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

Muḥáḍarat denotes the presence of the heart in the subtleties of demonstration (bayán), while mukáshafat denotes the presence of the spirit (sirr) in the domain of actual vision (`iyán). Muḥáḍarat refers to the evidences of God’s signs (áyát), and mukáshafat to the evidences of contemplation (musháhadát). The mark of muḥáḍarat is continual meditation upon God’s signs, while the mark of mukáshafat is continual amazement at God’s infinite greatness. There is a difference between one who meditates upon the Divine acts and one who is amazed at the Divine majesty: the one is a follower of friendship, the other is a companion of love. When the Friend of God (Abraham) looked on the kingdom of heaven and meditated on the reality of its existence, his heart was made “present” (ḥáḍir) thereby: through beholding the act he became a seeker of the Agent; his “presence” (ḥuḍúr) made the act a proof of the Agent, and in perfect gnosis he exclaimed: “I turn my face with true belief unto Him who created the heavens and the earth” (Kor. vi, 79). But when the Beloved of God (Muḥammad) was borne to Heaven he shut his eyes from the sight of all things; he saw neither God’s act nor created beings nor himself, but the Agent was revealed to him, and in that revelation (kashf) his desire increased: in vain he sought vision, proximity, union; in proportion as the exemption (tanzíh) of his Beloved (from all such conceptions) became more manifest to him the more did his desire increase; he could neither turn back nor go forward, hence he fell into amazement.

Where friendship was, amazement seemed infidelity, but where love was, union was polytheism, and amazement became the sole resource, because in friendship the object of amazement was being (hastí), and such amazement is polytheism, but in love the object of amazement was nature and quality (chigúnagí), and this amazement is unification (tawḥíd). In this sense Shiblí used always to say: “O Guide of the amazed, increase my amazement!” for in contemplation (of God) the greater one’s amazement the higher one’s degree. The story of Abú Sa`íd Kharráz and Ibráhím b. Sa`d `Alawí[178] is well known—how they saw a friend of God on the seashore and asked him “What is the Way to God?” and how he answered that there are two ways to God, one for the vulgar and one for the elect. When they desired him to explain this he said: “The way of the vulgar is that on which you are going: you accept for some cause and you decline for some cause; but the way of the elect is to see only the Causer, and not to see the cause.” The true meaning of these anecdotes has already been set forth.