Askari/'s ���Noun��� And Tasavvuf (Translator/'s Note) I
muʜammad umaʀ memoɴ
Askari’s “Noun” and Tasavvuf
(Translator’s Note)
It ɪs unfortunate that the intellectual legacy of Mu√ammad ƒasan ‘Askarµ
(1919–78) has received little or no attention from Urdu scholars in the
West. But for those whose engagement with Urdu literature does not
stop with the nineteenth century, in other words, with Mµr and Gh≥lib,
‘Askarµ’s is not a presence easily ignored. (And even in regard to Mµr and
Gh≥lib, some of the most perceptive and truly trail-blazing critical ap-
praisal has come from ‘Askarµ and our own contemporary Shamsu’r-
Ra√m≥n F≥r∑qµ.) He was a professor of English, self-taught in French
well enough to read large quantities of French literature in the original
and correspond with many French writers and thinkers, a significant
short-story writer who approached his art with particular sensitivity to its
form, but, above all, he was a critic with the keenest intellect. His essays,
totaling well over 1000 pages, range over a variety of concerns: criticism
of poetry and fiction, creative writers of both East and West, and
reflections on art, architecture, philosophy, Marxism, psychology, and
music. In all this, his profound understanding of both Western and
Eastern cultures is in evidence everywhere, but even more, their subtle
and subterranean interplay. All his work ultimately seeks to inform the
Urdu reader of the crucial relation language has to the structure of
thought. Reading ‘Askarµ is doubly rewarding, not just for his ideas, but
also for his example of how to think and write. In their particular mode
of being, these essays are nothing less than a challenge, thrown boldly
and—if one can find one’s way out of the author’s rather pointed, even
harsh, but seldom insulting use of irony—compassionately, urging the
contemporary South Asian reader to pause and take stock of himself or
herself, in order to reconnect with their cultural wellsprings.
“Compassion” is not an attribute that comes easily to mind when
one thinks of ‘Askarµ, at least not to the minds of many Urdu readers. To
260
Muʜammad Umaʀ Memoɴ • 261
them he was a misanthrope par excellence, full of himself, interested in
knocking the hat off of everyone’s head—and then the usual clichéd psy-
chobabble: sexually frustrated, etc., etc. But he was compassionate, in his
concern for the intellectual well-being of his people. He couldn’t, of
course, address this feeling of concern to any particular existent—Zaid,
‘Amr, or Bakr—but only to existence as a whole. A firm believer in the
legacy of TaΩavvuf, he knew well that all Zaids, ‘Amrs, or Bakrs, as much
as he himself, were part of a single existential continuum, the same Es-
sence. The image of the poet Mu√ammad Taqµ Mµr (1722–1810) comes
unbidden to the mind: a man terribly aloof from, indeed even scornful
of the milling crowd of humanity in his personal life, but every bit of
him existentially committed to its condition in his art.
A few of ‘Askarµ’s essays and a short story are sampled in the two sec-
tions devoted to introducing his work in this issue of the AUS. The
story, “ƒar≥mj≥dµ” (The Bitch), is admittedly his major fictional piece in
a body of work that extends, at most, to a dozen short stories. Not only
was it the author’s favorite, it was also well regarded by most Urdu
critics. Reading it today, sixty-four years after its writing, when Urdu
fiction has moved away from both the unabashed and unrelenting
Socialist realism of the Progressives (the Taraqqµpasands) and the
lumbering pedanticism of the Aesthetes (the Jam≥lparasts), as well as their
cloying romanticism, the story may appear to be a bit bland in its theme.
It was not, though, in the context of its day. But even then, just as now,
it remains a significant experiment in the form, and ‘Askarµ himself has
said as much in his epilogue to the collection Jazµr®.
I’m grateful to Shamsu’r-Ra√m≥n F≥r∑qµ for his generous help in
identifying some Western names and certain obscure text fragments, and
to Mehr Afshan Farooqi and Baran Rehman for translating what they
could in the time available to them. But I do hope that this is just the
beginning and that future issues of the AUS will have occasion to present
more of ‘Askarµ’s work.
2
It will be readily noticed and might even appear puzzling that whereas
‘Askarµ is mainly concerned with Urdu and Islamic culture in “Adab M®
262 • Tʜe Aɴɴuaʟ of Uʀdu Studɪes
¿if≥t k≥ Iste‘m≥l”1 (“The Use of Adjectives in Literature”), he nonetheless
talks about the East, which extends beyond Urdu and Islamic culture, as
a unity of thought, experience, and worldview, indeed as, in some sense,
sharing an identical metaphysics. Not that there is anything inherently
wrong in such a conflation, but one wonders about the basis of this as-
sumption and the ease with which it is made. In casual conversations
with some Pakistani intellectuals, I have often, even as recently as 2001,
found them criticizing ‘Askarµ for what they felt was his unwarranted
inclusion of just about every religion and culture east of the Suez in what
is essentially and narrowly an Islamic worldview. As I read this essay, I
too wondered about the factual basis for this inclusion.
I do not know whether ‘Askarµ had or had not studied anything of
non-Urdu-and-Persian literatures, religions and cultures of the East
when he said, “and in regard to Eastern literature, my familiarity doesn’t
go beyond Urdu and Persian literature.” Is this the proverbial kasr-e
nafsµ (humility) of a South Asian Muslim gentleman, or indeed a
statement of fact? But ‘Askarµ also asserts confidently in the sentence that
follows, “However, you may, if you wish, replace a statement of Ibn-e
‘Arabµ that I cite with a statement of Shankaracharya,” and earlier, “These
beliefs were present in all the major civilizations of the East.…” It’s not
very likely that if ‘Askarµ were actually unfamiliar with a subject he would
make assertions about it with such confidence and such an air of finality.
I’m rather inclined to think that the apparent contradiction in the two
statements is merely rhetorical, a manifestation of an arched style of
writing with which any reader of ‘Askarµ is only too familiar. In this style
“ignorance” is often “feigned,” but with the knowledge that it will not be
taken for fact. Internal evidence does not support the view that ‘Askarµ
knew as little about Eastern religious, cultural and literary traditions as
he claims. On the contrary, his knowledge about these was considerable.
He refers to them with the casual ease of one knowledgeable person, if
not exactly an insider, talking to another knowledgeable person, his
pronouncements to the contrary notwithstanding. He may not have
known the Eastern traditions in their minutiae, nonetheless his
unusually keen and astute mind, with its enviable powers of analysis and
synthesis, could certainly make generally correct assessments about their
character from the “little” that he did know. There is more than a whiff of
apn≥’iyat, of felt kinship, of shared destiny, in the way he talks about, for
1In his collection of essays Vaqt kµ R≥gnµ (Lahore: Qausain, 1979), 21–42.
Muʜammad Umaʀ Memoɴ • 263
example, Hindu metaphysics. Moreover, reference to Eastern cultures
and religions is not exclusive to the present article; they are, in fact,
discussed consistently in several essays in the Vaqt kµ R≥gnµ.
The extent of the affinity found between TaΩavvuf and Vedanta and
Buddhist metaphysics became apparent to me much later than when I
first read ‘Askarµ’s essay some years ago. It happened when I read Toshi-
hiko Izutsu’s little book Creation and the Timeless Order of Things: Essays
in Islamic Mystical Philosophy and his much earlier and more extensive
work on Sufism and Taoism. A few examples may serve to place ‘Askarµ’s
thoughts in an appropriate context.
Talking about Tauõd (Unity/Oneness), the mainstay of Islam,
whether from the perspective of doctrine and belief or TaΩavvuf, ‘Askarµ
injects most unobtrusively a fairly innocuous comment, “there cannot be
two views about Oneness,” implying that, whether Muslim or Hindu,
ultimately the concept of “Oneness” can, of necessity, mean only one
thing. If one perceives it differently as a Hindu and a Muslim, one does
so phenomenally, as a result of one’s respective historical conditioning,
one’s locus in empirical time. This is not, however, “Oneness qua One-
ness.” In its essence Oneness is neither Hindu nor Muslim, indeed it
ceases to be “Oneness” as soon as any kind of determination (in the pre-
sent case, plurality) is predicated on it. Hence, one cannot postulate two
“Onenesses,” one for Muslims, the other for Hindus.
Here is a revealing passage from Izutsu, worth quoting in full:
The [TaΩavvuf] conception of the tajal µ is structurally identical with the
Vedantic conception of adhy≥sa or “superimposition,” according to which
the originally undivided unity of pure nirguna Brahman, the absolutely
unconditioned Absolute, appears divided because of the different “names
and forms” (n≥ma-r∑pa) that are imposed upon the Absolute by “ignorance”
(avidy≥ ). It is remarkable, from the viewpoint of comparison between
Islamic philosophy and Vedanta, that avidy≥ which, subjectively, is the
human “ignorance” of the true reality of things, is, objectively, exactly the
same thing as m≥y≥ which is the self-conditioning power inherent in
Brahman itself. The “names and forms” that are said to be superimposed
upon the Absolute by avidy≥ would correspond to the Islamic concept of
“quiddities” (m≥hiy≥t, sg. m≥hµyah) which are nothing other than the ex-
ternalized forms of the Divine “names and attributes” (asm≥’ wa-sif≥t). And
the Vedantic m≥y≥ as the self-determining power of the Absolute would find
its exact Islamic counterpart in the concept of the Divine “existential mercy”
(rahmah wuj∑dµyah).
264 • Tʜe Aɴɴuaʟ of Uʀdu Studɪes
(28)
In discussing the two aspects of the Absolute, namely, the b≥πin or
interior and ≥hir or exterior (which may also be described as,
respectively, the positive and negative), Izutsu says:
This basic distinction between the positive and negative aspects in the
metaphysical constitution of the Absolute is common to all the major
Oriental philosophies other than Islamic. In Vedanta, for instance, we have
the celebrated thesis of dvi-r∑pa Brahma “two-fold Brahman,” that is, the
distinction between the nirguna Brahman and saguna Brahman, i.e. the
absolutely attributeless Brahman and the self-same Brahman adorned with all
kinds of attributes. In Buddhism we have the distinction between “Suchness
as absolute Nothingness” and “Suchness as non-Nothingness.” Taoists
distinguish between Non-Being and Being. Confucianists distinguish
between wu chi (the Ultimateless) and t’ai chi (the Supreme Ultimate).
(86)
In Chapter 3 of Creation, entitled “An Analysis of Wahdat al-Wuj∑d:
Toward a Metaphilosophy of Oriental Philosophies,” Izutsu, in fact,
makes a strong case for the feasibility of the Islamic metaphysical concept
of Va√dat al-Vuj∑d as a framework for analyzing and clarifying most of
the historical forms of Oriental thought. “I am interested in this
particular aspect of this particular problem,” he writes,
out of all the interesting problems offered by the history of Iranian Islam, not
necessarily because of my own personal philosophical attitude, but rather,
and primarily, because of my conviction that the concept of wahdat al-wuj∑d
is something which, if structurally analyzed and elaborated in a proper way,
will provide a theoretical framework in terms of which we shall be able to
clarify one of the most fundamental modes of thinking which characterize
Oriental philosophy in general—not only Islamic philosophy, but most of
the major forms of Oriental thought so that we might make a positive
contribution from the standpoint of the philosophical minds of the East
towards the much desired development of a new world philosophy based on
the spiritual and intellectual heritages of East and West.
(66–8)
Similarity (correspondence) also exists between Islamic views and
Vedanta philosophy (as represented by Shankara) regarding the problem
of the reality and unreality of the phenomenal world (10), between the
Muʜammad Umaʀ Memoɴ • 265
illusory nature of multiplicity, which is devoid of any metaphysical or
ontological value (24), between the Absolute-in-its-Absoluteness of
TaΩavvuf and the parabrahman (Supreme Brahman) of Vedanta (34), the
wu chi (the Ultimateless) of neo-Confucianism (34), and so on.
It is not intended here to produce a comprehensive inventory of
such correspondences and affinities between TaΩavvuf and Vedanta
philosophy, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, etc., although one can
get a fair idea of them even by a casual glance at Izutsu’s delightful book,
whose main purpose is not a study of such correspondences, which he
only mentions in passing, but rather a delineation of the drift and course
of TaΩavvuf thought in Islam, especially as it unfolded in the philosophy
of Va√dat al-Vuj∑d ([Transcendent] Unity of Being).
My own purpose in this rather long excursus has been to
demonstrate that a few stray references to such resonances found in
‘Askarµ hardly tell the whole story of his encounter and consequent
engagement with the intellectual heritage of the East, his deep and long
reflection about aspects of this heritage, and the edge of authenticity and
the rare economy of expression that such reflection and internalization
gave him. His writing style—so refreshingly unlike scholarly
presentations in the environment of Western academies—steers clear of
documentation-done-to-death, even for the tallest of the claims he makes,
with a disdain truly worthy of a classical Muslim writer (a trait also in
evidence in the early writings of Urdu’s most erudite and astute living
critic Shamsu’r-Ra√m≥n F≥r∑qµ). ‘Askarµ, rightly or wrongly, expected his
reader to bring to his essays an equal amount of familiarity with major
texts and ideas that he had himself acquired by poring over them with
the complete absorption of a lover or, if you will, the obsession and
delight of one gripped with a mania (I hope I do him no injustice). So,
however light and casual his style might appear to be, it can scarcely be
denied that underneath it lies a much deeper concern, a careful and long-
and-hard thinking through of ideas and assumptions.
3
The central thesis of ‘Askarµ’s essay is that the division of a “word” into
three categories of “noun,” “verb,” and “particle,” and the treatment of
“adjective” merely as an offshoot of “noun” was necessarily determined
for the grammarians of classical Arabic by a view of Reality which was
developed within the TaΩavvuf-oriented metaphysics of Islamic culture.
266 • Tʜe Aɴɴuaʟ of Uʀdu Studɪes
In that environment, ontologically speaking, only NOUN or NAME—
itself an articulation of the Absolute through self-disclosure (tajallµ ) —
was truly real, the verb and adjective being no more than mere by-
products of, but nonetheless ontologically contained within, the NOUN.
So primacy has to be awarded to the NOUN from the perspective of
value, which itself is defined by its position in the ontological spectrum
of Reality.
From grammar to metaphysics is indeed a big leap. ‘Askarµ’s whole
point is that the sense of leap felt by contemporary Muslim societies is
the product of those societies’ estrangement from their cultural roots. But
that aside, his argument will remain unintelligible for readers unfamiliar
with the metaphysical assumptions that lie at its foundation. It will not
be out of place here to describe them briefly. In what follows, my debt to
Izutsu is evident. Much of what I say belongs to him, and whatever mis-
apprehensions may have crept into my reading of his works are my own
responsibility.
Muslim philosophers had realized quite early on that the Islamic no-
tion of Tauõd (Divine Unity/Oneness), if taken to its logical conclusion,
could only mean the unity of Being/Existence or, in the Qur’≥nic usage,
“al-ƒaqq” (the Reality), otherwise duality would unavoidably result.
How does one go from that “Oneness” to the multiplicity of those objects
in the empirical world and what must be the precise modality of the rela-
tionship of “objects/Creation” to the Reality?2 (It should be immediately
apparent that Muslim metaphysicians didn’t call the Reality by its relig-
ious name All≥h (God)—which is a theological concept and theology it-
self occupies a much later but nonetheless crucial stage in the descent of
the Absolute along the ontological strata—for Being/Reality is, in itself,
unknowable and ineffable. On the other hand, “God” is a determination
and a delimitation which cannot be predicated upon the Absolute in its
Absoluteness where it is not just beyond any condition but also beyond
the condition of unconditionality. It is, at best, a theological concept.)
These questions and their related issues were addressed in the
philosophy of Va√dat al-Vuj∑d (Unity of Existence), especially by its
2One can readily see that disagreement, and sometimes its destructive con-
sequences, simply evaporates the second the main force in the universe is identified
as Being, Existence, or Reality, and how, conversely, much trouble for mankind
results when this force is given such names as “All≥h,” “Jesus Christ,” “Bhagwan,”
“Yahweh,” etc.
Muʜammad Umaʀ Memoɴ • 267
principal propounder the Andalusian theosophist Mu√yµ al-Dµn Ibn al-
‘Arabµ (1165– 1240) and later by a host of other thinkers among his
followers, mostly in Iran.
According to Ibn-e ‘Arabµ, the structure of Reality is something like
this: the Reality, which has two aspects (b≥πin/interior ; ≥hir/exterior), is
beyond the reach of human cognition in its interiority. It is, in other
words, the “self-concealing” aspect of Reality. At this stage Reality is de-
scribed as “ÿ≥t al-vuj∑d” (Absolute Existence), or “ghayb al-ghuy∑b” (Mys-
tery of Mysteries). But this is its “positive” aspect in that Reality is so
indeterminate that even the condition of “unconditionality” cannot be
applied to it. When “unconditionality” is applied, this stage is
technically called “a√adµya.”3 In its other “self-revealing” aspect, however,
Reality becomes the metaphysical source of the phenomenal world. From
this aspect, in other words, arises the “self-manifesting act of pure
existence” through what is technically described as the “most sacred
emanation,” which then places the Reality in the stage of “v≥hidµya,” or
“Unity.”
At the stage of v≥hidµya, Unity of Existence begins to acquire inner
articulations. These articulations are called Divine Names and Attributes
(asm≥ va Ωif≥t). This is also the stage of Eternal Archetypes4 (al-a‘y≥n a¡-
¡≥bita). The phenomenal world with its multiplicity of objects is still a
stage away. It is the Divine Names and Attributes or these Eternal Arche-
types that will actualize in concrete forms the objects of the material
world.
Two further points may be made here: Although the Qur’≥n lists
only ninety-nine names of God, they are, of necessity, infinite in
number. This is so because Divine Names and Attributes are simply
articulations of Divine Self-Knowledge, and a terminal number cannot
be postulated of the ways and forms and relations of Divine Self-
Knowledge. Secondly, the differentiated and concrete objects of the
3This and “v≥hidµya” in the following paragraph would both seem to mean the
same thing (unity). But Ibn-e ‘Arabµ differentiates between the two. “The basic
difference he seems to see is that a√ad designates God’s unity in respect of tanzµh,
while w≥√id designates it in terms of tashbµh.”—William C. Chittick, The Self-
Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn al-‘Arabµ’s Cosmology (Albany, NY: SUNY Press,
1998), 167–8.
4Also translated as “Immutable Essences” and, more recently by Chittick, as
“Fixed Entities.”
268 • Tʜe Aɴɴuaʟ of Uʀdu Studɪes
phenomenal world are to Ibn-e ‘Arabµ, just as to most of the followers of
Va√dat al-Vuj∑d, merely shadows —both real and unreal at the same
time. They are real because they are, after all, part of the Essence, and
unreal because their phenomenal existence, although it appears concrete,
is not, ontologically, of self-subsistent existents. There just aren’t any
such existents.
‘Askarµ has tried to establish the primacy of “noun.” Eventually all
judgments about the status or rank of a thing depend, of necessity, on
some kind of touchstone by which value is assigned to an object’s indi-
vidual worth. It would appear that ‘Askarµ finds this touchstone to be the
metaphysical concept of the Unity of Existence in Islamic culture.
A question that I wish ‘Askarµ had raised and, ideally, answered in
order to provide greater grist for his argument is this: If TaΩavvuf has as-
sumed a paradigmatic role in shaping the morphological and syntactical
structure of—in the present case—Urdu, is this also true of other major
languages within Islamic culture (Arabic, Persian, Turkish, etc.)? Coun-
tries where these languages are dominant have also experienced the im-
pact of Western literary forms and sensibilities in the modern period.
What are the ways in which these countries have tried to negotiate this
impact and make it workable within their own linguistic and cultural en-
vironments? Urdu comes nowhere near the number of translations from
European languages into, say, Arabic or Persian. How have
contemporary translations of Western authors faired in Arabic and
Persian? Although ‘Askarµ was studying Arabic before he died, he
probably didn’t know it well enough to address this question at the time
he wrote this piece in 1960. However, he knew Persian quite well. At least
some examples from modern Persian poetry and prose would have been
helpful in delineating the nature of his argument more fully.
4
A few words about my translation. The word “TaΩavvuf,” which lies in
the suvaid≥’-e qalb, the very core of the heart of this essay, and is its
foundational principle, is generally translated as “Sufism.” The error of
using “mysticism,” “esotericism,” or “spirituality” for “TaΩavvuf” has
been variously pointed out by many contemporary scholars, most
Muʜammad Umaʀ Memoɴ • 269
eloquently by William C. Chittick,5 and the inherent inadequacy of the
term “Sufism,” to say nothing of its employment by Western powers for
the extension of their colonial domination of Muslim countries,6 also
makes one hesitate to use it. Nonetheless, it is now the standard term for
“TaΩavvuf” in English. I could have used it myself but have not, and I
have used “Sufi” only twice as an “adjective.” Every time I instinctively
used “Sufism,” I could feel ‘Askarµ’s spirit breathing down my neck. I
knew him personally, and I knew it would pain him immeasurably to
see “TaΩavvuf” being described (though he would have used
“transmogrified”) as “Sufism.” Few Urdu writers are as careful with
words as he was. There is scarcely a sentence in his fairly extensive oeuvre
where one can observe looseness, carelessness of usage, or randomness.
Then again, the very tone and ambience of the present essay is so grave
and measured that it demands absolute respect for its author’s
terminological choices.
‘Askarµ uses the Arabic words “ism” “Ωifat,” and “fi‘l” consistently
throughout his essay. Each of these words is both a grammatical term
and a common word, and a native reader knows contextually which of
the two is meant. For instance, “ism” in its common sense means a
“name” (his name, God’s name, the name of a tree, etc.), but
grammatically it is a noun. This consistency and uniformity of usage is
difficult to maintain in English, where, depending on the context, it has
to be rendered either as “name” or as “noun.” Whereas it is all right to
say “Ra√m≥n is a name of God,” it is not all right to say “Ra√m≥n is a
noun of God.” There is, however, no such problem when “ism” is used
in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and perhaps a number of other languages,
where it can mean either. The shifting vocabulary does violate the
consistency and cohesiveness of the original, but these are the standard,
even expected, hazards of any translation activity.
The same uniformity and concision is observed in the use of the
word “Ωifat.” Grammatically it means an “adjective.” Beyond that it can
have a host of closely related meanings: “quality,” “property,” “attribute,”
“characteristic,” “distinguishing mark,” “peculiarity,” etc. While it works
smoothly in Urdu for all situations in the article, in English a distinction
should be maintained between its use as a grammatical term and simply
5Sufism: A Short Introduction (Oxford: Oneworld, 2000), 1; see also Carl W.
Ernst, The Shambhala Guide to Sufism (Boston: Shambhala, 1997), 7.
6Cf. Ernst, 1–ff.
270 • Tʜe Aɴɴuaʟ of Uʀdu Studɪes
as a common word, depending, again, on the context. So while “blue is
an adjective,” “mercy is an attribute of God.”
Derived from the Arabic triliteral root “f-‘-l,” “fi ‘l” simply means
an “action” (activity, doing, work, performance, and function being some
of its other related meanings), but as a technical term in Arabic
grammar, it means a “verb.” Likewise, “f≥‘il,” from the same root, is “a
producer of action or effect,” and “f≥‘ilµyat” means “activity/effectiveness.”
My two main problems had less to do with translation than with ‘As-
karµ’s predilection for approximately transliterating European personal
names or giving only the last name, and for producing in Urdu transla-
tion partial quotes from Western poetry. In the former case, it has not
been possible to positively identify such names so their English spellings
are, at best, conjectural. In the latter case, I first translated, for instance,
“±^媵 ±^媵 ±i∞y≥” and “narm-o-n≥zuk paud®” (from Chaucer) as “small
birds” and “delicate plants,” until I was helped immensely from a not-
so-ghaibµ source—S. R. F≥r∑qµ.
5
Since the core of this essay has much to do with TaΩavvuf and its meta-
physics, especially as expounded by Ibn-e ‘Arabµ, I list here (excepting
works already cited in footnotes) a few books which readers who want to
pursue these subjects in greater depth will find useful:
On Sufism: Titus Burckhardt, An Introduction to Sufi Doctrine (La-
hore: Shaikh Muhammad Ashraf, 1959); Toshihiko Izutsu, Creation and
the Timeless Order of Things: Essays in Islamic Mystical Philosophy (Ash-
land, OR: White Cloud Press, 1994); and Sachiko Murata, Chinese
Gleams of Sufi Light: Wang Tai-yü’s “Great Learning of the Pure and Real”
and Liu Chih’s “Displaying the Concealment of the Real Realm” (Albany,
NY: SUNY Press, 2000).
On Ibn ‘Arabi (Life and Thought): Claude Addas, Quest for the Red
Sulphur: The Life of Ibn ‘Arabµ, translated by Peter Kingsley (Cambridge:
The Islamic Texts Society, 1993); William C. Chittick, Imaginal Worlds:
Ibn al-‘Arabµ and the Problem of Religious Diversity (Albany, NY: SUNY
Press, 1994) and The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-‘Arabµ’s Metaphysics of
Imagination (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1989); M. Chodkiewicz, An
Ocean Without Shore: Ibn ‘Arabµ, the Book and the Law, translated by
David Streight (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1993) and Seal of the Saints:
Prophethood and Sainthood in the Doctrine of Ibn ‘Arabµ, translated by Li-
Muʜammad Umaʀ Memoɴ • 271
adain Sherrard (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1993); Peter Coates,
Ibn ‘Arabi and Modern Thought: The History of Taking Metaphysics Seri-
ously (Oxford: Anqa Publishing 2002); Stephen Hirtenstein, The
Unlimited Mercifier: The Spiritual Life and Thought of Ibn ‘Arabµ
(Oxford: Anqa Publishing, 1999; Ashland, OR: White Cloud Press,
1999); and Toshihiko Izutsu, Taoism: A Comparative Study of Key
Philosophical Concepts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).
6
‘Askarµ’s “flirtation” with TaΩavvuf (at least this is how Pakistani intellectu-
als see his engagement) was not viewed charitably by a goodly section of
Urdu literati, who felt that this blending of “spirituality” and “literature”
was not only unwarranted but also went against the grain of Urdu litera-
ture, much of which was purely liberal in spirit. A few novels of Naÿµr
A√mad and a few other stray writings aside, Urdu literature had jealously
guarded its autonomy and resisted any encroachment of its liberal values.
Whether such fears were justified or whether it was even proper to form
such fears from a literary point of view is not the question here. The fact
remains that the contemporary image of TaΩavvuf may have contributed
in part to generating those fears. It is no surprise that many Muslims
throughout the world today look upon TaΩavvuf with disfavor, or at least
with a degree of ambivalence.7 It was not entirely the colonial fault that
TaΩavvuf received a largely uncomplimentary image, though colonial
methods may have exaggerated certain preexisting tendencies in TaΩavvuf,
such as thaumaturgy and the superstitious practices which go at least as
far back as the establishment of the first “πarµqas” (“brotherhoods”). This
was the result of an elaborate organizational project seeking to swell the
ranks of membership as well as of parasitic satellite cultures that inevita-
bly form around any potentially lucrative opportunity. And even
though, since the 1800s, and certainly since the appearance of the
Progressives in the 1930s, Urdu intellectuals have seen nothing but their
defeat and degradation in the smallest manifestation of Islamic culture,
they were patently in error to conflate ‘Askarµ’s TaΩavvuf with the sordid
7For a better understanding of the chemistry of this phenomenon and for the
historical reasons leading to its appearance, see Ernst, Shambhala Guide, preface and
chapter one.
272 • Tʜe Aɴɴuaʟ of Uʀdu Studɪes
manifestations of workaday, penny-a-miracle pirs in the contemporary
landscape of South Asia. ‘Askarµ was, if anything, an intellectual par
excellence. His admiration, indeed at times awed reverence of TaΩavvuf
had little to do with the credulous and gullible crowds that might throng
around the tombs of D≥t≥ Ganj-Bakhsh in Lahore or Khv≥ja Mu‘µnu’d-Dµn
≤ishtµ at Ajmer, and everything to do with the possibilities the
metaphysics of TaΩavvuf, especially in its highly imaginative concept of
Va√dat al-Vuj∑d, offered to his forever inquisitive intellect.
This is also as good a place as any to dispel the fallacy of another
common assumption about ‘Askarµ, that he had turned religious. There
is, of course, nothing wrong in being religious, he had every right to do
so. But this term is too often invoked derisively to characterize someone
as a “fundamentalist.” The entire weight of ‘Askarµ’s essays up to the
1960s argues forcefully against it. “All≥h” is not an affliction to begin
with; however, “God” for ‘Askarµ is merely a theological entity.
Metaphysically speaking, or speaking in the language of Va√dat al-Vuj∑d,
theology ultimately has to do with the “sensible” world, the terminal
point beyond which the emanation of the Absolute can go no further. So,
for him, just as for Ibn-e ‘Arabµ, the key word is rather the “Absolute” (or
“One” or “Being”). ❐
Published in The Annual of Urdu Studies, No. 19 (2004)
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