Islamic Inlightment

                                                
Starts with Name of God

In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most MercifulA verse from the Holy Quran

He is Allah the Creator the Evolver the Bestower of Forms (or colors). To Him belong the Most Beautiful Names: Whatever is in the heavens and on earth doth declare His Praises and Glory: and He is the exalted in Might the Wise.

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Danger posed by Gnostic Imagery and Illuminations

Danger posed by Gnostic Imagery and Illuminations

All those who have studied the development of mysticism in Islam and other religions have reached the conclusion that intuitive religious perception culminating into gnostic imagery, beatific visions and illuminations and the ascetic-mystical attitudes claiming a theosophical link with the Unknown, which very often lead to make the apocalyptic a characteristic form of such intuitive experiences, open the gates of dubious claims and antinomian tendencies. For the source of such intuitive perceptions is oftentimes the predilection of the mystic, or his circumstances, or even devilish illusion, those who lay a claim to these illuminations sometimes become, consciously or unconsciously, impious ministers of evil. The habits and customs, subconscious delusions, distorted impression, traditional beliefs, mythological conceptions and the circumstances under which a mystic undertakes the journey of spirit, all combine to shape the pattern of his mystical experience.1 Several of those masters who have had a practical experience of beatific visions and illuminations assert that it is virtually not possible for the mystical experiences to be completely free from the beliefs and traditions of the mystic or even the circumstances attending these perceptions.2

1. Mirza Ghulam Ahmed Qadiani says in one of his couplets: Imperfect was so long the humanity’s garden, My advent gave it the pink of perfection.

2. Six Lectures on the Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam pp.176-77.

3. For a detailed account of this menace see the author’s “Qadianism___A Critical Study” brought out by the Academy of Islamic Research and Publications.

Therefore, if any body considers theophanic vision or divine inspiration to be indispensable for salvation or perfection of faith, he commends the optional to be obligatory.3 The prescripts of this type obviously mistreat the simplicity of the faith, injure universal principles of Islam and open the door to confusion and intellectual anarchy as was done by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani. The latter had also set up mystical experiences, spiritual visions and intuition as a necessary out come of meditation and travails, and as an evidence of true faith. He had expressed the view that a religion which denied such intuition was dead or rather devilish, and led its followers to the Hell. If the puritans and ascetics of any religion, he claimed, were not rewarded with transports and illuminations, then they were wayward and blind.1

1. Dr. Sir Mohammed Iqbal has alluded to this mistaken form of mystical experience with his characteristic insight into the philosophical and intuitive thought. He says :

“I dare say the founder of Ahmadiyya movement did hear a voice; but whether this voice came from the God of Life and Power or arose out of the spiritual impoverishment of the people must depend upon the nature of the movement which it has created and the kind of thought and emotion which it has given to those who have listened to it.”

(Islam and Ahmadism, p.17)

Then he proceeds to conclude in the same paper ___

“Thus all the actors who participated in the drama of Ahmadism were, I think, only innocent instruments in the hands of decadence.” (Islam and Ahmadism, p.17)

The same idea has been expressed by Iqbal more trenchantly in one of his couplets which reads:

Save us God, from the revelation of the serf,

it lays the people in ruins like Chinghez !

2. Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi Mujaddid Alf Thani (d. 1624) has enunciated the matter in some detail in his letters in which he explains, on the basis of personal experience, that pure and unalloyed intellect as well as untainted mystic experience are unthinkable. He had thus anticipated Emmanul Kant, the German philosopher, by two hundred years, who, too, in his Critique of Pure Reason’ expressed doubt in the capability of pure intellect or reason to arrive at a conclusion not influenced by the circumstances, heredity, habits, beliefs and customs. Mujaddid Alf Thani, however, goes a step further than Kant, and throws light on the non-existence of pure intuition and spiritual experience. (See Maktubat Mujaddi Alf Thani, Vol. I, letter No. 266 to Khwaja Abdullah and others.)

3. Saiyid Muhammed binYusuf Hussain of Jaunpur (1443-1504) the founder of the Mahdawiyah sect. had declared that “if a man is denied the vision of God in this world, that is, he fails to have gnostic perception either in a state of consciousness or in dream, then he is not a Muslim: This pronouncement had sent the whole of Indian Muslim society in the tenth century, extending from the eastern part of the country to Afghanistan in the west, in a flutter. It had caused such a trepidation that the view put forth by Saiyid Muhammad had become a burning topic of discussion in all the cricks of religious scholars and courts of the Muslim Kings. Saiyid Muhammad was a pious and godly soul, truthful and sincere, who had not only attained the higher stages of spirituality but was also known for his religious zeal, yet his intuition was faulty for he claimed to be the ‘Promised Messiah’ or the Messiah predicted to appear at he end of time in some of the Traditions. He thus, commended Muslims to Join their faith in certain things which were by no means obligatory.

(For a detailed account:

see Hayat-i-Pak by Maulvi Mahmood Yadallahi Mahdawi).

4. Barahin-i Ahamadiyah, Vol. V, p. 183

Such a proposition of religious truth is so manifestly wrong that it need not be discussed in any detail. The companions of the prophet of Islam were trained and guided under prophetic care; They had absorbed the teachings of the Quran as no other generation of Muslims ever did after them, nor can the later Muslims of any age claim to equal them as the best exemplars of virtue and goodness; for it was through their efforts that the message of Islam was carried to the four corners of the world. Yet, none of them ever claimed gnostic vision of reality nor did anyone of them demand conformity with the content of a deep and spiritual experience. No companion the Prophet ever laid a claim to the communion with On High, nor we find them in competition in the ways of mystical-ascetic disciplines, nor yet history records any incident that anyone of them expressed regrets for not being raised to higher plane of spiritual consciousness. How, then, can any Muslim deem it necessary to seek or stress intuitive perception of the inner content of faith?

It has happened several times in the past, as History of religion tells us, that separatist movements based on an individual’s experiences or claims develop into extremist factions which gradually cut themselves adrift from the parent community. Such schisms very soon declare the rest of the Muslims as apostates, diverge into a new religion and give rise to intricate problems which defy solution even by the combined effort of the whole community, their leaders and religious mentors

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