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Seekest thou Laila
[Divine Reality]
“Muhammad
al-Harraq (d. 1845): "Seekest thou Laila [Divine Reality], when she
is manifest within thee? Thou deemest her to be other, but she is not
other than thou." Jalal al-Din Rumi (d.1273): "Though the many
ways [diverse religions] are various, the goal is one. Do you not see
there are many roads to the Kaaba?"
In
some Sufi orders the goal of the mystical quest is "personified as a
woman, usually named Laila which means ‘night’... this is the holiest
and most secret inwardness of Allah... in this symbolism Laila and haqiqa
(Divine Reality) are one." This, and the above statements appear to
be distinctly contrary to Muslim orthodoxy in their blatant echoes of
Eastern mystic religions. Yet, for Sufis this is not a problem. As Ibn ‘Arabi
stated,
My
heart has become capable of every form: it is a pasture for gazelles and a
convent for Christians, and a temple for idols and the pilgrims Ka‘ba
and the tables of the Torah, and the book of the Koran. I follow the
religion of Love: whatever way Love’s camels take, that is my religion
and faith.
Another
Sufi saint, Mahmud Shabistari, in his work Gulshan-i Raz (The Mystic Rose
Garden) concurs, declaring, "what is mosque, what is synagogue, what
is fire temple? ... ‘I’ and ‘You’ are the Hades veil between
them.. When this veil is lifted up from before you, there remains not the
bond of sects and creeds."
Thus,
not only has Sufism been influenced by other religions, but its
mystic quest for spirituality has led it to embrace all sorts of
religion, as abundantly shown in the writings of the great Sufi
saints. To try to deny this as a scholar is incomprehensible.
Yet, those scholars who are sympathetic towards Islam, as
previously shown, have a marked tendency to minimize or
altogether ignore these facts.”
William
Van Doodewaard, Sufism: The Mystical Side of Islam
(U. of Western Ontario, London, Canada: 1996)
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