The Prophetic Virtues

In Ideals and Realities of Islam, S. H. Nasr (perhaps following the lead of Frithjof Schuon) listed what he called the three major characteristics (I will call them "virtues") of Irano-Semitic prophecy:

1. "Piety in its most universal sense, that quality which attaches man to God" (Nasr, 64) corresponds to imagination understood in the Muridiyya sense. How is imagination an acceptable translation for piety? As Ibn 'Arabi taught, imagination is the bridge one must cross in the pilgrimage to the divine Real. To that end, Ibn 'Arabi was fond of quoting a hadith qudsi or Divine speech: "I am with My servant's opinion of Me, so let him have a good opinion of Me" (see, e.g., W. Chittick, Imaginal Worlds, 174). We find a similar view in Blake (see John Middleton Murry, William Blake, chapter 20 in particular) where the only access to the divine is the imagination (indeed, for Blake, imagination is the "human-divine").

2. "Combativeness" (Nasr, 64). Prophetic combativeness corresponds to the Murid virtue of courage and is a manifestation of the Murid's recognition that life is unceasing struggle--struggle with the forces of external oppression, struggle to overcome the forces of internal oppression. In the Tolstoyan-Murid view, whenever combativeness descends to violence, the forces of internal oppression have won. Note Blake's vow to engage in unceasing mental fight (see post of 08-13-13 below). In the Blakean scheme, the courage to engage in Prophetic combativeness is found in one's dedication to "eternity" (see Murray, chapter 20).

3. "Magnanimity" (Nasr, 65). It takes greatness of soul to forgive and, in Blake's schema, forgiveness is the manifestation of the Prophetic virtue of magnanimity (see Murry, chapter 20). With every act of forgiveness, the human heart experiences a kind of increase; the human character acquires Prophetic nobility.

[Pictured above: John Middleton Murry at his writing desk].