Islam and the Divine Feminine
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| So often has Islam
been portrayed as an exclusively masculine, patriarchal faith that many
have never suspected the central importance of the Feminine in Islam and
would be astonished to realize that it has been there from the beginning.
Perhaps in part due to the metaphysical interiority of the Feminine, this
aspect of Islam has lived a largely hidden existence — but it is no less
vital for that. In recent years there has been much discussion and controversy
over how to reshape Christianity to include the Feminine on the divine
level, but in Islam that has never been an issue, for the feminine element
in Islam has always been present, especially in Sufism.
Although both masculine and feminine
equally have their origin in the Divine, I would like to take a special
look at the feminine in Islam to help redress the balance because the feminine
side of Islam has been mostly overlooked so far. Moreover, in the sources
of Islam and in the Sufi tradition growing from there, we find a distinct,
explicit preference for the feminine aspect of Allah, especially the nature
of ultimate Divine Reality as essentially feminine.
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The Polarity of Divine Majesty and Beauty
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The distinction between male
and female is not just a biological accident but a very profound element
of the human state. It goes back from the biological through the psychological
and the spiritual to the Divine Reality itself. On the highest level of
the Divine Reality, Allah is perfectly One. The root of the duality between
the masculine and feminine is found in the divine nature itself. Allah's
Essence transcends all duality, all relationality, so it is beyond male
or female. But even on the level of the Divine Nature, there are the roots
of the masculine and the feminine. On the highest level, Allah is at once
Absolute and Infinite. These two attributes are the supreme archetypes
of the masculine and the feminine. "Masculine" and "feminine" are not simply
equivalents of the human male and female, since all men and women have
elements of both masculinity and femininity within them. That Allah is
Absolute is the principle of masculinity, and that Allah is Infinite is
the principle of femininity. Allah has revealed Himself in the Qur’ân
in the names of rigor and mercy, known as the names of Majesty (jalâl)
and Beauty (jamâl). The Generous, the Merciful, the Forgiving
are names of mercy or Beauty, while the Enumerator and the Just are names
of rigor or Majesty. On the level of the names are the principles of the
masculine and the feminine: the names of Majesty are the prototype of masculinity,
while the names of Beauty are the prototype of femininity.
Vis-à-vis the world, Allah
is Creator. This divine function is on the masculine side, representing
the aspects of action, force, movement, rigor; Allah as Lawgiver. But then
there is the uncreating aspect of Allah. Allah is not exhausted
by His creation of the world. Allah is more than the creator of the world:
al-Khâliq, the Creator, is only one of the divine names. The
Divine Reality did not completely participate in the act of creation. Allah
is Infinite and the world is finite. The non-creating aspect of Allah corresponds
to the Divine Femininity. It is this to which Sufi poetry so often refers
in the feminine. The images of the beautiful Beloved are referring to the
metacosmic aspect of the Divine, not the creating aspect.
That is why Ibn al-‘Arabî
says Allah can be referred to as both huwa (He) and hiya
(She).
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Feminine Terms of Divinity
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Some of the key terms associated
with the Divine are in the feminine gender in Arabic. Three of them are
essential to understand the feminine dimension in Islam. One of Allah's
names is al-Hakîm, the Wise; Wisdom is hikmah. In Arabic
to say, for example, "Wisdom is precious," you could repeat the feminine
pronoun: al-hikmah hiya thamînah, literally "Wisdom,
she is precious." This has resonance with the forgotten Christian
mystical tradition, in which Wisdom is personified as a woman, the divine
Sophia, associated with the Virgin Mary. The second term is rahmah
(mercy), related to the most important name of God after Allâh:
al-Rahmân, the All-Merciful, related to the word for 'womb',
rahim, the source of life. The source of life is the Divine Mercy
and the feminine aspect of it is very evident. The third, the most remarkable
of all, is the word for the Divine Essence itself: al-Dhât,
which is also feminine. In that the Divine Essence is Beyond-Being, unmanifest
and transcending all qualities, it may be understood as Feminine. The renowned
Sufi master Najm al-Din Kubra wrote of the Dhât as the "Mother
of the divine attributes." According to a commentary on Ibn al-‘Arabî's
Fusûs al-hikam, a hadith of Prophet Muhammad "gave priority
to the true femininity that belongs to the Essence." Ibn al-‘Arabî
himself wrote that "I sometimes employ the feminine pronoun in addressing
Allah, keeping in view the Essence."
On this metaphysical plane, femininity
corresponds to interiority and masculinity to manifestation. In the traditional
Islamic city, beauty is interiorized. All human beings contain both elements
within themselves, in their souls and bodies and psyches. The perfection
of the human state, al-insân al-kâmil, means the perfection
of both masculine and feminine qualities together, the prototype of both
male and female. In Sufism, men and women perform exactly the same rites
and worship, so the perfection of human spirituality is equally accessible
to men and women—unlike in Theravada Buddhism, in which a woman must be
reborn as a man to attain nirvana.
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Female Imagery of the Divine Beloved in Sufi Poetry
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Sufi literature has the greatest
discussion of femininity in Islam. Sufi stories have transformed ordinary
love stories into the most sublime levels of meaning. The love story of
Layla and Majnun is the best-known of all. It originated as a simple love
story in Arabia, but Sufi literature elaborated it into the most beautiful
love story ever put into Persian poetry. It symbolizes not only the love
of man and woman in Allah, but the love of man for Allah. In these poems
the heroine is elevated to symbolize the Divine Reality itself. The Divine
Reality is spoken of in terms of female beauty. The hero goes in quest
of the Divine, which is a masculine act. In contrast to Christian mysticism,
in which God is actively masculine and the devotee is passively feminine,
Sufi love stories depict the Beloved as a woman who is a Presence waiting
in stillness while the hero is in quest for her.
The name Laylá
comes from the word layl meaning 'night'. Night represents the Unmanifest.
In the Arabian desert, the night is a reality without boundaries: forms
are dissolved, no sand dunes or camels or anything else visible, all is
formless, nothing but darkness. This is direct symbolism of the unmanifested
aspect of the Divine Nature, Allah as Unmanifest. Blackness absorbs all
light, as it is above manifestation, so it symbolizes the Beyond-Being.
In the poem, Layla was named for the blackness of her hair and the beauty
of the night. By extension, it in fact refers to the beauty of the Divine
Reality beyond this world, beyond the act of creation, and therefore the
supreme goal that the Sufi seeks to reach. The name of Majnûn literally
means 'crazy', but here it means someone not in an ordinary state of mind,
symbolizing a person in quest of Allah. In this world in which most people
forget Allah, the person who remembers Him is considered crazy. As the
male figure, Majnûn symbolizes the aspect of yearning and striving,
going out in quest of Layla, while she is just sitting and combing her
hair. The one who undertakes the journey, longing and crying for Layla,
is the soul of the Sufi.
Allah as the Beloved in Sufi
literature, the ma‘shûq, is always depicted with female iconography.
Although Islam is aniconic and does not make images of Allah, verbal depiction
exists. Sufi literature is replete with this imagery of our experience
of Allah as the vision of the Beloved and union with the Beloved. An elaborate
vocabulary developed in which every part of a woman's body, especially
the face, symbolizes the Divine Reality. For example, the eyebrows are
likened to a bow that shoots the arrow of the eye's glance, the arrow of
the love of Allah into our hearts and makes us go beyond ourselves. Like
the eyes of veiled women in traditional Islamic culture, where all you
can see are their beautiful dark eyes: their whole vocabulary of love has
to be expressed through a single glance. The ruby-red lips with their red
color symbolize wine. Wine is used in Sufi literature to symbolize going
beyond our ordinary consciousness into union with the Divine. Although
wine is forbidden in Islamic law, there will be pure wine to drink in Paradise.
Since Sufis experience Paradise here in this world by having inner experience
of the higher levels of reality, the wine of Paradise is accessible symbolically
through Sufism. Here, the redness of this wine is conjoined with the color
of a woman's lips. At the same time, the kiss of the lips is an erotic
symbol of union and intimacy.
For example, Rumi said in the
Masnavi:
Kings lick the earth
whereof the fair are made;
For God hath mingled in the
dusty earth
A draught of beauty from
His choicest cup.
'Tis that, fond lover—not
these lips of clay—
Thou art kissing with a thousand
ecstasies,
Think, then, what it must
be when undefiled!
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The Vision of God in Woman
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| There was a question
long debated in Islam: can we see Allah? The Prophet said in a hadith:
"In Paradise the faithful will see Allah with the clarity with which you
see the moon on the fourteenth night (the full moon)." Theologians debated
what this could mean, but the Sufis have held that you can see Allah even
in this world, through the "eye of the heart." al-Hallaj said in a poem:
"ra’aytu rabbi bi-‘ayni qalbî" (I saw my Lord
with the eye of my heart). The Sufis said that since you can have the experience
of Paradise even in this world, you can have the vision (ru’yah)
of Allah. They have always described this theophanic experience as the
vision of a woman, the female figure as the object of ru’yah.
The Tarjumân al-ashwâq,
Ibn al-‘Arabî's collection of love poems composed after meeting the
learned and beautiful Persian woman Nizam in Mecca, is filled with images
pointing to the Divine Feminine. The last chapter in his book Fusûs
al-hikam relates that man's supreme witnessing of Allah is in the form
of the woman during the act of sexual union. The contemplation of Allah
in woman is the highest form of contemplation possible:
As the Divine Reality
is inaccessible in respect of the Essence, and there is contemplation only
in a substance, the contemplation of God in women is the most intense and
the most perfect; and the union which is the most intense (in the sensible
order, which serves as support for this contemplation) is the conjugal
act.
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| In contrast to Christianity,
Islam has never depicted God as Father. Such a comparison is completely
outside the boundaries of Islamic discourse. However, Muslims have always
found it easy and natural to speak of the maternal qualities of Allah.
Prophet Muhammad was the first
to use the example of mothers to illustrate Allah's mercy. After a battle,
the Prophet and his Companions came upon a group of women and children.
One woman had lost her child and was going around looking for him, her
breasts flowing with milk. When she found her child, she joyfully put him
to her breast and nursed him. The Prophet asked his Companions, "Do you
think that this woman could throw her son in the fire?" They answered "No."
He then said: "Allah is more merciful to His servants than this woman to
her son." (From the hadith collection of al-Bukhari).
Another al-Bukhari hadith describes
how during the Muslim conquest of Mecca a woman was running about in the
hot sun, searching for her child. She found him, and clutched him to her
breast, saying, "My son, my son!" The Prophet's Companions saw this, and
wept. The Prophet was delighted to see their mercy, and said, "Do you wonder
at this woman's mercy (rahmah) for her child? By Him in Whose hand
is my soul, on the Day of Judgment, Allah shall show more rahmah
toward His believing servant than this woman has shown to her son."
Jalal al-Din Rumi, in an amazing
passage of the Masnavi on the Return to Allah, made reference to
the story of the infant Moses and addressed Allah directly as "Mother":
On Resurrection Day,
the sun and moon are released from service:
and the eye beholds the Source
of their radiance,
then it discerns the permanent
possession from the loan,
and this passing caravan
from the abiding home.
If for a while a wet nurse
is needed,
Mother, return us to your
breast.
I don't want a nurse; my
Mother is more fair.
I am like Moses whose nurse
and Mother were the same.
(Masnavi, V:701)
The Ka‘bah in Mecca, the very heart
and pivot of the Islamic world, naturally is associated with feminine imagery,
veiled in the black color of the Feminine Beyond-Being. Medieval writers
and poets have often compared the holiest shrine of Islam to a veiled bride
or a desired virgin, especially when on the pilgrimage. Their goal was
to touch and kiss her beauty mark, the black stone. Khaqani was the Persian
poet who most frequently employed this symbolism in his pilgrim poems.
But another look at the Ka‘bah can come from the root of its name in the
Arabic language. Although the word ka‘bah itself means 'cube', it
is very close to the word ku‘b meaning 'woman's breast'. This turns
out to be an appropriate metaphor, as indeed the Ka‘bah nurtures with the
milk of spiritual blessing all the faithful who come to touch and kiss
it. Consider also the eminently feminine Yoni form of the Black Stone's
setting.
The Prophet's Feminine Soul
Prophet Muhammad's soul had a deeply
feminine nature within. When his Companions asked him whom he loved most
in the whole world, he answered it was his wife, ‘Â’ishah. They were
surprised to hear him announce love for a woman, as this was a new concept
to them; they had been thinking in terms of the manly camaraderie between
warriors. So they asked him which man he loved most. He answered Abû
Bakr, ‘Â’ishah's father, a gentleman who was known for his sensitive
personality. These answers confounded the Companions who until then had
been brought up on patriarchal values. The Prophet was introducing reverence
for the Feminine to them for the first time.
Surah 109 in the Qur’ân,
al-Kawthar, gives an especially revealing look into the Prophet's
feminine soul. It was revealed because his enemies had been taunting him
that he had no sons, only daughters, while they had been given sons to
perpetuate their patriarchal ways. Allah revealed this message of consolation
to the Prophet: "We have given thee al-Kawthar ... surely the
one who hates thee will be cut off (from progeny)." What is al-Kawthar?
A sacred pool of life-giving water in Paradise—a profoundly feminine symbol.
It represents a heavenly exaltation of the Feminine over patriarchal society.
The name of Kawthar is derived from the same root as kathîr
'abundance', a quality of the supernal Infinite, the Divine Feminine.
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One of the most outright
declarations of the Divine Feminine in all Sufi literature is in Rumi's
Masnavi. In a passage praising the feminine qualities of kindness
and gentleness, a passage that is increasingly well-known in these days
of the resurgent Feminine, he says:
Woman is the radiance
of God, she is not your beloved.
She is the Creator—you could
say that she is not created.
(Masnavi, I:2437)
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The Primacy of the Feminine in Islam
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| Seen from the exterior,
Islam may appear as a masculine-dominated faith. That is because its external
aspects, such as the sacred law that governs the social order, are a manifestation
of Allah's jalâl attributes. The hidden side of Islam, little
known to the outside world, lives and breathes the values of interiority,
the loving, forgiving, merciful Divine Presence that draws hearts closer,
the infinite jamâl aspects of Allah's Beauty. The eternal
primacy of Allah's feminine nature is established in a hadith qudsi:
"My mercy precedes My wrath" (rahmatî sabaqat ghadabî).
Beyond all, the infinite eternal
mystery of Allah's uncreated Essence is the Divine Feminine that is the
ultimate spiritual Reality, calling to the souls who love Allah to come
home and find perfect peace. |
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