Universal Dimensions of Islam Part 6

There is no veil through which it does not see.

The center dwells in the periphery,

And as each ego thinks itself alone

All numbers must contain the number one.

The depth of G.o.d is more than we can tell;

Next to the deepest knowledge of the Real

Every religion is a heresy.

Eckhart, from whom G.o.d nothing hid, knew well:

To reach the kernel you must break the sh.e.l.l.

And Ibn 'Arabi, absorbed in prayer,

Saw nothing but an ocean without sh.o.r.e -

Its waves are flowing still through every soul:

There is no part that does not touch the whole.

Barry McDonald

The Koran as the Lover's Mirror

William C. Chittick It is well known that Sufism places a premium on love, but Western observers rarely a.s.sociate love with Islam itself. This no doubt helps to explain the tendency to see Sufism as somehow tangential to the tradition. I would argue rather that love for G.o.d is every bit as central to the Islamic perspective as it is to a tradition like Christianity, though the rhetorical stress is by no means the same. In the present context, one piece of evidence will have to suffice: Islamic praxis is based on following the Sunnah of Muhammad-that is, imitating his conduct, his customs, and his character traits. The Koran is of course utterly basic to Islamic ways of seeing and doing things, but the Koran is known and interpreted first of all through the manner in which it was embodied and acted out by Muhammad. Following the Prophet provides the parameters for the Muslim understanding of the Koran and of all things. But what exactly is the rationale for following the Prophet? A most succinct expression is found in surah 3:31: "Say [O Muhammad!]: 'If you love G.o.d, follow me, and G.o.d will love you.'" If you do not love G.o.d, there is no reason to follow the Prophet. This has hardly been lost on practicing Muslims.

If it is not obvious to outsiders that Muslims have been motivated by love for G.o.d, this has something to do with the many directions in which Islamic civilization developed-literature, law, art, philosophy, theology, political inst.i.tutions. Modern scholarship has been much more interested in these observable aspects of culture than in psychological or spiritual motives. Nonetheless, most scholars recognize that Islamic civilization has always been concerned with unpacking the teachings of the Koran and applying them to diverse realms of human endeavor. In other words, expressions of Islamic civilization and culture flesh out the ways in which people imitate the Prophet, who embodied the Koran. And Muslims in turn are motivated to imitate the Prophet by love for G.o.d and the desire to call down G.o.d's love upon themselves.

Although Muslims have followed Muhammad in order to attract G.o.d's love, they have also recognized that G.o.d loves human beings in any case. Sufi authors commonly highlight the notion that the divine motivation for creating the universe is love. What makes human beings special, among all G.o.d's creatures, is that they have the capacity to love G.o.d freely in response to His love for them. All other things simply serve G.o.d as they were created to serve Him, with no free choice on their parts.1 As Rumi puts it, Choice is the salt of worship-

the spheres turn, but not because they want to.

Their turning is neither rewarded nor punished,

for, at the time of reckoning, choice bestows excellence.2

So, to say that G.o.d created the universe out of love means that the divine love brings into existence the ugly along with the beautiful, the bad along with the good. Only within the context of such an apparently mixed-up universe can free choice have any meaning. And only those who choose freely to love G.o.d can love Him with worthy love. If love were to be coerced, it would not be love. This is one reason why the Koran says "There is no compulsion in the religion" (2:256). The religion-the right path taught by the Koran and the Prophet-is precisely to live up to the requirements of love for G.o.d and to do so by putting the Sunnah into practice. If the religion were coerced, it would not be love, and it would not be the religion.

In short, although G.o.d loves humans beings and created them to love Him, they are free not to love Him. So, a second sort of divine love responds to the free choice of human beings to love G.o.d, a choice that demands following the divine guidance as embodied in the prophets. And, G.o.d says in the often cited adith qudsi, "When I love My servant, I am the hearing with which he hears, the eyesight with which he sees, the hand with which he grasps, and the foot with which he walks." When love reaches its culmination, the divine Lover is none other than those he loves, and the human lovers are none other than the divine Beloved. This is one of the meanings that Sufis see in the verse, "He loves them, and they love Him" (Koran 5:54).

I chose to talk about the Koran as a "mirror" because I wanted to stress the role of the interpreter in understanding scripture. The fact that people see the Koran through their own specific lenses is especially clear when one surveys the vast number of Koranic commentaries written over the centuries-not to mention the critiques and studies written by non-Muslims. Jurists have found in the Koran a book of law, theologians see all sorts of G.o.d-talk, philosophers find the guidelines for wisdom and virtue, linguists uncover fascinating intricacies of Arabic grammar, biologists find theories of life. As for Western scholarship, nothing is more obvious than that scholars reach different conclusions on the basis of diverse premises and prejudices.

When I first chose the topic for this paper, I immediately put into the relevant file a statement from the Maqalat of Shams-i Tabrizi, Rumi's famous companion. In that book we learn that Shams used to make his living as a teacher of the Koran. He tells us repeatedly that the path to G.o.d is that of following (mutabaat) the Prophet-having in mind, of course, the already mentioned Koranic verse, "If you love G.o.d, follow me." In one explanation of the central importance of the Koran, he says, For the travelers and the wayfarers, each verse of the Koran is like a message and a love-letter [ishq-nama]. They know the Koran. He presents and discloses the beauty of the Koran to them.3 I suppose that nowadays not too many people read the Koran as a love-letter. But, is this because of the contents of the Koran? Or is it because of the contents of the readers' souls? Shams thinks the answer is obvious: "The flaw is that people don't look at G.o.d with the gaze of love."4 The issue is not only interpretation of scripture, of course, since the same argument applies to our views on everything. Our understanding of the world and of our own role within it depends on where we are coming from. And with even more reason, how we understand "G.o.d" depends on who we are. This should be obvious-everyone has a different understanding of the word "G.o.d." Ibn Arabi, the "Greatest Master" of Sufi teachings, makes the point by arguing that absolutely no one can worship G.o.d as such. All people without exception worship the G.o.d or G.o.ds of their beliefs (al-ilah al-mutaqad). Given that the term "G.o.d" can designate the point of reference for one's att.i.tudes and activities, even those who claim not to worship any G.o.ds are deceiving themselves. All of us have points of reference and orientations.

I do not want to claim that interpretation of scripture is totally subjective, but it does seem clear that scripture has the capacity to allow people to see into their own souls. When people read scripture, they find themselves. If they do not like what they are seeing, they should-in the traditional way of looking at things-try to dissolve the knots in their souls that prevent them from seeing the beauty of the Divine Word. Needless to say, the modern response is somewhat different.

One needs to remember that Muslims never considered the Koran a book among other books, any more than the Bible was simply a cla.s.sic for Christians. The Koran was the Word of G.o.d, G.o.d's own self-expression with the purpose of guiding those whom He loves. People read and recited the Koran not to entertain themselves with old stories, nor to edify themselves, but to bring themselves into conformity with the divine reality that is disclosed in the text. The purpose of engaging with the Koran was to transform the soul. Reciting the text and conforming oneself to its teachings was a way to express one's love for G.o.d and to make oneself worthy for G.o.d's love.

The idea that reciting the Koran and observing the Sunnah are transformative goes back to Islamic teachings about what it means to be human, teachings with which the Koran is saturated-that is, if one is looking for them. People can become transformed because they can come to know G.o.d and love Him, and this is possible because human beings are not fixed in their status. It may be true that the G.o.d whom people worship is always the G.o.d of belief, and it may also be true that G.o.d in Himself is always beyond the capacity of created beings to understand. But, this does not mean that the G.o.d of my belief today is the same as the G.o.d of my belief tomorrow, quite the contrary. Understanding and worship of G.o.d change constantly in keeping with the growth and development of the human self.

Ibn Arabi points out that the uniqueness of human beings goes back to the fact that they cannot be pinned down. Just as G.o.d cannot be defined, so also the creatures whom He created in His own image cannot be put into a box. In other words, the "definition" of what it means to be human has everything to do with indefinability.

In the Koran, the angels say, "Each of us has a known station" (37:164). This suggests that the angels are all different and that each has a specific function. None of the angels can do the job of any other angel. Ibn Arabi argues that the rule expressed in this verse applies to all created things; each thing in the universe is exactly what it is meant to be and is doing precisely what it was created for-with the partial exception of human beings. In their case, human status depends upon not having a fixed station in this life, because only nonfixity can allow for freedom. People can develop and grow as they attempt to make themselves worthy for G.o.d's love.

Humans, in short, cannot be defined in any more than a general way. No one can know what he or she really is, because each of us is a work in progress. What we do in our daily activities constantly brings about changes in our psychic and spiritual make-ups. We remain indefinable until death, at which point we enter into our own fixed stations, like the angels and other creatures.

When we apply the rule of nonfixity and indefinability to our own beliefs and practices-whether these be religious or non-religious-we see that our understandings, words, and deeds are always in the process of changing, for better or worse. Moreover, we reap the fruits of these changes-the law of karma is ineluctable. Reality itself holds us responsible for what we think and do. Death is simply the point at which all this becomes obvious.

Given that people are constantly developing and changing, they should be concerned with making sure that they develop in a worthy and congenial way. Love for G.o.d provides the necessary focus. Following the Prophet, one needs to remember, does not simply mean performing certain acts. More than anything else it means a.s.suming certain att.i.tudes toward G.o.d and the world.

Islam provides the basic guidelines for the proper att.i.tudes in the testimony of faith, the Shahadah: "There is no G.o.d but G.o.d, and Muhammad is G.o.d's messenger." I have already indicated something of the importance of G.o.d's Messenger for actualizing love. The role played by the first Shahadah is less obvious, but in fact, the declaration of divine unity-tawid-is in some ways even more basic.

The statement "There is no G.o.d but G.o.d" is typically considered an expression of belief. For Muslims, it is more like a statement of fact, or a self-evident truth. Even more than that, it is a methodology. Specifically, it responds to the human limitation of always seeing G.o.d and scripture in our own measures, and it provides the means to bring our measures into conformity with G.o.d's measure. Given that our beliefs and att.i.tudes alter and change day by day and even moment by moment, we need a method of focusing, training, and guiding them and allowing them to develop in a direction that will lead to long-term happiness.

The first Shahadah provides a way of thinking about G.o.d. What it basically says is that every thought about G.o.d needs to be negated. Whatever G.o.d we conceive of is not G.o.d in Himself, who alone truly is. Whatever interpretation we make of the Koran-which is G.o.d's self-expression-does not live up to the reality of G.o.d. There can be no definitive and final answers in our minds and souls. To say definitive and final is to say "absolute," and G.o.d alone is absolute, G.o.d alone is definitive and final. As Shams puts it, "It is G.o.d who is G.o.d. Whatever is created is not G.o.d-whether it's Muhammad or other than Muhammad."5 The definitive and final G.o.d is not the G.o.d that we can understand. Our G.o.d of our beliefs is always tentative.

In other words, the Shahadah provides a method to help people avoid trying to size up G.o.d. The great lovers of Islamic civilization say that if people want to understand G.o.d in G.o.d's measure, they need to look upon Him with the eye of love and strive to conform to His wishes. As a methodology for lovers, the Shahadah tells them that there is nothing worthy of love but G.o.d, because G.o.d alone is adequate to the ever-changing and unlimited substance of the human soul. G.o.d alone can fill up the divine image that is the human self. As for what is less than G.o.d, love for it is legitimate and desirable only to the degree in which the object of love is recognized as G.o.d's good and beautiful face (wajh) shining in the created realm. The principle of unity demands that all things be seen as signs and marks of G.o.d's goodness.

There is a hadith that can help us understand the role of love in interpreting the Koran: "Your love for a thing makes you blind and deaf." A typical way of reading this is to say that loving what is less than G.o.d makes people blind and deaf to the guidance provided by the Koran and the Sunnah. This will have ill consequences for the soul because, if people love something other than G.o.d, they will not follow Muhammad, and then G.o.d will not love them and will not bring them into His proximity after death.

This saying, however, can be read in other ways as well. We can take it not as a criticism of misguided love, but as a statement of fact concerning all love, guided or misguided. Love for the ugly and vicious makes people blind and deaf to the beautiful and the virtuous, and love for the beautiful and good turns them away from the ugly.

If we acknowledge that love makes us blind, it becomes obvious that all scriptural interpretation is inadequate. Why? Because every interpreter loves something, some G.o.d, some principle, some goal. And the love that drives us-the love for whatever it is that we worship-makes us blind and deaf to other G.o.ds and other loves. If our G.o.d is history, or psychology, or physics, for example, this would make us blind and deaf to metaphysics, not to mention "mysticism." This is obvious; we meet it in every facet of life, especially life in the academy. People not only do not see things the same way, they cannot see things in the same way, because they are blinded by their loves.

So, every interpreter of scripture is a lover-of something or other-and every lover sees scripture as his own mirror. For those who love the G.o.d of tawid, the G.o.d described in the first Shahadah, their love makes them blind and deaf to every negative attribute that might be applied to G.o.d, for they can only see that He is adorned with every positive attribute. Love makes them give all credit for good to G.o.d, and all credit for evil to ourselves.

If human beings were fixed in status like other creatures, it would be a waste of breath even to mention the fact that they are blinded by their loves and obsessed by their own interpretative stances. It is precisely because we are not fixed in status and are constantly changing that we need to remember our own limitations. We can always strive to lift our gazes higher and see through better lenses.

I am not arguing, by the way, that "love for G.o.d" is necessarily a good thing. That all depends upon the G.o.d of belief. If the G.o.d of belief does not conform with G.o.d as He truly is, what people call "love for G.o.d" can easily be hatred for the Beautiful, the Good, and the True. This is one reason that Islamic texts never divorce love for G.o.d from knowledge of G.o.d. Real faith cannot be a leap into the unknown, because it is impossible to love something that you do not know. This is the problem, precisely: we cannot know G.o.d in Himself, so we can only love Him in the degree that we know Him. It becomes all important to expand our own measure in knowledge and understanding so as to achieve as close an approximation as possible to the divine measure.

In texts that discuss love for G.o.d, the expression "lover" and "knower" are often synonyms. Or, if love is taken as higher-as is done typically in Sufi poetry-knowledge becomes the means for achieving true love. Al-Ghazali often makes the connection between love and knowledge in his Iya. He does so, for example, in a pa.s.sage found at the beginning of a section on the heart's illness, mentioned in the Koran: Every part of the body was created for its own specific act. The illness of each part is for it not to be able to perform the act for which it was created, or to perform the act but in a disrupted manner. The illness of the hand is for it not to be able to grasp. The illness of the eye is for it not to be able to see.

In the same way, the illness of the heart is for it not to be able to perform the specific act for which it was created. This act is knowledge, wisdom, recognition, love for G.o.d, worshiping Him, and taking joy in remembering Him. The heart should prefer these over every other desired thing and utilize all desires and all bodily parts in this path. . . .

So, in each bodily part there is a benefit, and the benefit of the heart is wisdom and knowledge. This is the specific characteristic of the human soul through which human beings are distinguished from the beasts. For, they are not distinguished from them by the power of eating, s.e.xual intercourse, eyesight, and so on-only through knowing things as they are. And the Root of things, the one who brings them into existence and devises them, is G.o.d. It is He who made them things. So, if a man were to know all things but not to know G.o.d, it would be as if he knew nothing.

The mark of knowledge is love. He who knows G.o.d loves Him. The mark of love is that he does not prefer this world or any other loved thing over Him. . . . Whenever anyone loves something more than he loves G.o.d, his heart is ill. It is as if his stomach loved clay more than it loved bread and water, or as if it ceased to have any desire for bread and water. Hence, the stomach is ill, and this is the mark of its illness.

Thus it is known that all hearts are ill, except as G.o.d wills.6 * * *

I can sum up in these terms: Love for G.o.d pushes the lover to follow the Prophet, who embodies the message of the Koran. One cannot love G.o.d properly, however, without knowing G.o.d, and to know G.o.d one needs to have a sound knowledge of G.o.d's self-expression, which is precisely the Koran and its embodiment in Muhammad. In order to know and understand the Koran correctly, one needs to read it with the eye of love. As an interpretive method, love demands that the reader look at G.o.d in terms of the Shahadah, which negates every blame worthy attribute from G.o.d and ascribes every praiseworthy attribute to him. This demands that interpreters understand every verse in the best light-in view of the real nature of G.o.d's wisdom, compa.s.sion, mercy, and guidance.

All these remarks are meant to provide a brief introduction to my favorite Koran commentator, one of those who treated the Koran as a love-letter. This is Rashid al-Din Maybudi, who was a contemporary of al-Ghazali. His commentary has not been well known to Western scholarship, perhaps because it is written in Persian. He took inspiration from Abdallah Anari, a scholar of anbali jurisprudence who wrote a number of cla.s.sic Sufi texts in both Arabic and Persian and who died about forty-five years before Maybudi completed his commentary in 520/1126.7 The commentary is called Kashf al-asrar wa uddat al-abrar, "The unveiling of the secrets and the provision of the pious." It is one of the longest commentaries in the Persian language, though, like many cla.s.sical Persian texts, a good percentage of the book is in fact in Arabic. For many centuries, it was one of the best known and most popular commentaries on the Koran wherever Persian was a significant language of learning. It was published in ten volumes in the 1950s.

Maybudi's commentary has a unique arrangement. The author takes ten or so verses at a time, and then explains their meaning in three stages. In the first stage, he provides a literal Persian translation. In the second, he offers grammatical clarifications, explains the circ.u.mstances of the revelation, and gives detailed accounts of interpretations provided by the Prophet, the Companions, and other commentators. In the third stage he chooses one or more of the verses and suggests something of their more inner meanings. He follows the path of what has commonly been called commentary by "allusion" (ishara). Literally, the word means "to point." Technically it designates a meaning that is not expressed directly but needs to be brought out by reflection and meditation. In this third stage he demonstrates how the Koran addresses the dynamics of spiritual development and the unfolding of the human soul. Love, of course, comes up repeatedly.

The first two stages of the book are written in a style that is dry, precise, and sometimes pedantic. In contrast, the third stage provides some of the most beautiful examples of early Persian prose and, in contrast to the other two sections, frequently cites Persian and Arabic poetry and often quotes the words of Anari. Here I will look at the third-stage commentary on three verses. It should be kept in mind that these three pa.s.sages represent a tiny fraction of the explanations by "allusion" that are offered in the ten volumes.

The first pa.s.sage pertains to the second verse of the second surah. The first verse of the surah is simply the enigmatic letters "alif lam mim," concerning which diverse interpretations have been offered, some of which Maybudi cites. The second verse is translated by Arberry in this way: "This is the book, wherein is no doubt, a guidance to the G.o.dfearing."

In stage two of the commentary Maybudi follows the typical reading by explaining that the verse refers to the Koran. In stage three, however, he looks for allusions. He takes the word kitab, which is usually translated as "book," in its literal sense, which is "writing." He understands the verse to say, "This is the writing wherein is no doubt." He then explains the meaning in terms of two other Koranic verses where writing is mentioned. Then he offers a brief meditation on the verse: It is said that "This is the writing" is an allusion to what G.o.d has written against Himself for Muhammad's community: "Surely My mercy takes precedence over My wrath." G.o.d does that in His words, "Your Lord has written mercy against Himself" [6:54]. It is also said that the verse is an allusion to the faith and knowledge that G.o.d has written upon the hearts of the believers. Thus He says, "He wrote faith in their hearts" [58:22].

In this verse, it is as if G.o.d is saying, "My servant, I have written the outline of faith in your heart, I have mixed in the perfume of love, I have decorated paradise for you, I have adorned your heart with the light of knowledge, I have lit up the candle of union with Me, I have stamped the seal of kindness on your heart, and I have written the characters of love in your awareness."

"He wrote faith in their hearts": [G.o.d is saying,] "I wrote in the Tablet,8 but what I wrote there was only your description. I wrote in your hearts, and what I wrote there was only My description. I wrote your description in the Tablet, and I showed it to Gabriel. I wrote My description in your heart. Would I have shown it to an enemy?

"In the Tablet I wrote your cruelty [jafa] and faithfulness [wafa]; in your heart I wrote laudation and knowledge. What I wrote about you has not changed. How could what I wrote about Myself change?