himself. While Hegel calls his
doctrine the identity of thought and being, Al-Jili calls it the
identity of attribute and reality. It should be noted that the
author's phrase, "world of attributes", which he uses for the
material world is slightly misleading. What he really holds is
that the distinction of attribute and reality is merely
phenomenal, and does not at all exist in the nature of things.
It is useful, because it facilitates our understanding of the
world around us, but it is not at all real. It will be
understood that Al-Jili recognizes the truth of Empirical
Idealism only tentatively, and does not admit the absoluteness
of the distinction. These remarks should not lead us to
understand that Al-Jili does not believe in the objective
reality of the thing in itself. He does believe in it, but then
he advocates its unity, and says that the material world is the
thing in itself; it is the "other", the external expression of
the thing in itself. The Ding an sich and its external
expression or the production of its self-disruption, are really
identical. though we discriminate between them in order to
facilitate our understanding of the universe. If they are not
identical, he says, how could one manifest the other? In one
word, he means by Ding an sich, the Pure, the Absolute
Being, and seeks it through its manifestation or external
expression. He says that as long as we do not realize the
identity of attribute and reality, the material world or the
world of attributes seems to be a veil; but when the doctrine is
brought home to us the veil is removed; we see the Essence
itself everywhere, and find that all the attributes are but
ourselves. Nature then appears in her true light; all otherness
is removed and we are one with her The aching prick of curiosity
ceases, and the inquisitive attitude of our minds in replaced by
a state of philosophic calm. To the person who has realized this
identity, discoveries of science bring no new information, and
religion with her role of supernatural authority has nothing to
say. This is the spiritual emancipation.
(1) The names and attributes of God as He is in Himself
(Allah, The One, The Odd, The Light, The Truth, The Pure, The
Living).
(2) The names and attributes of God as the source of all
glory (The Great and High, The All powerful).
(3) The names and attributes of God as all Perfection
(The Creator, The Benefactor, The First, The Last).
(4) The names and attributes of God as all Beauty (The
Untreatable, The Painter, The Merciful,. The Origin of all).
Each of these names and attributes has its own particular effect
by which it illuminates the soul of the perfect man and Nature.
How these illuminations take place, and how they reach the soul
is not explained by Al-jili. His silence about these matters
throws into more relief the mystical portion of his views and
implies the necessity of spiritual Directorship.
Before considering Al-Jili's views of particular Divine
Names and Attributes, we should note that his conception of God,
implied in the above classification, is very similar to that of
Schleiermacher. While the German theologian reduces all the
divine attributes to one single attribute of Power, our author
sees the danger of advancing a God free from all attributes, yet
recognizes with Schleiermacher that in Himself God is an
unchangeable unity, and that His attributes "are nothing more
than views of Him from different human standpoints, the various
appearances which the one changeless cause presents to our
finite intelligence according as we look at it from different
sides of the spiritual landscape (1) ." In His absolute
existence He is beyond the limitation of names and attributes,
but when He externalizes Himself, when He leaves His
absoluteness, when nature is born, names and attributes appear
sealed on her very fabric.
The second stage of the spiritual training is what he
calls the illumination of the Attribute. This illumination makes
the perfect man receive the attributes of God in their real
nature in proportion to the power of receptivity possessed by
him - a fact which classifies men according to the magnitude of
this light resulting from the illumination. Some men receive
illumination from the divine attribute of Life, and thus
participate in the soul of the Universe. The effect of this
light is soaring in the air, walking on water, changing the
magnitude of things (as Christ so often did). In this wise the
perfect man receives illumination from all the Divine
attributes, crosses the sphere of the name and the attribute,
and steps into the domain of the Essence - Absolute Existence.
As we have already seen, the Absolute Being, when it
leaves its absoluteness, has three voyages to undergo, each
voyage being a process of particularization of the bare
universality of the Absolute Essence. Each of these three
movements appears under a new Essential Name which has its own
peculiar illuminating. effect upon the human soul, Here is the
end of our author's spiritual ethics; man has become perfect,
he has amalgamated himself with the Absolute Being, or
has learnt what Hegel calls The Absolute Philosophy. “He
becomes the paragon of perfection, the object of worship, the
preserver of the Universe (1)”. He is the point where Man-ness
and God-ness become one, and result in the birth of the god-man.
Let us now sum up Al-Jili's Doctrine of the Trinity.
We have seen the three movements of the Absolute Being, or
the first three categories of Pure
Being; we have also seen that the third
movement is , attended with external manifestation, which is the
self-disruption of the Essence into God and man.. This
separation makes a gap which is filled by the perfect man, who
shares in both the Divine and the human attributes. He holds
that the perfect man is the preserver of the Universe; hence in
his view,, the appearance of the perfect man is a necessary
condition for the continuation of nature. It is easy,.
therefore, to understand that in the god-man, the Absolute Being
which has left its absoluteness, returns into itself; and, but
for the god-man, it could not have done so; for then there would
have been no nature, and consequently no light through which God
could have seen Himself. The light through the agency of which
God sees Himself is due to the principle of difference in the
nature of the Absolute Being itself. He recognizes this
principle in the following verses:
If you say no, but He is three, you are right, for this is the
real nature of man.
The perfect man, then, is the joining link. On the
one hand he receives illumination from all the Essential names,
on the other hand all Divine attributes reappear in him. These
attributes are:
1. Independent life or existence.
2. Knowledge which is a form of life,
as he proves from a verse from the Qur'an,
3. Will - the principle of particularization, or the
manifestation of Being. He defines it as the illumination of the
knowledge of God according to the requirements of the Essence;
hence it is a particular form of knowledge. It has nine
manifestations, all of which are different names for love; the
last is the love in which the lover and the beloved, the knower
and the known merge into each other, and become identical. This
form of love, he says, is the Absolute Essence; as Christianity
teaches, God is love. He guards here, against the error of
looking upon the individual act of will as uncaused. Only the
act of the universal will is uncaused; hence he implies the
Hegelian Doctrine of Freedom, and holds that the acts of man are
both free and determined.
4. Power, which expresses itself in self-diremption,
i.e., creation. He controverts Shaikh Muhy al-Din ibn `Arabi's
position that the Universe existed before the creation in the
knowledge of God. He says, this would imply that God did not
create it out of nothing, and holds that the Universe, before
its existence as an idea, existed in the self of God.
5. The word or the reflected being. Every possibility is
the word of God; hence nature is the materialization of the word
of God. It has different names - the tangible word, the sum of
the realities of man, the arrangement of the Divinity, the
spread of Oneness, the
expression of the Unknown, the phases of Beauty, the trace of
names and attributes, and the object of God's knowledge.
6. The Power of hearing the inaudible.
7. The Power of seeing the invisible.
8. Beauty - that which seems least beautiful in nature (the
reflected beauty) is in its real existence, beauty. Evil is only
relative, it has no real existence; :sin is merely a relative
deformity.
9. Glory or beauty in its intensity.
10. Perfection, which is the unknowable essence of God and
therefore Unlimited and Infinite.
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