58 AN INTRODUCTION TO SUFI DOCTRINE

be not The Divinity’ (/a ilaha ill-Aliah), which, so to
say, ‘“defines”” the Divine Unity. This formula should
be translated as here indicated and not, as is usually
the case, ¢“there is no god but Allah,” for it is proper
to retain in it the appearance of pleonasm or paradox.

Its first part, “the negation” (an-nafy) denies in a
general manner the same idea of divinity (i/ah) which
the second part, the ““affirmation” (al-ithbar), affirms
by isolation ; in other words the formula as a whole
postulates an idea—that of divinity—which at the same
time it denies generically. This is the exact opposite
of a “definition”’, for to define something means first
to determine its ¢ specific difference’” and then to bring
it to the ‘“nearest group”, i.e., to general concepts.
Now, as the shahadah indicates, Divinity is ‘‘defined”
precisely by the fact that Its reality eludes every cate-
gory. This paradox is analogous to that implied in the
Taoist formulas: “The Way which can be followed is
not the (true) way” and ‘“The Name which can be
named is not the (true) Name.””! In this case, as in
that of the Islamic ‘testimony’’, an idea is provision-
ally offered to thought and then withdrawn from all
categories of thought.

The formula “ There is no divinity if it be not The
Divinity > contains simultaneously two meanings ap-
parently in opposition one to the other: on the one
hand it distinguishes between other-than-God and God
Himself and, on the other hand, it brings the former
back to the latter. Thus it expresses at the same time

1. These are the first words of the Tao teh Ching. 0