The following is the simplified translation of a letter written as
an answer to a university student by’Abdulhakîm-i Arwâsî
(quddisa sirruh) when he was the senior professor of Tasawwuf
at the Madrasat almutahassisîn, the Faculty of Theology, which was located in
the Sultân Selîm Mosque in Istanbul during the decliningyears of the Ottoman
Empire.
Go out of the area of the
Omnipotence of Allâhu ta’âlâ with all your strength, if you can! Yet you cannot. Outside this
universe is the place of nonexistence. And this place of nonexistence is also
under His Omnipotence!
On an occasion, somebody asked [the
great Walî] Ibrâhîm ibn Ad’ham (quddisa
sirruh) for
advice. He said:
If you accept six things, nothing you do will harm you.These six
things are:
1) When you intend to commit a sin, do not eat the food He gives!
Is it worthy of you to eat His food and to disobey Him?
2) When you want to rebel against Him, go out of His Domain! Is it
worthy of you to be in His Domain and to be inrebellion against Him?
3) When
you want to disobey Him, do not sin where He
sees you! Sin where He does not
see you! It simply isunbecoming to be in His Domain, to eat His food and thento
sin where He sees you!
4) When the Angel of Death comes to take away yoursoul, ask him to
wait till you repent! You cannot turn thatangel back! Repent before he comes,
while you have thechance at this very hour, for the Angel of Death comes
unexpectedly!
5) When the two angels Munker and Nakîr come to question you in the
grave, turn them back! Do not let themtest you!
“It is impossible,” said the person who asked for his advice.
Shaikh Ibrâhîm said, “Then prepare your answers now!”
6) On the Day of Resurection, when Allâhu ta’âlâ declares: “Sinners, go to Hell!” say that you will not!
The person said, “Nobody will listen to me,” and thenrepented; he
did not disavow his sense of penitence upuntil death. There is a Divine Effect
in the words of Awliyâ.
Ibrâhîm ibn Ad’ham (quddisa
sirruh) was
asked, “Allâhu ta’âlâ declares: ‘O My human
creatures! Ask Me! I will accept, I will give!’ Nonetheless, we ask but
He does not give?” Hadrat Ibrâhîm said:
“You entreat Allâhu ta’âlâ, but you do not obey Him. Youknow His Prophet (sall-Allâhu ’alaihi
wa sallam), but you do not follow him. You read the Qur’ân al-kerîm, but you donot follow
the way it prescribes. You utilize Allâhu ta’âlâ’sblessings, but you do
not thank Him. You know that Paradise is for those who worship, but you do not
make preparations for it. You know that He has created Hell forthe disobedient,
but you do not fear it. You see what happened to your fathers and grandfathers,
but you do nottake a warning. You do not see your own defects, and yousearch
for defects in others. Such people must be thankful,since it does not rain
stones on them, since they do notsink into the earth, and since it does not
rain fire from the sky! What else could they want?” Would not this suffice asa
recompense for their prayers?”
[Allâhu ta’âlâ
declares in the sixtieth âyat of Mu’min Sura, “Make duâ to Me, I shall accept (ask
for, I shall give)”. There
are
five conditions for the duâ to be acceptable. The one who makes dua, must be
Muslim; should have Ahl-as sunna belief; should not commit harâm, particularly
abstaining from eating and drinking haram things; should make fards; should
perform five times of namaz; should fast during Ramadan; should give zakât;
should know and adhere himself to the causes of what he wants from Allahu
ta’âlâ. Allâhu ta’âlâ creates everything through
a certain means. When asked for a certain thing, He sends the cause of that
thing and makes that thing effective. Man adheres himself to this cause and
obtains that thing. For the sake of His Awliyâ, apart from His usual means,
when they make duâ or when duâ is made for sake of Awliyâ, the things wished
are given directly to those as (Karâmat) without adhering
to any cause.]
As you have not come from
nonexistence to this world of existence by yourself, so you cannot go there by
yourself. The eyes with which you see, the ears with which you hear, the organs
with which you perceive, the intellect with which you think, the hands and feet
you use, all the roads you will pass, all the places you will go, in short, all
the members and systems connected with your body and soul, all of them, are Allâhu ta’âlâ’s possessions and creatures.
You cannot misappropriate anything from Him! He is Hayy and Qayyűm, that is, He
sees, knows and hears, and He for every moment keeps in existence everything
that exists. Even for a moment, He is not unaware of the state of all and
controlling all. He does not let anybody steal His property. He is never
incapable of punishing those who disobey His commands. It would not make any
difference, if, for instance, He had not created any human beings on this
globe, as He had not on the moon, on Mars or on other planets; His greatness
would not have diminished for this reason.
A hadîth qudsî states: “If [all] your ancestors anddescendants, the young and the old, the alive
and the dead, human beings and genies, were like My most devoted, most obedient
human creature (’alaihi ’s-salâm), MyGreatness would not
be increased. Conversely, if you allwere like My enemy, who opposes Me and
despises MyProphets, My Greatness would never decrease. Allâhu ta’âlâ is free from needing
you; He needs none of you. Asfor you; in order that you might exist and keep on
existingand in everything you do, you always need Him.”
He sends
light and heat by means of the sun. He makes waves of light reflect from the
moon. Out of black soil, He creates many vivid-coloured, sweet-scented flowers
and beautiful appearances. From a breeze, He pours out the breath which gives
relief to hearts. From the stars that are a distance of myriads of years, He
makes it rain haloes on the earth, out of which you came about and under which
you will be buried in the end. Through many a vibration, He creates effectivity
in particles. [On the one hand, by turning dirt, which you dislike and are
disgusted with, into soil by means of His smallest, most trifling creatures
(germs), He turns this soil, which you tread on, into a white-of-egg-like
substance, protein, the constructive matter of your body, from the factory of
plants. On the other hand, by combining the water in the earth with a
suffocating gas in air, again in the factory of plants and by stocking in them
the energy which He sends from the sky, He creates starchy and sugary
substances and oils, the sources of energy that will operate the machine of
your body.] Thus, in plants, which He causes to grow in fields and deserts, on
mountains and in rills and in animals that He enables to live on the earth and
under the seas, He prepares food which will go into your stomach and nourish
you. By placing chemistry laboratories in your lungs, He isolates the poison
from your blood and puts useful oxygen in its place. By implanting physics
laboratories in your brain, the information coming from your organs of
perception through your nerves are taken there and, as He has placed a magnetic
power into the stone of iron, so with the effect of intelligence, which He has
placed into your brain with other immaterial powers, He can put into your heart
various plans, commands and actions that are prepared simultaneously. By making
your heart work through very complex mechanisms, which you consider very
extraordinary, He makes rivers of blood flow in your blood vesels. He weaves
many a dumbfounding net of roads through your nerves. He conceals stocks in
your muscles. With many, many other phenomena. He equips and completes your
body. He establishes and fits all of these in an order and harmony to which you
give such names as laws of physics, chemical reactions or biological events. He
places centers of power inside you. He projects the necessary precautions into
your soul and consciousness. He, also, gifts a treasure called the intellect, a
gauge named reason, a means named thought,
and a key which you call will. In
order that you might use each of these correctly, He gives you sweet and bitter
warnings, hints, inclinations and ambitions. And as a greater blessing, He
openly sends instructions through faithful and dependable Prophets (’alaihimu
’s-salâm). In conclusion, operating the machine of your body and instructing
you with its experiments, He hands it over to you so that you may use and
utilize it in objective affairs. He does all of these not because He needs you,
your will or help, but to make you happy by giving you a distinguished position
and authority among His creatures. If, instead of leaving it to your hands,
your feet and all of your limbs that you can use as you wish, He used them
without you knowing it, like the beating of your heart, the expansion of your
lungs and the circulation of your blood, if He rolled you by force, with reflex
actions, with paralysed hands and feet, if each of your actions was a vibration
and every movement was a twitch, could you claim to possess yourself and the
things He has lent you? If He made you move under the influence of external and
internal powers, like the lifeless, or unreasonable and unconscious powers of
animals, and if He put in your mouth, like pack animals, a morsel of the
blessings -which you take in large amounts to your houses now- could you take
and eat that morsel?
Do you
ever think of your state before and when you were born? Where were you, in what
were you, during the creation of this globe on which you live, eat and drink,
go about, amuse and divert yourself, discover the means that are remedies for
your diseases, and the means to protect yourself from the attacks of wild and
poisonous animals and enemies? Where were you while the stones and soil of this
globe were being baked on fires in the ovens of creation and while its water
and air were being distilled in the chemistry laboratories of the Omnipotence?
Have you ever thought? Where were you while the lands, which you claim to be
yours today, were gliding away from the seas, while mountains, rivers, plateaus
and hills were being laid down? Where and how were you while, by means of Allâhu ta’âlâ’s Omnipotence, the salty waters of seas
evaporated and formed clouds in the sky, and while rains, falling from those
clouds, took substances [for nourishment prepared by lightning and waves of
power and energy in the sky] into the motes of burnt, dried soil, and while
these
substances, stirred [by the
influence from rays of light and heat], vibrated and nourished the cells of
life?
Today, they say that you are of
monkey descent, and you believe it. When they say that Allâhu ta’âlâ has created you, enables you to
live, causes you to die and that He alone makes everything, you don’t want to
believe.
O man! What are you? What were
you in the veins of your father? At one time, in the veins of your father, whom
you insult with such terms as imbecilic, old-fashioned and retrogressive, you
used to make him feel uncomfortable. Who made you move then, and why did you
nettle him? If he had wished, he could have thrown you into a rubbish-heap, but
he did not. He hid you like a deposit. While he was so kind as to have
entrusted you to a chaste woman, where you would be nourished unsparingly and
struggled to protect you for a long time, why do you insult your father by
holding him responsible for your inconveniences, instead of expressing thanks
to him and to your Creator for the blessings you have been given? Moreover, why
do you throw your deposit into rubbish-heaps dirtied by everybody?
When people around you follow
your wishes and desires, you believe that you are doing everything by creating
them with your intellect, knowledge, science, power, strength and by inventing
all accomplishments. You forget about the task which Allâhu ta’âlâ has assigned to you; you have
resigned from that high official duty and have attempted to claim ownership of
the deposit. You want to regard and represent yourself as an owner and ruler.
On the other hand, when those
around you do not follow your desires, when external forces seem to overcome
you, you can see within yourself nothing but regret and frustration, incapacity
and despair. Then you claim that you own no will or option, that you are under
the slavery of everything, that you are like a machine, automatic but with a
broken spring. You understand qadar not as al-’ilm al-mutaqaddim (eternal knowledge) but as al-jabr al-mutahakkim (despotic compulsion). While saying this, you are not unaware of
the fact that your mouth is not like a record-player.
When your favorite meals do not come to your
table, you hold out your hand and tongue and eat the dry bread you can reach,
though you are free to eat or not and die of hunger; the dry morsels are not
crammed into your mouth by force! You eat,
but
also think that you are deprived of acting on your own volition; and yet what
you have done is not a series of it has not been due to involuntary movements.
However, though you possess your self-control even at such times as this when
you have to, you deem yourself compelled, enslaved; in short, a mere nothing
against exterior forces.
O man! Which of these are you?
You claim to be ‘all’ when you thrive and when success and victory are with
you, and ’nothing’ under the forces of fate when affairs turn out bad or
contrary to your wishes. Are you ‘all’ or ‘nothing’?
O mankind! O man who is floating
on deficiency and eccentricity! You are neither ‘all’ nor ‘nothing’! At any
rate, you are something in between these two. Yes, you are far from being
inventive, dominant and victorious over everything. But, you have an
irrefutable freedom and option and a wish and choice rendering you
authoritative. Each of you is an official, undertaking individual and
collective duties under the command of Allâhu ta’âlâ, who is the Unequalled Authority, Absolute and Unconditional
Owner without a partner! You can do your duties under the rules and regulations
established by Him, within the limits of your ranks assigned by Him, within the
responsibilities and means which He has created and entrusted to you as
deposits. He alone is the Sole Commander, the Unique Ruler and the Single
Owner. There is no other commander besides Him, nor a ruler resembling Him, nor
an owner-partner with Him. Unless the aims and purposes which you lay claim to
and rush upon so zealously, the struggles which you set about, the glories
which you take pride in and your accomplishments are for Him, they are all
false, vain. Then, why do you accept lies within your hearts and turn off into
polytheism? Why don’t you obey the commands of Allâhu
ta’âlâ, the Unequalled Ruler, and know Him as the Creator?
Instead you run after thousands of imaginary idols and get drowned in distress?
Whatever you run towards, isn’t it an ideal, an option or a belief that drags
you on? Why do you look for that ideal in someone other than Allâhu ta’âlâ? Why don’t you direct that
belief to Allâhu ta’âlâ and spend
your alternatives in this belief and in the deeds which are the results of this
belief?
When you know Allâhu
ta’âlâ as the Absolute Ruler and work without violating His regulations
and laws, how much better you will love one another and be attached brothers!
What
won’t
the Mercy of Allâhu ta’âlâ create from this
brotherhood? Every favour you gain is the result of this brotherhood produced
by a belief in Allâhu ta’âlâ, His Mercy and
Benevolence. Every problem or calamity you experience is the result of the
fury, resentment and hostility which you are filled with as a retribution for
not paying attention to Allâhu ta’âlâ, for
cruelty and injustice. And this is also the result of attempting to make laws
by yourselves and by following others who want to compete with Allâhu ta’âlâ, in short, of not believing only in Allâhu ta’âlâ with a real belief in His Unity.
In short, the chief cause of the
problems among humanity is the crime of polytheism committed against Allâhu ta’âlâ. The obscurity of corruption
that has surrounded the horizons of humanity, despite the improvements in
knowledge and science, is the result of polytheism, disbelief, lack of belief
in Allâhu ta’âlâ’s Unity and
lack of mutual love. However hard human beings will try, they will not escape
sufferings and disasters unless they love one another. And, unless they know Allâhu ta’âlâ, unless they love Him, unless
they regard Him as the Absolute Ruler and worship Him, men cannot love one
another. Whatever might be thought of besides Allâhu
ta’âlâ and the way of Allâhu ta’âlâ, all of them are ways leading to disunity and wretchedness. Don’t
you see that those who attend the mosque love one another and those who haunt
the tavern fight?
Whatever you give your heart to,
or whomever you worship besides Allâhu ta’âlâ, each of them can be opposed and equated. And all of them are
under the Omnipotence and Will of Allâhu ta’âlâ. He is the Single Ruler who does not have a partner, match, like,
opposite or equivalent, and He alone is the One whose equivalent is non-valid
and false, a nonexistent equivalent, the existence of which is impossible.
Whatever you follow, worship,
love or regard as the absolute ruler besides Allâhu ta’âlâ, be it known that it will burn together with you.
Markaz-i dâ’ira-i iflâs
wa bî nawâî
Sar shâr-i sahbây-i khodgâmî wa nâ âshinâî
As-Sayyid Abdulhakîm-i Arwâsî