11. The Ḥulúlís.
Of those two reprobate sects which profess to belong to Ṣúfiism and make the Ṣúfís partners in their error, one follows Abú Ḥulmán of Damascus.[[136]] The stories which his adherents relate of him do not agree with what is written about him in the books of the Shaykhs, for, while the Ṣúfís regard him as one of themselves, these sectaries impute to him the doctrines of incarnation (ḥulúl) and commixture (imtizáj) and transmigration of spirits (naskh-i arwáḥ). I have seen this statement in the book of Muqaddasí,[[137]] who attacks him; and the same notion of him has been formed by theologians, but God knows best what is the truth. The other sect refer their doctrine to Fáris,[[138]] who pretends to have derived it from Ḥusayn b. Manṣúr (al-Ḥalláj), but he is the only one of Ḥusayn’s followers who holds such tenets. I saw Abú Ja`far Ṣaydalání[[139]] with four thousand men, dispersed throughout `Iráq, who were Ḥallájís; and they all cursed Fáris on account of this doctrine. Moreover, in the compositions of al-Ḥalláj himself there is nothing but profound theosophy.
I, `Alí b. `Uthmán al-Jullábí, say that I do not know who Fáris and Abú Hulmán were or what they said, but anyone who holds a doctrine conflicting with Unification and true theosophy has no part in religion at all. If religion, which is the root, is not firmly based, Ṣúfiism, which is the branch and offspring of religion, must with more reason be unsound, for it is inconceivable that miracles and evidences should be manifested except to religious persons and Unitarians. All the errors of these sectaries are in regard to the spirit (rúḥ). Now, therefore, I will explain its nature and principles according to the Sunní canon, and in the course of my explanation I will notice the erroneous and delusive opinions of the heretics in order that your faith may be strengthened thereby.
Discourse on the Spirit (al-rúḥ).
You must know that knowledge concerning the existence of the spirit is intuitive (darúrí), and the intelligence is unable to apprehend its (the spirit’s) nature. Every Moslem divine and sage has expressed some conjectural opinion on this point, which has also been debated by unbelievers of various sorts. When the unbelievers of Quraysh, prompted by the Jews, sent Naḍr b. al-Ḥárith to question the Apostle concerning the nature and essence of the spirit, God in the first place affirmed its substance and said, “And they will ask thee concerning the spirit”; then He denied its eternity, saying, “Answer, ‘The spirit belongs to that which (i.e. the creation of which) my Lord commanded’” (Kor. xvii, 87). And the Apostle said: “The spirits are hosts gathered together: those that know one another agree, and those that do not know one another disagree.” There are many similar proofs of the existence of the spirit, but they contain no authoritative statement as to its nature. Some have said that the spirit is the life whereby the body lives, a view which is also held by a number of scholastic philosophers. According to this view the spirit is an accident (`araḍ), which at God’s command keeps the body alive, and from which proceed conjunction, motion, cohesion. and similar accidents by which the body is changed from one state to another. Others, again, declare that the spirit is not life, but that life does not exist without it, just as the spirit does not exist without the body, and that the two are never found apart, because they are inseparable, like pain and the knowledge of pain. According to this view also the spirit is an accident, like life. All the Ṣúfí Shaykhs, however, and most orthodox Moslems hold that the spirit is a substance, and not an attribute; for, so long as it is connected with the body, God continually creates life in the body, and the life of Man is an attribute and by it he lives, but the spirit is deposited in his body and may be separated from him while he is still living, as in sleep. But when it leaves him, intelligence and knowledge can no longer remain with him, for the Apostle has said that the spirits of martyrs are in the crops of birds: consequently it must be a substance; and the Apostle has said that the spirits are hosts (junúd), and hosts are subsistent (báqí), and no accident can subsist, for an accident does not stand by itself.
The spirit, then, is a subtle body (jismí laṭíf), which comes and goes by the command of God. On the night of the Ascension, when the Apostle saw in Heaven Adam, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, Jesus, and Abraham, it was their spirits that he saw; and if the spirit were an accident, it would not stand by itself so as to become visible, for it would need a locus in substances, and substances are gross (kathíf). Accordingly, it has been ascertained that the spirit is subtle and corporeal (jasím), and being corporeal, it is visible, but visible only to the eye of intelligence (chashm-i dil). And spirits may reside in the crops of birds or may be armies that move to and fro, as the Apostolic Traditions declare.
Here we are at variance with the heretics, who assert that the spirit is eternal (qadím), and worship it, and regard it as the sole agent and governor of things, and call it the uncreated spirit of God, and aver that it passes from one body to another. No popular error has obtained such wide acceptance as this doctrine, which is held by the Christians, although they express it in terms that appear to conflict with it, and by all the Indians, Tibetans, and Chinese, and is supported by the consensus of opinion among the Shí`ites, Carmathians, and Ismá`ílís (Báṭiniyán), and is embraced by the two false sects abovementioned. All these sectaries base their belief on certain propositions and bring forward proofs in defence of their assertion. I ask them this question: “What do you mean by ‘eternity’ (qidam)? Do you mean the pre-existence of a non-eternal thing, or an eternal thing that never came into being?” If they mean the pre-existence of a non-eternal thing, then there is no difference between us in principle, for we too say that the spirit is non-eternal (muḥdath), and that it existed before the body, as the Apostle said: “God created the spirits two thousand years before the bodies.” Accordingly, the spirit is one sort of God’s creatures, and He joins it to another sort of His creatures, and in joining them together He produces life through His predestination. But the spirit cannot pass from body to body, because, just as a body cannot have two lives, so a spirit cannot have two bodies. If these facts were not affirmed in Apostolic Traditions by an Apostle who speaks the truth, and if the matter were considered purely from the standpoint of a reasonable intelligence, then the spirit would be life and nothing else, and it would be an attribute, not a substance. Now suppose, on the other hand, they say that the spirit is an eternal thing that never came into being. In this case, I ask: “Does it stand by itself or by something else?” If they say, “By itself,” I ask them, “Is God its world (`álam) or not?” If they answer that God is not its world, they affirm the existence of two eternal beings, which is contrary to reason, for the eternal is infinite, and the essence of one eternal being would limit the other. But if they answer that God is its world, then I say that God is eternal and His creatures are non-eternal: it is impossible that the eternal should be commingled with the non-eternal or made one with it, or become immanent in it, or that the non-eternal should be the place of the eternal or that the eternal should carry it; for whatever is joined to anything must be like that to which it is joined, and only homogeneous things are capable of being united and separated. And if they say that the spirit does not stand by itself, but by something else, then it must be either an attribute (ṣifat) or an accident (`araḍ). If it is an accident, it must either be in a locus or not. If it is in a locus, its locus must be like itself, and neither can be called eternal; and to say that it has no locus is absurd, for an accident cannot stand by itself. If, again, they say that the spirit is an eternal attribute—and this is the doctrine of the Ḥulúhs and those who believe in metempsychosis (tanásukhiyán)—and call it an attribute of God, I reply that an eternal attribute of God cannot possibly become an attribute of His creatures; for, if His life could become the life of His creatures, similarly His power could become their power; and inasmuch as an attribute stands by its object, how can an eternal attribute stand by a non-eternal object? Therefore, as I have shown, the eternal has no connexion with the non-eternal, and the doctrine of the heretics who affirm this is false. The spirit is created and is under God’s command. Anyone who holds another belief is in flagrant error and cannot distinguish what is non-eternal from what is eternal. No saint, if his saintship be sound, can possibly be ignorant of the attributes of God. I give praise without end to God, who hath guarded us from heresies and dangers, and hath bestowed on us intelligence to examine and refute them by our arguments, and hath given us faith in order that we may know Him. When men who see only the exterior hear stories of this kind from theologians, they imagine that this is the doctrine of all aspirants to Ṣúfiism. They are grossly mistaken and utterly deceived, and the consequence is that they are blinded to the beauty of our mystic knowledge and to the loveliness of Divine saintship and to the flashes of spiritual illumination, because eminent Ṣúfís regard popular applause and popular censure with equal indifference.
Section.
One of the Shaykhs says: “The spirit in the body is like fire in fuel; the fire is created (makhlúq) and the coal is made (maṣnú`).” Nothing can be described as eternal except the essence and attributes of God. Abú Bakr Wásiṭí has discoursed on the spirit more than any of the Ṣúfí Shaykhs. It is related that he said: “There are ten stations (maqámát) of spirits: (1) the spirits of the sincere (mukhliṣán), which are imprisoned in a darkness and know not what will befall them; (2) the spirits of pious men (pársá-mardán), which in the heaven of this world rejoice in the fruits of their actions and take pleasure in devotions, and walk by the strength thereof; (3) the spirits of disciples (murídán), which are in the fourth heaven and dwell with the angels in the delights of veracity, and in the shadow of their good works; (4) the spirits of the beneficent (ahl-i minan) which are hung in lamps of light from the Throne of God, and their food is mercy, and their drink is favour and proximity; (5) the spirits of the faithful (ahl-i wafá), which thrill with joy in the veil of purity and the station of electness (iṣṭifá); (6) the spirits of martyrs (shahídán), which are in Paradise in the crops of birds, and go where they will in its gardens early and late; (7) the spirits of those who yearn (mushtáqán), which stand on the carpet of respect (adab) clad in the luminous veils of the Divine attributes; (8) the spirits of gnostics (`árifán), which, in the precincts of holiness, listen at morn and eve to the word of God and see their places in Paradise and in this world; (9) the spirits of lovers (dústán), which have become absorbed in contemplation of the Divine beauty and the station of revelation (kashf), and perceive nothing but God and rest content with no other thing; (10) the spirits of dervishes, which have found favour with God in the abode of annihilation, and have suffered a transformation of quality and a change of state.”
It is related concerning the Shaykhs that they have seen the spirit in different shapes, and this may well be, because, as I have said, it is created, and a subtle body (jismí laṭíf) is necessarily visible. God shows it to every one of His servants, when and as it pleases Him.