Voices of Islam (207 page)

If it were asked how this symbolism of water could be reconciled with the Earth-depopulating Flood, it must be remembered that although rainfall set the Flood in motion, the actual cataclysm is represented in the Qur’an as a stormy sea. One of Noah’s sons who was drowned is said to have been swept away by a wave: agitated water is a symbol of vanity and illusion, the waves being images of accident and vicissitude, which are unreal in relation to the water itself, whose true nature they are powerless to affect.
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It is significant that in the Verse of Darkness (Qur’an 24:40), which follows close on the better-known Verse of Light (Qur’an 24:35), the works of the infidels, having just been likened in their vanity to ‘‘a mirage in the desert which the thirsty man supposes to be water’’ (Qur’an 24:39), are then likened to water that has become ‘‘by accident’’ so remote from its true nature as to be com- parable to a mirage—namely a dark, storm-tossed sea. This passage may even be taken as an inexplicit description of the Flood. In any case, there is no doubt that the waves of the flood and the waves of the Red Sea, which crashed down upon the pursuers of the Children of Israel, are a just ‘‘pay- ment in kind’’ for the passionate perversity of Noah’s contemporaries and of Pharaoh and his ministers. On the other hand, as regards what set the Flood in motion, the symbolism of rain is here tempered and conditioned

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by the number forty, which signifi death or a change of state.
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Thus, the purifying aspect of water may be said to take precedence here over its life-giving aspect. The Earth was to be purifi for a new state as the Children of Israel were to be purifi by 40-years’ wandering in the desert. We may also compare the purifi of Lent. The waters of the Flood were an inseparable part of the Revelation made to Noah of a new religion—which is symbolized by the Ark—and as such, were waters of mercy.

Any manifestation of the Transcendent is bound to be terrible for those who refuse it, for it serves to gauge the extreme hardness of their hearts. On the other hand, for those whose hearts are not hardened, the Transcend- ent is always awe-inspiring; this aspect of mercy is expressed by thunder, which so often precedes the rain. ‘‘He it is who shows you the lightning, a fear and longing, and raises the heavy clouds. And the thunder extols and praises Him, as do the angels for awe of Him’’ (Qur’an 13:12–13).

The awe-inspiring and mysterious transcendence of the upper waters, as also their life-giving aspect, is stressed in the strange and elliptical story of Moses and al-Khidr (Qur’an 18:60–82). Moses says to Joshua: ‘‘I will not cease until I reach the meeting place of the two seas’’ (Qur’an 18:60). They start out as for a long journey, but they stop at a rock, which is, unknown to them, that barrier that separates the two seas. Joshua sets down for a moment the provisions he has brought, which consist of dried fish. Whether because of the extreme nearness of the Waters of Life, or because a drop of these waters actually falls on the fish, it suddenly comes to life, slips from the rock, and swims away in the sea. Moses does not notice this; and the attention of Joshua who does notice it, is immediately distracted by Satan, so that he does not mention it to Moses, and they set off once more. At length Moses, exhausted by the journey, suggests that they stop to eat. Joshua remembers that their food is gone and tells Moses about the miracle of the fi . Moses understands that the rock must have been the meeting place of the two seas, and so they retrace their steps. When they regain the rock, they find there ‘‘one of [God’s] slaves unto whom We had given mercy from Our mercy and knowledge from Our knowledge’’ (Qur’an 18:65). This person is not named, but the commentaries tell us that it is al-Khidr, the immortal Prince of the Solitary Ones (
al-afrad
).
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The symbolism of this meeting with Moses is parallel to the symbolism of the meeting of the two seas. The salt sea of this world represents, like Moses, exoteric knowledge, whereas the Waters of Life are personified by al-Khidr.
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‘‘Moses said unto him: ‘May I follow you so that from what you have been taught you may teach me right guidance?’ He said: ‘Verily you cannot be patient with me, for how should you be patient in respect of that which is beyond the compass of your experience?’ He said: ‘God wiling, you shall find me patient, nor will I gainsay you in anything.’ He said: ‘Then if you go with me, question me not, until of myself I mention it to you’’’ (Qur’an 18:66–70).

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They set out together, and al-Khidr performs three acts of mercy in disguise; but Moses, seeing only the ‘‘scandalous’’ outside of these acts, is too outraged not to expostulate each time. The third time, al-Khidr refuses to let Moses accompany him any further; but he explains, before they part company, the true nature of his actions. To consider this passage in any detail would be beyond the scope of our subject; but it has at least given us a glimpse of the deviousness of the exoteric path and the extreme nearness of the Waters of Life. For we are already, if only we knew it, at ‘‘the meeting place of the two seas’’—witness the miracle of life that is always with us, both in us and about us, but for which the powers of illusion persuade us to take entirely for granted.

In setting before us this strange example of inadvertence and forgetfulness in respect of the marvelous incident of the fi h, the Qur’an lays bare the general obtuseness of man’s attitude toward life. There is only one life, that of the Living, in varying degrees of radiation, with a mere difference of intensity between the elixir that is strong enough to quicken a dried fish and the less strong elixir that suffi es to enable the living to continue to ‘‘eke out for awhile’’ their precarious earthly existence. It is thus grossly disproportionate to marvel at the one and to remain unmoved by the other. There can be no true wisdom that does not include the enlightenment of seeing life as the miracle that it is, a supernatural interference that cannot be claimed by nature as a purely natural phenomenon. Shaikh Ahmad al-‘Alawi (d. 1934) tells us that the divine mystery and miracle of life eludes us because of its extreme transcendence. It is with us, and yet at the same time it is utterly beyond us.
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The spiritual path is in one sense not so much a journey as a gradual attunement of the soul to the presence of the Spirit, a gradual reconciliation between the natural and the supernatural, between the lower waters and the upper waters, between mind and intellect, and between Moses and al-Khidr.

In conclusion, let us consider another relevant passage, which is from the story of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (Qur’an 27:23–44). Solomon sends for the Queen in order to convert her to the true religion, and while she and her retinue are on their way, he says to his surrounding assembly of men and jinn: ‘‘Which of you will bring me her throne before they come unto me in surrender’’ (Qur’an 27:38)? The throne is immediately set before him, and he gives instructions for it to be disguised:

Disguise her throne for her; we shall see if she is on the right path, or if she is of those who are not rightly guided. And when she came it was said unto her: ‘‘Is your throne like unto this?’’ She said: ‘‘It is as if it were it.’’ And Solomon reflected, ‘‘We had been given knowledge before her and had surrendered unto God; and she was barred from it by what she was wont to worship apart from God. Verily, she was from a disbelieving people.’’ She was told: ‘‘Enter the courtyard.’’ And when she saw it she reckoned it to be a pool of water and bared

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her legs. He said: ‘‘It is a courtyard made smooth with glass.’’ She said: ‘‘Oh my Lord, verily I have done wrong unto my soul, and I surrender with Solomon unto God, the Lord of the Worlds.’’

(Qur’an 27:41–44)

The gist of what this exceedingly elliptical narration tells us is that Solomon puts Bilqis—for so the Queen of Sheba is named—to two tests. She fails in both, but her failure dissolves altogether her resistance to the Truth. This in itself would require no comment. It is true that the mistakes in question are, on the surface, totally innocent. Moreover, as regards the throne, she appears to see at least partially through the disguise, since other- wise her answer would have been simply, ‘‘No.’’ Nonetheless, it is easily imaginable that the consciousness of being mistaken might well have a profound effect upon the soul, out of all proportion to the nature of her error. However, the apparent simplicity of the facts is belied by the gravity of the Qur’an’s comments on them, and the depth of the conclusions that are drawn. We are obliged to suspect that it is not merely a question of error as such, but that the particular nature of the error is all-important.

In both cases, it is a question of the failure to penetrate through a disguise. What Solomon says about his purpose in disguising the throne could be glossed: we shall see if she penetrates to the truth of things or if she is one of those who stop short at the ‘‘scum’’ of illusion. This gloss could also be applied to the other disguise, that of the courtyard. The ‘‘scum’’ in this case is the illusion that water is present when in fact it is absent. But what is the knowledge that Solomon was given ‘‘before her,’’ and of which the condi- tion is that he had ‘‘surrendered unto God?’’ It could not simply be what the words literally suggest—his knowledge that the throne was in fact that of Sheba, and that the courtyard was in fact paved with glass. Such knowledge was no more credit to him than the lack of it was a discredit to her. But we are given a key in the reason why ‘‘she was barred from it,’’ namely, her worship of false gods. It was because she had taken illusion to be reality that she took reality to be illusion; that is, she had taken identity to be a mere deceptive likeness. Having demonstrated this last error—for although the Qur’an does not say so, we must assume that Solomon tells her that the throne is in fact hers and that what she had thought to be no more than a vague resemblance is indeed identity—he proceeds to demonstrate the opposite error that is its cause, which is her worship of false gods, her imagining divinity to be present when in fact it was absent. Here lies undoubtedly what might be called the allegorical meaning of the above-quoted verses. We must remember that when this passage was revealed, the Prophet Muhammad was undergoing great difficulties for the very reason that the chief men of Mecca were blinded to the presence of truth in his message by their erroneous belief that the truth was present elsewhere, in their own worship of false gods. There are many

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other passages in the Qur’an that likewise recount a historical incident that is, in one way or another, analogous to the situation of early seventh-century Arabia. Solomon here stands for the Prophet, and Bilqis sums up in herself the erring leaders of the clans of [the Prophet’s tribe] Quraysh, who would not surrender to the One True God because of their involvement with a plurality of false gods. But this allegorical admonition to the chieftains of Mecca and example of repentance that it holds out to them leaves room for a deeper interpretation that throws light on some of the details that the allegory does not account for.

The Supreme Throne is below [God] its Tenant, but by inverse analogy every earthly throne may be said to transcend the king who sits on it, as is seen fi in the Seal of Solomon, if we take the apex of a triangle to be the tenant and its base the throne. Significant of the throne’s transcendence is its oneness and permanence: kings come and go but their throne remains, ideally forever unchanged. The question of the throne of Sheba is not a part of the Qur’anic narrative that is directly relevant to our theme; but it cannot be set to one side, for it serves to bring out a point of general importance, namely, that a symbol that represents the Transcendent may be said to open out virtually onto the Absolute Transcendent.
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The higher of the two seas is, strictly speaking, no more than the uppermost part of the created universe. However, the Waters of Life, as seen from below, are merged with the Treasuries of Water—that is, with the Infi Beatitude. Since there is a certain analogy between the pairs Heaven–Earth (‘‘the two seas’’) and Throne–King, the throne may be said to signify not merely the mandate of heaven, but also the source of that mandate, the Divine King, and thus ultimately the Supreme Self.

In considering Solomon’s first test, it must not be forgotten that Bilqis is a queen. Her first lapse has thus to be defined, in all accuracy, as that of a queen who fails to recognize her own throne, and seen in this light it takes on a more serious aspect. Moreover, like the lapse of Moses and Joshua with regard to the miracle of the quickening of the dried fish, the incident of the throne has a general application for every man, who is by definition King of the Earth and thereby the possessor of a throne that is his mandate from Heaven. Even in these later times, men are still conscious of being kings, inasmuch as they have powers of intelligence and of will that incomparably surpass those of other creatures. However, the majority are more or less in a state of vagueness and uncertainty about their throne, and more or less forgetful that although it—that is, the mandate—is always veiled from them or ‘‘disguised,’’ it is always one and the same. In other words, they are no longer kings except by virtuality; in actuality, they are usurpers, since veritable kingship implies an, as it were, organic connection between king and throne. For the perfect king the mandate, not his human subjectivity, is his true ego, one with the Divine Self. The failure to recognize the throne is thus a violation of the precept of Gnosis, ‘‘Know thyself,’’ whereas fulfillment

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of this principle is ‘‘the knowledge’’ that Solomon had been given, and of which the condition is surrender (Islam) in its highest sense: that is, effacement of the human ego before the Supreme Subject.

The precise words with which Bilqis answers the question that is put to her are subtly signifi ant in this respect, subtly because there is here a disguise, which is in a sense analogous to that of the throne. It is permissible to say, for example, that in such a sentence as ‘‘When asked the color of snow, the blind man said it was black,’’ the word ‘‘white’’ is disguisedly present, because it is forced into the mind. So also, when the Queen is asked, ‘‘Is your throne like this?’’ and when she wrongly answers, ‘‘It is as if it were it,’’ the right answer is forced into our minds: namely, ‘‘It is it.’’ The Arabic words,
huwa huwa
literally mean, ‘‘He is he,’’ for
‘arsh,
‘‘throne,’’ is masculine. They also constitute the Arabic formula for expressing identity, and above all, liturgically, the Supreme Identity.
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