Through a small book about the philosophy of Heidegger I came across his interest for Meister Eckhart (1260-1329) and his idea of Gelassenheit, sometimes translated as detachment, releasement. And so I read in the book of the Ph.Thesis by Shafaatun the chapter on Detachment (pp. 121-157). Shafaatun takes another keyword of Eckhart, Abgescheidenheit, also translated as 'detachment'.
In the recent book on The Essential Caputo, a nice analysis of this concept of Eckhart is given. There is a cool section of detachment: leaving things aside, making free from, like ascetism, which also may lead to indifference, lazyness. This is the negative side of the concept, like the Arab nafî, leading to some kind of purification, but not yet a final situation. But then isbât should of follow, as the fulfillment, realisation of union with God.
Caputo writes in this that after detachment a positive action must come: "As the soul transcends into the multiplicity of sensible things of the world to God himself." (61). Here Eckhart writes in a personal style about God, while Heidegger writes in an impersonal mood about Being itself. In fact, here is not only negative theology working (see Shafaatun pp 154-155) but also the positive side is coming in.
From this debate I thought again about the meaning of Islam. It is often translated as 'surrender to God's will and power', and so has the meaning of detachment, but it immediately must be given the positive meaning of sharing God's plan with the world, of a personal union. Entrustment could be a good translation of Islam too.
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