On Love: In the Muslim Tradition

Remembrance

Remembrance Man is in the world and opposite it. Accepting submission, which is the way of existence of that opposite world, means the confirmation of the human nature of the created one. And that nature demands a Creator. One seeks the other. The Creator manifests Himself in the created one who is, thus, the revelation of His Words. Without the created one the Word is hidden, unrevealed, and undivided. It is only an unarticulated name. Man’s submission or serenity becomes the ‘‘transcription’’ of that hiddenness into revelation, just as the world is. And man can express it, thus disclosing himself, the world and God. In that submission, in which man makes manifest all God’s names, the will remains free. And there remains also the sense of separateness from Him to Whom one submits. He is incomparable and similar to nothing, while man wishes to be close to Him and for Him to see Himself in and through him. Complete serenity means also complete closeness. And this means the disappearance of the separation of the self between nothingness as its ultimate impossibility and Peace as unity. Since no state of the self outside complete Peace is complete submission either, it is, with regard to the free will, between remembrance and forgetting. The fullness of submission would be the fullness of remembrance. And the other way around—the fullness of forgetfulness would be contradiction of the Creator. And that is not possible. 146 / On Love Submission is entry into the order of the world in order that its borders and paths should be confirmed. For paths and borders manifest signs. But they speak of the truth, which is one, although it is manifested in the countless multiplicity of phenomena. The reasonable expression of that is sobriety. But derangement and the consequent impossibility of inclusion into sensible speech, which is the harmonized relation of the self and the world, are nothing other than forgetfulness and drunkenness. And the interrelation between the Creator and the creature is the love of the first for the other. That first gives existence to the other out of His love to be known. He wishes to see Himself through that other, and so places him in His debt through his creation. That debt of creation may be repaid only in sober concentration on it and turning toward Him to Whom it should be repaid. That is why submission (islam) is the first condition of human existence. This is humankind’s orientation. But that orientation is only the condition for maintaining and strengthening remembrance in its aim—seeing God’s Face as oneness revealed in multiplicity: ‘‘Prayer forbids indecency and dishonor, God’s remembrance is greater.’’27 This seeing makes possible recognition in the world of the attributes of power, ruling, greatness, administration, righteousness, knowledge, and the like. They are gathered together in the Throne of the Ruler of all existence. Remembrance directs one toward the Throne. And He Who has in- finite power, Whom the directed one remembers, does not cease to be a source of fear, since He is distant and incomparable with anything. Here remembrance is revealed as fear. But, directedness and moving toward Him make possible also closeness. And when it is attained, it becomes clear that both closeness and distance, and love and fear, are the reality of human existence. In closeness remembrance is transformed into security. Living in the world and society demands knowing and maintaining order. And that requires answers to the questions of ‘‘how?’’ which, along with the threat of punishment, are posed by the Almighty. Knowledge / 147 Transgression of those commandments brings down wrath and punishment . But closeness, which is attained through submission, comes to know and experience Mercy, Mildness, and Tenderness. Thus enslavement is transformed into loving. And love requires closeness. That is the expectation that the lover sees the beloved as most beautiful to him. He who loves sees himself through the beloved and expects that what he sees will be the most beautiful. But the lover and the beloved are separate. All weariness or turning away in that looking leads to negligence and forgetfulness. And here too the Praiser is the most beautiful example: His own heart did not deny his vision. How can you, then, question what he sees? He beheld him once again by the sidra tree, beyond which no one may pass. (Near it is the Garden of...