AR T R T

 

30 AN INTRODUCTION TO SUFI DOCTRINE

ledge and the way of love amounts to a question of the
predominance of one or the other; there is never in fact
a complete separation between these two modes of
spirituality. Knowledge of God always engenders love,
while love presupposes knowledge of the object of love
even though that knowledge may be only indirect and
reflected. The object of spiritual love is Divine Beauty,
which is an aspect of Infinity, and through this object
desire becomes lucid or clear. Full, integral love, which
revolves round a single ineffable point, gives a sort of
subjective infallibility. By this we mean that its in-
fallibility does not apply to universal and ‘‘ objective
truths, as does the infallibility that comes from know-
ledge, but only to all that forms part of the “personal”
relationship of the adorer to his Lord. Itisin the object,
Beauty, that love virtually coincides with knowledge.
In a sense Truth and Beauty are criteria of one another,
although sentimental prejudices distort the concept of
beauty just as, from another angle, rationalism limits
truth.

It is highly significant that there is hardly a single
Moslem metaphysician who did not compose poetry and
whose most abstract prose is not in some passages trans-
formed into rhythmic language full of poetic images,
while, on the other hand the poetry of the most famous
hymners of love, such as ‘Umar ibn al-Farid and Jalal
ad-Din Rimi, is rich in intellectual perceptions.

As for the attitude of fear (al-khawf'), which corres-
ponds to the way of action, this is not directly manifes-
ted in the style of expression ; its role is an implicit one,