English organ of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement. Presenting the Islam taught by the Holy Prophet Muhammad (s) - liberal, inclusive, tolerant, peaceful and rational.
ِ ی م الرَّحم
ن
ِ
سب اہللِ الرَّْحم ٰ
ْ م ِ
The Light
International Organ of the Centre for the Worldwide
Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam
2018
April
2016
April
Germany
Guyana
India
Sweden
Suriname
The only Islamic organisation upholding the finality of prophethood.
Webcasting on the world’s first real-time Islamic service at
Editors
- Amir Aziz
- Abd ul Muqtadir Gordon
- Gowsia Saleem & - Prof. Shahab
Shabbir
- Kaleem Ahmed
- Robbert Bipat M.D, PhD
South Africa-Ebrahim Mohamed
UK
USA
- Shahid Aziz & - Mustaq Ali
- Zainab Ahmad
Contents
The Call of the Messiah 2
Mysticism and Sexuality Sufi Thought and
Life by Valerie Hoffman-Ladd 3
Salaat Postures and Bible 12
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‣ Iqbal praises Hazrat Mirza Ghulam
Ahmad
‣ Sunni Muslims die for the British
Empire
Interesting external links
‣ The Holy Prophet (s) and George Washington.
‣ The Muslim Theory of Evolution
‣ The Holy Quran is correct. Ants do Talk to
Each Other.
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We welcome all scholarly contributions to
The Light.
I Shall Love All Mankind.
April 2018 The
Light 2
The Call of the
Messiah
by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam
Ahmad
The Promised Messiah and Mahdi
(Editor’s note: Any quotations from the Quran
are translated from the author’s explanations,
nd are not literal translations of the verse
quoted. This extract is from the English translation
of a lecture he delivered in the city of Sialkot,
now in Pakistan, taken from the Lahore Ahmadiyya
publication ‘Essence of Islam’.)
Alleged Divinity of Jesus
The alleged Divinity of Jesus is sometimes
supported on the ground that Jesus called himself
the son of God or that he is so designated in
some book. This is an idea which deserves to be
laughed at. In the Bible, many men are designated
as the sons of God and to some even the
epithet God is applied. They all, therefore, belong
to the same category and one of them cannot
become a God to the
exclusion of all others.
Even if the title son of
God had not been used
for anyone besides Jesus,
it would have been
absurd to interpret it literally
and draw from it
an argument for the divinity of Jesus, for such
metaphors abound in the Word of God. But
when the title on whose basis divinity is
claimed for Jesus is freely applied to others in
the Bible, it ceases to have the slightest force as
an argument for his divinity. And if it has, it, at
the same time, proves the divinity of all those to
whom it is applied. In short, the plan suggested
by the Christian belief should not be depended
upon for salvation, for it fails to provide the true
remedy for sin. On the other hand, it is itself a
sin that a man should commit suicide thinking
that others would be saved thereby. I can say on
oath that Jesus did not offer himself to be crucified,
but he was in the hands of his enemies who
subjected him to all sorts of cruelties. He prayed
to God to save him from the accursed death on
the cross and wept the whole night long. Then
was he heard because of his righteousness and
We do admit that Jesus was
a servant of God and one of
the perfect ones whom God
purified with His own hands.
I Shall Love All Mankind.
his prayer was accepted and he was saved from
death upon the cross, as appears from the Gospels
themselves. It is, therefore, a false accusation
against Jesus that he committed suicide by
designedly subjecting himself to death. Moreover,
reason itself condemns the theory that Peter
should be cured of his headache by John's
knocking out his brains. We do admit that Jesus
was a servant of God and one of the perfect ones
whom God purified with His own hands. But, he,
or any other prophet, cannot be made a God on
the strength of words spoken of him in any holy
book. I have personal experience in this matter
and in the Word of God revealed to me I find
words of honour and dignity used of me which
I have not met with in any Gospel as used concerning
Jesus Christ. Can I then assert on the
strength of such words that I am God or son of
God? Far be it from me or any prophet of God to
make such a blasphemous assertion.
As to the teachings contained in the Gospels,
I am of opinion that they are imperfect. A
perfect code of ethics is that which is calculated
to develop all the moral
faculties of man and
does not lay stress upon
one side of human nature
only. I assure the
gentlemen present that
such perfect teaching is
contained only in the
Holy Quran, for in every matter it adopts the
mean path, which is the path of truth and wisdom.
For instance, the Gospel says: "Whosoever
shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him
the other also." But the Holy Quran does not
teach us unconditional forgiveness on all occasions.
It directs us to see the occasion first,
whether it requires forbearance or revenge, forgiveness
or punishment. It is evident that the
latter is the proper course for a man to follow,
and its observance is necessary for the social
life of man. No society can live on the principles
taught by the Gospel nor can any Christian society
be pointed out which should have ever acted
on the turn-to-him-the-other-also text. Again
the Gospel says that no one should look “on a
woman to lust after her,” but the Holy Quran
tells us that a man should not unnecessarily
look upon other women whether with lust or
April 2018 The
Light 3
The Holy Qur'an points out to us
the clear ways which can make
a man attain to a true
knowledge of God and fill him
with such fear of Him as keeps
him away from sins.
Mysticism and Sexuality in
Sufi Thought and Life
by Valerie Hoffman-Ladd
Source: Mystics Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 3 (September
1992), pp. 82-93 Published by:
Penn State University Press
without lust, for this habit will after all make
him stumble. On such occasions, the Quran requires
that a man's eyes should be half closed,
for this is the only way in which a man can remain
pure in heart. Perhaps the advocates of a
misnamed liberty would object to such a
course, but experience shows that this is the
only right course. The free intermingling of the
two sexes and their freely casting looks at each
other are productive of great mischief and no
good has resulted from them. To allow men and
women whose hearts are not yet purified, and
who are yet under the control of their sensual
passions, to freely mingle with, and look at, each
other is to intentionally push them down into
the pit. The Quranic teaching in the attainment
of a condition in which a man does not venture
upon transgression and his love of God becomes
so great as to suppress his sensual desires, and
the realization of such a state depends upon a
perfect knowledge of God. The Holy Quran
points out to us the clear ways which can make
a man attain to a true knowledge of God and fill
him with such fear of Him as keeps him away
from sins. By following the Holy Quran a man
becomes the recipient of Divine revelation, sees
the heavenly signs, receives the knowledge of
future from God, has a zeal in his heart for union
with God which he prefers to every other connections
receives knowledge from God beforehand
of the acceptance of his prayers and a
mighty torrent of Divine knowledge flows in his
heart which sweeps away all sinful tendencies
before it. But when we go to the Gospel, it points
out a method for release from the bondage of
sin which is contrary to reason and does nothing
to remove the causes of sin. (Return to contents)
I Shall Love All Mankind.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20717124
(Note: There is a great misunderstanding
among the Muslims about the position
of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.
They fail to realise that he was a sufi
who claimed to be a reformer in Tariqa
(mysticism), as well as Sharia (formal
aspects of Islam). It was common for
the Sufis to use as metaphor the relationship
between a man and a woman
to try and describe the relationship between
a man and Allah. The Holy
Quran refers to this as well. It states
that when a man becomes truly righteous,
he becomes Mary and is born
again as a truly holy person. We produce
below a paper by a non-Ahmadi
American scholar, which discusses the
use by the Sufis (such as ibn-i Arabi, Al
Ghazali ect.) of such metaphorical terminology.
It was not written as a rebuttal
to the objections against Hazrat
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad but serves this
purpose as well.)
In 1982, a British sociologist wrote of his
amazement to discover that a Lebanese Sufi
shaykh's mystical insight often had to do with
knowledge of his followers' sexual conduct
(Gilsenan 116-120). In my own research among
the Sufis of Egypt, 1 I found that a true shaykh’s
inner knowledge included not only this, but the
spiritual meaning of the sexual act itself, a secret
that is guarded by the shaykh from all but a
few of his followers who are spiritually mature
enough to accept it. Revelation of the secret to
those who are not spiritually ready renders a
person susceptible to divine wrath in this world
and in the world to come. Far from being a separate
dimension of life, sexuality is linked to
mystical experience in a number of ways in the
philosophy of Ibn al-Arabi, which has exerted
April 2018 The
Light 4
considerable influence on the perspective of
contemporary Egyptian Sufis, and Sufi attitudes
toward sexuality are distinct
from those of other Muslims
in some important aspects.
This paper will explore the development
of Sufi attitudes toward
sexuality and its relationship
with the spiritual life.
In the earliest phase of Sufism, that of the
ascetics, celibacy was favoured by many who
believed marriage, family, and other social relationships
would distract them from absolute
devotion to God alone. The early Sufis denied
themselves all physical comforts, reduced their
worldly possessions to an absolute minimum,
and deprived themselves of sleep in order to
pray and recite the Quran at night. Credit for
transforming Sufism into an ecstatic love mysticism
is usually given to a woman, Rabia al Adawiyya,
who lived in Iraq and died in 801. For
her, God was the Beloved who so filled her heart
that she had room for no other, not even the
Prophet. She closed her shutters in springtime,
lest the beauty of the flowers distract her from
the beauty of her Beloved. She refused all offers
of marriage, preferring to devote herself exclusively
to God. In words that indicate the sublimation
of sexual desire, she addresses her Lord:
“Oh my Lord, the stars are shining, and the eyes
of men are closed, and kings have shut their
doors, and every lover is alone with his beloved,
and here I am alone with Thee” (Smith 1928,
22). In Sufi thought after Rabia, the theme of
God as Beloved became standard.
Rabia is only one of a large number of
women who participated in early Sufism. The
majority of them were celibates and practiced
extreme forms of asceticism. By maintaining a
celibate lifestyle, they rejected the guardianship
of men and the requirement of obedience
to men, as well as the burdens and responsibilities
of being a wife and mother. Extreme abstinence
from food also inhibits menstruation,
and, under Islamic law, women are banned from
prayer during menstruation. Fasting, then, becomes
a tool for ensuring their constant access
to the presence of God on a par with men (Elias
210-211).
I Shall Love All Mankind.
But the archetypal Sufi was a man. Sufi ethics
came to be known as futuwwa, “young manliness,”
based on the
word fata, meaning
"young man," literally
a code of chivalry
that demanded courage,
self-denial, and
heroic generosity. It
is significant that the Sufi biographer, Fariduddin
'Attar (d. 1220), listed Rabi'a al`Adawiyya
among the men, rather than among the women.
He explains that it is not the outward form that
counts, but the intention of the heart, and said,
“When a woman becomes a ‘man’ in the path of
God, she is a man and one cannot any more call
her a woman” (`Attar 40). Although this "compliment"
paid to Rabi'a implies the degradation
of the female sex as a whole and suggests that
true spirituality is normally found only among
men, it also indicates that the sex of the body is
not a bar-rier to the inspiration and grace of
God.
Credit for transforming Sufism
into an ecstatic love mysticism
is usually given to a woman,
Rabi`a al Adawiyya,
Although celibacy was preferred by many
early Sufis, men as well as women, this preference
raised some undesirable comparisons
with Christian monks and nuns, and implied a
rejection of the Prophet's Sunna, or exemplary
model, as a married man. The Quran itself rejects
monasticism as an invention of the Christians
(57:27), and according to a hadith, 2 the
Prophet declared that there is no monasticism
in Islam. In one anecdote, on hearing that one of
his followers had taken a vow of celibacy, the
Prophet rebukes him: “So you have made up
your mind to be one of the brethren of Satan! If
you want to be a Christian monk, join them
openly. If you are one of us, you must follow our
Sunna (example); and our Sunna is married life”
(Goldziher 122). And in another hadith: “Marriage
is my Sunna, and who-ever dislikes my
Sunna dislikes me” (Ghazali 4:97). Marriage
came to be regarded by many Muslims as a religious
duty. Sufis were not unanimous on this issue,
and we have two very interesting discussions
on the topic in the literature that give us
an idea of the debates on the subject that took
place in Sufi circles. The first is by al-Hujwiri,
who died about 1071, and whose treatise on Sufism,
Unveiling the Veiled, is the earliest written
April 2018 The
Light 5
in the Persian language. The second is by al-
Ghazali (d. 1111), whose magnum opus, The Revival
of the Religious Sciences, is part of the
standard Sufi library in the Arab world.
For both men, the Sufi is assumed to be
male, and the question at hand is whether marriage
enhances the Sufi's ability to devote himself
to God or constitutes an undesirable distraction.
While admitting that marriage is permissible
for all men and women, and even obligatory
for those who are otherwise unable to
abstain from illicit intercourse, al-Hujwiri favours
celibacy, provided the Sufi is able to quell
his sexual desires. He advocates hunger as an effective
tool toward this end. In his discussion,
sexual intercourse appears as a somewhat
shameful though necessary means toward the
goal of procreation. Although the Prophet married,
says Hujwiri, the desire to emulate him
should not lead the Sufi to seek worldly wealth
or unlawful gain in order to please his wife, and
he must not allow pleasures
to pre-occupy him. And, he
comments, “In our time it is
impossible for anyone to
have a suitable wife, whose
wants are not excessive and
whose demands are not unreasonable.
Therefore, many persons have
adopted celibacy and observe the prophetic
hadith, ‘the best of men in latter days will be
those who are light of back,’ that is, who have
neither wife nor child. It is the unanimous opinion
of the shaykhs of this sect that the best and
most excellent Sufis are the celibates, if their
hearts are uncontaminated and if their natures
are not inclined to sins and lusts” (363). From
the time of creation to the present day, he
claims, all mischiefs, worldly and religious, have
been caused by women (364). He himself is
grateful to have been enabled to live a celibate
life, and says, “Sufism was founded on celibacy;
the introduction of marriage brought about a
change. There is no flame of lust that cannot be
extinguished by strenuous effort, because,
whatever vice proceeds from yourself, you possess
the instrument that will remove it: another
is not necessary for that purpose” (364).
On the other hand, Ghazali, himself a married
man, states that marriage is approved in
I Shall Love All Mankind.
the Quran, and is a characteristic of the prophets.
He finds a preponderance of hadiths in favour
of marriage. Whereas Hujwiri felt that
marriage was not necessary to quell lust, Ghazali
regards human sexuality as an overwhelming
and potentially destructive force that must
be contained within marriage. The Prophet encouraged
Muslims to marry, for it averts the
eyes from temptation and encourages chastity,
and said, “whoever cannot, let him fast, for fasting
is a form of castration” (4:98). But, says
Ghazali, even fasting will not cause temptation
to cease for most men, unless it is combined
with bodily weakness and a deterioration of
health (4:108). Such is the value given to chastity
and the difficulty of maintaining it outside
marriage that “he who marries preserves half
his religion” (4:99). The Prophet is quoted as
saying, “If someone comes to you with whose
religion and trust-worthiness you are pleased,
get him married. If you do not, there will be discord
and great corruption in the earth” (4:98).
Ghazali quotes al-
The asceticism of the ascetic
is incomplete until
he marries
Junayd (d. 910), the
celebrated mystic of
Baghdad, as saying,
“I need sex just as I
need food” (4:109).
Muhammad's cousin, Ibn 'Abbas, is quoted as
saying, “The asceticism of the ascetic is incomplete
until he marries,” because only in marriage
will he be able to overcome his passion
and devote himself to God. Therefore, it is said
that a single prostration in prayer from a married
man is better than seventy prostrations
from a bachelor. A saying of another Companion
implies that the single state is shameful: “If I had
only ten more days to live I would want to
marry, so as not to meet God as a bachelor”
(4:99, 101). The pleasure that comes from sexual
intercourse is a foretaste of the pleasures of
Paradise, where, according to the Quran, chaste
virgins will be at the service of the believers;
sexual pleasure here on earth induces men to
serve God more in order to obtain those pleasures
(4:108). Although marriage has its pitfalls,
it also has a number of benefits, including procreation,
a legitimate release for sexual passions,
the revival of the soul after engaging in
the rigors of the spiritual life, having someone
to manage the household, and exercising the
April 2018 The
Light 6
soul by having the care of a family, fulfilling
one's obligations toward one's wives, having patience
with their morals, putting up with their
abuse, hastening to correct them, guiding them
in the way of religion,
striving to
earn legitimate
wages on their
behalf, and undertaking
the education
and discipline
of children
(4:103-114). To
endure suffering
from wives and children is equal to fighting the
jihad in the path of God (4:116). In all cases, for
Ghazali the traveller on the path of God is inevitably
a man, and women constitute either a help
or a hindrance to the spiritual life of men.
Although Sufi literature is directed toward a
male audience in a context where the superiority
of men over women is assumed to be the natural
order, some women nonetheless did participate
in the Sufi orders in medieval Islam. There
were Sufi teachers in Mamluke and Ottoman
times that catered to women, and some shaykhs
admitted women into their orders, although
this admittance and the participation of women
in dhikr, the distinctive Sufi ritual of chanting
the names of God, with special breath control
and movement, were denounced by other Sufis
(Winter 131; Abd al-Raziq 28-32). Rarely, a
woman might even become a shaykha herself,
such as Zaynab Fatima bint 'Abbas, shaykha of
the women's retreat house of the Baghdadi Sufi
order in Cairo, who was described by the historian
Maqrizi as “a religious scholar of great
knowledge, an ascetic content with little, a worshipper
and a preacher, earnest in good works
and exhortation” (Abd al-Raziq 28). According
to Ibn Hajar al-‘Asqalani, there were women
shaykhas and scholars of the Law, most of them
widows or divorcees, who lived in extreme abstinence
and worship in Sufi hospices (Abd al-
Raziq 31). It is significant that at this later period
only women who had already completed
their duty of marriage were free to devote
themselves to the mystical life. The Maghribi
writer Ibn al-Hajj, who opposed popular religion
in general, criticized the Sufi women for
I Shall Love All Mankind.
raising their voices during the dhikr, for part of
the expected modesty of women was that no
one should hear their voices (Abd al-Raziq 32).
But if women were intended to be neither
seen nor heard, they
were nonetheless at
least implicitly the subject
of a great deal of Sufi
poetry which employed
romantic love and sexual
metaphor to express the
ineffable mystical experience.
Among the Sufis
poetry is part of normal discourse, and it is impossible
to read Sufi texts or sit among the Sufis
even today without encountering a good deal of
poetry, whether classical, colloquial or spontaneously
composed under inspiration. However,
the use of metaphors of romantic love and sexuality
in Sufi poetry aroused some controversy.
Many religious scholars inveighed against the
use of explicit romantic descriptions that were
alleged metaphors for the mystical experience
and said that listening to a description of a
beautiful object that is the source of evil is as
forbidden as looking at it or touching it (Hujwiri
398).
Early Sufis were wary of excessive indulgence
in sexual intercourse even within marriage
and emphasized that modesty is part of
faith. Annemarie Schimmel points out that disgust
with the world leads naturally to hatred for
women, since through woman this world is renewed
and continued. The nafs, the lower self
which must be subdued in order to free the
spirit to worship God, is feminine in the Arabic,
as is dunya, the lower world. These become personified
in images of an ugly old crone or a prostitute
who entices man and then leaves him in
his misery (Schimmel 124). Women are regarded
as impure, for menstrual blood and
postpartum blood prevent both prayer and sexual
union, and sexual intercourse requires major
ablution, an entire bath, for purification.
Sexual intercourse in most Islamic discourse
is simply the satisfaction of a physical
drive and a means to produce offspring. The
Quran tells Muslim men that women are their
April 2018 The
Light 7
fields, and they may go in to their fields whenever
they please (2:223). The sexual rights of
husbands are emphasized in Islamic literature:
if a woman refuses her husband's advances, the
angels curse her until morning. She must yield
to his desires, even if on the back
of a camel (Bukhari, Book 67, Ch.
85). Wives are simply functional
objects of the untamed lust of
men. As one hadith says rather
crudely: “If a woman approaches
you, she comes in the form of
Satan. If any one of you sees a woman that
pleases him, let him go to his wife; with her it
will be as with the other” (Ghazali 4:110). *
The great mystical philosopher Ibn al-Arabi
(1165-1240), however, goes beyond this merely
functional view of sexuality to discover mystical
significance in the sexual act itself. In his philosophy,
the Father Heaven-Mother Earth dualism,
which some believe to be absent in the monotheistic
religions (Parrinder 151), is revived.
Although scholars have been aware of at least
some of Ibn Arabi's statements affirming sexuality
and women and employing “pars-sexual
imagery” (Schimmel 129-30, Eli. 217, Rah-man
146), a full exposition of his doctrines regarding
sexuality has not been undertaken. Ibn Arabi's
philosophy holds to the essential unity of all being;
all existing things emerged from the "marriage"
of the divine spirit, which is male, with
Nature, which is female — or, in other passages,
from the combination of the divine names with
the elemental forms. Human marriage reflects
this cosmic marriage, and it is by virtue of this
correspondence that human sexuality derives
its sacredness. In fact, says Ibn al-'Arabi, Islamic
Law is the best law in marriage because it alone
has set the number of wives a man may marry
at four, which perfectly reflects the marriage of
the divine Spirit with the four elements to
produce its “children,” all the material existents
(1966a, 1:138). Therefore, far from being the
mere satisfaction of physical appetites, the sexual
union offers the gnostic the possibility of
true mystical insight.
* The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement strongly disagrees
with this interpretation of the Holy Quran
and the hadith. We believe that in all matters men
I Shall Love All Mankind.
In his major work, The Meccan Revelations,
Ibn Arabi states, “I used to hate women and sex
at the start of my entry into this path.” He continued
this way for eighteen years until he came
to contemplate the hadith in which Muhammad
“I feared God's wrath, for I
hated what God had made
beloved to his Prophet
(women).” – Ibn Arabi
says, “Three things
have been made
beloved to me in
this world of
yours: women,
perfume, and
prayer.” He noted
that Muhammad's love for women did not
spring from his own nature, but from God who
had made them beloved to him. Ibn Arabi
writes, “I feared God's wrath, for I hated what
God had made beloved to his Prophet.” He asked
God to remove this hatred from his heart, and
his prayer was answered. Indeed, he says, God
“made me the most compassionate of men with
them, and the most earnest to maintain their
rights, because I do this out of inner vision, from
God making them beloved to me, not a natural
love.” He states, “Whoever loves women as Muhammad
did, loves God” (1966a, 4:84). In his
later work, The Bezels of Wisdom, he contemplates
a particular wisdom contained in the divine
“word” expressed in each of the prophets.
His chapter on the Muhammadan word is a reflection
on this hadith concerning the Prophet's
love for women, perfume, and prayer (1966b,
1:214-226; 1980, 71-81).
In Ibn Arabi’s philosophy, God's Names are
manifested in creation, which then functions as
a mirror in which God sees himself. While all of
creation manifests the Names of God, the Perfect
Man, identified with the eternal Muhammadan
reality, a spiritual essence that is the
source of all prophethood, contains the totality
of these names. All other things in creation contain
only certain of the divine Names, but taken
together, the cosmos, like the Perfect Man, reflects
their totality. The Perfect Man is, therefore,
the microcosm — or, one could say, the cosmos
is a “macrohomo.” The Quran states that
God moulded Adam out of clay and breathed
into him of His spirit (32:9). God's longing for
and women are the same. Men also go to women
as Satan when, for example, they force themselves
upon women.
April 2018 The
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man is none other than a longing for his own
self, this spirit that is in man, for man is created
in his external aspect and is divine in his internal
aspect. Therefore, hadith says that God
made man in his own image. Just as man was
made in the image of God, woman was made in
the image of man (for Quran exegetes learned
from the Jews the story of Eve's creation from
Adam's rib). Woman is from man as man is from
God, and just as God longs for man because the
whole is drawn toward its part, so does man
long for woman, “as something yearns for itself,
while she feels longing for him as one longs for
that place to which one belongs” (1980, 274).
Furthermore, “love arises only for that from
which one has one’s being,” which for man is
God. That is why
Muhammad said that
God made women beloved
to him. “His love
is for his Lord in
Whose image he is,
this being so even as
regards his love for his
wife, since he loves
her through God's love for him, after the divine
manner.” When a man loves a woman, he desires
sexual union with her, because there is “no
greater union than that between the sexes”
(1980, 274). The goal of the Sufi is to be
annihilated in God, to achieve union with Him.
In sexual intercourse, the man is annihilated in
the woman, says Ibn al-Arabi, but this is in fact
a type of annihilation in God. The ritual washing
that is required after intercourse is a total purification
of his desire, for God is jealous that man
should desire any but Him. This purification by
ritual ablution enables man once again to behold
God in the woman (1980, 274). Yet, he says
in The Meccan Revelations, if a gnostic's passion
is divine and not carnal — that is, if his attachment
is to God and not to a temporal being—
then no purification is needed (1966a, 1:365). It
is not the act which is polluting, but carnal desire,
or “seeing oneself” instead of God.
Since the divine essence is transcendent
and inaccessible, man can only see God as he is
reflected in creation, and for man there is no
better way to contemplate God than in woman:
I Shall Love All Mankind.
“When man contemplates God in woman he
witnesses Him in a receptive mode [because
woman was created from man], while when he
contemplates (God] in himself, from the perspective
that woman appeared from him, he beholds
Him in an active mode. When, however, he
contemplates God in himself, without any regard
to what has come from Him, his witness is
in the receptive mode, without any intermediary.
So his contemplation of God in woman is
the most complete and perfect, because in this
way he contemplates God in both the active and
receptive modes, whereas by contemplating
God only in himself, he beholds him particularly
in a receptive mode. Because of this the Prophet
loved women, because of the perfection of his
witness of God in
Quran exegetes learned
from the Jews the story of
Eve's creation from Adam's
rib
them”
1:217).
(1966b,
Because God
contains the totality
of all the meanings
of the universe,
and indeed
is the place where opposites are conjoined, he is
both active/male and receptive/female. Therefore,
it is insufficient for man to contemplate
himself by himself to understand God; the best
and most perfect kind of contemplation of God
is in woman. Sexual union imitates God's relationship
with man, “the man yearning for his
Lord Who is his origin, as woman yearns for
man. His Lord made women dear to him, just as
God loves that which is in His own image”
(1980, 274). What distinguishes the sexual act
of the gnostic from that of ordinary men is that
the gnostic perceives the spirit of God in
woman, and by joining himself to her becomes
aware of his own oneness with God and of God
in his active and receptive aspects. Indeed, if
one engages in sexual intercourse in the
realisation of God in a woman, the act itself is a
means for the mystic's perfection. This is exactly
the opposite of the intercourse of the lustful
man for whom a woman is merely a body
without a spirit. Elsewhere Ibn al-'Arabi explicitly
states that the qutb, the Axis, the highest in
the hierarchy of saints, often engages in sexual
intercourse and loves women:
April 2018 The
Light 9
“He knows from the divine manifestations
in sexual union what drives him to seek it and
embrace it, for his worship cannot achieve for
him or any other gnostic more than can be attained
by sexual union. … He desires sexual union,
not for the sake of procreation, but only for
pleasure. The consummation of sexual
intercourse is itself commended in the Law …,
and the sexual act of the one in this spiritual
station is like the sexual union of the people of
Paradise, only for the sake of pleasure, for it is
the greatest manifestation which has been
hidden from men and jinn, except for those
servants whom God has specially chosen for it.
Likewise, the intercourse
of animals is
purely for pleasure.
Many gnostics have
failed to grasp this truth,
for it is one of the secrets
of which only a few of
the “people of providence”
(Ahl al-‘inaya)
understand. If it did not
have complete nobility
indicating the weakness
appropriate to servanthood,
it would not have such an overwhelming
pleasure which causes a person to pass away
from his strength and pretensions. It is a pleasurable
subjugation, although subjugation precludes
pleasure in the one who is subjugated
because the pleasure in subjugation belongs to
the one who is subjugating, not the one who is
subjugated, except in this act in particular. This
nobility has escaped people, who have made it
an animalistic passion from which they refrain
— although they have called it by the noblest of
names when they say it is animalistic, that is, a
characteristic of animals/living beings, and
what is nobler than life? So what they have
deemed ugly about themselves is the very thing
that is praiseworthy for the perfect gnostic”
(1966a, 2:573-574).
It is not surprising to see that another characteristic
of the qutb, according to Ibn Arabi, is
the love of beauty in all its forms, for they all express
the absolute beauty of the divine. It is this
very idea that has led some Sufis to seek out the
company which best reflects the divine beauty,
The goal of the Sufi is to be
annihilated in God, in order
to achieve union with him.
In sexual intercourse, the
man is annihilated in the
woman, says Ibn al-`Arabi,
but this is in fact a type of
annihilation in God.
I Shall Love All Mankind.
a beautiful girl or a handsome youth. Any discussion
of sexuality in Islam would have to take
into account the prevalence of homosexual
tendencies, whether in poetic description or actual
practice. Such was the danger of temptation
from the sight of "the beardless" that some
scholars said that the rules that guarantee the
segregation of women from men should also be
applied to handsome youths: they should not be
allowed to sit with men at the public bath or
dance with them, because the logic of seclusion
and segregation has to do with sexual
temptation, not gender (Ibn Taymiyyah 42;
Hujwiri 416). Sufi love of the beardless youth is
reflected in a hadith
which says, “I saw my
Lord as a young man,
with his cap awry"
(Schimmel 131).
According to Ibn al-
Arabi, a man's greatest
pleasure will be in that
whose form corresponds
to him, just as
God reserves his greatest
love and pleasure for
man, who was created in
his image. The greatest pleasure is to be found
in the love of a girl or a youth, because they correspond
to him entirely, being in his image. Only
in something that corresponds to him in this
precise way can he experience annihilation. The
benefit of keeping company with beardless
youths is that they are newer, of more recent
origin in their Lord than the older man, “and
whatever is closer to its creation is a better indication,
more sacred, and more abundantly the
occasion of mercy than the older man. … In
keeping their company, one remembers their
newness as distinct from God's existence which
is from the beginning.” He unconvincingly argues
that keeping company with the young is
justified by the Quran when it blames those who
do not accept a new (muhdath) reminder from
God (21:2, 26:5). Since the gnostic looks at
youths this way, as a reminder of God, keeping
their company does not harm him, although for
the disciples and ordinary Sufis, it is prohibited
(1966a, 2:189-190).
April 2018 The
Light 10
Likewise, says Ibn al-Arabi, the gnostic's desire
for women is the desire of the whole for its
part as well as the desire and love of the older
for the younger.
Furthermore, the
gnostic is motivated
by compassion
to keep the
company of women,
just as the
Prophet Muhammad
was motivated
by compassion to
marry women
since he had seen
that they constitute
the greater part of
the inhabitants of
hellfire (see Smith
and Haddad). Ibn
al-Arabi does not
explain how this company benefits women, but
it is commonly believed, following the teaching
of a hadith from the authoritative collection of
“sound” hadiths by Muslim, that in the afterlife
a person will be with the one he loves. By securing
a woman's love, the Prophet or gnostic guarantees
her salvation, for her love for him will be
counted as love for God and will save her; she
will be with him in Paradise. In this way, keeping
the company of women serves them as well
as the man. Ibn al-Arabi does not deny that men
are superior to women and devotes an entire
section to an analysis of the “rank” that the
Quran says men have over women (1966a, 3:87-
88). Nonetheless, he says, “whoever knows the
value and secret of women do not abstain from
loving them. Rather, loving them is part of the
perfection of the gnostics, and it is a prophetic
inheritance and a divine love” (1966a, 2:190).
One should keep company with beardless
youths or women only for the sake of God. If it
is done without this goal, the person suffers. In
fact, he says:
“The disciple should not take up the company
of women until he becomes a woman. If he
† This is a reply to the often repeated objection
against the Promised Messiah because he has
written about himself that Allah made him Mary
I Shall Love All Mankind.
becomes female and attaches to the lower
world and sees how the higher world loves it,
and sees himself in every spiritual condition
and moment in
The disciple should not take up the
company of women until he himself
becomes a woman. If he becomes female
and attaches to the lower world
and sees how the higher world loves
it, and sees himself in every spiritual
condition and moment in perpetual
sexual union as a female (i.e., assuming
the receptive role in an unceasing
act of coition) and does not see himself
in his spiritual insight as male
first, but purely female, and he becomes
pregnant from that marriage
and gives birth
perpetual sexual
union as a female
(mankuhan
da'iman, i.e.,
assuming the
receptive role in an
unceasing act of
coition) and does
not see himself in
his spiritual insight
as male first, but
purely female, and
he becomes pregnant
from that
marriage and gives
birth † — then he
may keep company
with women and incline toward them, and love
for them will not harm him. As for the Gnostics’
keeping company with women, [permission to
do so] is absolute, because they see the absolute,
holy, divine hand in their giving and taking.
Everyone knows his spiritual condition”
(1966a, 2:191-192).
It is only after achieving perfect receptivity
in relation to God the one is able properly to assume
the role of activity/masculinity implied in
a right relationship with women. Ibn al-Arabi
also describes the disciples as “brides of the Absolute
Reality,” and for their shaykh, they are
“like the one who combs the bride's hair and
adorns her” (1966a, 2:365). The Sufi is female
in his relation to God, but he is active, like God,
in his relation to woman, for man is to woman
as God is to man.
As we have seen, the philosophy of Ibn al-
Arabi allows that the very things that must be
prohibited to the masses may be of the greatest
benefit to the perfected gnostic. Ibn al-Arabi
even states that there are some who have been
annihilated from their sins and are under God's
protection, even if they appear to do something
and then he became pregnant and after nine
months gave birth to Jesus.
April 2018 The
Light 11
the is contrary to Islamic Law. God has said to
them, “Do what you please, I have forgiven you.”
For them, nothing is prohibited (1966a, 2:512). 4
Indeed, mystical insight sometimes constitutes
a reversal of things as they apparently are.
The conventional wisdom is that modesty or
shame (hiya’) is part of faith. But the famous
Sufi poet Jalaluddin Rumi (d. 1273) retorted,
“Shame hinders you from the true faith,” because
it inhibits people from willingly sacrificing
reputation and worldly interests in the way
of God (Schimmel 122). Among some Sufis, it
became the highest virtue to be seen doing reprehensible
things, for in this way men would be
repulsed, and one's service to God would be for
the sake of God alone. Many Sufi sayings are
paradoxes, even on the moral plane, and in
mysticism, symbols turn logic inside out. Zulaykha,
the woman who tried to seduce Joseph,
becomes a symbol, not of the wanton woman
but a model of extravagant love, the love of the
Sufi, just as wine becomes a symbol not of sinful
indulgence but of the intoxicating presence of
God. The Sufis are by definition those who hold
to the superiority of hidden truths and hidden
virtues over external meanings, status, and religious
ostentation. Thus, for the ordinary Muslim,
when a man and a woman are alone together,
Satan is the third party, and the mixing
of men and women brings corruption. For the
spiritual man, the bringing together of men and
women may yield spiritual fruits unobtainable
even through acts of worship.
Notes
1. In 1987-88 I did research under the auspices
of a Fulbright grant. I continued my research for
the second year on my resources. The results of
my research will be published in a book under
preparation, Sufism, Mystics and Saints in Modern
Egypt.
2. A hadith is a narrative concerning the sayings
or deeds of the Prophet Muhammad.
3. The word “causing him to pass away” is identical
to causing him to become annihilated, to
attain fana’, the Sufi goal. The overwhelming
pleasure to be found in sexual intercourse in
which the gnostic perceives the divine in a
woman is a type of actual annihilation in God,
for both remove him from any awareness of his
own self.
I Shall Love All Mankind.
4. This point of view is very reminiscent of
viewpoints attributed by Irenaeus to the Gnostic
Valentinians, (Adv. haer. 1.6.2. and 3). This
insight was provided by my colleague in the
Program for the Study of Religion at the University
of Illinois, William Schoedel.
(Return_to content)
The form of purification before
ritual devotion or worship
is strikingly similar in
most religions. This can be
seen in Zoroastrianism, Buddhism,
Judaism, Christianity
and Islam. Here some examples
are given of the similarities
between what the Old
and New Testaments say and
Islam. As the Holy Quran
says that in it are all the correct
teachings.
Salaat Postures and the Bible
Consider the following verses from the Bible.
“And he (Jesus) went a little further, and fell
on his face, and prayed…” (Matthew 26:39)
“And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and
did worship…” (Joshua 5:14)
“And Moses and Aaron went from the presence
of the assembly unto the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation, and they fell upon
their faces…” (Numbers 20:6)
“And Abraham fell on his face…” (Genesis
17:3)
“…and they fell on their faces before the
throne and worshipped God.” (Revelation 7:11)
“…then they bowed their heads and
worshipped the Lord with their faces to the
ground.” (Nehemiah 8:6)
“…Then David and the elders of Israel, who
were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces.”
(1 Chronicles 21:16)
April 2018 The
Light 12
In many other places in the Bible where we
find the method of prayer mentioned, it calls to
mind the way Muslims pray. In the Bible book
entitled Daniel we can read a description of
Daniel praying to God in a time of great crisis.
“Now when Daniel knew that the writing
was signed, he went into his house; and his windows
being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem,
he kneeled upon his knees three times a
day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God,
as he did aforetime.” (Daniel 6:10)
It is interesting to note that Prophet Daniel
prayed towards Jerusalem. In the early days of
Prophet Muhammad’s (s) mission, the faithful
also prayed towards Jerusalem. However, the
Muslim direction of prayer changed. About sixteen
months after Prophet Muhammad (s) and
his followers migrated from Makkah to the city
of Madinah the direction was changed to facing
the sacred House of God in Makkah.
Descriptions of the positions Muslims adopt
in the five ritual prayers per day can be found
throughout the Bible. Many are mentioned in
the book of Psalms.
“Stand in awe, and sin not.”(Psalms 4:4)
“O come, let us worship and bow down: let
us kneel before the Lord, our maker.” (Psalms
95:6)
“…all that go down to the dust shall bow before
him…” (Psalms 22:29)
And in the book of Kings, we find Prophet
Elijah casting himself upon the earth in the position
of kneeling before touching the forehead
to the ground.
“…and he cast himself down upon the earth,
and put his face between his knees.” (1 Kings
18:42)
This is a position very familiar to Muslims.
So too is the position Jesus adopts during
prayer in a moment of fear and uncertainty.
“And he (Jesus) was withdrawn from them
about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and
prayed.” (Luke 22:41) (Return_to content)
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The Renovated Exterior of the Berlin
Mosque
The New Glory
The Hague Jamaat converted a church
to a mosque.
It consists of a full-size basement, on the
ground floor is a prayer room, professional
kitchen, wuzu facilities, conference room,
convention hall and directors’ meeting room.
Rotterdam
Jamaat’s Community Centre and
Mosque
Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha‘at Islam Lahore (UK)
Founders of the first Islamic Mission in the UK, established 1913 as the Woking Muslim Mission.
Dar-us-Salaam, 15 Stanley Avenue, Wembley, UK, HA0 4JQ
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I Shall Love All Mankind.
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