4. Marco referencial
4.3 Marco Contextual
4.3.1 La innovación en Colombia
who are dead among the living.237
Slaying the soul in truth is declaring it free of strength and power, or of bearing witness to anything from it. It is rejecting its claim, confusing its attempts at self-management, submitting all of its affairs to the Real (s), stripping it of its free choice and will, and
obliterating the vestiges (athār) of the human from it. As for the remaining traces (rusūm) and skeletal structures (hayākil),238 there is no danger or concern in them.
[2:54 cont’d] That will be better for you in your Creator’s sight’;; He will turn to you [relenting]; truly He is the Relenting, the Merciful.
‘His being for you against yourselves is more perfect than your being for yourselves’.
[2:55] And when you said, ‘O Moses, we will not believe you till we see God openly’;; and the thunderbolt took you, while you were beholding.
Demanding to see the Essence without divine blessing is an open act of sacrilege, which is one of the signs of distance and misery, whereas to attest to the attribute of [divine] governing in the unveilings of might as linked to the kindnesses of nearness is one of the marks of communion and the tokens of felicity.
Surely when they spoke from ignorance, intensifying the lack of bashfulness [before the divine], the convulsion and the thunderbolt blast overtook them.
[2:56] Then We raised you up after you were dead, so that you might be thankful.
He returned them to sensory awareness after the blows of punishment overwhelmed them in order to fulfill the decree for them, and to implement [God’s] way of pardoning sin. One of the aspects of generosity is to lower the veil over the defects of servants.
237 Muṣṭafā attributes this verse to Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbd al-Quddūs and another individual (Muṣṭafā, no. 2, p.
22). Al-Qushayrī recites the same verse in the section on ‘The Moment’ (al-waqt) in his Riṣala (vol. 1, p. 190.
238 These terms are ones Sufi writers adapted from early Arabic poetry, as Michael Sells has discussed
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[2:57] And We made the cloud overshadow you; and We sent down upon you manna and quails: ‘Eat of the good things We have provided for you’;; And they did not wrong Us, but themselves they wronged.
When He banished them to the desolate regions of exile, He desired only to shade them and to cover them with sufficient clothing. He freed them from the trouble of having to work for themselves, favoring them by taking care of what they needed. Their hair and nails were not growing longer, their clothes were not becoming dirty, and the rays of the sun did not beat down on them. Similarly this is His way with someone when He has come between him and his free choice. What He (s) chooses for him will be better for him than what he chooses for himself.
[2:58] And when We said, ‘Enter this city, and eat freely therein wherever you will, and enter it at the gate prostrating, and say, ‘exoneration’, and We shall forgive you your transgressions and We shall give more to those who are virtuous’.
The Children of Israel persisted239 in neglecting that which they were commanded to do, to the point where they were entrusted with speech to preserve but they altered it, and they were commanded [to take] a position of prostration upon entering [the city] but they changed it.240 They exposed themselves to the arrows of the Unseen and then were not able to withstand the injury of their strikes (al-iṣābat bi-qarʿihā). They were exposed to unexpected punishments and could not hold up to the blows of their impact (ṣadamāt waqʿihā).
[2:59] Then the evildoers substituted a saying other than that which had been said to them; so We sent down upon the evildoers wrath from the heaven for their wickedness.
They could neither ward off the opening of heaven above them with their strategems, nor avert the cords of affliction below them by relying on their usual states. They gnashed the teeth of remorse241 when the dog-teeth of pain242 bit them. But how could this have benefited them when the situation was hopeless?
239 The blank in the Basyūnī text here has been completed with the word ‘persisted’ (aṣarra) from MSS
K117, f. 12b and Y101, f. 16b.
240 i.e., they were told to say ‘exoneration’ (ḥiṭṭa) and to prostrate, but they said something else and
entered the city without prostrating, as described in the commentary transmitted in al-Ṭabarī (vol. 1, pp. 299-306; Cooper translation, pp. 334-7).
241 The translation follows the phrase qaraʿū sinn al-nadam as it appears in MSS K117, f. 12b and
Y101, f. 16b.
242 Lane notes that dog-teeth or ‘fangs’ are ‘metaphorically assigned to evil, or mischief’ (vol. 2, p.
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[2:60] And when Moses sought water for his people, We said, ‘Strike with your staff the rock,’ and there exploded from it twelve fountains, each people came to know their
drinking-place, ‘Eat and drink of that which God has provided, and do not be degenerate in the earth, seeking corruption’.
One who is capable of extracting water from solid rock is capable of quenching thirst without water. But He made the trace or effect (athar) of the miracle manifest in [Moses] and
connected the locus (maḥall) of calling for help to him. He had Moses himself engaged in moving the stone, and entrusted him with striking with his staff. This was so that there would be a measure of [human] effort involved in making His decree come to pass in [Moses’s] seeking water for his people. Then the Real (s) wanted each people to follow a way, sticking to their boundary, and not disputing with their companions. So He singled out for each tribe a marker by which they would know their drinking-place, so that they would not go each others’ drinking-places. When He had met their needs, He bid them to be grateful, to preserve the command, and to stop choosing sin, so He said, ‘and do not be degenerate in the earth,
seeking corruption’.
The drinking-places are different and each comes to their own, so one drinking-place is sweet and fresh, another salty and bitter, and another clear and pure, another closed up with only a few drops. The water carrier for each people leads them and the scout of each party drives them on, so the lower selves come to the watering-places of desires and cravings, the hearts come to the drinking-places of God-fearing and acts of obedience, the spirits come to the watering-places of unveiling and witnessing, and the innermost selves come to the watering- places of realities, snatched from the being and outward markings (al-kawn wa’l-marsūmāt) [of humans], then from the sensory awareness and attributes (al-iḥsās wa’l-ṣifāt) [of humans], then annihilated in the reality of ecstatic finding and essence (al-wujūd wa’l-dhāt).
[2:61] And when you said, ‘Moses, we will not endure one sort of food;; pray to your Lord for us, that He may bring forth for us of what the earth produces – green herbs,
cucumbers, garlic, lentils, onions’;; He said, ‘Would you exchange what is better with what is lowlier?’ ‘Go down to a city, you shall have what you demanded’;; And abasement, and wretchedness were cast upon them, and they incurred God’s wrath;; that was because they used to disbelieve the signs of God and slay prophets without right; that was because they disobeyed, and they were transgressors.
They were not content with the goodness of His choosing for them, nor were they patient in His managing what He was intending for them in basic food and clothing. In their confusion, they fell back to their customary behavior in eating contemptible food and being content with a lower state, so He returned them to the suffering of ignominy (muqāsāt al-hawān) and bound them to perpetual disappointment (idāmat al-khidhlān). They went so far as to shed the
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blood of prophets and violated the sanctity of the affair with their lack of shame. They did not repent, so He punished them for their ugly acts (qabīh fiʿālihim) and returned them to what He had chosen for their souls in their contemptible states (khasāʾis aḥwālihim). When sincere counsel (naṣīḥa) did not succeed with them, retribution and humiliation (faḍīḥa) overtook them.
It is said the Children of Israel were divided in their aspirations, scattered in their objectives. They were not content to have just one food for themselves, nor were they satisfied with one object of worship in their religion, to the point where they said to Moses (ʿa), when they saw people worshiping idols, ‘O Moses, make for us a god just as they have gods’ [7:138]. This is the attribute of the people of separation. Patience with the One (al-wāḥid) is hard. God Most High said, ‘And when you mention the Lord alone (waḥdahu) in the Qurʾān, they turn their backs in aversion’ [17:46].
[2:62] Surely those who believe, and those of Jewry, and the Christians, and the Sabaeans, whoever believes in God and the Last Day, and performs righteous deeds – their wage is with their Lord, and no fear shall befall them, neither shall they grieve.
The diversity of [religious] paths243 in spite of the unity of the source does not prevent a goodly acceptance [for all]. For anyone who affirms the Real (s) in His signs and believes in what He has told concerning His Truth and Attributes, the dissimilarity of [religious] laws and diversity occurring in name[s] is not a problem in considering who merits [God’s] good pleasure. Because of that He said, ‘Surely those who believe and those of Jewry’. Then He said, ‘whoever believes’, meaning if they fear [God] in the different ways of knowing [Him], all of them will have a beautiful place of return and an ample reward. The believer (muʾmin) is anyone who is in the protection (amān) of the Real (s). For anyone who is in His protection, it is fitting that no fear shall befall them, neither shall they grieve.
[2:63-4] And when We made a covenant for you, and We raised above you the Mount, ‘Take forcefully what We have given you, and remember what is in it so that you might preserve yourselves’. * Then you turned away thereafter, and but for God’s bounty and His mercy towards you, you would have been among the losers.
He (s) made a covenant with all responsible beings (mukallafūn),244 but some responded willingly because He made Himself known to them, so they declared His unity. Other people responded unwillingly because He veiled them, so they did not want to recognize Him. There is no proof more powerful than the eye-witnessing of the Mount (ṭūr) He raised above them, which was a mountain (jabal), but they lacked the light of the perceptive faculty (baṣīra) and so the witnessing of physical vision (baṣar) did not benefit them.
243 The translation follows the word ‘paths’ (ṭuruq) from MS Y101, f. 17a. rather than the word ‘path’
(ṭarīq) in the Basyūnī edition or the word ‘thought’ (ẓann) in MS K117, f. 12b.
244 In Islamic law, this is a term used to describe those who are adult and sane, and therefore bound to
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Then you turned away thereafter, i.e. you returned to disobedience after witnessing the signs
with your own eyes. If not for His decree in granting respite and His forbearance in acts of grace, He would punish you without delay and cause a great misfortune to descend upon you, and your transaction would be entirely a loss.
[2:65] And verily you know that there were those among you who transgressed the Sabbath, and We said to them, ‘Be apes, despised!’
The metamorphosis (maskh) of [Muḥammad’s] community occurred in the hearts. When [the Children of Israel] abandoned [God’s] command and disdained what was imposed on them from the law, the punishments came quickly in their disgrace, metamorphosis, and the other things which are included in the text. In a similar way, the community [of Muḥammad] was punished because of their violation of the Covenant and rejection of the limit [imposed by God], but [their punishment] was in the metamorphosis of their hearts and the alteration of their states. [God] Most High said, ‘And We shall confound their hearts and their eyes; just as they did not believe the first time’ [6:110]. The punishments of hearts are far worse than the punishments of the bodily selves. About this they have recited:
O you who ask me,
‘How have you been after him?’ I suffered that which tormented me, while it made him happy.
I kept strutting about in our togetherness and felt safe from the ruses of time.
But the turning away from me went on until
not a bit of what I had experienced remained.245
245 Muṣṭafā notes that these verses appear unattributed in a slightly different version in al-Qushayrī’s
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[2:66] And We made it an exemplary punishment for all the former times and for the latter, and an admonition to such as who fear.
Thus the states of those who were tried by abandonment (muniyā bi’l-hijrān) and branded with disappointment (wusima bi’l-khidhlān) became a lesson – to look at what happened to them is to choke on grief. The one who is reduced to misery after having had status becomes an object of scorn before every low-life. This is what remains for those who have been brought low after the wrath of kings and the shunning of chieftains:
The youths surrounded and ganged up on me. From behind,
they called the dogs on me.246
[2:67] And when Moses said to his people, ‘God commands you to sacrifice a cow’...
It was obligatory for them to meet the command head on, but they wasted time with external appearances, imagining that they had the leisure to linger in their digression from the covenant obligation. So the misery was doubled for them and the ignominy they had been warned about overtook them.
[Section] When He said: ‘...She is a cow neither old, nor virgin, middling between the two...’ [2:68], it meant she would be neither young nor aged but somewhere between the two. The allusion is to the fact that one who is suited for this path (ṭarīqa) is one who is neither
attracted by the impetuosity of youth and its drunkenness, nor paralyzed by the weakness and frailty of old age. Rather he is alert, having regained consciousness from his drunkenness yet retaining some of the vigor of his youth.
[2:69-70] ‘...a golden cow, bright in color, gladdening to beholders’. * They said, ‘Pray to your Lord for us, that He make clear to us what she may be; the cows are all alike to us; and if God wills, we shall then be guided’.
246 Muṣṭafā cites a slightly different version of this verse attributed to Majnūn in the Diwān (Muṣṭafā,
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Just as her [bright] color would have been perceived by the eyes, the allusion here is to those of the People of the Story (ahl al-qiṣṣa)247 whose witnessing248 overwhelms the hearts [of others] because of that which is clothed with the garment of invincibility (jabarūt) and made to rise from the witness of the Unseen. One notices such a one has become oblivious to human states and has been taken over by the remembrance of the Real. Thus, in the transmitted tradition: The saints of God are those who, when they are seen, God is remembered.249
[2:71] He said, ‘He says she shall be a cow not broken to plough the earth, or to water the tillage, with no blemish on her’. They said, ‘Now you have brought the truth’;; and so they sacrificed her, even though they very nearly did not.
Just as this cow was not to have been broken in for work, nor worn out for the purposes of profits, there was to be no color in her inconsistent with the overall grandeur of her color. The allusion in it is to the people of divine friendship (walāya) who have not exerted themselves with others in order to obtain what they seek through causes, and who have not relied in their hearts on external appearances and simulacra. They have not trusted in their own choosing and contrivance. They are not prey to the claims of desire, nor game in the claws of the present world. Carnal desires do not rule them and no human authority controls them. They have not striven at all to obtain what they desire and are not concerned with attaining what they wish for. There is no mark of others upon them, nor any sign of causes, for they are supported by God, annihilated from all else, nay, effaced as God turns them this way and that. God has conquered their hearts. Just as their object of worship is God, so their only aim is God. Just as their aim is God, so what they bear witness to is God and what they have found is God. Nay, they are effaced in God and [only] God remains after them.250 The one who spoke for them recited:
If you want me to be pleased and you to be pleased and to take the reins of our life together,
247 Basyūnī adds a footnote saying that what is meant here is the Sufis.
248 The translation follows the word ‘witnessing’ (mushāhada) in MSS K117, f. 13a and Y101, f. 17b
rather than the word ‘witness’ (shāhid) found in the Basyūnī edition.
249 The translation follows ‘they are seen’ (ruʾū) from MSS K117, f.13a and Y101, f. 17b over
Basyūnī’s ‘they see’ (raʾaw). In his Self-Disclosure of God, Chittick locates the ḥadīth with the passive form of the verb in Ibn Maja, Zuhd 4 (Chittick, p. 442). ʿAbd al-Raḥmān gives al-Albānī’s Al-Silsila al-Ṣaḥīḥa, 1733, as a reference.
250 The Basyūnī edition has a blank here: wa....ʿanhum Allāh. Al-khalaf has been inserted on the basis