On Love: In the Muslim Tradition

Greatness

Greatness Existence as the totality of phenomena in time and space bears witness to the first and last things, and to inwardness and outwardness. Every phenomenon has that duality of beginning and end. But since the full beginning and end are the same thing, the placing of a phenomenon in the duality of the beginning and end affirms oneness. Thus, the world bears witness also to the greatness of the totality of existence. But the fact that the world is a perfect balance of the beginning and the end means that it bears witness also to the qualities of the beauty of oneness. Every phenomenon, through its firstness, loves its lastness. Since every phenomenon has a form as outwardness, it is in such a relationship with itself and with the totality of existence that through its inwardness it endeavors to bears witness to oneness with its outwardness. And that is love. The order of the world is maintained by the balance of the active and the passive principles. Although the world is what is not God, it does not deny His oneness. That oneness is confirmed by this duality of the active and the passive, the male and the female. And duality in relation to oneness is countless multiplicity, which is reducible to the two original sides—power and beauty, light and darkness. The Prophet sums this up in his pronouncement: ‘‘God has seventy thousand veils of light and darkness.’’31 The totality of existence is the relationship between those veils through which His most beautiful names are revealed. In the Divine Love / 71 Treasure those names are indivisible potential. They are in their creation a descent or revelation in the countless multiplicity of phenomena , as the Almighty says: ‘‘We hold the store of every blessing and send it down in appropriate measure.’’32 Everything, or each phenomenon, has a name that corresponds to it. That name is in the Treasure, uncreated and inseparable—always one and the same as everything else. When it is revealed in existence, it remains one and the same. And that is the reason why ‘‘I’’ can say of Itself ‘‘We’’ and why that ‘‘I’’ says, ‘‘We hold the store of every blessing.’’ Revelation in multiplicity is the love of that ‘‘I’’ for the Self through all that has been created. Thus, given the aforementioned duality, two views of the world are possible. In the first what is emphasized is the incomparability, distance , and otherness of oneness. In the other view what are emphasized are the qualities of His similarity, closeness, and Mercy. The incomparability of God with anything in the worlds means His distance. To this correspond His names: Almighty, Unattainable, Great, Exalted, Creator, King, Wrathful, Vengeful, etc. Those are the names of highness or ferocity or righteousness or wrathfulness. Those names emphasize greatness, power, authority, and maleness. In order for the names to be brought into connection with the other side of the duality from which they are inseparable and to which they give and from which they receive, it is necessary to return to the question of the creation or revelation of the Hidden Treasure. For that it is possible to take the image of the second letter of the Arabic alphabet and the first letter of the Torah and Qur’an. That is a half circle with a dot beneath it. As the second letter it can designate the totality of creation, in its visible aspect. It corresponds to reflection upward or ‘‘the spirit of God’’ moving ‘‘upon the face of the waters.’’33 Thus, that image is a circle, an invisible one that belongs to higher reality, and another invisible one that corresponds to the world of phenomena lowered down in ‘‘appropriate measure.’’ That is the image of lowering that corresponds to division and revelation through which the world enters into its multiplicity until in the human being it attains 72 / On Love its greatest divergence. That same image represents also ascent or returning through which the human being completes the circle. Creation goes from oneness toward multiplicity and back. At every level of that going down and rising up, reality is revealed with two faces. One face is closer to oneness, while the other is closer to multiplicity. One is proportionately less divided than the other. Thus each level is revealed as the simultaneity of the passive and the recipient, the light-bearing and...