There is a strong tendency among many scholars of Islam, and other
observers and scholars, to treat the legacy of Islamic thought through
the trite lens of a "Golden Age", followed by the inevitable "decline."
This favoring of "Classical" Islam usually translates into a favoring of
Muslims who lived from 632-1258, lived in what today we would call the
Middle East, and wrote primarily in Arabic. While my focus in this
essay will be the notions of love, human and Divine, as espoused in the
earliest and most foundational sources, let us begin with a 20th century
Muslim mystic expressing these same ideas. He was in many ways a
typical figure of 20th century globalism: a young Indian man who was
sent to Europe, performed classical Hindustani concerts, and then
brought his message of universal mysticism to the United States. His
languages were Gujarati and English, not Arabic. Here is one of his
most well known poems on the theme of love:
Hazrat Inayat Khan's heartfelt poem in many ways stands in a
thousand-year-old line of what has been referred to as the madhhab-i
'ishq, or "Path of Love" in Islam. What holds this thousand-year
old "path" together is neither creedal statements nor particular
initiatory rituals, but rather an aesthetic, a "mood", a rasa:
the intuitive experience of love, which must be tasted personally. This
is what the Sufis of this path referred to as the "taste" (dhauq)
of love:
There is another tendency that I would like to avoid in this
presentation. In order to fully situate Islamic mysticism
(tasawwuf) as an unmistakably Islamic discourse, the early Sufis
present Sufism as largely emerging out of the Qur'an and the statements
of the Prophet Muhammad (ahadith, sing. hadith). This
approach has also been followed by many contemporary scholars of Islam
and Sufism. It is, surely, a well-respected practice. There is no
doubt great merit in going through the passages of the Qur'an,
identifying all the many verses that talk about the great intimacy
between humanity and the Divine: one could point to the very
identification of the Divine as both Rahman and rahim,
often translated as "compassionate, merciful", or perhaps even more
accurately, "Infinite Tenderness, Eternal Kindness." One could point to
the passages that talk about God as being closer to the believers than
their own selves, as well as the ones that emphasize the quality of
God's being overflowing in love towards those who have faith.
One could easily take that time-honored approach, yet in this essay I
would like to proceed in a slightly different fashion. Rather than
starting with the jewels of the Qur'an and the highlights of the
Prophetic tradition before moving on to the statements of the Sufis, I
would like to propose that we undertake a more historical study of the
Sufis themselves. In my examination of particular Sufis and their
teachings, I will of course bring up the key Qur'anic passages and
ahadith that they bring up. My reason for this is to acknowledge
that there is no direct teleology between the Qur'an and Love-Sufism.
These verses can and have been interpreted in a thousand and one ways,
and indeed many earlier Sufis (9th, 10th century ones) do not make the
frequently cited verses of the Qur'an the cornerstone of their
teachings. In other words, I am not arguing here that the Qur'an
"really" focuses on these love teachings to the exclusion of other
interpretations, as that would be a partial and even polemical view that
denigrates other interpretations of the Qur'an. Rather, I wish to come
to the foundational sources as interpreted by the later sources. It is
not a difficult task to identify passages in the Qur'an that lend
themselves to "love readings", but I urge us to consider that it is
imperative to identify interpretive communities that have identified the
same verses before us. In other words, whether the question to which we
are tending is Divine love or jihad or gender constructions, it
is important to avoid what some have called a naïve protestant
reading of the Qur'an, and focus as well on the interaction of
particular interpretive communities with the Sacred text throughout
history. That, it seems to me, is perhaps a grander but much more
sincere project from the perspective of both a scholar and an admirer of
the richness of meanings contained in the Qur'an.
What is the path of Love? Towards a typology of Path of Love:
My concern in this essay is with that loosely affiliated interpretive
community that identifies itself as walking on the "path of Love". This
hermeneutic community appeared fully in the early 12th century, and
continues down to today. If we accept Ibn 'Arabi's (d. 1240) premise
that the human heart is by nature synthetic and dynamic rather than
discursive,[4] there is surely
a problem with offering a static "list" of traits to identify the Sufis
of the Path of Love. It is important to point out that any such list is
merely suggestive, and not exclusionary. Furthermore, many "Path of
Love" Sufis meet some but not all of the criteria in the "typology"
offered below. Still, it might help us in getting a better sense of how
these loosely affiliated Sufis differed from other Sufis, many of whom
were also likely to give a high place of prominence to love in their
teachings.
As simple as it might seem, there are a large number of Sufis who
have chosen to identify themselves as following the madhhab-i
'ishq. In doing so, they have privileged passionate love
('ishq) as the foremost means of approaching God. These Sufis
elaborated upon the conventional dichotomies posed by earlier Sufis
between 'ishq-i haqiqi ("Real" Love, that directed to God) and
'ishq-i majazi ("metaphorical" love, that directed toward other
creatures,), and at times distanced themselves from it. Their
conception of love was a more fluid and even mysterious one,[5] and they sought to explore the
various nuances of the manifestations of love. In their explorations of
love, they utilized well-known imagery which had been first developed in
the context of human love, such as themes of the Cruel Beloved and
affliction in love, to talk about the Divine.
In speaking of the Divine (and humanity), these Sufis demonstrated a
particular fascination, even obsession, with beauty (jamal) as
the paramount manifestation of the Beloved. This often led them to
envisage particular humans as manifestations (tajalli) of the
Divine, though not in the sense of incarnations, which they dismissed as
hulul. They would also see many Divine manifestations in the
natural realm: a rose could be a reminder of Divine Glory, the beauty
mark on a beloved's face a reminder of Divine Unity. Perhaps most
importantly, they have explored the consequences of God being revealed
in phenomenal beings, including of course humanity. The fascination
with beauty often led them to intricate examinations of the beloved as a
shahid, "witness", which comes from the same root as
shahada, or witnessing to Divine Unity. The Unity of God and
Prophethood of Muhammad that most Muslims witnessed through repeated
La ilaha illa 'l-lah, these mystics would testify to through an
immersion in love's baffling aesthetics.
Since they sought the Divine inside humanity, these Sufis connected
the path of God, from God, to God (inna lilahi
wa inna ilayhi raji'un) [Qur'an 2:156], and even in God,[6] as something distinct from the
conventional journey from here to Hereafter. Its Ultimate aim is found
neither in this world, nor even in Paradise. It is not to be found
simply through intellection and what the seeker knows and sees: the
path of the seeker is inside his/her own self. One must search inside
one's own self; as the Qur'an commands: "Do they not contemplate in
their own selves (fi anfusikum afala tubsirun)?" [Qur'an 51:21]
It is above all with this inward path of love that the madhhab-i
'ishq has been concerned with. The first aim of this path is to
point out to the thirsty seeker that he, parched lips and dying of
thirst, stands knee deep in a river, even an ocean:
You!
always traversing the world
searching...
tell me:
what benefit has come of it?
That
which you are seeking
is with you;
and you seek
elsewhere[7]
('Ayn al-Qozat)
Consistent with seeking the Divine inside their own being, the Sufis
of the Path of Love consistently valued spiritual experience over
theoretical knowledge. It is important to point out that they did not
wish to abolish theoretical knowledge: indeed they themselves have left
some of the richest theoretical works in all of Islamic history.
Rather, they wished to emphasize that ultimately it is personal
experience that will lead one down the path, not theoretical knowledge.
As 'Ayn al-Qozat (d. 1131) said, it is honey in the mouth which is
sweet, not the letters h-o-n-e-y.
As a general rule, the madhhab-i 'ishq developed in the
Persian and Persianate regions. Its teachings were easily passed on to
the emerging Urdu and Turkish literary traditions.[8] Perhaps as much as anything else, it
seems to be the non-gender basis of these Persianate languages which
allows for deliberately delicious ambiguities where a love poem can be
taken as referring to a poet's spouse, spiritual teacher, Prophet
Muhammad, or God — and often times simultaneously to all of
them!
Many writers of the madhhab-i 'ishq favored the use of poetry
and music as a means of spiritual exercise. These meticulous
performances provided the contexts for some of the first concerts of
spiritual music, to achieve ecstasy, or what is referred to as
sama' sessions, in these societies.
Many, though not all, of these Sufis favored using paradoxical
statements to encourage the listeners to attain to a self-critical level
of their own presupposed categories. At times these statements assumed
the genre of shathiyat, or ecstatic utterances.[9] It is perhaps important to recall that
not all of their utterances are to be read in a straightforward
theological, legal, or philosophical fashion, all separate discourses in
Islamic thought. The playfulness of such mystics vis-à-vis the
blessed yet cursed medium of language should never be forgotten.
Perhaps a surprising aspect of madhhab-i 'ishq has been the
willingness of these Sufis to recognize ways in which many people's
adherence to Islam has become more rote than personal realization.
Therefore, they have developed sophisticated ways in which they call for
people to give up their "metaphorical Islam", and transcend to a higher
level of God-realization. There is no question here of abandoning
religiosity altogether or of advocating a "spirituality" disconnected
from particular religious traditions, notions that would have been
anachronistic to any pre-modern Sufi. Rather, they would invert symbols
which in popular Muslim imagination represented "inferior" forms of
belief ranging from infidelity and idol-worship to Magian sages, wine
drinking, and even Christianity to represent this type of
God-actualization that has transcended the norms and the public
acknowledgment of these norms. Naturally the Sufis would not become
idol-worshippers and Christians any more than they became wine-drinkers.
Perhaps the most deliberately shocking of the "inversions" of symbols
were occasions when some Sufis on the Path of Love depicted Iblis
(Satan) as the perfect lover of God, and "True Infidelity" as superior
to "metaphorical Islam."[10]
As it might be expected, these hermeneutical exercises earned them the
wrath of many religious scholars, and even some Sufis.
In a related move, they often moved to de-exceptionalize Islam in
their treatment of other religious traditions: one of them, 'Ayn
al-Qozat, freely acknowledged that just as all religious traditions
become "worn out", Islam too was becoming worn out in his own day.[11] They often saw this message
of God-realization primarily through love of humanity and Divine as the
means of reviving and rejuvenating all religious traditions. A
concurrent aspect of this teaching was their emphasis on the possibility
of many spiritual paths to lead one to salvation and enlightenment.
This universality earned them the affection of many different followers,
even as it raised the ire of stricter theologians.
To the Sufis of madhhab-i 'ishq, if any path brings humanity
to the Divine, then that path is Islam, "Submission." Likewise, a path
that does not bring enlightenment (agahi) is worse than
infidelity in the sight of God. The seeker is concerned with the One
who instituted the path, not the path itself.
I will incinerate this creed and religion, and burn it.
Then I will put your love in its place.
How long must I hide
this love in my heart?
What the traveler seeks
is not the religion
and not the creed:
Only You.[12]
Another tendency occasionally displayed in the Sufis of madhhab-i
ishq has been their transcending of conventional master-disciple
hierarchy. Close examinations of the relations between 'Ayn al-Qozat
and Ahmad Ghazali on one hand, and Rumi (d. 1273) and Shams (among the
two most well known pairs of Sufi masters in history of Islam) on the
other reveals the extent to which each mystic became a mirror in which
the other contemplated himself.
Concurrent with transcending conventional master-disciple
hierarchies, these Sufis often thought that the first step on this path
of love was the abandoning of conventions and habits, tark-i
'adat.[13] They hold that
the majority of people approach the Divine through the path of their
ancestors, not one that they have realized for themselves. In a real
sense, this critique is not a new one, but a reiteration of the Qur'anic
message:
When they are told to follow the (Revelation) that God has
sent down, they say: "Nay, we shall follow the ways that we found our
fathers (following). [Qur'an 31:21]
The majority of the occasions where the Qur'an refers to following
the ways "of our fathers", it is to emphasize the dichotomy between
recognizing the truth that is before one to the conventional ways of
error that one's forefathers have always followed. To underscore this
point, Ahmad Ghazali quotes a Prophetic hadith in one of his
sermons: bu'ithtu li-rafzi 'l- 'adat; "I was sent to remove
customs."[14] 'Ayn al-Qozat
even connected the reading of the Qur'an to this transcending of
norms:
O chivalrous youth…If you want to see the beauty of
the Qur'an, abandon the worship of habits ('adat-parasti).
Forget everything you have heard![15]
Theirs was not a call towards "spiritual anarchy." One can only
transcend what one has mastered, 
and these Sufis were already masters of the
normative religious sciences (law, theology, etc.). There is no
indication that they intended to abandon their religious affiliations.
Such an assertion is in fact a common misreading of these teachings in
our own age. The dynamic Sufi tradition has never abandoned wholesale
what has come before, but rather selected those elements that seem to
address the contemporary situation, and re-articulated them in a fresh
way. It is a sign of this "conservative" yet dynamic nature of Sufi
teachings that many statements of the madhhab-i 'ishq — to
abandon conventions and norms, to give up "metaphorical Islam" and enter
into "Real infidelity", to adorn oneself with the Christian zunnar, etc.
— all became tropes in due time! The aim of those on the "Path
of Love" was to invest their religious tradition with a spirit of
focusing on the Ultimate, and not the means towards the Ultimate.
Time and time again the Sufis of the "Path of Love" begged their
disciples, readers and spiritual communities to transcend the
conventions and norms in which they were steeped, to obtain a personal
realization of God:
The people of the world have contented themselves with
worship of habits ('adat-parasti). How far are they from this
tale? …The others have so many veils before them that prevent
them from comprehending: blind immitationism (taqlid), bigoted
partisanship (ta'assub), haughtiness (kibr), conceit, and
pride.[16]
The Path of Love Sufis remind us that those who have fanatically
attached themselves to their own experiences, their own communities, and
their own fixed and limited articulations of The Truth have limited God
to their own intellectual conceptions. Hafez's aching rejoinder echoes
this:
Excuse all the seventy-two sects[17] at war.
They did not see the
truth,
and took the road of fable.[18]
In a poignant poem, full of the compassion of a living sage who has
insight into the lives of those around him, Rumi cries out to the
pilgrims setting out for Mecca:
O you who have left for Hajj,
where are you?
where are you?
The beloved is here!
Come, come!
The Beloved is your neighbor
what are you doing,
lost in the wilderness?
If you could see the formless face
of the Beloved
you'd know that you are the lord,
the house, and the Ka'ba![19]
So many times you set out on that road to that house;
Just once...
come to the roof of this house.[20]
Yes, that house [Ka'ba] is subtle,
you've told me about it.
But show me something
about the Lord of that house!
If you saw that garden,
where are the flowers?
If you dove in God's ocean,
where is a single soul-jewel?[21]
Having a fairly fluid typology of the path of love at hand, we will
proceed to examine the legacies of the two key terms madhhab and
'ishq before undertaking a chronological examination of the
seminal figures of the Path of Love.
On Madhhab and 'Ishq:
The term madhhab had a multi-faceted usage in Islamic thought.
When the Sufis of the Path of Love used this term, they intended the
meaning of "path." In the story of Moses and the Shepherd, Rumi, that
supreme falcon of love, states:
The spiritual community of love
is apart from all faiths.
The lovers' community and path (madhhab)
is God.[22]
It is precisely this term, the madhhab-i 'ishq, which has also
been rendered as "Creed of Love" and "Religion of love." We will return
to the discussions of 'ishq later. The term madhhab has
been previously translated as "school", "sect", "creed", or "religion"
— leading to such terms as "School" or "Religion" of Love. This can
be a bit misleading, as theirs was by no means an attempt to start a new
religion, or add yet another "school" to the already crowded field of
pre-modern Islamic intellectual thought. In using the term
madhhab, they were returning to the root meaning of the word: As
with many other words used by Sufis such as tariqa and
shari'a, the literal meaning of the word madhhab is that
of a trodden path. This was to be a path to be walked on not alone, but
with fellow seekers. Madhhab had been previously used to refer
to the various Islamic theological and legal schools: One could talk
about the Shafi'i, Hanafi or Ash'ari madhhab [pl:
Madhahib]. The titles of these "schools" were eponyms after a
significant founder. These Sufis sought to set themselves apart. Their
"path" was named not after a founder, but after "love", and even God!
Their claim was as radical as it was simple:
God-willing, I shall expound upon the lover and the
beloved. . .
I mentioned the madhhab (path) and community of
the lovers of God. They follow the path and community of God; not that
of Shafi'i, Abu Hanifa, and others.[23] The lovers of God follow the
madhhab-i 'ishq (path of love) and madhhab-i khuda (God's
path).[24]
The Path of Love is God's own path. The path to God, and the
path of God (as both are possible translations of madhhab-i
khuda) is in fact the path of love. Only love delivers humanity to the
Divine. Rather than identifying the path with a noted theologian or
jurist, they identified the path with love, and even more, directly with
God:
They asked Husayn Mansur [Hallaj]: "Which path are you
on?"
He said: "I am on God's path." (ana 'ala madhhab
rabbi).[25]
It is important to point out that these Sufis were not abrogating the
established theological and legal schools, nor were they dismissing
their relevance. In fact, many of the Sufis we are about to discuss
were themselves important members of these other "schools" as well.[26] At the same time, the Sufis
of the "Path of Love" asserted that those scholars who denied the
primacy of love — and limited themselves to the "externals" — were
"highway robbers and immature children"! 'Ayn al-Qozat stated:
O precious one… If Shafi'i and Abu Hanifa, who were
leaders of the community, were alive in this age, praise be to God they
would find many benefits, Divine sciences, and traces of spiritual
words; they would all turn to these words…and would utter nothing
but this![27]
The Sufis of the Path of Love were presenting not a new religion, but
a fresh, dynamic, and ever transforming understanding of themselves, the
world around them, and the Divine based primarily on love. Rumi,
directly quoting from an earlier poem of Sana'i,[28] stated:
Love is nothing,
Save felicity and grace.
Love is nothing,
save opening the heart
and guidance.
Abu Hanifa?
Did not teach about love.
Shafi'i?
Does not narrate about it.[29]
Their aim was to re-invigorate religion and revive it from a
tradition of sectarianism and blind immitationism (taqlid) to one
reaching a dynamic understanding of God not as an "idea", but as the
Real. The first step on this path towards God-realization
(tahqiq) was one of transcending conventional norms in which
people had come to conceptualize God and their relationship with the
Divine.
We can now move on to an examination of the second term,
'ishq. These Sufis did not invent the terms for "love"
(mahabba, 'ishq, etc.), yet they made them the focal point
of their teachings in a way that was never done before. Many earlier
Sufis had held that the term 'ishq was too radical to be applied
to a human-Divine relationship, and preferred to use the Qur'anicly
based term of "loving-kindness", mahabba. When the important
early Sufi writer, Abu Bakr al-Kalabadhi (d. 385/995) was discussing
"their [i.e. the Sufis'] sayings on love", he used the term
mahabba. In this context, he cited many statements from early
Sufis such as al-Junayd ("Love is the inclination of the heart"), and
Abu 'Abd Allah al-Nibaji ("Love for creatures is a pleasure; love for
the Creator means annihilation.").[30]
While al-Kalabadhi does not use the term 'ishq, Qushayri (d.
1072) is a good representative of those who use both terms, while
preferring mahabba. In his famous Risala, he pleads —
to no avail — that: "When the scholars use the term mahabba,
by this term they mean 'desire.' But the Folk [i.e., the Sufis] mean
something other than desire when they use this term. Desire can not be
said to belong to the Ancient One [God]."[31] This seems to have been the main
objection to attributing 'ishq to the Divine. Another objection,
relating to both the human being and the Divine was the following:
The master Abu 'Ali al-Daqqaq (may God grant him mercy)
asserted, "Love is a sweetness, but its inner reality is bewilderment."
He also said, "Passionate love ['ishq] is exceeding all limits in
mahabba. God [may he be exalted] cannot be described as
exceeding limits, so He cannot be characterized as possessing passionate
love for anything. If the love of all mankind were joined together in
one man, this would not come close to the measure of love due to
God.
Let it not be said, 'This person has exceeded all limits in the love of
God.' God cannot be described as having the quality of passionate love,
nor can the servant be described as having it in his relation to God.
Passionate love cannot be used [as a description of the relations
between man and God] because there is no way for it to be related to
God, either from Him toward the servant or from the servant to God."[32]
Interestingly enough, Daqqaq's statement starts from the premise that
God's 
love
is so infinite that in describing it as "exceeding limits in love"
(mujawizat al-hadd fi 'l-mahabba)[33], one is doing injustice to it. Yet the
floodgates had been opened too wide for many Sufis to heed these
cautionary words: The next centuries saw an effervescence of
expressions describing this passionate love. Their words of love at
times attained to such power that it was said: "I was present when
Samnun spoke on love, and all the lamps (qanadil) in the mosque
shattered."[34]
It is precisely this notion of 'ishq as a passionate and
extreme variety of love which was to be the subject of the first text
written on love in Persian, the Sawanih of Ahmad Ghazali (d.
1126). It is to this founding member of the madhhab-i 'ishq that
we now turn.
Salient Features of Ahmad Ghazali's Teachings on Love
The "virgins" of love-ideas:
One of the more powerful insights articulated by the Sufis is that
the reality of love is not the same thing as the words
chosen to express that reality. The full meaning of the words of love
are open to those who have had direct experience of it. Ahmad Ghazali
made a beautiful comparison to elucidate the disjunction between the
reality of love and words that seek to convey that reality in the very
beginning of his masterpiece, the Sawanih. He stated that the
"ideas of love are like virgins, and the hand of words can not reach the
hem of their skirt." Using a particularly erotic language, Ghazali went
on to suggest that the task of one who writes on love is precisely to
"marry" the "men of words" to the "virgins of ideas" in the "private
chambers of speech."[35]
Ghazali states the reader should perpetually remember that his
treatise does not belong to any specific view in terms of the realities,
modes, and aims of love: the love he is presenting is not to be
attributed to (either) the Creator (khaliq) or the creature
(makhluq). In doing so, Ghazali is bypassing the much-discussed
categories of "Real Love" ('ishq-i haqiqi) and "Metaphorical
Love" ('ishq-i majazi). According to those who would favor such
a dichotomy, only God is worthy of Real love, and all the loves
experienced on this terrestrial realm can be called love only in a
metaphorical sense. Interestingly enough, while the perspective of
Ahmad Ghazali in general is worlds removed from the metaphysical
framework of Ibn 'Arabi, the two saints seem to be in agreement with
respect to this point: Ibn 'Arabi also has a notion that rather than
"binding" our selves to certain fixed understanding of God, our approach
should be one of "perpetual transformation" (taqallub). Through
an ingenious word play, he points out that such a synthetic and
dynamically integrative approach can only take place in the heart
(qalb). Our conceptions of the Real need to be open to perpetual
transformations so that we do not make an idol of the Real.[36] Ahmad Ghazali concurs with
this: rather than limiting our understanding to static, fixed notions
of "human love" and "divine love", we must allow our own perspective
towards these notions to be constantly open to change and
transformation.
It is after these introductory remarks that Ghazali moves on to the
Qur'anic verse which might legitimately be said to be the ocean into
which all the Sufis of the "Path of Love" have dived for centuries in
search of pearls:
God Almighty has said:
"He loves them,
and they love him." [Qur'an 5:54]
It might even be said that the whole of love mysticism in Islam is a
meditation upon the above verse: yuhibbuhum wa huhibbunahu. It
is no accident that in this verse, God's love for humanity is mentioned
first. Humanity's response to God's love can be nothing but love
itself. In a subtle language, Ahmad Ghazali related these two terms to
one another:
The root of love grows out of the infinite pre-existence. The
diacritical dot of (the letter) ba' (ب) of yuhibbuhum (He,
i.e., God, loves them) was cast as a seed on the soil of
yuhibbunahu (they love Him); nay, that dot was on hum
(them) until yuhibbunahu (they love Him) grew out. When the
narcissus of love grew out, the seed was of the same nature as the fruit
and the fruit had the same nature as the seed.[37]
Human love is thus described as being hamrang, "of the same
nature" [lit: of the same color] as the Divine love. The language of
"real" and "metaphorical" love — with all the suggested facile
dichotomies and static definitions it can contain — is thus
circumvented.
These marvelous Qur'anic verses have been for centuries the objects
of meditation and practice for Sufis: One is hard pressed to find Sufi
writings after this period in which the verse "He loves them and they
love Him" is not featured. Yet, it is fair to say that the legacy of
love mysticism in Islam is much more extensive than the brevity of the
above verses would tend to suggest. Immediately after quoting the above
Qur'anic lines, Ghazali moves on to a quatrain which identifies the
madhahb followed by him and other members of the Path of
Love:
From before existence
our steed set out with love.
Our night,
forever illuminated
from the lamp of Union.
Until we return to non-existence
you will not find our lips dry
from that wine
un-forbidden in our path (madhhab).[38]
Ghazali continues the theme of existence and non-existence: when the
spirit crossed over from the realm of "non-existence" to that of
"existence", love was there waiting. There could be no spirit in this
realm, without love. It is this emphasis on this love that has
accompanied us in the deepest core of our being, that distinguishes the
madhhab-i 'ishq, "Path of Love."
The Affliction-in-Love:
The theme of the afflictions that all lovers undergo was not a new
one, even reaching back to Pre-Islamic poetry where the poet lamented
the passing of the departed caravan.[39] Some of the early Sufis, such as
Junayd, had also explored this theme.[40] The Sufis of the madhhab-i 'ishq
explored this theme further, and stated that no Prophet ever suffered
affliction the way Muhammad, Peace be upon him, did.[41] With the rise of Sufi mysticism, they
used all the imagery of the Qur'an to underscore the affliction-in-love.
In one of the more ingenious re-interpretations, the Qur'anic verse:
"When kings enter a village, they decimate it" [Qur'an 27:34] was
re-interpreted as the afflictions sent by God upon the heart of a seeker
to the point that the servant becomes the affliction.[42] In the Sawanih,
Ahmad Ghazali connected this affliction to a sophisticated love
theory:
Love, in its true nature, is but an affliction (bala'), and intimacy (uns) and ease are something alien to it and are provisionally borrowed. This is because separation in love is indeed duality while union is indeed oneness. Everything short of this is a delusion of union, not its true reality. This is why it is said,
Love is an affliction and I am not about to abstain from affliction,
(In fact) when love falls asleep I turn to it and raise it.
My friends tell me to abstain from affliction
Affliction is the heart, how can I abstain from the heart?[43]
The above theme of affliction-in-love was elaborated upon by Ahmad
Ghazali's disciple, 'Ayn al-Qozat, to a hauntingly sublime height:
"whoever distinguishes between grace and wrath, is still in love with
grace, or with wrath — but he is not yet a lover of the
beloved!"[44] He detected a
relationship between love and affliction in the very orthography of one
of the words for love, Mahabbat. In a simple pun involving
transferring the diacritical dot under the letter ba (ب)
in mahabbat to over it, he pointed to the transformation of
ٹبحم (mahabbat, "love") to
ٹفحم (mihnat, "suffering").[45]
Furthermore, rather than seeing affliction as merely the trial that
the lover has to endure, affliction (bala') was the "jewel of
God's treasury.":
Take heed…You think that they give affliction to just anyone? What do you know of Affliction? Remain [on this path] till you get to the point where you will buy God's affliction [at the price] of your life-soul.
It was from this same perspective that Shibli said: "O God! Everyone seeks you for grace and ease, and I seek you for affliction.
We do not destine anyone for affliction
until we list him amongst the saints.
This affliction is the jewel of our treasury
We do not bestow jewels to just any unrefined soul.[46]
The early Chishti master Shaykh Nizam al-Din Auliya' took this
metaphor of affliction-in-love to yet another level by simply stating:
Even though He says He'll kill me,
That He says it can't but thrill me![47]
In offering this sophisticated explanation, the aim of the Sufis of
the Path of Love was to offer a profound engagement with and
acknowledgment of the emotions felt by a soul. Emotions, whether
positive or negative, joyous or painful, were not seen as illusory.
Rather, their realness was admitted and acknowledged: the aim of
a mystic was to utilize the power of the emotions to recognize the
trans-mundane origin of these sentiments, and remain ever-mindful of the
beloved. Much of the nuance of Sufi teaching here is concerned with the
sublimation of sentiments.
Each blind to his/her own beauty:
One of the amazing insights provided by Ahmad Ghazali, indeed one
that he calls a "great secret", is that each beloved's eye is blind to
her own beauty. None can perceive his own beauty, "except in the mirror
of the lover's love." As Ahmad elaborates:
Therefore, beauty necessitates a lover so that the beloved can take
nutriment from her own beauty in the mirror of the lover's love and
quest. This is a great secret….[48]
Through this amazing vision of love, the hierarchical nature of
master-disciple, lord-servant relationships are converted to a highly
nuanced dance of reciprocity: for all of the charming claims to
self-sufficiency and coquetry (naz), the beloved needs the
lover. It has been well-known how the lover is utterly dependent
(niyaz) on the beloved; but now the beloved is exposed for being
caught up in this net of reciprocity. Through many anecdotes, he
demonstrated that the beauty of the beloved in herself is not the same
as the beauty she has when a lover treats her as beautiful:
The glance of loveliness (kirishmah-i husn) is one thing and the
(amorous) glance of belovedness (kirishmah-i ma'shuqi) is
something else. The glance of loveliness has no "face" turned towards
anything "other" (than love itself) and has no connection with anything
outside (of love). But as to the glance of belovedness and the amorous
gestures, coquetry, and alluring self-glorification (naz), they
are all sustained by the lover, and without him they will have no
effect. Therefore, this is why the beloved is in need of the lover.
Loveliness is one thing and belovedness is something else.[49]
The above notion, the distinction between "loveliness" and
"belovedness" was also seen as a powerful way to explore the
relationship between God and creation: whereas God in his dhat
(Essence) was seen to be completely transcendent and independent of all
creation, some Sufis asserted that the Divine Attributes (sifat)
were part of God's relationship with creation. In other words, for the
Divine to assume attributes of Mercy and Compassion there has to be
someone or something to receive the mercy. In this perspective, one
could almost state that creation is needed for the Divine to
realize the potential of all His attributes.[50] Naturally Sufis were extremely careful
not to appear as if they suggesting that the Divine was somehow
needy or less than perfect. Perhaps an analogy might clarify the
matter: it is one thing to state that a person contains the potential
of being a good parent, and contains that quality in a latent form.
However, it is when that person actually becomes a mother or a father
that the latent quality is made manifest. In this way, one might be
able to state that the child enables the full expression and
manifestation of that quality which had been there all along. In a
similar manner, one could state that the creation enables the full
manifestation of Divine Attributes.
In this view of creation, as with the previous theme of the positive
appreciation of emotions, the Cosmos is seen as an inherently positive
force, not a negative one: this view of the Divine purpose of Creation
is far away from the pessimistic gnostic view in which the dunya
is merely a veil or a distraction. It is in this light that the Sufis
of the Path of Love have repeated the well-known sacred hadith,
communicated by God directly to Prophet Muhammad:
I was a Hidden Treasure,
and loved to be known intimately,
so I created the Heavens and the Earth,
so that they may come to intimately know Me.[51]
The very purpose of creation, these Sufis remind us, is for the
Divine to manifest Himself in utter fullness, and for the creation to
come into that intimate relationship of knowledge and adoration with the
Divine.
The foremost relation in which the Sufis of the Path of Love chose to
elaborate the relationship between the Cosmos and the Divine was as that
between a lover and a beloved. According to the Sufis of the School of
Love, the foremost quality of the lover is that of niyaz
"needfulness." This forms a perfect contrast to the naz of the
Beloved. Ahmad-i Ghazali expressed the relationship between these two
most eloquently:
The beloved said to the lover,
"Let yourself become me, for if I
become you, then the beloved will be in a state necessity, and the lover
will become greater; thereby need and necessity will increase."
"But if you
become me, then the beloved will become greater. Thereby all will be
the beloved, and the lover will not be. There will be no more need
(niyaz); instead, all will be the expression of self-sufficiency
(naz). There will be no more necessity; all will be there,
already attained. It will be all richness and no poverty, all remedy
and no helplessness."[52]
It is in this sense that the lover turns to the beloved in all of his
needfulness, niyaz. And yet, the situation is far from bleak:
the proud yet humble lover can indeed claim that he is bringing the one
quality that the Beloved "lacks": needfulness. Rumi's spiritual mentor,
Shams-i Tabrizi, raises this point his Discourses (Maqalat):
What good is it if you take your soul at hand, and present
it [to God]? What use is it to take cumin to Kirman?[53] How will this add any value, or price,
or cultivation to what is there? Since there is such a royal court, he
is now without need (bi-niyaz), so take your needfulness
(niyaz) there. Since the one without need likes needfulness.
Using that needfulness, you can suddenly leap out of the midst of all
these creatures. Something from the Ancient One [God] will be joined to
you, and that is love ('ishq). The trap of love has been
set, and you are wrapped up in it, since "they love him"
(yuhibbunahu) is the impression of "He loves them"
(yuhibbuhum).[54]
The beloved might be able to carry on with the game of
self-sufficiency, even if the lover presents heart and soul on a
silver-platter. After all, does she not have a thousand hearts and
souls offered to her each second? She does not, however, have
"needfulness." What she "needs", paradoxically, is the lover's
needfulness. What the Lord "needs" to be able to assume the quality of
a "lord" is someone to assume the role of the servant. Theologically
speaking, this is dangerous ground, no doubt, but a powerful message of
reciprocity that the Sufis have explored with great delicacy and
insight. Among the Sufis, perhaps none has explored these dangerous
grounds more persistently than the martyred youth, 'Ayn al-Qozat, and it
is to him that we now turn.
Loving God, loving all:
A major theoretical debate among the Sufis in this time period dealt
with the relationship between the love for God and the love for
Creation. A number of early Sufis — such as Hujwiri — had
asserted that the term 'ishq is not appropriate in referring to
humanity's love for the Divine, and instead one should use terms such as
mahabbat.[55] Other
Sufis — such as Ruzbihan Baqli — who wished to redeem the usage of
the term 'ishq in referring to both human and Divine love stated
that human love was a "ladder", as it were, leading to the [higher]
Divine Love.[56] Later Sufis,
and indeed many contemporary scholars of Sufism, have preferred to refer
to the love for God as "Real Love" ('ishq-i haqiqi) and relegate
love for creation (which would obviously include love for and between
human beings) to a "metaphorical" or "borrowed" (majazi)
status.[57] Without entering
into a polemical exchange with the above, the Sufis of the madhhab-i
'ishq distanced themselves from the above categories, and stated
instead that the love of God is an 'ishq which would enfold the
whole of creation.
Whoever loves God
should also love His messenger, Muhammad,
his own spiritual teacher
and his own life.
He also loves food and drink
which extends his life
that he may spend in obedience [to God].
He loves women
so that the progeny will not be interrupted.
He loves silver and gold
so that through them he can attain to food and drink.
He loves the cold, and the heat,
the snow and the rain
Heaven and Earth
since if not for them, sustenance would not grow.
Like this, he also loves the farmer.
He loves the Heaven and the Earth
since they are God's handcraft:
A lover loves the handwriting
and every action of the Beloved.
All the creatures are His handcraft and action.
Loving them for the sake of following His love
is no polytheism.[58]
Both of the above themes, that of human love as a pedagogical device
for mastering divine love, as well as that of love as a unitary force
which flows from the Divine to humanity and back up to the heavens, are
to be traced all the way to contemporary Sufis such as Hazrat Inayat
Khan. Given the prominence of love in these teachings, it came as no
surprise that 'Ayn al-Qozat spoke of love in terms of an "obligation."
Love as obligation:
It has already been pointed out that many of these Sufis had training
in other normative Islamic sciences. 'Ayn al-Qozat earned his honorific
— being the 'ayn ("source", "spring", "essence") of judges —
through his training as a juridical master of Islamic law
(shari'a). Given this training, he introduces legal terminology
in a most shockingly refreshing way into his discourse on love. A
critical feature of legal discussions in Islamic thought is discerning
among acts classified as "religious obligations", "meritorious acts",
and "forbidden."[59] It is
with great subtlety, humor, and irony that 'Ayn al-Qozat invokes the
juridical category of "religious obligation" (fard) to talk about
love.
O precious one! Arriving at God is a [religious] obligation
(fard). To those on the [spiritual] quest, whatever through
which one arrives at God is a religious obligation. What delivers the
servant to the Divine is Love. In this sense, love has become an
obligation (fard) on the Path....[60]
One can almost see the smile — even a smirk — on the young
mystic's face, as he (being invested with juridical authority) declares
passionate love a religious 
obligation for all on the spiritual path.
Earlier on, some Hanbali scholars had spoken of love from a legal
perspective.[61] Here 'Ayn
al-Qozat seems to be returning the favor, deploying legal terminology
from the perspective of the madhhab-i 'ishq.
Sufis like 'Ayn al-Qozat did not limit their analysis of phenomenon
to terrestrial realities: one of the most intriguing teachings of the
madhhab-i 'ishq was their radical teaching on celestial
phenomena, such as paradise. One such teaching was 'Ayn al-Qozat's
concept of a paradise which was beyond the conventional conceptions of
paradise.
A Paradise Beyond Paradise:
Since the time of Rabi'a (d. 801), it had become customary for Sufis
to express the merits of seeking God for His own Sake, beyond the wish
to attain to the joys of paradise and avoiding the torments of
hell-fire: surely many are familiar with the great narrative of Rabi'a
running down the alleys of her town with a bucket of water in one hand
and a blazing torch in the other. Asked about this strange practice,
she said that she was looking to quench the fires of hell with the
water, and to burn down paradise, so that people have no reason left to
worship God other than God Himself.[62] 'Ayn al-Qozat extended these teachings
to another level: He offers perceptive remarks on the conventional
conceptions of paradise, which he describes as a "prison for the
[spiritual] elite." He cites Yahya Ma'adh Razi in support of this:
"Paradise is the prison of the gnostics, as the world is the prison of
the believers." He articulates a radical conception of "God's paradise"
beyond the conventional paradise:
The [spiritual] elites are with God. What do you say?
That God Almighty is in paradise? Yes, He is in Paradise, but in His
own paradise — in that paradise that Shibli spoke of: "There is, and
will never be, anyone in Paradise except God Almighty. If you like,
hear it also from Mustafa: "Verily God has a paradise, in which there
are no houris, no palaces, no milk, and no honey." And what is in
this "God's own Paradise"? That "which no eyes have seen, no ears have
heard, and thought of which has not occurred to people's heart." For one
who thinks of this as paradise, to seek the paradise of the
masses is an error. If this group is dragged to paradise in chains of
light and grace, they do not go and do not accept…[63]
What is being rejected here is not so much the Qur'anic imagery of
the Paradise, as the tendency of the ordinary believers to fixate on
these descriptions to the neglect of the One beyond the Paradise, the
Cup-bearer beyond the Wine. Concurrent with the trend towards
transcending the symbols of salvation (paradise), the Sufis of Path of
Love also sought to transcend the attachment to particular means of
salvation. It is to this explicit universalism of the Path of Love that
we now turn.
All paths are stations towards God:
Many Sufis have taught that Truth (haqq) must be identified
with God's own Being, and not with any intellectual conception of God or
path leading to God. This idea, radical and Qur'anic, is affirmed in
the passage:
We shall show them our signs (ayat) on the farthest horizons,
And inside their own selves
Until it becomes clear to them
That He is haqq, "The Truth." [Qur'an 41:53]
From this perspective, "Truth" is not to be equated with any
religious tradition or path, but rather with He who is the Destination
of the path. Indeed, given that Truth is one of the most common Divine
Names, to label a religious tradition (even Islam) as "Truth" is to
commit the great sin of "Association-ism" (shirk,
"polytheism")!
'Ayn al-Qozat continues the same theme from another angle. Rather
than arguing that all paths lead to the same Truth (God) in an abstract
level, he approaches it from a refreshingly new angle: that of the
followers on the path. In a passage, he mentions Muslims, Jews,
Christians, Zoroastrians, and Idol-worshippers — the entire spectrum
of religiosity known to him:
O friend!
If you would see what the Christians see in Jesus,
you too would become a Christian!
And if you would see what the Jews see in Moses,
you too would become a Jew!
Even more, if you would see what idol-worshippers see in idol-worship,
you too would become an idol-worshipper!
The seventy-two paths (madhhab) are all way stages on the road to God.[64]
Once again, the choice of words used by 'Ayn al-Qozat is both
profound and deliberate: he depicts the spiritual paths
(madhhabs) using the traditional Sufi imagery of stages
(manazil) on a path, in which a caravan would find shelter. The
important point about a manzil, of course, is that one would not
wish to stay put at one, but to move on to the final Destination, which
may be described as the Presence of God.
The same universalism is also expounded upon by later mystics, such
as the famed Ibn 'Arabi. It would be a clear mistake to label Ibn
'Arabi's teaching a metaphysical system bereft of the tenderness of
love. Ibn 'Arabi's well-known poem cited below alludes to the same
motifs of universality and love, comprehensible only through the
synthetic and dynamic quality of the heart, that have characterized the
Path of Love:
Wonder,
a garden among the flames!
My heart can take on
any form:
a meadow for gazelles,
a cloister for monks,
For the idols, sacred ground,
Ka'ba for the circling pilgrim,
the tables of the Torah,
the scrolls of the Qur'an.
My creed is love;
wherever its caravan turns along the way,
that is my belief,
my faith.[65]
'Ayn al-Qozat has a remarkable section in his tamhidat which
states:
Do you know what I am saying? I say that the spiritual seeker has to
search after God not in Paradise, not in the world, and not in the
Hereafter. He has to stop seeking God in everything that he has seen
and everything that he has known: the path of the seeker is inside his
own self. He has to find the path in herself, as the Qur'an says: "[We
shall show them our signs...] and inside their own selves, do they not
reflect [on this]?"....There is no path to God better than the path of
the heart. This is the meaning of "the heart is the house of God."[66]
Although there is some debate about the authenticity of the poem, one
of the most well-known poems attributed to Rumi in the English-speaking
world is the following:
I was,
even before the Names came to be.
no hint was there that anything with a name existed.
I was.
The named and names came to be
through me
on the day when there was no me.
A hint came in the revelation of the tip of the Beloved's tress
when the tip of the Beloved's Tress was not.
I searched the Cross and Christians from end to end
He was not in the Cross.
To the idol-house I went,
the ancient monastery.
No trace of him.
went to the mountain of Herat and Kandahar;
I looked.
He was not in the depths or the heights there.
On a mission,
I ascended to the summit of Mount Qaf;
in that place was naught but the 'Anqa.
I turned towards the Ka'ba;
searching
seeking
He was not in that place to which old and young aspire.
I questioned Avicenna about him;
He was beyond even the sage's grasp.
I journeyed to the scene of "the two bow-lengths' distance";
Where Muhammad went on the night journey.
He was not in that sublime Court.
I looked into my own heart.
There I saw him;
He was nowhere else.[67]
Ultimately, this is perhaps the greatest legacy of the mystics of
"path of love": a hermeneutics not just of the sacred text, but of the
sacred heart of humanity — one that through the "glance of love"
reveals the Divine in power and intimacy, linking together the human and
the Divine from pre-eternity (azal) to post-eternity
(abad). Somewhere in the stretch of infinities we stand in this
present moment (waqt), bewildered by the effusion of Divine Love
that makes breath possible, intellect a tool, Scripture a Love-letter,
and love the greatest of God's mysteries.
[1] Hazrat Inayat Khan,
“Vadan/Alankaras”, in The Complete Sayings, (New
Lebanon: Omega Publications, 1978/1991), 83-4.
[2] ‘Ayn al-Qozat
Hamadani, Tamhidat, ‘Afif ‘Usayran, ed., (Reprint;
Tehran: Kitabkhana-yi Manuchihri, 1373/1994), 111.
[3] Louis Massignon,
“’Udhri”, E.I.2
[4] For a brilliant analysis
of this profound teaching, see Michael Sells, Mystical Language of
Unsaying, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 90-92.
[5] An example of the
“mysterious” nature of love is ‘Ayn
al-Qozat’s insistence that there are three types of love: the
Great Love, which is God’s love for us; the Small Love, which is
our love for him; and what he will only call the Middle Love. He
refuses to offer any definitions for this mysterious middle term,
perhaps wishing to frustrate those who would want a neat
schematization.
[6] This was the insight of
Mulla Sadra, who a few centuries later suggested a four-tiered spiritual
journey in Asfar al-arba’a: 1) The journey from God to
Creation; 2) The journey from Creation to Creation 3) The journey from
Creation to God; and 4) The journey from God to God.
[7] ‘Ayn al-Qozat Hamadani,
Tamhidat, 23.
[8] There is no reason to
attribute this to the trite divisions between Arab and Persian
“mentalities”, problematic divisions deeply rooted in 19th century
European racial theories.
[9] On the controversial
genre of Shathiyat, see Carl Ernst, Words of Ecstasy in
Sufism, (Albany: SUNY, 1988).
[10] For such notions, one
can refer to both Hallaj’s Tawasin and Ayn al-Qozat’s
Tamhidat. Peter Awn has a fine study of this, in his
Satan’s Tragedy and Redemption.
[11] ‘Ayn al-Qozat
Hamadani, Nama-ha-yi ‘Ayn al-Qozat Hamadani, ‘Ali-Naqi
Munzawi and ‘Afif ‘Usayran, eds., 3 vols, (vols. 1 & 2, Tehran:
Intisharat-i Bunyad-i Farhang-i Iran, 1969; Reprinted, Kitabfurushi-yi
Manuchihri, 1362/1983), 2:301-2.
[12] ‘Ayn al-Qozat
Hamadani, Tamhidat, 23.
[13] ‘Ayn al-Qozat
Hamadani, Tamhidat, 21.
[14] Ahmad Ghazali,
Majalis, Ahmad Mujahid, ed. (Tehran: Intisharat-i Danishgah-i
Tehran, 1376/1997), 22.
[15] ‘Ayn al-Qozat
Hamadani, Nama-ha, 2:102.
[16] ‘Ayn al-Qozat
Hamadani, Nama-ha, 2:92.
[17] According to a
Prophetic tradition, the Muslim community would be split into
seventy-two sectarian groups. This number became a trope representing
the entire spectrum of factionalism in later literature.
[18] Elizabeth, T. Gray,
Jr., Trans. The Green Sea of Heaven: Fifty Ghazals from the Diwan
of Hafiz, (Ashland: White Cloud Press, 1995), 98-99. [Slightly
modified]
[19] The allusion is to:
“So let them worship the Lord of this House.” [Qur’an
103:6]
[20] The roof of a house
was a common metaphor in Sufi poetry, a place reserved for rendezvous
with one's beloved. Significantly, the roof metaphor is often used along
that of a ladder, mi’raj, the term used to identify the
Prophet’s Heavenly Ascension.
[21] Rumi, Kulliyat-i
Shams, ya Divan-i Kabir [henceforth: Divan-i Shams-i
Tabrizi], Badi’ al-Zaman Foruzanfar, ed., 10 vols.,
(Tehran:Danishgah-i Tehran, 1336/1957; Reprint, 3rd edition, 1363/1984),
2:65; lines 6762-6768.
[22] Maulana Jalal al-Din
Rumi, Masnavi, Muhammad Isti’lami, ed.,7 vols. (Tehran:
Kitabfurushi-yi Zavvar, 1362/1983), 2:82; line 1774.
[23] Shafi’i (d. 820)
was the founder of a legal school of thought (madhhab) which was
named after him. The Hanafi madhhab traces itself to Abu Hanifa
(d. 767).
[24] ‘Ayn al-Qozat
Hamadani, Tamhidat, 115-6.
[25] ‘Ayn al-Qozat
Hamadani, Tamhidat, 22.
[26] For example, ‘Ayn
al-Qozat and Ahmad Ghazali followed the Shafi’i madhhab; Rumi
was a Hanafi; ‘Abd al-Qadir Gilani and Khwaja ‘Abd Allah Ansari
were Hanbali Sufis. Likewise, there were other Sufis who followed the
Malaki and Ja’fari madhhabs.
[27] ‘Ayn al-Qozat
Hamadani, Tamhidat, 198-199.
[28] Hakim Sana’i,
Divan-i Hakim Abu ‘l-Majd Majdud [i]bn Adam Sana’i
Ghaznavi, Mudarris Radawi (Razavi), ed., (Tehran: Intisharat-i
Sana’i, 4th reprint, n.d.), 827.
[29] Jalal al-Din Rumi,
Divan-i Shams-i Tabrizi], 1:289. Shafi’i and Abu Hanifa were
of course important jurists whose name provided the titles of the two
legal schools that the majority of Sufis belonged to. Another
manuscripts adds the names of the other two founders of Sunni schools of
legal thought:
“Hanbali?
Has no tradition dealing with love.
Malaki?
Does not narrate about it.”
[30] Abu Bakr
al-Kalabadhi, al-Ta’arruf li-madhhab ahl al-tasawwuf, Mahmud
Amin al-Nawawi, ed., (Cairo: al-Maktabah al-Azhariyya, 1412 A.H./1992),
128. The first quote is taken from A. J. Arberry’s masterful
translation of this text, The Doctrine of the Sufis, (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1935; reprinted 1991), 102.
[31] Qushayri,
al-Risalat al-qushayriyya, edited by ‘Abd al-Halim Mahmud, two
volumes (Cairo: Dar al-Kutub, 1972?), 2:611. For an English
translation of this text see Barbara Von Schlegell’s Principles of
Sufism, (Berekley: Mizan Press, 1999), 326. [henceforth
Qusharyi-Von Schlegell]
[32] Qushayri-Von
Schlegell, 330-1.
[33] Qushayri, 2:615.
[34] Qushayri-Von
Schlegell, 335.
[35] Ahmad Ghazali,
Sawanih, 2; Ghazali-Pourjavady, Sawanih, 15.
[36] For a brilliant and
insightful presentation of this teaching, see Michael Sells, “Ibn
‘Arabi’s Garden Among the Flames”, Mystical Language of
Unsaying, 90-92.
[37] Ghazali-Pourjavady,
Sawanih, 68-9.
[38] Ghazali,
Sawanih, 4.
[39] These themes have
been well explored by the “Chicago school” of scholars of Arabic
literature, including Suzanne P. Stetkevych, Jaroslav Stetkevych,
Michael Sells, Th. Emil Homerin, etc.
[40] The Life,
Personality and Writings of al-Junayd, edited and translated by Dr.
Ali Hassan Abdel-Kader, (London: E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series, n.s.,
XXII, 1976), 152-159.
[41] ‘Ayn al-Qozat
Hamadani, Tamhidat, 203.
[42] ‘Ayn al-Qozat
Hamadani, Tamhidat, 244.
[43] Ghazali-Pourjavady,
Sawanih, 36.
[44] ‘Ayn al-Qozat
Hamadani, Tamhidat, 179.
[45] ‘Ayn al-Qozat
Hamadani, Tamhidat, 245.
[46] ‘Ayn al-Qozat
Hamadani, Tamhidat, 243-3.
[47] Nizam ad-Din
Awliya: Morals of the Heart, translated by Bruce Lawrence, (New
York: Paulist Press, 1992), 63.
[48] Ghazali-Pourjavady,
Sawanih, 33.
[49] Ghazali-Pourjavady,
Sawanih, 31.
[50] See Henry Corbin,
Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi, trans. Ralph
Manheim, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 115: “Thus
the divine Names have meaning and full reality only through and
for beings who are their epiphanic forms…”
[51] Badi’ al-Zaman
Foruzanfar, Ahadith-i masnavi, (Reprint; Tehran: Amir Kabir,
1366/1987), 29.
[52] Ghazali-Pourjavady,
Sawanih, 35.
[53] The city of Kirman
was known as the main producer of Cumin (zira) in Iran, so there
is no sense in taking a product to a locale where it is already found in
plenty. The American equivalent would be taking sourdough to San
Fransisco, or as R. A. Nicholson, Tales of Mystic Meaning,
(Reprint, Oxford: Oneworld Press, 1985), 57, n. 1, puts in a charmingly
British English: “carrying coals to Newcastle.”
[54] Shams-i Tabrizi,
Maqalat-i Shams-i Tabrizi, Muhammad ‘Ali Muwahhid, ed.,
(Tehran: Intisharat-i Khwarazmi), 69.
[55] Hujwiri-Nicholson,
Kashfal-mahjub, 310.
[56] Ruzbihan Baqli,
‘Abhar al-‘ashiqin, Henry Corbin and Muhammad Mu’in,
ed., (Reprint; Tehran: Intisharart-i Manuchihri, 1366/1987), 88:
‘ishq al-insan sullam ‘ishq al-rahman. As I will emphasize
later, these divisions are to some extent arbitrary. Even in the
writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan, who is moving in a direction of
transcending these facile divisions, one still comes across statements
which reinforce the pedagogic nature of human love: “When one has
risen above human love, divine love springs forth.” (the Complete
Sayings, 115)
[57] William Chittick,
Sufi Path of Love, 200-1.
[58] Ayn al-Qozat
Hamadani, Tamhidat, 140.
[59] For these legal
classifications, and distinctions between farz and wajib,
refer to Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Principles of Islamic
Jurisprudence, (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1991), 324-7.
[60] ‘Ayn al-Qozat
Hamadani, Tamhidat, 97.
[61] For an examination of
these themes, see Joseph Bell, Love Theory in Later Hanbalite
Islam, op. cit.
[62] Farid al-Din
‘Attar, Tadhkirat al-auliya’, 87.
[63] ‘Ayn al-Qozat
Hamadani, Tamhidat, 136.
[64] ‘Ayn al-Qozat
Hamadani, Tamhidat, 285.
[65] Michael Sells,
“Ibn ‘Arabi’s Garden among the Flames: The Heart Receptive of
Every Form”, in The Mystical Language of Unsaying, 90.
[66] ‘Ayn al-Qozat
Hamadani, Tamhidat, 23.
[67] Modified from
Selected Poems from the Divani Shamsi Tabriz, R. A. Nicholson,
ed., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898, 1977), 70-72.
© 2003, Society for Scriptural
Reasoning
