[137]. The nisba Muqaddasí or Maqdisí belongs to a number of Moslem writers. I do not know which of them is intended here.
[138]. See Nafaḥát, No. 178.
[139]. This person, whom the author has already mentioned at the beginning of Chapter XIII, is not identical with the Ṣúfí of the same name who was a contemporary of Junayd (Nafaḥát, No. 197).
CHAPTER XV.
The Uncovering of the First Veil: Concerning the Gnosis of God (ma`rifat Allah).
The Apostle said: “If ye knew God as He ought to be known, ye would walk on the seas, and the mountains would move at your call.” Gnosis of God is of two kinds: cognitional (`ilmí) and emotional (ḥálí). Cognitional gnosis is the foundation of all blessings in this world and in the next, for the most important thing for a man at all times and in all circumstances is knowledge of God, as God hath said: “I only created the genii and mankind that they might serve Me” (Kor. li, 56), i.e. that they might know Me. But the greater part of men neglect this duty, except those whom God hath chosen and whose hearts He hath vivified with Himself. Gnosis is the life of the heart through God, and the turning away of one’s inmost thoughts from all that is not God. The worth of everyone is in proportion to gnosis, and he who is without gnosis is worth nothing. Theologians, lawyers, and other classes of men give the name of gnosis (ma`rifat) to right cognition (`ilm) of God, but the Ṣúfí Shaykhs call right feeling (ḥál) towards God by that name. Hence they have said that gnosis (ma`rifat) is more excellent than cognition (`ilm), for right feeling (ḥál) is the result of right cognition, but right cognition is not the same thing as right feeling, i.e. one who has not cognition of God is not a gnostic (`árif), but one may have cognition of God without being a gnostic. Those of either class who were ignorant of this distinction engaged in useless controversy, and the one party disbelieved in the other party. Now I will explain the matter in order that both may be instructed.
Section.
You must know that there is a great difference of opinion touching the gnosis and right cognition of God. The Mu`tazilites assert that gnosis is intellectual and that only a reasonable person (`áqil) can possibly have it. This doctrine is disproved by the fact that madmen, within Islam, are deemed to have gnosis, and that children, who are not reasonable, are deemed to have faith. Were the criterion of gnosis an intellectual one, such persons must be without gnosis, while unbelievers could not be charged with infidelity, provided only that they were reasonable beings. If reason were the cause of gnosis, it would follow that every reasonable person must know God, and that all who lack reason must be ignorant of Him; which is manifestly absurd. Others pretend that demonstration (istidlál) is the cause of knowledge of God, and that such knowledge is not gained except by those who deduce it in this manner. The futility of this doctrine is exemplified by Iblís, for he saw many evidences, such as Paradise, Hell, and the Throne of God, yet they did not cause him to have gnosis. God hath said that knowledge of Him depends on His will (Kor. vi, 111). According to the view of orthodox Moslems, soundness of reason and regard to evidences are a means (sabab) to gnosis, but not the cause (`illat) thereof: the sole cause is God’s will and favour, for without His favour (`ináyat) reason is blind. Reason does not even know itself: how, then, can it know another? Heretics of all sorts use the demonstrative method, but the majority of them do not know God. On the other hand, whenever one enjoys the favour of God, all his actions are so many tokens of gnosis; his demonstration is search (ṭalab), and his neglect of demonstration is resignation to God’s will (taslím); but, in reference to perfect gnosis, resignation is no better than search, for search is a principle that cannot be neglected, while resignation is a principle that excludes the possibility of agitation (iḍṭiráb), and these two principles do not essentially involve gnosis. In reality Man’s only guide and enlightener is God. Reason and the proofs adduced by reason are unable to direct anyone into the right way. If the infidels were to return from the place of Judgment to this world, they would bring their infidelity back with them (cf. Kor. vi, 28). When the Commander of the Faithful, `Alí, was asked concerning gnosis, he said: “I know God by God, and I know that which is not God by the light of God.” God created the body and committed its life to the spirit (ján), and He created the soul (dil) and committed its life to Himself. Hence, inasmuch as reason and human faculties and evidences have no power to make the body live, they cannot make the soul live, as God hath said: “Shall he who was dead and whom We have restored to life and to whom We have given a light whereby he may walk among men...?” (Kor. vi, 122), i.e. “I am the Creator of the light in which believers are illumined”. It is God that opens and seals the hearts of men (Kor. xxxix, 23; ii, 6): therefore He alone is able to guide them. Everything except Him is a cause or a means, and causes and means cannot possibly indicate the right way without the favour of the Causer. He it is that imposes the obligation of piety, which is essentially gnosis; and those on whom that obligation is laid, so long as they are in the state of obligation, neither bring it upon themselves nor put it away from themselves by their own choice: therefore Man’s share in gnosis, unless God makes him know, is mere helplessness. Abu ´l-Ḥasan Núrí says: “There is none to point out the way to God except God Himself: knowledge is sought only for due performance of His worship.” No created being is capable of leading anyone to God. Those who rely on demonstration are not more reasonable than was Abú Ṭálib, and no guide is greater than was Muḥammad; yet since Abú Ṭálib was preordained to misery, the guidance of Muḥammad did not avail him. The first step of demonstration is a turning away from God, because demonstration involves the consideration of some other thing, whereas gnosis is a turning away from all that is not God. Ordinary objects of search are found by means of demonstration, but knowledge of God is extraordinary. Therefore, knowledge of Him is attained only by unceasing bewilderment of the reason, and His favour is not procured by any act of human acquisition, but is miraculously revealed to men’s hearts. What is not God is phenomenal (muḥdath), and although a phenomenal being may reach another like himself he cannot reach his Creator and acquire Him while he exists, for in every act of acquisition he who makes the acquisition is predominant and the thing acquired is under his power. Accordingly, the miracle is not that reason should be led by the act to affirm the existence of the Agent, but that a saint should be led by the light of the Truth to deny his own existence. The knowledge gained is in the one case a matter of logic, in the other it becomes an inward experience. Let those who deem reason to be the cause of gnosis consider what reason affirms in their minds concerning the substance of gnosis, for gnosis involves the negation of whatever is affirmed by reason, i.e. whatever notion of God can be formed by reason, God is in reality something different. How, then, is there any room for reason to arrive at gnosis by means of demonstration? Reason and imagination are homogeneous, and where genus is affirmed gnosis is denied. To infer the existence of God from intellectual proofs is assimilation (tashbíh), and to deny it on the same grounds is nullification (ta`ṭíl). Reason cannot pass beyond these two principles, which in regard to gnosis are agnosticism, since neither of the parties professing them is Unitarian (muwaḥḥid).
Therefore, when reason is gone as far as possible, and the souls of His lovers must needs search for Him, they rest helplessly without their faculties, and while they so rest they grow restless and stretch their hands in supplication and seek a relief for their souls; and when they have exhausted every manner of search in their power, the power of God becomes theirs, i.e. they find the way from Him to Him, and are eased of the anguish of absence and set foot in the garden of intimacy and win to rest. And reason, when it sees that the souls have attained their desire, tries to exert its control, but fails; and when it fails it becomes distraught; and when it becomes distraught it abdicates. Then God clothes it in the garment of service (khidmat) and says to it: “While thou wert independent thou wert veiled by thy faculties and their exercise, and when these were annihilated thou didst fail, and having failed thou didst attain.” Thus it is the allotted portion of the soul to be near unto God, and that of the reason is to do His service. God causes Man to know Him through Himself with a knowledge that is not linked to any faculty, a knowledge in which the existence of Man is merely metaphorical. Hence to the gnostic egoism is utter perfidy; his remembrance of God is without forgetfulness, and his gnosis is not empty words but actual feeling.
Others, again, declare that gnosis is the result of inspiration (ilhám). This also is impossible, because gnosis supplies a criterion for distinguishing truth from falsehood, whereas the inspired have no such criterion. If one says, “I know by inspiration that God is in space,” and another says, “I know by inspiration that He is not in space,” one of these contradictory statements must be true, but a proof is necessary in order to decide where the truth lies. Consequently, this view, which is held by the Brahmans and the inspirationists (ilhámiyán), falls to the ground. In the present age I have met a number of persons who carried it to an extreme and who connected their own position with the doctrine of religious men, but they are altogether in error, and their assertion is repugnant to all reasonable Moslems and unbelievers. If it be said that whatever conflicts with the sacred law is not inspiration, I reply that this argument is fundamentally unsound, because, if inspiration is to be judged and verified by the standard of the sacred law, then gnosis does not depend on inspiration, but on law and prophecy and Divine guidance.
Others assert that knowledge of God is intuitive (ḍarúrí). This also is impossible. Everything that is known in this way must be known in common by all reasonable men, and inasmuch as we see that some reasonable men deny the existence of God and hold the doctrines of assimilation (tashbíh) and nullification (ta`ṭíl), it is proved that knowledge of God is not intuitive. Moreover, if it were so, the principle of religious obligation (taklíf) would be destroyed, for that principle cannot possibly be applied to objects of intuitive knowledge, such as one’s self, the heaven and the earth, day and night, pleasure and pain, etc., concerning the existence of which no reasonable man can have any doubt, and which he must know even against his will. But some aspirants to Ṣúfiism, considering the absolute certainty (yaqín) which they feel, say: “We know God intuitively,” giving the name of intuition to this certainty. Substantially they are right, but their expression is erroneous, because intuitive knowledge cannot be exclusively restricted to those who are perfect; on the contrary, it belongs to all reasonable men. Furthermore, it appears in the minds of living creatures without any means or evidence, whereas the knowledge of God is a means (sababí). But Master Abú `Alí Daqqáq and Shaykh Abú Sahl Ṣu`lúkí[[140]] and his father, who was a leading religious authority at Níshápúr, maintain that the beginning of gnosis is demonstrative and that its end is intuitive, just as technical knowledge is first acquired and finally becomes instinctive. “Do not you perceive,” they say, “that in Paradise knowledge of God becomes intuitive? Why should it not become intuitive in this world too? And the Apostles, when they heard the word of God, either immediately or from the mouth of an angel or by revelation, knew Him intuitively.” I reply that the inhabitants of Paradise know God intuitively in Paradise, because in Paradise no religious obligation is imposed, and the Apostles have no fear of being separated from God at the last, but enjoy the same security as those who know Him intuitively. The excellence of gnosis and faith lies in their being hidden; when they are made visible, faith becomes compulsory (jabr), and there is no longer any free will in regard to its visible substance (`ayn), and the foundations of the religious law are shaken, and the principle of apostasy is annulled, so that Bal`am[[141]] and Iblís and Barṣíṣá[[142]] cannot properly be described as infidels, for it is generally allowed that they had knowledge of God. The gnostic, while he remains a gnostic, has no fear of being separated from God; separation is produced by the loss of gnosis, but intuitive knowledge cannot conceivably be lost. This doctrine is full of danger to the vulgar. In order that you may avoid its evil consequences you must know that Man’s knowledge and his gnosis of God depend entirely on the information and eternal guidance of the Truth. Man’s certainty in gnosis may be now greater and now less, but the principle of gnosis is neither increased nor diminished, since in either case it would be impaired. You must not let blind conformity enter into your knowledge of God, and you must know Him through His attributes of perfection. This can be attained only through the providence and favour of God, who has absolute control of our minds. If He so will, He makes one of His actions a guide that shows us the way to Himself, and if He will otherwise, He makes that same action an obstacle that prevents us from reaching Him. Thus Jesus was to some a guide that led them to gnosis, but to others he was an obstacle that hindered them from gnosis; the former party said, “This is the servant of God,” and the latter said, “This is the son of God.” Similarly, some were led to God by idols and by the sun and moon, while others were led astray. Such guides are a means of gnosis, but not the immediate cause of it, and one means is no better than another in relation to Him who is the author of them all. The gnostic’s affirmation of a means is a sign of dualism (zunnár), and regard to anything except the object of knowledge is polytheism (shirk). When a man is doomed to perdition in the Preserved Tablet, nay, in the will and knowledge of God, how can any proof and demonstration lead him aright? The most high God, as He pleases and by whatever means He pleases, shows His servant the way to Himself and opens to him the door of gnosis, so that he attains to a degree where the very essence of gnosis appears alien (ghayr) and its attributes become noxious to him, and he is veiled by his gnosis from the object known and realizes that his gnosis is a pretension (da`wá). Dhu `l-Nún the Egyptian says: “Beware lest thou make pretensions to gnosis,” and it has been said in verse—