THE GNOSIS
The Sūfīs distinguish three organs of spiritual communication: the
heart (_qalb_), which knows God; the spirit (_rūh_), which loves Him;
and the inmost ground of the soul (_sirr_), which contemplates Him. It
would take us into deep waters if we were to embark upon a discussion
of these terms and their relation to each other. A few words concerning
the first of the three will suffice. The _qalb_, though connected
in some mysterious way with the physical heart, is not a thing of
flesh and blood. Unlike the English ‘heart,’ its nature is rather
intellectual than emotional, but whereas the intellect cannot gain real
knowledge of God, the _qalb_ is capable of knowing the essences of all
things, and when illumined by faith and knowledge reflects the whole
content of the divine mind; hence the Prophet said, “My earth and My
heaven contain Me not, but the heart of My faithful servant containeth
Me.” This revelation, however, is a comparatively rare experience.
Normally, the heart is ‘veiled,’ blackened by sin, tarnished by sensual
impressions and images, pulled to and fro between reason and passion:
a battlefield on which the armies of God and the Devil contend for
victory. Through one gate, the heart receives immediate knowledge
of God; through another, it lets in the illusions of sense. “Here a
world and there a world,” says Jalāluddīn Rūmī. “I am seated on the
threshold.” Therefore man is potentially lower than the brutes and
higher than the angels.
“Angel and brute man’s wondrous leaven compose;
To these inclining, less than these he grows,
But if he means the angel, more than those.”
Less than the brutes, because they lack the knowledge that would enable
them to rise; more than the angels, because they are not subject to
passion and so cannot fall.
How shall a man know God? Not by the senses, for He is immaterial; nor
by the intellect, for He is unthinkable. Logic never gets beyond the
finite; philosophy sees double; book-learning fosters self-conceit and
obscures the idea of the Truth with clouds of empty words. Jalāluddīn
Rūmī, addressing the scholastic theologian, asks scornfully:
“Do you know a name without a thing answering to it?
Have you ever plucked a rose from R, O, S, E?
You name His name; go, seek the reality named by it!
Look for the moon in the sky, not in the water!
If you desire to rise above mere names and letters,
Make yourself free from self at one stroke.
Become pure from all attributes of self,
That you may see your own bright essence,
Yea, see in your own heart the knowledge of the Prophet,
Without book, without tutor, without preceptor.”
This knowledge comes by illumination, revelation, inspiration.
“Look in your own heart,” says the Sūfī, “for the kingdom of God is
within you.” He who truly knows himself knows God, for the heart is a
mirror in which every divine quality is reflected. But just as a steel
mirror when coated with rust loses its power of reflexion, so the
inward spiritual sense, which Sūfīs call the eye of the heart, is blind
to the celestial glory until the dark obstruction of the phenomenal
self, with all its sensual contaminations, has been wholly cleared
away. The clearance, if it is to be done effectively, must be the work
of God, though it demands a certain inward co-operation on the part of
man. “Whosoever shall strive for Our sake, We will guide him into Our
ways” (Kor. =29.= 69). Action is false and vain, if it is thought to
proceed from one’s self, but the enlightened mystic regards God as the
real agent in every act, and therefore takes no credit for his good
works nor desires to be recompensed for them.
While ordinary knowledge is denoted by the term _ʿilm_, the mystic
knowledge peculiar to the Sūfīs is called _maʿrifat_ or _ʿirfān_. As I
have indicated in the foregoing paragraphs, _maʿrifat_ is fundamentally
different from _ʿilm_, and a different word must be used to translate
it. We need not look far for a suitable equivalent. The _maʿrifat_
of the Sūfīs is the ‘gnosis’ of Hellenistic theosophy, _i.e._ direct
knowledge of God based on revelation or apocalyptic vision. It is not
the result of any mental process, but depends entirely on the will and
favour of God, who bestows it as a gift from Himself upon those whom He
has created with the capacity for receiving it. It is a light of divine
grace that flashes into the heart and overwhelms every human faculty in
its dazzling beams. “He who knows God is dumb.”
The relation of gnosis to positive religion is discussed in a very
remarkable treatise on speculative mysticism by Niffarī, an unknown
wandering dervish who died in Egypt in the latter half of the tenth
century. His work, consisting of a series of revelations in which God
addresses the writer and instructs him concerning the theory of gnosis,
is couched in abstruse language and would scarcely be intelligible
without the commentary which accompanies it; but its value as an
original exposition of advanced Sūfism will sufficiently appear from
the excerpts given in this chapter.[8]
[8] I am now engaged in preparing an edition of the Arabic text,
together with an English translation and commentary.
Those who seek God, says Niffarī, are of three kinds: _firstly_, the
worshippers to whom God makes Himself known by means of bounty, _i.e._
they worship Him in the hope of winning Paradise or some spiritual
recompense such as dreams and miracles; _secondly_, the philosophers
and scholastic theologians, to whom God makes Himself known by means
of glory, _i.e._ they can never find the glorious God whom they seek,
wherefore they assert that His essence is unknowable, saying, “We
know that we know Him not, and that is our knowledge”; _thirdly_, the
gnostics, to whom God makes Himself known by means of ecstasy, _i.e._
they are possessed and controlled by a rapture that deprives them of
the consciousness of individual existence.
Niffarī bids the gnostic perform only such acts of worship as are
in accordance with his vision of God, though in so doing he will
necessarily disobey the religious law which was made for the vulgar.
His inward feeling must decide how far the external forms of religion
are good for him.
“God said to me, Ask Me and say, ‘O Lord, how shall I cleave
to Thee, so that when my day (of judgment) comes, Thou wilt not
punish me nor avert Thy face from me?’ Then I will answer thee
and say, ‘Cleave in thy outward theory and practice to the Sunna
(the rule of the Prophet), and cleave in thy inward feeling to the
gnosis which I have given thee; and know that when I make Myself
known to thee, I will not accept from thee anything of the Sunna
but what My gnosis brings to thee, because thou art one of those to
whom I speak: thou hearest Me and knowest that thou hearest Me, and
thou seest that I am the source of all things.’”
The commentator observes that the Sunna, being general in scope, makes
no distinction between individuals, _e.g._ seekers of Paradise and
seekers of God, but that in reality it contains exactly what each
person requires. The portion specially appropriate in every case is
discerned either by means of gnosis, which God communicates to the
heart, or by means of guidance imparted by a spiritual director.
“And He said to me, ‘My exoteric revelation does not support My
esoteric revelation.’”
This means that the gnostic need not be dismayed if his inner
experience conflicts with the religious law. The contradiction is only
apparent. Religion addresses itself to the common herd of men who
are veiled by their minds, by logic, tradition, and so on; whereas
gnosis belongs to the elect, whose bodies and spirits are bathed in the
eternal Light. Religion sees things from the aspect of plurality, but
gnosis regards the all-embracing Unity. Hence the same act is good in
religion, but evil in gnosis--a truth which is briefly stated thus:
“The good deeds of the pious are the ill deeds of the
favourites of God.”
Although works of devotion are not incompatible with gnosis, no one
who connects them in the slightest degree with himself is a gnostic.
This is the theme of the following allegory. Niffarī seldom writes so
lucidly as he does here, yet I fancy that few of my readers will find
the explanations printed within square brackets altogether superfluous.
THE REVELATION OF THE SEA
“God bade me behold the Sea, and I saw the ships sinking and
the planks floating; then the planks too were submerged.”
[The Sea denotes the spiritual experiences through which the
mystic passes in his journey to God. The point at issue is this:
whether he should prefer the religious law or disinterested
love. Here he is warned not to rely on his good works, which are
no better than sinking ships and will never bring him safely to
port. No; if he would attain to God, he must rely on God alone. If
he does not rely entirely on God, but lets himself trust ever so
little in anything else, he is still clinging to a plank. Though
his trust in God is greater than before, it is not yet complete.]
“And He said to me, ‘Those who voyage are not saved.’”
[The voyager uses the ship as a means of crossing the sea:
therefore he relies, not on the First Cause, but on secondary
causes.]
“And He said to me, ‘Those who instead of voyaging cast
themselves into the Sea take a risk.’”
[To abandon all secondary causes is like plunging in the sea.
The mystic who makes this venture is in jeopardy, for two reasons:
he may regard himself, not God, as initiating and carrying out
the action of abandonment,--and one who renounces a thing through
‘self’ is in worse case than if he had not renounced it,--or he may
abandon secondary causes (good works, hope of Paradise, etc.), not
for God’s sake, but from sheer indifference and lack of spiritual
feeling.]
“And He said to me, ‘Those who voyage and take no risk shall
perish.’”
[Notwithstanding the dangers referred to, he must make God his
sole object or fail.]
“And He said to me, ‘In taking the risk there is a part of
salvation.’”
[Only a part of salvation, because perfect selflessness has
not yet been attained. The whole of salvation consists in the
effacement of all secondary causes, all phenomena, through the
rapture which results from vision of God. But this is gnosis, and
the present revelation is addressed to mystics of a lower grade.
The gnostic takes no risk, for he has nothing to lose.]
“And the wave came and lifted those beneath it and overran the
shore.”
[Those beneath the wave are they who voyage in ships and
consequently suffer shipwreck. Their reliance on secondary causes
casts them ashore, _i.e._ brings them back to the world of
phenomena whereby they are veiled from God.]
“And He said to me, ‘The surface of the Sea is a gleam that
cannot be reached.’”
[Any one who depends on external rites of worship to lead him
to God is following a will-o’-the-wisp.]
“And its bottom is a darkness impenetrable.”
[To discard positive religion, root and branch, is to wander in
a pathless maze.]
“And between the two are fishes which are to be feared.”
[He refers to the middle way between pure exotericism and pure
esotericism. The ‘fishes’ are its perils and obstacles.]
“Do not voyage on the Sea, lest I cause thee to be veiled by
the vehicle.”
[The ‘vehicle’ signifies the ‘ship,’ _i.e._ reliance on
something other than God.]
“And do not cast thyself into the Sea, lest I cause thee to be
veiled by thy casting thyself.”
[Whoever regards any act as his own act and attributes it to
himself is far from God.]
“And He said to me, ‘In the Sea are boundaries: which of them
will bear thee on?’”
[The ‘boundaries’ are the various degrees of spiritual
experience. The mystic ought not to rely on any of these, for they
are all imperfect.]
“And He said to me, ‘If thou givest thyself to the Sea and
sinkest therein, thou wilt fall a prey to one of its beasts.’”
[If the mystic either relies on secondary causes or abandons
them by his own act, he will go astray.]
“And He said to me, ‘I deceive thee if I direct thee to aught
save Myself.’”
[If the mystic’s inward voice bids him turn to anything except
God, it deceives him.]
“And He said to me, ‘If thou perishest for the sake of other
than Me, thou wilt belong to that for which thou hast perished.’
“And He said to me, ‘This world belongs to him whom I have
turned away from it and from whom I have turned it away; and the
next world belongs to him towards whom I have brought it and whom I
have brought towards Myself.’”
[He means to say that everlasting joy is the portion of those
whose hearts are turned away from this world and who have no
worldly possessions. They really enjoy this world, because it
cannot separate them from God. Similarly, the true owners of the
next world are those who do not seek it, inasmuch as it is not the
real object of their desire, but contemplate God alone.]
The gnostic descries the element of reality in positive religion, but
his gnosis is not derived from religion or from any sort of human
knowledge: it is properly concerned with the divine attributes, and God
Himself reveals the knowledge of these to His saints who contemplate
Him. Dhu ’l-Nūn of Egypt, whose mystical speculations mark him out as
the father of Moslem theosophy, said that gnostics are not themselves,
and do not subsist through themselves, but so far as they subsist, they
subsist through God.
“They move as God causes them to move, and their words are the
words of God which roll upon their tongues, and their sight is the
sight of God which has entered their eyes.”
The gnostic contemplates the attributes of God, not His essence, for
even in gnosis a small trace of duality remains: this disappears only
in _fanā al-fanā_, the total passing-away in the undifferentiated
Godhead. The cardinal attribute of God is unity, and the divine unity
is the first and last principle of gnosis.[9]
[9] According to some mystics, the gnosis of unity constitutes a higher
stage which is called ‘the Truth’ (_haqīqat_). See above, p. 29.
Both Moslem and Sūfī declare that God is One, but the statement bears
a different meaning in each instance. The Moslem means that God is
unique in His essence, qualities, and acts; that He is absolutely
unlike all other beings. The Sūfī means that God is the One Real
Being which underlies all phenomena. This principle is carried to its
extreme consequences, as we shall see. If nothing except God exists,
then the whole universe, including man, is essentially one with God,
whether it is regarded as an emanation which proceeds from Him, without
impairing His unity, like sunbeams from the sun, or whether it is
conceived as a mirror in which the divine attributes are reflected. But
surely a God who is all in all can have no reason for thus revealing
Himself: why should the One pass over into the Many? The Sūfīs
answer--a philosopher would say that they evade the difficulty--by
quoting the famous Tradition: “I was a hidden treasure and I desired
to be known; therefore I created the creation in order that I might be
known.” In other words, God is the eternal Beauty, and it lies in the
nature of beauty to desire love. The mystic poets have described the
self-manifestation of the One with a profusion of splendid imagery.
Jāmī says, for example:
“From all eternity the Beloved unveiled His beauty in the solitude
of the unseen;
He held up the mirror to His own face, He displayed His loveliness
to Himself.
He was both the spectator and the spectacle; no eye but His had
surveyed the Universe.
All was One, there was no duality, no pretence of ‘mine’ or ‘thine.’
The vast orb of Heaven, with its myriad incomings and outgoings,
was concealed in a single point.
The Creation lay cradled in the sleep of non-existence, like a child
ere it has breathed.
The eye of the Beloved, seeing what was not, regarded nonentity
as existent.
Although He beheld His attributes and qualities as a perfect whole
in His own essence,
Yet He desired that they should be displayed to Him in another
mirror,
And that each one of His eternal attributes should become manifest
accordingly in a diverse form.
Therefore He created the verdant fields of Time and Space and the
life-giving garden of the world,
That every branch and leaf and fruit might show forth His various
perfections.
The cypress gave a hint of His comely stature, the rose gave tidings
of His beauteous countenance.
Wherever Beauty peeped out, Love appeared beside it; wherever Beauty
shone in a rosy cheek, Love lit his torch from that flame.
Wherever Beauty dwelt in dark tresses, Love came and found a heart
entangled in their coils.
Beauty and Love are as body and soul; Beauty is the mine and Love
the precious stone.
They have always been together from the very first; never have they
travelled but in each other’s company.”
In another work Jāmī sets forth the relation of God to the world more
philosophically, as follows:
“The unique Substance, viewed as Absolute and void of
all phenomena, all limitations and all multiplicity, is the
Real (_al-Haqq_). On the other hand, viewed in His aspect of
multiplicity and plurality, under which He displays Himself when
clothed with phenomena, He is the whole created universe. Therefore
the universe is the outward visible expression of the Real, and
the Real is the inner unseen reality of the universe. The universe
before it was evolved to outward view was identical with the Real;
and the Real after this evolution is identical with the universe.”
Phenomena, as such, are not-being and only derive a contingent
existence from the qualities of Absolute Being by which they are
irradiated. The sensible world resembles the fiery circle made by a
single spark whirling round rapidly.
Man is the crown and final cause of the universe. Though last in the
order of creation he is first in the process of divine thought, for
the essential part of him is the primal Intelligence or universal
Reason which emanates immediately from the Godhead. This corresponds
to the Logos--the animating principle of all things--and is identified
with the Prophet Mohammed. An interesting parallel might be drawn
here between the Christian and Sūfī doctrines. The same expressions
are applied to the founder of Islam which are used by St. John, St.
Paul, and later mystical theologians concerning Christ. Thus, Mohammed
is called the Light of God, he is said to have existed before the
creation of the world, he is adored as the source of all life, actual
and possible, he is the Perfect Man in whom all the divine attributes
are manifested, and a Sūfī tradition ascribes to him the saying “He
that hath seen me hath seen Allah.” In the Moslem scheme, however,
the Logos doctrine occupies a subordinate place, as it obviously must
when the whole duty of man is believed to consist in realising the
unity of God. The most distinctive feature of Oriental as opposed to
European mysticism is its profound consciousness of an omnipresent,
all-pervading unity in which every vestige of individuality is
swallowed up. Not to become _like_ God or _personally_ to participate
in the divine nature is the Sūfī’s aim, but to escape from the bondage
of his unreal selfhood and thereby to be reunited with the One infinite
Being.
According to Jāmī, Unification consists in making the heart
single--that is, in purifying and divesting it of attachment to aught
except God, both in respect of desire and will and also as regards
knowledge and gnosis. The mystic’s desire and will should be severed
from all things which are desired and willed; all objects of knowledge
and understanding should be removed from his intellectual vision.
His thoughts should be directed solely towards God, he should not be
conscious of anything besides.
So long as he is a captive in the snare of passion and lust, it is hard
for him to maintain this relation to God, but when the subtle influence
of that attraction becomes manifest in him, expelling preoccupation
with objects of sense and cognition from his inward being, delight in
that divine communion prevails over bodily pleasures and spiritual
joys; the painful task of self-mortification is ended, and the
sweetness of contemplation enravishes his soul.
When the sincere aspirant perceives in himself the beginning of this
attraction, which is delight in the recollection of God, let him fix
his whole mind on fostering and strengthening it, let him keep himself
aloof from whatsoever is incompatible with it, and deem that even
though he were to devote an eternity to cultivating that communion, he
would have done nothing and would not have discharged his duty as he
ought.
“Love thrilled the chord of love in my soul’s lute,
And changed me all to love from head to foot.
’Twas but a moment’s touch, yet shall Time ever
To me the debt of thanksgiving impute.”
It is an axiom of the Sūfīs that what is not _in_ a man he cannot
know. The gnostic--Man _par excellence_--could not know God and all
the mysteries of the universe, unless he found them in himself. He is
the microcosm, ‘a copy made in the image of God,’ ‘the eye of the
world whereby God sees His own works.’ In knowing himself as he really
is, he knows God, and he knows himself through God, who is nearer to
everything than its knowledge of itself. Knowledge of God precedes, and
is the cause of, self-knowledge.
Gnosis, then, is unification, realisation of the fact that the
appearance of ‘otherness’ beside Oneness is a false and deluding dream.
Gnosis lays this spectre, which haunts unenlightened men all their
lives; which rises, like a wall of utter darkness, between them and
God. Gnosis proclaims that ‘I’ is a figure of speech, and that one
cannot truly refer any will, feeling, thought, or action to one’s self.
Niffarī heard the divine voice saying to him:
“When thou regardest thyself as existent and dost not regard Me
as the Cause of thy existence, I veil My face and thine own face
appears to thee. Therefore consider what is displayed to thee, and
what is hidden from thee!”
[If a man regards himself as existing through God, that which
is of God in him predominates over the phenomenal element and
makes it pass away, so that he sees nothing but God. If, on the
contrary, he regards himself as having an independent existence,
his unreal egoism is displayed to him and the reality of God
becomes hidden from him.]
“Regard neither My displaying nor that which is displayed, else
thou wilt laugh and weep; and when thou laughest and weepest, thou
art thine, not Mine.”
[He who regards the act of divine revelation is guilty of
polytheism, since revelation involves both a revealing subject and
a revealed object; and he who regards the revealed object which
is part of the created universe, regards something other than
God. Laughter signifies joy for what you have gained, and weeping
denotes grief for what you have lost. Both are selfish actions. The
gnostic neither laughs nor weeps.]
“If thou dost not put behind thee all that I have displayed and
am displaying, thou wilt not prosper; and unless thou prosper, thou
wilt not become concentrated upon Me.”
[Prosperity is true belief in God, which requires complete
abstraction from created things.]
Logically, these doctrines annul every moral and religious law. In the
gnostic’s vision there are no divine rewards and punishments, no human
standards of right and wrong. For him, the written word of God has
been abrogated by a direct and intimate revelation.
“I do not say,” exclaimed Abu ’l-Hasan Khurqānī, “that Paradise
and Hell are non-existent, but I say that they are nothing to me,
because God created them both, and there is no room for any created
object in the place where I am.”
From this standpoint all types of religion are equal, and Islam is no
better than idolatry. It does not matter what creed a man professes or
what rites he performs.
“The true mosque in a pure and holy heart
Is builded: there let all men worship God;
For there He dwells, not in a mosque of stone.”
Amidst all the variety of creeds and worshippers the gnostic sees but
one real object of worship.
“Those who adore God in the sun” (says Ibn al-ʿArabī) “behold
the sun, and those who adore Him in living things see a living
thing, and those who adore Him in lifeless things see a lifeless
thing, and those who adore Him as a Being unique and unparalleled
see that which has no like. Do not attach yourself” (he continues)
“to any particular creed exclusively, so that you disbelieve in all
the rest; otherwise, you will lose much good, nay, you will fail
to recognise the real truth of the matter. God, the omnipresent
and omnipotent, is not limited by any one creed, for He says (Kor.
=2.= 109), ‘Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of Allah.’ Every
one praises what he believes; his god is his own creature, and in
praising it he praises himself. Consequently he blames the beliefs
of others, which he would not do if he were just, but his dislike
is based on ignorance. If he knew Junayd’s saying, ‘The water takes
its colour from the vessel containing it,’ he would not interfere
with other men’s beliefs, but would perceive God in every form of
belief.”
And Hafiz sings, more in the spirit of the freethinker, perhaps, than
of the mystic:
“Love is where the glory falls
Of Thy face--on convent walls
Or on tavern floors, the same
Unextinguishable flame.
Where the turbaned anchorite
Chanteth Allah day and night,
Church bells ring the call to prayer
And the Cross of Christ is there.”
Sūfism may join hands with freethought--it has often done so--but
hardly ever with sectarianism. This explains why the vast majority of
Sūfīs have been, at least nominally, attached to the catholic body of
the Moslem community. ʿAbdallah Ansārī declared that of two thousand
Sūfī Sheykhs with whom he was acquainted only two were Shīʿites. A
certain man who was a descendant of the Caliph ʿAlī, and a fanatical
Shīʿite, tells the following story:
“For five years,” he said, “my father sent me daily to a
spiritual director. I learned one useful lesson from him: he told
me that I should never know anything at all about Sūfism until
I got completely rid of the pride which I felt on account of my
lineage.”
Superficial observers have described Bābism as an offshoot of
Sūfism, but the dogmatism of the one is naturally opposed to the
broad eclecticism of the other. In proportion as the Sūfī gains more
knowledge of God, his religious prejudices are diminished. Sheykh ʿAbd
al-Rahīm ibn al-Sabbāgh, who at first disliked living in Upper Egypt,
with its large Jewish and Christian population, said in his old age
that he would as readily embrace a Jew or Christian as one of his own
faith.
While the innumerable forms of creed and ritual may be regarded as
having a certain relative value in so far as the inward feeling which
inspires them is ever one and the same, from another aspect they seem
to be veils of the Truth, barriers which the zealous Unitarian must
strive to abolish and destroy.
“This world and that world are the egg, and the bird within it
Is in darkness and broken-winged and scorned and despised.
Regard unbelief and faith as the white and the yolk in this egg,
Between them, joining and dividing, a barrier which they shall
not pass.
When He hath graciously fostered the egg under His wing,
Infidelity and religion disappear: the bird of Unity spreads
its pinions.”
The great Persian mystic, Abū Saʿīd ibn Abi ’l-Khayr, speaking in
the name of the Calendars or wandering dervishes, expresses their
iconoclastic principles with astonishing boldness:
“Not until every mosque beneath the sun
Lies ruined, will our holy work be done;
And never will true Musalmān appear
Till faith and infidelity are one.”
Such open declarations of war against the Mohammedan religion are
exceptional. Notwithstanding the breadth and depth of the gulf between
full-blown Sūfism and orthodox Islam, many, if not most, Sūfīs have
paid homage to the Prophet and have observed the outward forms of
devotion which are incumbent on all Moslems. They have invested these
rites and ceremonies with a new meaning; they have allegorised them,
but they have not abandoned them. Take the pilgrimage, for example.
In the eyes of the genuine Sūfī it is null and void unless each of
the successive religious acts which it involves is accompanied by
corresponding ‘movements of the heart.’
A man who had just returned from the pilgrimage came to Junayd. Junayd
said:
“From the hour when you first journeyed from your home have you
also been journeying away from all sins?” He said “No.” “Then,”
said Junayd, “you have made no journey. At every stage where you
halted for the night did you traverse a station on the way to
God?” “No,” he replied. “Then,” said Junayd, “you have not trodden
the road, stage by stage. When you put on the pilgrim’s garb at
the proper place, did you discard the qualities of human nature
as you cast off your clothes?” “No.” “Then you have not put on
the pilgrim’s garb. When you stood at ʿArafāt, did you stand one
moment in contemplation of God?” “No.” “Then you have not stood at
ʿArafāt. When you went to Muzdalifa and achieved your desire, did
you renounce all sensual desires?” “No.” “Then you have not gone
to Muzdalifa. When you circumambulated the Kaʿba, did you behold
the immaterial beauty of God in the abode of purification?” “No.”
“Then you have not circumambulated the Kaʿba. When you ran between
Safā and Marwa, did you attain to purity (_safā_) and virtue
(_muruwwat_)?” “No.” “Then you have not run. When you came to Minā,
did all your wishes (_munā_) cease?” “No.” “Then you have not yet
visited Minā. When you reached the slaughter-place and offered
sacrifice, did you sacrifice the objects of worldly desire?” “No.”
“Then you have not sacrificed. When you threw the pebbles, did you
throw away whatever sensual thoughts were accompanying you?” “No.”
“Then you have not yet thrown the pebbles, and you have not yet
performed the pilgrimage.”
This anecdote contrasts the outer religious law of theology with the
inner spiritual truth of mysticism, and shows that they should not be
divorced from each other.
“The Law without the Truth,” says Hujwīrī, “is ostentation, and
the Truth without the Law is hypocrisy. Their mutual relation may
be compared to that of body and spirit: when the spirit departs
from the body, the living body becomes a corpse, and the spirit
vanishes like wind. The Moslem profession of faith includes both:
the words, ‘There is no god but Allah,’ are the Truth, and the
words, ‘Mohammed is the apostle of Allah,’ are the Law; any one who
denies the Truth is an infidel, and any one who rejects the Law is
a heretic.”
Middle ways, though proverbially safe, are difficult to walk in; and
only by a _tour de force_ can the Koran be brought into line with the
esoteric doctrine which the Sūfīs derive from it. Undoubtedly they
have done a great work for Islam. They have deepened and enriched the
lives of millions by ruthlessly stripping off the husk of religion
and insisting that its kernel must be sought, not in any formal act,
but in cultivation of spiritual feelings and in purification of the
inward man. This was a legitimate and most fruitful development of the
Prophet’s teaching. But the Prophet was a strict monotheist, while
the Sūfīs, whatever they may pretend or imagine, are theosophists,
pantheists, or monists. When they speak and write as believers in
the dogmas of positive religion, they use language which cannot be
reconciled with such a theory of unity as we are now examining.
ʿAfīfuddīn al-Tilimsānī, from whose commentary on Niffarī I have given
some extracts in this chapter, said roundly that the whole Koran is
polytheism--a perfectly just statement from the monistic point of view,
though few Sūfīs have dared to be so explicit.
The mystic Unitarians admit the appearance of contradiction, but deny
its reality. “The Law and the Truth” (they might say) “are the same
thing in different aspects. The Law is for you, the Truth for us. In
addressing you we speak according to the measure of your understanding,
since what is meat for gnostics is poison to the uninitiated, and the
highest mysteries ought to be jealously guarded from profane ears. It
is only human reason that sees the single as double, and balances the
Law against the Truth. Pass away from the world of opposites and become
one with God, who has no opposite.”
The gnostic recognises that the Law is valid and necessary in the
moral sphere. While good and evil remain, the Law stands over both,
commanding and forbidding, rewarding and punishing. He knows, on the
other hand, that only God really exists and acts: therefore, if evil
really exists, it must be divine, and if evil things are really done,
God must be the doer of them. The conclusion is false because the
hypothesis is false. Evil has no real existence; it is not-being, which
is the privation and absence of being, just as darkness is the absence
of light. “Once,” said Nūrī, “I beheld the Light, and I fixed my gaze
upon it until I became the Light.” No wonder that such illuminated
souls, supremely indifferent to the shadow-shows of religion and
morality in a phantom world, are ready to cry with Jalāluddīn:
“The man of God is made wise by the Truth,
The man of God is not learned from book.
The man of God is beyond infidelity and faith,
To the man of God right and wrong are alike.”
It must be borne in mind that this is a theory of perfection, and
that those whom it exalts above the Law are saints, spiritual guides,
and profound theosophists who enjoy the special favour of God and
presumably do not need to be restrained, coerced, or punished. In
practice, of course, it leads in many instances to antinomianism and
libertinism, as among the Bektāshīs and other orders of the so-called
‘lawless’ dervishes. The same theories produced the same results in
Europe during the Middle Ages, and the impartial historian cannot
ignore the corruptions to which a purely subjective mysticism is
liable; but on the present occasion we are concerned with the rose
itself, not with its cankers.
Not all Sūfīs are gnostics; and, as I have mentioned before, those who
are not yet ripe for the gnosis receive from their gnostic teachers the
ethical instruction suitable to their needs. Jalāluddīn Rūmī, in his
collection of lyrical poems entitled _The Dīvān of Shamsi Tabrīz_,
gives free rein to a pantheistic enthusiasm which sees all things under
the form of eternity.
“I have put duality away, I have seen that the two worlds are one;
One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call.
I am intoxicated with Love’s cup, the two worlds have passed out
of my ken;
I have no business save carouse and revelry.”
But in his _Masnavī_--a work so famous and venerated that it has
been styled ‘The Koran of Persia’--we find him in a more sober mood
expounding the Sūfī doctrines and justifying the ways of God to man.
Here, though he is a convinced optimist and agrees with Ghazālī that
this is the best of all possible worlds, he does not airily dismiss
the problem of evil as something outside reality, but endeavours to
show that evil, or what seems evil to us, is part of the divine order
and harmony. I will quote some passages of his argument and leave my
readers to judge how far it is successful or, at any rate, suggestive.
The Sūfīs, it will be remembered, conceive the universe as a projected
and reflected image of God. The divine light, streaming forth in a
series of emanations, falls at last upon the darkness of not-being,
every atom of which reflects some attribute of Deity. For instance,
the beautiful attributes of love and mercy are reflected in the form
of heaven and the angels, while the terrible attributes of wrath
and vengeance are reflected in the form of hell and the devils. Man
reflects all the attributes, the terrible as well as the beautiful: he
is an epitome of heaven and hell. Omar Khayyām alludes to this theory
when he says:
“Hell is a spark from our fruitless pain,
Heaven a breath from our time of joy”
--a couplet which FitzGerald moulded into the magnificent stanza:
“Heav’n but the Vision of fulfilled Desire,
And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire,
Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves
So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.”
Jalāluddīn, therefore, does in a sense make God the author of evil,
but at the same time he makes evil intrinsically good in relation to
God--for it is the reflexion of certain divine attributes which in
themselves are absolutely good. So far as evil is really evil, it
springs from not-being. The poet assigns a different value to this
term in its relation to God and in its relation to man. In respect of
God not-being is nothing, for God is real Being, but in man it is the
principle of evil which constitutes half of human nature. In the one
case it is a pure negation, in the other it is positively and actively
pernicious. We need not quarrel with the poet for coming to grief in
his logic. There are some occasions when intense moral feeling is worth
any amount of accurate thinking.
It is evident that the doctrine of divine unity implies predestination.
Where God is and naught beside Him, there can be no other agent than
He, no act but His. “Thou didst not throw, when thou threwest, but God
threw” (Kor. =8.= 17). Compulsion is felt only by those who do not
love. To know God is to love Him; and the gnostic may answer, like the
dervish who was asked how he fared:
“I fare as one by whose majestic will
The world revolves, floods rise and rivers flow,
Stars in their courses move; yea, death and life
Hang on his nod and fly to the ends of earth,
His ministers of mourning or of joy.”
This is the Truth; but for the benefit of such as cannot bear it,
Jalāluddīn vindicates the justice of God by asserting that men have
the power to choose how they will act, although their freedom is
subordinate to the divine will. Approaching the question, “Why does God
ordain and create evil?” he points out that things are known through
their opposites, and that the existence of evil is necessary for the
manifestation of good.
“Not-being and defect, wherever seen,
Are mirrors of the beauty of all that is.
The bone-setter, where should he try his skill
But on the patient lying with broken leg?
Were no base copper in the crucible,
How could the alchemist his craft display?”
Moreover, the divine omnipotence would not be completely realised if
evil had remained uncreated.
“He is the source of evil, as thou sayest,
Yet evil hurts Him not. To make that evil
Denotes in Him perfection. Hear from me
A parable. The heavenly Artist paints
Beautiful shapes and ugly: in one picture
The loveliest women in the land of Egypt
Gazing on youthful Joseph amorously;
And lo, another scene by the same hand,
Hell-fire and Iblīs with his hideous crew:
Both master-works, created for good ends,
To show His perfect wisdom and confound
The sceptics who deny His mastery.
Could He not evil make, He would lack skill;
Therefore He fashions infidel alike
And Moslem true, that both may witness bear
To Him, and worship One Almighty Lord.”
In reply to the objection that a God who creates evil must Himself be
evil, Jalāluddīn, pursuing the analogy drawn from Art, remarks that
ugliness in the picture is no evidence of ugliness in the painter.
Again, without evil it would be impossible to win the proved virtue
which is the reward of self-conquest. Bread must be broken before
it can serve as food, and grapes will not yield wine till they are
crushed. Many men are led through tribulation to happiness. As evil
ebbs, good flows. Finally, much evil is only apparent. What seems a
curse to one may be a blessing to another; nay, evil itself is turned
to good for the righteous. Jalāluddīn will not admit that anything is
absolutely bad.
“Fools buy false coins because they are like the true.
If in the world no genuine minted coin
Were current, how would forgers pass the false?
Falsehood were nothing unless truth were there,
To make it specious. ’Tis the love of right
Lures men to wrong. Let poison but be mixed
With sugar, they will cram it into their mouths.
Oh, cry not that all creeds are vain! Some scent
Of truth they have, else they would not beguile.
Say not, ‘How utterly fantastical!’
No fancy in the world is all untrue.
Amongst the crowd of dervishes hides one,
One true fakīr. Search well and thou wilt find!”
Surely this is a noteworthy doctrine. Jalāluddīn died only a few years
after the birth of Dante, but the Christian poet falls far below the
level of charity and tolerance reached by his Moslem contemporary.
How is it possible to discern the soul of goodness in things evil? By
means of love, says Jalāluddīn, and the knowledge which love alone can
give, according to the word of God in the holy Tradition:
“My servant draws nigh unto Me, and I love him; and when I love
him, I am his ear, so that he hears by Me, and his eye, so that he
sees by Me, and his tongue, so that he speaks by Me, and his hand,
so that he takes by Me.”
Although it will be convenient to treat of mystical love in a separate
chapter, the reader must not fancy that a new subject is opening before
him. Gnosis and love are spiritually identical; they teach the same
truths in different language.