Voices of Islam (99 page)

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Voices of the Spirit

approached Raqqam, Nuri rose and offered himself in Raqqam’s place with utmost cheerfulness and submission. All the spectators were astounded. The executioner said: ‘‘O young man, the sword is not a thing that people desire to meet so eagerly as you have welcomed it; and your turn has not yet arrived.’’ Nuri answered: ‘‘Yes, my doctrine is founded on preference (
ithar
). Life is the most precious thing in the world. I wish to sacrifi for my brethren’s sake the few moments that remain. In my opinion, one moment of this world is better than a thousand years of the next world, because this is the place of service (
khidmat)
and that is the place of proximity (
qorbat)
, and proximity is gained by service.’’ The tenderness of Nuri and the fi ess of his saying astonished the Caliph (who was informed by a courier of what had passed) to such a degree, that he suspended the execution of the three Sufis.
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The above story is usually cited as an example of the practice of preference (
ithar
) by the Sufi In fact, it comes at the beginning of Hujwiri’s chapter on preference in
Kashf al-Mahjub. Ithar,
as an altruistic act, is one of the manifestations of love and compassion. Thus, the doctrine that Nuri referred to in his response to the executioner was both the doctrine of preference and the doctrine of love. Nuri and his Sufi friends felt that the best way to approach God and to relate to him is through love. In fact, one of the charges brought against Nuri was that he said, ‘‘I love God, and God loves me.’’ Nuri’s act of preference on behalf of his friends was the outcome of his love for God. His action represents the selfl of submission in the lover– beloved relationship, whereas the action of the Caliph and his executioner represents the element of power in the master–slave relationship.

Nuri’s doctrine obviously seems praiseworthy and in accordance with orthodox beliefs. Then why was he condemned by al-Khalil for having said, ‘‘I love God, and He loves me?’’ The problem lies in the word that Nuri used to express his idea. The word that is commonly used by Muslims to express the love relation between human beings and God is
hubb.
This is, in fact, the word that is used in the Qur’an when it says, ‘‘[God] loves them and they love Him’’ (Qur’an 5:54). Nuri himself referred to the same verse when he was defending himself against his enemy’s allegation. However, his argument was not accepted because he used the Arabic word
‘ishq
instead of
hubb.
The difference between these two words is that while
hubb
is a generic word that is used to express love and friendship in general,
‘ishq,
which means ‘‘desire,’’ usually refers to the love that exists between lovers, that is, between a man and a woman. At that time, there was a grave controversy about the use of the word
‘ishq
for expressing a person’s relationship to God, and Nuri was one of the first Sufi who dared to do so. This controversy seems quite similar to the one that existed earlier for the Christian mystic Pseudo- Dionysius (ca. fifth or sixth century
CE
), when he used the Greek word
eros
instead of
agape
when he referred to the love of God.
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Although Nuri failed to convince his opponents that one can use the word

‘ishq
to express the human relationship with God, the Sufis increasingly

The Sufi Way of Love and Peace
161

began to use this word for the very same purpose. The use of this word and its derivatives (such as
‘ashiq,
‘‘yearner’’ or ‘‘desirer,’’ and
ma‘shuq,
‘‘the one desired or yearned for’’) became even more popular when the Sufi began to express their ideas and mystical experiences through poetry, particularly in Persian. By the early twelfth century
CE
, an entire metaphysics was constructed on the idea of
‘ishq.

One of the best expositions of the doctrine of mystical love in Islam can be found in a rather small book titled
al-Sawanih
(literally, ‘‘Auspicious Omens’’), which may be translated roughly as ‘‘Meditations on Love.’’
7
Written by Ahmad al-Ghazali (d. 1126
CE
), the younger brother of the famous theologian Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111
CE
), the
Sawanih
is composed of some 70 short chapters, all of which deal with the metaphysics and psychology of love. As a spiritual heir of the famous Sufi martyr Hallaj (d. 922
CE
), Ahmad al-Ghazali believed in Essential Love, an idea that was adopted by many mystics and Persian poets. According to this doctrine, Love is not simply a Divine Attribute, but the very Essence of God. Love is the basic principle, the
arche
of the entirety of existence, as well as the driving force of everything that exists.

Ahmad al-Ghazali expresses his ideas mainly through metaphors and romantic anecdotes. For example, Love is said to be a bird that has left its nest in Eternity and has fl into this world of temporal existence for a brief sojourn before returning to its nest. In its essence, Love is absolute unity (
tawhid
), but in its journey to this world, it appears both as the lover and as the beloved. The lover par excellence is the Spirit (
ruh
), the Neo-Platonic
nous,
which has been separated from its origin and now yearns for union. Just as the origin of the lover is Love itself, the origin of the beloved is Love too. The Beloved is absolute Beauty (
jamal
), which manifests itself to the lover and brings him or her back to his or her origin. This metaphysical event has a corresponding analogy in the phenomenal world. In fact, the journey of the Spirit back to the Beloved must be accomplished through human beings. It is the spirit in man that seeks union with the divine Beauty, the Beloved. This mystical union is achieved through the self-annihilation of the lover. Once the lover loses his or her identity in the Beloved, all that remains is the Beloved, who is itself identical with Love. This is how unity (
tawhid
), the basic principle of faith in Islam, is realized.

The doctrine of Essential Love, as expounded by Ahmad al-Ghazali and other Persian Sufi and poets, presents a view of the human being and the world that is different from the view based on the master–slave relation. In the master–slave relation, the human being is always the slave and God is always the Master. The position of each side is fixed. God wills and commands, while the human being is obliged to obey. In the lover–beloved relation, however, the positions of the lover and the beloved are not fi

In other words, the love relation between the human being and God is reciprocal. At times, the human being is the lover whereas God is the

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Beloved, but at other times God is the Lover whereas man is the beloved. This is why Nuri said, ‘‘I love God and God loves me.’’ Another famous Sufi, Abu al-Hasan al-Kharaqani (d. 1034
CE
), used to say, ‘‘At times, I am [God’s] Abu al-Hasan and at times [God] is my Abu al-Hasan.’’ Ecstatic utterances such as these are said to express the same idea as the Qur’anic statement, ‘‘[God] loves them, and they love Him’’ (Qur’an 5:54).
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The Sufi have even claimed that God’s love for the human being precedes the human being’s love for God, and if it were not for the fact that God had favored the human being with His Essential Love, Mercy, and Compassion, the human being could never love God or His creatures.

The human being’s love for God’s creatures brings us to another charac- teristic of the love relationship in Islam. In the master–slave relationship, God the Master orders the human being to be kind to His creatures. In the love relationship, however, the human being loves all other human beings, and indeed all creatures, because the human being loves God. One’s love for God and His creation are ultimately affected by the same cause. Ahmad al-Ghazali and the other mystics that followed the doctrine of Essential Love believed that Love has a single nature. Whether it is God’s love for the human being, the human being’s love for God, the human being’s love for other human beings, the love between a man and a woman, or the love between a mother and her child, it is all of the same nature, the difference being only in the context and the intensity, not in the essence.

This idea of the oneness of Love is similar to what some mystical philosophers, such as Mulla Sadra (d. 1640
CE
), and Illuminationist (
ishraqi
) philosophers, such as Suhrawardi (d. 1191
CE
), said about existence and light. According to these philosophers, existence (
wujud
) is a single reality, wherever it may be and in whatever object it is found. The same is true of light. The light of the sun and the light of a candle, for example, are a single reality, although they exist in different degrees. Existence too, whether it is predicated of God, of the human being, or of any other existing thing, is one and the same reality, even though in each one of these subjects this reality has a different degree. The differences that we perceive are simply differences of ‘‘analogical gradation’’ (
tashkik
): both existence and light are unitary realities, but in different things they have different degrees of intensity or weakness.

What we have said about the essential oneness and the analogical grada- tions of love, light, and existence applies to beauty (
jamal
) too. Beauty is one single reality whether it is absolute or relative, whether it is in the spiritual realm or the phenomenal world, whether it is in the human body, in the sunset, or in a flower. The only difference is in its intensity or context. Since beauty is one single reality, love for a beautiful object is a manifestation of love for the absolute or divine Beauty. To see and appreciate sunlight, whether it is in a garden or on a mountain, or simply a ray shining through a window into a room, is ultimately to appreciate the essence of light.

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Likewise, to love other human beings is to love God. There is no such thing as truly profane beauty, just as there is no such thing as truly profane love. The only problem is that sometimes one loves a relative form of beauty and mistakenly thinks that it is absolute Beauty. The love of a relative form of beauty, such as in the form of a human being, should act as a transition—a bridge—that takes the lover toward absolute Beauty, the Supreme Being.

The lover’s union with the Beloved is the ultimate goal of the spiritual quest. In the early history of Sufi some mystics felt that this goal could not be attained in this life, but only in the next life, when the lover went to Paradise. Muslims also believed that the believer could only experience the beatific vision of God in Paradise. The experience of reaching the presence of the Lord in Paradise and seeing Him face-to-face is implied in the Qur’an, where it says that in Paradise the believers are greeted with a greeting of
salam
from their Lord (Qur’an 36:58). Besides being the Muslim greeting,
salam
also means ‘‘peace’’ or ‘‘well-being.’’ Thus, it is important that the Divine Beloved greets the Lover in this way. The above verse of the Qur’an demonstrates that Perfect Peace is found in Heaven and that it proceeds from God Himself. In fact,
al-Salam
(‘‘The Peace-Maker’’) is one of the Divine Names that is mentioned in the Qur’an (Qur’an 59:23). Since Perfect Peace and well-being is experienced in its most essential form in Heaven, the Qur’an also calls Paradise
Dar al-Salam
(‘‘The Abode of Peace,’’ Qur’an 10:25).

Although the state of
salam
is most truly experienced by the believer in the Hereafter, human beings can also enjoy it to some degree in this life too. God sends
salam,
to his Prophets, such as Noah, Abraham, and Moses.
Salam
in the sense of peace in this world is but a refl of the absolute
salam
experienced by believers in Paradise. Not only does God bestow
salam
upon the hearts of His Prophets and the believers here in this world, but the believers themselves also wish well-being and peace on each other when they meet.

But is it also possible for a believer, as a lover of the Divine Beloved, to experience the Heavenly
salam
in this life too, or do we have to wait until we die and go to Paradise? In the fi t two or three centuries of Islamic history, Muslims generally believed that the Heavenly Peace and the vision of God that it entails could be experienced only after death. However, in later centuries, particularly after the mystics developed the doctrine of Love, Muslims began to believe that one could have such an experience in this life too, though in a different way. While one could see the face of the Lord and hear His voice through one’s eyes and ears in Paradise, here in this world the lovers of God could have that experience only in their hearts. The only excep- tion was the Prophet Muhammad, who actually had a vision of God and expe- rienced Perfect Peace and well-being in his night journey to Heaven (
mi’raj
). According to the Qur’an, the Prophet experienced the Heavenly state of
salam
throughout that night, until the rising of the dawn (Qur’an 97:5).

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The journey of the Prophet toward the Divine Beloved has been shared and relived by many saints, or ‘‘Friends of God’’ (
awliya’ Allah
), throughout Islamic history. Thanks to the presence of these saints in Muslim societies, believers have been able to enjoy the grace (
baraka
) of the Peace that accompanies the vision of God and union with the Beloved. It is precisely this inner spiritual Peace, this
salam,
which is needed more than ever in our turbulent world today. In order to attain any degree of it, we Muslims need to follow the path of Love shown to us by the Prophets and saints. It is only by virtue of this path that we can enter the lover–beloved relationship with God, a relationship that requires us to forget hatred and wish mercy, forgiveness, and compassion upon all of humanity.
Wa al-Salam
(‘‘And Peace’’).