The Mosque: The Heart of Submission

Notes

Notes Foreword William C. Chittick is professor in the Department of Comparative Studies at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. He is a leading and greatly respected scholar in the field of the classical Muslim intellectual tradition . He has published numerous books, among which are: Imaginal Worlds: Ibn al-‘Arabi and the Problem of Religious Diversity; The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-‘Arabi’s Metaphysics of Imagination; The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi; The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn al-‘Arabi’s Cosmology; Sufism: A Short Introduction; The Heart of Islamic Philosophy: The Quest for the Self-Knowledge in the Teachings of Afdal al-Din Kāshāni. 1. al-Futûhât al-makkiyya (Cairo, 1911), 2:414; cited in Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge (Albany: SUNY Press, 1989), 171. Introduction 1. The English word ‘‘inviolable’’ is used in the sense of the Arabic word harām, which also carries the connotation of ‘‘forbidden,’’ ‘‘sacrosanct ,’’ or ‘‘holy.’’ This word signifies the space that is ‘‘chosen,’’ ‘‘separated ,’’ ‘‘consecrated,’’ and ‘‘made inviolable.’’ It was declared as such by God, and He invites humankind to accept as forbidden any behaviour in opposition to the prescribed. The word harām derives from the verbal root h-r-m. In legal usage, the word signifies that which is excluded from prescribed behaviors and therefore punishable. Some derivations from this root carry the meanings of ‘‘inadmissibility’’ and ‘‘barring from,’’ which can be 82 / Notes found in Recitation. Harām (‘‘the forbidden’’) is the opposite of halāl (‘‘the permitted’’). It is relevant here that the Slav noun zabrana (‘‘prohibition, interdiction, ban’’) derives from the verb boriti se (‘‘to fight,’’ ‘‘to struggle’’). Chapter 1: The Self and the self 1. The corresponding translation to the Arabic name Muhammad should be ‘‘The Praiser.’’ In Recitation, the name in this form is mentioned four times (3:144, 33:40, 47:2 and 48:29), and once as Ahmad (61:6). It should immediately be pointed out that the literal translation of this Arabic name is ‘‘The Praised’’ (‘‘Praise-worthy’’) rather than ‘‘The Praiser.’’ The Arabic name Ahmad corresponds to the translation ‘‘The Most Praised.’’ This difference between the literal translation in passive form and the active form used here should be explained in order to avoid misunderstanding the meaning this book is directed to. According to the words of God in Recitation, Muhammad is ‘‘The light-giving lamp’’ (33:46), ‘‘A good example’’ (33:21), and ‘‘A mighty morality’’ (68:4). That he is The light-giving lamp means that, in his relationship with God as the Light (24:35) he is the recipient and, as such, lighted. Thus, God’s name, Light, is realized in him. God is the Light and therefore both Lighted and Light-giving. Accordingly, Muhammad is the Lighted as the recipient of the Light-giving’s Light. Simultaneously , he is also Light-giving with this Light he has received. However, none of the Light he is giving is his own, since there is no light but Light. The Light-giving, Light and Lighted are One. Applying the testimony that there is no god but God, it is possible to say that the Known, Knowledge and Knowing are also One, since there is no knowledge but Knowledge. The one that is Known transmits Knowledge and is therefore both the Knowing and Knowledge-giving. This corresponds to God’s commandment : ‘‘Say: The knowledge is with God!’’(67–26) God also commands Muhammad to say: ‘‘My Lord embraces all things in His knowledge!’’ (6:80, see also 7:89) The highest and only goal of a human being is to know God. However, reaching this goal is not possible without being. If a human being cognizes God as the Known, this means that he/she receives the Knowledge into himself/herself and that, as the cognizer, he/she is simultaneously known to the Knowing. Thus, to know oneself is to know one’s Lord. With this knowledge the human being finds, inside him/herself, the Known, who is there as his/her essence. Muhammad is a good example exactly because his morality is the expression of the realization of God’s names in him. And one of these names is al-Hamı̄d/Hamı̄d, which corresponds to the translation ‘‘The Praised’’(see, e.g., 2:267; 11:73; 14:1; 14:8; 22:24, 64; 31:12; 34:6; 35:15; 41...