Salaam Hala and Salam to everyone
Hala I will try to provide back up for your writings on concept of Beauty, so this will be in several pieces and kinda sloppy.
Hadith you quoted:
Inna Allah (is) beautiful and loves the beauty, said the Prophet.
الجامع الصغير – لجلال الدين السيوطي
المجلد الثاني >> [تتمة باب حرف الألف]
1720- إن الله تعالى جميل يحب الجمال
التخريج (مفصلا): صحيح مسلم والترمذي عن ابن مسعود الطبراني في الكبير عن أبي أمامة الحاكم في المستدرك عن ابن عمر، ابن عساكر عن جابر وعن ابن عمر
تصحيح السيوطي: صحيح
Inna indicates that this Beauty of Allah is the very shape of the universe which shapes all things that are beautiful.
Shah Ni’ma-tu-Llah said: Jamal (Beauty) is the Tajalli (Lucent Manifestation) of Allah towards Allah and for Allah. [1]
This means that Allah loves to see ITs own beauty and loves to show ITs own beauty to ITself. All other forms of beauty (and pleasures of exposure to beauty) are borrowed from Divine Beauty, infinitely vitiated of course. Gold in its purest form could not be used for jewelry making since it is too soft and needs to be alloyed with impurities. As such for Divine beauty to be seen by other than Allah needs to be alloyed with impurities then it is beautiful in our eyes, else no eye could behold its purest form. Those ‘impure alloys’ are the beautiful things other than Allah.
Irfani (Gnostic) definition of Beauty: Emergence of perfection (Kamal) of the beloved, to render beloved’s needlessness of lover!
Note: Jamal (Beauty) and Kamal(Perfection) are one letter off i.e. Jim for Jamal replaced by Ka for Kamal, in the language Arab indicates conceptual relatedness.
If you could cognize the needlessness of Allah from all things, then you suddenly see the purest forms of Allah’s beauty. If you could not fathom Allah’s needlessness e.g. thinking Allah needs you to do something charitable or religious, then you see nothing of Allah’s beauty, only your own Nafs’.
[1] Sajaddi: Farhang-e Istilahat Irfani
Salam, Dear Dara, and all,
Thank you so much for your comments on my post on Beauty. You have many times stirred this faqir into specific directions, and indeed here you go again by pointing out that the difference between “Jamal” and “Kamal” is but one letter, the first one. Your deep knowledge of Arabic and Arabic writings is so enlightening, that at times I feel like I am “stealing” your “windows”, Dara. Please allow me, with clear words, to do so, if only to clear the beclouding guilt.
It is my turn to request time on answering this most stirring post of yours. Please do not assign limits to this time, for, having yourself asked to “muse” the words, you know well that for some of us “thinking” happens only at Allah’s Will, and in His Own Timing. Hence, there can be no “lateness” or “sloppiness” here, to answer this other part of your comment.
Shah Ni’ma-tu-Llah saying “Jamal (Beauty) is the Tajalli (Lucent Manifestation) of Allah towards Allah and for Allah” states indeed that “Meem” is the Lucent Manifestation Within Allah, for Allah Himself, That Shines Allah’s Most Intrinsic Beauty, in his own and much earlier words. This faqir however is simply ravished at the Irfani definition of Beauty you have shared: “Emergence of perfection (Kamal) of the
beloved, to render beloved’s needlessness of lover!”
May I ask that, at your own convenience of course, you let us know who wrote this, and elaborate on the “conceptual relatedness” of being only one letter off between Jamal and Kamal? This is a “lucent” idea that relates well to the concept of Divine Letters “writing” Reality.
The “Purest” Reality of Allah’s Beauty “relate to the Beauty of His Dzat, which indeed can not be witnessed as long as you are looking through your own eyes, or even Eye, which can be witnessed only when AllaH SWT allows you to see through His Own Gaze, as He Has Stated that He Allows His Awliya’ to do: “”When I love him I am his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees”.
ALLaHuMMa grants us this station,
Love and Light,
Hala