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body, from where it leads to the heart.^35 When fear is released from the
heart itself it affects and consumes the gall bladder with a sometimes
fatal outcome for the person being affected. This particular type of fear
becomes visible in people who faint. These people, al-Makkī teaches,
are of little spiritual value. When fear stemming from the heart affects
the brain, reason is impaired and the worshipper gets lost. If a worship-
per who experiences this type of fear was in a particular spiritual state,
he returns to his previous state and also his station is not preserved.
Fear emanating again from the heart, may pierce a lung, which results
in loss of digested food and fluids. It wears out the body (as is caused
by tuberculosis, sull) and blood dries out. People affected by this fear
look hungry and wasted. When fear takes hold of the liver the person
falls in a state of enduring depression and sadness. He is deprived of
sleep and is awake all night. In al-Makkī’s opinion this is the most pro-
ductive type of fear that brings the person to reflection and meditation.
Fear can affect the shoulder-blades (farāʾiṣ). The symptoms are trem-
bling and twitching movements of the upper part of the body. In this
case as well it affects reason. The entire body is overpowered by it and
the agent lacks willpower to move it in the desired way. Fear affects the
soul and annihilates personal preference and carnal desire. This is what
Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī calls the fear that is most desired by the advanced
mystics, it is the fear of the prophets, siḍḍīqs and martyrs.
2.1. AweFear occurs in the Koran as a sensation that is designated by nine dif-
ferent words to indicate eschatological fear (khawf), anxiety (khashya),
terror (rahab or ruʿb), scrupulousness (waraʿ), piousness (taqwā) etc.
Fear however is the overpowering emotion that underlies these types.^36
Mystics tended to prefer anxiety to terror. Al-Qushayrī for example
points to the escapism that marks the sensation of terror. In the more
elitist approach, embraced among others by the monists, the privileged
35 Al-Makkī, Abū Ṭālib: Qūṭ al-qulūb, ed. by ʿAbd al-Munʿim al-Ḥifnī, Cairo
1991, vol. 3, pp. 96–97.
36 On the different terms being used in the Koran and their significance see Scott,
Alexander: Fear, in: EI^2 , vol. 2 (1965), pp. 194–198; and on the semantic shifts
of the words that take place within the Koranic context, see Ohlander, Erik S.:
Fear of God (taqwā) in the Qurʾān. Some Notes on Semantic Shift and Thematic
Context, in: Journal of Semitic Studies 50 (2005), pp. 137–152.
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