Al-Uqud al-Durriyya - Ibn Abd al-Hadi - (الكتاب/138)

Al-Uqud al-DurriyyaIbn Abd al-Hadi

“No soul knows what comfort for the eyes has been kept hidden for them.” [32:17]

The Prophet ﷺ said: “Allah, Mighty and Exalted, declares: I have prepared for My righteous servants what no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and what has never occurred to the human heart.” (1)

So if the bliss of Paradise—which is nothing but a created thing—is of that magnitude (2), what, then, should we think of the Creator Himself?!

Consider the soul that dwells in the children of Adam. Any intelligent person is aware of the confusion people have about it, and of how the revealed texts deliberately withhold any explanation of its ‘how’ (3). Should not a rational person take this as a lesson and refrain from probing into the ‘how’ of Allah, Exalted is He?

Yet we are certain that the soul is in the body, that it departs from it and ascends to the heaven, and that it is drawn from the body at the moment of death, exactly as the sound texts affirm. We do not exaggerate (4) in stripping it of such qualities, as the philosophers and those who follow them do, when they deny of it ascent and descent and its union with and separation from the body. They floundered because they regarded the soul as belonging to a realm utterly unlike the body and its properties.

The fact that the soul is unlike the body does not negate these attributes being truly affirmed of it in a manner befitting it (5)—unless they were to interpret their own statements so as to agree with the revealed texts, in which case their mistake would be merely verbal. But how could they possibly manage that?! (6)

(1) Reported by al-Bukhari, no. 4779, and Muslim, no. 2824, on the authority of Abu Hurayrah. (2) Manuscript F adds the word hadha ("this") immediately after that point. (3) Where the base text has the phrase ʿan bayan, manuscript F reads ʿala. (4) Kh reads la yuqalu ("it is not said"). (5) The phrase is absent from manuscripts B and Q. (6) The T (al-Fatawa) edition inserts a four-line passage here that is not found in the ʿUqud manuscripts, in Kh, or in any of the other Hamawiyyah copies.

﴿فَلَا تَعْلَمُ نَفْسٌ مَا أُخْفِيَ لَهُمْ مِنْ قُرَّةِ أَعْيُنٍ﴾ [السجدة: ١٧]. وقال النبي ﷺ : «يقول الله تعالى: أعددتُ لعبادي الصالحين ما لا عينٌ رأت ولا أذنٌ سمعتْ ولا خطرَ على قلبِ بشر» (١). فإذا كان (٢) نعيم الجنة ــ وهو خلقٌ من خلق الله ــ كذلك، فما الظن بالخالق ﷾؟ ! وهذه الرُّوح التي في بني آدم، قد عَلِم العاقلُ اضطرابَ الناسِ فيها، وإمساك النصوص عن بيان (٣) كيفيتها، أفلا يعتبر العاقل بها عن الكلام في كيفية الله تعالى؟ مع أنا نقطع أن الروح في البدن، وأنها تخرج منه وتعرج إلى السماء، وأنها تُسَلُّ منه وقت النَّزْع، كما نطقت بذلك النصوص الصحيحة. لا نغالي (٤) في تجريدها غلوّ المتفلسفة ومن وافقهم، حيث نفوا عنها الصعود والنزول، والاتصال بالبدن والانفصال عنه، وتخبَّطوا فيها حيث رأوها من غير جنس البدن وصفاته. فعَدَم مماثلتها للبدن لا ينفي أن تكون هذه الصفات ثابتة لها (٥) بحسبها، إلا أن يفسروا كلامهم بما يوافق النصوص، فيكونوا قد أخطأوا في اللفظ، وأنى لهم بذلك؟ ! (٦)

(١) أخرجه البخاري (٤٧٧٩)، ومسلم (٢٨٢٤) من حديث أبي هريرة ﵁. (٢) بعده في (ف): «هذا». (٣) «عن بيان» في (ف): «على». (٤) (خ): «لا يقال». (٥) ليست في (ب، ق). (٦) بعده في (ط- الفتاوى) نص في أربعة أسطر ليس في نسخ العقود ولا (خ) ولا نسخ الحموية الأخرى.