“To God belong all that is in the East and in the West God’s is the place of sun rising and the place of sun setting So whichever way you turn there is His face there’s His core being. He wraps around you He knows. . . .” Qur’an
THE longing for intimacy and closeness to God has perennially been one of mankind’s most pronounced characteristics. Those worshipers within the Islamic tradition that particularly focus on the internal aspects of the faith and endeavor to reach the Transcendent are commonly referred to as Sufis. Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, has devised various paths to reach that goal and one of the ideas that appears to be most predominant in Sufi theology is characterized by the notion of love. It is apparent from Quran that one of the essential purpose of creation is to produce from this subset of humanity, a group of people that will freely enter into a relationship of love with Allah. They will not only experience the beauty of other relationships in their lives, but the love, which they experience with Allah is a sublime experience.
Until fifth century, after the demise of Holy Prophet, Islamic Sufism was based roughly on the idea of fearing God. In the history of Islamic culture, ascetic and fearful Sufism preceded the Sufism of love, as Abu-Hamid al-Ghazzali stepped into the arena of culture, before Rumi did. Al-Ghazzali was so fearful of God, that it led him to the point of paralysis. He says, “You are nothing in relation to such a Transcendent Reality. How can you claim existence or even say, it is your will to do something. How can you even claim to worship Him, everything comes from Him and man is mere recipient of His will and has to accept whatever is given or denied to him.” Quran says, “Quran is a book, had it been revealed to a mountain, the fear of God would have ripped the mountain asunder,” Although this fear is a kind of ‘lover’s mortification,’ in essence it represents a profound spiritual journey where the seekers love for divine is purified refined and transformed through the guidance of Quran.
Dr Abdul Karim Saroush says,“Rumi placed the Masnawi’s, ‘Book of Love’ beside the Quran’s, ‘Book of Awe,’ andgave the single-winged bird of religion the gift of a second wing, so that it could fly more evenly and more joyfully. His religion was the religion of love, which was distinct from all other religions. To him, the Beloved was beguiling as well as mysterious. The religion of love is distinct from any other religion. It is the religion of the lovers of God.” Rumi says, “Bravo to love that so masterfully unites a hundred thousand droplets, just as the potter unites grains of dust to form a jug.”
Allah is illustrated as abiding closer than man’s jugular vein on one hand implying His nearness; while on the other, He is described as being like nothing else in all His creation. Quran tell us, “Nothing could be compared to Him, our definitions do not encompass Him, and our reasons cannot comprehend Him? He transcends time and space, while we are bound by it. He is Infinite, while we are finite, He is Immortal and we are mortal, He is Incorporeal, while we are corporeal.
If an ordinary mortal cannot be compared to Him then what is the essential link. Even God’s 99 beautiful names can easily be divided between those that describe His nearness and those His distance. How can these perspectives be harmonized? ‘If we understand God to be both near and distant, both caring and unconcerned, both gentle and severe, we may soon find ourselves bewildered. Should humanity fear His wrath or hope for his mercy? In the Islamic tradition, it is primarily Sufism that answers this basic existential question of who we are and through this answer provides guidance for a life full of spiritual felicity, marked by illumination and leading ultimately to deliverance from the bondage of all limitations.
Rumi believed that the spirit after devolution from the divine ego undergoes an evolutionary process, by which it ultimately comes nearer and nearer to the same divine ego. All matter in the universe obeys this law and this movement is due to an inbuilt urge, (which Rumi calls ‘love’) to evolve and seek enjoinment with the divinity from which it has emerged. Evolution into a human being from an animal state is only one stage in this process. The doctrine of the fall of Adam is reinterpreted as the devolution of the ego from the universal ground of divinity and is a universal, cosmic phenomenon.
The evolutionary process of universal consciousness has a specific goal i.e. the attainment of God. For Rumi, “God is the basis, as well as the goal of all existence. Man not conscious of God is akin to an animal with baser instincts and only true consciousness makes him divine. This doctrine was introduced into Islam by Muslim Philosophers like Al- Farabi and related to Ibn-Sina’s idea of love, a magnetically working power by which life is driven into an upward trend. Ibn -Sina known in Europe as Avicenna suggests that love has an ennobling power a doctrine advocating suppressing the lower parts of the soul, in an attempt to reach the perfection of the highest. On this basis, Ibn-Sina doctrine of love allots to the love of external beauty, a role which remained positive, valuable and honorable, even when compared with the most exalted and unearthly love. — To continue.
—The writer is author of various books based in Rawalpindi.
