Page 24 - Chapter
Two: "For the most part, Kalam stresses those divine names that assert
God’s severity, grandeur, distance, and aloofness. Although many early expressions of
Sufism went along with the dominant attitudes in Kalam, another strand of Sufi thinking
gradually gained strength and became predominant by the eleventh or twelfth century. This
perspective focused on divine attributes that speak of nearness, sameness, similarity,
concern, compassion, and love. The Sufi teachers emphasized the personal dimensions of the
divine-human relationship, agreeing with the Kalam authorities that God was distant, but
adding that His simultaneous nearness is more real than His distance. God is always
present and the perception of His absence will eventually disappear."
Commentary: The
author has committed a number of errors in the foregoing quote. For instance, he is wrong
to suppose that "many early expressions of Sufism went along with the dominant
attitudes in Kalam." This certainly was not the case in relation to the emphasis
which Kalam authorities gave to the importance of ‘rationality’ as the key to
understanding the Qur’an, in particular, or Islam, in general.
While Sufi writers, of
course, do employ various modalities of logic, analysis, demonstration, proof, and so on,
during their expositions of this or that topic, these rational tools are at the service of
an underlying understanding. In other words, these devices of rationality are being used
as a way of pointing toward truths which must be realized through modalities of
apprehension other than reason.
Secondly, Sufi shaykhs
did not go "along with the dominant attitudes in Kalam" when it came to the
Names and Attributes of God. There are 99 Names of Allah to which reference is made in the
Qur’an, and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) has spoken about God’s 300
Attributes or Character Traits, and, of these, some of them are jamali (having to do with
qualities such as peace, beneficence, compassion, love, forgiveness, etc.), and some are
jalali (having to do with qualities of rigor, anger, transcendence, severity,
independence, judgement, and so on).
The Prophet Muhammad
(peace be upon him) is reported to have said: "The right and the left are both ways
of error, and the straight path is the middle way." To emphasize jamali Attributes
while de-emphasizing jalali Attributes, would be just as incorrect as when one lends
stress to jalali Attributes while relegating jamali Attributes to the background.
The Prophet Muhammad
(peace be upon him) also is reported to have said: "If the believer’s fear and
hope were to be weighed, they would balance." In other words, the straight path lies
in not only having proper respect for the existence of the jalali Attributes toward which
one’s fears are directed, but also to remember the existence of the jamali Attributes
around which one’s hopes circumambulate.
Although the author of Sufism
- A Short Introduction refers to "many early expressions of Sufism" that
allegedly "went along with the dominant attitudes in Kalam", he offers nothing
to substantiate his claim. Indeed, how could any authentic Sufi shaykh go "along with
the dominant attitudes in Kalam" which invited people to have a rationalistic, as
well as an unbalanced, approach to the teachings of the Qur’an and the Prophet
Muhammad (peace be upon him)?
Even if one were to
grant, for the purposes of discussion, that some early Sufi writers might have spoken, at
length, about the jalali side of things, one need not suppose this was because they were
going "along with the dominant attitudes in Kalam". For example, this sort of
emphasis might have been given in order to counteract a tendency in some seekers to stop
struggling or making efforts due to an unwarranted complacency in relation to the jamali
Attributes of Divinity.
Alternatively, some Sufi
writers may have given extra emphasis to the jalali side of the equation because they had
been opened up to the jamali dimension of Divinity by paying close attention to the
former. Moreover, if the curriculum of some Sufi shaykhs stressed the importance of jalali
Attributes as a means of realizing jamali Attributes, then, this is a methodological
strategy and not an ontological statement.
The author of Sufism
- A Short Introduction also is incorrect when he discusses those later Sufi
shaykhs and writers who supposedly "emphasized the personal dimensions of the
divine-human relationship, agreeing with the Kalam authorities that God was distant, but
adding that His simultaneous nearness is more real than His distance. God is always
present and the perception of His absence will eventually disappear."
‘Transcendence’
is not a synonym for either ‘distant’ or ‘distance’. The
‘transcendent’ is that which is so superior, exalted, and/or incomparable that
such a realm is inaccessible to all but the Transcendent.
Furthermore, since the
Qur’an, which Sufis consider to be the uncreated Word of God, describes Divinity in
terms that are both transcendent and immanent, then, why would any authentic Sufi shaykh
try to maintain that "His simultaneous nearness is more real than His distance"?
- surely, both transcendence and immanence are manifestations of the Real.
In addition, contrary to
the impression given in the previous quote by the author of Sufism - A Short
Introduction, transcendence is not absence. Transcendence is Presence of a
particular kind.
Transcendence does not
disappear. It remains what it always is, but as such, it eludes our awareness. The
Qur’an verifies this point when it states: "No vision can grasp Him, but His
grasp is over all vision. He is above all comprehension, yet is acquainted with all
things." (6:103).
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