The Futūḥāt Project: Quotations

30 May 2023

The ẓāhir (Visibly Emerging) never stops being described as being, and the maẓhar (site of visible emergence) never stops being described as non-being. When He emerges and becomes outward (visible), the site of visible emergence is provided with a ruling force through the visibly emergent, commensurate with its (your) self-based truths. Applied to the visibly emergent based on these truths that you are flush against – you, this site of visible emergence that is a site of non-being – is a ruling property called human being, or celestial orbit, or angel, or whatever created individual it may be.

Book 10, Chapter 72

26 May 2023

If you look closely then, there is nothing in being but God alone, and everything described as having being – that is, everything other than God – is actually in a particular correlation (to God’s Being). The Divine desiring f is rather her connection to displaying the tajallì* in the site of visible emergence – that is, in some site of emergence; and that is this correlation.

* tajallì: brilliant radiance of Being; Divine self-disclosure

Book 10, Chapter 72

25 May 2023

The Divine Presence is One.

Book 10, Chapter 72

24 May 2023

One is commensurate with what ones sees.

Book 10, Chapter 72

23 May 2023

He is, and we are not.

Book 10, Chapter 72

22 May 2023

It is impossible that anything be unseen to Him.

Book 10, Chapter 72

19 May 2023

We must seek knowledge of the One and to confirm the One and the Oneness.

Book 10, Chapter 72

18 May 2023

Creation is compelled, and especially since
the root is compelled – so where is free will?

Every created being, in one’s temperament,
is in a state of compulsion and under duress.

The created being is distinguished from one’s root
by what one has of humility and dependency.

So be with the True in His qualities,
between compulsion always imposed and choice.

Book 10, Chapter 72

16 May 2023

Being – all of it – is under essential compulsion. It is not that one is compelled by compulsion coming from another.

Book 10, Chapter 72

15 May 2023

With every created being, being compelled accompanies one always – because it is one’s truth. And despite one’s being compelled, one is tasked (and so must have free will).

Book 10, Chapter 72

12 May 2023

Only the living celebrate.

Book 10, Chapter 72

11 May 2023

Your level has been explained for you. He exalted said, with regard to the human being, He subjugated for you what is in the heavens and what is in the Earth, altogether (al-jāthīyah 45:13); and He said, He is the one who created for you what is in the Earth, altogether (al-baqarah 2:29); and He said, I created the jinn and the human only to worship Me (al-dhāriyāt 51:56). And in the Torah sent down to Moses – peace be upon him – ‘O children of Adam, I created the things for your sake, and I created you for My sake; so do not rend and dishonor what was created for Me in what was created for you.’

Book 10, Chapter 72

10 May 2023

You are created only for your Lord; and the things were created for you, so they seek the human being just as the human being seeks his Lord.

Book 10, Chapter 72

9 May 2023

Every necessary means toward cleanliness, outwardly and inwardly, is appropriate for use during every moment – because ‘God is Beauty and loves the beautiful.’

Book 10, Chapter 72

8 May 2023

Purity and cleanliness are the goal for the Law, because His name is the Holy – and there is no name to oppose that name, which would rule over that name.

Book 10, Chapter 72

5 May 2023

You are a king; you are a creature.
You are, in you, a borrowed meaning (mustaʿār).*
And there is no being without entity,
so no one to judge and no one to be dependent.
Whoever is confused about this is confused about someone like me.
There is no compelling, and there is no choosing.
There is no vanishing and no permanence,
and no fleeing and no staying.

* mustaʿār: borrowed, metaphor. You are a metaphor for the One who is, and you borrow the meaning of the One who is.

Book 10, Chapter 72

4 May 2023

If the True wants to bestow on you some lordliness as He pleases, He will come down to you; you do not ascend to Him. He knows you, and He knows your situation and where you are; but you do not recognize Him, so where will you seek Him?

Book 10, Chapter 72

3 May 2023

The correlation of dependency never disappears from the enabled one, ever – not in the state of your non-being and not in the state of your being.

Book 10, Chapter 72

2 May 2023

One angel comes from the west, and another arrives from the east, and another descends from on high, and another ascends from below. Each one asks the other, ‘Where are you coming from?’ Each answers, ‘From God’s Side.’

Book 10, Chapter 72

20 April 2023

The intellect will obtain benefit with every state.

Book 10, Chapter 72

18 April 2023

Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz and people like him were right when they said, ‘No one knows God but God.’

Book 10, Chapter 72

17 April 2023

Nothing originates from the complete thing except that thing is commensurate with its completeness, as befitting that thing. Thus, there is not in the universe any deficiency (nāqṣ) at all. If not for the happenstances that birth sicknesses, the human being would ‘stroll forth’ (tanazzaha) in the image of the cosmos – just as the one who knows strolls forth and diverts himself in there.

Book 10, Chapter 72

14 April 2023

He gave everything its character-creation (ṭā-hā 20:50) – and it is precisely the full completeness of that thing; therefore, nothing is lacking.

Book 10, Chapter 72

13 April 2023

The Divine matter does not repeat. The vision that arrives to the prior one has no route to arrive to the next one, as we have argued that He does not give tajallì* in one image twice, nor to two persons in a single repeated image – because of the Divine vastness (infinity).

* tajallì: brilliant radiance of Being; Divine self-disclosure

Book 10, Chapter 72

12 April 2023

Do not be hidden from the truths of the matters, because they are included in the force of the observer of them, not in themselves. And whoever is hidden from the truths falls into the abyss of the ignorant things and misses out on a degree of knowledge that God commanded His Prophet to seek increase in, in his prayer (Say: My Lord, increase me in knowledge – zid-nī ʿilm). There is nothing more all-overseeing than knowledge, and one is not told to seek more of any other quality. Indeed, the universal quality that knowledge has is encompassing of every quality and everything having a quality.

Book 10, Chapter 72

11 April 2023

You are commensurate with what the True shows you.

Book 10, Chapter 72

10 April 2023

Weighty valuations of the Divine are not recognized except by their people.

Book 10, Chapter 72

7 April 2023

The Lawgiver does not speak and address except to be listened to, and no one listens except one who has intelligence. The intellect that is entrusted hears the address of the one who tasks; otherwise, if the intellect disappears, tasking is canceled and the Law has no dominion over one or any demonstrable argument. The ones with the kernels and sharp minds – they are the ones tasked.

Book 10, Chapter 72

5 April 2023

Propagating the message from God is one of the most excellent activities for drawing closer to God, and God is one’s employer in propagating despite the fact that one is a slave.

Book 10, Chapter 72

3 April 2023

The recompense for doing something obligatory is higher than the recompense for something not obligatory, given that there is a fulfillment of the core ʿubūdīyah* in the obligatory.

* ʿubūdīyah: the state of being a slave; servanthood

Book 10, Chapter 72

31 March 2023

Wealth belongs to God, and the dispensing of it belongs to you to the extent the One made you the agent of it.

Book 10, Chapter 72

30 March 2023

The actions – I mean their creation – belong to God in the true dimension, while the creatures are a site for their visible emergence.

Book 10, Chapter 72

29 March 2023

The world of the truths, which is in the true dimension, is more complete than the superficial trace world.

Book 10, Chapter 72

28 March 2023

There is in the world nothing but the muslim, linguistically, because there is nothing that has not submitted to the Divine command. You see, there is nothing to whom was said Be! and it refused; no, there was not even a pause, so nothing is valid but this.

Book 10, Chapter 72

27 March 2023

The Divine names perform a ḥajj of the house of the heart: they perform a ḥajj to the place where the heart is ‘vastly spacious enough’ for the True.

Book 10, Chapter 72

24 March 2023

We have alerted you to matters that, if you travel along them, you will be given brilliant tajallì* of Divine knowledge – the measure of which is measurable only by God. Yes, today the ʿārif* who really knows the measure of what we are talking about – that is, knowledge of God through tasting – is rare indeed.

* tajallì: brilliant radiance of Being; Divine self-disclosure
*ʿárif: the one who recognizes the Divine everywhere

Book 10, Chapter 72

22 March 2023

Learn that God has stored in the Kaʿbah a treasure. Messenger of God ﷺ‎ wanted to extract it and spend from it, but then there occurred to him another matter concerning societal harmony that he foresaw. Then ʿUmar after him wanted to extract it, but he held back in emulation of Messenger of God ﷺ‎. It is in there to this day. As for me – there was brought to me from it a gold tablet, sent to me while I was in Tunis in the year 598. It had a crack, and the crack’s thickness was a finger, and its width was an inch, and its length was an inch or more – etched with a handwriting I did not recognize. This happened because of something that had come about between me and God. So I asked God to return it to its proper place, as a courtesy to Messenger of God ﷺ‎. If I had brought it out to the people, it would have incited a blind panic. I abandoned it also for the sake of societal harmony. He ﷺ‎ did not leave it alone thoughtlessly, but rather he abandoned it to be brought out by the ‘one who stands by God’s command’ during the last time period, ‘the one who fills the Earth with justice and balance – just as she had been filled previously with outrageous acts and oppression.’

Book 10, Chapter 72

21 March 2023

The heart m is the greatest knowledge and the vastest encompassing, because he is a site for all the qualities and adjectives; and he is lifted up in location with God, as God placed in him recognition of Him.

Book 10, Chapter 72

17 March 2023

Just as God prescribes a circling on every circler who is circling – in whatever state one may be in – and forgives one for what one did, in this way the blameworthy incoming thoughts are forgiven by God, as long as their force does not emerge in the limbs into the physical.

Book 10, Chapter 72

16 March 2023

As God made the heart m of His slave to be an honored house, a sanctuary fenced off, magnificent; and as He cited that he was vast enough for Him – while the heavens and the Earth were not vast enough – we know for certain that the heart of the faithful is more all-overseeing than this house in Makkah. He made the incoming thoughts that pass through him to be like the circlers performing ṭawāf (circling of the Kaʿbah). And just as there is among the circlers one who recognizes the sacredness of the House and practices during the ṭawāf what is appropriate to it – such as declaring magnificence and majesty – there are among the circlers some who do not recognize this. They circle it with hearts heedless and distracted and tongues articulating something other than dhikr* of God. No, sometimes they circle with less than excellent words, even falseness, but in this way are the incoming thoughts that pass through the heart of the faithful. You see, some of them are blameworthy and some of them are praiseworthy.

* dhikr: recitation of Divine names; the gathering for the remembrance of the Divine.

Book 10, Chapter 72

15 March 2023

In all the world there is no word description that is praiseworthy absolutely (e.g. ‘truth-telling’ is not always praiseworthy), and there is no word description that is blameworthy absolutely.

Book 9, Chapter 71

13 March 2023

Whoever places things in their proper places has given them what is due – and such a person is the determining ruler (ḥakīm) of one’s moment, because wisdom (ḥikmat) provides for placing everything in its proper place. And God is All-Knowing, Wisely Determining (al-nisāʾ 4:26).

Book 9, Chapter 71

10 March 2023

Messenger of God ﷺ‎ was asked, ‘Who are the friends of God’? He said, ‘The ones who, when they are seen, God is remembered’ – that is, because of their verifying the truth of God. They are hidden in Him from themselves and from the eyes of creation; thus, when the people see them, they see only God – so God is remembered by their being seen, like (the seeing of) other reminding signs.

Book 9, Chapter 71

9 March 2023

We have no path to God except what He made Law.

Book 9, Chapter 71

8 March 2023

Forgetfulness in the human being is a natural matter that the mixture requires, just as memory is also a natural matter in this particular mixture; and it is in this way for all the faculties that are related to the human being.

Book 9, Chapter 71

7 March 2023

This human soul f is an end result of these elemental bodies and the beings generated from them, because she did not emerge except after the evening and balancing of these bodies, and their mixed humors. The souls blown into have a spirit related to Him, like the places where the Sun’s rays are scattered over: the effects of the rays are different according to the differences of the receptivities. Where is the illumination of the light of the Sun on coarse bodies compared with on polished bodies? This is why the souls are comparatively excellent based on the comparative excellence of the mixtures (e.g. coarse or polished). You will find a soul quick to receive good practices and knowledge, and another soul opposite her (in character), and middle ones in between the two. This is how the matter is, if you understand.

Book 9, Chapter 71

6 March 2023

The human being is made innately to be forgetful. Messenger of God ﷺ‎ said, ‘Adam was forgetful, so his children are forgetful; and Adam refused (the truth) and so his children refuse.’ This ḥadīth is a good tiding from the Prophet ﷺ‎ to the people, all of them – because God was kind to Adam, so his children will have kindness too, wherever they may be. Kindness is provided to them, singled out for them – in whatever abode (Fire or Garden) God sends them to, because the matter is secondary. The roots (forgetfulness, kindness) rule over the branches.

Book 9, Chapter 71

3 March 2023

The Divine command is circular, and because of this the command of God for things never ends. The circle has no first and no last, only the property of being notched to mark an arbitrary beginning.

Book 9, Chapter 71

2 March 2023

Seclusion f with God in perpetuity is a path of the people of God, and she has the universal praise; and because of this, her people have the customary speech of

al-ḥamdulillāh ʿalā kulli ḥāl
‘Praise to God in every moment’

– and this is a dhikr of distress, and this is the dhikr that is most universal and most complete. Therefore, when the creature praises Him during distress, how much more so during prosperity?

* dhikr: recitation of Divine names; gathering for the remembrance of the Divine.

Book 9, Chapter 71

1 March 2023

If one stands by God, this is more complete than if one stands for oneself.

Book 9, Chapter 71

21 February 2023

One should not depend on a human being, because he is not more recognizing of God than oneself, because of his collectivity and his intellect and his recognition of himself.

Book 9, Chapter 71

16 February 2023

The creature – as much as one wants to be verified in one’s ʿubūdīyah,* one’s measure is made small until one attaches oneself to the nothingness that is one’s root. And there is nothing smaller than nothingness, and there is nothing smaller than the self of the created beings.

* ʿubūdīyah: the state of being a slave; servanthood

Book 9, Chapter 71

15 February 2023

His knowledge of you is rather from His knowledge of Him. If He were not described as being the One who knows Himself, He would not know you.

Book 9, Chapter 71

14 February 2023

His Light makes things appear.

Book 9, Chapter 71

13 February 2023

The action of the True on the existents never ends.

Book 9, Chapter 71

10 February 2023

You will not know the contexts of His traces left on you and on others except by meditative vigilance.

Book 9, Chapter 71

9 February 2023

Make an alert vigil for Him in your heart m, because he is that which vastly encompasses Him – just as he is vigilant over you. You will not know the contexts of His traces left on you and on others except by meditative vigilance.

Book 9, Chapter 71

8 February 2023

God has commanded me on the tongue of his Prophet ﷺ‎ to counsel, for God and for His Messenger, and for the leaders of the Muslims and their general populations, as a universal address (for everyone). Then He addressed me specially without an intermediary more than once, in Makkah and in Damascus, and He said to me, ‘Counsel My creatures!’ It was a joyful tiding that I was shown, and the command was appointed to me more than it is appointed to others. May God make that a grace for me from God and an honor, not a test or something to escape.

Book 9, Chapter 71

7 February 2023

The Divine names veil, some of them over others – even if each one has some veiling and being veiled, according to the dominion of the moment – because some of them are prior in veiling to others; and this flows throughout the entirety of moments of the creation.

Book 9, Chapter 71

6 February 2023

God is ‘according to the good estimation of His slaves of Him’.

Book 9, Chapter 71

1 February 2023

Being is an absolute kindness toward the existent.

Book 9, Chapter 71

31 January 2023

Felicity in the Gardens has no termination.

Book 9, Chapter 71

30 January 2023

The Ṣūfī is a guest of God, because they travel away from their personal allotments and the whole of existence, preferring the Divine Side – so they come to Him as a guest.

Book 9, Chapter 71

27 January 2023

Our teacher Abū Madyan found fault with separating the two extremes, and he used to say, ‘The combination of the two extremes is the complete perfection in Sunnah and understanding (maʿrifah).’

Book 9, Chapter 71

26 January 2023

What is God’s is not yours.

Book 9, Chapter 71

25 January 2023

If one is among the people of knowledge of God, the greatest ones – who rule over their selves, and for whom opposing their selves is authenticated – they do not see anyone speaking or commanding or inviting, in all of wujūd,* except God, upon the tongues of the creatures.

* wujūd: being, from wajada (‘found’).

Book 9, Chapter 71

24 January 2023

Abūʾl-ʿAbbās al-Sayyārī, one of the Men cited in the Risālat (Epistle) of al-Qushayrī […] said, ‘The intelligent one does not have pleasure in the vision at all, because the one who has a vision of the True is effaced; there is no pleasure in that.’

Book 9, Chapter 71

23 January 2023

The True is seated unseen before every one remembering.

Book 9, Chapter 71

20 January 2023

It was said to one of them, ‘Remember me in your seclusion with God.’ He replied to him, ‘If I remember you, I will not be in seclusion with God!’

Book 9, Chapter 71

19 January 2023

The Ṣūfī knows that one is under the rule of one’s moment. It is like this in the matter itself. This is why we say, ‘The Ṣūfī is the child of the moment’ – being informed of this and given understanding that one has, concerning which moment is ruling over one, a trace of prophecy (nubuwwat). But not every human being knows this, despite its being like this in the matter itself.

Book 9, Chapter 71

18 January 2023

The masters among the people of God say, ‘The ruling property is determined by the moment’ (al-ḥukm liʾl-waqt) – and the human being, or the Ṣūfī, is a child of one’s moment; and the past does not rule over one, nor the future. However, the human being does not recognize that one is a child of one’s moment, despite the ruling force of the moment over one.

Book 9, Chapter 71

17 January 2023

Hunger is ever continuous for the people of the Fire, and its opposite is in the people of the Garden.

Book 9, Chapter 71

16 January 2023

The True brought out completeness for the most complete of creation, and this is Adam; so none of the days are more complete than the day of gathering (jumʿah, Friday), because in Adam appears the wisdom of the foremeasurement of the creation of the human being that God created upon His form. There does not remain in the Divine measurement any completeness that He created after, as there is nothing more complete than the image of the True.

Book 9, Chapter 71

13 January 2023

If you are the site of a complete tajallì* of the True, there is no beauty you have greater than the beauty of God.

* tajallì: brilliant radiance of Being; Divine self-disclosure

Book 9, Chapter 71

11 January 2023

The heart is spacious enough for the True. This is why the heart m is more vast than the kindness of God! This is one of the most wondrous and strange things; he is created from the kindness f of God, and yet he is more vast than her!

Book 9, Chapter 71

10 January 2023

When God gathered together on Friday the creation of the human being by what He configured him as – as the combination between two forms, a form of the True and a form of the universe – God called this, in the language of Law, the day of gathering.

Book 9, Chapter 71

9 January 2023

The human being is the last of the generated beings. By Friday, God preserves the name Last in the Divine Presence, and God preserves it with the name Last. Last is the one that looks to Adam from among the Divine names.

Book 9, Chapter 71

6 January 2023

The human being is a guardian belonging to God.

Book 9, Chapter 71

5 January 2023

The one who has no kashf* revealing the speech of pebbles, nor faith (in his ﷺ‎ report), who does not affirm that minerals have life-force – then how do they celebrate God? We take refuge in God from the forsaken ones.

* kashf: unveiling

Book 9, Chapter 71

3 January 2023

Something called a mineral can be described as being alive, so much so that the truthful one (ﷺ‎) reported that the pebbles in his palm celebrated God with His praise.

Book 9, Chapter 71

2 January 2023

Knowledge follows its object of knowledge, and the object of knowledge of this (worldly) knowledge has its dominion in this world, not in the other.

Book 9, Chapter 71

30 December 2022

The appearance of the Sun in the mirror of the Moon is the appearance of the True in creation, because the Light is one of God’s names – so He appears by His name the Light in the manifestation of the Moon. He exalted said, He made the Moon in their midst a light (Nūḥ 71:16), and this is a site of tajallì* for the light of the Sun. And He made the Sun as a lamp (Nūḥ 71:16) – because the Light of the True is hu.

* tajallì: brilliant radiance of Being; Divine self-disclosure

Book 9, Chapter 71

29 December 2022

God has created in the otherworld a physical Garden and a meaning Garden; and He permits for them in the physical garden whatever their souls desire, and He lifts from them the pain of need.

Book 9, Chapter 71

28 December 2022

With most animals, after they are satisfied, they do not have the energy to start over again searching for more food. But the human being is not like that; he continues to be worried and anxious about the present and the future. He accumulates and is never satisfied, because he was created anxious. When bad touches him, he is apprehensive; when good touches him, he holds back (and does not give charity) – except the ones who pray, the ones who are ever in their prayers (al-maʿārij 70:19-23).

Book 9, Chapter 71

27 December 2022

There is no right belonging to anything in creation over anyone except God has a right over that thing. So guard yourself! If on the morrow you are in a place of the final Accounting and tajallì,* a differentiation will appear among the splinter sects and the comparatively excellent. How far apart the soul is who gathers on the day of Judgment with a Divine attribute from the soul who is forbidden from having one – (the latter) spending her energy on the Day of Judgment on what she was spending on in this world, skewered together with what she demanded in this natural configuration, such as expanding into things that are above the bare necessity. There is no difference between such a soul and the rest of the animals; this is the animal human being.

* tajallì: brilliant radiance of Being; Divine self-disclosure

Book 9, Chapter 71

26 December 2022

‘Indeed, your soul has a right against you.’ This is the most powerful of the rights of the creation – after the right of God on you – because your antagonist is within you.

Book 9, Chapter 71

23 December 2022

You are singled out in a form f of My Presence,
and a form more perfect than her there has not been made.

Book 9, Chapter 71

21 December 2022

The complete human has completeness. One sees Him with every eye, and one witnesses Him in every form.

Book 9, Chapter 71

20 December 2022

The complete human being f, not the animal human, is the most complete configuration for the truths upon which she was created, and they are the truths of the Divine names and the truths of the universe.

Book 9, Chapter 71

19 December 2022

The human being is more comprehensive in tasting than the angel on account of the comprehensive nature of the human being.

Book 9, Chapter 71

16 December 2022

The human being is the most complete configuration, and the angel is of the most complete level.

Book 9, Chapter 71

15 December 2022

Learn that each month that comes to the human being is a guest coming to you from the Side of the True.

Book 9, Chapter 71

14 December 2022

Knowledge of the wisdom in things is not knowledge belonging to any but the people of God. As for the people of thinking and analogical reasoning – they bump into wisdom by random chance, and it is not even knowledge, according to them.

Book 9, Chapter 71

12 December 2022

Oneness belongs to God in His essence.

Book 9, Chapter 71

9 December 2022

God is Life – no one will contest that.

Book 9, Chapter 71

8 December 2022

No one recognizes One except based on oneself. There is no evidence pointing to and proving His Oneness except your oneness. ‘Whoever recognizes one’s self recognizes one’s Lord’. This is how he ﷺ‎ said it.

Book 9, Chapter 71

7 December 2022

God is a single god, and Oneness f is the most panoramic attribute that the One has compared with the entirety of adjectives; and she flows throughout everything that is.

Book 9, Chapter 71

6 December 2022

One returns to God in every moment, even in every obedience.

Book 9, Chapter 71

5 December 2022

Turning away something before it has come is easier than removing it once it has arrived. You see, the thing to be turned away is a nothing, but that which you want to remove exists and has already arrived.

Book 9, Chapter 71

2 December 2022

God exalted did not teach us any knowledge with which we would contradict what the prophets, may God bless them, came with from God’s Side, spoken of in the reports or sent down by God in a Book. No, all is with us as God reported about His slave Khiḍr – that He gave him kindness from Him and taught him knowledge from His Side (al-māʾidah 5:66).

Book 9, Chapter 71

1 December 2022

Ignorance is the blindest and most erring of ways, one not perceiving how to set down one’s foot nor seeing where to set down one’s foot.

Book 9, Chapter 71

30 November 2022

Thankfulness is a Divine quality, because God is Thankful, All-Knowing (al-baqarah 2:158). He seeks more from us by means of this quality of His being Thankful – because He said, If you are thankful, He will give you more (Ibrāhīm 14:7). He has alerted us with what is drawn into thankfulness so that we will do more of the thanked behavior.

Book 9, Chapter 71

29 November 2022

Each person is upon a clarification singled out for one – to the measure one understands the address of God for this – and (upon) guidance.

Book 9, Chapter 71

28 November 2022

There is nothing made obligatory on God, with the conventional courtesy based on the true dimension, except what He Himself makes incumbent on Himself.

Book 9, Chapter 71

25 November 2022

The True calls out to me from my sky,
without any alphabetic letters.

Then He invites me from the earth of my existence,
with every alphabetic letter –

Saying this and that – all – is My speech,
so do not turn toward other than Me,

And do not think there is actually any
other than Me; that is the utmost remoteness.

Book 9, Chapter 71

24 November 2022

The True speaks with you only about you, and He speaks to you only of you. It is this way with everyone tasked in the universe, whether angel or jinn or human being; yes, every created being.

Book 9, Chapter 71

23 November 2022

Your body, your faculties, your climate, your world (body), your flock – you are the one addressed to operate them to the extent that the True defined for you in His Law. You are the shepherd responsible for them, no one but you, because God does not charge anyone with doing anything but according to one’s moment and one’s capacity. No one is charged by the state of another.

Book 9, Chapter 71

22 November 2022

The visible emergence comes about by means of the name the Visible. The True works in this way with the general population of His creatures, being veiled from them with the utmost of veiling – like the sarār (last night) of the Moon – so they do not perceive Him. He said, There is nothing like Him – as a kindness to them. They do not find in their minds nor in the degrees of their states anything to dazzle them. So He comes secretly (sirr) in kindness, as a veiling, in this verse. This is the utmost descent of the True to His creatures, in coming down to a place of kindness for their sakes. Then He gradually introduces, little by little, a likeness: He is the Hearing, the Seeing; and Say: He is God, One, God, Self-Subsisting; and His word, Does he not recognize that God sees? – up until the lights of their sights are strengthened with understanding God. And He familiarizes them, little by little, up until He gives them tajallì* in complete transcendental understanding – which, if He had given such a tajallì to them before, they would have fled from it; and they forget the state of There is nothing like Him.

* tajallì: brilliant radiance of Being; Divine self-disclosure

Book 9, Chapter 71

21 November 2022

With the True, His slave does not approach unless He bestows and He provides for such.

Book 9, Chapter 71

18 November 2022

The sickness of the soul is a leaning of the soul toward the world.

Book 9, Chapter 71

17 November 2022

I do not depart from my ʿubūdīyah for even a blink of the eye.

Book 9, Chapter 71

16 November 2022

Learn that the True – when He makes the creature choose, He has chosen, because its truth is ʿubūdīyah.* The slave does not execute anything, but it is under the rule of compulsion and being compelled.

* ʿubūdīyah: the state of being a slave; servanthood

Book 9, Chapter 71

15 November 2022

God does not newly create a thing randomly, but rather it is created newly from authentic foreknowledge, and desiring something to Be!, and hidden foredestination and foremeasurement. It is so, inescapably, given its being something existent in His knowledge (of all).

Book 9, Chapter 71

14 November 2022

The soul f is in the unseen world – and even though the bodily configuration is her mother, the Divine spirit is her father.

Book 9, Chapter 71

11 November 2022

The single spirit may oversee multiple bodies, if it has the power to do so. This may be, in this world, something the friend has that breaks the fabric of convention. And in the otherworld, the other configuration of the human being provides this. Qaḍīb al-Bān was one who had this power, and Dhūʾl-Nūn al-Miṣrī had it.

Book 9, Chapter 71

10 November 2022

The inclination (hawā) and the intellect (ʿaql) are two rulers over her (the soul): the intellect calls her to salvation, and the inclination calls her to the Fire.

Book 9, Chapter 71

9 November 2022

God produces nearness in the required rituals greater than nearness in the voluntary ones, and the required are more dear to Him.

Book 9, Chapter 71

8 November 2022

The (spiritual) path requires you to be held to account for forgetful moments. Yes, it is a path of being Present. Thus, forgetfulness in the path is rare.

Book 9, Chapter 71

7 November 2022

Our ʿubūdīyah toward God is impossible to lift off and be freed from, because ʿubūdīyah is an essential, core quality of ours.

* ʿubūdīyah: the state of being a slave; servanthood

Book 9, Chapter 71

4 November 2022

God makes the vow obligatory on you because of your making it obligatory on you yourself.

Book 9, Chapter 71

3 November 2022

Existence is in the grip of the Divine names.

Book 9, Chapter 71

2 November 2022

The concept of making it up (compensating) in its root, according to us, is unimaginable on the path, because each time period has an incoming particular to it (and cannot be ‘made up’ later); thus, there is no time period that can then have the same property as the time period that has passed. Therefore, whatever elapses has passed beyond the time period, and its moment has passed. Whatever we are actually in – we are under its dominion; and whatever does not actually come to pass – it can have no ruling power over us.

Book 9, Chapter 71

1 November 2022

There is no journey to Him except by Him.

Book 9, Chapter 71

31 October 2022

The Divine names along the path to Him are like the way-stations for the traveler, like the mansions of the Moon measured out for the orbital coursing of the Moon, along the path to a desired goal. The minimum journey is the transfer from one name to another name.

Book 9, Chapter 71

28 October 2022

The travelers journey to Allāh, and it (the name Allāh) is the All-Comprehensive Name, and it is the final goal.

Book 9, Chapter 71

27 October 2022

Humility and dependency […] this is most appropriate for the creature.

Book 9, Chapter 71

26 October 2022

The journeyer is the traveler through way-stations by means of the names of the Divine.

Book 9, Chapter 71

25 October 2022

Wisdom is sought by giving each thing with a right its rightful due.

Book 9, Chapter 71

24 October 2022

The spirit-winds play with the flowers and the bushes in their variegation,
like the play of the verbs with the nouns.

Book 9, Chapter 71

21 October 2022

Intention is aspiration.

Book 9, Chapter 71

20 October 2022

The body never stops having a Divine name determining its property.

Book 9, Chapter 71

19 October 2022

The one who has reached the end knows it and so does not speak. As for the one at the beginning, and this is the youth – such a person has no information about the stations along the way, because one is in a journeying station. You do not learn about them anything but what you taste.

Book 9, Chapter 71

18 October 2022

Abūʾl-ʿAbbās al-Sayyārī, God be kind to him, said, ‘The one with intelligence cannot enjoy the vision, ever,’ because the vision of the True is an annihilation in which is no pleasure.

Book 9, Chapter 71

17 October 2022

The vision of the True is a vanishing, and with vanishing seeking is unimaginable.

Book 9, Chapter 71

13 October 2022

Examination by the intellect is mixed in with the senses from the path of the imagination, because intellect draws from reflection, from imagination, and from the sensory. The intellect m is either based on what the sensory provides him or based on what the imaginal faculty provides him.

Book 9, Chapter 71

12 October 2022

The Divine name rules in whatever moment emerges, so the rule belongs to the name at the present moment of tajallì* and in the future that immediately follows, until there comes another ruling name that then effaces the first ruling.

* tajallì: brilliant radiance of Being; Divine self-disclosure

Book 9, Chapter 71

12 October 2022

The heart’s m fasting […] is where he restrains this vast realm f from her being inhabited by anyone but his Creator – because if anyone inhabits her other than the heart’s Creator, one will have broken the fast during the time period in which it was obligatory, as preferred by one’s Lord, for one to be fasting.

Book 9, Chapter 71

11 October 2022

He said, ‘Vastly spacious enough for Me is the heart of My slave’, while the Earth and the heavens are not.

Book 9, Chapter 71

3 October 2022

With the True nothing is His likeness – the one fasting meets one’s Lord with a description of ‘nothing is His likeness ’ (the Qurʾān’s nothing like Him meets the hadith’s ‘nothing like it’). Thus, one sees Him by Him, and He is the Seer and the Seen. This is why he ﷺ‎ said, ‘one delights in one’s fast’, and he does not say, ‘one delights in a meeting with one’s Lord’. You see, delight does not delight in itself; no, one is delighted by something. And the one in whom the True is one’s sight when one sees and witnesses – such a person will see himself only by His seeing.

Book 9, Chapter 71

30 September 2022

Gloriously exalted is the One who evened you out, to be a heart-home (ahlan) for Him,
and He did not bestow this on any but you.

Book 9, Chapter 71

29 September 2022

Knowledge of Him from Him is that you recognize that He combines transcendence (incomparability) and resemblance (similarity), but this – meaning, the combination of two opposites in the object of a ruling – is not tolerated in experimental science.

Book 9, Chapter 70

28 September 2022

Knowledge of God from the direction of the Law is the True’s informing His creatures about what He is, because He knows Himself better than His creatures do.

Book 9, Chapter 70

27 September 2022

God says, ‘I am with the estimation of My creature of Me, so let one estimate Me to be good.’ The fine estimation of God, when it preponderates in you the slave, gives you the end result of felicity in the Garden – just as the bad estimation of God destroys you: That estimation of yours that you are estimating your Lord to be will destroy you (fuṣṣilat 41:23).

Book 9, Chapter 70