I

THE ASPECTS OF UNITY

HE Islamic doctrine is contained as a whole in the
Tawhid, the “‘affirmation of the Divine Unity.”
For the ordinary believer this affirmation is the clear
and simple axis of the religion. For the contemplative
it is the door which opens on to essential reality. The
further the mind of the contemplative penetrates into
the apparent rational simplicity of the Divine Unity,
the more complex that simplicity will become; the
several aspects which the reason acknowledges as be-
longing to Unity will be more and more fully grasped
till a point is reached where their contrasts can no
longer be grasped by discursive thought alone. Medi-
tation on these contrasts will in fact take the faculty
of thought to its very furthest limits and the intelli-
gence will in this way be opened to a synthesis lying
eyond all formal conception. In other words it is only
intuition beyond form that has access to Unity.!

This is the fundamental formula of Islam, the
“testimony ” shahadah that “there is no divinity if it

1. Io Caristian contemplation the Divine Unity is deployed in the three
Hypostases of the Trinity. The difference in the case of Sufi contemplation
lies in this that for the Christian contemplatxve the three Hypostases are at
first envw*ged as ultimate Realities. It is true that they begin by being only
a “‘mystery”’ impenetrable by thought, the Unity of the Divine Nature being
alone intelligible to reason; later the three Hypostases become clear with

their reciprocal relatlonsh:p. and it is from this undivided diversity in God that
intuition, and not contemplation, rises at last to the one Nature inaccessible

to any purely rational unification.

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