Zaburi Ajam [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

QUESTION 8

Explanatory Note
This Question corresponds to
Question 7 of Shabistari. It deals with the significance of the cry an al-Haqq of
Hallaj.
This famous cry of Hallaj has
been universally accepted by pantheistic mystics to be the main slogan of their creed. It
was Ibn al-Arabi who first utilised this utterance in support of his philosophy. After
him, 'Attar, Shabistari, Iraqi, and others have followed suit. According to the theory,
Being is-One and the Real has no duality. The distinction of One and Many has no place in
the unity of Being. When a mystic attains self-annihilation, he becomes eternal with God
and for him all things are God and so he has every right to say "I am God."
Being and Existence are one and that is the Real, Haqq. All objects of the world
which appear to have independent being are in reality non-existent and illusory; they are
mere shadows. Time-past, present, and futures unreal. It is an imaginary point which is
ever-fleeting and we call it a running stream. Even what we call substance is, according
to the Ash'arite theory, nothing but composed of accidents which continually change,
appear, and disappear. The three dimensions of things are relative and therefore unreal.
Such is the reality of the phenomenal world on which we have relied so much. The
conclusion, therefore, is that since there is no God, you are at liberty to say either -He
is God" or Being except "I am God."
But, as modern research has
proved, Hallaj was not a pantheist at all. He was a confirmed dualist and believed in the
transcendence of God. According to Iqbal, this utterance was a vivid expression of the
depth of religious experience which Hallaj was able to reach in his spiritual development.
It was the unique example of the vital way of appropriating the universe, by which the
individual not only experiences the Ultimate Ego but is also able to discover the true
significance of his own ego in relation to Him. Massignon, the French Orientalist, who
published Hallaj's works, has rendered an al-Haqq as "I am the Creative
Truth," which brings out the real spirit of the cry. After attaining the highest
point, the whole being of the ego is deepened and the individual seems to partake of the
freedom and creativity of the Ultimate Ego. But this in no way implies any loss of
distinct individuality at all, nor did Hallaj contemplate any such pantheistic union.
"The true interpretation of his experience, therefore, is not the drop slipping into
the sea, but the realisation and bold affirmation in an undying phase of the reality and
permanence of the human ego in a profounder personality."⁵
In view of the creed of
self-negation of the mystic and scholastics, Hallaj's an al-Haqq was a sort of
challenge, and Iqbal in his days tried to follow Hallaj in emphasising the important role
of the self. He argues in the Cartesian fashion that we can doubt the existence of each
and everything, the world of objective nature and the knowledge gained through senses, but
we cannot doubt the existence of the ego which doubts and thinks. Referring to the
metaphysical difficulties involved in the act of perception, he says that the external
world is apparent and yet needs proof, but the ego is above all these doubts and, though
hidden, its reality and, existence is beyond all misgivings.
But unless it is ripened and
perfected by creative activity, the ego cannot hope to attain everlasting life. "The
resurrection," as Iqbal puts it, " ... is not an external event. It is the
consummation of a life process within the ego." ⁶ Personal immortality in
the case of man is not attainable as a matter of right " it depends upon 'personal
effort while God's immortality is elemental and not,conditioned by any efforts, on His
part. This doctrine of conditional immortality serves to emphasise the activist role of
human life.