This
letter was written for Khwâja Husam-ad-dîn Ahmat, who knew haqîqats and was
possessed of ma’rifats. It explains that the entire universe is a mirror
reflecting the Names and Attributes of Allâhu ta’âlâ, that they have no proximity to the Dhât-i-ilâhî, that matter cannot maintain its existence by itself, that matter is not a
real being, and quite a number of other things:
Hamd-u-thenâ be to Allâhu ta’âlâ. Salvations be to people chosen and loved by him! My dear sir. A Persian line in English:
Whatsoever the subject, sweeter talks are those about the friend!
I am
writing about ma’rifats that have never been heard, or heard of, before. Please
listen well! I am informing you about the way of muraqaba of the highest people. Read very carefully! You should know that the ’âlam, [i.e. everything,] is a
sampler of the Names and Attributes of Allâhu ta’âlâ, a mirror reflecting them. The life of the creature is a mirror of His Life, its knowledge is a mirror of His Knowledge, and its power is an
appearance of His Power. So is the case with everything belonging to the slaves. However, the ’âlam does not contain a mirror reflecting the Dhât-i-ilâhî, [i.e.
His Person.] In fact, the Dhât-i-ilâhî has no relation with this ’âlam. He has no partnership with anything. There is no participation or resemblance, neither
in name, nor in image or appearance. He is ghanî from the ‘âlams, [He does not need anything.] Not so is the case with His Names and Attributes. With His
Attributes; their names are correlated and their images and appearances are common with those of the ’âlam.
Allâhu ta’âlâ has the Attribute ’Ilm (knowledge). The creature also has an image,
a likeness of that knowledge. As He has the Attribute Power, likewise the
latter also has an image of power. The case is quite different with the
Dhât-i-ilâhî. Creatures have no allotment from His Person. They have not been
given self-sufficiency to maintain their existence. Because creatures have been
created in the images of His Attributes, they are attributes themselves. In
actual fact, none of them is material. They have nothing to do with real
matter, [that is, they do not stay in existence on their own.] It is with the
Dhât-i-ilâhî that they stay in existence. Physicists and chemists classify
things in two groups: Matter; and properties, attributes of matter. [According
to them, “Matter, which is not a creature and will never cease to exists, maintains
its existence on its own and is
the foundation-stone of the world.”] They say so because they do
not know what matter is. [Recent experiences and experiments have brought about
sweeping changes in the knowledge of matter held by chemists such as Lavoisier,
Dalton, Robert Boyle, and their posterity in the same branch. According to
Einstein’s theory of relativity, which is one of the bases of modern physics,
energy, as well as matter, has a mass. Maybe, matter merely consists in
condensed power.]
Chemists say that an
attribute or a property cannot stay alone. It always stays with matter and
qualifies matter. What they describe as an attribute’s staying with matter is,
in actual fact, an attribute’s staying with another attribute. Both matter and
the attribute exist and stay in existence with the Dhât-i-ilâhî. There is no
matter that stays in existence on its own. He, alone, keeps all objects,
everything in existence. In other words, Allâhu ta’âlâ is the Qayyûm-i-’âlam. How can attributes of matter stay with it despite the fact that matter does not stay in existence on its own. As
attributes are not matter itself and can exist only with matter and cannot exist on their own, likewise matter and all things exist with the Dhât-i-ilâhî. None
of them has a person of its own. And since matter does not have a person of its own, [i.e. since it itself does not exist,] attributes cannot exist with it,
either. The Dhât (Person) is that of Allâhu ta’âlâ, alone. Everything exists with His Dhât. When any person says, “I,”
about his
person, he actually points to the same One Person, Who keep all beings in
existence.
This is the truth, no
matter whether those who say, “I,” know
what they point to (by saying so) or not. However, Allâhu ta’âlâ can by no means be
shown with any sign. He has not united with anything. A person who cannot
understand this subtle piece of information should not confuse them with the
tawhîd-i-wujûdî! A person who says the wahdat-i-wujûd says that nothing other
than One Person exists. According to that person, His Names and Attributes
exist only in theory. That person says that even the haqîqats of creatures have
not seen wujûd [existence] and that “the a’yân [things] have not even
experienced the smell of existence.” However, I,
the faqîr, know the Sifât-i-ilâhiyya (Attributes of
Allâhu ta’âlâ) to exist [not only
in knowledge or in theory, but] separately in the outside. So do the scholars of Ahl as-Sunnat. In my knowledge, this ‘âlam, which is a mirror reflecting the
Names and Attributes of Allâhu ta’âlâ,
exists likewise, too. I cannot
see in this ’âlam a state of existing by itself, i.e. being matter. I know
well that everything is qâim, [i.e. stays in existence,]
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Question: That means to say that the person of creation is the same as the Dhât-i-ilâhî (Person of
Allâhu ta’âlâ), and that everything has united with
Allâhu ta’âlâ, which is quite contrary to fact. Could the creation ever be the same as the eternal one?
Answer: The person of creation, i.e. the nature and the haqîqat of creatures, consists in a number of
symptoms and states, which are mirrors reflecting the Names and Attributes of Allâhu ta’âlâ, and these things are not the same as the Dhât-i-ilâhî. Nor are they united with the Dhât-i-ilâhî.
Only, these states exist with the Dhât-i-ilâhî. He, alone, is the Qayyûm of all, [i.e. He who keeps all in existence.]
Question: Inasmuch as everyone
who says, “I,” points to the Dhât-i-ilâhî by saying so,
the person of creation, i.e. their nature and haqîqat, is the same as That of
the Dhât-i-ilâhî. For, anyone who says, “I,”
points to
their own haqîqat and nature by saying so. Don’t holders of the Tawhîd-i-wujûdî
say so, too?
Answer: Yes, it is true.
Everyone who says, “I,” points to their own haqîqat. Yet since
their haqîqat consists in an asemblage of states, they can not be pointed to.
For, states can not be pointed to as self-standing entities. Since man’s
haqîqat does not admit of being pointed to, when it is pointed to, its Qayyûm,
i.e. the Dhât-i-ilâhî will have been indicated. Then the creature and the
Creator are different from each other. The fact is not as the holders of the
tawhîd-i-wujûdî say. It is so amazing that although Haqq ta’âlâ is pointed to
when the creature says. “I,” the creature still retains its own being
and continues to be the creature, which in turn makes it (sound) incorrect to
say, “Subhânî,” or “Ana-l-Haqq.” Maybe, he cannot say
so because he perceives the difference.
Question: Doesn’t the
creature’s existing with Allâhu ta’âlâ mean a change in Allâhu ta’âlâ, which in turn is out of the question?
Answer: The creature has not
been integrated with Allâhu ta’âlâ or united with Allâhu ta’âlâ. The only event is that it exists with Allâhu ta’âlâ.
Question: Since creatures
consist only in symptoms, states, and attributes, there has to be a place for
them to be attached to. For, as we said earlier, they cannot be on their own.
That place cannot be the Dhât-i-ilâhî, either. Nor can it be the adam
[non-existence]. Where is that place?
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Answer: The a’râz, [i.e.
states and attributes,] can not stay in existence on their own. They have to be
with something else. Because physicists construe this togetherness as
integration, they look for a place for the a’râz. They say that the a’râz
cannot state in the absence of a place. However, existence in the meaning where
we use it does not require a place. We understand that everything exists with
the Dhât-i-ilâhî in a manner that does not involve integration or a location.
Physicists may or may not believe what we say. Their denial can not change what
we see and know. We know that this is the case. Their scepticism cannot
obliterate our knowledge. Let us explicate our argument with an example:
Conjurers show unusual things. All the spectators know that the appearances
being conjured up do not exist on their own. They know that they stay with the
conjurer and yet not at a place. They know also that they have not united with
the conjurer. It is only with him that they exist. In a similar manner Allâhu ta’âlâ has created the things
at the level of perception and imagination. Only with Him do they stay in
existence. He has made eternal torment or infinite blessings dependent on these
creatures of His. These things do not stay in existence on their own. They stay
with the Dhât-i-ilâhî without integration or union. A second example would be
the image of a mountain or the sky in a mirror. A person devoid of mind will
look on such images as real objects. He will say that they exist on their own
in the mirror. However, if someone looks on the images as attributes, says that
they exist with the mirror, and looks for a place for them, he must be a stupid
jackass who denies his own obvious knowledge for the sake of following others.
For, any person with reason knows that these images do not have a location,
that they do not need a location. Likewise, people of kashf and shuhûd see all
things as if they were images in a mirror. Allâhu ta’âlâ has given power to these images and protected them from ceasing
to exist. And He has made the eternal activities in the Hereafter consequent
upon (the doings of) these images. Nizâm, one of the superiors of (the branch
of knowledge termed) Kalâm and a scholar in the Madhhab called Mu’tazila,
deemed everything as an attribute and denied (the existence of) matter. He was
too short-sighted to know that these attributes stayed in existence with Haqq
ta’âlâ. He was censured by people who had reason. For, an attribute has to stay
with something else. The author of the book Futûhât-i-Makkiya, [i.e.
Muhyiddîn-i-’Arabî,] ‘quiddisa sirruh’, one of the great Awliyâ and profound
scholars called the Sôfiyya-i-aliyya, said: “All things
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are atributes, all of which stay in existence with one Being,
who is the Dhât-i-ilâhî, (i.e. Allâhu ta’âlâ Himself.) Yet these attributes exist only for a moment. They can
not stay in existence for two times. Every moment the entire ’âlam ceases to
exist, to be substituted by a new one. This process is repeated every moment.”
According to this faqîr, (Hadrat Imâm Rabbânî means himself,) that is a view,
rather than a fact. I explained this in the annotation to the book Sharkh-i-rubâ’iyyât. In a few words:
People who progress along a path of Tasawwuf, before they attain their final
destination, i.e. before the entire ’âlam disappears for good from their sight,
see for a moment that the ’âlam is non-existent. The next moment they see that
it exists. The third moment it disappears from their sight again. The fourth
moment it is there again, and they see it. These momentary changes of sight
continue until they are honoured with Fanâ, i.e. until the entire ’âlam is
continuously non-existent in their sight. When Fanâ is attained a (spiritual)
state will also be attained wherein the ’âlam is always non-existent in their
knowledge.
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1 - Our Prophet 'sall-Allâhu 'alaihi wa sallam' stated: "A person whom Allâhu ta'âlâ loves very much is one who learns his religion and teaches it to others. Learn your religion from the mouths of Islamic scholars!"
A person who cannot find a true scholar must learn by reading books written by the scholars of Ahl as-sunna, and try hard to spread these books. A Müslim who has 'ilm (knowledge), 'amal (practising what one knows; obeying Islam's commandments and prohibitions), and ikhlâs (doing everything only to please Allâhu ta'âlâ) is called an Islamic scholar. A person who represents himself as an Islamic scholar though he lacks any one of these qualifications is called an 'evil religious scholar', or an 'impostor'. The Islamic scholar will guide you to causes which in turn will open the gates to happiness; he is the protector of faith. The impostor will mislead you into such causes as will make you end up in perdition; he is the Satan's accomplice.[1] (There is a certain) prayer (called) Istighfâr (which), whenever you say, (recite or read) it, will make you attain causes which will shield you against afflictions and troubles.
2 - The Nejât-ul-musallî was written in Turkish in the year 1217 (A.H.) by Ahmed Þevki Efendi, and was printed in Ýstanbul in 1305. Ýt consists of a hundred and ninety-seven (197) pages. Ýt is stated as follows on its final page: Ibni Jezerî, (751 [1350 A.D.], Damascus - 833 [1429], Shîrâz,) states as follows in his book Hisn ul-hasîn: A hadîth-i-sherîf reads as follows: "If an invalid person says Lâ ilâha illâ anta subhânaka innî kuntu min-az-zâlimîn,' forty times, he will die as a martyr (if his predetermined life-span is over). If he recovers, all his sins will be pardoned." This prayer is the eighty-seventh âyat-i- kerîma of Anbiyâ sûra. Please see the final parts of the thirteenth and the fifteenth chapters of the current book!
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[1] Knowledge that is acquired not for the purpose of practising it with ikhlâs, will not be beneficial. Please see the 366th and 367th pages of the first volume of Hadîqa, and also the 36th and the 40th and the 59th letters in the first volume of Maktûbât. (The English versions of these letters exist in the 16th and the 25th and the 28th chapters, respectively, of the second fascicle of Endless Bliss).