Purification: polishing the mirror

محاسبة النفسmuḥāsabat al-nafsreckoning with the self

The first way, examination: the one who has sense should never slacken in searching his aims, reckoning with himself, keeping his conscience clean, and watching God at every deed. Sperl sums up al-Muḥāsibī's method in three steps (examine the self, strip away, purify what remains); the three terms here are al-Muḥāsibī's own. ✦AI

Read it at the source ↗On: al-Muḥāsibī, Ādāb al-nufūs, ed. ʿAṭā, I:148 (OpenITI Shamela0006853, l. 1652): «ولا ينبغي لعاقل ان يفتر عن مفاتشة همته ومحاسبة نفسه ونقاء ضميره»; the three-step summary is Sperl's (talk, 1:02:18–1:12:26).

صقالةṣaqāla·κάθαρσιςkatharsispolish, burnish

The second way, the philosopher's: a soul that leaves its desires, is cleansed of its stains and searches out the truths of things is polished, and the forms of all things appear in it as in a burnished mirror; rusted, it shows nothing. Al-Kindī reports it of an ancient sage. ✦AI

Read it at the source ↗On: al-Kindī, al-Qawl fī al-nafs, in Rasāʾil al-Kindī al-falsafiyya, ed. Abū Rīda (OpenITI Kraken OCR, uncorrected, ll. 10698–10711).

تخلية · تحليةtakhliya · taḥliyaemptying; adorning

The two ways joined: the Sufi path is completed by knowledge and practice; its fruit is to cross the soul's obstacles, empty the heart of all but God and adorn it with His remembrance. He began with their books, among them al-Muḥāsibī's. ✦AI

Read it at the source ↗On: al-Ghazālī, al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl, I:169–170 (OpenITI Shamela0009246, ll. 646–651); that he joins the two ways is Sperl's reading.

مجلوةmajluwwapolished

Before Adam the world was a shape with no spirit, 'like an unpolished mirror': nothing is lacking but the preparedness to receive the light that never stops. ✦AI

Read it in the reader →On: Fuṣūṣ 1 ¶2.

Suhrawardī's regimen: weaken the body's hold by eating less and waking more, and the soul, 'like a mirror', takes the imprint of the holy world. Q 91:9 names the same work as tazkiya, making the self grow pure. ✦AI

Read it in the reader →On: Hayākil al-nūr ¶28; Q 91:9 is a pairing by the AI, not quoted in the text.

رياضةriyāḍadiscipline, training

Ibn Ṭufayl quotes Ibn Sīnā: will and discipline bring stolen glimpses of the light, like lightning that flashes and dies away, until the seeker almost sees the Real in everything. ✦AI

Read it in the reader →On: Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān (Ibn Ṭufayl) ¶6, quoting Ibn Sīnā's Ishārāt on the stations of the knowers.

The Occidental exile casts his wet-nurse into the sea, then scuttles the ship and frees himself from fourteen coffins: the journey home is a series of things let go. ✦AI

Read it in the reader →On: Qiṣṣat al-ghurba al-gharbiyya ¶19, with ¶20 and ¶29.

تطهرتtaṭahharatwere purified

At the Kaʿba Ibn ʿArabī complains the stone cannot see him, and is told the House's light shows itself only 'to hearts that have been purified'. ✦AI

Read it in the reader →On: Futūḥāt, ch. 1 ¶72 (the poem spoken during the circumambulation).