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Sufism Undercover:
The Sufistic Dimensions of Asma' al-Husna
The Sufistic Dimensions of Asma' al-Husna
All of Moslems actually have known what is The 99 Beautiful Divine Names of Allah. Its famous being called as asma' al-husna. In this time we will give you the all some article about the asma' al-husna. The article Not only tells you about the definition of asma' al-husna one by one, but it also describes you the sufistic dimension of asma' al-husna. This article is'nt suitable only for moslems, but for another people who has believe in another religion, even atheist. It may gives you some illuminations and great knowing of the universe and the true mening of life.
"Say: 'Call on Allah or call on the Beneficent God; whichever you call on, they has the Best names.' Say: 'Invoke God, or invoke the Most Gracious: by whichever name you invoke Him, they is always the one -- for His are all the attributes of perfection.'" Quran Al Isra 17:110
"And Allah's are the best Names, therefore call on Him thereby, & leave alone those who violate the sanctity of His Names; they shall be recompensed for what they did; God's alone are the attributes of perfection; invoke Him, then, by these, & stand aloof from all who distort the meaning of His attributes." Quran Al A'Raf 7:180
"Allah is they, other than Whom there is no other god; Who knows both what is hidden & what can be witnessed; they is the Most Compassionate & Merciful. Allah is they, other than Whom there is no other god; the Sovereign, the one, the Source of Peace, the Guardian of Faith, the Preserver of Security, the Exalted, the Compelling, the Supreme. Glory be to God, beyond any associations. they is Allah, the Creator, the Evolver, the Bestower of Form. To Him belong the Most attractive Names: Whatever exists in heaven & earth declares His Praise & Glory. & they is Exalted in Power, the Wise." Quran Al Hashr 59:22-24
"He is the First & the Last & the Ascendant (over all) & the knower of hidden things, & they is Cognizant of all things. they is The First (Al-Awaal) & The Last (Al-Aakhir), The Outward (As-Zhahir) & The Inward (Al-Batin); they is The Knower of All Things." Quran Al-Hadid 57:3
As humanity evolved along the path of spirituality, various aspects & attributes of divinity were sensed. Climbing higher on the scale of the holy path, Man discovered more facets of Allah, or whatever one may call the Absolute. Gradually, the hidden Isis unveiled, & is still unveiling her beauty--her naked Truth. This revelation is an on-going method, for humanity won't cease to struggle for enlightenment being unsatiated with the crumbs or the milk of the Word.
The Divine Names
What man formally understood broadly, they now began to apperceive the details, the minor rays of the one Light; & these details, they may subsequently discover, further differentiate themselves ad infinitum. These divine rays or virtues of Allah were personified by the ancients ushering man from the animistic stage to the polytheistic phase. all of the ancient cultures had their pantheons of gods & goddesses, representing externally the inherent, & dormant spectrum of divine virtues lying hidden within man. Though man be made in God's image, possessing the seeds of divinity, they still reflects poorly the divine attributes & aspects of his Progenitor; thus humanity still needs to grow into God's image & attain its own beautification, acquiring the state of perfection, the evolutionary stage called "Insan Kamil," or "Perfect Human Being."
Discovering himself, man discovered God; & the more they grew in self-awareness, the more they discovered the treasures, the various divine elements unawakened within his essence. This was how the various names of God came into existence. Primitive cultures might have referred to the unseen Intelligence with a single appellation, but as they grew in maturity, in awareness, wisdom & understanding, as they unfolded their own innate divinity, more attributes were realized & names were assigned to the God they worshipped, for man inherently felt that the awakened virtues they had are possessed in full perfection by the Source of All. The amount of God-names expands as man develops his Spirit-awareness.
In Islam, & in al-Hikmah, in general, human figures are not allowed to represent Allah or the divine attributes, as they are considered sacrilegious. Even the portrait of the Prophet was not saved for posterity. This was to avoid making a cult around the personality of the Messenger as was unfortunately done with the Piscean Master.
Polytheism is not merely a concept or untrue. Human beings do evolve into perfection & attain god status as exclaimed by the prophets, "ye are (intrinsically) gods!" An adept on the spiritual path might make a divine virtue a predominant part of its expression that the embodiment of the attribute causes the adept to be universally & celestially recognized as a god of the divine ray itself. Thus, they have Venus, the goddess of Love, Kwan Yin, the goddess of Mercy, Thoth, the god of Wisdom, etc. The gods are embodiments of the ideal & various esoteric practice revolves around the assumption of the forms & characteristics of the gods & goddesses in order to quicken the magician's own divinity & to produce occult effects. The gods, however, do bow in reverence to Allah, the one Essence recognizing & understanding over what is known to mortal minds.
There is an interesting account about images: during the early days of the promulgation of Islam by the walis or saints in Indonesia, the Islamic leaders encountered a problem as the indigenous people of Java were fond of the shadow-puppet theatrical plays. These puppets were in the shape of human figures. In keeping with the Islamic law that human icons were not allowed to be portrayed, they sought to ban this traditional entertainment but feared causing an uproar as a consequence. one of the Walis known as Sunan Kalijaga, intervened, however. His keen mind saw the potential of the plays as a media in conveying the moral teachings of Islam & suggested to the council of the "9 Saints" to permit the continuance of the practice. To comply with the teachings of Islam, they proposed that the human figures of the puppets be caricaturized. Thus deformed images of the shadow-puppets came into being. Samples of these may be found all over our website.
one of the teachings of Islam is that angels do not descend into houses filled with dogs & images. Though fundamentalists may adhere to the rule of the letter, esoterically, this refers to the unrestrained desires & the idols of the mind. The Divine Ray of the Holy Spirit has trouble entering man through the crown chakra blocked with psychic toxins generated by the impure mind & emotions. This is the esoteric interpretation of Christ knocking at the door & waiting for entry. they who would not purify himself causes the portal to remain barred.
Each letter of the Arabic alphabet has a numerological value & is said to be associated with khodams, or angelic servants. The letters are embodiments or are representative of cosmic energies. The combined letters forming the Divine Names are in turn associated with other spirit khodams or classes of the angelic hierarchy. Having numerical values, the combined letters of the Divine Names represent metaphysical structures mathematically-based that possesses esoteric significances. Practitioners normally chant the Names the number of times in accord with its total value. The numerical value of a Name resonates with the power that it represents. Thus chanting the value of a Name or one of its expression mathematically derived therefrom, invokes the power, grace & virtues of the Name into the magician's consciousness. The figures in the table below, extracted from elderly manuscripts, is the result of one numerological method of calculating the value of the Names. The Arabic letters, not the Latin, have been used as a basis for this calculation; the various methods of acquiring the value of a Name won't be given here as they are related to initiatic transmissions.
The Divine Names in Islam that have traditionally been passed on to us are 99 in number; the word "Allah" rounds the number to 100. The "Beautiful Divine Names" is probably the development of the 72 divine names of the Schemhamphoras, the 10 God-Names of the Qaballistic Tree of Life, & the other numerous appellations of God to be found in Jewish scriptures. Scholars of Islam may debate as to the legitimacy of the 99 names as a whole, whether they are a revelation from God & a true teaching of the Prophet, or whether they are basically concocted by man; but as occultists, this is of no import. The names are archetypal & may be experienced as realities within the recesses of one's psyche.
Practical Usage
The khodam familiars assigned to the Divine Names may actually represent an angelic class rathers than to specific individual spirits judging from the vague statements of certain Islamic authors. Various lists assign different angels to the Divine Names, however, most of these are probably due to the variations in pronunciation/spelling of the angelic names. According to our compilation of the list below, some angels are associated with over one Divine Name; thus for instance they have 'Athfayail as the guardian of Al-Lathif & Ash Shakur. As to the accuracy of the list, they leave that to the practitioner to discover through direct experience.
Above they initimated that the angels of the Divine Names may be known through direct experience. In the occult practices of Ilmu Hikmah, the attractive appellations of Allah are recited for thousands of times per day, often times for consecutive months in order to evoke the khodams to "material" appearance. The purpose of the evocation are varied. The angelic servers may be called on to assist the practitioner in solving the varied problems of life; to provide familiars, to acquire occult powers & abilities, mystical objects, general information & magickal knowledge; to assist in magickal operations, etc.
In Islamic occultism, the interaction with angelic spirits are preferred to the socializing with jinns or the trafficking with demons. Jinns are unpredictable & deceptive while demons are malicious. Orthodox Islam as a rule, does not condone the practice of conjuration as it presents plenty of dangers for the evolving soul. Al-Hikmah, however, teaches the subject but with the stipulation that the novice be fully guided in the method & apply the strenuous disciplines that refines the soul, awakens the heart & will, & uplifts the intelligence so as to offer protection against the temptations, illusions, deceptions, glamor & maya along the way. Conjurations in al-Hikmah are confined to angels & jinns, & in rare cases to human spirits. "Demons" are not sought for except by the strayers of the path.
So far they have mentioned the lower goals & effects of the recitation of the Divine Name. This comes under the province of thaumaturgy. they would like to point out that the chanting of the Divine Names has a more lofty purpose & this is theurgical in nature. Islam refers to the chanting of Divine Names as "zikr." it is widely practiced in the tarikat aspect of Islam. Zikr means "remember." it is the remembrance of Allah, done through contemplation of the name & not mere mechanical chanting. Practitioners of Tasawuf recognize the psychic effects of zikir but stand aloof from them. Their purpose is to unite with Allah, the "unio mystica," through his Divine Names. Zikr plays the same role as the occult practice of the assumption of godforms.
Methods of conjuration are numerous. They may be done through the methods of the magickal schools of the Western Tradition (the Golden Dawn, etc), the shamanic method, or the simple zikir in Tasawuf, or Islamic mysticism; though the latter, viewing from a spiritual perspective, does not consider conjuration as of any importance or even as causing obstacles along the path. Al-Hikmah, being eclectic, combines plenty of methods, depending on various factors. Different methods are also used by different schools of the al-Hikmah tradition. These occult lodges guard their methods with secrecy--or sad to say, with a price.
In the teachings of the Asma ul-Husna or the "Divine Names" of Islamic mysticism, the first step is to know & memorize the names intellectually. Then one contemplates on the Names, striving to express the divine attributes in daily life. Concomitant to this, one would chant the Names in one's daily practice until overshadowed by them. Knowing all of the Divine Names, not merely intellectually, but experentially is part of the gnostic stage of Islam. Termed "marifat," the gnosis offers the practitioner a greater awareness of the Spiritual Source. Zikr of the Divine Names is one method of attaining the gnostic state. It leads to the Inner Light & Sound emanating from the Divine Throne.
Divination
The Divine Names, like the Urim & Thurim of Judaism, long vanished, may be used as a divinatory technique approximating the spiritual consultation technique of the I Ching. Chips with the Names inscribed thereon may be constructed & consecrated with the associated Name. These are placed in a talismanic pouch. Inquiries may be made & the chip/s drawn to answer the questions. they won't over-dwell on the mechanics & method of this, leaving it to the ingenuity of the practitioner to develop his/her own methods & reading style. they would like to add that our plenty of inquirers were amazed at the accuracy of the technique as they presented it to them.
Spiritual Discipline
Before engaging in any magickal practice, one should undergo a strenuous period of purification, sensitivity training, the unfoldment of the heart & will, the spiritual culture of one's character, the accumulation & comprehension of essential knowledge, the practice of goodwill, & the development of intuition. These would greatly protect & shield the practitioner from assorted problems presented by astral glamor & the illusions on the mental plane.
Such a period of discipline ought to be supervised by a spiritual adept or his representative. This is essential for various reasons; one being that the novice may not know the appropriate standard or criteria with which to assess his advancement. Lacking the overseership of an adept might cause the novice to be filled with illusions of personal grandeur, pride, vanity, etc. The pitfalls are indeed numerous. Being predominantly a magician or a mystic causes problems. The way of the heart & the head/will should be in equilibrium. it is the magi that balances both qualities to perfection.
Prior to commencing a rite of invocation of one of the Divine Names, undergo an ablution--a holy wash. Then sit in a room & do some rhythmic breathing. If you are conducting your obligatory prayers simultaneously, then begin the chanting of the Divine Names after the prayers; if not, offer a general prayer of worship to Allah prior to the zikr. If you know the Al-Fatihah verse, commence with this.
How to Invoke
Carefully pick a Divine Name in accord with your need, or you may pick one from your divination pouch as explained earlier. Then recite the name for the amount of times equal to its value; or you may multiply the value with the sacred numbers 19 or 11 to be found structurally in the Quran & chant
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