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SUFISM AS METAPHYSICS

SUFISM AS METAPHYSICS. UNTIVE DOCTRINES AMONG MUSLIM MYSTICS. INTELLECTUAL IDENTITY OF SUFISM. Self-contained because elements of other traditions more fully integrated Beyond psychological analysis and mythical cosmology to systematic metaphysics

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SUFISM AS METAPHYSICS

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  1. SUFISM AS METAPHYSICS UNTIVE DOCTRINES AMONG MUSLIM MYSTICS

  2. INTELLECTUAL IDENTITY OF SUFISM • Self-contained because elements of other traditions more fully integrated • Beyond psychological analysis and mythical cosmology to systematic metaphysics • The work of intellectualizing Sufis with mystical experiences • At social level Sufism = spiritual cement • At intellectual level Sufism = unified all intellectual strands

  3. MYSTICISM AND METAPHYSICS • Paradoxical, contradicts the ineffability of mystical experience • Sufis handle question of metaphysics with much greater imagination • Connected with moral discipline of the self and probing of consciousness • Reality dimensions of reality require intensive discipline of consciousness

  4. HOW TO READ SUFI METAPHYSICIANS? • Description of Reality on the basis of what was required to make moral and aesthetic sense of the universe as we confront it • Sufis backed up their statements with an appeal to special experience • No given verbal formulation as absolute, an image indicating one aspect of a truth • Generally favor ‘unitive’ formulations

  5. UNITIVE MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE • Multiplicity and change we see about us is somehow illusory • Nothing is real but what can be identified as divine • “Everything is perishing except God’s face” suggests not only transience of things otherwise perfectly real, but some consequential falsity in our perception of them

  6. NOTHING IS REAL BUT GOD • Pantheist? (seems to define ‘God’ so as to include all that most people would call ‘real’ • Monist? (seems to say that all that appears, however complex, is of one divine substance • If so, is God also morally responsible like humans?

  7. TWO GREAT SUFI METAPHYSICIANS • Two contrasting forms of unitive mysticism • Shihabuddin Yahya Suhrawardi, known as Shaykh al-Ishraq (Master of Illumination) (d. 1191), philosopher of Divine Light • Muhyiddin Ibn al-`Arabi, known as al-Shaykh al-Akbar (the Greatest Master) (d. 1240), elaborated the Sufi idea of the ‘perfect man’

  8. MORAL UNITY OF GOD’S CREATION • Tawhid: affirming in thought and in life the ‘unity’, the singularity of the Divine and its moral demands • Instead of historical commitment, intellectually, such a summons call for a unitive metaphysics to tie the whole together

  9. THE LIGHT OF GOD • Unitive idea of total reality: God is the Light of the heavens and the earth • Light applies more properly to our relation to God as revealer than to our relation to the material sun • No sharp distinction can be drawn between God’s relation to us as revealer and God’s relation to us as creator and sustainer

  10. METAPHYSICS OF LIGHT YAHYA SUHRAWARDI’S UNIVERSAL LIGHT

  11. THE CONCEPT OF LIGHT • Universal Light: by means of which and through which all things grow • Revelation generalized to include not merely divine guidance of humans who submit, but all divine direction of the universe • God intervenes to draw creatures towards Divine norms = Universal Light

  12. REVELATION, GUIDANCE, SUSTENANCE • God’s creative action = the ultimate substance of all things in their infinite differentiation • Darkness of inert materiality merely potentiality, in which the actuality of the Light can shine • Everything an expression of a single divine energy = Light from its most tangible pure form

  13. MICROCOSMIC RETURN • Self-fulfillment of the light in total awareness of the Light • Human responsibility to allow the light in oneself to shine fully • Responding to the life challenge embodied in the Qur’an

  14. UNITIVE METAPHYSICS OF LIGHT • Founded on three sorts of clarity: • logical rational consciousness • formal essences of whatever is (things intelligible to the mind) • the physical medium of perception, that is, light interpreted as ‘thermal energy’ (which seemingly include sound waves) • Inherent ‘nobility’ of things (less noble cannot be the cause of more noble)

  15. THE VISIBLE LIGHT • In some sense concrete, even contingent • Actuality of the Light founded upon the Qur’anic urgency • Combining the moral decisiveness of monotheistic tradition ( a person’s single lifetime) with the sense of unity of nature (the gradation of souls) • Souls as individual lights (energies) trapped in the dark material bodies, capable of self- purification

  16. THE WISDOM OF ILLUMINATION • Exclusive reality of the Light and the crucial character of the soul’s ascent in the Light • Individual soul has a great and meaningful part to play

  17. METAPHYSICS OF LOVE IBN AL-`ARABI : THE SYNTHESIZER OF PHILOSOPHY AND MYSTICISM

  18. FUTUHAT AL-MAKIYYA(MECCAN REVELATIONS) • Intensely allusive and deliberately made confusing • Sources: Sufi mythopoetic writings, Ash`ari and Mu`tazili theology, Batini-Isma`ili speculations, older philosophical heritage • More literary than scientific or historical • Relied more on personal experience and taste

  19. REVELATION • Arises from the essence of the person receiving it, not from an arbitrary external event • Single focus on the perfecting of microcosmic return as a vehicle for a complete and systematic metaphysical doctrine

  20. WAHDAT AL-WUJUD • “The Oneness of Existence” = all that is or might be as manifestations of the various beautiful names of God, God’s attributes, as understood by way of mystical love • Existence = God’s self-objectification in love • The One reality was at once one and many in different perspectives

  21. TRUE ONENESS =MICROCOSMIC RETURN • Human beings become actual by loving response to the inspiring love of the divine Actuality • Divine love universal, will dissolve Hell • Whatever human loves, by his very existence he is imperfectly loving God • Most self-centered passions = misplaced piety

  22. AL-HALLAJ AND IBN `ARABI • Hallaj sees human nature as playing a cosmic role as a mirror of divine nature and its attributes, with which it is united in longing and love • Human condition: between ultimate unity and felt separation, resolved by death • Ibn al-`Arabi sees the tension as a logical necessary condition

  23. THE BEZELS OF WISDOM • Qur’anic commentary by the various prophets mentioned in the Qur’an • Moses and Pharaoh: both endowed with esoteric knowledge • The mood of ultimacy • God’s unity not so much oriented to the moral or rational purity, but to God’s omnipotence and omnieffectiveness

  24. EVIL AND LOVE • Neither imperfection nor opposition nor even unavoidable result of freedom • A veiled expression of God’s majesty • Perfect Man - able to unveil God’s majesty by loving God • Love - empirical as well as theoretical • Intensity of response in terms of love

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