In short, real annihilation from anything involves consciousness of its imperfection and absence of desire for it, not merely that a man should say, when he likes a thing, “I am subsistent therein,” or when he dislikes it, that he should say, “I am annihilated therefrom”; for these qualities are characteristic of one who is still seeking. In annihilation there is no love or hate, and in subsistence there is no consciousness of union or separation. Some wrongly imagine that annihilation signifies loss of essence and destruction of personality, and that subsistence indicates the subsistence of God in Man; both these notions are absurd. In India I had a dispute on this subject with a man who claimed to be versed in Koranic exegesis and theology. When I examined his pretensions I found that he knew nothing of annihilation and subsistence, and that he could not distinguish the eternal from the phenomenal. Many ignorant Ṣúfís consider that total annihilation (faná-yi kulliyyat) is possible, but this is a manifest error, for annihilation of the different parts of a material substance (ṭínatí) can never take place. I ask these ignorant and mistaken men: “What do you mean by this kind of annihilation?” If they answer, “Annihilation of substance” (faná-yi `ayn), that is impossible; and if they answer, “Annihilation of attributes,” that is only possible in so far as one attribute may be annihilated through the subsistence of another attribute, both attributes belonging to Man; but it is absurd to suppose that anyone can subsist through the attributes of another individual. The Nestorians of Rúm and the Christians hold that Mary annihilated by self-mortification all the attributes of humanity (awṣáf-i násútí) and that the Divine subsistence became attached to her, so that she was made subsistent through the subsistence of God, and that Jesus was the result thereof, and that he was not originally composed of the stuff of humanity, because his subsistence is produced by realization of the subsistence of God; and that, in consequence of this, he and his mother and God are all subsistent through one subsistence, which is eternal and an attribute of God. All this agrees with the doctrine of the anthropomorphistic sects of the Ḥashwiyya, who maintain that the Divine essence is a locus of phenomena (maḥall-i ḥawádith) and that the Eternal may have phenomenal attributes. I ask all who proclaim such tenets: “What difference is there between the view that the Eternal is the locus of the phenomenal and the view that the phenomenal is the locus of the Eternal, or between the assertion that the Eternal has phenomenal attributes and the assertion that the phenomenal has eternal attributes?” Such doctrines involve materialism (dahr) and destroy the proof of the phenomenal nature of the universe, and compel us to say that both the Creator and His creation are eternal or that both are phenomenal, or that what is created may be commingled with what is uncreated, and that what is uncreated may descend into what is created. If, as they cannot help admitting, the creation is phenomenal, then their Creator also must be phenomenal, because the locus of a thing is like its substance; if the locus (maḥall) is phenomenal, it follows that the contents of the locus (ḥáll) are phenomenal too. In fine, when one thing is linked and united and commingled with another, both things are in principle as one.
Accordingly, our subsistence and annihilation are attributes of ourselves, and resemble each other in respect of their being our attributes. Annihilation is the annihilation of one attribute through the subsistence of another attribute. One may speak, however, of an annihilation that is independent of subsistence, and also of a subsistence that is independent of annihilation: in that case annihilation means “annihilation of all remembrance of other”, and subsistence means “subsistence of the remembrance of God” (baqá-yi dhikr-i ḥaqq). Whoever is annihilated from his own will subsists in the will of God, because thy will is perishable and the will of God is everlasting: when thou standest by thine own will thou standest by annihilation, but when thou art absolutely controlled by the will of God thou standest by subsistence. Similarly, the power of fire transmutes to its own quality anything that falls into it, and surely the power of God’s will is greater than that of fire; but fire affects only the quality of iron without changing its substance, for iron can never become fire.
Section.
All the Shaykhs have given subtle indications on this subject. Abú Sa’íd Kharráz, the author of the doctrine, says: “Annihilation is annihilation of consciousness of manhood (`ubúdiyyat), and subsistence is subsistence in the contemplation of Godhead (iláhiyyat),” i.e., it is an imperfection to be conscious in one’s actions that one is a man, and one attains to real manhood (bandagí) when one is not conscious of them, but is annihilated so as not to see them, and becomes subsistent through beholding the action of God. Hence all one’s actions are referred to God, not to one’s self, and whereas a man’s actions that are connected with himself are imperfect, those which are attached to him by God are perfect. Therefore, when anyone becomes annihilated from things that depend on himself, he becomes subsistent through the beauty of Godhead. Abú Ya`qúb Nahrajúrí says: “A man’s true servantship (`ubúdiyyat) lies in annihilation and subsistence,” because no one is capable of serving God with sincerity until he renounces all self-interest: therefore to renounce humanity (ádamiyyat) is annihilation, and to be sincere in servantship is subsistence. And Ibráhím b. Shaybán says: “The science of annihilation and subsistence turns on sincerity (ikhláṣ) and unity (wáḥid—iyyat) and true servantship; all else is error and heresy,” i.e., when anyone acknowledges the unity of God he feels himself overpowered by the omnipotence of God, and one who is overpowered (maghlúb) is annihilated in the might of his vanquisher; and when his annihilation is rightly fulfilled on him, he confesses his weakness and sees no resource except to serve God, and tries to gain His satisfaction (riḍá). And whoever explains these terms otherwise, i.e. annihilation as meaning “annihilation of substance” and subsistence as meaning “subsistence of God (in Man)”, is a heretic and a Christian, as has been stated above.
Now I, `Alí b. `Uthmán al-Jullábí, declare that all these sayings are near to each other in meaning, although they differ in expression; and their real gist is this, that annihilation comes to a man through vision of the majesty of God and through the revelation of Divine omnipotence to his heart, so that in the overwhelming sense of His majesty this world and the next world are obliterated from his mind, and “states” and “stations” appear contemptible in the sight of his aspiring thought, and what is shown to him of miraculous grace vanishes into nothing: he becomes dead to reason and passion alike, dead even to annihilation itself; and in that annihilation of annihilation his tongue proclaims God, and his mind and body are humble and abased, as in the beginning when Adam’s posterity were drawn forth from his loins without admixture of evil and took the pledge of servantship to God (Kor. vii, 171).
Such are the principles of annihilation and subsistence. I have discussed a portion of the subject in the chapter on Poverty and Ṣúfiism, and wherever these terms occur in the present work they bear the meaning which I have explained.
9.The Khafífís.
They are the followers of Abú `Abdalláh Muḥammad b. Khafíf of Shíráz, an eminent mystic in his time and the author of celebrated treatises on various branches of Ṣúfiism. He was a man of great spiritual influence, and was not led by his lusts. I have heard that he contracted four hundred marriages. This was due to the fact that he was of royal descent, and that after his conversion the people of Shíráz paid great court to him, and the daughters of kings and nobles desired to marry him for the sake of the blessing which would accrue to them. He used to comply with their wishes, and then divorce them before consummation of the marriage. But in the course of his life forty wives, who were strangers to him (bégána), two or three at a time, used to serve him as bed-makers (khádimán-i firásh), and one of them—she was the daughter of a vizier—lived with him for forty years. I have heard from Abu ´l-Ḥasan `Alí b. Bakrán of Shíráz that one day several of his wives were gathered together, and each one was telling some story about him. They all agreed sese nunquam eum vidisse libidini obsequentem. Hitherto each of them had believed that she was peculiarly treated in this respect, and when they learned that the Shaykh’s behaviour was the same towards them all, they were astonished and doubted whether such was truly the case. Accordingly, they sent two of their number to question the vizier’s daughter, who was his favourite, as to his dealings with her. She replied: “When the Shaykh wedded me and I was informed that he would visit me that night, I prepared a fine repast and adorned myself assiduously. As soon as he came and the food was brought in, he called me to him and looked for a while first at me and then at the food. Then he took my hand and drew it into his sleeve. From his breast to his navel there were fifteen knots (`aqd) growing out of his belly. He said, ‘Ask me what these are’; so I asked him and he replied, ‘They are knots made by the tribulation and anguish of my abstinence in renouncing a face like this and viands like these.’ He said no more, but departed; and that is all my intimacy with him.”
The form of his doctrine in Ṣúfiism is “absence” (ghaybat) and “presence” (ḥuḍúr). I will explain it as far as possible.