SUBUDTHE SUFI BACKGROUNDJ .G . Benne Subud The Sufi Background The Estate of J.G. Bennett 2014 Contents ForewordPart 1Part 2Part 3Part 4Part 5Part 6Part 7 Foreword This pamphlet was written in 1961 and published after the author had resigned as a Subud helperafter three years of intensive service. The term latihan is frequently used in the text and refers tothe central practice of Subud. It is not explained here as it is assumed that readers will already have direct experience, for which no words can substitute.Anyone wishing to know more about Subud is advised to contact their local group. Ben Bennett Part 1 Any study of Subud must start with the obvious but too much neglected fact that Subud is a product ofIslam. Pak Subuh is himself a devout and well instructed Moslem; and his whole teaching, its contentas well as its mode of expression, derives from Islamic sources. But this is not always easy torecognize in the West where Moslem, and especially Sufi, doctrines and practices are unfamiliar. Wetend to confuse Subud with the source from which it derives and to believe that Pak Subuh isexpressing a personal doctrinea characteristically Subud point of viewwhen in fact he is simplybehaving as a good Moslem or a good Sufi. Two examples, of no particular importance in themselves,will serve to illustrate this point. In one of the later chapters of Concerning Subud [2nd Ed. p.169] there is an account of a Germanwoman, apparently suffering from senile dementia, who applied to Pak Subuh for relief fromdistracting noises in the head. He opened her and sent her home with instructions to continue thelatihan by reciting the Lord's Prayer every evening. At first sight it might seem surprising andcommendably broad-minded that a Moslem should give such advice. But I think there is little doubtthat what Pak Subuh really had in mind was not the Lord's Prayer as we know it, but the Moslemadaptation of the Lord's Prayer, which is traditionally used as a charm in case of sickness:- If any man suffers, or a brother of his suffers, let him say: "Our Lord God, who art in heaven,hallowed be thy name; Thy peace is in heaven and on earth; as Thy mercy is in heaven, sopractise Thy mercy on earth; forgive us our faults and our sins, Thou art the Lord of the goodmen; send down mercy from Thy mercy, and healing from Thy healing, on this pain, that it maybe healed again." [Studies in Muslim Ethics, Donaldson, p.82.] The second example is perhaps less obvious. Among the questions, which the Benedictines of St.Wandrille put to Pak Subuh[1] was one relating to the possibility of a conflict between inwardguidance received in the latihan and the injunctions of Scripture as interpreted by the Church. Theyreceived the following reply:- "With regard to the Scriptures, Pak Subuh said that their content was perfect and complete: itwas revelation. But man also contributed his share in respect of their outward form. A scribemight have thought that to alter this or that passage would make it more edifying. Hence oneought not to accept each word as wholly inspired. Scripture is only perfect as a Whole, since itis the Whole that comes from God.[2] Here Pak Subuh was reflecting, though with great delicacy, the traditional Moslem view of theGospels. On the one hand, Jesus is recognized as belonging to the line of Prophets, which began withAbraham[3] and ended with Mohammed; and it is said of him in the Koran (V:50): "And we broughthim the Gospel in which is guidance and light; and (he was) verifying what was before him withrespect to the Pentateuch, and was a guidance and warning to the God-fearing". On the other hand, theKoran also indicates (IV:156) that the story of the Crucifixion is a misunderstanding or aninterpolation; and the same is held to be true of other passages. From this comes the ratherparadoxical situation described in Pak Subuh's answer. Whereas an appeal to the authority of theGospels in general or as a whole is valid, an appeal to the authority of any particular passage is notnecessarily so. It is only the whole or the content which is inspired: the parts may be the product ofhuman error. Neither of these examples has been cited in a spirit of criticism. On the contrary, Pak Subuh's adviceto the German woman was clearly excellent, irrespective of the precise form of prayer intended.Similarly, his reply to the Benedictines was such as most Christian exegetes would accept withouthesitation.[4] My only point is that in both cases there is a background of Moslem tradition, whichmany Western readers would miss. To recognize its existence does not invalidate what Pak Subuhsays, though it may sometimes modify the significance we attach to it. In the two examples so fargiven the degree of modification is slight; in other cases it may be considerable. I shall hope to showin the course of this paper that Pak Subuh's teaching, seen in its Moslem setting, often takes on anunexpected colour; but for the moment one further example must suffice. We are constantly assured that Subud has no doctrine and requires nothing but sincerity in the practiceof the latihan. So far so good; but it may sometimes occur to us to wonder precisely what is meant bysincerity in this context. A man who approaches the latihan as a kind of therapy, which he hopes willrid him of some physical or nervous defect, may well be sincere. Indeed, since his aim is clear-cut,he may even be more sincere (on one understanding of the term) than a man who comes with somedoubtful and hesitant idea of worship, which he could scarcely define even to himself. Or again, whatof the man who genuinely believes that worship consists in having visions and other unusualexperiences? Or the helperand there are many of thesewho regards himself as divinelycommissioned to guide and instruct others? Both are undoubtedly sincere in the accepted meaning ofthe termthat is what is wrong with them. But we may also feel that they are lacking in the precisequality, whatever that may be, which Pak Subuh meant to indicate. If we then turn to the Sufi writersin search of a definition, we receive a clear answer, though not perhaps in the terms that we hadexpected. Let me quote the tenth century mystic Abu Sa'id Fadlu'llah of Mayhana in Khurasan. He wasonce asked "What is sincerity?" and replied as follows:- "The Prophet has said that sincerity (ikhlas) is a divine consciousness (sirr) in man's heart andsoul, which sirr is the object of His pure contemplation and is replenished by God's purecontemplation thereof. Whosoever declares God to be One, his belief in the divine Unitydepends on that sirr. That sirr is a substance of God's grace (latifa)for He is gracious (latif)unto His servants (Koran. XLII:18)and it is produced by the bounty and mercy of God, not bythe acquisition and action of man. At first, He produces a need and longing and sorrow in man'sheart; then He contemplates that need and sorrow, and in His bounty and mercy deposits in thatheart a spiritual substance (latifa) which is hidden from the knowledge of angel and prophet.That substance is called sirr Allah, and that is ikhlas ... It is immortal and does not becomenaught, since it subsists in God's contemplation of it. It belongs to the Creator: the creatureshave no part therein, and in the body it is a loan. Whoever possesses it is living' (hayy) andwhoever lacks it is 'animal' (hayawan). There is a great difference between the living' and the'animal'. [Studies in Islamic Mysticism. R.A.Nicholson, p.50.] Most Subud members, I think, will gladly accept this passage as a true expression of what Pak Subuhmeans when he speaks of 'sincerity'. It is clear that some such belief as this must lie at the heart ofSubud and that without it the practice of the Iatihan would be meaningless. Nor is there anything hereto disturb a Christian. On the contrary, he will find in Abu Sa'id's sirr Allah something closelyanalogous to the spark, the synteresis or the divine ground of the soul, of which Christian mystics areaccustomed to speak. But one further consequence follows. If we accept this belief, we must abandonthe first part of the statement with which we startednamely, that Subud has no doctrine. By adoptingAbu Sa'ids definition we have in fact committed ourselves to a doctrinea formal statement ofbeliefof far-reaching importance. Some of its implications will be examined below. Part 2 With this preamble we can turn to a more detailed examination of the sources of Pak Subuh's teaching.It will be convenient to start with the ascending scheme of material, vegetable, animal and finallyhuman souls, or essences, which provides the basis of the Subud symbol. This system, which in oneaspect might be called a working psychology rather than a doctrine, is not, as some people suppose, aproduct of Pak Subuh's own intuition or inward experience. It is a commonplace of Islamic thought,which constantly appears in one form or another in both Sunni and Sufi religious writings. As one authority puts it:- "What is spoken of as the evolutionary philosophy of nature in Islam, which amounts to arecognition of different stages of developmentfrom the stage of minerals to that of plants,from the stage of plants to that of animals, and from the stage of animals to that of manis usedas a background for the presentation of the struggle that man must make for moral progress.Only by proving himself in some way superior to the stage of the animals can man attain to thathigh type of existence for which he has potential capacity or aptitude. [Donaldson, op.cit, p.129] It might be thought from this passage that the upward progress of mankind from the material to thehuman was normally understood in a metaphorical sense only. But this is not so. As Sir MohammedIqbal remarks in one of his books[5] the Islamic view of destiny has a biological as well as an ethicalbasis. As an example of this I quote the following Sufi account of the formation of the human embryo,which is based on a thirteenth century Persian treatise:- "The embryo partakes of all four elements, earth, water, air and fire; now these in the GreaterWorld produce a triple offspring, mineral, vegetable and animal. A similar division is thereforemade in the human body. The members and limbs which are first formed partake of the fourelements in different proportions, and the combined result corresponds to the mineral Kingdom.The powers of attraction, absorption, digestion, rejection, growth and formation are nextdeveloped in the members and limbs, which then require nourishment. This they receive, in theshape of blood, introduced through the placenta; the chyme contained in this becoming maturedis developed into the vegetative spirit, corresponding to the second division of the threeKingdoms. When the digestive and other internal organs have become fully developed, the heartattracts to itself the essence of this vegetative spirit, and having further matured it, forms thelife; the essence of this again is attracted to the brain, where, after being matured, it isdeveloped into the soul, and the remainder dispersed through the nerves into the limbs, where itbecomes the source of sense and motion. This corresponds to the animal Kingdom of theGreater World. Each of these developments occupies one month, embryo, mineral, vegetativeand' animal." [Oriental Mysticism. R.H.Palmer, p.63] The same writer goes on to say that the elixir, so to call it, distilled by the brain is the InstinctiveSpirit; that is to say, the natural essence or central principle of a man. But this quality is one which heshares with all animals; and though it may be regarded, in a sense, as a "true guide and lantern for hisfeet", yet it gives out "but a flickering and cloudy light" until it has been strengthened and purified bythe true Spirit of Humanity. "When man has attained to this he necessarily becomes free from all thatis evil, and is adorned instead with every good and noble quality". [Palmer, op.cit, p.63] It will beseen that the term Spirit of Humanity, used in this sense, bears a certain resemblance to Abu Sa'id'ssirr Allah; but a discussion of the exact relationship between the two will have to be left to a latersection. The same problem is also approached from an ethical or philosophical point of view. Here thestarting-point is Aristotle's division of the soul into the vegetable the animal, and the rational, whichMoslem philosophers have generally accepted, and which they have combined with the Koranicdescription of the three inner faculties or tendencies of the soul. The result is to produce a scheme ofthought which corresponds very closely, though on a different level, with the quasi-biological schemegiven above. On this point I may quote the opinions of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, the great thinker of thetwelfth century, who occupies a position in Islam comparable with St. Augustine in the ChristianChurch: "The expression employed in the Qur'an, al-nafs al-mutma 'inna (the tranquil soul)(XXXIX:27), is explained by al-Ghazali as indicating the state of soul when reason succeeds inresisting and controlling the evil passions, when it has subdued and harmonised the animalforces, and has learned to make use of them as sources of constructive energy. "Thus if the soulseeks to help the intellect and establishes anger and indignation over desire, at the same timenot permitting anger and indignation to become headstrong, and even making use of desire tokeep them under restraint, thus making use of one against the other as the occasion demands,then its powers will remain justly balanced and its qualities become virtuous." This rational self, which is designated in the Qur'an as al-nafs al-mutma 'inna, is able toexperience a range of freedom, for it comes to appreciate that in attaining to this stage, and inmanaging to continue in it, reason bas been frequently called upon to exercise the power ofchoice, and to this extent al-Ghazali believed that experience suggests that man is free. Thisfreedom of rational choice, it will be observed, approximates what was meant by some writersas the function of the faculty of appropriation (al-'aql mukhtasab). In this way the soul wouldattain a unity and mastery within itself, which might be described as a harmony of the inner self,or as individual moral integrity. It is equally possible, however, and indeed more frequent in occurrence, for anger and desire tobe so instigated by the Satanic forces, al-shaitaniya, that they gain ascendancy over the soul.[6]Reason then loses its proper mastery and becomes a slave. The soul, overwhelmed by evil andmaking that which the passions suggest look pleasing (Qur'an XVI:63), will then act as theinstigating soul (al-nafs al-ammara). Nevertheless, al-Ghazali insists that, even when evilcomes to be most frequently suggested, there is in conformity with the Qur'an (LXXV:2) adivine element that keeps struggling against the evil tendencies and that is seldom completelysubdued. This divine element expresses itself through the upbraiding soul (al-nafs al-lawwama), which appears to function in much the same way as a conscience." [Donaldson, op.cit, pp.148-9] I should add that when al-Ghazali speaks of 'reason' in this context, he does not mean simply thepower of logical thought, but rather an inborn faculty of discriminationa quality of truehumanitywhich in its highest manifestation is "a perfect gift of the superhuman 'aql fa'al, theDispenser of Forms in the universe." In this sense his line of thought is much closer to that of PakSubuh (or of Abu Sa'id) than might at first appear. There is also a third approach, implicit in the Persian account of the formation of the human embryoalready given, which may be called the mystical or theosophical. Moslem thought considers man as atrue microcosm of the universe or Greater World; and it follows that be must incorporate in his ownbeing both the four elements of which the universe is composed and the three stages ofdevelopmentthe material, the vegetable and the animalwhich can be marked in the visible world.It also follows that he must reflect, inversely as it were, the seven spheres of the invisible or spiritualworld, which surround the universe in an ascending series. One can, therefore, use the sametermsas indeed Pak Subuh doesto indicate either the stages of man's development or the risingspheres of the heavens; one must necessarily be a true reflection of the other. By a further extension ofthe same thought it is natural to regard each major prophet, of the line which culminated inMohammed, as presiding over one of these stages or heavens, thus marking the progressive characterof God's revelation to man. Each of these three elements has its place in Pak Subuh's system. It isscarcely necessary to give examples of the first twothe quasi-biological idea of a gradation ofnatures or essences; or the more philosophic idea of an inner harmony to be obtained when each ofthese forces fulfils but does not exceed its allotted rle. All this is to be found, implicit or explicit, inany description of Subud. The third, or theosophic, element is fully expressed in the elaborate accountof the stages in the Subud path given by Husein Rof[7] summarized as follows:- Rewani or Shaitani; the Material or Satanic. It is associated with the element earth and thecolour yellow; it has no presiding prophet. The appropriate Islamic term for this stage isTariqat i.e. the acceptance of a discipline or rule of life. Nabati; the Vegetable. This is associated with the element water and the colour white. Thepresiding prophet is Abraham and the appropriate term Hikmat i.e. Wisdom, but here used, Ithink, in the sense of an understanding of the mysteries of nature. Haiwani; the Animal. This is associated with the element fire and the colour red. The presidingprophet is Moses and the appropriate Marifat. This is usually translated gnosis but heremeans, I think, esoteric knowledge rather than direct illumination. Jasmani and lnsani; the Human in its physical and spiritual aspects respectively. It isassociated with the element air and the colour black. The presiding prophet is Jesus and theappropriate term is Haqiqat i.e. the state of being or expressing the Reality; illumination. Ruhani; the Angelic. The presiding prophet is Mohammed. (No colour is mentioned, though nodoubt green would be appropriate.) The term is Shariat. This derives from Shari'a the Law,and implies, I take it, the condition of apostleship (in the Moslem sense) i.e. of being a divinelyinspired law-giver. Rahmani )Rabbani) These two superior states have no attributes or descriptions; but it is worthremarking that their names derive from the two cardinal names of Allah: al-Rahman, theMerciful and al-Rab, the Lord. We shall see the significance of this later. The ascription of characteristic colours to the various stages or spheres is very common in Sufiwritings, though there does not seem to be any general agreement about which colour applies towhich. Of the various schemes of this sort that I have seena minute fraction of the totalonly oneresembles Pak Subuh's at all closely. This is the curious description of the five psychic organs givenby a latter-day Sufi, Shaikh Muhammad Amin, who died in 1914. Professor Arberry cites it more as acuriosity than anything else; but it may fittingly conclude this section. The organs in question are: "The qalb (heart) is two fingers' breadth below the left nipple towards the side; it is shapedlike a pine-cone. It is under the foot (i.e. religious control) of Adam; its light is yellow. The ruh (spirit) is two fingers' breadth below the right nipple towards the breast. It is under thefoot of Noah and Abraham; its light is red. The sirr (inmost conscience) is two fingers' breadth above the left nipple towards the breast. Itis under the foot of Moses. Its light is white. The khafi (hidden depth) is two fingers' breadth above the right nipple towards the breast. It isbeneath the foot of Jesus. Its light is black. The akhfa (most hidden depth) is in the middle of the breast. It is under the foot of Muhammad;its light green." [Sufism. pp.131-2] It will be noticed that, apart from a reversal (perhaps accidental) of the colours of Abraham andMoses, this sequence follows Pak Subuh exactly. Yet the correspondence is more superficial thanreal. If we were to try to combine the two schemes, we should find ourselves associating the qalbusually regarded as the seat of the vegetable, if not the animal, essence with the material level, thesirr usually regarded as purely spiritual, with the animal level, and so on. This is a fair example,though a minor one, of the complexities which await any student of Sufism, a flexible system all theexponents of which claim, as Pak Subuh also does, to be speaking from their own direct experience. Part 3 I must now try to deal with the other aspect of the Subud symbol; that is to say, its invisiblecomponent. "The emblem is completed by the addition of two further essences that cannot be shownby points or lines or circles or any other geometrical symbol, for they are omnipresent, pervading allthat exists."[8] These are the two Great Life Forces, to which Pak Subuh gives the names Roh Illofiand Roh Kudus. Before we can form any conception of what he means by these terms, it is necessaryto turn back and consider, however briefly, some aspects of the early history of Sufism.[9] Sufism first made its appearance as a recognizable movement in the eighth century A.D., that is to say,the second century of the Moslem era. At this stage it was primarily, if not wholly, an asceticmovement; a protest against the luxury and corruption which had inevitably followed the earlyconquests of Islam. Much of its inspiration came from contact with the Christian solitaries and monksof Syria; and it is probable that they also provided, though indirectly, the name of the movement. Mostscholars derive 'Sufi' from the Arabic word for wool (suf) and find the origin of the name in thewoolen cloaks which the ascetics wore, perhaps in imitation of monastic habits. But it is likely thatsome Buddhist influence also made itself felt even at this early stage. One of the most active Sufiareas in the second and third Moslem centuries was the Persian province of Khurasan, which hadpreviously been a flourishing Buddhist centre. The two basic ideas or key-words of early Sufism were zuhd, abstinence or the turning away from theworld, and its positive converse tawakkul or trust in God. Both were interpreted in their mostextreme and primitive form. On the former it is only necessary to quote the opinion of the earlytheologian, al-Hasan al-Basri, which was typical of the ascetics of this period:- ''For this world has neither worth nor weight with God; so slight it is. it weighs not with God somuch as a pebble or a single clod of earth; as I am told, God has created nothing more hateful toHim than this world, and from the day He created it He has not looked upon it, so much Hehates it." [Arberry, op.cit. p.34] The opposite concept of tawakkul was also apt to lead to certain extravagances:- "The command to trust in God some of them carried out so thoroughly that they would not act ontheir own initiative at all, refusing, for example, to seek food or take medicine; and theyscarcely exaggerate when they describe their attitude as that of a corpse in the hands of thewasher who prepares it for burial.[10] This kind of devotion might sink into lip-service andhypocrisy; still, for many of them, it was no matter of rule: it was as intensely real as the terrorswhich inspired it. Hasan of Basra, hearing mention of a man who shall only be saved afterhaving passed a thousand years in Hell-fire, burst into tears and exclaimed: "Oh, would that Iwere like that man!"" [The Idea of Personality in Sufism, R.A.Nicholson p8] But this bleak creed of denial contained within itself the elements of a true devotion. Its characteristicmode of expression was the dhikr. This word means literally 'remembrance' and is used in preciselythe same sense as the Christian 'recollection' or the 'practice of the presence of God'. This method ofdevotion, in which it is not difficult to see the origin of the latihan, has always been the centralfeature of Sufi worship. It can take an almost infinite variety of forms, ranging from a private act ofsilent recollectiona state comparable with that of the Prayer of Quietto an elaborate and noisyritual, accompanied by singing and dancingand sometimes disfigured by the use of drugswhichhas as its object the production of an artificial ecstasy.[11] In this connection it is interesting to notethat belief in the purifying effects of physical movement is very early in date. Thus when Abu Saidwas reproved for allowing his young men to take part in the sema (ritual dance)it being held,apparently, that such exercises were only for staid and well-established initiates, he replied:- "The souls of young men are not yet purged of lust: indeed, it may be the prevailing element;and lust takes possession of all the limbs. Now if a young dervish claps his bands, the lust ofhis hands will be dissipated; and if he tosses his feet, the lust of his feet will be lessened ... it isbetter that the fire of their lust should be dissipated in the sema than in something else", [Donaldson. op.cit. p.216] By the early part of the ninth century Sufism was beginning to undergo its first importanttransformation; it was developing from an ascetic movement into a cult of mystical devotion:- "It was not after all a difficult transition to make from saying that all else but God is nothing(which is the logical outcome of the extreme ascetic teaching that the world is worthless andonly God's service is a proper preoccupation of the believer's heart), to claiming that when selfas well as the world has been cast aside the mystic has passed away into God," [Arberry. op.cit p.55] We may take as typical of this new development a saying of the famous woman mystic Rabi'a ofBasra, who is generally credited with having introduced into Sufism the doctrine of mahabbat ordivine love. When asked for her hand in marriage, she replied:- "The contract of marriage is for those who have a phenomenal existence. But in my case there isno such existence, for l have ceased to exist and have passed out of self. I exist for God and amaltogether His. I live in the shadow of His command. The marriage-contract must he asked forfrom Him not from me." [Arberry, op.cit p.42] This brief extract will serve to indicate how much the original Sufi conceptions of zahd and tawakkulhad been modified. They were now giving placethough the actual terms do not seem to have been ingeneral use until laterto two new conceptions, fana and baqa, which were to become the keywordsof later Sufi doctrine. Fana, like all Sufi terms, is a word of many meanings. Its literal sense is'passing away': the fading of the egotistical in the light of the divine. It can therefore be used in thesense of 'abandon', much as de Caussade uses that terms or in the more active sense of the'annihilation of the will' as understood by Benet de Canfield and his followers. But it also has a moreextreme application, which later became a source of deep controversy, both among Sufis and betweenthem and orthodox Moslems. Fana can mean 'annihilation'; either the complete absorption of self inthe contemplation of God as in the state of unionwhich we may suppose to be what Rabia wasspeaking of; or by a further extension the total absorption of the individual soul into a pantheisticOnein which ease the term becomes the equivalent of the Buddhist nirvana. The complementary term baqa has an equally wide application, since it represents the positive aspectof fana. It means literally 'subsistence' and can be used simply to indicate the displacement of onequality or psychological state by anotherespecially the displacement of a negative quality by apositive one. Thus the 'passing away' of ignorance implies the 'subsistence' of knowledge, and so on.But behind this lies the idea of the Reality of God as opposed to the unreality (or comparativeunreality) of the phenomenal world. In its last extension, therefore, baqa comes to mean the state of'living in God', which is the corollary of a total fana or 'dying to self'. But it will be noticed that thisconcept is opposed to that of fananirvana, since it implies a continued (though totally changed) lifeas an individual entity.[12] Here we come to the heart of the matter. For the first century or so of its existence Sufism had been nomore than an ascetic or devotional movement within lslam. It had developed certain characteristicpractices such as the dhikr, but there had been no need to develop a specialized doctrine in thetheological sense. But now that the movement had adopted a mystical standpoint, properly so-called,and had begun to make use of such terms as fana and baqa the need for a new doctrine had becomeacute. The rigid framework of orthodox Moslem theology leaves no room for terms and conceptionssuch as these, its whole emphasis is on the absolute transcendence, the complete 'otherness' of Allah.The whole universe is sustained from moment to moment by His will alone. He is the only real agentin existence, who creates us and all that we do immediately and directly without any secondary cause.His relation to man is that of master and slave: "He misguides whom He pleases and leads arightwhom He pleases" (Koran XVI:95). The same idea is expressed still more forcibly in the Traditions(hadith), where it is recorded that when Allah created Adam, he drew forth his posterity from hisloins in two handfuls, one white as silver, the other black as coal, saying: "These are in Paradise andI care not; and those are in Hell and I care not." On this particular tradition one authority comments,not without reason:- "This is the end of the whole matter, and to this must return the vision of the Muslim mystic andthe ecstasy of the Muslim saint; the dreams of a lover and beloved, the groanings andtravailings of creation. Whenever the devout life, with its spiritual aspirations and ferventlongings, touches the scheme of Muslim theology, it must thus bend and break. For it, withinIslam itself, there is no place." [The Religious Attitude and Life in Islam. D.B.Macdonald. p.301] This is no doubt an extreme view, which only the most rigidly orthodox would fully endorse. But itillustrates very clearly the central dilemma in which the Sufis were caught. It would be outside thescope of this paper, even if I were capable, to attempt a full discussion of the various methods bywhich they tried to resolve it and to accommodate the reality of their own religious experience withinthe framework of orthodox theology. The present purpose will be served by comparing two suchattemptsone failure and one doubtful successwhich between them exercised a decisive influenceon the whole subsequent development of Sufi thought. Part 4 The failure, so to call it, was that of Husayn Ibn Mansur al-Hallaj, to a Christian the most sympatheticof all Moslem saints. He was martyred at the beginning of the fourth century of the Moslem era, andthus belongs to the transitional period of which we have been speaking. It does not appear that he setout consciously to construct a mystical theology; but in the course of trying to describe and explain hisown experience, he did in fact evolve such a system. Its nature is indicated in the following passagefrom his Kitabal-Tawasin:-[13] "God looked into eternity, prior to everything, contemplated the essence of His splendour, andthen desired to project outside Himself His supreme joy and Jove with the object of speaking tothem. He also created an image of Himself with all His attributes and names. This image wasAdamthe Huwa Huwa (He, He), whom God glorified and exalted. Glory to God whomanifested His Nasut (humanity) wherein lay the brilliant light of His Lahut (divinity); thenappeared to His creatures in the form of him that eats and drinks." [Quoted by Affifi. op.cit. p. 79] It will be seen that al-Hallajs system is a dualism, which evidently owed much to Christian teaching.It depends upon the existence of two natures, a divine and a human, which were conjoined in theoriginal, perfect man (He, He)that is to say, Adam before the fall. The path of the mystic is to seekthis union again in his own being:- I am He whom I love, and He whom I love is I,We are two spirits dwelling in one body.If thou seest me, thou seest Him,And if thou seest Him, thou seest us both. [The Mystics of Islam, R.A.Nicholson. p.151] In describing this final goal, al-Hallaj expressly used the word hulul (union), which is associated inMoslem minds with the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation. Moreover, though he acknowledged thepre-eminence of Mohammed as the light from which all prophecy proceeds, it was in Jesus that hefound the perfect type of the transfigured and essentialized man, who reveals from within himself al-Haqq, the Reality. Indeed the phrase 'him that eats and drinks' in the passage quoted above, iscommonly held to refer to Jesus. Such a doctrine could evidently find no place in Islam and died withal-Hallaj. Nevertheless, his teaching had left its mark[14] and we shall soon see the reflection ofmany of his ideas, though in a much altered form, in the work of the second figure with whom we haveto deal, Muhyi al-Din Ibn 'Arabi, who was born more than two hundred years later. Professor Arberrymarks the transition from one to the other as follows:- "Theosophy had seemed a dangerous game to play in Islam since al-Hallaj paid for hisindiscreet enthusiasms with his life. Since the preaching of Union with God was liable tomisunderstanding and open to the charge of forbidden 'incarnationism' (hulul), it was necessaryto discover some substitute doctrine which while coming to much the same port, sailed nearerthe wind of orthodoxy. We have seen how al-Hallaj surprisingly took Jesus as his example of aholy man in whom God was incarnated. Sufi theory had only to substitute Muhammad for Jesus,and to moderate the extravagance of al-Hallajs language, to invent a system of speculativetheosophy which would beguile all but the wariest critics." [Arberry, op.cit, p.93] This is certainly true: and it is with this aspect of Ibn 'Arabi's thoughthis development of what maybe called a Moslem logos doctrinethat we shall be mainly concerned, since it provides a basis forPak Subuh's theory of Life-Forces. But this was not the whole story. The substitution of Muhammadfor Jesus as the exemplar of his doctrine might have saved al-Hallaj but the doctrine itself would stillhave been unacceptable in Islam because of its essential dualism. On this point I may quote ProfessorNicholson. Speaking of the Sufi attitude towards the central Moslem doctrine of the unity of God, hesays Sufis, however, regard the Unity of God not as anything that can be apprehended by theintellect, but as a mystery that is revealed only to those whom God permits to realize it in theirreligious experience. We have seen that in order to love and know God the Sufi must losehimself in the love and knowledge of God. Similarly the muwahhid or unifier of God cannotfully realize that God is one except by losing himself in the Oneness of God. Unification(Tawhid) is defined as "the absoluteness of the Divine nature realized in the passing-away ofthe human nature", so that "the man's last state reverts to his first state and he becomes even ashe was before he existed." That a doctrine of utter transcendence should lead straight tomystical union of the human personality with the divine, was inevitable as soon as that doctrinestood opposed to a religion in which God is worshipped as the object of knowledge and love.The infinite distance between God and man God alone can annihilate; man has no power tobridge the chasm, therefore it is overleaped by a tour de force of the omnipotent Will. That idealies behind the whole theory and practice of religious ecstasy on which the Sufis throw so muchstress. How should the mystic's conscious self not be obliterated and swept away by thetranscendent glory of Him who in a sudden gleam reveals himself as ineffably near? Must notthe distinction of subject and object vanish altogether? For here God is all, and there is naughtbeside Him." [Idea of Personality in Sufism, Nicholson p.13] The two internal quotations in this passage come from the teachings of al-Junaid, an oldercontemporary of al-Hallaj, who is said to have been one of his Sufi masters. But it is in Ibn 'Arabithat we find the extreme doctrinal expression of this concept of the unity of God. This extraordinaryman seems to have made it his object to form a grand synthesis of all the theories current in the Islamof his day. He drew both on orthodox and Sufi theology and equally on that of the various hereticalsects, such as the Hu'tusilites, Carmathians and Isma'ilis, to say nothing of the Gnostic and Neo-platonist treatises, which were then (the twelfth century A.D.) circulating widely in the Moslemworld. The result was an intellectual structure of baffling complexity, expressed in a style of extremeand probably deliberate obscurity. Nevertheless, the main outline of his thought can be discernedclearly enough. lbn 'Arabi's system is a complete and uncompromising monism. All Being is one ofwhich God (or what is commonly called God) and the phenomenal world are no more than twodifferent aspects. "The Haqq (Reality) of whom transcendence is asserted is the same as the Khalq (Creation) ofwhom immanence is asserted, although (logically) the creator is distinguished from thecreated." [Fusus al-Hikam of Ibn 'Arabi.] But even the terms 'creation' and 'created' are, in fact misnomers. The processwhich has nobeginning and no endis rather to be regarded as the self-revelation of Reality to Itself by the callinginto concrete existence from the state of latency, in which they eternally are, of the infinite potentialaspects of Reality. But these aspects are not created; they may be said in effect to create or to realizethemselves:- ''Ibn ul 'Arabi puts it all very boldly in an interesting passage in the Fusus, in which he says thatGod does not create anything; creation (tekwin) (which, according to him, means the cominginto concrete manifestation of an already existing substance)belongs to the thing itself. "Itcomes to being" means that it manifests itself of its own accord. The only thing that God does inthe matter is to will a thing to be (concretely manifested), and God wills nothing and commandsnothing the existence of which is not made necessary by the very nature and laws of thingsthemselves. God according to him is another name for such laws. "Were it not in the nature of athing to be at the moment of God's command, it would never be. So, nothing brings a thing intoexistence. i.e. makes its existence manifest, except itself."" [Affifi, op.cit, p.31] In these dizzy conceptions the dualism of al-Hallaj is totally submerged. His Lahut and NasutforIbn 'Arabi continued to use these termsbecome simply 'essence' and 'form': a single essencemanifesting itself in a multiplicity of forms. Indeed, Ibn 'Arabi seems to go even further than this andto regard the forms themselves as mere appearances, dependent for their (apparent) existence on thestandpoint of the beholder:- "The self-revelations of the One (the tajalliyat) thus understood are as follows. When weconceive the One as apart from all possible relations and individualizations, we may say thatGod has revealed Himself in the State of Unity (al ahadiyyah) or is in the blindness (al ama),the state of the Essence. When we regard it in relation to the potential existence of thePhenomenal World, we say that God has revealed Himself in the 'state of the Godhead' (almartabah al ilahiyyah).[15] This is also the state of what Ibn ul 'Arabi calls the ayan althabita and the state of the Divine Names.[16] And when we regard it in relation to the actualmanifestations of the Phenomenal World, we say that God has revealed Himself in the state oflordship (al rububiyyah). If regarded as a universal consciousness containing all intelligibleforms of actual and potential existents, we say that Reality has revealed itself in the FirstIntellect, and God revealed Himself in the inward or the unseen, and we call the state haqiqatu-l haqa'iq (Reality of Realities). But if regarded as actually manifested in the Phenomenal Worldwe say that God has manifested Himself in forms of the external world, and we identify Himwith the universal Body (al jiam al kulli). When we think of Him as the universal substancewhich receives all forms, we say that God revealed Himself in Prime Matter, al hayula andso on and so on. In this way Ibn ul 'Arabi goes through the whole of Plotinus' emanations,adding to them the Four Roots of Empedocles and many other spheres wherein God ismanifested. The mass of descriptions (largely borrowed from Moslem sources) which he pileson each of them is amazing. But in spite of these details, which are rather misleading, theoutline of his doctrine is clear. Reality is a unitywe multiply it through the way weunderstand it." [Affifi, op.cit, pp.63-4] It is against this background of thought that we must understand lbn 'Arabi's logos-doctrine, the first tobe introduced into Islam and also the last, since subsequent writers have done no more than copy lbn'Arabi with minor variations. But what is this logos? In the first place, it is identified withMuhammed; not, of course, with the 'form' of Muhammed, the actual historical personagethat wouldbe impossible on Ibn 'Arabi's systembut rather with the pre-existent Spirit or Reality ofMuhammed, the haqiqat al-Muhammadiya. This in turn is identified with the First Intellect or Realityof Realities mentioned abovei.e. a universal consciousness containing all intelligible forms.' It isalso the Prime Matter, the universal substance which receives all forms, and even al-arsh (theThrone), a term which Ibn 'Arabi normally uses as a synonym for the Phenomenal World. Oragainand here lbn 'Arabi follows al Hallaj very closelyit is Adam, the Perfect Man, conceivedas a true microcosm of the universe. In short, it is the active determining principle of everything thatexists:- "It starts as near as possible to Matter (something like the spiritual Matter of Plotinus). Itmultiplies with the multiplication of existents but does not divide (except in thought). One couldsay it is God or the universe, but one could also say that it is neither. From it the universeproceeds as a 'particular' proceeds from a universal.[17] It contains the realities (ideas beingidentified with realities haqaiq) of diverse objects, yet in itself it remains homogeneous. Itstands in the closest relationship to God's knowledge. It is known to God through itself, i.e. it isthe consciousness of God. It is not the divine Knowledge itself, but rather the content andsubstance of such knowledge. In it the Knower, the Known and Knowledge itself are one.Through it the universe is brought into manifestation. It is the 'store' of intelligible andarchetypal ideas of the world of 'becoming'. The 'Reality of Realities' thus described is no moreother than God than a potentiality, which under certain conditions becomes an actuality, can becalled other than this actuality. It is God conceived as the self-revealing Principle of theuniverse: God as manifesting Himself in a form of universal consciousness, at no particulartime or place, but as the Reality which underlies all realities and as a being whoseconsciousness is identical with His Essence," [Affifi op.cit pp.68-9] Within such a system there is, of course, no room for any form of mystical union in the accepted senseof that term. The most that can be said is that the mystic may recognize, or realize within himself, thecentral fact that he is one with God, that his essence is an aspect of Reality. But in one sense this istrue of everythingof a stone equally with a man. The difference is that man, as a microcosm of theuniverse, is potentially capable of realizing or reflecting all the aspects of reality. He can alsobecome aware that this is soindeed the two processes are the same. But this awareness orgnosiswhich Ibn 'Arabi regards as the essence of wilaya (sainthood)does not come to him fromwithout by inspiration. It is an inward realization of his 'ayn (self or essence); and its nature andextent varies with each individual. That which you were in your latency is what you are in yourexistence. [Fusus al-Hikam.] Hence even the class of gnostics or illuminati whom Ibn 'Arabi callsPerfect Men, are not perfect in an absolute sense. Their perfection consists in having 'positive being'i.e. having fully realized certain aspects of reality; but this may well include ethical or otherimperfections. Indeed it must do so, for Reality has infinite aspects and its full manifestation requireswhat we (from our limited point of view) call imperfection, as well as what we call perfection.[18] When I referred above to Ibn 'Arabi's system as 'a dubious success', I meant that it was far fromproviding a complete solution to the problem of reconciling Sufi devotion with orthodox theology. Ibn'Arabi was vehemently attacked in his own day as a heretic, and pantheist, and these attacks havecontinued. One modern authority goes so far as to say roundly that his system cannot be reconciledwith Islam at any price. It is not easy to dissent from these opinions. On the other hand, everyauthority bears witness to the extent of Ibn Arabis influence on subsequent thought down to thepresent day. However much disagreement and alarm his writings may provoke, they have had their effect: nothinghas ever been quite the same since. I think it is fair to say that Ibn 'Arabi marked the second greattransformation of Sufism. After his day it ceased to be a devotional movement or a particular cult andbecame, in effect, a new religion, connected with the old Islam by the ties of a common origin, by thefact that it shared the same sacred books, and by the observance (in which some Sufis were notalways very diligent) of certain outward forms. Of the essential nature of this religion Dr. Affifi hasprovided what seems to me an honest summary:- "For a materialistic pantheist, the multiplicity of phenomena is all that mattersall that existsand all that is real. Ibn ul 'Arabi, on the other hand, worships and glorifies (in his own way)that which lies beyond the phenomena, the Reality which underlies and controls allthat whichreflects, as in a mirror, its being and perfections in the Phenomenal World. It is for this reasonthat Ibn ul 'Arabi lays emphasis on both aspects of Realityimmanence and transcendence,although the degree of emphasis on the one or the other varies with his mood. His emphasis onthe immanent aspect is at times so strong that it gives his system the appearance of materialisticpantheism, as when he identifies God with the Ash'arites' Primal Substance and all phenomenawith its states and accidents. But at other times, i.e. when the religious feeling speaks withinhim, he lays more stress on the transcendent aspect. "For He, glory to Him" Ibn ul 'Arabi says,"has no resemblance whatever to His creation. His Essence cannot be apprehended by us, sowe cannot compare it with tangible objects, neither are His actions like ours."" [Affifi, op.cit. pp.58-9] Part 5 After this long detour we can return to Pak Subuh's theory of Life Forces. It will already be clear thatthis derives from Ibn 'Arabi's logos-doctrine. But the derivation is not direct. To find Pak Subuh'stheory in its complete form we must move forward another two hundred years and consider the workof 'Abd al-Karim al-Jili, who developed and formalized one aspect of Ibn Arabi's doctrine in hisfamous treatise, al-Insan al-Kamil (The Perfect Man). This book is said to have been particularlyinfluential in the development of Sufism in the Far Eastthat is to say, in Malaya and Indonesia. It isalso worth noticing that al-Jili was a descendent and follower of 'Abd al-Qadir b.'Abd Allah al-Jili(or Jilani), the founder of the Qadirite order of dervishes, from whom, according to Rof[19] PakSubuh traces his spiritual descent. I shall not try, nor am l competent, to analyse the differencesbetween Ibn 'Arabi's doctrine and al-Jili's. It is enough to say here that the latter adopted the former'sgeneral system entirely but gave it a more regular form and, I think one may say, a slightly moreorthodox colouring. Of al-Jili's views on the particular subject under discussion, Nicholson has thisto say:- "In the second part of his work the author treats of the Perfect Man as the Spirit whence allthings have their origin. Accordingly he devotes successive chapters to the organs and facultieswhich make up the psychological and intellectual constitution of the Perfect Manspirit, heart,intelligence, reflection, etc., with the corresponding celestial beings which are said to be'created' from them. The highest hypostases of his psychology are the Holy Spirit (Ruhu l-Quds) and the Spirit (al-Ruh); the latter is also described as 'the angel named al-Ruh' and, inthe technical language of the Sufis, as 'the haqq by means of which the world is created' (al-haqqu l-makhluq bihi) and 'the Idea of Mohammed' (al-Haqiqatu l-Muhammadiyya). Howthese two Spirits are related to each other is indicated in the following passage:- "You must know that every sensible object has a created spirit which constitutes its form, andthe spirit is to the form as the meaning to the word. The created spirit as a Divine spirit whichconstitutes it, and that Divine spirit is the Ruhu l-Quds. Those who regard the Ruhu l-Quds inman deem it created, because two eternal substances cannot exist eternity belongs to God alone,whose names and attributes inhere in His essence because of the impossibility of their beingdetached; all else is created and originated. Man, for example, has a body, which is his form,and a spirit, which is his meaning, and a consciousness (sirr), which is al-Ruh, and an essentialaspect ( wajh), which is denoted by the terms Ruhu l-Quds (the Holy Spirit), al-sirru l-ilahi(the Divine Consciousness) and al-wujudu l-sari (the all-pervading Being)." The Ruhu l-Quds and the Ruh are one Spirit viewed as eternal in relation to God and non--eternal in relation to Man; as the inmost essence of things or as their form of existence. Theuncreated Spirit of God, sanctified above all phenomenal imperfections, is referred to in theverse. "I breathed of My Spirit into Adam" (Kor.XV:29; XXXVIII:72), and in the verse.Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face (wajh) of Allah" (Kor.II:109), i.e., the Ruhu l-Qudsexists 'individualized by its perfection' in every object of sense or thought. Al-Jili adds thatinasmuch as the spirit of a thing is its self (nafs) existence is constituted by the 'self of God;and His 'self is His essence. Union with the Ruhu l-Quds comes only as the crown andconsummation of the mystical life to the holy one (qudsi) who unceasingly contemplates theDivine Consciousness (sirr) which is his origin, so that its laws are made manifest to him andGod becomes his ear, eye, hand and tongue; he touches the sick and they are healed, he bids athing to be and it is, for he has been strengthened with the Holy Spirit even as Jesus was (Kor.II:81). It will now be seen that al-Jili considers the created Ruh or the archetypal Spirit ofMohammed as a mode of the uncreated Holy Divine Spirit and as a medium through which Godbecomes conscious of Himself in creation." [Studies in Islamic Mysticism. pp.108-10] We are now in a position to recognize that Pak Subuh's Roh Illofi and Roh Kudus are identical withal-Jili's al-Ruh and Ruhu l-Quds. But before we take this matter any further, certain comments mustbe made on the foregoing passage in the light of what has been said before. Although his use of termssuch as 'spirit' and 'angel' may sometimes suggest the contrary, al-Jili was as uncompromising amonist as Ibn 'Arabi. We must not, therefore, think of al-Ruh and the Ruhu l-Quds as distinct beings,entities or even emanations; they are no more than modes or aspects of the one Reality, to which theystand in the same relation as do the bands of colour produced by a prism to the original source oflight. From our point of view they may appear to be separate and distinct; from another point of viewthey can be seen to be the sameand so with everything else. We must also remember that al-Jili usesthe words 'created and 'creation' in the same peculiar sense as Ibn 'Arabi. Some such terms as 'self-manifested' and 'self-manifestation' would express his thought more clearly. On this point I may quoteNicholson again:- "Pure Being, as such has neither name nor attribute; only when it gradually descends from itsabsoluteness and enters the realm of manifestation, do names and attributes appear imprinted onit. The sum of these attributes is the universe, which is 'phenomenal' only in the sense that itshows reality under the form of externality. Although, from this standpoint, the distinction ofessence and attribute must be admitted, the two are ultimately one, like water and ice. The so-called phenomenal worldthe world of attributesis no illusion: it really exists as the self-revelation or other self of the Absolute. In denying any real difference between essence andattribute, al-Jili makes Being identical with Thought. The world expresses God's idea ofHimself, or as Ibn ul-Arabi puts it, "we ourselves are the attributes by which we describeGod; our existence is merely an objectification of His existence, God is necessary to us inorder that we may exist, while we are necessary to Him in order that He may be manifested toHimself.'"' [Nicholson, op.cit. p.83] It is an inevitable consequence of these opinions that al-Jili, like Ibn 'Arabi before him, should be athorough-going determinist. When he speaks of the Perfect Man as "the cosmic Thought assumingflesh and connecting Absolute Being with the world of Nature", he is referring to the ideal mansymbolized by Adam. He does not mean that it is open, even in theory, to any individual man toachieve such a position. The most that an individual can do is to realize his own essential nature; thatis to say, to manifest, according to his inborn and predetermined capacity, the particular aspect ofReality which is, to use Ibn 'Arabi's expression, his 'latency'. Those that do so can properly be calledPerfect Men, though only in this lesser and relative sense: they are logoi but not the logos. Such menare the gnostics or saints (awlaya); but this term does not imply piety or holiness, though thesecharacteristics may be present, as it were accidentally. The essence of the condition isknowledgean inward experience in which the individual realizes in what relationship he stands tothe one Reality.[20] But here al-Jili becomes conscious of a difficulty and in meeting it goes, I think, rather further than Ibn'Arabi. As we have seen, the functionof one may use such a termof al-Ruh is to make all thingswhat they are, or rather what they should be. Its action in a man must therefore be to make him trulyhuman; it is the medium through which he realizes his latency'; and we can understand why, in apassage quoted much earlier, al-Ruh was equated with the Spirit of Humanity.[21] But what of thoseexceptional beingsthe major prophets and saints, the great mysticswho can truly be said to havedisplayed superhuman qualities? Here al-Jili falls back on a doctrine of substitution. He recognizesthree ascending stages[22] in the mystical path:- i.The Illumination of the Divine Actions, in which the mystic realizes that he can do nothing ofhimself, since all action belongs to God;ii.The Illumination of the Divine Names, in which he is wholly absorbed in contemplation ofone of the attributes of God, as it is revealed in the phenomenal world;iii.The Illumination of the Divine Attributes, in which he actually becomes one with theattribute itselflife, knowledge, power, will or whatever it may be. Of the stages (ii) and (iii) al-Jili has this to say:- "When God desires to reveal Himself to a man by means of any Name or Attribute, He causesthe man to pass away (fana) and makes him naught and deprives him of his (individual)existence; and when the human light is extinguished and the creaturely spirit passes away, Godputs in the man's body without incarnation (hulul) a spiritual substance, which is of God'sessence and is neither separate from God nor joined to the man, in exchange for what Hedeprived him of; which substance is named the Holy Spirit (ruhu l-quds). And when God putsinstead of the man a spirit of His own essence, the revelation is made to that spirit. God isnever revealed except to Himself, but we call that Divine spirit 'a man' in respect of its beinginstead of the man. In reality there is neither 'slave' nor Lord, since these are correlated terms.When the 'slave' is annulled, the 'Lord' is necessarily annulled, and nothing remains but Godalone." (Nicholson, op.cit, p.128.) It will be noticed that at this point al-Jili's thought comes very close to that of Abu Sa'id in thepassage on sincerity, which l quoted in the first section. Indeed they use almost identical terms; whereAbu Sa'id speaks of the sirr Allah, al-Jili, as we have seen, speaks of the sirr l-ilahi or Divineconsciousness. But there is this difference between their two systems or their two approaches. By introducing al Ruh,the Created Spirit, which is also the idea of Mohammed and the Spirit of Humanity, al-Jili brings in,as it were, another level. We thereby have both the sirr or consciousness, which is the domain of al-Ruh, and the sirru l-ilahithe essence of the essencewhich is the domain of the Ruhu l quds. Acomplete awareness of the former will bring a man to the condition described in an earlier quotationas that of the Spirit of Humanity, the condition in which "he is adorned with every good and noblequality". But this must be understood in a strictly relative sense, since no one can realize more ofthese good qualities than his innate capacity allows. To this state, if I have understood al-Jilicorrectly, all men may aspire; but beyond it now lies another realm, that of the true gnostics, whomGod chooses to enlighten further. They achieve, or are granted, awareness of the sirru l-ilahi and indoing so become the passive subjects of a substitution of the divine for the human essence, to whichal-Jili refers in the passage just quoted above. But though we may speak of the difference of leveland as we shall see, it is of cardinal importancein the study of Subudthe distinction, as always in al-Jili's system, is one of appearance only. It mustbe repeated that al-Ruh and the Ruhu l-quds are the same spirit seen under two different aspects: inthe first case as temporal in relation to Man, in the second as eternal in relation to God. The apparentdifference of level is thus purely subjective: that is why Nicholson speaks of these two spirits as thehypostases of al-Jili's psychology. So long as a man regards himself as a separate and discreteindividual, however mindful he may be of his divine origin, as expressed in or through his sirr, hecannot escape from his temporal limitations. The divine light is only accessible to him under its'created' form of al-Ruh, the idea of Mohammed, the Spirit of Humanity, etc. But the illuminatedmystic sees the position otherwise. He realizes that he is not a discrete individual but an aspect ofReality: that he is (as he has always been) one with God. This illumination or gnosis enables him toperceive his own divine essence, al-sirru 'l-ilahi, and thus to receive the divine light directly in itsform of the Ruhu l-quds. But such illumination does not come by searching. No Moslem could say:"Seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you." All gnosis is an action of the arbitraryWill of God, descending how it will upon whom it will. Part 6 Whether Pak Subuh accepts the doctrine, which I have tried to outline above, in all its details, Icannot say. We have Rof's word for it that he is "acquainted with the concept of the lnsn Kmil'[23]and this is indeed obvious. But the general tendency in Indonesia, so far as I can discover, has been tointerpret Ibn Arabi and al-Jili in as orthodox a sense as possible.[24] This can be done byemphasizing those passages in which they appear to be speaking in conventional dualistic term ofCreator and created, flesh and spirit, etc, and passing more lightly over other passages in which thepantheistic or monistic basis of their thought is more clearly revealed. But the modifications thusintroduced are more of form and presentation than of content. In fact, as I hope to have shown, Ibn'Arabi's and al-Jili's system, however complex and obscure it may be, is an intellectual unity, inwhich the parts cannot be separated from the whole. By glossing it in this way or that one can make ittook (from the Moslem point of view) more or less orthodox, but one cannot alter its essential nature.Nor, I think, would any Sufi wish to do so, for this is the only metaphysical system so far evolved,which offers, with even the appearance of success, to explain the nature of mystical experience inIslamic terms. We must therefore, I think, accept this doctrine as providing the basis of Pak Subuh's thought. He maywell admit certain modifications on this or that particular point; but that will not affect his centralposition. If we wish to understand what Pak Subuh says, we must familiarize ourselves with theconcepts described above, and must be content for the moment to think in these terms instead of inthose which we should normally use. The alternative is to rely on a superficial and misleading systemof translation, which seeks to render the technical terms of one theology by approximate verbalequivalents drawn from another terminology. But this can only lead to confusion. To translate RohIlofi as 'Holy Spirit', for example, has no linguistic justification and conveys a meaning, if the term isunderstood in its normal Christian sense, which is very different from what Pak Subuh intends. If wechoose some neutral English term, such as 'Angelic Power' for Roh Kudus[25] we are little better off.No precise meaning is conveyed; but there are inevitably certain overtones, which are themselvesmisleading. It is better to keep to the original terms and to try to understand them within their ownintellectual and doctrinal framework.I do not think that anyone who has read Pak Subuh's second address in Oslo[26] or the explanationsgiven in Concerning Subud[27] will doubt that his two Great Life Forces, which open the way for allother forces, are al-Jilis Ruh and Ruh l-Quds. But it is with the formerthat is to say, the spirit inits created or temporal aspectthat we are primarily concerned, for this is the active principle of thelatihan. "As a matter of fact" says Pak Subuh "the force Illofi is what you receive and feel wheneveryou do the latihan." The spiritual process involved, in other words, is one which takes place on thefirst of the two levels mentioned above; it is confined within the temporal order. This is a cardinalpoint in Pak Suhuh's teaching and one on which he is entirely consistent. It will be noticed, forexample, that the whole of his poemSusila Budhi Dharma is concerned with the gradual ascent ofman to a state which we can nowdescribe as that of the Spirit of Humanity. Unlike the other Sufitreatises, which we have been considering, it makes no reference at all to the higher states, properlycalled mystical. This is not, as we shall see, because Pak Subuh denies the existence of such states,but because they are irrelevant to the practice of the latihan. The spirit of the latihan is Roh Illofi oral-Ruh; and the spirit in this aspect manifests itself only within the temporal order. There is also a second point of great importance. As we have seen already, al-Ruh is regarded as theactive determining principle of everything. It is therefore present (in accordance with their respectivecapacities) in the material, vegetable and animal worlds, or levels of existence, no less than in thehuman. Now man, as a microcosm of the universe, shares in these lower natures; he has, in PakSubuh's terminology, a material, vegetable and animal soul as well as a human one. Hence it ispossibleat least in theorythat he should have direct and immediate access to, or awareness of,al-Ruh, no matter how debased or disorganized his nature. The only question is at what point or levelthis contact can be made. That is what Pak Subuh meant in his reply to another question put by theFrench Benedictines: Where within man does the contact take place? "The point of contact depends on the quality of the soul experiencing it. The soul is like a seriesof vessels. If the higher vessel (in Indonesian, Kalbu) is open, the point of contact will be there.If only the lower part of the soul is capable of experiencing it, the point of contact will be in thephysical body.[28] Generally speaking, the point of contact is in the highest part of the soul thatis capable of receiving it. If it begins by being in a lower part, it will not necessarily remainthere; but the practice of the latihan will open the upper parts of the soul and the point ofcontact will constantly move higher. [Op.cit, Question V/I] This is the only basis on which the Subud claim to be able to 'open' anyone, regardless of his stateand without preparation, can conceivably make sense. If we abandon the conception of multiple soulsor essences; if we do not accord to al-Ruh the status of a universal rational or directive principle; orif we suppose the spirit of the latihan to be something other than al-Ruh; [i.e. with othercharacteristics.] then the claim is nonsense. Suppose, for example, that we adopt the apparently muchsimpler system implied in Abu Sa'id's passage on sincerity, which was quoted above. We shall thenbe obliged to say that, although a divine principle is active in the human soul, no direct access to it orawareness of it, is conceivable to unregenerate man without a prolonged and arduous preparation, anascesis. That, broadly speaking, is the position taken by Christian mystics; but if we attempt to applyit directly to Subud, we shall end in sad confusion. We shall find ourselves either denying theuniversal validity of the contact or saying that anyone merely by being 'opened', can leap straight intothe mystical way. In the former case we shall be at odds with Pak Subuh; in the latter, we shall bemaking the same error in a different form as the devotees of mescalin and LSD-25. The recent pamphlet Christian Mysticism and Subud[29] falls into just this trap of failing to renderPak Subuh in his own terms. Its thesis is that the spiritual experience of the latihan is identical withmystical prayer as that was understood by, let us say, St. John of the Cross. But this is tomisunderstand the whole position. In its opening phase the latihan is by definition a surrenderanabandon in de Caussade's senseof the lower parts of the soul (the material, vegetable and animalessences) to al-Ruh, the principle inherent in their nature. It is not mystical prayer, as that is normallyunderstood but a particular path of ascesis, to which we may perhaps give the name of bodilyprayer'. When this process is complete - when these lower essences, in Pak Subuh's terminology,have been 'purified' - we reach the fourth stage, that of the truly human. A complete awareness of thesoul has been achieved, so that we may now speak, for the first time, of a surrender or abandon by theman himself, as distinct from any part or parts of his nature. But it is still within the temporal order; itis a surrender to al-Ruh, the inherent principle of man's nature, to that which makes him a man as itmakes a stone a stone. We must therefore still speak in so far as any valid comparison is possiblewith Christian practicein terms of ascesis and the purgative way; we must say that man, bybecoming truly human, fits himself for communion with God to the extent that the limitations of hisnature allow. We now reach the ultimate aim or goal of the latihan: the fifth stage, to which Pak Subuh gives thename Rohaniah; the angelic state. This is the point at which al-Ruh modulatesif I may use such aterminto al-Ruhu l-quds; it is the first point of true gnosis, the uncovering, as it were, of the sirrul-ilahi within the sirr. Pak Subuh therefore speaks of it as the state of a Perfect Being, using that termin the same sense as Ibn Arabi or al-Jili i.e. to mean one who 'manifests 'positive being', not onewho is perfect in any absolute sense.[30] He also uses the term sempurna (fullness or plenitude),which recalls, and no doubt derives from, the purna of the Upanishads. This implies a state ofundifferentiated' being and may be appropriately used here because the spirit, manifesting itself asthe Ruhu l-quds, is itself undifferentiated. It is the uncreated Spirit of God, sanctified above allphenomenal imperfections.' Pak Subuh does not mean by this, of course, anything approaching the state of union, even supposingthat his theology were to admit of such a conception. We can say, I think, that his state of Rohaniahstands somewhere on the borderline between al-Jili's Illumination of the Divine Actions and hisIllumination of the Divine Names. Continued contemplation of the attributes of God, as they aremanifested in the phenomenal world, has procured some glimpse of the true nature of Reality. It is nomore than a glimpse; but that is the mostperhaps even rather more than the mostto which anordinary man can aspire. For the very few, other states may lie beyondbut that is as God wills. Onthese further states no comment can be made, though it may be worthwhile to mention here anotherpeculiarity of lbn 'Arabi's vocabulary. When he speaks of al-Rahman (the Merciful), he is notthinking in the same terms as, for example, a Buddhist who calls Gautama 'The Compassionate One'.To Ibn 'Arabi the primary and essential act of God's mercy is His self-manifestation; and he thereforeuses the word 'merciful' almost as a synonym for 'creative'. l think it is probable that Pak Subuhfollows him in this and that, when he speaks of the state Rahmaniah, what he has in mind is the powerof creationor rather of 'calling into manifestation'which lbn 'Arabi ascribes to true gnostics. Theexample cited in one of his treatises is that of the clay pigeons which Jesus (in the apocryphal story)was able to endow with life.[31] To conclude this brief summary two further points remain to be noticed. The first concerns 'testing'.Though I agree with Rof that this practice has attracted to itself certain extraneous geomanticelements, I have no doubt that it is finally based on an aspect of al-Jili's teaching. One of his (and lbn'Arabi's) names for al-Ruh is the First Intellect; that is to say, the spirit considered as the rationalprinciple of the universe. One of the modes of the First Intellect is what al-Jili calls UniversalReason; and from this the individual intelligences of men proceed, as particulars proceed from auniversal. Individual intelligences are, of course, limited and fallible, being in any case but thereflection of a reflection. But from time to time man has direct access to Universal Reason by meansof his intuition. [Al-Jili distinguishes much more sharply than Ibn 'Arabi between intuition andgnosis.] He cannot learn anything in this way about the nature of God, since Universal Reason itselfbelongs to the temporal order; but what he does learni.e. about events in the phenomenal worldisinfallible.[32] Here we have the whole basis of 'testing'. It is closely associated with thelatihannaturally so, since Universal Reason is a mode of the First Intellect, which is al-Ruh; it isapplicable, indeed solely applicable, to the ordinary affairs of life; and, though infallible, it shouldnot be regarded in the light of Divine guidance. The second point concerns Pak Subuh's attitude towards other religions, which is, I think, liable tosome misunderstanding. I cannot do better than end this section with two quotations from Dr. Affifi,which describe Ibn 'Arabi's views on this subject. Such evidence as we have seems to me to suggestthat Pak Subuh's views are not dissimilar: "To worship a star or a tree is to worship a god, who is but a partial manifestation of the RealGod, but to worship him in all forms is to worship Allah who is the only true object ofworship. All other gods are 'intelligible objects of belief. We create them in our minds (ilahbil jal). Everyone is right in his beliefno matter how partial it is, but wrong in asserting thatthe object of his belief is (when it is not) Allah. Gnostics alone worship the true God, whosename (Allah) is the most universal of all the divine Names. They are called 'the worshippers oftime' (ubbadu l-waqf) because they worship God at every 'moment' of time in a freshmanifestation. Their position is a peculiar one: they combine the belief of the philosopher, whoasserts pure transcendence of God, with that of the polytheist who asserts pure immanence, forneither transcendence alone nor immanence alone explains the full nature of Reality. Immanencealone leads to a form of polytheism which Ibn ul 'Arabi rejects. The only religion left for him isthe universal religion which includes all religions and which, peculiarly enough, he identifieswith Islam not the monotheistic Islam of Mohammed but the idealistic monism or pantheismhe calls Islam." But Ibn 'Arabi did not wish to seek converts; on the contrary, he was convinced that any attempt toproselytise was futile:- ''According to Ibn ul 'Arabi we are born into the world with already fixed and predeterminedbeliefs, which, like everything else in Ibn ul 'Arabi's universe, obey their necessary andunchangeable laws. Beliefs are eternal potentialities which some actualities in this world. Theyare determined by, and vary according to the nature (isti'dad: capacity) of the individual, whichis itself fixed and predetermined. The monotheist and the pantheist, the gnostic and the agnostic,the theist and the atheist, the believer and the free-thinker, are so from eternity and their beliefsare determined by their own nature. This, Ibn ul 'Arabi says, is what Junayd meant by saying"the colour of water is the colour of the vessel which contains it." The part that God plays in thematter is that of an Omniscient Being who knows from eternity what every individual belief isgoing to be, but even His Knowledge is determined by the nature of the beliefs and that of thepeople to whom they belong." [Affifi, op.cit p.150-2.] Pak Subuh would add, however, that everyone can practise the latihan and thus take the firststepseven if it is no more than thattowards realizing his own essential nature and giving full andcomplete expression to whatever form of belief is inherent in it.Part 7 I think it will now be clear that the statement "Subud has no doctrine" is almost meaningless in aWestern context. It is as if a Chinese scholar were to say: "There is no need for translation; the wholedocument is in Mandarin already." So it might be; but the average European would still have to learna new language before he could understand it. Much the same is true of Subud. If we are to understandPak Subuh's simplest statements about the nature and effect of the latihan, we must learn themetaphysical language in which he is speaking. In doing so, we cannot avoid absorbing, even if wedo not accept, an entirely new doctrine, and one which is both complex and highly 'intellectual' in thepejorative sense in which that term is often used in Subud circles. Some Subud members will, I think, dispute this proposition. They will maintain that we can continueto practise the latihan, to accept Pak Subuh's explanations, and to interpret our progress or ourdifficulties in these terms, without attempting to understand the doctrinal basis on which they rest. ButI do not think that this position is tenable. It might be valid, if Subud were in fact no more than atherapy. We could then say that it was unnecessary to understand it, in the same way that it isunnecessary to understand the mechanism of an ultraviolet lamp in order to benefit from it. But Subud,if it is anything, is more than a therapy. It is an aspect of the spiritual life or even a way of life initself. Its nature, as anyone knows who has practised it for a certain time, is to bring us face to facewith the fundamental problems of belief. It cannot be otherwise, when our declared aim is to make anact of total submission to God. But submission under what aspect? That of a slave to his arbitraryLord? That of an aspect of Reality to its source? Or that of a son to his Father? We can scarcely hopeto evade such questions indefinitely. For those who enter Subud without any religious beliefs the path is straightforward. They will slipinto Sufism by a gradual and almost unconscious process. They may even persuade themselvesIthink that many willthat in doing so they are avoiding the doctrinal and 'intellectual' content, whichthey deplore so much in other religions. But for Christians the position is otherwise. They cannotcontinue, beyond a very early point, to accept Pak Subuh's explanations without considering how fartheyor the doctrines on which they restare compatible with their own beliefs. That does notmean, of course, that they will necessarily reject his explanations, in so far as these bear directly onthe practice of the latihan. That would be absurd, if only because no one else is in a position to offerany explanations at all. But it does mean, first, that they will wish to understand, as clearly andaccurately as possible, what are the implications of Pak Subuh's various statements; and secondly,that they will not be able to receive the whole of his teaching uncritically or without some measure ofreinterpretation. It is not within the scope of this paper to attempt a critical comparison between Christian doctrine andthe metaphysical system described above. That there are points of close resemblance, as well asfundamental differences, will already be obvious. Indeed, one of the most curious and stronglymarked features of Sufi thought is its ambivalent attitude towards Christianity. In particular, forreasons too obvious to discuss, the doctrine of the Incarnation has exercised a fascination over Sufithinkers. They have been constantly drawn towards it as al-Hallaj was, by the nature of their ownreligious experience, and as constantly pulled away by the rigid intellectual requirements of Islam.We can see this double process at work in Ibn 'Arabi. When he contrasts the 'philosophers' who assertthe transcendence of God with the 'polytheists' who assert His immanence, he is stating a purelyMoslem dilemma. It is not too much to say that the root of his whole elaborate system is an attempt toresolve this problem, which lay at the centre of his experience, while continuing to deny the validityof Christian doctrine. A similar comment might be made about al-Jili. As Nicholson says: No one who reads the Insanu i-Kamil can fail to discern that its author was profoundlyinfluenced by Christian ideas." But it was as impossible for him as for Ibn 'Arabi to receivethese ideas in their original form; Moslem dogma obliged him to classify Christians among the'polytheists'. He held, in this following the Koran, that they worshipped a Trinity composed ofthe Father, the Mother (i.e. The Blessed Virgin) and the Son.[33] Such a doctrine, besides beingpolytheistic, was evidently tinged with anthropomorphism (tajsim) and represented an errorwhich God would certainly punish. Nevertheless, added al-Jili, it could be said of Christiansthat they recognized the two complementary aspects of true belief: namely that from one point ofview (tanzih) God is above all likeness, while from another (tashbih) He reveals Himself inthe forms of His creatures. In respect of this and of their inward sincerity, they would certainlybe pardoned at the last. Indeed, al- Jili's references to Christianity were in general so mild andapologetic as to lead his Moslem editor to suppose that they must have been the work of someheretical interpolator. [Studies in Islamic Mysticism, pp. 138-41] We can notice a similar ambivalence in the Sufi attitude towards the person of Jesus. We have seenalready how al-Hallaj selected Jesus rather than Mohammed as his type of the deified man. Manyother, less extreme examples could be cited, though they are more apt to refer to the legendary Jesusof the apocryphal stories rather than the Jesus known to us from the Gospels. Perhaps the most curiousof all is that of lbn 'Arabi. In one of his treatises he discusses the 'Seal of the Saints'. The wholeargument is an example of that passion for symmetry which seems to exercise such a strong influenceupon Moslem thought. Since there is a Seal of the Prophets, who is Mohammed, the bearer of the finalrevelation; and since logically the state of a saint or gnostic is different from that of a Prophet, itfollows that there must also be a Seal of the Saints, the vehicle of the final illumination. But who ishe? Here Ibn 'Arabi distinguishes. There are, he says, two such seals. The first is the Seal of theHashimite tradition or of the Wilayatu l Muhammediyyah, the Moslem saintship. This is Ibn 'Arabihimself. The second is the Seal of the Wilayatu l ammah, the general or absolute saintship. This is,or rather will be, Jesus. Following a popular Moslem tradition, Ibn 'Arabi holds that Jesus will returnto earth and will embrace Islam, restoring it to its original form and revealing its true laws. In thatcapacity he will be the Seal of the Saints, the last of the line that began with Adam.[34] It is difficult not to detect in such passages a certain unconscious longing for the person of Christ. It isas if the Sufis had recognized the keystone of their arch at the very moment of rejecting it. But here, Ithink, another comment must be made. This rejection is fundamental to the whole Moslem position; itis not simply a product of loyalty to the Prophet, which obliges his followers to allot him a higherplace than Jesus; it goes deeper than that. Sufi mystics may allow their minds to play round thedoctrine of the Incarnation; but there is no room in their system, any more than in orthodox Moslemtheology, for the central fact of the Atonement. Mohammed, while accepting the Gospels as aninspired scripture, denied the story of the crucifixion, because such consummation was inconceivableto him; and so it has remained to all his followers. In the last analysis, therefore, we are faced with aconflict between two entirely different conceptions of the nature of divine love. One can, of course, find many parallel passages in the writings of Christian and Sufi mystics. It willalways remain a matter of dispute among scholars how far these should be attributed to a spontaneoussympathy of thought and how far to the direct or indirect influence of one system upon the other. Thatthere was some interaction between them seems certain; and it is equally certain that whateverinfluence was exerted was not in one direction only. Thus Arberry notes, though he does not explore,the impact of certain of Ibn 'Arabi's theories on Christian mystical thought in the Middle Ages; andanother scholar has examined, I do not know with what success, the extent of his influence on Dante.[35] In the same way, one can trace a distinct parallelism, if it is not more than that, between al-Jili'sspeculations about the nature of the Godhead and those of Jacob Boehme. If is likely that furtherresearch in the future will extend this list considerably. But these points of resemblance seem to me tolie mainly on the intellectual level; they concern what may be called 'devices of explanation'. As suchthey have a certain value, since man is (among other things) an intellectual being. But when this fieldhas been thoroughly explored, when everything has been said that can be said, there still remains adifference of inward spirit. It is the same difference on which St Augustine commented after reading"certain books of the Platonists translated out of Greek into Latin":- "And therein I read, not indeed the express words, but the same thing in substance, andsupported by many reasons of several kinds, that "in the beginning was the Word, and the Wordwas with God, and the Word was God, and this same was in the beginning with God. All thingswere made by Him, and without Him was made nothing of all that was made. In Him is Life,and the life was the light of men; and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did notcomprehend it." Further, that the soul of man, though it gave testimony to the light, is not yet thelight, but the Word, God Himself, is the true light "which illuminateth every man coming intothis world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not." But that "He cameinto His own, and His own received Him not, and that to whomsoever received Him, He gavepower to be the sons of God, believing in His name", this is not there... Again, that the only begotten Son, co-eternal with Thee, doth remain unchangeable beyond alltimes, and that from this His fulness all souls do receive that they may be blessed, and that byparticipation of his wisdom, remaining in men, they are renewed that they may be wise, this isthere. But that "in the fulness of time, He died for wicked men" and that Thou "didst not spareThy only Son but deliveredst Him up for us all", this is not there." [Confessions, Bk VII, Chapter IX.][1] Questions put to Pak Subuh on his visit to Paris in November 1959 No VII/2 by monks at the Abbeye de St. Wandrille, Caudebec-en-Caux, Normandy, France.[2] Note by JGB: I am not sure of having rendered Pak Subuh's exact meaning here. For example 'whole' might have been bettertranslated as 'content'.[3] [sic. Presumably Bennett meant to write Adam. Ed.][4] But Pak Subuh would not have applied the same argument to the Koran, which is held to be textually inspired throughout.[5] Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, p.129.[6] It should be remembered that for Pak Subuh the satanic and the material are, in effect, synonymous.He uses the two words interchangeably.[7] cf. Reflections on Subud. Husein Rof, pp.56-68. I have followed Rof's use of these terms; but it should be understood that theyare used by Sufi writers in widely different senses. There seems to be no fixed terminology.[8] Concerning Subud, J.G. Bennett 2nd Ed. p.120.[9] In the account that follows I have drawn heavily upon Professor Arberry's short history Sufism, from which one quotation hasalready been given. He has brought the whole story into focus in a way that I cannot hope to emulate; and I must refer interestedreaders to the fourth, fifth and sixth chapters of his book. All I have attempted here is to pick out certain elements which seemparticularly relevant to a study of Subud. But inevitably much has been left out, including much that is important and even necessary to afull understanding of the subject.[10] Pak Subuh also uses this phrase in connection with the latihan. See Rof's The Path of Subud, p.65.[11] See Arberry, op.cit. pp.90-92 and 120-135 for a description of the dhikr as practised in Egypt in the last century and for theelaborate instructions for another form of dhikr given by a modem Sufi.[12] see Muhyid Din-Ibnul 'Arabi. A.E.Affifi, pp.137-47 for a full discussion of the various meanings given to these two words.[13] The authority on al-Hallajs doctrine is Louis Massignon, editor and translator of the Kitab alTawasin; but a full account is givenby Nicholson in The Idea of Personality in Sufism, Lecture II.[14] It may be remarked in parenthesis that, when Pat Subuh addressed an audience in Newcastle on the significance of the Cross,which be described as a symbol of the junction of spirit and matter" he was in fact reflecting al-Hallajs doctrine. That he should not beable to see any further significance in the C1'0&8 is, of course, inevitable in view of the ambivalent Moslem attitude towards the Gospels,to which I have referred above. See Subud Om>nicle. April 1960.[15] He also calls this state 'Allah' i.e. the aspect of Reality which is the object of Worship.[16]i.e. the 'fixed prototypes'the essences of things in their state of latency.[17] In the scholastic sense, Ibn 'Arabi was a 'realist'.[18] It is not difficult to see why Muhammed Iqbal, when he tried to combine the teachings of Nietzsche with those of Sufism, drewlargely on Ibn 'Arabi.[19] Reflections on Subud, Husein Rof p. 42[20] In the simplified and approximate account of al-Jilis position, given in this and following paragraphs, I have relied on both Nicholsonand Affifi[21] See Section II above. Aziz Ibn Muhammad Nasafi, on whose treatise this passage was based, was a minor member of Ibn Arabisschool.[22] There is also a fourth stage, The Illumination of the Divine Essence, in which every attribute has vanished, and the Absolute hasreturned into itself. But al-Jili, following Ibn Arabi, held that this complete fanaone might say, this nirvanawas not to be attained inthis life.[23] Rof, op.cit. p. 57.[24] This is certainly true of the only Malayan text that I have seen, edited and translated by A. Johns in the Journal of the RoyalAsiatic Society for 1955.[25] Both these translations will be found in the report of Pak Subuhs second address in Oslo.[26] Printed in the Subud Chronicle for December 1960.[27] 2nd edition, especially those on pp. 120-124, 1st edition pp. 122 and 127.[28] Ibn Arabi asserts that the animal and vegetable souls are the body itself. See Affifi, op.cit. p. 121.[29] Christian