Intellect in Ibn al-Arabi and Maimonides

Ibn al-Arabi

"(All known things were borne by the First Intellect)

Know that the bearer of all known things, celestial and terrestial, is the Intellect which takes from Allah without intermediary. None of the knowledge of higher and lower being is hidden from it. The self's gnosis of things comes from His giving and generosity, and from His manifestation to it, His light and His purest overflowing. The Intellect learns from Allah and teaches the self. The self learns from the Intellect and action comes from it. This applies to all that knowledge of the Intellect connects to things below it. We are limited by "what is below it" in respect of the learning we mentioned. Be careful when you ponder, remembering that Allah said, "until We know" (47:31). He is the All-Knower, so recognise the proper ascriptions!"

Maimonides:

"Collect your thoughts and examine the matter carefully, for it is not to be understood as you at first sight think, but as you will find after due deliberation; namely, the intellect which was granted to man as the highest endowment, was bestowed on him before his disobedience. With reference to this gift the Bible states that "man was created in the form and likeness of God." On account of this gift of intellect man was addressed by God, and received His commandments, as it is said: "And the Lord God commanded Adam" (Gen. ii. 16)--for no commandments are given to the brute creation or to those who are devoid of understanding. Through the intellect man distinguishes between the true and the false. This faculty Adam possessed perfectly and completely. The right and the wrong are terms employed in the science of apparent truths (morals), not in that of necessary truths, as, e.g., it is not correct to say, in reference to the proposition "the heavens are spherical," it is "good" or to declare the assertion that "the earth is flat" to be "bad": but we say of the one it is true, of the other it is false. Similarly our language expresses the idea of true and false by the terms emet and sheker, of the morally right and the morally wrong, by tob and ra’. Thus it is the function of the intellect to discriminate between the true and the false--a distinction which is applicable to all objects of intellectual perception."

In the writing of both Ibn al-Arabi and Maimonides, intellect is the highest gift. One distinguishes the true from the false using this faculty. It is what makes humanity reach beyond the limited, into the Divine knowledge.
On one level, intellect appears to be a way to "see through" the world into its essence, seeing he connections and unity behind the apparent disunity and disconnection.
The intellect is a doorway by which one can learn knowledge which gets at the heart of reality.

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Video from the film Waris Shah: Ishq Da Waris:

Abdul's Notebook:
The key to Marianne Warren's research into Sai Baba's Islamic roots was finding Abdul's notebook. Abdul was one of Sai Baba's closest disciples, and took care of Sai Baba's dergah after his death. To those unfamiliar with Shirdi Sai Baba, one might wonder why this is so important, and why it connects with what the Islam in India class has been about.
After his death, Sai Baba has been treated as a avatar, and now as a deity, with statues all around the world.
The issue not that he has been embraced by the Hindu population, but that he has been forgotten by Muslims as a faqir, which he always called himself.
After Sai Baba's death, his dergah was treated like a traditional Muslim center, not unique in that it encompasses Hindus as well, since many Mazars and dergahs attract all people in India. After many years of Abdul managing the tomb, a wealthy Hindu Patron visited it, and believed that it was not being taken care of "properly". He then appealed to the government, and had Abdul taken out of his position. During this time, the small picture was replaced with a statue, a giant "Om" sign was put over "shree sai baba" written in english. Abdul was allowed to return in an honorary position for his last few years of life, though since that time, just naturally as his followers were more Hindu than Muslim, the Muslim side of Sai Baba has been eclipsed.
That is what makes the discovered notebook of teachings so fascinating. It completely recontextualizes him as a learned Muslim, though with a very broad minded philosophy that sees all religions as a part of one vast truth, though he himself was rooted in Islam.
The notebook contains detailed Islamic teachings, including poetry, Qur'anic suras, hadith, lists of silsilas of many Sufi orders, lists of early Islamic figures such as the caliphs, Prophet's family etc.
Here are some interesting passages that show his unique position as a Sufi teacher:

"In the name of Allah the most beneficent the most merciful.
Religious emotion in full is purely spiritual. It is not material. Secondly it means that you will see the world as material or as only relatively real (until you have a vision of God). Parvardigar! O Dear One!, Oh Dear One! the material (relative state) world is unreal. There is no place for intellect and inference. Those who regard the spirit as without begining, this is not true. It is wrong to address the spirit because it is dependent on others. The real form of man is prana- life force."
(Warren 279)

"When in the nimbar (niche) of your heart, the Beloved is enthroned, what is the need for the pesh-iman (priest)? If we can achieve ivadat (our end) by prayer to God (Allah), what is the necessity to go to the masjid to listen to the khutba? If all the time we are engrossed in devotion to God, why should be we namaz five times a day, in the morning, noon etc. ? If we are all in love with the Beloved, we will go and reside in the mandir- why should we go to and visit the Ka'ba in Mecca?"
(Warren 302)

"Vishnu is equal to the Bismillah ar-Rahim, Allah the Merciful the Pardoner. Ali is equal to Brahma. Mahadec is equal to Mohammaed and to Malik al-maut, the angel of death"

"O Lighthouse of widom! the helper [of the helpless]!
O purifier of the self!, O Lord of the two worlds!
O Merciful Allah! Head of the Believers! [Hazrat Mohammed]
Abu Talib's son is the Lion of Allah! Powerful Ali!
Hazrat Imam Hasan! Hazrat Imam Husain!
The first Mehdi and the last Mehdi [the saviour yet to come]
There is no other God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger."
(Warren 308)

One one can see, Sai Baba was a Muslim, though could be considered a heterodox one. His teachings bring both Islamic and Hindu teachings together. When speaking to Abdul, his language was Islamic, though stressed the truth of Hinduism as well.
Said Baba did a Dhikr of the name of Allah his whole life, but told his Hindu disciplies to repeat "Ram, Krishna" or other Hindu holy names.
Sai Baba of Shirdi's life was about bringing together the religious communities and rejecting hatred of any kind. It is said that some of his Hindu disciples from learned or high backgrounds though it below them to honor a Sufi. One person had a vision of the Hindu deity they worshipped with such love sitting where Sai Baba was. This was later explained as a teaching tool, so that one would not think themselves above or below anyone.

Shah Muni- Another precursor to Sai Baba as mentioned in Marianne Warren's book Shirdi Sai Bab in the Light of Sufism

Shah Muni was a Muslim living, unlike Shekh Mahammad, during a time at the end of the eighteenth century, when Muslims lost power in Maharashtra. Unlike Shekh Mahammad who was a Muslim Pir with Hindu disciples, Shah Muni was a Muslim with a Hindu Guru. His stance was largely apologetic, being in a Hindu dominated environment, from his sayings and life, Shah Muni often had to apologize and explain being a Muslim.
At the same time, he actively believed, like Shekh Mahammad, that Islam did not naturally reject Hinduism, but creatively intertwined their histories:

"Mahavisnu, the Isvara, is the supreme ruler of the world. His rule stretches from this land (karmabhumi, India) to the milky primeval ocean of Mahavisnu who rests on the eternal serpant. Mahavisnu created Paighambar who descended to earth. From Paighambar, we find the spreading of Muslims (yavanas) throughout the world. Out of the millions of Gods (daivas) a select 80 thousand became wise Paighambars and established Islam (mlecca dharma). That sustainer of the world Narayana created the four sastras which the Muslims (yavanas) call the Qur'an. The Muslims (yavanas) read the Qur'an which is the word of God (Narayana)...The Muslims (yavanas) call Narayana the great Allah." (Warren 171)

Instead of using Islam as his base and seeing Hinduism as a strand of the original religion (meaning Islam in the sense before the institutional religion itself came to be), Shah Muni saw Hinduism as the root in which Islam came into existence.
Interestingly, Shah Muni also does not gloss over the Gods of Hinduism, but seems to see the base of all Narayana, who is identified as the same as Allah.
Also, being a Muslim, though Shah Muni was often apologetic about Islam, he does not deny the key aspects of the religion such as the Qur'an as the "word of God".

Precursors to Sai Baba:

Marianne Warren says that there is a history of Muslims in India “accommodating” Hinduism within traditional Islamic belief and practice.
I do not feel comfortable with the term accommodating, since it implies not being fully “Islamic” in a way. These figures who saw their Islam as so spacious that it could include their Hindu neighbors, would see this as being true to the universal message of the Qur’an and the sunna of the Prophet. To say their was a “watered down” Islam does injustice to the openness inherent in Islam.
Regardless, Warren mentioned figures that predated Sai Baba, and shared a similar stance of regarding Islam and Hinduism as inseparable, though outwardly different.

The first figure she mentioned is Shekh Mahammad (the spelling that’s provided). He lived from 1560-1650 and practiced in the Qadiri lineage.
One aspect of his life which was exceptional was taking on Hindu murids.
One such Murid was said to have shouted:
“Let the dharma as preached by Shekh Mahammad live!”
As is deminstarted by his own writing, Shekh Mahammad was a Muslim who was deeply committed to a unitive spiritual vision, where Islam embraced all. God, according to Shekh Mahammad is beyond the petty differences that humans experience. Thus, he was comfortable using Hindu deities and terminology in his discourses, not unlike the way Muslims call Allah al-Rahman, al-Karim, al-Wadud etc. :

“Salute to Sri Ganesha. Allah is great and the only one. He is loved, constantly praised by men. He is God, Rahimana, who envelops the universe. He is the real one; with a thousand names he pervades the universe. Realize this, and give up clamouring [about the duality of God], serve the real Guru. Muslims call him the real Pir and Marathas call him sadguru, the enlightened guru. Open your eyes brother, the two are the same. In fifty-two languages they start bickering about Allah who is one. In their tongues they quarrel, arguing with each other. Recognice the belief in duality [of God] as the sing of heresy. They lose sight of God in their quarrel. The self knowing one will profit himself with the blessing of the pir. The Persian ask for ab (water), the Maratha asks for pani (water), without knowing that the meaning of the words is the same. Due, to ignorance, their misunderstanding [of the meaning of the word] leads to a quarrel. The thirsty Kannada [a person who speaks Kannada language] asks for nirkuda (water), the Musalman said, “What is he babbling about?” The interpreter (dubhasi) [lit. bilingual person] silenced them both by giving them nira (water). Thus the key was used to unlock [the true] meaning [of God] in fifty-two tongues. Once they realized this [key to] knowledge, the fallacy dissipates. They understood the oneness of God.”

Clearly God’s unity extends beyond the bounds of each religion, seeing all that point toward unity as Islam, much as Muslim philosophers and mystics embraced the Greek philosophers as within tawhid (unity of God). Here Shekh Mahammad is saying something quite starting for many. Not only is God one, and Muslims one, but Hindus are also within the embrace of God. To argue about language is to miss the point. All need the Divine, and to literally or figuratively start wars of language is ignorant.
Next I will write about another important precursor to Sai Baba, Shah Muni.

who was Shirdi Sai Baba and why am I interested in him?

Sai Baba and his disciple Abdul Baba reading the Qur'an

Sai Baba of Shirdi was an enigmatic faqir who lived in the late 19th and 20th century.

He has been revered as an avatar by Hindus, though his famous saying is "Allah Malik" (God is King), and thoughout his life, Sai Baba always wore of the garb of a Muslim dervish. Shirdi Sai Baba did embrace all faiths in his teachings, though the book Shirdi Sai Baba in the Light of Sufism by Marianne Warren contains translations of a notebook of Sai Baba's teachings on Islam to his murid, Abdul, showing how his base and training was in Islam.
This book contextualized him within Deccan Islam, and in the history of Deccan Muslims who embraced aspects of Hinduism and Hindus, as encompassed by Tawhid (God's unity).
In the last few years of his life, and especially after his death, Sai Baba has gone through a process of what Warren calls Hinduization.
Sai Baba's life, teachings and interpretation all have implications on the study of mixity and intersectionalities within my Islam in India class.
I wish to highlight important passages from it.


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Human Love/Divine Love in Waris Shah's Epic Love Story Heer

Where does human end love and divine love begin?
Waris Shah, the Punjabi poet wrote what many consider the Subcontinent's Romeo and Juliet.
The characters are Heer and Ranjha, Muslim Jatts who enter into a romance that's condemed by everyone around them.
Heer's family, the religious authorities and others representing worldly comfort and stability try their best to break up this love.
By contrast, the "five Pirs", or holy men that Ranjha meets in the forest bless their love, even though, as one might guess the outcome is tragic.

"The Pirs replied, 'Child, eat your fill and drink grey buffaloes milk and live on fat of the land. Dismiss all sadness from your mind. God himself will set your affairs right.' Ranjha replied, 'Sirs, I am in great distress. I beseech you bestow the girl Heer upon me, for the fire of love is devouring me.'

The holy Pirs answered and said, 'Child, all your wishes will be fulfiled; your arrow will hit the target, and yourboat will reach the shore. Heer has been bestowed on you by the Darbar of God.'"

Even though the world is completely against them, and though it is destined to "fail" in mortal terms, their love is blessed as something that cannot be broken. As many have pointed out, the lovers of God: Prophets, Messengers, Saints and their followers are attacked by the world. By keeping the love of God alive, whatever happens in the world does not change their inner state.
The text itself gives a hint of this when it quotes from the Qur'an al Kareem: 'Everything is mortal save only God.'
Though Waris Shah's text can be read as a straight forward love story, it is really about the Divine love that is kindled through cultivating a "worldly" love. In fact, the differences between them are ripped apart in this poem.
After reading this, one can see how one first forgets themself in loving another. The boundaries of where they exist change, as one feels part of another person.
This concept reminds me of the Sufi path of Fana fi Sheikh, Fana fi Rasul and Fana Fi Allah.
In each step one is being absorbed in a deeper and deeper ocean. There is no Fana within one's limitations, fears and expectations. Waris Shah's text reminds the reader that this boundless ocean of love cannot always conform to the world.

http://www.apnaorg.com/poetry/heercomp/heer-english.html