"Image of table titled The Plane of Primal Light."The Plane of Primal Light.1. The Plane of Intellects—the parent of the heavens,2. The Plane of the Soul.3. The Plane of Form.1. The Plane of ideal form.1. The Plane of the heavens.2. The Plane of the elements:—(a). Simple elements.(b). Compounds:—I. Mineral kingdom.II. Vegetable kingdom.III. Animal kingdom.2. The Plane of material forms:—(a). The heavens(b). The elements:—1. Simple elements2. Compounds:—I. Mineral kingdom.II. Vegetable kingdom.III. Animal kingdom.Having briefly indicated the general natureof Being, we now proceed to a more detailed examination of the world-process. All that is not-light is divided into:—(1). Eternal e.g., Intellects, Souls of heavenly bodies, heavens, simple elements, time, motion.(2). Contingent e.g., Compounds of various elements. The motion of the heavens is eternal, and makes up the various cycles of the Universe. It is due to the intense longing of the heaven-soul to receive illumination from the source of all light. The matter of which the heavens are constructed, is completely free from the operation of chemical processes, incidental to the grosser forms of the not-light. Every heaven has its own matter peculiar to it alone. Likewise the heavens differ from one another in the direction of their motion; and the difference is explained by the fact that the beloved, or the sustaining illumination, is different in each case. Motion is only an aspect of time. It is the summing up of the elements of time, which, as externalised, is motion.The distinction of past, present, and future is made only for the sake of convenience, and does not exist in thenature of time.[137:1]We cannot conceive the beginning of time; for the supposed beginning would be a point of time itself. Time and motion, therefore, are both eternal.There are three primordial elements—water, earth, and wind. Fire, according to the Ishrāqīs, is only burning wind. The combinations of these elements, under various heavenly influences, assume various forms—fluidity, gaseousness, solidity. This transformation of the original elements, constitutes the process of "making and unmaking" which pervades the entire sphere of the not-light, raising the different forms of existence higher and higher, and bringing them nearer and nearer to the illuminating forces. All the phenomena of nature—rain, clouds, thunder, meteor—are the various workings of this immanent principle of motion, and are explained by the direct or indirect operation of the Primal Light on things, which differ from one another in their capacity of receiving more or less illumination. The Universe, in one word, is a petrified desire; a crystallised longing after light.But is it eternal? The Universe is a manifestation of the illuminative Power which constitutes the essential nature of the Primal Light. In so far, therefore, as it is a manifestation, it is only a dependent being, and consequently not eternal. But in another sense it is eternal. All the different spheres of being exist by the illuminations and rays of the Eternal light. There are some illuminations which are directly eternal; while there are other fainter ones, the appearance of which depends on the combination of other illuminations and rays. The existence of these is not eternal in the same sense as the existence of the pre-existing parent illuminations. The existence of colour, for instance, is contingent in comparison to that of the ray, which manifests colour when a dark body is brought before an illuminating body. The Universe, therefore, though contingent as manifestation, is eternal by the eternal character of its source. Those who hold the non-eternity of the Universe argue on the assumption of the possibility of a complete induction. Their argument proceeds in the following manner:—(1). Everyone of the Abyssinians is black.⁂ All Abyssinians are black.(2). Every motion began at a definite moment.⁂ All motion must begin so.But this mode of argumentation is vicious. It is quite impossible to state the major. One cannot collect all the Abyssinians past, present, and future, at one particular moment of time. Such a Universal, therefore, is impossible. Hence from the examination of individual Abyssinians, or particular instances of motion which fall within the pale of our experience, it is rash to infer, that all Abyssinians are black, or all motion had a beginning in time.Psychology.Motion and light are not concomitant in the case of bodies of a lower order. A piece of stone, for instance, though illuminated and hence visible, is not endowed with self-initiated movement. As we rise, however, in the scale of being, we find higher bodies, or organisms in which motion and light are associated together. The abstract illumination finds its best dwelling place in man. But the question arises whether the individual abstract illuminationwhich we call the human soul, did or did not exist before its physical accompaniment. The founder of Ishrāqī Philosophy follows Avicenna in connection with this question, and uses the same arguments to show, that the individual abstract illuminations cannot be held to have pre-existed, as so many units of light. The material categories of one and many cannot be applied to the abstract illumination which, in its essential nature, is neither one nor many; though it appears as many owing to the various degrees of illuminational receptivity in its material accompaniments. The relation between the abstract illumination, or soul and body, is not that of cause and effect; the bond of union between them is love. The body which longs for illumination, receives it through the soul; since its nature does not permit a direct communication between the source of light and itself. But the soul cannot transmit the directly received light to the dark solid body which, considering its attributes, stands on the opposite pole of being. In order to be related to each other, they require a medium between them, something standingmidway between light and darkness. This medium is the animal soul—a hot, fine, transparent vapour which has its principal seat in the left cavity of the heart, but also circulates in all parts of the body. It is because of the partial identity of the animal soul with light that, in dark nights, land-animals run towards the burning fire; while sea-animals leave their aquatic abodes in order to enjoy the beautiful sight of the moon. The ideal of man, therefore, is to rise higher and higher in the scale of being, and to receive more and more illumination which gradually brings complete freedom from the world of forms. But how is this ideal to be realised? By knowledge and action. It is the transformation of both understanding and will, the union of action and contemplation, that actualizes the highest ideal of man. Change your attitude towards the Universe, and adopt the line of conduct necessitated by the change. Let us briefly consider these means of realisation:—A.Knowledge.When the Abstract illumination associates itself with a higher organism, it works out its development by the operationof certain faculties—the powers of light, and the powers of darkness. The former are the five external senses, and the five internal senses—sensorium, conception, imagination, understanding, and memory; the latter are the powers of growth, digestion, etc. But such a division of faculties is only convenient. "One faculty can be the source of all operations."[142:1]There is only one power in the middle of the brain, though it receives different names from different standpoints. The mind is a unity which, for the sake of convenience, is regarded as multiplicity. The power residing in the middle of the brain must be distinguished from the abstract illumination which constitutes the real essence of man. The Philosopher of illumination appears to draw a distinction between the active mind and the essentially inactive soul; yet he teaches that in some mysterious way, all the various faculties are connected with the soul.The most original point in his psychology of intellection, however, is histheory ofvision.[142:2]The ray of light which is supposed to come out of the eye must be either substance or quality. If quality, it cannot be transmitted from one substance (eye) to another substance (visible body). If, on the other hand, it is a substance, it moves either consciously, or impelled by its inherent nature. Conscious movement would make it an animal perceiving other things. The perceiver in this case would be the ray, not man. If the movement of the ray is an attribute of its nature, there is no reason why its movement should be peculiar to one direction, and not to all. The ray of light, therefore, cannot be regarded as coming out of the eye. The followers of Aristotle hold that in the process of vision images of objects are printed on the eye. This view is also erroneous; since images of big things cannot be printed on a small space. The truth is that when a thing comes before the eye, an illumination takes place, and the mind sees the object through that illumination. When there is no veil between the object and the normal sight, and the mind is ready to perceive, the act of vision must take place; since thisis the law of things. "All vision is illumination; and we see things in God". Berkley explained the relativity of our sight-perceptions with a view to show that the ultimate ground of all ideas is God. The Ishrāqī Philosopher has the same object in view, though his theory of vision is not so much an explanation of the sight-process as a new way of looking at the fact of vision.Besides sense and reason, however, there is another source of knowledge called "Dhauq"—the inner perception which reveals non-temporal and non-spatial planes of being. The study of philosophy, or the habit of reflecting on pure concepts, combined with the practice of virtue, leads to the upbringing of this mysterious sense, which corroborates and corrects the conclusions of intellect.B.Action.Man as an active being has the following motive powers:(a). Reason or the Angelic soul—the source of intelligence, discrimination, and love of knowledge.(b). The beast-soul which is the source of anger, courage, dominance, and ambition.(c). The animal soul which is the source of lust, hunger, and sexual passion.The first leads to wisdom; the second and third, if controlled by reason, lead respectively to bravery and chastity. The harmonious use of all results in the virtue of justice. The possibility of spiritual progress by virtue, shows that this world is the best possible world. Things as existent are neither good nor bad. It is misuse or limited standpoint that makes them so. Still the fact of evil cannot be denied. Evil does exist; but it is far less in amount than good. It is peculiar only to a part of the world of darkness; while there are other parts of the Universe which are quite free from the taint of evil. The sceptic who attributes the existence of evil to the creative agency of God, presupposes resemblance between human and divine action, and does not see that nothing existent is free in his sense of the word. Divine activity cannot be regarded as the creator of evil in the same sense as we regard some forms of human activity as the cause of evil.[145:1]It is, then, by the union of knowledge and virtue that the soul frees itself from the world of darkness. As we know more and more of the nature of things, we are brought closer and closer to the world of light; and the love of that world becomes more and more intense. The stages of spiritual development are infinite, since the degrees of love are infinite. The principal stages, however, are as follows:—(1). The stage of "I". In this stage the feeling of personality is most predominant, and the spring of human action is generally selfishness.(2). The stage of "Thou art not". Complete absorption in one's own deep self to the entire forgetfulness of everything external.(3). The stage of "I am not". This stage is the necessary result of the second.(4). The stage of "Thou art". The absolute negation of "I", and the affirmation of "Thou", which means complete resignation to the will of God.(5). The stage of "I am not; and thou art not". The complete negation of both the terms of thought—the state of cosmic consciousness.Each stage is marked by more or less intense illuminations, which are accompanied by some indescribable sounds. Death does not put an end to the spiritual progress of the soul. The individual souls, after death, are not unified into one soul, but continue different from each other in proportion to the illumination they received during their companionship with physical organisms. The Philosopher of illumination anticipates Leibniz's doctrine of the Identity of Indiscernibles, and holds that no two souls can be completely similar to each other.[147:1]When the material machinery which it adopts for the purpose of acquiring gradual illumination, is exhausted, the soul probably takes up another body determined by the experiences of the previous life; and rises higher and higher in the different spheres of being, adopting forms peculiar to those spheres, until it reaches its destination—the state of absolute negation. Some souls probably come back to this world in order to make up their deficiencies.[147:2]The doctrine of trans-migrationcannot be proved or disproved from a purely logical standpoint; though it is a probable hypothesis to account for the future destiny of the soul. All souls are thus constantly journeying towards their common source, which calls back the whole Universe when this journey is over, and starts another cycle of being to reproduce, in almost all respects, the history of the preceding cycles.Such is the philosophy of the great Persian martyr. He is, properly speaking, the first Persian systematiser who recognises the elements of truth in all the aspects of Persian speculation, and skilfully synthesises them in his own system. He is a pantheist in so far as he defines God as the sum total of all sensible and ideal existence.[148:1]To him, unlike some of his Ṣūfī predecessors, the world is something real, and the human soul a distinct individuality. With the orthodox theologian, hemaintainsthat the ultimate cause of every phenomenon, is the absolute light whose illumination forms the very essence of theUniverse. In his psychology he follows Avicenna, but his treatment of this branch of study is more systematic and more empirical. As an ethical philosopher, he is a follower of Aristotle whose doctrine of the mean he explains and illustrates with great thoroughness. Above all he modifies and transforms the traditional Neo-Platonism, into a thoroughly Persian system of thought which, not only approaches Plato, but also spiritualises the old Persian Dualism. No Persian thinker is more alive to the necessity of explaining all the aspects of objective existence in reference to his fundamental principles. He constantly appeals to experience, and endeavours to explain even the physical phenomena in the light of his theory of illumination. In his system objectivity, which was completely swallowed up by the exceedingly subjective character of extreme pantheism, claims its due again, and, having been subjected to a detailed examination, finds a comprehensive explanation. No wonder then that this acute thinker succeeded in founding a system of thought, which has always exercised the greatest fascination over minds—unitingspeculation and emotion in perfect harmony. The narrow-mindedness of his contemporaries gave him the title of "Maqtūl" (the killed one), signifying that he was not to be regarded as "Shahīd" (Martyr); but succeeding generations of Ṣūfīs and philosophers have always given him the profoundest veneration.I may here notice a less spiritual form of the Ishrāqī mode of thought. Nasafī[150:1]describes a phase of Ṣūfī thought which reverted to the old materialistic dualism of Mānī. The advocates of this view hold, that light and darkness are essential to each other. They are, in reality, two rivers which mix with each other like oil and milk,[150:2]out of which arises the diversity of things. The ideal of human action is freedom from the taint of darkness; and the freedom of light from darkness means the self-consciousness of light as light.II. Reality as Thought—Al-Jīlī.Al-Jīlī was born in 767 A.H., as he himselfsays in one of his verses, and died in 811 A.H. He was not a prolific writer likeShaikhMuḥy al-Dīn ibn ‘Arabī whose mode of thought seems to have greatly influenced his teaching. He combined in himself poetical imagination and philosophical genius, but his poetry is no more than a vehicle for his mystical and metaphysical doctrines. Among other books he wrote a commentary onShaikhMuḥy al-Dīn ibn ‘Arabī's al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiya, a commentary on Bismillāh, and the famous work Insān al-Kāmil (printed in Cairo).Essence pure and simple, he says, is the thing to which names and attributes are given, whether it is existent actually or ideally. The existent is of two species:—(1). The Existent in Absoluteness or Pure existence—Pure Being—God.(2). The existence joined with non-existence—Creation—Nature.The Essence of God or Pure Thought cannot be understood; no words can express it, for it is beyond all relation and knowledge is relation. The intellect flying through the fathomless empty space pierces through the veil of namesand attributes, traverses the vasty sphere of time, enters the domain of the non-existent and finds the Essence of Pure Thought to be an existence which is non-existence—a sum of contradictions.[152:1]It has two (accidents); eternal life in all past time and eternal life in all future time. It has two (qualities), God and creation. It has two (definitions), uncreatableness and creatableness. It has two names, God and man. It has two faces, the manifested (this world) and the unmanifested (the next world). It has two effects, necessity and possibility. It has two points of view; from the first it is non-existent for itself but existent for what is not itself; from the second it is existent for itself and non-existent for what is not itself.Name, he says, fixes the named in the understanding, pictures it in the mind, presents it in the imagination and keeps it in the memory. It is the outside or the husk, as it were, of the named; while the named is the inside or the pith. Some names do not existin reality but exist in name only as "‘Anqā" (a fabulous bird). It is a name the object of which does not exist in reality. Just as "‘Anqā" is absolutely non-existent, so God is absolutely present, although He cannot be touched and seen. The "‘Anqā" exists only in idea while the object of the name "Allāh" exists in reality and can be known like "‘Anqā" only through its names and attributes. The name is a mirror which reveals all the secrets of the Absolute Being; it is a light through the agency of which God sees Himself. Al-Jīlī here approaches the Isma‘īlia view that we should seek the Named through the Name.In order to understand this passage we should bear in mind the three stages of the development of Pure Being, enumerated by him. He holds that the Absolute existence or Pure Being when it leaves its absoluteness undergoes three stages:—(1) Oneness. (2)He-ness. (3) I-ness. In the first stage there is an absence of all attributes and relations, yet it is called one, and therefore oneness marks one step away from the absoluteness. In the second stage Pure Being is yet free from all manifestation,while the third stage, I-ness, is nothing but an external manifestation of the He-ness; or, as Hegel would say, it is the self-diremption of God. This third stage is the sphere of the name Allāh; here the darkness of Pure Being is illuminated, nature comes to the front, the Absolute Being has become conscious. He says further that the name Allāh is the stuff of all the perfections of the different phases of Divinity, and in the second stage of the progress of Pure Being, all that is the result of Divine self-diremption was potentially contained within the titanic grasp of this name which, in the third stage of the development, objectified itself, became a mirror in which God reflected Himself, and thus by its crystallisation dispelled all the gloom of the Absolute Being.In correspondence with these three stages of the absolute development, the perfect man has three stages of spiritual training. But in his case the process of development must be the reverse; because his is the process of ascent, while the Absolute Being had undergone essentially a process of descent. In the first stage of his spiritual progress hemeditates on the name, studies nature on which it is sealed; in the second stage he steps into the sphere of the Attribute, and in the third stage enters the sphere of the Essence. It is here that he becomes the Perfect Man; his eye becomes the eye of God, his word the word of God and his life the life of God—participates in the general life of Nature and "sees into the life of things".To turn now to the nature of the attribute. His views on this most interesting question are very important, because it is here that his doctrine fundamentally differs from Hindu Idealism. He defines attribute as an agency which gives us a knowledge of the state of things.[155:1]Elsewhere he says that this distinction of attribute from the underlying reality is tenable only in the sphere of the manifested, because here every attribute is regarded as the other of the reality in which it is supposed to inhere. This otherness is due to the existence of combination and disintegration in the sphere of the manifested. Butthe distinction is untenable in the domain of the unmanifested, because there is no combination or disintegration there. It should be observed how widely he differs from the advocates of the Doctrine of "Māyā". He believes that the material world has real existence; it is the outward husk of the real being, no doubt, but this outward husk is not the less real. The cause of the phenomenal world, according to him, is not a real entity hidden behind the sum of attributes, but it is a conception furnished by the mind so that there may be no difficulty in understanding the material world. Berkeley and Fichte will so far agree with our author, but his view leads him to the most characteristically Hegelian doctrine—identity of thought and being. In the 37thchapter of the 2ndvolume of Insān al-Kāmil, he clearly says that idea is the stuff of which this universe is made; thought, idea, notion is the material of the structure of nature. While laying stress on this doctrine he says, "Dost thou not look to thine own belief? Where is the reality in which the so-called Divine attributes inhere?It is but the idea."[157:1]Hence nature is nothing but a crystallised idea. He gives his hearty assent to the results of Kant'sCritique of Pure Reason; but, unlike him, he makes this very idea the essence of the Universe. Kant'sDing an sichto him is a pure nonentity; there is nothing behind the collection of attributes. The attributes are the real things, the material world is but the objectification of the Absolute Being; it is the other self of the Absolute—another which owes its existence to the principle of difference in the nature of the Absolute itself. Nature is the idea of God, a something necessary for His knowledge of Himself. While Hegel calls his doctrine the identity of thought and being, Al-Jīlī calls it the identity of attribute and reality. It should be noted that the author's phrase, "world of attributes", which he uses for the material world is slightly misleading. What he really holds is that the distinction of attribute and reality is merely phenomenal, and does not at all exist in the nature of things. It is useful, because it facilitates ourunderstanding of the world around us, but it is not at all real. It will be understood that Al-Jīlī recognises the truth of Empirical Idealism only tentatively, and does not admit the absoluteness of the distinction. These remarks should not lead us to understand that Al-Jīlī does not believe in the objective reality of the thing in itself. He does believe in it, but then he advocates its unity, and says that the material world is the thing in itself; it is the "other", the external expression of the thing in itself. TheDing an sichand its external expression or the production of its self-diremption, are reallyidentical, though we discriminate between them in order to facilitate our understanding of the universe. If they are not identical, he says, how could one manifest the other? In one word, he means byDing an sich, the Pure, the Absolute Being, and seeks it through its manifestation or external expression. He says that as long as we do not realise the identity of attribute and reality, the material world or the world of attributes seems to be a veil; but when the doctrine is brought home to us the veil is removed; we see theEssence itself everywhere, and find that all the attributes are but ourselves. Nature then appears in her true light; all otherness is removed and we are one with her. The aching prick of curiosity ceases, and the inquisitive attitude of our minds is replaced by a state of philosophic calm. To the person who has realised this identity, discoveries of science bring no new information, and religion with herroleof supernatural authority has nothing to say. This is the spiritual emancipation.Let us now see how he classifies the different divine names and attributes which have received expression in nature or crystallised Divinity. His classification is as follows:—(1). The names and attributes of God as He is in Himself (Allāh, The One, The Odd, The Light, The Truth, The Pure, The Living.)(2). The names and attributes of God as the source of all glory (The Great and High, The All-powerful).(3). The names and attributes of God as all Perfection (The Creator, The Benefactor, The First, The Last).(4). The names and attributes of God asall Beauty (The Uncreatable, The Painter, The Merciful, The Origin of all). Each of these names and attributes has its own particular effect by which it illuminates the soul of the perfect man and Nature. How these illuminations take place, and how they reach the soul is not explained by Al-Jīlī. His silence about these matters throws into more relief the mystical portion of his views and implies the necessity of spiritual Directorship.Before considering Al-Jīlī's views of particular Divine Names and Attributes, we should note that his conception of God, implied in the above classification, is very similar to that of Schleiermacher. While the German theologian reduces all the divine attributes to one single attribute of Power, our author sees the danger of advancing a God free from all attributes, yet recognises with Schleiermacher that in Himself God is an unchangeable unity, and that His attributes "are nothing more than views of Him from different human standpoints, the various appearances which the one changeless cause presents to our finite intelligence according as we look at it fromdifferent sides of the spiritual landscape."[161:1]In His absolute existence He is beyond the limitation of names and attributes, but when He externalises Himself, when He leaves His absoluteness, when nature is born, names and attributes appear sealed on her very fabric.We now proceed to consider what he teaches about particular Divine Names and Attributes. The first Essential Name is Allāh (Divinity) which means the sum of all the realities of existence with their respective order in that sum. This name is applied to God as the only necessary existence. Divinity being the highest manifestation of Pure Being, the difference between them is that the latter is visible to the eye, but itswhereis invisible; while the traces of the former are visible, itself is invisible. By the very fact of her being crystallised divinity, Nature is not the real divinity; hence Divinity is invisible, and its traces in the form of Nature are visible to the eye. Divinity, as the author illustrates, is water; nature is crystallised water or ice; but ice isnot water. The Essence is visible to the eye, (another proof of our author's Natural Realism or Absolute Idealism) although all its attributes are not known to us. Even its attributes are not known as they are in themselves, their shadows or effects only are known. For instance, charity itself is unknown, only its effect or the fact of giving to the poor, is known and seen. This is due to the attributes being incorporated in the very nature of the Essence. If the expression of the attributes in its real nature had been possible, its separation from the Essence would have been possible also. But there are some other Essential Names of God—The Absolute Oneness and Simple Oneness. The Absolute Oneness marksthefirst step of Pure Thought from the darkness of Cecity (the internal or the original Māyā of the Vedānta) to the light of manifestation. Although this movement is not attended with any external manifestations, yet it sums up all of them under its hollow universality. Look at a wall, says the author, you see the whole wall; but you cannot see the individual pieces of the material that contribute to its formation.The wall is a unity—but a unity which comprehends diversity, so Pure Being is a unity but a unity which is the soul of diversity.The third movement of the Absolute Being is Simple Oneness—a step attended with external manifestation. The Absolute Oneness is free from all particular names and attributes. The Oneness Simple takes on names and attributes, but there is no distinction between these attributes, one is the essence of the other. Divinity is similar to Simple Oneness, but its names and attributes are distinguished from one another and even contradictory, as generous is contradictory to revengeful.[163:1]The third step, or as Hegel would say, Voyage of the Being,has another appellation (Mercy). The First Mercy, the author says, is the evolution of the Universe from Himself and the manifestation of His own Self in every atom of the result of His own self-diremption. Al-Jīlī makes this point clearer by an instance. He says that nature is frozen water and God is water. The real name of nature is God (Allāh); ice or condensed water is merely a borrowed appellation. Elsewhere he calls water the origin of knowledge, intellect, understanding, thought and idea. This instance leads him to guard against the error of looking upon God as immanent in nature, or running through the sphere of material existence. He says that immanence implies disparity of being; God is not immanent because He is Himself the existence. Eternal existence is the other self of God, it is the light through which He sees Himself. As the originator of an idea is existent in that idea, so God is present in nature. The difference between God and man, as one may say, is that His ideas materialise themselves, ours do not. It will be remembered here that Hegel would use the same line of argumentin freeing himself from the accusation of Pantheism.The attribute of Mercy is closely connected with the attribute of Providence. He defines it as the sum of all that existence stands in need of. Plants are supplied with water through the force of this name. The natural philosopher would express the same thing differently; he would speak of the same phenomena as resulting from the activity of a certain force of nature; Al-Jīlī would call it a manifestation of Providence; but, unlike the natural philosopher, he would not advocate the unknowability of that force. He would say that there is nothing behind it, it is the Absolute Being itself.We have now finished all the essential names and attributes of God, and proceed to examine the nature of what existed before all things. The Arabian Prophet, says Al-Jīlī, was once questioned about the place of God before creation. He said that God, before the creation, existed in "‘Amā" (Blindness). It is the nature of this Blindness or primal darkness which we now proceed to examine. The investigation is particularly interesting, because the word translatedinto modern phraseology would be "The Unconsciousness". This single word impresses upon us the foresightedness with which he anticipates metaphysical doctrines of modern Germany. He says that the Unconsciousness is the reality of all realities; it is the Pure Being without any descending movement; it is free from the attributes of God and creation; it does not stand in need of any name or quality, because it is beyond the sphere of relation. It is distinguished from the Absolute Oneness because the latter name is applied to the Pure Being in its process of coming down towards manifestation. It should, however, be remembered that when we speak of the priority of God and posteriority of creation, our words must not be understood as implying time; for there can be no duration of time or separateness between God and His creation. Time, continuity in space and time, are themselves creations, and how can piece of creation intervene between God and His creation. Hence our words before, after, where, whence, etc., in this sphere of thought, should not be construed to imply time or space. The realthing is beyond the grasp of human conceptions; no category of material existence can be applicable to it; because, as Kant would say, the laws of phenomena cannot be spoken of as obtaining in the sphere of noumena.We have already noticed that man in his progress towards perfection has three stages: the first is the meditation of the name which the author calls the illumination of names. He remarks that "When God illuminates a certain man by the light of His names, the man is destroyed under the dazzling splendour of that name; and "when thou calleth God, the call is responded to by the man". The effect of this illumination would be, in Schopenhauer's language, the destruction of the individual will, yet it must not be confounded with physical death; because the individual goes on living and moving like the spinning wheel, as Kapila would say, after he has become one with Prakriti. It is here that the individual cries out in pantheistic mood:—She was I and I was she and there was none to separate us."[167:1]The second stage of the spiritual training is what he calls the illumination of the Attribute. This illumination makes the perfect man receive the attributes of God in their real nature in proportion to the power of receptivity possessed by him—a fact which classifies men according to the magnitude of this light resulting from the illumination. Some men receive illumination from the divine attribute of Life, and thus participate in the soul of the Universe. The effect of this light is soaring in the air, walking on water, changing the magnitude of things (as Christ so often did). In this wise the perfect man receives illumination from all the Divine attributes, crosses the sphere of the name and the attribute, and steps into the domain of the Essence—Absolute Existence.As we have already seen, the Absolute Being, when it leaves its absoluteness, has three voyages to undergo, each voyage being a process of particularisation of the bare universality of the Absolute Essence. Each of these three movements appears under a new Essential Name which has its own peculiar illuminating effect upon the human soul. Hereis the end of our author's spiritual ethics;man has become perfect, he has amalgamated himself with the Absolute Being, orhas learnt what Hegel calls The Absolute Philosophy. "He becomes the paragon of perfection, the object of worship, the preserver of the Universe".[169:1]He is the point where Man-ness and God-ness become one, and result in the birth of the god-man.How the perfect man reaches this height of spiritual development, the author does not tell us; but he says that at every stage he has a peculiar experience in which there is not even a trace of doubt or agitation. The instrument of this experience is what he calls theQalb(heart), a word very difficult of definition. He gives a very mystical diagram of the Qalb, and explains it by saying that it is the eye which sees the names, the attributes and the Absolute Being successively. It owes its existence to a mysterious combination of soul and mind; and becomes by its very nature the organ for the recognition of the ultimate realities of existence. All that the "heart", orthe source of what the Vedānta calls the Higher Knowledge, reveals is not seen by the individual as something separate from and heterogeneous to himself; what is shown to him through this agency is his own reality, his own deep being. This characteristic of the agency differentiates it from the intellect, the object of which is always different and separate from the individual exercising that faculty. But the spiritual experience, according to the Ṣūfīs of this school, is not permanent; moments of spiritual vision, says Matthew Arnold,[170:1]cannot be at our command. The god-man is he who has known the mystery of his own being, who has realised himself as god-man; but when that particular spiritual realisation is over man is man and God is God. Had the experience been permanent, a great moral force would have been lost and society overturned.Let us now sum up Al-Jīlī'sDoctrine of the Trinity. We have seen the three movements of the Absolute Being, or the first three categories of Pure Being; we have also seenthat the third movement is attended with external manifestation, which is the self-diremption of the Essence into God and man. This separation makes a gap which is filled by the perfect man, who shares in both the Divine and the human attributes. He holds that the perfect man is the preserver of the Universe; hence in his view, the appearance of the perfect man is a necessary condition for the continuation of nature. It is easy, therefore, to understand that in the god-man, the Absolute Being which has left its absoluteness, returns into itself; and, but for the god-man, it could not have done so; for then there would have been no nature, and consequently no light through which God could have seen Himself. The light through the agency of which God sees Himself is due to the principle of difference in the nature of the Absolute Being itself. He recognises this principle in the following verses:—
"Image of table titled The Plane of Primal Light."
The Plane of Primal Light.1. The Plane of Intellects—the parent of the heavens,2. The Plane of the Soul.3. The Plane of Form.1. The Plane of ideal form.1. The Plane of the heavens.2. The Plane of the elements:—(a). Simple elements.(b). Compounds:—I. Mineral kingdom.II. Vegetable kingdom.III. Animal kingdom.2. The Plane of material forms:—(a). The heavens(b). The elements:—1. Simple elements2. Compounds:—I. Mineral kingdom.II. Vegetable kingdom.III. Animal kingdom.
Having briefly indicated the general natureof Being, we now proceed to a more detailed examination of the world-process. All that is not-light is divided into:—
(1). Eternal e.g., Intellects, Souls of heavenly bodies, heavens, simple elements, time, motion.
(2). Contingent e.g., Compounds of various elements. The motion of the heavens is eternal, and makes up the various cycles of the Universe. It is due to the intense longing of the heaven-soul to receive illumination from the source of all light. The matter of which the heavens are constructed, is completely free from the operation of chemical processes, incidental to the grosser forms of the not-light. Every heaven has its own matter peculiar to it alone. Likewise the heavens differ from one another in the direction of their motion; and the difference is explained by the fact that the beloved, or the sustaining illumination, is different in each case. Motion is only an aspect of time. It is the summing up of the elements of time, which, as externalised, is motion.The distinction of past, present, and future is made only for the sake of convenience, and does not exist in thenature of time.[137:1]We cannot conceive the beginning of time; for the supposed beginning would be a point of time itself. Time and motion, therefore, are both eternal.
There are three primordial elements—water, earth, and wind. Fire, according to the Ishrāqīs, is only burning wind. The combinations of these elements, under various heavenly influences, assume various forms—fluidity, gaseousness, solidity. This transformation of the original elements, constitutes the process of "making and unmaking" which pervades the entire sphere of the not-light, raising the different forms of existence higher and higher, and bringing them nearer and nearer to the illuminating forces. All the phenomena of nature—rain, clouds, thunder, meteor—are the various workings of this immanent principle of motion, and are explained by the direct or indirect operation of the Primal Light on things, which differ from one another in their capacity of receiving more or less illumination. The Universe, in one word, is a petrified desire; a crystallised longing after light.
But is it eternal? The Universe is a manifestation of the illuminative Power which constitutes the essential nature of the Primal Light. In so far, therefore, as it is a manifestation, it is only a dependent being, and consequently not eternal. But in another sense it is eternal. All the different spheres of being exist by the illuminations and rays of the Eternal light. There are some illuminations which are directly eternal; while there are other fainter ones, the appearance of which depends on the combination of other illuminations and rays. The existence of these is not eternal in the same sense as the existence of the pre-existing parent illuminations. The existence of colour, for instance, is contingent in comparison to that of the ray, which manifests colour when a dark body is brought before an illuminating body. The Universe, therefore, though contingent as manifestation, is eternal by the eternal character of its source. Those who hold the non-eternity of the Universe argue on the assumption of the possibility of a complete induction. Their argument proceeds in the following manner:—
(1). Everyone of the Abyssinians is black.
⁂ All Abyssinians are black.
(2). Every motion began at a definite moment.
⁂ All motion must begin so.
But this mode of argumentation is vicious. It is quite impossible to state the major. One cannot collect all the Abyssinians past, present, and future, at one particular moment of time. Such a Universal, therefore, is impossible. Hence from the examination of individual Abyssinians, or particular instances of motion which fall within the pale of our experience, it is rash to infer, that all Abyssinians are black, or all motion had a beginning in time.
Motion and light are not concomitant in the case of bodies of a lower order. A piece of stone, for instance, though illuminated and hence visible, is not endowed with self-initiated movement. As we rise, however, in the scale of being, we find higher bodies, or organisms in which motion and light are associated together. The abstract illumination finds its best dwelling place in man. But the question arises whether the individual abstract illuminationwhich we call the human soul, did or did not exist before its physical accompaniment. The founder of Ishrāqī Philosophy follows Avicenna in connection with this question, and uses the same arguments to show, that the individual abstract illuminations cannot be held to have pre-existed, as so many units of light. The material categories of one and many cannot be applied to the abstract illumination which, in its essential nature, is neither one nor many; though it appears as many owing to the various degrees of illuminational receptivity in its material accompaniments. The relation between the abstract illumination, or soul and body, is not that of cause and effect; the bond of union between them is love. The body which longs for illumination, receives it through the soul; since its nature does not permit a direct communication between the source of light and itself. But the soul cannot transmit the directly received light to the dark solid body which, considering its attributes, stands on the opposite pole of being. In order to be related to each other, they require a medium between them, something standingmidway between light and darkness. This medium is the animal soul—a hot, fine, transparent vapour which has its principal seat in the left cavity of the heart, but also circulates in all parts of the body. It is because of the partial identity of the animal soul with light that, in dark nights, land-animals run towards the burning fire; while sea-animals leave their aquatic abodes in order to enjoy the beautiful sight of the moon. The ideal of man, therefore, is to rise higher and higher in the scale of being, and to receive more and more illumination which gradually brings complete freedom from the world of forms. But how is this ideal to be realised? By knowledge and action. It is the transformation of both understanding and will, the union of action and contemplation, that actualizes the highest ideal of man. Change your attitude towards the Universe, and adopt the line of conduct necessitated by the change. Let us briefly consider these means of realisation:—
A.Knowledge.When the Abstract illumination associates itself with a higher organism, it works out its development by the operationof certain faculties—the powers of light, and the powers of darkness. The former are the five external senses, and the five internal senses—sensorium, conception, imagination, understanding, and memory; the latter are the powers of growth, digestion, etc. But such a division of faculties is only convenient. "One faculty can be the source of all operations."[142:1]There is only one power in the middle of the brain, though it receives different names from different standpoints. The mind is a unity which, for the sake of convenience, is regarded as multiplicity. The power residing in the middle of the brain must be distinguished from the abstract illumination which constitutes the real essence of man. The Philosopher of illumination appears to draw a distinction between the active mind and the essentially inactive soul; yet he teaches that in some mysterious way, all the various faculties are connected with the soul.
The most original point in his psychology of intellection, however, is histheory ofvision.[142:2]The ray of light which is supposed to come out of the eye must be either substance or quality. If quality, it cannot be transmitted from one substance (eye) to another substance (visible body). If, on the other hand, it is a substance, it moves either consciously, or impelled by its inherent nature. Conscious movement would make it an animal perceiving other things. The perceiver in this case would be the ray, not man. If the movement of the ray is an attribute of its nature, there is no reason why its movement should be peculiar to one direction, and not to all. The ray of light, therefore, cannot be regarded as coming out of the eye. The followers of Aristotle hold that in the process of vision images of objects are printed on the eye. This view is also erroneous; since images of big things cannot be printed on a small space. The truth is that when a thing comes before the eye, an illumination takes place, and the mind sees the object through that illumination. When there is no veil between the object and the normal sight, and the mind is ready to perceive, the act of vision must take place; since thisis the law of things. "All vision is illumination; and we see things in God". Berkley explained the relativity of our sight-perceptions with a view to show that the ultimate ground of all ideas is God. The Ishrāqī Philosopher has the same object in view, though his theory of vision is not so much an explanation of the sight-process as a new way of looking at the fact of vision.
Besides sense and reason, however, there is another source of knowledge called "Dhauq"—the inner perception which reveals non-temporal and non-spatial planes of being. The study of philosophy, or the habit of reflecting on pure concepts, combined with the practice of virtue, leads to the upbringing of this mysterious sense, which corroborates and corrects the conclusions of intellect.
B.Action.Man as an active being has the following motive powers:
(a). Reason or the Angelic soul—the source of intelligence, discrimination, and love of knowledge.
(b). The beast-soul which is the source of anger, courage, dominance, and ambition.
(c). The animal soul which is the source of lust, hunger, and sexual passion.
The first leads to wisdom; the second and third, if controlled by reason, lead respectively to bravery and chastity. The harmonious use of all results in the virtue of justice. The possibility of spiritual progress by virtue, shows that this world is the best possible world. Things as existent are neither good nor bad. It is misuse or limited standpoint that makes them so. Still the fact of evil cannot be denied. Evil does exist; but it is far less in amount than good. It is peculiar only to a part of the world of darkness; while there are other parts of the Universe which are quite free from the taint of evil. The sceptic who attributes the existence of evil to the creative agency of God, presupposes resemblance between human and divine action, and does not see that nothing existent is free in his sense of the word. Divine activity cannot be regarded as the creator of evil in the same sense as we regard some forms of human activity as the cause of evil.[145:1]
It is, then, by the union of knowledge and virtue that the soul frees itself from the world of darkness. As we know more and more of the nature of things, we are brought closer and closer to the world of light; and the love of that world becomes more and more intense. The stages of spiritual development are infinite, since the degrees of love are infinite. The principal stages, however, are as follows:—
(1). The stage of "I". In this stage the feeling of personality is most predominant, and the spring of human action is generally selfishness.
(2). The stage of "Thou art not". Complete absorption in one's own deep self to the entire forgetfulness of everything external.
(3). The stage of "I am not". This stage is the necessary result of the second.
(4). The stage of "Thou art". The absolute negation of "I", and the affirmation of "Thou", which means complete resignation to the will of God.
(5). The stage of "I am not; and thou art not". The complete negation of both the terms of thought—the state of cosmic consciousness.
Each stage is marked by more or less intense illuminations, which are accompanied by some indescribable sounds. Death does not put an end to the spiritual progress of the soul. The individual souls, after death, are not unified into one soul, but continue different from each other in proportion to the illumination they received during their companionship with physical organisms. The Philosopher of illumination anticipates Leibniz's doctrine of the Identity of Indiscernibles, and holds that no two souls can be completely similar to each other.[147:1]When the material machinery which it adopts for the purpose of acquiring gradual illumination, is exhausted, the soul probably takes up another body determined by the experiences of the previous life; and rises higher and higher in the different spheres of being, adopting forms peculiar to those spheres, until it reaches its destination—the state of absolute negation. Some souls probably come back to this world in order to make up their deficiencies.[147:2]The doctrine of trans-migrationcannot be proved or disproved from a purely logical standpoint; though it is a probable hypothesis to account for the future destiny of the soul. All souls are thus constantly journeying towards their common source, which calls back the whole Universe when this journey is over, and starts another cycle of being to reproduce, in almost all respects, the history of the preceding cycles.
Such is the philosophy of the great Persian martyr. He is, properly speaking, the first Persian systematiser who recognises the elements of truth in all the aspects of Persian speculation, and skilfully synthesises them in his own system. He is a pantheist in so far as he defines God as the sum total of all sensible and ideal existence.[148:1]To him, unlike some of his Ṣūfī predecessors, the world is something real, and the human soul a distinct individuality. With the orthodox theologian, hemaintainsthat the ultimate cause of every phenomenon, is the absolute light whose illumination forms the very essence of theUniverse. In his psychology he follows Avicenna, but his treatment of this branch of study is more systematic and more empirical. As an ethical philosopher, he is a follower of Aristotle whose doctrine of the mean he explains and illustrates with great thoroughness. Above all he modifies and transforms the traditional Neo-Platonism, into a thoroughly Persian system of thought which, not only approaches Plato, but also spiritualises the old Persian Dualism. No Persian thinker is more alive to the necessity of explaining all the aspects of objective existence in reference to his fundamental principles. He constantly appeals to experience, and endeavours to explain even the physical phenomena in the light of his theory of illumination. In his system objectivity, which was completely swallowed up by the exceedingly subjective character of extreme pantheism, claims its due again, and, having been subjected to a detailed examination, finds a comprehensive explanation. No wonder then that this acute thinker succeeded in founding a system of thought, which has always exercised the greatest fascination over minds—unitingspeculation and emotion in perfect harmony. The narrow-mindedness of his contemporaries gave him the title of "Maqtūl" (the killed one), signifying that he was not to be regarded as "Shahīd" (Martyr); but succeeding generations of Ṣūfīs and philosophers have always given him the profoundest veneration.
I may here notice a less spiritual form of the Ishrāqī mode of thought. Nasafī[150:1]describes a phase of Ṣūfī thought which reverted to the old materialistic dualism of Mānī. The advocates of this view hold, that light and darkness are essential to each other. They are, in reality, two rivers which mix with each other like oil and milk,[150:2]out of which arises the diversity of things. The ideal of human action is freedom from the taint of darkness; and the freedom of light from darkness means the self-consciousness of light as light.
Al-Jīlī was born in 767 A.H., as he himselfsays in one of his verses, and died in 811 A.H. He was not a prolific writer likeShaikhMuḥy al-Dīn ibn ‘Arabī whose mode of thought seems to have greatly influenced his teaching. He combined in himself poetical imagination and philosophical genius, but his poetry is no more than a vehicle for his mystical and metaphysical doctrines. Among other books he wrote a commentary onShaikhMuḥy al-Dīn ibn ‘Arabī's al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiya, a commentary on Bismillāh, and the famous work Insān al-Kāmil (printed in Cairo).
Essence pure and simple, he says, is the thing to which names and attributes are given, whether it is existent actually or ideally. The existent is of two species:—
(1). The Existent in Absoluteness or Pure existence—Pure Being—God.
(2). The existence joined with non-existence—Creation—Nature.
The Essence of God or Pure Thought cannot be understood; no words can express it, for it is beyond all relation and knowledge is relation. The intellect flying through the fathomless empty space pierces through the veil of namesand attributes, traverses the vasty sphere of time, enters the domain of the non-existent and finds the Essence of Pure Thought to be an existence which is non-existence—a sum of contradictions.[152:1]It has two (accidents); eternal life in all past time and eternal life in all future time. It has two (qualities), God and creation. It has two (definitions), uncreatableness and creatableness. It has two names, God and man. It has two faces, the manifested (this world) and the unmanifested (the next world). It has two effects, necessity and possibility. It has two points of view; from the first it is non-existent for itself but existent for what is not itself; from the second it is existent for itself and non-existent for what is not itself.
Name, he says, fixes the named in the understanding, pictures it in the mind, presents it in the imagination and keeps it in the memory. It is the outside or the husk, as it were, of the named; while the named is the inside or the pith. Some names do not existin reality but exist in name only as "‘Anqā" (a fabulous bird). It is a name the object of which does not exist in reality. Just as "‘Anqā" is absolutely non-existent, so God is absolutely present, although He cannot be touched and seen. The "‘Anqā" exists only in idea while the object of the name "Allāh" exists in reality and can be known like "‘Anqā" only through its names and attributes. The name is a mirror which reveals all the secrets of the Absolute Being; it is a light through the agency of which God sees Himself. Al-Jīlī here approaches the Isma‘īlia view that we should seek the Named through the Name.
In order to understand this passage we should bear in mind the three stages of the development of Pure Being, enumerated by him. He holds that the Absolute existence or Pure Being when it leaves its absoluteness undergoes three stages:—(1) Oneness. (2)He-ness. (3) I-ness. In the first stage there is an absence of all attributes and relations, yet it is called one, and therefore oneness marks one step away from the absoluteness. In the second stage Pure Being is yet free from all manifestation,while the third stage, I-ness, is nothing but an external manifestation of the He-ness; or, as Hegel would say, it is the self-diremption of God. This third stage is the sphere of the name Allāh; here the darkness of Pure Being is illuminated, nature comes to the front, the Absolute Being has become conscious. He says further that the name Allāh is the stuff of all the perfections of the different phases of Divinity, and in the second stage of the progress of Pure Being, all that is the result of Divine self-diremption was potentially contained within the titanic grasp of this name which, in the third stage of the development, objectified itself, became a mirror in which God reflected Himself, and thus by its crystallisation dispelled all the gloom of the Absolute Being.
In correspondence with these three stages of the absolute development, the perfect man has three stages of spiritual training. But in his case the process of development must be the reverse; because his is the process of ascent, while the Absolute Being had undergone essentially a process of descent. In the first stage of his spiritual progress hemeditates on the name, studies nature on which it is sealed; in the second stage he steps into the sphere of the Attribute, and in the third stage enters the sphere of the Essence. It is here that he becomes the Perfect Man; his eye becomes the eye of God, his word the word of God and his life the life of God—participates in the general life of Nature and "sees into the life of things".
To turn now to the nature of the attribute. His views on this most interesting question are very important, because it is here that his doctrine fundamentally differs from Hindu Idealism. He defines attribute as an agency which gives us a knowledge of the state of things.[155:1]Elsewhere he says that this distinction of attribute from the underlying reality is tenable only in the sphere of the manifested, because here every attribute is regarded as the other of the reality in which it is supposed to inhere. This otherness is due to the existence of combination and disintegration in the sphere of the manifested. Butthe distinction is untenable in the domain of the unmanifested, because there is no combination or disintegration there. It should be observed how widely he differs from the advocates of the Doctrine of "Māyā". He believes that the material world has real existence; it is the outward husk of the real being, no doubt, but this outward husk is not the less real. The cause of the phenomenal world, according to him, is not a real entity hidden behind the sum of attributes, but it is a conception furnished by the mind so that there may be no difficulty in understanding the material world. Berkeley and Fichte will so far agree with our author, but his view leads him to the most characteristically Hegelian doctrine—identity of thought and being. In the 37thchapter of the 2ndvolume of Insān al-Kāmil, he clearly says that idea is the stuff of which this universe is made; thought, idea, notion is the material of the structure of nature. While laying stress on this doctrine he says, "Dost thou not look to thine own belief? Where is the reality in which the so-called Divine attributes inhere?It is but the idea."[157:1]Hence nature is nothing but a crystallised idea. He gives his hearty assent to the results of Kant'sCritique of Pure Reason; but, unlike him, he makes this very idea the essence of the Universe. Kant'sDing an sichto him is a pure nonentity; there is nothing behind the collection of attributes. The attributes are the real things, the material world is but the objectification of the Absolute Being; it is the other self of the Absolute—another which owes its existence to the principle of difference in the nature of the Absolute itself. Nature is the idea of God, a something necessary for His knowledge of Himself. While Hegel calls his doctrine the identity of thought and being, Al-Jīlī calls it the identity of attribute and reality. It should be noted that the author's phrase, "world of attributes", which he uses for the material world is slightly misleading. What he really holds is that the distinction of attribute and reality is merely phenomenal, and does not at all exist in the nature of things. It is useful, because it facilitates ourunderstanding of the world around us, but it is not at all real. It will be understood that Al-Jīlī recognises the truth of Empirical Idealism only tentatively, and does not admit the absoluteness of the distinction. These remarks should not lead us to understand that Al-Jīlī does not believe in the objective reality of the thing in itself. He does believe in it, but then he advocates its unity, and says that the material world is the thing in itself; it is the "other", the external expression of the thing in itself. TheDing an sichand its external expression or the production of its self-diremption, are reallyidentical, though we discriminate between them in order to facilitate our understanding of the universe. If they are not identical, he says, how could one manifest the other? In one word, he means byDing an sich, the Pure, the Absolute Being, and seeks it through its manifestation or external expression. He says that as long as we do not realise the identity of attribute and reality, the material world or the world of attributes seems to be a veil; but when the doctrine is brought home to us the veil is removed; we see theEssence itself everywhere, and find that all the attributes are but ourselves. Nature then appears in her true light; all otherness is removed and we are one with her. The aching prick of curiosity ceases, and the inquisitive attitude of our minds is replaced by a state of philosophic calm. To the person who has realised this identity, discoveries of science bring no new information, and religion with herroleof supernatural authority has nothing to say. This is the spiritual emancipation.
Let us now see how he classifies the different divine names and attributes which have received expression in nature or crystallised Divinity. His classification is as follows:—
(1). The names and attributes of God as He is in Himself (Allāh, The One, The Odd, The Light, The Truth, The Pure, The Living.)
(2). The names and attributes of God as the source of all glory (The Great and High, The All-powerful).
(3). The names and attributes of God as all Perfection (The Creator, The Benefactor, The First, The Last).
(4). The names and attributes of God asall Beauty (The Uncreatable, The Painter, The Merciful, The Origin of all). Each of these names and attributes has its own particular effect by which it illuminates the soul of the perfect man and Nature. How these illuminations take place, and how they reach the soul is not explained by Al-Jīlī. His silence about these matters throws into more relief the mystical portion of his views and implies the necessity of spiritual Directorship.
Before considering Al-Jīlī's views of particular Divine Names and Attributes, we should note that his conception of God, implied in the above classification, is very similar to that of Schleiermacher. While the German theologian reduces all the divine attributes to one single attribute of Power, our author sees the danger of advancing a God free from all attributes, yet recognises with Schleiermacher that in Himself God is an unchangeable unity, and that His attributes "are nothing more than views of Him from different human standpoints, the various appearances which the one changeless cause presents to our finite intelligence according as we look at it fromdifferent sides of the spiritual landscape."[161:1]In His absolute existence He is beyond the limitation of names and attributes, but when He externalises Himself, when He leaves His absoluteness, when nature is born, names and attributes appear sealed on her very fabric.
We now proceed to consider what he teaches about particular Divine Names and Attributes. The first Essential Name is Allāh (Divinity) which means the sum of all the realities of existence with their respective order in that sum. This name is applied to God as the only necessary existence. Divinity being the highest manifestation of Pure Being, the difference between them is that the latter is visible to the eye, but itswhereis invisible; while the traces of the former are visible, itself is invisible. By the very fact of her being crystallised divinity, Nature is not the real divinity; hence Divinity is invisible, and its traces in the form of Nature are visible to the eye. Divinity, as the author illustrates, is water; nature is crystallised water or ice; but ice isnot water. The Essence is visible to the eye, (another proof of our author's Natural Realism or Absolute Idealism) although all its attributes are not known to us. Even its attributes are not known as they are in themselves, their shadows or effects only are known. For instance, charity itself is unknown, only its effect or the fact of giving to the poor, is known and seen. This is due to the attributes being incorporated in the very nature of the Essence. If the expression of the attributes in its real nature had been possible, its separation from the Essence would have been possible also. But there are some other Essential Names of God—The Absolute Oneness and Simple Oneness. The Absolute Oneness marksthefirst step of Pure Thought from the darkness of Cecity (the internal or the original Māyā of the Vedānta) to the light of manifestation. Although this movement is not attended with any external manifestations, yet it sums up all of them under its hollow universality. Look at a wall, says the author, you see the whole wall; but you cannot see the individual pieces of the material that contribute to its formation.The wall is a unity—but a unity which comprehends diversity, so Pure Being is a unity but a unity which is the soul of diversity.
The third movement of the Absolute Being is Simple Oneness—a step attended with external manifestation. The Absolute Oneness is free from all particular names and attributes. The Oneness Simple takes on names and attributes, but there is no distinction between these attributes, one is the essence of the other. Divinity is similar to Simple Oneness, but its names and attributes are distinguished from one another and even contradictory, as generous is contradictory to revengeful.[163:1]The third step, or as Hegel would say, Voyage of the Being,has another appellation (Mercy). The First Mercy, the author says, is the evolution of the Universe from Himself and the manifestation of His own Self in every atom of the result of His own self-diremption. Al-Jīlī makes this point clearer by an instance. He says that nature is frozen water and God is water. The real name of nature is God (Allāh); ice or condensed water is merely a borrowed appellation. Elsewhere he calls water the origin of knowledge, intellect, understanding, thought and idea. This instance leads him to guard against the error of looking upon God as immanent in nature, or running through the sphere of material existence. He says that immanence implies disparity of being; God is not immanent because He is Himself the existence. Eternal existence is the other self of God, it is the light through which He sees Himself. As the originator of an idea is existent in that idea, so God is present in nature. The difference between God and man, as one may say, is that His ideas materialise themselves, ours do not. It will be remembered here that Hegel would use the same line of argumentin freeing himself from the accusation of Pantheism.
The attribute of Mercy is closely connected with the attribute of Providence. He defines it as the sum of all that existence stands in need of. Plants are supplied with water through the force of this name. The natural philosopher would express the same thing differently; he would speak of the same phenomena as resulting from the activity of a certain force of nature; Al-Jīlī would call it a manifestation of Providence; but, unlike the natural philosopher, he would not advocate the unknowability of that force. He would say that there is nothing behind it, it is the Absolute Being itself.
We have now finished all the essential names and attributes of God, and proceed to examine the nature of what existed before all things. The Arabian Prophet, says Al-Jīlī, was once questioned about the place of God before creation. He said that God, before the creation, existed in "‘Amā" (Blindness). It is the nature of this Blindness or primal darkness which we now proceed to examine. The investigation is particularly interesting, because the word translatedinto modern phraseology would be "The Unconsciousness". This single word impresses upon us the foresightedness with which he anticipates metaphysical doctrines of modern Germany. He says that the Unconsciousness is the reality of all realities; it is the Pure Being without any descending movement; it is free from the attributes of God and creation; it does not stand in need of any name or quality, because it is beyond the sphere of relation. It is distinguished from the Absolute Oneness because the latter name is applied to the Pure Being in its process of coming down towards manifestation. It should, however, be remembered that when we speak of the priority of God and posteriority of creation, our words must not be understood as implying time; for there can be no duration of time or separateness between God and His creation. Time, continuity in space and time, are themselves creations, and how can piece of creation intervene between God and His creation. Hence our words before, after, where, whence, etc., in this sphere of thought, should not be construed to imply time or space. The realthing is beyond the grasp of human conceptions; no category of material existence can be applicable to it; because, as Kant would say, the laws of phenomena cannot be spoken of as obtaining in the sphere of noumena.
We have already noticed that man in his progress towards perfection has three stages: the first is the meditation of the name which the author calls the illumination of names. He remarks that "When God illuminates a certain man by the light of His names, the man is destroyed under the dazzling splendour of that name; and "when thou calleth God, the call is responded to by the man". The effect of this illumination would be, in Schopenhauer's language, the destruction of the individual will, yet it must not be confounded with physical death; because the individual goes on living and moving like the spinning wheel, as Kapila would say, after he has become one with Prakriti. It is here that the individual cries out in pantheistic mood:—She was I and I was she and there was none to separate us."[167:1]
The second stage of the spiritual training is what he calls the illumination of the Attribute. This illumination makes the perfect man receive the attributes of God in their real nature in proportion to the power of receptivity possessed by him—a fact which classifies men according to the magnitude of this light resulting from the illumination. Some men receive illumination from the divine attribute of Life, and thus participate in the soul of the Universe. The effect of this light is soaring in the air, walking on water, changing the magnitude of things (as Christ so often did). In this wise the perfect man receives illumination from all the Divine attributes, crosses the sphere of the name and the attribute, and steps into the domain of the Essence—Absolute Existence.
As we have already seen, the Absolute Being, when it leaves its absoluteness, has three voyages to undergo, each voyage being a process of particularisation of the bare universality of the Absolute Essence. Each of these three movements appears under a new Essential Name which has its own peculiar illuminating effect upon the human soul. Hereis the end of our author's spiritual ethics;man has become perfect, he has amalgamated himself with the Absolute Being, orhas learnt what Hegel calls The Absolute Philosophy. "He becomes the paragon of perfection, the object of worship, the preserver of the Universe".[169:1]He is the point where Man-ness and God-ness become one, and result in the birth of the god-man.
How the perfect man reaches this height of spiritual development, the author does not tell us; but he says that at every stage he has a peculiar experience in which there is not even a trace of doubt or agitation. The instrument of this experience is what he calls theQalb(heart), a word very difficult of definition. He gives a very mystical diagram of the Qalb, and explains it by saying that it is the eye which sees the names, the attributes and the Absolute Being successively. It owes its existence to a mysterious combination of soul and mind; and becomes by its very nature the organ for the recognition of the ultimate realities of existence. All that the "heart", orthe source of what the Vedānta calls the Higher Knowledge, reveals is not seen by the individual as something separate from and heterogeneous to himself; what is shown to him through this agency is his own reality, his own deep being. This characteristic of the agency differentiates it from the intellect, the object of which is always different and separate from the individual exercising that faculty. But the spiritual experience, according to the Ṣūfīs of this school, is not permanent; moments of spiritual vision, says Matthew Arnold,[170:1]cannot be at our command. The god-man is he who has known the mystery of his own being, who has realised himself as god-man; but when that particular spiritual realisation is over man is man and God is God. Had the experience been permanent, a great moral force would have been lost and society overturned.
Let us now sum up Al-Jīlī'sDoctrine of the Trinity. We have seen the three movements of the Absolute Being, or the first three categories of Pure Being; we have also seenthat the third movement is attended with external manifestation, which is the self-diremption of the Essence into God and man. This separation makes a gap which is filled by the perfect man, who shares in both the Divine and the human attributes. He holds that the perfect man is the preserver of the Universe; hence in his view, the appearance of the perfect man is a necessary condition for the continuation of nature. It is easy, therefore, to understand that in the god-man, the Absolute Being which has left its absoluteness, returns into itself; and, but for the god-man, it could not have done so; for then there would have been no nature, and consequently no light through which God could have seen Himself. The light through the agency of which God sees Himself is due to the principle of difference in the nature of the Absolute Being itself. He recognises this principle in the following verses:—