Tanasukh in Islam

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CHAPTER XIX

Re-incarnation (Tanasukh)

1. Tanasukh (re-incarnation). Some believe that humansoul is not dependent by itself; and that degeneration andannihilation do not overtake it. Hence necessarily when onephysical body on which it depends decays, it is in search ofanother; so that without cutting off its previous connections, itmanifests itself in that body whether it be of a lower kind or ofa higher; it is like the .transcription of a book from one paper toanother.

The author of Gulshan-i-Raz (Shaykh MahmQd Shabistari)says:

Tanasukk zan sabab shud kufr wu batil,Ki aan az tang chashmi gasht hasil."Transmigration has become kufr and false,Because it is based on a narrow outlook."

The narrow outlook of the Re-incarnationists consists intheir confining themselves to physical bodies, and ignoring themithal-woild ; and also in not believing in soul's progress in thesoul-world by good actions such as visualized by the prophets.Secondly, they say that souls are eternal and are a limitednumber, and are to rotate in different bodies. They do not knowthat every moment there is a new 'tajalli' and manifestation;and God's 'tajalliyat' are beyond calculation and do not repeatthemselves. Thirdly they do not understand that souls are in-dependent of bodies. The Mathnawi says :

Aan taugy ko baybadan dari badan.Pus char a tarsi zijan bay run shudan."Thou art that, that has a body without a body;Why art thou afraid of coming out of life."

Fourthly, soul is not a thing that comes out of a body orgoes into it which are physical qualities, Soul is not a body, to

RE-INCARNATION (TANASUKH)143

eotne out of another body. Fifthly, soul is operator, and itsoperation is confined to one body whether for good or for evil.

"Laha ma kasabat wa alayha maktasabat." 1 (For you, whatyou have earned of good; and upon you what have earned ofevil.) Hell and heaven are forms that one sends out for himselffrom this world, and that await him in the mithal-world. Onenever returns to this world to reap fruits thereof.

The Muslims, (certain sects of the Shl'ahs excepted), do notbelieve ia 'Tanasukh' (passing of the soul from one body toanother), or in Rij'at (the return of a departed soul in a newtabernacle of flesh) or in Hulul (the passing of God into humanform). These are an "abomination to them," as Dr. Nicholsonhas put it. The Quran says :

Wa maal hayatu'd dunya ilia laibun wa lahaw, wa lad dar ulakhiratu khairu HI ladhina yattaqun. (vi: 32)

"And the world's life is naught but a play and an idle sport,and certainly the abode of the hereafter is better for those whoguard (against evil)."

Rabbana akhrijna minhafain udnafa inna zalimun. Qal akhsaufiha wa la tukallimun. (xxiii: 107-108)

"O Our Lord ! Take us out of it (the hell mentioned in verses103 and 104 of the same Sura), then if we return (to evil), surelywe shall be unjust. He shall say: Go away into it, and speaknot to Me."

From this, it is plain that there is no return to earth to.improve one's prospects of securing heaven. The reward is metedout according to the merits of one's actions.

Fa man saqulat muwazinuhu fa wulayika humul muflihun. Wa.man kaffat muwazinuhu fa wulayikal ladhina khasiru anfusahumfiiahannama khalidun. (xxiii: 102-103)

"Then as for him whose good deeds are preponderant, theseare the successful. And for him whose good deeds are light, thereare they who have lost their souls, abiding in hell."

The Re-incarnationists in Islam are the Ghulat section of the1, Sura Baqara, 11:286,

144THE SECRET OF ANA'L-HAQQ

(ii:

Shi'ah (Abu Muslim of Khurasan, Ahmad ibn Zakariah,1 v/</«Studies In Tasawwuf, p. 140) were the advocates of this doctrine.They find an adumbration of it in certain verses which, however,have a different significance.

Wakuntum amwatan fa ahyakum, thumma yumitukum thummayuhyiktan thumma Hay hi turjaun. (ii: 28)

"You were dead, He made you alive. Again He will causeyou to die and then revive you ; then you have to revert to Him."

Thumma baathnakum mini badi moutikum laallakum tashkurun.56)"We raised you up after death, so that you might be thankful;"Qalu hadhal ladhi ruzikna min qablu wa utu bihi mutashabiha,

wa lahumfi ha azwajummutaharatun. (ii: 25)"They will say this is the same as we were getting before

similar things will be brought to them as well as pure mates."Bui hum fi labsim min khalqin jadid (1: 15)"Yet they are in doubt with regard to a new creation.Wa laqad allimtum alladhina atadu minkum fis sabti faqulna

lahum kunu qiradatan khasiyin. (ii: 65)"And certainly you have known those among you, who ex-

ceeded the limits of the Sabbath, so We said unto them Be (as)apes despised and hated."

The first four verses refer to the state of man in barzakh orthe 'alam-i-mithdl: and the last to his moral metamorphosis andnot to his return to the earth for a second trial.

Man creates thought-forms (hyakal-i-khiyali) in this world;and they accompany his milhali-body in the barzakh ; in fact hismiths/f-body takes a form. His predominant character of the"ape and tiger" may thus show itself. These thought-forms con-tinue till the day of Qiydmat (stability) when the sun shall risein the West, i.e., when the realities of his a'ydn will be drawn onhim and he will see the named in the names, i e., will realize thathis attributes were a reflection of the attributes of God, and will

1. E.G. Browne's Literary His. of Persia, Vol. I, pp. 309, 327.

THE SECRET OF ANA'L-HAQQ145be content with being in jamali or jalsli attributes, as the casemay be, for the attributes finally merge in Dhat.

The doctrine of Buruz (vide p. 69, ante) in which the soul ofa departed wall or prophet influences the character of anotherwali or prophet as believed in by some sufis has nothing to dowith Tanasukh.

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