Sufis frequently dwell on the identification of God (Allah) with the Light

[Guest guest]

>

> God Almighty (Brahman) resides within all humans as Light, a fact

> that is supported by all scriptures. Thus we can meditate on Him

> within and that long search for the Creator is at last over,

> ending within ourselves. That is why Jesus kept telling the

> ignorant masses two millennia ago that the Kingdom of God is

> within.

>

> A few months ago i asked my daughter Lalita what is that Light

> above Shri Mataji in her Sahasrara (Kingdom of God). She

> replied " God! "

>

> i remained silent for a long time to absorb the immensity of that

> single word answer.

>

> jagbir

>

 

The Supreme Radiance

 

Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, received instruction from a

revelation that occurred around the beginning of the turn of the

seventh century CE. A voice came to him and said, " Read! " Muhammad,

being illiterate, responded to the voice that he could not read. The

voice said that " it is the Lord Most Bountiful who teacheth by the

pen, [who] teacheth man that which he knew not " (Qur'an, Surah XCVI,

1-5). Then the voice said, on two separate occasions, " O Muhammad,

thou art God's messenger, and I am Gabriel. " The vision accompanying

this voice was exceptionally bright, so much so that Muhammad had to

turn away his face " from the brightness of the vision.... " 1

 

The Qur'an is quite specific about who would be the source of this

kind of Light:

 

Allah is the Light

of the Heavens and the Earth...

Light upon Light,

Allah guideth unto His light

whom he will....(Qur'an Sur. XXIV, 35).

 

 

Often quoting this passage, the Sufi tradition of Islam makes

frequent reference to the vision of a Divine Light. As a mystical

tradition, Sufism is that form of Islam that emphasizes the need for

a direct experience with God. Sufis routinely describe an experience

with a Light once a devotee reaches a certain level of

contemplation, usually accompanied by intense feelings of joy, even

ecstasy. As with the Qur'an, the poetry in this tradition is an

exquisite expression of the Divine presence that the Sufi

encounters. A few introductory examples will help illustrate:

 

The Essence of the First Absolute Light,

God gives constant illumination,

whereby it is manifested and it

brings all things into existence,

giving light to them by its rays.

 

Everything in the World

is derived from the Light of His Essence

and all beauty and perfection

are the gift of His bounty,

and to attain fully to this illumination

is salvation.2

 

Within a Magian tavern

the Light of God I see;

In such a place, O wonder!

Shines out such radiancy...3

 

I take refuge in the Light

of Thy glorious Countenance

which illuminates the heavens.4

 

Thou art the Light of Light

and Lord of Lords accompanying all things.

Glory to Him whom nothing resembles,

the All-Hearer, all-Seer.5

 

O God. Thou art hidden from us,

though the heavens are filled

With Thy light which is brighter

than the sun and the moon...6

 

There is naught in the Universe

save one Light!

It appears in a variety of manifestations.

God is the Light;

its manifestations, the Universe...7

 

 

Sufis frequently dwell on the identification of God (Allah) with the

Light. For the 13th century Sufi Muhyiddin ibn 'Arabi, " God is the

Light of the Heavens and the Earth. " 8 God is " the embodiment of

light, and the source of all illuminations. " 9 The Divine Light is

not like any other light, however. It is unlike anything ordinary

people see from day to day. Ibn 'Arabi tells us that " His light is

brilliant. " 10 Even more than that though, the phenomenon is really

beyond description. Like so many other Sufis, ibn 'Arabi has

recourse to poetry to describe the indescribable:

 

Ocean's a drop from my pervading Sea,

Light but a flash of my vast Brilliancy...11

 

 

When one perceives the Divine Light fully, everything else

disappears. The person then realizes that this is really " 'the very

light of the Absolute [God] as such...' " 11 The 13th century Indian

Sufi Maneri tells us that God's " very brilliance blinds me to

whatever descends. " 12 This Light is " a thousand times more luminous

than that of the sun, " Maneri says.13 Nuri, a 10th century Persian

Sufi, explains that the " light of God... is the first thing to

appear when God wants to guide a person on the mystical path.... " 14

For Sufis, it is abundantly clear that the Divine Light, however

difficult to describe to those who have never seen it, is both

beautiful and perfect:

 

In Thy perfect light,

Loverhood I learn.

To Thy beauty bright

Line and Rhyme to turn...

 

Ne'er from my nostrils went

Thy sweet and familiar scent

Ne'er vanished from my sight

Thine image bright....15

 

 

To see God, to see the Light, is one of the primary goals of Sufism.

The 18th century Naqshbandi Sufi Nasir Muhammad 'Andalib said that

one should " strive to bring himself towards this light.... " 16 Once

again, though, the most exquisite sense of being drawn to the Light

is provided in poetic form. Mansur al-Hallaj lets us know that once

one becomes aware of the presence of God and His Light, there is no

turning back:

 

You understand our God is a consuming fire.

The rose opens to the light,

the Narcissus leans to the shade...

But at some point His Light

penetrates our eyes, destroying our shades...

If we are roses we are drawn to light.

We do not think about the end.

There is none.17

 

 

Or, as other Sufis would express it:

 

Lord, plunge me into the sea

of the Light of Thy majesty

that I might come forth with

the shining of that majesty upon my face...

I as Thee by Thy Name of Light

and by Thy Countenance that is Light,

O Light of Light...

to veil me in the Light of Thy name...

for Thou art the Light of all

with Thy Light.18

 

O Light of Light

who dost illumine

the obscurity of non-being

with the effulgence of Thy Light,

make Thy Light of... each part of me,

till I shall be only Light,

and flooded with the Light

of Thy Unity.19

 

 

Just before his death, the 18th century Indian mystic Mir Dard

prayed for the following:

 

O God, give me

light in my heart

and light in my tongue

and light in my hearing

 

and light in my sight

and light in my feeling

and light in all my body

and light before me

and light behind me.

 

Give me, I pray thee,

light on my right hand

and light on my left hand

and light above me

and light beneath me.

O Lord, increase light within me

and give me light

and illuminate me.20

 

 

The Rapture

 

There is more to the Sufi path than the experience with light alone.

Sufis often describe the feelings that go along with the Vision

as " joyful, " " loving, " " blissful " and " ecstatic. " The thirteenth

century Persian Sufi Fakhruddin 'Iraqi described the state of this

relationship as " perfect joy. " 21 Ibn 'Arabi says that " rapture and

ecstasy is the intensity of love, and the quality of ecstasy and

rapture first became manifest in the high and rapturous and ecstatic

spirits to whom the high God revealed Himself from His Beautiful

Awesomeness, [becoming] enraptured and ecstatic in the lights of

God.... " 22 When Sufis see the " all-beautiful, all-loving " God and

His Light, they reach a state of ecstatic trance.23 Again Sufi

expressions on this matter are best said poetically:

 

....all the earth's joys

are dust beneath the feet

Of those entrancing memories of Thee.

 

In a state of separation

I felt sad and distressful,

In union I felt my self-consciousness

and my self-hood had bereft me.

Joy came to dwell in my soul

And now do I keep my body and soul

in a state of bliss.24

 

 

Alas, that He

Should ever be perceived in ecstasy...

Ecstasy touches but the forms,

which flee before His radiant Divinity...

 

It were more meet that He

Who with such bounty brought me ecstasy

Should of His boundless grace

Sweep clean my spirit of its every trace.

 

When first He came to me,

When first He

stirred my soul to ecstasy,

I knew that He would bring

Gifts far beyond the mind's imagining.25

 

 

And so shall Attar shattered be

And rapt in sudden ecstasy

Soar to Godly vision, even

beyond the veils of earth and heaven.26

 

 

The power and beauty of the verses is stunning -- and no wonder.

R.A. Nicholson explains that " ecstasy affords the only means by

which the soul can directly communicate and become united with

God. " 27 Maneri explains that one will know that the light a mystic

sees is from God if it is accompanied by bliss: " a sense of inner

bliss arises within him so that in that very bliss a person knows

that what he is seeing is from God Almighty and not from any other

source. " 28 So, says one Sufi, Truth itself is known in ecstasy.29

 

This blissful, joyous, ecstatic state is part of the intense love

that the Sufi and God share. Khwaju of Kirman explained this

relationship poetically, as a kind of love that is without bounds:

 

In ocean waves of love Divine

The lover's soul is not aware

of tranquil shores

And those who watch the ocean waves

from tranquil points of distant shores

Are not aware of shoreless love.30

 

 

Nuri explained the mystic love of God this way:

 

So passionate my love is,

I do yearn

To keep His memory

constantly in mind;

But O, the ecstasy with which

I burn

Sears out my thoughts,

and strikes my memory blind!

 

And, marvel upon marvel,

ecstasy Itself is swept away:

now far, now near

My Lover stands,

and all the faculty

Of memory is swept up

in hope and fear.31

 

 

....And I adore thee, Light Divine

Lest lesser lights

should make me blind.32

 

 

The ninth century Persian poet Yahya b. Mu'adh says of Divine Love

that

 

The lover joys to dwell

In love with Love;

Yet some, as strange I tell,

Do love reprove

 

About God's Love I hover

While I have the breath,

To be His perfect lover

Until my death.33

 

 

This ecstatic joy, the love of and for God, and the vision of the

Divine Light was not without its difficulties, however. Such an

intensely desirable experience compelled the mystic to get closer

and closer to God. In the end, some became so close that they could

no longer tell the difference between God, His Light, and

themselves. Nuri says that " I looked one day at the Light and I did

not cease looking at it until I became the Light. " 34 This happens

when the Sufi " contemplates all the time on the light of God and

forgets everything, even his own self. " 35 Rumi put it this way:

 

What is to know of the Unity of God?

It is to extinguish oneself

in the presence of the One.

Shouldst thou desire to be

as bright as day...

He who loses his separate existence

The result of what he does

is always full of bliss.36

 

I am plunged in the Light

like the sun;

I cannot distinguish myself

from the light.37

 

As the stone that is entirely

turned into pure ruby...

Through oneness with the Light...

Strive that thy stony nature

may be diminished

So that thy stone may become resplendent

with the qualities of the ruby...

The qualities of self-existence

will depart from the body

The qualities of intoxication (ecstasy)

will increase in thy head.38

 

 

Fakhruddin 'Iraqi echoes Rumi's assessment:

 

No, I am the Light:

All things are seen

in my unveiling

and from moment to moment

my radiance is more manifest...

Look: I am the mirror

of the shining Essence.

These lights which arise

from the East of Nothingness

are myself, every one

-- yet I am more....39

 

 

Mansur al-Hallaj took sentiments such as these to their logical

conclusion. Hallaj declared, in Arabic, " Ana 'l-Haqq, " meaning " I am

the Truth, " or " I am God. " Orthodox Muslims took this to be

blasphemy of the worst kind -- no man can declare himself to be God.

As in Judaism and Christianity, Sufi mystics generally came close to

identifying the soul with God, but most fell short of any such

absolute identification.40 Still, the main point is well taken: the

closer one gets to the Divine Light, the more one's self becomes One

with the Divine.

 

The visions of light and feelings of ecstasy have broad and clear

similarities with other mystical traditions and with near death

experiences. However, like other traditions, Sufism is unique when

it comes to interpreting what the mystic encounters. For example,

Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, is seen by some Sufis as " light from

God's light. " 41 According to these mystics the prophet of Islam

shows the searcher " the way unto his own soul where he finds the

reflection of God's light and the 'light of Muhammad.' " 42

Fakhruddin 'Iraqi expressed this view poetically as follows:

 

Praise belongs to God

Who made effulgence the face of

His Friend Muhammad

with Beauty's theophanies,

that it sparkled with light...43

 

 

The Sufi Path

 

Consistent with, although not unique to, the Islamic tradition is

the means by which one attains the vision of God. 'Iraqi asks, " He

is a Light, how shall I see Him? " 44

 

This question is answered in a number of ways. Ibn 'Arabi says

that " the Beatific Vision... impregnates the elect with Divine

Light, each experiencing the vision according to the knowledge of

the Divine dogma, or dogmas, gained by him on earth. " 45 For Maneri,

pureness of heart is the key: " When the mirror of the heart is

thoroughly cleansed of the rust of human nature and selfish

qualities, it becomes capable of reflecting lights from the

extrasensory world.... As purity of heart increases, so too do the

power and frequency of these lights.... " 46 Conversely, the lack of

such purity is an obstacle to the Sufi. As Rumi tells us,

 

Would you have eyes and ears

of reason clear,

Tear off the obstructing veil of greed!

The blind imitation of that Sufi

proceeded from greed;

Greed closed his mind

to the pure light....47

 

 

Above all, though, consistent with the central meaning and message

of Islam, God leads to His light those whom He chooses. Sixteenth

century Sufi Shah Abdul Karim expressed this sentiment poetically:

 

God, the best of proposers,

will unite the lover

and the loved one...

He guides us to the Fount of Light,

to Himself,

So to our source we all return....48

 

 

Ultimately, the last stanza tells us what might well be the destiny

of us all. If that source is the same one to which the Sufis refer,

then that holds a bright promise for the life after this one, to say

the least.

 

Given the sharp parallels, it is clear that Sufi mystics have plenty

in common with other mystical traditions. The encounter with the

Light, and the associated feelings of love and supreme happiness are

too obvious to ignore. Given this common ground, we should not be at

all surprised by differences. Sufis interpret their experience

according to the precepts of the religion in which they were raised.

The most stunning fact is that even though the traditions under

investigation are otherwise chasms apart culturally, and ages apart

in time, the common experience still shines through clearly.

 

The Supreme Radiance

http://lovinglight.com/bbain/islam/thesupreme.htm

 

 

Notes

 

1. Mohammed M. Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (NY: New

American Library, n.d.), x.

 

2. Shihab ud Din Suhrawardi (died 1191 CE), quoted by Hussein Nasr,

Three Muslim Sages (Cambridge: University Press, 1963), 69.

 

3. Hafiz (d. 1389), quoted by Nasrallah S. Fatemi, Faramarz S.

Fatemi and Fariborz S. Fatemi in Love, Beauty and Harmony in Sufism

(NY: A.S. Barnes & Co. Inc., 1978), 203. The Magi were priests of an

un-Islamic religious tradition in ancient Persia.

 

4. 'Ali Muhammad al-Qari (n.d.), quoted by Constance E. Padwick,

Muslim Devotions (London: SPCK, 1961), 62.

 

5. 'Ali Zain al-'Abidin (d. 710-713), quoted by Padwick, 69.

 

6. Kenneth Craig, compiler, The Wisdom of the Sufis (NY: New

Directions, 1976), 33.

 

7. Dr. Mir Valiuddin, The Quranic Sufism (Delhi: Motilal

Banarsidass, 1977), 43. Sufi author unknown.

 

8. Ibn 'Arabi (d. 1240), in Ismail Hakki Bursevi's translation of

and commentary on Fusus al-Hakkim (Oxford: Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi

Society, 1987), Vol. II, 319.

 

9. Ibn 'Arabi, quoted by Prof. Muhammad Enamul Haq, A History of

Sufism in Bengal (Dacca, Bangladesh: Asiatic Press, 1975), 399.

 

10. In Bursevi, Fusus al-Hikam, Vol. II, 266.

 

11. Ibn 'Arabi, Lama'at, quoted by A.J. Arberry in Sufism: An

Account of the Mystics in Islam (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.,

1968), 103.

 

12. Maneri, The Hundred Letters, trans. by Paul Jackson. The

Classics of Western Spirituality (NY: Paulist Press, 1980), 13.

 

13. Maneri, 56.

 

14. Nuri, quoted by Annemarie Schimmel in Mystical Dimensions of

Islam (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1975),

144.

 

15. Cragg, The Wisdom of the Sufis, 56-58.

 

16. Quoted by Schimmel, 421.

 

17. Al-Hallaj (d. 922), quoted by Herbert Mason, " Hallaj and the

Baghdad School of Sufism, " in Leonard Lewishon (ed.), Classical

Persian Sufism: From its Origins to Rumi (London: Khaniqahi

Nimatullahi Publications, 1993), 80.

 

18. Ahmad al-Buni (n.d.), quoted by Schimmel, 213.

 

19. Ahmad al-Tijani (born 1737/38), quoted by Schimmel, 213.

 

20. In Schimmel, 215.

 

21. Fakhruddin 'Iraqi, Divine Flashes. The Classics of Western

Spirituality (NY: Paulist Press, 1993), 122.

 

22. in Fusus al-Hikam, 161-62.

 

23. Haq, A History of Sufism in Bengal, 56-57.

 

24. Jami (d. 1492), quoted in Valiuddin, The Quranic Sufism, 78.

 

25. A.J. Arberry, The Doctrine of the Sufis (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1977), 107. Sufi author(s) unknown.

 

26. Attar being " the mentor of mystic poets and writers " (d. 1230

CE), quoted by Fatemi, Love, Beauty and Harmony in Sufism, 143.

 

27. Reynold A. Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam (London: Routledge

and Kegan Paul Ltd., 1970), 59.

 

28. Maneri, The Hundred Letters, 56-57.

 

29. Arberry, The Doctrine of the Sufis, 137.

 

30. Mehdi Nakosteen, Sufism and Human Destiny and Sufi Thought in

Persian Poetry (Boulder, Colorado: Este Es Press, 1977), 202.

 

31. Quoted by Arberry, The Mystics of Islam, 62-63.

 

32. In Arberry, The Doctrine of the Sufis, 90.

 

33. In Arberry, The Mystics of Islam, 61-62.

 

34. In R.S. Bhatnaggar, Dimensions of Classical Sufi Thought (Delhi:

Motilal Banarsidass, 1984), 63.

 

35. Haq, A History of Sufism in Bengal, 107.

 

36. Quoted by Dr. Mir Valiuddin, Contemplative Disciplines in Sufism

(London: East-West Publications), 115.

 

37. Valiuddin, Contemplative Disciplines, 160.

 

38. Valiuddin, Contemplative Disciplines, 162-163.

 

39. 'Iraqi, Divine Flashes, 70.

 

40. Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam, 150.

 

41. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 223.

 

42. Lewisohn, Classical Persian Sufism, 374.

 

43. 'Iraqi, Divine Flashes, 69.

 

44. 'Iraqi, Divine Flashes, 124.

 

45. 'Iraqi, Divine Flashes, 167.

 

46. Maneri, The Hundred Letters, 55.

 

47. In Fatemi, Love, Beauty and Harmony in Sufism, 52.

 

48. Dr. Motilal Jotivani, Sufis of Sindh (Delhi: K.S. Printers,

1986), 75-78.