الْبَاطِنُ

قال الزجّاج: الباطنُ هو العالمُ ببطانة الشيء، يقال: بطنتُ فلانًا وخبرتُه، إذا عرفتَ باطنَه وظاهره، والله تعالى عارفٌ ببواطن الأمور وظواهرها. وقال الزجّاجي: هو الباطنُ لأنه غيرُ مُدرَكٍ بالحواسّ كالأشياء المخلوقة التي تُدرك بها؛ والباطنُ أيضًا في كلام العرب: الخبيرُ العالمُ بما بطن من أمور من يصحبه ويداخله، كقولك: قد بطن فلانٌ أمرَ فلان، أي اختبر باطنَه ووقف منه على ما لم يقف عليه غيره. وقال القشيري: الباطنُ في وصفه عزّ وجلّ بمعنى العليم بخلقه، المدبّر لأحوالهم.

Az-Zajjāj says: al-Bāṭin is the One who knows the lining of a thing; one says “I have lined so-and-so and tried him” when you know his inward and his outward; and Allah, exalted is He, knows the inward of things and their outward. Az-Zajjājī says: He is al-Bāṭin because He is not perceived by the senses, as created things are; and al-bāṭin in the speech of the Arabs is also the one who is well acquainted with the hidden affairs of one who keeps him company and is close to him — as you say “so-and-so has gone into the inside of so-and-so’s affair,” meaning he has tried his inward and come upon what no one else has. Al-Qushayrī says: al-Bāṭin, as His description, means the One who knows His creation and orders their states.

قال الخطّابي: الباطنُ هو المحتجبُ عن أبصار الخلق، وهو الذي لا يستولي عليه توهُّمُ الكيفيّة؛ وقد يكون معنى الظهور والبطون: احتجابُه عن أبصار الناظرين، وتجلّيه لبصائر المتفكّرين. وقال الحليمي: هو الذي لا يُحَسّ، وإنما يُدرك بآثاره وأفعاله. وقال الغزالي: إنما خفي مع ظهوره لشدّة ظهوره، فظهورُه سببُ بطونه، ونورُه هو حجابُ نوره، وكلُّ ما جاوز حدَّه انعكس على ضدّه؛ ومثّل لذلك بنور الشمس الذي به يظهر كلُّ شيء، ولو لم يغب عن الأشياء قطّ لتعذّر على الناظر أن يعرف أنه شيءٌ زائدٌ على ألوانها. وقال القشيري في لطائفه: الباطنُ فلا سبيلَ إلى إدراك حقّه، والباطنُ بلا احتجاب.

Al-Khaṭṭābī says: al-Bāṭin is the One veiled from the sight of creatures, over whom no imagined “how” can take hold; and manifest and hidden may mean His being veiled from the eyes of onlookers and His disclosing Himself to the insight of those who reflect. Al-Ḥalīmī says: He is the One who is not sensed, but known by His traces and His acts. Al-Ghazālī says: He is hidden, for all His manifestness, only by the intensity of His manifestness; His manifestness is the cause of His hiddenness, His light is the veil of His light, and whatever passes its limit turns into its opposite. He gives as a likeness the light of the sun, by which everything becomes visible: were it never absent from things, the onlooker could not tell that it is something beyond their colours. Al-Qushayrī says in his Laṭāʾif: the Hidden, so there is no way to perceive His reality; the Hidden, without any veil.

قال القشيري في لطائفه: من كان الغالبُ على قلبه اسمه الباطن كانت فكرتُه في استبهام أمره عليه، فيتعثّر ولا يدري: أفضلٌ ما يعامله به ربُّه، أم مكرٌ يستدرجه به؟ فحظُّ العبد من هذا الاسم أن يُصلح باطنَه قبل ظاهره، لأنّ الباطنَ يعلم منه ما يخفى على الناس، وألا يغترّ بظاهر النعمة حتى يعرف ما تحتها. وقال الغزالي: لا تتعجّبنّ من هذا في صفات الله تعالى، فإنّ المعنى الذي به الإنسانُ إنسانٌ ظاهرٌ باطن: ظاهرٌ إن استُدلّ عليه بأفعاله المرتّبة المحكمة، باطنٌ إن طُلب من إدراك الحسّ؛ فمن لم يُدرك حقيقةَ نفسه بحسّه، كيف يطمع أن يُدرك بحسّه خالقَه؟

Al-Qushayrī says in his Laṭāʾif: whoever has his heart ruled by His name the Hidden thinks on how his own affair is veiled from him, and stumbles, not knowing: is it grace that his Lord is dealing him, or a plan by which He is drawing him on? The servant’s share in this name is to set his inward right before his outward, for the Hidden knows of him what is hidden from people; and not to be deceived by the outside of a blessing until he knows what lies beneath it. Al-Ghazālī says: do not wonder at this in the attributes of Allah, exalted is He, for the very meaning by which a man is a man is manifest and hidden: manifest if inferred from his ordered, well-made acts, hidden if sought through the senses. Whoever cannot perceive the reality of his own self with his senses — how can he hope to perceive his Creator with them?

أخبر الله في سورة الأنعام أنّ الأبصار تقصر عن إدراكه وهو محيطٌ بها، وأخبر النبيُّ ﷺ أنّ العبد أقربُ ما يكون من ربّه وهو ساجد؛ فالباطنُ لا تناله العيون، ويقرب منه الساجدون، قربًا لا مسافةَ فيه، كما قال القشيري: الباطنُ بلا احتجاب. وقال في لطائفه: الباطنُ يعلم ما ليس لهم به علمٌ من خسرانهم ونقصانهم، فيدفع عنهم فنونَ محنهم وأحزانهم؛ فكم من بلاءٍ صُرف عنك وأنت لا تدري، وكم من نعمةٍ باطنةٍ لم تشكرها لأنك لم ترها. وقال في التحبير: الباطنُ برحمته، والباطنُ بالعناية، والباطنُ بالإرشاد.

Allah tells in Sūrat al-Anʿām: “Vision perceives Him not, but He perceives vision; and He is the Subtle, the Acquainted.” And the Prophet ﷺ tells that a servant is nearest to his Lord when he is prostrating. So the Hidden is beyond the reach of eyes, and near to those who prostrate — a nearness with no distance in it, as al-Qushayrī says: the Hidden, without any veil. He says too in his Laṭāʾif: the Hidden knows what they do not know of their losses and their lacks, and wards off from them the many kinds of their trials and griefs. How many a trial has been turned from you without your knowing, and how many a hidden blessing have you left unthanked, because you never saw it. And he says in at-Taḥbīr: the Hidden in His mercy, the Hidden in His care, the Hidden in His guiding.