The Sufi writers have much to say on the stages of Hope and Fear, and are agreed that they have their place in the progress of the saint towards the Goal. Al-Hujwīrī considers that right hope and right fear are both necessary to man in this world, and regards fear and hope as the two pillars of faith. Those who fear, serve God through dread of separation from Him, and those who hope, serve in the expectation of union with Him. It is interesting to note that this writer, who maintains that every prophet has his special “station”, says that to Jesus belonged the station of Hope and to John the Baptist that of Fear. Al-Sarrāj states that Hope and Fear are as two wings without which the work of the saint cannot make progress and al-Qushayri, developing this simile, which he attributes to Abū ‘Alī al-Rūdhabārī, says that Hope and Fear are like the two wings of a bird when it is flying straight (to its destination); if one wing fails, its flight fails, and if both fail, it dies. Both are concerned with the future, Hope looks forward to what is desired and Fear dreads what is hated. Al-Kalābādhī, writing on Fear, says that when the Sufi, Abū ‘Abd Allah b. al-Jilī, was asked about the man who fears, he said, “He is the man who is made to trust (in God) by those things which are rightly feared, because he does not let fearful things disturb his mind, being removed from them by his fear of God, so that such things will be removed from him”.1,2,3,4,5,6
Another Sufi, being asked about such a God-fearing man, said, “He is the man who fears what is worthy of fear, and being dominated by the fear of God, he becomes all fear, and all things make him fear”. Yet this fear does not make him wretched, “He is burnt who feels the fire, but he who is fire, how shall he be burnt?” Abū ‘Amr al-Dimashqi is reported to have said, “The man who fears rightly is he who fears his carnal self more than his enemy”. Among the sayings of al-Fudayl, one of the earliest of the Sufis, contemporary with Rabi’a, is that He who knows God by way of love without Fear perishes through pleasure and ease. He who knows Him by way of Fear (only) is separated from Him by the spirit of servitude and avoidance, but he who loves Him, and is near to Him, and is a matter of concern to Him, and has knowledge of Him, and he who knows God in reality, is far from error, and he who gives to death (i.e. the chief object of Fear) its true significance, will not be unmindful of it. I.e. he will always bear in mind that death must bring him to the judgment of God and he will so live that he need not fear it. Like the other qualities to be attained by the Sufi on the path of enlightenment, these two can be analysed into the elements of faith, emotion and action. In Hope there is faith in the thing desired, based upon knowledge of God’s mercy, upon the warm recollection of His favours received through grace, not merit -and upon the proofs of His love and forgiveness towards His elect, and upon His promise of rewards to His servants. This faith leads to joy in the prospect of God’s future favour, and the practical results are that the soul7,8,9,10 strives to fight against all that may hinder it from gaining these delights in the future and to develop those virtues which may help towards their attainment. But Hope of such a kind is too much tinged with self-interest to be a help along the mystic Way and it is of such hope that al-Hujwīrī says, “No one who has imbibed the doctrine of hope can tread the way of purgation, because it leads to indolence” and the Sufi sets before himself a higher ideal of Hope. AlQushayri, with his gift for going to the heart of the matter, defines Hope as “the vision of God in His perfect Beauty” and al-Sarrāj says that the true servant’s hope is in God alone, and he hopes for nothing from God except God Himself. Such hope will lead the saint onward and upward. Fear, like Hope, is conditioned by faith and leads through emotion to action calculated to ward off that which is dreaded and hence it is salutary for the Sufi if of the right type. Al-Sarrāj speaks of three kinds of Fear, the commonest being fear of punishment. Others fear being cut off from God, or anything that might hinder their attainment of gnosis. But there is a higher type of Fear even than this and the holy fear of the elect is the fear of God alone. Al-Qushayri calls Fear “the scourge of God” wherewith He corrects those who would flee from His door. Terror of the common sort (rabba) makes a man run away, but holy dread (khashya) brings him near to God. Fear is as a lamp to the heart, making it see what is good and what is evil; and godly fear leads a man to turn his back on what is feared, because it is evil. “He who truly fears a thing flees from it, but he who truly fears God, flees unto Him.”11,12,13,14
Al-Ghazālī also speaks of the fear of Hell as “ a whip to drive to Paradise “. All the early Sufi writers are agreed that Fear is superior to Hope in its influence on the will and its effect on the life of devotion, and in freeing the soul from deceptive confidence in itself or the future. It may be interesting here to compare the Christian view on this subject as set forth in the Franciscan doctrine of the place of Holy Fear: He that fears not, shews that he hath nought to lose. The holy fear of God orders, governs and rules the soul and maketh it come to grace. If a man possesseth any grace or divine virtue, it is holy fear that keepeth it safe. And whoso hath not yet obtained virtue or grace, holy fear maketh him obtain it… But this holy gift of fear is not given save unto the perfect, for the more perfect a man is, the more doth he fear and humble himself… A man should have greater fear of his own wickedness lest it overcome him and lead him astray, than of any other of his enemies… Whoso hath not the fear of God, is in danger of perishing and of being altogether lost. To the Sufi also, Fear is a gift from God, Who has decreed that His servants should fear, and holy fear, that dread which is salutary for the soul, is produced by meditation on the Divine justice as evidenced in the punishment of Iblis and of Adam, and on Death and Judgment and Hell. Fear is a fire which burns away the desires which hinder the soul.” The fear of the Lord ”, says a tradition, “is the chief part of wisdom”. Yet the conclusion of the matter, for the Sufi, as we have said above, is that the most sublime form of Fear is that which has for its object not chastisement, nor even sin, but God Himself, fearing lest at the last the soul should be deprived for ever of the vision of His Everlasting Beauty.15,16,17,18
Al-Sarrāj, summing up the Sufi doctrine of these two stages, says that Hope and Fear are two fetters of the soul, hindering it from wandering from the straight path and safety and from turning aside to despair and separation (from God). Fear is like a state of darkness, in which the soul wanders, bewildered, seeking always to escape from it, and when Hope comes to lighten it, the soul goes out to a place of refreshment and grace prevails. The fairness of the day would not appear to advantage except in contrast with the darkness of the night. The best state (for the mystic) includes both, and the heart is sometimes a slave in the darkness of Fear and sometimes a prince in the brightness of Hope. Love and Hope and Fear are bound up together. Love is not perfect without fear, nor fear without hope, nor hope without fear. With this question of Hope and Fear is bound up the eschatological teaching of the Sufis and their conception of Paradise and Hell. For them Hell was not so much a place of punishment as a means of separation from the Presence of God, and Paradise to them was not a place of sensual or even spiritual joys, but simply the Vision of the Beloved and the state of abiding Union with Him. Of Rabi’a’s teaching on these stages, we are told that she was much subject to Fear and the effect upon her of the mention of Hell fire, already referred to, was due to her belief in the judgment that must be passed upon the sinner, a judgment which, in her weaker moments, she feared might be ordained for her, and once she prayed that she might not be condemned to Hell and was rebuked for thinking an evil thought.19,20
One of her biographers says that she remained for forty years without raising her head to heaven, out of her reverence towards God, and she used to say, “Whenever I have heard the call to prayer, I have remembered the trumpet call of the Day of Resurrection, and whenever I have seen the snow I have seen also the pages of the records fluttering. She was once asked,” In what do you hope most of all? “and she replied,” In my sorrow for most of my deeds “. But it is plain from teaching of hers already quoted that she held the motive of fear of punishment or hope of reward to be altogether unworthy of the saint of God. In the incident related by Aflākī she sought to remove both these motives as being hindrances to the attainment of the mystic goal. Again she thought that it was but a poor servant who worshipped his Lord either to escape punishment or to win reward. To her only God Himself was to be feared with the reverence due to His awful holiness, and equally to her, hope was only in God Himself, in the Vision of His Beauty. Al-Munāwī relates that she heard a reader read that” the inhabitants of Paradise are occupied in enjoying themselves “and she said,” The inhabitants of Paradise are unfortunate in their occupation and their companions “. Ibn ‘Arabī blamed her for this and said that she did not know (what she was speaking of) and that it was she who was unfortunate and that they were occupied only with God and this was His will for them. She probably wished to make it clear that in her view Paradise was not a place for sensual delights,21,22,23,24,25,26 but rather a state of contemplation of the Face of God. When Rabi’a was asked what she had to say about Paradise she said, “First the Neighbour, then the house”, and al-Ghazālī, after quoting her statement, goes on to say that she meant that in her heart was no leaning towards Paradise, but to the Lord of Paradise, and… no one who does not know God in this world will see Him in the next, and he who does not find the joy of gnosis in this world will not find the joy of vision in the next, since none may make appeal (to God) in the next world who has not sought His friendship in this world and none may reap who has not sown. A man is raised up only in the state in which he has died, and he dies only in the state in which he has lived and the only gnosis he takes with him is that wherewith he was blessed in himself, unless it is changed into the Vision (of God) by the removal of the veil, when his joy in it is greatly increased just as the joy of the lover is doubled if the imaginary picture of the beloved is exchanged for the vision (i.e. the reality) of the picture, and that is the highest joy. For the delights of Paradise are to each one there, only what he desires, and to him who desires only to meet with God Himself there is no delight save in Him, indeed he may suffer thereby, for since the delights of Paradise are only in proportion to (his) love of God and his love of God is in proportion to his gnosis, then the origin of (that spiritual) happiness is the gnosis which has been revealed by God through faith, and if you say, “Then the joy of the Vision, if it is in proportion to the joy of gnosis, in this world is but weak”, verily it shall be increased to an almost infinite degree of power, so that all the other joys of Paradise shall be despised beside it. All this al-Ghazālī reads into Rabi’a’s teaching on the true significance of Paradise, for the Sufi. Another writer, later than al-Ghazālī, also comments on this27,28 saying of Rabi’a’s. He relates that Rabi’a al-‘Adawiyya, when the state of love was dominating her, was asked, “Why do you not ask God for Paradise?” and she replied, “The Neighbour, before the house”. He compares this with a story of Āsiya, daughter of Mazāham, who said, “O Lord build for me a house with Thee in Paradise”; thus she chose the neighbour before the house. He also compares the saying of the Prophet, “I ask Thee for Thine approval and for Paradise”, as containing an indication of what Rabi’a said about the neighbour before the house. It is plain that Rabi’a’s teaching on Hope and Fear, seen in an eschatological setting, is closely linked with her teaching on the doctrine of disinterested love to God, and since she appears to have been among the first to bring this doctrine into prominence among the Sufis and to lay particular stress upon it as the essential element in the saint’s relation to God, it is possible that she was also one of the first to teach this exalted ideal of Hope and Fear and to conceive of Paradise as a spiritual state. Ibrāhīm b. Adham, of Balkh, a contemporary of Rabi’a’s, is reputed to have said, “O God, Thou knowest that in my eyes Paradise hath not the value of a gnat, if Thou hast blessed me with Thy love”, and Abū Yazid al-Biştāmī, somewhat later than Rabi’a, said that “Paradise is of no worth to those who love”, but these fall somewhat short of Rabi’a’s conception of life eternal as pure contemplation and adoration of the Beloved. Al-Qushayri, writing nearly three hundred years after29,30,31,32,33 Rabi’a’s death, includes her views as an accepted element in the Sufi doctrine of Hope and Fear, and it may well be, since al-Ghazālī, with so much material at his disposal, gives her authority for this high conception of the only worthy motive of Hope or Fear, that Rabi’a was largely responsible for this important development in Sufi doctrine.
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