Junayd on Oneness of and with God

It is not always easy to understand where Ibn Khaldun is drawing his systematic line between the "earlier" and "later Sufis," but the Sufi Junayd (d. 910 C.E.) certainly falls in the very heart of the earlier category. A Baghdad master, he stands midway between the Sufi pioneer Muhasibi (d. 837 C.E.) and his erstwhile disciple, the far more extreme Hallaj, executed at Baghdad in 922C.E.

Like Muhasibi and most of the other "sober" Sufis, Junayd was a skilled director of souls, as this brief analysis indicates.

There are three types of people: the man who seeks and searches, the man who reaches the door and stays there, and the man who enters and remains.

As for the man who seeks God, he goes toward Him guided by a knowledge of the religious precepts and duties (of Islam), concentrating on the performance of all external observances toward God. Regarding the man who reaches the doorway and stays there, he finds his way there by means of his internal purity, from which he derives his strength. He acts toward God with internal concentration. Finally, as for the man who enters into God's presence with his whole heart and remains before Him, he excludes the vision of anything other than God, noting God's every sign to him, and ready for whatever his Lord may command. This readiness is characteristic of the man who recognizes the Oneness of God. [JUNAYD 1962: 176]

This last perception of the "Oneness of God," an expression that in Arabic also does service as "Oneness with God," was for Junayd and his ninth-century Baghdad contemporaries both the touchstone and the climax of the mystical experience. It was not an easy notion either to grasp or to describe. Although Junayd defined the "Oneness of/with God" in typically aphoristic fashion as "the separation of the Eternal from the contingent"— a phrase not uncommonly offered by his successors as a definition of Sufism, or rather of mysticism purely and simply—he also addressed the central concept of Oneness in a somewhat fuller fashion.

Know that the first condition of the worship of God—may He be exalted and magnified—is the knowledge of God, and the basis of the knowledge of God is the recognition of His being One, and that His Oneness precludes the possibility of describing God in terms of responses to the questions "How?" or "Where?" or "When?" …

God's Oneness connotes belief in Him. From belief follows confirmation which in turn leads to knowledge of Him. Knowledge of Him implies obedience to His commands, obedience carries with it the ascent towards Him, which leads ultimately to reaching Him.

This apparent success in the mystical quest leads only to a further paradox, however.

When God is attained His manifestation can be expounded, but from His manifestation there also follows bewilderment which is so overwhelming that it inhibits the possibility of the exposition of God, and as a result of losing this manifestation of God the elected worshiper is unable to describe God. And there, when the worshiper is unable to describe God, he finds the true nature of his existing for God. And from this comes the vision of God, together with the loss of his individuality. And with the loss of his individuality he achieves absolute purity … he has lost his personal attributes: … he is wholly present in God … wholly lost to self.

But then there is an inevitable return to a more normal condition, though not without permanent alterations in spiritual temperament.

He is existent in both himself and in God after having been existent in God and non-existent in himself. This is because he has left the drunkenness of God's overwhelming and come to the clarity of sobriety. Contemplation is once again restored to him, so that he can put everything in its right place and assess it correctly. Once more he assumes his individual attributes, after the "obliteration" his personal qualities persist in him and in his actions in this world, when he has reached the height of spiritual perfection granted by God, he becomes a pattern for his fellowmen. [JUNAYD 1962: 171–172]

Know that this sense of the Oneness of God exists in people in four different ways. The first is the sense of Oneness possessed by ordinary people. Then there is the sense shared by those well versed in formal religious knowledge. The other two types are experienced by the elect who have esoteric knowledge. [JUNAYD 1962: 176]

God's Oneness is in fact the cornerstone of Islam—every Muslim's profession of faith begins with the statement that "There is no god by the God …"—and Junayd bases his analysis on its simple assertion.

As for the sense of Oneness possessed by ordinary people, it consists in the assertion of God's Oneness, in the disappearance of any notion of gods, opposites, equals or likenesses to God, but with the persistence of hopes and fears in forces other than God. This level of Oneness has a certain degree of efficacy since the simple assertion of God's Oneness does in fact persist.

As for the conception of Oneness shared by those who are well versed in religious knowledge, it consists not only in the assertion of God's Oneness, in the disappearance of any conception of gods, opposites, equals or likenesses to God, but also in the performance of the positive commands (of religion) and the avoidance of that which is forbidden, so far as external action is concerned, all of this being the result of their hopes, fears and desires. This level of Oneness likewise possesses a degree of efficacy since there is a public demonstration of the Oneness of God.

As for the first type of esoteric Oneness, it consists in the assertion of the Oneness of God, the disappearance of the conception of things referred to, combined with the performance of God's command externally and internally, and the removal of hopes and fears in forces other than God, all of this the result of ideas that conform with the adept's awareness of God's presence with him, with God's call to him and his answer to God.

A second type of esoteric Oneness consists in existing without individuality before God with no intermediary between, becoming a figure over which His decrees pass in accordance with His omnipotence, a soul sunk in the flooding sea of His Oneness, all sense lost of himself, God's call to him and his response to God. It is a stage wherein the devotee has achieved a true realization of the Oneness of God in true nearness to Him. He is lost to both sense and action because God fulfills in him what He has willed of him. … His existence now is like it was before he had existence. This, then, is the highest stage of the true realization of the Oneness of God in which the worshiper who sustains this Oneness loses his own individuality. [JUNAYD 1962: 176–178]

 

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