I see you [going through the
motions of the salat-prayer:] standing upright [qiyam], sitting on your heels [qu'ud],
bowing from the waist [ruku'], and falling in prostration [sujud], as you lose
sleep in weary vigil. But your heart never moves from its place, never leaves
the home of its being, and never changes its familiar habits. Be honest in your
quest for your Master (Almighty and Glorious is He); your honesty [sidq] may
enable you to dispense with a lot of exhausting effort. Peck open the egg of
your being with the beak of your honesty, and knock down the walls of your
devotion and attachment to creatures with the pickaxes of sincerity [ikhlas] and
your affirmation of Unity [Tawhid]. Break the cage of your appetite for things
with the hand of your abstinence from them. Fly away with your heart until you
alight on the shore of the ocean of your nearness to your Lord (Almighty and
Glorious is He). Then the sailor of Preordination [as-sabiqa] will come to you.
He will have with him the ship of Providence [al-'inaya], and so he will take
you across to your Lord (Almighty and Glorious is He).
This world is an ocean, and your faith [iman] is its ship. This is why Luqman
the Wise [al-hakim] (may ALLAH's mercy be upon him) said: "O my dear son, this
world is an ocean. Faith is the ship. The sailor is your obedient worship [ta'at].
The shore is the hereafter."
O you who persist in sinful disobedience! Coming to you very soon are blindness
and deafness, old age and poverty, and the hardening of people's hearts toward
you. Your possessions will all be gone because of losses, confiscations [musadarat]
and thefts. Be sensible. Repent to your Lord (Almighty and Glorious is He). Do
not make idols of your possessions and put your trust in them. Do not become
attached to them. Evict them from your hearts. Keep them in your houses and your
pockets, and with your servants [ghilman] and your agents [wukala']. Be ready
for death. Diminish your appetite and reduce your expectations.
Abu Yazid al-Bistami (may the mercy of ALLAH be upon him) is reported as having
said: "The experienced believer [al-mu'min al-'arif] seeks nothing of this world
and nothing of the hereafter from ALLAH (Almighty and Glorious is He). All he
seeks from his Master is his Master [innama yatlubu min Mawlahu Mawlahu]."
O young man! Return with your heart to ALLAH (Almighty and Glorious is He). One
who is repentant [ta'ib] to ALLAH is one who is returning [raji'] to Him, and
His words (Almighty and Glorious is He): "Repent unto your Lord," (39:54) i.e.,
"Return to your Lord," mean: "Turn back and surrender everything to Him."
Surrender your own selves to Him, and cast them down in submission before His
decree, His destiny, His commandment, His prohibition and His transformative
workings [taqlibat]. Cast your hearts down in submission before Him, without
tongues, without hands, without legs, without eyes, without "How?", without
"Why?", without argument and without contradiction, but rather with agreement
and confirmation. Say: "The commandment [al-amr] is true. Destiny [al-qadar] is
true. Preordination [as-sabiqa] is true." If you are like this, your hearts will
surely be repentant unto Him and witness Him directly. They will not take a
liking to anything, but rather feel distaste for everything beneath the heavenly
Throne [al-'arsh] down to the surface of the earth. They will flee from all
created things, and remain separate and cut off from all temporal phenomena [muhdathat].
No one knows how to behave correctly with the Sheikhs unless he has served them
and become aware of some of the spiritual states [ahwal] they experience with
ALLAH (Almighty and Glorious is He). The people [of the Lord] have learned to
treat praise and blame like summer and winter, like night and day. They regard
them both as from ALLAH (Almighty and Glorious is He), because no one is capable
of bringing them about except ALLAH (Almighty and Glorious is He). When this has
become real for them, therefore, they do not place their confidence in those who
praise them, nor do they fight with their critics, and they pay no attention to
them. Their hearts have been emptied of both love and hate for creatures. They
neither love nor hate, but rather feel compassion.
What benefit can you derive from knowledge without sincere belief [sidq], since
ALLAH may allow you to go knowingly astray? You acquire learning and do the
salat-prayers and keep the fast, all for the sake of people, to get them to be
well disposed toward you, to lavish their goods on you, and to sing your praises
in their homes and their social gatherings. Suppose you do get all this from
them; when death comes to you, and torment and anguish and terror, you will be
cut off from them and they will do nothing to help you. The goods you got from
them will be consumed by others, while you must suffer punishment and face the
final reckoning. O deserter! O outcast! You are one of those who are "toiling,
weary" (88:3) in this world, and weary tomorrow in the Fire [of Hell].
Worshipful service ['ibada] is a skilled craft, and its experts are the saints
[al-Awliya'] and the sincere Abd’al [spiritual deputies] who are brought close
to the presence of the Lord of Truth (Glorious and Exalted is He). Those
scholars who put their knowledge into practice are the deputies [nuwwab] of
ALLAH upon His earth, and of His Envoys [rusul]; they are the heirs of the
Prophets [al-anbiya'] and the Messenger [al-mursalun]. Not you, O deluded fools,
O you who are preoccupied with tongue-wagging and legalistic knowledge [fiqh] of
the outer [az-zahir], accompanied by ignorance of the inner [al-batin].
O young man! You do not amount to anything. Islam [submission to the will of
ALLAH] has not become a fact for you. Islam is the foundation upon which
everything is built. The profession of faith [ash-Shahadah] has not become
completely real for you. You say: "There is no god but ALLAH [la ilaha illa'llah],"
but you are lying. In your heart there is a whole collection of gods [aliha].
Your fears of your ruler [sultan] and of your local governor [Wali] are gods.
Your reliance on your earned income and your profit, on your power and your
strength, on your hearing and your sight and your energy, all these are gods.
Your ways of viewing creatures as the source of injury and benefit, of giving
and withholding, are also gods. Many people talk about these things with their
hearts, while making it appear that they are talking about the Lord of Truth
(Glorious and Exalted is He). Their mentioning the Lord of Truth (Glorious and
Exalted is He) has become a habit for their tongues, not for their hearts. When
they are challenged on this score, they fly into a rage and say: "How can such
things be said of us? Are we not Muslims?" Tomorrow the shameful facts will be
disclosed, and things kept hidden will be revealed.
Woe unto you! When you say: "There is no god [la ilaha]," it is an absolute
negation [nafy kulli], and "except ALLAH [illa'llah] " is an absolute
affirmation [ithbat kulli]. You are asserting this as true of Him, not of any
other than Him, so whenever your heart relies upon anything other than the Lord
of Truth (Glorious and Exalted is He), you are making your affirmation falsely,
for the thing you have relied upon has become your god [ilah], regardless of
outer appearances. It is the heart that is the believer [mu'min], that is the
monotheist [muwahhid], that is sincere [mukhlis], that is devout [mutaqqi], that
is pious [wari'], that is abstinent [zahid], that is convinced [muqin], that is
experienced ['arif], that is effective ['amil], that is the leader [amir] while
all the rest are its troops and its followers.
When you say: "There is no god but ALLAH," speak first with your heart and then
with your tongue. Trust in Him and rely on Him, to the exclusion of any other
than Him. Devote your outer [zahir] to the law [hukm] and your inner [batin] to
the Lord of Truth (Glorious and Exalted is He). Leave good and evil to your
outer, and concentrate on your inner together with the Creator of good and evil.
When someone knows Him directly ['arafahu], he submits to Him. His tongue grows
weary in His presence. He behaves humbly toward Him and toward His righteous
servants. His cares, his grief and his weeping are multiplied. His fear and his
dread increase, as well as his sense of shame and his remorse for previous
shortcomings. He becomes intensely wary and afraid of losing the direct
experience [ma'rifa], the knowledge ['ilm] and the nearness he has attained,
because the Lord of Truth (Glorious and Exalted is He) is:
Doer of what He will, (11:107) and: He shall not be questioned as to what He
does, but they shall be questioned. (21:23) He fluctuates between two prospects.
Looking back over his negligence, his impudence, his ignorance and his
indulgence in pleasure, he melts with shame and fears chastisement. Then he
looks toward the future, wondering whether he will be accepted or rejected,
whether he will be stripped of all he has been given or allowed to keep it, and
whether on the Day of Resurrection he will be in the company of the believers or
that of the unbelievers. This is why the Prophet (ALLAH bless him and give him
peace) has said:
I am the one amongst you who knows ALLAH best, and I am the one amongst you who
fears Him most.
The most extraordinary and rare of all those who have real experience ['arifin]
is one who receives safe conduct [amn]. What has been preordained for him is
read out to him, so he knows his refuge and how he will come to arrive there.
His innermost being [sirr] reads what is destined for him on the Preserved
Tablet [al-lawh al-mahfuz]. Then it informs his heart of this, telling it to
keep it a secret and not to make it known to the lower self [nafs].
The first stage of this business is Islam, compliance with the commandments and
avoidance of the prohibitions, and patient endurance of misfortunes. Its final
stage is the renunciation [zuhd] of everything apart from the Lord of Truth
(Glorious and Exalted is He), and an attitude of indifference toward gold and
dirt, praise and blame, gifts and the withholding of gifts, Paradise and the
Fire [of Hell], blessing and suffering, affluence and poverty, and the presence
and absence of creatures. When this has been fully accomplished, there is ALLAH
(Almighty and Glorious is He) beyond it all. Then comes the appointment by Him
to leadership [imara] and authority [walaya] over creatures. All who see one so
appointed will derive great benefit from him, because of the awesome dignity [haiba]
and radiance [nur] of ALLAH (Almighty and Glorious is He) with which he is
invested.
Our Lord, give us in this world good, and good in the hereafter, and guard us
against the torment of the fire! (2:201)
Seventeenth Discourse
It was in the schoolhouse, in the early morning of Friday, the 14th of
Dhu'l-Qa'da, A.H. 545, that the Shaikh (may ALLAH be well pleased with him)
said:
Do not be concerned about your sustenance [rizq], because its search for you is
more intense than your search for it. When you have obtained today's sustenance,
stop worrying about tomorrow's, as you have left yesterday behind. Yesterday is
in the past, and as for tomorrow you do not know whether it will come to you or
not, so concentrate on your today. If you really knew the Lord of Truth
(Almighty and Glorious is He), you would be too preoccupied with Him to go
looking for sustenance. His awe-inspiring majesty would prevent you from seeking
anything from Him, because when someone really knows ALLAH (Almighty and
Glorious is He) his tongue ceases to function. The knower ['arif] remains dumb
and speechless in the presence of the Lord of Truth (Almighty and Glorious is
He), until He sends him back to attend to the interests of His creatures. Then,
when He restores him to them, He removes the paralysis from his tongue and the
impediment from his speech. When Moses (peace be upon him) was shepherding the
flocks and herds, his tongue was afflicted with stammering, gabbling,
mispronunciation and stuttering, so when the Lord of Truth (Almighty and
Glorious is He) wished to send him back [to his people], He inspired him [alhamahu]
to say:
Untie the knot from my tongue, that they may understand my words. (20:27,28)
It was as if he were saying: "When I was out in the wilderness, shepherding the
flocks and herds, I had no need of this, but now I have work to do among the
people and I must be able to talk to them, so I need to be rid of the impediment
to my speech." His Lord therefore removed the knot from his tongue. He used a
vocabulary of ninety clearly intelligible terms, a small number of words in
proportion to those occurring in the speech of others. In his childhood, he had
been eager to speak out of turn in the presence of Pharaoh and Asiya, so ALLAH
(Almighty and Glorious is He) had made him swallow a live coal.
O young man! I see that you have little real knowledge [ma'rifa] of ALLAH
(Almighty and Glorious is He) and His Messenger, little real knowledge of the
saints [awliya'] of ALLAH (Almighty and Glorious is He), of the deputies [abdal]
of His Prophets, and of His vicegerents [khulafa'] among His creatures. You are
devoid of meaningful content. You are a cage without a bird, an empty ruin of a
house, a tree whose leaves are all withered and scattered. The edifice of the
servant's heart is constructed through Islam [surrender to the will of ALLAH],
then through the confirmation [tahqiq] thereof in its reality [haqiqa], which is
submissive obedience [istislam]. Submit [sallim] the whole of yourself to the
Lord of Truth (Almighty and Glorious is He), and He will make your own self and
other people submit to you. You must detach your heart from you and from all
creatures, and stand before Him naked of you and of them. Then, when the Lord of
Truth (Almighty and Glorious is He) so wishes, He will clothe you and dress you
and send you back to His creatures. You must therefore carry out His commandment
requiring both you and them to win the good pleasure of the Messenger [rasul]
(ALLAH bless him and give him peace) and Envoy [mursal], then stand and wait for
His further orders, complying with everything He may impose upon you. Whenever
someone strips himself bare of everything apart from the Lord of Truth (Almighty
and Glorious is He), and stands before Him on the feet of his heart [qalb] and
his innermost being [sirr], he is saying, in the language that needs no words [lisan
al-hal], what Moses (peace be upon him) expressed when he said:
I have hastened to You, my Lord, that You might be well pleased. (20:84)
[Meaning:] "I have set aside my interest in this world, my interest in the
hereafter, and the whole of creation. I have severed material ties [al-asbab]
and cast off influential connections [al-arbab], and I have come to You in
haste, that You might be well pleased with me, and forgive me for having been
attached to them previously."
O ignorant one, where do you stand in all this? You are the slave of your own
self [nafs], your worldly interests [dunya] and your passions [hawa]. You are
the slave of creatures, idolizing them [mushrik bihim] because you regard them
as the source of harm and benefit. You are next to the Garden [of Paradise],
hoping to enter it, and you are next to the Fire [of Hell], afraid of entering
it.
Where are you, all of you, in relation to the Transformer of hearts and eyes [Muqallib
al-qulub wa'l-absar], the One who says to a thing "Be!" and it is [kun fa-yakun
(2:117)]?
O young man! Do not delude yourself about your obedient worship [ta'a] and pride
yourself on it. Beg the Lord of Truth (Glorified and Exalted is He) to accept
it, and be wary and fearful lest He transfer you to some other condition. What
guarantee do you have that your obedience will not be told to turn into
disobedience, and your serenity to turn into confusion? When someone really
knows ALLAH (Almighty and Glorious is He), he does not get attached to anything
and has no illusions about anything. He does not feel secure until he leaves
this world with his religion intact and having preserved his relationship with
ALLAH (Almighty and Glorious is He).
O my people! You must activate your hearts and dedicate them sincerely. Perfect
sincerity [ikhlas] is that which precludes everything apart from ALLAH (Almighty
and Glorious is He), and direct knowledge [ma'rifa] of ALLAH (Almighty and
Glorious is He) is the basic principle [asl]. I see most of you as no more than
liars in word and deed, in private and in public. You have no constancy. You
have words without deeds, and deeds with neither sincerity nor affirmation of
Unity [tawhid]. If you consult the touchstone [mihakk] that is in my hands, and
it is favorable to you, what good will this do you? You need to be accepted and
approved by the Lord of Truth (Almighty and Glorious is He). Your chips must
soon be exposed to smelting and the kindling of fire, and it will be said: "This
is silver, this is ore, this is brass." Then the whole lot will be extracted,
sorted in preparation for the Day of Judgment [yawm al-qiyam]. The same will be
said of all your deeds in the performance of which you behaved hypocritically.
Every deed done for the sake of any other than ALLAH (Almighty and Glorious is
He) is null and void. Let your work, your love, your friendship and your quest
be for the One who has told us:
There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing.
(42:11)
Deny and affirm. Deny the attribution to Him of anything that is unworthy of
Him, and affirm as belonging to Him whatever is worthy of Him, namely what He is
pleased to attribute to Himself, and what His Messenger (ALLAH bless him and
give him peace) has been pleased to attribute to Him. If you do this, your
hearts will be rid of [the heretical extremes of] anthropomorphism [tashbih] and
the negation of the divine attributes [ta'til].
Befriend ALLAH (Almighty and Glorious is He) and His Messenger, then the
righteous [as-salihun] among His servants, with reverence, honor and respect. If
you wish for salvation [falah], let none of you attend my company without good
manners; otherwise you should stay away. You are always going to excess, so curb
your excesses during this hour while you are in my presence. Perhaps in the
assembled company there is someone who deserves to be treated with respect and
good manners beyond your minds and comprehension. The cook knows his dishes, the
baker knows his bread, the craftsman knows his work, and one who issues an
invitation knows those who are invited to attend.
Your interest in this world has made your hearts blind, so you cannot see
anything with them. Beware of it, for it will make itself available to you time
after time, until it gets you more and more involved, then it will finally make
you its sacrificial victim. It will let you drink its wine and its drugs [banj],
then it will cut off your hands and your feet, and gouge out your eyes. When the
drug has worn off and consciousness returns, you will see what it has done to
you. This is the consequence of loving this world, chasing after it, and being
greedy for it and what it has to offer. This is what it does, so beware of it!
O young man! There is no salvation for you as long as you love this world. And
as for you, who claim to love the Lord of Truth (Almighty and Glorious is He),
there is no salvation or success for you, as long as you love the hereafter or
anything whatsoever apart from Him. The lover who really knows [al-'arif al-muhibb]
loves neither the one nor the other, nor anything apart from the Lord of Truth
(Almighty and Glorious is He). When his love is complete and fully realized, he
will receive his allotted worldly shares to secure his well-being and satisfy
his needs. The case will be similar when he arrives in the hereafter, for
everything he left behind him he will now see at the gate of the Lord of Truth
(Almighty and Glorious is He). It will have gone ahead to wait for him there,
because he gave it up for the sake of ALLAH (Almighty and Glorious is He). He
gives His friends [awliya'] their shares in things while they are keeping their
distance from them. The comforts of the heart are internal [batina], and the
comforts of the self are external [zahira]. The comforts of the heart come only
after the self has been deprived of its comforts, so when the self is deprived,
the gates of the heart's comforts are opened. Then, when the heart has received
all the comforts it needs from the Lord of Truth (Almighty and Glorious is He),
mercy will come to the self. This servant will be told: "Do not kill your own
self," for its share of comforts will then come to it, and it will receive them
in a state of meekness [wa-hiya mutma'inna].
Leave the company of those who excite your interest in this world, and seek the
company of those who encourage you to turn away from it. Like inclines toward
like, each revolving around the other. The lover gravitates toward lovers, until
he finds his beloved among them. Those who are lovers of ALLAH love one another
for His sake. He surely loves them and supports them, and they give one another
strength. They help one another to summon the people, inviting them to faith [iman],
affirmation of Unity [tawhid] and sincerity [ikhlas] in action. They take them
by the hand and set them on the path of the Lord of Truth (Almighty and Glorious
is He). He who serves is served, he who acts well is treated well, and he who
gives will receive. If you act to deserve the Fire, the Fire [of Hell] will be
yours tomorrow.
As you pay allegiance, so shall you receive allegiance [kama tadinu tudanu]....
and:
According to how you are, so shall authority be conferred upon you.
Your deeds are your agents [a'malukum 'ummalukum]. You act like people fit for
the Fire, yet you hope for Paradise from ALLAH (Almighty and Glorious is He).
How can you wish for Paradise without doing the work of those to whom Paradise
belongs? The masters of the heart [arbab al-qulub] in this world are those who
work with their hearts, not with their limbs and organs only. Work without the
inner feeling [muwata'a] of the heart, what does it accomplish? The showy
pretender [mura'i] works with his physical organs, while the sincere person [mukhlis]
works with his heart as well as his physical organs; he works with his heart
before his physical organs. The believer [mu'min] is alive, while the hypocrite
[munafiq] is dead. The believer works for the sake of ALLAH (Almighty and
Glorious is He), while the hypocrite works for the sake of creatures, and looks
to them for praise and reward for his work. The work of the believer is in both
his outer and his inner, in both his private and his public life, in good times
and in bad. The work of the hypocrite is in his public life only. His work is
there when times are good, but when hardship comes along he does no work. He has
no friendship for ALLAH (Almighty and Glorious is He). He has no faith in ALLAH
(Almighty and Glorious is He), His Messengers or His Books. He does not remember
the Gathering [hashr], the Resurrection [nashr] and the Reckoning [hisab]. His
Islam is to keep his head and his property safe [li-yaslama] in this world, not
to keep him safe in the hereafter from the Fire that is the chastisement of the
Lord of Truth (Almighty and Glorious is He). He keeps the fast [yasumu],
performs the prescribed prayers [yusalli], and studies religious knowledge in
the presence of people, but when they are not around he reverts to his own
business and his unbelief [kufr].
O ALLAH, we take refuge with You from this condition. We beg You for sincerity
in this world and sincerity tomorrow. Amin.
O young man! You must practice sincerity in your actions. Look beyond your work
and the expectation of recompense for it from creatures [al-khalq] and Creator
[al-Khaliq]. Work for the sake of ALLAH (Almighty and Glorious is He), not for
His blessings. Be one of those who long for His countenance. Seek His
countenance until He grants your wish. Then, when He grants you this, you will
obtain Paradise in this world and the hereafter: nearness to Him in this world,
and in the hereafter the vision of Him. The fulfillment of His promise is a
contract and guarantee [bai' wa-daman].O young man! Deliver your own self and
your property into the hand of His destiny [qadar], His decree [hukm] and His
judgment [qada']. Deliver the purchase [al-mushtara] to the Purchaser [al-mushtari]
and tomorrow He will pay you the price.
Servants of ALLAH! Deliver your own selves to Him, the price and the object of
value. Say: "The self, property, Paradise and everything apart from You, all are
Yours. We wish for nothing apart from You." The neighbor [jar] before the house
[dar]. The companion [rafiq] before the road [tariq]. O you who desire the
Garden [of Paradise], its purchase and cultivation must be today, not tomorrow.
Increase its irrigation channels and let water flow in them today, not O my
people! On the Day of Resurrection, hearts and eyes will be turned inside out.
On that day when feet will stumble, every one of the believers will stand upon
the footing of his faith and his pious devotion [taqwa]. The steadiness of their
feet will depend on the degree of their faith. On that day:
The wrong-doer will bite his own hands. (25:27)
[That is,] for having done wrong, and the pervert [mufsid] will bite his own
hands for having caused corruption and not having put it right, for having run
away from his Master.
O young man! Do not overestimate the value of a deed, for deeds are valued
according to their ultimate outcomes. You must beg the Lord of Truth (Almighty
and Glorious is He) to make your outcome good, and to restrict you to those
actions that He likes best. Beware, then again beware, when you repent, lest you
undo your repentance and lapse back into sin. Do not lapse from your repentance
because of something someone may say. Do not conform to your lower self [nafs],
your passions [hawa] and your natural impulses [tab'], while opposing your
Master (Almighty and Glorious is He). The sin is committed today, and tomorrow,
since you have disobeyed the Lord of Truth (Almighty and Glorious is He), He
will leave you in the lurch and will not help you.
O ALLAH, help us to be obedient to You, and do not desert us because of
disobedience toward You.
Give us in this world good, and good in the hereafter, and guard us against the
torment of the fire! (2:201)
Twenty-Second Discourse
It was in the guesthouse, in the early morning of the last day of Dhu'l-Qa'da,
A.H. 545, that the Shaikh (may ALLAH be well pleased with him) said, after some
discussion, when someone asked: "How can I evict the love of this world from my
heart?":
Notice the world's fickle treatment of its lords [arbab] and its sons, how it
tricks them, plays games with them, and pushes them behind it, then promotes
them step by step, in order to raise them above the people and put them in
control of them, and in order to display its treasures and its wonders. But
while they are enjoying their lofty status, their dominance, their pleasant
lifestyle and having the world at their service, this is when it seizes them,
binds them, cheats them and throws them headlong down from that elevated
position, so that they are dismembered, disintegrated and destroyed, while the
world stands there laughing at them with Iblis by its side, laughing along with
it. This is what it has done and will do with many of the emperors, kings and
rich men, from the time of Adam (peace be upon him) till the Day of
Resurrection. It exalts then abases, promotes then sets back, enriches then
impoverishes, nurtures then sacrifices. Rare indeed are the few individuals who
remain unharmed by it, who master it instead of being dominated by it, who
receive help against it and escape its greedy clutches. There is no escape from
its greedy clutches unless one knows it really well, and is intensely wary of it
and of its cunning tricks.