Ali on Truth/Ultimate Reality

By Wahid Azal 

لا اله الا الله

In this age of widespread unbelief, skepticism and the nihilistic ‘death of God’, where irreligious agnosticism competes with crass, literalist fundamentalist religious discourses, few are those succinct yet profoundly deep and multifaceted definitions of Truth and Ultimate Reality offered by a major figure of the Abrahamic Tradition that can stir imaginations endlessly and resonate on so many different levels as the hadîth kumayl of ‘Alî.

Not to be confused with the famous Du'a Kumayl (the supplication of Kumayl), and also known as the hadîth al-haqîqa (the Tradition of Ultimate Reality), this report (khabar) is  a Zen-like conversation between the first Shi’ite Imâm and his disciple Kumayl ibn Zîyâd al-Nakhâ’î. As we shall presently see, it is a dialogue between a Master and disciple where the conversation  explodes into a theopathic, initiatic doxography by the Master-Hierophant and Imâm-Initiator enigmatically self-disclosing (tajallî) six theophanic layers of Truth, or Ultimate Reality: a discourse where the atemporal reality of the Transcendent Divine progressively unfolds its stages and finally reveals Itself as embodied within the spatiotemporal locus of the Master himself. If Sufism’s entire doctrine of the Master/disciple relationship is laconically  illustrated here in graphic, metaphysical form it is because it is from such influential wellsprings of High Imamology that Sufism initially drank its draughts of inspiration, viz. the esoteric sayings, teachings and transmissions of the Shi’ite Imâms who are in Islam the bearers of the station of Providential Guidance (wilâya) par excellence.  

 

In the margins of his book Bahr al-Asrâr (The Sea of Secrets), the Ni’matullahî Sufî, Muzaffar ‘Alî Shâh Kirmânî, provides a complete isnâd (chain of narration) for this hadîth. Henry Corbin also cites material in his En islam iranien (Iranian Islam) vol. 1 which shows that this tradition was actually included in the earliest manuscript versions of the Nahj’ul-Balagha (the Peak of Eloquence) itself, but that it was subsequently excised by future generations of literalists and exotericists due to its explicitly gnostic (‘irfânî) and esoteric itinerary. From the time of Sharîf al-Râzî in the 10th-11th centuries CE onwards, however, the exoteric establishment of the Shi’ite mujtahids (i.e. the fuqahâ) has predominantly considered this tradition to be inauthentic. On the other side of the spectrum, the entirety of the Shi’ite gnostic milieu (i.e. the ‘urafâ) consider it to be tout court authentic in every detail. And against the consensus of the majority of his own colleagues, it appears that the Ayatollah Khomeini himself considered this tradition to be genuine - placing him in a rather interesting assemblage of people who, contrary to other issues, would wholeheartedly agree with him here. Whatever the case may be as to the textual origins of the hadîth kumayl’ and its authenticity, there is a well known aphorism in Shi’ite gnosis and esotericism that whenever in the presence of this or other such similar locutions of elevated Truth attributed to one or another amongst the People of the House (ahl al-bayt), it is indeed the Imâm who speaks!  

Amongst the countless commentaries over the centuries, the hadîth kumayl’ was famously commented on by the Shi’ite student of Ibn ‘Arabî, ‘Abdu’l-Razzâq Kâshâni as well as by Sayyid Haydar Amûlî, ‘Abdu’l-Razzâq Muhammad Lâhijî, Ibn Abî Jumhûr al-Ahsâ’î, briefly by Mullâ Sadrâ and his son-in-law Muhsin Fayz Kâshânî, Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsâ’î and Siyyid Kâzim Rashtî, to name a few. To Siyyid ‘Alî Muhammad Shîrazî, the Bâb, this hadîth  functioned as a high spiritual proof-text, as it were, and as such he divided the six years of his turbulent, revelatory ministry from 1260 A.H./1844 C.E. to 1266 A.H./1850 C.E. according to its six theophanic trajectories. For us this hadîth has for years functioned as an inexhaustible and endless source of meditation and inspiration, composing a central aspect of our own esoteric commentary on the calligram of the traditional Greatest Name symbol (ism al-a‘zam).  

 

It should be mentioned that this hadîth is the subject of an exclusive forthcoming study by  Herman Landolt and Bruce Wannell, which is to be published by the Institute of Ismâ’ili Studies in London,  entitled  A Tradition of Esoteric Commentary: Imam ‘Ali’s Hadith al-haqiqa. Reza Shah- Kazemi of the same outfit has also devoted an entire chapter to it in his recent spiritual biography of the Commander of the Faithful entitled Justice and Remembrance: Introducing the Spirituality of Imam ‘Ali. The only published European language article on the subject remains Dwight M. Donaldson’s ‘Al-Kumail: A Companion of the Secret’, The Moslem World, 28, 1938, pp. 249-257.

Here now we offer our translation of the hadîth kumayl’ followed by the Arabic text.

   

Kumayl: O Commander of the Faithful, what is Ultimate (or absolute) Reality [or Truth]?

‘Ali: What have you and Ultimate Reality to do with each other?

Kumayl: Is it not the case that I am already sharing your secrets as a companion?

Ali: Yes, indeed. But that which sprinkles unto you is billowing through me unto you!

Kumayl: So what is Ultimate Reality [or Truth]?

‘Ali: (1) The disclosure of the Majesties of Glorification without indication!

Kumayl: Please explain further.

‘Ali: (2) The [apophatic] negation of all speculation and the realization of that which can be realized!

Kumayl: Please tell me more.

‘Ali: (3) The nullificative annihilation of the secret by the victorious rending of the veil off the mystery of the secret!

Kumayl: Please explicate further.

‘Ali: (4) The attraction of the Divine Oneness by the attributive apprehension of Divine Unicity!

Kumayl: Please explain further.

‘Ali: (5) A Light Illuminating from the Morning-Dawn of Pre-Eternity and shedding its traces upon the tablets of the Talismanic-Temples of Unicity!

Kumayl: Please tell me more.

‘Ali: (6) So extinguish the lamp for the dawn hath indeed arisen! 

 علي مع الحق و الحق مع علي  

يا اميرالمؤمنين ما الحقيقة

فقال ما لك والحقيقة

فقال او لست صاحب سرّك  

قال بلى ولكن يرشح عليك ما يطفح منى

فقال ما الحقيقة

كشف سبحات الجلال من غير اشارة

فقال زدنى بيانا

محو الموهوم و صحو المعلوم

فقال زدنى بيانا

قال هتك الـّستر لغلبة السرّ

فقال زدنى بيانا

قال جذب الاحدية  لصفة التؤحيد

فقال زدنى بيانا

نور اشرق من صبح الازل فيلوح على هياكل التؤحيد آثاره

فقال زدنى بيانا

فاطف السراج فقد طلع الصبح