Читать книгу The Kashf al-mahjúb: The oldest Persian treatise on Súfiism онлайн

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This controversy dates from the time of Abu ´l-Ḥasan Sumnún. He, on occasions when he was in a state of revelation (kashf) akin to subsistence (baqá), used to set Poverty above Purity; and on being asked by spiritualists (arbáb-i ma`ání) why he did so, he replied: “Inasmuch as I naturally delight in annihilation and abasement, and no less in subsistence and exaltation, I prefer Purity to Poverty when I am in a state akin to annihilation, and Poverty to Purity when I am in a state akin to subsistence; for Poverty is the name of subsistence and Purity that of annihilation. In the latter state I annihilate from myself the sight (consciousness) of subsistence, and in the former state I annihilate from myself the sight of annihilation, so that my nature becomes dead both to annihilation and to subsistence.” Now this, regarded as an explanation (`ibárat), is an excellent saying, but neither annihilation nor subsistence can be annihilated: every subsistent thing that suffers annihilation is annihilated from itself, and every annihilated thing that becomes subsistent is subsistent from itself. Annihilation is a term of which it is impossible to speak hyperbolically. If a person says that annihilation is annihilated, he can only be expressing hyperbolically the non-existence of any vestige of the idea of annihilation; but so long as any vestige of existence remains, annihilation has not yet come to pass; and when it has been attained, the “annihilation” thereof is nothing but self-conceit flattered by meaningless phrases. In the vanity and rashness of youth I composed a discourse of this kind, entitled the “Book of Annihilation and Subsistence” (Kitáb-i Faná ú Baqá), but in the present work I will set forth the whole matter with caution, please God the Almighty and Glorious.