This time, I
would like to talk about what
Mowlana Jalaleddin Rumi’s
conception, impression and
understanding of religion was;
what religiosity meant to him;
and what role religiosity played
in his life and in shaping his
personality.
From the
elements and components of
religious knowledge, we’ve
chosen to look at the theory of
God.
In the divine and
Abrahamic religions, the richest
element is the element of
divinity, and all the concepts
that prophets brought us obtain
their meaning with reference to
this pivotal concept.
When I
discussed the Prophetic mission,
as well as on other occasions, I
drew your attention to the fact
that the most important thing
that all prophets - and
especially the noble Prophet of
Islam - did was to give people’s
lives a new meaning and fulcrum.
Prophets didn’t change
the outward shape of people’s
lives.
They didn’t even bring
them a new rationality.
They didn’t instigate a
rational rupture in people’s
knowledge. No, the important
thing that they did was to take
people’s faces and turn them
from one direction to another.
They redirected people’s
eyes to new vistas and poured a
new meaning into the terminology
and vocabulary of people’s
lives.
This was the main thing
that prophets did.
And the new meaning and
the new fulcrum was, precisely,
the concept of God and
godliness, which arrived on the
scene, took pride of place and
gave a new meaning to all the
previous husks and outward
appearances.
So, whenever
we speak about religious
understanding, we will not have
said all that there is to say
and we will not have completed
our investigation unless we
refer to this extremely
important and determining
concept and explain where we
stand with respect to it.
This also holds true
about our own personal
religiosity.
Whenever someone wants to
examine what the nature of their
own religiosity is and to what
extent they’re truly religious
and observant, they have to look
at their own relationship with
God and see what kind
relationship they have
established, in their heart and
soul, with what they know as
God.
This is the pivotal
component of religiosity and
everything else is woven around
it and nourished by it.
Whenever someone wants to
assess their own religiosity,
they shouldn’t look at the
extent to which they perform the
ritual prayers and observe
outward rites;
they should look at their
heartfelt relationship with what
they know as God (although rites
and rituals are also important
in their own place).
This relationship also
determines an individual’s
conduct and seeps into their
actions.
It makes them sensitive
to religion’s prescriptions and
proscriptions.
It affects their moral
conduct and demeanour.
The fulcrum of
religiosity and the inward
element of religiosity and
religious observance is the
extent to which God is present
in one’s being and the extent to
which one has internalized
spirituality and godliness.
This is where religiosity
in the true sense manifests
itself.
This
godliness and spirituality has
to be measured and examined in
the case of Rumi and in the case
of anyone who has religious
experiences, such as prophets.
The main point as far as
Rumi was concerned - and he
expressed it in numerous ways -
was that this world is the world
of forms.
Not just the material
world, but also the world of our
concepts, cognition and
perception is the world of
forms, whereas God is formless.
And our world of forms
originates from that
formlessness.
The sea and
the jug
The
relationship between this world
and God is the relationship
between forms and formlessness:
“Form emerged from that
Formlessness / And, in the end,
it is to This that we return”.
Rumi conveyed
and expressed this idea in very
many ways; the idea that the
world of the Almighty is
formless and featureless,
whereas this world is the world
of forms and features;
that reflection about the
Almighty bewilders us because
knowledge attaches itself to
forms, facets and features.
When we’re faced with a
featureless being, we can only
react with bewilderment.
Bewilderment means
drowning in something that we
cannot grasp conceptually and
cognitively.
In our encounter with
God, we’re bewildered.
Mystics like Rumi even
advised people not to spend too
much time seeking apparent
learning, especially philosophy
and theology, because it would
rob them of bewilderment and
give them a false sense of
understanding causes.
These fields claim to
teach people the secrets and
causes of events.
Hence, in these fields,
the world leaves behind
formlessness and
featurelessness, and appears in
the guise of forms, features and
chains of causes and effects,
robbing people of bewilderment.
Rumi was of the view that
this loss of bewilderment
reduces one’s knowledge of God;
a knowledge that is intermingled
with bewilderment or is
bewilderment.
As to how
forms emerge from formlessness,
this is one of the world’s
secrets; a secret that we can
recognize as such without
understanding it in depth and
unravelling it fully.
This is something of
which the mechanism, routes and
channels are totally hidden to
us.
We know, in brief, that
limited beings have come forth
from a boundless Being and are
reliant on Him and belong to
Him.
But the means of this
coming forth and the means of
this reliance and belonging are
hidden to us.
This is, precisely, the
boundary or meeting point
between the natural and the
supernatural, and it is an area
that is laden with secrets.
One example of this
secret-laden area is the
relationship between the body
and the soul.
And a bigger example is
the relationship between nature
and the supernatural or the
physical and the metaphysical,
and, in particular, the
relationship between something
that has a form and something
that lacks form, something that
is delineated and something that
is not delineated, and the way
in which one can emerge from the
other.
The form that
we’re talking about here doesn’t
only apply to material forms; it
applies to all forms and
anything that’s delineated and
defined, even scientific and
conceptual notions.
All the concepts that we
have are defined, specific
concepts. This is what we mean
by delineated and defined; any
concept that we have consists of
that concept and not some other
concept.
Since God is infinite,
formless and boundless, no form
or delineation can apply to Him.
Any concept is that
concept itself;
it cannot step beyond
itself.
This is what we mean by
having a form and being defined.
A human being is a human
being; a human being isn’t a
pigeon.
And a pigeon isn’t a
sparrow.
And a sparrow isn’t a
pigeon. Any being is that being.
This is what we mean by
defined.
But God is not defined;
i.e., we can’t say God is
this and nothing but this. He’s
everything.
This is what formless
means in God’s case.
You cannot draw a line
around God and say:
God is within this
perimeter and, beyond the
perimeter, there are other
things, such as human beings,
trees, material entities and so
on.
This isn’t the case.
You cannot draw any kind
of boundary around God.
You cannot say:
Up to this point is God’s
terrain and, beyond this point,
it’s not God’s terrain.
In this sense, God
encompasses everything.
Everything is within Him
and within His being.
If we view things in any
other way, we’ve limited God.
In Rumi’s words:
“Everything that you can
imagine is worldly / and that
which you cannot imagine is
God”.
The fact that
God cannot appear in our
imagination means that none of
the concepts that we have
corresponds to Him; no concept
can encompass Him fully and tell
us everything about Him.
If it were otherwise,
then God would be delineated and
have a form.
Being delineated and
having a form is inconsistent
with God’s boundlessness.
This is why God is beyond
our thoughts and imagination.
We just have a name to
denote God, but the name cannot
delineate Him.
Hence, in the actual
world, we have no name that can
convey God’s substance and we
have no concept that reflects
His being.
We’re like people who
hear a faint call from a
distance.
Be that as it may, we
know that all these forms and
defined things have come forth
from that undefined being.
This is why our mysticism
bears so much affection for
things that have no specific
shape or form but can take
different shapes.
The language of mysticism
is a figurative and allusive
language.
It speaks of forms so
that, through them, you can
learn about the formless. Things
such as water, light and even
the wind have been some of these
favoured means, because light
itself, on the face of it, has
no specific shape or place but
it can take different shapes.
The
same is true of water.
Water, in itself, has no
boundary or form but it can be
poured into vessels, thus taking
different shapes.
This is why Rumi was so
fond of light and water and the
sea and the sun.
People who were
unfamiliar with Rumi’s thought
have said in some of their
writings that Rumi acquired his
love of the sun’s light from
Mitraism and Zoroastrianism and
the like.
Observations of this kind
are very superficial.
It’s even been said that
Rumi loved Shams-e Tazbrizi
because he was named after the
sun (shams) and that this
shows that, in the back of his
mind, Rumi had Zoroastrian views
and so on.
These suggestions show a
lack of familiarity with Rumi’s
spirit and thought.
Light is dear to Rumi
because it is formless.
It is something that
seems to have no boundaries but
can take different shapes.
Water or the sea is dear
because it is formless and
extends boundlessly in every
direction, because it is
translucent and gentle, because
it is forgiving. But it can take
different shapes.
“If you pour
the sea into a jug / the amount
that you have will last you a
day”
This is
precisely the tale of God and
this world.
It is as if each one of
us and each and every being is
like a jug and God has poured
Himself into each jug in keeping
with its size. The bigger the
jug, the bigger its share of
godliness and fellowship with
Him.
“The
one light of the sun / divides
up into every house / If the
walls come tumbling down / then,
the believers will all stand as
one”
The same can
be said of the relationship
between the sun and houses.
When we build houses, the
light is divided up, a bit
shines into this house, another
bit shines into the next house
and so on.
But if we remove the
walls and the enclosures, a
single light will appear and
we’ll become acquainted with
light’s unity, vastness and
boundlessness.
Numerousness,
dissonance
“Eyes are
like coloured
bits of glass / unto
which shine the rays of the sun
/ be the glass red, yellow or
green / so the sun’s rays will
appear therein”
The sun’s
light is uniform, but when it
passes through a prism or, in
Jaami’s words, when it passes
through coloured bits of glass,
it appears in these colours.
Hence, we have different
colours because light has
acquired an external definition,
delineation and form, but before
taking on these forms, it was
colourless.
This is the same
formulation that we saw in Rumi
too:
“When colour
colourlessness seizes / Moses
comes to blows with Moses / When
we return to that colourlessness
/ Pharaoh is reconciled with
Moses”.
Colourlessness is seized by
colour; in other words, it
becomes coloured.
The colours that we see
in this world are the
delineations of colourlessness,
which is originally
undelineated.
This is why someone like
Rumi loved light.
Light symbolizes a
colourless, undelineated,
boundless being, which is broken
up into pieces when it is seized
by size, delineation and colour,
so that it becomes afflicted
with numerousness and even
opposition and dissonance.
But this numerousness and
dissonance is incidental and can
be resolved.
When you look at the
essence, you see that there is
none of this numerousness and
dissonance.
This is also true of
water and the sea.
“We’re from the sea and
to the sea we flow / We’re from
above and to there we’ll float /
We’re not from this place nor
from that / We’re from nowhere
and to there we’ll go”.
“Above” means
beyond numerousness and
opposites.
The prime, distinguishing
feature of this world is that it
is a world of numerousness and
opposites. It is a world that is
afflicted with dissonance;
you’ll either see numerousness
in it or individuals/things that
are clashing and in conflict.
But when you transcend
this and rise above it, you’ll
arrive at a level and an aspect
of the world that doesn’t
display any of this numerousness
and dissonance.
“We’re from above” means
that we’re forms - as we said
earlier - that have emerged from
formlessness. And it goes
without saying that we’ll be
returning to whence we came.
Closeness and
farness, left and right, north
and south are all attributes of
the delineated world that we
live in.
The world from which this
world has emerged has no south
or east or west.
These are attributes that
come into being in this world.
Anything that admits of
opposites belongs to this world.
There is absolutely
nothing in the world “above”
that can take on the hue of
opposites;
otherwise, it wouldn’t be
formless.
Anything that can be the
opposite of something else -
even if it is kindness - is
this-worldly.
When we talk about God’s
love, it isn’t a love that’s
defined as the opposite of hate;
it is of another fabric,
which doesn’t admit of numbers
or opposites. The same can be
said of God’s unity.
When we say that God is
One, this oneness is not the
kind of oneness that can be
contrasted with two-ness or
three-ness.
Otherwise, God’s unity
would be a numerical unity;
whereas, God’s unity is a
“non-numerical unity” as Western
philosophers would put it or
“true unity” as our
philosophers would say.
True oneness means a kind
of oneness that cannot be
contrasted with two-ness;
otherwise, it would fall
into the realm of opposites and
step into the world “below”.
God’s unity is
non-numerical, just as any other
attribute of God belongs to the
world “above” and is beyond
this-worldly numbers and
opposites. This was why Rumi
loved the sea and water.
The sea gives us a sense
of boundlessness.
The sea has many
attributes that make mystics
love it.
It is not only boundless,
it is also awesome and
forgiving.
It is also impervious to
human life.
It is also deep and full
of secrets.
But one of the reasons
why it is emblematic to mystics
is that, whilst it is formless,
it can take on different forms.
This quality makes it
impossible for mystics to
overlook the sea and water.
“Undulate,
undulate, for we’re a sea of
dictums / other than love, other
than love, we have no purpose.”
Being a sea
of dictums is the attribute of a
mystic; undulating endlessly,
being boundless and striving to
move closer to boundlessness and
formlessness.
On the basis of this
metaphor, we can also understand
our mystics’ utterances about
perishing. Perishing means a
drop of water joins the sea.
This doesn’t mean that the drop
perishes;
it means that it becomes
submerged in something that’s
boundless.
Perishing doesn’t mean
being destroyed.
What kind of longing
would this be for us to have?
Being destroyed means
losing all the excellent
qualities that we have, which
would amount to no excellence at
all.
The height of excellence
is when we preserve our
excellent qualities whilst, at
the same time, joining a
boundless excellence.
This is what perishing
means. Perishing doesn’t by any
means mean disappearing, ceasing
to exist and being reduced to
zero.
Even on those occasions
when mystics have spoken about
the disappearance of attributes,
they’ve been referring to the
disappearance of human
attributes; that is to say, the
veils and impediments that
prevent people from connecting
to boundlessness.
A shadow that moves into
light or a drop of water that
joins the sea; these are the
metaphors that our great mystics
have used for vanishing and
perishing.
The reed pipe
The first
metaphor and image that you come
across in Rumi’s Masnavi
is the reed pipe.
Why was the reed pipe so
dear to Rumi and why did he
liken himself to it?
A great deal has been
written on this subject and many
different views expressed, but
the clearest and most plausible
is that Rumi saw himself in the
guise of a reed pipe:
“Listen to this reed
pipe’s plaints / and the tale of
separation that it tells / since
they chopped me off of the stem
/ I’ve intoned every human
being’s laments”.
Why did Rumi
see himself as a reed pipe?
Because he saw God as the
wind or a breeze.
This, too, is an emblem
of formlessness.
It is an unknown, coming
from we-know-not-where.
You just feel it brushing
against your face.
You don’t see anyone.
You can’t see the wind.
You can’t grasp it in
your hand.
But you can sense it; you
can understand that something is
happening and that a wind is
brushing against your face,
especially so because, on
occasion, it carries the scent
of the beloved.
And, in addition to its
boundlessness and formlessness,
which, for mystics, makes it an
emblem of the beloved - like
water and the sea and light and
the sun - the wind can also take
on a delineation;
that is to say, it can
take different forms.
And it does this when it
enters different-sized reed
pipes;
just like when water
enters different-sized jugs and
just like light that can shine
through different-coloured bits
of glass.
You find precisely this
quality in the wind and in a
breath:
“The breath that the
piper blows into the pipe /
isn’t the size of the piper but
the pipe”.
This is precisely the
point that Rumi has focused on.
He says:
I’m speaking; the piper
is breathing into the pipe.
The breath is formless
and undelineated, but the moment
it enters the pipe, it becomes
delineated.
It takes on a form and
shape.
So, you hear different
tones and tunes.
Hence, you mustn’t think
that what comes out of the pipe
is exactly what went into it.
Something undelineated
goes into the pipe and something
delineated comes out of it: “The
breath that the piper blows into
the pipe / isn’t the size of the
piper but the pipe”.
What Rumi is
telling us is this:
The piper is blowing -
the breath is formless and
undelineated - and, in this way,
I speak.
The moment the breath
enters the reed pipe, it becomes
delineated and creates different
tunes.
So, you mustn’t imagine
that what goes into the pipe is
precisely what comes out of it.
Something undelineated
goes into the pipe and something
delineated comes out of it.
The sound that comes out
of the pipe is in keeping with
the pipe not the piper, who has
blown an undelineated breath
into the pipe.
But can we
reach that undelineated
boundlessness?
Yes, but only when we’ve
relinquished being a pipe.
But can we relinquish
being a pipe?
This was mystics’ eternal
longing.
They’d say:
Would that this pipe
didn’t exist so that we could
hear the sound straight from the
piper’s mouth.
Would that there was no
intermediary in the form of the
pipe.
But, if we lost our
attributes and ceased to be a
pipe, then, we’d be in the
position that Khayyam described:
“The secrets of eternity
neither you can know nor I / the
explanation is one that neither
you can read nor I /
The phrases all come to
us from behind a veil / and when
the veil falls away neither you
remain nor I”.
To want this is to want
the impossible.
When we exist, the veil
exists.
In fact, we and the veil
are one and the same.
If we long for the
impossible and ask that the veil
falls away, we’re asking that we
cease to be:
“You’re your own veil,
Hafez / fall away”.
These are things that our
mystics have conveyed to us in
various ways.
So, one’s
breath or the wind is another
symbol of the beloved for our
mystics and we find it, in
particular, in Rumi’s works.
It is a very expressive
metaphor, revealing the extent
of human beings’ closeness to
God.
It is as if human beings,
especially prophets and those
who love God, are pipes held to
God’s lips.
“If I sidle up to my
breath-maker’s lips / like a
reed pipe, I’ll tell so many
tales”.
When does the
reed pipe start to speak?
When it is next to and
close to the breath-maker’s
lips.
Two ideas are conveyed
here:
one is a kind of
proximity and communion, and,
the other, is the action and the
blowing of the breath.
Hence, these two things
are needed for the reed pipe to
start telling its tales.
This is what Rumi is
saying to us:
The words of prophets,
lovers, mystics and people who
have stepped into the blaze pour
forth when they are in close
proximity to their
breath-maker’s lips.
It is in these
circumstances that, in Rumi’s
words:
“I have ever so many
things to say / Should I speak
or should I refrain?”
But when they move away
from the breath-maker’s lips,
they dry up, they fall silent;
even that delineated wind and
breath doesn’t blow and flow
through them.
In Rumi’s
works, you find many references
to eating and feasting on light:
“If you ever eat the
victual of light / You’ll come
to scorn ovens and bread”.
He advises us to be like
eyes so that we can feast on
light.
He says that light is the
food of angels.
As for the
wind, it is really a strange
thing;
that is to say, for
mystics, it gives a sense of
being far away from home, of
drifting and being lost, of
being on a journey and also of
boundless and featurelessness.
You find its aspect of
drifting and being lost in Hafez
when he said:
“The poor wind and I are
as lost as two drifters / I’m
drunk from the magic of your
eyes and it, from the scent of
your hair”.
You find its aspect of
featurelessness in Rumi (as in
the breath that is blown into
the reed pipe).
And you can find its
aspect of being far away from
home and being on a journey in
the contemporary poet Sohrab
Sepehri’s
works (e.g. “And I’m a
traveller, O, incessant winds /
take me to the immensity of
leaves’ edifice”). I want to use
this as a footbridge to the
deepest layers of mystical
thinking about God.
Here, you gradually sense
that a mystic’s view of the sea,
light and the wind is a divine
and godly view.
The mystic sees and reads
subcutaneous layers in these
things that ordinary eyes cannot
see and read.
And these are only the
things that these great figures
have perceived and recounted to
us.
These are the things that
have been highlighted by them.
I want to tell you this:
everything is like the
light, the wind and the sea of
which they speak.
If Rumi had been drawn to
other aspects of the world, he
would have drawn our attention
to these other aspects in the
way that he did the sun and the
sea.
The Masnavi
contains nearly 2,000 references
to water, the sea, light and the
sun.
This repetition reveals
Rumi’s preoccupation with these
things.
It shows very clearly
that, in the daily shining of
the sun, he saw the manifest
face of God.
If he made love to the
light, he was making love to
God. If he went to stand by the
sea, he stood on the shore of
God’s being;
not metaphorically, but
truly.
“Mystics have a collyrium
that you must seek / then, your
eyes will find the sea like a
stream”.
Rumi had
collyrium-daubed eyes;
so, everything that he
saw revealed otherworldly things
to him.
He didn’t argue that the
existence of this-worldly things
proved the existence of God, in
the way that philosophers do.
He didn’t see the sea and
the sun and conclude, on this
basis, that there must be a God
who created the sea and the sun.
He did believe this, but
there was more to what he was
saying:
“O my friend, would you
choose sugar over the
sugar-maker? / Do you prefer the
moon to the moon-maker? / Leave
the sugar! Leave the moon! /
There’s so much more to what He
is and what He makes!”
Cause and
effect?
Rumi said
that God makes sugar and all
that’s sweet, of course;
but what he said went
beyond these things.
He didn’t reason from the
existence of the wind, the sun
and water to the existence of
God.
To him, these things
were God.
Just imagine, if God
wanted to descend from “above”
and to go on a walkabout, what
form would He appear in?
Rumi’s answer was: in the
form of the sea, the sun, the
wind.
You will find this point
in the scientific works of
Kepler, who was someone who
worshipped the sun and was
something of a mystic:
if God wanted to choose a
seat and a position for Himself
in this world, no seat and no
position would be as suitable as
the sun.
For a Christian like
Kepler, it would not be too
strange to think of God turning
up and taking up a position in
the material world.
But for us Muslims - with
the pristine notion that we have
of God - of course it is
inappropriate and unpalatable to
think of God setting up house on
a planet or a star or in any
material location. But if we
take a more mystical view and
opt for a simplified way of
expressing ourselves - which, of
course, distorts the meaning to
some extent - we can say that,
from the perspective of someone
like Rumi, if God were to appear
in this world in some material
form, He would undoubtedly
appear as light or the sea.
The best way in which God
could reveal Himself would be in
the form of the sea, light, the
sun, the wind or air. It is in
this sense that a mystic becomes
enchanted with these things.
Symbolizing or
representing something means
having some kind of affinity and
closeness to it and being like
it in some way; conveying some
information about it. And the
information is not
rational-reasoned information,
but perceived-intuited
information; so that, if you sit
next to it, you get a whiff of
the unseen beloved’s scent.
For Rumi, if
God were to appear in some form,
what could be better than the
sea?
What better than light
and the sun?
What better than the
wind?
So, when the wind blew
against his face, when light
shined on his eyes, when he
stood by the sea, it was as if
God Himself was standing there
in full majesty; not standing
beyond them, but standing in
them.
In this way, he would
find himself directly and
personally face-to-face with the
formless beloved who had, for
the time being, appeared in this
form.
This is what we call the
elucidatory or mystical
perspective.
As I’ve said
before, when Rumi addresses God,
when he speaks of his
relationship to God, he resorts
to various examples and
illustrations.
One illustration is the
relationship between spring and
a lush, green garden.
Rumi says that God is
like spring, which has no shape
or form.
But when it manifests
itself, it appears as trees,
grass, flowers and the scent of
spring.
These things are the
apparent form of spring, but
spring itself is eternal.
Trees, grass and flowers
may wither away and die.
This or that garden may
blossom and perish.
But formless spring is
eternal and determining, and it
always manifests itself in some
form or another.
Another example is joy.
Joy has no shape or form
that you can think of.
But, when it appears, it
takes the form of laughter.
God is joy, which is
formless.
When the joy takes on a
form, when it appears in some
guise, it appears as laughter.
We can say
one of two things about these
two relationships; i.e., the
relationship between laughter
and joy, and between a garden
and spring.
First, we can say that
the laughter is the result of
or, as philosophers would put
it, the effect of joy.
The joy first appears in
someone, as a cause;
then, they break into
laughter.
Secondly, we can say that
the laughter is not the effect
of joy; it is joy that
has taken on a form.
It is something formless
that has taken on a form. It is
not a question of a relationship
between cause and effect, but a
relationship between a thing and
the thing itself.
There’s a difference
between these two relationships.
An effect is not the same thing
as its cause;
it comes forth from it.
This is what philosophers
maintain at any rate. Or let’s
say it is the prevalent view
among philosophers and
theologians.
We’ll set aside Mulla
Sadra’s school of thought for
the moment, because Mulla
Sadra’s view in this respect is
very similar to mystics’ views.
For now, we’re looking at
cause and effect in Peripatetic
philosophy.
Here, there is a cause
and there is an effect.
The effect is separate
from the cause.
But it is totally
dependent on the cause in terms
of its origin.
In other words, the
effect will not occur in the
absence of the cause.
If we say, laughter is
the effect of joy and a lush
garden is the effect of spring,
we’re saying that there are two
things that are separate, but
that the second (the effect) is
dependent on the first.
This is our understanding
of our relationship with our
parents.
We are their effect, but
we are separate and independent
beings.
But they were the
precondition for our coming into
existence.
In other words, were it
not for them, we wouldn’t exist.
But, if we say that
laughter is joy that has
stepped down from its elevated
position to move closer to us,
here, we have nothing other than
a descent.
Joy hasn’t created
something that is other than
itself;
it has simply stepped
down and descended a bit in
order to become accessible to
us.
Here, it is a
relationship between a thing and
the thing itself, not a
relationship between a thing and
an other.
Mystics
versus philosophers
Mystics are
of the view that this world is
not the effect of God, it is a
descent or stepping down by God.
In other words, God has
brought Himself down a bit in
order to be accessible to us.
You will find exactly
this view in Mulla Sadra’s
school of thought.
God brings Himself down
to the level of objects and
performs the same actions as the
objects do.
In fact, objects are
nothing other than or separate
from God.
How could we possibly
imagine that there could be
objects that God would then
bring Himself down to reach?
This is an unacceptable idea.
His descent is the
coming into existence of the
objects.
It is not as if the
objects first exist and then He
descends to their level.
His descent is the coming
into existence of the objects
down below.
If we take this
perspective, then, the notion of
cause and effect falls away and
is replaced by the notion of
pure reality and attenuated
reality (as mystics would put
it).
This world is the
attenuated form of pure reality;
in other words, we have a
thicker level and a thinner
level.
When the thicker, purer
Almighty descends and becomes
attenuated, He appears in the
shapes and forms that we see all
around us.
In Rumi’s words, Truth
and Reality didn’t increase when
God created the world; nothing
exists now that didn’t exist
before.
The fact that God created
things doesn’t mean that these
things were added to the
universe, although this may be
the commonly-held view.
We say:
There was a time when
there was God and nothing else;
now, there is God and
millions of other things.
This is the commonly-held
view.
But Rumi says:
In the act of creation,
God didn’t add anything to
God/Truth/Reality.
God is still God and
everything is as it was.
Before, there was God and
nothing but God;
now, too, it is the same.
The world is filled with
one being - not billions of
beings - and that being is God.
It is our
plurality-seeing vision that
gives us the sense that there
are billions of beings in the
world.
The world is filled with
just one being, everything else
is within Him and part of his
layers and gradations.
This was one of the
reasons - although not the only
reason - why Rumi was so
irritated by philosophers and
theologians’ preoccupation with
cause and effect.
Rumi would say that the
word “cause” should not be
applied to God and that if
someone rises high enough, in
terms of gradations of
religiosity, he will reach a
level where he won’t ask about a
prime cause or unmoved mover.
This was one of Rumi’s
disagreements and quarrels with
philosophers and theologians.
He said: You philosophers
and theologians worship the
prime cause or the unmoved
mover, but that’s not who we
worship.
“Unmoved mover” is an
Aristotelian term and it was
also taken up and used by Muslim
philosophers.
Peripatetic
philosophy maintained that, if
we probe further and further in
this world, which is the world
of causes and effects, we’ll
arrive at the cause of causes;
i.e., the cause that is the
first in the chain of causes and
is not itself the effect of any
cause.
Philosophers maintained
that that this cause of causes
or the unmoved mover was what
prophets had presented to people
as God - although no prophet had
used the word “cause”.
And if you read the
Qur’an, you won’t find a single
instance of this word in it.
This kind of
philosophical terminology
doesn’t exist in the Qur’an.
Expressions such as
“necessary existence”,
“self-existence”, “unmoved
mover” and the like were coined
by philosophers.
But philosophers would
conflate or equate what prophets
had said and the terminology
that they (philosophers) used.
They would say:
Prophets haven’t
mentioned “unmoved mover” or
“necessary existence”, but the
God that they invited us to
worship is the same thing as the
unmoved mover or the
self-existent being.
In other words,
philosophers equated these two
things.
This sparked off a
protracted dispute between
philosophers and mystics and
religious chroniclers over
whether this equivalence was
valid or not.
In fact, this is how the
question arises as to whether
religion can be made
philosophical or understood
philosophically.
You take one concept
(“God") and you replace it with
another concept (“unmoved mover”
/ "self-existent being"/ “prime
cause”) and you say that the two
are one and the same.
This being the case, it
makes no difference whether you
say, “I worship the unmoved
mover” or “I worship
All-Knowing, All-Hearing,
All-Seeing, Merciful God”.
This was the
philosophers’ view.
On the other side stood
our religious chroniclers and,
especially, our mystics, who
strongly opposed this view.
It has been stated in the
shari’ah that God’s names are
preclusive.
That is to say, people
cannot just invent new names for
God;
they must stop at the
names that the Lawmaker has
stated and not go any further.
It has been stated in
religion that God is Merciful
and, so, we describe Him as
Merciful.
The same can be said of
“All-Hearing”, “All-Seeing”,
“Almighty”, “All-Knowing” and so
on.
But we’re not allowed to
add other names to these.
“The unmoved mover”
hasn’t been mentioned in the
shari’ah.
Can you think of any
prayer that begins with, “O,
Unmoved Mover!
O, Prime Cause!”?
Our mystics
have said that, since God’s
names are preclusive, we mustn’t
give him any other names or
address Him by any other names
in our prayers.
We have to limit
ourselves to the names that we
find in our religion.
There is a rationale to
them.
God has even been called
Most-Learned but He hasn’t been
called a teacher; this isn’t one
of God’s names.
I’m not saying that God
is not a teacher, but addressing
God as “O, Teacher!” is, on the
face of it, inappropriate.
Of course, if we go by
what our mystics and chroniclers
have said, All-Hearing and
All-Seeing do appear as
God’s names.
And hearing and seeing
are two of our senses.
But touching has not been
mentioned.
We don’t address God as
“O, All-Touching!”
As to why we can say
“All-Hearing” but not
“All-Touching”, there must be
some hidden rationale.
Someone like
Rumi and other mystics would
speak out against the
designations that philosophers
and theologians had coined for
God.
They were of the view
that these terms and expressions
produced an impression and an
understanding of God that would
drive away the mystical and
prophetic impression and
understanding, and would prevent
people from arriving at a true
grasp of God.
Rumi said:
“Once a man has been born
again / upon causes he’ll stamp
his feet / He’ll pray not to the
prime cause / Causes will form
no part of his creed".
By communing
with God, purifying his being
and striving to become a Perfect
Man, a man can be born again.
“Born again” is a
Christian notion.
In the Bible, Christ is
quoted as having said it several
times.
Those who are born again
will go to heaven.
Rumi said that someone
who is born again will shun
causes and cast away the idea of
God as the prime cause.
“He’ll pray not to the
prime cause.”
God’s unity
But why isn’t
God the prime cause?
One reason - the one that
Rumi has in mind in these verses
- is that presenting God as a
cause brings in an aspect of
determination.
Rumi says that cause is
something that, want it or not,
produces an outcome.
A cause cannot prevent
its own outcome from happening.
Fire burns and if it
doesn’t burn, it’s not fire.
Fire causes burning.
And light causes
illumination.
You can’t say:
Sometimes light feels
like illuminating things and
sometimes it doesn’t feel like
it.
If light is light, it
will per force illuminate.
Mystics, such
as Rumi, say that if we call God
a cause, we impose a kind of
determination on Him.
We bind His will and tie
His hands, so to speak.
We also find this idea in
the Qur’an: “The Jews have said,
‘God’s hand is fettered.’
Fettered are their hands and
they are cursed for what they
have said. Nay, but His hands
are Outspread; He expends how He
will.” (Al-Ma’idah, 64) The Jews
said that God’s hands are tied;
once He’s created the
world, He can no longer impinge
on it.
The Qur’an curses them
and says that it’s the Jews’
hands that are tied; God’s hands
are open.
No cause or effect or law
or rule bars God.
We can’t say that when
God come up against this or that
philosophical rule, He must back
down and submit to it.
And we can’t say that
there are imperatives that
govern His being which He cannot
escape.
These statements conflict
with God’s omnipotence.
This was why Rumi said
that God cannot be called the
prime cause.
But there’s another
reason too:
God’s relationship to
this world is not the
relationship of cause and
effect.
If it were, then the
“otherness” that I mentioned
earlier would apply to God.
Since God’s relationship
to this world is not one of
cause and effect, the question
doesn’t even arise as to whether
this cause “has its hands tied”
or not.
God’s relationship to
this world is the relationship
between a transcendent being and
an attenuated/descended being.
This attenuated/descended being
is the same as that transcendent
being and the transcendent being
is the same as the
attenuated/descended being.
That which is up there
and that which is down here are
one and the same.
Sometimes He comes down
and shows Himself in particular
forms and sometimes He ascends
and goes off into the distance.
So, as I
said, the entire realm of
existence is filled with a
single being and this being is
God.
You will find this same
notion in Mulla Sadra, because
his school of thought is very
close to Muhyiddin Arabi and
Rumi’s mystical school of
thought.
Mulla Sadra said: Some
people think that God’s unity
means that we have one God and
numerous other beings.
But this is numerical
unity and, in effect, it amounts
to polytheism.
God’s unity means:
This house has only one
occupant and that occupant is
God.
There’s no one standing
beside Him. It is He who appears
in different guises and forms.
Hence, this world is God
manifest; it is not the effect
of God.
In other words, God has
manifested himself through this
world.
Reading the
world
Now, having
completed the above
preliminaries, we must pass
through an important gate.
If this world is the
manifestation of God - rather
than the effect of God, in the
Peripatetic sense of cause and
effect - then, our encounter
with this world and the lessons
and meanings that we derive from
it will be different.
A philosopher’s job is to
argue from effect to cause.
They say that effects
have a contingent existence.
Things that have a
contingent existence require
something that has a necessary
existence.
In this way, they prove
the existence of the necessarily
existent or the self-existent
being.
Then, they say that this
self-existent being is what
prophets have presented to us as
God.
This is the course that
philosophers follow.
They don’t read the world
like something that has meaning;
they discover a
relationship between something
known as “effect” and a
different thing known as
“cause”.
But if we set aside the
philosophical approach and take
up the mystical approach, we’ll
see this world as the
manifestation of God.
God has become manifest
in the world in the form of me,
you, a leaf, a tree, the sky,
the sea, the sun and so on.
This is Rumi’s view.
When I see the sea or the
sun or anything else, whether
ugly or beautiful, whether
innocent or wicked, I have to be
able to read God in it.
In this way, God’s
relationship to this world
becomes the relationship of
meaning to words, not the
relationship of cause to effect.
No meaning’s relationship
with a word is one of cause and
effect.
Meaning doesn’t create a
word and a word isn’t meaning’s
effect.
Meaning is a spirit
within the word;
meaning lies in the heart
of a word.
We don’t seek to
understand sentences by
imagining that the words are the
effects of meanings;
rather, we read the
meanings that lie within the
words and the sentences.
And in order to read the
meanings within words, we have
to learn the language.
In order to
know the meaning of an English
sentence, you have to know the
English language;
otherwise, no matter how
hard you stare at the words,
you’ll only see unyielding,
lifeless forms. In order to
understand Rumi’s poetry, you
have to know Persian well;
otherwise, you’ll only
see meaningless words.
If the
world’s relationship to God is
the relationship of word to
meaning (which is the
relationship that mystics have
spoken of) - rather than the
relationship of cause to effect
- then, your task becomes one of
interpretation or hermeneutics.
That is to say, the task
of discovering meaning, not the
task of discovering causes, nor
the task of discovering the laws
of this world, whether
scientific laws or philosophical
laws.
In order to
discover meaning, you have to
know the language.
You can’t understand a
sentence unless you know the
language.
Hence, when we look at
this world and want to
understand its meaning, we have
to know its language.
This brings us to the
threshold of the elevated notion
that mystics have offered us;
viz., the means whereby we can
see and read God in this world.
This notion rests on the
assumption that God’s
relationship to the world is the
relationship between a
transcendent being and an
attenuated/descended being.
If you assume that the
relationship is one of cause and
effect, you’ll have joined the
ranks of philosophers, who are,
of course, very respectable
people because their way, too,
is a way of discovering God and
following Him.
But if you’re proceeding
on the basis of the assumption
that God is a formless being
that has acquired form and that
it is He who is sitting in the
cage of forms, then, the
question of correlation arises.
The breath that the piper
blows into the pipe takes on the
shape of the pipe.
When you look upwards,
the breath is formless, when you
look downwards, it has a form.
Hence, it is the same
breath, but on two different
levels.
If you’re proceeding on
the basis of this assumption,
you have to say that there is a
correlation between this lower
level and that upper level; it’s
not just a question of cause and
effect.
That upper being has
reduced itself in order to sit
at this lower level.
It is a bit like
topology.
When you change a shape
or a surface, regardless of how
elastic it is, there are some
constants.
There is a correlation
between this being, in its
reduced form, and that being,
which has no size or boundary or
form or definition.
It is the discovery of
this correlation and knowing the
language of this correlation
that brings us to interpreting
this world.
From then on, we see the
world as a text, with God
sitting in every single line and
word.
But we can only read the
book if we know the language.
Hence, we don’t discover
God using arguments; we simply
see Him.
We see that God is
walking, God is shining, God is
speaking and so on.
Here, it is a question of
the collyrium-daubed eyes that
Rumi spoke about: “Mystics have
a collyrium that you must seek /
then, your eyes will find the
sea like a stream”.
Rumi
distinguished the sense or
senses that allow the discovery
of God from the five senses that
we use in our daily lives, and
said:
“For the health of these
senses, the doctor will help /
but for the health of those
senses, seek your Friend”.
The ordinary senses are
found in animals too, but the
sense that Rumi was talking
about is a different kind of eye
and mind, which understands the
language of the world and sees
God everywhere.
It is in this context
that we can understand the poem
by Sheikh Mahmoud Shabestari in
which he said:
“O Muslim, if you knew
what an idol is / You’d know
that your creed is to worship
it”.
This is a mystical
notion, presented in a
philosophical form.
It represents the deepest
monotheism and the profoundest
knowledge of God.
This is what mystics
meant when they said: When we
view things from that elevated
position, belief and unbelief
are indistinguishable.
When we view things from
that elevated position, beauty
and ugliness are
indistinguishable.
When viewed from above,
it makes no difference what God
has created in this world,
because all beings speak equally
of God;
nay, they are His
manifestations in the world.
But I must issue a
warning here.
The above ruling is for
the rare individuals whose eyes
have been opened; otherwise,
people have no right to say that
belief and unbelief are one and
the same.
There were many people
who used the true words of the
great mystics, but applied them
to achieve false ends. The words
themselves, albeit poorly
expressed by us, are true to
their very core.
But they are only
appropriate for those who have
acquired those collyrium-daubed
eyes and have reached that
state.
Everyone else must pursue
their ordinary lives and view
themselves under the canopy of
numerousness and dissonance.
Unless and until someone
has - in the very depth of their
being - gone beyond this
numerousness and dissonance,
they must consider themselves
condemned to this numerousness
and dissonance and behave
towards others in this same
light.
It is only when
individuals become elevated that
they can abandon the
distinctions that others draw.
In sum, to
mystics, this world consists of
words, the meaning of which is
God.
The relationship is the
relationship between the
manifest and the manifestation,
not between cause and effect.
These forms are
the formless that has taken on
features and definitions;
it is the transcendent
being that has stepped down and
become attenuated.
If this is the case,
then, one has to interpret the
world.
In other words, one has
to view the world as a text that
demands interpretation, not as a
being whose laws one must
discover.
Question and
answer session
Q.
What does the Qur’an mean
when it speaks of creation?
Does creation not give a
sense of cause and effect?
A.
This is an important
exegetical point. We have the
notion of creation in the
Qur’an. For example, “Surely
your Lord is God, who created
the heavens and the earth,”
(Jonah, 3)
Philosophers have taken
creation to mean what they
understand by cause;
i.e., they have more or
less equated the Creator with
cause and the created with
effect.
Of course, this is also
the conventional and ordinary
understanding of it.
Philosophers
designated God “the unmoved
mover” or the prime cause.
They maintained that
creation means that God is the
cause of this world.
So, since they viewed the
notion of creation in this
mould, any problem pertaining to
cause also extended to this
sphere.
When you use a mould, you
have to submit to its logical
corollaries and consequences.
Everything - whether
positive or negative - that had
been said about cause had to and
did apply to the question of
creation.
There’s no
doubt that we conventionally
understand the notion of
creation in the sense of
causality.
Even if we set aside all
the meticulous points that
philosophers have made about
causality, we can understand
causality in a simple sense
here.
After all, God has done
something to make this world
appear.
And this simple meaning
can be found in the notion of
creation.
But the truth of the
matter is that we have no reason
to believe and no one has
presented any reason
demonstrating that creation is
an instance of causality.
We have no reason to
believe that God caused the
world and that the world is His
effect.
This is just a
conventional understanding of
the notion of creation.
This is very similar to
the question of “the seven
skies”.
There are references in
the Qur’an’s to God having
created “the seven skies”. Many
exegetes in the past used to say
very simply and sincerely that
these seven skies were the seven
planets of the Ptolemaic system
of astronomy.
It was only Fakhr Razi
who suggested a weak possibility
that the seven skies may not
refer to the Ptolemaic system,
although even he viewed this
possibility with trepidation.
And other exegetes
objected to his suggestion and
said that these kinds of
quibbles were the thin end of
the wedge. So, no one took Fakhr
Razi’s suggestion seriously and
it acquired no followers.
But, in the contemporary
world, we see that all modern
exegetes try to extract
something from that quibble in
order to present a scientific
interpretation that corresponds
to modern findings and to
explain that “the seven skies”
of the Qur’an does not
correspond to the Ptolemaic
system.
More or less the same
thing has happened on the
question of causality.
This is one illustration
of the ruling that I’ve set out
in The Contraction and
Expansion of Religious Knowledge:
Quite naturally,
sincerely and unwittingly,
exegetes harmonize their
interpretation of scripture with
the learning of their own age.
They proceed on the basis
of the assumption that the
learning of their own age is
correct.
And this learning forms
the framework of their thinking
and understanding; a framework
that they cannot abandon.
This has always been the
case, whether in the
interpretation of the Qur’an or
the Bible or in the
interpretation of any other
text.
A philosopher
whose mind is filled with the
notion of causality and who sees
everything as a chain of causes
and effects will, naturally, see
the relationship between God and
the world as an instance of
cause and effect.
Of course, we’re not
saying that this view is wrong;
we’re saying that we have
no reason to believe that it is
necessarily the case.
This is one
interpretation, one reading and
one possible understanding of
the relevant verses.
But there may well be
many other understandings.
But a philosopher who
sees the world as a system of
causes and effects - and who
thinks that it is self-evident
that it should be viewed in this
way - will naturally see the
notion of creation, too, as a
cause and effect relationship.
Francis
Bacon, the English philosopher
who is considered to be the
father of empirical science,
said: It is self-evident that
the Earth is stationary!
All scholars have used
the learning that seemed
self-evident in their own age to
understand the world and
interpret scripture.
This has held true for
everyone, including Muslims.
Mystics and
the followers of Mulla Sadra’s
school of transcendental
philosophy offered a more subtle
notion of creation.
Based on this notion,
even if the relationship between
God and the world is one of
cause and effect, it isn’t so in
the sense that Peripatetic
philosophers defined causality;
it can instead be viewed and
understood in a subtler way.
Whereupon, we have yet
another interpretation and
reading of the relevant verses.
And if, at some future date, a
more meticulous meaning of the
relationship between God and
human beings is discovered by
mystics or philosophers - a
meaning that then becomes
certain and self-evident to them
- the new meaning may well be
read back into the words of
these verses.
And this is quite
natural.
This is how different
readings arise.
And anyone who says that
some things are self-evidently
the case - and, therefore, do
not admit of different readings
- is unwittingly offering his
own reading.
Someone else might
respond by saying that some of
these things are not
self-evident or that what’s
self-evident to you is not
self-evident to me.
Some people
seem to think that they can step
above the different readings and
issue a ruling from up there.
But this is an exercise
in futility.
The whole point is that
anything that we say is just one
more reading.
If someone says that they
are speaking from a higher level
than all the different readings
and that all these readings must
surrender to what they are
saying, then, they’re failing to
understand the whole concept of
multiple readings.
Trying to step above and
beyond these readings is like
looking into a mirror and
saying: What we see in
the mirror is beyond all
mirrors!
When we want
to see ourselves, we have to
look in the mirror.
So, whenever we speak
about ourselves, we’re in fact
speaking about the image that
we’ve seen in the mirror.
You can never say:
Forget about the mirror,
because I want to talk about
myself minus the mirror.
There’s no
image without the mirror.
If there’s an image, then
it’s an image in the mirror.
And if there’s no mirror,
then there’s no image and
there’s nothing to talk about.
The different
readings are the images of us
that appear in the mirrors of
our understandings.
If you want to dispense
with understandings and
readings, then, of course,
there’s nothing to quarrel
about.
But as soon as we begin
to talk and to express our
views, our utterances and views
become one reading among the
many readings.
So, there’s no
meta-language or meta-paradigm.
That is to say, there’s
no model that stands above and
beyond all other models and
allows you to comment on all the
models below it.
Q.
Is someone who denies the
existence of God, who doesn’t
accept God at all, equal to
someone who believes in God?
A.
This depends on our
philosophical stance on
mistakes.
We believers and
God-worshippers are of the view
that people who deny God’s
existence are either making a
mistake or they’re being
malicious.
In other words, either
they’ve failed to understand the
truth or they’ve understood it
but are denying it maliciously.
For the moment, we’re
talking about the former;
i.e., someone who is
making a mistake, not someone
who is being malicious. Why has
this person made this mistake?
There are a number of
elaborate theories in philosophy
about the means whereby mistakes
occur and they are very
interesting theories at that.
There’s no denying the
fact that we human beings do
make mistakes;
both theoretical mistakes
and practical mistakes.
We also know that we
don’t want to make mistakes.
That is to say, there’s
no such thing as a deliberate
mistake, because if it’s
deliberate, then it’s not a
mistake;
it just shows that the
person who made the mistake
knows it’s wrong but doesn’t
want to admit it.
At any rate,
we all hope that we won’t make
mistakes and that we’ll grasp
the truth.
Be that as it may, we do
make mistakes;
in fact, we’re wrong more
often than we’re right.
The history of human
knowledge shows that our
mistaken ideas and
misconceptions far outnumber our
correct ideas.
But why is this the case?
There are various
theories in this respect.
There’s Bacon’s idols;
there’s Descartes’ theory, which
sees it as the will interfering
in reason; there’s the theory of
our own philosophers which sees
at as grasping accidentals
instead of essentials. Allameh
Tabataba’i wrote a beautiful
piece on this subject entitled:
The nature, means and
basis of mistakes in perception.
The gist of
Allameh Tabataba’i’s argument -
setting aside the philosophical
terminology - is that mistakes
are failures to recognize
something or a (mis)taking of
one thing for another.
For example, you say: “I
saw Hassan today.”
Later, you realize that,
in fact, it wasn’t Hassan.
But why does the mix up
occur?
One of the causes is the
existence of similarities.
Maybe the person that you
saw resembled your friend,
Hassan, so you took him for
Hassan.
Another
reason why we make mistakes is
that our wishes and desires step
in.
That is to say, you may
have been wishing that you’d run
into Hassan, maybe because there
was something you wanted to tell
him.
Just as your eagerness to
see Hassan may make you dream of
him, you may experience a
similar state while you’re awake
and imagine that someone who
looks like Hassan is in fact
Hassan.
Or the other person may
not even resemble Hassan, but
your imagination may so impinge
on your eyesight and your
concentration that you confuse
someone else with Hassan.
This is what Descartes
argued.
He said that the
interference of the will (in the
broad sense) in reason and
perception leads to mistakes.
If we can cut the link
between the will and reason,
then we can prevent mistakes.
This, at any rate, is one
argument.
So, to answer
your question, if we set aside
malice, we have to say that the
person who doesn’t believe in
God is failing to recognize God.
That is to say, he’s seen
God but he hasn’t realized that
it’s God.
It’s exactly as if you’d
see Hassan, but hadn’t realized
that it’s Hassan.
Stace, the
English philosopher, says that
Buddhists have the experience of
God, but they don’t have the
concept of God.
In other words, it’s a
question of someone who has
reached God but hasn’t realized
it.
One of the greatest
services that prophets rendered
to us was to tell us:
What you’ve seen and
found is God.
In the words
of Feiz-Kashani:
“One day I’ll reach the
beloved’s embrace, said I / Look
well, you may have reached it
already, came the reply”.
This is what
they mean when they say that God
is innate.
It means He’s with you.
You’ve discovered Him
many times.
You’ve seen Him.
You’ve shaken hands with
Him.
You’ve sat next to Him.
But you didn’t realize
it.
Prophets introduced Him
to us and said:
This is God.
Before the
advent of prophets, many theisms
lacked underlying theories.
That is to say, there was
a god but it didn’t have a name.
They didn’t realize that
it was God.
When, after a
many-year separation, Joseph’s
brothers reached him, he said:
Do you remember what you did to
your brother?
The moment he said this,
their minds sped back many
years.
Joseph’s words acted like
a spark to their memories and
they said: “Art thou indeed
Joseph?” (Joseph, 89)
They suddenly recognized
him and realized that this was
the brother who they thought had
gone forever.
It is the same with God.
You suddenly say:
Is that really you?
Are you the God that I’d
failed to recognize?
In short,
there are veils.
When the veils are pushed
away, God can take His rightful
place and it becomes clear that
He was always with us but we
didn’t know it.
Another cause
of the failure to recognize God
consists of particular motives
and desires.
That is to say, the
relevant person doesn’t want to
see God.
Prophets have spoken
about this.
Some people don’t want to
see God because it is hard and
it has corollaries and
consequences.
When a guest comes to
stay with you, it affects the
way can you behave in your own
house.
In the guest’s presence,
you can’t appear and behave in
any old way you like. You have
to be presentable and behave
correctly.
When God, who is such an
immense guest, enters your life,
your life really changes.
Otherwise, knowledge of
God is just a hollow claim.
Some people understand
the corollary of this knowledge.
They realize that, when
God appears, they have to behave
correctly.
So, they prefer not to
acknowledge His existence at
all.
They don’t see Him
because they don’t want to see
Him.
Another
explanation is that someone may
think that something that isn’t
God is God.
In other words, they
equate a being that is the
product of superstition with the
God that the prophets have
spoken about.
They then reject that
being and think that they’ve
rejected God.
In sum, there
are a host of reasons why people
remain in a state of unbelief.
Of course, I’m talking
about people who think things
through and have theories about
things.
Otherwise, someone might
be totally ignorant or not have
reached a level where they can
think things through for
themselves, which is an
altogether different matter.
Q.
You said that God has no
place or location.
So how do you explain the
Prophet’s Ascension?
A.
The Prophet’s Ascension
to heaven didn’t mean that the
Prophet went from somewhere
where there was no God to a
place where there was God.
God is everywhere.
The sky is the sky for
us.
The earth is the earth
for us.
The earth is close to us.
The sky is far from us.
But there’s no near and
far for God.
These concepts apply to
us, not to God.
It has been
said in the Qur’an and our
religious narratives that Jonas
went into a whale’s stomach.
The Prophet said that
Jonas’s experience was like an
ascension.
Jonas went into the
whale’s stomach and discovered
some hidden truths and the
Prophet ascended to the heavens
and saw some hidden truths
there.
Don’t judge things by the
up and down that applies to us.
Above the earth and below
the earth are locations that
apply to us;
they don’t apply to God.
The Prophet’s Ascension was a spiritual
experience; an experience of the
hidden, supernatural aspects of
the world.
Every prophet had an
ascension.
We are, more or less,
only acquainted with Prophet
Muhammad’s ascension.
This is the only one that
has been recounted to us and we
are familiar with some of its
details.
But every prophet had an
ascension.
No one can become a
prophet without having an
ascension and a spiritual
experience; a spiritual
experience that consists of the
discovery of the hidden secrets
of the world.
This may take the form of
the discovery of the
supernatural world and the world
of angels.
Or it may take the form
of the discovery of the inward
layers of human beings.
Or it may take some other
form.
It depends on the
personality of the relevant
prophet.
But all these are forms
of ascensions, at any rate.
They are all spiritual
experiences that form the basis
of prophethood.
And God remains beyond
place and location, and
spiritual experiences occur in
that non-place.
**Translated
from the Persian by
Nilou Mobasser
*
This is the published version of
the last of a five-part series
of talks given by Dr Soroush
under the general heading “Surat
va bi-Surati” (Forms and
Formlessness). This fifth part
was published in the
November-December 2001 edition
of the now-banned journal Aftab.
It also includes the
question and answer session that
followed the talk.
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