The Complete or Able/Cosmic Person

People are standing on slippery ground if they want to have supernatural powers, rule matter and natural phenomena, know the future, and be a perfect person in all respects. Sufis describe this as the quest for being a complete person, while in modern use it is called being an able/cosmic person. Modern movements and societies propagate their views in such statements as: “Join us if you want to reach the Space Civilization, if you want to be promoted to a higher level, if you want to become a cosmic person, if you want to get to the seventh level of consciousness, etc.”

It is possible to demonstrate how wrong it is to go to extremes in this matter by mentioning the Islamic point of view in general, and that of Sufism in particular. Human beings have the purest and the best nature of all creatures and they possess some of God’s attributes. Nevertheless, they are incomplete compared to God; absolute perfection is one of His attributes. Some of the Qur’anic verses concerning human beings are as follows:

When I have fashioned him and breathed into him of My spirit, fall down prostrating yourselves to him. (15:29, 38:72)

We have created man in the best of shapes. (95:4)

He has made you His inheritors of the earth. (6:165)

We have honored the children of Adam and carried them on land and sea, provided them with good things and preferred them greatly over many of those We have created. (17:70)

These verses show that human beings possess a divine element. There are also verses that point to the incompleteness, inadequacy, disobedience, and weakness of the human being.

… for man was created weak. (4:28)

Man was truly created apprehensive. (70:19)

 Sufism, with its understanding of the uniqueness of the human being, has put to the fore the good elements in people and developed the concept of the “complete person.” The good elements of the human being include the fact that we know God through His actions and attributes. From these actions and attributes, existence and events materialize. Humans are both the seeds and the fruits of existence. Also, when human beings, the heirs of God, reach completeness, they become creatures in which God’s names and attributes become flesh. People are a mid-point between God and the universe, the obvious and the hidden. They are the ones in which the meanings of divine completeness is realized. The universe is a mirror that reflects God. The complete human being is the reflection of this mirror. “God created Adam in His own image,”[18] and this continued after Adam, and the prophets and saints also carried this trait.

Sufism explains the complete human being’s presence between God and the universe by pointing to the interpretation of the following verse:

He unleashed the two seas so as to merge together. Between them is a barrier which they do not overstep. (55:19-20)

In the light of this verse, the ideas that combine God and the complete person (ittihad), making them one (hulul), become void. Human beings are at the center of creation.

In religion, complete human beings are illustrious personalities. Faith, Islam, and benevolence are their path and orbit, God’s favor is their goal, to love and to make others love God is their duty, while Heaven and God’s beauty are the surprising outcome of their ways of thinking and acting. The complete person is God’s vicegerent in terms of his relationship with creation and events, and his interaction with them (2:30). They always know their place. They are most careful when protecting the limits of creation and obedience, the thought that everything comes from God is always present in their mind. They neither get intoxicated on their abilities, nor do they fall into spiritual indulgence.

The Prophet (pbuh) represents the zenith of the complete person in Sufism. Although every prophet and every saint who follows a prophet is a complete person, they do not completely represent God’s names. All the names and attributes of the prophets and saints combine into a whole in Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). For anyone who desires completeness, after going through all the stages, to be able to reach the “Prophet’s Truth” is an ideal. Therefore, Sufi scholars have always kept alive the ideal of being a complete person. Human beings, the best creatures in the cosmic sense, try to climb the steps of wisdom and to maintain the unity of knowledge and practice in order to realize their potential personality.

In the philosophy of “unity of being” (Wahdat al-Wujud) the second stage of the seven-rung ladder is called pre-emergence (taayyun al-awwal). This is also called the Prophet’s Truth or the complete person. The Prophet’s Truth is a purely metaphysical fact that is beyond the limits of time and space. A number of superior qualities are ascribed to this cosmic stage in Sufi literature. According to the interpretation of the stage of existence in the philosophy of unity of being, it is impossible to separate this stage from the Essence and to treat it and the Essence as one because of the differences between them. When other points are taken into consideration, a third classification is born.         

a. Prophets: Although the spiritual existences of all prophets from Adam to Muhammad (peace be upon them) are manifestations of this fact, the final Prophet is the culmination.

b. The Saints (Rijal al-Gayb): In Sufism, saints and qutbs (the greatest saint of an era), who govern the universe spiritually, take their share of the Prophet’s Truth. Although a qutb is a perfect person, they are not as high as those in the first category.

c. Perfect Being (Al-insan al-kamil):[19] We can separate al-insan al-kamil into two categories. One is the “guide” who has completed their spiritual education according to an established path and is assigned by their teacher to guide other people. This is the complete and perfect person. It is normal for every member of a Sufi society to see their teacher as being at this stage. They are advised to adhere to this understanding in order to obtain wisdom. The other category is that of the complete believer. Whether they have joined a society or not, every believer who knows God as described in the Qur’an and the Hadith and who leads a perfect Islamic life is in this class.

Although the classification as given above is not directly mentioned in any Sufi book, we have rearranged some of the basic ideas in order to make it simpler to understand. Our aim here is to point out the mistake of regarding one’s teacher as the owner of the position of the Prophet’s Truth and to the irrelevance of any anti-Sufi criticism on this point.[20] Surely, this classification is open to criticism and explanations by experts. Moreover, the issue of the complete human being has cosmological significance and is discussed in Sufi philosophical works under such headings as The Prophet’s Truth, the Prophet’s Light, the Able Person, the Word, etc.

The concept of the complete human in Sufism, which we have briefly mentioned, depends on the distinction between God and humans, His servants. Although this is a consistent and balanced way of thinking, some Islamic scholars have, to some extent, criticized it because of several extreme interpretations that might lead to misunderstanding.

Modern movements disregard God, put human beings in His place, and try to place the human being before us in the manner of an all-powerful creator, tempting us into believing that we are totally self-sufficient. The result of such actions could be personality disorders and a laissez-faire syndrome. A person who rejects obedience to God will be estranged, lose his or her freedom, and be ready and open to worship anything other than God; this person is in contradiction with their own nature.

It would be a good idea to summarize the main points here.

In the understanding of the complete man in Sufism:

a. Man can never reach God’s rank and he cannot acquire His attributes.

b. Everything other than God was created, even those beings at the first stage of Emergence (Taayyun).

c.There is a strict distinction between God and His creations. No one can claim to be worshipped and thus avoid their duty to pray.

On the other hand, in the understanding of the complete person of modern movements:

a. There is no belief in an all-powerful God. Some have no faith in God at all. Therefore, they do not believe in the Hereafter, the Prophethood, the revelation, etc.

b. People are being driven into a vortex of pharaoh-like egoism, vanity, and conceit, considering themselves above everything. In contrast, in Sufi education, destroying or minimizing the ego is one of the fundamental aims.

c. Human beings are prevented from worshipping God, and run the risk of worshipping everything else.

d. When human beings discover that they cannot reach the level promised by such a movement – because that is impossible – they become unhappy, suffer mental and spiritual ailments, and sometimes commit suicide, sometimes even arranging mass suicides.

e. People are led to believe that they have the power and the authority to do everything, and that they are the absolute rulers; this leads them to lose control and destroy nature. On the other hand, in Sufism everything – living or non-living – is part of God’s creation and so must be loved and protected.

[18] Bukhari, Isti’zan, 1; Muslim, Birr, 115, Muslim, Jannah, 28.

Important note: Image in this hadith stands for the manifestation of God’s beautiful names as reflected in human creation, not in the sense of likeness of physical attributes. God’s Essence and nature of existence is beyond our comprehension and outside our imagination.—Ed.

[19] This very famous Sufi term denotes an individual’s final “spiritual” perfection, which causes him or her to have a universal “nature” that can represent the entire creation and reflect all that is best in it.—Ed.

[20] See  for a similar criticism by Abdulaziz Bayindir.