The seeing of a thing, itself by itself, is not the same as its seeing itself in another, as
it were in a mirror...The Reality gave existence to the whole Cosmos [atfirst] as an
undifferentiated thing without anything of the spirit in it, so that it was like an
unpolished mirror. It is in the nature of the divine determination that He does not
set out a location except to receive a divine spirit, which is also calledthe breathing
into him[Q21:91]...Thus the [divine] Command required [by its very nature] the
reflective characteristic of the mirror of the Cosmos, and Adam was the very
principle of reflection for that mirror and the spirit of that form...each of these
[cosmic] faculties or powers is veiled [from knowing the whole] by its own self...
so that it cannot know anything that excels it.^58
We could, however, also understand the Cosmos as the mirrored wall
reflecting the painted wall, itself a shadow of the Cosmos, through the
process of unveiling which reveals the painting to ultimately have no form.
As Rumi describes it, the“heart’s mirror”(referencing the polished wall in
the story) remains bound not simply to the image it reflects, but to“forms
from eternity.”The reflection expands not only beyond art, but also
beyond the scripturalism implicit in the reference to Moses.
The Quran indicates that God gave Moses the book, which was later lost
and superseded by the Quran (Q5:44). While the preserved Torah is not
identical to the Quran, Rumi here underscores that the message of pro-
phecy, inscribed on the heart of the Prophet and expressed through the
shining hand (which presumably writes), is a single light of the divine. This
enables the individual heart to merge with the universality of divine light
through reflection rather than reason:
The brain falls silent here or goes astray:
The heart’s with God, or is God in some way.
No form’sreflection shines eternally
But through the heart, home of infinity,
For every image which should reach this place
Appears without a veil across its face.
Polishersfled all colors, so they could
Each breath sees what is beautiful and good:
Beyond the husk of knowledge they can see,
They’ve raised the banner of true certainty,
All thought has left them, for they’ve seen the light,
The sea’s depths and their breasts they keep in sight.
Of death all other men are running scared,
(^58) Austin, 1980 :50–51.
Jalal al-Din Rumi between the Mirrors and Veils of ibn Arabi 153