Mystics and Saints of Islam. Field Claud

Our eyes (i.e., nothing).

      They immediately caused him to fall into a trance which lasted twenty-four hours. Ghazzali, who himself borrowed much from the Sufis, and was a diligent student of their doctrine, seeks to explain these strange phenomena on psychological grounds. He divides the ecstatic conditions which the hearing of poetical recitations produces into four classes. The first, which is the lowest, is that of the simple sensuous delight in melody. The second class is that of pleasure in the melody and of understanding the words in their apparent sense. The third class consists of those who apply the meaning of the words to the relations between man and God. To this class belongs the would-be initiate into Sufism; he has necessarily a goal marked out for him to aim at, and this goal is the knowledge of God, meeting Him and union with Him by the way of secret contemplation, and the removal of the veil which conceals Him. In order to compass this aim the Sufi has a special path to follow; he must perform various ascetic practices and overcome certain spiritual obstacles in doing so. Now when, during the recitation of poetry, the Sufi hears mention made of blame or praise, of acceptance or refusal, of union with the Beloved or separation from Him, of lament over a departed joy or longing for a look, as often occurs in Arabic poetry, one or the other of these accords with his spiritual state and acts upon him, like a spark ,on tinder, to set his heart aflame. Longing and love overpower him and unfold to him manifold vistas of spiritual experience.

      The fourth and highest class is that of the fully initiated who have passed through the stages above-mentioned, and whose minds are closed to everything except God. Such an one is wholly denuded of self, so that he no longer knows his own experiences and practices, and, as though with senses sealed, sinks into the ocean of the contemplation of God. This condition the Sufis characterise as self-annihilation (Fana).

      But he who is bereft of self-consciousness is none the less aware of what is without him; it is as if his consciousness were withdrawn from everything but the one object of contemplation, i.e., God. While he who is completely absorbed in the contemplation of the object seen is as little capable of theorising regarding the act of contemplation as regarding the eye, the instrument of sight, or the heart, the seat of joyful emotion. Just in the same way a drunken man is not conscious of his intoxication, so he who is drowned in joy knows nothing of joy itself, but only knows what causes it. Such a condition of mind may occur with regard to created things as well as with regard to the Creator Himself, only in the latter case it is like a flash of lightning, without permanence. Could such a condition of the soul last longer, it would be beyond the power of human nature to endure and would end in overwhelming it. So it is related of Taury that once in a meeting he heard this verse recited:—

      In my love to Thee I attained to a height where to tread causes the senses to reel.

      He immediately fell into an ecstatic condition and ran into a field where the newly-cut stubble cut his feet like knives. Here he ran about all night till the morning, and a few days afterwards died.

In this highest condition of ecstasy the soul is to be compared to a clear mirror, which, itself colourless, reflects the colours of the object seen in it. Or to a crystal, whose colour is that of the object on which it stands or of the fluid which it contains. Itself colourless, it has the property of transmitting colours. This exposition of Sufistic ecstasy by Ghazzali shows that in his time, far from being on the wane, such phenomena were on the increase. For when a man of such comprehensive mind, such a deep thinker, so well versed in the knowledge of men and especially of his fellow-Moslems, speaks so plainly and without doubt upon the matter and seeks to explain it psychologically, this idea must have already taken deep root and spread widely. Ghazzali is consequently to be regarded as a decided adherent of Sufism and as approving of the enthusiastic tendencies accompanying it. He narrates in his autobiography7 how he left his family in Bagdad and went to Damascus, where for two whole years he studied Sufism. Afterwards he made the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. In his lonely musings things were revealed to him, which, he said, could not be described, and he arrived at last at the firm conviction that the Sufis were on the way of God and that their teaching was the best. It must be admitted that by Sufism Ghazzali meant that kind of it which held fast to the general principles of Islam and was in accord, even though only externally, with the orthodox party. These Sufis adhered to the Koran and the traditions, but interpreted them allegorically. Mysticism must always be propped up by a positive religion, as it has no support in itself.

5 From Von Kremer.

6 Von Kremer.

7 "The Confessions of Al Ghazzali" (Wisdom of the East series).

CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

      HASAN BASRI8 (d 728 ad)

      Hasan Basri was born in Arabia at Medina, where his mother had been brought as a captive and sold to Omm Salma, one of the wives of the Prophet. Arrived at man's estate, and having received his liberty, he retired to Basra on the Persian gulf, a stronghold of the ascetic sect. Here he lived undisturbed, though his open disavowal of the reigning family of Ommeyah exposed him to some danger. The following incident, illustrating his independence of character is narrated by Ibn Khalliqan. When Omar ibn Hubaira was appointed to the government of Irak in the reign of the Caliph Abd-al Malik (a.d. 721) he called for Hasan Basri, Muhammad Ibn Sirin and as Shabi to whom he said, "Abd al Malik has received my promise that I will hear and obey him; and he has now appointed me to what you see, and I receive from him written orders. Must I obey him in whatever orders he takes upon himself to give?" To this Ibn Sirin and as Shabi gave a cautious reply, but Hasan Basri, being asked his opinion, made this answer: "O Ibn Hubaira! God outweighs Abd al Malik, and Abd al Malik cannot outweigh God; God can defend thee from Abd al Malik, and Abd al Malik cannot defend thee from God. He will soon send an angel to take thee from thy throne, and send thee from the width of thy palace into the narrowness of the tomb. Then thy deeds alone can save thee." Ibn Hubaira then rewarded them, but bestowed a double reward on Hasan Basri, upon which as Shabi said to Ibn Sirin, "We gave him a poor answer, and he gave us a poor reward."

      Hasan Basri's adoption of the ascetic life was brought about in the following way. When a young man he was a lapidary, and had gone to Roum (Asia Minor) to practise his craft. He there lived on friendly terms with the vizier of that country. One day the vizier said to him, "We are going out of the city to a certain place; will you come with us?" Hasan Basri assented, and went. "We came," he said afterwards, "to a plain where there was a vast tent the ropes of which were of silk and its stakes of gold. I saw a large number of soldiers marching round it; they repeated some words which I could not hear, and then retired. Then came about four hundred mullahs and learned men, who did the same. These were followed by a similar number of old men. Then about four or five hundred beautiful maidens, each holding in her hand a dish containing rubies, pearls, turquoises, and other precious stones. They went in procession round the tent in the same way. Finally the sultan and the vizier went into the tent and came out again.

      "As for me, I remained transfixed with astonishment. 'What does all this mean?' I asked the vizier. 'The King,' he said, 'had an extremely beautiful child of a happy disposition, who fell ill and died. His tomb is within this tent, and they visit it once a year. First come the soldiers, who circle round the tent and say, 'O son of the sultan, if we could have ransomed thy life by the strokes of our swords, we would have done it, even had it cost us our own; but God willed otherwise, and we cannot change his decree.' Having so said, they go away. Then the mullahs and learned men, coming in their turn, say, 'O son of the sultan, if we could have ransomed thee by knowledge or by eloquence, we would have done so; but all the knowledge and eloquence in the world cannot arrest the decrees of Allah.' Then they depart. After them come the old men, who cry, 'If we could have saved thee by groanings and prayers, we would have done