Full text of "The alchemy of happiness by al Ghazzali"

Full text of "The alchemy of happiness by al Ghazzali"

 

ABOUT BLOG PROJECTS HELP DONATE  CONTACT JOBS VOLUNTEER PEOPLE

Full text of "The alchemy of happiness by al Ghazzali"

See other formats

https://archive.org/stream/alchemyofhappine00algh/alchemyofhappine00algh_djvu.txt

Digitized by the Internet Archive 

in 2018 with funding from 

Princeton Theological Seminary Library 

https://archive.org/details/alchemyofhappineOOalgh 

WISDOM OF THE EAST 

THE ALCHEMY OF 

HAPPINESS 

BY AL GHAZZALI 

TRANSLATED FROM THE HINDUSTANI 

BY CLAUD FIELD 

“Knowledge of a part is better than ignorance 

of the whole” (Abu’l Feda) 

LONDON 

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 

1910 

PRINTED BY 

HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD, 

LONDON AND AYLESBURY. 

CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface . 7 

Introduction ...17 

CHAP. 

I. The Knowledge of Self . . .19 

II. The Knowledge of God .... 31 

III. The Knowledge of this World . . 43 

IV. The Knowledge of the Next World . 51 

Y. Concerning Music and Dancing as Aids 

to the Religious Life ... 64 

YI. Concerning Self-examination and the 

Recollection of Cod . . . .75 

VII. Marriage as a Help or Hindrance to 

the Religious Life .... 87 

VIII. The Love of God . 

. 100 

EDITORIAL NOTE 

rpHE object of the Editors of this series is a 

-L very definite one. They desire above ail 

things that, in their humble way, these books 

shall be the ambassadors of good-will and 

understanding between East and West—the old 

world of Thought and the new of Action. In 

this endeavour, and in their own sphere, they 

are but followers of the highest example in the 

land. They are confident that a deeper know¬ 

ledge of the great ideals and lofty philosophy 

of Oriental thought may help to a revival of 

that true spirit of Charity which neither despises 

nor fears the nations of another creed and colour. 

Finally, in thanking press and public for the 

very cordial reception given to the “ Wisdom 

of the East ” Series, they wish to state that 

no pains have been spared to secure the best 

specialists for the treatment of the various 

subjects at hand. 

L. CRANMER-BYNG. 

S. A. KAPADIA. 

Northbrook Society, 

185 Piccadilly, W. 

6 

PREFACE 

Renan, whose easy-going mind was the exact 

antithesis to the intense earnestness of Ghazzali, 

calls him “ the most original mind among Arabian 

philosophers.” 1 Notwithstanding this, his fame 

as a philosopher has been greatly overshadowed 

by Avicenna, his predecessor, and Averroes, his 

successor and opponent. It is a significant fact 

that the Encyclopcedia Britannica devotes five 

columns to each of the others and only a column 

and a half to Ghazzali. Yet it is doubtful 

whether it is as a philosopher that he would have 

wished to be chiefly remembered. Several 

of his works, it is true, are polemics against the 

philosophers, especially his Tehafot-al-falasifa, or 

“ Destruction of the Philosophers,” and, as 

Solomon Munk says in his Mela?iges de philosophise 

Juive et Arabe, Ghazzali dealt “ a fatal blow ” 

to Arabian philosophy in the East, from which it 

never recovered, though it revived for a while in 

Spain and culminated in Averroes. Philosopher 

and sceptic as he was by nature, Ghazzali’s chief 

work was that of a theologian, moralist, and 

1 Renan : Averroes et Averroisme. 

7 

8 

PREFACE 

mystic, though his mysticism was strongly 

balanced by common sense. He had, as he tells 

us in his Confessions, experienced “ conversion ” ; 

God had arrested him “ on the edge of the fire,” 

and thenceforth what Browning says of the 

French poet, Rene Gentilhomme, was true of 

him: 

Human praises scare 

Rather than soothe ears all a-tingle yet 

With tones few hear and live, and none forget. 

In the same work he tells us that one of his 

besetting weaknesses had been the craving for 

applause, and in his Iliya ul-ulum (“ Revival of the 

Religious Sciences”) he devotes a long chapter 

to the dangers involved in a love of notoriety and 

the cure for it. 

After his conversion he retired into religious 

seclusion for eleven years at Damascus (a corner 

of the mosque there still bears his name—“ The 

Ghazzali Corner ”) and Jerusalem, where he gave 

himself up to intense and prolonged meditation. 

But he was too noble a character to concentrate 

himself entirely on his own soul and its eternal 

prospects. The requests of his children—and 

other family affairs of which we have no exact 

information—caused him to return home. Besides 

this, the continued progress of the Ismailians 

(connected with the famous Assassins), the 

spread of irreligious doctrines and the increasing 

PREFACE 

9 

religious indifference of the masses not only filled 

Ghazzali and his Sufi friends with profound 

grief, but determined them to stem the evil with 

the whole force of their philosophy, the ardour of 

vital conviction, and the authority of noble 

example. 

In his autobiography referred to above Ghaz¬ 

zali tells us that, after emerging from a state of 

Pyrrhonic scepticism, he had finally arrived at 

the conclusion that the mystics were on the right 

path and true “ Arifin,” or Knowers of God. 1 

But in saying this he meant those Sufis whose 

mysticism did not carry them into extravagant 

utterances like that of Mansur Hallaj, who was 

crucified at Bagdad (a.d. 922) for exclaiming “ I 

am the Truth, or God.” In his Ihya-ul-ulum 

Ghazzali says : “ The matter went so far that 

certain persons boasted of a union with the 

Deity, and that in His unveiled presence they 

beheld Him, and enjoyed familiar converse with 

Him, saying, ‘ Thus it was spoken unto us and 

thus we speak.’ Bayazid Bistami (ob. a.d. 875) 

is reported to have exclaimed, ‘ Glory be to me ! ’ 

This style of discourse exerts a very pernicious 

influence on the common people. Some husband¬ 

men indeed, letting their farms run to waste, 

set up similar pretensions for themselves ; for 

human nature is pleased with maxims like these, 

1 It may bo noted that there was a contemporary sect 

called “ La-adria ”—agnostics. 

10 

PREFACE 

which permit one to neglect useful labour with 

the idea of acquiring spiritual purity through the 

attainment of certain mysterious degrees and 

qualities. This notion is productive of great 

injury, so that the death of one of these foolish 

babblers would be a greater benefit to the cause 

of true religion than the saving alive of ten of 

them.” 

For himself Ghazzali was a practical mystic. 

His aim was to make men better by leading them 

from a merely notional acquiescence in the 

stereotyped creed of Islam to a real knowledge of 

God. The first four chapters of The Alchemy of 

Happiness are a commentary on the famous 

verse in the Hadis (traditional sayings of Mu¬ 

hammad), 44 He who knows himself knows God.” 

He is especially scornful of the parrot-like repe¬ 

tition of orthodox phrases. Thus alluding to the 

almost hourly use by Muhammadans of the 

phrase, “ I take refuge in God ” (Ma‘udhib'illah /), 

Ghazzali says, in the Ihya-ul-ulum : 44 Satan laughs 

at such pious ejaculations. Those who utter 

them are like a man who should meet a lion in a 

desert, while there is a fort at no great distance, 

and, when he sees the evil beast, should stand 

exclaiming, 4 I take refuge in that fortress,’ with¬ 

out moving a step towards it. What will such 

an ejaculation profit him ? In the same way 

the mere exclamation, 4 1 take refuge in God,’ 

will not protect thee from the terrors of His 

PREFACE 

li 

judgment unless thou really take refuge in Him.” 

It is related of some unknown Sufi that when 

asked for a definition of religious sincerity he 

drew a red-hot piece of iron out of a blacksmith’s 

forge, and said, “ Behold it ! ” This “ red-hot ” 

sincerity is certainly characteristic of Ghazzali, 

and there is no wonder that he did not admire his 

contemporary, Omar Khayyam. 

The little picture of the lion and the fort in 

the above passage is a small instance of another 

conspicuous trait in Ghazzali’s mind—his turn 

for allegory. Emerson says, “ Whoever thinks 

intently will find an image more or less luminous 

rise in his mind.” In Ghazzali’s writings many 

such images arise, some grotesque and some 

beautiful. His allegory of the soul as a fortress 

beleaguered by the “ armies of Satan ” is a 

striking anticipation of the Holy War of Bunyan. 

The greatest of all the Sufi poets, Jalaluddin 

Rumi, born a century after Ghazzali’s death 

(a.d. 1207), has paid him the compliment of 

incorporating several of these allegories which 

occur in the Iliya into his own Masnavi . Such 

is the famous one of the Chinese and Greek artists, 

which runs as follows : 

“ Once upon a time the Chinese having chal¬ 

lenged the Greeks to a trial of skill in painting, 

the Sultan summoned them both into edifices 

built for the purpose directly facing each other, 

and commanded them to show proof of their art. 

12 

PREFACE 

The painters of the two nations immediately 

applied themselves with diligence to their work. 

The Chinese sought and obtained of the king 

every day a great quantity of colours, but the 

Greeks not the least particle. Both worked in 

profound silence, until the Chinese, with a 

clangor of cymbals and of trumpets, announced 

the end of their labours. Immediately the king, 

with his courtiers, hastened to their temple, and 

there stood amazed at the wonderful splendour 

of the Chinese painting and the exquisite beauty 

of the colours. But meanwhile the Greeks, who 

had not sought to adorn the walls with paints, 

but laboured rather to erase every colour, drew T 

aside the veil which concealed their work. Then, 

wonderful to tell, the manifold variety of the 

Chinese colours was seen still more delicately 

and beautifully reflected from the walls of the 

Grecian temple, as it stood illuminated by the 

rays of the midday sun.” 

This parable, of course, illustrates the favourite 

Sufi tenet that the heart must be kept pure and 

calm as an unspotted mirror. Similarly, the apo¬ 

logue of the elephant in the dark ( vide chap. II.) 

has been borrowed by Jalaluddin Rumi from 

Ghazzali. 

Another characteristic of Ghazzali which ap¬ 

peals to the modern mind is the way in which he 

exjDounds the religious argument from probability 

much as Bishop Butler and Browning do (vide 

PREFACE 

13 

the end of Chapter IV. in the present book). 

Ghazzali might have said, with Blougram : 

With me faith means perpetual unbelief 

Kept quiet like the snake ’neath Michael’s foot, 

Who stands calm just because he feels it writhe. 

This combination of ecstatic assurance and 

scepticism is one of those antinomies of the 

human mind which annoy the rationalist and 

rejoice the mystic. Those in whom they co-exist, 

like Ghazzali in the eleventh century and Cardinal 

Newman in the nineteenth, are a perpetual 

problem to understand and therefore perennially 

interesting : 

He may believe, and yet, and yet. 

How can he ? 

Another point in which Ghazzali anticipates 

Bishop Butler is his representation of punishment 

as the natural working out of consequences, and 

not an arbitrary infliction imposed ab extra . He 

tries to rationalise the lurid threatenings of the 

Koran. 

In his own day Ghazzali was accused of having 

one doctrine for the multitude and one for himself 

and his intimate friends. Professor D. B. Mac¬ 

donald, of Hartford, after going thoroughly into 

the matter, says, “ If the charge of a secret 

doctrine is to be proved against Ghazzali it must 

14 

PREFACE 

be on other and better evidence than that which 

is now before ns.” 

At any rate, Ghazzali has been accepted as an 

orthodox authority by the Muhammadans, among 

whom his title is Hujjat-el-Islam, “ The Proof of 

Islam,” and it has been said, “ If all the books 

of Islam were destroyed it would be but a slight 

loss if only the Ihya of Ghazzali were preserved.” 

The great modern reformer of Islam in India, the 

late Sir Syud Ahmed, has had some portions of 

this enormous work printed separately for the 

purpose of familiarising the young Moslems at 

Aligarh with Ghazzali. 

The Ihya was written in Arabic, and Ghazzali 

himself wrote an abridgment of it in Persian for 

popular use which he entitled Kimiyale Saadat 

(“ The Alchemy of Happiness ”). This little 

book contains eight sections of that abridgment. 

Theologians are the best judges of theologians, 

and in conclusion we may quote Dr. August 

Tholuck’s opinion of Ghazzali: “ This man, if ever 

any have deserved the name, was truly a ‘ divine,’ 

and he may be justly placed on a level with 

Origen, so remarkable was he for learning and 

ingenuity, and gifted with such a rare faculty 

for the skilful and worthy exposition of doctrine. 

All that is good, noble, and sublime that his 

great soul had compassed he bestowed upon 

Muhammadanism, and he adorned the doctrines 

of the Koran with so much piety and learning 

PREFACE 

15 

that, in the form given them by him, they seem, 

in my opinion, worthy the assent of Christians. 

Whatsoever was most excellent in the philosophy 

of Aristotle or in the Sufic mysticism he discreetly 

adapted to the Muhammadan theology ; from 

every school he sought the means of shedding 

light and honour upon religion ; while his sincere 

piety and lofty conscientiousness imparted to all 

his writings a sacred majesty. He was the first 

of Muhammadan divines.” 

THE ALCHEMY OE 

HAPPINESS 

INTRODUCTION 

Know, 0 beloved, that man was not created in 

jest or at random, but marvellously made and 

for some great end. Although he is not from 

everlasting, yet he lives for ever; and though his 

body is mean and earthly, yet his spirit is lofty 

and divine. When in the crucible of abstinence 

he is purged from carnal passions he attains to 

the highest, and in place of being a slave to lust 

and anger becomes endued with angelic qualities. 

Attaining that state, he finds his heaven in the 

contemplation of Eternal Beauty, and no longer 

in fleshly delights. The spiritual alchemy which 

operates this change in him, like that which trans¬ 

mutes base metals into gold, is not easily dis¬ 

covered, nor to be found in the house of every 

old woman. It is to explain that alchemy and 

its methods of operation that the author has 

17 2 

18 

INTRODUCTION 

undertaken this work, which he has entitled, 

The Alchemy of Happiness. Now the treasuries 

of God, in which this alchemy is to be sought, 

are the hearts of the prophets, and he who seeks 

it elsewhere will be disappointed and bankrupt 

on the day of judgment when he hears the words, 

“We have lifted the veil from off thee, and thy 

sight to-day is keen.” 

God has sent on earth a hundred and twenty- 

four thousand prophets 1 to teach men the pre¬ 

scription of this alchemy, and how to purify 

their hearts from baser qualities in the crucible 

of abstinence. This alchemy may be briefly 

described as turning away from the world to God, 

and its constituents are four : 

1. The knowledge of self. 

2. The knowledge of God. 

3. The knowledge of this world as it really is. 

4. The knowledge of the next world as it 

really is. 

We shall now proceed to expound these four 

constituents in order. 

1 This is the fixed number of the prophets accordi ig to 

Muhammadan tradition. 

CHAPTER I 

THE 3\N0WLEDGE OF SELF 

Knowledge of self is the key to the knowledge 

of God, according to the saying : “ He who 

knows himself knows God,” 1 and, as it is written 

in the Koran, “We will show them Our signs 

in the world and in themselves , that the truth 

may be manifest to them.” Now nothing is 

nearer to thee than thyself, and if thou knowest 

not thyself how canst thou know anything 

else ? If thou sayest “ I know myself,” meaning 

thy outward shape, body, face, limbs, and so 

forth, such knowledge can never be a key to the 

knowledge of God. Nor, if thy knowledge as 

to that which is within only extends so far, 

that when thou art hungry thou eatest, and 

when thou art angry thou attachest some one, 

wilt thou progress any further in this path, 

for the beasts are thy partners in this. But 

real self-knowledge consists in knowing the 

following things : What art thou in thyself, 

and from whence hast thou come ? Whither 

1 Traditional saying of Muhammad. 

19 

20 THE KNOWLEDGE OF SELF 

art thou going, and for what purpose hast thou 

come to tarry here awhile, and in what does 

thy real happiness and misery consist ? Some 

of thy attributes are those of animals, some 

of devils, and some of angels, and thou hast to 

find out which of these attributes are accidental 

and which essential. Till thou knowest this, 

thou canst not find out where thy real happiness 

lies. The occupation of animals is eating, sleeping, 

and fighting ; therefore, if thou art an animal, 

busy thyself in these things. Devils are busy 

in stirring up mischief, and in guile and deceit ; 

if thou belongest to them, do their work. Angels 

contemplate the beauty of God, and are entirely 

free from animal qualities ; if thou art of angelic 

nature, then strive towards thine origin, that 

thou mayest know and contemplate the Most 

High, and be delivered from the thraldom of 

lust and anger. Thou shouldest also discover 

whv thou hast been created with these two 

«/ 

animal instincts : whether that they should subdue 

and lead thee captive, or whether that thou 

shouldest subdue them, and, in thy upward 

progress, make of one thy steed and of the other 

thy weapon. 

The first step to self-knowledge is to know 

that thou art composed of an outward shape, 

called the body, and an inward entity called the 

heart, or soul. By “ heart,” I do not mean the 

piece of flesh situated in the left of our bodies, 

THE REALITY OF THE HEART 21 

but that which uses all the other faculties as its 

instruments and servants. In truth it does not 

belong to the visible world, b ut to the invisible, 

and has come into this world as a traveller visits * 

a foreign country for the sake of merchandise, 

and will presently return to its native land. It 

is the knowledge of this entity and its attributes 

which is the key to the knowledge of God. 

Some idea of the reality of the heart, or spirit, 

may be obtained by a man closing his eyes and 

forgetting everything around except his indi¬ 

viduality. He will thus also obtain a glimpse of 

the unending nature of that individuality. Too 

* close inquiry, however, into the essence of spirit 

is forbidden by the Law. In the Koran it is 

written : “ They will question thee concerning 

the spirit. Say : 4 The Spirit comes by the 

command of my Lord.’ ” Thus much is known 

of it that it is an indivisible essence belonging to 

the world of decrees, and that it is not from 

everlasting, but created. An exact philosophical 

knowledge of the spirit is not a necessary pre¬ 

liminary to walking in the path of religion, but 

comes rather as the result of self-discipline and 

perseverance in that path, as it is said in the 

Koran : “ Those who strive in our way, verily 

we will guide them to the right paths.” 

For the carrying on of this spiritual warfare 

by which the knowledge of oneself and of God 

is to be obtained, the body may be figured as a 

22 THE KNOWLEDGE OF SELF 

kingdom, the soul as its king, and the different 

senses and faculties as constituting an army. 

Reason may be called the vizier, or prime minister, 

passion the revenue-collector, and anger the 

police-officer. Under the guise of collecting 

revenue, passion is continually prone to plunder 

on its own account, while resentment is always 

inclined to harshness and extreme severity. 

Both of these, the revenue-collector and the 

police-officer, have to be kept in due subordination 

to the king, but not killed or expelled, as they 

have their own proper functions to fulfil. But 

if passion and resentment master reason, the 

ruin of the soul infallibly ensues. A soul which 

allows its lower faculties to dominate the higher 

is as one who should hand over an angel to the 

power of a dog or a Mussalman to the tyranny 

of an unbeliever. The cultivation of demonic, 

animal, or angelic qualities results in the pro¬ 

duction of corresponding characters, which in 

the Day of Judgment will be manifested in visible 

shapes, the sensual appearing as swine, the 

ferocious as dogs and wolves, and the pure as 

^angels. The aim of moral discipline is to purify * 

the heart from the rust of passion and resentment, 

till, like a clear mirror, it reflects the light of God. 

- Some one may here object, “ But if man has 

been created with animal and demonic qualities 

as well as angelic, how are we to know that the 

latter constitute his real essence, while the former 

MAN’S HIGHEST FACULTY 

23 

are merely accidental and transitory ? ” To this 

I answer that the essence of each creature is to 

be sought in that which is highest in it and 

peculiar to it. Thus the horse and the ass are 

both burden-bearing animals, but the superiority 

of the horse to the ass consists in its being adapted 

for use in battle. If it fails in this, it becomes 

degraded to the rank of burden-bearing animals. 

Similarly with man : the highest faculty in him 

is reason, which fits him for the contemplation of 

God. If this predominates in him, when he dies, 

he leaves behind him all tendencies to passion 

and resentment, and becomes capable of associ¬ 

ation with angels. As regards his mere animal 

' qualities, man is inferior to many animals, but 

reason makes him superior to them, as it is 

written in the Koran : “ To man we have subjected 

all things in the earth.” But if his lower ten¬ 

dencies have triumphed, after death he will ever 

be looking towards the earth and longing for 

earthly delights. 

Now the rational soul in man abounds in 

marvels, both of knowledge and power. By 

means of it he masters arts and sciences, can pass 

in a flash from earth to heaven and back again, 

can map out the skies and measure the distances 

between the stars. By it also he can draw the 

fish from the sea and the birds from the air, and 

can subdue to his service animals like the elephant, 

the camel, and the horse. His five senses are 

24 

THE KNOWLEDGE OF SELF 

like five doors opening on the external world; 

but, more wonderful than this, his heart has a 

window which opens on the unseen world of 

spirits. In the state of sleep, when the avenues 

of the senses are closed, this window is opened 

and man receives impressions from the unseen 

world and sometimes foreshadowings of the 

future. His heart is then like a mirror which 

reflects what is pictured in the Tablet of Fate. 

But, even in sleep, thoughts of worldly things 

dull this mirror, so that the impressions it receives 

are not clear. After death, however, such 

thoughts vanish and things are seen in their naked 

reality, and the saying in the Koran is fulfilled : 

“ We have stripped the veil from off thee and 

thy sight to-day is keen.” 

This opening of a window in the heart towards 

the unseen also takes place in conditions ap¬ 

proaching those of prophetic inspiration, when 

intuitions spring up in the mind unconveyed 

through any sense-channel. The more a man 

purifies himself from fleshly lusts and concen¬ 

trates his mind on God, the more conscious will 

he be of such intuitions. Those who are not 

conscious of them have no right to deny their 

i reality. 

Nor are such intuitions confined only to those 

of prophetic rank. Just as iron, by sufficient 

polishing, can be made into a mirror, so any mind 

by due discipline can be rendered receptive of 

THE POWER OE THE SOUL 

25 

such impressions. It was at this truth the 

Prophet hinted when he said, “ Every child is 

born with a predisposition towards Islam ; then 

his parents make a Jew, or a Christian, or a star- 

worshipper of him.” Every human being has in 

the depths of his consciousness heard the question 

“ Am I not your Lord ? ” and answered 44 Yes ” 

to it. But some hearts are like mirrors so befouled 

with rust and dirt that they give no clear reflec¬ 

tions, while those of the prophets and saints, 

though they are men 44 of like passions with us,” 

are extremely sensitive to all divine impressions. 

Nor is it only by reason of knowledge acquired 

and intuitive that the soul of man holds the 

first rank among created things, but also by 

reason of power. Just as angels preside over 

the elements, so does the soul rule the members 

of the body. Those souls which attain a special 

degree of power not only rule their own body 

but those of others also. If they wish a sick man 

to recover he recovers, or a person in health to 

fall ill he becomes ill, or if they will the presence 

of a person he comes to them. According as 

the effects produced by these powerful souls are 

.-good or bad they are termed miracles or sorceries, 

^ddiese souls differ from common folk in three 

ways : (1) What others only see in dreams they 

see in their waking moments. (2)~WhIIe others’ 

wills only affecUThelr^own bodies, these, by will- 

j power, can move bodies extraneous to themselves. 

26 

THE KNOWLEDGE OF SELF 

(3) The knowledge which others acquire by 

laborious learning comes to them by intuition. 

These three, of course, are not the only marks 

which differentiate them from common people, 

but the only ones that come within our cognis¬ 

ance. Just as no one knows the real nature of 

God but God Himself, so no one knows the real 

nature of a prophet but a prophet. Nor is this 

to be w r ondered at, as in every-day matters we 

see that it is impossible to explain the charm of 

poetry to one whose ear is insusceptible of cadence 

and rhythm, or the glories of colour to one who 

is stone-blind. Besides mere incapacity, there 

are other hindrances to the attainment of spiritual 

truth. One of these is externally acquired know¬ 

ledge. To use a figure, the heart may be repre¬ 

sented as a well, and the five senses as five streams 

which are continually conveying water to it. In 

order to find out the real contents of the heart 

these streams must be stopped for a time, at any 

rate, and the refuse they have brought with them 

must be cleared out of the well. In other words, 

if we are to arrive at pure spiritual truth, we 

must put away, for the time, knowledge which 

has been acquired by external processes and 

which too often hardens into dogmatic prejudice. 

A mistake of an opposite kind is made by 

shallow people who, echoing some phrases which 

they have caught from Sufi teachers, go about 

decrying all knowledge. This is as if a person 

THE PERCEPTION OF TRUTH 27 

who was not an adept in alchemy were to go 

about saying, “ Alchemy is better than gold,” 

and were to refuse gold when it was offered to 

him. Alchemy is better than gold, but real 

alchemists are very rare, and so are real Sufis. 

He who has a mere smattering of Sufism is not 

superior to a learned man, any more than he who 

has tried a few experiments in alchemy has 

ground for despising a rich man. 

Any one who will look into the matter will see 

that happiness is necessarily linked with the 

knowledge of God. Each faculty of ours delights 

in that for which it was created : lust delights in 

accomplishing desire, anger in taking vengeance, 

the eye in seeing beautiful objects, and the ear 

in hearing harmonious sounds. The highest 

function of the soul of man is the perception of * 

truth ; in this accordingly it finds its special 

delight. Even in trifling matters, such as learning 

chess, this holds good, and the higher the subject- 

matter of the knowledge obtained the greater the 

delight. A man would be pleased at being ad¬ 

mitted into the confidence of a prime minister, 

but how much more if the king makes an intimate 

of him and discloses state secrets to him ! 

An astronomer who, by his knowledge, can map 

the stars and describe their courses, derives more 

pleasure from his knowledge than the chess¬ 

player from his. Seeing, then, that nothing is 

higher than God, how great must be the delight 

28 

THE KNOWLEDGE OF SELF 

which springs from the true knowledge of 

Him ! 

A person in whom the desire for this know¬ 

ledge has disappeared is like one who has lost his 

appetite for healthy food, or who prefers feeding 

on clay to eating bread. All bodily appetites 

perish at death with the organs they use, but the 

soul dies not, and retains whatever knowledge of 

God it possesses; nay, increases it. 

An important part of our knowledge of God 

arises from the study and contemplation of our 

own bodies, which reveal to us the power, wisdom, 

and love of the Creator. His power, in that from 

a mere drop He has built up the wonderful frame 

of man ; His wisdom is revealed in its intricacies 

and the mutual adaptibility of its parts; and His 

love is shown by His not only supplying such 

organs as are absolutely necessary for existence, 

as the liver, the heart, and the brain, but those 

which are not absolutely necessary, as the hand, 

the foot, the tongue, and the eye. To these He 

has added, as ornaments, the blackness of the 

hair, the redness of lips, and the curve of the 

eyebrows. 

Man has been trulv termed a “ microcosm,” or 

little world in himself, and the structure of his 

body should be studied not only by those who 

wish to become doctors, but by those who wish 

to attain to a more intimate knowledge of God, 

just as close study of the niceties and shades of 

THE STEED AND ITS RIDER 29 

language in a great poem reveals to us more and 

more of the genius of its author. 

But, when all is said, the knowledge of the soul 

plays a more important part in leading to the 

knowledge of God than the knowledge of our 

body and its functions. The body may be 

compared to a steed and the soul to its rider ; 

the body was created for the soul, the soul for the 

body. If a man knows not his own soul, which 

is the nearest thing to him, what is the use of his 

claiming to know others ? It is as if a beggar 

who has not the wherewithal for a meal should 

claim to be able to feed a town. 

In this chapter we have attempted, in some 

degree, to expound the greatness of man’s soul. 

He who neglects it and suffers its capacities to 

rust or to degenerate must necessarily be the 

loser in this world and the next. The true 

greatness of man lies in his capacity for eternal 

progress, otherwise in this temporal sphere he is 

the weakest of all things, being subject to hunger, 

thirst, heat, cold, and sorrow. Those things he 

takes most delight in are often the most injurious 

to him, and those things which benefit him are 

not to be obtained without toil and trouble. As 

to his intellect, a slight disarrangement of matter 

in his brain is sufficient to destroy or madden 

him ; as to his power, the sting of a wasp is suffi¬ 

cient to rob him of ease and sleep ; as to his 

temper, he is upset by the loss of a sixpence; as 

30 

THE KNOWLEDGE OF SELF 

to his beauty, he is little more than nauseous 

matter covered with a fair skin. Without fre¬ 

quent washing he becomes utterly repulsive and 

disgraceful. 

In truth, man in this world is extremely weak 

and contemptible ; it is only in the next that he 

will be of value, if by means of the 44 alchemy of 

happiness 55 he rises from the rank of beasts to 

that of angels. Otherwise his condition will be 

worse than the brutes, which perish and turn to 

dust. It is necessary for him, at the same time 

that he is conscious of his superiority as the 

climax of created things, to learn to know also 

his helplessness, as that too is one of the keys to 

the knowledge of God. 

CHAPTER II 

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD 

It is a well-known saying of the Prophet that 

“ He who knows himself, knows God ” ; that is, 

by contemplation of his own being and attributes 

man arrives at some knowledge of God. But 

since many who contemplate themselves do not 

find God, it follows that there must be some 

special way of doing so. As a matter of fact, 

there are two methods of arriving at this know¬ 

ledge, but one is so abstruse that it is not adapted 

to ordinary intelligences, and therefore is better 

left unexplained. The other method is as follows : 

When a man considers himself he knows that 

there was a time when he was non-existent, as 

it is written in the Koran : “ Does it not occur to 

man that there was a time when he was nothing ? ” 

Further, he knows that he was made out of a drop 

of water in which there was neither intellect, 

nor hearing, sight, head, hands, feet, etc. From 

this it is obvious that, whatever degree of per¬ 

fection he may have arrived at, he did not make 

himself, nor can he now make a single hair. 

31 

32 

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD 

How much more helpless, then, was his condition 

when he was a mere drop of water! Thus, as we 

have seen in the first chapter, he finds in his own 

being reflected in miniature, so to speak, the 

power, wisdom, and love of the Creator. If all 

the sages of the v r orld were assembled, and their 

lives prolonged for an indefinite time, they could 

not effect any improvement in the construction 

of a single part of the body. 

For instance, in the adaptation of the front 

and side-teeth to the mastication of food, and 

in the construction of the tongue, salivating 

glands, and throat for its deglutition, we find a 

contrivance which cannot be improved upon. 

Similarly, whoever considers his hand, with its 

five fingers of unequal lengths, four of them with 

three joints and the thumb with only two, and 

the way in wdiich it can be used for grasping, or 

for carrying, or for smiting, will frankly acknow¬ 

ledge that no amount of human wdsdom could 

better it by altering the number and arrangement 

of the fingers, or in any other way. 

When a man further considers how his various 

* wants of food, lodging, etc., are amply supplied 

from the storehouse of creation, he becomes aware 

that God’s mercy is as great as His power and 

wisdom, as He has Himself said, “ My mercy is 

greater than My wrath,” and according to the 

Prophet’s saying, “ God is more tender to His 

servants than a mother to her suckling-child.” 

GOD’S ATTRIBUTES REFLECTED 33 

Thus from his own creation man comes to know 

God’s existence, from the wonders of his bodily 

frame God’s power and wisdom, and from the 

ample provision made for his various needs 

God’s love. In this way the knowledge of oneself 

becomes a key to the knowledge of God. 

Not only are man’s attributes a reflection of 

God’s attributes, but the mode of existence of 

man’s soul affords some insight into God’s mode 

of existence. That is to say, both God and the 

soul are invisible, indivisible, unconfined by 

space and time, and outside the categories of 

quantity and quality ; nor can the ideas of shape, 

colour, or size attach to them. People find it 

hard to form a conception of such realities as are 

devoid of quality and quantity, etc., but a similar 

difficulty attaches to the conception of our every¬ 

day feelings, such as anger, pain, pleasure, or love. 

They are thought-concepts,and cannot be cognised 

by the senses ; whereas quality, quantity, etc., are 

sense-concepts. Just as the ear cannot take 

cognisance of colour, nor the eye of sound, so, in 

conceiving of the ultimate realities, God and the 

soul, we find ourselves in a region in which sense- 

concepts can bear no part. So much, however, 

we can see, that, as God is Ruler of the universe, 

and, being Himself beyond space and time, 

quantity and quality, governs things that are so 

conditioned, so the soul rules the body and its 

members, being itself invisible, indivisible, and 

3 

34 

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD 

unlocated in any special part. For how can the 

indivisible be located in that which is divisible ? 

From all this we see how true is the saying of the 

Prophet, “ God created man in His own likeness.” 

r And, as we arrive at some knowledge of God’s 

essence and attributes from the contemplation of 

the soul’s essence and attributes, so we come to 

understand God’s method of working and govern¬ 

ment and delegation of power to angelic forces, 

etc., by observing how each of us governs his 

own little kingdom. To take a simple instance : 

suppose a man wishes to write the name of God. 

First of all the wish is conceived in his heart, it 

is then conveyed to the brain by the vital spirits, 

>.the form of the word “ God ” takes shape in the 

thought-chambers of the brain, thence it travels 

by the nerve-channels, and sets in motion the 

fingers, which in their turn set in motion the pen, 

and thus the name “ God ” is traced on paper 

exactly as it had been conceived in the writer’s 

brain. Similarly, when God wills a thing it 

appears in the spiritual plane, which in the Koran 

is called “ The Throne ” 1 ; from the throne it 

passes, by a spiritual current, to a lower plane 

called “ The Chair” 2 ; then the shape of it appears 

on the “ Tablet of Destiny ” 3 ; whence, by the 

mediation of the forces called “ angels,” it 

assumes actuality, and appears on the earth in 

the form of plants, trees, and animals, repre- 

1 A1 Arsh. 2 A1 Kursi. 3 A1 Lauh A1 Mahfuz. 

A KING IN MINIATURE 

35 

senting the will and thought of God, as the 

written letters represent the wish conceived in 

the heart and the shape present in the brain of 

the writer. 

No one can understand a king but a king ; 

therefore God has made each of us a king in 

miniature, so to speak, over a kingdom which is 

an infinitely reduced copy of His own. In the 

kingdom of man God’s “ throne ” is represented 

by the soul, the Archangel by the heart, “ the 

chair ” by the brain, “ the tablet ” by the 

treasure-chamber of thought. The soul, itself 

unlocated and indivisible, governs the body as 

God governs the universe. In short, each of us 

is entrusted with a little kingdom, and charged 

not to be careless in the administration of it. 

As regards the recognition of God’s providence, 

there are many degrees of knowledge. The mere 

physicist is like an ant who, crawling on a sheet 

of paper and observing black letters spreading 

over it, should refer the cause to the pen alone. 

The astronomer is like an ant of somewhat wider 

vision who should catch sight of the fingers moving 

the pen, i.e. he knows that the elements are under 

the power of the stars, but he does not know that 

the stars are under the power of the angels. 

Thus, owing to the different degrees of perception 

in people, disputes must arise in tracing effects to 

causes. Those whose eyes never see beyond the 

world of phenomena are like those who mistake 

36 

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD 

servants of the lowest rank for the king. The 

laws of phenomena must be constant, or there 

could be no such thing as science; but it is a 

great error to mistake the slaves for the master. 

As long as this difference in the perceptive 

faculty of observers exists, disputes must neces¬ 

sarily go on. It is as if some blind men, hearing 

that an elephant had come to their town, should 

go and examine it. The only knowledge of it 

which they can obtain comes through the sense 

of touch : so one handles the animal’s leg, 

another his tusk, another his ear, and, according 

to their several perceptions, pronounce it to be 

a column, a thick pole, or a quilt, each taking 

a part for the whole. So the physicist and 

astronomer confound the laws they perceive with 

the Lawgiver. A similar mistake is attributed 

to Abraham in the Koran, where it is related that 

he turned successively to stars, moon, and sun 

as the objects of his worship, till, grown aware of 

Him who made all these, he exclaimed, “ I love 

not them that set.” 

We have a common instance of this referring 

to second causes what ought to be referred to the 

First Cause in the case of so-called illness. For 

instance, if a man ceases to take any interest in 

worldly matters, conceives a distaste for common 

pleasures, and appears sunk in depression, the 

doctor will say, “ This is a case of melancholy, 

1 Koran, chap. vi. 

FROM THE WORLD TO THE CREATOR 37 

and requires such and such a prescription.” 

The physicist will say, “ This is a dryness of the 

brain caused by hot weather and cannot be re¬ 

lieved till the air becomes moist.” The astrologer 

will attribute it to some particular conjunction 

or opposition of planets. “ Thus far their 

wisdom reaches,” says the Koran. It does not 

occur to them that what has really happened is 

this : that the Almighty has a concern for the 

welfare of that man, and has therefore com¬ 

manded his servants, the planets or the elements, 

to produce such a condition in him that he may 

turn away from the world to his Maker. The 

knowledge of this fact is a lustrous pearl from 

the ocean of inspirational knowledge, to which 

all other forms of knowledge are as islands in 

the sea. 

The doctor, physicist, and astrologer are 

doubtless right each in his particular branch of 

knowledge, but they do not see that illness is, 

so to speak, a cord of love by which God draws 

to Himself the saints concerning whom He has 

said, “ I was sick and ye visited Me not.” Illness 

itself is one of those forms of experience by which 

man arrives at the knowledge of God, as He says 

by the mouth of His Prophet, ct Sicknesses them¬ 

selves are My servants, and are attached to My 

chosen.” 

The foregoing remarks may enable us to enter 

a little more fully into the meaning of those 

38 

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD 

exclamations so often on the lips of the Faithful : 

“ God is holy,” “ Praise be to God,” “ There is 

no God but God,” “ God is great.” Concerning 

the last we may say that it does not mean that 

God is greater than creation, for creation is His 

manifestation as light manifests the sun, and it 

would not be correct to say that the sun is 

greater than its own light. It rather means that 

God’s greatness immeasurably transcends our 

cognitive faculties, and that we can only form 

a very dim and imperfect idea of it. If a child 

asks us to explain to him the pleasure which 

exists in wielding sovereignty, we may say it is 

like the pleasure he feels in playing bat and ball, 

though in reality the two have nothing in common 

except that they both come under the category of 

pleasure. Thus, the exclamation “ God is great ” 

means that His greatness far exceeds all our 

powers of comprehension. Moreover, such im¬ 

perfect knowledge of God as we can attain to 

is not a mere speculative knowledge, but must 

be accompanied by devotion and worship. When 

a man dies he has to do with God alone, and if 

we have to live with a person, our happiness 

entirely depends on the degree of affection we 

feel towards him. Love is the seed of happiness, 

and love to God is fostered and developed by 

worship. Such worship and constant remem¬ 

brance of God implies a certain degree of austerity 

and curbing of bodily appetites. Not that a 

SPIRITUAL GUIDES 

39 

man is intended altogether to abolish these, for 

then the human race would perish. But strict 

limits must be set to their indulgence, and as 

a man is not the best judge in his own case as to 

what these limits should be, he had better con¬ 

sult some spiritual guide on the subject. Such 

spiritual guides are the prophets, and the laws 

which they have laid down under divine inspira¬ 

tion prescribe the limits which must be observed 

in these matters. He who transgresses these 

limits “ wrongs his own soul,” as it is written in 

the Koran. 

Notwithstanding this clear pronouncement of 

the Koran there are those who, through their 

ignorance of God, do transgress these limits, and 

this ignorance may be due to several different 

causes : Firstly, there are some who, failing to 

find God by observation, conclude that there is 

no God and that this world of wonders made 

itself, or existed from everlasting. They are 

like a man who, seeing a beautifully-written 

letter, should suppose that it had written itself 

without a writer, or had always existed. People 

in this state of mind are so far gone in error that 

it is of little use to argue with them. Such are 

some of the physicists and astronomers to whom 

we referred above. 

Some, through ignorance of the real nature of 

the soul, repudiate the doctrine of a future life, 

in which man will be called to account and be 

40 

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD 

rewarded or punished. They regard themselves 

as no better than animals or vegetables, and 

equally perishable. Some, on the other hand, 

believe in God and a future life, but with a weak 

belief. They say to themselves, “ God is great 

and independent of us ; our worship or abstin¬ 

ence from worship is a matter of entire indiffer¬ 

ence to Him.” Their state of mind is like that 

of a sick man who, when prescribed a certain 

regime by his doctor, should say, “ Well, if I 

follow it or don’t follow it, what does it matter 

to the doctor ? ” It certainly does not matter to 

the doctor, but the patient may destroy himself 

by his disobedience. Just as surely as unchecked 

sickness of body ends in bodily death, so does 

uncured disease of the soul end in future misery, 

according to the saying of the Koran, “ Only 

those shall be saved who come to God with a 

sound heart.” 

A fourth kind of unbelievers are those who 

say, “ The Law tells us to abstain from anger, 

lust, and hypocrisy. This is plainly impossible, 

for man is created with these qualities inherent 

in him. You might as well tell us to make black 

white.” These foolish people ignore the fact 

that the law does not tell us to uproot these 

passions, but to restrain them within due limits, 

so that, by avoiding the greater sins, we may 

obtain forgiveness of the smaller ones. Even 

the Prophet of God said, “ I am a man like you, 

EXCEPT YE STRIVE 

41 

and get angry like others ” ; and in the Koran it 

is written, “ God loves those who swallow down 

their anger,” not those who have no anger at all. 

A fifth class lay stress on the beneficence of 

God, and ignore His justice, saying to themselves, 

“ Well, whatever we do, God is merciful.” They 

do not consider that, though God is merciful, 

thousands of human beings perish miserably in 

hunger and disease. They know that whosoever 

wishes for a livelihood, or for wealth, or learning, 

must not merely say, “ God is merciful,” but 

must exert himself. Although the Koran says, 

“ Every living creature’s support comes from 

God,” it is also written, “ Man obtains nothing 

except by striving.” The fact is, such teaching 

is really from the devil, and such people only 

speak with their lips and not with their heart. 

A sixth class claim to have reached such a 

degree of sanctity that sin cannot affect them. 

Yet, if you treat one of them with disrespect, he 

will bear a grudge against you for years, and if 

one of them be deprived of a morsel of food 

which he thinks his due, the whole world will 

appear dark and narrow to him. Even if any of 

them do really conquer their passions, they have 

no right to make such a claim, for the prophets, 

the highest of human kind, constantly confessed 

and bewailed their sins. Some of them had 

such a dread of sin that they even abstained from 

lawful things ; thus, it is related of the Prophet 

42 

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD 

that, one day, when a date had been brought to 

him he would not eat it, as he was not sure that 

it had been lawfully obtained. Whereas these 

free-livers will swallow gallons of wine and claim 

(I shudder as I write) to be superior to the Prophet 

whose sanctity was endangered by a date, while 

theirs is unaffected by all that wine ! Surely 

they deserve that the devil should drag them 

down to perdition. Real saints know that he 

who does not master his appetites does not de¬ 

serve the name of a man, and that the true 

Moslem is one who will cheerfully acknowledge 

the limits imposed by the Law. He who endeav¬ 

ours, on whatever pretext, to ignore its obliga¬ 

tions is certainly under Satanic influence, and 

should be talked to, not with a pen, but with a 

sword. These pseudo-mystics sometimes pretend 

to be drowned in a sea of wonder, but if you ask 

them what they are wondering at they do not 

know. They should be told to wonder as much 

as they please, but at the same time to remember 

that the Almighty is their Creator and that they 

are His servants. 

CHAPTER III 

THE KNOWLEDGE OF THIS WORLD 

This world is a stage or market-place passed by 

pilgrims on their way to the next. It is here 

that they are to provide themselves with pro¬ 

visions for the way; or, to put it plainly, man 

acquires here, by the use of his bodily senses, 

some knowledge of the works of God, and, through 

them, of God Himself, the sight of whom will 

constitute his future beatitude. It is for the 

acquirement of this knowledge that the spirit of 

man has descended into this world of water and 

clay. As long as his senses remain with him he 

is said to be “in this world ” ; when they depart, 

and only his essential attributes remain, he is 

said to have gone to “ the next world.” 

While man is in this world, two things are 

necessary for him: first, the protection and nurture 

of his soul ; secondly, the care and nurture of his 

body. The proper nourishment of the soul, as 

above shown, is the knowledge and love of God, 

and to be absorbed in the love of anything but 

43 

44 THE KNOWLEDGE OF THIS WORLD 

God is the ruin of the soul. The body, so to 

speak, is simply the riding-animal of the soul, and 

perishes while the soul endures. The soul should 

take care of the body, just as a pilgrim on his 

way to Mecca takes care of his camel; but if 

the pilgrim spends his whole time in feeding and 

adorning his camel, the caravan will leave him 

behind, and he will perish in the desert. 

Man’s bodily needs are simple, being comprised 

under three heads : food, clothing, and a dwelling- 

place ; but the bodily desires which were im¬ 

planted in him with a view to procuring these 

are apt to rebel against reason, which is of 

later growth than they. Accordingly, as we 

saw above, they require to be curbed and re¬ 

strained by the divine laws promulgated by the 

prophets. 

Considering the world with which we have for 

a time to do, we find it divided into three depart¬ 

ments—animal, vegetable, and mineral. The 

products of all three are continually needed by 

man and have given rise to three principal 

occupations—those of the weaver, the builder, 

and the worker in metal. These, again, have 

many subordinate branches, such as tailors, 

masons, smiths, etc. None can be quite inde¬ 

pendent of others ; this gives rise to various 

business-connections and relations, and these too 

frequently afford occasions for hatred, envy, 

jealousy, and other maladies of the soul. Hence 

THE THREE NECESSITIES 

15 

come quarrels and strife, and the need of political 

and civil government and knowledge of law. 

Thus the occupations and businesses of the 

world have become more and more complicated 

and troublesome, chiefly owing to the fact that 

men have forgotten that their real necessities are 

only three—clothing, food, and shelter, and that 

these exist only with the object of making the 

body a fit vehicle for the soul in its journey to¬ 

wards the next world. They have fallen into 

the same mistake as the pilgrim to Mecca, men¬ 

tioned above, who, forgetting the object of his 

pilgrimage and himself, should spend his whole 

time in feeding and adorning his camel. Unless 

a man maintains the strictest watch he is certain 

to be fascinated and entangled by the world, 

which, as the Prophet said, is “ a more potent 

sorcerer than Harut and Marut.” 1 

The deceitful character of the world comes out 

in the following ways. In the first place, it 

pretends that it will always remain with you, 

while, as a matter of fact, it is slipping away from 

you, moment by moment, and bidding you fare¬ 

well, like a shadow which seems stationary, but 

is actually always moving. Again, the world 

presents itself under the guise of a radiant but 

immoral sorceress, pretends to be in love with 

you, fondles you, and then goes off to your 

enemies, leaving you to die of chagrin and despair. 

1 Two fallen angels. 

46 THE KNOWLEDGE OF THIS WORLD 

Jesus (upon whom be peace !) saw the world 

revealed in the form of an ugly old hag. He 

asked her how many husbands she had possessed ; 

she replied that they were countless. He asked 

whether they had died or been divorced ; she 

said that she had slain them all. “I marvel,” 

he said, “ at the fools who see what you have 

done to others, and still desire you.” 

This sorceress decks herself out in gorgeous 

and jewelled apparel and veils her face. Then 

she goes forth to seduce men, too many of whom 

follow her to their own destruction. The Prophet 

has said that in the Judgment Day the world will 

appear in the form of a hideous witch with green 

eyes and projecting teeth. Men, beholding her, 

will say, “ Mercy on us ! who is this ? ” The 

angels will answer, “ This is the world for whose 

sake you quarrelled and fought and embittered one 

another’s lives.” Then she will be cast into hell, 

whence she will cry out, “ 0 Lord ! where are 

those, my former lovers ? ” God will then com¬ 

mand that they be cast after her. 

Whoever will seriously contemplate the past 

eternity during which the world was not in 

existence, and the future eternity during which 

it will not be in existence, will see that it is 

essentially like a journey, in which the stages 

are represented by years, the leagues by months, 

the miles by days, and the steps by moments. 

What words, then, can picture the folly of the 

INDULGENCE AND RETRIBUTION 47 

man who endeavours to make it liis permanent 

abode, and forms plans ten years ahead regarding 

things he may never need, seeing that very 

possibly he may be under the ground in ten days ! 

Those who have indulged without limit in the 

pleasures of the world, at the time of death will 

be like a man who has gorged himself to repletion 

on delicious viands and then vomits them up. 

The deliciousness has gone, but the disgrace 

remains. The greater the abundance of the 

possessions which they have enjoyed in the shape 

of gardens, male and female slaves, gold, silver, 

etc., the more keenly they will feel the bitterness 

of parting from them. This is a bitterness which 

will outlast death, for the soul which has con¬ 

tracted covetousness as a fixed habit will neces¬ 

sarily in the next world suffer from the pangs of 

unsatisfied desire. 

Another dangerous property of worldly things 

is that they at first appear as mere trifles, but 

each of these so-called “ trifles ” branches out 

into countless ramifications until they swallow up 

the whole of a man’s time and energy. Jesus 

(on whom be peace !) said, “ The lover of the 

world is like a man drinking sea-water ; the more 

he drinks, the more thirsty he gets, till at last 

he perishes with thirst unquenched.” The Pro¬ 

phet said, “You can no more mix with the 

world without being contaminated by it than 

you can go into water without getting wet.” 

48 THE KNOWLEDGE OF THIS WORLD 

The world is like a table spread for successive 

relays of guests who come and go. There are 

gold and silver dishes, abundance of food and 

perfumes. The wise guest eats as much as is 

sufficient for him, smells the perfumes, thanks 

his host, and departs. The foolish guest, on the 

other hand, tries to carry off some of the gold 

and silver dishes, only to find them wrenched out 

of his hands and himself thrust forth, disappointed 

and disgraced. 

We may close these illustrations of the deceit¬ 

fulness of the world with the following short 

parable. Suppose a ship to arrive at a certain 

well-wooded island. The captain of the ship 

tells the passengers he will stop a few hours 

there, and that they can go on shore for a short 

time, but warns them not to delay too long. 

Accordingly the passengers disembark and stroll 

in different directions. The wisest, however, 

return after a short time, and, finding the ship 

empty, choose the most comfortable places in it. 

A second band of the passengers spend a some¬ 

what longer time on the island, admiring the 

foliage of the trees and listening to the song of 

the birds. Coming on board, they find the best 

places in the ship already occupied, and have to 

content themselves with the less comfortable 

ones. A third party wander still farther, and, 

finding some brilliantly coloured stones, carry 

them back to the ship. Their lateness in coming 

KNOWLEDGE AND GOOD DEEDS 49 

on board compels them to stow themselves away 

in the lower parts of the ship, where they find 

their loads of stones, which by this time have 

lost all their brilliancy, very much in their way. 

The last group go so far in their wanderings that 

they get quite out of reach of the captain’s voice 

calling them to come on board, and at last he has 

to sail away without them. They wander about 

in a hopeless condition and finally either perish 

of hunger or fall a prey to wild beasts. 

The first group represents the faithful who 

keep aloof from the world altogether, and the 

last group the infidels who care only for this 

world and nothing for the next. The two inter¬ 

mediate classes are those who preserve their 

faith, but entangle themselves more or less with 

the vanities of things present. 

Although we have said so much against the 

W'orld, it must be remembered that there are 

some things in the world which are not oj it, 

such as knowledge and good deeds. A man 

carries what knowledge he possesses with him 

into the next world, and, though his good deeds 

have passed, yet the effect of them remains in 

his character. Especially is this the case with 

acts of devotion, which result in the perpetual 

remembrance and love of God. These are among 

“ those good things ” which, as the Koran says, 

“ pass not away.” 

Other good things there are in the world, such 

4 

50 THE KNOWLEDGE OF THIS WOELD 

as marriage, food, clothing, etc., which a wise 

man uses just in proportion as they help him to 

attain to the next world. Other things which 

engross the mind, causing it to cleave to this 

world and to be careless of the next, are purely 

evil and were alluded to by the Prophet when he 

said, “ The world is a curse, and all which is in 

it is a curse, except the remembrance of God, and 

that which aids it.” 

CHAPTER IV 

THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE NEXT WORLD 

As regards the joys of heaven and the pains of 

hell which will follow this life, all believers in the 

Koran and the Traditions are sufficiently informed. 

But it often escapes them that there is also a 

spiritual heaven and hell, concerning the former 

of which God said to His Prophet, “ Eye hath 

not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered 

into the heart of man to conceive the things 

which are prepared for the righteous.” In the 

heart of the enlightened man there is a window 

opening on the realities of the spiritual world, so 

that he knows, not by hearsay or traditional * 

belief, but by actual experience, what produces 

wretchedness or happiness in the soul just as 

clearly and decidedly as the physician knows 

what produces sickness or health in the body. 

He recognises that knowledge of God and worship 

are medicinal, and that ignorance and sin are 

deadly poisons for the soul. Many even so- 

called “ learned ” men, from blindly following 

51 

52 KNOWLEDGE OF THE NEXT WORLD 

others’ opinions, have no real certainty in their 

beliefs regarding the happiness or misery of souls 

in the next world, but he who will attend to the 

matter with a mind unbiassed by prejudice will 

arrive at clear convictions on this matter. 

The effect of death on the composite nature of 

man is as follows : Man has two souls, an animal 

soul and a spiritual soul, which latter is of angelic 

nature. The seat of the animal soul is the 

heart, from which this soul issues like a subtle 

vapour and pervades all the members of the body, 

giving the power of sight to the eye, the power 

of hearing to the ear, and to every member the 

faculty of performing its own appropriate func¬ 

tions. It may be compared to a lamp carried 

about within a cottage, the light of which falls 

upon the walls wherever it goes. The heart is 

the wick of this lamp, and when the supply of oil 

is cut off for any reason, the lamp dies. Such is 

the death of the animal soul. With the spiritual, 

or human soul, the case is different. It is in¬ 

divisible, and by it man knows God. It is, so to 

speak, the rider of the animal soul, and when that 

perishes it still remains, but is like a horseman 

who has been dismounted, or like a hunter who 

has lost his weapons. That steed and those 

weapons were granted the human soul that by 

means of them it might pursue and capture the 

Phoenix of the love and knowledge of God. If it 

has effected that capture, it is not a grief but 

INDIVIDUALITY OF THE SOUL 53 

rather a relief to be able to lay those weapons 

aside, and to dismount from that weary steed. 

Therefore the Prophet said, “ Death is a welcome 

gift of God to the believer.” But alas for that 

soul which loses its steed and hunting-weapons 

before it has captured the prize ! Its misery and 

regret will be indescribable. 

A little further consideration will show how 

| entirely distinct the human soul is from the body 

i'and its members. Limb after limb may be para¬ 

lysed and cease working, but the individuality of 

the soul is unimpaired. Further, the body which 

you have now is no longer the body which you 

had as a child, but entirely different, yet your 

Personality now is identical with your personality 

then. It is therefore easy to conceive of it as 

persisting when the body is done with altogether, 

along with its essential attributes which were 

independent of the body, such as the knowledge 

and love of God. This is the meaning of that 

saying of the Koran, “ The good things abide.” 

But if, instead of carrying away with you know¬ 

ledge, you depart in ignorance of God, this ignor¬ 

ance also is an essential attribute, and will abide as 

darkness of soul and the seed of misery. Therefore 

the Koran says, “He who is blind in this life will be 

blind in the next life, and astray from the path.” 

The reason of the human spirit seeking to return 

to that upper world is that its origin was from 

thence, and that it is of angelic nature. It was 

54 KNOWLEDGE OF THE NEXT WORLD 

sent down into this lower sphere against its will 

to acquire knowledge and experience, as God said 

in the Koran : “Go down from hence, all of you ; 

there will come to you instruction from Me, and 

they who obey the instruction need not fear, 

neither shall they be grieved.” The verse, “ I 

breathed into man of My spirit,” also points to 

the celestial origin of the human soul. Just as 

the health of the animal soul consists in the 

equilibrium of its component parts, and this 

equilibrium is restored, when impaired, by appro¬ 

priate medicine, so the health of the human soul 

consists in a moral equilibrium which is main¬ 

tained and repaired, when needful, by ethical 

instruction and moral precepts. 

As regards its future existence, we have already 

seen that the human soul is essentially inde¬ 

pendent of the body. All objections to its 

existence after death based on the supposed 

necessity of its recovering its former body fall, 

therefore, to the ground. Some theologians have 

supposed that the human soul is annihilated 

after death and then restored, but this is con¬ 

trary both to reason and to the Koran. The 

former shows us that death does not destroy the 

essential individuality of a man, and the Koran 

says, “ Think not that those who are slain in the 

path of God are dead ; nay, they are alive, 

rejoicing in the presence of their Lord, and in 

the grace bestowed on them.” Not a word is 

REVELATIONS OF THE UNSEEN 55 

said in the Law about any of the dead, good or 

bad, being annihilated. Nay, the Prophet is said 

to have questioned the spirits of slain infidels as 

to whether they had found the punishments, 

with which he had threatened them, real or not. 

When his followers asked him what was the good 

of questioning them, he replied, “ They hear my 

words better than you do.” 

Some Sufis have had the unseen world of 

heaven and hell revealed to them when in a state 

of death-like trance. On their recovering con¬ 

sciousness their faces betray the nature of the 

revelations they have had by marks of joy or 

terror. But no visions are necessary to prove 

what will occur to every thinking man, that when 

death has stripped him of his senses and left him 

nothing but his bare personality, if while on earth 

he has too closely attached himself to objects 

perceived by the senses, such as wives, children, 

wealth, lands, slaves, male and female, etc., he 

must necessarily suffer when bereft of those 

objects. Whereas, on the contrary, if he has as 

far as possible turned his back on all earthly 

objects and fixed his supreme affection upon 

God, he will welcome death as a means of escape 

from worldly entanglements, and of union with 

Him whom he loves. In his case the Prophet’s 

sayings will be verified : “ Death is a bridge which 

unites friend to friend,” and “ The world is a 

paradise for infidels, but a prison for the faithful.” 

KNOWLEDGE OF THE NEXT WORLD 

On the other hand, the pains which souls suffer 

after death all have their source in excessive love 

of the w T orld. The Prophet said that every un¬ 

believer, after death, will be tormented by ninety- 

nine snakes, each having nine heads. Some 

simple-minded people have examined the un¬ 

believers’ graves and wondered at failing to see 

these snakes. They do not understand that 

these snakes have their abode within the unbe¬ 

liever’s spirit, and that they existed in him even 

^before he died, for they were his own evil qualities 

Isymbolised, such as jealousy, hatred, hypocrisy, 

pride, deceit, etc., every one of which springs, 

directly or remotely, from love of the world. 

Such is the doom of those who, in the words of 

the Koran, “ set their hearts on this world rather 

than on the next.” If those snakes were merely 

external they might hope to escape their torment, 

if it were but for a moment; but, being their own 

inherent attributes, how can they escape ? 

Take, for instance, the case of a man who has 

sold a slave-girl without knowing how much he 

was attached to her till she is quite out of his 

reach. Then the love of her, hitherto dormant, 

wakes up in him with such intensity as to amount 

to torture, stinging him like a snake, so that he 

would fain cast himself into fire or water to escape 

it. Such is the effect of love of the world, which 

those who have it often suspect not till the world 

is taken from them, and then the torment of vain 

THEIR INSTRUMENTS OF PUNISHMENT 57 

longing is such that they would gladly exchange 

it for any number of mere external snakes and 

scorpions. 

Every sinner thus carries with him into the 

world beyond death the instruments of his own 

punishment ; and the Koran says truly, “ Verily 

you shall see hell ; you shall see it with the 

eye of certainty,” and “ hell surrounds the un¬ 

believers.” It does not say “ will surround 

them,” for it is round them even now. 

Some may object, “ If such is the case, then 

who can escape hell, for who is not more or less 

bound to the world by various ties of affection 

and interest ? ” To this we answer that there are 

some, notably the faqirs, who have entirely dis¬ 

engaged themselves from love of the world. But 

even among those who have worldly possessions 

such as wife, children, houses, etc., there are 

those who, though they have some affection for 

these, love God yet more. Their case is like that 

of a man who, though he may have a dwelling 

which he is fond of in one city, when he is called 

by the king to take up a post of authority in 

another city, does so gladly, as the post of 

authority is dearer to him than his former 

dwelling. Such are many of the prophets and 

saints. 

Others there are, and a great number, who have 

some love to God, but the love of the world so 

preponderates in them that they will have to 

58 KNOWLEDGE OF THE NEXT WORLD 

suffer a good deal of pain after death before they 

are thoroughly weaned from it. Many profess 

to love God, but a man may easily test himself 

by watching which way the balance of his affec¬ 

tion inclines when the commands of God come 

into collision with some of his desires. The 

profession of love to God which is insufficient to 

restrain from disobedience to God is a lie. 

We have seen above that one kind of spiritual 

hell is the forcible separation from worldly things 

to which the heart clave too fondly. Many carry 

about within them the germs of such a hell with¬ 

out being aware of it ; hereafter they will feel 

like some king who, after living in luxury, has 

been dethroned and made a laughing-stock. The 

second kind of spiritual hell is that of shame, 

when a man wakes up to see the nature of the 

actions he committed in their naked reality. 

Thus he who slandered will see himself in the 

guise of a cannibal eating his dead brother’s 

flesh, and he who envied as one who cast stones 

against a wall, which stones, rebounding, put 

out the eyes of his own children. 

This species of hell, i.e. of shame, may be 

symbolised by the following short parable : 

Suppose a certain king has been celebrating his 

son’s marriage. In the evening the young man 

goes off with some companions and presently 

returns to the palace (as he thinks) intoxicated. 

He enters a chamber where a light is burning and 

SOME SPIRITUAL HELLS 

59 

lies down, as he supposes, by his bride. In the 

morning, when soberness returns, he is aghast to 

find himself in a mortuary of the fire-worshippers, 

his couch a bier, and the form which he mistook 

for that of his bride the corpse of an old woman 

beginning to decay. On emerging from the 

mortuary with his garments all soiled, what is 

his shame to see his father, the king, approaching 

with a retinue of soldiers ! Such is a feeble 

picture of the shame those will feel in the next 

world who in this have greedily abandoned them¬ 

selves to what they thought were delights. 

The third spiritual hell is that of disappoint¬ 

ment and failure to reach the real objects of 

existence. Man was intended to mirror forth 

the light of the knowledge of God, but if he arrives * 

in the next world with his soul thickly coated 

with the rust of sensual indulgence he will entirely 

fail of the object for which he was made. His 

disappointment may be figured in the following 

way: Suppose a man is passing with some com¬ 

panions through a dark wood. Here and there, 

glimmering on the ground, lie variously coloured 

stones. His companions collect and carry these 

and advise him to do the same. “For,” say they, 

“ we have heard that these stones will fetch a 

high price in the place whither we are going.” 

He, on the other hand, laughs at them and calls 

them fools for loading themselves in the vain 

hope of gain, while he walks free and unencum- 

60 KNOWLEDGE OF THE NEXT WORLD 

bered. Presently they emerge into the full day¬ 

light and find that these coloured stones are 

rubies, emeralds, and other jewels of priceless 

value. The man’s disappointment and chagrin 

at not having gathered some when so easily 

within his reach may be more easily imagined 

than described. Such will be the remorse of 

those hereafter, who, while passing through this 

world, have been at no pains to acquire the 

jewels of virtue and the treasures of religion. 

This journey of man through the world may be 

divided into four stages—the sensuous, the ex¬ 

perimental, the instinctive, the rational. In the 

first he is like a moth which, though it has sight, 

has no memory, and will singe itself again and 

again at the same candle. In the second stage 

he is like a dog which, having once been beaten, 

will run away at the sight of a stick. In the 

third he is like a horse or a sheep, both of which 

instinctively fly at the sight of a lion or a wolf, 

their natural enemies, while they will not fly 

from a camel or a buffalo, though these last are 

much greater in size. In the fourth stage man 

altogether transcends the limits of the animals 

and becomes capable, to some extent, of fore¬ 

seeing and providing for the future. His move¬ 

ments at first may be compared to ordinary 

walking on land, then to traversing the sea in a 

ship, then, on the fourth plane, where he is 

conversant with realities, to walking on the sea, 

FROM ANIMAL TO ANGEL 

61 

while beyond this plane there is a fifth, known to 

the prophets and saints, whose progress may be 

compared to flying through the air. 

Thus man is capable of existing on several 

different planes, from the animal to the angelic, 

and precisely in this lies his danger, i.e. of falling 

to the very lowest. In the Koran it is written, 

“We proposed the burden (i.e. responsibility or 

free-will) to the heavens and the earth and the 

mountains, and they refused to undertake it. 

But man took it upon himself : Verily he is 

ignorant.” Neither animals nor angels can 

change their appointed rank and place. But 

man may sink to the animal or soar to the angel, 

and this is the meaning of his undertaking that 

“ burden ” of which the Koran speaks. The 

majority of men choose to remain in the two 

lower stages mentioned above, and the stationary 

are always hostile to the travellers or pilgrims, 

whom they far outnumber. 

Many of the former class, having no fixed 

convictions about the future world, when mastered 

by their sensual appetites, deny it altogether. 

They say that hell is merely an invention of 

theologians to frighten people, and they regard 

theologians themselves with thinly veiled con¬ 

tempt. To argue with fools of this kind is of 

very little use. This much, however, may be 

said to such a man, with the possible result of 

making him pause and reflect : “ Do you really 

62 KNOWLEDGE OF THE NEXT WORLD 

think that the hundred and twenty-four thousand 1 

prophets and saints who believed in the future 

life were all wrong, and you are right in deny¬ 

ing it ? 75 If he replies, “ Yes ! I am as sure 

as I am that two are more than one, that there 

is no soul and no future life of joy and penalty, 77 

then the case of such a man is hopeless ; all one 

can do is to leave him alone, remembering the 

words of the Koran, “ Though thou call them 

to instruction, they will not be instructed.” 

But, should he say that a future life is possible 

but that the doctrine is so involved in doubt and 

mystery that it is impossible to decide whether it 

be true or not, then one may say to him : “ Then 

you had better give it the benefit of the doubt ! 

Suppose you are about to eat food and some one 

tells you a serpent has spat venom on it, you 

would probably refrain and rather endure the 

pangs of hunger than eat it, though your in¬ 

formant may be in jest or lying. Or suppose 

you are ill and a charm-writer says, ‘ Give me 

a rupee and I will write a charm which you can 

tie round your neck and which will cure you,’ 

you would probably give the rupee on the chance 

of deriving benefit from the charm. Or if an 

astrologer say, ‘ When the moon has entered a 

certain constellation, drink such and such a 

medicine, and you will recover,’ though you 

1 The number of prophets according to Muhammadan 

tradition. 

LORD ALI AND THE UNBELIEVER 63 

may have very little faith in astrology, yon very 

likely would try the experiment on the chance 

that he might be right. And do you not think 

that reliance is as well placed on the words of all 

the prophets, saints, and holy men, convinced as 

they were of a future life, as on the promise of 

a charm-writer or an astrologer ? People take 

perilous voyages in ships for the sake of merely 

probable profit, and will you not suffer a little 

pain of abstinence now for the sake of eternal 

joy hereafter ? ” 

The Lord Ah once, in arguing with an unbeliever, 

said, “ If you are right, then neither of us will be 

any the worse in the future; but if we are right, 

then we shall escape, and you will suffer.” This 

he said not because he himself was in any doubt, 

but merely to make an impression on the unbe¬ 

liever. From all that we have said it follows 

that man’s chief business in this world is to 

prepare for the next. Even if he is doubtful 

about a future existence, reason suggests that he 

should act as if there were one, considering the 

tremendous issues at stake. Peace be on those 

who follow the instruction ! 

CHAPTER V 

CONCERNING MUSIC AND DANCING AS AIDS TO THE 

RELIGIOUS LIFE 

The heart of man has been so constituted by the 

Almighty that, like a flint, it contains a hidden 

fire which is evoked by music and harmony, and 

renders man beside himself with ecstasy. These 

harmonies are echoes of that higher world of 

beauty which we call the world of spirits ; they 

remind man of his relationship to that world, and 

produce in him an emotion so deep and strange 

that he himself is powerless to explain it. The 

effect of music and dancing is deeper in proportion 

as the natures on which they act are simple and 

prone to emotion ; they fan into a flame what¬ 

ever love is already dormant in the heart, whether 

it be earthly and sensual, or divine and spiritual. 

Accordingly there has been much dispute 

among theologians as to the lawfulness of music 

and dancing regarded as religious exercises. One 

sect, the Zahirites, 1 holding that God is altogether 

1 Literally, “ Outsiders.” 

64 

MUSIC AND THE EMOTIONS 

65 

incommensurable with man, deny the possibility 

of man’s really feeling love to God, and say that 

he can only love those of his own species. If he 

does feel what he thinks is love to his Creator they 

say it is a mere projection, or shadow cast by his 

own fantasy, or a reflection of love to the creature ; 

music and dancing, according to them, have only 

to do with creature love, and are therefore un¬ 

lawful as religious exercises. If we ask them 

what is the meaning of that “ love to God ” 

which is enjoined by the religious law, they reply 

that it means obedience and worship. This is 

an error which we hope to confute in a later 

chapter dealing with the love of God. At present 

we content ourselves with saying that music and 

dancing do not put into the heart what is not 

there already, but only fan into a flame dormant 

emotions. Therefore if a man has in his heart 

that love to God which the Law enjoins it is 

perfectly lawful, nay, laudable in him to take 

part in exercises which promote it. On the 

other hand, if his heart is full of sensual desires, 

music and dancing will only increase them, and 

are therefore unlawful for him. While, if he 

listens to them merely as a matter of amusement, 

they are neither lawful nor unlawful, but in¬ 

different. For the mere fact that they are 

pleasant does not make them unlawful, any more 

than the pleasure of listening to the singing of 

birds or looking at green grass and running water 

66 CONCERNING MUSIC AND DANCING 

is unlawful. The innocent character of music 

and dancing, regarded merely as a pastime, is also 

corroborated by an authentic tradition which we 

have from the Lady Ayesha, 1 who narrates : “ One 

festival-day some negroes were performing in a 

mosque. The Prophet said to me, 4 Do you wish 

to see them ? ’ I replied, 6 Yes.’ Accordingly 

he lifted me up with his own blessed hand, and 

I looked on so long that he said more than once, 

6 Haven’t you had enough ? ’ ” Another tradi¬ 

tion from the Lady Ayesha is as follows : 44 One 

festival-day two girls came to my house and 

began to play and sing. The Prophet came in 

and lay down on the couch, turning his face 

away. Presently Abu Bakr 1 entered, and, seeing 

the girls playing, exclaimed, 4 What ! the pipe 

of Satan in the Prophet’s house ! ’ Whereupon 

the Prophet turned and said, 4 Let them alone, 

Abu Bakr, for this is a festival-day.’ ” 

Passing over the cases where music and dancing 

rouse into a flame evil desires already dormant in 

the heart, we come to those cases where they are 

quite lawful. Such are those of the pilgrims who 

celebrate the glories of the House of God at 

Mecca in song, and thus incite others to go on 

pilgrimage, and of minstrels whose music and 

songs stir up martial ardour in the breasts of 

their auditors and incite them to fight against 

1 Muhammad’s favourite wife. 

2 Subsequently the first caliph. 

MUSIC AND RELIGION 

67 

the infidels. Similarly, mournful music which 

excites sorrow for sin and failure in the religious 

life is lawful; of this nature was the music of 

David. But dirges which increase sorrow for 

the dead are not lawful, for it is written in the 

Koran, “ Despair not over what you have lost.” 

On the other hand, joyful music at weddings and 

feasts and on such occasions as a circumcision or 

the return from a journey is lawful. 

We come now to the purely religious use of 

music and dancing : such is that of the Sufis, 

who by this means stir up in themselves greater 

love towards God, and, by means of music, often 

obtain spiritual visions and ecstasies, their heart 

becoming in this condition as clean as silver in 

the flame of a furnace, and attaining a degree of 

purity which could never be attained by any 

amount of mere outward austerities. The Sufi 

then becomes so keenly aware of his relationship 

to the spiritual world that he loses all conscious¬ 

ness of this world, and often falls down senseless. 

It is not, however, lawful for the aspirant to 

Sufiism to take part in this mystical dancing 

without the permission of his “ Pir,” or spiritual 

director. It is related of the Sheikh Abu’l Qasim 

Girgani that, when one of his disciples requested 

leave to take part in such a dance, he said, 14 Keep 

a strict fast for three days ; then let them cook 

for you tempting dishes; if, then, you still prefer 

the ‘ dance,’ you may take part in it.” The 

68 CONCERNING MUSIC AND DANCING 

disciple, however, whose heart is not thoroughly 

purged from earthly desires, though he may have 

obtained some glimpse of the mystics’ path, 

should be forbidden by his director to take part 

in such dances, as they will do him more harm 

than good. 

Those who deny the reality of the ecstasies and 

other spiritual experiences of the Sufis merely 

betray their own narrow-mindedness and shallow 

insight. Some allowance, however, must be 

made for them, for it is as difficult to believe in 

the reality of states of which one has no personal 

experience as it is for a blind man to understand 

the pleasure of looking at green grass and running 

water, or for a child to comprehend the pleasure 

of exercising sovereignty. A wise man, though he 

himself may have no experience of those states, 

will not therefore deny their reality, for what 

folly can be greater than his who denies the 

reality of a thing merely because he himself has 

not experienced it ! Of such people it is written 

in the Koran, “ Those who have not the guidance 

will say, ‘ This is a manifest imposture.’ ” 

As regards the erotic poetry which is recited in 

Sufi gatherings, and to which people sometimes 

make objection, we must remember that, when 

in such poetry mention is made of separation 

from or union with the beloved, the Sufi, who is 

an adept in the love of God, applies such expres¬ 

sions to separation from or union with Him. 

THE SYMBOLISM OF POETRY 69 

Similarly, “dark locks” are taken to signify 

the darkness of unbelief ; “ the brightness of the 

face ” the light of faith, and drunkenness the 

Sufi’s ecstasy. Take, for instance, the verse : 

Thou may’st measure out thousands of measures of wine, 

But, till thou drink it, no joy is thine. 

By this the writer means that the true delights 

of religion cannot be reached by way of formal 

instruction, but by felt attraction and desire. A 

man may converse much and write volumes 

concerning love, faith, piety, and so forth, and 

blacken paper to any extent, but till he himself 

possesses these attributes all this will do him no 

good. Thus, those who find fault with the Sufis 

for being powerfully affected, even to ecstasy, by 

these and similar verses, are merely shallow 

and uncharitable. Even camels are sometimes 

so powerfully affected by the Arab-songs of 

their drivers that they will run rapidly, bearing- 

heavy burdens, till they fall down in a state of 

exhaustion. 

The Sufi hearer, however, is in danger of 

blasphemy if he applies some of the verses which 

he hears to God. For instance, if he hears such 

a verse as “ Thou art changed from thy former 

inclination,” he must not apply it to God, who 

cannot change, but to himself and his own varia¬ 

tions of mood. God is like the sun, which is 

70 CONCERNING MUSIC AND DANCING 

always shining, but sometimes for us His light 

is eclipsed by some object which intervenes 

between us and Him. 

Regarding some adepts it is related that they 

attain to such a degree of ecstasy that they lose 

themselves in God. Such was the case with 

Sheikh Abu’l Hassan Nuri, who, on hearing a 

certain verse, fell into an ecstatic condition, and, 

coming into a field full of stalks of newly cut 

sugar-canes, ran about till his feet were wounded 

and bleeding, and, not long afterwards, expired. 

In such cases some have supposed that there 

occurs an actual descent of Deity into humanity, 

but this would be as great a mistake as that of 

one who, having for the first time seen his re¬ 

flection in a mirror, should suppose that, some¬ 

how or other, he had become incorporated with 

the mirror, or that the red-and-white hues which 

the mirror reflects were qualities inherent in it. 

The states of ecstasy into which the Sufis fall 

vary according to the emotions which pre¬ 

dominate in them—love, fear, desire, repentance, 

etc. These states, as we have mentioned above, 

are often the result not only of hearing verses of 

the Koran, but erotic poetry. Some have ob¬ 

jected to the reciting of poetry, as well as of the 

Koran, on these occasions; but it should be re¬ 

membered that all the verses of the Koran are 

not adapted to stir the emotions—such, for in¬ 

stance, as that which commands that a man should 

SUFI STATES OF ECSTASY 

71 

leave his mother the sixth part of his property 

and his sister the hah, or that which orders that 

a widow must wait four months after the death 

of her husband before becoming espoused to 

another man. The natures which can be thrown 

into religious ecstasy by the recital of such verses 

are peculiarly sensitive and very rare. 

Another reason for the use of poetry as well as 

of the Koran on these occasions is that people are 

so familiar with the Koran, many even knowing 

it by heart, that the effect of it has been dulled 

by constant repetition. One cannot be always 

quoting new verses of the Koran as one can of 

poetry. Once, when some wild Arabs were 

hearing the Koran for the first time and were 

strongly moved by it, Abu-Bakr said to them, 

“ We were once like you, but our hearts have 

grown hard,” meaning that the Koran loses some 

of its effect on those familiar with it. For the 

same reason the Caliph Omar used to command 

the pilgrims to Mecca to leave it quickly, “ For,” 

he said, “ I fear if you grow too familiar with 

the Holy City the awe of it will depart from 

your hearts.” 

There is, moreover, something pertaining to 

the light and frivolous, at least in the eyes of the 

common people, in the use of singing and musical 

instruments, such as the pipe and drum, and it 

is not befitting that the majesty of the Koran 

should be, even temporarily, associated with 

72 CONCERNING MUSIC AND DANCING 

these things. It is related of the Prophet that 

once, when he entered the house of Rabia, the 

daughter of Mauz, some singing-girls who were 

there began extemporising in his honour. He 

abruptly bade them cease, as the praise of the 

Prophet was too sacred a theme to be treated in 

that way. There is also some danger, if verses 

of the Koran are exclusively used, that the hearers 

should attach to them some private interpretation 

of their own, and this is unlawful. On the other 

hand, no harm attaches to interpreting lines of 

poetry in various ways, as it is not necessary to 

apply to a poem the same meaning which the 

author had. 

Other features of these mystic dances are the 

bodily contortions and tearing of clothes with 

which they are sometimes accompanied. If 

these are the result of genuine ecstatic conditions 

there is nothing to be said against them, but if 

they are self-conscious and deliberate on the part 

of those who wish to appear “ adepts,” then they 

are merely acts of hypocrisy. In any case the 

more perfect adept is he who controls himself 

till he is absolutely obliged to give vent to his 

feelings. It is related of a certain youth who 

was a disciple of the Sheikh Junaid that, on 

hearing singing commence in an assembly of the 

Sufis, he could not restrain himself, but began to 

shriek in ecstasy. Junaid said to him, “ If you 

do that again, don’t remain in my company.” 

MYSTIC DANCES 

73 

After this the youth used to restrain himself on 

such occasions, but at last one day his emotions 

were so powerfully stirred that, after long and 

forcible repression of them, he uttered a shriek 

and died. 

To conclude: in holding these assemblies, 

regard must be had to time and place, and 

that no spectators come from unworthy motives. 

Those who participate in them should sit in 

silence, not looking at one another, but keeping 

their heads bent, as at prayer, and concen¬ 

trating their minds on God. Each should watch 

for whatever may be revealed to his own heart, 

and not make any movements from mere self- 

conscious impulse. But if any one of them 

stands up in a state of genuine ecstasy all the 

rest should stand up with him, and if any one’s 

turban fall off the others should also lay their 

turbans down. 

Although these matters are comparative novel¬ 

ties in Islam and have not been received from 

the first followers of the Prophet, we must re¬ 

member that all novelties are not forbidden, but 

only those which directly contravene the Law. 

For instance, the “ Tarawih,” or night-prayer, 

was first instituted by the Caliph Omar. The 

Prophet said, “ Live with each man according to 

his habits and disposition,” therefore it is right 

to fall in with usages that please people, when 

non-conformity would vex them. It is true that 

74 CONCERNING MUSIC AND DANCING 

the Companions were not in the habit of rising 

on the entrance of the Prophet, as they disliked 

this practice ; but where it has become established, 

and abstaining from it would cause annoyance, it 

is better to conform to it. The Arabs have their 

own customs, and the Persians have theirs, and 

God knoweth which is best. 

CHAPTER VI 

CONCERNING SELF-EXAMINATION AND THE 

RECOLLECTION OF GOD 

Know, O brother, that in the Koran God hath 

said, “ We will set up a just balance on the day 

of resurrection, and no soul shall be wronged in 

anything.” Whosoever has wrought a grain of 

good or ill shall then behold it. In the Koran it 

is also written, “ Let every soul see what it sends 

on before it for the day of account.” It was a 

saying of the Caliph Omar’s, “ Call yourselves to 

account before ye be called to account”; and 

God says, “0 ye believers, be patient and strive 

against your natural desires, and maintain the 

strife manfully.” The saints have always under¬ 

stood that they have come into this world to 

carry on a spiritual traffic, the resulting gain or 

loss of which is heaven or hell. They have, there¬ 

fore, always kept a jealous eye upon the flesh, 

which, like a treacherous partner in business, may 

cause them great loss. He, therefore, is a wise 

man who, after his morning prayer, spends a whole 

75 

76 CONCERNING SELF-EXAMINATION 

hour in making a spiritual reckoning, and says 

to his soul, “ 0 my soul, thou hast only one life ; 

no single moment that has passed can be re¬ 

covered, for in the counsel of God the number 

of breaths allotted thee is fixed, and cannot be 

increased. When life is over no further spiritual 

traffic is possible for thee ; therefore what thou 

doest, do now ; treat this day as if thy life had 

been already spent, and this were an extra day 

granted thee by the special favour of the Almighty. 

What can be greater folly than to lose it ? ” 

At the resurrection a man will find all the 

hours of his life arranged like a long series of 

treasure-chests. The door of one will be opened, 

and it will be seen to be full of light : it repre¬ 

sents an hour which he spent in doing good. 

His heart will be filled with such joy that even a 

fraction of it would make the inhabitants of hell 

forget the fire. The door of a second will be 

opened ; it is pitch-dark within, and from it 

issues such an evil odour as will cause every one 

to hold his nose : it represents an hour which 

he spent in ill-doing, and he will suffer such terror 

that a fraction of it would embitter Paradise for 

the blessed. The door of a third treasure-chest 

will be opened; it will be seen to be empty and 

neither light nor dark within : this represents 

the hour in which he did neither good nor evil. 

Then he will feel remorse and confusion like that 

of a man who has been the possessor of a great 

SEVEN GATES TO HELL 

77 

treasure and wasted it or let it slip from his 

grasp. Thus the whole series of the hours of his 

life will be displayed, one by one, to his gaze. 

Therefore a man should say to his soul every 

morning, “ God has given thee twenty-four 

treasures ; take heed lest thou lose any one of 

them, for thou wilt not be able to endure the 

regret that will follow such loss.” 

The saints have said, “ Even suppose God 

should forgive thee, after a wasted life, thou 

wilt not attain to the ranks of the righteous and 

must deplore thy loss ; therefore keep a strict 

watch over thy tongue, thine eye, and each of 

thy seven members, for each of these is, as it 

were, a possible gate to hell. Say to thy flesh, 

‘ If thou art rebellious, verily I will punish thee ’; 

for, though the flesh is headstrong, it is capable 

of receiving instruction, and can be tamed by 

austerity.” Such, then, is the aim of self-examina¬ 

tion, and the Prophet has said, “ Happy is he 

who does now that which will benefit him after 

death.” 

We come now to the recollection of God. This 

consists in a man’s remembering that God 

observes all his acts and thoughts. People only 

see the outward, while God sees both the outer 

and the inner man. He who really believes this 

will have both his outer and inner being well 

disciplined. If he disbelieve it, he is an infidel, 

and if, while believing it, he acts contrary to that 

78 CONCERNING SELF-EXAMINATION 

belief, he is guilty of the grossest presumption. 

One day a negro came to the Prophet and said, 

“ O Prophet of God ! I have committed much 

sin. Will my repentance be accepted, or not ? ” 

The Prophet said “Yes.” Then the negro said, 

“ O Prophet of God, all the time I was committing 

sin, did God really behold it ? ” “ Yes,” was 

the answer. The negro uttered a cry and fell 

lifeless. Till a man is thoroughly convinced of 

the fact that he is always under God’s observation 

it is impossible for him to act rightly. 

A certain sheikh once had a disciple whom he 

favoured above his other disciples, thus exciting 

their envy. One day the sheikh gave each of 

them a fowl and told each to go and kill it in a 

place where no one could see him. Accordingly 

each killed his fowl in some retired spot and 

brought it back, with the exception of the sheikh’s 

favourite disciple, who brought his back alive, 

saying, “ I have found no such place, for God 

sees everywhere.” The sheikh said to the others, 

“You see now this youth’s real rank ; he has 

attained to the constant remembrance of God.” 

When Zuleikha tempted Joseph she cast a 

cloth over the face of the idol she used to worship. 

Joseph said to her, “ 0 Zuleikha, thou art ashamed 

before a block of stone, and should I not be 

ashamed before Him who created the seven 

heavens and the earth ? ” A man once came to 

the saint Junaid and said, “ I cannot keep my 

STORY OF THE CALIPH OMAR 79 

eyes from casting lascivious looks. How shall I 

do so ? ” “ By remembering,” Junaid answered, 

“ that God sees you much more clearly than you 

see any one else.” In the traditions it is written 

that God has said, “ Paradise is for those who 

intend to commit some sin and then remember 

that My eye is upon them and forbear.” Ab¬ 

dullah Ibn Dinar relates, “ Once I was walking 

with the Caliph Omar near Mecca when we met 

a shepherd’s slave-boy driving his flock. Omar 

said to him, “ Sell me a sheep.” The boy 

answered, “ They are not mine, but my master’s.” 

Then, to try him, Omar said, “ Well, you can 

tell him that a wolf carried one off, and he will 

know nothing about it.” “ No, he won’t,” said 

the boy, “but God will.” Omar then wept, and, 

sending for the boy’s master, purchased him and 

set him free, exclaiming, “ For this saying thou 

art free in this world and shalt be free in the 

next.” 

There are two degrees of this recollection of 

God. The first degree is that of those saints 

whose thoughts are altogether absorbed in the 

contemplation of the majesty of God, and have 

no room in their hearts for anything else at all. 

This is the lower degree of recollection, for when 

a man’s heart is fixed, and his limbs are so con¬ 

trolled by his heart that they abstain from even 

lawful actions, he has no need of any device or 

safeguard against sins. It was to this kind of 

80 CONCERNING SELF-EXAMINATION 

recollection that the Prophet referred when he 

said, “ He who rises in the morning with only God 

in his mind, God shall look after him, both in 

this world and the next.” 

Some of these recollectors of God are so ab¬ 

sorbed in the thought of Him that, if people speak 

to them they do not hear, or walk in front of 

them they do not see, but stumble as if they 

collided with a wall. A certain saint relates as 

follows : “ One day I passed by a place where 

archers were having a shooting-match. Some 

way off a man was sitting alone. I approached 

him and attempted to engage him in talk, but 

he replied, “ The remembrance of God is better 

than talk.” I said, “ Are you not lonely ? ” 

“ No,” he answered, “ God and two angels are 

with me.” Pointing to the archers, T asked, 

“ Which of these has carried off the prize ? ” 

“ That one,’ was his reply, “ to whom God has 

allotted it.” Then I inquired, “Where does this 

road come from ? ” Upon which, lifting up his 

eyes to heaven, he rose and departed, saying, 

“ 0 Lord ! many of Thy creatures hold one back 

from the remembrance of Thee ! ” 

The saint Shibli one day went to see the Sufi 

Thaury ; he found him sitting so still in con¬ 

templation that not a hair of his body moved. 

He asked him, “ From whom didst thou learn to 

practise such fixity of contemplation ? ” Thaury 

answered, “ From a cat which I saw waiting at a 

THE RECOLLECTION OF THE SAINTS 81 

mouse-hole in an attitude of even greater fixity 

than this.” Ibn Hanif relates : “I was informed 

that in the city of Sur a sheikh and his disciple 

were always sitting lost in the recollection of God. 

I went there and found them both sitting with 

their faces turned in the direction of Mecca. I 

saluted them thrice, but they gave no answer. 

I said, ‘ I adjure you, by God, to return my saluta¬ 

tion.’ 1 The youth raised his head and replied, 

‘ O Ibn Hanif ! The world lasts but for a little 

time, and of this little time only a little is re¬ 

maining. Thou art hindering us by requiring us 

to return thy salutation.’ He then bent his 

head again and was silent. I was hungry and 

thirsty at the time, but the sight of those two 

quite carried me out of myself. I remained 

standing and prayed with them the afternoon 

and evening prayer. I then asked them for some 

spiritual advice. The younger replied, ‘ 0 Ibn 

Hanif, we are afflicted ; we do not possess that 

tongue which gives advice.’ I remained standing 

there three days and nights ; no word passed 

between us and none of us slept. Then I said 

within myself, ‘ I will adjure them by God to 

give me some counsel.’ The younger, divining 

my thoughts, again raised his head : ‘ Go and 

seek such a man, the visitation of whom will 

bring God to thy remembrance and infix His 

1 A Moslem is bound by the Koran to return the salutation 

of a Moslem. 

6 

82 CONCERNING SELF-EXAMINATION 

fear in thy heart, and he will give thee that 

counsel which is conveyed by silence and not by 

speech.’ ” 

Such is the “ recollection ” of the saints which 

consists in being entirely absorbed in the con¬ 

templation of God. The second degree of the 

recollection of God is that of “ the companions 

of the right hand.” 1 These are aware that God 

knows all about them, and feel abashed in His 

presence, yet they are not carried out of them¬ 

selves by the thought of His majesty, but remain 

clearly conscious of themselves and of the world. 

Their condition is like that of a man who should 

be suddenly surprised in a state of nakedness and 

should hastily cover himself, while the other 

class resemble one who suddenly finds himself 

in the presence of the King and is confused and 

awestruck. The former subject every project 

which enters their minds to a thorough scrutiny, 

for at the Last Day three questions will be asked 

respecting every action : the first, “ Why did 

you do this ? ” the second, “ In what way did 

you do this ? ” the third, “ For what purpose 

did you do this ? ” The first will be asked 

because a man should act from divine and not 

merely Satanic or fleshly impulse. If this ques¬ 

tion is satisfactorily answered, the second will 

test in what way the action was done, wisely, or 

carelessly and negligently, and the third, whether 

1 Koranic phrase for the righteous. 

QUESTIONS AT THE RESURRECTION 83 

it was done simply to please God, or to gain 

the approval of men. If a man understands the 

meaning of these questions he will be very watch¬ 

ful over the state of his heart, and how he enter¬ 

tains thoughts which are likely to end in action. 

Rightly to discriminate among such thoughts is 

a very difficult and delicate matter, and he who 

is not capable of it should attach himself to 

some spiritual director, intercourse with whom 

may illuminate his heart. He should avoid with 

the utmost care the merely worldly learned man 

who is an agent of Satan. God said to David, 

“ 0 David ! ask no questions of the learned man 

who is intoxicated with love of the world, for he 

will rob thee of My love,” and the Prophet said: 

“ God loves that man who is keen to discern in 

doubtful things, and who suffers not his reason 

to be swayed by the assaults of passion.” Reason 

and discrimation are closely connected, and he in 

whom reason does not rule passion will not be 

keen to discriminate. 

Besides such cautious discrimination before 

acting a man should call himself strictly to ac¬ 

count for his past actions. Every evening he 

should examine his heart as to what he has done 

to see whether he has gained or lost in his spiritual 

capital. This is the more necessary as the heart 

is like a treacherous business-partner, always 

ready to cajole and deceive ; sometimes it pre¬ 

sents its own selfishness under the guise of 

84 CONCERNING SELF-EXAMINATION 

obedience to God, so that a man supposes he has 

gained, whereas he has really lost. 

A certain saint named Amiya, sixty years of 

age, counted up the days of his life. He found 

they amounted to twenty-one thousand six 

hundred days. He said to himself, “ Alas ! if 

I have committed one sin every day, how can I 

escape from the load of twenty-one thousand six 

hundred sins ? ” He uttered a cry and fell to 

the ground ; when they came to raise him they 

found him dead. But most people are heedless, 

and never think of calling themselves to account. 

If for every sin a man committed he placed a 

stone in an empty house, he would soon find that 

house full of stones ; if his recording angels 1 

demanded wages of him for writing down his 

sins, all his money would soon be gone. People 

count on their rosaries 2 with self-satisfaction the 

numbers of times they have recited the name of 

God, but they keep no rosary for reckoning the 

numberless idle words they speak. Therefore the 

Caliph Omar said, “ Weigh well your words and 

deeds before they be weighed at the Judgment.” 

He himself, before retiring for the night, used to 

strike his feet with a scourge and exclaim, “ What 

hast thou done to-day ? ” Abu Talha was once 

praying in a palm-grove, when the sight of a 

1 Two of these are attached to every man. 

9 The Muhammadan rosary consists of ninety-nine beads, 

each representing a name of God. 

INFLUENCE OF THE SAINTS 

85 

beautiful bird which flew out of it caused him to 

make a mistake in counting the number of pro¬ 

strations he had made. To punish himself for 

his inattention, he gave the palm-grove away. 

Such saints knew that their sensual nature was 

prone to go astray, therefore they kept a strict 

watch over it, and punished it for each trans¬ 

gression. 

If a man finds himself sluggish and averse 

from austerity and self-discipline he should con¬ 

sort with one who is a proficient in such practices 

so as to catch the contagion of his enthusiasm. 

One saint used to say, “ When I grow lukewarm 

in self-discipline, I look at Muhammad Ibn Wasi, 

and the sight of him rekindles my fervour for at 

least a week.” If one cannot find such a pattern 

of austerity close at hand, then it is a good thing 

to study the fives of the saints ; he should also 

exhort his soul somewhat in the following way : 

“ O my soul ! thou thinkest thyself intelligent 

and art angry at being called a fool, and yet what 

else art thou, after all ? Thou preparest cloth¬ 

ing to shield thee from the cold of winter, yet 

makest no preparation for the after-life. Thy 

state is like that of a man who in mid-winter 

should say, ‘ I will wear no war m clothing, but 

trust to God’s mercy to shield me from the cold. 

He forgets that God, at the sa me time that He 

created cold, showed man th e way to make 

clothing to protect himself from it, and provided 

86 CONCERNING SELF-EXAMINATION 

the material for that clothing. Remember this 

also, O soul, that thy punishment hereafter will 

not be because God is angry with thy disobedience ; 

and say not, 4 How can my sin hurt God ? ’ 

It is thy lusts themselves which will have kindled 

the flames of hell within thee ; just as, from eating 

unwholesome food, disease is caused in a man’s 

body, and not because his doctor is vexed with 

him for disobeying his orders. 

“ Shame upon thee, 0 soul, for thy over¬ 

weening love of the world ! If thou dost not 

believe in heaven or hell, at any rate thou be- 

lievest in death, which will snatch from thee all 

worldly delights and cause thee to feel the pangs 

of separation from them, which will be intenser 

just in proportion as thou hast attached thyself 

to them. Why art thou mad after the world ? 

If the whole of it, from East to West, were thine 

and worshipped thee, yet it would all, in a brief 

space, turn to dust along with thyself, and 

oblivion would blot out thy name, as those of 

ancient kings before thee. But now, seeing thou 

hast only a very small fragment of the world, 

and that a defiled one, wilt thou be so mad as to 

barter eternal joy for it, a precious jewel for a 

broken cup of earthenware, and make thyself 

the laughing-stock of all around thee ? ” 

CHAPTER VII 

MARRIAGE AS A HELP OR HINDRANCE TO 

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 

Marriage plays such a large part in human 

affairs that it must necessarily be taken into 

account in treating of the religious life and be 

regarded in both its aspects of advantage and 

disadvantage. 

Seeing that God, as the Koran says, “ only 

created men and genii for the purpose of wor¬ 

shipping,” the first and obvious advantage of 

marriage is, that the worshippers of God may 

increase in number. Theologians have therefore 

laid it down as a maxim that it is better to be 

engaged in matrimonial duties than in superero¬ 

gatory devotions. 

Another advantage of marriage is that, as the 

Prophet said, the prayers of children profit their 

parents when the latter are dead, and children 

who die before their parents intercede for them 

on the Day of Judgment. “ When a child,” 

said the Prophet, “ is told to enter heaven, it 

87 

88 MARRIAGE AS A HELP OR HINDRANCE 

weeps and says, ‘ I will not enter in without my 

father and mother.’ ” Again, one day the Prophet 

seized hold of a man’s sleeves and drew him 

violently towards himself, saying, “ Even thus 

shall children draw their parents into heaven.” 

He added, “ Children crowd together at the 

gate of heaven and cry out for their fathers 

and mothers, till those of the latter who are 

outside are told to enter in and join their 

children.” 

It is related of a certain celibate saint that he 

once dreamt that the Judgment Day had come. 

The sun had approached close to the earth and 

people were perishing of thirst; a crowd of boys 

were moving about giving them water out of 

gold and silver vessels. But when the saint asked 

for water he was repulsed, and one of the boys 

said to him, “ Not one of us here is your son.” 

As soon as the saint awoke he made preparations 

to marry. 

Another advantage of marriage is that to sit 

with and be friendly to one’s wife is a relaxation 

for the mind after being occupied in religious 

duties, and after such relaxation one may return 

to one’s devotions with renewed zest. Thus the 

Prophet himself, when he found the weight of his 

revelations press too heavily upon him touched 

his wife Ayesha and said, “ Speak to me, O 

Ayesha, speak to me ! ” This he did that, from 

that familiar human touch, he might receive 

ADVANTAGES OF MARRIAGE 89 

strength to support fresh revelations. For a 

similar reason he used to bid the Muezzin Bilal 

give the call to prayer, and sometimes he used to 

smell sweet perfumes. It is a well-known saying 

of his, “ I have loved three things in the world : 

perfumes, and women,and refreshment in prayer.” 

On one occasion Omar asked the prophet what 

were the things specially to be sought in the 

world. He answered, “ A tongue occupied in the 

remembrance of God, a grateful heart, and a 

believing wife.” 

A further advantage of marriage is that there 

should be some one to take care of the house, 

cook the food, wash the dishes, and sweep the 

floor, etc. If a man is busy in such work he 

cannot acquire learning, or carry on his business, 

or engage in his devotions properly. For this 

reason Abu Suleiman has said, “ A good wife is 

not a blessing of this world merely, but of the 

next, because she provides a man leisure in which 

to think of the next world”; and one of the 

Caliph Omar’s sayings is, “ After faith, no 

blessing is equal to a good wife.” 

Marriage has, moreover, this good in it, that to 

be patient with feminine peculiarities, to provide 

the necessaries which wives require, and to keep 

them in the path of the law, is a very important 

part of religion. The Prophet said, “ To give 

one’s wife the money she requires is more im¬ 

portant than to give alms.” Once, when Ibn 

90 MARRIAGE AS A HELP OR HINDRANCE 

Mubarak was engaged in a campaign against the 

infidels, one of his companions asked him, “ Is 

any work more meritorious than religious war ? ” 

“ Yes,” he replied : “ to feed and clothe one’s 

wife and children properly.” The celebrated 

saint Bishr Hafi said, “It is better that a man 

should work for wife and children than merely 

for himself.” In the Traditions it has been 

recorded that some sins can only be atoned 

for by enduring trouble for the sake of one’s 

family. 

Concerning a certain saint it is related that 

his wife died and he would not marry again, 

though people urged him, saying it was easier to 

concentrate his thoughts in solitude. One night 

he saw in a dream the door of heaven opened 

and numbers of angels descending. They came 

near and looked upon him, and one said, 

“ Is this that selfish wretch ? ” and his fellow 

answered, “ Yes, this is he.” The saint was too 

alarmed to ask whom they meant, but presently 

a boy passed and he asked him. “It is you they 

are speaking about,” replied the boy ; “ only up 

to a week ago your good works were being re¬ 

corded in heaven along with those of other saints, 

but now they have erased your name from the 

roll.” Greatly disturbed in mind as soon as he 

awoke, he hastened to be married. From all the 

above considerations it will be seen that marriage 

is desirable. 

DRAWBACKS TO MARRIAGE 91 

We come now to treat of the drawbacks to 

marriage. One of these is that there is a danger, 

especially in the present time, that a man should 

gain a livelihood by unlawful means in order to 

support his family, and no amount of good works 

can compensate for this. The Prophet said that 

at the resurrection a certain man with a whole 

mountain load of good works will be brought 

forward and stationed near the Balance. 1 He 

will then be asked, “ ‘ By what means did you 

support your family ? ’ He will not be able to 

give a satisfactory answer, and all his good works 

will be cancelled, and proclamation will be made 

concerning him, ‘ This is the man whose family 

have devoured all his good deeds ! ’ ” 

Another drawback to marriage is this, that to 

treat one’s family kindly and patiently and to 

bring their affairs to a satisfactory issue can only 

be done by those who have a good disposition. 

There is great danger lest a man should treat his 

family harshly, or neglect them, and so bring sin 

upon himself. The Prophet said: “ He who 

deserts his wife and children is like a runaway 

slave ; till he returns to them none of his fasts 

or prayers will be accepted by God.” In brief, 

man has a lower nature, and, till he can control 

his own lower nature, he had better not assume 

the responsibility of controlling another’s. Some 

1 The Mizan, or Balance for weighing good and evil deeds, 

which will be erected on the Judgment Day. 

92 MARRIAGE AS A HELP OR HINDRANCE 

one asked the saint Bishr Hah why he did not 

marry. “ I am afraid,” he replied, “ of that 

verse in the Koran, ‘ The rights of women over 

men are precisely the same as the rights of men 

over women.’ ” 

A third disadvantage of marriage is that the 

cares of a family often prevent a man from con¬ 

centrating his thoughts on God and on a future 

life, and may, unless he is careful, lead to his 

destruction, for God has said, “ Let not your 

wives and children turn you away from remem¬ 

bering God.” He who thinks he can concen¬ 

trate himself better on his religious duties by 

not marrying had better remain single, and he 

who fears falling into sin if he does not marry, 

had better do so. 

We now come to the qualities which should be 

sought in a wife. The most important of all is 

chastity. If a wife is unchaste, and her husband 

keeps silent, he gets a bad name and is hindered 

in his religious life; if he speaks, his life be¬ 

comes embittered ; and if he divorces her, he may 

feel the pang of separation. A wife who is 

beautiful but of evil character is a great calamity ; 

such a one had better be divorced. The Prophet 

said, “ He who seeks a wife for the sake of her 

beauty or wealth will lose both.” 

The second desirable quality in a wife is a 

good disposition. An ill-tempered or ungrateful 

or loquacious or imperious wife makes existence 

THE QUALITY OF WOMEN 

93 

unbearable, and is a great hindrance to leading 

a devout life. 

The third quality to be sought is beauty, as 

this calls forth love and affection. Therefore 

one should see a woman before marrying her. 

The Prophet said, “ The women of such a tribe 

have all a defect in their eyes ; he who wishes to 

marry one should see her first.” The wise have 

said that he who marries a wife without seeing 

her is sure to repent it afterwards. It is true 

that one should not marry solely for the sake of 

beauty, but this does not mean that beauty 

should be reckoned of no account at all. 

The fourth desirable point is that the sum 

paid by the husband as the wife’s marriage-portion 

should be moderate. The Prophet said, “ She 

is the best kind of wife whose marriage-portion 

is small, and whose beauty is great.” He him¬ 

self settled the marriage-portion of some women 

at ten dirhems, 1 and his own daughters’ marriage- 

portions were not more than four hundred 

dirhems. 

Fifthly, she should not be barren. “ A piece 

of old matting lying in the corner of the house 

is better than a barren wife.” 2 

Other qualities in a desirable wife are these : 

she should be of a good stock, not married pre¬ 

viously, and not too nearly related to her husband. 

1 The dirhem = about sixpence. 

2 Saying of Muhammad. 

94 MARRIAGE AS A HELP OR HINDRANCE 

Regarding the Observances of Marriage 

Marriage is a religious institution, and should 

be treated in a religious way, otherwise the mating 

of men and women is no better than the mating 

of animals. The Law enjoins that there should 

be a feast on the occasion of every marriage. 

When Abdurrahman Ibn Auf married, the Prophet 

said to him, “ Make a marriage-feast, even if you 

have only a goat to make it with.” When the 

Prophet himself celebrated his marriage with 

Safia he made a marriage-feast of dates and 

barley. It is also right that marriage should be 

accompanied with the beating of drums and of 

music, for man is the crown of creation. 

Secondly, a man should remain on good terms 

with his wife. This does not mean that he 

should never cause her pain, but that he should 

bear any annoyance she causes him, whether by 

her unreasonableness or ingratitude, patiently. 

Woman is created weak, and requiring conceal¬ 

ment ; she should therefore be borne with 

patiently, and kept secluded. The Prophet said, 

“ He who bears the ill-humour of his wife pati¬ 

ently will earn as much merit as Job did by the 

patient endurance of his trials.” On his death¬ 

bed also he was heard to say, “ Continue in 

prayer and treat your wives well, for they are 

your prisoners.” He himself used to bear pati¬ 

ently the tempers of his wives. One day Omar’s 

THE TREATMENT OF WIVES 95 

wife was angry and scolded him. He said to 

her, “ Thou evil-tongued one, dost thou answer 

me back ? ” She replied, “ Yes ! the Lord of 

the prophets is better than thou, and his wives 

answer him back.” He replied, “ Alas for Hafsa 

[Omar’s daughter and Muhammad’s wife] if she 

does not humble herself ” ; and when he met her 

he said, “ Take care not to answer the Prophet 

back.” The Prophet also said, “ The best of 

you is he who is best to his own family, as I am 

the best to mine.” 

Thirdly, a man should condescend to his wife’s 

recreations and amusements, and not attempt to 

check them. The Prophet himself actually on 

one occasion ran races with his young wife 

Ayesha. The first time he beat her, and the 

second time she beat him. Another time he held 

her up in his arms that she might look at some 

performing negroes. In fact, it would be difficult 

to find any one who was so kind to his wives as 

the Prophet was to his. Wise men have said, 

“ A man should come home smiling and eat what 

he finds and not ask for anything he does not 

find.” However, he should not be over-indul¬ 

gent, lest his wife lose her respect for him. If he 

sees anything plainly wrong on her part, he 

should not ignore but rebuke it, or he will become 

a laughing-stock. In the Koran it is written, 

“ Men should have the upper hand over women,” 

and the Prophet said, “ Woe to the man who is 

96 MARRIAGE AS A HELP OR HINDRANCE 

the servant of his wife,” for she should be his 

servant. Wise men have said, “ Consult women, 

and act the contrary to what they advise.” In 

truth there is something perverse in women, and 

if they are allowed even a little licence, they get 

out of control altogether, and it is difficult to 

reduce them to order again. In dealing with 

them one should endeavour to use a mixture of 

severity and tenderness, with a greater propor¬ 

tion of the latter. The Prophet said, “Woman 

was formed of a crooked rib ; if you try to bend 

her, you will break her ; if you leave her alone, 

she will grow more and more crooked ; therefore 

treat her tenderly.” 

As regards propriety, one cannot be too careful 

not to let one’s wife look at or be looked at by a 

stranger, for the beginning of all mischief is in 

the eye. As far as possible, she should not be 

allowed out of the house, nor to go on the roof, 

nor to stand at the door. Care should be taken, 

however, not to be unreasonably jealous and 

strict. The Prophet one day asked his daughter 

Fatima, “ What is the best thing for women ? ” 

She answered, “ They should not look on 

strangers, nor strangers on them.” The Prophet 

was pleased at this remark, and embraced her, 

saying, “ Verily, thou art a piece of my liver ! ” 

The Commander of the Faithful, Omar, said, 

“ Don’t give women fine clothes, for as soon as 

they have them they will want to go out of the 

A WIFE’S MAINTENANCE 

97 

house.” In the time of the Prophet women had 

permission to go to the mosques and stand in the 

last row of the worshippers ; but this was sub¬ 

sequently forbidden. 

A man should keep his wife properly supplied 

with money, and not stint her. To give a wife 

her proper maintenance is more meritorious than 

to give alms. The Prophet said, “ Suppose a 

man spends one dinar 1 in religious war, another 

in ransoming a slave, a third in charity, and 

gives the fourth to his wife, the giving of this 

last surpasses in merit all the others put together.” 

A man should not eat anything especially good 

by himself, or, if he has eaten it, he should keep 

silent about it and not praise it before his wife. 

It is better for husband and wife to eat together, 

if a guest be not present, for the Prophet said, 

“ When they do so, God sends His blessing upon 

them, and the angels pray for them.” The most 

important point to see to is that the supplies 

given to one’s wife are acquired by lawful 

means. 

If a man’s wife be rebellious and disobedient, 

he should at first admonish her gently ; if this 

is not sufficient he should sleep in a separate 

chamber for three nights. Should this also fail 

he may strike her, but not on the mouth, nor 

with such force as to wound her. Should she be 

remiss in her religious duties, he should manifest 

1 About ten shillings. 

7 

98 MARRIAGE AS A HELP OR HINDRANCE 

his displeasure to her for an entire month, as the 

Prophet did on one occasion to all his wives. 

The greatest care should be taken to avoid 

divorce, for, though divorce is permitted, yet God 

disapproves of it, because the very utterance of 

the word “ divorce ” causes a woman pain, and 

how can it be right to pain any one ? When 

divorce is absolutely necessary, the formula for 

it should not be repeated thrice all at once, but 

on three different occasions. 1 A woman should 

be divorced kindly, not through anger and con¬ 

tempt, and not without a reason. After divorce 

a man should give his former wife a present, and 

not tell others that she has been divorced for 

such and such a fault. Of a certain man who 

was instituting divorce-proceedings against his 

wife it is related that people asked him, “ Why 

are you divorcing her ? 55 He answered, “I do 

not reveal my wife’s secrets.” When he had 

actually divorced her, he was asked again, and 

said, “ She is a stranger to me now ; I have 

nothing to do with her private affairs.” 

Hitherto we have treated of the rights of the 

wife over her husband, but the rights of the 

husband over the wife are even more binding. 

The Prophet said, “If it were right to worship 

any one except God, it would be right for wives 

to worship their husbands.” A wife should not 

1 The formula for divorce has to be repeated thrice to make 

it complete. 

THE RIGHTS OF HUSBANDS 99 

boast of her beauty before her husband, she 

should not requite his kindness with ingratitude, 

she should not say to him, “ Why have you 

treated me thus and thus ? ” The Prophet said, 

“ I looked into hell and saw many women there ; 

I asked the reason, and received this reply, 

4 Because they abused their husbands and were 

ungrateful to them.’ 55 

CHAPTER VIII 

THE LOVE OF GOD 

The love of God is the highest of all topics, and 

is the final aim to which we have been tending 

hitherto. We have spoken of spiritual dangers as 

they hinder the love of God in a man’s heart, and 

we have spoken of various good qualities as being 

the necessary preliminaries to it. Human per¬ 

fection resides in this, that the love of God should 

conquer a man’s heart and possess it wholly, and 

even if it does not possess it wholly it should 

predominate in the heart over the love of all 

other things. Nevertheless, rightly to under¬ 

stand the love of God is so difficult a matter that 

one sect of theologians have altogether denied 

that man can love a Being who is not of his own 

species, and they have defined the love of God 

as consisting merely in obedience. Those who 

hold such views do not know what real religion is. 

All Moslems are agreed that the love of God is 

a duty. God says concerning the believers, “ He 

loves them and they love Him,” 1 and the Prophet 

1 Koran. 

100 

DEFINITION OF LOVE 

101 

said, “ Till a man loves God and His Prophet 

more than anything else he has not the right 

faith.” When the angel of death came to take 

the soul of Abraham the latter said, “ Have you 

ever seen a friend take his friend’s life ? ” God 

answered him, “ Have you ever seen a friend 

unwilling to see his friend ? ” Then Abraham 

said, “ 0 Azrael ! take my soul ! ” The following 

prayer was taught by the Prophet to his com¬ 

panions, “ 0 God, grant me to love Thee and to 

love those who love Thee, and whatsoever brings 

me nearer to Thy love, and make Thy love more 

precious to me than cold water to the thirsty.” 

Hassan Basri used to say, “ He who knows God 

loves Him, and he who knows the world hates it.” 

We come now to treat of love in its essential 

nature. Love may be defined as an inclination 

to that which is pleasant. This is apparent in 

the case of the five senses, each of which may be 

said to love that which gives it delight; thus the 

eye loves beautiful forms, the ear music, etc. 

This is a kind of love we share with the animals. 

But there is a sixth sense, or faculty of perception, 

implanted in the heart, which animals do not 

possess, through which we become aware of 

spiritual beauty and excellence. Thus, a man 

who is only acquainted with sensuous delights 

cannot understand what the Prophet meant 

when he said he loved prayer more than perfumes 

or women, though the last two were also pleasant 

102 

THE LOVE OE GOD 

to him. But he whose inner eye is opened to 

behold the beauty and perfection of God will 

despise all outward sights in comparison, how T - 

ever fair they may be. 

The former kind of man will say that beauty 

resides in red-and-white complexions, well-pro¬ 

portioned limbs, and so forth, but he will be 

blind to moral beauty, such as men refer to when 

they speak of such and such a man as possessing 

a “beautiful” character. But those possessed 

of inner perception find it quite possible to love 

the departed great, such as the Caliphs Omar and 

Abu Bakr, on account of their noble qualities, 

though their bodies have long been mingled wdth 

the dust. Such love is directed not towards any 

outward form, but towards the inner character. 

Even when we wash to excite love in a child to¬ 

wards any one, we do not describe their outward 

beauty of form, etc., but their inner excellencies. 

When we apply this principle to the love of 

God we shall find that He alone is really worthy of 

our love, and that, if any one loves Him not, it is 

because he does not know Him. Whatever we 

love in any one we love because it is a reflection of 

Him. It is for this reason that we love Muham¬ 

mad, because he is the Prophet and the Beloved 

of God, and the love of learned and pious men 

is really the love of God. We shall see this more 

clearly if we consider what are the causes which 

excite love. 

THE GIFT OF GOD 

103 

The first cause is this, that man loves himself 

and the perfection of his own nature. This leads 

him directly to the love of God, for man’s very 

existence and man’s attributes are nothing else 

but the gift of God, but for whose grace and 

kindness man would never have emerged from 

behind the curtain of non-existence into the 

visible world. Man’s preservation and eventual 

attainment to perfection are also entirely de¬ 

pendent upon the grace of God. It would 

indeed be a wonder, if one should take refuge 

from the heat of the sun under the shadow of a 

tree and not be grateful to the tree, without which 

there would be no shadow at all. Precisely in the 

same way, were it not for God, man would have 

no existence nor attributes at all; wherefore, then, 

should he not love God, unless he be ignorant of 

Him ? Doubtless fools cannot love Him, for the 

love of Him springs directly from the knowledge of 

Him, and whence should a fool have knowledge ? 

The second cause of this love is that man loves 

his benefactor, and in truth his only Benefactor 

is God, for whatever kindness he receives from 

any fellow-creature is due to the immediate in¬ 

stigation of God. Whatever motive may have 

prompted the kindness he receives from another, 

whether the desire to gain religious merit or a 

good name, God is the Agent who set that motive 

to work. 

The third cause is the love that is aroused by 

104 

THE LOVE OF GOD 

contemplation of the attributes of God, His 

power and wisdom, of which human power and 

wisdom are but the feeblest reflections. This 

love is akin to that we feel to the great and good 

men of the past, such as the Imam Malik and the 

Imam Shaft, 1 though we never expect to receive 

any personal benefits from them, and is therefore 

a more disinterested kind of love. God said to 

the prophet David, “ That servant is dearest to 

Me who does not seek Me from fear of punishment 

or hope of reward, but to pay the debt due to 

My Deity.” And in the Psalms it is written, 

“ Who is a greater transgressor than he who 

worships Me from fear of hell or hope of heaven ? 

If I had created neither, should I not then have 

deserved to be worshipped ? ” 

The fourth cause of this love is the affinity 

between man and God, wffiich is referred to in the 

saying of the Prophet, “ Verily God created man 

in His own likeness.” Furthermore, God has 

said, “ My servant seeks proximity to Me, that 

I may make him My friend, and when I have 

made him My friend I become his ear, his eye, 

his tongue.” Again, God said to Moses, “ I was 

sick, and thou didst not visit Me ? ” Moses 

replied, “ 0 God ! Thou art Lord of heaven and 

earth: how couldest Thou be sick ? ” God 

said, “ A certain servant of Mine was sick ; hadst 

thou visited him, thou wouldst have visited Me.” 

1 Founders of the sects which bear their names. 

AFFINITY BETWEEN GOD AND MAN 105 

This is a somewhat dangerous topic to dwell 

upon, as it is beyond the understanding of common 

people, and even intelligent men have stumbled 

in treating of it, and come to believe in incarna¬ 

tion and union with God. Still, the affinity 

which does exist between man and God disposes 

of the objection of those theologians mentioned 

above, who maintain that man cannot love a 

Being who is not of his own species. However 

great the distance between them, man can love 

God because of the affinity indicated in the 

saying, “ God created man in His own likeness.” 

The Vision of God 

All Moslems profess to believe that the Vision 

of God is the summit of human felicity, because 

it is so stated in the Law; but with many this is 

a mere lip-profession which arouses no emotion 

in their hearts. This is quite natural, for how 

can a man long for a thing of which he has no 

knowledge ? We will endeavour to show briefly 

why the Vision of God is the greatest happiness 

to which a man can attain. 

In the first place, every one of man’s faculties 

has its appropriate function which it delights to 

fulfil. This holds good of them all, from the 

lowest bodily appetite to the highest form of 

intellectual apprehension. But even a com¬ 

paratively low form of mental exertion affords 

106 

THE LOVE OF GOD 

greater pleasure than the satisfaction of bodily 

appetites. Thus, if a man happens to be absorbed 

in a game of chess, he will not come to his meal, 

though repeatedly summoned. And the higher 

the subject-matter of our knowledge, the greater 

is our delight in it ; for instance, we would take 

more pleasure in knowing the secrets of a king 

than the secrets of a vizier. Seeing, then, that 

God is the highest possible object of knowledge, 

the knowledge of Him must afford more delight 

than any other. He who knows God, even in 

this world, dwells, as it were, in a paradise, “ the 

breadth of which is as the breadth of the heavens 

and the earth,” 1 a paradise the fruits of which 

no envy can prevent him plucking, and the extent 

of which is not narrowed by the multitude of 

those who occupy it. 

But the delight of knowledge still falls short 

of the delight of vision, just as our pleasure in 

thinking of those we love is much less than the 

pleasure afforded by the actual sight of them. 

Our imprisonment in bodies of clay and water, 

and entanglement in the things of sense constitute 

a veil which hides the Vision of God from us, 

although it does not prevent our attaining to 

some knowledge of Him. For this reason God 

said to Moses on Mount Sinai, “ Thou shalt not 

see Me.” 2 

The truth of the matter is this, that, just as the 

1 Koran. 2 Ibid. 

IN MANY MIRRORS 

107 

seed of man becomes a man, and a buried date- 

stone becomes a palm-tree, so the knowledge of 

God acquired on earth will in the next world 

change into the Vision of God, and he who has 

never learnt the knowledge will never have the 

Vision. This Vision will not be shared alike by 

all who know, but their discernment of it will 

vary exactly as their knowledge. God is one, 

but He will be seen in many different ways, just 

as one object is reflected in different ways by 

different mirrors, some showing it straight, and 

some distorted, some clearly and some dimly. 

A mirror may be so crooked as to make even a 

beautiful form appear misshapen, and a man 

may carry into the next world a heart so dark 

and distorted that the sight which will be a 

source of peace and joy to others will be to him 

a source of misery. He, in whose heart the love 

of God has prevailed over all else, will derive 

more joy from this vision than he in whose heart 

it has not so prevailed ; just as in the case of 

two men with equally powerful eyesight, gazing 

on a beautiful face, he who already loves the 

possessor of that face will rejoice in beholding it 

more than he who does not. For perfect happi¬ 

ness mere knowledge is not enough, unaccom¬ 

panied by love, and the love of God cannot take 

possession of a man’s heart till it be purified 

from love of the world, which purification can 

only be effected by abstinence and austerity. 

108 

THE LOVE OF GOD 

While lie is in this world a man’s condition with 

regard to the Vision of God is like that of a lover 

who should see his Beloved’s face in the twilight, 

while his clothes are infested with hornets and 

scorpions, which continually torment him. But 

should the sun arise and reveal his Beloved’s 

face in all its beauty, and the noxious vermin 

leave off molesting him, then the lover’s joy will 

be like that of God’s servant, who, released from 

the twilight and the tormenting trials of this 

world, beholds Him without a veil. Abu 

Suleiman said, 44 He who is busy with himself 

now will be busy with himself then, and he who 

is occupied with God now will be occupied v r ith 

Him then.” 

Yahya Ibn Muaz relates, “I watched Bayazid. 

Bistami at prayer through one entire night. 

When he had finished he stood up and said, 

4 0 Lord ! some of Thy servants have asked and 

obtained of Thee the power to perform miracles, 

to walk on the sea, and to fly in the air, but this 

I do not ask ; some have asked and obtained 

treasures, but these I do not ask.’ Then he 

turned, and, seeing me, said, 4 Are you there, 

Yahya ? ’ I replied, 4 Yes.’ He asked, 4 Since 

when ? ’ I answered, 4 For a long time.’ I then 

asked him to reveal to me some of his spiritual 

experiences. 4 1 will reveal,’ he answered, 4 what 

is lawful to tell you. The Almighty showed me 

His kingdom, from its loftiest to its lowest; He 

TREASURES SURPASSING 

109 

raised me above the throne and the seat and all 

the seven heavens. Then He said, 44 Ask of me 

whatsoever thing thon desirest.” I answered, 

44 Lord ! I wish for nothing beside Thee.” 

44 Verily,” He said, 44 thou art My servant.” 5 ” 

On another occasion Bayazid said, 44 Were God 

to offer thee the intimacy with Himself of Abra¬ 

ham, the power in prayer of Moses, the spirituality 

of Jesus, yet keep thy face directed to Him only, 

for He has treasures surpassing even these.” 

One day a friend said to him, 44 For thirty years 

I have fasted by day and prayed by night and 

have found none of that spiritual joy of which 

thou speakest.” Bayazid answered, 44 If you 

fasted and prayed for three hundred years, you 

would never find it.” 44 How is that ? ” asked 

the other. 44 Because,” said Bayazid, 44 your 

selfishness is acting as a veil between you and 

God.” 44 Tell me, then, the cure.” 44 It is a cure 

which you cannot carry out.” However, as his 

friend pressed him to reveal it, Bayazid said, 

44 Go to the nearest barber and have your beard 

shaved ; strip yourself of your clothes, with the 

exception of a girdle round your loins. Take a 

horse’s nose-bag full of walnuts, hang it round 

your neck, go into the bazaar and cry out, 4 Any 

boy who gives me a slap on the nape of my neck 

shall have a walnut.’ Then, in this manner, go 

where the Cadi and the doctors of the law are 

sitting.” 44 Bless my soul! ” said his friend, 

110 

THE LOVE OF GOD 

“ I really can’t do that; do suggest some other 

remedy.” “ This is the indispensable preliminary 

to a cure,” answered Bayazid, “ but, as I told 

you, you are incurable.” 

The reason Bayazid indicated this method of 

cure for want of relish in devotion was that his 

friend was an ambitious seeker after place and 

honour. Ambition and pride are diseases which 

can only be cured in some such way. God said 

unto Jesus, “ O Jesus ! when I see in My servants 5 

hearts pure love for Myself unmixed with any 

selfish desire concerning this world or the next, 

I act as guardian over that love.” Again, when 

people asked Jesus “ What is the highest work 

of all ? ” he answered, “ To love God and to be 

resigned to His will.” The saint Rabia was once 

asked whether she loved the Prophet : “ The 

love of the Creator,” she said, “ has prevented 

my loving the creature.” Ibrahim Ben Adham, 

in his prayers, said, “ 0 God ! In my eyes heaven 

itself is less than a gnat in comparison with the 

love of Thee and the joy of Thy remembrance 

which Thou hast granted me.” 

He who supposes that it is possible to enjoy 

happiness in the next world apart from the love 

of God is far gone in error, for the very essence 

of the future life is to arrive at God as at an 

Object of desire long aimed at and attained 

through countless obstacles. This enjoyment of 

God is happiness. But if he had no delight in 

STORY OF THE SCAVENGER 111 

God before, he will not delight in Him then, and 

if his joy in God was but slight before it will be 

but slight then. In brief, our future happiness 

will be in strict proportion to the degree in which 

we have loved God here. 

But (and may God preserve us from such a 

doom !) if in a man’s heart there has been growing 

up a love of what is opposed to God, the conditions 

of the next life will be altogether alien to him,, 

and that which will cause joy to others will to 

him cause misery. 

This may be illustrated by the following 

anecdote : A certain scavenger went into the 

perfume-sellers’ bazaar, and, smelling the sweet 

scents, fell down unconscious. People came 

round him and sprinkled rose-water upon him 

and held musk to his nose, but he only became 

worse. At last one came who had been a 

scavenger himself ; he held a little filth under 

the man’s nose and he revived instantly, ex¬ 

claiming, with a sigh of satisfaction, “ Ah ! this 

is perfume indeed ! ” Thus in the next life a 

worldling will no longer find the filthy lucre and 

the filthy pleasures of the world ; the spiritual 

joys of that world will be altogether alien to him 

and but increase his wretchedness. For the next 

world is a world of Spirit and of the manifestation 

of the Beauty of God ; happy is that man who 

has aimed at and acquired affinity with it. All- 

austerities, devotions, studies have the acquire- 

112 

THE LOVE OF GOD 

ment of that affinity for their aim, and that 

affinity is love. This is the meaning of that 

saying of the Koran, “ He who has purified his 

soul is happy.” Sins and lusts directly oppose 

the attainment of this affinity ; therefore the 

Koran goes on to say, “ And he who has cor¬ 

rupted his soul is miserable.” 1 Those who are 

gifted with spiritual insight have really grasped 

this truth as a fact of experience, and not a merely 

traditional maxim. Their clear perception of it 

leads them to the conviction that he by whom it 

was spoken was a prophet indeed, just as a man 

who has studied medicine knows when he is 

listening to a physician. This is a kind of cer¬ 

tainty which requires no support from miracles 

such as the conversion of a rod into a snake,, the 

credit of which may be shaken by apparently 

equally extraordinary miracles performed by 

magicians. 

The Signs of the Love of God 

Many claim to love God, but each should ex¬ 

amine himself as to the genuineness of the love 

which he professes. The first test is this : he 

should not dislike the thought of death, for no 

friend shrinks from going to see a friend. The 

Prophet said, “ Whoever wishes to see God, God 

wishes to see him.” It is true a sincere lover of 

1 Koran, chap. 91. 

TESTS OF SINCERITY 

113 

God may shrink from the thought of death coming 

before he has finished his preparation for the 

next world, but if he is sincere, he will be diligent 

in making such preparation. 

The second test of sincerity is that a man 

should be willing to sacrifice his will to God’s, 

should cleave to what brings him nearer to God, 

and should shun what places him at a distance 

from God. The fact of a man’s sinning is no 

proof that he does not love God at all, but it 

proves that he does not love Him with his whole 

heart. The saint Fudhail said to a certain man, 

“ If any one asks you whether you love God, 

keep silent; for if you say, 4 1 do not love Him,’ 

you are an infidel; and if you say, ‘ I do,’ your 

deeds contradict you.” 

The third test is that the remembrance of God 

should always remain fresh in a man’s heart 

without effort, for what a man loves he constantly 

remembers, and if his love is perfect he never 

forgets it. It is possible, however, that, while 

the love of God does not take the first place in 

a man’s heart, the love of the love of God may, 

for love is one thing and the love of love 

another. 

The fourth test is, that he will love the Koran, 

which is the Word of God, and Muhammad, who 

is the Prophet of God ; if his love is really strong, 

he will love all men, for all are God’s servants, 

nay, his love will embrace the whole creation, for 

8 

114 

THE LOVE OF GOD 

he who loves any one loves the works he composes 

and his handwriting. 

The fifth test is, he will be covetous of retire¬ 

ment and privacy for purposes of devotion ; he 

will long for the approach of night, so that he 

may hold intercourse with his Friend without 

let or hindrance. If he prefers conversation by 

day and sleep at night to such retirement, then 

his love is imperfect. God said to David, “ Be 

not too intimate with men ; for two kinds of 

persons are excluded from My presence: those 

who are earnest in seeking reward and slack when 

they obtain it, and those who prefer their own 

thoughts to the remembrance of Me. The sign 

of My displeasure is, that I leave such to them¬ 

selves.” 

In truth, if the love of God really take possession 

of the heart all other love is excluded. One of 

the children of Israel was in the habit of praying 

at night, but, observing that a bird sang in a 

certain tree very sweetly, he began to pray under 

that tree, in order to have the pleasure of listening 

to the bird. God told David to go and say to 

him, “ Thou hast mingled the love of a melodious 

bird with the love of Me ; thy rank among the 

saints is lowered.” On the other hand, some 

have loved God with such intensity that, while 

they were engaged in devotion, their houses have 

caught fire and they have not noticed it. 

A sixth test is that worship becomes easy. A 

WHO ARE THY LOVERS ? 

115 

certain saint said, “ During one space of thirty 

years I performed my night-devotions with great 

difficulty, but during a second space of thirty 

years they became a delight.” When love to 

God is complete no joy is equal to the joy of 

worship. 

The seventh test is that lovers of God will love 

those who obey Him and hate the infidels and 

the disobedient, as the Koran says: “ They are 

strenuous against the unbelievers and merciful 

to each other.” The Prophet once asked God 

and said, “ 0 Lord ! who are Thy lovers ? ” 

and the answer came, “ Those who cleave to Me 

as a child to its mother, take refuge in the re¬ 

membrance of Me as a bird seeks the shelter of 

its nest, and are as angry at the sight of sin as an 

angry lion who fears nothing.” 

Printed by Haxell, Watson d Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. 

. 

• S.' 

. 

. -g. 

** 

-• - 

Date Due 

>, * 

- V . ., k - 

i w 'f . 

,i y 

i >»* 

V *»4.- 

B753.G33A3 

The alchemy of happiness by al 

Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 

1 1012 00031 1672 

행복연금술/알 가잘리 Al Ghazali - 자유게시판 - 김포민예총

행복연금술/알 가잘리 Al Ghazali - 자유게시판 - 김포민예총

행복연금술/알 가잘리 Al Ghazali

작성자바닷가우체국|작성시간12.07.20

 

행복연금술/알 가잘리 Al Ghazali 安萨里

  그는 별을 바라보면서 이런 생각을 했다. 저 별의 크기는 얼마나 될까? 눈으로 보는 별은 아주 작다. 하지만 그는 별이 아주 크다는 것을 알고 있다. 그렇다면 눈으로 보고 지각하는 별의 크기와 실제 별의 크기 사이에는 무슨 차이가 있는 것인가? 이 단순한 물음은 그의 정신을 뒤흔들어 놓았다. 그때 선지자 마호메트가 한 말 ‘인간은 죽으면서 깨어난다.’라는 지혜의 가르침이 떠올랐다. 그는 알 가잘리(Al Ghazali, 1058 ~ 1111), 이슬람 세계에서 성인으로 추앙받는 전설적인 인물이다.

 

  기독교의 아퀴나스에 비교되는 알 가잘리는 이란의 투스(Tus)에서 태어나 어린 시절 부모를 잃었다. 하지만 그는 학업에 충실하여 바그다드 니자미야 대학의 교수가 되어 신플라톤주의와 과학을 강의했고 이슬람의 경전을 연구했다. 그러나 1095년 갑자기 모든 직위를 버리고 고행의 길을 떠났다. 그 후 그는 허름한 양털 옷을 입고 이집트, 시리아, 메카, 예루살렘 등에서 수행했다. 당시 상당한 영향력 행사하던 이븐시나(Ibn Sina, Avicenna)의 철학과 아리스토텔레스 그리고 신플라톤학파를 비판적으로 섭렵한 후, 이슬람의 독자적 철학을 정립했다. 가잘리는 수니파와 시아파보다 소

수의 수피파였지만 이슬람의 계율과 전통을 재확립한 성인으로 추앙받게 되었다.

 

  별의 크기에서 보듯이 과학이나 이성으로 판단한 것은 다른 차원에서 보면 진실이 아닐 수도 있다. 그래서 가잘리는 경건하게 계율을 지키는 수피(Sufi)의 전통에 따라 영적 체험을 강조하는 신비주의(mysticism)를 신봉하게 된다. 가잘리에 의하면 인간은 다른 차원을 인정하면서 현재와 연결하는 보편적이면서 통찰적인 사유가 필요하다. 이 신비주의는 이성과 현실에서 보면 신비하다는 뜻일 뿐, 실제로 신성한 비밀이라는 의미는 아니다. 또한 가잘리는 과학과 이성을 중요시했으므로 이성에 배치되지 않는 신비만을 취했다. 그리하여 신의 신비한 힘인 연금술(alchemy)을 통하여 인간이 육신으로부터 해방되고 또 진정한 행복을 느낄 수 있다고 보았다.

 

  70여 권의 저서를 남긴 가잘리는 빛이 가슴을 뚫고 들어오는 신비한 체험을 한 후, 직관에 근거한 내면의 고뇌에 깊이 천착했다. 가잘리에 의하면 법학이나 신학으로 알 수 없는 영적 본질은 자기의 내면을 깊이 통찰할 때 보인다. 그는 육신으로부터 해방되는 연금술에서 자신을 아는 것, 신을 아는 것, 태어나기 전을 아는 것, 죽은 후를 아는 것 등이 필요하다고 강조했다. 이것은 진정한 신을 알고 신에 귀의하는 경건한 믿음을 말하는데, 이것을 낙타와 순례에 비유한다. 순례의 목적지까지 가려면 낙타를 잘 보살펴야 하지만 낙타를 보살피는 것이 목적이 될 수는 없다. 최종의 목표는 신을 알고 신의 곁으로 가는 것이다. 한편 가잘리는 인간만이 지위를 바꿀 수 있고 하늘의 천사(天使)가 될 수 있다고 믿었다. 천사와 같은 존재가 되기 위해서 영혼을 가지고 하늘에서 내려온 인간은 진지하고 경건한 삶을 살아야 한다. 이처럼 신의 부름에 따를 때 정신이 정화되면서 영혼이 구원받는다는 것이 바로 행복한 정신의 연금술이다.

 

  가잘리는 이븐시나의 이론과 과학을 비판하여 이슬람의 종교적 전통을 확립했다. 또한 의식 위주의 종교예식을 타파하고 쿠란과 하디스를 중심으로 한 순수하고 경건한 계율을 주장했다. 그 결과 신학과 철학이 연결되면서 수피의 신비주의 전통이 이슬람 정통에 수용되었다. 또한 가잘리는 철학자들의 논리와 이성이 그 자체로 불일치한다는 것[Incoherence of the Philosophers]을 입증하면서 종교의 믿음으로 신을 경배해야 한다고 주장했다. 가령 솜이 타는 것은 불에 의해서가 아니라 신에 의해서라는 것이다. 이것은 신은 시간이 끝나고 세상이 없더라도 존재한다는 보편적 절대성을 의미한다. 이처럼 합리적 의지인 신의 법과 종교이론을 통하여 가잘리는 이슬람 세계에서 가장 존경받는 철학자이자 신학자로 알려지게 되었다. 하지만 가잘리의 이런 종교적 신비주의와 철학사상은 이슬람 세계의 과학발전을 저해했다는 비판을 받는다. 아울러 형식적 종교의식은 타파했지만 지나치게 경건함을 강조하여 근본주의를 강화했다는 비판도 받는다.

김승환(충북대교수)

불교·기독교·이슬람·유대교 … 공통분모 있을까? | 중앙일보

불교·기독교·이슬람·유대교 … 공통분모 있을까? | 중앙일보



불교·기독교·이슬람·유대교 … 공통분모 있을까?
중앙일보


입력 2014.04.17 00:33
지면보기
김환영 기자

이슬람 종교의식에서 비롯된 이집트 전통 춤인 ‘수피 댄스’를 추고 있는 무용수. 알가잘리는 춤과 음악이 신(神)을 체험하는 수단이라고 주장한다. [사진 위키피디아]

사람과 고등 유인원은 최소 90%의 DNA를 공유한다. 사람은 커피하고도 DNA가 50% 같다. 가까운 친척과 먼 친척이 있다.

　종교는 어떨까. 모든 종교의 궁극적인 진리는 100% 동일하기에 예컨대 ‘불교와 기독교는 같다’고 생각하는 사람들이 있다. 비슷해 보여도 본질은 완전히 다르기에 기독교와 이슬람, 개신교와 가톨릭의 공통점은 0%라는 견해도 있다.

　이슬람 신학자 알가잘리(1058~1111)가 지은 『행복의 연금술』(1097)은 이슬람과 신비주의를 중심으로 종교의 공통점을 생각하게 하는 책이다. 유대교·기독교와 마찬가지로 ‘아브라함의 종교’라 불리는 이슬람은 창조주, 천지창조, 최후의 심판, 죽은 자의 부활, 영원한 생명을 믿는다.

　신비주의는 모든 종교의 공통분모다. 신비주의는 이성·교리·의식보다는 어떤 직접적인 영적 체험을 통해 진리를 추구한다. 이슬람 내부 신비주의인 수피주의(Sufism)는 금욕, 고행, 청빈한 생활을 실천하고 신인합일(神人合一) 체험을 중시했기 때문에 한때 정통파 이슬람으로부터 이단으로 몰리기도 했다. 사실 모든 신비주의는 주류 정통파와 미묘한 갈등·긴장 관계다.

　세계 인구의 4분의 1을 차지하는 이슬람의 최고 신학자는 페르시아 출신이었던 알가잘리다. 그는 ‘선지자 무함마드 이후 가장 위대한 무슬림’ ‘이슬람의 증거’라 불린다. 중세 기독교 신학에도 큰 영향을 미쳤다. 토마스 아퀴나스(1225~74)도 그를 인용했다.

　알가잘리는 그리스 철학과 이슬람 신학을 완벽히 소화했다. 30대에 이미 명성이 자자한 대학교수였다. 신앙의 위기가 찾아왔다. 자신이 믿는 것이 확실한지 의심하게 됐다. 음식을 제대로 못 먹고 말도 제대로 못하게 됐다. 알가잘리는 수피주의에서 해답을 찾았다. 상징적이자 물리적인 ‘오랜 여정’ 끝에 그는 이슬람 정통 교리와 신비주의를 융합시켰다. 논리·이성, 직접 체험, 직관, 상상력, 수양과 금욕을 한데 뭉뚱그린 신앙체계를 완성한 것이다.
『행복의 연금술』 영문판(The Alchemy of Happiness·왼쪽)과 한글판 표지.

　『행복의 연금술』은 일반인을 위한 이슬람 신비주의의 결정판이다. 『행복의 연금술』은 영혼·신·현세·내세에 대한 지식을 다루고 있다. 부귀영화를 누리기 위해 필요한 지식이 아니라 신과 하나가 되기 위해 필요한 지식이다. 알가잘리는 이렇게 말한다. “땅속의 씨처럼 사람의 영혼에는 지식이 잠재돼 있다. 배움으로써 잠재됐던 게 실체가 된다.”

　무엇을 배워야 할까. 자기 자신에 대해서다. 『행복의 연금술』에 따르면 참으로 행복한 사람은 자신을 아는 사람이다. 우리 자신에 대해 알기 전에는 우리의 잠재력을 실현할 수 없다. 우리 자신에 대해 모르는 것은 무엇일까. 사람은 무엇보다 영적인 존재라는 것, 우리를 영적으로 만드는 우리의 영혼이 사실은 완벽하다는 사실이다. 우리 영혼은 먼지 때문에 원래 용도를 상실한 거울과 같다. 하지만 욕망 때문에 탁해진 영혼을 닦아내면 영혼은 신의 빛을 반사하는 거울이 될 수 있다.

　사람은 왜 고통을 느낄까. 신과 유리됐기 때문이다. 신과 친밀한 관계를 맺지 않고서는 진정한 행복에 도달할 수 없다. 하지만 고통을 덜기 위해 사람은 몸의 쾌락을 추구한다. 신체적인 쾌락은 고통을 덜 수 없다. 고통의 근본 원인은 영적인 것이기 때문이다. 알가잘리는 이렇게 말한다. “신을 향하지 않고 있다는 게 모든 고통의 원인이다.” 인생이 여정이라면 몸은 말이나 낙타와 같다. 인생의 목적지에 당도하기 위해서는 낙타를 잘 돌봐야 한다. 하지만 지구라는 ‘타향으로 간 여행객’인 인간은 탈것에 불과한 몸에 지나치게 집착하느라 목적지를 종종 잊어버린다.

　신을 바라보고 있지 않기 때문에 사람은 보이지 않는 여러 원수에게 포위돼 있다. 원수란 이기심·거만함·욕심·음욕·옹졸함·분노·거짓말·속이기·험담하기 같은 것들이다. 험악한 말을 하는 것, 돈·권력·명예를 사랑하는 것도 행복을 가로막는 원수들이다. 특히 아무리 많이 기도하고 금식해도 신과 나 사이에 이기심이 자리 잡고 있으면 행복할 수 없다는 게 알가잘리의 주장이다.

　이슬람에 따르면 신은 12만4000명의 예언자를 땅으로 보냈다. 자아가 변하는 게 행복이라는 것을 가르치기 위해서다. 자아가 변하면서 사람은 식탐·색욕 같은 ‘저급한’ 욕구로부터 멀어지며, 신에 대해 생각하기 시작하면 직관·직감력이 강화된다. 원인과 결과에 대한 인식도 달라진다. 몸과 마음에 병이 생겼을 때 의사나 점쟁이도 나름대로 원인을 제시하고 설명할 수 있다. 고통에 대해서도 수많은 원인이 제시될 수 있다. 알가잘리에 따르면 피상적인 원인과 진짜 원인이 있다.

세상 속에는 진짜 원인은 없다. 신이 병 같은 고통을 주는 이유는 신에 대해 생각하게 만들기 위해서다. 나를 미워하거나 해코지하는 사람이 있다 하더라도 그 사람 때문에 상심하거나 그에게 복수할 궁리를 할 필요가 없다. 궁극적인 원인은 신이기 때문이다.

　『행복의 연금술』은 또 이렇게 말한다. 신이 우주를 만든 목적이 있다. 사람은 누구나 태어난 목적이 있다. 목적이 있는 것은 모두 귀하다.


김환영 기자

◆서울대 외교학과를 졸업하고 미국 스탠퍼드대에서 중남미학 석사학위와 정치학 박사학위를 받았다. 현재 중앙일보 논설위원겸 심의실 위원, 단국대 초빙교수로 재직 중이다. 저서로 『세상이 주목한 책과 저자』『하루 10분, 세계사의 오리진을 만나다』『아포리즘 행복 수업』등이 있다.


Al-Ghazzali

알가잘리 오늘날의 이란 투스 지방에서 출생하고 별세했다. 바그다드에 있는 니자미야대의 학장으로 재직하다 1095년 영적인 위기를 겪었다. 저서로는 『철학자의 모순』 『여러 종교학의 소생』 등이 있다. 최소 50권의 책을 집필한 것으로 알려졌다. 딸은 여러 명 뒀으나 아들은 없었다.