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A Glance at Mulla Sadras Mysticisms in qaz al-naimn

Muhammad Khansari

Iqaz al-Naimn is a rich compendium of mystical teachings which contains subtle and fine meanings. In this

risalah (treatise), Mulla Sadra brings together the core of all mystical ideas which appear in al-Asfar and his other books. He himself says that this risalah is a collection of Divine secrets and Lordly mysteries and unveiling sciences which the blessing of the Lord imprinted on the heart of this lowest of His servants. He further says, In the past I discussed the issue of tawhid (Divine Unity) in my books in a theoretical and demonstrative way that would be acceptable to philosophers and verifiers. Here, however, the method is the Divine method and the procedure is a novel sacred procedure, which cannot be understood except by unparalleled verifiers and mystical elite. The content of this book is beyond the reach of reason and is based on inner findings, illumination and intuition. Therefore, the method employed in it has nothing to do with demonstration. Gnostics are the people of unveiling (kashf ) and inner findings rather than the people of demonstration and proof. (P.19) Then following a mystical point he says, This is beyond the perception of the intellects and the senses of the souls. As far as literary taste, beauty and eloquence are concerned, this risalah of Mulla Sadra and his other mystical books are of top quality. In this treatise, expressions are very exciting, admirable and poetical, and they are accompanied by literal devices used in a very natural way and without formality. He makes use of rhetoric and adorns his works with similes, metaphors and in particular with rhymed prose and quotations from Arabic and Persian poems and proverbial sayings. Of course, the style he uses in this book is clearly different from that of al-Asfar , in which he proves substantial motion, discusses the corporeality of the soul, and deals with substances and accidents. Mystical style is exciting, poetical and subtle and not the same as the prosaic philosophical and logical style. Mystical expression is full of ecstasy, spiritual feelings, love and rapture and allows man to leave his ego for the union with the Truth and the annihilation in Allah. Therefore,

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the choice of words is different, as it deals with the heart rather than reason. Gnosis and Sufism have theoretical, practical and aesthetic aspects. That is to say that in gnosis theory is intertwined with practice and taste and complexity. Generally speaking, the aesthetic aspect of gnosis is very strong, and Mulla Sadra proves that not only is he well-versed in Peripatetic and Illuminationist schools, theology and gnosis, but that he is also an extraordinary writer. His proper references to the Holy Quran, the tradition (hadth) and the words of great figures such as Ibn Arab, Sadra al-Dn Qunaw, Imam Muhammad Ghazzal and Ala al-Dawlah Simnan suggest his unparalleled mastery in these fields. He quotes verses from the Quran and passages from the tradition throughout his book and thus he adorns his works. He often quotes the Quranic verse completely; sometimes, however, he subtly alludes to them. It is here that his mastery over the verses of the Holy Quran and his good excerption and wonderful taste and perhaps the fact that he knows the Holy Quran by heart become apparent. For example, concerning the gnostic after traversing certain stages he says, Then travel in the land of Divine truths, which is illuminated by the light of the Lord. This can be considered as an allusion to numerous verses such as why do you not travel in the earth, travel in the earth, and also the earth will be illuminated by the light of the Lord and the book of the acts of the people will be brought before the Truth (39:69). Or on the modifications and changes occurring in man he says, At the beginning man had no positive reality. He was pure potentiality and, without considering the forms granted to him, he had no actuality. Did not a time pass for man that did not deserve being mentioned? (76:1) Then he received various forms one after another and crossed the stages of the inanimate, the vegetative and the animal, and upon the rising of the sun of the rational soul he woke up from the inanimate sleep and the vegetative life. Then the soil of the body was illuminated by the light of his Lord, and this is a very proper excerption from the sacred verse the earth will be illuminated by the light of the Lord (39:69). Then with a yet more proper excerption he refers to the evolution of the embryo and says, The first organ which is created in the embryo is the pineal heart, and this organ begins to work before any other organ. The first house, built as a temple to which people go to worship, is the house of Becca (3:96). And as we know from the tradition (hadth), the heart is interpreted as the house of Allah. This house is placed in the Becca of the spiritual breast and is like a place for the gathering of the faculties which are directed toward him. Here Becca stands for Mecca, since in Arabic the letter m can be turned to the letter b. Others have claimed that Becca means a place of gathering, and Mulla Sadras expression suggests the latter meaning. This place

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is full of Divine emanations, which radiate from Him in all directions. And therein lies guidance for the people of world, who find their way to God under that light. In that house, there are many clear signs of the Lord and in there exist clear signs of sciences, teachings and truths. It is the abode of Abraham; it is the station of the Abraham of intellect. Every one who enters this abode will be safe, and if every wayfarer who is stranded in the desert of ignorance enters this place, he will be safe from the devils of imagination and beasts of soliloquy (the sensual temptations) and the giants of estimation and the brutes of animal faculties. Here we are not of course interpreting the verses hermeneutically; what we mean is rather a sort of simile. Not only is the style of the book different as compared to the style of other negating works, but even the expressions and terms and titles are also of a different kind. As it is known, philosophy comprises three main axes: God, the world and the man. Gnosis also deals with these three axes, but from a different point of view and with its own expressions and terms. That is to say that the titles employed in these three themes are basically different. In theoretical and discursive philosophy, Mulla Sadra calls God the Necessary Being, the Essential Necessary, the Cause of causes, the First Cause, the First Mover and the like. Here he calls Him the Truth, the first Truth, the true Divine Reality, the first Beloved and the Beauty of the pre-eternal, the Light of lights, the Source of existence, the Origin of actuality and effusion and light, the Emanator, etc. In the former, to prove the Origin he takes recourse to the proof of motion and the demonstration of the necessity and possibility and the falsity of the vicious circle, in the latter he follows the way of love and intuition. It is the issue of the circle, but the circle of friends, The chain of this musk-diffusing strand of hair, If they have spoken of release and renounce, Do not go to ill thoughts, the story of Bukhara is said. In theoretical and demonstrative philosophy man is defined as the rational, the laughing, or the social animal, and sometimes he is described as an animal with an upright-stature and with wide shoulders. They also deal with various stages of intellect ranging from material intellect to habitual intellect and from actual intellect to acquired intellect. But here man is designated and described as the great vicegerent of God, the configuration (nasha) of human society, the vicegerent to Allah, the pupil of the eye of the world of existence, the assembly of all

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truths and verses, the comprehensive book, the one to whom angels prostrated and the like. Concerning the world, instead of using terms such as effects, the temporally created and the made thing, which are philosophical terms, gnosis uses particular terms such as the locus of the self-disclosure of the presence of the Truth, the mirror of the Truth, the ray of His light, the lights of the self-disclosures of the Truth, the rays of beauty and glory, and the like. All these pictures and opposite imprints, Are only one ray, projected from the face of the cup-bearer in the cup. This reminds the reader of Shabistars poem: Consider the world the light of His face, In which the Truth is too apparent to be seen. Or of Sads: In the world I am happy because of the One who makes the world happy, I love the world, since the entire world is His. This discrepancy in expressions and terms in philosophy and gnosis pertains to the differences between philosophers and gnostics in understanding the same topic. Now we will briefly discuss one of the three issues of the world, the man and death, as mentioned in the book, which concerns the knowledge of God. After a brief sermon, Mulla Sadra begins the book as follows: The most intricate science is the science of the Divine Unity, and the highest station is the station of understanding the secrets of unveilings. The reason behind using such words in the beginning of the book is that the knowledge of God is the most difficult to understand. Man is always with his own self and he also knows his own self immediately, yet he is unable to know his self as it is let alone know the limitless essence of the Truth-the Exalted. You are unable to know yourself, How can you know the Creator? Or: "In all your life, you were with yourself, but you could not know yourself, "You were not with the Truth even for a moment and yet you speak of the knowledge of Him." Ibn Arab, Sadr al-Dn Qunaw and following them Mulla Sadra talk of the station of the non-conditioned being as the essence of Oneness in terms of the Hidden Ipseity (huwiyyah), the Absolute Hidden, the Essence

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of the Truth and the Essence of the Oneness. That is to say that the Essence of the Truth, in terms of non-entities, is referred to through the absolute in comparability. And it is He who has no name, definition or attribution, and is not subject to knowledge and perception. Any existent which has a name, a definition and an attribution and which can be perceived and known is an intellectual or estimative concept, and this is not the case with the Truth. And He is the Absolute unknown and hidden. (p. 15) He quotes from Sadr al-Dn Qunaw as saying that pure absoluteness is a negative quality which requires the negation of all rules, attributes and entities of the Divine Essence and the non delimitation and the non-restrictedness in an attribute, name or another entity[1]. There is also a well-known hadth which is repeatedly quoted in books on gnosis and which Mulla Sadra also refers to in this book in two various versions (p.25 & p.63). This hadth says that the Truth is hidden behind 70000 veils.[2]. Of course, as Mulla Sadra says, this indicates multipicity. Shaykh Attar says: He has more than thousands of veils, Made of light and of darkness, before the door. According to Mulla Sadras interpretation, the veils of light are the subtlest spiritual possible things and the dark veils represent dense corporeal things. Nevertheless, determined and God-seeking men have proceeded to take the spiritual journey without observing the principle of suspension (tatil), which would lead man to an easy life. Every one, in accordance with his capability and capacity, proceeds to know Him, may that Dear take some of the veils off His face and do them a favor. It should be noted that all existents, including men, have a sort of unconscious knowledge of the presence of the Oneness, which is an undifferentiated and simple understanding of the Truth. But the composite knowledge, which comprises the conscious knowledge of the Truth (i.e. knowledge accompanied with the knowledge of knowledge) either through unveiling - the method of saints and gnostics or through demonstration - the method of those rationalists who contemplate His attributions and effects is not attainable for all existents. It is this very knowledge which determines the criterion of obligations, and the benefit of sending the prophets is based on this knowledge. In this kind of knowledge the false and the

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true are allowed, and the rules of belief and disbelief and the difference between the degrees of mysticism pertain to it. This is unlike the first kind of knowledge, in which the false is not allowed at all. The knowledge of the Truth is in the nature of the essence; It is the knowledge of knowledge, which is an intellectual one. Now the wayfarers of this path move on various mounts and with various supplies. Some of them attempt to get to know the Truth through creatures and through obtaining the path of demonstration, and this group will not succeed in attaining the station of real knowledge. The other group, the people of God, puts creatures aside and does not see them in the middle and knows the Truth through the Truth, and also knows other than the Truth through the Truth. The former group goes from the lower universe toward the higher universe and the latter group proceeds from the higher universe toward the lower universe. The first method is the method of those who contemplate the creation of the earth and the heavens[3]. We reveal the signs of our power and wisdom in the horizon of the world
and in the souls of servants so that it will be revealed that God, the resurrection and are true[4].

But the second method is the method of the righteous men (siddiqn) who summon witnesses from the Truth and not for the Truth. They do not take existents as witnesses for Him. They rather consider Him as the witness and know the Essence through the Essence immediately rather than through the essences of possible things. God says in the supplement of the verse: Doth not thy Lord suffice, since He is Witness over all things? (41:53) Does not the fact that God is a witness for all the existents of the world make you needless of any demonstration? And these are the enchanted and those beloved by the Truth, who are mentioned in the hadth al-qurb al-nawafil (closeness through supererogatory works). And the secret of this fact that the true knowledge of the Truth cannot be gained through the loci of manifestations but the knowledge of the loci of manifestations can be gained through the knowledge of the Truth is not as it is said in theoretical and demonstrative sciences. In these sciences it is claimed that the existence of the cause entails the existence of an effect, and therefore through the knowledge of the cause the knowledge of the effect will be gained, while through the existence of an effect only the existence of an undetermined cause will be known. This demonstration is not perfect. The correct and accurate statement is that effect is a mode of the entifications and of the various stages of the cause. Thus the one who knows the cause will know its modes and various stages as well, unlike the one who only knows the effect- like many mirrors which are different in terms of the extent of the field of sight, cavity, distance, polish, etc. Every one

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who throws a look in one of these mirrors will find his face in accordance to that mirror and of course he will not see his real face. Briefly, intellect cannot open its own way to that sacred realm and attain real knowledge through the sole consideration of the loci of manifestations. Furthermore, it cannot see the lights of the beauty of the Oneness let alone sense perception, estimation and imagination. However, unlike philosophers, gnostics do not proceed to gain knowledge of the Truth through combining the premises and definitions and taking the rules of syllogism into account and following the rules of concepts and judgments. They succeed in attaining the knowledge of the Truth through sound hearts and pure natures and by submission and repentance. Save him who bringeth unto Allah a whole heart (26:89). Know the Truth through the light of the Truth, which is manifest, and reach Him not on the feet of proof and demonstration but by putting even the shoes aside and by leaving both worlds. This kind of knowledge is allotted to great men who are close to the Truth, and it is not attained except by the righteous martyr. This is because the forms of this knowledge are not imprinted except by the pen of the First Truth on that heart which is straight and has a sound nature. Such a heart is polished by the emery of belief, is God fearing from belonging to this world, and has left the opaqueness of this lower world. In brief, the knowledge of the Truth is not attainable except through the path of gnostics; and it is the knowledge of the Truth through the Truth which leads to the annihilation of the wayfarer. And this is ecstatic unity as compared to formal Unity. And the one who does not attain true unity will fall prey either to similarity (tashbh) or to suspension (tatil ). What Mulla Sadra means is that among people there are only a few who can go beyond these steps and reach that summit and attain the degree of closeness and even the degree of union and annihilation. Others will remain in various stages of sensual passions and estimation and cannot go beyond the belief in an illusory god and do not exceed the limit of similarity. Reason also can cross only a few preliminary stations. Here the a priori argument is disabling. The Truth is not effect and has no cause so that its existence can be proved through that cause. The only way which is open for reason is that of an a posteriori argument, and this argument does not give certain knowledge either, and does not lead the people of reason to a certain cause. We do not mention sense perception and estimation here. And since He is an essence which has no similar and no opposite, through similar and opposites He cannot be understood either. Certain questions like those of Ibn Kamunahs and other satanic temptations lurk in the way, and each of them leads to a particular understanding.

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All these discrepancies in mans understanding and his opposition concerning the knowledge of the Truth pertain to the mechanism of observing the self-disclosures of the Truth. And their denial of each other pertains to the superiority of the rules of some realms over others and the seclusion of some manifestations from some others. That is why as soon as the Truth-the Exalted with negative attributions become manifest to immaterial intellects, the people of glorification and incomparability and those who consider God as incomparable with any anthropomorphism and imperfection, they accept Him and begin the glorification of that sacred Essence. But the faculties that are not immaterial, such as estimation (wahm) and imagination (khayal), and souls that are imprinted with matter and its faculties, begin to deny. This is because they are in a state in which they perceive the Truth only through anthropomorphism and similarity. And when the Essence of the Truth becomes manifest with positive attributions, hearts and rational souls accept it. This is because in terms of their connection to belongness of the bodies they are similar and in terms of the immateriality of the substance they are incomparable. But immaterial intellects deny it, since they are incomparable with the world of bodies. Reason (aql) and estimation (wahm) always stand against each other, and each of them tries to dominate mans being and each refrains from being subordinate to the other. Reason claims that it can perceive the truths because it possesses theoretical faculty, but this is not the case. Reason can only perceive universal concepts and the concomitants of beings; and its knowledge is at best the undifferentiated (ijmal) knowledge of the fact that there is a creator incomparable with temporal and spatial qualities. But reason is deprived of the intuition of the Truth and of observing His self-manifestations, self-disclosures and the light of the Truth in these things. And since weak reasons are unable to perceive Divine manifestations in all cases and all realms, and the inordinate souls do not respect Divine norms, they confuse existences, which are the effusions of the Truth and various modes of His self-disclosures, with the particulars of quiddities, which seem to be independent and pretend to be idols. Therefore, they tend to worship those idols and attribute existence and creation to them, unaware of the fact that it is only the Truth who is manifest in everything and is incomparable.[5] The faculty of seeing the particular also tries to dominate and disprove reason in perceiving universals and immaterial qualities. It demands space, dimension, direction, color, shape and the like as prerequisites of the concept of any object and it is unable to perceive immaterial qualities.[6]

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Therefore, every configuration (nasha) of the intellectual, the sensory and the imaginary receives a kind of Divine self-disclosure (tajall), which befits its nature and denies other manifestations. Anyway, every faculty is restricted by its own nature, like the angels who could not understand the station of man and started to ask questions. Thus, every one looks at the Truth from the point of view of his own existence: Every one sees the light of the One through the eye of his I-ness and perceives His Essence according to the capacity of his existence. Prophets and perfect friends of God, for their mastery of and union with the world of the Divine, are not restricted by these bottlenecks. They travel along a never-ending horizon and see the Truth in all manifestations and do not deny any manifestation. They perceive things in a way other than those of the intellect and other senses. The knowledge of the prefect man is higher than that of others; similarly, his knowledge of things is of another kind. This is because the real knowledge of every mode of the modes of existence is not acceptable except through the knowledge of its Creator. It is here that the rule of those philosophers who say that the perfect knowledge of the effect cannot be gained except thought the knowledge of the cause can be understood, as the essences of effects cannot be known except through the causes. But the relationship between effect and the cause is not what the superficial ones believe, and it is not the case that effect is independent of the cause. As Mulla Sadra describes in al-Asfar in detail, effect essentially has no reality other than being correlated and concomitant. And it has no meaning other than being an effect of the cause, without having an independent essence in which these meanings occur, since being the absolute effusing cause and the origin and being followed are the same as His Essence. And it is proved that the chain of beings, including causes or effects, leads to the Essence of the illuminative and anthological simple Truth, which is incomparable with multiplicity, possibility, imperfection, concealment, presence and dependence. And it is proved that He is effusing by His essence, emitting by His reality, illuminating the earth and the heavens by His identity and the origin of the worlds of command and creation. And thus it is proved that all existents have a single origin, which is the Truth, and all others are its various modes. It can be said that He is the essence and all other than Him are His names and attributions. Or He is the principle and others are His various stages and modes. Or He is the existent and others are his various directions and aspects. Then he anxiously says, No one should think that the relationship between possible things and the Essence of the self-subsisting God the Exalted is the relationship of indwelling (hulul). God forbid! Being the dwelling (hall) and being the locus require a dualism between the effusing and the effused. Any way, under the light of

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the sun of realization, a man who is illuminated by the light of guidance and Divine blessings will understand that there is not a second for the single being of the Truth, and for him the estimative multiplicities and the errors made by estimation (wahm) will disappear. The gnostic will see His penetrating light as emitting from the bodies of possible things and.[7] Therefore, whatever the name of the existence supervenes on is not but a
mode of the modes of the Self-subsistent and an attribution of the attributions of His essence and a ray of His rays.

At the beginning we demonstratively said that in the world of existence there are the cause and effect. At the end of our mystical wayfaring, however, we were led to the point that between the cause and effect only the cause is a real quality and that effect is one of its modes. And the causeness of the cause in relation to effect is referable in fact to the evolution of the cause in a mode or a stage of tashaaun in shuun. It is not so that a thing other than the cause separates itself from the cause and becomes independent of it. And then he furthers his remark: ARABIC TEXT In order to confirm this subtle and hard to understand issue, he refers to Junayd Baghdad, who on hearing the hadth and there was God and nothing was with Him said, as it is the case in the present time. That is to say that even after the origination of the existents there is yet only God and nothing is with Him. Thus, the people of unveiling and intuition clearly see that possible quiddities are nothing but manifestations and that they are in fact non-existents. And the real being is the existence of the Truth and His modes. And the existences of quiddities are accidental and depend on their connection with the levels of existence. At any rate existence is not their essential quality. By way of proof he refers to Shaykh Mahmud Shabistaris poem: Existence pervades in its own perfection, Entifications are mentally-posited qualities. The mentally-posited quality does not exist, There are many numbers to count with, but there is only one thing to be counted.[8] Thus, the realities of possible things pre-eternally and eternally remain in their non-existence and their enjoyment of the light of the existence is not so that real existence becomes their attribute. Quiddities, despite remaining in their essential non-existence, due to their association with possibilities, which are the results of the descent of existence, are the self-manifestations of the real existence. In both worlds, darkness from the possible thing, Did not separate, it is God who knows everything.[9]

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He quotes this poem both in his al-Asfar and in the present Risalah and takes it as a translation of the prophetic hadth: Poverty or need are the darkness of the face in both words.[10] And he confirms his claim by quoting from Ghazzals Mishkat al-anwar on gnostics who through contemplation perceived that there is no existent other than God and that everything will be destroyed except His Essence. And the term destroyed does not mean that everything will be destroyed at a certain time; everything is, in fact, destructible pre-eternally and eternally. And nothing else is conceivable, as every thing, when its essence is considered in terms of its essence, is pure non-existence. And only the Essence of God exists. Ghazzal intends to say that being destructible does not mean that something is destroyed or that it perishes; rather, it means that it is non-existent. That is, it is not the name of the agent but an adjective. This opinion is not only Ghazzals; people of unveiling and intuition are all unanimous that possible things are essentially non-existent. To stipulate the non-existent quality of possible things Mulla Sadra expresses them as false essences[11] and
eternally destructible in nature. All this insistence upon and this employing of various expressions and this repetition of the same issue in various words in this book as well as other books and treatises tries to say that there is only Him, there is no God other than Him and there is Him and there is nothing other than Him. At any rate, the term existent, when pointing to other than Him, is employed in a metaphorical way. Not only is other than Him dependent on Him, but they are in effect nothing other than belongness. And according to theosophers, the existence of everything is in fact the mode of its relationship with the First Truth. And every thing that we consider as existent has a relative existence which is dependent on the existence of the Truth. Mulla Sadra then adds that in al-Asfar he demonstrates that ontological entities are the lights of the self-disclosures of the Truth and the rays of His beauty and glory. Therefore, nothing can be perceived unless by being attributed to the Truth the Exalted. Its existence is in fact identical with relation. And this is not possible save through perceiving the Truth, since His essence to His essence is the goal of the chain of existents and the end of all ends.

Notes:

1. Cf. al-Asf r vol.2, P.327 2. This hadth is recorded in mystics books, and the number of veils has been reported in various versions to be 70 or 700 or 70000, and the veils of the light and darkness are interpreted in subtle ways.

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3. Cf. the Holy Quran, 3:191. 4. The Holy Quran, 41:53. 5. It has been said that Qd Abd al-Jabbr Mutazal entered the class of Shib b. Abbd while Abu Ishq Asfaryin was present. (Hj Mull Hd Sabziwr; Asrr al-hikam; Ed. by Sharani; Islamiyyah publication; 1380 A.D.; P.108) 6. In his Miyr al-ilm, Imm Muhammad Ghazzl describes the opposition existing between the intellect and imagination and the claims made by each of them for domination (published in Egypt; 1329 A.D.; P.24 onward). 7. Cf. the Holy Quran/21/18 8. Shams al-Dn Muhammad Lhj, Maftih al-ijz fi sharh-i gulshan-i rz; Ed. by M. Barzigar Khaliqi and `A. Karbasi; Zawwar publication, 1371; P.334. 9. Maftih al-ijz fi sharh-i gulshan-i rz; P.86. To comment on this poem, Lhj says that by darkness, the darkness of the possibility in both worlds (i.e. the world of form and the world of idea) is meant. 10. There are many glosses on this hadth. To make this hadth and the hadths reported on admiring dependence, the late `Allmah Majlis in his Bihr made many subtle points and quoted interpretations by mystics: The face means the essence of possible thing and dependence means dependence on the existence and perfections of the other. 11. Some of the people of mysticism consider possible things as being false. And as we know, Peripatetics consider particular external entities as real things. According to them, the real substance, or the first substance, is the objective and particular substance; however, Ibn-Sn, who compiled his Shif in a peripatetic manner, considers them in this book as false. Shif, Ilhiyyt; ed. By Qanawati; Vol.1; Cairo; 1380/1960; P.48.

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