Table of Contents
In advance of the Transactions of the Albany Institute,
vol. VIII.
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INTRODUCTION
The remarkable treatise, which I introduce
to your notice, is a translation from one of the numerous
works of the Arabian Philosopher, Abou Hamid Mohammed
ben Mohammed al Ghazzali, who flourished in the eleventh
century. He was born about the year A. D. 1056, or 450
of the Mohammedan era, at Tous in Khorasan, and he died
in the prime of life in his native country about the year
1011, or 505 A. H. Although educated by Mohammedan parents,
he avows that during a considerable period of his life
he was a prey to doubts about the truth, and that at times
he was an absolute sceptic. While yet comparatively young,
his learning and genius recommended him to the renowned
sovereign Nizam ul Mulk, who gave him a professorship
in the college which he had founded at Bagdad. His speculative
mind still harassing him with doubts, in his enthusiasm
to arrive at a solid foundation for knowledge, he resigned
his position, visited Mecca and Jerusalem, and finally
returned to Khorasan, where he led a life of both monastic
study and devotion, and consecrated his pen to writing
the results of his meditations.
Mohammedan scholars of the present day
still hold him in such high respect, that his name is
never mentioned by them without some such distinctive
epithet, as the "Scientific Imaum," or "Chief witness
for Islamism." His rank in the eastern world, as a philosopher
and a theologian, had naturally given his name some distinction
in our histories of philosophy, and it is enumerated in
connection with those of Averroes (Abu Roshd) and Avicenna
(Abu Sina) as illustrating the intellectual life and the
philosophical schools of the Mohammedans. Still his writings
were less known than either of the two others. His principal
work, The Destruction of the Philosophers, called
forth in reply one of the two most important works of
Averroes entitled The Destruction of the Destruction.
Averroes, in his commentary upon Aristotle, extracts from
Ghazzali copiously for the purpose of refuting bis views.
A short treatise of his had been published at Cologne,
in 1506, and Pocock had given in Latin his interpretation
of the two fundamental articles of the Mohammedan creed.
Von Hammer printed in 1838, at Vienna, a translation of
a moral essay, Eyuha el Weled, as a new year's
token for youth.
It has been reserved to our own times
to obtain a more intimate acquaintance with Ghazzali,
and this chiefly by means of a translation by M. Pallia,
into French, of his Confessions, wherein he announces
very clearly his philosophical views; and from an essay
on his writings by M. Smölders. In consequence, Mr. Lewes,
who in his first edition of the Biographical History
of Philosophy, found no place for Ghazzali, is induced
in his last edition, from the evidenee which that treatise
contains that he was one of the controlling minds of his
age, to devote an entire section to an exhibition of his
opinions in the same series with Abclard and Bruno, and
to make him the typical figure to represent Arabian philosophy.
For a full account of Ghazzali's school of philosophy,
we refer to his history and to the two essays, just mentioned.
We would observe, very briefly however, that like most
of the learned Mohammedans of his age, he was a student
of Aristotle. While they regarded all the Greek philosophers
as infidels, they availed themselves of their logic and
their principles of philosophy to maintain, as far possible,
the dogmas of the Koran. Ghazzali's mind possessed however
Platonizing tendencies, and he affiliated himself to the
Soofies or Mystics in his later years. He was in antagonism
with men who to him appeared, like Avicenna, to exalt
reason above the Koran, yet he himself went to the extreme
limits of reasoning in his endeavors to find an intelligible
basis for the doctrines of the Koran, and a philosophical
basis for a holy rule of life. His character, and moral
and intellectual rank are vividly depicted in the following
extract from the writings of Tholuck, a prominent leader
of the modern Evangelical school of Germany.
"Ghazzali," says Tholuck, "if ever
any man have deserved the name, was truly a divine, and
he may justly he placed on a level with Origen, so remarkable
was he for learning and ingenuity, and gifted with such
a rare faculty for the skillful and worthy exposition
of doctrine. All that is good, noble and sublime, which
his great soul had compassed, he bestowed upon Mohammedanism;
and he adorned the doctrines of the Koran with so much
piety and learning, that, in the form given them by him,
they seem in my opinion worthy the assent of Christians.
Whatsoever was most excellent in the philosophy of Aristotle
or in the Soofi mysticism, he discreetly adapted to the
Mohammedan theology. From every school, he sought the
means of shedding light and honor upon religion; while
his sincere piety and lofty conscientiousness imparted
to all his writings a sacred majesty. He was the first
of Mohammedan divines." (Bibliotheca Sacra, vi,
233).
Sale, in the preliminary discourse to
his translation of the Koran, shows that he had discovered
the peculiar traits of Ghazzali's mind; for wherever he
gives an explanation of the Mussulman creed, peculiarly
consonant to universal reason and opposed to superstition,
it will be found that he quotes from him.
This treatise on the Alchemy of Happiness,
or Kimiai Saadet, seems well adapted to extend our knowledge
of the writings of Ghazzali and of the opinions current
then and now in the Oriental world. Although it throws
no light on any questions of geography, philology or political
history, objects most frequently in view in translations
from the Oriental languages, yet a book which exhibits
with such plainness the opinions of so large a portion
of the human race as the Mohammedans, on questions of
philosophy, practical morality and religion, will always
be as interesting to the general reader and to a numerous
class of students, as the facts that may be elicited to
complete a series of kings in a dynasty or to establish
the site of an ancient city can be to the historian or
the geographer. I translate it from an edition published
in Turkish in 1845 (A. H., 1260), at the imperial printing
press in Constantinople. As no books are allowed to be
printed there which have not passed under the eyes of
the censor, the doctrines presented in the book indicate,
not only the opinions of eight hundred years since, but
also what views are regarded as orthodox, or tolerated
among the orthodox at the present day. It has been printed
also in Persian at Calcutta.
In form, the book contains a treatise
on practical piety, but as is the case with a large proportion
of Mohammedan works, the author, whatever may be his subject,
finds a place for observations reaching far wide of his
apparent aim, so our author is led to make many observations
which develop his notions in anatomy, physiology, natural
philosophy and natural religion. The partisans of all
sorts of opinions will be interested in finding that a
Mohammedan author writing so long since in the centre
of Asia, had occasion to approve or condemn so many truths,
speculations or fancies which are now current among us
with the reputation of novelty. Many of the same paradoxes
and problems that startle or fascinate in the nineteenth
century are here discussed. He came in contact, among
his contemporaries, with persons who made the same general
objections to natural and revealed religion, as understood
by Mohammedans, as are in our days made to Christianity,
or who perverted and abused the religion which they professed
for their own ends, in the same manner as Christianity
is abused among us. And he engaged with earnestness now
truthfully, and now erroneously, in refuting these men.
His usual stand-point in discussion is equally removed
from the most extravagant mysticism, and literal and formal
orthodoxy. He attempts a dignified blending of reason
and faith, requiring of his fellow men unfeigned piety
in the temper and tone of an evangelical Christian. He
reminds his readers, in these discourses, that they are
not Mussulmans if they are satisfied with merely a nominal
faith, and treats with scorn those who are spiritualists
only in language and dress.
It is too narrow a view to adopt, in regard
to a man of the sublime character of Ghazzali, that he
obtained his ideas from any one school of thinkers, or
that being in fellowship with the Soofies, that he was
merely a Soofi. He was living in the centre of Aryan peoples
and religions. He may have had his doctrine of the future
life shaped by Zoroaster, and have been influenced by
the missionaries of the Buddhists.
The practical religion taught in these
homilies will give a favorable opinion of the state of
mind of the more intelligent Mussulmans. They contain
not the Mohammedanism of the creed or the catechism, but
of the closet and the pulpit. The tenor of the book establishes
the truth of Ibn Khallikan's remark in his Biographical
Dictionary that "Ghazzali's ruling passion was making
public exhortations."
While perusing these pages, and noticing
how much of the language of Ghazzali corresponds in its
representations of God, of a holy life and of eternity,
with the solemn instructions to which we have listened
from our infancy, we may think of the magicians who imitated
the miracles of Moses with their enchantments. Yet assuredly
a vivid and respectful interest must be awakened in our
minds for the races and nations, whose ideas of their
relations as immortal beings arc so serious and earnest.
The translation I have endeavored to make
a close transcript of the meaning of the Turkish; having
especially sought to find appropriate equivalents for
native idioms. I have designated the chapter and verse
of nearly every passage quoted from the Koran. The omissions
in the text, which are made apparent by signs, are limited
to digressions of the author, to repetitions and to some
of the illustrations; so that there is no interruption
of the continuity of thought in the themes discussed.
The Turkish edition itself was but a portion of the original
work. Two or three notes are added, either explanatory
of the text or illustrative of the author, from Oriental
sources.
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the ALCHEMY
OF HAPPINESS.
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CHAPTER I.
Onknowledge
of the soul, and how knowledge of the
soul is the key to the knowledge ofGod.
O seeker after the divine mysteries! know thou that the
door to the knowledge of God will be opened to a man first
of all, when he knows his own soul, and understands the
truth about his own spirit, according as it has been revealed,
"he who knows himself knows his Lord also." And God
proclaims in his holy book: "We will display our miracles
in the different countries of the world, till it shall
be demonstrated to them that the Koran is the truth,"
that is, let us show men in the visible world, and in
their own souls, the wonderfulness of our works and the
perfection of our power, that they may learn to know that
the Lord God is Almighty and true, and that everything
else besides is vanity.
O seeker of the mysteries! since there is nothing nearer
to thee than thyself, and that still with thy soul alone,
thou canst not discriminate anything, and art impotent
to find out and know thyself, in what way canst thou become
acquainted with anything else, and with that which is
even separate from thyself? And how should'st thou be
able to comprehend God, who in his nature cannot be comprehended,
and of whose absolute essence it is not possible to give
thee any explanation. If thou should'st say, "I perfectly
know myself," we reply, that we have no doubt that what
you are acquainted with is your own hand and foot, with
your eye and mouth, and animals even have this kind of
knowledge. You know also that if you are hungry, your
stomach craves food, and that if you are cold, you desire
clothing; but other animals also understand these things.
However, that knowledge of the soul which leads to the
knowledge of God, is not of this kind. The knowledge which
you need to possess is, to know what you are; how you
are created; whence you are; for what you are here; whither
you are going; in what your happiness consists, and what
you must do to secure it; in what your misery consists,
and what you must do to avoid it. And further, your internal
qualities are distributed into animal, ferocious, demoniacal
and angelic qualities. You need to know, therefore, what
qualities predominate in your character, and in the predominance
of which your true happiness consists. If your qualities
are chiefly animal, the essence of which is to eat and
drink, you will day and night seek after these things.
If your qualities are of the ferocious kind, the essence
of which is to tear and rend, to injure and destroy, you
will act accordingly. If you are endowed chiefly with
the qualities of devils, which consist in evil machinations,
deceit and delusion, then you should know and be aware
of it, that you may turn towards the path of perfection.
And if you possess angelic qualities, whose nature it
is to worship God in sincerity and continually to await
the vision of His beauty, then like them you should unceasingly,
resting neither day or night, be zealous and strive that
you may become worthy of the vision of the Lord. For know,
O student of the mysteries! that man was created to stand
at the door of service in frailty and weakness, and wait
for the opening of the door of spiritual union, and for
the vision of beauty, as God declares in his holy word:
"I have not created the genii and men except that they
should worship me."
These qualities, whether animal, or ferocious or demoniacal
have been bestowed upon man, that by their means the body
might be adapted to be a vehicle for the spirit, and that
the spirit, by means of the body which is its vehicle,
while herein this temporary home of earth, might seek
after the knowledge and love of God, as the huntsman would
seek to make the phœnix and the griffin his prey. Then,
when it leaves this strange land for the region of spiritual
friendship, it shall be worthy to partake of the mystery
contained in the invitation, "enter in peace, O believers!"
and which is in the homage, "Peace is the word they
shall hear from the merciful Lord."
People in general suppose that this refers to Paradise.
Woe to him who has no portion in this knowledge! There
is great danger in his path. The way of faith is veiled
from his eyes.
If you wish, O seeker of the way! to know your own soul,
know that the blessed and glorious God created you of
two things: the one is a visible body, and the other is
a something internal, that is called spirit and heart,
which can only be perceived by the mind. But when we speak
of heart, we do not mean the piece of flesh which is in
the left side of the breast of a man, for that is found
in a dead body and in animals: it may be seen with the
eyes, and belongs to the visible world. That heart, which
is emphatically called spirit, does not belong to this
world, and although it has come to this world, it has
only come to leave it. It is the sovereign of the body,
which is its vehicle, and all the external and internal
organs of the body are its subjects. Its especial attribute
is to know God and to enjoy the vision of the beauty of
the Lord God. The invitation to salvation is addressed
to the spirit. The commandment is also addressed to it,
for it is capable of happiness or misery. The knowledge
of what it is in reality, is the key to the knowledge
of God. Beloved, strive to obtain this knowledge, for
there is no more precious jewel. In its origin it comes
from God, and again returns to him. It has come hither
but for a time for intercourse and action.
Be sure, O seeker after knowledge! that it is impossible
to obtain a knowledge of the heart, until you know its
essence and its true nature, its faculties, and its relations
with its faculties,—nor until you know its attributes,
and how through them the knowledge of God is obtained,
and what happiness is, and how happiness is to be secured.
Know then, that the existence of the spirit is evident
and is not involved in doubt. Still, it is not body, which
is found in corpses and in animals generally. If a person
with his eyes wide open should look upon the world and
upon his own body, and then shut his eyes, everything
would be veiled from his view, so that he could not see
even his own body. But the existence of his spirit would
not be at the same time shut out from his view. Again,
at death, the body turns to earth, but the spirit undergoes
no corruption. Still it is not permitted to us to know
what the spirit is in its real nature and in its essence,
as God says in his Holy Word : "They will ask you about
the spirit. Answer, the spirit is a creation by decree
of the Lord."
The spirit belongs to the world of decrees.
All existence is of two kinds, one is of the world of
decrees, and the other is of the world of creation. "To
him belongs creation and decree."
The matters which belong to the world of decrees are those
which have not superficies, quantity, or form: to the
world of creation belong those which do have both quantity
and form. The creation spoken of in the verse is in the
sense of foreordination and not of actual formation. Hence
those who say that the spirit is created, and is also
from all eternity are in error, for nothing is eternal
except the being and attributes of God.
Those also, who say that the spirit is but an accident,
are in error, for the spirit exists by itself in the body,
and an accident is that which subsists with something
else. And those who say that the spirit is matter are
in error, for matter is that which can be divided, and
spirit is not susceptible of division. There is spirit,
beloved, which is called animal spirit, which is susceptible
of division. It is found in animals. But that spirit,
which has the property of knowing God, and which is called
the heart, is not found in beasts, nor is it matter or
an accident. The heart, on the contrary, has been created
with angelic qualities. It is a substance of which it
is difficult to apprehend the essence. The law does not
permit it to be explained, but there is no occasion for
the student being acquainted with it at the outset of
his journey. That which is necessary to the student is
pious ardor and zeal, and this must be called into exercise
in perfection. It is God who graciously teaches the student
what spirit is, as we find in the Holy Book: "We will
direct in our way, all those who shall strive to propagate
our worship."
And if a man does not strive earnestly for the faith,
there is no use of explaining to him the essence of spirit.
It is, however, lawful to explain to him the instruments
by which it operates.
Know, O seeker after the divine mysteries! that the body
is the kingdom of the heart, and that in the body there
are many forces in contrariety with the heart, as God
speaks in his Holy Word: "And what shall teach thee
the forces of thy Lord ?" The heart was destined to
acquire a knowledge of God, in which its happiness consists.
But we cannot grow in the knowledge of God, unless we
understand the works of God.
The works of God are apprehended by the senses, which
are five, hearing, sight, taste, smell and touch. For
such an arrangement of the senses, there was also need
of a body. The body itself is composed of four diverse
elements, water, earth, air and fire. Being, therefore,
liable to decay, it is in continual danger of perishing
from the external and internal enemies that perpetually
assail it. Its external enemies, are such as wild beasts,
drowning and conflagrations; its internal enemies, such
as hunger and thirst. For the purpose of resisting these,
it was in want of various internal and external forces,
such as the hand and foot, sight and hearing, food and
drink. And in this connection, for eating and drinking,
it is in want of internal and external instruments like
the hand, the mouth, the stomach, the powers of appetite
and digestion. In addition to these instruments, there
was need of means to guide in their occasional use, that
is, for the internal senses. These are five, the faculties
of perception, reflection, memory, recollection and imagination.
Their home is in the brain, and each has a specific function,
as is well known to the learned. If to any one of all
these faculties and instruments an injury occurs, the
actions of man are defective. Now all these are the agents
of the heart and subject to its rule. If, for example,
the heart gives permission to the ear, hearing results;
if it gives permission to the eye, there follows sight;
if it gives permission to the foot, there is movement.
All the other members are obedient in the same manner
to the commands of the heart. The divine plan in all this
arrangement is, that while the members preserve the body
for a few days from harm, the heart, in its vehicle the
body, should pursue its business of cultivating the seeds
of happiness for eternity and prepare for its journey
to its native country. So long as the various forces of
the body are obedient to the dictates of the heart, in
like manner as the angels obey in the presence of God,
no contrariety of action can arise among them.
Know, O student of wisdom! that the body, which is the
kingdom of the heart, resembles a great city. The hand,
the foot, the mouth and the other members resemble the
people of the various trades. Desire is a standard bearer;
anger is a superintendent of the city, the heart is its
sovereign, and reason is the vizier. The sovereign needs
the service of all the inhabitants. But desire, the standard
bearer, is a liar, vain and ambitious. He is always ready
to do the contrary of what reason, the vizier, commands.
He strives to appropriate to himself whatever he sees
in the city, which is the body. Anger, the superintendent,
is rebellious and corrupt, quick and passionate. He is
always ready to be enraged, to spill blood, and to blast
one's reputation. If the sovereign, the heart, should
invariably consult with reason, his vizier, and, when
desire was transgressing, should give to wrath to have
power over him (yet, without giving him full liberty,
should make him angry in subjection to reason, the vizier,
so that passing all bounds he should not stretch out his
hand upon the kingdom), there would then be an equilibrium
in the condition of the kingdom, and all the members would
perform the functions for which they were created, their
service would be accepted at the mercy seat, and they
would obtain eternal felicity….
If you desire, inquirer for the way, with thankfulness
for these mercies, to obtain eternal happiness in the
future mansions, the heart must enthrone itself like a
sovereign in its capital, the body, must stand at the
door of service and direct its prayers to the gate of
eternal truth, seeking for the beauty of the divinity.
It must take reason for its vizier, desire for its standard
bearer, anger to be the superintendent of the city, and
taking the senses of reason as its spies, it must make
each one of them responsible in its sphere. The perceptive
faculties which are foremost in the brain, it must make
to be chiefs of the spies, that they may convey to the
spies notices of what occurs in the world. The faculty
of memory, which is next in order in the brain, it must
use as a receptacle in which it may treasure up whatever
is noticed by the spies, and, as occasion requires, may
inform reason, the vizier. The vizier, in accordance with
the information received, will administer the kingdom.
When he sees any one of the soldiers revolting and following
his own passions, he will represent it to the sovereign,
that he may be controlled and conquered. He must not,
however, be destroyed, for each one of us has received,
from his original country, a definite commission, and
in that case this service must remain unfulfilled. But,
alas! if the heart should swerve from its sovereignty,
and not make use of reason as its vizier, and should be
reduced by the standard bearer, desire, and the superintendent,
anger, all the forces would then follow in the train of
desire and anger, the kingdom would fall into disorder,
and everlasting ruin would be the result….
If you inquire, O student! how it is known that the heart
of man has been created in accordance with the qualities
of angels, seeing that the most of the qualities and attributes
of angels are foreign to it, I reply, you know that there
is not, in truth, any creature on the face of the earth
more noble than man, and that it belongs to the dignity
and perfection of every creature, to work out perseveringly
that service for which it was created. The ass, for instance,
was created to bear burdens. If he carries his load well,
without stumbling or falling, or if he does not throw
off his load, his qualities are in perfection, and his
service is accepted. The horse was designed also for war
and military expeditions, and has strength to carry burdens.
If he performs his duty well, in time of war, in running,
fleeing and going to meet the enemy, his service is accepted,
and he will be treated with attention in his accoutrements,
grooming and feeding. But if he performs his service imperfectly,
a pack saddle will be put on his back, as on the ass,
from day to day he will be employed as a beast of burden,
and he will be carelessly and deficiently provided with
food, and poorly taken care of.
Besides, beloved! if man had been created only to eat
and drink, it would follow that animals are of greater
worth and excellence than man; for they can eat and drink
more than man can, and they have useful services devolved
upon them of drawing burdens, tilling the ground, and
giving meat, butter and milk for food. If also man had
been created to fight, kill and domineer, it would follow
that beasts of prey are nobler than he, for they are mightier
in their ferocity and their power of subjugating other
animals. There are, moreover, many animals of manifest
utility, as the dog to watch and hunt, and the skins of
some of them for clothing. It follows, therefore, that
man was not created for these things, but rather to serve
God and to grow in the knowledge of him.
It is plain that mind, discernment and reason were bestowed
upon man, that when he looks upon the world and sees in
every object illustrations of various forms of perfection,
and much to excite his wonder, he might turn his attention
from the work of the artist, to the artist himself; from
the thing formed to him that formed it; that he might
comprehend his own excessive frailty and weakness, and
the perfection of the wisdom and power, yea, of all the
attributes of the eternal Creator, and that, without ceasing,
he might humbly supplicate acceptance in his frailty and
weakness on the one hand, and on the other might seek
to draw near to the King of kings, and finally obtain
rest in the home of the faithful, where the angels are
in the presence of God. If men refuse to recognize their
own dignity, if they neglect their duty and prefer the
qualities of devils and beasts of prey, they will also
possess, in the future world, the qualities of beasts
of prey, and will be judged with the devils. Our refuge
is in God!
Know, thou seeker of divine mysteries! that there is
no end to the wonderful operations of the heart. For,
to pursue the same subject, the dignity of the heart is
of two kinds; one kind is by means of knowledge, and the
other through the exertion of divine power. Its dignity
by means of knowledge is also of two kinds. The first
is external knowledge, which every one understands: the
second kind is veiled and cannot be understood by all,
and is extremely precious. That which we have designated
as external, refers to that faculty of the heart by which
the sciences of geometry, medicine, astronomy, numbers,
the science of law and all the arts are understood; and
although the heart is a thing which cannot be divided,
still the knowledge of all the world exists in it. All
the world indeed, in comparison with it, is as a grain
compared with the sun, or as a drop in the ocean. In a
second, by the power of thought, the soul passes from
the abyss to the highest heaven, and from the east to
the west. Though on the earth, it knows the latitude of
the stars and their distances. It knows the course, the
size and the peculiarities of the sun. It knows the nature
and cause of the clouds and the rain, the lightning and
the thunder. It ensnares the fish from the depths of the
sea, and the bird from the end of heaven. By knowledge
it subdues the elephant, the camel and the tiger. All
these kinds of knowledge, it acquires with its internal
and external senses.
The most wonderful thing of all is, that there is a window
in the heart from whence it surveys the world. This is
called the invisible world, the world of intelligence,
or the spiritual world. People in general look only at
the visible world, which is called also the present world,
the sensible world and the material world; their knowledge
of it also is trivial and limited. And there is also a
window in the heart from whence it surveys the intelligible
world. There are two arguments to prove that there are
such windows in the heart. One of the arguments is derived
from dreams. When an individual goes to sleep, these windows
remain open and the individual is able to perceive events
which will befall him from the invisible world or from
the hidden table of decrees,
and the result corresponds exactly with the vision. Or
he sees a similitude, and those who are skilled in the
science of interpretation of dreams understand the meaning.
But the explanation of this science of interpretation
would be too long for this treatise. The heart resembles
a pure mirror, you must know, in this particular, that
when a man falls asleep, when his senses are closed, and
when the heart, free and pure from blameable affections,
is confronted with the preserved tablet, then the tablet
reflects upon the heart the real states and hidden forms
inscribed upon it. In that state the heart sees most wonderful
forms and combinations. But when the heart is not free
from impurity, or when, on waking, it busies itself with
things of sense, the side towards the tablet will be obscured,
and it can view nothing. For, although in sleep the senses
are blunted, the imaginative faculty is not, but preserves
the forms reflected upon the mirror of the heart. But
as the perception does not take place by means of the
external senses, but only in the imagination, the heart
does not see them with absolute clearness, but sees only
a phantom. But in death, as the senses are completely
separated and the veil of the body is removed, the heart
can contemplate the invisible world and its hidden mysteries,
without a veil, just as lightning or the celestial rays
impress the external eye.
The second proof of the existence of these windows in
the heart, is that no individual is destitute of these
spiritual susceptibilities and of the faculty of thought
and reflection. For instance every individual knows by
inspiration, things which he has neither seen nor heard,
though he knows not from whence or by what means he understands
them. Still, notwithstanding the heart belongs to the
invisible world, so long as it is absorbed in the contemplation
of the sensible world, it is shut out and restrained from
contemplating the invisible and spiritual world.
Think not, thou seeker after the divine mysteries! that
the window of the heart is never opened except in sleep
and after death. On the contrary, if a person calls into
exercise, in perfection, holy zeal and austerities, and
purifies his heart from the defilement of blameable affections,
and then sits down in a retired spot, abandons the use
of his external senses, and occupies himself with calling
out "O God ! O God!" his heart will come into harmony
with the invisible world, he will no longer receive notions
from the material world, and nothing will be present in
his heart but the exalted God. In this revelation of the
invisible world, the windows of the heart are opened,
and what others may have seen in a dream, he in this state
sees in reality. The spirits of angels and prophets are
manifested to him and he holds intercourse with them.
The hidden things of earth and heaven are uncovered to
him, and to whomsoever these things are revealed, mighty
wonders are shown, that are beyond description. As the
prophet of God says: "I turned towards the earth, and
I saw the east and the west." And God says in his word:
"And thus we caused Abraham to see the kingdom of heaven
and earth,"
which is an example of this kind of revelation. Probably
the knowledge of all the prophets was obtained in this
way, for it was not obtained by learning….
When the heart is free from worldly lusts, from the animosities
of society and from the distraction occasioned by the
senses, the vision of God is possible. And this course
is adopted by the Mystics.
It is also the path followed by the prophets. But it is
permitted also to acquire the practice of it by learning,
and this is the way adopted by the theologians. This is
also an exalted way, though in comparison with the former,
its results are insignificant and contracted. Many distinguished
men have attained these revelations by experience and
the demonstration of reasoning. Still let every one who
fails of obtaining this knowledge either by means of purity
of desire or of demonstration of reasoning, take care
and not deny its existence to those who are possessed
of it, so that they may not be repelled from the low degree
they have attained, and their conduct become a snare to
them in the way of truth. These things which we have mentioned
constitute the wonders of the heart and show its grandeur.
Think not that these discoveries of truth are limited
to the prophets alone. On the contrary every man in his
essential nature is endowed with attributes rendering
him capable of participating in the same discoveries.
What God says, "Am I not your Lord?"
refers to this quality. And the holy saying of the prophet
of God: "Every man is born with the nature of Islamism;
but his ancestors practised Judaism, Nazarenism or Magianism,"
is an indication of the same thing.
The heart of man while in the spiritual world knew its
maker and creator; it had mingled with angels and knew
for what service it was created; and in the assembly where
they said, "Yes," it was intoxicated as with wine
at the interrogation, "Am I not your Lord?" As at
that moment, it was seen with the eye of certainty, no
person had any doubt on the subject, as God says in his
holy word: "If you ask them, who created the heavens
and the earth, they will answer thee, the wise and holy
God."
All the prophets were apparently of the same nature as
other men without any difference, as we find in God's
holy word: "Say, I am a man like you: it was revealed
to me."
Afterwards the heart descended from the world of divine
union to this house of separation, from that assembly
of love to this station of sorrow, and from the spiritual
to the material, and entering within the curtain of the
senses, it became occupied with the care of the body and
was overcome by the animal affections and material pleasures.
The heart of man, veiled with the garments of heedlessness,
forgot the assembly with which it had been familiar, and
imagining that this miserable place was to be its mansion
of rest, it chose to establish itself here in this world
of perdition, as if this was its home. Still the veil
of heedlessness disappeared from the eyes of those to
whom the grace and guidance of the Eternal and unchangeable
gave aid and support, and the discovery of the invisible
world was not concealed from the view of some of those
who came into this material world, but was anew revealed
to them, after a measure of exertion of spiritual ardor.
To whomsoever this revelation has been vouchsafed, if
it directs him to reform the world, to invite the nations
to turn to God, and to a peculiar way of life, that person
is called a prophet, and his way of life is called a law;
and that influence which proceeds from him, which transcends
what is ordinary, is called a miracle. If he has
not been appointed to invite the nations, but worships
in accordance with the law of another, he is called a
saint, and that which proceeds from him, which transcends
what is ordinary, is called a manifestation of grace.
The miracle performed by a saint is accounted a miracle
of that prophet whose law he follows. He who has received,
by whatever meaus, a revelation of the invisible world,
is capable of being ordained to the office of a prophet.
And if he is not appointed by God, the reason will be
either, that at the time the existing law had been newly
revealed, and that there was no occasion for a prophet,
or else that there may be a peculiarity in prophets which
is not found in the saints. It follows that it is our
duty not to deny either the saintship or the miracles
of the saints, but to acknowledge them as real.
You should be aware, however, that this alchemy of happiness,
that is, the knowledge of God, which is the occasion of
the revelation of truth, cannot be acquired without spiritual
self-denial and effort. Unless a man has reached perfection
and the rank of Superior, nothing will be revealed to
him, except in cases of special divine grace and merciful
providence, and this occurs very rarely. Nor, except
by divine condescension, is revelation obtained even by
all who by effort reach the rank of Superior. And whosoever
would attain holiness can only reach it by the path of
difficulty.
You have now learned, student of the divine mysteries,
the dignity of the heart through knowledge, and what kind
of knowledge it possesses. Now listen and learn its dignity
through divine power and on account of the greatness of
which it is capable, that you may see how precious you
are in yourself, and yet how vile and contemptible you
make yourself by your own choice. Know then, that the
heart is endowed with properties like those of angels
and such as are not found in animals; and just as the
material world is subjected by divine permission to the
angels, and when God wills it, the angels send forth the
winds, cause rain to fall, bring forth the embryo in animals,
shape their forms, cause seeds to sprout in the earth
and plants to grow, many legions of angels being appointed
to this service, so also the heart of man being created
with angelic properties must have influence and power
over the material world. In man's own body, which is peculiarly
his own world, its control and influence are very evident.
The hand, for example, does not in writing move of itself,
but depends for motion on volition proceeding from the
heart. And in eating, it is the heart which by an exertion
of its will, causes moisture to rise in the mouth from
under the tongue, to mix with the food that it may be
swallowed and digested. These facts clearly substantiate
the dominion and control of the heart, and the subordination
of the body.
Know also, that if the heart should not be tarnished
with the rust of rebellion, and if the animal and ferocious
qualities should not be dominant, that it would be capable,
on account of the presence in it of angelic properties,
of manifesting this same influence over other bodies.
If it should look upon a lion or tiger with severity,
they would become weak and submissive. If it should look
with kindness upon one who is sick, his infirmity might
be changed to health. If it should look upon the vigorous
with majesty, they might become infirm. The realty of
the existence of these influences is known both by reason
and experience. Sorcery with the eyes, is of this kind
of power. If for example, a man of a malicious disposition
look upon some little thing with envy, and if while he
is looking, the destruction of the object should come
into his mind, an influence upon it may be observed immediately,
and directly or after a while that object will be destroyed:
the prophet of God has said: "the eye brings man to
the grave and the camel to the seething pot."
In whomsoever these influences are shown to have power,
if he occasions misery in the exercise of this power,
he is designated a sorcerer. Although as has been seen,
the power of performing signs, miracles and sorceries
belongs to the heart when its faculties are in perfect
operation, yet there are important destinations between
these powers. And whoever is of a narrow mind will not
be able to appreciate that signs and miracles are influences
proceeding from the heart of man, unless he should learn
it by external teaching.
The heart has dominion and control through three channels.
One is through visions, by which revelations are made
to all men. But the kind of mysteries generally revealed
to people in visions, are revealed to prophets and saints
in the outward world. The second kind is through the dominion
which the heart exercises over its own body, a quality,
which is possessed by all men in general, though prophets
and saints for the good of the community, possess the
same power over other bodies than their own. The third
source of dominiou of the heart is through knowledge.
The mass of men obtain it by instruction and learning,
but it is bestowed by God upon prophets and saints directly,
without the mediums of learning and instruction. It is
possible also for persons of pure minds to acquire a knowledge
of some arts and sciences without instruction, and it
is also possible that some persons should have all things
opened up to them by the will of God. This kind of knowledge
is called "infused and illuminated," as God says in
his word : "we have illuminated him with our knowledge."
These three specialities are all of them found in certain
measure in some men, in others two of them are found,
and in others, only one is found: but whenever the three
are found in the same person, he belongs to the rank of
prophets or of the greatest of the saints. In our Lord
the prophet Mohammed Mustafa, these three specialities
existed in perfection. The Lord in bestowing these three
properties upon certain individuals, designates them to
exhort the nations and to be prophets of the people. To
every man there is given a certain portion of each one
of these peculiarities, to serve as a pattern.
Man cannot comprehend states of being which transcend
his own nature. Hence none but the great God himself can
comprehend God, as we have shown in our Commentary upon
the "Names of God." So also the prophets cannot be
comprehended by any but the prophets themselves. No person,
in short, can understand any individual who belongs to
a scale of rank above him. It is possible that there is
a peculiarity in prophets, of which no pattern or model
is found in other persons, and therefore, we are incapable
of understanding them. If we knew not what a vision is,
and an individual should say to us, that a man, at a moment
when he can neither move, see or hear, can perceive events
which are to occur at a future period, and yet might not
be able to perceive the same while walking, listening
or looking, we should not in any wise be able to persuade
ourselves of the truth of it, as God says in his Holy
word: "They treat as a lie that which they cannot comprehend
with their knowledge."
And you, do you not see that he who comes blind into the
world, does not understand the pleasure which is derived
from seeing? Let us not regard, therefore, as impossible
all those states ascribed to the prophets which we cannot
understand: for they are the accepted and praiseworthy
servants of God.
From all which has been said, seeker after the divine
mysteries, thou hast learned something of the dignity
of the nature of man, and that the way of the mystics
is holy and honorable. But I have heard that the mystics
say that external knowledge is a veil upon the way to
God, and a hindrance in the journey to the truth. Take
care and do not deny that they are correct in what they
say. For, external knowledge is derived from the sensuous
world, and all objects of sense are a hindrance to him
who is occupied with spiritual truth; for whoever is attending
to sensual objects, indicates that his mind is preoccupied
with external properties. And it is
impossible that he who would walk in the way of truth,
should be for a moment unemployed in meditation, upon
obtaining spiritual union and the vision of beauty.
Know, student of the divine mysteries, that the heart
is like a reservoir into which five streams flow: these
streams at one time run clear, and at another, turbid,
and hence the bottom of the reservoir contains much mud.
If a person wish to cleanse the reservoir and to get rid
of the mud in the bottom, he must first dam up the course
of the running streams, and then stir up and put in motion
the mud, and until the muddy water has been carried off
by the pure water that gushes up at the bottom of the
reservoir, he will not allow any other water to run in.
Now the external senses resemble those running streams,
from which various kinds of knowledge, notions and prejudices
proceed to the heart, of which some are pure and purifying,
and some are corrupt and corrupting, and until these have
been dammed up, the windows of the heart cannot be uncovered
so that the illuminating knowledge from God can be revealed
to it.
If a person possessing great knowledge of the outward
world, should use his knowledge as a means of progress
in the way of truth, instead of being satisfied with such
disputes as of buying and selling; marrying and divorcing,
and should be assiduous in gaining divine knowledge, which
is the end of all other knowledge, it is all well and
good. His knowledge of the outward world will give him
strength in his course, and will serve as a guide to him
in the way to eternal truth. For if the pilgrim do not
understand the grounds of the respect due to, and the
law-fulness of his food and drink, his dwelling and his
clothing, if he do not understand the causes which impair
or render complete acts of purification and devotion,
what has a tendency to give strength to the blameable
affections of the soul, and what is their nature and their
remedy, he can derive no advantage from the sciences of
spiritual exercise, discovery and revelation. In short
to an ignorant pilgrim, the least doubt may operate as
a hindrance in his course for many years. If, however,
he should fall into a spirit of disputation, and should
say, "knowledge implies nothing else than to be able
to study a book and to correct the composition, the punctuation
and the declensions," he will certainly be frustrated
from obtaining and discovering inward knowledge, — that
is, he will not attain to the knowledge of God, which
is the object of all knowledge, which is the most sublime
knowledge, and compared with which all other knowledge
is but husks. Therefore, when we hear some good man, who
has travelled far on the road of spiritual discovery affirm,
that knowledge of the external world, in the sense which
we at first alluded to, is a hindrance in the way of truth,
we ought to be careful not to deny the truth of what he
says.
There are, however, in our times certain weak persons
and indifferent to religious truth for the most part,
who in the guise of soofees,
after learning a few of their obscure phrases and ornamenting
themselves with their cap and robes, treat knowledge and
the doctors of the law
as inimical to themselves, and continually find fault
with them. They are devils and deserve judicial death.
They are enemies of God, and of the apostle of God. For
God has extolled knowledge and the doctors of the law;
and the established way of salvation, with which God has
inspired the prophets, has its basis in external knowledge.
These miserable and weak men, since they have no acquaintance
with science, and no education, and knowledge of external
things, why should they indulge in such corrupt fancies,
and unfounded language? They resemble, beloved, a person
who having heard it said that alchemy was of more value
than gold, because that whatsoever thing should be touched
with the philosophers' stone would turn to gold, should
be proud of the idea and should be carried away with a
passion for alchemy. And when gold in full bags is offered
him, he replies : "Shall I turn my attention to gold,
when I am dissolving the philosophers' stone?" And he
finishes with being deprived of the gold, and with only
hearing the name of the philosophers' stone. He becomes
forever a miserable, destitute, and naked vagabond, who
wastes his life upon alchemy.
The science then of revelation, or of infused spiritual
knowledge, resembles alchemy, and the science of the doctors
of the law resembles gold; but it is folly and pure loss
not to accept and be satisfied with solid gold, on account
of one's ardor to discover the philosophers' stone, which
latter knowledge is not acquired by one in a thousand.
There is still one farther observation that deserves
to be made. If a person by the payment of a thousand pieces
of gold, could become master of alchemy, yet the condition
of the man who is absolutely master of ten thousand pieces
of gold would be better and preferable. And this illustrates
the position of the soofees. If a person follow their
method and attain to the knowledge of some things, he
still does not equal in excellence, the doctors of the
law. Just as we see, that books on alchemy, and students
of alchemy are very numerous, while those who are successful
are the least of few, so the path of mysticism is sought
for by all men, and longed for by all classes of society,
yet those who attain to the end are exceedingly rare.
Perhaps, as in the case of alchemy, it only exists now
in name and form. The greater part of the notions and
fancies of most of the mystics, which they esteem as revelations
and mysteries, are nothing but vain triflings and pure
self complacency; just as that while visions are a reality,
still mere confused dreams are very abundant. The mystic,
however, who by spiritual revelation has learned all that
a doctor of the law has been able to learn after many
years of study, and who has no remaining doubts in matters
of internal or external knowledge, is certainly more excellent
than the doctor of the law who is learned only in external
knowledge, and this should not be denied. And it follows
that the way of the mystics must be acknowledged to be
a true one, and that you must not destroy the belief of
those weak minded and vain persons who follow them; for,
the reason why they cast reproaches upon knowledge and
calumniate the doctors of law is that they have no acquirements
or knowledge themselves.
O, inquirer after divine mysteries! do you ask how it
is known that the happiness of man consists in the knowledge
of God, and that his enjoyment consists in the love of
God ? We observe in reply, that every man's happiness
is found in the place where he obtains enjoyment and tranquility.
Thus sensual enjoyment is found in eating and drinking
and the like. The enjoyment of anger is derived from taking
revenge and from violence. The enjoyment of the eye consists
in the view of correct images and agreeable objects. The
enjoyment of the ear is secured in listening to harmonious
voices. In the same way the enjoyment of the heart depends
upon its being employed in that for which it was created,
in learning to know every thing in its reality and truth.
Hence, every man glories in what he knows, even if the
thing is but of little importance. He who knows how to
play chess, boasts over him who does not know: and if
he is looking on while a game of chess is played, it is
of no use to tell him not to speak, for as soon as he
sees an improper move, he has not patience to restrain
himself from showing his skill, and glorying in his knowledge,
by pointing it out….
Now that it is clear that the happiness of the heart
consists in the knowledge and love of God, we may say
that the heart that does not feel the necessity of the
knowledge of God, and a longing for the love of God, but
rather craves after and seeks the world, resembles a sick
person who has no appetite for food, but even prefers
such things as earth and clay to meat, regarding them
as necessary, not-withstanding they have no nourishing
qualities. If no remedy can be found, speedily, to recover
his appetite for food, and if he continue indulging in
perverse notions of what is necessary, his malady will
grow in strength; until if he continue in this state,
he will perish and lose the joys this world can give.
In the same manner the heart which does not feel a necessity
for the knowledge and love of God, and where the love
of other objects reigns, is a heart that is sick and ready
to perish, unless a remedy be applied, unless its affections
be turned away from other things, and the love of God
become predominant. Future bliss will be lost and eternal
misery will be its portion. Our refuge is in God!
You should know also that the enjoyments of this world
that are procured through the senses are cut off at death.
The enjoyment of the love and knowledge of God, which
depends upon the heart, is alone lasting. At death the
hindrances that result from the presence of the external
senses being removed, the light and brilliancy of the
heart come to have full play, and it feels the necessity
of the vision of beauty. What has hitherto been said is
sufficient to enable a person of intelligence to comprehend
the dignity of the heart of man. The subject could not
be discussed more at large in this short treatise.
While the heart is one of the pillars of man, the body
is another pillar. In the constitution of man's body,
there is an infinity of most wonderful things to be observed.
Each internal and external organ has various curious uses,
of which man is entirely uninformed. Know, that in the
body of a man there are thousands of veins and nerves:
there are many bones, each of a particular shape and each
one created for a particular purpose and effect. You are
ignorant of all this, and you only know that the hand
was formed to take hold with, the foot to walk with, and
the tongue to speak with. But in reference to the hand,
you know nothing about its blood, its bones, the number
of its nerves and veins, and the uses of each one: nor
in reference to the eye, do you know that it is composed
of ten layers, nor of what the layers are composed, nor
what is the use of them. And if the eye should meet with
an injury in one of the layers, you could not tell the
cause of it. You know nothing either of the internal organs
in the belly, such as the spleen, the liver, the gall-bladder
and the kidneys. While these have been given to you to
perform, functions in which they are continually engaged,
you are entirely unconcerned about it.
Know then, beloved, that the varieties of food you eat
descend to the stomach, and thence to the liver, and that
in the liver they are mixed and brought to the form of
blood. Upon the Liver may be seen something black and
frothy which is called black bile. The spleen attracts
the black bile and changes it into itself. The blood being
still mixed with water, has no consistence, and the kidneys
draw the water from the blood and purify it. This blood
is then diffused to the seven parts of the body, and brings
and conveys strength to the limbs. If the spleen become
affected with any disorder, so that it cannot separate
the black bile from the blood, such diseases as leprosy,
insanity, inflammation of the spleen and remittent fever
are the consequence. If any derangement happen to the
gall-bladder so that it cannot secrete the bile, bilious
disorders follow. If the kidneys get disordered, so that
they cannot abstract the water from the blood, dropsy
and similar diseases are the result. It all depends, however,
on the will of God. In the same manner, all the organs
of the body have a specific function. If it were not so,
the body would perish….
Our intention has been to show you that man is a great
world, and that you might know what a multitude of servants
his body has to minister to him : so that you might realize
while in your enjoyments, in walking, in sleeping or at
rest in your world, that by God's appointment, these numerous
servants in your employ never suffer their functions to
cease for a minute. Listen now for a moment candidly.
If you had a servant who had been faithful to you during
his whole life, with whose services you were not able
to dispense, while he could at any time find a better
master—yet if he should only for a single day disobey
your orders, you would get angry, beat him, and wish to
get rid of him. But God has been abundant in kindness
to you, and has given you so many servants, and has in
no wise any need of you. How then can it be just that
you should become enslaved to yourself, and follow your
own passions, and that forgetful of pleasing the infinite
God, you should rebel against your Creator and Benefactor,
and that you should render obedience to Satan, who is
your enemy and the enemy of God ?
Many and even innumerable books, O student of the divine
mysteries, have been written in explanation of the organization
of the body and the uses of is parts: but they have no
more made the subject clear and exhausted it, than a drop
can illustrate the ocean, or an atom illustrate the sun.
It is impossible for the thing formed to understand the
knowledge of him that formed it. And how is it possible,
that he who is of yesterday, should comprehend the secrets
of the operations of the Ancient of days ?
The science of the structure of the body is called anatomy
: it is a great science, but most men are heedless of
it. If any study it, it is only for the purpose of acquiring
skill in medicine, and not for the sake of becoming acquainted
with the perfection of the power of God. But whoever will
occupy himself with anatomy, and therein contemplate the
wonders of the works of God, will reap three advantages.
The first advantage will be, that in learning the composition
of the thing made, and thereby gaining a comprehensive
and condensed view of all other things like it he will
see that it is impossible to discover imperfection or
incompetence in the being who has created him in such
perfection. The Creator himself will be acknowledged to
be almighty and perfect. The second advantage will be,
that he will see that it is impossible that a being who
has created an organization so intelligent, capable of
comprehension, endowed with beauty, and useful, should
be otherwise than perfect in knowledge himself. And lastly,
we shall understand the mercy, favor and perfect compassion
of God towards us. Nothing that is either useful or ornamental
has been omitted in the framing of our bodies, whether
it be such things as are the sources of life, like the
spirit and the head; or such as sustain life, as the hand,
the foot, the mouth and the teeth : or such as are a means
of ornament, as the beard, elegance of form, black hair
and the lips. It is to be observed that similar organs
have been provided not only for man, but for all creatures,
so that nothing is wanting to initiate and sustain life
in the mouse, the wasp, the snake and the ant. God has
done all things perfectly, and may his name be glorified
!
- The investigator of truth this fact well knows,
- That he himself is endowed with every perfection.
The knowledge of anatomy is the means by which we become
acquainted with animal life: by means of knowledge of
animal life, we may acquire a knowledge of the heart,
and the knowledge of the heart is a key to the knowledge
of God. But the knowledge which we obtain of God is limited
and contracted in comparison with the knowledge which
the heart has of itself. The knowledge possessed by the
heart in comparison with the knowledge of God himself,
is but as an atom when compared with the sun.
The body is but au animal to be ridden by the heart,
which is its rider, while the heart's chief end is to
acquire a knowledge of God. The dignity of any thing depends
upon what it is in itself. A person therefore who does
not understand his own body, heart and soul, and yet pretends
to the knowledge of God, resembles the bankrupt, who,
although he has nothing to eat himself, should yet plan
a feast for all the poor of the city. In short, man ought
to make every possible exertion to gain the knowledge
of God, because the knowledge of God necessitates the
love of God. Just in the same manner as when you see a
beautiful specimen of calligraphy or some elegant verses,
you praise the person who made them, you feel a love for
him in your heart and desire eagerly to see him.
Since you have learned, O inquirer after the divine mysteries,
the dignity and nobleness of the heart, know also that
this precious jewel has been confided to you and wrapped
in a veil, that you may preserve it from too close a contact
with the world, and may lead it to perfection and to its
place of rest, making it a partaker of manifest happiness
in the eternal mansions. In the house of reunion you will
have reached an eternal rest, where no evil enters, a
joy where no pain mingles, a strength without infirmity,
a knowledge without doubt, and a vision of the Lord, the
enjoyment of which shall be endless.
If the heart strive not after its own glory and dignity,
but inclines to the cares of the world and sensual pleasures,
no creature is more feeble, infirm and contemptible than
man. At one time he will be the slave of disappointment
and melancholy, at another suffering from disease and
misfortune; at one time exposed to hunger and thirst,
and at another the slave of avarice or ambition. He is
not indulged with the enjoyment of a single day in peace.
And when he is disposed to partake of the pleasures of
the world and stretches out his hand to them, for a long
time he cannot succeed in freeing himself from calamity.
Even the pleasure of eating will be attended with oppression
and pain, and afterwards be followed by some adverse accident.
In short, of whatever enjoyment he partakes, regret is
sure to follow it. If we regard knowledge, power, will,
beauty and grace of form as constituting the glory and
honor of this world, what is the wisdom of man ? If his
head pain him, he knows not the cause or the remedy. If
he have pain at his heart, he knows not the occasion of
it, or why it increases, or what will cure it. He sees
the plants and medicines that could cure it, perhaps even
holds them in his hands, and is not aware of it. He knows
nothing of what will happen to him on the morrow, nor
what action will be a source of enjoyment to him, nor
what will be to him a source of pain. If you look only
to the strength of a man, what is more impotent than he
is. If a fly or mosquito molest him, he cannot get rid
of it. If he is attacked by disease, he has no remedy
to meet it with. He has no power to preserve himself from
destruction. If you look at the firmness and resolution
of man, what is more contemptible than he is ! If he see
any thing more extra-ordinary than a piece of money, he
changes color and loses his presence of mind. If a beggar
meet him, he turns away, and dares not look him in the
face. If you look at the form of man, you see that it
is skin, drawn over blood and impurity….
In short, man in this world, is framed in infirmity and
imperfection. But if he desire and will to free himself
from animal propensities, and ferocious and satanic qualities,
he may attain future happiness, will be more exalted and
excellent than a king and will be enriched with the vision
of the beauty of the Lord. But if he incline towards the
world, and retain only the qualities of animals and wild
beasts, his future state will be worse even than theirs.
For they turn to dust, and are delivered from pains and
torment. Our refuge is in God !
From the moment, O beloved! that you have learned in
what the dignity and nobleness of man consists, and what
constitutes his vileness and meanness, you have learned
at the same time how the knowledge of the soul, is the
key to the knowledge of God.
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CHAPTER II.
OntheKnowledgeofGod.
In the books of former prophets it is written, "Know
thine own soul, and thou shalt know thy Lord," and we
have received it in a tradition, that "He who knows
himself, already knows his Lord." This is a convincing
argument that the soul is like a clean mirror, into which
whenever a person looks, he may there see God. If you
say, however, that there are many who have studied themselves,
and have learned that they are creatures, and still they
do not know their Lord, I reply, that to pass from the
knowledge of the soul to the knowledge of God, and to
demonstrate the latter from the former, may be accomplished
by two methods. The first method is most deep and profound.
The most exalted in wisdom and the most penetrating among
men are far from understanding it, even when they apply
themselves to it, both with science, practice and a pure
life. How then should those ignorant persons understand
it, who are utterly destitute of a knowledge of external
things! Let us, therefore, pass to the second method and
explain that: for he who possesses a discriminating mind,
even if he were blind, is capable of understanding it.
Know, therefore, that man from his own existence knows
the existence of a Creator; from his own attributes, he
knows the attributes of his maker; from the control which
he has over his own kingdom, he knows the control that
God exercises over all the world. The reason of this is,
that when a man looks at himself, beginning at the time
when there was no trace or notion of his existence, and
contemplates his creation with attention, he sees that
he had his origin from a drop of water. He had neither
mind nor understanding: and neither fat, flesh nor bones.
Afterwards by divine operation and sovereign power, most
strange and wonderful internal changes took place, and
strong organs, passions, affections, and agreeable qualities
rose up all adorned with beauty. When man comes to look
upon his organs and members, whether upon the external,
as the hand, the foot, the eye, the tongue and the mouth,
or upon the internal organs, as the liver, the stomach
and the spleen, he sees that each is the result of a special
wisdom, that each one has been created for some peculiar
uillegiblee, and that each one
is in its place and perfect. After a man has observed
these things, he knows that the Creator has power to do
what he pleases with all things, that his knowledge includes
and embraces in perfection whatever is to be known of
creatures either externally or internally, and that his
power and wisdom pervade every organ and particle.
Beloved, in proportion as a man analyzes the nature of
his body and the variety of uses of its several members,
his reverence and love for its Creator and Maker will
increase. Let a man observe, for example, that his hands
are made like columns and separated from the body, to
serve as an instrument to seize, or take hold of, or to
defend it from an enemy. At the extremity of the hands
are five fingers, four of which are in a row, and some
long and some short, SO that when they take hold
of anything, they may come equally together in the palm
of the hand. The thumb, which is opposite to the four
fingers, is shorter than any of them and stronger, that
it may be a help to the whole and render them capable
of retaining and grasping. The four fingers have three
joints each, and the thumb has but two, that when contracted
they may become like the bowl of a spoon or ladle, and
that when open they may become like a plate, and so discharge
an infinity of services. The front teeth were formed sharp,
to cut and separate the food : the side teeth were formed
broad to mash and grind the food. The tongue was formed
like a spoon to throw the food into the throat. There
is, also, under the tongue, an organ by which water is
poured out, and the food is made of the consistence of
dough, that it may be more easily swallowed and digested.
All the organs, in short, have been devised with the best
arrangement and form for use, and each one of them is
punctual day and night in discharging its function. Think
not, that they are lazy or sleeping. If the minds of the
intelligent, the science of the learned, and the wisdom
of the sage had been united and had been employed since
the beginning of the world, in reflection and contrivance,
they could not have discovered anything more excellent
than the present arrangement, nor any forms more useful
and beautiful. If the eye had been attached to the top
of the head, or the ear to the nape of the neck, or the
mouth to the back of the body, or if three fingers had
been given instead of four, it is plain to a person of
intelligence that the existing advantages would not have
been secured, and the present beauty of form and appearance
would have been imperfect.
Let us notice, also, the daily necessities of man, his
need of food, of clothing and of a dwelling; his need
of rain, clouds, wind, heat and cold : and that he needs
the weaver, the cotton-spinner, the clothier and the fuller
to provide him with clothing; and that each one of these
has need of so many instruments, and of so many trades,
like those of the blacksmith, the farmer, the carpenter,
the dyer, and the tanner; and besides, their need of iron,
lead, wood and the like. Notice at the same time, the
adaptation of these workmen to their instruments, and
of the instruments to the trades, and how each art has
given rise to several others, and the mind is astonished
and distracted. The adaptation of all these instruments
comes from the pure grace and perfect mercy of God, and
from the fountain of his benevolence. Moreover, God's
creating prophets, sending them to us, and leading us
to their law and to love them, is a perfume of His universal
beneficence. He proclaims himself, "My mercy surpasses
my anger," and the Prophet has said: "Verily, God
is more full of compassion to his servants, than the affectionate
mother to her nursing child."
It has been shown that man from his own existence, knows
the existence of his creator, that from his analysis of
the materials of which his body is composed and of its
distinctive characters he understands the almighty power
of God, that from the uses, the arrangement and the combination
of his organs, he knows the omniscient wisdom of God,
and that his clemency and compassion extend to all. He
knows, also, that these many mercies and bounties are
bestowed upon him without his seeking or care, from God's
rich and overflowing grace. Now in this way it is possible
that the knowledge of the soul should become the key to
the knowledge of God. For just as from a survey of your
own being and attributes, you have in a contracted form
learned the being and attributes of God, it is also possible
to understand how the freedom and the holiness of God,
bear a resemblance to the freedom of your soul.
Know, that God exists exempt from and independent of
the notions that enter the mind, and the forms that are
produced in the imagination, that he is not subjected
to reasoning, and time and place cannot be ascribed to
him. Still his exercise of power and the manifestation
of his glory are not independent of place. But in the
same manner, this independence and freedom is possible
in your soul. The spirit, for example, which we call heart
is exempt from the entrance of fancies and imaginations,
and also from size and divisibility. Nor has it form or
color, for if it had, it could be seen by the eye, and
would enter into the sphere of fancy and imagination,
and its beauty or ugliness, its greatness or littleness
would be known. If any one ask you about your soul, you
may answer, "It exists by the will of God: it has neither
quantity or physical quality; it is exempt from being
known." Beloved, since you are incapable of knowing
the spirit which is in your body, how should it be possible
for you to know God, who created spirits, bodies and all
things, who is himself foreign to all of them, and who
is not of their class and kind ? It is one of the most
important things, yea, a most necessary duty, to treat
of God as holy, independent and free.
How many things there are in your body in reference to
which you do not know their reality and essence, such
as desire, love, misery and pleasure. Their existence
is admitted, but their quantity and quality cannot be
measured. If you desire to learn the absolute truth about
them, you cherish a vain longing; and it is the same,
if you desire to know the absolute nature of voice, nutrition
or hearing. As that which is perceived by the eye has
no relation to voice, and as that which is perceived by
the ear has no relation to form, and as that which is
perceived by the sense of smelling has no relation to
taste, so that the one can be known by means of the other,
in the same manner that which is perceived through the
medium of the mind or of divine power, cannot be perceived
by the senses. Again, as the spirit exists and controls
the body, and yet we know not the mode and essence of
it, so God is present in all things, and controls and
governs all things, but his form, essence and quality
are exempt from being known. Exemption and freedom may
be illustrated in still another manner. In the same way
that the spirit pervades all the limbs and the body, and
the body is entirely subject to its control, and that
the spirit is indivisible, while the body is divisible,
so also in relation to God, all that exists, springs from
him, all creatures exist by his word, and in all possible
things his operations are seen, yet still he is not related
to place, nor does he reason about anything, and he is
free from relation or affinity to any quality of bodies
or to quantity.
This topic of exemption and freedom, beloved, cannot
be perfectly explained, until the mystery about the soul
shall have been developed. The law, however, gives no
permission to develop this secret, and it is not lawful
to stretch out one's hand to do what the legislator forbids.
But the language of his excellency the glory of the world,
"God created man in his own image," cannot be explained
until die mystery about the nature of the soul or spirit
has been explained.
And now, student of the divine mysteries, that you have
in general understood, as far as your mind can reach,
the being and attributes of God, by having your own soul
as an example, it is important that you should become
acquainted with the influence of the word, government
and sovereignty of God in the world. This is called knowledge
of operation. You ought to understand, also, as far
as reason can go, the government that he exercises over
the body, so that you may comprehend in what way creatures
obey the word and the will of God, in what way the angels
by his decree convey their ministrations from heaven to
earth, in what way the movements of the heavens and the
revolutions of the constellations are effected, and what
is the key to the method by which the orders of dæmons
are effected. But unless you know in what way you exercise
authority over your body, what probability is there that
you can understand how God exercises control over all
things.
"Know thyself, and thou shalt know thy Lord." Observe
then that when you desire to write upon paper the phrase,
In the name of God, there arises first of all an
inclination and a decision in the heart to write it. Next
in order, that inclination and decision by means of the
animal spirit is carried to the brain. When that decision
has reached the brain then the image of the phrase, In
the name of God is formed in the faculty of imagination
in the brain. Afterwards the image reaches a nerve resembling
a white thread, and descends by means of it to the ends
of the fingers. Finally by means of the senses the fingers
write the phrase In the name of God, in the form
in which by the will of the heart, it exists in the treasury
of the imagination. Again, also, when the will of God
is to anything, a token of it rises and appears in the
empyreal heaven. And there is an essence called both the
Spirit of Power, and the Holy Spirit, by means of which
it arrives at the throne in the heavens. As the phrase,
In the name of God, appears in the treasury of
the imagination, so the image of the thing dependent on
the will of God appears upon the Preserved Tablet. The
angels appointed to serve in the empyrean and at the throne,
cause it to descend to the inferior world, and by means
of the periods and hours of the constellations, it is
made to appear through the four elementary qualities —
heat, cold, moisture and dryness. As the phrase In
the name of God is written down by first dipping the
pen in the ink, so the thing which God wills, comes to
light by mixing heat and cold with water and earth. As
paper is so adapted to writing as to preserve the forms
which are written upon it, so dryness and moisture are
recipient of those other forms and preserve the images
that are produced. If moisture did not exist, forms and
images could not be preserved. In the same manner as by
the will of the heart and by the method above mentioned,
the image In the name of God, which is in the treasury
of the imagination is painted with the pen upon paper,
so also the will of God, which is an image produced upon
the Preserved Tablet in the empyrean, is produced and
made visible in the material world, by means of the angels,
the constellations and the elemental qualities of water
and earth.
At the time when the heart of man had control over all
the organs and members, and they were all obedient to
it, some thought that man was a dweller in his own heart.
When the empyrean in like manner, ruled over all things
by the will of God, they reasoned that man was seated
in the empyrean. But like as man has dominion over his
own heart in the administration of his kingdom, the body,
God also rules over the empyrean in the administration
of the affairs of created beings, which he has committed
to the empyrean. Thus God declares in his holy word, "He
sat upon the empyrean to govern the universe."
You should know, also, that what we have been maintaining
is convincingly established. It is known to men of penetration
by revelation.
"God created man in his own image." What does this
mean, and how is it known to be true ? Know, beloved,
that the sovereign recognizes no other person except the
sovereign himself. If the Lord had not appointed you to
be sovereign over the body as over a kingdom, if he had
not confided to you the affairs of its government, and
had not given you this brief copy as a model, how would
you have been able to comprehend the sovereign, who is
independent of reasoning and of place, and who cannot
be known by argument or hypothesis or in any other way?
Thanks and praises be given to him who is without beginning
and eternal, to him who is unceasingly beneficent, to
him who made you sovereign over yourself, who subjected
your body to you for a kingdom, who made your heart to
be an empyreal throne, and made the animal spirit which
is the fountain of the heart, to be a seraphic messenger.
He appointed the brain to be the throne, and the treasury
of the imagination to be the Preserved Tablet. He made
the cupola of the brain, which is the source of the nerves
and the mine of the faculties, to be like the vault of
heaven and the stars. He appointed the fingers and the
pen to serve the elemental qualities of nature, and subjected
them to your order. He made you more excellent and noble
than all other creatures, and to exercise rule over all
possible things. He has bidden you to beware and not to
be heedless of your soul, which is your kindom and dominion:
for to be regardless of your soul, is to be regardless
of your Creator and Benefactor.
Know, however, that there is an immense distance and
wide interval between perceiving the beauty of the Lord,
and understanding that which constitutes its soul, marrow
and essence. O seeker of the divine mysteries, those impotent
astrologers and physicists, who, shut out from the knowledge
of God, ascribe changes and events to the stars and to
nature, resemble an ant, that seeing a pen making marks
upon paper, should be overjoyed and cry out, "I have
found out the secret of the effect. It is the pen that
causes the marks." This class of men in another point
resembles the natural man, who ascribes the influences
in nature to heat and cold, water and earth: so a second
ant looking on with attention, sees that the pen does
not move of itself, but rather by the will of the hand:
and he turns and says tp the first ant, "You were mistaken;
you did not perceive the real nature of the thing: you
thought the marks and movements were caused by the pen.
It is not so; the whole influence proceeds from the fingers
and the pen is subject to the fingers." Beloved, this
ant resembles the astrologer, who ascribes effects to
the constellations. He does not know that he also is mistaken,
and that the stars and the constellations are subject
to the angels, and that the angels can do nothing without
the command of God.
In the same manner as there is falsity, in the way in
which the material world is regarded by the natural man
and the astrologer, there is also a diversity of views
among those who survey the spiritual world. There are
some who, just as they are upon the point of entering
upon the vision of the spiritual world, seeing that they
discover nothing, descend back to their old sphere. There
is also a difference of view between those who do succeed
in reaching the spiritual or invisible world by meditation,
for some have an immense amount of light veiled from them.
Every one in the sphere to which he attains, is still
veiled with a veil. The light of some is as of a twinkling
star. Others see as by the light of the moon. Others are
illuminated as if by the world-effulgent sun. To some
the invisible world is even perfectly revealed, as we
read in the holy word of God: "And thus we caused Abraham
to see the heaven and the earth."
And hence it is that the prophet says, "There are before
God seventy veils of light; if he should unveil them,
the light of his countenance would burn everything that
came into his presence."
Still the miserable naturalist, who ascribes effects
to the influences of nature, speaks correctly. For, if
natural causes had no operation, the art of medicine would
have been useless, and the holy law would not have allowed
to have recourse to medical treatment. The mistake which
the naturalist makes, is that he contracts his sphere
of vision, and is like the lame ass, that left his load
at the first stopping place. He does not know that nature
also is subjected to the hand of the power of God, and
is a kind of humble servant, such as a shoe is to the
ass. The astrologer also says, that the sun is a star,
which causes heat and light upon the earth. If there had
been no sun, the distinction between day and night would
not have existed, and vegetables and grain could not have
been produced. The moon also is a star, and if there bad
been no moon, how many things connected with the requirements
of the Law of the Koran, would have been impracticable,
such as fasting, alms and pilgrimage, since there would
have been no distinction of weeks, months and years. The
colors and perfumes of herbs and fruits exist also from
its influence. The sun is warm and dry; the moon is cold
and moist. Saturn is cold and dry, Venus is warm and moist.
And the school of astrologers is to be credited in these
representations; but when they ascribe all events to influences
proceeding from the heavenly bodies, they are liars. They
do not perceive that they all alike are subject to the
almighty power of God as God says in his word: "And
the sun, moon and stars are subject to his command."
There is also an influence exercised by the stars, which
resembles the control, exercised by the nerve that comes
from the brain over the finger in writing; while the force
of nature is like the control exerted upon the pen by
the finger….
When the health of a person undergoes a change, and he
becomes the prey of melancholy and suspicion, and the
pleasures of the world become distasteful, so that from
disgust with it, he withdraws from all society, his physician
says, "this person is diseased with melancholy; he must
take an infusion of dodder, of thyme and bark of endive
as a medicine." The naturalist says: "As this person's
malady is of a dry nature, it arises from a predominance
of dryness, which has settled on the brain. The occasion
of his having a dry temperament is the season of winter.
Until spring comes, and dry weather predominates, there
is no possibility of a cure." The astrologer says, "this
person being under the influence of melancholy, which
arises from a hurtful conjunction between Mars and Jupiter,
there will be no favorable change in his health until
the conjunction of Jupiter with Venus shall have reached
the Trine." Now know, beloved, that the language of
all these persons is correct, for they all speak and believe
according to the degree and reach of their reason and
understanding. However, the real and essential cause of
the malady may be stated thus. When fortune is favorable
to any person, and the Deity desires to guide him into
the possession of it, he deputes two powerful ministers
to that effect, Jupiter and Mars. These in turn, control
the light footed ministers, the elements, and command
dryness, for example, to fasten its bridle to the neck
of the person, and cause dryness to attack his head and
brain. He is thus made to become weary of the world by
means of the scourge of melancholy and suspicion, and
so with the bridle of the will may be impelled towards
the Deity. These circumstances can never be understood
in this sense, either by medicine, or by nature, or by
the stars. One may, however, learn to understand them
by knowledge and the prophetic power combined. For they
embrace the whole kingdom of the universe with its deputies
and servants, and possess the knowledge of the end for
which everything was created: they know to whose command
all things are subjected, to what men are invited and
what they are forbidden to do.
The Lord invites the servants whom he loves to the contemplation
of his glory, at one time by sending misfortune and affliction,
and at another by melancholy and sickness: and he says
to them, "my servants, what you regard as misfortune
and affliction, is but the bridle of my love, by which
I draw those whom I love to a spirit of holy submission,
and to my Paradise." It is also found in a tradition
that "misfortune is first of all the lot of the prophets,
then of the saints and then of those who are like them
in successive lower degrees. Look not then upon these
things as maladies, for they are my favored servants."
O seeker after the divine secrets, now that you have
learned that within the body of man, there is a sovereign
who possesses and controls it, it is time that you should
learn the meaning of the sentences, "Glory to God,"
"God be praised," "There is no God but God," and
"God is the greatest." These sentences are very current
on the tongues of men, but they do not know the signification
of them. Although these four sentences are in appearance
very short, yet there are no others that embrace so much
of the knowledge of God. Since from the consideration
of the freedom and independence of your own spirit, you
have learned the freedom and independence of God, you
have in consequence learned the meaning and import of
the sentence, "Glory to God." Seeing that from the
sovereignty which you exercise over your own spirit, you
have learned the sovereignty which God exercises, and
know that all causes and instruments are subject to his
power, and that all outward and inward mercies, which
are incalculable and innumerable, are from him, you therefore
know the meaning and import of the phrase, "God be praised."
As you know also that all things are of his creation,
that his government extends over all things, and that
without his will no motion or change can affect any thing,
you see the meaning of the words, "There is no God but
God. " Listen now to the explanation of the sentence,
"God is the greatest."
Do not suppose that, from all that has hitherto been
said, you can understand the greatness of God. His greatness
and power are above and beyond the comprehension of the
mind and wisdom of man. Moreover the phrase "God is
the greatest" does not mean that God is larger than
other things : it is a sin to indulge in such a belief.
It is as much as to say, that there are large things,
but that God is larger than they are. The holy meaning
of the phrase "God is the greatest" is that God is
so great, that he cannot be known or comprehended by the
mind or understanding, or be compared with any thing,—that
the knowledge of God cannot be attained by means of the
knowledge which a man has of his own soul (which God forbid!),
that a knowledge of his attributes cannot be attained
from a knowledge of the attributes of man, and that his
independence and holiness cannot be compared with the
independence and holiness of man in any form whatever.
God forbid that His sovereignty and government should
be compared and measured ! The doctors of the law have
been allowed however, in the way of illustration to explain
in a certain degree the knowledge, power, excellence and
sovereignty of God to man, who is frail and weak in understanding.
Thus, let us suppose that a person bad been born and
brought up in darkness, where he had never seen the rays
or light of the sun, but had merely heard a description
of the sun. If such a person should ask to have the light
and mode of shining of the sun explained to him, how would
it be possible in any way to explain to him what it is?
If however, there should happen to be in that dark place
many glow worms, the person addressed, taking one of them
up in his hands, might say, "the light of the sun resembles
this," although in reality it has not a particle or
an atom of resemblance. Take another example : suppose
a child incapable of making distinctions, should inquire
of us about the pleasure derived from exercising authority
and sovereignty. We, knowing the impossibility of explaining
the matter to him, might answer that the pleasure of ruling
was like that obtained from playing with nuts or at ball,
although it does not resemble them in any particular.
From these examples we may learn that it is impossible
for any being, except God himself, to know God. "God
is witness ! God is witness! No one knows God, except
God himself."
Finally, seeker after divine mysteries, know that the
paths to the knowledge of God, are as numerous as the
souls of creatures, and their number is known to God alone.
But we have spoken so much as is found above, for the
sake of both warning and stimulating the seeker after
the knowledge and love of God.
The happiness of man consists in the knowledge, obedience
and worship of God. Only a little previously we have shown,
how it is that man's happiness consists in the knowledge
of God. We now proceed to observe, that it is an argument
to prove that the happiness of man consists in obedience
and devotion, the fact that when a man dies, his destination
is to return to where God is. Every thing which concerns
man is with God, and his works will all be presented before
Him. Whenever all the affairs of a person are in the hands
of another, and his employments and his home are with
him — when he is near to him and continually has need
of him, there will be perfect harmony between the two,
and abiding friendship and love. Whoever be the person
whom we love, we shall find our happiness with him. There
is nothing more delightful than to meet with and look
upon an object that we love. But we ought to know that
the love of God will never reign in the heart of a man
until first the knowledge of God reigns there, and until
the remembrance of God becomes unceasing. If one individual
love another, he is continually thinking of him, and by
this continual remembrance, his love is increased.
The remembrance of God will be predominant in the heart
that is always engaged in devotion: and the heart will
be engaged in devotion and worship, whenever it withdraws
from worldly lusts and sensual pleasures: it will withdraw
from worldly lusts, when it refrains from sins. To abstain
from sins of rebellion, brings peace to the heart: to
be constant in worship, is a means of remembrance of God;
and both are a means of growing in the love of God, which
is the seed of happiness. And so the Lord speaks in his
word : "Blessed is the man who keeps himself pure, who
repeats the name of the Lord and prays. "
Know also that all our acts cannot be devotional. Those
acts only are devotional which harmonize with the law.
But it is not possible to be totally exempt from sensuous
passions, for if the body should be deprived of food and
drink for example, it would perish. There is occasion
therefore for making distinctions between our acts; but
these distinctions, the individual is not capable of making
for himself, because the animal soul necessarily casts
a veil over the truth and inclines it to vanity. On this
account we are obliged to follow after and imitate others
— such persons as the prophets. They have been purified
and enlightened by the eternal Truth Himself, and have
been sent forth to communicate precepts and laws, and
to decide upon all circumstances. Every one is therefore
bound to imitate them within the limits of the law, and
in the regulation of his moral conduct, that he may attain
felicity and be preserved from danger of eternal destruction.
Those careless and indifferent persons, O seeker after
the divine mysteries, who from ignorance, stupidity and
sin have turned away from God and his prophet, and have
wandered from the path of religion, may be arranged in
seven classes.
To the first class belong those who do not believe in
God. They had desired to find him out in his essence and
attributes, by speculations and fancies, by comparisons
and illustrations. And because they have not succeeded
in understanding him, they have referred his acts and
his government to the stars and to nature. They have fancied
that the soul of man and of other animals, and this wonderful
world with its marvellous arrangements came of themselves,
and that they are eternal; or that they are effects from
natural causes, and that there is no creator beyond the
sphere of the world. This class of people resembles the
man who seeing a writing, fancies that it was written
of itself, and infers that it was not written by a penman
or by a super-natural power : or else that it is eternal
and that no one knows whence it comes. It is impossible
to recover from the path of delusion, persons whose ignorance,
error and stupidity have reached such a degree as this.
The second class of errorists are those who deny a day
of resurrection and assembly. They allege that man and
other animals are like vegetables, and do not enter into
another body when they die. They say, that a resurrection,
in which spirits and bodies shall be reassembled in one
place, is impossible, and that there will be neither discipline
or punishment, recompense or reward. The errors of this
sect arise from their inability to understand of themselves
their own souls. They imagine that the spirit is an animal
spirit only, and that the heart, which is in reality the
spirit of man, is the place for the knowledge of God,
and that no evil can happen to it_ except that it will
be separated from the body. They call this separation,
death. This sect is unconcerned about this spirit, and
in proof of this we shall discourse, if it please God,
in the fourth chapter.
The third class of errorists are those who indeed believe
in God and a future life, but whose faith is weak, because
they do not understand the requirements of the law. They
say that "God is able to do without our worship. There
is neither any profit to God from our worship, or any
injury done him by our disobedience. If we worship God,
we shall learn what good it did in the future world; and
if we do not worship him, there will neither be any advantage
or harm. God himself so declares in his holy word, "Whosoever
keep himself pure, does it for his own advantage,"
and in another place, "He who does well, does it for
his own profit."
Although it is better to worship God, yet as God has no
need of our worship, therefore if we do not worship him,
what harm is there in it ?" These ignorant people resemble
the sick man, who when the physician says to him, "you
should be abstinent, if you wish to be cured of your malady,"
should answer, "what advantage is it to you whether
I am abstinent or not"? Now though the sick man is right
when he says that there is no advantage to the physician
from his abstinence, yet if he is not abstinent, he will
perish. This class regards obedience and transgression
as of the same degree in value. But in the same manner
as disease may occasion a man's destruction, so transgression
defiles the heart, and will cause it to appear in the
future world in a state of woe. And just as abstinence
and medicine restore the body to health, so to avoid acts
of transgression and sin and to be obedient to God, are
means of securing salvation.
The fourth class of men who indulge in error, are those
who indeed receive the law, but in some peculiar and erroneous
sense. They wrongly say, "The law commands U5 to keep
our hearts pure from pride, envy, hatred, anger and dissimulation.
But this is a thing which it is impossible to do. For
the soul has been created with these qualities and affections,
and human nature cannot be changed. It is just as impossible
to make a black material white by scraping it, as for
the human heart to be free from these qualities." These
ignorant men do not know and understand, that the law
does not command that these qualities should be entirely
effaced and expelled from the heart, but rather requires
that they should be brought under subjection to the heart
and the reason, to the end that they may not act presumptuously,
go beyond the limits set by the law, and indulge in mortal
sins. It is possible even to change these qualities, by
doing only what reason requires, and by respecting the
restrictions of the law. Many devout men in past times
have secured this change of the affections of the soul.
These qua.ities once existed in the prophet of God, but
they were corrected, as we learn from the tradition: "I
am a man like you. I become angry, as a man becomes angry."
And God speaks in his holy word of "those who control
their wrath, and who pardon the men who offend them."
Notice, that in his eternal word, God praises those who
dissipate their anger and irritation : he does not praise
those who had no anger or rage, since man cannot be without
them.
The fifth class of persons in error are those who say
that, "God is merciful and ready to pardon, loving and
compassionate, and more pitiful to his servants than a
father and mother to their children, and therefore he
will pardon our faults and cover our transgressions."
They do not consider that notwithstanding God is bounteous
and merciful, there are still multitudes of poor and miserable
people in the world, multitudes who are infirm and helpless,
and many who are subjected to suffering. This is a mystery
which is known only to God. But it shows us, that though
God is disposed to cover and hide sin, still he is an
absolute sovereign and an avenger. While he is bounteous
and beneficent, he is at the same time dreadful in his
chastisements : while he is a benefactor, and provides
the necessaries of life, at the same time he who does
not seek to gain, obtains no store: and he who is not
industrious, accomplishes nothing in the world. Beloved,
these ignorant men, in the affairs of the world, in their
schemes of living, and in their business, manifest no
trust in the bounty of God, nor do they leave off for
one moment their buying and selling, their trades or their
farming, although God has decreed the means of their existence
many years before they were born, and has made himself
surety that it should be provided for them. He announces
in his eternal word and book of mighty distinctions, that
"there is no creature on the earth, for whom God has
not taken upon himself to provide nourishment."
Still they make not the least exertion in reference to
their relations and condition in eternity, but merely
rely upon the mercy of God, notwithstanding God declares
in his holy word, "man can have nothing without exertion."
When they say that God is gracious and merciful, they
speak correctly. But they are not aware that Satan is
deceiving them with it, hindering them from obedience
and worship, and preventing them from engaging in that
cultivation and commerce that would prepare them for eternity.
The sixth class who indulge in error, are those who,
exalted with pride, think that they have already attained
and are perfect: and they say, "we have reached such
a state that transgressions do us no harm: we are like
the sea, which is not polluted by filth falling into it."
These foolish people are so ignorant, that they do not
know that "to be like the sea," means to attain such
a degree of calm that no wind can put them in movement
and that nothing can cause any perturbation in their minds.
These persons on the contrary, if an individual fail to
treat them with honor and respect, or if in conversation
the individual do not address them as, my lord or dear
sir, or speak a word that touches their reputation, they
bear him a grudge for a long time, and even perhaps attempt
to do him an injury. And if a person take a piece of money
or a morsel of bread from them, the world becomes too
straight for them, and every thing looks dark. These foolish
people have not even yet reached manhood. They are weak
in their own souls, and are in subjection like slaves
to passion and anger. If it were not so, how could they
be so inconsiderate and presumptuous? Beloved, the falsehood
and error of these people appear from this consideration.
When inadvertently any of the prophets fell into sin,
even a little and venial sin, they would spend years in
mourning and lamentation over it, and occupied themselves
in endeavors to obliterate their faults, and to obtain
pardon and forgiveness. Filled with fear and dread, they
became blind from their tears; from their long continuing
perturbation and distraction of mind, yon would think
they had lost the use of their reason. As for the companions
of the prophet, and their immediate successors who were
faithful witnesses for the truth and the beloved of God,
they were so afraid in their suspicionsness of doing wrong,
that they abstained in their anxiety, from doing even
what was lawful. Do not these ignoramuses know that their
degree of attainment does not equal that of the prophets
and apostles, and that they are even at a great distance
from them ? Why then do they not shrink in fear and awe
from the shining vengeance of the glorious God ?
If they urge, however, that the transgressions of the
prophets were doing them no injury, but that they were
exercising prudence and carefulness for the sake of other
people, we then reply, that you also ought to be careful,
lest other people seeing your actions, should imitate
your example. And if they respond, we do not belong to
the rank of prophets, that men should walk in our steps,
or that any injury should befall us, on account of the
sins which they may commit, we would again reply,/that
it is better that no injury should come to you in consequence
of the sins done from imitating you, than that injury
should not befall the prophets from the sins done in consequence
of imitating them; for they are the praised and accepted
servants of God; their earlier and their later sins have
been pardoned, and they are blessed in Paradise. Why,
then, was it so necessary that they should abstain from
forbidden things, from things of a doubtful nature and
even from permitted things ? It is said that one day some
ripe dates were brought to the prophet, and he took one
and put it in his blessed mouth. But immediately a doubt
entered his mind, as to the manner in which the dates
had been obtained, and he took it out of his blessed mouth
and would not eat it. On another occasion a cup of milk
was brought to the faithful witness Aboo Bekir by his
slave, and he took it and drank it. After drinking it,
he inquired, "where did yon get the milk ?" The slave
said, "I told a man his fortune, and he gave me the
milk in return." As soon as the faithful witness heard
this, he frowned severely upon his servant, inserted his
blessed finger down his mouth, and threw up the whole
of the milk, so that none of it remained on his stomach.
He then said, "I fear that if any of the milk should
remain on my stomach, God would expel knowledge and love
from my heart." Now what harm could result to other
people from their eating those dates or drinking that
milk, that they should have been so careful about such
little things ? And since they did abstain from such little
things, regarding them as injurious, how should it be
otherwise than injurious to these foolish people to drink
wine, in full bowls and even by the jar full ?
They know that the wisdom, piety and abstinence of the
prophets and saints were not less than their own. Can
there be any more astonishing folly than that of these
men who dare to compare themselves with the sea, because
they are not disturbed by drinking several bowls of wine,
while they compare the prophet of God, to a little water,
which is changed in its taste by a single date ? They
are just worthy that Satan should seize hold of them by
the beard and mustachios, and drag them after him both
in this world and the next, making them a shame and reproach.
Now the faithful, truthful and experienced in religion,
who are mindful that the soul is treacherous, deceptive,
perfidious, malicious and false, always watch carefully
over their own souls, lest they should do something that
transcends the commands of the law, or that is contrary
to reason. The soul is always disposed to say to itself,
"I am obedient to the truth : I am submissive to the
holy law : and I am well instructed in knowledge." But
thou, without being puffed up by this deceitful language
of the soul, must constantly look to all its thoughts
and states. If it is walking in the path of the law and
of the prophets and saints, it is well! and happy is he
that is faithful to his word ! But if the soul begin to
have an inclination for self-indulgence, to explain away
or exceed the limits of the law and to contradict clear
and plain knowledge, you must regard it as a machination
of the devil and a temptation to the soul. In short, man,
until he descends to the grave, must always watch over
his soul with attention, to discover in what degree it
is obedient to the holy law and in harmony with knowledge.
Whoever does not thus watch over and guard himself, is
most surely in a delusion and in the way of a just destruction.
It is the first step in Islamism, that a man should keep
his soul subject to the law.
The seventh form of error, beloved, is that of the class
whose mistakes arise from ignorance and carelessness,
while they have never heard any thing of these doubts
of which we have been speaking. They merely wear the garments,
cap and quilted robes of the mystics (soofees), and after
learning some of their words and phrases, they pretend
to have attained saintship and supernatural powers. And
although apparently they have no evil intentions, yet
because they do not properly respect the holy law, but
practice their devotions in a lax way, their course leads
them to corrupt doctrines and errors. They are always
inclined to do whatsoever their corrupt disposition would
lead them to do, such as yielding to the love of frivolous
practices, or to sensual indulgences, or assenting to
transgression and sin. In the presence of the multitude,
they put on a holy mien and do not approve of error and
sin, but they do not withdraw their hearts from the pleasure
of wine, nor from adulterous and licentious society, nor
withdraw their hands from the business of gaining the
world. Although in these associations there may be no
overt sin, yet they do not consider that such thoughts
are but satanic suggestions and sensual importunities.
They are not capable of distinguishing actions and circumstances,
or right and wrong. Beloved, to this class belong those
of whom God declares in his holy word, "We have covered
their hearts with more than one envelop, that they may
not understand the Koran and we have put deafness upon
their ears. Even if thou shouldst call them to the right
way, they would never follow it."
It is better to talk with a sword, than to talk with this
class of people, for they are not open to conviction….
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CHAPTER III.
On Knowledgeof
theWorld.
Know, that this world is one stage of our life for eternity.
For those who are journeying in the right way, it is the
road of religion. It is a market opened in the wilderness,
where those who are travelling on their way to God, may
collect and prepare provisions for their journey, and
depart thence to God, without sorrow or despondency.
Know, that the state previous to death is called the
world, because mortality is close at hand. The state after
death is called the future, because its rest is permanent.
The purpose and design of the world, is to afford an opportunity
to make provision for the future, to acquire knowledge,
and to worship God. Man as at first created, was destitute
of works, and void of perfection : but he was made capable
of reaching perfection and attaining felicity, so that
while in a material world he could look forward to a spiritual
world, understand whence he came, what are his duties,
that he is soon to depart, and might be always ready.
Man's felicity, which consists in the contemplation of
the beauty of God, cannot be vouchsafed to him, until
the eye of his judgment is opened. But the eye of judgment
is opened by the contemplation of the works of God, and
by understanding his almighty power. The contemplation
of the works of God is by means of the senses, which become
the key to all knowledge of God. The senses subsist by
means of the body, and the body is composed of four different
elements. Those therefore who are endowed with understanding,
conscious of the frailty of their bodies should make all
diligence to quit this kingdom of corruption and to enter
permanently into the unchanging kingdom.
Know, O inquirer after the divine secrets, that there
are two things needful to man in this world; first of
all, he needs to acquire spiritual food to preserve his
heart from perishing. The aliment of the heart consists
in the love and knowledge of God; for whatever is a necessity
of the nature of any one, that he loves, as we have before
mentioned. The ruin of the soul consists in the predominance
of some other love over the love of God, which veils the
divine love. Our refuge is in God !
The second thing needful for a man is, that the body
should be preserved and tended with care, since it is
the frame of the heart. As a camel is to a pilgrim, so
the body is like an animal upon which the heart rides.
The pilgrim is obliged to give food and water to his camel,
and to treat it with attention, that he may reach the
end of his journey in safety, and by its means'be successful
in the object for which he travels. But the attention
bestowed by the pilgrim upon his camel, should be only
in that proportion which is really necessary. If he should
be busy with his camel day and night, and should expend
all his capital in feeding it, he would not reach his
destination, but would ultimately become separated from
his caravan, would lose all that he possessed, and in
view of the injury he had sustained, he would be the victim
of unceasing regrets, and ruin would ensue. Just so is
it with man in general. If he pass all his days in attending
to the preservation of the body, and spend the capital
of his life, in providing food and drink for the body,
he will not reach the mansions of felicity, but will wander
in the wilderness of destruction, without capital, penniless
and a naked vagabond.
Now the body needs in this world three things, one is
food, another is clothing, and the third is a home : and
by means of these, it can be preserved from injury and
ruin. If the food provided for the body is excessive,
the body will be destroyed : but let the food provided
for the spirit be ever so much, still is it well. On account,
therefore, of man's need of clothing and food, God has
appointed sensuous desire to act as a commissary, that
the animal, that is, the body, may not perish from hunger,
cold or heat. But as desire, under the control of the
animal soul, would not be satisfied with a sufficient
quantity, but would crave to spend its life in eating
and drinking, God afterwards committed the animal soul
into the charge of the reason, that desire might not transgress
the proper limits. Yet as the animal soul and desire,
on account of their intimate relations with the body,
are so essential to it, their influence would still have
been predominant. But God, the holy defender, in accordance
with his bounteousness and grace, (" my mercy has surpassed
my anger,") has sent his law by the tongues of prophets,
that it might become strength to the reason, and prevent
the animal soul and desire from passing beyond the due
limits, and on the contrary might dispose the soul to
rest satisfied with the degree of energy and force necessary
for it, and by learning the design for which it had come
into the world, might spend its days accordingly.
After you have learned, O student of the divine mysteries,
what this world in its meaning really is, it is important
that you should look at the world in detail. Every thing
in the world of matter which grows, has been included
under three classes, animal, vegetable and mineral, which
are called the three generations or kingdoms. Animals
were created some for riding, some for food, and some
for tilling. Vegetables were created to afford food and
conveniences to man, and sustenance to various animals.
Minerals, like gold, silver, copper and iron, were created
to serve as instruments to provide means of sustaining
life in man. It was designed that by means of these three
kingdoms, the spirit of man, while dwelling for a few
days in the body, should be employed in making preparation
for the future world. Man, however, forgetful of the end
for which he had come hither, heedless of the fact that
he was soon to depart, and that he would then repent to
find that he was going unprepared, became engaged in strife
with his fellows about the things of the world, fell in
love with its ways, and attempted to gain its wealth.
In consequence various qualities began to appear in the
heart, such as avarice, envy, ambition and hatred, which
are sources of its ruin. Finally the heart, forgetful
of the duties for the performance of which it had come
in to the world, exhausted all its energies in building
up the world.
As man's primary necessities in the world are three,
viz : clothing, food and shelter, so the arts of the world
are three, viz: weaving, planting and building. The rest
of the arts serve either for the purpose of perfecting
the others, or for repairing injuries. Thus the spinner
aids the work of weaving, the tailor carries out that
work to perfection, while the cloth-dresser adds beauty
to the work. In the arts, there is need of iron, skins
and wood, and for these many instruments are necessary.
No person is able to work at all kinds of trades, but
by the will of God, upon one is devolved one art and upon
another two, and the whole community is made dependent,
one member upon the other. When avarice, ambition and
covetousness hold sway in the hearts of men, because some
are not pleased to see others obtain honors, and because
they do not endeavor to quell their wants, envy and hatred
arise among them. Each one, dissatisfied with his own
rights, plots against the property and honor of his fellows.
On this account there was a necessity for three farther
distinctions, viz: sovereignty, judicial authority, and
jurisprudence, which contains the digest of the law. But
alas ! poor and wretched man coming under the influence
of all these causes, motives and instruments, spends his
life in collecting wealth and lays up for himself sources
of regret. And just as the pilgrim, who on his way to
the Kaaba of Mecca, was engaged day and night in taking
care of his camel, got separated from the caravan, and
perished in the desert, so those who know not the real
nature of the world and its worthlessness, and do not
understand that it is the place where seed is sown for
eternity, but spend all their thoughts upon it, are certainly
fascinated and deceived; as the apostle of God declares.
"The world is more enchanting than Harout and Marout:
let men beware of it."
After you have learned that the world is delusive, enchanting
and treacherous, you need to know in what way its delusions
and enchantment operate. I will, therefore, mention some
things which are illustrative of the world. The world,
beloved, is like an enchanter, who exhibits himself to
you as though he would dwell with you and would forever
be at your side; while in truth this world is always upon
the point of being snatched away from you, notwithstanding
you are tranquilly unconscious of it. The world is like
a shadow, which, while you look at it, seems fixed, although
in reality, it is in motion. Life is like a running water,
which is always advancing, yet yon think that it is still
and permanent, and you wish to fix your abode by it. The
world again is like an enchanter who performs for you
acts of friendship and manifests love for yon, for the
sake of winning your affections to him : but as soon as
he has secured your love, he turns away his face from
you and plots to destroy you….
The world resembles those imposters, who decorate themselves
externally and conceal the sorrows and curse they bring,
while the ignorant, looking only at the outside, are fascinated
and deluded. The world resembles the old woman who arrayed
herself in silk stuffs and flowered brocades, and with
ornaments, and covered her head with a beautiful embroidered
veil, so that those who should see her from a distance,
and notice only her garments and her form, might be deceived.
And whenever she has succeeded in inducing a person to
follow after her and to decide upon joining himself to
her, she takes off her robes from her back and her veil
from her head, and immediately her concealed ugliness
is brought to light, and the person who had been seeking
her, becomes subject to eternal regret and sorrow. We
have received it also by tradition, that the world will
be brought to the great assembly at the last day, in the
form of a woman with livid eyes, pendent lips, and deformed
shape, and all the people will look upon her, (we take
refuge in God,) and will exclaim, "what deformed and
horrible person is that, whose aspect alone is severe
torture to the soul?" And they will be answered. "It
was on her account that you were envying and hating one
another, and were ready to slay one another. It was on
her account that you rebelled against God, and debased
yourselves to every sort of corruption." And then God
will order her to be driven off to hell with her followers
and her lovers….
Know, that the world consists of a certain number of
stages between the world of spirits and the future world.
The first stage is the cradle, and the last is the grave,
and every period between these is also a stage. Each month
represents a league, each hour a mile, and each breath
a step. It is always flowing on like running water. Man
in his excessive heedlessness thinking himself to be permanently
established, engages in building up the world: and though
he has no assurance of a half-hour of time, he makes preparations
for dwelling here for many years, and never once brings
himself to make the necessary preparation for dislodging
and moving to another land.
Behold, another likeness of the world. Know, beloved,
that the pleasures of the world, and the pains and tribulations
which are the counterpart to these pleasures in the future
world, resemble the man who should eat very largely of
rich and delicate food and find great delight therein:
but on account of his excesses, he suffers from indigestion,
his stomach is irritated, vomiting and sickness ensue
and he has a great deal to endure before he can recover
his health. He repents of what he has been eating, and
in proportion as he ate extravagantly, and found enjoyment,
he now suffers corresponding pain and disappointment.
Now then, in proportion as any one in the world has indulged
in the pleasures of life and dissipation, so much the
greater will be his anguish and torment at the moment
of death. He who possesses gardens and fields, houses,
lands, and money, servants and horses, will be subject
to regret and affliction at death, in proportion to their
amount. This misery does not close with death, but on
the contrary afterwards increases. The Lord Jesus (upon
whom be peace !) declares that the world is like the man
who drinks sea-water. The more he drinks, the more his
internal heat increases. And unless he stops, he will
destroy himself by drinking.
Man in this world resembles the guest who was invited
to partake of the hospitality of a rich man. In token
of respect, the servants set before him silver washing-basins,
vessels of costly stones, perfumes of musk and amber with
chafing dishes. The poor guest is overjoyed at the sight
of these things, thinking that they have been made his
own property, and belays hold of them with the intention
of retaining them. The next day, when he is upon the point
of departure, they are all taken from him by force, and
the measure of his disappointment and regret is clear
to every person of discrimination. Seeing that this world
is itself a mansion built for travellers, by the road
over which they are to pass, that they may make a halt,
and lay in provisions preparatory to leaving it again,
he is a wise guest who does not lay bis hand upon other
things than his necessary provisions, lest on the morrow
when about to move on, they take them out of his hands,
and he expose himself to regret and sorrow.
The people of this world are also like the passengers
in a ship, who while sailing upon the sea, arrive at an
island. The sailors draw the ship to the shore, and then
call out and say, "whoever wishes for water or other
provisions, let him leave the ship and go and procure
them : let him not delay, for the ship will not remain
long. It is besides a dangerous place, and whoever remains
here will perish." After receiving this warning, the
passengers leave the ship, and are all scattered about,
one in this direction and another in that. The wise passengers,
remembering the admonition of the sailors, attended quickly
to their affairs, and immediately returned to the ship.
They selected the places in the ship that pleased them
best, and sat down calm and tranquil. Some of the passengers,
however, gazed at the trees, the flowers and the fruits
of the island, listened to and admired the notes of the
birds, and became absorbed in looking at the wonderful
curiosities found there. They delayed so long, that when
they came to the ship, they found every place in the ship
occupied, and no room for them to sit down. They finally
entered, and found a corner with great difficulty, where
they could just press themselves in. Others, not satisfied
with gazing around, loaded themselves with stones that
had the appearance of being precious, and after a time
returned to the ship. They found it completely full, and
absolutely no place to sit down. After they had entered,
they were compelled from necessity to stow themselves
in a dark place at the bottom. As for the stones which
they had thought were jewels, they lost their color, putrefied,
and sent forth such a disagreeable odor, as to affect
the passengers to nausea. It was impossible to expel the
odor and they remained to the last with its disagreeableness
in the midst of them. Others still took so much pleasure
in looking about the island, that they said to themselves,
"where shall we be able to find a more delightful retreat
than this ? It is not clear that the place where we are
going is better than this," And so they chose to remain
there; and after the departure of the ship some of them
perished with hunger and thirst, and some were devoured
by wild beasts. Not one of them was saved. In the future
world they will certainly suffer pain and retribution.
Do not suppose, beloved, that every thing in the world
is to be despised; for there are some things that are
estimable and valuable, which belong to the world: viz
: knowledge, worship, war in defence of the faith, and
abstinence : and also a sufficiency of food, drink and
clothing, marriage, domestic shelter and other things;
seeing that they are helps on the journey to the future
world and in the path of knowledge, they are all of them
exceedingly important and necessary. Delight in knowledge,
delight in worship, delight in prayer and delight in communion
with God are things of this world, but still they are
for the sake of the future world. It follows, therefore,
that the pleasures of the world are not all of them blamable,
but only those which entail punishment in the future world,
or which are not in the path to paradise, and so the apostle
declares, "The world is a curse and all that is in it
is a curse, except the remembrance of God and that which
is the object of his love."
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CHAPTER IV.
On Knowledgeof
theFuture World.
Know, beloved, that we cannot understand the future world,
until we know what death is: and we cannot know what death
is, until we know what life is: nor can we understand
what life is, until we know what the spirit is….
If you wish, O student of the mysteries of God, to learn
the essential facts about death, you must know that there
are in man two kinds of spirit, one of which is of the
nature of the spirit in animals and which we call animal
spirit, and the other is of the nature of the spirit of
angels, which we call human spirit. The fountain of the
animal spirit is in that heart which is in the left side
of the breast, and is a piece of flesh. It is a delicate
exhalation from the humors within the animal. Its constitution
is fixed in certain proportions, just as is that of oxymel,
which is composed of honey and vinegar that on being mixed,
while they lose their own flavor, acquire a new, delicate
and useful flavor, So also, by the blending of the various
elements of the body, a delicate exhalation is the result,
which finds its home in the heart. It gains other delicate
qualities from the heart, and from thence the blood channels,
which are the veins of pulsation, are supplied. The exhalation
passes by their means to the brain and from thence flows
to all the members. It is exceedingly hot, but in its
passage to the brain, it loses some of its heat and becomes
tepid. By the distribution of this spirit through the
body, the eye sees, the ear hears, the tongue tastes,
the nose smells, and the rest of the organs are endowed
with their proper movements and perform their appropriate
functions….
So long as the spirit works in equilibrium, it is capable
of delicate operations and effects; but so soon as excess
of heat or cold destroys the equilibrium, the exhaled
fluid is diminished, and it becomes incapable of movement
and sensation….
That cause which throws the constitution out of balance
and occasions the complete absence of the exhalation,
is called the Angel of death, who is also a creature of
God. Most persons merely know his name….
The second kind of spirit, which is called both human
spirit and heart, is not a body, and is not susceptible
of division. It is the seat of the knowledge of God. In
the same manner, God himself is one, is not susceptible
of separation into parts and the place of his knowledge
is one….
Even if the action of the larger part of the members
should he paralyzed, it is still possible that life should
continue in a man. Death occurs, when, after the ruin
of the constitution, the delicate exhalation on that very
account is no longer transmitted to the members, and they
are all paralyzed together and cease from movement. Although,
you still remain in being, you possess neither sensation
nor motion. You know, also, that in infancy the ingredients
of your body were drawn from pure blood. These underwent
a change and disappeared, and the ingredients derived
from food took their place. You know moreover that the
form which you had on your entrance into the world, and
your present form are not the same. It follows therefore
that there is no necessity of your perishing on account
of the perishing of the body. The body is earth and must
therefore return to its original earth. Your spirit, however,
is of an angelic nature, and you must therefore mingle
with your original spirit. If the influences of the world
operate with such power that you are separated from your
original spirit, it is fixed and sure that you will have
to endure the torment of separation and misery.
It should be kept in mind, that you possess two classes
of qualities or attributes. One class includes those which
result from the union existing between your body and your
spirit, viz: hunger, thirst, sleep, eating and drinking.
These qualities become useless at death. The other class
includes qualities belonging solely to your spirit, such
as the knowledge of God, and the love of God, and the
qualities which tend to secure these two, as gratitude,
submission and supplication. These are qualities of your
individual self, which do not pass away with death, but
on the contrary the fruits of them will be ever growing
and developing. The language of the blessed God in the
words, "the permanent things are the holy virtues,"
points to these qualities. That spirit is also enduring
and eternal, which is destitute of love and knowledge,
which indeed knows nothing and has no delight in or affection
for these things, but it will be blind and wretched :
as God declares in his word : "He who was blind in this
world will be blind in the future world, and in a most
fatal path of error."
The nature of death cannot be understood, unless we are
acquainted with these two kinds of spirit and with the
relations of dependence between them. Know, then, O seeker,
that the animal spirit belongs to the inferior world.
The elements of its four humors, blood, phlegm, bile and
black bile, are fire, air, water and earth. The animal
spirit is a product of a delicate exhalation from these
elements. The variations in the measure of a man's health
depend on the variations of heat, cold, dryness and moisture.
Hence it is the object of the science of medicine to preserve
these four elements in their due proportions, so that
they may serve as instruments to secure perfection to
the human spirit.
The human spirit belongs to the superior world and is
of an angelic substance. It has come into this world a
stranger, and has descended from its original state to
this temporary home, to receive its destiny from divine
direction, and for the purpose of acquiring the knowledge
of God. In accordance with this, God declares in his holy
word, "We said to them — leave paradise all of you
just as you are : a book destined for your guidance will
come to you from me: fear shall never befall those who
will follow it, and they shall not be afflicted."
And that which God says in another place, points to the
different degrees of worlds: "I create man of clay:
and when I shall have formed man of clay and shall have
breathed my spirit in him, prostrate yourselves before
him in adoration."
First of all in his saying "from clay" he points to
a material body. The phrase "I shall have formed"
indicates the animal spirit. The phrase "shall have
breathed my spirit in him," means that I have given
to the body of man a well balanced constitution with power
and motion. I have made it capable of receiving the law,
and to be a home for the knowledge of God.
In the same manner as the equilibrium of the inferior
spirit is to be preserved by the science of medicine,
the equilibrium of the human spirit is to be preserved
by virtue, self-denial and holy zeal, that it may not
be destitute of the love of God and perish.
It is plain, then, that a knowledge of the future world
cannot be acquired, until we have learned the true nature
of the two spirits. We cannot obtain, for example, a knowledge
of God, unless we previously possess a knowledge of the
soul. But as Islamism consists essentially in believing
and confessing the Lord God and the future world, it becomes
our duty to acquire a knowledge of the future world as
far as the thing is possible. There is, however, a mystery
regarding the future world, which the holy law has not
authorized to be explained or to be mentioned, because
it could not possibly be understood. Seeing then that
the knowledge of the future world cannot possibly be acquired,
until that mystery is revealed, strive that it may be
revealed in your own soul by pious endeavor, self-denial
and divine guidance. You cannot learn it by any possible
efforts from any other person by the hearing of the ear.
Many persons have heard this mystery, which represents
one of the attributes of God, but they did not acknowledge
it as true, and said that it was impossible, not because
it was in its nature exempt from being known, but because
it was an unemployed mystery. It is not named either in
the Koran or in the Traditions. God commanded the prophets
not to inform the people of the essence of his attributes,
saying "for they will not understand them, will accuse
you of falsehood, and will do injury to themselves."
If has been clearly shown to you, student of the mysteries,
that the human spirit in its essence and attributes is
to live forever, and that it is able to exist without
a frame, that the meaning of death is not the annihilation
of the spirit, but its separation from the body, and that
the resurrection and day of assembly do not mean a return
to a new existence after annihilation, but the bestowal
of a new form or frame to the spirit, which shall be under
its control in the second period, as the body was under
its control in the first period….
In saying that in the second period, the control of the
spirit is easy, it is said in respect to our contracted
understandings, and in comparison with our operations,
and to make the matter intelligible to others. When God
says in the powerful Koran, "It is easier," and "For
me it is easy," he uses the phraseology only for the
sake of being understood by man. On the contrary in the
first period, there was nothing difficult for God : it
would have been nothing to him to have created without
matter, in a moment, a thousand worlds like this which
we inhabit.
It follows from what has been said, that it is not a
necessary condition of the resurrection and restoration
that the spirit should possess exactly the original mould.
For that which we seek is not the vehicle of the spirit,
but the spirit itself. This mould undergoes change even
in this world. Thus, for example, the materials derived
from the condensation of the exhalations and the inspissation
of the blood in the stomach of the mother are changed
by food, and new flesh is produced. Many questions may
be asked of those who say that the identical mould must
return and rise in the resurrection, and that its absence
can in no wise be tolerated, and they will find much difficulty
in answering them. One may ask for example, if one man
eat another man, and the man eaten become a portion of
the man who ate him, will that portion rise with the eater
or with the man who was eaten ? …
They say, moreover, that man is created from seed, that
seed is derived from food, and that food is derived from
the milk, the fat or the flesh of an animal: now with
which of all these will the ingredient rise up ? Again,
suppose the hand of a thief has been cut off', and he
afterwards leads a life of good works and enters Paradise.
Must he enter Paradise, where nothing maimed or defective
can enter, without his hand, or will he enter with his
hand, notwithstanding his good works were not performed
when he possessed that hand ? The source of all these
perverse speculations is in the pretence of those who
say that in the day of assembly, the mould reäppears
and that the spirit follows in its train, that if it was
not for the mould there would he no semblance of man,
and that the permanency of the spirit results from its
connection with the body.
If, O seeker, you say that the well known language of
the wise in the law and in discourse is, that at death
a man becomes non-existent, and that he exists afterwards
in the resurrection with this identical body, and that
our language contradicts theirs, we reply. He who merely
follows in the track of the language used by others, will
never acquire a knowledge of the truth. However, the words
you have cited are not those, either of people of intelligence
or of imitators. For the intelligent and learned know
that the body is not annihilated at death, but that the
materials of which it is composed are separated, and that
it is this separation which they call death. The imitator
has likewise heard from the doctors of the law, that the
spirit lives eternally after death.
It is well known that spirits are divided into two classes,
in one of which all blessed spirits are embraced and in
the other all miserable spirits. With respect to the blessed
spirits God says, "Think not that those who have been
slain on the divine road are dead : they are alive near
their Lord and are sustained by him."
In regard to the miserable spirits, the apostle of God
came to the infidels who had been slain in the battle
of Bader,
and called upon each by name, and said, "O ! such a
one, son of such a one, I have found the victory and triumph
which my Lord promised. And you, have you found that latter
end and torment of which the Lord assured you, or have
you not found it ?" His honored companions having remarked
to him, "they are dead and how can they hear and how
can they speak ?", the glory of the world replied, "By
the truth of God who has commissioned me to be a true
prophet, they are better able to hear than yourselves
: there is only this difference, that they are not able
to answer." And the prophet of God declared that the
spirits of martyrs are in lanterns under the empyrean
: and according to another account that they are suspended
to the fruits of the trees of Paradise in the craws of
green birds. In brief, whoever will study carefully the
verses of the Koran, the Traditions and recollections
that have reached us respecting death, and will consider
the well substantiated accounts of the movements of the
dead in grave yards, he will know, in a manner that should
remove all doubt, that the dead clearly do not become
non-existent….
Hence it happens, that when a person becomes breathless
and is entranced, as sometimes happens in the first exercises
among the Soofees, he has a delightful vision of the state
after death, notwithstanding the animal spirit continues
in the enjoyment of health. Yet if, while in that state,
fear and terror should happen to predominate and deprive
him of feeling and motion, and if he become so far like
the dead that he perceives no external object, the same
things may be revealed to him which are revealed to others
after death. It is sometimes permitted, after he returns
from that state to the sensible world, that all he has
seen should remain in his memory, or that if he does not
remember it, traces of it should remain in his mind. If
he saw hell, he will retain traces of despondency, sadness,
heaviness of spirit, suspicion and melancholy. If in the
treasury of his imagination he has preserved these traces,
it is lawful for him to communicate them to others….
The torments of the grave, O seeker after the divine
mysteries, are of two kinds: one kind is spiritual and
the other is material torment, and they have been repeatedly
explained.
The spiritual torment cannot be understood, until a person
is acquainted with his own soul and spirit. His soul exists
in its own individuality: it is not dependent upon form
or mould : it has neither hand or foot, nor eye or ear.
The external senses which it possessed were dependent
on the body, and remain inactive and useless after death,
and all the enjoyments resulting from them become entirely
null. Wife, children, friends, property, slaves and domestics,
equipage, cattle, estates and fields were formerly sources
of enjoyment to it. And if he were a lover of, and a seeker
after these things, so that he had been always occupied
with them, the torment of separation from them will make
a deep impression upon his soul, and he will be most certainly
the subject of sorrow and lamentation. But if his heart
was untrammeled by these delights, and was inclined towards
the future world and was always awaiting death, if the
enjoyments of the world were distasteful to him, while
he was always occupied with the wants of the soul, which
are to find out God — then, in the event of death, he
will have attained his longing and his love, and have
reached rest, joy and happiness.
Call to mind now, that the spirit of a man is eternal:
it has not perished at death. Can you doubt then, that
that spirit which had chosen the glare and glitter of
the world for its beloved object, and had been absorbed
heart and soul in the occupations of the world — when
in a moment of time, all that which it had been gaining
day after day, which it had obtained with great perseverance
and industry, and which it had been coveting and striving
for during many years, is taken out of its hands by death,
can you doubt that it will be the prey of endless sorrow
and grief, of abundant mortification, regret and remorse
? This accords with what the apostle of God declares,
"Love what thou hast loved: but thou shalt be separated
from it." But when a man realizes that this world is
a stage of a journey, and that the purpose of his coming
hither is to attain the knowledge and love of God, and
when he is day and night occupied with this, forsaking
the world before death arrives, and perhaps even envying
and longing for death, there can be no doubt that in the
event of death, he is delivered from all paiu and sorrow,
and obtains rest and spiritual union.
From what has been said, it follows that the torments
of the grave are for the friends of this world and the
seekers of the world, and not for the devout and pious.
And here we find an explanation of what the prophet of
God said : that "the world is the prison of the believer
and the paradise of the infidel."
Since you have now learned, O student, that the torment
of the grave is occasioned by love of the world, know
also that there are different degrees of it. It is in
proportion to each person's affection and love for the
world, and will come upon some with great severity….
If, for example, a person possess a female slave to whom
he is exceedingly attached, and on account of his being
every day by her side, he is not conscious of his attachment,
and then if suddenly he should become offended with her
and sell her to another person, and should afterwards
become conscious of his concealed love, his heart would
hourly assail him and sting him like a serpent. The fire
of regret and rage would burn within him, so that he might
be not only sick from its effects, but might even die.
Now if it is possible that such results should follow
from the loss of a female slave, consider what must be
the degree of grief and affliction of a man who is suddenly
called upon to part with all his beloved objects in a
moment. Just as it might happen that the master of the
female slave should throw himself into the water to drown
himself, or cast himself into the fire to burn himself,
all on account of his separation from her, so those spirits
of men who are in their graves utter many wishes, exclaiming,
"Ah! would that these scorpions and serpents, like those
in the material world, would only sting us and destroy
us, that at least we might be delivered from this torment."
Pain in the world is an accident of the body, and passes
from the body to the spirit, and thus the spirit participates
in the torment. But in the future world, pain has its
home in the spirit itself, and hence it is excruciating.
Every one bears away from this world within himself the
essence of his torment, but men are not aware of it. God
says in his eternal word, "Ah ! if you knew by infallible
knowledge, you would see hell, you would see it with the
eyes of certainty,"
and again He says in another place in the glorious Koran,
"Truly hell encompasseth the infidels."
He does not say, it shall encompass, but rather
that it already surrounds them….
If you say, O student of the mysteries, that "the torments
of the grave are occasioned by the relations arising from
this present world, from which no one can be exempt, since
every one has either children, a house, horses or servants,
and that it results, without doubt, in causing a feeling
of dependence upon them: and hence, no person will be
able to escape the torments of the grave," we observe,
in reply, that what yon say is correct, but then there
are persons who have relations of dependence upon the
world, and who always desire death from the Lord God.
The prophets themselves did not puss away from the world
until they longed for death. You should know also, that
the rich who are attached to this world are of two classes.
One class includes those, who although they have a love
for the world, yet they love the blessed God more. Au
illustration of the character of men of this class, may
be found in the man who owns a house in each of two cities;
while living in one of them he has no longing to remove
to the other. But it happens that an office is conferred
upon him in that other city, and immediately he is overjoyed,
and is eager to go there, and makes every preparation
to remove thither and to forsake his first house. His
longing for an office, leads him to move, and takes away
all desire of remaining where he was previously. Now although
men of this class have an inclination to the world, yet
as on the other side the love of God preponderates, they
prefer to go to the future world, and would not indeed,
if it were possible to do otherwise, remain here a day.
When persons of this class die, whose affections preponderate
towards the other world, they do not experience the torments
of the grave.
The other class, beloved, includes those who are entirely
absorbed in the love of the world, and of pleasure. This
class cannot escape from the torments of the grave, as
the Lord in his everlasting word declares: "There are
none of you who will not be precipitated."
But some of this class occasionally have a leaning towards
eternal truth, especially if there is any trace of the
love of God remaining in their hearts, and when they are
about to leave the world, they forget it and never more
yearn towards it. In that case they also are saved from
the tribulations of the grave. A picture of this class
is found in the person who also'has a house in each of
two cities, and as long as he is living in the one, he
has no longings for the other. But at last some necessity
compels him to quit his first house, and to go and reside
in the second. After a few days residence, the love he
had for the first house dies away from his heart and it
appears better to him not to return thither. This class
suffer torment in the grave up to the point where they
forget the world, but after familiarizing themselves with
the mansions of the future world, they are freed from
their pain. Those, however, whose hearts were immersed
in the pleasures and cares of the world, and whose hearts
bore no trace of the love of God, or of thought fulness
for the future world, and who preferred this world to
the other, will never be delivered from torment.
There is not a person in the world who will admit that
he does not love God, or but that will pretend that he
does love God. But this pretention can be brought to a
touchstone and standard and found out by experiment. Just
look at his actions and conduct, and see whether he will
do a thing which has the holy approbation of God, or whether
he will abstain from doing a thing which has not the divine
approbation, notwithstanding the strong opposing inclinations
of his soul, and thus show his reverence for the Holy
Law. If he does thus oppose the desires of his soul, he
is correct when he affirms, "I love God." But if he
is following the inclinations of his soul, and is only
saying with his tongue that he loves God, his declaration
is a lie. When a person in this state of mind utters the
confession, "There is no God but God," a voice from
God addresses him saying, "You are a liar, for your
actions are opposed to your words." In this state of
mind there is no use in making the declaration, "I love
God." The prophet of God says however, that it is not
an idle act to utter the phrase "There is no God but
God" for the sake of preserving a man from the divine
vengeance, so long as the man is one who does not prefer
worldly works to the works of the future world….
Let those, then, who wish to be saved from the torments
of the grave, be earnest in cutting off the ties of the
world; and let them acquire a habit of being satisfied
with just that which is of actual necessity. Be satisfied
for example with that amount of food and drink which is
necessary to give strength for devotional exercises; be
satisfied with the amount of clothing necessary to protect
the body from cold and heat; and so in everything else.
If a man cannot purify his heart from attachment to the
world let him at least be assiduous in devotion and in
calling upon God, and show a preference for cultivating
an intimacy with the love of God. Let him look with fear
and dread upon trust in the world, and weaken and relax
the demands of sense by strict obedience to the law. If
notwithstanding he should prefer to yield to the animal
soul and to trust in this world, let him prepare himself
to experience the torment of the grave and the terrors
of the future world. And may the grace and mercy of God
which embrace all men, and his pardon and forgiveness
which extend to rich and poor, to great and small, reach
and save him !
The miterizl torments of the grave, O seeker after
the divine mysteries, are those which are addressed to
the body and through the body to the spirit. Spiritual
torments are those which reach the spirit only. The language
of God, "It is the fire of God, the lighted fire which
shall reach the hearts of the reprobates," refers to
spiritual torments which affect the heart. The spiritual
hell then is of three kinds. The first is the fire of
separation from the lusts of the world; the second is
the fire of shame, ignominy and reproach; and the third
is the fire of exclusion from the beauty of the one Lord.
These fires only burn the soul and do not touch the body.
There is in the world a cause or source of each kind
of torment. Then let us examine the cause of the fire
of separation from the lusts of the world. In explaining
previously the torments of the grave, we said that they
arose from love of the world. Love and desire constitute
the Paradise of the heart. So long as the heart is with
its beloved object, it is in paradise, and as soon as
the heart is separated from its beloved object, it is
in hell. The men of this world, by their supreme love
of the world, have made it to be their beloved object,
and as long as they are in the world it is a real paradise
to them; but as soon as death comes and separates them
from their beloved, their state is a real hell to them.
Believers, by loving God and the future world, have made
them their best beloved, and as long as they are separated
from them they are in hell. But as soon as this separation
is annihilated, and they leave this world and go to the
other, having attained their chief purpose and desire,
they are in paradise in reality.
Suppose a person, a prince, had been passing his life
in banqueting and pleasure, and every one around him had
been submissive and obedient to his orders. But an enemy
comes and deprives him of his principality, enslaves his
wife and servants, and they plunder him of his money and
property before his eyes. His pearls and jewels are wasted
upon trifles, and his beautiful studs of horses and his
retinue are dispersed. He becomes a subject in his own
city, is compelled to wear coarse clothing in the presence
of his former servants, and is appointed to guard and
feed the dogs. Can you in any wise appreciate the misfortune
into which the prince has fallen, and how deeply he must
be a prey to anguish ? Probably he exclaims many times
in a day, "Would rather that I had fallen into the abyss
of the earth and perished!" The severity of his torture
is in proportion to the amount of sensual enjoyments in
which he had participated while he was a prince. And it
is plain that this torture is not inflicted on the body,
but upon only the spirit, and that it is more excruciating
than any pains of the body would be.
So long as a man is attached to the things of this world
engrossed with the care of his body, and gives over his
nature to intercourse with sensual enjoyments, he will
not care for the warnings his spirit receives in this
world, nor for the torment that it will incur in the future
world. A sick man for example will not be so excessively
despondent about his malady in the day time, because his
senses are interested in other things, and aa his heart
follows in their train, he in some measure forgets his
malady. In the night, however, when his senses have nothing
to be employed about, his thoughts about his malady do
not leave his mind free for one moment, and his pain increases.
So also in death, the cares and thoughts of the world
and the external senses cease entirely to operate on account
of the torment of the spirit, and then the perfect torment
of the spirit becomes manifest.
The second kind of torment in hell, beloved, is the fire
of ignominy and shame. In illustration this, suppose that
a prince receives in to his friendship a poor'and humble
man, treating him with great honor and making'him the
favorite among all his confidential servants. He gives
into his hands the keys of all his treasuries/commits
his honor and wife and family to his care, and in short
confides all his affairs into his hands, in full reliance
upon him. Then, suppose that the poor man, after being
elevated to this high rank, should be puffed up with pride,
and should be disposed to betray the honor of the prince,—
that he should begin to indulge in unworthy conduct with
his wife and servants, and should open his coffers and
spend his property for his own pleasures. Suppose farther
that he should even be consulting with the prince's enemy
who has designs upon the principality, and should enter
in to a compact with him. Just at this point the prince
from a concealed retreat espies his conduct in his family,
and learns how he has wasted his money and his possessions,
and in short becomes acquainted with everything he has
done. The man also learns that for some time the prince
has been aware of his course of conduct, but that the
reason of his delaying and postponing punishment was that
he might see what other crimes he would commit, that he
might punish him accordingly. In these circumstances the
reflecting can easily appreciate what would be the confusion
and mortification of this individual. He would think it
a thousand times better to fall from a precipice and be
dashed to pieces, or that the earth should open and he
sink into the abyss, than that he should continue to live.
So also is it with you. How many actions you perform,
of which you say, "it is in private and no one sees
it," or of which Satan cloaks over the guilt from your
mind, by persuading you that it is all right and fair.
But at last, when death comes and makes your sin manifest,
then the fire of ignominy and shame makes you captive
to fierce torments and long continued misery….
Suppose you should throw a stone over against a wall,
and some one Should come and inform you that the stone
had hit your own house; and had put out the eye of your
son. When you rush to your house and find that it is even
so, can you conceive of the fire of repentance and anguish
you will have to meet? …
Nor can the overwhelming nature of the remorse or the
pain of the punishment be compared with the pain of putting
out your son's eye, because the former is eternal. The
pains and sorrows of the world are but for a few days
and then pass away, while thoughts upon the advantage
and profit in the future world of pains endured here,
will bring joy to those who reflect upon them. Your happiness
does not depend upon your son's eye nor upon your own
eye, but upon being accepted of God, and being honored
and enriched with a vision of the divine beauty and excellence.
Another illustration of the fire of shame and ignominy
is, to suppose that a prince is giving his son in marriage,
and that after many days spent in feasting and rejoicing
on the occasion the moment has come for the son to receive
his bride. The son, however, has secretly withdrawn with
some of his friends and become so intoxicated as to be
incapable of reasoning. But at last he concludes that
it is time for him to return, and that he will go secretly
and alone. He sets out, therefore, on his return home,
out of his mind and unconscious of what he is about. He
walks on until he reaches a door through which he sees
lights burning. He fancies that it is his own house, and
straightway he enters in. He looks around and observes
that there is not the least movement, not even a breath,
but that all have gone to sleep. At last in the middle
of the court he sees some one covered over with damask
silks and brocades, from whose body is exhaled the odor
of musk. He fancies and exclaims that this must be his
lawful bride, and he kneels down before her and kisses
her lips. He observes that his mouth is damp with moisture
that exudes from her lips, and that he is touching something
wet. The mouth of his beloved is wounded and bloody, and
he thinks that it is rose water, and continues to caress
her, till he is stupified with sleep. After a while he
awakes and comes into his right mind, and perceives that
he is in a sepulchral chapel of the fire-worshippers,
and that what he had embraced was nothing but the body
of an old woman ninety years old, who had died six months
previously. On that night they had anew changed the coverings,
burned incense and lighted the candles.
When the prince's son sees himself in this condition,
shame and mortification overwhelm him to such a degree,
that he is upon the point of destroying himself. But still
severer anguish lays hold of him, lest, when he should
leave the place in this filthy state, he should be seen
by some person. While he is asking himself what he should
do, his father who knew nothing as to the place where
his son had been, but who had left his palace with his
friends and his suite in search of his son, meets him
just at the moment he is coming out of that house in that
state. Imagine now the shame of the sou and what must
be his feelings. No doubt but that he would have given
his life to any one who could have offered him a refuge
and deliverance from his shame. You see that the torment
here is spiritual and not material; for there is not an
iota of pain here that affected the body.
In like manner the men of this world when they go to
their graves, will see that what they called pleasure
was flesh and corruption which they had unlawfully taken
into their mouths. They will see that that beloved object,
dressed in rich clothing, obtained by illicit means and
stained with pollution, is but the old hag the world,
with her disgusting face and horrid smell and putrefied
corruption, on account of whom so many drowned in illusions
have become victims to shame and remorse. Still more bitter
torment will that be, beloved, which will be the lot of
man, when in the day of resurrection and assembly all
these crimes and sins shall be laid open before all the
angels and prophets. Our refuge is in God!
Think not that the shame and remorse of the future world
is only of the kind that we have been describing. For
we have before said that nothing belonging to the future
world can be understood in the present world, or be rightly
conceived of by our minds. The doctors of the law however
(upon whom may God show mercy!), for the sake of warning
and admonition in the world, and so far as the mind can
appreciate it, have spoken in parables and illustrations,
and they have in various ways compared the ignominy and
remorse of the future world to the shame and misery existing
in the present world, notwithstanding the misery in this
world is but for a moment or a few days, while the other
is everlasting.
We come now, beloved, to the third fire, the fire of
separation from the divine beauty, and of despair of attaining
everlasting felicity. The cause of this fire, is that
conduct and stupidity which led the individual, while
in the world, not to acquire a knowledge of God, to neglect
purifying the mirror of his heart from the consuming cares
ot the world and from the rust of sensual pleasures, and
to omit those austerities and exertions by which his blamable
inclinations and dispositions might be changed to laudable
ones. The individual did not act in accordance with the
tradition which says, "Acquire a character resembling
the character of God," and by means of which he might
have been worthy of the vision of the beauty of the Lord,
and of being received at the king's court. The heart which
is full of the love of the world, and of the rust of worldly
cares and transgressions, will see nothing in the future
world, must be shut out from all kinds of felicity and
will rise blind at the resurrection. Our refuge is in
God !
An illustration of this fire of reprobation and banishment
may be found in this world, by supposing that a company
travelling by night should come into a valley that was
very stony, and as they went on their way, they should
hear a voice calling out, "Take good heed and carry
away with you an abundance of these stones; you will have
occasion to use them at some future time." Some of those
who heard the voice, exercised prudence, and carried off
as many stones as they could; others for the sake of saving
themselves trouble, carried off only a few. Others still,
did not carry away any, saying, "it is folly to take
pains and trouble for the sake of an advantage that is
future and prospective : indeed it is not clear that there
will be any advantage at all." Besides, they treated
as stupid and foolish those who did carry any away, and
said, "look at those insane people, who, from pure cupidity
and craving for what is impossible, load themselves down
like asses, and give themselves useless pains. We are
the comfortable ones, who go on our way free, joyful and
without concern for the future." When the light of day
dawned, they saw that all the stones were invaluable rubies
and sapphires, each one of which was worth at least three
thousand drachms of silver. Then those who had brought
away stones, exclaimed, "alas! that we were not able
to bring away any more." But those who had brought away
nothing and had traveled with comfort and ease, were overwhelmed
with the fire of reprobation; they strike their heads
upon the ground with the energy of remorse, and are filled
with sighs and lamentations. Those who had brought away
stones, arrived at the city whither they had been going,
and bought estates and slaves, jewels and rich and pleasant
eatables and all kinds of raiment, and gave themselves
up to banqueting and enjoyment, while those who had not
brought away any stones, became so hungry, destitute and
naked, that they went about desiring to perform for them
some kind of service. But when they begged of them either
food or drink, they said, in accordance with what God
says in his ancient word. "The dwellers in fire shall
call out to the inhabitants of Paradise, ‘pour out upon
us a little of your water and of the enjoyments God has
bestowed upon you.’" They will answer, "God has
forbidden the unbelievers either."
"No, we shall give you nothing, for God has prohibited
you from having anything. Yesterday you were laughing
at us, to-day we laugh at you: as God declares in his
eternal word, ‘If you mock at us, we will in our turn
mock at you, as ye have mocked at us.’"
This illustration of the enjoyments of Paradise has been
made in very brief and comprehensive language, to serve
as an example, but it is impossible by any similitude
to give an idea of what it is to be separated from the
contemplation of the beauty of the Lord. For whoever has
but once experienced the delight of being near to God,
and has enjoyed the vision of the beauty of the Lord,
would perish if he should be for one moment separated
from it. Even the last and least person who quits hell
will receive a mansion from the Lord God which is equal
to ten of these worlds. But we do not mean to say ten
worlds in surface or in amount by number and weight, but
ten worlds in value and in the beauty they display arid
the pleasure they afford.
Having now become acquainted with the three kinds of
spiritual torment, know, O student of the divine mysteries,
that these spiritual fires of which we have been speaking,
are more severe than the fires which burn the body. The
body does not itself perceive pain, and until pain reaches
from the body to the spirit, it does not make a trace
or impression. If, then, the anguish that is occasioned
to the spirit through the channel of the body is so agonizing,
imagine how intense must burn the fire of that anguish
which has its origin in the centre of the soul. The pain
which any thing suffers is occasioned by the excess of
something contrary to the nature and necessities of its
constitution.
The necessities of the constitution of the spirit are
to know God and to contemplate his beauty and excellence.
But if stupidity and blindness, which are opposed to this
tendency of the spirit, become predominant, the soul will
be vexed and tormented, and there will be no end to the
torment. If it were not that the body is subject to maladies
in the world, the fact of this blindness and stupidity
would have been visible and apparent to the soul in this
world also, and it would also have been the source of
immense anguish, and torment would at no moment have ceased
to afflict men. Just as when a person has a severe sore
upon the hand or foot, if besides it should be cut with
a knife or fire should be put upon it, he would not feel
the pain of the knife or the fire, on account of the pain
of the sore, so likewise the maladies of the body, such
as hunger and thirst, or such maladies as love of possessions
and family, combined with the absorbed attention of the
senses to these things, prevent the soul from being conscious
of its disquiet and distress. But when in death, the torment
to which the body was subject is taken away, it will be
seen how excruciating is the torment of the soul. And
thus also God announces in his holy word : "Ah ! if
you knew it with infallible assurance. But you will see
hell: you will see it with the eyes of certainty."
You should know, O inquirer, that the many arguments
we have adduced to prove that spiritual torment is more
severe than material torment, and the many illustrations
of it that we have developed, are understood by intelligent
and discerning minds, but the mass of the people understand
nothing about them. Suppose, for example, that the sou
of a prince has begun to go to school, and he is admonished
that if he do not study, his father will not give him
the principality. The boy does not understand the import
of the warning, and continues busy in playing with tops
and nuts. But, if he is told instead, if you do not learn
to read and write, your master will whip you or pull your
ears, from that moment, understanding the force of the
admonition, he leaves his sport and play, and is diligent
in his studies. Since, therefore, the commonalty cannot
understand the torment of being forbidden and shut out
from the vision of the beauty of God, the doctors of the
law and the preachers, frighten them with serpents and
scorpions, and with the fire of hell; for they are not
capable of understanding anything else. In the other case,
how should the "look out! take care !" from the mouth
of the master, with the pain of one or two boxes on the
ear, have any relation or resemblance in the mind of the
boy with the loss of the principality? …
The heavenly pilgrim must forsake his own city, and not
fix himself for permanence in the place where he happens
to be. And by the word city, worldly cares and
employments are designated. He must quit them, and find
his home in the path of obedience, and forsake the land
of tribulation: for the prophet has said, "Love of country
is an article of religion."
This road has four stages: the things of sense belong
to the first stage; the things of fancy belong to the
second stage; the things of speculation to the third,
and those of reason to the fourth stage….
The view which man obtains of things in the visible world
is through matter, as in the contemplation of a prospect
on land. But in the fourth stage, which is that of the
reason, man's view is entirely through the medium of pure
spirit, as when a man looks into water. But the view he
takes, and the intercourse he enjoys in the world of speculation,
is as if he was looking at an object from a ship. There
is, besides, in the sphere of reason a still higher degree
of sight and vision, which is enjoyed by the prophets,
the saints, and the most devout, which may be compared
to a prospect in the clearest weather. Hence, when some
one observed to the apostle of God, that Jesus (upon whom
be peace !) walked upon the waters, he replied, that "if
his faith had been greater, he would have walked in the
air."
The view that can be taken by the heart of man, embraces
all things that lie in the world of perception and understanding.
Its sphere of action and exercise is the whole world.
The ascent of man from the rank of beasts to that of angels,
is an ascent where he is always exposed to danger and
to destruction. He may, with the guidance of the divine
guide, mount up to the highest heaven, or may descend
through the deceits of Satan to the lowest hell. And the
prophet has warned us of this danger in these words: "We
have proposed to the heavens, to the earth and to the
mountains to accept the deposit of the faith: they trembled
to receive it. Man accepted the charge, but he became
stupid and a wanderer in darkness."
Know, farther, that inanimate objects are the lowest
in rank in the quantity and degree of happiness they obtain,
and it is a happiness which knows no change. The place
of beasts is in the lowest abyss and there is no path
by which they can ascend out of it. The mansion of the
angels is in the highest heavens where they ever continue
in the same condition, there is neither abasement or ascent
from their place. And God also says in his eternal word,
"And what have we except for each one a certain and
appointed habitation."
The position of man is between the rank of angels, and
that of animals, because he partakes of the qualities
of both. No other rank except man accepted the deposit
of the true faith, and indeed no other had the qualities
and capacities necessary for the acceptance of it. In
accepting the deposit man became bound at the same time
to accept the dangers and penalties connected with it.
The doctors of the law have not commented upon these
topics to the people in general. But this is not to be
wondered at, when we consider that the mass of the people
regard themselves as fixed in their character and position,
and not as pilgrims and travellers to a higher state.
There is no possibility of unveiling the things of truth,
to those who settle down without desiring to make any
progress, and who are contented with the first stages
and degrees of the sensible world and of the world of
fancy. They can neither attain to a spiritual state, nor
understand spiritual laws and precepts. We have ventured,
however, to unveil a little of the mysteries, as a type
of the knowledge belonging to the future state, so that
men might be prepared to understand the questions and
affairs relating to that state. But if we had entered
into any farther developments, they would not have been
able to understand us, for none but those who are endowed
with penetration and experience can by any possibility
understand the topics to which we have alluded.
There is a class of foolish people, O inquirer after
the divine mysteries, who have neither capacity for knowledge,
or sound judgment to be able to understand anything of
themselves, and who have remained doubting and speculating
about the nature of the future state, till they have become
bewildered. Finally, as the lusts of the world harmonized
with their natures, they have yielded to the whisperings
of Satan, and deny that there is any future state. They
pretend that the only need there is of speaking of heaven
and hell, is for the sake of correcting and guiding the
conduct of the people, and they regard as folly the course
of those who follow the law and are constant in their
devotions.
If these foolish persons have one jot of sense, it will
be easy to convince them with a single word. One hundred
and twenty-four thousand prophets more or less, the whole
multitude of the saints and all the learned doctors of
the law have faithfully followed the Holy Law, have been
diligent in their devotions, and with prudent anxiety
and dread about the future state, they have endured much
pain and suffering. And how does it happen that you, who
are so ignorant and stupid, have found out that they were
mistaken and in error ? What should lead you to prefer
your baseless and corrupt fancies to their knowledge and
science, and to say that the spirit has no real existence
and that it does not continue to live after death ? Perhaps
you do not even admit that there is any material
punishment. Truly the health of your moral being is so
corrupted and depraved, that there is no cure for you;
you belong to that class of whom God says in his holy
word : "Even when thou shalt call them into the right
path, they will never follow in it."
If one of these men should, however, reply: "Indeed
I do not" know for a certainty, but why should I on
account of an uncertainty, pass my precious life in devotional
austerities, and forbid myself the delights and pleasures
of the world ?" We observe in return. According to your
principles, the probabilities are balanced as to whether
the events spoken of as belonging to the future world
will or will not happen. It follows then as a most rational
conclusion, that you ought to act in the same way you
would do, if you wished to preserve yourself from a great
risk and danger. For, if these events should take place,
you may thereby be saved from intense torment and obtain
eternal felicity; whereas, if they should not occur, you
will have suffered no injury from your precautions. We
have, besides, the inspired word which declares that all
these things will take place; and all the prophets (upon
whom be peace!) and all the saints and teachers of religion
(upon whom may God have mercy !) have testified to the
truth of them.
Do you not see that if you were desirous to partake of
food and were just stretching forth your hand to take
it, and some one should say, "Beware, and do not eat
of that food, for it is deadly poison," or "a serpent
has vomited upon it," that although there was a doubt
in your mind whether what he said was true or false, still
you would believe him and refrain from eating the food
? You would say to yourself: "If I do not eat it, I
have nothing to suffer but to remain hungry for a while
longer, but if I eat it, I may kill myself. It is prudent,
therefore, for me to refrain from it."
Again, if you were sick, and a person who writes magical
phrases and charms, should say to you, "give me a drachm
of silver, and I will write for you a well tried charm
by means of which you will immediately get well," although
you know that there is no relation of fitness between
an external charm, and an internal disorder of the stomach
for instance, and that there is little probability of
your recovering by its means, you are still disposed to
take it. And you say, "Come, let me have it, if it act
as a medicine, I shall be a gainer by so many drachms
of silver, and if it do me no good, I shall only have
lost a single drachm. I ought therefore to try it."
Once more, if an astrologer should say to you, "if
you will drink this bitter and disagreeable medicine,
you will not, be attacked with illness during the whole
of this coming year, for the moon is in such a station
among the heavenly bodies," notwithstanding the lie
of the astrologer should be very clear to your mind, and
you have no confidence in what he says, you would reply,
"well, let me drink it and see; if it do me no good,
it will do me no harm." And with the fancied hope of
advantage from it, you swallow down the bitter and unpalatable
potion as if it were sugar.
Now come and be candid with yourself; you give credit
to a false physician, to a false writer of charms and
to a false astrologer, for the sake of being delivered
from a day or two of illness in this world, and you even
undergo suffering for the sake of it. But the learned
in religion, for the sake of saving you from the malady
of stupidity and rebellion and bringing you to everlasting
health and felicity, have exerted themselves to make the
verses of the Koran and the holy traditions to serve as
a medicine to deliver you from bitter torment. Still you
attach no credit to their words. You treat the Koran and
the traditions with entire disregard, neither clinging
to the commandments of God, nor avoiding forbidden things.
You follow the bent of your own inclinations, instead
of following the example and law of the prophet of God,
and you indulge in many acts of transgression. Nor do
you call to mind what will be your condition in the end
of it all, nor how long a time you have yet to live in
the world, nor what eternity is compared with this world.
Do you not know that by choosing a very little pain in
the business of religion during this short life and in
this worthless world, you may gain eternal felicity, and
riches that cannot be taken from you ? The pain which
we may suffer in this world, however severe, yet does
not weigh the amount of an atom in comparison with the
pains and torment of the other world. This world is a
fading shadow, but the future world is abiding and eternal.
The following is an illustration of the duration of eternity,
so far as the human mind can comprehend it. If the space
from between the empyreal heaven to the regions below
the earth, embracing the whole universe, should be filled
up with grains of mustard seed, and if a crow should make
use of them as food and come but once in a thousand years
and take but a single grain away, so that with the lapse
of time there should not remain a single grain, still
at the end of that time not the amount of a grain of mustard
seed would have been diminished from the duration of eternity.
Beware, therefore, beloved of exposing yourself to eternal
torments; call to mind the great risk and danger you are
to encounter in the future world : address to your soul
serious admonitions, before you come to be ashamed and
fall into captivity and chastisement: ask your soul, saying,
"O rebellious soul, how much misery thou dost undergo
for the sake of gaining the world ! What long and distant
journeys thou dost undertake, how often dost thou remain
hungry and thirsty, notwithstanding thou are both transitory
thyself and all thou dost gain is transitory; and yet
all this time God himself has engaged to supply all your
needs. But on the other hand what hast thou done to secure
eternal salvation in the mansions of the future world,
to be delivered from misery and reach unchanging felicity
? If thou art not able to endure the least pain or toil
for religion in this world, how wilt thou be able to bear
it the future world both material and spiritual torments,
together with the torments of the imagination ?"
Every man ought to take as the subject of his thoughts,
the things which concern the future state,— the pains
of its torments, the joys of its felicity, the delight
and ecstasy of the vision of the beauty of the Lord, and
finally the fact that these states are eternal. Now, is
it not strange folly and sottishness to be proud of the
transitory pleasures of the world in a life which lasts
but for one or two days, and to turn our backs upon future
eternal joys ? If you are wise you will acknowledge the
frailly and errors of your soul, and with an understanding
of the purpose for which it was created, you will meditate
upon your soul, and upon the almighty power and greatness
of God as far as the human mind can comprehend them. Recognizing
that God's design in creating you was, that you should
know him and love him, you should never cease for one
moment to walk with humility and prayer in the path of
obedience. Regard this world as the place to sow seed
for eternity, and after taking such a portion from this
world as may give you strength to take the journey to
the other world, turn away from whatever is more than
this. Realize that the future world is the place for enjoyment
and happiness which is eternal, and the land to behold
the excellence and beauty of the Lord; and make it your
purpose, divine and omniscient grace assisting you, never
to cease from the pursuit of them, but to secure as your
prey, the phoenix of felicity and happiness.
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CHAPTER V.
OntheLoveofGod.
O traveller on the way and seeker after the love of God!
know that the love of God is a sure and perfect method
for the believer to attain the object of his desires.
It is a highly exalted station of rest, during the journey
of the celestial traveller. It is the consummation of
the desires and longings of those who seek divine truth.
It is the foundation of the vision of the beauty of the
Lord.
The love of God is of the most binding obligation upon
every one. It is indeed the spirit of the body, and the
light of the eye. The prophet of God declares that the
faith of the believer is not complete, unless he love
God and his prophet more than all the world besides. The
prophet was once asked, what is faith ? He replied, "It
is to love God and his prophet more than wife, children
and property." And the prophet was continually in the
habit of praying, "O my God! I ask for thy love, I ask
that I may love whomsoever loves thee, and that I may
perform whatsoever thy love makes incumbent upon me."
On the resurrection day all sects will be addressed by
the name of the prophet whom each followed, "O people
of Moses! O people of Jesus ! O people of Mohammed!"
even to all the beloved servants of God, and it will be
proclaimed to them, "O Friends and beloved of God, come
to the blessed union and society of God! Come to Paradise
and partake of the grace of your beloved !" When they
hear this proclamation, their hearts will leap out of
their places, and they will almost lose their reason.
Yahya ben Moa'z says, "It is better to have as much
love of God, even if only as much as a grain of mustard
seed, than seventy years of devotion and obedience without
love." Hassan of Basra says, "Whoever knows God, will
certainly love him, and whoever knows the world, will
shun it."
O thou who seekest the love of God! know that this Jove
is founded upon two things : one is Beauty, and the other
is Beneficence. Beauty acts as a cause to produce love,
because the being, the attributes and the works of God
possess beauty, and every one loves that which is beautiful.
There is a tradition which says "Verily, God is beautiful
and he loves beauty." And the prophet says, "Desire
to transact your affairs with those who have beautiful
countenances." It is on this account that the spirit
in man has been created in accordance with the image of
beauty, so that whenever it either hears or sees anything
beautiful, it may have a propensity towards it, and seek
for communion with it.
But you should also know, that beauty is of two kinds,
one of which is beauty of form, and the other beauty of
moral character. And know, O beloved, that the reason
why man must love beauty of form in his own species, and
has an inclination to admire external beauty, is that
God created the spirits of men out of a drop of his own
light, as he says. "when I have breathed my spirit into
him."
And as the spirit has thus been created out of the light
of the Lord God, it is so essentially beautiful, that
if man were capable of seeing the degree of its beauty,
he would become bereft of reason and perhaps would perish
from the effects of the impression.
This also should be known, that beauty of form belongs
to the spirit, and not to the body. It is a proof that
there is nothing agreeable in the body by itself, that
when the spirit is separated from the body by death, no
one has any inclination afterwards to look upon the face
of the dead, but on the contrary his feelings repel him
and he turns away from it. And however near a friend or
relative the person may be, we have no disposition to
approach his side again. The body of man is created of
opaque earth, and the spirit by entering into the body
is entirely veiled, so that it can neither be seen or
known.
It is clear then that the beauty of form possessed by
man and the beauty of many other things arise from their
being created from the light of the Lord. Consider then,
as far as human reason can reach, if such beauty and elegance
exist in spirits formed out of one drop of the light of
the blessed God, what must be the beauty and splendor
of the Lord God himself. Since then the beauty of every
beloved object is derived from his light, and that the
beauty of every thing that is beautiful is from him, it
follows that he who is wise, ought not to permit himself
to be deceived by the soul which passes away, and to be
attracted to that beauty which is fleeting, but that he
should turn to the contemplation of that painter who is
full of all perfection, and of that maker with whom is
no change, and earnestly seek after the vision of his
beauty with his whole heart. Let him continue day and
night with burning and consuming desire in humble prayer,
longing after his beauty and after union with him.
- I have made a home for thy love in my heart,
- While affection for something else hovers around the
home.
- But it is folly to contract friendship, with aught
else than thy beauty.
- For there is none to be loved but the eternal Friend
- He who has made thee to be his happiness and refuge,
- Has already joined himself to the perfect excellence.
O ! seeker of divine love, that which renders man favorably
inclined to persons of virtuous character, is the fact
that God has created man after his own character; as it
has come to us in the tradition that, "verily God created
man after his own image." Hence whenever man sees or
hears of a quality belonging to his own race and kind,
as justice, generosity, forgiveness or patience, he will
certainly have a sympathy with that quality and exercise
love to its possessor. If we hear for instance that in
a certain country there is a just sovereign or a just
vizier, we heartily love that king or vizier, and we are
always praising his excellence and worth, although there
is not the least probability of any advantage accruing
to us from his justice. Such a sovereign was Nushirvan,
who notwithstanding he was an infidel yet as he was just,
the heart of every man is drawn towards him. If again
we hear of the knowledge, science, clemency or munificence
of any persons, as of the Imam Abu Hanifé, of the Imam
Shaféi, of Bayézid of Bistan, or of Junëid of Bagdad,
the spirit of a man will be attracted towards them on
account of those qualities, he will love them, and he
will certainly desire to see them and to be with them.
If we hear of a generous man, although he may be in a
foreign country, and we have no hope of any advantage
from him or of any token of his generosity to ourselves,
yet still from necessity we will love him, and whenever
his name is mentioned we will invoke blessings upon him
and praise him. It is thus with Hatem Tai whose name,
though he was an infidel, is upon every tongue, because
he was a generous and benevolent man, and all hearts are
irresistibly led to love him….
We see then that the love we bear to persons endowed
with the virtuous qualities of man, is not bestowed by
us for the sake of any fancied advantage from them or
any hope of gain, but that on the contrary it is because
the spirits of men are created in correspondence with
the character of God, and when we see a trace or mark
of a quality or affection of a kind like our own, we cannot
help being attracted towards it, and must necessarily
love it.
In this view of the subject, O seeker of the truth, and
friend who longs for the bright vision, when you consider
what an impulse we have to admire and to love man who
is encompassed with so many defects, and whose qualities
are subject to decay, — be candid and reflect, that
all the attributes of God are perfect, that all his titles
are glorious, and that all his works are made in infinite
wisdom, and how then can there be a man of such animal
affections and propensities as not to love him with all
his heart and soul! And how can a person having the appearance
of a man, be such a stone, as not to be willing to make
a sacrifice of his head and even of his soul, impelled
by his absorbing affection for Him ?
- Separation from thee, would quickly destroy me,
- Separation from one's friends is fatal.
- If thou shouldst separate from me still would I
- Be occupied with thee, ever active Friend,
- Who art the object of my desires and my researches;
- For thou wilt not turn away from him who loves thee.
You should know also that in the world of spirits, God
had ennobled man with beauty and its qualities, and had
made him sufficiently acquainted with Himself and His
attributes; and the spirits continued for a long time
participating in enjoyment in the land of affection, intoxicated
and in eestacy with the cup of love and the wine of celestial
union. Afterwards in accordance with divine wisdom and
by soverign decree, they fell from that exalted world
to this lower world,—from the world of union to the
world of separation. In this world of trial, having entered
into bodies and become entangled with the things of sense
and with worldly occupations, and shut out from the spiritual
world, they forgot its intimate friendships and the joys
of its society. Being so far distant from that world,
the being and character of God became completely veiled
from the view of some, and the love and union which had
existed in their hearts from aril eternity disappeared.
None the less however, it is still the case, that when
man sees beauty and perfection, the spirit cannot help
admiring it. But as the intimacy and friendship which
had formerly existed have been clouded over, and the animal
impulses, passions and lusts have become predominant,
they imagine that the love of pleasure belongs to the
delights of religion, and regard it as a necessity of
the soul.
The spirits of some men, however, in becoming attached
to a body, retained the divine guidance, and the spiritual
world in consequence was not concealed from their view,
nor did they forget its friendly society or the attributes
and qualities of its holy spirits. And as the glory of
the infinite being and his attributes was not veiled from
their eyes, their desire for the blessed union and longing
for the vision of beauty increased daily. In accordance
with this, it is related by Soheil Testeri (may God's
mercy be upon him !) that "from the moment that the
blessed God in the world of spirits and the assembly of
holy union asked the spirits "Am I not your Lord?"
and they called out in an answer "yes!" that loving
answer has never waned or decayed within my soul. When
I was only three years old, I used to spend all night
in the worship of the Lord God, without giving any slumber
to my eyes."
O thou who longest after the love of God ! the second
cause of love in man which we have mentioned, viz : beneficence,
operates through the state of poverty and need in which
man has been created. Both in the affairs of the world
and in the concerns of religion, man is in want of an
infinite variety of things, as God says in his word, "Verily,
God is rich, but ye are poor.".
Hence a man always loves and honors whatever person enables
him to obtain any object of which he stands in need, or
who makes it probable that he will obtain it. This will
be the case especially, if the same individual has at
various times supplied his necessities. He will then be
enslaved to him, heart and soul, and whenever his name
is mentioned will chant his praise and invoke blessings
upon him. The proverb says, "man is a slave to beneficence."
In matters of religion, man has need of helpers of two
kinds. The first class are the great expounders of doctrine,
who instruct him in religious precepts, and preserve him
from the darkness of ignorance and the dangers of doubt.
They also make him acquainted with the restrictions of
the law, and the regulations and ceremonies of worship.
They explain to him what conduct corresponds with rectitude,
and what is improper,—what is lawful and what unlawful.
The second class of helpers to man are the venerable preachers.
It is their province to throw light upon the nature of
the way of life, and upon the true condition in which
man is placed. They point out the means and methods by
which the slave of desire may secure a change of his vicious
inclinations, and by which the disordered soul may obtain
a pure and virtuous character. They set forth the transitory
nature of the world and the shame and sin of being attached
to it. They endeavor to persuade men that the design of
their entrance into the world is that they may love and
know God; and they strive to turn them away from following
the world, by giving them ideas of the joys and rest of
the other world, and of the delight and preciousness of
the vision of the beauty of the Lord, that so they may
live as pilgrims to eternity. The whole reason why the
apprentice loves his master, and every disciple loves
his teacher, and why the wise and excellent love the experienced
Sheikh whose lessons they hear, or love the doctors of
the law and the saints of olden time is that they have
been beneficent, and have supplied their wants.
In matters pertaining to the world, beloved, the necessities
of man are of such kinds that there is no occasion for
our entering into any details. Do you not realize for
instance, through how many hands the food you put into
your mouth passes, before it is brought to you, and how
many persons have been employed in the service of preparing
it for you ? And man has, in short, the same kind of need
of helpers in his clothing, home, and in all the arts
and trades, as has before been mentioned. He needs, also,
the winds and rain, the sun and moon, the earth and sky,
as we find in the verses of Sheikh Saadi:
- The clouds, wind, moon, sun and stars are working
ever:
- Therefore if a loaf of bread comes into your hands,
eat it not without gratitude.
And after we have eaten our food, how many agents we
need to digest it, and to convert it into fat, milk and
blood. We have before remarked upon the number of servants
there are within your body, of which you have no knowledge.
And now, student of the celestial way, and seeker after
the love of God, come and consider a little with the eye
of reverence and the mind of thoughtfulness. If a person
should give you a drachm of silver, or a suit of clothes,
or serve you for a single day and conclude some business
which concerned you, you would love him as long as you
lived, and you would always speak well of him wherever
his name was mentioned, although the service he had performed
for you, and his act of beneficence was only effected
through the will of God and by his power. Be sincere now
and say, why should you not love and sacrifice every thing
for the sake of God, who created the heavens and the earth,
who has taken care of all your affairs long before you
desired it of him, who has provided for all your necessities
before you had any notion of them, who gives you so many
thousand mercies at every breath, who has not ceased to
sustain you, even when you were disobedient to his commandments
and rebellious, and who has covered your shame, for the
sake of the Friend of God ? Ought you not to praise him
with your tongue, and love him with your heart ? Is it
right, overwhelmed as you are with his unfailing mercies
and infinite bounties, that you should regard these mercies
as coming from other source than God, and that you should
thank some other one than Him for these services and favors,
and that you should love some other one instead of him
?
- It is in vain that the eyes watch for any other love
than thee.
- It is a loss for the eyes to weep for any other friend.
- Thou art the true friend! If thou deign to look upon
me,
- It will be well with we, as if my eyes had never wept.
- What shall I do with that life which is not passed
in remembrance of thee ?
- What shall I do with the eye that is not sad with
longing after thee ?
- What shall I do with the heart that is not the home
of thy love ?
- What shall I do with the soul that does not, make
itself a sacrifice in thy Way ?
O inquirer after the love of God ! The love of God exists
in every heart, though it lies concealed, just as fire
exists in the flint stone, until it is drawn out. If you
take the steel of desire and affection into your hands,
and with it strike the heart, you obtain fire by the means,
and your soul will be filled with light. The malice, deceitfulness,
hatred, vileness, envy and strife that are in the heart
will be burned up, and it will be freed and purified from
sensual perturbations. But if you are careless and do
nothing and pass several days without seeking, the heart
will again become like fire covered over with ashes, which
by remaining a long time unused, will finally be extinguished.
So at last the heart, becomes encased with sensual impurities
and with the blackness of the passions, and is no longer
capable of being enlightened with the light of truth.
Our refuge is in God !
O, faithful friend, who art worthy to be loved ! know,
that the love of God is a standard that leads to victory.
Whoever seeks refuge under it, will be a sovereign in
two worlds, and lord of a throne at the king's court.
This love is a universal solvent to secure happiness.
Whoever secures it, is richer than in the possession of
both worlds. God is always rich, notwithstanding all the
world is provided for through him. The heart which bears
no traces of the love of God, is like a dead corpse, which
knows nothing of its own spirit. Still there is no person
among reasonable beings who will say that he does not
love God, or who will not make pretensions to possessing
a love for him. But it is like an empty claim, upon which
no decision can be based and, unless the witness is a
faithful one, no conclusion can be formed. If you should
be asked, do you love God, beware and give no answer.
For if you say I do not love him, (our refuge is in God),
you would make yourself an infidel. And if you say in
answer, "I love him," yet you have no signs or tokens
of your loving Him.
Now know that there are seven signs of love to God.
In whomsoever these marks are found, his pretensions to
loving God are to be regarded as well founded.
The first sign of love to God is, not to be afraid of
death, and to be always waiting for it. For death unites
the friend to his friend,—the seeker to the object which
he seeks. As long as attachment to and dependence upon
the world cannot be broken off, the traces of love to
God cannot be visible. If a person, however, is afraid
of death and does not feel a readiness to go into the
presence of God, and yet is making every provision for
his journey into the other world, it does not follow that
he does not possess the love of God. It is, on the contrary,
an evidence that he does love God.
It is a second sign of love to God, when a man prefers
the love of God to any worldly object, chooses whatsoever
draws him near to God, and forsakes whatsoever has a tendency
to turn him away from God. He desires always to act in
accordance with his will and with his approbation. But
it is not an indication that a person is entirely destitute
of love to God, because he is not in every circumstance
submissive to the holy will of God. For, in some persons
love may exist in perfection, while in others it may be
in some measure defective. It is said, for example, that
during the life of the apostle of God, one of his companions
was a wine drinker, and he had oftentimes been punished
for it. Another of his companions one day vexed at his
conduct, cursed him. The prophet happened to hear him
curse him, and knocked for him to come in. When he had
come into bis presence he said, "Why do you curse that
man ? He is both a friend of God and of his prophet, and
loves them."
The third sign of a man's love to God is that the remembrance
of God is always fresh in his heart. He never ceases to
meditate upon God. Every man thinks upon and calls to
mind an object in proportion to his love to it. If a person's
love and affection is perfect he never forgets that object.
If a person say, I love both God and a certain worldly
object, attention should be paid to see which of them
he loves the most. And then that object can be said to
rule in his heart which he loves the moat. Gradually from
day to day, the object which preponderates will efface
little by little all affection for the other.
The fourth sign of love to God is, to love and respect
the powerful Koran, regarding it as the word of God. A
man ought to praise and love the prophets and saints,
as the friends of God. He should love all men, saying
that they were all created by the will and power of God.
Whatever person attains to this point, his feelings of
envy and hatred and even his coldness of looks will be
quelled and disappear, and he will treat all individuals
as his friends.
The fifth sign of love to God is that a man will choose
the closet and retirement and have an eagerness for secret
prayer. He will long and wait for the night, that the
avocations and hindrances of the world may be banished,
that he may be embarrassed by no distractions in his supplications
to his incomparable and unique Friend, and that he may
be alone in familiar intercourse with God.
It is reported that in the days of the children of Israel,
there was a slave who prayed every night from evening
until morning, but he went out and performed his morning
prayer under a tree. God spoke by inspiration to the one
who was the prophet at that time and said, "Go and speak
to that slave my servant thus:—You abandon prayer to
me in secret and come out here to pray under this tree,
for the sake of the pleasure you derive from the music
of the birds over your head. But in so doing you mutilate
as it were my love and you will not again obtain it perfectly."
It is also reported that God once said to David, "O
! David, that man is a liar, who pretends to love me and
yet goes to bed and sleeps the whole time till morning.
For does not a friend desire to see the countenance of
his friend, and is he not eager to have intercourse with
him ? Whoever wishes to see me, will seek me and will
find me."
The sixth sign of love to God, is when a man finds the
worship of God to be easy, inviting and delightful. It
is related that a certain preacher
used to say, "I have served God in worship sixty years
with irksomeness and constraint. I afterwards served him
yet sixty years more, and my devotions were to me spiritual
food; and in the absence or disuse of them, I did not
enjoy a moment's peace or quiet of mind."
The seventh sign of love to God is, that a man loves
the sincere friends and obedient servants of God, and
regards them all as his friends. He regards all the enemies
of God as his enemies and abhors them. And God thus speaks
in his eternal word. "His companions are terrible towards
the infidels, and tender towards each other."
A Sheikh was once asked "who are the friends of tile
exalted and blessed God?" He replied: "The friends
of God are those who are more compassionate to the friends
of God themselves, than a father or a mother to their
children."
Note A, p. 54.
Preserved Table. This record-tablet
of Mohammed, may have been suggested to his mind by the
two tables of stone of the Ten Commandments of Moses A
clear view of what this table is, may be obtained from
the following extract from a treatise of Berkevi explaining
the Mussulman dogmas, which is at the present day a text-book
in the Turkish schools.
"It must be confessed, that good and evil and every
thing in short happens from the predestination and foreknowledge
of God,—that all which has been and will be, was decreed
from eternity and is written upon the preserved table,
— that nothing can happen contrary to it,—that the
faith of the believer, the piety of the pious man and
his good works are foreseen, willed, predestined and decreed
in writing on the preserved table, are produced, accepted
and loved by God;—but that the infidelity of infidels,
the irreligion of the wicked and their bad actions happen
indeed with the foreknowledge of God, by his will, and
as an effect of his predestination inscribed upon the
preserved table, and by the operation of God, — but
not with his satisfaction or affection
Note B, p. 56.
Mystics. Wherever this word
is found in this treatise, it is to be understood that
the original word is soofee. and sometimes, the
word has been allowed to stand untranslated. Soofee does
not necessarily mean any one particular society of Mussulmans,
but includes all persons as well as orders and congregations,
who embrace mystical or transcendental modes of interpreting
the Koran and who conform their lite in a greater or less
degree to their mystical notions Soofee, Dervish and Fakir,
are different words for various classes of oriental monks
and mystics. They are found where or there are Mussulmans,
and the differences between them and other Mussulmans
bear a considerable relation to the differences developed
by mystics, pietists or puillegibletans
in Christian churches They differ also much among themselves
in their modes of spiritualization and in their ceremonies
and practices. There is also much jealousy of each other,
between the dominant orthodox clergy and doctors of religion,
and the mystics, dervishes and preachers. The orthodox
clergy admit only the grammatical and literal—the external
meaning of the Koran ; but many Soofees pretend
that the outward meaning is but the shell, and that they
seek for and expound the inward or mystical meaning. The
reverence and esteem for the Soofees and Monks is so great
with the people, that the clergy and doctors usually conceal
their opposition and jealousy.
"Soofeeism has existed in one shape or other in every
age and region; its mystical doctrines are to be found
in the schools of ancient Greece and in those of the modern
philosophers of Europe. It is the dream of the most ignorant
and the most learned : it is to be found in the palace
and the cottage, in the luxurious city, and the pathless
desert."
The fundamental doctrine, and the great object of longing
of the oriental mystic is union with God. The whirling
Dervishes as they are popularly called, imitate the founder
of their particular order and whirl around on their toes
for an hour to the sound of soft music and muttered chants
: and they imagine that the dizziness which is created
and the prostration which follows is an inspired ecstacy
and `an approximation to the desired union. Mussulman
mystics are extensively accused as are also a class of
perfectionists in the Christian church, of regarding external
actions as morally indifferent to those who are spiritually
enlightened. Their doctrines have been abused among themselves
by fanatics to lead them to the commission of crime, as
in the case of the attempt to assassinate the shah of
Persia by the Babis. We should no more be led to think
that there was any tendency to abuse for evil purposes
from reading this treatise of Ghazzali, than to infer
the same from devotional and mystic writings of the western
world. Ghazzah, is as much disposed to censure hypocritical
pretence among Soofees, as some writers on Persia have
been to class nearly the whole body as hypocrites.
Note C, p. 82.
The Mohammedan calendar being regulated by the lunar
months, every twelfth lunar month is devoted to fasting,
and it is of the greatest importance that the very first
appearance of the moon should be watched, to know just
when to commence the fast. Certain months and days of
the month are peculiarly appropriate to works of charity.
The days on which the caravans of pilgrims ought to arrive
at Mecca, and the days for going around the black stone
of the Caaba, occur also on certain fixed days of lunar
months. The advantages and moral ends of having a moon,
must be looked at from the point of view of the theological
theory of the author, which is nothing less than that
the moon was created on purpose to render possible, and
to aid in carrying into effect, the ordinances of the
uncreated Koran.
Note D, p. 14.
Interpretationof
theKoran. The extract
belew from the work of Ghazzali, the Tehafeti Felaséfé
or Destruction of Philosophy, while it shows the position
he assigns to the doctors of the law, exemplifies also
the character of his genius, and the measure of independent
thought tolerated among Mussulmans. He fearlessly adopted
whatever discoveries in science could be established by
proofs, and defended them even when apparently opposed
to the language of the Koran : the dogmatical interpretation
of the Koran must yield to stubborn, undeniable facts
in science. I translate it from Hajji Khalfa's Jihani
Numa, or View of the World, where it was introduced
by him to enforce the claims of scientific evidence to
be received by the faithful.
"Know that the differences of opinion between philosophers
and mankind generally are of three kinds. The first kind
of difference is simply a verbal one. As for instance
they speak of the maker of the world as essence or substance
(jouhar), while at the same time, they explain
the word to mean that which exists by itself and independent
of place.
"The second kind of difference refers to questions,
where there is no difference between their system and
the principles of our religion, and where there is no
occasion of appealing to the prophets in confirmation
of the matter in dispute. For instance the philosophers
say, that an eclipse of the moon is an indication that
its light is obstructed on account of the earth's coming
between it and the sun, seeing that the moon derives its
light from the sun, and that the earth is a sphere surrounded
by the sky on all sides, and therefore when the moon falls
into the shadow of the earth, its light is cut off. The
Philosophers also say that an eclipse of the sun arises
from the moon's standing between the observer and the
sun, and from a conjunction of the two at the same moment.
"The same may be said in regard to this language as
was observed in reference to the disputes about words,—that
one need not be anxious about refuting it. Whoever imagines
that it is a religious duty to dispute upon this subject,
has in fact attacked religion, and injured his own cause.
For in truth these positions are fortified by mathematical
proofs, about which there can be no doubt. Whoever investigates
an eclipse, can establish it by demonstration, and can
point out its peculiarities, the period of its commencement,
the extent of it, and the period of duration until the
reillumination begins. And if some one tell him that the
demonstration is contrary to doctrine, let him not doubt
the demonstration, but rather let him doubt the interpretation
given to the law (of the Koran). The wrong done to the
law by those who defend it with false interpretations,
is greater than the wrong which is done to it by those
who find fault with it on a correct interpretation,—as
says the proverb, ‘a wise enemy is better than a foolish
friend.’
"If some person should argue, that as according to
a tradition, the Prophet once said, ‘When God manifests
his glory upon anything, it humbles itself before it,’
and that therefore this is to be taken as an indication
that an eclipse arises from an act of humility in the
presence of God, we reply, that this report is not a genuine
tradition, and that even on the supposition of its genuineness,
it would be better to throw light upon its meaning, than
to make use of it for altercation in categorical premises.
For when the proofs are definite, we ought not to be controlled
to such an extent by unexplained texts of the Koran. It
is a cause of great joy to the infidel when the apologist
for the faith pretends that such views are contrary to
the faith, for it then makes it easy for him to refute
the law. The world is cow disputing whether it is a genuine
tradition or merely ancient. But if its genuineness should
be established, it would still be a matter of indifference,
whether the earth were round or fiat, or whether the heavens
above and what is below are more or less than thirteen
layer — seeing the thing sought to be proved is, that
at any rate they are all the work of God.
"We come next to the third difference of opinion, in
which the matters disputed about are at the foundation
of religion, as the creation of the world, the attributes
of the creator, and the resurrection of the body. In this
case it is without doubt our duty to refute the error
with convincing arguments."
The work of Degerando, Histoire comparé des systémes
de philosophie, Tomi iv, Paris, 1823, many properly
be relerred to, for comparison with Smolders's Essai,
to aid farther in appreciating the principles of Ghazzali
in interpreting the Killegiblen,
and the grounds of his opposition to Aristotle His picture
of the stand-point of Ghazzali seems accurate and just
See also, Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences
3d edition, 1857.
