Wahdat Al Wujud
Questions: As salaam-u-alaikum Shaykh Abdul Hadi,
QUESTION 1
Ibn al-Arabi stated the concept of “Wahdat-al-wujud.” I’ve heard from scholars that it is a correct principle for Muslims to believe in. However, I’ve also read that Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi refuted this concept. Is this true? Both Ibn al-Arabi and Ahmad Sirhindi were sufis. Why the
disagreement on this concept when both were spreading Ahl al-Sunna da’wa? Is it not only the Wahhabis who call this concept a “bad innovation?”
ANSWER
By asking this question you are touching one of the subtlest aspects of ‘ilm. Unfortunately, it seems that many persons who are not qualified for studying these doctrines think of themselves as experts, and express groundless judgments. Ibn ‘Arabi and Imam Rabbani Sarhindi, radi Allahu ‘anhuma’, were sufis of the highest level and – apart from this – were also muhaddithuns and fuqahas. IMHO, Imam Rabbani reached a higher degree in wilayah. Their respective doctrines (wahdat al-wujud and wahdat as-shuhud) are not theological (kalami), but gnostic (‘irfani). When two theological doctrines are opposite (e.g. Ash’arism and Mu’tazilism), one of them must necessarily be true, and the other necessarily false. But ‘irfani doctrines do not refer to the rational understanding of the nature of Allah, but to a special level of comprehension, depending on the level one reaches during the spiritual journey.
Suppose I tell you: “Your cousin is Allah”. From the point of view of kalam, this affirmation is false (and kufr), and you will answer me: “No, my cousin is a created being”. But, from the point of view of a wali who is in the maqam of ahadiyyah, it could be correct. In the ahadiyyah, the condition of “createdness” (‘ubudiyyah) is dissolved in fana’, and what is left of “your cousin” is only a peculiar manifestation of a divine Name. The Quranic verse “Everything perishes, except His Face” hints to this condition. A wali is compelled to disguise this condition of his, since when he speaks according to it, ordinary Muslims will think he is becoming a kafir. Mansur al-Hallaj was killed since he uttered “Ana ‘l-Haqq”, but this was not a real form of kufr, since his ego was completely in fana’; those who condemned him to capital punishment – in their turn – are not sinners, because the judgment of the Shari’ah is based on exterior acts. All this is clearly explain by Jalal ad-din Rumi in his Mathnawi.
The spiritual journey has two directions: a) from al-khalq to al-Haqq, and b) from al-Haqq to al-khalq. During the first part of the journey, the created world disappears, and the wali sees only Allah. Ibn ‘Arabi’s doctrine is connected to this part of the journey and, for this reason, it can seem that, from an exterior point of view, it contradicts the teaching of Ash’ari kalam. On the contrary, Imam Rabbani’s doctrine refers to the second part, when the world reappears in Allah; for this reason, it fully agrees with ‘ilm al-kalam. Technically speaking, wahdat al-wujud is a “intoxicated” doctrine, and wahdat as-shuhud is a “sober” doctrine. There is no arm in studying and preaching a sober doctrine, but a drunk doctrine can exteriorly appear as kufr. Some Sunni ‘Ulema (like as-Simnani), who have never reach that degree of wilayah, condemned Ibn ‘Arabi, but none of them ever condemned Imam Rabbani. My personal opinion is that everyone can study his Maktubat, while the study of Ibn ‘Arabi’s Futuhat al-Makkiyyah or Fusus al-Hikam must be reserved for those scholars who are experts in Tasawwuf. Notwithstanding this, Imam Rabbani defends Ibn ‘Arabi against those who criticize him.
Ride On!
Ride one! ride on! do not remain behind.
Know this! know this! your situation is most clear.
Gallop! gallop! you are fast riders;
Be proud! be proud, you are among the beauties in the world.
What do you have?
what do you have? that the beloved does not have?
Bring that! bring that! whisper it in my ears.
The night before last, the night before last, what was the tavern like?
Tell me that! tell me that, if you are drunken wanderers of the night.
God has a wine, God has a wine hidden from all;
You and the world were created from a sip of that wine.
Buddha as a Prophet
The professors felt that, according to Islamic doctrine, there is no problem in establishing peaceful relations with Buddhists. They cited three reasons for this. First, certain modern Islamic scholars have asserted that the Prophet Dh’ul Kifl–the “man from Kifl”–mentioned twice in the Qur’an, refers to the Buddha, with Kifl being the Arabic rendering of the name of Buddha’s native kingdom, Kapilavastu. The Qur’an stated that the followers of Dh’ul Kifl are righteous people. Secondly, al-Biruni and Sehristan, two eleventh century Islamic scholars who visited India and wrote about its religions, called Buddha a “Prophet.” Thirdly, Kashmiri Muslims who settled in Tibet from the seventeenth century married Tibetan Buddhist women within the context of Islamic law.
So…whats an EHM?
“There were two primary objectives of my work. First I was to justify huge international loans that would funnel money to Main and other US companies (such as Bechtel, Halliburton, Stone & Webster and Brown & Root) through massive engineering and construction projects. Second, I would work to bankrupt the countries that received those loans . . . so they would be forever beholden to their creditors, and so they would present easy targets when we [the US] needed favours, including military bases, UN votes or access to oil and other natural resources.”
- Excerpt from Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
Read the rest here: http://brnaeem.blogspot.com/2007/11/what-is-economic-hit-man.html
Price of Vegetables and Rice
From time immemorial until around fifty years ago, vegetables and rice in Bangladesh was produced in the countryside and then brought to the towns to be sold there at a higher price than in the markets in the countryside. Now this has reversed and vegetables and rice are bought from the towns and sold in the markets in the countryside.
What this category is about
In this category I will note various changes that are being affected in Bangladesh by the powers of modernisation.
Why we dont have Visions
“A Persian poet relates the story of a young man who was devoted to worship and who sincerely loved the Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wa salam). This young man wished to see the Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wa salam) in his dreams. But, night after night, even though he prayed and hoped for it, he was not blessed with this vision. He decided to visit a wise shaykh he had heard mention of who lived on the far reaches of town and seek his advice. He made his way to his home one evening, and the shaykh invited him in for discussion and tea. After explaining his situation to him, the shaykh nodded sagely and said, “Be my guest for tonight, and tomorrow morning I will give you some advice.”
That night, the shaykh served the young man dinner. Everything in the simple meal was covered with salt or was dry. Salty fish, dry, hard bread… and not a drop to drink. The young man craved water, but was offered none. His parched throat made him yearn to ask the shaykh for something to drink, but his manners kept him quiet. He ate the food without complaint, his thirst increasing with each bite.
After the Isha prayers the shaykh unfolded a mat, offered it to the young man for his night’s rest, and bade him good night.
That night, the young man dreamed of nothing but water. Cascading fountains, gushing rivers and streams, oceans full of pure, delicious, thirst-quenching water. He dreamed of it until he felt he was swimming in it, drinking huge gulps, until it filled his every pore. He woke before daybreak, one word croaking from his lips: ‘Water….’
The next morning the shaykh asked him if he rested well. The young man then told him about his thirst and his dreams.
The shaykh smiled. He said, “When you begin to have thirst and desire for the Prophet, salAllahu alayhi wa salam, the way you had thirst for water last night, then you will be blessed with his vision.”
[From: http://ilm.sadiqweb.com/?p=332]
Wormholes on Earth?
According to a group of mathematicians, it may be possible to create devices with internal tunnels that are invisible to detection by electromagnetic waves—wormholes, in a sense. The group discusses the idea in a paper published in the October 29 online edition of Physical Review Letters.
The scientists say that by custom designing the values of two parameters that describe electromagnetic (EM) materials, the electrical permittivity and magnetic permeability, around and inside a cylinder, a novel optical device could be produced. Essentially, most of the device would be invisible to detection by external EM radiation of a certain frequency, with only the ends of the cylinder being visible and accessible to the EM waves.
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“The chosen values for the permittivity and permeability would cause the coating to manipulate EM waves in a way that is not seen in nature,” explained University of Rochester mathematician Allan Greenleaf, one of the paper’s authors.
Permittivity is a measure of a material’s readiness to become electrically polarized in response to an applied electric field (how well it “permits” the field). Permeability describes how magnetized a material becomes when a magnetic field is applied. Modern EM materials known as metamaterials allow theoretical designs, such as a wormhole, to be physically constructed, at least in principle.
Greenleaf and his colleagues, Yaroslav Kurylev of University College in London, Matti Lassas of the Helsinki University of Technology, and Gunther Uhlmann of the University of Washington, use the word “wormhole” in more of a mathematical sense than physical. That is, the devices would act as wormholes from the viewpoint of Maxwell’s equations, the four fundamental equations that describe the relationship between electric fields, magnetic fields, electric charge, and electric current.
For any other frequencies than those for which the permittivity and permeability were designed, the tunnel region would look roughly like a solid cylinder. But for the right frequencies, says Greenleaf, “the tunnel has the effect of changing the topology of space. The electromagnetic waves behave as though they are propagating through a space to which a handle has been attached, in the same way that ants crawling on the door of your refrigerator have two ways to get from one end of the handle to the other: by traveling over the handle or on the flat surface underneath.”
That is, any object within the tunnel is only visible to EM waves that enter at one of the tunnel’s ends. Conversely, any EM waves emitted by an object in the tunnel can only leave through one of the ends. However, Greenleaf says that it’s important to note that the shape of space has not actually been changed, as does happen for Einstein-Rosen wormholes in general relativity.
This effect could have interesting applications. For example, a magnetic dipole (such as a bar magnet) placed near one of the ends would, at the other end, appear to approximate a magnetic monopole, a theoretical particle with only one magnetic pole, i.e. that has magnetic charge. True magnetic monopoles have never been discovered, and the work by Greenleaf and his colleagues does not claim otherwise.
The scientists propose other possible applications, such as in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), where a wormhole device could be used to allow doctors to operate on a patient while simultaneously imaging the patient. Doctors could insert metal surgical tools into the tunnel area without disturbing the MRI machine’s magnetic field.
Another example is an optical computer, where active components could be placed inside wormholes such as to not interact with each other and cause malfunctions.
Metamaterials for invisibility, while still in the very early stages of development, are already being researched. Last year, scientists from Duke University created a device that renders a copper disc invisible to observation by microwaves.
Citation: Allan Greenleaf, Yaroslav Kurylev, Matti Lassas, and Gunther Uhlmann “Electromagnetic Wormholes and Virtual Magnetic Monopoles from Metamaterials” Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 183901 (2007)
