Presence of God According to Ḥaqq al-Yaqīn, a Seventeenth-Century Treatise by Shaykh Shams al-Dīn al-Sumatraʾī (D. 1630)

This paper investigates the concept of ‘presence of God’ according to Shams al-Dīn-al Sumatraʾī (d. 1630), a seventeenth-century Malay Sufi scholar and a member of the court of the illustrious Sultan Iskandar Muda of Acheh (d. 1636). He is known to have been a follower of Hamza Fansuri, but where Hamza was a master of utilizing poetry in his teachings, Shams al-Dīn utilized prose. The teachings of Shams al-Dīn discussed here aretaken from a newly discovered manuscript attributed to him, Ḥaqq al-yaqīn fī aqīdat al-muḥaqqiqīn. The overall structure of this text is presented here for the first time in English. The content of this work are a mixture of theoretical and practical Sufism. This paper focuses on the theoretical part in which Shams al-Dīn expounds the views held by the verifiers (muḥaqqiqūn) in regard to the conception of God and God’s relation to the world. How does God manifest Himself to the world? What is the meaning of the world (ʿālam) to the verifiers? What is the difference between Shams al-Dīnʾs view of the presence of God and that of the main exponent of Ibn ʿArabʿ, Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qunawī? Was Shams al-Dīn a mere imitator of the writings of Muḥammad ibn Faḍl Allāh al-Burhānpūrī via the Tuḥfa almursala ilā rūḥal-Nabī as some have asserted? These are some of the questions raised in the article, which includes an annotated translation of the relevant chapter of Ḥaqq al-yaqīn. What is found in the end is that, even though influence of Persian—Arabic mysticism permeated Malay mysticism, Shams al-Dīn managed to produce a fresh, original synthesis of metaphysical teachings and insights.