ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the phenomenon of polarity analogous to divine and human attributes. The search of this phenomenon pervades the mystical literature in Islam. God as a Coincidentia Oppositorum is not pondered philosophically or theologically; rather, the ‘union of opposites’ is contemplated in a divine–human analogy: the Friends of God, in their mystical experiences, oscillate between opposing states that reflect God’s polar attributes, till they reach an apex in a state of ‘oneness’. Descriptions of the occurrences and nature of this polarity, often subtle and poetic, had pervaded the mystical literature in Islam from early on, and the oscillation between opposite states became the hallmark of the Ṣūfī ‘ladder of ascent’. Its lowest rung is represented by the traditional opposites of ‘fear and hope’, but it continues through the higher and more intense states of ‘contraction and expansion’, ‘awe and intimacy’ and beyond. The dynamic fluctuation from state to state in itself is described as ‘variegation’ (talwīn) and is paired up with the polar state of ‘firmness’ (tamkīn).
