LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Author(s): J.M.S. Baljon

Source: Islamic Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1 (SPRING 1978), pp. 71-74
Published by: Islamic Research Institute, International Islamic University, Islamabad
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20847063
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 LETTER TO THE EDITOR
A Ifdshiya on the Sharb of the Two Lists of Prophets

When a year ago an Indian Muslim friend asked for an offprint of my paper "Two
Lists of Prophets"1,1 refused to supply a copy to him. Since its preparation eleven years
had elapsed, and in the meantime ? as will be shown presently ? I revised views I held
before. Moreover, the subject treated in it is extremely tricky, and in 19661 was careful
enough not to publish my preliminary investigations in a journal of specialists of Islamic
Learning2. Consequently, it was most amazing to find on a sudden that after so many
years nevertheless a specialist had put himself to the trouble of re-examining it exten
sively3. Really, too much honour has been paid to it!

However, the observations made in this review are challenging and ask for com
ments. To begin with: several corrections advanced in it are no improvements at all.
They merely result from a strange incapacity of the reviewer to read what is written down.
Al-Samarrai rightly argues on pp. 210 f. that the two divergent doctrines of wahdat al
wuj&d and wahdat al-shuhM are not so simply reconcilable. Before it, on pp. 209 f. he
states that Baljon ended with saying "both of them apply a different terminology, but after
all they mean almost the same thing". In this way my view is corrected. By distorting
my words al-Samarrai could do this. For in my article I write: "Exactly the same, so the
aurhor4 concludes, is the case with the advocates of wahdat al-wujvd, i.e. the follower
of Ibn al-'Arabi, and the champions of wahdat ai-shuhud, i.e. the adherents of Ahmad
Sirhindi. Both of them apply a different terminology, but after all they mean almost
the same thing". Hence, in fact, al-Samarrai rectifies a misconception of Shah Wali
Allah, and not an opinion of mine. Certainly, I agree, al-Samarrai could freely misquote
my words, because the journal Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift is neither read nor
available in Pakistan.

On p. 193 we read: "In this context, one may ask: what does the term ai-sardfa
al-Md actually mean? For Baljon, it is "Primal Soul", which falls too short of the real
meaning". This assertion, I am sorry to say, is sheer fantasy of al-Samarrai. I did
not translate this term by 'Primal Soul', but by 'Primal Level (where God resides)*5.
The passage where this term is found is rendered by al-Samarrai: "You should know that
when God from al-sardfa al-&ld (i.e. Primal Purity, First Intellect) brings down knowledge
upon mankind". I must confess to be too stupid to understand what is to be conceived
of knowledge that God brings down from Primal Purity or from First Intellect. The same
applies to the translation which a bit further on al-Samarrai offers of al-tajawwuz al-tabPli
"it is not to be understood as tropes and metaphor... , but it is in the manner of 'a/
tajawwuz aUtabiV (natural connivance, i.e. the nature gives sometimes way to its establi
shed rules)". Again, what can that be: knowledge that is to be understood in the manner
of natural connivance? My own rendering of the passage is: "it is not communicated by

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 72 LETTER TO THE EDITOR

tropes and allusions... but put in terms of everyday occurrences {al-tajawwuz al-tabiV).
This translation is based on the explanation Shah Wall Allah himself gives on the next
page: "I mean by al-tajawwuz al-tabl'i the telling of an occurence". Let us hope, that
the other corrections of my translation of the Ta'wU al-abddHh al-Samarrai promises us
in note 2 will be of a better quality.

In note 24 on p. 213, al-Samarrai remarks: "The passage on Muhammad where

Shah Wall Allah shows his pantheistic ideas was not fully translated by Baljon for no
apparent reason". Again, this is a matter of taking notice of what is actually written
down. For in the Preface of my translation one can read the explanation why the last
chapter, which deals with Muhammad, has been rendered only partially. The reason is
that its framework is different from the rest of the book. The purpose intended of the
translation of this monograph is to show to people, interested in Comparative Religion,
how a Muslim mystic interprets prophetic tales. Accordingly, the title of it is: A Mystical
Interpretation of Prophetic Tales by an Indian Muslim. In the chapter on Muhammad,
Shah Wall Allah seizes the opportunity to develop some of his own favourite themes,
important by themselves, but not of use for the interpretation of prophetic tales.

On p. 204 al-Samarrai corrects a wrong rendering of a passage on p. 45 of the

Arabic text. Only his rectified translation is superfluous. Four years earlier I myself
produced the following improved translation: "And since Moses was of an unbending,
courageous and fervid nature... God effused the shape of a fire not (made up) of elements
and physical processes, but purely of (material coming from) the 'dlam al-mithdr6. I
also immediately agree that the translation of a passage on p. 50 of the Arabic text I offer
in my article of 12 years ago is unsatisfactory. But again before al-Samarrai did so I
myself corrected by translation later on.7

Now it might be useful to mention some of the errors committed by al-Samarrai.

On p. 190 he sets forth: "The ?Qfis hold that man is not responsible for his actions because
his actions were both predestined and created". The issue, however, is not so simple as
al-Samarrafs statement suggests. Our Indian mystic distinguishes in his al-Khayr al
kathh two kinds of predestination: 1) an irreversible one (mubram); and 2) one left in
suspense {mu'allaq). In the latter case a worshipper still keeps prayer (du(d) and prudence
(tadbir) at his disposal. Some ?Qfis assert mistakenly, so Shah Wall Allah continues, that
all that is included in al-'ayn al-thdbita will appear automatically. No, its development
depends equally on temporary dispositions (isti'ddddt bddithd) and accompanying circum
stances (mu'adddt labiqa)8. In another work Shah Wall Allah argues that a settlement
(tafbiq) can be reached between the two contending parties (i.e. of those who maintain
that God creates man's deeds and those who propound that man himself is the creator
of his deeds), if one recognizes that the Prophet on the one hand has established that the
Regulator of the universe possesses full power over all creatures, and on the other hand
has arrived at the conclusion that God is like a king who invests his subjects with respon
sibility, on account of which they enjoy freedom of thought and will (ikhtiydr)9.

On p. 193 al-Samarrai states: "This (i.e. the baqiqa of Muhammad) is what Shah
Wall Allah invariably calls al-mala* al-a'ld through whom God sopke to Moses".
This view of al-Samarrai is a mere guess. In his writings Shah Wali Allah explicitly says

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 ISLAMIC STUDIES 73
that what in Ibn al-'Arabi's terminology is called haqiqa muhammadiyya he himself likes
to designate as al-tajalli al-a'fami?. "The tajalli al-a ?amy\ he explains, "is the primordial
source of every kind of theophany (tajalli) occurring in the world. There are many divine
tajalliyydt in the world. Some appear in the mind of a man in sleep or in wakefulness..,
others are observed in the phenomenal world, as it happened in the case of Moses. The
background of such a theophany in the phenomenal world is that the divine will is directed
to the instruction (ta'lim) of a servant or to the arrangement of an affair in a certain way.
Accordingly, this will 'falls' like a spark (sharara) from the tajalli al-a'zam upon the
mala* al-a'la..; (from there) it comes down on a certain spot of the earth. Here a physical
process is brought about, resulting in the appearance of a shape that conforms with
what was conceived (before) by the mala' al-a'la"1 In other words, for Shah Wali
Allah the mala' al-a'la function as intermediaries between the al-tajalll al-a'?am (or
haqiqa of Muhammad) and the course of events in our terrestrial world.

When in enigmatic terms the Khayr al-Kathir speaks of a person who at the approa
ching day of Resurrection will be characterized with the qualities of the universal name of
Muhammad and the universal name of Jesus in order that he may be an elucidation
(sharh) of Joseph, al-Samarrai comes to the conclusion: "This is the Mahdi, or call him
the Messiah, but surely not Shah Wali Allah" (p. 203). I wonder how somebody can
declare to be so sure, if he is not familiar with the works of Shah Wali Allah. On p. 68
of the second volume of the Tafhimdt al-Ildhiyya (Dabhel e.d., 1355/1936), the latter
tells us of the following mystic experience: "Thereupon, lights of the invisible world
(ghayb) poured forth upon me. So I was installed in the maqdm of bikma. At that mo
ment I became a substitute (nd'ib) of Joseph, for amongst the prophets he is marked by
bikma". Still more clarifying is the tafhim recorded on pp. 120 f. of the same work;
"My Lord gave me to understand: Upon you the light of two universal names, i.e. of
Muhammad and of Jesus will be reflected. Then you possibly become a guide to the
horizon of perfection, covering (with that right) the zone of nearness to God, so that after
you there will not be found anyone having attained nearness to God but you will have
had a hand in his moral education and spiritual training until the moment that Jesus will
come down (from heaven). Possibly al-IJaqq will descend upon you destroying the
existing order of the world, just as a thunderbolt smashes and uproots everything
that comes in its way. Then, in front of you and at your back, to your left and to your
right, extraordinary events (ayat) will appear. The sun of al-Haqq will rise brilliantly,
and all the darkness that is due to the wickedness in our material world will be effaced.
Owing to you the earth will possibly become full of lights; injustice and exploitation will
disappear from it, so that in the end there will be no more need of a Mahdi ... This
revelation ((tafhim) did upset me enormously".

J.M.S. Baljon,
I<eiden, Holland

NOTES
1. Published in Neder lands Theologisch Tijdschrift, jaargang 21, aflevering 2, 1906.
2. As a rule this Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift is read by Dutch scholars who ar?
specialists of Christian (and not of Muslim) theology.

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 74 A LETTER TO THE EDITOR

3. Qasim al-Samarrai, *Two Lists of Prophets Re-examined', Islamic Studies, XVI, 3,

1977, pp. 189-216.
4. I.e. Shah Walt Allah.
5. Shah Wali Allah, Ta'wilal-afriidith, tr. by J.M.S. Baljon, Leiden 1973, p. 1.
6. idem, p. 32.
7. idem, pp. 36 f.
8. Shah Wall Allah, al-Khayr al-Kathir, with an Urdu translation by 4Abid al-Rahman
al-Siddiqi al-Kandhalawi, Karachi, n.d., pp. 144 ff.
9. Shah Wali Allah, HawamV, Delhi 1308/1890, p. 7.
10. Shah Wali Allah, Maktubat, Delhi n.d., p. 17; Fuyud aUIfaramayn, Mashhad 16.
11. Shah Wali Allah Safa'at. Haydarabad, 1964, pp. 55 and 54.

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