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Mystics And Saints Of Islam
"The following sketches are for the most part translations of papers by continental scholars such as Alfred Von Kremer, Pavet de Courteille, and A.F. Mehren. The essays on Ghazzali and Jalaluddin Rumi are, however, founded on original study of those writers."--Pref.
- GenresPhilosophy
Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2004
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March 23, 2020
-from the appendix II
"Sufism consists essentially in giving up oneself constantly to devotional exercises, in living solely for God, in abandoning all the frivolous attractions of the world, in disregarding the ordinary aims of men—pleasures, riches and honours—and finally in separating oneself from society for the sake of practising devotion to God. This way of life was extremely common among the companions of the Prophet and the early Moslems. But when in the second century of Islam and the succeeding centuries the desire for worldly wealth had spread, and ordinary men allowed themselves to be drawn into the current of a dissipated and worldly life, the persons who gave themselves up to piety were distinguished by the name of "Sufis," or aspirants to Sufism."
People who go against their instinct are those liked by the divine. Because most of them do so in submission and denial of their own self. Self annihilation they call it. The smart tiredlessly helping the ignorant. The handsome/beautiful abandoning their social circle for the lone ugly. The strong giving up his strength blending with the weak. The rich high status talking to the poor normally. Most people seeing a disfigured person on a subway do not go anywhere near them. It seems that people migrate towards beauty and attraction. People also follow their instincts like good food property, etc. It's only higher humans (because they figured out they do not own their self) who deliberately go against their instincts and the norm whilst not denying the objectivity of them. In other words humans liked by the divine admits that it's an objective fact that beauty exists and that the not migration towards a disfigured person makes sense so is having good food and property. Yet, they still deliberately do the opposite of that. Thing is, wouldn't it be unfair if they are virtuous because of them going against their instinct since it's something the divine created into them? Well not really. Unfair means something that makes no sense for the human self. However, human self doesn't belong to themselves, rather to the divine. And so, either going with its instincts or against it, wouldn't matter since it's up to the will of the divine anyway. But then what's the point of a person going against it if it's not intentional? Being different is an admission to submission even if done unintentionally. It makes sense. But it's not unfair for those going deliberately against it, rather, it makes them above average. It's always the AI robot who breaks away from the norm who is considered the breakthrough not the one that is doing what is expected from it. Usually it's very rare. That who goes and sits next to the disfigured person is the rarity. That who goes against his own will and not consume food. They're all examples of things that wouldn't make sense if done assuming the human self belongs to himself thus denying it anything is foolish. But since that's not the truth, it's not. Going against instinct and the norm is like a conscious admission to the universe that I indeed am in submission. It's more comforting. This pure submission that probably few hermits understood throughout the whole human history. Others still trying to make sense of it, confusingly asking how would denying living be called a life or make sense to the fact that denying living [through self] is actually living but in submission. Granted, allowing living through self is living but it's in no way better. Or worse. That's the confusion. Thinking that denyinglivingthroughself is not a life. It very much is. It's just a different one and arguably a higher one, not the only correct one but surely the more correct one. If differences exist through humans' actions so will it be in their consequences. The legends in this book lived this way.
What if you can see heaven or its constituent(s) without attaining it? That’s what life is like. How can you not attain something if you’re not chained? By not being there when it is. A person is in a cave and can see something in heaven through a screen in the cave. The person is not chained or caged. He can go anywhere in the cave and the cave is all that exists. Yet, he can’t seem to really experience the thing he’s seeing since he’s not there when it is. He may see it through the eyes as one of the senses. There may be a device where he can smell it or hear it through but being physically there requires neither sight nor smell. Rather, the sense of touch. Which is better? To see an apple, smell it, hear it, taste it or touch it? Without doubt, touch is the strongest of the five senses since it implies physical closeness to the object. But then touching an apple and not being able to use the other senses is futile as well. But then just because something is stronger than the other, that doesn’t mean it is necessarily independent of it. Which would then mean watching heaven whilst being in a cave is a painful experience since one is only able to use the sense of sight without the other senses. Watching that screen through the cave whilst surrounded by rats, filth, hunger and misery is a pain over the pain of those things. Double pain. Now the cave might be filled with flowers, food and water as well. But watching heaven through that screen not only makes the misery worthless but so it does to the bounty as well. What is the point of the existence of beauty if you can only admire it through sight and not through experience? What is the point of looking at a painting if you can’t go through it or paint it yourself. Is admiring beauty a trick. The argument for the invalidity of beauty or pure subjectivity and non objectivity of it is futile. Beauty exists and is recognisable both naturally and logically. Question is what is the point of its existence if the goal is to just sight-admire it and that’s it. It’s almost as if being chained but not physically chained just like in the cave example. You can go anywhere just not near the tree. You can sight-admire the “it” as in see it, watch, smell it but not go near it or touch it. It wasn’t a sin as much as a disobedience from the maker of the it. There’s definitely a meaning and wisdom just like for the prostration but the wisdom is divinely sealed that it’s worthless to put it in the logical process. The only thing that could be tested is saying no to the order whichever it was. And that’s the thing, there’s mystery to the order. Not enough information or explanation that makes other things which are similar but not quite, grey areas if you will, appear completely ambiguous. Where is a poor ignorant man from all this? A simple ignorant man who lives and dies with the herd. Unless life is a quest of subjective purpose, objectivity has passed all those generations who lived and died without coming near to attaining any of it. There’s nothing worthy of piety from most of society’s work. Just existing doesn’t cut it neither does climbing the social ladder. Without self reflection which is the different characteristic humans were bestowed and separated from animals, without questioning oneself and its reality. It’s a mere worthlessness. Normal and sub-emotions and feelings are real but they’re worthless. Animals feel pain and die being eaten alive. An idea which springs from the very sparkle of a question never dies. Even an unanswered question like this one, still, is more worthy than anything. How can one live through sighting something but not experiencing it. The answer is that he shouldn’t. There’s absolutely no point of looking at the tree if you were commanded to not go near it. It all lies in what is important or at least more important. Experiencing beauty in mortality isn’t more important than questioning the reason behind wanting or thinking it’s a worthy thing to experience beauty in mortality. After all...it might not be. Or it might. It’s not known….yet. The more that holds true, the more the soul will not (and will not suffer anymore) depend on experiences of physical and mortal nature after death since there will be no body or vessel to realise them and ergo no five senses to hug them. But a soul that depended on physical experiencing could suffer when there’s no body to realise them.
God is the ultimate source of knowledge. When he speaks, one might not understand him. Knowledge is a spectrum of various degrees. If a knowledgeable man spoke, people might not understand. Such was the case for the tragic ends for the many legends mentioned in this book. An end delivered by their community and folks who caught their words and deemed them heretic. Prisoned and then stoned, these gems left this world. What remained was the subhuman folk that this whole theatre was made for. For them to be filtered and cropped. Then be thrown in the holy hell after the curtains are dropped. A very daring and non orthodox book. Favourite chapters were 10 and 14. It contains stories of legends such as Avicenna and Rumi who lived in the old century.
- chapter 10 - "Every human faculty has some pleasure corresponding to it. The pleasure of the appetitive faculty for example, is to receive a sensation which accords with its desire; the pleasure of the irascible faculty is attack; the pleasure of the surmising faculty, hope; that of the recollective faculty, memory. Generally speaking, the pleasures attending these faculties consist in their realising themselves in action, but they differ widely in rank, the soul's delight in intellectual perception of realities, in which the knower and the known are one, being incomparably higher than any mere sensual satisfaction. By attaining to such perceptions, the soul prepares itself for the beatitude of the next life. The degree of this beatitude will correspond to the intensity of spiritual desire awakened in it during its earthly sojourn.41It is extremely difficult, not to say impossible, to determine the degrees of beatitude of the soul after death. We may, nevertheless, understand that the various impediments of passions, prejudices, etc., to which its union with the body has given rise, are not immediately dissolved on its separation from the body. Souls thus hindered may pass into a state depicted by Plato and other ancient philosophers, in which they are still weighed down by the passions they indulged in. Every soul is eternal and imperishable, and will finally attain the beatitude for which it was created. But it may be punished after death by a shorter or longer exclusion from that beatitude. To suppose with Alexander Aphrodisius that an imperfect or ill-prepared soul may be annihilated, would be to admit a belief at complete variance with its eternal essence and origin. But we may well conjecture that the punishment of such ill-prepared and refractory souls would consist in their being in a state in which after separation from the body they still pine after sensual enjoyments and suffer from the impossibility of such gratification.
It may also be supposed that such ill-prepared souls remember the notions that were current in this world regarding beatitude and damnation; their conceptions would in that case resemble dreams which are often more vivid than impressions received in waking moments. They would imagine themselves undergoing the examination in the tomb and all the other punishments depicted in the Koran, or it may be enjoying the sensual pleasures there described. On the other hand, the noble and well-prepared soul will pass at once to the contemplation of the eternal, and will be exempt from every memory and every conception relating to this world. For if anything of this kind remained in it as a reminder of its union with the body, it would so far fall short of the plenitude of its perfection."
"It descended upon thee from the lofty station (heaven); a dove rare and uncaptured, curtained from the eyes of every knower yet which is manifest and never wore a veil.42 It came to thee unwillingly and it may perhaps be unwilling to abandon thee although it complain of its sufferings. It resisted at first, and would not become familiar, but when it was in friendly union with the body, it grew accustomed to the desert waste (the world). Methinks it then forgot the recollections of the protected park (heaven), and of those abodes which it left with regret; but when in its spiral descent it arrived at the centre of its circle in the terrestrial world, it was united to the infirmity of the material body and remained among the monuments and prostrate ruins. It now remembers the protected park and weepeth with tears which flow and cease not till the time for setting out towards the protected park approacheth; till the instant of departure for the vast plain (the spiritual world) draweth nigh. It then cooeth on the top of a lofty pinnacle (for knowledge can exalt all who were not exalted) and it has come to the knowledge of every mystery in the universe, while yet its tattered vest hath not been mended.43"Its descent was predestined so that it might hear what it had not heard, else why did it descend from the high and lofty heaven to the depth of the low and humble earth? If God sent it down by a decision of His will, His motive is concealed from the intelligence of man. Why did it descend to be withheld from the exalted summit of heaven by the coarse net of the body, and to be detained in a cage? It is like a flash of lightning shining over the meadow, and disappearing as if it had never gleamed."
"Sufism consists essentially in giving up oneself constantly to devotional exercises, in living solely for God, in abandoning all the frivolous attractions of the world, in disregarding the ordinary aims of men—pleasures, riches and honours—and finally in separating oneself from society for the sake of practising devotion to God. This way of life was extremely common among the companions of the Prophet and the early Moslems. But when in the second century of Islam and the succeeding centuries the desire for worldly wealth had spread, and ordinary men allowed themselves to be drawn into the current of a dissipated and worldly life, the persons who gave themselves up to piety were distinguished by the name of "Sufis," or aspirants to Sufism."
People who go against their instinct are those liked by the divine. Because most of them do so in submission and denial of their own self. Self annihilation they call it. The smart tiredlessly helping the ignorant. The handsome/beautiful abandoning their social circle for the lone ugly. The strong giving up his strength blending with the weak. The rich high status talking to the poor normally. Most people seeing a disfigured person on a subway do not go anywhere near them. It seems that people migrate towards beauty and attraction. People also follow their instincts like good food property, etc. It's only higher humans (because they figured out they do not own their self) who deliberately go against their instincts and the norm whilst not denying the objectivity of them. In other words humans liked by the divine admits that it's an objective fact that beauty exists and that the not migration towards a disfigured person makes sense so is having good food and property. Yet, they still deliberately do the opposite of that. Thing is, wouldn't it be unfair if they are virtuous because of them going against their instinct since it's something the divine created into them? Well not really. Unfair means something that makes no sense for the human self. However, human self doesn't belong to themselves, rather to the divine. And so, either going with its instincts or against it, wouldn't matter since it's up to the will of the divine anyway. But then what's the point of a person going against it if it's not intentional? Being different is an admission to submission even if done unintentionally. It makes sense. But it's not unfair for those going deliberately against it, rather, it makes them above average. It's always the AI robot who breaks away from the norm who is considered the breakthrough not the one that is doing what is expected from it. Usually it's very rare. That who goes and sits next to the disfigured person is the rarity. That who goes against his own will and not consume food. They're all examples of things that wouldn't make sense if done assuming the human self belongs to himself thus denying it anything is foolish. But since that's not the truth, it's not. Going against instinct and the norm is like a conscious admission to the universe that I indeed am in submission. It's more comforting. This pure submission that probably few hermits understood throughout the whole human history. Others still trying to make sense of it, confusingly asking how would denying living be called a life or make sense to the fact that denying living [through self] is actually living but in submission. Granted, allowing living through self is living but it's in no way better. Or worse. That's the confusion. Thinking that denyinglivingthroughself is not a life. It very much is. It's just a different one and arguably a higher one, not the only correct one but surely the more correct one. If differences exist through humans' actions so will it be in their consequences. The legends in this book lived this way.
What if you can see heaven or its constituent(s) without attaining it? That’s what life is like. How can you not attain something if you’re not chained? By not being there when it is. A person is in a cave and can see something in heaven through a screen in the cave. The person is not chained or caged. He can go anywhere in the cave and the cave is all that exists. Yet, he can’t seem to really experience the thing he’s seeing since he’s not there when it is. He may see it through the eyes as one of the senses. There may be a device where he can smell it or hear it through but being physically there requires neither sight nor smell. Rather, the sense of touch. Which is better? To see an apple, smell it, hear it, taste it or touch it? Without doubt, touch is the strongest of the five senses since it implies physical closeness to the object. But then touching an apple and not being able to use the other senses is futile as well. But then just because something is stronger than the other, that doesn’t mean it is necessarily independent of it. Which would then mean watching heaven whilst being in a cave is a painful experience since one is only able to use the sense of sight without the other senses. Watching that screen through the cave whilst surrounded by rats, filth, hunger and misery is a pain over the pain of those things. Double pain. Now the cave might be filled with flowers, food and water as well. But watching heaven through that screen not only makes the misery worthless but so it does to the bounty as well. What is the point of the existence of beauty if you can only admire it through sight and not through experience? What is the point of looking at a painting if you can’t go through it or paint it yourself. Is admiring beauty a trick. The argument for the invalidity of beauty or pure subjectivity and non objectivity of it is futile. Beauty exists and is recognisable both naturally and logically. Question is what is the point of its existence if the goal is to just sight-admire it and that’s it. It’s almost as if being chained but not physically chained just like in the cave example. You can go anywhere just not near the tree. You can sight-admire the “it” as in see it, watch, smell it but not go near it or touch it. It wasn’t a sin as much as a disobedience from the maker of the it. There’s definitely a meaning and wisdom just like for the prostration but the wisdom is divinely sealed that it’s worthless to put it in the logical process. The only thing that could be tested is saying no to the order whichever it was. And that’s the thing, there’s mystery to the order. Not enough information or explanation that makes other things which are similar but not quite, grey areas if you will, appear completely ambiguous. Where is a poor ignorant man from all this? A simple ignorant man who lives and dies with the herd. Unless life is a quest of subjective purpose, objectivity has passed all those generations who lived and died without coming near to attaining any of it. There’s nothing worthy of piety from most of society’s work. Just existing doesn’t cut it neither does climbing the social ladder. Without self reflection which is the different characteristic humans were bestowed and separated from animals, without questioning oneself and its reality. It’s a mere worthlessness. Normal and sub-emotions and feelings are real but they’re worthless. Animals feel pain and die being eaten alive. An idea which springs from the very sparkle of a question never dies. Even an unanswered question like this one, still, is more worthy than anything. How can one live through sighting something but not experiencing it. The answer is that he shouldn’t. There’s absolutely no point of looking at the tree if you were commanded to not go near it. It all lies in what is important or at least more important. Experiencing beauty in mortality isn’t more important than questioning the reason behind wanting or thinking it’s a worthy thing to experience beauty in mortality. After all...it might not be. Or it might. It’s not known….yet. The more that holds true, the more the soul will not (and will not suffer anymore) depend on experiences of physical and mortal nature after death since there will be no body or vessel to realise them and ergo no five senses to hug them. But a soul that depended on physical experiencing could suffer when there’s no body to realise them.
God is the ultimate source of knowledge. When he speaks, one might not understand him. Knowledge is a spectrum of various degrees. If a knowledgeable man spoke, people might not understand. Such was the case for the tragic ends for the many legends mentioned in this book. An end delivered by their community and folks who caught their words and deemed them heretic. Prisoned and then stoned, these gems left this world. What remained was the subhuman folk that this whole theatre was made for. For them to be filtered and cropped. Then be thrown in the holy hell after the curtains are dropped. A very daring and non orthodox book. Favourite chapters were 10 and 14. It contains stories of legends such as Avicenna and Rumi who lived in the old century.
- chapter 10 - "Every human faculty has some pleasure corresponding to it. The pleasure of the appetitive faculty for example, is to receive a sensation which accords with its desire; the pleasure of the irascible faculty is attack; the pleasure of the surmising faculty, hope; that of the recollective faculty, memory. Generally speaking, the pleasures attending these faculties consist in their realising themselves in action, but they differ widely in rank, the soul's delight in intellectual perception of realities, in which the knower and the known are one, being incomparably higher than any mere sensual satisfaction. By attaining to such perceptions, the soul prepares itself for the beatitude of the next life. The degree of this beatitude will correspond to the intensity of spiritual desire awakened in it during its earthly sojourn.41It is extremely difficult, not to say impossible, to determine the degrees of beatitude of the soul after death. We may, nevertheless, understand that the various impediments of passions, prejudices, etc., to which its union with the body has given rise, are not immediately dissolved on its separation from the body. Souls thus hindered may pass into a state depicted by Plato and other ancient philosophers, in which they are still weighed down by the passions they indulged in. Every soul is eternal and imperishable, and will finally attain the beatitude for which it was created. But it may be punished after death by a shorter or longer exclusion from that beatitude. To suppose with Alexander Aphrodisius that an imperfect or ill-prepared soul may be annihilated, would be to admit a belief at complete variance with its eternal essence and origin. But we may well conjecture that the punishment of such ill-prepared and refractory souls would consist in their being in a state in which after separation from the body they still pine after sensual enjoyments and suffer from the impossibility of such gratification.
It may also be supposed that such ill-prepared souls remember the notions that were current in this world regarding beatitude and damnation; their conceptions would in that case resemble dreams which are often more vivid than impressions received in waking moments. They would imagine themselves undergoing the examination in the tomb and all the other punishments depicted in the Koran, or it may be enjoying the sensual pleasures there described. On the other hand, the noble and well-prepared soul will pass at once to the contemplation of the eternal, and will be exempt from every memory and every conception relating to this world. For if anything of this kind remained in it as a reminder of its union with the body, it would so far fall short of the plenitude of its perfection."
"It descended upon thee from the lofty station (heaven); a dove rare and uncaptured, curtained from the eyes of every knower yet which is manifest and never wore a veil.42 It came to thee unwillingly and it may perhaps be unwilling to abandon thee although it complain of its sufferings. It resisted at first, and would not become familiar, but when it was in friendly union with the body, it grew accustomed to the desert waste (the world). Methinks it then forgot the recollections of the protected park (heaven), and of those abodes which it left with regret; but when in its spiral descent it arrived at the centre of its circle in the terrestrial world, it was united to the infirmity of the material body and remained among the monuments and prostrate ruins. It now remembers the protected park and weepeth with tears which flow and cease not till the time for setting out towards the protected park approacheth; till the instant of departure for the vast plain (the spiritual world) draweth nigh. It then cooeth on the top of a lofty pinnacle (for knowledge can exalt all who were not exalted) and it has come to the knowledge of every mystery in the universe, while yet its tattered vest hath not been mended.43"Its descent was predestined so that it might hear what it had not heard, else why did it descend from the high and lofty heaven to the depth of the low and humble earth? If God sent it down by a decision of His will, His motive is concealed from the intelligence of man. Why did it descend to be withheld from the exalted summit of heaven by the coarse net of the body, and to be detained in a cage? It is like a flash of lightning shining over the meadow, and disappearing as if it had never gleamed."
January 2, 2023
Overview
Decent overview of some of the leading figures in Sufism. Quite easy to read and absorb but you can read the bias within it also quite easily.
Decent overview of some of the leading figures in Sufism. Quite easy to read and absorb but you can read the bias within it also quite easily.
August 10, 2014
Somewhat dry rundown of the prominent Muslim Sufi mystics, but the poems, proverbs, and parables of the Sufis themselves (i.e., Rumi) are gems worth reading through to find!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews