Gnosis

In the Islamic world the supreme form of knowledge has never been any single science, or scientia, which remains at the discursive level, but the "wisdom of saints", or sapientia, which ultimately means gnosis. Not only did the Muslims and the medieval sages generally say, with Aristotle, that knowledge depends on the mode of the subject he knows, and therefore on his state of being; they also asserted, inversely and from another point of view, that the being of an individual depends on his own knowledge. In gnosis, knowledge and being coincide; it is here that science and faith find their harmony. Being a knowledge that illumines the whole being of the subject that knows it, it differs from philosophy which is understood today in its commonly accepted meaning, which, being theoretical, is limited to the mental plane. Philosophy was originally that element of doctrine which, together with certain rites and the practice of spiritual virtues, exhausted the totality of gnosis; later, however, its scope is limited to a purely theoretical knowledge, separate from spiritual realization, to which it was reached by limiting the intellect to human reason alone.
Gnosis, which in Islam, as well as in other oriental traditions, has always been considered the supreme form of knowledge, has very precise conceptions of the universe, and in fact provides the only matrix within which it is possible to properly understand the traditional cosmological sciences. It is the fountain of life, from which they draw their nourishment. The Gnostic sees all things as manifestations of the Supreme Divine Principle, which transcends all determination - even Being, its first determination. All entities in manifestation, both visible and invisible, are connected with this Center according to the degree to which they reflect the Intellect and also by their existence. The "intelligence" of every being is the direct link between it and the Universal Intellect - the Logos, or Word, "through which all things are made". The degree of being of each creature is a reflection of Pure Being at some level of cosmic existence; it is by virtue of this reflection that a being is something and not nothing. If the divine Principle can be symbolized by a point, then the relationship of various beings with It, as a Pure Being, is like that of various concentric circles drawn around a center, while their relationship with the center as Intellect is like that of the various rays from the circumference to the center. The cosmos is then similar to a spider's web: each part of it is on a circle, which is a "reflection of the center", and which connects the existence of that part with Being; at the same time, each part is connected directly to the center by a ray, which symbolizes the relationship between the "intelligence" of that part and the Universal Intellect or Logos.
Thus the gnostic sees the cosmos in its dual aspect of positive symbol and negative illusion. To the extent that every manifestation is real, it is a symbol of a higher order of reality; to the extent that it is separate, and it is something else, from the Principle, it is a mere illusion and non-being. In Islam this doctrine is explained in two different ways, both of which ultimately come to the same meaning. The school of wahdat al-wujūd, or "unity of Being", founded by Muáyī al-Dīn ibn 'Arabī, considers creation to be a theophany (tajallī). The archetypes of all things, which are aspects of God's Names and Qualities (a'yān al-thābitah), exist in the latent state in the Divine Intellect. Then God gives them being, so that they manifest themselves; yet what we see in the sensible world is only the shadow of the archetypes. The school of wahdat al-shuhūd, or "unity of testimony (or" vision ")", founded by 'Alā al-Daulah al-Simnānī, believes that creation is the reflection of the archetypes in the cosmic domain ultimately seen by the One that only the real Knower is. In both cases the creation, or the universe, is considered as having an unreal aspect, an element of nothingness or non-being, like the one referred to by Plato's "world of shadows". It is separated from the divine Principle while at the same time it is essentially united with It.
This Gnostic vision of the cosmos has its positive aspect in its vision of Nature as a symbol, and in the consequent study of the sciences that deal with natural phenomena not as facts but as symbols of higher degrees of Reality. In their symbolic aspects, alchemy and astrology can be considered in fact cosmic supports to the metaphysical contemplation of the Gnostic.
Since the universe is the "body" of the Logos, and since the Logos also manifests itself microcosmically in man, the Gnostic acquires greater intimacy with the universe the more he becomes integrated into the luminous source of his own being. In principle, the human body, as a microcosm, contains in miniature the universe, seen as the macrocosm. Furthermore, the principle that resides at the center of man's being is the same Intellect "from which all things are made". This is the reason why the gnostic believes that the best way to know Nature in its essence, rather than in its details, is the purification of one's self as long as one's being is illuminated by the Intellect. Having thus attained the center, the gnostic has attained, in principle, the knowledge of all things.
In the Gnostic perspective the Prophet in his inner reality, the Light muhammadica (al-nūr al-muh ammadī), is the Logos, the archetype of the whole creation, containing in itself the "idea" of the cosmos, exactly as, according to the Gospel of John, all things were done through the Word or Logos. He is also the Perfect Man, in whom all the states of being, dormant and potential in most men, have been realized. These two functions - as the Logos and the archetype of all creation, and as the norm of holiness and the perfect model of spiritual life - are united in the "universal Man" (al-insān al-kāmil). The Prophet is the universal Man par excellence, coming at the end of the prophetic cycle and thus uniting in himself all aspects of prophecy. Najm al-Dīn al-Rāzī, in his Mirhād al-'ibād (The Way of Worshipers) compares the universe to a tree and Prophet Muhammad to a seed; he writes that as soon as the seed is planted in the earth, and then emerges the stem, then the tree, then the leaves and finally the fruit, in which the seed is once again contained, so the inner reality of the Prophet as Logos precedes all things, although he himself has come into this world only at the end of the great prophetic cycle. But also all the other prophets, besides the great saints, the "poles", or aqtab in the Sufi terminology, participate in the nature of the universal Man and therefore also possess a cosmic function. Man himself, in fact, by virtue of his central position in the cosmos, is potentially capable of identifying himself with the universal Man, even if the higher states of being remain latent for the majority of men, and are fully realized only in the person of the Gnostic who has reached "the end of the journey".
This dual role of the Universal Man, as a model of spiritual life, and the archetype of the cosmos, gives a cosmic aspect to Islamic spirituality. Blessing to the Prophet and his family [Ahl al-Bayt], so common in Islamic rituals, is also a blessing on all creatures. The contemplative presents himself before God as part of the creation to which he is united, not only in virtue of the elements of his own body, but also of the Spirit which is the source of his own being, as well as of the universe. Islamic spirituality and gnosis, in their cosmic aspect, assign to Nature a positive role in the spiritual life, prefigured in the cosmic functions of the Prophet as the most perfect of all creatures, and as an archetype of the whole universe.
The various levels of Islam are united by the idea of ​​unity, interpreted according to different degrees of depth. The first profession of faith or Shahādah is La ilāha ill 'Allāh, which can be translated "there is no other deity except of Divinity"; it must be understood, on the theological and the divine level, as an affirmation of the unity of God and a denial of polytheism. In the Gnostic perspective, however, the same formula becomes the doctrinal basis and the most perfect expression of the unity of the Being, wahdat al-wujūd: "There is no other being except the Pure Being" (because there can not be two orders of independent realities); by extension, "there is no reality, beauty or power except absolute Reality, Beauty or Power". The first Shahādah, which is the source of all Islamic metaphysics, thus expresses, at the metaphysical level, the "nullity" of all finite beings in the presence of the Infinite, and integrates all the details into the Universal. On the cosmological level, it expresses the uniqueness of all things: a corollary to the Unity of the Divine Principle is the uniqueness of the whole manifestation and interrelation of all beings. As the goal of all metaphysics is to arrive at the knowledge of divine Unity (al-tawhīd), so the end of all cosmological sciences is to express the uniqueness of all existence. The nature sciences in Islam share with medieval science in the West, as well as with ancient science in general, the fundamental purpose of expressing "the uniqueness of all that exists".
The Gnostics express the unity of Being, and the relation of the cosmos to its Principle, in many ways, using symbols based on immediate experience in each case. Some Sufis, like Nasafī, have used the image of the ink and the letters of the alphabet written with it, while al-Jīlī, in his famous treatise on universal Man, compares the relationship of the universe to God with that of the ice water.
The poet and learned Sufi Persian in the X / XVI century, 'Abd al-Rahmān Jāmī, in his Lawā'i á (Fragments of light), 3 a compendium of the doctrines of Ibn' Arabī of the school of wahdat al-wujūd («unit of the Being »), he outlined the principles we are talking about. We reproduce below some passages as expressions of this principle of the unity of the Being of which it is difficult to overestimate the importance for the understanding of the Sufi metaphysics and cosmology.
The doctrine of the unity of Being was formulated for the first time explicitly by the Gnostic of the 7th / 13th century Muhyī al-Dīn ibn 'Arabī, who was born in Andalusia and died in Damascus. He was the most important exhibitor of Gnostic doctrines, particularly of cosmology and sacred sciences. In the early centuries of Islam, the Sufis insisted on the purification of the heart, as a symbolic seat of intelligence, and therefore did not devote themselves, like the later gnostics, to the composition of elaborate metaphysical and cosmological treatises. This apparent "weakness" and its "correction" were not due to a "development" or a later "enrichment", but rather arose because the need for explicit formulations increased with the progressive lack of understanding of the doctrines, not with the spread of a better understanding of them. Ibn 'Arabī was intended to explicitly formulate doctrines which, up to that time, had remained more or less implied. He expressed the Sufi conception of Nature in formulations based not only on the Koranic terminology, but also on elements drawn from hermetic and Pythagorean sources. It was he who first expressed the concept of Nature as "the Breath of the Compassionate" for the first time in Arabic.
According to Ibn 'Arabī and most of the other Gnostics, the creation of the world is therefore based on the "compassion" (al-rahmān) of the Infinite. By virtue of His Compassion, God confers being to the Names and Qualities which are the archetypes of creation. In the formulation of the sacred saying of the Prophet: "I [God] was a hidden treasure; I wanted to be known. So I created the world ". This desire to be known springs from the Compassion of the Divine Being for Himself. The word "compassion" (al-rahmān) is therefore the principle of manifestation, the "expansive" aspect of the Infinite; the substance of which the universe is made is therefore called "the Breath of the Compassionate". Every particle of existence is immersed in this breath, which communicates a "sympathy" towards other beings, and above all with the source of the breath, the Divine Compassion. Thus the Sufis say that every atom in the universe is a "theophany" (tajallī) of the Divine Being.
Nature, according to the cosmology of the Ibn 'Arabī school, is the third member of the cosmic hierarchy, after the Intellect and the Universal Soul. Universal Nature is a limitation when it is considered in relation to the divine Principle itself; but it is also the productive and feminine aspect of the divine Act or universal Essence. The divine Act creates all the worlds of existence from the womb of universal Nature, which Ibn 'Arabī calls "the Mother of the Universe". But since the divine act is permanent and pure actuality, it is the universal Nature which is responsible for the passage from power to the act of things. Nature is the "dynamic" aspect of the passive pole of Being; it is therefore the active cause of change in this world, although it is passive with respect to the divine Act. Matter, set in motion by Nature, is the "static" aspect of this same feminine and passive pole, the plastic substance from which the formal world is shaped. Nature, seen in this light, is a divine power that molds this substance and directs changes in the universe. The regularities and logical coherence in Nature are reversed reflections of the absolute freedom of the divine Act, which "acts without acting" on Nature.
Just as the first Shahādah (profession of faith) of Islam, which ultimately means the unity of Being, manifests the faith of Muslims, so the second Shahādah of Islam, Muhammadun rasūl Allāh, "Muhammad is the Messenger of God », Complete his declaration of faith. According to the interpretation of the Divine Law, the formula would simply mean that Muhammad was the Prophet of God and received revelation from him. The Gnostics add to this interpretation the esoteric meaning of the formula, which implies the inner reality of the Prophet as Logos, the archetype of Creation. From the latter point of view the second Shahādah means that the universe is a manifestation of God.
Metaphysically considered, the first Shahādah "cancels" all things as separate realities before divine Unity; the second relates all the multiplicity, insofar as it has a positive aspect, to Unity through the universal Man, the archetype of all existing things. For the Gnostics the world is not God, but not even from God; it is not God who is in the world but, to quote a contemporary Gnostic, the world "is mysteriously immersed in God".
The universal Man, the "Light of Muhammad", which is essentially the Logos or Supreme Spirit, is the scene of the theophany of all Divine Names and Attributes, and the archetype of the cosmos. Creation flourishes on it and draws its own sustenance from its being. He is also the archetype of the sons of Adam, who are all potentially the universal Man, even if only in the prophets and in the greatest saints this potentiality passes to the act. In them the inner reality of the microcosm becomes illuminated, thus reflecting the divine realities. Like the universal Man, the archetype of the cosmos contains in itself all the Platonic "ideas", so the Gnostic, who has realized his inner unity with his archetype, becomes the mirror in which God contemplates His own Names and Qualities .
The doctrine of the universal Man is the alpha and the omega of all the esoteric sciences of the universe, because the Universal Man contains the archetypes of creation, in whose terms the Gnostic seeks the knowledge of all things. Moreover, the universal Man is the archetype of the Gnostic himself; insofar as the latter acquires knowledge in terms of archetypes, he perceives an aspect of his own being. Thus his knowledge and his being identify themselves. He acquires "sympathy" with the cosmos to the extent that he approaches his own inner reality. The universe itself is in fact manifested because of Divine Compassion, which has created a sympathy among all things. The sympathy between the Gnostic and God includes all the other cosmic sympathies: it is the same compassion that causes the manifestation of the universe which also brings the Gnostic back, and through him all the other creatures, to their divine Source.
We have undertaken a brief exposition of the doctrines of the unity of the Being and of the universal Man, which are for the most part foreign to modern readers, in order to illustrate the theoretical aspect of Islamic metaphysics, without a knowledge of which the understanding of Gnostic perspective would be impossible. However, the reader should never identify the theoretical formulation with gnosis itself, since the Gnostics always point out that something must happen to the soul of those who seek, even more than to his mind: he must cease to be what he is now, and become a new being. So theories and books are simply a help, not the "thing" itself. Even the book of Nature is only an aid towards achieving the ultimate goal of the Gnostic.
The spiritual journey of man in search of the ultimate science of things, of the certainty of knowledge, therefore means a transformation of the soul and implies a "phenomenology" of the same. Once the butter and the milk are separated, that is, once the chaos of the ordinary man's soul is transformed into the order or "cosmos" illuminated by the Intellect, then the man becomes a gnostic, a mirror in which all things are reflected because he becomes himself, what he always "was" without being aware of it.
The final stage of science is the "subjective" realization of "objective" knowledge that lies beyond such a distinction between subject and object. A change must take place within the soul of those who know; he must put aside the ordinary consciousness, through which man lives during his everyday life, in order to be enlightened by a new form of conscience which, until the moment of actual realization, remains hidden and latent at the moment. interior of the soul. His theoretical and discursive knowledge must become immediate and intuitive. All the arts and sciences that the human mind can master can not replace gnosis or even lead to it, if these disciplines are considered independent modes of knowledge.
The "gnostic prayer" consists in "seeing" that the knowledge of every particular being and of every domain leads to the knowledge of its ontological cause, in seeing in the arts and in the sciences the vehicle and support for the realization of gnosis.

[Excerpts from: Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Science and civilization in Islam, Irfan Edizioni - courtesy of the Editor]
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