ABSTRACT
Rumi was not a speculative mystic and between the theoretical explanation of how multiplicity is emanated from unity and the practical way for transcending multiplicity in order to reattain unity, called inter alia the “descending arc” (Ar.: qaws al-nuzūl) and “ascending arc” (Ar.: qaws al-ṣu‘ūd) in Islamic mysticism,1 he shows little interest in the former category. His practical orientation and constant concern with the process of “return” (Ar.: rujū‘, Per.: bāzgasht) toward the divine origin did not allow him to concentrate extensively on theoretical elaboration of the process through which the unique source of all things originated the multiplicity of the created world-the process that is for him nothing other than the “creation” (Ar.: khilqa, Per.: āfarīnesh) itself. In fact, he did not even believe in the usefulness of such an attempt at theoretical formulation and, as we see below,2 he maintained that engaging in such doctrinal discussions may prevent one from attaining mystical perfection itself. He does not employ, for instance, the traditional categorizations of the ontological hierarchy of the universe, which divide it into several ordered realms such as the descending schema of lāhūt, jabarūt, malakūt, and nāsūt,3 or that of the “five divine presences” (Ar.: alḥaḍarāt al-ilāhiyya al-khams) propagated by members of the Ibn ‘Arabi school.4 For Rumi, even the divine attributes mentioned in the Quran and hadith are used in a functional and practical manner, rather than as conceptual tools to know God and his characteristics.5 Those explanations of metaphysical doctrines that are present in Rumi’s works are made only to serve the practical path to return, a point regarded by Alessandro Bausani as Rumi’s anticipation of Luther’s ideas on the relationship of metaphysics and moral actions.6 Due to his strong emphasis on the practical aspect of mysticism, Rumi’s metaphysics and mystical ontology is, unlike Eckhart, neither complete nor comprehensive. The dispersed passages dealing with this subject are not always coherent, and they provide the reader nothing more than what Zarrinkub calls “rough sketches.”7 However, from these sketches, one can understand that Rumi’s main theory concerning the relationship between God and the world is the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, according to which God produces everything from “nothingness” (Ar.: ‘adam, Per.: nīstī). Rumi believes in the appearance of forms and things from their opposites. For him, in the same way that the spatial world arises from that which is without spatial relations,8 place from
placelessness,9 colors from colorlessness, wars from peace,10 and numbers and oppositions from unity,11 so existence or “being” (Ar.: wujūd, Per.: hastī) also finds its origin in nonexistence. Nothingness is, hence, the primary prerequisite of the creature’s existence, and all things appear and emerge from it toward existence. This appearance is the result of the divine addressing nonexistence and commanding it into existence, as stated in the Quran, where it is asserted that: “His command, when He desires a thing, is to say to it ‘Be’, and it is” (Q 36:82).12 Having heard the creative divine word of kun (Ar., meaning “Be!”), nothingness begins to stir up and come into existence cheerfully.13 Such transcendent nothingness or ‘adam is not inferior to being or wujūd, as employed for creatures, but it is beyond it, in the same way that placelessness and unity are the origin of place and numbers but at the same time are superior to them. The origin of being is called nothingness here from the ordinary, non-mystical perspective, which sees only things and creatures as existents. The person holding such a viewpoint cannot apply the term “existence” for that higher ontological realm with the same meaning employed for creatures in this world, thus regarding it as the domain of “nonexistence.” From a loftier perspective, however, the real existence is the transcendent ‘adam, and the exterior things which seem to be existent are truly nothing, merely having an illusion of existence which simply pretends and appears to be so:
This (phenomenal) world of non-existence has become like (real) existence, while that world of (real) existence has become very hidden.
