Transfusion

I shall roll up the carpet of life when I see

Thy dear face again, and shall cease to be.

For self will be lost in that rapture, and all

The threads of my thought from my hand will fall!

Not me wilt thou find, for this self will have fled

Thou wilt be my soul in mine own soul’s stead.

All thought of self will be swept from my mind,

And thee, only thee, in my place I shall find;

More previous than heaven, than earth more dear,

Myself were forgotten if thou wert near.

*Mulla Jami, Haft Awrang (Trans. R.T.H Griffith, 1882)

At the sight of you, I myself shall become non-existent, and losing all trace of self importance, I shall become totally absorbed in ecstasy. It will no longer be myself that you see occupying my body: the soul animating that body will be yours. All idea of personality will be put aside; and when I look for myself, it is you that I shall find. You are my only desire in this world and the next: and when I have found you, why should I seek myself?

*Mulla Jami, Haft Awrang (Trans. D. Pendlebury, 1980)

In the early years of studying the Arabic Language, one of my most beloved occupations became spending time with the Arabic dictionary. The study of sarf - the meticulous art of words morphing into others - had initially been a challenge, until I fell in love with exploring connections between root words and their derivatives. Although the study was that of language, each little byway tracing a word to its root, or to other derivatives from the root family, was in fact a little epistemological door: an opening to a way of knowing; a way of seeing; a way of thinking. Over time, this led to the seeping in of adjusted worldviews and ways of thinking. In later years upon teaching Arabic as a foreign language to teenagers, I would try to convey some of the excitement I had felt in exploring roots and dertivatives to my students. Gradually, as familiarity with their trusty Hans Wehr would increase and as they would try to assess their accuracy in root-finding, students' questions would start to flood in:

"Why are bicycle and temperature related?"

"That's so weird, there's jinn and there's madness, and even the gardens of paradise altogether; how does that work?"

"Why is a horse similar to a fort?"

Once, a question came out of a discussion regarding the word khalil, in our Arabic study of the story of the Prophet Ibrahim, alayhi assalam. The word was familiar to students as the epithet for the Prophet Ibrahim - KhalilAllah: Ibrahim, the close friend of God. Our discussion led to questions about the number of words which delineate various degrees of friendship, and I described that this particular meaning of a friend suggested a person who loves another so dearly as to have become very close to the heart. Students found its root to be: khalla, suggested as the English meanings 'to pierce' or 'to transfix'. The second form derivative, indicating intensity or reciprocity in this action, suggested that the root led to meanings such as pickling and marinating, and other forms indicated meanings of permeating, mingling or blending in with, or becoming a part of. Then, there was the noun khall, giving rise to much perplexity amongst the students: 'What's vinegar got to do with this?'

A conversation thus began about viengar formation, starting with the process of fermentation. Its beginnings, I reflected, are surrender: bonds are coaxed into release; they stretch and break in opening to something else, something 'other', something new. Murmurs, fizz, churning - a whispered, quiet revolution beneath the surface. Then, a period of waiting: open, exposed, vulnerable to transformation. There may be momentary resistance upon exposure, before the ‘slow dance’ of oxidation begins: reshaping, yielding, then a slow drawing in of oxygen atoms, bit by bit, until saturation is achieved, until the transformation is complete. A complete permeation of one with other; a process that breaks form gradually particle by particle, saturates and remakes, until substance is made anew.

Thus is the khalil; the one pierced by another to the extent that the other saturates him. Slow mingling and gradual yielding to transfusion, albeit still low down in the progressive stages of love insightfully suggested in the Arabic language's range of terms for states of love. Yet, even at this stage, the language suggests that falling in love is saturation to the point where what once was, ceases to remain as it was. Being a lover here is being permeated entirely by an other until form is no longer recognisable as it was; until the other dominates more than what was one's self; until there is no distinction between what is one and what is the other. Love starts as a kind of fermentation, then a transfusion to the point of unity; a movement from multiplicity to unity.

Spiritual literature which came forth from the Muslim lands - is overwhelmingly replete with descriptions of the states of love. From theological maxims and detailed teachings on progressing through spiritual paths to states of union, to treasures of epic poetic outpourings in a range of literary expression and styles, and abounding tropes of symbolism: we are spoilt for choice. Lands and civilisations coloured by Islam have been seen to have entered a period of incredible cultural fertility with the coming of the message; it bought forth from those lands a most profound and prolific overthrowing of language traditions and literatures, until these were overflowing with the love principle. Poetic forms especially in the Arabic and Persian literary traditions were transformed, coming together to make possibly some of the richest reservoirs bearing insights into states of love; the lived experience of love, the psychology of love, the roots of love, the cures for love, and the ultimate destination of all experiences of love: the Eternal Beloved, and His beloved ﷺ - the light from His light: he in whom everything gathers.

As an undergraduate student in those early years of studying the Arabic Language, I would also read the blessed Hasan Le Gai Eaton abundantly, may God have mercy on him. In discussing 'The Human Paradox' in his Islam and the Destinty of Man, he writes:

"Since the Prophet is 'closer to the believers than their [own] selves' (Q.33.6), it can be said that he is the believer's alter ego or - to take this a step further - more truly 'oneself' than the collection of fragments and contrary impulses which we commonly identify as the 'self'.

Upon first reading this over two decades ago, I noted it with curiosity and earmarked it. There was something in the expression of 'alter ego' and 'more truly oneself' which had then struck me as unusual. It is on the level of the 'deepest source of our being', Gai Eaton added, that the Prophet ﷺ is 'closer to believers than their own selves'. I wondered in what sense could the answer to 'that perennial question: who am I?' be the lofty satement 'the Prophetic persona'? No matter the reverence, the fondness and affection, the degree of adherence to the outward ways of Prophetic example, that the individual sense of self was in truth that of the Prophetic persona seemed then difficult to imagine as lived experience.

I am beginning to understand increasingly now that this teaching about the nature of the believer's self, is in fact an invitation to love to the extent of permeation and transfusion; to love such that the jumbled up particles of self are broken down and opened to transformation; such that they entirely yield to and are saturated by that of the Prophetic persona; such that the alter ego, the truer self, the Prophetic persona, reigns dominant and the remnants of all else fizzle out. How can this be, other than if - or when - the believer falls in true love, in genuine love, in vulnerable, open, maddening love with the Prophet ﷺ? What else can bring bout such a complete yielding, a complete release, a complete fusion? He ﷺ directed the noble Umar, may God be pleased with him, to love until he could say that the Messenger of God ﷺ is more beloved to him than his own self. This, then, is more than invitation; rather it is instruction to embrace one's true sense of self - an indespinsable part of the journey to sincere belief - through falling in all-yielding, all-saturating love: love as permeation complete, love as transfusion, love that leaves us saying with Mulla Jami, may God have mercy on him: 'All idea of personality will be put aside; and when I look for myself, it is you that I shall find.'

The Bosnian scholar Rusmir Mahmutcehajic, in describing the Prophet ﷺ as epitomising all of creation from beginning to end, writes that coming to know our authentic nature and reforming our sense-of-self means understanding that:

...the most beautiful divine names came to realisation in his sense-of-self. Through this process of understanding the Praiser, we rediscover ourselves... His entire being expressed praise to God the Lord of the Worlds. This human perfection, expresed by his name being both Praised and Praiser, is the essence of each one of us too. Self-realisation is bonding with the Praised One, taking him for a model, and approximating to him. The more we realise the nature of the Praised One in our innermost self, the closer we are to him.

He writes that 'approximating to him' - he in in whom everything gathers ﷺ - in our 'innermost self', with the increased closeness and intimacy this brings, allows the self to merge with Unity - because in him are gathered all of the names; in him is gathered all of the beauty of the universe. It is difficult to imagine that this opening to transfusion takes place in any other opening except through that of complete giving-over in love: the realease of bonds, the quiet revolution beneath the surface, the slow movement of fusion particle-by-particle until separation is bridged entirely, and all is but one, anew. Nothing save the experience of love - rather than merely its utterance - can surely allow such a complete yielding.

The experience of joining in this cosmic circle of praise - through sending praise on the one who is both Praised and Praiser ﷺ - is possibly one that allows a swifter 'approximation', a quicker coalesing of the bonds of resistance, an shorter path to falling in love. There are those who in the words of the city poet Sukina Noor, 'send prayers on him until they no longer exist'. What remains then in their place? There are those who - as reported in accounts of spiritual knowers from Morocco in the wonderful Daleel al-Khayrat series (see below) - send prayers and praise to such abundance that 'the prayer itself vanishes, and you hear him saying "O Messenger of Allah, O Messenger of Allah, O Messenger of Allah"...this is called immersion and complete devotion'; a transfusion complete.

"Peace and praise always eternally

on the one whose heart formed so perfectly." 

One - two - three - slow, long breaths

- before something oddly serene seeps in and spreads. 

Easing muscles release and expand

that rigid rope around the throat slowly disbands.

Breaths and beats in balance, sight slowly begins a return

as if the raging storm within has taken a merciful turn

and though an aching rumble persists within my core

I can, now, call Your Name out once more.

A fluttering vent opens: a soft breeze filters past,

gently settling over this hollow vacuum so vast.

So subtle, so sublime, that in this benumbing instant - it makes me smile

and understand something new, as I sit stunned a while.

Something new about love, entangled.

Love which re-ignites hearts so achingly shackled;

Love so powerful that it brought forth all of creation

to nurture the most perfected form, destined for the highest station.

Love which is mercy infinite contained just in a name

whose mere mention brings about cooling rain after rain;

Love which means an impenetrable connection -

for his name follows the Name in smooth succession -

so that when in seeking from the One there appears some distance

it is traversed so swiftly through praise of this beautifully formed brilliance! 

Love which in its intimate intertwining is the model, source and blueprint  

for every other love; this ivy-winding labyrinth 

which clings and cleaves and winds around tight 

yet in all its consuming breathlessness, its source and purpose points back to heavenly Light 

Carry me forth in this vortex of Love

Let me be swept up moving just between lovers and Beloved

Of Your hundred mercies that single strand You descended 

by it let me love here such that I am with this breeze boundlessly blended.

Let me love, now, so thoroughly, so expansively that nothing remains

that each act of love overrides these consuming concurrent pains 

that each instant teaches "to so deeply sip -

that for holier love yonder is accustomed this lip" 

Let me love so entirely full, yet so unwanting 

that its strength powers flight - high soaring

swirling up to join that whirlpool of cascading light

transcending all weakness with its incredible might!

Let this minute of tender aching bewilderment here remain

a witness - a glimpse of what Love, entagled can take me to gain.

For though I have heard this long, even spoken of its glow,

here, I sense, tangibly. Here, I know.

-SF

'Manifestation on Loving the Prophet' from the wonderful 'Daleel al Khayrat' Series

***

Le Gai Eaton, Charles. Islam and The Desitny of Man.1994. Islamic Texts Society.

Mahmutcehajic, Rusmir. On the Other: A Muslim View, Trans. Desmond Maurer 2011. Fordham Press.

Mahmutcehajic, Rusmir. On Love: In the Muslim Tradition, Trans. Celia Hawkesworth 2007. Fordham Press.