Mystical Theology 2: The Sun Itself Is Proof of the Sun

Text of Hamid Entezam's lecture titled Mystical Theology 2 (The Sun Itself Is Proof of the Sun)—2007 Hamid Entezam in this series of sessions explains and expounds God from the perspective of mystics. It should be noted that this series of sessions on mystical theology continued for 18 sessions.

Session Two: The Sun Itself Is Proof of the Sun

If you recall, in the previous session we spoke about the station of reason in the view of Muslim mystics, and that essentially Muslim mystics (unlike Muslim philosophers) do not see reason as a suitable means for seeking God. And for the time being, in seeking and discovering God, mystics place greater value on the heart. And it is for this very reason that their primary concern and endeavor is to remove the rust from the heart and to lift the veils that stand between the human being and God. For those of us who are not very familiar with the Islamic mystical tradition, it is naturally difficult to digest this idea: that a person can establish a relationship with God through the heart and thereby discover God. This is why it takes some time for these discussions to sink in. Allow me to mention a verse from the Holy Quran so that you realize to what extent we simply pass by such verses in the Holy Quran and do not reflect upon them sufficiently. We generally consider understanding and perception to be possible only through the faculty of reason; therefore, when we encounter verses in the Holy Quran that invite us to tafaqquh (meaning to ponder and comprehend), we regard this as an invitation to use our reason and to set our mental powers and rational activities in motion. In other words, we equate tafaqquh with mental work. That is, if God says in the Quran, "Engage in tafaqquh," we consider it an invitation to use our rational faculties. But now, pay attention to verses 45 and 46 of Surah Al-Isra: (( وَ إِذٰا قَرَأْتَ اَلْقُرْآنَ جَعَلْنٰا بَيْنَكَ وَ بَيْنَ اَلَّذِينَ لاٰ يُؤْمِنُونَ بِالْآخِرَةِ حِجٰاباً مَسْتُوراً ﴿۴۵﴾ وَ جَعَلْنٰا عَلىٰ قُلُوبِهِمْ أَكِنَّةً أَنْ يَفْقَهُوهُ وَ فِي آذٰانِهِمْ وَقْراً وَ إِذٰا ذَكَرْتَ رَبَّكَ فِي اَلْقُرْآنِ وَحْدَهُ وَلَّوْا عَلىٰ أَدْبٰارِهِمْ نُفُوراً ﴿۴۶﴾ )) These verses call into question the limitation of tafaqquh to ta'aqqul (rational thought). Addressing the Prophet, it says: And when you recite the Quran, We place between you and those who do not believe in the Hereafter a concealing veil. Those who do not believe fundamentally deny the Unseen and only deem reliable the reports that pertain to the visible world (the sensory and physical world). And because they cannot objectively observe the reports of the Unseen world, they do not accept them. It is for this reason that this group of people is deprived of beholding many spectacular sights in the universe. That is, there are sights in the universe from which they deprive themselves by refusing to turn their attention to them. The next verse is entirely clear and explicit: "And We place coverings over their hearts so that they do not comprehend it." This exact phrase also appears in verse 25 of Surah Al-An'am and verse 57 of Surah Al-Kahf. The subtlety of this verse lies in the fact that it brings two words together: heart and tafaqquh. That is, it says this group are those who, because a veil has been drawn around their hearts, are deprived of perception and tafaqquh. The Holy Quran explicitly states that the heart is not only the locus of feeling and emotion but is also the locus of tafaqquh, perception, understanding, and the acquisition of knowledge. The concepts of intuition (shuhud) and illumination (ishraq) in Islamic mysticism trace back to these verses (uncovering, understanding, and attaining perception of God through the heart). In the previous session, I mentioned that the veils that come between the human being and God are the rusts that settle upon the human heart. In this regard, we recounted the story of the Romans and the Chinese. Therefore, up to this point, we have no doubt that the heart is also one of the reliable instruments for acquiring knowledge and perceptions concerning God. According to the opinion of the mystics, that which stands as a barrier between us and God is not ignorance (in the sense of the mind being empty of information and data). The mystics say that the thing which stands between you and God and creates distance is vices. Each of these vices is a veil and a barrier between you and God. The greater the number of these vices within us, the thicker the veils between us and God will become. And if we are granted the success to cleanse these vices from our hearts, layer by layer we remove these veils between ourselves and God. And we can more easily discover God, establish a relationship with Him, and attain knowledge of Him. And in the previous session, I also mentioned that the mother of all veils, or the root of all veils, is arrogance and pride. For people who are arrogant, there exists a thick veil between them and God.

آدمیانی که متکبر هستند هر چه دانش و معلومات علمی بیشتری داشته باشند فاصله آنها از حداوند هم بیشتر خواهد شد.یعنی علمشان نه تنها برای نزدیک تر شدن به خداوند از آنها دست گیری نمی کند بلکه فاصله آن ها با خداوند را هم بیشتر می کند.لب تعلیم عرفای مسلمان این بوده که اگر کسی روحی آکنده از خودخواهی داشته باشد, انباشته های ذهنی،علوم و معارفش همه خرج خودخواهی او خواهند شد و فقط من کاذب (ego) او را متورم تر خواهد کرد.و به جای اینکه این معارف و دانش ها راه انسان را به خداوند نزدیک تر کند راه را بسیار دورتر می کند.به عبارت دیگر علم اگر مایه نخوت و تکبر در آدمی شود،نه تنها از انسان دست گیری نمی کند بلکه به هلاکت می انجامد.حال یک تمثیلی را از مولوی برای شما ذکر می کنم که مطلب را روشن تر کند.در دفتر سوم و چهارم مثنوی، مولوی داستان کنعان را ذکر می کند.کنعان پسر نوح است.در این داستان کنعان نماد استکبار علمی است.کسی که به واسطه اندوخته های ذهنی و مهارت هایش،خود را مستغنی از هدایت و دست گیری نبی می داند. به علم خود متکی است و هیچ حاجتی به وحی و دست گیری الهی نمی بیند. نوح به فرمان خداوند کشتی ساخت چراکه از غیب خبر یک طوفان مهیب به او رسیده بود.کنعان شنا بلد بود و به دانش و فن شناگری خود هم بسیار مغرور بود.

Hey, come, sit in the father's ark,

Lest you drown in the flood, O great one.

He said, "No, I have learned to swim,

I have lit a candle other than your candle."

"Great one" means powerless; when Noah said to his son, "O my son, embark on the ark so that you may be saved from destruction," Canaan replies that he has provided his own means of salvation. He possesses the means of guidance himself and has no need for Noah's guidance, direction, or assistance.

Beware, do not, for this wave of the flood is calamity,

Today, hand and foot and swimming skill are useless.

Noah tells his son that floundering and swimming are useful on a sunny, clear day; for the moment, what will soon occur is a flood that will destroy everything and everyone. Your knowledge of swimming and your tools are of no avail in such an arena.

Here, Rumi wants to show to what extent the intellect may waylay us. Canaan says to his father Noah that if it comes to that, and a flood arises and a deluge occurs, why should he sit in the valley? He will go up to the mountaintop.

Like Canaan, do not turn your head away from the ark,

For his cunning ego gave him pride,

Saying, "I will go up to the top of a lofty mountain,

Why should I have to bear an obligation to Noah?"

Self-regard and the illusion of false self-sufficiency in Canaan reached such a peak that it caused a veil to come between him and the Truth, preventing him from seeing reality. And, as you know, Canaan did not board the ark and drowned. Rumi draws several important conclusions from this story:

If only he had not learned to swim,

So he would have pinned his hope on Noah and the ark.

If only, like a child, he had been ignorant of devices,

So that, like children, he would have clung to his mother.

Or if he had been less filled with transmitted knowledge,

He would have received the knowledge of the heart's revelation from the saint.

Rumi says, "If only Canaan did not know how to swim." This very not-knowing and lack of such a tool would have persuaded him to board Noah's ark. If he had not been overflowing with transmitted, verbal, and exoteric knowledge and had not partaken of it, he would have followed the knowledge of revelation and the esoteric wisdom of God's prophet and would not have perished.

This story is that of most people of our time, who consider themselves self-sufficient and without need of God's guidance, and the intellect constantly tickles us in the midst of this to reason why we should not trust in God. It is for this reason that you see Muslim mystics generally preferring ignorance over pride-inducing knowledge. Sanai's words on this matter are definitive; Sanai says that knowledge which does not strip you of egotism, selfishness, and arrogance—ignorance is a hundred times better than such knowledge:

Knowledge that does not take you from yourself,

Ignorance is a hundred times better than that knowledge.

In any case, the mystics' invitation for the discovery of God and for salvation and deliverance is the same as what Abd al-Rahman Jami taught in Nafahat al-Uns:

Strive to remove the veils, not to amass books,

For by amassing books, the veils are not removed.

He says, let your effort not be to increase the volume of books you have read; rather, let your effort and striving be to remove the veils that stand between you and God. Cleanse that rust from your being.

If we wish to summarize the points from the previous session, I will present three points as a conclusion:

First) Inner purity and cleanliness, clarity of the heart, and the purification of one’s being from alien elements and vices are among the essential prerequisites for being in the presence of God; if someone is tainted by moral ugliness and impurities, they can never be present before God. And without being in God’s presence, true knowledge and recognition of God will also be impossible.

Second) Moral vices (or, in religious terms, abominations and forbidden acts) are veils that conceal a person from God. The first and fundamental step in the realm of removing the veil is, in truth, striving to eliminate these vices from within.

Third) Removing these veils sharpens the eye of the heart for the discovery of God. The more we polish and purify the heart, the sharper the eye of the heart becomes, and it can see God more easily and better.

And another main, fundamental, and important point is that the rejection of the primacy of reason does not mean that Muslim mystics seek to deny cognition and consciousness, nor does it mean that they want to promote imitation and dogmatic faith. This is by no means what the mystics intend. Note that ‘irfān (mysticism) comes from the root ma‘rifah (knowledge). But the knowledge spoken of in ‘irfān is a knowledge that emphasizes the priority of self-purification. That is, it says: first purify the self, and then knowledge will follow. There are times when we seek knowledge, and there are times when we purify ourselves and knowledge comes to us. So ‘irfān comes from the root of knowledge, but a knowledge that is preceded by and reliant upon inner purity and cleanliness. That is, the support the mystic speaks of is inner purity and cleanliness. If your inner self is not pure and you have not removed the rust from within, firstly, you will never have true knowledge of God, and secondly, even if you do acquire some knowledge, this knowledge will serve more to destroy you than to assist you.

And the new point I wish to make is that, fundamentally, God is manifest and not hidden, such that He would need to be revealed. Essentially, those who seek to discover God through the faculty of reason inevitably follow the philosophical method in theology. Our mystics say that God is not hidden at all for you to want to reveal Him. The philosophers’ method of identification is reasoning from the effect to the cause. You proceed from the effect to the effector. First you see the effect, and then you infer the effector. Initially, we recognize the effect, and then the effect guides us to the cause. It is for this reason that philosophical theology begins with the creation in order to reach the Creator. Now, whenever you infer the existence of the effector through the effect, you are, in truth, engaging in the study of creation, not the study of the Creator. This is a very key point. You want to bore a tunnel to the Creator through the creation. Rumi, in the Masnavi, says somewhere, addressing God:

Our every movement, each moment, itself bears witness,

For it is a witness to the Eternal, Majestic Lord.

The turning of the millstone, in its restless motion,

Bears witness to the existence of the stream of water.

This is reasoning from effect to cause. Rumi here gives an example and seeks to elucidate (lā ilāha illā Allāh). Mawlana says that every movement and motion we make is as if we are saying (ashhadu an lā ilāha illā Allāh). And he gives the example of the millstone. Water pours onto the millstone and then the mill wheel turns. That is, if there were no water and it did not pour, this mill wheel would not turn either. Now, Mawlana says that when you see the turning of the millstone, it in fact testifies to the existence of water. Now, every motion and striving we make in reality indicates the existence of God and testifies to the existence of God. This is the method of passing from effect to cause. The fact of the matter is that most of us human beings want to go toward God through creation. It is as if God Himself is veiled and hidden. Because this group does not see God, they take creation as a sign of God's existence, and therefore their knowledge of God begins with knowledge of creation. It is as if God has no initial manifestation or appearance, so God must be revealed through reasoning and the presentation of proofs and evidence. It is as if God is hidden and has no objective presence in the world. I will quote an interpretation from Abu Hamid al-Ghazali so you may observe how he negates this method of passing from creation to the Creator. In Surah An-Nur, verse 35, we read: (Allāhu nūru al-samāwāti wa al-arḍi mathalu nūrihi kamishkātin fīhā miṣbāḥun al-miṣbāḥu fī zujājatin al-zujājatu kaannahā kawkabun durriyyun yūqadu min shajaratin mubārakatin zaytūnatin lā sharqiyyatin wa lā gharbiyyatin yakādu zaytuhā yuḍīʾu wa law lam tamsashu nārun nūrun ʿalā nūrin yahdī Allāhu li-nūrihi man yashāʾu wa yaḍribu Allāhu al-amthāla li-l-nāsi wa Allāhu bi-kulli shayʾin ʿalīm ﴿35﴾) God is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The concept of light is used repeatedly in the Holy Quran to introduce God, and the concept of light is an expressive and fitting concept. We generally take light to be the light of the sun, a candle, or a lamp, and we limit it to that, whereas these are instances of light but not the reality of light and luminosity. Ghazali offers an interesting and beautiful definition of light and luminosity. In defining light, he says: “That which is itself visible and by whose aid other things are seen.” According to this definition, anything that makes the invisible visible will be light. Therefore, by this definition, the sun, a candle, a lamp, the eye, and the intellect are all light. Because each of these can reveal hidden things to us. If you ascend through the series of luminous things, you will reach that which is truly absolute light, that is, God. That is, the true light in the world is God; other luminous things derive their light from God. It is for this reason that Ghazali says: (I do not shrink from saying that the application of the word light to anything other than God is purely metaphorical). Hence, “Allāhu nūru al-samāwāti wa al-arḍ” does not mean that God is like the light of the heavens and the earth, but rather that God is the very light of the heavens and the earth. That is, the sun takes its light from Him. Everything is dark and obscure and becomes manifest in relation to God. It is the light of God that makes seeing and understanding possible and feasible. Creatures are not the light that reveals God; rather, it is God who is the light that reveals creatures. In the Throne Verse we read: (Allāhu waliyyu alladhīna āmanū yukhrijuhum mina al-ẓulumāti ilā al-nūr ... ﴿257﴾) One who connects to God, the source of light, in reality reaches the light itself, whereas before connecting to God, they were dwelling in darkness and obscurity. In any case, God radiates light and saves the believing human being, who relies upon and trusts in God, from darkness and brings them to light. In any case, some may say that the Holy Quran also speaks much of contemplating the heavens and the earth. The verses that invite us to look at creation in order to find God are for the average people whose insight has been obliterated by thick veils and curtains, but those whose insight has not been obliterated have no need to look at creation to find the Creator; they are already seated in the presence of God.

In any case, in the mystics’ approach, theology begins with God Himself, not with creation. Everything that others say about God is limited to God’s own initial self-disclosure. First, God manifests Himself in the world, and only afterward do we pursue reasoning and conceptualization. Understanding and conceptualizing God comes after God’s manifestation, not before it. That is, God moves ahead of concepts; a concept always emerges in a person after the truth is attained. That is, first we become aware of the existence of a truth, and then we conceptualize it, not before. First we make spiritual contact with something, and afterward we take a conceptual snapshot of it. Here it becomes clear just how far the theology of mystics and philosophers diverges. Rumi says:

All perceptions ride on lame donkeys,

While He is mounted on the wind, flying like an arrow.

Here Rumi says that first God arrives, and afterward we find the possibility of conceptualization and taking a snapshot. When God comes, one can then conceptualize about Him. Concepts, in and of themselves, do not speak of God at the outset. One must make contact with God without mediation, not through the mediation of concepts. The mystics say that philosophers want to know God through intermediaries, means, and instruments (analogy, syllogism, etc.). Rumi says in this regard:

The philosopher multiplies intermediaries;

Through proofs, the pure one turns away from them, on the contrary.

This one flees from proof and from the veil;

For the sake of the Signified, he has drawn his head into his collar.

If smoke is, for him, a proof of fire,

For us, without smoke, being in that fire is sweet.

He says the philosopher’s work is to multiply intermediaries and only increases the veils between man and God. He tells you: first understand the concept of existence so that you can find God. Here it is through intermediaries that God becomes known and unveiled to us.

Muslim mystics say that God is manifest and has disclosed Himself in the world in a thousand ways; God has no need of proof and is evident. He is not hidden such that we need concepts to make Him manifest. A vast body of Islamic mystical texts is devoted precisely to this matter. Rumi, wishing to show God’s manifestness and His self-disclosure in a thousand forms, says in one place:

The sun itself has no proof

Other than the light of the sun, extending forth.

This majesty is truthful in its signification;

All perceptions come after, He is prior.

All perceptions ride on lame donkeys,

While He is mounted on the wind, flying like an arrow.

Rumi says you never ask the sun for proof of itself. The moment the sun appears, its light is the proof of its own existence. God, like the sun, has an appearance that is identical with His proof and has no need of evidence. God, like the sun, is Himself the proof of Himself. You are familiar with the Arafah Supplication of Imam Husayn (peace be upon him). Imam Husayn says: “O God, how can something that itself in its existence is in need of You, be a proof, guide, and indicator of You?” He says, how can a tree, which needs God for its own existence, indicate God to us? And he continues: “Is there anything more manifest than You, that it could make You manifest? Are other things more evident and You hidden, so that they might reveal You? When have You been absent, so that a proof might bring us to Your presence, and when have You been distant, so that these traces might bring us to You?” Furughi Bastami also took up this saying of Imam Husayn and expressed it beautifully in verse:

When have you ever left‌ the heart, that I should long for you?

When have you ever been‌ hidden, that I should seek to find you?

You have not been absent, that I should seek your presence;

You have not been concealed, that I should make you manifest.

You came forth with a hundred thousand splendors, so that I

might behold you with a hundred thousand eyes.

All things owe their very selves, and I owe my existence, to God; therefore, it is impossible for anything to appear that is independent of God, more manifest than He, and a revealer of God. A being that needs God to come into existence also needs God in its signification, not that God needs the signification of His creation. God is a sun that is its own proof, and for this reason, seeking a proof for God is the condition of the blind and those afflicted by darkness. People who, in Rumi's words, have taken up the wooden, unsteady staff of reasoning, and sometimes even strike God on the head with this very staff—the staff, intellect, and reasoning that He gave them to walk with. He Himself gave this staff; now you offer rational proofs that God does not exist?

In any case, up to this point in the discussion, it seems that verse 18 of Al Imran can be better understood:(( شَهِدَ اَللّٰهُ أَنَّهُ لاٰ إِلٰهَ إِلاّٰ هُوَ وَ اَلْمَلاٰئِكَةُ وَ أُولُوا اَلْعِلْمِ قٰائِماً بِالْقِسْطِ لاٰ إِلٰهَ إِلاّٰ هُوَ اَلْعَزِيزُ اَلْحَكِيمُ ﴿۱۸﴾)) Up to here, Rumi had said the sun itself is proof of itself, which was an interpretation of this Quranic verse. The translation of this verse is as follows: ((God bears witness that there is no deity but Him, and so do the angels and those possessed of knowledge, standing firm in justice. There is no deity but Him, the Almighty, the All-Wise.)) The first part of this verse is very important: شَهِدَ اَللّٰهُ أَنَّهُ لاٰ إِلٰهَ إِلاّٰ هُو)) "God bears witness to His own Oneness." (( The Commander of the Faithful, Ali (AS), also has a saying in this regard in Nahj al-Balagha; he says: (( ﻳَﺎ ﻣَﻦْ ﺩَﻝَّ ﻋَﻠَﻰ ﺫَﺍﺗِﻪِ ﺑِﺬَﺍﺗِﻪِ ﻭَ ﺗَﻨَﺰَّﻩَ ﻋَﻦْ ﻣُﺠَﺎﻧَﺴَﺔِ ﻣَﺨْﻠُﻮﻗَﺎﺗِﻪ: O You who are Your own proof and are far above being of the same kind as Your creatures)). Imam Ali, addressing God, says You are Your own witness. This statement is very difficult for the people of reasoning, who want to logically reach demonstrative conclusions from premises, to accept, for someone's testimony in their own favor to be an acceptable testimony. It is like going to court and the judge asks you for proof, saying, "What is your proof that you are in the right?" and you answer, "Because I say so." The Holy Quran says exactly this: that God Himself testifies in His own favor. For a person who relies on reason, it is very difficult for someone to testify in their own favor without providing a reason or indication independent of their claim. Here, the discussion is about proof by essence and "the sun that is its own proof." That is, when we speak of God here, we are faced with a phenomenon whose validity is self-subsisting. Accepting that a person's claim is identical with their assertion (that is, a person's making a claim is the very act of proving that claim) may be difficult. Rumi gives two examples to clarify this matter somewhat. First, I will present the example of the suckling infant demanding proof from its mother. Rumi says:

Or when the mother's milk calls to the infant,

"Come, I am your mother; heed, O child!"

The infant says, "Mother, bring proof,

So that I may find comfort in your milk."

None of us have any proof for our mother’s claim that “I am your mother” except the mother’s own claim. That is, when our mother claims she is our mother, her claim is identical with the truth of that claim. He says, when a child cries and its mother says, “Come, let me nurse you,” the child never demands proof from its mother that “You must first prove that I am your mother.”

Consider another analogy from Rumi:

Or, in Arabic, an Arab said,

“I know the tongue of the Arabs.”

His very speaking Arabic was the meaning,

Though his speaking Arabic was a claim.

He says that if someone says in Arabic, “I know Arabic,” his speaking Arabic is itself the proof of his claim.

I conclude my words with a prayer from Imam Sajjad. If you recall, I said earlier that, firstly, human beings can truly discover God with the heart and gain knowledge of Him, and ultimately the only knowledge that is certain is the knowledge obtained through the heart. All rational and philosophical proofs and arguments about God are conjectural and speculative. The only certain knowledge of God is the knowledge that arises from the heart. And secondly, moral vices cause a veil to be cast between oneself and God. Imam Sajjad says: (( وَ أنَّکَ لا تَحْتجِبُ عَنْ خَلْقِکَ إلا أنْ تَحجُبَهُمُ الأعمالُ السَّیِّئَهُ دُونَکْ. You are not hidden or veiled from Your creation, unless people’s actions veil them from You.)) That is, initially there is no veil between us and God; God is manifest and evident. God is placed behind a veil when ugly deeds and behaviors issue from us. Each vice is a veil between us and God. So if we remove the vices, God will become manifest and evident, and there will be no need for philosophical proofs and arguments to demonstrate God’s existence.

pdf Mystical Theology 2

Transcription and editing of the lecture:Omid Ghaem Panah