Verifiers [madhhab-i muḥaqqiqān], no other religion exists. Have you ever
heard these verses?Anyone whose life does not rest
upon that Idol, that Witness-of-Beauty,
is no devotee, nor man of true austerity
in the faith of infidelity.
Infidelity is that you yourself
become that Witness-of-Beauty.
If infidelity is such as this
No one else exists in unicity.^340If ‘Ayn al-Quḍāt’s statement gives a taste of the sophisticated antinomian theologi-
cal doctrine sustaining this art of erotic contemplation, the following passage from
a work by Quṭb al-Dīn al-‘Abbād (d. 547/1152) contains the most revealing descrip-
tion of the spiritual psychology underlying its actual practice:
It should be understood that in Sufi terminology there are many different
sorts of (implications to the term)shāhid. Theshāhidis that thing found to be
acceptable to the eyes of the heart. It is an interior spiritual reality [ma‘nā]
that becomes attached to heart such that the heart beholds it in all its states,
seeking deeper intimacy with it by envisioning it [bi-dīdār-iūunstalabad], and
theshāhidis one who ‘bears witness’. Therefore, that which the spiritual way-
farer’s heart becomes intimately attached to beholding, and which it contem-
plates in all its contemplative moments, such that that thing attests and bears
witness to the soundness of its presential awareness-of-heart – that thing is
theshāhid.As long at wayfarer languishes and longs for the sight of it, he is a
spectator or observer [mashāhid], but as soon as by way of contemplative
absorption and annihilation, he loses all personal qualification of self, drown-
ing in the essence of theshāhid, he becomes a ‘martyr’ [shahīd: lit. ‘one who
has borne witness for his faith’].
So whatever the wayfarer’s heart hangs upon is hisshāhid, whether this be
a phenomenal form [ṣūrat], a song [āwāz], a verse, an idea, or a moment of
meditation [waqt]. As for one who makes hisshāhidout to be a beautiful face
or a child, there is no warrant for this on the Sufi Path [niḥukm-iṭarīqatī-ast];
rather, this belongs to the after-effects of the powers of concupiscence
[quwwa-yishawat]. In this fashion whenever the heart resolves to pursue its
‘invisible Witness of Beauty’ [shāhid-ighaybī], and the base passional soul [nafs-
iammara] is unable to apprehend that Reality for itself, it attaches itself to a
form in this visible phenomenal world, thus becoming bound and attached to
a certain ‘pretty face’ which is an image of the divine workmanship, and that
thing they call theshāhid.^341ḤāfiẓintheSocio-historical,LiteraryandMysticalMilieuofMedievalPersia 45