THE UNCOVERING OF THE SEVENTH VEIL: ON FASTING (_al-ṣawm_).
God hath said: “_O believers, fasting is prescribed unto you_” (Kor. ii,
179). And the Apostle said that he was informed by Gabriel that God
said: “Fasting is mine, and I have the best right to give recompense for
it” (_al-ṣawm lí wa-ana ajzá bihi_),[159] because the religious practice
of fasting is a mystery unconnected with any external thing, a mystery
in which none other than God participates: hence its recompense is
infinite. It has been said that mankind enter Paradise through God’s
mercy, and that their rank therein depends on their religious devotion,
and that their abiding therein for ever is the recompense of their
fasting, because God said: “I have the best right to give recompense for
it.” Junayd said: “Fasting is half of the Way.” I have seen Shaykhs who
fasted without intermission, and others who fasted only during the month
of Ramaḍán: the former were seeking recompense, and the latter were
renouncing self-will and ostentation. Again, I have seen others who
fasted and were not conscious of anyone and ate only when food was set
before them. This is more in accordance with the Sunna. It is related
that the Apostle came to `Á´isha and Ḥafṣa, who said to him: “We have
kept some dates and butter (_ḥays_) for thee.” “Bring it,” said he; “I
was intending to fast, but I will fast another day instead.” I have seen
others who fasted on the “white days” (from the 13th to the 15th of
every month), and on the ten (last nights) of the blessed month
(Ramaḍán), and also during Rajab, Sha`bán, and Ramaḍán. Others I have
seen who observed the fast of David, which the Apostle called the best
of fasts, i.e. they fasted one day and broke their fast the next day.
Once I came into the presence of Shaykh Aḥmad Bukhárí. He had a dish of
sweetmeat (_ḥalwá_) before him, from which he was eating, and he made a
sign to me that I should do the same. As is the way of young men, I
answered (without consideration) that I was fasting. He asked why. I
said: “In conformity with such and such a one.” He said: “It is not
right for human beings to conform with human beings.” I was about to
break my fast, but he said: “Since you wish to be quit of conformity
with him, do not conform with me, for I too am a human being.” Fasting
is really abstinence, and this includes the whole method of Ṣúfiism
(_ṭaríqat_). The least degree in fasting is hunger, which is God’s food
on earth, and is universally commended in the eye of the law and of
reason. One month’s continual fasting is incumbent on every reasonable
Moslem who has attained to manhood. The fast begins on the appearance of
the moon of Ramaḍán, and continues until the appearance of the moon of
Shawwál, and for every day a sincere intention and firm obligation are
necessary. Abstinence involves many obligations, e.g., keeping the belly
without food and drink, and guarding the eye from lustful looks, and the
ear from listening to evil speech about anyone in his absence, and the
tongue from vain or foul words, and the body from following after
worldly things and disobedience to God. One who acts in this manner is
truly keeping his fast, for the Apostle said to a certain man, “When you
fast, let your ear fast and your eye and your tongue and your hand and
every limb;” and he also said, “Many a one has no good of his fasting
except hunger and thirst.”
Footnote 159:
The usual reading is _ajzí_, “I give recompense,” but the Persian
translation, _ba-jazá-yi án man awlátaram_, is equivalent to _ana ajzá
bihi_.
I dreamed that I saw the Apostle and asked him to give me a word of
counsel, and that he replied: “Imprison thy tongue and thy senses.” To
imprison the senses is complete self-mortification, because all kinds of
knowledge are acquired through the five senses: sight, hearing, taste,
smell, and touch. Four of the senses have a particular _locus_, but the
fifth, namely touch, is spread over the whole body. Everything that
becomes known to human beings passes through these five doors, except
intuitive knowledge and Divine inspiration, and in each sense there is a
purity and an impurity; for, just as they are open to knowledge, reason,
and spirit, so they are open to imagination and passion, being organs
which partake of piety and sin and of felicity and misery. Therefore it
behoves him who is keeping a fast to imprison all the senses in order
that they may return from disobedience to obedience. To abstain only
from food and drink is child’s play. One must abstain from idle
pleasures and unlawful acts, not from eating lawful food. I marvel at
those who say that they are keeping a voluntary fast and yet fail to
perform an obligatory duty. Not to commit sin is obligatory, whereas
continual fasting is an apostolic custom (which may be observed or
neglected). When a man is divinely protected from sin all his
circumstances are a fast. It is related by Abú Ṭalḥa al-Málikí that Sahl
b. `Abdalláh of Tustar was fasting on the day of his birth and also on
the day of his death, because he was born in the forenoon and tasted no
milk until the evening prayer, and on the day of his decease he was
keeping a fast. But continual fasting (_rúza-i wiṣál_) has been
forbidden by the Apostle, for when he fasted continually, and his
Companions conformed with him in that respect, he forbade them, saying:
“I am not as one of you: I pass the night with my Lord, who gives me
food and drink.” The votaries of self-mortification assert that this
prohibition was an act of indulgence, not a veto declaring such fasts to
be unlawful, and others regard them as being contrary to the Sunna, but
the fact is that continuance (_wiṣál_) is impossible, because the day’s
fast is interrupted by night or, at any rate, does not continue beyond a
certain period. It is related that Sahl b. `Abdalláh of Tustar used to
eat only once in fifteen days, and when the month of Ramaḍán arrived he
ate nothing until the Feast, and performed four hundred bowings in
prayer every night. This exceeds the limit of human endurance, and
cannot be accomplished by anyone without Divine aid, which itself
becomes his nourishment. It is well known that Shaykh Abú Naṣr
Sarráj,[160] the author of the _Luma`_,[161] who was surnamed the
Peacock of the Poor (_Ṭá´ús al-fuqará_), came to Baghdád in the month of
Ramaḍán, and was given a private chamber in the Shúníziyya mosque, and
was appointed to preside over the dervishes until the Feast. During the
nightly prayers of Ramaḍán (_taráwíḥ_) he recited the whole Koran five
times. Every night a servant brought a loaf of bread to his room. When
he departed, on the day of the Feast, the servant found all the thirty
loaves untouched. `Alí b. Bakkár relates that Ḥafṣ Miṣṣísí ate nothing
in Ramaḍán except on the fifteenth day of that month. We are told that
Ibráhím Adham fasted from the beginning to the end of Ramaḍán, and,
although it was the month of Tammúz (July), worked every day as a
harvester and gave his wages to the dervishes, and prayed from nightfall
to daybreak; they watched him closely and saw that he neither ate nor
slept. It is said that Shaykh Abú `Abdalláh Khafíf during his life kept
forty uninterrupted fasts of forty days, and I have met with an old man
who used annually to keep two fasts of forty days in the desert. I was
present at the death-bed of Dánishmand Abú Muḥammad Bángharí; he had
tasted no food for eighty days and had not missed a single occasion of
public worship. At Merv there were two spiritual directors; one was
called Mas`úd and the other was Shaykh Abú `Alí Siyáh. Mas`úd sent a
message to Abú `Alí, saying: “How long shall we make empty pretensions?
Come, let us sit fasting for forty days.” Abú `Alí replied: “No; let us
eat three times a day and nevertheless require only one purification
during these forty days.” The difficulties of this question are not yet
removed. Ignorant persons conclude that continuance in fasting is
possible, while physicians allege that such a theory is entirely
baseless. I will now explain the matter in full. To fast continuously,
without infringing the Divine command, is a miracle (_karámat_).
Miracles have a special, not a general, application: if they were
vouchsafed to all, faith would be an act of necessity (_jabr_) and
gnostics would not be recompensed on account of gnosis. The Apostle
wrought evidentiary miracles (_mu`jizát_) and therefore divulged his
continuance in fasting; but he forbade the saints (_ahl-i karámat_) to
divulge it, because a _karámat_ involves concealment, whereas a
_mu`jizat_ involves revelation. This is a clear distinction between the
miracles performed by Apostles and those performed by saints, and will
be sufficient for anyone who is divinely guided. The forty days’ fasts
(_chilla_) of the saints are derived from the fast of Moses (Kor. vii,
138). When the saints desire to hear the word of God spiritually, they
remain fasting for forty days. After thirty days have passed they rub
their teeth; then they fast ten days more, and God speaks to their
hearts, because whatever the prophets enjoy openly the saints may enjoy
secretly. Now, hearing the word of God is not compatible with the
subsistence of the natural temperament: therefore the four humours must
be deprived of food and drink for forty days in order that they may be
utterly subdued, and that the purity of love and the subtlety of the
spirit may hold absolute sway.
Footnote 160:
_Nafaḥát_, No. 353.
Footnote 161:
“Brilliancies.” _Naf._ entitles it لمعه.
_Chapter on Hunger and matters connected with it._
Hunger sharpens the intelligence and improves the mind and health. The
Apostle said: “Make your bellies hungry and your livers thirsty and your
bodies naked, that perchance your hearts may see God in this world.”
Although hunger is an affliction to the body, it illumines the heart and
purifies the soul, and leads the spirit into the presence of God. To eat
one’s fill is an act worthy of a beast. One who cultivates his spiritual
nature by means of hunger, in order to devote himself entirely to God
and detach himself from worldly ties, is not on the same level with one
who cultivates his body by means of gluttony, and serves his lusts. “The
men of old ate to live, but ye live to eat.” For the sake of a morsel of
food Adam fell from Paradise, and was banished far from the
neighbourhood of God.
He whose hunger is compulsory is not really hungry, because one who
desires to eat after God has decreed the contrary is virtually eating;
the merit of hunger belongs to him who abstains from eating, not to him
who is debarred from eating. Kattání[162] says: “The novice shall sleep
only when he is overpowered by slumber, and speak only when he must, and
eat only when he is starving.” According to some, starvation (_fáqa_)
involves abstention from food for two days and nights; others say three
days and nights, or a week, or forty days, because true mystics believe
that a sincere man (_ṣádiq_) is only once hungry in forty days; his
hunger merely serves to keep him alive, and all hunger besides is
natural appetite and vanity. You must know that all the veins in the
bodies of gnostics are evidences of the Divine mysteries, and that their
hearts are tenanted by visions of the Most High. Their hearts are doors
opened in their breasts, and at these doors are stationed reason and
passion: reason is reinforced by the spirit, and passion by the lower
soul. The more the natural humours are nourished by food, the stronger
does the lower soul become, and the more impetuously is passion diffused
through the members of the body; and in every vein a different kind of
veil (_ḥijábí_) is produced. But when food is withheld from the lower
soul it grows weak, and the reason gains strength, and the mysteries and
evidences of God become more visible, until, when the lower soul is
unable to work and passion is annihilated, every vain desire is effaced
in the manifestation of the Truth, and the seeker of God attains to the
whole of his desire. It is related that Abu ´l-`Abbás Qaṣṣáb said: “My
obedience and disobedience depend on two cakes of bread: when I eat I
find in myself the stuff of every sin, but when I abstain from eating I
find in myself the foundation of every act of piety.” The fruit of
hunger is contemplation of God (_musháhadat_), of which the forerunner
is mortification (_mujáhadat_). Repletion combined with contemplation is
better than hunger combined with mortification, because contemplation is
the battle-field of men, whereas mortification is the playground of
children.
Footnote 162:
_Nafahát_, No. 215.