A phenomenology of change from the verses of Shaykh Ahmad Zarruq

(haz click aquí para leerlo en español)

At the end of a conversation with my teacher, he said to me: «The best advice that I can give you is the verses of Shaykh Ahmad Zarruq». These verses are:

Submit to Salma

Go wherever she goes

Follow the winds of Destiny

Turn when they turn

These verses are very simple, yet full of meanings. That is one of the marks of profound knowledge and clarity in thinking, to mean a lot and be able to express it in very short and apparently simple words.

What follows is my reflection upon these verses and a primer to something larger I’m working on.

• Submit to Salma

Submitting to Salma means submitting to the inexorable reality that being is only in the becoming of time, it is being-in-time, and that only the being that is outside of time is the Real, Infinite; and submitting to the reality of the impossibility of the being-in-time above the Infinite.

• Go wherever she goes

The Infinite Being is without time, but it is also within time, otherwise it would not be infinite. Submitting to the reality that being is being-in-time and that the Infinite is without and within time, means that you accept the becoming of time knowing that the Infinite is within it but it is not constricted or limited by it.

• Follow the winds of Destiny

Destiny is the Infinite manifested in the becoming of time. The being-in-time cannot be without the becoming of time, and is, therefore, inexorably bound to it and hence cannot know the Infinite. Acknowledging the reality of the Infinite in the becoming of time and the necessary ignorance of the being-in-time of the Infinite means to follow the Infinite as manifested in the becoming of time.

• Turn when they turn

The ignorance of the being-in-time of the Infinite and the manifestation of the infinite in the becoming of time creates the perception in the being-in-time of change, of novelty. Change as an occurrence within time as experienced by the being-in-time. The being-in-time knows itself in the becoming of time and explains itself within it; this is the idea of oneself. The being is and is conscious of itself in the becoming of time. To know how the changes perceived by the being-in-time affect the idea of oneself is the science of changes: the phenomenology of change.