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The Interior Life in Islam
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
O thou soul which are at peace,
return unto thy Lord, with
gladness that is thin in Him and
His in thee. Enter thou among My
slaves. Enter thou My Paradise.
(Quran - LXXXIX; 27-30 (trans.
by M. Lings.)
The function of religion is to
bestow order upon human life and
to establish an "outward"
harmony upon whose basis man can
return inwardly to his
Origin by means of the journey
toward the "interior"
direction.
This universal function is
especially true of Islam, this
last religion of humanity,
which is at once a Divine
injunction to establish order in
human society and within the
human soul and at the same time
to make possible the interior
life, to prepare the soul to
return unto its Lord and enter
the Paradise which is none other
than the Divine Beatitude.
God is at once the First (al-awwal)
and the Last (al-akhir), the
Outward (al-zahir) and the
Inward (al-batin). [1]
By function of His out wardens
He creates a world of separation
and otherness and through His
inwardness He brings men back to
their Origin.
Religion is the means whereby
this journey is made possible,
and it recapitulates in its
structure the creation itself
which issues from God and
returns unto Him. Religion
consists of a dimension which is
outward and another which, upon
the basis of this outwardness,
leads to the inward. These
dimensions of the Islamic
revelation are called the
Shariah (the Sacred Law), the
Tariqah (the Path) and the
Haqiqah (the Truth), [2] or from
another point of view they
correspond to islam, Iman, and
ihsan, or "surrender", "faith"
and "virtue".[3]
Although the whole of the
Quranic revelation is called "/islam/",
from the perspective in question
here it can be said that not all
those who follow the tradition
on the level of /islam/ are /mu'mins/,
namely
those who possess /iman/, nor do
all those who are /mu'mins/
possess /ihsan/, which is at
once virtue and beauty and by
function of which man is able to
penetrate into the inner meaning
of religion. The Islamic
revelation is meant for all
human beings destined to follow
this tradition. But not
all men are meant to follow the
interior path. It is enough for
a man to have lived according to
the /Shariah/ and in surrender
(/islam/) to the Divine Will to
die in grace and to enter into
Paradise. But there are those
who yearn for the Divine here
and now and whose love for God
and propensity for the
contemplation of the Divine
Realities (/al-haqaiq/) compel
them to seek the path of
inwardness. The revelation also
provides a path for such men,
for men who through their /iman/
and /ihsan/ "return unto their
Lord with gladness" while still
walking upon the earth.
While the concrete embodiment of
the Divine Will, which is the /Shariah/,
is called the exoteric dimension
in the sense of governing all of
man's outward life as well as
his body and psyche, the
spiritual path, which leads
beyond the usual understanding
of the "soul" as a separated and
forgetful substance in the state
which Christians call the
"fallen state", is called the
esoteric dimension. In Sunni
Islam, this dimension is almost
completely identified with
Sufism (/tasawwuf/) while in
Shi'ism, in addition to Sufism,
the esoteric and the exoteric
are intermingled within the
general structure of the
religious doctrines and
practices themselves.[4]
And even within Sunnism, there
is an intermediate region
between the exoteric and the
esoteric, a world of religious
practice and doctrines which
while not strictly speaking
esoteric are like the reflection
of
> the inner teachings of Sufism
within the whole community and a
foretaste of its riches. In
fact, many of the prayer manuals
which occupy such a position in
the Sunni world, such as the /Dalail
al- khayrat/, were written by
Sufi masters, while in the
Shi'ite world, the prayers
almost all of which, such as the
/al-Sahifah al-sajjadiyyah/ of
the fourth Imam Zayn al- Abidin,
were written by esoteric
authors, partake of both an
esoteric and an exoteric
character.[5]
Occasionally, there has even
been the penetration of one
domain upon another, such as the
sayings of many of the Imams
which have appeared in Sufi
writings and even of some Sufi
writings which have penetrated
into certain Shi'ite prayers
identified with some of the
Imams.[6]
Prayers such as those of Khwajah
'Abdallah Ansari, the great
saint of Herat contained in his
/Supplications/ (/Munajat/) are
at once the deepest yearning of
the heart for the Ineffable and
the Infinite and common
devotional prayers chanted by
many of the devout in the
community and thus belonging to
the intermediate level alluded
to above:
I live only to do Thy will,*
My lips move only in praise of
Thee
O Lord, whoever becometh aware
of Thee
Casteth out all else other than
Thee.
O Lord, give me a heart
That I may pour it out in
Thanksgiving
Give me life
That I may spend it
In working for the salvation of
the world.
O Lord, give me understanding
That I stray not from the path
Give me light
To avoid pitfalls.
O Lord, give me eyes
Which see nothing but Thy glory.
Give me a mind
That finds delight in Thy
service.
Give me a soul
Drunk in the wine of Thy
wisdom.[7]
In the same way that the
dimension of inwardness is
inward in relation to the
outward and the outward is
necessary as the basis and point
of departure for the journey
toward the inward, so is the
experience of
the Divinity as imminent
dependent upon the awareness of
the Divinity as transcendent. No
man has the right to approach
the Imminent without
surrendering himself to the
Transcendent, and it is only in
possessing faith in the
Transcendent that man is able to
experience the Imminent.
Or from another point of view,
it is only in accepting the
Shari'ah that man is able to
travel upon the Path (tariqah)
and finally to reach the Truth (haqiqah)
which lies at the heart of all
things and
yet is beyond all determination
and limitation.
To interiorize life itself and
to become aware of the inward
dimension, man must have
recourse to rites whose very
nature it is to cast a
sacred form upon the waves of
the ocean of multiplicity in
order to save man and bring him
back to the shores of Unity. The
major rites or pillars (arkan)
of Islam, namely the daily
prayers (Salat), fasting (sawm),
the pilgrimage (/hajj/), the
religious tax (zakat) and
holy war (/jihad/), are all
means of sanctifying man's
terrestrial life and
enabling him to live and to die
as a central being destined for
beatitude. But these rites
themselves are not limited to
their outer forms. Rather they
possess inward dimensions and
levels of meaning which
man can reach in function of the
degree of his faith (Iman) and
the intensity and quality of his
virtue or inner beauty (Ihsan).
The daily prayers (salat in
Arabic, /namaz/ in Persian,
Turkish and Urdu) are the most
fundamental rites of Islam,
preceded by the ablutions
and the call to prayers (/adhan/),
both of which contain the
profoundest symbolic
significance. The form of these
prayers is derived directly from
the sunnah of the Holy Prophet
and the daily prayers are
considered as the most important
of religious deeds for as the
Prophet has said, "The first of
his deeds for which a man will
be taken into account on the day
of resurrection will be his
prayer. If it is sound he will
be saved and successful, but if
it is unsound he will be
unfortunate and miserable. If
any deficiency is found in his
obligatory prayer the Lord who
is blessed and exalted will
issue instructions to consider
whether His servant has said any
voluntary prayers so that what
is lacking in the obligatory
prayer may be made up by it.
Then the rest of his
actions
will be treated in the same
fashion." [8]
The salat punctuates man's daily
existence, determines its
rhythm, provides a refuge in the
storm of life and protects man
from sin. Its performance is
obligatory and its imprint upon
Islamic society and the
soul of the individual Muslim
fundamental beyond description.
Yet, the meaning of the prayers
are not to be understood solely
through the study of their
external form or their impact
upon Islamic society, as
fundamental as those may be. By
virtue of the degree of man's
/ihsan/, and also by virtue of
the grace (/barakah/) contained
within the sacred forms of the
prayers, man is able to attain
inwardness through the very
external forms of the prayers.
He is able to return, thanks to
the words and movements which
are themselves the echoes of
the inner states of the Holy
Prophet, back to the state of
perfect servitude (ubudiyyah)
and nearness to the Divine (/qurb/)
which characterize the inner
journey of the Holy Prophet as
the Universal Man (al-insan al-kamil)
to the Divine Presence on that
nocturnal ascent (/al-miraj/),
which is at once the inner
reality of the prayers and the
prototype[9] of spiritual
realization in Islam.[10]
Not only do the canonical
prayers possess an interior
dimension, but they also serve
as the basis for other forms of
prayer which become ever
more inward as man progresses
upon the spiritual path leading
finally to the "prayer of
the heart", the invocation (dhikr)
in which the invoker, invocation
and the invoked become united,
and through which man
returns to the Center, to the
Origin which is pure
Inwardness.[11]
The interior life of Islam is
based most of all upon the power
of prayer and the grace
issuing from the sacred language
of Arabic in which various
prayers are performed. Prayer
itself is the holy baroque which
leads man from the world of
outward ness and separation to
that of union and
interiority, becoming ultimately
unified with the center of the
heart and the rhythm which
determines human life itself.
The same process of
exteriorization takes place as
far as the other central rites
or pillars of Islam are
concerned. Fasting is incumbent
upon all Muslims who are capable
of it during the holy month of
Ramadan, a month full of
blessings when according to the
well-known hadith "the gates of
heaven are opened".[12]
But the outward observation of
its rules, while necessary, is
one thing and the full
realization of its meaning is
another. Fasting means not only
abstention from eating, drinking
and passions during daylight
but above all the realization of
the ultimate independence of
man's being from the external
world and his dependence upon
the spiritual reality which
resides within him. Fasting is,
therefore, at once a means of
purification and exteriorization
complementing the prayers. In
fact, it is itself a form
of prayer.
The same truth holds true of the
other rites. The pilgrimage or
/hajj/ is outwardly the journey
towards the house of God in
Mecca and inwardly
circumambulation around the
Ka'bah of the heart which is
also the
house of God. Moreover, the
outward /hajj/ is the means and
support for that inner
journey to the Center which is
at once nowhere and everywhere
and which is the goal of every
wayfaring and journeying. The /zakat/
or religious tax is likewise not
only the "purifying" of one's
wealth through the act of
charity which helps the poor,
but also the giving of
oneself and the realization of
the truth that by virtue of the
Divine
origin of all things, and not
because of some form of
sentimental humanitarianism,[13]
the other or the neighbor /is/
myself. /Zakat/, therefore, is,
in addition to a means of
preserving social equilibrium, a
way of self-purification and
exteriorization, of creating
awareness of one's inner nature
shown from artificial attachment
to all that externalizes
and dissipates.
Finally, the holy war or /jihad/
is not simply the defense or
extension of the Islamic borders
which has taken place only
during certain episodes of
Islamic history, but the
constant inner war against all
that veils man from the Truth
and destroys his inner
equilibrium. The greater
holy war (/al-jihad al-akbar/)
as this inner battle has been
called, by the Holy
Prophet, is, like the "unseen
warfare" of Orthodox
spirituality, the very means of
opening the royal path to the
center of the heart. It is the
battle which must of necessity
be carried out to open the door
to the way of inwardness.
Without this greater /jihad/
man's externalizing and
centrifugal tendencies cannot be
reversed and the precious jewels
contained in the treasury of the
heart cannot be attained. The
/jihad/, like the prayers,
fasting, pilgrimage and
religious tax, while a pillar of
Islam and a foundation of
Islamic society, is also a means
toward the attainment of the
inner chamber and an
indispensable means for the
pursuit of the inner life in its
Islamic form.
An understanding of the interior
life in Islam would be
incomplete without reference to
the imprint of the Divine Beauty
upon both art and nature.
Islamic art, although dealing
with world of forms, is, like
all genuine sacred art, a gate
towards the inner life. Islam is
based primarily on intelligence
and considers beauty as the
necessary complement of any
authentic manifestation of the
Truth. In fact beauty
is the inward dimension of
goodness and leads to that
Reality which is the origin of
both beauty and goodness. It is
not accidental that in Arabic
moral goodness or virtue and
beauty are both called /husn/.
Islamic art, far from being an
accidental aspect of Islam and
its spiritual life, is essential
to all authentic expressions of
Islamic spirituality and the
gate towards the inner world.
From the chanting of the
Holy Quran, which is the most
central expression of the
Islamic revelation and sacred
art /par excellence/, to
calligraphy and architecture
which are the "embodiments" in
the worlds of form and space of
the Divine Word, the sacred art
of Islam has always played and
continues to play a fundamental
role in the exteriorization of
man's life.[14]
The same could of course be said
of traditional music (/sama`/)
and poetry which have issued
from Sufism and which are like
nets cast into the world
of multiplicity to bring men
back to the inner courtyard of
the Beloved. [15]
Likewise, nature and its grand
phenomena such as the shining of
the Sun and the Moon, the
seasonal cycles, the mountains
and the streams, are, in the
Islamic perspective, means for
the contemplation of the
spiritual realities. They are
signs (/ayat/) of God and
although themselves forms in the
external world, mirrors of a
reality which is at once inward
and transcendent. Nature is not
separated from grace but is a
participant in the Quranic
revelation. In fact in Islamic
sources, it is called the
"macrocosmic revelation". Virgin
nature is the testament of God
and gives the lie to all forms
of pretentious naturalism,
rationalism, skepticism and
agnosticism, these maladies from
which the modern world suffers
so grievously. It is only in the
artificial ugliness of the
modern urban setting, created by
modern man to forget God, that
such ailments of the mind and
the soul appear as real and the
Divine Truth as
unreal. Modern skeptical
philosophies are the products of
those living in urban centers
and not of men who have been
born and who have lived in the
bosom of nature and in awareness
of His macrocosmic
revelation.[16]
In Islamic spirituality, nature
acts as an important and in some
cases indispensable means for
recollection and as an aid
towards the attainment of
inwardness. Many Muslim saints
have echoed over the ages
the words of the Egyptian Sufi
Dhu'l-nun who said:
"O God, I never hearken to the
voices of the beasts or the
rustle of the trees, the
splashing of waters or the song
of birds, the whistling of
the wind or the rumble of
thunder, but I sense in them a
testimony to
Thy Unity and a proof of Thy
Incomparableness that Thou art
the All-prevailing, the
All-knowing, the All-wise, the
All-just, the All-true, and that
in Thee is neither overthrow nor
ignorance nor folly nor
injustice nor lying. O God, I
acknowledge Thee in the proof of
Thy handiwork and the evidence
of Thy acts: grant me, O God, to
seek Thy Satisfaction with my
satisfaction and the Delight of
a Father in His child,
remembering Thee in my love for
Thee, with serene tranquility
and firm resolve."/ [17]
St. Francis of Assisi would
surely have joined this chorus
in the praise of the Lord
through the reflection of His
Beauty and Wisdom in His
Creation.
The goal of the inward life in
Islam is to reach the Divine as
both the Transcendent and
the Imminent. It is to gain a
vision of God as the Reality
beyond all determination and at
the same time of the world as
"plunged in God". It is to see
God everywhere.[18]
The inward dimension is the key
for the understanding of
metaphysics and traditional
cosmology as well as for the
penetration into the
essential meaning of religion
and of all religions, for at the
heart of every
authentic religion lies the one
Truth which resides also at the
heart of all things and
most of all of man. There are of
course differences of
perspective and of form. In
Christianity, it is the person
of Christ
who saves and who washes away
the dross of separation and
externalization.
In Islam, such a function is
performed by the supreme
expression of the Truth
Itself, by the Shahadah/, La
ilaha ill'llah. To take refuge
in it is to be saved from the
debilitating effect of
externalization and
"objectification" and to be
brought back to the Center,
through the inward dimension.
[19]
It is not for all men to follow
the interior life. As already
mentioned, it is sufficient for
a Muslim to live according to
the Shari'ah to enter
paradise after death and to
follow the interior path after
the end of
his terrestrial journey. But for
those who seek the Divine Center
while still walking on earth and
who have already died and become
resurrected; in this life the
interior path opens before them
at a point which is here and a
time which is now.
"It is related that one night
Shaykh Bayazid went outside the
city and found everything
wrapped in deep silence, free
from the clam our of men.
The moon was shedding her
radiance upon the world and by
her light made night as
brilliant as the day. Stars
innumerable shone like jewels in
the heavens above, each pursuing
its appointed task. For a long
time the Shaykh made his
way across the open country and
found no movement therein, nor
saw a single soul. Deeply moved
by this he cried: "O Lord,
my heart is stirred within me by
this Thy Court displayed in all
its splendor and sublimity, yet
none are found here to give Thee
the adoring worship which is thy
due. Why should this be, O Lord?
Then the hidden voice of
God spoke to him: "O thou who
art bewildered in the Way,
know that the King does not
grant admission to every
passer-by. So exalted is the
Majesty of His Court that not
every beggar can be
admitted thereto. When the
Splendor of My Glory sheds
abroad its radiance from this My
sanctuary, the heedless and
those who are wrapped in
the sleep of indolence are
repelled thereby. Those who are
worthy of admittance to this
Court wait for long years, until
one in a thousand of them
wins entrance thereto."/ [20]
No religion would be complete
without providing the path for
the "one in a thousand".
Islam as an integral tradition
and the last plenary
message of Heaven to the present
humanity has preserved to this
day the possibility of following
the interior life, a life which,
although actualized fully only
by the few, has cast its light
and spread its perfume over all
authentic manifestations of the
Islamic tradition.
*Notes*:
1. See F. Schuon, /Dimensions of
Islam/, trans. P. Townsend,
London, 1969, chapter 2.
2. See S. H. Nasr, /Ideals and
Realities of Islam/, London,
1966, chapter 1, 3 and 4 (trans.
into Italian by D. Venturi as
Ideali e realita dell' Islam/,
Milan, 1974.
3. See F. Schuon, "Iman, Islam,
Insan", in his L'Oeil du coeur,
Paris, 1974, pp. 91-94, where
the relation of this division to
the tripartite division of the
Islamic tradition into Shari'ah,
Tariqah/ and Haqiqah is also
explained.
4. Concerning Shi'ism see
Allamah Tabataba'i, /Shi'ite
Islam/, trans. by S. H.
Nasr, New York and London, 1975.
5. On Muslim prayers from both
Sunni and Shi'ite sources and
dealing mostly with this
"intermediate" domain of
religious life, between
external religious acts and the
"prayer of the heart", see C.
E.Padwick, /Muslim Devotions, A
Study of Prayer-Manuals in
Common Use/, London, 1961.
6. For a rather remarkable
instance of this second category
dealing with a Prayer written by
Ibn 'Ata'allah al-Iskandari in a
famous Shi'ite prayer attributed
to Imam Husayn the third Shi'ite
Imam, see W. Chittick, "A
Shadhili Presence in Shi'ite
Islam?", Sophia Perennis
(Journal of the Imperial Iranian
Academy of Philosophy),
vol. 1, no. 1, Spring 1975, pp.
97-100.
7. Quoted in M. Smith, /The Sufi
Path of /Love, An Anthology of
Sufism, London, 1954, p. 82.
8. /Mishkat al-masabih/, trans.
with explanatory notes by J.
Robson, Lahore, 1972, p.278.
9. The external movements of the
prayers are said, by traditional
Islamic authorities to be
reflections in the world of
form, movement, time and space
of the states experienced by the
Holy Prophet during his
nocturnal ascension.
10. Concerning the symbolism and
inner meaning of the details of
the movements actions and words
of the prayers as reflecting in
the teachings of one of the
greatest of the Sufi masters of
the recent
period see M Lings, /A Sufi
Saint of the Twentieth Century/,
London, 1971, pp.176 ff. As for
the inner meaning of the
prayers as seen by a Shi'ite
theosophy and saint see Hajji
Mulla Hadi Sabziwari, /Asrar al-hikam/,
Tehran, 1380, pp. 456 ff.
11. Jami has said, "Oh, happy
man whose heart has been
illuminated by invocation in the
shade of which the carnal soul
has been vanquished, the thought
of multiplicity chased away, the
invoker
transmuted into invocation and
the invocation transmuted into
the Invoked." Quoted in F.
Schuon, /Understanding Islam/,
trans D.M. Matheson, London,
1976, p. 123.
12. Mishkat al-masabih, vol. II,
p. 417, where many hadiths of
this kind are accounted.
13. In modern times, few virtues
have been as externalized,
depleted of their spiritual
significance and even made into
a channel for demonic rather
than celestial forces as charity
whose modern, secularized
understanding in the West is the
direct caricature and parody of
the authentic Christian
conception of this cardinal
virtue. See F. Schuon,
/Spiritual Perspectives and
Human Facts/, trans. D. M.
Matheson, London 1953, pp. 171
ff.
14. Considering the spiritual
principles of Islamic art see T.
Burckhardt, /The Art of Islam/,
trans. P. Hobson, London, 1976;
and his /Sacred Art, East and
West/, trans Lord Northbourne,
London, 1967, chapter IV, also
S. H. Nasr, /Sacred Art in
Persian Culture/, London, 1976.
15. Concerning the spiritual and
interiorizing effect of music in
Sufism see J. Nourbakhsh "/Sama`/",
Sophia Perennis/, vol. III no.
1, Spring 1977, S. H Nasr "Islam
and Music", /Studies in
Comparative Religion/, Winter,
1976, pp. 37-45. (italian trans.
as "L'Islam e la musica secondo
Ruzbahan Bagli, Santo Patrono di
Sciraz," /Conoscenza Religiosa/,
vol. 4, 1976, pp. 373 ff.
16. Concerning the Islamic and
traditional view of nature and
its contrast with the modern
view see S. H. Nasr, /Science
and Civilization in Islam/, New
York, 1970 (Italian trans. as /Scienzia
e civilta nel' Islam/, trans. L.
Sosio, Milan, 1977), Nasr, /Man
and Nature/, London, 1976
(Italian translation as /L'uomo
e la natura/, trans. G. Spina,
Milan, 1977); Nasr, /An
Introduction to Islamic
Cosmological Doctrines,/ London,
1977, Nasr, /Islamic Science -
An Illustrated Study/, London,
1976, also Th. Roszak,
/Where the Wasteland Ends/, New
York 1973 and Roszak,
/Unfinished Animal/, New York,
1975. "Les vertus qui par leu;
natupe meme temoignent de la
Verite, possedent elles aussi
une qualite interiorisante dans
la mesure ou elles sont
fondamentales, il en va de mem
des etres et des choses qui
transmettent des messages de
lteternelle Beaute; d'ou la
puissance d'interiorisation
propre a la nature vierge, a
l'harmonie des creatures, a
l'art sacre, a la musique. La
sensation esthetique-nous
l'avons fait remarquer bien des
fois-possede en soi une qualite
ascendante- elle provoque dans
l'ame contemplative
directement ou indirectement, un
ressouvenir des divines
essences." F. Schuon 'La
religion du coeur", /Sophia
Perennis/, vol. III, no. 1,
Spring, 1977.
17. A. J. Arbery, /Sufism/,
London, 1950, p. 52-53.
18. See F. Schuon, "Seeing God
Everywhere", in his /Gnosis,
Divine Wisdom/, trans. G. E. H.
Palmer, London, 1959, pp. 106
ff.
19. See S. H. Nasr,
"Contemporary Western Man,
between the rim and the axis" in
his /Islam and the Plight of
Modern Man/, London, 1976, pp. 3
ff.
20. From 'Attar quoted in
M. Smith, /Readings /from the
Mystics of Islam, London, 1950,
pp. 26-27.
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