Rustom/Sourcebook, 23. ʿAyn al-Quḍāt: The Essence of Reality

The Essence of Reality is the first full-out philosophical exposition of mysticism in the Islamic intellectual tradition. It contains remarkably lucid explanations of the problem of the eternity of the world, how existence is in a constant state of flux, and how God is with things but that nothing is with God. All of these discussions are seamlessly tied into ʿAyn al-Quḍāt’s most important argument, namely that the knowledge of the Sufi mystic stands beyond conventional rational knowledge, and is the result of “tasting” (dhawq). In the chapters translated here, ʿAyn al-Quḍāt encourages his readers to reflect on mirrors, since this practice will readily reveal to them the actual situation of the cosmos: that all things, like forms in mirrors, have a certain kind of reality to them, but are fundamentally unreal, and this because everything other than God is impermanent. For those who awaken to this truth, ʿAyn al-Quḍāt argues, they can even see the forms that stand outside of mirrors, along with their own selves, as ultimately evanescent and transitory.