Voices of Islam (98 page)

In the funeral prayer itself, the four affirmations of the greatness of God are recited so that the one who has died may be reminded of the four Aspects of Being, the Firstness and Lastness, and Outward Manifestation and Inward Hiddenness. Then this soul can find no outlet: ‘‘His spirit departeth and his body goeth to nothing, inasmuch as the directions of space exist no longer for him through his finding not even so much as the breadth of a fingertip left vacant by these four Aspects, whithersoever he turneth. Even if he turn unto himself, he findeth that he himself is one of the Aspects, and so it is wherever else he turn, according to His Words
Wheresoe’er ye turn, there is the Face of God.
Thus when the rapt one turneth his face unto himself [he] seeds in the mirror of his existence the Face of God.’’

Thus, in the service itself, the seeker has a final reminder of his essential nothingness before God—which indeed would seem to be the goal of Realization.

The final phrase of this work which Merton noted was a Prophetic saying revealed by God in His Words. One cannot help but imagine that Merton’s writings and efforts were intended to please his Lord and draw men to His Remembrance and His worship.

The dearest of men unto Me is he who maketh Me dear unto men, and maketh men dear unto me. (195)

NOTES

Reprinted from a work published by Fons Vitae with the permission of the pub- lisher.

1. The most recent edition is titled
   A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century, Shaikh Ahmad Al-‘Alawˆı, His Spiritual Heritage and Legacy
   (Cambridge, U.K.: The Islamic Texts Society, 1993). It contains two new chapters which Dr. Lings now feels would have been of great interest to Merton.
   

   156
   Voices of the Spirit
   

2. Faqir,
   pl.
   fuqara
   —this term refers to someone who becomes a disciple of a master with the intention of emptying himself for God. The root ‘‘f-q-r’’ means ‘‘poverty’’ or ‘‘emptiness.’’ A spiritual martyr is someone who has achieved this emptiness and can be said to have achieved what Saint John of the Cross meant by ‘‘Die before you die.’’ Humility is a form of this effort.
   

15
‌

T
HE
S
UFI
W
AY OF
L
OVE AND
P
EACE

•

Nasrollah Pourjavady

To speak of love as one of the pillars of world peace may at first sound like a meaningless truism. Everyone would agree that animosity, war, and strife come to an end once love and friendship come in between. A more careful examination of the relation between love and peace, however, shows that what seems to be a truism is not really so. We know that having love and compassion for all of humanity, and in fact for all of God’s creatures, are fundamental teachings in most religions, yet the history of religions has witnessed many wars and even holocausts. In our own time, acts of terrorism are committed for the sake of religious goals. In the face of all of this we need to answer the question: How can atrocious and violent acts of killing innocent people be justified by any religion that claims to have peace, love, and compassion for all humanity as its primary goals and objectives?

Wars have been waged not only by the followers of different religions, but also by different groups and sects within the same religion. We do not need to mention how the Protestant and Catholic sects in Christianity have treated each other in the past or how Sunni and Shiite Muslims fight each other even today in some Muslim countries. How can the followers of two religions, who claim to worship a merciful and compassionate God and follow almost the same ethical teachings, fight with one another and kill each other? Even more, how can the followers of two sects of the same religion kill each other in the name of one and the same God?

The answer to these questions, I believe, lies in the way that the adherents of different religions and sects,
madhahib
(sing.
madhhab
),
1
have interpreted the original vision or revelation of their religion, and the kind of relationship they have established between the human being and God. The basic teachings of a religion, which are found in its scriptures, can be read and understood differently by different people in each religion. Moreover, people can enter into different kinds of relationships with their Lord. To use the language of the Muslim theologians (
mutakallimun
) and some mystics, particularly the followers of the school of the Andalusian Sufi Ibn ‘Arabi

158
Voices of the Spirit

(d. 1240
CE
), God has many Names and Attributes. People in different circumstances and at different times may approach God through one or another of these Divine Names and Attributes, thereby entering a particular relationship with Him.

Let me illustrate this point by giving some examples of different names of God in Islam. One of these is
al-Ghani,
literally meaning ‘‘the Rich,’’ which implies the Divine Attribute of Self-Sufficiency. God is said to be
al-Ghani,
while human beings, and in fact all creatures, are said to be poor (
faqir
) and in need of Him (see, for example, Qur’an 35:15).
2
All creatures are in the same relationship with God, the Self-Suffi Being, because they need Him for their existence. God is also named Lord (
al-Rabb
), which denotes another relationship that human beings may have with the Divine Being (see, for example, the fi verse of the Qur’an, ‘‘Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds’’). If a person recognizes God as his or her Lord, then he or she is the Lord’s vassal (
marbub
), or His slave or servant (
‘abd
). When a person worships God, he or she enters into another relationship with Him. In this relationship, God is the Worshipped One (
ma‘bud
), whereas the human being is the worshipper (
‘abid
).

One of the most signifi t relationships between the human being and God is
‘ubudiyya,
which is most often translated as ‘‘servitude.’’ However, to be more exact, the term means ‘‘slavery.’’ God is the Master—the Lord—and the human being is His slave or servant. Another relationship that has played a prominent role in Muslim religious thinking, particularly among the mystics, is love. According to this relationship, God is the Beloved (
mahbub
or
ma‘shuq
), while human beings are the lovers (sing.
muhibb
). As a lover of God, the Sufi say that the human being ‘‘makes love’’ with the Divine Beloved and finally reaches a state of union (
wisal
) with Him.
3

These two relationships—that of master–slave and beloved–lover— between God and man have had a great impact on the lives of Muslims throughout the centuries. Though both relationships exist together in Muslim religious experience, each has its own characteristics and has shaped the religious mentality and the social and cultural life of Muslims in different ways. The main characteristic of the master–slave relationship is power and domination versus submission. The Qur’an states that the religion of God is submission (
al-Islam,
Qur’an 3:19). The Lord dominates and imposes His will on the slave, and the slave must offer total submission to the Lord. In the words of an Arabic saying, ‘‘Whatever the slave has is in the hands of his Master.’’ The slave (
‘abd
) owns nothing, not even himself or herself. This is why the word
‘abd,
as a description of the relationship between the human being and God, is best translated as ‘‘slave.’’ The human being’s submission to the Lord takes different forms in the acts of worship that one performs. This is expressed symbolically in the different postures that one makes during prayer, where the slave bows down before the Lord.

The Sufi Way of Love and Peace
159

The love relationship between the human being and God also has its own characteristics, some of which are similar to the master–slave relationship. For example, the lover must submit (
aslama,
from the same root as
islam
) to the will of the Beloved. However, this is not done out of servitude, but rather out of love and the desire to unite with the Beloved. In other words, the lover, by virtue of love itself, has a propensity to identify with the Beloved. There is another important difference between a love relationship and a master–slave relationship: whereas the latter is characterized by power and domination, the former is characterized by love and beauty. Muslim theologians, philosophers, and mystics have divided the Divine Attributes into two distinct types: those belonging to the category of
jalal
(‘‘glory’’ or ‘‘majesty’’) and those belonging to the category of
jamal
(‘‘beauty’’). The two kinds of relationships between the human being and God can be subsumed under these two categories of attributes. The master–slave relationship is characterized by the attribute of
jalal,
while the lover–beloved relationship is characterized by the attribute of
jamal.
To use expressions made famous by the historian of religion Rudolf Otto, we might say that the master–slave relationship represents the
mysterium tremendum,
whereas the lover–beloved relationship represents the
mysterium fascinans.
4

The feeling of power in the
mysterium tremendum
and the feeling of desire in the
mysterium fascinans
cause two different psychological states to arise in the personalities of the slaves of God and the lovers of God, respectively. The religious mentality of a person who sees himself or herself as a slave of God is different from the religious mentality of a person who tries to be a lover of Divine Beauty. These different mentalities will also have an effect on the relationships that both types of believers establish with other people. Just as those who see themselves as slaves of the Lord have a different mental- ity from those who try to love and adore Absolute Beauty, a society that is dominated by the idea of the power of God, the
mysterium tremendum,
is not the same as a society that is dominated by the idea of love, the
mysterium fascinans.
I shall try to show this difference by relating a historical incident that took place over 12 centuries ago.

In the year 877
CE
charges were brought against a group of Sufi in Baghdad by a Hanbalite traditionalist named Ghulam al-Khalil. These Sufis were the famous spiritual master Abu’l Husayn Nuri and his friends Raqqam and Abu Hamza. The story of their trial and what Nuri did when the executioner was going to carry out his execution is reported in several sources, including the
Kashf al-Mahjub
(The Unveiling of the Veiled) of ‘Ali ibn ‘Uthman al-Jullabi al-Hujwiri (d. 1071
CE
):

When Ghulam al-Khalil persecuted the Sufis, Nuri and Raqqam and Abu Hamza were arrested and conveyed to the Caliph’s palace. Ghulam al-Khalil urged the Caliph to put them to death, saying that they were heretics (
zanadiqa)
, and the Caliph immediately gave orders for their execution. When the executioner