Unification: the soul at peace

مرآةmirʾātmirror

The Real willed to see Himself in another, 'like a mirror': seeing oneself in something else is not like seeing oneself by oneself. Unity is not less when it is seen. ✦AI

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

سكينةsakīna·ἡσυχίαhēsychiastillness, tranquillity

The flashes settle into tranquillity (sakīna), the inmost self becomes a polished mirror, and then the seeker is absent from himself. Sperl sets this rest beside the soul at peace (al-nafs al-muṭmaʾinna) of Q 89:27–28. ✦AI

Read it in the reader →On: Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān (Ibn Ṭufayl) ¶7, quoting Ibn Sīnā's last stations; Q 89:27–28 is the talk's pairing, not quoted in the text. The tale's own last stations (Ḥayy's union) are not in the reader yet.

فناءfanāʾpassing away

Passing away from passing away: the one immersed is aware neither of himself nor of his unawareness. Called union by metaphor, and in truth tawḥīd. ✦AI

Read it in the reader →On: Mishkāt al-anwār ¶53–54 (the mirror and the wine-glass images come just before).

بقاءbaqāʾremaining

Every lineage ends at the Ancestor with no ancestor, 'the light of light', and 'everything perishes but His face'. Q 55:26–27, where all passes away and the face remains, is the Quranic root of the pair fanāʾ and baqāʾ. ✦AI

Read it in the reader →On: Qiṣṣat al-ghurba ¶43, quoting Q 28:88; Q 55:26–27 is a pairing by the AI.

فناء · بقاءfanāʾ · baqāʾpassing away; remaining

Passing away in three steps: whoever leaves his blameworthy acts passes from his desires and remains in sincere turning to God; whoever cures his character of envy, spite and pride passes from bad character and remains in chivalry and truthfulness; whoever sees only the Power at work passes from the creatures and remains by the Real. Sperl's three steps (sin to righteousness, desire to contentment, otherness to the One) follow the same ladder. ✦AI

Read it at the source ↗On: al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, bāb al-fanāʾ wa-l-baqāʾ, I:169–171 (OpenITI Shamela0009953, ll. 2070–2100); the comparison with Sperl's summary (talk, 1:13:03–1:21:45) is ours.

κέντρῳ κέντρονkentrōi kentroncentre to centre

At the summit the seer no longer sees two: he has become one with it, 'as if joining centre to centre', and the vision is hard to tell because it was not of another. In the treatise's last chapter (VI.9.11) the seer, as if seized, comes to rest in a solitary stillness, 'as if become rest', and what he saw was 'not seen but united'. Sperl sets this rest beside the soul at peace of Q 89:27–28. ✦AI

Read it in the reader →On: Ennead VI.9.10, Volkmann's Greek (First1KGreek).

وحدتwaḥdatthe pure One (純一, written 穵哈德特)

The last of Wang Daiyu's three recognitions: the self melted down until one knows by the Lord's knowing and sees by the Lord's seeing. He gives it its Persian name in Chinese letters, 穵哈德特, glossed 'the pure One', after tawḥīd ('practising the One') and ittiḥād ('the One of the self'). ✦AI

Read it at the source ↗On: Qingzhen daxue, 體一 ch. 3 續認 (1934 print, p. 22; PDF p. 32): the transliterations and glosses are the text's own; the triad of certainty behind the three recognitions is Murata's suggestion (Chinese Gleams of Sufi Light, 2000, p. 76).

أحديةaḥadiyyathe Real One (真一)

The Real One, the Numerical One and the Embodied One: 'three ones, not three'. The one returns to the Root Suchness, heaven and human are transformed without division, and the Real One returns to the Real (真一還真). Liu Zhi cites Jāmī's Lawāʾiḥ for these lines. ✦AI

Read it at the source ↗On: Tianfang xingli, 本經 ch. 5, with its citations of the Zhaowei jing (= Lawāʾiḥ); the three ones as explained by Murata, JMIAS 36 (2004).