Abstract:
Among the most paramount issues related to human self-understanding that are found in various cultures and ages are questions of the perfection of man and ultimate human happiness. In Islamic texts, ultimate human perfection is described as nearness to Allah. This article offers a brief review of the teachings of the Qur’ān on this topic and a sketch of the history of discussions of nearness to God in some of the Islamic sciences, particularly jurisprudence (fiqh), mysticism (‘irfān), theology (kalām), and (Islamic) philosophy (falsafah). Each of these areas is an arena for the expression of a distinctive perspective on nearness to God. With regard to each of them, we consider the following questions: Is it possible for human beings to approach God? If it is possible, what is the maximum extent of nearness to the divine? Can one become God or divine, or is proximity to God more limited? And, finally, what is the nature of this nearness, and what happens to a person when one approaches God? The answers found to these questions allow for a comparison of the four perspectives on nearness to God. The method used in this article is both rational and scriptural, although particular emphasis is given to the Qur’ān
Machine summary:
In the most important books of the ‘urafā, such as Ibn al-‘Arabī’s al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyyah (The Meccan Revelations), Qayṣarī’s introduction to Ibn al-‘Arabi’s Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam (Bezels of Wisdom), and Jāmī’s Naqd al-nuṣūṣ, there are extensive discussions of how to achieve nearness to God. It remains a topic to which attention is devoted in more recent works on spiritual wayfaring, such as Risālat Liqā’ Allah (Epistle on Encountering Allah) by Mīrzā Javād Malikī Tabrīzī, Risālat al-Wilāyah (Epistle on Trusteeship) by Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ṭabāṭabā’ī, Chihil ḥadīth (Forty Hadiths) by Imam Khomeini, and many others.
After the mystics, Muslim theologians and philosophers added their own views to the discussion: Ibn Sīnā in the ninth namaṭ of al-Ishārāt (Remarks and Admonitions), Khwājah Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī in Risālat al-Nafs (Epistle on the Soul), Mullā Ṣadrā in his Asfār (The Four Journeys), and, more recently, Shahīd Muṭahharī in Insān-i kāmil (The Perfect Man), Ayatollah Javādī Āmulī in Tafsīr tasnīm (The Accession Exegesis), and Ayatollah Miṣbāḥ Yazdī in Bi sū-yi khudsāzī (On the Way to Self-Construction), to mention just a few.
In what follows, we discuss the references in the Qur’ān to man’s ultimate goal and the nearness to God before reviewing the perspectives of (1) the ‘urafā (the mystics of Islam), (2) the ḥukumā’ (Muslim philosophers), (3) the mutakallimūn (theologians), and (4) the fuqahā’ (jurists).
With Ibn al-‘Arabī, the perfect man is one who realizes his own ontological poverty and farness from God; and through this realization of farness and wayfaring across Nearness to Allah / 15 the long distance, he is brought into the divine proximity (Chittick 1989, 319).