The Prophet (the blessing and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “I saw paradise and stretched my hands towards a bunch (of its fruits) and had I taken it, you would have eaten from it as long as the world remains. I also saw the Hell-fire and I had never seen such a horrible sight. I saw that most of the inhabitants were women.” The people asked: “O Allah’s Apostle! Why is it so?” The Prophet said: “Because of their ungratefulness.” It was asked whether they are ungrateful to Allah. The Prophet said: “They are ungrateful to their companions of life and ungrateful to good deeds.” (Sahih Bukhari)”
Lilith is a danger to all subjects, physically male and physically female alike.
What Wisdom exists within such a story? Like all Prophetic hadiths, it refers to our potential reading of its own constituent signs. It communicates through Time. For there is a reading of the story that displays ingratitude to the Companions of Life, and leads our Feminine aspect to manifest the Lilith: this is the reading of hatred to our sisters, our mothers, our wives and daughters. The reading of the Lilith, in the fire! And there is a reading of the story where Sophia is manifest, and a foretaste of the food of the new is present in the Bride: this is the reading of grateful reception, of full and dutiful reception to the Light. A comfortable reading, a reading of restfulness, a foretaste of the garden.
As we have said, the human being is divided into male and female aspects. Our psychology is giving and receiving, Father and Mother, Love and Law, Vision and Creativity. This hadith speaks to us all, physically male and female, because, while the world of the physical is not denied or transcended by Prophecy, the light of its constituent signs burns brighter than all the worlds, including that of the physical.
Our creative aspects are the women. The blank blackboard, the paper to be inscribed, the field, the earth: this is our Feminine aspect. Our anima. And through its sister, Judgement, we are able to negotiate a path. The path follows the sunnah, whereby the light of the Husband of Prophecy is received by our Feminine as Wife.
And then we ascend in Marriage.
The Feminine is the receptive aspect of our psyche. So Prophecy speaks to the women throughout this story: he speaks only to the women because there is, in fact, “nothing else” to our reality. In paradise, he stretched his hands out and would have given it to the people to eat: if the people understood the Food of paradise, they would gladly be its recipients for as long as the world remains. If the wheat was bountiful upon their field, if their earth was fertile, if they knew the Truth, if their Feminine realised Sophia, then they would journey upon the Gifted Body as if upon the New Body. But the Feminine does not know, and this Food is unobtainable upon the Gifted Body, though the Prophecy outstretches its hand.
But what happens when this goes wrong? When our blackboard and our paper does not receive the signs so as to make their light manifest? What is the cause of a barren field, of an earth without wheat? Such things result from turning away from the Light, into the darkness: this is the Lilith, Potiphar’s wife, the ungrateful, prostituted creativity.
In spiritual imbalance, is our feminine aspect’s ingratitude a result of direct ingratitude to the Beloved Maker? It is not direct ingratitude: because the Feminine is speech itself, and speech cannot turn away from something inexpressible. Speech can, however, turn away from the possibility of ascent that lies within its own construction: it can turn away from the light that lies within its own signs. It can turn away from its companions of life: from the Logic of Life. It can fail to prove the Theorem. It can turn away from good deeds. As we have said, deeds constitute the robe of days, and so turning away from deeds is to walk naked without hijab. All humans, physically men and women, their Feminine aspects astray and promiscuous!
Let it not be so. Though hellfire is populated through the Feminine, let the wives and what the right hand possess be true to their companions of life. Let us be balanced. Let sweetest Sakina descend upon the husband and wife, so that the Sophia of Light is restored at the entrance to our House. Beloved Maker, let it be thus for your lovers!
I’m a christian woman who stumbled upon this article trying to learn who lilith was and found it comforting. I’m an American woman who finds the strength Muslim women have to wear the hijab beautiful. I’m a human being who found one flaw in the article and the mentality: While a woman may be the receiver, the white page and the field, if a man means to be the giver, he just be careful what he gives. Too often in my life have I seen men give pain, anger and hate. Too often have I seen men give abuse and destruction to these women. It is basic nature of a person, to not wish to be controlled by another, regardless of sex. I believe that God, or Allah if you will, created women to stand beside men, to keep them company, not to stand below them and be walked upon.
Hi Kasey,
Thanks very much for taking the time to read and make a comment about my post, I really appreciate that!
But just to clarify my point, as your comment (unless I misunderstood it) indicates I was not clear enough. Perhaps I could say, to oversimplify my position: “women” and “men” are metaphors for aspects of human spiritual psychology. Thus, we are all woman, we are all receptive, we are all the white page and the field. I am physically a male, but, on the spiritual journey, I must cultivate myself to be a “woman” in this sense.
Why should all people try to be “woman”?
Let me put it in Christian terminology, because I consider myself to be a Christian too (in the sense that I believe that the only path to God is through Christ). We are all “woman” in a similar sense to the usual understanding that we are all the Bride of Christ. See, for example John 3:29.
Have you come across a Christian mystic named St. John of the Cross? He wrote an amazing poem about the spiritual journey called the “Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ”. You can download a copy here:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/john_cross/canticle.titlepage.html
Now, if the “woman” in us becomes “wayward” to the Bridegroom, it ceases to be “chaste” and manifests exactly what I understand to be the archetype of Lilith. Would you find this a satisfactory answer to your search for the meaning of Lilith?
I have said nothing here about exactly what the “masculine” is. You could follow St. John’s book and say, of course, the Bridegroom is Christ himself. And, in a sense, for me, this is quite correct. So perhaps we could leave things there for the moment.
Whatever I mean by “masculine”, it is certainly something that all seekers, whether physically male or physically female, are unfaithful to. While we all (whether physically male or female) can be married to the “masculine”, we are not masculine immediately. We are all feminine immediately.
So when you mention (physically) male people giving pain, anger and hatred, I would say that, on the contrary, they are exactly manifesting Lilith: in the sense that they are running away from the bridegroom (let’s say, running away from Christ). They THINK they are giving. But actually all they are doing is taking, in a wayward fashion.
(I could go on about the nature of this “marriage” — for me it actually takes place by the nature of Christ as the “food” of the “wedding feast”. There is another marriage, the one that we can manifest before the marriage to Christ, which is a marriage to Prophecy, and it is that marriage which my article here addresses primarily. I can explain more if you wish, but let’s leave it out for the purposes of clarification.)
Love and Light,
The Tailor
It is an interesting fact that not everytime does or can it happen
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