Listening For God: Prayer And The Heart
Extract From The Book Of "Meccan Openings"
(al-Futûhât al-Makkîya) by Ibn 'Arabî
- Translated by James Morris
One of the Shaykh's most powerfully moving evocations of
the soul's state of true prayer and awareness of God is in
chapter 41, on the "People of the Night" - the "Night"
in question (based on complex allusions to a number of hadith
and Qur'anic verses, as well as classical Arabic love-poetry)
being conceived here as the inner state of mutual intimacy
and awareness between the human lover and the divine Beloved,
however and whenever that contemplative state might occur.
In this intimate, speechless dialogue within the heart, it
is the divine "Voice" that is speaking at first
here (IV, 41-43), describing the inner reality of these "nocturnal"
prayers, the fully realized state of "remembrance"
(dhikr):
"Verily, I am the One reciting My Book to the person
praying, through his tongue - and he is the one who is listening,
for that is My 'nighttime conversation' (musâmiratî).
And that servant is the one who is taking pleasure in My
Speaking - such that if he stopped (to ponder) the meanings
(of what I am saying) he would be taken away from Me by
his thinking and reflection.
For what is essential for the servant here is to listen
attentively to Me, to devote his hearing entirely to what
I am saying, until the point where I am actually the One
in that reciting - as though I were reciting it to him and
making him listen to it - until I am the One explaining
My words to him, translating its inner meaning to him. That
is My nocturnal conversing with the servant, so that he
takes his knowing directly from Me, not from his own thinking
or considerations.
For (the true Knower) is not distracted (from total attention
to Me) by the mention (in those Qur'anic words) of the Garden
or the Fire, of the Accounting and Reviewing (of our works
at the Judgment), or of this world or the next. For that
(accomplished divine Knower) does not reflect on each verse
with their intellect or investigate it with his own thinking.
Instead he only 'listens attentively' (alluding to the key
verse at 50:37 with which we began) to what I am saying
to him, 'while he is witnessing' (Me), present with Me,
while I take upon Myself the responsibility for teaching
him
In that way the Knower realizes with complete
certainty knowings which did not come from within himself,
since It was from Me that he heard the Qur'an, from Me that
he heard Its explanation and the commentary on Its meanings,
what I meant by this or that particular verse or chapter.
That is the Knower's proper adab with me, his carefully
listening and paying heed to Me. So if I seek them out for
a nocturnal conversation concerning something, they answer
Me immediately with their presence and readiness, and their
immediate witnessing
Indeed if the Dawn comes along and I have ascended upon
the Throne
, My servant goes off to his livelihood
and the company of his fellows. But I have already opened
up a 'Door' for him among My creatures, a Door between Myself
and him through which My servant sees Me and through which
I see him - although the others don't notice that. So I
converse with My servant through his tongue, without his
being aware of that. And My servant receives (that spiritual
instruction) from me 'with clear Insight' (12:108), although
those people don't know that and think that they are the
ones who are talking to him, even though (in reality) no
one is speaking other than Me! They imagine that My servant
is answering them, when they are actually replying to no
one but Me!"
The final paragraph here of course recalls some of the metaphysical
teachings most commonly associated with Ibn 'Arabî and
his later interpreters, ideas which he most often develops
in connection with the hadith of the divine "transformation
through the forms (of the creatures)" and the celebrated
hadith in which the spiritual virtue of ihsân ("right-and-beautiful-action")
and the ultimate goal of Religion is defined as "serving
God as though you see Him." But this divine speech from
chapter 41, with its open identification of the heart as the
open "Door" linking God and the soul - and of the
most "mundane" incidents of each person's everyday
life as priceless, entirely individual "private lessons"
from God - throws a very different, less "mystical"
and much more practical and instructive light on that same
teaching.
................
Since the external, visible path of these true "people
of the heart," for Ibn 'Arabî, ordinarily comprises
above all the "outward aspect of Religion" (zâhir
al-Dîn), it is not surprising if much of the rest of
this opening section of the Futûhât is devoted
to the inner secrets or mysteries (asrâr), the "heart-dimension,"
of the "Five Pillars," and especially of the ritual
prayer (salât). As the Shaykh points out in his next
discussion of the heart, in chapter 47 (IV, 134-37):
"Now there is no act of worship or devotion ('ibâda)
that God has prescribed for His servants that does not have
a special connection with a divine Name, or a divine Reality
implicit in that Name, which gives to (the person carrying
out) that devotion what it gives to the heart in this world
and
in the other world.
(In this world, those corresponding
'gifts' of each Name to the heart include its specific)
stations and forms of knowing and awareness, and the divine
Signs and manifestations of Grace (karamât) included
in its specific spiritual states
Now God says that He converses intimately with the person
praying [alluding to ch. 41 above], and He is Light (24:35),
so He confides (in His servant in prayer) through His Name
'The Light' (al-Nûr) and no other. And just as Light
drives away all darkness, so the ritual prayer cuts off
every other preoccupation, unlike the other acts (of devotion),
which do not involve letting go of everything other than
God, as the ritual prayer does. This is why prayer is called
'a light' [in the hadith 'Prayer is a light'], because in
that way God gives (the servant) the Good News that if he
confides in God and entrusts himself to Him through His
Name 'The Light,' then He is alone with the servant and
removes every transient thing (kawn) in the servant's act
of witnessing Him during their intimate conversation
Therefore every servant who is (outwardly) praying, but
whose act of prayer does not remove them from everything
(other than God), is not truly praying, and that act of
prayer is not a Light for them. And anyone who is reciting
(the verses of the Qur'an) inwardly, within their soul,
but who does not directly witness God's remembering them
within Himself, has not
really remembered God within
their soul, because of the lack of the right inner correspondence
(between God and the receptive soul), due to what is present
there of things of this world, such as family and children
and friends, or of the other world, such as the presence
of the angels in his thoughts
The inward state (of
presence and receptivity) of the servant praying must be
such that none but their Lord is intimately addressing them
in their prayer and recitation, in their praises and petitions
(to God)."
And Ibn 'Arabî goes on here to multiply at length the
inner conditions for experiencing the true reality of salât.
For as he points out, "Among the acts of devotion and
worship ('ibâdat) there is none that brings the servant
closer to the angelic spiritual stations of 'those drawn near
to God' (the muqarrabûn), which is the highest station
of the Friends of God - whether of angel or Messenger or prophet
or saint or person of faith - than the act of prayer."
Lest one despair of ever realizing - at least as something
more than a memorable hâl - such a true inner state
of prayer, the Shaykh immediately follows this description
with another imagined speech of God to his angels, a speech
which underlines the extraordinary dignity and rarity of any
human achievement in this realm of prayer:
"
For I have placed between this servant of Mine
and the 'station of Proximity (to Me)' (maqâm al-qurba)
many veils and immense obstacles, including the goals of
the carnal soul; sensual desires and passions; taking care
of other people, property, family, servants and friends;
and terrible fears. Yet (My servant) has cut through all
that and continued to strive until he prostrated himself
[clearly more than bodily motions are involved in this sense
of sujûd] and drew near (to Me) and became one of
the muqarrabûn. So look, O My angels, at how specially
favored you are and at the superiority of your rank, although
I did not test you with these obstacles nor obligate you
to undergo their pains. And realize the rank of this servant,
and give him all that he is due for everything that he has
undergone and suffered on his path (toward Me), for My sake!"
Prof. James W. Morris is the Chair of Islamic Studies
and Director of Graduate Studies at the Institute of Arab
and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, UK.
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