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ISLAM: THE SPIRITUAL WAY TO PERFECTION FOR MAN BASED ON KNOWLEDGE AND LOVE OF GOD
Man has innate inclination
to know where he comes from, what his end will be, and what
is his purpose in life
Man has innate inclination
to know where he comes from, what his end will be, and what
is his purpose in life. While traditional man had no difficulty
in answering these questions and knew with certainty where
he came from, why he was living and where he was going, modern
man, under the heavy burden of modern life and the influence
of modern conceptions, knows almost nothing of these essential
problems arising from his very nature. This ignorance does
not, however, change his situation: he, like the traditional
man, is born and dies, and this fact has never changed nor
will it do so, in spite of the ‘gigantic’ advancements in
science and technology. The only difference is that what was
once certainty has been replaced by doubt and fear.
He
is a finite being contained by an infinitude
Man’s situation between
these two fixed points, that is, birth and death, has not
changed at all. He is still a finite being contained by an
infinitude, who cannot escape being stirred by his very nature
to an understanding of the Infinite and the Absolute. With
regard to the Absolute and all the states of being which comprise
the universe, man is what he has always been and always will
be, one of the fairest creatures with the highest point of
creation, yet with the potentiality to fall down to ‘the lowest
of the low’.
According to the Qur’an,
the process of creation is circular (As He brought you forth
in the beginning so unto Him shall you also return. 7:29)
in the sense that it ends at the point from where it started.
The atheist is also of the same view, but he conceives matter,
space and time or something presentable in terms of four dimensions
as the point wherefrom the process starts and at which it
also ends. Although matter is furthest from the state of perfection,
he holds it, in its most chaotic condition, as the beginning
and the end of the creation, which he deems as accidental
and purposeless. Whereas according to the Qur’an, the existence
starts with the highest state of perfection, and then proceeds
down to matter, which has the least degree of perfection,
and then again it turns back upward to the point from where
it started.
He regulates the
affair from the heaven to the earth, then shall it go up
to Him in one day the measure of which is thousand years
of what you reckon. (32:5)
Creation
in the “Breath” of the Compassionate
This process is designed
and administered by the Creative Will, and the Divine Grace
and Compassion (rahma) is an a Priori factor in the manifestation
of this Will. Therefore Compassion is the principle of the
manifestation of the Infinite, so that the universe is called
by the Muslim sufis ‘the Breath of the Compassionate’. Each
particle of existence is immersed in this Breath, which endows
it with a ‘sympathy’, with an ‘attraction’ to other beings,
and above all with the source of the Breath, the Divine Compassion.
That is why each atom of the universe is regarded as the theophany
of the Divine Names and Attributes. Mahmud Shabstari, in his
Gulshan-i Raz (The Mystic Rose Garden), expresses the Divine
Being as manifested in everything, whether big or small:
Know the world is
a mirror from head to foot,
In every atom a hundred blazing suns.
If you cleave the heart of one drop of water,
A hundred pure oceans emerge from it.
If you examine closely each grain of sand,
A thousand Adams may be seen in it.
In its members a gnat is like an elephant;
In its qualities a drop of rain is like the Nile.
The heart of a barley-corn equals a hundred harvests,
A world dwells in the heart of a millet seed.
In the wing of a gnat is the ocean of the life,
In the pupil of the eye a heaven;
What though the grain of the heart be small,
It is a station for the Lord of both worlds to dwell therein.
(Translated by E. H. Whinfield)
The Light of Muhammad
is actually the theatre of the theophany of all the Divine
Names and Attributes
Because existence is the manifestation of God’s grace or compassion,
the order and hierarchy of creation begins with the highest
and most comprehensive created entity, who is the compassion
unto all worlds or beings, and the foremost in having within
the fold of his existence all the excellences which are to
be revealed in the chain of beings next to him in grade and
elevation. This entity, being the most comprehensive in perfection
and the embodiment of God’s Compassion, is presented in various
terms but the most appropriate one is ‘the Light of Muhammad’
or ‘Reality of Muhammad’. Like sunshine radiating through
everything from a molecule of water to the whole surface of
the sea, and to the heavenly bodies, so the Light of Muhammad
is actually the theatre of the theophany of all the Divine
Names and Attributes, and the archetype of the cosmos.
The
hierarchy of creation
The hierarchy of creation
then unfolds itself in innumerable spheres of intellectual
and angelical beings. In the Qur’an, they are termed ‘the
Malakut’ or realms of unseen active spiritual and psychic
entities. Each sphere is held by the one above it and this
holds the sphere below it, ending in the four dimensional
sphere known as material being. This is the lowest sphere
which is held but has no holding faculty of its own at all,
so it is termed in the Qur’an ‘Alam-i Mulk’ or ‘Alam-i Shadat’,
the held-world or seen-world. This world forms the base of
the hierarchy, the summit of which is the first and the most
perfect and comprehensive entity. This base has nothing of
the actual or the creative in it, but it is endowed with unlimited
potentiality and recipience which forms the background of
its upward and spiritually evolutionary movement.
Thus matter in its upward
course begins with the simplest form of particles of atom
and then proceeds towards the formation of atoms into nebulae
and solar system, populated with inanimate and animate things,
of plants, animals, man and other conscious and intellectual
beings of various species, the nature and number of whom the
Creator alone knows. So far as the earth is concerned, inanimate
elements are employed by the Creator to develop into plants,
thus being elevated to the simplest degree of life. Life evolves
through plants and animals until it reaches perfection with
man, who is the most complicated and the highest intellectual
entity, into which matter has developed, and with which the
hierarchy of creation returns to the point from where it started.
Man
is endowed with the power of discovery and invention, and
has been taught ‘the names’, which are the keys to the knowledge
of all things
Man is endowed with
the power of discovery and invention, and has been taught
‘the names’, which are the keys to the knowledge of all things.
He is also gifted with the power to receive through his external
and internal senses all that is manifested by God’s Will in
the various spheres -terrestrial, celestial and supercelestial,
and to reflect and reproduce all that he has received. Although
man is at the summit of the hierarchy of creation on account
of his celestial origin, he has to live upon the earth because
of the vegetable and animal aspects of his existence. It is
precisely because of these contradictory features of his being,
the angelic nature and the terrestrial crust hiding the spiritual
core, that man lives in this world and yet is bound by his
own nature to transcend it.
Man
is the bearer of the Supreme Divine Trust
The Qur’anic verse “Surely
We created man of the fairest creature; then We reduced him
to the lowest of the low” (95:4-5) defines the situation of
man in this world in a manner that is at once perennial and
universal. Man was created in the fairest stature, then he
fell into the condition of separation and withdrawal from
his celestial prototype, to a condition which the Qur’an calls
the lowest of the low. Upon this point, a Muslim Sufi commentator
writes that God created man as the most complete and perfect
theophany, the most universal and all-embracing theatre of
Divine Names and Attributes, so that he might become the bearer
of the Divine Trust (amana) and the source of an unlimited
effusion of light. He identifies ‘the lowest of the low’ with
the world of natural passions and heedlessness. The grandeur
of the human state, its great possibilities and perils, and
the permanent nature of man’s quest after the Divine thus
lie at the very root of human existence. Avicenna, a famous
Muslim philosopher of the eleventh century, expresses in the
following poem this idea that the human soul feels constrained
to leave this world and to return to the angelic world from
where it came:
...
Now why from its perch on high was it cast like this
To the lowest Nadir’s gloomy and dear abyss?
Was it God who cast it forth for some purpose wise,
Concealed from the keenest seeker’s inquiring eyes?
Then is its descent a discipline wise but stern,
That the things that it has not heard it thus may learn.
So ‘tis she whom Fate does plunder, while the star
Sets at length in a place from its rising far,
Like a gleam of lightning which over the meadows shone,
And, as though it never had been, in a moment is gone.
(E.G. Brown’s translation)
Finite
forms in the cosmos reveal the traces of the Infinite
The cosmos continually
reveals to man the eternal message of the Truth. Its finite
forms reveal the traces of the Infinite. As Ali ibn Ali Talib
said, “I wonder at the man who observes the universe created
by God and doubts His existence.” The Qur’an says concerning
this point:
To God belongs
the Kingdom of the heavens and of the earth; and God is
powerful over everything. Surely in the creation of the
heavens and earth and in the alternation of night and day
there are signs for men possessed of minds, who remember
God, standing and sitting and lying on their sides, and
reflect upon the creation of the heavens and the earth:
“Our Lord, You
have not created this for vanity. Glory be to You! Guard
us against the chastisement of the Fire. Our Lord, whomsoever
You admit into the Fire, You will have abased; and the evildoers
shall have no helpers. Our Lord, we have heard a caller
calling us to belief, saying, “Believe you in your Lord!”
And so we believe. Our Lord, forgive You us our sins and
acquit us for our evil deeds, and take us to You with the
pious. Our Lord, give us what You have promised us through
Your Messengers, and abase us not on the Day of Resurrection;
You will not fail the tryst.” And their Lord answers them:
“I waste not the labor of any that labors among you, be
you male or female -the one of you is as the other.” (3:189-195)
Man has need of revelation,
which like the cosmos itself comes from the Infinite and the
Absolute, and hence serves as the key for the unfolding of
the mysteries of man’s own being as well as those of the universe.
Revelation is in itself a gift that has descended from the
Divine mercy to enable man to pass beyond the finite to the
Infinite.
Revelation
enables the human soul to make a journey from the outward
to the inward, from the periphery to the center, from form
to meaning, the journey which is none other than the mystical
quest itself
Revelation enables the
human soul to make a journey from the outward to the inward,
from the periphery to the center, from form to meaning, the
journey which is none other than the mystical quest itself.
Because of the intimate relation the soul has with the cosmos,
this journey is at once a penetration to the center of the
soul and a migration to the abode beyond the cosmos. In both
places the Divine Presence resides. Man, by following the
‘outer’ form of Islam, migrates into the inner and by the
grace of God transcends the finite world to regain his primordial
angelic state, and thus to complete the circle of creation.
The spiritual path, as it exists in Islam, is one in which
man dies to his carnal soul in order to be reborn in his angelic
self.
Those who have found
the Truth have found Him in their souls;
Those who have been detained half-way have been hindered
by conjectures.
Who truly seeks will truly find Him, while the indolent
can do neither;
For His slaves on their spiritual journey, He is the final
destination.
The souls who do not recognize Him as friend, who do not
die to themselves to be raised again in him,
The souls who do not die for His sake are utterly bereft
and destitute.
Come, friends, let’s set out to reach the realm of the Beloved;
And let us see the rose of His beauty for a moment in light.
The world is pitiless and cruel, all around in fog and cloud;
It is but a loss and waste of time to stay here even for
a short while.
We are travelers, and our home-coming is with Him alone;
what an honor then to reach him; and
Faith is the only means of attaining this aim by His leave
and grace.
As frequently pointed
out in this book, Islam is the religion of unity and all the
aspects of the Islamic doctrine and practice reflect this
central and cardinal principle. The Shari‘a itself is a vast
network of injunctions and regulations which relate the world
of multiplicity inwardly to a single center, and which conversely
is reflected in the multiplicity of the circumference. In
the same way Islamic art always seeks to relate the multiplicity
of forms, shapes and color to the One, to the center and Origin,
thereby reflecting Tawhid in its own way in the world of forms
with which it is concerned.
Sufism,
being the inner dimension of the Islamic revelation, is the
means par excellence whereby Tawhid is achieved
Sufism, being the inner
dimension of the Islamic revelation, is the means par excellence
whereby Tawhid is achieved. All Muslims believe in unity as
expressed in the most universal sense possible by the Shadah,
La ilahe ill’Allah, that is, there is not deity but God.
The whole program of
Sufism, of the Islamic spiritual way, is to free man from
the prison of multiplicity, and to purify him of any mental
process or physical action which diverts his ego-center towards
temporal and sensual desires. It is to cure him of hypocrisy
and to make him whole, for it is only in being whole that
man can become holy. Men confess the one God but actually
live and act as if there were many gods. Thus they suffer
from the cardinal sin of ‘polytheism’ or shirk, and from a
hypocrisy whereby they profess one thing but act according
to something different. Sufism seeks to bring shirk into the
open, and thereby to cure the soul of this deadly malady.
The aim and goal of Sufism is to integrate man at every level
of his existence.
Such an integration
is brought about by the harmonization of all the faculties,
the body, the mind, and the spirit, and not through the negation
of the intelligence which so often occurs with modern religious
movements. The methods of Sufism base themselves upon the
practices of the Shari‘a, and in particular, the daily prayers,
which are a most powerful means of integrating man’s psychic
faculties and harmonizing them with his corporeal being.
The main method of Sufism,
in fact, is to extend the prayers so that they become continuous.
This extension is not only quantitative, but also qualitative,
that is, Sufism uses this quintessential form of prayer, the
dhikr or invocation, in which all otherness and separation
from the Divine is removed and man achieves Tawhid. With the
help of dhikr, combined with appropriate forms of meditation
or fikr, man first gains an integrated soul, pure and whole
like gold, and then by means of dhikr, he offers his soul
to God so as to return to him in ecstasy.
The man who has achieved
this integration possesses certain characteristics discernible
to everyone; it leaves its imprint even upon his outward appearance,
which of necessity reflects his inner state. Such a person
is first of all cured of all the maladies of the soul, not
by having all tensions and complexes removed in the manner
of modern psycho-analysis, but by having those tensions which
arise from man’s urge and need for the transcendent realized
and fulfilled. Moreover, such a man does not live a compartmentalized
existence, his thoughts and actions all issue from a single
center and are based on a series of immutable principles.
In him, the Islamic ideal of unifying contemplation with the
practical is realized. He does not act or think in the normal
manner, rather his contemplation and meditation are combined
in the purest and most intense activity. By virtue of his
becoming integrated, he reflects the Divine Unity and becomes
the total theophany of the Divine Names and Qualities. He
acts and lives in such a manner that there is a spiritual
fragrance and beauty about all he does and says. Somehow he
is in touch with that baraka or Divine grace which runs through
the arteries of the universe.
The man who has achieved
integration has reached the goal of his life, and is cured
forever of the fear of death, which is so destructive to modern
man. He perceives that death is not total annihilation but
merely a shifting from a state of lesser sensitivity to a
higher one. Man belongs to God, and as stated in the Qur’an,
the movement of every individual, as well as the societies
of beings a whole, is toward God. Death is, therefore, nothing
but a shift and change from one stage of existence to a higher
one which ultimately terminates with God. Of man’s sensory
faculties, whether external or internal, none is destroyed
by death, on the contrary, all these become refined and sharpened.
The only relationship which is severed by death is the direct
relationship of the conscious ego with the outer material
world, with which it is connected through external senses.
The material life is a veil to human senses and consciousness;
on the removal of this veil by death all the faculties are
sharpened. This is confirmed by a tradition of the Holy Prophet,
who said, “Men are at present in a state of sleep; they will
awake when they die.” So death is actually an ascension, and
therefore not something to be feared by the sincere Muslim
but is a gate opening towards the higher realities and pleasures
of existence. It is a transference from the dungeons of worldly
life to the gardens of Paradise, and from the world of labor
and troubles to the abode of rewards.
In a Prophetic tradition
in which God speaks God says:
My servant draws
near unto me by works of supererogation, so that I love
him; and when I love him, I am his ear with which he hears
through Me, and his eye with which he sees through Me, and
his tongue with which he speaks through Me, and his hand
with which he takes through Me.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Said Nursi, Mesnevi-i Nuriye, (‘Epitomes of Light’), Istanbul
M. Abdulfettah Sahin, Truth through Colours, Izmir,1992
Emerald Hills of the Heart, Izmir 1998
S. Hussain Nasr, Sufi Essays, London
Three Muslim Sages, Cambridge,1964
Science and Civilization in Islam, London,1987
Mahmud Shabstari, Gulshan-i Raz, (Turkish trans.) Ankara
M. M. Pouya, Fundamentals of Islam, Karachi
M. Ibn al-Arabi, Shajarat al-Kawn, 1982
Ataullah Iskenderani, Hikmetler Kitabi, (Turkish trans.)1981
Martin Lings, Yirminci Yuzyilda Bir Veli (Turkish trans.)1980
Titus Burckhardt, Islam Tasavvuf Doktrinine Giris (Turkish
trans)1982
Abdul-Karim al-Jili, Insan al-Kamil (Turkish trans) 1975
Abdul-Karim al-Qushairi, Qushairi Risalesi (Turkish trans.)
Istanbul
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