Baba Taher and Pantheism: An Essay by Dr. Ghadamali Sarami

Occasionalism and pantheism, as two schools of thought, have been the leaven of many philosophical movements. In fact, these two schools have strengthened and guided the tendency to organize and unify human knowledge and sciences toward the attainment of transcendent goals. Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, and others were among those who made great efforts to unify all the sciences and return them all to a single science. Occasionalism is a religious conception and a theological interpretation of the problem of causality in the domain of physics. In fact, occasionalism is an endeavor to lay the foundations of a theological system in which the discussion of causality is so reformed and moderated that it can serve as the interpreter and expositor of the act of the God of religion. In simpler terms, the philosophy of occasionalism rests on the basis that there exists a single, unique being in the world from which all creatures are created. Whereas pantheists believe that all beings are manifestations of God, and the origin of all things is that very true existence which is God; so whatever exists is His manifestation; laysa fi al-dar ghayru dayyar, which in fact means the return of all things, amidst multiplicity, to unity. With this interpretation, objects and beings are nominal existents, all of which subsist in the knowledge of the Real under the title of the immutable essences, and God is like a being who, in the mirror of His own essence, is perpetually manifesting and actualizing the various faces of His infinite and boundless essence. Not only can it be said that the soul that knows the truth has, to some extent, known the God that the truth encompasses, but it can also be said that it knows things, to some extent, as God knows them. This soul, in truth, acquires knowledge of the real relations of things of which God has knowledge. This soul knows them through the perception of the perfections of God which represent those things, and God also knows them in the same manner. In physics, Ghazali relates certain problems from the philosophers and says that opposing them is not religiously obligatory except in four matters. The first problem of those four, which is known as the seventeenth problem of the Tahafut, and is the most important problem of this book, the most famous of them, and considered one of Ghazali's innovations, is the problem of rejecting the principle of causality (Ghazali, 1361:231) in nature and referring it to conjunction. And, as it happens, the most important problem of the book The Search after Truth, for which many other problems have been presented as a prelude, and which is Malebranche's most famous view, is precisely the problem of "occasionalism," that is, rejecting the principle of causality in nature, denying it, and referring it to "conjunction." Ghazali says: "The philosophers decree that this conjunction observed in the world of existence, between causes and effects, is a conjunction that follows necessarily." (ibid.: p. 234) The conjunction between what is customarily called a cause and what is called an effect is not necessary for us; their conjunction is through the decree of God, the Glorified, who created them conjoined, not that it is in itself necessary and inseparable. (See, ibid.: p. 237) Nicolas Malebranche has two famous theories:

1- Occasionalism (there is no agent in existence except God), the metaphysical dimension

2- Vision in God, in the epistemological dimension. There is a very great similarity between Malebranche's occasionalist theory and the Ash'arite view regarding the mode of God Almighty's agency in existence. Both doctrines claim that there is no agent and no actor in existence except God. This is not a new statement, and all those who have been conversant with both doctrines, regardless of whether they are Eastern, Western, Christian, or Muslim, have noticed this similarity. The Frenchman Gilson, Dr. Mohammad Ali Buryan, professor of philosophy at the universities of Alexandria (see, Gilson, 1402: p. 78), Majid Fakhry from Beirut (see, Ibn Arabi, 1366: p. 80), Abu al-Ala Afifi from Egypt (see, Sharif, 1365: p. 327), A. K. M. Abdul Hayy, professor of philosophy at a state college in Pakistan, Dr. Suleiman Dunya from Egypt (see, Suhrawardi, 1372: p. 39), and many others have expressed this point and have considered Malebranche's occasionalism and the Ash'arite occasionalism to be one and the same. But among the important features of occasionalism, the following can be mentioned:

1- The presence of God in every movement, generation, and corruption.

2- Confrontation with a God who possesses wrath and satisfaction, mercy and vengeance.

3- In this theory, nothing is incumbent or obligatory upon God (unlike deism).

4- Rejection of the principle of causality in nature.

5- The theory of acquisition (kasb).

6- All actions are from God. (See, Gilson, 1402: pp. 48-50)

But today, to express the content and purport of the unity of existence, the term pantheism is used. Pantheism has been erroneously translated as meaning "all is God," i.e., all beings of the universe are themselves a part of God and together constitute one God. Pantheism recognizes God with the attribute of immanence in the world, and one of the fundamental characteristics of pantheism is that God is entirely immanent in the world and, in other words, it negates the theistic view that God is transcendent beyond the world. In this view, God and the world are one and, unlike the God of religions, is not a personal God. A clear example of pantheism can be found in one of the Vedas of India. "Purusha had a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet. He encompassed the entire earth on all sides and stood beyond the breadth of ten fingers. Purusha is, in truth, all this (visible world), and what will be. He is the Lord of eternity, and through the heat of sacrifice, he grows beyond. Such is his greatness, Purusha is even greater than this. All beings are one quarter of him, and the other three quarters of him are immortality in the sky. When the gods performed the sacrifice with Purusha, spring was its butter, and summer its fuel... They (the gods) sacrificed Purusha, who was born before (creation), as an offering on the sacred grass, and with him were the gods and those who were 'Rishis' sacrificed him. When they sacrificed Purusha, they divided him into several pieces: his mouth was the 'Brahmin,' his two arms the 'Kshatriya,' his thighs the 'Vaishya,' and the 'Shudra' was born from his feet. From his mind the moon was born, and from his eye the sun, from his mouth 'Indra' and 'Agni' came into being, and from his breath the wind began to blow. From his navel the firmament, and from his head the throne, and from his feet the earth, and from his ears the directions and regions (of the world) came into being. Thus the world of existence was formed." (See, Kakaei, 1381: pp. 61-62) But in the turbulent seas of different religions, there is always a common shore and coast which, unlike other shores, is located in the middle of this sea, and around this strait, ships (symbolizing humans) come and pass, or pitch their tents beside it and stay, or clumsily continue on their way; sometimes they encounter storms, or glide like foam upon the water and are carried this way and that. In a not-so-distant past, there was only one word and password for the passage of caravans. Whereas today, with the emergence of a group who consider themselves the inheritors of that tradition, by neglecting and distancing themselves from the main current, like the son who lost his prophetic lineage, they have produced a thousand kinds of so-called literary, mystical, philosophical, psychoanalytic, and dialectical interpretations for this password. These interpretations, often by inexperienced captains who, through deceit and trickery, have managed to create a circle for themselves and find a place among experienced captains, have not only failed to help the faster passage of newly loaded, powerful ships but have delayed them for days and years, and have run many of them aground. And it is from here that:

The war of the seventy-two nations, excuse them all,

Since they saw not the truth, they took to the path of fable. (Ghani Qazvini, 1382: p. 48)

Baba Taher is not of the literary, philosophical, sociological, and other such types. His mysticism is a mysticism that he learned mystically. He knows that what he has learned in school over a lifetime might be lost with a single coquettish glance of the cupbearer. Therefore, he is disheartened by the disputations of the school and learns not to wet his lips from this stream. Any analysis, whether material or immaterial, scholarly or unscholarly, is all like a gaze from one angle and through one aperture at a scene that is far larger than such an aperture, and that scene is nothing but the world of being and space. He is of the lineage of love. He is a liberated one who does not want his self to be analyzed and destroyed in the darknesses and nights of dust. He is the enraptured seeker who, like Hafez, was intoxicated from the cup one night. His existence, brimming with emptiness, causes deaths and whys and wherefores to die within his heart.

The rungs of Baba Taher’s ascending ladder are not made of crystalline dewdrop steps. The sorrow of separation has lacerated his heart, so much so that at times he loses his patience and endurance and cries out to his beloved:

By God, by God, and by God,

I swear by the verse of Help from God,

That I will not let go of your skirt,

Even if I am slain, the judgment is God’s (Baba Taher, 1383, p. 10)

He knows he is a wretched, wingless pheasant and a burning, headless candle, and his knapsack is full of emptiness. But because he knows that his God is everywhere and everything manifests Him, his heart finds peace and he fully grasps the meaning of “We are nearer to him than his jugular vein.” This point is precisely contrary to occasionalism, whose ideas are based on theocentrism rather than pantheism. He fears that the drawn bow of the beloved, intent on killing him, might, God forbid, miss its mark; for he knows no art better than sorrow. It is the sorrow of love that has made him naked and nurtured by the wilderness:

My sorrow is sorrow, and my heart’s confidant is sorrow,

Sorrow is my companion, confidant, and intimate,

Your sorrow, give me respite, for I sit alone,

Welcome, God bless you, welcome, sorrow (ibid: p. 8)

He knows that on the Day of Alast he was created pure. He has accepted “Be, and it is” with his soul, and his belief is firm:

You bring the bright day, and night follows,

The universe and space came to life through Your power,

Hear the truth from Taher, that it was accomplished,

With one “Be,” the creation of both worlds was complete (ibid: p. 77)

On this basis, in his view, the human being is a perfect mirror reflecting God, and he considers the human to be the manifestation of all the Divine Names and Attributes. This conception of the human being (the Perfect Human) has led him to imagine everything, including the human, as the expansive and extended existence of the Divine. If Ibn Arabi saw the human being thus:

The great human is the head of the names (Ibn Arabi, 1388, vol. 13: f. 66)

The human being gathers all the realities of the world (ibid, 97)

The Perfect Human is the crown of the kingdom

The Perfect Human is consumed in the Truth, and the Truth is consumed in him. (ibid, vol. 12: f. 455)

Baba Taher also cries out:

O heart, heedless of glorifying God, what is gained?

Obedient to the satanic soul, what is gained?

Your worth is greater than the angels,

You do not know your own worth, what is gained? (Baba Taher, 1383: p. 50)

Among the contradictions between Baba Taher’s thought and the school of occasionalism is that the poet, contrary to this school, values human free will. He believes that despite the primordial decree, it is still the human being who chooses the path of felicity or wretchedness. The well-being and misery of humans is a future shaped by their own ideas. Therefore, the poet sees the well-being of the other world in the wretchedness and heartache of this world, and says:

O heart, the beautiful ones favor a bleeding heart,

O heart, bleed, for the beautiful ones favor this,

The goods of disbelief and faith have no buyer,

گروهی آن، گروهی ایـن پسـندند. (همان: ص 68)

وی نیز درجای دیگر به صراحت بیان می دارد که انسان های با ایمان یا مستان مست، همگی ایمان خود را از تو دارند ولی گبر بودن و یا مسلمان بودن همگان به دست خویشتن خودشان است:

اگر مستان مستیم از ته ایمان

                                                    وگر بی باورسـتیم از تـه ایمان (همان:ص 47)

اگر گبریـم و ترسـا ور مسـلمان

                                                   به هر ملت که هستیم از ته ایمان. (همان: ص 55)

آری ندایش ندای جرسی است كه بر برستن محمل ها را فریاد می زند. و نوازنده ی نی اش از جدایی ها شكایت می كند و چون نای بی نوا در این نای بی نوا می نالد. اندیشه ی طاهر، طاهر است و مثل جریان رودی است كه انگار با زلالی اش، بر بستری از سنگ ها و شن های غم گرفته روزگاران جریان دارد هر چند گاه مسیر فكری اش خواننده را به هیچستان ناامیدی ها می كشاند. اما اوهام و كج اندیشی میان آنچه بود و نبود است، شخص را به نابودی سوق نمی دهد.

عــزیــزان مــوسم جـــوشن بهـــاره

چمــن بــر سبـزه صحــرا لالــه زاره

دمی فرصت غنیمت دان در این فصل

              كــه دنیــای دنـی بــی اعتبــــاره (همان: ص55)

چرا كه عشقش آموختنی نیست بلكه آمدنی است. آمدنی كه از روز ازل و روز خلقت بشر در نهاد او نهادینه شده است:

غم عشق تـو مــادرزاد دیدم

نه از آمــوزش استــاد دیدم

بدان شادم كه از یمن غم تو

               خـرآبـاد دل آبـــاد دیـدم (همان: ص56)

اما می داند كه راهش راهی پرخطر است و به سرمنزل رساندن بار امانت الهی، سختی های فراوان دارد. او حامل است، حامل امانتی بزرگ. امانتی كه ((سموات والارض)) از تحملش و حملش ((فَاَبینَ)) زده اند. اما از آنجا كه اعتقاد دارد كه از روز ازل طاهرزاده شده است:

من از روز ازل طاهر بزادم

                                                   ازین رو نام باباطاهـرستم (همان:ص54)

خود را به دست فراموشی نمی سپارد. چون هدفش دریاست خود را به دریا می پیوندد و دوست دارد كه شبی در آغوش دریا بمیرد. ((قُلْ سَیرو فی الارض)) برایش هدایت كننده و رهایی و ساحل ایمن است. او بر خلاف اكازیونالیسم ها كه معتقدند قوای تحریكی و قوای ادراكی انسان در دست خداست و متكفل همه ی اعمال انسان، از حركت و ادراك تنها خداوند است، معتقد است كه انسان صاحب اراده و اختیار است. او خود را از ریشه ی آدم و حوا می داند كه این نظریه درست بر خلاف اندیشه ی عرفایی است كه گناه حضرت آدم را خواست، مشیت و اراده ی الهی می دانند:

مو آن رندم كه عصیان پیشه دیدم

بدستی جـام و دستی شیشه دیدم

اگــر تـو بـی گناهی رو ملك شـو

                من از حــوا و آدم ریشــه  دیدم (همان: ص80)

 The memory of amorous moments and long nights sets his being ablaze. Green moments that for him are greener than God's dream. His night is full of candles, wine, the beloved, and sweetness—a beloved whose head is filled with longing for his alley, and whose heart has settled the love of his moon-faced one. A beloved whom he sees wherever he looks, and from whom he knows his pain and cure, union and separation. But the world and its people sometimes cast him into doubt and hesitation, and in a way, he becomes afflicted with bewilderment and wandering:

I know not why I am beneath this turning sky

Why sometimes moaning, sometimes weeping am I

All the world has found a cure in its turning

                  I know not why I, without a cure, am I (ibid: p.94)

On the other hand, he sees himself as a sinner:

O heart, your path is full of dust and debris

Your passage is upon the zenith of the sky

Dark night and the desert far from home

                 Blessed is he whose burden is lighter (ibid: p. 69)

He finds his path a perilous way and attributes its cause to his own ignorance of the manner of the path of spiritual wayfaring, and explicitly confesses to it:

In ignorance, I took a blind alley as a path

I knew not that I would fall into a pit

I told my heart, a companion to the home

               I knew not the companion was halfway (ibid: p.65)

And it is precisely here that his poems and compositions take on the scent of Khayyam's poetry and raise the cry of the world's apparent worthlessness. And it is precisely here that he finds death terrifying:

The sound of the heralds of death is coming

The call of the agony of dying is coming to ear

Companions depart, turn by turn

                 But the hour when my turn comes (ibid: p.27)

His pantheistic thought creates a new path and horizon before him and answers all his confusions and the whys and wherefores that had arisen. The difference between Baba Taher and the occasionalists is that Baba Taher's mysticism encompasses three elements: the manifestation of unity, proximity, and togetherness. His difference from the philosophers is that:

The work of philosophy is seeing and commanding

The work of the mystic is seeing and adding

That one weighs in the scales of art

                                              This one weighs in the scales of insight (ibid: p.59)

And he himself says:

May my two eyes be plucked out by your eyes

May the soul not be that my eye does not see you

I heard you left and took a friend

                                               If my ear heard, may my eye not see (ibid: p. 75)

On this basis, he steps more firmly onto the path of knowledge, and since knowledge is identifiable in three domains, he expands the scope of his theology. These three domains are the knowledge of the Essence, the Acts, and the Attributes.

If until now he had said:

Blessed are those whose companion is God,

Whose work is praise and “Say: He is Allah.”

Blessed are those who are ever in prayer,

                                                 For whom the eternal paradise is their marketplace. (Ibid: p. 49)

Now he says:

My heart has taken a liking to your rosy face,

My head has a passion for your tresses.

If my eye has a liking for the new moon,

                                                It has cast its gaze upon the arch of your eyebrow. (Ibid: p. 67)

Someone within him constantly cries out; a message sings a beautiful melody in his ears. The beloved’s breeze perpetually intoxicates him and reveals his inner secret. But he does not recognize this inner call.

He seeks a confidant with whom to share his secret. Is there anyone who knows his secret and would therefore turn their face toward him:

Someone who would come to my aid,

                                                   And bring news to my towering cypress? (Ibid: p. 91)

And he constantly cries out:

I know not with whom to share my secret,

With whom to share my sorrow, burning, and melting.

What shall I say? Whoever knows, reveals it.

                                               With whom else shall I share my secret and my need? (Ibid: p. 82)

Another of Baba Taher’s paradoxical modes of expression concerning the ideas of the school of Occasionalism can be seen in the point that the poet, contrary to this school which rejects the principle of causality in nature, considers the cause to be among the forces that propel the wayfarer toward his own Kaaba. It is as if he, like Sanai, envisions a specific path for attaining the goal. He says that to reach the sun of truth, one must first learn the science of discourse and debate in the school and academy. Then, in the Sufi lodge, one must acquire the science of spiritual states, and after that, reach the Simurgh of Truth. In fact, the poet himself traverses these three stages:

The Science of the Law (Science of Discourse)                                 The Science of the Path (Science of Spiritual States)                              Truth

You who have not read the science of the heavens,

You who have not traversed the path into the ruins,

You who know not your own profit and loss,

                                                 How will you reach the friends? Alas! Alas! (Ibid: p. 93)

He wishes to depart from this transient world, to cast aside the worldly veils, and to congratulate those whose body and soul have dissolved into the body and soul of the Beloved. His heart, which resembled the beating of a bird within whom the sky was full of clouds and rain, has now found peace, and since he is weary of searching for the prayer niche, he reveals his most beautiful refuge. He is no longer himself. In the workshop of the “dye of God,” his color has turned to colorlessness, and how beautiful is “Who is better than God’s dye”:

I saw a heart that was a buyer of love,

By which the market of love is warm.

I sewed a garment for the stature of the heart,

                                                  From the woof of tribulation and the warp of love. (Ibid: p. 86)

And it is of this very union that Hallaj says:

Who am I, Layla, and who is Layla? I

We are one spirit in two bodies

O Ayaz, from love of you I became like a hair

I grew weary of your tale; tell my tale instead (ibid: p. 94)

This is that same pantheistic thought of his, which considers God and the self as one. Rumi also says on this matter:

You yourself recite, not I, O master I am Mount Sinai, You are Moses, and this is the voice (Rumi, 1363: p. 1252)

He no longer needs an answer to his bewilderment and perplexity. He has reached a new world; the terrifying waves of rebellion and defiance no longer torment him. The traveler of doubt and uncertainty, whom the fear of not arriving had drawn into the space of love and annihilation, not only does not fear sorrow but is willing for a lancet to pierce his heart in place of sorrow, so that the fervor of his love may increase:

O God, increase the burning of Your love

Wound my wounded heart more with Your pain

If I sit free of this sorrow for a moment

Pierce my soul with a hundred thousand lancets (Baba Taher, 1383: p. 31)

It is here that he does not accept heedlessness and warns to "Contemplate the blessings of God, and contemplate the Essence of God":

I was a falcon chick, going to the hunt

A light-handed one shot an arrow at my wing

Go, do not graze heedlessly in the highlands

Every heedless one who grazes, heedlessly receives the arrow (ibid: p. 41)

He becomes such that at times he considers it a duty to charge at his companions and the people of his time, to awaken them from the sleep of heedlessness.

Do not do a deed that will trip you up

The world, with all its breadth, will become narrow for you

When tomorrow the letter-readers read the letters

You will see your own letter and feel shame (ibid: p. 52)

It is in such moments that the sigh of the naked Baba passes beyond regret, and tunneling and suffering from within becomes his unsparing destiny. His cries of "why" and "how," which were accompanied by anxiety and the thirst for vision, draw aside the veil of his eyes, and his heart reaches certainty. Seeing the Beloved and the manifestations of Divine theophany is the only safeguard that can keep him away from temptations.

Since her face cast a glow of affection in the heart

In beauty, I am the sun of the East (ibid: p. 68)

In contrast, he reminds one that not everyone who tilts their cap is an Alexander, and he accompanies the certainty of truth with the certainty of knowledge. He no longer fears death. Rather, death is a guide, a liberation, and a safe shore. And not only does he not fear it, but he counts the moments to see its radiance and awaits that moment when it will cast the veil from this face and declare with clarity that there is nothing on the tablet of his heart but the Alif of the Beloved's stature:

The one who will take a message to my beloved

Will take news to my towering cypress

Let all the beauties of the world gather

 The one whose memory of you erases my memory (ibid., p. 33)

But among the commonalities between the school of pantheism and Baba Taher's poems, one can point to the poet's spiritual journey from existential unity to intuitive unity. The poet seeks to attain such a station that he considers looking at every nook and cranny of the world as gazing upon the beloved's face, and it is this beautiful countenance of the beloved that soothes and comforts his moments of solitude:

I look upon the desert, I see you in the desert

I look upon the sea, I see you in the sea

Wherever I look, mountain, valley, and plain

                                                   I see a trace of your beautiful face (ibid., p. 13)

Baba Taher, as if like Ibn Arabi, sees himself in a unique unity with his God and no longer observes any distance in between. In connection with this theme, the poet employs the allegory of the sea and the vessel, and like a mystic dervish (or better yet: a dervish mystic), sees himself as the microcosmic manifestation of God:

I am that sea that has come into a vessel

Like a dot upon a letter, I have come

For every Alif, an Alif‑stature rises up

                                                                         An Alif‑stature that has come into the Alif (ibid., p. 101)

It is as a result of this very thought of existential unity that he attains a vision of intuitive unity. His eye no longer has the power or capacity to see anyone other than the Beloved. His gaze, in all directions and corners of the world, sees only Him, who has fixed His eyes upon his own, and with an indescribable passion, has set his heart ablaze:

With passion, I keep my head at the alley of Your lane

In my heart, I hold love for Your moon‑like face

My idol, my Kaaba, my Qibla

                                                 It is You; wherever I look, I keep my gaze toward You (ibid., p. 203)

Despite witnessing the traces and signs of God in the existences of humans, objects, and bodies (the manifestation of attributes and actions), he still yearns to behold God Himself. He is a steadfast one who strives. A striving to name and see God, a striving to name sorrow. His oscillation between joy and sorrow, hope and despair, free will and determinism, occasionalism and pantheism, and so on and so forth, advances the reflection of God within his profound feeling.

Like Rabindranath Tagore (R.D. Tagor), he suffers; he endures hardships, laments to every gathering, and becomes the companion of both the joyful and the wretched. Tagore said:

O Death, come, O final perfection

Life, O Death, come [Die, O heart, that you may find peace, for I did not find deliverance until I gave up my life]

Murmur to me

For days I have been waiting for you. Joy, pain, and my love itself have always flowed toward you in the hidden depths:

One unconditional glance from your eyes has forever made my life yours (Tagore, 1354: p. 194)

The lover's heart is content with a message

The hungover one is content with a cup

The quality of your glance is enough for me

                                                The ascetic is content with an almond (Baba Taher, 1383: p. 100)

or like Ralph Waldo Emerson, who viewed the world with a mystical gaze, he advocates for humanity's liberation from material attachments: We are not vessels and lamp-holders, nor bearers of the lamp. Rather, we are children of light. Nature is sacred, yet at the same time apprehensible and rational, for those who clearly see the manifestations of the Over-Soul. (See: Sokhanvar, 1375: pp. 65-68)

Like a candle, should they behead me a hundred times,

I am blazing and brighter still.

I burn all over, I burn all over, I burn all over,

In my heat, I am like a glowing ember.

Your face is the sun and I am like a chameleon,

Or a withered lotus flower.

In the realm of love, I am a traceless spirit,

In the city of the heart, I am an idol-worshipper.

Her face, without yet manifesting affection in the heart,

In beauty, I am the sun of the East. (Baba Taher, 1383: p. 99)

Like Rainer Maria Rilke, he wishes to imprint the love of this transient, mortal earth so deeply and passionately within himself that its essence is resurrected in an invisible form. Just as Rilke, in one of his beautiful poetic meditations, says in supplication: "What will you do, God, if I die? I am your pitcher (what if I shatter and break into pieces?). I am your drink (what if I turn stale?). I am your garment and your cloak. Without me, you lose your meaning. After me, you will have no house where words, near and warm, bid you welcome. The velvet sandal that I am will fall from your weary feet. Your great mantle will leave you alone. And your gaze, which I now warmly welcome upon my cheek as upon a pillow, will search for me for a long time and will, at sunset, lie down in the lap of unfamiliar rocks." (Sokhanvar, 1375: p. 30)

Blessed is that hour when the beloved comes through the door,

And the night of separation and the day of sorrow come to an end.

I will cast my soul out of my heart with a hundred passions,

Saying all the while: may the heart-stealer come in its place. (Ibid: p. 88)

Baba Taher, on one hand, resembles Bijan Jalali, the contemporary poet. Their similarity lies in the fact that in their poems, the spirit takes on an eager countenance, and eternity becomes tangibly manifest. Most of the poems of both are supplications: supplication to God, supplication to existence. Even in the most despairing moments, glimmers of brightness and light have suffused these poems. The clamor of the surrounding world finds no way into them. Existence is a cohesive, interconnected whole. Goodness and well-being, faith and truth, and the eternity of the world are intermingled with a human disposition. And how beautiful it is where Jalali becomes a confidant and fellow-sufferer with Baba Taher, and, like Oryan Hamedani, knows no name for his sorrow.

From the heights, we gaze upon the sorrow of the earth,

And we call the earth mother,

And in its waves, we are long submerged.

Alas, when we come to ourselves,

We perceive a sorrow

That has no name. (Jalali, 1306: p. 128)

The very sorrow of which Baba speaks thus:

My sorrow is without... and my heart's confidant is sorrow,

Sorrow is my companion, confidant, and intimate.

O sorrow, grant me respite, for I sit alone,

Do not leave, God bless you, welcome, O sorrow! (Baba Taher, 1383: p. 8)

Tahir's weeping within the frame of the lamenting heart and the sorrow of separation is a cry of pain. It is not mourning or lamentation. Rather, it is a cry brought about by the longing to behold the Beloved.

A heart like the lamenting heart there is,

A sorrow like the sorrow of separation there is.

Be it the sea, be it the spring cloud,

It is a match for the weeping eye there is (ibid: p. 12)

It is on this basis that he wishes for God to increase his sorrow. For God is one of the fundamental issues of his life. The truth that was presented to him as God on the Day of Alast now manifests itself in the form of the world of creation and the beings within it. He is a kind of knower of himself. There is no roguery in his conduct to risk his going astray. He considers himself saved, and if he sometimes clutches at the hem of despair and absurdity, it is because he is caught in the bewilderment of beholding God (the essential self-disclosure). On one hand, he understands

In his view, all things possess a hidden mirror that reflects the beauty of God. He sees human beings whose purity and transparency recall the passage of mirrors. He removes his own aged self from the mirrors so that the honor of love—this sole kind companion and the first pen to inscribe the tablet of the heart—may remain preserved and alive. His illumination originates from a night when he longed to see the Prophet and the cupbearer of Kawthar, so that he might mortify his heart and attain eternal peace. He wishes to die in order to be released from the veil of the soul. And he is ready to turn his bones into a pen, make his blood the ink of that pen, and fashion paper from his heart, so that he might write a letter to his beloved and seek a meeting with him. For he believes that God has placed love within him and others, and that love is like a garment he wears. Yes, the affection and love that have made Taher pure are a wondrous garment that no one is able to tailor. He knows and is certain that his beloved will overlook his faults. Consequently, he speaks openly and is gladdened by his own words. A homeless lover who is like a bewildered thorn in the desert, a corpse in the hands of the washer of the dead, and a sheep with the rope of divine love around its neck. He is a wanderer of mountain and desert. He has stripped his existence bare, such that his sigh would burn the green dome of the sky and the celestial sphere from head to toe. His eye is open to behold the face of the beloved, for he knows that the purpose of the eye is to see the heart’s captivator. He accepts no obstacle and considers everything a manifestation of Him. He even abandons Isfahan, with all its splendor, and turns toward Shiraz to find the intimate of his intimate:

My Isfahan, my Isfahan, what a place it is

Where every friend you take proves unfaithful

I shall go at once, not stopping until Shiraz

Where at every station there are a hundred acquaintances (ibid: p. 71)

But since he knows that the joyful heart is unaware of his sorrowful heart, and that the swift riders have no news of the heavy-laden, he does not and will not speak the tale of the friend to anyone but the presence of the Friend; even if they hang him on the gallows like Hallaj. Truly, the world is a complete mirror of God, if the eye of insight and divine knowledge has encompassed the human being.

Conclusion:

Various religions have emerged, evolved, and perished throughout history. What is fundamentally common to all of them is belief in a set of metaphysical principles. In their most general form, metaphysical principles consist of our theories about the world, the structure of the world, and the future of the world. Although the progress of human science and knowledge has unveiled more mysteries and continues to deepen and expand, these questions still remain in place. Of course, a metaphysical viewpoint can try to be more in accordance with the achievements of science and rest upon the pillars of science, or it can be based on the thought of thousands of years ago and rely on the faith and opinion of the prophets. This choice can be considered the most fundamental distinguishing feature of religious metaphysics from philosophical metaphysics. As Francis Bacon said, religion begins with faith and uses itself to prove itself, whereas philosophy begins with reason and can ascend to faith.

Occasionalism and pantheism are also two metaphysical movements that have chosen two different paths on the way to reaching God. These two intellectual leavens (theocentrism and pantheism) have been taken up as a pretext by many thinkers in the modern world today. Baba Taher, this dervish mystic or this mystic dervish, in his quest toward the Kaaba of the intended goal, finds similarities with the teachings of these two movements. Through a precise analysis of his poems, it becomes evident that his ideas and thoughts are more in harmony with the school of pantheism and its teachings than with the school of occasionalism. By journeying from existential unity to intuitive unity, he finds the universe to be a portrait and manifestation of God, such that he no longer observes any distinction between them. Now, wherever he looks, he sees only Him and speaks only with Him. Truly, his thoughts can shape another worldview for every individual.

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Source: Personal website of Dr. Ghadamali Sarami