Spirituality - Mysticism in Islam
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Sufism (mysticism) - ( Spirituality : Saint-hood )
"Travel beyond the confines of this life and see the vastness of
His kingdom beyond space. Let your ear listen to what it has not
heard before, and your eye see what it has not seen, until it
leads you to where you see the One of the world and all the
worlds. Express your passion for the One from your heart and
soul until you see the Reality with the eye of certainty. There is
only One and nothing but Him, He is Alone and there is no God
but Him."
( Imam Muhammad Ibn 'Ali Al Baqir 11th Century ).
"You fancy this world is permanent of itself and endures
because of it's own nature, but really it is a ray of light from the
Truth, and within it the Truth concealed."
( Sa'd Al-Din Mahmud Shabistari 1250-1320 )
"The ocean is the same ocean as it has always been of old; the
events of today are it's waves and it's rivers."
( Sayyid Haydar Amuli - 14 Century )
In the beginning was Allah, and beside Him there was nothing -
and He remains as He was.
( Hadith )
Divine unity (tawhid) is the return of man to his origin, so that he
will become as he was before he came into being.
( Imam Abu'l-Qasim Al-Junayd 910 AD )
I was a hidden treasure and I longed to be known. So I created
the Creation so that I may be known.
( Hadith Qudsi )
In the death of the self lies the life of the heart.
( Imam Ja'far Al-Sadiq-8th Century )
Work for this life as though you are going to live forever. Work
for the Next life as though you will die tomorrow.
(Ali Ibn Talib 600-661)
I was sent from myself as a messenger to myself. And my
essence testified to myself by my signs.
( Ibn Ali-Farid 1181-1235 )
When I Allah love my servant…I become the hearing with which
he hears, the seeing with which he sees, the hand with which he
grasps, the feet with which he walks, the tongue with which he
speaks.
( Hadith Qudsi )
All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that
the ocean merges into the drop.
( Kabir 1450-1518 )
Asceticism is not that you should not own anything, but that
nothing should own you.
( Ali-Abu Talib 600-661 )
The Sufi sees his own existence as particles of dust made
visible by a ray of sunlight: neither real nor unreal.
( Abul Hasan Ash-Shadhili 1175-1258 )
Your soul attains to perfection when it returns to its original
sublime state, according to the individual capacity of each
person. Thus the soul divests itself of all illusion and refines
itself with the subtlety its own secret by means of spiritual
exercises aim at purification of the outer and inner from all
obscurity and impurity.
( Sayyid Haydar Amuli 1400 )
Allah possesses a drink which is reserved for his intimate friends
( auliya ): when they drink they become intoxicated, when they
become intoxicated they become joyful, when they become
joyful they become sweet, when they become sweet they begin
to melt, when they begin to melt, they become free, when they
become free they seek, when they seek they find, when they
find they arrive, when they arrive they join, and when they join
there is no difference between them and their Beloved.
( Ali Ibn Talib 600-661 )
…None grasps Him save He Himself. None knows Him but He
Himself… He knows Himself by Himself…Other-than-He cannot
grasp Him. His impenetrable veil is His own Oneness. Other-
than-He does not cloak Him. His veil is His very existence. He is
veiled by His Oneness in a manner that cannot be explained.
Other-than-He does not see Him; whether prophet, envoy, or
perfected saint or angel near unto Him. His prophet is He
Himself. His envoy is He. His message is He. His word is He. He
has sent word of His ipseity by Himself, from Himself, to Himself,
without intermediary or causality other than Himself…Other-than-
He has no existence and so can not bring itself to naught…
( From the Introduction to Sufism - Muhyi-d-Din ibn Arabi in his
Epistle on Unity, the Risalat al Ahadiyah )
( Para-phrased according to the fundamental formula of Islam,
the 'testimony' known in Arabic as the shahadah ):
"There is no divinity, if it be not The Divinity ( la ilaha ill-Allah )"
Which, so to say, 'defines' the Divine Unity. This formula should
be translated as here indicated and not, as usually the case,
'there is no God but, Allah', for it is proper to retain in it the
appearance of …paradox. Its first part, 'the negation'…. denies
in a general manner the same idea of divinity which the second
part, the 'affirmation'…affirms by isolation; in other words the
formula as a whole postulates an idea-that of divinity---which at
the same time denies as a genus. This is the exact opposite of a
'definition', for to define something means first to determine its
'specific difference' and then to bring it to the 'nearest genus', i.
e. to general concepts. Now as the shahadah indicates, Divinity
is 'defined' precisely by the fact that It's reality eludes ever
category… According to this 'testimony; God is distinct from all
things and nothing can be compared to Him…Now perfect
incomparability requires that nothing can be set face to face with
the incomparable and have any relationship whatever with it;
this amounts to saying that nothing exists in the face of the
Divine Reality so that , in It, all things are annihilated. 'God was
and nothing with Him and He is now such as He was.
( hadith qudsi )
Thus extreme 'remoteness' must imply its opposite. Since
nothing can be opposed to God-for it would then be another
'divinity'--every reality can only be a reflection of the Divine
Reality. Moreover, every positive meaning one might give to the
expression ilah ( divinity ) will be transposed in divines: 'there is
no reality if it be not The Reality', 'there is no force if it be not
The Force', there is no truth if it is not The Truth.' We must not
seek to conceive of God by bringing Him down to the level of
things; on the contrary, things are reabsorbed into God so soon
as one recognizes the essential qualities of which they are
constituted.
( From the Introduction to Sufism -- Muhyi-d-Din ibn 'Arabi in his
Epistle on Unity, Risalat al Ahadiyah )
The absolutely Non-Manifested cannot be designated by any
expression which could limit It, Separate It, or include It. In spite
of this, every allusion alludes only to Him, every designation
designates Him, and He is at the same time the Non-Manifested
and the Manifested.
( Amir 'Abd al-Kader )
Allah is in Himself the non-being and the being, the inexistent
and the existent. He is at the same time that which we designate
by absolute non-being and by absolute being; or by relative non-
being and relative being…All these designations come back to
God alone, for there is nothing which we can perceive, know,
write or say which is not Him.
( Amir 'Abd al-Qader )
Paraphrased: Allah ( God ) is neither this nor that.
( Amir 'Abd al-Qader )
Know however that God, in order to manifest Himself by His
essence to His essence, has not need of creatures since, with
relation to Essence, he is absolutely independent with respect to
worlds and even with respect to His own names…On the other
hand, when He manifests Himself with His names and His
attributes --- which implies the manifestation of the effects --- He
needs ( huwa muftaqir ) the creatures…This relation is…
necessary in order that the divine Names, Which are only
distinguished by their effects, can be distinguished from one
another. At the same time, the divine Names, by the one of their
"faces" which is turned toward the Essence, are themselves
totally autonomous with respect to worlds. In this respect, they
are nothing other than the Essence itself and that is why each of
them can be qualified and designated by all of the other Names
in the same way as the Essence.
( Amir 'Abd al-Kader )
Abu Sa'id al-Kharraz said: I have never known Allah --- May He
be exalted! --- except through the coincidence in Him of the
opposites. "He is the First and the Last, the Apparent and the
Hidden." ( Qur'an 57:3 ) ( Mawqif 193, p. 111 )
God created suffering and heartache so that joyful-heartedness
might appear through its opposite. Hence hidden things become
manifest through opposites. But since God has no opposite, He
remains hidden…God's light has no opposite within existence,
that through its opposite it might be made manifest.
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
That Oneness is on the other side of descriptions and states.
Nothing but duality enters speech's playing field.
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
Thy Attributes cannot be understood by the vulgar without the
analogy, yet analogy increases the mistaken idea of Thy
similarity with the creatures.
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
The beauty of the 'Unseen Form' is beyond description ---
borrow a thousand illuminated eyes, borrow!
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
Love makes forms in separation. But at the time of meeting, the
Formless shows His head and says, "I am the root of the root of
sobriety and intoxication; the beauty you see in forms is My (
God ) reflection. Now I have removed the veils, I have displayed
Beauty without intermediary. Since you have become so
interwoven with My reflection, you have found the strength to
view the Essence alone."
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
We and our existences are totally nonexistence. Thou art
Absolute Existence showing Thyself as peristable things.
(Jalaluddin Rumi)
Source material: The Key to Salvation: A Sufi Manual of
Invocation Your Saying: "God is Most Great" does not mean that
He is greater than something else, since there is nothing else
alongside of Him, so that it could be said that He is greater than
it…Rather, the meaning of Allahu Akbar is that He is much too
great to be perceived by the senses or for the depths of His
Majesty to be reached by reason and logic, and indeed, that He
is much too great to be known by an other-than-Him for truly, no
one knows God, but God.
( p.119 )
…the gnosis of God is intermediate between immoderation,
which is ascribing human characteristics to God, and
negligence, which is denying any attributes to God…The Truth
lies in the balance between the two extremes.
( p. 162 )
He is the First and the Last, the Outward and the Inward and He
is the Knower of all things.
( p. 82 )
( "Creative Imagination in the Sufism" by Ibn 'Arabi )
…in Ibn 'Arabi's own terminology Al-Lah is the Name which
designates the divine Essence qualified and invested with the
sum of His attributes, whereas al-Rabb, the Lord, is the
personified and particularized Divine in one of its attributes (
hence the divine Names designated as so many "lords", arbab ).
( p. 122 )
…Ibn 'Arabi distinguishes between Allah as God in general and
Rabb as the particular Lord, personalized in an individualized
and undivided relation with his vassal of love. This individualized
relationship on both sides is the foundation of the mystic and
chivalric ethic of the fedel d'amore in the service of the personal
Lord whose divinity depends on the adoration of his faithful
vassal…{ It is the passion that the fedele d'amore feels for his
Lord which reveals the Lord to Himself.}And this always
individually, in an "alone to alone," which is something very
different from universal logic or from a collective participation,
because only the knowledge which the fedele has of his Lord is
the knowledge which this personal Lord has of him.
( p. 94 )
All {the divine Names} refer to one and the same Named One.
But each one of them refers to an essential determination,
different from all the rest; it is by this individualization that each
Name refers to the God who reveals himself to and by the
theophanic imagination.
( p. 192 )
…the Divine Being is not fragmented, but wholly present in each
instance, individualized in each theophany of His Names, and it
is invested in each instance with one of these Names that He
appears as Lord.
( p.121 )
Paraphrased: The devotee who is faithful to the divine Name
that is His Lord recognizes his Beloved in every Beloved and in
every divine Name the totality of Names, because among the
divine Names there is a sympathetic union.
( p. 134 )
The Names…have existed from all eternity: these Names are
designated as "Lords" ( Arbab ), who often have all the
appearance of hypstases though they cannot strictly be defined
as such. We know them only by our knowledge of ourselves
(that is the basic maxim). God describes Himself to us through
ourselves. Which means that the divine Names are essentially
relative to the beings who name them, since these beings
discover and experience them in their own mode of being…Thus
the divine Names have meaning and full reality only through and
for beings…in which they are manifested. Likewise from all
eternity, these forms, substrate of the divine Names, have
existed in the divine Essence ( A 'yan thabita ). And it is these
latent individualities who from all eternity have aspired to
concrete being in actu. Their aspiration is itself nothing other
than the nostalgia of the divine Names yearning to be revealed.
And this nostalgia of the divine Names is nothing other than the
sadness of the unrevealed God, the anguish He experiences in
His unknown-ness and occultation.
( p. 114-115 )
"God created in the faith," manifests Himself no longer in order
to impose Himself on the faithful, but in order to express His
limits, for these limits are the condition which makes possible
one among the many divine epiphanies. The Gnostic does not
receive a ready-made Image of his Lord, but understands Him in
the light of the Image which in the course of his manajat, his
intimate dialogue, appears in the mirror of his heart as subtile
organ.
( p. 270 )
The image of the God whom the faithful creates is the Image of
the God whom his own being reveals…Thus it is psychologically
true to say that "the God created in the faiths" is the symbol of
the Self. The God to whom we pray can be only the God who
reveals Himself to us, by us, and for us, but it is praying to Him
that we cause the "God created in faiths" to be himself eveloped
in the Divine Compassion, that is, existentiated, manifested by it.
The theophanies of the real One God ( Haqq Haqiqi ). When we
are the musalli, this must be borne in mind; he who knows this is
the Gnostic who has untied the knot of closed, limited dogmans
because for him they have become the ophanic symbols.
Questioner: How do you know God?
By the fact that He ( God ) is the coincidentia oppositorum.
Abu Asa 'id al-Kharraz:
Corbin's Commentary:
…the entire universe of worlds is at once He and not-He (huwa
la huwa). The God manifested in forms is at once Himself and
other than Himself, for since He is manifested, He is the limited
which has not limit, the visible which cannot be seen. This
manifestation is neither perceptible nor verifiable by the sensory
faculties; discursive reason rejects it. It is perceptible only by the
Active Imagination ( Hadrat al-Khayal..…) at times when it
dominates man's sense perceptions, in dreams or better still in
the waking state ( in the state characteristic of the Gnostic when
he departs from the consciousness of sensuous things ). In
short, a mystic perception ( dhawq ) is required. To perceive all
forms as epiphanic froms ( mazahir ), that is, to perceive through
the figures which they manifest and which are the eternal
hexeities, that they are other than the Creator and nevertheless
that they are He, is precisely to effect the encounter, the
coincidence between God's descent toward the creature and the
creature's ascent toward the Creator. The "place" of this
encounter is not outside the Creator-Creature totality, but is the
area within which corresponds specifically to the Active
Imagination, in the manner of a bridge joining the two banks of a
river. The crossing itself is essentially a hermeneutics of
symbols…a method of understanding which transmutes sensory
data and rational concepts into symbols ( mazahir ) by making
them effect this crossing.
( p. 188-189 )
Behold what shows to thee His Omnipotence, ( may He be
exalted ): It is that He hides Himself from thee by what has no
existence apart from Him.
( Ibn 'Ata'illah al-iskandari, in Hikma )
…The world is essentially the manifestation of God to Himself.
Thus it is expressed in the sacred saying ( hadith qudsi ) which
brings back the idea of creation to the idea of Knowledge: 'I was
a hidden treasure; I wished to be known ( or to know ) and I
created the world.' In the same sense Sufis compare the
Universe to a combination of mirrors in which the Infinite
Essence contemplates Itself in a multiplicity of forms, or which
reflect in differing degrees the irradiation ( at-tajalli ) of the One
Being.
( Ibn 'Ata'illah al-iskandari, in Hikma )
In truth all possibilities are principally reducible to non-existence
( 'udum ) and there is no Being ( or, Existence ) other than the
being of God, may He be exalted, (revealing Himself) in the
"forms"…which result from the possibilities as they are in
themselves…( Muhyi-d-Din ibn 'Arabi, in his Fusus al-Hikam in
the Chapter on Jacob )"And He is with you wherever you are"…
( Qur'an 57:4 )
Commentary:…he companionship expressed by "with" is that of
the Being and the non-being, for there is no Being other than
Allah…if Allah -- May He be exalted! -- was not, by His very
Essence, which is the Being of all that is, "with" the creatures,
we could not attribute being to any of these creatures and they
could not be perceived either by the senses, by the imagination,
or by the intellect. It is their 'being with' which assures to
creatures a relation with the Being. Better yet, it is their being
itself. This 'belong with' embraces all things, whether they are
sublime or lowly, great or small. It is through it that they subsist.
He is the pure Being by which 'that which is' is. The 'being with'
of Allah consists therefore in the fact that He is with us through
His essence; that is, through that which we call the divine Self (
huwiyya ), universally present…
( Amir 'Abd al-Kader )
Indications of this divine 'being with' are contained in the
following verses:-
*And He is witness of all things
( Qur'an 34:47 )
*And Allah, behind them, encompasses them
( Qur'an 85:20 )
*Wherever you turn, there is the Face of Allah
( Qur'an 2:116 )
There is a strange frenzy in my head, of birds flying, each
particle circulating on its own. Is the one I love everywhere?
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
Lo, I am with you always means when you look for God, God is
in the look of your eyes, in the thought of looking, nearer to you
than your self, or things that have happened to you. There is no
need to go outside. Be melting snow. Wash yourself of yourself.
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
What do we mean by saying that God is not in heaven? We do
not mean that He is not in heaven, but that heaven can not
encompass Him. He encompasses heaven. He has an ineffable
connection with heaven just as He has an ineffable connection
with you. Everything is in His omnipotent hands; everything is a
manifestation of Him and subject to His control. So, He is not
totally inside them either, that is, they do not encompass Him but
He encompasses them totally.
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
Someone asked where God was before earth, skies, and Divine
Throne existed. We said that the question was invalid from the
outset because God is by definition that which has no place. {He
is non-spatial}
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
All creatures, day and night, make manifestation of God. Some
of them know what they are doing and are aware of their
manifesting, while others are unaware. However it may be,
God's manifestation is confirmed.
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
Every image that appears on the slate of existence is a picture
of the one who drew the image.
( Fakhruddin Iraqui - Footnote 18, p. xviii )
Hadith qudsi - Moses said: O Lord, are you close enough for me
to whisper in your ear or so distant that I should shout? And God
said: I am behind you, before you, at your right and at your left.
O Moses, I am sitting next to my servant when-ever he
remembers me, and I am with him when he calls Me.
( Foot-note 209, p. 193 )
All pictured forms are reflections in the water of the stream;
when you rub your eyes, indeed, all are He.
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
The unique God has manifested His sign in the six directions to
those with illuminating eyes. Whatever animal or plant they
behold, they contemplate the gardens of divine Beauty. That is
why He said to them, Where-so-ever you turn, there is His Face.
( Qur'aan II 115 )
All of these are symbols --- I mean that the other world keeps
coming into this world. Like cream hidden in the soul of milk, No-
place keeps coming into place. Like intellect concealed in blood
and skin, the Traceless keeps entering into traces. And from
beyond the intellect, beautiful Love comes dragging its skirts, a
cup of wine in its hand. And from beyond Love, that
indescribable One who can only be called "That" keeps coming.
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
The earth has the external shape of dust, but inside are the
luminous Attributes of God. Its outward has fallen into war with
its inward; its inward is like a pearl and its outward a stone. Its
outward says, "I am this and no more." Its inward says, "Look
well, before and behind!" Its outward denies, saying, "The
inward is nothing." The inward says. "We will show you. Wait!"
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
Qur'an: Wheresoever you turn, there is the face of Allah. "I, God
am nearer to you than yourself to yourself."
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
…persist in that invocation until the unity of the world is
subsumed for you in a single sphere, so that with the eye of
your heart you will see naught in the two worlds save the One.
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
…in everything there is a sign that points to the Oneness of Him.
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
…the "Sigh of Compassion" flows through the things of the
world like the waters of a river and is unceasingly renewed.
( Ibn 'Arabi )
His creation springs, not from nothingness, from the something
other than Himself, from a not-Him, but from His fundamental
being, from the potencies and virtualities latent in His own
unrevealed being.
( Ibn 'Arabi )
Everything we call other than God, everything we call universe,
is related to the Divine Being as the shadow to the person. The
world is God's shadow…The shadow is at once God and
something other than God. Everything we perceive is the Divine
Being in the eternal hexeities of the possible.
( Ibn 'Arabi )
--o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o--
Sufism (mysticism) - ( Spirituality : Saint-hood )
"Travel beyond the confines of this life and see the vastness of
His kingdom beyond space. Let your ear listen to what it has not
heard before, and your eye see what it has not seen, until it
leads you to where you see the One of the world and all the
worlds. Express your passion for the One from your heart and
soul until you see the Reality with the eye of certainty. There is
only One and nothing but Him, He is Alone and there is no God
but Him."
( Imam Muhammad Ibn 'Ali Al Baqir 11th Century ).
"You fancy this world is permanent of itself and endures
because of it's own nature, but really it is a ray of light from the
Truth, and within it the Truth concealed."
( Sa'd Al-Din Mahmud Shabistari 1250-1320 )
"The ocean is the same ocean as it has always been of old; the
events of today are it's waves and it's rivers."
( Sayyid Haydar Amuli - 14 Century )
In the beginning was Allah, and beside Him there was nothing -
and He remains as He was.
( Hadith )
Divine unity (tawhid) is the return of man to his origin, so that he
will become as he was before he came into being.
( Imam Abu'l-Qasim Al-Junayd 910 AD )
I was a hidden treasure and I longed to be known. So I created
the Creation so that I may be known.
( Hadith Qudsi )
In the death of the self lies the life of the heart.
( Imam Ja'far Al-Sadiq-8th Century )
Work for this life as though you are going to live forever. Work
for the Next life as though you will die tomorrow.
(Ali Ibn Talib 600-661)
I was sent from myself as a messenger to myself. And my
essence testified to myself by my signs.
( Ibn Ali-Farid 1181-1235 )
When I Allah love my servant…I become the hearing with which
he hears, the seeing with which he sees, the hand with which he
grasps, the feet with which he walks, the tongue with which he
speaks.
( Hadith Qudsi )
All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that
the ocean merges into the drop.
( Kabir 1450-1518 )
Asceticism is not that you should not own anything, but that
nothing should own you.
( Ali-Abu Talib 600-661 )
The Sufi sees his own existence as particles of dust made
visible by a ray of sunlight: neither real nor unreal.
( Abul Hasan Ash-Shadhili 1175-1258 )
Your soul attains to perfection when it returns to its original
sublime state, according to the individual capacity of each
person. Thus the soul divests itself of all illusion and refines
itself with the subtlety its own secret by means of spiritual
exercises aim at purification of the outer and inner from all
obscurity and impurity.
( Sayyid Haydar Amuli 1400 )
Allah possesses a drink which is reserved for his intimate friends
( auliya ): when they drink they become intoxicated, when they
become intoxicated they become joyful, when they become
joyful they become sweet, when they become sweet they begin
to melt, when they begin to melt, they become free, when they
become free they seek, when they seek they find, when they
find they arrive, when they arrive they join, and when they join
there is no difference between them and their Beloved.
( Ali Ibn Talib 600-661 )
…None grasps Him save He Himself. None knows Him but He
Himself… He knows Himself by Himself…Other-than-He cannot
grasp Him. His impenetrable veil is His own Oneness. Other-
than-He does not cloak Him. His veil is His very existence. He is
veiled by His Oneness in a manner that cannot be explained.
Other-than-He does not see Him; whether prophet, envoy, or
perfected saint or angel near unto Him. His prophet is He
Himself. His envoy is He. His message is He. His word is He. He
has sent word of His ipseity by Himself, from Himself, to Himself,
without intermediary or causality other than Himself…Other-than-
He has no existence and so can not bring itself to naught…
( From the Introduction to Sufism - Muhyi-d-Din ibn Arabi in his
Epistle on Unity, the Risalat al Ahadiyah )
( Para-phrased according to the fundamental formula of Islam,
the 'testimony' known in Arabic as the shahadah ):
"There is no divinity, if it be not The Divinity ( la ilaha ill-Allah )"
Which, so to say, 'defines' the Divine Unity. This formula should
be translated as here indicated and not, as usually the case,
'there is no God but, Allah', for it is proper to retain in it the
appearance of …paradox. Its first part, 'the negation'…. denies
in a general manner the same idea of divinity which the second
part, the 'affirmation'…affirms by isolation; in other words the
formula as a whole postulates an idea-that of divinity---which at
the same time denies as a genus. This is the exact opposite of a
'definition', for to define something means first to determine its
'specific difference' and then to bring it to the 'nearest genus', i.
e. to general concepts. Now as the shahadah indicates, Divinity
is 'defined' precisely by the fact that It's reality eludes ever
category… According to this 'testimony; God is distinct from all
things and nothing can be compared to Him…Now perfect
incomparability requires that nothing can be set face to face with
the incomparable and have any relationship whatever with it;
this amounts to saying that nothing exists in the face of the
Divine Reality so that , in It, all things are annihilated. 'God was
and nothing with Him and He is now such as He was.
( hadith qudsi )
Thus extreme 'remoteness' must imply its opposite. Since
nothing can be opposed to God-for it would then be another
'divinity'--every reality can only be a reflection of the Divine
Reality. Moreover, every positive meaning one might give to the
expression ilah ( divinity ) will be transposed in divines: 'there is
no reality if it be not The Reality', 'there is no force if it be not
The Force', there is no truth if it is not The Truth.' We must not
seek to conceive of God by bringing Him down to the level of
things; on the contrary, things are reabsorbed into God so soon
as one recognizes the essential qualities of which they are
constituted.
( From the Introduction to Sufism -- Muhyi-d-Din ibn 'Arabi in his
Epistle on Unity, Risalat al Ahadiyah )
The absolutely Non-Manifested cannot be designated by any
expression which could limit It, Separate It, or include It. In spite
of this, every allusion alludes only to Him, every designation
designates Him, and He is at the same time the Non-Manifested
and the Manifested.
( Amir 'Abd al-Kader )
Allah is in Himself the non-being and the being, the inexistent
and the existent. He is at the same time that which we designate
by absolute non-being and by absolute being; or by relative non-
being and relative being…All these designations come back to
God alone, for there is nothing which we can perceive, know,
write or say which is not Him.
( Amir 'Abd al-Qader )
Paraphrased: Allah ( God ) is neither this nor that.
( Amir 'Abd al-Qader )
Know however that God, in order to manifest Himself by His
essence to His essence, has not need of creatures since, with
relation to Essence, he is absolutely independent with respect to
worlds and even with respect to His own names…On the other
hand, when He manifests Himself with His names and His
attributes --- which implies the manifestation of the effects --- He
needs ( huwa muftaqir ) the creatures…This relation is…
necessary in order that the divine Names, Which are only
distinguished by their effects, can be distinguished from one
another. At the same time, the divine Names, by the one of their
"faces" which is turned toward the Essence, are themselves
totally autonomous with respect to worlds. In this respect, they
are nothing other than the Essence itself and that is why each of
them can be qualified and designated by all of the other Names
in the same way as the Essence.
( Amir 'Abd al-Kader )
Abu Sa'id al-Kharraz said: I have never known Allah --- May He
be exalted! --- except through the coincidence in Him of the
opposites. "He is the First and the Last, the Apparent and the
Hidden." ( Qur'an 57:3 ) ( Mawqif 193, p. 111 )
God created suffering and heartache so that joyful-heartedness
might appear through its opposite. Hence hidden things become
manifest through opposites. But since God has no opposite, He
remains hidden…God's light has no opposite within existence,
that through its opposite it might be made manifest.
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
That Oneness is on the other side of descriptions and states.
Nothing but duality enters speech's playing field.
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
Thy Attributes cannot be understood by the vulgar without the
analogy, yet analogy increases the mistaken idea of Thy
similarity with the creatures.
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
The beauty of the 'Unseen Form' is beyond description ---
borrow a thousand illuminated eyes, borrow!
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
Love makes forms in separation. But at the time of meeting, the
Formless shows His head and says, "I am the root of the root of
sobriety and intoxication; the beauty you see in forms is My (
God ) reflection. Now I have removed the veils, I have displayed
Beauty without intermediary. Since you have become so
interwoven with My reflection, you have found the strength to
view the Essence alone."
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
We and our existences are totally nonexistence. Thou art
Absolute Existence showing Thyself as peristable things.
(Jalaluddin Rumi)
Source material: The Key to Salvation: A Sufi Manual of
Invocation Your Saying: "God is Most Great" does not mean that
He is greater than something else, since there is nothing else
alongside of Him, so that it could be said that He is greater than
it…Rather, the meaning of Allahu Akbar is that He is much too
great to be perceived by the senses or for the depths of His
Majesty to be reached by reason and logic, and indeed, that He
is much too great to be known by an other-than-Him for truly, no
one knows God, but God.
( p.119 )
…the gnosis of God is intermediate between immoderation,
which is ascribing human characteristics to God, and
negligence, which is denying any attributes to God…The Truth
lies in the balance between the two extremes.
( p. 162 )
He is the First and the Last, the Outward and the Inward and He
is the Knower of all things.
( p. 82 )
( "Creative Imagination in the Sufism" by Ibn 'Arabi )
…in Ibn 'Arabi's own terminology Al-Lah is the Name which
designates the divine Essence qualified and invested with the
sum of His attributes, whereas al-Rabb, the Lord, is the
personified and particularized Divine in one of its attributes (
hence the divine Names designated as so many "lords", arbab ).
( p. 122 )
…Ibn 'Arabi distinguishes between Allah as God in general and
Rabb as the particular Lord, personalized in an individualized
and undivided relation with his vassal of love. This individualized
relationship on both sides is the foundation of the mystic and
chivalric ethic of the fedel d'amore in the service of the personal
Lord whose divinity depends on the adoration of his faithful
vassal…{ It is the passion that the fedele d'amore feels for his
Lord which reveals the Lord to Himself.}And this always
individually, in an "alone to alone," which is something very
different from universal logic or from a collective participation,
because only the knowledge which the fedele has of his Lord is
the knowledge which this personal Lord has of him.
( p. 94 )
All {the divine Names} refer to one and the same Named One.
But each one of them refers to an essential determination,
different from all the rest; it is by this individualization that each
Name refers to the God who reveals himself to and by the
theophanic imagination.
( p. 192 )
…the Divine Being is not fragmented, but wholly present in each
instance, individualized in each theophany of His Names, and it
is invested in each instance with one of these Names that He
appears as Lord.
( p.121 )
Paraphrased: The devotee who is faithful to the divine Name
that is His Lord recognizes his Beloved in every Beloved and in
every divine Name the totality of Names, because among the
divine Names there is a sympathetic union.
( p. 134 )
The Names…have existed from all eternity: these Names are
designated as "Lords" ( Arbab ), who often have all the
appearance of hypstases though they cannot strictly be defined
as such. We know them only by our knowledge of ourselves
(that is the basic maxim). God describes Himself to us through
ourselves. Which means that the divine Names are essentially
relative to the beings who name them, since these beings
discover and experience them in their own mode of being…Thus
the divine Names have meaning and full reality only through and
for beings…in which they are manifested. Likewise from all
eternity, these forms, substrate of the divine Names, have
existed in the divine Essence ( A 'yan thabita ). And it is these
latent individualities who from all eternity have aspired to
concrete being in actu. Their aspiration is itself nothing other
than the nostalgia of the divine Names yearning to be revealed.
And this nostalgia of the divine Names is nothing other than the
sadness of the unrevealed God, the anguish He experiences in
His unknown-ness and occultation.
( p. 114-115 )
"God created in the faith," manifests Himself no longer in order
to impose Himself on the faithful, but in order to express His
limits, for these limits are the condition which makes possible
one among the many divine epiphanies. The Gnostic does not
receive a ready-made Image of his Lord, but understands Him in
the light of the Image which in the course of his manajat, his
intimate dialogue, appears in the mirror of his heart as subtile
organ.
( p. 270 )
The image of the God whom the faithful creates is the Image of
the God whom his own being reveals…Thus it is psychologically
true to say that "the God created in the faiths" is the symbol of
the Self. The God to whom we pray can be only the God who
reveals Himself to us, by us, and for us, but it is praying to Him
that we cause the "God created in faiths" to be himself eveloped
in the Divine Compassion, that is, existentiated, manifested by it.
The theophanies of the real One God ( Haqq Haqiqi ). When we
are the musalli, this must be borne in mind; he who knows this is
the Gnostic who has untied the knot of closed, limited dogmans
because for him they have become the ophanic symbols.
Questioner: How do you know God?
By the fact that He ( God ) is the coincidentia oppositorum.
Abu Asa 'id al-Kharraz:
Corbin's Commentary:
…the entire universe of worlds is at once He and not-He (huwa
la huwa). The God manifested in forms is at once Himself and
other than Himself, for since He is manifested, He is the limited
which has not limit, the visible which cannot be seen. This
manifestation is neither perceptible nor verifiable by the sensory
faculties; discursive reason rejects it. It is perceptible only by the
Active Imagination ( Hadrat al-Khayal..…) at times when it
dominates man's sense perceptions, in dreams or better still in
the waking state ( in the state characteristic of the Gnostic when
he departs from the consciousness of sensuous things ). In
short, a mystic perception ( dhawq ) is required. To perceive all
forms as epiphanic froms ( mazahir ), that is, to perceive through
the figures which they manifest and which are the eternal
hexeities, that they are other than the Creator and nevertheless
that they are He, is precisely to effect the encounter, the
coincidence between God's descent toward the creature and the
creature's ascent toward the Creator. The "place" of this
encounter is not outside the Creator-Creature totality, but is the
area within which corresponds specifically to the Active
Imagination, in the manner of a bridge joining the two banks of a
river. The crossing itself is essentially a hermeneutics of
symbols…a method of understanding which transmutes sensory
data and rational concepts into symbols ( mazahir ) by making
them effect this crossing.
( p. 188-189 )
Behold what shows to thee His Omnipotence, ( may He be
exalted ): It is that He hides Himself from thee by what has no
existence apart from Him.
( Ibn 'Ata'illah al-iskandari, in Hikma )
…The world is essentially the manifestation of God to Himself.
Thus it is expressed in the sacred saying ( hadith qudsi ) which
brings back the idea of creation to the idea of Knowledge: 'I was
a hidden treasure; I wished to be known ( or to know ) and I
created the world.' In the same sense Sufis compare the
Universe to a combination of mirrors in which the Infinite
Essence contemplates Itself in a multiplicity of forms, or which
reflect in differing degrees the irradiation ( at-tajalli ) of the One
Being.
( Ibn 'Ata'illah al-iskandari, in Hikma )
In truth all possibilities are principally reducible to non-existence
( 'udum ) and there is no Being ( or, Existence ) other than the
being of God, may He be exalted, (revealing Himself) in the
"forms"…which result from the possibilities as they are in
themselves…( Muhyi-d-Din ibn 'Arabi, in his Fusus al-Hikam in
the Chapter on Jacob )"And He is with you wherever you are"…
( Qur'an 57:4 )
Commentary:…he companionship expressed by "with" is that of
the Being and the non-being, for there is no Being other than
Allah…if Allah -- May He be exalted! -- was not, by His very
Essence, which is the Being of all that is, "with" the creatures,
we could not attribute being to any of these creatures and they
could not be perceived either by the senses, by the imagination,
or by the intellect. It is their 'being with' which assures to
creatures a relation with the Being. Better yet, it is their being
itself. This 'belong with' embraces all things, whether they are
sublime or lowly, great or small. It is through it that they subsist.
He is the pure Being by which 'that which is' is. The 'being with'
of Allah consists therefore in the fact that He is with us through
His essence; that is, through that which we call the divine Self (
huwiyya ), universally present…
( Amir 'Abd al-Kader )
Indications of this divine 'being with' are contained in the
following verses:-
*And He is witness of all things
( Qur'an 34:47 )
*And Allah, behind them, encompasses them
( Qur'an 85:20 )
*Wherever you turn, there is the Face of Allah
( Qur'an 2:116 )
There is a strange frenzy in my head, of birds flying, each
particle circulating on its own. Is the one I love everywhere?
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
Lo, I am with you always means when you look for God, God is
in the look of your eyes, in the thought of looking, nearer to you
than your self, or things that have happened to you. There is no
need to go outside. Be melting snow. Wash yourself of yourself.
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
What do we mean by saying that God is not in heaven? We do
not mean that He is not in heaven, but that heaven can not
encompass Him. He encompasses heaven. He has an ineffable
connection with heaven just as He has an ineffable connection
with you. Everything is in His omnipotent hands; everything is a
manifestation of Him and subject to His control. So, He is not
totally inside them either, that is, they do not encompass Him but
He encompasses them totally.
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
Someone asked where God was before earth, skies, and Divine
Throne existed. We said that the question was invalid from the
outset because God is by definition that which has no place. {He
is non-spatial}
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
All creatures, day and night, make manifestation of God. Some
of them know what they are doing and are aware of their
manifesting, while others are unaware. However it may be,
God's manifestation is confirmed.
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
Every image that appears on the slate of existence is a picture
of the one who drew the image.
( Fakhruddin Iraqui - Footnote 18, p. xviii )
Hadith qudsi - Moses said: O Lord, are you close enough for me
to whisper in your ear or so distant that I should shout? And God
said: I am behind you, before you, at your right and at your left.
O Moses, I am sitting next to my servant when-ever he
remembers me, and I am with him when he calls Me.
( Foot-note 209, p. 193 )
All pictured forms are reflections in the water of the stream;
when you rub your eyes, indeed, all are He.
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
The unique God has manifested His sign in the six directions to
those with illuminating eyes. Whatever animal or plant they
behold, they contemplate the gardens of divine Beauty. That is
why He said to them, Where-so-ever you turn, there is His Face.
( Qur'aan II 115 )
All of these are symbols --- I mean that the other world keeps
coming into this world. Like cream hidden in the soul of milk, No-
place keeps coming into place. Like intellect concealed in blood
and skin, the Traceless keeps entering into traces. And from
beyond the intellect, beautiful Love comes dragging its skirts, a
cup of wine in its hand. And from beyond Love, that
indescribable One who can only be called "That" keeps coming.
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
The earth has the external shape of dust, but inside are the
luminous Attributes of God. Its outward has fallen into war with
its inward; its inward is like a pearl and its outward a stone. Its
outward says, "I am this and no more." Its inward says, "Look
well, before and behind!" Its outward denies, saying, "The
inward is nothing." The inward says. "We will show you. Wait!"
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
Qur'an: Wheresoever you turn, there is the face of Allah. "I, God
am nearer to you than yourself to yourself."
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
…persist in that invocation until the unity of the world is
subsumed for you in a single sphere, so that with the eye of
your heart you will see naught in the two worlds save the One.
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
…in everything there is a sign that points to the Oneness of Him.
( Jalaluddin Rumi )
…the "Sigh of Compassion" flows through the things of the
world like the waters of a river and is unceasingly renewed.
( Ibn 'Arabi )
His creation springs, not from nothingness, from the something
other than Himself, from a not-Him, but from His fundamental
being, from the potencies and virtualities latent in His own
unrevealed being.
( Ibn 'Arabi )
Everything we call other than God, everything we call universe,
is related to the Divine Being as the shadow to the person. The
world is God's shadow…The shadow is at once God and
something other than God. Everything we perceive is the Divine
Being in the eternal hexeities of the possible.
( Ibn 'Arabi )
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