A Sufi Compendium by Najm al-Din Razi, known as Daya
Persian Heritage Series
Edited by Ehsan Yarshater
Number 35
The Path of God’s Bondsmen
from Origin to Return
' (Mersad al-‘ebad men al-mabda’ ela’l-ma'ad)
A Sufi Compendium by Najm al-Din Razi, known as Daya
Translated from the Persian, with introduction and annotation
by
Hamid Algar
Professor of Persian and Islamic Studies, University of California, Berkeley
Caravan Books
Delmar, New York
1982
Contents
Transcription Notes vii
Acknowledgements ix
Preface by E. Yarshater xi
Introduction by Hamid Algar 1
Prologue 25
Contents 29
First Part 33
First Chapter: The Utility of Composing This Work 34
Second Chapter: The Reason for Writing the Book 38
Third Chapter: The Manner and Method the Book is
Written 51
Second Part 59
First Chapter: The Creation of Spirits and the Degrees of Knowledge 60
Second Chapter: The World of Dominion 70
Third Chapter: The Different Realms of Kingship and Dominion 80
Fourth Chapter: The Creation of the Human Frame 94
Fifth Chapter: The Attachment of the Spirit to the Frame 110
Third Part 123
First Chapter: The Veils That Cover the Human Spirit 124
Second Chapter: The Wise Purpose for Attachment of the Spirit to the Frame 132
Third Chapter: The Need for Prophets 149
Fourth Chapter: The Abrogation of Previous Religions 153
Fifth Chapter: The Cultivation of the Human Frame 179
Sixth Chapter: The Refinement of the Soul 190
Seventh Chapter: The Purification of the Heart. 201
Eighth Chapter: The
Adornment of the Spirit 220
Ninth Chapter: The Need for a Shaikh 235
Tenth Chapter: The Conditions and Attributes of the
Shaikh 243
Eleventh Chapter: The Conditions, Attributes, and
Customs of the Mond . 255
Twelfth Chapter: The Need for Zekr 268
Thirteenth Chapter: The Method of Zekr 271
Fifteenth Chapter: The Need for Seclusion 279
Sixteenth Chapter: Visions Deriving from the Unseen 286
Seventeenth Chapter:
The Witnessing of Lights 294
Eighteenth Chapter: Unveiling and its Varieties 304
Nineteenth Chapter: Manifestation of the Divine
Essence 310
Twentieth Chapter: Attaining to the Divine Presence 324
Fourth Part
First Chapter: The Return of the Oppressive Soul 334
Second Chapter: The Return of the Inspired Soul 349
Third Chapter: The Return of the Foremost Soul 359
Fourth Chapter: The Return of the Most Wretched
Soul 376
Fifth Part
First Chapter: The Wayfaring of Kings 395
Second Chapter: Kings and Their Conduct 411
Third Chapter: The Wayfaring of Ministers and
Deputies 433
Fourth Chapter: The Wayfaring of Different Classes of
Scholar 445
Fifth Chapter: The Wayfaring of the Holders of
Wealth 460
Sixth Chapter: The Wayfaring of Farmers 471
Seventh Chapter: The Wayfaring of Merchants 476
Eighth Chapter: The Wayfaring of Tradesmen and
Craftsmen 482
Conclusion 494
Bibliography 499
Name, Place, and Subject Index 507
Index of Qur’anic Verses 530
Listing of Volumes in Bibliotheca Persica 532
The transcription system used here for Persian and for Arabic elements in Persian, aims for simplicity and accuracy, and has been jointly adopted by Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum, Encyclopaedia Persica, The Persian Heritage Series, The Persian Studies Series, Bibliotheque Persane, and Meisterwerke der persischen Literatur.
Note:
The more familiar and commonly used proper names and titles when not an integral part of the name, and other commonly known words have been anglicized without diacritics for the sake of simplicity (e.g., shah, Isfahan, Turkman, khan, etc.)-
To Professor Ehsan Yarshater, for accepting this translation, for inclusion in the Persian Heritage Series, and his patience in the face of a delay that saw the original deadline for completion fade into oblivion; to Mr. Hasan Zowqi, of the Bongah-e Nasr va Tarjoma-ye Ketab, Tehran, for his kindness in providing me with proofs of Dr. Riyahi’s edition of the Mersad before its publication; to two cherished friends and colleagues—Dr. Abdulhadi Hairi, for reviewing the translation in accordance with the regulations of the series, and Dr. Assad Busool, for his assistance in identifying the source of Traditions quoted in the work; to Florence Myer, for the characteristic punctiliousness she devoted to the typing of a long and difficult manuscript.
Hamid Algar
The present volume is a translation for the first time in a Western language of one of the major works on Islamic mysticism. The author, Najm al-Din Razi, an acknowledged Sufi master of the thirteenth century, lived at a time when the Islamic Middle East was going through a turbulent period of its histroy, marked by many disruptions and calamities, culmina- dng in the Mongol invasion. Despite this grim background, or perhaps partially because of it, the period witnessed a flowering of mystical thought and practice and a flourishing of Sufi writings. It was in this period that major systematizations of speculative Sufism and elaborations of Sufi ritual and practice were worked out.
Razi, who like Ghazali adhered to the Sunnite branch of Islam and followed the Ash’arite theology, focused his attention on the exploration and analysis of the visionary states experienced by the Sufis in the course of their mystical journey. In elaborating his system in the Mersad, Razi strikes a middle course between those mystics who concentrated on ecstacy and spiritual raptures and neglected or made light of religious observances and rituals, and the ascetic Sufis who emphasized worship through meticulous or excessive performance of religious duties. He particularly stresses the necessity of having a mentor (pir, shaikh) and the proper regard for the rules and rites of Sufi hospices (kanegahs).
The Mersad has been one of the most successful as well as one of the most popular treatises on Sufism. It offers a systematic exposition of Sufi doctrine and practice as it has evolved by the seventh century of Islam.
The translation, ably rendered and annotated by Professor Algar, is based on the critical edition by Dr. Mohammad Amin Riahi (Tehran, 1973). It is hoped that its publication will further promote a knowledge of Islamic mysticism.
Ehsan Yarshater
i
Sufism, the inner dimension of Islam, began, it is said, as "a reality without a name.” Its beginnings are coterminous with those of Islam itself, for it is firmly rooted in the Qur’anic revelation and the exemplary person and model of the Prophet Mohammad, upon whom be peace. Yet the word Sufi does not occur in the text of the Qur'an, nor did it exist in the lifetime of the Prophet and his companions. It emerged, rather, in the process of a historical elaboration that made explicit and differentiated what had previously been implicit and undifferentiated; the inner and outer dimensions of the religion each attained a separate identity within the subsuming framework of its total structure. The early elaboration of Sufism is parallel and complementary to the establishment of the discipline of jurisprudence and the emergence of the law schools; both phenomena occurred at approximately the same time, the second and third centuries of the Islamic era (eighth and ninth centuries of the Christian era).1 In this period, lines of mystical affiliation grew up; an expository literature was written; a technical vocabulary was elaborated; paraliturgical practices were formalized;, and distinct institutional forms came into being.
The stages of this process cannot even be sketched here; suffice it to say that numerous channels of development converged in the seventh century of the Islamic era (thirteenth century of the Christian era) to produce one of the richest and most brilliant epochs in the history of Sufism, almost as if all that had gone before constituted a preparation for what has been termed "a fresh flowering or second youth” of Islam.2 This flourishing of Sufism took place against a somber background of barbarian invasion—the Crusaders descended on the Islamic world from the west, and the Mongols from the east—and it may almost be re-
■See Victor Danner, “The Necessity for the Rise of the Tenn Sufi,” Studies in Comparative Religion, spring 1972, pp. 71-77.
2By Martin Lings, in his introduction to R. W. J. Austin’s translation of Ebn 'Arabi Sufis of Andalusia (London, 1971), pp. 11-12.
garded as a kind of compensation for the political disasters of the period. From the Islamic west arose the supreme master of Islamic theosophy, Ebn Arabi (d. 638/1240), whose career embraced Cairo, Damascus, and Konya, where he gained a number of disciples who assured the dissemination of his teachings throughout the eastern Islamic world. Several Sufi orders emerged in Egypt, including the Badawlya of Ahmad al-Badawi (d. 674/1276) and the Sazellya of Abu’l-Hasan Sazeli, who died in 656/1258, the same year as the Mongol conquest of Baghdad, and whose order, with its numerous derivatives, continues to dominate the spiritual life of North Africa down to the present day. Anatolia witnessed the career of Mowlana Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 672/1273), who composed some of the greatest literary monuments of Sufism in the Persian language and founded an order that enriched the cultural life of the Turkish people for almost five centuries. In India, the Cesti order arose under the auspices of Mo'In al-Din Cesti (d. 633/1236), and the Sohravardi order, brought to the subcontinent by Baha al-Din Zakarlya MoltanI (d. 665/1267), began to take firm root. And finally in Central Asia we encounter the figure of Abd al-Kaleq Gejdovani (d. 616/1220), the spiritual ancestor of the Naqsbandi order; several important shaikhs of the cognate Yasavi order; and, most important, the Kobravi order to which was affiliated Najm al-din Daya Razi, author of the present work.
The founder of the Kobravi order, Najm al-Din Kobra, was born in 540/1145-1146 in the city of Karazm to the south of the Aral Sea; although he traveled for many years in other regions of the Islamic world, he spent the major part of his life in his birthplace and died there. He was in a sense the patron saint of Karazm, and it was there, and in contiguous regions of Central Asia, that his order initially spread. He began his career as a scholar of prophetic Tradition (hadls) and theology (kalam), traveling wide in the cultivation of these disciplines. His interest in Sufism was awakened in Egypt, where he became a morld of Shaikh Ruzbehan al-Wazzan al-Mesri, who had been initiated into the Sohravardi line. After a number of years in Egypt, he went to Tabriz to pursue his studies of kalam, but came instead under the influence of a certain Baba Faraj Tabriz!, who persuaded him to abandon his concern with the external religious
sciences and devote himself fully to the Sufi path. He then spent some dme in the company of two other preceptors, Ammar b. Yaser and Esma‘11 al-Qasrl, before returning to Shaikh Ruz- behan in Egypt. Ruzbehan evidently regarded Kobra by then as fully mature, for in about 540/1145 he sent him back to Karazm with full authority to initiate and train his own disciples.
Kobra swiftly gathered a large following in Karazm, including an extraordinary number of individuals who attained prominence in their own right as gnostics and writers on Sufism. He is, in fact, frequently designated in the traditional literature as vali-taras, the "manufacturer of saints.” Among the foremost disciples of Kobra we may mention Majd al-Din Bagdadi (d. 616/1219), Sa‘d al-Din Hamuya (d. 650/1252), Baba Kamal Jandi, Seyf al-Din Bakarzi (d. 658/1260), Razi al-Din All Lala (d. 642/1244), and Kobra’s namesake, the author of this book, Najm al-Din Daya Razi.
The major emphasis in the writing and teaching of Najm al- Din Kobra was on the analysis of visionary experience that unfolds itself to the wayfarer on the Sufi path, and the morphology of man’s inner being. He examined the differing significances of dreams and visions; the degrees of luminous epiphany that are manifested to the mystic and their origins; the various classes of concept and image (kavater) that engages the Sufi’s attention and their significance; and the nature of the heart, the spirit and the "mystery,” as well as the interrelation between these subtle centers of cognition (lata’ef). He transmitted these emphases to his followers, including Daya, who as we shall see enlarged upon the terminology and classification of his master in one respect.3
Najm al-Din Kobra died during the Mongol conquest of Karazm in 618/1221; according to the traditional accounts, he refused an invitation by the Mongols to leave the city before
’The life and work of Najm al-Din Kobra have been exhaustively examined by Fritz Meier in his long introduction to Kobra’s Fawa’ih al-Jamal wa Fawatih al-Jalal (Wiesbaden, 1957). The late Marijan Mole published several of Kobra’s briefer works under the title "Traites Mineurs de Nagm al-Din Kubra,” Annales Islamologiques, Cairo, IV (1963), 1-78.
they proceeded with their massacre of the inhabitants, and died at the head of a band of his followers while engaged in hand-to- hand combat with the attackers. He is reputed to have been buried at the site of his kanaqdh (hospice) outside the city. His tomb, located in what subsequently became known as Kohne- Urgenj, became a center of pious visitation, and is said to retain this function even under Soviet rule.4 Various disciples perpetuated his line, and even took a kind of revenge on the killers of their master by presiding over their meek conversion to Islam. Seyf al-Din Bakarzl established a well-endowed kanaqdh in Bokhara, some time between 644/1246 and 651/1253. Berke Kan, the fifth ruler of the Golden Horde, came to it to proclaim his acceptance of Islam.5 Another disciple, Sa‘d al-Din Hamuya, initially took refuge in Syria from the Mongol invaders but later turned eastward again and set up his kanaqdh at Bahrabad in Khorasan. The direction of the kanaqdh was inherited by his son, $adr al-Din Ebrahim, who in 694/1295 presided over the conversion to Islam of Gazan Kan the Ilkhanid, ruler of another branch of the Mongol empire.6
Other members of the Kobravi line continued to cultivate the analytical and speculative interests of Najm al-Din Kobra. For example, ‘Aziz al-Din NasafI, a morid of Sa‘d al-Din Hamuya, wrote an important treatise on the Sufi concept of the Perfect Man, the dominant theme of all Sufi anthropology.’ Rokn al-Din ‘Ala al-Dowla SemnanI (d. 736/1336), connected
■To the references concerning his tomb assembled by Meier (pp. 60-62), we can add the following information: that invisible winged dogs are popularly thought to guard Kobra’s tomb; and that stone troughs placed at either side of the entrance to the tomb are filled by pilgrims piously desirous of slaking the dogs’ thirst (G. P. Snesarev, Relikty Domusul'manskikh Verovanii i Obryadov u Uzbekov Khorezma, Moscow, 1969, pp. 269, 322).
5On the life and writings of Bakarzl, see Sa’Id NaflsI, "Seyf al-dln Bakarzl,” Majalla-ye daneskada-ye adablyat, II; 4, Tir, 1334/October, 1955, 1-15; Iraj Afsar, Sargozast-e Seyf al-dln Bakarzl, Tehran, 1341 S./1962. The wealth of his kanaqdh is attested by the documents assembled by O. D. Chekhovich, Bukharskie Dokumenty XIV v., Tashkent, 1965, and his role in the conversion of Berke is described by Jean Richard in “La Conversion de Berke et les Debuts de 1’Islamisation de la Horde d’Or,” Revue des Etudes Islamiques, XXXV (1967), 173-178.
’Rashid ad-Din Fadlullah, Tdrlkh-i Mubdrak-i Ghdzdnl, ed. Karl Jahn, London, 1940, pp. 76-80.
’Aziz al-Din NasafI, Ketab al-ensdn al-kdmel, ed. Marijan Mole, Tehran & Paris, 1962.
by two links of the initiatic chain with Razi al-Din Ali Lala, further elaborated the analysis of man’s subtle centers begun by Najm al-Din Kobra and Daya, and formulated a critique of the theosophy of Ebn Arabi that had much influence on Indian Sufism, particularly in Naqsbandi circles.8
The major works of these writers have been published and made the object of scholarly analysis; far less well known is the subsequent history of the Kobravi order, both in its Central Asian homeland and in more distant regions. Badr al-Din Samarqandl, a morld of Seyf al-Din Bakarzi, traveled southward to India and established a branch of the Kobraviya that came to be known as the Ferdowsiya.9 Its most important figure was Ahmad Yahya Maneri (d. 772/1371), author of a celebrated collection of letters on Sufi topics and respected by the Togloq sultans of Delhi.10 It is not known how long the kttnaqah at Bahra- bad survived; it probably disappeared by the fifteenth century at the latest.
The most long-lived and prolific line deriving from Najm al- Din Kobra was that descending by way of Razi al-Din Ali to Ala al-Dowla Semnani; one of its derivatives, the Zahabiya, is still to be found in Iran, although in very attenuated form. Ali Hamadani, a morld successively of two of Semnani’s followers, Taqi al-Din Aki and Mahmud Mazdaqani, introduced the Kobravi order to Badaksan and Kashmir. He was buried in Kottalan (present-day Kolab, Tajik S.S.R.) in 786/1385. He called himself a “second Ali”—not in a reincarnatory sense, but in the sense that he possessed the same fullness of perfection as the Prophet’s cousin, who was the first link in the initiatic ancestry of the Kobravi order and, according to a tradition frequently quoted by Kobravi authors, the gate to the city of knowledge that was the Prophet.11 Eshaq al-Kottalani, successor
8See Mokalabdt-e 'Abd al-rahman-e Esfara'eni va 'Ala al-dowla Semnani, ed. Hermann Landolt, Tehran & Paris, 1972, and the copious bibliography given on p. 33 of his introduction.
’See J. S. Trimmingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam, Oxford, 1971, p. 56; and Aziz Ahmad, An Intellectual History of Islam in India, Edinburgh, 1969, p. 43. According to the latter, the Ferdowsiya was restricted to the area of Behar.
"The maktubat of Maneri were published at Lucknow in 1911.
"Concerning Hamadani, see J. K. Teufel, Eine Lebensbeschreibung des Scheichs ‘Ali-i Hamadani, Leiden, 1962.
of All Hamada ni, was murdered by emissaries of the Timurid ruler Sahrok in about 826/1423, but before dying he appointed as his successor Mohammad Nurbaks. The majority of the followers of Kottalani accepted Nurbaks, but a minority disputed his succession and gave their loyalty to one Abdollah Bar- zesabadi.12 This schism gave rise to two separate derivatives of the Kobraviya, each with its own name, but having in common an abandonment of Sunnism for Shi'ism. One was the Nur- bakslya that survived into the Safavid period, although its history under the Safavids is in many respects obscure; the other came to acquire, at a date and in a fashion unknown, the designation of Zahabiya, and has survived down to the present in Iran, where its major center is Shiraz.13
Given this ultimate choice of Shi'ism by a relatively well- studied branch of the Kobraviya, as well as expressions of devotion for the Twelve Imams found in the writings of Najm al-Din Kobra himself, it has been assumed that the Kobravi order was a proto-Shi'ite order from its inception.14 This conclusion by no means follows, however, since pious sentiments toward the family of the Prophet and especially the Twelve Imams—primarily but not exclusively associated with Shi'ism—are frequently encountered in other Sufi orders, including those of militantly Sunni affiliation such as the Naqsbandlya.15 Then too, there is the fact of the persistence of the Kobraviya as a purely Sunni order in Central Asia and elsewhere. Here we can assemble only disparate pieces of evidence, but they suffice to prove that the Kobraviya flourished for many centuries in strictly Sunni environments. From the fourteenth century onward, radiating
■’Marijan Mole, "Les Kubrawiya entre Sunnisme et Shiisme aux Huitieme et Neuvieme Siecles de I’Hegire,’’ Revue des Etudes Islamiques, XXIX (1961), 124-128.
■’Richard Gramlich, "Die schiitischen Denvischorden Persiens,” Abhandlun- gen fiir die Kunde des Morgenlandes, XXVI, 1 (1965), 14-26.
■’This view was first put forward by that gluttonous appropriator of Sunni gnostics, Nurollah Sustarl (d. 1019/1610), in his celebrated Majales al-mo’menin (II, 72-75 of the 1375/1955 Tehran edition). It has been resurrected in recent years by S. H. Nasr and others on the basis of inconclusive evidence contained in Mole’s article, "Les Kubrawiya entre Sunnisme et Shiisme.”
■’See the brief remarks contained in Hamid Algar, "Some Observations on Religion in Safavid Persia,” Iranian Studies, VII, 102 (winter-spring 1974), 287-290.
from its center in. Bokhara, the Naqsbandlya became the dominant order in Central Asia and ultimately displaced the Kobraviya even in Karazm. There remained, however, areas of Kobravi concentration, such as the small town of Saktari near Bokhara; the shaikhs of Saktari produced an important corpus of late Kobravi literature, and their line persisted until at least the early seventeenth century.[16] Somewhat to the south, we encounter in late nineteenth-century Afghanistan the figure of Mian Faqirollah, a renowned Kobravi saint and the author of a work much read in that country, Qotb al-ersad.[17] There appears also to have been a considerable transmission of the Kobravi order itself—not the derivatives listed above—to India, although the Kobravi line frequently became intertwined with others, multiple affiliation to numerous Sufi orders being a common feature of Indian Sufism. Thus, Taj al-Din al-'Osmani (d. 1050/ 1640), known primarily as a Naqsbandi, was also affiliated with the Kobraviya, and wrote a treatise on the methods of spiritual realization used by the Kobravls.[18] The Kobraviya was transmitted eastward from Central Asia to China and struck root among the Muslims of Kansu, although not much is known of its history there.[19] Finally, there are traces of the Kobraviya in Turkey, although no lasting implantation took place.[20]
The Kobraviya derives its importance in the history of Sufism not so much from its longevity and the ubiquitousness of its branches, whether Shi'ite or Sunni, as from the influence exerted by its analytical theories and literature. The most influential and widely read of all Kobravi writings was, without doubt, the present work, Mersad al-‘ebad. We now turn to an examination of the career of its author, Najm al-Din Daya Razi.
II
Abu Bakr Abdollah b. Mohammad b. Sahavar al-Asadi al-Razi, commonly known by the laqab, or sobriquet, of Najm al-Din, combined with the further title of Daya21 and the toponymous designation of Razi, was born in the year 573/1177 in the city of Ray, one of the major centers of urban life and culture in preMongol Iran.22 Even before the disasters of the Mongol conquest and the sacking of Ray, the vitality of the city was being sapped by continuous disputes between various Saljuq princes, all of whom claimed rule over it, as well as by incessant clashes between the followers of different schools of law—Hanafi, Safe'i, and Shi'ite. This turmoil may have incited Daya to leave his native city, for a number of allusions to the instability of the age and the evil of fanatical attachment to one school of law are to be found in his work.23 It was, in any event, the habit of both scholars and Sufis to travel widely throughout the Islamic lands, and according to the autobiographical sketch with which he prefaced his celebrated commentary on the Qu’ran, Daya left Ray in 599/1202-03, visiting in turn Syria, Egypt, Hejaz, Iraq, and Azerbaijan.24 In the present work he also mentions having been in Cairo and Damascus in the year 600/1204.25 He recounts too, certain memories of Mecca, but these may relate to his second hajj, performed shortly before his flight to Anatolia.26
Some time thereafter, he traveled eastward to Karazm, passing through Nishapur, where he recounts having met Shaikh Mohammad Kuf, one of the more renowned Sufis of Khorasan in that age.27 At an unknown date, he arrived in Karazm and, according to the testimony of all sources, became a morld of his great namesake, Najm al-Din Kobra.28 It may be supposed that
21The word Daya literally means “wetnurse”; its application to the author of the Mersad derives from the idea of the initiate on the Path being a newborn infant who needs suckling to survive; see pp. 222-226 of the text. We shall use this element of the name to refer to the author.
!!For the date of Daya’s birth, see Fasiii Khfi, Mojmal-e Fast hi, ed. Mahmud Farrok, Tehran, 1339 S./1960, If, 262.
“See pp. 43, 261 and 454.
“Daya, Bahr al-haqa‘eq, ms. Hasan Hiisnii Pasa (Siileymaniye), 37, ff. 3a-3b.
“See p. 429.
“See p. 279.
27See p. 130.
“See, for example, Abd al-Rahman Jami, Nafahat al-ons, ed. Mahdi Tow- hldlpur, Tehran, 1336 S./1948, p. 435.
he had journeyed to Karazm for precisely this purpose. Kobra, however, delegated the task of his spiritual training to one of his morids, Shaikh Majd al-Din Bagdad!, to whom Daya constantly refers with great reverence as "our shaikh.” Majd al-Din —who came not from Baghdad but from the small village of Bag- dadak near Karazm—was the preceptor of the celebrated Sufi poet Attar, whom he initiated at his kanaqah in Nishapur, and the author of several important works marked by the same emphases as those of Kobra.29
It is remarkable that there is, by contrast, not a single mention of Najm al-Din Kobra anywhere in the writings of Daya. Doubtless this is explicable in part by the deep impression made on Daya by Bagdad!, an impression that could well have effaced all effective memory of Kobra. It may also be connected with the circumstances under which Bagdad! met his death. According to the ninth/fifteenth-century hagiographical compendum, Abd al-Rahman Jami’s Nafahat al-ons, Bagdad! once boasted to his followers as follows: "I used to be an egg on the edge of the river, and Najm al-Din (Kobra) was a hen who took me under the wing of his training. Now I have emerged from the egg and become like a duck; I enter the water while my shaikh still stands on the bank.” Kobra, who came to know of this arrogant metaphor through the intuitive light of his sanctity, uttered the imprecation: "May he die in the river!” Penitent and ashamed, Bagdadi abased himself before Kobra, who duly forgave him, but prophesied that Bagdadi would still die in the river, and that all of Karazm would ultimately follow him to destruction.30 Majd al-Din Bagdadi was indeed drowned in the Oxus on the orders of the ruler of Karazm, in the year 607/1210. While Sufi tradition sees in his drowning the inevitable result of Najm al-Din Kobra’s imprecation, the immediate cause for his death is reputed to have been a secret liaison with Torkan Katun, the mother of the Karazmsah.31 Karazm was, moreover, inhospitable terrain for Sufis, as a result of the prominence at court of the philosopher Fakr
’’Concerning Bagdadi, see Jami, Nafahat al-ons, pp. 424-430; and Ye. E. Bertel’s, "Chetverostishiya Sheikha Madzhd ad-Dina Bagdadi," in Sufizm i Sufiiskaya Literature, Moscow, 1965, pp. 335-339.
’’Jami, Nafahat al-ons, pp. 425-426.
s'Ibid„ p. 426.
al-Din Razi, from whose maleficent influence Baha al-Din Valad, the father of Jalal al-Din Rumi, is also reputed to have fled. It is therefore conceivable that the murder of Majd al-Din Bagdadi should have been no more than a particularly violent instance of the Karazmsah’s aversion to the Sufis. In any event, Daya’s silence concerning Kobra—a silence that must have been deliberate—may be interpreted as a sign of resentment at Kobra’s fatal imprecation.
Whether because of the death of Majd al-Din Bagdadi or because of his anticipation that Kobra’s prophecy of general disaster would also be fulfilled, Daya left Karazm before the Mongol conquest and resumed his wanderings in western Iran. No security was to be had there, however, and in 618/1221, after a return visit to the Hejaz, Daya fled from the advancing Mongol armies to the haven of Anatolia, abandoning his family, by his own admission, to be massacred in the Mongol sack of Ray. Traveling via Hamadan, Erbil, and Diyarbekir, he reached Kayseri in central Anatolia in Ramadan 618/October 1221.32
Anatolia was an obvious place- of refuge for him. It was not only, as Daya writes, a land where orthodoxy prevailed, untainted by the heresy of Mo'tazelism and philosophy, and a branch of the great Saljuq dynasty reigned;33 it was also, thanks to Saljuq pauonage, a center for the cultivation of Persian literature—Persian being the court language of the Saljuqs despite their Turkish origin and environment—and a point of attraction for Sufis from the western and eastern extremes of the Islamic world. Ebn Arabi traveled three times to Anatolia, visiting Malatya, Sivas, and Konya; in the last city he acquired one of his most influential disciples, $adr al-Din Qonyavi (c. 673/ 1274), whose lectures on the teachings of Ebn Arabi inspired the celebrated Lama'dt of Fakr al-Din ‘Eraqi (d. 688/1289). Another disciple of Ebn Arabi, Arif al-Din Soleyman from Tlemcen in Algeria, is known to have resided in Konya for many years. From the Islamic east there arrived in Anatolia four years before Daya another migrant from Karazm, Baha al-Din Valad and his son, Jalal al-Din Rumi, who was later to make of Konya
“See p. 49.
“See pp. 42-43.
one of the principal poles of spiritual attraction in the Islamic world. Finally, we may mention Owhad al-Din Kennani, who stayed for some time in Kayseri and Konya.34 The appearance of Daya in Anatolia was not, then, an isolated phenomenon, and he is reputed to have encountered there $adr al-Din Qonyavi, Jalal al-Din Rumi, and Owhad al-Din Kennani.35
An encounter he himself records took place soon after his arrival in Anatolia. In Malatya, Daya met Shaikh Sehab al-Din Abu IJafs ‘Omar al-Sohravardi (d. 632/1234), nephew of Abu Najib al-Sohravardi, the founder of the Sohravardi order. The younger Sohravardi had elaborated a certain fusion of Sufism with another initiatic tradition, that oifotowwa—the ideal of ethical manliness that inspired a series of chivalrous sodalities. He placed this fusion in the service of the Abbasid caliph al-Naser le Din Allah, who employed it in order to restore the political authority of the caliphate by binding the prominent and powerful to himself with an allegiance that transcended mere political loyalty.36 When Daya met Sohravardi, he had just completed a mission to Ala al-Din Keyqobad, the Saljuq ruler of Anatolia, on behalf of al-Naser, and was on his way back to Baghdad.
Ebn Bibi’s history of the Saljuqs of Anatolia confinns the meeting in Malatya between Daya and Sohravardi. But whereas Daya’s account clearly implies that the Mersad was written after the meeting with Sohravardi in order to be presented to Keyqobad, Ebn Bibi writes that the book was already written and dedicated to Keyqobad before Daya came to Malatya.37 The
’’Concerning the cultural and religious life of Saljuq Konya, see Osman Turan, Selfuklular Tarihi ve Turk-Islam Medeniyeti, Istanbul, 1969, pp. 210 ff; and Claude Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, New York, 1968, pp. 252-258.
’’Daya’s acquaintance with Qonyavi and Rumi is reported by Jami in an anecdote that has him leading them in prayer (Nafahat al-ons, p. 435); the anecdote is repeated by a wide variety of later sources. The ayptic and silent meeting that took place between Daya and Owhad al-DIn KermanI could have occurred either in Anatolia or later in Baghdad (Manaqeb-e Owhad al-din, quoted in Riyahl’s introduction to the Mersad, p. 43).
’“See Herbert Mason, Two Statesmen of Mediaeval Islam, The Hague, 1972, pp. 123-125; and Angelika Hartmann, an-N&sir li-Din Allah (1180-1225), Politik, Religion, Kultur in der spdten Abbasidenzeit, Berlin, 1975, pp. 111-121, 233-254.
S7Ibn Bibi, Histoire des Seldjoucides d'Asie Mineure (Turkish text), ed. M. Th. Houtsma, Leiden, 1902, p. 226.
role of Sohravardi would have been, then, merely to recommend to Kayqobad an already complete work, not to suggest to Daya that he present himself to the Saljuq court, thus indirectly inspiring the composition of his work. The discrepancy between the two accounts probably stems from the fact that the Mersad exists in two distinct recensions. The first was completed soon after Daya’s arrival in Kayseri in Ramadan, 618/October 1221, and was intended as “a gift to true seekers and veracious lovers”; the second was completed in Sivas, in Rajab, 620/ August 1223, and was dedicated to Keyqobad. Daya naturally made no mention of the first recension in the version he prepared for Keyqobad, wishing to present his work as exclusively inspired by the desire to present the monarch with a suitable gift. It is probable, then, that Daya composed the work before his meeting with Sohravardi, but decided to revise it and dedicate it to Keyqobad at the suggestion of Sohravardi.38
Despite the bright expectations Daya evidently had of his sojourn to Anatolia, and the encomium to Keyqobad that concludes the Mersad, he was severely disappointed. In the Mar- muzat-e Asadi dar mazmtlrat-e Da’itdi, composed in Erzincan three years after the second recension of the Mersad, he wrote this of his misfortunes:
Three years I wandered in that land [Anatolia], up hill and down dale, residing for a time in each city, casting the coin of life’s hours at every footstep I took. In its markets I saw all goods eagerly bought but the goods of religion; every trickster and charlatan found a customer, but the people of certainty found none; the market was sluggish and sales were slow for the masters of the Law and the Path, whereas those wed to instinctual nature and shamelessness enjoyed ever-increasing esteem. People rushed eagerly to buy donkey beads, but would not deign to look at the lustrous pearl. I found no one in that realm able to tell musk from dung, or the sincere from the swindler. However much I tested both the high and
58The difference between the two recensions is largely one of style, the second being more ornate and prolix than the first. See Riyahi's introduction, pp. 62-63.
the low, I saw that the whole garden was planted with celery. When I thus discovered there was no host in the house, I fully detached my heart from the realm . . . and gladly, without any regret, turned my back on the whole herd.39
Daya’s new destination was Erzincan, a city ruled by a petty Turkish dynasty, the Mengiigeks, but still inhabited by a largely Armenian population. As for the Muslims of Erzincan, they also failed to win his approval, and he composed fourteen lines of verse in condemnation of them, calling them in the first “a people void of all humanity, with the seed of vileness sown in their souls.”40
the prospect of a new patron, Ala al-Dln Da’ud, the Mengii^ek ruler. He was renowned for his interest in Persian letters, and it was to him that the great poet Nezaml Ganjavl (d. 605/1209) had dedicated his didactic poem, Makzan al-asrar. Daya now composed the second work of his Anatolian sojourn, the Mar- muzat-e Asadi dar mazmurat-e Da’udl (The Symbolic Expressions of Asadi [an allusion to one element of Daya’s name] concerning the Psalms of David). The second half of the title refers to the fact that each chapter of the book is introduced by a quotation from the Psalms; it is, however, at the same time a skillful reference to the name of the Mengu^ek ruler. The work has been described as “a special edition” of the Mersad, in that much of the material from the Mersad is incorporated in it— with, however, the strictly Sufi portion diminished and the sections on kingly power greatly expanded.41
than the Mersad and seems not to have exercised much influence; only a single manuscript survived. It is of some interest as a statement of traditional Persian views of kingship modified by a Sufi coloring.
After a series of provocations offered to the Saljuqs, Da’ud was overthrown by Keyqobad in 625/1228, and Erzincan was
^Marmuzat-e Asadi dar mazmurat-e Da'udl, Tehran, 1352 S./1973, ed. Mohammad Reza Safi'i Kadkani, p. 5.
wIbid., p. 6.
■'See Hennann Landolt’s English introduction to the work (p. 10), where he also makes an interesting comparison between the Mazmflrat and Gaza It’s .Nasi hat al-molilk, which was in some sense a royal edition of Klmiya-ye sa'adat.
incorporated in the Saljuq realm. Daya must have left Erzincan several years earlier, however, for in 622/1225 we find him traveling from Baghdad to Tabriz on a diplomatic mission for the Caliph, al-Zaher be Amr Allah. In Tabriz he met Jalal al-Din Karazmsah, son of the monarch who had put Majd al-Din Bag- dadl to death. Fleeing westward from the Mongol onslaught, Jalal al-Din was seeking to organize resistance to the invaders. The Mersad contains several exhortations to Muslim rulers to stand firm against the Mongols, so it is probable that Daya looked upon him with favor, despite his father’s misdeed.42 turned to Baghdad in the company of Qazi Mojlr al-Din, the Karazmsah’s ambassador, to find the Caliph dead.43
Nothing further is known of Daya’s worldly career; it is possible that he continued in the service of the caliphate. He died in Baghdad in 654/1256, two years before the city was conquered and sacked by the Mongols from whom he had fled thirty-five years earlier.44 Remarkably, Daya seems not to have left any successors, although al-Yafe‘I mentions a certain Demyatl as having been his morid.^ He was buried in the Soneyziya cemetery, in the Kark area of Baghdad, near such luminaries of early Sufism as Ma'ruf KarkI and Joneyd Bagdadl.46 stands.
During this final phase of his life, which lasted approximately three decades, Daya turned to writing in Arabic. Shortly before his death, he completed an Arabic version of the Mersad, entitling it Manarat al-sa’erin ela ’llah wa maqamat al-ta’erin be ’llah (Light Towers for Those Voyaging to God, and the Stations of Those Flying with God). In the preface to this he reversed the argument used to justify the composition of the Mersad in Persian and declared his wish to benefit those who knew only Arabic. The work attained some fame, although never as much
’“See pp. 40-41 and 383.
’’Mohammad b^Ahmad al-NasawI, Sirat al-soltan Jalal al-Din Mankubarti, ed. Hafiz Ahmad Hamdi, Cairo, 1953, p. 280.
■"See Jami, Nafahat al-ons, p. 435.
’’Abdollah al-Yafe'I, Mer'at al-janan, Hyderabad, 1339/1921, IV, 136.
’“Louis Massignon, "Les Saints Musulmans Enterres a Baghdad," Opera Minora, Beirut, 1963, p. 180.
as the Mersad; curiously enough, it was translated into Persian for the Ottoman Sultan, Bayazld II.47
Far more important than this reworking, yet again, of the Mersad was the Arabic commentary upon the Qur’an that Daya composed in Baghdad. Indeed, it is to be regarded as one of the chief monuments of Sufi exegesis, and an edition of it must count as one of the major desiderata of Sufi studies. There has for long been much confusion surrounding this tafsir, partly because it is referred to by several different names, and partly because two Kobravls in addition to Daya had a hand in its composition. It is known variously as al-Ta’wilat al-najmiya, ‘Ayn al-hayat, and Bahr al-haqa’eq; the last of these three designations appears to be the earliest. Kobra himself began with the composition of a tafsir, but did not proceed far beyond the opening chapter of the Qur’an. The work was then taken up by Daya, who was overtaken by death before he could complete the commentary; he reached surat al-najm (sura 53). Then came a later Kobravl, Ala al-Dowla Semnani, who wrote a long and important preface on the principles of Sufi exegesis, and finally brought the tafsir to its completion. The work, then, may be regarded in a sense as a joint Kobravl enterprise, but it has always been ascribed to Daya, who did indeed write the major portion of it.48
Its fame spread very swiftly. An anecdote in Aflakl’s Mana- qeb al-rarefin, a collection of Mevlevr biographies, relates how it was first introduced to Anatolia: a certain Sehabal-Dln Maq- buli of Tabriz presented a copy to ‘Aref CelebI (d. 719/1319), head of the Mevlevi order; he in turn passed it on to others, and caused copies to be made.49 manuscripts of this commentary found in Turkish libraries testifies to the popularity it enjoyed. At about the same time, the
,7See Fritz Meier, "Stambuler Handschriften dreier persischer Mystiker: Ain al-qudat al-Hamadani, Nagm ad-Din al-Kubra, Nagm ad-DIn Daya,” Der Islam, XXIV (1937), 36-38.
’“See Mohammad Hoseyn al-Dahabi, at-Tafsir wa 'l-mojasserun, Cairo, 1381/ 1961, I, 59-65; Henry Corbin, En Islam Iranien, Paris, 1972, III, 175-176, 276, n. 90; Mojtaba Mlnovl’s introduction to Daya, Resdla-ye 'esq o 'aql, ed. Taqi Tafazzoli, Tehran, 1345 S./1966, pp. 30-32; and Siileyman Ates, I^ari Tefsir Okulu, Ankara, 1974, pp. 139-160.
’’Ahmad AflakI, Manaqeb al-'drefin, ed. Tahsin Yazici, Ankara, 1967, II, 933.
important Shi'ite gnostic and writer, Heydar Amoli, praised Daya’s commentary as being "without like or peer,” and declared that he had taken it as a model for his own Qur’an commentary, al-Mohit al-a'zam.50 Large sections of Daya’s commentary were incorporated in Ruh al-bayan, the great work of the Turkish Sufi Esma'il Haqql Borusawi (d. 1136/1724), and also the last specimen of this genre to be written, Ruh al-ma‘ant by Sehab al-Din al-Alusi (d. 1270/1854). Since both later commentaries have been printed, Daya’s work is partially accessible.
Before passing finally to some salient points of interest concerning the Mersad, let us briefly review the lesser writings of Daya. Probably in his youth, Daya wrote a brief allegory in Persian called Resalat al-toyur (Treatise of the Birds), a theme more celebrated in its treatment by Avicenna and Attar.61 Then he produced a short treatise in exposition of the celebrated utterance of Abu’l-Hasan KaraqanI, “the Sufi is uncreate,”52 and a longer piece on the respective virtues of love and intellect, with preference going to the former. This last work, variously entitled Me'yar al-sedq fi mesdaq al-‘esq (The Criterion of Veracity concerning the Touchstone of Love) or simply ‘Esq o ‘aql (Love and Intellect), bears great similarity to certain sections of the Mersad; it was probably a preliminary essay for part of that work, although the date of its composition is unknown.53 Three other brief treatises have also been attributed to Daya, but the ascriptions are probably inaccurate.54
Ill
The key word in the title of Daya’s masterpiece, Mersad, rendered here as “path,” is drawn from Qu’ran, 89:14: "Verily thy Lord watches over the path” (enna rabbaka la be ’l-mersad). The divine vigilance implied here is generally taken as referring to God’s omniscience of men’s deeds, but it is plain that Daya takes it in a slightly different sense, that of a protective and
’"Corbin, En Islam Iranien, III, 175.
“A synopsis of this work in German by Hellmut Ritter is given as an appendix to Meier’s article, “Stambuler Handschriften,” pp. 39-42.
’’Meier, “Stambuler Handschriften," p. 38.
“See MinovT’s introduction to Resala-ye 'esq o'aql, pp. 33-34.
“See Riyaht’s introduction to the Mersad, p. 53.
guarding vigilance. The word mersad occurs in the text of the work also, as a synonym of jadda-ye mostaqlm (straight path; see p. 36 below), which further clarifies the sense in which Daya uses it. The second part of the title, men al-mabda’ ela ‘l-ma‘ad, "from origin to return,” is to be found in the titles of many works that purport to treat in comprehensive fashion both cosmogony and eschatology and all that lies between. We may mention the poem of Sana’!, Seyr al-‘ebad ela al-ma‘ad;[21] a work by Nasir al-Din Tusi entitled with the Persian equivalent of mabda’ and ma'ad, Agaz va anjam; the Resdla-ye mabda’ va ma’ad of Shaikh Ahmad Serhendi (d. 1034/1624);56
by the celebrated Shi'ite sage, Molla §adra Sirazi (d. 1050/ 1640).57
The comprehensiveness promised in this title of the work is amply fulfilled in its text It deals, in a systematic manner, with the origins of the various realms and orders of creation, prophethood and the different dimensions of religion, the ritual practices, mores, and institutions of Sufism, the destinations that await different classes of men in the hereafter, and the fashion in which different professions and trades may come to yield spiritual benefit and heavenly reward. Thus it provides a full conspectus of Sufism, combining exposition of doctrine with description of method. It is unique in this respect, excelling earlier expository texts which lack the degree of elaboration, systematization, and explicitness that characterized the Sufism of the seventh/thirteenth century. The Mersad can indeed be regarded as a summation of the historical elaboration of Sufism down to the period of this "second flowering.”
A particular virtue of the book is its clear demonstration of the Qur’anic origins of Sufism. The numerous quotations from the Qur’an found in Daya’s work are not to be regarded as mere ornament, nor even as scriptural proofs adduced in support of various statements. Rather, they bear witness to the fact that
“’Contained in Masnaviha-ye Hakim SanS’i, ed. Mohammad TaqI Modarres Razavl, Tehran, 1348 S./1969, pp. 181-316.
’“Published at Delhi, n.d.
’’See S. H. Nasr, “§adr al-Din Shirazi,” in A History of Muslim Philosophy, ed, M. M. Sharif, Wiesbaden, 1966, II, p. 935.
for Daya, as for other Sufis, the Qur’an constitutes a well- structured, seamless, and coherent universe. The coherence of the Qur’anic universe is not immediately apparent; a process of ta’vil, of esoteric exegesis, is required to perceive and uncover it. In his celebrated Qur’an commentary, Daya has left behind a great monument of ta’vil, and the Mersad also contains important elements of Sufi exegesis. The Qur’anic verses encountered throughout the book are the loom on which it is woven, a particular sense for each verse being implied by the context in which it occurs.
Another prominent feature of the book is the frequency with which it draws parallels between the inner and the outer worlds, particularly with reference to processes of growth and development (the progress of seed, tree, branch, and fruit; the emergence of the hen from the egg; the refining of sugar and the baking of bread, to name but a few examples). This also should not be taken as a mere literary device. For characteristic of the Sufi world view is a belief in the morphological affinity of all orders of being: form and meaning, higher and lower, microcosm and macrocosm, world and hereafter. Daya says in his commentary on the Qur’an: "Verily all that God created in the world of form has its like in the world of meaning; all that He created in the world of meaning—this being the hereafter—has its true essence in the world of reality, which is the uttermost unseen. Know too that of all that God created in all the worlds, a specimen and sample is present in man.”58 It follows, then, that inner and unseen processes may be accurately described in terms of their outer counterparts.
The "originality” of Daya lies generally in his systematization and elaboration of what went before. There is, however, one respect in which he appears to be an innovator—the enumeration and description of the subtle centers of perception (lata’ef). He added to the fourfold scheme known to earlier Sufis—heart, spirit, intelligence, mystery—a fifth element, the "arcane” (kdfi). Two other elements were added later by another Kobravl, Ala al-Dowla Semnani, who, as we have seen, also acted as the cul-
minator of Daya’s work in taking his Qur’an commentary to its conclusion.[22]
Apart from the dominant religious interest of the work, it also offers much historical information. Daya’s recurrent condemnation of the hellenizing philosophers, although typical for Sufism and akin to numerous utterances of Gazali, Sana’!, Attar, and Rumi, doubtless owes some of its vigor to the ascendancy of Fakral-DinRaa in K'arazm and the hostility manifested by that philosopher to the Sufis. In this connection, his denunciation of Kayyam and scornful quoting of some of the notorious quatrains is one of the earliest proofs that Kayyam the philosopher and mathematician was also Kayyam the poet. The awestruck mention of the Mongols at various points in the work gives some indication of the apocalyptic impact of that barbaric onslaught on the Muslim world. Finally, the fifth part of the book is rich in incidental information on social and administrative history: the rapaciousness of the king’s appointees when left to their own devices, the venality of the judiciary, the duties of king and minister, the qualities expected of a pious merchant, and so forth. This part is in itself deserving of detailed analysis as a document of Perso-Islamic political philosophy, couched in distinctively Sufi terms.
The literary importance of the Mersad is considerable: it ranks among the masterpieces of Persian literature, and certain sections—particularly the narrative of the creation and appointment of Adam—bear comparison with the best prose written in Persian.[23] Daya’s choice of illustrative verses—both those of his own composition and those of his predecessors—is judicious, and makes of his work an incidental anthology of Sufi poetry, particularly quatrains.
Ever since its composition, Daya’s work has enjoyed a continuous and wide popularity in the Islamic world that has far transcended the confines of the Kobravi order. The broad diffusion of the work is attested to by the abundance of manuscript
copies to be found in the libraries of Iran, India, Central Asia, and Turkey, an abundance that stands in contrast to the rarity of many early works on Sufism restored to prominence in recent times by the labors of Orientalists. Quotations from the Mersad are to be found in a wide range of later Persian works on Sufism, and its unacknowledged influence is visible in still more numerous writings.[24] The Mersad appears to have reached India in the lifetime of its author, for the early fourteenth-century historiographer Baran! lists it among the Sufi works that became popular in Delhi thanks to the ascendancy of the Cesti order.[25] About two centuries later, in Ebn ‘Omar Mehrabi’s Hojjat al-Hend, a polemic against Hinduism, we find extracts from the Mersad being placed in the mouth of a parrot instructing a princess in Islam.[26]Daya’s arguments concerning the inadequacy of Brahmanic mysticism must have aroused particular interest in India. The Mersad exercised great influence in Turkish Anatolia, the land of its composition, in both the Persian original and a much-read Turkish translation made in the ninth/fifteenth century by one Qasem b. Mahmud Qarahesari and dedicated to Sultan Morad II.[27] Finally, we may note that the Mersad was known also in China. Among the Sino-Muslim manuscripts brought from Kansu to Europe in 1909 by the d’Ollone mission, together with several Naqsbandi works, was a copy of the Mersad containing marginal glosses in a North Chinese idiom written in the Arabic script.[28] In short, the influence of the Mersad permeated virtually the whole of the Islamic world, with the exception of its Arab
and African regions. Western scholarship, by contrast, has paid little attention to this important work.66
The Persian text of the Mersad was first published in Tehran in 1312/1894 by Abd al-Gaffar Najm al-Dowla, and then again in.1352/1933 by Hoseyn Sams al-‘Orafa Ne'matollahl, one of the most celebrated Iranian Sufis of recent times. Both printings were unreliable, since the editors were evidently unaware of the existence of two recensions of the Mersad, and the texts they produced were an arbitrary melange of the two. A new edition, based upon a critical examination of numerous manuscripts, was prepared by Dr. Amin Rlyahl and published in Tehran in 1352 S./1972. The text of Dr. Riyahl, upon which this translation is based, represents chiefly the second or “royal” recension, although in some parts he has used the first recension as the basis for his edition.
I have striven to make this translation of Daya’s masterpiece as close to the original as is compatible with comprehensibility. The syntactic complexity of many sentences, atypical for Persian, the frequency of multiple ezafa constructions, and the parenthetic insertion of Qur’anic verses or fragments of verses all present particular problems; the reader must judge how felicitously the translator was able to solve them. It should be bome in mind that the stylistic qualities of the original— reflected to some degree, I hope, in the translation—addressed themselves to an esthetic and spiritual sensibility different from that of the modern world, so that the translation is, in a sense, an invitation to transpose oneself to the realm of an archaic sensibility.
It is a commonplace of Sufism that true knowledge of the Path is to be had from men, not from books; books can at best be a temporary substitute for the presence of a living preceptor. But the traditional Muslim audience for which Sufi writings were
“Apart from Meier’s bibliographical article ("Stambuler Handschriften”), we may mention the chapter “Doctrine des photismes chez Najm Razi,” in Henry Corbin’s L'Homme de Lumiere dans le Soufisme Iranian, Paris, 1971, pp. 154- 163; a brief notice of the Mersad by R. C. Zaehner in his Hindu and Muslim Mysticism, London, 1960, pp. 180-183; and some passages from the work translated in A. J. Arberry, Classical Persian Literature, London, 1958, pp. 248-253, and Cyprian Rice in The Persian Sufis, London, 1964, pp. 91-97.
destined at least enjoyed some acquaintance with the Qur’anic source of Sufism and lived, if less intensely and consciously, in the same conceptual universe as the Sufi masters. Such will not be the case with most readers of this translation. I have therefore added to the translation notes that not merely clarify references and allusions and identify the sources of quotations, but also seek to elucidate the meaning of terms and phrases whenever necessary. I have thus sought to be not merely the translator of Daya’s work from Persian to English, but also, in some measure, his interpreter to a new audience.
In conclusion, just as Daya intended his work to fulfill purposes peculiar to his own age, let it be permitted to the translator to express the hope that the Mersad in English garb will meet certain needs of the present time. I hope first, that it will serve to refute the pseudo-Sufis of the present age who wish to detach Sufism from its Qur’anic roots, and that it will offer, as Daya puts it, a “touchstone” against which to strike their claims; second, that it may reintroduce modern-minded Muslims to the inward dimension of their religion and to the riches of Sufism that they all too frequently neglect or deny; and finally that it may provide students of comparative religion with a comprehensive, authentic, and coherent account of Sufism.
From God is success, and upon Him reliance.
Hamid Algar
Zu’l-hejja 1399/October 1979
In the Name of God, the Compassionate,
the Merciful
Praise without end and laudation without limit to that Monarch from Whose munificence the existence of all beings results, and Whose existence is praised and magnified by their excellence—“there is naught but celebrates His praise”;1 that Lord Who, out of the creativity of His nature and the artistry of His wisdom, inscribed, with the pen of generosity, the impress of souls on the leaf of nonbeing; Who concealed the Water of Life that is gnosis in the darkness of the createdness of the human state—"in your own selves too are signs; will ye not then see?”;2 Who enabled the distraught and thirsty wanderers in the desert of the search to tread, like Alexander,3
ness of human attributes with the foot of sincerity; and Who, in His uncaused grace, brought those like Kezr*
burned with the fire of love to the fountainhead of the Water of Life that is gnosis—“is he who was dead, to whom We gave life, and a light to walk by among men, like him who is in the darkness and comes not forth therefrom?”5
■Qur’an, 17:44.
zQur’an, 51:21.
’Alexander was depicted in the legend evolved by medieval Islam as the archetype of the seeker after illumination. His progress through the world was seen as inspired not so much by a lust for conquest as by a desire for mystical knowledge, his outer journey serving as the mirror and support of the inner journey; an attempt was made to identify him with the figure designated as Zu’l-Qarnayn (The Two-Homed One) in Qur’an, 18:83 ff. His goal, the Water of Life, signifying ma'refat/'erfan (gnosis; direct cognition of reality), was found concealed in a region of utter darkness on the fringe of the earth. The source of illumination is analogously to be found hidden in the tenebrous densityof man’s corporeal state. Daya makes frequent reference and allusion to these components of the Alexander legend, which is one of the favored themes of Persian narrative poetry. It has been treated with particular mastery by Nezaml of Ganja (d. 605/1209; a prose translation of his version by H. Wilberforce Clarke, Book of Alexander the Great, appeared in London in 1881), Amir Kosrow of Delhi (d. 725/1325), and ‘Abd al-Rahman Jami (d. 898/1492). The works of these three inspired a host of imitations not only in Persian but also in Turkish and Urdu, so that the theme of Alexander as the spiritual seeker became part of the literary patrimony of all the Muslim East. See the article "Iskender-Name” by Orhan §aik Gdkyay in Islam Ansiklopedisi, V, 1088-1090.
■Keir: the ubiquitous and immortal personification of the initiatic principle, generally identified with the unnamed figure encountered by Moses and mentioned in Qur’an, 18:65-82. He appears also in the Alexander legend as the supreme guide on the path, who finally conducts him to the Water of Life.
’Qur’an, 6:122.
Salutations without number and plaudits without bound to those sanctified spirits in unsullied frames, the one hundred and twenty thousand and more instances of prophethood and repositories of manly nobility, who were wayfarers on the paths of Truth and exemplary guides in the lands of the Law—“these it is to whom We have given the Book, and authority and prophethood,”[14]
of the caravan of saints, Mohammad the Chosen One, may God bless and give abundant peace to him and his family, his wives and goodly, pure descendants, his righteous successors, rightly guiding and rightly guided, and all of his companions.
O brothers in God’s guidance, and companions in the reverential fear of Him! May God enable us all to rise from the depths of the human state to the summit of His servitude, and grant us that we slough off the attributes of the human domain and don those of the divine domain. Know that the purpose and essence of all creation is the existence of man, and all that partakes of existence throughout the twin realms does so by virtue of his existence. If one possesses clear and total vision, he will recognize that all of existence is man.
Thou art the height and depth of this world.
I know not who thou art; all that is, thou art.[15]
The purpose of the existence of man is knowledge of the essence and attributes of God Almighty. Thus when David asked: “O Lord, why didst Thou bring forth creation?” the Almighty answered: “I was a hidden treasure, and I desired to be known; thus I brought forth creation, that I might be known.”[16] True
knowledge of God can be attained only by man, for although the angels and the jinn are his partners in the worship of God, man was set apart from all other beings by accepting the burden of the Trust of this knowledge. “We offered the Trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they refused to bear it, being afraid thereof, and man accepted to bear it.”9 By the heavens are meant their inhabitants—the angels; by the earth, its inhabitants—the animals, jinn, and demons; by the mountains, their inhabitants—the wild beasts and birds. Noneof these was fit to bear the burden of the Trust of knowledge, for out of all creation it was only man whose soul desired to be a mirror to the beauty of the Divine Presence and to manifest all of His attributes, both passively and actively.10 This is the meaning of the saying that “God created. Adam in His own image.”11
The essence of the soul of man is the heart, and the heart is like a mirror, with the two realms of creation enclosing it like a pericardium. It is in this mirror that all the attributes of the beauty and splendor of the Divine Presence are manifested. Thus He said: "We will show them Our signs upon the horizons and in their souls.”12
Men and jinn have their being for the sake of the mirror; Throughout the twin realms, every gaze falls on the mirror.
The heart is the mirror of that imperial beauty, And these twin realms are the cover of that mirror.13
When the soul, inherently disposed to the state of mirrorhood, is nurtured and brought to perfection, it will observe in itself the manifestation of all the divine attributes. It will know itself and the purpose for which it has been created, and thus realize the
’Qur’an, 33:72.
10It has been suggested that this passage of the work, with its evocation of the "burden of the Trust,” served to inspire the following line in the Divan of Hafez (ed. Mohammad Qazvlnl and Qasem Gam, Tehran, n.d., p. 125): The heavens were unable to bear the burden of the Trust; the task fell to the lot of this crazed one.
"Tradition recorded by Bokart, Moslem, and Ebn Hanbal.
‘“Qur’an, 41:53.
13A quatrain presumably composed by Daya himself.
meaning of the saying that “he who knows his self knows also his Lord.”14 It will come to recognize its own nature and to understand the mystery on account of which it has been ennobled and •preferred. This feeble one says:
O thou copy of the script divine!
O thou mirror of the royal beauty!
Naught in the world lies outside of thee;
Ask of thyself thine every desire, thou art it!15
But for the soul of man to reach the perfection of the degree that is lustrous mirrorhood, many paths and perilous places must be traversed, a task fulfilled only by following the highway of the Law, the Path, and the Truth.16 As iron is extracted from the mine and treated with numerous subtle stratagems in water and fire, passing from the hand of one craftsman to another in order gradually to become a mirror, so too man is the mine from which the iron for this mirror is extracted. “Men are mines, like mines of gold and silver.”17 The iron must be carefully brought forth from the mine of man’s being and then tempered until, passing gradually through a series of degrees, it attains the rank of mirrorhood.
The reed thou seest standing tall on the shore Grows and sprouts from stem to stem.18
“A saying variously attributed to the Prophet and All b. Abu Taleb (see Foru- zanfar, Ahadis-e Masnavi, p. 167); it is of almost universal occurrence in Sufi literature.
‘“Although this quatrain is here identified as Daya’s own composition, it is frequently ascribed in other works to Baba Afzal al-Din Kasim (d. 654/1256 or 664/1265), a prolific writer on mystical and philosophical themes in both Arabic and Persian. The same is true of several other quatrains quoted in this work.
‘“This triad of Law, Path, and Truth refers to the outer dimension of religion, its inner aspect, and the center which vivifies and lies at the heart of both of these. The concern of the Law is with man’s bodily frame; that of the Path with his heart; and that of the Truth with his spirit (see third part, chapters five, seven, and eight).
‘’Tradition recorded by Bokari, Moslem, and Ebn Hanbal.
18An Arabic verse of unknown origin.
This book concerning wayfaring on the road of religion and attainment of the realm of certainty, the training of the human soul and the knowledge of the divine attributes, has been composed in five parts and forty chapters, which shall presently be set forth, God Almighty willing.
List of Parts and Chapters
. First Part: Introduction to the book, containing three chapters, the first explaining the utility of composing this work on the sayings of the men of the Path, and the means of traveling the Path; the second, concerning the reason for writing the book, particularly in Persian; and the third, treating of the manner and method in which the book is written.
Second Part: Concerning the origin of created beings, and containing five chapters: the first, expounding the creation of spirits and knowledge of the stages through which they pass; the second, describing the world of Dominion and the degrees of all that it contains; the third, concerning the appearance of the different realms of Kingship and Dominion; the fourth, explaining the beginning of the createdness of the human frame; and the fifth, setting forth the origin of the attachment of the spirit to the frame.
Third Part: Concerning the life of man, and containing twenty chapters: the first, concerning the veils that cover the human spirit as a result of attachment to the bodily frame, and the tribulations that spring therefrom; the second, concerning the attachment of the spirit to the frame, the wise purpose implicit therein and the benefits thereof; the third, concerning the necessity of the prophets, upon whom be peace, for man’s cultivation; the fourth, concerning the reason for the abrogation of all previous religions and the sealing of prophethood with Mohammad, upon whom be peace and blessings; the fifth, concerning the training of the human frame in accordance with the code of the Law; the sixth, concerning the refinement of the human soul and the knowledge thereof; the seventh, concerning the purification of
the heart in accordance with the code of the Path, and the knowledge thereof; the eighth, concerning the adornment of the spirit in accordance with the code of the Truth, and the knowledge thereof; the ninth, concerning the necessity of a shaikh for man’s training and wayfaring; the tenth, concerning the station of shaikhhood, its conditions and attributes; the eleventh, concerning the conditions, attributes, and customs of the morid; the twelfth, concerning the need for zekr, and the special properties of the zekr of la elaha ella’llah; the thirteenth, concerning the method of uttering zekr, its conditions and customs; the fourteenth, concerning the need of the morld for transmission of zekr by the shaikh, and the property of such transmission; the fifteenth, concerning the necessity of seclusion, and its conditions and customs; the sixteenth, concerning certain visions deriving from the unseen, and the difference between dreams and visions; the seventeenth, concerning the witnessing of lights and the degrees thereof; the eighteenth, concerning unveiling and its varieties; the nineteenth, concerning the manifestation of the Divine Essence and attributes; and the twentieth, concerning attaining to the divine presence, with neither absorption nor separation.
Fourth. Part: Concerning the return of the souls of the felicitous and the wretched, and containing four chapters. God Almighty said: 'And among them some wrong their own souls; some follow a middle course; and some are foremost in good works, by God’s leave.”1 And again, “None shall fall into the fiercely blazing fire but the most wretched one, who calls the Truth a lie and turns away.”2 The first chapter is concerning the return of the oppressive soul, which is the reproachful soul; the second, concerning, the return of the soul that follows a middle path, which is the inspired soul; the third, concerning the return of the foremost soul, which is the tranquil soul; and the fourth, concerning the return of the most wretched soul, which is the commanding soul.
Fifth Part: Concerning the wayfaring of different classes of men, and containing eight chapters: the first, concerning the
’Qur’an, 35:32.
’Qur’an, 92:16.
wayfaring of kings and the lords of command; the second, concerning the state of kings, their conduct toward each group of their subjects, and their solicitude for the people; the third, concerning the wayfaring of ministers, men of the pen and deputies; the fourth, concerning the wayfaring of the different classes of scholar—experts in the law, preachers, and judges; the fifth, concerning the wayfaring of the possessors of bounty and the holders of wealth; the sixth, concerning the wayfaring of farmers, village headmen, and peasants; the seventh, concerning the wayfaring of merchants; and the eighth, concerning the wayfaring of tradesmen and craftsmen.
The Introduction to the Book Containing Three Chapters, in Accordance with the Blessed Saying of God Almighty: Ye Shall Be Three Bands1
First Chapter:
Concerning the Utility of Composing This Work on the Sayings of the Men of the Path and the Means of Wayfaring
God Almighty said: “So We have made the Qur’an easy by thy tongue, that thou mayest give glad tidings to the Godfearing and warn a stubborn people.”2 The Prophet, upon whom be peace, said: ‘A word of wisdom is the lost property of every wise man.”3
Know that discourse concerning the Truth and exposition of wayfaring on the Path bring forth the promptings of longing and the urgings of desire in the inner beings of those disposed to the search, and kindle the sparks of the fire of love in the hearts of the sincerely devoted, particularly when such discourse arises from the vision of sincere lovers and those who have attained realization.
He whose heart is full of love’s fire. Every tale that he tells will be alluring.
Seldom now do you hear the tale of a lover, So hearken unto it, it is most sweet.4
Even the neglectful and unaware may awaken through the auspicious effect of such discourse, for one cannot know what key will unlock the door to the felicity of the search. It has been said that "at times the ear will love before the eye,”5 and indeed it was through the door of the ear that the auspicious effect of such discourse came to those who said: “Our Lord! We have heard a caller calling us to belief, saying 'believe in your Lord,’ and we have believed.”6
2Qur'an, 19:97.
3 A Tradition of slightly different wording—"a word of wisdom is the lost property of every believer”—is recorded by TermezI and Ebn Maja.
*A quatrain presumably of Daya's own composition.
5The second half of a line of verse by the Arabic-writing Persian poet, Bassar b. Bord (d. 167/783). See Ebn Kallekan, Wafaydt al-a‘ydn, ed. Ahmad Farid Refa'I, Cairo, 1367/1948, III, 22.
6Qur'an, 3:193.
sown in the soil of hearts by the hand of the divine summons, "am I not your Lord?”7 It then remained to be seen which fortunate ones would be enabled to nurture that seed, for the eternal realm of love is not bestowed on every monarch and king.
Not every Solomon is given the kingdom of His search;
Nor every soul and heart the charter of His sorrow.
Those who seek relief are deprived of His pain, For it is a pain not given to those desiring relief.
While no man is free of the tribulation of aspiring to such love, nonetheless the searching hand of every aspirant cannot reach the skirt of majesty of this auspicious fortune. “Religion is not by aspiration.” This feeble one says:
When my heart was smitten with the charms of his face, My body became thinner than a hair on his head.
Not every hand may reach out to touch him—
Who even am I? A nobody in his domain!
A further purpose in the exposition of wayfaring is the refutation of those evil ones of bestial aspect who worship their own passions and devote all their energies to the utmost enjoyment of bestial, animal and predatory pleasures and lusts. Being content like beasts and cattle with what the passing moment offers them, they are barred from the joys experienced by men of God and the enjoyments of those who draw near to Him. Out of all the perfections of religion and the degrees of the people of certainty, they content themselves with the mere form of prayer and negligent, careless fasting, polluted by endless impurities. Let them not say tomorrow, like the rest of the rueful band, “we were unaware of these auspicious matters. ‘If we had heard or understood, we would not be among the people of the flames.’”8
Joneyd—may God sanctify his cherished spirit!—was once asked how the sayings and narratives of the shaikhs profited the
’Qur'an, 7:171. This question, addressed to men’s souls in pre-etemity, and the answer bala ("indeed Thou artl”), constituted a pact of fealty to God binding on men for all time.
“Qur'an, 47:10.
morid. He replied that they strengthened his heart, made steadfast his foot of exertion, and renewed his fidelity to the search.9 They then asked him if he was sure his answer was from the Qur’an. He affirmed that it was, and recited: ‘All that We relate to thee of the tidings of the Messengers is that whereby We make firm thy heart.”10 It has been said too that “the words of the shaikhs are the armies of God upon earth,” in the sense that they afford assistance to seekers on the path. If, for example, some luckless wayfarer is deprived of the guidance of a perfect shaikh, and during his search, ascetic practice, and inner combat, Satan wishes to bar his way by inciting him to doubtful or innovative practice, he may then hold fast to the words of the shaikhs and strike the coin of his state against the touchstone of their trenchant speech. Thus he may escape from the grasp of satanic temptation and the whisperings of his soul, and return to the road of the straight path, and the highway of the upright faith.
For on this path, highway robbers are numerous—demons in human and jinn form—and if the traveler goes forth without guide or escort, he will soon be cast into the valley of doom. Shaikh Abu Said b. Abu’l-Keyr, upon whom be the mercy of God, said that the morid should each .day relate or listen to an amount of discourse of the shaikhs equivalent to one thirtieth of the Qur’an.11 For as has truly been said, one delights in frequent remembrance of what one cherishes.
“Abu'l-Qasem Joneyd (d. 297 or 298/910 or 911): one of the most prominent early Sufis of Baghdad, and the first to produce a systematic account of Sufism in written form. The literature of Sufism is replete with references to him, often with the honorific epithet seyk al-ta'efa (The Elder of the Group); two recent studies are Ali Hasan Abdel-Kader, The Life, Personality and Writings of Al- Junayd, London, 1962, and Siileyman Ate§, Ciineyd-e Bagdadi, Hayali, Eserleri ve Mektuplari, Istanbul, 1970.
'“Qur’an 11:120.
"Abu Sa’id b. Abu’l-Keyr (d. 440/1049): one of the earliest Sufis of Khorasan, and the first notable mystic to have expressed himself in Persian. The origins of the Sufi hospice (kdnaqdh) are closely associated with him, and to him are attributed the first Persian Sufi quatrains. The main source for his life is the biography written by his grandson, Mohammad b. al-Monavvar, Asrar al-tow- hid fi maqamat al-seyk. Abu Sa'id, ed. Zablhollah §afa, Tehran, 1348 S./1969, now available in French translation (Mohammad Achena, Les Etapes Mystiques du Shaykh Abu Sa'id, Paris, 1974). See too R. A. Nicholson, Studies in Islamic Mysticism, Cambridge, 1921, pp. 1-76.
For these reasons, certain travelers on the Path and wayfarers in the world of Truth, who have amassed a quantity of this auspicious fortune while voyaging along the highway of rectitude, have conformed to the precept that “the purifying due shall be rendered on everything,”[17] and obeying the injunction to grant everyone his right, they have regarded it as incumbent on their generosity to give the deserving their due. Thus they have bestowed a draught from the fountainhead of the Water of Life that is gnosis on the thirsty wanderers in the desert of the search, so that pain may be added to their pain, longing to their longing, and thirst to their thirst.
I am like sand, and drink in the water of Thy grief;
The more I drink, the greater is my thirst.
Second Chapter:
Concerning the Reason for Writing the Book, Particularly in Persian
God Almighty said: "We have sent no messenger save with the tongue of his people that he might make all clear to them.”1 The Prophet, upon whom be peace, said: ‘Address people in accordance with their degree of intelligence.”
Know that although many books have been written concerning the Path, both detailed and concise, and in them many matters and truths set forth, most of them are in Arabic, and they benefit men of Persian tongue but little.
'Tis of the ancient grief one must tell the new. beloved, And in her tongue that one must make address.
To say la taf'al and efal is of little use;
If thou art with Persians, ’tis kon and makon thou must say.2
For some time a group of truth-desiring seekers and sincere morids has been demanding of my feeble self a compendium in Persian, notwithstanding my lack of means and inability. Such compendia have already been penned, in accordance with the capacity and need of every class. They desired, however, one that should be slight of girth and rich in content; set forth the beginning and end of creation, the start of wayfaring and the finish of voyaging; and treat of the goal and the destination, the lover and the beloved. It should be a world-displaying goblet,3 and a mirror to God’s beauty; it should both benefit the deficient beginner on the path and profit the perfect adept drawing near to the goal.
‘Qur’an, 14:4.
2A quatrain of unknown origin. La taf'al and ef'al: “do not” and "do” in Arabic; kon and makon: "do” and "do not” in Persian.
3An allusion to the miraculous goblet owned by the legendary Iranian monarch Jamsid, a vessel that enabled its possessor to survey the entirety of creation. One of the most common motifs in Persian poetry, it generally corresponds in Sufi symbolism to the purified human heart that reflects the manifestation of the divine attributes in creation (Seyyed Ja'far Sajjadi, Farhang-e mostalahat-e 'orafa va mota^avvefa, Tehran, 1339 S./1960, pp. 130-131).
While I was in the lands of Iraq and Khorasan, never long settled before departing once again, the hindrances of misfortune and calamity robbed me of the leisure and opportunity to undertake the completion of such a work. For each day some new disaster would emerge, and bring distraction to my heart and confusion to my mind. It was as if that region were the homeland of disaster, just as the Prophet, upon whom be peace, once said, pointing to the east, “thence shall come disaster.”[18]
Yet we did not quietly accept those disasters; did not bow our heads to heavenly decree and divine destiny; did not come forth with patience and submission; did not offer thanks for religion and Islam; did not say, "some evils are lesser than others.” Instead, we showed ingratitude for the blessing of Islam until the ineluctable and awesome blows of "if ye are thankless, My chastisement is surely terrible”[19] descended on those lands and their people. Through the sinister effect .of the licentiousness of the frivolous and the oppression of the tyrannical, and in accordance with God’s custom—"and when We desire to destroy a city, We command its men who live at ease and they commit wickedness therein; thus is Our word proved true against them, and We destroy them utterly”[20]—ruination was visited upon those lands and their inhabitants.
All the oppression that heaven works is, in short, Less than we deserve, if the truth should be told.
Never did I show gratitude for His bounty, So inevitably He cast me into trouble and toil.
It was in the year 617 (1220) that the godforsaken army of the Tartar infidels, may God forsake and destroy them, conquered all those lands. The confusion and ruin, the killing and seizure of captives, the destruction and burning that were enacted by those accursed creatures had never before been witnessed in any age, whether in the lands of the infidels or the realm of Islam, nor had they ever been recorded in any book of history. They re-
semble only the catastrophes that shall ensue at the end of time, foretold by the Prophet, upon whom be peace: "The hour shall not come until you fight the Turks, a people with small eyes, red faces and slight, flat noses, whose countenances are like the skin drawn tight over a shield.” This saying of his is indeed a description of these accursed infidels. He then added: ‘And anarchy shall be rampant.” When asked, "what shall that anarchy be?” he replied, “killing, killing abundant.”[21] In truth, this event is none other than that which the Messenger of God, upon whom be peace, foresaw with the light of prophethood more than six hundred years ago. Could killing be more extensive than this, that in the city and province of Ray alone, where this feeble one was born and spent his youth, it has been estimated that they killed and took captive about five hundred thousand people?[22]
The calamity and disaster inflicted by those damned, accursed ones on all of Islam and the Muslims are more than can be expressed in words; and this event is, moreover, too famed throughout the world to need description. But if, God forbid, feelings of honor and jealous concern for Islam do not arise in the breasts of kings and sultans to whose care the protection of Islam and the Muslims has been entrusted—“the prince is a shepherd for his subjects and accountable for them”[23]—if the magnanimity and manly courage of the faith do not lay hold of their souls so that they join in union and gird on the belt of obedience to the command of "go forth, light and heavy laden, and struggle in God’s way with your possessions and your selves;”[24]if they do not sacrifice their lives, their riches, and their king-
doms in order to repel this catastrophe—then one must fear that Islam will be totally destroyed, and that it will be overthrown in those few lands where it remains unvanquished.
O kings of the world, hasten forth
To save some remnant of the faith.
Islam is lost, and you are unaware;
Unbelief engulfs the earth, and you slumber on.
It is to be feared as a present danger that the name and trace of Islam that still survive will also vanish, thanks to our ill- omened and useless disputes, so that no sign of religion will remain, and it will withdraw behind the veil of dignity. “Islam began as a stranger, and again shall become a stranger as it began.”11 O God, awaken us from the sleep of the neglectful; O God, take us not to task for our evil deeds; give no dominion over us to those who are without compassion for us; "burden us not beyond what we have the strength to bear; pardon us, forgive us, and have mercy upon us; Thou art our Protector, so help us against the people of unbelief.”12
When the ferocious conquests of those accursed and godforsaken ones began, this feeble one stayed patiently for almost a year in the lands of Iraq, and in the hope that the morning of salvation might dawn after the somber night of catastrophe and disaster and that the sun of good fortune might rise again, endured all kinds of severe hardship and tribulation. For I was loath to abandon my children and womenfolk, to part from my friends and dear ones and to leave house and home behind; and neither was it possible to bring forth from those lands all my dependents and following, nor did my heart permit me to expose them to destruction and perdition. Finally, when the catastrophe passed all bounds and the disaster exceeded all limits, when life itself was endangered and the knife cut through to the bone, it became necessary to declare that “necessity renders permissible the forbidden.” Obeying the command of “O ye who believe, guard your own souls; he who is astray cannot
"A Tradition (Moslem, Termezi, Ebn Maja, Daremt, Ebn Hanbal).
l2The final phrases of this supplication, included within quotation marks, are taken from Qur'an, 2:286.
harm you,, if ye are rightly guided,”131 was compelled to abandon all of my kith and kin; profiting from the adage that “he who has saved his head has truly profited,” and conforming to the principle that “flight from the unendurable is a custom of the prophets,”14 I had to depart and entrust my dear ones to calamity.15
When no disaster threatened, dearly did he cherish him;
But when he saw disaster coming, he left him to his fate. Know then that in times of trouble
There is none who will stand by you, none!
One night in the year 618 (1221), this feeble one left his abode in Hamadan with a group of cherished darvishes, and confronting extreme peril set out on the road to Erbil. Soon the news caught up with us that the accursed infidels—may God destroy and abase them!—had reached Hamadan and beleaguered it. The people of the city strove to defend it as best they could, but when their power to resist was exhausted, the infidels triumphed and captured the city. They martyred many men, took captive numerous women and children, and wrought utter destruction. Most of my kinsfolk who had been in the city of Ray were martyred.
Hail rained down upon my garden;
Not a leaf remained on the rosebush.
“To God we belong, and to Him we shall return.”16
Then we severed all hope of returning to our accustomed homeland and dwelling, and saw religious and worldly interest alike to dictate that we should settle in a land inhabited by the
■’Qur’an, 5:104.
’■Purportedly a Tradition; see Foruzanfar, Ahadls-e Masnavi, p. 191.
’’Daya’s self-concern, ill-concealed by his invocation of Qur’an and Tradition, may have inspired these lines in the first chapter of Sa’di's Golestan:
See that one devoid of honor
Who will never see good fortune’s face.
For he chose ease for himself
And left wife and child in hardship.
(Golestan, ed. Mohammad Alt Forugi, Tehran, 1316 S./l 937, p. 30).
’’Qur’an, 2:156.
People of the Sunna and the Community, and free of the blight of heresy, deviation, and fanaticism;[25] a land adorned with security and justice, where goods were cheap and the means of livelihood abundant, and a pious, learned, just, equitable, and discerning monarch ruled, who might appreciate the true value of men of religion and grant the accomplished their due.
Whenever we inquired after such a place among the perspicacious and experienced, who were well acquainted with the conditions of every land and clime, they replied unanimously as follows:
"In our time, the region answering this description and the land possessing this property is the country of Rum, for it is both adorned with the persuasion of the People of the Sunna and the Community and embellished with justice and equity, security and prosperity. Praise be to God, the king of that realm is a perpetuator of the line of Saljuq, a living memory of that blessed dynasty to the shadow of whose blessed baldachin the people of Islam owe every instant of ease, peace, security and tranquillity they have ever enjoyed. The virtuous and pious works performed in the auspicious age of those God-fearing, religionnurturing kings—may God illumine the proofs of their piety!— were never witnessed in any other age: raids and conquests in the lands of unbelief; the capture of citadels and castles from the heretics;[26] the building of colleges and hospices, mosques, small and great, and their pulpits, bridges, caravanserais, hospitals, and other pious foundations; the honoring and patronage of the scholars of religion; the cherishing and veneration of ascetics and devout men; the care and compassion shown to all the subjects of the king—these and other means of drawing nigh to the presence of God. the Glorious had never before been seen. This truth is too well known and celebrated to need prolonged
exposition, for throughout the lands of the Arabs and the Persians, in Turkestan, Fargana, Transoxania, and Karazm, in Khorasan, Gur, Garjestan and Gaznl, in India, Kabul and Zabol, in Sistan and Kerman, in Kuzestan and the two Iraqs,[27]in Diyarbekir, Armenia and Syria, on the North African coast[28]and in Egypt, in Rum and elsewhere, the monuments of their virtue and that of their vassals are manifest, and the tongues of the people of Islam resound with pious prayer and joyous encomium for that blessed dynasty. May God the Monarch Almighty make of their compassion, mercy, and tender care for their subjects a means for their advancing to high degree in the hereafter and for drawing nigh unto Him; and may He perpetuate the blessings of just rule and the cultivation of religion in their blessed house until the end of the world, by His grace and generosity.”
When matters became thus clear to my feeble self, I realized that the means of obtaining tranquillity and peace and cultivating the life of the heart, of disseminating learning and summoning men unto God, and of serving in fit fashion men given to pious retreat, were to be found and had only in that land, in the refuge provided by the rule of that blessed dynasty to pray for whose welfare was a tradition I had inherited from my ancestors and forefathers, and to whose bounteous generosity I and all the people of Islam are indebted. Thus I considered it my duty to set out without delay for that blessed land; to settle in the sanctuary of that realm—may it enjoy daily increase and protection and immunity from the evil and cunning of the unbelievers; and to busy myself with prayer for the welfare of that victorious state— may God strengthen it! Auspicious fortune aided me, divine grace befriended me, and limping and stumbling I managed to reach the frontier of this blessed realm in the company of a few dear followers.
By happy chance we were met in the city of Malatya by a hundred thousand species of auspicious favor and good fortune in the shape of the arrival of the shaikh of shaikhs, the foremost scholar of the world, the pole of the age, perpetuator of the line of shaikhs supreme, the shining meteor of the community and the faith, ‘Omar al-Sohravardl, may God profit Islam and the Muslims by granting him long life, and may his blessed breath and visage never be far from us![29] We counted this as great good fortune and wondrous favor, and considered it an auspicious omen. When we were honored by being received into his presence, that great one waxed eloquent in gratitude for the aid, assistance, and generosity he had received from the monarch of Islam, the sultan of sultans, may God perpetuate his rule and elevate his dignity and repute! In the presence of both elect and commonalty, he described some part of the virtues and noble features of that one of pure lineage and sanctified spirit.
In the midst of his discourse, he turned to this feeble one and said:
Since you have been compelled to leave behind your accustomed homeland and your well-loved dwelling place, and have been constrained to lose both time and tranquillity—‘it may happen that ye will hate a thing which is better f ory ou’[30]—settle in this blessed realm; tarry in the sanctuary of this kingdom; and apply the principle of ‘when you find pasture, alight.’ Although the world is not fitting to be a place of habitation, and treacherous life is of short duration, yet spend what remains of life in the refuge afforded by the auspiciousness of this monarch, who is young in fortune yet mature in wisdom, this sultan who nurtures religion as a true servant of God. ‘If your choice be correct, then cleave to it.’ Although it is the custom of the Sufis to seek seclusion, isolation, and solitude for the sake of God’s fear, to avoid the company of kings and sultans and to abandon all
intercourse, nonetheless one may not shun completely this divinely supported king who has both a full share of learning and a generous amount of the fruits of ascetic combat, and who loves the possessors of learning and the people of the heart. Nor may one deprive oneself and the people of the benefits and advantages derived from attending on his presence.
He spoke for a while in this manner, and then sought in the Qur’an for a sign confirming the rightness of his proposal. Then, with his blessed hand, he penned a few words to the lieutenants of the king,23 and turning to me, he said: ‘After drawing a sign from the Noble Qur’an and consultation with God the Glorious, I see the matter to be as I said.”
This feeble one regarded the order of that great one as the order of God, and I Was unable to disobey his command. Then, without delay, he stood up like the rising sun and departed like the wind, while my wretched self, with an eye full of tears and a heart full of fire, heavy laden like a cloud returning from the ocean shore, set out for the royal presence of lofty elevation. Doubly was I laden, with the pearls of wisdom I had gathered from that ocean, and with the sorrow of separation. But the messenger of felicity gladdened me with the tidings of a hundred thousand bounties, and the impending good fortune of attaining the royal presence mended all hurt and damage.
A voice then addressed my inmost heart, reminding me that those who enter the presence of kings and sultans must bear with them some gift reflecting their own state, although falling short of the lofty disposition of kings. Now I was indigent and without means, and that majesty was of truly exalted rank. Hence I replied: It has been said that—
The remedy for lovers is, I know, the forsaking of remedy, But still in my lack of remedy I fret and tear out my soul.
However exalted is the monarch’s rank, it cannot exceed that of
25A1-Sohravardi’s letter of recommendation for Daya is referred to in the Avamer al-'ald‘iya of Ebn BlbT.
Solomon, and however indigent I may be, I cannot be less than an ant. Let me then prepare for that king of Solomonic degree a gift befitting an ant, and offer excuse for my impotence with these two lines of verse:
O King! to carry a hundred souls into thy presence as gifts Would be less even than taking caraway seeds to
Kerman.24
But thou knowest that it is the custom for ants To bear a locust’s leg to Solomon’s court.25
Then, however much I longingly sought a gift, sallying repeatedly forth into the battlefield of reflection, diving into the ocean of meditation, and inspecting both worldly possessions and provisions for the afterlife, I could find no clue of anything that might speak for me in that presence.
I inspected my establishment from end to end
And my foot did not stumble on so much as a potsherd.
When I had totally despaired, I addressed to all things the verse, “they are enemies unto me; not so the Lord of the Worlds,”26 and in my impotence and confusion, with humility and abasement, I turned to the presence of Him Whose generosity is absolute and Who alone is deserving of worship. I took the basket of supplication in the hand of high endeavor and went forth to beg in accordance with daily habit. Forthwith His bounteous majesty, in accordance with His generous custom— "call upon me, and I shall answeryou”27—opened the gates of His treasury of liberality, and showing me every kind of bounty proclaimed: "Take all thou desirest of these guarded and hidden treasures, and grieve thy heart no more.” This feeble one re-
“'“Taking caraway seeds to Kerman”: a proverb having the sense of taking something as a gift to a place where it already abounds; cf. English "coals to Newcastle.”
“The references to Solomon, the ant, and the locust’s leg have the sense that Islam sees in Solomon a prophet-king whose rule extended over all animate creation. On the occasion of a review of his subjects, when every order of being offered some form of gift, the ant could find nothing to present to Solomon except the leg of a locust that had been severed in the crush.
““Qur’an, 26:77.
“’Qur’an, 40:60.
plied: "O Lord! If I should take worldly bounties, it would be to no purpose, for the monarch already possesses such riches in boundless measure, and they are, moreover, of no consequence in the lofty view of that auspicious one. If I should take with me deeds performed in obedience to religion, again it would be to no end; for, God be praised, he has storehouse upon storehouse filled with such deeds, and the ship of his lofty intent is heavily laden with the cargo of worship and obedience. Should I take with me various of the sciences, they too would be of.little benefit, for learning and the learned are plentiful in his presence, and he possesses hundredweight upon hundredweight, nay camel train upon camel train, of the different kinds of knowledge.”
When God in His grace perceived the loftiness of my intent, He caressed me with thousandfold generosity and liberality and said: "O Ayaz to Our Mahmud!28 O devoted slave at the threshold of Our mastery! O lover illumined by the light of Our beauty! ‘There are hidden gems of knowledge unknown to all but those who know God; if they are spoken of, none denies them except those arrogant toward God.’29 There are unpierced jewels in Our treasury, never touched by the jeweler’s file and hidden in virginal state behind the veil of the unseen—‘whom neither man nor jinn hath touched.’30 Take as gift a necklace of these precious jewels, a band of these virginal lustrous-eyed houris, and present them to that servant whom We have chosen, that monarch whom We have raised up; who in Our Potiphar-like presence is like Joseph raised to honor from the well, and who shows the patience of Job in the beneficial afflictions with which We try
Z8Ayaz: a trusted and devoted servant of Sultan Mahmud of Gazna (d. 421/ 1030), celebrated for valor, intelligence, and beauty? The relationship between Ayaz and his master was often celebrated in Persian poetry (notably by §a'eb [d. 1087/1677] in his narrative poem Mahmud o Ayaz), and became one of the stock archetypes of love. The sense here is that Daya is a beloved slave of the divine majesty; mahmud, in addition to being the name of Ayaz’s master, also has the sense of ‘‘deserving of praise”; there is therefore a double entendre in the phrase hairat-e mahmudt-ye ma.
!9A Tradition related on the authority of Abu Horeyra by two early Sufis, al- SolamT (d. 421/1021) and al-KalabazT (d. 390-1000). See Siileyman Ates, Siilemi ve Tasamufi Tefsiri, Istanbul, 1969, p. 17.
’“Qur’an, 55:56.
him;31 the shadow of the name of Our essence,32 andthe manifestation of the meaning of Our attributes; succorer of Our saints and vanquisher of Our enemies; the personification of loftiness in affairs both religious and temporal;33 support of Islam and the Muslims; the pride and perpetuator of the house of Saljuq, Abu’l-Fath Keyqobad b. Keykosrow b. Qelej Arslan, may God exalt his rule, make prosper his worldly and religious concerns, give victory to his armies and allies, and strengthen the proof and evidence of his piety! For no other commodity is so eagerly sought in the marketplace of conviction, and no other rare novelty fetches the same price in the shop of innermost truth!”
This bounty and inspiration were bestowed upon me in the city of Kayseri in the blessed month of Ramazan in the year 618 (1221), at the time when the gates of divine compassion were flung open, the universal feast of generosity lay ready, and the summons of “where are the needy and the supplicant?”34 had been sounded. Seizing the advantage that the season afforded, I entrusted the reins of my pen to the hand of direction from the world of the unseen, so that whatever precious jewel arrived in the depths of my heart as a gift from that world might be drawn by the tongue of the pen on to the thread of expression, and placed on the tray of the written page. Then I might take it as a gift to the royal presence, saying the while, “O mighty prince, affliction has visited us and our people; we come with merchandise of scant worth.”35
After renewed consultation of the Noble Qur’an and request-
5lThe implicit comparison of the Saljuq ruler, Keyqobad, to Joseph and Job is a delicate and skillful reference to the sufferings and misfortunes he endured at the hands of his brother, Keyka’us. Upon the death of his father, Keykosrow, in 607/1210, Keyqobad was imprisoned for a period of seven years, first in Malat- ya and then in Harput. In 616/1219, Keyka’us died, and he was released and brought to Konya as monarch. See ‘‘Keykubad I” by Osman Turan, Islam Ansiklopedisi, VI, 646-666.
“The name of God's Essence is Allah; and there is a Tradition that "the sultan is the shadow of Allah upon earth.” The Tradition is recorded by Ebn Kozeyma, Ebn No'eym and al-Deylaml, but regarded as weak by al-Beyhaql in his So'ab al-iman.
’’This phrase is a rendering of Keyqobad’s title, Ala al-Donya wa’l-dln.
“A Tradition, recorded with a slightly different wording by Moslem and Ebn Hanbal.
“Qur’an, 12:88.
ing the aid of God Most Glorious, I adorned and embellished this bride from the unseen with the auspicious titles of that religion-nurturing monarch, that justice-dispensing sultan, whose baldachin is the sky, and whose banner, the stars, the pride and perpetuator of the line of Saljuq, may God multiply his glory and extend the shadow of his rule over east and west!
Abundant thanks to the Lord of the World
That I have entrusted a jewel to a knower of jewels. He will know, looking upon it with the gaze of his soul,
The toil my soul endured, to nurture his soul.
Our hope of the uncaused grace and boundless generosity of God, the Monarch Exalted and Almighty, is that He will guard and protect our speech and our hand from error and fault, mistake and shortcoming; open to our heart and our tongue the door to the hidden treasures of the unseen; permit us to reach our aim by traveling the highway of following the Master of the First and the Last;36 make our work a source of benefit in this world and intercession in the hereafter for ourselves and our readers; and render it acceptable to the hearts of men and pleasing to their gaze, if God the Glorious so wills. He is sufficient unto us, and upon Him is our reliance. “O Lord, make not our hearts to swerve after Thou hast guided us, and give us mercy from Thy presence, for truly Thou art the giver.”37
56I.e., the Prophet. ’’Qur’an, 3:8.
Third Chapter:
Treating of the Manner and Method in Which the Book is Written
God Almighty said: ‘‘He it is Who originates creation, and then causes it to return.”1 The Prophet, upon whom be peace and blessings, said: "People die in the state in which they lived, and shall be resurrected in,the state in which they died.”
Know that according to this verse and this Tradition, three states were established for man: the beginning of his creation, known as origin; the period of his worldly existence, known as life; and the obligatory severance by the spirit of its attachment to the body, or its voluntary separation from the attributes of the body, and this state we call return. The book, then, is based on these three: origin, life, and return, and God willing, a part containing several chapters will be devoted to each, so that some account may be given of the various states of man at each successive stage, within the confines of this brief treatise. Thus, in the part treating of origin, the beginning of the creation of spirits and bodily shapes, and of the realms of Kingship and Dominion,2 will be described. In the part concerned with life, the training of man, his traveling and wayfaring through the stages of the human condition, the lights of spirituality, the transmuting of characteristics and the transforming of attributes, his different states as he proceeds along his journey, and the need for the means of spiritual training and progress—all these matters will be set forth. In the part devoted to return, the return of the souls of the felicitous and the wretched and the manner in which each group is brought back shall be expounded, all this in accordance with the method of the prophets and saints.
A section concerning the wayfaring of various classes of men will be added, so that all may derive profit and benefit from the book. Another part has been written by way of introduction, so that the book consists of five parts and forty chapters, as listed and described above. In choosing the number five, we wish to
'Qur’an, 30:27.
“Concerning Kingship and Dominion, see p. 70 no. 1.
partake of the blessedness and auspiciousness inherent in it, for it is the number of the pillars on which Islam is based: "Islam is built on five pillars: bearing witness that there is no god other than God and that Mohammad is His Messenger; the regular performance of prayer; the payment of the purifying due; the fast in the month of Ramazan; and pilgrimage to God’s house for those possessing the means.” This is a sound Tradition, reported by Abdollah the son of 'Omar, may God be pleased with both of them.3 The number forty was chosen for the chapters in order to partake of the blessedness of the figure, which has a certain property with respect to the training of man. Thus God said: ‘And We appointed with Moses thirty nights, and We completed them with ten, so the appointed time of his Lord was forty nights.”4 Similarly, the Prophet, upon whom be peace, said: "Whoever worships God sincerely for forty days, the springs of wisdom shall well up from his heart to his tongue.”5 At the beginning of each chapter we have quoted a verse from the Qur’an and a Tradition of the Prophet, suitable to its contents, in order to hold fast thereby to the Book and the Sunna.
The description that we shall give of the origin and return of man, of his excellencies and deficiencies in the course of his training and his traveling through all states and stations, may serve as a touchstone against which aspirants to the Path and the Truth, the wayfarers and gnostics, can strike the coin of their state. If they find within themselves some sign and indication of the stations we describe, they will be fortified and may hope that their feet are planted on the highway of the Truth and that they are progressing along the straight path. If, on the other hand, they find no such indication, they will not be deceived by the wiles of Satan and the oglings of the soul; they will expel all arrogant fancies from their minds, and set their feet on the path of true search, refusing to be deceived by stale verbiage.
Chase out empty passion from thy head!
Lessen thy conceit, increase thy supplication!
’This important Tradition is found in Bokarl, Moslem, TennezI and Nasa’I. ’Qur’an, 2:51.
5A Tradition recorded by Ebn No'eym, and Sa’Id b. Mansur in his Sonan.
Love is thy master, and when thou reachest the goal, He, none other, will silently direct thy deeds.[31]
This book has been named, in accordance with its contents and purpose, THE PATH OF GOD’S BONDSMEN FROM ORIGIN TO RETURN, and is dedicated to Sultan Keyqobad, may God appoint him as one of His elect servants, cause him to tread the path of guidance, and destroy his enemies as He destroyed Samud and 'Ad.[32]
When the devoted morid, the enamored seeker, studies this work with sincerity and care, not out of fancy and frivolity, and comprehends the principles it contains, he will perceive who he is, whence, how, and for what purpose he has come; whither and how he shall go; and what his goal and destination are.
O soul! The heart of lovers everywhere is sorely troubled By this stage which lies ahead for all.
The sword of fate has felled into the bowl of annihilation The heads of countless wise and troubled souls.
It will become clear to him for what wise purpose the pure, exalted, and luminous spirit has been shrouded in its lowly, tenebrous frame of clay; to what end the spirit is then separated and severed from the frame; why the outward form decays; and for what reason the bodily frame is restored at resurrection to serve as garment for the spirit. Then he will leave the category of "they are like cattle; nay, more misguided”;[33] attain a truly human degree; and be delivered from the veil of forgetfulness described in the verse, "They know but the outer part of the present life, and of the hereafter they are heedless.”[34] With joyous yearning he will set his foot on the path of wayfaring, so that all his gaze perceives his foot will pursue, for the fruit of gazing is faith, and that of pursuing is gnosis.
i uc iviunriei aria, iviuuiuu, tree duuk. is vv until
Philosophers, atheists, and materialists are deprived of both these stations, and hence wander in bewilderment. One of these pretended men of learning, who is known and celebrated among them for scholarship, wisdom and perspicuity, by name 'Omar Kayyam, in the extremity of his confusion while wandering in the wilderness of misguidance, finds himself constrained to say in one of his quatrains, thus confessing to his blindness:
In this circle of our coming and going Neither beginning nor end is visible.
None in the whole world can tell us truly Whence is our coming and whither our going.
And again:
Why did the Maker adorn the forms of creation
And then cast them down to decay and decrease?
Should the forms be ugly, whose fault is it?
And if pleasing they be, why cause their ruin?10
That blind wanderer—"it is not their sight that is blind, rather the hearts within their breast”11—is unaware that God Almighty has servants who through following the Master of the First and the Last have traversed the entirety of creation. They have passed beyond "the distance of two bowstrings,” and arriving at
'“This attack on Kayyam (d. 562/1131), author of the excessively renowned quatrains, repeated later in the work, is of interest as one of the earliest indications that Kayyam, the mathematician and philosopher, was also a poet (see Mohammad 'All Forugi’s preface to his edition of the Roba'iyat [Tehran, 1321 S./1943], p. 16); and also as a decisive refutation of claims, ancient and modern, that Kayyam was in reality a Sufi. The great Sufi poet Attar (d.c. 617/1220) denounced Kayyam, in terms very similar to those used by Daya, in his Elahlnama (ed. Hellmut Ritter, Istanbul, 1940, p. 272). In his study of Kayyam entitled Dami ba kayyam (Tehran, 1345 S./1966), the modern writer 'All Dasti takes note of Daya’s hostility to his hero, and in order to exact a kind of posthumous and imaginary vengeance mocks Merfad al-'ebad as “a dark forest of hearsay, fable, and fantasy,” and stages a fictitious debate before Keyqobad in which Daya is decisively worsted (Dami ba Kayyam, pp. 265-286; English translation by L. P. Elwell-Sutton, In Search of Omar Khayyam, London, 1971, pp. 216- 225).
the station of "or closer” have lost their beings.12 They have anointed the eye of vision with the collyrium of “his gaze swerved not nor strayed;”13 and studying the verse "He beheld the supreme signs of his Lord,”14 they partook of the manifold light of “God guides to His light whomsoever He wills.”15 Then, in that light, from the station of “he sees by Me,” 16 they witnessed the beginning of the world of Command, whence the spirits proceed, and saw how each object emerges from the obscurity of nonbeing onto the plain of being, and ever shall emerge until the end of the world. They comprehended the mystery inherent in the being of each, and looking out from the window of pre-eternity onto post-eternity, they perceived the end and destination of each class of being, and like a compass traced out the circle of preeternity and post-eternity. Repeatedly they passed from being to nonbeing, and from nonbeing back to being; first they were nonexistent beings, and then existent nonbeings; and at times neither existent nor nonexistent. Behind this veil many mysteries are concealed, perceptible only to those free of attachment, for such matters are not within the reach of every passion- polluted intellect. Most men think them mere absurdities, while each is one of the hidden mysteries of the world of the unseen, and only the gaze of the people of that world may alight upon them. As the proverb has it, "The language of the dumb is known only to their mothers.”
When I joined in unison with the sorrow of thy love,
A hundred times or more to non being I repaired.
l2“The distance of two bowstrings or closer” (Qur’an, 53:9): the distance of the Prophet from the divine presence at the end of the Me'raj, the ascension from Jerusalem to heaven that took place shortly before the Hejra. The expression has been taken by Sufis to mean the utmost proximity to God, with opposite attributes meeting in obedience to divine command (Sajjadl, Farhang-e mostala- hdt-e 'orafa va motasawefa, p. 311). The Me'raj was also taken by the Sufis as a model for the spiritual journey; the earliest example is furnished by Bayazld Bastaml (d. 261/875); see his Me'rdjndma in Farid al-DIn ‘Attar, Tazkerat al-owliya, ed. Mirza Mohammad Kan Qazvlnl, Tehran, 1346 S./1967, I, 160-164.
•’Qur'an, 53:17.
HQur'an, 53:18.
•’Qur’an, 24:35.
•’Part of a long hadis qodsi: “My servant continually draws nigh unto Me through supererogatory works until I love him. And when I love him, I am to him an ear, an eye and a hand. He hears by Me, sees by Me and strikes by Me.” See Forurzanfar, Ahadis-e Masnavi, pp. 18-19.
Then far beyond nonbeing I passed and traveled on.
A mystery I already was; now I am mystery consummate.17
Where are these lost and sightless ones? If there were left in them any desire to search for vision, the scales of egoism could soon be lifted from their truth-perceiving sight, with dominical18 aid and the instrumentality of the Path, and on condition of submission. Then they would be delivered from the blindness described in the verse “Deaf, dumb, and blind, and they understand not,”19 and instead constantly proclaim: “Were the veil to be lifted, my certainty would not increase.”20
It was my aim that both elect and commonalty should be seated at the beneficial banquet of this book, and that none of the differing groups and classes of men should be without a share in the station of those drawn nigh unto God, or fail to taste the libations of His saints. All should attain this good fortune without abandoning their crafts and trades, their normal garb and clothing, thus causing affairs to be neglected and the essential needs of men to remain unfulfilled. In the fifth part of the book, the wayfaring of each class will therefore be described, for there is no group whose craft and trade cannot lead to either paradise or hell, or to the presence of God. All three paths lie open at the foot of everyone. The straight path is that road which leads to God; the road to paradise is on its right, and that to hell on its left. God said: "Ye shall be three bands: Companions of the Right—what are the Companions of the Right? Companions of the Left—what are the Companions of the Left? and the Foremost: the Foremost, those are they brought nigh unto God.”21
I7A quatrain by Daya. The last line contains a pun: razi, here translated as "a mystery,” might also be the adjective of place, Razi, thus constituting a signature to the poem.
'“Dominical: this word and the corresponding substantive "dominicality” will be used throughout the book to render rabbarii and robubiyat respectively. The adjective rabbani refers to the divine attribute rabb ("Lord”), signifying the Creator as the solicitous and watchful sustainer of all being. Robubiyat is the abstract noun designating that quality.
19Qur’an, 2:171.
20A saying variously attributed to AU b. Abu Taleb and 'Amer b. Abd al-Qeys Tamlml, an early ascetic. See Badl' al-Zaman Foruzanfar’s notes to his edition of Jalal al-DIn Rumi’s Fihe ma fih (Tehran, 1330 S./1952), p 272.
21Qur’an, 66:7-9.
The shaikhs have said that “the paths to God are as numerous as the breaths of men.” By breaths are intended the livelihoods, crafts, and trades of men, in the exercise of which they breathe. These paths may be compared to the roads that lead to the Ka'ba. From every place, point, and direction where men live throughout the world, a road goes forth toward the Ka'ba: ‘And from whatsoever place thou goest forth, set thy face toward the Sacred Mosque.”22 To depart and go forth is the first major condition for performing the hajj. Once it is fulfilled, one must set one’s face to the Ka'ba, for although prayer may be valid if the direction of the Ka'ba cannot be established, hajj cannot be. The third condition is to traverse the distance separating oneself from the Ka'ba. When these three conditions have been fulfilled, it is possible to perform the hajj.
Similarly, each class in its trade and craft must first depart from the pleasures of the soul and all selfish interest. It must turn fully toward God in all things, and regard it as a duty to traverse the distance that being constitutes. Only thus may it hope to reach the Ka'ba of attainment: “Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of God.”23
Keep not the company of thyself, thy companion is a brigand;
Cut loose from self, for in selfhood lies calamity.
Thou didst ask: “What is the distance from me to him?” O friend, thy self is the measure of that distance.
A description of the proper conduct of each class of men shall be set forth concisely at a suitable point, God willing. Obscure expressions, unfamiliar words, and phrases caused artificially to rhyme will be avoided, so that both neophyte and adept may profit from the work, and both elect and commonalty be satisfied. This, in accordance with the prayer, "O Lord, expand for me my breast; ease my task for me; unloose the knot upon my tongue that they may understand my words.”24
And peace be upon Mohammad and his family.
2!Qur’an, 2:149-150.
’’Qur’an, 2:115.
’’Qur’an, 20:25.
Concerning the Origin of Existent Beings, and Containing Five Chapters, in accordance with the Blessed Fivefold Nature of the Daily Prayer
First Chapter:
Expounding the Creation of Spirits and the Degrees of Knowledge Thereof
God Almighty said: "Indeed We created man in the fairest of shapes, then caused him to descend to the lowest of the low.”1
The Prophet, upon whom be peace and blessings, said: "God created spirits four thousand years before He created bodies”— or, according to another version, "two thousand years.” This Tradition explains the verse just quoted in the sense that God first created human spirits and then corporeal frames and fleshly bodies.2
Know that the origin of all creation and all beings consists of the spirits of men, and the origin of the spirits of men is the pure Mohammadan Spirit, may peace and blessings be upon its possessor.3 Thus the Prophet said: "The first that God Almighty created was my spirit”—or, according to another version, "my light.”4 Since the Prophet, peace be upon him, was the choice essence of all beings and the fruit of the tree of creation—"were it not for thee, I would not have created the heavens”5—he was also of necessity the origin of all beings. For creation is like a tree, and the Prophet is the fruit of that tree, and the tree originates in truth from the seed contained within its fruit.
Thus, when God wished to create existent beings, He first
'Qur’an, 95:4-5.
2Ajsam va ajsad: the first word denotes bodies with respect to volume and dimension, and the second bodies with respect to fleshly composition.
’The Mohammadan Spirit (also known as the Supreme Spirit) is authoritatively defined by Sarif JorjanI (d. 816/1413) as follows: “The human spirit as a locus for manifestation of the divine essence with respect to its dominicality; none may wander near it, nor tarry. God alone knows its true ground. It is the First Intellect, the Mohammadan Reality, the Unitary Soul, the Reality of the Names. It is the first existent created by God in His form; it is the supreme viceregent, and the very substance of light” (Ketab al-ta'rifat, Beirut, 1969, p. 118).
'Tradition reported on the authority of Hasan b. All; see Foruzanfar, Aliadis-e Masnavi, pp. 113-114.
5A hadis qodsl; see Foruzanfar, Ahadis-e Masnavi, p. 172.
brought forth the light of the Mohammadan Spirit from the effulgence of the light of the unity of His essence, in reference to which the Prophet said: “I am of God, and the believers are of me.” According to certain traditions God Almighty looked upon the Mohammadan Light with the gaze of love, so that shame overcame it, and drops of sweat appeared from which He aeated the spirits of the prophets, upon whom be peace and blessings. Then, from the light of the spirits of the prophets, He created the spirits of the saints; from the light of the spirits of the saints, the spirits of the believers; from the spirits of the believers, those of the sinners; from those of the sinners, those of the hypocrites and the unbelievers. Then, from the light of the spirits of men, He created the spirits of the angels; from the spirits of the angels, those of the jinn; from those of the jinn, those of the devils, rebellious spirits,6 and demons,7 in accordance with the different degree and state of each. From the residue of their spirits He then created those of the different animals. Next, He brought into being the world of Dominion and all that pertains to it: animal souls, the vegetable and mineral realms, and compound and simple elements, as shall be set forth in the second and third chapters, God willing.
These degrees and stages of creation may be compared to the process whereby a sugar merchant extracts raw white sugar from the cane; boils it a first time and obtains white sugar candy; a second time, and obtains white sugar; a third time, and obtains brown sugar;8 a fourth time, and obtains caramel; a fifth time, and obtains black cube sugar;9 and finally a sixth time, after which only dregs will remain, exceedingly dark and black, these being known as treacle.
From the first stage of raw sugar to that of treacle, lucency and whiteness gradually decrease until only darkness and blackness remain. He who is unaware of the art of the sugar merchant will not know that he obtains these several and different prod-
‘Rebellious spirits (marada): plural of mared (cf. Qur’an, 37:7) or marid (cf. Qur’an 22:3, 4:117). The rebelliousness of this class of evil spirit is said to consist of its desire to leam surreptitiously the designs of God.
’Demons (abalesa): plural of Eblls, the proper name of the devil. ’Literally, "red sugar” (sekar-e sork).
9Sekar-qavdleb-e siyah.
ucts from the same sugar; he will deny the fact and say that black treacle could never have emerged from the white, translucent sugar. He will not know that blackness and darkness were inherent in the particles of the sugar.
My friend and I both drank of the same wine;
His cheek turned red, mine turned yellow.
It is in truth necessary for the raw white sugar to contain darkness and blackness within the particles of its being, so that even in its original state it may have, by virtue of those attributes, some share of the properties that are inherent in darkness and blackness, a share proportionate to its needs. When it reaches the state of sugar candy, the sugar candy is thereby enabled to obtain its share; so too the white sugar, and all succeeding states and stages. Each takes a share of the whiteness and lightness, the darkness and blackness, inherent in the particles of the raw white sugar, one proportionate to its capacity, and leaves the rest. Finally, in the treacle, only a small amount of whiteness and lightness remains, and all else is darkness and blackness, just as in white sugar candy there had been only a small amount of darkness and blackness, and all else was whiteness and lucency. In the same way that the visual sense cannot perceive darkness and blackness in the sugar candy even though they are present, so too it cannot perceive whiteness and lucency in the treacle, even though they are present.
This difference of degree in light and darkness, whiteness and blackness, in each of these types of sugar is necessary, for each type possesses a certain perfection on its own plane, and there is inherent in each a certain property deriving from the difference of degree and not found in the other types. Where one in particular is to be employed, another may not be used. Thus, when sugar candy is thought to be useful, the physician will not prescribe white sugar; nor will he prescribe sugar candy when white sugar is called for. None may take the place of another, and it is therefore clear that each on its own plane has a perfection lacking in all others. Thus God says: “He Who has made good all that He created.”10
'"Qur'an, 32:7.
Know that in this similitude the raw sugar represents the pure Mohammadan Spirit, which is in truth the Adam of Spirits; in the same way that Adam, upon whom be peace, is the father of man, so too the Prophet Mohammad is the father of spirits. This is the meaning of his saying: "We are the first and the last.”11 That is, "although our form was the last in that it followed on other forms, our spirit was first because it preceded all other spirits.” The spirits of the prophets, upon whom be peace and blessings, emerged from the Mohammadan Spirit, like the sugar candy from raw sugar. The spirits of the saints were then extracted from those of the prophets, like white sugar from sugar candy; those of the believers from those of the saints, like brown sugar from white sugar; those of the sinners from those of the believers, like caramel from brown sugar; and those of the unbelievers from those of the sinners, like black cube sugar from caramel. In the same way the spirits of angels, jinns, and demons were then extracted until there remained only a residue corresponding to treacle. From that which was subtle and clear in this residue the animal and vegetable spirits were fashioned, and from that which was dense and dark the compound and simple elements were formed.
There occurs to us now an extremely subtle truth deriving from the unseen world, which probably none has hitherto expressed, namely, that the darkness and blackness inherent in the raw sugar serve as vehicles, respectively, for heat and density. Therefore wherever darkness and blackness are found in greater quantity, in the different kinds of sugar candy, white sugar, caramel, black cube sugar, and treacle, there too heat and density will be greater. Thus white sugar is one degree hotter and denser than sugar candy, and similar differences separate the rest from one another.
Now heat is an attribute of fire, and fire is the substance of love; density is an attribute of earth, and earth is the substance of lowliness and abasement. Rebellious pride and striving for loftiness and elevation are the properties of fire. Hence Satan rebelled in pride and said: "I am better than him.”12 For he indeed
1'Tradition recorded by Bokari, Moslem, Nasa’i, and Daremi.
12Qur’an, 7:12. The words of protest uttered by Satan when commanded to prostrate himself before Adam.
was of fire, while the properties of earth are vileness and abjection. Hence the animals whose origin is earth are of abject disposition and lowly aspiration, seeking out only perishable and earthly sustenance. All oppressiveness (zolm) arises from the attributes of fire, and all ignorance (jahl) arises from the attributes of earth. When both reach their limit, there come into being extreme oppressiveness (zalumi) and extreme ignorance (jahuli), these words being emphatic in form.13
These two attributes of darkness and blackness, even though inherent in the raw sugar, were not evident in it, nor in the sugar candy and the white sugar; they became fully manifest only in the treacle, a residue remaining from the sugar, in which there was but little lucency and whiteness. Conversely, lucency and whiteness were evident in their plenitude in the sugar candy, in which there was but little darkness and blackness.
Similarly, heat, the substance of love, was present in small quantity in the sugar candy of luminous spirits, and likewise density, the leavening for humility and servitude. But since these two attributes had not attained perfection in luminous spirits, they were unable to carry the burden of the Trust of Knowledge. Conversely, in the treacle represented by the water and clay of animal form, clarity, luminosity, and spirituality were present in small quantity, but since they had not attained perfection, the animals too were incapable of bearing the burden of the Trust of Knowledge.
Therefore a combination was needed of the two worlds, spiritual and corporeal, a combination that should possess in perfect degree the means of love and servitude and of knowledge and cognition. It would thereby be enabled manfully and ardently to bear the burden of the Trust on the shoulders of its soul. This bearing of the burden is none other than the twofold fealty of man14 mentioned by God Almighty: “We offered the Trust to the heavens, and the earth, and the mountains; but they
l,Zalumi and jahull: each word is fonned of an Arabic particle on the emphatic paradigm of fa'iil and the Persian abstract noun ending -I. Zaliim and jahul are drawn from Qur’an, 33:72, where they refer to the qualities of man that have caused him to accept the burden of the Trust.
■Twofold fealty (velayat-e dorang): that is, a fealty to be exercised in both the material and spiritual domains.
refused to bear it, being afraid thereof, and man accepted to bear it—he is indeed extremely oppressive and ignorant.”15 Extreme oppressiveness and ignorance are necessary attributes of the human state, since the burden of the Trust cannot be borne except with the strength of extreme oppressiveness and ignorance, even though it may be perceived with spiritual light and clarity alone.16 The angels saw the Trust with their spiritual light and clarity, but being without the strength of corporeal attributes, they were unable to lift up its burden. The animals had the strength and capacity of corporeal attributes, but being without the spiritual light and clarity needed to perceive the honor of bearing the burden, they did not accept it. Since man was the combination of the two worlds, spiritual and corporeal, he was ennobled with the task of bearing the burden. This is the inner meaning of God’s saying: “Truly We have ennobled the sons of Adam.”17
As for the knowledge of the essence of the spirit, earlier writers have accomplished little more than a preliminary description. Nonetheless, let some account be offered here. Again a comparison with sugar is appropriate: Know that just as there are seven attributes inherent in sugar—whiteness, blackness, lucency, darkness, subtlety, density, and sweetness—so too there are seven attributes inherent in the spirit, which is a subtle essence proceeding from God’s dominicality and peculiarly honored by the possessive adjective “My” in the Qur’anic phrase "of My spirit.”18 These attributes of the spiritare luminosity, love, knowledge, forbearance, familiarity,19 permanence,20 and life.
“Qur’an, 33:72.
^Zalumi (extreme oppressiveness) is derived from the triliteral root ZLM which has the sense of darkness as well as that of sin, transgression, and cruelty. This sense is contained within zalumi, man being dark in that he is fashioned of clay, and his darkness being providentially necessary for his bearing the burden of the Trust.
’’Qur’an, 17:70.
“Qur’an, 15:29. The verse reads in full: “When I have shaped him [Adam] and breathed in him of my spirit, fall ye down in prosttation,” this command being addressed to the angels. Man is “peculiarly honored” in that it was only he who was thus directly created and given the breath of life by God. See below, p. 110.
“Familiarity (ons): primordial familiarity with the Creator. The word ensan (man as theomorphic being) is sometimes related etymologically to the root of ons. See below, p. 124.
’•Permanence (baqa): permanence or “abiding” in God after the effacement of separative consciousness.
Further attributes arise from each of these: hearing, vision, and speech from luminosity; yearning, seeking, and sincerity21 from love; will and cognition from knowledge; dignity, modesty, endurance, and tranquillity from forbearance; pity and compassion from familiarity; steadfastness and persistence from permanence; and intelligence, understanding, and other modes of perception from life. Other attributes are also derived from them, both before and after the attachment of the spirit to the bodily frame, a description of all of which would result in prolixity.
All originate in the seven principal attributes of the spirit, each of which corresponds to one of the attributes of sugar. Thus, luminosity corresponds to whiteness and love to blackness, as has already been explained; knowledge to lucency; forbearance to darkness; familiarity to subtlety; permanence to density; and life to sweetness. The attribute corresponding to that the trace of which is least evident in the sugar will also be least evident in the spirit.
Thus, if it is desired that such an attribute reach the fullness of manifestation, one must take it, as it were, to a mine22 where it is present in perfection. For example, if one wishes the attribute of blackness, which is slight in sugar candy, to attain perfection, the sugar candy must be mixed with treacle, which may be considered as a mine of blackness. Then the sugar candy too will become black to the same degree as the treacle. Similarly, when it was desired to perfect the attribute of love in the spirit, which corresponds to blackness in the sugar candy, the spirit was attached to the bodily frame, which is a mine of blackness, so that the quality of love might there be nurtured to perfection. This is one of the mysteries of the attachment of the spirit to the bodily frame. Since the angels lacked this attachment to the corporeal and tenebral frame, their seed of love was never nurtured to perfection, that it might bear the fruit of “He shall love them and they shall love Him.”23
21Sincerity (fedq): the congruence of outward action with inward state (Jor- janl, Ketab al-ta'rifat, p. 137).
22“Mine” appears to mean here the unalloyed source of an attribute, where nothing other than itself is visibly present.
23Qur’an, 5:57.
It is possible that someone might now pose the following question: “You have said that blackness, darkness, and density were inherent in the sugar that is the light of the spirit of Mohammad, upon whom be peace and blessings. You have also explained that the spirits of men need these attributes so that each may serve in its proper place as a means for the knowledge of God. Furthermore, you have said that the Mohammadan Spirit emerged from the effulgence of the light of the unity of the Essence. Can it then be said that these attributes are inherent in the light of the unity? If you reply affirmatively, then it is established that need exists within the unity. If your reply is negative, then whence came to the pure Mohammadan Spirit that which was not present in the light of the unity?”
The answer is threefold. First, although the sugar of the pure Mohammadan Spirit emerged from the sugarcane of the effulgence of the light of the unity, it nonetheless bore the imprint of createdness, which is an attribute absent from the light of the unity. All that is created is without exception subject to the darkness of the created state, for light as such is an attribute exclusively of divinity—“God is the light of the heavens and the earth”24—while darkness as such is an attribute exclusively of the created state. Thus the Prophet, upon whom be peace, said: “God fashioned creation in its darkness.”25 It is therefore fitting that blackness, darkness, and density should be among the attributes of the created state and the properties of createdness.
Second, the Essence in Its unity, may It be glorified and exalted, possesses the attributes of favor and wrath, and it may be said that all the luminosity and clarity present in spirits derives from the effulgence of the attribute of favor, and all blackness and darkness from the effulgence of the attribute of wrath.
Third, we compared darkness in the sugar with the attribute of the fire of love in the spirit, and there can be no doubt that the seed of love was sown in the disposition of the spirit before all other attributes.
“Qur’an, 24:35.
“First part of a tradition recorded by Ebn Hanbal, BeyhaqI, andTabaranl. Itis cited in its entirety on p. 326.
We imbibed the wine of love for Thee, together with milk; We were reared on love for Thee in infancy.
Nay, ’tis falsely I speak; how might it be thus?
For we were nurtured together with love for Thee in pre-eternity.
It is certain that love is the foremost among all the attributes of the spirit, since the love it possesses is derived from the honor of “He shall love them.”26 If “He shall love them” did not precede “they shall love Him, ”27 none would have the temerity to boast of love. The rope of love was unwound by the expansion28 of “He shall love them.”
Thou has made me daring with Thy lip.
For else, how might my wretched self be meet for Thee?
“He shall love them” is thus an attribute of uncreatedness, and “they shall love Him” likewise savors of the uncreated state. What other attribute of the spirit could then vie with love, for it alone is linked to uncreatedness?
In this there are many mysteries which books are incapable of expounding: ‘And the harvests that ye reap, ye shall leave them in the ear, except a little, whereof ye shall eat.”29 All the exalted host of cherubim and spirit beings could not. speak of love, for they were unable to bear its burden. Love and suffering were born in the same household, while love and joy are strangers to each other.
Shaikh Abdollah Ansari,30 may God’s mercy be upon him,
“Qur’an, 5:57.
’’That is, both in the order of things and in the Qur’anic verse to which reference is made.
“Expansion (enbesdt or bast): God’s manifestation of Himself through the workings of His attributes, as contrasted with contraction (enqebdi or qabi), the nonmanifest state of the essence in its immutable transcendence.
“Qur'an, 12:47. Words spoken by Joseph in interpreting the dreams of the king of Egypt.
’’Shaikh Abdollah Ansari (d. 481/1088), an early and renowned writer on Sufism in both Arabic and Persian, whose shrine at Gazorgah outside Herat is still a place of visitation. Particularly celebrated are his Mandzel al-sd'erln, a depiction of the stages on the Path, and his Mondjat, supplications composed in a mixture of rhymed prose and verse. The passage quoted here appears to have been taken from Ansari’s Eldhlndma, although its wording diverges somewhat from that of the original (see Rasd’el-e ^dja 'Abdollah Ansari, ed. Vahid Dast- gerdl, 3rd ed., Tehran 1349 S./1970, p. 171).
said: “Love knocked at the door, and suffering answered: ‘I am a slave to him who scorned his own being.’ ” Wretched is the son of Adam who, in his extreme oppressiveness and ignorance, took upon himself the burden that the inhabitants of both worlds shunned, and thus elected suffering eternal and forfeited the joy of this world and the next! My feeble self has composed these verses:
Love it is that steals youth’s pleasure;
Love too that steals eternal joy.
Though love for the heart is the Water of Life, From the heart it steals the Water of Life!
Second Chapter:
Describing the World of Dominion/MalakuP and the Degrees of All That It Contains
God Almighty said: “So glory be to Him, in Whose hand is the Dominion/maiaAuZ of all things, and unto Whom ye shall be returned.’’2
The Prophet, upon whom be peace, said: “The first that God created was the intelligence.”
Know that as the origin of the world of spirits was the pure Mohammadan Spirit, as explained in the previous chapter, so too the origin of the world of Dominion was the Universal Intelli-
'The world of Dominion ('alam-e malakut) (cf. Qur’an, 6:75, 7:175, 23:88, 36:83): one of the multiple realms of creation, generally coupled in a contrasting pair with 'alam-e molk (numerous Qur’anic references, but see especially 57:2, 67:1, 85:9, 43:85, 45:27), the world of Kingship, that is, the material or phenomenal world. Malakut is sometimes translated as the “angelic realm," but this is misleading, since the derivation of malakut, like that of molk, is from malek, “king," not from malak, “angel." Moreover, while the angelic beings belong to malaktlt, it is a realm which also embraces the immutable spiritual verities (haqa’eq) and the heavenly entities (the Pen, the Preserved Tablet, the Balance, and the Throne). Malakut is frequently identified with 'Siam al-geyb, the hidden or suprasensible world (as contrasted with 'alam as-sehSda, the manifest or sensible world); with 'Siam al-amr, the world of Command, that is, supraformal manifestation (see n. 7 below); and with 'Siam al-mesSl, the world of archetypal images. It may then be said to contain within itself all these significances. See the extract from Daya’s commentary on Qur’an, 6:75, quoted by Esma'Il Haqql (d. 1137/1725) in his Ruh al-bayan (new ed., Istanbul, 1389/ 1970), III, p. 56; and SajjadT, Farhang-e moslalahSt-e 'orafS va motasavuefa, p. 387.
A great contemporary of Daya who may have exercised some influence upon him, Shaikh Molly' al-DTn b. Arabi (d. 638/1240), established a schema of Five Divine Presences (al-haiarSt al-elSheyat al-kams), in which malakut occupies the fourth rank, coming immediately before nSsut, the corporeal world of formal manifestation. See A. E. Affifi, The Mystical Philosophy of Muhyid Din Ibnul Arabi (Lahore, 1964), pp. 13ff.
In the present work, Daya uses the word malakut in a dual sense: to indicate the inward aspect of created beings, the souls by means of which they subsist, and also to designate the realm of suprasensible being that contains all those inward aspects. Both senses can indeed be deduced from the Qur’anic occurrences of the word. Since it is impossible to render both senses with a single English equivalent, the word will be retained in the original for the first sense, and translated as "Dominion" for the second.
gence. Dominion is the inward aspect of the world,3 while its outward aspect is Kingship. In truth the malakut, or inner aspect, of everything is its soul, that whereby it subsists, and all souls in turn subsist by virtue of the divine attribute of sustaining and self-subsistent.4 Thus He says: “in Whose hand is the Dominiori/ malakut of all things.” Nothing subsists of and by itself except the pure Essence of God, may His glory be exalted. The malakilt of everything is in conformity with its nature, as He has said: “Have they not looked upon the Dominion/malakut of the heavens and the earth?”5 The malakut of the heavens is suited to the heavens, and that of the earth, to it.
Although the inward aspects of things that make up the world of Dominion are of many kinds, they all belong to two categories. One pertains to the world of the spirits, both the higher spirits such as those of men and angels, and the lower spirits such as those of the jinn, demons, and animals, and the vegetable spirit. The origin and source of this category is the Moham- madan Spirit—may peace and blessings be upon its possessor— as was previously explained.
The other category pertains to the world of the souls,6 and it too embraces both higher and lower. The higher includes the heavenly souls, such as those of the stars, spheres, and divisions of the zodiac, while the lower comprises the souls of terrestrial bodies. These latter consist, in turn, of simple and compound bodies. Simple bodies are the four elements, the natures and properties of which constitute their malakut. Thus the nature of water is wetness and coldness, and its property is the quenching of thirst; the nature of fire is dryness and heat, and its property burning; the nature of earth is dryness and coldness, and its property the causation of growth; and the nature of wind is wetness and heat, and its property the bestowal of ease.
’Jahan: the world in the sense of the planet earth, as opposed to 'Slam, meaning world in the sense of sphere, plane, or realm of being.
’Qayyumi: a noun formation from qayyum (see Qur'an, 2:255, 3:2, 20:111). This attribute is always coupled with that of hayy, "living"; the two are sometimes thought to form a single attribute. See al-Gazall, al-maqfad al-asna, ed. F. A. Shehadi (Beirut, 1971), pp. 142-143.
5Qur’an, 7:184.
6"Souls” (nofus) designates in this context the inner natures of sentient beings, that by means of which they subsist.
Compound bodies are of two kinds, solids and plants. The malakut of solids, such as stones, also consists of their natures and properties. The malakut of plants, however, is constituted by the vegetable soul as well as by their natures and properties. The origin of this category is the world of the intelligence. If the various kinds of malakut, both spirit and soul, are found united in the vegetable realm, it is because the malakut of plants is called both the vegetable spirit and the vegetable soul. The vegetable realm is intermediate between the animal and the mineral realms. It contains growth, an animal property found in beings endowed with spirit and not in minerals, and its malakut is therefore called the vegetable spirit. At the same time, the vegetable realm partakes of the properties of the mineral in that it lacks sense perception. It is therefore reckoned among the beings endowed with soul, and its malakut is thus also called the vegetable soul.
In every type of malakut, spirit or soul, higher or lower, an attribute of other species of malakut is to be found. Thus attributes of the malakut of the soul are to be found in that of the spirit, and those of the malakut of the spirit in that of the soul. In each type, however, the attributes of one malakut will predominate, and the type will be known by virtue of these dominant attributes. A detailed description of this would lead to prolixity.
Now all of creation is divided into two categories: Kingship and Dominion, which are also called Creation and Command.7 God Almighty has mentioned both together in this verse: “Surely your Lord is God, Who created the heavens and the earth in six days—then rested upon the throne,8 covering the day with the night it pursues urgently—and the sun, and the moon, and the stars, subjugated to His command. Verily His are the creation and the command. Blessed be God, the Lord of the Worlds.”9
The world of Command consists of the antithesis of bodies, for it is not subject to measurement, division, or decomposition.
’Creation (kalq) and command (amr): both these terms, like molk and malakat to which they respectively correspond, are of Qur’anic derivation.
’Concerning the meaning of the Throne, see n. 25 on p. 84.
’Qur'an, 7:54.
Further, it came into being directly upon the command of “be.”10
The world of Creation, by contrast, consists of bodies, subtle and opaque, that are susceptible to measurement and decomposition. Although it too was created by the command of “be,” its creation was through the employment of means and extended over a period of days: “Who created the heavens and the earth in six days.”
The world of Command includes both the malakut of spirits and that of souls, for God said: “They will ask thee concerning the spirit; say, ‘the spirit is from my Lord’s command.’”11 He made mention too of “the sun, and the moon, and the stars, subjugated to His command.” The human spirit, however, has been uniquely honored through the possessive adjective in the phrase “of My spirit.”12 Hence the nobility of man: “Truly we have ennobled the sons of Adam, and carried them forth on dry land and sea.”13 You have doubtless heard the outer meaning of this verse, but listen now to its inner meaning, for the Qur’an has an outer and an inner aspect: “The Qur’an has an exterior and an interior.”14 God says in this verse:
We have lifted up the son of Adam, and carried him by Our grace across dry land and sea. The dry land is the world of bodies, or Kingship, and the sea is the world of Dominion. Land and sea cannot lift up man, for he bears the burden of Our Trust, that burden which land and sea could not bear: “They refused to bear it, being afraid thereof.”15 When man took up the burden, how then might land and sea have borne both him and the burden together? Since he is carrying Our burden, despite all his impotence and weak-
,0'‘Be” (kon): the creative fiat: "His Command, when He desires aught, is to say to it, ‘be,’ and it is” (Qur’an, 36:82).
"Qur’an, 17:85. That is, the spirit belongs to the world of Command or Dominion.
12See p. 65, n. 18.
"Qur’an, 17:70.
"A Tradition quoted by Abu Taleb al-Makkt (d. 386/996), with a somewhat fuller wording and on the authority of 'Abdollah b. Mas'ud, in Qut al-qolub (Cairo, 1381/1961), I, 284.
"Qur'an, 33:72.
ness, it is more fitting that We should carry him, with Our power and strength and generosity. We are both lover and beloved; that which passes between Us and man passes not between Us and other than man, nor between man and other than Us.
If the heart surges up in desire for a gypsy,[35]
Offer it a hundred Turks[36] and it will pay no heed.
None may intervene between Lover and Beloved, for none but the Lover can bear the burden of the belovedness of the Beloved, and none but the Beloved the burden of the loverhood of the Lover. The Lover cannot dispense with the Beloved, nor the Beloved with the Lover. Yet the desire of the Beloved for the Lover precedes that of the Lover for the Beloved, for it is the charms and enticements of the Beloved that arouse the Lover. The Lover had no desire for the Beloved before his own existence, whereas the Beloved desired the Lover even before the Lover came into being. Thus Karaqani[37] says: “He desired Himself when He desired us.”
Thou, the pre-eternal candle; my heart, the moth bemused by Thee.
For the world, Thou art its soul; for me, my beloved.
From the tumult of the tip of Thy twisting tress, Madness struck my maddened heart.[38]
Even though in reality there is neither strangeness nor duality between Lover and Beloved,
There is no strangeness between us; Thou art us, and we are Thee.
Thou art the top of the garment, and we are its hem—
for the warp of the garment of love is “He shall love them” and its woof, “they shall love Him”;[39] moreover, the thread of this alluring discourse was unwound by “I desired to be known”[40]— nonetheless our lips are compelled to silence on this point. The vehemence and vigor of Moses were needed to say: “Truly this is none other than Thy trial.”[41] Even he was chastised with the blow of “thou shalt not see Me,”[42] and when the angels on Mount Sinai impudently taunted him by saying, “O son of menstruating women, what does dust seek of the Lord Supreme?” he drew in his tongue and fell silent. He did not answer them saying: “Ye ask me, ‘what does dust seek of the Lord Supreme?’ Why ask ye not Him, ‘What does the Lord Supreme seek of dust?’ We were content with our station of dust, and at first desired pardon of God. We threw the ragged cloak of inauspicious remoteness from Him over the shoulder of safety, and in the corner of tranquillity drew the skirt of submission over the foot of intent. We recited
the saying ‘true resoluteness is caution,’24 and were conscious that the proximity of kings, although yielding numerous benefits, gives rise to limitless misfortune:
The sultan in his greatness is naught but a sea;
And nearness to the sea is fraught with peril.25
We feared lest our capital be lost, and gain be unattained, and considered that the downfall of dust was to be found in water— ‘O would that I were dust.’26 Yet He, with His uncaused grace and without our will, brought us forth from the corner of ill-fortuned obscurity, set us apart through the honor of being kneaded ‘by My hand,’27 and cast over the head of our being the robe of honor of inhalation ‘of My spirit.’28 He seated us on the throne of His viceregency—‘He it is Who has made you His viceregents on earth’;29 and placed on our heads the crown of ‘He shall love them’;30 and commanded all the sublime host to prostrate themselves before our throne, addressing us before the worlds of Kingship and Dominion as ‘those We have chosen from among Our bondsmen.’31 If we were to recount all the instances of our belovedness of God, who would have the strength to hear? Does aught, in the manifest or hidden world, from one horizon to the other, have the treasure that is in the court of our pride?”
Such coquetry must I bear for Thy love’s sake, That it would be an error to say Thou lovest me.
’’Supposedly a Tradition (see Foruzanfar, Ahadis-e Masnavi, p. 74), but according to al-Maydani's Majma' al-amsal (Cairo, 1379/1959) p. 175, a saying of one Aksam b. §eyfi.
25An Arabic verse by Saheb b. Abbad (d. 385/995). See al-Ta‘alebi, Yatimat al-dahr (Cairo, 1376/1958), II, p. 107.
26Qur’an, 78:40. "The unbeliever shall say (on the Day of Judgment), ‘would that I were dust!’”
27A reference to the hadis qodsi: “I kneaded the clay of Adam with My hand for forty days.” (Foruzanfar, Ahadis-e Masnavi, pp. 197-198).
28Qur’an, 15:29.
29Qur’an, 6:165.
’“Qur'an, 5:57.
’■Qur’an, 35:32: "Then We caused to inherit the Book those We have chosen from among Our bondsmen.”
Let union with Thee pitch tent on my head, Or let me lose my head for the sake of the error!32
Let us return to our discussion of the verse, “and carried them forth on dry land and sea.” Dry land is the world of Kingship; sea, that of Dominion. In the same way that wherever land is to be found it is on the face of the seas, so too the world of King- ship floats upon that of Dominion. The verse means, then, “We carried man over the worlds of Kingship and Dominion,” in the sense that “We created both of these from the effulgence of the light of his spirit and intelligence.” Thus all that is endowed with spirit—angels, jinn, demons, and animals—draws its life from the effulgence of the light of his spirit; and all that is endowed with soul—the stars, the spheres, the firmament, the earth, the elements, the minerals and plants—derives its substance from the workings of his intelligence.
The relationship of the intelligence to the spirit is like that of Eve to Adam, who was taken from his left rib. A subtle truth is implied by this comparison. Since women proceeded from the left of Adam, the Prophet, upon whom be peace and blessings, said: “Consult them and oppose them.”33 That is, “consult them concerning your affairs and then do the opposite of whatever they say, for such will be the proper course.” Women are taken from the left rib and are therefore crooked, and the straight and true opinion will be the opposite of that which they hold.
Now the intelligence also proceeds from the left of the spirit. One should consult it concerning the knowledge of the essence and attributes of the Creator, may His glory be exalted. Whatever its perception may attain and its understanding comprehend of the essence and attributes of the Creator, know that God Almighty’is exalted above it and free of its taint. He is not
]!This quatrain, the authorship of which is not established, is tobefoundalsoin the Savaneh of Ahmad Gazall (d. 520/1126), ed. Hellmut Ritter (Istanbul, 1942), p. 13; and the Tamhidat of his pupil, ‘Eyn al-Qozat HamadanI (d. 526/1132), in Ahvdl o dsdr, ed. Aflf ‘Oseyran (Tehran, 1338 S./1959), p. 236. "Coquetry” (ndz) means, in Sufi poetry, the beneficial afflictions to which the seeker is subjected by the interruption of manifestation and withdrawal behind the veil.
”A Tradition of dubious authenticity; see Foruzanfar, Ahadis-e Masnavi,
pp. 30-31.
such that the intelligence might penetrate to the depths of His essence and attributes. Rather, His essence may be known through Him alone. Thus it has been said: “I knew my Lord through my Lord, and had it not been for the Grace of my Lord, I would not have known my Lord.”
There is a strange and subtle truth which now occurs to us. The Prophet, upon whom be peace and blessings, said: “The first that God created was the Pen; the first that God created was the Intelligence; the first that God created was my spirit.”34 All three statements are true, and all three are the same. Many are confused by this mystery and wonder at it. When he said, “the first that God created was the Pen,” the Pen intended is not an ordinary human pen, but the Pen of God, a pen befitting His might and glory, and identical with the pure Spirit and Light of Mohammad. When God Almighty created the Mohammadan Spirit and looked upon it with the gaze of affection, shame overcame it and caused it to split in two. The intelligence was the half that fell away from the spirit.
It is for this reason that wherever intelligence is present, there too will be shame; and wherever intelligence is absent, shame too will be lacking. This is the inward meaning of the Tradition that-"shame is a branch of faith.”35 One half of the Pen of God was the Spirit of the Prophet, and the other half, the Intelligence of the Prophet. Though in appearance they were three, in reality they were the one Pen and its two halves. The Pen was in the hand of God’s power, and He wrote with its nib all that He desired in the worlds of Kingship and Dominion. He made of the Pen an oath by which He swore: “By the Pen and that which they write,”36 and He lauded His Own majestic self for manifesting His power: “Is not He Who created the heavens and the earth able to create the like thereof? Yes, indeed; He is the Creator Supreme, the All-knowing. His command, when He desires aught, is to say to it, ‘be,’ and it is. So glory be to Him, in
“Only the first of these three Traditions is well-attested; it is recorded by Daremi, TermezT, and Ebn Hanbal.
“Tradition recorded by Moslem, Bokarl, Abu Da'ud, Termezi, Nasa’I, Ebn Maja, Ebn Hanbal, and Malek.
“Qur'an, 68:1.
Whose hand is the Dominion of all things, and unto Whom ye shall be returned.”37
May God’s peace and blessings be upon our master Mohammad and all his family.
“Qur'an, 36:81-83.
Third Chapter:
Concerning the Appearance of the Different Realms of Kingship and Dominion
God Almighty said: “Surely in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of night and day, and the ship that runs on the seas with profit to men, and the water God sends down from heaven, therewith reviving the earth after its death, and His scattering forth in it of all manner of crawling thing, and the turning about of the winds, and the clouds, subjugated between heaven and earth—surely there are signs for a people having understanding.”1
The Prophet, upon whom be peace and blessings, said: “God created the soil on Saturday, the mountains rooted therein on Sunday, the trees on Monday, evil on Tuesday, light on Wednesday; He scattered forth the beasts on Thursday; and He created Adam on the evening of Friday, at the end of one of the hours between afternoon and night.”2
Know that God Almighty has created numerous different worlds, extending from the beginning of the world of spirits to the end of the world of bodies, including this world and the hereafter, and Kingship and Dominion. In each world He has created spiritual and corporeal classes of beings, each class comprising different types imbued by Him with distinctive properties.
Thus He has created numerous different types of the class of being known as angel: the cherubim,3 the spirit beings, the bearers of the throne;4 the angels pertaining to each of the seven spheres, each sphere having its separate type; the scribes, the
■Qur’an, 2:164.
2Tradition recorded by Ebn Hanbal, Moslem, Abu Da’ud, Termezt, Nasa’I, Ebn Maja, and Daremt.
’Cherubim (karrubi): the angels mentioned as moqarrabun (“those drawn nigh to God’s throne”) in Qur’an, 4:172, and given the name of karrubiyun by most exegetes.
’Cf. Qur’an, 40:7: "Those who bear the Throne, and those round about it proclaim the praise of their Lord”; and 69:17: “and the angels will be on the sides [of the skies rent asunder], and eight will on that day bear the Throne of thy Lord above them.”
immaculate5 and the noble recorders;6 and the angels of the air under whose sway come the clouds, the rain, thunder, lightning, and the wind. According to a certain Tradition, every raindrop is entrusted to an angel so that it may fall precisely where God has ordained. Then there are the angels appointed over the seas; those of the earth; the guardian angels of the night and the day;7 the angels of the circles and gatherings of pious remembrance; the angels of the wombs; the angels who infuse passing thoughts into men’s inward beings; those who repel Satan from the sons of Adam; those who protect children; Monkar and Naklr who interrogate the newly buried dead;8 those who bear glad tidings; those who bring torment; the angels of death who seize men’s spirits; the angels of life who blow upon the trumpet of Resurrection;9 the angels to whom men’s daily sustenance is entrusted; those who bear messages; those who have two, three, and four pairs of wings;10 those who are the treasurers of Paradise; Rezvan, the gatekeeper of Paradise; those who are the servants of Paradise; those who are the treasurers of Hell; the angels of punishment;11 the guardians of Hell and those entrusted with its supervision;12 those who are entrusted with the seven planes of
“These two types of angel, the “scribes” and the “immaculate,” are mentioned in Qur’an, 80:12-16: “Whoso wills shall remember it [revelation], upon pages high-honored, uplifted, purified, by the hands of scribes noble and immaculate.” Safara (scribes) and barara (immaculate) are in apposition; yet Daya appears to regard each as a separate type of angel.
“The “noble recorders” are mentioned in Qur’an, 82:10-12: "There are over you watchers, noble recorders, who know what ye do.”
7Cf. Qur’an, 6:61: “He is the All-powerful over His bondsmen, and He sends guardians over you.”
“Monkar and Naklr are mentioned only in Tradition, not in the Qur’an, although 40:50 (“They shall say, ‘did not your messengers bring you the clear signs?’ They shall say, 'Yes' ”) has been taken to refer to the sepulcral interrogation. The names of both angels are derived from the root NKR, having the sense of “unknown,” a derivation justified by their unfamiliar and awesome aspect.
“Cf. Qur’an, 6:73, 18:99, 20:102, etc.
10Cf. Qur'an, 35:1: "Praise be to God, Who created out of nothing the heavens and the earth, Who made the angels messengers with wings, two, three or four pairs.”
"Zabaniya: cf. Qur’an, 96:18.
12"The guardians of Hell": (mdlekdn): cf. Qur’an, 43:77: “They shall call, ‘O guardian (malek), let thy Lord have done with usl’ He shall say, 'Ye will surely tarry.”’ Malek is generally taken to be a proper name designating a single.angel who is the guardian of Hell; Daya, however, uses the word in the plural.
the firmament and the descending degrees of Hell;13 the angels who hold in their hands the veins of the soil and the mountains; the angel who bears upon his shoulders the cow, the fish, and the world;14 and the Spirit,15 who occupies a rank separate from that of all the other angels. In addition to all these there are still further angels, in the heavens and on earth, in this world and the hereafter, and the number and nature of each class is known to God Almighty alone.
The angelic realm is thus one of the different realms of creation, containing numerous types of angel each with its separate and distinctive attribute and property. Behold now the types and classes of being found in the other realms: men; animals, terrestrial and marine; the various classes of jinn, devil, demon,16 rebellious spirit,17 ghoul and nasnds;1& the inhabitants of Jabalqa
“"Planes" (albaq): cf. Qur’an, 67:3: "He Who created the seven heavens one upon another (lebaqan)." "Descending degrees" (darakat): cf. Qur’an, 4:145: “The hypocrites shall be in the lowest depth (dark) of the Fire; no helper wilt thou find for them."
“According to a cosmological notion of apparently pre-fslamic Iranian origin, the world is bome on the horns of a cow which in turn stands on a fish swimming in the cosmic ocean.
“The Spirit (rilii): cf. Qur’an, 70:4, 78:38 and 97:4, in each of which verses occurs the phrase, "the angels and the Spirit.” The Spirit is generally taken to mean Gabriel, the angel of revelation.
“See p. 61, n. 7.
,7See p. 61, n. 6.
'■SNasnas: a mythical being combining human and demonic features. "The nasnas is an animal found in the deserts of Turkestan. It has a tall and upright stature and broad fingernails. It is extremely fond of humans, and whenever it sees a human, it will stand in his path and gaze upon him. If it meets a solitary traveler, it will carry him off and take seed from him, so it is said" (Nezaml ‘AruzI [d. c. 550/1155], Cahar maqala, ed. Mohammad Qazvlnl [Tehran, 1334 S./1955], pp. 14-15). According to other accounts, the nasnds was born of the union of a demon and a human being, inhabits the Yemen, and speaks Arabic (Zakareya b. Moliammad Qazvlnl [d. 682/1283], ‘Aja’eb al-makluqat [Tehran, n.d.], p. 384). The widely traveled nineteenth-century Sufi, Zeyn al-‘Abedin SIrvanI, wrote that "although the masses of mankind are in truth all nasnds, it is said that the nasnas is a type of savage bereft of the gift of speech, frequently encountered in the [East] Indian archipelago, and not without some share of beauty" (Hada'eq al-siydha, ed. Fazlollah 'Alavl [Tehran, 1389/1969], p. 539). This last description foreshadows the modem usage of the word to mean orangutang.
and Jabalsa;19 Gog andMagog,20 and other classes of creature mentioned in stories. Then there are the different types of houri21 and serving maids, the youths22 and boys23 of Paradise; the various kinds of plant and animal; solids and minerals; bodies subtle and dense, simple and compound; the elements; different kinds of light and darkness; essences and accidents; colors, natures, dispositions, properties, attributes, consequences, forms, shapes, images, meanings, mysteries, subtle essences, and immutable truths; the outer senses, such as hearing, sight, smell, taste, and touch; the inner senses such as the intellect, the heart, the secret, the spirit, and the hidden;24 the human faculties such as die imaginative, the conceptual, the reflective, the recollective, the memorizing and the regulatory, as well as common sense; and then a further category of faculties such as the attractive, the retentive, the digestive, and the excretive, as well as other practical faculties, the detailed description of which can be found elsewhere.
'’Jabalqa and Jabalsa: two mythical cities situated, respectively, at the extreme east and west of the earth. Jabalqa has been identified with the realm of archetypes ('Siam al-mesal), situated to the east of the world of spirits and constituting an isthmus between the seen and the unseen. Jabalsa is similarly situated to the west of the world of bodies, ft is also said of Jabalqa that it is the point where necessary and contigent existence (vojub and emkan) converge, and that it comprises the immutable archetypes (a'yan-e sabeta) of all things. Jabalsa is, by contrast, the field of manifestation (majla) of the divine names, where the archetypes take on substantial and differentiated form. Whatever rises sunlike in its essence from the orient of Jabalqa will set in the Occident of Jabalsa, in the darkness of the world of forms. The two mythical cities are, then, the poles that encompass created being. See the numerous references in Henry Corbin, Terre Celeste et Corps de Resurrection (Paris, 1960).
20Gog and Magog: two peoples mentioned in the following Qur'anic verses: "O Zu’l-Qarneyn! Gog and Magog are doing corruption in the earth; so shall we assign to thee a tribute against thy setting up a barrier between us and them?” (18:94); and "There is a ban upon any city that We have destroyed; they shall not return until Gog and Magog are unloosed and swarm down from every slope” (21:95-96). On the basis of these verses, Gog and Magog have been considered to be two ferocious and savage peoples who toward the end of time will break out of their enclosed dwelling places on the edge of the world to wreak havoc and destruction. Concerning Zu’l-Qarneyn and his possible identification with Alexander, see n. 3 to the prologue.
2'Cf. Qur’an, 44:54, 52:20, 55:72, 56:22.
22Cf. Qur’an, 44:54, 52:20, 55:72, 56:22.
22Youths (gelmdn): cf. Qur'an, 52:24.
23Boys (woldan): cf. Qur’an, 56:17, 76:19.
MFor a discussion of these five inner senses, see p. 134, n. 9.
Then there are the supernal entities, such as the Throne,25 the Footstool,26 the Tablet,27 and the Pen;28 the divisions of the zodiac,29 the spheres, the planets both moving and fixed, and the mansions of the moon;30 the Frequented House;31 the Lote Tree of the Extremity;32 the Distance of Two Bowstrings;33 and Nonlocality, as well as different classes of being and types of creature.
“The Throne ('ars): cf. Qur'an, 7:54, 10:3, 13:2, and twenty other mentions. The Throne is regarded as the “stable center" of the divine names from which their manifestations emerge; it is also the equivalent of the universal soul (nafs-e kolliya) that encompasses all things. It therefore stands at the center of the cosmos and embraces it simultaneously. Its terrestrial counterpart is the Ka'ba, while in the microcosm it corresponds to the heart. See Sajjadl, Farhang-e mostalahat-e 'orafa va mota^awefa, p. 274, and p. 203 below.
“The Footstool (korsi): cf. Qur’an, 2:255. On the basis of a Tradition, the Footstool is said to be the threshold of the Throne and to encompass the seven heavens. According to Daya’s tafsir, it corresponds in the microcosm to the inner sense designated as the serr (“mystery”). See the passage quoted by Haqqi, Ruh al-bayan, I, p. 404. Finally, the Footstool has been identified as the locus of divine command and prohibition (Sajjadl, Farhang-e mostalahdt-e 'orafa va motafavvefa, p. 326).
27The Tablet (lowh): cf. Qur'an, 85:22. The Tablet is generally understood to be the heavenly archetype of the Qur’an, or alternatively, undifferentiated manifestation. Daya’s tafsir suggests the additional sense of “the heart of the Prophet and of his heirs, the saints enamored of God” (quoted in Haqql, Ruh al-bayan, X, p. 396).
28The Pen (qalam): cf. Qur'an, 68:1, 96:4. The Pen represents the efficient cause of differentiated manifestation, the means whereby forms are traced out in the book of the cosmos, the Tablet; it is identified by Daya with the Moham- madan Spirit and the Universal Intellect (see above-, p. 78). In his tafsir of Qur’an, 68:1, Daya further suggests that the Pen may refer to God's knowledge of particulars (quoted in Haqql, Ruh al-bayan, X, p. 103).
29Cf. Qur'an, 85:1, 15:16, 25:61.
”Cf. Qur’an, 10:5, 36:39.
’’The Frequented House (beyt al-ma'mur): cf. Qur’an, 52:4. The Ka’ba frequented by pilgrims; its heavenly archetype, the Throne; or its microcosmic counterpart, the heart (Daya, quoted in liaqql, Ruh al-bayan, IX, pp. 185-186).
’The Lote Tree of the Extremity (sedrat al-montaha): cf. Qur’an, 53:13-18: “For indeed he [the Prophet] saw him [Gabriel] once more, by the Lote Tree of the Extremity, when there covered the Lote Tree that which covered; his eyes swerved not nor strayed. Truly he beheld some of the supreme signs of his Lord.” These verses refer to the Me’raj of the Prophet, his ascent to heaven from Jerusalem through the different realms of being. According to certain traditions, the Lote Tree, which is the abode of Gabriel, is situated in the seventh heaven, to the right of the Throne. It also marks the boundary of the knowable, for beyond it stands naught but that which is absolutely hidden (al-geyb al-motlaq), and the frontier between unity and multiplicity (Daya quoted in liaqql, Ruh al-bayan, IX, p. 225).
’’The Distance of Two Bowstrings (qaba qawsayn): cf. Qur’an, 53:9: ‘And he was the distance of two bowstrings or closer.” The distance of the Prophet from the divine presence at the end of the Me’raj. See above, p. 55, n. 12.
Who might describe them, for in truth none but God, almighty and exalted, is aware of their subtleties? “None knows the armies of thy Lord except He.”34
According to certain Traditions, there are eighteen thousand different worlds,35 while others give the number as seventy thousand or three hundred and sixty thousand. All, however, are subsumed in the two worlds of Creation and Command, or Kingship and Dominion, as God Almighty said, praising His creation thereof: "Verily His are the Creation and the Command. Blessed be God, the Lord of the Worlds.”36
As for the degrees and stages of Kingship and Dominion, the first degree of Dominion consists of two parts: spirits and souls. Among the spirits the first degree is that of the human spirit, as was explained in the previous chapter; then come in descending order the angelic spirits, the spirits of the jinn, those of the demons, those of the animals, and the vegetable souls which are also called the vegetable spirit.
As for the degree of souls, their origin and beginning is the universal intelligence; then, after the degrees of the differentiated intelligences, come the souls of the Throne, the Footstool, the Tablet, and the Pen; those of the spheres and the divisions of the zodiac; those of the fixed and moving planets; those of the centers, such as the ethereal center which is the center of fire, the air which is the center of wind, the ocean which is the center of water, and the land which is the center of earth; those of minerals; those of compound bodies; and those of simple bodies and elements.
This, then, is a concise exposition of the stages and degrees of what in the different worlds pertains to Dominion.
All this is unveiled to those wayfarers endowed with insight
“Qur'an, 74:31.
“For an account of the concept of eighteen thousand worlds and its occurrence in various texts, see Mohammad Parvin Gunabadi, "Hejdah hazar 'alam,” in Yadndma-ye 'Allama-ye Amini, eds. Seyyed Ja'far Sahidt and Mohammad Reza Haklmi (Tehran, 1352 S./1973), pp. 21-33.
“Qur'an, 7:54.
who attain the station of Showing: “We shall show them Our signs upon the horizons and in their souls.’’37 If the degrees appear to them in other than their proper order, this is not on account of any error in the world of unveiling, but rather because of an error in the gaze of the soul in the perception of matters relating to the unseen world, or an error of the reflective faculty, which is like an ambassador passing back and forth between the unseen world and the seen. For that which is unveiled to the gaze of the spirit in the world of the unseen is not subject to variation or error, particularly since the gaze of the spirit is strengthened with the aid of God’s light. Thus it has been said: “Beware of the intuitive vision of the believer, for he gazes forth with God’s light.”38 Now the soul is subordinate to the spirit and dependent on it for the perception of those matters relating to the unseen world that are within its reach; hence fancy and imagination may intervene, and variation, excess, and deficiency come to affect perception. Moreover, as has been explained concerning these matters relating to the unseen world and their degrees, each group of men, the People of the Path and the People of Wisdom, has a different method and teaching in accordance with its mode of vision:
Those who look on Thy fair face,
When they gaze in from the horizons, See their own image in the mirror,
And thus arise these many different signs.39
As for the degrees of creation of the worlds comprising King- ship, the following has been related in a Tradition: “When God desired to create this world, He created a substance upon which He gazed with an awesome gaze, causing it to melt. From awe of the Compassionate, it split into two halves, one fire, the other water. He caused the fire to pass over the water, and smoke
’’Qur’an, 41:53.
’"Tradition recorded by Termezi.
’’Two lines of verse from the poet Anvart (d. 565/1169-1170) (Dtuan, ed. Sa'Id NafisT [Tehran, 1337 S./1958], p. 487). Although Anvari was not a Sufi poet, Daya's quotation of his verses implies a mystical interpretation: the "horizons” signify the manifestation of the attributes in phenomenal creation, and that toward which they "gaze in” consists of human souls (cf. Qur’an, 41:53).
arose. He created the heavens from the smoke, and the earth from the froth on the surface of the water.” In this manner did He create the heavens and the earth.
The degrees and stages of earthly creation are stated in concise form in the Qur’anic verse quoted at the beginning of this chapter and expounded in detail by the Prophet, upon whom be peace, in the Tradition following the verse. God created the earth on Saturday, which was the first of days pertaining to this world, for days are the result of time, and time is the result of the rotation of the spheres. When He created the heavens and caused them to revolve, the first of the days appeared, and He called it Saturday. On Sunday He created the mountains, on Monday the plants and trees, on Tuesday pain and evil, on Wednesday the lights, on Thursday the different species of animal, and on Friday, after the afternoon prayer, in the last hour of the day,40 He created Adam, upon whom be peace. These stages constitute the outer meaning of the Tradition; now hear its inner meaning.
Know that a beam from the effulgent light of the spirit of the Prophet—upon whom be peace—passed through the degrees of malakut constituted by the spirits until it reached the last of beings, namely the malakut of simple elements. Another beam from the effulgent light of the spirit of the Prophet, a beam which we have called the Intelligence, passed through the degrees of malakut constituted by the souls, until it too reached the malakut of the elements. These two beams may be compared to a compass describing a circle: When the compass reaches the end of its revolution, the two arcs composing the circle will be joined and become one. When those two subtle essences, the Spirit and the Intelligence, circled the worlds of the malakut of spirits and the malakut of souls, they joined each other at the final degree of the malakut of the elements. All that was pure in those essences had been expended, as we explained in the comparison with sugar. Treacle-like dregs remained, from which He created the substance referred to by the Prophet, upon whom be peace: "He created a substance upon which He gazed with an
"It should be recalled that the Muslim day ends at sunset.
awesome gaze, causing it to melt.” He then divided that substance into two through the effect of His awe-inspiring gaze: half of it became fire, and the other half water. He then gave fire dominion over water, so that smoke arose from water. With the smoke, fire began striving upward on account of its extreme subtlety and fleet-footedness, while water remained abased because of its density and sluggishness.
Now hearken to this subtle point: that when God Almighty made that substance the object of His gaze, the part that derived from the effulgent light of the Mohammadan Spirit separated from the part that derived from the Intelligence, and the gaze of the Almighty nurtured it with longing. It aspired again to ascend, while the part that derived from the listless intelligence remained stationary on account of its deficiency. The reason for this is that the Mohammadan Spirit has various attributes, as has already been explained. Among these are love and light: love is a burning fire, while light is listless. Thus the subtle essence that, arising from the Mohammadan Spirit, passes through the degrees of spirits consists of Love, while that from which the Intelligence arises before passing through the degrees of souls consists of light. Between Love and Intelligence there is dispute and conflict, and they can never be reconciled. In every abode where Love alights, Intelligence will quit the. dwelling; and wherever Intelligence sets up house, Love will withdraw from view.
Love came and plundered Intelligence;
Convey, O heart, these happy tidings to the soul.
Know that Love is a Turk from the steppe,41 And plundering is not strange in a Turk.
Intelligence wished, through metaphor, In a phrase to describe his cheek,
But the light of his cheek put forth a tongue of flame, And burned both Intelligence and the phrase.
n“A Turk from the steppe:” literally, "alien Turk” (tork-e ‘ajami). The expression lork-e 'ajami appears to have originated in the Abbasid period as a designation for Turkish military slaves that had not been fully assimilated into the Muslim-Arab environment. See al-Ya'qubl, Ketab al-boldan, Leiden, 1892, p. 255.
Now when Love had traversed numerous veils and passed through the degrees of malakut constituted by the spirits, it became separated from its beloved until, in the malakut of the elements, it encountered the subtle essence of the Intelligence. It smelled the fragrance of familiarity, for the Intelligence had come from the same homeland. Even though one had been a king there and the other a mere doorman, because of previous acquaintance and a common homeland, the yearning of “love of homeland is a part of faith”42 stirred in Love’s nature, and it cried:
The wind wafts the fragrance of Muliyan’s stream;
The wind wafts too the beloved’s perfume.43
In the extremity of its longing for the beloved, it laid its arm around the neck of listless Intelligence, reciting the while:
In memory of thy lip, I kiss the ruby in the ring;
When that is out of reach, on this I plant my kiss.
When union grants me not thy hand to kiss
My devotion I offer, and on the ground plant my kiss.
But at this point the palate of Love’s soul tasted again in memory the pleasure it had had from the gaze of the true beloved, and ardor consumed it. It loosed its embrace from the neck of Intelligence, and then declared: “The substance became two halves. One half was Intelligence, cowardly Intelligence, which melted in fear and became water. The other half was Love, which was nurtured by the gaze of the Beloved and overcome by longing. The fire of Love sent forth flames, and caused fire to appear. As there is opposition between water and fire, so too between Intelligence and Love.” Thus Love could not be reconciled to Intelligence; it rejected it and abandoned it, and set its face toward the true Beloved.
KA Tradition of dubious status; see Foruzanfar, Ahadis-e Masnavi, pp. 97-98.
“The first line of a famous poem by Rudaki (d. 329/940), composed, according to the traditional account, at the urging of the courtiers of Najr b. Ahmad the Samanid who were anxious to return to Bokhara after a prolonged absence. Upon hearing the poem and its evocation of the charms of Bokhara, such as the streams of Muliyan, Na?r is recounted to have immediately set out homeward. The second hemistich usually begins yad-e yar ("the memory of the beloved”; see Osori Rudaki [Stalinabad-Dushanbe, 1958], p. 125); Daya gives it, however, as bu-ye yar ("the perfume'of the beloved”). See Nezami 'Aiuzi, Cahar maqala, pp. 59-66.
Intelligence has naught to do with Love; put it to flight without ado!
What dost thou want of that spidery, faint-hearted one? Intelligence may never draw nigh unto Love;
What seeks the rabble of the camp in the king’s presence?
The supernal world, consisting of the spheres, the stars, and so forth, was fashioned from the part of the substance that aspired to ascend; while from the part that remained abased were created the land, the mountains, the sea, and other things in the manner set forth above. Then the subtle essence which had arisen from the Mohammadan attribute of love was conducted through the malakut of spirits, and then brought forth from the gate of substance and caused to pass through the forms and attributes of both Kingship and Dominion, so that not a single particle of being, in either of these realms, should remain without one of the mysteries of love being implanted in it. Thus not a single particle remained empty of the love of its Creator, enjoying a degree of love in accordance with its capacity, and by means of this love each particle with its very being praises and glorifies God Almighty: "There is naught but proclaims His praise, but ye understand not their praising.”44
If Thy lovers are drawn up in review,
Every particle of being will be found in the ranks.
The peacock and the fly will be together in one place, When the hawk of Thy sorrow begins to hunt.
It is as if God were to say: “O angels, do not boast of your praise and glorifying, nor venture forward self-assertively, saying, ‘We proclaim Thy praise and call Thee holy.’45 Is there aught or anyone that does not praise Our glorious majesty? All that is in the heavens and earth proclaims the praise of God: He is the Almighty, the All-wise.’46 Our glorious majesty is too sublime and magnificent for anyone to be able to praise and laud Us as We deserve. Whatever praise and laudation thou seest coming forth from the denizens of heaven and earth and from every particle
^Qur’an, 17:44.
“Qur’an, 2:30.
“Qur'an, 57:1.
of created being, all derives from the ray of Our divine praise of Our own majesty. ‘Glorified and Exalted be thy Lord, theLord of Glory, above that which they describe.”’47
It is by means of the mirror of the Mohammadan Spirit which cast its reflection on the particles of created being that all are engaged in praise and laudation. Everyone imagined that his utterance of praise was a property of his servitude to God and was unaware of the origin of all praise. When it was the turn of the Paragon of Being,48 he traversed the realms of Kingship and Dominion, nurturing them as he progressed. Then like a fruit he settled on the branch of the tree of creation, this being expressed in the Qur’anic phrase, “the distance of two bowstrings.”49 His truth-perceiving eye was opened by the workings of the mystery of “or nearer,”50 and the Divine Majesty addressed him, saying: “O Mohammad, give praise unto me, like the other beings and the angels.” The Prophet, upon whom be peace, perceived that all the praise of His Majesty that created beings could accomplish was but borrowed, while his code required that “the borrowed is to be returned.”51 Thus, in accordance with the order “God commands you to deliver trusts back to their owners,”52 he returned the loan entrusted to him, saying: “The stammering tongue of created being is unfit to praise Thy uncreate Essence—‘I cannot enumerate Thy praise.’ Only Thy attributes are fit to praise Thy Essence: ‘Thou art as Thou hast lauded Thyself to be.’ ”53
Thus not only the angels who are mere infants and novices in the school of Adam—“O Adam, teach them their names”54—and are unaware even of their own names, but also their teacher Adam, together with all his offspring, all stand beneath Mohammad’s banner of laudation: “On the Day of Resurrection,
'’Qur’an, 37:180.
"Le., the Prophet.
'“Qur’an, 53:9 (see p. 55, n. 12).
““Qur'an, 53:9.
“'A Tradition; see Foruzanfar, Ahadis-e Masnavi, p. 218.
“’Qur'an, 4:58.
““These two phrases are part of a Tradition recorded by Moslem, Abu Da’ud, Nasa’I, TermezI, Ebn Maja, Ebn Hanbal.
“'Qur’an, 2:33.
Adam and all his offspring shall stand beneath my banner, and I take no pride therein; and in my hand shall be the banner of praise, and I take no pride therein.”55 Thus it becomes clear that Mohammad was the seed of creation and its fruit, and the tree of creation is in truth none other than his being.
Verily a rare bird art thou, that both realms are full of thee, And ne’er hast thou spread thy wings nor quit thy nest.
Imagine the different types of malakut to be the roots of the tree, corporeal bodies to be its trunk, the Prophets, upon whom be peace and blessings, to be its branches, and the angels to be its leaves. As for the fruit of the tree, it escapes all description and cannot be set down by the two-tongued pen on two-faced paper.
Many a tale did Kaqani write;
When his pen reached here, its head was broken.56
Thus just as the tree is contained within the fruit, so too the fruit is contained within the tree, and not a single particle of the tree is without the presence of the fruit. The seed of the tree is drawn from the effulgence of the Light of Unity, and there is no particle of the tree and its fruit which is without the effulgence of the Light of Unity. The hidden meaning of “We are closer to him than the jugular vein”57 and “He is with you wherever ye are”58 becomes apparent from this, and the true sense of “God is the Light of the heavens and the earth”59 stands manifest.
Know that God Almighty has created, in the world of form and image, a form for all that He has brought forth in the world of meaning. Now the form for all the realms of Dominion is the person of Mohammad, upon whom be peace, and the form for the effulgence of the Light of Unity is the affirmation of unity: “There is no god other than God.” The profound cause for the
’’Part of a Tradition recorded by Daremi.
56 A line from the poet Kaqani (d. 595/1199) (Divan, ed. ‘All Abd al-Rasuli [Tehran, 1316 S./1937], p. 717).
’’Qur'an, 50:16.
’“Qur'an, 57:4.
’’Qur’an, 24:35.
sending of the Prophets was the sowing of the seed of that affirmation in the soil of hearts: “This world is a tillage for the hereafter.”[43] Hence it was that the Prophet said: “I have been commanded to fight men until they say: ‘There is no god but God.’ ”[44] What is meant by this if not the scattering of the seed of Unity on the soil of men’s hearts? “Hast thou not seen how God has struck a similitude? A good word is as a good tree—its roots are firm, and its branches are in heaven; it gives its fruit every season by the leave of its Lord. Thus God strikes similitudes for men, that haply they may remember.”[45]
Fourth Chapter:
Concerning the Beginning of the Creation of the Human Frame
God Almighty said: “I am about to create a man from clay.”1
The Prophet, upon whom be God’s peace and blessings, said, narrating the words of God Almighty, the Exalted: “I kneaded the clay of Adam with my hands for forty days.”2
Know that when it was desired to fashion the human frame from the four elements of water, fire, wind, and earth, they were not kept in the stage of simplicity, but instead carried down through degrees of descent. The first degree was that of compoundness, for the element while at the stage of simplicity is still close to the world of spirits, as was explained. When it is desired to bring the element to the stage of compoundness, it must leave simplicity behind and advance to compoundness, thereby distancing itself one degree from the world of spirits. When it comes to the vegetable stage, it must leave behind compoundness and solidity, thereby becoming a further degree remoter from the world of spirits. When it leaves the vegetable for the animal realm, it descends another degree; and when it abandons the animal for the human state, it descends one more degree. There is no degree lower than that of the human person, and “the lowest of the low” consists thereof.
Our words here refer only to the elements which descend through changing states to these low degrees of remoteness from the world of the spirits; for if you consider the malakut of matter, which after passing through several stages reaches the state of man, it is a question of degrees of ascent, not descent, for with each stage the malakut comes closer to the world of spirits, not more distant from it. Our words concern the form of the elements, which belongs to the world of Kingship, and not their inner aspect, which belongs to the world of Dominion.
'Qur’an, 38:71.
“Tradition; see p. 76, n. 27.
In the sense intended here, then, the human frame is situated at a lower degree than all creation, and it is truly described as “the lowest of the low.” God’s words, “then We caused him to descend to the lowest of the low,”3 refer to the attachment of the spirit to the frame. Thus it is clear that while man’s spirit is the supreme apex of creation, his frame is the lowest of the low. The meaning of this verse will now be apparent:
Thou art the height and depth of this world;
I know not who thou art; all that is, thou art.4
The shaikh of this feeble one, the spiritual monarch of the age, Majd al-Dln Bagdad?—may God be content with him—said in a collection of his writings: “Glory be to Him Who in His power joined together the nearest of the near and the farthest of the far.”
The providential wisdom implicit in the human frame being the lowest of the low and the human spirit the highest of the high is that since man has to carry the burden of the Trust, he must possess the strength of both worlds in perfect measure. There is nothing in either world that is endowed with his strength and thus fitted to bear the burden. The strength must be derived from attributes, not from form, and the strength that the human spirit possesses, as the highest of the high, naught else has in all the world of the spirits, whether angel, demon, or other being. Similarly, the strength that the human soul possesses, as the lowest of the low, naught else has in all the world of the souls, whether savage beast, predator, or other being.
The four elements from which the human frame was fashioned were created out of the residue of the spirits, corresponding to the treacle in the comparison we made in the first chapter with sugar and its boiling by the sugar merchant. In the same way that the attributes of raw white sugar persist in treacle, so
3 A phrase taken from Qur’an, 95:5: "then We caused him to descend to the lowest of the low."
'Verse taken from the Sahnama of Ferdowsl previously quoted on p. 26 above. See too p. 26, n. 7.
’Concerning Majd al-Dln Bagdad!, see the introduction to this translation, pp. 9-10, and the sources cited there.
too something of each attribute that characterized the spirits remained in the residue constituted by the elements; this we explained in the chapter treating the appearance of the different realms. The subtle essence of each attribute passed through the different classes of being so that not a single particle remained without some slight share in the attributes of the world of spirits. The four elements, even though they were the most distant of beings from the world of spirits, nonetheless contained within them something of the pure attributes of that world. Indeed, that part of the existence of the elements which is capable of survival belongs itself to the world of spirits.
Similarly, although in the kneading of the clay of Adam all satanic, predatory, bestial, vegetable, and mineral attributes were present, his clay was nonetheless set apart by the honor conveyed by the words, “with My hands,” and there was bestowed upon him, for each of these reprehensible attributes, a jewel-like shell containing one of the attributes of divinity. Now under the influence of the gaze of the sun, granite becomes the receptacle for garnet, ruby, emerald, turquoise, and agate, like the shell enclosing the pearl.6 See how through the properties of “I kneaded the clay of Adam with My hands,” in a period of "forty days,” each of which according to a certain tradition was equivalent to a thousand years, the water and clay of Adam became the shell of a noble pearl. This honoring of Adam was before the inhalation of the spirit, and it was the auspicious fortune of the bodily frame that it was to be the palace of God’s viceregent. He labored on it in His own divine person for forty thousand years, and who knows what treasures He secreted in it?
When monarchs in the world of form desire to construct a palace, they set their servants to work, and consider it an indignity to dip their hands in the clay. But when the builders come to the place where the monarch wishes to store his treasure, he sends away all his servants and retinue, dips his own hands in
’Precious stones were traditionally supposed to result from the prolonged suffusion of rocks and mountains with sunlight, in the same way that pearls were believed to form within the shell from rainwater penetrating to the depths of the ocean. There is in both cases the notion of a pure element descending and penetrating a grosser one in order to form a jewel in its very heart.
the clay, fashions the place according to the amount and dimension of the treasure, and then installs it himself.
So too when God Almighty was creating the different classes of being, pertaining to this world and the hereafter, to heaven and hell, He employed various intermediaries at each stage. But when it was time to create Adam, He said: “I am about to create a man from clay,”7 that is, “I myself shall fashion Adam’s dwelling of water and clay.” This caused confusion to some, and they said, “He created the heavens and the earth’;8 didst Thou not create all?” He replied: “There is a distinction here, for I created all else with the command ‘be,’ for ‘Our command to aught, when We desire it, is “be,” and it is’;9 whereas Adam I shall create directly Myself, without intermediary, for I shall conceal within him the treasure of knowledge.”
He then ordered Gabriel to go and pick up a fistful of earth and bring it to His presence. Gabriel, upon whom be peace, went to comply with His command. But the earth said, "O Gabriel, what wouldst thou do?” He replied, “I shall take thee to the presence of God that He may fashion a viceregent from thee.” The earth then pleaded with Gabriel, saying, “By God’s glory and splendor, do not take me, for I have not the strength to bear the burden of being nigh unto Him. Rather I have chosen extreme distance from Him so that I may escape the awesome blows of His wrath. For there is much danger in nearness—'and the sincere are in great peril.’”10
Those close to the monarch are the most distraught, for they know the full measure of his wrath.11
When Gabriel heard these pleadings and invocations, he re-
’Qur’an, 38:71.
“Qur’an, 10:3, 11:7, etc.
“Qur’an, 16:40.
10Part of a Tradition (see Foruzanfar, Ahadts-e Majnavi, p. 53), the full text of which is as follows: ‘All men shall perish except the learned; all the learned shall perish except those who act in accordance with their knowledge; all those shall perish except the sincere; and the sincere are in great peril.”
"Half of a quatrain probably composed by Abu Sa'Id b. Abu’l-Keyr. See Mohammad b. Monavvar, Asrar al-towhid, p. 311.
turned to the Divine Presence and said: “O Lord, Thou art the more knowing: the earth withholds obedience.” God then sent Michael,12 but again the earth pleaded and invoked the Divine glory and splendor. So too did Esrafil13 go and return empty- handed. Then God Almighty commanded ‘Ezra’!I,14 saying, “If the earth will not come in willing obedience, then seize it with force and coercion and bring it.” ‘Ezra’Il went and forcibly plucked up a fistful of earth from the ground. According to a certain tradition, he picked up forty cubits of earth from the ground, brought it to the Divine Presence, and then set it down between Mecca and Ta’ef. Love came swiftly rushing to the spot:
The earth for Adam’s frame was still unsifted, When love came and laid hold of his heart.
This wine I drank when still a suckling infant— Nay, rather the wine and the milk were mingled.
The first honor that was bestowed on the earth was this, that it was summoned to the Presence by several messengers, and yet it disdainfully refused, saying, “we comprehend not this mystery.”
My words were all ma fa'll and fa'elat;
Far removed was I from all talk of Kingship’s secret.15
Truly, such is the normal rule: He who is the foremost in the denial of love will be the most exalted in loverhood when he falls prey to love; and the converse is also true.
For a time I denied the love of idols; But my denial cast me to ruin.
'■Michael, mentioned in Qur’an, 2:98, is seen in Tradition as fulfilling various roles: assisting and encouraging Gabriel, the angel of revelation; leading the other angels in prostration before Adam, also in conjunction with Gabriel; and lamenting eternally the necessity for Hell.
'’Esrafil, the angel of resurrection who will rouse the dead from their tombs with his trumpet on the Last Day.
"'Ezra’Il (also spelled Azra’Il), the angel of death who takes men’s souls at the appointed hour.
i5Mafa‘il, fa'elat: paradigms representing two of the feet in Perso-Arabic prosody. The line is quoted from the work of Mojlr al-Din BeylaqanI (d. c. 586/ 1190).
All the angels were meanwhile biting the finger of surprise with the tooth of astonishment and asking themselves, “What mystery is this, that lowly earth is summoned to the Almighty Presence with such honor, and then, despite its utmost lowliness and abjection, treats Him, for all His might and majesty, with arrogance and disdain? And He, for all His wealth and utter freedom from need, and despite His jealous honor, does not forsake the earth, nor summon another in its place, nor reveal the mystery to anyonel”
I have grieved beneath the weight of heaven and earth; My grief is unquenched, and my beloved, unmatched.
A gazelle, for example, can be tamed by men, But not thou, for all my thousand stratagems.[46]
Divine grace and wisdom then addressed the mystery of the angels, saying: “Truly I know that which ye know not.”[47] What know you of the tasks I intend for this fistful of earth, from preeternity to post-etemity?
A love which has possessed me, from before eternity; A task which lies before me, beyond eternity.
You are to be excused, for you have never had any concern with love. You are dry ascetics, living withdrawn in the secluded shrine of sanctity; what might you know of those who run ardently back and forth to love’s ruined temple? How might the seekers of safety savor the joys of those who court reproach?[48]
The afflicted know the pain of a wounded heart, Not the lighthearted with their empty laughter.
Thou hast no share in the qalandar’s19 secret, But the mystery of his ways is known to the libertine.
"Be patient for a few days while I wield My power on this fistful of earth, and cleanse the rust of the darkness of created- ness from the mirrorlike visage of its primordial state, and then behold the images of manifold color that appear in its mirror. The first image will be such that all will have to fall before it in prostration.”
Then from the cloud of generosity the rain of love poured down on the dust of Adam, turning it to clay, and with the hand of His power God fashioned a heart of clay within the clay.
From love’s dew Adam’s dust turned to clay;
The world fell into tumult and disarray.
The lancet of love pierced the vein of the spirit;
A drop of blood fell, and they called it the heart.20
The entire exalted host, cherubim and spirit beings, gazed on the scene in wonder: God the Almighty and Glorious worked for forty days and nights on fashioning the clay of Adam, and just as the potter who wishes to make an earthenware pot rubs and molds the clay in different ways, adding to it as he proceeds, so too did God Almighty knead Adam’s clay: "He created man from clay like baked earthenware.”21 In each particle of the clay He secreted a heart, which He then nurtured with the gaze of His grace, and His wisdom addressed the angels, saying: "Look upon the heart, not upon the clay.”
aQalandar: an untranslatable term with a wide range of meaning. Its most common sense is one who deliberately offends against social and religious norms in order to approach God by his own obscure path. Qalandars also came to form a Sufi order in Turkey, while elsewhere they fell swiftly into open anti- nomianism and debauchery. See Mortaza §anaf, “A’In-e Qalandan," Armagan, LIII (1350 S./I971), pp. 15-21.
20A quatrain of Afzal al-Din Kasani. See Mosannafat, eds. Mojtaba MlnovI and Yahya Mahdavi (Tehran, 1337 S./1958), II, p. 764.
2lQur’an, 55:14.
If I fix my gaze on the stone, It yields the burnt heart that it holds.
According to certain traditions, the Divine Power was exercised on Adam’s clay for forty thousand years in accordance with perfect wisdom, between Mecca and Ta’ef. Mirrors were affixed to him on both the outside and inside, to the number of the divine attributes, each one being a manifestation of a separate attribute. It is generally believed that a thousand and one mirrors were put in place, to correspond to a thousand and one attributes. Now even though the possessor of beauty may have gold and silver ornaments in abundance, in her view nothing has the same value as a mirror. For gold and silver ornaments are subject to damage which the beautiful one cannot set aright; but if the slightest dust alights on the face of the mirror, immediately and with the utmost care she will wipe it clean with the sleeve of generosity. Moreover, even if she has a thousand hundredweights of gold jewelry, she can do little with it but store it in her dwelling, or use it to adorn her hands and ears. Hence she turns away from it all, and remains face to face with the mirror—
We are infatuated with thee—and thou, with the mirror; Our gaze is fixed on thee—and thine, on the mirror.
When the mirror glimpsed thy beauty and thou, thine own fairness,
Thou wert enamored of thyself; still more was the mirror.22
Love for thy face it was that thus sharply Parted me from men and turned me toward thee.
In each beauty-displaying mirror that was placed in Adam’s being was set too a beauty-perceiving eye, so that as God might behold Himself in the mirror, through a thousand and one apertures, so too Adam might behold Him with a thousand and one eyes.
When thou lookest upon me, my whole body becomes a heart;
22Two lines taken from a poem by KaqanI (Divan, p. 393).
When I look upon thee, my whole heart becomes an eye.23
Here love becomes reversed. If the beloved desires to flee from the lover, he lays hold of his skirt with a thousand hands. The beloved protests, saying: "First you fled from me, yet now you would seize me,” and the lover replies, "Yes, I fled then so that I would not have to seize you today.”
I reared like a stallion all unaware
That the lasso tightens when pulled.24
Then I was dust, and sought to shun you; now I am a heart, and will not release you. If then I loved you not so much as a grain of dust, today I would make amends and love you with a thousand hearts—
Behold this wonder that I who have not a single heart Love thee with not less than a thousand.
Thus did the frame of Adam lie for forty thousand years between Mecca and Ta’ef, and each moment some delicate jewel, some noble essence from the hidden treasuries of the unseen, was implanted within his being. All the precious contents of those treasuries were buried in Adam’s clay, until when it was the turn of his heart, the clay for it was brought from the soil of Paradise, soaked in the water of eternal life, and nurtured in the sunlight of three hundred and sixty divine glances.
Heed now the subtle truth inherent in this figure of three hundred and sixty. Adam’s clay was kneaded for forty thousand years, and forty thousand years is equivalent to three hundred and sixty thousand times forty days. Upon completing each thousandth period of forty days, Adam’s clay became deserving of one divine glance, and when three hundred and sixty thousand such periods had been completed, it became worthy of three hundred and sixty glances.
25The first line of a quatrain of uncertain attribution.
’’Part of a poem by the poetess Rabe'a b. Qozdari (fl. fourth/tenth century). See Zablhollah §afa, Ganj-e sokan (Tehran. 1339 S./1960). I; p. 54.
One glance from the friend, and happiness by the hundred thousand;
I wait upon the time when that one glance is given.
Now when the heart reached this stage of perfection, there was a jewel in the treasure house of the unseen that was hidden even to the gaze of the treasurers and guarded by God Himself in His own divine person. For He proclaimed: “There is no treasury worthy of this jewel other than Our presence, or the heart of Adam.” And the jewel was the jewel of love, secreted within the shell of the Trust of knowledge that had been offered to all the worlds of Kingship and Dominion. But none was deemed a fit treasury for housing the jewel, or a proper treasurer for guarding it. Only the heart of Adam was fit to be treasury, for it had been nurtured by the sun of the divine glance; and only the soul of Adam was worthy to act as treasurer, for it had been nourished several thousand years on the effulgent light of the attributes of Majesty of the Unity of the Essence.
I became enthralled by that idol on the day That Adam was lying between Mecca and Ta’ef.
Strange it is that several thousand kindnesses and favors were lavished on Adam’s heart and soul by God’s uncaused grace, both in the seen and the unseen worlds, and none of it was confided to the cherubim, so that they all remained ignorant of Adam’s true nature. One by one they passed by Adam and said: “What strange image is this, now being adorned? What creature of manifold hue, about to emerge from the veil of the unseen?” Adam meanwhile said softly to himself: “Even if you do not know me, I know you. Wait until I raise my head from sweet sleep, and I shall recite your names one by one.” For among the jewels that had been buried within him was the knowledge of all names: ‘And He taught Adam all the names.”25
However much the angels examined the form of Adam, they were unable to discover the compendium of mysteries that he in truth was. But Eblis the cunning was once walking around Adam, and gazing on him with his one squint eye, saw his mouth
“Qur’an, 2:31.
to be open. He said to the other angels: "Wait here, for I have found the means to loosen the knot of our problem. I will enter this hole and see what I discover within.” When he descended the hole and explored the being of Adam, he found it to be a small world in itself, and beheld there a replica of all that he had seen in the great world without. He found his head to be like the heavens with their seven layers; and in the same way that there are seven moving stars in the seven heavens, he found seven faculties in the seven layers of the human head: the imaginative, the conceptual, the reflective, the memorizing, the recollective, and the regulatory faculties, together with common sense. As there are angels in heaven, so too there were the senses of sight, hearing, smell, and taste in the head. Furthermore, EblTs found Adam’s body to be like the earth: As there are trees, plants, flowing streams, and mountains on the earth, the body had long hairs on the head, corresponding to trees; short hairs on the body, corresponding to plants; veins, corresponding to flowing streams; and bones, corresponding to mountains.
As there are four seasons in the macrocosm—spring, autumn, summer, winter—so too he found four humors in the microcosm —heat, coldness, wetness, and dryness, these being inherent in the yellow bile, black bile, phlegm, and blood, respectively.
In the macrocosm there are four winds, those of the spring, autumn, summer, and winter. The spring wind fecundates trees, brings forth leaves, and causes verdure to grow; that of the summer ripens the fruit; that of the autumn dries it; and that of the winter causes it to fall. So too in Adam there were four winds: the attractive, digestive, retentive, and excretive faculties. The attractive faculty draws food toward his gullet, and gives it to the digestive to be ripened and matured. It then passes to the retentive faculty, which extracts all possible benefit from it, and is finally expelled from the body by the excretive faculty. In the same way that the absence of one of the four winds of the macrocosm would cause the ruin of the world, so too the absence of one of the four winds of the microcosm would render impossible the stability of the human frame.
In the macrocosm there are four kinds of water—salt, bitter,
fetid, and sweet—and each of these was also found to be present in Adam. Each was set in a certain place in accordance with divine wisdom. Salt water was placed in the eye, for the eye contains tallow and tallow is preserved through salt water.26 Tallow serves to protect the eye; the eye to protect the white of the eye; the white of the eye to protect the black, of the eye; and the black of the eye to protect the pupil. The pupil is the locus of vision, and vision is the cause of sight.
Bitter water was placed in the ear to forbid access to insects; fetid water in the nostrils so that what formed in the nose might be evacuated by the nostrils; and sweet water in the mouth, to keep the mouth sweet and the tongue fluent in speech, as well as to accompany food on its way down the gullet. Much providential wisdom may be observed in the case of each, and it would take long to enumerate.
There are other examples of how all that is in the macrocosm is to be found also in the microcosm, but a complete exposition would lead to prolixity.
When, then, Eblls traversed the entirety of Adam’s bodily frame, he perceived an indication of the macrocosm in all that he saw. But when he came to the heart, he saw it to be like a pavilion, with the breast in front of it like the square erected before a royal palace. However much he sought a way to gain access to the heart he was unable, and said to himself: ‘All that I have previously seen was easy; it is here that the difficulty lies. If one day this person should cause us some misfortune, it may have its origin here; and if God Almighty has some task planned for this frame, or secreted something within it, it is here that it may be hidden.” With a hundred thousand such thoughts, he turned back from the heart’s threshold in despair.
Since Eblls was not admitted to the court of Adam’s heart and the hand of rejection was laid upon him, he was rejected by all the world. It is for this reason that the elders of the Path have said: “Whoever is rejected by one heart is rejected by all hearts;
!fIt was traditionally believed that the eye was fashioned of a substance akin to tallow.
and whoever is accepted by one heart is accepted by all hearts.” This is true on condition that the heart in question is truly a heart, for most men cannot distinguish between the heart and the soul.
A heart it is wherein in time of trouble
Ye find naught but God.[49]
When Eblis emerged from Adam’s frame disappointed and dismayed, he said to the angels: “There is no cause for alarm. This person is hollow; he needs food and is subject to lust like other animals; we may soon gain mastery over him. But in his breast I found a pavilion with neither door nor roof, and there was no way of entering; I know not what it can be.”
The angels said: “The difficulty is still unsolved; we have not come to the root of the matter.” So they went back to the presence of God Almighty and said: “O Lord! Thou it is that solves all difficulties, that loosens all knots, that bestows all knowledge! Thou hast labored for some time in Thine own divine person on this fistful of earth, created from it a whole world, and hidden countless treasures therein. Yet Thou hast told us nothing of the whole affair, nor confided in any of us; tell us now what is to be the outcome.”
The Almighty addressed them, saying: “ ‘I am about to make a viceregent on earth.’[50] I am creating a deputy for My majestic presence on earth, a task which is not yet complete. That which you see is his dwelling, his abode, and the seat of his throne. When I have completed it and seated him on the throne of viceregency, fall in prostration before him. ‘When I have fashioned him and inhaled in him of My spirit, fall ye down in prostration before him.’”[51]
They said to each other: “Our difficulty has but grown. He now orders us to prostrate ourselves before him and calls him
His viceregent. We never knew that any but He was worthy to receive prostration. We knew Him, Almighty and Exalted, to be without helper or partner, without like or peer, without consort or offspring; we knew not that any was worthy to be His viceregent and deputy. Let us go and circumambulate this Ka'ba, and leant well the nature of this dwelling.”
They came and walked around Adam’s frame, all gazing upon it with care. They said: “We see here naught but water and clay. The beauty of viceregency is not to be observed in him, nor can we remark any worthiness to receive prostration.” But from the unseen an indication came to their souls:
The beloved is not to be seen with the eyes of others; ’Tis with my eyes my cherished one should be seen.
They said: “This person cannot be of any account because of his form. Perhaps his worth derives from his attributes; let us then examine them.” Upon close examination they saw Adam’s frame to be made of the four elements: earth, wind, water, and fire. They then found that the attribute of earth was immobility and that of wind, mobility, and that earth was thus in opposition to wind. Similarly, they found that water was abased and fire exalted, and that these two were in opposition to each other.
They looked again and found the humor of earth to be dry, that of wind to be wet, that of water to be cold, and that of fire to be hot, and all were thus in opposition to each other. They then said: “Wherever two opposites are joined, naught but corruption and transgression can arise. ‘If there were within them a plurality of gods, other than God, both would decay.’30 And if it is true of the macrocosm that it is subject to corruption because of the opposition of the elements and their attributes, it will be even truer of the microcosm.”
Again they returned to the Divine Presence, and said: “‘Wilt Thou make upon earth one who will cause corruption and bloodshed?’31 Wilt Thou bestow the viceregency upon one who will give
’’Qur’an, 21:22. "Both” refers to the heavens and the earth.
’'Qur’an, 2:30.
rise to corruption and bloodshed?” It is related in tradition that their words were not yet finished when a flame-leapt forth from the pavilions of Splendor and Majesty and set fire to some of their number.
Know that the lamp kindled by God
Burns whoever would blow out its flame.
The substance of Adam’s viceregency, drawing on the capital of corporeal being, has inspired these verses in my feeble self:
All thou hast seen of us is but our shadow;
Our substance lies beyond creation’s twin realms.
We are without we; this is our resource for the task;
We nurture others, and He nurtures us.
The first seeker of reproach in the world was Adam; or, to tell the truth, it was none other than God the glorious Himself, for the first objection was that made to Him: "Wilt Thou make upon earth one who will cause corruption and bloodshed? ’ ’32 Here lies a wondrous indication that the foundation of love is the courting of reproach.33
Better for love to be in the company of blame;
Safety’s for the ascetic held back by his shame.
The soul of Adam silently addressed the Majestic Presence, saying: “With the rope of reproach we have lifted the burden of the Trust onto the shoulder of our soul; we have sold safety and bought reproach. We fear the blame of no one; let them say what they will, for it matters not.”
“Let them rip my fur cloak to pieces
If it be for thy sake, nimble rogue!”
Be alone in thy love, and pay men no heed;
The beloved is thine, so dust on the world’s head!
Honor enough were it for Adam that God Almighty created
1!Qur’an, 2:30.
’’See n. 18 above.
the heavens and earth and all therein in six days and nights— “He created the heavens and earth in six days”34—and did not bestow on them the honor of "with My hands,”35 even though they formed the macrocosm. But to the creation of Adam, the microcosm, He assigned no less than forty days, and He bestowed on him too the cloak of honor of "with My hands,” so that the unaware might realize that he has a distinction in the Almighty Presence which no other being enjoys. Moreover, through the property of "with My hands,” a mystery was secreted in Adam’s nature upon which all other beings were dependent for their creation. All these honors pertained to his frame, the microcosm corresponding to the macrocosm. But consider the special dignity bestowed on his spirit by the Almighty, for “I inhaled in him from My spirit”!36 Compared to the infinitude that the realm of the spirit thus acquired, this world, the hereafter, and all therein appear to be a mere microcosm.
When the two are joined together, spirit and frame, and brought to perfection, who knows what felicity and auspicious fortune He will shower down on them! Wretched is he who, deprived of perfection, looks upon his own self in contempt, uses the potentialities of the human degree, the noblest part of creation, to gain bestial pleasures, the vilest part of creation, and thus remains ignorant of his own true worth!
Thou art the offspring of two worlds, Passed from one nursemaid to the next.
First of all by innate nature, last by frame;
Such art thou, waste not thyself in game.37
“Qur’an, 7:53, 10:30, 11:7, 57:4.
“Part of the hadis discussed on p. 76, n. 27.
56Qur’an, 15:29.
“A line from the Sahnama of Ferdowsl (IV, p. 276).
Fifth Chapter:
Concerning the Beginning of the Attachment of the Spirit to the Frame
God Almighty said: “When I have fashioned him and inhaled in him of My spirit, fall ye down in prostration before him.”1
The Prophet, upon whom be God’s peace and blessings, said: “The creation of one of you is that he is a drop of sperm for forty days, collected in his mother’s womb; then a drop of coagulated blood for another forty days; and then a formless lump of flesh for a further forty days. Then God sends an angel, instructing him to write four words concerning the child’s destiny: his sustenance, his deeds, his life span, and whether he will be wretched or blessed. When the angel has written, the spirit is inhaled into him. If one of you should perform deeds like the people of Paradise, so that only a span separates him from it, but fate has decreed otherwise, his deeds shall end like those of the people of Hell, and Hell he shall enter; and if one of you should perform deeds like the people of Hell so that only a span separates him from it, but fate has decreed otherwise, his deeds shall end like those of the people of Paradise, and Paradise he shall enter.”2
Know that when the fashioning of the bodily frame was completed, and it was time for the spirit to be joined to the frame, just as God Almighty had permitted none to share in the kneading of Adam’s clay, performing the task in His own divine person, so too He now undertook to inhale the spirit in His own divine person.
Note here the indication of a subtle truth, and the proclamation of noble good tidings. It was as if God were saying: “I am sending the spirit from the highest degree of the world of spirits to the lowest degree of the world of bodies in the protective company of My unique inhalation. For the journey is long, and both friend and enemy are plentiful along the route, and it is necessary that the spirit should not be engrossed with friend
'Qur’an, 15:29.
’Tradition recorded by BokarT, Moslem, Abu Da’tid, Termezi, and Ebn Maja.
and enemy at each stage and stopping place, thereby forgetting Me and being deprived of the taste of the intimacy it enjoyed in My presence. Robbers along the road are numerous, both envious enemies and jealous friends. But if the spirit is accompanied by the trace of My inhalation, it will not permit the taste of My intimacy fully to depart from the palate of its soul, nor be completely enthralled by friend and enemy at every stage.
“I shall, moreover, cause the spirit to pass through three hundred and sixty thousand worlds, both spiritual and corporeal, relating to both Kingship and Dominion, and in each of them I have placed some provision for it, and buried some treasure on its account, so that on the day when I send it to be my viceregent in the lowest, corporeal realm, it will take these provisions and treasures with it to earth. I have informed none of these hidden treasures— ‘I have not caused them to witness the creation of the heavens and the earth’3—I alone have buried them, and I alone know what I have buried, and where, and how, and how each is to be retrieved.
"I shall be at each stage the guide and helper of the spirit: I shall display all things to it, and bestow upon it all the hidden treasures that may profit it on its passage through each separate world, withholding that which will benefit it upon its journey of return to My presence. I shall show it the talismans that I have made on this path to ward off the gaze of the intruder and prevent the access of false claimants to the presence of the treasure, and teach it how to open these talismans, so that the journey of return will be easy for it. Then too I shall instruct it in all that will benefit or harm it along the way.
“It is some time since I sent forth into the world the cry of ‘I am about to make a viceregent on earth’;4 friend and foe, acquaintance and stranger, are all awaiting his arrival. When I dispatch the spirit as my viceregent and bestow deputyhood upon it, it must therefore be with all manner of dignity and honor. I have thus ordered the cherubim to prostrate themselves before the spirit when it mounts the throne of viceregency. All
’Qur'an, 18:52.
’Qur'an, 2:30.
must behold the signs of dignity and honor I have bestowed upon it, and perceive thereby the magnitude of its rank.”
Then the pure spirit of Adam, having passed several thousand years in successive forty-day periods of prayer in the retreat of the secluded shrine of sanctity; having been honored with the gaze of grace, in the station of immediacy; and having learned the customs and norms of viceregency, the conditions and conventions of deputyship from God, the Overlord—for unless the deputy and viceregent of a king has spent a lifetime in the king’s presence being trained in the practice and customs of rule, he will not be qualified for deputyship or viceregency—then was his pure spirit seated on the unique mount of "I inhaled in him.”[52]
Intelligence ran along at his stirrup;
Love made its way to his shade.
The trappings on his bay mount’s neck were moonlight, And the tress of his black standard was dark night.[53]
Clothed in a cloak of honor that was inscribed “of My spirit,” it was borne through all the spiritual and corporeal domains, and at each station and stopping place, they brought forward the essence and choice part of the buried treasures that were hidden there, and sent them with it as it proceeded on its way. Finally it was seated as viceregent on the throne of the bodily frame in the kingdom of humanity, and immediately the entire exalted host, cherubim and spirit beings, fell prostrate before the throne—"and the angels prostrated themselves, all with one accord.”[54] Gabriel was then appointed chancellor at Adam’s court, and Michael as treasurer, and all the other angels were also given some post.
It was found desirable to lay the foundation of punishment, to hoist someone onto the scaffold, so that throughout the realms of Kingship and Dominion none should dare to claim viceregency or to oppose that of Adam. Eblls, that arrogant, black-fortuned
one, who in his inquisitiveness had once made stealthy and illicit entry into Adam’s frame, gazed with the eye of contempt upon the domain of his viceregency, and desired in vain to make a breach in the treasurehouse of his heart, was therefore seized on the charge of robbery and bound with the rope of wretchedness. When it was time for all the angels to prostrate themselves, Eblis was unable to do so, for he had in reality been bound with the rope of wretchedness on the day that he entered the workshop of the unseen without permission.
It is related in a certain Tradition that when all the creatures are gathered together on the Plain of Resurrection, one of the lights of God, Almighty and Glorious, will manifest itself and all will desire to fall down in prostration. Whoever prostrated himself before God while still in the world will then enter prostration; but those who prostrated themselves before idols, worldly desires, and the passions, will be unable to do so, for their necks will have been bound with the rope of wretchedness on that day when they failed to prostrate themselves before God. That rope cannot be seen today with the outer eye; but whoever has his inner eye open will see it and not fail to sever it with the scissors of repentance and the seeking of forgiveness. For if he does not sever it today, he will be brought to the marketplace of resurrection bound in chains and fetters, and the sense of the verse “Behold the fetters on their necks, and the chains”8 will be fulfilled.
The neck of Eblis the cunning was then bound on that day, for he out of all the angels had acted impudently and illicitly entered the workshop of the unseen, thereby contravening the divine command: “Do not enter the dwellings of the Prophet unless it be permitted to you.”9 His neck was tied with the rope of wrath so that he was unable to prostrate himself before Adam — ‘And they prostrated themselves, except Eblis, who refused and was arrogant.”10
People imagine that his refusal and arrogance began at the
“Qur'an, 40:71.
“Qur’an, 33:53.
'“Qur’an, 2:34.
time of prostration. It was indeed then that the outer form of his refusal and arrogance became apparent, but this was only the tree coming to fruit, for the reality of his refusal and arrogance had been sown like a seed in the soil of his wretchedness on that day when he flouted the norms of courtesy and entered the workshop of the unseen without permission. When he emerged, he was arrogant and said: ‘A hollow creature, incapable of selfrestraint.” He looked on himself with the eye of grandeur, and on the viceregent of God with the eye of contempt. That seed was nurtured with the passage of time, and bore the fruit of his refusal and arrogance on the day of prostration. Of necessity, then, they dragged him onto the scaffold of accursedness with the rope of wretchedness: "My curse is upon thee until the Day of Judgment.”11 They left him on the scaffold of chastisement, there to remain until the coming of the Hour. Rather, he will not be taken down for all eternity, to serve as warning example for all who might dare to show disrespect for God’s viceregent anywhere in his realm. Whoever follows EblTs in this earthly kingdom shall be placed with him in one rank and sent down to Hell: "Truly I shall fill Hell with thee and with all of those who follow thee.”12
It is related that when the spirit entered the frame of Adam, it immediately explored all the domains of the body and found it to be an exceedingly gloomy and fearsome abode, founded on four contradictory principles and thus incapable of permanence. It saw it to be dark and cramped, full of several thousand insects and noisome creatures such as snakes, scorpions, and serpents, different kinds of raging beast such as lions, tigers, leopards, bears, and swine, and other animals such as donkeys, cows, horses, mules, and camels. All these were in conflict with one another, and all too were attacking the spirit, inflicting injury on it and vexing it in manifold ways. Then too, the soul turned on it in its exile, like a dog, and fell on it like a wolf.
The pure spirit that for many a millennium had been nurtured with a hundred thousand delicate cares in the proximity of the Lord of the Worlds was now struck with terror by all these perils.
uQur’an, 38:78.
izQur’an, 38:85.
It knew for the first time the value of the intimacy it had enjoyed in the presence of the Almighty, and realized how great was the blessing of union in which it had been constantly immersed without knowing its pleasure and true value. The fire of separation leaped up in its soul, and the smoke of exile rose up to its brain. It exclaimed:
Yesterday, wine, pleasure, and the idol’s face;
Today, sorrow, exile, separation from her.
O revolution of days! to you both are as one, So bring back yesterday, I renounce today!13
The spirit forthwith turned its back on that abode of terror, and desired to return along the path that had brought it:
My resolve is firm to quit this place;
Coming was without sense; broken be the leg that brought me!
When it desired to return, it looked around for the mount of the inhalation that had brought it, for it had not come on foot, but mounted. It could not find the mount, and its heart was shattered. Then it was told: “It is this shattering of thy heart that was Our aim.” Upon hearing this, its heart was straitened and it gave a deep sigh. Now it was told: “It is on account of this sigh that We have brought thee here.” The steam of the sigh mounted to Adam’s nose, like the smoke of a fire to the hole in the roof, and immediately he began to sneeze. Thus motion stirred in him: He opened his eye, and saw the spacious width of the world of form and witnessed the brightness of the sun. “Praise be to God,” he said, and the divine address reached him, saying, "Thy Lord will have mercy on thee.” 14 The sweetness of those words reached his soul and a degree of tranquillity arose within him.
But whenever he thought of the joy of proximity to God and
,3A quatrain by Anvan (Divan, p. 608).
HAn allusion to the fact that it is recommended for the one who sneezes to exclaim, "Praise be to God!” and for the one who hears him to respond, “May God have mercy upon thee!” (Tradition recorded by al-Katib al-Bagdadl.)
intimacy with Him, and recalled the spacious breadth of the world of spirits and the bounties that God had given him without intermediary, he wanted to break the cage of his bodily frame and rend his garment of water and clay.
That captive nightingale known as the soul
Has not the strength to shatter its cage.
In the same way that children are distracted with brightly colored objects and the noise of bells, with sweetmeats and fruit, so too Adam was distracted by being appointed teacher to the angels, by receiving their prostration, by being conducted around the heavens, by mounting the pulpit, and all the other well-known means recounted in Tradition. Thus it was hoped that the fire of his desire for the beauty of the Divine Presence might somewhat abate, that he might grow attached and accustomed to something new, and that his terror would depart from him.
Yet he proclaimed silently all the while:
Never, O chosen idol of mine,
Shall thy love quit my heart, nor thine image, mine eye. If after my death thou shouldst come seeking,
Thou wilt find love for thee still in my rotting bones!
Then the divine address was heard: "O Adam, enter Paradise and live there in joy, eating and resting as thou desirest, and keep the company of whomever thou wilt—'O Adam, live thou and thy
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