On Love: In the Muslim Tradition

Beauty

Beauty Nothing in the worlds is comparable to God. But, nothing in them has reality apart from Him. Thus, similarity is opposed to incomparability , since He is praised by every word in the worlds.34 Incomparability and similarity are simultaneous, and they correspond to the ‘‘is/is not’’ of all existence. Every phenomenon in existence has visibility and invisibility. In the visible, it diverges toward the horizons, in which it is revealed. In its invisible side it is closer to the higher and indivisible level, on which all phenomena are closer to the Hidden Treasure, which they reveal through their existence. That duality of the visible and invisible , the outer and inner, builds a chain of worlds. There is no single phenomenon without a border between those two seas in which it is plunged. At that border the visible and invisible, the outer and inner meet and unite in a mysterious way. Duality is the revelation and confirmation of oneness. But when any phenomenon loses that connection or that contact, through which it is ‘‘with the truth,’’ it becomes turned only toward nothingness. As such it has acquired in human understanding its distorted or corrupted image. And, given its original connection with the Hidden Treasure, every phenomenon is the revelation of beauty. In distortion and corruption it ceases to bear witness to Beauty, and is revealed as ugliness. Incomparability and similarity are the nature of every phenomenon. They are 74 / On Love distorted when the duality that maintains them in connection with the Hidden Treasure is not understood as the affirmation of oneness. To the above-mentioned similarity correspond the names: Beautiful , Close, Merciful, Most Merciful, Loving, Tender, Forgiving, Giving , etc. They are known as the names of beauty, tenderness, abundance, or Mercy. They are names of a receiving openness or a giving femaleness. They express subordination to the will of others, and therefore softness, acceptance, and receptivity. Opposite them and with them are the names of an initiating activeness and a searching maleness. As such they turn the self toward the outside or the world as everything that is outside the self, everything that is beyond the border of the individual. But He is with the selves, wherever they might be.35 And this confirms that the border between the self and the outer world is an illusion, and the fact that there is no self apart from the Self confirms the similarity through which duality is denied. The human response to those names of tenderness and closeness is intimacy, hope and expansion. And this is attained through love. Full unity is the aim of love. But being a phenomenon in the created world means also being in dividedness. The phenomenon seeks what is similar to itself, through which it may be seen in its reality. And that is its moving along paths in space and time. This confirms the fact that behind all these names there is one and the same essence. Love is the aspiration toward the oneness behind every phenomenon. He who loves to know himself is revealed in the other in order to see himself through him. He both threatens and promises that other, for he does not recognize his aim apart from the revelation of himself through him, and at the same time he does not deny his oneness as fullness. Thus, that other whom he loves and who is beautiful for him is he/she—the self, which wishes to reveal itself to itself. But he/she is necessary to her/him only as he/she. The self wants nothing other than fullness. That is why his/her Mercy toward the one through whom he/she looks is original and all-encompassing. Unity is possible only in the fullness of that Mercy. Love / 75 Separation and the pain that is inseparable from it are only states on the path of unity, which is nothing other than a return to one another or the affirmation of oneness, of which the Prophet says: ‘‘The good, all of it, is in Thy two hands, while evil does not go back to Thee.’’36 The pain of separation ignites the fire of love: Passion is the elixir that makes (things) new: how (can there be) weariness where passion has arisen? Oh, do not sigh heavily from weariness: seek passion, seek passion, passion, passion!37 No statement about love can...