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A symbolic approach to the Qur'an (2/3): the inner disposition

By Eva de Vitray-Meyerovitch · June 2, 2021 · 6 min read

Part 2 of 3 · Approche symbolique du Coran

Contents

The symbolic (and not allegorical) hermeneutics of the mystics of Islam is in no way an analysis of the sacred text, but an attempt to reach the ontological reality of the symbol, which ’stands above all mental constructions. Man does not create symbols. He is transformed by them. And it is thus, through the worlds of signification that secretly reside in each of its sentences, that the Qur’an transforms and reshapes the human soul. Now, it is essential to understand that we cannot attain the inner meaning of the Qur’an so long as we have not penetrated the deepest dimensions of our own being.

If we approach the Qur’an in a superficial manner, and if we ourselves are superficial beings, at the surface of our existence without consciousness of our roots, the Qur’an too will seem to us to have only a superficial meaning. It will hide its mysteries from us and we will not be able to penetrate them. It is through spiritual work that man acquires the possibility of reaching the inner meaning of the sacred text, that is, through the symbolic interpretation of the Book, whereas tafsir is the explanation of its outward aspect’1.

Inner disposition

From this appears the ambivalence of the symbol in the Scriptures: it veils and unveils at once, and the Truth it reveals is the one we are capable of receiving, just as we recognise beauty only in the measure in which we are capable of perceiving it:

The caliph said to Layla: ‘Is it for you that Majnun went mad? But you are no better than the others!’

‘Silence!’, she answered. ‘You are no Majnun either’2.

Rumi, whose entire work constitutes a commentary in poetry or prose upon the Qur’an, writes on this subject3:

The Qur’an is like a bride: you try to lift her veil, and she does not show you her face.

At the moment when the bride that is the meaning of the Qur’an lifts her veil, the kingdom of faith is free of trouble.

If examining the Qur’an gives you no satisfaction and unveils nothing to you, it is because it refuses to let you lift its veil; it has been cunning with you, showing itself as ugly; it tells you: ‘I am not that beauty’. The Qur’an is capable of showing itself under whatever appearance it wills. But if you do not seek to take off its veil, while labouring for its contentment, watering its field and rendering it service from afar by all that can give it satisfaction, then, without your lifting its veil, it will show itself to you.

The emphasis here is on the inner attitude of the one who is going to strive to disengage a hidden meaning from an apparent one. And since there is no dogmatic magisterium in Islam, the encounter will take place at the level of a dialogue between the revealed Word and the spirit that welcomes it; it is the proper work of the symbol, as we have said, to operate a union between different planes. It will therefore appear as what allows the intelligence to transcend its ordinary limits: thus any object may become a symbol of beauty, which is itself a symbol of the unspeakable. Only symbolic exegesis (ta’wil) will be able to lead back from the outside towards the inside (from the zahir to the batin) by crossing those concentric significations characteristic of the Qur’anic symbols. And for that, we find again the necessity of istinbat, which is at once tension and receptivity: tension towards a surpassing, thanks to personal effort, but also openness towards a reality perceived intuitively, synthetically, without discursive movement, where the contraries are reconciled in a vaster unity; it is always a plenitude to be reconstituted, like the symbolon, that token which will have value only once its two halves are joined.

Purity of heart

To be capable of this apprehension, the spirit will have to be purified like a spotless mirror, rid of the ‘rust upon the heart’ (Qur’an LXXXIII, 14) as well as of the idle thoughts that screen out the light. Ghazali (1058-1111) speaks thus of the knowledge of the heart:

Imagine, he says, a pond dug into the earth. It can be filled by leading into it the water of streams flowing through surrounding ground situated higher up. One can also dig down to a level where the water of springs will gush forth. The basin represents the heart, the water of the streams the knowledge supplied by the senses. Channel the senses through solitude and retreat, and purify your heart so that the inner springs may fill it with knowledge4.

Rumi insists on the necessity of an ascesis and cites on this subject the word of the Qur’an: ‘Purify My house’ (II, 125). Does tradition not report that the Prophet’s heart was washed with snow5? And a hadith qudsi affirms that the Lord is contained within the heart of His faithful worshipper. With effort divine grace will be conjoined:

Each one […] sees the invisible things in proportion to the polishing of the mirror of the heart.

The more he polishes, the more he sees, and the more visible the form of the invisible things appears to him.

If you say that this spiritual purity is granted by the grace of God, this success in polishing the heart likewise comes from that divine bounty.

This effort and this prayer are in proportion to the inspiration of the one who prays. ‘Man has nothing but what he has striven to obtain’ (Qur’an LIII, 40)6.

The mystics of Islam have often compared this inner availability to the virginity of Mary. ‘Our consciences’, said Hallaj, ‘are a single Virgin where only the Spirit of Truth can penetrate’7. And if the Prophet of Islam was unlettered (ummi), was it not so that his spirit might be virgin of all learning interposing itself between him and the reception of the Message?

By Eva de Vitray-Meyerovitch. Extract from Universalité de l’islam*, Albin Michel, 2014.*

Calligraphy of the Arabic letter ba’

Further reading

Footnotes

  1. Seyyed Hossein Nasr (b. 1933), Islam, perspectives et réalités, pp. 71-75, éd. Buchet-Chastel, 1994. ↩

  2. Rumi, Mathnawi, I, 407-408, trans. E. de Vitray-Meyerovitch and Djamshid Mortazavi, éd. du Rocher, 2004. ↩

  3. Rumi, Le Livre du dedans, trans. E. de Vitray-Meyerovitch, Albin Michel, 1997. ↩

  4. Ghazali, La Revivification des sciences de la religion, vol. III, 20, trans. A. Massouli, Entreprise nationale du livre, Algiers, 1985. ↩

  5. Sidi Hamza al-Qadiri Boudchich (1918-2017) makes the purity of the heart conditional upon the practice of dhikr, as he recommends to his disciples: ‘Try to keep your inner self clean and pure. The dhikr you practise will allow what remains of the impure to be brought out.’ ↩

  6. Rumi, Mathnawi, IV, 2909 ff., trans. E. de Vitray-Meyerovitch and Djamshid Mortazavi, éd. du Rocher, 2004. ↩

  7. Cited by Louis Massignon, Eranos-Jahrbuch, XV, 1947. ↩

Further reading