Chapter 5: Admonition [on the Proper Objective of the Mystic]
(Ibn Sinā ): A mystic seeks the First Truth (al-ḥaqq alawwal )12 not for anything else besides Him, and prefers nothing more than the recognition (‘irfān ) of Him and worship of Him alone, because He deserves to be worshipped and because such worship is an honorable relationship to Him, not due to desire or to fear. If it were, the thing desired or feared would be the motive for worship and the object sought. The Truth, in this case, would not be the goal but a means to something other than Him, and that other thing would be the goal and the end.
(Ṭūsī ): I say: The Master has mentioned the goal of the mystic and the non-mystic in asceticism and worship, and he has established the principles of a different goal, in other words, reward and punishment. In this chapter he has pointed to the objective of the mystic and his aims. Therefore, we say: A mystic who recognizes real perfection has two states in relation to it. One belongs to his soul in particular, and it is his love of that perfection, and the other belongs to both his soul and body, and it is his progress in seeking to draw near it. The Master has expressed the first as desire (or: willirāda ) and the second as worship(ta‘abbud ) . He has further said that the desire and worship of a worshipper are connected to the First Truth (exalted be His remembrance) for Himself; they are not connected to other things for themselves. Indeed, if they are related to anything besides the Truth, they are related for the sake of the Truth as well. Therefore, his statement, “A mystic seeks the First Truth not for anything else besides Him” is an explanation for the relation of his will to the Truth with respect to the Truth Himself. His statement, “He prefers nothing more than the recognition of Him” means that he does not prefer something besides the Truth over the recognition of Him, although the Truth is preferred to His recognition because recognition [as such] is not preferable in itself to the mystic, as the Master will explain later in his statement, “He who prefers recognition(‘irfān ) for the sake of recognition has accepted the second [goal besides the Truth].”13 Whatever is preferred but not preferred for itself is certainly preferred for other than itself. Consequently, recognition is preferred for the sake of something other than itself, and this is nothing but the Truth. Thus, the Truth is preferable to recognition.
He has distinguished the mystic by the fact that he does not prefer anything besides the Truth over the recognition of Him, because the non-mystic, on the other hand, prefers the attainment of reward and protection from punishment over recognition, since he purposes recognition for the sake of reward and safety from punishment. But the mystic does not prefer anything over it [recognition of Him] other than the Truth, Who is solely preferred for Himself. The statement of the Master, “his worship of Him alone,” also points to the relation of the worship of the mystic to the Truth alone.
If someone argues that this is contrary to what the Master has said before, that the worship of a mystic is an exercise to discipline his faculties,14 so that he leads them to the threshold(jināb ) of the Truth, which is not Him, then he has led the faculties to the threshold of the Truth, not to the Truth Himself - we say, he does not mean that a mystic in his worship seeks nothing besides the Truth in an absolute sense. Rather, he means that the mystic seeks nothing but the Truth essentially. If he seeks something else, he seeks it accidentally, and for the sake of the Truth, as was mentioned. This is a rule insofar as the mystic considers himself in relation to the First Truth, Who is intended for Himself. If the Truth and worship are considered in relation to each other, the dependency of worship upon the First Truth would be found to be necessary in two respects:
(a) With respect to the consideration of the Truth in relation to worship,which is expressed by his words “because He deserves to be worshipped. ” (b) With respect to the consideration of worship in relation to the Truth,which is expressed by his words “because such worship is an honorable relationship to Him. ”
The Learned Commentator [Rāzī ] has responded to this passage as follows:
The worship of the mystics can be either for the essence of the Truth (dhāt al-ḥaqq ), for any of His attributes, or for the perfecting of themselves. These categories correspond to three ranks. The Master has alluded to the first with the words “his worship of Him alone,” to the second with his words “because He deserves to be worshipped,” and to the third with his words “because such worship is an honorable relationship to Him.”
I say: In this commentary there is a sanction that allows the mystic to have an essential object of worship other than the Truth, while the rest of the chapter establishes the opposite of this. Moreover, the Master has alluded to “the goal of the mystic being different from the goals of non-mystics,” by his words, “not due to desire or to fear,” in other words, not due to the desire of reward or the fear of punishment. He also has explained the falsehood of this being a goal for the mystic by his words: “If it were…”; in other words, if the two purposes of worship were the above-mentioned desire or fear, so that reward would be the object desired and punishment the object not desired, then this would be the motive to worship the Truth, these two would be the aim of the worshipper of the Truth, and the Truth would not be the goal but a means to obtain reward and deliverance from punishment, which is the goal and the object sought. In this case, it would be the essential object of worship, not the Truth. This is the elaboration of this chapter.
The Learned Commentator [Rāzī ] says: “Some people rule out the position of God (exaltedbe He) being an object desired for Himself. They assert that desire (or: willirāda ) is an attribute which is only connected to possible things because it requires thepreponderation of one of two extremes desired over the other, and this is only reasonable with possible things.” He says: “The Master, in the beginning ofNamaṭ Six, also established that for whoever desires something, the attainment of what one wants must be preferable to its non-existence, and the object intended by primary intention is that attainment.” He deduced from this “that whoever desires something wants perfection.
Therefore, whoever seeks God (exalted be He) does not really seek Him but wants to perfect himself.”
He [Rāzī ] answered these two propositions [ofIbn Sīnā ] by claiming “they commit the logical fallacy ofpetitio principii , because they are based on the assumption that desire (or: willirāda ) is only connected to the possible and to that by which the one desiring(murīd ) seeks perfection.
It is what the critic has caused him to assert.”
Our answer to this is that it [desire/will] is indeed connected to God, not by another thing besides Him as well.
And I say in explanation that the desire connected to what the desiring one performs necessitates the possibility of the object desired and the perfecting of the desiring one, not due to the connection of the will to it [the object desired], but due to its being anact or due to its being something attained for the desiring one by his desire. But in this case the object desired [i.e., God] is not like this! Therefore, the objection is invalid.