Fakhruddin Iraqi

[Lathief]

'IRAQI

You are the world -
But how can You be seen?
Are you not the soul as well?
Yet how can You be hidden?
How can You be manifest?
For You are occult always.
Yet how can You be hidden
When You are eternally seen?
Hidden, manifest,
Both at once. . . .
You are not this, not that -
Yet both at once.
If You are Everything
Then who are all these people?
And if I am nothing
What's all this noise about?
Lama 'at 'IRAQI

Plotinus declared that insight, reason and experience must concur
for anyone to claim to know truly. In Islam, as in all formal religions
based upon revelation, experience is supplanted by the afflatus of the
revelation - the Qu'ran and the hadith or traditional sayings
attributed to Muhammad. This aspect of putative spiritual knowledge is
guarded and protected by the mutakallimum, or theologians, and the
'ulama, those who understand Qu'ranic law. The Mu'tazalite movement
introduced reasoned deliberation into Islamic studies by appealing to
the power of the intellect and to everyday experience. The Sufis
respected both traditions but supplemented the prerequisites for
spiritual knowledge by shuhud, contemplation, and dhawq, the intuitive
perception that comes from direct experience. Whilst the theologians
speak reverently of Allah (God), the philosophers refer everything to
wajib al-wujud, necessary being; and the Sufis, freely using a galaxy
of terms, are drawn towards al-haqq, the Real, and wahdat al-wujud, the
radical unity of being. Although the inner freedom of the Sufi mystic
leaves the theologian and the philosopher wary, a religion without
priestcraft cannot deny the intrinsic possibility of theophany. Nor
does it prevent the mystic from professing a profound faith and
philosophical understanding. As the Muslim theologian learnt to plead
for faith, the philosopher gave voice to hope, and the Sufi became the
spokesman par excellence for divine love. The upsurge of creative
thought in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries produced a minor golden
age for Sufi Teachings, and Fakhruddin 'Iraqi emerged as a bright star
in that select constellation of luminaries which lights the way for
others.

A month before Fakhruddin Ibrahim was born, his father dreamed of
'Ali, the son-in-law of Muhammad and patron of Sufis. Someone placed a
child on the ground before 'Ali, who picked it up and, handing it to
the father, said: "Take our 'Iraqi and raise him carefully, for he is
to be a world-conqueror." Thus the birth of Fakhruddin Ibrahim in A.D.
1213 was greeted with great joy. He was born in the village of Kamajan
near Hamadan in the region of Persia known as 'Iraq-i 'ajam, and he
came to be known as Fakhruddin 'Iraqi. The child entered school at the
age of five and in nine months had committed the Qu'ran to heart. By
the time he was eight, he was famous throughout the region for his
melodious and soul-touching recitations of the sacred text. He turned
with equal ability to other studies, and by his seventeenth year he had
learnt both the al-'ulum an-naqliyyah - the transmitted sciences -
and the al-'ulum al-'aqliyyah - the sciences arising from human
reason and investigation. One day a motley group of Qalandars came to
'Iraqi's town, and his life was permanently altered.

The Qalandars were mystics who wandered as homeless devotees of the
Divine. Renouncing wealth, status and personal esteem, they viewed
social conventions as traps and masks of hypocrisy and shunned the
approval of laymen. Since rogues and outcasts found it convenient to
imitate Qalandar ways, the true homeless wanderers were even more
disguised and despised - an irony they did not mind. As others
grudgingly gave hospitality to this little transient band, 'Iraqi found
a great quickening of love well up within him, and when the Qalandars
left he was grief-stricken. Never indecisive, 'Iraqi put away his books
and cast aside the robe that distinguished him as a student of
theology. Taking nothing, he hastened to join the group, and when he
found it, he broke into spontaneous verse:

I've been to Mecca, to circle the Kaaba
But they refused me entrance,
Saying, "Off with you! What merit have you earned
Outside, that we should admit you within?"
Then, last night, I knocked
At the tavern door.
>From within came a voice: "'Iraqi! Come in!
For you are one of the chosen!"

The Qalandars at once understood that his reference to the tavern door
signified the threshold to the chamber of the heart wherein one may
find the wine of wisdom, and they welcomed him into their company.

Together they wandered across eastern Persia and into India,
eventually coming to Multan (now Pakistan). There they met Shaykh
Baha'uddin Zakariyya' Multani, the third great teacher in the
Suhrawardi tradition. Within his own lifetime he was known as quth,
kabir and munir, the Pole of the Age, the Great, and the Enlightener.
While he was giving refreshments to the Qalandars, Baha'uddin's eyes
fell upon 'Iraqi. "That youth is fully prepared," he said to a
disciple, "he should remain with us." 'Iraqi in turn felt such a
compelling attraction to the shaykh that he feared for his state of
mind and insisted that he and his companions should leave at once. Upon
his urging, the friends pressed on to Delhi, where they tarried for a
while. When they departed for Somnath, a storm separated them, and
'Iraqi was forced to return to Delhi. Taking this odd event as a sign,
'Iraqi made his way alone to Multan and placed himself at the feet of
Baha'uddin.

The shaykh accepted him and directed him to enter into a wholly
isolated retreat. Within a few days, however, 'Iraqi burst forth into
ecstatic verse. Shocked disciples reported this boisterous singing to
the shaykh, who came to listen. "His business is finished", the shaykh
pronounced, and calling 'Iraqi out of his cell, personally clothed him
in the mantle of mature discipleship and married him to his own
daughter. Since the Suhrawardi tradition was conservative in its
outward conduct, many of the shaykh's disciples resented the liberties
allowed this spontaneous mystic. Nonetheless, 'Iraqi remained with
Baha'uddin, had a son named Kabiruddin and faithfully served his
teacher for twenty-five years. When the shaykh felt death approaching,
he appointed 'Iraqi his successor. After seeing that Baha'uddin was
given a worthy tomb - which exists even today in Multan - 'Iraqi,
knowing that many of the shaykh's former disciples were scheming to
undermine his rule, renounced the successorship and set out with a few
friends for Mecca.

'Iraqi sailed to Oman, where he had already attained a reputation
for inspiring verses. The sultan welcomed him, lodged the group in his
own palace and made 'Iraqi the chief shaykh of the region. When 'Iraqi
was rested, he asked permission to travel to Mecca, but the sultan
showed such reluctance to let him go that 'Iraqi felt compelled to slip
away in secret. He found himself honoured everywhere he went, and his
sojourn in Mecca and Medina was one of fervent joy and deep meditation.
Eventually he decided to go to Damascus, and two of his friends from
Multan journeyed with him. From there they travelled to Rum (modern
Turkey) and found their way to Konya. There he met two remarkable
Sufis, Jalaluddin Rumi and Sadruddin Qunawi, the successor to Ibn
al-'Arabi and chief shaykh of Konya. 'Iraqi's friendship with Qunawi,
who had received initiation into the Suhrawardi order, was to last
until the latter's death. 'Iraqi's intellect was refined by this
relationship just as his spirit had been invigorated by his friendship
with Baha'uddin. When 'Iraqi arrived in Konya, he joined students who
were listening to Qunawi's lectures on Ibn al-'Arabi's Fusus al-hikam
(The Seals of Wisdom). After listening to each lecture, 'Iraqi would
compose a meditation on what he had heard, and thus was born his great
work, the Lama'at (Flashes) (of light). When he presented the Lama 'at
to Qunawi, he read it, kissed it as a Muslim kisses a sacred teaching,
and said: "'Iraqi, you have published the secret of men's words."

'Iraqi remained close to Qunawi. Even when he journeyed to Medina
and Damascus in response to a dream in which the deceased Ibn al-'Arabi
ordered him to visit his tomb, 'Iraqi wrote long, loving letters to
Qunawi, begging his 'second teacher' to appear in a dream and order him
back. 'Iraqi gathered disciples around him with ease, including the
administrator of Rum, Amir Mu'inuddin Parwanah. Despite 'Iraqi's utter
lack of concern for his own well-being, Parwanah insisted on building a
hospice for him in Tokat and visited 'Iraqi daily. At this time the
Mongol emperor Abaka ruled Rum, and the Mameluke emperor Baybars
attacked him from Cairo. In A.D. 1277 Baybars routed the forces of
Abaka and had himself crowned emperor of Rum. Parwanah, who had served
under Abaka, fled, but his son was captured and taken to Cairo. When
the Mamelukes withdrew to Egypt, Abaka accused Parwanah of treachery.
Knowing that he would be executed, Parwanah visited 'Iraqi and gave him
a purse of precious stones. He asked 'Iraqi to use them to ransom his
son and to make the boy into a Sufi indifferent to political power.

Rum and Anatolia had fallen into rebellion and disorder owing to
the wars, and Abaka sent his brother, Kangirtay, to re-establish Mongol
rule. Suspecting that 'Iraqi had possession of the unfortunate
Parwanah's wealth, Kangirtay sent his scholarly vizier to spy on
'Iraqi. The vizier was so charmed and inspired by 'Iraqi's demeanour
and discourse that he quite forgot about his secret mission. When he
returned to Kangirtay, however, he discovered that troops had been
despatched to arrest 'Iraqi. Quickly he warned 'Iraqi and urged him to
flee, sending a sack of a thousand dinars to help him escape. 'Iraqi
left the troubled Tokat and journeyed first to Sinope, ruled by
Parwanah's son, and then to Cairo. There he sought and obtained an
audience with the sultan and handed over, unopened, the purse of
jewels. When the sultan heard that the act was a promise to Parwanah
and that 'Iraqi had kept nothing for himself, he had Parwanah's son
released and accorded the privileges of a prince, and he sat at
'Iraqi's feet for instruction. Marvelling at 'Iraqi's words, he
appointed him the chief shaykh of Cairo and ordered a general
procession to mark the appointment.

The next day the sultan's vizier dressed 'Iraqi in fine robes and a
beautiful turban, and, placing him on a horse, arrayed all the
scholars, nobles and generals of the court around him on foot. Looking
about, 'Iraqi suddenly tore the turban off his head and sat quietly for
a few minutes. Then, just as unexpectedly, he replaced the turban and
signalled the procession to begin. News of this strange behaviour
reached the sultan, who asked 'Iraqi for an explanation. 'Iraqi noted
that no other man of the age had been shown such respect, and that he
had removed the turban until he could be certain that no pride or
egotism would spring up within his breast. The sultan, moved by such
spiritual simplicity in a world of ambition, decadence and splendour,
doubled his pension. But 'Iraqi wanted to return to Damascus, and in
time he won the sultan over. Messenger pigeons were sent out so that
each way station would be informed and could welcome the illustrious
pilgrim. Even before 'Iraqi left Cairo, the king of Damascus made him
the chief shaykh of his city, and he was greeted enthusiastically by
the local population. Six months after 'Iraqi arrived in Damascus, his
son, Kabiruddin, came from Multan to join him. After 'Iraqi had left
Baha'uddin's chair, the shaykh's son had assumed it, to be followed in
turn by Kabiruddin, who, like his father, renounced it. A dream had
instructed him to leave for Damascus, and another dream told his
disciples to let him go.

Kabiruddin lived with his father for a few months, when a sudden
illness struck 'Iraqi. He fell into a fevered sleep for five days. On
the sixth, he awoke and called for his son and companions. Bidding them
farewell, he gave voice to a quatrain:

When by Decree this world was first begun
Not after Adam's want the deed was done;
But of the portion on that Day assigned
None shall win more, nor any less hath won.

'Iraqi "drank the cup of fate" on November 23, 1289, and the whole city
mourned. He was buried in the Salihiyyah cemetery beside the tomb of
Ibn al-'Arabi. Kabiruddin was appointed his successor, and when he too
let go of the mortal coil, he was buried next to his father. These
tombs were lost in the process of restoring Ibn al-'Arabi's tomb by
Sultan Selim in the sixth century. Nonetheless, even today, when
pilgrims visit Ibn al-'Arabi's memorial, they say, "This was the ocean
of the Arabs", and turning to one side, say of 'Iraqi, "This was the
ocean of the Persians."

Unlike Ibn al-'Arabi, who deeply inspired him, 'Iraqi did not write
elaborate treatises on gnostic subjects. He had begun to write poetry,
mostly lyrics and quatrains, in Multan. Near the end of his life he
penned 'Ushshaq-nama (Song of the Lovers), which he dedicated to the
vizier who had helped him to escape Kangirtay's soldiers, and some
poems for Parwanah's relatives at Sinope. The Lama 'at, however, stands
as his masterpiece and as one of the chief Sufi works in which the
doctrines of gnosis, al-ma 'rifah, are expressed in the language of
love, al-mahabbah. The first of these had been the Spark of Love by
Ahmad Ghazzali, the brother of al-Ghazzali, and the second was
Shihabuddin Suhrawardi's On the Reality of Love. 'Iraqi's Lama'at, the
most beautiful work of this kind in Persian literature, inspired an
entire tradition of poetic treatises in Persia and India. Looking
towards the East, it blends tashbih and tanzih, immanence and
transcendence, so that the Divine, Ever-unknowable in Itself, is
mirrored everywhere and at all times. Looking towards the West and
especially to the Platonic tradition, it posits a chain of love from
the love of forms - 'ishq-i majazi, apparent love - to love of the
Divine - 'ishq-i haqiqi, real love - where formal beauty has been
transmuted into al-jamil, the Beautiful Itself, a Divine Name.

Theologians had gradually and grudgingly allowed the word mahabba,
love, to enter the vocabulary of sacred discourse because it carried
the connotation of 'obedience'. By the tenth century, philosophers felt
free to speak of hubb 'udhri, Platonic love, the chaste contemplative
love of the ideal. 'Iraqi shocked the orthodox and even some Sufis by
insisting on 'ishq, passionate love, to emphasize the ardent yearning
of the soul for the Divine, for he believed that the soul must
experience awareness of separation from the Beloved as well as union
with the Divine. Only when the sweetness of separation could be
spiritually savoured would the devotee be willing to return from
all-encompassing theophany to the suffering world for the sake of
helping others.

In Islam the root profession of faith has always been the Shahada,
which begins "La ilaha illa Allah ". "There is no god but Allah", whose
name means 'the (One) God'. The Lama'at is 'Iraqi's elaboration of his
reformulation of the Shahada: "La ilaha illa'l-'ishq", "There is no god
but Love", an aphorism frequently used by Turkish Sufis today.

Removed is Love above man's aspiration,
Above the tales of union and separation;

For that which transcends the imagination
Escapes all metaphor and explication.

'Iraqi did not pretend that his own intuition was sufficient for
understanding. His Lama 'at was a response to Ibn al-'Arabi's
teachings; he followed two teachers in his life, and he began his work
with an invocation of Muhammad as the archetypal Teacher. As primordial
guru of Sufis, Muhammad was made to say:

In the paradise of theophany I am the Sun:
Marvel not that every atom manifests me.
...I am Light. All things are seen in my unveiling
And from moment to moment my radiance increases.
The Divine Names bear their fruit in me.
Look: I am the mirror of the shining Essence.
These lights which arise from the East of Nothingness
Are myself, every one - yet I am more.

If Love, al-'ishq, is attributeless Deity, then both lover and
Beloved are derived from It, "but Love upon Its mighty Throne is
purified of all entification, in the sanctuary of Its Reality too holy
to be touched by inwardness or outwardness". Both the lover, whose soul
is turned to the Divine, and the Beloved, who is the highest vision of
Deity, are mirrors for one another. The existence of the visible and
invisible worlds is nothing but the manifestation of Love as light.
This primordial theophany is at once the hidden laws of nature and
their self-conscious realization in Man.

The Morning of Manifestation sighed, the breeze of Grace breathed
gently, ripples stirred upon the sea of Generosity. . . . The lover,
then, satiated with the water of life, awoke from the slumber of
non-existence, put on the cloak of being and tied round his brow the
turban of contemplation; he cinched the belt of desire about his waist
and set forth with the foot of sincerity upon the path of the Search.

The Unity of the Source, beyond even One as contrasted with Two,
compels the lover's search for what, in fact, he is. The spiritual
quest consists of infusing ever more subtle images - first in the
world, and eventually in consciousness - with life, only to strip
them away as inadequate representations of the goal, until even the
ideas of 'search' and 'goal' are utterly transcended. The question
"Where is the Beloved?" and the question "Who am I?" are the same.

Listen, riffraff,
Do you want to be All?
Then go,
Go and become Nothing...
Don't dream this thread
Is double-ply:
Root and branch
Are but One.
Look close: all is He -
But He is manifest through me.
All me, no doubt -
But through Him.

For 'Iraqi the Divine is manifest through the movement of beings,
for they are the acts of the Divine. This is the meaning of Muhammad's
maxim: "He who knows himself knows his Lord. "It is the Divine in Man
who loves, who sees, who invokes and consummates. Thus, the conviction
of the seeker is the Divine in him, and all love, whatever the object
or image, "is but a whiff of Thy perfume: none else can be loved". The
Sufi sees that loving anything other than the Divine is not a matter of
right or wrong, but of impossibility. Realization that love not only
courses through all things but is all things is the root of the
spiritual resolve to seek the Beloved through every obstacle, test and
trial, the source of moral conduct and the basis of meaning.
Nonetheless, the Beloved is always greater than the mirror which is the
lover. "How can Meaning be squeezed into the box of Form?" Even the
luminous and shadowy veils, said by some to be seventy thousand,
between the Absolute and the human being, blind and mislead only him
who clings to form rather than meaning.

You are hidden from the world
In Your very manifestation....
Hidden, manifest,
Both at once:
You are not this, not that -
Yet both at once.

The veils of differentiation which seem to hide the transcendent
unity of the Divine are only the Divine Names and Attributes through
which It acts, i.e., gives rise to beings. They are the intelligent
creative potencies of manifestation.

Mark well: if these veils were merely human attributes, they would
be burnt to nothing.... But in fact this never happens; vision never
burns them, nor do they cease to block our sight. So these veils must
not be human but Divine, God's Names and Attributes: luminous ones such
as manifestation, benevolence, and Beauty; tenebrous ones such as
non-manifestation, all-subjugation, and Majesty. . . . But the
theophany of the Essence itself acts from behind the veil of Attributes
and Names. . . . Ultimately He Himself is His own veil, for He is
hidden by the very intensity of His manifestation and occulted by the
very potency of His Light.

For 'Iraqi arithmetic provides analogies which indicate what must
be done to move towards the Beloved. Since the Divine is one and the
individual must become a perfect mirror of the Divine, the individual
must become one as well. Geometrically, one must become a sphere
congruent with the sphere of the Divine. "Reality is a sphere: wherever
you place your finger, there is its dead centre." This is the circle
whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. "Our
paints and tints are but opinion and fantasy. He is colourless and we
must adopt His hue." If there were no Spiritual Sun of Manifestation,
there would be no shadowy forms, for shadows cannot exist in the Divine
Darkness. Yet when the Sun shines fully everywhere, there are no
shadows. This is the paradox of one's origins and one's goal. The
stages of the way to the goal, the dissolution of the paradox, are
marked by the fact that the more one loves, the more one thirsts for
love - like drinking sea water. Poverty of soul is required, for the
same wind that blows out the rich man's candle will kindle the beggar's
smouldering faggot. And if the lover achieves union, the erasure of the
line of separateness will leave a trace, a reminder of the sweetness of
love's yearning, and the lover will be willing to return to the world,
now clothed in divine hues devoid of earthly coloration, to perfect
those who remain in the half-light of ignorance. Finally, the lover
will have hope, for "hopelessness is by no means obligatory", and this
hope can expand into a profound and unshakeable hope for all humanity.

The ultimate union of lover and Beloved dissolves both, and Deity
alone remains. This is the Sufi understanding of "There is no god hut
God" - there is nothing real but the Divine. 'Iraqi sought throughout
his life to realize this one idea, and whatever his final realization,
each day strengthened his conviction and spiritual resolve to continue
along the path which is the ladder of Love placed between earth and the
incomprehensible Divine.

When the lover contemplates the Beloved's beauty in form's mirror,
pain and pleasure are born, grief and joy are manifest, fear and hope
come together, contraction and expansion make their rounds. But when he
strips off the robes of form and dives into Unity's All-embracing
Ocean, he knows nothing of torment or bliss, expectation or dread, fear
or hope; for these depend on past and future, and he now drowns in a
sea where Time is abolished, where all is Now upon Now.

Copyright 2000 Theosophy Library Online
Link:http://theosophy.org/tlodocs/teachers/'Iraqi.htm