- Sep 24, 2008
- 82
- 14
Al hamdulilahi Rabbil Alamin was salatu was salamu ala Khairul Ibad Sayyidanna Muhammad ama ba'd-
Man by nature has a desire to know divinity, to seek some means of closeness or nearness to this being known as God. He looks at the creation, sees how it is manifested through a plethora of forms and shapes, yet is one in its workings and mechanisms, and realizes there must be a being greater than himself to which he feels he owes some form of deference or worship. So while man universally recognizes a god, due to different veils of the soul and differing nasmic compositions, each group has designed and shaped deity in their image and assigned to Him a form and nature in line with their natural constitutions.
Some men, veiled as they are by many veils and in darkness upon darkness, can not percieve that Ultimate Reality which is The Light, and only can percieve faint beams of light and the shadowy appearance of reality. Being less technologically advanced, and more at the mercy of the elements, they take these natural laws and phenomena as the height of reality and give deference and worship to these forces. This is the rank of al mushrikoon- the animist.
In reality, these people worship the angels, al malaikah, which are really the natural forces and laws. This state overtakes the people who have made their desires their god, and follow their lust bent low upon the earth. Since they are bound by the sensory world, and see it as the only existing, they worship those things which to them seem to be the immediate cause of their physical needs. As a result of this perception, attached as it is to the physical world, multiplicity in the godhead is a given. In truth, Allah is the One and the Odd, while creation is the two and the even, as it always has a mate or complement. Since the minds of such people are stuck on the level of manifestation, they only see the many and fail to see the unity which underlies it. So one takes fire as a god, another wind, still another the Sun or the Moon, each believing their deity to be supreme, while at the same time affirmingthe existence of all the others.
Another group among men, veiled partly by light and darkness, have some perception of the reality of God, His transcendence and omnipotence, yet are still bound and trapped by the world of manifestation, and as such have come to believe that certain men, in whom they see something of the transcendence and power of the Glorious One, and for whom they feel some sense of awe or revernce, are the incarnations or manifestations of the Infinite Source, and as such are worthy of worship and praise. This is the case with the Christians, Buddhist, Hindus and certain other groups. Seeing in these men power and authority, and recognizing in them many of the divine attributes, such as dominion and lordship, they are unable to see the Part as distinct from the Whole, the Finite as different from the Infinite.
Another group among men form a sophist class in the religious world by promulgating the idea that deity is a pure spirit which is best described as some type of non-existing existent. Their vision of the deity is that of a force which completely lacks personality or individuality. This is the domain of the Philosophers, and those who have some type of Platonic or Aristotelian concept. For these, God is the Summum Bonum, or Ultimate Good, which is best described as some faceless force. This concept is formed from the aspect of amazement and bewilderment when confronted with the transcendence and sanctity of deity, such ideas being arrived at not through divine illumination but through the exercise of the rationcinative part of ones being. Thus truth becomes obscured for them, as al haqq, The Reality, is always rational however, it is not arrived at through rationalism.
At the opposite end of the spectrum are those who take deity to solely be a physical being, who is confined to a physical location. Whereas the former conception comes as a result of placing the intellect before revelation, this class of people, awed as they are by Revelation, place Revelation at the summit and intellect in the valley. These people are not privy to the secrets of Revelation, as such they are unaware of the stage of Revelatio, alam ul mithal, and of its language, language of symbols and types. For this group of people, whatever Revelation states literally occured, regardless to how contrary it is to reality or how repulsive it is to the Intellect.
With the brief exposition given above the question naturally arises as to what is the state of those situated in al Haqq, what is the truth of God.
In reality Allah is Light. Just as there are various wavelengths which make up the one thing we call light, there are also various states of manifestation of this being who is The Light. At the base there is one personal being who is Creator, Sustainer and Destoyer of all which exist. He is the Fountainhead of Existence and all else is only existing as a consequence or result of His existence. He is, as some think, an entity seated on a throne, which does possess a shaks or body. He has arms, legs, ears, hands and all thephysical thing He has described Himself with in the Revelation. At the same time, this one being has emanated from Himself another being which permeates the creation and unites it into a single thing. This second being serves as the means or method by which nur, or existence is given to the various levels of being beneath it. This being is not created as such, but is brought about by ibda, or innovation, which suggest a special relationship between it and the Person of God, more properly called Ar Rahman. This entity, which came as a result of ibda, is called Ar Ruh. These two, Ar Rahman and Ar Ruh are the two pronoun voices used in al Quraan-Ar Rahman being the He, and Ar Ruh being the We. This is a place where many lose the way. Seeing the We, they think it the all, rather than seeing the He which is the Source, Author, and Power of the We. While others, yearning for the He, have seen only Him and thus applied to the He the attributes of the We and have thereby lessened His glory and transcendence. And the truth is totally other than what either party thinks.
In reality this All Powerful One, Ar Rahman, is completely sanctified and holy. He brought about all of creation as a myriad of finite manifestations of His own infinite existence. Before Him there was nothing, and He is, if it be posible for ones mind to conceive, the Creator of Himself. As He is One, it was necessary that in His creation there would be a unity which mirrored His One-ness. As Ar Rahman contemplated this, He brought out of the nothingness an image like unto a single body composed of light. However, if one were to look closer and peer beyond the shadowy existence one would see that this image, which appeared to be a single body of light, was actually composed of many smaller lights which when combined formed a single unit or body. This was Ar Ruh. Ar Ruh is the divine image placed in, and permeating the creation. The smaller lights which compose the greater light of Ar Ruh, are an nafs an natiqah, rational souls or personalities of men. Another name for Ar Ruh being al Hazirat Al Qudus-Holy Enfoldment.
As man is the Khalifah, the vassal exercising the authority of his Lord in creation, when he perfects himself he gains an affinity for the divine nature and beomes one of al muqariboon-Those Who Are Brough Near the Divine Throne. As arsh, throne, implies power and authority, al muqariboon are those souls which have regained their lost position and reclaimed the power and authority which was theirs before the cycle of incarnation and trial.
Ar Rahman sits on the throne and rules the creation. When he issues al amr, the decree, for anything to occur, this amr is first recieved by al muqaribbon-Al Hazirat al Qudus. Al Hazirat in turn gives the command to al malaikah, the natural forces, which then arrange the physical reality in such a way as to manifest the divine decree.
We must not think of Al Hazirat as an independent power nor consider it synonymous with the concept of a council of gods. In truth, every soul which joins Al Hazirat is first and foremost a slave par excellence, as they are totally dependent on Him and act as His deputy.
In Sha Allah, truth now stands apart form falsehood and there has been cast a little of the light of divinity into your heart.One should now be better able to see Him as He is, a completely transcendent and otherly, corporeal entity made of the finest, subtlest substance. Who speaks, hears and most importantly feels and has concern for each and every one of his creations. As one who is so Merciful He manifested a form of himself which would permeate the creation, feel what it feels, hurt where it hurts, and save it at the last.
This is only a flashing of light hoped to inspire your search and cause your heart to be recpetive to the fulness of the divine reality as it begins to flow over your form.
Man by nature has a desire to know divinity, to seek some means of closeness or nearness to this being known as God. He looks at the creation, sees how it is manifested through a plethora of forms and shapes, yet is one in its workings and mechanisms, and realizes there must be a being greater than himself to which he feels he owes some form of deference or worship. So while man universally recognizes a god, due to different veils of the soul and differing nasmic compositions, each group has designed and shaped deity in their image and assigned to Him a form and nature in line with their natural constitutions.
Some men, veiled as they are by many veils and in darkness upon darkness, can not percieve that Ultimate Reality which is The Light, and only can percieve faint beams of light and the shadowy appearance of reality. Being less technologically advanced, and more at the mercy of the elements, they take these natural laws and phenomena as the height of reality and give deference and worship to these forces. This is the rank of al mushrikoon- the animist.
In reality, these people worship the angels, al malaikah, which are really the natural forces and laws. This state overtakes the people who have made their desires their god, and follow their lust bent low upon the earth. Since they are bound by the sensory world, and see it as the only existing, they worship those things which to them seem to be the immediate cause of their physical needs. As a result of this perception, attached as it is to the physical world, multiplicity in the godhead is a given. In truth, Allah is the One and the Odd, while creation is the two and the even, as it always has a mate or complement. Since the minds of such people are stuck on the level of manifestation, they only see the many and fail to see the unity which underlies it. So one takes fire as a god, another wind, still another the Sun or the Moon, each believing their deity to be supreme, while at the same time affirmingthe existence of all the others.
Another group among men, veiled partly by light and darkness, have some perception of the reality of God, His transcendence and omnipotence, yet are still bound and trapped by the world of manifestation, and as such have come to believe that certain men, in whom they see something of the transcendence and power of the Glorious One, and for whom they feel some sense of awe or revernce, are the incarnations or manifestations of the Infinite Source, and as such are worthy of worship and praise. This is the case with the Christians, Buddhist, Hindus and certain other groups. Seeing in these men power and authority, and recognizing in them many of the divine attributes, such as dominion and lordship, they are unable to see the Part as distinct from the Whole, the Finite as different from the Infinite.
Another group among men form a sophist class in the religious world by promulgating the idea that deity is a pure spirit which is best described as some type of non-existing existent. Their vision of the deity is that of a force which completely lacks personality or individuality. This is the domain of the Philosophers, and those who have some type of Platonic or Aristotelian concept. For these, God is the Summum Bonum, or Ultimate Good, which is best described as some faceless force. This concept is formed from the aspect of amazement and bewilderment when confronted with the transcendence and sanctity of deity, such ideas being arrived at not through divine illumination but through the exercise of the rationcinative part of ones being. Thus truth becomes obscured for them, as al haqq, The Reality, is always rational however, it is not arrived at through rationalism.
At the opposite end of the spectrum are those who take deity to solely be a physical being, who is confined to a physical location. Whereas the former conception comes as a result of placing the intellect before revelation, this class of people, awed as they are by Revelation, place Revelation at the summit and intellect in the valley. These people are not privy to the secrets of Revelation, as such they are unaware of the stage of Revelatio, alam ul mithal, and of its language, language of symbols and types. For this group of people, whatever Revelation states literally occured, regardless to how contrary it is to reality or how repulsive it is to the Intellect.
With the brief exposition given above the question naturally arises as to what is the state of those situated in al Haqq, what is the truth of God.
In reality Allah is Light. Just as there are various wavelengths which make up the one thing we call light, there are also various states of manifestation of this being who is The Light. At the base there is one personal being who is Creator, Sustainer and Destoyer of all which exist. He is the Fountainhead of Existence and all else is only existing as a consequence or result of His existence. He is, as some think, an entity seated on a throne, which does possess a shaks or body. He has arms, legs, ears, hands and all thephysical thing He has described Himself with in the Revelation. At the same time, this one being has emanated from Himself another being which permeates the creation and unites it into a single thing. This second being serves as the means or method by which nur, or existence is given to the various levels of being beneath it. This being is not created as such, but is brought about by ibda, or innovation, which suggest a special relationship between it and the Person of God, more properly called Ar Rahman. This entity, which came as a result of ibda, is called Ar Ruh. These two, Ar Rahman and Ar Ruh are the two pronoun voices used in al Quraan-Ar Rahman being the He, and Ar Ruh being the We. This is a place where many lose the way. Seeing the We, they think it the all, rather than seeing the He which is the Source, Author, and Power of the We. While others, yearning for the He, have seen only Him and thus applied to the He the attributes of the We and have thereby lessened His glory and transcendence. And the truth is totally other than what either party thinks.
In reality this All Powerful One, Ar Rahman, is completely sanctified and holy. He brought about all of creation as a myriad of finite manifestations of His own infinite existence. Before Him there was nothing, and He is, if it be posible for ones mind to conceive, the Creator of Himself. As He is One, it was necessary that in His creation there would be a unity which mirrored His One-ness. As Ar Rahman contemplated this, He brought out of the nothingness an image like unto a single body composed of light. However, if one were to look closer and peer beyond the shadowy existence one would see that this image, which appeared to be a single body of light, was actually composed of many smaller lights which when combined formed a single unit or body. This was Ar Ruh. Ar Ruh is the divine image placed in, and permeating the creation. The smaller lights which compose the greater light of Ar Ruh, are an nafs an natiqah, rational souls or personalities of men. Another name for Ar Ruh being al Hazirat Al Qudus-Holy Enfoldment.
As man is the Khalifah, the vassal exercising the authority of his Lord in creation, when he perfects himself he gains an affinity for the divine nature and beomes one of al muqariboon-Those Who Are Brough Near the Divine Throne. As arsh, throne, implies power and authority, al muqariboon are those souls which have regained their lost position and reclaimed the power and authority which was theirs before the cycle of incarnation and trial.
Ar Rahman sits on the throne and rules the creation. When he issues al amr, the decree, for anything to occur, this amr is first recieved by al muqaribbon-Al Hazirat al Qudus. Al Hazirat in turn gives the command to al malaikah, the natural forces, which then arrange the physical reality in such a way as to manifest the divine decree.
We must not think of Al Hazirat as an independent power nor consider it synonymous with the concept of a council of gods. In truth, every soul which joins Al Hazirat is first and foremost a slave par excellence, as they are totally dependent on Him and act as His deputy.
In Sha Allah, truth now stands apart form falsehood and there has been cast a little of the light of divinity into your heart.One should now be better able to see Him as He is, a completely transcendent and otherly, corporeal entity made of the finest, subtlest substance. Who speaks, hears and most importantly feels and has concern for each and every one of his creations. As one who is so Merciful He manifested a form of himself which would permeate the creation, feel what it feels, hurt where it hurts, and save it at the last.
This is only a flashing of light hoped to inspire your search and cause your heart to be recpetive to the fulness of the divine reality as it begins to flow over your form.