May Allâhu
ta’âlâ protect thee aqainst the evils
of the cruel! Disasters come from Him. And again, He, alone, is the savior from
calamities. There is a (preordained) length of time for each (disaster).
Lamenting [and complaining] will therefore be futile. Trusting oneself to Him
[and supplicating Him] will eliminate all sorts of griefs. Not to pray is the
worst grief. [He loves those who pray. So one should look on cares and
afflictions as blessings inasmuch as they cause one to pray and consequently to
be loved by Him].
My dear son! Apparently, the world is sweet,
delicious. Inwardly, however, it is poisonous and worthless. He who falls into
its trap can never save himself. He who dies with this poison will become a
carrion. It is lunacy to lose your heart to it. It is like lacquered filth,
sugar-coated poison. A person with wisdom will not fall for such false,
spurious beauty. He will not set his heart on impure, hurtful pleasures. He will
spend this short life of his endeavouring to ingratiate himself with his
Owner. He will do the things that will
be useful for him in the Hereafter. He will do his duties as a born slave. He
will hold fast to the commandments of Allâhu ta’âlâ. He will
avoid His prohibitions. Shame on those people who do the opposite and chase
after harmful things!
Offending
the true friend is what I fear;
It burns me day and night, so hard to bear!
[The world (in this context) means harmful things
hated and prohibited by Allâhu ta’âlâ. A person who avoids the harâms has protected
himself from the world’s deceits. Allâhu ta’âlâ has not
prohibited any pleasure, any flavour in the world. What He forbids is to enjoy
these pleasures in excessive and inordinate measures and injurious manners. He
commands us to utilize them in salutary and modest doses and prescribes these
doses.]
Muhammad ‘alaihis-salâm’ is the origin of all the
sûrî [visible, outward] kemâlât [perfections, advantages] and the ma’nawî
[invisible, spiritual] ranks. Physical practices and
prohibitions, worships coming from him reached us
through a succession of scholars. And we received the occult and mystical
knowledge pertaining to the bâtin [heart] via the chain of Sôfiyya-i-kirâm. Abû
Hureyra ‘radiy-Allâhu anh’ stated, “I acquired two kinds of knowledge from the
Messenger of Allah ‘sall-Allâhu ta’âlâ alaihi wa âlihi wa sallam’. I have conveyed one of
them to you. You would kill me if I divulged the second one.” When ’Umar ‘radiy-Allâhu
anh’ passed away, his son Abdullah said, “One-ninth of knowledge is dead.” Upon
seeing that his statement aroused feelings of doubt in some of the people
around him, he added, “By knowledge I mean ‘knowing Allâhu ta’âlâ’, not the teachings on matters of menstruation and lochia.” All
the Tarîqat [paths] originate from Rasûlullah. Walîs
received them through their Murshids. None of them opened their paths. Molla
Jâmî says in Nefehât, “The first person to mention the term was Abû Sa’îd-il-harrâz.[1] The essence of Tarîqat were derived from Rasûlullah’s blessed heart. Their names were given afterwards. Rasûlullah ‘sall-Allâhu alaihi wa sallam’ would make dhikr with his blessed
heart before the Bi’that [before he was forty years old]. It would not be right
to say that such things as making tawajjuh to Allâhu ta’âlâ, doing
dhikr through nafy and ithbât [Kelima-i-tawhîd] and doing muraqaba (religious
meditation) did not exist during the ’Asr-i-sa’âdat or in the time of
As-hâb-i-kirâm. The blessed Messenger was busy with these things during those
well-known moments when he remained silent. These names did not exist in those
days, yet what they represented did. The Prophet’s blessed
utterances were dhikr and his silence was fikr (thought, meditation, thinking).
Tafakkur means thought’s improvement from wrong to right. This hadîth-i-sherîf is well known: “A little tafakkur (for a short while) is more useful than one
year’s worship.” Those who
assert that these things did not exist at that time ought to put forward their
proofs.
The dhikr of nafy and ithbât, which exists in
Tarîqat, was taught by Hidir ‘alaihis-salâm’ to Abd-ul-khâliq Ghonjduwânî.[2] Something taught by Hidir ‘alaihis-salâm’ could
certainly not be something which was bid’at or which did not contain nûrs or
lights or which would not be a remedy for illnesses. Should it be
---------------------------------
[1] Abû Sa’îd-i-Harrâz passed away in Baghdâd in 277 [A.D. 890].
[2] Abd-ul-khâliq Ghonjduwânî in 575 [A.D. 1180].
asked, “If all spiritual paths called Tarîqat were
derived from Rasûlullah’s nûrs and are drops from his esrâr (secret, occult,
mysterical manners and knowledge), why are there different paths, then, and why
are they dissimilar in their sahw (recovering from rapture), sekr (ecstasy),
telwîn (rapture), temkîn (composure), and their ravings that are called
[shat-h] and which appear to be incompatible with the Sharî’at,” our answer is
that these dissimilarities arise from idiosyncratic dissimilarities and
differences in men’s creation. It is like that of the same kind of food or
medicine which has different effects on different people. This can also be
illustrated in that the same person’s image will be different in different
mirrors. Rasûlullah ‘sall-Allâhu ta’âlâ alaihi wa
sallam’ would communicate occult and mystical meanings in various ways,
depending on the tendencies and talents of his As-hâb. Water takes the shape of
a container it is poured in. The same water will appear in different shapes,
depending on the container it is in. A hadîth-i-sherîf
states, “Teach everybody as much as (and in a manner) their mental capacities
will embrace.” One day, Rasûlullah ‘sall-Allâhu ta’âlâ alaihi wa sallam’ was telling Abû Bekr ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anh’ about secret spiritual knowledge. When ’Umar ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anh’ came, he changed the discourse a little. Some time later
’Uthmân ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anh’ arrived. This time the Prophet
changed the way of his discourse even more. And when Alî ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anh’ came a while later, he began to say quite different things.
He made these changes because each newcomer had a different nature and different
dispositions.
In answer to the second question; all the spiritual
orders [Tarîqat] come from Imâm-i-Ja’fer Sâdiq ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anh’.[1] This Imâm is
attached to two different ways. The first one, the way of his ancestors, comes
from hadrat Alî ‘radiy-Allâhu anh’. The second, which is the way of his
mother’s father, comes from Siddîq-i-ekber ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anh’. On account of these two outward and spiritual Wilâyats,
this great Imâm said, “Abû Bekr has caused me to have double existences.” These
two ways possessed by the Imâm are different from each other. The Awliyâ
belonging to the Naqshbendî order were given the way
---------------------------------
[1] Ja'fer Sâdiq is the sixth of the twelve Imâms. He is hadrat Alî's grandson's grandson and is at the same time Mûsâ Qâzim's father. He passed away in 148 [A.D. 765].
coming from Siddîq-i-ekber and through the Imâm. Awliyâ affiliated with the other spiritual orders were blessed with the way coming from Alî ‘kerrem-Allâhu wejheh’ (and, again, through the Imâm).