Hunger sharpens the intelligence and improves the mind and health. The Apostle said: “Make your bellies hungry and your livers thirsty and your bodies naked, that perchance your hearts may see God in this world.” Although hunger is an affliction to the body, it illumines the heart and purifies the soul, and leads the spirit into the presence of God. To eat one’s fill is an act worthy of a beast. One who cultivates his spiritual nature by means of hunger, in order to devote himself entirely to God and detach himself from worldly ties, is not on the same level with one who cultivates his body by means of gluttony, and serves his lusts. “The men of old ate to live, but ye live to eat.” For the sake of a morsel of food Adam fell from Paradise, and was banished far from the neighbourhood of God.
He whose hunger is compulsory is not really hungry, because one who desires to eat after God has decreed the contrary is virtually eating; the merit of hunger belongs to him who abstains from eating, not to him who is debarred from eating. Kattání[[162]] says: “The novice shall sleep only when he is overpowered by slumber, and speak only when he must, and eat only when he is starving.” According to some, starvation (fáqa) involves abstention from food for two days and nights; others say three days and nights, or a week, or forty days, because true mystics believe that a sincere man (ṣádiq) is only once hungry in forty days; his hunger merely serves to keep him alive, and all hunger besides is natural appetite and vanity. You must know that all the veins in the bodies of gnostics are evidences of the Divine mysteries, and that their hearts are tenanted by visions of the Most High. Their hearts are doors opened in their breasts, and at these doors are stationed reason and passion: reason is reinforced by the spirit, and passion by the lower soul. The more the natural humours are nourished by food, the stronger does the lower soul become, and the more impetuously is passion diffused through the members of the body; and in every vein a different kind of veil (ḥijábí) is produced. But when food is withheld from the lower soul it grows weak, and the reason gains strength, and the mysteries and evidences of God become more visible, until, when the lower soul is unable to work and passion is annihilated, every vain desire is effaced in the manifestation of the Truth, and the seeker of God attains to the whole of his desire. It is related that Abu ´l-`Abbás Qaṣṣáb said: “My obedience and disobedience depend on two cakes of bread: when I eat I find in myself the stuff of every sin, but when I abstain from eating I find in myself the foundation of every act of piety.” The fruit of hunger is contemplation of God (musháhadat), of which the forerunner is mortification (mujáhadat). Repletion combined with contemplation is better than hunger combined with mortification, because contemplation is the battle-field of men, whereas mortification is the playground of children.
[159]. The usual reading is ajzí, “I give recompense,” but the Persian translation, ba-jazá-yi án man awlátaram, is equivalent to ana ajzá bihi.
[160]. Nafaḥát, No. 353.
[161]. “Brilliancies.” Naf. entitles it لمعه.
[162]. Nafahát, No. 215.
CHAPTER XXII.
The Uncovering of the Eighth Veil: Concerning the Pilgrimage.
The pilgrimage (ḥajj) is binding on every Moslem of sound mind who is able to perform it and has reached manhood. It consists in putting on the pilgrim’s garb at the proper place, in standing on `Arafát, in circumambulating the Ka`ba, and in running between Ṣafá and Marwa. One must not enter the sacred territory without being clad as a pilgrim (bé iḥrám). The sacred territory (ḥaram) is so called because it contains the Station of Abraham (Maqám-i Ibráhím). Abraham had two stations: the station of his body, namely, Mecca, and the station of his soul, namely, friendship (khullat). Whoever seeks his bodily station must renounce all lusts and pleasures and put on the pilgrim’s garb and clothe himself in a winding-sheet (kafan) and refrain from hunting lawful game, and keep all his senses under strict control, and be present at `Arafát and go thence to Muzdalifa and Mash`ar al-Ḥarám, and pick up stones and circumambulate the Ka`ba and visit Miná and stay there three days and throw stones in the prescribed manner and cut his hair and perform the sacrifice and put on his (ordinary) clothes. But whoever seeks his spiritual station must renounce familiar associations and bid farewell to pleasures and take no thought of other than God (for his looking towards the phenomenal world is interdicted); then he must stand on the `Arafát of gnosis (ma`rifat) and from there set out for the Muzdalifa of amity (ulfat) and from there send his heart to circumambulate the temple of Divine purification (tanzíh), and throw away the stones of passion and corrupt thoughts in the Miná of faith, and sacrifice his lower soul on the altar of mortification and arrive at the station of friendship (khullat). To enter the bodily station is to be secure from enemies and their swords, but to enter the spiritual station is to be secure from separation (from God) and its consequences.[[163]]
Muḥammad b. al-Faḍl says: “I wonder at those who seek His temple in this world: why do not they seek contemplation of Him in their hearts? The temple they sometimes attain and sometimes miss, but contemplation they might enjoy always. If they are bound to visit a stone, which is looked at only once a year, surely they are more bound to visit the temple of the heart, where He may be seen three hundred and sixty times in a day and night. But the mystic’s every step is a symbol of the journey to Mecca, and when he reaches the sanctuary he wins a robe of honour for every step.” Abú Yazíd says: “If anyone’s recompense for worshipping God is deferred until to-morrow he has not worshipped God aright to-day,” for the recompense of every moment of worship and mortification is immediate. And Abú Yazíd also says: “On my first pilgrimage I saw only the temple; the second time, I saw both the temple and the Lord of the temple; and the third time I saw the Lord alone.” In short, where mortification is, there is no sanctuary: the sanctuary is where contemplation is. Unless the whole universe is a man’s trysting-place where he comes nigh unto God and a retired chamber where he enjoys intimacy with God, he is still a stranger to Divine love; but when he has vision the whole universe is his sanctuary.