Jamʿ and Farq

Jamʿ is gathering, union; farq, also tafriqa, is separation. Al-Hujwīrī treats the pair in his chapter on the doctrines of the Sufi schools, directly after the debate on intoxication and sobriety (Sukr and Ṣaḥw). He states it in terms of what a person can do:

It may happen, then, that God’s love holds absolute sway over the heart of His servant, and that his reason and natural faculties are too weak to sustain its rapture and intensity, and that he loses all control of his power to act (kasb). This state is called “union”.

— Kashf al-Maḥjūb, Chapter XIV

Everything else is its counterpart: “All ordinary actions are ‘separation,’ and all acts which violate custom are ‘union.’” The category explains how the tradition understands miracles: “Herewith are connected all extraordinary miracles (iʿjáz) and acts of miraculous grace (karámát).” An editor’s note in the Kashf’s appendix illustrates the pair with the examples al-Hujwīrī uses elsewhere: “the action of Muḥammad when he threw gravel in the eyes of the unbelievers at Badr, and ... that of David when he slew Goliath.” (Notes) In the first, God attributes the act to Himself; in the second, to the man (see Sukr and Ṣaḥw).

United inwardly, separated outwardly

The weight of the discussion is on how the two coexist in one person. Al-Hujwīrī:

Accordingly, His saints are united (mujtami`) by their inward feelings (asrár) and separated (muftariq) by their outward behaviour, so that their love of God is strengthened by the internal union, and the right fulfilment of their duty as servants of God is assured by their external separation.

— Kashf al-Maḥjūb, Chapter XIV

He quotes Muzayyin the Elder to the same effect:

“Union is the state of privilege (khuṣúṣiyyat) and separation is the state of a servant (`ubúdiyyat), these states being indissolubly combined with each other,” because it is a work of the privileged state to fulfil the duties of servantship

— Kashf al-Maḥjūb, Chapter XIV

The practical consequence is stated bluntly: “it is impossible that the substance (`ayn) of self-mortification and religious obligation should be removed from anyone, even though he be in the essence of union, unless he has an evident excuse that is generally acknowledged by the authority of the religious law.” That is the same boundary drawn in the Law and the Truth.

A term that language cannot hold

In his chapter on unification (tawḥīd), al-Hujwīrī brings the pair back to the limits of speech: “The analogy of union and separation (jam` ú tafriqa) must be applied to this question in order that it may be understood.” He adds, “I, `Alí b. `Uthmán al-Jullábí, declare that unification is a mystery revealed by God to His servants, and that it cannot be expressed in language at all, much less in high-sounding phrases.” (Chapter XVI) In the poetry of Ibn al-Fāriḍ the same pair turns into an exchange of images: “If separation be my guerdon from you, and if there be no (real) distance between us, I regard that separation as union.” (Studies in Islamic Mysticism, Chapter III) See also Tawḥīd, Fanā and Baqā and Ḥulūl and Ittiḥād.