Why Do You Wear That Veil?
I have seen the ladies
with glamorous parentheses
since the maker makes make up
on smooth skins
securing scholarship for straight and narrow paths.
I praise the beauty
that dressed in order,
defiling laws and traditions,
so I ask you
why do you wear that veil?
with glamorous parentheses
since the maker makes make up
on smooth skins
securing scholarship for straight and narrow paths.
I praise the beauty
that dressed in order,
defiling laws and traditions,
so I ask you
why do you wear that veil?
I hear the voice of men,
but what mouth would speak
out my mind
that my right rise
for my secret scars
bears comfort beneath
my dark veils
becoming blinded to wisdom
in quest for knowledge.
Though the noun "kashf" never appears in the Qur'an, the verb "kashafa" does, in the sense of "to uncover" (a part of the body) or "to take away" (misfortune or danger). Even so, the Sufi derived thei concept of "kashf" ("unveiling") from two passages in the Qur'an: "Thou wast heedless of this; therefore We have now removed from thee thy covering, and so thy sight today is piercing" [50.22], and "The Imminent is imminent; apart from God none can disclose it" [53.57-58]. The Qur'an was compiled under the official direction of the early Islamic state in Medina, but the hadithat, the spoken reports describing the words, actions, and habits of Muhammad, were evaluated and gathered into large collections much later, during the 8th and 9th centuries. Nevertheless, they are second only to the Qur'an in the development of Muslim jurisprudence and theology. One hadith in particular is significant for the concept of kashf: "Between God (mighty and sublime) and creation are 70,000 veils. The nearest of creatures to God (mighty and sublime) are Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, and between them and Him are four veils: a veil of fire, a veil of darkness, a veil of cloud, and a veil of water." [This was quoted somewhat differently by Abū ʻAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn Yazīd Ibn Mājah al-Rabʻī al-Qazwīnī,who compiled "Sunan Ibn Mājah," the last of the six cannonical Sunni hadith collections: "God has seventy thousand veils of light and darkness; if He were to remove them, the radiant splendors of His Face would burn up whoever (or 'whatever creature') was reached by His Gaze."] From these and other sources, the Sufi developed the concept of knowing through intuition rather than intellect. Kashf is the experiencing of a personal divine revelation after ascending through spiritual struggles and thus uncovering a spiritual faculty that allows divine truths to penetrate. Kashf is etymologically related to mukashafa (disclosure/divine irradiation of the essence), which connotes becoming familiar with things unseen behind the veils, a concept developed into the doctrine of the "tajalli" (manifestation) of "the essence" of the Divine by Abu Bakr ibn Abi Ishaq Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Ya'qub al-Bukhari al-Kalabadhi ("Nisba"), the author of the 10th century "Kitab at-ta'arruf," written in part to assure orthodox Muslims that Sufism was not heretical. [In 922, Mansūr-e Ḥallāj had been publicly executed.]'Abd al-Karīm ibn Hūzān Abū al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī al-Naysābūrī ("Al-Kushayri") delineated the three stages of progression towards understanding the Real: Muhadara (getting oneself into the proper position in realtion to the objective, which is still veiled; it relies on transmission of proof via the intellect, or understanding God through miraculous signs); Mukashafa (lifting of the veil; reasoning gives way to evident proof via intuition by which one directly encounters the attributes of God); and Mushahada (direct vision, without intellect or intuition as an intermediary). In the 13th century, 'Abū 'Abdullāh Muḥammad ibn 'Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn `Arabī, often regarded as "the greatest master," claimed that kashf was necessary to understand the universality of the reality of realities (i.e. the universality of God’s oneness). Through "fana" (self-annihilation), the individual ego disappears and is replaced by divine self-manifestation, which is eternal because it comes from God but must be continually reenacted by the individual, who becomes the receptor or intermediary between spirit and matter that is required for pure consciousness to be realized.
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