Gods relation to nature may be understood by analysing the idea expressed in the words, I myself. This affirmation means the one individual; at the same time it identifies the dual aspect of the One. In this phrase I is the possessor, and myself is the possessed. So also God, the unmanifested, is the possessor; and Muhammadan Reality, the manifestation, is the possessed, which has its source hidden within itself. The possessed could not have been created from anything other than the possessors own self, as there existed none but the possessor. Although the possessor and the possessed are considered to be two separate identities, in reality they are one. God is regarded from three points of view: personality, morality, and reality. According to the first view, God is the most high; man is dependent upon Him and is His most obedient servant. According to the second view, God is the all-merciful and all-good Master of the Day of Judgement, while all evil is from Satan. The third is the philosophic view that God is the beginning and end of all, having Himself no beginning nor end. As a Sufi mystic has said, The universe is the manifestation of the attributes of Allah, where from His own unity He created, by involution, variety — the state of various names and forms — , thereby distinguished as Allah, worthy of all praise and worship. DUAL ASPECT According to Sufi tenets the two aspects of the supreme Being are termed Zá t (Divine Essence) and Sifat (Divine Attributes), the Knower and the Known. The former is Allah and the latter is Haqiqat al-Muhammadiyya. Zát being only one in its existence, cannot be called by more than one name, which is Allah; and Sifat, being manifold in four different involutions, has numerous names, the sum of them all being termed Mohammedan Reality. The ascending and descending forms of Zát and Sifat form the circle of the Absolute. These two forces are called Nuzul and Uruj, which means involution and evolution. Nuzul begins from Zát and ends in Sifat; Uruj starts from Sifat and ends in Zát, Zát being the negative and Sifat the positive force. Zát projects Sifat from its own self and absorbs it within itself. It is a rule of philosophy that the negative cannot lose its negativeness by projecting the positive from itself, though the positive covers the negative within itself, as the flame covers the fire. The positive has no independent existence, yet it is real because projected from the real, and it may not be regarded as an illusion. Human ignorance persists in considering Zát to be separate from Sifat, and Sifat independent of Zát.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 14:38:50 +0000