Wahdat-i-Wujud and Wahdat-i-Shuhud - Part Two
At the heart of the controversy
between the so-called doctrines of Wahdat-i-
Wujud and Wahdat-i-Shuhud is the following
question: What is the relationship between
Creation and Divinity? And, actually, this
question may have to be refined in the following
manner: What is the relationship between
Creation and Dhat or Divine Essence?
There are a number of correlative themes which
are entangled in the foregoing question. For
example: What is the nature of Being? What
does it mean to speak about non-existent fixed
forms? What is illusion? In what sense does that
which is non-existent have a reality, and what kind
of reality is this? What is the relation of the attributes
and names of Divinity to Dhat? What is the relation
of the world to the realm of names and attributes?
What is meant by Immanence and Transcendence? What
is the nature of any given tajalli - or manifestation?
What does it mean to say that manifestation is identical
with the One Who makes such manifestation
possible? What is the relation of experience to
manifestation? What is the relation of understanding
to experience? What does it mean to say one
has knowledge of something? What is the relation
of fitra - or primordial nature - to tajalli, experience,
understanding and knowledge? What is the nature of
mystical experience, and what is its relation to
wahiy or revelation?
The alleged dispute between Wahdat-i-Wujud [the
position associated with ibn al-'Arabi (may Allah
be pleased with him)] and Wahdat-i-Shuhud [the
position associated with Ahmad Sirhindi (may
Allah be pleased with him)] addresses the foregoing
questions and themes. Depending on whom one
reads or listens to, there is either a world of difference
between the two perspectives, or, on the other
hand, the only substantial difference between the
two is a matter of how terminology is used, together
with how such terminology is understood, and that
when one seeks to lend a judicious hermeneutical
process to both perspectives, one ends up - such
differences aside - with, essentially, the same sort
of spiritual understanding - although Ahmad
Sirhindi (may Allah be pleased with him) rejects
the latter possibility and feels, instead, that
ibn al-'Arabi (may Allah be pleased with him)
lacked the necessary mystical experiences
which would have served to lend maturity to
the understanding of the latter, and, in the
process, have helped ibn al-'Arabi (may Allah
be pleased with him) to avoid the mistakes which
Ahmad Sirhindi (may Allah be pleased with him)
believes are inherent in, as well as entailed by,
the idea of Wahdat-i-Wujud - or the Unity of
Being.
Ahmad Sirhindi (may Allah be pleased with him)
believes that ibn al-'Arabi (may Allah be pleased
with him) is a pantheist and that the latter
individual holds that Dhat (Essence), sifat
(attributes), 'asma (names), and Creation or
the World (in the extended sense of the
comprehensive Universe, including all of its
many dimensions and realms) are all identical
with one another. This draws attention to the
issue of 'identity' - what is it and does it
necessitate one saying that because Divinity
makes something possible, that, therefore,
what is made possible must be the same as
that which made it possible.
When someone thinks a thought, there is a
sense in which the thought is an expression
of the one who thinks it. However, would one
say that the thought and the thinker are the same?
I think the clear answer is: "no". The thought
is definitely related to the thinker, but the
thought is circumscribed by the limitations
of its structural character - that is, the form
of the thought - in a way that the thinker of
the thought is not.
Among other things, the thinker causes the
thought, whereas the thought is totally
dependent on the one who brings the thought
into manifest being. Thoughts are structured
by something which is transcendent to the thought
- namely, the creative thought process.
The thought is neither the thinker nor is it other
than the thinker. The thought has a sort of
interstitial, or in between, status because the thinker
cannot be reduced to the thought, and, yet, the
thought cannot exist apart from the process or
means through which it came into being.
Similarly, the drop of spray which is separated from
the Ocean and, then, returns to the Ocean is
neither the Ocean, nor other than the Ocean. it
has the same sort of interstitial - in between - status
as does a thought.
Sifat, asma, tajalli, experience, understanding, capacity,
fitra, fixed forms, the universe, and knowledge all give
expression to this same interstitial state of Being. Only
Dhat is necessary and sufficient - everything else is
contingent and dependent. Only Dhat is unknown and
unknowable - everything else is known through the
nature of its tajalli or manifestation which is made
possible through the 'thought' of the Thinker or the
'drop of spray' of the Ocean.
Everything is a manifestation of some combination of
veils of light and darkness. Everything is known as
a function of our God-given capacity to engage and
penetrate these veils of light and darkness. What is
made manifest and what is made known is done so
through the imminent actions of a Dhat which is totally
transcendent and beyond the Beyond however deeply
such immanence may be given expression.
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is reported
to have said: "reflect upon all things, but reflect not on
the Dhat (Essence) of God." Any attempt of the lesser to
reflect on that which is beyond the Beyond and beyond
the beyond of the Beyond cannot lead but to error.
We are counseled to reflect upon all things other than the
Dhat because these 'things' are manifestations for which we have
been given, by God, a potential to understand, according
to one's capacity to do so. And with respect to such things,
"over every lord of knowledge, there is one more knowing"
(Qur'an 12:76) We know only what Divinity permits us
to know and what Divinity has given us the capacity to
know.
We will never know how manifestation arises out of Dhat
because we will never penetrate to the nature of Dhat. Yet,
manifestation is rooted in Dhat because the latter makes
the former possible, just as the thinker makes the thought
possible, and the Ocean makes the drop of spray possible
without the two being either identical or other than.
To say - in line with the reported Hadith of the Prophet -
that 'he who knows himself knows his Lord' - is to make
a contingent statement in a double sense. The statement
is contingent upon actually having knowledge (as opposed
to theoretical or conceptual understanding) of one's
complete nature (from the physical to the spiritual), and,
in addition, the statement is contingent upon knowing God
through the presence of Divine manifestation which gives
expression to the same interstitial, existential status as
everything else.
One can know God only to the extent which God permits.
What we know in this way is neither other than Divinity,
nor does it encompass Divinity. Just as the thought
belongs to the thinker, and the drop of spray belongs
to the Ocean, so, too, do manifestation and understanding
belong to God, and to this extent, manifestation and
understanding are neither other than Divinity, nor can
Divinity be reduced down to such manifestations.
Wahdat-i-Shuhud or the witnessing of manifestation
through sensory experience, reason, kashf, ilham,
hal, maqam, and wahiy means that we can never
understand or access more of the Real than we
have the God-given fitra or potential to do, and, therefore,
our understanding of Divinity will always be colored and
shaped by the limitations which have been built into fitra.
Fitra was made for manifestation, not for Dhat.
Wahdat-i-Wujud, or the Unity of Being means that
whatever we experience as a function of our different
levels of potential (from sensory, to rational, to mystical,
to revelatory) cannot be other than God, even while,
simultaneously, Divinity can never be reduced down
to such manifestations. Everything is Divinity even
though our capacity to understand how this is so -
due to the interstitial character of all levels of manifested
existence - is of a delimited nature.
Wahdat-i-Wujud says that everything which can be
known and experienced is an expression of the
fact that there is no Reality but Divinity. One cannot
equate the former (i.e., everything which can be known)
with the latter, but, nevertheless, the former (i.e., that
which can be known) is not something other than
Divinity.
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