“The gnostics pretend to knowledge,
But I avow ignorance: that is my knowledge.”
Therefore do not claim gnosis, lest thou perish in thy pretension, but cleave to the reality thereof, that thou mayest be saved. When anyone is honoured by the revelation of the Divine majesty, his existence becomes a plague to him and all his attributes a source of corruption. He who belongs to God and to whom God belongs is not connected with anything in the universe. The real gist of gnosis is to recognize that to God is the kingdom. When a man knows that all possessions are in the absolute control of God, what further business has he with mankind, that he should be veiled from God by them or by himself? All such veils are the result of ignorance. As soon as ignorance is annihilated, they vanish, and this life is made equal in rank to the life hereafter.
Section.
Now, for instruction’s sake, I will mention some of the numerous sayings which the Shaykhs have uttered on this subject.
`Abdalláh b. Mubárak says: “Gnosis consists in not being astonished by anything,” because astonishment arises from an act exceeding the power of the doer, and inasmuch as God is omnipotent it is impossible that a gnostic should be astonished by His acts. If there be any room for astonishment, one must needs marvel that God exalts a handful of earth to such a degree that it receives His commands, and a drop of blood to such an eminence that it discourses of love and knowledge of Him, and seeks vision of Him, and desires union with Him. Dhu ´l-Nún the Egyptian says: “Gnosis is in reality God’s providential communication of the spiritual light to our inmost hearts,” i.e., until God, in His providence, illuminates the heart of Man and keeps it from contamination, so that all created things have not even the worth of a mustard-seed in his heart, the contemplation of Divine mysteries, both inward and outward, does not overwhelm him with rapture; but when God has done this, his every look becomes an act of contemplation (musháhadat). Shiblí says: “Gnosis is continual amazement (ḥayrat).” Amazement is of two kinds: (1) amazement at the essence and (2) amazement at the quality. The former is polytheism and infidelity, because no gnostic can possibly be in doubt concerning the essential nature of God; but the latter is gnosis, because the quality of God lies beyond reason’s scope. Hence a certain one said: “O Guide of the amazed, increase my amazement!” In the first place, he affirmed the existence of God and the perfection of His attributes, and recognized that He is the object of men’s search and the accomplisher of their prayers and the author of their amazement; then he asked for increase of amazement and recognized that in seeking God the reason has no alternative between amazement and polytheism. This sentiment is very fine. It may be, again, that knowledge of God’s being involves amazement at one’s own being, because when a man knows God he sees himself entirely subdued by the Divine omnipotence; and since his existence depends on God and his non-existence proceeds from God, and his rest and motion are produced by the power of God, he becomes amazed, saying: “Who and what am I?” In this sense the Apostle said: “He who knows himself has come to know his Lord,” i.e. he who knows himself to be annihilated knows God to be eternally subsistent. Annihilation destroys reason and all human attributes, and when the substance of a thing is not accessible to reason it cannot possibly be known without amazement. Abú Yazíd said: “Gnosis consists in knowing that the motion and rest of mankind depend on God,” and that without His permission no one has the least control of His kingdom, and that no one can perform any action until He creates the ability to act and puts the will to act in his heart, and that human actions are metaphorical and that God is the real agent. Muḥammad b. Wási` says, describing the gnostic: “His words are few and his amazement perpetual,” because only finite things admit of being expressed in words, and since the infinite cannot be expressed it leaves no resource except perpetual amazement. Shiblí says: “Real gnosis is the inability to attain gnosis,” i.e. inability to know a thing, to the real nature of which a man has no clue except the impossibility of attaining it. Therefore, in attaining it, he will rightly take no credit to himself, because inability (`ajz) is search, and so long as he depends on his own faculties and attributes, he cannot properly be described by that term; and when these faculties and attributes depart, then his state is not inability, but annihilation. Some pretenders, while affirming the attributes of humanity and the subsistence of the obligation to decide with sound judgment (taklíf ba-ṣiḥḥat-i khiṭáb) and the authority maintained over them by God’s proof, declare that gnosis is impotence, and that they are impotent and unable to attain anything. I reply: “In search of what thing have you become so helpless?” Impotence (`ajz) has two signs, which are not to be found in you: firstly, the annihilation of the faculties of search, and secondly, the manifestation of the glory of God (tajallí). Where the annihilation of the faculties takes place, there is no outward expression (`ibárat); and where the glory of God is revealed, no clue can be given and no discrimination is conceivable. Hence one who is impotent does not know that he is so, or that the state attributed to him is called impotence. How should he know this? Impotence is other than God, and the affirmation of knowledge of other than God is not gnosis; and so long as there is room in the heart for aught except God, or the possibility of expressing aught except God, true gnosis has not been attained. The gnostic is not a gnostic until he turns aside from all that is not God. Abú Ḥafṣ Ḥaddád says: “Since I have known God, neither truth nor falsehood has entered my heart.” When a man feels desire and passion he turns to the soul (dil) in order that it may guide him to the lower soul (nafs), which is the seat of falsehood; and when he finds the evidence of gnosis, he also turns to the soul in order that it may guide him to the spirit, which is the source of truth and reality. But when aught except God enters the soul, the gnostic, if he turns to it, commits an act of agnosticism. There is a great difference between one who turns to the soul and one who turns to God. Abú Bakr Wásiṭí says: “He who knows God is cut off from all things, nay, he is dumb and abject (kharisa wa-´nqama`a),” i.e. he is unable to express anything and all his attributes are annihilated. So the Apostle, while he was in the state of absence, said: “I am the most eloquent of the Arabs and non-Arabs”; but when he was borne to the presence of God, he said: “I know not how to utter Thy praise.” Answer came: “O Muḥammad, if thou speakest not, I will speak; if thou deemest thyself unworthy to praise Me, I will make the universe thy deputy, that all its atoms may praise Me in thy name.”
[140]. See Nafaḥát, No. 373.
[141]. See Baydáwí on Kor. vii, 174.
[142]. See Goldziher & Landberg, Die Legende vom Mönch Barṣīṣā (1896), and M. Hartmann, Der heilige Barṣīṣā in Der Islamische Orient (1905), i, 23-8.]