The Intimate Discourses of Ibn Ata’illah 2 – Abdur Rahman’s Corner
Peace, one and all…
Intimate Discourse 2
My God, I am ignorant in my knowledge, so why should
I not be most ignorant in my ignorance?
Reflections
If we take pride in the wealth we (apparently) own, then we often also take pride in the things we (apparently) know. In truth, what do I really know? Learning should underline just how much further there is to go. So why be arrogant? Why not be grateful for whatever we do understand?
The problem, it seems, is attachment and ownership. We learn something and think it therefore belongs to us, that we somehow own it. Our sense of ownership is an attachment to something other than the Real. In other words, it represents a blockage, an obstacle.
As we saw last time, ownership can be a dangerous notion. It can distort our inner vision, drawing a veil over the heart’s eye. If we own something, we fear to lose it and thus pride, greed and defensiveness are born within us. That sense of owning knowledge forces our gaze downwards, comparing the ‘vast amount’ that we know with the ‘paltry’ learning of others. This is in spite of Quranic teaching: ‘Above everyone who has knowledge there is the One who is all knowing’ (Quran 12:76). Arrogance is one of the most difficult diseases of the heart to overcome, which is perhaps why the Quran has Iblis defend his failure to prostrate to Adam (as) in the following terms:
قَالَ مَا مَنَعَكَ أَلَّا تَسْجُدَ إِذْ أَمَرْتُكَ ۖ قَالَ أَنَا۠ خَيْرٌۭ مِّنْهُ خَلَقْتَنِى مِن نَّارٍۢ وَخَلَقْتَهُۥ مِن طِينٍۢ ١٢
God said, ‘What prevented you from bowing down as I commanded you?’ and he said, ‘I am better than him: You created me from fire and him from clay.’ (Quran 7:12)
Iblis used his partial knowledge to arrogantly assert his superiority over Adam (as). In other words, unless we reflect deeply on ourselves, and seek divine assistance, our intellect will always be ruled by our lower selves (nafs). May Allah grant us all aid!
In his Masnavi serif, Hazret-i Mevlana underlines this point in the following story:
A grammatist once got into a boat.
That self-regarding man looked at the boatman
And said, ‘Do you know grammar?’ ‘No,’ he said.
‘And half your life has gone!’ he chided him.
The boatman’s heart was broken by the pain,
but for the moment made his answer silence.
The wind then blew the boat into a whirlpool.
The boatman hollered to the grammatist,
‘Do you know how to swim at all, please tell me?’
He said, ‘I don’t, you shrewd and handsome man!’
‘Then all your life has gone, dear grammatist,’
he said. ‘Our boat is sinking in these whirlpools.’
Absorption’s needed here, not grammar, see!
If you’re absorbed, jump in. There is no danger.
Masnavi 1.2847 – 2853, trans. A.Williams
The absorption Mevlana speaks of in this last couplet is the real purpose of knowledge: we are to immerse ourselves completely in the Ocean, thereby cleansing ourselves of every sense of ownership.
To be ‘ignorant in my ignorance’ is to thus be empty, to realise that I don’t own ‘my’ understanding. Everything is a gift from God, a loan given to us for a while. Mevlana continues:
The ocean wave will raise the dead aloft.
How can the living man escape the sea?
And if you’ve died to human qualities,
the sea of secrets sets you at its summit
Masnavi 1.;2854 – 2855, trans. A. Williams
What this heart receives from this beautiful munajat is the need to let go of my sense of ownership, particularly of the things I think I know. In reality, I know nothing. What is needed is the Beginner’s Mind, a humility before Divine Reality. There is a sense here of exhaling, of surrendering, of letting go.
Wa akhiru da’wana ‘an il hamdu lillahi rabb al-alamin.
And my last prayer is in praise of God, Sustainer of all the worlds.
