The Kashf al-mahjúb: The oldest Persian treatise on Súfiism

The whole community of orthodox Moslems and all the Ṣúfí Shaykhs agree that the prophets and such of the saints as are guarded from sin (maḥfúẕ) are superior to the angels. The opposite view is held by the Mu`tazilites, who declare that the angels are superior to the prophets, being of more exalted rank, of more subtle constitution, and more obedient to God. I reply that this is not as you imagine, for an obedient body, an exalted rank, and a subtle constitution cannot be causes of superiority, which belongs only to those on whom God has bestowed it. Iblís had all the qualities that you mention, yet he is universally acknowledged to have become accursed. The superiority of the prophets is indicated by the fact that God commanded the angels to worship Adam; for the state of one who is worshipped is higher than the state of the worshipper. If they argue that, just as a true believer is superior to the Ka`ba, an inanimate mass of stone, although he bows down before it, so the angels may be superior to Adam, although they bowed down before him, I reply: “No one says that a believer bows down to a house or an altar or a wall, but all say that he bows down to God, and it is admitted by all that the angels bowed down to Adam (Kor. ii, 32). How, then, can the Ka`ba be compared to Adam?

A traveller may worship God on the back of the animal which he is riding, and he is excused if his face be not turned towards the Ka`ba; and, in like manner, one who has lost his bearings in a desert, so that he cannot tell the direction of the Ka`ba, will have done his duty in whatever direction he may turn to pray. The angels offered no excuse when they bowed down to Adam, and the one who made an excuse for himself became accursed.” These are clear proofs to any person of insight.

Again, the angels are equal to the prophets in knowledge of God, but not in rank. The angels are without lust, covetousness, and evil; their nature is devoid of hypocrisy and guile, and they are instinctively obedient to God; whereas lust is an impediment in human nature; and men have a propensity to commit sins and to be impressed by the vanities of this world; and Satan has so much power over their bodies that he circulates with the blood in their veins; and closely attached to them is the lower soul (nafs), which incites them to all manner of wickedness. Therefore, one whose nature has all these characteristics and who, in spite of the violence of his lust, refrains from immorality, and notwithstanding his covetousness renounces this world, and, though his heart is still tempted by the Devil, turns back from sin and averts his face from sensual depravity in order to occupy himself with devotion and persevere in piety and mortify his lower soul and contend against the Devil, such a one is in reality superior to the angel who is not the battle-field of lust, and is naturally without desire of food and pleasures, and has no care for wife and child and kinsfolk, and need not have recourse to means and instruments, and is not absorbed in corrupt ambitions.

A Gabriel, who worships God so many thousands of years in the hope of gaining a robe of honour, and the honour bestowed on him was that of acting as Muḥammad’s groom on the night of the Ascension—how should he be superior to one who disciplines and mortifies his lower soul by day and night in this world, until God looks on him with favour and grants to him the grace of seeing Himself and delivers him from all distracting thoughts? When the pride of the angels passed all bounds, and every one of them vaunted the purity of his conduct and spoke with an unbridled tongue in blame of mankind, God resolved that He would show to them their real state. He therefore bade them choose three of the chief among them, in whom they had confidence, to go to the earth and be its governors and reform its people. So three angels were chosen, but before they came to the earth one of them perceived its corruption and begged God to let him return. When the other two arrived on the earth God changed their nature so that they felt a desire for food and drink and were inclined to lust, and God punished them on that account, and the angels were forced to recognize the superiority of mankind to themselves.[128] In short, the elect among the true believers are superior to the elect among the angels, and the ordinary believers are superior to the ordinary angels.

Accordingly those men who are preserved (ma`ṣúm) and protected (maḥfúẕ) from sin are more excellent than Gabriel and Michael, and those who are not thus preserved are better than the Recording Angels (ḥafaẕa) and the noble Scribes (kirám-i kátibín).

Something has been said on this subject by every one of the Shaykhs. God awards superiority to whom He pleases, over whom He pleases. You must know that saintship is a Divine mystery which is revealed only through conduct (rawish). A saint is known only to a saint. If this matter could be made plain to all reasonable men it would be impossible to distinguish the friend from the foe or the spiritual adept from the careless worldling. Therefore God so willed that the pearl of His love should be set in the shell of popular contempt and be cast into the sea of affliction, in order that those who seek it may hazard their lives on account of its preciousness and dive to the bottom of this ocean of death, where they will either win their desire or bring their mortal state to an end.