Ali, Mukhtar H. 2024. 'Truth and Reality (ḥaqq and ḥaqīqa)', St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology. Edited by Brendan N. Wolfe et al. https://www.saet.ac.uk/Islam/TruthandRealityAli, Mukhtar H. "Truth and Reality (ḥaqq and ḥaqīqa)." In St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, edited by Brendan N. Wolfe et al. University of St Andrews, 2022–. Article published August 1, 2024. https://www.saet.ac.uk/Islam/TruthandReality.Ali, M. H. (2024) Truth and Reality (ḥaqq and ḥaqīqa). In: B. N. Wolfe et al., eds. St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology. University of St Andrews. Available at: https://www.saet.ac.uk/Islam/TruthandReality [Accessed ].Mukhtar H. Ali, 'Truth and Reality (ḥaqq and ḥaqīqa)', in St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, ed. by Brendan N. Wolfe et al. (University of St Andrews, 2024) <https://www.saet.ac.uk/Islam/TruthandReality>
1 Introduction
Truth is a concept woven into the fabric of human consciousness. It is the quality or state of being that accords with facts, reality, or actuality, referring to the correspondence between a statement, belief, or proposition and the objective reality or facts it represents. In general, truth can be understood from various perspectives and epistemological frameworks. For example, objective truth refers to factual information that is independent of personal opinions or beliefs. It is based on verifiable evidence and can be empirically or scientifically validated. Subjective truth pertains to personal beliefs, experiences, and perspectives. It is influenced by individual interpretations, emotions, and biases. Philosophical truth delves into deeper questions about the nature of reality, knowledge, and existence. Philosophical truth explores concepts such as the nature of consciousness, the meaning of life, and the existence of moral values. Spiritual truth relates to matters of the spirit or a higher reality, and an understanding and connecting with a divine or transcendent reality. Each of these perspectives on truth converge in the meaning of what is real, or the opposite of what is false or illusory.
Islam, like many spiritual and philosophical world traditions, holds that there is an objective reality whose pursuit within man is innate. In the Hellenistic tradition, Socrates emerged as the central figure championing the notion of objective reality and universal principles. He was among the first, or at least the most adept, to refute the relativism advocated by the Sophists, a group of rhetoricians in the fifth century BCE who offered education and training in rhetoric, debate, and persuasion skills. The most important thinker to challenge the belief in an objective reality was the Sophist, Protagoras (490–420 BCE), who authored a work entitled Truth. Many have inferred from his famous dictum, ‘man is the measure of all things’, that Protagoras was the founder of the philosophy of relativism. But, be that as it may, it was Plato’s portrayal of his teacher Socrates in pursuit of objective truth through philosophical inquiry that indelibly impacted Islamic philosophical and mystical thought from the second/eighth century onwards.
Rooted in scripture and its prophetic legacy, Islam has been committed to the worldview of realism, which holds that there is an objective reality independent of human perception. Islam offers a nuanced perspective on truth, characterized by the interplay of two key concepts, al-ḥaqq (truth) and al-ḥaqīqa (reality). These themes are the subject of this study, with particular attention being given to the mystical dimension of Islam, Sufism. It should be noted that long before it was called Sufism, the earliest followers of mystical Islam were concerned with ascertaining truth and discerning reality through inward contemplation and spiritual discipline emulating the model of the Prophet and his illustrious companions. These were the forebears of the historical Sufism that we will examine in this article. While every branch of Islamic learning has asserted a claim to truth, Sufism stands out for its inherently profound and comprehensive articulation, which aligns closely with the ethos of the Qur’an and the essential message of prophecy. For completeness, however, this study also examines legal imperatives, such as the fulfilment of rights, and epistemic theories of truth held by major Islamic philosophical schools. The heart of the discussion focuses on the path to God through the divine name al-Ḥaqq and the nature, knowledge, and manifestation of reality (ḥaqīqa). Within this tradition, we delve into both its practical and theoretical dimensions as outlined in ʿAbdullāh Anṣārī’s (d. 481/1089) manual of spiritual wayfaring and Ibn ʿArabī’s (d. 638/1240) seminal teachings on prophetic archetypes.
2 The semantic field of ḥaqq and ḥaqīqa
We begin by analysing the semantic field of al-ḥaqq, then its usage in the Qur’an and Sunna, which forms the cornerstone for understanding its significance within Islamic discourse. There are numerous meanings of al-ḥaqq, including truth, reality, fact, rightness, established, and necessary. Ḥaqq derives from the Arabic root ḥ-q-q and, according to Lisān al-ʿArab (The Language of the Arabs), its plural is ḥuqūq and ḥiqāq (Ibn Manẓūr 1996: see entry ḥ-q-q). It means what is necessitated by wisdom, justice, right or rightness, truth, or reality or fact, or to the exigencies of the case (Iṣfahānī 2008: 125). In Tāj al-ʿArūs (The Bride’s Crown) it means is to be just, proper, right, correct, true; authentic, genuine, sound, valid, substantial, or real; established or confirmed as a truth or fact; necessitated, necessary, requisite, or unavoidable; binding, obligatory and incumbent (Lane 1984: 605 [vol. 2]). Based on the primary and general signification accorded to the term in al-Fīrūzābādī’s (d. 816/1414) al-Qāmūs al-Muḥīṭ (The Surrounding Ocean) it can also mean ‘equity and justice; the right manner of acting or being a right that is due, a claim, a thing deserved, owed, an obligation; a share or portion, property and possession, a destined thing or decree’ (Al-Fīrūzābādī 1987, cited in Lane 1984: 605 [vol. 2]). The Sufi lexicographer Sharīf al-Jurjānī (d. 816/1413) writes in his Kitāb al-taʿrīfāt (The Book of Definitions), ‘it means truthfulness in speech (qawl ḥaqq) and in spiritual terms, a judgement that corresponds to reality, be it in speech, doctrine, religion and sect. God is also known as the Truth (al-Ḥaqq) so it is one of the divine attributes which means the Real, whose existence and divinity are proved to be true. It is sometimes used to mean the message of Islam and the Qur’an’ (Jurjānī 2003: 72–73).
Derived from the same root, ḥaqīqa (pl. ḥaqāʾiq) means essence, epitome (khulāṣa), mystery (sirr), origin (aṣl), inscription (naqsh), or source (nabʿ; Almajid 2018: 30). Ḥaqīqa, therefore, is the ultimate constituent of a thing or its inner mystery. According to Jurjānī, it is the essence of a thing by which it is defined, as when we say that a ‘rational animal’ is the ḥaqīqa of a human being (Jurjānī 2003: 74). The tāʾ marbūṭa (ending denoting a feminine noun) of ḥaqīqa(t) transforms the word ḥaqīq from an adjective to a noun, rather than indicating the feminine gender, similar to how the tā in ʿallama intensifies the meaning instead of denoting femininity. Tāj al-ʿArūs defines ḥaqīqa as truth, reality, or true or real nature or state (or circumstances or facts, the very nature, and the gist, and the pith, marrow, or most essential part) of a case or an affair. It also signifies the heart of a thing or matter, its true nature, its essence, and thus the inviolable innermost self of a thing and its sanctity (ḥurma). In a literary context, ḥaqīqa refers to the original sense of a word or the conventional meaning as opposed to its figurative or metaphorical meaning (majāz).
There is a semantic difference between ḥaqq and ḥaqīqa, as the Prophet declares, ‘For every truth (ḥaqq), there is a reality (ḥaqīqa)’ (Iṣfahānī 2008: 126). One may know something to be true (ḥaqq) yet not know its innermost reality (ḥaqīqa). In mystical discourse, each term is understood through the other, thereby alluding to aspects or degrees of reality. Muḥammad al-Tahānawī (d. 1158/1745) says in his Kashf iṣtilāḥāt al-funūn (An Examination of Technical Terms) that, according to the Sufi masters, ḥaqq refers to the Divine Essence and ḥaqīqa refers to the Attributes. So, when the wayfarer abandons the world and transcends the limits of the soul (nafs) and passions (hawā), he enters the world of virtue (iḥsān). Thus it is said he enters the world of ḥaqīqa and the station of realities (maqām al-ḥaqāʾiq) (Tahānawī 1996: 687).
3 Ḥaqq in the Qur’an and Sunna
The Qur’an and Sunna describe the truth in various contexts, sometimes referring to God Himself, and at other times to existential realities such as scripture, the Resurrection, and prophethood. Al-Ḥaqq is one of the ninety-nine Beautiful Names of God (al-asmāʾ al-ḥusnā) mentioned in the Qur’an, ‘God is the Truth and that which they call upon other than Him is falsehood’ (Q. 22:6) and ‘For that is God, your true Lord, and what can be truer than the Truth’ (Q. 10:32). The Prophet in one of his supplications says, ‘Praise belongs to you; You are the Truth and Your Promise is true, the meeting with You is true, Your Word is true; Paradise is true; Hell is true; the Prophets (peace be upon them) are true; Muḥammad is true, and the Day of Resurrection is true’ (Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, al-Tahajjud 1, Bāb al-tahajjud bi-al-layl). The divine name al-ḥaqq is often contrasted with al-khalq (creation) and is sometimes used as the most general of divine names to avoid mentioning a specific relationship (Chittick 1989: 49). In its absolute sense, al-ḥaqq is synonymous with God, yet its significance extends to encompass other realities beyond the divine.
Ḥaqq appears at least thirty-four times in the Qur’an, its primary denotation being expressed in the following verse, ‘We cast truth against falsehood, so it demolishes it, and behold, falsehood vanishes!’ (Q. 21:18). The Qur’an proclaims that Truth is the very fabric of existence, ‘We have created the heavens and earth only according to Truth (bi-al-ḥaqq)’ (Q. 15:85 and 46:3). It also refers to certain existential realities such as the Reckoning, ‘Truly unto God belongs whatsoever is in the heavens and on the earth. Truly God’s promise is true (ḥaqq), but most of them know not’ (Q. 10:55). In the following verse, ‘We will show them Our signs upon the horizons and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that it is the truth’ (Q. 41:53), the truth indicated by the pronoun ‘it’ is ambiguous and may refer to the message of the Qur’an, the religion of Islam, the prophethood of Muḥammad, or God Himself (Qurṭūbī 2007: 438 [vol. 18]). Sufi commentators often cite this verse to explain the correspondence between macrocosm and microcosm because ‘signs upon the horizons’ refers to all that is external to the human being and the ‘signs within themselves’ refers to all that is within (Nasr et al. 2015: 2152). Divine signs are truths that reflect simultaneously in outward existence as well as in the human soul, so that the Qur’an exhorts mankind to reflect on creation, ‘Those who remember God standing, sitting, and lying down, and reflect on the creation of the heavens and earth [and say], "Our Lord! You have not created all this in vain (bāṭil)" (Q. 3:191). The Arabic word bāṭil (falsehood) is the contrary of ḥaqq, so to say the world was created in truth means that it was created purposefully with a grand design, not arbitrarily or in jest. That is, there is a greater divine purpose, a real meaning and reality behind what appears to be a chaotic universe. Thus, Islam’s worldview is a total rejection of nihilism.
Ḥaqq is often used to denote deservedness or worthiness, as in the verses, ‘O believers be wary of God as is worthy of Him (ḥaqq tuqātihi)’ (Q. 3:102) and ‘[t]hey have not shown God the reverence He deserves (ḥaqq qadrihī)’ (Q. 22:74). Another meaning denotes justification, as in ‘He has guided some, while others deserve (ḥaqq ʿalayhi) to be in error, for they have taken the devils as friends instead of God and deem themselves to be guided’ (Q. 7:30). It is used to mean share or portion, as in ‘[…] and from their wealth they gave a share (ḥaqq) to the needy and deprived’ (Q. 51:19). It also denotes a right, as in: ‘There are those who have been driven unjustly (bi-ghayr ḥaqq) from their homes only for saying, “Our Lord is God”’ (Q. 22:40). This usage is common in the Hadith literature when speaking about the rights of parents, neighbours, masters, teachers, sitting companions, as well as the rights of God over the servant.
4 On rights (ḥuqūq)
The Qur’an exhorts establishing justice and fulfilling rights: ‘O David, we have established you as Viceregent on the earth. Judge between men according to Right (bi-al-ḥaqq) and do not follow passion’ (Q. 38:26). The great-grandson of the Prophet, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, composed one of the earliest declarations on human rights, entitled Risālat al-ḥuqūq (The Treatise on Rights), which elaborates on the Prophetic tradition:
Surely your Lord has a right over you, your self has a right over you and your wife has a right over you […] so give to everyone who possesses a right his right. (ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn 1988: 279)
The various iterations of this Prophetic statement in the Hadith literature indicate the centrality of justice and protection of rights in Islam. There are three spheres in which rights are exercised or owed: with respect to oneself, in relation to others, and in relation to God. These rights are in most cases secured by divine law (Sharīʿa) and accompany spiritual significations. The Sharīʿa aims to establish the correct existential relationships among entities, enabling each to actualize its potential and embody its God-given essence. Because the outward corresponds to the inward, the right (ḥaqq) of a thing emerges from its reality (ḥaqīqa). Thus, law and ethics are inversely related with respect to the body and soul; the Sharīʿa is the ethics of the outward, and ethics is the Sharīʿa of the inward. Beginning with the right of God over man, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn writes:
Know – God have mercy on you – that God has rights over you and these encompass you in every movement, every restful state, every waystation in which you reside, every limb which you employ, and every instrument would you put to work.
[…] the greatest right of God over you is that you worship Him without associating anything with Him. When you do that with sincerity, He has made it binding upon himself to give you sufficiency in the affair of this world and the next. (ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn 1988: 282)
Then he describes the rights of the self, limbs, acts of worship, leaders, subjects, parents, wives, relatives, neighbours, companions, and others. The following examples illustrate that rights and moral responsibilities are related to a knowledge of essences and their true nature – that is, rights arise from realities.
The right of your self (nafs) against you is that you employ it in obeying God, then you deliver to your tongue its right, to your hearing its right, to your sight its right, to your hand its right, to your leg its right […]
The right of the tongue is that you consider it too noble for obscenity, accustom it to good, refrain from meddling, express kindness to the people and speak well of them […]
The right of your mother is to know that she carried you where no one carries anyone, and she nourished you with the fruit of her heart which no one gives to anyone and she happily protected you with her hearing, sight, hands, legs, hair, skin and every other organ. So, you will never be able to show her gratitude except through God’s help and success.
The right of the father is to know that he is your root, and you are his branch; without him, you would not be. Whenever you see something in yourself that you like, know that your father is the root of its blessing on you.
The right of the wife is to know that God made her a repose and comfort, intimate companion and protector for you; Each spouse should praise God for the other and know that the other is a blessing for you; so, you should honour her and treat her kindly. (ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn 1988: 284–287)
This subtle relationship between rights and realities has also been enshrined within a threefold structuring of religion into sharīʿa, ṭarīqa, and ḥaqīqa – a theme which we will return to shortly.
5 Speaking, knowing, and acting on the truth
While ḥaqq is used extensively in the context of rights, the Hadith also emphasize speaking truth, knowing truth, and acting upon it. Truth in relation to a speaker is called ṣidq (truthfulness), and in relation to actuality is called ṣawāb (correctness; Zabīdī 2011: 80 [vol. 13]). Among the greatest of virtues is speaking truth, as the Prophet avows: ‘The most God conscious is one who speaks the truth, be it for or against him’ (Rayshahrī 2001: 298); and it was written on the hilt of one of the Prophet’s swords: ‘Speak the truth even if it be against yourself’ (Rayshahrī 2001: 299). Speaking the truth naturally relates to knowing it first, whether it be self-evident knowledge, moral principles, or philosophical axioms. The Prophet’s cousin, ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661), celebrated for his justice, valour, and sagacity, has given a sound criterion for assessing truth. He said: ‘Verily truth is not known through people; know truth, [then] you will know its people. Know falsehood [then] you will know one who conjures it’ (Rayshahrī 2001: 658 [vol. 1]).
The Qur’an asserts that the recognition of truth is innate, that is, human nature (fiṭra) is predisposed to embrace universal truths, which the Qur’an refers to as ‘[t]rue religion’:
Turn your face towards religion, committed to the truth (ḥanīf); [for] it is the innate disposition that God has instilled in mankind. There is no altering God’s creation. That is true religion, but most men know not. (Q. 30:30)
The word ḥanīf derives from the root letters ḥ-n-f, which means to ‘incline’. In the Qur’anic context, its noun denotes uprightness, sincerity, devotion, and inclining from a given religion and creed to the religion of truth (i.e. tawḥīd), enjoining people to monotheism, as in the verse: ‘Set your face toward the religion as a ḥanīf and be not among the idolaters’ (Q. 10:105). On the other hand, the Qur’an decries people’s aversion to the truth by saying, ‘We brought you the truth but most of you were averse to it’ (Q. 43:78). While truth is seated in one’s conscience, many turn away from it because it is difficult to bear. Only those who combine patience with truth find success, as Sūrat al-ʿAṣr describes: ‘By the declining day, truly mankind is lost, except those who believe, do good and enjoin one another to truth and enjoin one other to patience’ (Q. 103:1–3). The Prophet also explains that matters of truth are burdensome: ‘Truth is heavy and bitter, and falsehood is light and sweet’ (Rayshahrī 2001: 866 [vol. 2]). ʿAlī said: ‘Truth is heavy but wholesome and falsehood is light but plagued’ (Raḍī 2004: no. 376). He also said:
All of truth is heavy, but God may lighten it for a people who seek the hereafter. Thus, they made themselves endure it, attesting to the truthfulness of God’s promise for the patient as they anticipate [His reward]. So be among them and seek God’s help. (Ḥarrānī 2002: 100)
ʿAlī said: ‘Patiently bear the bitterness of truth and beware to never be beguiled by the sweetness of falsehood’ (Āmidī 2000: 2472).
Truth is also described as a weapon against falsehood, where ʿAlī says: ‘Truth is a sharp sword’ (Āmidī 2000: 548); ‘A sword against the people of falsehood’ (Āmidī 2000: 1444); and ‘the strongest support’ (Āmidī 2000: 716). Those who oppose the truth are vanquished, ‘he who fights truth is fought’ (Āmidī 2000: 1085), because ‘a small amount of truth repels a great deal of falsehood, just as a small amount of fire burns a great amount of wood’ (Āmidī 2000: 6735). Truth is wholesome, beneficial, and a shield, though it be fraught with challenges. ʿAlī said: ‘He whom truth does not benefit falsehood harms, and he whom guidance does not set aright, misguidance harms, and he whom certainty does not benefit, doubts harm’ (Ḥarrānī 2002: 152).
6 Early sources on ḥaqīqa
The most important term in Islamic philosophical and mystical discourse is ḥaqīqa, which, as mentioned earlier, is a direct corollary of the concept ḥaqq. This importance stems from the fact that both philosophy and mysticism posit an ontology that describes reality and an epistemology that investigates the means of knowing or attaining it. It is somewhat misleading to translate ḥaqīqa as ‘reality’, since reality can mean the entirety of existence, as well as the quintessence of a particular thing. In the former case, reality encompasses every dimension: physical, mental, imaginal, spiritual, and divine. Ḥaqīqa in the specific sense, however, refers to the true nature, essence, hidden aspect, inner reality, and real meaning that lies beyond the outward form. Given that the Qur’an does not employ the word ḥaqīqa explicitly, this term might be interpreted as a creedal principle and the fulfilment of rights. Does Islam then not encourage a deeper investigation into realities and the true nature of existence? To answer this, we turn to the earliest and most authoritative usage of the term ḥaqīqa, found in the Sunna itself, as recorded in the famous hadith of Ḥārith b. Mālik.
It is related that the Prophet performed the morning prayer with the people then saw a young man in the mosque who was trembling with head hung low. He was sallow and emaciated with sunken eyes, so the Prophet asked, ‘How are you this morning?’ He replied, ‘A believer, O Prophet of God’. He asked, ‘Are you truly a believer?’ He said, ‘Indeed!’ The Prophet said, ‘For every truth (ḥaqq) there is a reality (ḥaqīqa) so what is the reality of that?’ He replied, ‘I have abstained from the world and kept vigil during my nights and remained thirsty during my days. It is as if I am witnessing the Throne of my Lord, the Mighty and Magnificent. It is as if I see the people of Paradise visiting each other and hear the wailing of the people of Hell’. The Prophet then said, ‘He is a believer whose heart God has illuminated’. (Āmulī 2003: 22, note 11)
In an alternative version of this hadith, Ḥārith responds to the Prophet’s greeting by saying, ‘I have attained certainty (mūqin)’. To analyse this version, we turn to the Qur’an’s description of the hierarchy of knowledge. True knowledge of reality (ḥaqīqa) is called the truth of certainty, ‘[t]his is indeed the truth of certainty (ḥaqq al-yaqīn)’ (Q. 56:95), which is inner knowledge (maʿrifa) proceeding from the knowledge of certainty, ‘[i]f you only knew with the knowledge of certainty’ (Q. 102:5) and the vision of certainty, ‘[y]ou will surely see it with the vision of certainty’ (Q. 102:7). While the Qur’an promises various forms of perception in the hereafter, God also bestows vision to some in this world, so their gnosis reaches certainty on the path to God, ‘[t]hus, We showed Abraham the Dominion of the heavens and the earth so that he would be among the certain’ (Q. 6:75). The Qur’an employs the terms Kingdom (mulk) and Dominion (malakūt) referring to the material and spiritual worlds, respectively, which are equivalent to ‘the creation and command’ (Q. 7:54). Thus, certainty refers to the perception of spiritual realities in the Dominion, beyond the material forms of creation in the Kingdom.
If the Qur’an was not enough to establish Islam’s stance on reality, then the Prophet’s statement ‘[f]or every truth (ḥaqq) there is a reality (ḥaqīqa)’, is conclusive, for it sheds light on the attainability of perceiving realities. It shows that visionary states and gnosis are not limited to the prophets; anyone with an illuminated heart can see the true nature of existence with the light of God, as this hadith confirms, ‘[b]eware of the believer’s clairvoyance (firāsa) for he sees with the light of God’ (Tirmidhī 1975: 278–279 [vol. 5]).
The other definitive statement on the nature of reality, usually found in Shīʿī sources, is Imām ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib’s conversation with his companion, Kumayl b. Ziyād. This enigmatic, rapturous utterance has been the subject of much speculation in the annals of Sufi literature. It is one of the well-known discourses of ʿAlī not mentioned in Nahj al-balāgha (The Path of Eloquence), al-Sharīf al-Raḍī’s collection of ʿAlī’s sayings, in which Kumayl asks him:
‘O my Lord and my Master, what is Reality (al-ḥaqīqa)?’ He [ʿAlī] – upon him be peace – said, ‘What have you to do with Reality?’ Kumayl replied, ‘Am I not your confidant (ṣāḥib sirrika)?’ He replied, ‘Yes! But whatever overflows from me will sprinkle upon you’. Kumayl said, ‘Can someone like you frustrate the petitioner?’ He [ʿAlī] said, ‘Reality (al-ḥaqīqa) is the unveiling (kashf) of the splendours of Majesty (subuḥāt al-jalāl) without allusion (min ghayr al-ishāra)’. Kumayl said, ‘Tell me more!’ He said, ‘It is the effacement of speculation (maḥw al-mawhūm) when the Known appears (ṣaḥw al-maʿlūm)’. Kumayl said, ‘Tell me more!’ He said, ‘It is the tearing of the veil (hatk al-sitr) through the triumph of the secret (ghalabat al-sirr)’. Kumayl said, ‘Tell me more!’ He said, ‘It is the attraction (jadhb) of Singularity (al-aḥadīya) by the quality of oneness (al-tawḥīd)’. Kumayl said, ‘Tell me more!’ He said, ‘It is a Light (nūr) radiating from the Dawn of Eternity (ṣubḥ al-azal), its traces (āthār) beaming upon the temples of oneness (hayākil al-tawḥīd)’. Kumayl said, ‘Tell me more!’ He said, ‘Extinguish the lamp (al-sirāj) for the dawn (al-ṣubḥ) has arrived’. (Āmulī 1969: 170)
ʿAlī’s reluctance to answer his confidant is instructive. By rebuffing him with, ‘[w]hat have you to do with ḥaqīqa?’ he perhaps wanted to convey that ḥaqīqa is not something that can be spoken of but only experienced, or that Kumayl was not yet at the station of ḥaqīqa and thus unable to grasp its mysteries, or that it is reserved for particular saints and prophets while others receive grace only through them. Whatever the case may be, Kumayl appealed to ʿAlī’s generosity and garnered a response.
In his book Jāmiʿ al-asrār wa manbaʿ al-anwār (The Compendium of Mysteries and Source of Lights), Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī (d. 787/1385) explains that when ʿAlī says, ‘[r]eality is the unveiling of the splendours of the Divine Majesty (subuḥāt al-jalāl) without allusion (min ghayr al-ishāra)’, it refers to the negation of all multiplicity and the affirmation of the Divine Essence. Real Being is then qualified by Majesty, the attribute that signifies divine transcendence and the unknowability of the Real (al-ḥaqq). Thus, there is no allusion or indication to its reality. However, his saying, ‘speculation’s effacement (maḥw al-mawhūm) when the Known appears (ṣaḥw al-maʿlūm)’, means that the unveiling of Reality produces a certainty that eradicates speculation so that the gnostic declares, ‘[t]here is nothing in existence except God!’ This certainty is visionary in nature, which is why ʿAlī proclaims, ‘I did not worship a lord that I did not see’ (Majlisī 1983: 41:16), and ‘I did not see a thing except that I saw God before it, after it, with it and in it’ (Majlisī 1983: 70:20). Ḥaqīqa is an unveiling of the Real (al-ḥaqq), which can only be fathomed through the perfect embrace of divine transcendence and immanence. This is why, when the Prophet was asked from which thing did he come to know God, he replied, ‘I came to know God by God and I came to know things through God’ (Ṣadūq 2008: 286). Thus, when the dawn of vision arrives, the lamp of reason is extinguished.
Imām ʿAlī here discloses some of the mysteries of the Absolute Reality, which is God, and according to the mystical worldview, the only reality. Citing earlier Sufi authorities, the Safavid mystic-philosopher Ṣadr al-Dīn Shirāzī (Mullā Ṣadrā; d. 1050/1640) says,
[t]he Sufis, among the monotheists, are of the view that there is nothing in existence except the Real Being and the world is only the theophany, manifestation and individuation of Being. They see nothing in existence except God and His manifestations, and they do not view the manifestations as an independent reality. (Ṣadrā 2001: 245)
7 Sharīʿa (Law), ṭarīqa (Way), and ḥaqīqa (Reality)
In Sufi tradition, the term al-ḥaqq reflects a particular orientation, the aspect of reality and truth, and has been exclusively used to denote God. Louis Massignon argues in his essay on the lexicography of mysticism that ‘it was from the tafsīr of Jaʿfar and the mystic circles of Kufa that the term al-ḥaqq spread, through Dhū al-Nūn al-Miṣrī and others, to become the classic name for God in taṣawwuf’ (cited in Taylor 1966: 110).
The term ḥaqīqa can also be understood within the context of two other terms: sharīʿa (Law) and ṭarīqa (Way). This triad of terms has become an essential part of Sufi discourse as the latter developed and flourished within the broader Islamic tradition. According to certain authorities, the terms can be attributed to the Prophet himself, although we do not find them in the canonical Hadith collections. It has been reported that the Prophet said,
Sharīʿa is my word, ṭarīqa my actions and ḥaqīqa my states; gnosis my capital, intelligence the source of my religion, love my foundation, yearning my mount, fear my friend, forbearance my weapon, knowledge my companion, reliance [on God] my cloak, contentment my treasure, truthfulness my abode, certainty my shelter, and poverty my honor, which sets me above all other Prophets and messengers. (Āmulī 2003: 21)
While sharīʿa is commonly translated as Islamic law, it can also mean the totality of the divine revelation, which includes the way (sunna) of the Prophet and the outward forms of religious observance. The ṭarīqa refers to inward observances and spiritual movement or wayfaring. Ḥaqīqa is the ultimate reality, the centre and heart of religion, and attainment to the divine presence. Āmulī, who has written extensively on the subject, defines these terms in the following way:
Know that sharīʿa is a term denoting the divine path, which contains principles and branches, permissions (rukhaṣ) and resolutions (ʿazāʾim), the good and the excellent. Ṭarīqa is the way of maximum precaution, its superlative and firmest aspect. Whatever path leads man to tread the firmest, most superlative path is called ṭarīqa, [whether] in speech, action, quality or state. As for ḥaqīqa, it is affirming the existence of a thing through unveiling, witnessing, [experiencing] a state or [in one’s] conscience (wujdān) It is also said that sharīʿa is that you worship Him, ṭarīqa is that you attain His presence and ḥaqīqa is that you witness Him. It is also said that sharīʿa is that you fulfil His commands, ṭarīqa is that you uphold His commands and ḥaqīqa is that you subsist through them. (Āmulī 2003: 17)
These terms signify three aspects of a single reality or, as Ottoman scholar Ḥamza al-Fanārī (d. 834/1431) states, ‘[t]he purpose of sharīʿa is to prepare Muslims for ṭarīqa, which in turn exists to lead them on to ḥaqīqa’ (cited in Winter 2007: 140). However, those who remain attached to the sharīʿa without embarking on the ṭarīqa are scorned in the eyes of the mystic, for they are exoteric-minded scholars who have little or no spiritual taste or inward states. The ṭarīqa is an inward spiritual journey that embodies states and stations to attain the highest level of union, awareness, perfection, and realization. Those who have attained the highest levels and are privy to divine mysteries are the people of ḥaqāʾiq (pl. ḥaqīqa). The degrees of certainty mentioned earlier (namely, the knowledge, vision, and truth of certainty) are commensurate to sharīʿa, ṭarīqa, and ḥaqīqa, according to the experts. Other ternaries, such as the degrees of submission (islām), faith (īmān), and certainty (īqān), or revelation (waḥy), inspiration (ilhām), and unveiling (kashf), or prophethood (nubuwwa), messengership (risāla), and sainthood (wilāya), are similarly analogous to sharīʿa, ṭarīqa, and ḥaqīqa. Āmulī writes that the entirety of existence is based on this ternary-unity – that is, multiple in the mind but singular in reality, such as knowledge (ʿilm), knower (ʿālim), and the known (maʿlūm), or the Divine Essence, Names, and Acts, or the Kingdom (mulk), Dominion (malakūt), and Invincibility (jabarūt), or the worlds of intellects, souls, and bodies, and so on.
8 Epistemic theories on ḥaqīqa
There is consensus among Muslim scholars that absolute ḥaqq and ḥaqīqa refer to God, a fundamentally unknowable reality who has no likeness nor equal, as scripture reveals, ‘[t]here is not a thing in His likeness’ (Q. 42:11) nor ‘is one equal to Him’ (Q. 112:4). Because the contingent can never encompass the Absolute, the Sufi mystic Ibn ʿArabī proclaimed, ‘[n]one knows God but God’ (Ibn ʿArabī 1968: 70 [vol. 2]). Early Muslim theologians, such as Abū-al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (d. 324/935–936) sought to establish the absolute uniqueness and incomparability of God, emphasizing His transcendence over His creation, and freedom from every anthropomorphic quality. Yet, despite the dominance of divine transcendence in the early religious literature, there is a spectrum of views concerning the knowledge of reality that ultimately leads to the knowledge of God (maʿrifat Allāh). Scriptural sources affirm the possibility of knowing God, evidenced both by the Prophet’s famous statement, ‘[h]e who knows himself, comes to know his Lord’ (Āmidī 2000: no. 7946), and the hadith of Ḥārith cited earlier. Gnosis or maʿrifat Allāh figures prominently in all Islamic discourse, even if intersecting disciplines such as theology, law, philosophy, and Sufism have had competing strategies to attain it. Maʿrifa is often conceived of as an esoteric awareness or understanding that is rooted in spirituality and departs from traditional notions of rational, literary, or scientific knowledge denoted by the word ʿilm. Maʿrifat Allāh, therefore, is the highest form of realized knowledge and even the ultimate purpose of creation, according to a hadith frequently cited by the Sufis, where God says, ‘I was a treasure and I loved to be known, so I created the creation so that I may become known’. Reza Shah-Kazemi notes that because al-ḥaqq engages the consciousness of the ʿārif (gnostic), ‘the Divine Name al-Ḥaqq is increasingly adopted as the most apt name by which to refer to God; combining the notions of reality and truth’ (Shah-Kazemi 2002: 160).
One of the most influential thinkers in Islamic history, the famous theologian Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), while levelling a decisive attack against the philosophers, held, at least towards the latter part of his life, that it was the Sufis who truly embodied the path to God and were informed of divine mysteries through their unveilings and spiritual practices. This is because deductive reasoning, the tool of the philosopher, is not sufficient to reach ḥaqīqa. After having enumerated the categories of the seekers of truth in his autobiography, al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl (Deliverance from Error), he writes:
I learned from a sure source that the Sufis are the true pioneers on the path of God; that there is nothing more beautiful than their life, nor more praiseworthy than their rule of conduct, nor purer than their morality. The intelligence of thinkers, the wisdom of philosophers, the knowledge of the most learned doctors of the law would in vain combine their efforts, modify or improve their doctrine and morals; it would be impossible. With the Sufis, repose and movement, exterior or interior, are illumined with the light which proceeds from the Central Radiance of Inspiration…From the time that they set out on this path, revelations commence for them. They come to see in the waking state angels and souls of prophets; they hear their voices and wise counsels. By means of this contemplation of heavenly forms and images they rise by degrees to heights which human language cannot reach. (Al-Ghazālī 1997: 62)
Not only theologians such as al-Ghazālī but philosophers, too, admitted their inability to reach the true nature of things by intellectual reasoning alone. The most important Peripatetic philosopher in the western lands, Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī (d. 339/950), wrote:
To comprehend the realities of things is not within the capability of humans. We only know the qualities, necessities, and manifestations of things. We do not know the underlying principles of each one of them that indicate their truth. Rather, we know that they are things with qualities and manifestations. Therefore, we do not know the essence of the First Being, reason, soul, celestial bodies, fire, air, water, earth, or the true nature of manifestations. (Al-Fārābī 2019: 40)
The other towering figure of Peripatetic philosophy, Abū ʿAlī Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna; d. 428/1037), wrote a short, but highly influential section on Sufi doctrine in the ninth part of his Ishārāt wa tanbīhāt (Pointers and Admonitions). Even if mysticism did not factor into any of his other writings, Ibrahim Kalin notes that in this section, Ibn Sīnā ‘explores and eventually approves of the legitimacy of the mystics’ claim to veritable knowledge’ (Kalin 2010: 203) – that is, visionary knowledge.
Historically, Sufism and philosophy have had divergent epistemologies. Sufism was primarily concerned with esoteric, supra-rational knowledge attained by means of unveiling (kashf), which is defined as: ‘gaining awareness of matters concerning the unseen and the verities of things that are customarily veiled’ (Jurjānī 2003: 151). The types of unveiling include witnessing (shuhūd), tasting (dhawq), theophany (tajallī), inspiration (ilhām), revelation (waḥy), clairvoyance (firāsa), and intuition (ḥads). For the mystic, these are the true sources of knowledge (maʿrifa) because they reveal mysteries (asrār) and disclose realities (ḥaqāʿiq) by which one moves inwardly through states and stations to reach God. Sufis argued that reason alone is incapable of gaining certitude of the inward, hidden realities behind the veil of phenomenal existence, which only the heart can perceive through spiritual insight (baṣīra). Ibn ʿArabī asserts,
Thought does not yield sound knowledge, nor by what the rationalists claim by means of their reflective powers. Sound knowledge is only that which God casts in the heart of the knower. It is a divine light that he specifies for his servants whom He wills whether angel, messenger, prophet or saint. He who has no unveiling (kashf) has no knowledge. (Ibn ʿArabī 1968: 218 [vol. 1])
Furthermore, Sufi epistemology relies on the principle that one reaches ḥaqīqa through the refinement of character and internal mastery, because ‘each spiritual station and mystical moment has a corresponding etiquette and behaviour’ (Sulamī 1997: 119). Sufism not only prescribes a way of life, but intimately connects to a theoretical framework describing existence.
Philosophy, on the other hand, employed analytical reasoning to discover the fundamental nature of existence. Although there are various iterations of philosophy in Islam, representatives of the Aristotelian school, such as Ibn Sīnā and al-Fārābī, held that truth claims must be based on reasoning, logic, and argumentation. In his Iḥṣāʾ al-ʿulūm (Enumeration of the Sciences), al-Fārābī classifies philosophy as a universal science ‘based on premises that are true and universally recognized; their arguments are indisputable because they consist of demonstrative syllogisms as described by Aristotle in Posterior Analytics’ (Rudolph 2015: 34). Al-Kindī (d. 252-260/866-873), however, was more accommodating of revelatory knowledge, seeking to harmonize reason with revelation, as Fakhry notes, ‘[h]is recently published treatises confirm that the first systematic philosophical writer in Islam was also one of the great advocates of applying the rational process to revealed texts’ (Fakhry 2004: 69).
The other intellectual development that was decidedly Islamic in nature was a type of scholastic theology, known as ʿilm al-kalām. Like philosophy, it employed analytical reasoning to prove certain ideological principles and doctrinal stances. While philosophy explored the nature of existence and pondered essential questions such as God’s existence, the hereafter, the nature of the soul, and good and evil, scholastic theology argued for the correctness of Islamic doctrines on the premise that truth originates in scripture. Many theological tracts were polemical works against philosophy, claiming that philosophy was not only fraught with heretical doctrines incompatible with scripture, but also incapable of ascertaining truth and reality, as argued in al-Ghazālī’s famous polemic, Tahāfut al-falāsifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers). Rather than seeking truth independently of established doctrines, they sought to prove those doctrines on the authority of the Qur’an and Sunna. Though revelation in their view was more authoritative than reason, they nevertheless required dialectical argumentation to prove the former’s tenets. Critics of theology claimed that theological methods were riddled with inconsistencies and logical fallacies, as al-Ghazālī, the great Ashʿarite theologian, himself admitted towards the end of his life,
What the theologians (mutakallimūn) had to say in their books, refuting [the philosophers], was only obscure, scattered remarks, patently contradictory and false, things that could not outwit an ordinary person let alone someone adept in the philosophical sciences. (Al-Ghazālī 1997: 23)
Like the theologian, the legal theorists (faqīh) called for the unassailability of divine law because it emerged from the Qur’an and Sunna. Both theologians and legalists resorted to scripture as a baseline for truth because the Qur’an’s inviolability had already been established in their minds.
Despite their methodological differences, philosophy and Sufism shared common ground, especially in the Illuminationist philosophy pioneered by Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī (d. 587/1191). In his central work, Ḥikmat al-ishrāq (The Philosophy of Illumination), al- Suhrawardī argues that truth is known through divine illumination or unveiling (kashf) after the soul has become purified. This path of arriving at ḥaqīqa is not restricted to self-purification and illumination, but intellectual reasoning, reinforced by logic and analytical deduction. Although critical of Peripatetic philosophy, Illuminationist philosophy was a fusion of reason, revelation, and divine illumination (Ali 2022: 4).
The aforementioned Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Shirāzī (Mullā Ṣadrā) greatly admired al-Suhrawardī and emulated his methodology, combining the three epistemic modalities of revelation (Qur’an), reason (burhān), and gnosis (ʿirfān). Al-Shirāzī’s al-Ḥikmat al-mutaʿālīya fī a-l-asfār al-ʿaqliyya al-arbaʿa (The Transcendent Philosophy Concerning the Four Intellectual Journeys) is a compendium of traditional philosophy that synthesizes rational and mystical approaches, amalgamating the works of Aristotelian Peripatetic philosophy, as represented by Ibn Sīnā, with the Illuminationism of al-Suhrawardī, scholastic theology, and the philosophical Sufism of Ibn ʿArabī.
The culminating figure of Sufism, who developed the most profound and original mystical worldview, and who is commonly known as the Greatest Shaykh (al-Shaykh al-Akbar), Ibn ʿArabī was averse to philosophical ruminations and relied on experiential knowledge to forge his metaphysics. He writes,
Is there something that cannot be obtained through unveiling (kashf) and spiritual experience (wujūd)? We say there is nothing and reject analytical reasoning altogether because it causes confusion (talbīs) and untruthfulness. There is nothing that is not possible to know through unveiling and spiritual experience. Preoccupation with rational thought is a veil (hijāb). (Ibn ʿArabī 1968: 512 [vol. 2])
As the early Sufis never considered reason a means for reaching ḥaqīqa, but rather focused on unveiling and witnessing through purification of the heart, Ibn ʿArabī’s method was closer to these masters than that of his own disciples, who continued his legacy through philosophical-mystical commentaries. Ibn ʿArabī’s earliest commentators, therefore, including Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī (d. 673/1274), Muʾayyid al-Dīn al-Jandī (d. c. 700/1300), ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Kāshānī (d. c. 730/1330), and Dawūd al-Qayṣarī (d. 751/1350), wholly engaged in philosophical speculations on their master’s mystical works, accepting in principle both unveiling and reason. They attempted to reconcile knowledge gained from spiritual experience with philosophical terminology and the intellectual discourse of their time; it was not an attempt to arrive at ḥaqīqa by means of reason alone. Ibn ‘Arabī’s mystical writings along with the ensuing philosophical commentaries forged a new era of Sufism that integrated philosophy with Sufism – that is, the intellect with the heart or reason with gnosis.
9 Ḥaqīqa in Anṣārī’s Manāzil al-sāʾirīn
Because Sufism is a way (ṭarīqa) that leads to reality (ḥaqīqa), Sufi masters have, in works such as Abū al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī’s (d. 465/1072) al-Risāla (The Treatise) and ʿAbdullāh Anṣārī’s (d. 481/1089) Manāzil al-sāʾirīn (The Stations of the Wayfarers), identified several key stages of wayfaring. The aspirant is therefore called the wayfarer who migrates inwardly from self to God. Travelling, migration, and fleeing to God are concepts rooted in Qur’anic discourse, as in the verses, ‘[…] flee unto God […]’ (Q. 51:50) and ‘[…] Whoever leaves his home migrating towards God and His Messenger, and is then overtaken by death, his reward is surely with God’ (Q. 4:100). In the technical terminology of Sufism, wayfaring is a spiritual movement through states (aḥwāl), stations (maqāmāt), the embodiment of virtues, and the realization of divine names. Every aspect of nearness is a manzil (station) and when one becomes established therein, it is called a maqām (rank).
Anṣārī’s Manāzil al-sāʾirīn describes one hundred stations, divided into ten sections, each section corresponding to an inward degree of the human self. Commenting on the text, Kāshānī explains that there are six inward degrees: the bodily faculties, soul, heart, intellect, spirit, and the ultimate unseen (ghayb al-ghuyūb), which is the Unseen Singular Essence. But the soul has two additional degrees below the station of the heart because, before it orients towards God (al-ḥaqq), it is the commanding soul (ammāra), but once it enters wayfaring, it is called the reproaching soul (lawwāma), then the contented soul (muṭmaʾinna). The heart is a degree above the intellect but also a degree below the spirit; it is called the mystery (sirr) when it attains transcendence (tajarrud) and purity (ṣafāʾ) as it advances towards the spirit. The spirit, too, has a degree called the arcane (khafī) that it attains as it advances to the station of oneness (waḥda; Kāshānī 1993: 25–26). Thus, there are ten inward degrees corresponding to the ten sections of the Manāzil: the Preliminaries (bidāyāt), followed by the Doors (abwāb), Interactions (muʿāmālāt), Morals (akhlāq), Principles (uṣūl), Valleys (awdīya), States (aḥwāl), Saintly Attributes (walāyāt), Realities (ḥaqāʾiq), and Ends (nihāyāt).
While there is no specific station designated as ḥaqīqa, Anṣārī views the Realities (ḥaqāʿiq) as the penultimate section in which the wayfarer receives direct knowledge from God. This comes after acquiring moral virtues, establishing the principles of wayfaring, traversing the valleys in the Unseen, and adorning oneself with saintly attributes, each described in preceding sections. The Saintly Attributes (walāyāt) align closely with the Realities (ḥaqāʿiq) because both relate to the spirit. In the former, one reaches the degree of the spirit and is illuminated by the lights of sainthood (Kāshānī 1993: 31). God takes charge of the servant’s affairs to the extent that the wayfarer has no authority of his own. This is tantamount to annihilation (fanāʾ), which is the negation of selfhood or the effacement of the human aspect in the divine.
With respect to the Realities (ḥaqāʿiq), Kāshānī says they denote ‘arrival at the spirit’s arcane (khafī), namely the spirit’s unveiling (mukāshafa) at the degree of the arcane. Then the wayfarer advances to witness (mushāhada) realities beyond the unveilings of meaning (mukāshafa ʿilmiyya) which are from the valley of inspiration (ilhām). Witnessing (mushāhada) therefore is the total removal of veils that leads to beholding (muʿāyana) with the eye of the spirit. This is because the spirit at the degree of the arcane is illuminated by the light of God (al-ḥaqq), sees with His light, and becomes alive through His life’ (Kāshānī 1993: 31–32). These stations are followed by two others, contraction (qabḍ) and expansion (basṭ), during which God restrains the wayfarer then releases him as a mercy to the people so they become illuminated by his light. The wayfarer thus becomes an inheriting saint who is commissioned to teach others. Only then does he achieve real gnosis (maʿrifa), which is the beginning of the Ends.
Ḥaqīqa (or ḥaqāʿiq for Anṣārī) has a very specific meaning in the discourse of wayfaring, one which embodies the concept of spiritual inheritance. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 898/1492) explains the nature of spiritual inheritance in the following terms:
The soundness and strength of the saint’s inheritance from the conferring prophet helps him to take his benefactor’s place in that which he has been deputized, that is, in the place of the prophet who is, as it were, his benefactor. He takes knowledge, for example, from the same source as the prophet, from whom he inherits. (Jāmī 2001: 265)
The inheriting saint receives knowledge through beholding theophany because, like Moses, he has been chosen by God. As the following narrative in the Qur'an reveals,
When Moses came to meet his Lord at the appointed time, His Lord spoke and Moses asked Him, ‘My Lord, let me look at You!’ He said, ‘You can never see Me, but look at that mountain. If it should remain standing, you will see Me’, When his Lord appeared to the mountain, He levelled it to dust, and Moses fainted. When he recovered, he cried, ‘Glory be to You! I have turned to You and I am the foremost of the believers’. God said, ‘Moses, I have chosen you over the people with my message and speech, so hold firmly to what I have given you and be grateful.’ (Q. 7:143–144)
Based on the previous discussion, one might interpret this narrative as follows: when Moses sought a direct vision of God, God’s reply was ‘you can never see Me’ because the contingent can never encompass the Absolute. However, if ‘you look at the mountain’ on the condition that it is firm, ‘then you will see Me’. The existential correspondence between Moses and the mountain is perhaps with reference to his heart since the mountain is the greatest and loftiest entity on the elemental plane. The heart, too, is the loftiest part of man because it is the mirror of God and the true locus of theophany, as this hadith states, ‘[n]either the earth nor the heavens encompass Me, but the heart of a believing servant does encompass Me’ (Ibn ʿArabī 1968: 295 [vol. 3]). Thus, when God disclosed Himself to the heart it became annihilated, represented by the ‘dust’, namely, the effacement of all otherness for ‘God only reveals Himself to one whose trace is effaced, and name is erased’ (Qayṣarī and Ali 2020: 233). Moses’ fainting then recovering is a clear reference to the Sufi doctrines of annihilation (fanāʾ) and subsistence (baqāʾ).
God did not, therefore, wholly deprive Moses of a vision of Him, but rather conditioned it upon the steadfastness of his heart. This signifies that the vision of God is a unique state of the heart. Moses, who was the interlocuter of God, either did not have firmness of heart at the time of asking or desired to reach the station of vision despite God having already reserved for him the station of speech: ‘Moses, I have chosen you over the people with my message and speech, so hold firmly to what I have given you and be grateful’. The Sufi exegete Qushayrī writes in his esoteric commentary, Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt, ‘[w]hat God revealed to Moses in that state of annihilation was the realities of Oneness (ḥaqāʾiq al-aḥadiyya) and the Truth (al-ḥaqq) so that he became the foremost of the believers’ (Qushayrī 2007: 354 [vol. 1]).
To connect this story to Anṣārī’s framework, the vision of God sought by Moses is the vision at the degree of the spirit or its arcane, namely, to witness ḥaqīqa with the eye of the spirit. Although Moses is not an ‘inheriting’ saint, the inward reality of his prophethood is itself sainthood. Qayṣarī explains that the ‘prophets’ sainthood is the aspect of their reality being annihilated in Him, their prophethood is their angelic aspect through which they possess an affinity with the angelic world and from which they receive revelation, and their messengership is their human aspect corresponding to the human world’ (Qayṣarī and Ali 2020: 231).
10 Ontological implications of ḥaqq and ḥaqīqa according to Ibn ʿArabī
One of the earliest exponents of Sufi doctrine, al-Junayd (d. 298/910), famously proclaimed, ‘[t]here is nothing in existence save God’ (Rāzī 1980: 299). Ibn ʿArabī expanded on this statement by saying:
There is nothing in existence save God, His names and His acts. He is the First in respect to the name Manifest and He is the Last in respect to the name Nonmanifest so existence is all Real (ḥaqq). There is nothing of the unreal within it, since what is understood from applying the word unreal is nonexistence. (Ibn ʿArabī 1968: 68 [vol. 3], trans. Chittick 1989: 133)
Like previous authorities, Ibn ʿArabī contrasts the term al-ḥaqq with falsehood, the unreal, and nonexistence. He also uses the term synonymously with God while, like other Sufi writers, employing it to signify Being (wujūd). Often in his writings, the term ḥaqq is used in contrast with khalq: ‘[p]overty is an attribute of creation (khalq), and Independence is an attribute of the Real (al-ḥaqq) […] nothing brings together the Real (al-ḥaqq) and creation (khalq)’ (Ibn ʿArabī 1968: 654 [vol. 2], trans. Chittick 1989: 133).
As for ḥaqīqa/ḥaqāʾiq, these refer to the divine names themselves or to their forms in God’s knowledge. The divine names are universal realities, and their forms are particular realities. In alignment with the teachings of his master, Qūnawī defines ḥaqīqa in the following way:
The reality (ḥaqīqa) of every entity expresses the relationship of its eternal archetypal reality within its Lord’s knowledge. It is called a Permanent Archetype (ʿayn thābita) in the terminology of the experts among God’s folk (ahl Allāh), quiddity (māhīya), a ‘non-existent known’ (maʿlūm maʿdūm), a ‘fixed thing’ (shayʾ thābit), and so forth, and in the terminology of others. (Qūnawī 2008: 74)
Qayṣarī also refers to them as nafs al-amr, a term that translates to ‘things as they are’. As Spiker explains, ‘Nafs al-amr, then, constitutes the subsistence of all things in a mode of existence unconfined to the mind and “extramental particulars” as usually characterized. Ultimately, this is their subsistence in the Divine knowledge, where God is “with” us’ (Spiker 2021: 99). In other words, ḥaqāʾiq are the eternal essences in God’s knowledge which are the forms of the divine names that are revealed to the heart of the gnostic, then contemplated by his intellect.
For Ibn ʿArabī, realities (ḥaqāʾiq) are divided into the following:
Realities (ḥaqāʾiq) that relate to the Sacred Essence, those that relate to the exalted attributes, which are relations, those that relate to the acts, which is the [the command] ‘Be!’ and its sisters, and realities that relate to effects (mafʿūlāt), which is the cosmos and compositions. These cosmic realities are of three types: the higher which are intelligibles, the lower which are sensory, and the intermediary which are Imaginal. (Ibn ʿArabī 1968: 33)
According to Ibn ʿArabī’s typology of Being, the Divine Essence refers to ‘Being at the Degree of Singularity (al-aḥadiyya) which negates all individuation’. Qayṣarī explains that at this degree, ‘[t]here remains neither attribute, nor possessor of attributes, nor name, nor named, but only the Essence’ (Qayṣarī and Ali 2020: 61). At the second degree, which is called the Unity (al-wāḥidīya), the divine names become distinct realities so knowledge is distinct from power and power is distinct from will: ‘[i]n this way, attributes become multiple, and through this multiplicity, the names and their manifestations become multiple’ (Qayṣarī and Ali 2020: 61). Realities in relation to the acts or the command ‘Be!’ refer to those that receive knowledge and existence in summary form, without intermediary, such as the Supreme Spirit, First Intellect, and the Highest Pen (Kāshānī 2000: 303). Finally, realities that pertain to everything else, such as spirits, bodies, and imagination, have numerous divisions and are equally abundant, mirroring the diversity found within the worlds.
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī, commenting on Ibn ʿArabī’s Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, writes,
Know that realities are of three types: A Reality which is absolute, active, singular, lofty, necessary-in-itself; it is the Reality of God. A reality which is limited, passive, base, receptive of existence through the effusion and theophany of the Necessary Being; it is the reality of the world. The third type of reality comprehends the absolute and the limited, activity and passivity, effective and effected. It is absolute from one aspect and limited from another, active from one aspect and receptive from another. This reality is the union of both types of realities; it has the supreme primacy and the greatest finality. (Jāmī 2004: 55)
According to this typology, realities relate to three centres of Being: God, the world, and the human being.
From another perspective, the singular reality of Being can be divided into five fundamental planes of manifestation. These are ontological degrees, a hierarchy referred to as the Universal Worlds (al-ʿawālim al-kullīya). The first plane is exclusively the divine degree, consisting of the divine names, eternal realities in God’s knowledge, and all that emanates directly from the Divine Essence. The second is the world of spirits or immaterial intellects, the third the Imaginal world, the fourth the material world, and the fifth the human plane, which comprehends every degree including the divine (Qayṣarī and Ali 2020: 133). Each plane of manifestation is a type of relative existence insofar as the only real existence is God, Himself. Yet, the world is also real because the divine identity (huwīya) flows through it.
Some refer to each world as the shadow of the Divine Essence, appealing to the verse, ‘[h]ave you not seen how your Lord has extended the shadow, and if He had so willed, He would have made it stationary?’ (Q. 24:45). Qūnawī, for example, says, ‘[s]ince the world is a shadow of the divine Presence […] divine attention resulted in a singular ontological effect which embraces an unseen relational multiplicity. God named it a Pen and an Intellect’ (Qūnawī 2002: 118). Although the world is real, it is relatively real, until we reach absolute Reality itself or, to a lesser degree, the station of reality (maqām al-ḥaqīqa), which is the highest order of created Being.
11 The station of reality (maqām al-ḥaqīqa)
One of the overarching themes we find in Ibn ʿArabī’s writings is the idea that the human being is God’s ultimate creation, ‘formed in His image’, and ‘an all-encompassing being (kawn jāmiʿ) that epitomized the divine order so that His mystery would be revealed to Himself’ (Ibn ʿArabī 1980: 48). Ibn ʿArabī’s doctrine of the Perfect Human (al-insān al-kāmil) is rooted in the Qur’anic narrative of Adam being chosen by God above all His creation, as stated in the verse, ‘I am placing on the earth a vicegerent’ (Q. 2:30). Ibn ʿArabī elaborates on this theme, calling the Perfect Human the epitome of human potential, the pinnacle of divine realization, the comprehensive manifestation of the divine attributes, the mirror of God and the world, and the essence of creation. In his celebrated work, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, he elaborates on the quintessential attributes of twenty-seven prophets whom he considers to have been the perfect humans of their time.
Among them, Abraham (Ibrāhīm) stands out as ‘the first to reach the apogee of divine unity (tawḥīd) by perfecting the gnosis (maʿrifa) of the Essence’ (Jāmī 2001: 149). Jāmī also describes him as, ‘the first mirror to reveal the properties of affirmative attributes and the first to embody their actualization’ (Jāmī 2004: 161). This is because, according to Qūnawī, ‘Abraham is the manifestation of the First Intellect (al-ʿaql al-awwal) which is the first existential and engendering cause’ (Qūnawī 1992: 211). While the concept of the First Intellect is thought to be of Neoplatonic origin, it can also be traced back to a hadith of the Prophet, who is reported to have said, ‘[t]he first thing that God created was the Intellect’ (Ṣadūq 1995: 589, no. 13). In another hadith attributed to the Prophet, ‘God created the Intellect from a hidden, treasured light, in His ancient knowledge, of which neither a messenger nor proximate angel had any awareness’ (Rayshahrī 2001: 2689 [vol. 7]). The First Intellect figures prominently in Islamic Peripatetic philosophy, Illuminationism, and the Sufism of Ibn ʿArabī, but also in Shīʿism and the later philosophy of Mullā Ṣadrā. The latter, for example writes, ‘this ʿaql (Intellect) is the First of Created Beings, and the closest of Beings to the First Reality, and the greatest and most perfect of them’ (Shirāzī 216, cited in Asghari 2017: 164). It is the first light of God which possesses the power of discernment, as Imām Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq describes, ‘God created the Intellect out of four things: knowledge, power, light and volition. Then He caused it to subsist through knowledge and be eternal in the divine dominion’ (Rayshahrī 2001: 2689 [vol. 7]).
From these descriptions, the First Intellect is also called the station of reality (maqām al-ḥaqīqa) because it confers a direct knowledge of realities without intermediaries (Almajid 2018: 134). In the Sufi tradition, the First Intellect is equated with the Tablet of Decree (lawḥ al-qaḍāʾ) and the Mother of the Book (umm al-kitāb) because it contains the universal realities that descend directly from the Permanent Archetypes. It is called the Mother of the Book since it is the source of existential realities, and the Supreme Pen (al-qalam al-aʿlā) because it inscribes particulars on the tablet of creation (Qayṣarī and Ali 2020: 55). These terms, mostly derived from the Qur’an, indicate that the closer a reality is to original Being, the more real it is.
Furthermore, the station of reality relates to direct, luminous knowledge received from God that imparts certainty to the knower. Such was the knowledge that Abraham possessed, as the Qur’an confirms, ‘Thus, We showed Abraham the kingdom of the heavens and the earth, so that he might be among the certain’ (Q. 6:75). In religious discourse, the intellect is also called the spirit; when God breathed His spirit into Adam, He endowed him with discernment, ‘[w]hen I have breathed into him of My spirit, fall before him in prostration’ (Q. 38:72; Almajid 2018: 29). Discernment being an essential quality of the spirit was explored in the station of Realities in the Manāzil (above), where true gnosis is due to the spirit/arcane’s witnessing of realities.
Because the Intellect is the first to receive existence from its Lord, its station, which is the station of reality, is associated with the original divine names of creation, namely, Life, Light and Spirit. Besides Abraham, Jesus (ʿĪsā) also represents the station of reality because of his strong affiliation to the divine attributes of Life, Light, and Spirit. In the Islamic tradition, Jesus is referred to as ‘the spirit of God’ (rūḥ Allāh), while the Bible also quotes Jesus as saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life’ (John 8:12).
The station of reality/intellect/spirit is to know things as they truly are, as the Prophet Muḥammad prayed, ‘[m]y Lord, show me things as they truly are’ (Āmulī 1969: 287). The Prophet’s words affirm that there is a reality, and that it can be known. According to some of our authors, it is called the station of reality, which is the source of light and immediate knowledge, revealing itself without form, materiality, image, or representation so as to afford certainty of the Real (al-ḥaqq). ‘For one who possesses it, it is a sublime word and an utterance, commensurate to its station and rank like the Station of Abraham’ (Almajid 2018: 104).
12 Conclusion
An innate awareness of truth is the foundation of human life, an aptitude that discerns between the real, the false, and the illusory. Whether one posits that truth is relative, in the eye of the beholder, or a transcendent absolute reality, none can deny that there is a reality that is constantly unfolding and that we are ineluctably driven to discover by virtue of our consciousness. Religious thinkers, philosophers, and mystics have attempted to define this reality explicitly through various means and practices. The Sufis called themselves the people of truth and reality (ahl ḥaqq wa-al-ḥaqīqa) because they have made it their sole purpose to realize it and attain its essence. Sometimes they refer to this reality as Being, at other times as the Truth (al-ḥaqq) or God, depending on the mode of discourse. Abrahamic monotheistic traditions are founded on the principle that God is the Truth, given that the station of Abraham relates to the ultimate vision of Reality. Thus, the path to God is the path of truth (ḥaqq) and reality (ḥaqīqa), such that those who follow the truth are on the path to God. Despite the existence of relative or individual truths, Islam conceives of an absolute Truth and a path that leads to it, referred to as, ‘[t]he straight path’ (Q. 1:6). This is the path trodden by prophets, saints, sages, or thinkers who united the knowledge of the outward with inward realities and attainments. They have thus forged paths and conceived systems of thought based on certain archetypes of truth, prophetic or otherwise. But in their tenacious pursuit, they have investigated all phenomenon that reveals the true nature of existence and ultimate Truth.
