Sufi Qur'an commentators present an intertextual conversation about how the contents of sacred scripture relate to mystical experiences, practice and meaning.
But more than a book about immortality, the way the Qur'an is symbolically-constructed evokes and also invokes God's presence. One can imagine how for many the object of the book (mushaf) is itself, an immortality symbol. The Qur'an stands as an immortality symbol. Symbolically the Qur'an works as a synechdoche -- co-eternally a synechdoche -- of God and all that is considered divine or of the "realms of the unseen" ('alam al-ghayb)
We also are welcomed into a conversation about the context of sacred scripture. How does the hermeneutical context that the Qur'an is both co-eternal with God and uncreated shape readings of its contents?
Muslim readers of the Qur'an must read knowing that the historically dominant understanding of the nature of the book is that its author is God, a divine immortal being named Allah in Arabic. His names Allah, Allaha, Eloh, were invoked by Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, and Muhammad.
So the Muslims began with: la ilaha illa Allah (There is no [other] god but God) and Muhammad Rasul Allah (Muhammad is the Messenger of God.) Muhammad joins the ranks of 25-28 named and a total of 124,000 unnamed prophets. And the Qur'an says these prophets were sent to every people. This gives some room for Hindus, Chinese Muslims, among others to expand and derive meanings creatively.
At the physical center of the Qur'an, in between its 15th and 16th thirtieth-sections, stands the story of an immortal man to whom God conferred compassion (rahma) and inner knowledge ('ilm al-ladduni, 18.65) God sent Moses to him to learn wisdom. Moses asked him to let him follow him to learn of his mature guidance (rushd).
What meaning does it add to the story that the central figure is immortal. The central figure is a rare -- almost unique -- human being who has resolved the crisis of the symbolic self and he has conquered death. What does it mean that the mediating and mentoring figure of the spiritual guide is presented as an immortal being? How does that extra-degree of symbolic immortality deepen the reading and extend its range of applicability?
RUZBIHAN BAQLI ASH-SHIRAZ (1128-1209) LIVED IN THE SOUTHWEST PART OF IRAN called FARS, a few hundred miles southwest of the ancient ruins of the Achaemenaed capitol, the seat of the Shah of the Persian Dynasties of Biblical times -- Persepolis, a monument to the immortality image of King Cyrus.
TEXT AS IMMORTALITY SYMBOL: SCRIPTURE AS CO-ETERNAL WITH GOD
The tradition of Muslim scholars has made believing in "qadim," co-eternity of the Qur'an with God, a major point of investigation. This is more than just fundamentalism. The text itself is an icon of immortality. This is not unusual. The Hindus have done it with the Veda, the Jews with the Torah, some types of Protestants come a little close. When Muslims read they Qur'an, we read a book presented as eternally uncreated and especially co-eternal with God. The Qur'an is immortal and it is a symbol of the immortal and of immortality.
Writers such as the commentator whose work stands at the center of this paper, Ruzbihan Baqli (1128-1209) affirm that the Qur'an provides principles for mystical guidance and is an accurate guide to, and map of, various domains of ethical, religious and mystical experience: symbolic, psycho-spiritual, ritual performance, meditation, trance, etc.
THE TEXT IS IN THE BOOK: SYMBOLIC IMMORTALITY AND PHYSICAL DEATH
An interpretive community presents sacred scripture as an icon of immortality. This analogy of the object and its text as a symbol of immortality varies from lineage to linheage and community to community. Jews and Muslimms conceive of God's "eternal word "inlibriated" (put into a book) and Christians also conceive of God's word as incarnated (placed into a body). The Qur'an stands among Muslims as not only a book that discusses immortality, but also a symbol of immortality. The dominant position is that Muslims revere the Qur'an as co-eternal with God and preserved as his speech. Taking the first created object, the Pen inscribed it on the second-created object, the tablet that holds the words God writes with his pen. Thus the Qur'an, the "recitation" becomes literally as well as symbolically an eternal word or the closest simulation one could have of the eternal word, a presence of eternity, a sign of the4 unseen, a sounding of the unheard.
What are the hermeneutical tasks in reading Ruzbihan's medieval Sufi Qur'an commentary? One faces a conversation about the mystical stages and stations that that book reflects and confirms by the experience of the reader. It is a reading based on personal experience. I call this the hermeneutic of recognition. A scholar who excludes tariqa has to promote ethics while downplaying the motherly caring functions of the mystics who affirm that we can all experience Christ or God directly. Among the mystics a textual reading compares and evaluates the text according to how well it holds up to the mystic reader's own interpretations and experiences.
If one interprets in a "hermeneutic of recognition" one is resonating with, in sympathy with and feeling the same wavelength, the same vibration. This is the realm where people think that they have "good chemistry." The interpretation exists as a nod of recognition. The recognition may be the content. Or it may be the analogy from the content. Or it may be an allegory, teaching a bigger principle from a simple story, or it may just be mystical writing meaning it's filled with speech acts of paradox, catachresis, intuition, heartfulness, poetry, etc.
So we see the text is a meta-symbol of itself. And this hermenetic horizon and the exegetical experience of seeing the book itself as a symbol of something both sufficient-unto-itself while also beyond itself, and beyond-nesses. Muslims think through this question with the categories of the Qur'an and the mushaf, the codex or printed copy of the Qur'an. A Muslim would see the rectangular-cube of a book and call it the "mushaf" of the Qur'an, or even just the "mushaf." One would not call that object the Qur'an, because the Qur'an is an eternal reality, an immoertality symbol, beyond all objects.
THE GREEN MAN: ENTER THE IMMORTAL PROPHET
And standing at the center of this story is an immortal Prophet. This immortal Prophet is named al-Khidr and also called al-Khizr (rhymes with "hithir," and "scissor." And the way the Persians pronounce the name it rhymes with "weather," al-Khehehzer))
And Khidr takes Moses on as a student. This is a very significant story then in a spiritual culture in which the practice of teachers accepting and guiding students stands at its center. The story then stands out as a paradigm for understanding both the general ethics and principles of the teacher-student relationship ethics as well as the ethics and nuances of the teacher-student relationship in spiritual training and spiritual development and formation.
It appears in the eighteenth chapter of the Qur'an at what is literally the center of the text.
First of all he's one of only four immortals in Muslim traditions:
Enoch (Idris),
Elijah (Ilyas),
Jesus ('Isa) and
this unusual being, al-Khidr, "the Green Man."
The Qur'an doesn't name him. But the companions of the Prophet Muhammad asked the name of the righteous man AR-RAJUL AS-SALIH who Moses followed. And the Prophet Muhammad said that the name of the man was the Green Man. The Prophet called him al-Khadir, the Greening One. More casually people called him al-Khizr. So the companions asked the Prophet, why was he called al-Khadir. The Prophet replied that he was called al-Khadir because when he would sit on barren land, after he arose, that land would be verdantly green with vegetation. Aristotle might have thought of him as a symbol of our vegetable soul.
ALEXANDER'S ROMANCE: AL-KHIDR BECOMES IMMORTAL
The story of how he became a green immortal takes one to the Alexander Romance where Khidr is Alexander's deputy and cook and in helping Alexander win his goal in the quest for the elixir of immortality, it was Khidr who found the fountain where he drank some of the aqua vitae and became immortal. He then brought Alexander to the spot, but it had moved and Alexander never drank from the water from which Khidr drank.
So this is the background on the immortal prophet al-Khizr the Green Man. One day Moses told one of the children of Israel that he, Moses, wisest man on earth. God then spoke inside of Moses' heart (wahy) and instructed Moses to seek out al-Khidr (literally named "The Green")who is wiser than Moses. Their story stands out in the Qur'an as a unique type of story in many ways.
And among Sufis, whatever many and myriad things this story can be, this story is a story of the perspective that knowledge of immortality brings and how should a student connect with and follow a teacher. How does a student travel up close with the teacher. The student who signs on to travel close up and next to the teacher will have many romantic and idealistic fantasies challenged and shaken. In our story Moses struggles to reconcile the ethical code God has handed him in stone, and this very different multi-dimensional lived-reality flexibility.
Introducing RUZBIHAN BAQLI of SHIRAZ (1128-1209)
What can one say about Ruzbihan Baqli? He lived in a station of being that the Sufis call, Haqq. Haqq is the "reality" of God. Haqq means "right" and "rights.". Muslims idealize, "The Straight Path," Surat al-Mustaqim. All of this is Haqq. The word for "realization," haqiqa expands the basic word haqq into haqiqa. One of Ruzbihan's heroes Mansur ibn Husayn al-Hallaj was executed, as legend says for saying "I am Haqq!" He claimed to be the living truth. Ruzbihan radiated that same authoritative, direct and commanding presence, especially an ecstatic presence.
Ruzbihan and Hallaj are what Weber calls "charismatic." In the Sufi literature, they have baraka
Mansur al-Husayn's followers created an immortality symbol of such striking narrative and tropic power that they succeeded in making these narratives a part of mainstream Iranian culture. The followers of Mansur ibn Husayn al-Hallaj created a hagiographic projection out of the event that Louis Massignon pointed out paralleled Jesus Crucifiction savior narrative. In fact the parallel between Christian and Muslim readings of such a person in this instance offers room for reflection.
Otherwise, in addition to projecting a heroic transference onto Hallaj, people were always confronted by this question related to immortality: If Hallaj says he is God and each of us is God, then, am I God? Ruzbihan believed in 'ayn-i jam a cosmic union and integration of one's self with God.
Baqli: The Grocer
Ruzbihan ibn Abi al-Nasr (d. 1209-10)lived in Shiraz. In 1165, he built a ribat there in the section of the city called "the New Garden."
Some of his most often quoted hadith include:
Don’t you see how he [Rasul Allah] said “I pass the night with my Lord; He feeds me and gives me drink.”
Ruzbihan repeats: "I saw my Lord in the most beautiful form." (The Unveiling of Secrets, p. 7, and throughout)
His memory lives in history in his tomb in Shiraz, his own writings and biographical writings about him. His tomb in Shiraz was restored in 1958 and again in 1972. Thus people can, have made and continue to make visits (ziyarat) to his tomb. A legend holds that the pre-eminent Persian poet Hafiz (d. 791/1389)was a Ruzbihaniyya disciple. Ruzbihan and Hafiz share an understanding of the Ascension to the Pure Form of Beauty that parallels that of Plato in the Symposium . Carl Ernest points out that an anonymous commentary on The Jasmine of the Lovers that quotes Hafiz to explain Ruzbihan's text might have been written by Hafiz
Ruizbihan's name means the bright day light. In 1165, Ruzbihan established a ribat a Sufi teaching, fellowship training and service center. Ruzbihan received and embodied the ecstatic states of the great sukr, tradition of Bayzid Bestami, Mansur ibn Husayn al-Hallaj, so much so that it was Ruzbihan Baqli who became the paradigmatic Shaykh ash-Sha.t.h or in Latin, Dr. Ecstaticus, Dr Ecstasy. Ruzbihan combined scholarship with mysticism of the boldest and almost boasting sort. And that bold, blunt matter of factness only contributes to making it vividly real and tangible. Ruzbihan often presents descriptions of events and phenomena definitely "out of the box" or "off our radar screens."
Ruzbihan repeats: "I saw my Lord in the most beautiful form." (The Unveiling of Secrets, p. 7, and throughout)
He must have lived intensely. An observer writes: "I met him, and he was a master of mystical experience and absorption, continually in ecstasy, so that one's fear of him never left..." Writing rhapsodically in a hagiographical setting meant to register a symbol of divine immortality, Ruzbihan's great-grandson Shamsuddin reported that Ruzbihan's presence was transforming.
"His face was always so beautiful that anyone who saw him was freshened and quickened in spirit, and would see the trace of sainthood on his forehead which was the reflection of his blessed interior made external."
He calls Muhammad, The Lover (Habib) who manifests his beauty from the lotus tree in the garden of the farthest Abode.
Ruzbihan warns: "It is very hard to present these mystical stages, when the people of ordinary knowledge do not comprehend them."
The question is first to acknowledge the reading strategies for approaching Ruzbihan Baqli's text. In this case Ruzbihan's Qur'an commentary, Brides Elucidation, reflects an intertextual engagement with the Qur'an. Since the commentary is a mystical text, we may ask if it evokes an experience of, or association with the questions of immortality and the afterlife. Next we must ask in what ways the text is to be read literally, analogically, allegorically and mystically. Since the entire set of acts of readings, writing, interpreting and rewriting happens in relation to a sacred text we have to ask how the fact that the text stands for immortality at many levels must be addressed.
Ruzbihan knows that the transmission of the knowledge of Qur'an comes through "unveiling" -- the pervasively popular word in titles and texts -- and then in particular the style of the unveiling has the power of a moment as poignant and pregnant as the moment when a bride is unveiled at a wedding.
The Brides of Elucidation on the Verses of the Qur'an
Ruzbihan Baqli, (522/1128-606/1209)‘Ara’is al-bayan al-haqa’iq al-qur’an (The Brides of Elucidation of the Realities of the Qur’an, pp. 590-595)
Ruzbihan has chosen the symbol of the bride and has described their role. What do thje "brides" of the Qur'an do in their "bridal" intimacy?: The Brides elucidate the realities of the qur'an. In this "marriage of meaning" reading, the immortality symbols in Ruzbihan's commentary will elucidate a reality of the Qur'an. The root word bayyan means to make something clear, to clarify, with a slight sense of light up. So when we take on such a text, we have to account for how we face reading and interpreting a text that is addressed to existential life crises while transcribing those existential crises to eternal symbols of immortlaity so that we know or can tell ourselves we're immortal.
Muslims have even developed a general sense that there are four immortal Prophets: Enoch, Elijah, Jesus, The Green Man. Each of these four figures is a prominent immortality figure among Muslims and many Christians and Jews. So Muslims will inevitable read the story of Moses and the Green Man as a story thast has a backdrop of the question of immortality and mortality.
So the wedding is a sacred symbol of a lasting trust. And Ruzbihan has chosen to put this metaphor in the title of the text he has written. Now in addition to the ways that weddings evoke lasting values and institutions, Muslims see the Qur'an as a symbol of immortality. The text is Umm al-Kitab, the "Mother of the Book." The Qur'an was written on the "Eternal Tablet (lawhun al-mahfuz. The first sign of the Qur'an is the pen. In the first revealed portion of the Qur'an the Qur'an speaks of the meaning of the pen. The Prophet Muhammad points out that the inventor of the pen is an immortal Prophet named Idris (also the first tailor).
Ruzbihan (brightly shining day) was born in Shiraz in 1128 and died there in 1209. In 1181 he began writing his spiritual diaries. They require a very rigorous hermeneutic and exegesis. Are these realistic descriptions, written in analogy, allegory, etc? Ruzbihan holds the reputation of being the pre-eminent among all ecstatics, the "second coming" of Beyazid Bestami, a kin to the soul and heart of al-Hallaj. Ruzbihan excelled because he combined scholarly skill with mystical experience.
Because tangible teaching transmission so frequently stands at the center of Sufi training and culture, we can learn much about the master-disciple mentoring relationship by watching and studying how Ruzbihan intertextually reads and writes about the story of Moses and Khidr.
(1) We would like to understand how Ruzbihan practiced his master-disciple mentoring relationships and
(2) We would like to research how his writing about the relationship between Khidr and Moses reflects his own life experiences with that question or in those relationships.
and
(3) We would like to clarify what Ruzbihan wants us to understand about the master-disciple relationship that we can particularly learn from the story of the journey of Moses and Khidr.
As a subset of these questions, especially the last, we will find ourselves searching for answers to these questions as well. How does Ruzbihan expand on the motifs in the story to construct a symbolic code in the interpretive framework of his commentary? Do we find any clues or indications about the role of transference on the teacher as part of the technique of the transmission. Does the initiatic transmission require transference? Is transference a dynamic of the transmission process? why did Moses not suceed?
Ruzbihan understands the difference between Moses' two famous landmark journies: the days of witnessing on Sinai to receive the law and this journey of aspiration (irada, desiring, intention, mentorship, master-disciple relationship.
Ruzbihan locates the problem in the heart and ascribes to a lack of balance between the mind and heart.
"When they lost their way (tariq), they did not undertake the journey (yasra’ ) according to the heart, and fatigue (nasab) weighed them down. And that was through Allah’s instruction to them (ta‘lim Allah) to go beyond the limit. The inner sense (sirr) in the heart may apprehend wisdoms of the unseen (hikam al-ghayb), but the heart and the intellect did not know these [wisdoms]. The soul (nafs) was brought to suffering in injury (adha’) through its ignorance of this [i.e., the wisdoms of the unseen (hikam al-ghayb)]. Had the heart and the soul known [this] as much as the inner sense (sirr) did, they [heart and soul] would not have been overcome by the dictates of exhaustion (ahkam al-ta‘ab) or been enveloped by fatigue (nasab), no matter how much they were in the station of struggle (mujahada) and testing" [p. 590]
Then Ruzbihan explictly identifies that Moses is supported by the Haqq, the Truth, Reality, and Right:
"When he [Moses] was seeking mediation (wasita), he was veiled from the station of the witnessing (mushahada) and suffered in his striving (mujahada). And it was Truth that trained him (addabahu al-haqq) in this [matter] so it did not occur to him that he had something of the knowledge of divine realities (‘ulum al-haqa’iq ), because the Exalted is jealous of whoever pretends to attain the secret of secrets. For that reason God sent him to learn (ta‘allum) the knowledge of the unseen (‘ilm al-ghayb). The Teacher [al-Qushayri] said Moses was burdened (mahtamal) in this journey."
Of Ruzbihan's tafsir on 18.60 he says that a journey of training differs from the station of witnessing. This difference accounts for why his time on Sinai was easy and here he must, because of the type of training bear hardship. Hardship is a part of the training. It is also a journey of training. This motif evokes the wayfaring "salik" and syas the wayfarer is also in training.
As Annemarie Schimmel points out,m the transformation is envisioned either as a journey, an alchemical transmutation or an erotic love romance. In that framework, this story is a story of a journey and the word "journey" as a choice of term acknowledges that Sufism is a discipline which may be understood using the model of a journey.
Wasting no time, Ruzbihan jumps to the verse that first presents Khidr. Ruzbihan uses Khidr as an example that shows the existence of special saints. Ruzbihan sets up a framework for understanding their particular nature. Ruzbihan uses particular Sufi motifs of the "people of the unseen," and the "people of the secret." But Ruzbihan is also working rhetorical invocations by weaving in paradoxical utterances:
“And he found a servant from among Our servants.” (18.65a)
In this there is a hidden indication that God, Glorified be He, has certain selected [khawassan] servants. They are those whom He selected for gnosis (ma‘rifa) from the sciences of Lordship (‘ulum al-rububiya), the secrets of unicity, the realities of wisdom and subtle graces of His angelic and majestic realms (malakutihi wa jabarutihi) that He reserves for himself. They [these selected ones (khawass)] are the people of the unseen, [the people of] the unseen of the unseen, [the people of] the secret, and [the people of] the secret of the secret. [Ruzbihan, A'rais al-bayyan]
Ruzbiihan reaches the parapdoxical point of pronouncing his relationship to "the people of the secret of the secret." This type of mystical utterance works performatively to evoke the presence of God by invoking the question of finitude and mortality: facing your own death. Whatever is obscure, transcendent, symbolic, or mystical evokes the everyday situation that we know that we and other things die and we participate in a symbolic dimension. In the eyes, ears and hands of the artist, the transmission may float over their heads. Certainly Ruzbihan runs us into running into the risk of Ruzbihan's writings riding straight over our heads. But that very confusion evokes an experience of the ineffable sacred. It actually suggests and intimates the existence of a realm of immortality. The Green Man al-Khidr, the protagonist of the story from the Qur'an around which Ruzbihan's commentary revolves is an immortal and represents and reminds us of our dual life of mortal animal and infinite etyernal inner symbolic being.
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