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Form and Substance in the Religions

For a religion to be considered as intrinsically orthodox it must be founded upon a fully


adequate doctrine of the Absolute (extrinsic orthodoxy depending upon particular formal
elements which cannot be applied literally outside the perspective to which they refer);1 it must
also advocate and realize a spirituality that is adequate to this doctrine, which means that it must
comprise both the notion and the fact of sanctity. The religion must therefore be of Divine, and
not philosophical, origin, and in virtue of this origin it must be the vehicle of a sacramental or
theurgic presence which manifests itself especially in miracles and also — though this may seem
surprising to some — in sacred art. Particular formal elements, such as apostolic personages and
sacred events, are — as forms — subordinate to the above mentioned principial elements; they
may thus differ in meaning and value from one religion to another — human diversity making
such fluctuations inevitable — without there being for this reason any contradiction as regards
the essential criteria, which concern both metaphysical truth and saving efficacy, and secondarily
— on this basis — human stability. This last criterion may have requirements which at first
sight seem paradoxical, given that it necessarily implies a certain compromise between earth and
Heaven. From the Christian point of view Islam may seem to be most questionable, but it
undeniably answers to the overall description given above. It is intrinsically orthodox, while
differing outwardly from other forms of monotheistic orthodoxy;and it is called upon to differ
quite specifically from Christianity by what appears to be a kind of regress into an Abrahamic
and as it were timeless equilibrium.
Every religion has a form and a substance. Islam spread through the world like lightning
by virtue of its substance, and its expansion came to a halt on account of its form. The substance
has all the rights, for it springs from the Absolute; the form is relative, and its rights are
therefore limited.2 Knowing this, one cannot close one's eyes to these two facts: firstly, there is
no absolute credibility on the level of mere phenomena and secondly, the literalist and
exclusivist interpretation of the religious messages is belied by their relative inefficacy, not of
course within their own areas of providential expansion, but insofar as believers in other

1
Whether this be envisaged a priori in a mode that is personal or impersonal, theistic or nirvanic.
2
Heresy is a form cut off from its substance, whence its illegitimacy, whereas wisdom on the contrary is
substance envisaged independently of forms, whence its universality and its imprescriptibility. The success of
heresy derives, not from some inner value (largely absent in fact), but from more or less negative extrinsic causes,
unless its determining factor, in a particular environment, be some traditional element that has remained intact.
religions are concerned: "If God truly wished to save the world", replied an Emperor of China
to some missionaries, "why did He leave China in darkness for so many centuries?" The
irrefutable logic of this argument in no wise proves that a given religious message is false, but it
does prove that it is extrinsically limited by its form, exactly as some particular geometrical
figure cannot, on its own, take into account all the possibilities of space. Obviously this basic
argument has other aspects or applications: for example, had God really wished to save the
world by means of the Christian religion and by no other, one could not explain why, a few
centuries later, when Christianity had not even yet established itself firmly in Europe, He
permitted another religion — one that came like astroke of lightning and remained like a
monolith — to install itself in those very regions into which Christian light was supposed to
penetrate, thus closing and bolting the door once and for all to any spread of Christianity
towards the East.3 Inversely, if the coming of Islam had signified that the whole world was to
embrace this religion, there would be no explanation as to why God should have clothed it in a
human imagery which collides head-on with Christian sensibility and makes the West
irremediably refractory to the message of Muhammad. If it be objected that man is free, and that
consequently God allows him the liberty to create a false religion anywhere and any time, then
words become meaningless: Every Divine Intervention, in order to be efficacious, must foresee
this freedom of man to oppose it; however, such opposition could never threaten what is
essential in a Divine Message, which remains universally intelligible, and thus can be
understood, in principle, by all men of good will. It will no doubt be said that the Divine will is
unfathomable; but if it be so in such a case and to such a degree, then religious argumentation
itself loses much of its strength. It is true that the relative failure of religious expansion has
never troubled the minds of the faithful, but the question could obviously not arise in times when
man's image of the world was circumscribed and when, for that reason, a check to expansion
was not yet experienced; and if the attitude of the faithful did not change later on, when this
3
In speaking of the Moslems, St. Bernard says that God "will scatter the princes of darkness" and that
"the sword of the brave will soon complete the extermination of the last of their satellites" (Praise of the New
Militia V). He was compelled finally to admit that "the children of the Church and all who shelter under the name
of Christians lie in the desert, victims of battles and famine", and that "the leaders of the expedition quarrel among
themselves"; that "the judgement God has pronounced upon us is such an abyss of mystery that to find no
occasion for scandal in it is in our eyes already sanctity and beatitude . . . (Consideration, II, I). Beyond such
oppositions, the Sufis sometimes recall that the diverse Revelations are rays of one and the same Divine Sun:
"The man of God", singsRumi in his Dīwān, "is beyond infidelity and religion . . . I have looked into my own
heart; it is there that I have seen Him (Allāh); He was nowhere else . . . I am neither Christian nor Jew nor
Fireworshipper nor Moslem; I am neither of the East nor of the West, neither of the earth nor of the sea . . . I have
put aside duality, I have seen that the two worlds are but one; One alone do I seek, One alone do I know, One
alone do I see, upon One alone do I call".
check became perceptible, that proves, positively, that the religions offer intrinsic values which
cannot be invalidated by any terrestrial contingency and, negatively, that prejudice and lack of
imagination are part of human nature and that these two characteristics may even be said to
constitute the protective screen without which most men would be unable to live.
To be converted from one religion to another is not only to change concepts and spiritual
means, it is also to replace one sentimentality by another. To say sentimentality is to say limi-
tation; the margin of sentimentality surrounding each of the historical religions makes evident in
its fashion the limits of all exoterism and, in consequence, the limits of exoteric claims.
Inwardly or substantially, the claims that a religion makes are absolute, but outwardly or
formally, thus on the level of human contingency, they are necessarily relative; if metaphysics
were not sufficient proof of this, the facts themselves would prove it.
Let us now, by way of example, place ourselves at the point of view of exoteric, and
therefore totalitarian, Islam. In the earliest stages of Moslem expansion, the circumstances were
such that the doctrinal claim made by Islam imposed itself in an absolute fashion; but later the
relativity characteristic of every formal expression had necessarily to show itself. If Islam's
exoteric — not its esoteric — claim were absolute and not relative, no man of good will could
resist this claim, this "categorical imperative". Everyone who did resist it would be
fundamentally evil as was the case in the early days of Islam when no one could, without
perversion, prefer the magical idols to the pure God of Abraham. St. John Damascene held
ahigh position at the court of the caliph in Damascus:4 yet he was not converted to Islam, any
more than were St. Francis of Assisi in Tunisia, St. Louis in Egypt or St. Gregory Palamas in
Turkey.5 Now this leads to only two possible conclusions: either these saints were
fundamentally evil men — an absurd supposition, since they were saints — or else the claim
which Islam makes includes, in common with the claims made by every religion, an aspect of
relativity, a fact which is self-evident in the light of metaphysics since every form has limits and
since every religion is outwardly a form, the quality of absoluteness belonging to religions only
in their intrinsic and supraformal essence. Tradition tells that the Sufi Ibrahim ibn Adham had
as his occasional master a Christian hermit, without either being converted to the other's religion.

4
It was there that the saint wrote and published, with the approval of the caliph, his famous treatise in
defense of images, which had been prohibited by the iconoclast Emperor Leo III.
5
While a prisoner of the Turks for a year, he had friendly discussions with the Emir's son, but was not
converted, nor did the Turkish prince become a Christian.
In the same way, tradition tells that Sayyid Ali Hamadani, who played a decisive role in the
conversion of Kashmir to Islam, knew Lalla Yogishwari, the naked yōginī of the valley, and that
the two saints respected each other profoundly, to the extent that one can speak of reciprocal
influences,6 and in spite of the difference in religion. All this shows that the absolute quality of
Islam, like that of any religion, lies in the inward dimension, and that the relativity of the
outward dimension must necessarily become apparent on contact with the other great religions
or their saints.
*
* *
Christianity superimposes upon man's post-Edenic wretchedness the saving person of
Christ. Islam is founded upon the incorruptible nature of man — in virtue of which man cannot
cease to be what he is — and saves him, not by conferring a new nature upon him, but by
restoring to him his original perfection by means of the normal contents of his immutable nature.
In Islam, the Message — pure and absolute Truth — is reflected back upon the Messenger: the
latter is perfect insofar as the Message is perfect or because the Message is so. The Christian is
sharply aware in a negative sense of the extra-divine and socially human appearance under
which the Prophet of Islam shows himself, and finds this characteristic unpardonable in a
founder of religion who had come after Christ. The Moslem, in his turn, readily perceives a
certain one-sided quality in the doctrine of the Gospels, and moreover he shares this feeling with
Hindus and Buddhists. A simple question of form, obviously, since every religion is by
definition a totality, but it is precisely formal particularities, and not their implicit limitlessness,
which separate the religions.
"Judge not that ye be not judged . . .", "He who draws the sword will perish by the sword
. . .", "Whichsoever of you is without sin, let him cast the first stone. . . ." None of these sayings
is explicable unless we take account of the characteristic intention which lies behind them,
namely that they are addressed, not to man as such, but to the passional man, or else to the
passional side of man: for it is all too evident that it can and must happen that oneman should
pass a legitimate judgement upon another, but for which there would be neither "discernment of
spirits" nor justice; or that men should draw the sword rightly without therefore perishing by the

6
In our day the Moslems of Kashmir still venerate Lalla, the dancing Shaivite, as they would a Moslem
saint, side by side with Sayyid Ali. The Hindus share in this dual cult. The doctrine of this woman saint is
condensed in one of her songs: "My guru gave me but a single precept. He told me: `From without, enter into
the most inward place.' For me this has become a rule; and this is why, naked, I dance" (Lallā Vākyāni, 94).
sword, or again that men should cast stones if need be without being compelled to ask
themselves whether or not they are sinners, for it goes without saying that neither judges nor
executioners have to ask themselves this question in the course of exercising their respective
functions. To confront the Laws of Sinai or those of the Koran and the Sunna with those of
Christ is not to establish a contradiction, but simply to speak of different things.
The same remark applies to the divergence regarding sexual morality or conceptions of
sexuality. Whereas the Semites, in common with most other Orientals, define marriage in terms
of physical union and its religious conditioning, Christian theologians define it in terms of what
is "before" or "after" this union or of what exists "beside" it. "Before": in terms of the pact
which makes of the betrothed a married couple. "After": in terms of the children, who make of
the married couple parents and religious educators. "Beside": in terms of the fidelity of the
couple, which enables them to face life together while at the same time guaranteeing the social
order. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, marriage becomes "more holy sine carnali
commixtione" which is true from a certain ascetic-mystical point of view, but not if one
understands it in an absolute fashion. In any case, this opinion leaves no doubt as to the
fundamental tendency of Christianity in this matter. And sincethis tendency is founded upon an
aspect of the very nature of things, it goes without saying that one meets it to one degree or
another in every religious climate, including that of Islam, just as, inversely, sexual alchemy
could not be totally absent from the Christian esoterism of the Middle Ages, nor from
Christianity as such.
Christianity distinguishes between the carnal as such and the spiritual as such, and is
logical in maintaining this alternative in the hereafter: Paradise is by definition spiritual,
therefore it excludes the carnal. Islam, which distinguishes between the carnal as such and the
carnal sanctified, is just as logical in admitting the latter into its Paradise. To reproach the
Garden of the Houris for being too sensual, according to the usual and earthly meaning of the
word,7 is as unjust as to reproach the Christian Paradise for being too abstract. Christian
symbolism takes account here of the opposition between cosmic degrees, whereas Islamic
symbolism has the essential analogy in view; but the issue is the same.8 It would be a mistake to
7
Traditional polygamy depersonalizes woman in view of Femininity in itself, the divine Rahmah
(Mercy). But this polygamy, with its contemplative foundation, can also, as in the case of a David, be combined
with the monogamous perspective: Bathsheba wasthe one and only Wife because, precisely, she "personified" this
"impersonal" Femininity.
8
There is opposition between body and soul, or between earth and Heaven; but not in the cases of Enoch,
Elias, of Jesus and of Mary, who ascended bodily into the celestial world. In the same way, the resurrection of the
think that authentic Christianity is hostile to the body as such;9 the concept of "the Word made
flesh" and the glory of the virginal body of Mary stand in immediate opposition to every form of
Manicheism.
A consideration which calls for mention here, since we are speaking of parallels and of
oppositions, is the following: the Koran has been reproached for bringing the Virgin Mary into
the Christian Trinity; we will answer this objection here, not only to explain the intention of the
Koran, but also, at the same time, to clarify the problem of the Trinity by means of a particular
metaphysical accentuation. According to an interpretation which is not theological in fact, but is
so by right and finds support in the Scriptures, the "Father" is God in Himself, that is, as
Metacosm; the "Son" is God insofar as He is manifested in the world, that is, in the Macrocosm;
and the "Holy Ghost" is God insofar as He is manifested in the soul, that is, in the Microcosm.
From another point of view, the Macrocosm itself is the "Son", and the Microcosm itself — in
its primordial perfection — is identified with the "Holy Ghost"; Jesus is equal to the Macrocosm,
to the entire Creation as divine manifestation, and Mary is equal to the "pneumatic" Microcosm;
and let us note in this connection the equation that has sometimes been made between the Holy
Ghost and the divine Virgin, an equation which is linked to the feminization, in certain ancient
texts, of the divine Pneuma.10
*
* *
There is no bridge leading from Christian theology towards Islam, just as there is no
bridge leading from Jewish theology towards Christianity. In order to be legitimate Christianity
has to place itself on a different level; and this precisely is an unprecedented possibility which
does not belong to any of the ordinary categories of Judaism. The great novelty of the Christ,

flesh manifests or actualizes a reality which abolishes the said opposition. Meister Eckhart states with good
reason that in ascending to the Heavens these holy bodies were reduced to their essence, which in no way
contradicts the idea of bodily ascension.
9
St. John Climacus relates that St. Nonnos, when baptizing St. Pelagia, who had entered naked into the
piscina, "having perceived a person of great beauty began greatly to praise the Creator, and was so carried away in
the love of God through this contemplation that he wept"; and he adds: "Is it not extraordinary to see that which
causes the fall of so many become for this man a reward beyond the bounds of nature? He who by his efforts
comes to the same sentiments under comparable circumstances is already restored in incorruptibility before the
general resurrection. The same may be said of melodies, whether sacred or profane: those who love God are led
by them to divine joy and to divine love and are moved even to tears" (Scale of Paradise XV).
10
The Hebrew word Rūah, "Spirit", is feminine. Let us likewise note that one finds in the Epistle to the
Hebrews the expression "My Mother the Holy Ghost" (Matēr mou to hagion pneuma).
within the framework of the Jewish world, was therefore the possibility of an inward and thus
supraformal dimension: to adore God "in spirit and in truth", and to do so even to the point
ofoccasionally abolishing forms. The passage from Judaism to Christianity is brought about, in
consequence, not on the level of theology as the Christian controversialists paradoxically
imagine, but by a return to a mystery of inwardness, sanctity, and divine Life, from which a new
theology will gush forth. From the Christian point of view the weakness of Judaism lies in the
assertion that one must descend from Jacob in order to be able to belong to God and that the
accomplishment of prescribed acts is all that God demands of us. Whether this interpretation is
exaggerated or not, Christ shattered the frontiers of ethnic Israel in order to replace it with a
purely spiritual Israel, and he gave precedence to the love of God over the prescribed act, and in
a certain fashion replaced the one with the other, even while introducing in his turn, and of
necessity, new forms. Now this passage, outside the domain of theology, from the "old Law" to
the "new", logically prevents Christians from using with regard to Islam the narrowly theological
argumentation which they refuse to accept from the Jews, and it obliges them in principle to
admit at least the possibility — in favor of Islam — of a legitimacy founded upon a new
dimension that could not be grasped in the terms of their own theology.
We have seen that, from the Islamic point of view, the limitation of Christianity lies in its
assertion that man is totally corrupted by sin and secondly that Christ alone can deliver him from
this state; and, as we have also pointed out, Islam is founded upon the axiom of the unalterable
deiformity of man. There is in mansomething which, participating as it does in the Absolute —
but for which he would not be man — makes salvation possible provided he possess the
necessary knowledge; and this, precisely, is furnished by Revelation. What man stands in
absolute need of is not such and such a Revealer, but rather Revelation as such, that is, viewed in
terms of its essential and unalterable content. And let us also bear in mind this crucial point:
what Islam blames Christianity (not the Gospels) for is not that it should admit of a Trinity
within God, but that it should place this Trinity on the same level as the divine Unity; not that it
should attribute to God a ternary aspect, but that it should define God as triune, which amounts
to saying either that the Absolute is triple or else that God is not the Absolute.11
A point which we raised earlier and upon which we should like to insist further before

11
It is true that God as Creator, Revealer and Savior is not to be identified with the Absolute as such; it is
equally true that God as such, in the full depth of His Reality, is not to be reduced to the creative Function.
continuing is the following: in terms of the ordinary Christian perspective12 the whole of nature
has been corrupted and more or less cursed as a result of the fall — and consequent corruption
— of man; it follows from this that the pleasures of the senses are justified only insofar as they
are necessary for the conservation of the bodily individual, that is, the terrestrial species. In the
Islamic perspective, pleasure, if it remains within the limits allowed by nature and in the
framework of religion, includes in addition a contemplative quality, a barakah or a blessing
which is related to the celestial archetypes13 and which therefore can benefit both virtue and
contemplation.14 The question asked by Islam is not what is the worth or significance of some
particularpleasure for some particular individual, but what is the significance of pleasures which
are normal and, within the limits of their possibilities, noble, for man made noble by faith and by
the practices and virtues which faith requires. Christians are ever ready to see the distinction
between the "flesh" and the "spirit" as an irreducible alternative, softened only on the aesthetic
level by the superficial and expeditious notion of the "consolation of the senses". The Islamic
perspective adds to this alternative, the relative legitimacy of which it could not deny, two
compensatory aspects: the spirit manifesting itself in the flesh, and the flesh manifesting itself in
the spirit; an intertwined complementarity which makes one think, once again, of the Taoist
Yin- Yang. To sum up: the Christian insists upon renunciation and sacrifice, the Moslem on
nobility and blessing; one could also say that the Christian places the accent on the accidental
container or on the level of manifestation, and the Moslem on the substantial content and on the
operative symbolism. Gnosis at one and the same time comprises and transcends both
attitudes.15
From the point of view of the literal interpretation of Christian theology, Islam appears
as a painful scandal;16 the situation of Christianity is analogous from the point of view of the
12
A traditional perspective is never equivalent to a total limitation — a fact which is evident a priori and
proved by many examples.
13
In Paradise: ". . . Each time that they receive a fruit they will say: This is what we received
previously (= on earth) . . . And they will have wives who are purified (= free from earthly blemishes) . . ." (Sura
"The Cow", 25).

14
The hedonism of the Vishnuite school of Vallabha appears to be a deviation from this perspective. As
for Greek hedonism, that of Aristippus or of Epicurus, it is based on a philosophy of man and not on the
metaphysical nature of sensations; at the beginning, nonetheless, it was a measured and serene hedonism, not
gross as it was with the materialists of the 18th century.
15
In fact, both are to be found in all traditional spirituality.
16
There is, however, this argument (which Massignon made much of) in favor of Islam: "I will make of
you a great nation, I will bless you and I will make great your name. You will be a blessing . . . and all the
most impeccable Rabbinical logic.17 One has to understand each of these Messages from its own
standpoint and in its most profound intention. Reasonings derived from axioms which are
foreign to the Message will never reach its intrinsic truth. And this brings us to the following
point: the phenomena which characterize a particular religion are not criteria proving that it
alone is legitimate to the exclusion of all other religions; they result from a divine intention to
create a spiritual perspective and a way of salvation. In the Christian "system of salvation" — in
the sense of the Buddhist term upāya — Christ "must" be born of a Virgin, otherwise he cannot
appear as God manifested; and being a divine Manifestation — this expression being the very
definition of Christianity as a "divine means" or upāya — Christ "must" be unique, and salvation
can therefore only be through him. The universal and, therefore, timeless role of the Logos here
coincides for obvious reasons with the historical personality of Jesus. In the case of Islam, the
upaya is founded upon the idea that there is only the unique Reality, whether one understands it
exoterically and in separative mode, or esoterically and in unitive mode, in terms of
transcendence or in term of immanence. Consequently, the Prophet "has no need" to be more
than a man, and there is no reason why he should be unique, other Prophets having preceded
him. In the case of Judaism, the upāya bears witness to the possibility of a Pact between God
and a consecrated, and therefore basically sacerdotal, society, other examples of which are to be
found in Brahmanism and Shintoism. Israel "must" therefore fulfill the role of the only "chosen
people" — since it embodies this fundamental possibility of a celestial Pact — even if the need
for monotheism to radiate can find its solution only thanks to the subsequent forms of
Monotheism.18
Since Muhammad was not supposed — any more than were Abraham or Moses — to
present himself as the Manifestation of the Absolute, he could, like them, remain wholly Semitic
in style, a style which is meticulously attached to human things without disdaining even the
smallest; whereas there is in Christ — paradoxically and providentially — an element which

families of the earth will be blessed in you" (Genesis XII, 2 and 3). This divine promise includes all the
descendants of Abraham, including the Arabs, and thus including Islam, inasmuch as it is Islam and Christianity
(not Judaism)which extend to "all the families of earth"; in other words, a false religion could not be covered by
the promises made by God to Abraham.
17
The Witness which God bore on Sinai concerning His own Nature was not a half-truth: it was an
affirmation — of unsurpassable gravity — of the Unicity and the indivisibility of the Absolute. Assuredly, this
Witness does not mean that there is in God no mystery such as the Trinity; but it does mean that, at the level at
which Unity is affirmed, there is Unity alone, and therefore that there will be nothing that could be added to it.
18
It is for an analogous reason, or in a certain sense for the same reason, that Buddhism had to emerge
from the closed world of Brahmanism.
brings him closer to the Aryan world, that is, a tendency towards the idealistic simplification of
terrestrial contingencies.19 The fact that Christ is Manifestation of the Absolute has suggested to
Westerners, with the help of Greco-Roman cosmolatry, that the Absolute is of this world — a
suggestion which Islam expressly denies by clothing the terrestrial in a maximum of relativity
(fire does not burn, "God alone" causes burning, and so on) but which has played its part in
provoking, through many a detour, and latterly in combination with a Jewish messianism
become irreligious, the pursuit of a mass of terrestrial pseudo-absolutes which can never be
realized and which are of an increasingly explosive character. The fact that Islam is accused of
naivety, sterility and inertia serves to make evident an optical illusion on the part of the
Westerners which can be explained by their faith in the absolute quality of terrestrial values and
human undertakings; For objectively and positively, the characteristics which provoke these
reproaches indicate the intention to maintain a Biblical equilibrium in the face of the true and
only Absolute. For Moslems, time is a rotation round a motionless center; it would even be
reversible "if God willed it so". History is of interest only insofar as it refers back to the Origin
or, on the other hand,insofar as it flows on towards the "Last Day". For God is "the First and the
Last".
It is the aim of Islam to combine the sense of the Absolute with the quality of
Equilibrium: idea of the Absolute determining this Equilibrium, and realization of Equilibrium
in view of the Absolute. Equilibrium includes all that we are, and thus man in his collective as
well as in his individual aspect; and being men we have a right, in relation to the Absolute, to all
that is normally human, without this right excluding particular vocations of withdrawal.
Christianity, for its part, has a dramatic quality about it: it has the sense of the Sublime rather
than that of the Absolute, and the sense of Sacrifice rather than that of Equilibrium. In this
second aspect it extends to society as a whole a vocation that is properly speaking ascetic —
above all in the Latin Chruch — something which, as a particular upāya, it certainly has a right
to do, but which has nonetheless provoked historical disequilibriums that are both disastrous and
providential.20
19
We hope that the expressions we use adequately convey our intentions, which we are obliged to
condense into a few key-words at the risk of seeming somewhat "ill-sounding". On the basis of this warning, let
us say that Christ, destined to become an "Aryan god" had himself, in anticipation, a certain Aryan quality which
showed itself in his independence — seemingly "Greek" or "Hindu" — with regard to forms; just as the Buddha,
destined to be a "Mongol god", had a certain Mongol quality apparent in the horizontal monotony and static depth
of his manifestation. As far as the "independence" of the Aryan spirit is concerned it must be clearly understood
that like Semitic formalism it can be an asset or a fault as the case may be;in any case, the whole question is
relative, and each thing must be put in its proper place.
20
European humanity has about it something Promethean and tragic. It therefore required a religion
According to the Moslem point of view, Christians have "Christified" God: since the
time of Christ, God can neither be conceived nor worshipped apart from the Man-God, and
whoever still conceives God in the pre-Christian manner is accused of not knowing God. To
worship God apart from Jesus — or not to admit that Jesus is God — is to be the enemy of
Jesus, and so the enemy of God, even if one combines the worship of the One God with the love
of Jesus and of Mary, as do, precisely, the Moslems. In short as Moslems see it,Christians have
so to speak "confiscated" the worship of God by the exclusive and absolute worship of a
particular divine Manifestation, to the point of denying all previous religions; whereas Islam on
the contrary recognizes the validity of the pre-Christian monotheistic cults, while adopting in its
turn an exclusive attitude in matters concerning the final cycle of humanity, to which it belongs.
And this is important: it would seem that the dazzling self-evidence of the "rights" of the
Absolute — and thus of God as Unity — necessitates in the Muhammadan manifestation a very
human quality, in the sense that this self-evidence suffices unto itself and must be understood as
self-sufficient, so that a superhuman messenger would add nothing to it.
Starting from the idea that every religion is founded upon a Revelation emanating from
one and the same infinite Consciousness, or from the same celestial Will of attraction and
equilibrium, one can specify — as we have done more than once — that Christianity is founded
upon the saving Miracle of God, and Islam on the saving Truth. In other words, speaking very
summarily, the virgin birth of Jesus proves from the Christian point of view that the Christian
religion is the only true one,21 whereas from the Moslem point of view this same miracle proves
simply that the divine Power had a sufficient reason for bringing it about, but not that it is — or
ever could be — the sole criterion of divine Authority or the sole guarantee of absolute Truth,
and thus that it could take precedence over some aspect of metaphysical Evidence. In a word,
Islam seeks to avoid the impression that this Truth or this Evidence could be dependent uponthe
superhuman character of the messenger.22 It is as though God were "jealous" — in the Biblical
and metaphorical sense of the word — of His earthly representatives and anxious to demonstrate
or to recall His absolute pre-eminence and His indivisible essentiality; a "jealousy" that is strictly
logical or ontological, for it is based on the nature of things — from which nothing ever escapes

which could surpass and sublimate the dramatism of the Greek and Germanic gods and heroes. Furthermore, the
European creative genius implies a need to "burn what one has worshipped", and from this comes a prodigious
propensity for denial and for change. The Renaissance offers us the clearest proof and the most stupefying
example of this, not to speak of what is going on in our own time on an incomparably more dangerous level; it is
still "Man" that is at issue, but with totally different emphases.
in the final analysis — and based also on Mercy, since the divine Truth possesses essentially a
saving quality which in a sense compensates for Its lofty or majestic character. This saving
quality of the pure Truth is the great thesis of Islam, on a level with that of the Unity of God.
Moslems raise a priori the question of knowing, not whether Jesus is God, but whether
God can make Himself man in the sense in which the Christians understand this. If one
envisages God as Moslems do, that is in terms of Absoluteness, God in Himself cannot become
man because the Absolute in Itself cannot become contingent. In the trinitarian doctrine, God
can become man because manifestation is already anticipated in the Principle which is itself
considered in an aspect that is already relative. The same applies to the Hindu doctrine of the
Avatāras, but not to that of Ātmā insofar as It transcends and excludes Māyā. When
manifestation is prefigured in the Principle, this means, precisely, that the Principle is not being
considered in terms of Absoluteness; now the very point of Islam's existence is that it should
place the dogmatic stress on the Absolute and be, in consequence, the message of the essential
and of thetimeless. This truth necessarily had to take shape in the monotheistic cycle, whatever
might be the legitimacy and the merit of other equally possible perspectives.
Dogmatically the divergence between Christianity and Islam is irreducible;
metaphysically and mystically it is no more than relative, just as two opposed points become
complementary in virtue of the circle upon which both are situated and which coordinates or
unites them once it is perceived. It should never be lost sight of that dogmas are
key-coagulations of supraformal Light. Now coagulation amounts to form, and therefore to
limitation and exclusion. The Spirit can be manifested, but it cannot be enclosed; Spiritus autem
ubi vult spirat.
*
* *
Certain clarifications with regard to Sufism would seem to be opportune at this point. It
has been claimed, with a somewhat surprising assurance, that original Sufism knew only fear;
that the Sufism of love came later, and later still that of gnosis; and this succession has been
presented, without hesitation, as an evolution, the different phases of which have been attributed
to alien influences. In reality, this unfolding in three phases is a normal cyclical projection of
the spiritual potentialities of Islam; that which is, in principle, of the highest order must be
manifested — from the point of view of general accentuation — last of all, which can obviously
present the illusion of a kind of progress so long asone is unaware of the profound reasons for
the phenomenon and unaware also that the three elements — fear, love, knowledge —
necessarily existed from the beginning, and above all in the very person of the Prophet, as the
Koran and the Sunna attest and but for which they could not have flowered at a later stage in
specific forms of doctrine and of method.
There are two parallel movements which balance each other: on the one hand, the
collectivity degenerates in proportion to its movement away from the origin; but, on the other
hand, without there being — needless to say — any general increase in spirituality, there are
successive stages of blossoming in the ascending order we have described, in the sense that
values which were implicit from the beginning are unfolded in the doctrinal order and become
explicit, so that one could say there is a progressive and compensatory unfolding in the very
framework of general decadence. This is a phenomenon which may be observed in all religious
cycles, notably also in that of Buddhism,23 and this is why, in the midst of each religion, there
arise "renewers" (mujaddidūn) who are "prophets" in a derivative and secondary sense.24 In
Islam, Rabiah Adawiyyah, Dhun-Nun al-Misri, Niffari, Ghazali, Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, Ibn
Arabi, Abu 'l-Hasan ash-Shadhili and Rumi are of their number.
A paradoxical reason for this phenomenon is that the full blossoming of the perspective
of love presupposes a human environment forged by the perspective of fear,25 and that the
blossoming of theperspective of gnosis presupposes an environment molded by that of love.
That is to say that a religion must have time to shape its humanity in order to be able to project
upon it, with the help of this environment, this or that spiritual accentuation. Exactly the same
holds true for sacred art or for liturgy in general.
The Sufi ternary, "fear" (makhāfah), "love" (mahabbah) and "knowledge" ma‘rifah), is
manifested, on the scale of integral Monotheism, in the forms of the three Semitic religions
respectively, each comprising in its turn and after its own fashion, with greater or lesser
accentuation, the three modes in question. Christianity begins with the austere desert fathers; it
flowers again more gently, under the sign of the Virgin-Mother, in the Middle Ages, to give rise,
although in a somewhat precarious fashion since the whole accentuation is upon charity, to
manifestations of gnosis, particularly discernible — in varying degrees — among the Rhineland
mystics and in Scholasticism, without overlooking the German theosophists — in a kind of
traditional exile — and other more or less isolated groups.
Nor, in Judaism, could the time of the Psalms and of the Song of Songs be that of the
Pentateuch, and the Kabbalists could not emerge or unfold their doctrine before the Middle
Ages.26 And let us remember in this context that Judaism, which accentuates the pact between
God and Israel, is on the whole a perspective of faith and of fear; the fear of God is the
framework for the perspectives of love and of knowledge, which could not be missing,27 love
being in this case closely linked with hope.
Christianity, for its part, accentuates, not a priori the divine Nature, but the divine and
redemptive Manifestation; it is the perspective of love which in its own fashion provides the
framework for the perspective of fear and that of knowledge. Islam, finally, accentuates the
divine Unity and its human consequences, it represents a perspective of faith and of knowledge,
fear and love being here a consequence of faith.28 We recall these things here not in order to
define yet again the religions' perspectives but in order to stress that they contain each other
mutually.
Notes to Form and Substance in the Religions
1.
2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.
13.
14. 15. 16.
17. 18. 19.
20. 21. The implicit reasoning amounts to the following: the Vedantic doctrine is false since Christ, who
was born of a virgin, did not teach it, and since Badarayana, who taught it, was not born of a virgin. Let us in any
case add, on the one hand, that the Vedantic postulates are met with sporadically also in Christian metaphysics
and mysticism and, on the other, that the truth of such and such an Aristotelian or Platonic thesis has led the
Christians who understood it to Christianize it, which comes to the same thing as saying that every truth derives
from the eternal Word.
22. It goes without saying that it is here a question, not of contesting the well-foundedness of the
Christian upāya as such, but of taking account of an aspect, or of an underlying argument, ofthe Islamic
phenomenon, which appears in its context as a corrective establishing a certain degree of equilibrium with regard
to voluntarist Christocentrism.
23. Five hundred years after the Buddha the tradition was in danger, if not of extinction, at least of being
more and more reduced to a monastic community without any possible world-wide radiation: all efforts
converged upon the Pratyēka-Buddha, the silent and isolated contemplative. It was then that the Mahāyāna
intervened with its ideal of the Boddhisattva, the personification not only of heroic detachment but also of active
compassion. Let us point out here that Buddhist "pity" signifies that total Knowledge essentially implies, not
some particular outward activity, of course, but participative consciousness of a dimension of Being, namely
Beauty or Goodness; which is precisely an aspect of the divine Essence, according to Ibn Arabi.
24. It would be a poor joke to confuse them with "reformers", whose function is exactly the opposite. We
have heard it said that if St. Francis of Assisi had not come, Christ would have had to return; a symbolic
formulation which suggests very well the function in question.
25. For reasons to which we have already alluded, one could not object here that many of the ahādīth
treat of Love and that it could not be absent at the beginning of Islam. Love does not enter explicitly into the
postulates of early Sufism which is founded — as we have said — upon effective "conversion" (tawbah) and
uponjourneying through the "stations" (maqāmāt). "Islam is the religion of Love", said Ibn Arabi; as to its
outcome, yes, but not as to its general premises; yes, as to its essence; no, as to its methodic postulates. "Wine"
(khamr) and "Night" (Laylā), or contemplative drunkenness and inward quasi-divine feminity, enter only into
esoterism.
26. Philo of Alexandria was a Platonist, not a Kabbalist.
27. Such quasi-definitions are at one and the same time exact and approximative, for it is hardly possible
to do justice to all shades of meaning in a few words.
28. Indeed, many ahādīth see in the love of God and in the fear of sin or of the world, criteria of sincere
faith which, as such, is always stressed. Let us note the following saying of Hasan Al-Basri, eminent spokesman
of nascent Sufism: "He who knows God, loves Him, and he who knows the world, turns away from it".

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