Now the rational soul in man abounds in marvels both of knowledge and power. By means of it he masters arts and sciences, can pass in a flesh from earth to heaven and back again, can map out the skies and measure the distances between the stars. By it also, he can draw the biggest fish from the sea and the remotest birds from the air, and can subdue beasts to his services like the elephant, the camel, the horse and the like. His five senses are like five doors opening on the external world; but, more wonderful than this, his heart has a window which opens on the unseen world of spirits. In the state of sleep, when the avenues of the senses are closed, this window is opened and man receives impressions from the unseen world and sometimes foreshadowings of the future. His heart is then like a mirror which reflects what is pictured in the Table of Fate. But even in sleep, thoughts of worldly things dull the mirror so that the impressions it receives are not clear. After death, however, such thoughts vanish and things are seen in their naked reality, and the word of God is fulfilled:
“Thou wast heedless of this (end); We have now removed the veil from your eyes and so thy sight today is piercing” (V – 22).
This opening of a window in the heart towards the unseen also takes place in conditions approaching those of prophetic inspiration, when intuitions spring up in the mind unconveyed through any sense-channel. The more a man purifies himself from carnal passions and concentrates his mind on God (by strictly following the teachings of the Prophet and abiding by the instructions of the Koran), the more conscious will he be of such intuitions. Those who are not conscious of them have no right to deny their reality.
Just as iron, by sufficient polishing, can be made into a mirror, so any heart by due discipline can be rendered receptive of such impressions. But some hearts are like mirrors so contaminated with rust and dirt, that they reflect no clear reflections, while those of the Prophets and saints, though they are men born with human passions, are extremely sensitive of all divine impressions. The Koran refers to such contaminated hearty by saying.
ßáÇ Èá ÑÇä Úáì ÞáæÈåã ãÇ ßÇäæÇ íßÓÈæä .
“No! indeed their hearts were rusted (contaminated) by their (bad) deeds” (LXXXIII – 14).
The soul of man is capable of holding the first rank among created things, and this not only by reason of knowledge acquired and intuitive, but also by reason of power. Just as angels preside over the elements, so also does the soul rule the members of the body.
The Perception of Truth
Just as no one known the real nature of God but God Himself. Nor is this to be wondered at, as in everyday matters we see that it is impossible to explain the charm of poetry to one whose ear is insusceptible to cadence and rhythm, or the glories of colour to one who is stone-blind. Besides mere capacity, there are other hindrances to the attainment of spiritual truth. One of these is externally acquired knowledge. To use an illustration, the heart may be represented as a well, and the five senses as five streams which are continually discharging water into it.
In order to find out the real contents of the heart, these streams must be stopped for a time, at any rate, and the refuse they have brought with them must be cleared out of the well. in other words, if we are to arrive at pure spiritual truth, we must put away for the time any knowledge which has been acquired by external processes and which too often hardens into dogmatic prejudice.
According to Islamic spiritual experience, happiness, the ideal of every human being, is necessarily linked with the knowledge of God. Each faculty of ours delights in that for which it is created. Lust delights in accomplishing desire, anger in taking vengeance, the eye in seeing beautiful objects, and the ear in hearing harmonious sounds. The highest function of the soul of men is perception of truth; in this accordingly it finds its special delight. As a matter of course, the higher the object matter of the knowledge obtained, the greater we delight. A man would be pleased at being admitted the confidence of a prime minister, but how much more if an emperor makes an intimate of him and disposes state secrets to him!
Seeing then that nothing is higher than God, how great must be the delight which springs from the knowledge of Him.
A person in whom the desire for this knowledge has disappeared is like one who has lost his appetite for wholesome food; all bodily appetites perish at death with the organs they use, but the soul dies not, and retains what knowledge of God it possesses, nay, increases it.
An important part of our knowledge of God arises room the study and contemplation of our own bodies, which reveal to us the power, wisdom, and love of the Creator. His power is that from a mere drop he has built up the wonderful frame of man; his wisdom is revealed in its intricacies and the mutual adaptability of its parts, and His love is shown by His not only supplying such organs as are absolutely necessary for existence, as the liver, the heart, and the brain, but those which are not absolutely necessary, but are added as ornaments, such as the colour of the hair, the redness of the lips, also the eyelashes, and the curve of the eyebrow, etc.
The Steed and its Rider
Man has been truly termed a “microcosm” or a little world in himself, and the structure of his body should be studied not only by those who wish to become physicians, but by those who wish to attain to a more intimate knowledge of God, just as a close study of the niceties and shades of language in a great poem reveals to us more and more of the genius of its author.
But, when all is said, the knowledge of the soul plays a more important part in leading to the knowledge of our body and its functions. The body may be compared to a steed and the soul to its rider, the body was created for the soul, the soul for the body. If a man knows not his own soul, which is the nearest thing to him, how can he have claim to know others ?
A man who neglects his soul and suffers its capacities to rust or to degenerate, must necessarily be the loser in this world and the next. To this the Holy Koran refers saying:
“Whoever is blind (in this world), he shall also be blind in the hereafter and in more need of light to guide him” (XVII – 72).
In another verse, the faithful, the righteous, and the godly shall have light on that day, while the wicked and the undutiful will have no light as if they were stone-blind.
“On that day thou shalt see the true believers with their light streaming before them and on their right” (XVII-13).
The true greatness of man lies in his capacity for eternal progress, otherwise in this temporal sphere he is the weakest of all things, being subject to hunger, thirst, heat, cold and sorrow. These things in which he takes most delight are often the most injurious to him, and these things which benefit him are not to be obtained without toil and trouble. As to his intellect, a slight disarrangement of matter in his brain is sufficient to destroy or madden him; as to his power, the sting of a wasp is sufficient to rob him of ease and sleep; as to his temper he is upset by the loss of a shilling. In truth, man in this world is extremely weak and contemptible; it is only in the next world that he will be of value, if by means of the Islamic alchemy of happiness he has risen from the ranks of animals to that of angels.
Otherwise his condition will be worse than the brutes, which perish and turn to dust. It is necessary for him, at the same time, that he is conscious of his superiority as the climax of created things, to learn to known also his helplessness, as that too is one of the keys to the knowledge of God.
2- The Knowledge of God
He who knows himself knows God, that is by contemplation of his own being and attributes, man arrives at some knowledge of God. But since many who con template themselves do not find God, it follows that there must be some special way of doing so. When a man considers himself he knows that there was a time when he was non-existent, as it is written in the Koran:
“Does it not occur to man that he was not a thing that could be spoken of” (LXXVI-1).
Furthermore, he knows that he was made out of a drop of water in which there was neither intellect nor hearing, sight, head, hands, feet, etc. It is obvious that whatever degree of perfection he might have arrived at, he did not make himself nor could he ever make a single hair. How much more helpless, then, was his condition when he was a mere drop of water!
