WednesdayApr 24, 2024
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
And if you are patient certainly that (huwa) is better (khayr) for those who are capable of being patient. (Koran 16:126) Commentary: In this verse, Allah consoles his patient servants in their trials by announcing that He Himself is the substitute and
... Whoever adores Allah through the fears of the fires of hell or in order to gain Paradise, whoever invokes Him in order that his share in the goods of the world be enlarged, or so that people should turn their faces toward him in order that he be glori
The search has no end: the knowledge of God has no end. He can not be known. He can only be known by that which proceeds from Him, as effects of His names, not His ipseity*. This is why the following order was given even to the Prophet, although he possessed the knowledge of the First and the Last: 'Say, 'Lord, increase me in knowledge!' (Koran 20:114). And he does not stop saying this, in every state, every station, every degree; in this world, in the intermediate world and in the beyond. *ipseity: The quality of God as a wholly independent being who is complete in Himself. The term gives emphasis to the paradox that God, without any need to do so, creates and draws creatures to Him through love and knowledge. (Definition courtesy G. Thursby)
When the sight will be dazed,when the moon will be eclipsed, when the sun and moon will be in conjunction, on that day man will say: 'Where to flee?' But there is no refuge. (Koran 75:7-11) Commentary: 'When the sight will be dazed'; when it will be stunn
Paraphrased: Among the degrees of the universal Manifestation, each sentient creature typically experiences an illusory sense of autonomy. At the same time, with or without the creature's awareness, the creature subsists eternally as an 'immutable prototype' in the divine Knowledge.
Then God may He be exalted! said to me, 'What are you?' I replied, 'I am two things, according to two different relations. With respect to You, I am the Eternal, forever and ever. I am the necessary Being who epiphanizes himself. My necessity proceeds from the necessity of Your essence and my eternity from the eternity of Your knowledge and Your attributes. 'With respect to me, I am pure non-being who has never breathed the perfume of existence, the adventitious being who remains nonexistent in his adventitiousness. I only possess being so long as I am present with You and for You. Left to myself and absent from You I am one who is not, even while he is (fa-ana mafqud mawjud).'
God has stolen my [illusory] 'I' from me and has brought me near to my [real] 'I' ... The colors have returned to the pure primordial white. The voyage has reached its end and everything other than Him has ceased to exist. All attribution, every aspect and all relation being abolished, the original state is reestablished.
There are two kinds of death, the death which is inevitable and common to all beings, and the death which is voluntary and particular to certain ones of them only. It is the second death which is prescribed for us in the words of the Messenger of Allah: '
His faith is no longer of any use to him. In fact his faith is only useful so long as he is veiled and has not obtained direct vision and evidence.... When that which was hidden becomes evident, when that of which he was merely informed is directly seen, the soul no longer derives any profit from that which it believes but only from that which it contemplates and sees. The states, the intentions, the goals which he had during the phase of faith are transformed. This transformation should be understood as purely inner. As to the exterior of this being, it is not modified even an iota. He continues to behave in a way which is acceptable to the sacred Law and commendable according to customs and natural law, engaging in the activities which conform to his situation and his rank among his fellow men.
If the divine Mercy grants him the knowledge of himself, then his adoration will be pure; and, for him, paradise and hell, recompense, spiritual degrees and all created things will be as though God had never created them. He will not accord them any importance, nor will he take them into consideration, except to the extent that it is prescribed by the divine Law and Wisdom. For then he will know Who is the sole Agent.
But, in conformity to His wisdom it was right that afterwards the Prophet should be sent back from the vision of pure Unity and that he should return ... toward the separative vision. For, He created man and jinn only that they should worship Him and know Him and, if they remained at the degree of pure Unity, there would be none to worship Him. In this separative vision, the Worshipped and the worshipper, the Lord and the servant, the Creator and the creature are again perceived.
... The divine Reality, when it 'combines' with the creatures in a strictly conceptual mode, is hidden to the eyes of the spiritually veiled, who see only the creatures. Conversely, it is the creatures that disappear in the eyes of the masters of the Unity of contemplation (wahdat al-shuhud), for they see only God alone. Thus, both God and the creatures hide the other.... ... In the same way, when there is the state of extinction (fana') which the men of the way also call 'union' (ittihad) the worshipper and the Worshipped, the Lord and the servant, disappear together. If there is no worshipper, there is no Worshipped; and if there is no servant, there is no Lord. For, when two terms are correlative, the disappearance of one necessarily brings about the disappearance of the other, and therefore they disappear together.
The first 'station of separation' corresponds to the state of the ordinary man who perceives the universe as distinct from God. Starting from here, the initiatic itinerary leads the being first to extinction in the divine Unity, which abolishes all perception of created things. But spiritual realization, if it is complete, arrives afterwards at the 'second station of separation' where the being perceives simultaneously the one in the multiple and the multiple in the one.
The pleasure and the love of God for His creatures constitute the original state. His pleasure and love are the means by which He has brought His creatures into existence and are the cause of that bringing into existence. He who knows that he possesses neither being nor act rediscovers himself in that original state of pleasure and divine love.
Hadith: A saying of the Prophet transmitted outside the Qur'an through a chain of known intermediaries. There are two kinds of hadith: hadith qudsi (sacred sentence), a direct revelation, in which God speaks in the first person by the mouth of the Prophet, and hadith nabawi (prophetic sentence), an indirect revelation in which the Prophet speaks as himself.
'Each time that something comes to your mind regarding Allah know that He is different from that!' Commentary: If you think and believe that He is what all the schools of Islam profess and believe He is that, and He is other than that! If you think that He is what diverse communities believe Muslims, Christians, Jews, Mazdeans, polytheists and others He is that and He is other than that! And if you think and believe what is professed by the Knowers par excellence prophets, saints and angels He is that! He is other than that! None of His creatures worships Him in all His aspects; none is unfaithful to Him in all His aspects. No one knows Him in all His aspects; no one is ignorant of Him in all His aspects. Those who are among the most knowing regarding Him have said: 'Glory to Thee. We have no knowledge except what You have taught us.' (Koran 2:32)
Everything which is other than Allah is 'hidden' in non-being, even if it appears to spiritually veiled beings to be endowed with existence. But the sage does not concern himself with what is non-being and does not make it the aim of his acts.
Turn your face toward the sacred Mosque (Koran 2:144,149,150) Commentary: The word 'sacred' means that a heart which has not disengaged itself from the sphere of the soul and the sphere of created beings is forbidden to penetrate into this place.... 'Wherever you are, turn your face' [toward the sacred Mosque] means, 'Wherever you are, in the accomplishment of works of worship or in the ordinary acts of life, contemplate Him in what you eat, in what you drink, in him or her whom you marry, always knowing that He is at once the Contemplator and the Contemplated....
And He is with you wherever you are.... (Koran 57:4) Commentary: ... The companionship expressed by 'with' is that of the Being and the non-being, for there is no Being other than Allah.... If Allah May He be exalted! was not, by His very Essence, whi
'O my people, I disavow all that you associate [with God]. I orient my face with an exclusive orientation towards Him, who created the heavens and the earth and I am not one of the associators.' (Koran 6:78-79)
Turn your face toward the sacred Mosque (Koran 2:144,149,150) Commentary: This means: 'Turn the [divine] face which is particular to you....' This face is the secret (sirr) through which your spirit subsists.... It is the source of man's being and the com
His light spreads out and this operation expresses nothing other than the ordered unfolding of His attributes over the non-being. What is called 'the possibles' are those things which show themselves capable of receiving that light and those which are called 'the impossibles' are those which are unable to receive the light. It is to just this that the Prophet upon Him be Grace and Peace! alluded when He said, 'Allah created the creatures in the darkness, then He sprinkled them with His light. Those who were touched by some of this light are on the good way; and those who failed to be touched by it are astray.'
The diurnal sun sets at night, but the sun of the heart never disappears.
Oh, you who believe! Fear Allah, and seek a means of access to Him, and struggle on His way; perhaps you will succeed! (Koran 5:35) Commentary: ... God commands believers to practice the fear of Him. This corresponds to what is called ... the 'station of
Abu Sa'id al-Kharraz said: I have never known Allah May He be exalted! except through the coincidence in Him of the opposites. 'He is the First and the Last, the Apparent and the Hidden.' (Koran 57:3)
Allah is in Himself the non-being and the being, the inexistent and the existent. He is at the same time that which we designate by absolute non-being and by absolute being; or by relative non-being and relative being.... All these designation come back to God alone, for there is nothing which we can perceive, know, write or say which is not Him.
Know however that God, in order to manifest Himself by His essence to His essence, has no need of creatures since, with relation to Essence, he is absolutely independent with respect to worlds and even with respect to His own names.... On the other hand, when He manifests Himself with His names and His attributes which implies the manifestation of the effects He needs (huwa muftaqir) the creatures.... This relation is ... necessary in order that the divine Names, which are only distinguished by their effects, can be distinguished from one another. At the same time, the divine Names, by the one of their 'faces' which is turned toward the Essence, are themselves totally autonomous with respect to worlds. In this respect, they are nothing other than the Essence itself and that is why each of them can be qualified and designated by all of the other Names in the same way as the Essence.
Paraphrased: Allah is neither this nor that.
The absolutely Non-Manifested cannot be designated by any expression which could limit It, Separate It, or include It. In spite of this, every allusion alludes only to Him, every designation designates Him, and He is at the same time the Non-Manifested and the Manifested.
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