The author of Sufism
- A Short Introduction contends that: "God’s mercy and love give rise to
the world, but there is an important difference between the two attributes. Mercy flows in
one direction, from God to the world, but love moves in both directions. People can love
God, but they cannot have mercy upon Him, only upon other creatures."
To begin with, the
author’s way of stating things in the foregoing quote is not quite correct, and this
is so in several respects. More specifically, the principle of tawhid encompasses, and
governs, all levels of manifest Being.
While Divine
‘mercy’ and ‘love’ are prominent qualities throughout Creation, one
cannot reduce tawhid down to being expressions of just ‘mercy’ and
‘love’. Tawhid gives expression to many attributes, names, and qualities, and
everything is tied together by Divine Purpose.
When Divinity spoke of
wanting the ‘Hidden Treasure’ to be known, no details are mentioned about the
nature of such knowing except that, somehow, Creation is to have a role to play in this
knowing process since that is why, according to the Hadith, created things were brought
forth. Implicit in this Hadith is an unstated purpose - namely, the way in which, and the
extent to which, Creation is to come to know the ‘Hidden Treasure’.
Consequently,
‘mercy’ and ‘love’ are not just being arbitrarily lavished upon
Creation. Rather, the ‘mercy’ and ‘love’ are expressed in terms of,
and are directed by, an over-all plan for bringing ‘Hidden Treasure’, love,
knowledge, and Creation together in a certain way.
In other words, the
created universe was brought into existence by a Divine niyat or intention in which
‘mercy’ and ‘love’, along with many other Divine Attributes and Names,
are woven to form a rich, mysterious, subtle, complex, layered, deep, exacting, unified
whole capable of bringing to realization the focus of the Original Divine niyat or
intention. To single out this or that attribute as being the cause of the created universe
is to distort the nature of the principle of tawhid in which all dimensions of that
principle serve, and give expression to, an underlying niyat or intention - an intention
whose ultimate nature remains shrouded in mystery because we have no access to the Divine
Essence out of which it arose.
After stipulating that
the created universe arose out of Divine ‘mercy’ and ‘love’, the
author of Sufism - A Short Introduction goes on to assert: "...but
there is an important difference between the two attributes. Mercy flows in one direction,
from God to the world, but love moves in both directions. People can love God, but they
cannot have mercy upon Him, only upon other creatures."
Since Sufi masters
maintain there is nothing in existence but the Real, and since the author acknowledges, in
a variety of places, that what the shaykhs agree upon in this respect is, indeed, a
central precept of the Sufi Path, then, it follows that "creatures" are nothing
but manifestations arising from the ‘activity’ of Divine Attributes and Names.
If this is so, then, when "creatures" show mercy to other "creatures, this
is, in truth, nothing but one manifestation of Divinity - referred to as a
‘creature’ - serving as a locus of transmission for the Divine quality of mercy
with respect to some other locus of Divine manifestation - referred to as ‘some other
creature’.
From the perspective of
the Sufi shaykhs, mercy cannot flow in any manner except from the Divine to the Divine. In
other words, mercy flows from one aspect of the ‘Hidden Treasure’ to another
facet of the ‘Hidden Treasure’, but the pathway along which the mercy flows is
via the realm of manifestation which appears as the screen or veil of Creation upon which
the Divine Attributes and Names project the shadow figures of different dimensions of the
fixed form known as the ‘Reality of Muhammad’ through the command of
‘Kun’.
There is a Hadith Qudsi
which states: "O son of Adam, I fell ill and you visited Me not. The son of Adam will
say: ‘O Lord, and how should I visit You when You are the Lord of the worlds? God
will say: ‘Did you not know that My servant So-and-so had fallen ill and you visited
him not? Did you not know that had you visited him you would have found Me with him? O son
of Adam, I asked you for food and you fed Me not.’ The son of Adam will say: ‘O
Lord, and how should I feed You when You are the Lord of the worlds?’ God will say:
‘Did you not know that My servant So-and-so asked you for food and you fed him not?
Did you not know that had you fed him you would surely have found Me with him? O son of
Adam, I asked you to give Me drink, and you gave Me not to drink.’ Th son of Adam
will say: ‘O Lord, how should I give You to drink when You are the Lord of the
worlds?’ God will say: ‘My servant So-and-so asked you to give him to drink and
you gave him not to drink. Had you given him to drink, you surely would have found Me with
him."
Any person who supposes
the foregoing Hadith Qudsi is just a manner of speaking, and nothing more, does not
understand the nature of tawhid. Had the son of Adam visited the ill servant, or given
food or drink to the servant who requested these, mercy would have flowed from Divinity
through the son of Adam to the servant of God and, therefore, back to Divinity who was, in
each case, with the servant in need.
The principle of tawhid
requires that the meaning of "with" in the foregoing Hadith is not a matter of
‘twoness’. There is only One, and manifestation is an expression of that
Oneness.
Surely, the above Hadith
is about extending mercy to Divinity, but the adab of this transaction is to take the
quality of mercy which Divinity loans one and permit it to flow through to the intended
‘creaturely’ locus of manifestation that God is with. In the given Hadith, the
creaturely destination of the mercy (in the form of visiting, food or drink) is a servant
of God that Divinity is with, but, by analogy, the destination of the loaned mercy could
be any of the creatures of Creation, for God is with all Creation - otherwise such
creatures could not be.
What is true of mercy is
also true of love. Human love arises from, and is a reflection of (in part), the love
which was inherent in the Divine niyat which gave rise to Creation.
Love, whether directed
toward another human being or directed toward God, flows from the Divine to the Divine.
This flow occurs through one, or another, facet of created manifestation - facets or
creatures or loci of manifestation which are the appearances generated through the
activity of the Divine Attributes and Names in accordance with the original niyat of
Divinity concerning the Hidden Treasure and Creation.
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