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THE QUR’ĀN AS THE OCEAN OF ALL KNOWLEDGE
Ṣūfī interpretation begins with several basic premises: that the Qur’ān contains many levels of meaning, that man has the potential to uncover these meanings, and that the task of interpretation is endless. In their exegetical writings, Ṣūfīs quote such Qur’ānic verses as We have left nothing out from the Book (6:38), We have counted everything in a clear register (36:12), There is nothing whose treasures are not with Us and We only send it down in a known measure (15:21),1 and, If all the trees on the earth were pens and the sea seven seas after it to replenish it, the words of God would not be depleted (31:27).2 The image of the Qur’ān as an ocean is a particularly popular one, as in this quote from the Jawāhir al-Qur’ān of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī.
I will rouse you from your sleep, you who have given yourself up to recitation, who have taken the study of the Qur’ān as a practice, who have seized upon some of its outward meanings and sentences. How long will you wander about the shore of the sea with your eyes closed to its wonders? Was it not for you to sail through its depths in order to see its amazing things, to travel to its islands to pick its delicacies, to dive to its bottom and become rich from obtaining its jewels? Don’t you despise yourself for losing out on its pearls and jewels as you continue to look only to its shores and exoteric aspects?
Haven’t you heard that the Qur’ān is an ocean from which the knowledge of all ages branches out just as rivers and streams branch out from the shores of the ocean? Don’t you envy the happiness of people who have plunged into its overflowing waves and seized red sulfur,3 who have dived into its depths and taken out red rubies, shining pearls and green chrysolite, who have roamed its shores and gathered gray ambergris and fresh blooming aloes wood, who have clung to its islands and found an Abūndance in their animals of the greatest antidote and pungent musk?4
A similar passage can be found in the introduction to the Qur’ānic commentary of ‘Abd al-Razzāq al-Kāshānī (d. 1329):
Their souls are purified by [the Qur’ān’s] exoteric sense (ẓāhir) because it is water which flows copiously and the thirst of their hearts is quenched by its inner sense (bāṭin) because it is a surging sea. When they wish to dive in order to extract the pearls of its secrets the water crashes over them and they are submerged in its current. The riverbeds of insights (fuhūm) flow from this deluge accordīng to their capacities, while the streams of realizations (‘uqūl) proceed from its rivers. The riverbeds bring forth piercing jewels and pearls upon the shores and the streams cause flowers and fruit to bloom upon the banks. Hearts take from the overflow as much as they can, fīlling their laps and sleeves, while souls set out to harvest the fruits and lights, grateful for fīndīng them, their desires fulfīlled by them.5
The idea that there are exoteric (ẓāhir) and inner (bāṭin) senses of the Qur’ān was well developed by Ṣūfīs before al-Kāshānī. Although the division of the exoteric and the inner has its basis in the Qur’ān,6 its importance in hermeneutical discussions is more closely tied to a ḥadīth attributed to ‘Abd Allāh b. Mas’ūd (d. 652).
The ḥadīth of Ibn Mas’ūd
The ḥadīth of Ibn Mas’ūd is the ḥadīth most frequently quoted by the Ṣūfīs as proof of the many dimensions of the Qur’ān open to interpretation. Commentators who were not Ṣūfīs, such as Abū Ja‘far al-Ṭabarī (d. 923),7 quoted it as well Būt they understood it in a different way. Here is al-Ṭabarī’s version of the ḥadīth from the introduction to his Qur’ānic commentary, Jāmi‘ al-bayān:
The messenger of God said, “The Qur’ān was sent down in seven aḥruf. Each ḥarf has a back (ẓahr) and and belly (baṭn). Each ḥarf has a border (ḥadd) and each border has a lookout point (muṭṭala‘).”8
Al-Ṭabarī includes this ḥadīth among several other aḥādīth about the seven aḥruf, devoting several pages to the controversy over the meaning of the word “ḥarf (pl. aḥruf)” and concludīng that the seven aḥruf refer to both dialects (alsun) of the Arabs and aspects (awjuh) of the revelation.9 The meaning of this particular Tradition, accordīng to al-Ṭabarī is as follows:
“Each ḥarf has a border (ḥadd)” means that each of the seven aspects (awjuh) has a border delimited by God which no one may go past. As for his words “and each ḥarf has a back (ẓahr) and a belly (baṭn),” its back (ẓahr) is that which becomes apparent (ẓāhir) in recitation and its belly (baṭn) is its interpretation (ta’wīl) which is hidden (baṭana). His words, “and each of the borders has a lookout point (muṭṭala‘)” means that each of the borders in which God has delineated the permitted and prohibited and the rest of His revealed laws has a measure of the rewards and punishments of God which will be seen and beheld in the Hereafter and met at the Resurrection, just as ‘ Umar b. al-Khaṭṭāb10 said, “If everything in the world belonged to me, assuredly I would ransom myself with it against the terror of the lookout point (muṭṭala‘).”11
For al-Ṭabarī, the inner sense (bāṭin) refers to events in the fuṭūre, knowledge of which is not given to man until the Day of Resurrection. The word ta’wīl has different meanings in the Qur’ān; al-Ṭabarī seems to use it here in its sense of the unfoldīng of events, not interpretation.12
Roughly contemporary with al-Ṭabarī, the Ṣūfī interpretation of Sahl al-Tustarī
(d. 896) gives us a readīng of this ḥadīth that is different in two important respects. The fīrst is in its designating knowledge of the external sense (ẓāhir) as public (āmm) and knowledge of the inner sense (bāṭin) as private (khāṣṣ). The second difference is in the interpretation of the lookout point (muṭṭala‘). Using the tradition from ‘ Umar, al-Ṭabarī understands this as a terrifying vantage point on the Day of Resurrection. Al-Tustarī, on the other hand, understands the muṭṭala‘ as a vantage point of the heart, an overview from which one can understand what God meant by certain verses of the Qur’ān while still in this life.
Every verse of the Qur’ānic has four kinds of meanings: an exoteric sense (ẓāhir), an inner sense (bāṭin), a limit (ḥadd), and a lookout point (muṭṭala‘). The exoteric sense is the recitation, the inner sense is understandīng (fahm), the limit is what [the verse] peand a lookout pointrmits and prohibits, and the lookout point is the elevated places of the heart (qalb) [beholdīng] what was intended by it as understood from God Almighty. The knowledge of the exoteric sense is public knowledge (‘ilm ‘ āmm) and the understandīng of its inner sense and what was intended by it is private (khāṣṣ).13
Al-Tustarī does not specify in this passage as to exactly who possesses this public and private knowledge. Throughout his tafsīr, he uses the terms “elect” (khuṣūṣ) and common people (‘ umūm) without saying what he means by this distinction.14
Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī (d. 998), writing about a hundred years after al-Tustarī in his Qūt al-qulūb, interprets the ḥadīth in much the same way as al-Tustarī, addīng details regardīng exoteric and esoteric knowledge, and confīrming the view that the lookout point (muṭṭala‘) refers to a vantage point attainable in this life. He seems to reference the saying of ‘ āmar found in al-Ṭabarī, Būt manages to soften its frightening aspect by a play on words:
Its back (ẓahr) is for experts in the Arabīc language (ahl al-‘Arabīyya), its inner sense (bāṭin) is for the people of certainty (ahl al-yaqīn), its limit (ḥadd) is for the exotericists (ahl al-ẓāhir), and its lookout point (muṭṭala‘) is for the people of elevated places (ahl al-ashrāf) who are the gnostics (‘ārifūn), loving and fearing; they have beheld (ittala‘ ā) the kindness of the One who looks down (muttali2) after having feared the terror of the lookout point (muṭṭala‘).15
Al-Ghazālī mentions the Ibn Mas’ud ḥadīth in his defense of Ṣūfī exegesis in his Iḥyā’ ‘ ālūm al-dīn. His use of the ḥadīth is part of a more combative style intended to reBūt religious scholars who believe that Qur’ānic commentary should be based entirely on the transmitted traditions of the Companions and the Followers of the Prophet. Al-Ghazālī’s cḥāllenges them to explain the meaning of the Ibn Mas‘ ād ḥadīth if exegesis is to be so restricted. He bluntly states that “the one who claims that the Qur’ān has no other meaning than what exoteric exegesis (ẓāhir al-tafsīr) has explained (tarjama), should know that he has acknowledged his own limitations and therefore is right with regards to himself, Būt is wrong in an opinion which brings everyone else down to his level.”16
Būt al-Ghazālī is rather unique in his desire to engage with the opponents of Ṣūfīsm head-on. The approach of Ruzbihan al-Baqlī (d. 1209) in his Qur’ānic commentary ‘Arā’is al-bayān is more typical. He writes for his fellow Ṣūfīs alone, describing the division between exotericists and Ṣūfīs as part of God’s plan in Creation:
Then he gave the external reins of [the Qur’ān] to the hands of the exotericists (ahl al-ẓāhir) Then he gave the externalamong the scholars (‘ ālamā’) and the wise (hukamā’) so that they introduce its precepts, limits, regulations, and laws, and He reserved the unseen of the secrets of His speech and the hidden subtleties of His signs for the best of His people. He disclosed Himself in His words by the attriBūte of unveiling (kashf), eyewitnessing (2iyan), and explanation (bayān) to their hearts (qulūb), spīrits (arwah), intellects (‘uqūl), and innermost secrets (asrār).
He taught them the sciences of His realities (ḥaqā’iq) and the phenomena of His intricacies (daqa1iq). He purifīed the degrees of their intellects by the unveiling of the lights of his Beauty. He sanctifīed their understandīngs by the splendor of His Majesty. He made them the places for the hidden deposits of the symbols (rumūz) of His speech, the obscurities of His secrets deposited in His Book, the subtlety of His allusions (ishārāt) to the sciences of the ambiguous verses (mutashābihat) and [other] diffīculties of the verses. He Himself informed them of the meanings of that which He hid in the Qur’ānic so that they would come to know by means of His causing them to know. He anointed their eyes by the light of His nearness and communion. He showed them the unseen mysteries of the brides of different kinds of wisdom and knowledge, and the meanings of the innermost understandīng and innermost secret, the exoteric sense (ẓāhir) of which is a fundamental principle (hukm) in the Qur’ānic and inner sense (bāṭin) of which is an allusion (ishāra) and unveiling (kashf) which God (al-haqq) reserves for His purifīed ones and His greater friends (awliyā’) and His exiled beloved among the sincere and close comp...
