CHAPTER II THE PERFECT MAN

Man, is not he Creation’s last appeal,
The light of Wisdom’s eye? Behold the wheel
Of universal life as ’twere a ring,
But Man the superscription and the seal.
Omar Khayyam.

“Thus, he says, is very deep and hard to grasp the knowledge of the perfect man. For, he says, the beginning of perfection is knowledge of man; but knowledge of God is complete perfection.”
— Hippolytus (Greek)

“Man is the eternal Word (Logos) of God.”
— Philo (Greek)

What do Sufis mean when they speak of the Perfect Man (al-insánu ’l-kámil), a phrase which seems first to have been used by the celebrated Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí, although the notion underlying it is almost as old as Sufism itself? The question might be answered in different ways, but if we seek a general definition, perhaps we may describe the Perfect Man as a man who has fully realised his essential oneness with the Divine Being in whose likeness he is made. This experience, enjoyed by prophets and saints and shadowed forth in symbols to others, is the foundation of the Sufi theosophy. Therefore, the class of Perfect Men comprises not only the prophets from Adam to Mohammed, but also the superlatively elect (khuṣúṣu ’l-khuṣúṣ) amongst the Sufis, i.e., the persons named collectively awliyá, plural of walí, a word originally meaning “near,” which is used for “friend,” “protégé,” or “devotee.” Since the walí or saint is the popular type of Perfect Man, it should be understood that the essence of Mohammedan saintship, as of prophecy, is nothing less than Divine illumination, immediate vision and knowledge of things unseen and unknown, when the veil of sense is suddenly lifted and the conscious self passes away in the overwhelming glory of “the One true Light.” An ecstatic feeling of oneness with God constitutes the walí. It is the end of the Path (ṭaríqa) in so far as the discipline of the Path is meant to predispose and prepare the disciple to receive this incalculable gift of Divine grace, which is not gained or lost by anything that a man may do, but comes to him in proportion to the measure and degree of spiritual capacity with which he was created.

Two special functions of the walí further illustrate the relation of the popular saint-cult to mystical philosophy—(1) his function as a mediator, (2) his function as a cosmic power. The Perfect Man, as will be explained in the course of our argument, unites the One and the Many, so that the universe depends on him for its continued existence. In Mohammedan religious life the walí occupies the same middle position: he bridges the chasm which the Koran and scholasticism have set between man and an absolutely transcendent God. He brings relief to the distressed, health to the sick, children to the childless, food to the famished, spiritual guidance to those who entrust their souls to his care, blessing to all who visit his tomb and invoke Allah in his name. The walís, from the highest to the lowest, are arranged in a graduated hierarchy, with the Quṭb at their head, forming “a saintly board of administration by which the invisible government of the world is carried on.” Speaking of the Awtád—four saints whose rank is little inferior to that of the Quṭb himself—Hujwírí says:

It is their office to go round the whole world every night, and if there be any place on which their eyes have not fallen, next day some flaw will appear in that place; and they must then inform the Quṭb, in order that he may direct his attention to the weak spot, and that by his blessing the imperfection may be remedied.

Such experiences and beliefs were partly the cause and partly the consequence of speculation concerning the nature of God and man, speculation which drifted far away from Koranic monotheism into pantheistic and monistic philosophies. The Sufi reciting the Koran in ecstatic prayer and seeming to hear, in the words which he intoned, not his own voice but the voice of God speaking through him, could no longer acquiesce in the orthodox conception of Allah as a Being utterly different from all other beings. This dogma was supplanted by faith in a Divine Reality (al-Ḥaqq), a God who is the creative principle and ultimate ground of all that exists. While Sufis, like Moslems in general, affirm the transcendence of God and reject the notion of infusion or incarnation (ḥulúl), it is an interesting fact that one of the first attempts in Islam to indicate more precisely the meaning of mystical union was founded on the Christian doctrine of two natures in God. Ḥalláj, who dared to say Ana ’l-Ḥaqq, “I am the Ḥaqq,” thereby announced that the saint in his deification “becomes the living and personal witness of God.” The Jewish tradition that God created Adam in His own image reappeared as a ḥadíth (saying of the Prophet) and was put to strange uses by Mohammedan theosophists.

Even the orthodox Ghazálí hints that here is the key of a great mystery which nothing will induce him to divulge. According to Ḥalláj, the essence of God’s essence is Love. Before the creation God loved Himself in absolute unity and through love revealed Himself to Himself alone. Then, desiring to behold that love-in-aloneness, that love without otherness and duality, as an external object, He brought forth from non-existence an image of Himself, endowed with all His attributes and names. This Divine image is Adam, in and by whom God is made manifest—divinity objectified in humanity. Ḥalláj, however, distinguishes the human nature (násút) from the Divine (láhút). Though mystically united, they are not essentially identical and interchangeable. Personality survives even in union: water does not become wine, though wine be mixed with it. Using a more congenial metaphor, Ḥalláj says in verses which are often quoted:

I am He whom I love, and He whom I love is I.
We are two spirits dwelling in one body,
If thou seest me, thou seest Him;
And if thou seest Him, thou seest us both.

The markedly Christian flavour of the Ḥallájian doctrine condemned it in Moslem eyes, and while later Sufis develop its main ideas and venerate Ḥalláj himself as a martyr who was barbarously done to death because he had proclaimed the Truth, they interpret his Ana ’l-Ḥaqq in the light of an idealistic monism which reduces all antitheses—including láhút and násút—to necessarily correlated aspects of the universal Essence. His doctrine in its original form has only recently been recovered and given to the world by M. Louis Massignon, to whose learned and brilliant monograph every student of Sufism is deeply indebted.

‘Abdu ’l-Karím ibn Ibráhím al-Jílí, author of al-Insánu ’l-kámil fí ma‘rifati ’l-awákhir wa ’l-awá’il (“The Man perfect in knowledge of the last and first things”), was born in a.d. 1365-6 and probably died some time between a.d. 1406 and 1417. His surname, which is derived from Jílán or Gílán, the province south of the Caspian, commemorates his descent from the founder of the Qádirite order of dervishes, ‘Abdu l-Qádir al-Jílí (Gílání), who died almost exactly 200 years before the date of Jílí’s birth. In the Insánu ’l-kámil he more than once refers to ‘Abdu ’l-Qádir as “our Shaykh,” so that he must have been a member of the fraternity. The Moslem biographers leave him unnoticed, but he himself tells us that he lived at Zabíd in Yemen with his Shaykh, Sharafu’ddín Ismá‘íl ibn Ibráhím al-Jabartí, and had previously travelled in India. Of his mystical writings twenty are known to be extant, and it is not unlikely that as many have been lost.

Jílí begins his work with a statement of his object in composing it. That object is God (al-Ḥaqq): therefore he must treat in the first place, of the Divine names, then of the Divine attributes, and lastly of the Divine essence. “I will call attention,” he says, “to mysteries which no author has ever put into a book, matters concerning the gnosis of God and of the universe, and will tread a path between reserve and divulgation.” He writes throughout as one reporting what has been communicated to him in mystical converse (mukálama), so that “the hearer knows it intuitively to be the word of God.” These private revelations are supported, he asserts, by the Koran and the Sunna, and he warns his readers not to charge him with errors which may arise from their own want of understanding; but while he professes belief in the Mohammedan articles of faith, he interprets them by an allegorising method that yields any and every meaning desired. As a writer, he is not without talent, though his work belongs to mysticism rather than to literature. Besides many poems which he seems to have admired inordinately, he introduces maqámas in rhymed prose and specimens of the Platonic myth. Thus he tells how the stranger, whose name is the Spirit, returned from long exile and imprisonment to the world known as Yúḥ, and entered a spacious city where Khaḍir rules over “the Men of the Unseen” (rijálu ’l-ghayb)—exalted saints and angels, of whom six classes are described.

The characteristic of the Insánu ’l-kámil is the idea of the Perfect Man, “who as a microcosmos of a higher order reflects not only the powers of nature but also the divine powers ‘as in a mirror’ (comp. the γενικὸς ἄνθρωπος of Philo).” On this basis Jílí builds his mystical philosophy. It will be better grasped as a whole, if before coming to details I endeavour to sketch it in outline.

Jílí belongs to the school of Sufis who hold that Being is one, that all apparent differences are modes, aspects, and manifestations of reality, that the phenomenal is the outward expression of the real. He begins by defining essence as that to which names and attributes are referred; it may be either existent or non-existent, i.e., existing only in name, like the fabulous bird called ‘Anqá. Essence that really exists is of two kinds: Pure Being, or God, and Being joined to not-being, i.e., the world of created things. The essence of God is unknowable per se; we must seek knowledge of it through its names and attributes. It is a substance with two accidents, eternity and everlastingness; with two qualities, creativeness and creatureliness; with two descriptions, uncreatedness and origination in time; with two names, Lord and slave (God and man); with two aspects, the outward or visible, which is the present world, and the inward or invisible, which is the world to come; both necessity and contingency are predicated of it, and it may be regarded either as non-existent for itself but existent for other, or as non-existent for other but existent for itself.

Pure Being, as such, has neither name nor attribute; only when it gradually descends from its absoluteness and enters the realm of manifestation, do names and attributes appear imprinted on it. The sum of these attributes is the universe, which is “phenomenal” only in the sense that it shows reality under the form of externality. Although, from this standpoint, the distinction of essence and attribute must be admitted, the two are ultimately one, like water and ice. The so-called phenomenal world—the world of attributes—is no illusion: it really exists as the self-revelation or other self of the Absolute. In denying any real difference between essence and attribute, Jílí makes Being identical with Thought. The world expresses God’s idea of Himself, or as Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí puts it, “we ourselves are the attributes by which we describe God; our existence is merely an objectification of His existence. God is necessary to us in order that we may exist, while we are necessary to Him in order that He may be manifested to Himself.”

Jílí calls the simple essence, apart from all qualities and relations, “the dark mist” (al-‘Amá). It develops consciousness by passing through three stages of manifestation, which modify its simplicity. The first stage is Oneness (Aḥadiyya), the second is He-ness (Huwiyya), and the third is I-ness (Aniyya). By this process of descent Absolute Being has become the subject and object of all thought and has revealed itself as Divinity with distinctive attributes embracing the whole series of existence. The created world is the outward aspect of that which in its inward aspect is God. Thus in the Absolute we find a principle of diversity, which it evolves by moving downwards, so to speak, from a plane beyond quality and relation, beyond even the barest unity, until by degrees it clothes itself with manifold names and attributes and takes visible shape in the infinite variety of Nature. But “the One remains, the Many change and pass.” The Absolute cannot rest in diversity. Opposites must be reconciled and at last united, the Many must again be One. Recurring to Jílí’s metaphor, we may say that as water becomes ice and then water once more, so the Essence crystallised in the world of attributes seeks to return to its pure and simple self. And in order to do so, it must move upwards, reversing the direction of its previous descent from absoluteness. We have seen how reality, without ceasing to be reality, presents itself in the form of appearance: by what means, then, does appearance cease to be appearance and disappear in the abysmal darkness of reality?

Man, in virtue of his essence, is the cosmic Thought assuming flesh and connecting Absolute Being with the world of Nature.

While every appearance shows some attribute of reality, Man is the microcosm in which all attributes are united, and in him alone does the Absolute become conscious of itself in all its diverse aspects. To put it in another way, the Absolute, having completely realised itself in human nature, returns into itself through the medium of human nature; or, more intimately, God and man become one in the Perfect Man—the enraptured prophet or saint—whose religious function as a mediator between man and God corresponds with his metaphysical function as the unifying principle by means of which the opposed terms of reality and appearance are harmonised. Hence the upward movement of the Absolute from the sphere of manifestation back to the unmanifested Essence takes place in and through the unitive experience of the soul; and so we have exchanged philosophy for mysticism.

Jílí distinguishes three phases of mystical illumination or revelation (tajallí), which run parallel, as it were, to the three stages—Oneness, He-ness, and I-ness—traversed by the Absolute in its descent to consciousness.

In the first phase, called the Illumination of the Names, the Perfect Man receives the mystery that is conveyed by each of the names of God, and he becomes one with the name in such sort that he answers the prayer of any person who invokes God by the name in question.

Similarly, in the second phase he receives the Illumination of the Attributes and becomes one with them, i.e., with the Divine Essence as qualified by its various attributes: life, knowledge, power, will, and so forth. For example, God reveals Himself to some mystics through the attribute of life. Such a man, says Jílí, is the life of the whole universe; he feels that his life permeates all things sensible and ideal, that all words, deeds, bodies, and spirits derive their existence from him. If he be endued with the attribute of knowledge, he knows the entire content of past, present, and future existence, how everything came to be or is coming or will come to be, and why the non-existent does not exist: all this he knows both synthetically and analytically. The Divine attributes are classified by the author under four heads: (1) attributes of the Essence, (2) attributes of Beauty, (3) attributes of Majesty, (4) attributes of Perfection. He says that all created things are mirrors in which Absolute Beauty is reflected. What is ugly has its due place in the order of existence no less than what is beautiful, and equally belongs to the Divine perfection: evil, therefore, is only relative. As was stated above, the Perfect Man reflects all the Divine attributes, including even the Essential ones, such as unity and eternity, which he shares with no other being in this world or the next.

The third and last phase is the Illumination of the Essence. Here the Perfect Man becomes absolutely perfect. Every attribute has vanished, the Absolute has returned into itself.

In the theory thus outlined we can recognise a monistic form of the myth which represents the Primal Man, the first-born of God, as sinking into matter, working there as a creative principle, longing for deliverance, and, at last finding the way back to his source. Jílí calls the Perfect Man the preserver of the universe, the Quṭb or Pole on which all the spheres of existence revolve. He is the final cause of creation, i.e., the means by which God sees Himself, for the Divine names and attributes cannot be seen, as a whole, except in the Perfect Man. He is a copy made in the image of God; therefore in him is that which corresponds to the Essence with its two correlated aspects of He-ness and I-ness, i.e., inwardness and outwardness, or divinity and humanity. His real nature is threefold, as Jílí expressly declares in the following verses, which no one can read without wondering how a Moslem could have written them:

If you say that it (the Essence) is One, you are right; or if you say that it is Two, it is in fact Two.
Or if you say, “No, it is Three,” you are right, for that is the real nature of Man.

Here we have a Trinity consisting of the Essence together with its two complementary aspects, namely, Creator and creature—God and man. Now, all men are perfect potentially, but few are actually so. These few are the prophets and saints. And since their perfection varies in degree according to their capacity for receiving illumination, one of them must stand out above all the rest. Jílí remains a Moslem in spite of his philosophy, and for him this absolutely Perfect Man is the Prophet Mohammed. In the poem from which I have quoted he identifies the Three-in-One with Mohammed and addresses him as follows:

O centre of the compass! O inmost ground of the truth! O pivot of necessity and contingency! O eye of the entire circle of existence! O point of the Koran and the Furqán!
O perfect one, and perfecter of the most perfect, who have been beautified by the majesty of God the Merciful!
Thou art the Pole (Quṭb) of the most wondrous things. The sphere of perfection in its solitude turns on thee.
Thou art transcendent; nay, thou art immanent; nay, thine is all that is known and unknown, everlasting and perishable.
Thine in reality is Being and not-being; nadir and zenith are thy two garments.
Thou art both the light and its opposite; nay, but thou art only darkness to a gnostic that is dazed.

Jílí also holds that in every age the Perfect Men are an outward manifestation of the essence of Mohammed, which has the power of assuming whatever form it will; and he records the time and place of his own meeting with the Prophet, who appeared to him in the guise of his spiritual director, Sharafu’ddín Ismá‘íl al-Jabartí. In the 60th chapter of the Insánu ’l-kámil he depicts Mohammed as the absolutely perfect man, the first-created of God and the archetype of all other created beings. This, of course, is an Islamic Logos doctrine. It brings Mohammed in some respects very near to the Christ of the Fourth Gospel and the Pauline Epistles. But if the resemblance is great, so is the difference. The Fatherhood of God, the Incarnation, and the Atonement suggest an infinitely rich and sympathetic personality, whereas the Mohammedan Logos tends to identify itself with the active principle of revelation in the Divine essence. Mohammed is loved and adored as the perfect image or copy of God: “he that has seen me has seen Allah,” says the Tradition. Except that he is not quite co-equal and co-eternal with his Maker, there can be no limit to glorification of the Perfect Man. I need hardly say that Mohammed gave the lie direct to those who would have thrust this sort of greatness upon him: his apotheosis is the triumph of religious feeling over historical fact.

These ideas in part go back to Ḥalláj but were first worked out and systematised by the most prolific of Moslem theosophists and one of the most original, Muḥyi’ddín Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí, of whose influence on the course of later Sufi speculation the traces are so broad and deep that he well deserves the honorary title of doctor maximus (al-shaykhu ’l-akbar), by which he is frequently designated. Although Jílí does not follow him everywhere, he has learned much from his predecessor’s manner of philosophising; he looks at things from a similar standpoint, and his thought moves in the same circle of mystical phantasies struggling to clothe themselves with forms of logic. Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí would be better known to us, if he had written more briefly, lucidly, and methodically. In all these respects Jílí has the advantage: we can say of the Insánu ’l-kámil what cannot be said of the Futúḥátu ’l-Makkiyya or the Fuṣúṣu ’l-ḥikam—that the author is not so difficult as the subject. The philosophy of Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí requires a volume for itself, but I will attempt to give my readers some account of the Fuṣúṣ, where he treats particularly of the Divine attributes displayed by the prophetic class of Perfect Men.

The Insánu ’l-kámil, though strongly marked with a character and expression of its own, is one of those books which gather up the threads of a whole system of thought and serve as a clue to it. After having explored the visionary world of reality through which the author conducts us step by step, we at least know where we are when hierophants of the same guild beckon us to their company and bid us soar with them

Into the height of Love’s rare universe.

I trust that the following analysis and exposition is full enough to bring out the principal features of the work and open an avenue for further study. The subject-matter of Jílí’s sixty-three chapters has been arranged under a few heads in the way that seemed most suitable.

I. Essence, Attribute, and Name

The Absolute Essence (Dhát), or the Essence of God, is that to which names and attributes belong in their real nature, not as they appear in existence. It denotes the self (nafs) of God whereby He exists, for He is self-subsistent. It is endowed with all the names and ideas which His perfection demands. Amongst these are infinity and incomprehensibility. No words can express or hint what the Essence is, since it has no opposite or like. In its absoluteness it annuls all the contradictions which, as the universal ground of individualisation, it includes.

I am convinced that It (the Essence) is non-existence, since by existence It was manifested.
Thought hath beheld It from afar as a power exerting itself in existence.
It is not other than a wall, wherein is set for thee a store of treasures. I am that wall, and It is the hidden treasure—hidden in order that I may find it by digging.
Take It then, to be a body in respect of an outward form (which It assumes), while to that body It is a spirit, that thou mayst regard it (the body).

God made Its comeliness (ḥusn) complete, and by the beauty (jamál) of God It became celebrated (known to all).
It never subsisted (as an object) but in thee alone: perceive the Word (Amr), that thou mayst see its diverse forms.

I am the existent and the non-existent and the naughted and the everlasting.
I am the awared and the imagined and the snake and the charmer.
I am the loosed and the bound and the wine and the cupbearer.
I am the treasure, I am poverty, I am my creatures and my Creator.
* * * * * *
Neither affirm my existence nor deny it, O immortal one!
Do not suppose thyself different from me or deem thyself the eye of my eye-corners.
* * * * * *
And say, “That am I, yet in respect of my qualities and natural dispositions That I am not.”

Jílí defines the attribute (ṣifat) of a thing as that which conveys knowledge of its state to the understanding. The attributes of the Essence are the forms of thought by which it is manifested and made known. In the world of appearance we distinguish the forms from the reality underlying them, but the distinction is not ultimate: the attributes in their real nature are identical with the Essence which manifests itself as “other,” i.e., under the aspect of externality, to our perceptions. What is called in theology the creation of the world is just this manifestation, accompanied by division and plurality, of the Essence as the attributes, or of Being as the object of thought; and in reality the Essence is the attributes (al-Dhát ‘aynu ’l-ṣifát). The universe is an idea—“such stuff as dreams are made on,” although the idea cannot properly be differentiated from the “thing-in-itself,” except for convenience of understanding. Here let me translate part of the 57th chapter, “Concerning thought (khayál), how it is the material (hayúlá, ὕλη) of the Cosmos.”

Thought is the life of the spirit of the universe: it is the foundation of that life, and its (Thought’s) foundation is Man.
To him that knows Thought through the power of the Almighty, existence is nothing but a thought.
Sensation, before its appearance, is an object of thought to thee, and if it goes it resembles a dream.
And, similarly, the time during which it is felt inheres in our consciousness upon a foundation (of thought).
Be not deceived by sensation, for it is an object of thought (mukhayyal), and so is the reality (which every form expresses) and the whole universe,
And likewise, to him that knows the truth, the worlds of malakút and jabarút, and the divine nature (láhút) and the human nature (násút).
Do not despise the rank of Thought, for it is the very gist of the notion of the Being who disposes all.

Know that Thought is the origin of existence and is the essence wherein God is manifested perfectly. Consider your own belief in God and in His having the attributes and names which belong to Him. Where is the locus (maḥall) of this belief, in which God is made manifest to you? It is Thought. Therefore we said that Thought is the essence wherein He becomes manifest in perfection. If you recognise this, it will be plain to you that Thought is the origin of the whole universe, because God is the origin of all things, and their most perfect manifestation occurs nowhere but in a locus which is the origin (of His manifestation); and that locus is Thought. Mark how the Prophet considered the sensible world to be a dream—and dream is a thought—and said, “Mankind are asleep, and when they die, they awake,” i.e., the reality in which they were during their earthly life is manifested to them, and they perceive that they were asleep. Not that death brings a complete awakening. Forgetfulness (ghaflat) of God prevails over those in the intermediate state (barzakh) and those in the place of Judgment and those in Hell and Paradise, until God reveals Himself to them on the Hill to which the inhabitants of Paradise go forth and behold Him. This forgetfulness is the sleep (mentioned by the Prophet). The universe, then, has its origin in a thought, and for this reason Thought determines the individuals therein: all, whatever their sphere of existence, are determined by Thought. For example, the people of this world are determined by thought of their life as it is now or as it shall be hereafter; in either case, they are forgetful of presence with God (al-ḥuḍúr ma‘ Allah): they are asleep. He that is present with God is awake according to the measure of his presence.…The sleep of the inhabitants of the next world is lighter, but although they are with God in respect that He is with all beings and says (in the Koran), “He is with you wheresoever ye be,” yet are they with Him in sleep, not in waking. One that, by divine predestination, enjoys in this world what shall at last be shown on the Hill to the people of Paradise, so that God reveals Himself to him and he knows God—that man is (truly) awake. If you perceive that those in every world are judged to be asleep, then judge that all those worlds are a thought, inasmuch as Sleep is the world of Thought.

The comparison with dream-experience does not imply that the universe is unreal, but that it is reality as presented to itself through and in the cosmic consciousness of the Perfect Man, which holds all the attributes of reality together. This, we have already noted, is the central doctrine of the work before us. Other men lack such consciousness: they regard the sum of attributes constituting the “material” world as something different from the Essence and from themselves.

In the unitive state there is immediate perception of the Essence, but no mystic perceives the attributes as they really are: you can feel intuitively that you are He, that the Divine essence is consubstantial (‘ayn) with your own, and thereby attain to knowledge of the Essence; you cannot, however, perceive and know the attributes of the Essence any more than you can perceive and know the qualities latent in yourself, which are only visible in their effects. Consequently it may be said that the Essence is imperceptible, in the sense of its being identical with the attributes.

The name (ism) objectifies the named (musammá) in the understanding, pictures it in the mind, presents it to the judgment, moves it in reflection and keeps it in memory. It serves to make unknown things known; therefore, its relation to the named is that of the outward to the inward, and in this respect it is identical with the named. Some things exist in name and not otherwise; thus, the existence of the ‘Anqá is entirely nominal: the “named” in this case is not-being. God, on the contrary, is real Being; and just as our knowledge of the ‘Anqá is derived from its name, so we reach knowledge of God through the name Allah, in which all the Divine names and attributes are comprised.

God made this name a mirror for man, so that when he looks in it, he knows the true meaning of “God was and there was naught beside Him,” and in that moment it is revealed to him that his hearing is God’s hearing, his sight God’s sight, his speech God’s speech, his life God’s life, his knowledge God’s knowledge, his will God’s will, and his power God’s power, and that God possesses all these attributes fundamentally; and then he knows that all the aforesaid qualities are borrowed and metaphorically applied to himself, whereas they really belong to God.

The Divine names are either names of the Essence, e.g., al-Aḥad (the One), or names of the attributes, e.g., al-Raḥmán (the Merciful), al-‘Alím (the Knowing). Each of them—except al-Aḥad, which transcends relationship—brings forth the effect (athar) inherent in that particular aspect of the Essence of which it is, so to speak, the embodiment. Good and evil, faith and infidelity, all mundane life, thought, feeling, and action proceed inevitably from the Divine names.

II. The Descent of the Absolute

Pure Being, devoid of qualities and relations, is called by Jílí “the dark mist” or “blindness” (al-‘Amá), a term which the Prophet is said to have used in answering the question, “Where was God before the creation?” Dr Iqbal remarks that al-‘Amá, translated into modern phraseology, would be “the Unconsciousness,” and that our author here anticipates the theories of Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann. The parallel seems to me little more than verbal. Jílí’s ontology is based on logic, and in developing it he follows a method which curiously resembles the Hegelian dialectic. According to Hegel, the Absolute Idea itself is the resolution of the antithesis of Nature and Mind. The Idea is articulated as abstract, self-identical unity, negation of this by a plural “other” of particularity and differences, and as concrete identity-in-difference and unity-in-plurality, wherein it affirms itself with a richer content. The “result” in question, however, must not be expressed amiss. It does not occur at the end of a time-process. “Moments” severed for us are together for the Absolute Idea, the conscious Reason, the Notion which knows all as itself. The tail of the serpent is in the serpent’s mouth. This self-sundering of the Idea is the Hegelian form of the mystic Jacob Böhme’s view that “without self-diremption” the being of the Eternal would be not-being. Conscious knowledge, it is urged, implies antithesis within the Spiritual Ground.

Similar principles determine Jílí’s line of thought, although he never states them formally.

The ‘Amá, as he describes it, is not a blind unconscious power, but it is the absolute inwardness (buṭún) and occultation (istitár) in which the opposite concept of outwardness (ẓuhúr)—i.e., all relations of the Essence to itself as “other” is somehow absorbed and negated, like starlight in sunlight. Jílí compares the ‘Amá, as the eternal and unchangeable ground of Being, to the fire which, in a sense, is always latent in the flint whence it flashes forth. Thus the ‘Amá may be regarded as the inmost self, the “immanent negativity” of the Essence; as such, it is logically correlated with Aḥadiyya, in which the Essence knows itself as transcendental unity; and both these aspects are reconciled in the Absolute, “whose outwardness is identical with its inwardness.”

Aḥadiyya, the abstract notion of oneness, although nothing else is manifested in it, marks the first approach of the Essence to manifestation. Its nature is analogous to a wall viewed from a distance as a single whole without reference to the clay, wood, bricks, and mortar of which it is composed: the wall is “one” in respect of its being a name for the “murity” (jidáriyya). In the same way Aḥadiyya comprises all particulars as negated by the idea of unity. This absolute unity in turn resolves itself into a pair of opposites in order to become re-united in a third term which carries the process of individualisation a stage further. Thus we arrive at Wáḥidiyya or relative unity, i.e., unity in plurality. The intervening thesis and antithesis are named Huwiyya (He-ness) and Aniyya (I-ness). Huwiyya signifies the inward unity (al-aḥadiyyat al-báṭina) in which the attributes of the Essence disappear; Aniyya, the obverse side or outward expression of Huwiyya, is that unity revealing itself in existence. Clearly, then, external manifestation is the result of a “self-diremption” which lies in the very nature of the Essence as Pure Thought. The discord of Huwiyya (the Many submerged in the One) and Aniyya (the One manifested in the Many) is overcome in the harmony of Wáḥidiyya (the Many identical in essence with each other and with the One). In Wáḥidiyya “essence is manifested as attribute and attribute as essence,” so that all distinction between the attributes is lost: one is the ayn (identity) of the other, Mercy and Vengeance are the same. We shall see that from this point of view the plane of Divinity (Iláhiyya) is a descent from Wáḥidiyya, in so far as in the former the attributes, which were identical in the latter, become distinct and opposed. Before passing to theology, let me put the author’s scheme of ontological devolution in the form of a table.

A. Absolute Being or Pure Thought (al-Dhát, al-Wujúd al-muṭlaq).
(a) Inward aspect: “the dark mist” (al-‘Amá). Being, sunk in itself, bare potentiality.
(b) Outward aspect: abstract Oneness (Aḥadiyya). Being, conscious of itself as unity.

B. Abstract Oneness (Aḥadiyya).
(a) Inward aspect: He-ness (Huwiyya). Being, conscious of itself as negating the Many (attributes).
(b) Outward aspect: I-ness (Aniyya). Being, conscious of itself as the “truth” of the Many.

C. Unity in plurality (Wáḥidiyya). Being, identifying itself as One with itself as Many.

III. The Essence as God

In the Insánu ’l-kámil we find the same contrast as in the Vedanta system between Being with attributes, i.e., God, and Being which would not be absolute unless it were stripped of all qualities. The essence of God is Pure Being, but Divinity (Iláhiyya)—the domain of Allah, regarded as He who necessarily exists—is the highest manifestation of the Essence, embracing all that is manifested: “it is a name for the sum of the individualisations of Being, i.e., Being in the relation of Creator (al-Ḥaqq) to created things (al-khalq), and for their maintenance in their respective order in that sum.” Here the full ideal content of every individualisation, existent or non-existent, is manifested according to its proper place in the series, and all opposites exhibit their relativity in the greatest possible perfection; thus, the Creator (al-Ḥaqq) appears in the form of the creature (al-khalq), and conversely the creature in the form of the Creator. Since Divinity represents the sum of the attributes, it is invisible to the eye, though visible everywhere in its effects, i.e., in the sensible world; the Essence, on the other hand, is visible, though its where is unknown. Similarly, when you see a man, you know or believe that he has certain qualities, but you do not see them; his essence (dhát), however, you see as a whole, even if many of his qualities are unknown to you. Only the effects of his qualities are visible, the qualities themselves you cannot see, because the attribute must always remain hidden in the Essence; otherwise, it could be separated from the Essence, and that is impossible. In a scale of existence where each lower individualisation marks a loss of simplicity, the difference-in-identity (Iláhiyya) in which the sunken riches of the Absolute are completely realised, might be expected to succeed the identity-in-difference which belongs to the stage of Wáḥidiyya. Jílí, as a mystical theologian, does not take this view. He enthrones Allah in the seat of the Absolute and gives the following line of descent:

1. Divinity (Iláhiyya).
2. Abstract Oneness (Aḥadiyya).
3. Unity in plurality (Wáḥidiyya).
4. Mercifulness (Raḥmániyya).
5. Lordship (Rubúbiyya).

Mercifulness and Lordship are specialised aspects of Divinity. Raḥmániyya manifests the creative attributes (al-ṣifátu ’l-ḥaqqiyya) exclusively, whereas Iláhiyya comprehends both the creative and the creaturely (khalqí). The first mercy (raḥmat) of God was His bringing the universe into existence from Himself. His manifestation pervaded all that exists, and His perfection was displayed in every particle and atom of the whole, yet He remains One (wáḥid) in the Many which mirror Him and Single (aḥad) according to the necessity of His nature, for He is indivisible and He created the world from Himself. It is wrong to say that God “lends” His attributes to things; the things are really His attributes, to which He lends the name of creatureliness (khalqiyya), in order that the mysteries of Divinity and the antithesis inherent in it may be revealed. God is the substance (hayúlá) of the universe. The universe is like ice, and God is the water of which it is made: the name “ice” is “lent” to the congealed mass, but its true name is “water.” Jílí pursues this analogy in four verses which he quotes from an ode of his own composition. He says in the second verse that although Religion declares the ice and the water to be different, “we mystics know that they are the same.” He asks how this doctrine—the permeation of existence by the Essence—can be confounded with ḥulúl (incarnation), which affirms contact, i.e., non-identity. In virtue of the name al-Raḥmán, God exists in all the things that He brought into being. His mercy towards His creatures was shown by His manifesting Himself in them and by causing them to appear in Himself. “In every idea that you form God is present as its Creator, and you are God in respect of its existence in you, for you must needs form ideas in God and find (feel the presence of) God in forming them.”

Lordship (Rubúbiyya) establishes a necessary relation between God and His creatures, since it typifies the class of attributes which involve a complementary term or require an object; e.g., “lord” implies “slave,” and “knower” refers to something “known.”

It will be understood that “comparison” (tashbíh), i.e., the bringing of God into relation with created things, is “a judgment about Him” and does not affect His absolute transcendence (tanzíh) as He is in Himself, which He alone can conceive and know. This fact is known intuitively by Perfect Men; for other mystics it is a truth apprehended by faith. While the Essential tanzíh has no opposite, the antithesis of tanzíh and tashbíh is associated with God in His creative and creaturely aspects by those who perceive that He is One and that the form of all existent things is the form of Divine excellence (ḥusn). Considered absolutely, the Divine nature does not admit of change. Change consists in the relations of God, i.e., in the diverse aspects wherein He manifests Himself to us. His manifestation of Himself to Himself, and His occultation of Himself in Himself, is eternally one and the same. The notion of eternity, without beginning and without end, when it is applied to God, involves no time-relation with His creatures, but only a judgment that His nature is necessarily timeless.

Jílí makes a fourfold division of the Divine attributes: (1) attributes of the Essence, e.g., One, Eternal, Real; (2) attributes of Beauty (jamál), e.g., Forgiving, Knowing, Guiding aright; (3) attributes of Majesty (jalál), e.g., Almighty, Avenging, Leading astray; (4) attributes of Perfection (kamál), e.g., Exalted, Wise, First and Last, Outward and Inward.

Every attribute has an effect (athar), in which its jamál or jalál or kamál is manifested. Thus, objects of knowledge are the “effect” of the Name al-‘Alím, the Knower. All attributes of jamál, and some of jalál, are displayed by everything that exists. Paradise is the mirror of absolute jamál, Hell of absolute jalál, and the universe is the form of these Divine attributes. Evil, as such, does not exist, although it has its appointed place in the world of opposites. What we call evil is really the relation of some parts and aspects of the whole to other parts and aspects; in a word, all imperfection arises from our not looking at things sub specie unitatis. Sin is not evil except in so far as we judge it to be forbidden by God. The author’s treatment of the seven principal attributes—i.e., Knowledge, Will, Power, Speech, Hearing, and Sight—is marked by great subtlety, but the discussion is somewhat arid. I will give a few specimens.

Life. The existence of a thing for itself is its complete life; its existence for another is its relative life. God exists for Himself. He is the Living One (al-Ḥayy), and His life is the life complete and immortal. Created beings in general exist for God: their life is relative and linked with death. While the Divine life in created beings is one and complete, some manifest it in a complete form, e.g., the Perfect Man and the Cherubim; others incompletely, e.g., the animal man (al-insánu ’l-ḥayawání), the inferior angels, the jinn (genies), animals, plants, and minerals. Yet, in a certain sense, the life of all created beings is complete in the measure suitable to their degree and necessary for the preservation of the order of the universe. Life is a single essence, incapable of diminution or division, existent for itself in everything; and that which constitutes a thing is its life, that is to say, the life of God whereby all things subsist: they all glorify Him in respect of all His names, and their glorification of Him in respect of His name “the Living” is identical with their existence through His life. The author states, as a fact known to few but revealed to him by mystical illumination, that everything exists in and for itself, and that its life is entirely free and self-determined. This—which, as he admits, does not tally with what has been said above—is confirmed by the Divine information that on the Day of Resurrection each of a man’s deeds will appear in visible shape and will address him and say, “I am thy deed.”

Knowledge. Although every attribute is independent and uncompounded, knowledge is most nearly connected with life: whatever lives knows. Jílí controverts the doctrine of Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí that God’s knowledge is given Him by the objects which He knows. God certainly decreed that every individual thing should be what its nature required it to be, but the consequence drawn by Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí, namely, that His knowledge of things is derived from the necessity of their natures, is false: on the contrary, their natures were necessitated by His knowledge of them before they were created and brought into existence—it was His knowing them, not the necessity inherent in them of being what they are, that caused them to become objects of His knowledge. Afterwards (i.e., when they were created), their natures required other than that which He knew of them at first, and He then for the second time decreed that they should be what their natures required, according to that which He knew of them.

Will. The will of God is “His particularisation of the objects of His knowledge by existence, according to the requirements of His knowledge.” Our will is identical with the Divine eternal will, but in relation to us it partakes of our temporality (ḥudúth), and we call it “created.” Nothing but this (unreal) attribution prevents us from actualising whatever we propose: if we refer our will to God, all things become subject to it. Jílí enumerates nine phases of will, beginning with inclination (mayl) and ending with the highest and purest love (‘ishq), in which there is no lover or beloved, since both have passed away in the love that is God’s very essence. The Divine will is uncaused and absolutely free, not, as Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí holds, determined by the obligation of the Knower to act as His nature demands.

Power. This is defined by Jílí as “the bringing of the nonexistent into existence.” Here again he disagrees with Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí, who asserts that God did not create the world from not-being, but only brought it from being in His knowledge into actual being. But in that case, Jílí argues, the world would be co-eternal with God. It is not so: the judgment that God exists in Himself is logically prior to the judgment that things exist in His knowledge; and the former judgment involves the non-existence of things and the existence of God alone. God brought things from not-being into being and caused them to exist in His knowledge, i.e., He knew them as brought into existence from not-being; then He brought them forth from His knowledge and caused them to exist externally. Does it follow, because they were produced from not-being, that they were unknown to Him before He caused them to exist in His knowledge? No; the priority is of logic, not of time. There is no interval between the not-being of things and their existence in His knowledge. He knows them as He knows Himself, but they are not eternal as He is eternal.