All Knowledge Is Light from His Light: The Role of the Muhammadan Reality in the Islamic Sciences

In one of his shorter books, Muhammad: Man of God, Seyyed Hossein Nasr observes that “there is no greater danger for Muslims today than that of reducing the majestic grandeur of the Blessed Prophet to petty human conditions on the outward excuse that he was merely human while in reality catering to the prevailing humanism of the modern West.”1 This predicament continues to manifest in representations of the Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, in the present day. Many of the outer functions of the Prophet are emphasized, while the inner teachings and the living presence of the Muhammad an Reality (al-ḥaqīqa al-Muḥammadiyya) are often overlooked, ignored, and sometimes even denied. On the one hand, academic studies focus mostly upon the historical aspects of the founder of one of the world’s major religions. On the other hand, in attempts to present Islam as a“rational religion” devoid of supernatural baggage, “Modern reformist Muslimstend to downplay suggestions that the prophet could have had any extraordinary status beyond ordinary human beings.”2 As a result many of the qual-ities and functions of the Prophet Muhammad listed throughout the Quran receive less analysis.3 While there have been several studies of Islamic teachings regarding the Muhammadan Reality and the Muhammad an Light (al-nūral-Muḥammadī),4 analysis of the expression of these teachings in the late post-classical and early modern periods are limited. This essay analyzes the manner in which two Quranic commentators of the late post-classical period, Ismāʿīl Ḥaqqī al-Bursawī (d. 1137/1725) and Aḥmad Ibn ʿAjība (d. 1224/1809), present the metaphysical reality of the Prophet Muhammad as the light from which all knowledge emanates and thus the source of the Islamic sciences. The focus is upon their commentaries, Rūḥ al-bayān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān (The spirit of clarification regarding Quranic interpretation) and al-Baḥr al-madīd fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-majīd (The immense ocean regarding the interpretation of the gloriousQuran) respectively. Material from the commentaries is complemented with additional passages from two of Ibn ʿAjība’s treatises devoted to the unfold-ing the Muhammadan Reality, the commentary upon Mulay ʿAbd al-Salām b.Mashīsh’s (d. 626/1228) Prayer of blessings upon the Prophet known as al-Ṣalātal-Mashīshiyya,5 and al-ʿUmda fī sharḥ al-Burda (The mainstay for explicating the burda),6 a commentary on al-Kawākib al-durriyya fī madḥ khayr al-bariyya of Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Būṣīrī (d. 606/1294).