| Excerpts From Kashf al Mahjub |
| Abdallah b. Mabbarak has said, �Gnosis is not being astonished by anything�, while Shibli has declared, �Gnosis is continual amazement (hayrat).� Amazement is of two kinds: |
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| (Pages:267-277) |
| Gnosis of God |
| � Amazement at the essence &
� Amazement at quality |
| Gnostics� Comments about Gnosis |
| �I am the most eloquent of the Arabs and non-Arabs�; |
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| The former is polytheism and infidelity, since no doubt is allowed regarding essential nature of God, but the later is gnosis, because quality of God lies beyond reason�s scope. Dhu `l Nun the Egyptian has said, �Gnosis is in reality God�s providential communication of the spiritual light to our inmost hearts,� i.e. until God, in His providence, illuminates the heart of Man and keeps it from contamination, so that all created things have not even the worth of a mustard-seed in his heart, the contemplation of Divine mysteries, both inward and outward, does not overwhelm him with rapture. Abu Yazid has said, �Gnosis consists in knowing that the motion and rest of mankind depend on God,� and that without his permission no one has the least control of His kingdom. Muhammad b. Wasi has thus described Gnostics: �His words are few and his amazement perpetual.� Shibli has added, �Real gnosis is the inability to attain gnosis,� i.e. inability to know a thing, to the real nature of which a man has no clue except the impossibility of attaining it. |
| Who and What am I? |
| Passion for Gnosis |
| �O Muhammad, if thou speakest not, I will speak; if thou deemest thyself umworthy to praise Me, I will make the Universe thy deputy, that all its atoms may praise Me in thy name.� |
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| A man always faces such question on way when Allah The Almighty is the object of Man�s search and the accomplisher of their prayers and the author of their amazement. When he knows God he sees himself entirely subdued by the Divine Omnipotence. Hazrat Muhammad (SAW) has said, |
| � He who knows himself has come to know his Lord,� |
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| i.e. he who knows himself to be annihilated knows God to be eternally subsistent. Annihilation destroys the reason and all human attributes, and when the substance
of a thing is not assessable to reason it cannot possibly be known without amazement. |
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| Abu Hafs Haddad has said: �Since I have known God, neither truth nor falsehood has entered my heart.� When a man feels desire and passion he turns to the soul (dil) in order that it may guide him to the lower soul (nafs), which is the seat of falsehood; and when he finds the evidence of gnosis, he also turns to the soul in order that it may guide him to the spirit, which is the source of truth and reality.
Abu Bakr Wasiti has said, � He who knows God is cut off from all things, nay, he is dumb and abject, i.e. he is unable to express anything and all his attributes are annihilated. So Hazrat Muhammad (SAW) as he was in state of absence has said, |
| but when he was borne to the presence of God, he said: |
| �I know not how to utter Thy praise.� |
| Answer came: |
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