steve watson

Ethical Consequences of the Gnostic Union

February 5, 2012 – 3:30 pm

There’s always the assumption that mystical gnosis will result in an elevated ethical state on the part of the gnostic. Given that there’s plenty of controversy over the ethical stance of someone who is concerned above all with their own salvation, I find this lazy acceptance a little puzzling. It’s easy enough, in fact, to see just how the unitive life can run the risk of moral detachment from humankind. Since at the moment I’m reading R. A. Nicholson 1914/1963) The Mystics of Islam, we can extract a few typical statements of the Sufi and see what they add up to.

First, here’s a passage from p. 109 recounting a story from the life of Fudayl ibn ‘Iyad

One day he had in his lap a child four years old, and chanced to give it a kiss, as is the way of fathers. The child said, ‘Father, do you love me?’ ‘Yes,’ said Fudayl. ‘Do you love God?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘How many hearts have you?’ ‘One.’ ‘Then,’ asked the child, ‘how can you love two with one heart?’ Fudayl perceived that the child’s words were a divine admonition. In his zeal for God he began to beat his head and repented of his love for the child, and gave his heart wholly to God.

This is introduced by the remark that “It would be touching if it were not so edifying.” I find it neither, but rather chilling. We then learn, amongst many claims that we should approach all in the spirit of ‘love’ and ‘charity,’ this corroborating quote from Jami:

Even from earthly love thy face avert not,
Since to the Real it may serve to raise thee.
Ere A, B, C are rightly apprehended,
How canst thou con the pages of thy Koran?
A sage (so heard I), unto whom a student
Came craving counsel on the course before him,
Said, ‘If thy steps be strangers to love’s pathways,
Depart, learn love, and then return before me!
For, shouldst thou fear to drink wine from Form’s flagon,
Thou canst not drain the draught of the Ideal.
But yet beware! Be not by Form belated:
Strive rather with all speed the bridge to traverse.
If to the bourne thou fain wouldst bear thy baggage,
Upon the bridge let not thy footsteps linger.’

But the only interpretation of this can be that love is to be valued not as respecting the worth of the thing being loved, but only as a path to the only real object of the Sufi’s esteem, which is God. This makes it a consequentialist approach only – but one which requires that you pretend to be unaware of the consequentialist justification for the love that you are determined to feel.

Nicholson then remarks, with words that must be true for anyone committed to the extreme unity thesis that the Sufis defended (or, rather, that they mouthed adherence to,) that

Inevitably such a man will love his fellow-men. Whatever cruelty they inflict upon him, he will perceive only the chastening hand of God, “whose bitters are very sweets to the soul.”

And the consequence of this would have to be that any evils that the Sufi does to another ought equally to be seen by that other as “the chastening hand of God,” and this will be especially the case when the Sufi presumes to have achieved the sought-after Union with God, and to be able to declare with al-Hallaj that “I am the Truth.” The man who takes these moral consequences seriously would be a monster of egotism, not a saint.

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Remnants of the Great Bear Cult in Punxsutawney

February 4, 2012 – 10:51 pm

I’ve just read a brief article about Punxsutawney Phil by Stephanie Pappas at the LiveScience site. She mentions that:

relying on rodents as forecasters may date back to the early days of Christianity in Europe, when clear skies on Candlemas Day (Feb. 2) were said to herald cold weather ahead. In Germany, the tradition morphed into a myth that if the sun came out on Candlemas, a hedgehog would cast its shadow, predicting snow all the way into May. When German immigrants settled in Pennsylvania, they transferred the tradition onto local fauna, replacing hedgehogs with groundhogs.

Actually, I have heard that the tradition goes back considerably further than indicated there. Rhys Carpenter in his (1958) book on ‘Folk Tale, Fiction and Saga in the Homeric Epics’ (pp. 152-5) traces the custom to the ancient Bear cult of Europe, via the myth of Salmoxis, which read great significance into the resurrection of that hibernating animal from his long Winter sleep. All trace of the human sacrifice that was originally involved has happily disappeared, and the shamanic pretensions of travel to the underworld with the bear spirit have gone with it, but some small remnants of the cult remain.

In Silesia, Hungary, and Carinthia the feast of Candlemas [Feb. 2 – six weeks from the Winter solstice] is still bear’s-day in popular observance; and on that precise day (it is maintained) the hibernating bear emerges to see whether or not he casts a shadow: if he sees his shadow he must retire again for six more weeks of winter.

…

[I]f we will think back all the way to the Arcadian bear cult on Mount Lykaion and remember that in that hallowed precinct the bear lost his shadow, because the shadow is the soul and the living being which descends into the underworld of death must leave its soul down there … we shall understand that the bear emerging from his deathlike winter sleep, having lain as one dead, must have left his shadow behind him. If he has not done so, if an accusing shadow moves besides him in the wan springtime sunlight, he has not truly been among the dead and he must go back and properly sleep his winter sleep of the full six weeks before he can finally emerge again to announce the rebirth of the world and the imminence of the springtide.

The adherents of the bear cult transferred their attention to other animals when bears became scarce. In Germany the humble badger took the honours, and when Germans moved to America they gave the part to the friendly little Groundhog – who inspires no awe or terror of the otherworld.

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Does Mars have Value?

February 4, 2012 – 7:17 pm

“Assuming that terraforming Mars would work, would doing so violate a moral obligation to leave Mars and other worlds alone?” The question is asked by Bailey (“Does Mars Have Rights” Reason, Feb. 2012) The question of moral rights for rocks can be addressed by reference to any appropriate ethical theory, but one version of this – which I recall hearing at a seminar once, and I’ve read repeatedly, is that (unspoiled) Mars has an intrinsic value that should weigh in our moral calculations when considering terraforming. It’s the sort of claim that is often made for the preservation of more mundane wilderness areas which are supposed to have some intrinsic value that trumps the value that their development would have. The proponents of such views rarely explain what kind of thing value is, how these objects get their value, whether these values are in fact morally weighty, or how weighty they are. It’s an open question in value theory whether all values are commensurable, whether they are all independent, and so on. Until these questions are answered we can’t even tell whether accepting the claim of intrinsic value for Mars would have the claimed consequences for action wrt Mars; I think, however, that the common sense view of values indicates that it would not.

Consider the most basic statements regarding values (easiest to understand, most likely to be accepted by competent language users, etc. ) It’s easy enough to grasp what is meant when we say that we value something, or that something has value for us. If I say that I value a beautiful object – say, Botticelli’s Venus – then I mean that I prefer that object to other comparable objects, say the painting of dogs playing poker or the green lady behind a tree. ‘Preference’ can be defined operationally in whatever way seems reasonable. In general, to say that something, X, has a value for some agent, A, is to say that there is a quality or property of X that features in A’s preference assignments in a certain way. If X has an appropriate property or quality, say Q, then X will be given a positive value by A; meaning that, other things being equal, A will prefer X with Q to something without Q. To say this is not to say that the quality or property possessed by X is a value, it is rather to say that there is a particular way A has of assigning preferences that references those properties and qualities rather than others. In the example given, our valuation might be affected by the colour balance of the painting, but ‘colour balance’ doesn’t have to be a value, it only has to be valued or to contribute to a valuation in certain circumstances. (Nevertheless, the common way of speaking often will make these properties and qualities ‘values.’)

In other circumstances we can also say that something, X, has a value, tout court. But this lacks the relativisation to any valuer and thus is divorced from the process of preference assignment that is fundamental to the explanation of something having value for an agent.  We can restore the relativisation if we take such a statement to mean that for any A that we take to be a relevant agent, X has a value for A. So I can say that the beautiful object – say, Botticelli’s Venus – has (positive) aesthetic value: but by this I mean that this painting is valuable for everyone whom I regard as being a relevant valuer of the painting. (It might be that I would exclude philistines or imbeciles or other categories of presumptively ‘defective’ valuer; or I might take the attitude that my class of relevant agents is restricted to a small list of those who know. Those are details that needn’t detain us.)

Understanding ‘X has value’ in that way has at least two other advantages: first, it is plausibly the natural way that we would come to express the idea that something has a value for any relevant A; and second, any alternative would seem to involve connecting two different meanings under the single verb ‘value.’ At the very least, the onus would be on those rejecting the proposed interpretation to show the advantages of their alternative.  

Assuming that this is the right way to think of valuing things, or of things having value, it is equally reasonable to suppose that there are different kinds of value. Nothing in the nature of preference requires that there is only one source of preference rankings, however much the prudentialists and moralists and rational actors might wish it to be otherwise. We value things for their beauty, or for their sentimental value, or for their utility, or for their contribution to the advance of projects that we love, or for any of a vast number of other reasons – and there is nothing, prima facie, to indicate that they are all versions of the same value. Now some of these ‘valued’ qualities are pretty straightforward, and the way that they feature is no great mystery – for example, things which contribute to my own well-being are going to have value insofar as I have a preference for pursuing my own self-interest. Other things, like beauty, are a little more puzzling. But the source of the value – the reason why and the manner in which it features in those preference assignments – doesn’t affect the fact of the thing having value.

Thus, on our story, there are as many values – aesthetic values, moral values, social values, alethic value, etc.  – as there are different ways of assigning preferences to things in the world, and that these different ways reference different sets of properties and qualities. In fact, more than just arguing that this should be the default position, I would argue that if we take preference assignment to be anything but a purely rational function, then we make it a part of our sentimental nature, and thus a part of nature subject to contingent evolutionary, cultural, historical, and biological forces, and therefore almost certainly pluralistic in nature.

In any case, the naïve story of value, the story which is the interpretation of least resistance, indicates that unless a thing, like Mars, has a moral value – yet to be established – it cannot be claimed that there are moral claims inherent in the thing itself; and it cannot be said that just because one valuer finds value in a thing that all must find the same value; and it can’t be claimed that just because it is accepted that a thing has value, that that necessarily has moral consequences. (In all of this I’m ignoring the question of respect for the things that others value for whatever reason.)

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Principal Figures in the Development of Sufism

January 31, 2012 – 12:44 am

	Person		Uwais Qarni (ob. 657 AD)
		Texts		-
		Themes		Awareness of Muhammad’s spiritual presence ‘Uwaisi’ transmission of barakah
	Person		Rabi’a al-Basri (717-801 AD)
		Texts		-
		Themes		Post-asceticism Love mysticism and mystical union
Beginning of Sufism and its methodology of illumination
	Person		Harith al-Muhasibi al-Basri (781-857 AD)
		Texts		Ri’yala li-Huquq Allah [Method of Religious Observance]
		Themes		First analysis of the interior life
	Person		Dhu’l-Nun al-Misri (796-859)
		Texts		-
		Themes		Introduced ma’rifa [gnosis] Read hieroglyphs
	Person		Abu Yazid (Bayazid) al-Bistami (ob. 874/877/878)
		Texts		-
		Themes		‘Intoxication’ Ejaculations [shathiyyat] (e.g. “subhani” [“Glory to me!”]) Doctrine of fana’ [annihilation] and baqa [continuance] Ascended to the Throne of God
	Person		Hasan al-Basri (830-910)
		Texts		-
		Themes		‘Sobriety’ Theory of Union Features in the silsilah ofmany orders
	Person		Junayd Baghdadi (830-910)
		Texts		Kitabu’l-Fana’ [Book of the Annihilation in God]
		Themes		‘Sobriety’ Theory of Union Features in the silsilah ofmany orders
	Person		Mansur al-Hallaj  (c. 858-922 AD)
		Texts		Kitabu’l-Tawasin
		Themes		Ecstatic (e.g. “ana’l-Haqq” [“I am the Truth!”]) God is Love Foundations laid for Doctrine of Perfect Man (ibn ‘Arabi) Student of Junayd Martyred
	Person		Abu Nasr al-Sarraj al-Tusi
		Texts		Kitabu’l-Luma’
		Themes		First systematic general works on Sufism
	Person		Abu Talib al-Makki (ob. 996)
		Texts		Qutu’l-Qulub [Nourishment of the Heart]
		Themes		First systematic general works on Sufism
Sufism begins to become pantheistic and antinomian. Influence of Greeks?
	Person		Abu Sa’id abu’l-Khayr (967-1049)
		Texts		-
		Themes		Love poems as a genre of Sufi writing Law is for the lower stages of the path: forbade the Haj to his students
	Person		Ali Hujwiri (c. 990-1077)
		Texts		Kashfu’l-Mahjub [Revelation of the Veiled]
		Themes		Complained about doctrinal disorder in Sufism
	Person		Abu ‘l Qasim al-Qushayri (986-1074)
		Texts		Risala [Epistle]
		Themes		Delivered an early classic of Sufi practice
	Person		Abu Hamid Ghazali (1058-1111)
		Texts		Ihya’ ‘ulumu’l-Din [Renewal of the Religious Sciences] Kimiya-yi Sa’adat [The Alchemy of Happiness] Mishkatu’i-Anwar [The Niche of Lights]
		Themes		The reunification of Sufism and Islamic orthodoxy Revelations of saints supplement those of the prophets
Influences from Athens and Alexandria become overwhelming Pantheism replaces the ‘interpersonal’ relation to Allah ‘Monastic’ institutions of Sufi orders form
	Person		Muhyi’ddin Ibnu’l-‘Arabi (1165-1240)
		Texts		Futuhat al-Makkiyya [Meccan Revelations] Fususu’l-Hikam [Bezels of Wisdom] Tarjumanu’l-Ashwaq[Interpreter of Desires]
		Themes		“wahdatu’l-wujud” [“Unity of Existence”] World is aspect of God, and in Man God becomes conscious of Himself Al-Insan al-Kamil [The Perfect Man] Met three times with Khidr
Return of personal, experiential focus in Persian Sufism
	Person		Umar Ibnu’l-Farid (1181-1235)
		Texts		Nazm al-suluk [The Sufi Way]
		Themes		A mystic poet for the Arabs
	Person		Sana’i Ghaznavi (ob. 1131)
		Texts		Hadiqatu’l-Haqiqa [Garden of Truth]
		Themes		First Persian mystical epic of Sufism
	Person		Faridu’ddin ‘Attar (1145/6-1221)
		Texts		Mantiqu’l-Tayr [Parliament of Fowles] Tadhkiratu’l-Awliyah [Memorial of the Saints]
		Themes		Poet
	Person		Sa’di
		Texts		Bostan [Orchard] Gulistan [Rose Garden]
		Themes		Poet
	Person		Jalalu’ddin Rumi (1207-1273)
		Texts		Mathnawi- Ma’nawi [Spiritual Couplets] Diwan-e Shams-e Tabrizi [Works of S-e T] Fihi Ma Fihi [In It What Is In It]
		Themes		Poet An ascetic after meeting dervish Shams-e Tabrizi Founder of Maulawi / Mevlevi dervishes
	Person		Hafez-e Shirazi (1325/1326–1389/1390)
		Texts		Diwan [Works]
		Themes		Poet
	Person		Nur ad-Din Abd ar-Rahman Jami (1414–1492)
		Texts		Diwan [Collection] Haft Awrang [Seven Thrones]
		Themes		Poet Distinguished ‘prophetic’ and ‘mystic’ Sufis

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A Note on a Second Doctrine of Worlds

January 25, 2012 – 11:55 pm

The Koran can be used to support the claim that there are multiple worlds - but only if we take the language extremely literally (e.g at [1:1],) and it gives no real indication of how these worlds should be understood. There are several distinct cosmologies that have currency in different branches of Islamic thought; the cosmology inherent in the chart of the tazkiyat an nafs is just one of them. There is also a ‘gnostic’ cosmology that is also included in the Sufi manuals but seems to fit only uneasily into the other cosmological views. It seems, however, that Sufis were urged to at least to bear in mind this version of the progression of the soul through the various worlds. In essence it is simple enough: the aspiring gnostic travels by means of the bridges from lower to higher worlds - but I cannot find how it was made consistent with the ‘seven stages’ cosmology given earlier. A very rough outline of the shape of the gnostic universe can be seen in this chart below.

‘Alam (World)		Mode of Transition		Nafs (Soul)
Lahut (Divine)			Haqiqat (Truth)
	GodheadImperceptible, as all is OneCreative Imperative*			Ammara
Jabarut (Dynamic)
			Tariqah (Path)
	Celestial worldPerceived through becoming part of God’s natureIntelligence*			Lawwama
Malakut (Angelic)
			Shari’ah (Law)
	Spiritual worldPerceived through insight Soul*			Mutma’inna
Nasut (Human)
	Physical worldPerceived through the senses

* From an extract of Tanzih al-Awliya by Shaikh Abu’l-Qasim Khan Ibrahimi in Corbin op. cit. p. 240 ff.

This is mostly a diagram of information from J. Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam (OUP, 1971) pp.159ff but it is very difficult to discover anything further on the matter. And what one does find is often contradictory. The information diagrammed is referred to Isma’il ibn M. Sa’id (ed.) Al-Fuyadat ar-Rabbaniyya, Cairo: 1354/1935 quoting ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, but the same pages of Trimingham describe a version in which shari’a is the path followed in Nasut, tariqah is the path by which one reaches Malakut, Ma’rifa (Gnosis) is the path by which one reaches Jabarut, and one then falls into the state Fana’or ‘Alam al Ghaib (Mystery.) According to H. Corbin Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth (NJ: Bollingen (PUP), 1977) p. 59 the schema according to Suhrawardi consisted of just three worlds, the highest of which was Jabarut, taken to be the celestial Earth Hurqalya. The next higher world (here, Lahut) is introduced by the Shaikhites, recapitulating a speculation of ibn ‘Arabi (p. 59.)

The ‘Worlds’ above do feature very prominently in Shi’ite ‘Imamology’, a structural homologue in Shi’ite gnosticism to the Christology of the Christian gnostics. To speak much too briefly, the worlds are a feature of a cosmology that creates the grounds for the possibility of earthly imams. How this can be of any significance to Sufic doctrine or practice remains a mystery to me, though the commonality of inspiration and initiation and ‘wilayat’ in the two branches of Islamic mysticism must be involved.

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Where are the Arguments for Constitutional Reform?

January 23, 2012 – 11:04 am

Responding to no public call whatsoever, a ‘Panel of Experts’ has prepared a proposal for constitutional reform. The proposal is for the Recognition of ATSI in the Australian Constitution. Given that Australia is hardly crying out for this amendment, and that the Constitution with the very small number of amendments that have been made since 1901 has given general satisfaction, one might think that the Panel of Experts would feel bound to begin by providing some argument in justification of the proposal. But this is not the case. The only arguments that we are offered for this alteration to the legal fabric of the nation are those which have been collected - as an incidental matter - from the submissions made to the Panel by those with an interest in the proposed changes. We are not told whether the Panel finds these to be cogent.

Before we go on to look at these offerings let’s remind ourselves of what a constitution is and what it is supposed to do. In general terms it is understood to be “The system or body of fundamental principles according to which a nation, state, or body politic is constituted and governed.” (OED, sv.) And the Expert Panel itself describes the Australian Constitution in its FAQ file as

[T]he set of rules by which Australia is run. It sets out how Parliament works, what powers it has, how federal and state governments share power, and the roles of Executive Government (that is, the ministers) and the High Court.

It is not, therefore, a set of aspirations, feelings, declarations of appreciation, cake recipes, TV schedules, etc. or anything else not relevant to the actual constitution of a state, nation, or body politic. Of course, it is possible to include anything at all into a document merely called a constitution, but the dangers of doing do should be fairly obvious: this is a document that is going to be used to determine the types of laws that may or must be made, and those laws will be as close to permanent as a legal regime can make it. It is essential that nothing goes in except what is absolutely required and that it says exactly and no more than what is explicitly intended by those who are to live under the laws thus authorized.

So, what arguments for amendment are offered? Well, on p. 68 we find these bullet points:

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples occupy a unique position in Australian society as the first peoples and original custodians of the land, and therefore should have special recognition in the Constitution;

This is a straightforward appeal to special treatment - but it makes no reference to the sort of special treatment that should follow from this special status. What sorts of laws follow naturally from the fact of that specialness? And why is that claim to specialness more significant than a claim that the British or some other group could make? The constitution is not the place to make ‘acknowledgements:’ the danger of harm from laws being interpreted in the light of such ‘acknowledgement’ is just too great. It’s especially inappropriate in the body of the Constitution, but the danger is not much less if it is put in the preamble, for, no matter what the proponents might say, it would be inevitable (and probably correct) for the judicial interpreters of the Constitution to take into account the framing material when trying to understand the intent of the laws in the body of the document.

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should be guaranteed equality before the law, and the Constitution should be free from racially discriminatory clauses;

Quite right. And so should members of many other identifiable groups. But this is the role of a Bill of Rights. Australia is currently engaged in another uncalled-for debate on the possibility of a Bill of Rights, and it has not had general acceptance outside the political elites - for the quite obvious reason that they think they can use it to further their own agenda by getting judges (who belong to that elite and largely share their interests) to declare policies of which they approve to be fundamental law without the inconvenience of having to go to the people of the country or their representatives in the legislature. It is a profoundly undemocratic proposal in its intentions and in its likely application. This argument would be welcome to Bill of Rights proponents as a camel’s nose for further encroachment on the people’s ability to govern itself.

• constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is overdue;

This is at best, a repeat of the first (quasi-)argument, with the added claim that recognition is overdue. Nothing unnecessary and dangerous is overdue.

• constitutional recognition will more accurately reflect Australia’s history and national identity; and

The constitution does not need to reflect Australia’s history: if anything it represents a break from the past. If the Constitution was supposed to be telling a story about the colonization of Australia or the cultural history of its peoples, this might be a cogent critique: but that is not the intended role of this document.

• recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution is important for recognising and protecting their unique cultures.

Special pleading part two.

This section finishes with a bit of a grab bag of ‘other reasons’ on p. 70:

… furthering reconciliation [hardly a constitutional function,] updating the Constitution with contemporary values [such as?,] and improving democratic processes and citizenship [how?] Achieving better social and economic outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples [special pleading of the most egregious sort,] as well as enhanced recognition of rights to lands and waters, culture and languages, and self-determination, [unnecessary, and even running contrary to the unity of the Commonwealth] ….

Further clues to the reasoning were given in the FAQ file of the Panel:

Why should Australians support constitutional change?

First, not all citizens are treated equally under the Australian Constitution. While racial discrimination is no longer accepted in our community, in our workplaces or in our daily lives, the Constitution permits laws that discriminate on the basis of race. For example, section 51 (the ‘race power’) states:

The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to:

… (xxvi) the people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws …

As I say, removing the ‘Race Powers’ would be a good thing, but it is not good because it removes the word ‘race’ from the constitution, but because it removes the discriminatory power of the state with respect to illegitimate or unjustifiable distinctions amongst the people of Australia. The reintroduction of exactly that power by the other proposed amendments, with the proviso that discrimination is required for the advantage of one tiny minority above others is no great improvement.

Second, while Australians value and celebrate the unique contribution Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art and culture has made to our national identity, the Constitution, Australia’s founding document, gives no acknowledgment of the place of Indigenous Australians in our nation’s history or our contemporary society.

Nor should it.

Third, many people believe that constitutional recognition would serve as a powerful symbol of the nation’s desire to embrace Indigenous Australians in a spirit of true reconciliation.

The Constitution might be the single least ‘symbolic’ item in Australian life.

What benefits will constitutional recognition have for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians?

Constitutional recognition would help create mutual trust and respect leading to stronger relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians and other Australians.

It would be a big step towards reconciliation, demonstrating the commitment of non- Indigenous Australians to acknowledge the place and contribution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in our nation’s history and contemporary society.

Constitutional recognition would contribute to raising the self-esteem of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as well as improving their social and emotional wellbeing.

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists published a report noting that mental health benefits would result from constitutional recognition.

Constitutional recognition could include removing racially discriminatory provisions in the Constitution and enhance the legal protection provided by the Constitution for all Australians.

It would be tedious to continue to fisk this item by item, but a special mention for pure chutzpah has to go to the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists. (Note that there is not even a gesture at support for the claim that Constitutional recognition in itself has mental health effects in the College’s Position Statement 68, Recognition of Indigenous People in the Australian Constitution, September 2011.)

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Race and the Constitution

January 21, 2012 – 5:24 pm

Responding to no apparent public call whatsoever, a panel of ‘experts’ has prepared a proposal for reform of the Constitution of Australia. The proposal is for the Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders in the Australian Constitution. The proposal includes these main points (p. 230:)

Item 1

Repeal section 25 and section 51(xxvi) of the Constitution.

Section 25 states that:

For the purposes of the last section, if by the law of any State all persons of any race are disqualified from voting at elections for the more numerous House of the Parliament of the State, then, in reckoning the number of the people of the State or of the Commonwealth, persons of the race resident in that State shall not be counted.

Section 51 (xxvi) states that:

[The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to] [t]he people of any race, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws.

And removing these seems to be a good way of removing the possibility of the Commonwealth instituting racially discriminatory laws. But the next item makes it clear that what the drafters have in mind is that there should not be the possibility of laws that disadvantage the members of one particular race; and, in fact, that legislators should be encouraged to create race-based laws to the advantage of that lucky minority. Thus:

Item 2

Insert after section 51:

Section 51A Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

Recognising that the continent and its islands now known as Australia were first occupied by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;

Acknowledging the continuing relationship of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with their traditional lands and waters;

Respecting the continuing cultures, languages and heritage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;

Acknowledging the need to secure the advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples;

the Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

To see just how obnoxious this is in principle, and how little it is justified by the legislatively irrelevant pabulum that precedes it, let us imagine the following supplementary proposal :

Item 2.1

Insert after section 51A:

Section 51B Recognition of British and Irish peoples

Recognising that the Commonwealth of Australia was created by this Constitution in an act of the British and Irish people under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland;

Acknowledging the continuing relationship of those peoples and their descendants with the states and territories of this Commonwealth;

Respecting the continuing culture, language and heritage of those peoples and their descendants;

Acknowledging the need to secure the advancement of those peoples and their descendants;

the Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to those peoples and their descendants.

I think its chances of passage would be quite slim.

And just to rub home the racially discriminatory point, the Panel further proposes that:

Item 3

Insert after section 116:

Section 116A Prohibition of racial discrimination

(1)    The Commonwealth, a State or a Territory shall not discriminate on the grounds of race, colour or ethnic or national origin.

(2)    Subsection (1) does not preclude the making of laws or measures for the purpose of overcoming disadvantage, ameliorating the effects of past discrimination, or protecting the cultures, languages or heritage of any group.

I doubt that ‘any group’ will be applied to any other group than the only race that is mentioned in the amended constitution; especially when that mention is also in terms of the ability of the Commonwealth to make laws in providing advantages for that race, and includes the acknowledgement to ‘culture, language, and heritage.’

In any case, this is more appropriately put in a separate Bill of Rights, which has failed to be approved when proposed.

The last item falls under the category of miscellanea:

Item 4

Insert as section 127A:

Section 127A Recognition of languages

(1)      The national language of the Commonwealth of Australia is English.

(2)      The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages are the original Australian languages, a part of our national heritage.

But the other sections in this chapter deal with the location of the Commonwealth’s capital and the ability of the Governor General to appoint deputies. It’s reasonable – though pointless – to stipulate that the official language is English; but what is the point of 127(A)2? How does this contribute to the legal structure of the Commonwealth?

This proposal is a complete dog’s breakfast, and is transparently designed to enshrine racial preferences for a particular race – coincidentally, the one to which many of the panel claim to belong. ‘Race powers’ are explicitly eschewed, but that is merely a formality, for the Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders are a people that the law elsewhere sees as a race or races. (Incitement to hatred of ATSI is seen as a racial offence, not an offence against ‘peoples.’)

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Knowing Himself

January 21, 2012 – 11:52 am

The captain of the Costa Concordia is accused of cowardice and dereliction of duty in the aftermath of the ship’s sinking. In the Guardian (where no behavior is too appalling to find a defender) Bruce Hood, therefore steps up to his defence with the too-usual line:

“Schettino will undoubtedly be vilified for his actions - but how many of us can say that we would not have done the same thing?”

This is excuse-making dressed as humility. I can only say that, in so far as I cannot know the future, I cannot know what I might do; but in so far as I know myself, I know that I would not do that.

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Sufi Schemata for Tazkiyat an-Nafs

January 19, 2012 – 2:34 pm

Tazkiyat an-nafs (‘Purification’/'Augmenation’ of nafs) can be taken as the essence of the Sufi tariqat, and it has Koranic support:

“By the soul and That which shaped it, and inspired it to its depravity and its godwariness. Prosperous is he who purifies it, and failed has he who buries it”

(91:7-10, tr. W. Chittick Intro to Sufism, p. 41. Note the alternatives ‘corrupts’ or ‘stunts’ to Chittick’s ‘buries’)

On this small piece of worthy advice the Sufis have constructed a vast and elaborate schema of purification. The process has been regularized into sets of stages and stations that provided a usable guide to murshid/bureaucrats of the soul, and so standardised forms of the progress of the soul are described (with variations) in the charts that commonly appear in Sufi handbooks. The following example is given in Trimingham, J. The Sufi Orders in Islam (OUP, 1971) p.152-4. (Ref. to As-Sanusi, M. ibn ‘Ali, As-Salsabil al-ma’in fi ‘t-tara’iq al-arba’in p. 105, (section dealing with Khalwatiyya) on margin of his Al-masa’il al-‘ashar - or Bughyat al-maqasid fi khalasat al marasid - Cairo (1353/1935.)) Interestingly enough, this was apparently devised for philosophical reasons by Ibn Sina in Risalat at-Tair (L. Cheiko ed., in al-Mashriq, iv (1901), pp. 882-7) and adapted to Sufic purposes by (probably Ahmed) al-Ghazali  in Risala at-Tair (L. Cheiko ed., op. cit., pp. 918-24.)

Soul	Carnal (ammara)	Admonishing (lawwama)	Inspired (mulhama)	Tranquil (mutma’inna)	Contented (radiyya)	Approved (mardiyya)	Perfected (safiyya wa kamila)
Journey	To God	By God’s power	Upon God	With God	Within God	From God	Into God
World	Of Evidence (the senses)	Of the Isthmus [Purgatorial]	Of the Spirits	Of Reality	Of Principles	Of the Unseen	Of Plurality and Oneness
State	Inclination to Lusts	Love	Passion	Union	Passing Away	Bewilderment	Abiding in God
Abode	Breast	Heart	Spirit	The Mystery (of the Heart)	The Mystery of the Mystery	The Inmost	The Covert (‘Ground’) of the Mystery
	Shari’a	Tariqa	Ma’rifa	Haqiqa	Wilaya	Dhat ash-Shari’a (Essence of the Revealed Law)	Dhat al-Kull
Light	Blue	Yellow	Red	White	Green	Black	Colourless

Only three of these forms of the nafs actually have Koranic support:

ammara:             “Yet I claim not that my nafs was innocent: Verily the nafs of man incites to evil.”[12:53]

lawwama:          ‘Self that blames (itself.)’ [75:2]

mutma’inna:     ‘Self that is at peace (with God.)’ [89:27]

The rest are speculation.

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A Note on the Hadith of the Hidden Treasure

January 16, 2012 – 9:03 am

Much of the Sufi theory regarding the place of Man in the created cosmos is said to derive from the so-called ‘Hadith of the Hidden Treasure’ (hadith-e kanz-i makhfi), which is a hadith qudsi (meaning it is a statement attributed to God himself.) It is mentioned, for example, by Rumi, saying (Fihi ma Fihi (pdf), Discourse 17, p. 143 in the online edition of Arberry’s translation:)

God says, “I was a hidden treasure, so I loved to be known.”

The import of the hadith is that the function of Man is the worship of God, and also that God so loved the world that he created it in order to be loved by it. The centrality of love to the Sufi way is largely explicable (or at least is explained) by reference to the centrality of love in the act of creation. Given this importance, I thought it would be worthwhile checking its provenance and the fuller context of that short quote. What I found was that it is not accepted as an authentic hadith by the orthodox schools who ought to consider it to be a false (da’if, or even mawdu’) hadith.

This is admitted by Ibn ‘Arabi (to whom it is of particular importance) who is quoted as saying (Futuhat al Makkiyya 3:399 Bab 198:) 

 

It came in the hadith that is sahih per unveiling (kasht) but unestablished (ghayr thabit) per transmission from the Messenger of Allah from his Lord that He said something in the meaning of this ‘I was a hidden treasure and was not known; I loved to be known, therefore I created creation and made Myself known to them so that they came to know Me.’

 

N1.      The reference is from Gibril Fuad Haddad [http://mac.abc.se/home/onesr/d/hth_e.pdf.] In Chittick The Sufi Path of Knowledge (Suny: Albany, 1989) p391n14, the reference to this is given as II 399.28. Since I have no access to Ibn ‘Arabi’s Futuhat, I cannot check this.

N2.      Ibn ‘Arabi did not confuse this form of hadith qudsi with other more orthodox forms, as is clear from the fact that the ‘hidden treasure’ hadith does not appear in his Mishkat al-Anwar, a collection of 101 such hadiths with their chains of transmission.

The hadith itself is, however, consistent with, and even supported by, other accepted texts. For example, in the Koran (5:54) we hear “He loves them, and they love Him,” and (51:56) “I created the Jinns and humankind only that they may worship me.” According to Al Qari in his al-Asrar al-Marfu’atu fil-Akhbar al-Mawdu’a (ref. Haddad above) ibn Taymiyya said that there was no isnad for this tradition, but that it was a true statement (ma‘nahu sahih) in any case. Haddad’s note to this deals briefly with the various opinions as to the validity of kashf – which seems to mean revelation through (waking) dream encounters with Muhammad. The general opinion is apparently not favourable, though some authorities are willing to accept that where the meaning of a hadith has achieved consensus in the ‘ulema it should not be held against it that its only positive evidence is the dream testimony reported by a saint.

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