The Names of God (6): al-Rabb, "the Lord and Nourisher"

Adnan Hussain: Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Salam, hello, peace to you all, and welcome to another edition of the Names of God series. I'm Adnan Hussain, medieval Mediterranean and Islamicate world historian at Queen's University, and I'm joined as ever by my co-hosts, Dr. Mark Applebaum, a phenomenological psychologist. Mark, it's great to see you. It's been a little while since we last recorded our episode five. This is episode six. It's great to see you. Same. Great to move into more uncharted territory. Oh, indeed. Yeah. The name that we're going to be discussing today and things connected with the name is Arab. translated often as the Lord. But I think, you know, we'll have a lot to say about how we might modulate that as we continue in the discussion. But I think the first thing to acknowledge at the outset is that this is a name that's included in the divine names, a mystical theology of the names of God in the Quran. And as we've pointed out in the past, he is not limiting his discussion to the 99 devotionally recognized names. And even then, there are variations in what's included. But for many listeners who are familiar with the tradition on the 99 names, they may think, well, Rab is obviously a descriptor of God, but it's not one of the 99 names. But We're following Clemsani's account of descriptions of God, names of God that appear in the Quran and he goes in order. And since we're still in Fatiha, the opening surah of the Quran, we have a verse that includes, you know, Rabb al-Alamin, Lord of the worlds. And so he dedicates a discussion to it while pointing out that somebody like al-Ghazali, who follows the typical, Abu Huraira Hadith, that is a devotional listing of the 99 names. One version of them doesn't count it as one of the names, but he mentions that al-Bayhati and Ibn Barajan, two other scholars that have written on the topic whom he consults, have included it.

Mark Applebaum: Yeah. And in a way where, to Lumsani's method here, he's reading through the Quran, and we could say that wherever he encounters an attribute, he's going to say, well, this is properly God's and therefore it's a name. So his list of the names is going to be more expansive. So when he sees Rob, he'll say, well, some will agree with this, some will not recognize this as a name, but ultimately the possessor of all these attributes and actions is the one, is God. And in the case of this one, even though I think we're right to say Lord, he's going to talk all about nourisher, the nourisher. He's going to view that largely through Rab in the light of like tarbiyah or nourishing or upbringing.

Adnan Hussain: right uh that's a important point because uh we might think of it as just wielding of power i mean that's often what we think of a lord is a you know a person with political power and a higher social status but the definition here that's relevant it seems to understanding the attributes associated with this name of god is the root word that means to make wholesome, as he points out, rub. And the word for proper, educative nurturing is tarbiyah, which comes from this word. And so we'll probably talk about nurturing, the nurturer. But one component that I thought was interesting is it's also this educative function, right? Tarbiyah is often also used for, as you were saying, upbringing, educating, like teaching how to be whole and good and, you know, to have a proper kind of conduct, we might say in a kind of typical sort of way but maybe we might from the more phenomenological sort of way to have a healthy sense of one's self in relation to others yeah and i think uh things like that all come into it you know so yeah and phenomenologically you could say um

Mark Applebaum: You know, if we read someone like Clemsani's discussion about the names, which states itself as experiential, right, not theoretical. So we could at least say that for him, the preponderant quality of Rab is that of nurturance. And the marbub, the one who's on the receiving end of nurturing, the is the one who's being nurtured by that other in that relationship. And that's just an opportunity. Hopefully I don't lose people with my poor Arabic, but it's an opportunity to remind us that Lord and servant are a pair of terms in Islam generally, but actually the same would be true in a different way in Judaism. Lord and servant in the monotheism are these pair of terms. The one implies the other. One is in relationship to the other.

Adnan Hussain: Yeah. You know, maybe we can probe in a moment further how that relationship works. Two things that occurred to me at the outset is that if we're taking this kind of upbringing, educative, nurturing kind of component and function, I mean, both of us are you know, educators in our way. You know, I'm a parent and, you know, I don't know if I've done much educating or teaching, but I think that's what you're supposed to do. It is important. But so there's this kind of relationship where the experience may be kind of hierarchical at the beginning, or at least seem hierarchical at the beginning. But of course, we experience teaching as also learning in a dialectical relationship. The experience of the learner is know maybe at the outset there seems to be a big gap between the knowledge you know or the experience of the teacher of the rub you know in this case but that yeah as you grow and progress you change and your relationship becomes more whole and healthy and so maybe that's some one component too that You know, we can think of not on an ontological level, but the experience of teachers and learning and that each teacher can't really be a teacher without having somebody who is a learner. And in the process of establishing that relationship, you might also become a learner yourself.

Mark Applebaum: yeah the t the the the learner might you know become a teacher depending on yeah so let's not be too fast to leave the ontology out because uh because um i think you're right to start i really like the direction you're going in because there's a developmental path that that's built into that where um and we know this as teachers, the aim of a teacher is not to keep people at the same level that they are, not to keep people the same level they are when they walk in the door. It's the opposite, right? So the teacher-student relationship at its best is intended to become something, to continue to change and develop. And so developmentally, like the student is not meant to stay in that strict asymmetry. with a teacher. And this might, I don't know, again, like this might be drifting a bit for some people who are not educators in the audience right now. But, you know, I was talking to a friend who's a mother of young children, and she's trying to instill in them reflectiveness precisely so that they develop into adults, of course, right? This is, I think, where you were going with parenthood. And the ontological parallel to this, to get fancy, is that in the Sufis we're going to see, especially the Akbarians, we're going to see that there isn't just one mode of this lord-servant relationship. There's different modes depending on the capacity and the stage of maturity of that individual person.

Adnan Hussain: Yeah, no, that's interesting. That stimulates a lot of kind of thoughts about the developmental dimension, since that is, you know, in effect, what we're hoping the series can do is... allow people to develop on their path. And it reminds me that even though Al-Ghazali, for example, doesn't use this as one of the 99 names that he discusses, but it made me think about what I consider the project of the Ihya al-Uloom al-Din, his great masterwork for which he is best known in some sense that was a kind of synthesis of Sufi understanding of the religion so that it dealt with a lot of topics that you might find in a law book, a book of fiqh, of proper practice. And he doesn't spend a lot of time in all the details. He covers some basics and says, follow the right, follow whatever you're, kind of school of legal things might be, but understand when you're praying, there are levels of the experience of prayer and his goal is to deepen the meaning of that experience so that it's spiritually awakening. And I think of in a way, the whole project of that work is just as what you were describing is to enable those with the interest and the capacity to not be having to just imitatively concern themselves with external practice, but to give them the spiritual and ethical capacity to make judgments, you know, in life, in experience, and be able to respond to, you know, what's the right way. It's not like a question that just has to be submitted to a legal scholar, but is one that every, you know, alive person has to constantly be making these kinds of decisions for themselves and to give that capacity. So it's about that capacity. proactive developmental wholeness to a person that the rub you know might signify in the nourishing is the what is it that it's nourishing us with its nourishing it's a question of nourishing our our being In a way that is healthy, you know, is appropriate for us.

Mark Applebaum: Yeah. Mobile and mobilizing to the fullest possible degree, whatever attributes you have, whatever, however, whatever your formation is as an individual.

Adnan Hussain: Yeah, yeah. Well, you mentioned, I mean, maybe it's time to kind of get into some of this. You mentioned some of the distinctions and how they're discussed between lordship, you know, rububiyya, and servanthood, obudiyya, the abd and the rabb. rububiya, lordship, and obudiya, servanthood.

Mark Applebaum: Or devotee, or the one who's devoted.

Adnan Hussain: The other thing is that I wanted to say is that very often these translations, and even in our notes and discussion and from the translations that we're given, very often obudiya, abd is rendered a slave or servant, and ibadah is, but ibadah is worship. right and so the servanthood is also kind of worshipfulness in some ways it's like this the category of are you a true worshiper what does that mean to consciously direct your spiritual being in

Mark Applebaum: in prayer like what and performance of those prayers right right so this is a good example this is a good example of a moment in this kind of conversation we're having where plenty of people like i can imagine one group of people might be like hey i've never heard any of these arabic terms before i'm already kind of kind of getting lost and and another might say well no i i thought i i obviously knew what that meant what are you talking about so let me just slow down for a minute and say a few things about that because For those who are not conversant in some of the language that we're throwing out quickly, and I'm not an expert Arabist, but in Arabic, The word for servant, servanthood, devotee, and the act of devotion, like prayer, all come from the same root. They all come from the same root in Arabic. So there's a lot of play between these words. So it's like the embodiment or the fulfillment of devotion or being of service or being a servant, that is the same word that is prayer. So that's part of what we're alluding to in that regard. That's right.

Adnan Hussain: So abd is like servant and worshiper. Yeah. Right. And rab is Lord, but we're also saying nourisher, you know, in this way.

Mark Applebaum: So a lot of what we're opening up for people who are very familiar with these words, but who already have a normal way of understanding them naturally, like, well, of course, ibadah is prayer, right? Right. So a lot of what the play is, I think, in our conversation, Adnan, is to open up the interpretive field as much as possible to revisit the words that even might either they're foreign or they're already very familiar to people who might be listening to this. And just right not to be determinative. It must mean this or that, but rather to open up the conversation so that. even people who are very familiar more than, way more than me with the language, will open up to multiple possibilities, right?

Adnan Hussain: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's valuable and important and that's what's done, I mean, even, you know, this discussion from Tlemceni about Arab is meant to deepen with these other meanings and it actually, it struck me, you know, when reading it, His account that I expected a lot of discussion of rub and lordship. And instead, most of it was about nourishing and how to almost entirely.

Mark Applebaum: In fact, he actually says most people will think. And remember, he's saying this in the Middle Ages. Most people will think that Tarbiyah has to do with raising children only. Right, right. He actually says this in the book, right?

Adnan Hussain: Yeah.

Mark Applebaum: And of course it does. But he's inviting his reader to envision this as a core meaning of what would, again, for his audience, be normally associated with lordship.

Adnan Hussain: Yeah. Yeah. Well, a lot of people would be, you know, so what we're trying to do in some sense is give some nuance. And as you were saying, open up different possible understandings and meanings in these terms. But one thing that strikes people, of course, is this sense of the distance and the hierarchy. Right. Thank you. Yeah.

Mark Applebaum: Yeah.

Adnan Hussain: Great. Yeah. Maybe we want to come to like the ways in which the tradition interpreted some of the kind of stages and distinctions. And I think maybe we might come to an awareness and understanding that while there are hierarchical components and they can easily be interpreted. uh as the first stage is just thinking of hierarchies uh of um status here in this relationship um but that also may be what's being described are differentiations also of what you experience so yeah i don't know if you want to take us through maybe some of the classic distinctions um

Mark Applebaum: Well, maybe as a way of getting into that, like as a phenomenologist, just to give that perspective, when we're talking about something like rob or lord or lordship or lordship and servanthood, the first level of looking at that would be, okay, what's the everyday normal assumption in the culture that these Sufis are writing about, about what those things mean? What's the natural attitude? That would be the phenomenological term, natural attitude, meaning the ordinary attitude of everyday life about what those are. And one of them, I mean, I think this isn't that different today if we think about Lord and servant and the monotheisms. Oh, the Lord's up there and I'm down here. So either if I'm being a good servant is because I'm doing what I think the Lord wants me to do. And the Lord is somewhere else and I'm over here. And so it's a it's a it's a. that's the distance that you were bringing up, right? And so I'm making maybe a bit of a kind of cartoon out of it, but it's something like that. The relative, at least relative dualism is kind of taken for granted. And by dualism, I mean, the assumption is, oh, the Lord is somewhere else, or maybe the Lord's everywhere, but separately, somehow I'm me and I'm over here and the Lord's over there in some regard. So far, so good. I don't know. And I think that maybe the first level we could talk about then from there is the level or mode, if we want to be more generous, the mode of relating in that way, kind of natural attitude way, is referred to sometimes by people like Clemsani or other Akbarians or just generally in the Islamicate context as al-Awwam, just the majority of people.

Adnan Hussain: something like that right i mean often it's uh you know it means general yeah you know um and so general and special or specific particular particular yeah better is particular but it's very often um kind of translated as the common people i.e the general public uh in the words right yeah um And so there are some attributes of relation to this kind of status of the worshiper or the servant, servanthood in relation to the rub that applies in these discussions to the common level or general understanding. What we might say maybe is just the conventional understanding.

Mark Applebaum: understanding conventional but and also like developmentally useful let's say we could maybe even say that because and this this would be an exact parallel of course with medieval judaism of maimonides and people like that as well which is like okay the majority of people this is at least my read but please tell me if you see it differently like the majority of the people should just sort of follow the rules You know, don't kill, don't steal, right? Respect your elders. You know, the general good ethical conduct in community. So why do you do it? Because the Lord wants you to. The Lord commands you to. So this is that natural attitude level of envisioning your relationship with your Lord is the Lord is sort of up there somewhere. The Lord gave us these rules where we fulfill our servanthood by obeying them. And I think that, Adnan, I think we don't want to oversimplify or paint too rosy a picture of the whole full continuum of the meanings of something like servanthood. By the way, the Hebrew word is, as you know, very close. Avodah, I think it's close to the same Semitic roots, close enough to Abed. We don't want to like overly paint a rosy picture of, hey, nurture or nurturance. It's really beautiful. And I think I do want to dwell with that. But also this slave is there, too. So the full range of these meanings are there where, you know, so it'll be. And the culture is plural, allow for a very hierarchical interpretation. And certainly that's been around for the duration as well.

Adnan Hussain: Yeah, for sure. I mean, historically, you can't ignore that that is one deep resonance that not only is in the hierarchy of these spiritual terminologies and the ranks and how they interpret it, but also is one that drew its meaning from the fact that there were these social hierarchies that were the analogies that they were using. But I think what's interesting is that if we think about them, what happens with the mystical path, it seems to me, is, as you were saying, there might be this formative, necessary, developmental base condition. But then what they try and... do is deepen what the meanings of these and the possibilities, you know, might be in exploiting some of the tension between the dichotomies, right? So this dichotomy of Lord and servant, you know, nourisher and worshiper is how one could use that apparent division to facilitate to motivate and to impel the development of the person, right?

Mark Applebaum: Right. I mean, this is the larger theme of our whole series of talks in a way is what's that path look like? Because as we've been talking about this, the one way to describe, at least in Sufism, is the path of the seeker is one of seeking greater and greater intimacy with one's Lord, greater proximity, greater closeness, greater intimate relationship with. And so that's a sort of, you could look at that like a developmental transformation of what starts out as distant hierarchical and maybe even authoritarian, maybe even necessarily so at the outset, right? Because if we sort of pan out, sociologically, we don't want, nor could we live in a society where everybody gets to make up their mind about what traffic rules they obey and whether or not stealing feels good to them today or not. Like we don't want that. That's not livable, right? So the necessity of both for the individual child development or for the way that a community gets run or governed requires the inculcation of those ethical values that then constrain like the, the lowest level of human being, let's say the most impulsive and compelled level in Sufi terminology of human being in terms of, I want this now, give it to me. Yeah.

Adnan Hussain: Yeah. Unfortunately, like in the time that we're living in, it isn't that there aren't all these rules, but one thing that's happened is that I was thinking about this, you know, just a few days ago is that, you know, capitalism, for example, making The principle of greed, not as something that is very dangerous, needs to be controlled, but actually elevating it to a principle of social organization. It's unleashing some very dangerous sort of... capabilities of the human, that these traditions were very conscious of needing to be constrained in some way. And so the same kind of point, when we think of what is the Sufi mystical path or any of these spiritual paths, they begin with some acknowledgement that to really achieve your full human potential, it's not just unleashing everything that you are capable of, but it is somehow putting into the appropriate healthy balance that might require certain constraints, certain disciplining, certain reflection in order to mobilize those animal spirits if you want to get back to the capitalist competition, you know, kind of language of Adam Smith. But the you know, those those kind of forces of desire and so on need to be oriented. Yeah. Maybe not totally crushed. Maybe it's not about, you know, some kind of ruthless subjugation of, you know, these human desires. But it is something about controlling, bringing them into the appropriate balance so that they actually are a resource for development. Yeah.

Mark Applebaum: Yeah. Channeled and channeled and channeled in relation to the cultivation of, of. virtues right so so the again like we've been talking about character refinement or character formation or tahaluk like the attributes of the human being as a mirror of the divine names the attributes so this is in the background again hopefully those who have been along with Adnan and me for this conversation so far are hearing some common themes because Naturally, we're circling around a theme of human development, which these names are a framework for. A framework that both implies gaining personal lived intimacy to one's Lord, and that's where I'm Lord today. But also, these are all relational virtues as well, whether it's justice or sincerity or truthfulness, right? I mean, or the other attributes that also feature in dealing with human relationships as well. So... And that's very much built into the tradition that we're speaking about. Yeah.

Adnan Hussain: Yes. Well, speaking of that, I mean, maybe, you know, a concrete example from one of these texts might be helpful. I was thinking in this context, maybe a good passage is from Al-Qashani's. It's still a Sufi glossary. It's another one of these 13th and early 14th century treatises that organizes Sufi knowledge around, in this case, the use of terms. With definitions that are quite interesting in their insights. And he, of course, was an Akbarian. He was somebody who's in the tradition of following the insights of Muhyiddin ibn al-Arabi. And in... Because we've been talking about this relationship between the servant and worshiper and the Lord, it kind of comes down to this primordial covenant or contract, right? In some sense, the relationship of recognition of God. So there was a very interesting passage in section 99 about the Ahd, right? the kind of primordial covenant. And it refers to this verse in the Quran, which is sort of pre-creation. It's a creation, but it's before worldly creation, when all the souls in this have been created, all the spirits of humanity who will populate the world for all of history have already been come into existence in their spiritual form. And they are arrayed before the Lord, the Rabb, and asked this question, am I not your Lord? And all of the spirits say, yes, indeed, right? And so he's referring to this moment. And he says the fulfillment of the covenant. So what does it mean to really fulfill this ah this covenant it says this goes beyond what is declared by saying yes indeed which is what the quran had said we all you know said in our pre-eternal spiritual existence in the affirmation of deity when god said am i not your lord they answered yes indeed and then he draws these distinctions between different levels of what this fulfillment of the covenant might mean that gets to the groupings that we were talking about, starting with the Awam, the common people. He says for them, for the common people, it means religious observance, right? They've agreed, you're our Lord, so you give us these commandments and we do what you've told us, prompted by a desire for what has been promised and a fear of what has been threatened. So the classic, okay, you, You recognize I'm your Lord, so I'm giving you these commandments. And so you do them because you hope for paradise, the reward of paradise, or you fear the threatened punishment of hell. And that's basically religion, right?

Mark Applebaum: That's like- Yeah, well done. Well done. This is the proto-psychology in the Akbaris right there.

Adnan Hussain: right exactly that mode about that mode of relating yeah yeah of like fear and and and hope uh you know these these few things but then he says for people of distinction and he's here talking about the khas yeah it means devoted service devoted service to the undertaking for its own sake, staying within its limits and being faithful to what it imposes without desire, fear, or ulterior motive. So that means that you would do it, do these things, fulfill these, so you're still gonna adhere to these commandments and practice and prayer and all these obligations, but it no longer now is done out of some extraneous force Yeah. That either appeals to your desire or to your fear, but is in fact actually without any of those motives.

Mark Applebaum: Yeah, this is like the famous woman Sufi classical mystic Rabia. I don't worship you out of fear or fear of the fire or desire for the heavens. I'm paraphrasing.

Adnan Hussain: Yeah, but it's a great story. I love that story so much because it's indicative of the particular qualities which she is known for. of worshipping God for love of God alone and not out of desire for heaven.

Mark Applebaum: Oh, I think she's carrying a bucket to put out the fires of hell and a torch to burn down the heavens, so there's nothing else between her and her Lord, right?

Adnan Hussain: That's right. The story is that supposedly Hasan al-Basri sees her carrying a bucket of coals and a bucket of water, and he says, what are you doing? And she says, oh, I'm going to... know with the bucket of water i'm gonna quench the fires of hell oh okay well so and then what about the coals you know i'm gonna burn down heaven you know it's like why would you do this and she's basically saying to take away the uh other constraints of the moral uh system so they're actually ethical and or spiritual in to do these things out of love of god alone yeah because the proximity is all that she cares about that's right that's another story wherever you put me if you put me in hell or in heaven if that's your the will your will i will be a loving worshiper like it doesn't matter to me it's like what what i want is to fulfill you know your will in this in this in this way so yes It's interesting because that story, I just have to share this because it's something that my research is that, and few people have noticed or commented on it, although it's been noticed by some French Orientalists, is that This story, the same story about Rabi al-Adawiyya appears almost word for word, you know, it's like almost like a translation of the Persian story in Aflaki's account, Manaqab al-Arafin, which is the story of Rumi, You know, like the lineage and descent and teachings of the grandfather and father of Rumi by a subsequent person, Bahá'u'lláh, by Afláki about Bahá'u'lláh and so forth. And one of the stories that's illustrated in teaching, there is this Rabia al-Adawiyya story. And you don't find this story exactly with the buckets, the two buckets in other hagiographic accounts or compendiums of the Rabia legend. But you do find it 70 years earlier. in Jean de Joinville's La Vie de Saint-Louis, which is a crusader text about the life of Saint-Louis, Louis IX, on crusade. And there's a story of a Dominican friar who's been sent on an embassy to the sultan of Damascus and returns to the crusader camp. And Joinville, who's, you know, a kind of, henchman of a minor noble in, in the sort of army, but you know, it's the Senate shawl. So he's got some position in the court of Louis asked very curious guy. He writes this autobiographical text that is really about himself as much as it is about Louis IX, like as a hagiography. And he asks this Dominican friar, Yves Le Breton, also, what happened when you were out there in Damascus? And Yves Le Breton, the Dominican friar, says, oh, well, I had this experience where there was this woman walking on the street carrying a bucket of coals and a bucket of water. And I asked her, oh, what are you going to do? And so it's exactly the same story. And so interestingly enough, wherever its source You know, which is strange that it comes in this crusading text, but wherever its source, it arises out of some kind of symmetry between the kind of piety and spirituality of San Luis that was about being devoted for the love of God. Of course, it also led him to go on crusade, which is, you know, because crusading, as Jonathan Riley Smith told us, was an act of love, you know. But but it also is compatible with the Sufi understanding of the Rabia legend. And so, you know, you can't say where did this story really come from, but it finds its place in the Rumi kind of collections, as well as in this old French crusader text, which I find just fascinating.

Mark Applebaum: Yeah, it's a beautiful I mean, it's a beautiful story, whatever the wherever it comes from. yeah and and it really it really is about the the fire for that relationship for that intimacy surpassing everything else that's right but yet there is another level beyond that apparently because what uh kashani tells us um is that for the mind let's remind people who may have gotten fascinated by rabia that we started with the the majority of people he kashani's breaking this down to three groups right right the the majority uh i'm the majority of people and then the particular or the select the house and now we're about you're about to make a move i just wanted to add that that it it shouldn't sound like the first mode of relating to lordship is being put down here exactly. I mean, it is being critiqued, so I don't think we don't want to miss that. But elsewhere, and this, by the way, this is the book that we are talking about here. It's the lexicon of Sufi terms. But elsewhere in this book, he does say that, he does refer to humbling oneself as what's happening with that first group of people. That in that complying with what they understand to be the Lord's will, they're humbling themselves. And that goes to what Adnan and I were talking about earlier about the learning to restrain one's impulses and to direct oneself and to try to be a decent person, basically, let's say, let's put it that way, in accordance with what you're understanding. So that's the kind of virtues that we see with that. Would you say?

Adnan Hussain: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a very nice way of putting it. And I would just sort of reflect that, you know, It isn't to me. I mean, well, I mean, humbling is lowering oneself. Right. Like in the sense that like you are having to come. But it is also. But the point of it is, is that that's a stage in the elevating right now. If you stop at that stage, well, that's where you remain. Right. It's really describing experientially how you connect yourself to God. Now, if you connect yourself to God. simply through the obedience of the commands and the prohibitions for- I'm not speeding because I don't want to get a ticket.

Mark Applebaum: I don't want to lose more points on my license. So, okay, I'll obey the traffic laws.

Adnan Hussain: Right. I mean, it's an experience of like what it means to be a good driver. Right.

Mark Applebaum: Basically, I mean, so like a fear of the pain that I will myself suffer. It's about me. It's still about me.

Adnan Hussain: That's right. It is kind of self-centered. Right. I mean, in the sense that. But if it leads to, you know, some kind of disciplining and then reflection on like, well, there's reasons behind why there's other people out here on the road. Yeah. And like, I don't want to kill them or hurt them. So, you know, like, so that's where you start to get like, okay, it's worth abiding by these things, not just because I don't want to be in trouble, but because there's some greater good created by collectively subordinating our desire, right, for how I'm going to like... you know, exist and behave on the roads, right? So, you know, that's kind of, to my mind, it's also an experiential difference. And I mean, that's why this next phase was doing it without ulterior motive of reward for oneself or punishment for oneself. But then he introduces, Kashani introduces for those of a special distinction. So khas al khasa or khas al khawas. Sometimes you see that. They're two different plurals of the people or those who are the select or the particular. So those of special distinction, however, it means devoted service. while abjuring any claim to strength and power. There was a little note which I didn't look up, so maybe you did, but the last part of it is, but for the lover, which is the preferred metaphor of the aspirant, the lover of God, it means not letting one's heart expand to anything other than the beloved. So this is an interesting turn from these other kind of characteristics is now it's about this emotional kind of state of really exclusive attention and focus that you don't have space. And this is, in fact, actually what Rabia Al-Adawiyah, if we think about what she's known for, is when people said, oh, you're unmarried, Rabia, why don't we... you know like hassan al-basri this other kind of figure who appears in a lot of the stories about about her who's also known as an important early mystic and spiritualist in the muslim tradition he proposes you know marriage to her and she said i don't have any space in my heart for anything other than god like the beloved like i just don't have any place for so it was like an easy let down right you know To refuse his proposal. It's not about you, Hassan al-Basri, that I don't want to be with you. It's that I only want to and only can be with God. Right. I have no space in my attention to really make, you know, kind of place to be distracted from this kind of absorption in love of God.

Mark Applebaum: Well, and I think that, yeah, she's an archetype. I mean, I think that story would even be more impactful in a society where marriage is taken for granted as it must be. It must be so like that's like a must, really a must. So that would be an even more radical story than it would be for us, I think, today.

Adnan Hussain: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it's like, you know, probably for us, it would be the, like, I can't get a job. I can't work. Because I can only sit here and contemplate God. Because in our society, like, you could do a lot of things. You could be a lawyer.

Mark Applebaum: I think we're about to go into a critique on capitalism again. Exactly. Not that I object to that.

Adnan Hussain: Right. Okay. So just to round out this last kind of stage, which is interesting that there's a lot more talked about in this like stage of khas al-khawas or khas al-special distinction, is also one of the requirements of fulfilling the covenant of service is to see that every fault that appears in oneself... is due to oneself and not to see perfection in anything save in one's Lord. That's interesting. And now I don't think it's all about like blame, you know, like heavy blame. I think it's responsibility. It's saying- Yeah, it's saying, well, it's like what I remember in the Quran, what Adam and Eve in the Quranic version of the Eden story and eating the forbidden fruit and disobeying God, God's command to, you know, they can be in this garden, but just don't eat from this tree, is that they say, oh lord we have oppressed ourselves we have wronged ourselves yeah if you don't forgive us then we will be among the lost we'll be without you know kind of compass but what they said is that the sin sinful disobedience, if you want to put it in those kind of like normative, legal sort of religious law terms, is not, it doesn't affect God. It affects you. You know, that's what you're doing it for is for yourself and your development. And you have set back your own kind of development into being a full person and freedom by taking this action.

Mark Applebaum: Yeah, I think that, and I think that in, at least in this time and place, that's, a much freer way of, of, uh, of holding that. I think, and I think that the way I read that passage, um, of Kashani, it's like, it's the basic etiquette of like, when we say perfection or completion, I think that was the word, right? So it's like completion, right? Right. So completion, we would always attribute to that. I think this is how I understand him. We would always attribute completion or perfection to the source of our being, um, but where what's off is like ours to work with. And so when you said responsibility, I think that accords very well with reading classical Sufism through this sort of more developmental lens. I think there's grounds for it. Because the kind of refinement that you're talking about at each of these stages, it's there. I mean, it's framed differently. Obviously, we're in a different time and place, but I think to view it as developmental really fits. Because there was a parallel passage in Kashani, same book, right? But this is entry number 291, if anyone is going to be reading this on your own. But the first level is about humility. What's cultivated among the majority of people would be humility. humbling oneself. But then, and that's ibadah, right? So to go back to servanthood in relation to lordship. So that's being a servant or being a devotee of God. Then ubudiyah or servanthood belongs to the people Adnan was just talking about at the second level, the chas, the select or the particulars. And in this passage, Kashani says that those are the people who have rectified or corrected their relation to God, their relationship with God through sincerity, through sincerity toward him in traversing and walking the path and traveling the path toward him. toward fuller connection with him. So, so sincerity, Sadiq, right? So those who are really working on rectifying their relationship, right? So that's that second level of development, right? That's the conscientious development to work with oneself. And then the third, I'm paralleling you Adnan. So first was Ibadah, second was Ubudiyah, third is Ubudah, which For the Akbarians, this is its same root, right? So it's still about service, devotion, but this is servitude. We would probably translate it in English. And this is just getting that my very being is automatically already in service. I'm now more fully aligned with my actual like ontological condition, right? So at that level, it's with, now, how did you get, how do you get there? Because this is through a meditative and an ethical pathway, right? So it's not only the ethical work with oneself, but the meditative clarification of one's ongoing perception of what is really going on here. Am I really a strictly bounded entity who is, you know, encased in my skin? Is that the limits of those souls or those spirits, rather? And the claim, again, that people like Kashani and Plimpsani are making is, no, what the path of remembrance of God leads toward is a living recognition. And I'll go back to Kashani's words, that they witness themselves as subsisting through him in their servanthood. So they're perceiving themselves as being sustained in a sense, contained or sustained, you could say, through him, through that. They're not strictly separate from the Lord. That is what's being said here. Thus, they worship him through him in the station This is very complicated, but I mean, I'm trying to convey some taste of it. Their worship of him, right? So again, worship, ibadah, we're still in the same field here of what is real service, what is real servanthood, what's real devotion. So for those people, their worship, their worship, worship of him is through him, meaning they're sort of experiencing only a relative separation, a relative distinction, but the real ground and source of their actions as worshipers actually belongs to him. But it's in a sense, you could say circulating through them as they align themselves more and more completely with him. So this would be at least my, uh, uh, And that's happening through experiences both, Kashani says, both of a oneness or a unity that both includes experiences of separation and of gathering, both of separation, that's why I was saying relative distinction from their Lord, but also being gathered, this is gem, being gathered up in oneness with their Lord. So this is, now these are the outer limits of, the what's called the ascending arc, uh, in, of the spiritual path among that bar ends. So we're, we're up there. We're way up there right now, but again, hopefully conveying some sense of the trajectory.

Adnan Hussain: Yeah. A lot of, a lot to reflect on there to make sense of, uh, how to, how to, how to feel that, how to think that, you know, what you just said about, you know, the ascending arc reminds me of something that came up in Atlimsani's discussion of a rub, the nourisher, the Lord, the name that has opened up this kind of discussion about these different kinds of modes of experience that are described by these, ideas of the um the common people and the people of distinction and then the special distinction was in that kind of relationship um that he he said in his discussion about the way in which the nurturing dimension of the the name and its meaning of arab um discloses itself, he described it as all of this, as he says, all of this, He says, this is one of the names of existence that through the aspect of nurturing, especially pertain to the all-merciful, so ar-Rahman, nurturing is an existential benefit that reaches the Lord's servant, and thus the all-merciful, ar-Rahman, in the stage of nurturing is the Lord in the stage of descent. Yeah, right. I wonder maybe if you could explain what you think that, means because you've introduced this kind of arc of ascension and arc of descent. How does that make sense in the disclosure here of the nourishingness component of Arrab?

Mark Applebaum: So Rahman, it's really this outpouring, that kind of a generative outpouring that kind of gives us, in Plamsani's view, uh, being life relative, uh, I-ness like separation. Right. So, um, I think it's that, uh, kind of compassionate nurturance is part of that reaching out to those beings that, that are now, uh, uh, finding themselves in this world of relative separation, right? And struggling to like get closer to themselves and to him at the same time, I could say. So, so I should go to the exact language. Could you read that last part again? because I think there's really something there about the descent. This is part of like giving the, by outpouring, I mean, the outflowing includes giving of relative being to all of us as beings, which sets us up, you could say in a situation, of, okay, now what? Like, how do I find, you know, like, who am I? What am I doing here? How do I make my way in this world? It's merciful in that it invites that trial and error process of finding a way back to connection with that source. Something along those lines.

Adnan Hussain: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I think we covered this precisely when we were talking about Ar-Rahman. And so people who may be just joining the conversation for this episode on the name of Ar-Rab could go back, I think, fruitfully and listen to both Ar-Rahman and Rahim, where I think some of this, but especially Ar-Rahman, where this existential relationship Kind of mercy is this outflowing, as you're saying, of existence is seen as a kind of generosity, right, of like imparting existence. And that's why it has this particular kind of component. So it was nurturing is an existential benefit that reaches the Lord's servant. Right. And thus the all-merciful in the stage of nurturing is the Rab, is the Lord in the stage of descent. So what's interesting, there was another curious development, it seemed, in the discussion that he had about Rab and this nourishing relationship. It says, for example, each existent is nurtured precisely in proportion to its own needs. Were the nurturing to surpass the measure of the existence needs, it would no longer be nurturing. But the opposite, an excess in nurturing would entail the absence of nurturing with respect to the individual.

Mark Applebaum: Well, this is one of those... message. This is one of those pills that might be hard to swallow for, for, uh, right. Because this, this relies on a kind of, well, there's a meaningfulness in whatever struggles and difficulties that I'm experiencing down here, down here. Right. Uh, it, it, because, and it really is that perspective I'd say, I mean, that's how I read that. It's like, um, Because the trial, and we'll get to this, I'm sure, with other aspects of the names in our series. But again, lest we be painting a too rosy picture, I would also read this to say, whatever trial a human being is experiencing is intrinsically meaningful. He's kind of saying that what happens is, is aligned and that it would not, it ought not be other in this particular moment. Otherwise it would be too much, too little, something like that. I mean, this is my first read. Do you see it differently?

Adnan Hussain: These paradoxes are always, you know, opportunities, it seems to me, to think harder, to reflect. So, you know, it doesn't, um it doesn't always lead to an immediate solution it seems to me and that's okay i think um what i like about these uh challenging kinds of concepts and phrasings is that they just are as i said an invitation to sit with you know these concepts and these feelings of what um uh, this nourishing Lord, you know, like what, what, what this is meant to kind of open up for us.

Mark Applebaum: So, and, and clearly, and clearly we're not, we're not aspiring to try to answer this level of question for anyone in our audience, but it's, but I remember earlier in the series sort of posing, giving the example, like if anyone listening, like if you were to think about what was one of the most difficult experiences that you've ever gone through in your life, just recollecting that. And when you're in touch with that memory, like would you say that you gained something from having lived through that? Was there some benefit to you in having gone through that? this would be the beginning of like psychologically feeling your way into how someone like Flimsani could make, sorry, Kashan, who are we? Flimsani. How a medieval Sufi like Flimsani could sort of frame things like in this way. And again, without trying to close, to foreclose on the difficulty of this issue, I think it's quite, because I do, at the same time, it's like, I don't take that to mean everything is the way it's supposed to be or everything has to happen the way it does. But this brings up the whole question of choice and freedom or its absence within the variety of interpretations of Islam and Sufism and monotheism in general. Like how much freedom is there is right. So and there's this is not that's not a settled, certainly not a settled topic.

Adnan Hussain: Yeah, that has been a topic that has bedeviled religious thinkers and seekers within these systems of religious thought and religion.

Mark Applebaum: devotion you know since the beginning yeah but choice is right is prime is right there for these guys so it's not it's not just submit to your condition that's not the message that i see from because it's a heavy call to work with oneself and and meaning in the world not just privately yeah um

Adnan Hussain: it kind of reminds me that and I don't know if maybe this actually came up in a different name that we're going to talk about soon. But just that from an experiential level, The phenomenon may be the same, but how you experience it is really all the difference. And that is the not quite choice, I wouldn't say, in a kind of very... forceful way but like the preparation that you bring or the disposition that you bring to this project of living and trying to travel a path towards self-fulfillment and realization um You know, it does really, life is going to throw all kinds of like, and we should be very conscious of that now. I mean, you know, we're on the brink of like economic, terrible collapse, depending on how things go and the, straight of hormones to whatever. Basically the world is full of all kinds of terrible testing experience. And we've talked about this before. And suffering and death and oppression. Exactly, yeah. And it doesn't reduce any of the pain or the suffering, but the meaning that you might take out of it for... your own growth and having uh kind of a healthy response it you know can vary dramatically like you know these are things that from an experiential level i think that's kind of what is being suggested perhaps uh there is that the existential character may be you know ontologically or phenomena you know from a sense of what that phenomenon is and how it would be described It's the same. That's what exists. But the relation that you have to it or through it could vary dramatically. A lot about what you are bringing to it for whether it will be an experience that impels growth or one that induces a trauma that disables you from being able to grow. It seems to me these are These are the things that we're wrestling with, like in our own experiences, like the trials and tribulations and the suffering we experience. Can we find a way to turn them into something that allows us further progress of some kind because we're going to have these experiences? Or are these things that throw us back into destructive, harmful behavior and lack of progress and fulfillment? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Applebaum: And wounding, wounding, um, is, um, also wounding, which is the root of the word trauma, right.

Adnan Hussain: Yeah.

Mark Applebaum: Uh, is to be wounded is, uh, also on a huge continuum. Right. And, and arguably there's no growth, no deep growth at all without wounding, uh, psychologically, I mean, right. So, but this is, this would take us into more of a, um, a discussion of psychological individuation and growth. But I think behind all of that, something that maybe we're taking for granted a bit, not in a bad way, but perhaps relying on, and this would be there for a phenomenologist as well, in general, is that lived experiences are always intrinsically meaningful. Meaningful doesn't mean positive. It means there's meaning in it or multiple meanings in it or multiple possibilities of meaning in it. And that's actually, I think, almost a radical view at the moment, given where society has gone during my lifetime anyway in the US. I think it's much more, I think that there's a, okay, I'll say zeitgeist, I'm sorry, but there's much more of a zeitgeist, much more of a common assumption that events don't necessarily mean anything. It's up to us to decide what they mean. There's no intrinsic meaning here at all in the first place. Phenomenology takes a different, and existentialism take a different tack, which is no, you're already living what you're living in a way that implies it's meaningful. So let's look at that. And then we can open up the possibilities of meaning. Now, this may be a detour, but not really. I think we're still on the same point that you raised with Klimsani because now they're framing this in a very particular sense of meaningfulness. Because ultimately, this is a path spiritually back to connection with the one source of the one ground, which is viewed as unitive, intrinsically meaningful. In the names that we've looked at so far, generous, giving, and beneficent. Not only, we're going to get to some of the more difficult names too. But all of that ontology relies on... a kind of trust in being in the intrinsic meaningfulness of being here in the first place. Let's put it that way.

Adnan Hussain: Yeah. Well, I mean, we've been talking for a while, so I don't know. There does seem to be so much in this that is posed by this. Before and I think we'll probably come back to some of this, um, Lordship, servanthood, I mean, it's just such a fundamental relationship. We'll probably come back to it in some of the other names that also kind of play upon or require us to consider and think about. Yeah. Hierarchical power and so on. You know, it's monotheism. It's going to have these. And so we're going to have to wrestle with... with this again, but there was one thing in the discussion here, um, of the rub and the nurturing that, uh, I also wanted to bring up. I mean, there may be other things you also want to, to, to bring up in this discussion that occurred to you, but there was a passage also here. Following from that discussion we were just having about, you know, the kind of existent existential quality of nurturing from a Rahman is just part of the mode of being and of reality unfolding down, you know, to the experience and to the existential level. existence of the servant. But the next paragraph brought up something that said, nurturing is therefore a sequence of disclosures and manifest through none other than the all merciful. So something like what we've been talking about. Yeah. yeah but then he says something quite interesting here i thought as a helpful reminder therefore do not become so engrossed in the meanings of the names that you become absent from the named yeah for and you know it has more here and we could continue that but that that was something when i was reading was like a little bit of a like you know just like okay wake up don't get so

Mark Applebaum: engrossed in trying to parse out the meaning of the names that you forget that what it is is to bring you in relation absolutely to the name yeah the the the the living breathing felt contact with what the names uh are indicative of point toward is he is uh That's why we have this work from him. And this is one of my favorite lines in the book. So thank you for bringing it up because it's just, it is that reminder that anything can become an idol, let's say. We wanna use that kind of metaphor. Anything we can get excessively fixated on like, oh, I understand this now. That's not the relationship he's looking for to encourage us to pursue, is to just to remember any of these names, the loving, the merciful, the friend, the helper, the just. are in principle incomprehensible, meaning we can never comprehend them, but we can become more and more intimate with them if we make ourselves available, I would say. That's the invitation. So yeah, don't lose sight of the named in the name. Yeah.

Adnan Hussain: Yeah. Great. Yeah. Well, maybe that's a good ending point for today's discussion with that reminder, instructive reminder, a nurturing reminder for us.

Mark Applebaum: I'll say one thing, if I may.

Adnan Hussain: Go ahead.

Mark Applebaum: I just wanted to acknowledge we have gotten some comments. I have not yet followed up in response to some of the YouTube comments, for example, that we've gotten that raised some really good issues. So please keep those coming. I will do my best.

Adnan Hussain: to um to get on that but i i absolutely am grateful for the engagement well likewise and perhaps as we have had in the past when something was posed that seemed like it would be useful to actually discuss together uh you know we're happy to incorporate it into the discussion on the program so please do um engage in that dialogue with us. This is meant to be an open and participatory sort of reflection on the names and what they might offer us. And, you know, I would expect any of our listeners have things that can contribute to all of our recognition, realization, and hopefully progress on the path spiritually that we're hoping we can journey together. So please do. Please do that. And we just appreciate all of you. uh for listening or watching um and or commenting and so uh we will be back uh soon inshallah with another uh episode on the names i believe the next one that would be coming up uh is al-malik uh the king or the owner and so again we're going to be confronted a little bit If we didn't complete all of the ways of talking about these levels and distinctions and their use as metaphors in the spiritual path, we will certainly be returning to them very soon and discussing them again. So until next time, we wish you peace with justice and solidarity to you all. .